Citation
My little Margaret

Material Information

Title:
My little Margaret a story
Creator:
Brine, Mary D. (Mary Dow) ( Author, Primary )
Plympton, A. G ( Almira George ), b. 1852
E.P. Dutton (Firm) ( Publisher )
Rockwell and Churchill
Place of Publication:
New York
Publisher:
E.P. Dutton & Company
Manufacturer:
Rockwell and Churchill
Publication Date:
Copyright Date:
1891
Language:
English
Physical Description:
102 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Christian life -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Intergenerational relations -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Sick children -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Friendship -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Poverty -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Children -- Death -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Physicians -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Family -- Juvenile fiction ( lcsh )
Baldwin -- 1893
Genre:
novel ( marcgt )
Spatial Coverage:
United States -- New York -- New York
United States -- Massachusetts -- Boston
Target Audience:
juvenile ( marctarget )

Notes

Statement of Responsibility:
by Mary D. Brine ; illustrated by A.G. Plympton.

Record Information

Source Institution:
University of Florida
Holding Location:
University of Florida
Rights Management:
This item is presumed to be in the public domain. The University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries respect the intellectual property rights of others and do not claim any copyright interest in this item. Users of this work have responsibility for determining copyright status prior to reusing, publishing or reproducing this item for purposes other than what is allowed by fair use or other copyright exemptions. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions may require permission of the copyright holder. The Smathers Libraries would like to learn more about this item and invite individuals or organizations to contact The Department of Special and Area Studies Collections (special@uflib.ufl.edu) with any additional information they can provide.
Resource Identifier:
026609181 ( ALEPH )
ALG3131 ( NOTIS )
213482914 ( OCLC )

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Full Text








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‘THE SUN AND WIND KISSED MARGARET 80 OFTEN.”
‘ Page 7%.



MY LITTLE MARGARET

QQ Story

BY
MARY D. BRINE

“GRANDMA’S ATTIC TREASURES,” “‘GRANDMA’S MEMORIES,”
“BONNIE LITTLE BONIBEL ” ETO.

ILLUSTRATED BY A. G. PLYMPTON

fer

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
31 West 23D STREET
1893



CoryYRiGHT, 1891, BY
E, P. DUTTON & CO.

PRESS OF
Rockwell anv Churchill,
BOSTON.



PREFACE.

To my Lyrrrte Reapers:

This little book is written by special request, and
I hope that because it is only a sad story, holding
more of shadow than of sunshine, my dear little
_readers, who have liked so well other books I have
written for them, will not pass by this one, but
learn to love and be glad with little Margaret to the

end. For—

Too much sunshine, ‘as we know,

Will not help the flowers to grow;
Clouds must also do their share
Toward making Nature sweet and fair.
Sunbeams often hotly burn,

For the cooling rain we yearn:

Sun and shadow, both together,

Make for us life’s kindest weather.



MY LITTLE MARGARET.

HE was a little girl who wandered day by day
around the streets of a big city, when, in the

sweet spring-time, the flowers were beginning to bud

- and bloom out of their long, silent plant-life, and all

the earth was freshening into new vigor.

The sun and wind kissed Margaret so often that
the dear little face and hands were brown as berries,
and matched the beautiful brown eyes which were
the chief charm of her young face. The hood she
wore was apt to slip from her dark, curly head, and
hang upon her shoulders, as, with her basket of
spring blossoms on her arm, she went about, from
street to street, and cried aloud:

“Here’s vi'lets! pretty fresh vilets! Who'll buy?”

Those who heard the clear young voice ring out in

the midst of the noise and bustle of the busy streets,





8 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

like a strain of harmony rising above discord, turned
to look at the child, and, perhaps because of the
sweet voice, were prompted to’ buy of her fragrant
wares. ;

Very temptingly, too, the violets peeped up from
their nest amongst the dewy leaves, for little Mar-
garet had an eye to beauty, and loved to arrange
her treasures to the greatest advantage within the
narrow limits of her small basket. When anybody
bought a bunch of her flowers, she would hold up
her slender hand to receive the price, and smile
such a world of grateful thanks that the purchaser, .
whether man, woman, or child, couldn’t help smiling
back again, and carrying away with the purchase a
good bit of sunshine’ from the little flower-seller’s
face. And she, wasting no ‘precious time, would go
on her way, crying again: “Oh, vi'lets! fresh vi'lets!
flowers sweet an’ fresh! Who'll buy?”

Little Margaret had no parents. She lived all
alone with her aged grandmother in one poor little
room in a very poor part of the big city. But poor

as their home might be, it yet sheltered them from



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 9

wind, rain, and other discomforts, and they were
grateful and happy for that and for each other.

Tt was scarcely two years since Margaret had
seen her dear mamma lying in “that dreamless sleep
_ which knows no awakening.” She had clung to the
loved form, and kissed with her own warm lips
the still lips which had never before refused to kiss
her back. And how she had cried, and called the
dear, familiar name over and over, until at last she
was forced to believe all that the pitying neighbors
and poor old grandma tried to make her compre-
hend—that her mother would never open her eyes
in this world, but must be laid beside the father,
whom Margaret could not remember, under the green
grass in a church-yard beyond the city.

Margaret could remember it all, even now, and all,
too, that a kind old. man had said to her as he laid
his trembling hand upon her head. It was this :

“Dear little girl, your mother is happy now; she
is waiting for you beyond the clouds, and at the
gate of heaven will stand to watch for you, and take

you in her loving arms again, if you are a good



10 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

child here on cnet, and if you try to do your dey
and the dest that is in you in all you do day by
day, and if you think kindly of your neighbors and
love the dear Lord who always knows what will be
best for you and for us all. Will you remember
this ?”

And Margaret had looked into. his face with
grave, dark eyes, and wiping her tears away, had
promised to try to be a good child, and fit to go
some day to the beautiful world where her precious
mother would be waiting for her. And maybe un-
seen angels were helping the young lips to smile, |
the young eyes to shine, and the young voice to ring
so cheerily, day after day, as Margaret wandered
through the streets selling her flowers and earning the

means of support for grandma and _ herself.

Sometimes the pennies that ‘the flowers brought
grew into a dollar, and then Margaret felt so rich
that the dimples in her cheeks gathered fast and
deep, and she planned a “treat ” for the old grand-

mother’s failing appetite.



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 11

So it happened that on such occasions a juicy



1









orange, or perhaps a pear, would be found at Granny’s

plate that night when the simple supper was ready—



12 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

the supper of bread, and sometimes a scanty piece of
butter, but oftener a little molasses, which would go
a great way both for bread and for mush. Grandma
loved tea, and yet only seldom could that comforting
drink be provided for her. So a little milk would
serve for them both, and if the good-natured milk-
man who filled the pitchers in that neighborhood
daily was wont to err on the kind side in his meas-
ure for Margaret and her old granny, nobody, surely
not they, had ever yet suspected it. .

How Margaret would laugh when now and then
she could surprise the old woman with the orange, or.
whatever bit of fruit chanced to constitute the “treat,”
so lovingly given.

“Now, then, my little Margaret, my bonny lass,
eat wi’ me, do!” Granny would urge. But always
Margaret shook her curly head, and declared she
liked better the crust of bread, into which her
white little teeth went crunching with every sign
of a healthy appetite, even though that appetite
could be but scantily indulged.

“My little Margaret,” was Granny’s favorite way of



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 13

addressing her grandchild; and the few neighbors who
had time to hear or heed the old, feeble voice, or to
take any notice of the little girl as she passed and
repassed them, wondered why simple “Madge” or
“Meg” would not have done as well. But Granny
had her own Scotch ideas of the fitness of things,
and as she had begun, so she kept on, and amidst a
small world of all sorts: and sizes of names, “ My
little Margaret” held its own sweet and gentle dignity
in the very centre of poverty and discomfort.

And Grandma continued to wonder in her simple
soul if in all this wide world there lived another
bairn like hers—her “sun by day, and her star by
night.”

One morning Margaret started out in good spirits
with her basket on her arm, and her fragrant wares
nestling in their dewy beds as usual.

She had kissed Granny a loving good-by, and left
behind her certain little tender cautions which had
become a habit, and which, had they been unsaid,

would have been sorely missed by Grandma.



14 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

“Now, Granny, dear,” Margaret had whispered, as
she carefully straightened the white cap on the old
woman’s whiter head, “you must be very good, an’
oh, don’t fall down-stairs, an’ don’t get sick, an’ re-
member I love you very much, an’ will hurry home
soon as I’ve sold all my flowers, you know, Gran’ma!”

So, leaving a smile on the dear old face behind
her, and carrying half a dozen smiles on her own
sweet little countenance, Margaret, as I have said,
started off in high spirits, feeling sure that her
basket would be relieved of its freight before long,
and hoping, oh, how earnestly! that she might have an -
extra dime to spare for buying an orange for Granny.

“Here’s vi'lets! fresh sweet vi'lets! Oh, who'll
buy?” rang out the young voice, at first hopefully,
then with a note of wonder in its clear tones, and at
last quite anxiously, for what ailed the people to-day,
that they did not seem to want her flowers as usual?
How the crowd jostled by, how everybody hurried
along! Only now and then some passer-by would
pause and lift one of the sweet, dainty bunches from

Margaret’s basket and smell it critically before hand-



MY LITTLE MARGARET, 15

ing over the meagre price. At this slow rate, the
little girl thought, she must not hope to get Granny’s
orange; and pretty soon her voice put off its cheery
ring, the hopeful smiles vanished from her face, one
by one the pretty dimples stole away and hid them-
selves in a mournful droop of the mouth, and poor
little Margaret grew discouraged indeed.

“Why, I don’t see what ails all these men and
women,” she said to herself. “I can’t make ’em smile
at me ’cause they all seem so busy, an’ nobody wants
my flowers to-day. Oh, dear!”

Two or three bright tears fell down from the sor-
rowful brown eyes, and as she bent over her basket
to see if the trouble lay in the looks of its precious
freight, one of those bright, pearly tears dropped
from her cheek and lay like a little shining gem
right in the heart of a violet. “There, now,” the
child thought, half smiling at the fancy, “that tear
came right out of my heart, an’ it has gone straight
to the sweetest place in the world to hide itself, an’
that’s in one of my dear violets. Oh, I don’t see why

people don’t love vilets to-day!”



16 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

She turned aside from the crowded thoroughfare,
and walked on and on toward quieter streets, feeling
quite discouraged now, and hardly caring which way
her tired little feet should stray. :

And so, ere long, she came to where a broad,
lovely park stretched itself beneath the glad sunshine
of the beautiful day.

Little Margaret forgot her weariness for a little, as
she stood beside the park railing, and looked in upon
the scene before her.

It seemed as if the broad, beautiful park coaxed
her, little lonely, tired child as she was, to enter in
and borrow some of its own sweet, restful peace.
But the iron gates were closed against intruders, and
Margaret could only stand without, and gaze and
admire to her heart's content. Not one of those
charms so safely enclosed within the strong iron rails
escaped her childish notice. There were the soft
green grass and the daisies which spread themselves
so lavishly over it. There were stately trees holding
out their graceful limbs, which were so proud, Mar-

garet fancied, of their new spring dress. There were



eee ee rT Oe

MY LITTLE MARGARET. iy

the birds flashing in and out amongst the branches,



singing joyous songs,
and knowing not a
eare or fear. And
there were mounds of
all shapes and _ sizes
where sweet spring
blossoms had been
kissed into life by
the same sunshine
which daily kissed
Margaret’s brown
cheeks and hands.
There were soft,
dainty ferns and delicate mosses clustered about the

basin of a large fountain, and how they sparkled
2



s
18 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

with the “erystal drops which that cool, splashing
fountain tossed over them daily!

Oh, it was all so beautiful a scene; so happy a
place! And how the little flower-seller longed to
creep inside those rails, and lie down there in the
soft, sweet grass, and stretch her little tired body for
a good long rest amongst the daisies.

Only just to lie there and let the sweet wild
breezes blow over her at will, and to stretch her
tired little feet as near the fountain as possible, so
that some of those cool drops might fall upon them!

Oh, how different a scene was this now before her
from that upon which poor old Gran’ma was no doubt
at this very moment gazing from her attic window!

And thinking of Granny: roused Margaret somewhat
from her pleasant reverie, and prompted her to count
what few pennies she had earned. thus far in the day.
She would sit down upon the steps of that grand
house just opposite the park, and fill her soul and.
her memory with the lovely picture before her, so
that she might describe it all to Granny, who could

not come so far to see for herself.



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 19

“Tt looks like heaven, I’m sure,” thought the child,
“for I don’t

b’lieve any place







could be more
beautiful than
this.”







So she went over to the large and handsome resi-

dence which faced the park, and sat wearily down to



20 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

rest. She took out the little purse which Grandma
had long ago given her, and began to count its con-
tents.

“ One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight —
nine—ten—eleven—an’—an’ here’s twelve, an’ seven
more, too; that makes twen—no, only nineteen, an’ I
ought to have twenty. Oh, dear!”

But a thought of the torn lining of the old purse
made Margaret shake it hard as she turned it over
her lap. Sometimes pennies, and now and then a
dime, had hidden away there, to fall out and sur-
prise her later; why not now?

Ah! there it comes, the twentieth penny, which
made even. money; a thing she liked in her childish
way, though Granny had often laughingly cheered —
her with the quotation of “luck in odd numbers.”

Still, twenty cents was too small a sum for her to
take the price of an orange from, and , Margaret
tumbled them all back into the yawning mouth of
the old purse (which held plenty of room for more),
and turned her gaze to the park again.

The birds were jubilant with the joy of the day,



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 21

and flashed through the space from street to park
and from grass to tree-top, till the little flower-girl
grew envious of their freedom. .

.“ Granny says angels have wings! Mamma _ has
wings, then. Oh, how I wish she could fly down
from ’way up there in the blue sky, an’ see her little
girl sometimes! She would if she only knew I am
go tired. Somehow mamma seems nearer me here,
where I can see so much sky and feel so much air,
than way down in our street, where it isn’t clean an’
wide like this.”

‘Tears dimmed her eyes at the thought of the
mother she had so loved, and the park grew misty
before her. The small hood slipped from her head,
leaving the thick, wavy hair free for the frolicsome
breeze to tangle at will. Over her shoulders a
striped shawl was pinned loosely and fluttered its
ends with every puff of wind. The tired feet were
crossed on the cool pavement, and one little arm
leaned upon the step above where Margaret was sit-
ting. Out from her basket close by floated the fra-

grance of violets, and over from the park came ever



22 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

the delicious odor of fresh grass and spring blos.
soming.

Margaret was not usually in so despondent a mood
as this. No, indeed; there were oftener smiles than
tears in those bonny brown eyes, and to “look upon
the bright side” had ever been her motto. But to-
day the sunbeams which were scattering so lavishly
about her failed to enter her sad, lonely heart, and
so there she sat, a forlorn little figure, a woful little
picture, in the midst of everything bright and glad,
on this merry spring morning.

Presently there came a gentle tapping on the pane
of a window behind Margaret.

She started and turned her face in the direction of
the sound. Perhaps she expected to see some one
frowning at her, with the motion to “move on”
(which our little girl had experienced here and there
on many an occasion before). But this time it was
very different, for behind the glass a pleasant little
face looked out at Margaret, and a pair of blue eyes
met her own smilingly.

True to her calling, Margaret lifted up her violets.



MY LITTLE MARGARET, 23

“Buy some, please?” she cried, smiling back into



the eyes that smiled at her. “Only five cents a

bunch, miss; won’t you buy?”



24 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

Then the door opened upon the marble vesti-
bule above Margaret, and a woman came to the
steps.

“Come up here, little girl.”

Margaret seized her basket and ran up the stoop
eagerly. :

“There, wait here,” said the woman, “and my
young lady will come and choose for herself.”

She led the way into a large, marble-floored hall
and pointed to a chair.

Little Margaret was half afraid to enter. She had
never been amidst so much grandeur before, and felt
somewhat awed by everything around her.

However, she must do everything for the sake of
“business,” and that “orange for Granny” was over-
laying all her desire for large profits.

So she said “Thank you” to the woman and en-
tered the grand hallway, and there she sat down
and re-arranged her pretty wares tenderly. They were
still fair and fresh and sweet, and “My little Mar.
garet” hoped they would prove tempting to the

expected customer. If she could only make more



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 25

- money before going home, why, Grandma could surely



have, if not the orange, at least an apple, and maybe

a currant-bun. Then how much better the simple



26 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

meal of mush and watered milk. would seem to them
both!

“How do you do, little girl? How much do you
ask for your violets?”

Margaret lifted her gaze from the basket in her
lap, and saw the blue eyes which had smiled at her
from the window, and which were set in a face as -
fair and as sweet as Margaret had oftentimes dreamed
an angel’s might be. |

A wealth of soft, sunny hair, gold as the sunbeams
themselves, fell down in silken waves far below the
young shoulders; but alas! all its luxuriant growth
could not hide from Margaret’s quick glance the pain-
ful, sorry sight of a poor, misshapen little back.

An instinctive fine breeding and sympathy prompted
Margaret to turn her gaze quickly away from these
to the pleasanter sight of the face before her, as she
replied to the question asked.

Leaning upon her crutch, the lame girl held out a
white, frail hand, and took from the sturdy brown

fingers of “My little Margaret” a bunch of her violets.



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 27

“They are my favorite flowers of all the beautiful
flowers that grow,” she said, “and you don’t know
how glad I was to see you there on our stoop with a
basket full of the dear things. Ill buy them all.”

Margaret drew a long breath. Ali? Oh, the joy
of it!

“Do you live ’way out in the country, I wonder,
that you can find these?” asked the lame girl.

Margaret shook her head. “Oh, no, indeed, miss.
If I did, I think my heart would break for joy.
Oh, no! you don’t know how I love things that I
have heard grow in the country. I wonder are they
more lovely than those? Is the country a prettier
place than all that?” pointing toward the park.
“Oh, if we lived in a place like that, Granny an’
I, I would think I was ’most up in heaven!”

“Poor little girl! where, then, is your home?”

Margaret dropped her eyes with a feeling of shame
that she had to tell of her home to this fine girl,
who seemed a being of another kind of world than
that she lived in here on earth. But she went on

bravely to the end.



28 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

“Why, miss, it is only ’way down in an alley,
an’ there are bad men and women, an’ boys an’
girls, an’ there are such rude noises an’ bad talk an’
wicked things goin’ on always at night, an’ half the
day, when the men are home. They all tease my
gran’ma, ’cause she’s old, an’ can’t walk straight like
other folks. An’ when I say ‘Please don’t do so!’
they only make fun of us all the more. An’—an’
I get cross often, an’ want to cry, an’ I do cry when
Granny doesn’t know ’bout it. Oh, miss, you can’t
guess how I hate it there; but we're poor, an’
Granny says we must be patient, ‘cause God put us
in the right place, else we wouldn’t be there. "Tain’t
easy to be patient forever, you see, an’ if it wasn’t
for mamma in heaven, who’s watchin’ for me, I
wouldn’t try any more, but—” The little voice
choked, and the tears, which you know had been
close to Margaret’s eyes all the morning, began to
crowd up again and threaten to overflow.

“Poor little girl!” said the young listener, pity-
ingly. But Margaret wiped the tears away quickly

and began again.



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 29

“Yow don’t have such things to tease an’ make
you cross! You don’t need to cry! Jus’ look at
this fine house, an’ all the fine clothes you wear, an’
oh!’’—with a deep breath—“ those lovely things over
the way, the park an’ the beautiful things in it!
Oh, I wish, I do, that Granny an’ I could wear fine
clothes an’ live like this, an’ see that park every
day! I.wish I was like you, miss!” .

The little lame girl turned her back toward Mar.
garet, and lifted the golden hair from her shoulders.

“Look,” she said, sorrowfully, “do you think you
should envy me?”

Margaret turned her eyes away, and a red flush of
shame and sympathy sprang to her cheeks.

