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Chapter X :Reading Pictures

7/26/2015

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    Lisbeth stopped to see Alma that afternoon as she had promised. She brought the white violets that she had left wrapped in wet leaves in Sister Barbara's care, while she went into the chapel for instructions.  For Sister Barbara and Lisbeth had been fast friends ever since the good nun had made her first visit to the Brambles. Many were the crisp ginger cakes and red apples Sister Barbara had pressed into the little girl's hand as she passed in and out of the convent gate. And her friendly message, "My compliments to your grandmother, Lisbeth," had cleared Gran's savage frown more than once."
    "And you're going to make your First Communion with the rest," Sister Barbara said when Lisbeth stopped by the kitchen door for her violets. "Ah, but that's good news, my little girl. It was I that spoke up for ye last night, when some one said ye couldn't read your Catechism.
    "Sure, there's a many a saint in Heaven that never looked looked into a book," says I.
    "But I do," said Lisbeth eagerly. "I look into this book Sister Angela lent me every day, and I can ready the pictures, every one. I know about them all, from the stable of Bethlehem to the Cross."
    "Ah, God bless ye," said Sister Barbara. "The Lord Himself will ask no more than that, I'm sure. Here are your flowers now, fresh and sweet. And my compliments to your grandmother. I hope her rheumatism is better these fine May days." And the kind, cheery words seemed to make Lisbeth's heart warm even to cross, fierce, old Gran.
    Alma was waiting by the big iron gate, her pretty face pressed close to the bars.
    "I thought you would never, never come. It's so dull and stupid, staying home all day long. I would much rather go to St. Mary's"
    "And why -why don't you?" asked Lisbeth as Alma threw her arm about her shoulder and drew her up the shaded walk.
    "I can't, answered Alma with a sigh. "Daddy says I am too little."
    "Oh, but you're not," answered Lisbeth. "There are other little girls not as big as you."
    "I know," answered Alma, I told Daddy so - but he didn't care . I am his little girl, you know, and must do what he says."
    "Oh, I'm sorry," said Lisbeth in a troubled voice. "I'm so sorry. I missed you to-day and wondered where you were. And i brought you the violets. I kept them in these wet leaves so they would be sweet and fresh."
    "Oh, Lisbeth, thank you!" Alma buried her pretty little nose delightedly in the shy, fragrant flowers. "I never had white violets before. They will be lovely for our tea party. I have got the table set under the lilacs. It's too pretty to play in the house to-day. And Nora has baked us some dear little doll biscuits, and a cake just big enough for my plates. Come and see."
    And Alma led her wondering guest by lawn and fountain and garden bed to a soft, grassy little nook hedged in with tall white and purple lilacs in full bloom. There was a broad stone bench, a moss-grown sundial, and through a bread in the lilacs  a wide-stretching view of river and valley, with old Top Notch rising dark and frowning  against the May-day-sky. But Lisbeth gave no thought to Top Notch now.
    For the old moss-grown dial had been transformed into a tea table, covered with a gayly fringed Japanese cloth, set with Alma's Japanese china dishes, and surmounted by a very big and highly color Japanese umbrella. 
    There was a tiny bowl filled with sugared strawberries, a pitcher of cream to match, and plates with wee brown biscuits and frosted cakes. Lisbeth was quite dumb with delight. Never had she seen anything so charming. 
    "Sit down," said Alma. There were two little chairs twisted out of tree boughs, that now weather could hurt. "Now we'll put the white violets in the middle of the table and have tea."
    "It isn't real tea, of course," continued Alma as she poured the sweetened milk into the pretty cups. "I can't drink real tea until I grow up, can you?"
    "Yes," said Lisbeth, whose cracked cup was always half filled from Gran's old black teapot to soften her morning's crust. "I drink tea every day."
   "You can do lots of things I can't," said Alma with a sigh. "Some day I will come to see you, Lisbeth, and swing on your gate, and climb your trees, and wade in your brook, and have real tea, like you.
    "Madame thinks I ought to do just like Susanne and Colette, the little girls she taught in France. They were so good, and never tore their dresses, or blotted their books, or ran away at lesson time like me.
    "Take another biscuit , Lisbeth; take tow, they are so little," and though dainty Alma wondered when Lisbeth dipped her biscuit into her teacup, and picked the berries up with her brown fingers, as she picked them from the vine and bush at home, she was too much of a little lady to say a word. Under the pleasant charm of it all, Lisbeth's shyness wore off and she found voice to talk. 
    "I'm sorry you can't come to St. Mary's any more. It was just beautiful to-day. The altar was full of snowballs and lilacs, and the sunshine came read and blue and every color through the windows, and Father Francis told us a stories, real true stories, he said, about little girls and boys that died for Our Lord. They had their heads cut off and let lions eat them. Oh, I couldn't do that, could you?"
    "Oh yes, I could." said Alma boldly. "I wouldn't let swords or lions frighten me. I wish there were prisons and martyrs and underground places to hide in now. Its so dull to be just plain good," said Alma with a little sigh.
    But Father Francis says we don't have to die for our Lord like those boys and girls did any more," said Lisbeth eagerly. "Oh, I am glad we don't for I'd be afraid, I know. Uncle Lem shot a wild cat that came down from Top Notch to steal our chickens last winter. Oh, you ought to have seen its teeth and claws! I - I couldn't face a wild cat, I know. I am glad we don't have to let wild things kill us now. I am glad we just have to live good as Father Francis says. He talked so nice," continued Lisbeth softly.
    "He said it was very hard sometimes to live good, and not tell stories, and to do right no matter what happened - that is all our Lord expects from His little children now. Then we all sang - I sang with the rest to-day:
                                                                            "'Teach us, dearest Lord, to love Thee,
                                                                                Make our little hearts Thine own.'"
    "Oh, Lisbeth, you make me fell awful sorry that I can't go with you any more. But I can't," sighted Alma. "Daddy says I'm too little to think or to know what First Communion means. But I do.  I told him I did, but he would not listen. It seemed like he didn't want to hear. And Madame said that I didn't know enough too. She said that Colette and Susanne were not allowed to make their First Communion till they knew the Catechism through, every hard word in it. Do you know the Catechism through, Lisbeth?"
    "No," said Lisbeth, hesitating. "I - I only know what Sister Angela has told me. I - I can't read words yet. But I can read pictures," she added, brightening. "Sister Angela gave me this book." She picked up the little pictorial "Life of Christ" which she had laid on the grass beside her. "It's the only book I have, but I can read the pictures in it right through."
    "Oh, can you?" said Alma. "I never knew anyone that could read pictures. Did Sister Angela teach you how?"
    "No," said Lisbeth. "She told me about them, but I learned all the rest myself. I sit on the kitchen step, or up on the crotch of the old elm, or on the flat rock by the spring, and read and read. It is much nicer that reading words."
    "Oh, I am sure it is," said Alma, who had her own troubles in that line. "Show me ho you do it, Lisbeth ; read a picture for me now." She pushed up her little closer, and the gold and brown heads bent together over the book in Lisbeth's lap. It was a simple little book, made for children, but the pictures were copied from paintings of great masters, and were well worth the study of the young eyes bent upon them now.
    "I'll read this first," said Lisbeth. "I believer I like it best of all. It is Our Lord blessing little children.
    "There are the hills." ( Lisbeth's small brown finger traced the picture as she spoke) "where He had been walking until he got tired, and he sat down under this tree to rest. And some of the little children who were playing away off there one the grass saw Him. 'Oh, look, look,' they whispered to each other, 'that is the good Jesus, who is so kind. He cures all the sick people who come to Him. He can make the blind see and the lame walk.' And some of them ran home and called their mothers, and the mothers brought out their little babies, and they all went hurrying to find Our Lord. Some of the babies were sick and weak, I guess, and the mothers knew that He would make them well and strong. 
    "But these good men, who are standing around our Lord in the picture - I forget what Sister Angela called them -" 
    "Apostles," prompted Alma, who knew more about names and words that the little picture reader.
    "Yes," continued Lisbeth, still pointing with her little brown finger. "Those are the apostles. They are looking cross, because they don't want the children to come and trouble Our Lord. "'Run away,' they are saying, 'run away, little children' take those crying babies away, mothers. Our Lord is resting and cannot be troubled with you now.' But Our Lord is resting and cannot be troubled with you now.' But Our Lord hears the cross words and says, 'O no, no, no, they will not trouble me. Let them come to Me - all these little children, and the little babies with their mothers - let them come.'
    "And they came," went on the picture reader softly. "Little girls and boys, and babies and all - see, they are all glad, laughing, and not afraid any more. They crowd around Him, and He takes the sick babies in His arms, and he puts His hands on the little girls' and boys' heads, and he loves them and blesses them all."
    "Oh, I wish I was one of those little girls in the picture," said Alma, quite carried away by Lisbeth's readings.
    "So do I, said Lisbeth. "I'd like to be that little girl kneeling there by His side. And this one with the long hair falling down her shoulders looks like you, Alma, just like you."
    So the picture reading went on, Lisbeth's little brown fingers pointing to face and form, to house and tree and road, to which her eager fancy had given meaning, and Alma listened as she had never listed to word reading in all her gay young life.
    "This is a poor dead man that hey are carrying to his grave. His mother is crying - he was the only child she had, and she was a widow. It's awful sad to be like this. And they were all walking out of this gate to the grave when Our Lord met them. He looked at the poor crying mother and felt so sorry for her. She didn't ask Him for anything, because her boy was dead, and it was too late to cure him. She just walked on crying, with her head bowed down, and didn't even see Our Lord standing there by the gate pitying her. And he stopped the men who were carrying the dead boy, and put His hands on him and made him alive again, and gave him back to his mother - well and strong."
    Much more Lisbeth read in the same simple way - of the blind man whose eyes were opened, of the ruler's gentle little daughter who was raised from death, of the storm and wind that rocked St. Peter's boat and were stilled by his gentle Lord's voice and word.
    Perhaps Lisbeth would not have read pictures so well if she had ever had book or pictures before. But into her bare, dull, lonely little life the sweet story of Jesus had come in full tenderness and beauty,  and filled her childish heart and mind with its love and light. The dark, gloomy, old house in the Brambles, the course, scanty meals, fierce, old, scolding Gran had been all that poor little Lisbeth had known of home, of care, of love - until Sister Angela had taken her into the convent garden, and taught her the blessed lessons that happy children learn at their mothers' knees, - lessons that Lisbeth read into pictures now filling the bare outlines with her childish  fancy, teaching poor little lonely , neglected Lisbeth to think, to wonder, to love.
    The sun was close to its setting before the little party by the sundial broke up.
    "Oh, I didn't know it was so late," said Lisbeth. "I must hurry home, or Gran will be angry. But I will come again if you want me. I'll read some more pictures to you. There's some I don't quite know yet. I can't read the words under them."
    "Oh, I can," said Alma. "I can read words if that will help you, Lisbeth. Come again and we will read your book together."
    "Yes, I will," said Lisbeth. "And I needn't go round by the gate," she added, casting and anxious glance at the western sky, flaming beyond old Top Notch. "There's a short cut through the hedge here - home."
   "Oh, is there?" asked Alma delightedly, peeping through the break in the lilacs. "Isn't it nice? You can that way always then, Lisbeth. Come every day - this was my mama's garden - she used to sit here by the sundial and read and sew. Daddy never comes here, it makes him too sad; so it's my garden now. I have it all to myself and can play what I please."
    And this was the beginning of an innocent friendship of which Daddy, keeping a watchful eye on the "boys" of Top Notch, never dreamed.
    This great, beautiful house, standing apart its wide-reaching grounds, seemed as far from the Brambles as heaven from earth. Alma's daddy would have been shocked and startled indeed id he had known the tender, childish tie that bound them, - if  he could have seen his golden-haired idol reading pictures every evening with the little niece of Lem Lorne.
   
