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JENNY'S HAPPY YEAR

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 14, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 40.

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JENNY'S HAPPY YEAR.

"I REMEMBER," said the doctor's wife, "the day that Jane Marshal first came to school. There were about ten of us, and we were like other girls, and we thought we never could endure it when it leaked out that Mrs. Vance was going to take a poor clergyman's orphan, to prepare for teaching.
"Betty Kenneth declared she would never see her; she 'would pass her as though she were a blank wall,' which we thought a fine revenge on the girl for being poor. We all resolved to do the same.
"But when the day came, Mrs. Vance led in a thin little cripple, with an appealing face and a hump on her back.
" 'This is Jenny Marshal,' she said. There was a moment's pause, and then Betty marched straight up to her and kissed her, and we all followed her. Mrs. Vance looked surprised and pleased, but she soon led the new scholar out.
" 'I can't make war on a cripple,' said the roughest girl in the class.
"Betty's face was red, and she spoke vehemently. 'I know what we will do. She thinks of her deformity all of the time; I see it in her face. We must make her forget it. Do you hear, girls? It's a little thing for us to do—make her forget it.'
"If a teacher had told us to do this we should probably have disobeyed her; but Betty was the wildest among us. We were ready to follow her.
"We all went to work. We took Jenny into all our sets; we told her all our secrets. Not a word or a look ever touched on her deformity or that there was any difference between us.
"If she had been a whining girl, our good intentions might have been thrown away; but she was an affectionate little soul, ready to laugh at all our jokes. I fancy she was little used to jokes or fun. People had kept that terrible hump in her mind always as though that was to be the chief thing in life for her.
"She was not clever at her books, but Betty found out that she could embroider exquisitely. Then we asked Mrs. Vance to offer a prize for needlework, and Jenny of course took it.
"She had a voice fine and tender as a lark's, and Betty always contrived that people who could understand it should hear her sing. I have seen old men come to her with their eyes wet with tears and thank her for her songs.
"What was the end of it? Oh, it was not like a story, with some blessing at the close! It was a severe winter, and several of the girls had colds, two of them pneumonia. Jenny was one. She was not strong enough to fight against it. She was the only one who died.
"Yes, her poor little story came to a sudden end. We all saw her on that last day. Betty even whispered to her a great secret. 'You can tell the other girls when you are well,' she said, nodding.
"Jenny laughed; but she looked at each of us as we kissed her, in a queer, steady way.
" 'I never was so happy in my life, girls,' she whispered, 'as here with you. Never. I wish I could stay—'
"That was all; but when we looked at her dead face the next day, there was a quiet smile on it.
"Betty's little effort had made the last year of the tired child's life peaceful and bright." —Selected.