Bessie at the Sea-Side

"And when you were coming in the ship, there was a little boy who fell in the water and you forgot your lame foot and jumped in after him, and your foot was hurt so much it had to be cut off some more. So please tell me all about it, sir."

Bessie said all this just as fast as her little tongue would go, and the colonel sat watching her with a very amused look on his face. "Upon my word, you are well posted, little one. I do not know that I could tell the story better myself; how did you learn so much?"

"Oh, Aunt Bessie put it in the letters she yote to mamma, and mamma told us about it, and Harry yeads and yeads it; and Maggie made a nice play about it. Harry gets on the yocking horse and plays he is Colonel Yush, and Fred is the soldier that you helped."

"Very good," said the colonel, "and what are you and Maggie?"

"Oh! we are Harry's soldiers, I mean your soldiers, and Franky is, too; and we have the nursery chairs for horses, and our dolls for sick soldiers, and we have the pillows for Sepoys, and we poke them; and nurse don't like it, 'cause she says we make a yumpus and a muss in the nursery."

"I should think so," said the colonel, laughing heartily.

"Will you tell me the story?" asked Bessie.

"I think I had better tell you another, since you know that so well," said Colonel Rush; "I will tell you one about a drummer boy."

But just as he began the story Bessie saw her father coming towards them, and in another minute he and the colonel were shaking hands and seeming so glad to see one another. Then Mr. Bradford turned and looked at the pretty lady, and the colonel said, "Yes, this is the lady of whom you have heard as Miss Monroe, now Mrs. Rush. She has taken charge of what is left of me."

"Isn't she perfaly lovely, papa?" asked Bessie, as Mr. Bradford took off his hat and shook hands with the lady, and she saw a pretty pink color come into her cheeks which made her look sweeter than ever. Papa looked as if he quite agreed with his little daughter, but he only smiled and said, "My Bessie speaks her mind on all occasions."

"So I see," said the colonel, looking very much pleased.

"Did I talk too much, sir?" asked Bessie, not knowing exactly whether he meant to find fault with her, for she was sometimes told at home that she talked too much.

"Not one word," he answered; "and I hope you will often come and see me at my rooms in the hotel, and talk to me there. I am very fond of little children."

"If mamma will let me," said Bessie; "but I can't come very often, 'cause I don't want to be away from Maggie."

"Oh, Maggie must come, too," said the colonel.

"Maggie is shy," said Bessie.

"Well, you bring her to my room, and we will see if I have not something there that will cure her shyness."

But papa called Maggie to come and see Colonel and Mrs. Rush, and when she heard that this was the brave English soldier about whom she had made the famous play, her shyness was forgotten at once, and she was quite as ready to be friends as Bessie, though she had not much to say.

"You know, Bessie," she said afterwards, "we're so very acquainted with him in our hearts, he is not quite a stranger."

The next morning, Mrs. Bradford went to the hotel to call on Mrs. Rush, taking Maggie and Bessie with her; and from this time the little girls and the colonel were the best friends possible, though Bessie was his particular pet and plaything, and she always called him her soldier. When he felt well enough, and the day was not too warm, he would come out and sit on the beach for an hour or two. The moment he came moving slowly along on his crutches, Bessie was sure to see him, and no matter what she was doing, off she would run to meet him. As long as he stayed she never left him, and her mother sometimes feared that the colonel might grow tired of having such a little child so much with him, but he told her it was a great pleasure to him; and indeed it seemed to be so, for though there were a great many people at Quam Beach who knew him and liked to talk to him, he never forgot the little friend who sat so quietly at his side, and had every now and then a word, or smile, or a touch of his hand for her.

Bessie had been taught that she must not interrupt when grown people were speaking; so, though she was a little chatterbox when she had leave to talk, she knew when it was polite and proper for her to be quiet.

If the colonel could not come down to the shore, he was almost sure to send for Maggie and Bessie to come to his room, until it came to be quite a settled thing that they were to pass some time there every day when he did not go out, and many a pleasant hour did they spend there. He told them the most delightful and interesting stories of people and things that he had seen while he was in India, being always careful not to tell anything that might shock or grieve them, from the day that he was speaking of the sad death of a little drummer boy, when, to his great surprise and distress, both children broke into a violent fit of crying, and it was some time before they could be pacified. Then such toys as he carved out of wood! He made a little boat with masts and sails for each of them, which they used to sail in the pools that were left by the tide; and a beautiful set of jack-straws, containing arrows, spears, swords, trumpets, and guns.

