"Granny, please tell me more about my father," pleaded a little voice in
the gathering darkness.
"Ah, child, it hurts me to talk of him. The sea has been his bed, I
doubt not, this many a long day."
"But you were telling me how blithe and brave he was, and what merry
songs he sang. What made him go to sea?"
"All lads think they can do well on the water. They tire of the fields
and the plough. But your father was no fool to think a sailor's life an
easy one. He did not go until your mother died, and then he was not
brave enough to bear sorrow as we poor women have to do."
The child asked no more, but knit away at the stocking her grandmother
had set up for her.
Presently the old woman said, with a shiver: "It's growing cold; there's
snow in the air. Put some more sticks on, Peggy."
The child arose and made a pretense of adding to the fire, for there was
no more wood, and she had not the heart to say so. Then taking off a
little shawl from her shoulders, she put it about those of her granny.
But the old woman had that keenness of perception which is so often a
merciful compensation to the blind.
"Child," she said, "you are robbing yourself. The warmth of your own
little heart is in this shawl. Is there no more wood?"
"No more, Granny."
"And the flour, does it hold yet, Peggy?"
"It is all gone, Granny; but there's oat-cake enough for the breakfast,
and we've a nice sup of porridge on the fire."
"Let us eat it then, and be thankful," said the old woman, solemnly.
The child divided her portion with the cat, and then, with what seemed
like careless indifference to the grandmother began to play about the
room with her pet.
"Peggy, Peggy, how can you be so light-hearted when we have no food for
the morrow?"
Peggy stopped playing, and began to look grave. Suddenly her face
lighted up, and she clapped her hands.
"To-morrow is dole-day. Granny; don't you remember? They give out the
loaves at church, and your turn began last week."
"Sure enough, yes. To think that I should have lived to be one of the
oldest people of the parish, as well as one of the poorest! Ah me!--I
who began life so well!"
"And you shall end it well, too. I can do something."
"You remind me much of your father, lassie. You're a brave little woman.
God forgive me for despairing!" Then they went to bed as the easiest way
to keep warm.
The Sunday was late in dawning. Daylight came slowly, and the weather
was cold and windy and cheerless. The old woman wondered to hear her
child singing hymns in a high clear voice that had no rhythm of hunger.
But Peggy, like the boy who "whistled for want of thought," was singing
to keep up her courage. She was hungry, and wished it was afternoon,
that they might have their nice loaf of white bread from the church.
Then she began to wonder what she should do when the loaf was gone. How
would the old cat taste if they killed her for broth? "Oh, what an awful
thought!" and then she hugged and kissed her old pussy, and whispered in
her ear that she was sorry she had no breakfast for her, and she must
hunt for a mouse.
But the day wore on. They went to church, and, after the second service
they staid with the other old people to whom the bread was due, and
received, besides, several yards of good warm flannel.
Peggy was now in haste to be home. She did not envy the nicely dressed
little children in the church-yard, for she was proud to have her dear
old Granny lean upon her, and tell her all about the Bruces, from whom
the dole of bread had come, and how their family motto was "Think and
Thank." Granny said it meant consideration for the poor, and gratitude
for everything. But as they neared their cottage, Granny stopped and
listened.
"What is it, Granny?"
"I hear a strange step, child."
As she spoke, a man with a big bunch of bananas over his shoulder, and a
silk handkerchief in which were golden oranges, stopped at their very
door-step.
"Oh, dear Granny, it is a strange man," said Peggy, giving her loaf a
little tighter hug.
"We must ask him in to supper, Peggy," said Granny, firmly.
"But, Granny, we've so little," said the child, "I am ashamed."
"Never be that, Peggy, unless you have done wrong. What does the man
look like?"
"A traveller; he's brown and funny-looking."
"For the sake of my son, we must be kind to all that sort; but perhaps
he can tell me about Tom."
At that moment the man spoke: "Can you give me a night's lodging,
madam?"
Granny stood for a moment as if she had become a statue--fixed,
immovable. Then with a cry she rushed at the man, and put her trembling
fingers on his head and face and hands. Then she fell sobbing on his
shoulder, for Tom had come back, her dear son Tom, whom she had so long
supposed to be drowned.
And then came a long tale of suffering and shipwreck and privation.
Granny in her turn had to tell how she had lost her sight. And then Tom
kissed Peggy, whom he had left as a baby, and promised never again to
leave her.
Ah, it was a happy time--and how Peggy did enjoy the oranges!--great
juicy globes of nectar.
After that there was no more hunger. The cottage looked like a little
bower, with its blooming plants, its warm curtains, and its cheerful
blaze on the hearth. Peggy had white bread enough and to spare. Her
father brought her home a canary and a parrot; the latter she taught to
say "Think and Thank," and every time she remembered her thought of
making broth of old pussy, she gave her an extra bowl of milk thick
with cream.
* * * * *
It may not be generally known that the custom of a weekly dole of bread
is still observed in Trinity parish, New York. Sixty-seven loaves of
bread are given to the poor every Saturday at St. John's Chapel. A
bequest for this purpose was made thirty years ago by John Leake, Esq.
"GOOD-BY, WINTER."