AN ORDEAL.
THAT was the way it came about that little Sate not only, but Susie and
Nettie, went to the flower party.
They had not expected to do any such thing. The little girls, who were
not used to going any where, had paid no attention to the announcements
on Sunday, and Nettie had heard as one with whom such things had
nothing in common. Her treatment in the Sabbath-school was not such as
to make her long for the companionship of the girls of her age, and by
this time she knew that her dress at the flower party would be sure
to command more attention than was pleasant; so she had planned as a
matter of course to stay away.
But the little old ladies in their caps and spectacles springing
into active life, put a new face on the matter. Certainly no more
astonished young person can be imagined than Nettie Decker was, the
morning Miss Sherrill called on her, the one daisy she had begged still
carefully preserved, and proposed her plan of partnership in the flower
party.
"It will add ever so much to the fun," she explained, "besides bringing
you a nice little sum for your spending money."
Did Miss Sherrill have any idea how far that argument would reach just
now, Nettie wondered.
"We can dress the little girls in daisies," continued their teacher.
"Little Sate will look like a flower herself, with daisies wreathed
about her dress and hair."
"Little Sate will be afraid, I think," Nettie objected. "She is very
timid, and not used to seeing many people."
"But with Susie she will not mind, will she? Susie has assurance enough
to take her through anything. Oh, I wonder if little Sate would not
recite a verse about the daisy grandmothers? I have such a cunning one
for her. May I teach her, Mrs. Decker, and see if I can get her to
learn it?"
Mrs. Decker's consent was very easy to gain; indeed it had been freely
given in Mrs. Decker's heart before it was asked. For Miss Sherrill
had not been in the room five minutes before she had said: "Your son,
Norman, I believe his name is, has promised to help my brother with
the church flowers this evening. My brother says he is an excellent
helper; his eye is so true; they had quite a laugh together, last week.
It seems one of the wreaths was not hung plumb; your son and my brother
had an argument about it, and it was finally left as my brother had
placed it, but was out of line several inches. He was obliged to admit
that if he had followed Norman's direction it would have looked much
better." After that, it would have been hard for Miss Sherrill to have
asked a favor which Mrs. Decker would not grant if she could. _She_ saw
through it all; these people were in league with Nettie, to try to save
her boy. What wasn't she ready to do at their bidding!
There was but one thing about which she was positive. The little girls
could not go without Nettie; they talked it over in the evening, after
Miss Sherrill was gone. Nettie looked distressed. She liked to please
Miss Sherrill; she was willing to make many grandmothers; she would
help to put the little girls in as dainty attire as possible, but she
did _not_ want to go to the flower festival. She planned various ways;
Jerry would take them down, or Norm; perhaps even _he_ would go with
them; surely mother would be willing to have them go with Norm. Miss
Sherrill would look after them carefully, and they would come home at
eight o'clock; before they began to grow very sleepy.
But no, Mrs. Decker was resolved; she could not let them go unless
Nettie would go with them and bring them home. "I let one child run the
streets," she said with a heavy sigh, "and I have lived to most wish he
had died when he was a baby, before I did it; and I said then I would
never let another one go out of my sight as long as I had control; I
can't go; but I would just as soon they would be with you as with me;
and unless you go, they can't stir a step, and that's the whole of it."
Mrs. Decker was a very determined woman when she set out to be; and
Nettie looked the picture of dismay. It did not seem possible to her to
go to a flower party; and on the other hand it seemed really dreadful
to thwart Miss Sherrill. Jerry sat listening, saying little, but the
word he put in now and then, was on Mrs. Decker's side; he owned to
himself that he never so entirely approved of her as at that moment. He
wanted Nettie to go to the flower party.
"But I have nothing to wear?" said Nettie, blushing, and almost weeping.
"Nothing to wear!" repeated Mrs. Decker in honest astonishment. "Why,
what do you wear on Sundays, I should like to know? I'm sure you
look as neat and nice as any girl I ever saw, in your gingham. I was
watching you last Sunday and thinking how pretty it was."
"Yes; but, mother, they all wear white at such places; and I cut up my
white dress, you know, for the little girls; it was rather short for me
anyway; but I should feel queer in any other color."
"O, well," said Mrs. Decker in some irritation, "if they go to such
places to show their clothes, why, I suppose you must stay at home, if
you have none that you want to show. I thought, being it was a church,
it didn't matter, so you were neat and clean; but churches are like
everything else, it seems, places for show."
Jerry looked grave disapproval at Nettie, but she felt injured and
could have cried. Was it fair to accuse her of going to church to show
her clothes, or of being over-particular, when she went every Sunday in
a blue and white gingham such as no other girl in her class would wear
even to school? This was not church, it was a party. It was hard that
she must be blamed for pride, when she was only too glad to stay at
home from it.
