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Jill's Red Bag

[67] <div></div> <h2> VI </h2> "GOD'S CABBAGES" Sam was as good as his word. Before a week was out a minute board was erected by the children's heap of stones. Big white letters confronted any passerby— <big>"BETHEL.</big> TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED." And Jill made a point of visiting the spot at least once a day, to be sure that it was left unmolested. "I'm coming to tea with you, Sam, soon," she announced one afternoon, as she sat on a gate swinging herself to and fro and watching the carpenter repairing a fence. Sam lived alone with his old father, in a rose-covered cottage, at the corner of the village. Sam was devoted to roses, and his little front garden was given up to their cultivation. [68] The back one was in his father's charge, and he grew cabbages. "Father will be pleased to see you, missy, and so shall I," was Sam's quiet response. "Then you must invite me properly, and ask me to-morrow, for Mona is going to take Miss Falkner out for a drive. And then we have tea with Annie. I hate my tea poured out by a schoolroom-maid!" Jill's little nose was tilted scornfully in the air. "Aye," said Sam smiling; "to-morrow will suit first-rate, missy. Father and me presents our duty, and will be pleased if you will favour us with your company to tea to-morrow at five o'clock." This was the usual formula, and Jill clapped her hands in delight; then she said with becoming gravity— "I shall be very pleased to come, Sam. Tell Mr. Stone I'll favour him." Then she ran into the house, and told Jack and Bumps where she was going. They were inclined to be cross at first, but Jack soon recovered himself. "We'll do quite well without you. I shall [69] play at Sinbad the Sailor, and Bumps is going to be my Old Man of the Sea. Annie likes to join sometimes, and we'll have our tea in the garden. She likes that, for the gardener has a cup of tea with us." Miss Falkner heard of the invitation, but raised no objection, so punctually at five o'clock the next evening Jill walked into Sam Stone's cottage. He and his father were expecting her. The tiny kitchen was in perfect order, and looked spotlessly clean. The table was laid for tea; and a boiled egg for Jill, besides some watercress and currant buns, gave it quite a festive air. Old Mr. Stone looked delighted to see her. He was a tall, active old man, with a long grey beard, and had always plenty to say for himself. "'Tis a pleasure to see you, missy. Come right in, an' sit comfortable on my poor wife's rocking-cheer. 'Twas the last thing she sat in afore she died, an' I see her in it now a gaspin' an' chokin', an' smilin' up at me so sadly like. 'Jim,' she sez, ''tis the Lord that did give me to yer, an' 'tis the Lord that do be [70] goin' to take me away from yer. Thank Him,' she sez, 'for all His mercies!' An' I sez to her, 'Jenny, my heart can't thank if my lips can, an' I'd rather say nothin' just now to the Almighty.' Jenny, she were always so properly religious!" "And are you properly religious too, Mr. Stone?" questioned Jill as she took her seat at the table, and commenced with great pride and solemnity to pour out tea. She was always given the post of honour, behind the big flowered tin tea-tray, and much enjoyed the responsibilities of her position. The old man shook his head. "I fear I be a very improper Christian," he said. "I wonder," said Jill reflectively, "whether your wife gave a tenth to God. Miss Falkner thinks all proper good people do." "What be that, missy?" "It's what Jacob did, you know, and we're going to try to do it. Don't you remember his vow? 'Of all that Thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto Thee.'" Old Mr. Stone nodded his head. "My fayther did allays give a little to our [71] rector; that be it missy, that be it. 'Tis the beginning of it you have told of!" "Do tell me," said Jill eagerly. "Do you think we could give our tenth to our rector?" Sam and his father both tried then to give Jill a dissertation on tithes. She hardly grasped it, but child-like returned pertinaciously to her business in hand. "I want Sam to join us. I'm sure he has a lot of money. I hear it jingle in his pocket. And won't you too, Mr. Stone? If you will, you can come to our 'Bethel' and do it quite properly." "I tell missy we be hard-workin' people, that be scarcely able to feed ourselves," said Sam. "But a tenth isn't much," argued Jill. "Out of forty pennies you only have to give four. How much do you get from Mona, Sam?" "A pound a week," answered Sam stolidly. "Now, how many tens are in that, I wonder," Jill went on with interest; "you see, Sam, Miss Falkner says God sends us everything, so it does seem rather mean never to give anything back, doesn't it?" "I reckon," said Mr. Stone looking at his son with a twinkle in his eye, "that two shillin' [72] be a tenth o' Sam's money, not to speak of his other odd jobs that he do get in an' out." "We should be on the way to the House, missy, if I did give away such a bit as that!" "Oh, no, you wouldn't, for God just sends it back, Miss Falkner says in other kind of ways. Only He is pleased if we think of Him." "If I were a rich man," said old Mr. Stone, "I'd give the Almighty a tenth. 'Tis a cryin' shame the rich be so grudgin' wi' their wealth; but we poor humble folk be not expected to do such things!" "Haven't you got anything to give God, Mr. Stone?" "Nothin' at all," responded the old man with a sigh. "Sam do take care of his old father, an' I sells my cabbages an' helps all I can; but since Christmas twelvemonth the rheumaty pains in my innerds be so cruel bad, that I be creepin' on to church-yard slow and sure." A little gloom seemed to have fallen on the tea-party. Then Jill started another subject. "When are you going to be married, Sam?" Sam threw up his head and laughed aloud. He was a confirmed old bachelor and did not, [73] as he expressed it, "like the ways of women." "Ah, missy, I'll wait till you set the example." "Oh, but I don't mean to marry at all. I shall be like Mona. Cook told Annie the other day that Mona was going to marry Captain Willoughby and I told Mona, and she was very angry and then she laughed and said that cook had already married her to over a dozen people. I don't quite know what she meant—but I think you