The Little Colonel's Holidays Part 18

Mrs. Walton and the girls came down again in the twilight. Dot was too weak to say much, but she asked Mrs. Walton to sing, and wanted the tapers lighted again on the tree. Thoughtful Allison had brought fresh ones with her, which she soon fastened in place. And so, presently, with only the soft firelight in the room, and the starlight of the little Christmas candles, Mrs. Walton began an old tune that she loved. Her beautiful voice had sung it in many a hospital, in the cheerless tents of many a camp. Many a brave soldier, dying thousands of miles away from home, had been soothed and comforted by it. It was "My Ain Countrie" she sang. Not the sweet old Scotch words, with the breath of the moors and the scent of the heather in them, that she loved. She changed them so that the child could understand. Dot opened her eyes and looked up at the picture of the Good Shepherd, hanging over the mantel, as she sang:

"'For he gathers in his bosom all the helpless lambs like me, And he takes them where he's going, to my own country.'"

There was silence for a moment, and Dot asked suddenly, "Will everything there be as lovely as it is here in the hospital?" When Mrs. Walton nodded yes, she added, with a long, fluttering sigh, "Oh, I've been so happy here. I don't see how heaven could be any nicer. Sing some more, please."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE LITTLE HAND HELD HERS."]

She fell asleep a little later to the soothing refrain of an old lullaby, and never knew when her guests slipped out, with a whispered good night to Molly.

An hour went by. The Christmas tapers burned lower and lower, and finally went out, one by one, till there was left only the one above the angel and the star. The fire flickered on the hearth, but Molly did not rise to replenish it, for the little hand held hers, and she did not want to waken such sweet sleep. The nurse looked in at the door once or twice, and slipped out again. Nagasaki, curled up like a feather ball, with his head under his wing, stirred once, with a sleepy twitter, but no other sound broke the stillness of the little room.

Again the door opened softly, and the doctor stepped in on his round of evening visits. He laid his finger on the little one's pulse a moment, and then turned away. The last taper on the tree, that lit the star, glowing above the Christmas angel, gave a final flicker and went out.

The doctor, stepping into the hall, met one of the nurses. "You'll have to tell her sister," he said. "She is still holding the little one's hand, thinking that she is asleep. But her life went out with the last of the Christmas candles."

It was not until next day that the children heard what had happened the evening before. The matron had telephoned immediately to Mrs. Walton, but she did not tell the children, or send word to Locust, until next morning. She did not want a single shadow to rest on their glad Christmas Day.

"I do not believe in taking children to funerals," she said to her sister Elise, "but death seems so beautiful in this instance that I want them to see it."

The reception-room at the hospital had been fitted up like a chapel. An altar, draped in white, was covered with flowers, and before it stood the white casket where Dot's frail little body was tenderly tucked away for its last sleep.

All of the children were there; the two little knights, with a sweet seriousness in their handsome faces, wearing in their b.u.t.tonholes Aunt Allison's badge, the pin that was to remind them that they were trying to wear, also, "the white flower of a blameless life."

The little captain stood beside them, thinking, as he looked at the little body the saloons had killed (for nothing but the cruelty and neglect of a drunken father had caused Dot's illness and death), that there were battles to fight for his country at home, as well as those on foreign fields. The manly little shoulders squared themselves with a grave resolution to wear whatever duty the future might lay upon them, in warfare against evil, as worthily as he had worn the epaulets in far-away Luzon.

Allison and Kitty and Elise were there, and the Little Colonel, all strongly moved by the unusual scene. It was a very short and simple service. The late afternoon sun shone in aslant through the western window, like a wide bar of gold. The minister read the parable of the ninety and nine, and repeated the burial service. Then there was a prayer, and Miss Allison, seating herself at the organ, touched the keys in soft chords for Mrs. Walton to sing. She sung the lullaby that Dot had asked for the night before; the cradle-song of hundreds of happy home-sheltered children:

"'Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me, Bless thy little lamb to-night, Through the darkness be thou near me, Keep me safe till morning light.

"'Let my sins be all forgiven, Bless the friends I love so well, Take me when I die to heaven, Happy there with thee to dwell.'"

When it was all over they filed softly out into the corridor, feeling that they had only said good night to little Dot, and that it was good that one so tired and worn should find such deep and restful sleep. It was not at all like what they had imagined dying to be.

"Even Molly didn't cry," said Kitty, wonderingly, as they went home together in the twilight.

"No," said Mrs. Walton, "she said to me that she had done all her crying in those dreadful years when they were separated. She said, 'Oh, Mrs.

Walton, now that I know that she's comfortable and happy, I can't feel so bad about her as I used to. She's so safe, now. No matter what happens, the saloons can't hurt her, now. There'll be no more hungry days, no more beatings, and it will always be such a comfort to me to think she had such a good time in the hospital. For six weeks she had plenty to eat, and everybody was good to her. Every time I look at her picture, I think of that. She had white grapes and roses even in the winter-time, and she had _ice-cream_! All she wanted. And I made up my mind this morning that when I'm old enough I am going to be a trained nurse and help take care of poor little children the way she was taken care of here. Miss Agnes says she can find room for me right away, for there's all sorts of things that I can do, and I'd love to do it for my poor little Dot's sake.'"

"I must write that to Betty," thought the Little Colonel. "That is the most beautiful way of all to build a Road of the Loving Heart."

She thought of it all the way home, as the train sped on through the wintry fields, between snow-covered fences. It was dark when the brakeman called "Lloydsboro Valley," but Walker was waiting with the carriage, and they were soon driving in at the great entrance gate.

"Oh, mothah," said the Little Colonel, nestling closer under the warm carriage robes. "See how the stars shine through the locust-trees, and how the light streams out from the house, down the avenue to meet us!

Somehow, no mattah how happy the holidays are, it always seems so good to get home."

CHAPTER XVI.

A PEEP INTO THE FUTURE.

"AND what happened next?"

Ah, that I cannot tell you, for the rest of the story is yet to be lived. Only the swineherd's magic caldron can give you a glimpse into the future.

Gather around it, all you curious little princes and princesses, and thrust your fingers into the steam as the water bubbles and the bells begin again. I cannot tell what it will show you. Glimpses of college life, perhaps, and gay vacation times, as Rob and the captain and the two little knights leave their boyhood days behind them and grow up into manly young fellows, ready to take the places waiting for them in the world.

Perhaps there will be college days and gay vacation times for the girls, too, with white commencement gowns and diplomas and June roses. And away off in the distance there may be the sound of wedding bells ringing for them all, but if it is too far for the kettle to catch the echo of their chiming, surely _I_ have no right to tell.

But no matter what the kettle may show, or what it fails to disclose, you may be sure of this, that none who ever played under the Locusts with the Little Colonel forgot the pleasure of those merry playtimes.

And all who shared her joy in finding little Dot were better and more helpful ever after, because of what happened that Christmas-tide, the happiest of all the Little Colonel's holidays.

THE END.