Bessie and Her Friends

by Joanna H. Mathews

"It all looks just as it used to when I was a boy," said Mr. Bradford. "There is no change in the place, only in the people." He said it with a half-sigh, but the children did not notice it as they pleased themselves with the thought of going over the old place where papa had lived when he was a boy.

"I went to the spot where the old barn was burned down, Aunt Patty," he said. "No signs of the ruins are to be seen, as you know; but as I stood there, the whole scene came back to me as freshly as if it had happened yesterday;" and he extended his hand to Aunt Patty as he spoke.

The old lady laid her own within his, and the grasp he gave it told her that years and change had not done away with the grateful memory of her long past services. She was pleased and touched, and being in such a mood, did not hesitate to express the pleasure she, too, felt at the thought of having them all near her for some months.

About half-way between the homestead and the Lake House, Mr. Bradford and Mr. Stanton had found board for Mrs. Richards and her boy. It was at the house of an old farmer who well remembered Mr. Bradford, and who said he was pleased to do anything to oblige him, though the gentlemen thought that the old man was quite as well satisfied with the idea of the eight dollars a week he had promised in payment. And this was to come from Maggie's and Bessie's store, which had been carefully left in mamma's hand till such time as it should be needed. All this was most satisfactory to our little girls; and when it should be known that the operation on Willie's eyes had been successful, they were to go to Mrs. Richards and tell her what had been done for her boy's farther good.

Mrs. Bradford told her husband that night of all that had taken place during his absence, and he quite agreed with her that it was without doubt Aunt Patty herself who had been the policeman's benefactor.

"I am not at all surprised," he said, "though I own that this did not occur to me, even when Richards described the old lady. It is just like Aunt Patty to do a thing in this way; and her very secrecy and her unwillingness to confess why she would not have the grove, or what she intended to do with the money, convinced me that she was sacrificing herself for the good of some other person or persons."

Then Mr. Bradford told his wife that Aunt Patty meant to go home in about ten days, and should Willie's sight be restored before she went, he hoped to be able to persuade her to confess that she had had a share in bringing about this great happiness. He was very anxious that his children should be quite certain of this, as he thought it would go far to destroy their old prejudice, and to cause kind feelings and respect to take the place of their former fear and dislike.

Mrs. Bradford said that good had been done already by the thought that it was probably Aunt Patty who had been so generous, and that the little ones were now quite as ready to believe all that was kind and pleasant of the old lady as they had been to believe all that was bad but two days since. She told how they had come to her that morning, Maggie saying, "Mamma, Bessie and I wish to give Aunt Patty something to show we have more approval of her than we used to have; so I am going to make a needle-book and Bessie a pin-cushion, and put them in her work-basket without saying anything about them."

They had been very busy all the morning contriving and putting together their little gifts without any help from older people, and when they were finished, had placed them in Aunt Patty's basket, hanging around in order to enjoy her surprise and pleasure when she should find them there.