At that moment a wild shout went up from the base-ball ground. The quiet cows in the corner raised their heads; one stepped forward, caught sight of the scarlet hood, gave a vicious bellow, and began to run straight for the baby; and when Johnny, breathless and almost exhausted, scrambled over the rail fence, which ran around three sides of the field, with the baby in his arms, he was only just in time—the sharp horns struck the fence as he and his charge struck the ground, and the enraged cow stood there, bellowing and “charging,” as long as the hood remained in sight.
The little girl, quite unconscious of her narrow escape, took Johnny’s hand once more, and led him gravely on for nearly a block; then she pointed out a pretty little frame house, standing in a small lawn, and said, in a satisfied voice, “There!” He rang the bell, and was almost angry to find that the child had not even been missed.
“Sure,” said the Irish nursemaid, “I tould her to play in the front yard a bit, and I thought she was there.”
“There’s a cross cow in that field where she was,” said Johnny, briefly. “You’d better not let her out by herself again, I should think.”
He turned away without stopping for farther explanation. But he did not go to the ball ground; he walked slowly home, with his mind full of confused thoughts, eager to pour it all out to his mother. How vexed he had been at the various delays! How needless, how troublesome they had seemed! And yet, if that shout had risen five minutes sooner—he shuddered, and left the picture unfinished. Dear little girl, with her innocent hands full of “f’owers for mamma!”
Kitty was there when he reached home, and she and Tiny were merrily setting the table. They were full of sympathy when they found he had not seen the match, and Tiny’s face glowed with joyful pride in him, when he told about the baby’s narrow escape.
But the real talk was when his mother came for her last kiss, after he was in bed; and it was a talk that he never forgot. “This time, dear,” Mrs. Leslie said, “you can see and understand the great good which came of the hindrances and interruptions of your plan, and I love to think that the dear Father has sent you this lesson so early in your life, just to make you trust him hereafter, when you cannot see. You know what the loving Saviour said to his weak and doubting disciple: ‘Thomas, because thou hast seen, thou hast believed. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.’
“I do not mean that we are to excuse ourselves, and give up weakly, for every small hindrance, but that, when honest effort fails to overcome the barriers in our path, we are to believe, with all our hearts, that it is because the dear Father wishes us to go some other way. That is all, Johnny, darling, ‘the conclusion of the whole matter,’—just to rest on His love.”