now, miss ann,” said johnny, taking charge of the meeting, and quite forgetting to ask “if she would mind telling,” “we want you to please tell us how you manage always to seem to like what you are doing, and to want to do what everybody wants you to do and not to—not have any yourself at all!”
miss ann’s pleasant round face turned even redder than it had been as she bent over the blackberries, and she seemed too astonished to speak, for a moment; then she put an arm about each of the children, and gave each a hearty kiss, and somehow, although johnny had begun to think he was too old to be kissed, he did not mind it at all.
“you dear little souls!” said miss ann, and tiny thought there was a sort of quaver in her voice, “it’s only your own good-nature that makes you feel that way. why, i’ve never been able to hold a candle to mother for work, nor to father and julia and the boys for smartness, and there was a time, five or six years ago, when i felt sort of all discouraged. they couldn’t help laughing at me when i said silly things, and made stupid blunders, and my ugly face worried me every time i looked in the glass.”
“but you’re not ugly at all!” burst in both the children, indignantly.
again the color swept over miss ann’s face, but she laughed in a pleased, childlike way, as she said,—
“there you go, again! what sweet little souls you are. i’m real glad you feel that way, dears, but i know too well it’s only your kind hearts that make you think so. and it seemed to me that i might about as well give up, i couldn’t make myself pretty, no matter how hard i tried, nor how i fixed my molasses-candy-colored hair—every way seemed to make me a little uglier than the last. and i was so slow,—i was always thinking about that poor man in the bible, that wanted so to get into the pool, and while he was coming somebody else would step down before him. mother would lose her patience, and julia and the boys would laugh, a dozen times a day, and then i would get all of a tremble with nervousness, and like as not say something i’d be sorry for the minute it was said, and maybe wind up with a crying spell. they didn’t any of them know how i really felt, or they wouldn’t have laughed and joked about it, for kinder folks than mine you couldn’t find in a day’s walk, and somehow, though it sounds crooked to say so, that very thing made it hurt all the more. and when mother said she calculated to take boarders that summer, for we’d had two or three bad years, and things were getting behindhand, i came near running away, and taking a service place where nobody knew me. but i couldn’t quite bring myself to that, and i can’t tell you how thankful i’ve been ever since, that i couldn’t, for i’d have missed the best thing that ever happened to me, besides shirking a plain duty, like a coward. the first boarders that came that season were a dear old lady and her husband. he was real nice, and not a bit of trouble, but she! i lost my heart to her the first time i saw her, and i kept losing it more and more all the time she stayed. she hadn’t very good health, but most well people will give twice the trouble she did, and never stop to think of it. she was going to stay all summer, and the way i came to begin waiting on her was a sort of an accident. julia made me take up the pail of fresh water to fill her pitcher, just to plague me, and i found her with her trunk and the top bureau drawer open, and she sitting down between them, looking very white and weak.
“‘i’m not good for much, my dear, you see,’ she said, with that sweet, gentle smile i grew to love so, ‘i thought i would begin to unpack and settle things a little, but it’s too soon after the journey; i must have patience for a day or two—there is nothing here that will not keep.’
“i wouldn’t have believed it, if anybody’d told me beforehand that i would do it, but i said, just as free as if i’d known her all my life, ‘if you don’t mind my big rough hands, ma’am, i’ll take out your things for you. there’s a real nice closet, and your dresses will be all creased if they stay too long in the trunk.’
“she looked as if i’d given her a gold mine, and thanked me, and said she wasn’t a bit afraid of my hands, but could i be spared? wasn’t i busy downstairs? now i’d only just broke one of the best dishes, and mother’d told me my room was better than my company, so i said, sort of ugly, that she needn’t worry; nobody wanted me downstairs, nor anywhere else.
“she put her little soft, thin hand on my great big red one, and said, so nice and quietly,—
“‘i want you, dear. will you begin with the tray, and put the things in the top drawer. there are a few that i want put on that convenient shelf, and that pretty corner-bracket, but i’ll tell you as you go along.’
“now most folks would just have said ‘bracket’ and ‘shelf,’ but that was her, all over! she never missed a chance to say a pleasant word, i do believe—any more than she ever took one to say anything ugly—and yet you didn’t feel as if it was all soft-sawder, and just to your face, the way you do with some people. it seems to me—though i’ve a poor memory, in common—that i can remember almost every word that was said that first day, for i turned a corner then, if ever anybody did.
“i’ve wondered, ever since, if it was just one of those blessed chances, as we call them, for want of a better word, that the lord sends to help us along, or whether she’d seen, already, just how things were, and meant to help me, without letting on she saw—which, as far as i’ve seen, is the best sort of help, by a long shot! anyhow, she made some little pleasant talk about almost everything i took out, a little history of where it came from, or something like that, and every other thing, it seemed to me, of her books and pretty nick-nacks, was given to her by her grandson or granddaughter. in the middle of the tray was a little bundle of raw cotton, as i thought, but she smiled, and said to please unwrap it, and i found it was only cotton wrapped, of all things, round an old tin mug. i’ve such a foolish face, it always shows what i’m thinking, and she answered, just as if i’d spoke,—
“‘it doesn’t look worth all that tender care, my dear, does it? but look inside, and see what it is guarding.’
