THIS man was a friend of Jerry's; it was only two weeks ago that he had done him a good turn, in finding and bringing home his stray cow. He was perfectly good-natured, and found no fault at all with Norm's leaving the shop at five; in fact he said he was glad to have the boy leave in such good company.
"Would the others go?" Nettie questioned eagerly, and Norm, laughing, said he reckoned they would go quick enough if they got a chance; invitations to take boat rides were not so plenty that they could afford to lose them.
Then was time for Nettie's great surprise.
"And, Norm, will you bring them all home to supper with you? I'll have everything ready to cook the fish in a hurry as soon as you get into the house, and you can visit in the new room until they are ready."
Now indeed, I wish you could have seen Norm! It never happened to him before to have a chance to invite anybody home to supper with him. He looked at Nettie in silent bewilderment for a minute; he even rubbed his eyes as though possibly he might be dreaming; but she looked so real and so trim, and so sure of herself standing there quietly waiting his answer, that at last he stammered out:
"What do you mean, Nannie? You aren't in dead earnest?"
"Why, of course," said Nettie, deciding in a flash upon her plan of action; she would do as Jerry had, and take all this as a matter of course. "I'm going to make a lovely johnny-cake for supper, and some new-fashioned potatoes, and we have cream for the coffee. You shall have an elegant supper; only be sure you catch lots of fish."
It was all arranged at last to their satisfaction, and the two conspirators turned away to get ready for their part of the business.
"Norm liked it," said Jerry. "Couldn't you see by his face that he did? I believe we can get hold of him after awhile, by doing things of this kind; things that make him remember hehas a home, and pleasant times, like other boys."
If Jerry had waited fifteen minutes he might have been surer of that even than he was. Norm's second invitation followed hard on the first; and Norm, who felt a little sore over certain meannesses of the night before, and who knew his foreman was within hearing and would be sure to object to this young fellow who had come to ask him to go to the island, answered loftily: "Can't do it; I've promised to go out fishing with a party; and besides, our folks are going to have company to tea."
Company to tea! He almost laughed when he said it. How very strange the sentence sounded.
"O, indeed," said Jim Noxen from the saloon. "Seems to me you are getting big."
"It sounds like it," said Norman. "I wonder if I am?" But this he said to himself; for answer to the remark, he only laughed.
"If I had a chance to keep company with a young fellow like Jerry, and a trim little woman like that sister of yours, I guess I wouldn't often be found with the other set."
This the foreman said, with a significant nod of his head toward the young fellow who representedthe other set. And this, too, had its influence.
Jerry and Nettie had a glimpse of one of Norm's friends as they passed his shop on their homeward way.
"He has a good face," said Nettie. "Poor fellow! Hasn't he any home at all? Don't you wish we could get hold of him so close that he would help us? He looks as though he might."
Then she stepped into the boat and floated idly around, while Jerry ran for the oars; and while she floated, she thought and planned. There was a great deal to be done, both then and afterwards.
"I wish you could go with us and catch a fish," said Jerry, as he saw how she enjoyed the water, "but maybe it wouldn't be just the thing."
"I know it wouldn't," said Nettie; "besides, who would make the johnny-cake, and the potato balls? There is a great deal to be done to make things match, when you are catching fish."
The fishing party was a complete success. Jerry said afterwards that the very fish acted as though they were in the secret and were bound to help. He had never seen them bite so readily. By seven o'clock, the boat was headed homeward,with more fish than even four hungry boys could possibly eat.
"Now for supper," said Norm, who with secret delight had thought constantly of the surprise in store for Alf and Rick. "Boys, I'm going to take you home with me and show you what a prime cook my little sister is. We'll have these fish sizzling in a pan quicker than you have any notion of; and she knows how to sizzle them just right; doesn't she, Jerry?"
But Jerry was spared the trouble of a reply, for Alf with incredulous stare said, "You're gassing now."
"No, I'm not gassing. You can come home with me, honor bright, and you shall have such a supper as would make old Ma'am Turner wild."
Old Ma'am Turner, poor soul, was the woman who kept the wretched boarding house where these homeless boys boarded, and she really did know how to make things taste a little worse, probably, than any one you know of.
"What'll your mother say to your bringing folks home to supper?" questioned Rick, looking as incredulous as his friend. "She'll give us a hint of broomstick, I reckon, if we try it."
"Well," said Norm, unconcernedly, dipping the oar into the water, "try it and see, if you are a mind to, that's all I've got to say. I ain't going to force you to eat fish; but I promise you a first-class meal of them if you choose to come."
"Oh! we'll go," said Alf, with a giggle; "if we are broomed out the next second, we'll try it, just to see what will come of it. Things is queerer in this world than folks think, often; now I didn't believe a word of it, when you said we was going out in a boat to-night; I thought it was some of your nonsense; and here the little fellow has treated us prime."
The "little fellow" was Jerry, who smiled and nodded in honor of his compliment, but said nothing; he resolved to let Norm do the honors alone.
They went with long strides to the Decker home, Jerry waiting to fasten the boat and pay his bill. Each boy carried a fine string of fish of his own catching; and appeared at the back door just as Nettie came out to look.
"O, what beauties!" she said, gleefully; "and such a nice lot of them! I'm all ready and waiting. You go in, Norm, with yourfriends, and we'll have them cooking as soon as we can."
"Not much," said Norm, coming around to the board which she had evidently gotten ready for cleaning the fish, and diving his hand in his pocket in search of his jack-knife. "Let's fall to, boys, and clean these fellows. I know how, and I think likely you do, and they'll taste the better, like enough."
"Just so," said Rick Walker, who owned the face that Nettie had decided was a good one. "I'm agreeable; I know how to clean fish as well as the next one; used to do it for mother, when I was a little shaver."
Did the sentence end in a sigh, or did Nettie imagine it? All three went to work with strong skilful hands, and Nettie hopped back and forth bringing fresh water, and fresh plates, and feeling in her secret heart very grateful to the boys for doing this, which she had dreaded.