“T didn’t mean—”

she began, but her companion
went on speaking.

“JT wasn’t always this way. I had a fall two
years ago, and the doctors, oh, so many of them,
tried to make me well and straight again, and poor
mamma was so sad, and cried with me every day.
But it was all of no use. I never can walk with-

out this crutch, and I have pain in my back all



30 MY LITTLE MARGARET,

the time. I shall never, never be well and strong
again.”

« Ah, ah!” It was a soft, long breath from little
Margaret, and all she could do in response to the
sorry speech she had listened to. Her heart over-
flowed with: pity for the girl before her, and she
could find no words with which to express it all.

The other continued, with a plaintive tone in her
voice which sounded like tears:

“You don’t know how I sometimes wish I could
run and jump just for one little minute, it would
feel so good to me. But I know there’s no use
wishing, and T’ve just got to bear it patiently, and
remember that when Jesus thinks it time for me to
go and live with him and papa up there”—pointing
her little hand toward the blue. dome above the park
—“J shall be just as straight and strong as other
children, and papa will be so glad to see his little
Kathie again!”

Margaret looked up. “Is that your name?” she
asked.

“Yes, I am named for mamma, ‘Katherine, but



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 31

they always call me ‘Kathie,’ for a kind of pet
name. I like it; do you? What is your name?”

“My name is Margaret. J was named for my
mother, too. The boys an’ girls down in our alley
call me ‘Meg’ an’ ‘Madge,’ ’cause they say my name
is too long. But Gran’ma won't have it so, an’ she
scolds ’em sometimes when she hears ’em call me.
She calls me ‘my little Margaret,’ you see, ‘cause
Granny, she’s all Z’ve got an’ I’m all she’s got, an’ we
love each other very much indeed. Oh, yes, we do.”

“You haven’t a mother, and I haven’t a father!”
said Kathie, softly: “And I guess you and I are
about the same age. I am ten, and you?”

“T am goin’ on ten,” replied Margaret. “I'll be ten
in the middle of the summer. There’s an old man
who knew my mamma, an’ pitied me very. much
when—when I didn’t have her any longer; an’ he
keeps a flower store, an’ lets me sell vi'lets an’ flowers
for him, an’ pays me part of all I make on ’em. So
that’s how J make a livin’ for Granny an’ me. I
have real good luck sometimes, an’ I always try to

make her comf’table. I should die without Granny



32 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

to love an’ be kind to me. You see, she is my own









' dear mother’s mother, an’ she loved mamma very,



very dearly.”



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 33

Kathie lifted her violets up to her face and breathed
in the delicious fragrance, and then a sweet-faced
lady appeared upon the scene.

“Why, darling, are you here still? Have you
bought your violets?”

She came toward Margaret, who had lifted her
basket upon her arm again, and was waiting the
maid’s return with the money for the violets Kathie
had bought.

“So you are a little business woman, are you?”
she remarked, smilingly. “I think you and my girlie

here must be about the same age, though you are

7



strong and sturdy and tall, and she

The mother’s eyes turned from Margaret to Kathie.
The cheery voice faltered, and a look of sadness
passed over the kindly face as she turned hastily
and went to an adjoining room.

“Poor, dear mamma!” said Kathie. “I try to be
happy and glad so that she won’t be so sad. When
I laugh, she laughs, and when she is sad, J am so
unhappy! Oh, I tell you what, little girl: I’m sure

I'd gladly be like you, and live as you do, and sell
3



34 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

flowers, and be poor, rather than be a cripple and
live in a fine house and wear fine clothes.” —

“Lots of folks have money an’ nice things an’ ain't
lame an’ sick,” replied Margaret.

-“Oh, yes, of course, but if you couldn't have
health and money, wouldn’t you rather have health?”

Margaret straightened her strong young spine, and
looked down at her brown little feet unfettered by
a shoe, her sturdy arms so used to the weight of
burdens. She knew she could raise and swing those
young arms as high and as often as she pleased, with-
out pain and without hindrance. A throb of. joy
quickened her pulses as she realized and felt proud
of her own glowing health.

So she answered Kathie’s question briskly.

“Guess I’d choose health, miss, cause it’s fun to
run an’ jump, an’ I am glad to be well an’ strong.
But, then, you see, I am so tired of bein’ about the
streets all day, an’ I’m cross some days, so that
Granny almost has to scold me. Oh, dear! I do try
hard not to be naughty, because the old man told

me mamma could see an’ be grieved, an’ if I am not



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 35

— good, I never can go to her. I know she’s watchin’
at the big golden gates all this long time. Do you
think, miss, angels ever get tired waitin’ so long,
an’ watchin’ so long for those they love down here
to go up to ’em?”

“Oh, Margaret, the dear Jesus keeps them from
being too tired, I’m sure, and He watches with them,

I think. Ah, here comes nurse!”

So Margaret, with an empty basket, but heart full
of pleasure over her good fortune, parted with Kathie
at the door of the fine, large house.

“You will come again soon with your flowers?”

asked Kathie. “I like you, Margaret, and I will
always buy of you.”
“Yes, indeed, I will surely come!” was the happy
reply, and Margaret went gayly down to the street
again, her little purse bulging out with the silver
lame Kathie had dropped into it.

But for all the smiles and the feeling of happiness
with which “My little Margaret” was overflowing,

there could not be crowded away the feeling of sym-



36 MY LITTLE MARGARET,

pathy also, and sorrow for poor little Kathie, who
could not stir without her crutch, and who had said
so mournfully that “every day she was in pain.”

Margaret had seen crippled children—yes, and men
and women besides—who had lost the use of one or
the other of their limbs; but somehow she had never
before been so impressed with the sorrow of it all.
Just a glance, ‘and the thought, “Ugh! I’m glad J
don’t look like that!” had been all that concerned
her in the matter, save the inclination once in a
while (and which was not meant to be heartless) to
laugh at what she saw. Ah, now she couldn’t laugh!
She was sure she never could laugh at any one’s sor-
row or misfortune again. Kathie had made her see
with different and pitying eyes, and if Kathie suf-
fered pain all the time, of course others in her condi-
tion must feel the same. ;

“T never knew, oh! I never knew how they must
be feeling, an’ I’ve seen ’em so many times an’ never
cared or felt sorry, as I ought to.”

This and other regretful thoughts were running
through Margaret’s brain in company with the happy,



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 87

brighter memories there, as she hurried homeward,
not forgetting to stop at the first convenient stand
and buy not only one but two golden, juicy oranges .

for Grandma.

It was a very interesting story that Granny list-
ened to, in her partial opinion, as over the meal of
mush and milk, and the fine dessert of oranges, the
two who were dearest to each other on earth sat
contentedly and talked together.

“Aye, my little Margaret, she’s bonny, I have no
doubt, an’ she’s good as she’s fair, my lass, an’ I’ve a
tender feelin’ for her because of her kind words to
my bairn. But I’m thinkin’ (ye’ll be knowin’ that,
dearie!) that there’s none can be so bonny, or carry
so tender a heart in all the world, as just my little
Margaret, my own daughter’s own bairn.”

So said Granny as she rose from the little table
and prepared to wash and set aside the few dishes
- the simple meal had required. :

“You're just a foolish old Grandma, you are!” was

n, rat? 7 , ;.
Margaret’s reply, as in her strong young arms she



38 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

clasped her Granny tight and close, and left sweet

kisses on the wrinkled face.

After that, for many weeks, each day she turned
her steps, this little violet-girl, toward the broad
street where Kathie lived; and whether she had had
“alucky mornin’,” or one not as brisk in business as.
she wanted, her face gathered all its smiles, and her
heart all the sunshine the day could spare, as she
drew near the one spot in all the wide city where
she owned a “friend” whom, next to Granny, she
could love.

Kathie was always watching for her at the window
beside the broad white stoop, watching with smiles
of greeting which went straight to Margaret’s little
grateful heart. And then, you see, whether there
were few or many bunches of sweet blossoms left in
the little willow basket, they were sure to change
owners there at. Kathie’s house. Kathie’s dear
mother, too, had learned to welcome the orphaned
child who was so bravely trying to take care of her

old grandmother. There was something very attrac-



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 39

tive in Margaret. She had a little winning way
which, because she was all unconscious of it, was all
the more winsome. She had no idea that in her
~ brown little face, and in the tangled mass of her
dark, wavy hair there was anything at all attractive
save in Granny’s partial. and loving eyes.

She didn’t know how often people had turned to
look at her graceful little figure, and smiled to hear the
sweet, clear tones of her young voice. Oh, no; she
was in her own opinion only Margaret Donald, poor
little orphan; scantily clothed, and barefooted ;_ half
the time bare-headed; a little street flower-girl who
had no one in all the wide world to love her, and
be glad or sorry with her, save her old, feeble grand-
mother, and no home on the earth save that which
was bounded by four plastered walls high up in a
rickety building in the big city’s poorest: locality.

But Kathie and Kathie’s mamma saw more than all
that. They saw a sunny-faced little toiler amongst
hundreds of toilers, trying to be a good child in
the midst of all things bad and discouraging ; a faith-
ful little grandchild, a little maiden with refined



40 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

yearnings and patient strivings, and a little heart
that longed for love, and gave love freely where it
could trust, and put its little confidences for safe-
keeping.

So they accepted that trust, and all the confidences
which Margaret had learned to yield to them little by
little. For it had come about that after a time
Kathie had made the little girl come in and sit
a while with her and her mother in the pretty room
up-stairs, where there could be cosey talks and no
interruptions. .

Margaret had accepted the first invitation timidly,
and with a shy glance at her feet and dress.

But it had been like a beautiful dream afterward,
and when Kathie’s second invitation came, the eager
little heart was not so timid in its acceptance.

She had talked of her own dear mother that first
day of her introduction to Kathie’s sunny room. Not
at once, though, for her quaint speeches and funny
tales of the street scenes she had been amongst had
made Kathie laugh, and there had been merry jesting
back and forth, while the mother sat by with smiles



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 41

on her face, and a dainty bit of sewing in her hand



(not a bit like the coarse work poor Granny’s

wrinkled fingers kept busy over).



492 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

But presently Kathie had chanced to go over and
seat herself on a low stool at her mother’s knee, and
Margaret turned her head aside that no one might
see the sudden tears springing into her eyes.

“Kathie can lay her head on her mother’s knee,
an’ be loved an’ kissed when she feels like it, an’
can feel her mother’s arms round her tight! J can’t,
though. I ain’t got any mother to hug me/ Id be
glad as she is if I only had!”

These were the thoughts filling her heart as she
watched Kathie there, and the loving mother of the
little lame girl saw that something was grieving her
young guest, and questioned her kindly,

“Oh, it ain’t anything, ma’am,” said Margaret,
hastily brushing her brown eyes clear from mist.
“T was only bein’ foolish. I was—only—I was only
jus’ wishin’ I had my mamma to love me like Kathie
has. There’s lots of times when I feel like puttin’ ’
my head on mamma’s breast an’—an’ hearin’ her say,
‘Don’t cry, Margaret.’ But ’tain’t any use to want what
you can’t have; I know that, an’ Granny keeps tellin’

me, but Kathie made me forget it just a minute.”



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 43

“Come here, dear!”

Margaret looked up wonderingly as the lady held
out an arm of invitation.

“TI ain’t fit, ma’am,” she said, slowly ; “I——”

“You are clean, my dear, and you are always
as neat as your circumstances will permit. J am
not afraid to put my arm about you, Margaret.
Come!”

So she went over to the mother and daughter, and
knelt down beside them humbly and _ respectfully,
and shivered for very gladness at the touch of the
kind arm about her waist.

“Oh, I’m sure mamma will thank you if she is
lookin’? down from heaven now an’ sees you bein’ so
kind an’ good to me, ma’am!” said the child in grate-
ful tones, lifting her beautiful lustrous eyes to the
gentle blue eyes above her.

“ thought the lady reverently. “Ah! how Uittle a thing
it is to do, and how great the pleasure it gives!”

So is it to be wondered at that this first visit

should have seemed to Margaret like a beautiful,



44 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

beautiful dream, long after she had gone back to
her attic home, and told Granny. all about it?

*~ Ts it a wonder that she looked forward so, each
day, to the hour when she could turn from the
crowded business streets and wend her way toward
the lovely home where Kathie lived, and where the
pretty park still spread out its charms for the
passer-by ?

She was most unselfish—“my little Margaret ”—
and “was glad that Kathie was glad.” She borrowed
crumbs of comfort from Kathie’s gladness each day,
and grew sunny in the warmth of Kathie’s sun-
shine.

Even old Granny brightened up and turned merry
at times when Margaret would describe these visits
of hers to the “fine, big house where Kathie lived,
an’ the grand wide park over the way where the
fountain sang to the grasses, an’ played all day in
the sun.”

It was wonderful, too, how much new joy had
seemed to enter into the life of little lame Kathie

since she and Margaret had met.



MY LITTLE MARGARET, 45

“Margaret makes me happier, mamma,” she said
one day, “and I don’t mind the pain so much when
she comes and talks to me. She puts her laugh right
into my heart, and my laugh seems to spring up
and meet and join it, and things seem better worth
laughing about than before.”

And Margaret said to grandma: “Kathie smiles
right through me, Granny, an’ it’s like as though I
breathed a ray of sunshine. Oh, she’s a dear, dear girl!”

“So is my little Margaret,” said Granny, jealous
for her bairn.

“Oh, but, Granny, Kathie is ’most an angel. I
love her so that I don’t get tired as I used to, goin’
about an’ cryin’ vi’lets!”

Isn’t it true, my little readers, that loving words,
and loving thoughts and deeds, done or received,
will turn to gold the grayest and soberest of duties
and wearisome tasks, and enrich soul and body with
the preciousness of their great worth ?

Sweet little Kathie, brave little Margaret! Was
not each happier, sweeter, and braver for the love

they gave each other?



46 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

But there came a day when Margaret, coming as
usual toward Kathie’s home, checked the song on
her lips, and turned a pair of wondering, disap-
pointed eyes from window to window of the house
before her. But vainly there she looked to see her
friend. No face appeared at either window, and a
sudden fear fluttered in Margaret’s heart.

“She’s always been there, right there at that win-
dow beside the stoop,” muttered the anxious little
girl to herself. “Ever since we've known each other
Kathie has watched for me, jus’ as if I wasn’t only
a street girl sellin’ flowers, an’ she livin’ in a big fine
house! Oh, I know something’s happened!”

She paused and held up a bunch of violets, so
that in case any chance should call Kathie to one of
the upper windows, she might the more easily attract
her notice.

But no; neither Kathie, her mother, nor the faith-
ful nurse appeared to gladden Margaret’s longing
eyes, and the fear in her heart fluttered faster and
faster.

It was true that the little lame and tender-hearted



MY LITILE MARGARET. 44

daughter of that handsome home had never failed to




be at the window,
ready to give a nod
of greeting to Marga-
ret as she passed, and
to buy of her fragrant
wares. Sometimes
as we have seen, Mar-
garet was invited in
for one of those cosey
talks she liked so well, and those were “red-letter”

times for her, which she loved to talk and laugh



48 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

over with Granny, and tuck away in the store-house
of her memory, for refreshment when her heart was
tired and sad, and things seemed to “be going all
wrong with her.”

At other times she was contented with only
Kathie’s nod of greeting, or a few kind words spoken
with the purchase of her flowers, and just the sight
of the blue eyes she loved so to look into would
set her heart a-dancing, and give her new courage as
she went her way. But what could it mean to-day
that there was no Kathie on watch as usual, and
Margaret waited so long in vain before the curtained
window ?

Had Kathie gone away? Oh, how Margaret hoped
not! Was she sick? Ah, that. was worse still to
think of! Was she forgetful at last of the little
violet girl, and tired of the new friendship?

Oh, surely, surely not that! Kathie never could be
forgetful, never so unkind as to take from little
lonely Margaret the one joy which had come into her
young life!

But Margaret could not ease her mind in any way



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 49

about the matter. She only felt that something was
wrong, and that she was disappointed, and as she
had yet many bunches of her violets to dispose of,
she went her way, hoping to go back to Granny
soon, and maybe together they could think it all
out.

“Here's vi'lets! vilets! Who'll buy my vi'lets?”
she cried, and soon Kathie’s home was far behind
her. But it was strange how much of the sunshine
lost its brightness, and how weighty the little heart
‘seemed to be, in spite of the fact that ere long the
last bunch of flowers was transferred from the basket
to the daintily gloved hand of a generous purchaser,
and Margaret was free to hurry home to Granny,
with a big round apple in her basket, and a tiny

“fortune” in her purse.

g Why, lassie, back again!” cried Grandma, as the
little girl came into the cheerless room, and turned
it, with her loved presence, into a palace for the fond
old soul who greeted her so cheerily.

“ And the basket empty, my bairn, too! I’m think.
4



50 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

in’ this has been one o’ the gude days, my little
Margaret, and yet you're no smilin’ as usual. Why,
lass?”

Margaret hung up her basket, put her purse in
Grandma’s lap, and then sat mournfully down on her
stool at Grandma’s knee.

“It would have been a good day, Granny, for
everybody liked the vilets, an’ one lady bought four
bunches, but—oh, Granny, do you know Kathie wasn’t
at the window watchin’ for me! I waited, an’ I
cried ‘vi'lets, too; but no one came, an’, oh, dear! I
had such a heavy feelin’ right here,” laying her hand
on her heart, and looking pitifully into the kind old
face for sympathy. “I don’t know why, but some-
how I feel afraid Kathie has gone away! Granny, it
makes me have a lonesome feelin’, an’ all the rest of
the day seemed tired to me.”

“Foot, now, my little Margaret, dinna fret 1” cried
the old woman, slipping into her broad Scotch accent
as usual when at all worked up. “Dinna ye fret
so sair, dearie! Ill be thinkin’ Miss Kathie has

company, an’ if so, how could she find time to be



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 51

standin’ at the window just to keep an eye for a
little bairn like yoursel’?”

Margaret brightened. “ Why, yes, Granny! I didn’t
think of that at all! She must have had company,
an’ it wouldn’t have been right to remember ’bout
me just then. Oh, I keep forgettin’ that she’s a
lady’s little girl, an’—an’ I’m only just a flower-girl,
you see, Gran’ma. But maybe I'll see her to-morrow,
an’ she'll laugh at me for bein’ so silly!”

So the shadow left her face, the worry departed
from her heart, and a little song hovered about the
pretty red lips of the child old Granny believed to

be a veritable little angel from heaven.

Alas! on the next day it was just the same. Mar-
garet was disappointed as before. The sunshine was
bright as usual about the park, and the birds were
singing as merrily as ever. All the wide street, with
its row of fine houses, past which our little girl
walked toward the finest of them all, where Kathie
lived, was bathed in sunshine, and everything about

her looked glad and beautiful.



52 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

But how could Margaret be glad, when still the
curtained window beside the broad marble stoop was
deserted, and still no face appeared at either window,
look where she would about the house before her?

“Oh, she’s gone away, she’s surely gone away!”
was the ery in the child’s heart. “Gone, and did not
say good-by to me!” Very grave was the little face
at that thought, but a sort of childish pride followed,
and Margaret lifted her brown head proudly as she
passed on. “I got along well enough "fore I ever
met her, an’ I guess I can spare her if she wants to
be spared. I’ve got Granny, anyhow, an’ she’s best
of any one in the whole world!”

Then she began to cry her violets in a clear voice,
though, to be sure, there was just the least trace of a
tremor in it, and she kept her little head at a very
dignified height for several squares, all the while
feeling quite positive that she wasn’t going to pine
because Kathie hadn’t cared enough for her to say a
good-by before she went away.

Margaret was quite successful, too, on that bright

morning. Everybody wanted violets, and her small.



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 538

purse grew quite full ere long. When she was
ready to go home and get Granny’s simple lunch for
her, she would have been a very happy little Mar-
garet, had: it not been for the fact that ’way down
deep in her heart, despite all the brave effort to be
gay, and to sustain the feeling of pride, which scorned
to confess that it was half an angry resentment, and
not a real honest feeling after all, there was a sore
pain which nothing could make her forget.

