What She Could Part 15

"I don't think you do," said Matilda. "When do you?"

"Why, I should like to know in school, when it is recess time; and at home, when it is time to go to school."

"But the bell rings," said Matilda.

"Well, I don't always hear the bell, child."

"But when you don't hear it, I tell you."

"Yes, and it's very tiresome to have you telling me, too. I'd rather have my own watch. But I don't know what I will have; sometimes I think I'll just buy summer dresses, and then for once I'd have a plenty; I do like to have plenty of anything. And there's a necklace and earrings at Mr. Kurtz's that I want. Such lovely earrings!"

"Well, Matilda, what are you thinking of?" Let.i.tia burst forth. "Such a face! One would think it was wicked to wear earrings. What is it, you queer child?"

But Matilda did not say what she was thinking of. The elder ladies came in, and the party adjourned to the tea-table.

A few hours later, when the girls had gone to their room, Matilda asked--

"When are you going to look for new scholars, Maria?"

"_What?_" was Maria's energetic and not very graceful response.

"When are you going to look for some new scholars to bring to the school?"

"The Sunday-School!" said Maria. "I thought you meant the school where we go every day. I don't know."

"You promised you would try."

"Well, so I will, when I see any I _can_ bring."

"But don't you think you ought to go and look for them?"

"How can I, Tilly? I don't know where to go; and I haven't got time, besides."

"I think I know where we could go," said Matilda, "and maybe we could get one, at any rate. Don't you know the Dows' house? on the turnpike road?--beyond the bridge ever so far?"

"The Dows'!" said Maria. "Yes, I know the Dows' house; but who's there?

Nothing but old folks."

"Yes, there are two children; I have seen them; two or three; but they don't come to school."

"Then I don't believe they want to," said Maria; "they could come if they wanted to, I am sure."

"Don't you think we might go and ask them? Perhaps they would come if anybody asked them."

"Yes, we might," said Maria; "but you see, Tilly, I haven't any time.

It'll take me every bit of time I can get between now and Sunday to finish putting the braid on that frock; you have no idea how much time it takes. It curls round this way, and then twists over that way, and then gives two curls, so and so; and it takes a great while to do it. I almost wish I had chosen an easier pattern; only this is so pretty."

"But you promised, Maria."

"I didn't promise to go and look up people, child. I only promised to do what I could. Besides, what have _you_ got to do with it? You did not promise at all."

"I will go with you, if you will go up to the Dows'," said Matilda.

"Oh, well!--don't worry, and I'll see about it."

"But will you go? Come, Maria, let us go."

"When?"

"Any afternoon. To-morrow."

"What makes you want to go?" said Maria, looking at her.

"I think you _ought_ to go," Matilda answered, demurely.

"And I say, what have you got to do with it? I don't see what particular concern of mine the Dows are, anyhow."

Matilda sat a long while thinking after this speech. She was on the floor, pulling off her stockings and unlacing her boots; and while her fingers moved slowly, drawing out the laces, her cogitations were very busy. What concern _were_ the Dows of hers or Maria's? They were not pleasant people to go near, she judged, from the look of their house and dooryard as she had seen it in pa.s.sing; and the uncombed, fly-away head of the little girl gave her a shudder as she remembered it. They were not people that were often seen in church; they could not be good; maybe they used bad language; certainly they could not be expected to know how to "behave." Slowly the laces were pulled out of Matilda's boots, and her face grew into portentous gravity.

"Aren't you coming to bed?" said Maria. "What can you be thinking of?"

"I am thinking of the Dows?"

"What about them? I never thought about them three times in my life."

"But oughtn't we to think about people, Maria?"

"Nice people."

"I mean, people that are not nice."

"It will be new times when you do," said Maria. "Come! let the Dows alone and come to bed."

"Maria," said her little sister as she obeyed this request, "I was thinking that Jesus thought about people that were not nice."

"Well?" said Maria. "Do lie down! what is the use of getting into bed, if you are going to sit bolt upright like that and talk lectures? I don't see what has got into you."

"Maria, it seems to me, now I think of it, that those were the particular people He did care about."

"Don't you think He cared about good people?" said Maria, indignantly.

"But they were not good at first. n.o.body was good at first--till He made them good. He _said_ He didn't come to the good people; don't you remember?"

"Well, what do you mean by all that? Are we not to care for anybody but the people that are not good? A nice life we should have of it?"

"Maria," said her little sister, very thoughtfully, "I wonder what sort of a life He had?"

"Tilly!" said Maria, rising up in her turn, "what has come to you? What book have you been reading? I shall tell mamma."