Aunt Jo's scrap-bag, Volume 4 : $b My girls, etc.Alcott, Louisa May
General
Aunt Jo's scrap-bag, Volume 4 : $b My girls, etc.
Alcott, Louisa May
Children's stories
She found them in a small, poor room, hot and close, and full of
wash-tubs and flat-irons. The mother was busy at her work, and Betty
sat by the one window, listlessly picking out ruffles.
When she saw the face at the door, she jumped up and clapped her hands,
crying, delightedly, "O mammy, it's my lady; my dear, pretty lady truly
come at last!"
Such a welcome made friends of the three at once, and Mrs. Simms gladly
undertook the work Helen offered.
"And how are the posies?" asked the young lady, as she rose to go.
"Only leaves now, miss; but I take real good care of 'em, and mammy
says they will blow again next spring," answered Betty, showing her
poor little garden, which consisted of the hyacinth, tulip, and one
stout dandelion, blooming bravely in an old teapot.
"That will be a long time to wait, won't it?"
"Yes'm; but I go and take peeks at them flowers in the shop, and once
the man gave me a pink that hadn't no stem. Maybe he will again, and
so I'll get along," said Betty, softly touching her cheerful dandelion
as if it were a friend.
"I wish you would come and see my garden, little Betty. You should
pick as many flowers as you liked, and play there all day long. I
suppose your mother couldn't spare you for a visit, could she?"
Betty's face shone at the blissful thought, then the smile faded, and
she shook her head, saying, steadily, "No, miss, I guess she couldn't,
for she gets so tired, I like to help her by carrying home the clothes.
Some day, maybe, I can come."
Something in the patient little face touched Helen, and made her feel
as if she had been too busy thinking of her own burden to help others
bear theirs. She longed to do something, but did not know how till
Mrs. Simms showed her the way, by saying, as she stroked the frizzly
little head that leaned against her,--
"Betty thinks a heap of flowers, and 'pears to git lots of comfort out
of 'em. She's a good child, and some day we are going to see the
country, soon as ever we can afford it."
"Meantime the country must come to you," said Helen, with a happy
thought shining in her face. "If you are willing, I will make a nice
little plan with Betty, so she can have a posy all the time. I shall
come in town twice a week to take my German lessons, and if Betty will
be at the corner of the Park, by the deer, every Wednesday and Saturday
morning at ten o'clock, I'll have a nice nosegay for her."
If she had proposed to present the child with all the sweeties in
Copeland's delightful shop, it would not have given greater joy. Betty
could only dance a jig of rapture among the wash-tubs, and Mrs. Simms
thank Helen with tears in her eyes.
"Ain't she just like a good fairy, mammy?" said Betty, settling down in
an empty clothes-basket to brood over the joyful prospects.
"No, honey, she's an angel," answered mammy, folding her tired hands
for a moment's rest, when her guest had gone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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