“I can now read all about Jesus, and perhaps some day mother will let me read it to her.”
One evening, a few months later on, as Susan was sitting after tea by Daisy’s couch, reading to her, the shop-bell rang, and on going to answer it Elsie found little Jane waiting with a pale face, and tears in her eyes. She had been running fast, and was so out of breath she could not speak for a minute, but at last managed to get out that Susan was wanted directly. Bessie’s mother had sent her—there had been an accident, and Bessie was hurt, and had been taken to the hospital, and was asking for “teacher.”
Susan was ready in a moment, and before long reached the hospital, little Jane going with her as far as the entrance, and telling her the few particulars she had gathered from Bessie’s stepmother about what had happened. It appeared that the child had been sent out early in the morning with some violets to sell; but not finding as many customers as usual, and fearing her stepmother’s anger if she returned without selling them, she had lingered about the streets till dusk. Jane had met her, and tried to persuade her to come home; but she said, “Oh no! not till I have sold my flowers; mother will be so vexed if I don’t!”
When Jane asked her if she were not very tired and hungry, she said she was tired, and she had a pain in her side, but she was saying over her verses and hymns, and this helped her to forget how tired she was.
As Jane left her she heard her saying to herself, “He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom”—the last verse Susan had given her to learn. She had not been at home much more than an hour, when Bessie’s stepmother ran in, and told her to fetch Miss Morley at once—that Bessie had been run over by a waggon, and had been taken to the hospital.
Susan hurried upstairs to the ward where the poor child had been carried; the doctor and nurse were standing on one side of the bed as she entered, and, from the grave look on the face of the former, she guessed what was indeed the case, that little or no hope was entertained of the child’s recovery. Both her legs had been broken, and her head severely injured as well. Her stepmother was sitting at the foot of the bed, and seemed half stupefied. Susan stepped forward quietly, and bending down over the poor little sufferer, said in a gentle voice, “He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom.”
The little eyes, which had been closed until now, opened for a moment with returning consciousness, and the child smiled as the familiar words fell on her ear, and held out her hand to Susan. Then, looking up with a bright smile, she whispered, “I’m so happy. Tell mother I’m going to Jesus; and I hope she’ll come too.” She made an effort to say, “He shall gather the lambs with His arm;” and then with one little sigh, turning her head on the pillow, as if going to sleep, she was gently gathered into the fold of the Good Shepherd above.
Dear little Bessie! No more rough words or blows, no more pain and hunger, no more tears, “the waves of this troublesome world” safely crossed, and the little ship at anchor in the fair haven, where they who enter in “shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
CHAPTER V.
“He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waters thereof are still.”