BEPPO.
Bryda sat still where Uncle Jack had left her, thinking over his
story.
"You see, my dear," she said to herself (Bryda had a funny way of
calling herself "my dear" when she talked to herself, and told
herself stories, or read herself little moral lectures as Miss
Quillnib her governess used to do); "You see, my dear, the thing is
this: when any one tells a story they can make things happen so that
there shall always be a good moral. Now, I am sure that town in the
story would be a very nice place, but Uncle Jack is sure to make
everything go wrong!"
Here nurse came and carried Miss Bryda off for a walk. They went
through the village, and old Roger was at his work. The house-door
was open, and he nodded a pleasant "Good-day."
Bryda lingered a moment.
"Isn't this a nice day, Roger?" she said.
"Ay, ay, little miss," answered the carpenter, "it's one of the
Lord's own days. He doesn't give us too many of them, for fear we'd
get too fond o' this place, and not be in a hurry to go to our
Father's house."
Nurse had stopped to talk to the blacksmith. It was funny, but she
always had something special to tell the blacksmith; and he would
keep a horse waiting ever so long to be shod while they talked,
though really they never seemed to say anything very interesting.
However, Bryda knew she would have some time to herself, so she
walked into old Roger's cottage, and sat down on a bench among the
sawdust and shavings.
"I suppose you are very poor, aren't you, Roger?" she asked, after
watching him silently for some time.
"Poor, missy? Well, maybe some folks 'ud think so, but there's no
man in the village richer, for all that!"
"Then why don't you have a grander house?"
"I'll go to my grand house by and by, missy," he answered, driving a
screw carefully. "Ah! a grand house that is indeed! It's making
ready for me all this time; but when once I go, I'll not come back
here again!"
"I should think not!" answered Bryda, looking round the poor cottage.
"Is it a palace, Roger?" Bryda's idea of a palace was something very
splendid--golden tables, and silver chairs, and all the rest of the
furniture to match.
"Ay, you may well call it a palace! There's no house hereabouts
would match that one," answered Roger, in his cheery voice.
"Does any one else live there?"
"Oh, yes! All my brothers and sisters--the children of the King."
"Miss Bryda! Miss Bryda! You troublesome child!" called the nurse's
voice. "Come along, this minute! wherever have you got to--poking in
them low places?"
"Nurse did not think the forge a low place," thought Bryda, but she
was obliged to go.
"Nurse," she said, when that worthy person had done scolding, "do you
know, I am sure I may go and see that old carpenter, for he is not a
common man at all, but a prince in disguise Only fancy! Just like a
fairy tale!"
"Fairy grandmother!" said nurse, who was not in the best of tempers;
and they went on for some way in silence through the village.
A little outside the village stood a neat white house, in which the
doctor lived, and in front of this a woman in an Italian dress was
turning the handle of a barrel-organ, while a handsome boy of five or
six, or perhaps older--for though small, he had an old look in his
face--stood holding a little tin mug to collect pennies. There were
no pennies in it; the woman looked dreadfully pale and ill, and
coughed without stopping, and the child's big, black eyes looked very
sorrowful.
The doctor's servant came out of the white house, and roughly ordered
them away, with abuse which shocked Bryda to hear.
Evidently the kind doctor was not at home, for he would have been
sorry for the poor sick woman, who was trying to earn a few pence
when any one who was better off would have been in bed, carefully
nursed.
Bryda had a penny; she meant to buy sugar-candy, but she dropped it
into the little tin, and was rewarded by a bright smile on the little
face, and "Tank you, signorina;" by which the little boy meant,
"Thank you, miss." That was nicer than sugar-candy.
"I can't abide furriners," said nurse. "Aren't there any little
white children for you to give your money to, Miss Bryda, without
encouraging those outlandish folks to beg?"
Bryda did not answer; she was wondering if the Lord would think her
penny of any use for His poor. It was a very little coin, but it was
all she had then. It would buy a bit of bread; and, perhaps, one of
the "few small fishes" was not worth much more.
As they came home again Bryda saw the same woman and child toiling
along the road in front of them, entering the village again.
The woman staggered under the weight of her barrel-organ; she seemed
very faint and weak; either she must be very ill, or she had had no
proper food. Perhaps both misfortunes were hers.
