DAISY'S WISH.
DURING many hours after Isaac's visit to the sick room, Daisy was more
or less unconscious. She moaned often, and sometimes she started and
cried out in fear, and now and then she would grasp at Mary Davis as
if for protection. Occasionally she seemed to know her nurse, and then
again the blank would come back, blotting out all sense. This state
passed slowly away, and Daisy regained gradually her lost ground. But
Mary made up her mind that Isaac Meads should not be again admitted
into his child's presence. She kept the door bolted thenceforward, and
never left Daisy alone for even a few seconds without locking it behind
her. Isaac made one or two more attempts to enter, and found himself
foiled.
"Father hasn't been to see me again," Daisy remarked unexpectedly one
evening, several days later.
"He's been wanting to, but I didn't think it was good for you," Mary
answered.
"But perhaps it isn't right to keep him away," said Daisy. "Poor father
has nobody else, you know."
"It's his own fault if he hasn't," said Mary. "I'm not going to have
him frighten you, and make you ill again, Daisy." She not seldom
addressed the sick girl thus, as she had been wont in past years to
address the little child, dropping half-unconsciously the "Miss," which
had at first come naturally. Daisy looked so small and young, lying in
her narrow bed, that Mary Davis began to think of her again as quite a
child.
"I should not be so frightened, perhaps, a second time," said Daisy
calmly. "I have been thinking about it, Nursie. Father wouldn't really
want to hurt me, I am sure,—and you know it wouldn't do to keep him
always from me."
"Not always. Only till you are better, dear," Mary said.
"But perhaps I never shall be better," said Daisy slowly. "I can't sit
up yet, or move my legs. You can't think how heavy they seem. What does
the doctor say is the reason, Nursie?"
"He don't say very clear, Miss, but he seems to think it is a sort of
paralysis-like, from the lightning stroke,—not as he's used that word
neither." Mary forgot at the moment that the real cause of Daisy's
illness had never yet been recalled to her.
Daisy had hitherto asked few questions, and her doing so now took Mary
by surprise. "Seems as if the power was all gone out of you; and he
don't say just how long it'll last."
Daisy repeated the word "lightning," as if in surprise, and then she
lay thinking.
"Yes," she said at length, "I remember now,—I remember the storm coming
on; and the thunder; and the children being so frightened. And your
husband put up his pitchfork. He didn't know any better, I suppose.
But I don't seem to remember anything particular afterwards. Did the
lightning really strike me?"
Mary Davis nodded. "Yes, and my husband too, Daisy."
"Then that is why he is ill in hospital. If he wasn't, I suppose you
could not have come to nurse me. Is he hurt the same as I am?"
"No," Mary said. "His arm is badly burnt, and he is a good deal
scorched beside; but it don't seem to have taken away all his strength
nor made his legs bad, like with you."
"I dare say he is much the worst, really," said Daisy. "And the doctor
doesn't know how long I shall be ill, Nursie?"
"He don't say, Miss Daisy."
"Father wouldn't like me to live on for years, if I couldn't walk,"
said Daisy, with a touching look of sadness. "He wouldn't like the
expense, Nursie. It would be better for me to die."
"Miss Daisy, you mustn't talk so," said Mary.
"But I think it would be better," repeated Daisy. "Father would not
want me, if I could not work for him, and there is nobody else. No
one to take care of me except you, and your husband will want you
by-and-by. Don't you think, Nursie, that perhaps I shall die soon?"
Daisy did not sob, but her chest heaved quickly, and two large tears
fell upon the white sheet.
"I think God knows best what is right for you, dear, and you oughtn't
to want to die sooner than it's His will you should," said Mary, hardly
able to command her voice.
"Yes, He knows best," said Daisy, tears dropping again. "And He loves
me. I haven't been afraid once about dying, all the time I have been
ill. It seemed so easy, when I thought of the Lord Jesus dying for me
on the Cross. But—Nursie, I do feel afraid of having to live a long
while, if I can't stand or work or do anything,—and nobody except
father to take care of me. I'd a great deal rather die."
"I wouldn't be afraid," said Mary, leaning over the bed, and trying
to smile. "If God is able to take care of you when you die, don't you
think He's able to take care of you while you're alive too?"
"Yes,—able," said Daisy in a low voice.
"And don't you think He will, Daisy?"
"I ought to feel sure," said Daisy, with a distressed look. Then she
asked quite suddenly, "Nursie, do you love God?"
"I hope so," faltered Mary Davis.
"I mean real love," said Daisy. "I mean the sort of love that makes you
want to obey Him, and want to be with Him. You didn't in old days, did
you, Nursie?" She always spoke of her childhood's years as "old days."
"No," Mary Davis answered at once, quite decidedly. "I don't say I
hadn't a sort of wish to do right, Miss Daisy, but I didn't really try
to serve God from my heart, and I don't think I loved Him at all."
"And you do now?"
"I hope so," said Mary Davis.
"I hope I do too," said Daisy slowly. Then she paused, and looked up,
a bright smile lighting her whole face. "No,—I don't hope—I know I do.
I think I love the Lord Jesus in just the sort of way I used to love
mother. I can't love poor father like that, can I? It is more like
being so very sorry for him. Nursie, I don't know what I should do, if
God didn't love me. I don't know what in the world I should do. It's
just my one real comfort."
"Then, Miss Daisy," said Mary, "if you feel like that, you won't need
to be frightened any more about getting well, because you know He'll
take care of you. Hasn't He said, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee'?"
"Yes," said Daisy thoughtfully, "I am quite sure. I ought to be quite
sure. I suppose that is the real meaning of 'casting all your care on
Him, for He careth for you.' I'll try not to be afraid any more."