THE GOOD SHEPHERD.
Marty and Edith often accompanied Miss Alice when she visited Jennie.
Sometimes they each took a doll to visit Laura Amelia, also carrying
some of their dishes and having a dolls' tea-party. This always pleased
Jennie very much, though at first she scarcely knew how to play in this
quiet, lady-like fashion, as she had only been accustomed to playing in
the street with rough children before she was hurt. Of course she had
had no chance at all to play during the last year.
Sometimes the girls read little stories to her. This she viewed as a
surprising accomplishment, as she could only spell her way along, not
being able to read well enough to enjoy it. So in one way or another
they entertained her, making her forget her weakness.
Sometimes they talked about other things, telling her of the
mission-band, though, as it was something so outside of her experience,
she could, with all their explanation, hardly form any idea of it. She
took more interest in descriptions of the country, the green fields,
shady woods, and pretty gardens. She was very fond of flowers, and
during the early summer her friends kept the poor room quite bright with
them. An old lady living near Mrs. Ashford, and having an unusually
large yard for the city, had a great many flowers, and hearing of
Marty's sick friend in Landis Court, told her whenever she was going
over there to come and get some flowers for Jennie. This delighted both
little girls extremely.
One day when they were all with Jennie, she picked up one of her cards
that had on it a picture of a shepherd leading his flock and carrying a
lamb in his arms. She wanted to know what it meant, and what a shepherd
was, and what sheep were. After it had been explained, she said,
"'Shepherd' makes me think of a hymn they used to sing in the
Sunday-school down in the Harbor."
"Did you ever go to Sunday-school?" asked Marty.
"I went a little while when we lived down in the Harbor. My teacher had
a lovely velvet cloak trimmed with fur."
"Didn't she tell you about the Good Shepherd?" Edith inquired.
"No. She didn't seem to know about any kind of shepherd. Leastways she
never let on that she did. But they used to sing beautiful hymns, and
one was about a shepherd."
"Was it 'Saviour, like a shepherd lead us'?" asked Marty.
"That was the very one!" exclaimed Jennie in delight. "How did you know
that was it?"
"I thought it might be."
"Would you like to have us sing it now?" Miss Alice inquired.
"Oh, yes, indeed!"
So they sang it, Jennie joining in whenever they came to the words,
"Blessed Jesus," which, besides the first line, was all she knew.
"Is blessed Jesus a shepherd?" she asked.
"He is the Good Shepherd," replied Edith.
"Where's his sheep?"
"All who believe on Him are his sheep, for the Bible says, 'My sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.'"
Miss Alice saw that Jennie did not altogether understand Edith, so in a
few simple words she explained that Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, speaks
of himself as the Good Shepherd, and calls us to follow him. Then taking
up the picture again she repeated what she had said about shepherds and
their flocks, and also went over some of the hymn they had been singing,
until Jennie began to get into her little muddled brain quite a clear
idea of Jesus, our Shepherd.
"Where is your Bible? I will show you the chapter about the Good
Shepherd."
"I ha'n't got one. Mother has one, but I guess it's locked up in that
little black trunk. It's a purple one with clasps that somebody gave her
long ago, and she always had to keep it hid for fear papa'd sell it for
whiskey."
Jennie said all this very coolly, she was so much accustomed to the kind
of life in which there was more whiskey than Bible; but Edith and Marty
looked much shocked.
"Never mind," said Miss Alice, "I will bring my Bible the next time I
come and read the chapter to you."
Just then a beautiful plan flashed into Marty's head, and as Edith was
included in it, she could not resist reaching over and giving her arm a
tiny squeeze. Edith must have partly understood, for she answered with a
smile.
In the meantime Miss Alice was saying to Jennie,
"Did you ever hear the Psalm beginning, 'The Lord is my Shepherd'?"
"I don't b'lieve I ever did," said Jennie.
"Marty, can't you and Edith repeat it for her?"
Marty was not sure she remembered it all, but Edith knew it, and the
beautiful Psalm was reverently recited.