For two days she had not seen Kathie! For two
days she had looked up wistfully to the windows of
Kathie’s house, and had seen no face there to give
her smile for smile. For two days she had saved
her prettiest bunches of violets for Kathie to buy,
and after all they had been purchased by a stranger.

Margaret knew, too, that if she had “gotten along
well enough” before meeting Kathie, she had found
her little life much more enjoyableesince she had
known the sweet lame girl and looked into the sunny
blue eyes, and all her attempts to act and feel as if
“she didn’t care” were miserable failures.

And this is why she couldn’t feel as happy as the



54 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

full purse and empty basket usually made her. She
went home, however, with as brave a face as she
could put on above such a worried, perplexed little
heart, and Granny again cheered her up and bade
her hope for better on the next day.

The next day was as bright—so far as sunshine
and blue skies were concerned—as the others had
been, but to Margaret the same cloud was visible, for
still there was no greeting for her at Kathie’s window.
Ah, me! what could Margaret do now? For a few
moments she waited before the door, then a sudden
thought came to her.

:“T will go an’ ring the bell, an’ find out what the
trouble can be. If Kathie has gone away, then I
can’t help it, an-—an’ [ll try not to care; maybe Dll
forget her as she did me. But maybe, oh, maybe
she is very sick, an’ then—oh, I can’t think about
that any moret I'll go an’ be sure!”

So she went up the steps and pulled the bell. She
felt that perhaps the right thing would have ‘been
for her to go down and knock at the basement

door. But then, you see, she was afraid that some



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 55

one who had not known about her, and who didn’t
care for her, would answer her knock, and thinking
her only a little beggar girl, send her off with cross
words and looks. |

So that is why my little Margaret went to the
front upper door, and rang the bell timidly. How her
little hand trembled as she pulled the knob! And
how she. started as she heard the sound of its ring!

“Maybe the kind nurse will come an’ open the
door! JI won’t be afraid of her,” thought the child.
“Oh, I do hope Kathie’s mother won’t be angry ’cause
I rang her bell when I wasn’t asked to do it.”

Yes, it was Kathie’s kind-faced nurse who opened
the door, as Margaret had hoped.

“Oh, will you please tell me—tell me—how is
Miss Kathie to-day, ma’am? I haven’t seen her for
so long. Has she gone away? Is it very far?”

The woman’s face was very sober, and now, as she
finished her hurried little speech all full of questions,
Margaret saw that there were traces of tears there,
too. But she went on eagerly. “An’ tell her, please,

I've saved these, the very prettiest vilets in my



56 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

basket, for her, ’cause I haven’t seen her face at the
window in oh, so long a time! Why, it’s two whole
days, ma’am,.an’ I miss her so!”

The woman wiped her eyes, and smiled down
upon Margaret’s upturned face.

“Dear child, Miss Kathie, poor lamb, is sick in
bed with fever and pain, and the worry of it all is
breaking my wmistress’s heart; and, indeed, the whole
house is a sad, sad place. Miss Kathie wouldn't
heed me if I gave her the flowers, my girl, for she’s
heeded nothing at all since she was first taken. It
was yesterday morning only that she was her own
self, so bright and happy; and she went to the
window there, looking out at the park. I remember
she said to me: ‘This is a fine, sunshiny day, nurse.
I know Margaret will sell lots of her flowers to-day.”
And she stood there, with her blue eyes all shining,
and humming a little song. All of a sudden she
cried out, and I heard her—I was getting something
from the table near by for my mistress—and I ran to
see what the trouble was, and she had fainted, Mar-

garet, fainted in a white heap there on the floor.



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 57

Oh, but her mother was scared! We sent for the
. doctor, and he’s been watching her closely all the
time since, but she don’t know us, and only tosses
and turns and burns with the fever. Now you see
it wouldn’t do any good for me to take your violets,
though I'll tell my mistress how good you were to
offer them. Poor lady, she’s on her knees beside
Kathie most all the day, begging for one word and
look, and Miss Kathie never knows it at all.”

Poor little Margaret! she stood amazed and fright-
ened as this sorrowful tale was told her. Her brown
eyes grew misty with tears so that she could scarcely
see the face of the woman at the door. A choking
feeling about her throat, and oh, such a dull pain at
her heart, prevented her from replying. .She could
only pull the little shawl over her face, and stifle as
well as she could the sobs that presently shook her
from head to foot.

“Poor little girl! she loves Miss Kathie, indeed !”
‘thought the nurse, pitying Margaret, yet in haste to
return to her sick charge, and so end this interview.

But Margaret held out her violets again, and with



58 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

tears streaming down her cheeks, begged that they
might be given to Kathie’s mother, “just to let her
know how sorry I am, an’—an’ that J love Miss
Kathie, too!” she pleaded pitifully; and the nurse -
took the fragrant blossoms gently from the little
outstretched hand.

Then the door was softly closed between the
woman and the child. :

Down the steps again went Margaret. For her
the beauty of the glorious day had quite departed.
Neither the park nor the pretty, sparkling fountain
within its bounds had power to cheer Margaret’s
drooping spirits.

Home she went, her violets half unsold, her little
purse empty save for a few lonely pennies jingling
mournfully together as she ran—ran toward home
and Granny.

* * * x * *

“Gran’ma, will she die? Oh, do you think Kathie
will die?”

Granny smoothed the young head bowed in her

lap, and answered gently:.



MY LITTLE MARGARET. D9

“Aye, who knows, darling? Not we, surely. But











the good Lord lets us hope as much as we choose,

an’ we'll keep hoping and hoping, lassie, an’ that will



_ 60 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

cheer us better than to look on the dark side o
things, you know, my little Margaret.”

“Do people always die when they’re sick like
Kathie—do they, Granny, dear? Was mamma. that
way ?”

“Aye, my little Margaret, lamb of my heart, she
was sick indeed!” replied the old woman, her dim
eyes filling with the tears she had been trying to
keep back while comforting her child. “But there’s
been even sicker folks than her, an’ they lived; they
got well, my bairnie, an’ why not Kathie?”

“Oh, dear! oh; dear! oh, dear me!” sobbed Mar-
garet, “an’ to think I was tryin’ to think [ didn’t
care if she didn’t want to watch for me; an’—an’,
oh, Gran’ma, Gran’ma, I was angry with Kathie a
little while, as I went through the streets the first
time after I didn’t find her at the window! Angry
with her, only think, an’ she—was so sick. Oh,

Granny!” ,

Days went by, sorrowful days for little Margaret,

though she was busy selling her flowers, and there



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 61

were times when her sorrow was lightened by mat-
ters of interest around her. Still, all the time the
soreness lay there, and her longing to see her one
little friend was very intense.

. But in Kathie’s home only the deepest grief pre-
vailed. Silence was everywhere about the large
house. Grave faces, low whispers, anxious watchings,
and earnest prayers had prevailed all through the
days when Margaret had to go about her daily street
duties without one glimpse of the dear little face she
loved.

But there came at last a change. It was at the
twilight hour of a day which had been fair and
beautiful that little Kathie suddenly opened her eyes
and saw her mother sitting at the bedside. Oh, the
pale, worn face, white as Kathie’s own, and worn
with long watching.

The sick child put out her arms feebly and
reached them toward her mother’s neck. Lovingly
she drew the dear, tear-stained face down beside her
own upon the pillow. “Mamma, dear mamma, |

know I have been very sick. I know it by every



62 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

sign around me, and by my own feelings, but most
of all by the looks of your face. - But. has it been
very long, mamma? Have I made you and. nursie
very tired? Has any one seen Margaret? Oh, she'll
think I have forgotten her!”

Then tenderly the mother explained everything to
Kathie, and told her of Margaret’s coming to the
door to inquire for her, and find out whether she
(Kathie) had gone away, or was sick; and how she
had sent the sweet message of her love and sympathy
through the violets, and of how the little girl had
ventured several times since then to call at the lower
door and ask how Kathie was getting on.

“You will soon be well again, darling,” continued
the mother, “and can see and thank little Margaret
for her love of you. She says she has missed you
at the window, and she is very lonely to see you
again, nurse says.”

Kathie smiled, but it was a wan little bit of a
smile after all. She knew better than any one beside
how weak was the frame that held her brave soul

and heart together. “Mamma,” she said, “I don’t



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 63

think I shall ever be well again. I feel it here”—
laying her hand on her’ heart—“and I know I shall
soon go to dear papa.”

“Ah, darling, darling, don’t!” cried her mother,
fearing only too surely that Kathie spoke truly, but
unwilling to believe it.

“Why, it won't be sad, mamma, papa waiting for
me, and being so glad to see me. He'll surely
come first of all the angels to welcome me _ to
heaven, and you’ve told me often what a dear, beauti-
ful home Jesus makes for us there beyond the blue
sky. I don’t feel afraid, mamma, and I wouldn’t feel
the least sorry to go from here, where I’m always
weak and sick, if it were not for leaving you, my
own sweet mamma!”

Only kisses, many kisses for reply, and then
mamma brought to Kathie a little vase in which she
had placed the violets Margaret had last left at the
door with their message of sympathy.

“Pretty violets!” said the sick child, touching them
to her lips. “Tell Margaret I love her for her love

of me, and tell nurse to tell her, too, that one day, if



64 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

I get a little stronger, she may come and sit beside
me here and we will have one of our nice talks.”

“Yes, my darling,” was the reply, “ and now sleep
a little for my sake, and so bring the strength for
Margaret’s visit quickly, dear one. We will all be
cheerful together.”

Mothers can smile when their hearts are breaking
for the things that hurt and give grief to their
children. They smile to cheer the loved sufferer, and
to help lighten the trouble, whatever it may be.
There is no heart in the wide world so loving and
unselfish as the heart of a mother, and no child can
ever know to what extent that love and unselfishness
will reach. Perhaps some little girls, and little sons
too, would be more appreciative of mother and her
love if they could know the boundless preciousness
of her devotion. Kathie knew it all, and a very ap-
preciative little daughter she was. She understood
how mother’s smiles were meant to hide the deep
pain in the heart beneath, and she said to herself:
“Tf mamma can be brave, and not grieve me with
the sight of her tears when her heart is full of them,



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 65

then Z can be brave, and not worry her with one
single show of. bad feeling, no matter how the pain
hurts, and I won’t let her think I don’t want to get
well—sometimes I would like to go to heaven right
away, my back hurts so—but I'll smile as she does,
and be as patient as can be, though I know as well
as if an angel had whispered to me that I never,
never, never shall walk about again.”

So they two, the mother and her little sick Kathie,
were playing a loving game together, though indeed
it was such a sorry “game.” Always smiles when
together, and merry words for each, and alas! tears
and the saddest of thoughts when apart.

Meanwhile Margaret received Kathie’s message, and
waited impatiently for the day when nurse would bid
her “come in and see Miss Kathie awhile.” Thus a
few more days went by. Margaret’s cheeks were
growing browner and fuller with the wind and sun
of the glad spring-time. Strong and_ well-formed
were the little limbs, and the very spirit of health
possessed her. How about Kathie? Weaker and

_ weaker, paler and paler, more and more quiet; the
5



66 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

starry eyes grew bright with increasing fever. Rest-
lessness possessed her, and she wanted to talk, but
the sweet voice had daily less strength for even that.

One day she awoke from sleep and asked for her
mother. Nurse called the mother, and then left them
together, wiping her eyes on her apron as she went
down to the kitchen, and saying to herself: “Oh, poor
little one, poor little one! God help the mother, for

she will need it very soon now!”

Sitting beside the bed, Kathie’s mother laid her
head upon her child’s heart, where Kathie wished . it
to lie.

“Mamma, I want a promise from you,” she said.
“J want you to promise me, please, mamma, dear,
that—that. when I am with papa, and waiting with
him, you know, for you, dear, precious mamma, you
will love Margaret, and let her come to see and talk
to you sometimes, just as she used to when I was
well—I mean before this last sick time. You know
she does love us both so much, and I was: thinking

that perhaps you—you might forget about her,



x

MY LITTLE MARGARET. 6

mamma, because you would be grieving so for your

own girl.”

The blue eyes were very bright, and a feverish





flush burned on Kathie’s cheeks as she wound her
arms more tightly about her mother’s neck and con-
tinued her little earnest plea for Margaret.

“You know—you haven't forgotten, have you,



68 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

mamma, darling ?—that one day Margaret and I said
we would play at being sisters, because she often
said she would be the happiest child in the city if
she only had a sister. So I said she could call me
one, and oh, it made her so glad! You will go on
being kind to her, mamma? Promise me that! And
never mind if she is dark, and wears coarse clothes,
and that her hair is all tangled and blown about, in-
stead of being soft and goldy like mine! Brown hair
is very pretty, mamma, and oh, you’ve often said
, Margaret had beautiful eyes! Do promise me that
you will keep on loving her just to please me?”

Very soft and low was the mother’s answer, when
Kathie, at last exhausted with her earnestness and
her long appeal in Margaret’s behalf, dropped back
upon the pillow and with wistful eyes watched her
mother’s face.

“My Kathie’s friends shall be my friends, surely,
and Margaret will not be forgotten from amongst
them, darling. Do not fear, my child, Margaret shall
be cared for for Kathie’s dear sake. But ah, my

dear, my dear, you will not go from your mother yet



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 69

awhile. Papa will wait a little longer still, for I can-
not yet spare my one lamb, my best comfort, even to
go to him.”

“Ah! but if Jesus wants to make me straight and
well again, and there is no way for that to be done
down here, you would——” |

“Let you go?” interrupted the mother, sadly.
“Dear Kathie, you are right. Mamma would be
selfish to keep you back. My patient, brave darling,
you have been a good child to me. God knows my _
life will be broken and weak ‘without you, but—
He knoweth best for: us both, and if He wants

you, mother must be patient and let her darling
go.”

Then there was a little more quiet talk between
the mother and daughter, and by and by Kathie
fell asleep, lying like a waxen figure upon her little
bed, only the rise and fall of her tired chest show-
ing that she was not really yet gone from the human
love on earth to the infinite love and compassion of
the home beyond the skies.

And while she slept, Margaret went by, looking up



70 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

with her wistful eyes still in vain search for the face

she longed to see. Ah, poor little Margaret!

‘Not many days after this, “My little Margaret”
awoke to hear the rain driving hard and angrily
against the window-panes, and the casements rattling
with the violence of the wind.

What a fierce storm it was! How Margaret
shivered as she dressed hastily (so as to get Gran-
ny’s milk warmed for her as soon as_ possible),
and watched meanwhile the sheets of rain which fell
from the most leaden of skies. :

“Oh, dear!” she thought, “what a dreadful is to
sell vilets! Seems as if vilets an’ rain don’t go to-
gether nicely. But maybe some one will buy ’em to
be cheered up, ’cause they are such cheery things, Z
think. Oh, yes, I guess Pll go an’ try anyhow!” So
she hurried through the process of dressing—a very
short process with Margaret—then helped Granny do
likewise, and as soon as the simple breakfast of mush
and milk had been enjoyed (for they did enjoy it,

those two grateful souls, since Jove made it a feast),



MY LITTLE MARGARET, 71

Margaret went for her violets to the old friend’s

store, and soon after was going her usual rounds, cry-:
3 oD D> 9

ing her “vi'lets” through the storm of wind and rain

Vf






as cheerily as_ she
could, poor, brave _ lit-
tle flower-girl !

But, oh, dear, the rain came down so fast, and the
wind blew her about so rudely, and people, from
under the shelter of their umbrellas (which the

wind quite frequently turned inside out), looked at






72 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

her with more of wonder at her audacity in brav-
‘ing the storm and fancying she could do her kind of
business on such a day, than with any desire for her
violets; and so, before an hour had passed, the little
girl was back again, and glad to find shelter at
Granny’s side.

Tt was a very dreary and long day for both of
them, though Grandma felt that so long as “my little
Margaret” was with her the room contained an abun-
dance of its own peculiar sunshine.

But the hours dragged, and it seemed to Margaret
as though almost a year had passed when finally she
and Granny finished their supper and went to bed.
The tiny little stove was almost empty of coals, for
as they were obliged to lay in their coal by the
pailful (not by the ton, as my little readers. see it
bought), of course the supply would be quickly
exhausted, and thus it happened that when this
night came on, the poor, bare attic room was chilly
indeed and the child and her grandmother were
glad to creep into bed and snuggle together for

warmth.



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 73

During the day both had talked much of Kathie,
and Margaret had planned to carry the largest and
- sweetest of her violets—which could be spared from
those the florist allowed her to call her own—to
Kathie’s house, and ask nurse to give them to the
sick girl just as early as she could get there on the
following day. She did not know that all through
that day of rain and dreariness Kathie had been
growing weaker, and that a restlessness to see Mar-
garet had possessed the little lame girl, so that nurse
stood by the window and watched, and watched in
vain, to see the flower-girl go by.

“Surely she would not be out on a day like this,”
she said to Kathie when, for the fourth time, the
weak voice asked: “Is she coming, nurse?”

“You don’t know how brave Margaret is,” Kathie
replied. “If she thought she could sell her violets
she wouldn't heed a storm. No, indeed ; she would
try and do her best for Granny’s sake. Watch just
a little longer.”

So nurse watched, and when the morning had

passed, Kathie was disappointed, so disappointed



U4 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

that .tears filled her eyes, and she drew the sheet
over her face and cried quietly to herself.

As often as possible through the afternoon had
nurse also kept watch for “My little Margaret,” and
when at last the shadows deepened, and day was
done, mamma comforted her darling as well as she
could, and explained how it was possible that the
anxious old grandmother feared to let her one ewe
lamb venture out in the storm, and that if Margaret
had even ventured it, it would have been folly for
her to come so far. “Sleep now, darling, and with
to-morrow’s sunshine Margaret will come this way,
and she shall be called in to see you.”

So Kathie slept, and while she dreamed of Mar-
garet, and smiled in her dreaming, the storm of wind
and rain went on ceaselessly outside, and raged against
the poor and the rich alike. As it dashed against
Kathie’s warmly curtained and strongly paned win-
dows, so it beat angrily upon the panes beside Mar-
garet’s bed, and startled her with its violence.
Grandma kept muttering in her sleep, as‘the old will

do, and the fitful shining of the street lamps, now



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 75

brightly, now darkly, made grotesque shadows on the
wall, which Margaret’s excited eyes turned into fear-
ful shapes.

She crept closer to Granny’s side, and tried to sleep,
but her brain was overfull of fancies and thoughts,
and of strange fears which set her heart fluttering
wildly.

But at last, after a long, long time, it seemed to
the wakeful child, there came a lull in the noise of
the storm. The rain ceased from beating on the
panes, the wind settled into silence, and Margaret,
wiping the troubled tears from her eyes, went to
sleep, and like Kathie, had a dream. She found her-
self in a large garden,. where some children played
with Kathie and herself.

And Kathie’s back was straight and strong as hers,
and Kathie’s laugh was merriest of them all.

A beautiful fountain played in the midst of the
garden and birds flew hither and thither singing the
sweetest of songs.

How they came there, she and Kathie together, in

the midst of so much beauty and gladness, Margaret



76 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

did not question. She felt a wondrous peace and







joy, which thrilled her whole soul through, and she

listened to sweet strains of music which came from



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 17

some invisible source, and were like what she had
fancied angels’ songs to be.

Oh, how happy she was, “My little Margaret,” and
her happy friend, Kathie! They both forgot there
had ever been a pain or sorrow in their lives, and
laughed and danced together as merry children will,
while the beautiful shine and sweetest strains of
music were all about this wonderful garden in which
they played.

Then presently Margaret saw her mother’s face, and
was folded in the loving arms she had longed so to
fee] once more around her little form. Rapture filled
her soul, her heart was glad to the very depths, and
she stretched out her arms with the joyous cry,
“Mamma, oh, mamma!”

