Jewels Story Book | Page 2

I?
Are you sure? I don't want to fix up till I make Solomon look like thirty
cents and then find out there's some misdeal."
"Grandpa wants you to bring me to his office, that's what he said,"
returned the child earnestly. "Let's start real soon!"
Like a sprite she was back at the house and running upstairs, calling for
Mrs. Forbes.
The housekeeper appeared at the door of the front room, empty now for
two days of Mrs. Evringham's trunks, and Jewel with flushed cheeks
and sparkling eyes told her great news.
Mrs. Forbes was instantly sympathetic. "Come right upstairs and let me
help you get ready. Dear me, to-night! I wonder if they'll want any
supper when they get here."
"I don't know. I don't know!" sang Jewel to a tune of her own
improvising, as she skipped ahead.
"I don't believe they will," mused Mrs. Forbes. "Those customs take so
much time. It seems a very queer thing to me, Jewel, Mr. Evringham
letting you come in at all. Why, you'll very likely not get home till
midnight."
"Won't it be the most fun!" cried the child, dancing to her closet and
getting her checked silk dress.
"I guess your flannel sailor suit will be the best, Jewel."
"Grandpa said I might wear my silk. You see I'm going to dinner with

him, and that's just like going to a party, and I ought to be very
particular, don't you think so?"
"Well, don't sit down on anything dirty at the wharf. I expect you will,"
returned Mrs. Forbes with a resigned sigh, as she proceeded to unfasten
Jewel's tight, thick little braids.
"Just think what a short time we'll have to miss cousin Eloise," said the
child. "Day before yesterday she went away, and now to-morrow my
mother'll braid my hair." She gave an ecstatic sigh.
"If that's all you wanted your cousin Eloise for--to braid your hair--I
guess I could get to do it as well as she did."
"Oh, I loved cousin Eloise for everything and I always shall love her,"
responded the child quickly. "I only meant I didn't have to trouble you
long with my hair."
"I think I do it pretty well."
"Yes, indeed you do--just as tight. Do you remember how much it
troubled you when I first came? and now it's so much different!"
"Yes, there are a whole lot of things that are much different," replied
Mrs. Forbes. "How long do you suppose you'll be staying with us now,
Jewel?"
The child's face grew sober. "I don't know, because I don't know how
long father and mother can stay."
"You'll think about this room where you've lived so many weeks, when
you get back to Chicago."
"Yes, I shall think about it lots of times," said the little girl. "I knew it
would be a lovely visit at grandpa's, and it has been."
She glanced up in the mirror toward the housekeeper's face and saw
that the woman's lips were working suspiciously and her eyes
brimming over.

"You won't be lonely, will you, Mrs. Forbes?" she asked; "because
grandpa says you want to live with Zeke in the barn this summer while
he shuts up the house and goes off on his vacation."
"Oh, yes; it's all right, Jewel, only it just came over me that in a week,
or perhaps sooner, you'll be gone."
"It's real kind of you to be glad to have me stay," said the child. "I try
not to think about going away, because it does make me feel sorry
every time. You know the soot blows all around in Chicago and we
haven't any yard, and when I think about all the sky and trees here, and
the ravine, beside grandpa and you and Zeke and Essex Maid--why I
have to just say 'I won't be sorry,' and then think about father and
mother and Star and all the nice things! I think Star will like the park
pretty well." Jewel looked into space thoughtfully, and then shook her
head. "I'm sure the morning we go I shall have to say: 'Green pastures
are before me' over and over."
"What do you mean, child?"
"Why, you know the psalm: 'He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters'?"
"Yes."
"Well, in our hymnal there's the line of a hymn: 'Green pastures are
before me,' and mother and I used to say that line every morning when
we woke up, to remind us that Love was going to lead us all day."
"I'd like to see your mother," said Mrs. Forbes after a pause.
"You will, to-night," cried Jewel, suddenly joyous again. "Oh, Mrs.
Forbes, do you think I could take Anna Belle to New York?"
"What did