IV.
WHAT WAS HE HERE FOR?
Bartie Trafton, alias Little Mew, was crouching behind a clump of hollyhocks in a little garden fronting the Trafton home. It was a favourite place of retreat when things went poorly with Little Mew. They had certainly gone unsatisfactorily one day not long after the sail that was not a sail. He had perpetrated a blunder that had brought out from Gran'sir Trafton the encouraging remark that he did not see what the boy was in this world for. Bartie had retreated to the hollyhock clump to think the situation over. He was ten years old, and life did have a hard look to Little Mew. He never supposed that his father cared much for him. When the father was ashore he was drunk; when he came to his senses, and was sober, then he went to sea. Bart sometimes wondered if his mother thought of him and knew how he was situated.
"She's up in heaven," thought Bart among the hollyhocks, and to Bart heaven was somewhere among the soft, white clouds, floating like the wings of big gulls far above the tops of the elms that overhung the roof of the house and looked down upon this poor little unfortunate. If earth brought so little happiness, because bringing so little usefulness, then why was Bart on the earth at all?
"I don't see," he murmured.
The question was a puzzle to him. He was still looking up when he heard the voice of somebody calling.
"It is somebody at the fence," he said. It was a musical voice, and Bart wondered if his mother wouldn't call that way. He turned; and what a sweet face he saw at the fence!--a young lady with sparkling eyes of hazel, fair complexion, and cheeks that prettily dimpled when she laughed. He surely thought it must be his mother grown young and come back to earth again. There was some difference between that face, so picturesquely bordered with its summer hat, and the puzzled, irregular features under the old, ragged straw hat that Bart wore.
"Are you the little fellow I heard about that got into the water one day?" asked the young lady.
"Yes'm," said Bart, pleased to be noticed because he had been in the water, while thankful to be out of it.
"Well, I'm getting up a Sunday-school class, and I should like very much to have you in it. Would you like to come?"