LLOYD MAKES A DISCOVERY.
"ItwasMolly's little lost sister, I'm sure of it!" insisted Elise next morning, stopping in the middle of her dressing to argue the matter with Lloyd and Allison. "Of course I couldn't see her face, for she had her apron up over it, crying. But neither can you see the little girl's face in the picture, Allison Walton, and the rest of her was exactly like the picture. See?"
She ran across the room for the magazine that had been brought up from the library on the night of Thanksgiving, and which still lay open on the table.
"They have the same thin little arms and ragged clothes and everything. Oh, I am sure it was Dot that I ran after, and now that I know how awful it is to be lost, I'd do anything to find her. I dreamed about her last night, and I can't think about anybody else."
So positive was she, that Lloyd could hardly waitfor ten o'clock to come, the hour that her mother had promised to call for her. They were to begin their Christmas shopping that morning, for the calendar showed them that whatever gifts they intended sending Betty and Eugenia must soon be started on their way, in order to reach them in time. Lloyd was so excited over the prospect of finding Dot that she wanted to postpone the shopping, and start at once for the tenement district where Elise had wandered away from her carriage.
"I know that Betty and Eugenia would rather do without any Christmas gifts," she declared almost tearfully, "than miss this chance of finding her. Betty used to talk about it all the time, and if we don't go this morning, something may happen that we may never find her."
"But be reasonable, dear," answered Mrs. Sherman. "It would be like hunting for a needle in a hay-stack. You have such a slight clue, Lloyd. That picture isnota picture of Molly's sister. It is only one that reminded Molly of her, and there are thousands of poor little waifs in the world that look like that. I will see the Humane Society about her, and the teachers of the free kindergarten who work in that district, and we will report the case to the police.It would be useless for us to go wandering aimlessly around, up one flight of dirty stairs and down another."
Lloyd had to be content with that, but all the time she was going around among the shops, trying to choose gifts appropriate to send across the sea, she kept thinking of Molly as she had seen her that rainy day, lying face downward on her cot and sobbing out her misery in the little attic room of the Cuckoo's Nest.
They went back to Mrs. Walton's for lunch, where Elise was still talking of her adventure of the night before.
"I wish Dot had some of this good plum-pudding," she remarked. "She looked so cold and hungry. Maybe she was crying because she didn't have anything to eat."
Mrs. Walton shook her head in perplexity. "Everything leads straight back to that subject," she exclaimed. "The child has talked of nothing else all morning. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, Lloyd. Mrs. Moore called while you were out this morning, and promised Elise she would take her through all those tenements next week. She is very charitable, and has helped so many poor people in that part of the city that they will do anything for her. Shethinks that there really may be some possibility of finding the child."
Lloyd's face shone as if she had come into the possession of a fortune. She was sure now that Dot would be found in time to keep Christmas with them, and she could scarcely wait until she reached home to write to Betty about the search that was to be made.
She went back to her Aunt Jane's that afternoon to wait until train time, much to the disappointment of Allison and Kitty, who were arranging some tableaux.
"You'll write to me if they find out anything about Dot, won't you?" she asked Allison at parting.
"Yes, the very next breath," answered Allison. So the Little Colonel went away quite hopeful, and for days she haunted the post-office. Before school, after school, at recess, sometimes the last thing before dark, she made a pilgrimage to the post-office, to stand on tiptoe and see if anything was in their box. But the days went by, and the long-looked-for letter never came. There were papers and magazines, thick letters from Joyce, and thin foreign-stamped ones from Betty and Eugenia, but none that told of a successful search for Dot.
Two weeks before Christmas there came a letterfrom Allison, inviting her to spend the following Saturday in town. On the opposite page her mother had pencilled a postscript almost as long as the letter itself, saying: "Do come in with Lloyd. Sister Elise usually makes a merry Christmas for the little ones at the Children's Hospital, but this year she will be so busy with other things that she has asked us to take her place. Malcolm and Keith have asked for an unusually big celebration at Fairchance this Christmas, and she will have her hands full trying to carry out all their plans.
"I have promised to take her place here, and we have planned a tiny individual Christmas tree for each child in the hospital. I am going to take the girls down there Saturday and let them talk to the children, and find out, as far as possible, what gift would make each one happy. Be sure to come in with Lloyd. Even if we have failed in our efforts to find little Dot, we may have a hand in making twenty other little souls supremely happy on Christmas Day. Come on the early train, and we will go to the hospital first, and spend the rest of the day in shopping."
