Katharine's Yesterday Read Online Free PDF

if they could be given a chance, perhaps, ’twould give you a hold on ’em, an’ then the way o’ the Lord would open wide enough, an’ you would find the harvest in your corner of the vineyard bigger than you could tend to all by yourself, and you’d have to call in someone to help you. But I must be a-goin’ now; I’ve got warm. You jus’ try that game, Miss Katharine , an’ see ef it don’t make good bait. Good-mornin’.”
    Katharine was astonished over those part of the conversation. It had not occurred to her as possible that she could work by means of her pleasures. She had sorrowfully packed her rackets away in flannel only a day or two before, thinking that she should have no more tennis until the next summer. Hers was the only tennis court in the village, and she was the only one of the young people living there who played or understood the game at all. Now a new thought had come to her. Perhaps she might make her tennis help. She was very quiet at the breakfast table, thinking about it, but coming to no conclusion until she heard her brother say, “It’s dreadfully boring nowadays. I wish there was a circus or a county fair or a baseball game to see, or something going on”; and he yawned and scowled, and looked out of the window in a hopelessly dreary way.
    A thought came to Katharine. She waited a minute, considering it before she spoke, and then said, “John, suppose you come up this afternoon about half-past three, and play tennis with me.”
    It was said in a pleasant tone, and there was actually a smile on Katharine’s face. John looked at her with amazement a moment, and then decided to take it all as a joke, and replied in a gruff tone, “I can’t play tennis.”
    “Well, it’s very easy to learn. I think I can teach you in a little while so that you can beat me. Boys always play better than girls after they get a start,” said Katharine pleasantly.
    “Do you mean it, really?” said John, looking pleased, and beginning to take an interest. “I always thought I’d like to play, but never could get a chance to get the hang of the thing when there wasn’t anyone around watching. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself, and none of them seemed to want me, anyway; so I kept out of the way.”
    It was strange what an effect this had upon Katharine. She felt ashamed and glad and sorry, all in one. To think that her brother had wanted to join in her pleasure, and had been kept out partly by herself! Perhaps he might have been as good a player as anyone, and have learned many things from associations with the others. She was gleeful, too, to think that the “bait” , as Andy had called it, had taken so well at the start. She resolved to do her best toward making her brother John love tennis as well as she did.
    “But I haven’t any racket,” said John, a dismayed look coming over his face, as he suddenly thought of a new objection. But then he smiled.
    “Oh, yes! There’s one. Cousin Hetty left hers. She said it wasn’t of any use to take it home, because she wouldn’t be where she could play all the fall, and she expected to be back here early in the spring. She said I could use it whenever I wanted to.”
    Katharine went about her work after breakfast with a lighter heart than she had carried since her friends left. There was something very pleasant in anticipating a game of tennis, considering that she had not played for nearly a week, and that she had not played for nearly a week, and that she had supposed that pleasure over for the summer. Then it was interesting to try to teach her brother. But beneath it all was a joy which she had scarcely begun to understand yet - the joy of doing work of Christ.

The Bait

    The game of tennis was quite successful. John proved an apt scholar, and before long could hit the ball in a very commendable manner. Then, too, he gained a new respect for his sister when he found she could strike and place a ball so that he could not reach it. He