"_ONLY A LITTLE BOX._"
Uncle Bobo was sitting at the door of his shop one golden September
day, when the atmosphere of the row was oppressive, and his heart was
heavy within him.
Little Miss Joy was mending--so the doctors said; for Uncle Bobo had
declared two heads were better than one, and had insisted on calling in
a second opinion.
Yes; they all said little Miss Joy was better. But in what did this
betterness consist? She was still lying in that upper chamber, whence
she had always smiled her good-morning on Patience Harrison, and sang
her hymn of thanksgiving as the little birds sing their matins to the
rising sun.
Better! yes, she was better; for there was now no danger to her life.
But the fall had injured her back, and she could not move without pain.
The colour was gone from her rosy lips, and the light from those lovely
gentian eyes was more soft and subdued. Little Miss Joy, who had been
as blithe as a bird on the bough and so merry and gladsome, that she
deserved her name of "Little Sunbeam," was now a patient sick child,
never complaining, never fretful, and always greeting Uncle Bobo with a
smile--a smile which used to go to his heart, and send him down to his
little shop sighing out--as to-day--
"Better--better! I don't see it; the doctor doesn't know! What are
doctors for, if they can't make a child well? I pay enough. I don't
grudge them their money, but I expect to see a return for it. And here
comes Patience Harrison to tell me what I don't see--that my little
sunbeam is better."
Patience Harrison was crossing the row to Uncle Bobo's door as he
spoke. Her face wore the same expression of waiting for something or
some one that never came, as it did on the morning when we first saw
her looking up and looking down the row for Jack.
It was a wonderfully warm September. No news had been brought of the
wanderer: the news for which her soul thirsted. George Paterson, it is
true, had heard an inkling of news, but it was not anything certain.
He had heard from a sailor that Jack Harrison had been seen aboard the
_Galatea_ by a passenger who had been put ashore as the _Galatea_
passed the Lizard; and tidings had come that the _Galatea_ had been
lost off the coast of Spain, and only nine of the crew or passengers
aboard had survived to tell the tale! That the _Galatea_ was lost
seemed certain, but that Jack was aboard her was not proved. The man
who reported that he had seen him could not be sure of his name. He
heard him called Jack, but so were hundreds of other boys. He had
understood that he was a runaway, kept on sufferance by the captain to
please the second mate; but that was all, and it was not much.
Certainly not enough to warrant adding to Patience Harrison's heavy
burden of sorrow. So George Paterson kept the suspicion to himself,
and waited for confirmation of the report before he mentioned it.
Patience Harrison had nursed and cared for Joy as if she had been her
own child, and Uncle Bobo was not ungrateful.
"Well," he said, as she leaned against the door, a variety of articles
making a festoon over her head, and a bunch of fishing-tackle catching
a lock of her abundant hair, which was prematurely grey:--"Well, is the
grand affair coming off to-morrow?"
"Yes, they are to be married to-morrow at ten o'clock; but there's to
be no fuss. They are going to Cromer for a few days, and I have
promised to keep shop till they come home."
"And what's Joy to do without you?"
"I shall run over early every morning and late every evening, and poor
Bet Skinner is out of her wits with delight because I said I thought
you would let her stay by day and take my place."
"To be sure! to be sure! Only don't expect me to hold out a hand to
that old lady, Skinner's mother. Is she to be present at the wedding?"
"Yes, and so is Bet; and I have excused myself on account of looking
after the shop."
"Well, your poor sister is making a pretty hard bed for herself to lie
on, and I am afraid she will live to repent it; though, to be sure, we
can't call it marrying in haste. That sly fellow has been sneaking
about here for a long time. What's the mother going to do?"
"She will live where she is for the present, and everything will go on
the same, except that I cannot live with Skinner. I shall look out for
a situation in a shop, as soon as Joy is well again, and does not want
me. Or maybe I shall take one of the small houses on the Denes, and
let lodgings to folks who can put up with humble accommodation."
"You oughtn't to do any such thing," said Mr. Boyd. "You have been a
widow now between eleven and twelve years. A good man wants to make
you his wife--and," said Uncle Bobo, slapping his knee, "and why
shouldn't he?"