Luckily it was late in the week when the letter arrived, or Lloyd would have had a hard time waiting for Saturday. So impatient was she for the holidayto come that she began to count the hours and then even the minutes.
"Two whole days and nights!" she exclaimed. "That makes forty-eight hours, and there's sixty minutes in an hour, and sixty seconds in a minute. That makes—let me see." It was too big a sum to do in her head, so she ran for pencil and paper and began multiplying carefully, putting down the amount in neat little figures.
"One hundred and seventy-two thousand eight hundred seconds," she announced, finally. "What a terrible lot. The clock has to tick that many times before I can go."
"But remember, part of that time you will be asleep," suggested Papa Jack. "Over fifty thousand of these seconds will be ticked off when you know nothing about it."
That was some comfort, and the Little Colonel, putting on her warmest winter wrappings, went out to make some of the other seconds go by unnoticed, by rolling up snowballs for a huge snow-man on the lawn.
It had been a dull week in the hospital. Gray skies and falling snow is a dreary outlook for children who can do nothing but lie in their narrow beds and look wearily out of the windows. This Saturdaymorning the nurses had given the little invalids their baths and breakfasts, the doctors had made their rounds, and in each ward were restless little bodies who longed to be amused.
Those who were well enough to be propped up in bed fingered the games and pictures that had entertained them before; but a dozen pairs of eyes in search of some new interest turned expectantly toward the door every time it opened. Suddenly a stir went through the ward where the convalescents lay, and the wintry morning seemed to blossom into June-time.
Four little girls, each with her arms full of great red roses, with leafy stems so long that it seemed the whole bush must have been cut down with them, passed down the room, leaving one at each pillow.
"My Aunt Elise sent them," said the smallest child, pausing at the first white bed. "She asked us to bring them 'cause she couldn't come herself. They're American Beauties and they always make me think of my Aunt Elise."
"She must be a dandy, then," was the response of Micky O'Brady, on whom she bestowed one, taking it up awkwardly in his left hand. His right one was still in a sling, and one leg had just been taken out of a plaster cast, for he had been run over by a heavytruck, and narrowly escaped being made a cripple for life. Elise stopped to question him about his accident, and found that despite his crippled leg a pair of skates was what he wished for above all things. While she was chattering away to him like a little magpie, Kitty and Allison went on down the room with their roses. It was not the first time they had been there, and they knew some of the children by name. But it was all new to Lloyd. In the next room the sight of the white little faces, some of them drawn with pain, almost brought the tears to her eyes.
There were only six beds in this ward, and at the last one Lloyd laid a rose down very softly, because in that bed the little invalid lay on one side as if she were asleep. But as the perfume of the great American Beauty reached her, she opened her eyes and smiled weakly. Lloyd was so startled that she dropped the rest of the roses to the floor and clasped both hands around the bedpost. For the eyes that smiled up at her, keen and gray with their curly black lashes, might have been Molly's own, they were so like hers. The black hair brushed back from the white face waved over the left temple exactly as Molly's did. There were the same straight black eyebrows and the familiar droop of the pretty littlemouth, and it seemed to Lloyd, as she stared at her with a fascinated gaze, that it was Molly herself who lay there white and wan. Only a much smaller Molly, with a sad, hopeless little face, as if the battle with life had proved too hard, and she was slowly giving it up.
Lloyd sitting next to Dot who is in bed"'OH,WHATIS YOUR NAME?'"
The child, still smiling, weakly raised her bony little hand to lift the rose from the pillow, and even the gesture with which she laid it against her cheek was familiar.
"Oh,whatis your name?" cried Lloyd, forgetting that she had been told not to talk in that room.
"The people I lived with last called me Muggins," said the child, faintly, "but a long time ago it used to be Dot."
As she spoke she turned her head so that both sides of her face were visible, and Lloyd saw that across the right eyebrow was a thin white scar.
"Oh, I knew it!" cried Lloyd, under her breath. "I knew it the minute I looked at you!" Then to the child's astonishment, without waiting to pick up the fallen roses, she ran breathlessly into the hall.
"Mothah! Mrs. Walton!" she cried, breaking into their conversation with one of the nurses. "Come quick, I've found her! It's really, truly Dot!She says that is her name, and she looks exactly like Molly. Oh, do come and see her!"