ought to marry, Sam, and cook thinks so too. She says a house isn't a home without a woman!" Sam laughed again. "A woman, missy, is an ork'ard customer to deal with. There is smiles, 'tis true, but then there's tears, an' I can't abide 'em! An' there's a great chatteration, and there's a spendin', not so much in pots an' pans an' good wholesome food, but in ribbons an' silks an' finery. An' many a maid turns her man to drink, from her contrary tempers. Best be wi'out them, I say, an' so do fayther." They talked away till tea was over, and then Jill accompanied old Mr. Stone into the back garden. [74] He pointed out to her row after row of his fine cabbages. "One hundred and fifty-two, missy, an' all sowed from seed, an' I've tended 'em like chillen." Jill walked up and down amongst the cabbages with a thoughtful air. Suddenly she stood still, seized with an inspiration. "Mr. Stone, you've got cabbages! The text says, 'Of all that Thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto Thee.' You must give a tenth of your cabbages to God. Oh, do, won't you? And then you can join us. How many tens have you got? Let us go through, and mark every tenth cabbage off for God. That's the way to do it. How shall we mark them? Will Sam let us have some of that red worsted he ties up his roses with? I'll ask him. Just wait a minute. I know how to do it!" Jill flew into the house breathless and excited without waiting for the old man's reply. She returned triumphant with her ball of red wool. "Sam thinks it will be very nice. I told him. And you know, Mr. Stone, God did give the cabbages to you. He made them grow, you didn't!" [75] The old man looked at her queerly. Then he fetched his pipe out of his pocket and began to smoke. "Them cabbages fetch three-halfpence each in the market, and cheap at the price," he said. Jill marched along the first row until she arrived at the tenth cabbage, then she broke off a piece of her red wool and tied it through one of the leaves. "There, Mr. Stone, that's God's cabbage. Now, I'll go on to the next, and then you'll know how many you will have to give." "What am I to do wi' 'em, missy. Take 'em to church?" Jill sat down on an old wheelbarrow to consider. "Why," she said presently with a beaming smile, "when you take up a cabbage with a piece of red wool on it, you must sell it for God, and put the money in a little bag, and then give it to the poor." "P'raps," said the old man with a chuckle, "it will find its way back into my pocket, for I'm a very poor old body, very poor indeed!" "You're making a joke of it," said Jill, flushing a deep red. "I mean a real starving person, when I talk of the poor. Would you [76] rather give it to the collection in church, Mr. Stone?" "Aye p'raps that would be the best way to work it." So taking that as a promise Jill set to work with a will, and before she left that evening she had marked off fifteen cabbages, the tenth of the old man's property. "And now if you really like to give them, will you come to-morrow to 'Bethel' and do your vow?" Mr. Stone wavered, but finally Jill won him over, and he promised to be outside the fir plantation the very next day. Jack and Bumps were full of interest when Jill told them of her evening's work. It did much towards solacing Bumps, who had a bruised head and a badly grazed knee, but wounds were generally her lot after an hour or two alone with Jack. "I wath the old man of the thea," she explained to Jill, "and I couldn't thtick on. Jack jumped and rolled and kicked me up in the air to get me off, and I had to try to be on all the time. It wath very differcult!" She was rather doubtful about the cabbages. [77] "I thought it wath to be money. God really does make money and give it to us, but does He make cabbages? I thought they growed of theirselves." "How do you think God makes money?" Jack asked. Bumps thought hard for a minute. "I 'spect He just drops pennies and shillings into the ground when no one is looking, and then lets us find them. I know they does come from under the earth, becauth Miss Falkner told me." Jill tried to explain that cabbages brought in money, and it was the money for them that would be the tenth and after a time Bumps was satisfied. They were all present the next day when old Mr. Stone was initiated into the mysteries of Bethel. But he shook his head sternly at the heap of stones. "No no, that there altar is idol'try, that is what it be. The chapel folk would turn me out if I went for to forget myself in such a heathen-like way! Pour oil on it? Indeed no, missy. That be like the cannibal heathen who [78] offer up sacrifices and living bodies, an' such like." "But Jacob did," argued Jill. "We've kept most particular to the Bible." "Ah, well, Jacob had to answer to the Almighty for it, an' I won't be his judge. But I'm a chapel man myself, though I favours the church on occasions. I'll say the words, missy, an' then you must let me go. My poor wife used to give to charity an' such like. I remember her handin' a penny out of the windy to a tramp one day. I could do with a deal more religion, I owns, for though I thinks little, I knows I ought to thank my Maker more for His mercy an' goodness. An' He is kindly welcome to my cabbages—them that be marked with red wool. So now, missy, where be the book?" The Bible was put into his hand, and the verse pointed out, but he would only repeat the last part of it. The children chorused "Amen," and then he was led away, but his words left an uncomfortable feeling behind. "Is it like the heathens to have a heap of stones, I wonder?" said Jill, sitting down on [79] the grass and looking at the pile very affectionately. "It's all rubbish!" said Jack. "Jacob wouldn't have done a wicked thing, when he was making a vow to God." "Arth Miss Falkner," was Bumps' suggestion. But Jill would not agree to this. "It's a secret," she said; "we mustn't tell everybody. I think I'm rather sorry I brought Mr. Stone here. Sam didn't think it wicked." "Isn't Sam going to join?" "He won't just yet. He says he wants to think it over." Then she jumped up. "Come along, let us have a game of hide-and-seek." Away they scampered, making the garden ring with their shouts, and "Bethel" was forgotten for the time. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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