Gertrude's Diary - Nine

Chapter Nine

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?

I delight to do Thy will, O my God.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.

We girls have had a real nice time, and made ten dollars for the mission box besides. Not but what some of the older ones helped us, but then, Mr. Neale says we did the most of the work, and ought to have the credit. We did a good deal of the thinking, too. That is, we put the thoughts of a good many people together, and the thing grew. It began by Prissy humming that anthem,

“Forget not, forget not, forget not all His benefits.”

The music repeats, I don't know how many times, and Prissy was always humming it. Ruth said there was no danger of our forgetting the words at least. Alice Burnham heard us talking about it, and she said they sang that anthem at their Thanksgiving entertainment in Rochester last fall, and had a monument built of fruits and vegetables; the base was made of moss, and had letters made of white flowers, which said,

ALL HIS BENEFITS.

 "How pretty that must have been!" Ruth said; and then in a minute more she said, "I wish we could get up something pretty."

That afternoon little Essie Morgan came skipping through the hall, singing,

Praise Him, praise Him, all ye little children.

That is a new song they were beginning to learn in the primary class. "What a sweet voice that little thing has!" Prissy said, "I wish we could get up something pretty in the Sunday-school and have her sing. There are ever so many of those little things who sing nicely."

"Yes," Namie said. "There is Gertie Scanlon, she has a sweet voice. Wouldn't it be nice, girls, if we could get up something and put her in it, and get her father to come to church and hear her?"

Well, that was the beginning, and it was queer to see how the thing grew. We girls went to see Mr. Neale, and he liked it ever so much. He always does like things. And he helped us. We had the entertainment in our chapel last night, and everybody says it was lovely.

Alice Burnham declares that it was ever so much prettier than the one they had in Rochester, and not a bit like it.

Mr. Robinson was the one who helped us most. He made all the blocks for the monument. Then he had to come, to see how they worked, and Mr. Neale says it is the first time he has been inside of a church in ten years. Rob Chandler painted the letters for us.

First, we had a base, like that Alice Burnham told us of. He made that part just like hers — moss, and flowers, and all, and it was just lovely. The letters shone like stars out of the green moss—

ALL HIS BENEFITS.

 You could see them all over the church. Then we had each little girl come up and bring a white marble block lettered with black. At least it was painted wood, but it looked like marble. The first one was Life. And the one above it was Home. Each block was a little shorter than the one below it, and they fitted nicely, and when they were done they were just the shape of a pyramid. Each little girl recited a Bible verse, or a verse of a hymn, about the word she was bringing up. Some of the recitations were just lovely.

When Gertie Scanlon brought up her block, and it had on it Father, and recited. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him, they said that Philip Scanlon put down his head and cried. He is truly a good father now, since he stopped drinking.

There were ever so many blocks, and at the last, we put a lovely cross, and the girls all recited: He gave his life a ransom for many.

Then the little children all marched around, singing,

Praise Him, praise Him, all ye little children.

Each one stopped before the cross, and held up a bouquet of flowers, and Alice Burnham took them and put them in the cross. It was covered with bright red paper, but bored into the wood, under the paper, were little holes, through which the flowers were pushed; and when the children had all brought bouquets, the cross had blossomed out into flowers. It was the prettiest thing I ever saw. The last verse of the song is.

Crown Him, crown Him, all ye little children.

Each of the little ones had a wreath of flowers, and as they sang that verse, marching, they hung their wreaths on the cross, or dropped them at its base. Everybody was as pleased as they could be. Ruth says she thinks our verses helped us this month, anyway. We girls, and the boys from Mr. Stuart's class, sang the anthem, All His Benefits, and they say we sang it very well. We took up a collection for the Mission Band, to which all the little ones belong, and got twenty dollars. So then half was voted to our Band, and half to the little children. I don't know when we have had nicer times than in getting this up. Mother says she is proud of us because we did it without any jars.

Come back on January 30 for Chapter Ten - the final chapter of this book.