|MRS. BETH and Tib sat by the broken lantern, wondering what had become
of Gill. The old woman had a gray gown on, and a blue checked apron; and
Tib was in black silk, as usual, and her white satin slippers. The two
little mice had been having a gala-time all night, while Tib slept,
and now they were snug in their own bedroom, getting rest for another
frolic; for, every night, when market-women and market-men had gone
home, there was a merry party in the vacated stalls; and the treat was
nuts and apples and raisins and figs and pie and cakes, and all sorts of
goodies that were left behind, with nobody to look after them.
“Coffee-time is over,” said Mrs. Beth, as the Scotchman at last
appeared. “Tib and I are tired of looking for you. Is there any thing
wrong?”
“‘Tis always wrong, I think, to waste precious time by lying in bed when
a body is not sick,” said Gill. “I overslept myself, and, of course, it
makes the work crowd all day.”
“It doesn’t often happen, I am sure,” said the old woman; “this is the
first time since I’ve known you.”
“And should be the last,” said Gill. “There’s too much to be done,
before the long sleep, for one to be napping when he might be up and
doing.
“How beautiful the tomatoes are!” said Mrs. Beth, “and the egg-plant,
and the corn,--your people will be after them soon.”
She called them Gill’s people, because there were certain parties that
knew what vegetables the Scotchman brought, and always purchased them.
Gill turned to go from the market, and slipped on a piece of orange-peel
and hurt his left arm. He did not know but that it was broken. Mrs. Beth
told him she would jump into the cart and drive to her home with him and
bandage it. Some neighbor could attend to her stall meantime.
At first Gill said no; but the arm was so painful that it made him
almost faint, and he was afraid to drive at once to the farm; so he
consented to go with the old market-woman. Mrs. Holt watched the two
stalls, and Mrs. Beth and Tib and Gill went along the narrow street, a
half mile or more away, and there, on the very topmost floor, was the
coziest place! Right under a French roof was Mrs. Beth’s home,--only one
room with one window; but that room was full of comfort, and the window
looked out upon a prospect that was fit for a king to feast his eyes
upon.
Within was a bright carpet, and a covered lounge, and a little round
table, and a rocking-chair, and two cane-seated chairs with cushions,
and a wide shelf with one book upon it,--the Book that has leaves
for the healing of the nations,--and a bit of a fireplace with a
cooking-stove in it, and a green stand with a creeping vine and a
flowering rose, and a cupboard with a famous bottle in it, which
interested Gill very much indeed; for scarcely had its contents touched
his arm before the pain began to go away, and when the bruised place was
neatly bound up, he was so free from trouble that he could look about
him and enjoy the prospect.
One thing puzzled Gill very much, and that was Tib’s bed; for the
creature had crept into a pretty little cradle, and lay there sleeping
as if she had been used to it all her life.
“It was my little Tibbie’s,” said Mrs. Beth. “She was my only darling,
and died soon after her father; and she loved the kitten so dearly, and
had it with her in the cradle so much, that I kept it for Tib after she
had gone away.”
The old market-woman seemed to forget Gill altogether then; for she
knelt down, and put her arms around the little bed, and cried out,--“Oh,
my baby, my darling!” as if her heart would break; and she did not
arouse from her grief until Tib got up and rubbed against her face
and licked her hand. So you see that Mrs. Beth, who sat by the broken
lantern with such a bright, cheerful face, had not been all her life
free from sorrow; and that it is possible, by God’s grace, though we may
have known bitter grief, to smile in the world’s face, and so to bless
all who may see us.
“I am not sorry that she has gone up to be with God in the beautiful
land,” said the old market-woman, as she remembered Gill, and arose from
her knees; “but I miss her so!--sometimes I miss her so! She used to
stretch her little hands from this window toward the sky, and God knew
it was better to take her from my arms to his own,--I am glad now.”
She looked up as if she could see the little one on her heavenly
Father’s breast, and Gill thought the old woman’s face almost angelic,
as the glory of the upper world shone upon it.
Outside the window was the broad city, with the roofs and spires and
distant water and the nearer hills,--nothing of the miserable lower
stratum which poor people get when they live upon the ground-floor. All
was pure and lovely and beautiful. It made Gill very happy to know what
a pleasant home the old market-woman had. He was almost thankful to the
orange-peel that had tripped him, since it had not broken any bones. He
told the children all about the neat room under the sky, and the little
cradle, and the Tibbie in the white robes, who had gone away for a while
from her mother, and the Tib in the silk gown and satin slippers, which
now occupied the departed Tibbie’s bed.