Christian fiction; Didactic fiction; Domestic fiction; England -- Juvenile fiction; Mothers and sons -- Juvenile fiction
It was the first time he had named his brother since his own illness.
"Why, child," Betty said tenderly, "Frank wants neither pence nor aught
you could buy with them. He has all he wants. He's quite safe and
happy."
"Yes, Fwank is dead," the boy said after a pause.
Betty was quite pleased to find that he remembered this.
"Yes, dear, he is. Dear little fellow, he is dead surely, so, you see,
he is in heaven now, and those who go there want nothing."
She talked to him for some time, and he seemed to listen, yet when she
ceased, he said again—
"Keep half the pence for Fwank. There's his message, you know."
This rather puzzled Betty, and Fred would say no more. So she told him
that she would lay by the pence carefully, and added—
"By-and-by, when you've saved enough, you shall buy a wooden cross to
put at the head of his grave."
"With the message," Fred put in.
"I don't know about a message, but that's all you can do for him, dear,
and it well becomes you to do it, for I think he gave his life for
yours."
How much or how little of this Fred understood, she could not tell. He
often sat thinking, thinking, with a sad and puzzled look, but he did
not speak of Frank again. Only when he brought his earnings, carefully
divided into two equal portions, he would say—
"Half for Fwank, Mrs. Betty."
After a while he found out, from something the doctor said, that Frank
lay in the old churchyard just beside the grave of little Charlie
Wentworth. There was a pretty headstone to the little Wentworth's
grave, and his poor mother kept it beautiful, with flowers growing
round it. Frank's grave was just a plain green mound. But thenceforth,
when Betty missed her charge, she was pretty sure to find him sitting
beside it. Being a wise old body, she did not interfere, only, after a
time, suggested to him to plant flowers on it like those on the other.
From that time Frank's resting-place was kept in the most beautiful
order. Betty could always spare a few plants for this purpose, and Fred
cut the grass with shears, and trimmed and tended it, until it was a
wonder for colour and smoothness.
After a time, the boy began to speak more frequently, and the doctor
put him to school, where he soon surprised the schoolmaster by his
quickness and ability. But he did not care to join the boys on the
green, unless they were playing cricket or football. In these, he soon
excelled, but for a mere game of romps he did not care at all.
Thus time went on until Fred Giles, as the neighbours called him, was
a fine handsome lad of thirteen, and the schoolmaster informed Dr.
Wentworth that it was a great pity he could have no further education.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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