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Title: Pansy's home story book
Editor: Pansy
Release date: May 11, 2025 [eBook #76069]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Lothrop Publishing Company, 1896
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PANSY'S HOME STORY BOOK ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration]
Pansy's Home Story Book
Edited by MRS. G. R. ALDEN. (Pansy)
AUTHOR OF "FOUR GIRLS AT CHAUTAUQUA," "CHAUTAUQUA GIRLS AT HOME,"
"ESTER RIED," "LINKS IN REBECCA'S LIFE," "JULIA RIED,"
"HOUSEHOLD PUZZLES," "RUTH ERSKINE'S CROSSES," "THE RANDOLPHS,"
"WISE AND OTHERWISE," "A NEW GRAFT ON THE FAMILY TREE,"
"WHAT SHE SAID, AND WHAT SHE MEANT," "THE POCKET MEASURE,"
"HALL IN THE GROVE," "SOME YOUNG HEROINES," "EUGENE COOPER," ETC.
[Illustration]
_FULLY ILLUSTRATED_
BOSTON
LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY
Copyright, 1896,
BY
LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.
———
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS.
YOUNG PEOPLE AT HOME.
EUGENE COOPER.
STELLA WESTON AT HOME.
JOHN MAYNARD.
SOMEBODY'S TROUBLE.
SOME YOUNG HEROINES.
A LITTLE WHITE CASKET.
HOUSEKEEPING. BY REV. G. R. ALDEN.
THE OLD ARM-CHAIR.
BROKEN.
CHARLIE SMYTHE.
GRANDMOTHER BROWNSON.
A FOOLISH LITTLE GIRL.
FLORENCE AT HOME.
MINNIE LEE AND HER KITTEN.
ONLY A SPARK.
ROBERT HALL.
A LETTER FROM BIRD-LAND.
HARVEY IN TROUBLE.
TWO SINGERS.
HE WENT IN. BY REV. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
[JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL]
A THANKSGIVING SHOWER.
THE OTHER SINGER.
NAILS. BY REV. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
THE SPARROW IN THE SNOW.
THE BOY WHO WANTED TO BE A HERO.
RUFUS MAKES A POCKET MEASURE.
TWO WAYS OF LOOKING AT IT.
THEIR FAITH.
HOW SIDNEY GOT THE PLACE.
THE LITTLE YELLOW DOG. BY MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
WHERE I WENT, AND WHAT I SAW.
STORIES FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
WHO DID IT?—A STORY IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.
A DAY THAT JOHNNY NEVER FORGOT. BY MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
THREE LITTLE M'S.—A THREE-PART STORY. BY MARGARET SIDNEY.
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
P. S.
SIDE BY SIDE. [PART I.]
"THE OTHER ONE."
THE THREE LITTLE M'S.—PART II. BY MARGARET SIDNEY.
WHO DID IT? PART SECOND.
SIDE BY SIDE. [PART II.]
THE THREE LITTLE M'S.—PART III. BY MARGARET SIDNEY.
PANSIES P. S. THOUGHT.
WHO DID IT? PART THIRD.
SIDE BY SIDE. [PART III.]
PANSY'S HOME STORY BOOK
YOUNG PEOPLE AT HOME
[Illustration]
EUGENE COOPER.
"WELL, begin," said George Dunlap.
The other boys laughed.
It was just at the close of summer vacation, and the five friends
having met under the old tree, had agreed to give the story of their
travels. It had not been decided who should be first speaker, so there
seemed nothing to do but laugh over George Dunlap's direction.
"All of us do you mean?" Charlie Smythe asked.
"No, I mean you; or, no, the fellow that took the longest journey shall
have the first chance."
"I went just twenty-four miles," said Charlie, meditatively.
Then they all laughed again.
"We needn't laugh, yet," George Dunlap said, when his laugh was over.
"It may happen that Charlie saw more in those twenty-four miles, than
we who went a thousand."
"I don't believe a single one of us went a thousand miles."
"Oh ho! You don't? Then you are mistaken. I went very nearly two
thousand." This from Eugene Cooper.
"Then begin," said George Dunlap. "You're the very fellow."
"Well, from the very beginning, do you mean? It will take a week! In
the first place we struck a bee line for Albany, in New York State, you
know."
"How do you go to Albany?"
"Well now, that depends on what point you start from; I met a fellow
who walked to Albany every Monday morning, and walked back on Friday;
but we went by rail."
"Of course; I mean what road?"
"Oh, we went down the New York Central,—took it at Buffalo, you know.
We went by steamer to Buffalo, down Lake Erie. That's a splendid ride:
great handsome steamer, saloon all carpeted, and curtains and mirrors
and sofas, finer than some folks' parlors. I went on deck, and one of
the sailors walked around with me and showed me the life-boat, and how
they lowered it, and the ropes, and everything. I was sorry when we got
to Buffalo. There we took the train. Little narrow cars, not like the
Erie, that I've been used to riding on; nice enough, though, and they
go like sixty. Why, we were in Albany by dark, and it is two hundred
and ninety-eight miles!"
"Well now, we shall be more likely to be astonished, if you tell us
what time you left Buffalo."
"Why, in the morning, about ten o'clock."
"That 'was' doing pretty well. Better than my father did; he went from
Albany to Buffalo about fifty years ago, and it took him three weeks."
"How long is it since the Central Railroad was built, anyhow?"
"Look here, boys," interrupted Eugene Cooper, "you are stealing my
time; I didn't promise to tell about the Central Railroad, nor the way
folks used to travel before it was built."
"All right. Tell us about Albany. How big a town is it?"
"Oh, it's big enough, eighty or ninety thousand or so; a handsome old
city I tell you! Nice wide streets, some of them; State street is the
handsomest,—wide and clean, and straight up a hill. We stopped at the
Delavan house; that's the nicest in the city I guess,—nice enough to
suit me, anyhow. My! But it's elegant.
"Do you fellows know about Delavan? Father says he was a poor boy, a
boot-black, and he used to hear the folks talking a good deal about a
house, somewhere in Albany, that cost a great deal of money and was
considered very grand in those days. And Delavan stood looking at it
one day, and says he to himself, 'I'll build a bigger house than that,
one of these days.' He did it, too; father says the house they used to
think so fine was just nothing by the side of the Delavan."
"He did a bigger thing than build the Delavan house. I think," said
George Dunlap.
"Why, what did he do?" chorused the boys.
"He was a grand temperance man, and worked for the cause and gave money
for it."
"Did you go down the Hudson?" questioned Robert Hall, whose mind was on
travel, and not on great men.
"I reckon I did! Boys, the Hudson is just the grandest river on this
continent I do believe. I got up before daylight to see the palisades."
"I haven't the faintest kind of an idea what the palisades are." This,
Charlie Smythe said, stretched out at full length on the grass, a
wistful look in his eyes. About twenty-four miles had been the extent
of his travels every year, but he longed to see and know.
"Why, my child, the palisades are, are—well now it's difficult to
explain things to people who have never seen them."
This was the most comprehensive answer that Horace Brooks, with his
extensive opportunities could make, and the boys roared.
"They are rocks, my child, great splendid rocks, from three to five
hundred feet high, straight up and down, and they are as much as
fifteen miles long. What do you think of such a showing of rocks as
that!"
"Where's the sense in calling them palisades? I thought palisades were
nothing, but a row of sharp-pointed sticks, built up around a fort, or
something of that kind."
This time the boys stared at each other instead of laughing; Charlie
was always asking questions that were hard to answer.
"I don't know," said Eugene, frankly. "Do any of you? They look as
though they might have been built up for forts, that's a fact. I
shouldn't wonder if they took their name from that. Anyhow, they are
grand to look at. Oh, that reminds me! Don't you think I saw—"
Just at that moment came an interruption,—a young man tearing down the
road in hot haste, waving his hat, and shouting lustily to some one in
the distance.
"What's that he is yelling?" asked four of the five boys.
And none of them answering, George Dunlap said, "He's scared at
something; let's go and see."
Then every one of those fellows sprang up and took to their heels,
regardless of the wonders of travel and the beauties of the Hudson.
══════════
STELLA WESTON AT HOME.
OH, yes, she was at home, curled up in the corner of the couch, with
the last number of the "Wide Awake" in her hand, buried in a story.
Much good it did to have her at home! Little Miss Amie Weston was
also at home, and was supposed to be under Stella's care. Such care!
Anything short of pulling the house down about her ears, would have
failed to arouse Stella until she reached the end of her story. It is
a mercy that the nursery was heated from a black hole in the floor,
instead of by a grate-fire, or the house might have been well under
way, burning down, before Stella would have known it.
Amie had been established with her blocks, and told to "be a good
child, there's a dear, and let sister read." And she was doing it. The
blocks, to be sure, did not last long; hadn't she played with them a
thousand times? She wanted something new. There was kitty, pushing
softly in from the hall. Dear me! What black paws kitty had! She must
have been in the coal-cellar after a mouse.
Amie resolved that she ought to be washed before she was allowed to
jump on the sofa.
She spoke to Stella, about it, but Stella was buried, you know, and
heard nothing.
So, with much tugging and groaning, she succeeded in bringing the
china bowl to the floor, and pouring a little water in it, and a good
deal over the carpet. This she carefully wiped up with one end of the
Persian rug, that lay before the toilet-stand. Then she made a lovely
lather with cashmere bouquet soap, and splashed poor kitty in, head
and ears. There was much squealing, and spitting, and a little bit of
scratching, but Amie, being a brave girl, endured it, and brought one
of the heavy damask towels from the rack to wipe the wretched kitty's
eyes; then the hair brush of real bristles, and with inlaid handle, was
dipped into the suds, and did duty in brushing kitty's soaking fur and
whiskers.
[Illustration: PUSSY'S TOILETTE.]
Just what Amie would have done next will never be known, for the cat
suddenly resolved that she would not endure such treatment another
minute, and, giving a skilful jump from her tormentor's hands to the
side of the bowl, and from the bowl to the floor, with a fearful
"yowl," departed through the open door.
I am sorry to tell you that in her flight she overturned the bowl of
suds.
"Sakes!" said Amie, in dismay.
That yell from the cat roused even Stella, and she dropped her "Wide
Awake," and sat upright.
"What on 'earth' is the matter?"
Then, catching sight of the plight that Amie was in, with a lap full of
foamy water, she started up.
"Why, Amie Weston! What 'have' you done now? I never 'did see' such a
child! You are always doing mischief!"
Oh, dear! What trouble there was in that home, Amie's dress was stained
with the soapsuds, and her shoes and stockings were wet, and the hair
brush was spoiled, and Stella's temper was spoiled, and the mother,
when she came, was tempted to scold both Amie and Stella, and punish
the poor cat.
To whom do you think Stella laid all the blame? When she found that
Amie was really too little to know better, and remembered that the cat
never had any sense, she threw the "Wide Awake" down on the floor,
and kicked it under the sofa, and said, "It is all the fault of that
hateful old book! If it hadn't been for that, all these mean things
wouldn't have happened."
JOHN MAYNARD.
FANNY STUART sat for fully twenty minutes, biting the end of her lead
pencil, or making little irregular scratches with it, on the paper
before her. At last she said in her weariest and most discouraged
tones, "Oh, dear me! I 'can't' think of anything. I wish we had a
different subject."
"What's the matter now?" It was her fourteen-year-old brother who asked
the question, as he closed his Latin dictionary.
"Why, this subject. Miss Parsons is always thinking of hard things. She
wants us to write about heroism. Something that we think would be real
grand, you know! I can't think of anything grand."
"Why don't you tell a true story of a hero?"
"I don't know any."
"I'll give you one; tell about John Maynard."
"John Maynard, who was he?"
"He was a pilot on Lake Erie; a good man, and a grand man, I think.
Don't you remember hearing father tell the story of the burning boat?"
"I don't believe I ever heard of it."
"Well, he was bringing a steamer from Detroit to Buffalo, and the
first thing they knew great puffs of black smoke were coming up from
somewhere. A man was ordered below to see about it, and he reported
the ship on fire. Then there was all awful time, the captain shouting
orders, and the people running in every direction to obey them, and the
passengers streaming. To make matters worse, the boat was loaded with
tar and resin; they soon saw that there was no hope of saving her.
"They were only about seven miles from land, and could make it in three
quarters of an hour; but, mind you, where the pilot stood, the fire
was growing hotter and hotter. They crowded forward, passengers and
sailors, only John Maynard; there he stood, with the flames bursting
out all around him, and the heat getting fiercer every minute. Suppose
he had gone forward too? The captain kept shouting out to know whether
he could stand it, and he would answer, 'Ay, ay, sir!'
"The fire grew hotter, and hotter, and it grew every minute more
terrible for John Maynard. Only five minutes more, and if the pilot
could stand it, they would reach the shore. There he stood at his
wheel, his hands blistered, his face scorched, working away at his
wheel.
"'John Maynard!' the captain shouted, putting up his trumpet, 'Can you
hold on five minutes longer?'
"And this is what he answered, Fanny,—
"'By the help of God I will, sir.'
"One hand burned so that he could not use it any more; his hair was all
burned from his head, yet there he stood, and guided the boat to the
shore. And everybody on that boat was saved. But he gave his life for
it, he fell overboard dead, just as his work was done.
"He was a hero, Fanny."
"Yes," said Fanny, in a low voice, "I think was. I can write that
story. I'm sure Miss Parsons will think that was heroism. I like it for
another thing, Allen, I don't believe John Maynard could have done that
if he hadn't been a good man, one who asked God for help: he would have
been afraid to die."
"Well, I don't know, perhaps not," her brother said, but he went away
with a sober face; he liked the idea of being a hero, but if it took
a Christian to make a hero, as Fanny said, then he knew he was not
preparing for one.
══════════
SOMEBODY'S TROUBLE.
"Come, you little maiden, hush awhile your fretting,—
Surely you have trouble with your ribbons, and your rings,
And trouble with the rain,—which always is forgetting
That you want to go to church,—and with many other things.
"Why, the first thing in the morning, if spring chance to be the season,
After trouble with awaking, there is trouble with the dew;
Yes, the May dew 'is' the meanest, and there ought to be no reason
Why, to make your face look fairer, it should have to wet your shoe.
"You have trouble with the sun, which, instead of being pleasant—
Only pleasant, nothing further—is too gracious with his heat;
And there's trouble with the moon, which is sometimes just a crescent,
When it 'should' shine full and golden through the shadow at your feet.
"You have trouble with the blossoms, which keep lying close and curly,
Afraid of wind, and all that, although you want to wear
A bud of rose or violet, that's 'out' a little early,
To some beautiful pert party, in your muslins and your hair.
