A Lesson from Mrs. Bloomfield

Mrs. Bloomfield was the schoolmaster's wife and she is just the sort of lady I hope to one day become. MacDonald describes her this way:

There was something about Mrs. Bloomfield that was very pleasing. The chief ingredient in it was a certain quiant repose. She looked as if her heart were at rest; as if for her everything, was right; as if she had a little room of her own, just to her mind, and there her soul sat, looking out through the muslin curtains of modest charity, upon the world that went hurrying and seething past her windows.

I have always wondered how women become like this...is it just how they were born? A lack of any great calamity in their lives that allows them to be at peace? Perhaps, but as I kept reading (she is a character in Adela Cathcart, sorry i didn't mention that earlier) she tells this story about herself that...well, I'll explain after the story. [and I realize it's long...but if you have time, it's worth reading, at least I found it to be so]
~~
A good many years ago, now, on a warm summer evening, a friend, whom I was visiting, asked me to take a drive with her through one of the London parks. I agreed to go, though I did not care much about it. I had not breathed the fresh air for some weeks; yet I felt it a great trouble to go. I had been ill, and my husband was il, and we had nothing to do, and we did not know what would become of us. So I was anything but cheerful. I knew that all was for the best, as my good husband was always telling me, but my eyes were dim and my heart was troubled, and I could not feel sure that God cared quite so much for us as he did for the lilies.

My friend was very cheerful, and seemed to enjoy everything; but a kind of dreariness came over me, and I began comparing the loveliness of hte summer evening with the cold misty blank that seemed to make up my future. My wretchedness grew greater and greater. The very colours of the flowers, the blue of the sky, the sleep of the water, seemed to push us out of the happy world that God had made. And yet the children seemed as happy as if God were busy making, the things before their eyes, and holding out each thing, as he made it, for them to look at.

(brief interruption to explain that one of her children is now in India and the other had passed on a few years ago)

Well, I was glad when my friend stopped the carriage, and got out with the children, to take them close to the water's edge, and let them feed the swans. I liked better to sit in the carriage alone -- an ungrateful creature, in the midst of cause for thankfulness. I did not care for the beautiful things about me; and I was not pleased that other people should enjoy them. I listlessly watched the well dressed ladies that passed (she talks for a while about the people that pass by...a good part of the story, but in trying to cut this down I shall leave it out)

At last I caught sight of a poor lad, who was walking along very slowly, looking at a gay-coulored handkerchief wich he had spread out before him. His clothes were rather ragged, but not so ragged as old. On his head was what we now call a wide-awake. It was very limp and shapeless; but some one that loved him had trimmed it with a bit of blue ribbon, the ends of which hung down on his shoulder. This gave him an odd appearance even at a distance. When he came upand I coudl see his face, it explained everything. There was a constant smile about his mouth which in itself was very sweet; but as it had nothing to do with the rest of the countenance, the chief impression it conveyed was of idiotcy. He came near the carriage, and stood there, watching some men who were repairing a fence which divided the road from the footpath. His hair was almost golden, and went waving about in the wind. His eye was very large and clear, and of a bright blue. But it had no meaning in it. He would ahve been very handsome, had there been mind in his face; but as it was, the regularity of his unlighted feature made the sight a sadder one. His figure was young; but his face might have belonged to a man of sixty.

He opened his mouth, stuck out his under jaw, and stood starring and grinning at the men. At last one of them stopped to take a breath, and , catching sight of lad, called out:
"Why Davy! is that you?"
"Ya-as, it be," replied Davy, modding his head.
"Why Davy, it's ever so long since I clapped eyes on ye!" said the man. "Where ha' ye been?"
"I ain't been nowheres, as I knows on."
"Well, if ye 'aint been nowheres, what have ye been doing? Flying your kite?"
"I 'aint got no kite; so I can't fly it."
"But you likes flyin' kites, don't ye?" said his friend, kindly.
"Ya-as," answered Davy, nodding his head, and rubbing his hands, and laughing out. "Kites is such fun! I wish I'd got un."
Then he looked thoughtfully, amost moodily, at the man, and said:
"Where's your kite? I likes kites. Kites is friends to me."

But by this time the man had turned again to his work, and was busy driving a post into the ground; so he paid no attention to the lad's question. Soon, another man had come up. he had a course, hard-featured face; and he tried, to pretended to try, to wheel his barrow, which was full of gravel, over Davy's toes. The said toes were sticking quite bare through through great holes in an old pair of woman's boots. Then he began to tease him rather roughly. But Davy took all his banter with jsut the same complacency and mirth with which he had received the other man's kindness.
"How's yer sweetheart, Davy?" he said.
"Quite well, thank ye," answered Davy.
"What's her name?"
"Ha! ha! ha! I won't tell you her name."
"Come now, Davy, tell us her name."
"Noa."
"Don't be a fool."
"I ain't a fool. But I won't tell you her name."
"I don't believe ye've got e'er a sweetheart. Come now."
"I have though."
"I don't believe ye."
"I have though. I was at church with her last Sunday."