“and then i saw, wrapped in tissue-paper, and just fitting nicely into the old mug, a little tumbler, and when i unwrapped it, it was so thin, i was ’most afraid to touch it, and it looked just like the soap-bubbles julie and i used to blow, all the colors of the rainbow, when the light caught it.
“‘i was puzzling myself how to carry my precious little tumbler,’ she said, ‘when nelly—my granddaughter—came in, and she thought of the mug; it was one she had bought for five cents of a tin-pedler, thinking it was silver, dear little soul! she had played with it till it was tarnished, and then put it away in the nursery till she should go to the country; it would do so nicely for picnics, she said. i did not like to take it, at first, but i want them to learn to give, so i tried the tumbler in it, and was surprised to find that it fitted very well, with a little paper put in between, so i thanked her, and kissed her, and she was more pleased, i really believe, than she was when she thought her mug was made of silver.’
“mrs. anstiss—her name was anstiss—didn’t say any more just then, but after a little she took up the mug, and put it on the shelf in the little chimney closet. ‘i must take care of it,’ she said, ‘for i feel now that it is the safekeeper of my dear little tumbler, as well as my nelly’s gift. we can’t all be’—i didn’t catch the name she called the glass, it was some great long word—‘but if we feel like being discouraged because we are not, why then our best plan is to try to do something for our superiors. that we can all do; the weakest and humblest of us can help to clear the way, to make straight paths, and remove stumbling-blocks for the strong and the capable, and the dear father will look upon this work, done for his, as done for him.’
“she never said another word about the glass all the time she stayed, and somehow i do believe that was one thing made me remember and treasure up what she did say. i turned it over and over and over in my slow mind, and the more i thought of it, the more it seemed to me i’d been too foolish to live! i’d just been thinking of nobody at all but my stupid self, instead of trying to help on the smart ones all i could. and now i’d once begun, you’d be surprised to know how soon things began to come easy. i couldn’t be thinking of my own awkwardness when i was looking out for chances to help the others along, and the more i forgot about myself and my ways, the happier i seemed to get. and before long, for once that they’d laugh at me and tell me i was clumsy, there’d be twice that one of them would say, ‘where’s ann?’ or ‘here, ann, will you just do this? you did it so well last time.’ and i do believe”—and the plain, broad face, without one really pretty feature, grew radiant and almost beautiful with the light of love—“i do believe there isn’t one of them, now, that wouldn’t miss me like everything, if i was to die!”
“i should rather think!” said johnny, and found himself unable to say anything more, just because there were so many things he wished to say.
“oh, please don’t stop!” said tiny, breathlessly, “it’s such a lovely, lovely story.”
miss ann laughed heartily now.
“well, of all things!” she said, “i never thought i’d live to tell a story! who knows but i’ll be writing one, next? i don’t see how i’ve come to say all this, only you’ve made so much of me, and sort of flattered me on with your sweet little loving faces, but i’ve talked quite enough for all summer; only i would like to say to you a little bit out of a hymn that mrs. anstiss sent me after she went away. i’ve tried to learn it all, over and over, but i’ve such a poor memory, and i don’t get much time to sit down, but i did like this verse best of all, and perhaps that’s one reason why it stayed in my head, though i mayn’t have it quite straight as to all the words,—
“‘i ask thee for a thankful love,
through constant watching, wise,
to meet the glad with joyful smiles,
and to wipe the weeping eyes;
and a heart at leisure from itself,
to soothe and sympathize.’
i do think that’s lovely, now; don’t you?”
“yes, indeed!” cried the children, both together, and tiny added, warmly,—
“it’s all lovely, as lovely as it can be, and that hymn is one of mamma’s favoritest hymns—aren’t you glad of that? dear miss ann, i wonder if we can grow up like you, if we begin to try right away?”
miss ann looked absolutely startled.
“oh, my dears!” she said, softly, “like me! you don’t know what you’re saying. when i think of the perfect pattern, and my poor blundering—” she stopped, and hid her face in her hands, and they both fell upon her and hugged her so hard that it was a good thing that the distant sound of the tea bell made her spring up and rush to the house, saying, in conscience-stricken tones,—
“i declare! while i’ve been sitting here, chattering like a magpie, mother and julie have been doing all my work! i ought to be ashamed of myself.”
“umph?” grunted johnny, as tiny and he followed her more slowly. “she ought to be ashamed of herself! i wonder what we ought to be? tiny, let’s begin right straight off. i kept the best whistle myself, when i made those two to-day; here it is, and you needn’t say a word—you must just swap with me right away, whether you want to or not.”