"I can't go in my blue dress, and that is the whole of it," she said at
last, a good deal of decision in her voice.
"Very well," said Mrs Decker. "Then we'll say no more about it; as for
the little girls going without you, they sha'n't do it. When I set my
foot down, it's _down_."
Jerry instinctively looked down at her foot as she spoke. It was
a good-sized one, and looked as though it could set firmly on any
question on which it was put. His heart began to fail him; the flower
party and certain things which he hoped to accomplish thereby, were
fading. He took refuge with Mrs. Smith to hide his disappointment, and
also to learn wisdom about this matter of dress.
"Do clothes make such a very great difference to girls?" was his first
question.
"Difference?" said Mrs. Smith rubbing a little more flour on her hands,
and plunging them again into the sticky mass she was kneading.
"Yes'm. They seem to think of clothes the first thing, when there is
any place to go to; boys aren't that way. I don't believe a boy knows
whether his coat ought to be brown or green. What makes the difference?"
Mrs. Smith laughed a little. "Well," she said reflectively, "there is a
difference, now that's a fact. I noticed it time and again when I was
living with Mrs. Jennison. Dick would go off with whatever he happened
to have on; and Florence was always in a flutter as to whether she
looked as well as the rest. I've heard folks say that it is the fault
of the mothers, because they make such a fuss over the girls' clothes,
and keep rigging them up in something bright, just to make 'em look
pretty, till they succeed in making them think there isn't anything
quite so important in life as what they wear on their backs. It's all
wrong, I believe. But then, Nettie ain't one of that kind. She hasn't
had any mother to perk her up and make her vain. I shouldn't think she
would be one to care about clothes much."
"She doesn't," said Jerry firmly. "I don't think she would care if
other folks didn't. The girls in her class act hatefully to her; they
don't speak, if they can help it. I suppose it's clothes; I don't know
what else; they are always rigged out like hollyhocks or tulips; they
make fun of her, I guess; and that isn't very pleasant."
"Is that the reason she won't go to the flower show next week?"
"Yes'm, that's the reason. All the girls are going to dress in white;
I suppose she thinks she will look queerly, and be talked about. But
I don't understand it. Seems to me if all the boys were going to wear
blue coats, and I knew it, I'd just as soon wear my gray one if gray
was respectable."
"She ought to have a white dress, now that's a fact," said Mrs. Smith
with energy, patting her brown loaf, and tucking it down into the tin
in a skilful way. "It isn't much for a girl like her to want; if her
father was the kind of man he ought to be, she might have a white dress
for best, as well as not; I've no patience with him."
"Her father hasn't drank a drop this week," said Jerry.
"Hasn't; well, I'm glad of it; but I'm thinking of what he has done,
and what he will go and do, as likely as not, next week; they might be
as forehanded as any folks I know of, if he was what he ought to be;
there isn't a better workman in the town. Well, you don't care much
about the flower party, I suppose?"
"I don't now," said Jerry, wearily. "When I thought the little girls
were going, I had a plan. Sate is such a little thing, she would be
sure to be half-asleep by eight o'clock; and I was going to coax Norm
to come for her, and we carry her home between us. Norm won't go to a
flower party, out and out; but he is good-natured, and was beginning
to think a great deal of Sate; then I thought Mr. Sherrill would speak
to him. The more we can get Norm to feeling he belongs in such places,
the less he will feel like belonging to the corner groceries, and the
streets."
"I see," said Mrs. Smith admiringly. "Well, I do say I didn't think
Nettie was the kind of girl to put a white dress between her chances of
helping folks. Sarah Ann thinks she's a real true Christian; but Satan
does seem to be into the clothes business from beginning to end."
"I don't suppose it is any easier for a Christian to be laughed at and
slighted, than it is for other people," said Jerry, inclined to resent
the idea that Nettie was not showing the right spirit; although in his
heart he was disappointed in her for caring so much about the color of
her dress.
"Well, I don't know about that," said Mrs. Smith, stopping in the act
of tucking her bread under the blankets, to look full at Jerry, "why,
they even made fun of the Lord Jesus Christ; dressed him up in purple,
like a king, and mocked at him! When it comes to remembering that, it
would seem as if any common Christian might be almost glad of a chance
to be made fun of, just to stand in the same lot with him."
This was a new thought to Jerry. He studied it for awhile in silence.
Now it so happened that neither Mrs. Smith nor Jerry remembered certain
facts; one was that Mrs. Smith's kitchen window was in a line with
Mrs. Decker's bedroom window, where Nettie had gone to sit while she
mended Norm's shirt; the other was that a gentle breeze was blowing,
which brought their words distinctly to Nettie's ears. At first she had
not noticed the talk, busy with her own thoughts, then she heard her
name, and paused needle in hand, to wonder what was being said about
her. Then, coming to her senses, she determined to leave the room; but
her mother, for convenience, had pushed her ironing table against the
bedroom door, and then had gone to the yard in search of chips; Nettie
was a prisoner; she tried to push the table by pushing against the
door, but the floor was uneven, and the table would not move; meantime
the conversation going on across the alleyway, came distinctly to her.
