Archie Fell

“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”

Miss Cox had found a destitute family down by the Mills, and enlisted the girls of her Sabbath School class to provide suitable clothing, in which the children could come to church.

They were to meet at her house Saturday afternoon to sew, having, the Sabbath before, brought what money they could to purchase material. Bell Forbush had given a whole dollar, while poor Sarah Ellis shook her head sorrowfully when asked for her mite.

“But you will come and sew, and that will do just as well,” said Miss Cox, putting down twenty-five cents for Sue Sherman. “I gave every bit of my pocket-money,” whispered Bell to Sue; “but, you see, Cousin Mate will give me some more if I just ask her; for, don’t you think, she’s going to stay all summer, and she has such lots of money she’s always giving me some.”

Sue was more than half inclined to envy Bell this stroke of good luck in the shape of a rich cousin. She quite envied her the next Saturday afternoon. It sounded so grand for Bell to say whenever anything was found to be lacking, “O Miss Cox! I will give that. I’ll run right over to the store this minute.”

Buttons, trimmings, handkerchiefs, hair-ribbons, even,—“I had no idea we should make out such complete outfits, and so pretty,” said Miss Cox, “and we shouldn’t but for you, Bell.”

“Bell will certainly become bankrupt if she keeps on,” said Jenny King.

“Not while she has a rich cousin to go to,” said Nettie Rand, in her provoking way.

Bell colored, but had the readiness to say frankly, “that’s the secret of it. Cousin Mate wants me to be benevolent, and has promised to find all the money I need.”

“Great way of being benevolent, that is!” said Nettie, tossing her head.

“It’s doing good just the same,” rejoined Sue, standing up for her friend, “only it must be real nice and easy to know whatever you want is to be had just for the asking.”

Say Ellis looked up with a bright smile, but she said nothing.

“We are very much obliged to Miss Marvin and to Bell too,” remarked Miss Cox, basting away on the last little sacque. “The younger ones are all provided for now, but there’s an older girl. I can’t even get a chance to speak to her yet; folks say she’s a wild, high-flyer of a thing, with an ugly temper, and that she uses dreadful language. I don’t know as we can do anything—”

“Oh! that Tryphosa Harte,” interrupted Nettie. “She’s perfectly horrid. It’s that girl who stood on the steps and mimicked us, the other night, Bell.”

“She’s just about your size, isn’t she?” resumed Miss Cox; “and I was thinking, if each of you should give her something of your own,—things you had done wearing of course, but tasty and like other people’s, dress her up real pretty, you know,—and all take some sort of interest in her, we might get her into Sabbath School and help her be somebody. They say she’s uncommonly smart.”

“But, Miss Cox, she makes all manner of fun of anything good. I’ll ask mother to give her my last summer’s sacque, but I shouldn’t dare speak to her,” exclaimed Sue.

“I could give her one of my cambric dresses and I dare say Cousin Mate would get her a hat, but she’s so disagreeable I never want to go near her,” said Bell.

“It wouldn’t be a bit of use, I know,” put in Nettie Rand. “She’d only laugh in our faces the minute we said Sabbath School to her; and I think it’s hard work enough to ask folks to be good when they treat you decent. I dare say father would give her a pair of shoes, but they’d never walk into church, I’m sure of that.”

“I should call it casting pearls before swine,” laughed Jenny King. “Please, Miss Cox, don’t set us to driving any but little pigs into Sabbath School: you can coax round them easy, but that Tryphosa Harte,—it would take the meekness of Moses to begin with, and the patience of Job to hold out. I know meekness and patience and perseverance are nice things to have, but, you see, none of us has a rich cousin to keep us supplied with that sort of pocket-money.”

Again Say Ellis looked up, with a flash of sunshine in her mild, blue eyes, and this time she spoke:—

“I’d like—to try, Miss Cox. I never spoke to her but once, and then she threw mud at me, but I could—try; and I’d like—to give something. Would a pair of stockings—”

“Yes, indeed; she’ll need everything, I suppose,” said Miss Cox warmly. “If you would try, Sarah dear. I have an idea one of you would succeed much better than I.”

“Whatever did you offer for?” asked Jenny King, as she and Sarah walked home together. “It will be just a waste of kindness.”

“But if there’s plenty more to be had, we needn’t mind,” said Say, smiling.

Jenny stared, and then said slowly, “But I do mind having a dirty, ragged thing like that turn up her nose at me. You just try how it feels a few times, and—”

“But don’t you know—I was thinking—I’m sure it’s something like,” stammered Say.

“What are you getting at?” laughed Jenny good-naturedly, as they stopped before the gate of the small cottage where Sarah lived.

“Why, you said we hadn’t any rich cousin to give us patience and meekness, and I thought, wasn’t God a great deal better, because, you know, it was in our Sabbath School lesson,—Whatsoever we ask, He can give it to us. Only think,—whatsoever!”

“Yes, but I never thought of taking it so, really.”

“I thought of it when Sue said it must be nice to know we could have anything we wanted. You see, I couldn’t give any money, because mother has to work so hard, and I wondered supposing I had and asked God to make it up, if he would. And when it came to doing something, I was sure he’d help if we all prayed. I wanted to ask the girls to, but I didn’t quite dare.”

“Isn’t it queer,” said Jenny thoughtfully, “how afraid we are to talk about such things to each other? Now, we asked Bell to ask her cousin for a dozen things, and it isn’t so very different asking God, only that he’s so great.”

“Which makes it so much the better, and he has—different things, you know, patience, and love.”

“Oh dear! it’s such hard work to use those things, I’m afraid I don’t want them much,” sighed Jenny; “but I’ll pray about Tryphosa. I begin to pity her more already.”

“Going to give away your stockings!” exclaimed Tilly Ellis, Sarah’s little sister, that night, as the latter was looking over her one small drawer of underclothing. Neat, and whole, and enough, but very little to spare: that told the whole story at the Ellis’s.

“Yes, Tilly; you know God wants us to do good, and he’s promised to give us everything we need, and I think he’ll show me how I can earn some more. I’m going to try it anyway, because if I didn’t give her something, she wouldn’t know I really wanted to help her.”

Tilly was too sleepy to ask who “her” was; and the next thing either of them knew, it was the Sabbath morning, and the birds were holding a praise-meeting under their chamber-window.

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II.
TRYPHOSA.

“Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”

All Say’s attempts the next week to make Miss Tryphosa’s acquaintance were unsuccessful. Once a small boy directed her to the wrong street; once a drunken man reeled against her on the narrow side-walk, and frightened her back; another time, the door was locked. At last, however, she gained admittance, having been vociferously welcomed at the gate by all the younger children. Mrs. Harte set her a chair, remarked, “Tryphosy was som’eres round,” and went back to her wash-tub. Say did her best with “the weather,” the “health of the family,” and “the hard times.” “Yes” and “No” was all the help she had. The room was hot and close with steam from the “suds,” the stove smoked, the children fingered her from top to toe, and after waiting nearly an hour she was glad to make her escape.

“Call again. See you any time!” sounded from somewhere in mid-air as she went down the rickety steps. She looked up, and from amongst the woodbine which ran all over the roof of the old house recognized the face she was in pursuit of.

“Oh, please, are you Tryphosa? Do come down! I want to see you very much,” she said earnestly.

“Catch a weasel asleep!” “Does your mother know you’re out?” “Ain’t we fine!” and then followed a string of oaths which made poor Say cover her ears and hurry home as fast as she could.

