An Instrument in His Hands

Part 1 Chapter 5

Part 1

Chapter 5

The next day a nurse, a cook, and a cleaning woman promptly entered our home to work. I determined to learn all I could from them. Never, ever, did I want to be so helpless and utterly uneducated as I had found myself to be the night previous when Aaron laughed at me.I wanted to be capable of taking care of our home myself when the servants left, as they surely would someday.

Their first day, I followed the cleaning woman and begged her to show me how to use a broom, make a new broom, and how to boil water to wash our filthy robes. She allowed me to scrub down the stone walls and to empty and clean the chamber pots into the gutter outside. By the end of the day my hands were raw and bleeding, and I had urine spilled on my hem.

For the next few days I followed the cook about and begged her to teach me to boil beans, grind corn meal, crack an egg, or skin a rabbit. She allowed me to scrub the pots and pans until they gleamed, and to dispose of the ashes from the cook fire.  But she also showed me how to rub bear grease on my skin to protect it from hard work.

By the fourth day of their service, I suspected that they did not want my help. It was not part of their job description to teach and train the spoiled daughter of the house. They purposely gave me humbling and discouraging jobs. But if I had known how to do the tasks that they did, we would not be in the predicament that we were in! I could have taken care of our home, or gotten work taking care of others. I would have to do so in the future if we could not pay all Andrew’s debts. I had to learn from these women! I could not give up!

How I wished that I had learned from our servants through the years! But Mother never taught me to. I spent my time perfecting the skills that I learned in school, and let our servants cook and clean and mend. How did those amazing women keep our house and then go home and keep their own? Perhaps if I watched all that they now did, and helped where allowed to do so, I could learn to keep just one house. I prayed hard that I could.

By the fifth day, the nurse was dismissed and my father went back to his work. Mother arose from her sickbed, put on her robes and styled her hair.

‘That darling boy!’ she cooed and clasped her heart. ‘To think that he arranged for all this help and food by himself. I hope he comes to visit soon so that we may thank him properly.’

I stopped polishing a candlestick. ‘Mother, did Aaron give Father a reason for Aaron’s generosity?’

‘Abigail, his father is the king. He can afford generosity.’

‘It may be nothing to him, but to us…‘ Mother did not know that I had visited the garbage dump to find food for her and Father. But I could never forget those days of worry and poverty. They left a profound mark on me. I saw now that much of what we suffered was our own fault, our own pride, and I would never again allow people to wait on me while I was indifferent to it. I would forevermore take care of my own self, no matter what my mother said.

I had blamed the sons of the king, but in reality much of the situation we were in was of my own making. I would not repeat my mistake.

Mother sat in a chair and I brought her food to eat.

‘I think that Aaron is very handsome,’ she confided to me. ‘He will make a fine king.’

‘Mmmm…’ I mumbled.

‘Don’t you think so, Abigail?’ she mused as she nibbled daintily on a carrot.

‘I didn’t notice.’ All I noticed was the burnt rabbit! Aaron had enough attention in his life without needing more of it from me. That much attention wasn’t healthy for anyone.