Part 3 (2/2)
He made a wry face and hesitated.
”You know, you said some awful hard things,” she urged. ”I thought then he was pretty good-tempered not to take offense.”
She looked in his face so eagerly that he laughed outright.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Look here, Bill, Hatty thinks I ought to ask your pardon.” Vol. VI, p. 9.]
”Well,” he said, ”for your sake, I will. You always have everything your own way, you know.”
”Look here, Bill,” he exclaimed, walking back to the fence where his companion stood, and holding out his hand, ”I was wrathy and called you names you didn't deserve. Hatty thinks I ought to ask your pardon.”
”Oh, Ethel! don't tell him that. You owned you were sorry first.”
”So I am; and if Bill will say quits, I'll do him as good a turn some other time.”
”All right,” said Bill, giving his hand.
”Here, Hatty,” cried Ethel, ”you must shake hands too. You're better than Squire Morse to settle up quarrels.”
She laughed and blushed, giving her little hand first to one, and then to the other.
”Now promise me,” she said, ”that you'll never quarrel again.”
”That's pretty steep. I wouldn't dare venture,” cried Ethel, growing very red.
”Oh!” urged Hatty, ”I always thought you two the bravest boys in school.
Such good scholars ought to be brave.”
”I promise to _try_ to be peaceable,” answered Bill.
”And I'll agree to think of you, Hatty Maynard, when I want to call hard names. I guess that will cool off the hot blood.”
”You must think of somebody better than I am,” she urged, growing very serious. ”Don't you recollect what the minister said, about living in peace? And the Bible tells us, to 'follow peace with all men,' to 'follow after the things that make for peace.' Esther says that means, we must be kind and affectionate, one to another; we must show our companions that we love them; and if we ever do wrong, we must ask forgiveness as you did, Ethel. I think Bill was real generous to forgive so quick; but I knew he would, if you told him how sorry you were.”
”Come on, Bill,” exclaimed Ethel, laughing. ”I guess we sha'n't be fighting again in a hurry, after all the compliments we've had to-day.”
The next morning, when Hatty went down from her unfurnished attic to make a fire in the stove, she found a string of nice, fresh fish laid on the kitchen table. There was a small piece of soiled paper tied to the end of the string, on which was written in a school boy's hand,--
”For Hatty Maynard, peace-maker to the town of Shrewsbury; from Ethel and Bill.”
”'Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of G.o.d,'” repeated Hatty, tears gus.h.i.+ng to her eyes. ”I do love to make peace; and I may call myself his child.”
She was so full of joy that she ran up the steep stairs again to her low couch, and there kneeling down, she asked her heavenly Father to make her indeed his own child, and by and by to take her to dwell with him in heaven, where all was peace, and love, and joy, forever and ever.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
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