Melbourne House Part 74

"Do not wonder what, Daisy?"

"I do not wonder that G.o.d said that it was good. I am so much obliged to you for telling me about it."

"Never heard a more satisfactory application of knowledge in my life," ? the doctor remarked, with a smile, as he handed back the Bible to Mrs. Benoit.

And then he and Preston went off; but Daisy lay long very thoughtfully looking after them out of her window. Till the sound of the horses' feet was far out of hearing, Daisy lay there, looking into the evening. She did not stir till Mrs.

Benoit brought her supper.

"Isn't it wonderful, Juanita," she said, with a long-drawn breath, "how the sun divides the light from the darkness!"

"Most things is wonderful, that the Lord makes," answered the black woman.

"Are they?" said Daisy.

"But what makes my love sigh?" said Juanita, anxiously; for Daisy's face had not brightened up, though she was taking her tea.

Daisy looked at her. "Oh, Juanita!" she said, ? "I am afraid that Dr. Sandford is in the darkness!"

"Where the sun don't s.h.i.+ne it be darkness, sure!" said Juanita. "And he do not see the Light of the world, Miss Daisy."

Daisy's eyes filled, filled. She liked Dr. Sandford very much.

And then, who else that she loved had never seen that Light!

Daisy pushed aside her tears, and tried to drink her tea; but at last she gave it up. Her spoon fell into her saucer, and she lay down, and hid her face in the pillow. The black woman stood, with a strange grave look, and with watering eyes, silent for a little time; holding Daisy's tray in her hands, and waiting.

"Miss Daisy ?"

"What, Juanita?"

"My love take her tea, to be strong; and then see how many she can bring out of the darkness."

"I, Juanita?" said Daisy? rousing up.

"Maybe the Lord send His message by little hands. What hinder?"

"But, Juanita, _I_ can't do anything?"

"Carry the Lord's message, Miss Daisy."

"Can I?"

"Why not, my love? The dear Lord, He do all. And Miss Daisy knows, He hear the prayer of His servants."

The child looked at the black woman, with a wistful, earnest, searching look that it was curious to see. She said nothing more; she eyed Juanita as if she were searching into the depth of something; then she went on with her supper. She was thoughtful all the evening; busy with cogitations which she did not reveal; quiet and absent-minded. Juanita guessed why; and many a prayer went up from her own secret heart.

But from about this time Daisy began to grow well again. She could not be moved, of course; Dr. Sandford would not permit that; neither to be carried home, nor to change her place and position in the cottage. But she was getting ready for it. The latter half of August cooled off from its fierce heats, and was pleasantly warm. Daisy took the benefit of the change. She had rather a good time, those last weeks at Juanita's house; and perhaps that was one reason why Dr. Sandford, seeing it, chose to let well alone, and would not have anybody take Daisy home. Daisy had a very good time. She had the peace of Juanita's house; and at home she knew there would be things to trouble her. She had books, and could read now as much as she liked; and she was very fond of reading. Preston did not find it expedient to bring the geography tray; on the other hand, Mr. Randolph thought it good to come every day and spend a piece of time with his little daughter; and became better acquainted with her than ever he had been in his life before.

He discovered that Daisy was very fond of knowledge; that he could please her no way better than by taking up the history of' England and reading to her, and stopping to explain everything by the way which Daisy did not understand.

English history was certainly an old story to Mr. Randolph; but to discuss it with Daisy was a very new thing. He found her eager, patient, intelligent, and wise with an odd sort of child-wisdom which yet was not despicable for older years.

Daisy's views of the feudal system, and of the wittenagemot, and of trial by jury, and of representative legislation, were intensely amusing to Mr. Randolph; he said it was going back to a primitive condition of society, to talk them over with her; though there, I think, he was mistaken. If Daisy had read those pages of history to herself, she would have pa.s.sed over some of these matters at least with little heed; she would not have gone to anybody with questions. But Mr. Randolph reading to her, it was an easy thing to ask the meaning of a word as they pa.s.sed; and that word would draw on a whole little bit of talk. In this intercourse Mr. Randolph was exceedingly gentle, deliberate, and kind. Daisy had nothing to fear, not even that she might weary him; so those were hours of real enjoyment to both parties.

Preston not very seldom came and made himself agreeable; playing an occasional game of chess, and more often regaling Daisy with a history of his expeditions. Other visitors Daisy had from Melbourne, now and then; but her best friend for real service, after her father and Juanita, was Dr. Sandford. He took great care of his little patient's comfort and happiness; which was a pretty thing in him, seeing that he was a young man, busy with a very good country practice, and, furthermore, busy with the demands made upon him as an admired pet of society. For that was Dr. Sandford, and he knew it perfectly well. Nevertheless his kind care of Daisy never abated.

