he’s got breakfast, an’ Peter’s too little. ’Sides, Mose won’t let him go in the woods, ’cause he’ll get lost. I b’lieve I must run, mamma; I’m in such a hurry.”

She was back in a trice, however, pale and trembling. Hadn’t mamma heard something very dreadful? Mamma listened to little faint twitterings up in the tree-tops,—that was all,—and pinching the color back into the dimpled cheeks, they walked on, up the path leading to the low, red house where the McFanes lived.

Little brown sparrow sitting close under the eaves could have told them what Maybee heard; she had been watching the tumbled, dusty figure dragging itself slowly and painfully along across the fields from the woods. Poor Dick! It was such a long way to the little red cottage, and then when he tried to call somebody, everything grew strange and dark again; the queer little groan he gave was what Maybee heard. By and by he opened his eyes, but somehow he didn’t care to move or speak. He heard little brown sparrow twittering to herself up under the eaves; he heard the brook gurgling noisily along down in the hollow, and then he heard voices through the open window,—a thin, piping voice saying, “But God didn’t send any wavens to bwing it, gwan’ma, as he did to ’lijah.”

“No, deary; grandma didn’t say he would. You see, ma’am, I’ve told him stories to make him forget like he was hungry, and there’s none like those in the good Book. O ma’am! there’s nothing like that, and the harder things are, the tighter you can take hold of the promises. You mind, ma’am, when that baby was left on my hands an’ me only jest able to hobble round, and how at last it came to lying here from morning till night, with only Mose to help, out of mill hours; but that wasn’t nothing at all to having his work stop entirely, and the little we’d scraped together go and go, and he a-worrying an’ tryin’ to find something to do. Five weeks to-morrow! and last Monday we hadn’t a cent left. He’s tried everywhere for a job; that last tramp over to Luskill Mills is what ails his feet. Friday morning he couldn’t step a step, and not a thing in the house but some dry bread. We’ve never trusted Peter alone, so he dars’n’t go as far as the main road, an’ we’re quite a ways off of the path, even. But I knew the Lord could send somebody. He does hear when folks pray. Don’t you see, Peter, instead of the ravens he sent the kind lady?”

“We come home this way ’cause it was so hot,” put in Maybee; “but I do b’lieve He let Sue come tagging after, so’s mamma could send her home quick to bring you some supper, and p’raps He just made those flowers a-purpose; you know he sees to the sparrows.”

“Does He really?” thought Dick, looking up at the nest over his head. “I wish—but I suppose He knows how wicked I’ve been, and won’t care. I wonder if that’s Sue?”

A light, quick step went up the walk, followed by a scream of delight.

“You must excuse the little fellow, ma’am; he’s so ravenous,” said a man’s voice, and it trembled too. Dick wondered if he was crying. Then he heard the rattle of dishes and the hum of the tea-kettle, and by and by a pleasant voice bidding Sue run back and ask Dr. Helps to come and look at Moses’ feet.

“You won’t disbelieve again, will ye, Moses?” said the grandmother. “You see, ma’am, he couldn’t just believe God cared anything about us, and it’s dreadful to be in the dark and not feel sure there’s an Eye seeing the end from the beginning all along, and a Hand ready to help as soon as ever the right time comes.”

“I wonder if He saw me down in the woods,” thought Dick, dreamily, the voices sounding farther and farther away. “What was it grandpa used to tell me,—‘Remember the Sabbath day’; but I didn’t forget it; I never cared. I wish He wouldn’t look way down in my heart; it’s such a great Eye, and it sees all the bad. Oh, how bright it is, and it hurts so! If He only would go away!”

But the sun, which Dick fancied was the great all-seeing Eye, shone steadily down on the poor, pinched white face, and the voices inside went on:—

“It doesn’t seem, gran’mother, as if such a great Being could care for poor, wicked creatures like us.”

“He made the littlest flower, Moses, as well as the great mountains; and as for the wickedness, didn’t he let his own dear Son die just for us?”

“O me! I do b’le’ve I’m going to cry,” said Maybee, slipping past the doctor and around the corner of the house, full upon Dick, lying still and white, with a wild, staring look in his eyes.

Her screams summoned mamma and the doctor, who together carried him into the one front room of the cottage, and laid him on the “spare bed,” clean and white, if Mose had been sole housekeeper for many months.

“He mustn’t be moved again,” the doctor said; but “they could bring whatever they pleased to the cottage,” he added,—a hint Dick’s father wasn’t slow to take, for besides idolizing his boy, he was a kind-hearted man, and fairly shuddered when Maybee’s mamma told him how nearly starvation had come to the little red house.

Dick knew nobody that night nor for many days; but the sun, as it peeped in morning after morning, and crept reluctantly away at night, found out two things,—that Dick’s mother loved her boy better than her dairy, and that little Peter was growing fat and rosy on something besides “dry bread.”

V.
“DOT.”

“And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day.”

Dick opened his eyes one morning and began to wonder where he was. It seemed as if he had been sailing over mountain-tops and crawling about underground for years. And now, could anybody tell where he had waked up? It wasn’t like any room at the farm-house,—the white-washed walls, smoky ceiling, and bare floor. Such funny red posts to the bedstead, and a big, clumsy red chest under the window! On the chest were tumblers and bottles, and beside it, in a creaky wooden chair, sat a fat, jolly-looking woman, rocking away as if she had nothing else in the world to do. Where had Dick seen her before? Oh, he remembered! she came to their house when his mother had the fever last fall. Through an open door he could see a cooking-stove, a little red-haired, red-stockinged boy, playing with a Noah’s Ark, and another bed, with such a pleasant old lady’s face on the pillow,—such a happy, smiling face,—and a thin, wrinkled hand stroking lovingly a bunch of dry, faded flowers on the stand close by.

While he was watching her, somebody leaned over and kissed him. Dick’s eyes filled with tears, but he knew his mother through them. Only it was so queer for her to kiss him. He could just remember her doing it when he wore dresses, like the little red-haired boy. Since then she had been too busy; she always praised him when he ran errands promptly; she laughed at his jokes and tricks, kept his clothes clean and whole, and made him no end of pies and cakes. Indeed, she was always baking, brewing, churning, sweeping, dusting, mending, or sleeping. She came around the bed now, with a bright little porringer in her hand, gave him something nice to swallow, tucked the clothes around his shoulders, and told him to lie still. He shut his eyes, and