From the very beginning it seemed to do her good. The fresh air and sunshine; the trees just putting on their spring apparel; the tender green grass; the flowers, and the orchards filled with bloom, all entranced her and invigorated her. She loved to be out of doors, to lie and look at the blue sky, with the great white clouds sailing away up in it (she said they were great snow islands that floated about in the blue air), and to listen to the songs of the birds flitting about in the shrubbery and trees. She said she felt just as that mocking bird must have done that day when he stood in the warm sunshine and saw the blue sky above him when he got out of prison. Mildred used to take her playthings and stay with her, and read to her out of her story books, whilst Roy would lie around and look lazy and contented. There was no place where he loved to sleep so well as on Molly's couch, snuggled up against her.
One afternoon she was lying on her couch out in the yard. Mildred was sitting by her, and Roy was asleep against her arm. It was Easter Sunday, and everything was unusually quiet and peaceful. There had been a good deal of talk about Easter. Molly did not know what Easter was, and she had been wondering all day. Mildred herself had mentioned it several times. She had a beautiful new dress, and Mrs. Johnson, the lady who had given her the mocking bird, and for whom her mother had gotten a place, had made it. Still to Molly's mind this was not all that Easter meant. Molly had heard something about somebody coming back from the dead. This had set her to thinking all day. She knew about Sunday, because that day people did not go to work as on other days; and could not go into the barroom by the front door, and some of them went to church. But Easter was different. Something strange was to happen. But nothing had happened. Mildred had been to church with her mother; but no one had come. Even the poor lady who had made Mildred's dress, and who had been invited to come out to the country and spend Easter, had not appeared; and had written that she could not come until the evening, if she could get off at all. So Molly was puzzled and a little disappointed. She had waited all day and no one had come. She must have misunderstood or else they had told her a lie. Now Mildred was sitting by her.
"Mildred," she said. Mildred leaned over her.
"Well, what is it?"
"Do you think my mother will know me when I get to Heaven? I was so little when she went away."
Mildred told her that a mother would know her child always. "Just so." This seemed to satisfy her.
A mocking-bird on a lilac bush began to sing. It sang until the air seemed to be filled with music.
"Molly," said Mildred, "I wonder if that is not your mocking-bird?" Molly's eyes turned slowly in that direction.
"I think maybe he went to Heaven that day, to my mother," she said, softly.
"And told your mother that you set him free?"