Part 4

“Don’t you remember when we went to the review of troops,” said her father, “we couldn’t see any order or reason in all the marching and counter-marching; but there was the General on horse-back, with all the whys and wherefores in his mind. We could see it a little more plainly after we climbed that high hill, and looked right down upon them. And so when we ‘get up higher,’ we may know more of God’s plans than we do down here. Meanwhile, the text is to teach us, that he is the great Commander and Judge, doing just what he pleases with his creatures. It is for us to trust he will work out the very best plan possible.”

“I can’t just see why he lets good folks have any bad times,” said Maybee.

“Once, when you and Tod were very little, you were making mud-pies in the garden, having a splendid time; and Aunt Sue came and took Tod away to be washed and dressed. They were all going to a picnic on Beech Island, where he would have ever so much more fun; but the poor little fellow couldn’t understand that, and screamed and cried all the time they were getting him ready.”

“Getting ready’s horrid, anyway,” said Maybee.

“Oh no,” said Sue, “not if we keep thinking of what is going to be.”

“That’s it,” said papa. “And we are put into this world to ‘get ready’ for heaven. You know we must be washed in the blood of Christ and clothed with his righteousness before we can enter that beautiful land, and when God takes anything from us that would hinder our getting ready, we need not mind when we think of what is ‘going to be.’ I remember, too, how afraid Tod was that day, of the cars and boat, and how he fretted because Uncle Thed wouldn’t let him walk instead of carrying him over the sand and rocks. So we often grumble at things in our lives,—things God means shall help us along faster towards heaven. We are always wanting to try our own ways.”

“Just as I did the time Maybee was lost,” said Sue. “I think I shall always be sure mother knows best, now.”

“And that is a long step towards trusting our Father in heaven,” said papa pleasantly.

“Oh, oh! see the sun!” cried Maybee; “and there’s Uncle Thed and Tod going home from church.”

“Guess my new wubber boots wasn’t afwaid of the wain,” said Tod, running in and holding up one foot triumphantly. “We comed over the stepping-stones, too. Oh, my! an’ the mud’s all water, now; covers ’em most up.”

“Those stepping-stones are just a nuisance,” remarked Sue. “I wish they’d build a nice plank walk over the marsh.”

“My don’t,” said Tod. “It’s weal fun to take tight hold of papa’s hand and let him step you wight along.”

Uncle Thed lifted Tod on his knee.

“Were you having a meeting here, and isn’t it through?” he asked.

“We were just seeing how far we’d got to heaven; I mean, how was the best way,” said Maybee. “And Sue was so frightened when Tod and me was lost, she won’t never do so again. That’s a step, you know.”

“Dick an’ me isn’t never going to say ‘By funder’ no more, neither,” said Tod complacently.

“Isn’t Dick just as different as can be?” said Sue. “Only think, mamma, if you hadn’t gone into Aunty McFane’s that day—”

“Oh, yes,” put in Maybee, “I’m going always to b’lieve God takes care of everybody when they ask him.”

“And how little squirrels ought to mind their masters, and boys too, my guesses,” added Tod, reminded of Aunty McFane’s story.

“Dick told Miss Marvin the other Sabbath,” said Sue, “that he wished everybody knew what a good master God was. Will Carter laughed, and coming home he asked Dick how many prayers he said a day. I know Dick was real angry, he turned so red and then white, and he didn’t speak for ever so long. Then he asked Will if he didn’t like to ask his father for things he wanted, and why one need to be any more ashamed of praying. Say Ellis said she wished she could walk with God the way Miss Marvin said it meant. Do you believe children can?”

“Why not?” said Mr. Sherman, “if they do as Tod does about the stepping-stones,—take fast hold of God’s hand and let him lead them.”

“And then they’ll be like ‘Brown-Haired Bess,’ and folks’ll know they’re ’quainted with Jesus,” said Maybee.

“Guess they’d better have their own papa,” put in Tod. “Ain’t any use to ask th’ other folks.”

“Exactly,” said Maybee’s papa. “Now let’s sing ‘Nearer, my God, to thee,’ and dismiss our meeting.”

While they were putting back the chairs Maybee told her mother what Miss Marvin had said about the stepping-stones, and how it must have been Uncle Thed and Tod, because she saw Uncle Thed hug Tod to-day when he told about them.

“Don’t you s’pose,” said Maybee thoughtfully, “that’s why God has stepping-stones up to heaven ’stead of a plank walk?”

PART SECOND.

I.

BETTER THAN “A RICH COUSIN.”

“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.

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.”

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.”