But though these questions and remarks made old Whitaker very uneasy—for he had a sort of uncomfortable feeling in his heart when he thought of the day when his grave-digging would come to an end—still, for all that, he liked little Dot, and he would have missed the child much if anything had kept her from his side. She took such an interest in his graves, too, and watched them growing deeper and deeper with as much pleasure as he did himself. And, whether we be rich or poor, high or low, interest in our work generally wins our hearts. And by and by Dot found herself a way, as she thought, of helping old Solomon to make his graves look nice.
He was working one day at the bottom of a grave, and Dot was sitting on the grass at a little distance. He thought she was busy with her doll, for she had not been talking to him for a long time, and he gave a jump as he suddenly felt something patting on his head, and heard Dot's merry little laugh at the top of the grave. She had filled her pinafore with daisies, and thrown them upon him in the deep grave.
"Whatever in the world is that for?" said the old man, good-naturedly, as he shook the flowers off his head.
"It's to make it pretty," said Dot. "It'll make it white and soft, you know, Mr. Solemn."
Solomon submitted very patiently; and from that time the child always gathered daisies to scatter at the bottom of Solomon's graves, till he began to look upon it as a necessary finish to his work. He often thought Dot was like a daisy herself, so fresh and bright she was. He wondered at himself when he reckoned how much he loved her. For his own little girl had been dead so many years; and it was so long now since he had dug his old wife's grave, that Solomon had almost forgotten how to love. He had had no one since to care for him, and he had cared for no one.
But little Dot had crept into his old heart unawares.
[CHAPTER III]
THE LITTLE GRAVE
OLD Solomon was digging a grave one day in a very quiet corner of the cemetery. Dot was with him, as usual, prattling away in her pretty childish way.
"It's a tidy grave, is this," remarked the old man, as he smoothed the sides with his spade; "nice and dry too; it'll do me credit."