"Yes, so he is, deary. It's old, you see, and we can't afford to get a new one."

"I've got to get a lot of samphire to-day, and I promised d.i.c.k I'd make some more letters for him in the sand," said Tiny, meditatively.

"But daddy wants you to help him with the net," suggested Mrs. Coomber.

The little girl had always been so pliant, so amenable to control, that Mrs. Coomber was surprised to hear her say pa.s.sionately--

"I won't do that nasty net. I must pick the samphire for Dame Peters, and show d.i.c.k my picture, first;" and then she s.n.a.t.c.hed up a basket, and ran out, not to the sands, where the fisherman and his boys sat mending the torn net, but away to the salt-marsh, where the seaweed grew thickest, and she could fill her basket most quickly. In an hour or two she came home, looking tired and cross.

"Ain't d.i.c.k come home yet?" she asked, throwing herself on the floor.

"They ain't done the net yet. Tom came to fetch you a little while ago."

"I don't want Tom, I want d.i.c.k. We're going to make some letters, and learn to read," said Tiny.

"You'd better leave the reading alone, if it makes you so cross," said Mrs. Coomber.

"No, it don't make me cross; it's that nasty net."

"But you always liked to help daddy wind the string and mend the net before. Why don't you go to them now?"

But Tiny would not move. She lay on the floor, kicking and grumbling, because d.i.c.k could not leave the net and come and see her picture.

"You're a very naughty girl, Tiny," said Mrs. Coomber at last; "and I don't see how you can think G.o.d will love you if you don't try to be good."

The little girl sat up instantly, and looked earnestly into her face.

"My other mammy used to say something like that," she said, slowly. And then she burst into tears, and ran and shut herself in the boys'

bedroom.

What pa.s.sed there, Mrs. Coomber did not know; but, half an hour afterwards, as she glanced out of the little kitchen window, she saw her running across the sands to where the group of boys sat mending the old net; and she smiled as she thought of what her words had done. She did not know what a hard fight Tiny had had with herself before she could make up her mind to give up her own way; she only thought how pleased her husband would be when he saw the child come running towards him, and that a fit of ill-humour, from which they would probably all have suffered, had been warded off by the little girl's conquest of herself.

But neither Tiny nor Mrs. Coomber ever forgot that day. A new element was introduced into the lives of the fisherman's family. The little girl learned her first lesson in self-control, and d.i.c.k and Tom began to master the difficulties of the alphabet; for, when the net was finished, and Bob and his father waded out into the sea on their shrimping expedition, Tiny ran and fetched her pretty picture to show the boys, and then they all set to work with bits of stick to make the letters in the sand.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER V.

ON THE SANDS.

Tiny was somewhat disappointed as the days went on to find that her pupils, Tom and d.i.c.k, took less and less interest in learning the letters she marked in the sand, or pointed out on the paper. They teased her to know how to put the letters together and make them into words which they could understand. But, alas! labour as she would, Tiny could not get over this difficulty even for herself. She had a dim idea that G O D spelt G.o.d, but she could not be quite sure--not sure enough to tell d.i.c.k that it was so. It was enough, however, to quicken her own interest in what the lines of letters might be able to tell her if only she could solve the mystery of putting them into words, for doubtless they would clear up her anxiety as to whether G.o.d loved boys as well as girls.

She did not spend her whole time poring over her picture. She gathered samphire, helped to sort the fish when it was brought in, or mend the much-despised net; but every day she spent some time diligently tracing out the letters she knew and spelling over G O D.

She might have mastered the difficulty with very little trouble if the fisherman had been less obstinate in his quarrel with the farm people, for Harry Hayes and his sisters were often down on the sands, sometimes bringing their books with them, and d.i.c.k, who longed to join them in their play, tried to persuade Tiny to go and ask them to help her with the reading difficulty.

"Dad won't say anything to you, even if he should see you talking; but he won't see, and I won't tell," urged d.i.c.k, one day, when the children from the farm were at play among the sandhills, and occasionally casting sidelong glances towards d.i.c.k and Tiny.

