AS soon as granny came home, she inquired eagerly as to the result of
Nelly's interview with Mr. Grayson. She was by no means pleased with it.
"Sure he might give it to us out and out, and never feel the want of
it. And what's the use of laying out good money on the old thing, and
we may be going to leave it any time?"
"As to that," said Nelly, "we may leave any place at any time, you
know, granny. If we were at Kilmane Park, we shouldn't know whether
we were going to stay there. We should be just as likely to die there
as here. Mr. Grayson says the house is very good and firm, what there
is of it; and thirty dollars will do a good deal towards putting the
outside to rights,—mending the windows and the door-step, righting up
the fence, and so on. And you will see, when we get it all fixed up,
and the garden planted, and all, what a nice, pretty little place it
will be."
"And what is the cow to do?" asked Mrs. Ryan. "She will never stand it
to be tied up at night."
"I dare say she won't mind it after a little bit; and you know she
always stays in the shed at night in winter," said Nelly. "And, anyhow,
she will have to try it, if she is going to stay anywhere."
Granny still murmured. She thought they might as well let the place go,
and hire a room somewhere. As for Crummie, they could manage somehow,
or they could sell her.
Nelly exclaimed at the idea of selling Crummie. "And besides, granny,
we should lose all we have paid already. It would be like putting
seventy-five dollars right into Mr. Grayson's pocket; and I don't think
we can well afford that."
"And that's true too," said granny.
"And then how nice it would be, if any of the folks from Ireland should
come, to have a pretty place to see them in!" said Nelly, pursuing her
advantage. "You wouldn't like to have my lord, or even his lawyer, come
and find us living in a pig-pen, would you?"
Nelly was, in her own heart, rather ashamed of this last argument.
But it answered a better purpose than many a wiser one. Mrs. Ryan had
been all day talking with her old crony about the past and prospective
glories of the Butlers; and she assented at once.
"And there's something in that too. And it's very good tobacco the
old gentleman sent," she continued, filling her pipe. "And may-be,
after all, he means to let us have the place, only he wants it to look
decent, as you say. So just go on your own way, dear; and, as for
Crummie, what she don't like she may leave."
Delighted with the permission, Nelly hastened to get her grandmother's
tea ready, and then went out to milk, bestowing an extra amount of
caresses upon Crummie, as some set-off for the hardship about to be
inflicted on her. It was found possible to secure her in the shed,
however, without tying her; and the old cow submitted philosophically
to the restraint, much to Nelly's delight.
"I always said she had as much sense as a Christian," said she. "She
knows it is for her good, or I wouldn't do it."
Nelly did not forget to carry her Testament with her when she went to
Mrs. Caswell's with the milk; though, remembering how Mrs. Vandake
had disappointed her, she did not build much upon the promise. But
Mrs. Caswell was not one who made promises lightly, and when she did
make one she was apt to remember it. She heard Nelly read her lesson,
explained the hard words to her, and told her she might bring her book
and read every night if she chose.
"Have you ever learned any spelling lessons, Nelly?"
"No, ma'am. I read the spelling lessons in the first part of my book to
Kitty, but I did not learn them out of the book."
"Suppose, then, that you learn a spelling lesson to-morrow; and I will
hear you spell it in the evening. There are few things more important
than good spelling."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Nelly, much pleased. "I can learn it while I
am doing my tatting, can't I?"
"Oh, yes; very nicely. I wonder, by the way, if you are the little girl
Mrs. Kirkland told me of, who makes tatting so neatly and earns so
much? Do you work for her?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Well, Nelly, I am glad to make your acquaintance. You had better begin
your spelling lessons with the words of two syllables, and learn two
lines. And be sure you call the letters right while you are studying
them. Good-night."
When Nelly went to Mrs. Powers's, she found the pan set ready for
her; but Kitty was nowhere to be seen. Kitty had had time to become
heartily ashamed of the way in which she had treated Nelly. She had
told her little brother (who chanced to come in while she was angry
about the pitcher) to go and ask Nelly for her slate. When she got it,
she would have been very glad to send it back again. But she did not
know how. She was not prepared to humble herself before Nelly and say
she had been to blame. So she hid herself in her own room, ashamed and
miserable, while Nelly poured out the milk, watching for her to go away
that she might come down and take care of it. Nelly, however, went out
so quietly that Kitty did not hear her; and another Kitty, who was also
keeping a sharp look-out, was quicker in her movements than the one
up-stairs: so that when Kitty Brown came down she found Kitty Whitecat
with her nose and whiskers in the milk-pan. Kitty sprang, and so did
Puss; and between them they knocked down the pan, spilt the milk, and
broke the dish,—all of which Kitty laid up against Nelly, as if it had
been her fault.
The next day the repairs began, and went prosperously on. The windows
were mended, the frames put to rights, the door new-hung, the fence
straightened up; and both that, the lean-to kitchen and Crummie's shed
received a resplendent coat of whitewash. Mr. Vandake found somewhere a
door-step with a rail and bench, which had been discarded by some one
for a more ambitious veranda; and this was mended up and set before
granny's door, where it looked, it must be confessed, rather more as if
the house belonged to it, than as if it belonged to the house. Nelly,
however, saw no fault to find with it, and looked forward with great
delight to the time when it should be warm enough to sit upon the bench
and work. A slight fence divided Crummie's portion of the yard from
the garden; and Mrs. Caswell promised to give Nelly plenty of flowers
to set out the next spring. I am not sure that Mr. Vandake had not
received some private directions from Mr. Grayson; but certain it is
that no thirty dollars ever effected such an amount of repairs before.
Nelly ceased to regret her new shawl, as she saw the altered aspect of
the place; and even granny admitted that the money was well laid out.
