CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST ATTEMPT.
HE next thing of which Winifred was conscious, was the bright sunlight streaming into the room, and her mother’s face bending anxiously over her.
She woke up wide with a smile and a start.
“Mamma! Is it late?”
“No, dearest; but I have brought you some breakfast, before you get up. You may have to stay in bed a little while longer than usual to-day.”
“Why, mamma?”
“I am afraid you may have taken cold. Do you know where I found you last night, when I came up for a last peep? Curled up in the nursery window-seat, fast asleep.”
Winifred began to smile.
“Oh yes, I remember now; but I didn’t mean to go to sleep.”
“Why did you go there at all, darling? You know you might have taken a bad cold, though you do not look any the worse.”
“I did not think of that—it was careless,” said the child quickly. “I think I must have been rather silly, for I thought the swallows would go last night, though I know it is not time yet; and I wanted so much to see them fly away that I got up and sat by the nursery window to watch, and then I suppose I went to sleep.”
“You certainly did that, Winnie, and slept so soundly that you never even woke when I carried you back to your little bed.”
Winifred smiled, and looked up half-wistfully into her mother’s face. She was thinking of her dream; but she did not feel as though she could tell it to anybody yet, not until she had thought it all over in her own head first.
“May I get up soon, mamma?”
“Not for another hour or two, I think, darling. Then you shall do so, if you wish.”
For a moment Winifred was disappointed. She wanted to go to the boys’ play-room and tidy their cupboard, and do all the little things for them which she had neglected so long. For one moment her face fell, and the little frown appeared; but then a sudden thought struck her and she smiled bravely.
“Very well, mamma dear, I will do just as you like; only do you think I might sit up a little while, so that I can do things?”
“Yes, Winnie, I think that would not harm you. What makes my little girl so anxious to be busy this morning?”
“Because I think I have been very idle for a long while—ever since I have been ill,” answered Winifred gravely. “Idle and selfish too. I want to be better now for two reasons, partly because I want to be good and do what God would like to see me do, and partly because I should not like people not to miss me, or to think I had been selfish, when I am gone.”
“Gone!” echoed Mrs. Digby, with a little falter in her voice.
Winnie coloured quickly. She had not meant to say so much. She thought she ought not to speak of the journey she was to take, until her mother told her of it. Perhaps she ought not to have heard that conversation—perhaps it was only a dream like the one she had just awoke from.
She looked into her mother’s face with a little laugh, and kissed the soft hand she still held in her own small one.
“I dreamt I was flying with the swallows, mamma. One of them took me on his back and carried me; but he brought me back home again, you see.”
Was mamma crying? Winifred wondered, for Mrs. Digby had turned quickly away, and the child fancied she put her handkerchief to her eyes.
Nurse, however, came in just then, and Winnie’s thoughts were directed into a different channel.
“Nursey,” she called eagerly, “did Charley and Ronald finish the kite-tail yesterday?”
“No, Miss Winnie, they went out to the Rectory instead, and never touched it. I heard them this morning wishing it was done; and then they’d have time to fly it before dark, when they came home in the evening.”
“Oh, I am so glad! now I can finish it for them!” cried Winnie eagerly. “Please go and fetch it for me, Nursey—I mean when you have time to spare.”
“Won’t it tire you, dear?”
“Oh no, not to-day.”
“You haven’t got anything to do to-day then?” asked nurse with a smile, and Winifred smiled too as she answered:
“Oh, I can think and work to-day both; and I should so like to finish the boys’ kite for them.”
So in a very short while the child was hard at work, and before her dinner-time came the long tail of the kite was quite finished.
“Mamma,” she asked whilst she was taking her dinner, “can I go and see little Phil to-day? I haven’t been for a long while. I thought he looked as if he would like to see somebody, when we passed yesterday. May I take him the jelly?”
“The jelly will not be ready till to-morrow, Winnie; and I think I must keep you indoors to-day; but if you have taken no cold, you shall go out to-morrow if it is fine. Will that do as well, darling?”
Mrs. Digby looked with an inquiring glance into her little daughter’s face; for when Winifred had taken a fancy into her head, she was not always ready to give up without a struggle. The gentle little girl had a good deal of self-will in her composition.
But to-day, after one little struggle, she looked up and smiled cheerfully.
“To-morrow will be just as nice; and then I can put the boys’ toy-cupboard tidy for them this afternoon. It is in such a mess!”
“Why, Winnie, I thought that toy-cupboard was your pet horror!” said the mother with a smile.
“I want to put it tidy to-day, mamma,” answered Winifred gravely. “I know I shall find ever so many things that the boys have lost. You see the boys have their lessons, and so much to do, and I have hardly anything. I ought to do little things for them when I can.”
