Children -- Religious life -- Juvenile fiction; Christian life -- Juvenile fiction; Tableaux -- Juvenile fiction
of hills, over which now and then a cloud shadow was softly moving, and
which finished in a dim blue horizon.
"Well, are you going to sit here?" said the Captain, "or will you help
me to hunt up my fishes?"
"O I'll sit here," said Daisy. She did not believe much in the success
of the Captain's hunt.
"Won't you be afraid, while I am going all over creation?"
"Of what?" said Daisy.
The Captain laughed a little and went off; thinking however not so much
of his trilobites as of the sweet fearless look the little face had
given him. Uneasy about the child too, for Daisy's face looked not as he
liked to see it look. But where got she that steady calm, and curious
fearlessness. "She is a timid child," thought the Captain as he climbed
over the rocks; "or she was, the other night."
But the Captain and Daisy were looking with different eyes; no wonder
they did not find the same things. In all that sunlit glow over hill and
valley, which warmed every tree-top, Daisy had seen only another
light,--the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. With that love round her,
over her, how could she fear anything. She sat a little while resting
and thinking; then being weary and feeling weak, she slipped down on the
ground, and like Jacob taking a stone for her pillow, she went to sleep.
So the Captain found her, every time he came back from his hunt to look
after his charge; he let her sleep, and went off again. He had a
troublesome hunt. At last he found some traces of what he sought; then
he forgot Daisy in his eagerness, and it was after a good long interval
the last time that he came to Daisy's side again. She was awake.
"What have you got?" she said as he came up with his hands full.
"I have got my fish."
"Have you! O where is it?"
"How do you do?" said the Captain sitting down beside her.
"I do very well. Where is the fish? You have got nothing but stones
there, Capt. Drummond?"
The Captain without speaking displayed one of the stones he had in his
hand. It looked very curious. Upon a smooth flat surface, where the
stone had been split, there was a raised part which had the appearance
of some sort of animal; but this too seemed to be stone, and was black
and shining, though its parts were distinct.
"What is that, Capt. Drummond? It is a stone."
"It is a fish."
"_That_?"
"That."
"But you are laughing."
"Am I?" said the Captain, as grave as a senator. "It's a fish for all
that."
"This curious black thing?"
"Precisely."
[Illustration]
"What sort of a fish?"
"Daisy, have you had any luncheon?"
"No, sir."
"Then you had better discuss that subject first. Soldiers cannot get
along without their rations, you'll find."
"What is that?" said Daisy.
"Rations?"
"Yes, sir."
"Daily bread, Daisy. Of one sort or another as the case may be. Where is
that basket?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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