Read Ebook: The Library of Work and Play: Housekeeping by Gilman Elizabeth Hale

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As Gareth grew older, and more and more worthy to be made a knight, his mother, Bellicent, sorrowed and grieved. Her husband was very, very old, and her two elder sons had gone away to the Court, and she could not bear to have Gareth leave her, for he was the youngest and last. Though she saw that his heart's desire was to be with the King, yet she felt as if her heart would break if he went. She tried to make him especially happy at home; she tried to persuade him that he was not skilful or brave enough to be a knight; she told him of dangers and wounds, and besought him not to go. Again and again he asked her permission to go away and earn his knighthood; again and again she refused.

One day when he had spoken so bravely and truly that she knew not how to resist him longer, the thought came to her to test his great desire to be with the King, and she said to him: "If you desire so greatly to serve the King, give the proof of it which I shall ask of you. Go to the King and ask him to let you serve him in his kitchen for a year and a day, and tell no one your name and rank until the time is over."

She thought he would refuse to do it, but he kissed and thanked her, and quickly made ready to go to Camelot. For he wanted to serve the King, and this was a way of doing it, though not the one he had hoped for.

He journeyed a day and a night, and came to Camelot, the wonderful big city which he had never seen before. In the morning, the King sat in the Great Hall of his palace to hear the requests and troubles of his people. There Gareth came, and stood before him. And when he raised his eyes to the King's quiet face, and met his eyes, he loved him and longed more than ever to serve him. It was a little hard, when he was longing to be made a knight, and to be sent on an adventure, just to ask to be a kitchen-boy; but he did it, and the King granted his request.

So joyous and strong was he when he went out from the presence of the King, that he felt nothing would ever be hard to do again. But there were things which were hard. The kitchen was a great stone room with an earth floor, and a fireplace at either end as big as a little room. When the great fires were lit it was mightily hot between, and there was smoke and hurry, and jostling of servants, and there were some bad-tempered people and a great deal of hard work. There were trenchers and platters to be scoured, and big iron pots to be lifted about and washed, and roasting meats to be watched and turned before the fires. The cooking tanned Gareth's face and hands as riding in the hot sun had never done. When he could, he would run out into the courtyard, and play games with the other kitchen-boys, and when they were tired, they would sit against the wall and he would tell long tales he had read, and some that he made up, about knights and dragons and enchanted forests and robbers. The stories he loved best to tell, though, were stories of the King.

Often these play-times were broken in upon by the Master of the Kitchens, who called them back to their tasks with no great gentleness. Especially was he a hard master to Gareth; and, strangely enough, this was because Gareth was willing and cheerful, for there are people with such crooked places in their minds that they cannot see a person working gladly at a hard task but they want nothing so much as to see if they cannot break their cheerfulness. And that was the sort of master Gareth found in the King's Kitchen. He missed his rides over the downs in the clear air, and the right to go and come as he pleased. But when things seemed hard he cast off the thought and laughed to himself, saying, "It is for the King." In a little while, too, he learned to take fault-finding, and, now and again, a blow, in quietness. And this, too, was for the King.

As the days came and went, Bellicent, alone now with her old husband, thought of her son day and night; and the tasks that he must do and the discomforts he must suffer seemed to her a thousand times worse than he ever thought them. At last, when hardly a month of his trial had yet gone by, she could bear it no longer, but sent a messenger to the King to tell him the story, and to take to Gareth a horse and armour and all things that he would need when it should please the King to make him a knight.

After the King had seen the messenger he sent for Gareth, and Gareth left his scouring and went gaily and eagerly to him. He was glad in his love for the King, and I think he may have felt that he had borne rather unusual things for his sake. As he came near, the King loved him for his youth and gaiety and faithfulness. But Gareth, looking up into the quiet, loving eyes that were fixed on him, knelt down at the King's feet and bowed his head, and knew that nothing he could do for the King would ever be too much.

The King ended Gareth's kitchen service and made him a knight, and some day you will read other stories about him, for he fought many battles and loved a beautiful lady.