She had no idea of giving it up, however.

In one corner of the yard, right amongst the thistles and bitter weeds, she had noticed a little patch of fresh earth, where had been set a bunch of columbine, two tiger-lilies, a scraggly rose-bush, and one bright, pert, little pansy. On the Sabbath she asked the children whose it was.

“Oh! that Phosy’s,” they said. “She thinks a sight of that garding. Wasn’t she hoppin’ mad last night, ’cause pa pulled up the holly-hocks Bill Finnegan had just bringed her!” Bill worked at the Squire’s, where they “had posies as was posies.”

Early Monday morning Say took up her one pet scarlet geranium. There were half a dozen others, but none so full of buds, none she had so closely watched from the first slipping. She didn’t even wait to eat her breakfast, for fear of missing Tryphosa.

“Here, let alone! What you after now?” called out the same coarse voice, from up in the woodbine, as Say stooped over the forlorn little flower-bed, transplanting her geranium.

“I’ve brought something for you. Come and see if you like it,” said Say, without raising her eyes.

A rumble, tumble, thump,—and the weird, wicked-looking face was thrust close to her own. “What’d you bring it for?”

“Because it was so pretty I wanted you to have it,” returned Say, pressing the earth firmly around the roots.

“Don’t tell me! You’ve got an axe to grind,” said the girl, a smile lurking around the full, red lips and dull, dark eyes in spite of her frown.

“No, I haven’t; that is, I do want something, but it’s something you’ll like. We thought—we want ever so much that you should come to Sabbath School.”

“I’d look well, wouldn’t I?” and Tryphosa, who had leaned over to finger the bright, scarlet blossoms, straightened herself, and glanced down defiantly at her ragged dress and bare feet.

“No, we’ve some real nice clothes, our very own; you’re just as big as we, and if you’ll come——”

“Well, I ain’t a going to. ‘Betty, put the kettle on,’” and away went Tryphosa, to reappear in a moment on the roof among the woodbine, where she sang and shouted till Say had turned the farthest corner.

Say went to bed that night utterly discouraged, but the next morning she was bright and hopeful as ever. Was it because she so earnestly asked the Father to give her, out of his abundance, more patience and perseverance?

Wednesday night, slipping one of her two pairs of pretty striped balmorals into her pocket, she started slowly towards the mills again, dreading the interview in spite of herself, and passing and repassing the rickety old steps several times before she could make up her mind what to say first.

“Want to see how it’s growed?” and Tryphosa suddenly bounced out of the door, bringing up on the grass beside her flower-bed. “It’s just jolly! but I don’t believe yer care any great shakes about my going to that there place.”

“Oh! but I do, really; we want you to come very much, Miss Cox and all; and we have such nice times, and we sing,” said Sarah, stepping inside the gate.

“Well, fetch on yer clothes an’ I’ll see.”

“Oh! but couldn’t you come to my house Sunday morning? Miss Cox thought—”

“Oh, ho! ye ain’t going to give me the duds, only fix a fellow up for the show. Much obleeged, but that don’t go down, not by a jugful!”

“No, oh! no,” began Say earnestly; “but wouldn’t you rather come to my house and let me braid your hair just like mine, you know, and have mother fix in a ruffle and—and a ribbon?”

Something kept suggesting just the right thing to our Say.

“And see here,” she added, pulling out the balmorals, striped brown and gray with just a thread of scarlet, “I’ve brought these because I thought you’d like to be sure. They’re for your very own, and I’ll bring the shoes to-morrow.”

The dull eyes fairly glistened and the rough, tanned cheeks dimpled under the frowning eye-brows. “Well, hand ’em over. I’ll be there. No, come to think, I was going after blackberries Sunday. You’ll have to wait a week, unless,” and the eyes snapped maliciously, “you could come to the factory and help awhile Saturday afternoon, so’s I could get out earlier.”

The dirty old factory! But Say hesitated only a moment. “Yes, I’ll do that if you’ll promise sure.”

“Sure it is!” and Tryphosa held out a dirty brown hand; “but you don’t mean it; you’re only foolin’.”

Say’s mother might have to sew very hard for a living, but it was very different from taking in washing and having a drunken husband to worse than waste the greater part of his own and the others’ earnings. Say was very different from the factory girls. Phosy could see that.

“But I do mean it,” said Say, shaking the soiled hand so heartily Tryphosa actually grinned with delight. There was a whole suit ready Saturday night. Miss Cox attended to that, and Say was on hand in the afternoon. The girls said it was a shame and pitied her dreadfully, but never once thought of offering to go with her to the “horrid old mill.” And oh, how hateful Tryphosa was! She introduced Say to the mill-girls as “Sister Sainty,” kept them in a roar over her probable exploits in the Sabbath-School line, and held Say in suspense with a dread of impossible accidents.

But she made her appearance, bright and early, Sabbath morning, comparatively quite docile, submitted to be washed, shampooed, braided, and ruffled, with a most martyr-like air, and came out from the process not so very unlike the five other girls, among whom Say seated her, with such a happy look in her own blue eyes. Just to see her sitting there more than repaid the trouble.

“The faith that conquers,” said Miss Marvin, watching the two go away from Sabbath School together, “is the faith that goes right to work, and keeps at it.”

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III.
PLAYING “INJUNS.”

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

“We’re playing Injuns; that’s what ’tis,” said Tod, as his mother opened the shed door and stepped back, exclaiming, “Well, what now?”

Jackson, the gardener, had been painting brick-work, trellises, vases, etc., and put away his materials, red, white, and green paint, with the brushes, on the lower shelf of the tool-room, opening out of the shed. Tod and Maybee had discovered the treasures, and with the help of an old feather duster had transformed themselves into quite respectable savages.

“It’ll come off easy,” said Tod, pulling out the feathers and rubbing his hand over both cheeks, blending the different colors into one neutral tint, around which his yellow hair stood out like an aureola.

“Was there ever such children!” sighed Mamma Smith despairingly. “There’s no washing it off. Do come here, Dolly, and see what can be done.”

“Oh laws! jest let me have some sperits of turpentine,” said faithful Dolly, who had reigned in the Smith kitchen years before Tod was born. “I’ll go get some of Jackson, and do you childern jest run round to the kitchen. We’ll hev it fixed in no time.”

“I sha’n’t have any spurtuntine on my face,” said Maybee decidedly, as Dolly disappeared in search of Jackson. “What’s water for, I’d like to know, if ’tisn’t to wash in,—soap an’ water, that’s what my mamma uses. I don’t think Dolly knows.”

“My guesses her does,” returned Tod, looking ruefully at each little red and green finger, “but—it’s being scwubbed; my’d rather scwub his own self.”

“She won’t spurtuntine me,” repeated Maybee, slowly following Tod, who, to his honor be it told, never thought of going anywhere but straight to the kitchen. “What makes you let her?”

“’Cause my mamma say her must, an’ my doesn’t want to be a forever ’n ’never Injun, does my?”

“I’d just lieves,” rejoined Maybee sullenly. “We hadn’t played scalp ’em, nor had a pow-wow, nor nothing. It’s real mean they found us so quick.”

“Only—p’raps ’twould a dried on,” said Tod, looking doubtfully at Maybee’s tattooed cheeks and feeling of his own.

