"Oh! Amy, I want you to tell me a story, like as you used to do," cried May, with eager pleasure. "There's father gone away with the cart, Joe and Davy are off to see if they can't find a bird's nest in some hedge-row, there's no one here but you and me, and won't we be cosy together! I'm going to make another pillow, for that one's got a bit flat;" (rather flat it had been from the first, notwithstanding being often beaten up by the thick little fingers that had made it.)
"Look, I'll bring the three-legged stool and sit at your feet," continued the child; "but first I'll run and get some paper to tear up into bits—I know where I can find some, quite enough for a tiny pillow."
Away ran the little cottager, cheerful and blithe as the bee that was humming over the common on that sweet morning in early spring. Her fears for her sister had quite passed away—childhood is seldom long burdened with cares. And the discovery of an old bag which might, with very little trouble, be turned into a tiny pillow-case had sufficed to make May quite happy.
The child soon returned to Amy, holding up with one hand her print dress, so as to enable her to early in it a supply of loose pieces of paper, which she intended to tear into fragments for stuffing, while with the other hand she dragged the three-legged stool which was to serve as her seat.
"I must take care that the wind does not blow all my paper away!" cried May, as the breeze which she met at the cottage door sent some fragments fluttering behind her. "I'll sit with my back to it—just here; or, stay—please hold my papers for me, Amy, while I run for the bag to put the little bits into as fast as I tear them up, or they'll be blown all over the common."
When May returned with the bag, she found Amy eagerly looking over the papers which had been left in her charge.
"Oh! May, darling, where did you find these?" exclaimed Amy, without raising her eyes from her occupation, as soon as she heard the step of her little sister.
"In the boys' room," replied May; "them papers was all turned out of the old box that Joe made into the hen-roost; it was full of dirty old papers that warn't no use to nobody."
"No use!" exclaimed Amy, with unwonted energy. "Oh! May, look—look—here are leaves from a Bible, from God's own Word! I am so happy, so thankful to get them!" And the sick girl pressed a fragment, yellow with age, to her lips.
"I thought you'd a whole Bible of your own—what you got at the school as a prize," said May, who did not share, nor understand the pleasure of her sister on finding a few torn leaves.