Somehow the prayer must have been answered, for the little congregation hung upon her words, and one old man with deep creases in his forehead and kindly wrinkles around his eyes spoke out in meeting and said: "I like God. I like Him good. I like Him all e time wi' mee! All e time. Ev'e where! Him live in my house!"
The tears sprang to her eyes with answering sympathy. Here in her little mission she had found a brother soul, seeking after God. She had another swift vision then of what the kinship of the whole world meant, and how Christ could love everybody.
After Sunday school was out little Sanda came stealing up to her: "Mine brudder die," she said sorrowfully.
"What? Tony? The pretty fat baby? Oh, I'm so sorry!" said Ruth putting her arm tenderly around the little girl. "Where is your mother? I must go and see her."
Down the winding unkept road they walked, the delicately reared girl and the little Italian drudge, to the hovel where the family were housed, a tumbled-down affair of ancient stone, tawdrily washed over in some season past with scaling pink whitewash. The noisy abode of the family pig was in front of the house in the midst of a trim little garden of cabbage, lettuce, garlic, and tomatoes. But the dirty swarming little house usually so full of noise and good cheer was tidy to-day, and no guests hovered on the brief front stoop sipping from a friendly bottle, or playing the accordion. There was not an accordion heard in the community, for there had been a funeral that morning and every one was trying to be quiet out of respect for the bereaved parents.
And there in the open doorway, in his shirt sleeves, crouched low upon the step, sat the head of the house, his swarthy face bowed upon his knees, a picture of utter despair, and just beyond the mother's head was bowed upon her folded arms on the window seat, and thus they mourned in public silence before their little world.
Ruth's heart went out to the two poor ignorant creatures in their grief as she remembered the little dark child with the brown curls and glorious eyes who had resembled one of Raphael's cherubs, and thought how empty the mother's arms would be without him.
"Oh, Sanda, tell your mother how sorry I am!" she said to the little girl, for the mother could not speak or understand English. "Tell her not to mourn so terribly, dear. Tell her that the dear baby is safe and happy with Jesus! Tell her she will go to Him some day."