Five Happy Weeks, Margaret E. Sangster [books that read to you TXT] 📗

that was a pretty good cause; but generally, when children are not naughty, they are happy. You would only vex your dear mamma, and make her feel badly, if you were moping and fretting here, where she sent you to be with your auntie. Then you would spoil auntie's pleasure if, instead of laughing and singing, you were crying and sitting in the corner. She would say, 'O dear, what queer children these are! I'll be glad when they're gone away.'"

"That would be dreadful! to have Aunt Maria think that," said Edith. "But tell us your opinion about it."

"My opinion is, that it is every one's duty to be as cheerful as he can be all the time. If things vex us and trouble us, let us say, 'Never mind.' If it rains to-day, it will be clear to-morrow. If we pray to our Father, about everything, we will never need to be sorrowful long."

Then Miss Rose taught them a pretty little verse:

"Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you."

Kneeling that night by her little white bed, Edith said her prayers as usual, and then added another petition:

"Dear Lord Jesus, make me happy every night and day, so that I shall love everybody, and everybody love me."

Edith was already one of those children whose lives are like "a little light, within the world to shine."


CHAPTER IV.

CHERRIES ARE RIPE.


Faster and faster flew the May days by, and all the world was beautiful. The strawberries grew red and sweet upon the vines, and the children went out with the pickers to gather them, but they didn't work very steadily at this, for the sun was hot, and picking berries is apt to make the back ache. But the cherries most delighted them, and when Aunt Maria told them that they could have just as many cherries to eat as they wanted, and gave them one tree all to themselves, they hardly knew how to express their joy. It was not only in eating the cherries, that they had pleasure, for Aunt Maria let them have a tea-party, and said they might choose their guests.

"They don't know anybody but the Lesters and the Randolphs," she said complacently to Miss Rose.

"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if Edith and Johnnie invited a lot of little ragamuffins from Wood's Alley," replied Miss Rose.

Wood's Alley was one of those wretched neighborhoods, which in cities have a way of setting themselves down near rich people's doors. It was the short cut to Main street, and when the people near Aunt Maria's were in haste, they often took it, rather than go a long way round. The windows in Wood's Alley were broken and dingy, and the interiors--which means all you could see as you passed by, looking at open doors--were dirty, smoky, and uninviting. Children fairly swarmed there, black and white, and as ragged as they could be. Mabel had made Aunt Maria very angry one day, by taking off her best hat, and giving it to a little beggar girl from Wood's Alley, who had been lingering near the gate, and casting admiring looks at it.

"She ought to have known better than to take it from you," Aunt Maria said. "She is nothing but a little thief, and you are a very improvident child. To-morrow I'll take you to church in your old hat."

This did not trouble Mabel much. Mabel did not yet care enough for her clothes, and more than once she had given her things away before. Her mother had been trying to teach her discretion in giving, for some time.

"Well, Rose," said Aunt Maria, "if I thought they would do that, I would tell them to have a picnic out-doors, for I don't want Wood's Alley in my dining-room. Those children are just as like their mother as they can be."

"Auntie," said Johnnie, "there's a splendid boy named Jim Cutts. He's been fishing with Charlie and me. Can he come to the party?"

"Jim Cutts!" echoed Mrs. MacLain with a sigh. Then she answered,

"Yes, dear, have whom you please; but let your table be out under the trees, on the lawn."

"That'll be splendid!" said Johnnie, running off.

They had ten or twelve little children at their party, and Dinah brought them sandwiches, cakes, and milk, and they had all the cherries they could eat. Edith taught them one of her Sunday-school hymns, and Johnnie made Luce perform all his most cunning tricks for their entertainment. Mabel lent her new doll to the poorest girl, to take home for the night, on the promise that it should surely come home next morning.

The promise was kept.

When the company had gone, Aunt Maria called them in, and made them take a thorough bath, and put on clean clothes all the way through. Then she bade each sit down, in the room with her, and read a chapter in the Bible. As Mabel could not read, she gave her a picture Bible to look at. She sat by, with so grave a face, and had so little to say, that they all began to feel uncomfortable, and wished themselves somewhere else. Edith's face was covered with blushes, Mabel began to swallow a lump in her throat, and Johnnie at last, growing angry, determined to stand it no longer. He shut up his Bible, and marched to Aunt Maria, who looked at him through her spectacles, and said:

"Well, sir? Who told you to shut up your book?"