She wanted to rush back to the child with the news that she knew her sister Molly and that they should soon be together, but the nurse said it would excite her too much if it were really so. Then she wanted to send a telegram to Molly and a cable to Betty saying that Dot had been found, but nobody except herself was sure that this little Dot was Molly's sister.
"We must be absolutely sure of that first," said Mrs. Sherman, who saw the same strong resemblance to Molly that had startled the Little Colonel, but who knew how often such resemblances exist between entire strangers. "Think how cruel it would be to raise any false hopes in either one. Think how sure Elise was that the child she followed was Molly's sister. You both couldn't be right, for this one was brought to the hospital before Elise was lost."
The nurse could tell very little. The child had been picked up on the street so ill that she was delirious, and all their investigating had proved little beyond the fact that she had been deserted by her drunken father. Her illness was evidently caused by lack of proper food and clothing. Nobody knew her by any other name than Muggins.
While they were still discussing the matter in the hall, Allison had a bright idea. "Why couldn't you telephone for Ranald to bring his camera and take a picture of her and send that to Molly. If she says it is Dot that will settle it."
The nurse thought that would be a sensible thing to do, but they had to wait until one of the doctors was consulted. As soon as he gave his permission, they began to make arrangements. Ranald answered his mother's summons promptly, and it was not long before he was setting up his tripod in the room where the child lay.
A pleased smile came over the child's face when she discovered what was to be done. "Put in all the things that have made me so happy while I have been in the hospital," she said to the nurse, "so that when I leave here I can have the picture of them to look at."
So they laid a big wax doll in her arms, that had been her constant companion, and around her on the counterpane they spread the games and pictures she had played with before she grew so weak. On her pillow was the queen-rose, and close beside the bed they wheeled the little table that held a plate of white grapes and oranges. Just as Ranald was ready to take the picture, the matron came in with a plate ofice-cream. "Oh, put that in, too," cried Muggins "Miss Hale sends it every day, and it's one of the happiest things to remember about the hospital. It is like heaven, isn't it?" she exclaimed, glancing around at the luxuries she had never known until she came to the hospital, and that smile was on her face when Ranald took the picture.
"I'll develop it as soon as I get home, and print one for you this afternoon," he promised. "You shall have one to-morrow."
"Will you print me one, too?" inquired the Little Colonel, anxiously, when they had bidden Muggins good-bye, and were going through the hall. "I want one to send to Betty and Eugenia, and one to send to Joyce, and one to keep."
"I'll print a dozen next week if you want them," promised Ranald, "but the first one must be for that little Dot or Muggins, or whatever you call her, and the next one for Molly."
It was Mrs. Sherman who wrote the letter that carried the picture to Molly. By the same mail there went a note to Mrs. Appleton, saying that in case Molly recognised it as her sister, they would send for her to come and spend Christmas with her in the hospital, for the nurse had said it would probably be the child's last Christmas, and theywanted to do all they could to make it a happy one.
In a few days the answer came. Molly was almost wild with joy, and would start as soon as the promised railroad ticket reached her. The photograph of little Dot was scarcely out of her hands, Mrs. Appleton said. She propped it up in front of her while she washed the dishes. It lay in her lap when she was at the table, and at night she slept with it under her pillow to bring her happy dreams.
The day that Mrs. Appleton's letter came, Allison went up to her mother's room and stood beside her desk waiting for her pen to come to the end of a page. "Mamma," she said, as Mrs. Walton finally looked up, "I've thought of such a nice plan. Have you time to listen?"
Mrs. Walton smiled up at the thoughtful face of her eldest daughter. "You should have been named Pansy, my dear.Penseeis for thought, you know, and I'm glad to say you are always having thoughts of some sensible way to help other people. I'm very busy, but I am sure your plan is a good one, so I'll let the letters wait for awhile."
She leaned back in her chair, and Allison, dropping down on the rug at her feet, began eagerly. "Out at the hospital, mamma, there is a little empty roomat the end of a side hall. It is a dear little room with a fireplace and a sunny south window. It has never been furnished because they haven't enough money. I asked one of the nurses about it, and she said they often need it for cases like Dot. It would be so much pleasanter to have her away from all the noise. And I've been thinking if it could be fixed up for Dot to spend Christmas in, how much nicer it would be for her and Molly both. It wouldn't cost very much to furnish it, just enough to get the little white bedroom set and the sheets and towels and things. Anyhow, it wouldn't be much more than you've often spent on my Christmas presents. And I wanted to know if you wouldn't let me do that this year instead of your giving me a Christmas present. Please, mamma, I've set my heart on it. If I got books they'd soon be read, and jewelry or games I'd get tired of after awhile, and things to wear, no matter how pretty, would be worn out soon. But this is something that would last for years. I could think every day that some poor little soul who has never known anything but to be sick or sad was enjoying my pretty room."
