The Angel Children | Page 2

be, and wish he wasn't. I don't love him a bit, he always plagues me so much."
"O, Hepsa, don't say so; pray don't!" cried Genevieve, shocked at Hepsa's passion. "If he is your brother, you ought to love him, you know."
"I don't know any such thing, I tell you! You may love him yourself if you want to; but I guess, when he kicks you, and beats you, and steals your things, and knocks your mud-houses down, you won't love him. I'd like to know why I've got to love him?" Hepsa demanded this of Genevieve in a very fierce manner.
"Because he is your brother I suppose, and because he ought to be good; and perhaps he plagues you because you don't love him," answered Genevieve, somewhat perplexed how she should answer the question, thinking in her own heart Hepsa had a very wicked brother. "At any rate," she continued, "God gave him to you; and I have read how he tells us all to love each other."
"I never did," replied Hepsa; "and if God gave Tom to me, I wish he'd take him back, for I don't want him."
"Why, Hepsa; how wicked you are! You shall not talk so!" almost shrieked Genevieve. The tears came fast into her eyes, she was so grieved to hear Hepsa talk in that way.
"But I'm not wicked!" retorted Hepsa indignantly. "I don't know who God is. Why should I? He never comes to see me. I suppose he comes to see you, and is some great person; while I am poor and live in a mean house, and nobody comes to see me, of course." Hepsa looked away from Genevieve's blue frock, and seemed to be searching for something away down the street.
Genevieve could not sit still any longer, but, rising, she remonstrated with Hepsa in this manner:
"God is not a man, Hepsa; and he goes into poor houses as often as into rich ones."
Hepsa looked very sharply upon little Genevieve as she replied,
"Ha! Don't you be telling me stories; why don't I see him ever, I'd like to know? Haven't I got eyes?"
"I don't know," said Genevieve, doubtfully. "Father was reading this morning about people who had eyes, but could not see."
Hepsa looked at her a moment, and then nodded her head towards her, and said, speaking low as to a third person, "She's cracked a little, I think;" then, as she looked towards the fence, she remembered the garden which was behind it, and asked Genevieve for some flowers. But Genevieve only said "O, yes," and went on to say, "Of course you can't see God, Hepsa! He lives in the skies."
"I shouldn't think he would come down here, then. I wouldn't!"
"But, Hepsa, God loves us; then, too, he is everywhere at once."
"Mercy!" said Hepsa to herself, in a low tone. "Worse and worse!"
"And he made everything you see, Hepsa, and a great deal more beside," continued Genevieve.
"There, there!" said Hepsa, impatiently; "don't talk any more; it sounds odd." Genevieve looked at Hepsa, and the wild, petulant look of her face grieved and shocked her so much, that she burst into tears.
"What is the matter?" said Hepsa. "I thought you were going to get me the flowers."
"And so I will," said Genevieve, wiping up her tears as well as she could; and she ran into the garden, and picked a large bunch of flowers. There were the sweet mignonette and heliotrope, the pink verbena, and the beautiful white scented verbena, the gay phlox, the pure candytuft, bits of lemon blossoms, and the faithful pansies. It was such a beautiful bunch as to melt poor Hepsa's heart to gratitude.
"I do think I should love to kiss you," she said to Genevieve, "if my face were not so dirty, and you look so clean."
"I don't care!" said Genevieve, and so she kissed Hepsa and said, "Hepsa, I wish you would never again talk so about God, for I love him very dearly, and so do my father and mother."
Hepsa began to think Genevieve was not crazy, and so she became more serious.
"But did you never read about Him, Hepsa?" asked Genevieve.
"No, indeed; I can't read at all!" exclaimed Hepsa, astonished at Genevieve's questions.
"Not read! Why, Hepsa, why don't you go to school?"
"I can't; mother keeps me at home to tend the baby while she goes to washing."
A bright thought came into Genevieve's little head.
"Where do you live?" she asked.
"O, away down that lane, the other side of the village! I work nearly all the time, some way or other."
"Have you any father?"
"Yes;" and Hepsa looked as though she did not love him better than she loved Tom.
"May I teach you to read?" asked Genevieve, looking into Hepsa's eyes entreatingly. The child turned away her head as she answered,
"I haven't any time. I have