Betty's Battles

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2. Home Again



Betty dries her tears, and looks up.

She is in the train now, speeding towards the great, smoky city, where she has lived nearly all her life.

She watches the fields and woods flying past, and her thoughts are sad.

Already Grannie seems far away. The little white cottage is hidden among those great moors yonder. She can see them still, although they are growing fainter every minute, fading into the blue of the sky.

"Dear Grannie! how good she has been to me--how happy I have been with her!"

She pulls a little Bible out of her pocket. Grannie put it into her hands as she gave her the first kiss this morning.

"I will read it every morning and evening," she thinks, "just as Grannie does. When I see the words I shall remember the very sound of her voice and the look in her dear eyes. That will help me so much."

The thought comforts her, and she looks about more cheerfully.

"Grannie has promised to write to me, and I'm to write to her. How I shall love her letters! I know just how she'll write--she is so wise and strong, and yet so loving and kind. But what sort of letters shall I write to Grannie?

"Why, of course, I must tell her all my troubles, and how hard I am fighting--so hard! Then she must know everything about the wonderful victories I mean to win. How pleased she will be! I shall have plenty of battles to fight, for home is horrid sometimes--it really is.

"There's Bob; when Bob is in one of his teasing fits it's almost impossible to keep one's temper. But I mean to do it. Bob shall have to own that he can't make me cross.

"Then I do believe Clara is the most trying servant in the whole world. Well, I'm going to teach her that a dirty face and torn apron are a real disgrace, and I'll show her how to keep the kitchen just as Grannie keeps hers.

"I do wish I could persuade mother to keep the sitting-room tidier, and finish her house-work in the morning, and do her hair before dinner. If she'd only let me manage everything, I believe I should get on much better.

"Jennie and Pollie must learn to sew, and Harry to read, and Lucy really must leave her perpetual poring over books and take an interest in her home like other girls. And father--dear old father!--he shall have all his meals at the proper time, instead of scrambling through them at the last minute; and I'll keep his socks mended, and his handkerchiefs ironed. Yes, Grannie's quite right--there are heaps of battles to fight every day. I'll fight them, too; I'll manage everything; I'll be more than conqueror! Oh, how surprised and glad she will be!"

And Betty sinks back in her seat with quite a self-satisfied smile.

And still the fields fly past; they are flatter now; the woods have disappeared, and every now and then the engine rushes screaming through the station of a large town.

Betty eats her lunch of Grannie's apples and home-made cake. She is sad no longer. The battle-field is before her; she is eager for the fight.

"I'm glad now that things are so tiresome at home; there is so much more for me to put right. What a change I'll make in everything!"

All her doubts have vanished; she is sure of success. As for failure and defeat, that is clearly impossible!

It is late in the afternoon before long lines of houses, stretching away in every direction, begin to warn her that she is nearing home.

Be sure her head is out of the window long before the train draws up at the well-known platform, and her eyes are eagerly straining to catch the earliest possible glimpse of father's face. For Betty loves her father dearly.

There he is! The platform is crowded, but she sees him directly. He sees her, too, and, pushing his way through the crowd, he opens the carriage door, and she springs into his arms.

"Aye, Betty, my girl, I'm glad to see you back again!" he says; that is all. But John Langdale is a man of few words, and this is a great deal from him.

"How did you leave your Grannie?"

He shoulders her bag, and makes his way through the pile of luggage, the bustling porters, and anxious passengers, Betty following as best she can.

Her head feels giddy and bewildered after the long train journey, and the noise, and hurry, and smoky air, all is so different from the quiet country scenes she left eight hours ago.

Her father does not speak again until they are safely seated on the top of a homeward-bound bus; and even then, before he speaks a word, he turns to his daughter, and looks searchingly in her face.

There is a change in Betty's face that tells of more than the mere return of health and strength.

"Aye, well, my girl!" he says softly.

Betty smiles confidingly into his eyes, and nestles closer to his side.

He half smiles in return, and then turns away with a sigh. For he thinks, "It is the country air and her Grannie's care that have made such a change in my Betty, and now she will have neither."

"Well, how did you leave your Grannie?" he says aloud.

"Oh, ever so well! And she sent lots of love and messages--and other things--for the children, you know. The other things are in the bag. Be careful you don't smash the jam-pots! I'll tell you the messages as I remember them. And the love--Oh, father, Grannie showed me what real love is; and, father, I----" Betty comes to a full stop.

"Well, well, my girl, what is it?" asks her father, turning his eyes inquiringly to her face.

"Grannie has taught me so many things," she goes on, in a low voice, "and somehow, without saying much, she made me understand how selfish I have been; how through all these years I have been trying to do without God. And--and she took me to The Army Meetings, and last night I--I asked God to forgive me and make me as good as Grannie."

Betty's voice has sunk to the merest whisper, but father hears it above all the roar of the traffic.