No use to cough, they were too much interested to hear her. By and by
she grew so interested as to forget that the words were not intended
for her to hear. There were more questions involved in this matter of
dress than she had thought about. Her cheeks began to burn a little
with the thought that her neighbor had been planning help for Norm,
which she was blocking because she had no white dress! This was an
astonishment! She had not known she was proud. In fact, she had thought
herself very humble, and worthy of commendation because she went
Sabbath after Sabbath to the school in the same blue and white dress,
not so fresh now by a great deal as when she first came home.
When Mrs. Smith reached the sentence which told of the Lord Jesus being
robed in purple, and crowned with thorns, and mocked, two great tears
fell on Norm's shirt sleeve.
It was a very gentle little girl who moved about the kitchen getting
early tea; Mrs. Decker glanced at her from time to time in a bewildered
way. The sort of girl with whom she was best acquainted would have
slammed things about a little; both because she had not clothes to wear
like other children, and because she had been blamed for not wanting to
do what was expected of her. But Nettie's face had no trace of anger,
her movements were gentleness itself; her voice when she spoke was low
and sweet: "Mother, I will take the little girls, if you will let them
go."
Mrs. Decker drew a relieved sigh. "I'd like them to go because _she_
asked to have them; and I can see plain enough she is trying to get
hold of Norm; so is _he_; that's what helping with the flowers means;
and there ain't anything I ain't willing to do to help, only I couldn't
let the little girls go without you; they'd be scared to death, and it
wouldn't look right. I'm sorry enough you ain't got suitable clothes;
if I could help it, you should have as good as the best of them."
"Never mind," said Nettie, "I don't think I care anything about the
dress now." She was thinking of that crown of thorns. So when Miss
Sherrill called the way was plain and little Sate ready to be taught
anything she would teach her.
They went away down to the pond under the clump of trees which formed
such a pretty shade; and there Sate's slow sweet voice said over
the lines as they were told to her, putting in many questions which
the words suggested. "He makes the flowers blow," she repeated with
thoughtful face, then: "What did He make them for?"
"I think it was because He loved them; and He likes to give you and me
sweet and pleasant things to look at."
"Does He love flowers?"
"I think so, darling."
"And birds? See the birds!" For at that moment two beauties standing on
the edge of their nest, looked down into the clear water, and seeing
themselves reflected in its smoothness began to talk in low sweet
chirps to their shadows.
"Oh, yes, He loves the birds, I am sure; think how many different kinds
He has made, and how beautiful they are. Then He has given them sweet
voices, and they are thanking Him as well as they know how, for all his
goodness. Listen."
Sure enough, one of the little birds hopped back a trifle, balanced
himself well on the nest, and, putting up his little throat, trilled a
lovely song.
"What does he say?" asked Sate, watching him intently.
"Oh, I don't know," said Miss Sherrill, with a little laugh. Sate was
taxing her powers rather too much. "But God understands, you know; and
I am sure the words are very sweet to him."
Sate reflected over this for a minute, then went back to the flowers.
"What made Him put the colors on them? Does He like to see pretty
colors, do you sink? Which color does He like just the very bestest of
all?"
"O you darling! I don't know that, either. Perhaps, crimson; or, no,
I think He must like pure white ones a little the best. But He likes
little human flowers the best of all. Little white flowers with souls.
Do you know what I mean, darling? White hearts are given to the little
children who try all the time to do right, because they love Jesus, and
want to please him."
"Sate wants to," said the little girl earnestly. "Sate loves Jesus;
and she would like to kiss him."
"I do not know but you shall, some day. Now shall we take another line
of the hymn?" continued her teacher.
"I tried to teach her," explained Miss Sherrill to her brother. "But
I think, after all, she taught me the most. She is the dearest little
thing, and asks the strangest questions! When I look at her grave,
sweet face, and hear her slow, sweet voice making wise answers, and
asking wise questions, a sort of baby wisdom, you know, I can only
repeat over and over the words:
"'Of such is the kingdom of heaven.'
"To-day I told her the story of Jesus taking the little children up in
his arms and blessing them. She listened with that thoughtful look in
her eyes which is so wonderful, then suddenly she held up her pretty
arms and said in the most coaxing tones:
"'Take little Sate to Him, and let Him bless her, yight away.'
"Tremaine, I could hardly keep back the tears. Do you think He can be
going to call her soon?"
"Not necessarily at all. There is no reason why a little child should
not live very close to Him on earth. I hope that little girl has a
great work to do for Christ in this world. She has a very sweet face."