A Sailor's Lass, Emma Leslie [bts books to read .TXT] 📗

of grog to meet the additional expense of his household: he rather increased the allowance, that he might be able to work [Pg. 86]the boat better, as he fancied, and so catch more fish. When he forgot his bottle and left it at Fellness, it struck him as something all but marvellous that he should be able to work the next day without his usual drams, but it had not convinced him that he could do without it all together. Of its effect upon himself, in making him sullen, morose, and disagreeable, he was in absolute ignorance, and so the children's talk about it came upon him as a revelation. He knew that Tiny sometimes shrank from and avoided him; but he had considered it a mere childish whim, not to be accounted for by anything in himself; and so to hear that she was absolutely afraid of him sometimes was something to make him think more deeply than he had ever done in his life before.

But he did not say a word to Tiny about this. When he had done rubbing his gun he carried it home, and Tiny was left free to make acquaintance with the farm children.

She walked shyly up to where they were [Pg. 87]sitting—Polly reading, and Harry throwing sand at Dick, who had seated himself at a short distance, and was returning the salute.

"Would—wouldn't you like to tell me about these letters, please?" said Tiny, holding out her paper to Polly.

"Well, that's a rum way of asking," said Harry, with a laugh. "Suppose she wouldn't now, little 'un," he added.

"Then she mustn't," said Tiny, stoutly; though the tears welled up to her eyes at the thought of all her hopes being overthrown just when they seemed about to be realised.

"Don't, Harry; what a tease you are!" said his sister. "I should like to tell you, dear," she added, in a patronising tone. "Come and sit down here, and tell me what you want."

"It's what you want; don't forget that, Polly, else she'll get her back up, and go off again," laughed her brother; but he was not sorry the embargo had been taken off their intercourse with the fisherman's family; for although he had had surreptitious dealings with [Pg. 88]boys sometimes, they had to be so watchful lest they should be discovered that the play was considerably hindered. Now he understood that this advance on Tiny's part was a direct concession from Coomber himself, for he and the boys had long ago agreed to try and draw the little girl into some intimacy as the only way of breaking down the restrictions laid upon them. But Tiny had proved obstinate. She had been asked again and again, but she had always returned the same answer: "Daddy would let her some day, and then she would play with them." So Harry Hayes was perfectly aware that she had won the fisherman's consent at last, although no word had been said about it.

When the girls were left to themselves, Polly took up the picture and looked at it, then turned it over and read, "God is good to all: He loves both boys and girls." At this point Tiny interrupted her by laying her hand on her arm, and saying eagerly: "Are you quite sure that is what it says?"

[Pg. 89] "Why, don't you think I can read?" said Polly, in a half-offended tone. But the subject was new to her, and so she was anxious to read further, and turned to the page again and read on. At the bottom was a line or two in smaller print, and Polly read these longer words with a touch of pride: "Jesus said, Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."

"Then this must be Jesus, and these are the little children," concluded Polly, as she turned over the paper to look at the picture again.

The two girls sat and looked at it and talked about it for a few minutes, and then Tiny said wistfully: "Will you show me now how you make up them nice words?"

"Oh, it's easy enough if you know the letters; but you must learn the letters first," said Polly; and she proceeded to tell Tiny the name of each; and the little girl had the satisfaction of knowing now that she had remembered them quite correctly, and that G O D did spell God, as she had surmised.

[Pg. 90]She was not long now in putting other words together; and before she went home she was able to spell out the first two lines of the printed page, for they were all easy words, and intended for beginners.

What a triumph it was to Tiny to be able to read out to the fisherman's family what she had learned on the sands that day. She was allowed to have the candle all to herself after supper, and they sat round the table looking at each other in wondering amazement as her little finger travelled along the page, and she spelt out the wonderful news, "'God is good to all: He loves both boys and girls.' It's true, Dick, what I told you, ain't it?" she said, in a tone of delighted satisfaction.

Dick scratched his head, and looked round at his father, wondering what he would think or say. For a minute or two the fisherman smoked his pipe in silence. At length, taking it from his mouth, he said, in a slow, meditative fashion: "Well, little 'un, I s'pose if it's printed that way it's true; and if it is, why I [Pg. 91]s'pose we've all got a share in that 'Star of Peace' we was talking about to-day."

Tiny did not quite follow his train of thought; but she nodded her head, and then proceeded to tell them what she had heard about the picture, and the conclusion she and Polly had arrived at upon the subject—that Jesus, the kind, loving man of the picture, had come to show them how kind God was to them.

 [Pg. 92]