"THE CHARLIE BOY."
Dotty heard of Charlie"s illness every day; but, like all young children, she thought very little about it. Some one said he was "as white as his pillow." Dotty was amazed, for she had never seen any one as white as that. Then she heard her grandmother say she was "afraid Charlie would die."
"Die?" It sounded to Dotty like a word heard in a dream. She only knew that people must die before they went to heaven, and when they died they were very, very cold.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DOTTY IN THE SWING.--Page 189.]
One night, when she went with the milk, Mrs. Gray was weeping. She asked Dotty if she would like to see little Charlie "once more."
Dotty entered the darkened room with a strange feeling of awe. There he lay, so still she hardly dared to breathe. Darling, darling Charlie!
But when she had touched the little hot hand and kissed the sweet wasted face, her heart grew lighter. What had made them think he was going to heaven? He did not look any more like an angel now than he had always looked. His face was not as white as the pillow; no, indeed; and he was not cold; his lips were warmer than hers.
"He used to have three chins once," whispered Dotty, "darling Charlie!"
"You love my little Charlie--don"t you, darling?" said Mrs. Gray; and then she clasped Dotty in her arms and sobbed over her; but Charlie did not seem to notice it.
"Yes, "m, I do love him," said Dotty; "Prudy says he"s the cunningest boy there is in this town."
And then she softly kissed Mrs. Gray"s cheek, though she had never kissed her before, and did not know why she was doing it now.
"When he gets well, won"t you let him come to our house and play croquet? We play it now with marbles, a teenty-tonty game, and the wickets are made of hairpins spread out wide."
Dotty spoke very low, and Charlie did not pay the least attention; but Mrs. Gray sobbed still more, and held Dotty closer in her arms, saying,--
"_Don"t_ talk so, dear!"
"How sorry you do feel to have him so sick! He won"t grow up, I s"pose, if he can"t play. When he stays in bed it makes him grow littler and littler! Why, how little his neck is! It looks like a dandelion stem!"
"Don"t, _don"t_, dear child! Every word you say strikes right to my heart!"
Dotty looked up in Mrs. Gray"s face with surprise. What had she said that was wrong? Perhaps she ought not to have talked about dandelions; she would not do it again.
"Dotty," said Mrs. Gray, looking sorrowfully towards the bed, "when fathers and mothers are not very wise, and do not know very well how to take proper care of their families, sometimes the Saviour calls their little children away."
Dotty knew what she meant now. She meant that Charlie was really going to heaven.
"O, Mrs. Gray," said she, "how Prudy and I will feel!" She would have said more, but was afraid she should make another mistake.
She kissed the unconscious little sufferer good by, though still it all seemed like a dream. Was this the same boy who had tried to wash the piggy? The same who had meal-bags tied to his feet?
"A long kiss is a heart-kiss," she repeated to herself; and somehow she wondered if Charlie couldn"t take it to heaven with him. Then she walked home all alone with her thoughts.
Next day they told her Charlie was dead. Dotty sat on the sofa for a long time without saying a word; then she went into the nursery, and staid by herself for an hour or two. When she returned she had her new doll in her arms, dressed in black. She wore a strip of black c.r.a.pe about her own neck, and had caught Flyaway long enough to put one upon her arm, as well as upon the k.n.o.bs of the nursery doors.
"Prudy," said she, "it is polite to do so when we lose people we love.
Charlie was my friend and Katie"s friend, and we shall treat him with the _respect_ of a friend."
"Yes," said Katie, skipping after a fly, "spec of a fend."
Dotty had never looked on death.
"You musn"t be frightened, little sister," said Prudy, as they walked hand in hand to Mrs. Gray"s, behind the rest of their own family, on the day of the funeral. "Charlie is just as cold as marble, lying in a casket; but _he_ doesn"t know it. The part of him that _knows_ is in a beautiful world where we can"t see him."
"Why can"t we see him?" said Dotty, peering anxiously into the sky.
"I don"t know exactly why," replied Prudy, "but Grandma Read says G.o.d doesn"t wish it. And He has put a seal over our eyes, so an angel could stand right before us, and we shouldn"t know it."
"Ah!" said Dotty in a low voice; and though she could see nothing, it seemed to her the air was full of angels.
"But I think likely Charlie can see us, Dotty, for the seal has been taken off his eyes. O, it is beautiful to be dead!"
After this Dotty was not at all afraid when she touched the cold face in the casket, for she knew Charlie was not there.
"It is beautiful to be dead!" said she next day to Katie. "Charlie is very glad of it."
"Yes, he"s in the ground-up,--in heaven!" said Katie in a dreamy way; for, in her small mind, she believed heaven was a place called "in the ground-up," and that was all she cared about it.
"Yes, Charlie is in the ground," replied Dotty, "but he doesn"t know it.
That dog Pincher was put in the ground; but I think likely _he_ knew it, for his soul wasn"t in heaven; and he hadn"t any soul, not a real one."
"Well," said Katie, dancing out at the door, "when will the Charlie boy come back? I want um play."
"Why, Katie," said Dotty, in a tone of reproof, "haven"t I told you he is all dead?"
"Well, YOU isn"t dead--IS you? Less us go an" swing!"
The little girls ran out to the trees, and soon forgot all about their old playmate. But, after this, whenever any one spoke of Charlie, Katie thought,--
"The Charlie boy"s in the ground-up,--in heaven," and Dotty thought,--
"O, it is beautiful to be dead!"
For the present, we will leave them swinging under the tree at Grandma Parlin"s; but if we see Miss Dimple again, she will have been spirited away to her own mother"s home in the city of Portland.