“It is beautiful,” explained Bird; “how do you know how to do it?”
“My mother learned long ago in the Convent in the old country, but her hands are too stiff to make it now, and besides she says it wouldn’t pay her. So she showed me the stitch and some of the old patterns, and one night last week, when I couldn’t sleep very good, I was thinkin’ of the lace work, and I guess I must have dreamed the new pattern, for the next morning I worked it right out. Those leaves is like some that came in a pocketful of grass Mattie fetched me home; one day they were cutting it over in the square, and the man let her take it. I just love the smell o’ grass, don’t you? And now’s I can’t get out, Mattie brings me some in her pocket every time she can. I guess she will to-night if they’ve cut it to-day.”
All this time Bird held her basket behind her, but now she wheeled about and rested it on the arm of Tessie’s chair. The joy of the child was wonderful, almost startling. Her dark eyes dilated and she looked first at Bird and then at the flowers, as she almost whispered in the excitement of her surprise, “Ye ain’t got ’em to keep, have ye?” Then as Bird tipped them into her lap, “They ain’t fer me, fer sure?”
“‘They ain’t fer me, fer sure?’”
“Yes, they are, and I’m going to bring you some every Wednesday,” said Bird, joyfully, and then she told about Marion Clarke and the Flower Mission.
“Ain’t it jest heavenly to think of,—me with a whole winder to myself that opens out and the crochet to do and real flowers, new ones that ain’t been used at all,” and Tessie leaned back and closed her eyes in perfect content.
Then suddenly Bird’s sorrow seemed to grow lighter and life a little brighter, and the sunlight as it were crept in to sweeten them both—she had something to give away, and lo, it was good.
Tessie was down handling the blossoms again and discovered the berry bouquet beneath. “Oh, but here’s growing strawberries on a bush like! Well, I never, never! But they’re handsome! Maybe I could make a pattern from them, too. Oh, surely there’s angels about somewhere doin’ things. You know Father John, he says I’ve got a Guardian Angel looking out after me, and St. Theresa my name saint chose her, and that everybody has, though for a long spell I didn’t know it. You see it’s been easier for her to look after me since we’ve got a room with an opened-out winder. I reckon if I was an angel, I wouldn’t care to poke around air-shafts much. Oh, what’s these browny-yeller flowers that smell so elegant?” and Tessie held up the wallflowers.