       

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Chapter Nine - The Runaway Rose

3/31/2015

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    It had been a long, long day for Alma. Daddy had gone off after an early breakfast, and lessons with Madame had seemed duller than usual. With the May flowers in bloom, the wistaria peeping in the schoolroom window, and roguish little bird singing in the cedar bough and calling her out, it was hard for the little girl to write out in good French: "My brother has a dog. Has your brother a dog? No, but my big sister has a cat."
    It was really no wonder that Alma mixed matters a little, and her copy - book declared, between two black dots, that "My big brother has a sister cat."
    "You will stay in until you write those words correctly," said Madame.
    "I hate french!" said Alma, throwing down her book. "And I have not got any big brother or sister, and I can't stay in this horrid schoolroom any longer. I am going down into the garden with Tim."
    "Eh, what is it I hear?" exclaimed Madame, nearly dropping the glasses off her nose in surprise, for Alma had been a model of good behavior for the last two weeks.
    "I don't have to be good any more," explained Alma with a shake of her golden head. "Daddy don't want me to be good, or go to St. Mary's, or make my First Communion. He said so last night. He likes me to be his own little flyaway fairy> I'm too little to be good yet."
    "Too little! too little! Ah, God bless me!" cried poor Madame as the flyaway fairy darted out of the room and down the stairs beyond reach of her halting step.
    "What can be done when monsieur the father talks like that?"
    "Too little to be good, when for three - four weeks she has been like an angel. Too little! Too little to be good!
    "Ah, these American fathers!" sighed poor Madame despairingly.
    "We can do nothing when they spoil little girls like this."
    But naughty Alma had danced off down the garden walks to Tim, who was planting out his hothouse flowers. Tim had been gardener at Norton Hall before Alma was born. He had been hurt when he was a little boy, and was bent and crooked now like a tree that had grown out of shape. Perhaps it was the twist in his back that had made him a little grim and gruff and silent to most people; but for little Alma the blue eyes beneath his grizzly brows always brightened, his withered face wrinkled into a smile.
    "Your off betimes this morning," he said as his little lady skipped down the path and perched herself on the low, wide-reaching branch of a Norway pine. "You must have been goo at your books this fine May day."
    "No, I wasn't, answered Alma. "I wasn't good at all. I ran away from Madame.
    "You did!" said Tim. "Isn't that a new turn you've taken?" I though it was the grand, good little girl you were since you went to the holy nuns upon the hill."
    "I'm not going any more," said Alma with a little sigh. "Daddy don't want me to go any more. He don't want me to make my First Communion. I'm too little. He says he just wants me to dance and play, and not - not thing about being good at all."
    "Oh, that's what he wants, is it?" said Tim as he struck his trowel deep around the roots of a big Azalea.
    "And what hurt will it do ye to be good, little lady?"
    "I don't know," answered Alma. "But it is hard sometimes. If I were good this morning, I would be up in the schoolroom, writing  about my brothers dog. It's much nicer to be out here in the garden with you."
    "Mebbe, said Tim with a shake of his grizzled head. "But little ladys like you have to learn books. And I'm sorry you're not going up any more to the good nuns on the hill. It's better than book larning you were getting there."
    "oh, I'll goo back again when I get big," said Alma. "Now, now I'm just going to be a flyaway fairy, like Daddy says, and dance in the flowers and swing in the trees, and be glad all day long."
    "That's well enough for the birds and the butterflies- aye, and the fairies too, if ye can find them." said Tim with a nod. "But not for you, little lady, not for you. It would be the sore sight for your own sweet mother in Heaven to see ye a 'Runaway Rose.'"
    "What is a 'Runaway Rose,' Tim? Is it a story? Oh, tell me, please," said Alma eagerly. "I love your stories, Tim."
    "It's a sort of a story," said Tim as he took up his trowel from the Azalea and settle himself on his wheelbarrow for a little rest. "It was Brother Cyril that told it to me when I worked under him, and Saint Barnabas, nearly forty years ago. He was the wonderful old man, Brother Cyril. There were whispers in the college that he had been a great man in his own country, and was as wise and book-learned as the Father Rector himself; but he chose to be lay brother and gardener for love of God. And he had wonderful ways with the flowers - the white lilies blooming always for Our Lady's feast, and the scarlet geraniums and poinsettia glowing blood red for the martyrs', and the roses filling the chapel with sweetness for the great days in June when the altar was all ablaze with lights and the boys walked before their Lord scattering Brother Cyril's flowers.
    "That's where he liked to see them best, he always said, in the Corpus Christi procession. He'd strip the rose bushes bare, and fling the grandest and sweetest of them in the way of the Lord.
    "'You'll let the rose buds stay, Brother Cyril?" I'd ask him.
    "'No he'd answer me, 'they are the children roses, that God loves best; we must put them at His feet too.' And he would cut the half-open buds with the rest. He was a quare old man, Brother Cyril, and had quare thoughts. He said the flowers told him more of God's love than he could find in books."
    "Oh, did they, Tim?" asked Alma breathlessly. "Do you suppose he could hear the flowers talk? There must have been fairies hiding in them, Tim."
    "Not a bit of it." said Tim stoutly. "Never a fairy came near Brother Cyril's garden, I know. They wouldn't dare. Even the birds there sang low and sweet, and the butterflies fluttered soft and light, as if they were asking leave to come in.
    "And the flowers!" (Tim drew a long breath of remembrance.) "Never did I see such flowers. How and where Brother Cyril got them I never knew. He would go off to the woods and hills and bring in some wild slip or root that would grown and blossom to beat the grandest garden flowers that ever was known.
    "'Ah, the poor things,' he would say when he saw them shooting out green and fresh. 'If we only grew like that, Tim, when God plants us in His garden and gives us His grace and love! But we don't, Tim, we just stay wild and hard and knotty to the last.' That is the way he talked, with his eyes shining soft and tender, like he was talking in a dream. Ah, Brother Cyril was a quare - quare old man! There were them that said he was a saint, but I don't know - he never knew it himself, I'm sure.
    "And he told me a dale about flowers I never heard before or since. That's why I stayed with them," added Tim. "I could have twice the money in your father's stable with the horses, but I like it better here."
    "So do I, Tim," said his little lady. "I wouldn't like you to be in the stables at all. Do you think the flowers talked to Brother Cyril really and truly, Tim?"
    "He never said 'talked,'" corrected Tim hastily. "He said 'told.' There is a differ between them, little lady. There's whispers that come to ye - ye can't tell how - whispers without words or sound. That's the way the flowers whisper - I've heard them myself."
    "Oh, have you, Tim?" asked Alma eagerly. "What did they say?"
    "I couldn't put in in talk." said Tim, "but it goes something like this: 'Look at us, Tim,' the Easter lilies says when they stand up, white and tall and sweet. 'Think of the ugly bulb you planted down in the dark earth, and see what has come of it. All the wise men in the world couldn't make a lily out of a black knotty bulb, Tim, only God. So put us on the altar, we must live and die for Him."
    "And - and do the roses say that too?" asked Alma with wide - open eyes.
    "Sometimes," said Tim, "but not always, little lady. There are all sorts of roses, as you know, and they are not saint flowers, like lilies. 'Let us alone' they seem to say with their thorns and prickles. 'Let us alone, Tim Dolan. We don't want to be pruned and trained and tied up to the trellis." And they scratch my face and tear my clothes, when I'm working to have them grow up sweet and purty and not dwindle and fade like the 'Runaway Rose' I'm going to tell you about now."
    "Oh yes, tell me about it, Tim," and Alma nestled her golden head against the trunk of the pine, looking in her pretty pink frock like a stray little rose herself.
    Maybe that was the thought that came into old Tim's grizzled head, for his eyes were very king and his voice soft as he went on with the story.
    "The 'Runaway Rose' grew in a garden like this. It wasn't a runaway at first, but the loveliest rose that was ever seen. Never a thorn upon it, and blooming and budding in every branch and bough, until it filled the garden far and near with its sweetness, and was the pride of the gardener's heart. He pruned and trained and grafted it and dug about its roots, and the rose grew bigger and sweeter every year, until one dark cold winter night a killing frost struck the garden and left this queen of all roses blighted and dead."
    "All dead,Tim?" Asked Alma tremulously - "all?"
    "All but one little root," answered Tim; "one wee little root that was hidden too deep under the last year's leaves for Jack Frost to reach. There it lay, soft and warm and sound asleep, never knowing what had happened to the beautiful bush above it, until the spring came and all the garden woke up, the little rose root with the rest. There was stir enough to wake it, with the twittering of the mating birds, and the digging and raking in the garden beds, and the cleaning away of all winter's killing to make way for spring and life.
    "'What is it I hear?' asked the little root as it stretched itself in the darkness.
    "' They are cutting down the bush above ye,' answered a worm. They are great busybodies, the worms, and know all that is going on.
    "'And what for?' asked the little root, waking up wide.
    "'The frost struck it in the winter night,' answered the worm. 'It's all dead but you. It's for you to shoot up into the sunshine now and be the queen rose yourself.'
    "'Oh, I dare not,' said the little root, all a-flutter with what it had heard. 'The frost might strike me too in the night and kill me.
    "'It can't, said the worm. 'The frost has gone; the spring is here, or I wouldn't be out myself. It's for you to stir yourself now and be up and grow - that is if you want to be a queen rose. I wouldn't - if I were in your place.
    "'Oh, wouldn't you?' said the little root in wonder. 'Wouldn't you like to spread beautiful boughs all covered with buds and roses? Wouldn't you like to fill the whole garden with sweetness? Wouldn't you like to be the master's pride and joy?'
    "'No,' said the worm. 'Not if I had to be pruned and trained and grafted and tied to the trellis.'
    "'Will they do all that to me?' asked the little root, a-tremble.
    "'Yes,' said the worm.
    "'Then I'll not go up into the garden,' said the little root. 'I'll run away.' And it took itself off, through the black earth where the worm led, and down by the brook, where it stopped a minute to drink, and under the stone wall of the garden, to the rocky banks beyond, and there among the weeds and the thistles and the long rank grass it began to grow.
    "But not into a queen rose, little lady; its twisted, straggly branches were spiked with sharp thorns, its leaves heavy and coarse, The roses were only poor single-leaved things, that dropped at a touch; the slugs ate the buds before they could half open, for there was no one to watch it or train it, or prune it or graft it - this poor 'Runaway Rose' - no one to help it to climb. It could only tangle itself among the thistles, getting wilder and uglier every year."
    "Oh, Tim!" - there was almost a sob in Alma's voice - "didn't it ever get back into the garden again, the poor little Rose?"
    "It did," said Tim. "The master was passing by the wild place and saw it. No eye but his would have known the poor, ragged, dusty beggar of a flower, tangled among the thistles, for the 'Runaway Rose.' But he saw and knew, and he loosened it from the thorns and briers, and took it up again by the roots, and planted it back in the garden. And as Brother Cyril said, when he ended the story, it was glad enough after this to be pruned and trained and grafted at his Master willed."
    "And it grew into a beautiful, lovely queen rose again?" asked Alma.
    "I suppose it did, said Tim doubtfully, "though that Brother Cyril did not say. But I'm thinking it couldn't grow quite as purty and sweet as if it had never run away at all."
    "No, it couldn't," said Alma gravely. "Little girls are like runaway roses sometimes, aren't they, Tim?"
    "They are," said Tim. "They run away from their books and their lessons and their prayers, and all the good things that make them grow right, and when there is no one to hold or turn them it is as bad for them as it was for the 'Runaway Rose.' Sometimes they stray off so far they never get back."
    "I'm going back now," said Alma as she pirouetted off the pine bough. "I;m going up to the schoolroom and write my French lesson, Tim. And I'd go back to St. Mary's if Daddy would let me. But he won't, Tim, he won't.
    "No, he won't," sighed Tim to himself as Alma danced away. "It's the fairy he'd keep ye always, as he says. But he can't" added the old man, with a grim nod. "The Lord will hold ye for His own, my little lady rose. He'll hold ye and lead ye in His own blessed way, let the master below do what he will."
   
   
   

