hymns and Sunday things t"day, would you?"
"Oh, no," said Betty, interested. "I like it. It sounds so kind of safe, and as if G.o.d cared. I never thought much about it before. You think G.o.d really thinks about us and knows what we"re doing then, don"t you?"
"Why, sure, child. I don"t just think, I _know_ He does. Hadn"t you never got onto that? Why, you poor little ducky, you! O" course He does."
"I"d like to feel sure that He was looking out for me," breathed Betty wistfully.
"Well, you can!" said Ma, hurrying back to see that her bacon didn"t burn. "It"s easy as rollin" off a log."
"What would I have to do?"
"Why, just b"lieve."
"Believe?" asked Betty utterly puzzled. "Believe what?"
"Why, believe that He"ll do it. He said "Come unto me, an" I will give you rest," an" He said, "Cast your burden on the Lord," an" He said "Castin" all yer care "pon Him, fer He careth fer you," an" a whole lot more such things, an" you just got to take it fer straight, an" act on it."
"But how could I?" asked Betty.
"Just run right up to your room now, while you"re feelin" that way, an"
kneel down by your bed an" tell Him what you just told me," said Mrs.
Carson, stirring the fried potatoes with her knife to keep them from burning. "It won"t take you long, an" I"ll tend the coffee. Just you tell Him you want Him to take care of you, an" you"ll believe what I told you He said. It"s all in the Bible, an" you can read it for yourself, but I wouldn"t take the time now. Just run along an" speak it out with Him, and, then come down to breakfast."
Betty was standing by the kitchen door, her hand on her heart, as if about to do some great wonderful thing that frightened her:
"But, Mrs. Carson, suppose, maybe, He might not be pleased with me.
Suppose I"ve done something that He doesn"t like, something that makes Him ashamed of me."
"Oh, why, didn"t you know He fixed for all that when He sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world? We all do wrong things, an" everybody has sinned. But ef we"re rightly sorry, He"ll fergive us, and make us His children."
Betty suddenly sat down in a chair near the door:
"But, Mrs. Carson, I"m not sure I _am_ sorry--at least I know I"m _not_.
I"m afraid I"d do it all over again if I got in the same situation."
Mrs. Carson stood back from the stove and surveyed her thoughtfully a moment:
"Well, then, like"s not it wasn"t wrong at all, and if it wasn"t He ain"t displeased. You can bank on that. You better go talk it out to Him. Just get it off your mind. I"ll hold up breakfast a minute while you roll it on Him and depend on it he"ll show you in plenty of time for the next move."
Betty with her cheeks very red and her eyes shining went up to her little cot, and with locked door knelt and tried to talk to G.o.d for the first time in her life. It seemed queer to her, but when she arose and hurried back to her duties she had a sense of having a real Friend who knew all about her and could look after things a great deal better than she could.
That night she went with Bob and Emily to the young people"s meeting and heard them talk about Christ familiarly as if they knew Him. It was all strange and new and wonderful to Betty, and she sat listening and wondering. The old question of whether she was pleasing her earthly father was merging itself into the desire to please her Heavenly Father.
There were of course many hard and unpleasant things about her new life.
There were so many things to learn, and she was so awkward at work of all kinds! Her hands seemed so small and inadequate when she tried to wring clothes or scrub a dirty step. Then, too, her young charge, Elise Hathaway, was spoiled and hard to please, and she was daily tried by the necessity of inventing ways of discipline for the poor little neglected girl which yet would not bring down a protest from her even more undisciplined mother. If she had been independent she would not have remained with Mrs. Hathaway, for sometimes the child was unbearable in her naughty tantrums, and it took all her nerve and strength to control her. She would come back to the little gray house too weary even to smile, and the keen eye of Ma would look at her wisely and wonder if something ought not to be done about it.
