Jill's Red Bag Part 27

THE BISHOP AND THE GEESE

When they reached the beach again the old lady was just in the act of departing for her lunch. She cheerfully paid the donkey man, but Jill was watching the transaction anxiously, and pursued the man to the end of the beach, where she held an earnest conversation with him.

"Jill is trying to make him give up his tenth," said Jack confidentially to the old lady. "I don't think she'll do it."

"What do you mean, child?"

Explanation followed, and with b.u.mps' eager and breathless interruptions, the old lady got quite mystified.

"Why do you keep talking about a tenth?" she said.

"Because it's a tenth that G.o.d expects from everybody," said Jack. "I suppose you give yours to somebody to look after, don't you?"

"I don't give a tenth of my money away at all," said the lady snappishly.

"That is an old Jewish law. Thank goodness, we are not Jews, but Christians."

"But Miss Falkner told us it wasn't only meant for Jews," argued Jack.

"She says everybody who gets money from G.o.d ought to give back some to Him."

"Yeth," nodded b.u.mps; "and becauth we can't send it up to heaven, Miss Falkner thaid we could thpend it on good things for G.o.d down on the earth, and we would be very happy if you gave us your money for our bag, wouldn't we, Jack?"

Jack was not a good beggar. He got hot and red.

"We don't ask people for money," he said; "but if they like to give us their tenth we should be pleased."

"Jill asks," said b.u.mps. "She asks everybody!"

"Oh, dear!" said the old lady, "here she comes running back! I must go. There, my boy, there's a coin for your bag!"

She put a sovereign into Jack's hand.

"Is it your tenth?" he asked wonderingly; "what a lot of money you must have! Thank you very much!"

But the old lady was gone, and strangely enough the children never saw her again.

"Have you got any money from the donkey man?" asked Jack.

"Yes," said Jill in quiet triumph. "He gave me sixpence. I don't know whether it was quite a tenth, but he seemed very pleased to do it--at least he got pleased. He said he had never done such a good thing in his life, and he hoped that it would be remembered. I told him G.o.d wouldn't forget it, for He can't forget anything. And he told me he only lives a mile from Chilton Common, and when the church is built I'm to let him know, and he will come and see it. He's a nice man!"

Then Jack opened his hand, and let her see what he had got. Jill screamed in ecstacy; the red bag was produced, and when both coins were safely deposited, they ran indoors to their dinner, feeling they had had an eventful morning.

The days pa.s.sed slowly. There were days when everything went wrong, when Jill, as well as Jack and b.u.mps, was seized with the spirit of mischief and naughtiness. She was very repentant when the day was over, but Annie did not understand her moods, and was not so long-suffering as Miss Falkner.

"It's no good leading me such a life all day, and then thinking you make it all right by saying you're sorry," she said with great severity.

"You're all talk, Miss Jill! pretending to be so good with your bag of money, and making Miss b.u.mps as wicked as yourself when you choose! I've no belief in them that talks good, and acts wicked!"

Jill's pa.s.sionate temper was aroused at once.

"I don't pretend, and I don't talk good! And I hate you, Annie! It's you that make us wicked! Miss Falkner never does! I'll run away, and go straight home, and catch the scarlet fever! I won't stay with you!"

Annie laughed scornfully.

"Words again! You want a piece clipped out of your saucy tongue, Miss Jill!"

Jill was sitting up in bed. With all her strength she flung her pillow in Annie's face.

Annie caught it, and marched out of the room with it.

"You naughty, impudent child! I shall take it right away to punish you. You can sleep without it to-night!"

Jill buried her burning cheeks in her bolster, and began to cry.

b.u.mps sat up and ruefully regarded her.

"Never mind, Jill. Annie is horrid. Oh, pleath don't cry!"

"It's no good," sobbed poor Jill. "Annie doesn't mean me to finish off being wicked. She tries to make me go on for ever. n.o.body understands but Miss Falkner. It's no use to try to be good again. I shall have to go on being in disgrace. I've gone miles away from my path to the Golden City to-day, and just when I'm trying to find my way back again, Annie pushes me away. I shall give it up altogether. I shall throw my red bag in the sea to-morrow, and shall give no more tenths to G.o.d. I shall be as wicked as I possibly can. I'm meant to be wicked!"

"Oh, dear!" sighed b.u.mps, in despair. "You do want Miss Falkner, Jill."

"Of course I do," said Jill, angrily. "How can I be good without her?"

"I wonder," said b.u.mps, "if G.o.d would do instead!"

There was silence. b.u.mps sometimes--baby though she was--had the rare faculty of hitting the nail straight on the head.

Jill stopped her weeping and began to think.

"I think," she said, after a few minutes' silence, "I'll just tell G.o.d all about it. I'd like to tell Him how nasty Annie is!"

Better thoughts soon stole into her angry little heart.

"There's one thing," she said presently, startling b.u.mps out of her first sleep; "G.o.d knows the proper truth about me. He knows I am sorry that I was tiresome to-day! Annie doesn't believe me, but He will. And He knows I don't pretend to be good!"

"Yeth," a.s.sented b.u.mps, drowsily; "He knowth it!"

Jill dropped asleep comforted.

The long time was over at last. Mona recovered and went away for change of air; the house was cleaned and re-papered, and one day Miss Falkner arrived to take them home.

"We almost like lessons now," said Jack. "We've had such long holidays."

But when lessons began the children found them irksome. They had become thoroughly unsettled, and accustomed to careless, unpunctual ways. Miss Falkner's regular routine fretted and chafed them. She found she needed all her patience to bring them and keep them under her control.

"I think," Jill said to Jack, one day, and her face was thoughtful as she spoke, "that no one can be properly good till they are twenty. I wonder how old Miss Falkner is."

"She's just as old as Mona," said Jack. "I heard Mona tell Miss Webb so."