“Hurry along!” called Dolly, from the back door. “I can’t fool round all the morning; and besides, I was jest going to fry some crullers, an’ you know what kind of boys ’tis gets hot crullers to eat; ’tain’t red and black ones now.”

That helped Tod wonderfully. He marched in like a Trojan, and manfully stood all the rubbing and rinsing, with only a faint little squeal whenever nose or ears threatened to come quite off. Maybee curled up in a chair, her black eyes shining defiantly from out the red and green rings.

“’Twasn’t so very bad, was it, Bub?” said Dolly, with a final sweep of her softest towel, “and you’re as sweet and clean as a posy, letting alone the turpentine smell. Now, lemme give my crullers a stir, an’ we’ll look after you, Miss Maybee.”

“Guess I can look after my own self,” muttered Maybee, slipping over to the sink in Dolly’s absence, and seizing a cake of yellow soap. Two or three whisks of the soapy hands over her face, and the black eyes shone out from the mottled ground-work like stars in a cloudy sky.

“Oh, my gracious!” said Dolly, reappearing. “Now you’ve been and done it! Didn’t you know ev’ry such thing only makes it wuss an’ wuss? You couldn’t never git it off, yourself, try as long as you live. Come, I sha’n’t hurt skersely any.”

“Feels good now,” said Tod encouragingly.

“’Tain’t more’n half off, much,” rejoined Maybee, who, like all uncomfortable people wanted to make somebody else uncomfortable.

“Yes, ’tis,” affirmed Tod, feeling his face over.

“You don’t know; you haven’t looked in the glass,” pouted Maybee.

“Yes, my does, ’cause her said her’d get it off, an’ her never tells lies,” answered Tod triumphantly.

“To be sure,” said Dolly, giving Tod a hug. “Come, now, it’s just as easy.”

“I sha’n’t!” persisted Maybee, backing into the farthest corner. “I won’t be washed, so there!”

“Oh well, jest as you please,” said Dolly, gathering up her towels. “If you’d rather look like a wild Injun, I don’t know as anybody cares. Remember, it’s your own fault, that’s all.”

Now Dolly had forgotten and the children knew nothing about Tryphosa Harte, sitting just inside the dining-room door. Tryphosa had come for the clothes; her mother did Mrs. Smith’s washing, and she was waiting for the bundle to be made ready. She had never come for the clothes till since she began to go to Sabbath School. She liked, now, to meet the girls of her class on the street, to get a pleasant “Good morning” from Miss Cox or Miss Marvin, as she passed, and above all to have Say Ellis run out, as she was sure to do, and walk a little ways down the lane with her. By working extra at noon she could get the half hour for her errand, and it was a great help to her mother. Tryphosa never used to think of that, but she thought of a great many new things now-a-days. Yesterday Miss Marvin heard the Sabbath School class, and in her plain, simple way had told them how sin blackened and stained the heart, and how only the blood of Jesus could make it clean again; that nothing they could do for themselves would whiten it the least bit: they were simply to ask God, and he would make it “white as snow.” But people didn’t want to be clean, she said, or else they wanted to be cleansed their own way, although God’s way was so simple. It was so very strange everybody didn’t want God for their friend and heaven for their home.

Hearing or caring about God or heaven was all new to Phosy, but she thought she could love Miss Marvin’s God; she didn’t feel afraid, as she did when Miss Cox talked about him. She would like such a friend; she would much rather have her heart sweet and clean, like the clover-fields, than like the filthy, dirty streets down by the mills; but she couldn’t understand the “how”—the three steps Miss Marvin called it,—wanting, asking, believing. Listening to the talk out in the kitchen that morning, somehow it grew wonderfully plain. Wasn’t it something like? Maybee didn’t want to be clean, or rather she wanted to be washed her own way; and how foolish she was! Tod had trusted himself to Dolly, and his round rosy, happy face told he had not been deceived.

Up in the little attic chamber of the old house, in the few minutes saved from her scanty nooning, Phosy kneeled down, and with a whole heartful of longing, said, “Dear Father in heaven, wash me, for I want to be clean, an’ nobody else can make me.” Then she went away to the noisy factory, happier than she ever remembered of being before.

“What’s come over Phosy Harte?” said one and another of the girls as the days went by. “She don’t swear more’n half as much, and she goes purring round, spry and happy as a kitten.”

They didn’t know, they wouldn’t have understood if they had, the “new life” that had come to Phosy. They could only see what it was doing for hand and eye and tongue. She might not always be as happy. There were all those dreadful habits to be fought with and conquered; but a great God had promised to help her,—one whose word never fails, and who had laid up for her “white robes” and a “crown,”—for all those, indeed, who are “washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb,” not for sin-blackened souls who refuse to be made clean.

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IV.
GREEDY BELL AND HONEST BENNIE.

“He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house; but he that hateth gifts shall live.”

“Narrow escape!” said one to another as the crowd separated.

A run-away horse had dashed against the phaeton containing Mrs. Forbush and her niece, upsetting it, and throwing both occupants out. Fortunately their own horse remained perfectly manageable, and a few slight bruises were all the injuries received. Miss Marvin was taken up insensible, but soon recovered.

“Nothing worse than a shock to the nervous system. She will be out in a day or two,” said good old Dr. Helps, who never frightened his patients to death for the sake of a marvellous cure. The next morning Miss Marvin’s purse was discovered to be missing.

“It was in your chatelaine pocket and must have dropped out. Of course, with such a crowd you’ll never see it again; but then, it’s a mercy our necks weren’t broken,” said Mrs. Forbush, consolingly. “I’m going down street, now. Bell will wait on you. Don’t exert yourself at all, remember.”

Just after Mrs. Forbush had gone, there was a ring at the door. Bell peeped out of the window.

“It’s only a boy—a telegram, may be. I’ll run down myself,” she said.

She was back in a moment all out of breath.

“O Cousin Mate! it’s your purse. Bennie Cargill, he found it this morning right where you were upset. Don’t you know you asked Sunday who that boy was up in the gallery, and—”

“Stop a minute, Bell.” Miss Marvin opened her portemonnaie. “It’s all right; the boy hasn’t gone, has he? Run quick and give him this,” taking out a bill, “and ask him to come and see me some day, so I can thank him myself.”

Bell hurried down again, out of doors, into the street.

“Oh, no indeed!” said Bennie, coming back to meet her, and touching his cap politely. “I couldn’t; my mother wouldn’t like me to take anything for doing what I ought.”

“But my cousin sent it to you, and wants you to come and see her some day.”

“I should like to do that ever so much; but not this, please. It would look as if I did it for pay.”

“Well, what if you did?” said Bell, whose finer impulses, I am sorry to own, had been deadened by vanity and selfishness.

“I would rather do it because it’s right and honest,” said the boy simply, at the same time putting both hands behind him as if afraid the longing awakened by the new, crisp bank-note might prove too strong a temptation. “I think she will understand,” and he walked briskly away again.

“I think she’s made a mistake in the bill. Ten dollars,—what an idea! And to think he refused it,” soliloquized Bell, looking even more longingly than Bennie had done at the bank-note. “What a lot of things it would buy! If it was only mine,—and I don’t just see why I needn’t. She’s given it away; of course it can’t make any difference to her who has it now,” and upon that Bell tied the bill into one corner of her pocket-handkerchief, and stuffed the handkerchief into the deepest corner of her pocket.

