Odd Part 12

But nurse made no reply, and both little girls were long before they got to sleep that night, so fearful were their conjectures as to the fate of their brother.

Douglas was only stunned for the time, and very much bruised and shaken. Nurse kept him in bed for two or three days, and the two little girls were unremitting in their care and attention. He accepted their services with much complacency, and enjoyed his important and interesting position.

'What would you two girls have done if I had died?' he asked. 'Who would have been your leader then?'

'You're not my leader,' said Betty promptly. 'No one is my leader. I lead myself.'

'I don't know what I should have done,' said Molly pensively. 'I should have had to go about with Betty then. You see, I should have her, and the twins have themselves. I don't think Bobby and Billy would miss any of us much if we were to die. We should be equal if you died, Douglas--two and two, but I'm glad you're going to get better.'

'You wouldn't have gone about with me, Molly,' said Betty, with a decisive shake of her head, as she stooped to caress Prince at her feet, 'because you would have been one too many. We are two and two without you. I don't want any one with me but Prince. You would have to be the odd one if Douglas died--like I used to be.'

'Prince is only a dog,' said Molly, with a little curl of her lip. 'I wouldn't make two with a dog!'

Betty's eyes sparkled dangerously.

'Prince is ever so much nicer than you are--much nicer, and you're jealous because he likes me and not you. He's my very own, and I love him, and he loves me; and I love him better than all the people in the world put together, so there!'

'You needn't get in a temper. He's a silly, stupid kind of a dog, and Mr. Giles said yesterday if he caught him chasing his sheep round the field, he would give him a good beating; and I hope he will, for he nearly chased the sheep yesterday.'

'When you two have done fighting I should like to speak. My head aches. I think I should like some of the jelly nurse made for me. It will make it better.'

The little girls' rising wrath subsided. Both rushed to fulfil Douglas's desire,--for had not nurse left them in charge, and had she not also warned them against exciting him by loud talking and noise?

'I'm glad you will get better,' said Betty presently. 'I saw Miss Fairfax in church yesterday, and she asked me how you were.'

'What were you doing in church?' demanded Douglas. 'It wasn't Sunday.'

'Prince and I go to church very often,' said Betty, putting on a prim little air. 'We have several businesses there; but we don't tell every one what we do.'

'Do you play the organ?' asked Douglas, a little eagerly.

'No, but we hear it played, and we sing, and we--well, we do lots of other things.'

'I shall come with you next time you go,' and Douglas's tone was firm.

'No,' said Betty; 'you'll be one too many. I don't want Molly, and I don't want you. I've got Prince, and I don't want no one else.'

It was thus she aired her triumphs daily; and it was by such speeches that she revealed how much she had felt and suffered in times past by being so constantly left out in the cold. And Prince was daily becoming more and more companionable. Not one doubt did Betty ever entertain as to his not understanding or caring for her long confidences. He slept in a little basket at the foot of her bed. She was wakened by his wet kisses in the morning, and he liked nothing better than snuggling into bed with her. Tucking his little black nose under her soft chin, he would place a paw on each of her shoulders, and settle off into a reposeful sleep; whilst Betty would lie perfectly still, gazing at him with loving eyes, and every now and then giving him a gentle squeeze and murmuring, 'You're my very own, my darling, and I love you.'

CHAPTER VIII

G.o.d's Patchwork

'Good-morning to you, little maid.'

Betty and Prince had been straying through the lanes, and had suddenly come upon the old s.e.xton, who was leaning over his cottage gate smoking a short clay pipe.

Betty's face dimpled with smiles.

'May I come in and see your little house?' she asked. 'Prince and I want something to do. Douglas and Molly are lying in a hammock, and making up stories; and the twins are no company.'

'Come in, come in, my dear, and welcome, but 'tis a lonesome kind o'

home with only me in it; 'twas very different once on a time.'

He led the way up a narrow path through rows of cabbages and sweet peas, and ushered her into a tiny kitchen, clean, but rather untidy.

Betty looked round with a child's admiring eyes. There were great sh.e.l.ls on the mantelpiece, a stuffed owl on a sideboard, and lots of other quaint curiosities on some shelves in a recess.

Then she climbed into a big rocking-chair.

'This is lovely,' she said; 'it's almost as good as a rocking-horse, if you go very fast.'

The old man stood looking at her for a minute; then seated himself on the low window-seat, and went on smoking. When Betty had swung herself violently to and fro for some minutes, she asked,--

'Have you been busy digging graves to-day?'

'No; 'tis a fortnight since I had one: the season has bin rare and healthy.'

'Then what have you been doing?' demanded the child.

'Oh, I don't let the time slip by; there are a many things I turn my hand to. I digs my taters up, and gardens a bit first thing in the morning, and I cleans up in my churchyard, and then I cooks a bit o'

dinner, and has a bit o' gossip with my neighbours. I'm a sociable sort o' chap, though I'm so lonesome. And I has a bit o' reading on occasions. Are you a-thinkin' any more o' that 'ere tex' that we was a-argufying on t'other arter-noon?'

Betty nodded.

'I'm always thinking of it,' she said, stopping the motion of the chair, and looking up at him with grave, earnest eyes.

'Ah, well, so am I! I've had a good bit o' readin', too, 'tis a most important thing, the Bible be; and I've been giving a good bit o' my mind to it latterly. 'Twas your calm tone of saying I must be ready to die, if I'd bin through tribbylation, started me off. I couldn't quite make out about the washing, and so I've a looked it up. And I've found out from the old Book that I'm as black a sinner as ever lived on this 'ere blessed earth.'

'How dreadful!' Betty said in an awed, shocked tone; 'and you told me you were so good! I never knew grown-up people were wicked; I thought it was only children. What made you find it out?'

'Well, 'twas readin' what we ought to live like, first knocked me down.

I got a-lookin' through them there epistlies, and got awful cast down.

And then I thinks to mysel', p'raps arter all Paul and such like were too severe, so I went to the gospels, for I've always heerd the gospels tell of love, and not judgment, but I wasn't comforted by them, not a bit,--not even when I turned up the sheep chapter that I used for to learn as a little 'un. It says there, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." And I says to myself, "Reuben! you've never a listened to His voice; you've a gone your own way all your life through, and you ain't a follered Him one day in all the sixty-and-eight years you've a bin on this 'ere blessed earth!" Well, I began to think I'd better say that prayer my dear old missis a told me, "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." And then 'twas last Toosday night about seven o'clock I got the answer.'

The old man paused, took his pipe out of his mouth, and looked up at the blackened rafters across his little kitchen with a quivering smile about his lips; whilst Betty, with knitted brows, tried hard to follow him in what he was saying.

'I was a-turnin' over the leaves of the old Book,' he continued, 'when I come to a tex' which stared me full in the face, and round it was pencilled a thick black line, which was the doin' of my missis. I'll read it for you, little maid.'

He rose, and took from the shelf a large family Bible. Placing it on the table, he turned over its leaves with a trembling hand; and then his voice rang out with a solemn triumph in it, '"Come, now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." My knees began to tremble, for I says to myself, "Reuben, 'tis the Lord's voice to thee." And I drops down on the floor, just where you're a-sittin', missy, and I says, "Amen, so be it, Lord." I gets up with a washed soul--washed in the blood of the Lamb.'

There was silence; the old man's att.i.tude, his upward gaze, his solemn emphasis, awed and puzzled Betty.

'And now you're in the text!' she said at last, somewhat wistfully; as she drew Prince to her, and lifted him into her lap.

'I shall be one o' these days, for certain sure,' was old Reuben's reply; 'but 'tis the Lord that will put me there; 'tis His washing that has done it.'