Little Fishers: and Their Nets

by Pansy

"Yes'm, that's the reason. All the girls are going to dress in white; I suppose she thinks she will look queerly, and be talked about. But I don't understand it. Seems to me if all the boys were going to wear blue coats, and I knew it, I'd just as soon wear my gray one if gray was respectable."

"She ought to have a white dress, now that's a fact," said Mrs. Smith with energy, patting her brown loaf, and tucking it down into the tin in a skilful way. "It isn't much for a girl like her to want; if her father was the kind of man he ought to be, she might have a white dress for best, as well as not; I've no patience with him."

"Her father hasn't drank a drop this week," said Jerry.

"Hasn't; well, I'm glad of it; but I'm thinking of what he has done, and what he will go and do, as likely as not, next week; they might be as forehanded as any folks I know of, if he was what he ought to be; there isn't a better workman in the town. Well, you don't care much about the flower party, I suppose?"

"I don't now," said Jerry, wearily. "When I thought the little girls were going, I had a plan. Sate is such a little thing, she would be sure to be half-asleep by eight o'clock; and I was going to coax Norm to come for her, and we carry her home between us. Norm won't go to a flower party, out and out; but he is good-natured, and was beginning to think a great deal of Sate; then I thought Mr. Sherrill would speak to him. The more we can get Norm to feeling he belongs in such places, the less he will feel like belonging to the corner groceries, and the streets."

"I see," said Mrs. Smith admiringly. "Well, I do say I didn't think Nettie was the kind of girl to put a white dress between her chances of helping folks. Sarah Ann thinks she's a real true Christian; but Satan does seem to be into the clothes business from beginning to end."

"I don't suppose it is any easier for a Christian to be laughed at and slighted, than it is for other people," said Jerry, inclined to resent the idea that Nettie was not showing the right spirit; although in his heart he was disappointed in her for caring so much about the color of her dress.

"Well, I don't know about that," said Mrs. Smith, stopping in the act of tucking her bread under the blankets, to look full at Jerry, "why, they even made fun of the Lord Jesus Christ; dressed him up in purple, like a king, and mocked at him! When it comes to remembering that, it would seem as if any common Christian might be almost glad of a chance to be made fun of, just to stand in the same lot with him."

This was a new thought to Jerry. He studied it for awhile in silence. Now it so happened that neither Mrs. Smith nor Jerry remembered certain facts; one was that Mrs. Smith's kitchen window was in a line with Mrs. Decker's bedroom window, where Nettie had gone to sit while she mended Norm's shirt; the other was that a gentle breeze was blowing, which brought their words distinctly to Nettie's ears. At first she had not noticed the talk, busy with her own thoughts, then she heard her name, and paused needle in hand, to wonder what was being said about her. Then, coming to her senses, she determined to leave the room; but her mother, for convenience, had pushed her ironing table against the bedroom door, and then had gone to the yard in search of chips; Nettie was a prisoner; she tried to push the table by pushing against the door, but the floor was uneven, and the table would not move; meantime the conversation going on across the alleyway, came distinctly to her. No use to cough, they were too much interested to hear her. By and by she grew so interested as to forget that the words were not intended for her to hear. There were more questions involved in this matter of dress than she had thought about. Her cheeks began to burn a little with the thought that her neighbor had been planning help for Norm, which she was blocking because she had no white dress! This was an astonishment! She had not known she was proud. In fact, she had thought herself very humble, and worthy of commendation because she went Sabbath after Sabbath to the school in the same blue and white dress, not so fresh now by a great deal as when she first came home.

When Mrs. Smith reached the sentence which told of the Lord Jesus being robed in purple, and crowned with thorns, and mocked, two great tears fell on Norm's shirt sleeve.