“Had he gone far? Did you have to run? Why, how red your face is,” said Cousin Mate when Bell reappeared. “Sit down now and tell me all about Bennie. Was he glad of the money? Somehow I fancied from the boy’s face that——but of course all boys like money. Will he be likely to spend it all for nuts and candy? Because in that case I shall wish I had made the amount less.” “I—don’t—think—he—will,” said Bell, busily straightening the bureau-cover. “He—he’s a very nice boy and a splendid scholar. Mr. Blackman wanted him to fit for college, but they’re real poor; they live up-stairs in Mr. Pratt’s house, and Mr. Bowers took him into his store. They say he makes him work real hard. His father’s gone to sea, or something. They aren’t exactly in our set; we never call,” concluded Bell in her grandest manner.

“And it isn’t likely he’ll ever call on me,” said Miss Marvin, smiling, “My imaginary hero proves to be a real flesh-and-blood boy, honest and industrious, and willing to be paid for both,—in money rather than in kindness and sympathy. And so endeth my adventure.”

Bell sincerely hoped so; but as it happened, the next fine day Dr. Helps called for Miss Marvin to ride with him. It also happened that one of the doctor’s patients detained him a long time, and that while Miss Marvin waited, leaning back in his comfortable buggy, Bennie and his mother passed slowly by, talking very earnestly, and never dreaming any ears save those belonging to the doctor’s old horse were within hearing.

“Now, mother, don’t you almost wish,” Bennie was saying, “that I had taken the ten dollars Miss Marvin offered me?”

“No, Bennie; to know my boy was both honest and honorable, doing right without hope of reward, gives me more pleasure than a dozen visits could.”

“But it would be such a nice rest for you, and we haven’t seen Aunt Em for so many years, and it is so pretty up in Derryford in the summer.”

“I know, Bennie, and the trip would do you a great deal of good, but we will try to be patient a little longer. God always gives the means when he sees the end to be best for us.”

That was all Miss Marvin heard.

“I am afraid the shock was more serious than we realized the other day,” remarked the doctor, as he unfastened his horse; “or have I tired you all out keeping you waiting in this hot sun?”

Miss Marvin tried to smile and assure him there was nothing the matter. She couldn’t tell him of the ache way down in her heart to think her little Bell had deceived her again.

And Bell’s mother! Oh, how shocked she was, and astonished and mortified! She couldn’t believe it; and when Bell herself confessed it, and produced the identical bill, it almost broke her heart. Her only daughter guilty of anything so mean and low and wicked!

Did she forget how, in all the years since God gave that daughter to her, she had never prayed beside her pillow, had never talked with her about the all-seeing Eye looking down into our very hearts? that instead she had taught her, by example as well as precept, to consider this world “all and in all”?

When the temptation came, strong and unexpected, what was there to keep the child from yielding? To get is the world’s maxim, to give is God’s. Poor little Bell had learned only the first; she grasped eagerly at what seemed good, and found only sorrow and shame.

“It is so pretty up in Derryford in the summer!” Miss Marvin knew that; she had spent three months there once upon a time, and now she took a fancy to try a few weeks at the old-fashioned farm-house again. But she wanted somebody for company, and a nice boy to drive her around the country. Why weren’t Bennie and his mother the very ones? Bennie was looking pale, and his mother too. Was it true Mrs. Cargill had a sister in that very place? Then her plan was certainly the right one. Miss Marvin certainly made it seem as if she was getting as well as receiving a favor.

“And now,” cried Bennie, when she had called the second time and concluded all the arrangements, “it has come, means and all. So much better than the ten dollars could be!”

“And he answered, Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”

Papa and Mamma Sherman, Uncle Thed and Aunt Sue were going to the beach for a day, and wouldn’t be home until very late. Tod was to stay with Maybee, and Sue had the privilege of asking anybody she pleased for company. Bell was sick, so she chose Jenny King and Say Ellis. Bridget attended to dinner and was then allowed the afternoon out. Getting tea was all the best of it to the children. They put every available piece of silver on the table, even to the coffee-urn; they didn’t feel obliged to eat bread-and-butter for manners, but began and ended with cake and crullers,—Dolly’s crullers, which she had sent over by Tod “with her compliments.” Tod said he guessed that meant the sugar outside, “’cause her didn’t always have it on,”—not a bad definition of compliments in general.

When supper was ready, Tod wanted to say grace as papa did.

“You don’t know how,” said Sue.

“Yes, my does”; and Tod, folding his hands, said very slowly and gravely,—

“O Lord, for pity’s sake. Amen.”

Nobody laughed, he looked so serious; only Sue began, “I told you——”

“Don’t,” whispered Say. “He meant it all right, and I guess God understood.”

While they were eating, a rough-looking man came up to the open door and asked for a drink of water. Tod jumped up at once and handed him his own little silver mug.

“What a nice boy!” said the tramp. “Wouldn’t he give a poor fellow a bit of cake, now?”

Maybee hastened to pass the cake-basket, with all the politeness imaginable.

“My papa’s gone to the beach,” said Tod, trying to be sociable. “Be back pretty soon?” asked the man.

“Not ’fore ten or ’leven. It’s a great long wide; and Bwidget is goned, too.”

“Got any dog?” asked the tramp, emptying the cake-basket, much to Maybee’s discomfiture.

“No; my hasn’t got any dog, ’cept Buff, and her’s a cat. An’ we can’t say ‘Have some more,’ ’cause you’s eat it all up. Guess you forgot my cup; mos’ put it in your pocket, didn’t you? S’pose you must go now. Call again, thank you.”

“Wasn’t he horrid?” said Sue. “I don’t believe you ought to have talked to him at all.”

“Guess my has to be polite; guess my mamma makes me politerest to poor folks,” said Tod.

“How he did look at things! S’pose he thought it was pretty nice,” said Maybee, tossing head very much like Bell Forbush.

“Well, he’s gone, and I’m thankful,” said Sue. “We won’t do the dishes because we might break something, and Bridget ought to be here pretty soon. I’ll lock up the silver in the side-board and keep the key till she comes. Don’t you think, the last time mother let her go, she stayed till the next day; but of course she won’t to-night.”

But ‘of course’ she did. Eight—nine—ten o’clock. The children shut the doors and lighted the lamps. Tod began to look sleepy and the older girls a little anxious. They tried to while away the time telling stories, and of course recalled all the horrible things they had ever heard. Each little heart gave a great thump when a loud rap sounded on the side door.

“It’s only me,” said a whining voice. “You’re such nice children, you’ll let a poor fellow in to stay all night, I know.”

“Why, it’s my man,” said Tod, wide awake. “Course, he’s got to stay somewheres nights.”

“But mother says, never open the door after dark, till we know who’s there. I’ll tell him what mother does,” and raising her voice, Sue called out, “You must go to Miss Pratt’s boarding house on Walnut Street. That’s where folks stay.”

“But we ain’t got any money. Just open the door an’ give us a few cents, can’t ye?”

“We mustn’t open the door,” gasped Jenny, “for don’t you know, when they get in they murder folks and everything.”

Tod gave a howl, and disappeared under the sofa.

“You sha’n’t come in—never!” screamed Maybee, stamping her foot.

“Open the door, or we’ll break it down,” was the gruff reply, whereat Maybee vanished under the table as rapidly as Tod had done.

The door began to be violently shaken. With a thoughtfulness quite beyond her years Sue put out the lights, and grasping the keys of the side-board tightly in one hand and Tod in the other, she led the way softly up stairs.