They were all done in a very short time, and each boy in turn had washed his hands in the basin which shone, and then, the shining, or the smoothness and beautiful cleanness of the great brown towel, or something, prompted Rick to take fresh water and dip his brown face into it,and toss the water about like a great Newfoundland dog.
"I declare, that feels good!" he said. "Try it, Alf." And Alf tried it.
Then Norm led the way to the new room. It would have done Nettie's heart good if she had known how many times he had thought of that room during the last hour. He knew it would be a surprise to the boys. They had never seen anything but the Decker kitchen, and not much of that, standing at the door to wait a minute for Norm, but the few glimpses they had had of it, had not led them to suppose that there was any such place in the house as this in which he was now going to usher them. Their surprise was equal to the occasion. They stopped in the doorway, and looked around upon the prettiness, the bright carpet, the delicate curtains, the gay chairs! nothing like this was to be found at Ma'am Turner's, nor in any other room with which they were familiar.
"Whew!" said Rick, closing the word with a shrill whistle; "I think as much!" said Alf. "Who'd have dreamed it. I say, Norm, you're a sly one; why didn't you ever let on that you had this kind of thing?"
How they entertained one another during that next hour, Nettie did not know. Eyes and brain were occupied in the kitchen. Jerry came, presently, but reported that they were getting on all right in the front room, and he believed he could do better service in the kitchen; so he set the table with a delicate regard for nicety which Nettie had been taught at Auntie Marshall's, and which she knew he had not learned at Mrs. Job Smith's. Sarah Jane was rigidly clean, but never what Nettie called "nice."
"We'll take the table in the front room," decreed Nettie as she surveyed it thoughtfully for a few minutes. "It is very warm out here, and they will like it better to be quite alone; we can put all the dishes on, with the leaves down, and set them in their places in a twinkling, after we have lifted it in there. Won't that be the way, mother?"
"Land!" said Mrs. Decker, withdrawing her head from the oven, whither it had gone to see after the new-fashioned potato balls, "I should think they could eat out here; you may depend they never saw so clean a kitchen at old Ma'am Turner's. But it is hot here, and no mistake;and I should not know what to do with myself while they was eating. Please yourself, child, and then I'll be pleased. I'm going to save one of these potatoes for your pa; I never see anything in my life look prettier than they do."
Mrs. Decker's tones told much plainer than her words, that she liked Nettie's idea of putting the table in the front room for Norm's company. She would not have owned it, but her mother-heart was glad over a "fuss" being made for her Norm.
So the table went in; Jerry at one end, and Nettie at the other. They hushed a loud laugh by their entrance, but Jerry went immediately over to Rick Walker to show a new-fashioned knife, and Nettie's fingers flew over the table, so by the time the knife had been exhausted, she was ready to vanish.
Confess now that you would like to have had a seat at that table when it was ready. A platter of smoking fish, done to the nicest brown, without drying or burning; a bowl of lovely little brown balls, each of them about the size of an egg, a plate of very light and puffy-looking Johnny-cake, and to crown all, coffee that filled the room with such an aroma as Ma'am Turnerperhaps dreamed of, but never certainly in these days smelled. Mrs. Job Smith at the last minute had sent in a pat of genuine country butter, and Sate had flown to the grocery for a piece of ice with which to keep it in countenance.
Jerry set the chairs, and Nettie poured the coffee, and creamed and sugared it, and then slipped away.
She knew by the looks on the faces of the guests, that they were astonished beyond words, and she knew that Norm was both astonished and pleased. There was another supper being made ready in the kitchen. Mrs. Decker had herself tugged in the box which had been lately set up as a washbench, and spread the largest towel over it, and was serving three lovely fish, and a bowl of potato balls for "Decker" and herself.
"I guess I'm going to have company too," she said to Nettie, her face beaming. "Your pa has gone to wash up, and I thought seeing there was only two chairs, and two plates left, you wouldn't mind having him and me sit down together, for a meal, first."
"Yes, I do mind," said Nettie; "I think it is a lovely plan; I'm so glad you thought of it,and Jerry and I will keep watch that they have everything in the other room, while you eat." If you are wondering in your hearts where those important beings, Sate and Susie, were at this moment, I should have told you before, that Sarah Jane had a brilliant thought, but an hour before, and carried them out to tea. So all the Decker family were visiting that evening, save Nettie, and I think perhaps she was the happiest among them all. Every time she heard a burst of fresh fun from the front room, she laughed, too; it was so nice to think that Norm was having a good time in his own home, and nothing to worry over.
It is almost a pity that, for her encouragement, she could not have heard some of the conversation in that room.
"I say, Norm," said his friend Alf, his tones muffled by reason of a large piece of johnny-cake, "what an awful sly fellow you are! You never let on that you had these kind of doings in your house. Who'd have thought that you had a stunning room like this for folks, and potatoes done up in brown satin, to eat, and coffee such as they get up at the hotels! It beats all creation!"
"That's so," said Rick, taking in a quarter of a fish at one mouthful, "I never dreamed of such a thing; what beats me, is, why a fellow who has such nice doings at home, wants to loaf around, and spend evenings at Beck's, or at Steen's. Hang me if I don't think the contrast a little too great. 'Pears to me if I had this kind of thing, I should like to enjoy it oftener than Norm seems to."
Norman smiled loftily on them. Do you think he was going to own that "this kind of thing" had never been enjoyed in his home before, during all the years of his recollection? Not he; he only said that folks liked a change once in awhile, of course, and he only laughed when Rick and Alf both declared that if they knew themselves, and they thought they did, they would be content never to change back from this kind of thing to Ma'am Turner's supper table so long as they lived.
