left. She didn’t say a word but Mommy put her arms around her and kissed her. “ You’re a brave girl to try to row across the Big Lake all by yourself,” Mommy told her. “ But when you found that Aunt Bess and Tommy weren’t home, you should have come back to me. You could have stayed with Babbie and I could have gone across the lake after Daddy and the doctor.” “ Babbie needed you,” said Judy. And Mommy kissed her again. A few minutes later when Mom my and Daddy and Aunt Bess were all talking in the kitchen, Tommy came to where Judy was curled up in her favorite chair by the fire place. “ I thought you were afraid of the Big Lake,” began Tommy with a funny looking grin on his face. “ I was,” said Judy. And as soon as she said it, she knew deep down in her heart that she wasn’t afraid of it any more. “ Then why did you try to row across to town?” asked Tommy, his freckled face all wrinkled up in a puzzled frown. “Well,” Judy explained, “Babbie was real sick and needed the doctor right away. Mommy sent me to your house to see if Aunt Bess would take me to town in the car around by the road. But nobody was home so I just had to try to row across.” “Weren’t you scared?” Tommy shivered. “Yes, I was at first,” said Judy. Then she smiled happily. “ But I kept thinking about our New Year’s verse, and I knew I could really trust the Lord Jesus. So I prayed to Him and all of a sudden I wasn’t scared any more! And you see, it worked—just when I got so tired I couldn’t row any more, God sent along that nice old man to take me the rest of the way!” Tommy sprawled down on the rug in front of the fire with his el bows on the floor and his chin in his hands and seemed to be thinking about it. Suddenly he looked up at Judy. “What is your New Year’s verse?” he asked. Judy closed her eyes and said it to herself first, to be sure she had every word right. Then she said: “ Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.” END.
get upset out here, she would just go right to the bottom of the lake and never come up again! She re minded herself of The Verse again. She was so tired! How good it would feel to be at home and curl up in the big chair by the fireplace and just rest! The very thought of it made big tears come to her eyes. She rested again for a few minutes and then began to row again as hard as she could. She hadn’t looked back over her shoulder now for a long time. It was too much work to turn her head that far. She just pulled the oars, one after another, and now they weren’t digging into the water at all; they were just skittering across the top. Judy didn’t see the other boat until it was right beside her. “Where you going, little girl?” asked a big man-voice, almost in her ear. She looked up and let one oar drop to the end of its oarlock. She tried to talk but somehow her voice wouldn’t work. She was so tired. Then someone was picking her up and trying to lift her into the other boat, but it was hard because she was still holding on to one oar. “You can let the oar go now, honey,” the voice said and it sound ed very kind. She let it go and the man set her down on one of the board seats in his own boat. Judy looked up into the face of an old man with a griz zled beard and a knitted cap on his head. “What are you doing out here on the lake by yourself in this cold weather?” asked the man. So Judy told him all about it. Then she began to cry and had to cover her face with her cold mit tens. It felt so good to be back home again in the warm living room with Mommy and Daddy and the kind stranger who had rescued her from the Big Lake. The doctor was there too and Aunt Bess and Cousin Tom my. “ Babbie will be all right, I’m sure,” the doctor said as he put on his hat and coat and got ready to go. “Just give her this medicine and I’ll come out and see her in the morning.” Judy ran up to Mommy as soon as the doctor and the stranger had
JUDY & THE LAKE Aunt Bess and T omm y lived showed above the feathery green firs on the slope. She had just come from there. She wished she had found them home hut no one was around. Judy shivered and ran down to where a small dory was pulled up halfway on the shore. She tugged two heavy oars out of the long box where they were kept in the win tertime and struggled with them till she got them in the oarlocks on the little boat. Then she shoved with all her might, almost hoping as she did so that the boat wouldn’t move. But it did and presently it was floating in the cold water that lapped up on the shore. She was trembling with excite ment when she climbed in and picked up an oar in each mittened hand. Carefully she shoved out from the shore and turned the boat so that her back was to the place where she was going, like Daddy had carefully taught her to do. Then she began to row. Both hands together, hack and forth, back and forth—deep into the water because Daddy said that was what made the boat go. Soon she was puffing and panting and terribly hot in spite of the cold wind that stung her face. Her arms began to ache and she felt that she couldn’t get enough breath. “ I can’t do it,” she panted aloud. “ I can’t do it.” She stopped rowing for a moment and leaned forward, resting on the oars. The words of The Verse came to her again. Daddy had said last night that if we truly trusted the Lord Jesus, nothing could really hurt us because He wouldn’t let anything happen that wasn’t for our good. Judy sat up straight and began to pull on the oars again, but now they weren’t dipping as far into the water as they had at first. Looking straight ahead, she saw that she was already a long way from the shore she had just left. But when she looked over her shoulder toward the town, it didn’t look much closer. She kept on rowing, both hands together for a while, then one after the other. She was out over the deep water now, out where Tommy had almost drowned last summer. She knew that if the boat should
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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