“Well!” said Old Grumpy gruffly. “What do you want?”
“Is she asleep?” said Joel peering into the room and taking no notice of the cold reception he met with.
“What business is that of yours?” said the old woman angrily.
“Now then,” said Joel, “don’t be so stingy, old woman. You and me never has hit it, I know that; but we’ll let bygones be bygones, as folks say. Now look ye here; I like that little lass uncommon—I do, indeed.”
“You’re not the only one that does,” said Grumpy still unmoved.
“Never said I was,” answered Joel, “but look ye here what I’ve brought her! Just you put it by her pillow that she may find it when she wakes up in the morning. It’s the New Year, tomorrow is; and it’s a New Year’s present from me to the little lass.”
So saying, Joel thrust a parcel into Old Grumpy’s hands, wished her good night, and went quickly down the stairs.
The parcel was tied up in a very much crumpled and soiled piece of newspaper, and a piece of thick string was knotted tightly round it. On it was written, “For Lily, with old Joel’s love.”
She had wronged him then! He was fond of her child, and he had been sorry to see her so thin. Old Grumpy felt ashamed of herself, and of her hard thoughts of Joel, as she looked at the parcel. She did not open it, for, much as she longed to see what was inside, she felt she must wait until the morning that Lily might be the first to open it. So she laid the parcel by the child’s pillow and waited as patiently as she could for New Year’s Day.
That was a very long night; at least, it seemed so to Old Grumpy. The church clock seemed slower in its movements than ever, and when it solemnly proclaimed twelve o’clock, and announced to Ivy Court, and to all the neighborhood that a New Year had begun, its voice sounded very terrible to Old Grumpy. For the clock on the mantelshelf was still ticking the same words: “He—said—I—was—a—skel—ling—ton.”
What would the New Year bring to herself and to her child? Could it be that it would see her once more left with nobody to love her? Old Grumpy slept very little that night, and was truly glad when the morning came, and the child awoke. Of course the child caught sight of her parcel at once, and of course she wanted to know what was in it, and of course the old woman at once jumped out of bed and brought the biggest knife in the room to cut the string.
Inside the parcel was a little frock made of soft, warm plaid, which Joel had bought for the little girl, and which Mrs. McKay had made for her. It was so warm, and so pretty, and fitted her so well, that Old Grumpy’s eyes filled with tears as she dressed her in it; for it was Joel’s present, the present of “the ill-natured, cross, disagreeable old man,” as she had called him only the night before. She took hold of Lily’s hand and went downstairs.
“Joel,” she said, “I’m right ’shamed of myself; it’s a real beauty, that’s what it is!”
“She’s as welcome as never was,” said the old man. “Bless her! She does look a little lady now! Will she give old Joel a kiss for it?”
The child ran forward, and jumped on his knee, and throwing her arms round the old man’s neck, she kissed him again and again; and he felt well repaid for the self-denial it had cost him to save the money for his New Year’s present.
The little frock was warmly lined, and was made high in the neck, and with long sleeves. Joel had particularly requested Mrs. McKay to make it thus.
“No cold winds will get to you now, little lass,” he said as he wished her a happy New Year. “You’ll get as fat as never was!”
But, though Joel’s frock kept Lily so warm and snug, and though Grumpy watched her child more carefully than ever before, and though she went again and again to her little hoard for money to buy all kinds of tempting things for her to eat, still, somehow or other, the child did not grow either fat or rosy. And when the winter passed away, and the warm spring days came, she grew very tired.
The fields outside the town, where the children gathered daisies, seemed to be too far away for her now. She went once to them, but when she came home she was too tired even to make her daisies into a chain, and Old Grumpy would not let her try to go again. She would sit still for hours with Albert Joseph on the doorstep, or on a stool by the fire; but she liked best to climb on the old woman’s knee and show her the pictures in the magazines and books that the little McKays got at the Sunday-school.
“She is not ill, not at all ill,” Old Grumpy often said to herself as she answered her own fears; “only a little white and thin, and not very strong; but spring weather is very tiring to everyone, and she will be all right again in a few weeks.”
Lily still went to the Sunday-school; indeed, it was her great treat to which she looked forward all the week. Albert Joseph came for her, and they set out hand-in-hand. Then when they came home they would tell all they had heard to the old woman.
One Sunday afternoon Lily came in with so much color in her pale face that the old woman thought she had never seen her looking so well; but it was only a flush of pleasure and did not last long.
“Grum,” she said, “dear Grum, they’ve been singing about me at school!”
“About you, my pretty bird,” said the old woman. “What does she mean, Albert Joseph?”
“She means the hymn,” said the boy. “It was about a lily.”
“Yes, and we learned the first verses,” said the child. “Would you like to hear it, Grum?”
“I will be as the dew unto Israel.”
In Israel’s sacred meadows
There bloomed a lily bright,
It toiled not, yet God clothed it
In robe of spotless white.
Oh! Wash me, Lord, I pray Thee,
That so my heart may grow
As pure as is the lily,
And whiter than the snow.
Pour down upon me, daily,
Thy Holy Spirit’s dew,
To cleanse me, and to strengthen,
And give me life anew.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Grum?” said Lily, with a sigh, when she had finished. “And the teacher said—Tell Grum what teacher said, Albert Joseph.”
“Teacher said that was the way to get to heaven. Did you ever tell Grum about Adam and Eve, Lily?”
“Yes, she told me,” said the old woman, “that was her first Sunday.”
“They were bad, you know,” Albert Joseph went on, “and all their children were bad, and we’re bad, too.”
“Grum doesn’t think we are,” said Lily.
“Teacher said so,” said Albert Joseph, “but she told us such a beautiful story. Tell her, Lily.”
“It wasn’t about a garden this time, Grum,” she said. “It was about a hill, like the hills outside the town.”
“And on the hill there was a cross,” said Albert Joseph, “and Jesus hung on it.”
“Ay, I’ve seen a picture of that in a shop window,” said Grumpy.
“He loved us so much,” said Lily, “that He died instead of us—instead of us. Think of that, Grum!”
“Did He, my dear?” said the old woman, smoothing out her darling’s dress, and evidently not thinking of what she was saying.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Grum?” asked the child.
“Isn’t what wonderful, my bairn? You’ve got a wonderful bright color in your cheeks; I’d like Joel to see you now! I’ll give him a call; maybe he’ll come up and have a look at you, and see if you ain’t getting a rosy girl. We’ll have to call you Rose instead of Lily.”
“Grum doesn’t care about it,” said Albert Joseph when she left the room.
“Yes, she does,” said Lily. “She didn’t hear, I think.”