But the little girl only shook her head. "I can't, d.i.c.k," she said; "G.o.d wouldn't like it; mother told me that long ago."

"But how is He to know if you don't tell Him?" said the boy, in an impatient tone.

"Don't you know that G.o.d can see us all the time; that He's taking care of us always?" said Tiny, slowly.

"Oh, come! what'll you tell us next?" said d.i.c.k, looking over his shoulder with a gesture of fear. "He ain't here now, you know," he added.

"Yes he is," said the little girl, confidently; "mother said G.o.d was a Spirit. I dunno what that is, but it's just as real as the wind. We can't see that you know, but it's real; and we can't see G.o.d, but He's close to us all the time."

The boy crept closer to her while she was speaking. "What makes you talk like that?" he said, in a half-frightened tone.

"What's a matter, d.i.c.k?" she asked, not understanding his fear. "Don't you like to think G.o.d is close to you, and all round you," she suddenly added, in surprise.

d.i.c.k shook his head. "n.o.body never thinks about G.o.d at Bermuda Point, so p'r'aps He don't come here," he said, at last, in a tone of relief. "Oh, I say, Tiny, look! Harry Hayes has got a book! Let's go and see what it's about!"

"Well, we'll ask dad when he come home to-night, and p'r'aps he'll let us," said the little girl, turning resolutely to her own paper again.

"Oh, then, it's dad you're afraid of, and not G.o.d?" said d.i.c.k.

"Afraid! What do you mean?" asked Tiny. "G.o.d loves me, and takes care of me, and so does daddy; and if I was to talk to Harry Hayes, it would make him cross, and G.o.d doesn't like us to make people cross; and little gals has to do as they are told, you know."

"Oh yes; I know all about that," said d.i.c.k; "but what do you suppose G.o.d thinks of dad when he makes himself cross with the whisky?"

"Oh! He's dreadfully sorry, d.i.c.k, I know He is, for He makes me afraid of him sometimes, when he's had a big lot; and he's just the dearest daddy when he forgets to bring the bottle home from Fellness."

"Ah, but that ain't often," grunted d.i.c.k; "and if G.o.d wouldn't like you to talk to Harry Hayes, 'cos dad says you musn't, I'd like to know what He thinks of dad sometimes, that's all." And then d.i.c.k ran away, for if he could not speak to the farm children, he liked to be near them when they came to play on the sands.

A minute or two after d.i.c.k had left her, Tiny was startled by a sound close at hand, and, looking round, she saw Coomber coming from the other side of the sandhill.

"Oh, dad, I thought you was out in the boat," she said.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I WANT YOU TO SING A BIT, WHILE I RUB AWAY AT THIS OLD GUN.'" (_See page 81._)]

"Bob and Tom have gone by themselves to-day, for I wanted to clean the gun ready for winter," said the fisherman, still rubbing at the lock with a piece of oiled rag.

Tiny looked up at him half shyly, half curiously, for if he had only been on the other side of the sand-ridge, he must have heard all she and d.i.c.k had been talking about.

But if he had heard the fisherman took no notice of what had pa.s.sed.

"Come, I want you to sing a bit, while I rub away at this old gun," he said. "Sing 'Star of Peace'; it'll sound first-rate out here;" as though he had never heard it out there before, when, as a matter of fact, scarcely a day pa.s.sed but she sang it to please him.

When she had finished, he said, quickly: "What do you think about that 'Star of Peace' deary? It's the sailor's star, you know, so I've got a sort of share in it like."

"I think it means G.o.d. I'm a'most sure mother said it meant G.o.d," added the little girl.

"Ah, then, I don't think there's much share of it for me," said Coomber, somewhat sadly; and he turned to rubbing his gun again, and began talking about it--how rusty he had found it, and how he would have to use it more than ever when winter came, for the boat was growing old, and would not stand much more knocking about by the rough wintry sea; so he and Bob must shoot more wild birds, and only go out in calm weather when winter came. Then half shyly, and with apparent effort, he brought the conversation round so as to include Farmer Hayes.