Part 1 — THESE MY LITTLE ONES.

BY MONA NOEL PATON.

II.

When young Master Dreamer came out of the store, three radiant faces almost paid him for his self-denial.

"Oh, Nellie!" whispered Bill, trembling with delight.

"God bless him!" said Nellie.

"What shall we buy?" said Bill. "This will buy heaps."

"Billy," said Nell, "don't let us buy candies. They would soon be gone. Let us buy something to amuse Bab when we are away at school."

Poor Billy sighed. It was hard to leave the tempting window. But he was not selfish.

"Shall we buy a dog?" said he.

"No. Mother says they eat too much. Besides, it would run away."

"Rabbits?"

"No; we could not keep them in the room. What do you say to a bird?"

"The very thing!" cried Bill. "Let's go to the bird man's, and see what we can get."

Off they started, Bab trotting along bravely.

An hour later, as night was falling, up the dark stair of Nellie's home came three pairs of eager feet. Mother came to the door to meet the children.

"How late you are, dears!" she said. "I was beginning to be anxious about you."

"Mother! mother!—look! look!" was all the answer she received; and a poor rumpled pigeon was pressed so close to her face that she could hardly see it.

And then the tired mother heard the story of the wonderful afternoon—how kind the little gentleman had been, how grim and cross the bird man, at first ordering them away without listening to them, then refusing to sell them anything for a shilling, and finally giving them this darling pigeon that he thought was going to die, and giving them back their shilling too. There it was, smooth and shining, and Nellie held it out for mother to see.

Before one of the little ones would taste a bite of food, the pigeon had to be fed and warmed. A basket was filled with soft rags, and set near the fire, and in it the sick bird was placed. Then it was fed with delightful bread and milk, each child sparing a part of its own supper. Its bright eyes watched the children go to bed, and before they went there was a prayer softly breathed, in which the little gentleman was not forgotten, nor yet the rough bird man.

Long before it wanted to be, the next morning, the pigeon was awakened by tender caresses, and fed before they so much as looked at their own breakfast. Certainly it looked better. The shilling was put carefully away to buy its food. When Nellie and Bill, after a last loving glance, had gone to school, Bab sat down by it on the hearth.

"Oh, pigeon, pigeon," she whispered, "do live! I love you so! I do love you so! Oh, pigeon, live!"

The pigeon did live. It was drooping for just what the children gave it—a little love. Day by day it grew bigger and stronger. Soon it would hop all over the room, perch on Bab's head, and eat its dinner from her plate. When spring came, and the days grew warm, the window was always left open, only a little bit, lest Bab should fall out, but still enough to let the pigeon hop in and out at its own sweet will.

When summer came, though it was much nicer than winter, the close air of the court made poor Bab feel quite ill in the hot mornings. In the afternoons her brother and sister would take her far away on a long walk to the sweet grassy meadows outside the old city walls. They had found out now where their "little gentry" lived; and the great pleasure of the day was in returning from the meadow, and peeping in at the beautiful garden where the two happy children seemed to spend their whole time in play.

The grass in this garden was often quite white with daisies, and the poor children used to stretch through and try to gather a few, but they were almost always just out of their reach.

One very hot afternoon they were coming home through the square rather tired. There seemed to be something wrong with Bab. She was cross and languid. She cried when Nellie's hand could not reach the daisies.

"Hush, hush, dear; the little master will hear you," whispered Nellie, while Bill stretched in his arm, and succeeded at last in getting one of the coveted flowers. The little master had heard and seen. He came up to them, and asked, shyly,

"Do you want some daisies?"

"If you please, sir," said Bill and Nellie, in a breath.

In a moment the little fellow was down on his knees among the daisies gathering busily.

"I would 'ike to gaver some myse'f," said Bab to Nellie.

The little boy looked up and paused. His companions were at play not far distant. He looked half afraid.

"Nellie, me s'ould 'ike to gaver some myse'f," whimpered the tiny voice.

He hesitated no longer, but sprang up. "Come to the gate, and I'll let you in," he said, in a low voice; and then added, "but you must go out again as soon as she has got some."

The next minute Bab was down in the soft, sweet grass, gathering the daisies with both little hands.

"Master Dreamer" did not seem very comfortable, however, and watched his play-fellows cautiously. All at once two of them stopped their game, and came running up.

"Go out! go out!" cried Dreamer, eagerly, "or they'll hurt you."

But already the rude boys were upon them.

"Turn them out! turn them out!" they shouted, and one of them caught Bill by the shoulder, while the others began roughly to hustle Nellie and poor, wondering Bab. This our little gentleman could not stand. Wildly he hit out right and left, keeping between Nellie with Bab in her arms and her two cowardly assailants, until they and Bill were safe outside the gate. Then he shut it, and stood with his back against it.

The other boys were very indignant, and many a buffet poor Dreamer got.

The last the three children saw of him, as they turned out of the square, he was lying on the grass, crying bitterly, his little sister standing beside him, crying too.