“What is it, my little Margaret? What is ailing
ye, my lass? Hoot, now, something’s frightening ye,
I’m thinking !”

Margaret opened her eyes to find herself in the
cold little attic room, and Granny shaking her
gently by the shoulder. Gone was the beautiful
garden, gone the dear mother, and Kathie, too, had



78 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

vanished from sight! No more sweet strains of
music, no longer the golden shine of a wondrous
light! Birds, fountain, flowers—all gone, and only
the dreary little room, now half in shadow and half
in the gray of the early morning’s light, for Margaret
and her old granny.

“Oh, well, it was only a dream,” she thought; “ but
may be it’s a sign that Kathie’s going to get well !
Oh, won't I be happy! We will make a beautiful
garden of the park, an’ Kathie an’ Ill play it is
the garden I dreamed of I must hurry an’ go
out with my vi'lets, an’ then I'll tell her all about
Le

Granny was told the dream, too, as they ate break-
fast together, and though her old -heart feared only
bad news for her little Margaret, and looked upon
the dream as asign that Kathie had indeed flown to
fairer scenes above, yet, wisely, she didn’t tell Mar-
garet her fears, and the child set happily out ere
long with her basket on her arm, and her dream
safely stored away in her brain ready for tellmg to

Kathie when the right time should come.



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 79

Ah, little Margaret! The happy smile was driven
from her face and a merry little tune died on her
lips as she neared Kathie’s home at last.

Down the steps came the grave old doctor, and
Margaret saw him wipe his eyes as he went toward
the waiting carriage. At the door stood nurse, and
she was weeping sadly, yes, even aloud, for Margaret
heard the sound of sobbing. Oh, what did it mean ?
The little girl sprang forward, caught the doctor by
the coat just as he stepped into his carriage, and
stammered out: “Oh, sir, tell me; Miss Kathie isn’t
dead, oh, not dead yet?”

The kind-hearted doctor looked at the anxious face
of the child whose eyes were fastened upon his
own.

“Some little miserable whom Kathie had been kind
to,” he thought; “every one will miss the child!”
Then he said to Margaret, whose brown hand still
clutched his coat:

“T am sorry, little girl, but Miss Kathie is sinking
fast, and I fear cannot be with us beyond a few

hours.” Then he drove on, leaving Margaret, with



80 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

pale face and streaming eyes, staring up at the door
of Kathie’s home. Nurse had gone in, the door was
closed. There was no one to whom the poor little
flower-girl could speak.

“Oh, how can I go home without saying one
good-by to Kathie!” she said to her own little heart,
and then a thought came to her. The cook would
tell her about it all; the cook would perhaps be kind
and let her see Kathie just once more, if only
through the crack of the chamber door. She must
look at that dear face again, after so long a time of
waiting! Surely it would be no harm if she asked.
that the bunch of sweet violets she had brought for
Kathie might be laid beside the dear face, so that
their fragrance might breathe a good-by from Mar-
garet !

So she went down to the basement door and
knocked timidly. Cook answered the knock, and was
just about to say that there “were no cold victuals
to-day,” when she saw the flowers in Margaret’s
basket.

“Oh, youre the flower-child, are ye, that Miss



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 81

Kathie’s talked of so much? Well, ye can’t see ’er
today; she is too sick, an’ likely”—the rough voice
faltered a little, and cook wiped her eyes with the
corner of her apron as she continued‘ likely to—to
die, and go to the blessed hangels, which she’s one of
‘em Verself, on hearth or hoff of it, Pve always said
myself. Well, well, she’s goin’ fast an’ sure, an’
what'll the ’ouse be without ’er?”

“Oh, I love her so,” cried Margaret, leaning her
little head against the door, and trying not to cry, so
that she could finish her sentence. “I love her so
that I must see her face a little minute! An’ I want,
oh, I want to put my vi’lets beside her on the pillow!
Do let me!”

But cook knew it would not be possible for Mar-
garet to go up to Kathie’s room, so she explained to
the child, and finally agreed to take the violets up to
Kathie’s mother, who, she feared, was too heart-
broken to be able to pay any heed to Margaret’s
message, but she would try. And with that promise
the little girl had to be content, and went away

with a heavy burden upon her young heart.
;



82 en MY LITTLE MARGARET.
* * * * * x

“Granny, if I pray to Jesus to let Kathie live a
little longer, do you think He'll take the trouble to
pay ‘tention to the kind of child I am?”

Night had come, and Margaret was ready for her
bed as she asked this question.

“The good and dear Lord cares for the sparrows; I
don’t think it’s likely He ain’t a-caring for a little
child. I’m thinking, lass, He couldn't be heeding
the prayer of a better bairn than my little Margaret.”

Poor, loving old Granny! she couldn't help show-
ing her partial fondness for her grandchild im every
speech she made, no matter what the subject might be.

Margaret knelt down and folded her hands at
Grandma’s knee, and old and young eyes were lifted
reverently to the ceiling as the little girl prayed
long and earnestly that her one friend in all the
wide world might not die just yet, but live on to
love her mother, and the little flower-girl who loved
her so well.

“Seems as if God must be kind to me, an’ make

Kathie well now, Gran’ma,” she said, as they lay



MY LITTLE MARGARET, 83

down side by side to sleep till the morning light

should see Margaret off again for news of Kathie.

But when the morning came, alas! a great pain
seized the old woman, and she could not move her
feeble limbs without much suffering. Very much
frightened was Margaret, and she could not leave
Granny even to sell her violets. For a little time
even she had no chance to think of Kathie, for
Granny was very ill, the neighbors said, and so
Margaret ran for the doctor at the hospital near by.

He came, after long waiting, and said that it was
a case of bad rheumatic fever, and ordered the old
woman to the hospital That was very sad for
them both, for poor and uncomfortable as the attic
room had been, still it was their home, and they were
happy together there.

“J will not go to the hospital!” declared Granny
excitedly. “Hoot, noo, do ye think I'll be leaving
the lass alone here?” she asked, with a spice of
anger in her tones.

Margaret cried a good deal, but declared she



84 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

could live alone very well, and no doubt Grandma
would only be a little time at the hospital. The
neighbors, kindly souls, though rough in their ways,
promised to look after the child, and the doctor,
losing patience at the delay, and over the old
woman’s “obstinacy,” as he called it, ordered her
taken at once, without further words, to the hospital.
So finally she was settled there, and little lonely Mar-
garet had time to think over her sad lot as she sat
all alone in the rocking-chair which Granny had so
long occupied.

But every day the little girl went bravely out with
her violets for a short time, then back to sit at
Granny’s side in the hospital ward, for the old
woman had pleaded so hard, and the child had coaxed
so persistently for that privilege, that it had been
allowed by the doctors, and the nurse of the ward
was pleased with Margaret’s little helpful, quiet ways.

So, as I say, she was glad to sit beside the dear
grandmother, and talk in low tones of the day’s
doings, and her hopes and fears, her plans, her de-
sires, her lonely nights (though she didn’t tell



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 85

_ Granny how lonely they were, those long, dark
nights), and of how she had not yet been to Kathie’s
house, because she could not summon courage to
meet the sorrowing mother, nor indeed to look at the
house and know that Kathie didn’t live there any
longer.

“But I think of her all the time, Granny!” she
would say. “All the time I can seem to see her
eyes looking at me, and I can hear her speak! Oh,
it doesn’t seem as if she could have gone away just
yet!” :

But one night—after Granny had been over a week
in the hospital—Margaret could not sleep, and only
tossed restlessly in her bed, longing for morning, A
loneliness for Grandma possessed her so that she
cried, poor little one, all alone there in her room,
with the shadows and gloom of the night all about
her.

When the morning finally dawned, the tired child
sprang up gladly, and dressing herself as quickly as
possible, waited only to say a prayer for Granny and

herself, and to drink a glass of milk (which was all



86 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

the breakfast she wanted had there been a long bill
of fare before her), then sped to the hospital and up
to Granny’s ward.

The nurse held up her finger and said that the old
woman was asleep. So Margaret went on tiptoe and
sat patiently beside the bed, listening to the heavy
breathing of the invalid.

Granny slept long, so after a while the little girl
whispered to the nurse that she would go and sell
some violets, and then return to the dear sick one.

“You see,” she said, “summer’s almost here now, an’
vilets are ’most gone. They’re pretty scarce, an’ I
can sell ’em better than when there were lots an’
lots. So I mustn’t lose any time. You'll take care of
my granny till I come, ma’am, and tell her Margaret
will soon be back ?”

She stooped softly and left a light but loving kiss
on the wrinkled old forehead, then hastened away.

Ah, me! When “my little Margaret” returned
Granny was still sleeping, but this time it was the
long, long sleep that would know no waking.

There was a moan from Margaret, one little moan,



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 87

and that was all. When the nurse lifted her from
the floor upon which she had fallen, she was quite
unconscious. She had fainted for the first time in
her young life.

. But it wasn’t long that she lay in that condition.
When she came back to consciousness she was led
by the nurse to Granny’s side, and when she saw
the sweet, peaceful smile on the dear old face, all
the wrinkles softened, and the tired limbs laid
quietly in rest which would last forever, the brave
child said she was glad—glad that for Grandma
there was no more dreariness and pain, no more dis-
comfort, only rest and joy and peace forever.

She brought a bunch of her violets and laid them
on Granny's breast. She kissed Granny’s lips, and
the quiet hands, and smoothed the silver hair
beneath the white cap which nurse had arranged
neatly. Then she said, through brave efforts not to
ery: “Dear Granny, you will tell mamma that I
tried to be good, an’ that I did take care of you!
Tell her I am always loving her just the same as if

she lived down here; tell her—tell her”—and now



88 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

the sobs and tears had to come; no use trying to
hold them back—*“tell her that even if I am lonely
so far from her an’ you, I—I will keep on trying to
be good an’ true; an’ you will give my love to
Kathie, Granny, dear. I—I—oh, I haven’t anybody
now in all the world to love poor little me!”

It was a very despairing sort of cry that finished |
Margaret’s farewell to Granny. She was a broken-
hearted little girl, and the full sense of her loneliness
came over her with a sudden rush at the last. :

The kind woman who had cared for Granny till
the time of her rest came so unexpectedly, was full
of sympathy for the mourning child, and did all she
could to comfort her. But oh, can you not imagine
how sad a time it was, then and for days after, for
little Margaret, who went listlessly about the streets
selling her flowers, and hardly caring, indeed, whether
she found purchasers or not? There was no Granny
to be glad when she went home with empty basket
and full purse; there was only herself, and ske—why,
she didn’t want to eat, and hardly felt enough interest

in herself to think about how she could manage to



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 89

keep the shelter of the small attic room now that
the pittance earned by Granny’s stocking-knitting was
at an end.

And all this time Margaret dared not go near the
neighborhood of Kathie’s home. She shrank from it
somehow. What would be the use? Kathie was in
heaven, of course; the doctor had told her that her
friend had only a few hours of life left, and now
she was safe with the dear little angels ‘way be-
yond the blue sky. Oh, why didn’t Jesus want her
too? —

These and many thoughts beside kept the little
girl company as she went about her daily task, But
one bright day a sudden impulse seized her to go
and see how the beautiful park was looking. In her
basket now were fragrant lilacs and some red roses,
for violets were pretty well gone.

She picked out the fairest rose of all, and after a
moment’s thought, ran up the steps of Kathie’s home,
and after a slight hesitation, pulled the bell. A
strange woman answered the summons.

“What do you want, child?” she asked, with a



90 MY LITTLE MARGARET,

shade of annoyance in her tones, and wondering why
the little girl had not gone to the lower door.
“Please excuse me, but I—Miss Kathie—I]———”
“Miss Kathie is not here; she has gone,” was the
reply, and the woman began to close the door.
“Oh, I knew it, I knew it!” cried poor Margaret.

“ Please don’t shut me out just yet; I want—I want

”



to know about

Just then a sweet voice called from the stair-case,
“Jane, to whom are you speaking?”

“Only a child, ma’am, that’s asking for Miss
Kathie.”

“Let her come up to me,” was the answer, and
the woman wonderingly opened the door wider, and
admitted the grieving child.

“The lady wants you to go up-stairs, but for the
life of me I can’t see what she wants you for!”

Margaret ran up the stairs eagerly, and was met by
Kathie’s mother. The dear face was very sad, and
showed traces of long sorrow and anxiety, but there
was a smile in the blue eyes and on the tender
mouth as she held out her hands to the little girl



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 91

whose heart was jumping and pumping in her breast
with excitement.
“Oh, Mrs. Moore, dear, dear Mrs. Moore! Oh, I

am—I am—”

But the joy died out of her face, for
the remembrance that Kathie was not there stole
the glad greeting from Margaret’s lips ere she had
finished her sentence.

The lady smiled on, more brightly even than at
first, for she knew she could bring the dimples back
to the pale little cheeks before her, and make the
lonely child-heart happy.

Into her own room she led the little girl, thinking
as she looked at her what a sweet, winsome face it
was under the mass of tangled brown hair.

“My little Margaret,” she began, “you have been a
long while away from this neighborhood ; did you not
care to come and hear e
With a low cry Margaret interrupted. “ Oh, I

came, I came, an’ the doctor—he told me—oh, ma’am,



I knew it all, an’ I couldn’t come. Oh, it was so sad
to know I should never see Miss Kathie! An’—an’

then one day I meant to try an’ come, but oh—

ey



92 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

’ Down went the

Granny—my dear old Granny—’
little brown head against the lady’s knee, .and then
the tears came indeed; fast and faster, but oh, how
they relieved Margaret’s heart, she had tried so long
to hold them back! :
It was like the “clearing-up shower” after a time -
of long rain, and little Margaret was like a flower —
long drooping under cruel storms, but at last to lift
her head in the sunshine, which seemed all the
brighter after clouds and dreariness had _ passed.
“Please don’t mind me, ma’am,” she said, in
apology for the weakness. “I haven't had much time.

to cry, an’ somehow there has been a stone in my

7



feelings since Granny died

Now it was the lady’s turn to interrupt, which she
did with a shocked face and voice.

“Since Granny died? My dear child, you don’t
mean to tell me that your grandmother is dead !
Oh, my little Margaret!” She put her arm very
tenderly about the child and hugged her closely.

A smile like the shining of the sun through a

summer shower brightened the wan little face for a



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 93

moment as she felt the caress, and nestled gratefully
to meet it. Then she went on and told the gentle

mother (whom she loved for Kathie’s sake, as for the



lady’s own winsomeness) all about her grief, and

when she had finished the recital, she asked plain-
tively:

“Will mamma and Granny know Miss Kathie in



94 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

heaven, do you think? Oh, my mother is sure to be

the sweetest, most beautiful of all the angels, an’



Granny, dear old Gran’ma—she was an angel ‘fore she
died, an’ I know she will be close to the dear Lord
up there. But oh, it would be a glad thing if Miss
Kathie could only find ’em there! Do you think she
will?”

Again the lady smiled. “Margaret, dear little girl,
do you know the dear Lord was very, very kind to
me, and did not call my Kathie to Him, as we ex-
pected He would? She was very near the river’s
brink, though, and I had prayed very earnestly to be:
made patient for my sorrow; but she came back to
me, and it seemed as if this world had been suddenly
turned into heaven itself.”

Margaret’s face had been growing more and more
radiant from the beginning of Mrs. Moore’s speech,
and now she gave one long, glad cry, and lifted her
brown eyes reverently upward, whispering, “Dear
Jesus, we thank thee, oh, so much!”

But then the woman at the door had told her
Kathie was gone! What did that mean? The dress



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 95

that Kathie’s mother wore was sombre and black.
Why that?

She asked her two questions presently.

“The doctor sent my little invalid right away, as
soon as she had really turned her face earthward
again,” explained the lady. “And she has been gone
with her nurse for three days now. I went with her,
but came home again for a day or two to attend to
some important matters, and shall return presently.
As for this dress”—smiling—“I don’t wonder you
were still more deceived, dear, in regard to Kathie.
It is merely a dark travellmg gown, and not at all
meant for such as you supposed it to be. Ah, I am
very grateful that I need not mourn quite yet. God
is very good, isn’t He, Margaret?”

“Ye—es, ma’am,” rather slowly, for Margaret was
thinking just then, and there was a sort of feeling
that things were not going very well with her at the
time.

“Youre goin’ away, an’—an’ you'll stay a long
time, I s’pose, an’ I won’t see Miss Kathie again for

—oh, ma’am, will ‘you have to be gone very, very



96 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

long? I’m so lonely, an’ I was so glad to think I
could see Miss Kathie’s dear face again at the
window !”

Now Mrs. Moore had made a plan of her own
some time before, while Margaret, in fact, was dole-
fully relating the circumstances of Granny’s sickness
and death. You see the storm was dying away, and
the sunlight was struggling through the clouds,
though little Margaret hardly had guessed the change
as yet in her life’s sky.

She sat on her little hassock very sadly, and full
of sorrowful doubts and perplexities, while the lady:
left the room to give some direction to her’ maid.
But in a few moments the question was asked:
“My little Margaret, are you very fond of selling
flowers in the streets?”

The child looked up in surprise. “Oh, no, ma’am!
I never was fond of it, but I had to, an’ I got kind

of used to it, you see, an’ 4



“Well, now, the last thing Kathie said to me, when
she thought she was going to meet her father, was:

‘Mamma, love Margaret when Kathie is gone;’ and



MY LITTLE MARGARET. 97

nurse watched. for your coming one whole day, to call
you in to—bid my girlie good-by!” )

ona ean! 2

It was all the sound that left Margaret’s lips. She
was far too overcome at the thought of Kathie’s kind
thought of her to find speech just then. But Mrs.
Moore went on.

“T promised that I would love you, and it would
have been very easy, for I have cared for our little
flower-gir] a long while, you know. And now that
Kathie is spared to me, and on the road to her usual
health—for she will never be different from the frail,
lame little Kathie you first met—I still mean to
‘love Margaret, and Kathie herself will help me.
My dear child, Kathie has no sister; you have wanted
one always, I believe. Will you carry back to the
kind old florist your basket of flowers, then go and
pay from this bill, which I wish to put in that
queer little purse of yours now, the small rent you
may owe for your room, and come back to, me, to
live with me, and be Kathie’s adopted little sister as

long as the dear Lord will keep us together? Now ~
: 7



98 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

don’t look at me with those big brown eyes, and
open that little red mouth so wide, as if you were
going to swallow me down at once! Just believe
that your dear angel mother, and the dear old
granny who is with her, will, if they can look down
upon earth from their own beautiful home above, be
‘glad to know how happy a home their little Mar-
garet will have here, until she is called to go to
them. What do you think of my plan, dear little
one?”

Jf JI should undertake to describe Margaret’s
feelings, and her peculiar way of answering the
question Mrs. Moore put to her, I should fall far
short of making you know the truth. First a cry
of joy, then a burst of tears for the relief of. her
astonished senses, then a run across the room and a
pair of arms clasped about the lady’s neck, and then
the words, between sobs and tears and laughter and
‘long-drawn breaths: “Oh! oh! oh! I feel heavy with
my happiness! Dear Kathie’s dear mother ! Oh, dear
Jesus, how good, how good to me! Is it really true?
Oh! oh! o-0-oh!”



Full Text





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‘THE SUN AND WIND KISSED MARGARET 80 OFTEN.”
‘ Page 7%.
MY LITTLE MARGARET

QQ Story

BY
MARY D. BRINE

“GRANDMA’S ATTIC TREASURES,” “‘GRANDMA’S MEMORIES,”
“BONNIE LITTLE BONIBEL ” ETO.

ILLUSTRATED BY A. G. PLYMPTON

fer

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
31 West 23D STREET
1893
CoryYRiGHT, 1891, BY
E, P. DUTTON & CO.

PRESS OF
Rockwell anv Churchill,
BOSTON.
PREFACE.