"That is as beautiful apenseeas ever blossomed in any heart-garden, I am sure," said Mrs. Walton, softly, smoothing the curly head resting against her knee, "and mother is glad that her little girl's plansare such sweet unselfish ones. We'll go this very afternoon and talk to the matron about it."
Aladdin's lamp is not the only thing that can suddenly bring wonderful things to pass. There is a modern magic of telephones and electric cars, and the great Genii of sympathy and good-will are all-powerful when once unbottled. So a few hours wrought wonderful changes in the empty little room, and next morning Allison stood in the centre of it looking around her with delighted eyes.
Everything was as white and fresh as a snowdrop, from the little bed to the dainty dressing-table beside the window. A soft firelight shone on the white-tiled hearth of the open fireplace. The morning sun streamed in through the wide south window, where a pot of pink hyacinths swung its rosy bells, and Allison's Japanese canary, Nagasaki, twittered in its gilded cage. She had brought it all the way from Japan.
"Of course they won't want it in the room all the time," she said, "but there will be days when the children will love to have it brought in a little while to sing to them."
"If you give up Nagasaki then I'll give my globe of goldfish," said Kitty, anxious to do her part toward making a happy time for little Dot. "Afterward,if the child who stays in that room is too sick to enjoy it, it can go into the convalescent ward."
It was into this room that Molly came, bringing her picture of the Good Shepherd. She had carried it in her arms all the way, frequently taking it out of its brown paper wrapping, for down in one corner of the frame she had fastened the photograph of Dot.
All that morning on the train, the refrain that had gone through her happy heart as she looked at the picture was, "Oh, she's been happy for a month! She's got grapes and oranges, and a doll, and roses in the picture, andice-cream!And there's lace on her nightgown, and she issmiling."
"Shall we name the room for you, Miss Allison?" asked the nurse, when the picture of the Good Shepherd was hung over the mantel, and Dot lay looking up at it with tired eyes, her little hand clasped in Molly's, and a satisfied smile on her face.
"No," whispered Allison, her glance following the gaze of the child's eyes. "Call itThe Fold of the Good Shepherd. She looks like a poor little lost lamb that had just found its way home."
"I wish all the poor little stray lambs might find as warm a shelter," answered the nurse, in an undertone, "and I hope, my dear, that all your Christmases will be as happy as the one you are making for her."
A HAPPY CHRISTMAS.
Therewas a fortnight's vacation at Christmas time. Lloyd spent nearly all the week before in town, and not once in all that time did it occur to her to wonder what she might find in her own stocking. She was too busy helping get the little trees ready for the children in the hospital.
There were twenty of them, each one complete, with starry tapers and glittering ornaments, with red-cheeked candy apples, and sugar animals hung by the neck; with tiny tarlatan stockings of bonbons, with festoons of snowy popcorn, and all that goes to make up the Christmas trees that are the dearest memories of childhood. And somewhere, hidden among the branches of each one, or lying at its base, was the especial book or toy or game that its owner had been known to long for.
"I believe that Molly and Dot would rather have theirs together," said Allison. "As they are in aroom by themselves we can give them as large a one as we please, and the others will never know it."
So it was a good-sized tree that was set aside for "The Fold." The very prettiest of the ornaments were put with it; the brightest coloured candles, and at the top was fastened a glittering Christmas angel and a shining Christmas star.
It was not till the day before Christmas that they began to think of their own affairs. Then Kitty brought out four stockings, which the Little Colonel examined with interest. They were long and wide, with tiny sleigh-bells on the top, the heels, and the toes, that jingled musically at the slightest movement. Two were pink and two were blue. What charmed Lloyd the most were the fascinating pictures printed on them. They told the whole story of Christmas.