How those boys did eat! Nettie owned to herself that she was astonished; and privately rejoiced that she had made four johnny-cakes instead of three, though it had seemed almost extravagant until she remembered that it would warm up nicely for breakfast. Not a crumbwould there be for breakfast. She had one regret and she told it to Jerry as she went out to him on the back stoop, having poured the third cup of coffee around, for the three in the front room.
"Jerry, I am just afraid there won't be a speck of johnny-cake left for you to taste. Those boys do eat so!"
"Never mind," laughed Jerry. "We will eat the tail of a fish, if any of them have a tail left, and rejoice over our success; this thing is going to work, I believe, if we can keep it going."
"That's the trouble," said Nettie, an anxious look in her eyes. "How can we? Fish won't do every time; and there are no other things that you can catch. Besides, even this has cost a great deal. I paid eight cents for lard to fry the fish, and the butter and milk and things would have cost as much as fifteen cents certainly. Mrs. Smith furnished them this time, but of course such things won't happen again."
"A great many things happen," said Jerry, wisely. "More than you can calculate on. 'Never cross a bridge until you come to it, my boy.' Didn't I tell you that was what my father was always saying to me? I have found it agood plan, too, to follow his advice. Many a time I've worried over troubles that never came. Look here, don't you believe that if we are to do this thing and good is to come from it, we shall be able to manage it somehow?"
"Why, y-e-s," said Nettie, slowly, as though she were waiting to see whether her faith could climb so high; "I suppose that is so."
"Well, if good isn't going to come of it, do we want to do it?"
"Of course not."
"All right, then," with a little laugh. "What are we talking about?" And Nettie laughed, and ran in to give her father his last cup of coffee, and to hear him say that he hadn't had so good a meal in six years.
It was a curious fact that Susie and Sate were the chief movers in the next thing that these young Fishers did to interest the particular fish whom they were after.
It began the next Sabbath morning in Sabbath-school. There, the little girls heard with deep interest that on the following Sabbath there was to be a service especially for the children. A special feature of the day was to be the decoration of the church with flowers, whichthe children were to bring on the previous Saturday. Susie and Sate promised with the rest, that they would bring flowers. Promised in the confident expectation of childhood that some way they could join the others and do as they did; though both little girls knew that not a flower grew in or about them. During the early part of the week they forgot it, but on Saturday morning they stood in the little front yard and saw a sight which recalled all the delights of the coming Sunday in which they seemed to be having no share. The little girls from the Orphanage on the hill were bringing their treasures. Even fat little Karl who was only five, had a potted plant in full bloom, which he was proudly carrying. Little Dutch Maggie, in her queer long apron, carried a plant with lovely satiny leaves which were prettier than any bloom, and behind her was Robert the Scotch gardener with his arms full; then young Rob Severn, Miss Wheeler's nephew, had a lovely fuchsia just aglow with blossoms, and Miss Wheeler herself, who was the matron at the Orphanage, was carrying a choice plant. All these the hungry eyes of Sate and Susie took in, as the procession passed the house, then they ranwailing to Nettie who had already become the long suffering person to whom they must pour out their woes.
"We promised, we did," explained Sate, her earnest eyes fixed on Nettie, while her arms clasped that young lady just as she was in the act of throwing out her dishwater. "We did promise, and they will 'spect them, and they won't be there."
"Well, but, darling, what made you promise, when you knew we had no flowers? Mrs. Smith would give you some in a minute if hers were in bloom. Why didn't they wait a little later, I wonder? Then Mrs. Smith could have given us such lovely china-asters."
"We must have some to-morrow," said the emphatic Susie, and she fastened her black eyes on Nettie in a way that said: "Now you understand what must be, I hope you will at once set about bringing it to pass."
Nettie could not help laughing. "If you were a fairy queen," she said, "and could wave your wand and say, 'Flowers, bloom,' and they would obey you, we should certainly have some; as it is, I don't quite see how they are to be had. We have no friends to ask."
"I can't help it," said Susie, positively, "wepromisedto bring some, and of course we must. You said, Nettie Decker, that we must always keep our promises."
"Now, Miss Nettie Decker, you are condemned!" said Jerry, with grave face but laughing eyes; "something must evidently be done about this business. Dandelions are gone, except the whiteheads, and they would blow away before they got themselves settled in church, I am afraid. Hold on, I have a thought, just a splendid one if can manage it; wait a bit, Susie, and we will see what we can do."
Susie, who was beginning to have full faith in this wise friend of theirs, told Sate in confidence that they were going to have some flowers to take to church, as well as the rest of them; she did not know what Jerry was going to make them out of, but she knew he wouldmakesome.
After that, Jerry was not seen again for several hours. In fact it was just as the dinner dishes were washed, that he appeared with a triumphant face. "Have you made some?" asked Sate, springing up from her dolly and going toward him expectantly.
"Made some what, Curly?"
"Flowers," said Sate, gravely. "Susie said she knew you would."
Jerry laughed. "Susie has boundless faith in impossibilities," he said. "No, I haven't made the flowers, but I have the boat. That old thing that leaked so, you know, Nettie; well, I've put it in prime order, and got permission to use it, and if you and the chicks will come, we will sail away to where they make flowers, and pick all we want; unless some wicked fairy has whispered my bright thought to somebody else, and I don't believe it, for I have seen no one out on the pond to-day."
Then Sate, her eyes very large, went in search of Susie to tell her that this wonderful boy had come to take them where flowers were made, and to let them gather for themselves.
"I suppose it is heaven," said Sate, gravely, "because the real truly flowers, you know, God makes, and he has his things all up in heaven to work with, I guess."
"What a little goosie you are!" said Susie, curling her wise lip; "as if Jerry Mack could take us to heaven!"
However, she went at once to see about it, and was almost as much astonished to thinkthat they were really going out in a boat, as she would have been if they were going to heaven. "I s'pose it's safe?" said Mrs. Decker doubtfully, watching the light in the little girls' eyes, and remembering how few pleasures had been offered them.
