Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1900-12-26
Martha Deans Doubt
By Mary Sweet Potter.
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES

$50 long have l prayed and waited
for prosperity-nay, wen a sufficient
income to yield my children and my
self the common necessaries of life
without receiving an answer to my
prayers, that | am tempted to believe
that God does not redeem His promises,
but to a few favored ones" So spoke
Martha Dean.
The very essence of bitterness must
dwell in the heart of one who gives ut
terance to such a sentiment, and, in
deed. Martha Dean was in a bitter and
desperate mood, which was quite un-
usual with her, for she had never lost
faith before.
She sat there before her freless
kitchen range, her dull eyes watching
the progress of a great snowstorm.
She saw nothing Of it's white, fierce
beauty, however, but gathered only the
one harsh idea that it vas the
inevitable cruelty of winter, for by
bitter experience she had learned that
to her and hers, these later years OF
her life, winter brought little but cold,
privation and general discomfort.
1t was not yet dark, but to keep the
children from taking cold she had
tucked them as warmly as possible into
their beds; for there was so little fuel
that she had allowed the fire to die out
as soon as she had cooked the simple
supper, thus insuring a little warmth
and comfort for the next day, as well
as a blaze to cook their meals.
Now she heard them calling to each
other across the room, and then a little
later Jennie, the oldest of the four, was
telling a story to little Edith, who lay
beside her, and trying to keep her voice
up to a pitch high enough for the two
little boys, Tommy and Johnny, to
hear also over across the room.
Here was one source of bitterness
for Martha Dean. She wanted her chill
dren chatting and playing about her in
comfort and happiness, but her pinch
ing poverty forbade even that.
The words of Jennie's story came
now and then to her mothers ears; it
was an extravagantly generous Christ
mas story, and Martha Deans lip
curled in a smile of bitterness az she
listened.
my poor babissl" she murmured.
"Theirs will be a sorry Christmas time,
with not even a fire to keep them
warm"
For the next day would be Christ
mas, and being, for the time, faithless,
she felt sure that no Christmas cheer
awaited them-nothing, indeed, but
privation and misery. The hours
passed, the children's voices were
hushed in sleep, and she could no long
er watch the storm, but she knew by
the light patter against the window.
with now and then a fierce fling Of the
sleety snow, that it was still raging.
and she sat in silence and darkness
t~hinking--not Of some plan to work out
of the difficulty they were in, for it
seemed to her that every outlet was
closed-but of the past, when she and
her little ones had been surrounded by
comforts and blessed and protected by
the love and care Of the husband and
father, who had died and left them four
years before.
Suddenly there came to her ears
p~laintive cries and a noise at the door.
Martha Dean hastened to light hel
lamp.
"Whateyer it is that wants to come
in out of+such a storm, it shall come
she thought. II can at least give shell
ter t. any creature that is without, be
It beast or human" And she FASTENED
to throw open the door.
A little child stood there, covered
with snow, it's face uplifted in anxiou.
inquiry, it, breath coming in quicl
gasps.
Not a p~oor-looking child in thir
clothing, with a pinched face, as one
might expect to see out upon such .
night, but a child weighted down will
rich, cumbersome wraps, with a fact
round and rosy and beautiful.
Fearlessly she stepped inside, ant
in SO doing disclosed the one faul
in her dress which had rendered he.
short exposure to the storm danger
Gus and uncomfortable. Her fee
we're clad in light slippera and il