"That's right, my girl. God bless you, Betty!" he says, heartily, and now at last a bright smile lights up his careworn face.

"Here we are!" says father, presently, and he signals to the driver. The bus pulls up at the entrance to a small street, father shoulders the bag, and Betty, scrambling down after him, soon finds herself standing on the shabby little front doorstep of her home.

A narrow, dull street it is; closely packed with dull houses, all built in one pattern, all alike grey with smoke, all looking as though no breath of spring air, or gleam of spring sunshine, could ever find their way through the close-shut windows.

All too swiftly Betty's thoughts travel back to the white cottage in the hills, to the sunny garden, the fresh moorland breezes.

The contrast is too much for her; a big lump seems to rise in her throat. Her eyes fill with tears; her good resolutions fade away.

She doesn't want to be at home--Oh, that she were with Grannie now!

Father has found his key at last, and fits it into the lock. At the same moment there is a rush of noisy feet within, the loud clamour of excited voices. Directly the door is flung open Betty is surrounded by a boisterous crowd of younger brothers and sisters--they seize her, they dance round her, shouting out their rough welcome.

"We knew it was you! Mother, here's our Betty! Come along, Betty." And they almost drag her down the passage into the family sitting-room.

Tea is set on the round table. Betty's quick eye notices that the tray is slopped with milk, and the stained cloth askew. "How different from Grannie's tea-table," she thinks bitterly.

"Where's mother?" she asks, after kissing her brothers and sisters all round.

"She was rather late to-day, and so she's only just gone upstairs to tidy herself," explains Lucy. Lucy is next in age to Betty. "You mustn't go up, she'll be down in a minute."

"This bag feels pretty heavy," exclaims Bob, the eldest boy, "anything good in it, Betty?" and he begins fumbling at the fastening.

"My flowers--Oh, Bob, do be careful!" cries Betty, rushing to the rescue of her daffodils and wallflowers. How sweet and fresh they looked this morning, how crushed and faded now!

"You careless boy; you've broken the stalks off ever so many! Put the bag down. Oh, dear, why isn't mother here! Father's washing his hands, I suppose. Lucy, do ask mother to make haste; here's the kettle boiling away, and the tea not in the pot or anything." Betty is growing more irritable every minute; but now mother appears.

"Well, Betty, here you are at last, then."

Mrs. Langdale is a large, fair-haired woman. Her gown is only half-fastened, and stray wisps of hair are hanging round her face. This is nothing unusual, for Betty's mother is scarcely ever neatly dressed.

Betty knows this well enough. It would be well if she understood the look of love in her mother's eyes as clearly as she sees the untidiness of her mother's dress.

"Well, Betty, I'm glad to have you back again, that I am; there's so much to be done in this house, and time slips away so. Now, to-day, I really made up my mind to have everything ready by the time you came in, but what with one thing and another--Pollie, take your fingers out of the sugar-bowl, you naughty child--Jennie, fetch the knives, they're in the scullery, I forgot them; make haste now! Can't you see your sister wants her tea?"

She pushes a few loose tags of hair out of her eyes, and begins making the tea, talking all the time.

"Well, my dear, did your Grannie send any message to me? What sort of journey did you have? How did those boots wear? Now did you----?"

"Betty's too tired to talk just yet, I think," interposes her father, coming in that moment. "She'll tell us everything after tea."

Indeed, Betty does feel dreadfully tired. The noise and confusion bewilder her. Every one seems to be talking at once. It is all so different from the quiet orderliness of Grannie's home.

The knives are brought at last, the tea made, and for awhile the younger children are too busy with their bread and butter even for talk.

Tea over, however, the tumult begins afresh. The tea-things are just pushed to one side of the table, and then mother begins to unpack the bag.

Shrieks of delight greet the various packages, the table is soon strewn with Grannie's good things. The paper is torn from the cake; Bob seizes on a great pot of blackberry jam, bumps against a chair and drops the pot with a crash to the floor. The sticky mess, mixed with broken glass, spreads slowly over the carpet.

"There you go, you tiresome boy!" cries mother fretfully. "Always smashing something, always spoiling things. If you eat a bit of it you'll swallow broken glass, and serve you right. Lucy, ask Clara for a duster and pail of water to mop up the mess. Who told you to touch that cake, Pollie? Jennie, how dare you meddle with the honey--you'll overset that next! I don't believe there ever were such rude, tiresome, disobedient children! I'm sure I don't know what to do with you all. Harry, Jennie, Pollie, I won't have that cake eaten to-night! You shall all just pack off to bed."

The younger children sober down a little at this threat, and presently, between coaxings, and slappings, and the promise of unlimited cake to-morrow, they go off noisily to bed.

How thankful Betty is when she manages at last to escape to her own little room, and lays her weary head on her pillow!

She is utterly tired out. Too tired to remember any of her good resolutions; too tired even to think.