It was of course partly his professional zeal and care that were called for; but it could not have been those that made him keep up his lectures to Daisy on the wonderful things she found for him, day by day. In professional care those lectures certainly began; but Daisy was getting well now; had nothing more to trouble her, and showed an invariably happy as well as wise little face. Yet Dr. Sandford used to sit down and tell her of the things she asked about, with a sort of amused patience ? if it was no more; at any rate he was never impatient. He talked to Daisy of the stars, which, with the moon, were very naturally the next subjects of investigation after the sun.

At last Daisy got him upon the subject of trilobites. It was not difficult. Dr. Sandford was far more easy to move than Preston ? in this matter at least. He only smiled, and slid into the story very simply; the story that Daisy was so eager to hear. And it did not seem less worth hearing than she had expected, nor less wonderful, nor less interesting. Daisy thought about it a great deal, while Juanita listened and doubted; but Daisy did not doubt. She believed the doctor told her true. That the family to which her little fossil trilobite belonged ? the particular family ? for they were generally related, he said, to the lobster and crab, ? were found in the very oldest and deepest down rocks in which any sort of remains of living things have been found; therefore, it is likely they were among the earliest of earth's inhabitants.

There were a great many of them, the doctor said, and many different species; for great numbers of them are found to this day in those particular rocks. The rocks must have been made at the time when the trilobites lived, and have somehow shut them in. And the doctor thought it likely that at the time when they lived, there was no dry land in existence, but all covered by the sea. He would not take it upon him to be positive; but this he could tell Daisy; there was never a stick or a leaf to be found in those old rocks that ever lived and grew on dry ground, though there were plenty that grew in the sea, until in the very topmost or latest of those rocks some few bits of fern-growth began to appear.

"But what plants live under water?" said Daisy.

"Sea weeds."

"Oh! So many of them?"

"So many, that the rocks are sometimes darkened by their fossil remains, and in some places those remains form beds of coal several feet thick."

"And are there a great many remains of the trilobites?"

"There are whole rocks, Daisy, that are formed almost entirely of trilobites."

"Sea-weeds and trilobites ? what a strange time!" said Daisy.

"Was that all that was living?"

"No; there were other sea creatures of the lower kind, and at last fishes. But when the fishes became very numerous, the trilobites died out and pa.s.sed away."

That old time had a wonderful charm for Daisy; it was, as she thought, better than a fairy tale. The doctor at last let her into the secret that he had a trilobite too; and the next time he came he brought it with him. He was good enough to leave it with Daisy a whole day; and Daisy's meditations over it and her own together were numberless and profound.

The next transition was somewhat sudden; ? to a wasp or two that had come foraging on Daisy's window-sill. But Dr.

Sandford was at home there; and so explained the wasp's work and manner of life, with his structure and fitness for what he had to do, that Daisy was in utter delight; though her eyes sometimes opened upon Dr. Sandford with a grave wistful wonder in them, that he should know all this so well, and yet never acknowledge the hand that had given the wasp the tools and instinct for his work, one so exactly a match for the other.

But Dr. Sandford never did. He used to notice those grave looks of Daisy, and hold private speculation with himself what they might mean; private amused speculation; but I think he must have liked his little patient as well as been amused at her, or he would hardly have kept up as he did this personal ministering to her pleasure, which was one of the great entertainments of Daisy's life at this period. In truth only to see Dr. Sandford was an entertainment to Daisy. She watched even the wave of his long locks of hair. He was a fascination to her.

"Are you in a hurry to get home?" he would ask her every now and then. Daisy always said, "No sir; not till you think it is time;" and Dr. Sandford never thought it was time. No matter what other people said, and they said a good deal; he ordered it his own way; and Daisy was almost ready to walk when he gave permission for her to be taken home in the carriage.

However, the permission was given at last.

"To-morrow night I shall not be here, Juanita," Daisy remarked as she was taking her supper.

"No, Miss Daisy."

"You will be very quiet when I am gone."

It had not been a bustling house, all those weeks! But the black woman only answered. "My love will come to see Juanita sometimes?"

"Oh, yes. I shall come very often, Juanita ? if I can. You know when I am out with my pony, I can come very often, ? I hope."

Juanita quite well understood what was meant by the little pauses and qualifying clauses of this statement. She pa.s.sed them over.

But Daisy shed a good many tears during Juanita's prayer that night. I do not know if the black woman shed any; but I know that some time afterwards, and until late in the night, she knelt again by Daisy's bedside, while a whisper of prayer, too soft to arouse the child's slumbers, just chimed with the flutter and rustle of the leaves outside of the window moving in the night breeze.