CHARLIE'S RAFT
FAITH lost all feeling of shyness in her desire to help this sick
woman. She came up to the bedside, and looked at her with her eyes full
of pity.
"I'm Faith Blair. We've only just come to live in a cottage here. Can I
get you a drink of water?"
The woman pointed to a jug on a shell.
"There's a drop o' cold tea there. I'm never to get up no more, the
doctor's told me. He's going to try to get me in the 'Firmary, an' I
will not go. My Jim has had to join up, but I promised him I'd keep the
van till he comes back, and I want Dan back. He must put the horse in
and we must be off!"
She spoke breathlessly. Her cheeks were sunken and she was so thin that
all her bones showed through her skin.
Faith got the jug of tea, and poured it out into a cup. She gave it to
the woman, who drank it eagerly, then sank back on her pillow as if she
were quite exhausted. Then as Faith watched her, the tears came to her
eyes, and rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away with the corner
of the sheet.
"Nobody to care for me!" she muttered. "My Jim is away, and when he
comes home, I'll be lyin' under the earth like a dog!"
"Oh, but you'll be in heaven," said Faith eagerly; "that will be only
your body, and may I just tell you what old Timothy has told me? You
needn't be alone or unhappy, for the Comforter will come and stay with
you. He is God, you know, and He loves unhappy people. He dries their
tears and comforts them. Would you like Him to come to you now? He
lives in our world, nowhere else and nobody wipes tears away like Him,
Timothy said so."
The woman looked at Faith's eager little face. "I used to hear about
them things. I weren't born in a van. I lived proper with my father
and mother in a small farm, and Jim used to mend our pots and pans.
Oh, he were a handsome boy! An' we was wild to marry, so we just stole
off, and I've never been home since. I used to go to Sunday school and
church!"
"And have you got a father and mother?" asked Faith.
"No, they've both died."
"Then you're like us; our father and mother died, but we live with
Granny. Oh, don't cry! You're beginning again. Do have the Comforter.
Timothy says you ask Him to come, and He comes——do ask Him!"
The woman shook her head.
"I haven't said my prayers for years, but I'm scared to die, an' the
doctor says both my lungs is gone; you say a little prayer, dearie. It
won't do no harm, and p'raps God will be merciful."
So Faith knelt down. She was so much in earnest that all shyness had
left her.
"Please, Lord Jesus, will you tell the Comforter to come here quick,
for He's wanted. Timothy says You promised to send Him to everybody
when You went away. And please let Him comfort this poor sick woman,
for Jesus' sake. Amen."
It was only a child's prayer, but it reached Heaven as all such prayers
do, and a look of relief and peace crept over the woman's face.
"A prayer said over one always does good," she murmured; and then they
heard little Dan clambering up into the van with milk.
She drank it eagerly, and told the boy to put the horse in the van, and
drive on as fast as he could.
"I won't be taken into the 'Firmary," she muttered.
So Faith wished her good-bye, and slipped down, and went home.
Charity and Hope were in the garden. She told her story to them.
Charity was very interested.
"What was the van like inside? Oh, I wish I had been there! How did you
dare to do it? They might have driven off with you, and we should never
have heard of you again."
"I should like to have gone," said Faith. "The poor woman had no little
girl to do anything for her. The inside wasn't nearly as nice as the
outside, it was stuffy and untidy, and not very clean. There seemed no
room for anything."
"Here's Granny. Let's tell her about it."
Granny was coming to the cottage door to get a breath of fresh air, but
when she heard Faith's story, she did not look very pleased.
"You ought not to have gone in, Faith. She might have been ill of an
infectious fever. I don't like it at all. You must never do such a
thing again! You are getting too independent."
Faith hung her head.
"What did she say to you?"
Faith told as much as she remembered; but she was shy of telling
anybody about her little prayer or of what she herself had said to the
woman, and Granny said:
"It was your spirit of curiosity which led you there; and if the woman
hadn't been very ill, she might have been very angry at your going in,
when you had not been asked to do so. You must never do such a thing
again—promise me. Has the van gone away?"
Faith nodded.
"I saw Dan get the horse and fasten it in. They had a grey donkey, too.
It followed the van all by itself. They were just moving away before
I came into our lane. I'm sorry, Granny, I won't go in again, but I
expect I shall never see another van."
"You may see several," said Granny. "I hear there is a common near here
where they always encamp, and I won't have any of you go near them."
"Do gipsies steal children now?" asked Hope.
"They wouldn't steal any of you," said Granny with a little laugh; "you
are not worth the risk!"
She went indoors again, and Charity said a little indignantly:
"Granny thinks nothing at all of us, but they might steal us, and make
us their servants."
"Wouldn't it be fun?" said Hope with gleaming eyes. "And we would eat
rabbits in a pot over a bonfire, and live in the fields always. Oh, I
wish our home was a van!"
