CHAPTER VIII

"I WAS MADE RICH TO HELP THE POOR"

MR. O'FLAGHERTY did not miss the children till the light began to fade. He was quite wrapped up in his picture, and when he whistled to them, he expected that they would be close at hand.

"Dear me!" he ejaculated. "What a fellow I am for losing sight of time; we ought to have started for home an hour ago! Now where can those imps have gone!"

He tramped through the wood and down to the river. There he found the little pile of washed plates and cups. But there was no sign or sound of the children, and Mr. O'Flagherty began to lose his patience. He packed up the cart, harnessed the pony, then shouted till he was hoarse, and said to himself that he would never take two children on a painting expedition again. Finally, having faith in his small son being able to extricate himself from any scrape into which he might have fallen, he pulled out his pipe, made up the fire afresh, and lay down beside it, determining to give them an hour's grace.

The sun went down and darkness came on, and still Mr. O'Flagherty lay under the pines and waited. Sleep overtook him eventually; the fire flickered fitfully before dying out; and the silence in the pine woods was only disturbed by the restless movements of the mare, who could not understand why she was not allowed to go home and find comfort and rest in her warm stable.

Then suddenly through the pines came the thud of small feet and a shrill cry:

"Dad, dad! Where are you?"

In an instant Mr. O'Flagherty was on his feet.

"Here! You spirit of mischief!" he called, and the next moment Dawn was in his arms. "Oh, I thought you'd gone home and left us! Tina is waiting in the cart with a tipsy man and his little girl, and we've had such glorious adventures!"

"And what will Tina's people say to me, you shameless scamp, for keeping her out at this hour! Lead the way, while I follow with the trap. And keep your adventures till we're home. I'd rather not hear them now!"

They reached the high road, and there was the hawker's cart and Christina and Susy sitting hand in hand upon the seat, whilst Susy's father was crouched in the bottom of it.

It did not take long to move Christina, but she would not come till she had taken an affectionate leave of her new friend, and when she was tucked up by Mr. O'Flagherty's side, she called out:

"Good-bye, Susy, and mind you come to our village soon."

Mr. O'Flagherty tossed Susy half a crown, and then whipping up his horse they drove off, and for quite ten minutes both Dawn and Christina were silent, waiting for the scolding that they felt was their due.

It did not come, and at last in a very small voice Dawn said:

"Dad dear, we'd love to tell you our adventures."

"Go ahead then," said his father shortly.

So Dawn began and related truthfully their experiences up to the time when he went to inquire at the cottage about the best way across the river.

"There was only a stupid old woman, but she told us the bridge was a mile off, back on the road we'd left by the signpost, so we had to go all back again, and Tina was very tired, and the bridge never came in sight, and at last I told Tina we must try and get across the river by wading and swimming, and while we were talking, a gentleman drove by in a motor and I called out, and he said he'd take us in. Tina was awfully frightened; she said she had never been in a motor; but it was scrumptious! We flew along, only when we came to the bridge the gentleman was going the other way, not over it, so he put us out."

"And," broke in Christina, "fancy! The other side of the bridge we found Susy. She was driving so slowly because her pony was tired, and she said she would come back with us to the woods. It was very good of her, for she's so hungry and has had no dinner, and has to wait till she gets to a town to get it. I do hope I shall see her again. Dawn told her she was a gipsy, but she said she wasn't. I do like a little girl to talk to, I only have boys."

"They're a jolly sight better than girls," began Dawn indignantly; but his father shut him up.

"It's lucky I brought lamps," he said, "for we're quite benighted. This will be our last outing, Jack-in-the-box! And it's high time you were at school!"

"But I shan't go till after Christmas," chuckled Dawn.

Christina, muffled up in a heavy plaid, began to feel sleepy. Visions of Susy and her drunken father flitted through her brain, and when Bracken Towers was reached she murmured plaintively:

"Oh, don't hit Susy, she's too little, and you're too big!"

Her stepmother received her in the hall, and did not seem disturbed by the lateness of the hour. She had only just returned from a long drive herself, and when Mr. O'Flagherty offered his apologies, she laughed.

"It's all right. It won't hurt the child a mild day like this. When you left word that you would be back at four, I thought it might be six. Your nationality is not famous for accuracy!"

"We can't be fettered," said Mr. O'Flagherty gaily; "but on this scamp of mine rests the blame!"