Meantime, Nelly was going on with her work and her lessons, busy as a
little girl could well be. She learned a spelling lesson every day; and
soon Mrs. Caswell added a lesson in Colburn's Arithmetic, which Nelly
found much easier to comprehend than the one she had first tried. She
began to have an understanding of figures, and to handle them easily;
and this was soon to be of great use to her.
Kitty Brown watched with great interest for Nelly's lesson the Sunday
after their quarrel, expecting, and half hoping, to hear her miss,
and be reproved; but she was disappointed. Nelly recited with perfect
correctness, and received extra commendation. Kitty would have found it
hard to tell why she was displeased at Nelly's success; but displeased
she certainly was.
"I sha'n't trouble myself about her any more," said she. "She would
never have known any thing, only for me,—the ungrateful little thing. I
don't ever mean to speak to her again."
But Kitty did not keep her resolution long,—no longer than till she
went up home and found Nelly sitting upon the new front step, reading
her Testament. She had not been that way before, since the repairs
began, and could not help stopping to observe them.
"Oh, Kitty, is that you?" exclaimed Nelly, springing up to meet her.
"Come in and see how nice we look! I have been watching for you all the
afternoon."
Kitty could not, for very shame, repel Nelly's affectionate greeting.
"Why, you do look real nice! And what a pretty bench!"
"And just think, Kitty; I paid for it all myself; out of the money
that I earned this summer!" said Nelly. "I 'tatted' it," she added,
laughing. "Just think of making a fence and a front stoop all out of
tatting!"
"I can't learn to make tatting," said Kitty. "I tried a whole hour one
day, and I could not get it."
"Oh, I worked at it a great deal longer than that," replied Nelly. "I
don't know how many hours I kept at it; and then, when I did learn it,
I forgot it again. I did feel discouraged then,—after I had worked so
long, and then to find, when I tried again, that I could not do it,
after all. But I stuck to it, and by-and-by it came back to me. I don't
believe but I could show you how to do it."
"Oh, I don't care," said Kitty; "I wouldn't take the trouble. Why don't
you come to say your lessons now?" she asked, attempting to speak
indifferently. "Have you got tired of them?"
"Why, Kitty, I thought you did not want to hear me any more," said
Nelly. "You sent for your slate; you know. Mrs. Caswell hears my
lessons now," she added. "I read and say an arithmetic and spelling
lesson to her every day,—the arithmetic one day and the spelling the
next. She says I am getting on nicely."
"I didn't know you knew Mrs. Caswell," said Kitty.
"I carry milk to her now. She saw my book, and asked me of her own
accord. Wasn't it nice?"
"She is a real good woman, I know. She taught little Harry Mercer a
great deal. Poor little fellow! He didn't live long enough to have it
do him much good."
"And he has been in heaven just about a year," said Nelly, musingly.
"Yes, just a year. Don't you remember, it was the first Sunday in the
month?"
"Yes; I remember it was Catechism-day, and Mr. Willson spoke about it."
"I stood at the gate and saw them carry out the coffin," continued
Nelly. "I thought it was dreadful for him to be buried in the cold and
dark ground and left all alone; and that night I was afraid to go to
bed, lest I should die too. I didn't know any thing about heaven then.
When I was tired of living as we did, I used to think about granny's
stories and try to make them seem real to me. But they never did,
hardly; and when I loft off thinking about them and came back, every
thing looked so poor and mean to me, I couldn't bear it. I got to hate
those stories; and yet they were about all the comfort I had."
"You are a great deal better off now than you were then," said Kitty.
"Yes, indeed, in all sorts of ways."
"I am sure you don't look like the same child," continued Kitty. "You
are a great deal better dressed. But that isn't all: you look so much
more cheerful and happy."
"Well, I am," said Nelly, with emphasis. "I have learned to earn money
and help support myself, and that is a great deal; and every one has
been very kind to me. I never could have learned to read and write, if
you had not helped me; and Miss Powell taught me so many things, and
Mr. Grayson has been so good about the house. And then," added Nelly,
in the reverent voice with which she always spoke of such subjects, "I
have learned so much about God and heaven, and about the Saviour dying
for us: that is the very best of all. And then to think that he will
let me go to heaven and see him and live with him forever,—just think,
Kitty,—to be happy and good, and all for ever and ever,—for ever and
ever!"
Nelly dwelt on the sound of the words as if she loved them.
"You must think you are very good, if you are so sure of going to
heaven," said Kitty, with a touch of the old sarcasm in her voice.
"No, indeed," returned Nelly: "Miss Powell told me better than that.
Oh, how I did try and try to be good, all by myself! And every day I
did something wrong; and I thought, 'I shall never go to heaven at
this rate.' So at last I told Miss Powell how I felt; and she told me
how God forgives us and helps us and takes us to heaven, not for what
we do, but for what his Son has done for us. You don't know how much
easier it has seemed to be good since then. It is just the difference
between doing things for a task, and doing them for some one who has
been good to you."
"I believe you are a real Christian," said Kitty, her better nature
getting the upper hand. "I wish I was! but I seem to grow worse every
day. But Nelly, I was real sorry I treated you so about your lessons,
and about the slate. I never should have sent for it, only Harry came
in while I was real angry about something, and I told him to go and get
it. You don't know how I felt when he brought it next day; and I would
have sent it back, only I was ashamed. Don't you want it now?"
"Mr. Grayson gave me one," replied Nelly; "and I don't need a slate as
much, because I do my sums in my head."
"Well, it has all turned out for the best," said Kitty, rising. "Of
course Mrs. Caswell can teach you better than I can; but that don't
make it any better for me."
"Don't think any more about it," said Nelly. "Every one is cross
sometimes; I am sure I am. But I am so glad we are him friends again!"
"Nelly is a real Christian," said Kitty, as she went home. "I wish I
was!"