"I like this cottage better," said Faith gravely; "that woman looked
most uncomfortable, and her bed was all in a muddle!"
Faith heard no more of Dan and his mother, but she did not forget them,
and every night prayed for the sick woman.
Lady Melville was as good as her word. She came to see Granny, and Aunt
Alice went over to the neighbouring town to see this governess who
might help them.
Every day got warmer and longer. The children soon became friends with
the neighbours round. The rector had no family. He was an old man, and
his wife was very rheumatic, so was confined to the house a great deal,
but the doctor, who lived at the other end of the village, had a little
boy who was very delicate, and one day Hope and Faith met him in the
village shop buying sweets.
Hope made friends with him by telling him which sweets she thought were
the nicest. He was a slim little boy, with brown hair and pale face,
and when he come out of the shop, he said:
"My name is Charlie Evans. What's yours? I saw you all in church last
Sunday. I don't always come to church. I have headaches."
He said it with an air of pride. Faith looked at him pityingly.
"And don't you go to school?"
"No. I do lessons with mother, and she hates them, and so do I."
"And so do I!" said Faith eagerly. "But we shall have to begin them
soon."
"Come and see my rabbits," Charlie said.
The little girls hesitated.
"We won't come to-day, till we ask Granny," said Hope; "but we'll come
to-morrow, if she'll let us. Faith went to see some gipsies the other
day and she didn't like it."
Charlie turned to Faith.
"Did you? What were they like? Dad told mother he was going to get a
sick gipsy out of her van into hospital. She had nobody to look after
her, but she went off before he could move her. Gipsies hate being
taken care of!"
"Yes," said Faith; "that was the woman I saw. I'm so sorry she went
away so quick! She seemed so ill, and so alone."
"I wish you were boys," said Charlie, looking at them with
dissatisfaction. "I do want boys to play with so much. Do you know
Lionel and Fairfax at the Hall?"
"No," said Hope. "I expect we shall know them, when they come home for
the holidays."
"They won't think anything of you," said Charlie rather rudely; "they
won't even let me play cricket with them, because I can't run fast
enough."
"P'raps we can run faster than you?" Hope said.
Charlie looked gloomily at her, then he brightened up.
"I've got a lovely raft I made all myself on a stream under the
willows," he said; "sometimes I go out on it all day to escape Indians."
Hope and Faith pressed nearer him.
"If Granny says we may play with you, will you let us play that?"
"It isn't play," said Charlie with sparkling eyes; "it's a real hard
work. I take cargo with me—live cargo!"
Then he walked off and waved his cap in the air.
"If you want to join Captain Charles on his voyage to the Treasure
Islands, you'll have to sign on before next Wednesday. The voyage
begins on Thursday. That's the first day of my Easter holidays, and
Mother and I mean to have three weeks' holidays if Father agrees, and
the voyage will last three weeks."
Hope and Faith ran home in the greatest excitement. When Charity heard
of the raft, she was determined to know Charlie as soon as possible.
And when Aunt Alice heard of it, she said to Granny:
"Mrs. Evans told us of her delicate boy when she called the other day;
there is no harm in the children playing together."
So when a little note came from Mrs. Evans, asking the three little
girls to lunch on the next Wednesday, they were allowed to go, and went
off to the doctor's house in high spirits.
Charlie welcomed them warmly. He took them to his schoolroom and showed
them some silkworms and guinea pigs.
"Are these your live cargo?" asked Hope.
He looked at her sharply.
"I have a good deal more than these. Are you going to sign on?"
"I am," cried Hope delightedly.
Faith echoed her words, but Charity demurred.
"Look here," she said; "I always like fair play. One man doesn't want
three servants."
"Crew," said Charlie; "you'll be the crew."
"Yes, I know," said Charity, her nose rather high in the air, "and if
the Captain chooses, he can flog his crew and put them in irons. I've
read all about it, and if they mutiny, what then?"
"They'll have to walk the plank," said Charlie, loftily.
"Oh, what fun!" exclaimed Hope.
"Well, you can do it," said Charity, "but I'm not going to do it; so I
shall just be the Captain's wife."
Her audacity struck the three other children dumb.
"Then the wife stops at home," said Charlie, when he had recovered
himself.
He had a weak body but a strong spirit.
"A Captain never takes his wife to sea, never!" he said.
"Oh, yes," said Charity, "when he finds her on a desert island and
marries her, he brings her to his ship and they sail on together. You
found me on the island. Don't you remember? You went to sleep, and when
you woke up and you saw a strange shoe, it was too small for any man so
you knew it was a woman's, and then you took it in your hand and went
along to look, and suddenly you came upon me sitting in a bower with a
crown of flowers in my hair, and I told you I had been shipwrecked, and
I was Queen of the Island, and if you dared hurt me, I had an army of
monkeys who would come down from the trees and kill you. And then we
settled together to get married, and you took me away in your ship the
next day."
