JULIA CARY
AND
HER KITTEN.
CHAPTER I.
A SAIL.
A fine large steamboat was sailing up the Hudson river one summer morning.
Up and down its broad decks and pretty saloons skipped lively little Julia Cary.
“Don’t ask me to keep still, Ellen; I can’t, I am so happy,” she said.
Ellen was her nurse, who had taken loving care of Julia since she was a baby.
She kindly went to the side of the boat, whenever it was to land, so that the little girl might see a stout man ring a big bell, and other men throw ropes to men on shore. These ran and threw the ropes over huge posts, and so held the boat fast till people went ashore. Then other people came on the boat; then the ropes were drawn back, and the boat started on again.
But Julia liked better still to wander about, holding her father’s hand. He could answer all her questions about the lovely shores they sailed between. He told the names of the villages they passed, and showed her the busy machinery that sent the boat swiftly along, far away from the hot city.
“Papa,” said Julia, “are you poor?”
“In money, child? No, no; I have more than you and I will spend.”
“And you are good, papa, and are not sick. What did that lady mean when she said, ‘Poor Julia! poor papa!’”
Mr. Cary walked quickly on, leading Julia by the hand.
Down stairs, where trunks and boxes of all kinds were piled, on their own poor luggage sat a family of German emigrants.
You would quickly call them poor. Their clothes were coarse. They were eating black bread, because they could not pay for a good dinner such as Julia and her father had.
Two little girls and one stout boy laughed and jabbered their queer talk with their mother and father. The mother held a baby on her knee—an odd-looking fat baby, with a funny cap on its head.
Mr. Cary sat down on a trunk, at a little distance from them, and lifting Julia upon his knee, he said,
“My darling will learn that she and I must be, in one way, poor as long as we live. What has that little trot-foot got that money cannot buy for my Julia?”
Julia looked at the shiny, apple-cheeked little Dutch girl who came shyly towards her. She noticed the thin dress, the heavy shoes, the ugly net over her yellow hair. Surely, Julia bought for herself lovelier things than those.
Julia kept thinking. The strange child too was thinking, and drew so near that she was scared at last to find herself so far from her mother. She turned and ran back. The mother held out her arm, hugged the little girl close to her heart, and kissed her between her blue eyes.
That kiss told Julia what her father meant. Laying her head upon his shoulder, she said, “I know, papa; she has her own dear mother. But mine—O papa!”
Julia’s tears choked back the words that might have told you her dear mother was in heaven.
Sitting there, Julia and her father felt how very poor she was in losing mother-love and care and kisses, like that which blessed those little strangers. The Germans had no house, no land—had only money enough to take them West, where they must work hard all day, early and late. But they had each other.
They might tell us that life and love are God’s best blessings. Health and wealth are also his rich gifts, but not so dear—oh no! oh no!