"You have trouble, through your books, with some hundred thousand cities,
With a spicy lot of islands and a stormy set of seas;
With your moods, sometimes imperative; and certainly one pities
A golden head so sadly vexed with unknown quantities.
"You have trouble with all nations too, through history or tradition,
With their manners, dress, religions, with their kings and with their wars;
And perhaps, somewhat remotely, through the telescopic vision
Of Professor This, or That, you have trouble with the stars.
"Now, since you must have trouble, since to bear it you seem able,
(I fancy even trouble, may be made a little sweet),
Suppose you take your trouble and arrange it on the table;
Let the china, glass, and silver show that trouble can be neat.
"Suppose you try with trouble, if you cannot please the baby;
He has many a petty failure, and many a grievous loss;
And suppose you dust a chair or two, as charmingly as may be,
And suppose you teach a housemaid just how not to be 'cross.'"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
SOME YOUNG HEROINES.
THERE was to be a grand picnic on the Fourth of July up in Mr. Paxton's
woods; a school picnic to which all the scholars, old and young, were
invited. There was a great deal of planning to be done, and among
other questions that came up, was that old one which has always to be
talked over, as to what they were all going to wear. Half a dozen of
them or more, met one evening at Fanny Easton's on the croquet lawn and
discussed the matter.
"I shall wear my new Swiss mull," said Cora Lewis.
Now Cora was one of the best dressed girls in the school, and the rest
always liked to follow her example as far as they could. They looked
at each other in some dismay. If she was going to wear such an elegant
dress as her new Swiss mull, what "should" they select to match it.
"I think I shall have to wear my summer silk," said Alice Wilmot,
speaking somewhat faintly, "I suppose it is not very good taste to wear
silk to a picnic, and mamma will not approve of it much, I'm afraid,
but still I haven't another decent thing."
"I shall wear my buff organdie with blue ribbons," Estelle Porter
said, and the girls, who knew how lovely the organdie was, and how
exactly the blue ribbons matched her hair, could imagine what a picture
Estelle, the beauty, would be.
Meantime Faith Halsted had not said a word; her face was quiet and
thoughtful, and at last they, noticing her stillness, called out,
"Faith, Faith Halsted what are you going to wear? You are getting up
something to outshine us all, I do believe, and that is what keeps you
so still."
Then Faith laughed. "I shall wear my new blue sprigged calico dress,
and thick boots," she said brightly. "If you think that will be
outshining the rest of you, I just hope you will follow my example."
Oh, what a chorus of eager and rather indignant voices there was then!
"Now Faith Halsted, I think that is real mean!" "O, Faithie, you
'can't' mean it!" "But Faith, what are you going to do that for, when
you have such lovely dresses?" "Faith, does your mother agree to that
way of dressing?" These are some of the exclamations and questions.
Then Faith sat down on a mossy bank and clasped her two pretty hands,
and spoke her reasons. "Well girls, I'll tell you; you know Carrie
Morris? Well, she is one of the sweetest girls in our class, I think,
as well as one of the best scholars. She will have to be rather
prominent that day, you know, because she stands so high in class.
Now, I happen to know that she hasn't a nice thin dress in the world;
her father has been sick all the spring, and they have just had to do
without things. Carrie has a light calico, neatly made; she looks as
fresh as a daisy in it, and I know she means to wear it. I've been
thinking how unpleasant it would be for her to be in common calico, and
all the rest of us dressed in our best, and I just decided to wear my
new calico; mamma is willing; so now, you have my reasons."
Nobody seemed to be quite ready with an answer to this; they all stood
and stared at each other, or looked off to sea for a few minutes. Then,
suddenly, Cora Lewis came to the front.
"I'll tell you what it is, girls, let's do a new thing, and astonish
everybody. We each have pretty calicoes, nicely made, let's wear them
to the picnic; then people won't be staring at those two girls and
wondering about it."
I told you Cora Lewis was a leader; the girls were all ready to be led;
they clapped their hands over the new idea, and voted at once that it
should be done. It was so new an idea to these fashionably-dressed
people, and struck them so pleasantly, that, after all, I am not sure
there was a heroine among them, except little five-year-old Lolly
Porter. The tears were actually in her eyes when she said it, but she
struggled to speak in a brave voice.
"Then I won't wear my new fancy top gaiters, but just my every day
shoes, so Trudie Baker won't cry because she has to wear patched ones."
"Bless her little heart," exclaimed several voices, and Lolly was
kissed until the tears turned to smiles.
"What are you girls talking about?" said Cora's handsome young brother,
putting his head in among the group.
"Common sense," said Faith Halsted.
"Yes, and what's more, we are going to 'live' it, as well as talk it,"
added Estelle Porter. And they did.
══════════
A LITTLE WHITE CASKET.
SHE was just as cross us anybody that you can imagine. Not the little
girl by the sofa with the dollies; oh no, that is Cora, she was very
quiet and pleasant; a little bit disappointed, but bearing it bravely.
It was Emma, the older sister, who was hopelessly cross. She kicked the
kitten and turned it out of the room.
And when Cora begged, she said, "No, indeed; did she suppose she
was going to have that horrid little kitten under her heels all the
afternoon?"
Then she sat down in the large rocker to nurse her wrath. With whom was
Emma angry? Well, truth to tell, she would not have quite liked to own.
She had had a heavy disappointment; a splendid meeting there was down
town this very afternoon; a missionary meeting, and a real China-man in
costume was to be there, and a little Japanese girl, and she, Emma, was
to have read the report of their Band, and was one of the singers; so
was Cora, for that matter, and here they both had to stay at home.
"Such perfect nonsense," said Emma to herself, rocking back and forth
angrily. "Just a little sprinkle of rain that wouldn't hurt a kitten!
Mamma is 'so' afraid of Cora; I know it isn't going to rain any more.
Just because she has had the measles, she must be cooped up at home,
and I have to stay with her. Other children who have had the measles
caper about, and don't mind rain nor any thing; I think it just is too
bad. Mamma might have stayed herself."
[Illustration]
She didn't mean that last; she knew her mamma was the presiding officer
and "must" be there, if it were a possible thing, and really she
wouldn't have had her stay in her place for "anything;" but it was such
a relief to think cross things. As she glommed over it, and thought how
all the rest of the Band girls would be there, and how much they would
miss her voice in the singing, and how horridly Alice Parker would be
likely to read the report that she had written so carefully, she kept
growing crosser every minute.
So when Cora, tired of her dolls, and lonely without the kitten,
and trying to be brave without mamma, and bear her own great big
disappointment es well as she could, came and leaned against her
sister's chair, and proposed that they practise their duet so as to
play it beautifully for mamma, she was pushed not very gently away.
"No, indeed; she never wanted to hear that silly little duet again; it
was too babyish for a girl like her anyway; she wasn't 'going' to play
it, ever. For her part, she wished she could ever play anything, or go
anywhere, or do anything like other girls, without being always tied to
a little baby."
Then she flounced out of the room, shut the door behind her, and sat
down on the lowest steps of the side piazza, where Cora could not come
because of the dampness. Here she meant to have a good time going over
all her grievances. She was right in the midst of them, her face as
gloomy as night, when the solemn "toll, toll, toll" of a bell made her
look up and down the street, and wonder if there was a funeral coming.
Yes, there was the hearse, drawn by white horses, and with white plumes
all around it; some little child in the white casket inside; then a
long line of carriages followed, slowly, slowly, oh, so solemnly.
"Who is dead?" This question she asked of Carrie Phillips as she
stopped at the gate to wait for the procession to pass.
"Oh, Emma Barstow! Didn't you go, after all? I didn't either; don't
you think, I missed the train. But then I don't care, it was because
brother Aleck came home unexpectedly. Why, that little bit of a
Marshall girl is dead; don't you remember her? They live away up on
Selwyn avenue."
"What, that little curly-haired girl?"
"Yes; the one that looks like your Cora. I went to see her, after she
died, and she did look just exactly like her."
"I didn't know she was sick," said Emma with a little shiver. "What was
the matter with her?"
"Why, she had the measles, you know; she got all well; then she took
cold, and they went to her lungs, or something, and she didn't live but
a few hours. Oh Emma, Aleck brought me some lovely presents."
"I must go right in to Cora," said Emma, rising suddenly, her face as
white us the dress she wore. She trembled so that she could hardly get
across the piazza. That little thing who looked "exactly like" their
Cora, being carried by in a white casket, on her way to Laurel hill.
It might have been their Cora. Her heart stood still while she thought
of it, and of all the hard thoughts she had had about staying with her
darling sister.
What a sister she was for the rest of that day! The first thing she did
when she came in, was to seize upon Cora and hug and kiss her until the
little thing was almost smothered. Then she was ready for anything. The
duet? Why, she was willing to play it through twenty times; she would
dress and undress all the dolls; she called in the kitten and let it
climb on her shoulder and paw at her hair; and every few minutes she
kissed Cora, and called her "Emma's darling pet."
"Emma was just as good and sweet as two angels," explained Cora
earnestly, when the mother came home; and not a word said the forgiving
little girl about the first half hour of misery when the cat was
kicked, and everything went wrong.
"I am very glad," said the Mother, with a relieved sigh; "Emma was
disappointed, and I was afraid she would not be able to rally. She is a
dear girl."
And Emma, with quivering lip, and face that was still pale, felt that
she could hardly wait until Cora was asleep, for a chance to confess
to her mother, about that first miserable half hour, and how the slow
tolling bell and the little white casket recalled her to her senses.
══════════
HOUSEKEEPING.
BY REV. G. R. ALDEN.
[Illustration]
THEY built their nests in a shady nook,
Where the trees were all fresh and green,
Where never a lad had been known to look,
Or to hide him to read either paper or book,
Or a hunter had stopped his dinner to cook
Of meat, either fat or lean.
Two loving birdies, indeed, were they,
Each willing to do his share.
With a welcome song would they greet the day,
And as happily "work" as if it were "play,"
And never for once caused any delay
Till their nest was done, I declare.
But why build a nest with so much care?
As soon a boy's pocket unused!
So into this nest, so soft and fair,
One laid little eggs, so round and rare,
Then patiently, constantly waited there,
Though 't was dull, she never refused!
But one fine morn, the time to awake,
There something happened that I must tell:
'Twas just as the day began to break
When the little shells began to shake;
And I'm so glad, for birdies' sake!
For what was within each shell?
Why, a little birdie, as you must know.
Three sisters and a brother
In that sweet nest were there to grow
A little each day, though very slow;
While parents keep flying to and fro,
Each trying to help the other.
May you in your home as happy be,
In work, or study, or play.
Taking each kindness as thankfully,
Waiting God's time as patiently,
Doing each duty as faithfully
As the birdies up in that tree!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE OLD ARM-CHAIR.
I DO not know that this story would ever have been written, had it not
been for Rupert Strong, who really was not "strong" at all, but a very
weak boy because he could not resist the temptation to do mean things.
One night grandmother Burchard left her dear old arm-chair out on the
side porch, and in the morning it was gone.
Battered and bruised was the old chair, yet how Grandmother Burchard
loved it. It had been young when she was, and had come home to the
new house with her, a bride. And "father," as for fifty years she had
called Mr. Burchard, always sat in it at family worship, and when he
read the newspaper, and took his little after-dinner naps. Only once
since "father" went to heaven, ten years before, had she left the chair
on the porch, forgotten.
One time was enough fur Rupert Strong. He thought it would be "funny"
to drag the old chair away, tie Jonas Barker's great yellow cat to it,
and send it floating down stream. "Another Moses in the bulrushes,"
chuckled Rupert.
This plan was never carried out, for the reason, among others, that
Jonas Barker's cat was not to be found. Rupert got tired of dragging
the chair around with him, and finally left it in the grove through
which he passed on his way home.
There it was that Ralph Burns found it nearly a week after it had been
stolen. He knew the chair at once; he had often sat in it and eaten one
of Grandmother Burchard's cookies. He dragged it home, a poor, forlorn
chair. Rain had soaked it through and through. Wind had rolled it over
and over, and battered and bruised it on every side, and two of the
rounds were gone entirely. Whether the birds carried them away for
fishing-rods, or what became of them. Ralph never knew. Ralph's heart
swelled with indignation.
Rupert's attempt at "fun" had tickled him so much,—the plan that he
meant to carry out and didn't,—that he told it to some of his friends,
and the story leaked out.
So Ralph, when he found the old chair, had no trouble in deciding how
it got to the woods. "I'll tell you what it is," he said to his mother
that evening, "I know a bit of fun worth a dozen of Rupert's plans;
wouldn't it be nice to take that old chair to Mr. Rice and get him to
fix it up; put on a new head-piece, and new rounds, and paint it, and
all, and then take it back to her?"
"I'm afraid it would cost almost as much as a new chair," said his
mother.
"Well, but if it did, it is worth more than all the new chairs in the
country to Grandmother Burchard. I've got a dollar; I should think that
might fix it up nice; you wouldn't mind having me spend my dollar in
that way, would you?"
"I don't think I would," said his mother.
I want you to understand, that in her secret heart she was very much
pleased with Ralph for having thought of such a kind, unselfish thing
to do, but of course she didn't want to tell him so.
Mary, however, Ralph's sister, was not so quiet. "I think that is a
real nice plan." she said, decidedly, "and I mean to make a cushion for
it; that crimson shawl that you said was too worn-out to do anything
with, would make a splendid cushion, mother."
And the mother agreed that it would.
"Very well," said Grandmother Burns, from her handsome chair in the
corner; "I'll knit her a tidy for it, such as we used to knit in the
old times."
Every one of these plans was carried out,—secretly, too.
Grandmother Burchard had given up talking about her dear old chair;
many a time though she sat in her straight, high-backed one, and
thought about it. I have neglected to tell you that she was poor, so
far as chairs and things of that kind were concerned. She was rich
enough; being one of the people described in the second chapter of
James, fifth verse.
One lovely summer afternoon the chair was done, glistening with paint,
glowing in a red cushion all over its back and seat; gleaming with
a white tidy, made after the pretty pattern of forty years ago; and
Ralph put it in his hand-cart, and trundled along over the hill with it
towards Grandmother Burchard's little cottage. It was a great pleasure
of course to him, to meet Rupert Strong, who stared at the chair, not
recognizing it, and said, "My eyes! Ain't that a beauty!"
Ah, but what did Grandmother Burchard say? You won't be disappointed, I
hope, to hear that the first thing she did was to cry.
"I'll tell you what it is," she said to Ralph, when she was quieted
down a bit; "the angels came all around that chair once, and stood
and waited; and it's my opinion they've set store by it ever since,
and that's the reason you were told to do such a thing as this, for
Grandmother Burchard; and your dollar bills are none of the plentiest
either, bless your heart."