Hope and Faith hung on Charity's words with open mouths and eyes.
Charlie set his lips firmly together.
"I don't remember anything about it," he said. "I shall want three to
make the crew. One is the cook, the other the one who rows, and the
other who cleans and does the dirty work."
Charity set her lips tightly too.
"I'm not going to do what I am told by a boy no taller than myself,"
she said. "I'm your wife, and I'll promise to be the cook too. But
I must be the wife first, and you and I must consult together about
everything! And if you won't make me your wife, I'll turn into an
alligator and upset the raft, and pull you all into the water. I really
will, I know how to do it."
Charlie looked at her with an uncertain eye. But they were called to
dinner, before anything could be settled, and as Charlie sat opposite
to Charity, he was weighing in his mind the desirability of making her
his wife. Hope and Faith looked easy to manage, but he did not want
mutiny on his raft, nor did he want it upset, for he thought of his
live cargo.
After dinner, they went back to the schoolroom, for the signing on must
be accomplished.
"I'll join you as your wife, and it will be ripping," said Charity.
"I've lived on a desert island, so I know how to turn my hand to
anything; but I won't be one of your crew. I should mutiny the first
five minutes, and remember we would be three against one. And I'm sure
I could tie your legs together, and arms too, if I were to try; and you
would be just a bundle to be sat on, while we went on and had the most
thrilling adventures!"
Charlie felt the modern woman too much for him.
"All right," he said; "but if you're my wife, and contradict my orders,
I'll land you on the first island we come to, and leave you there. Now,
you two crew, sign on. Your names will be Bolt and Ben."
Hope and Faith signed their names on a crumpled bit of paper which set
forth that for the whole of the voyage they obeyed the Captain in every
particular, and stuck to the raft through every danger. Charity looked
on with smiling superiority. But Charlie produced another piece of
paper for her.
"A wife has nothing to sign," she said.
"Oh, yes," said Charlie, in a masterful tone: "A wife always signs in a
church book after she is married, to make sure she means what she says
when she promises to obey her husband and to serve him."
Charity pouted.
"I did that when we were married on the island."
"No, you didn't, for there was no proper church or prayer-book or
clergyman," said Charlie quickly, "and you'll have to do it now, and
then we shall be quite ready for to-morrow. And my ship sails punctual
at eleven o'clock—all aboard by half-past ten."
"Oh, sign, Charity! It will be fun!" cried Hope.
And very reluctantly Charity read and signed the following declaration:
"I promise to obey and serve my husband for the whole of the voyage and
until death us do part."
But before her signature, she added the words:
"If I think well."
And as Charlie did not see what she had written till after it was done,
he was after all worsted by the woman.
Then they all went out into the garden, and down to the stream where
the raft was moored.
It was quite big enough to hold them all, and the stream was just wide
enough to let it go floating along without touching the banks. Charlie
told them that the stream turned into a river, a mile or two along the
fields.
"And then the river goes into the sea; so there's nothing between us
and the real ocean, and we can go on for ever."
"Till we reach the Treasure," said Hope, "I hope we shall reach
something, Charlie!"
Charlie nodded mysteriously.
The little girls went home in high spirits.
Granny looked slightly alarmed when she heard of what they intended to
do, but Charity relieved her mind.
"The stream is so narrow, Granny, that we could step off the raft on
the bank, any minute we wanted to, and oh, it will be such fun!"
Granny remembered the pranks of the boys in olden times, when she had
so many of them in her house, and smiled.
"It is good to be young," she said.
"And the poor boy is prevented from a great deal of pleasure," said
Aunt Alice; "Mrs. Horn was telling me about him. He will never make a
strong man, they say."
"He has got a very strong spirit," said Hope; "or is it his soul that
is strong and makes him like ordering girls about?"
"What's the difference between a spirit and a soul?" asked Faith.
"Oh, children, let us get away from such discussions," said Aunt Alice
laughing; "they are too difficult for us altogether."
The little girls said no more, but they anxiously looked forward to the
next day. Suppose it should rain?
Faith was snubbed when she suggested such a thing.
And when the day dawned it was a sunny Spring day.
There were no happier little girls in the world than Charity, Hope and
Faith, as they started for the Doctor's house. Aunt Alice gave them a
package of egg sandwiches, and some thick slices of bread and jam.
"Go and enjoy yourselves," she said, "but I expect you all back by six
o'clock in the evening."
"And by that time," said Faith thoughtfully; "we shall have been a
long sea voyage and back, and perhaps we shall come home laden with
treasures!"
"Anything may happen," said Charity with fervour, "the very best, or
the very worst!"
And so they marched away to meet their adventures.