One day he asked Harry to bring him some sprigs from the spruce tree, and the next time Maggie and Bessie came to see him, there was a tiny set of furniture, – a sofa and half a dozen chairs to match, all made of those very sprigs. He used to lie and carve, while Mrs. Rush was reading to him; and sometimes he worked while the children were there, and it was such a pleasure to watch him. Then he had some books with fine pictures, and oh! wonder of wonders, and what the children liked best of all, such a grand musical-box, they had never seen one like it. Mamma had a small one which played three tunes, but it was a baby musical-box to this, which was so very much larger, and played twenty. They never tired of it, at least Bessie did not; and she would sit looking into it and listening so earnestly that often she seemed to see and hear nothing else around her. Maggie was fond of it, too, but she could not keep quiet so long as Bessie, and often wanted to be off and playing out of doors long before her sister was ready to go.

There were many days when the colonel was suffering too much pain to talk or play with them, and they had to be very still if they went into his room. Then Maggie never cared to stay very long, nor indeed did the colonel care much to have her; for though she tried her best to be gentle and quiet, those restless little hands and feet seemed as if they must be moving; and she was almost sure to shake his sofa, or to go running and jumping across the room, in a way that distressed him very much, though her merry ways amused him when he was able to bear them. Quiet little mouse of a Bessie went stealing about so softly that she never disturbed the sick man; and so it came about that she spent many an hour in his room without Maggie. Maggie never half enjoyed her play, if her sister was not with her; but she was not selfish, and did not complain if Bessie sometimes left her for a while.

VIII.

BESSIE'S LITTLE SERMON

ONE afternoon when the children had gone over to the hotel to see grandmamma, a basket of fine fruit came, from Riverside. They had not been to the colonel's room for two or three days, for he had been suffering very much, and was not able to see any one. When the fruit came grandmamma put some on a plate, and sent Bessie with it to the colonel's door, but told her that she must not go in.

Bessie went to the door, and, putting her plate down on the hall floor, knocked very gently. Mrs. Rush came and opened the door, and, taking up her plate again, Bessie handed it to her, gave her grandmamma's message, and was going away, when she heard the colonel's voice. "Is that my pet?" he said.

"Yes, sir; and I love you very much, and I am so sorry for you; but grandmamma said I must not come in."

"But I want to see you," said the colonel.

"You can come in, darling," said Mrs. Rush; "he is better this afternoon, and would like to see you."

"But I better mind grandma first; bettern't I?" said Bessie. "I'll yun and ask her, and if she'll let me, I can come back."

Mrs. Rush smiled, and said, "Very well;" and the obedient little girl ran to ask her grandmamma's permission.

Grandmamma said, "Certainly, if the colonel wanted her."

"Didn't he invite me?" said Maggie, with rather a long face.

"No," said Bessie. "Would you yather I would not go? I'll stay with you, if you want me."

"I guess you had better go, if he wants you," said Maggie; "but don't stay very long, Bessie; it's very sorrowful without you."

"Poor Maggie," said Walter, who was standing by at the time; "it is very cruel in the colonel not to ask you. Never mind, you shall come and take care of me when I lose my foot."

"Oh, no, it's me you ought to call cruel," said Maggie, in a very doleful voice; "you know I am such a fidget, Walter, and I can't help it. The other day the colonel was so sick, and I meant to be so quiet, and yet I did two shocking things."

"What did you do?" asked Walter.

"I knocked over a chair, and I slammed the door; and so mamma said I must not go again till he was better."

"But what do you do without Bessie, when she goes?" said Walter; "I thought you two could not live apart."

"We can't," said Maggie; "but then, you see, the colonel is a sick, lame soldier, with a foot cut off and a hole in his side; so, if he wants Bessie, I ought to make a sacrifice of myself and let her go."

The boys laughed; but Tom said, "That is right, little woman, do all you can for the soldiers; they have sacrificed enough for us." And Bessie kissed her sister and ran back to the colonel's room.

"Why, is he better?" she asked, as Mrs. Rush lifted her up to kiss him. "I think he looks very worse. Oh, how big his eyes are!"

The colonel laughed. "I am like the wolf in Red Riding-Hood; am I not, Bessie?" he said.

"No," she answered, "not a bit; you are just like my own dear soldier, only I wish you did not look so white."

"I think he will look better to-morrow, Bessie," said Mrs. Rush. "He has suffered terribly the last two days; but he is easier now, though he is very tired and weak, so we must not talk much to him."

"I wont talk a word, only if he speaks to me," said Bessie; and she brought a footstool and sat down by the side of the sofa. The colonel held out his hand to her, and she put her own little one in it and sat perfectly quiet. He lay looking at her, with a smile, for a few minutes, but presently his eyes closed, and Bessie thought he was asleep. He looked more ill when his eyes were shut than when they were open; his face was so very, very pale, and his black hair and beard made it look whiter still. Mrs. Rush sat by the sofa fanning her husband, while the little girl watched him with earnest, loving eyes.

At last she whispered, "If he dies, he'll go to heaven, 'cause he's so very brave and good; wont he?"