And it seems likely that the King loved him all the more because he could cook and scour for his sake.

BROTHER JUNIPER'S COOKING

Have you heard stories about Saint Francis of Assisi? There are a great many, and people like to hear them over and over again. For, though Saint Francis lived most of his life in a little, faraway, country town in Italy, called Assisi, and though he died hundreds of years ago, yet every year many people go to see the place where he lived, and the church where he is buried, and many people in countries far away from Italy love him as well as they do their friends whom they can see and talk to.

One of the stories about St. Francis tells of a flock of birds that came to listen to a sermon he preached to them, and another is about a wolf whom he persuaded not to hurt people any more. The reason he could do these things, and the reason people who have never seen him love him very dearly is because he loved everything and everybody in the world, and God and our Lord Jesus more than all.

No one was so dirty, or so sick, that he did not want to take care of him; no one was so cross, or so cruel, that he did not want to be kind to him.

Every day he went about helping poor people, and sick people, and troubled people; and he taught them all to be sorry for the wrong things they had done, and to sing songs of joy because God loved them.

After a little, a good many men began to help him do this. They gave everything they had to the poor, and never after that kept any money. They worked every day to get a little food, and the rest of the time they spent in helping and teaching people. St. Francis called them his "Little Brothers," not because they were small or young, but because he taught them to think themselves of no importance, and to think, if anybody scolded them or hurt them, that they deserved it and more too.

One of these Little Brothers was named Brother Juniper. He was always thinking of ways to help people. One day, all the Brothers went out to work, and left Brother Juniper to take care of the little hut where they lived, and to get some food for them. When he set about this he began to think of the Brothers who usually did the cooking, and how much time they had to spend every day getting food ready for the others to eat. To be sure, they had but one good meal a day, yet even so the cooking of it took time the Brothers might otherwise have used for prayer, or tending the sick, or some other good work.

As Brother Juniper was thinking of this, a plan popped into his head which made him very glad. He took two big baskets, and went off happily to several farmhouses in the neighbourhood, where the people were fond of the Little Brothers and liked to give them anything they needed. That day they gave Brother Juniper chickens and eggs and meat and salad and all sorts of vegetables, and they lent him some big iron pots. He took the baskets home heavy with food, and he came back and took the pots home. Then he made a big fire, and all the time he was happy and sang to himself, because he thought, "I will work hard to-day, and cook all this food, and then the Brothers won't have to think about cooking for a week or more." He hung the pots over the fire, and put into them all the food he had gathered without so much as taking the feathers off the chickens or the shells off the eggs, or stopping to see whether the vegetables were all just fit to eat or not. Then he filled the pots with water, and before long they began to boil. The fire was furiously hot. Brother Juniper could not get near enough to it to stir the pots. When he found this out, he took a board and tied it fast to himself, and, with that for a shield, he leaped to a pot and stirred it, and then leaped away again to cool himself; then he dashed at another and stirred that, and so on.

Brother Juniper listened and the gladness died out of him. He went and knelt at the Brother Guardian's feet and confessed his fault, and begged to be forgiven for wasting the Brothers' food, and for getting them a dinner they could not eat. Then he went away by himself, and the rest of that day and all the next, he neither ate nor spoke, nor ventured to come near any of the Brothers, because he was so sorry for his wastefulness and stupidity.

But the Brothers and the Brother Guardian thought they would be willing to know as little about cooking as Brother Juniper if they could be like him in some other ways.

THE WIDOW'S CRUSE

Long, long ago, there was a famine in a little town called Sarepta. For months and months there had been no rain, and nothing could grow in the fields, and the streams dried up and the sheep died and many people died, too, because they had no food.

A widow lived in Sarepta, who had one boy, and she was poor. When the famine began she had just one barrel of meal and one cruse of oil, and because she knew she could get no more, she and her son ate as little as they could, but even so, in a few months the meal was far down in the bottom of the barrel, and the cruse of oil felt very light.