"O, yes'm," said Jerry, "as safe as the road. I could row a boat, ma'am, very well indeed, father said, when I was six years old; and you couldn't coax that clumsy old thing to tip over, if you wanted it to; and if it should, the water isn't up to my waist anywhere in the pond."
Mrs. Decker laughed, and said it sounded safe enough; and went back to her ironing, and the four happy people sailed away. If not to where the pond lilies were made, at least to where they grew in all their wild sweet beauty.
"How very strange," said Nettie, as they leaned over the great rude, flat-bottomed boat and pulled the beauties in; "how very strange that no one has gathered these for to-morrow. Why, nothing could be more lovely!"
"Well," said Jerry, "only a few people row this way, because it isn't the pleasantest part of the pond, you know, for rowing; and I guess no one has remembered that the lilies were out;there don't many people, only fishermen, go out on this pond, you know, because the boats are so ugly; and fishermen don't care for flowers, I guess. Anyhow, they haven't been here, for the buds are all on hand, just as I thought they would be by this time, when I was here on Tuesday. But I never thought of the church; so you see how little thinking is done."
Well, they gathered great loads of the beauties, and rowed home in triumph, and put the lilies in a tub of water, and sat down to consider how best to arrange them. It was curious that Mrs. Job Smith should have been the next one with an idea.
"I should think," she said, standing in the doorway of her kitchen, her hands on her sides, "I should think a great big salver of them laid around in their own leaves, would be the prettiest thing in the world."
"So it would," said Nettie, "the very thing, if we only had the salver."
"Well, I've got that. Mrs. Sims, she gave me an old battered and bruised one, when they were moving. It is big enough to put all the cups and saucers on in town, almost; when I lugged it home, Job, he wanted to know whatonearthI wanted of that, and says I, I don't know, but she give it to me, and most everything in this world comes good, if you keep it long enough. Sarah Ann, you run up to the corner in the back garret and get that thing, and see what they'll make of it."
So Sarah Ann ran.
PERHAPS you do not see how the pond lilies, lovely as they were, arranged on that salver, helped Jerry and Nettie in their plans for Norm and his friends. But there is another part to that story.
After the salver had been filled with sand, and covered with moss, and soaked until it would absorb no more water, and the lilies had been laid in so thickly that they looked like a great white bank of bloom, the whole was lovely, as I said, but heavy. The walk to the church was long, and Nettie, thinking of it, surveyed her finished work with a grave face. How was it ever to be gotten to the church? She tried to lift one end of it, and shook her head. There was no hope that she could evenhelpcarry it for so long a distance. Mrs. Smith saw the trouble in her eyes, and guessed at itscause. "It is an awful heavy thing, that's a fact," she said, "hefting" it in her strong arms; "I don't know how you are going to manage it; Sarah Jane would help in a minute, but there's her back; she ain't got no back to speak of, Sarah Jane hasn't. And there's Job, he ain't at home; he went this morning before it was light, away over the other side of the clip hill with a load, and the last words he says to me was: 'Don't you be scairt if I don't get round very early; them roads over there is dreadful heavy, and I shall have to rest the team in the heat of the day,' and like enough he won't get back till nigh ten o'clock."
Certainly no help could be expected from the Smith family. "We shall have to take some of the sand out," said Nettie, surveying the mound regretfully; "I'm real sorry; it does look so pretty heaped up! but Jerry can never carry it away down there alone."
Then came Jerry's bright idea. "I'll get Norman to help me."
"Norm!" said Nettie, stopping astonished in the very act of picking out some of the lilies. It had not once occurred to her that Norm could be asked to go to the church on an errand. Shecouldn't have told why, but Norm and the church seemed too far apart to have anything in common.
"Yes," said Jerry, positively. "Why not? I know he'll help; and he and I can carry it like a daisy. Don't take out one of them, Nettie. I know you will spoil it if you touch it again; it is just perfect. Halloo, Norm, come this way."
Sure enough at that moment Norm appeared from the attic where he slept; he had washed his face and combed his hair, and made himself as decent looking as he could, and was starting for somewhere; and Nettie remembered with a sinking heart that it was Saturday night; Norm's worst night except Sunday.
He stopped at Jerry's call, and stood waiting.
"You are just the individual I wanted to see at this moment," said Jerry with a confident air. "This meadow here has got to be dug up and carried bodily down to the church; and it is as heavy as though its roots were struck deep in the soil. Will you shoulder an end with me?"
"To the church!" repeated Norm with an incredulous stare. "What do they want of that thing at the church?"
"They are our flowers," said Sate with a positive little nod of her head. "We promised to bring them, and they are so big and heavy we can't. Will you help?"
Now Norm had really a very warm feeling in his heart for this small sister; Susie he considered a nuisance, and a vixen, but Sate with her slow sweet voice, and shy ways, had several times slipped behind his chair to escape a slap from her angry father, thus appealing to his protection, and once when he lifted her over the fence, she kissed him; he was rather willing to please Sate. Then there was Jerry who was a good fellow as ever lived, and Nettie who was a prime girl; why shouldn't he help tote the thing down to the church if that was what they wanted? To be sure he wanted to go in the other direction, and the fellows would be waiting, he supposed; but he could go there, afterwards, let them wait until he came.
"Well," he said at last, "come on, I'll help; though what they want of all this rubbish at the church is more than I can imagine." And Nettie and the little girls stood with satisfied faces watching the two move off under their heavy burden. It was something to have Normgo to church if it was only to carry flowers.
Arrived at the door, Norm was seized with a fit of shyness; the doors were thrown wide open, and ladies and children were flitting about, and many tongues were going, and flowers and vines were being festooned around the gas lights, and the pillars, and wherever there was a spot for them.
"Hold on," said Norm, jerking back, thus putting the great salver in eminent peril, "I ain't going in there; all the village is there; you better pitch this rubbish out, they've got flowers enough."
