Sometimes they talked about other things, telling her of the
mission-band, though, as it was something so outside of her experience,
she could, with all their explanation, hardly form any idea of it. She
took more interest in descriptions of the country, the green fields,
shady woods, and pretty gardens. She was very fond of flowers, and
during the early summer her friends kept the poor room quite bright with
them. An old lady living near Mrs. Ashford, and having an unusually
large yard for the city, had a great many flowers, and hearing of
Marty's sick friend in Landis Court, told her whenever she was going
over there to come and get some flowers for Jennie. This delighted both
little girls extremely.
One day when they were all with Jennie, she picked up one of her cards
that had on it a picture of a shepherd leading his flock and carrying a
lamb in his arms. She wanted to know what it meant, and what a shepherd
was, and what sheep were. After it had been explained, she said,
"'Shepherd' makes me think of a hymn they used to sing in the
Sunday-school down in the Harbor."
"Did you ever go to Sunday-school?" asked Marty.
"I went a little while when we lived down in the Harbor. My teacher had
a lovely velvet cloak trimmed with fur."
"Didn't she tell you about the Good Shepherd?" Edith inquired.
"No. She didn't seem to know about any kind of shepherd. Leastways she
never let on that she did. But they used to sing beautiful hymns, and
one was about a shepherd."
"Was it 'Saviour, like a shepherd lead us'?" asked Marty.
"That was the very one!" exclaimed Jennie in delight. "How did you know
that was it?"
"I thought it might be."
"Would you like to have us sing it now?" Miss Alice inquired.
"Oh, yes, indeed!"
So they sang it, Jennie joining in whenever they came to the words,
"Blessed Jesus," which, besides the first line, was all she knew.
"Is blessed Jesus a shepherd?" she asked.
"He is the Good Shepherd," replied Edith.
"Where's his sheep?"
"All who believe on Him are his sheep, for the Bible says, 'My sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.'"
Miss Alice saw that Jennie did not altogether understand Edith, so in a
few simple words she explained that Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, speaks
of himself as the Good Shepherd, and calls us to follow him. Then taking
up the picture again she repeated what she had said about shepherds and
their flocks, and also went over some of the hymn they had been singing,
until Jennie began to get into her little muddled brain quite a clear
idea of Jesus, our Shepherd.
"Where is your Bible? I will show you the chapter about the Good
Shepherd."
"I ha'n't got one. Mother has one, but I guess it's locked up in that
little black trunk. It's a purple one with clasps that somebody gave her
long ago, and she always had to keep it hid for fear papa'd sell it for
whiskey."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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