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Little Prudy

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<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> <h2>THE ANGEL-BABY</h2> The beautiful summer was passing away very fast. Only a few days more till autumn. A little longer, and the cousins must separate; so, for the time that was left, they clung all the more closely together. I have called it a beautiful summer; so it was, but there is one sorrowful thing I have not said much about. There was one trouble which always made the children feel sad when they stopped to think of it. While they were playing in the hay-field, or taking supper "up in the trees," now and then they would hear the tired cry of the darling sick baby. Then Grace would clasp her hands together in her quick way, and say,— "O dear, dear, I wish the doctor would get Harry well." "Poh!" said Horace, "the doctors they have East ain't no 'count, are they, though, Gracie?" "Of course they don't know so much as Dr. De Bruler," replied Grace, very decidedly. "I'll tell you how they make doctors," spoke up little Prudy; "they take a man and put him in a bear's buffalo coat, and that makes a doctor." "And a gig," said Horace, "and some sharp things, and lots of little bottles." "What children!" said Grace, looking down upon them with a lofty smile. "Why, Prudy, what have you got in your pocket?" "O, I don't know," said Prudy, throwing her hands behind her. "Goodness won't hurt me, will it, Susy?" "I guess you ain't good enough to hurt." "Well, grandma says not to eat green apples," said the child, "but she'd be willing I could chew 'em and get the good all out—don't you s'pose she would?" "I don't know, I'm sure," replied Susy; "you must ask." "Well, I never teased for any. Horace gave 'em to me, and I shan't swallow 'em." "O, what a little snipe," cried Grace, laughing, "your pocket is stuffed so full it's going to burst open, and you'll be sick again, now you see!" "Sick?" repeated Prudy, looking frightened, for she did not forget her severe illness; "then I'll throw 'em away. I don't love such sour things anyhow. I was only hung-buggin'." And Prudy went down the wooden stairs which led from the trees, and walked slowly towards the house, dropping the green apples one by one into the grass. At the kitchen door she met her aunt Madge, who was in tears. "O auntie," said she, "I'm going to wash my hands spandy clean, and then are you willing there is any thing I can have to eat?" "Cookies, if you like, my dear." "O auntie," cried Prudy, eager with a new thought, "won't you tell me where them raisins is—the ones you didn't put in the pudding? Tell me, O, do, do! If you will, I won't touch 'em, true as the world." "Then why do you want to know where they are?" said aunt Madge, a faint smile flitting across her face and then dying out again. "O, 'cause," said Prudy, "then I can tell Susy, and she can get 'em!" "You can each of you have a handful," said aunt Madge, reaching down the box. "You may have some, for I know you wouldn't take them without leave, and Susy wouldn't either, you funny child!" "Now," said she, putting the raisins in Prudy's apron, "I want you to go out of doors and keep very still." "Why do you cry so, my dearest auntie in the world?" said Prudy, climbing into a chair, and throwing her arms around her auntie's neck, while the raisins dropped to the floor; "is Mr. 'Gustus Allen dead?" "No," said aunt Madge, hugging little Prudy as if she was good for the heartache, "the baby is a great deal worse, darling! Tell the children I will send them some dinner up in the trees, and don't let Horace come into the house. You know he means to keep still, but his boots make so much noise." Prudy gathered up the raisins, and went out quietly, her happy little face looking very sober. But the "bird-child" could not be sad long at a time, and she had hardly climbed the steps into the trees, and given away the clusters of raisins, before the sick baby was almost forgotten. "There," said Horace, suddenly, "I must go right into the house and see Harry. I haven't seen him to-day." "O, no, no!" cried Prudy, holding him back, and speaking very fast, "he's a great deal wusser, and auntie said your boots was so big she'd send the dinner out here; and then she cried like every thing." "O," said Grace, "I'm so afraid the baby won't get well! Aunt Madge didn't say any thing about dying—about Harry's dying, did she, Prudy?" "No," replied Prudy, stopping a moment to think; "she said he was wusser—a great deal wusser, darling. And then she talked about Horace's boots, and that's all." "The darling little baby! He used to