"There isn't a lily among them," said Jerry. "And besides they have to go in, anyhow, we can't afford to disappoint Sate. Come on, Norm, I can't carry the thing alone, any more than I could the stove; it is unaccountably heavy."
This was true, but Jerry was very glad that it was. He had his reasons for wanting to get Norm down the aisle to the front of the pulpit. With very reluctant feet Norm followed, bearing his share of the burden, his face flushing over the exclamations with which they were at last greeted.
"Oh, oh! pond lilies! I did not know therewere any this year. Where did you get them? Girls, look! Did you ever see anything more lovely?" And a group of faces were gathered about the tray, and one brown head went down among the lilies and caressed them.
"Where did you get them?" she repeated; "I asked my cousin if there were any about here, and she said she thought not; and last night when I was out on the pond I looked and could not find any."
"They hide," said Jerry. "The only place on the pond where they can be found is down behind the old mill; and most people don't go there at all, because the channel is so narrow, and the water so shallow."
"Well, we are so glad you brought them! Girls, aren't they too lovely for anything? Who arranged them?"
"My sister," said Norm, to whom Jerry promptly turned with an air which said as plainly as words could have done: "You are the one to answer; she belongs to you."
"And who is that?" asked the owner of the pretty brown head, as she made way for them to pass to the table with their burden. "I am sure I would like to know her; for she certainlyknows how to put flowers into lovely shapes."
Then came from behind the desk a man whom Jerry knew and whom he had seen while he stood at the door. "Good evening, Jerry," he said, holding out his hand in a cordial way. "What a wonderful bank of beauty you have brought! Introduce me to your helper, please."
"Mr. Sherrill, Mr. Norman Decker," said Jerry, exactly as though he had been used to introducing people all his life; and Norm, his face very red, knew that he was shaking hands with the new minister. A very cordial hand-shake, certainly, and then the minister turning to her of the brown head, said, "Eva, come here; let me introduce you to Mr. Norman Decker. My sister, Mr. Decker."
Norm, hardly knowing what he was about, contrived another bow, and then Miss Eva said, "Decker, why, that is the name of my two little darlings about whom I have been telling you for two Sabbaths. Are they your little sisters, Mr. Decker? Little Sate and Susie?" And as Norm managed to nod an answer, she continued: "They have stolen my heart utterly; that little Sate is the dearest little thing. By the way, I wonder if these are her flowers? She promisedme she would certainly get some; she said they had none in their garden, but God would make some grow for her somewhere she guessed."
"Yes'm," said Jerry, seeing that Norm would not speak, "they are her flowers, hers and Susie's, they coaxed us to go for them."
"Decker," said the minister, suddenly, "you are pretty tall, I wonder if you are not just the one to help me get this wreath fastened back of the pulpit? I have been working at it for some time, and failed for the want of an arm long enough and strong enough to help me." And the two disappeared behind the desk up the pulpit stairs to the immense satisfaction of Jerry. The ladies went on with their work; Miss Eva calling to him to help her move the table, and then to help arrange the salver on it, and then to bring more vines from the lecture room to cover the base of the floral cross; and indeed, before they knew it, both Jerry and Norm were in the thick of the engagement; Jerry flitting hither and thither at the call of the girls, and Norm following the minister from point to point, and using his long limbs to good advantage.
"Well," he said, wiping his face with hiscoat sleeve, as, more than an hour after their entrance, he and Jerry made their way down the churchyard walk, "that is the greatest snarl I ever got into. How that fellow can work! But he would never have got them things up in the world, if I had not been there to help him."
"No," said Jerry "I don't believe he would. How glad they were to get the lilies! They do look prettier than anything there. I did not know who that lady was who taught the little folks. She has only been there a few weeks. She is pretty, isn't she?"
"I s'pose so," said Norm, "her voice is, anyhow. They say she's a singer. I heard the fellows down at the corner talking about her one night; Dick Welsh says she can mimic a bird so you couldn't tell which was which. I wouldn't mind hearing her sing. I like good singing."
"I suppose they will have her sing in the church," said Jerry in a significant tone. But to this, Norm made no reply.
"What was it Mr. Sherrill wanted of you just as we were coming out?" asked Jerry, after reflecting whether he had better ask the question or not.
"Wanted me to come and see how the things looked in the daytime," said Norm with an awkward laugh that ended in a half sneer; "I'll be likely to I think!"
"Going up home, I s'pose?" said Jerry, trying to speak indifferently, and slipping his hand through Norm's arm as they reached the corner, and Norm half halted.
"Well, I suppose I might as well," Norm said, allowing himself to be drawn on by never so slight a pressure from Jerry's arm. "I was going down street, and the boys were to wait for me; but they have never waited all this while; it must be considerable after nine o'clock."
"Yes," said Jerry, "it is." And they went home.
Nettie, sitting on the doorstep, waiting, will never forget that night, nor the sinking of heart with which she waited. Her father had been kept at home, first by his employer who came to give directions about work to be attended to the first thing on Monday morning, and then by Job Smith getting home before he was expected and asking a little friendly help with the load he brought; and he had at lastdecided that it was too late to go out again, and had gone to bed. Mrs. Decker in her kitchen, hovered between the door and the window, peering out into the lovely night, saying nothing, but her heart throbbing so with anxiety about her boy that she could not lay her tired body away. Mrs. Job Smith in her kitchen, looked from her door and then her window, many misgivings in her heart; if that bad boy Norm should lead her good boy Jerry into mischief what should she say to his father? How could she ever forgive herself for having encouraged the intimacy between him and the Deckers?
Presently, far down the quiet street came the sound of cheery whistling; Nettie knew the voice: nothing so very bad could have happened when Jerry was whistling like that; or was he perhaps doing it to keep his courage up? The whistle turned the corner, and in the dim starlight she could distinguish two figures; they came on briskly, Jerry and Norm. "A nice job you set us at," began Jerry, gayly, "we have just this minute got through; and here it is toward morning somewhere, isn't it?" Then all that happy company went to their beds.