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Chapter Eight - New Lessons

3/11/2015

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    How Lisbeth got to Bobby she never knew. The next four minutes seemed like a swirling mist through which she could not see.
    She was struggling among the lily leaves, the water was in her eyes, her ears, her mouth; she was dragging up the white, gasping Bobby, who suddenly seemed to weigh a hundred pounds at least.
    It was a pale, drenched, shivering, almost fainting little Lisbeth that staggered up to Mrs. Burns, holding chubby Bobby in her thin brown arms.
    "My baby, my baby!" cried Mrs. Burns, who was standing at the gate talking to the friendly visitor who had stopped to inquire about the good woman's little ones.
    "Holy Mother, what has happened to my baby?"
    "He fell - in - the lily pond," said Lisbeth.
    "The lily pond!" cried the frightened mother, snatching the still gasping Bobby from Lisbeth's hold. "It's drowned he is, my baby, my baby, that I though was sleeping safe in the room beyond!" Oh, God forgive me for turning my back on him while I did the work! My Bobby drowned, dead, drowned!"
    Dead! Drowned! the words pierced through the dull ringing in Lisbeth's ear like a sharp pain. Drowned! She sank back against the gate-post dizzy and faint.
    Mrs. Burns had rushed into the house with Bobby, forgetful in her fright of the drenched, chilled little girl without.
    "My poor child," said a kind voice, "you are cold and wet yourself; you must go in and get dry and warm."
    Lisbeth lifted her despairing eyes to meet the gaze that turned upon her in the chapel yesterday. For Mrs. Burns' visitor was Father Francis, who often went about in this friendly fashion to visit the lowly homes of his flock.
    "Bobby is drowned," said Lisbeth dully; "and it was my fault."
    "Not at all," was the cheery answer.
    "Listen to that." From the open door came a reassuring sound of Bobby roaring with renewed strength as his mother rubbed him into warmth and life.
    "He is all right," said Father Francis, smiling into the blank, bewildered little face that looked up into his own.
    "Come in and see." And he led Lisbeth into the kitchen, where, rolled in a soft blanket, Bobby lay rosy and happy in his mother's lap.
    "Lisbeth! Lisbeth!" cried that good woman. "I was forgetting you entirely, darlint, in my fright. And you all wet and cold from saving the child! God bless ye for it, darlint! It was His mercy that sent ye from the old house below in time to save my baby's life."
    "It was, indeed," said Father Francis. "Bobby owes you his life, my good, brave little girl."
    "He  does, he does!" sobbed Mrs. Burns. "I'll never forget ye for the heart-scald you've saved me to-day, Lisbeth.
    "Lone and lorn as she has been raised in the old house beyond, with that old wild cat of a grandmother (God forgive me for giving he that name, there's not a better little girl in all your parish than this same Lisbeth, Father Francis."
    "I am sure of it," said Father Francis.
    "Oh no, no, no," burst forth Lisbeth. 'I'm not good, I'm not good, I'm not true. I did not want to mind Bobby this morning - and I - I ran away to play."
    "There, there," soothed the astonished Mrs. Burns as Lisbeth dropped on her knees beside her, and burying her face in Bobby's blanket sobbed out her childish guilt and greif. "Sure, there's no call for you to cry like this, darlint. The little rascal stole off to the pond when I thought I had him safe asleep. I forgot ye weren't there to watch him.
    "Ye, see it's a bargain Lisbeth and me have betwixt us, Father," explained Mrs. Burns. "She is to mind Bobby every Tuesday morning while I do my wash, and I sent her home to-day because the poor old grandmother was down with the rheumatism."
    "Oh, but she isn't, she isn't," sobbed Lisbeth. "She had gone off to Top Notch to the boys and didn't want me at all. I fooled you, I cheated you, i wasn't true. I let Bobby nearly drown in the pond while I took my new doll far out in the woods to play."
    "The Lord save us!" said Mrs. Burns, amazed, while Father Francis stood by looking with pitying eyes on the sobbing little penitent. "I'd never have thought such tricks of you. Lisbeth, never. And what brought ye back in time to save Bobby from the pond below?"
    "I - I don't know," faltered Lisbeth, lifting her tearful, bewildered face. "Something seemed whispering to me that I was bad, that I was cheating, that it was like telling a story to let you think I had gone home to Gran when I was out there at play. I felt I must come back and mind Bobby, as I promised, or our Lord would not bless me this evening when I to to Church with the other little girls, that He would not like to see my flowers on the altar if I wasn't good and true. So I came back."
    "Just in time," said Father Francis, and his voice was very low and gentle as he laid his hand on Lisbeth's head. "Ah, my little child, if you had not listened to that whisper in your heart, little Bobby would be lying white and cold under the lily leaves now."
    "Sure he would, he would," said Mrs. Burns, beginning to sob again as she hugged the round-eyed Bobby to her mother's heart. "Blessed be the Lord that spared him to me."
    "Meantime this poor little girl who saved him is faint, and chilled, and wet," said Father Francis. "You must get her something warm to drink and wear, and put her to bed for a couple of hours at least, Mrs. Burns. And then - then if you feel well enough - come to Church with the other little girls, my child. Do not fear, our Lord is blessing you, teaching you, leading you, little Lisbeth. Listen to His wise speaking in your heart always as you listened to day."
    So after all it was a pleasant day for Lisbeth. Mrs. Burns tucked her away in her own nice bed, and gave her warm mil to drink, and she drifted off into a dreamland where all the white violets were walking in lines with veils on their heads, singing the hymn that the little girls had sun in the chapel yesterday. Lisbeth could remember only two lines:
                                                 "Teach us, dearest Lord, to love Thee,
                                                   Make our hearts 'Thine own."
    She woke - to find Mrs. Burns bending over her, a loving mother-look on her kind face.
    "It's the beautiful things you were singing in your sleep, Lisbeth," she said softly. "But it's time to wake up now. I've dried and pressed all your clothes, and the blue gingham is all ready for the wearing. Bobby is as well as ever again. And I went down to the lily pond and found her" -- Mrs. Burns pointed to Endora, staring with wide-open eyes from the foot of the bed.
    "She was caught among the lily pads, not a whit the worse for it."
    "Oh, Mrs. Burns, dear Mrs. Burns, I thought Endora was gone forever," said Lisbeth. "You're too good to me, dear Mrs. Burns."
    "Not a bit of it," was the warm-hearted answer. "Look at that now," and she pointed to Bobby, safely tied in his high chair sucking a chicken bone. "Think where he would have been this minute if you had not come back to him. Lisbeth, if you had played off in the woods all day long, and not come back to do your work and keep your word - ah, it's the broken hearted mother I'd be this day with my dead baby in my arms - if you had not come back, little Lisbeth."
                                                           *                        *                        *
    "Who is the little girl that lives down in the Brambles near Mrs. Burns?" Father Francis asked Sister Angela when he came to St. Mary's that afternoon.
    "Lisbeth," said Sister Angela a little anxiously. "I was going to speak to you about her, Father . It has been scarcely three months since I found her - pitifully friendless, neglected, in the hands of a rough, hard old woman. The poor child had never heard, save with fierce, wicked words, the name of God."
    "Is it possible?" said Father Francis wonderingly as he thought of the sobbing little penitent at good Mrs. Burns knee. "And she comes from that old ruined house in the Brambles. I have heard the St. Vincent de Paul men speak of it. It has a very bad name. That child comes from there - and three months, only three months, you have her here?"
    "Oh, Father," interrupted Sister Angela with a trembling little catch in her voice, "I was afraid - you would not approve of my haste. But poor little Lisbeth has come to me every day; she has learned so quickly, so eagerly. She is like a parched flower drinking in rain and dew. And her poor little lonely, loveless heart seems turning to our Lord as a sunflower turns to the sun. And so I put her in the First Communion class, Father - but Mother told me I must speak to you about her. It has been all so hurried, she says; the child has come out of such pagan darkness; it is too soon for her to make her First Communion, she thinks, far too soon."
    "Not at all," answered Father Francis with quick decision. "Not at all, my dear Sister. I have seen you little Lisbeth; read with an old priest's eyes her childish heart. Let her come to our Lord with the other little ones. Already she has learned to know Him, to love Him, to listen to His voice. It is all He asks, dear Sister, as we know."
    And so Lisbeth, who after her pleasant rest at Mrs. Burns felt quite bright and happy again, took her place with the rest of the little girls in the chapel, and listened to Father Francis' talk. He told them stories to-day beautiful, true stories, that held his listeners breathless with interest - of Pancratius, Tarcisius, Agnes - little boys and girls of long ago who loved our Lord so much that they died rather than offend or deny Him; of the dark passageways under the earth where Mass was aid and First Communions given to little children, making them so brave and strong that they gave up their young lives without fear.
    And Lisbeth, who had lived in wholesome dread of the bears and wild cats that still lurked on the heights of Top Notch, thrilled with terror at the story of young Pancratius facing the lions and panthers of the Roman circus with a happy smile; of Agnes bending her golden head beneath the soldier's axe; of Tarcisius dying under brutal blows in defence of the Sacred Host he was clasping to his boyish breast.
    "Such things are not asked of you now, my dear little ones," said Father Francis as he saw the wide-open eyes of Lisbeth fixed upon his face, and thought of the old dark house and its evil name. "There are no wild beasts or sharp swords to fear now. But even little children must be brave and strong, still. Brave to do what is right and good, no matter how hard it seems; to tell the truth when a little lie seems easiest and best; to bear blame, and even pain, rather than offend that Blessed Lord for whom these little martyrs of long ago gave their blood and their lives.
    "You are not asked to die for Him in these happy days, but to live for Him, my children, and whatever comes to us we must be brave and strong enough for that."
    And then the little talk was over, and the children who had heard of Agnes, and Pancratius, and many other martyrs before, scattered gleefully to play. Only Lisbeth lingered thoughtfully in the chapel, where the white violets still bent their heads in the silver bowl upon the altar.
    Wild beasts and swords and blows! Oh, how could those brave little saints of long ago have faced them, borne them, she wondered. "Oh, I couldn't do it, I couldn't die, I am afraid," she whispered to herself.
    "But I can live for our Lord, as Father Francis says, and I will - I will!"

To be continued . . . . . . . .
   


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Chapter Seven - Mayday

2/25/2015

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IT was May time in the Brambles now, and everything was fresh and green, the woods were shady again, all the shy wild flowers were peeping out from the soft new grass, the brook was foaming over the rocks'—widening in pleasant, mossy shallows, dancing where the sunbeams fell through the Arching trees. Lisbeth loved the brook, and knew its every turn and bend, where the queer "Indian pipes" stood up stiff and pale, where the water cress grew crisp and green, where the white violets starred the mossy banks, bending their  pretty heads as if saying their prayers. She knew the hollow under the rock where the big frog lived, the old great grandfather frog, who never hopped and jumped away like the rest but sat still at his door, blinking in the sunshine. She knew where the nest was hidden in the willow, and the tiny birds were beginning t o chirp.

Now that' the days were bright and long, there was plenty of time to ramble out in the woods that, after all, are the biggest and best playgrounds a little girl can have when spring is working sweet wonders in trees and grass and flowers. And Lisbeth was free today — Gran had limbered up her stiff knees with the bottle of medicine and gone up to Top Notch. Gran's heart and thought were always up on Top Notch with her boys. .Why they lived up there instead of at the Brambles Lisbeth did not know.  It was a long, steep way for poor Gran to go, for she came back fierce and tired and cross, and cried out in her sleep as i f she was frightened or afraid. But she brought money with her to buy sugar and flour and meal and tea.

Lisbeth was too young and innocent to guess the truth, that the boys were wild, bad men, hiding up on the rough heights of Top Notch so that they could break the laws and make money by wrong, forbidden ways. Only in the dark nights of winter, when the roads were blocked with ice and snow, dared the boys venture home. Now that all the dim ways of the Brambles had opened into light and beauty, they feared to come. And Uncle Lem, the wildest, the dearest, the youngest of Gran's boys, had been sick of late  with a fever, and Gran had to go help him, cost what it might. But little Lisbeth knew nothing of all this. Gran was afraid of her childish "prattling ," and so kept the boys' troubles to herself, only taking it out on the poor little girl by being rougher, crosser than ever in her mother's grief and pain.

So it was with a glad, light heart that Lisbeth shut the door of the big black kitchen and felt that she had this whole bright May day free. No water to draw, no fire to make, no floors to scrub, no dinner to cook, there was some cold corn bread and ajar of milk — that would be quite enough for her — above all no Gran to nag and scold and cuff her. A whole long, bright day!  "Stay home, Dirck ," she said to the big dog who followed her to the broken gate. "You must stay home and keep house, I 'm going to take my new doll out for a walk. She has never been out in the country before, have you, Endora? I am going t o show her the brook, and the birds' nest, and the frogs. We are going to pick white violets -- oh, we are going to do so many nice things, and then — then we are going to St. Mary's and to church and to Alma's. Oh, I never thought I would have such good things happen to me," murmured Lisbeth as she went skipping along over the rough, weedgrown road. " I never thought I would go to a garden school and a beautiful church; I never thought I would have a lovely, lovely doll, like this, with lace on her skirt and a real hat, and eyes that go to sleep; I never thought a nice little girl like Alma would ask me to play with her; I never thought I would have such happy, happy times as I am having now." And with her heart singing this glad, grateful little song, Lisbeth went skipping on through the dark shadowy woods until the low roof of a little cottage showing under the trees made her suddenly pause. "Oh, Endora, I forgot," she whispered with a quick-drawn breath. " I forgot Bobby Burns. It's Bobby Burns' day." Mrs. Burns was the nearest neighbor to Gran. She lived where the Brambles opened into a soft little glen, that had been, cleared of thorns and briers, and she had a nice garden patch, half a dozen speckled hens, and a cow. She had tow-headed Billy , who tended the cow and brought Gran every day a can of milk. And last but not least, she had Bobby -- kicking, crowing Baby Bobby — just old enough to tumble into, the wash boiler and tip over the milk pans and catch at everything — from pins to scrubbing powder -- his fat hands could reach. There was never the likes of him , "rosy Mrs. Burns groaned one day as she turned from her wash tub to take the drenched, spluttering Bobby from Lisbeth, who had just picked him out of the rain barrel. " I can't turn my back five minutes to hang out my clothes." "Oh, Mrs. Burns," said Lisbeth, who was looking wistfully at the snowy pieces hanging out on her neighbor's line, "I'll come and take care of Bobby every day that you wash, if you'll do up one of my nice dresses every week for me. I can't do them myself." "You poor darling, I don't suppose you can," said the good woman warmly. " And you should have those pretty frocks the Sister gave you ironed right." So the bargain was made.

Bobby's mother laundered Lisbeth's pretty new dresses, and Bobby kicked and tumbled,
safe from harm, under his little nurse's watchful eye for the best part of a bright day every week. And this was Bobby's day. Reluctantly poor little Lisbeth turned to the house, where Mrs. Burns was already up to her elbows in soapsuds, and Lisbeth's blue gingham with its white braid and buttons was being rubbed and rubbed by a skillful hand. "Ah, it's you, Lisbeth — I thought you were not coming," said the good woman. "Your poor old grandmother was bad last night, as Billy said. If she wants you at home today you need not come. I wouldn't be taking you from her when she is crippled up. Bobby and I will get along without you if you're wanted at home." The truth rose to Lisbeth's lips and stopped there — held by the thought that she could escape, could have the long, happy day without work or care. Gran was away at Top Notch; Gran did not want her; no one needed her at home. But — she would not tell; she would just slip away from Bobby—tiresome, teasing, kicking Bobby--to the brook, the woods, for this whole lovely morning—she would not nurse Bobby today. "Run off home with yourself, back to the poor old woman," continued Mrs. Burns. "I know what it is to be down with the rheumatism myself. It's the good little girl you are, I know, and the Lord's blessing will be on you for all your patience with the poor old soul. And there's some nice ginger cookies on the table that you can take with you for your lunch." At these kind words, the truth again leaped to Lisbeth's lips, and again it stopped. She ought to stay; she ought to help Mrs. Burns with naughty Bobby; she ought to pay for the blue gingham the good woman was washing so carefully for her lest it should fade or streak. She would have it ironed this evening, just as if it were new. "Me want Libby," said Bobby, dropping the clothespins that for the moment had kept him quiet. "Me wants the pitty doll, me wants Libby to play wif me." "You can't have her this morning, for she is wanted at home. Run off with yourself before he begins t o screech for ye, Lisbeth dear. Run off — " And Lisbeth ran off at the word, ran off with Bobby's piercing screech already sounding in her ear, for her free, happy day.

