“Come and sit down on your little stool the way you used to in the old times, Cornelli,” she said lovingly, “and I’ll tell you something that will help and console you. It has helped me, too, and still does when trouble comes. You see, Cornelli, I once had to go through a terrible sorrow just as great as yours is today. I had to give a child I loved back to God. So I cried, as loudly as you are crying and even louder: ‘No, I can’t do it, I can’t!’ The more I fought against it, the more terrible I felt, till in the end I even thought I should despair. So I cried out in my heart: ‘Can nobody help me?’ And then I suddenly knew who could do it. I knelt down and prayed to God: ‘Oh, give me help, for thou alone canst do it!’ ”
“Can I stay here if I pray like that, Martha? Will God help me right away?” asked Cornelli eagerly.
“Yes, He will surely help you the way He knows is best for you, Cornelli. If it should be good for you to go away and you ask your Father in Heaven for help, He will bless your life away from home, so that it won’t be as hard as you have feared. If you pray to Him, you will get the firm assurance that nothing will be hard for you, because you have His help in everything you do. God is sure to ordain everything in such a wise way that happiness will come to you in the end.”
“Did you have to give Him your child after all?” Cornelli wanted to know.
“Yes, God took it to Himself,” Martha answered.
“And could you get happy again, Martha?”
“Yes, yes. The pain was very great, but I was consoled by the thought of my child’s peace. I knew how many ills he had been spared. God gave me the assurance that He meant well with both of us. With that thought I could grow happy again.”
“I want to go home, now,” said Cornelli, suddenly getting up. It seemed as if something were drawing her away.
“Yes, go now, child, and think of what I told you!” said Martha, accompanying her.
“Yes, I will,” said Cornelli. She ran home quickly, because the desire to get to her room was urging her on.
Cornelli had never prayed so earnestly and heartily as she did that day. Kneeling beside her bed, she confided all her sorrow to her Father in Heaven, and begged Him to make her happy once more.
VIII
A Mother
When Mr. Hellmut sat down to his coffee in the morning he always found letters and newspapers on the breakfast table.
“Good gracious!” he exclaimed on the morning after the ladies’ departure, “what correspondents have you in town, Cornelli? Here is a letter for you.”
Cornelli, looking up from her cup, glanced incredulously at the letter.
“It is really for you. Listen! Miss Cornelli Hellmut, Iller-Stream, Iron Foundry,” the father read. “Here it is!”
Cornelli opened the letter under great suspense and read:
Dear Cornelli:
Only think! I am ill and have to lie in bed. The doctor has forbidden me to read and write, so this letter will be very short. It is very tiresome to be sick, for my sisters are in school all day. Mama always has a lot to attend to and Mux is still a very useless little fellow. Could you not come here and pay me a little visit? I should love to see you and should enjoy hearing all about Iller-Stream. You could tell me all about good old Martha, whom I love nearly as much as a grandmother, about your little kid and Matthew, the horses and everything else, and especially about yourself. I always had such a good time with you that I should be terribly pleased if you came to visit me. Please come very, very soon! Your faithful friend,
When Cornelli was folding up the letter again, her father said: “Can I read it, too?”
Cornelli promptly handed him her letter.
“What friend is this that wants you to come to visit him?” the father asked with astonishment. “I expect you to cry immediately, though, for you might have to go to town.”
“Oh, no, Papa, I really would love to see him,” said Cornelli. “It is Dino, who stayed with Martha this summer.”
The father put down his spoon from pure surprise and looked wonderingly at his daughter.
“How strange you are, Cornelli!” he said finally. “Now you suddenly want to visit a strange family. You only know this boy and you do not hesitate about it and are not even shy about appearing in your present condition.”
“Dino knows me well and knows that I would come to see him alone. He will arrange everything for me so that I won’t have to see his mother or his sisters. He knows everything,” was Cornelli’s explanation.
“That has no sense at all,” the father said curtly, and gathering up his papers he went away.
Soon afterwards he entered Martha’s little house.
“Here I am again. I wonder what you will say to me?” he called to the surprised old woman. “Here is a letter with an invitation which came for Cornelli today. It is from a boy who stayed with you. Who is he? Who are his parents?”
This question made Martha fairly overflow with praises of the boy. She told Mr. Hellmut that she had never known a boy who was so polite and friendly to simple folks as this boy had been; he had been well brought up, had the most refined and charming manners, and was well educated, and at the same time so simple and childishly devoted to old, plain Martha. She had never read letters like the mother’s letter to her son, so beautiful, affectionate and elevating. He had always read them to her, and she had had to cry every time from sheer emotion. She had never before
