MRS. BUSBY'S IDOLS

New Zealand Tablet, 19 September 1912, Page 11

MRS. BUSBY'S IDOLS

Mr. Joseph Busby eyed the sky as he leisurely walked from the barn to the house. The morning sun was veiled by a fleecy mist, while low in the south-west a bank of dark gray clouds was visible. After his prolonged scrutiny, Mr. Busby pondered the matter It was not until he had washed and dried his hands on the long roller towel that he gave utterance to the remark: ‘ I see we’re goin’ to have some rain.’ ‘ That’s what you always say if there’s a cloud in the sky,’ Mrs. Busby said tartly. ‘ That was a powerful sermon yesterday about folks jined to idols,’ he said, as he began his breakfast. ‘ Most everybody has idols of some sort or other, I guess.’ Busby stirred her golden brown coffee reflectively. ‘ Perhaps so. I hope the people ■who needs such talk took it to themselves. As for me, I once had an idol, but God took it.’ There was a pause. The thought of both husband and wife travelled to the parlor, where hung the picture of a child, a wee maiden, with laughing blue eyes and dimpled arms. It was the picture of little Leah, their only child, whose death twenty years before had left the old farm home desolate. . Mr, Busby s heart was too deeply stirred by memones of his child to speak. But when a dash of rain came against the window pane his wife exclaimed crossly : ‘ There it’s raining. And if I don’t wash Monday, nothing goes right all the week.’ ‘’Taint an idol, is it, Mirandy?’ The good man of the house pushed back from the table. ‘Now it don t seem jest right to be so sot as you air on doin’ your work exactly as you want to. It ’pears to mo it might be an idol.’ p nl See here, Joseph Bushy,’ there was an undertone of almost fierceness in her voice. ‘ I think such twistmg of the Scripture sinful. If I have idols I can tend to them, that s all ’ and Mrs. Busby strode into her bedioom and shut the door violently . When she returned to the kitchen she was in possession of the field. Joseph had gone to his work?

‘High time!’ she sniffed. Idols, indeed !’/~ / • She put her clothes to soak, and carrying her dishes into the pantry, began washing them. Her thoughts were not pleasant ones, the frowns on her face told that. I don t see what possessed Joseph to say that,’ she said, as she began rubbing her clothes. ‘ I gave up the only idol I ever had twenty years ago. I- ’ - She stopped abruptly. ‘Of course, it’s that letter,’ slm went on, after a brief pause. But he is wrong. ’lt isn t idols that keeps me from doing my ’ Again she stopped She had almost said duty, A week before a letter had come from a little town in Kansas to Mr. Busby. The letter contained news of the death of Mrs. Emma Hale, a distant cousin of Joseph’s. Mrs. Hale was a widow, and left one child, a boy two years old. The writer, a neighbor of the dead woman, went on to say she could care for the child no longei, and if his relatives did not come for him he would be sent to the poor house. Joseph pondered the matter a day and a night. He then coolly proposed sending for the child, and adopting it. His wife flatly refused. What—a child, a two-year-old baby, to make litter on her clean floors and upset her orderly plan of life ? ■ J - I couldn’t give Leah’s place to another,’ she whispered. ‘ And yet he might make a place for himself. Oh, my baby, I miss her still.’ Withdrawing her hands from the suds, Mrs. Busby crossed the sitting-room and entered the parlor. No ono knew, not even her husband, how many troublesome questions the mother settled before her child’s picture. She opened the blinds and looked long and earnestly at the laughing baby face of her child: ( Bo y ou want me to, dear?’ she asked tearfully. ‘ Do you want me to take a noisy, troublesome boy into the home ? Is it an idol, Leah, my wanting everything so quiet and orderly " b Ten minutes later she was back at her washing. The parlor blinds were closed, and all things were as they had been, excepting Mrs. Busby’s eyes; their was a new light in their gray depths. At half-past nine the last clothes were on the line. Returning from hanging them out, Mrs. Busby found a neighbor, Mr. Vance, at the door. *

. , ‘ rve been down to the station,’ he said, ‘ and the rath o'clock train brought a baby for you, or Busby rather.’ , f‘ A what?’ demanded Mrs. Busby, catching her Gel till ,

. A baby.’ It was plain to see that Mr. Vance was enjoying the situation. A woman who was going East on a visit brought it from Kansas. Said it beionged to some of Busby’s folks. She left it in care or the ticket agent, and he sent it over by me. It’s ™.rSi in ny wa Sgon, and a trunk, too. i cf- little fellow has cried most ever since the woman left him. Mrs. Busby took down her green gingham sunbonnet and prepared to follow him out to the waggon without a word. °° It was a plump, but tear-stained little face that met her eager gaze. There were great blue eyes, a rosy mouth, and closely curling yellow hair. But the child p"eoun" y dirty ’ beg “ «*»* a S ain in a Hp ¥ rs ; Bnsby held up her arms. ‘ Come to auntie, S’ .® h ' 3 sa id, coaxmgly. ‘You want some bread and milk don t you,-and to see the dear little chickens ’ At the same leisurely gait of the morning Mr Busby again traversed the path from the barn to the muse. Mirandas line of snowy clothes drying in the sun brought to his mind the conversation of the morning, but he expected no reference to it from his wife Md u »7tT awai r d S' . The table was laid for three] and at the guest s place stood a clumsy little high chair that for twenty years had stood empty in am upper lounded A bv ? S*® , fl<>o . r Sat a h a ppy-faced child.Amrrounded by clothes’ pins, empty bottles, a disused things StlCk * and a hke Collection of impromptu? play‘Who— is that, Mirandy?’ ; ‘?° e 7 Hale Busby,’ 'was Miranda’s prompt renlv and picking „p the child, she put it -in her husband^

arms. ‘There, Joey dear, make friends with Uncle Joseph. He is the dearest little fellow,’ she went on, " so cunning, and not a bit afraid.’ ‘ But I don’t understand,’ and Joseph, Busby’s arms closed tenderly around the little orphan. The - story was soon told. ‘ Of course, we’ll keep him, and do the best we can by him,’ Mrs. Busby said by way of conclusion. ‘‘Dinner is ready, and the green peas and custard pie will taste good to little Joey. I guess you were right ’bout my idols, Joseph,’ stopping to fasten a towel around the child’s neck in lieu of a bib, ‘ but they are overthrown. Now I’ll try and not make an idol of Joey.’