Father and son drove off. Christina tired but happy climbed the nursery stairs, and confided to Miss Loder the history of her day. But she felt that her governess did not approve of Susy.

"She wasn't a dirty child," said Christina, in her defence. "And she is so clever. She drove her cart so carefully, and she loves her father so; and she says her mother told her to be good to him and keep him from drinking too much beer. And she doesn't mind if he beats her; she's the bravest girl I've ever heard of!"

Christina thought a great deal of Susy the next few days, and when she went to tea with Miss Bertha on Sunday afternoon she talked it all over with her. Taking tea with Miss Bertha had become an institution on Sunday. Miss Loder liked a rest from her small charge; Mrs. Maclahan was quite willing, and Miss Bertha used it as her opportunity to guide small footsteps heavenwards. Dawn and Puggy were often there too; but this Sunday Christina had Miss Bertha to herself, and she was not sorry; for her old problem was puzzling her, and she wanted Miss Bertha's sympathy and help.

"Miss Bertha, I keep thinking that I might have been born Susy!"

"Well, Childie, if you had?"

"I could never, never have done it!" Christina exclaimed, with tightly-clenched hands. "Fancy to-night if I knew my father was coming home to beat me! Oh, Miss Bertha, I should run away from him, I should be so frightened; and Susy loves him, and her arms are black and blue! He has hit her with a poker, and his whip, and even thrown his tin kettle at her. Why, Miss Bertha, she's braver than Joan of Arc! And supposing I had been born her, what should I do!"

A little shiver ran through her.

"If you had been born Susy, you would still have had God as your loving Father," said Miss Bertha. "Does little Susy know about God, do you think?"

"She doesn't know much, for she told me she'd been to Sunday school once, only Saturday and Sunday were the worst days for her father to drink, and so she likes to stay with him."

"Poor little girl, has she no relations or friends?"

"I don't think so. Miss Bertha, if she comes in our village could you, would you ask her to tea? In the kitchen I mean, like you do some of the village children. And will you tell me why God makes some little girls like Susy!"

"Yes, I will certainly have her to tea. I think, Childie, those kind of little girls are meant to be helped by their richer sisters. You have never known what it is to be hungry or cold, and I expect you will never know it; but you can help the little friendless tramps and beggars. That is why God makes rich and poor. If we were all rich, we should have no opportunity to be unselfish and sympathetic and self-denying; if we were all poor, we could not help each other so well."

"I should like to help Susy."

Christina's eyes glowed at the thought.

"What could I do for her?" she added eagerly. "Could I buy her anything? I have some money."

"Let us wait till she appears, then we will see what she wants most. Would you like to knit her a small shawl?"

Christina's face fell. She knew how to knit, but she did not like it, and since Nurse had left, her knitting had been put aside.

"Would she like a shawl?"

"I think she might if she drives in an open cart, or a thick woollen scarf!"

"Yes, I might do that. It wouldn't take so long, and then it would be ready when she came if I started it at once."

Christina looked more cheerful, then she said:

"I s'pose I was made rich to help the poor?"

"Most certainly you were."

"And I've never done it!"

The little girl's eyes were big with wondering thought.

"I got a whole sovereign from father last week. He asked if I had any pocket money, and when I said 'No,' he said he would give that to me to start with. Miss Loder said it was too much. I was going to buy some real china tea things for our den in the turret tower, but I dare say God expected me to help others with it, and that's why he let father give it to me. Could we spend it all on Susy, Miss Bertha? And do you think that one day you would take me into the town and let me spend it in the shops for her?"

"We might spend some of it," said Miss Bertha brightly. "There are several old people in the village, Childie, who are very poor indeed. I have sometimes wondered if you were getting big enough to think about them. They have worked for your family all their lives, and if you sometimes took them a little present—some flowers or fruit or a little tea and sugar—they would be so pleased, and it would be such a pleasure to you."

"Nurse would never let me go into the cottages."

"But Nurse has gone now, and I think your mother will have no objection."

"Mother doesn't mind what I do."

"You see," Miss Bertha went on, "when our Saviour came into the world, He was always kind and good to the poor. He wants us to be like Him."

Christina nodded.

"I'll begin to-morrow. I shall love it. I'll take them all something in turn."

Then after a moment's silence she said sorrowfully.

"God must be very disappointed with me."

