Joanna Mathews - Daisy's Work. The Third Commandment

Her own account of the storm was the same as the child's; but while the recollection of the little one could go no further, Betty remembered only too well the horrors of that day.

When it was found that the ship must sink, and that all on board must leave her, there had been, as the little girl said, great confusion. How it was, Betty could not exactly tell; she had been placed in one boat, the French nurse, with the child in her arms, beside her; and the lady was about to follow with the infant, when a spar fell, striking the Frenchwoman on the head and killing her instantly, knocking overboard one of the three sailors who were in the boat, – while at the same time the boat was parted from the ship and at the mercy of the raging waves. In vain did the two sailors who were left try to regain the ship: they were swept further and further away, and soon lost sight of the vessel. They drifted about all night, and the next morning were taken up by a fishing-smack which brought them to New York.

Fright and exposure and other hardships, while they seemed to have cured Betty, were too much for the poor little girl, and a long and terrible illness followed: after which she lay for months, too weak to move or speak, and appearing to have lost all memory and sense. And when at last she grew better and stronger, and reason and recollection came back, she could not tell the name of her parents or her home.

"Marga ret Saacyfut," Betty persisted in saying the French nurse had called her little charge, "Mamsell Marga ret ," "and if the lady's name wasn't Saacyfut it was mightily nigh to it."

"Marguerite" had been the French woman's name for "Daisy: " that the General saw plainly enough, but he could make nothing of the surname.

"But did you not seek for the child's friends, Betty?" he asked.

"'Deed did I, sir," she answered. "Didn't I even ad ver tise her, an' how she was to be heerd of, but all to no good. An' I writ to New Orleans to them what owned the ship, but they were that oncivil they niver answered, not they. An' it took a hape of money, sir, to be payin' the paper, an' me such hard work to get along, an' Marga ret on me hands, an' I had to be done with it. For ye see me man was gone wid the ship, an' niver heerd of along wid the rest to this day; an' I had to use up the bit he'd put by in the savin's bank till the child was mendin' enough for me to lave her wid Jack."

"It was a very generous thing for you to burden yourself with the care of her," said General Forster.

"Burden is it, sir? Niver a burden was she, the swate lamb, not even when the sense had left her. An' that was what the neighbors was always a sayin', and why didn't I put her in the hospital. An' why would I do that after the mother of her savin' me from a buryin' in the say, which I niver could abide. For sure if it hadn't been for the lady I'd 'a died on the ould ship, and they'd 'a chucked me overboard widout sayin' by your lave; and sure I'd niver have got over such a buryin' as that all the days of me life. And would I be turnin' out her child afther that? An' isn't she payin' me for it now, an' 'arnin' her livin,' an' mine too? She an' Jack tends the bit of a garden, an' arternoons she comes down an' sells her flowers, an' where'd be the heart to refuse her wid her pretty ways and nice manners; a lady every inch of her, like her mother before her."

And thrusting her head out from her stall, Betty gazed down the street with admiring affection on her young protégée .

"Och! but she's the jewel of a child," she went on; "and it is surprisin' how me and Jack is improved and become ginteel all along of her. Ye see, sir, I did use to say a hape of words that maybe wer'n't jist so; not that I meant 'em for swearin', but it was jist a way of spakin'. But after Marga ret began to mend and get about, ye would have thought she was kilt intirely if I let one out of me mouth. So seein' how it hurted her, I jist minded what I was about, an' Jack the same, for he was a boy that swore awful, poor fellow; he'd been left to himself, and how was he to know better? At first him and me minded our tongues, for that the child shouldn't be hurted; but by and by didn't she make it plain to us that it was the great Lord himself what we was offendin', and knowin' she'd been tached better nor me, I jist heeded her. And now, sir, them words that I never thought no harm of and used to come so aisy, I jist leave them out of me spache widout troublin'; and a deal better it sounds, and widout doubt more plasin' to Him that's above. And Jack the same mostly, though he does let one slip now and agin. So ye see, sir, it's not a burden she is at all, at all, but jist a little bit of light and comfort to the house that houlds her."

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