“Indeed I do; and I’m so glad to hear you say that, because I was afraid you’d long to be off to the old ways, and all I’ve tried to do would be undone. Would you like to go back, Ben?” and Miss Celia held his chin an instant, to watch the brown face that looked so honestly back at her.

“No, I wouldn’t—­unless—­he was there and wanted me.”

The chin quivered just a bit, but the black eyes were as bright as ever, and the boy’s voice so earnest, she knew he spoke the truth, and laid her white hand softly on his head, as she answered in the tone he loved so much, because no one else had ever used it to him: 

“Father is not there; but I know he wants you, dear, and I am sure he would rather see you in a home like this than in the place you came from.  Now go and dress; but, tell me first, has it been a happy birthday?”

“Oh, Miss Celia!  I didn’t know they could be so beautiful, and this is the beautifulest part of it; I don’t know how to thank you, but I’m going to try—­” and, finding words wouldn’t come fast enough, Ben just put his two arms round her, quite speechless with gratitude; then, as if ashamed of his little outburst, he knelt down in a great hurry to untie his one shoe.

[Illustration:  Miss Celia and Ben.]

But Miss Celia liked his answer better than the finest speech ever made her, and went away through the moonlight, saying to herself: 

“If I can bring one lost lamb into the fold, I shall be the fitter for a shepherd’s wife, by and by.”

CHAPTER XXII.

A boy’s bargain.

It was some days before the children were tired of talking over Ben’s birthday party; for it was a great event in their small world; but, gradually, newer pleasures came to occupy their minds, and they began to plan the nutting frolics which always followed the early frosts.  While waiting for Jack to open the chestnut burrs, they varied the monotony of school life by a lively scrimmage long known as “the wood-pile fight.”

The girls liked to play in the half-empty shed, and the boys, merely for the fun of teasing, declared that they should not, so blocked up the door-way as fast as the girls cleared it.  Seeing that the squabble was a merry one, and the exercise better for all than lounging in the sun or reading in school during recess, Teacher did not interfere, and the barrier rose and fell almost as regularly as the tide.

It would be difficult to say which side worked the harder; for the boys went before school began to build up the barricade, and the girls stayed after lessons were over to pull down the last one made in afternoon recess.  They had their play-time first, and, while the boys waited inside, they heard the shouts of the girls, the banging of the wood, and the final crash as the well-packed pile went down.  Then, as the lassies came in, rosy, breathless, and triumphant, the lads rushed out to man the breach, and labor gallantly till all was as tight as hard blows could make it.