Suddenly the man, looking hard at Davy, changed his tone to one of surprise, and exclaimed:

"Why, boy, ye've got whiskers! Ye hadn't them the last time I see'd ye Why, ye are set up now! When are ye going to begin to shave? Where's your razors?"
"'Ain't begun yet," replied Davy. "Shall shave some day, but I 'aint got too much yet."

As he said this, he fondeled away at his whiskers. They were few in number, but evidently of great value in his eyes. Then he began to stroke his chin, on which there was a little down visible -- more like mold in its association with his curious face than anything of more healthy significance. After a few moments' pause, his tormentor began again.

"Well, I can't think where ye got them whiskers as ye're so fond of. Do ye know where ye got them?"
Davy took out his pocket-handkerchief, spreak it out before him, and stopped grinning.
"Yaas; to be sure I do," he said at last.
"Ye do?" growled the man, half humorously, half scornfully.
"Yaas," said Davy, nodding his head again and again.
"Did ye buy 'em?"
"Noa," answered Davy, and the sweetness of the smile which he now smiled was not confined to his mouth, but broke like light, the light of intelligence, over his whole face.
"Where they gave to ye?" pursued the man, now really curious to hear what he would say.
"Yaas," said the poor fellow; and he clapped his hands in a kind of suppressed glee.
"Why, who gave 'em to ye?"
Davy lookep up in the way I shall never forget, and, pointing up with his finger too, said nothing.
"What do ye mean?" said the man. "Who gave ye yer whiskers?"
Davy pointed up to the sky again; and then, looking up with an earnest expression, which, before you saw it, you would not have throught possible to his face, said,
"Blessed Father."
"Who?" shouted the man.
"Blessed Father," Davy repeated, once more pointing upwards.
"Blessed Father!" returned the man, in a contemptuous tone; "Blessed Father! -- I don't know who that is. Where does he live? I never heerd of him."
Davy looked at him as if he were sorry for hi. Then going closer up to him, he said:
"Didn't you though? He lives up there' -- again pointing to the sky. "And he's so kind! He gives me lots o' things."
"Well," said the man. "I wish he'd give me thing's. But you don't look so very rich nayther."
"Oh! but he gave me some bread this mornin', and a tart last night -- he did."
And the boy nodded his head, as was his custom, to make his assertion still stronger.
"But you was sayin' just now, you hadn't got a kite. Why don't he give you one?"
"He'll give me one fast 'nuff," said Davy, grinning again, and rubbing his hands.

I assure you I could have kissed he boy. And I hope I fel some gratitute to God for giving the poor lad such trust in Him, which, it seemed to me, was better than trusting in the three-per-cents; for you can draw upon him to no end o' good things. So Davy thought anyhow; and he had got hte very thing for ht ewant of which my life was cold and sad and discontented. Those words Blessed Father, and that look that turned his vacant face, like Stephen's, into the face of an angel, because he was looking up to the same glory, were in my ears and eyes for days. And they taught me, and comforted me. He was the minister of God's best gifts to me. And to home many more, who can tell? For Davy believed that God did care for his own children.

Davy sauntered away, and before my friend came back with the children, I had lost sight of him; but at my request we moved on slowly till we should find him again. Nor had we gone far, before I saw him sitting in the middle of a group of little children. He was showing them the pictures on his pocket handkerchief. I had one sixpence in my purse -- it was the last I had. But I wasn't so poor but I could borrow, and it was a small price to give for what I had got; and so, as I was not able to leave the carriage, I asked my friend to take it to him, and tell him that Blessed Father had sent him that to buy a kite. The expression of childish glee upon his face, and the devout God bless you, Lady, upon his tongue were strangely but on incongrously mixed.

Well, it was my last sixpence then, but here I and my husband are, owing no man anything, and spending a happy Christmas Day, with many thanks to the Colonel and Miss Cathcart.
~~

So I realized that she was not born with her wisdom, or simply free from care and worry (she certainly dealt with her fair share of trouble [depression, being broke and sick in this story...and losing her child as we also found out]. But she took the right lessons from her difficulties and let God shape her into a person who trusted him in all things. I pray that as I am young, I may also learn the right lessons in times of darkness so that one day I might be like Mrs. Bloomfield.
And for anyone reading this, I extend that prayer to you too (unless you are a man...then be like Mr. Bloomfield [also an excellent man...same lessons learned ;)].