Part 13 (1/2)
Not long after this, one of the ladies Mrs. Scott worked for gave her a partly-worn sateen dress and a black straw bonnet, so that she was fitted out to go to church all summer; and go she did with great enjoyment. It was a pleasure to Jennie also, for with listening to the singing as she lay in bed, and hearing about all that was said and done from her mother, she almost felt as though she had been at church herself.
The purple Bible was not locked up any more, but kept handy for Miss Alice to read, and to mark pa.s.sages for Mrs. Scott to read in the evening, for Jennie liked to hear the same things over and over.
The plan that popped into Marty's head that day she told to Edith on the way home, after they had left Cousin Alice.
”O Edie!” she said, ”wouldn't it be nice to give Jennie a Bible for her very own?”
”You mean for you and me together to give it?” said Edith.
”Yes. You know my birthday comes in August and yours in September, and we always get some money--”
”And we could each give half, and get Jennie a Bible,” broke in Edith.
”Yes; or if we _couldn't_ do it then, we might have enough by Christmas.”
”And it would be a _beautiful_ Christmas gift!”
”Oh! do let us do it,” said Marty, seizing Edith and whirling her around and around.
”Yes, do,” said Edith, panting for breath.
CHAPTER XII.
”NOW DON'T FORGET!”
It was well on in June, and Mrs. Ashford was very busy making preparations to go to the country with the children.
Two successive summers they had spent at a very pleasant mountain farmhouse, but the last year they had gone to the seash.o.r.e. This summer Mrs. Ashford decided for the farmhouse again, to Marty's great delight, for it was a perfect paradise to her.
She herself had many preparations to make--deciding which dolls to take and which to leave at home, and getting them all ready for whatever was to be their fate. It also took a good deal of time to choose from her little library the few books her mamma allowed her to take for rainy days. It was a weighty matter, too, to select a suitable present for Evaline, the little girl at the farmhouse, as her father suggested she should do, and gave her money to buy it.
Then Jennie was very much on her mind.
”What will she do for soup and jelly and things when we are away, mamma?” she asked anxiously.
”I shall tell Katie to carry her something now and then,” Mrs. Ashford replied. ”Besides, Cousin Alice will be in town until August, and she will look out for Jennie. Then Mrs. Scott told me the other day that she had got all her back rent paid up now, and she expects to have three days' work every week all summer; so they will get on very well.”
Another day Marty came home from Jennie's in distress.
”Mamma,” she said, ”the doctor says Jennie may soon begin to sit up in an easy-chair; and they haven't got any. Their two chairs are the most _uneasy_ things I ever saw in my life. Now, how is she going to sit up?”
Mrs. Ashford laughed as she said, ”Well, I was going to give you a surprise, but I may as well tell you now that I have sent that old rocking-chair that was up in the storeroom to be mended, and am going to give it to Mrs. Scott.”
Marty was overjoyed to hear this.
”And, oh! mamma, wont you give them the small table that stands in the third-story hall? You always say it is only in the way there, and it would be so nice beside Jennie's bed to put her things on, instead of a chair.”
”Yes, I suppose they might as well have it.”