Just in time for Valentine’s Day, this charming short story chronicles a young couple’s journey of true love and abiding faith.
Click on the book cover to begin reading Isabella Alden’s 1885 short story, “Memory’s Picture Gallery.”
You can find more Isabella Alden free reads by clicking on the Free Reads tab above.
When Claire Benedict sprains her ankle while walking in the snow in Interrupted, she is immediately rescued by handsome, wealthy Louis Ansted. He scoops her up in his arms and carries her to the nearby Ansted mansion, where the family takes her in and befriends her while her injury heals. Claire takes advantage of her sojourn in the Ansted home to encourage the family to attend the village church and get involved in the community.
While most of the Ansted family politely tolerates Claire’s penchant for charitable works, Louis is intrigued; and when her ankle has healed, he personally assists her into the sleigh to be taken home … and asks permission to call on her in a few days’ time.
Later in the book, after Claire and the Ansteds finish a day of work at the village church, they prepare to leave amid a snow storm. Louis asks Claire if he can drive her home in his sleigh … an invitation she declines because she has already arranged for another young man to walk her home:
“Bud,” she said, “are you going to see me home through this snow-storm? Or must you make haste up the hill?”
It gave her a feeling of pain to see the sudden blaze of light on his dark, swarthy face. What a neglected, friendless life he must have led, that a kind word or two could have such power over him!
“Me!” he said. “Do you mean it? I’d like to carry your books and things, and I could take the broom and sweep along before you. Might I go? Oh, I haven’t got to hurry. My work is all done.”
She laughed lightly. What a picture it would be for Dora, could she see her plunging through the freshly-fallen snow, Bud at her side, or a step ahead, with a broom!
“I don’t need the broom,” she said. “It has not snowed enough for that; and I am prepared, if it has. See my boots? I like the snow. You may carry my books, please, and we will have a nice walk and talk. The girls are all ready now, I think. You put out the lamps, and I will wait for you at the door.”
Out in the beautiful, snowy world, just as Bud’s key clicked in the lock, Louis Ansted came up to Claire.
“Miss Benedict, let me take you home in the sleigh. I am sorry to have kept you waiting a moment; but my blundering driver had something wrong about the harness, and the horses were fractious. They are composed enough now, and Alice is in the sleigh. Let me assist you out to it, please.”
If it had been moonlight, he might have seen the mischievous sparkle in Claire’s eyes. It was so amusing to be engaged to Bud, while his master held out his hands for her books, as a matter of course, and poor Bud stood aside, desolate and miserable. Evidently he expected nothing else but to be left.
Claire’s voice rang out clear, purposely to reach Bud’s ear:
“Oh, no, thank you, Mr. Ansted! I am fond of walking. I don’t mind the snow in the least, and I have promised myself the pleasure of a walk through it with Bud. Thank you!” as he still urged. “My ankle is quite well again, and I have had no exercise today; I really want the walk. We thank you very much for your help this evening, Mr. Ansted. Good-night! Are you ready, Bud?”
And they trudged away, leaving the discomfited gentleman standing beside his pawing horses.
The next day, Claire stands at the window of her room at the Academy and “watched the sleighs fly past,” wondering if she had missed an opportunity to witness to Louis the night before.
Throughout the story, Claire looks for opportunities to make a difference in her community and in the lives of the people she meets. 
For Claire, even a simple sleigh ride is a chance to encourage a soul for Christ or engage a new worker in the Master’s service.
In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, there were very few trusted commercial medicines to alleviate cold symptoms. People often relied on folk remedies and home-made treatments to cure a variety of illnesses and injuries.
A scene in Jessie Wells illustrates the point. Jessie and her best friend, Mate are sitting outside on the porch one evening when Jessie’s father comes home from work.
Dr. Wells came up the walk at this moment, and the two girls arose to give him passage.
“You are two very sensible young ladies, staying out in all this dew, with your thin dresses,” he said, as he passed them. “Tomorrow you’ll be taking molasses and ginger by the quart.”
“No, indeed, Doctor,” laughed Mate,” I never take any horrid doses like that.”