The sunbeams were dancing through the arching trees, the birds were singing, gay little squirrels were frisking over the leafy boughs, the pink laurel was in bloom, but when at last Lisbeth reached the soft, mossy banks of the brook and paused to rest, the bright, beautiful world around her seemed to have lost something of its charm. Now, though naughty Bobby's tyrant screech could no longer be heard, another voice seemed whispering to her — whispering clearer than the brook tumbling so joyously at her feet whispering to her heart. "Lisbeth, Lisbeth," it seemed to say, "is our Lord blessing you today, as kind Mrs. Burns said?" "Cheating, shirking little Lisbeth, are you pleasing Him today?" " Lisbeth — Lisbeth — Lisbeth, are you doing right today? Are you good and true today?" "I did not tell a story," said Lisbeth as with Endora in her arms she sat down on a moss-grown rock. "I did not tell Mrs. Burns Gran wanted me at home. I did not say a word, did I , Endora?" Endora stared blankly; a little bird perched on a twig across the brook gave a low tweet, tweet, as it flew away; a hoarse ker-plung came from the grandfather frog. Last summer Lisbeth would have heard nothing more — but now, now her little soul had been wakened, and the voice in her heart kept whispering in spite of bird and breeze. "You did not tell a story, Lisbeth, but were you true to Mrs. Burns— real, real true? Are you a good little girl, as she said? Is our Lord blessing you today as He blessed the little children long ago?"

Lisbeth jumped up from the rock, and 'leaving Endora in her place began to pick violets, the shy little violets that starred the brook's mossy banks. She had taken a big bunch to St. Mary's yesterday. "But they won't show much," she said as she handed them to Sister Angela for the May altar. .  "Maybe not, Lisbeth, but our Lord can see, and I think He likes them best, these shy little flowers that do not show; so I am going to put them at His feet." And while the lilacs and the snowballs the other girls had brought from their mothers' gardens stood high and beautiful on the altar vases, Lisbeth's violets filled a low silver bowl before the tabernacle, their white heads bent, their sweet breath rising as if in whispered prayer. At His feet, Sister Angela had said Lisbeth's little wood flowers were, at our Lord's feet. They would be there still when she knelt this afternoon before the altar--
a naughty little Lisbeth who had not been true. ,

Oh, Lisbeth could not stand the chiding voice any longer. "I'm going back," she said, catching up Endora from the rock. "I'm going back to take care of Bobby. I'm going back to
Mrs. Burns and be good and true." And Lisbeth went hurrying on along the brookside; that was the shortest if roughest way, for her slim brown feet were bare today, and she could wade the shallows, skip and jump the rocks as she^ pleased. Bramble brook was a frolicsome little stream that all the gloom and loneliness around it could not tame. Only the icy grip of Jack Frost could hold it silent and still. Now, with the soft spring rains of the last six weeks, with all the drip andtrickle from the rocks and ridges of Top Notch, it was full to the very brim, widening here and there into pools deep and clear, and fringed with the wide leaves of water lilies, that a little later would bloom out white and sweet. Then Lisbeth would have flowers for the altar indeed, flowers that would outshine all the garden blossoms the nicest little girls could bring. But one must skip carefully about the lily ponds.' The banks hidden by the spreading leaves were slippery, the water was deep.

Long ago, Mrs. Burns had told her that when Thornwood was in its glory and pride swans had floated among the lily leaves. Lisbeth started forward eagerly as she caught a glimpse of something white^among them now. Then her heart seemed to jump to her lips and hold her speechless—breathless: For it was Bobby! Bobby in the little white slip in which he took his noonday nap! Bobby, bare-legged and barefooted, runaway baby! Bobby among the lily pads, on these slippery, dangerous banks! And before Lisbeth could reach him — cry to him — there was a swish, a tumble, and Bobby was down and in — flat on his little back in the water, too frightened to struggle or scream.

To be continued . . . . . . . 

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Chapter Six - Alma

2/13/2015

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Picture
ALMA watched through the iron gate until Lisbeth turned the street corner; then she took her way back to the house, the great, beautiful house where she lived with her father and Madame Manette, her French governess, and Nora and Elise and Tim , and all the other men and maid servants that such a rich and fine establishment as Mr. Oliver Norton's required.

Alma's mother had gone to Heaven when her baby girl was born, and her father, who until then had been young and gay and happy, had grown old and grave with sorrow. His dark hair was threaded with gray; to all but little Alma his face was cold and stern.  In his great grief, he had turned away from God and man, living only for his little girl and his work. He was a lawyer whose clear head and keen eye were dreaded by all evildoers far and near, for when he stood against them in the courts of justice there
was no hope.

Little Alma was the idol of this proud, strong man's heart and life. For her the great house, the spacious grounds were kept up in all their beauty; for her the flowers bloomed and the fountain played. For her Madame Manette, who had taught the high Noblesse in her own land, had been brought across the sea. For the little girl with her mother's dancing eyes and golden hair, "Daddy" lived -- to all Heaven and earth beside he was dead in heart and soul, buried in rebellious despair.

So blind was Daddy's love that, if Alma had not been blessed with the sweetest, sunniest disposition in the world, she would have been altogether selfish and spoiled. As it was, she had grown up to eight years old, a roguish, mischievous little sprite, whose pranks good Madame Manette, used to the proper ways of the high Noblesse, found quite beyond her rules.
"And monsieur the father will permit no punishment," the good lady had confided to Sister Angela about two months ago.

Sister Angela had been one of the Madame's pupils, when she was at school in Paris, and was still her fast friend. "This little Alma will not listen, she will not study, she flies away — like the birds and the butterflies — when I would hold her to her lessons, to her desk. Ah, so mechante, so naughty, hiding from me, making the grimaces when I talk to her, laughing up in my face. Never in my country would we permit- such things, ma chere, as you know. We would tie such little girls to the chair, we would lock them up, we would give them no supper. But here I can do nothing — nothing. Monsieur the father will not permit. If she is naughty, if she is lazy, if she is flyaway, like the birds and butterflies, he does not blame, he does not care. "He gives her the kiss, the caress, the new beautiful toys all the same. In his great love, he is blind — ma chere — blind." "Poor father, blind indeed," said Sister Angela softly, for she knew that in the bitterness of his grief for Alma's mother M r . Norton had turned from his Faith, from his Church, from his God. "Little Alma comes to Mass with you every Sunday, as I see," continued the gentle speaker. "It is time for her to do more. Let her make her First Communion in June."

"Ma chere!" the good French lady fairly gasped in dismay. "Alma make her First Communion! She is but eight years old."

"Quite old enough, according to our present rules," said Sister Angela. "None of my class this year are over ten, many only seven."

"Seven!" repeated Madame, "Seven! Never have I had a pupil make her First Communion until she was twelve years old at least, until she knew the Catechism through, until for two years she had the instructions every week. Seven! You terrify me, ma chere. How can a child of seven understand?"

"Oh, my dear Madame, how can the wisest, the oldest of us understand?" said Sister Angela softly. "Our Lord does not ask us to understand, only to believe and to love. In these happy days, the sweet call that once sounded on the hills of Judea is echoing all over the earth: 'Let the little ones come unto Me. Forbid them not.' Let little Alma come with the rest, dear friend." And after a little more gentle pleading, the good Madame yielded reluctantly, for the old-fashioned ideas were strong in her still.

So Alma in her blue hat and ribbons took her place in the First Communion class, that assembled three times a week, and began to learn lessons that in her own beautiful home no governess could teach. With long rows of little girls sitting still and good, Alma sat strangely still and good too. With long rows of little girls knowing their lesson, Alma was ashamed to miss; with these long rows of little girls listening to Father Francis in the chapel, Alma fixed her blue eyes on the kind old speaker, and listened too. And then always there was a little talk with Sister Angela, who was watching with special tenderness over this little lamb, who, unlike poor little Lisbeth, lived amid sunshine and flowers. But lambs can be tangled in flowers as well as thorns, as wise Sister Angela knew.
And so slowly but surely there had come into Alma's dancing eyes a new look — the starry light of thought. It was in her eyes to-day as she walked back to the house, after parting with Lisbeth, poor little Lisbeth, who lived in that dark, gloomy, old house in the Brambles, who had no dear Daddy to love her, no Madame to teach her, no Tim or Nora or Elise to wait on her — poor little Lisbeth! Alma was thinking what she would give Lisbeth to take home to-morrow, when a carriage swung through the iron gates, and Daddy, who had been on a business trip, sprang out and caught his little girl in his arms. For a while all other things were forgotten in the joy of his return, for he had been gone six long weeks. They had dinner together. It was not often that Alma shared Daddy's late dinners, but he said he must have her downstairs to-night, so she sat opposite to him at the round mahogany table with its lights and flowers, and had ice cream made into roses,
and candied nuts. Then they went into the library, where her mother's picture hung over the chimney place, and there were rows of bookcases, and Daddy often sat working or thinking the whole night through. But though letters and papers were piled high upon his big table, he did not even look at them to-night. He flung himself down in his leathern cushioned chair and drew Alma to his knee. The golden head nestled on his shoulder, the fair little face looked up into his own — the only light in poor Daddy's darkness, the only joy in his lonely life — his heart's treasure, his little girl.

"Oh, it's so good to have you back again, Daddy," whispered Alma. "You've been gone so long."

"Only six weeks, Midget!" he answered smiling. "You've missed me then?" "Oh yes, dreadfully, Daddy, and so many things have happened! "

"I'm sure of that," said Daddy with a laugh. "You have made it lively for poor Madame, I know. Have you been very naughty since I left?"

"No," said Alma softly.

"You haven't run away to the frog pond, to fish and tumble in?"

"No," answered Alma again.

"Nor hidden in the cedar hedge at lesson time?"

"Not once, Daddy."

"Nor pitched your school books out of the windows ?" asked Daddy.

"No," answered Alma, " I haven't done anything of these bad things. I've been good, Daddy, real good."

"You have! "exclaimed Daddy, startled by some new tone in the soft voice. "Has Madame been getting a French grip on you since I have been gone ? You've been good, Midget ?"

"Yes," answered Alma. " I go to St. Mary's now every day with the other little girls. And we say our Catechism, and our prayers, and Sister Angela teaches us, and Father Francis tells us all about God and Blessed Mother and how our Lord lived on earth, and loved little children, and wants them to be good so they can come to Him in Heaven."

"Come to Him in Heaven." Daddy's dead heart seemed to leap with living pain at the words. His Alma — his little baby Alma talking like this. For a moment he could not speak. He felt as if the God from whom he had turned was stretching out His hand to claim his little girl, as He had claimed her mother eight years ago.

"Come to Him in Heaven." Oh no, no, no, was the fierce cry that rose from Daddy's breaking heart, though it did not pass his lips. He only drew Alma closer to him and asked almost angrily, "Who sent you to St. Mary's to hear all this — a baby like you?"

"I'm not a baby, Daddy, I am eight years old. All the little girls eight years old make their First Communion now."

"First Communion!" echoed Daddy. "You are to make your First Communion! You don't know what you are talking about, my pet."

"Oh yes, Daddy, I do, I do. Sister Angela, Father Francis told us. We all know what First Communion means. We know that it is our Lord Himself, that He is hidden under the white Host the priest gives us. Father Francis says the oldest and wisest people in the world cannot understand, but He is there. He said so and we must believe Him, because all that He tells us is true. It is the very happiest day of your life, Father Francis says, when our Lord first comes into your heart and makes it like Heaven. Did you ever make your First Communion, Daddy, when you were a little boy?" And Alma uplifted her soft eyes to her father's darkened face, unconscious of the torturing memories she was waking. For even as his little girl asked the question, the long years seemed to roll away, and Daddy saw himself with the white sash on his shoulder, the lighted taper in his hand, heading the First Communion band of twenty years ago — a believing, hoping, loving, true-hearted boy.

But he had lost the faith, the hope, the light of that happy day — lost the love that might have kept him in blessed ways, lost all but the little girl nestling in his arms, in his heart — his Alma, his own. Ah, he would keep her his own, his own, he felt with a pang of fierce, jealous fear, keep her his own bright, dancing little earth fairy. He would not have her an angel as the nuns were making her. Already there was a new look in her eyes, a tone in her voice he had never heard before, an angel look he did not like. "Tut, tut," he said, pinching her cheek. "We must stop these St. Mary's lessons. They are making you too solemn-eyed altogether. I want you to be my own laughing, playing little girl. It will be time enough to think three years from now — you must not begin yet. It's too soon, little girlie, too soon.

"And we're going off in June for a long, long trip together," continued Daddy in a lighter tone; "off in a big ship across the sea — off to be gay and glad the whole summer through."
And then Daddy brought out a big book of pictures, showing the trip they were to take together, the big boat in which they were to sail, the beautiful lands they were to visit, the wonderful sights they were to see. Soon the gentle shadow of thought had vanished from Alma's pretty face, she was laughing and chatting with all the glee of old.