"You baby!" sneered one of the boys, "blubbering because you got hit!"

"I'm not crying because I got hit," shouted Dreamer, springing up, his face all burning. "I'm crying to think that boys calling themselves gentlemen should have behaved in such a way to those poor children."

"Cads have no right in the garden."

"Then the sooner you get out the better," retorted the little champion, for which observation the enemy was upon him again.

Poor Bill and his sisters felt very sorrowful at the trouble they had brought their dear little friend into.

"Oh, mother!" they cried; "to think it was all for us!"

"Depend upon it, my darlings," said the wise mother, "that is his greatest comfort. He is all the happier for it now."

Something was very wrong indeed with little Bab next morning. When her mother bent over her to give her the parting kiss, she opened her eyes, stared wildly upward, and uttered a scream of terror.

"Go away! go away! You hit the little boy!"

Poor little Bab was very ill. Fever had broken out in the close court. Her mother sent Bill for the dispensary doctor, and Nellie to tell her employers that she could not work for them that day. When the doctor came, he confirmed her fears. Bab had the fever. Oh, the agony of the next few days! The once merry voice rang out full of trouble. Constantly one weary cry came from the dark, cracked lips:

"Why won't you let Bab in to gaver f'owers? Why are the great gates always shut? My daisies! my daisies!"

"Nellie," said Bill, one evening, "wouldn't it make Bab better if we should go to the square and ask him and the little lady to gather some daisies, and kiss them, and give them to us for Bab?"

Nellie thought it would. Early the next morning, which was Saturday, they set off without saying a word to their mother. They were so early that they had to wait a long time in the square before the boy appeared. At last the door of the house flew open, a hoop came bounding down the steps, and after it shot a boy, the baby behind him, in a new dress, with a doll clasped in her arms.

It was the baby who first noticed the waiting children.

"Dere's de children we gived de daisies to," she said, going up to the railing. "Does you want some flowers, now?" she asked, throwing down her doll and dropping on her knees to pick them.

"Where's de baby?" she demanded presently, pausing in her diligent task.

"She's very ill. That's why we came for flowers," said Nellie, sadly.

"Has her a sore froat?"

"No, it's the fever."

"Brozer, brozer, come quick and gazzer flowers. De ittle baby has dot de fever!"

Brozer came.

"Is she very ill?" he asked.

"Yes," said poor Bill, "she's near dead, and we thought perhaps if you would gather some flowers and kiss them, and wish Bab better, perhaps she would get better. For she does love you so!"

Suddenly Baby dropped the daisies on the grass, clasped her hands, and said, in a loud clear voice,

"O Dod! dear Dod! make Bab better, p'ease." And then with a satisfied nod, as if to say. "That's settled," she set to work again.

Dreamer gathered busily, and said never a word.

"Will that be enough?" he inquired, after a while, holding out a great ball of white stars.

"Oh, quite, quite. Now would you mind kissing it?" said Nell, eagerly.

"That will do no good."

"Oh yes, it will!" Nellie insisted, and so, blushing scarlet, he kissed the flowers, saying gravely, "May she soon be better!"

Baby did the same, crowding into Bill's hand the daisy heads she had plucked. Then, before he knew what she was about, she thrust her sunny face through the bars and kissed him on the lips.

"Take 'at to de baby," was all she had time to say, when her brother caught her in his arms and drew her back.

"Oh, Baby! Baby! you silly, silly girl," he cried. "You may have caught the fever," he exclaimed, his eyes full of fear. And then, moved by a strange wild hope that he might be able to take the infection from her, he kissed her slowly.

"Please, sir," said Nellie, "the doctor says it isn't infectious."

His face cleared.

"Thank you," he said. "Come again when little Bab is better." And so they parted.

When again they crept softly up the rickety stair, their sister lay upon the bed, her tiny hands folded, her eyes closed, her lips parted in a smile. By her side sat the worn-out mother, her head on Bab's pillow. Both were fast asleep.

They laid the flowers on the bed, and very gently Bill just touched Bab's face and gave her the baby's kiss.

They seated themselves on the window-sill beside the pigeon, which had been a little bit neglected in their anxiety, and waited a long, long time. An hour must have passed, and Nellie was the only watcher, for Bill too fell asleep. At last Bab stirred a little. Slowly her wee hands moved until they touched the daisies.

"Who sent 'em?" she whispered.

"The little master," said Nellie, "and the baby, and they asked God to let you stay and get well, and He said yes."

"'Es," said Bab, "Dod said 'es."

From that hour she began to grow stronger. Every day Nellie and Bill went to the garden again, and Dreamer and his sister gathered daisies and sent them to Bab.

"It was us!" suddenly shouted Baby. "Us was werry nice!" remarked the little lady, with great satisfaction.

But Donald was crying.

Auntie laid her hand on his head.

"You were right, dear, when you said you were sure the pigeon came for something. He came to you with a message from the God of little children, who says, 'Whatsoever ye have done unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.'"