So the little girl got a duster and went up to the play-room, and opened the cupboard-door. It was rather a dreadful sight that met her eyes—toys, books, papers, string, nails, pieces of wood, bottles, baskets, battered pieces of metal, odds and ends of every description all tumbled together in one heterogeneous mass of disorder.
“Oh dear!” exclaimed Winnie, “what a mess!”
But she would not be discouraged, and she set manfully to work at her task.
First she emptied all the contents of the cupboard on to the floor, and dusted out all the shelves. Then out of the dreadful heap upon the floor she selected all the books and carried them over to the book-case where they should have been, and made room for them upon the shelves there.
This involved a good deal of time and labour, and arrangement of other books; and little Winnie, whose stock of strength was but small, began to feel tired already.
Still she would not give up yet. She went down on her knees before the heap, and picked out all the unbroken toys and the most useful and respectable of the miscellaneous articles before her; and these she dusted and arranged upon one shelf by themselves. Broken toys and odds and ends which might come in useful, were placed in another; and a big heap of “real rubbish” began to grow upon the floor behind her.
Then the string was collected and wound into little knots and put into a box; and by that time poor Winnie was so tired she felt almost ready to cry, and still a vast heap of queer things lay before her, which seemed as if it defied her to reduce to order. Her head began to ache and her eyes to swim; she felt as if she never should make an end of the task, yet she could not bear to give in.
The door opened softly, and somebody looked in.
“Well, Winnie, is the work done yet?”
Winnie bent her head to hide the tears which stood in her eyes; but her voice would shake a little as she answered:
“Not quite, mamma. There were such lots of things; I don’t know what to do with them all.”
Mrs. Digby came nearer and looked at the heap and at the child.
“I think, darling, you have done enough for one day. You are tired now. We will get nurse or Mary to finish the rest now.”
But tired as Winifred was, she could not bear to give up before she had finished the work she had set herself to do.
“Oh please, mamma, let me finish,” she cried, whilst a round tear splashed down upon the paper in her hand. “If other people finish it will spoil it all. I wanted to do it myself.”
“But you are making yourself quite poorly, my darling. I cannot have you do that. Let me do it for you, and you tell me how to put the things.”
“No, no. I want to do it all myself,” repeated Winnie with a little sob. “I’ve been very selfish to the boys—I’ve never done anything for them. Do please let me do this.”
Mrs. Digby sat down near to the child, and answered very gently and lovingly, yet with a tone in her voice which made Winnie feel half-ashamed:
“Well, darling, if you have set your heart upon it, you shall try a little longer.”
So Winnie went to work again; but with less and less success. She could not see the things for tears, and a little voice in her heart, that sounded like the swallow’s, kept saying:
“You ought to please your mamma, not yourself. Self-will is only selfishness in a new dress.”
At last Winnie could stand it no longer. She burst into tears and ran into her mother’s arms.
“Oh mamma, I wanted to be good and kind, and I’ve only been naughty and disobedient. Why is it so hard to be good?”
“Because, darling, we sometimes set about it in not quite a right spirit, or we let a wrong spirit creep in and master the right one, with which we started. Even in little, little things we must ask Jesus to help us with His Holy Spirit.”
“I think I forgot to do that,” said the child. “It seemed too little to ask Jesus about.”
“Ah! darling, we all make that mistake only too often in our lives; yet nothing is too little for Him to help us in.”
Winifred looked up into her mother’s face, and said with a gravity beyond her years:
“Mamma, I sometimes think there aren’t such things as little things in the world. They seem little, but really they are quite big.”
Mrs. Digby held her child closely in her arms, feeling that there was something strange in hearing so advanced a thought fall from such childish lips. Of late she had fancied that Winifred’s mind had developed rapidly.
After a little silence the little girl said:
“May Mary come now and finish the cupboard? I should like everything put straight before the boys come in.”
With Mary’s energetic and willing help, the task was soon accomplished. Winifred directed operations, and the maid with her strong hands soon carried out all her wishes. Chaos resolved itself into order, and the cupboard soon became a pattern of neatness. It was so tidy that Winifred could hardly believe her eyes, and she could hardly believe, too, that everything except actual rubbish had been replaced.
She returned to her nursery in a much happier frame of mind; and the delight of the boys on their return with their finished kite and tidy cupboard more than repaid her for her trouble.
They had all taken tea together in the nursery by Winnie’s special request, after she had watched the flying of the kite from the window with the greatest interest. And the boys had been so kind and so merry, and had made so much of their little sister, and what she had done for them, that she went to bed in a very happy frame of mind, wondering how it was she had not thought more of being kind and useful to her brothers.