But when she had gone t o her little rose curtained bed that night, Daddy went to Madame's sitting room, his face dark and stern.

"I want these convent lessons stopped at once," he said shortly. "Alma is too young for such teaching as the nuns are giving her — far too young."

"So I myself thought, monsieur," Madame answered nervously, for never had she seen monsieur with this frowning brow — "but the good Sister Angela said — " "What the good Sister Angela says is nothing to me," interrupted monsieur brusquely.

"The child is mine. Keep her from the convent; let me hear no more of a First Communion. It must all be stopped at once. She is far too young — scarcely eight years old. I simply refuse to have a baby like her bewildered by such grave, solemn teachings. She is too young for thought, for prayer, for anything but childish play."

"It is for monsieur to command," said Madame submissively. And so Alma's sweet lessons at St. Mary's were ended.

To be continued . . . . . .




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Chapter Five - A New Friend

6/19/2014

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Picture
SO the days and the nights went by until Lisbeth had been going to her garden school for five weeks. Not for all the world would she have missed a day. Three times it had rained, but she had appeared all the same under a very torn and broken-ribbed umbrella, and Sister Angela had taken her into the vine-wreathed summer house and had given her lessons there.

For St. Mary's garden was all abloom now. There were jonquils and tulips, St. Joseph's lilies, great bushes of snowballs — all the first sweet flowers of spring. And it seemed as if little Lisbeth too — pale little thorn flower that she had been — was opening into sweeter, brighter bloom. The soul that had been sleeping so dully was waking into strange, beautiful life.

Poor little Lisbeth had never had lessons before — no one had ever told her stories or sung her songs. She seemed to drink in Sister Angela's teaching as the flowers drink the dew. She had learned a great deal now; she had listened with wonder and delight to the sweet story of the Divine Babe, born in the stable of Bethlehem, while the angels filled the midnight skies with music, and kings came from the far-off countries to lay their gifts at His feet. Lisbeth had never known what Christmas really meant until now; it had only been a time when the boys came home with a wild turkey to cook for dinner, and Uncle Lem had bought her the tin horn and a doll. So with her eager little face uplifted to her gentle teacher, her soft eyes shining, Lisbeth listened day after day to the lessons that told her of our dear Lord's life on earth.

And before the roses began to bud in St. Mary's garden, she had heard with breathless wonder how He lives on the altar to bless and love His poor earth children still, how He comes to them in Holy Communion, to make their hearts and souls His own.

"Would He come to a poor little girl like me?" asked Lisbeth tremulously.

"Yes," answered Sister Angela.

"A little girl that lives in the Brambles and ain't pretty and nice like the rest?" said Lisbeth.

"Ah, my little Lisbeth, yes. All our Lord asks is a little soul without stain of sin, a little heart that loves Him.

"When the roses bloom all my little children are going to Him, and you shall go with the rest." ,
And the next afternoon Sister Angela led her little garden pupil into the convent chapel, where the sunlight streamed through a painted window upon the altar with its candles and flowers, upon the swinging lamp that burned before it like a star, upon the little girls sitting in rows, while Father Francis talked to them in his kind old voice of our dear Lord and His love.

"He loves you more than your father, more than even your dear, sweet mother can love her little child. He wants you to come as the little children in the days of His earthly life came to His arms and to His heart.

"Do not keep them from Me," He said when the disciples would have turned  the little ones away. And to us priests He says the same thing:
"Do not keep them from Me until they grow old and wise" until they know all the big words in the Catechism. "Let the little ones come to Me now, with their white souls Unstained by sin — their little hearts loving and trusting and pure."

That same dear Lord, who called the children on the hills of Judea long ago, who took them in His arms and blessed them, is calling you today, to kneel at His altar to receive Him in that Blessed Sacrament in which He lives still on earth, as truly and really as when He took the little Jewish children to His loving heart two thousand years ago.

"And though you cannot see Him now, though you cannot hear His voice as they did, though you cannot feel His divine hands laid on your heads, He will be with you in Holy Communion, blessing you, loving you, as He blessed and loved them. For He has told us so, and we believe His every word, for He is our Lord and our God."

Lisbeth's heart seemed to beat quickly and as she listened, the soft eyes, hidden by the sun-bonnet, shone with a new, glad light. It was such a wonderful thing to sit here in the beautiful chapel, with all these "nice" little girls, and feel that she would be loved and blessed with the rest. That night Lisbeth sat on the broken kitchen step long after the stars came out, thinking of all that Father Francis had said.

"They must be very good children," he had told them. The white dress, the beautiful wreath and veil they would wear on their First Communion day were only signs of the spotless purity of their little souls. And then Father Francis had told them how children sometimes stained these little white souls with anger, with jealousy, with unkind words to their playmates, with disobedience, with untruths. Untruths! Lisbeth thought of this word more than all the rest as she sat on the doorstep tonight. Untruths — that meant telling stories, and poor little Lisbeth had escaped many a hard word and blow by telling stories in the past.

It had been so easy to say that Dirck had broken the cracked pitcher, that Tabby had turned over the bowl of milk, that Bobby Burns had left the gate open for the chickens to stray. In her fear of cross old Gran such little lies had popped from Lisbeth's lips almost without a thought. But now, now, never would she tell a story again, let Gran scold and beat as she might — never, never again.

And Lisbeth went to her narrow little bed to dream beautiful dreams of the chapel, of the altar, of the white angels kneeling on each side of the great painted window that showed the Good Shepherd bringing the lost lamb home.

Three times a week Sister Angela's First Communion class gathered in the convent chapel, the little fair-haired girl in the pretty blue hat sitting next to Lisbeth and making room for her on the bench with a friendly smile. But on the fourth day she was not there and the shy little stranger from the Brambles missed the bright, roguish face that had looked so pleasantly into her own. Lisbeth had to stop at the drug store this afternoon, to buy a bottle of medicine for Gran's rheumatism, and she was going home by another street — a street into which she seldom turned. It was wide and shaded, and great houses stood back in beautiful grounds, behind high iron gates.

Lisbeth was hurrying along with her medicine bottle, the picture book which Sister Angela had lent her under her arm, when a white kitten scurrying along the sidewalk nearly threw her off her feet.

"Oh, my kitty, my kitty!" cried an eager young voice. "Catch it for me, oh, catch it, please!" Lisbeth made a quick grasp, and soon had the furry, mewing little ball in her hold. The iron gate of one of the big places swung open, and her friendly little neighbor of the convent chapel came running out.

"Oh, my kitty, my naughty kitty, thank you so much for catching her; she slipped away from me before I could open the gate. Oh, my bad little kitty, to run away like that!"

"Take care," said Lisbeth, who knew the ways of kittens. "She will scratch you if you hug her up like that."

"Oh, I don't care, I don't care, I am so glad to get her back. I just brought her from some bad boys who were going to drown her in the creek."

"Do you live here?" asked Lisbeth, looking up at the iron gates that were guarded by two big stone lions.

"Yes, don't you know I am Alma Norton, and this is my house?" laughed kitty's mistress.

"I know you. You are the little girl that lives in the Brambles. Sister Angela has told me about you, and I've been wanting to talk to you ever since."

"Oh, have you?" said Lisbeth, her little brown face lighting up in glad surprise.

"Yes," answered Alma, "Sister Angela said you had no story books, or toys or anything to play with, and I want to give you some of mine. I have such a lot, and Daddy is always bringing me more. He sent me home a talking doll last week. It says, 'Mary has a little lamb' straight through."

"A doll!" said Lisbeth breathlessly. "Oh, I'd like to hear it."

"Come up to the house and you can," said Alma. "And you can take some toys home with you — dolls or games or anything you like." 

It was an offer no little girl of eight could resist, and Lisbeth went, following pretty Alma through the iron gates, and up the broad, shaded walks that led by garden beds full of springtime flowers and splashing fountains. In a daze of wonder and delight Lisbeth kept on, across a pillared porch, through the wide hall with its rugs and pictures, up the broad, polished stairs to a room that to even happier little girls than the lonely little child of the Brambles would have seemed like a Christmas dream.

Four big windows let in the sunshine upon walls papered with pictured fairy tales — Jack the Giant Killer, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and half a dozen more; a soft green rug bordered with roses nearly covered the shining floor; there was a wide, low table and half a dozen little white wicker chairs cushioned in pink, and all about, on shelves and stands, in closets, were toys and dolls and games and books, in bewildering array, while in a deep recess, just made for its accommodation, stood a doll's house, whose glistening, lace-curtained windows showed it to be furnished in the very latest style from kitchen to roof.
 
"Oh!" gasped Lisbeth as soon as she could find breath and speech, "are these all — all yours?"

"Yes," said Alma, still hugging her stray kitten, "this is my playroom. But I don't stay here very much now; I like outdoors best, don't you?"
"Oh, I — I don't know," said Lisbeth. "If I had all these beautiful things I would stay in and play with them forever — forever," she repeated with a long-drawn breath.

"Would you?" asked Alma. "Oh, I think it is a lot more fun to run out in the woods and climb trees and wade and dig. Can you climb trees?"

"Yes," said Lisbeth, thinking of the tossing boughs of the old elm where she often swung for hours.

"And wade?" asked Alma eagerly.

"Yes," answered Lisbeth. "The brook is full now, almost to my knees, and the white violets are out on the banks. I brought Sister Angela a big bunch to-day."

"White violets! Oh, I'd like to see them," said Alma. " I never saw white violets in my life."

"I'll bring you some tomorrow." said her little guest, and with this pleasant start Alma and Lisbeth were soon making friends rapidly.

The talking doll was brought out and said "Mary had a little lamb" without a break or a stammer; the miniature motorcar ran around the room for Lisbeth's pleasure; the dancing doll that "Grandma" had sent from Paris pirouetted to the gay strains of the music box beneath her satin slippered feet.

"Take some toys home with you," said Alma as at last her visitor rose to go. "Take that tea set, or those picture books, or maybe you would like a doll. Take Endora" — Alma caught up a golden-haired lady sleeping in a pink-curtained bed — "I've got two others with yellow hair, and I want this bed for my kitty anyhow," and the generous little giver pressed the wide-awakened Endora into her visitor's arms in a way that lisbeth could not resist.

Then the kitten, who had been dozing in one of the cushioned chairs, was picked up again, and Alma led Lisbeth down the broad stairs, and through the pictured hall, and out on the pillared porch to the broad, shaded walk again.

"I'll bring you the white violets tomorrow," said Lisbeth as the two friends parted at the gate.
"Yes, do" answered Alma, "I'll getNora to make us some cakes, and we will have a tea party. Come soon again, Lisbeth, and play with me — come soon again.

To be continued . . . . . on Thursday.


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Chapter Four - In Saint Mary's Garden

6/16/2014

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The next day Lisbeth came, as she had promised, to St. Mary's garden. It was a beautiful place, the high stone walls were green with ivy, the sunbeams played in its smooth, graveled walks that led by close-clipped hedges to the grotto of Lourdes, always gleaming with novena lights in honor of the Immaculate Mother.

There was a Calvary in the center, a grassy mound upholding a marble cross, while the fountain near by was guarded by a white-winged angel leading a little child.

All these were knew and bewildering sights to Lisbeth, as Sister Angela led her into this lovely spot and she looked from grotto to cross and angel with wide-open eyes of wonder.

She had put on her best clothes a brown gingham dress very much too small for her, a gray worsted sweater very much too large,  a red worsted cap with a swinging tassel. But there were no little girls to stare and titter at her looks to-day they had all gone home.

Sister Angela led her to a bench by the fountain at the white-winged angel's feet. And there Lisbeth's lessons began, not hard lessons at all, for they were all in a book full of pictures - pictures that the lonely little child could understand - for they were of birds and bees and butterfly's, of flowers and trees, of all the beautiful living, growing things that Lisbeth knew. And after she had look at them awhile Sister Angela asked her, "Who made all these things, Lisbeth?"

"Why, why they grew," answered Lisbeth with a little laugh.

"Who makes them grow and live and sing and bleat and chirp? Who made the hills and the woods, and big old Top Notch that rises so high and rough above your house? Who made the bright sun that comes out every morning - and the moon and stars that shine at night? Who made all these wonderful, beautiful things, Lisbeth?"

"Oh, I-I don't know," faltered Lisbeth. "I thought they just grew, but the sun can't grow, or stars or mountains." She lifted soft, bewildered eyes to the distant crest of Old Top Notch outlined against the sunlit sky. "Who could have made them all?"

"I will tell you," said Sister Angela as she put her arm around Lisbeth and drew her close to her side. And then, in sweet, simple words that the little girl could understand, Sister Angela tole her of the good God, who has made all things in Heaven and on earth, the sun to shine by day, the moon and stars by night, and all this wonderful world of life and beauty and growth and bloom by His word and will. "He sees, knows, rules all things, Lisbeth even the fall of all little bird from its nest in the tree - but it is the little children like you, Lisbeth, He loves best of all."

And Sister Angela went on to tell her that this great God who made and rules all things is the loving Father of all His children on earth — watching over them, caring for them, guarding them by night and day.

It was only what happier little ones learn at their mother's knee that Lisbeth heard for the first time to-day at the white-winged angel's feet — but she listened as happier children do not often listen, her eyes wide with interest, her thin brown cheeks glowing, her lips apart.