At last one morning, when the woman got up, she found there was only enough meal and oil to make one little cake. She looked at it a long time, thinking they must certainly starve to death when that was gone; then she went out to get some wood for the fire, for she said to herself, "I will bake this one cake and we will eat it, but after that we will have to die." I expect she looked white and sad as she went, for it hurts very much to be so hungry that you die of it.

She found a few sticks, and was picking them up, when a tall old man stopped beside her and leaned on his staff. His clothes were made of hairy skins, and he had a long gray beard, and his face and arms and legs were brown and rough as if he had lived out in the sun and the frost. He seemed to have been making a journey, and he asked for a drink of water. The widow was glad it was only water that he wanted, and was hurrying off to get it, when the old man called after her, and asked her to bring him a piece of bread.

She thought of the little bit of meal and oil, and of her hungry boy, and of how hungry she was herself--and now, here was this tired old man asking for food! It was really more than she could bear. She came back toward him and said, "As the Lord liveth, I have not a cake, but only a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and behold I am gathering two sticks that I may go and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die!"

The old man saw how hungry and desperate she looked; it may be that he knew beforehand that she was; nevertheless, he said: "Fear not; but go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after that make for thee and thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth."

The widow did not altogether understand what he said, but somehow she felt stronger and more brave. She went home quickly and baked a little meal cake, and brought it to the old man, and asked him to come to her house and rest. He went back with her, and then she set about baking the rest of the meal and oil. She thought it would only make a very little cake, but the more meal she took out of the barrel, the more there was in it; and the more oil she poured from the cruse, the heavier it was to lift. She could hardly believe it, and yet she saw it was surely so. Then she went, crying with gladness and relief, and knelt beside the old man and thanked him, and begged him to stay with them as long as he could. And he did stay, a good many months, and all the time of the famine there was meal in the barrel and oil in the cruse.

THE LUNCHEON

If we sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, and then sailed as far east on the Mediterranean Sea as we could, we should come to Asia. Then if we travelled into Asia for a little distance, we should come to a small lake. Long ago, this lake was called the Sea of Galilee, and one of the little towns on the shore was named Bethsaida. In this town, almost one thousand, nine hundred years ago, a boy lived and played and went to school. His uncles had boats on the lake, for they were fishermen, and the boy played in the boats, and sometimes his Uncle Andrew let him go out with him to the fishing.

Bethsaida was a busy, little town. There was always something to do. The lake and the boats and the fishermen and the nets were always there; then sometimes Roman soldiers marched into the town, and merchants from far-off countries came to trade in the market-place. Now and again men came who gathered crowds round them, and talked loud and shook their clenched fists and tore their long robes and kept the town restless for days together.

The boy liked to go with his uncles to listen to these men. He could not understand what they were talking about, but the crowd buzzed and jostled, and sometimes groaned and yelled. It was very exciting. Uncle Peter was often angry about what he heard these men say, but Uncle Andrew just stroked his beard and went back to the boats.

The people called a man who spoke to them in this way a "Rabbi." This meant in their language, a master--a man who knew a great deal about something.

One day, a Rabbi came to Bethsaida, who acted differently from the others. He did not make speeches in the market-place, and often when people were crowding to hear him, he went away on the lake or into the hills. If they followed him, he would sometimes stand in a boat by the shore, or on a hillside, and talk to them; and he could make sick people well. He liked children; and the boy had seen him once stop in the road and talk to a woman. That was a very queer thing for a great Rabbi to do.

The boy saw very little of his uncles after this new Rabbi came, for they followed him everywhere he went and seemed to be his close friends. When they did come home they spoke of him as if they did not know just what to say, yet always it seemed as if they could have said more if they had thought it well.

