CHAPTER V.
A GREAT UNDERTAKING.
JERRY turned away whistling. Did you ever notice how apt boys are to whistle when something has stirred their feelings very much, and they don't intend that anybody but themselves shall know it?
Nettie went back into the little brown house to see if her mother was comfortable for the night. Her heart was lighter than she had thought it ever would be again.
Everything was quiet within the house. The children with their arms tossed about one another, and their cheeks flushed with sleep, looked sweeter than they often did awake. The heartsick mother had forgotten her sorrow again for a little while, in sleep. Where father and Norm were, Nettie did not know. It seemed strange to go away and leave the light burning, and the door unfastened. At home, they always gathered at about this hour, in the neat sitting-room, and sang a hymn and repeated each a Bible verse, and then Mr. Marshall prayed, and after that she kissed Auntie Marshall and the others, and tripped away to her pretty room. The contrast was very sharp. If it had not been for that new friend whose voice she heard at this moment softly singing a cheery tune, I think the tears would have come again.
As it was, she slipped into Mrs. Job Smith's neat kitchen. What a contrast that was to the kitchen next door! The first thing she saw was the tall old clock in the corner. "Tick-tock, tick-tock." She had never seen so large a clock before; she had never heard one speak in such a slow and patronizing tone, as though it were managing all the world. She looked up into its face and smiled. It seemed like a great strong friend.
There was nothing very remarkable about that kitchen. At least I suppose you would not have thought so, unless you had just spent an afternoon in the Decker kitchen. Then you might have felt the difference. The floor was painted a bright yellow, and had gay rugs spread here and there. The stove shone brilliantly, and the two chairs under the window were painted green, with dazzling white seats. A high, old-fashioned, wooden-backed rocker occupied a cosey corner near the clock. A table set against the wall had a bright spread on it, and newspapers, and a book or two, and a pair of spectacles lay on it. The lamp was in the centre, and was clear and beautifully trimmed.
Simple enough things, all of them, but they spoke to Nettie's heart of home.
There was a brisk step on the stair; the door opened, and Mrs. Smith's strong, homely face appeared in sight. "Here you are," she said cheerily, "tired enough to go to sleep, I dare say. Well, the room is all ready for you. I guess you won't be lonesome, for it is right out of Sarah Ann's room, and my boy Jerry is across the hall. You've got acquainted with Jerry, I guess? I saw you and him talking, out in the moonlight. I'm glad of it. Jerry is good at chirking a body up; and there never was a better boy made than he is.
"Now you get right to sleep as goon as you can, and dream of all the nice things you can think of. It is good luck to have nice dreams in a new room, you know."