Sara, a Princess. Fannie E. Newberry
The three were all laughing in sympathy, Sara on her knees before the rag-bag, Molly with knife and potato suspended in air, and Morton just as he had tipped over sidewise on the floor when the baby broke away, when suddenly Sara gave a quick, piercing cry.
"See! see! O Morton! Morton!" and reached out her arms in a desperate way, too paralyzed for the instant to rise.
Morton, following her wild glance, echoed the cry, for the supposed wad of tobacco, uncurling in the heat, was now plainly seen to be—a roll of greenbacks!
Morton sprang forward and made a lunge for them; Sara, regaining her wits, did the same, while Molly shrieked and whirled like a dervish, but alas! it was too late! Their scorched fingers clutched only a crumbling blackened roll, which fell to pieces in their grasp, and the day's search for that money, which meant all the difference between comfort and privation, had ended in a tiny heap of ashes, which a breath would blow away.
For one long, dazed, dreadful minute Sara and Morton stood gazing at each other, the boy's blue eyes large as saucers, and Sara's brown ones turned to black by desperation; then the baby, frightened at the silence and their strange expressions, began to cry and tug at Sara's dress, demanding to be taken up.
This broke the spell. Molly gave way to an agony of crying; Morton said brokenly, "Oh, what will we do?" and Sara, stooping mechanically to lift the unconscious little cause of all this trouble, gave a long, quivering sigh, and murmured helplessly, "God only knows!"
And, indeed, the prospect was dark enough. Those greenbacks meant the savings of months, doubtless, put by bit by bit, for just this occasion, and to have them thus destroyed in one careless instant seemed too cruel!
After a little they could talk about it.
"Where could it have been?" sobbed Molly, making a dab at her eyes with the potato, but remembering in time to substitute the corner of her apron.
"I don't know," said Sara; "it was wrapped in brown paper, I think. Even if we had seen it, we would have thought it but a twisted scrap. Did either of you see Neddie when he picked it up?"
No one had, until Morton spied it on the way to his mouth, and all conjectures were useless so long as the little fellow could not explain.
Instead, Morton said more hopefully, "But, Sara, perhaps this isn't all there was. She might have hid it in two or three places."
Sara shook her head dubiously; such wisdom was more than she could hope for in the young mother.
"No, Morton, I don't believe there would be enough to divide. We must look this trouble squarely in the face."
"But, Sara," persisted the boy, "Jap Norris always says father's the most forehanded among them all, and rich for a fisherman. You know he never spends a cent for grog."
"Yes, Morton, I know. Poor father! it's too bad, when he works so hard for us!" and for the first time tears trembled on her eyelashes. Then, dashing them bravely away, "Well, what's done can't be undone. O baby, baby! if you knew the mischief your bits of hands have done!" holding them up, and spatting them gently together till he crowed with delight. "But come, Molly dear, where are those nice fried potatoes we're to have for supper? 'There's no use in crying for spilt milk,' you know."
Molly gave a last sob, then looked up with the sun breaking through her tears. "Burnt money's worse'n spilt milk, Sara; but I'll tell you what, when the coddies are all gone, I'll go lobster-catching, can't I? It's awful fun!"
There were few circumstances in life out of which Molly could not extract "fun" in some shape. Indeed, in less than five minutes she was laughing gayly, and caricaturing the whole scene just passed, from the baby's wilfulness, to Sara's shriek of dismay and rush for the burning greenbacks.
Sara, oppressed with care and forebodings as she was, could not help smiling, and the smile seemed to ease her of her burden just a trifle. "Well, we haven't come to want yet, thank God!" she thought hopefully.
Not want as they knew it, though the most of us might consider them little short of it. There were still herring, "coddies," and potatoes in store, and some groceries, while the pile of wood back of the shed was large for that village. Then, too, summer was near, when their needs would be fewer. To be sure, the new dresses must be given up, but they still had one change apiece, and there were some things of the dead mother's which could be used, for poverty does not admit of morbid sentimentality.
"Oh, we can live, surely, till father comes home," was Sara's summing-up that night, as she lay wide-awake in her bed after all the rest had long been sleeping. Then, turning over with the resolution to trust and fear not, she clasped the naughty baby (whom she had never thought of blaming) in her arms, and, with a last uplifting of her soul in prayer, dropped gently into slumber.
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