"No, I don't think so, darling. It has never been explained to you, and as it is, it is a difficult subject. Little children have to be taught not to give too much, that is as bad as too little, but what I should like you to feel is that the rich and poor are meant to be real friends, and they can both help and teach each other."

"I'm sure Susy could teach me a lot of things," said Christina thoughtfully; "she knows how to cook and mend her father's shirts, she told me so."

"And perhaps you could teach her about God's love to her, and how the Lord Jesus Christ has died for her."

"Don't you think she knows about that?" Christina asked in an awed whisper.

"I dare say she may never have understood it properly."

"Oh, I do hope I shall see her again! You know the village people, Miss Bertha; will you tell them to stop her when she comes driving along, and keep her till I come and see her."

Miss Bertha promised, and Christina left her that afternoon full of new thoughts and projects for the good of the little stranger she had met so casually.

Dawn's departure to London was the next excitement; he came over to say good-bye in his usual good spirits.

"You'll see me with the spring," he assured every one. "Dad pants to be out of London when that comes, and as for me, I get the fidgets in school awful when the buds are coming out. It's in my blood, dad says!"

"Your dad is spoiling you," said Mr. Maclahan, who heard this speech. "You'll stick at nothing as you grow older, if you don't stick to lessons now."

Then Dawn's wonderful eyes became most pathetic.

"My mother died young," he said softly. "Dad says it was the lessons did it. He saw her teaching in a school when he was teaching drawing. She was born to be happy, dad says; he knew it when he looked into her eyes. But she was like a 'flower in the shade,' that's how dad says it; so he took her away to make her happy, and he did it for a year; but it was too late. She'd been worked too hard at lessons; and then God took her to make her happier still. And when she looked at me just before she left me, do you know what she said to dad? 'Keep him in the sunshine, darling; his mother has had too little of it!'"

There was absolute silence when Dawn finished speaking. Mrs. Maclahan had been pouring out tea, for Christina and Dawn were having tea in the drawing-room as a treat. She made a great clatter with the cups and saucers, a sign that she did not wish to speak, and Mr. Maclahan caught up Christina on his knee.

"Here is a little lassie who wants sunshine," he said playfully. "I wish she carried as much upon her face as you do, my boy!"

"I'm Irish and she's Scotch," said Dawn with a superior air. "Dad says the Scotch conscience is a terrible thing for making faces long!"

Mrs. Maclahan began to laugh.

"You and your father are a funny couple," she said. "I don't know what he will make of you by and by."

Dawn went, and Christina missed him intensely. But Miss Loder kept her busy at lessons, and when the play hours dragged, would tell her some of the wonderful stories she concocted out of her brain.

And then one day, just before the Christmas holidays, Susy appeared on the scene.

Christina was curled up on her nursery window seat with a story book. It was nearly four o'clock, and darkness was setting in. Miss Loder was out of the room, and Connie entered rather breathlessly.

"If you please, Miss Christina, there's a little girl at the back door a-keeping asking for you. We've drove her away times without number and she will keep comin' back. She says you told of her to come, and she sells tin kettles and such like, one of them pedlar folk, I should say!"

[Illustration: "I bought it at the fair."]

"It's Susy!"

Christina flung down her book and dashed out of the room. Down the back stairs she tore, through the kitchen and out to the yard door. She was so eager, so delighted, that she threw her arms round Susy and kissed and hugged her.

"Oh, I've been waiting for you years!" she exclaimed. "Come up to the schoolroom with me. Come at once."

She dragged the not unwilling Susy upstairs as fast as she had gone down them, and made her sit in Miss Loder's easy chair by the fire.

"Now tell me all you've been doing. Are you still driving your cart, and is your father still half asleep? Oh, I've thought of you so much, and I've got such a lot of things to give you!"

Susy looked a little dazed and uncomfortable. She was even cleaner in appearance than when Christina had first seen her. Her face shone with the amount of soap with which she had scrubbed it; she had on a red plaid frock which was patched at the elbows with blue serge, and a white coarse apron was tied round her waist. Instead of a handkerchief round her head, she wore a black straw hat trimmed with a faded pink rose and a long rusty black feather, which sadly needed curling, and when she saw Christina's eyes rest on this bit of finery she drew her head up with regal pride.

"I bought it at the fair; my dad giv' me 'arfcrown. I got it to come and see you."

"It's very grand," said Christina admiringly, "and I think you look so nice, Susy. Oh, I do hope Miss Loder will ask you to stay to tea!"

