Nellie's Housekeeping. Little Sunbeams Series

Here was a scrap of comfort. Mamma was at least alive enough to inquire for, and be anxious about her. She crept to the window and looked down to where Nellie stood, calling still, and turning her eyes in every direction.

"Here I am, Nellie, I'll come down," she answered, ran down the stairs, opened the door, and then, her courage failing her once more, stood still and peeped out.

Papa stood at the door of mamma's room, and saw her at once. A pale, tear-stained, miserable little face it was that met his eye, and stirred his pity.

"My poor little woman!" he said, holding out his hand to her: "why, how woe-begone you look. Have you been hiding because you were frightened about mamma? That was not worth while, and mamma has been asking for you, and every one looking for you this ever so long. Come and see mamma, she is better now, and looks like herself again."

Carrie came forward, still with hesitating steps and hanging head; and her father, taking her hand, led her into mamma's room.

Mrs. Ransom lay upon the sofa, looking very white still, but with a smile upon her lips, and her eyes bright and life-like as usual; and the timid glance which Carrie gave to her mother's face reassured her very much.

Still she felt so guilty and conscious, such a longing to confess all, and yet so ashamed and afraid to do it, that her manner remained as confused and downcast as ever.

Nellie stood behind her mother, leaning over the head of the couch, and looking troubled and anxious, but her face brightened when she saw Carrie.

Daisy, with the most solemn of faces, was seated in a little chair at mamma's feet, gazing silently at the pages of "Baxter's Saint's Rest," held upside down. Not one word could Daisy read, she barely knew her letters; but she had found Baxter in the little rack which held mamma's books of devotional reading, her "prayers books," Daisy called them; and believing any work she found there must be suitable to the day, and the state of mind she considered it proper to maintain while mamma was ill, she had possessed herself of it, and was now fully persuaded that she was deriving great benefit from the contents thereof.

"So you ran away from mamma," said Mrs. Ransom, caressing Carrie's hand as she buried her face in the sofa-pillows beside her mother's. "Did she frighten you so? What a poor foolish mamma it is to be so startled at such a harmless little thing as a mouse, is it not, dearie? I hope I should not have been quite so foolish if I had been well and strong. My poor Carrie!"

Worse and worse! Here was mamma blaming herself and pitying her! She could say nothing, only nestle closer to her mother, and try to keep back the sobs which were struggling to find way.

Mrs. Ransom was quite well again by afternoon, and able to join the family at the dinner-table; but although the spirits of the other children rose with her recovery, Carrie still continued dull and dispirited.

She accompanied her father and Nellie to church in the afternoon. Happening to turn his eyes towards her during the service, Mr. Ransom saw her leaning her head listlessly against the back of the pew, while her lips were quivering and tears slowly coursing one another down her cheeks. He wondered what could cause it. There was nothing in the sermon to touch her feelings, indeed she probably did not understand one word of it. He drew her towards him, and passing his arm about her let her rest her head against his shoulder where she cried quietly for a few moments, and then, as if this had relieved her, dried her eyes and sat up.

Carrie had taken a resolution, and the very taking of it had done her good, and made her feel less guilty and unhappy. Papa was so kind and good that she began to think that after all perhaps it would not be so very hard to tell him all, and confess how naughty she had been. Even if he punished her very much, the punishment could not be worse to bear than this, she thought. She would tell him as soon as they reached home, and she could find an opportunity to talk to him alone.

But alas for poor Carrie's hopes of unburdening her mind at once! On the way home from church a gentleman joined her father and went to the house with him, came in, stayed to tea, and actually remained all the evening, even long after her bedtime and Nellie's.

Nor was this the last drop in Carrie's cup.

Daisy met them at the gate when they returned from church, brimming over with excitement, which was speedily taken down when the strange gentleman, laying his hand on her little round head, turned to her father and said, —

"Your youngest son, Mr. Ransom?"

"My daughter, – another little daughter," said Mr. Ransom, quickly, knowing Daisy's sensitiveness on this point; but the wound was given past recall, and the stranger was henceforth looked upon as a man capable of breaking any and every commandment among the ten.

"I s'pect that man never ermembers the Sabbaf day to keep it holy; and I don't b'lieve he ever says his p'ayers," said Daisy, severely, regarding him with an air of great offence as he walked on with her father to the house.

"I think he does. I believe he's a very nice gentleman," said Nellie, much amused.

"No, I fink not," said Daisy, decidedly. "I b'ieve he slaps his wife fee times ev'y day. He has the look of it."

Nellie laughed outright.

"He hasn't any wife," she said.

"He'd do it if he had one then," persisted Daisy, who, in general the most forgiving and soft-hearted of little mortals, could not overlook the offence of the visitor, "'cause he calls people sons. Augh! People that slap their wives so much that they kill 'em have to be took to prison," she added reflectively, and as if she found some consolation in the thought. "Hannah told me so. She knew a man that was."

"Hannah had no business to tell you such stories as that," said Nellie. "Mamma wouldn't like it at all, Daisy."

