Jessie Carlton Part 9

"I agree with you, brother, and will send them home to-morrow," replied Mrs. Carlton.

Charlie and Emily were dumb with confusion and shame. I think a little sorrow gushed up in Emily's heart, when through her fingers she saw Jessie look with appealing and tearful eyes into Uncle Morris's face, and heard her say in pleading tones:

"O Uncle! O Mamma! please let them stay another week; please do, for my sake! Please let them stay! They will be good after this, I know they will."

This plea won both Mrs. Carlton's and the old man's consent, and Jessie kissing her cousins, said:

"There, you can stay. Aren't you glad?"

CHAPTER VI.

The First Slide of the Season.

After Uncle Morris and Mrs. Carlton had consented to permit the self-willed cousins to remain a week longer at Glen Morris, the good old man led Emily into the library and talked with her for over half an hour, about the meanness and wickedness of lying. I cannot tell you exactly what he said to her, because I don't know. That his words were weighty and solemn, I have no doubt; for when Emily left the library her eyes were red with weeping, and she went directly to her room and staid there alone until the bell called her to tea.

Before Emily slept that night, she did what she had not done before during her stay at Glen Morris. She kneeled at the bedside to say her prayers.

When she arose, Jessie threw an arm around her waist and kissed her. This was done with so much tenderness, that Emily felt it to be a sign of her cousin's sympathy with the new feelings and thoughts which were springing up within her heart. Returning the kiss, she said:

"I'm sorry I told that lie about you to-day, Jessie."

"So am I," replied the simple-hearted girl; "it is always best to tell the truth, and I hope you will never tell another story as long as you live."

"I won't, I'm resolved I won't; I told Uncle Morris so this afternoon, and (here she lowered her voice to a whisper) I've been asking G.o.d to help me keep my promise."

"That's the way! That's the way!" replied Jessie. "Uncle Morris says if we mean to be good we must go to school to the Great Teacher who will both teach us, and help us do the lesson."

With such words as these did Jessie encourage her cousin to enter that beautiful path in which all the pure, n.o.ble, and good children in the world are found.

The next day Emily was very quiet. She spent the morning helping Jessie work on her famous quilt. Charlie was as rude and as ugly as ever; having teased his sister for a long time in vain, to play out of doors with him, the spoiled boy hissed at her, and said, "You are an ugly old cat!" Then slamming the door after him, he went into the barn-yard, where the screaming of the pigs, the gabble of the geese, and the clucking of the hens, soon proclaimed that he was venting his ill-temper on the dumb creatures who had their home there. Poor Charlie! the indulgence of his mother, and the almost constant absence of his father from home, had made him a very unhappy, mischievous boy, if, indeed, it had not wholly spoiled him. If Charlie had known what was best for him he would have said to his friends,

"Please don't let me have my own way."

Emily needed to make the same request, for she too, had long done pretty much as she pleased; and, as we have seen, she was _pleased_ to do some very bad things.

Two days before the time set for the cousins to return home, they went to spend the day with Carrie Sherwood. Jessie, who was to join them after her morning's sewing was done, sat down to her work in high spirits. The quilt had grown large within a few days, and as she took it up this morning, she said:

"The little Wizard hasn't been able to catch me for ever so many days. I guess he won't trouble me much more now. See my quilt! (here she stood up, and drawing the quilt from the basket, spread it out.) Two more rows of patchwork will finish it. Ha! ha! only two more; I'm so glad. And won't Uncle Morris be pleased when he sees it spread over his bed some night!

ha! ha!"

Here Jessie sat down and began to make her bright little needle fly almost as swiftly as if it had been in a sewing-machine. While she sewed she hummed the following words, which, as Uncle Morris said, had more truth in them than poetry:

"I love to do right, And I love the truth, And I'll always love them, While in my youth.

"And when I grow old, And when I grow gray, I will love them still, Do wrong who may."

Having finished her song, Jessie rested her hands on her lap a moment, and said:

"I love those words, I do. When I grow _gray_! ha! ha! Jessie Carlton a little old woman with _gray hair_! Won't it be funny? I wonder if everybody will love me then as everybody loves Uncle Morris now. Why not?

Everybody?--no, not _everybody_, for Charlie don't love him, and our Hugh don't love him much. That's because they are naughty, though. Well, every good person loves Uncle Morris, because he is so good and kind; and so, if I am good and kind, when I am a little, gray old woman, everybody will love me. Ha! ha! Won't it be nice to be called Aunt Jessie, and to be loved, oh, so well!--but I must go on with my sewing."

Tap, tap, tap, said somebody's knuckles on the door.

"Come in," cried Jessie.

The door opened. Carrie Sherwood's little, red, round, laughing face peeped in.

"O Carrie! is that you? Come in."

Carrie tripped in, and while her eyes flashed with excitement, she said:

"O Jessie, we have found a nice slide out on the edge of the brook. It is the first time the ice has frozen hard enough to bear this fall, and we are having such a nice time. Come and see it, just for a moment."

"A slide!" exclaimed Jessie, who dearly loved sliding. "Oh, I'm so glad.

I'll go with you just to look at it. I can't stay, you know, because I must come back and sew until twelve o'clock."

Dropping her sewing, Jessie ran to a closet, equipped herself in cloak and hood and, taking Carrie's hand, trotted out to see this first slide of the season.

A short distance from Glen Morris Cottage a broad, shallow brook crossed the public highway. A bridge led over the brook. Along the sides of the b.u.t.tresses of this bridge, the water had flowed back for several yards over the bottom of a ditch or hollow, and being only an inch or two in depth, the sharp frosts of the early days of November had frozen it solid, though the brook itself was still babbling as if in proud defiance of the frost-king.

To this ditch Carrie led Jessie. Emily and Charlie were already there enjoying themselves finely.

"Isn't it nice?" said Carrie when they had fairly reached the spot.

"You shan't come on to my slide," growled selfish Charlie.

"Nor on to mine," cried his sister.

"You will let us slide after you, won't you, Emily?" asked Jessie.

"No, I want this slide all to myself," replied Emily.

"You can go down the brook and find slides for yourselves. You shan't use ours," cried Charlie, as shaking his fist at the two girls, he added, "I'll lick you both if you don't keep off."

"Well, I never saw any thing so selfish as that before, I declare," said Carrie Sherwood, striking the ground with her foot, and looking very angry as she spoke. "The next time I invite them to spend the day at my house they shall certainly know it."

"Oh, never mind, never mind," said Jessie. "We can look at them, and that will be almost as good as sliding ourselves. Perhaps they will get tired presently, and then we can slide while they rest."

"No, we shan't get tired either, Miss Jessie," retorted Charlie. "We mean to slide until dinner-time."

"And then you expect to eat dinner at _my_ house, I suppose. Really, you are a very generous boy!" replied Carrie, in a bitter tone of voice.

"'Taint _your_ house. It's your father's. He!" said the ugly boy, grinning at his young hostess.

"Well, if you were not Jessie's cousins, you should never step inside of my house again--but here comes my brother. He'll _make_ you let me slide."