Susy's eyes sparkled. She looked round her with interest.

"Where's the boy?" she asked. "Him what wanted you to swim the river. Ain't he with you?"

"No, he doesn't belong to me. He's in London with his father. Are you in our village, Susy? Where do you live now?"

"The fac's is this. Our Tom—the old pony you seed—has got a bad knee, an' he can't go no further, an' dad an' me is puttin' up in the public. We sleeps in the loft, an' pays sixpence a night. We come las' night; but I've had to watch dad, he were so on the booze. Howsumever, he be off to-day round about the village sellin', so I comes off here. My! What a silly lot o' women you have downstairs! They wouldn't b'lieve you an' me was chums!"

Christina was hastily opening her toy cupboard.

"I've been making a collection, Susy. Look! Here's a picture, it isn't in a frame; but I love it and I thought you'd like to hang it up somewhere. It's Jesus on His mother's knee on a donkey; they're going away because of the wicked king who wanted to kill Him. Do you know about it?"

Susy shook her head.

"I know He was a baby once in a cowshed," she said. "They learned me that at Sunday school."

She took the picture, then added confidentially:

"I has a box at the bottom of our cart which is all mine; dad don't know about it. I keeps things to make a 'ome with one day; mother began it, an' I goes on the same. I'll put the pictur' there. I has a bit o' curtain, an' a carpet, an' a chiny dog to put over the mantelshelf, an' a brass candlestick. When dad an' me has made a lot o' money, we'll set up a little 'ouse with a kitchen an' proper oving, an' I'll have cupboards an' drawers, an' won't have no old boxes any more. I makes it up all to myself when I be waitin' for dad."

"I forgot you hadn't got a house," said Christina ruefully; then she produced more of her treasures.

"Here is a pincushion, and a little shoe with a thimble in it, and a lovely bit of green ribbon and two big shells, and a scrapbook and a ring puzzle, and a little china house and a book of fairy stories, and a doll's tea set; and here is a woollen scarf that I've knitted for you. Do you like them, Susy."

Susy's beaming face was sufficient answer.

"I'll tie them all up in my apron, an' thank you kindly. The scarf be bootiful, and 'twill pass the time to look at 'em all an' handle 'em!"

"And, Susy, Miss Bertha wants to see you. She lives in a tiny little cottage like a doll's house, and I love her best in all the world! Will you go and see her? You'll like her so much."

The door opened at this juncture, and Mrs. Maclahan walked in.

"I want to speak to Miss Loder—why, who on earth is this, Tina?"

"It's Susy, the little girl who drove me and Dawn and is so good to her father," explained Christina rather nervously.

It was not very often that her stepmother came to the nursery, and when she did, Christina always held her breath in expectation of what was coming. But since Miss Loder's arrival, Mrs. Maclahan had not had so much to say to her small stepdaughter.

"Is she one of the village children? Oh—ah—I remember, some tramps you met. Does Miss Loder know of this?"

"No," said Christina with scarlet cheeks; "I asked Susy to come and see me, and she came to the back door, and—and so I brought her up here."

Mrs. Maclahan laughed at her confusion and nodded her head. "You're gettin' on, Tina! Feeling your feet at last. But I don't admire this class of friend for you. Ah, here is Miss Loder. Now, we will hear what she thinks of it!"

But when Miss Loder entered, Susy fled; she dashed along the passage into the arms of a maid bringing the schoolroom tea.

"Here, young woman, let me get out o' this. Where is the door? I never did see such a place for passages and doors never, an' I wouldn't a come if I'd knowed she lived with such grand folk!"

Poor Christina witnessed Susy's flight with great disappointment. She was not scolded; for Miss Loder knew by this time how sensitive her little pupil was, but it was represented to her that though she might visit Susy in her home, Susy must never visit her in hers.

"But," pleaded the child sorrowfully, "Susy has no home, she only lives in a cart; and Miss Bertha told me that the rich and poor could be friends, so why can't Susy and me be friends?"

"If it is fine to-morrow, you can run over to Miss Bertha and ask her to befriend this little girl. If she is honest and respectable, Miss Bertha will help her, but she mustn't come here. Your mother doesn't like it."

So Christina had to comfort herself by the thought of Miss Bertha, and went to bed that night praying that God would give Susy a pretty home very soon, and let it be, if possible, in Hatherbrook village.