"Angels!" said Ralph, with wide open astonished eyes.
"Yes, angels. Father was sitting right in that chair, reading in his
Bible, when they come after him; and I make no doubt that they waited
for him to finish his chapter, for he said, with his eyes on his book,
'Wait a bit.'
"And I said, 'What did you say, father?'
"But dear heart, he wasn't speaking to me, and they waited, for he
finished his chapter, with his finger on the last verse, and then laid
back his head, and then I went in a hurry to see what was the matter.
They had taken him away! Oh, the dear chair! I hope they'll find me
sitting right here in it, when they come for me."
That evening Ralph sat at home, with thoughtful face, and worked at a
problem; not being able to get the answer, he went to his father for
help.
"Father, you know about the old chair?"
"I should think I did," said his father, laughing.
"Well, you know how Rupert stole it, and all; now I was thinking, ought
he to get a blessing, too, such as Grandmother Burchard says people get
for kind things? Because, you know, if he hadn't stolen it, we'd never
have thought of making it over new?"
"Do you suppose he stole it to please Grandmother Burchard, my boy?"
"Why, of course not."
"Then you will find the answer to your question in the 23d chapter of
Proverbs, the 7th verse."
And Ralph, who rushed for the Bible, found this:
"As he thinketh in his heart, so is he."
══════════
BROKEN.
"AREN'T they just 'lovely!'" As she said this, Estelle Brownson held
the quaint, dark blue cream-pitcher aloft, to show how transparent it
was.
"Oh, they are too pretty for 'anything!'" declared Frances Holmes, her
dear friend and companion, and she wound her arms caressingly around a
dark blue plate, as she spoke. "I don't believe another girl in our set
can bring such a charming array of old things as you can. How came your
grandmother to let you take them?"
[Illustration]
"I'm sure I don't know; I didn't expect it; she thinks so much of them.
Grandpa bought them, you know, when they first commenced housekeeping,
sixty years ago. Just think, Frances, of having been a housekeeper for
sixty years! I didn't expect to be allowed to touch these dishes, but
I was telling mamma about the plans for the old folks' supper, how we
were going to have all the nice old-fashioned things we could get, for
the table. And I was complaining that our things were so distressingly
'new;' when grandma said,—
"'I suppose you would like the blue china tea-set to dress out your
table with.'
"I gave a little scream, and said I guessed I would, better than
anything else in the world. And when she said I might take it, I gave
her such a hugging as to almost take her breath away. I wouldn't have
one of the pieces broken for 'anything;' I'm really afraid it would
break grandma's heart. I've been nervous all the morning, while I was
wiping them and getting them ready. I shut Tiny up in the nursery for
fear she would break something."
But somebody had let Tiny out of the nursery; she came skipping over
the ground just at this moment, her heart full of some scheme of
importance.
"Oh, Stella!" she said, as she came within hearing. "Mamma says I may
go to the supper, and that she will dress me up in white pantalets, and
a long-sleeved, high-necked white apron, just as little girls used to
dress ever so many years ago. Won't I look too funny!"
And the happy little girl whirled on one foot, and came up with a thud
against her sister just as she was turning to set the cream-pitcher
down. Down it went, not on the table, but on the hard floor, and of
course it broke, in—I don't know how many pieces.
Poor little Tiny! How suddenly the happy light went from her eyes, and
her face grew pale.
But Estelle did not see it; all she saw was the cream-pitcher in
hopeless ruins. "You naughty, careless, wicked girl!" she exclaimed,
her voice hoarse with anger. "You hit my arm on purpose; I know you
did! You are a perfect little nuisance! Always in the way; the idea
of your bunting up against me in that manner! You ought to be whipped
severely, and I'll tell mother so; see if I don't. Come into the house
this minute!"
And she seized the arm of her frightened little sister, and dragged her
up the steps, and through the hall in frantic haste. It was hours after
that, in the cool of the afternoon, that Estelle knocked softly at the
door of grandmother's room, then slipped in and sat down in a sorrowful
little heap at her feet.
"Oh, grandma!" she said. "Have they told you? I'm so 'awfully' sorry! I
could cry for a week if that would only mend it."
"So am I, child," said grandma, knitting away quietly on her red and
white stocking; "I would cry, too, if that would do any good; but tears
will not mend them; there were so many of them broken, too: that seems
to make it worse."
Then Estelle lifted her sorrowful face. "Oh, grandma!" she said. "There
was only one broken: that was bad enough; did you think there were
more?"
Grandma gravely shook her white old head. "You are mistaken," she said,
"there was more than one, child; I was in the sitting-room at the
time, and heard the crash. Let me see, 'Bear ye one another's burden.'
That was broken, I'm sure: poor little Tiny had to bear her own heavy
burden. Then, 'Be ye kind, one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving
one another;' I'm afraid that was dreadfully broken. Oh, there were a
good many of them; I felt them rattling about my ears all the morning."
Not another word said Estelle. For ten whole minutes she buried her
head in grandmother's apron.
Then grandmother said softly, "Take them to 'Him,' child, and try
again."
══════════
CHARLIE SMYTHE.
"LOOK here, old fellow," said Eugene Cooper, as soon as the boys were
seated under their favorite tree, "you haven't peeped yet; it is high
time you give us an account of some of your adventures."
"I told you I didn't go but twenty-four miles," said Charlie, chewing a
clover top.
"Never mind that," chorused the boys, "tell us where you went and what
you saw."
"I went to Adams' birthplace."
"What Adam?" asked George Dunlap. "John Quincy, or Samuel; or, no, it
can't be that you went to Eden, where Adam the apple-eater began life!"
"I don't mean those Adams," laughed Charlie, "I means the second
president of the United States."
"Oh, I declare I don't know where he was born."
"Oh, well it isn't a very remarkable place, and there wasn't a great
deal to see; but I liked it because John was born there. It was at
Quincy, Massachusetts, or Braintree, as they used to call it."
"Did the people have lots of stories to tell about Adams, when he was
a boy? That's what they talk about, when you go to great people's
birthplaces."
"I heard about his getting tired of Latin and wanted to give up the
idea of an education, and how his father cured him."
"I don't remember any such thing," declared two of the boys.
"Nor I," said Horace Brooke; "tell us about it."
"Why, he was about fifteen; and he hated Latin. One day, he decided
that he could not study it any longer, and he went to his father and
told him, he did not like study, and wanted to go to work."
"'Very well,' his father said, and set him to work digging a ditch.
'See if ditching suits you, since Latin doesn't,' he said.
"But it didn't suit; by noon, he hated it worse than the Latin grammar;
and by night he thought he had never been so tired in his life. He
would have liked to go back to school the next morning, but he was too
proud to give up, so he worked in the ditch for another day. At night,
though, he told his father he would like to leave the ditch, and try
the grammar again."
The boys all laughed, and Horace said he would have chosen ditching
rather than Latin.
"Well, Adams became a fine scholar, even when he was young man," said
George Dunlap.
"Yes," said Charlie, "he did. And a statesman, too; why, when he was
only nineteen he wrote that letter, you know, which hinted that he
believed this country would set up for itself. What a brilliant man he
was! A lawyer, and a foreign minister, and a vice-president, and then
president. Suppose he had stuck to that ditch, instead! Perhaps we
should have had no Declaration of Independence."
"Why? He didn't write it."
"Well, he helped write it; and nominated George Washington for
commander-in-chief of our army."
"When did Adams die?" asked Horace.
"On the Fourth of July, 1826. Wasn't it strange that he and Jefferson
should die on the same day?"
"Why, did they?"
"Yes; on that Fourth of July, the first semi-centennial celebration.
They were friends, you know, and lawyers, and makers of the Declaration
of Independence, and foreign ministers, and presidents, and they died
together. Adams' last words were, 'Jefferson survives.' It wasn't so,
though; Jefferson died a few hours before."
"Upon my word, I didn't know much about it," frankly declared George
Dunlap.
And Eugene Cooper said, "Look here, boys, we haven't heard a word about
summer vacation travels; this young scamp has been giving us a lesson
in American history!"
"Which we seemed to need," said one.
And then they all laughed, only Charlie, his face was grave; he was
still thinking of John Adams.
"After all," he said, "I wish he had said something better than that
to die by; he was a great man. But when my grandfather died, his last
words were, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth.' And those were better
words for last ones than anything that Adams said."
"I guess," said Horace Brooks, getting up from the grass, and shaking
the dried leaves from his clothes, speaking slowly and gravely
meanwhile, "I guess you've got to 'live' things, or you can't 'say'
them when you come to die."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
GRANDMOTHER BROWNSON.
"IT is just wonderful to hear her read in the Bible," said Estelle,
talking about her grandmother, as she was fond of doing. "It doesn't
matter how dull a chapter you pick out, she is sure to have some sweet
new thought about it. I wish I loved to read it as well as she does;
and knew half as much about it. I don't believe you could pick out a
place, from which she wouldn't give you a new thought."
"I do," declared Stuart Harper, who was leaning against the door,
pulling yellow roses to pieces, and scattering the leaves on the
piazza. Stuart was one of those boys who are always picking things to
pieces. "My small brother was stumbling through a lot of hard names in
his Bible-reading this morning, just because they belonged to the next
chapter in his course; and I said to mother that I didn't believe there
was any good to be gotten out of a list of names, if they 'were' in the
Bible; I don't believe even your grandmother could make anything of
them."
"Let's try her," exclaimed Estelle, "she is in her room with her
knitting. She is always ready to read to us; let us all go in and ask
her to read that chapter. Can you find the place, Stuart?"
No sooner thought of, than the whole troop of grandchildren with Tiny
at their heels, and Stuart Harper, and Francis Holmes, following more
quietly, started for grandmother's room. She received them cordially,
in no way surprised, for she was used to many visits from the young
people. Neither did it astonish her to be asked to read; this was a
favorite Sabbath afternoon entertainment, and grandmother saw no reason
why it should not be as pleasant a thing on Tuesday, as on the Sabbath.
"Stuart wants you to read from the first chapter of Numbers, beginning
at the fifth verse," explained Estelle, "he wants to ask you some
questions about it."
So grandmother read: "'And these are the names of the men that shall
stand with you: of the tribe of Reuben, Elizur the son of Shedeur; of
Simeon, Shelumiel the son of Zurishaddai; of Judah, Nahshon the son of
Amminadab; of Issachar, Nethaneel the son of Zuar; of Zebulun, Eliab
the son of Helon.'
"I never read over these names," said grandmother, looking up over her
spectacles, "but I think of your father; when he was a little boy, he
liked to read them, and to imagine how he should feel if he should read
there, 'Tommy, the son of Jeremiah.' That was your grandfather's name,
you know; and your father said, he knew he should hold up his head
proudly at the thought of being the son of such a good man as Jeremiah.
"'But mother,' says he, 'what if father couldn't hold up his head, when
my name was called, because he was ashamed of me.'"
And grandma laughed, and at the same moment wiped a tear out of her
faded eyes, and went on with her reading.
"'Of the children of Joseph: of Ephraim, Elishama the son of Ammihud;
of Manasseh, Gamaliel the son of Pedahzur.'"
Then she looked up again. "Did you ever think, children, what a
beautiful thing it is that the Lord knows us so well he can call all
our names? I love to think of him as speaking of my children and
grandchildren, and setting them their tasks to do for him."
It was a solemn thought, as well as a sweet one, and ought to have
sobered them. The grandchildren were quiet, but Stuart could not resist
the temptation to clap his hands. This made grandma look up in wonder,
and then the whole story came out.
"But I still think," said Stuart, "that it would take a woman like
grandmother, to find the crumb in such verses as those."
"Read on, my boy," said grandmother, "read on to the last verse:
"'And the children of Israel did according to all that the Lord
commanded.'
"Are these children doing so?"
══════════
A FOOLISH LITTLE GIRL.
SHE was washed and partly dressed, and set up high and dry in a safe
place while Mrs. Stuart went for more clothes. Her name was Margary,
and she had been picked up in the streets. Mrs. Stuart meant to dress
her neatly, and teach her to read, and sew, and sweep, and dust; in
short, teach her how to be a useful girl, and earn her own living. They
had made a queer beginning.
[Illustration]
"Do you know how to wash yourself?" she had asked the dirty little
girl, when she first brought her home.
"Yes 'm," said Margary, with twinkling eyes.
And as she seemed to know a great deal, for a little girl of her age,
Mrs. Stuart had taken her to the bath-room and showed her how to draw
the water, and where to put the towels, and the soaps, and had left her
to herself, to see what kind of a bath she would take.
"I really didn't feel as though I could touch the little thing, until
she got her dreadful rags, and some of the dirt off," said Mrs. Stuart
in telling about it, afterwards.
One thing she forgot, that was to lock the door that lead from the
bath-room into Miss Emma's dressing-room. What do you think little
Margery did but slip in there!
It was lovely there, she thought, and she roved around looking at
everything. On the bed lay Miss Emma's white dress, fresh from the
laundry, where its many ruffles, and puffs, and tucks, had been
carefully fluted and pressed; "a good half-day's work," Nelly, the
ironing-girl, said it was. Also there lay, near at hand, a lovely new
garden hat, trimmed with white tarlatan, and a pair of high-heeled
French slippers with stockings to match Miss Emma's ribbons. That very
afternoon she was going to a garden party, and her dress was laid out,
ready for her to put on. She had gone to the garden to pick just the
sort of flowers that she needed for a wreath, and in the meantime,
Margery had slipped in.
"Oh, my!" she said. "How perfectly splendid!"
Then she set to work; the beautiful tucked skirt and elegant white
dress were slipped on, over her rags and dirt; they trailed on the
floor, but what of that? Margery thought that more becoming than short
dresses. Then she sat down on the floor, and drew on the delicate
stockings over her dirty bare legs, and slipped into the French
slippers, and perched the garden hat on the back of her naughty head,
drew on the gloves, seized the delicate parasol with dirty fingers, and
began to parade up and down the room.
Imagine what Miss Emma said when she came in and caught her! Imagine
what Mrs. Stuart said when she was summoned to see this dirty little
girl, prinked up in borrowed feathers! Do you wonder that she took
Margery in hand herself, gave her a bath in haste, burned her dirty
clothes, then dressing her in the clean ones, perched her high up on a
table near at hand, with orders not to stir until she came back?
There Margery sat, looking somewhat cross, and disappointed; she liked
the fine clothes better than these.
