She sat there
one summer evening, in the back-door, watching the glory and the peace,
and studying, between times, her Sabbath lesson. Often and often the
words came back to her in future years. "Now Jesus loved Martha and her
sister and Lazarus." That was one of the verses. Was it a dim memory of
the words, and a sort of blind reaching out after their fulfilment, that
led her to name her poor little two-days-old baby, Martha? The old home
had vanished, the sweet-scented meadows, the tinkling bells, the peace
and the plenty, were as utterly things of the past as though they had
not been. Mother, and father, and one brother, were gone, lying in
grass-grown, neglected graves; and she--why the two-days-old baby's
father was _drunk_; and had been for three weeks! A hard,
hateful-sounding word,--coarse, almost. Why don't I say intoxicated? Oh,
because I can't! I've no desire to find smooth-sounding words with which
to cover the sin of that baby's father. But the mother named her Martha.
She never told her why, if, indeed, she herself fully knew; it was not a
family name. Gradually, after the fashion of the times, she sought to
shorten the name; and because they had not sweet, short words, as "Pet,"
and "Dear" and "Sweet,"--all such belong to happy homes,--they grew to
calling her Mart.
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