Little Fishers: and Their Nets

by Pansy

There were pauses made between each of these questions. The poor little stranger seemed to be trying first one form and then another, to see if it was possible to get any help.

Susie decided at last to do something besides scowl.

"Mother's sick. She lies in bed and groans all the time. She ain't got us no dinner to-day; Sate and me called her, and called her, and she wouldn't say anything to us. There ain't no room only this and that," nodding her head toward the bedroom door, "and the room over the shed where Norm sleeps. Norm is hateful. He didn't bring home no bread this noon for Sate and me; and he said maybe he would; we're awful hungry."

"Perhaps he couldn't," said poor startled Nettie. She hardly knew what she said, only it seemed natural to try to excuse Norm. But what dreadful story was this! If there was really a sick mother, why was not the father bending over her, and the house hushed and darkened, and somebody tiptoeing about, planning comforts for the night? She had seen something of sickness, and this was the way it was managed.

Then what was this about there being no room for her? Then what in the world was she to do? Oh, what did it all mean! She felt as though she must run right back to the depot, and get on the cars and go to her own dear home. To be sure she knew that her father was poor; what of that? so were the Marshalls; she had heard Mrs. Marshall say many a time that "poor folks can't have such things," in answer to some of the children's coaxings. But poverty such as this which seemed to surround this home was utterly strange to Nettie.

Still, though she felt such a child, she was also a woman; in some things at least. She knew there was no going home for her to-night. If she had the money to go with, and if there had been a train to go on, she would still have been stayed, because it would be wrong to go. Her father had sent for her, had said that they wanted her, needed her, and her father certainly had a right to her; and she had come away with a full heart, and a firm resolve to be as good and as helpful and as happy in her old home as she possibly could. And now that nothing anywhere was as she had expected it, was no reason why she should not still do right. Only, what was there for her to do, and how should she begin?

She stood there still in the middle of the room, the children staring. Presently she crossed on tiptoe to the bedroom door which was partly open and peeped in, catching her first glimpse of the woman whom she must call "mother."

Also she caught a glimpse of that dreadful bed; and the horrors of that sight almost took away the thought of the woman lying on it. How could she help being sick if she had to sleep in such a place as that? Poor Nettie Decker! She stood and looked, and looked. Then seeing that the woman did not stir, but seemed to be in a heavy sleep, she shut the door softly and came away.

I don't suppose that Nettie Decker will ever forget the next three hours of her life, even if she lives to be an old woman. Not that anything wonderful happened; only that, for years and years afterwards, it seemed to her that she grew suddenly, that afternoon, from a happy-hearted little girl of thirteen, into a care-taking, sorrowful woman. While she stood in that bedroom door, a perfect whirl of thoughts rushed through her brain, and when she shut the door, she had come to this conclusion:

"I can't help it; I am Nettie Decker; he is my father, and I belong to him, and I ought to be here if he wants me; and she is my mother; and if it is dreadful, I can't help it; there is everything to do; and I must do it."