Holly and mistletoe and Christmas trees were on one side, down which ran a road where pranced the reindeer with the magic sleigh, driven by jolly old Santa Claus himself. On the other side of the stocking was the picture of the fireplace and a row of stockings hanging from the mantel. In a cradle near by lay a baby asleep. Down on the toe was printed in fancy letters:
"Hang up the baby's stocking,Be sure and don't forget.The dear little dimpled darlingHas never seen Christmas yet."
"We hang them up every year," explained Kitty. "Ranald and all of us. It wouldn't seem like Christmas if we used any other kind. We had them in Washington and at every army post we've lived at, and they've been around the world with us. If they could talk they could tell of more good times than any other stockings in the world."
"Um! I justlovemine!" cried Elise, catching hers up with a caressing squeeze, and then swinging it around her head until every little bell was set a-jingling musically. A little while later she said, with a serious face, "I don't s'pose Molly and Dot ever saw a beautiful picture stocking like this. Do you? Gifts seem so much nicer when they come out of it than out of the common kind that I believe I'll lend them mine this year. I know what it is to be lost, you know. I'm so glad that I was found that I'd like to do something to show how thankful I am about it."
"But how will Santa Claus know it's to be filled for them?" asked Kitty. "He has always filled itfor you, and he might put your things in it, and they'd get them."
"I could pin a note on it saying it was mine, but to please put their things in it this one time," said Elise, with a troubled look, as she went over to the window to consider the matter by herself.
A little while later she carried her stocking to her mother with this note pinned to it:
"Dear Santa Claus:—This is my stocking. I s'pose you'll recognise it, as I've carried it around the world with me, and you have put lots of pretty things in it for me every year since I was born. But this year please put Molly's and Dot's presents in it, and I shall be a million times obliged to you."Your loving little friend,"Elise Walton."
"Dear Santa Claus:—This is my stocking. I s'pose you'll recognise it, as I've carried it around the world with me, and you have put lots of pretty things in it for me every year since I was born. But this year please put Molly's and Dot's presents in it, and I shall be a million times obliged to you.
"Your loving little friend,"Elise Walton."
"But what will you do, little one?" asked Mrs. Walton.
"Hang up one of my blue silk stockings," said Elise, promptly, as she danced around the room, jingling the bells on heel and toe in time to a gay little tune of her own.
Lloyd would not have missed taking part in the Christmas celebration at the hospital for anything, yet she could not give up her usual custom of hanging her stocking beside the old fireplace at Locust. So, in order to give her both pleasures, it was finallydecided that the trees should be taken to the hospital at dusk on Christmas eve, and she could go home afterward on the nine o'clock train.
Malcolm and Keith were having a great celebration out at Fairchance for Jonesy and all who had been gathered into the home since its founding. Miss Allison was helping them, and could not go into town, much to the disappointment of the girls.
"I wish that auntie was twins," said Kitty, mournfully. "Then she could be in both places at once. The boys are always wanting her whenever we do."
"Your auntie helped with the celebration last year at the hospital, Kitty-cat," said her mother, "so it is only fair that they should have her in the country this year."
"But Malcolm and Keith were with her both times," persisted Kitty, jealously. "I think that it is just too bad that she isn't twins."
Rob and Ranald went with the girls to help distribute the trees. It seemed as if a tiny forest had been carried out of fairyland and set in long, glittering rows down the sides of the wards. One twinkled and bloomed beside each little white bed. The children did not stay long in the wards. They were more interested in the little room at the end ofthe hall,—Allison's room, that was known all over the building now as "The Fold of the Good Shepherd." The room where two little sisters lost from each other so long, but brought together at last, lived through the happy hours, hand in hand.
Molly's face had lost every trace of its old sullen pout, and fairly shone with contentment as she sat by Dot's bed, smoothing her pillow, feeding her from time to time as the nurse directed, and singing softly when the tired eyes drooped wearily to sleep.
"She would make a fine nurse," said the matron to Mrs. Walton. "She is strong and patient, and seems to have so much sense about what to do for a sick person. Usually we wouldn't think of letting anybody come in as she is doing, but she minds the nurse's slightest nod, and seems to be doing Dot more good than medicine."
It had cost Elise a pang to give up her cherished stocking even as a loan, but she was more than repaid by the pleasure it gave the child, who had known no Christmas story and none of its joy since she had been large enough to remember.