After dinner the next day, Nettie studied if there were not ways in which she might coax Norm to go to church that evening. Jerry had told her of the minister's invitation. Norm had slept later than usual that morning, and lounged at home until after dinner; now he was preparing to go out. How could she keep him? How could she coax him to go with her?
Before she could decide what to do to try to hold him, Susie took matters into her own hands by pitching head foremost out of the kitchen window, hitting her head on the stones. Then there was hurry and confusion in the Decker kitchen! Then did Mrs. Smith, and Job Smith, and Sarah Jane fly to the rescue. Though after all, Norm was the one who stooped over poor silent Susie and brought her limp and apparently lifeless into the kitchen. Jerry ran with all speed for the doctor. It was hours before they settled down again, having discovered that Susie was not dead, but had fainted; was not even badly hurt, save for a bump or two. But it took the little lady only a short time, after recovering from her fright, to discover that she was a person of importance, and to like the situation.
It happened that Norm had, by the doctor's directions, carried her from her mother's bed to the cooler atmosphere of the front room. Susie had enjoyed the ride, and now announced with the air of a conqueror, "I want Norm to carry me." So Norm, frightened into love and tenderness, lifted the little girl in his strong arms, laid the pretty head on his shoulder, and willingly tramped up and down the room. Was Susie a witch, or a selfish little girl? Certain it was that during that walk she took an unaccountable and ever increasing fancy for Norm. He must wet the brown paper on her head as often is the vinegar with which it was saturated dried away; he must hold the cup while she took a drink of water; he must push the marvel of a barrel chair in which she for a time sat in state, closer to the window; he must carry her from the chair to the table when supper was finally ready, and carry her back again when it was eaten. Nettie looked on amused and puzzled. Certainly Susie had kept Norm at home all the afternoon; but was she also likely to accomplish it for the evening? For Norm, to her great surprise, seemed to like the new order of things.
He blushed awkwardly when Susie gently pushed her mother aside and demanded Norm, but he came at once, with a good-natured laugh, and held her in his arms with as much gentleness and more strength than the mother could have given; and seemed to like the touch of the curly head on his shoulder.
But while Nettie was putting away the dishes and puzzling over all the strange events of the afternoon, Susie was undressed, partly by Norm, according to her decree, and fell asleep in his arms and was laid on her mother's bed, and Norm slipped away!
Poor Nettie! She ran to the door to try to call him, but he was out of sight. "I tried to think of something to keep him till you came in," explained the disappointed mother, "but I couldn't do it; he laid Susie down as quick as he could, and shot away as though he was afraid you would get hold of him."
So Nettie, her face sad, prepared to go with Jerry and the Smiths down to evening meeting, and told Jerry on the way, that it did seem strange to her, so long as Susie had kept Norm busy all the afternoon, that they must let him slip away from them at last.
AFTER Susie Decker pitched out of the window that Sabbath afternoon she became such an object of importance that you would hardly have supposed anything else could have happened worth mentioning; but after the excitement was quite over, and Susie had been cuddled and petted and cared for more than it seemed to her she had ever been in her life before, Mr. Decker, finding nothing better to do, went out and sat down on the doorstep.
Little Sate dried her eyes and slipped away very soon after she discovered that Susie could move, and speak, and was therefore not dead. She had wandered in search of entertainment to the yard just around the corner, where had come but a few days before, a small boy on a visit.
This boy, Bobby by name, finding Sunday ahard day, had finally, after getting into all sorts of mischief within doors, been established by an indulgent auntie in the back yard, with her apron tied around his chubby neck, to protect his new suit, with a few pieces of charcoal, and permission to draw some nice Sunday pictures on the white boards of the house.
This business interested Sate, and in spite of her shyness, drew her the other side of the high board fence which separated the neighbor's back yard from Mr. Decker's side one.
Just as that gentleman took his seat on the doorstep, he heard the voices of the two children; first, Bobby's confident one, the words he used conveying all assurance of unlimited power at his command—
"Now, what shall I make?"
"Make," said Sate, her sweet face thrown upward in earnest thought, "make the angel who would have come for Susie if she had died just now."
"How do you know any angel would have come for her?" asked sturdy Bobby.
"Why, 'cause Iknowthere would. Miss Sherrill said so to-day; she told us about that little baby that died last night; she said anangel came after it and took it right straight up to heaven."
"Maybe she don't know," said skeptical Bobby.
Then did Sate's eyes flash.
"I guess she does know, Bobby Burns, and you will be real mean, and bad if you say so any more. She knows all about heaven, and angels, and everything."
"Does angels come after all folks that dies?"
"I dunno; I guess so; no, I guess not. Only good folks."
"Is Susie good?"
"Sometimes she is," said truthful Sate, in slow, thoughtful tones, a touch of mournfulness in them that might have gone to Susie's heart had she heard and understood; "she gave me the biggest half of a cookie the other night. It was agood dealthe biggest; and she takes care of me most always; one day she took off her shoes and put them on me, because the stones and the rough ground hurt my feet. They hurt her feet too; they bleeded, oh! just awful, but she wouldn't letmebe hurt."
"Why didn't you wear your own shoes?"
"I didn't have any; mine all went to holes;just great big holes that wouldn't stay on; it was before my papa got good, and he didn't buy me any shoes at all."
"Has your papa got good?"
"Yes," said Sate confidently, "I guess he has. My sister Nettie thinks so; and Susie does too. He don't drink bad stuff any more. It was some kind of stuff he drank that made him cross; mamma said so; and the stuff made him feel so bad that he couldn't buy shoes, nor nothing; why, sometimes, before Nettie came home, we didn't have any bread! He isn't cross to-day, and he wasn't last night; and he bought me some new shoes—real pretty ones, and he kissed me. I love my papa when he is good. Do you love your papa when he is good?"
"My papa is always good," said Bobby, with that air of immense superiority.