"Then I'll tell her she mustn't do it," said Daisy; "but, Nellie, do people that kill mice have to be took to prison?"

"No," said Nellie, "mice are very troublesome and mischievous, so it is not wrong to kill them. But it would be very wicked to tease them or hurt them more than we can help."

"I'm glad of that," said Daisy, "'cause I wouldn't like you and Carrie to go to prison."

"No, I should think not," said Nellie, "but Carrie and I did not kill a mouse."

"Oh, yes! you did," said Daisy, "least you squeezed him up in the bed so he had to kill hisse'f afterwards."

"O Daisy!" said Nellie.

"It's the truf," answered Daisy, as one who knows. "Hannah found him 'most dead in your bed this morning, 'tween the mattresses, and she said you must have put him there last night, but you didn't know it, and afterwards he killed hisse'f about it. I saw him when he was dead, and going to be frowed away."

Nellie shuddered, the thought was very painful to her that the mouse should have come to his death in such a way; but Carrie felt worse still, and turning round and resting her arm upon the back of a rustic chair which stood beneath a tree, she laid her head upon it, and cried as she had done in the morning when she was hiding in the garret. Nellie comforted her as well as she could, but Carrie was hard to be consoled; and felt as if she was never to hear the last of those unlucky mice, and the consequences of her own naughtiness.

Mr. Ransom sat up late that night, long after his visitor had left, and the family gone to rest. All his little children he supposed to be long since fast asleep; and he was just preparing to turn out the lights and go upstairs himself, when a slight sound in the hall without attracted his attention. The patter of small bare feet it sounded like, and the patter of small bare feet it was, as he was assured a moment later when a little white-clad figure presented itself at the open door, and looked wistfully at him with pitiful, beseeching eyes.

"Carrie! my child! are you ill? What is wrong?" he asked in much surprise.

"No, papa, not ill, but, – but" – Tears choked her voice, the little feet ran over the floor, and she had clambered upon his knee, and with her face hidden in his bosom sobbed out her confession.

"I've been awake so long, papa," she said, "and I thought I never could go to sleep till I had told you, and I could not wait till morning, so I came out of my bed down here to find you. Oh! please forgive me, and do you think mamma can ever forgive me for being so cruel to her, and trying to think it was all nonsense about her being so afraid of mice? And then to think that poor little mouse was killed just for me! Nellie and I never knew he was there when we turned the bed over, but he wouldn't have been in our room if I had not brought the mice upstairs; and now Ruth says she don't know when we'll be rid of them, and mamma will be troubled and frightened with them for ever so long. And Nellie and Daisy have been real helps to mamma, and I talked so much about helping her too, but I've only been a bother and trouble to her, and never did a thing for her after all."

All this, and much more, the sorrowful little penitent poured into her father's ear.

Mr. Ransom had no mind to punish or scold her: he saw that she was already sufficiently punished by the remorse and anxiety she had brought upon herself, and he thought that this was likely to prove a lasting lesson to her. Besides, the thing was quite a new offence of its kind; for Carrie was generally not only obedient, but also regardful of what she believed to be her mother's wishes, whether expressed or not; and he did not desire to be hard with her now that she saw her fault so plainly, and was in such a humble, repentant frame of mind.

So although he talked seriously to her, he did so very kindly and quietly, – poor Carrie thought she had never known her father so kind, – nor did he talk very long that night, but soon carried her up to bed in his arms, quite soothed and comforted; and so great was the relief of the confession, that the poor little weary head was scarcely on the pillow before she was fast asleep.

No sooner were she and Nellie awake in the morning than she told her sister the whole story, feeling that she could no longer keep the secret from her, but making her promise not to tell the boys, lest they should tease her, which Carrie felt she could not bear.

The hardest of all was yet to come, the confession to her dear, gentle, tender mother. Mamma would look so surprised and grieved, would be so shocked to think she could be so cruelly thoughtless.

But it was gone through with bravely, not very steadily it is true, for Carrie's voice failed her more than once, but she did not attempt to hide or excuse any thing.

And oh! how much lighter her heart was when it was over, and mamma knew the worst.

Perhaps Mrs. Ransom was not as much surprised as Carrie had expected she would be: it may be that she was prepared to hear the story which Carrie had believed would shock and distress her so much; and the readiness with which she granted her forgiveness but made her little daughter feel all the more repentant for having been so heedless of her comfort.

It was a healing repentance now, though, with the sting and bitterness gone from it; and Carrie felt as if she should never be fretful and cross again; no, not even with Ruth She would try to be so helpful, so considerate and good now, she thought; but she would make no "fuss" about it, or talk as though she meant to do such very fine things, only to fail after all perhaps.

Nellie and Daisy had said and promised far less than she had done, but their actions had spoken for them.

"What is that you are doing, Nellie?" she asked, when all the little housekeeping tasks accomplished, her reading and practising finished, Nellie brought her workbox and sat down to sew. "Why! those are the slippers mamma was going to work for Johnny, are they not?"

"Yes," said Nellie.