Family life -- Juvenile fiction; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile fiction
"Jesus, I think it is hotter that me, and Maurice, and Toby should go
to France while we have a little money left. Please, Jesus, if there is
a man called Jography, will you help us to find him to-day, please?"
Then she paused, and added slowly, being prompted by her new and great
love, "But it must be just as you like, Jesus." After this prayer,
Cecile resolved to wait in all day, for if there was a man called
Jography, he would be sure to knock at the door during the day, and
come in and say to Cecile that Jesus had sent him, and that he was
ready to show her the way to France. Maurice, therefore, and Toby, went
out together with Mrs. Moseley, and Cecile stayed at home and watched,
but though she, watched all day long, and her heart beat quickly many
times, there was never any sound coming up the funny stairs; the rope
was never pulled, nor the boards lifted, to let in any one of the name
of Jography. Cecile, instead of having her faith shaken by this, came
to the wise resolution that Jography was not a man at all. She now felt
that she must apply to Mrs. Moseley, and wondered how far she dare
trust her with her secret.
"You know, perhaps, ma'am," she began that evening, when Moseley had
started on his night duty, and Maurice being sound asleep in bed, she
found herself quite alone with the little woman, "You know, perhaps,
ma'am, that we two little children and our dog have got to go on a very
long journey--a very, very long journey indeed."
"No, I don't know nothink about it, Cecile," said Mrs. Moseley in her
cheerful voice. "What we knows, my man and me, is, that you two little
mites has got to stay yere until we finds some good orphan school to
send you to, and you has no call to trouble about payment, deary, for
we're only too glad and thankful to put any children into our dead
child's place and into Susie's place."
"But we can't stay," said Cecile; "we can't stay, though we'd like to
ever so. I'm only a little girl. But there's a great deal put on me--a
great, great care. I don't mind it now, 'cause of Jesus. But I mustn't
neglect it, must I?"
"No, darling: Only tell Mammie Moseley what it is."
"Oh! May I call you that?"
"Yes; for sure, love. Now tell me what's yer care, Cecile, honey."
"I can't, Mammie, I can't, though I'd like to. I had to tell Jane
Parsons. I had to tell her, and she was faithful. But I think I'd
better not tell even you again. Only 'tis a great care, and it means a
long journey, and going south. It means all that much for me, and
Maurice, and Toby."
"Going south? You mean to Devonshire, I suppose, child?"
"I don't know. Is there a place called Devonshire there, ma'am? But we
has to go to France--away down to the south of France--to the Pyrenees."
"Law, child! Why, you don't never mean as you're going to cross the
seas?"
"Is that the way to France, Mammie Moseley? Oh! Do you _really_ know
the way?"
"There's no other way that I ever hear tell on, Cecile. Oh, my dear,
you must not do that!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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