"Please do not speak of it, Mr. Boyd," Patience said. "Do you think
that I could ever marry any man while I am waiting for my husband's
return, and now, too, for my boy's? No! it is only pain to me to think
that any of my friends could think I should forget."
"You'll see the boy safe and sound before long, and you'll find the
salt water has washed a lot of nonsense out of him. He will come back,
but the other--never!"
Mrs. Harrison said no more, but climbed up the narrow staircase to
Joy's room.
"Oh, Goody dear! I _am_ so glad you are come," Joy said, stretching
out her little thin arms and winding them round her friend's neck. "I
have been fidgeting so, hearing you talking to Uncle Bobo downstairs.
And I've been very snappy to Susan, because she will have it I ought to
try to stand. Goody dear, I _can't_."
"Susan knows that as well as I do, dearie. I think she tries to make
you out much stronger than you are, to comfort Uncle Bobo."
"_Dear_ Uncle Bobo!" the child said. "I wish he would not fret about
me. Goody! I was dreaming of a horse tearing after me, just as that
horse did that evening; and then it wasn't a horse at all, but it was
great roaring waves, and I thought Jack was with me, and we were going
to be drowned."
The lines on Mrs. Harrison's forehead deepened, and she tried to say
cheerfully--
"Dreams do not mean anything, dear; and it is said they always go by
contrary, you know."
Then Mrs. Harrison began to settle Joy's pillows, and put back the
curtains so that she might see from her bed the strip of blue sky above
the opposite roofs and through a slight aperture between the two
houses, where Joy could on clear nights see two or three stars, and at
certain, and what seemed to her very long intervals, the moon, on her
lonely way through the heavens.
"Susan says the wedding will be to-morrow, and that you will have to
stay to keep shop while Miss Pinckney is away."
"Yes, dear; and Bet is coming to be with you."
Joy sighed, and said softly--
"Poor Bet! she does love me very much; but, dear Goody, _I_ don't love
her as I love you. When Jack comes home, I shall tell him how kind you
have been to me, and we shall be so happy; only I expect Jack will be
vexed to see me lying here, instead of running out to meet him."
Mrs. Harrison could only turn away her head to hide her tears as Joy
went on:
"Uncle Bobo said the other day, when he came up and found me crying,
just a little bit, 'Why, I shall have to call you little Miss
Sorrowful!' And then he seemed choked, and bustled away. I made up my
mind then I would try to smile always when he came. I should not like
him to call me little Miss Sorrowful, it seems to hurt him so. And
then he always says he ought to have snatched hold of me when the horse
came galloping after us, and that he ought to have been knocked down,
not me. But that is quite a mistake. Uncle Bobo is wanted in the
shop, and I don't think I could have done instead of him; and then it
would have been worse for him to bear the pain than it is for me; for
when he had the gout in his toe, he did shout out, and threw the things
about when Susan went to bathe it. So it is best as it is," was little
Miss Joy's conclusion; "isn't it Goody?"
The wedding came off the next day, and the row was greatly excited by
the event.
Miss Pinckney was dressed in a cream-coloured cashmere, trimmed with
lace, and she wore an apology for a bonnet, with orange blossoms, and a
large square of tulle thrown over it.
Susan, who reported the appearance of the wedding party, which she
watched leaning out of Joy's window, exclaimed:
"All in white, or next to white! Deary me! If I was fifty, and had a
yellow skin, I wouldn't dress like a young girl. There she goes
mincing down the row, and there's a coach waiting at the end with white
horses. And there goes Mrs. Skinner looking like a lamp-post, dressed
in a grey alpaca; she looks as grim as ever. And there's poor
Bet--well, to be sure, what a frock and bonnet! They belonged to her
mother, let alone her grandmother, or p'r'aps to that pretty daughter
of hers, who ran off--she was that ill-treated by her mother she
couldn't bear it! Ah! they are a queer lot, those Skinners; they do
say Joe Skinner is a queer customer, and that he is so hard up, that's
why he's married that old lady. He will make her money spin, and there
won't be much left at the end of a year. Serve her right. I've no
patience with folks making themselves ridiklous at her time of life.
