Chapter VII: Beppo

Bryda sat still where Uncle Jack had left her, thinking over his story.

"You see, my dear," she said to herself (Bryda had a funny way of calling herself "my dear" when she talked to herself, and told herself stories, or read herself little moral lectures as Miss Quillnib her governess used to do); "You see, my dear, the thing is this: when any one tells a story they can make things happen so that there shall always be a good moral. Now, I am sure that town in the story would be a very nice place, but Uncle Jack is sure to make everything go wrong!"

Here nurse came and carried Miss Bryda off for a walk. They went through the village, and old Roger was at his work. The house-door was open, and he nodded a pleasant "Good-day."

Bryda lingered a moment.

"Isn't this a nice day, Roger?" she said.

"Ay, ay, little miss," answered the carpenter, "it's one of the Lord's own days. He doesn't give us too many of them, for fear we'd get too fond o' this place, and not be in a hurry to go to our Father's house."

Nurse had stopped to talk to the blacksmith. It was funny, but she always had something special to tell the blacksmith; and he would keep a horse waiting ever so long to be shod while they talked, though really they never seemed to say anything very interesting.

However, Bryda knew she would have some time to herself, so she walked into old Roger's cottage, and sat down on a bench among the sawdust and shavings.

"I suppose you are very poor, aren't you, Roger?" she asked, after watching him silently for some time.

"Poor, missy? Well, maybe some folks 'ud think so, but there's no man in the village richer, for all that!"

"Then why don't you have a grander house?"

"I'll go to my grand house by and by, missy," he answered, driving a screw carefully. "Ah! a grand house that is indeed! It's making ready for me all this time; but when once I go, I'll not come back here again!"

"I should think not!" answered Bryda, looking round the poor cottage. "Is it a palace, Roger?" Bryda's idea of a palace was something very splendid--golden tables, and silver chairs, and all the rest of the furniture to match.

"Ay, you may well call it a palace! There's no house hereabouts would match that one," answered Roger, in his cheery voice.

"Does any one else live there?"

"Oh, yes! All my brothers and sisters--the children of the King."

"Miss Bryda! Miss Bryda! You troublesome child!" called the nurse's voice. "Come along, this minute! wherever have you got to--poking in them low places?"

"Nurse did not think the forge a low place," thought Bryda, but she was obliged to go.

"Nurse," she said, when that worthy person had done scolding, "do you know, I am sure I may go and see that old carpenter, for he is not a common man at all, but a prince in disguise Only fancy! Just like a fairy tale!"

"Fairy grandmother!" said nurse, who was not in the best of tempers; and they went on for some way in silence through the village.

A little outside the village stood a neat white house, in which the doctor lived, and in front of this a woman in an Italian dress was turning the handle of a barrel-organ, while a handsome boy of five or six, or perhaps older--for though small, he had an old look in his face--stood holding a little tin mug to collect pennies. There were no pennies in it; the woman looked dreadfully pale and ill, and coughed without stopping, and the child's big, black eyes looked very sorrowful.

The doctor's servant came out of the white house, and roughly ordered them away, with abuse which shocked Bryda to hear.

Evidently the kind doctor was not at home, for he would have been sorry for the poor sick woman, who was trying to earn a few pence when any one who was better off would have been in bed, carefully nursed.

Bryda had a penny; she meant to buy sugar-candy, but she dropped it into the little tin, and was rewarded by a bright smile on the little face, and "Tank you, signorina;" by which the little boy meant, "Thank you, miss." That was nicer than sugar-candy.

"I can't abide furriners," said nurse. "Aren't there any little white children for you to give your money to, Miss Bryda, without encouraging those outlandish folks to beg?"

Bryda did not answer; she was wondering if the Lord would think her penny of any use for His poor. It was a very little coin, but it was all she had then. It would buy a bit of bread; and, perhaps, one of the "few small fishes" was not worth much more.

As they came home again Bryda saw the same woman and child toiling along the road in front of them, entering the village again.

The woman staggered under the weight of her barrel-organ; she seemed very faint and weak; either she must be very ill, or she had had no proper food. Perhaps both misfortunes were hers.

