Read Ebook: The Angel Children or Stories from Cloud-Land by Higgins Charlotte M

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Ebook has 509 lines and 31857 words, and 11 pages

"Yes;" and Hepsa looked as though she did not love him better than she loved Tom.

"May I teach you to read?" asked Genevieve, looking into Hepsa's eyes entreatingly. The child turned away her head as she answered,

"I haven't any time. I have to stay at home."

"But," pursued Genevieve, "I'll come down to your house, and bring some books, and help you tend the baby. O! don't you love the baby?"

"But, he is a baby; he don't know any better."

"That don't make any difference."

"Yes it does, too; your big brother knew better than to kill your pretty pussy, and that is why it was so naughty in him to do it." This was a new kind of argument for Hepsa; but she thought over it a moment, and then told her little teacher she thought she might be right. "I almost wish you would come to teach me to read. I don't know but I might like it; and then it would be rather good to see you. Now, are you sure there is such a person as God?" said Hepsa, glancing at Genevieve from the corners of her eyes.

"Of course I am, Hepsa; who do you think made the sky and the ground, the trees and grass?"

"I don't know," replied Hepsa.

"And the sun and the moon, and the stars," continued Genevieve, with a mysterious tone. Hepsa shook her head by way of saying no.

"I asked mother once," she said, musingly, "who made all these things; but she told me I'd better be minding the cradle. I guess she didn't know; but I've always had spells of wondering about it."

Genevieve looked very gravely at Hepsa as she said,

"It was God who made all these things."

"Well, I don't know but it was," replied Hepsa.

"Do you?" cried Hepsa, seeming to feel a new interest in her companion. "I wonder if you ever hear pretty voices in the trees when the wind blows, and in the night when it is warm, and you are looking up to the moon, and see the light that comes down through the holes in the sky, does something great seem to come close to you?"

"Why, yes, Hepsa, ever so many times, and I think it is God. And when Katie leaves me to go to sleep, and it is all dark, I know God comes then, for I feel him all around, and the room seems so big--bigger than it ever did before, bigger than the garden, bigger than the fields, bigger than the sky. I can't tell you how big."

"O, well--and--what did you say your name was?" asked Hepsa.

"Genevieve;" and she pronounced it very slowly.

"It is rather odd," said Hepsa, trying to repeat the name; "but I want to know if you ever laid down on the ground when it rained, and listened."

"No!"

"I wish I could hear it," said Genevieve, sadly; "but my mother wouldn't like to have me lie on the ground when it rained."

"How would she know it," asked Hepsa, "if you didn't tell her?"

"Why, Hepsa, I shouldn't want to if she wouldn't like it--I shouldn't want to at all."

"I suppose, then, she won't let you come to hear me read?"

"O, yes she will, I know! I'll ask her, and she will kiss me, and say yes."

So Hepsa told her where she lived, and Genevieve went into the house, and Hepsa went home, feeling very happy about the flowers, and thinking of the things her new friend had told her.

"She says I must love Tom, and that is so queer; but if the God who gave me Tom, is the One who comes so near to me sometimes, I'll try; and, perhaps, if I hadn't called Tom such names this morning, he wouldn't have killed my poor cat." So Genevieve's words had sunk into Hepsa's heart already.

Genevieve went to her mother, and told her what a strange little girl she had found that morning, and that she had promised to go and teach her to read, that she might know about God.

On the next day she took some of her books, and, with some of her prettiest playthings for a present to Hepsa, she went in search of the house down the lane, on the other side of the village.

She found a gentler pupil than on the day before; and Hepsa's hair was laid smoothly upon her forehead, her face clean, and though there were some tatters in her dress, Genevieve did not much mind them.

The baby was in his cradle, fast asleep, and Genevieve went and knelt down by the side of it, and looked at it carefully, as though she was afraid of awaking it, and then whispered to Hepsa her admiration of the little hands, which lay cunningly upon the quilt, and said how much she wanted to kiss him; would he wake, she wondered, if she just kissed his cheek, and didn't make any noise? Hepsa told her no; so she kissed him; and then, after looking at him to see how sweetly he slept,--now frowning, and now smiling in his dreams,--she went away with Hepsa, and they talked a great while together, telling each other what the other didn't know. Genevieve was often shocked and grieved at Hepsa's undutiful remarks about her father, mother and brother; and when she felt they didn't love Hepsa, as her own dear father and mother loved her, still she could not understand why Hepsa did not love them better. She was often a good deal perplexed to know what she should say to the strange child; but of one thing she felt always certain, that her new companion needed to have her heart cleansed and purified before she could be loved well. She felt a strong love for Hepsa, and longed to teach her more of God, and show her how to read, that she might teach herself.

Hepsa was amazed when her friend took out the playthings from the bag and gave them to her; no one had before shown her such kindness; and Genevieve thought in her heart she was just as happy giving those things to Hepsa, as when they were given to her.