They went back to their homes as soon afterward as possible, Lloyd to hang up her stocking at Locust, and the children to put theirs by the library fire One plain little blue one hung among the gay picturedones, no mistletoe upon it, no holly, no jingling bells, no printed rhymes; but as Mrs. Walton gathered Elise's little white gowned form in her arms, she repeated something that made the child look up wonderingly.
"Oh, mamma!" she cried. "Does it mean that the little Christ-child counts it just the same—my lending the stocking to Dot and Molly—as if I had loaned it to him?"
"Just the same, little one."
"And he is glad?" She asked the question in an awed whisper.
"I am sure he is; far gladder than they."
Somehow the thought that she had really brought joy to the Christ-child made more music in her heart that Christmas eve than all the tinkling of the tiny Christmas bells.
It would take too long to tell of all the good times that filled the happy holiday. At Fairchance it was a sight worth travelling miles to see,—those merry little lads, and the two little knights who had gone so far in their trying to "right the wrong and follow the king." At Locust Lloyd spent a happy day in a bewilderment of gifts, for besides all that she found in her overflowing stocking were the packages from Joyce and Eugenia and Betty. There was a newsaddle for Tarbaby from her grandfather, and a silver collar from Rob for his frisky namesake, with "Bob" engraved on the clasp. All day there were woolly little heads popping into the hall to say "Chris'mus gif, Miss Lloyd." And then white eye-balls would shine and snowy teeth gleam as she handed out the candy and nuts and oranges reserved for such calls. Every old black mammy or uncle who had ever worked on the place, every little pickaninny who could find the slightest claim, visited the great house at some time during the day for a share of its holiday cheer.
In the Walton household there was a chattering in the library long before sunrise, for Kitty, impatient to see what was in her stocking, had stolen down when the clock struck five, and the other girls had followed in her wake. "I got fourteen presents," said Kitty, chattering back to bed in the gray dawn, after a blissful examination of her stocking.
"So did I," said Elise. "Everything in the world that I wanted, and lots of things I'd never dreamed of getting, besides. Auntie and Aunt Elise always think of such lovely things."
Allison's gifts did not make such a brave showing when spread out with the others, but she thought of the little white room at the hospital with a warmglow in her heart that was worth more than all the gifts that money could buy. Down in the toe of her stocking she found a box from her Aunt Allison, and took it back to bed with her to open. Inside the jeweller's cotton was a little enamelled pansy of royal purple and gold, and in the centre sparkled a tiny diamond like a drop of dew. "Mamma must have told her," thought Allison, as she read the greeting written on the card with it. "For my dear little namesake. May your whole lifetime blossom with such beautiful thoughts for others as has made this Christmas day a joy."
Molly sitting next to the bed and Christmas tree holding Nagasaki's hand"THE LITTLE HAND HELD HERS."
Out at the hospital, as the day went by, Dot sat with her hand in Molly's, looking from time to time with eyes that never lost their expression of content, at the angel and the star that crowned the tree. She grew weaker and weaker as the hours passed, but, opening her eyes now and then, she smiled at Molly, and squeezed her hand, and looked again from the gay stocking hanging on the foot of her bed to the shining angel atop of the tree.
The Japanese canary twittered in his cage; the goldfish flashed around and around in their sunny globe; the deep red roses on the table bloomed as if it were June-time. Outside there was snow and iceand winter winds. Inside it was all cheer and comfort and peace that happy Christmas Day.
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 asit 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."
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 buttonholes 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 hadice-cream!All she wanted. And I made up my mind this morning that when I'm old enough I am goingto 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."
A PEEP INTO THE FUTURE.
"Andwhat 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 forthe kettle to catch the echo of their chiming, surelyIhave 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.
BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
THE LITTLE COLONEL BOOKS
(Trade Mark)By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTONEach 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth decorative, per vol. $1.50
The Little Colonel Stories.
(Trade Mark)
Illustrated.
Being three "Little Colonel" stories in the Cosy Corner Series, "The Little Colonel," "Two Little Knights of Kentucky," and "The Giant Scissors," put into a single volume.
The Little Colonel's House Party.
(Trade Mark)
Illustrated by Louis Meynell.
The Little Colonel's Holidays.
(Trade Mark)
Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman.
The Little Colonel's Hero.
(Trade Mark)
Illustrated by E. B. Barry.
The Little Colonel at Boarding School.
(Trade Mark)
Illustrated by E. B. Barry.
The Little Colonel in Arizona.
(Trade Mark)
Illustrated by E. B. Barry.