Nettie wiped the tears away, and smiled outright; then sat still in deep thought for several minutes. Then she arose, decision and energy on her face.
"Thank you, Jerry; I wish you had come in this morning. I have been a goose, I guess, and I almost spoiled what we tried to do. We'll get up a nice supper if you can get Norm and the others to come. I don't believe they will, but we can try. We have coffee enough to make a nice pot of it, and Mrs. Smith sent us some milk out of that pail from the country that is almost cream. I will make some baked potato balls, they are beautiful with fish; all brown, you know; and I was going to make a johnny-cake if I could get up interest enough in it. I'm interested now, and I shouldn't wonder if I staid so," and she blushed and laughed.
"You see," said Jerry, "you must not expect things to be done in a minute. Why, even God doesn't do things quickly, when he could, as well as not. And he doesn't get tired of people, either; and that I think is queer. Have you ever thought that if you were God, you would wipe most all the people out of this world in a second, and make some new ones who could behave better?"
"Why, no," said Nettie, wonderment and bewilderment struggling together in her face, this strange thought sounded almost wicked to her. "Well, I do," said Jerry sturdily; "I have often thought of it; I believe almost any man would get out of patience with this old world, full of rum saloons, and gambling saloons and tobacco. I think it is such a good thing that men don't have the management of it.
"I'll tell you what it is, Nettie, we shall have a pretty busy afternoon if we carry out our plans, won't we? Suppose you go and talk the thing up with your mother, and I will go and see what Norm says. Or, hold on, suppose we go together and call on him; I'll ask him to go fishing, and you ask him to bring his friends home to eat the fish. How would that do?"
It was finally agreed that that would do beautifully, and Jerry went to see whether his long flat stick fitted, while Nettie ran to her mother. Mrs. Decker was ironing, her worn face looking older and more worn, Nettie thought, than she had ever seen it before. Poor mother! Why had not she helped her to bear her heavy burden, instead of almost sulking over failure?
"O, mother," she began, "Jerry has a plan, and we want to know what you think of it; he has heard of things that are to be done this evening." And she hurried through the story of the intended frolic on the island, and the fishing party that was, if possible, to be pushed in ahead. Mrs. Decker listened in silence, and at first with an uninterested face; presently, when she took in the largeness of the plan, she stayed her iron long enough to look up and say:
"What's the use, child? I thought you and Jerry had given up."
"O, mother," and the cheeks were rosy red now, "I'm ashamed that I felt so discouraged; Jerry isn't at all; and he thinks it is the strangest thing that I should have been! He says they have to work for years, sometimes, to get hold of people. He knew a man that they kept working after for five years, and now he is a grand man. He says we must hold on to Norm if it is five years, though I don't believe it will be. I'm going to begin over again, mother, and not get discouraged at anything. It is true, as Jerry says, that we can't expect Norm to reform all in a minute. He says the boys that Norm goes with the most are not bad fellows, only they haven't any homes, and they keep getting into mischief, because they have nowhere to go to have any pleasant times. Don't you think Norm would like it to have them asked home with him to supper, and show them how to have a real good time? Jerry says the two boys that he means board at a horrid place, where they have old bread and weak tea for supper, and where people are smoking and drinking in the back end of the room while they are eating. I am sure I don't know as it is any wonder that they go to the saloons sometimes."
Mrs. Decker still held her iron poised in air, on her face a look that was worth studying. "Norm hasn't ever had a decent place to ask anybody to, nor a decent time of any kind since he was old enough to care much about it," she said slowly. "I thought I had done about my best, but it may be I'll find myself mistaken. Well, child, let's try it, for mercy's sake, or anything else that that boy thinks of. You and him together are the only ones that's done any thinking for Norm in years; and if I don't go half-way and more too for anybody that wants to do anything, it will be a wonder."