September, 1938
THE K I N G ' S B U S I NE S S
295
Junior King's Business By M A R TH A S. HOOKER
A REAL GO ING -TO -BE M ISS IONA RY B y F rances N oble P hair Illustration by Ransom D. Marvin
PART I R o b e r t m o f f a t b u r n s struck his hoe fiercely into another potato - hill. "Hoein’ potatoes! Plantin’ corn! Feedin’ chickens! Milkin’ cows!” Twelve-year-old “Bobby Burns,” as every one called him, was usually very careful of his grammar—but not this morn ing. The hot anger that burned in his boyish heart showed in a black scowl on his usually pleasant face. Just then a mocking bird flew down to the branch of a tree in the comer of the field and poured out a flood of song. Bobby dropped his hoe hastily and straightened up. “It’s all very well for you,” he cried, addressing the mocker. “ Course you can sing! You don’t want any education. You don’t care to be somebody and do some- thing^for God! You couldn’t be a mis sionary.” The bitterness in the boy’s heart was fast reaching an overflow of tears, and to save himself from such unmanly weakness as crying, Bobby reached for his hoe. As he did so, a flash of blue caught his eye. It was some one who came with a slightly uneven motion, but unmistakably it was a girl—a strange girl. "Help!” mut tered Bobby Burns to himself as his fingers gripped his hoe. He pretended not to see the stranger till she climbed, a little clum sily, he thought, onto the fence behind him. “Are you Bobby Burns?” The strange voice was friendly and pleasant. “I’m your third cousin, Margie Hancock, from Mid dletown. I drove over with Grandma Betts. She wanted to see Cousin Hettie. I never saw Cousin Hettie before. It must be grand to have a mother like that—I— I have no mother." Bobby had straightened up and taken off his tattered hat politely when Margie began to talk. Now he pulled it over his eyes and began to hoe again. He couldn’t think of anything to say to this strange cousin. (Nice for a fellow’s mother to wish a strange girl on him, he thought. He already had troubles enough.) But Margie could talk for both. “I really didn’t want to come,” she went on. “There was going to be a boating party, and I was invited. I can row, you see, even.if I can’t run and climb.” Bobby glanced up and saw that the girl wore a heavy shoe. That was the reason for the uneven walk and clumsy climb. He felt embarrassed. " I ’m lame, you know,” she continued simply, and the boy became conscious of the happy lilt in her voice, something like the music of a singing bird. She continued, "Cousin Hettie told us about you—about
your wanting to be a missionary, you know. I never saw a real going-to-be missionary boy before. So I came over to see— ” The bitterness that Margie’s coming had made him forget came rushing up in his heart, and Bobby broke into the girl’s un finished sentence saying scornfully, “Well, you see a fine missionary — hoeing po tatoes.” “Yes,” exclaimed Margie, in such a pleased tone that the boy paused and looked wonderingly into the happy face with the beaming brown eyes. He -thought he had never seen a person bubble with happiness as this new cousin seemed to. She smoothed back the flying brown curls with a shy little motion and then leaned confidently over the fence. "Yes, of course,” she said. “Uncle Cyrus is a real missionary, and he said he was ever so glad he had grown up on a farm and learned all those things. They helped a lot in teaching the new converts how to live like Christians.” Again the thought of his trouble rose up before the boy. He thought of the invalid father, the overworked, discouraged mother, the run-down farm, the younger brothers and sisters to feed and clothe, the oppor tunity of his obtaining an education growing less every day, of all these things that were against him. And he exclaimed with a desperate impatience that told how deep in his heart was the hurt, “But your Uncle Cyrus didn’t have to stay on the farm!” Margie’s , shining brown eyes looked straight into the unhappy blue ones of the
boy in overalls. She was standing on the second rail of the fence leaning against the top rail, the breeze making little fluttering clouds of curls around her happy face. She spoke slowly, hesitatingly. "I think I’ll tell you,” she said quietly. Then in her pleasant, positive way she con tinued, “After I was saved, I wanted to be a missionary, too. I wanted to very, very much, and I thought God wanted me, too. Then I was ill for a long time, and afterwards I was— this way.” She moved the foot that wore the heavy shoe. “I was dreadfully unhappy. “Then Uncle Cyrus came. He told me that what God wants more than anything else is to have us say to Him, as the Lord Jesus said, ‘Not my will but Thine be done,’ and to give up our own way and take His and be happy about it. He said that our saying this, and meaning it down deep in our hearts, is like the planting of a grain of corn. The grain falls into the ground and dies, and then just hundreds of other grains grow from it. But if we insist on serving the Lord in our own way instead of taking His way, we will never really bring forth fruit. I told God I’d take His will. And it makes life so different. Now I thank Him for everything He sends and just love it! Oh, it’s fun to give up my own way for Jesus! And He always gives me something better. Today I wanted to go boating, and instead He let me see a real going-to-be missionary!” And Margie’s eyes glowed and sparkled with so much joy that the boy in the faded blue overalls stood amazed. “Oh!” She turned her head. "I hear Grandma calling. I must go. Good-by, Missionary Cousin.” It was Bobby’s turn to stand on the sec ond rail and lean over the fence and watch the figure clad in blue walking away with quick, uneven steps. Once the girl tinned and waved, and he snatched off his hat and waved it with all his might. That night, in the little garden behind the house, alone, under the stars, Robert Moffat Bums, named for a missionary, desiring from early childhood to go as a missionary, fought his battle. If it was God’s will for him to forfeit having an education, to stay at home and help care for his parents and the younger children, was he willing? Would he do it gladly? It was a hard battle for a twelve-year-old boy to engage in, but in the end the same words rose to the throne of God that had come from Another Heart, even the heart of God’s own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in another garden long ago: “ ‘Not my will, but Thine be done.’ ” And then how
Bobby broke in scornfully, "Well, you see a fine missionary— hoeing potatoes."
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