A Missionary Twig Part 12

THE GOOD SHEPHERD.

Marty and Edith often accompanied Miss Alice when she visited Jennie.

Sometimes they each took a doll to visit Laura Amelia, also carrying some of their dishes and having a dolls' tea-party. This always pleased Jennie very much, though at first she scarcely knew how to play in this quiet, lady-like fashion, as she had only been accustomed to playing in the street with rough children before she was hurt. Of course she had had no chance at all to play during the last year.

Sometimes the girls read little stories to her. This she viewed as a surprising accomplishment, as she could only spell her way along, not being able to read well enough to enjoy it. So in one way or another they entertained her, making her forget her weakness.

Sometimes they talked about other things, telling her of the mission-band, though, as it was something so outside of her experience, she could, with all their explanation, hardly form any idea of it. She took more interest in descriptions of the country, the green fields, shady woods, and pretty gardens. She was very fond of flowers, and during the early summer her friends kept the poor room quite bright with them. An old lady living near Mrs. Ashford, and having an unusually large yard for the city, had a great many flowers, and hearing of Marty's sick friend in Landis Court, told her whenever she was going over there to come and get some flowers for Jennie. This delighted both little girls extremely.

One day when they were all with Jennie, she picked up one of her cards that had on it a picture of a shepherd leading his flock and carrying a lamb in his arms. She wanted to know what it meant, and what a shepherd was, and what sheep were. After it had been explained, she said,

"'Shepherd' makes me think of a hymn they used to sing in the Sunday-school down in the Harbor."

"Did you ever go to Sunday-school?" asked Marty.

"I went a little while when we lived down in the Harbor. My teacher had a lovely velvet cloak trimmed with fur."

"Didn't she tell you about the Good Shepherd?" Edith inquired.

"No. She didn't seem to know about any kind of shepherd. Leastways she never let on that she did. But they used to sing beautiful hymns, and one was about a shepherd."

"Was it 'Saviour, like a shepherd lead us'?" asked Marty.

"That was the very one!" exclaimed Jennie in delight. "How did you know that was it?"

"I thought it might be."

"Would you like to have us sing it now?" Miss Alice inquired.

"Oh, yes, indeed!"

So they sang it, Jennie joining in whenever they came to the words, "Blessed Jesus," which, besides the first line, was all she knew.

"Is blessed Jesus a shepherd?" she asked.

"He is the Good Shepherd," replied Edith.

"Where's his sheep?"

"All who believe on Him are his sheep, for the Bible says, 'My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.'"

Miss Alice saw that Jennie did not altogether understand Edith, so in a few simple words she explained that Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd, and calls us to follow him. Then taking up the picture again she repeated what she had said about shepherds and their flocks, and also went over some of the hymn they had been singing, until Jennie began to get into her little muddled brain quite a clear idea of Jesus, our Shepherd.

"Where is your Bible? I will show you the chapter about the Good Shepherd."

"I ha'n't got one. Mother has one, but I guess it's locked up in that little black trunk. It's a purple one with clasps that somebody gave her long ago, and she always had to keep it hid for fear papa'd sell it for whiskey."

Jennie said all this very coolly, she was so much accustomed to the kind of life in which there was more whiskey than Bible; but Edith and Marty looked much shocked.

"Never mind," said Miss Alice, "I will bring my Bible the next time I come and read the chapter to you."

Just then a beautiful plan flashed into Marty's head, and as Edith was included in it, she could not resist reaching over and giving her arm a tiny squeeze. Edith must have partly understood, for she answered with a smile.

In the meantime Miss Alice was saying to Jennie,

"Did you ever hear the Psalm beginning, 'The Lord is my Shepherd'?"

"I don't b'lieve I ever did," said Jennie.

"Marty, can't you and Edith repeat it for her?"

Marty was not sure she remembered it all, but Edith knew it, and the beautiful Psalm was reverently recited.

That evening as Mrs. Scott, wearied with the labors of the day, was seated in one of the stiff, hard chairs doing some mending by the uncertain light of a smoky lamp, Jennie told her all that had been said and done in the afternoon, and then asked,

"Mother, can't you find that about the shepherd in your purple Bible and read it over to me?"

"I'll try, but I'm a poor reader, Jennie, and anyways I don't know as I can find the place you want."

She unlocked the trunk and bringing forth, wrapped in soft paper, an old-fashioned, small-print Bible that had once been handsome, but was now sadly tarnished, she screwed up the smoky lamp and began to turn the leaves.

"I don't know where the place is, child. I'm none so handy with books, and there's a great many different chapters here."

"It was about green pastures and quiet waters. Miss Alice said a pasture is a field, and it minded me of that gra.s.sy field where Tim took me the summer before he died. You know there was a pond in it, and we paddled along the edge. It was the prettiest place I ever saw, and on awful hot days I wish I was there again. I think it must be just such a place the Bible shepherd takes his folks to."

Mrs. Scott turned the leaves back and forth, anxious to please Jennie, but unable to find what she wished.

"Now I mind," exclaimed Jennie presently: "Miss Alice didn't call the green pasture piece a chapter; she called it a Psalm."

"Oh! now I'll find it," said her mother. "I know about Psalms, for my good old grandfather used to be always reading them, and I used to think it was queer the way they was spelt--with a 'p' at the beginning. I saw them over here a minute ago."

Then after a little more searching she inquired,

"Is this it? 'The Lord is my Shepherd: I shall not want.'"

"The very thing!" Jennie exclaimed joyfully.

Mrs. Scott, though with some difficulty, managed to read it, while Jennie listened with closed eyes and clasped hands, thinking of the delightful places into which the Shepherd leads his flock.

"They're sweet verses," said Mrs. Scott, as she closed the book, after laying a piece of yarn in to mark the place, "and it rests a body to read them. I call to mind now that many's the time I've heard my granddad read 'em. And I've heard 'em in church, too, when I used to go."

"Why don't you go to church sometimes now, mother?" Jennie asked.

"There's n.o.body to rail at you for going. You might borrow Mrs.

O'Brien's bonnet after she's been to ma.s.s, and go round to the church on the front street, where we hear the singing from every Sunday."

Mrs. Scott began to think she should like to go. She cleaned off her old black alpaca as well as possible, and the next Sunday, borrowing her kindly Catholic neighbor's bonnet, she went to church for the first time in many years.

She came home delighted, and had much to tell Jennie about the pleasant gentleman who gave her a seat and invited her to come again, about the good sermon that she could understand every bit of, and the rousing hymns, which indeed Jennie could hear with the window open.