Bessie at the Sea-Side

Mrs. Rush stayed a good while, and came back with a very grave face, and when her husband asked, "How is the child?" she looked at him without speaking; but Maggie and Bessie knew by this that the baby was worse. Then Mrs. Rush asked them if they did not want to go to the hotel and have tea with her and the colonel, but they said "No," they wanted to go home.

When they went back to the house, Jane left the little girls sitting on the door-step, while she took Franky in to give him his supper. It was a very quiet, lovely evening. The sun had gone down, but it was not dark yet. The sky was very blue, and a few soft gray clouds, with pink edges, were floating over it. Down on the beach they could see the people walking and driving about; but not a sound was to be heard except the cool, pleasant dash of the waves, and Farmer Jones' low whistle as he sat on the horse-block with Susie on his knee. Susie sucked her fat thumb, and stared at the children. They sat there without speaking, with their arms round each other's waists, wishing they knew about the baby. Presently Mrs. Jones came down stairs and called out over the children's heads, "Sam'l." Mr. Jones got up off the horse-block and came towards them. "Here," said Mrs. Jones, handing him a paper, "they want you to go right off to the station and send up a telegraph for the city doctor. Here it is; Mr. Bradford writ it himself, and he says you're to lose no time. 'Taint a mite of use though, and it's just a senseless wastin' of your time."

"Not if they want it done," said Jones. "Why, Susan, s'pose everybody hadn't done everything they could when we thought this one was going to be took, wouldn't we have thought they was hard-hearted creeturs? I aint done thanking the Almighty yet for leaving her to us, and I aint the man to refuse nothing to them as is in like trouble, – not if it was to ride all the way to York with the telegram."

"I'm sure I don't want you to refuse 'em," said Mrs. Jones, – "one can't say no to them as has a dyin' child; but I do say it's no use. It will all be over long before the doctor comes; all the doctors in York can't save that poor little lamb. Anyhow, if I was Miss Bradford, I wouldn't take on so; she's got plenty left."

"I'll do my part, anyhow," said the farmer, as he handed Susie to her mother, and then hurried off to saddle his horse and ride away to the station as fast as possible, while Mrs. Jones carried Susie off to the kitchen.

"Maggie," whispered Bessie, "what does she mean?"

"The bad, hateful thing!" answered Maggie, with a sudden burst of crying; "she means our baby is going to die. She wouldn't like any one to say that of her Susie, and I don't believe it a bit. Bessie, I can't bear her if she does make us cookies and turnovers. I like Mr. Jones a great deal better, and I wish he didn't have Mrs. Jones at all. Mamma wont have plenty left if our baby dies; six isn't a bit too many, and she can't spare one of us, I know."

"But perhaps Jesus wants another little angel up in heaven," said Bessie, "and so he's going to take our baby."

"Well, I wish he would take somebody else's baby," said Maggie. "There's Mrs. Martin, she has thirteen children, and I should think she could spare one very well; and there's a whole lot of little babies at the Orphan Asylum, that haven't any fathers and mothers to be sorry about them."

"Perhaps he thinks our baby is the sweetest," said Bessie.

"I know she is the sweetest," said Maggie, "but that's all the more reason we want her ourselves. She is so little and so cunning; I think she grows cunninger and cunninger every day. Day before yesterday she laughed out loud when I was playing with her, and put her dear little hands in my curls and pulled them, and I didn't mind it so very much if she did pull so hard I had to squeal a little; and oh! I'd let her do it again, if she would only get well. Don't you think, Bessie, if we say a prayer, and ask Jesus to let us keep her, he will?"

"I think he will," said Bessie; "we'll try."

"Let us go into the sitting-room," said Maggie, "there is no one there."

"Oh! let us stay out here," answered Bessie, "there's such a beautiful sky up there. Perhaps Jesus is just there looking at us, and maybe he could hear us a little sooner out here. Nobody will see us."

They knelt down together by the seat on the porch. "You say it, Bessie," said Maggie, who was still sobbing very hard. She laid her head down on the bench, and Bessie put her hands together, and with the tears running over her cheeks said, "Dear Jesus, please don't take our darling little baby to be an angel just yet, if you can spare her. She is so little and so sweet, and poor mamma will feel so sorry if she goes away, and we will, too, and we want her so much. Please, dear Jesus, let us keep her, and take some poor little baby that don't have any one to love it, Amen."

They sat down again on the door-step till Harry and Fred came in.

"How is baby?" asked Harry.

"We don't know," said Maggie; "nobody came down this ever so long."

"Go up and see, Midget."

"Oh! I can't, Harry," said Maggie. "I don't want to see that strange look on baby's face."

"Then you go, Bessie," said Harry; "my shoes make such a noise, and you move just like a little mouse. You wont disturb them."

