And, indeed, there was much in the fact of the lifting of the burden of anxiety concerning where they should live that went to brighten the eyes of the invalid and strengthen her heart.
When the children came home from church Shirley was putting dinner on the table, and her mother was arrayed in a pretty kimono, a relic of their better days, and ready to be helped to the couch and wheeled out to the dining-room. It had been pleasant to see the children coming across the green meadow in the distance, and get things all ready for them when they rushed in hungry. Shirley was so happy she felt like crying.
After the dinner things were washed they shoved the couch into the living-room among the flowers, where George had built up a beautiful fire, for it was still chilly. The children gathered around their mother and talked, making plans for the summer, telling about the service they had attended, chattering like so many magpies. The mother lay and watched them and was content. Sometimes her eyes would search the dim, mellow rafters overhead, and glance along the stone walls, and she would say to herself: "This is a barn! I am living in a barn! My husband's children have come to this, that they have no place to live but a barn!" She was testing herself to see if the thought hurt her. But, looking on their happy faces, somehow she could not feel sad.
"Children," she said suddenly in one of the little lulls of conversation, "do you realize that Christ was born in a stable? It isn't so bad to live in a barn. We ought to be very thankful for this great splendid one!"
"Oh mother, dear! It is so beautiful of you to take it that way!" cried Shirley with tears in her eyes.
"Doris, you sing your little song about Jesus in the stable," said Carol. "I'll play it for you."
Doris, nothing loath, got a little stool, stood up beside her mother's couch, folded her small hands demurely, and began to sing without waiting for accompaniment:
"Away in a manger,
No trib for His head,
The litta Lord Jesus
Lay down His sveet head.
The tars in the haaven
Look down vhere 'e lay—
The litta Lord Jesus
As'eep in the hay.
"The catta are lowing,
The poor baby wates;
But the litta Lord Jesus
No cwyin' He mates.
I love Thee, Lord Jesus;
Look down fum the sky,
An' stay by my trib,
Watching my lul-la-by!"
Shirley kissed Doris, and then they began to sing other things, all standing around the piano. By and by that distant bell from the valley called again.