But I wanted to tell you what Mrs. Stuart said to her daughter Emma
that evening. You must know that Miss Emma grew very cross indeed, over
the fact that she could not wear the lovely new stockings, after they
had been drawn on Margary's naughty little limbs, and over the horrible
discovery that one of her gloves was hopelessly soiled. She wished that
poor Margary was back in the cellar, from which she had been dragged,
and declared that her mother was very foolish to try to make anything
of the little beggar.
"The poor child thought she could cover up her soiled and worthless
rags by your beautiful dress," said Mrs. Stuart, with a sigh, "and
Emma, dear, mother is sometimes afraid that you are covering a sadly
soiled heart with a pretty body, and thinking, like poor foolish
Margery, that it is all right, because the soil is covered from human
eyes."
══════════
FLORENCE AT HOME.
IT was Sabbath morning, and she was standing before the glass, tying
the ends of her lovely, new sash; and Carrie leaned on her elbows and
watched her for a minute, then looked at nothing, and wished that
she was a little more like Florence. She was pretty, and bright, and
everybody admired her. This very morning she was going to do something
so nice! In the next square was a new family, just moved in; Florence
had already become acquainted with Weston, the fifteen-year-old son,
and invited him to attend Sabbath-school, and he had laughed, and
declared that he didn't go to Sunday-school very often; but at last had
agreed to call, and be shown the way to the church by Florence.
"I don't believe they are people who go to church much," Florence
had said, as she drew on her long mitts with a pleased air, "but I
shouldn't be surprised if I could get him in the habit of going."
And then Carrie had sighed, and wished that she could do anything; here
she had to stay poked in the house this beautiful day, because she had
a sore throat; she was always getting sore throats.
"That is all I can do," she told herself drearily, "get a sore throat,
and a swelled nose, and red eyes, and stay in the house."
Just then the deer-bell rang, and Master Weston's voice was heard in
the hall.
Then was Florence in a flutter. "Dear me! There he is, and it is time
we were off. Where is my handkerchief? Carrie, haven't you seen my
handkerchief? You certainly must have taken it; I laid it right here.
I 'do wish' you would let my things alone! Mamma, have you seen my
Quarterly? I thought it was on the table; where 'can' it be! Oh, dear
me, mamma, I 'should' think you might help me find it. I 'hate' to
be late. Oh, never mind my money, I can take it next Sunday; mamma,
'please' don't keep me waiting to get it; I shan't go at all, if I have
to wait much longer. Carrie Marshall, I know you tucked my handkerchief
somewhere. Mamma, 'won't you please' let me go this minute? You seem to
just want to make me late. I don't care if my hair is too low down; it
is just the way all the girls wear it. I wouldn't have it flying around
my face in the wild way that Carrie does, for 'anything.' Carrie, hand
me that book, quick! I shall go distracted!"
Then I rejoice to tell you that she went out of the room, tripped down
the stairs, and was off.
Her invalid mother drew a relieved sigh. "I wish Florence were not such
an excitable girl," she said, as she moved about picking up many things
that the young miss in her hurry had sent flying hither and thither.
"If she were a little more like you, dear, in some things, I should be
glad."
Meantime, Florence was tripping along beside her new friend, as bright
as the morning itself. Very anxious she was to be a help to him. She
was a Christian girl, and wanted to do good. It was not by any means
"make believe." She told him about their nice Sunday-school, what
a pleasant superintendent they had, and what a "perfectly splendid
teacher;" she told him about the young people's prayer-meeting, and
asked him to attend; and with great sweetness and skill brought her
question around, until she fairly asked him if he were a Christian. And
said, earnestly, "I am so sorry," when he told her "no."
Then she said a few sweet, earnest words, that ought to have done him
good, and she wondered in her heart why it was that he was simply
polite in return, showing not the slightest interest in the subject.
If she could have looked into "his" heart, she would have found just
this: "I wonder what this dainty little miss in her pretty hat, and her
frizzes would say if she knew I waited for her in the hall, while she
left her room door open, and talked to her mother and 'Carrie'—whoever
she is. The talk I heard then, and the talk I'm hearing now, don't seem
to match. How am I to know which she means?"
Poor Florence! Her thoughtless, disrespectful words at home, that
morning, had spoiled the influence of her work abroad! And the worst
of it was, she was so used to being careless in this matter, that she
didn't suspect it.
══════════
MINNIE LEE AND HER KITTEN.
TRAVELLING from Attica to Rochester in New York, some years since,
I changed cars at Avon. A moment after entering the car, a lady and
little girl came in and took the seat directly in front of me. The
child's face was radiant with joy, as she frequently raised the cover
of a little basket on her arm and looked curiously into it. Her sweet
little face had no wrinkles of care or unrest.
As I contemplated it, memories of childhood joys and days made me
feel like a child again. My own curiosity was excited by her constant
looking, and I leaned forward to ascertain the cause of so much
happiness.
The little girl, with the quick intuition of childhood, raised the
cover of her basket and exposed to view a kitten. I said, "that is a
'beautiful kitten;' what is its name?"
"Daisy," was her quick reply. "I wish you would give me Daisy," I said,
gently.
"Oh! 'No, sir;' I can't give you Daisy—I love Dairy so much."
"But, Minnie, I 'want' Daisy, and I will give you a dollar for her."
"Oh! No, sir, I can't sell Daisy."
"Do you love candy, Minnie?"
"Yes, sir, I guess I do."
"Well, then, you can get your basket almost full of candy for a dollar."
"Oh, sir, I love Daisy, more than I do money or candy."
[Illustration]
She was so simple and happy, I was confident she had been taught, in
the Sunday-school and at home, to love the Saviour. I then asked her if
she went to Sunday-school.
"Yes, sir; I go to Sunday-school always."
"Well, Minnie, do you love the dear Saviour?"
"Why, 'yes, sir; I guess I do. Do you love Jesus?'" was her quick
retort.
"Yes, my darling, I do, and I'm so glad to know you love the dear
Saviour. He is our best Friend; he will go with us if we will let him,
all through life, and love us, and keep us, and save us. By-and-by
we'll go where Jesus is, and then sin will not hart us any more."
Her little face grew bright with joy, and the light kindled in her
eyes. Looking at me steadfastly for a little while, she lifted her
basket, and with the sweetest voice said, "Sir! 'You may have Daisy;
you may have Daisy.'"
For a moment I hardly knew what reply to make, but said, "No, my
darling, I can't take Daisy from you."
The tear came to her eye, as she said, "Why won't you take Daisy?"
"Because you love Daisy more, and will take better care of her than I
can."
I trust this beautiful lesson will not be forgotten—at least by the
writer. Neither money nor candy could induce the child to give up
her kitten; but because I loved her dear Saviour, she loved me more
than her kitten, and was willing to give up her idol to please a
friend of her Saviour. The atmosphere of heaven is love. Love is the
vitalizing power which ripens the soul for heaven. Pride, and anger,
and self-will, cannot live where love is found. Love is unselfish. "God
is love."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ONLY A SPARK.
IT was to be a tableau party, and among other tableaux, there was
to be a bridal scene. Pretty Alice Knowlton had been chosen for the
bride, because every one said she had the sweetest face of any of the
girls, and looked "perfectly lovely" dressed in white. She did look
lovely, with her long bridal veil, and her real orange blossoms from
Mr. Silover's conservatory, and all of the bridesmaids, as well as Mary
Lewis, who was waiting maid in general, stood around her, and planned
and admired, and made little changes here and there to add to the
effect.
"We must hurry, girls," one of them had just said. "The people are
getting impatient down-stairs, I hear them in the halls asking when we
'are' to have another scene."
Just then came Phebe, the little colored errand girl, to say that Mrs.
Lewis said, that the bridal party must stand at the left of the stage
instead of the right, because the wind blew the curtains right against
the gas light when the door was opened on the right.
"Then we will have to tell the gentleman," said Mary Lewis, "that will
change their position entirely; let's tell Charlie Burns, and he will
arrange it with the others; run Phebe, and tell Mr. Burns that the
ladies want to see him a minute in the south room."
"Botheration!" said gentlemanly Charlie when he received the message.
"What do they want now? They've been planning long enough to be really
and truly married nine times over. I wonder if I shall have to throw
away this cigar? It is one of the best I ever tried."
"Take it along with you, Charlie, they only want to ask some question,
and you can come directly back; I wouldn't sacrifice a good cigar to
one of their whims."
That was the advice of one of the groomsmen, and Charlie following it,
crossed the hall from the gentlemen's dressing-room, puffing a cloud of
smoke into Phebe's face. He held the cigar in his hand, while he talked
with the ladies, and went to puffing again, the moment the door closed
after him.
"Ugh!" said the pretty bride, shuddering. "I wouldn't marry Charlie
Burns in real earnest for anything; I hate cigar-smoke."
Well she might! How was it done? Whose fault was it? Is there anybody
who can ever give a careful account of the very beginnings of an
accident? There was a curious smell, a sudden blaze, a scream from
Phebe who had stooped to shake out the train of the bridal dress,
a succession of fearful screams that rang through the house, and
brought crowds of guests, as well as the gentlemen performers from
the dressing-room, and the only thing about it all that was painfully
certain, was that the pretty bride was cruelly burned.
It was all talked over a great many times after that; what a sad thing
it was that she should have put her beautiful arms into the blaze to
try to crush it out, and burned them so that they were shrivelled and
useless, and that her limbs were so burned that she could never walk
again.
Then people would say in whispers,—"They don't 'know' of course, but
it must have been a spark from Charlie Burns' cigar, it couldn't have
happened any other way, for she wasn't standing near the gas light, and
he was there but a minute before, with a lighted cigar in his hand;
they say poor Charlie feels awfully: he has never smoked a cigar since."
Oh dear me! Small good will that do pretty Alice Knowlton. If he had
"only" stopped before he smoked that one.
══════════
ROBERT HALL.
IT was a rainy day, and the boys gathered in the hall for their recess
talk; I don't know but that was why they assured Robert Hall that it
was his turn.
"I spent every bit of my vacation in Cooperstown," he said, stretching
himself out on the long bench that was under the west windows.
"Where's Cooperstown?" asked Horace Brooks. "Any of your ancestors own
the town, Cooper?"
"Not that I know of," said Eugene; "but I know where it is; nice little
town at the head of Otsego lake; there's a one-horse kind of a railroad
to take you to it, that connects with the Albany and Susquehanna, or
you can go by the Delaware and Lackawanna, as far as Richfield Springs,
then take an old-fashioned ride, in a four-horse stage coach, to the
head of the lake, and after that as pretty a ride on a lake as can be
had anywhere in the United States or out of them, I guess."
"Look here," said Robert Hall, good-humoredly, "am I telling this
story, or are you?"
"I was only giving those dumbheads your bearings, my boy; go ahead."
"Well, I went on the one-horse train; that's a good name for it, I
declare; a stupider, slower, dustier ride I never took in my life, and
I've travelled some; but as you say, the town is lovely when you get
there. Queer old town, made up of hotels, mostly; great buildings,
large enough, each one of them, to accommodate all the inhabitants as
boarders; and full to overflowing, summers."
"What takes people there?" asked Horace Brooks. "Springs?"
"Not a spring; the springs are, as Eugene told you, nine miles away;
it's the beauty, I suppose. Men who have travelled say you won't find
any better scenery even up the Clyde, or on the Rhine. The lake is
just like a sheet of glass, and all along it on either side, lovely
landscapes. I don't know much about that sort of thing myself; but my
brother paints, you know, and he just raved over it all the time; said
it was the finest place for sketching he had found in this country.
"I know the echoes are fine. One night we went out, a party of us, as
late as midnight, when the town was still, and rowed up the lake a
couple of miles, and then we shouted at the echoes, and the old fellows
took up our remarks and repeated them seven times!"
"Whew!" said George Dunlap. "That's a very large story."
"That's just as true as I live," said Robert Hall, rising on one elbow,
earnestly. "I heard them; oh, as plainly as you hear me now. We shouted
'Natty Bumppo!' and back they yelled 'Natty Bumppo!'
"Then another fellow, from away up among the rocks on the other side
took it up and shouted 'Natty Bumppo!' And so they kept it going, until
we had seven distinct voices. I never heard anything like it."
"Where did you get such an outlandish name to call?" asked one of the
boys.
[Illustration]
"Oh, that's one of Cooper's names, you know; in some of his books; 'he'
is the man who has made Cooperstown famous, I suppose. Wherever you go
through the town, people are pointing out to you the spot where such
a scene was laid, and telling you the incident that suggested such
and such a character; and up in their cemetery,—they have a lovely
cemetery, terraced up from the lake side, my brother said it was a
miniature Greenwood, as fine according to its size, as that,—well there
is a statue, just near the entrance, of Leather Stocking and his dog
and gun; that's Natty Bumppo. It is erected in memory of Cooper, I
suppose; thought 'he' isn't buried there."
"Who's Cooper?" asked Charlie Smythe.
"Well, now, my boy, a fellow as well read in history as you are, ought
to know something about him. J. Fenimore Cooper, at your service; born
in Burlington, New Jersey, in 1789. Brought up in the wild woods around
this same Otsego lake, entered Yale college when he was thirteen,
entered the United States Navy at sixteen, resigned his commission, and
married when he was twenty-two or so, and went to writing books. You
see a fellow who visits Cooperstown has to study up on James Fenimore
Cooper."
"Was he a historian?"
"No, a novelist. Why, he wrote thirty-three novels. It is said he is
the most popular writer who has ever lived; and his books have been
translated into about all the languages in Europe. He used to write sea
stories, splendid ones; I read some of them when I was in Cooperstown;
and his Natty Bumppo is just a splendid character.
"We went to Cooper's grave in the old cemetery beside the Episcopal
church. The people are very proud of Cooper; they talk about him half
the time."
"Where is Cooperstown, anyhow? How far from places that everybody
knows?" This was Charlie Smythe's question.
"Well, it can't be more than a hundred miles or so, from Albany, New
York. I started from Albany in the morning, and reached there about
noon I think. We went to the Cooper House; a great splendid hotel,—full
of boarders. My brother went to sketch. He has some lovely pictures of
Cooperstown; if you'll all come home with me in vacation, I'll show
them to you. 'I' don't know how to describe places. It is a pretty
village, with a lovely lake and very fine scenery, and that is all I
can tell you about it."
"You've told us several things," chorused the boys.
"Yes, and given us an invitation besides," laughed George Dunlap. "I
think you've come out ahead, Hall."
"There's one thing I want to know," said Charlie in his slow,
meditative way; "does it make people better to read Cooper's novels?"
"I don't know, I am sure," said Robert Hall; "it makes them 'wiser,' I
guess; but about the better, I'm not so sure."
"Well," said Charlie, "if I had written thirty-three books, and then
died, and people were reading them yet, I should want them to make
folks 'better,' as well as wiser."
