452 The Little Minister

girls, but just little boys, and God was sorry for
them, so He put a little girl in a cabbage in the
garden, and when they found her they were glad.
Would you like me to tell you who the little girl
was? Well, it was me, and, ugh! I was awful
cold in the cabbage. Do you like that story?”

“Yes; I like it best of all the stories I know.”

“So do I like it, too. Couldn’t nobody help
loving me, ’cause I’m so nice? Why am I so
fearful nice?”

“ Because you are like your grandmother.”

“‘ It was clever of my father to know when he
found me in the cabbage that my name was Mar-
garet. Are you sorry grandmother is dead?”’

“YT am glad your mother and father were so
good to her and made her so happy.”

“ Are you happy?”

Ves

“ But when I am happy I laugh.”

*‘T am old, you see, and you are young.”

“J am nearly six. Did you love grandmother?
Then why did you never come to see her? Did
grandmother know you was here? Why not?
Why didn’t I not know about you till after
grandmother died?”

“J’ll tell you when you are big.”

“Shall I be big enough when I am six?”

“No, not till your eighteenth birthday.”

“But birthdays come so slow. Will they
come quicker when I am big?”

** Much quicker.”

On her sixth birthday Micah Dow drove my
little maid to the schoolhouse in the doctor’s gig,
and she crept beneath the table and whispered :