Looking out in the moonlight they could see three men go away from the door and begin to try the different windows.

“Oh! they’re so big, and there’s only us. They’ll come in and get everything, and kill us, just as sure. Oh! what shall we do? What shall we do?” and Sue, her courage suddenly giving way, dropped on the floor, sobbing and crying as if her heart would break.

“No, no! Don’t you remember,” said Say, her own lips ashy white, “the side God is on is the strongest, always. He can’t be with those bad, wicked men, and if he’s with us, we’re a great many the most.”

“I was real bad last week, but I’ve been forgived,” sobbed Maybee.

“My sweared a little swear yes’day, but my didn’t mean to; my said ‘Good Gwacious!’” moaned Tod.

“God doesn’t love us because we’re good,” said Say softly. “You know we’re all just as bad as can be.”

“I ain’t neither,” said Maybee stoutly. “I ain’t half so wicked as Tryphosa Harte.”

“Oh, but didn’t you know,” whispered Say, shivering as the back door rattled noisily, “Tryphosa is trying to be a Christian.” “I guess I’m bad ’nough, and I’m real sorry,” said Maybee, quite subdued by another shake of the side door.

“Do you think God—is really close to, near enough to help us?” asked Sue earnestly. “You ask him, Say; you’re so much better than I.”

They kneeled down in a row beside the bed. Outside, three desperate men had succeeded in partly raising a window. A little more, and it would admit them. Miles away, papa and Uncle Thed were driving leisurely along, never dreaming Bridget had left their dear ones unprotected save by the Eye that never sleeps.

What was there to prevent a deed of blood, as dreadful as those we read of almost every day?

What but God’s angels, if so be they were around those helpless little ones, as they were around the prophet Elisha in olden time,—invisible but strong.

Farmer Trafton had that day been to Weltford market, ten miles away; had been belated in disposing of his load, and was slowly jogging home with his stout hired man beside him. The tramps, swearing at the unmanageable window, drew back in the shadow to wait till the team had passed. But just opposite the gate, one of the lynch-pins broke.

“Well now,” said Farmer Trafton, “here’s a pretty go—at this time of night; all honest folks abed and asleep. How’ll we fix it, Jake? Have to step in and borrow a bit of Sherman’s wood-pile, sha’n’t we? Hillo! here, what’s to pay?”

Three men were running swiftly away down the garden and through the orchard.

“God didn’t send his angels,” said Maybee, when at last she nestled safely in papa’s strong arms, “but that dear old Mr. Trafton was just as good, wasn’t he?”

“Betterer,” said Tod sleepily, “’cause we was ’quainted with him, an’ he told us such nice stowies, an’ a hymn; my’s going to learn it.”

VI.
STRONGER THAN PAPA.

“And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”

VII.
REAL “MINDING.”

“But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart; for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin.”

Maybee stood by the window with a very sober face. There wasn’t much to see so early in the morning; only the street, a few passers-by, and over the hills, a spiral of white smoke where the cars were hurrying away towards the great city, carrying mamma and Sue with them. How long it would be till night! And mamma had said when she kissed her good-by, “I want Maybee to do exactly as Aunt Cynthia tells her, all the whole time. If she gets tired of play, there’s her garden to weed, the play-room to put in order, and that last seam to sew.”

Now, Aunt Cynthia didn’t like children; she didn’t “like anything much, except patch-work,” Maybee said, “an’ she must be made of patch-work, ’cause she always had stitches in her back when she was real cross.” Maybee would never sew patch-work for fear it would make scowls over her eyes, like Aunt Cynthia’s; so mamma had taught her to sew on soft, white under-garments for herself and her dollies. That “last seam” was in a night-dress for Lauretta Luella.

“I’ll sew it right straight up. That’ll please my mamma awfully,” thought Maybee.

“Ma-b-e-l!” called Aunt Cynthia from up-stairs. “Come here, this minute, and slick up your bureau-drawers.”

“I’m busy,” said Maybee, threading her needle.

“Never mind; come right along. What would your mother say to things being tumbled in this way?”

She would say “Put them in order,” Maybee knew. She had said “Mind Aunt Cynthia.” But Maybee felt more like sewing her seam, and mamma told her to do that, didn’t she? So the little girl sat still, and Miss Cynthia, after calling several times, arranged the drawers herself.

“And now, Mabel,” she said, coming into the parlor with the inevitable big basket of patch-work, “you can sew very neatly, and I want you to help me a little while.”

“I can’t,” said Maybee shortly; “mamma wants me to do this.”

Aunt Cynthia could have told Maybee that her mother wanted that particular red-and-white bed-quilt a great deal the most; for the Ladies’ Sewing Society, of which Mrs. Sherman was president, were about sending a barrel to some poor, needy home missionaries, and she wanted the quilt to put in. But Aunt Cynthia only shut her thin lips tightly together, and sewed away as fast as she could. Maybee finished her seam, folded her work up neatly, and laid it where mamma would see it the first thing.

“Now I’ll weed my garden. Aunt Cynthia, will you please put on my thick boots?”

“You’re not going one step out of doors; so that matter’s settled,” said Aunt Cynthia. Now, mamma would have explained that black, watery clouds had spread over the blue sky since sun-rise, and a thick, white fog crept up over the hills and meadows, making it very imprudent for a little girl, threatened with croup the night before, to go out, even with thick shoes on. Aunt Cynthia didn’t believe in telling children all the whys. She insisted on the good, old-fashioned obedience, that never asked questions; and I’m not sure but it is better than all questions and no obedience, which is so much the fashion now-a-days.

“She’s cross, and I’m going out anyway,” said Maybee, trying to forget what mamma said about minding. “That garden must be weeded, and if she won’t put my boots on I shall go without them.”

She worked busily till noon, the dampness steadily penetrating the thin slippers and light muslin dress.

“It’s a mercy if you haven’t killed yourself,” said her aunt, who, buried in her beloved patch-work, had actually forgotten the child. “Now I must make you a bowl of hot ginger tea,” she continued, forcing Maybee to lie down on the lounge, and covering her over with half a dozen blankets, “and you mustn’t stir one foot out of this room again to-day. Mind, now.”

But Maybee had set her heart on putting the play-room in order. Mamma never liked such a looking place right off the front hall; so when Aunt Cynthia started down street, after more calicoes, Maybee slipped up-stairs, all in a perspiration as she was, and arranged and re-arranged, swept and dusted the neglected room, sorted out Lauretta Luella’s scattered ward-robe, and washed her three china tea-sets, quite unmindful of the cool draught through the hall.

That night mamma found a tired, fretful, little girl, waiting by the window, with hot, feverish hands, aching head, and smarting throat.

“A very naughty girl!” Aunt Cynthia said severely, “who hadn’t minded in one single thing.” “But, mamma, I tried to please you, I did really,” said the hoarse little voice. “I worked so hard! There’s the play-room and the garden—”

“Yes, dear, they both look very nicely. You deserve the ticket papa promised when the weeds were all gone, as well as the one you was to have when Luella’s dress was finished. But, Maybee, think a moment. Did you do it really to please me or to please yourself? Have you been mamma’s good, obedient little Maybee to-day?”

“It’s nicer doing things than ’tis minding,” said Maybee, hanging her head.