"That boy Charlie will write books yet, 'I' believe," said Horace, as
they went into the schoolroom; "and I shouldn't wonder if it would make
folks better to read them."
A LETTER FROM BIRD-LAND.
DEAR RAY:—Do you want a letter all about birds? I have seen so many
kinds of birds to-day, and such beautiful ones! Do you remember the
fountain in the side yard? It has been made larger, and has stones
put all around the edge, and mosses and ferns and pots of flowers are
growing everywhere about it.
[Illustration]
Every morning the birds come there to bathe; after their bath, they fly
up on the trees, and pay their bills by singing sweetest songs. Then
they fly away with the news. I think they say to all their friends,
"Did you know that, down there in that grass, there is a lovely
fountain with everything beautiful around it, and don't you think it is
made on purpose for us to take baths in every day?" So the good news
spread, and all the birds come flying to the fountain.
[Illustration]
There has been a great time among the birds this spring. Some of them
must have such large families that they can't take care of them all.
The other day I was out walking in the yard, and I saw a beautiful
little bird, too young to fly. I was afraid some cat would get it, so I
took it in my hands and brought it home. I put it in a bird-cage, and
what do you think it ate? Why, worms! I had to dig worms, and put them
down its throat. It seemed never to get enough.
Grandma said, "Oh, I wouldn't keep it in a cage; it was made to be
free."
[Illustration]
I thought so too, so I opened the cage door and let it go. It hopped
around on the grass and seemed very happy. All day I watched that no
cat came near it.
[Illustration]
I had help, too, in taking care of it; every little while a bird would
come hopping down, and give it something to eat. Sometimes a robin
would come, then a little sparrow, and now and then a chippy-bird.
They all seemed to be very kind to it. At last the dark night came,
and I could see my little birdie no longer; but I remembered it was
said, "Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Heavenly Father
knoweth it."
[Illustration]
The next morning there was great commotion among the birds; they all
came to see about something that troubled them. I went, too; and don't
you think my poor little birdie had been taken care of all night, and
hopped out in the morning to see about her breakfast, but had been so
unfortunate as to go near an old hen who had a dozen little chicks.
[Illustration]
The hen knew the birdie was no child of hers, so she began to peck her,
and would soon have killed her if I had not appeared. I rescued the
poor trembling little thing, put her on a soft bed, and took care of
her all day; but at night she died,—the naughty old hen had broken her
leg.
[Illustration]
I was glad it was a hen who had done the mischief, instead of some
little boy to whom God had given a soul, and a mind that could
understand what he has said about the birds. But I have heard of little
boys who would break up birds' nests, and destroy little families of
birds.
[Illustration]
Some day I am going to pick out and put together all that God has said
in the Bible about birds; for God cares for them.
Your loving auntie,
"JEWEL."
[Illustration: WAITING]
HARVEY IN TROUBLE.
EMILY HARPER went through the hall singing:
"'And for bonnie Annie Laurie, I'd lay me down, and—'
"What on 'earth' is the matter?"
She did not "sing" that last, but said it in a wondering and dismayed
tone, as she suddenly opened the library door, and found her brother
Harvey lying flat on his face, in a perfect storm of tears.
Harvey "crying," was something new under the sun; he hardly ever
stopped whistling long enough to cry.
He wasn't very gracious to Emily. "Keep away," he said, poking out his
elbows as though he meant to push her off.
But she wasn't easily pushed off; she shut the library door, and went
down on her knees beside the heap on the floor, and said in the most
coaxing of sisterly tones, "Tell me all about it, Harvey."
And Harvey told; he couldn't help it. It was bad enough. At twenty
minutes of three he had started, a merry, whistling boy, for the
post-office, to mail a letter for his father,—an important letter; his
father had called after him that if it failed to reach that mail, there
would be more than a hundred dollars' loss.
"And he said he would trust me," sobbed poor Harvey.
Well, he knew the mail did not close until fifteen minutes after three,
and he knew he could reach the office in five minutes; so he laughed at
the idea of failing, and told his father it should be there "sure."
[Illustration]
But going around the square, he met Joe Bailey, who told him that their
folks had brought home a parrot with them from the city; the cutest
fellow, who could whistle, and sing, and say, "Hush up!" And do ever
so many funny things, and he had gone down the left side of the square
instead of the right, because he knew it would make no difference in
the time, and had stopped just about two minutes to look at the parrot.
"And missed the mail!" exclaimed Emily in a horrified tone.
"No, I didn't miss the mail, either," said poor Harvey, very crossly;
he felt so bad, he thought he couldn't help being cross. "Keep still,
can't you? 'I'm' telling this story; I didn't forget about the letter
at all. I didn't stay three minutes; but there came a big wind along,
and blew off my hat, and I had to climb the picket fence to get it,
and then I made for the post-office as fast as I could; and when I got
there, the letter was gone."
Then he told how he went back, and searched all the way, and searched
the yard at Bailey's, and Joe searched, and the parrot searched, or
seemed to, but no letter could be found.
"What did father say?" Emily asked, after a moment of dismayed silence.
"That is the worst of it," Harvey said, sitting up with dry eyes,
feeling too miserable to shed any more tears, "I haven't told him a
word about it; I don't see any use in telling; the letter is gone, and
he can't find it, for I looked 'everywhere;' and the mail is gone,
he can't send another, and I might just as well keep still, and not
trouble him, to-night at least."
Then Emily found her usual busy tongue. "O, Harvey, that won't do
at all; maybe he could write another by that very early mail in the
morning, that would help some; or he might telegraph, or send somebody
on the train; men know how to do ever so many things. You ought to tell
father right away. He could do something, I'm sure; and you've 'got' to
tell him some time; I should think you would want it over."
One word in this sentence carried weight with it. Harvey rose up, his
face pale. "I forgot all about the telegraph," he said, "I must tell
him right away."
Now, some people might suppose Mr. Harper was a very fierce man, since
his son so dreaded to tell him of the accident; but the truth was, if
there had been nothing but a whipping to dread, Harvey would not have
wasted so much time nor so many tears. His father was the kindest, most
patient of men, and Harvey so loved and respected him, that to bring
trouble, by his carelessness, on that good father, was something that
he could hardly bear to think of. Besides, they were not rich, and a
hundred dollars was a good deal of money for them to lose.
Mr. Harper had come home from the office, and was in his room, a
grave-faced father; he listened quietly and sadly to Harvey's eager
story, but before it was half through, he put an arm tenderly around
the boy, and when it was finished, leaned over and kissed him.
"Thank you, my son," he said. "I was feeling very sad over it all; I
thought you were going to try to deceive your father by saying nothing
to him about it."
"Why, father!" said Harvey in great astonishment. "Did you know
anything about it?"
Then the father told "his" story, how one of the clerks from the
office, passing down the south side of the square, a few minutes before
mail time, saw a letter lying in the grass near Mr. Bailey's house,
and picking it up, he recognized it as the one that was of great
importance, so, without loss of time, hastened to post it.
"And I saw him coming out of the post-office, just as I was walking
back there the second time, when I couldn't find the letter!" exclaimed
Harvey. "If I had only told him."
Then, after a moment of silence, he added one more word that his father
was glad to hear. "Father, I truly meant to tell you all about it, but
I thought I would wait until morning, because it would make you feel so
badly; but Emily said, tell you right away. And father, I won't stop
for any old parrot after this."
TWO SINGERS.
ONE was Miss Cecilia Jamison. She sang in the opera house the evening
that the Mozart Glee Club gave their closing concert for the season.
She was called the best singer in the club. She wore a white silk dress
with a very long train, very costly white lace around her neck, elegant
new bracelets on her arms, and a necklace of pearls around her neck,
with a tiny locket attached, set in diamonds.
People said she looked "perfectly lovely," and her voice was just like
an angel's; though as none of them ever heard an angel, I don't know
how they told. "Some" people said that; there were others who thought
her hair wasn't arranged becomingly, and that she didn't manage her
train gracefully, and that there were a great many people who sang as
well as she did.
Besides, there was a good deal of confusion and trouble behind the
curtain, just before Miss Cecilia sang; she laid down her sheet of
music "exactly in that spot," just as people who lose things, are
always sure they did, and when she went for it, it wasn't there.
"'You' must have moved it," said Miss Cecilia to the leading alto, and
her voice couldn't have sounded quite like an angel's, then.
[Illustration]
"I!" said the leading alto, and her face grew red. "What should you
think I want of 'your' music."
"Well, 'somebody' has taken it, just to annoy me." declared Miss
Cecilia, and she threw things about, and tipped over a bouquet of
flowers that belonged to the leading alto, and spilled the water on the
second soprano's white kid gloves, and did mischief generally.
And when at last she moved forward to the stage, those left behind
looked at each other and said, "Aren't you glad she is gone at last?
Did you ever see anybody act so hateful?"
Well, she sang, and these were some of the words:—
My love sits at the window, gazing, gazing, gazing,
My love sits at the window, gazing out into the night.
What there was wonderful in that, or who she thought cared, I don't
know; but she repeated it again and again; she yelled it, and moaned
it, and whispered it, and wailed it, and told how dear her love was to
her, and what she would do for him, and the names he called her, in a
way that was perfectly senseless; no "love" worth having would have
done any such thing.
Then she stepped back and the audience showered bouquets on her, and
clapped their hands so loud that she had to come back and sing another
line of "My love sits at the window."
And that was all. No, it "wasn't" all; for the people, going home,
talked about her; some said they "could not see" why such a fuss was
made over her voice, that it seemed to them she just "squealed;" and
others said they were afraid she was growing very vain; that so much
praise was had for young people. And even that was not all; the trouble
is, there is never an end to anything. The song Miss Cecilia sang that
night, the words she spoke in getting ready to sing, the words she
spoke afterwards, the effect that the words, and the actions, and the
song, had on other people,—all these went on doing their work, and
though neither you nor I know the story, it growing, "growing," and
Miss Cecelia will have to meet it again some day. That is the story of
one singer: next month I will tell you about the other.
══════════
[Illustration: AUTUMN LEAVES]
HE WENT IN.
BY REV. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
TWO young men were "going in," as I passed along. They had been
standing at the door a moment before in earnest conversation, as I
could readily see from a distance, every little while one trying to
pull the other in. But I just caught a good look of one and knew him.
He was from the country, a member of a Sunday-school. He came to the
city and become a clerk in one of our large stores. One of the other
clerks soon got well acquainted with him. They often walked the streets
together, after tea when their work was over. This other clerk knew all
the low, wicked places of the city, especially where there was drinking
and gambling.
There was one particular saloon where he went every night, and spent
his substance in riotous living.
The keeper of this place allowed him many privileges, provided he would
bring other clerks. So the young man was a daily visitor there, and it
cost him but little to drink and play billiards and cards, if he only
brought one or two others with him. Out of such the bar-keeper made his
gains.
Now this young man from the country, whom we will call Will, had never
been in a saloon in his life, nor had he ever tasted intoxicating
drink; and when he left home for the city, he had promised his mother
to keep away from all such places, and be true to total abstinence.
But he liked society and music and pictures, and he was very curious.
He wanted to see what was to be seen, and so he loved to walk about
the city and see the sights, though he meant never to go near any bad
places; certainly never to enter them.
This time of which I began to speak, Will's friend had led him about
from shop window to picture gallery, and so on, till suddenly they
stood before that saloon. It had a beautiful front, high, broad, and
seemingly all glittering with gold. Hundreds of gas jets, within and
without, made everything bright like midday. Handsome young men were
going in and coming out, smiling, smoking, now and then, it is true,
swearing and staggering. Sounds of sweet music ever and anon floated
through the opening and closing door, and what seemed most gorgeous
paintings could occasionally be seen.
Thus Will stood with his friend, almost bewildered, as one in a new
world. His friend had led him there for a purpose. He rightly guessed
how he would be affected by all the sights and sounds near that saloon;
though up to this time he had not told Will that he ever frequented
such places.
But Will, after a few minutes, began to remember his promise to his
mother, and was about to turn and go away, when his companion plead for
five minutes more of the music. Then he urged Will just to step in,
just that once; that they needn't have anything to do with the wrong
of it, but could simply see for themselves, and no doubt learn a great
deal; and, what was best of all, prove to themselves that they could
resist temptation, though right in the midst of it.
He urged that the city missionary and many other gentlemen went in
just to find out how things were inside, and be able to speak from
experience. But Will had promised, and was about tearing himself away,
when the door opened, and he caught a full view of the inside. It was
gorgeous, dazzling. He had never seen anything so magnificent. Then the
music, how could he get away from it? Why not listen a moment longer?
So he listened, and it seemed as though angels must be playing. Was not
music a good thing? Why not go in just once, and enjoy it near by, and
see how they made it so sweet. Yet the promise came before him.
"Mother, you needn't fear for me. I'll keep clear of all such things. I
will for your sake at least."
At that moment a fine looking gentleman came out and spoke very
politely to Will's friend, and was introduced to Will. And they
conversed about many things, while enrapturing music went on within,
and again and again the paintings could be seen, all aglow with light.
"Come," said the gentleman, "will not your friend step in a moment, and
see the paintings, and enjoy the music better than one can out here?
You will find most comfortable chairs, and the latest periodicals, and
ice water (I see you are weary), all at your service. The proprietor
is a friend of mine, and a perfect gentleman, too, if I do say it.
Very few such as he in this city. He is highly respected. Several of
the ministers know him. He used to be an active member of one of the
largest Sabbath-schools here, and quite a supporter of the church,—does
a great deal of good yet, gives great sums to several poor families
whose fathers have got to drinking to excess. Strange that a man can't
control himself. I know when to stop after I've taken a little to
refresh myself. I despise a young man who has to sign a pledge to keep
from being a sot.
"Gentlemen who come in here are none of your low class. The proprietor
won't have it. He is determined to prove that a young man may find a
pleasant and profitable place to spend an evening with his friends,
without falling into the beastly habit of common saloons. Come in a few
minutes and rest yourselves, and then let's take a stroll somewhere
else."
So saying, he opened the frail door. Again that bewildering world
within was seen. Poor, weak Will! He had stopped, just stopped and
listened and looked in a moment. That was all. What possible harm could
there be in that? Harm enough. He "was constrained" and "went in," and
came out at midnight—"intoxicated," for the first time in his life.
Three persons were once walking together one evening, and when they
came near a certain house, two of them urged the third to go in with
them. I do not know if there was one picture, or any kind of music, or
any other such thing to attract him; but he went in. Think you they
played cards or billiards together, or drank beer, or whiskey, or any
strong drink, or used any low slang words, or told any disgusting
stories, or took God's name in vain, or came out with red faces and
blood-shot eyes, and staggered through the streets, carousing as they
went?
