"Do you make it good?" said Mme. Auguste.
"It isn"t like yours, Mrs. August," said Nettie, smiling.
"If you will come and live with me next summer, I will teach you how to do some things; and you shall not look so blue neither. Have you had your supper?"
"No, and I am just going home to get supper. I must go, Mrs. August."
"You come in here," said the Frenchwoman; "you are my prisoner. I am all alone, and I want somebody for company. You take off your cloak, Nettie, and I shall give you something to keep the wind out. You do what I bid you!"
Nettie felt too cold and weak to make any ado about complying, unless duty had forbade; and she thought there was time enough yet. She let her cloak drop, and took off her hood. The little back room to which Mme.
Auguste had brought her was only a trifle bigger than the bit of a shop; but it was as cozy as it was little. A tiny stove warmed it, and kept warm, too, a tiny iron pot and tea-kettle which were steaming away. The bed was at one end, draped nicely with red curtains; there was a little looking-gla.s.s, and some prints in frames round the walls; there was Madame"s little table covered with a purple cloth, and with her work and a small clock and various pretty things on it. Mme. Auguste had gone to a cupboard in the wall, and taken out a couple of plates and little bowls, which she set on a little round stand; and then lifting the cover of the pot on the stove, she ladled out a bowlful of what was in it, and gave it to Nettie with one of her own nice crisp rolls.
"Eat that!" she said. "I shan"t let you go home till you have swallowed that to keep the cold out. It makes me all freeze to look at you."
So she filled her own bowl, and made good play with her spoon, while between spoonfuls she looked at Nettie; and the good little woman smiled in her heart to see how easy it was for Nettie to obey her. The savoury, simple, comforting broth she had set before her was the best thing to the child"s delicate stomach that she had tasted for many a day.
"Is it good?" said the Frenchwoman when Nettie"s bowl was half empty.
"It"s so good!" said Nettie. "I didn"t know I was so hungry."
"Now you will not feel the cold so," said the Frenchwoman, "and you will go back quicker. Do you like my _riz-au-gras_?"
"_What_ is it, ma"am?" said Nettie.
The Frenchwoman laughed, and made Nettie say it over till she could p.r.o.nounce the words. "Now you like it," she said; "that is a French dish. Do you think Mrs. Mat"ieson would like it?"
"I am sure she would!" said Nettie. "But I don"t know how to make it."
"You shall come here and I will teach it to you. And now you shall carry a little home to your mother and ask her if she will do the honour to a French dish to approve it. It do not cost anything. I cannot sell much bread the winters; I live on what cost me nothing."
While saying this, Mme. Auguste had filled a little pail with the _riz-au-gras_, and put a couple of her rolls along with it. "It must have the French bread," she said; and she gave it to Nettie, who looked quite cheered up, and very grateful.
"You are a good little girl!" she said. "How keep you always your face looking so happy? There is always one little streak of sunshine here"--drawing her finger across above Nettie"s eyebrows--"and another here,"--and her finger pa.s.sed over the line of Nettie"s lips.
"That"s because I _am_ happy, Mrs. August."
"_Always?_"
"Yes, always."
"What makes you so happy always? you was just the same in the cold winter out there, as when you was eating my _riz-au-gras_. Now me, I am cross in the cold, and not happy."
But the Frenchwoman saw a deeper light come into Nettie"s eyes as she answered, "It is because I love the Lord Jesus, Mrs. August, and he makes me happy."
"_You?_" said Madame. "My child!--What do you say, Nettie? I think not I have heard you right."
"Yes, Mrs. August, I am happy because I love the Lord Jesus. I know he loves me, and he will take me to be with him."
"Not just yet," said the Frenchwoman, "I hope! Well, I wish I was so happy as you, Nettie. Good-bye!"
Nettie ran home, more comforted by her good supper, and more thankful to the goodness of G.o.d in giving it, and happy in the feeling of his goodness than can be told. And very, very glad she was of that little tin pail in her hand she knew her mother needed. Mrs. Mathieson had time to eat the rice broth before her husband came in.
"She said she would show me how to make it," said Nettie, "and it don"t cost anything."
"Why, it"s just rice and--_what_ is it? I don"t see," said Mrs.
Mathieson. "It isn"t rice and milk."
Nettie laughed at her mother. "Mrs. August didn"t tell. She called it reeso---- I forget what she called it!"
"It"s the best thing I ever saw," said Mrs. Mathieson. "There--put the pail away. Your father"s coming."
He was in a terrible humour, as they expected; and Nettie and her mother had a sad evening of it. And the same sort of thing lasted for several days. Mrs. Mathieson hoped that perhaps Mr. Lumber would take into his head to seek lodgings somewhere else; or at least that Mathieson would have been shamed into paying Jackson"s bill; but neither thing happened.