Poor Hepsa had never been to school, and so she didn't even know the alphabet; but Genevieve sat down patiently to teach her, and found truly that much patience was necessary to accomplish the work she had undertaken. Hepsa would soon grow discouraged when she found so much to learn, and saw her little teacher reading so readily; and her mother would often scold when she saw Hepsa with a book in her hand, declaring it was foolish nonsense; but, as time went on, and the first difficulties were overcome, and her mother began to find Hepsa growing very gentle, and Tom had less occasion to plague his sister, they all felt that the books Hepsa had studied, and the little girl who came so often to see her, were kind friends, and love began to bind them all together. Hepsa no longer wore torn clothes; Genevieve's mother had given her some neat dresses, and Genevieve had given her needles and thread, and taught her to sew, and now many a rent was carefully mended, and even Tom began to look neater than formerly. She was careful too to keep the room nicely, and one day was amply rewarded for this, when Tom came in before she had had time to do it, and complained of its being dirty. "Tom begins to like a clean room," she said to herself with joy, and received his few harsh words as though they had been those of love. The baby too was always clean, for she knew Genevieve always depended upon kissing him.

Hepsa's father was not a good man; he was unkind to his poor wife and children; so it was no wonder Tom had gone on, following the example constantly placed before him; but he was a child yet, and when he saw how Hepsa began to love him, that she grieved without being angry when he was unkind to her, it could not but touch his heart. He was half ashamed, too, when she saved for him some of the good things Genevieve had brought her. At first, 't is true, he thought little about it, but when often, after he had been so ugly to her, she came just the same, and offered him half of her orange, or a part of her nuts, he began to feel that he was a naughty boy, and that Hepsa was better than she used to be.

It was very natural he should ask her the reason of this, and very natural, too, that she should answer in this way:

"Why, Tom, I have learned a great deal about God from Genevieve, and then she has taught me to read, and I have learned a great deal that way. Tom, where do you think Susan went when she died?"

Tom couldn't tell. Susan was an elder sister of theirs, whom they had loved very dearly, and who had died some two years before.

"Well, Tom; there are angels who take all the children, as soon as they die, and show them wonderful things, and teach them, so they can go into a beautiful place called heaven, and live with God. Well, if you begin to be good here, and love people, you will go into that heaven sooner, when you die, than if you are naughty, and don't think about these things while you are here. I want to go there very much, and so I try to be good, though I don't always make out well." Tom looked thoughtful at his sister's words, and then said:

"I think that little Genevieve will go very fast, when she dies. But I don't think father will get there very soon, now I tell you!"

"I wish I knew how to read," said Tom; "but I never can go to school, father makes me saw so much wood."

Then Hepsa asked him to let her teach him; and, after a good deal of hesitation, he told her he didn't care if she did.

Some time after this, Genevieve's father and mother went away from that place, and she parted from Hepsa with many tears in her eyes, and much grief in her heart. "If I never see you again," she said, "don't forget we are both going into the gardens up there," and Hepsa always remembered.

Genevieve was a very quiet girl, but she was always ready to do something to please her dear mother, and at night brought her father's slippers from the closet, and placed them ready by his chair. She did, too, many little things for the servants, who all loved her very dearly; so when, a few years afterwards, she fell sick, and nothing they could do for her was able to make her any better, but the doctor said she must die, they all wept very much, and no comfort or joy could come into their hearts. But Genevieve gently kissed them, and told them a beautiful peace had come into her heart, for that, in the night, Christ often came to her, and told her how the angel was all ready to take her into his beautiful garden, and teach her out of his great golden books.

At last, one morning she died, and they laid her away in the garden near by the fountain; and they planted the mignonette and myrtle, that, mingling with the moss, it might grow over her grave.

And her mother said in her heart, "Let her lie here, that, as often as I come hither, I may be reminded of the more beautiful gardens of God, to which she has flown. And when, in the cool night, the stars look down, the soft fragrance of the mignonette shall tell them of her loveliness, and the myrtle and the moss of the constant love twining together the souls of the mother and the daughter."

It was as Christ had said; the angel stood ready, and when Genevieve closed her eyes in death, he caught her in his arms, and placed her before the Great Gate, which led into the gardens around the kingdom of heaven. A great many men, women and children stood about it, waiting for it to be opened, when suddenly a very bright angel, brighter than any she had ever seen in her dreams, came among them, seated on glorious clouds.

Then one by one did the crowd go before him, telling him what things they had done on earth, in order to be admitted into the gardens, to be prepared still more for the heavens. One said he had built a large college, given it a large sum of money, and called it by his name, that the world might see his works, and praise the Lord. Another told him how he had toiled in heathen lands, and dwelt among savages, that they might know and love God; another that he had prophesied; another that he had built a hospital for the poor, and had sheltered them from the cold winds; another still that he had delivered slaves from cruel masters, and brought them to the light of freedom. O, there cannot be counted all the men and women who came before the angel, and told of the things they had accomplished! And, as the words came upon Genevieve, her heart trembled for fear, and had it not been for the remembrance of those kind tones of Christ, poor Genevieve would have shrieked aloud.

What should she do? Rapidly she recalled every act of her life; but nowhere in it could she find one act worthy to be brought before the great bright angel. Alas! she had neither founded colleges nor hospitals; she had never toiled in heathen lands, nor prophesied, nor delivered slaves from bondage. Alas! must she lose those gardens when still so near?

The angel's glance fell upon Genevieve, and she drooped down in fear; but what was her surprise when the angel came down from the cloud, and raising her up, said, in tones of loving cadence,

"Look, little one, thy work was accepted long ago!" and, looking as he bade her, she saw Hepsa at her side, to whom, so long ago, she had spoken of heaven, when she had found her a dirty, ignorant girl.

"You have worked well," said the angel tenderly. "Go now into the garden, and ere long I will come to put you into the Christ's arms."

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