Why, my dear!" Susan said, growing confidential, as she drew her head
in from the window, when the little following of girls and boys who
lived in the row had returned from seeing the last of Miss
Pinckney--"Why, my dear! I could have married, last fall, the
lamplighter who has looked after the lamps in the row for years. But I
knew better. I told him I was forty-eight, and he was scarce
thirty-eight, and I was not going to make myself a laughing-stock. And
he went and married a young girl, and has made a good husband. So
that's all right!"
It was the same afternoon that Mrs. Harrison, being installed in her
sister's place at the shop, Bet came breathlessly up the narrow stairs
to say--
"Grandmother wants to see you."
"Oh! I'd rather not, please. I feel so afraid of your grandmother.
Don't, please don't let her come."
But it was too late. Mrs. Skinner's spare figure was already at the
door. She was dressed in her wedding gown and bonnet, and came to
Joy's bed, standing there like a grey spectre, her bonnet and face all
of the same dull grey as the gown.
Joy turned up her wistful eyes to the hard, deeply-lined face, and her
lips quivered.
"If you please," she said, "I am glad you will spare Bet, while Goody
is so busy."
But Mrs. Skinner did not speak--not a word. "I am getting better," Joy
continued; "at least the doctors say so; but--but I can't stand or walk
yet, so I am glad to have Bet."
Mrs. Skinner had all this time been scanning little Miss Joy's features
with a keen scrutiny. Then, after a few minutes, she jerked out:
"I hope you'll soon get about again; you are welcome to keep Bet;" and
then she turned, and her footfall on the stairs was heard less and less
distinct, till the sound ceased altogether.
"Your grandmother is--is not like other people," little Miss Joy
ventured to say. "I don't like her; but I beg your pardon, I ought not
to say so to you."
"And do you think _I_ like her?" Bet exclaimed vehemently. "At first I
thought I'd try, and I did try; but she was always so hard. She loves
Uncle Joe, I think, though she is angry with him for marrying Miss
Pinckney, and lately I have heard high words between them."
And now Bet took off her wedding bonnet, and sat down by Joy's side,
perfectly content that she was thought worthy to be her companion.
"You'll tell me if you want anything," she said. "And you won't mind
if I am stupid and blunder, will you?"
"No," Joy said faintly. "Have you got your work, or a book? Give me
my crochet. I like to try to do something, though lying flat it is
rather tiring."
Bet did as she was told, and then said humbly, "I shan't talk unless
you wish me to talk;" and the poor girl settled herself by the window
till a bell rang.
"That is for you to go down for my tea," Joy said. "It saves Susan's
legs, you know."
Bet was only too happy to be of use, and hurried down stairs at once
for the tray.
"Be careful now," Susan said; "and don't fall upstairs and break the
crockery. There's a cup for yourself, and Mrs. Harrison has sent over
a bit of wedding-cake. It's very black, and I don't like the looks of
the sugar; but I dare say it may eat better than it looks."
The day wore on to evening, and the row was quiet, when Joy, who had
been lying very still, suddenly said--
"I have been dreaming of Jack again--Jack Harrison. I think he must be
coming home."
"Did you care for Jack Harrison very much?"
"Very much," said Joy; "he was always so good to me. That last day
before he ran away he lent me that pretty book you were looking at, and
said we would learn those verses at the beginning together, and I never
saw him again. That was a dreadfully sad time; and then, not content
with being very hard on Jack, Miss Pinckney and your uncle said he was
a thief. Think of that! Jack a thief! Miss Pinckney said he had got
the key of a drawer and taken out a little box, where she kept the
money. There were four or five pounds in it."
"A box!" Bet said; "was it a big box?"
"Oh no; dear Goody says it would go into anybody's pocket. A little
box with a padlock and a little key. I knew Jack did not take it, but
of course as he ran away that very day it looks _like_ it. Even Susan
shakes her head, and I never talk of Jack to her. But," said Joy, "I
am tired now, and I think I'll take what Uncle Bobo calls 'forty
winks.'"
Everything was very quiet after that; and when Bet saw Joy was asleep,
she crept downstairs, and in the shop saw Mrs. Harrison.
Miss Pinckney's shutters were closed, and she felt free to come over
and have a last look at Joy.
"A little box! a little box!" Bet repeated to herself as she went home.
"A box so small it would go into anybody's pocket." And Bet that night
lay awake pondering many things, and repeating very often, "A little
box!"