Читать книгу The Library of Work and Play: Housekeeping - Elizabeth Hale Gilman - Страница 10

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Have you heard stories about Saint Francis of Assisi? There are a great many, and people like to hear them over and over again. For, though Saint Francis lived most of his life in a little, faraway, country town in Italy, called Assisi, and though he died hundreds of years ago, yet every year many people go to see the place where he lived, and the church where he is buried, and many people in countries far away from Italy love him as well as they do their friends whom they can see and talk to.

One of the stories about St. Francis tells of a flock of birds that came to listen to a sermon he preached to them, and another is about a wolf whom he persuaded not to hurt people any more. The reason he could do these things, and the reason people who have never seen him love him very dearly is because he loved everything and everybody in the world, and God and our Lord Jesus more than all.

No one was so dirty, or so sick, that he did not want to take care of him; no one was so cross, or so cruel, that he did not want to be kind to him.

Every day he went about helping poor people, and sick people, and troubled people; and he taught them all to be sorry for the wrong things they had done, and to sing songs of joy because God loved them.

After a little, a good many men began to help him do this. They gave everything they had to the poor, and never after that kept any money. They worked every day to get a little food, and the rest of the time they spent in helping and teaching people. St. Francis called them his "Little Brothers," not because they were small or young, but because he taught them to think themselves of no importance, and to think, if anybody scolded them or hurt them, that they deserved it and more too.

One of these Little Brothers was named Brother Juniper. He was always thinking of ways to help people. One day, all the Brothers went out to work, and left Brother Juniper to take care of the little hut where they lived, and to get some food for them. When he set about this he began to think of the Brothers who usually did the cooking, and how much time they had to spend every day getting food ready for the others to eat. To be sure, they had but one good meal a day, yet even so the cooking of it took time the Brothers might otherwise have used for prayer, or tending the sick, or some other good work.

As Brother Juniper was thinking of this, a plan popped into his head which made him very glad. He took two big baskets, and went off happily to several farmhouses in the neighbourhood, where the people were fond of the Little Brothers and liked to give them anything they needed. That day they gave Brother Juniper chickens and eggs and meat and salad and all sorts of vegetables, and they lent him some big iron pots. He took the baskets home heavy with food, and he came back and took the pots home. Then he made a big fire, and all the time he was happy and sang to himself, because he thought, "I will work hard to-day, and cook all this food, and then the Brothers won't have to think about cooking for a week or more." He hung the pots over the fire, and put into them all the food he had gathered without so much as taking the feathers off the chickens or the shells off the eggs, or stopping to see whether the vegetables were all just fit to eat or not. Then he filled the pots with water, and before long they began to boil. The fire was furiously hot. Brother Juniper could not get near enough to it to stir the pots. When he found this out, he took a board and tied it fast to himself, and, with that for a shield, he leaped to a pot and stirred it, and then leaped away again to cool himself; then he dashed at another and stirred that, and so on.

By and by, the Brothers came back, and the Brother Guardian with them, and they all sat down to dinner. Brother Juniper poured out some of the stew from his pots and brought it to the table. He was hot and tired, but delighted, and he told the others what he had done, and that they need not do any more cooking for a long time. The Brothers looked at him, and looked at the stew, and looked at each other, but not a mouthful could they eat. Brother Juniper urged them to begin, and when they did not, wondered what could be the matter. He was not left long in doubt, for the Brother Guardian told him that the dinner was not fit for a pig to eat, and scolded him well for wasting so much good food.

Brother Juniper listened and the gladness died out of him. He went and knelt at the Brother Guardian's feet and confessed his fault, and begged to be forgiven for wasting the Brothers' food, and for getting them a dinner they could not eat. Then he went away by himself, and the rest of that day and all the next, he neither ate nor spoke, nor ventured to come near any of the Brothers, because he was so sorry for his wastefulness and stupidity.

But the Brothers and the Brother Guardian thought they would be willing to know as little about cooking as Brother Juniper if they could be like him in some other ways.