A baker's man went riding by with some loaves in a basket. As he
passed the Italian woman the horse seemed frightened, either at her
white sleeves or at the instrument she carried, and Bryda saw him
sway violent and throw one of the loaves out upon the road. The
baker did not miss it, and rode on faster, beating his horse.
But the little Italian boy sprang at it; and Bryda felt sure he was
cruelly hungry from the way in which he seized the bread and put it
to his mouth. He did not bite it though, but changing his mind, ran
to his mother, and held it out.
"_Madre mia, pane!_" he cried. "My mother, bread!" he meant.
The lad's mother looked at the loaf of bread for a moment--only a
moment; then she shook her head, and spoke to the child in Italian.
The baker had stopped at a house by the roadside; the boy was off
like the wind, and soon came up breathless, and handed him the loaf.
The baker was a kind-hearted man, and gave the child a roll, with
which he ran back to his mother. Then he broke it in two and offered
her the large half, beginning at once to munch the other himself.
The mother took a little of the piece he had given her, but she
seemed too faint and weak to eat more than a mouthful.
By this time Bryda and her nurse had overtaken them.
"Little boy," said Bryda shyly, all her pity roused by the scene,
"where do you live?"
[Illustration: "Little boy," said Bryda shyly, "where do you live?"]
The child was not shy; he looked her full in the face with his big
black eyes, and pointed to the village.
"In house-yesterday-next-day," he said in his broken English.
"You are living there for a few days, are you?" asked Bryda, puzzled.
The boy nodded.
"Do tell me your name?" she asked again.
"Beppo, signorina."
Here nurse again interposed. She was a cross-grained woman, very
faithful to her duty, but with little sympathy to spare, and she did
not at all approve of "Miss Bryda's notions," about caring for the
poor.
"When you get your governess and plenty of lessons to do, you won't
be so anxious about them low creatures, miss," she told Bryda.
"Learn to play tunes on the piano, and paint pictures like other
young ladies--that's what you've got to think about."
But poor little Bryda, though she often, as we have seen, got into
trouble and mischief (for she was not at all a model little girl),
did really want to serve the Lord Jesus, of whose great love she had
learned, and her great wish was to know what a little girl could do
for Him.
The Lord Jesus was always helping the poor, and she knew His faithful
servants did the same, so it was a sad puzzle to her to find such
treatment as Moll Dawson's, when she tried to do some good. Perhaps
Uncle Jack was right, and she ought not to have tried to do what was
only grown people's work.
But here was this little Italian boy. He looked sad, and seemed
hungry and very poor, and his mother was so ill. How sad it was!
Bryda knelt by the window when she came home, and looked up at the
beautiful blue sky, where a happy lark was singing--so high up he
ought to be nearly at the doors of heaven.
"Our Father," she prayed, "let me help Beppo a little, for Jesus
Christ's sake."
[Illustration: "Our Father," Bryda prayed, "let me help Beppo."]
And this little prayer of "one of His little ones" went straight to
the ear of the loving Father, who is always more ready to hear than
we to pray; and very soon it was answered.
God has so much work for hands, and brains, and tongues, and feet.
In this world a child who loves "helping mother," can do many a
little thing for her, and the work is sooner done, because of such
small helps. And so the great Father, who uses the little dewdrops
to water His thirsty world, will give to every happy, willing worker
_something_ to do, little works for the little ones, more to His
great angels, and at last heaven shall be full of "servants" who
"serve Him" and see His face, and are never sorrowful, or stupid, or
tired, or disappointed in anything any more.
When Bryda had asked God to let her help Beppo she felt much happier.
She would talk by and by to Cousin Salome about him.
Meantime she had the greatest of all treats, for in the afternoon
Uncle Jack was going to drive in his dogcart, with Paddy in the
shafts; and the pace at which Paddy went was what Uncle Jack called
"greased lightning." Anyhow, it was something very different from
the solemn jog, jog, jog, one, two, three, four, one, two, three,
four, of Gog and Magog, when the grannies took her out, and old John
dozed on the box.
"It's so dull to have to drive alone," said Uncle Jack at lunch, with
a heavy sigh.
"Call for Captain Tomkins, and take him out," said grandmother.
"I'm so shy," answered Uncle Jack sadly. "But if I could find a
young lady, a very young lady of about eight or so, to come with
me----"
"Oh! Uncle Jack, take _me_!" burst out Bryda. And so he did; and
best of all, when they were fairly started, Uncle Jack lit a big
cigar, and between the puffs went on with his fairy tale.