Sue looked up from the parcel she was untying: “There, mother, that’s just it. I’ve tried, you know, ever since that night we were so frightened, to do things to please God; but it’s—it’s the minding I don’t like.”

“The natural heart loves to do great things,” said Mrs. Sherman, drawing her eldest daughter closer to her; “it is only the ‘new heart’ that loves to mind God.”

VIII.
AND THE LAST, FIRST.

“The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and behold a greater than Jonas is here.”

Miss Cox was out of town, and Miss Marvin had the Sabbath School class. The children liked Miss Cox, but thought nobody could equal Miss Marvin. “Miss Cox gave them good dinners enough,” Dick said, “but somehow, Miss Marvin made them taste better.” Dick was trying hard to make up for lost time, and to get the mastery over his mischievous propensities. He wasn’t trying in his own strength, either. That first time he asked for and found a Helping Hand wasn’t the last; and since Aunty McFane told Miss Marvin about Dick, that lady had taken especial pains to cultivate his acquaintance, chatting with him on all occasions, and sympathizing in his little trials and failures, till the two had become firm friends. That may have been one reason why Will Carter was a bit jealous of Dick; that, and the way he was rising in favor with Mr. Blackman.

The greatest change, however, was in Tryphosa Harte. You would scarcely have believed the quiet, happy face at the end of the seat was the same, Say had seen peering so disagreeably over the roof of the old house. The sour, ugly mouth was almost always smiling now; the fierce, scowling eyes were full of eager desire; the loud, coarse voice low and gentle, and her whole bearing so subdued and yet so thoroughly in earnest it was a comfort to look at her.

“Why, I really like Tryphosa,” said Jenny King, walking home one day beside Miss Marvin; “she is as different as can be. Don’t it seem queer, rather, she should become a Christian right away, and Sue Sherman and Nettie Rand and me, who’ve been talked to all our lives and know exactly what we ought to do, never get a bit nearer, as I see?”

“It’s the old story over and over, away back to the Jews and Ninevites,” said Miss Marvin, smiling rather sadly.

“The Jews and Ninevites?” repeated Jenny inquiringly.

“Yes; you remember, don’t you, that when God sent his servant Jonah to reprove the people of Nineveh they repented at once, and prayed to God for help; but when God sent his own Son to the Jews, his chosen people, who had been ‘talked to’ all their lives by his prophets and his providences, and who ‘knew exactly what they ought to do’ when the promised Messiah came, they refused to listen, they didn’t want to believe; and ‘publicans and harlots went into the kingdom’ before them.”

“But, Miss Marvin,” began Jenny hesitatingly, “don’t you think such folks—like Tryphosa, she was so dreadfully wicked—ought—I mean, need it more than—than—”

“Good people, like you and me, who never do anything selfish or unkind or hateful,” said Miss Marvin, smiling. “Perhaps; only the apostle Paul, one of the best men I ever heard of,—a brave, upright, moral man, before he became a Christian,—called himself the “chief of sinners”; and if—”

Turning a corner they came suddenly upon a group of boys,—Tom Lawrence, who had just been taunting Dick with some of his old scrapes, and Dick, who, in a blaze of passion, had been uttering oath after oath.

“There’s your model Sabbath-School scholar!” Will Carter had sneeringly said.

Miss Marvin appeared to have heard nothing of all this; she spoke to them all pleasantly. Dick slunk hurriedly away; Tom disappeared no less rapidly, followed by the others boys of his set; Say Ellis called to Jenny from across the street, and Will Carter was left to walk along with Miss Marvin.

Almost before he knew it, he was talking over all his many plans and hopes for the future. To fit thoroughly for college, to graduate “A No. 1,” work himself into an “up-stairs lawyer,” to make rousing speeches that would carry everything before them, possibly to step from the Legislature into Congress: that was Will’s ambition.

“And a worthy one,” said Miss Marvin encouragingly. “It will fill this life full of work and happiness. Now, what are you doing for the next, the life that is to last always?”

The boy drew himself up stiffly. “I do the best I know how, and that’s all anybody can,” he answered proudly. “I don’t pretend to great things and make a fizzle of it, as some boys do.”

“The best you know how,” repeated Miss Marvin. “Well, do you know as much as you ought?”

Will reddened. “I—I don’t quite understand.”

“I mean this, Will. Suppose God were to ask you to-day that same question—Do you know as much as you ought?—Couldn’t Dick Vance rise up in judgment against you,—you, a deacon’s son, whose father has prayed for you every night and morning since you saw the light, has shown you by example what a Christian’s joy and hope is, and urged you every day to make it your own? Dick, as you know, has never been in Sabbath School until very recently; had, before that, scarcely heard a word at home about another life; and yet, unless I am very much mistaken, Dick will go home to-night and repent bitterly of the sin into which he fell just now, while Will Carter, who flung his failure in his face, will rest satisfied he is doing the best he knows how.”

There was no reply, and Miss Marvin, stopping at Mrs. Forbush’s gate, said simply, “Please think it over, Will. I believe Dick is trying every day to learn of Him ‘in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ Be sure, Will, it is not true of you, as God said of the Laodiceans, ‘Thou knowest not thou art miserable and poor and blind,’ for not until you see your need of the wisdom from above will you seek help of One ‘mighty to save,’ and who will let no one who trusts him ‘make a fizzle of it.’”

IX.
PHOSY’S WORK.

“——and by it he being dead yet speaketh.”

“Fire! Fire! Fire!”

One voice, then a dozen, the cry taken up and swelled into a deafening clamor by half a hundred boys just let loose from school; then the clang of bells, quick, imperative, not startling people from their midnight dreams, but checking them mid-way in the daily rush of toil and pleasure.

Uncle Thed, taking an early dinner to catch the train, left his fork sticking straight up in a mouthful of meat, and dashed away to his shop. Farmer Vance clapped his hat on his head, and then flew round and round the house to find it. Old Mrs. Pratt threw her silver spoons into the sink, and locked up her dish-pan in the china-closet. Ding! ding! ding!

“It’s the factory,” cried somebody.

“The factory where Phosy Harte works,” echoed a group of girls huddled, with white faces, into Say Ellis’s yard.

“Lucky it’s just noon; all the hands will be out. The old thing will go like tinder,” said the crowd surging past.

But they were not all out. In the upper story Phosy was busily at work, making up the odd minutes taken for her walk. Half a dozen of the other girls had gathered round her, hats in hand, laughing, talking, not catching the faintest sound from below, not even noticing the smell of smoke which had emptied the other rooms in half the usual time. Nobody thought to warn them in the selfish scramble for safety. When at last they opened the door to go down, a dense, black column of smoke met them, and through it, enticed by the little draught from the door, came a sharp, pointed tongue of fire, up, up, wrapping the old stairway in a sheet of flame, and cutting off all chance of escape in that direction. They ran to the windows.

“Ladders!” shouted the crowd. But alas! not one was long enough to reach them.

“Splice it!” “Bring ropes!” “No, mattresses!” “Carpets!” “They must jump!”

Men jostled each other in mad haste for they knew not what.

“Jump! It’s your only chance!”

One after another the frightened girls flung themselves down, one to be caught safely in the strong arms of a stalwart fireman, another reaching the ground with simply a sprained ankle, still another with a broken arm; while a fourth, falling beyond the mattress, was taken up bruised and bleeding, but alive, and life is dear at any cost.

Only Phosy Harte and Judy Ryan were left,—Judy a poor, deformed girl, half crippled, who would not, dared not jump, and Phosy, waiting, coaxing, beseeching.

