“The wheel-chair which I am sending, and the coat and cap,
belonged to a little boy whom I wish you might have known
and loved. His name was Francis. If you had known him, you
could not have helped loving him, I am sure. He was sick a
great deal of the time, like you, and always so patient and
good. Your mother tells me that you are good, too, and that
is why I want you to have his things. I had to alter the
coat and cap a little, or you would have had them before
this, for my Francis always liked his clothes just so,—in
the very latest style. Perhaps you feel that way, too!
Please wear them,—and I hope you will enjoy the chair very
much. It will make me happier to know that another little
boy is making use of my boy’s things.
“With love to your mother and yourself, believe me,
“Your friend,
Clara Cecilia Burroughs.”
Now was not that a lovely note?
“Will you take the things, Bobsie dear?” said mother.
“’Course I will,” answered Bobs with a sympathetic sniff. He had felt
the sadness underlying the gentle words, and stood quite grave and
serious as we tried on the coat and gloves. They fitted as if they had
been made for him, and how charming our Robin looked!
“I’ll have to be very good when I wear these,” he remarked,
quaintly:—but, alas, for resolutions!
As I said, we took our first walk this morning, and Robin was so
comfortable in his new chair with the steamer rug tucked close about his
little thin legs! The street was full of his “friends,” and Bobs beamed
on them with gracious condescension. A pretty glow of excitement burned
in his cheeks; his eyes were bright as stars; he did not look like a
little invalid boy.
“People will think I am riding just because I am so Rich,” he remarked,
looking down at his fur-lined gloves;—and that moment turning the corner
of Washington Square, whom should we meet but Georgie and his nurse, out
for a morning stroll, too.
“Hello!” says Georgie, his eyes nearly popping out of his head with
amazement,—“Where’d you get those things?” For, naturally, he had never
seen Bobs attired so gorgeously before.
“Boy gave ’em to me,” answered Robin, loftily.
“What boy?” questioned Georgie. And then before Robin had time to
reply,—“Pooh! I wouldn’t take coats an’ things from anybody, ’cept just
my papa. I’d be ashamed to wear other people’s clothes!”
“No, you wouldn’t! Not the way I do!” shouted Robin, with flashing eyes.
“This coat belongs to an Angel, I’d like to have you know! And nobody’d
let you wear it,—you’re too bad!”
“Robin! Robin!” I cried. “What would Francis think if he could hear you
now?”
Robin instantly subsided; and, indeed, it was not necessary for him to
say more. Georgie was quite quelled and done for. The idea of the Angel
coat was more than he could grapple with. He walked along beside the
chair in a state of wondering, but subdued, solemnity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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