Horrid doses indeed! The molasses and ginger cure for a sore throat was fairly common, and it sounds like Dr. Wells believed in its curative powers. In actual fact, the ginger tended to suppress coughing and the molasses soothed the throat.
Another home remedy for colds was a mixture of molasses and a few drops of kerosene in a glass of water. As questionable this home cure may sound, it was one of the few cold remedies that didn’t contain alcohol.
Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management (the 1861 authority on running the home) suggested an “infallible” cure for a cold, which included rum in its ingredients:
Put a large teacupful of linseed, with 1/4 lb. of sun raisins and 2 oz. of stick liquorice, into 2 quarts of soft water, and let it simmer over a slow fire till reduced to one quart. Add to it 1/4 lb of pounded sugar-candy, a tablespoonful of old rum, and a tablespoonful of the best white-wine vinegar or lemon-juice.
.Commercial medicines also included alcohol. Bitgood’s Original Compound Vegetable Syrup boasted it could cure the common cold, as well as a host of other ailments. The manufacturer was one of the few who revealed that their product contained alcohol, although the ad doesn’t state how much alcohol was actually in the mixture.
The majority of commercial medicines did not disclose the alcohol content in their products.
This lovely trade card advertises a ginger cure that sounds just like the kind mothers everywhere mixed up with molasses in their kitchens. The product description on the back of the card touts the benefits of the medicine, but doesn’t list the actual ingredients.
Too bad; because, in actual fact, Parker’s Ginger Tonic was 41.6% alcohol—more potent than 80 proof whiskey! Compare that to the average alcoholic content of today’s beer (5% alcohol) and wine (approximately 12% alcohol).
It was the rule, rather than the exception, that consumers had no idea that they were dosing family members with alcoholic products; and since many alcohol-laden medicines of the time were specifically marketed to children, mothers often unwittingly gave their little ones rum and whiskey.
Little wonder, then, that Isabella Alden often wrote about the dangers of alcohol consumption. At the time her books were written, people usually didn’t know they were consuming alcohol and often didn’t recognize their growing dependence until it was potentially too late.
One reason why our friends are not converted is because we, their leaders, walk so crookedly that we keep them all the time stumbling over us.
—Household Puzzles
When a sensible person had made a misstep, the thing for him is to undo as much of the mischief as he can; as quickly as he can. It is the only way he has of showing the difference between himself and a fool.
—Eighty-Seven
Of course you cannot help these bitter feelings; do you suppose He expects you to do so? If you could make your heart right yourself, where would be the need of His help?
—Eighty-Seven
I know I love the Lord, and I know that He will not destroy me, for I have in my heart the assurance of His promise.
Doris Farrand’s Vocation is now available on Amazon!
How can two walk together except they be agreed?
College student Doris Farrand has her life all planned: She’ll earn her living as a schoolteacher until her boyfriend Richard graduates from seminary school as an ordained minister; then they’ll be married. Their future is so well planned, nothing can go wrong … until Doris receives news that turns her life upside down. Suddenly, she and Richard can’t agree on anything, including the future she once thought was set in stone. The only person who understands Doris’s predicament is fellow student Garrett Randall. As Garrett’s acquaintance with Doris turns to friendship, and she relies more and more on his wise Christian counsel, Doris realizes she has an important choice to make about her future and about the man she will marry.
This edition includes discussion questions, a biography of the author, and an introduction to Isabella Alden’s books by Christian author Jenny Berlin.
Click on the cover to read the first two chapters of Doris Farrand’s Vocation.
Isabella’s books contain some words and terms that are no longer in use. One word she regularly used in her books is chirk. For example:
“I’m as chirk as can be,” says Garrett Randall in Doris Farrand’s Vocation.
In Lost on the Trail, Dr. Evarts visits a sick student to “chirk Templeton up a little.”
And in Overruled, Mrs. Bramlett has a long talk with Marjorie and declares, “I feel quite chirked up; it does beat all how you manage to comfort a body!”
In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, chirk was an informal word for cheer and was mostly commonly followed by the word, up.
I have often looked forward to an evening gathering with eager interest and thankfulness, because of the opportunity for meeting some there whom I could not catch elsewhere and saying a word for my Master.
—from The Chautauqua Girls at Home
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Isabella Alden 