Mr. Lumber found his quarters too comfortable; and Mr. Mathieson spent too much of his earnings on drink to find the amount necessary to clear off the scores at the grocer"s shop.
From that time, as they could run up no new account, the family were obliged to live on what they could immediately pay for. That was seldom a sufficient supply; and so, in dread of the storms that came whenever their wants touched Mr. Mathieson"s own comfort, Nettie and her mother denied themselves constantly what they very much needed. The old can sometimes bear this better than the young. Nettie grew more delicate, more thin, and more feeble, every day. It troubled her mother sadly. Mr.
Mathieson could not be made to see it. Indeed he was little at home except when he was eating.
CHAPTER V.
THE NEW BLANKET.
Nettie had been in Barry"s room one evening, putting it to rights; through the busy day it had somehow been neglected. Mrs. Mathieson"s heart was so heavy that her work dragged; and when Nettie came out and sat down to her Sunday-school lesson, her mother kept watching her for a long time with a dull, listless face, quite still and idle. The child"s face was busy over her Bible, and Mrs. Mathieson did not disturb her, till Nettie lifted her head to glance at the clock. Then the bitterness of her mother"s heart broke out.
"He"s a ruined man!" she exclaimed, in her despair. "He"s a ruined man!
he"s taking to drinking more and more. It"s all over with him--and with us."
"No, mother," said Nettie, gently,--"I hope not. There"s better times coming, mother. G.o.d _never_ forsakes those that trust in him. He has promised to hear prayer; and I have prayed to him, and I feel sure he will save us."
Mrs. Mathieson was weeping bitterly.
"So don"t you cry, mother. Trust! "Only believe"--don"t you remember Jesus said that? Just believe him, mother. I do."
And proving how true she spoke--how steadfast and firm was the faith she professed, with that, as Nettie got up to put away her books, her lips burst forth into song; and never more clear nor more sweet than she sung then, sounded the wild sweet notes that belong to the words--favourites with her. There was no doubt in her voice at all.
"Great spoils I shall win, from death, h.e.l.l, and sin, "Midst outward afflictions shall feel Christ within; And when I"m to die, Receive me, I"ll cry; For Jesus hath loved me, I cannot tell why."
Mrs. Mathieson sobbed at first; but there came a great quietness over her; and as the clear beautiful strain came to an end, she rose up, threw her ap.r.o.n over her face, and knelt quietly down by the side of her bed; putting her face in her hands. Nettie stood and looked at her; then turned and went up the stair to her own praying-place; feeling in her heart as if instead of two weary feet she had had "wings as angels,"
to mount up literally. She knew that part of her prayer was getting its answer. She knew by the manner of her mother, that it was in no bitterness and despair but in the humbleness of a bowed heart that she had knelt down; and Nettie"s slow little feet kept company with a most bounding spirit. She went to bed and covered herself up, not to sleep, but because it was too cold to be in the garret a moment uncovered; and lay there broad awake, "making melody in her heart to the Lord."
It was very cold up in Nettie"s garret now; the winter had moved on into the latter part of December, and the frosts were very keen; and the winter winds seem to come in at one end of the attic and to just sweep through to the other, bringing all except the snow with them. Even the snow often drifted in through the cracks of the rough wainscot board, or under the shutter, and lay in little white streaks or heaps on the floor, and never melted. To-night there was no wind, and Nettie had left her shutter open that she might see the stars as she lay in bed. It did not make much difference in the feeling of the place, for it was about as cold inside as out; and the stars were great friends of Nettie.
To-night she lay and watched them, blinking down at her through her garret window with their quiet eyes; they were always silent witnesses to her of the beauty and purity of heaven, and reminders too of that eye that never sleeps and that hand that planted and upholds all. How bright they looked down to-night! It was very cold, and lying awake made Nettie colder; she shivered sometimes under all her coverings; still she lay looking at the stars in that square patch of sky that her shutter opening gave her to see, and thinking of the golden city. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and G.o.d shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." "There shall be no more curse; but the throne of G.o.d and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him."
"His servants shall serve him"--thought Nettie; "and mother will be there,--and father will be there, and Barry,--and I shall be there! and then I shall be happy. And I am happy now. "Blessed be the Lord, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me!""--And if that verse went through Nettie"s head once, it did fifty times. So did this one, which the quiet stars seemed to repeat and whisper to her, "The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants, and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate." And though now and then a shiver pa.s.sed over Nettie"s shoulders, with the cold, she was ready to sing for very gladness and fulness of heart.
But lying awake and shivering did not do Nettie"s little body any good; she looked so very white the next day, that it caught even Mr.