Chapter VIII

AS soon as granny came home, she inquired eagerly as to the result of Nelly's interview with Mr. Grayson. She was by no means pleased with it.

"Sure he might give it to us out and out, and never feel the want of it. And what's the use of laying out good money on the old thing, and we may be going to leave it any time?"

"As to that," said Nelly, "we may leave any place at any time, you know, granny. If we were at Kilmane Park, we shouldn't know whether we were going to stay there. We should be just as likely to die there as here. Mr. Grayson says the house is very good and firm, what there is of it; and thirty dollars will do a good deal towards putting the outside to rights,—mending the windows and the door-step, righting up the fence, and so on. And you will see, when we get it all fixed up, and the garden planted, and all, what a nice, pretty little place it will be."

"And what is the cow to do?" asked Mrs. Ryan. "She will never stand it to be tied up at night."

"I dare say she won't mind it after a little bit; and you know she always stays in the shed at night in winter," said Nelly. "And, anyhow, she will have to try it, if she is going to stay anywhere."

Granny still murmured. She thought they might as well let the place go, and hire a room somewhere. As for Crummie, they could manage somehow, or they could sell her.

Nelly exclaimed at the idea of selling Crummie. "And besides, granny, we should lose all we have paid already. It would be like putting seventy-five dollars right into Mr. Grayson's pocket; and I don't think we can well afford that."

"And that's true too," said granny.

"And then how nice it would be, if any of the folks from Ireland should come, to have a pretty place to see them in!" said Nelly, pursuing her advantage. "You wouldn't like to have my lord, or even his lawyer, come and find us living in a pig-pen, would you?"

Nelly was, in her own heart, rather ashamed of this last argument. But it answered a better purpose than many a wiser one. Mrs. Ryan had been all day talking with her old crony about the past and prospective glories of the Butlers; and she assented at once.

"And there's something in that too. And it's very good tobacco the old gentleman sent," she continued, filling her pipe. "And may-be, after all, he means to let us have the place, only he wants it to look decent, as you say. So just go on your own way, dear; and, as for Crummie, what she don't like she may leave."

Delighted with the permission, Nelly hastened to get her grandmother's tea ready, and then went out to milk, bestowing an extra amount of caresses upon Crummie, as some set-off for the hardship about to be inflicted on her. It was found possible to secure her in the shed, however, without tying her; and the old cow submitted philosophically to the restraint, much to Nelly's delight.

"I always said she had as much sense as a Christian," said she. "She knows it is for her good, or I wouldn't do it."

Nelly did not forget to carry her Testament with her when she went to Mrs. Caswell's with the milk; though, remembering how Mrs. Vandake had disappointed her, she did not build much upon the promise. But Mrs. Caswell was not one who made promises lightly, and when she did make one she was apt to remember it. She heard Nelly read her lesson, explained the hard words to her, and told her she might bring her book and read every night if she chose.

"Have you ever learned any spelling lessons, Nelly?"

"No, ma'am. I read the spelling lessons in the first part of my book to Kitty, but I did not learn them out of the book."

"Suppose, then, that you learn a spelling lesson to-morrow; and I will hear you spell it in the evening. There are few things more important than good spelling."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Nelly, much pleased. "I can learn it while I am doing my tatting, can't I?"

"Oh, yes; very nicely. I wonder, by the way, if you are the little girl Mrs. Kirkland told me of, who makes tatting so neatly and earns so much? Do you work for her?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, Nelly, I am glad to make your acquaintance. You had better begin your spelling lessons with the words of two syllables, and learn two lines. And be sure you call the letters right while you are studying them. Good-night."

When Nelly went to Mrs. Powers's, she found the pan set ready for her; but Kitty was nowhere to be seen. Kitty had had time to become heartily ashamed of the way in which she had treated Nelly. She had told her little brother (who chanced to come in while she was angry about the pitcher) to go and ask Nelly for her slate. When she got it, she would have been very glad to send it back again. But she did not know how. She was not prepared to humble herself before Nelly and say she had been to blame. So she hid herself in her own room, ashamed and miserable, while Nelly poured out the milk, watching for her to go away that she might come down and take care of it. Nelly, however, went out so quietly that Kitty did not hear her; and another Kitty, who was also keeping a sharp look-out, was quicker in her movements than the one up-stairs: so that when Kitty Brown came down she found Kitty Whitecat with her nose and whiskers in the milk-pan. Kitty sprang, and so did Puss; and between them they knocked down the pan, spilt the milk, and broke the dish,—all of which Kitty laid up against Nelly, as if it had been her fault.

The next day the repairs began, and went prosperously on. The windows were mended, the frames put to rights, the door new-hung, the fence straightened up; and both that, the lean-to kitchen and Crummie's shed received a resplendent coat of whitewash. Mr. Vandake found somewhere a door-step with a rail and bench, which had been discarded by some one for a more ambitious veranda; and this was mended up and set before granny's door, where it looked, it must be confessed, rather more as if the house belonged to it, than as if it belonged to the house. Nelly, however, saw no fault to find with it, and looked forward with great delight to the time when it should be warm enough to sit upon the bench and work. A slight fence divided Crummie's portion of the yard from the garden; and Mrs. Caswell promised to give Nelly plenty of flowers to set out the next spring. I am not sure that Mr. Vandake had not received some private directions from Mr. Grayson; but certain it is that no thirty dollars ever effected such an amount of repairs before. Nelly ceased to regret her new shawl, as she saw the altered aspect of the place; and even granny admitted that the money was well laid out.

