“Why, Flo, my dear, Mrs Potter, who lent me the mattress I sleeps on, sent me down word that she must have it to-morrow morning for her niece, who is coming to live with her, so I’ll want my bed, Flo, and ’tis too little for both of us.” Mrs Jenks paused, but Flo was quite silent.
“Well, dear,” she said cheerfully, “we’ll all three lie warm and snug to-night, and we needn’t meet to-morrow’s troubles half way. Now come over, child, and I’ll give you instruction in needlework, ’tis an hart as all women should cultivate.”
Flo, still silent and speechless, went over and received the needle into her clumsy little fingers, and after a great many efforts, succeeded in threading it, and then she watched Mrs Jenks work, and went through two or three spasmodic stitches herself, and to all appearance looked a grave, diligent little girl, very much interested in her occupation. And Mrs Jenks chatted to her, and told her what a good trade needlework was, and for all it met so much abuse, and was thought so poor in a money-making way, yet still good, plain workers, not machinists, could always command their price, and what a tidy penny she had made by needlework in her day.
And to all this Flo replied in monosyllables, her head hanging, her eyes fixed on her work.
At last Mrs Jenks gave her a needle freshly threaded, and a strip of calico, and bade her seat herself on the hearth-rug and draw her needle in and out of the calico to accustom her to its use, and she herself took up a boy’s jacket, and went on unpicking and opening the seams, and letting it out about an inch in all directions.
Night after night she was engaged over this work, and it always interested Flo immensely: for Mrs Jenks took such pains with it, she unpicked the seams and smoothed them out with such clever fingers, then she stitched them up again with such fine, beautiful stitching, and when that was done, she invariably ironed them over with a nice little iron, which she used for no other purpose, so that no trace of the old stitching could be seen. She had a very short time each day to devote to this work, seldom more than ten minutes, but she did it as though she delighted in it, as though it did her heart and soul good to touch that cloth, to draw those careful, beautiful stitches in and out of it. And every night, while so engaged, she told Flo the story of the Prodigal Son.
She began it this night as usual, without the little girl looking up or asking for it.
“Once there was a man who had two sons—they were all the children he had, and he held them very dear. One—the eldest—was a steady lad, willing to abide by his father, and be guided by him, but the other was a wild, poor fellow, and he thought the home very small and narrow, and the world a big place, and he thought he’d like a bit of fun, and to see foreign parts.
“So he asked his father for all the money he could spare, and his father gave him half his living. And then the poor foolish boy set off, turning his back on all the comforts of home, and thinking now he’d see life in earnest; and when he got to the far-off lands, wild companions, thieves, and such, came round him, and between them the good bit of money his father had given him melted away, and he had not a penny to call his own. Then he began to be hungry, to want sore, and no man gave to him, and no man pitied him; and then, sitting there in the far country, came back to the poor, desolate, foolish lad the thoughts of home, and the nice little house, and the father’s love, and he thought if he was there again, why, he’d never be dying of hunger, for in the father’s house even the servants had enough and to spare.
“And he thought, why should he not go back again? and he said to himself, ‘I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be thy son.’