Saucy Sally
THEY were a long way from the village; passing a small cottage with a white gate, when a little girl who was swinging on the gate put out her tongue at them.
Wendy and Joan stopped short in surprise. “What’s that for?” asked Joan.
“What’s what for?” asked the little girl, swinging more energetically.
“What did you put your tongue out at us for?” asked Wendy.
“I never!” said the little girl. “But I will now!” And she did it again.
“Why?” asked Wendy.
“Because you’re silly, you’re silly, you’re silly!” chanted the little girl. She jumped off the gate, turned head-over-heels on the grass, and jumped back on to the gate again.
“We’re not silly!” said Joan indignantly.
“Well, you’ve got silly faces,” said the girl. “I don’t like you. Don’t stand by my gate. Go home!” And she jumped off the gate again, and began throng stones at them.
Joan bent down to pick up a stone to throw back; but Wendy stopped her.
“We mustn’t do that,” she said. “We’ve got to turn the other cheek.”
“What?” asked Joan, blinking at her friend.
“Don’t you remember what Jesus said?”
“Oh!” said Joan, dropping the stone and looking disappointed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
The little girl, who had rushed into the cottage when she saw Joan bend to pick up the stone, now peeped out.
“Can’t hit me!” she taunted from the doorway.
“I don’t want to hit you,” said Joan.
The little girl did not quite know what to say to this, and came very cautiously out of the door as if she did not believe that Joan was in earnest. Hover, as nothing was thrown at her, she came back to the gate.
“It’s no use your coming in here and hitting me,” she said defiantly. “I’ve got a dog in here, a million times bigger than your silly dog, and he’ll eat you up if you come inside our gate.”
“We don’t want to come inside your gate, do we, Wendy?” said Joan.
“Why don’t you go home, then?” asked the little girl.
“We want to talk to you,” said Wendy.
“Well, I don’t want to talk to you,” said the girl.
“Why not?” asked Joan.
“Because you’re silly, you’re silly, you’re silly!” sang the little girl, swinging harder than ever on the gate.
“I think that’s a silly song,” said Wendy. “I know better ones than that. We learn them at Sunday school.”
“Oh, I don’t go to Sunday school!” said the girl. “I think that’s silly.”
“You think everything’s silly, don’t you?” asked Joan.
“Nearly everything,” said the little girl.
“Except you, of course,” said Wendy.
“Oh, I’m not silly!” said she.
“Well, I think you are,” said Joan. “Very silly, if you don’t go to Sunday school. Look what a lot you’re missing.”
“I’m not missing anything. Silly old hymns, silly old stories. I don’t want to go to the silly old Sunday school.”
“I suppose you think God’s silly, too,” said Wendy; “but He’s a lot cleverer than you are.”
“Why is He?” asked the little girl, frowning.
“Well, He made everything. Can you make anything?” asked Joan. “Can you make daisies and birds? Could you even make a gate to swing on, or a pudding to eat? I think it’s you that’s silly. You’re missing all the interesting things.”
“Why did He make everything, if He didn’t have to?” asked the little girl.
“Because He loves everything. He made you, too, and He loves you,” said Wendy eagerly.
“How can He love me?” asked the girl, stopping her swinging for a moment. “He doesn’t even know me.”
“Of course He knows you,” said Joan. “He knows your name and all about you. Don’t you ever talk to Him?”
The little girl shook her head.
“Well, I expect He talks to you,” said Wendy. “And I know He talks to Joan and me.”
“What do you love best of all in the world?” asked Joan.
“My kitten and my puppy and my baby brother,” said the little girl promptly. “And my little bird — he hurt his wing, and I kept him till it was better, and now he comes and sings outside my bedroom window in the mornings before I get up. And the poor little rabbit that the stoat hurt — I’ve got him in a cage, and he’s doing quite nicely. Oh, there are lots of things I love!”
“Well, it was God put it into your heart to love all those things,” said Wendy. “Because God is love, and when we love anyone or anything very much, it’s a little bit of God in us that’s doing it. If God didn’t love you, you couldn’t love your baby brother, because the love wouldn’t be inside you for you to use.”
“Anyone would love my baby brother,” declared the little girl. “He’s the sweetest thing in the world.”
“Well, God made him, and God loves him, too. And God went into your heart and made you love him. It’s all God,” said Joan.
The little girl opened the gate and joined the other two.
“Let’s sit down over here,” she suggested, “and you tell me more about it. How do you know God loves me?”
“Because He came down from heaven to die for you,” said Joan quickly.
“Why did He do that?” asked the little girl.
“It was to save you from Satan. You see, every time you do something naughty or unkind, Satan gets hold of you and makes you do more bad things, so that when you die you have to go to him and not to heaven. And Satan was getting hold of people so much that God knew that nothing they could do would save them, unless Jesus came down from heaven and died instead of us; so that we’re safe from Satan now.”
“Do you mean that if Jesus hadn’t died, Satan might get hold of me?” asked the little girl.
“Well, it was Satan who told you to put your tongue out at us, and say unkind things to us; so you see he would have got you, wouldn’t he?” said Wendy.
“I suppose so,” agreed the little girl. “I say, my name’s Sally,” she added. “What’s yours?”
