Chapter XIII: Sitting on a Plank

MINNIE and Maud were highly indignant at the treatment Margerie had received from their grandmother. "I wonder you didn't bring her away there and then, mother," the former said.

"Would either of you have been willing to take her place?" asked Mrs. Grace suggestively.

"Grandma doesn't deserve to have any of us," said Maud. "I should just leave her to muddle on by herself."

"If none of us were allowed more help and comfort than we deserve, we should sometimes come off badly," her mother observed. "That isn't the way God treats us, and we are to try and be like Him in all things. I believe our little Margerie will do grandma real good, the more so because of the misunderstanding which has just been cleared away."

"I don't see that the poor little thing ought to be made a sacrifice of, even for grandma's good," objected Maud, who was, however, not unselfish enough to offer herself as a substitute.

"The worst is over now, I'm sure," said Mrs. Grace. "I saw grandma looking at her with eyes full of love. Who could help loving Margie? And I asked the child privately whether I should take her home, and she said quite earnestly, 'Let me stay a little while longer. I'm getting to sweep just lovely. And I don't think grandma will be so cross again.' Bless her heart! You'll see they'll get quite fond of one another yet."

"Do you 'like' grandma?" asked Minnie abruptly.

"I cannot help feeling very sorry for her," was the reply. "I am sure she has had many years of unhappiness."

"But it was all her own fault," said Maud.

"Chiefly, perhaps. And she is so much the more to be pitied. No trouble is so hard to bear as that brought upon us by our own sins or errors, because there is the additional sting of feeling that it 'need' not so have been."

"If the way she served Margie is a specimen of her treatment of her own sons," said Minnie, "I don't wonder at that youngest one running away. And yet how lonely she must have been all these years! One dead, and one lost, and the other estranged. It is only natural that father should be glad to have found her out again, and made it up, for her own sake."

"He was remarking only yesterday," observed Mrs. Grace, "how plainly one can see the working of a merciful Providence in this affair. When we came to Briar Cottage six months ago, we had no idea that grandma was living in this part of London—she used to reside miles away from here, but she removed shortly after her last serious disagreement with your father, and he quite lost sight of her. To think we should have been led to choose our new abode within so short a distance of her."

"Father seems quite cheered up by this reconciliation, doesn't he?" said Minnie.

"Yes. I feel sure it has done him a great deal of good. It is what he has been longing and praying for these many years. And it has given him such encouragement to hope that the trouble about his health and future employment may turn out as blessedly in the end."

"But he is getting stronger now, isn't he, mother?"

"Thank God, yes!" said Mrs. Grace fervently. "He is more like himself than he has been yet since the accident. Our worst fear now is that he will be lame for life, and only able to move about with the help of a crutch. And such a disability would be almost certainly fatal to his obtaining any kind of situation—no one would care to employ a cripple. Nay, don't look so utterly woeful, children," she concluded, with a cheery smile. "I am only saying how it appears to human view. God may see something grandly different. And however it may be, it 'must' be for the best."

True to the promise made to poor Ned, Mrs. Grace took time the next morning to look out some of Jamie's old clothes, repair them, and where needful cut them down to what she roughly guessed would be nearer the size required by the smaller boy. Busy as she always was, she spent several hours willingly and even lovingly over this work, for the lad's neglected appearance had appealed to her tenderest compassion. But the clothes were never worn.

At breakfast-time that day, Mrs. Grace had said to Margerie: "You can cut off a slice—a round if you like, for your poor boy. I daresay he will be looking out for it."

"Oh, thank you, grandma!" cried Margerie, all aglow with pleasure. "How thick? As thick as that?"

For in consequence of the powerlessness of the old lady's left arm, Margerie was obliged to cut the bread-and-butter, standing the loaf for safety's sake on its side, and sawing.

Grandma, however, didn't mention butter, and Margerie was afraid to ask.

Sure enough, there was Ned's towsly black head peeping furtively round the pillar of the gate. She caught sight of it as she was putting on her hat and coat for school.

Delighting in the fact that concealment was at an end, and she might do everything openly, Margerie danced down the path, waving her satchel in one hand and the inch-and-a-half thick round of bread in the other.

"Ned, Ned!" she cried, quite excitedly. "This is from 'grandma!' She 'gave' it to me on purpose for you. Just think of that!"

"It's all your doing," said Ned, inserting his white teeth in the slice, as usual, without delay. "Where should I have been last night without you?"

"And mother," supplemented Margie. "Isn't mother 'sweet?' You are going to my house to get some nicer clothes to-day, aren't you?"

Ned nodded as he took a fresh bite. He was not a gushing youth by any means, but his gratitude and appreciation may not have been any the less for that.

"I'm so glad you told," said Margerie. "Grandma is quite kind and nice this morning. Aren't you glad yourself, Ned, that you spoke the truth?"

The waif was sitting on the end of a pile of planks, munching with an air of great satisfaction and swinging one bare foot. Margerie had sat herself beside him, for she was early that morning. It was not enough for her great little heart to dispense charity, she must give herself, in artless friendliness, in frank-spirited sympathy, to sweeten and enrich the dole.

A stranger passing was attracted first to notice the pair by the contrast which they presented. Then his gaze wandered from the boy's grotesquely ragged attire to his face, and rested there with keenest scrutiny. He walked on however, but after traversing about twenty paces turned and gazed at them again, earnestly and long.

"I never thought she'd let me off like that," said Ned. "I made sure I was done for."

"Do you know, Ned," confessed Margerie, after a pause, and twisting the handles of her bag beneath shy, downcast eyes, "I think I ought to tell you. I 'did' pray to God so about you yesterday, and asked Him not to let grandma send you to prison."

"You did?" queried Ned, looking considerably impressed.

"Yes, ever so many times."

"And you think He heard you, and that's why—"

"Of course it was," broke in Margerie, with a conviction of certainty that admitted of no debate. "He always 'hears' us, you know. And whenever He can—I don't mean that exactly, because God can do everything—but—but whenever it won't hurt us, or not be not so good for us any way, He does just what we ask. Like He did for me, about grandma and you. Isn't it kind?"

Again Ned nodded, but his deep eyes were full of thought.

"You'll look nice when I see you again, Ned," said Margerie at parting. "You'll have got your new things on. Perhaps grandma will give me something for you this evening. Anyhow, you look on the window-ledge like you always do; 'I' won't forget."

Neither did she; though, grandma not having understood about the supper arrangement, her provision once more came out of her own private share. But for the first time the carefully folded parcel lay untouched; it was still there when Margerie got up in the morning. And to her real disappointment, no Ned was waiting for her, in the glory of new apparel, by the wood-yard wall.

She concluded that her mother must have given him so much that he did not need her offering, or sent him to someone else. But, in truth, the folks at Briar Cottage were as much perplexed as herself; for although a neat suit was waiting for him, no Ned had appeared.