A Cup of Cold Water
“Please to get my china cup for me, Ann,” Daisy said, coming in from the “sweet out-doors,” as she called it, where she had been trying to read her new picture-book.
Ann was shelling peas for dinner, and did not wish to be disturbed.
“What do you want of your cup?” she asked crossly.
“I want to get a drink for an old man.”
“Well, take the dipper.”
“No, the dipper won’t do; I must have my cup, and I’m in a great hurry, a ‘fearful’ hurry,” Daisy said, imitating her brother Tom.
“I can’t be bothered with your notions,” Ann said, making her fingers fly very fast. “I’m in a hurry too; it’s high time these peas were cooking; besides, what old man is it? I don’t believe your mother would let you give a drink of water out of your cup to every old fellow that came along if she was at home; like enough he’s a tramp.”
“No, he isn’t a tramp; he’s a ’siple. He told me so.”
“A ’siple!” Ann said, bursting into a laugh. “What’s that?”
“Why, papa read about them in the Bible. They are Jesus’ servants, and he wants folks to give ’em a good drink of cold water when they are firsty.”
DAISY.
“Well, I can’t help it,” said Ann, laughing again. “I can’t be jumping up from my work all the time to wait on everybody. Take a dipper, if you must give him a drink.”
“Oh, dear!” cried Daisy. “I told you the dipper wouldn’t do. It said a cup; and I want my very bufulest one—that one with little birds on it. Come! Do get it for me.”
“Can’t do it,” Ann said, shelling peas with all her might.
Poor Daisy was hot and tired. She rested her elbows on the doorsill, and her chin on her hands, and looked very despairing. Two great tears came into her eyes, and at last she buried her face in her white apron and began to sob just as grandpa came along from the garden.
“Tut! Tut!” said grandpa. “What’s the matter with my pet?”
He sat down on the step, drew Daisy to him, and wiped her warm, tear-stained face with his clean linen handkerchief. It took but a few seconds to make grandpa understand what the trouble was; then he got up and said:
“Come and show me where it is.”
The sun came out again on Daisy’s face, and with her hand tightly clasped in grandpa’s, she pattered along to the dining-room closet—not tired a bit now.
Grandpa reached down the beautiful cup, then he got a pitcher and filled it with good cold water, and they two went down the front walk as fast as they could go.
When old Mr. Burton started out that morning to walk to the next town, he did not know what a very long, hot walk he had undertaken. He was a stranger, and was on his way to his son’s house. When he left the cars, the stage had gone. He was too poor to hire a carriage to take him over, so he had to walk five miles in a burning sun.
As he jogged along, he grew very thirsty. He wished there was a spring by the roadside, but there was none. He came in sight of a large white house on the hill, and said to himself:
“I have a great notion to go in there and get a drink of water; but then, they are rich folks. They would take me for a tramp, and maybe set the dog on me.”
As he came slowly along, looking up at the broad lawn with cool shadows of the great trees over it, he spied at the front gate a little girl. Her rosy face was hidden away in a white sunbonnet, but her blue eyes looked up smilingly.
“Be you a ’siple?” she asked shyly.
GRANDPA.
“A what?” the old man said, looking down.
“A ’siple. Do you love Jesus?”
“Oh, you mean a disciple! Yes, little one, I belong to the Lord Jesus,” Mr. Burton said.
“Do you want a drink of water?”
“Yes, indeed, my dear.”
“Then I’ll bring you one.”
And Daisy’s white dress vanished among the bushes while, the tired old man sat on the green grass at the edge of the walk and waited.
He was beginning to think he should see no more of her, when she appeared with a pretty china cup full of cold water; then grandpa came with the pitcher full, and the thirsty traveller had all the water he needed.
Grandpa invited him into the house to get a lunch before he went. Then Prince was harnessed and brought round, and grandpa said he had promised Daisy that he would take her to ride, and they might as well drive toward Woodbury as anywhere. So they all got into the carriage, and old Prince trotted off. The road was so smooth, the air so sweet, and the talk so pleasant, that before they knew it, they were at Woodbury; and there they left Mr. Burton.
He said he never should forget the little girl who brought him the cup of cold water, but that every day of his life he would ask God to bless her.
The verse that Daisy meant can be found in Matthew x:42.