Then Sister Mary Felice took one to try.
Then always Sister Angela, with the Indian basket on her arm, took all
the little girls to the long back gallery that was latticed in.
On a low shelf close against the lattice sat a row of white basins.
Then all the little tiny girls washed their little tiny hands in the
white basins. And while they washed their little tiny hands by twos
and by threes together, two little girls washing their hands in one
basin together, three little girls washing their hands together, they
all oftentimes laughed together and said:
"Wash together!
And be friends forever!
Wash together!
And be friends forever!"
Then Sister Angela held a long pink checked towel in her hands while
the little tiny girls came as their tiny hands were washed and wiped
them on the pink checked towel.
Then if two little girls took hold of the pink checked towel at once
they both laughed and sang:
"Don't wipe together,
Or we'll fight
Before night."
And the other little girls that were still washing their hands in the
white basins on the low shelf by the back-gallery lattice sang over and
over again:
"Wash together! We'll wash together!
And we'll be happy forever!"
When all the pink clean tiny hands were wiped dry, or as nearly dry as
little girls do wipe tiny pink hands, on the pink checked towel held
for them by Sister Angela, then Sister Angela hung the pink checked
towel on the lowest limb of the arbor-vita tree. Then the little girls
all ran to sit down in a row on the lowest step of the back gallery,
with their little feet on the gravel below. Sister Angela walked the
length of the row, and gave to each little girl in the row a sweet tiny
cake, or maybe Sister Angela walked twice down the row and gave to each
little girl two cakes, or sometimes maybe she walked three times down
the row, and then each little girl had three cakes; but no one little
girl ever had more than every other little girl.
Always Sister Angela sat a little way off from the row of the little
girls. She always sat on a bench under the great magnolia-tree and
watched the tiny girls as they ate their tiny cakes.
And always the pink checked towel waved itself ever so softly to and
fro on the lowest limb of the arbor-vitae-tree, for that was the way
that pink checked towels did to help to dry themselves after helping to
dry so many little pink fingers. Often, so often, little brown
sparrows came hopping to the gravel to pick up any tiny crumbs of cake
that the little girls dropped, but you may be sure that they did not
drop so very many, many little brown crumbs for little brown birds to
find.
But if they were dropped, even if by rare chance were the crumbs so
large as to be nearly as large as half of a cake--why then, that crumb
had to stay for those little birds. It was the law! The law that the
little girls had made for themselves, and nobody but themselves knew
about that law--for the good of the birds. But no little girl cared to
disobey that law of their own that nobody but themselves knew about,
for if one had--how dreadful it would have been--no little girl would
have played with her until--oh, so long, so long--until she might at
last have been forgiven!
So all the little brown crumbs that the tiny little girls did drop, why
the tiny little brown birds did pick up,--and they never said whether
they liked caraway seeds or not!
* * *
* *
*
One day when the tiny little girls were all in a row eating cakes,
Sister Angela, sitting on a bench under the magnolia, said quite
suddenly: "Good morning!"
She rose up from her seat under the great magnolia.
Then the little brown birds fluttered up from the gravel.
Then all the little girls looked up.
There stood two pretty grown-up people.
And these two grown-up people had no soft white around their faces like
the soft white around the face that Sister Angela wore, and they had no
black veils, soft and long like the black veil that Sister Angela wore.
And they had no little white crosses like the small white cross that
Sister Angela wore on the breast of her soft black dress.
One of the pretty-grown up folks looked at one of the little tiny girls
and said: "And what is her name?"
Sister Angela said: "Bessie Bell was written on her little white
night-gown, done in linen thread."
And Sister Angela said: "Yes, we have always kept the little white
night-gown."
And one of the pretty grown-up people said: "Yes, that was right.
Always to keep the little white night-gown."
And the other grown-up person said: "And how comes that to be all that
you know?"