One day, the Rabbi and his friends had gone up into the hills, and people from the towns on the lake, and from the country round it, had gone out to find him; for those who had seen him wanted nothing so much as to see him again, and those who had not seen him could not rest until they had found out what the others went to see. The boy had been playing in the boats that morning, which nowadays were most of the time pulled up on the shore, and when he saw some of the neighbours setting off for the hills, he made up his mind to go too. First, though, he thought, "Uncle Andrew will be hungry, and so shall I," and he went home and got some food to take with him.

The way up through the hills was long and steep. The boy and his neighbours were tired enough before they came in sight of a great crowd of people in a green hollow of the hills. It was strange but, though there were thousands of people all standing together, they did not make a sound. As the boy came a little nearer, he heard the Rabbi's voice in the stillness. He wondered why the people kept so quiet. He did not realize that he was keeping very quiet himself.

After a while he no longer heard the Rabbi's voice, and the people began to move and make a little murmur of talking. He crept through the crowd toward the group round the Rabbi where his Uncle Andrew would be. When he got there he found they were trying to think of a way to feed all these hundreds of people who were tired and hungry, and miles away from any place where they could get food. That reminded him of the luncheon he had brought, and he pushed the basket into Uncle Andrew's hand.

Uncle Andrew looked into the basket and smiled when he saw what it had in it. Then he said to the Rabbi, "There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?" All the same, though, he held out the basket to the Rabbi, as if he really thought it would be of some use to him.

The boy looked to see if the great Rabbi would be angry with Uncle Andrew for saying such a useless thing, when all the others were trying hard to think what could be done. But no; instead of that, he looked as if something had made him delightfully happy, and he said, "Make the men sit down." And they did. Then the Rabbi blessed the five little loaves and the two little fishes which he had taken out of the basket, and began to break them up and give them to those especial friends of his who were always with him. And they carried them to the people sitting on the grass, and came back for more again and again.

And there always was more.

The boy went with Uncle Andrew, back and forth, again and again. He wanted, more than anything, to help in some little way, if it were only to hold back his uncle's robe as he bent toward the people on the ground.

When they would walk back for more food, he scarcely dared go so near to the wonderful Rabbi. And yet--his heart was in his throat with the joy and wonder of it--was it not his own barley bread and fish that the Rabbi had been so glad to have, and with which he was feeding all these thousands of hungry people?

Last of all, after every one was fed, the boy sat down close to his uncle and they had some luncheon, too; but he could not take his eyes from the Rabbi's face. He looked and looked until he could not see it any more, for he had gone to sleep in the warm grass.

When he waked the crowd was moving away, and his uncle was helping gather up the food which was left. The Rabbi had gone away alone into the hills.

THE FIRE OF COALS

It was spring-time, and eventide, in the thirty-third year of that amazing time when God walked on the earth, not only everywhere, and in every man as He does now, but Himself in the form of one Man.

Five of those men who loved Him best, and had been with Him most often, stood on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in the quick-coming darkness. Only a week or two before, they had seen their dear Lord nailed on a cross and left to die. And He had died. And when that happened, they felt they could not bear to live any longer. But--what do you think?--first one, and then another, had seen Him alive again, had talked with Him, touched Him, and been taught by Him as they used to be. When He was with them, they wished for nothing else; and when He was away they watched and longed for His return.

It had now been several days since He had been with them, and meanwhile they had been going about among people who thought of them as men who had wasted three years wandering round after another man, who was always about to do something but never did, and who, at last, had been put to death by the government. I expect it made these men feel lonely then, just as it makes us feel lonely now, to have to be with people who think that Our Lord is not alive.

They did not know what to do with themselves as they stood on the shore that evening. So, when one said, "I go a-fishing," all the rest said they would go, too. They were glad to be at work again, at something they had done all their lives.

They started out on the dark water under the stars, and cast their nets, but when they drew them in, they had caught nothing. They cast them again, and rowed here and there, and worked as hard as they could, but they got no fish for their pains, and the night was passing. One cannot tell whether or not they thought it strange, that men who had made sick people well, and cast out devils, could not now catch a few fish. Whatever they thought, they were wet and tired, and hungry, and the cold, gray early morning had come.

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