Meantime, Nelly was going on with her work and her lessons, busy as a little girl could well be. She learned a spelling lesson every day; and soon Mrs. Caswell added a lesson in Colburn's Arithmetic, which Nelly found much easier to comprehend than the one she had first tried. She began to have an understanding of figures, and to handle them easily; and this was soon to be of great use to her.

Kitty Brown watched with great interest for Nelly's lesson the Sunday after their quarrel, expecting, and half hoping, to hear her miss, and be reproved; but she was disappointed. Nelly recited with perfect correctness, and received extra commendation. Kitty would have found it hard to tell why she was displeased at Nelly's success; but displeased she certainly was.

"I sha'n't trouble myself about her any more," said she. "She would never have known any thing, only for me,—the ungrateful little thing. I don't ever mean to speak to her again."

But Kitty did not keep her resolution long,—no longer than till she went up home and found Nelly sitting upon the new front step, reading her Testament. She had not been that way before, since the repairs began, and could not help stopping to observe them.

"Oh, Kitty, is that you?" exclaimed Nelly, springing up to meet her. "Come in and see how nice we look! I have been watching for you all the afternoon."

Kitty could not, for very shame, repel Nelly's affectionate greeting.

"Why, you do look real nice! And what a pretty bench!"

"And just think, Kitty; I paid for it all myself; out of the money that I earned this summer!" said Nelly. "I 'tatted' it," she added, laughing. "Just think of making a fence and a front stoop all out of tatting!"

"I can't learn to make tatting," said Kitty. "I tried a whole hour one day, and I could not get it."

"Oh, I worked at it a great deal longer than that," replied Nelly. "I don't know how many hours I kept at it; and then, when I did learn it, I forgot it again. I did feel discouraged then,—after I had worked so long, and then to find, when I tried again, that I could not do it, after all. But I stuck to it, and by-and-by it came back to me. I don't believe but I could show you how to do it."

"Oh, I don't care," said Kitty; "I wouldn't take the trouble. Why don't you come to say your lessons now?" she asked, attempting to speak indifferently. "Have you got tired of them?"

"Why, Kitty, I thought you did not want to hear me any more," said Nelly. "You sent for your slate; you know. Mrs. Caswell hears my lessons now," she added. "I read and say an arithmetic and spelling lesson to her every day,—the arithmetic one day and the spelling the next. She says I am getting on nicely."

"I didn't know you knew Mrs. Caswell," said Kitty.

"I carry milk to her now. She saw my book, and asked me of her own accord. Wasn't it nice?"

"She is a real good woman, I know. She taught little Harry Mercer a great deal. Poor little fellow! He didn't live long enough to have it do him much good."

"And he has been in heaven just about a year," said Nelly, musingly. "Yes, just a year. Don't you remember, it was the first Sunday in the month?"

"Yes; I remember it was Catechism-day, and Mr. Willson spoke about it."

"I stood at the gate and saw them carry out the coffin," continued Nelly. "I thought it was dreadful for him to be buried in the cold and dark ground and left all alone; and that night I was afraid to go to bed, lest I should die too. I didn't know any thing about heaven then. When I was tired of living as we did, I used to think about granny's stories and try to make them seem real to me. But they never did, hardly; and when I loft off thinking about them and came back, every thing looked so poor and mean to me, I couldn't bear it. I got to hate those stories; and yet they were about all the comfort I had."

"You are a great deal better off now than you were then," said Kitty.

"Yes, indeed, in all sorts of ways."

"I am sure you don't look like the same child," continued Kitty. "You are a great deal better dressed. But that isn't all: you look so much more cheerful and happy."

"Well, I am," said Nelly, with emphasis. "I have learned to earn money and help support myself, and that is a great deal; and every one has been very kind to me. I never could have learned to read and write, if you had not helped me; and Miss Powell taught me so many things, and Mr. Grayson has been so good about the house. And then," added Nelly, in the reverent voice with which she always spoke of such subjects, "I have learned so much about God and heaven, and about the Saviour dying for us: that is the very best of all. And then to think that he will let me go to heaven and see him and live with him forever,—just think, Kitty,—to be happy and good, and all for ever and ever,—for ever and ever!"

Nelly dwelt on the sound of the words as if she loved them.

"You must think you are very good, if you are so sure of going to heaven," said Kitty, with a touch of the old sarcasm in her voice.

"No, indeed," returned Nelly: "Miss Powell told me better than that. Oh, how I did try and try to be good, all by myself! And every day I did something wrong; and I thought, 'I shall never go to heaven at this rate.' So at last I told Miss Powell how I felt; and she told me how God forgives us and helps us and takes us to heaven, not for what we do, but for what his Son has done for us. You don't know how much easier it has seemed to be good since then. It is just the difference between doing things for a task, and doing them for some one who has been good to you."

"I believe you are a real Christian," said Kitty, her better nature getting the upper hand. "I wish I was! but I seem to grow worse every day. But Nelly, I was real sorry I treated you so about your lessons, and about the slate. I never should have sent for it, only Harry came in while I was real angry about something, and I told him to go and get it. You don't know how I felt when he brought it next day; and I would have sent it back, only I was ashamed. Don't you want it now?"

"Mr. Grayson gave me one," replied Nelly; "and I don't need a slate as much, because I do my sums in my head."

"Well, it has all turned out for the best," said Kitty, rising. "Of course Mrs. Caswell can teach you better than I can; but that don't make it any better for me."

"Don't think any more about it," said Nelly. "Every one is cross sometimes; I am sure I am. But I am so glad we are him friends again!"

"Nelly is a real Christian," said Kitty, as she went home. "I wish I was!"