OR,
HOME SUNSHINE.
CHAPTER I.
SATURDAY EVENING'S WORK.
"Tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother."—Prov. iv. 3.
own in a little hollow, with the sides grown full of wild thorn, alder bushes, and stunted cedars, ran the stream of a clear spring. It ran over a bed of pebbly stones, showing every one, as if there had been no water there, so clear it was; and it ran with a sweet soft murmur or gurgle over the stones, as if singing to itself and the bushes as it ran.
On one side of the little stream a worn footpath took its course among the bushes; and down this path, one summer's afternoon, came a woman and a girl. They had pails to fill at the spring: the woman had a large wooden one and the girl a light tin pail; and they drew the water with a little tin dipper, for it was not deep enough to let a pail be used for that. The pails were filled in silence, only the spring always was singing; and the woman and girl turned and went up the path again. After getting up the bank, which was only a few feet, the path still went gently rising through a wild bit of ground, full of trees and low bushes; and not far off, through the trees, there came a gleam of bright light from the window of a house on which the setting sun was shining. Half-way to the house the girl and the woman stopped to rest; for water is heavy, and the tin pail, which was so light before it was filled, had made the little girl's figure bend over to one side like a willow branch all the way from the spring. They stopped to rest, and even the woman had a very weary, jaded look.
"I feel as if I shall give up some of these days," she exclaimed.
"Oh, no, mother!" the little girl answered, cheerfully. She was panting, with her hand on her side, and her face had a quiet, very sober look; only at those words a little pleasant smile broke over it.