“It will be too late.” There are soft mattresses and strong carpets below. Phosy begs, almost pushes the poor girl out, and she reaches the ground safely; but flame and smoke have driven Phosy back.

“The other window!” shouts the crowd, and half-blinded she springs over the low sill just as a fireman, who has succeeded in finding a long ladder, is raising it in place; she strikes it heavily, and drops limp and lifeless.

They lift her tenderly. One faint moan, a gasp,—that is all.

Back to the old house they carry her, past the little garden she had risen so early that very morning to weed, into the low room, with its close, sudsy, smoky atmosphere, which she will never brighten more.

“And nobody’ll never know the comfort an’ help she’s ben to me these last few months,” said the poor, over-worked mother, wringing her hands helplessly. “I ain’t been to none of yer meetin’s for years, but if it’s them what made her so handy an’ happy-like I’d be glad to try it meself. She’s asked me enough, the Lord knows, an’ I allers meant to go sometime, jest to please her. Oh! I’ll never forgit how she’s prayed nights with them childern—”

There four little voices took up the wail of grief, and more than one rough fireman drew his sleeve hurriedly across his eyes.

“She is through with all suffering,” said good old Dr. Helps, who had been working busily over the poor, crushed body.

“It’s a blessed thing for the child,” said Deacon Carter, as they walked away, “but it’s a strange Providence that took the one bit of leaven out of that miserable batch of humanity.”

Upon the pine coffin, the girls in Miss Cox’s class laid a wreath of beautiful hot-house flowers; but all over the lid, and inside, around the pale face and over the white robe, were fresh, fragrant pond-lilies, their subtile perfume filling the room. No one knew who scattered them there, only as Miss Marvin laid one tenderly between the waxen fingers, Bill Finnegan said huskily, “Thank’ee, ma’am; she liked ’em best of anything.”

The next Sabbath and the next, in the empty seat where Phosy had always sat, lay a bunch of the same pure, lovely lilies. Nobody knew how they came there, but their sweet breath seemed like pleasant memories of her who had gone. The fourth Sabbath an awkward, ungainly figure, in coarse homespun, shuffled down the aisle and stopped beside the row of neatly-dressed boys. Dick moved a little nearer to Varley, and motioned the new-comer to sit down.

“I—it’s Bill Finnegan, ma’am, an’ he’ll not be gettin’ in the way,” he stammered, as Miss Marvin left her seat to speak with him. “You see, she was allus askin’ me to come, but I didn’t think so much about it, then. I’d like, bein’ as this was her class, if you don’t mind. I’ll do the best I can; she was forever talkin’ about the things she heard tell of here, an’ ef I could learn, I’m thinkin’ it won’t harm a feller.”

Up-stairs, in the pew nearest the door, sat Mrs. Harte in the faded black bonnet which had done her service when her husband’s mother died years before, when “Daniel” was sober and industrious,—sat, with the tears running down her cheeks, getting, as she phrased it, “a fill of the good things Phosy talked so much about, to stand her through the long, lonesome week.”

And not many days afterwards there came to Dr. Helps’ door—for the doctor’s genial, sympathizing heart was known far and wide—a great, rough man, with blood-shotten eyes and haggard face.

“I want to sign the pledge, if so be you think it’s any use,” he said. “I’m only old Dan Harte, that ev’rybody gin up long ago, except her,—Tryphosy. She kep’ talkin’ an’ talkin’ in sech a lovin’ way, an’ only the Sunday afore, when she went away to meetin’ she kissed me. I was sober for a wonder, an’ sez she, ‘Father, if the Bible is true, what will you do when you come to die?’ I can’t git them words out of my ears, an’ you see I know there must be a something, to so kind of change Tryphosy from the fiery, hifalutin thing she was, to the purty-spoken, quiet, happy little cretur she got to be. And I thought mabbee, seein’ I’d quit drinkin’ ag’in an’ ag’in, an’ couldn’t never hold out, if there was anything in this ere religion Phosy got hold of, to help a feller, it’s Dan Harte what wants it.”

Good old Dr. Helps! not content to send away this weak fellow-mortal with a chapter of good advice, and some harmless tonic from his medicine-case, but who could and did kneel down beside him then and there, with a faith strong enough to hold up even this wreck of humanity for the Divine healing. Surely of him shall it be true, “Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.”

And down in a dirty alley-way, between two tenement houses, Judy Ryan was teaching half a dozen ragged urchins a hymn Phosy used always to be singing about the mill. She had caught it at the prayer-meeting; and somehow plain, homely Boylston had suited her even better than the livelier Sabbath-School melodies. In her quaint fashion she had explained the words to Judy, and now, through her, was she not yet speaking to the poor, neglected souls in Pinch Alley? Wasn’t the “little leaven” working still?

X.
PHOSY’S HYMN.

“If thou seek Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off forever.”

XI.
MAYBEE’S REBELLION.

“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.”

Maybee waked up out of sorts. Nothing went right. Her berries were sour, her fritters “wrinkly,” her egg-toast “smushy.”

After breakfast she went out to play, and in half an hour had contrived to break one of Sue’s croquet-mallets, lose Tod’s ball, left by mistake in her pocket, and upset the board on which Bridget was drying sweet corn. She came in, hot and tired, and crosser than ever.

“Untie my bonnet, quick!” was the first thing mamma heard.

“How do little girls ask?” she inquired.

“I don’t care! I want it off, quick; it’s hot, and Bridget tied it so hard I’m most choked.” “Well, say ‘Please,’ and mamma will try to make her little girl more comfortable.”

“Oh dear! I always have to do something horrid. I’ll untie it my own self,” whined Maybee, tugging at the strings of her big shaker till she had drawn them into the tightest of hard knots; then she picked and twisted and pulled, but the depraved sun-bonnet only screwed around against her nose, or tilted up till it really threatened to strangle her. So at last she sat still on the hassock, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, tears and perspiration making grimy furrows over her cheeks, the poor shaker bent into a triangle, from the apex of which looked out two defiant black eyes.

“When Maybee says ‘Please,’ mamma will help her.”

But Maybee wouldn’t say Please, and the little bent shaker wandered off to the play-room. She was never tired of “keeping house”; but—in a sun-bonnet! Oh dear! She tried to “make believe” it was a cap like old Mrs. Pratt’s, but all the same, it would be dreadfully in the way. When she wanted to look for anything, she must turn way around; she couldn’t “cuddle up” Loretta Luella the least bit; she couldn’t play go to parties, and as for going to bed, there would be nothing to do but lie flat on her back and stare at the ceiling.

She ran hopefully down stairs when the dinner-bell rang, sure that mamma would relent; for how could she ever manage to find her wee mouth inside that big bonnet?

“Say ‘Please,’” said mamma.

Maybee shook her head and clambered sulkily into her high chair.

“What’s this,—a small butcher wagon? Bless me! if there isn’t somebody inside!” said papa taking the shaker between his two hands and tipping it back till he could see the grimy little face. “Isn’t it time the colt had its blinders off, mamma?”

“When she will say ‘Please,’” said mamma pleasantly.

“Oh! that’s the way the wind blows,” and papa, after asking a blessing, began carving the nice roast.

