CHAPTER VII

A LITTLE SOLDIER

"HUGH, dear lad, it is getting too chilly for you to do your lessons out of doors; besides, the breakfast bell has rung twice already."

"I know, mother, I heard it, but my sums were simply awful! I believe old Deans picked out the worst in the book."

Hugh spoke bitterly, and his mother's face took a troubled look.

It was a beautiful October morning, and Hugh, who had worked in vain at his lessons the night before, arose early and took up his position on the swing in the garden. This was his favourite place when he had any very tiresome problem to do. He was wont to say that the air cleared his brain and that the slight swaying movement helped with the "toughest" bit of work.

"How have you been getting on this morning?" asked his mother anxiously.

"I've got them right at last, I believe," he said exultantly; "that donkey Deans shall see for himself I can work without a key."

Despite the courage in Hugh's voice, the quick eyes of love could see the trouble on his brow. However, later on, Mrs. Rose started them off with her usual smile and bright good-bye.

"God will prosper the right, my boy," she said to Hugh in parting; "brave it out like a man; only a guilty conscience need fear to face the world."

Hugh, cheered by her words, felt somehow fully an inch taller. "Yes, he would brave it out, and show the whole school that he was not afraid," thought he.

Mr. Deans, with whom Hugh, despite his frequent acts of daring and mischief, was really a favourite, seemed remarkably pleased with his pupil's home lessons that morning.

"You've worked at your sums well, Rose," he said, whereat Hugh coloured with pleasure.

Reg was by no means gratified to see the three big R's scribbled across Hugh's arithmetic, and he puzzled his brains to think in what way he could annoy the cousin of whom he was so bitterly jealous.

"I say, old chap," said one of his classmates, when school was over, "tell us the secret of your getting those beastly sums right."

Reg standing by heard Hugh's laughing reply.

"You all thought yesterday it was because old Deans found that book in my desk, but you made a mistake," he said triumphantly; "it's our old swing in the garden that helps me. I sit there and think and think and the thing is done."

Light words were they and lightly spoken, but little did Hugh reck what would be the consequences of his speech.

Elsie felt very lonely while her brothers were at school, for Gwennie Rose, whom she would gladly have had for a companion, was busy with her governess all the morning, and in the afternoon when Mrs. Rose was not too much occupied with other matters, Elsie had her own little tasks to do.

Strange to say, between Elsie and her Aunt Mary a warm friendship gradually came about.

One morning it chanced that Elsie threw her ball accidentally into the next garden, and upon her asking in sweet childish fashion if she might come in and look for it, she won the heart of the stately-looking lady who heard her making her request to Rachel, Gwennie's nurse.

"Let her come in, Rachel," said Mrs. Wilfrid, and forthwith Elsie, who all her life had been accustomed to being petted, came fearlessly into the room where her aunt was sitting.

"And so you are little Elsie Rose!" said the lady graciously.

"Yes, and you are my Aunt Mary," answered the child, putting up her rosy lips for a kiss.

After a little pause Elsie said softly, "Shall I tell you somefing what Frank said 'bout you?"

"Which is Frank?" questioned her aunt.

"He's my brother what lended you the 'brella."

"Yes, dear, if you like," said Mrs. Wilfrid with languid interest.

"Frank said you was beautiful, like a picksher, and I think so too."

A sudden rush of tears came into Mrs. Wilfrid's eyes. Since the death of her husband, whom she had dearly loved, such sweet incense of praise had been a thing unknown, and coming as it did from baby lips, the sincerity of it was undoubted.

Elsie chatted away for a little while, and then she said quaintly, "I must go home now and help mother, 'cause she's very, very busy."

Mrs. Wilfrid laughed, and after making the little one promise to come again she bade her good-bye.

Nearly every morning after this, even if only for a few minutes, Elsie would trot in to see "Aunt Mary," who grew to look for her coming with interest.

"They won't let me fight in the Wars of the Roses," she said one day in her pretty baby fashion, "and I'm ra'ver glad, after all, 'cause I love you very much."

"You are too little for a soldier, Elsie," said Mrs. Wilfrid in an amused tone.

"Yes, I 'spect I am. Mother says it is very wrong to quarrel and fight, and that we must try to love one another."

"Your mother is quite right, little one," answered her aunt gently.

At this moment a visitor called, and little Elsie was bidden to go upstairs and talk to Rachel, who was busy at needlework.

"Rachel," she said, after they had chatted on various subjects, "did you know my three brothers were soldiers."

"No, little missie, I never heard tell of it before," replied Rachel.

"Yes, they are, their army is called the Wars of the Roses, 'cause, you see, Hugh made Frank and Ronald promise to fight—"

"Then, dearie, if I may make so bold," interrupted nurse, "Master Hugh is old enough to know better."

"Is wars very wicked?" questioned Elsie eagerly.

"There's one battle we must all fight, lassie," said the old nurse, speaking half to herself and half to the child.

"No, I can't, 'cause I'm too little—Hugh says so."

"No one is too little, my dear, to be a soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ."

"What does that mean?" questioned Elsie, with wide-opened eyes. She had often heard from her mother's lips of Him who is the friend of little children, but the idea of being Christ's little soldier was an entirely new one.

"It means," said Rachel reverently, in answer to the child's question, "that we all must fight in the battle against sin, under our great Captain."

Much of this was unintelligible to Elsie, but grasping as much as her childish mind could understand, she said thoughtfully, "I should like to be His soldier. Are you 'quite' sure I'm big enough."

"Yes, my dear, there's only one way of enlisting in His army; you must ask Him on your knees to make you His faithful soldier unto your life's end."

"A faithful soldier!" repeated Elsie. "I'll ask Him to-night when I say my prayers. Good-bye, nurse—my cat's got two kittens," she added as a sudden thought struck her, "I must go in now and give pussy her milk."

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