A Father! Lisbeth never had known a Father, and the name sent a strange tremor through her lonely little heart. A Father! What a strange, wonderful thing to have a Father, who could do all things, who was so great and loving and good, who had made the sun, moon, stars, and this green, beautiful earth with all that lived and moved and grew upon it — most wonderful of all who had made little Lisbeth herself to be His child and to love and serve and be happy with Him forever.

Before Lisbeth left the garden that afternoon, she had learned the first words of her first prayer.

"Our Father who art in Heaven" — just those six words and no more but oh, how much they meant to Lisbeth! Happier little girls, who had said them all their lives, could never know.

Then Sister Angela opened a box she had with her and showed Lisbeth how to play with the pretty painted blocks it held — how A stood for Apple, and B for Bunny, and C for Cat, and D for Dog.

It was such a delightful game that Lisbeth was up to K for Kitten before it was time to go. For the great convent bell was sending its deep call through the garden now, and Sister Angela rose, showing a neat paper bundle that had been beside her on the bench.

"It is the little blue dress that I promised you. Put it on tomorrow, when you come to school. My little pupil must look nice and neat as the other little girls at St. Mary's."
"Oh, I couldn't said Lisbeth, breathless with delight.

"Yes, yes, you can," said Sister Angela gayly. "Put on the blue dress tomorrow and see."

And then the big bell rang again, and Sister Angela had to go, while Lisbeth went back over the rough road to the Brambles feeling as if she had not quite wakened from a beautiful dream. Gran was not home —only Dirck, the watchdog, was keeping house.
 
Lisbeth went into the big closet that had once been the pantry of Thornwood and was now her room. Its only furniture was a narrow cot, a broken chair. She took the string off her bundle and spread out its contents with eager, trembling hands. A blue gingham dress, all trimmed with braid and buttons, a neat little under skirt, half a dozen pairs of stockings, a pair of strong new shiny shoes, with tips and heels! She tried them on—they fitted without a squeeze or pinch. For one delighted moment she stood straight up on the pair of dainty feet she could scarcely believe were her own.

"Oh, Dirck, look!" she said to the big dog who had followed her to the door. "Ain't they beautiful, Dirck? And they don't hurt like the shoes Uncle Lem brought me. I could run and jump and dance in them right now. But I won't — I might get them muddied and scratched, and I must go to school looking nice—nice like the other little girls—and maybe they will play with me, now that I have this lovely blue dress and shining shoes. I'll take them off and put them away until tomorrow and then you and I will get supper—a real nice supper for Gran,"

It was not often they had real suppers at Thornwood. Lisbeth often ate her crust of bread or johnny-cake swinging on the broken gate. But she must be nice like the other little girls now, as Sister Angela had said.

When Gran came home, grim and cross in the fading sunset, she blinked with angry surprise for Lisbeth had "set" the kitchen table as best she could; a clean towel covered its blackened top, the milk, usually served in the tin can, had been poured into a cracked pitcher. Lisbeth had washed the few cups and plates, filled the broken sugar bowl, sliced the stale loaf as she had seen it sliced at their neighbor's, Mrs. Burns.

"What's all this?" asked Gran as she dropped heavily into her chair. "You ain't been having company again ?"

"Oh no, Gran, it's just for you," answered Lisbeth. "The tea is hot, and I found some cheese in the cupboard, and a jar of jam."

Cheese and jam! I like your impudence," growled the old woman. But for all her rough speech, Gran's face softened a little as Lisbeth poured out her tea. "Ye went to school today as the lady bid ye?" she asked. "What sort of a place is it?"

"Oh, a beautiful place, Gran!" Lisbeth answered. "And Sister Angela (she told me to call her Sister) was so nice and kind too, and she gave me a pretty dress and shoes, her own little sister's dress, Gran. Oh, I like going to school so much!"

"Well, if it is all you say and you're not put upon, I don't see why you can't keep it up. Now clear up all this clutter, for I 'm outdone with the trouble and worriment of the day. I must get to my bed and rest."

And Lisbeth cleaned up the "clutter" with a willing hand, and then, while old Gran slept heavily after her troubled day, and Dirck dozed in the darkened kitchen, Sister Angela's little pupil sat out on the broken doorstep watching the stars peeping out one by one in the violet skies, and thinking of all Sister Angela had told her as they sat together on the bench beside the fountain.

The great golden sun that had just gone down, the moon rising over the rocky heights of old Top Notch, the stars glim
mering in the twilight sky, the woods, the hills, the mountains had new meaning for her tonight. They were all made by God, and this good God was her Father; she was His little child.

It was a happy Lisbeth that met Sister Angela next day. The pretty blue frock fitted her to a charm, the gray sweater had been left at home, for the days were growing warmer, a stiffly starched sun-bonnet replaced the knit cap.

"What a very nice looking little girl," said Sister Angela brightly.

"Gran told me to give you this," said Lisbeth, producing a folded paper. "She can't read it, she says, because it's Spanish or French, but she knows it is all right."

"Oh, it is, indeed," said Sister Angela gladly as she glanced over the parchment like sheet. "It is your baptismal certificate from the old mission church of San Filippo, California. Oh, Lisbeth, little Lisbeth, how wonderful! You are God's own dear child already. Now all is right, my dear little girl; your sweet little soul has been freed from all stain of sin."

And as Lisbeth looked up at her, wondering, Sister Angela drew her to her side and explained what baptism meant. She showed her pictures of the first man and woman in their beautiful garden, where there was no sorrow, no sickness, no pain. She showed her the one Tree they were forbidden to touch and how they had disobeyed.

Sister Angela told Lisbeth how the punishment for this disobedience had fallen on them and all their children, how they had been driven out of the beautiful garden with its fruits and flowers, and Life had become dark and sad and sorrowful because they had offended their good God and Father.

"I would never have done that," said Lisbeth positively — "never. I would have stayed in the garden and been good."

"Ah, that is what we all think, little Lisbeth," said Sister Angela softly, "but we don't know until we are tried. It is often hard even for little girls to be good and loving, patient and kind. Even to little children there comes the tempter's whisper: do this wrong thing, tell this story that is not true, take what is forbidden, no one will ever see or know, But the good God who is your Father always sees and knows what you are doing, what you are saying, even what you are thinking, little Lisbeth, and so we must try to do and say and think nothing that would displease Him because that is Sin — and sin is the worst thing in all the world, worse than pain or sickness or sorrow, worse than Death itself."

So the sweet hour in the garden went by for Lisbeth, and she went home to the dark old house in the Brambles, to take off her pretty blue dress and shining shoes and be Gran's shabby, ragged, barefooted little girl again.

And oh, how cross Gran was this afternoon! How she scolded and grumbled and nagged! She was to wash for the boys in the morning, and Lisbeth had to bring wood and draw water until her poor little brown arms ached. There was no time to think tonight; she was glad to creep into her pantry room in the early darkness and tumble wearily into her narrow little bed. But through the broken window came the pate light of the moon, shining over the crest of old Top Notch, the glimmer of a star through the cedar bough, the twitter of the birds in their new-made nests. Tired little Lisbeth remembered again, and even as her sleepy eyes closed, whispered her prayer
— "Our Father who art in Heaven."

To be continued . . . . . . on Thursday



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Chapter Three - Gran's Visitors

6/12/2014

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THE visitors coming up through the thorn bushes had seen all. For the moment Sister Angela, whose short life-path had led only through sweet ways of God's peace and love, quite lost her nerve.

"Oh! My poor, poor little lamb," she murmured, all a-tremble. "To be treated like that, Barbara. Barbara, we must get her at once. We must take her this very day from that cruel, dreadful old woman."

But Sister Barbara, who was wiser in the ways of a wicked world, shook her old head. "That's easier said than done, my dear, if the child is her own flesh and blood. And there's both fight and fury in the old sinner's eye.

"But I've seen her likes before," continued Sister Barbara calmly. "I'm not as knowledgeable in books as you are, Angela, but I've learned a deal more of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

"Let me go first and do the talking" — and Sister Barbara stepped forward to the threatening figure at the kitchen door.

"Good day," she said pleasantly. "You are Mrs. Lome, I believe."

"I am," answered Gran, a trifle softened by such respectful address. "What's your business with me?"

"Oh, no business at all, ma'am," answered Sister Barbara with her cheerful smile. "We are two Sisters from St. Mary's Convent; maybe you know the place?"

"No, I don't," answered Gran grimly, "and I don't want to know it, I ain't the praying kind."

"You're not?" said Sister Barbara in a friendly tone. "I'm sorry to hear that, for the time comes sooner or later when we all need to pray. Maybe you've never known the heart-break and the heart-scald that bring the rest of us to our knees, and if you haven't you're the lucky woman for your years, I must say, Mrs. Lorne." Gran glared silently at the speaker. This was really a most unusual visitor, not at all like the "Board Ladies" who came last winter dressed in fine feathers and furs and found the place so horrible. The back yard was a litter of cans and ashes and general household debris now; the water from the luckless Lisbeth's pail was slopping steps and porch; Gran herself, after her house cleaning, was a fierce, grizzled old picture in rags and tatters. But these guests in their simple black gowns and spotless bonnets did not seem to see anything amiss.

"If you don't mind I'll sit here for a minute and get my breath," said Sister Barbara, dropping down on the broken bench beside the kitchen door. "I am not so young as I once was myself, and am a bit short winded.

"Sit down, Angela dear," to the tall, fairfaced Sister beside her. "Mrs. Lorne won't begrudge us a little rest, I am sure, and a breath of this fine, sweet air. There's nothing like the Thornwood air, as I've always heard. It blows straight down from the mountains without a break. As I was telling my young Sister when we came up the hill, Mrs. Lorne, I knew this grand old place long ago. My aunt was dairymaid here when I was a bit of a girl. Many are the pleasant hours I've spent here, helping her with her butter and cream.

"I suppose the spring house was down when you took the place. And the well," continued Sister Barbara, glancing toward the broken boards that marked the water supply of Thornwood.

"There never was water like that well. Cold as ice on the hottest summer day, with a fine sparkle in it. Before we go, Mrs. Lorne, I'll ask you for a cup of that water, just to see if it has the taste of the long ago."

Still Gran glared speechlessly; but her hands had dropped from their defiant position on her hips, the angry fire was dying out of her face and eyes; she was no longer like the old mountain wild cat guarding her den, she was Mrs. Lorne now, and Mrs. Lorne could not possibly throw hot water as she had intended, on visitors who addressed her so respectfully, who sat on her kitchen doorstep chatting in such a pleasant, neighborly way, who had made butter and cheese here at Thornwood long ago. Gran was being soothed, softened, she did not know how. Deep down in her tough, leathery old heart something womanly was stirring into life. But her keen old eyes glittered suspiciously still.

"It's not for a cup of cold water ye came here, I know. What is it ye want?" she asked.

"Ah, that's the way to talk," said Sister Barbara with an approving laugh, "straight and plain and short. It reminds me of my own old mother, God rest her soul. She was wonderfully silent for an Irishwoman, maybe because my father, like myself, had tongue enough for two.

"But what she said was solid sense, every word. So I'll tell you what we came for, Mrs. Lorne, in this friendly way — it's to see that little girl of yours.

"Sister Angela here was passing your place yesterday with a few of our own children, looking for spring flowers. And when she saw the beauty of your thorn bushes, they couldn't get by the gate. So they asked that dear little  girl of yours if they could have a few of the lovely white blooms for the altar in our chapel. She told them you were not at home, but she could give them to us, she knew. Never a cent of pay would she take for them, though she scratched hands and face getting the flowers, and, though Sister Angela has been teaching nice children this many a year, she was so struck with your little girls sweet ways and looks that she has been thinking about her ever since.

"And if you could see our altar today, Mrs. Lorne, with your thorn flowers! There's nothing like it in town, and the breath of them filling the whole house with sweetness. Why, the florist would have asked us ten dollars for one-half as grand a show."

"So we came out in this friendly way to see the little girl, and since she wouldn't take any money, which shows a fine, genteel spirit, I must say, we have brought her out this little basket of cakes and some apples and candy. I made the cakes myself, and know they are fresh and good." Sister Barbara opened the basket and showed her offering, looking, under its spotless napkin, dainty enough for a little queen.

"And knowing that, like myself, you were on in years, and maybe had the good old fashioned ways, I made bold to put in this little jar for you, Mrs. Lorne. It's the best of Scotch snuff, ma'am. My brother sends me a pound or two every Christmas. He gets it from the old country. There's nothing like it can be bought about here," And with a friendly smile beaming on her good old face, Sister Barbara handed Gran her gift. It was the last softening touch. Snuff! Fine — strong — bought — Scotch snuff! If Gran had one weakness in her sturdy old frame, it was for — snuff. She took the jar from her visitor doubtfully, looked at it, opened it, sniffed it, and Sister Barbara's victory was won.

"Aye, it's fine," said Gran, taking another whiff. "An' ye're the first civil Christian woman I've talked to this two years. I'm sorry ye find things in such a clutter today, but we're house cleaning, and I am all done out." She sank down on the bench beside her visitors, all her fierce strength of passion gone, looking what she was, a poor old woman, withered and weak.

"Lisbeth!" she called shortly, "Lisbeth! She is that drenched and draggled, after the day's work, that she is not fit to be seen any more than myself," added Gran with a sudden consciousness of her own rags and tatters.