A baker's man went riding by with some loaves in a basket. As he passed the Italian woman the horse seemed frightened, either at her white sleeves or at the instrument she carried, and Bryda saw him sway violent and throw one of the loaves out upon the road. The baker did not miss it, and rode on faster, beating his horse.

But the little Italian boy sprang at it; and Bryda felt sure he was cruelly hungry from the way in which he seized the bread and put it to his mouth. He did not bite it though, but changing his mind, ran to his mother, and held it out.

"_Madre mia, pane!_" he cried. "My mother, bread!" he meant.

The lad's mother looked at the loaf of bread for a moment--only a moment; then she shook her head, and spoke to the child in Italian. The baker had stopped at a house by the roadside; the boy was off like the wind, and soon came up breathless, and handed him the loaf.

The baker was a kind-hearted man, and gave the child a roll, with which he ran back to his mother. Then he broke it in two and offered her the large half, beginning at once to munch the other himself. The mother took a little of the piece he had given her, but she seemed too faint and weak to eat more than a mouthful.

By this time Bryda and her nurse had overtaken them.

"Little boy," said Bryda shyly, all her pity roused by the scene, "where do you live?"

The child was not shy; he looked her full in the face with his big black eyes, and pointed to the village.

"In house-yesterday-next-day," he said in his broken English.

"You are living there for a few days, are you?" asked Bryda, puzzled.

The boy nodded.

"Do tell me your name?" she asked again.

"Beppo, signorina."

Here nurse again interposed. She was a cross-grained woman, very faithful to her duty, but with little sympathy to spare, and she did not at all approve of "Miss Bryda's notions," about caring for the poor.

"When you get your governess and plenty of lessons to do, you won't be so anxious about them low creatures, miss," she told Bryda. "Learn to play tunes on the piano, and paint pictures like other young ladies--that's what you've got to think about."

But poor little Bryda, though she often, as we have seen, got into trouble and mischief (for she was not at all a model little girl), did really want to serve the Lord Jesus, of whose great love she had learned, and her great wish was to know what a little girl could do for Him.

The Lord Jesus was always helping the poor, and she knew His faithful servants did the same, so it was a sad puzzle to her to find such treatment as Moll Dawson's, when she tried to do some good. Perhaps Uncle Jack was right, and she ought not to have tried to do what was only grown people's work.

But here was this little Italian boy. He looked sad, and seemed hungry and very poor, and his mother was so ill. How sad it was!

Bryda knelt by the window when she came home, and looked up at the beautiful blue sky, where a happy lark was singing--so high up he ought to be nearly at the doors of heaven.

"Our Father," she prayed, "let me help Beppo a little, for Jesus Christ's sake."

And this little prayer of "one of His little ones" went straight to the ear of the loving Father, who is always more ready to hear than we to pray; and very soon it was answered.

God has so much work for hands, and brains, and tongues, and feet. In this world a child who loves "helping mother," can do many a little thing for her, and the work is sooner done, because of such small helps. And so the great Father, who uses the little dewdrops to water His thirsty world, will give to every happy, willing worker _something_ to do, little works for the little ones, more to His great angels, and at last heaven shall be full of "servants" who "serve Him" and see His face, and are never sorrowful, or stupid, or tired, or disappointed in anything any more.

When Bryda had asked God to let her help Beppo she felt much happier. She would talk by and by to Cousin Salome about him.

Meantime she had the greatest of all treats, for in the afternoon Uncle Jack was going to drive in his dogcart, with Paddy in the shafts; and the pace at which Paddy went was what Uncle Jack called "greased lightning." Anyhow, it was something very different from the solemn jog, jog, jog, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, of Gog and Magog, when the grannies took her out, and old John dozed on the box.

"It's so dull to have to drive alone," said Uncle Jack at lunch, with a heavy sigh.

"Call for Captain Tomkins, and take him out," said grandmother.

"I'm so shy," answered Uncle Jack sadly. "But if I could find a young lady, a very young lady of about eight or so, to come with me----"

"Oh! Uncle Jack, take _me_!" burst out Bryda. And so he did; and best of all, when they were fairly started, Uncle Jack lit a big cigar, and between the puffs went on with his fairy tale.