FullReads

I carved my way through the tin cans and bottles again under the haughty eye of my Duchess of the fish-cart, and in a few minutes Patsy and I were again in Silver Street.

When we entered the room he looked about with an expression of entire content. “It’s all here!” he said with a sigh, as if he had feared to find it a dream.

The chair with its red cushion pleased him greatly; then, after a few moments’ talk to make him feel a little at home, we drew up to the picture, and I took his cleanest hand in mine, and told him the story of Victor, the brave St. Bernard dog.

It was an experience never to be repeated and never to be forgotten!

* * * * *

As you sit at twilight in the “sweet safe corner of the household fire,” the sound of the raindrops on the window-pane mingling with the laughing treble of childish voices in some distant room, you see certain pictures in the dying flame,–pictures unspeakably precious to every one who has lived, or loved, or suffered.

I have my memory-pictures, too; and from the fairest frame of all shines Patsy’s radiant face as it looked into mine long ago when I told him the story of Victor.

CHAPTER VI. A LITTLE “HOODLUM’S” VIRTUE KINDLES AT THE TOUCH OF JOY.

“If you make children happy now, you will make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it.”

The next morning when I reached the little tin shop on the corner,–a blessed trysting-place, forever sacred, where the children waited for me in sunshine, rain, wind, and storm, unless forbidden,–there on the step sat faithful Patsy, with a clean and shining morning face, all glowing with anticipation. How well I remember my poor lad’s first day! Where should I seat him? There was an empty space beside little Mike Higgins, but Mike’s character, obtained from a fond and candid parent, had been to the effect “that he was in heaven any time if he could jest lay a boy out flat”! And there was a place by Moses, but he was very much of a fop just then, owing to a new “second-hand” coat, and might make scathing allusions to Patsy’s abbreviated swallow-tail.

But a pull at my skirt and a whisper from the boy decided me.

“Please can’t I set aside o’ you, Miss Kate?”

“But, Patsy, the fun of it is I never do sit.”

“Why, I thought teachers never done nothin’ but set!”

“You don’t know much about little boys and girls, that’s sure! Well, suppose you put your chair in front and close to me. Here is Maggie Bruce on one side. She is a real little Kindergarten mother, and will show you just how to do everything. Won’t you, Maggie?”

We had our morning hymn and our familiar talk, in which we always “outlined the policy” of the new day; for the children were apt to be angelic and receptive at nine o’clock in the morning, the unwillingness of the spirit and weakness of the flesh seldom overtaking them till an hour or so later. It chanced to be a beautiful day, for Helen and I were both happy and well, our volunteer helpers were daily growing more zealous and efficient, and there was no tragedy in the immediate foreground.

In one of the morning songs, when Paulina went into the circle and threw good-morning kisses to the rest, she wafted a dozen of them to the ceiling, a proceeding I could not understand.

“Why did you throw so many of your kisses up in the air, dear?” I asked, as she ran back to my side.

“Them was good-mornings to Johnny Cass, so ‘t he wouldn’t feel lonesome,” she explained; and the tender bit of remembrance was followed out by the children for days afterward. Was it not enough to put us in a gentle humor?