“I’m Joan, and this is Wendy.”
“I didn’t know all this,” said Sally thoughtfully. “I knew wicked men hung Jesus on a cross, but I didn’t know He died for me. I — I don’t think it’s quite fair to do naughty things if He really did die for me, do you? I mean, I usually swing on the gate and try to make people cross, and then when they come after me I rush up the path and my big dog barks at them and frightens them off. But that doesn’t seem fair now, somehow, does it?”
“No, it isn’t, really,” Wendy agreed.
“I don’t suppose Jesus would like it,” said Sally, with a sigh.
“He doesn’t like people to be unkind,” said Joan. “He likes people to love each other.”
“Well, I love lots of things and lots of people,” said Sally cheerfully. “I’m afraid I tease them all, too.”
“I don’t think ordinary teasing matters,” said Wendy. “It’s only if you make people unhappy, or hurt them, that it makes Jesus sorry.”
“I don’t want to do that ever again,” said Sally.
“Well, why don’t you go to Sunday school, and hear more about Him?” asked Joan quickly. “I’m sure the more you hear about Him, the more you’ll love Him. He’s so kind and so strong and so brave. When He lived on earth, everyone loved Him, especially children; everyone except the wicked people.”
“I suppose I’d better,” said Sally. She stood up. “I’ll ask my Mum. You come and ask her, too.”
They all went in through the little white gate, Pluto following. A big black dog came prowling round from the back of the cottage, growling deeply in his throat, and Pluto growled back. Wendy flew to grab Pluto’s collar, and Sally rushed to her own dog and smacked his head.
“Be quiet, you wicked thing!” she scolded. “Can’t you see these are friends of mine?”
The dog looked ashamed of himself, and sat down by the side of the path. Wendy kept hold of Pluto’s collar as they went past, in case there was any trouble. However, although the two dogs eyed each other very hard, nothing happened, and Wendy let go of the collar, though she still kept an eye on the dog.
A plump woman with a merry face was putting a baby out in his pram from the kitchen as they came up, and she smiled at them.
“Dear me, visitors?” she said. “Have you brought your friends to see Baby, Sally?”
“Yes, and to ask you something, Mum,” said Sally. She ran to the pram and pushed her head in, to kiss the little baby. “Hullo, darling!” she cried, kissing his nose and his cheeks and his tiny hands. “Smile for Sally, now! Smile, darling! There! Look, Wendy — look, Joan — he’s smiling! Isn’t he the loveliest baby in all the world?”
“You’ll wake him up so much that he won’t go to sleep all morning,” laughed Sally’s mother.
“Oh, he is a darling!” cried Wendy. “I remember when my little brother was just like that. I do love babies!”
“So do I,” said Joan, leaning over the other side of the pram. “Will he smile for me?”
“expect so, if I ask him to,” said Sally. She tickled the baby under his chin. “Smile for Joan and Wendy, darling!”
However, the baby had had enough of smiling, and put his thumb into his mouth instead, and closed his eyes.
“He’s sleepy,” said Sally’s mother firmly. “Off you pop, all of you. He must have his sleep now.” And she wheeled the pram down the path away from the house.
I’ll ask her when she comes back,” said Sally. “You can come and see my bird and my rabbit now, if you like.”
“Is the bird in a cage, too?” asked Wendy.
“Oh, no: he lives in the tree nearest to my window, and he’s usually there. Look up — yes, there he is!
At least, I think that’s him. If you listen, I expect he’ll sing for you. He always sings to wake me up in the mornings.”
They stood and listened for a minute or two, but the bird did not sing, and soon Sally’s mother came back up the path. Sally forgot the bird at once, and rushed over to ask her mother if she might go to Sunday school on Sundays to learn more about Jesus. “Well, the times I’ve tried to get you to go!” exclaimed her mother. “But you never would!
What’s come over you all of a sudden?”
“Well, my new friends, Wendy and Joan, go there, and they’ve told me about Jesus, and I want to go and learn some more about Him,” said Sally.
“Well, I think it’s a very good idea, and I’m glad you’re getting a little sense at last,” said her mother.
“Now, what about a nice glass of milk and a slice of cake all round, eh? Wendy? Joan? What do you say to that?”
“Ooh, I think it’s a lovely idea,” said Wendy, and Joan agreed. They went into the cool, red-tiled kitchen, and sat down at the table, while Sally’s mother brought an enormous cake out of the larder and cut off three magnificent slices. Then she filled three glasses with rich, foamy milk, and set them before the young people.
It was a lovely cake, and the milk was delicious. Joan and Wendy had been feeling the least little bit tired, for they had come a long way; but after this snack they were as fresh as daisies again! They ate their slices until not a crumb remained, and then Sally’s mother cut them each another, in case they were still hungry! Wendy had to put half the second slice into her pocket — she said she was full right up! But Joan managed to finish hers, though she sighed several times before she reached the end of it.
“I am glad you came,” said Sally, as she saw her new friends off at the gate. She closed it and climbed up on it. “Isn’t it funny that I started making faces at you, and now we’re friends? I never thought we should be friends when I first saw you, did you?”
“You never know!” said Joan.