The next morning, as he went to his work, he heard that his little girl was dead.
"What! My little little darling gone!"
[CHAPTER IX]
OLD SOLOMON'S HOPE
THERE was a little grave to be dug that day, and it was the hardest task old Solomon ever had. The earth seemed to him as heavy as lead that morning; many a time he stopped and moaned, as if he could work no more. He sometimes looked up, as if he half expected to see his little Dot standing at the top of the grave. He almost thought he heard her merry laugh, and her dear little voice saying, "Won't you say my little prayer, Mr. Solemn?"
But this was his little Dot's grave, and she was dead. It could not be true; oh, it could not be true!
But, as the old man toiled on, a happier thought stole into his old soul, and he thought he saw his little Dot, dressed in white, and walking with the angels, near the dear Lord, in the home above the blue sky. And it did old Solomon good to think of this.
The grave was close to Lilian's; side by side they were to lie, for so Lilian's father had ordered it. For he loved little Dot for the care she had taken of his child's grave.
It was the day of the funeral—little Dot's funeral. Old Solomon was wandering among the trees of the cemetery, and every now and then stooping wearily to gather something from the ground. He was getting daisies to put in his little dear's grave. They were very scarce now, and it gave him much trouble to collect them, and they looked very poor and frost-bitten when he put them together, but they were the best he could find, and, with trembling hands, he threw them into the little grave.
It was a very quiet funeral. The gentleman and lady and their two little girls came to it, and Dot's father and mother, and old Solomon did his sorrowful part.