"Is he?" asked Sate, wonder and admiration in her tone. Happy Bobby, to possess a father who was always good! "Doesn't he ever drink any of that bad stuff?"
"I guess he doesn't!" said indignant Bobby. "You wouldn't catch him taking a drop of it for anything. If he was sick and was going to die if he didn't, he says he wouldn't take it. Iknow all about that; the name of it is whiskey, and things; it has lots of names, but that is one of them. My father is a temperance."
"What is that?"
"It is a man who promises that he won't ever taste it nor touch it, nor nothing, forever and ever. And he won't."
"Oh my!" said Sate. "Then of course you love him all the time. I mean to love my papa, all the time too. I'm most sure I can. What makes you make such a big angel? Susie isn't big; a little angel could carry her."
"This angel isn't the one who was coming for Susie; it is the one who is going to come for my papa when he dies."
"Oh! then will you make the one who will come for my papa? Make him very big and strong, for my papa is a strong man, and I don't want the angel to drop him."
Mr. Decker arose suddenly and went round to the back part of the house, and cleared his throat, and coughed, two or three times, and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. Had he peeped through the fence and caught a glimpse of the angel whom Bobby made, he might not have been so strangely touched; butthe words of his little girl seemed to choke him, and his eyes, just then, were too dim to see angels.
He was very still all the rest of the afternoon. At the tea table he scarcely spoke, and afterwards, while Mrs. Decker and Nettie were mourning over Norm's escape, he too put on his coat, and went away down the street.
Mrs. Decker came to the door when she discovered it, and looked after him. He was still in sight, but she did not dare to call. As she looked, she gathered up a corner of her apron and wiped her eyes. Presently she sat down on the step where he had been sitting so short a time before, leaned her elbows on her knees, and her cheeks on her hands, and thought sad thoughts.
She felt very much discouraged. On this first Sunday, after the new room had been made, and new hopes excited, they had slipped away, both Norm and her husband, to lounge in the saloon as usual, and to come home, late at night, the worse for liquor. She knew all about it! Hadn't she been through it many times?
The little gleam of hope which had started again, under Nettie and Jerry's encouragingwords and ways, died quite out. Sitting there, Mrs. Decker made up her mind once more, that there was no kind of use in working, and struggling, and trying to be somebody. She was the wife of a drunkard; and the mother of a drunkard; Norm would be that, before long. And her little girls would grow up beggars. It was almost a pity that Susie had not been killed when she fell. Why should she want to live to be a drunkard's daughter, and a drunkard's sister? If the Heaven she used to hear about when she was a little girl, was all so, why should she not long for Susie and Sate to go there? Then if she could go away herself and leave all this misery!
She had hurried with her dishes, she had hoped that when she was ready to sit down in the neat room with the new lamp burning brightly, he would sit with her as he used to do on Sunday evenings long ago. But here she was alone, as usual. More than once that big apron which she had not cared to take off after she found herself deserted, was made to do duty as a handkerchief and wipe away bitter tears.
Meantime, Nettie sat in the pretty church andlooked at the lovely flowers, and listened to the wonderful singing. Miss Sherrill sang the solo of something more beautiful than Nettie had ever even imagined. "Consider the lilies how they grow." What wonderful words were these to be sung while looking down at a great bank of lilies! It is possible that the singing may have been more beautiful to Nettie because her own fingers had arranged the lilies, but it was in itself enough for any reasonable mortal's ear, and as it rolled through the church, there was more than one listener who thought of the angels, and wondered if their voices could be sweeter. Nettie's small handkerchief went to her eyes several times during the anthem; she could not have told why she cried, but the music moved her strangely. Before the anthem was fairly concluded there was something else to take her attention. Mrs. Job Smith in whose seat she sat, gave her arm a vigorous poke with a sharp elbow, and whispered in a voice which seemed to Nettie must have been heard all over the church, "For the land's sake, if there ain't your pa sitting down there under the gallery!"
As soon as she dared do so, Nettie turned her head for one swift look. Mrs. Smithmustbemistaken, but she would take one glance to assure herself. Certainly that was her father, sitting in almost the last seat, leaning his head against one of the pillars, the shabbiness of his coat showing plainly in the bright gaslight. But Nettie did not think of his coat. Her cheeks grew red, and her eyes filled again with tears. It was not the music, now; it was a strange thrill of satisfaction, and of hope. How pleasant she had thought it would be to go to church with her father. It was one of the things she had planned at Auntie Marshall's; how she would perhaps take her father's arm, being tall for her years, and Auntie Marshall said he was not a tall man, and walk to church by his side, and find the hymns for him, and receive his fatherly smile, and when she handed him his hat after service, perhaps he would say, "Thank you, my daughter," as she had heard Doctor Porter say to his little girl in the seat just ahead of theirs. Nettie's hungry little heart had wanted to hear that word applied to herself. Now all these sweet dreams of hers seemed to have been ages ago; actually it felt like years since she had hoped for such a thing, or dreamed of seeing her father in church, so swiftly hadthe reality crowded out her pretty dreams. Yet there he sat, listening to the reading.
What Nettie would have done or thought had she known that Norm and two friends were at that moment seated in the gallery just over her father's head, I cannot say. On the whole, I am glad she did not know it until church was out. Especially I am glad she did not know that Norm giggled a good deal, and whispered more or less, and in various ways so annoyed the minister that he found it difficult to keep from speaking to the young men in the gallery. The fact is, he would have done so, had he not recognized in one of them his helper of the evening before, and resolved to bear his troubles patiently, in the hope that something good would grow out of this unusual appearance at church.
It would perhaps be hard work to explain what had brought Norm to church. A fancy perhaps for seeing how the flowers looked by this time. A queer feeling that he was slightly connected with the church service for once in his life; a lingering desire to know whether in the hanging of that tallest wreath, he or the minister had been right; they had differed as to the distance from one arch to the other;from the gallery he was sure he could tell which had possessed the truer eye. All these motives pressed him a little. Then they were singing when he reached the door, and Rick had said, "Hallo! that voice sounds as though it lived up in the sky. Who is that, do you s'pose?"