"Oh, we don't mind that," said Sister Barbara heartily. "We've all done house cleaning and know what it means. Call the little girl, for we would like to talk to her and give her the cakes before we go, for Angela here has lost her heart to her entirely."

"I have indeed," said Sister Angela, and the sweet earnestness of the voice, the clear truth in the soft young eyes told keen old Gran the words were not palaver.

"Lisbeth," she called again, "d'ye hear me, Lisbeth; the ladies here are asking for ye—come out to them." And Lisbeth came, a poor little shamefaced, bewildered, breathless Lisbeth, with the mark of Gran's heavy blow still on her grimy, tear-stained cheek, a Lisbeth who could scarcely believe this was not all a wonderful dream. For the sweet-faced ladies arm was around her, drawing her all drenched and draggled as she was, to her side, and the low, tender voice was calling her "My dear little girl," and the other lady, who was stout and rosy, was offering her cakes and red apples, while, most astonishing of all, Gran was sitting with these strange visitors, talking to them as Lisbeth had never heard her talk to visitors before — real quiet — and polite.

"No, Lisbeth isn't a Lorne, ma'am; she is my daughter's child, my only girl, that ran off and married when she was only seventeen, and was widdowed within the year. My own Lisbeth, or Lise, as the boys called her, didn't stay long after him. She was a soft bit of a thing and it broke her heart. So I've had the child ever since, though it's been hard pickings for me many a time. She's my own flesh and blood and I won't
give her up."

It was the fierce cry of the wild things of the wood over nest and den, but Sister Angela only tightened her hold of Lisbeth and drew her close to her heart.

"And such a dear little girl will repay all your care, I am sure," she said gently; "won't you, Lisbeth? When you grow up into a nice good woman, you will take care of Gran."

"I — I don't know," murmured Lisbeth shyly. Taking? care of Gran was a matter she had never considered.

"It's little care I'm looking for from anyone," said Gran with sudden bitterness. "I've two louts of boys now and see where I am."

"Oh, but Lisbeth is a girl," said Sister Angela smiling — "and girls are different; they can cook and mend and sew — can you sew, Lisbeth?"

"No, she can't," said Gran grimly, "she can't do nothing at all."

"Not read or spell?" said Sister Angela. Lisbeth shook her head again. "Oh, Lisbeth, lazy little Lisbeth! Why — all my little girls you saw yesterday can read books, great big books, full of beautiful stories. It's time you were reading too."

"There ain't — ain't nobody to learn me," said Lisbeth, bursting into open confusion, "and I ain't got no shoes or clothes to go to school. And—and — the little girls that have ropes and hoops and balls won't play with me — I'd rather stay in the Brambles — there's birds and squirrels and frogs — here."

"Ah, God bless the darlint, but she's got the wonderful sense," said Sister Barbara, feeling it was time to put in a word of cheer.
 
"It's the grand scholar she'd make if she had the chance, Mrs. Lorne — and she ought to have it. If you'd let her come to us — it won't cost you a cent. We've a fine school at St. Mary's, some of the nicest little girls in town, and Sister Angela and I will see that she is not put upon — by any of them."

"We will, indeed," said Sister Angela eagerly. "I'll teach her myself, I'll keep her with me—I'll take care that no one slights her — hurts her. Wouldn't you like to come, Lisbeth?"
"With you? — to you?" said Lisbeth breathlessly. " Oh yes, yes — can I, Gran —can I, can I?"

"Just for a little while each day," continued Sister Angela, turning to Gran, her sweet face all aglow. "I'll take her in the garden where she will feel more at home, all by herself, until she learns to study — to play with the other little girls." But Lisbeth's head that had been lifted eagerly to the speaker's face suddenly drooped.

"They won't play with me," she said, "they never will; they just stand still when I come near and won't play at all."

"It's their proud airs," said Gran, firing up again. "I'll not have her go where she will be jeered at and flouted for not having fine clothes."

"Oh, she won't want fine clothes at all," continued Sister Angela's sweet, earnest voice. "But, Lisbeth, listen: in my own old home I have a dear little sister just nine years old, a wee bit bigger than you, and every year she sends me a box of dresses she has outgrown to give away to little girls that I know. I have three of the dresses left, pretty dresses, that my dear mother made herself. One is pink and one is blue —and one all pure white. If you will come to school in my garden, Lisbeth, I will give them all three to you — if Gran will let you come"

"Oh, Gran—" Lisbeth drew a long breath and her little brown face kindled into strange glow and light. "Say yes" Gran, please — say I can go," she pleaded as the two visitors arose. "Please, Gran, please." "Let go the lady's dress," said Gran fiercely, for Lisbeth was holding to Sister Angela's habit as if she feared this sweet new hope was escaping from her forever.

"Ye can try it since they ask ye, try it for a while at least. I'm not promising I'll let ye keep
it up — but ye can try it for a while."

"Come to-morrow then, little Lisbeth, and try it," said Sister Angela as the child caught her hand in a rapturous squeeze.

"You know St. Mary's, the great stone house with the spire and cross? "I will expect you tomorrow at three" — and again Sister Angela's kiss, light and soft as the touch of a rose leaf, fell upon Lisbeth's brow, and with pleasant good-byes to Gran the visitors were gone. As they disappeared among the thorn flowers Gran's withered old face grew hard and dark again.

"Why I'm letting you go I don't know," she said. "The boys will be dead agi'n it, sure. But mind now, there's to be no prating, no talking about what we say and do at home. I'll have no meddlers brought down upon us — no tricks, mind ye," concluded Gran as she fixed her dim, bleared eyes on Lisbeth, "or ye'll be whisked off in a hurry, how and where I won't say."

To be continued. . . . . on Monday.

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Chapter Two - A First Friday

6/9/2014

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IT was the First Friday at St. Mary's.

There was a sweet, reverent hush in the house that the laughing voices in the play room and playground did not seem to break; little white-veiled girls, making their Hours of Guard, stole noiselessly in and out of the chapel, were the Sisters knelt in pairs, motionless as statues, and through all the wide corridors there was a faint fragrance of incense, like a soft whisper of prayer.

Blending with it to-day was a strange, new, wildwood sweetness, the breath of thorn flowers, that heaped the vases and made a very glory of white bloom among the ferns and palms and tapers of the Altar Throne, the thorn flowers from Lisbeth's home. What they whispered to Sister Angela we cannot say, but there was a soft, misty brightness in her eyes, an eager flush upon her cheek as, her Hour of Guard over, she went to find Mother Madelina in her little tower room to which old and young brought their fears and doubts and cares.

"May I have just two minute's talk with you, dear Mother?" said Sister Angela, sinking down on a cushion at the good Mother's feet.

"Certainly, my child; twenty minutes if you wish," was the answer.

"Oh, Mother, I can't say my prayers for thinking of that poor little lamb," said Sister Angela in a trembling voice.

"What poor little lamb, my dear?"

"The little girl I told you about last night, that gave us the thorn flowers, that tore her poor little hands and face gathering them for me, that was so - so pitifully glad just because I spoke a kind, friendly word. Dear Mother, when I saw the thorn flowers to-day on the altar, all white and lovely, I felt that I must bring this poor lamb out of the Brambles to our dear Lord's feet. She lives in a dreadful place, I know, and you said last night I must never take the children there again, and of course I will not; but may I not go myself, dear Mother?"

"To Thornwood!" said Mother Madelina in a troubled voice. "My dear Angela- no, I am afraid you cannot. Some of the St. Vincent de Paul men went out there last winter, thinking the old woman was in need, and one of the sons was at home and most abusive. He said they were not beggars, and fairly drove the visitors from the door. For some reasons, and I fear not very good ones, these Lornes want to keep to themselves. It would be unwise, imprudent to intrude upon them."

"If you say so, dear Mother, there is nothing to be done," said Sister Angela cheerfully, though her bright face fell. "But I'll risk a visit if you will let me Sister Barbara would go with me, and we would take a little basket of convent cakes, and oh, dear Mother, there is a low whisper in my heart that tells me we will win our way - find this little stray lamb in the Brambles and bring her home."

"Angela, Angela!" Mother Madelina laughed and shook her head. "When you talk like that I lose my wisdom and wits. How old is this child?"

"Oh, I don't know," answered Sister Angela. "She might be a hundred by her sad, tired little face. I suppose she is really about eight or nine, and so pale and thin, just like a bare little flower stalk, without any life or bloom. Mother, when I saw all our happy little ones crowding around our Lord's altar this morning, and thought of this poor child who has perhaps never heard His Holy Name--?

"Go get her," said Mother Madelina impulsively. "I cant refuse you, Angela. Take sister Barbara with you and go get the child if you can. But don't blame me if they set the dogs on you both," added the old Mother with a smile.

"Oh, we won't, we won't," said Sister Angela joyously as she took Mother Madelina's wrinkled hand and pressed it to her lips. "We'll bless you and thank you whatever happens. But nothing will happen that is not good. It's the First Friday, dear Mother, the day of love and grace, so all will be right, I know."

And Sister Angela hurried away to find Sister Barbara, a strong, hardy old lay Sister, who had been through battles and fever and earthquake in her forty years of service and, as she stoutly declared, was not afraid of man, woman, or devil "as long as she was doing God's holy will."

Together they packed a little basket with crisp, spicy convent cakes, two red apples, and some peppermint sticks, Sister Barbara adding a little package of her own.

"Snuff," "
she said to Sister Angela with a wise nod. "My brother sends me a pound every Christmas; he takes it himself, and believes it's good for me, poor man. I keep it to give the old women that come begging to the door. We'll try it on the old Granny at Thornwood.

"I knew the place well once," said Sister Barbara as she and Sister Angela went on their way through the streets of the pretty little, mountain town and off into the woods beyond. "In my young days there wasn't a grander home than Thornwood far and near. The grass was green and smooth as velvet, and the roses were climbing over the porch and walls, and the side windows opened to the sunshine. They came from the old country, the Lawtons, and they brought all its: proud ways. And Pride is the devil's own sin, as we know, Sister, and always has its fall."

"It must have been a very bad fall indeed then," said Sister Angela as she thought of the ruined old house, its broken porch, its crumbling walls.

"It was a quarrel," continued the old Sister, "the worst of all quarrels, between father and son — both of the same strong, proud, hard stock. The mother was dead, and Mr. Arthur was the only child. What the trouble was about no one ever knew, for the Lawtons were proud people and kept their own counsel.

"Some said it was about a foreign marriage on which Mr. Arthur had set his heart; but there were high words between father and son in the library one night, and the servants heard Mr. Arthur leave the house swearing that neither he nor his would ever cross its threshold again.

"And the old man answered as men answer when the devils of pride and passion are ruling them —with a wicked curse. A stroke fell upon him that same night, but he lived long enough to sign away everything he could to a distant cousin in England.

"But he could not sign away the house or grounds; by his own father's will that had to go down from father to son after the old country fashion. "And so as Mr. Arthur kept his proud word and never came back, Thornwood was closed and deserted. There was no money to pay for its care, no one would buy, no one would rent it. Foolish stories got about that the old man haunted the house, until the negroes would go a mile around rather than pass the gates after nightfall. Then the new road was cut across the valley and there was no need to pass at all, and Thornwood, lost among its briers and brambles, was almost forgotten until about two years ago, when these Lornes came and took possession. That is the story of Thornwood, and a sad story it is, my dear," concluded Sister Barbara with a little sigh. "It's the fall of Pride, as I said; Pride that won't bend or bow, that can't forgive or forget."

And they turned into the Brambles as she spoke — the Brambles that grew thick and dark about the ruined home. It had been a long day for little Lisbeth. Gran had come down from Top Notch very cross indeed, and when Gran was very cross she kept Lisbeth very busy. There was no swinging on the broken gate, no light-footed wandering through the budding woods gathering the sweet gum oozing through the brown bark and pressing it into make-believe candy, no friendly peeps through the cedar boughs at the two little birds busily building their nest, no "hippity hopping" from stone to stone through the brook, whose dancing waters were as yet rather cool to wade in. None of these pleasant things at all today. Gran had suddenly discovered the winter's grime on the kitchen floor, that all the pots and pans in the old kitchen dresser were rusty or black, that a whole army of "pizen" spiders had possession of the cobwebbed rafters, that, in short, spring house cleaning should begin at once.

So all day long Lisbeth had been scouring and scrubbing, as hard as her little brown hands could scour and scrub, while Gran scolded and grumbled and nagged. Really, as there had been no house cleaning at Thornwood for more years than Lisbeth could count, it was rather a hopeless task.
 
But no task seemed altogether hopeless today there was such a strange new lightness in Lisbeth's little heart. It was as if the wonderful events of yesterday had broken up its dead stillness and set it to dancing and bubbling as the little brook in the hollow was dancing and bubbling in the springtime sun.

All night long she had dreamed of the visitors that had come down the rocky roadway, the pretty little girls with their braids and bows and buttoned boots, thesweet-faced lady in the white-frilled bonnet, the dear, soft-voiced lady who had asked her for thorn flowers, who had been so sorry when she scratched her hands and face, who had kissed her when she went away. Kissed, her! Lonely little Lisbeth seemed to feel the touch of that light kiss still. If she could just see that sweet, kind-voiced lady that had kissed her once again! But she would not of course — such a wonderful, beautiful thing could never happen twice — for in Lisbeth's brief experience nothing very pleasant ever happened twice.

