THE SUNSHINE GIRL

New Zealand Tablet, 6 November 1913, Page 61

THE SUNSHINE GIRL

Betty looked up at the window with a smile and nod of her head. And her sister Lizzie, following her look with a pair of astonished eyes, saw a pale old face that was smiling, too, and a thin hand fluttering a greeting. ' Why, Betty ! How did you get acquainted with that old lady? She's been sick ever since those folks moved in.' Betty seemed to be thinking. 'I guess I didn't get acquainted with her,' she said reflectively. 'But she sat there by the window all wrapped up in shawls, and she looked as if she were watching for somebody she knew. And one day I waved my hand and she waved back. That's all.' ' That was a queer thing to do,' Lizzie admonished her. Sometimes the responsibilities incident to the .office of older sister rested rather heavily on Lizzie's ■ shoulders. ' Speaking to an old lady you didn't know. Probably she thinks you are a very strange child. I don't know why you do such things, Betty.' Something happened just then to turn Lizzie's thoughts into another channel, and she forgot all about the lecture on the proprieties. But a few days later Betty was taken sick and after she had been ill a week Lizzie was stopped on her way to school one morning by a woman whose face she did not remember. ' Excuse me,' the stranger said. ' But haven't you a sister with blue eyes and yellow curls? She wears a little white hat trimmed with daisies.' Why, you must mean Betty,' Lizzie said, staring. 'Well, is she sick? We haven't seen her for a number of days.' Lizzie explained, and the woman listened with interest. 'Mother said she was sure the sunshine girl was sick,' she remarked when Lizzie had finished. '' We always have called her that since she began smiling at mother in the window, and waving her hand. You see we came here from Ohio and it was pretty hard on mother, leaving all her old friends so far behind. She says that transplanting is all right for young plants, but not for the others. Well, she was sick so long, that she got awfully blue and downhearted, and then one day as she sat by the window, so homesick and forlorn, that it didn't seem as if she cared whether she lived or died, your sister went by, and she smiled up at her and waved her hand.' - Lizzie could not see that it was an occasion for > tears. But at this point the woman took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes. ' It was queer how much that meant to mother, such a little thing. Seems as if it took her out of herself. She kept talking about-the little girl and what a pretty face she had and what a sweet smile. And she wondered if she'd go by the house again, and whether she'd look up.' But she did both the very next day, and mother was as pleased as she could be. I really believe that's one reason she is so much better. And then when a whole week went by without a glimpse of her, mother got real worried, and she was sure the sunshine girl was sick.'

‘ I guess she’ll be out to-morrow/ Lizzie said. And if she goes by your house, I’ll tell her to be sure to look up at the window. The woman laughed. ‘ I guess that won't be needed. She isn't one of the sort that needs tilling, j-u s just like sunbeams. They don’t have to be told to shine. They keep on brightening tilings up for folks because that's what they are here for.'