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“Now God be thanked for years enwrought
With love which softens yet.
Now God he thanked for every thought
Which is so tender it has caught
Earth’s guerdon of regret.”

Well, Jim did not succeed in finding his girl, although he “looked” industriously. Either the “millingnaries” did not smile upon him and his slender bank account, or they were not willing to wash the dishes and halve the financial responsibilities besides; but as the winter days slipped by, we could not help seeing that Patsy’s pale face grew paler and his soft dark eyes larger and more pathetic. In spite of better care than he had ever had before, he was often kept at home by suffering all too intense for a child to bear. It was almost as if a sixth sense came to him in those days, so full was he of strange thoughts and intuitions. His eyes followed me wistfully as I passed from one child to another, and when my glance fell upon him, his loving gaze seemed always waiting for mine.

When we were alone, as he pored over picture-books, or sat silently by the window, watching the drops chase each other down the pane, his talk was often of heaven and the angels.

Daga Ohlsen had left us. Her baby eyes had opened under Norway skies, but her tongue had learned the trick of our language when her father and mother could not speak nor understand a word, and so she became a childish interpreter of manners and customs in general. But we knew that mothers’ hearts are the same the world over, and, lacking the power to put our sympathy in words, we sent Daga’s last bit of sewing to her mother. Sure enough, no word was needed; the message explained itself; and when we went to take a last look at the dear child, the scrap of cardboard lay in the still hand, the needle threaded with yellow wool, the childish knot, soiled and cumbersome, hanging below the pattern just as she had left it. It was her only funeral offering, her only funeral service, and was it not something of a sermon? It told the history of her industry, her sudden call from earthly things, and her mother’s tender thought. It chanced to be a symbol, too, as things do chance sometimes, for it was a butterfly dropping its cocoon behind it, and spreading its wings for flight.

Patsy had been our messenger during Daga’s illness, and his mind was evidently on that mystery which has puzzled souls since the beginning of time; for no anxious, weary, waiting heart has ever ceased to beat without its passionate desire to look into the beyond.

“Nixy Jones’s mother died yesterday, Miss Kate. They had an orful nice funeral.”

“Yes, I’m sorry for the poor little children; they will miss their mamma.”

“Not ’nuff to hurt ’em! Them Joneses never cared nuthin’ for nobody; they was playing on tin oyster cans the hull blessed ev’nin’, till Jim went ‘nd stop’t ’em, ‘nd told ’em it warn’t perlite. Say how dretful it must be to go down into the cold, dark ground, and be shut up in a tight box, ‘nd want to git out–git out–‘nd keep hollerin’ ‘nd a-hollerin’, and nobody come to fetch yer, cause yer’s dead!”

“Oh, Patsy, child, stop such fearful thoughts! I hope people are glad and willing to stay when they are dead. The part of them that wonders and thinks and feels and loves and is happy or sad–you know what I mean, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said slowly, leaning his head on his hand.

“God takes care of that part; it is His own, and He makes it all right. And as for our bodies, Patsy, you don’t care about keeping your poor little aching back, do you? You talk about the cold, dark earth. Why, I think of it as the tender, warm earth, that holds the little brown acorn until it begins to grow into a spreading oak-tree, and nurses the little seeds till they grow into lovely blossoming flowers. Now we must trot home, Patsy. Wrap this shawl over your shoulders, and come under my umbrella.”