Uncle Lem had brought her a doll once, a tin wagon once, a big sugar Easter egg once, but never again. And something in the nice little girls' faces, as they stood by the roadside staring at Lisbeth on the broken gate told her they would never want to come through the Brambles again. There was one little girl she' thought of especially, a little girl with long, soft, yellow hair, tied with a blue ribbon under a big blue hat, that had seemed to Lisbeth the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Altogether Lisbeth had so much to think of today that Gran's nagging fell on a dulled ear.

"Get another pail of water now and scrub that shelf, ye lazy minx. What have I been feeding ye for all these years if ye can't do a hand's turn of work now? Where would ye look for bit and sup if I was gone? It's poor picking ye'd get from them boys up on the hills, I can tell ye that. It's begging yer bread in the street ye'd be if ye had to look to them. Why I 'm bothering with a puny whipstick of a child that will never be any good to me, I don't know. Fill the kettle now; we want scalding water to pour in that rat hole beyond, or they'll be eating us alive. Bring the broom till I knock these bats out of the chimney. Bring the broom, the broom! ye lazy legs don't ye hear? No!"

Though the cracked, quavering voice rose into a shrill, angry shriek behind her, Lisbeth did not hear. She stood on the broken kitchen step, the pail of water she was bringing from the well in her hand, staring breathless, motionless at the weed-grown path. Something had happened—twice. Round the corner of the old house, through the pines, past the thorn bushes, her lady was coming again, the lady who had kissed her yesterday!

And there was another with her, another with the same queer bonnet and ruffled cap. The pail dropped from Lisbeth's hand, the water streamed out over steps and yard, the breathless little girl turned, only to stagger back over the kitchen threshold under a stinging blow from the angry old woman's knotty hand.

"Ye stupid, staring gawk!" cried Gran. "Look what ye've done now. I'll learn ye, ye little sneaking slouch, I'll learn ye how to come when I call ye. I'll learn ye — ""Oh, Gran — no* no, don't beat me now, don't," panted Lisbeth, forgetful for the moment of pain or fear, "The lady is coming, Gran, the nice lady that was here yesterday and asked me for thorn flowers."

"Lady—thorn flowers! coming here!" gasped Gran, from whom Lisbeth had wisely kept all knowledge of the previous visit.

"What is it ye're talking about? Have ye been prating to meddling strangers while I was gone, and they're coming here again to peep and pry today ? Oh, I'll settle with ye for this, I'll settle with ye for this! Back with) ye, back out of my sight, and don't open your mouth for good or bad while they are here, or I'll take the skin off ye when they're gone. I'll talk to your company today." And taking Lisbeth roughly by the shoulder, Gran flung her back into the kitchen, while, with her arms akimbo, her fierce old face flushed with rage, her sunken, eyes glaring, she stood defiantly on the threshold, looking indeed like some angry old wild cat guarding her den.


To be continued. . . . .



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Chapter One - The Brambles

6/4/2014

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WINTER had gone at last.
   
It had been a long, hard winter in the Brambles, with the roads blocked high with snowdrifts, the brook frozen, even the stately pines stiff and still in coats of ice.
   
A long, gloomy winter too, in the old house, that stood far back in the thorn bushes, as if it were trying to hide its patched windows and tumbling walls from passers-by.
   
And a long, dull, dreary winter for poor Lisbeth, with only Gran grumbling and scolding over the smoky fire, and Dirck, the big wolfhound, for company all the dark, cold day.
   
True, the "boys," as Gran still called her two tall sons, came home sometimes to bring flour and meal and bacon to their old mother, to heap the great fireplace with wood, and sit around it drinking, smoking, playing cards, quarrelling often, until break of day. But Lisbeth was always in her little bed during these visits. Uncle Lem, it is true, had brought her a doll at Christmas, and sometimes left her a paper bag of candy; otherwise Gran's "boys" forgot her quite.
    
But now the lonely, gloomy winter had gone; the last snow wreath had vanished from the crest of Top Notch, the brook was tumbling through the hollow, wild with glee, there was a twitter of birds in the tree tops, and the thorn bushes were in full bloom, the thorn bushes that never seemed to wait for leaf or bud, but burst from spiky bough into snowy flowers almost in a night.

Swinging upon a broken gate to-day, with the white bloom of the thorn bushes around her, Lisbeth felt with a joyous tingle in her little heart the touch of spring.
    Soon the trees would be shady and green, the "ways" that led through the Brambles bright with flowers; ripe, sweet berries would grow thick among the briers; people would come riding and walking down the lonely roads. Lisbeth paused suddenly in her swinging a distant sound- they were coming even now - for there was a murmur of happy, young voices, and gay laughter in the air, and Lisbeth's brown eyes opened wide indeed, in amaze, for around the bend of the road trooped a crowd of little girls, almost her own age, such little girls as seldom strayed into the Brambles. They had curls and braids tied with ribbons, and wore pretty coats and hats and high, buttoned shoes without patch or break.
    They had been far out in the woods, gathering budding boughs and pussy willows and the first scant greenery of early spring, and they came down the rough road skipping and laughing around a sweet-faced lady, who wore a black dress and a curios bonnet with "white frills." They were "nice" little girls, as Lisbeth saw at a glance like those she sometimes watched wistfully, playing before  white-porched houses when Gran sent her to town on errands, but who always stopped jumping rope and stared and whispered until she passed.
    And they stopped staring and whispering as they saw her swinging on the broken gate to-day. Only the sweet faced lady broke into a little cry of delight. "O my dear children, look, look what beautiful flowers! and in perfect bloom! And so many of them too! I never saw anything lovelier. They seem to be growing wild around this old house - Nellie, Grace ask the little girl on the gate if you may go in and gather some for our alter to-morrow!"
   
But Nellie and Grace shrank back to Sister Angela's side. "Oh, Sister, we can't, we're we're afraid."
   
"Afraid of what?" asked Sister Angela.

"Oh don't you know, Sister? That that's Thornwood," half a dozen voices whispered eagerly and excited information to Sister Angela.
   
"And- its- haunted - nobody would live there for years and years- and dreadful people are staying there now."
   
"What kind of dreadful people?" asked Sister Angela, her clear eyes searching the silent house.
   
"Oh, the old women is a gypsy, or witch, or something awful," murmured an excited chorus.
   
"A witch! Nonsense!" Sister Angela's laugh rang out like a chime of silver bells. "There are no such things as witches out of fairy tales - as I thought all my little girls knew."
   
"You must not believe such foolish stories. We will have a talk about this in Instruction class to-morrow; meantime wait here, and I will get some of those lovely flowers myself."
   
"Oh, Sister! no, please," pleaded half a dozen frightened voices. "Nobody ever goes in there - nobody, Sister Angela."
   
"Somebody is going in now," was the bright answer as Sister Angela gently detached the clinging hands that tried to with hold her and turned to the broken gate, where Lisbeth still hung, a pitiful little figure indeed, in comparison with the happy flock without. Her course frock was torn, her old blue jacked burst across the shoulders, her hair, soft and curly, fell in tangles about her little thing brown face. The dark eyes that looked up at Sister Angela were dull and listless, the young mouth had no dimpling smile like the happy children near.

With a thrill of pity in her tender heart, Sister Angela saw that this was the saddest of all earth's creatures- a little child uncared for, untaught, unloved.

"Do you live here, my dear?" asked the good Sister softly.

Lisbeth stared for a moment without answering. It seemed quite impossible that this gentle, friendly question could be meant for her. "My dear!" When had anybody ever called Lisbeth "my dear" before? Then, as Sister Angela seemed to wait smiling for an answer, she looked up into the kind face and nodded twice. It came easier than saying "yes."

"I and my little girls her are from St. Mary's School," Sister Angela continued. "We are out gathering flowers for our altar. To-morrow is a beautiful day with us, the first Friday of the month." The speaker paused-the little face looking up into hers was so blank and uncomprehending. Lisbeth knew nothing about altars or First Fridays, as Sister Angela could see.

But the gentle speaker went on brightly, "The woods are quite bare, we haven't found one single little flower until we came here. Your bushes are so full of beautiful bloom - may I pick a few of these lovely blossoming boughs? You will not miss them, I am sure."

A sudden light flashed into Lisbeth's face. This sweet-voiced lady was asking her for thorn flowers. Asking her, little Lisbeth!

Never in all her eight years of life had she been asked for gift or help before.

It sent an odd, warm thrill through her little form, such as perhaps the bare brown flower stalks fell at the first touch of spring-time sun.

"Yes, you can have them," she said. "You can have all you want."

"Perhaps we had better ask your mother, too," Sister Angela, hesitating a little as she looked again at the dark, silent house.

"I ain't got no mother," said Lisbeth quickly. "I ain't got no father or mother or nobody but Gran, and she is up to Top Notch a-seeing the 'boys,' You can have all the thorn flowers you want. But wait, lady-" Lisbeth made a quick jump from the swinging gate.

"I'll get them for you. Don't you try to pick 'em yourself, you'll get scratched."

She sprang away to the back of the old house, and came running out again quickly with a broken knife. In a moment she was down among the thorn bushes, cutting and hacking with a reckless little hand.

The prickly boughs flew into her face, caught her hair, tore her fingers, but she cut on, conscious only of the strange new sweetness of giving to the gentle speaker, shows voice was pleading anxiously now. "Oh my dear child, take care, take, care, take care. Don't go so deep in the bushes; they are tearing your clothes, and scratching your hands."

"Oh, I don't mind, I don't mind," said Lisbeth, plunging further into the thicket. "The
y're prettier  and whiter and whiter back her. I'll get you all you want."

"Oh, we have quite enough now, quite, enough, all we need - all we can carry home. Oh, you poor, dear child," cried Sister Angela as Lisbeth emerged from the thorn bushes, a big scratch across her cheek, her hands bleeding, but her thin little arms full of snowy bloom. "I didn't mean you to tear yourself to pieces like this."

"I don't mind," repeated Lisbeth, and her little brown face and big dull eyes were alight with new life. "I'll get you some more if you want them, lots and heaps more - and - and I don't want no money for them," added Lisbeth as Sister Angela, seeing the dire poverty around her, put her hand in her pocket.

"Nobody pays for thorn flowers, they're so scratchy, and - die so quick. I want to give them to you - ' cause you asked me - so kind and nice."

"And you shall give them to me," said Sister Angela with a little catch in her voice. "Oh, they are lovely, so white and sweet and beautiful to grow on such thorny boughs," said the good Sister as she gathered the snowy blossoms in her arms.

"Thank you again and again for them, my dear little girl!" And moved by one of her sweet, tender impulses, Sister Angela bent and kissed Lisbeth's upraised brow.

And Lisbeth's little heart leaped with joy that almost too her breath. Never in all her remembrance had anyone kissed her before.

"O
h, Sister Angela!" was the amazed murmur, as with her arms full of Lisbeth's thorn flowers the "sweet-faced lady" joined the little crowd waiting in the road beyond the gate.

"How could you kiss that horrid little girl?"

Sister Angela was young, little more than a girl herself. Everybody wondered when a few years ago she had folded up her ball dresses, put away her dancing slippers, tucked up all her soft, golden curls under the white-frilled cap of a nun. But as the oldest and wisest of the other Sisters agreed, Angela had a "way with children" they could not reach.

Perhaps because she was still a child in heart herself - innocent, loving, and trusting. But now she grew suddenly grave at the jealous outcry.

"Yes, I kissed that dear little girl," she answered. "Why do you call her horrid?"

"Oh - because - because she's all, all ragged and dirty - and belongs to those dreadful Lornes; nobody knows them or even speaks to them," eager little voices assured Sister Angela, who had come only last New Year to take charge of the "Primary" at St. Mary's.

"Let us talk it over," said Sister Angela as they kept down the rough, winding road. "She is ragged and dirty; we'll agree; but suppose you had no kind, good father to buy you clothes, no dear mother to make and mend them for you, no laundress to keep them fresh and clean. Suppose you lived in a grim, dark, old house, where there was no heat, no water, no bath- I am afraid you would be ragged and dirty too."

"Oh, Sister Angela! but - but we're not," put in her little hearers quickly.

"No, you're not; but only, my children, because God has blessed you with tender, loving parents, with happy homes. We do not understand why it is that He gives so much of this world's goods to some, so little to others; but He knows what is best. This poor little girl in the Brambles is His child, just the same as you."

"Oh, Sister! not just the same," said Nellie Byrne, slipping her hand l
ovingly into her dear teacher's arm.

"She never goes to church, or school or anything; and some of the Charity Board visitors went to seem them and the old grandmother would not let them in. Carrie Baker's aunt was one of the ladies, and she said the old woman was fierce as a wild cat."

"Then it is well that she was no at home to-day," laughed Sister Angela , who was never solemn with her children very long at a time. "We would not have had our thorn flowers. Oh, how that poor little girl tore her face and hands getting them for me - just because I asked her kindly and nicely! I had to kiss her for thanks. Our altar will be a glory of white bloom and beauty and sweetness.

"And when you kneel before it, and thank God for all the blessings that He has given you, my dear children, we must not forget the poor little girl in the Brambles, God's little stray, white lamb."

   

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    Author  

    Mary T. Waggaman
    1846-1931
    Mary Waggaman was a Catholic author of   children's books.  From what we can find out she wrote around 45 of them.  We have been able to collect quite a few and would like to share them with you.  They are wonderful! 

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