To my Lyrrrte Reapers:

This little book is written by special request, and
I hope that because it is only a sad story, holding
more of shadow than of sunshine, my dear little
_readers, who have liked so well other books I have
written for them, will not pass by this one, but
learn to love and be glad with little Margaret to the

end. For—

Too much sunshine, ‘as we know,

Will not help the flowers to grow;
Clouds must also do their share
Toward making Nature sweet and fair.
Sunbeams often hotly burn,

For the cooling rain we yearn:

Sun and shadow, both together,

Make for us life’s kindest weather.
MY LITTLE MARGARET.

HE was a little girl who wandered day by day
around the streets of a big city, when, in the

sweet spring-time, the flowers were beginning to bud

- and bloom out of their long, silent plant-life, and all

the earth was freshening into new vigor.

The sun and wind kissed Margaret so often that
the dear little face and hands were brown as berries,
and matched the beautiful brown eyes which were
the chief charm of her young face. The hood she
wore was apt to slip from her dark, curly head, and
hang upon her shoulders, as, with her basket of
spring blossoms on her arm, she went about, from
street to street, and cried aloud:

“Here’s vi'lets! pretty fresh vilets! Who'll buy?”

Those who heard the clear young voice ring out in

the midst of the noise and bustle of the busy streets,


8 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

like a strain of harmony rising above discord, turned
to look at the child, and, perhaps because of the
sweet voice, were prompted to’ buy of her fragrant
wares. ;

Very temptingly, too, the violets peeped up from
their nest amongst the dewy leaves, for little Mar-
garet had an eye to beauty, and loved to arrange
her treasures to the greatest advantage within the
narrow limits of her small basket. When anybody
bought a bunch of her flowers, she would hold up
her slender hand to receive the price, and smile
such a world of grateful thanks that the purchaser, .
whether man, woman, or child, couldn’t help smiling
back again, and carrying away with the purchase a
good bit of sunshine’ from the little flower-seller’s
face. And she, wasting no ‘precious time, would go
on her way, crying again: “Oh, vi'lets! fresh vi'lets!
flowers sweet an’ fresh! Who'll buy?”

Little Margaret had no parents. She lived all
alone with her aged grandmother in one poor little
room in a very poor part of the big city. But poor

as their home might be, it yet sheltered them from
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 9

wind, rain, and other discomforts, and they were
grateful and happy for that and for each other.

Tt was scarcely two years since Margaret had
seen her dear mamma lying in “that dreamless sleep
_ which knows no awakening.” She had clung to the
loved form, and kissed with her own warm lips
the still lips which had never before refused to kiss
her back. And how she had cried, and called the
dear, familiar name over and over, until at last she
was forced to believe all that the pitying neighbors
and poor old grandma tried to make her compre-
hend—that her mother would never open her eyes
in this world, but must be laid beside the father,
whom Margaret could not remember, under the green
grass in a church-yard beyond the city.

Margaret could remember it all, even now, and all,
too, that a kind old. man had said to her as he laid
his trembling hand upon her head. It was this :

“Dear little girl, your mother is happy now; she
is waiting for you beyond the clouds, and at the
gate of heaven will stand to watch for you, and take

you in her loving arms again, if you are a good
10 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

child here on cnet, and if you try to do your dey
and the dest that is in you in all you do day by
day, and if you think kindly of your neighbors and
love the dear Lord who always knows what will be
best for you and for us all. Will you remember
this ?”

And Margaret had looked into. his face with
grave, dark eyes, and wiping her tears away, had
promised to try to be a good child, and fit to go
some day to the beautiful world where her precious
mother would be waiting for her. And maybe un-
seen angels were helping the young lips to smile, |
the young eyes to shine, and the young voice to ring
so cheerily, day after day, as Margaret wandered
through the streets selling her flowers and earning the

means of support for grandma and _ herself.

Sometimes the pennies that ‘the flowers brought
grew into a dollar, and then Margaret felt so rich
that the dimples in her cheeks gathered fast and
deep, and she planned a “treat ” for the old grand-

mother’s failing appetite.
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 11

So it happened that on such occasions a juicy



1









orange, or perhaps a pear, would be found at Granny’s

plate that night when the simple supper was ready—
12 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

the supper of bread, and sometimes a scanty piece of
butter, but oftener a little molasses, which would go
a great way both for bread and for mush. Grandma
loved tea, and yet only seldom could that comforting
drink be provided for her. So a little milk would
serve for them both, and if the good-natured milk-
man who filled the pitchers in that neighborhood
daily was wont to err on the kind side in his meas-
ure for Margaret and her old granny, nobody, surely
not they, had ever yet suspected it. .

How Margaret would laugh when now and then
she could surprise the old woman with the orange, or.
whatever bit of fruit chanced to constitute the “treat,”
so lovingly given.

“Now, then, my little Margaret, my bonny lass,
eat wi’ me, do!” Granny would urge. But always
Margaret shook her curly head, and declared she
liked better the crust of bread, into which her
white little teeth went crunching with every sign
of a healthy appetite, even though that appetite
could be but scantily indulged.

“My little Margaret,” was Granny’s favorite way of
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 13

addressing her grandchild; and the few neighbors who
had time to hear or heed the old, feeble voice, or to
take any notice of the little girl as she passed and
repassed them, wondered why simple “Madge” or
“Meg” would not have done as well. But Granny
had her own Scotch ideas of the fitness of things,
and as she had begun, so she kept on, and amidst a
small world of all sorts: and sizes of names, “ My
little Margaret” held its own sweet and gentle dignity
in the very centre of poverty and discomfort.

And Grandma continued to wonder in her simple
soul if in all this wide world there lived another
bairn like hers—her “sun by day, and her star by
night.”

One morning Margaret started out in good spirits
with her basket on her arm, and her fragrant wares
nestling in their dewy beds as usual.

She had kissed Granny a loving good-by, and left
behind her certain little tender cautions which had
become a habit, and which, had they been unsaid,

would have been sorely missed by Grandma.
14 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

“Now, Granny, dear,” Margaret had whispered, as
she carefully straightened the white cap on the old
woman’s whiter head, “you must be very good, an’
oh, don’t fall down-stairs, an’ don’t get sick, an’ re-
member I love you very much, an’ will hurry home
soon as I’ve sold all my flowers, you know, Gran’ma!”

So, leaving a smile on the dear old face behind
her, and carrying half a dozen smiles on her own
sweet little countenance, Margaret, as I have said,
started off in high spirits, feeling sure that her
basket would be relieved of its freight before long,
and hoping, oh, how earnestly! that she might have an -
extra dime to spare for buying an orange for Granny.

“Here’s vi'lets! fresh sweet vi'lets! Oh, who'll
buy?” rang out the young voice, at first hopefully,
then with a note of wonder in its clear tones, and at
last quite anxiously, for what ailed the people to-day,
that they did not seem to want her flowers as usual?
How the crowd jostled by, how everybody hurried
along! Only now and then some passer-by would
pause and lift one of the sweet, dainty bunches from

Margaret’s basket and smell it critically before hand-
MY LITTLE MARGARET, 15

ing over the meagre price. At this slow rate, the
little girl thought, she must not hope to get Granny’s
orange; and pretty soon her voice put off its cheery
ring, the hopeful smiles vanished from her face, one
by one the pretty dimples stole away and hid them-
selves in a mournful droop of the mouth, and poor
little Margaret grew discouraged indeed.

“Why, I don’t see what ails all these men and
women,” she said to herself. “I can’t make ’em smile
at me ’cause they all seem so busy, an’ nobody wants
my flowers to-day. Oh, dear!”

Two or three bright tears fell down from the sor-
rowful brown eyes, and as she bent over her basket
to see if the trouble lay in the looks of its precious
freight, one of those bright, pearly tears dropped
from her cheek and lay like a little shining gem
right in the heart of a violet. “There, now,” the
child thought, half smiling at the fancy, “that tear
came right out of my heart, an’ it has gone straight
to the sweetest place in the world to hide itself, an’
that’s in one of my dear violets. Oh, I don’t see why

people don’t love vilets to-day!”
16 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

She turned aside from the crowded thoroughfare,
and walked on and on toward quieter streets, feeling
quite discouraged now, and hardly caring which way
her tired little feet should stray. :

And so, ere long, she came to where a broad,
lovely park stretched itself beneath the glad sunshine
of the beautiful day.

Little Margaret forgot her weariness for a little, as
she stood beside the park railing, and looked in upon
the scene before her.

It seemed as if the broad, beautiful park coaxed
her, little lonely, tired child as she was, to enter in
and borrow some of its own sweet, restful peace.
But the iron gates were closed against intruders, and
Margaret could only stand without, and gaze and
admire to her heart's content. Not one of those
charms so safely enclosed within the strong iron rails
escaped her childish notice. There were the soft
green grass and the daisies which spread themselves
so lavishly over it. There were stately trees holding
out their graceful limbs, which were so proud, Mar-

garet fancied, of their new spring dress. There were
eee ee rT Oe

MY LITTLE MARGARET. iy

the birds flashing in and out amongst the branches,



singing joyous songs,
and knowing not a
eare or fear. And
there were mounds of
all shapes and _ sizes
where sweet spring
blossoms had been
kissed into life by
the same sunshine
which daily kissed
Margaret’s brown
cheeks and hands.
There were soft,
dainty ferns and delicate mosses clustered about the

basin of a large fountain, and how they sparkled
2
s
18 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

with the “erystal drops which that cool, splashing
fountain tossed over them daily!

Oh, it was all so beautiful a scene; so happy a
place! And how the little flower-seller longed to
creep inside those rails, and lie down there in the
soft, sweet grass, and stretch her little tired body for
a good long rest amongst the daisies.

Only just to lie there and let the sweet wild
breezes blow over her at will, and to stretch her
tired little feet as near the fountain as possible, so
that some of those cool drops might fall upon them!

Oh, how different a scene was this now before her
from that upon which poor old Gran’ma was no doubt
at this very moment gazing from her attic window!

And thinking of Granny: roused Margaret somewhat
from her pleasant reverie, and prompted her to count
what few pennies she had earned. thus far in the day.
She would sit down upon the steps of that grand
house just opposite the park, and fill her soul and.
her memory with the lovely picture before her, so
that she might describe it all to Granny, who could

not come so far to see for herself.
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 19

“Tt looks like heaven, I’m sure,” thought the child,
“for I don’t

b’lieve any place







could be more
beautiful than
this.”







So she went over to the large and handsome resi-

dence which faced the park, and sat wearily down to
20 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

rest. She took out the little purse which Grandma
had long ago given her, and began to count its con-
tents.

“ One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight —
nine—ten—eleven—an’—an’ here’s twelve, an’ seven
more, too; that makes twen—no, only nineteen, an’ I
ought to have twenty. Oh, dear!”

But a thought of the torn lining of the old purse
made Margaret shake it hard as she turned it over
her lap. Sometimes pennies, and now and then a
dime, had hidden away there, to fall out and sur-
prise her later; why not now?

Ah! there it comes, the twentieth penny, which
made even. money; a thing she liked in her childish
way, though Granny had often laughingly cheered —
her with the quotation of “luck in odd numbers.”

Still, twenty cents was too small a sum for her to
take the price of an orange from, and , Margaret
tumbled them all back into the yawning mouth of
the old purse (which held plenty of room for more),
and turned her gaze to the park again.

The birds were jubilant with the joy of the day,
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 21

and flashed through the space from street to park
and from grass to tree-top, till the little flower-girl
grew envious of their freedom. .

.“ Granny says angels have wings! Mamma _ has
wings, then. Oh, how I wish she could fly down
from ’way up there in the blue sky, an’ see her little
girl sometimes! She would if she only knew I am
go tired. Somehow mamma seems nearer me here,
where I can see so much sky and feel so much air,
than way down in our street, where it isn’t clean an’
wide like this.”

‘Tears dimmed her eyes at the thought of the
mother she had so loved, and the park grew misty
before her. The small hood slipped from her head,
leaving the thick, wavy hair free for the frolicsome
breeze to tangle at will. Over her shoulders a
striped shawl was pinned loosely and fluttered its
ends with every puff of wind. The tired feet were
crossed on the cool pavement, and one little arm
leaned upon the step above where Margaret was sit-
ting. Out from her basket close by floated the fra-

grance of violets, and over from the park came ever
22 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

the delicious odor of fresh grass and spring blos.
soming.

Margaret was not usually in so despondent a mood
as this. No, indeed; there were oftener smiles than
tears in those bonny brown eyes, and to “look upon
the bright side” had ever been her motto. But to-
day the sunbeams which were scattering so lavishly
about her failed to enter her sad, lonely heart, and
so there she sat, a forlorn little figure, a woful little
picture, in the midst of everything bright and glad,
on this merry spring morning.

Presently there came a gentle tapping on the pane
of a window behind Margaret.

She started and turned her face in the direction of
the sound. Perhaps she expected to see some one
frowning at her, with the motion to “move on”
(which our little girl had experienced here and there
on many an occasion before). But this time it was
very different, for behind the glass a pleasant little
face looked out at Margaret, and a pair of blue eyes
met her own smilingly.

True to her calling, Margaret lifted up her violets.
MY LITTLE MARGARET, 23

“Buy some, please?” she cried, smiling back into



the eyes that smiled at her. “Only five cents a

bunch, miss; won’t you buy?”
24 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

Then the door opened upon the marble vesti-
bule above Margaret, and a woman came to the
steps.

“Come up here, little girl.”

Margaret seized her basket and ran up the stoop
eagerly. :

“There, wait here,” said the woman, “and my
young lady will come and choose for herself.”

She led the way into a large, marble-floored hall
and pointed to a chair.

Little Margaret was half afraid to enter. She had
never been amidst so much grandeur before, and felt
somewhat awed by everything around her.

However, she must do everything for the sake of
“business,” and that “orange for Granny” was over-
laying all her desire for large profits.

So she said “Thank you” to the woman and en-
tered the grand hallway, and there she sat down
and re-arranged her pretty wares tenderly. They were
still fair and fresh and sweet, and “My little Mar.
garet” hoped they would prove tempting to the

expected customer. If she could only make more
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 25

- money before going home, why, Grandma could surely



have, if not the orange, at least an apple, and maybe

a currant-bun. Then how much better the simple
26 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

meal of mush and watered milk. would seem to them
both!

“How do you do, little girl? How much do you
ask for your violets?”

Margaret lifted her gaze from the basket in her
lap, and saw the blue eyes which had smiled at her
from the window, and which were set in a face as -
fair and as sweet as Margaret had oftentimes dreamed
an angel’s might be. |

A wealth of soft, sunny hair, gold as the sunbeams
themselves, fell down in silken waves far below the
young shoulders; but alas! all its luxuriant growth
could not hide from Margaret’s quick glance the pain-
ful, sorry sight of a poor, misshapen little back.

An instinctive fine breeding and sympathy prompted
Margaret to turn her gaze quickly away from these
to the pleasanter sight of the face before her, as she
replied to the question asked.

Leaning upon her crutch, the lame girl held out a
white, frail hand, and took from the sturdy brown

fingers of “My little Margaret” a bunch of her violets.
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 27

“They are my favorite flowers of all the beautiful
flowers that grow,” she said, “and you don’t know
how glad I was to see you there on our stoop with a
basket full of the dear things. Ill buy them all.”

Margaret drew a long breath. Ali? Oh, the joy
of it!

“Do you live ’way out in the country, I wonder,
that you can find these?” asked the lame girl.

Margaret shook her head. “Oh, no, indeed, miss.
If I did, I think my heart would break for joy.
Oh, no! you don’t know how I love things that I
have heard grow in the country. I wonder are they
more lovely than those? Is the country a prettier
place than all that?” pointing toward the park.
“Oh, if we lived in a place like that, Granny an’
I, I would think I was ’most up in heaven!”

“Poor little girl! where, then, is your home?”

Margaret dropped her eyes with a feeling of shame
that she had to tell of her home to this fine girl,
who seemed a being of another kind of world than
that she lived in here on earth. But she went on

bravely to the end.
28 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

“Why, miss, it is only ’way down in an alley,
an’ there are bad men and women, an’ boys an’
girls, an’ there are such rude noises an’ bad talk an’
wicked things goin’ on always at night, an’ half the
day, when the men are home. They all tease my
gran’ma, ’cause she’s old, an’ can’t walk straight like
other folks. An’ when I say ‘Please don’t do so!’
they only make fun of us all the more. An’—an’
I get cross often, an’ want to cry, an’ I do cry when
Granny doesn’t know ’bout it. Oh, miss, you can’t
guess how I hate it there; but we're poor, an’
Granny says we must be patient, ‘cause God put us
in the right place, else we wouldn’t be there. "Tain’t
easy to be patient forever, you see, an’ if it wasn’t
for mamma in heaven, who’s watchin’ for me, I
wouldn’t try any more, but—” The little voice
choked, and the tears, which you know had been
close to Margaret’s eyes all the morning, began to
crowd up again and threaten to overflow.

“Poor little girl!” said the young listener, pity-
ingly. But Margaret wiped the tears away quickly

and began again.
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 29

“Yow don’t have such things to tease an’ make
you cross! You don’t need to cry! Jus’ look at
this fine house, an’ all the fine clothes you wear, an’
oh!’’—with a deep breath—“ those lovely things over
the way, the park an’ the beautiful things in it!
Oh, I wish, I do, that Granny an’ I could wear fine
clothes an’ live like this, an’ see that park every
day! I.wish I was like you, miss!” .

The little lame girl turned her back toward Mar.
garet, and lifted the golden hair from her shoulders.

“Look,” she said, sorrowfully, “do you think you
should envy me?”

Margaret turned her eyes away, and a red flush of
shame and sympathy sprang to her cheeks.

“T didn’t mean—”

she began, but her companion
went on speaking.

“JT wasn’t always this way. I had a fall two
years ago, and the doctors, oh, so many of them,
tried to make me well and straight again, and poor
mamma was so sad, and cried with me every day.
But it was all of no use. I never can walk with-

out this crutch, and I have pain in my back all
30 MY LITTLE MARGARET,

the time. I shall never, never be well and strong
again.”

« Ah, ah!” It was a soft, long breath from little
Margaret, and all she could do in response to the
sorry speech she had listened to. Her heart over-
flowed with: pity for the girl before her, and she
could find no words with which to express it all.

The other continued, with a plaintive tone in her
voice which sounded like tears:

“You don’t know how I sometimes wish I could
run and jump just for one little minute, it would
feel so good to me. But I know there’s no use
wishing, and T’ve just got to bear it patiently, and
remember that when Jesus thinks it time for me to
go and live with him and papa up there”—pointing
her little hand toward the blue. dome above the park
—“J shall be just as straight and strong as other
children, and papa will be so glad to see his little
Kathie again!”

Margaret looked up. “Is that your name?” she
asked.

“Yes, I am named for mamma, ‘Katherine, but
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 31

they always call me ‘Kathie,’ for a kind of pet
name. I like it; do you? What is your name?”

“My name is Margaret. J was named for my
mother, too. The boys an’ girls down in our alley
call me ‘Meg’ an’ ‘Madge,’ ’cause they say my name
is too long. But Gran’ma won't have it so, an’ she
scolds ’em sometimes when she hears ’em call me.
She calls me ‘my little Margaret,’ you see, ‘cause
Granny, she’s all Z’ve got an’ I’m all she’s got, an’ we
love each other very much indeed. Oh, yes, we do.”

“You haven’t a mother, and I haven’t a father!”
said Kathie, softly: “And I guess you and I are
about the same age. I am ten, and you?”

“T am goin’ on ten,” replied Margaret. “I'll be ten
in the middle of the summer. There’s an old man
who knew my mamma, an’ pitied me very. much
when—when I didn’t have her any longer; an’ he
keeps a flower store, an’ lets me sell vi'lets an’ flowers
for him, an’ pays me part of all I make on ’em. So
that’s how J make a livin’ for Granny an’ me. I
have real good luck sometimes, an’ I always try to

make her comf’table. I should die without Granny
32 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

to love an’ be kind to me. You see, she is my own









' dear mother’s mother, an’ she loved mamma very,



very dearly.”
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 33

Kathie lifted her violets up to her face and breathed
in the delicious fragrance, and then a sweet-faced
lady appeared upon the scene.

