Chapter XVII: Summer Days

"WHERE did you spend your summer holiday?" asked Aunt Ruth, in a smiling but significant tone.

The fact was, the four children had got into rather a hot dispute one day at tea over a trifling difference of opinion, and Aunt Ruth had interrupted with a quick, bright question, which had made them all turn their eyes towards her.

"Why?" asked Tom, answering the tone of the question, rather than the words.

"That is what we used to say at home when we wanted to change the subject," said Aunt Ruth.

"Did you want to change the subject?" asked Oswald. Then pausing, "Oh, I see," with a conscious laugh. "Well, I suppose it would be as well to talk of something else, as we are never likely to agree over it."

"Oh, oh!" said Tom, "That is beginning again! Well—Auntie—as you know very well where we spent our summer holiday, let's hear where you did."

"I'm quite willing. Come along to the summer-house, and when I hear the bees humming among the pear blossoms, I shall get taken back in imagination to last year, and shall be able to tell you where I did spend mine."

She led the way out of doors, and the children scampered after her, carrying certain camp stools and chairs, which were kept in the passage leading to the garden. Aunt Ruth had caught up her writing case, which Jean wondered at, but when they were settled in their usual places, this was explained by her producing from it a sketch, which she handed round.

"This is where I spent my summer holiday," she said lovingly, as if the place were dear to her.

"Oh!" said Rose. "That is why you said you must come out near the pear blossoms. I see now. Were there bees there?"

"It was an ideal place. I was in urgent need of rest and refreshment and quiet (as you know), and I heard of this little cottage on the borders of the Downs. This clematis-covered porch was my entrance, and the other door was the good woman's. I could go out on the Downs with my camp chair, and sit and look at the sea, and feel the breezes blow round me, or I could bask in the sunshine to my heart's content, sheltered by the cottage from the cold winds."

"And the bees?" asked Rose.

"Yes, the bees seem to link themselves with the restful thoughts of those days, for when I was near the cottage, with its flowers, their song seemed to tell me over and over again what I think I shall never forget—"

"And that was—?" asked Jean, putting her soft hand into her auntie's.

All the children knew that Aunt Ruth had had some great trial, but they had never been told what it was.

"The lesson I learned in that peaceful time was, 'The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.'"

"I learned, dears, that God wishes to be to us all a Sun and a Shield. As a Sun, He warms and cheers us with the light of His countenance; as a Shield, He shelters us from that which would hurt us and do us harm."

"Just as those hives were put in the sunniest place, so they were also put in a sheltered place. 'A Sun and Shield.' God is near us for both; and when the cold winds of trouble, or sorrow, or temptation blow, we must hide in Him, for He is our Shield."

"Oh, I see!" said Tom. "Now, Auntie, what else did the bees say?"

"Heaps of things! But I did not learn all, nor should I have time to tell you, either."

"I thought that they taught me that there was great good in being busy—"

Rose nodded approvingly.

"They worked steadily and patiently; they went about their tasks with a will, and they gathered—what?"

Aunt Ruth turned round smiling on the four faces.

"Poison?" she asked. "Unkindness, quarrelling, selfishness, self-will? No, no! What did they gather as they hovered over the pretty flowers?"

"Sweetness!" said Jean, gently.

"Yes—that is a lovely word for it!" exclaimed Aunt Ruth.

"They gathered 'sweetness,' enough and to spare. They brought it home for those who did not go out; they stored it up for the rainy and dark days, when the flowers might not be there. God had been their Sun and Shield, and they had done their part in gathering the sweetness which He had provided, so that others might be blessed and cheered and comforted."

"Oh, Aunt Ruth, I shall always think of that when there is honey on the table!" said Oswald.

"Do, it is worth learning," she answered.

"What did you do all day, Auntie?"

"I sat out in the sunshine and sketched most of the time, or watched the bees and thought of what God could be to me if I would let Him."

"Then you did this drawing?" said Tom.

"Yes, and a good many more. See, I have written underneath this one a few lines I often say to myself from 'A Song in the day of the East Wind,' written nearly three hundred years ago by Tersteegen; and it often reminds me of those sunny days:"

"'My heart in joy upleapeth;
Grief cannot linger there;
She singeth high in glory,
Amid the sunshine fair.
The sun that shines upon me
Is Jesus and His love,
And the fountain of my singing
Is deep in heaven above!'"