Betty felt that she must keep this place, of course, because it was necessary for her to be able to pay some board. She could not be beholden to the Carsons. And they had been so kind, and were teaching her so many things, that it seemed the best and safest place she could be in. So the days settled down into weeks, and a pleasant life grew up about her, so different from the old one that more and more the hallucination was with her that she had become another creature, and the old life had gone out forever.
Of course as striking-looking a girl as Betty could not enter into the life of a little town even as humbly as through the Carson home, without causing some comment and speculation. People began to notice her. The church ladies looked after her and remarked on her hair, her complexion, and her graceful carriage, and some shook their heads and said they should think Mrs. Hathaway would want to know a little more about her before she put her only child in her entire charge; and they told weird stories about girls they had known or heard of.
Down at the fire-house, which was the real clearing-house of Tinsdale for all the gossip that came along and went the rounds, they took up the matter in full session several evenings in succession. Some of the younger members made crude remarks about Betty"s looks, and some of the older ones allowed that she was entirely too pretty to be without a history. They took great liberties with their surmises. The only two, the youngest of them all, who might have defended her, had been unconsciously snubbed by her when they tried to be what Bobbie called "fresh" with her, and so she was at their mercy. But if she had known it she probably would have been little disturbed. They seemed so far removed from her two worlds, so utterly apart from herself. It would not have occurred to her that they could do her any harm.
One night the fire-house gang had all a.s.sembled save one, a little shrimp of a good-for-nothing, nearly hairless, toothless, cunning-eyed, and given to drink when he could lay lips on any. He had a wide loose mouth with a tendency to droop crookedly, and his hands were always clammy and limp. He ordinarily sat tilted back against the wall to the right of the engine, sucking an old clay pipe. He had a way of often turning the conversation to imply some deep mystery known only to himself behind the life of almost any one discussed. He often added choice embellishments to whatever tale went forth as authentic to go the rounds of the village, and he acted the part of a collector of themes and details for the evening conversations.
His name was Abijah Gage.
"Bi not come yet?" asked the fire chief settling a straw comfortably between his teeth and looking around on the group. "Must be somepin"
doin". Don"t know when Bi"s been away."
"He went up to town this mornin" early," volunteered Dunc Withers.
"Reckon he was thirsty. Guess he"ll be back on the evenin" train. That"s her comin" in now."
"Bars all closed in the city," chuckled the chief. "Won"t get much comfort there."
"You bet Bi knows some place to get it. He won"t come home thirsty, that"s sure."
"I donno, they say the lid"s down pretty tight."
"Aw, shucks!" sneered Dunc. "Bet I could get all I wanted."
Just then the door opened and Abijah Gage walked in, with a toothless grin all around.
"h.e.l.lo, Bi, get tanked up, did yeh?" greeted the chief.
"Well, naow, an" ef I did, what"s that to you?" responded Bi, slapping the chief"s broad shoulder with a folded newspaper he carried. "You don"t "spose I"m goin" to tell, an" get my frien"s in trouble?"
"Le"s see yer paper, Bi," said Dunc, s.n.a.t.c.hing at it as Bi pa.s.sed to his regular seat.
Bi surrendered his paper with the air of one granting a high favor and sank to his chair and his pipe.
"How"s crops in the city?" asked Hank Fielder, and Bi"s tale was set a-going. Bi could talk; that was one thing that always made him welcome.
Dunc was deep in the paper. Presently he turned it over:
"Whew!" he said speculatively. "If that don"t look like that little lollypop over to Carson"s I"ll eat my hat! What"s her name?"
They all drew around the paper and leaned over Dunc"s shoulder squinting at the picture, all but Bi, who was lighting his pipe:
"They"re as like as two peas!" said one.
"It sure must be her sister!" declared another.
"Don"t see no resemblance "tall," declared the chief, flinging back to his comfortable chair. "She"s got short hair, an she"s only a kid. This one"s growed up!"
"She might a cut her hair," suggested one.
Bi p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, narrowed his cunning eyes, and slouched over to the paper, looking at the picture keenly:
"Read it out, Dunc!" he commanded.