“Why, darling, are you here still? Have you
bought your violets?”

She came toward Margaret, who had lifted her
basket upon her arm again, and was waiting the
maid’s return with the money for the violets Kathie
had bought.

“So you are a little business woman, are you?”
she remarked, smilingly. “I think you and my girlie

here must be about the same age, though you are

7



strong and sturdy and tall, and she

The mother’s eyes turned from Margaret to Kathie.
The cheery voice faltered, and a look of sadness
passed over the kindly face as she turned hastily
and went to an adjoining room.

“Poor, dear mamma!” said Kathie. “I try to be
happy and glad so that she won’t be so sad. When
I laugh, she laughs, and when she is sad, J am so
unhappy! Oh, I tell you what, little girl: I’m sure

I'd gladly be like you, and live as you do, and sell
3
34 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

flowers, and be poor, rather than be a cripple and
live in a fine house and wear fine clothes.” —

“Lots of folks have money an’ nice things an’ ain't
lame an’ sick,” replied Margaret.

-“Oh, yes, of course, but if you couldn't have
health and money, wouldn’t you rather have health?”

Margaret straightened her strong young spine, and
looked down at her brown little feet unfettered by
a shoe, her sturdy arms so used to the weight of
burdens. She knew she could raise and swing those
young arms as high and as often as she pleased, with-
out pain and without hindrance. A throb of. joy
quickened her pulses as she realized and felt proud
of her own glowing health.

So she answered Kathie’s question briskly.

“Guess I’d choose health, miss, cause it’s fun to
run an’ jump, an’ I am glad to be well an’ strong.
But, then, you see, I am so tired of bein’ about the
streets all day, an’ I’m cross some days, so that
Granny almost has to scold me. Oh, dear! I do try
hard not to be naughty, because the old man told

me mamma could see an’ be grieved, an’ if I am not
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 35

— good, I never can go to her. I know she’s watchin’
at the big golden gates all this long time. Do you
think, miss, angels ever get tired waitin’ so long,
an’ watchin’ so long for those they love down here
to go up to ’em?”

“Oh, Margaret, the dear Jesus keeps them from
being too tired, I’m sure, and He watches with them,

I think. Ah, here comes nurse!”

So Margaret, with an empty basket, but heart full
of pleasure over her good fortune, parted with Kathie
at the door of the fine, large house.

“You will come again soon with your flowers?”

asked Kathie. “I like you, Margaret, and I will
always buy of you.”
“Yes, indeed, I will surely come!” was the happy
reply, and Margaret went gayly down to the street
again, her little purse bulging out with the silver
lame Kathie had dropped into it.

But for all the smiles and the feeling of happiness
with which “My little Margaret” was overflowing,

there could not be crowded away the feeling of sym-
36 MY LITTLE MARGARET,

pathy also, and sorrow for poor little Kathie, who
could not stir without her crutch, and who had said
so mournfully that “every day she was in pain.”

Margaret had seen crippled children—yes, and men
and women besides—who had lost the use of one or
the other of their limbs; but somehow she had never
before been so impressed with the sorrow of it all.
Just a glance, ‘and the thought, “Ugh! I’m glad J
don’t look like that!” had been all that concerned
her in the matter, save the inclination once in a
while (and which was not meant to be heartless) to
laugh at what she saw. Ah, now she couldn’t laugh!
She was sure she never could laugh at any one’s sor-
row or misfortune again. Kathie had made her see
with different and pitying eyes, and if Kathie suf-
fered pain all the time, of course others in her condi-
tion must feel the same. ;

“T never knew, oh! I never knew how they must
be feeling, an’ I’ve seen ’em so many times an’ never
cared or felt sorry, as I ought to.”

This and other regretful thoughts were running
through Margaret’s brain in company with the happy,
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 87

brighter memories there, as she hurried homeward,
not forgetting to stop at the first convenient stand
and buy not only one but two golden, juicy oranges .

for Grandma.

It was a very interesting story that Granny list-
ened to, in her partial opinion, as over the meal of
mush and milk, and the fine dessert of oranges, the
two who were dearest to each other on earth sat
contentedly and talked together.

“Aye, my little Margaret, she’s bonny, I have no
doubt, an’ she’s good as she’s fair, my lass, an’ I’ve a
tender feelin’ for her because of her kind words to
my bairn. But I’m thinkin’ (ye’ll be knowin’ that,
dearie!) that there’s none can be so bonny, or carry
so tender a heart in all the world, as just my little
Margaret, my own daughter’s own bairn.”

So said Granny as she rose from the little table
and prepared to wash and set aside the few dishes
- the simple meal had required. :

“You're just a foolish old Grandma, you are!” was

n, rat? 7 , ;.
Margaret’s reply, as in her strong young arms she
38 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

clasped her Granny tight and close, and left sweet

kisses on the wrinkled face.

After that, for many weeks, each day she turned
her steps, this little violet-girl, toward the broad
street where Kathie lived; and whether she had had
“alucky mornin’,” or one not as brisk in business as.
she wanted, her face gathered all its smiles, and her
heart all the sunshine the day could spare, as she
drew near the one spot in all the wide city where
she owned a “friend” whom, next to Granny, she
could love.

Kathie was always watching for her at the window
beside the broad white stoop, watching with smiles
of greeting which went straight to Margaret’s little
grateful heart. And then, you see, whether there
were few or many bunches of sweet blossoms left in
the little willow basket, they were sure to change
owners there at. Kathie’s house. Kathie’s dear
mother, too, had learned to welcome the orphaned
child who was so bravely trying to take care of her

old grandmother. There was something very attrac-
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 39

tive in Margaret. She had a little winning way
which, because she was all unconscious of it, was all
the more winsome. She had no idea that in her
~ brown little face, and in the tangled mass of her
dark, wavy hair there was anything at all attractive
save in Granny’s partial. and loving eyes.

She didn’t know how often people had turned to
look at her graceful little figure, and smiled to hear the
sweet, clear tones of her young voice. Oh, no; she
was in her own opinion only Margaret Donald, poor
little orphan; scantily clothed, and barefooted ;_ half
the time bare-headed; a little street flower-girl who
had no one in all the wide world to love her, and
be glad or sorry with her, save her old, feeble grand-
mother, and no home on the earth save that which
was bounded by four plastered walls high up in a
rickety building in the big city’s poorest: locality.

But Kathie and Kathie’s mamma saw more than all
that. They saw a sunny-faced little toiler amongst
hundreds of toilers, trying to be a good child in
the midst of all things bad and discouraging ; a faith-
ful little grandchild, a little maiden with refined
40 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

yearnings and patient strivings, and a little heart
that longed for love, and gave love freely where it
could trust, and put its little confidences for safe-
keeping.

So they accepted that trust, and all the confidences
which Margaret had learned to yield to them little by
little. For it had come about that after a time
Kathie had made the little girl come in and sit
a while with her and her mother in the pretty room
up-stairs, where there could be cosey talks and no
interruptions. .

Margaret had accepted the first invitation timidly,
and with a shy glance at her feet and dress.

But it had been like a beautiful dream afterward,
and when Kathie’s second invitation came, the eager
little heart was not so timid in its acceptance.

She had talked of her own dear mother that first
day of her introduction to Kathie’s sunny room. Not
at once, though, for her quaint speeches and funny
tales of the street scenes she had been amongst had
made Kathie laugh, and there had been merry jesting
back and forth, while the mother sat by with smiles
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 41

on her face, and a dainty bit of sewing in her hand



(not a bit like the coarse work poor Granny’s

wrinkled fingers kept busy over).
492 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

But presently Kathie had chanced to go over and
seat herself on a low stool at her mother’s knee, and
Margaret turned her head aside that no one might
see the sudden tears springing into her eyes.

“Kathie can lay her head on her mother’s knee,
an’ be loved an’ kissed when she feels like it, an’
can feel her mother’s arms round her tight! J can’t,
though. I ain’t got any mother to hug me/ Id be
glad as she is if I only had!”

These were the thoughts filling her heart as she
watched Kathie there, and the loving mother of the
little lame girl saw that something was grieving her
young guest, and questioned her kindly,

“Oh, it ain’t anything, ma’am,” said Margaret,
hastily brushing her brown eyes clear from mist.
“T was only bein’ foolish. I was—only—I was only
jus’ wishin’ I had my mamma to love me like Kathie
has. There’s lots of times when I feel like puttin’ ’
my head on mamma’s breast an’—an’ hearin’ her say,
‘Don’t cry, Margaret.’ But ’tain’t any use to want what
you can’t have; I know that, an’ Granny keeps tellin’

me, but Kathie made me forget it just a minute.”
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 43

“Come here, dear!”

Margaret looked up wonderingly as the lady held
out an arm of invitation.

“TI ain’t fit, ma’am,” she said, slowly ; “I——”

“You are clean, my dear, and you are always
as neat as your circumstances will permit. J am
not afraid to put my arm about you, Margaret.
Come!”

So she went over to the mother and daughter, and
knelt down beside them humbly and _ respectfully,
and shivered for very gladness at the touch of the
kind arm about her waist.

“Oh, I’m sure mamma will thank you if she is
lookin’? down from heaven now an’ sees you bein’ so
kind an’ good to me, ma’am!” said the child in grate-
ful tones, lifting her beautiful lustrous eyes to the
gentle blue eyes above her.

“ thought the lady reverently. “Ah! how Uittle a thing
it is to do, and how great the pleasure it gives!”

So is it to be wondered at that this first visit

should have seemed to Margaret like a beautiful,
44 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

beautiful dream, long after she had gone back to
her attic home, and told Granny. all about it?

*~ Ts it a wonder that she looked forward so, each
day, to the hour when she could turn from the
crowded business streets and wend her way toward
the lovely home where Kathie lived, and where the
pretty park still spread out its charms for the
passer-by ?

She was most unselfish—“my little Margaret ”—
and “was glad that Kathie was glad.” She borrowed
crumbs of comfort from Kathie’s gladness each day,
and grew sunny in the warmth of Kathie’s sun-
shine.

Even old Granny brightened up and turned merry
at times when Margaret would describe these visits
of hers to the “fine, big house where Kathie lived,
an’ the grand wide park over the way where the
fountain sang to the grasses, an’ played all day in
the sun.”

It was wonderful, too, how much new joy had
seemed to enter into the life of little lame Kathie

since she and Margaret had met.
MY LITTLE MARGARET, 45

“Margaret makes me happier, mamma,” she said
one day, “and I don’t mind the pain so much when
she comes and talks to me. She puts her laugh right
into my heart, and my laugh seems to spring up
and meet and join it, and things seem better worth
laughing about than before.”

And Margaret said to grandma: “Kathie smiles
right through me, Granny, an’ it’s like as though I
breathed a ray of sunshine. Oh, she’s a dear, dear girl!”

“So is my little Margaret,” said Granny, jealous
for her bairn.

“Oh, but, Granny, Kathie is ’most an angel. I
love her so that I don’t get tired as I used to, goin’
about an’ cryin’ vi’lets!”

Isn’t it true, my little readers, that loving words,
and loving thoughts and deeds, done or received,
will turn to gold the grayest and soberest of duties
and wearisome tasks, and enrich soul and body with
the preciousness of their great worth ?

Sweet little Kathie, brave little Margaret! Was
not each happier, sweeter, and braver for the love

they gave each other?
46 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

But there came a day when Margaret, coming as
usual toward Kathie’s home, checked the song on
her lips, and turned a pair of wondering, disap-
pointed eyes from window to window of the house
before her. But vainly there she looked to see her
friend. No face appeared at either window, and a
sudden fear fluttered in Margaret’s heart.

“She’s always been there, right there at that win-
dow beside the stoop,” muttered the anxious little
girl to herself. “Ever since we've known each other
Kathie has watched for me, jus’ as if I wasn’t only
a street girl sellin’ flowers, an’ she livin’ in a big fine
house! Oh, I know something’s happened!”

She paused and held up a bunch of violets, so
that in case any chance should call Kathie to one of
the upper windows, she might the more easily attract
her notice.

But no; neither Kathie, her mother, nor the faith-
ful nurse appeared to gladden Margaret’s longing
eyes, and the fear in her heart fluttered faster and
faster.

It was true that the little lame and tender-hearted
MY LITILE MARGARET. 44

daughter of that handsome home had never failed to




be at the window,
ready to give a nod
of greeting to Marga-
ret as she passed, and
to buy of her fragrant
wares. Sometimes
as we have seen, Mar-
garet was invited in
for one of those cosey
talks she liked so well, and those were “red-letter”

times for her, which she loved to talk and laugh
48 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

over with Granny, and tuck away in the store-house
of her memory, for refreshment when her heart was
tired and sad, and things seemed to “be going all
wrong with her.”

At other times she was contented with only
Kathie’s nod of greeting, or a few kind words spoken
with the purchase of her flowers, and just the sight
of the blue eyes she loved so to look into would
set her heart a-dancing, and give her new courage as
she went her way. But what could it mean to-day
that there was no Kathie on watch as usual, and
Margaret waited so long in vain before the curtained
window ?

Had Kathie gone away? Oh, how Margaret hoped
not! Was she sick? Ah, that. was worse still to
think of! Was she forgetful at last of the little
violet girl, and tired of the new friendship?

Oh, surely, surely not that! Kathie never could be
forgetful, never so unkind as to take from little
lonely Margaret the one joy which had come into her
young life!

But Margaret could not ease her mind in any way
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 49

about the matter. She only felt that something was
wrong, and that she was disappointed, and as she
had yet many bunches of her violets to dispose of,
she went her way, hoping to go back to Granny
soon, and maybe together they could think it all
out.

“Here's vi'lets! vilets! Who'll buy my vi'lets?”
she cried, and soon Kathie’s home was far behind
her. But it was strange how much of the sunshine
lost its brightness, and how weighty the little heart
‘seemed to be, in spite of the fact that ere long the
last bunch of flowers was transferred from the basket
to the daintily gloved hand of a generous purchaser,
and Margaret was free to hurry home to Granny,
with a big round apple in her basket, and a tiny

“fortune” in her purse.

g Why, lassie, back again!” cried Grandma, as the
little girl came into the cheerless room, and turned
it, with her loved presence, into a palace for the fond
old soul who greeted her so cheerily.

“ And the basket empty, my bairn, too! I’m think.
4
50 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

in’ this has been one o’ the gude days, my little
Margaret, and yet you're no smilin’ as usual. Why,
lass?”

Margaret hung up her basket, put her purse in
Grandma’s lap, and then sat mournfully down on her
stool at Grandma’s knee.

“It would have been a good day, Granny, for
everybody liked the vilets, an’ one lady bought four
bunches, but—oh, Granny, do you know Kathie wasn’t
at the window watchin’ for me! I waited, an’ I
cried ‘vi'lets, too; but no one came, an’, oh, dear! I
had such a heavy feelin’ right here,” laying her hand
on her heart, and looking pitifully into the kind old
face for sympathy. “I don’t know why, but some-
how I feel afraid Kathie has gone away! Granny, it
makes me have a lonesome feelin’, an’ all the rest of
the day seemed tired to me.”

“Foot, now, my little Margaret, dinna fret 1” cried
the old woman, slipping into her broad Scotch accent
as usual when at all worked up. “Dinna ye fret
so sair, dearie! Ill be thinkin’ Miss Kathie has

company, an’ if so, how could she find time to be
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 51

standin’ at the window just to keep an eye for a
little bairn like yoursel’?”

Margaret brightened. “ Why, yes, Granny! I didn’t
think of that at all! She must have had company,
an’ it wouldn’t have been right to remember ’bout
me just then. Oh, I keep forgettin’ that she’s a
lady’s little girl, an’—an’ I’m only just a flower-girl,
you see, Gran’ma. But maybe I'll see her to-morrow,
an’ she'll laugh at me for bein’ so silly!”

So the shadow left her face, the worry departed
from her heart, and a little song hovered about the
pretty red lips of the child old Granny believed to

be a veritable little angel from heaven.

Alas! on the next day it was just the same. Mar-
garet was disappointed as before. The sunshine was
bright as usual about the park, and the birds were
singing as merrily as ever. All the wide street, with
its row of fine houses, past which our little girl
walked toward the finest of them all, where Kathie
lived, was bathed in sunshine, and everything about

her looked glad and beautiful.
52 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

But how could Margaret be glad, when still the
curtained window beside the broad marble stoop was
deserted, and still no face appeared at either window,
look where she would about the house before her?

“Oh, she’s gone away, she’s surely gone away!”
was the ery in the child’s heart. “Gone, and did not
say good-by to me!” Very grave was the little face
at that thought, but a sort of childish pride followed,
and Margaret lifted her brown head proudly as she
passed on. “I got along well enough "fore I ever
met her, an’ I guess I can spare her if she wants to
be spared. I’ve got Granny, anyhow, an’ she’s best
of any one in the whole world!”

Then she began to cry her violets in a clear voice,
though, to be sure, there was just the least trace of a
tremor in it, and she kept her little head at a very
dignified height for several squares, all the while
feeling quite positive that she wasn’t going to pine
because Kathie hadn’t cared enough for her to say a
good-by before she went away.

Margaret was quite successful, too, on that bright

morning. Everybody wanted violets, and her small.
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 538

purse grew quite full ere long. When she was
ready to go home and get Granny’s simple lunch for
her, she would have been a very happy little Mar-
garet, had: it not been for the fact that ’way down
deep in her heart, despite all the brave effort to be
gay, and to sustain the feeling of pride, which scorned
to confess that it was half an angry resentment, and
not a real honest feeling after all, there was a sore
pain which nothing could make her forget.

For two days she had not seen Kathie! For two
days she had looked up wistfully to the windows of
Kathie’s house, and had seen no face there to give
her smile for smile. For two days she had saved
her prettiest bunches of violets for Kathie to buy,
and after all they had been purchased by a stranger.

Margaret knew, too, that if she had “gotten along
well enough” before meeting Kathie, she had found
her little life much more enjoyableesince she had
known the sweet lame girl and looked into the sunny
blue eyes, and all her attempts to act and feel as if
“she didn’t care” were miserable failures.

And this is why she couldn’t feel as happy as the
54 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

full purse and empty basket usually made her. She
went home, however, with as brave a face as she
could put on above such a worried, perplexed little
heart, and Granny again cheered her up and bade
her hope for better on the next day.

The next day was as bright—so far as sunshine
and blue skies were concerned—as the others had
been, but to Margaret the same cloud was visible, for
still there was no greeting for her at Kathie’s window.
Ah, me! what could Margaret do now? For a few
moments she waited before the door, then a sudden
thought came to her.

:“T will go an’ ring the bell, an’ find out what the
trouble can be. If Kathie has gone away, then I
can’t help it, an-—an’ [ll try not to care; maybe Dll
forget her as she did me. But maybe, oh, maybe
she is very sick, an’ then—oh, I can’t think about
that any moret I'll go an’ be sure!”

So she went up the steps and pulled the bell. She
felt that perhaps the right thing would have ‘been
for her to go down and knock at the basement

door. But then, you see, she was afraid that some
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 55

one who had not known about her, and who didn’t
care for her, would answer her knock, and thinking
her only a little beggar girl, send her off with cross
words and looks. |

So that is why my little Margaret went to the
front upper door, and rang the bell timidly. How her
little hand trembled as she pulled the knob! And
how she. started as she heard the sound of its ring!

“Maybe the kind nurse will come an’ open the
door! JI won’t be afraid of her,” thought the child.
“Oh, I do hope Kathie’s mother won’t be angry ’cause
I rang her bell when I wasn’t asked to do it.”

Yes, it was Kathie’s kind-faced nurse who opened
the door, as Margaret had hoped.

“Oh, will you please tell me—tell me—how is
Miss Kathie to-day, ma’am? I haven’t seen her for
so long. Has she gone away? Is it very far?”

