FullReads

These are two of the naughty little things that got worked into the quilt; but there were good ones also, and Aunt Pen’s sharp eyes saw them all.

At the window of a house opposite, Patty often saw a little girl who sat there playing with an old doll or a torn book. She never seemed to run about or go out, and Patty often wondered if she was sick, she looked so thin and sober, and was so quiet. Patty began by making faces at her for fun, but the little girl only smiled back, and nodded so good-naturedly that Patty was ashamed of herself.

‘Is that girl over there poor?’ she asked suddenly as she watched her one day.

‘Very poor: her mother takes in sewing, and the child is lame,’ answered Aunt Pen, without looking up from the letter she was writing.

‘Her doll is nothing but an old shawl tied round with a string, and she don’t seem to have but one book. Wonder if she’d like to have me come and play with her,’ said Patty to herself, as she stood her own big doll in the window, and nodded back at the girl, who bobbed up and down in her chair with delight at this agreeable prospect.

‘You can go and see her some day if you like,’ said Aunt Pen, scribbling away.

Patty said no more then, but later in the afternoon she remembered this permission, and resolved to try if aunty would find out her good doings as well as her bad ones. So, tucking Blanch Augusta Arabella Maud under one arm, her best picture-book under the other, and gathering a little nosegay of her own flowers, she slipped across the road, knocked, and marched boldly upstairs.

Mrs. Brown, the sewing-woman, was out, and no one there but Lizzie in her chair at the window, looking lonely and forlorn.

‘How do you do? My name is Patty, and I live over there, and I’ve come to play with you,’ said one child in a friendly tone.

‘How do you do? My name is Lizzie, and I’m very glad to see you. What a lovely doll!’ returned the other child gratefully; and then the ceremony of introduction was over, and they began to play as if they had known each other for ever so long.

To poor Lizzie it seemed as if a little fairy had suddenly appeared to brighten the dismal room with flowers and smiles and pretty things; while Patty felt her pity and good-will increase as she saw Lizzie’s crippled feet, and watched her thin face brighten and glow with interest and delight over book and doll and posy. ‘It felt good,’ as Patty said afterwards; ‘sort of warm and comfortable in my heart, and I liked it ever so much.’ She stayed an hour, making sunshine in a shady place, and then ran home, wondering if Aunt Pen would find that out.

She found her sitting with her hands before her, and such a sad look in her face that Patty ran to her, saying anxiously–

‘What’s the matter, aunty? Are you sick?’

‘No dear; but I have sorrowful news for you. Come, sit in my lap and let me tell you as gently as I can.’

‘Mamma is dead!’ Cried Patty with a look of terror in her rosy face.

‘No, thank God! but the dear, new baby only stayed a week, and we shall never see her in this world.’

With a cry of sorrow Patty threw herself into the arms outstretched to her, and on Aunt Pen’s loving bosom sobbed away the first bitterness of her grief and disappointment.

‘Oh, I wanted a little sister so much, and I was going to be so fond of her, and was so glad she came, and now I can’t see or have her even for a day! I’m so disappointed I don’t think I can bear it,’ sobbed Patty.

‘Think of poor mamma, and bear it bravely for her sake,’ whispered Aunt Pen, wiping away her own and Patty’s tears.