Yet they sat and dined together, and talked most warmly till their
"hearts burned," yes, and they were all "intoxicated" when they
separated that night—not like Will with maddening whiskey, but with
"love," intoxicated with love to God, and everybody, and each other,—a
love that caused one of those three to lay down his life—to die on the
cross—to wash away with his own blood the sins even of drunkards and
drunkard makers; a love that caused the other two to go here and there,
telling the story of redeeming love.
"He went in." Ah, yes one goes in, like Will; goes into some beautiful,
fascinating—Hell, to lose his own soul; another goes in, like Jesus at
Emmaus, into some plain cottage, or lost soul, to save that soul.
What if you were to just "never enter" a saloon, no matter what may
tempt you, but always be in the habit of going into God's house, or
wherever the Lord will go with you, and like those two disciples eat of
the bread which he may break and bless, and drink the water which he
will give from the fountain of life.
Well, what say you to that?
He says: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my
voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and
he with me."
I wonder if it will be said of you at the last day, "He went in;" I
mean, into glory.
══════════
[JESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL]
THOU, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in thee I find:
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
Heal the sick, and lead the blind:
[Illustration]
Just and holy is thy name,
I am all unrighteousness;
Vile and full of sin I am,
Thou art full of truth and grace.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
A THANKSGIVING SHOWER.
THE boys and girls of No. 42. talked about it all one day, during
recess.
"She's real sick," said one.
"Who is?" asked another.
"Why, Gertie; and she doesn't think she's ever going to be any better.
She looks awful! I saw her yesterday: I peeked in at the window and
talked to her. She is real lonesome in that ugly, dark room. They're
awful poor!"
"I know it!" said Alice Burns. "Her mother used to work in the factory,
until she got rheumatism, and couldn't; and now her father is out of
work, and they 'most starve, some days."
"Where do they live?"
"Why, in Lewis's basement,—a horrid, old, dark, ugly place! I've peeked
through the window now and then, and talked to Gertie, and I never saw
such an ugly, black hole of a room as it is. I should think she would
die, lying there."
The talk lasted for two or three days. The scholars could not forget
Gertie; she had been one of the best readers in the class, and was a
favorite. At last a bright idea came to one of them. I don't know which
began it; they all chimed in so fast, that we could never find out
which first said, "Let's give her a thanksgiving!"
It was within a week of the annual Thanksgiving Day, and I presume the
remark that one of the boys made, that "he" did not see what Gertie
had to be thankful for, suggested it. You never saw anything like the
way in which it grew! Every boy and girl in that school had something
they were ready to give, to help Gertie be thankful. At first it was
only flowers; but when one girl said she couldn't eat flowers, and was
often hungry, and another said she couldn't sleep on them, and had an
awful hard bed, and another said she couldn't wear them, and hadn't
clothes enough to keep her warm, the flowers grew into sacks of flour,
and bags of potatoes, and chickens, and comfortables, and blankets,
and a woollen wrapper, and ever so many other things. Of course the
mothers helped; mothers are almost always willing to help sweet, bright
thoughts that their children have.
Well, the next question was, how to get the gifts to her. Every boy and
girl wanted to go and see her, and take his and her offering; but frail
little Gertie was too weak for that; so they finally thought out the
queerest plan. All the light, soft presents that could stand a bumping,
and not make much noise, they resolved upon throwing down that basement
window, one after another, as softly and quietly as it could be done!
And the rest of the things? Oh, that is the nice part of the story! It
was Celia Winters who said,—
"After all, girls, what good will the nice things do her, if she has to
live in that dark old basement?"
"Yes, and if her father doesn't get some work to do?" chimed in Charlie
Webster. He always agreed with Celia.
After that, the two had their heads together, talking a good deal,
and no one could find out what they were going to throw down at
Gertie, until at last they owned that, besides flowers from their own
greenhouses, they were not going to give her anything but two pieces of
paper!
But the papers! Celia's read that a cunning little house on Simmons
street, with three rooms and a kitchen, had been rented for a year, and
the Winters' carriage would be all ready to take her to her new home on
Thanksgiving morning. (I forgot to say that it had been planned to give
the shower the day before Thanksgiving, so that Gertie could have the
whole of that day in which to be thankful.)
Charlie's paper was for Gertie to give to her father; it contained an
invitation from his father to be foreman of a machine shop, at good
wages, which were to commence on Thanksgiving morning; and pasted in a
corner of the paper, folded down and bearing Gertie's name, was a gold
dollar of Charlie's own.
What fun they had, those boys and girls! They talked it over
afterwards, trying to decide whether they didn't have even a better
time than Gertie. It was so nice to go softly to that basement window,
one by one, and drop down a bundle right before Gertie's amazed eyes.
At first they sent flowers, white ones, and they nearly spoiled the
silence by a shout when they heard Gertie say,—
"Why, mother, it snows, right in here!" And then in the next breath,
"Oh, mother, it snows 'flowers!'"
"Let it snow wool now!" said Rob Holden, and he popped down a great
blanket at Gertie's feet.
It took a long time, and was the funniest frolic the young people ever
had. Of course, it would have been much easier to have sent the things
all to the nice new house, the rent of which Celia's mother had paid,
and which the seventy other mothers had furnished; but then it wouldn't
have been near so funny.
There is no use in my trying to tell you what Gertie and her mother
said or did that afternoon. They were too astonished to do much besides
look at one another and laugh; and as the great, soft, comfortable
bundles kept dropping down, they looked at each other and cried. No, of
course you can't see what there was to cry about; but if you had had
such a hard time to get enough to eat and wear as this family had, you
might have cried for joy.
But what could they do or say when Celia's and Charlie's papers dropped
down on them, and were read and understood? Dear little Gertie! Let me
tell you what she said. She clasped her two thin hands together, and
looked up, not at the basement window, but above it, and murmured, "I
think we must all have died, and gone to heaven!"
There ought to be a picture of that cunning little house into which
they moved next day, to show you; everything that a neat little family
of three could need, the seventy mothers—helped much by the seventy
fathers—had put into it. Oh, I think you would like a picture of the
handsome carriage and horses and coachman who came for Gertie on
Thanksgiving morning, and took her to the little new house; or maybe
a picture of the dray that followed her, piled high with the things
that were showered down the window the night before; or maybe a picture
of Gertie, in an easy-chair in front of the stove, in their bit of a
dining-room, with a carpet on the floor, she with her feet on soft
cushions, and soft cushions at her back, and a soft, bright shawl
around her, eating a bit of Thanksgiving turkey.
Ah, I know you would like a picture of all the scholars of Room 42 who
set this ball a rolling; but there were over seventy of them, and how
could I show you their photographs? You must just imagine it all.
══════════
THE OTHER SINGER.
NO bracelets, nor necklaces had she; no white silk dress had she ever
seen, and a common white muslin, even, she had never worn; she was
barefooted, and though the morning was warm, she had wrapped an old
shawl around her to hide the holes in her dress. A neat little girl
was Mandy, or at least she would have been, if she had known how; she
always washed her feet in the fast-running gutter puddles, after a hard
rain, just because she liked to see them look clean; but she had no
needle and thread at home, nor patches; and her work among the barrels,
picking for rags, was not the cleanest in the world.
Yet on this afternoon, the very afternoon in which Miss Cecilia was
getting ready for the concert, and frowning over her white silk,
because the trail did not hang quite as she liked, did this little
girl, Mandy give a concert. Her audience was an organ-grinder who
stopped to rest a bit,—an old woman who was going by with a baby, and a
little boy with a load of chips. The words she sang were:
"There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins."
And the chorus repeated as many times as did Miss Cecilia's. "I've been
redeemed, I've been redeemed, I've been redeemed;" don't know "how"
many times over; but what different words from Miss Cecilia's!
"Where did you get that?" asked the organ-grinder.
"What?" said Mandy, startled, and turning quickly.
"'That;' that you're singing."
"Oh, I got it to Sunday-school." And she rolled out the wonderful news,
"I've been redeemed, I've been redeemed; been washed in the blood of
the Lamb."
"I don't s'pose you understand what you're singing about?" said the
organ-grinder.
[Illustration]
"Don't I, though," said Mandy, with an emphatic little nod of her head.
"I know all about it, and it's all true. I belong to Him; he is going
to make me clean inside, and dress me in white some day, to stay with
him forever and ever. 'I've been redeemed, I've been redeemed,—been
washed in the blood of the Lamb.'"
Away down the street, as far as the organ-grinder could hear, as he
trudged on, there came back to him the faint sound of that chorus,
"I've been redeemed."
Nobody threw bouquets to Mandy; nobody said she had a sweet voice.
But the organ-grinder kept saying the words over and over to himself;
they were not new words to him. Years ago, his old mother used to sing
those first ones, "There is a fountain." He had never heard the chorus
before, but he knew it fitted; he knew all about it; his mother had
taught him; and away back, when he was a little boy, a minister had
said to him once, "My boy, you must be sure to find the fountain and
get washed."
He never had. He was almost an old man; and it was years since he had
thought about it; but Mandy's song brought it all back. Was that the
end of it? Oh, no. The organ-grinder kept thinking, and thinking, and
"thinking," until by-and-by, he resolved to do. He sought the fountain,
and found it, and now, if he knew the tune, could sing, "I've been
redeemed." Many a time he says the words over and over.
Is "that" the end? Oh dear, no. It will never end.
When Mandy and the organ-grinder stand up yonder, and she hears all
about the song that she sung as she picked over rags, it will not, even
then, be the end. Nothing ever ends.
NAILS.
BY REV. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
THEY drove nails through his hands, those very hands that had been
so tenderly laid upon the heads of little children and left them a
blessing; those dear hands that broke the bread which he had made for
the thousand hungry people; those gentle hands that touched and opened
the blind man's eyes; hands that were always spread in blessing upon
some one.
Just think how much hard work those loving hands had done, and all
for others. They never had been idle. They never had stolen one penny
from any one; never had hurled a stone at any one, though bad people
were often catching up stones to throw at him. They never had struck
any one, though he was so tormented and insulted; and once shamefully
struck in the face. Blessed, patient hands, yet there were people
wicked enough to drive iron spikes through them.
What if they had been your own mother's hands, after she had carried
you about so long, and fed you when you could not feed yourself; had
done for you what a mother only can do for a helpless child; and her
hands were "so" weary, and she was trying to get a little rest; then,
what if a band of rough soldiers had come and seized her and put
hand-cuffs upon her, and led her away to prison, and condemned her to
die, and driven nails through the same hands that had given them bread
to eat when they came to her door almost starved to death! But they
nailed Jesus to a tree, and let him hang there till he suffered, and
groaned, and died. No one pitied him, and took him down, and bound up
the wounds.
They drove nails through his feet also. And what had those feet done to
deserve such treatment? Had they carried him into a house to rob and
kill? "The feet of the wicked are swift to shed innocent blood."
Not long ago, a man walked right up behind his neighbor, and shot him
dead, because he hated him. Think you the feet of Jesus ever carried
him on such an errand? Think you he ever trod upon a worm if he could
help it? Why, he was walking about day and night, over the rough
country of Judea, hunting up the sick and those in trouble, to comfort
them. Yet they nailed his weary feet to the tree just as they had
nailed his hands.
What if it had been said that Mary, who once bathed his feet with
tears, and wiped them with her hair, and kissed them again and again;
that this very Mary treated him like the others, striking him in the
face and spitting upon him! Ah, you couldn't have believed it of her!
She loved him too greatly for the wonderful love and mercy of Jesus
to her. Ah, what great difference there was among the people in those
times! Some loving the Redeemer so tenderly they were ready to die for
him; while others could most cruelly put him to death on the cross.
And did you never think what one thing makes some people so cruel,
whether they have ever so handsome a face, or ever so much money,
or high a place in the world? What makes some fathers so cruel to
their families, sometimes swearing fiercely at the little children,
or striking the sick mother; sometimes even killing them all, and
themselves too? May be you would hardly believe it if I should tell you
what happened only a little way from here, some months ago; but dear
me, you have only to read the papers to find just such things going on
daily.
I hope you love the blessed Redeemer too tenderly ever to drive one
painful nail into him. Know what I mean?
══════════
[Illustration]
THE SPARROW IN THE SNOW.
HE hopped down cheerily into the snow,
Brave little barefoot Brownie—
As if snow were the warmest thing below
And as cosy as it is downy!
And his brown, little, knowing, saucy head,
In a way that was cutely funny,
He jerked to one side, as though he said,
"'I' don't care if it 'isn't' sunny.
"I don't care! I don't care! I don't!" he said,
And he winked with his eye so cheery,
For somebody's left some crumbs of bread,
So my prospects are not all dreary.
"And what's a cold toe, when I've got a whole suit
Of the cunningest warm, brown feathers?
I don't care if I haven't a shoe to my foot;
I am the bird, sir, for all sorts of weathers.
"'I' don't fly away at the first touch of frost,
Like some of your fine-tongued birdies;
I 'don't' think everything's ruined and lost
When the wind mutters threatening wordies.
"I 'don't' care!" he chirped; "I don't care! I don't care!
It might be a great deal colder:
But I'm a fellow that knows no fear—
Old Winter but makes me bolder!"
Ah, plain, little, hardy, brown-coat bird!
Through life I'll try to remember
To meet its winters with cheerful word,
Like thee to brave my December.—_Youth's Companions._
[Illustration]
[Illustration: TOT HIMSELF]
THE BOY WHO WANTED TO BE A HERO.
A VERY small hero, you think, I suppose? Yes, and weak and pale, and
with feet that would not carry even his little body but a very few
steps at a time. Perhaps that was one reason why he was so fond of
reading about brave, daring boys. When his mother came in from her
kitchen, or her garden, or her dairy, to have a little talk with him,
he nearly always had a story to tell her about a hero.
"I've been reading about Robert Fulton," he said to her one day, his
eyes shining. "Wasn't he splendid?"
"Was he?"
"Oh, yes, indeed! A queer boy, though, in school; he didn't like to
study, and was real dull. Isn't that queer, mother, when he knew so
much afterwards?"
"Rather," said mother. "I think he must have learned, like other
people, to do some things that he didn't like; for he certainly studied
hard when he was a man."
"Well, he didn't when he was a little fellow; and his teacher got real
vexed at him one day, he was so dull, and gave him a knock on his hand
with the ruler, saying he was determined to make him do something.
"And Robert said, 'Look here, I came to school to have something beat
into my brains, and not into my hands.' Wasn't that sharp?"
"And saucy," said mother, laughing.
