Emilie the Peacemaker | Page 8

white and cheerful looking
outside, and as clean and trim within as a notable and stirring woman
could make it. Joe's daughter-in-law, the same described by Joe the
other evening as the woman of a high spirit, was to-day absent on an
errand to the town; and Edith, who loved children, stopped at the
threshold to notice two or three little curly-headed prattlers, who were
playing together at grotto making, an amusement which cost
grandfather many a half-penny. Some dispute seemed to have arisen at
the moment of their entrance between the young builders, for a
good-humoured, plain-looking girl, of twelve, the nursemaid of the
baby, and the care-taker of four other little ones, was trying to pacify
the aggrieved. In vain--little Susy was in a great passion, and with her
tiny foot kicked over the grotto, the result of several hours' labour; first,
in searching on the shore for shells and pebbles, and secondly, in its
erection. Then arose such a shriek and tumult amongst the children, as

those only can conceive who know what a noise disappointed little
creatures, from three to seven years old, can make. They all set upon
Susy, "naughty, mischievous, tiresome," were among the words. The
quiet looking girl, who had been trying to settle the dispute, now
interfered again. She led Susy away gently, but firmly, into another part
of the garden, where spying her grandfather, she took the unwilling and
ashamed little girl for him to deal with, and ran hack to the crying
children and ruined grotto.
"Oh, hush! dears, pray hush," said Sarah, beginning to pick up the
shells, "we will soon build it up again." This they all declared
impossible, and cried afresh, but Sarah persevered, and quietly went on
piling up the shells, till at last one little mourner took up her coarse
pinafore and wiping her eyes, said, "Sarah does it very nicely." The
grotto rose beautifully, and at last they were all quiet and happy again;
all but poor Susy, who, seeing herself excluded, kept up a terrible
whine. "I wonder if Susan is sorry," said Sarah. "Not she, not she, don't
ask her here again," said they all. "Why not," said the grandfather, who
having walked about with Susy awhile, and talked gravely to her,
appeared to have brought about a change in her temper? "Why because
she will knock it down again the first time any thing puts her out."
"Won't you try her?" said Sarah, pleadingly; but they still said "No!
no!" "Don't you mind the day, Dick," said Sarah, "when you pulled
grandfather's new net all into the mud, and tangled his twine, and spoilt
him a whole day's work?" "Yes," said Dick. "Ah, and don't you mind,
too, when he went out in the boat next day, and you asked to go with
him, just as if nothing had happened, and you had done no harm, he
said, 'ah, Dick, if I were to mind what revenge says, I would not take
you with me; you have injured me very much, but I'll mind what love
says, and that tells me to return good for evil?'" "Yes," says Dick. "Do
you think you could have hurt any thing of grandfather's after that?"
"No," said Dick, "but I did not do it in a rage, as Susy did." "You did
mischief, though," said Sarah; "but I want Susy to give over going into
these rages. I want to cure her. Beating her does no good, mother says
that herself; wont you all try and help to cure Susy?"
These children were not angels. I am writing of children as they are you

know, and though they yielded, it was rather sullenly, and little Susan
was given to understand that she was not a very welcome addition.
Susy kept very close to Sarah, sobbing and heaving, till the children
seeing her subdued, made more room for her, and her smile returned.
Now the law of kindness prevailed, and when the time came to run
down to the shore for some more shells, to replace those that had been
broken, Susy, at Sarah's hint, ran first and fastest, and brought her little
pinafore fullest of all. Edith watched all this, and her good old mentor
was willing that she should. "I suppose you have taught them this way
of settling disputes," said Edith to Joe. "I, oh no, Miss, I can't take all
the credit. Sarah, there, she has taken to me very much since my Bob
died, and she said to me the day of his funeral, when her heart was soft
and tender-like, 'Grandfather, tell me what I can do to comfort you.' 'Oh,
child,' says I, 'my grief is too deep for you to touch, but you are a kind
girl, I'll tell