“Well, Deary,” came in a quick voice from the shed, and her mother appeared in the shed doorway with the dish of boiled potatoes she held in her hand when Nettie’s voice reached her. “Mother, will you ask Judith to stop and see my lilies the next time she goes past?” “Your lilies, child?” “Yes, my own lilies, there by the well. They came and grew just for me.” Mrs. Evans gave a glance toward the well, then hastened to set the potato dish on the dinner table. “Of all things! And how she has wanted to see lilies grow! The blessed child is watched over and done for as her father and I can’t do. I declare,” in a shame-faced way, all to herself, “when such things happen I wish I was a Christian.” “Mother, mother,” called the happy voice again; “I want Joe to see my lilies too.” “Yes, Deary,” promised her mother from within the shed. X. THE LAST APPLE. “God loves not only a cheerful giver, but a cheerful worker as well.” —Fletcher Reade. That afternoon as Nettie was slowly rousing herself from her afternoon nap in her chair, she heard a low, joyful exclamation under her windows. “Oh, lovely. Mrs. Evans, it’s like—a poem.” Then a light flashed over the pale face, and Nettie lifted herself forward to look, and to speak. “O, Judith, I wanted you to see them. You do love pretty things so.” Judith came through the shed, and up the narrow rag-carpeted stairs to the open door of Nettie’s chamber. “I wish you would write a poem for me.” Nettie Evans was Judith’s “public,” and a most enthusiastic one; the young author looked very grave one day when Nettie told her that she liked her poems better than the ones she read to her from the Longfellow book. “I have brought a poem for you; no one has seen it yet; I’ve copied it to send to my Cousin Don; you know he’s in Switzerland, climbing mountains, and having splendid times. It happened one Thanksgiving—I was here in the country, you remember, with my mother. I saw one rosy apple left on the top of a tree, and I felt so sorry for it. One day I thought of it again, and I wrote this.” Judith drew her chair close to Nettie’s and took the folded sheet of note paper from her pocket. “Oh, I wish I could make poems and sew carpet rags,” moaned Nettie. Judith dared not say she wished she might, she dared not pity her, or look at her; she unfolded her poem and began to read:— THE LAST APPLE. I am a rosy-cheeked apple, Left all alone on the tree, And in the cold wind I am sighing, ‘Oh, what will become of me.’ Nettie nodded approval, and the poet read modestly on:— They’ve picked my sisters and cousins, But I was too little to see; Now, they will be eaten at Christmas, But nothing will happen to me. The beets are pulled, and the parsnips Are cosily left in the ground— When the farmer counts up his produce, No record of me will be found.