"It does no good to read the Bible when anybody's mad with you," said Johnnie. "What have we done, Aunt Maria?"

"I did not say you had done anything."

"But you look so cross, and sit up so straight, and--who ever heard of reading the Bible, in the middle of the afternoon, on a week day?" said Johnnie with an air of assurance.

"Well, Johnnie, to tell the truth, I did not like your bringing all the riff-raff of the town to eat my nice cherries."

"But you said we might do it."

"I should think, Johnnie, you would have liked better to have such friends as Percival Lester and Reginold Randolph, or Maggie and Clara Vale, to play with. I fear you have low tastes, child."

At this charge, little Johnnie colored up, but he stood his ground.

"The reason we asked them was because they couldn't buy any fruit, if they wanted it ever so much; and we thought it would please them and make them happy."

Edith had been thoughtfully turning over the leaves of her Bible, and now she said:

"Auntie, here are some verses I once read to mamma:

"'When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee.

"'But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee, for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.'"

"There," said Johnnie, "haven't we made a Bible feast?"

"Yes, my dears," Aunt Maria replied, "and I beg your pardon. The truth is, I have not been very much displeased with you, but thought I would try you a little. Now as you have had a good rest, you may all go out and play."

"I think Aunt Maria ith a naughty woman," said Mabel in a very low voice to Edith, as they left the room.

Rose, who had been present all the while, heard her, and so did Aunt Maria, but neither said a word, till the children were out of hearing. Then Rose said,

"I'm afraid I agree with little Mabel. Dear Mrs. MacLain, what made you pretend to be vexed, if you were not?"

"I am not obliged to explain my actions to every one, am I, Rose?" said the lady. "Children are a sort of a puzzle to me, never having had any of my own; and I don't believe I know how to bring them up. But these of Helen's are pretty good, especially Johnnie."

Aunt Maria had some very stylish friends who occasionally visited her. They sent word beforehand concerning their coming, and great preparations were made. On the day of their arrival, the little folks were arrayed in their very best, and Edith and Mabel took their dolls, and were seated in the parlor, that they might not get into the least disorder.

"Mrs. Featherfew is very particular," said Aunt Maria. "She will be sure to take notice, if you don't behave splendidly."

"I'll be glad when she's been and gone," remarked Johnnie.

Mrs. Featherfew however was quite different from what the children had been led to expect. She was a slender pretty looking lady, who seemed to float down the long parlor, she walked so lightly and gracefully, her long silk dress trailing behind her. The next day the two little girls amused themselves by playing "Mrs. Featherfew," Edith putting on a long gown of her aunt's for the purpose.

Two very elegant children came with Mrs. Featherfew, Wilhelmine and Victorine. They spoke very primly and politely, and seemed to our little folks like grown-up ladies cut down short. But when after dinner they all went out into the grounds to play, Mine and Rine, as they called each other, could play as merrily as the others.

The little girl to whom the dolly had been lent happened to be looking through the palings, just when the fun was at its height. She had rather a dirty face, and a very torn dress.

"Do look at that impertinent creature actually staring at us, as if she belonged here!" exclaimed Victorine, with amazement.

"Go right away, child," said Wilhelmine.

Now as these little girls were guests themselves, they were taking too much responsibility in ordering anybody off. Edith's face flushed, and she felt vexed. She would have preferred, after all her Aunt Maria had said about it, to have the Alley children keep a little more distance; but she could not let anybody hurt their feelings.

"That little girl is a friend of mine, Wilhelmine," spoke out the loyal little soul bravely. It was not in Edith, to be ashamed of any friend, no matter how humble.

Wilhelmine looked surprised, and Johnnie went on to tell how they had gotten acquainted. Before he had finished, the little visitors were so interested in the ragged girl, that they each gave her a bright five-cent piece.

So Edith did good by her fearlessness. We never know how much good we may do, by speaking according to our conscience.

The Featherfew girls had a very nice time, and went away well pleased; but they told their mamma that the Evans children were very droll.

"It's the way they have been brought up, I imagine," said Mrs. Featherfew.

Two or three days after that, the children were in a part of the garden, in which was a bridge over a darling little brook, as Edith called it. They were expecting their parents by the first steamer, and Johnnie had been gathering a basket of the ripest and reddest cherries he could find, to have them all ready for offering to mamma on her arrival. As he was running lightly over the bridge, his foot slipped, and he came near falling in, but Edith and Mabel flew to the rescue, and held him up by his