The woman’s face was very sober, and now, as she
finished her hurried little speech all full of questions,
Margaret saw that there were traces of tears there,
too. But she went on eagerly. “An’ tell her, please,

I've saved these, the very prettiest vilets in my
56 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

basket, for her, ’cause I haven’t seen her face at the
window in oh, so long a time! Why, it’s two whole
days, ma’am,.an’ I miss her so!”

The woman wiped her eyes, and smiled down
upon Margaret’s upturned face.

“Dear child, Miss Kathie, poor lamb, is sick in
bed with fever and pain, and the worry of it all is
breaking my wmistress’s heart; and, indeed, the whole
house is a sad, sad place. Miss Kathie wouldn't
heed me if I gave her the flowers, my girl, for she’s
heeded nothing at all since she was first taken. It
was yesterday morning only that she was her own
self, so bright and happy; and she went to the
window there, looking out at the park. I remember
she said to me: ‘This is a fine, sunshiny day, nurse.
I know Margaret will sell lots of her flowers to-day.”
And she stood there, with her blue eyes all shining,
and humming a little song. All of a sudden she
cried out, and I heard her—I was getting something
from the table near by for my mistress—and I ran to
see what the trouble was, and she had fainted, Mar-

garet, fainted in a white heap there on the floor.
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 57

Oh, but her mother was scared! We sent for the
. doctor, and he’s been watching her closely all the
time since, but she don’t know us, and only tosses
and turns and burns with the fever. Now you see
it wouldn’t do any good for me to take your violets,
though I'll tell my mistress how good you were to
offer them. Poor lady, she’s on her knees beside
Kathie most all the day, begging for one word and
look, and Miss Kathie never knows it at all.”

Poor little Margaret! she stood amazed and fright-
ened as this sorrowful tale was told her. Her brown
eyes grew misty with tears so that she could scarcely
see the face of the woman at the door. A choking
feeling about her throat, and oh, such a dull pain at
her heart, prevented her from replying. .She could
only pull the little shawl over her face, and stifle as
well as she could the sobs that presently shook her
from head to foot.

“Poor little girl! she loves Miss Kathie, indeed !”
‘thought the nurse, pitying Margaret, yet in haste to
return to her sick charge, and so end this interview.

But Margaret held out her violets again, and with
58 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

tears streaming down her cheeks, begged that they
might be given to Kathie’s mother, “just to let her
know how sorry I am, an’—an’ that J love Miss
Kathie, too!” she pleaded pitifully; and the nurse -
took the fragrant blossoms gently from the little
outstretched hand.

Then the door was softly closed between the
woman and the child. :

Down the steps again went Margaret. For her
the beauty of the glorious day had quite departed.
Neither the park nor the pretty, sparkling fountain
within its bounds had power to cheer Margaret’s
drooping spirits.

Home she went, her violets half unsold, her little
purse empty save for a few lonely pennies jingling
mournfully together as she ran—ran toward home
and Granny.

* * * x * *

“Gran’ma, will she die? Oh, do you think Kathie
will die?”

Granny smoothed the young head bowed in her

lap, and answered gently:.
MY LITTLE MARGARET. D9

“Aye, who knows, darling? Not we, surely. But











the good Lord lets us hope as much as we choose,

an’ we'll keep hoping and hoping, lassie, an’ that will
_ 60 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

cheer us better than to look on the dark side o
things, you know, my little Margaret.”

“Do people always die when they’re sick like
Kathie—do they, Granny, dear? Was mamma. that
way ?”

“Aye, my little Margaret, lamb of my heart, she
was sick indeed!” replied the old woman, her dim
eyes filling with the tears she had been trying to
keep back while comforting her child. “But there’s
been even sicker folks than her, an’ they lived; they
got well, my bairnie, an’ why not Kathie?”

“Oh, dear! oh; dear! oh, dear me!” sobbed Mar-
garet, “an’ to think I was tryin’ to think [ didn’t
care if she didn’t want to watch for me; an’—an’,
oh, Gran’ma, Gran’ma, I was angry with Kathie a
little while, as I went through the streets the first
time after I didn’t find her at the window! Angry
with her, only think, an’ she—was so sick. Oh,

Granny!” ,

Days went by, sorrowful days for little Margaret,

though she was busy selling her flowers, and there
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 61

were times when her sorrow was lightened by mat-
ters of interest around her. Still, all the time the
soreness lay there, and her longing to see her one
little friend was very intense.

. But in Kathie’s home only the deepest grief pre-
vailed. Silence was everywhere about the large
house. Grave faces, low whispers, anxious watchings,
and earnest prayers had prevailed all through the
days when Margaret had to go about her daily street
duties without one glimpse of the dear little face she
loved.

But there came at last a change. It was at the
twilight hour of a day which had been fair and
beautiful that little Kathie suddenly opened her eyes
and saw her mother sitting at the bedside. Oh, the
pale, worn face, white as Kathie’s own, and worn
with long watching.

The sick child put out her arms feebly and
reached them toward her mother’s neck. Lovingly
she drew the dear, tear-stained face down beside her
own upon the pillow. “Mamma, dear mamma, |

know I have been very sick. I know it by every
62 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

sign around me, and by my own feelings, but most
of all by the looks of your face. - But. has it been
very long, mamma? Have I made you and. nursie
very tired? Has any one seen Margaret? Oh, she'll
think I have forgotten her!”

Then tenderly the mother explained everything to
Kathie, and told her of Margaret’s coming to the
door to inquire for her, and find out whether she
(Kathie) had gone away, or was sick; and how she
had sent the sweet message of her love and sympathy
through the violets, and of how the little girl had
ventured several times since then to call at the lower
door and ask how Kathie was getting on.

“You will soon be well again, darling,” continued
the mother, “and can see and thank little Margaret
for her love of you. She says she has missed you
at the window, and she is very lonely to see you
again, nurse says.”

Kathie smiled, but it was a wan little bit of a
smile after all. She knew better than any one beside
how weak was the frame that held her brave soul

and heart together. “Mamma,” she said, “I don’t
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 63

think I shall ever be well again. I feel it here”—
laying her hand on her’ heart—“and I know I shall
soon go to dear papa.”

“Ah, darling, darling, don’t!” cried her mother,
fearing only too surely that Kathie spoke truly, but
unwilling to believe it.

“Why, it won't be sad, mamma, papa waiting for
me, and being so glad to see me. He'll surely
come first of all the angels to welcome me _ to
heaven, and you’ve told me often what a dear, beauti-
ful home Jesus makes for us there beyond the blue
sky. I don’t feel afraid, mamma, and I wouldn’t feel
the least sorry to go from here, where I’m always
weak and sick, if it were not for leaving you, my
own sweet mamma!”

Only kisses, many kisses for reply, and then
mamma brought to Kathie a little vase in which she
had placed the violets Margaret had last left at the
door with their message of sympathy.

“Pretty violets!” said the sick child, touching them
to her lips. “Tell Margaret I love her for her love

of me, and tell nurse to tell her, too, that one day, if
64 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

I get a little stronger, she may come and sit beside
me here and we will have one of our nice talks.”

“Yes, my darling,” was the reply, “ and now sleep
a little for my sake, and so bring the strength for
Margaret’s visit quickly, dear one. We will all be
cheerful together.”

Mothers can smile when their hearts are breaking
for the things that hurt and give grief to their
children. They smile to cheer the loved sufferer, and
to help lighten the trouble, whatever it may be.
There is no heart in the wide world so loving and
unselfish as the heart of a mother, and no child can
ever know to what extent that love and unselfishness
will reach. Perhaps some little girls, and little sons
too, would be more appreciative of mother and her
love if they could know the boundless preciousness
of her devotion. Kathie knew it all, and a very ap-
preciative little daughter she was. She understood
how mother’s smiles were meant to hide the deep
pain in the heart beneath, and she said to herself:
“Tf mamma can be brave, and not grieve me with
the sight of her tears when her heart is full of them,
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 65

then Z can be brave, and not worry her with one
single show of. bad feeling, no matter how the pain
hurts, and I won’t let her think I don’t want to get
well—sometimes I would like to go to heaven right
away, my back hurts so—but I'll smile as she does,
and be as patient as can be, though I know as well
as if an angel had whispered to me that I never,
never, never shall walk about again.”

So they two, the mother and her little sick Kathie,
were playing a loving game together, though indeed
it was such a sorry “game.” Always smiles when
together, and merry words for each, and alas! tears
and the saddest of thoughts when apart.

Meanwhile Margaret received Kathie’s message, and
waited impatiently for the day when nurse would bid
her “come in and see Miss Kathie awhile.” Thus a
few more days went by. Margaret’s cheeks were
growing browner and fuller with the wind and sun
of the glad spring-time. Strong and_ well-formed
were the little limbs, and the very spirit of health
possessed her. How about Kathie? Weaker and

_ weaker, paler and paler, more and more quiet; the
5
66 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

starry eyes grew bright with increasing fever. Rest-
lessness possessed her, and she wanted to talk, but
the sweet voice had daily less strength for even that.

One day she awoke from sleep and asked for her
mother. Nurse called the mother, and then left them
together, wiping her eyes on her apron as she went
down to the kitchen, and saying to herself: “Oh, poor
little one, poor little one! God help the mother, for

she will need it very soon now!”

Sitting beside the bed, Kathie’s mother laid her
head upon her child’s heart, where Kathie wished . it
to lie.

“Mamma, I want a promise from you,” she said.
“J want you to promise me, please, mamma, dear,
that—that. when I am with papa, and waiting with
him, you know, for you, dear, precious mamma, you
will love Margaret, and let her come to see and talk
to you sometimes, just as she used to when I was
well—I mean before this last sick time. You know
she does love us both so much, and I was: thinking

that perhaps you—you might forget about her,
x

MY LITTLE MARGARET. 6

mamma, because you would be grieving so for your

own girl.”

The blue eyes were very bright, and a feverish





flush burned on Kathie’s cheeks as she wound her
arms more tightly about her mother’s neck and con-
tinued her little earnest plea for Margaret.

“You know—you haven't forgotten, have you,
68 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

mamma, darling ?—that one day Margaret and I said
we would play at being sisters, because she often
said she would be the happiest child in the city if
she only had a sister. So I said she could call me
one, and oh, it made her so glad! You will go on
being kind to her, mamma? Promise me that! And
never mind if she is dark, and wears coarse clothes,
and that her hair is all tangled and blown about, in-
stead of being soft and goldy like mine! Brown hair
is very pretty, mamma, and oh, you’ve often said
, Margaret had beautiful eyes! Do promise me that
you will keep on loving her just to please me?”

Very soft and low was the mother’s answer, when
Kathie, at last exhausted with her earnestness and
her long appeal in Margaret’s behalf, dropped back
upon the pillow and with wistful eyes watched her
mother’s face.

“My Kathie’s friends shall be my friends, surely,
and Margaret will not be forgotten from amongst
them, darling. Do not fear, my child, Margaret shall
be cared for for Kathie’s dear sake. But ah, my

dear, my dear, you will not go from your mother yet
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 69

awhile. Papa will wait a little longer still, for I can-
not yet spare my one lamb, my best comfort, even to
go to him.”

“Ah! but if Jesus wants to make me straight and
well again, and there is no way for that to be done
down here, you would——” |

“Let you go?” interrupted the mother, sadly.
“Dear Kathie, you are right. Mamma would be
selfish to keep you back. My patient, brave darling,
you have been a good child to me. God knows my _
life will be broken and weak ‘without you, but—
He knoweth best for: us both, and if He wants

you, mother must be patient and let her darling
go.”

Then there was a little more quiet talk between
the mother and daughter, and by and by Kathie
fell asleep, lying like a waxen figure upon her little
bed, only the rise and fall of her tired chest show-
ing that she was not really yet gone from the human
love on earth to the infinite love and compassion of
the home beyond the skies.

And while she slept, Margaret went by, looking up
70 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

with her wistful eyes still in vain search for the face

she longed to see. Ah, poor little Margaret!

‘Not many days after this, “My little Margaret”
awoke to hear the rain driving hard and angrily
against the window-panes, and the casements rattling
with the violence of the wind.

What a fierce storm it was! How Margaret
shivered as she dressed hastily (so as to get Gran-
ny’s milk warmed for her as soon as_ possible),
and watched meanwhile the sheets of rain which fell
from the most leaden of skies. :

“Oh, dear!” she thought, “what a dreadful is to
sell vilets! Seems as if vilets an’ rain don’t go to-
gether nicely. But maybe some one will buy ’em to
be cheered up, ’cause they are such cheery things, Z
think. Oh, yes, I guess Pll go an’ try anyhow!” So
she hurried through the process of dressing—a very
short process with Margaret—then helped Granny do
likewise, and as soon as the simple breakfast of mush
and milk had been enjoyed (for they did enjoy it,

those two grateful souls, since Jove made it a feast),
MY LITTLE MARGARET, 71

Margaret went for her violets to the old friend’s

store, and soon after was going her usual rounds, cry-:
3 oD D> 9

ing her “vi'lets” through the storm of wind and rain

Vf






as cheerily as_ she
could, poor, brave _ lit-
tle flower-girl !

But, oh, dear, the rain came down so fast, and the
wind blew her about so rudely, and people, from
under the shelter of their umbrellas (which the

wind quite frequently turned inside out), looked at



72 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

her with more of wonder at her audacity in brav-
‘ing the storm and fancying she could do her kind of
business on such a day, than with any desire for her
violets; and so, before an hour had passed, the little
girl was back again, and glad to find shelter at
Granny’s side.

Tt was a very dreary and long day for both of
them, though Grandma felt that so long as “my little
Margaret” was with her the room contained an abun-
dance of its own peculiar sunshine.

But the hours dragged, and it seemed to Margaret
as though almost a year had passed when finally she
and Granny finished their supper and went to bed.
The tiny little stove was almost empty of coals, for
as they were obliged to lay in their coal by the
pailful (not by the ton, as my little readers. see it
bought), of course the supply would be quickly
exhausted, and thus it happened that when this
night came on, the poor, bare attic room was chilly
indeed and the child and her grandmother were
glad to creep into bed and snuggle together for

warmth.
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 73

During the day both had talked much of Kathie,
and Margaret had planned to carry the largest and
- sweetest of her violets—which could be spared from
those the florist allowed her to call her own—to
Kathie’s house, and ask nurse to give them to the
sick girl just as early as she could get there on the
following day. She did not know that all through
that day of rain and dreariness Kathie had been
growing weaker, and that a restlessness to see Mar-
garet had possessed the little lame girl, so that nurse
stood by the window and watched, and watched in
vain, to see the flower-girl go by.

“Surely she would not be out on a day like this,”
she said to Kathie when, for the fourth time, the
weak voice asked: “Is she coming, nurse?”

“You don’t know how brave Margaret is,” Kathie
replied. “If she thought she could sell her violets
she wouldn't heed a storm. No, indeed ; she would
try and do her best for Granny’s sake. Watch just
a little longer.”

So nurse watched, and when the morning had

passed, Kathie was disappointed, so disappointed
U4 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

that .tears filled her eyes, and she drew the sheet
over her face and cried quietly to herself.

As often as possible through the afternoon had
nurse also kept watch for “My little Margaret,” and
when at last the shadows deepened, and day was
done, mamma comforted her darling as well as she
could, and explained how it was possible that the
anxious old grandmother feared to let her one ewe
lamb venture out in the storm, and that if Margaret
had even ventured it, it would have been folly for
her to come so far. “Sleep now, darling, and with
to-morrow’s sunshine Margaret will come this way,
and she shall be called in to see you.”

So Kathie slept, and while she dreamed of Mar-
garet, and smiled in her dreaming, the storm of wind
and rain went on ceaselessly outside, and raged against
the poor and the rich alike. As it dashed against
Kathie’s warmly curtained and strongly paned win-
dows, so it beat angrily upon the panes beside Mar-
garet’s bed, and startled her with its violence.
Grandma kept muttering in her sleep, as‘the old will

do, and the fitful shining of the street lamps, now
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 75

brightly, now darkly, made grotesque shadows on the
wall, which Margaret’s excited eyes turned into fear-
ful shapes.

She crept closer to Granny’s side, and tried to sleep,
but her brain was overfull of fancies and thoughts,
and of strange fears which set her heart fluttering
wildly.

But at last, after a long, long time, it seemed to
the wakeful child, there came a lull in the noise of
the storm. The rain ceased from beating on the
panes, the wind settled into silence, and Margaret,
wiping the troubled tears from her eyes, went to
sleep, and like Kathie, had a dream. She found her-
self in a large garden,. where some children played
with Kathie and herself.

And Kathie’s back was straight and strong as hers,
and Kathie’s laugh was merriest of them all.

A beautiful fountain played in the midst of the
garden and birds flew hither and thither singing the
sweetest of songs.

How they came there, she and Kathie together, in

the midst of so much beauty and gladness, Margaret
76 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

did not question. She felt a wondrous peace and







joy, which thrilled her whole soul through, and she

listened to sweet strains of music which came from
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 17

some invisible source, and were like what she had
fancied angels’ songs to be.

Oh, how happy she was, “My little Margaret,” and
her happy friend, Kathie! They both forgot there
had ever been a pain or sorrow in their lives, and
laughed and danced together as merry children will,
while the beautiful shine and sweetest strains of
music were all about this wonderful garden in which
they played.

Then presently Margaret saw her mother’s face, and
was folded in the loving arms she had longed so to
fee] once more around her little form. Rapture filled
her soul, her heart was glad to the very depths, and
she stretched out her arms with the joyous cry,
“Mamma, oh, mamma!”

“What is it, my little Margaret? What is ailing
ye, my lass? Hoot, now, something’s frightening ye,
I’m thinking !”

Margaret opened her eyes to find herself in the
cold little attic room, and Granny shaking her
gently by the shoulder. Gone was the beautiful
garden, gone the dear mother, and Kathie, too, had
78 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

vanished from sight! No more sweet strains of
music, no longer the golden shine of a wondrous
light! Birds, fountain, flowers—all gone, and only
the dreary little room, now half in shadow and half
in the gray of the early morning’s light, for Margaret
and her old granny.

“Oh, well, it was only a dream,” she thought; “ but
may be it’s a sign that Kathie’s going to get well !
Oh, won't I be happy! We will make a beautiful
garden of the park, an’ Kathie an’ Ill play it is
the garden I dreamed of I must hurry an’ go
out with my vi'lets, an’ then I'll tell her all about
Le

Granny was told the dream, too, as they ate break-
fast together, and though her old -heart feared only
bad news for her little Margaret, and looked upon
the dream as asign that Kathie had indeed flown to
fairer scenes above, yet, wisely, she didn’t tell Mar-
garet her fears, and the child set happily out ere
long with her basket on her arm, and her dream
safely stored away in her brain ready for tellmg to

Kathie when the right time should come.
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 79

Ah, little Margaret! The happy smile was driven
from her face and a merry little tune died on her
lips as she neared Kathie’s home at last.

Down the steps came the grave old doctor, and
Margaret saw him wipe his eyes as he went toward
the waiting carriage. At the door stood nurse, and
she was weeping sadly, yes, even aloud, for Margaret
heard the sound of sobbing. Oh, what did it mean ?
The little girl sprang forward, caught the doctor by
the coat just as he stepped into his carriage, and
stammered out: “Oh, sir, tell me; Miss Kathie isn’t
dead, oh, not dead yet?”

The kind-hearted doctor looked at the anxious face
of the child whose eyes were fastened upon his
own.

“Some little miserable whom Kathie had been kind
to,” he thought; “every one will miss the child!”
Then he said to Margaret, whose brown hand still
clutched his coat:

“T am sorry, little girl, but Miss Kathie is sinking
fast, and I fear cannot be with us beyond a few

hours.” Then he drove on, leaving Margaret, with
80 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

pale face and streaming eyes, staring up at the door
of Kathie’s home. Nurse had gone in, the door was
closed. There was no one to whom the poor little
flower-girl could speak.

