CHAPTER 2

DOT'S DAISIES

Dot's mother had lived all her life in a remote part of Yorkshire, far away from church or chapel or any kind of school. But her husband had been born and brought up in a town, and country life did not suit him. And so, when Dot was about five years old, he returned to his native place, and took one of the cottages close to the cemetery, in order that his little girl might still have some green grass on which to run about, and might still see a few spring flowers.

The cemetery was some way out of the town; and Dot's mother, having had but little education herself, did not think it at all necessary that Dot, at her tender age, should go to school, and therefore the little girl was allowed to spend most of her time in the cemetery, with which she was very well pleased. She liked to run round the gravestones, and climb over the grassy mounds, and watch the robins hopping from tree to tree.

But Dot's favourite place was by old Solomon's side. She went about with him from one part of the cemetery to another, and he liked to feel her tiny hand in his. She took a great interest, too, in the graves he was digging. She watched him shaping them neatly and making them tidy, as he called it, until she began, as she fancied, to understand grave-digging nearly as well as he did. But she sometimes puzzled the old man by her questions, for Dot always wanted to know everything about what she saw.

“Mr. Solemn,” she said one day, “shall you make me a little grave when I die?”

“Yes,” he said, “I suppose I shall, little woman.”

Dot thought this over for a long time.

“I don't want to go into a grave,” she said; “it doesn't look nice.”

“No,” said the grave-digger, “you needn't be frightened; you won't have to go just yet. Why, you're ever such a little mite of a thing!”

“Please, Mr. Solemn, when you die, who'll have to dig your grave, please?”

“I don't know,” said Solomon, uneasily; “they'll have to get a new digger, I suppose.”

“Maybe you'd better dig one ready when you've a bit of time, Mr. Solemn.”

But though Solomon was very fond of digging other people's graves––for he was so much used to it that it had become quite a pleasure to him––he had no wish to dig his own, nor did he like thinking about it, though Dot seemed as if she would not let him forget it.

Another day, when he was working in a distant part of the cemetery, she asked him––

“Whereabouts will they bury you, Mr. Solemn?”

And when they were standing over a newly made grave, and Solomon was admiring his work, she said––

“I hope they will make your grave neat, Mr. Solemn.”

But though these questions and remarks made old Whitaker very uneasy––for he had a sort of uncomfortable feeling in his heart when he thought of the day when his grave-digging would come to an end––still, for all that, he liked little Dot, and he would have missed the child much if anything had kept her from his side. She took such an interest in his graves, too, and watched them growing deeper and deeper with as much pleasure as he did himself. And, whether we be rich or poor, high or low, interest in our work generally wins our hearts. And by-and-by Dot found herself a way, as she thought, of helping old Solomon to make his graves look nice.

He was working one day at the bottom of a grave, and Dot was sitting on the grass at a little distance. He thought she was busy with her doll, for she had not been talking to him for a long time, and he gave a jump as he suddenly felt something patting on his head, and heard Dot's merry little laugh at the top of the grave. She had filled her pinafore with daisies, and thrown them upon him in the deep grave.

“Whatever in the world is that for?” said the old man, good-naturedly, as he shook the flowers of his head.

“It's to make it pretty,” said Dot. “It'll make it white and soft, you know, Mr. Solemn.”

Solomon submitted very patiently; and from that time the child always gathered daisies to scatter at the bottom of Solomon's graves, till he began to look upon it as a necessary finish to his work. He often thought Dot was like a daisy herself, so fresh and bright she was. He wondered at himself when he reckoned how much he loved her. Foe his own little girl had been dead so many years; and it was so long now since he had dug his old wife's grave, that Solomon had almost forgotten how to love. He had had no one since to care for him, and he had cared for no one.

But little Dot had crept into his old heart unawares.

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