Little Pollie | Page 4

Stevens' glad smile than even in the magnificent sum of money wrapped in her handkerchief; for she experienced "it is more blessed to give than to receive;" and after seeing her friend disappear through the dingy doorway which led to the garret called her "home," she turned with a light heart into the entry which led to her own place, eager to see mother and tell her all; but in doing so almost fell over a little cripple boy who sat crouched on the door-steps.
"O Jimmy! did I hurt you?" she asked in alarm.
"No. Everybody knocks me about; I'se used to it," was his answer.
"Poor Jimmy!" said the little girl. "Where's your mother?"
"Down there, drunk again," he replied, pointing his thin finger in the direction of what in other houses would be the kitchen, but which was his "home," if it could be dignified by so sacred a name.
Pollie looked sorrowfully on the poor boy, whose thin, wizened face, with large, hungry eyes, was placed on a shrunk and distorted body. His mother was the pest of the court, always drunk, and in her drunken fury beating her wretched offspring. Half-starved and half-clothed, he passed his time on the door-step, gazing vacantly at the passers-by, uncared for, unloved amidst the many.
"Poor Jimmy!" repeated the little girl. "Would you like some of my sweet violets?"
The boy, unused to even a breath of kindness, gazed some few seconds at her with his eager eyes.
"You be Pollie Turner, bain't yer, what lives upstairs with yer mother?" he asked at last.
"Yes," she replied, and repeated her question, as she took some of the flowers from her last bunch. "Would you like these?"
He held out his claw-like hand--so dirty that Pollie almost shrank from touching it as she gave him the violets. He took them without a word of thanks, but as she was moving away he called out--
"I say, did yer make these?"
"No, Jimmy," she replied, as she came back to him; "God made them."
"God!" he repeated, "Who's He; Him's mighty clever to fix up these little bits of things, bain't He?"
The little girl was for a moment shocked, then she felt a tender pity for the poor boy.
"O Jimmy, don't you know who God is?" she gently asked.
He shook his head; so she went on--
"God is our Father in heaven," and she pointed upwards. "He made these sweet flowers, and us also, and He sent His dear Son to die for us, so that all our sins should be taken away. And when Jesus (that is the name of God's dear Son) was here on earth, He gave sight to the blind, healed the sick, and was for ever doing good; but now He is in heaven, and still He loves us, oh, so dearly, and wishes us all to come to Him."
"Does He want me?" asked the outcast doubtfully; "He don't know me."
"Oh yes, He knows you, Jimmy, and loves you too; once Jesus blessed little children like you and me, and said, 'Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'"
"The kingdom of heaven!" repeated poor benighted Jimmy musingly--it was the first time he had ever heard those blessed words--"where be that, Polly?"
"It is where God lives, and where we shall go when we die if we believe in the Saviour and love and pray to God."
"How do you pray?" he asked, fixing his keen eyes upon her, as though hungering for the bread of life.
But before she could reply, a loud, harsh voice was heard uttering frightful oaths, and a lumbering tread came stumbling up the cellar stairs. The poor boy knew full well who was coming, and with a terrified look started up and hobbled off, supported by his clumsy crutches, round the corner of the house, whilst Pollie, who went in terror of the drunken woman, ran hastily up the dirty staircase, which served for all the inmates of the crowded house.
CHAPTER III.
HOW POLLY SPENT HER MONEY.
The first two or three flights of stairs were thickly strewn with mud and dust from the feet of the different lodgers; but when Pollie reached the last landing she felt it was home indeed. The stairs were as clean and white as hands could scrub them--no dirt was to be seen here,--and outside her mother's door was a little mat on which to rub the shoes before entering. It was quite a relief to reach this part of the house.
There were only two rooms at the top part of the tenement--one inhabited by good Mrs Flanagan, the other by Pollie and her mother; and though the apartments were small, and the narrow windows overlooked the chimney-pots and tiles, yet they felt it such an advantage to be up here, removed, as