That evening as Mrs. Scott, wearied with the labors of the day, was
seated in one of the stiff, hard chairs doing some mending by the
uncertain light of a smoky lamp, Jennie told her all that had been said
and done in the afternoon, and then asked,
"Mother, can't you find that about the shepherd in your purple Bible and
read it over to me?"
"I'll try, but I'm a poor reader, Jennie, and anyways I don't know as I
can find the place you want."
She unlocked the trunk and bringing forth, wrapped in soft paper, an
old-fashioned, small-print Bible that had once been handsome, but was
now sadly tarnished, she screwed up the smoky lamp and began to turn the
leaves.
"I don't know where the place is, child. I'm none so handy with books,
and there's a great many different chapters here."
"It was about green pastures and quiet waters. Miss Alice said a pasture
is a field, and it minded me of that grassy field where Tim took me the
summer before he died. You know there was a pond in it, and we paddled
along the edge. It was the prettiest place I ever saw, and on awful hot
days I wish I was there again. I think it must be just such a place the
Bible shepherd takes his folks to."
Mrs. Scott turned the leaves back and forth, anxious to please Jennie,
but unable to find what she wished.
"Now I mind," exclaimed Jennie presently: "Miss Alice didn't call the
green pasture piece a chapter; she called it a Psalm."
"Oh! now I'll find it," said her mother. "I know about Psalms, for my
good old grandfather used to be always reading them, and I used to think
it was queer the way they was spelt--with a 'p' at the beginning. I saw
them over here a minute ago."
Then after a little more searching she inquired,
"Is this it? 'The Lord is my Shepherd: I shall not want.'"
"The very thing!" Jennie exclaimed joyfully.
Mrs. Scott, though with some difficulty, managed to read it, while
Jennie listened with closed eyes and clasped hands, thinking of the
delightful places into which the Shepherd leads his flock.
"They're sweet verses," said Mrs. Scott, as she closed the book, after
laying a piece of yarn in to mark the place, "and it rests a body to
read them. I call to mind now that many's the time I've heard my
granddad read 'em. And I've heard 'em in church, too, when I used to
go."
"Why don't you go to church sometimes now, mother?" Jennie asked.
"There's nobody to rail at you for going. You might borrow Mrs.
O'Brien's bonnet after she's been to mass, and go round to the church on
the front street, where we hear the singing from every Sunday."
Mrs. Scott began to think she should like to go. She cleaned off her old
black alpaca as well as possible, and the next Sunday, borrowing her
kindly Catholic neighbor's bonnet, she went to church for the first time
in many years.
She came home delighted, and had much to tell Jennie about the pleasant
gentleman who gave her a seat and invited her to come again, about the
good sermon that she could understand every bit of, and the rousing
hymns, which indeed Jennie could hear with the window open.
Not long after this, one of the ladies Mrs. Scott worked for gave her a
partly-worn sateen dress and a black straw bonnet, so that she was
fitted out to go to church all summer; and go she did with great
enjoyment. It was a pleasure to Jennie also, for with listening to the
singing as she lay in bed, and hearing about all that was said and done
from her mother, she almost felt as though she had been at church
herself.
The purple Bible was not locked up any more, but kept handy for Miss
Alice to read, and to mark passages for Mrs. Scott to read in the
evening, for Jennie liked to hear the same things over and over.
The plan that popped into Marty's head that day she told to Edith on the
way home, after they had left Cousin Alice.
"O Edie!" she said, "wouldn't it be nice to give Jennie a Bible for her
very own?"
"You mean for you and me together to give it?" said Edith.
"Yes. You know my birthday comes in August and yours in September, and
we always get some money--"
"And we could each give half, and get Jennie a Bible," broke in Edith.
"Yes; or if we _couldn't_ do it then, we might have enough by
Christmas."
"And it would be a _beautiful_ Christmas gift!"
"Oh! do let us do it," said Marty, seizing Edith and whirling her around
and around.
"Yes, do," said Edith, panting for breath.