Then Norm proud of his knowledge in the matter, explained that she was the minister's sister, and they said she could mimic a bird so you couldn't tell which was which.
"Poh!" Alf had said; he didn't believe a word of that; he should like to see a woman who could fool him into thinking that she was a bird! but he had added, "Let's go in and hear her." And as this was what Norm had been half intending to do ever since he started from the house, he agreed to do it at once. In they slipped and half-hid themselves behind the posts in the gallery, and behaved disreputably all the evening, more because they felt shamefaced about being there at all, and wanted to keep each other in countenance, than because they really desired to disturb the service. However, they heard a great deal.
What do you think was the minister's text on that evening? "No drunkard shall inheritthe kingdom of heaven." I shall have to tell you that when he caught sight of Mr. Decker half-hidden behind his post and recognized him as the man who was so fast growing into a drunkard, and as the man who had never been inside the church since he had been the pastor, he was sorry that his text and subject were what they were that evening. He told himself that it was very unfortunate. That if he had dreamed of such a thing as having that man for a listener, he would have told him the story of Jesus as simply and as earnestly as he could; and not have preached a sermon that would seem to the man as a fling at himself. However, there was no help for it now; he did not recognize Mr. Decker until he had announced his text, and fairly commenced his sermon.
It was a sermon for young people; it was intended to warn them against the first beginnings of this great sin which shut heaven away from the sinner. He need not have been troubled about not telling the story of Jesus; there was a great deal about Jesus in the sermon, as well as a great deal about the heaven prepared for those who were willing to go. I do not know that anywhere in the church you could havefound a more attentive listener than Mr. Decker. At least one who seemed to listen more earnestly; from the moment that the text was repeated until the great Bible was closed, he did not take his eyes from the minister's face. Yet some of his words he did not hear. Some of the time Mr. Decker was hearing a little voice, very sweet, saying: "Make a very big strong angel to come for my papa when he dies; my papa is a strong man and I don't want the angel to drop him." Poor papa! as he thought of it, he had to look straight before him and wink hard and fast to keep the tears from dropping; he had no handkerchief to wipe them away. Think of an angel coming for him! "I love my papa when he is good!" the sweet voice had said. Was he ever good? Then he listened awhile to the sermon; heard the vivid description of some of the possible glories and joys of Heaven. Would he be likely ever to go there? Little Sate thought so; she had planned for it that very afternoon. Dear little Sate who did not want the angel to drop him.
Now it is possible that if the sermon had been about drunkards, Mr. Decker would have been vexed and would not have listened. Hedid not call himself a drunkard; it is a sad and at the same time a curious fact that he did not realize how nearly he had reached the point where the name would apply to him. That he drank beer, much, and often, and that he was growing more and more fond of it, and that it kept him miserably poor, was certainly true, and there were times when he realized it; but that he was ever going to be a common drunkard and roll in the gutter, and kick his wife, and seize his children by the hair, he did not for a moment believe. But the sermon was by no means addressed to people who were even so far on this road as he. It was addressed to boys, who were just beginning to like the taste of hard cider, and spruce beer, and hop bitters, and all those harmless (?) drinks which so many boys were using. It was a plain story of the rapid, certain, downward journey of those who began in these simple ways. It was illustrated by certain facts which Mr. Sherrill had personally known. And Mr. Decker, as he listened, owned to himself that he knew facts which would have proved the same truth.
Then he gave a little start and shrank farther into the shadow of the pillar. The moment headmitted that, he also admitted that he was himself in danger. What nonsense that was! Couldn't he stop drinking the stuff whenever he liked? "There is a time," said the minister, "when this matter is in your own hands. You have no very great taste for the dangerous liquors, you are only using them because those with whom you associate do so. You could give them up without much effort; but I tell you, my friends, the time comes, and to many it comes very early in life, when they are like slaves bound hand and foot in a habit that they cannot break, and cannot control." Mr. Decker heard this, and something, what was it? pressed the thought home to him just then, that, if he did not belong to this last-mentioned class, neither did he to the former. He knew it would take a good deal of effort for him to give up his beer; of course it would; else he should not be such a fool as to keep himself and his family in poverty for the sake of indulging it. What if he were already a slave, bound hand and foot! What if the "stuff" which Sate said made him "cross" had already made him a drunkard! Perhaps the boys on the street called him so; though they rarely saw him stagger; his staggeringwas nearly always done under cover of the night. Still, now that he was dealing honestly with himself, he must own that it was less easy to go without his beer than it used to be. Since Nettie had come home he had drank less of it than usual, and by that very means he had discovered how much it meant to him. "No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven!" The minister's earnest voice repeated his text just then. Was he a drunkard? Then what about the strong angel? Little Sate was to be disappointed, after all!
Oh! I am not going to try to tell you all the thoughts which passed through Joe Decker's mind that evening. I don't think he could tell you himself, though he remembers the evening vividly. He stood up, during the closing hymn, and waited until the benediction was pronounced, and then he slipped away, swiftly; Nettie tried to get to him, but she did not succeed, and she sorrowed over it. He stumbled along in the darkness, moving almost as unsteadily as though he had been drinking. The sky was thick with clouds, and he jostled against a lady and gentleman as he crossed the street; the lady shrank away. "Who is that?" heheard her ask; and the answer came to him distinctly: "Oh! it is old Joe Decker; he is drunk, I suppose. He generally is at this time of night."
Yes, there it was! he was already counted on the streets as a drunkard. "No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven." It was not the minister's voice this time; yet it seemed to the poor man's excited brain that some one repeated those words in his ears. Then he heard again the sweet soft voice: "Make him very big and strong, for I don't want the angel to drop him."