Bessie went up stairs and peeped in at the door of her mother's room. There was no one there but papa and mamma and the baby. Papa was walking up and down the room with his arms folded, looking very sad and anxious, and mamma sat on a low chair with baby on her lap. The little thing lay quiet now, with its eyes shut and its face so very, very white. Mamma was almost as pale, and she did not move her eyes from baby's face even when Bessie came softly up and stood beside her.

Bessie looked at her baby sister and then at her mother. Mamma's face troubled her even more than the baby's did, and she felt as it she must do something to comfort her. She laid her hand gently on her mother's shoulder, and said, "Dear mamma, don't you want to have a little angel of your own in heaven?" Mamma gave a start and put her arm farther over the baby, as if she thought something was going to hurt it. Papa stopped his walk and Bessie went on, —

"Maggie and I asked Jesus to spare her to us, if he could; but if he wants her for himself, we ought not to mind very much; ought we? And if you feel so bad about it 'cause she's so little and can't walk or speak, I'll ask him to take me too, and then I can tell the big angels just how you took care of her, and I'll help them. And then when you come to heaven, you will have two little angels of your own waiting for you. And we'll always be listening near the gate for you, dear mamma, so that when you knock and call us, we'll be yeady to open it for you; and if we don't come yight away, don't be frightened, but knock again, for we'll only be a little way off, and we'll come just as fast as I can bring baby; and she'll know you, for I'll never let her forget you. And while you stay here, dear mamma, wont it make you very happy to think you have two little children angels of your own, waiting for you and loving you all the time?"[2 - Almost the exact words of a very lovely child of a friend of the writer.]

Mamma had turned her eyes from the baby's face, and was watching her darling Bessie as she stood there talking so earnestly yet so softly; and now she put her arm around her and kissed her, while the tears ran fast from her eyes and wet Bessie's cheeks.

"Please don't cry, mamma," said the little girl; "I did not mean to make you cry. Shall I ask Jesus to take me, too, if he takes the baby?"

"No, no, my darling, ask him to leave you, that you may be your mother's little comforter, and pray that he may spare your sister too."

"And if he cannot, mamma?"

"Then that he may teach us to say, 'Thy will be done,'" said her father, coming close to them and laying his hand on Bessie's head. "He knows what is best for us and for baby."

"Yes," said Bessie, "and I suppose if he takes her, he will carry her in his arms just as he is carrying the lambs in the picture of the Good Shepherd in our nursery. We need not be afraid he wont take good care of her; need we, mamma?"

"No, darling," said Mrs. Bradford, "we need not fear to give her to his care, and my Bessie has taught her mother a lesson."

"Did I, mamma?" said the little girl, wondering what her mother meant; but before she could answer, grandmamma came in with the country doctor.

Mr. Bradford took Bessie in his arms, and after holding her down to her mother for another kiss, carried her from the room. When he had her out in the entry, he kissed her himself many times, and whispered, as if he was speaking to himself, "God bless and keep my angel child."

"Yes, papa," said Bessie, thinking he meant the baby, "and Maggie and I will say another prayer about her to-night; and I keep thinking little prayers about her all the time, and that's just the same, papa; isn't it?"

"Yes, my darling," said her father; and then he put her down and stood and watched her as she went down stairs.

It was not the will of our Father in heaven that the dear little baby should die. Late in the night the doctor came from New York, and God heard the prayers of the baby's father and mother and little sisters, and blessed the means that were used to make it well; and before the morning it was better, and fell into a sweet, quiet sleep.

XI.

THE HAPPY CIRCUMSTANCE

THE next morning, when Bessie woke up, it was very quiet in the nursery. She lay still a moment, wondering what it was that had troubled her last night; and just as she remembered about the baby, she heard a little discontented sound at her side. She turned her head and looked around, and there sat Maggie on the floor beside the trundle-bed, with one sock and one shoe on, and the other shoe in her hand. She looked rather cross.

"Maggie," said Bessie, "has the baby gone to heaven?"

"No," said Maggie, "and I don't believe she's going just yet. Our own doctor came in the night, and she's a great deal better; and now she's fast asleep."

"And don't you feel glad then?"

"Oh, yes! I am real glad of that," said Maggie.

"Then why don't you look glad? What is the matter?"

"I can't find my clo'," said Maggie, in a fretful tone.

"What clo'?"

"Why, my sock."

"Why don't nurse or Jane find it for you?" asked Bessie.

"I can't wait," said Maggie; "I want it now; nurse is holding baby because mamma has gone to sleep too, and Jane has taken Franky to Harry's room to dress him, because she was afraid he would make a noise; and she said if I put on my shoes and socks, and all the rest of my under-clo's before she came back, I might put on yours, if you waked up. And that's a great 'sponsibility, Bessie; and I want to do it, and now I can't."

"Look some more," said Bessie, who was very well pleased at the thought of having her sister dress her.