"Well, it's real fun to read about him. He began to invent when he was
a little bit of a boy. Once he made a lead pencil, and it was such a
good one that all the boys liked it; so he made one for each.
"But, O, mother, wouldn't you have liked to have seen that
strange-looking little steamboat when it sailed up the Hudson? You
see, nobody believed she would go! They laughed at Robert, and made
fun of him, and said all sorts of sharp things about him. But one day
in September a crowd came down to the wharf, and waited and watched. I
can't help thinking, what if it hadn't moved when the right time came!
I wonder what he would have done? Seems to me it would have killed me.
But, you see, it did! O, then how they shouted! 'He' wasn't afraid; he
knew it would go. Why, when he was only fourteen years old, he invented
a way of paddling a boat instead of rowing it.
"He could do ever so many things. Did you know he was an artist? This
book says his pictures were splendid, and he earned money by selling
them,—lots of money. When he was only twenty-one, he had earned enough
to buy a farm, and he bought it and gave it to his mother!
"I'll tell you another thing he did. Once there came a man to New York
with a wonderful machine that he said would go of itself,—perpetual
motion, you know, mother. Everybody who went to see it had to pay a
dollar,—and hundreds and thousands went. For a long time Robert Fulton
wouldn't go, though people coaxed him to; he said it was a humbug. At
last he went, and he hadn't been standing by the strange machine but a
few minutes when he said,—
"'Why this is a crank motion; somebody is turning a crank to make this
machine go, and you are an impostor.'
"Then the man was angry; but all the people joined in, and begged
Robert Fulton to find out about it, and the man didn't know how to
refuse to let him examine it; so he knocked off a few pieces of lath,
and found a string around a wheel, and that went back to another part
of the machine that was all shut up, and inside of it was an old man
turning a crank! Oh, mother, he was a genius and a hero! He was brave,
and wise, and did so many grand things! Mother, if your poor little boy
could do one 'little' thing to show that he was brave, wouldn't it be
nice?"
"Very," said mother, with cheerful voice, pretending not to see the
tears in her sick little boy's eyes. "I like heroes very much; I should
like one fur a son. I was thinking about it last night. Suppose you
make up your mind to be one?"
The little lame boy rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, and
looked eagerly at his mother. She never made sport of him, therefore
she meant something. What was it?
"Do you see a way for me to be one?" he asked her, and he was so much
in earnest that his voice trembled with excitement.
"Yes, indeed I do; I read about a way last night, and I thought it was
so good that I copied it for you. The wisest man who ever lived gave
this receipt." And mother took from her pocket a bit of paper on which
was written these words:
"He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth
his spirit than he that taketh a city."
══════════
RUFUS MAKES A POCKET MEASURE.
"NOW what is it all for? That is what 'I' should like to know. Here you
have been working over that wonderful box every evening for a week. I
believe you are a miser, and that box is to hoard up your treasures in."
Pretty Eva Trumbull fixed her roguish eyes on Rufus, the farmer boy,
and waited to see what he would say.
They were very unlike,—those two. Eva was a city-bred young miss of
thirteen. She had never been in the country before in her life, and
here she was at her farmer uncle's, to spend the whole summer. She
liked it all; everything was "great fun." One of the things which she
like the best, was to dance around Rufus, the good, faithful boy, who
worked for wages in the summer, and for his board and schooling in the
winter, and whom everybody liked, because he was honest and earnest and
faithful. And Eva liked to tease him, or to try to; he had too much
good sense to be easily teased.
It was as she said. For several evenings he had been at work over
a mysterious box. It was made of black walnut, carefully polished,
and had ten compartments in it, divided by neat-fitting, thin
highly-polished boards. It amused Eva very much to see how particular
he was about the fit of each little board.
"Just tell me what it is for, before you go any farther; I'm almost
dying of curiosity."
"If I were going to die of my own free will, I'd try to do it in a
better cause," Rufus said, gravely. He was not so fashionable as Eva,
and he did not understand many of the rules of etiquette, but his
mother had brought him up not to use slang expressions which meant
nothing.
"Why, I just as soon tell you about this box," he said, after a minute.
"You'll laugh, of course; but I don't suppose that will hurt me."
"I won't laugh a bit, unless it is something funny."
"Well, it's a money box."
"A money box! I told you, you were going to be a miser."
"Well, I'm not," said Rufus, laughing. "I'm planning to spend it, not
to keep it; but I like to be sort of systematic about things. You see,
I know just about what I'm worth, now-a-days. There's about six months
in the year that I am earning money; and, take it off and on, in one
way and another I earn about sixty dollars, besides my hoard. Now it
happens that there are ten things for which I need to spend that money,
and as nearly as I can calculate, it might be equally divided between
them. So thinking it all over, I concluded that the systematic way
would be to have a box with ten compartments, all labelled, you know,
and drop the money in a dollar at a time maybe, or ten cents at a time,
just as I happen to be paid."
"That's a real nice idea," said Eva, admiringly; "but I can't imagine
how you can have ten different things, for which you need to spend
money regularly. Now I have a hundred different ways of spending money,
but hardly any of them are regular." Here she gave one of her merriest
laughs.
"Oh, well, it is different with me," explained Rufus. "You see, I don't
know much about spending money for things I might happen to like to
buy. I have to spend mine for the things that 'must' be bought anyhow;
and so it's easier to calculate."
"Still," persisted Eva, "I don't know how you make ten."
[Illustration]
"Well, I'll tell you." There was a little flush on Rufus's face, but
Eva looked so sober, and so interested, that he determined to trust
her. "In the first place, there's mother; I shall paint her name on
this first department, and one-tenth of everything I ever earn is to
pop in there. Then there's clothes for me, they will take another
tenth."
"A tenth for clothes! That will be only six dollars a year, Rufus
Briggs! Do you mean to dress in birch bark, that you think you can make
six dollars a year do it?"
"Well," said Rufus, in a determined tone, "when a fellow 'has' to, you
know, why he 'has' to; besides, that's only for general clothes, I've
got a department here for boots and shoes, and another for shirts, and
if I have to borrow from one of those departments for the other, why it
will do no harm."
But still Eva laughed; she knew that six, or twelve, or eighteen
dollars in a year were of no account so far as clothes were concerned.
Didn't 'she' wear clothes? She knew what they cost.
"They can't cost more than you've got to buy them with," Rufus said,
firmly, and went on with his plan. "There are Mamie and Fannie, my two
little sisters, I've given them each a department; of course mother
will spend the money for them, but I kind of like to put it in their
own names. Then here's the corner for books, I need school books, and
paper, and pens, and all such things you know, but they must all come
out of this general fund.
"Then here's the housekeeping; I have a corner for that, because mother
must be helped, you know; that place where her name is, means for her
own private use, and here's the rent corner; mother has hard times
bringing that in every month; now you see, I've got nine, and I haven't
looked out for sickness at all; that troubled me at first, but then
I concluded that if any of us were sick, we shouldn't need so many
clothes, nor books, and that it would even itself out; so here's my
last corner."
And very carefully Rufus printed the word, "BENEVOLENCE" over this
compartment.
"Be—nev—o—lence," spelled out Eva, and now she was too much astonished
to laugh. "Why Rufus Briggs! Just as though you could afford to give
six dollars a year to benevolence!"
"Why it's only a tenth," said Rufus stoutly; "and it's got to be
divided up more than any of the others, there are so many things to
give for."
"The idea!" said Eva.
Just then her aunt called her, and she went away thinking about the
wonderful box with its many compartments, and only sixty dollars to put
into them all.
"And six of them to give away!" she said again, and she thought of the
dollar and a half a week that her father gave her for "pin money" out
of which she had never given a cent for benevolence in her life. This
story is true, and it grew; some day I'll tell you the rest of it.
══════════
TWO WAYS OF LOOKING AT IT.
OF all the teachers in the great school, I think the children thought
the most of Miss Carley. She was "so sweet!" they said and "so nice!"
and "so good!" and all the other words that young people like to use,
with "so" before them.
It was when the flowers were getting scarce, that some wise brain
whose father kept a conservatory, proposed that they make Miss Carley
a floral offering on the very next morning. "Let's every single one of
us bring a bouquet in a vase," said the eager little planner, "and set
them on her table, and in the windows, and all around the platform. It
is her birthday, you know, and she loves flowers 'so' much! Won't the
room look too lovely for anything?"
Every child of the seventy-five was delighted, except Trudie Briggs.
She went home, sober not to say cross.
"Won't it be pretty?" said little Kate, hopping along by her side.
"What flowers are you going to take, Trudie?"
"Cabbages," said Trudie crossly; and her mouth being thus snappishly
opened, she talked on. "It is just a plan of Susie Martin's, so that
she can show off her father's greenhouse flowers, and her mother's
beautiful vases! 'I' shan't take a single thing. What have we got to
take? Not even a sweet pea, nor nothing; nothing but weeds, and an
old cracked tumbler to put them in. They may just bring their grand
flowers. I won't have nothing to do with it."
Trudie studied grammar, but when very much excited, she forgot to use
it.
Poor little Kate looked sorrowful; she loved Miss Carley, and wanted to
take her some flowers.
The next morning, when she went to call her father to breakfast, she
saw the south field, all a-bloom with red clover. She thought it
looked lovely; and then and there her resolve was taken. Not a word
said she to Trudie, feeling sure that nine-year-old sister would call
the red blossoms "nothing but weeds." She slipped out just at school
time, and gathered a bunch of the freshest and sweetest, and using her
chubby-brown hand for a vase, started in breathless haste for school.
Trudie, being still cross, had waited for her about two minutes, then
gone on ahead.
It was just a trifle late when little Kate reached the door, the
children were all seated, and Miss Carley's hand was on the bell. How
lovely the schoolroom looked! Everywhere that a vase could be made to
stand there was one, holding the brightest of fall flowers. In the
centre of the table was a wonderful wreath of fine, sweet blossoms,
which Miss Carley had promised to wear at recess.
She looked very happy; every child in the room except Trudie had
remembered her with flowers, and it pleased her. She turned a smiling
face on little Kate, as she came down the aisle, and waited for her,
and bent down to receive the red clovers from the chubby, brown hand,
while Trudie's face was redder than the clovers. She was actually
ashamed of her little sister!
What would Miss Carley say to a bunch of weeds from that hot brown hand!
What she said, was, "You dear child! How sweet they are."
Then she stooped down, and kissed the sweet face of the little giver,
and placed every clover carefully in her belt, where she could "smell
them all the time," she said brightly. And there did little Kate's
gift stay all day, "They were the only flowers she wore," said Susie
Martin. "The little darling! Wasn't it sweet of her?" And Susie meant
the middle of the sentence for little Kate, and the last part for Miss
Carley.
══════════
THEIR FAITH.
"FATHER looks so sad," said Hattie to her older sister Bertha. "I
wonder what makes him look so downcast. Is he sick, Bertie, do you
think, or has he heard some bad news, or is it that same old headache?
I couldn't 'think' of sleeping last night. After kissing him, and
looking back, I thought I saw a great tear in his eye, though he
quickly brushed it away and tried to appear cheery. But all night long
I kept seeing that tear, and wondering if you and I couldn't in some
way keep dear, sad papa, from suffering so. O, what can be the matter?
What can we do?"
"Pray," was the calm, assured answer of the sister. "'Ask what ye
will,' said the last Sunday lesson. His promises are all yea and amen.
They are as true as—as—the sun, dear Hattie. Don't you know it? I am
sure He'll never let one of them fail."
Side by side, with clasped hands, they knelt, and silently, but
earnestly, they asked, "O, Heavenly Father, 'do,'—O, DO bless our own
sad father. Help him out of all his trouble. Show us what we can do to
help him and cheer him. For Jesus' sake, Amen."
So they prayed, not once only, as too many do, and forget all about it.
They prayed "without ceasing." Their sympathy for their father was so
great that they thought of little else except how they might help him
and comfort him. They lost all wish for dress and gay society. Their
pastor and Sunday-school teacher observed that something was greatly
troubling them; but though they tried to learn the cause of their
sad countenances, the sisters kept the matter locked up in their own
breasts.
Meanwhile, however, they were coming nearer to Jesus. It was not long
after Hattie noticed that "tear," that both had become converted, and
became very earnest Christians.
"I am almost discouraged, Hattie," said her sister, one day, as she
still noticed her father's sad look. "I'm afraid He isn't going to do
what we want him to. You know it is just three weeks to-day since we
agreed together to ask our Heavenly Father to help. But where's the
help? O, I'm almost in despair." And Bertha could keep back the tears
no longer.
"But I'm not discouraged yet," said Hattie. "Will not God 'avenge his
own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though he bear long?' He
will, he will, and it won't be long either. Don't cry, Bertie; maybe,
before the week is done he will answer."
He did. Very soon that sad-faced father began to smile and rejoice, not
simply because he got into good business, and was greatly prospered,
and all this through the prayers of faith and loving help of those two
dear daughters, but because he gave his own heart to God, and was now a
very happy Christian.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HOW SIDNEY GOT THE PLACE.
HE stood on the shore and looked down longingly at the smooth sheet of
ice. How it sparkled and glowed in the morning sunshine! He could skim
across like a bird; he had his skates strung over his shoulder. What
hindered him from crossing the ice? Why, just as he reached the front
gate, his mother had put her head out of the window and called:
"Sidney?"
"Yes 'm."
"You won't go on the ice, will you?"
Then he had stopped, and looked back at her appealingly.
"Why, mother, the ice is strong enough to bear a four-horse team, and
it cuts off a good mile of walk."
"Can't help it, my son. You won't cross it, will you?"
"No 'm," he had said, sadly.
But the window closed instantly, and his mother went about her work
with a quiet face. She knew that when Sidney said no, he meant it.
So the boy, though he looked at the ice, had not the least idea of
trying it: he merely told it that he wished he had left his skates at
home, instead of lugging them along; and he didn't see why he hadn't.
[Illustration]
A dozen or more boys appeared presently from different directions.
"Going across?" asked Sidney.
And half a dozen voices answered that they just were. The skating was
prime. The most of them had school books.
"Come on," they said to Sidney.
But he shook his head. "Can't."
"Aren't you going across the lake?"
"No, I'm going 'around' the lake. Mother didn't want me to cross on the
ice."
"Ho! Ho!" "Ha! Ha!" "He! He!" These were only a few of the answers.
"Why man, the ice is two feet thick!"
"I didn't say it wasn't," he answered good-humoredly. "I only said
mother didn't want me to go on it. Good morning!"
Off he went, amid shouts and laughter. You know what ill-bred boys
shout at each other at such times:
"Tied to his mother's apron-string!" "Coward!" "Baby!" and all those
things.
