"Something for you, ma'am," said the maid-of-all-work to Ruth, omitting
the ceremony of a premonitory knock, as she opened the door. "A bunch of
flowers! handsome enough for Queen Victory; and a basket of apples all
done up in green leaves. It takes widders to get presents," said the
girl, stowing away her tongue in her left cheek, as she partially closed
the door.
"Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed little Nettie, to whom those flowers were as
fair as Eve's first view of Paradise. "Give me _one_ posy, mamma, only
_one_;" and the little chubby hands were outstretched for a tempting
rose-bud.
"But, Nettie, dear, they are not for me," said Ruth; "there must be some
mistake."
"Not a bit, ma'am," said the girl, thrusting her head into the half-open
door; "the boy said they were 'for Mrs. Ruth Hall,' as plain as the nose
on my face; and that's plain enough, for I reckon I should have got
married long ago, if it hadn't been for my big nose. He was a country
boy like, with a ploughman's frock on, and was as spotted in the face as
a tiger-lily."
"Oh! I know," replied Ruth, with a ray of her old sunshiny smile
flitting over her face; "it was Johnny Galt; he comes into market every
day with vegetables. Don't you remember him, Katy? He used to drive our
old Brindle to pasture, and milk her every night. You know dear papa
gave him a suit of clothes on the Fourth of July, and a new hat, and
leave to go to Plymouth to see his mother? Don't you remember, Katy, he
used to catch butterflies for you in the meadow, and pick you nosegays
of buttercups, and let you ride the pony to water, and show you where
the little minnies lived in the brook? Have you forgotten the white
chicken he brought you in his hat, which cried 'peep--peep,' and the
cunning little speckled eggs he found for you in the woods, and the
bright scarlet partridge berries he strung for a necklace for your
throat, and the glossy green-oak-leaf-wreath he made for your hat?"
"Tell more--tell more," said Katy, with eyes brimming with joy; "smile
more, mamma."
Aye, "Smile more, mamma." Earth has its bright spots; there must
have been sunshine to make a shadow. All hearts are not calloused by
selfishness; from the lips of the honest little donor goeth up each
night and morning a prayer, sincere and earnest, for "the widow and
the fatherless." The noisome, flaunting weeds of earth have not wholly
choked the modest flower of gratitude. "Smile more, mamma!"
* * * * *
How cheap a thing is happiness! Golconda's mines were dross to that
simple bunch of flowers! They lit the widow's gloomy room with a
celestial brightness. Upon the dingy carpet Ruth placed the little
vase, and dimpled limbs hovered about their brilliant petals; poising
themselves daintily as the epicurean butterfly who circles, in dreamy
delight, over the rose's heart, longing, yet delaying to sip its sweets.
A simple bunch of flowers, yet oh, the tale they told with their
fragrant breath! "Smile, mamma!" for those gleeful children's sake; send
back to the source that starting tear, ere like a lowering cloud it
o'ercasts the sunshine of those beaming faces.