love me before he got so sick; and all the way coming East I held him ever so much, you know, Horace." "Well, he liked me, too," said Horace, looking very sober, "and I've played with him the most, and let him spoil lots of my things." "So you have," said Grace. "I heard ma say the other day you'd always been good to little brother. O Susy, you ought to have seen how Harry used to jump when he'd hear Horace open the door; he always expected a frolic!" "Didn't we have times!" cried Horace, dropping his eyes, which were full of tears. "O Susy," said Grace, "do you suppose any one that's sick all summer ever gets well?" "I don't know," sighed Susy; "mother says if God is willing they'll get well, and if he isn't they'll die. God knows what is best." "Yes," chimed in little Prudy, "God knows a great deal more'n I do!" And so the children chatted and played quietly all day long, sometimes breaking off in the midst of a game to talk about the baby. It seemed like a very strange day. The sky looked so calm and peaceful that you could almost fancy it was keeping still to listen to something a great way off. The quiet trees might have been dreaming of heaven, Susy thought. Horace begged her now to tell that fairy story about "The Bravest of Lion's Castle;" but Susy said it made her feel wicked to think of fairy stories that day, though she couldn't tell why. When the children went into the house at supper-time it was very still. Nobody was to be seen but aunt Madge, who gave them some bowls of bread and milk, and said the family had taken tea. A kind of awe crept over Grace as she looked at the tearful face of her auntie, and she dared not ask about the baby. After they had finished their supper, aunt Madge said, "You may all follow me into the nursery; I have something to tell you.—Our dear little pale baby, who has been sick day and night all this long summer, will never feel sick or cry any more. God has taken him to heaven to be a little angel." All but Prudy knew that she spoke of death. Grace flung herself on the floor and wept aloud. Horace rushed up stairs into the back chamber, without saying a word to any body; and Susy buried her face in the sofa-pillows, whispering, "O God, don't let it be so; it isn't true, is it?" But Prudy only opened her blue eyes in wonder. When she saw the pure little form of the baby lying on the bed, in a soft crimson dress, she smiled and said,— "O, he looks as if he was asleep, and he is asleep!" "But see, he doesn't breathe," whispered Susy. "No," said Prudy, "he don't breathe because he don't want to. He was sick, and it made him too tired to breathe so much." Why every body should weep was more than Prudy could tell; but she thought it must be right to do as the rest did, and by bedtime she was sobbing as if her heart would break. She afterwards said to Susy,— "I tried as hard as I could to cry, and when I got to crying I cried as tight as I could spring!" But when aunt Madge wanted to put Prudy to bed she was unwilling to go. "O, no," said she, "I want to wait and see the baby go up!" "See what?" said aunt Madge. "See God take the baby up to heaven," sobbed the child. "But he is in heaven now," replied aunt Madge. "O, no, he hasn't gone a single step. I saw him on the bed. They haven't put his wings on yet!" Aunt Madge was puzzled, and hardly knew what to say, for it is not easy to make such very little children know the difference between the body, which goes back to dust, and the spirit, which goes to God who gave it. She talked a long while, but I doubt if Prudy understood one word, for when the casket which held the form of little Harry was buried in the garden, she cried because the earth was heaped over it. "What makes 'em do it?" she asked, "he can't get to heaven through all that dirt!" But by and by, when days passed, and there was no longer a baby in the house, Prudy began to think of him as one of the angels. And one morning she told a beautiful dream which she thought she had had, though she sometimes called her thoughts dreams. "O," said she, "I dreamed about my angel! He had stars all round his head, and he flowed in the air like a bird. There was ever so many little angels with him, and some of 'em sang. They didn't sing sorry; they was singing, 'The Little Boy that died.' And, aunt 'Ria, I guess you wouldn't cry if you could see how happy they were!" "No, no," sobbed poor aunt 'Ria, holding Prudy close in her arms, which she said felt "so empty" now, "it can't be right to cry, can it, Prudy, when I know my baby is so happy in heaven?" <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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