“Oh, how can I go home without saying one
good-by to Kathie!” she said to her own little heart,
and then a thought came to her. The cook would
tell her about it all; the cook would perhaps be kind
and let her see Kathie just once more, if only
through the crack of the chamber door. She must
look at that dear face again, after so long a time of
waiting! Surely it would be no harm if she asked.
that the bunch of sweet violets she had brought for
Kathie might be laid beside the dear face, so that
their fragrance might breathe a good-by from Mar-
garet !

So she went down to the basement door and
knocked timidly. Cook answered the knock, and was
just about to say that there “were no cold victuals
to-day,” when she saw the flowers in Margaret’s
basket.

“Oh, youre the flower-child, are ye, that Miss
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 81

Kathie’s talked of so much? Well, ye can’t see ’er
today; she is too sick, an’ likely”—the rough voice
faltered a little, and cook wiped her eyes with the
corner of her apron as she continued‘ likely to—to
die, and go to the blessed hangels, which she’s one of
‘em Verself, on hearth or hoff of it, Pve always said
myself. Well, well, she’s goin’ fast an’ sure, an’
what'll the ’ouse be without ’er?”

“Oh, I love her so,” cried Margaret, leaning her
little head against the door, and trying not to cry, so
that she could finish her sentence. “I love her so
that I must see her face a little minute! An’ I want,
oh, I want to put my vi’lets beside her on the pillow!
Do let me!”

But cook knew it would not be possible for Mar-
garet to go up to Kathie’s room, so she explained to
the child, and finally agreed to take the violets up to
Kathie’s mother, who, she feared, was too heart-
broken to be able to pay any heed to Margaret’s
message, but she would try. And with that promise
the little girl had to be content, and went away

with a heavy burden upon her young heart.
;
82 en MY LITTLE MARGARET.
* * * * * x

“Granny, if I pray to Jesus to let Kathie live a
little longer, do you think He'll take the trouble to
pay ‘tention to the kind of child I am?”

Night had come, and Margaret was ready for her
bed as she asked this question.

“The good and dear Lord cares for the sparrows; I
don’t think it’s likely He ain’t a-caring for a little
child. I’m thinking, lass, He couldn't be heeding
the prayer of a better bairn than my little Margaret.”

Poor, loving old Granny! she couldn't help show-
ing her partial fondness for her grandchild im every
speech she made, no matter what the subject might be.

Margaret knelt down and folded her hands at
Grandma’s knee, and old and young eyes were lifted
reverently to the ceiling as the little girl prayed
long and earnestly that her one friend in all the
wide world might not die just yet, but live on to
love her mother, and the little flower-girl who loved
her so well.

“Seems as if God must be kind to me, an’ make

Kathie well now, Gran’ma,” she said, as they lay
MY LITTLE MARGARET, 83

down side by side to sleep till the morning light

should see Margaret off again for news of Kathie.

But when the morning came, alas! a great pain
seized the old woman, and she could not move her
feeble limbs without much suffering. Very much
frightened was Margaret, and she could not leave
Granny even to sell her violets. For a little time
even she had no chance to think of Kathie, for
Granny was very ill, the neighbors said, and so
Margaret ran for the doctor at the hospital near by.

He came, after long waiting, and said that it was
a case of bad rheumatic fever, and ordered the old
woman to the hospital That was very sad for
them both, for poor and uncomfortable as the attic
room had been, still it was their home, and they were
happy together there.

“J will not go to the hospital!” declared Granny
excitedly. “Hoot, noo, do ye think I'll be leaving
the lass alone here?” she asked, with a spice of
anger in her tones.

Margaret cried a good deal, but declared she
84 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

could live alone very well, and no doubt Grandma
would only be a little time at the hospital. The
neighbors, kindly souls, though rough in their ways,
promised to look after the child, and the doctor,
losing patience at the delay, and over the old
woman’s “obstinacy,” as he called it, ordered her
taken at once, without further words, to the hospital.
So finally she was settled there, and little lonely Mar-
garet had time to think over her sad lot as she sat
all alone in the rocking-chair which Granny had so
long occupied.

But every day the little girl went bravely out with
her violets for a short time, then back to sit at
Granny’s side in the hospital ward, for the old
woman had pleaded so hard, and the child had coaxed
so persistently for that privilege, that it had been
allowed by the doctors, and the nurse of the ward
was pleased with Margaret’s little helpful, quiet ways.

So, as I say, she was glad to sit beside the dear
grandmother, and talk in low tones of the day’s
doings, and her hopes and fears, her plans, her de-
sires, her lonely nights (though she didn’t tell
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 85

_ Granny how lonely they were, those long, dark
nights), and of how she had not yet been to Kathie’s
house, because she could not summon courage to
meet the sorrowing mother, nor indeed to look at the
house and know that Kathie didn’t live there any
longer.

“But I think of her all the time, Granny!” she
would say. “All the time I can seem to see her
eyes looking at me, and I can hear her speak! Oh,
it doesn’t seem as if she could have gone away just
yet!” :

But one night—after Granny had been over a week
in the hospital—Margaret could not sleep, and only
tossed restlessly in her bed, longing for morning, A
loneliness for Grandma possessed her so that she
cried, poor little one, all alone there in her room,
with the shadows and gloom of the night all about
her.

When the morning finally dawned, the tired child
sprang up gladly, and dressing herself as quickly as
possible, waited only to say a prayer for Granny and

herself, and to drink a glass of milk (which was all
86 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

the breakfast she wanted had there been a long bill
of fare before her), then sped to the hospital and up
to Granny’s ward.

The nurse held up her finger and said that the old
woman was asleep. So Margaret went on tiptoe and
sat patiently beside the bed, listening to the heavy
breathing of the invalid.

Granny slept long, so after a while the little girl
whispered to the nurse that she would go and sell
some violets, and then return to the dear sick one.

“You see,” she said, “summer’s almost here now, an’
vilets are ’most gone. They’re pretty scarce, an’ I
can sell ’em better than when there were lots an’
lots. So I mustn’t lose any time. You'll take care of
my granny till I come, ma’am, and tell her Margaret
will soon be back ?”

She stooped softly and left a light but loving kiss
on the wrinkled old forehead, then hastened away.

Ah, me! When “my little Margaret” returned
Granny was still sleeping, but this time it was the
long, long sleep that would know no waking.

There was a moan from Margaret, one little moan,
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 87

and that was all. When the nurse lifted her from
the floor upon which she had fallen, she was quite
unconscious. She had fainted for the first time in
her young life.

. But it wasn’t long that she lay in that condition.
When she came back to consciousness she was led
by the nurse to Granny’s side, and when she saw
the sweet, peaceful smile on the dear old face, all
the wrinkles softened, and the tired limbs laid
quietly in rest which would last forever, the brave
child said she was glad—glad that for Grandma
there was no more dreariness and pain, no more dis-
comfort, only rest and joy and peace forever.

She brought a bunch of her violets and laid them
on Granny's breast. She kissed Granny’s lips, and
the quiet hands, and smoothed the silver hair
beneath the white cap which nurse had arranged
neatly. Then she said, through brave efforts not to
ery: “Dear Granny, you will tell mamma that I
tried to be good, an’ that I did take care of you!
Tell her I am always loving her just the same as if

she lived down here; tell her—tell her”—and now
88 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

the sobs and tears had to come; no use trying to
hold them back—*“tell her that even if I am lonely
so far from her an’ you, I—I will keep on trying to
be good an’ true; an’ you will give my love to
Kathie, Granny, dear. I—I—oh, I haven’t anybody
now in all the world to love poor little me!”

It was a very despairing sort of cry that finished |
Margaret’s farewell to Granny. She was a broken-
hearted little girl, and the full sense of her loneliness
came over her with a sudden rush at the last. :

The kind woman who had cared for Granny till
the time of her rest came so unexpectedly, was full
of sympathy for the mourning child, and did all she
could to comfort her. But oh, can you not imagine
how sad a time it was, then and for days after, for
little Margaret, who went listlessly about the streets
selling her flowers, and hardly caring, indeed, whether
she found purchasers or not? There was no Granny
to be glad when she went home with empty basket
and full purse; there was only herself, and ske—why,
she didn’t want to eat, and hardly felt enough interest

in herself to think about how she could manage to
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 89

keep the shelter of the small attic room now that
the pittance earned by Granny’s stocking-knitting was
at an end.

And all this time Margaret dared not go near the
neighborhood of Kathie’s home. She shrank from it
somehow. What would be the use? Kathie was in
heaven, of course; the doctor had told her that her
friend had only a few hours of life left, and now
she was safe with the dear little angels ‘way be-
yond the blue sky. Oh, why didn’t Jesus want her
too? —

These and many thoughts beside kept the little
girl company as she went about her daily task, But
one bright day a sudden impulse seized her to go
and see how the beautiful park was looking. In her
basket now were fragrant lilacs and some red roses,
for violets were pretty well gone.

She picked out the fairest rose of all, and after a
moment’s thought, ran up the steps of Kathie’s home,
and after a slight hesitation, pulled the bell. A
strange woman answered the summons.

“What do you want, child?” she asked, with a
90 MY LITTLE MARGARET,

shade of annoyance in her tones, and wondering why
the little girl had not gone to the lower door.
“Please excuse me, but I—Miss Kathie—I]———”
“Miss Kathie is not here; she has gone,” was the
reply, and the woman began to close the door.
“Oh, I knew it, I knew it!” cried poor Margaret.

“ Please don’t shut me out just yet; I want—I want

”



to know about

Just then a sweet voice called from the stair-case,
“Jane, to whom are you speaking?”

“Only a child, ma’am, that’s asking for Miss
Kathie.”

“Let her come up to me,” was the answer, and
the woman wonderingly opened the door wider, and
admitted the grieving child.

“The lady wants you to go up-stairs, but for the
life of me I can’t see what she wants you for!”

Margaret ran up the stairs eagerly, and was met by
Kathie’s mother. The dear face was very sad, and
showed traces of long sorrow and anxiety, but there
was a smile in the blue eyes and on the tender
mouth as she held out her hands to the little girl
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 91

whose heart was jumping and pumping in her breast
with excitement.
“Oh, Mrs. Moore, dear, dear Mrs. Moore! Oh, I

am—I am—”

But the joy died out of her face, for
the remembrance that Kathie was not there stole
the glad greeting from Margaret’s lips ere she had
finished her sentence.

The lady smiled on, more brightly even than at
first, for she knew she could bring the dimples back
to the pale little cheeks before her, and make the
lonely child-heart happy.

Into her own room she led the little girl, thinking
as she looked at her what a sweet, winsome face it
was under the mass of tangled brown hair.

“My little Margaret,” she began, “you have been a
long while away from this neighborhood ; did you not
care to come and hear e
With a low cry Margaret interrupted. “ Oh, I

came, I came, an’ the doctor—he told me—oh, ma’am,



I knew it all, an’ I couldn’t come. Oh, it was so sad
to know I should never see Miss Kathie! An’—an’

then one day I meant to try an’ come, but oh—

ey
92 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

’ Down went the

Granny—my dear old Granny—’
little brown head against the lady’s knee, .and then
the tears came indeed; fast and faster, but oh, how
they relieved Margaret’s heart, she had tried so long
to hold them back! :
It was like the “clearing-up shower” after a time -
of long rain, and little Margaret was like a flower —
long drooping under cruel storms, but at last to lift
her head in the sunshine, which seemed all the
brighter after clouds and dreariness had _ passed.
“Please don’t mind me, ma’am,” she said, in
apology for the weakness. “I haven't had much time.

to cry, an’ somehow there has been a stone in my

7



feelings since Granny died

Now it was the lady’s turn to interrupt, which she
did with a shocked face and voice.

“Since Granny died? My dear child, you don’t
mean to tell me that your grandmother is dead !
Oh, my little Margaret!” She put her arm very
tenderly about the child and hugged her closely.

A smile like the shining of the sun through a

summer shower brightened the wan little face for a
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 93

moment as she felt the caress, and nestled gratefully
to meet it. Then she went on and told the gentle

mother (whom she loved for Kathie’s sake, as for the



lady’s own winsomeness) all about her grief, and

when she had finished the recital, she asked plain-
tively:

“Will mamma and Granny know Miss Kathie in
94 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

heaven, do you think? Oh, my mother is sure to be

the sweetest, most beautiful of all the angels, an’



Granny, dear old Gran’ma—she was an angel ‘fore she
died, an’ I know she will be close to the dear Lord
up there. But oh, it would be a glad thing if Miss
Kathie could only find ’em there! Do you think she
will?”

Again the lady smiled. “Margaret, dear little girl,
do you know the dear Lord was very, very kind to
me, and did not call my Kathie to Him, as we ex-
pected He would? She was very near the river’s
brink, though, and I had prayed very earnestly to be:
made patient for my sorrow; but she came back to
me, and it seemed as if this world had been suddenly
turned into heaven itself.”

Margaret’s face had been growing more and more
radiant from the beginning of Mrs. Moore’s speech,
and now she gave one long, glad cry, and lifted her
brown eyes reverently upward, whispering, “Dear
Jesus, we thank thee, oh, so much!”

But then the woman at the door had told her
Kathie was gone! What did that mean? The dress
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 95

that Kathie’s mother wore was sombre and black.
Why that?

She asked her two questions presently.

“The doctor sent my little invalid right away, as
soon as she had really turned her face earthward
again,” explained the lady. “And she has been gone
with her nurse for three days now. I went with her,
but came home again for a day or two to attend to
some important matters, and shall return presently.
As for this dress”—smiling—“I don’t wonder you
were still more deceived, dear, in regard to Kathie.
It is merely a dark travellmg gown, and not at all
meant for such as you supposed it to be. Ah, I am
very grateful that I need not mourn quite yet. God
is very good, isn’t He, Margaret?”

“Ye—es, ma’am,” rather slowly, for Margaret was
thinking just then, and there was a sort of feeling
that things were not going very well with her at the
time.

“Youre goin’ away, an’—an’ you'll stay a long
time, I s’pose, an’ I won’t see Miss Kathie again for

—oh, ma’am, will ‘you have to be gone very, very
96 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

long? I’m so lonely, an’ I was so glad to think I
could see Miss Kathie’s dear face again at the
window !”

Now Mrs. Moore had made a plan of her own
some time before, while Margaret, in fact, was dole-
fully relating the circumstances of Granny’s sickness
and death. You see the storm was dying away, and
the sunlight was struggling through the clouds,
though little Margaret hardly had guessed the change
as yet in her life’s sky.

She sat on her little hassock very sadly, and full
of sorrowful doubts and perplexities, while the lady:
left the room to give some direction to her’ maid.
But in a few moments the question was asked:
“My little Margaret, are you very fond of selling
flowers in the streets?”

The child looked up in surprise. “Oh, no, ma’am!
I never was fond of it, but I had to, an’ I got kind

of used to it, you see, an’ 4



“Well, now, the last thing Kathie said to me, when
she thought she was going to meet her father, was:

‘Mamma, love Margaret when Kathie is gone;’ and
MY LITTLE MARGARET. 97

nurse watched. for your coming one whole day, to call
you in to—bid my girlie good-by!” )

ona ean! 2

It was all the sound that left Margaret’s lips. She
was far too overcome at the thought of Kathie’s kind
thought of her to find speech just then. But Mrs.
Moore went on.

“T promised that I would love you, and it would
have been very easy, for I have cared for our little
flower-gir] a long while, you know. And now that
Kathie is spared to me, and on the road to her usual
health—for she will never be different from the frail,
lame little Kathie you first met—I still mean to
‘love Margaret, and Kathie herself will help me.
My dear child, Kathie has no sister; you have wanted
one always, I believe. Will you carry back to the
kind old florist your basket of flowers, then go and
pay from this bill, which I wish to put in that
queer little purse of yours now, the small rent you
may owe for your room, and come back to, me, to
live with me, and be Kathie’s adopted little sister as

long as the dear Lord will keep us together? Now ~
: 7
98 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

don’t look at me with those big brown eyes, and
open that little red mouth so wide, as if you were
going to swallow me down at once! Just believe
that your dear angel mother, and the dear old
granny who is with her, will, if they can look down
upon earth from their own beautiful home above, be
‘glad to know how happy a home their little Mar-
garet will have here, until she is called to go to
them. What do you think of my plan, dear little
one?”

Jf JI should undertake to describe Margaret’s
feelings, and her peculiar way of answering the
question Mrs. Moore put to her, I should fall far
short of making you know the truth. First a cry
of joy, then a burst of tears for the relief of. her
astonished senses, then a run across the room and a
pair of arms clasped about the lady’s neck, and then
the words, between sobs and tears and laughter and
‘long-drawn breaths: “Oh! oh! oh! I feel heavy with
my happiness! Dear Kathie’s dear mother ! Oh, dear
Jesus, how good, how good to me! Is it really true?
Oh! oh! o-0-oh!”
MY LITTLE MARGARET, 99
* * - & * _*& *

All was done that was necessary to separate Mar-
garet from the old life and enter her upon the new.

No longer a little street flower-girl! No longer a
home in the bare, cheerless attic! No more a weary
longing for love and caresses!

Always a home with the dear mother and _ little
lame daughter! Always a. chance to look out on the
fair park she loved to watch! Always plenty of
food and shelter! Oh, happy, happy Margaret! How
the thoughts put themselves into a poem of loving
gratitude, and set themselves to sweetest melody, as
the little girl—her arm free from the weight of her
basket at last, her good-bys spoken to the few kind-
hearted souls who had noticed her and her grand-
mother (and tried to be neighborly in their poor way),
and the light of a great joy in her heart—sped along
the familiar streets and turned presently toward the
broad, beautiful park opposite‘ the windows where she
and Kathie together would be able to stand and
look and admire to their hearts’ content.

Margaret’s thoughts ran backward over the days
100 MY LITTLE MARGARET.

since the fair spring morming when she had first
found that park. She remembered how its beauty
had filled her very soul; she remembered how she sat
wearily upon the steps to count her change and see if
she might buy an orange for Granny. Ah, dear, kind,
loving old Granny! She could hear the feeble voice
again calling “my little Margaret,” so fondly, so
proudly. Tears were beginning to dim her sight at
the thought of Granny. The child brushed them
away; no tears today, but only smiles. Smiles be-
cause Grandma was at rest, and safely sheltered with
the dear mother in heaven; smiles because Kathie
was still on the earth, and would be her little sister
soon; ‘smiles because she had found a happy home,
and love and joy at last; and smiles because—oh, be-
cause—God was so kind and good to her, and the
world was such a beautiful world, and the sunshine
was so golden, and everything was so fair!

Then Margaret went up the steps of Kathie’s home
once more and pulled the bell, and this time she was
not afraid to enter. Ah, no; was she not to be one
of the family ?
MY LITTLE MARGARET, 101 .

And now the clouds were almost entirely dispersed,
were they not? Margaret and Kathie’s mother had a
happy secret together. Kathie was not to know of
the new arrangement until Margaret—journeying to
the mountains with Mrs. Moore—could take her little
invalid friend and “sister” by surprise, and tell all
the good news (and the sorrowful part before the
good had happened) with her own eager little
tongue.

So we will say good-by to her here, knowing that
it would be only a vain attempt to describe the per-
fect peace and joy with which the little girl over-
flowed during that wonderful journey into the “real
country,” where flowers and trees and birds were
found in more abundance than ever she had dreamed
of. Nor need I tell of the meeting between her and
~ Kathie. Description would spoil it, and my little
readers can fancy it all in their own way.

The last cloud had now disappeared from the sky
of Margaret’s young life, and looking, through the
eyes of faith, into that sky, she could see only a

mass of golden sunshine as far as vision would reach.
102° MY LITTLE MARGARET.

Sweet as the fragrance of the violets which she
had cried so long through the streets was the nature
of this little girl, and neither the trouble of the old
days nor the prosperity of these latter times could
make her other than the winsome bairn old Granny

loved to call “My little Margaret.”

THE END.


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