CHAPTER 5

DOT'S BUSY THOUGHTS

A day or two after, as Dot was putting fresh daisies on the little grave, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and looking up she saw her little girl's mamma. She had come up very quietly, and Dot was so intent on what she was doing that she had not heard her. It was too late to run away; but the lady's face was so kind and loving that the child could not be afraid. She took hold of Dot's little hand, and sat down beside her, and then she said very gently––

“Is this the little girl who gathered the daisies?”

“Yes,” said Dot, shyly, “it was me.”

The lady seemed very pleased, and she asked Dot what her name was and where she lived. Then she said––

“Dot, what was it made you bring these pretty flowers here?”

“Please,” said the child, “it was 'cause Mr. Solemn said she was ever such a little girl––maybe about as big as me.”

“Who is Mr. Solemn?” asked the lady.

“It's an old man––him as digs the graves; he made my little girl's grave,” said Dot, under her breath, “and he filled it up and all.”

The tears came into the lady's eyes, and she stooped down and kissed the child.

Dot was beginning to feel quite at home with the little girl's mamma, and she stroked the lady's soft glove with her tiny hand.

They sat quite still for some time. Dot never moved, and the lady had almost forgotten her––she was thinking of her own little girl. The tears began to run down her cheeks, though she tried to keep them back, and some of them fell upon Dot as she sat at her feet.

“I was thinking of my little girl,” said the lady, as Dot looked sorrowfully up to her face.

“Please,” said Dot, “I wonder what your little girl said to you the night before she died?” She thought perhaps it might comfort the lady to think of it, as it had done so the other day.

The lady looked very surprised when Dot said this, as she had no idea that the little girl was near when she was talking to her husband.

“How did you know, Dot?” she asked.

“Please, I couldn't help it,” said little Dot; “I was putting the daisies.”

“Yes?” said the lady, and she waited for the child to go on.

“And I ran in there,” said Dot, nodding at the hawthorn bush. “I heard you––and, please, don't be angry.”

“I am not angry,” said the lady.

Dot looked in her face, and saw she was gazing at her with a very sweet smile.

“Then, please,” said little Dot, “I would like very much to know what the little girl said.”

“I will tell you, Dot,” said the lady. “Come and sit on my knee.”

There was a flat tombstone close by, on which they sat whilst the little girl's mamma talked to Dot. She found it very hard to speak about her child, it was so short a time since she had died. But she tried her very best, for the sake of the little girl who had covered the grave with the daisies.

“Lilian was only ill a very short time,” said the lady; “a week before she died she was running about and playing––just as you have been doing to-day, Dot. But she took a bad cold, and soon the doctor told me my little girl must die.”

“Oh,” said Dot, with a little sob, “I am so sorry for the poor little girl!”

“Lilian wasn't afraid to die, Dot,” said the lady.

“Wasn't she?” said Dot. “I should be frightened ever so much––but maybe she'd never seen Mr. Solemn bury anybody; maybe she didn't know she had to go into that dark hole.”

“Listen, Dot,” said the lady, “and I will tell you what my little girl said the night before she died. ‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘don't let Violet and Ethel think that I'm down deep in the cemetery; but take them out, and show them the blue sky and all the white clouds, and tell them, “Little sister Lilian's up there with Jesus’ Violet and Ethel are my other little girls, Dot.”

“Yes,” said Dot in a whisper; “I saw them at the funeral.”

“That is what my little girl said, which mad me stop crying the other day.”

Dot looked very puzzled. There was a great deal she wanted to think over and to ask Solomon about.

The lady was obliged to go home, for it was getting late. She kissed the child before she went, and said she hoped Dot would see her little girl one day, above the blue sky.

Dot could not make out what the lady meant, nor what her little girl had meant the night before she died. She wanted very much to hear more about her, and she hoped the lady would soon come again.

“Mr. Solemn,” said Dot the next day, as she was in her usual place on the top of one of Solomon’s graves, “didn't you say that my little girl was in that long box?”

“Yes,” said Solomon––”yes, Dot, I said so, I believe.”

“But my little girl's mamma says she isn't in there, Mr. Solemn, and my little girl said so the night before she died.”

“Where is she then?” said Solomon.

“She's somewhere up there,” said Dot, pointing with her finger to the blue sky.

“Oh, in heaven,” said Solomon. “Yes, Dot, I suppose she is in heaven.”

“How did she get there?” said Dot. “I want to know all about it, Mr. Solemn.

“Oh, I don't know,” said the old man. “Good folks always go to heaven.”

“Shall you go to heaven, Mr. Solemn, when you die?”

“I hope I shall, Dot, I'm sure,” said the old man. “But there, run away a little; I want to tidy round a bit.”

Now, Solomon had very often “tidied round,” as he called it, without sending Dot away; but he did not want her to ask him any more questions, and he hoped she would forget it before she came back.

But Dot had not forgotten. She had not even been playing; she had been sitting on an old tombstone, thinking about what Solomon had said. And as soon as he had finished the grave she ran up to him.

“Mr. Solemn,” she said, “did she get out in the night?”

“Who get out?” said the old man in a very puzzled voice.

“My little girl, Mr. Solemn. Did she get out that night, after you covered her up, you know?”

“No,” said Solomon, “she couldn't get out––how could she?”

“Then she's in there yet,” said little Dot, very sorrowfully.

“Yes, she's there, safe enough,” said the grave-digger; “it's the last home of man, is the grave, Dot.”

“But, Mr. Solemn, you said she was in heaven,” Dot went on, in a very mournful little voice.

Solomon did not know how to answer her, indeed it was very puzzling to himself. He wished he could think what to say to Dot; but nothing would come to him, so he gave up the attempt, and tried to think of something else.

But Dot's busy little mind was not satisfied. The little girl's mamma must be right; and she had said she hoped Dot would see Lilian above the blue sky. Dot wondered how she would get up above the sky.

“Mr. Solemn,” she said one day, “don't you wish you were just like a bird?”

“No,” said the old man––”no, Dot; I'd rather be digging my graves.”

“But, Mr. Solemn, they've got two wings,” she went on.

“And what would you do with two wings, my little dear?” said the grave-digger.

“I'd go right up into the sky, and look for my little girl,” said Dot.

“Oh,” said Solomon, “your thoughts are always running on that, Dot. How's dolly to-day?”

But Dot had left her dolly at home––she had almost forgotten it the last day or two.

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