Jenny King had come home with Sue, and try as hard as they could, the triangular sun-bonnet, bobbing this way and that, was too much for their gravity. They all laughed at last, which sent Maybee off in high dudgeon, although she had scarcely eaten a mouthful. There was to be chocolate blanc-mange for dessert: she really must have some of that, and slipping into the kitchen she began coaxing Bridget to untie the knot.

“Shure, an’ it’s beyant me,” said Bridget, after two or three ineffectual efforts. “It’s too big an’ clumsy me fingers are intirely.”

So Maybee stole back into the parlor, curled up on the sofa, and listened to the cheerful rattle of dishes and hum of voices, growing, oh! so dreadfully hungry.

By and by she saw Jenny and Sue go off with their baskets. After berries, to be sure, and she might have gone with them.

A little later mamma came in with her sewing. “Won’t Maybee say ‘Please’ now, and have on a clean dress?”

But Maybee only sat still, and looked straight out of the window.

It was trying when callers were announced that the poor little shaker must trudge disconsolately up-stairs again. But it would be tea-time pretty soon. Wouldn’t mamma let her dear little girl have any supper? Why, she would certainly starve to death before morning. Didn’t it make folks sick to starve to death? and wouldn’t they have to have the doctor? Then how would mamma feel? If she should die—but no; Maybee would rather not think about that, herself. None but good people went to heaven, and good people said “Please,” she supposed. She didn’t want to. She hated “Please.” And—why hadn’t she thought before? she could just go and get the scissors, and cut that knot right straight off. Mamma’s work-basket was in the sewing-room. Armed with the big shears, one little fat hand grasping each handle, she climbed up to the bureau-glass, carefully put them astride the troublesome knot, and gave a quick snip.

Something sharp went into her chin, something warm trickled down her neck. Had she cut her throat? That always “bleeded folks to death.” She gasped a little, sat down on the floor, and began mopping up the stream of warm blood with a pillow-sham. She felt weak and tired, but she couldn’t lie down, for there was the knot tight as ever.

“Sue! Sue!” she called faintly, as somebody ran past the door.

“I can’t stop; Jennie and I are going home with Bell,” answered Sue, half way down the stairs.

But somebody must help her.

“Bridget, O Bridget! do come up here a minute,” she called softly down the back stairs.

“An’ shure, it’s not I that’ll be laving me work to look after the likes of ye,” muttered Bridget, heated and tired with her ironing.

What should she do? She crept slowly down the stairs and through the back entry, the big pillow-sham stuffed into the front of the shaker, and quite concealing the tall clothes-bars of freshly-ironed linen Bridget had just set out to air. Over they came, completely covering her.

“Mamma! mamma! O my mamma!” she screamed. “Oh-h! please, my dear mamma! please! PLEASE! ’fore I’m deaded over an’ over.”

That call wasn’t in vain. Strong arms picked her tenderly up; soft, skilful fingers untied the hateful knot, and bathed the poor, aching face; loving lips kissed away the tears.

“Oh, but it’s been such a horrid day!” whispered Maybee to papa, when supper had been eaten and it was time to say good-night.

“Dear me! How did it happen?” said papa.

“I happened it myself,” returned Maybee soberly. “Folks most always do, don’t they?”

“Exactly,” said papa. “The trouble that comes of sin we mostly put ourselves into.” “An’ what does peoples do who haven’t any mammas to pull ’em out?” inquired Maybee anxiously.

“Whom did Maybee grieve besides mother, to-day?”

“God,” she answered solemnly.

“And only God can help us out of sin. Even mamma cannot keep Maybee from being just so naughty again, but God can. Remember that, little one, and ask him to-night to make you always his own good little girl.”

XII.
“BECAUSE.”

“Because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded.”

“What is the matter?” inquired Maybee, coming suddenly upon Tod, sitting on the door-step, with one fist screwed into either eye, and big, round tears dropping off the end of his nose.

“My new knife, it’s all losed!” and Tod buried half his face in a small square of Centennial cotton.

“Oh me suz! an’ I’ve lost your ball,” returned Maybee consolingly. “There’s never a shower ’thout it rains, my papa says,” which misquoted proverb Tod proceeded to illustrate with a fresh burst of grief.

“You see,” continued Maybee, “Sue said I mustn’t fire it that way, because it would go in the tall grass. I shouldn’t never thought of it if she hadn’t, and now papa won’t let me go and get it.”

“My hasn’t got anyfing,” wailed Tod, behind his handkerchief.

“It’ll be in the hay if the cows don’t eat it,” said Maybee cheerily. “Where’d you lose your knife?”

“Over in the marsh; it sinked, you know.”

“How came you playing down there?”

“Wented myself.”

“Who said you might?”

“Nobody,” very faintly.

“Oh!” said Maybee significantly, “naughty boys always lose their knives or something; but never mind, let’s go an’ see Aunty McFane and little Peter.”

“Can’t,” said Tod dejectedly.

“Why not?”

“Can’t go frough the gate for one, two, three days; mamma said so.”

“What for?”

“’Cause—’cause—my runned away.”

“Well,” with a long-drawn breath, “let’s go on the front pizarro and play steam-boat; only—you’d better have a clean apron on. Such awful patched pants, an’ that jacket! Why, you’re ever so much the biggest!”

“Can’t help it,” said Tod sulkily. “Can’t have no other clothes on for the greatest long while.”

“Well, if I sha’n’t give it up! What for?”

“’Cause—’cause I played with the grindstone in my best jacket.”

“The-od-o-re Smith! Aunty’s told you over and over again she’d punish you if you did.”

“My knows it,” said Tod meekly: “an’ my mamma’s so pur-sistent; might have finked she would.”

“Of course. What a goose! Well, then, let’s go in the shed and play store.”

“Isn’t any fings there. Mamma’s locked ’em all up, ’cause my kep’ forgetting—no, cause my didn’t want to put ’em away when she said it was time”; and Tod stared straight up at the blue sky overhead.

“I hate ‘becauses,’” said Maybee emphatically, —“that kind, anyhow. I just had miserable times, my own self, all yesterday.”

“’Cause why?” asked Tod, with alacrity.

“Because my strings all knotted up tight—no; ’twasn’t, neither; I just wouldn’t say ‘Please,’ and the ‘becauses’ kept happening right along,—horrid, all of ’em. There’s always one with things you ought to do and don’t want to, and things you want awfully to do and mustn’t. They’re tied right tight on, too. And then there’s a nice kind, when you get a ticket because you’ve sewed your seam, or something. I wish they’d made ’em all like that.”

“Are you sure which is the best kind?” asked aunty, coming out on the stoop, and sitting down between them. “What did papa snip the baby’s hands for, this morning, Tod?”

“Oh! ’cause her will put her fingers in the sugar-blowl,” returned Tod contemptuously.

“Was that a good or bad ‘because’?”

“Why, my s’poses her don’t like to be snipped; but you know if we ’lowed her to touch fings, her might burn her on the teapot, an’ spill the gwavy, an’ every-fing; ’sides it isn’t polite, an’ we must learn her to behave,” concluded Tod, with an air of superior wisdom.

“That is just it,” said mamma, drawing the little reasoner into her lap. “We all need to learn a great many things that we should not if there were no ‘becauses.’ God lets the bad ‘becauses’ happen, as Maybee says, to teach us how to be better, or to keep us from something that would harm us. Let me tell you a little story all in rhyme, and then we’ll see if we can’t happen the ‘good becauses,’ by doing just what God wants us to.”

“The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.”