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قراءة كتاب Daisy's Work The Third Commandment

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‏اللغة: English
Daisy's Work
The Third Commandment

Daisy's Work The Third Commandment

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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never find papa," she answered, with such pathos in her tones.

"Come into the depot with me," said General Forster: "I want to talk to you."

She obeyed, and, taking up her basket, followed him into the waiting-room, where, heedless of the many curious eyes around, he made her sit down beside him, and drew from her her sad, simple story:—how long, long ago she had lived with papa and mamma and her little brother and baby sister in their own lovely home, far away from here; where it was, she did not know, but in quite a different place from the great bustling city which she had never seen till she came here with Betty and Jack; how she had left home with mamma and the baby on a great ship, where to go she could not remember; how Betty was on board, and mamma had been kind to her; how a dreadful storm had come and there was great confusion and terror; and then it seemed as if she went to sleep for a long, long time, and knew nothing more till she found herself living with Betty and Jack in their poor home far up in the city.

They had been very good to her, nursing and caring for her during the many months she had been weak and ailing; and now that she was stronger and better, she tried to help them all she could, keeping the two small rooms tidy, while Betty was away attending to her stall; and in the afternoon selling the flowers which Jack raised in his little garden, and she arranged in tasteful bouquets. And, lastly, she told how from the very first time she had seen General Forster, she thought he "looked so like papa" that she felt as if she must love him, and was so happy when he stopped to buy flowers of her and spoke kindly to her.

The story was told with a straightforward and simple pathos, which went right to the listener's heart, and left him no doubt of its truth. But the child could tell nothing of her own name or her parents', save that she was always called "Daisy" at home, and that she had never since heard the familiar name until to-day, when she thought this stranger had given it to her. Betty and Jack always called her "Margaret;" and Betty thought she knew mamma's name, but she did not. But she loved daisies dearly for the sake of their name, which had been her own; and she had raised and tended with loving care the little plant she had given to "my gentleman" as a token of gratitude for his kindness, and because he was "so like papa."

Having learned all that he could from the child herself, the gentleman went to the fruit-woman on the corner.

"So," he said, "the little girl whom you call Margaret is not your own daughter?"

"Indade, no, sir," answered Betty; "niver a daughter of me own have I barrin' Jack, and he's not me own at all, but jist me sister's son what died, lavin' him a babby on me hands. More betoken that it's not a little lady like her that the likes of me would be raisin', unless she'd none of her own to do it."

"Will you tell me how that came about?"

Betty told the story in her turn, in as plain and simple a manner as the child's, though in language far different.

Her husband had been steward on a sailing vessel running between New Orleans and New York; and about three years ago, she, being sick and ordered change of air, had been allowed to go with him for the voyage. But it made her worse instead of better; and on the return trip she would have died, Betty declared, if it had not been for the kindness and tender nursing of a lady, "Margaret's" mother. This lady—"her name had been Saacyfut, she believed, but maybe she disremembered intirely, for Margaret said it was not"—was on her way to New York with her little girl who was sick, a baby, and a French nurse; but her home was neither there nor in New Orleans,—at least so the child afterwards said.

Her own account of the storm was the same as the child's; but while the recollection of the little one could go no further, Betty remembered only too well the horrors of that day.

When it was found that the ship must sink, and that all on board must leave her, there had been, as the little girl said, great confusion. How it was, Betty could not exactly tell; she had been placed in one boat, the French nurse, with the child in her arms, beside her; and the lady was about to follow with the infant, when a spar fell, striking the Frenchwoman on the head and killing her instantly, knocking overboard one of the three sailors who were in the boat,—while at the same time the boat was parted from the ship and at the mercy of the raging waves. In vain did the two sailors who were left try to regain the ship: they were swept further and further away, and soon lost sight of the vessel. They drifted about all night, and the next morning were taken up by a fishing-smack which brought them to New York.

Fright and exposure and other hardships, while they seemed to have cured Betty, were too much for the poor little girl, and a long and terrible illness followed: after which she lay for months, too weak to move or speak, and appearing to have lost all memory and sense. And when at last she grew better and stronger, and reason and recollection came back, she could not tell the name of her parents or her home.

"Margaret Saacyfut," Betty persisted in saying the French nurse had called her little charge, "Mamsell Margaret," "and if the lady's name wasn't Saacyfut it was mightily nigh to it."

"Marguerite" had been the French woman's name for "Daisy:" that the General saw plainly enough, but he could make nothing of the surname.

"But did you not seek for the child's friends, Betty?" he asked.

"'Deed did I, sir," she answered. "Didn't I even advertise her, an' how she was to be heerd of, but all to no good. An' I writ to New Orleans to them what owned the ship, but they were that oncivil they niver answered, not they. An' it took a hape of money, sir, to be payin' the paper, an' me such hard work to get along, an' Margaret on me hands, an' I had to be done with it. For ye see me man was gone wid the ship, an' niver heerd of along wid the rest to this day; an' I had to use up the bit he'd put by in the savin's bank till the child was mendin' enough for me to lave her wid Jack."

"It was a very generous thing for you to burden yourself with the care of her," said General Forster.

"Burden is it, sir? Niver a burden was she, the swate lamb, not even when the sense had left her. An' that was what the neighbors was always a sayin', and why didn't I put her in the hospital. An' why would I do that after the mother of her savin' me from a buryin' in the say, which I niver could abide. For sure if it hadn't been for the lady I'd 'a died on the ould ship, and they'd 'a chucked me overboard widout sayin' by your lave; and sure I'd niver have got over such a buryin' as that all the days of me life. And would I be turnin' out her child afther that? An' isn't she payin' me for it now, an' 'arnin' her livin,' an' mine too? She an' Jack tends the bit of a garden, an' arternoons she comes down an' sells her flowers, an' where'd be the heart to refuse her wid her pretty ways and nice manners; a lady every inch of her, like her mother before her."

And thrusting her head out from her stall, Betty gazed down the street with admiring affection on her young protégée.

"Och! but she's the jewel of a child," she went on; "and it is surprisin' how me and Jack is

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