“Can’t you guess when you can come for me?”
“No, for as yet I know not how I can earn a dollar; but, if you will be patient, I promise to work hard for you and Stanley.”
“I will be good. Salome, I have saved a quarter of a dollar that the doctor gave me when I was sick,—because I let the blister stay on my side a half hour longer; and I thought I would send it to Buddie, to buy him some marbles or a kite; but I reckon I had better give it to you to help us get a house.”
She drew from her pocket a green calico bag, and, emptying the contents into her hand, picked out from among brass buttons and bits of broken glass a silver coin, which she held up triumphantly.
“No, Jessie,—keep it. Stanley has plenty of playthings, and you may need it. Besides, your quarter would not go far, and I don’t want it. Good-bye, little darling. Try to give Mrs. Collins no trouble, and recollect that when I promise you anything I shall be sure to keep my word.”
Salome drew the child’s head to her shoulder, and, as she bent over and kissed the sweet, pure lips, Jessie whispered, “When we say our prayers to-night, we will ask God to send us some money to buy a home, won’t we? You know he made the birds feed Elijah.”
“But we are not prophets, and ravens are not flying about with bags of money under their wings.”
“We do not know what God can do, and if we are only good, He is as much bound to take care of us as of Elijah. He made the sky rain manna and partridges for the starving people in the desert, and He is as much our God as if we came out from Egypt under Moses. I know God will help us, if we ask Him. I am sure of it; for last week I lost Mrs. Collins’ bunch of keys, and, when I could not find them anywhere, I prayed to God to help me, and, sure enough, I remembered I left them in the dairy where I was churning.”
Jessie’s countenance was radiant with hope and faith, which her sister could not share, yet felt unwilling to destroy; and, checking the heavy sigh that rose from her oppressed heart, she hastily quitted the house.