He whistled, to drown their voices, and tramped on.
He was not going to school. The fact was, he hoped to get a place as
office boy that morning. He was on his way to see about it. If he
could only have crossed the lake, it would have saved so much time! He
quickened his steps into almost a run as he thought of it, and arrived,
somewhat out of breath, at the place advertised, to see two of the
boys who had shouted after him at the lake, sitting comfortably in two
office chairs, chatting.
"You here!" he said in dismay; and wondered how many more wanted the
place.
Yes, they assured him they were there; and they didn't cut through into
the lake, either. They hoped he had a nice walk this cold morning. But
there wasn't much fun in teasing Sidney; he was so good-natured.
"I should have liked to skate across," he said, swinging, his skates to
the floor, "but mother worries about it, and she asked me not to go on
the ice this morning. So of course I didn't."
[Illustration: ON THE LAKE.]
"Of course I would!" said the larger boy. "My mother is just such a
moolly. She tried to make me keep off, but I told her 'No sir!' Catch
me going around, with the thermometer below zero."
"It's queer what ails the mothers," said the third boy, laughing.
"There's three of them it seems, only mine is my grandmother. 'Now,
Tommy dear, 'don't' skate across,' she said." And he mimicked the
feeble voice.
"What did you say?" inquired his giggling friend.
"Oh, I said—
"'Of course not, grandma. I wouldn't "think" of such a thing.'
"I meant, you know, that I wouldn't think of such a thing as walking
around."
Then there was more laughing. Presently they began to talk about their
chances for the place, in the midst of which the door to the inner
office opened, and the man who wanted a boy called one of them to him.
The other boys waited until in turn each had been to talk with the
lawyer. He took their names and ages, and asked for specimens of
their handwriting, and gave them a chance to show how rapidly and
correctly they could add a column of figures, then he left them all to
themselves, and they discussed their hopes.
[Illustration: "I WANT A BOY WHO CAN OBEY HIS MOTHER," SAID THE LAWYER.]
At last the door opened again, and the gentleman said:
"Sidney Martin, I have decided that you are the boy I want. If the
terms suit, you may consider yourself engaged. It is only fair to
explain to these others what decided me. Thomas is a trifle more rapid
at figures than you, and Henry's writing is rather better; but, the
truth is, you all talked pretty loud while you were alone here, and
that partition is thin. I want a boy who can obey is mother, even when
he thinks her rules are unnecessary. And I want one who is neither
disrespectful nor deceitful, which, by your own stories, you two were
this morning. Remember, my lads, that a boy who respects his mother, is
very apt to be trustworthy."
————————————
THE LITTLE YELLOW DOG.
BY MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
MAMIE was a dear little bit of a girl, pretty and bright and loving,
with such a sunshiny face that it cured the blues just to look at her.
She had a great many names. She would answer to "Dantie," "Pussy,"
"Sunshine" and "Polly," quite as well as to Mamie. "Polly" was
grandpa's name for her.
[Illustration: MR. JYRICKS' LITTLE DOG.]
Polly had one fault; that does not mean that she had but one, but that
this one was so very great it was noticed more than all the others.
The fault was this: she was never quite ready to do anything the very
minute she was asked to; she always had something of her own to attend
to first.
If papa said, "Dantie, please get my slippers," he was sure to hear
"Yes, in just a minute, papa; Dollie is most asleep." When grandpa
said, "Come, little Polly, can't you run up-stairs and get my glasses?"
She was sure to take just three more turns round the room—if she
happened to be playing with kitty—before she started. Or if she were
reading a story and was asked to do an errand, she would get slowly
up, and creep along with her eyes on the book, stop at the foot of the
stairs and read, and then call out, "Mamma, did you say you wanted a
spool of white or black thread?"
It was very trying indeed, and grandpa said the ugly weed ought to be
rooted out before it grew any bigger. Sometimes he tried to make her
ashamed of it. When she was gone for a long time for the newspaper that
he sent her for, she would find grandpa busily writing when she came
with it, and he would take no notice of her until she said, "Here is
your paper, grandpa."
"My paper!" he would say then, looking over his glasses at her. "Sure
enough, I did send for a paper some minutes ago, didn't I? But the time
has gone by now, I have turned my attention to other subjects; no paper
for me, Miss Polly, thank you."
Then Mamie would hang her head and blush; but by the next time grandpa
asked her to do an errand for him, she had forgotten all about it.
One day grandpa called Mamie to take a walk with him. She ran for her
hat and sack, for she was always glad of the chance to go with him.
They always had nice times together; he explained everything to her
that she did not know about, and let her chatter off long stories. And
if they came along to any shop or place where anything curious was
going on, grandpa took her right in.
[Illustration: "MAY I PICK THEM?"]
"Where are we going to-day, grandpa?" said Mamie, holding fast to his
hand, and giving a happy little hop.
"Going to see a dog," said grandpa, "that can do what a girl can't."
Mamie, of course, was eager to know what a dog "could" do that a girl
could not, and she asked a great many questions; but grandpa stopped
them all by beginning to tell a long story about the St. Bernard dogs
that save a great any people from freezing. The story lasted until they
got to the shop where grandpa had his boots mended.
[Illustration: DOGS OF ST. BERNARD.]
The shoemaker was a little old man, and he had a nice little shop, and
a good little old wife, and a funny little yellow dog.
Very soon grandpa said: "Mr. Jyricks, I want my little girl to see what
wonderful things your dog can do."
Then the little man twinkled a smile from his mouth and eyes, and
called:
"Here, Jip, you!"
And then the little dog in the net room came scampering into that room
so fast that he almost went heels over head, and seated himself in a
little yellow ball at his master's feet, his bright eyes turned to his,
as much as to say: "Now sir, what will you have?"
"Jip, shut that door!" said Mr. Jyricks.
And at the door Jip flew, and with his two fore paws pushed and pushed
with all his might, until it shut.
"Now, Jip, bring my slippers," his master said.
And Jip scampered into the other room and out again as quick as a
wink with a slipper in his mouth, laid it down, and then ran back and
brought the other one. And so he brought his master's glasses and the
newspaper without waiting an instant after he was told.
Mamie laughed until she almost cried to seethe funny little fellow
perform. She was so taken up with his tricks, seeing him stand on his
hind feet and offer one of his fore paws, when she said: "How do you
do, Jip?" that she forgot all about asking her grandfather what he
meant by saying Jip could do what a girl couldn't, until they were
almost home.
Then grandpa said, "I'll tell you when we have our talk to-night."
"Now, grandpa," Mamie said as she nestled into her grandfather's arms
after tea, when he and she were all alone in his room, "now tell me
what the little dog could do that I can't. I'm sure I can shut doors,
and bring your slippers, and newspapers, and glasses."
"Polly," said grandpa, taking her round face between his hands and
looking into her eyes, "the little dog can do it 'right away' the
minute he is spoken to. O, Polly, Polly! To think a poor little yellow
dog can do what you cannot."
[Illustration: ONE OF JIP'S TRICKS.]
The little head went down then on grandpa's bosom, and neither of them
spoke for a few minutes, then grandpa said:
"Polly, I suppose I can buy that little dog to wait upon me, then you
need not take the time from your kitty and dolly to run errands for an
old grandpa."
"Grandpa," said poor little Polly, sitting up and wiping off the tears,
with her handkerchief done into a hard ball, and struggling with her
sobs, "I—I—shall just DIE if you do; it—it 'll break my heart right in
two. Just try me once more, grandpa! I truly will do every single thing
the very minute you tell me. I do want to stop being so naughty. I will
remember, sure as I live and breathe."
Then the gray head and the golden head went together, and there was a
great hugging time, and grandpa took the sorrowful little bundle to his
bosom, and said: "There, there, little one, don't cry anymore. Grandpa
'll help you remember, won't he?"
"Yes;" said Mamie, sitting up straight. "You'll say 'little yellow dog'
to me every time you see me going to forget, won't you?"
Then grandpa laughed loud and long, and he hugged his pet again, and
took off his glasses and wiped away tears, or something, from them.
————————————
WHERE I WENT, AND WHAT I SAW.
DEAR PANSIES: Wherever I go, and whatever pleasant sight I see, I find
myself saying: I will tell the Pansies about that. But someway I never
seem to get to it. Now I have resolved that whatever of interest I find
as I go through the world, you shall share. Therefore I shall begin
with this year a series of papers with the above heading. Let me tell
you first about Long Branch.
"Where 'is' the branch?" said a little bit of a boy, leaning out of
the carriage and looking about him eagerly. "I don't see anything of a
'branch.'"
We found, on questioning him, that he had expected to see a long
gnarled branch of some grand old tree, with perhaps a nest or two built
in it, and a few birds keeping house. To find that it was simply a
town, with one long and rather narrow street, built up with hotels and
cottages on one side, and with old ocean rolling and tumbling along the
other side, was a disappointment to the little boy.
Oh, but the street is lovely! On a summer afternoon, with a bright
blue sky overhead, and a brisk sea-breeze rolling in, to be seated in
an easy carriage behind two handsome horses, and be wheeled along over
the hard road, watching the surf break on the shore by your side, is
about as pleasant a thing as one can have in this world. Where is Long
Branch? Only about two hours' ride, by rail, from that great bustling
dirty city—New York. The cottages I cannot attempt to describe; no two
are in the least alike. Most of them, however, are painted very dark,
with bright red trimmings; the lawns leading to the doors are kept
beautifully green and smooth shaven.
The afternoon in which I last rode through Long Branch was simply
perfect: cool and bright; sky and sea were all in their glory, and
nothing smoother or cleaner than the road over which we rolled, can
be imagined. There is a wonderful public garden, which we visited. I
have forgotten the owner's name, but we enjoyed the tens of thousands
of dollars that he had spread out for our benefit, quite as much as
"he" could have done. There we saw plants and flowers in every possible
variety; names spelled with flowers, mottoes in flowers, lawns covering
acres of ground bordered with flowers.
"Oh!" we said; and "Oh!" and "Oh!" was re-echoed in the carriage from
every side. That was all we could think of to say; and I find, in
trying to describe it, "Oh!" is the only word at command.
But there was one object of special interest to us all. Flowers might
grow and wave, the ocean might roll in all its grandeur, beautiful
houses by the dozens might invite attention, we gave only passing
thought to them all, and looked at, and talked about, and thought of
one plain cottage, on the roof of which waved our country's flag, and
around which stood a guard of soldiers. Oh, you know who lay in one
of the rooms under that cottage roof, about whom all the world was
thinking that day.
"What is the news!" we said, leaning forward and speaking to a man, a
stranger.
How did he know what we meant? There may have been news of great
importance somewhere else in the world.
But he shook his head, and said: "No news since twelve o'clock."
And we knew just what he meant.
A little further on we met a little girl, and she was crying.
We stopped again and said: "What news?"
How did we know but she was crying about a lost kitten, or because her
mother would not let her go to the beach, or the lake?
[Illustration: FRANKLYN COTTAGE, LONG BRANCH, WHERE PRESIDENT GARFIELD
DIED.]
No; she shook her head, and said: "We are afraid he is worse!" And she
cried harder.
We knew what she meant. It was Saturday afternoon, and the President of
the United States lay dying in that cottage close at hand! We stopped
our horses just before the lawn leading to the door. We looked at the
narrow railroad track which had sprung up in the night to carry him to
what we had hoped would be the life-giving sea, and we wondered if the
car would soon roll over this same track to take away only his body!
[Illustration: "A GOOD MAN."]
The gentlemen in our carriage lifted their hats as they stood opposite
the cottage where the President lay. For a few minutes none of us spoke.
Then Dr. Nelson of Geneva, New York, said slowly: "A good man."
I thought about it all the way home. President though he was, with all
true men and women watching in such anxious sorrow for news of him, the
utmost that could be said of him, or of any human being, was covered up
in that one word—"good."
Less than thirty-six hours from that time, the bells tolled out sadly
and solemnly, and when we looked out of our windows in the gray dawn of
the morning, all the flags were at half-mast. The "good man" was gone.
You know all about it, dear Pansies, how the Nation mourned for its
dead President.
Let me tell you of two verses which that same dear Dr. Nelson wrote
to us from his distant home. No, I will tell you where they are to be
found, and you may read them for yourselves. Psalms 46:1, 2. Meantime,
boys, have you begun such lives, that, when you are men, those speaking
of you can say: "A good man?"
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A HAPPY NEW YEAR.]
STORIES FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
IS it possible! What has become of 1881? Whoever knew a year to fly
away so fast before? Well, we start out together for 1882. We have many
new friends, and new plans and hopes.
We hope to have all your names enrolled as members of the "PANSY
SOCIETY" (for particulars look in another column). We hope to have many
letters from you during the year.
In the column entitled "Where I Went and What I Saw," we mean to tell
you about a good many places and people which we think will please you.
In the story entitled "Side by Side," we expect you to become specially
interested, for it is a very important story. As for "Reuben Stone,"
the "Man of the House," I have had so many letters from you during the
year, expressing pleasure in the story, that I know you will like to
follow my boy's fortunes through another year.
For the rest, I will not make any promises, only this: If the "PANSY"
is not a much better paper during the year 1882, I shall be very much
astonished, and sadly disappointed.
Now I hope that every true Pansy will set to work for his and her
paper. How many boys and girls do you know who do not take it? How many
have you asked to do so? How many will you ask again? How many prizes
for new subscribers do you intend to earn?
How I am pouring out the questions on you! Never mind, you are capable
of answering them all.
Just one more, the most important of all. Bend your ear and let me
whisper it: Do you begin this New Year with Jesus? Please write to me
and answer that question. Yours lovingly, PANSY.
————————————
WHO DID IT?—A STORY IN TWO CHAPTERS.
CHAPTER I.
HESTER opened her eyes in the gray dawn of the New Year's morning, and
gave a little chuckle of delight.
There was nothing very cheering about her. The attic in which she slept
was decent, it is true, in fact, was comfortable; but it was dark and
rather cold, and there was just as little furniture as one could get
along with. Yet Hester hugged the big red and brown comfortable, and
lay still a few minutes to enjoy her thoughts. There was no bright
stocking hung up for her as she knew there was down-stairs for the
children of the family. She did not expect a single present of any
sort; in fact, she never had New Year's presents, or presents of any
kind. But oh, how happy she was!
She had never been to a party in her life, and to-day she was going.
Mrs. Neilson, her Sabbath-school teacher, had made a New Year's party
for her class. A great many whispers had buzzed through the class last
Sunday about the wonders that would be seen in her beautiful home; and
Hester's hopes and expectations ran high. Besides, she had a brand new
dress to wear. To be sure it was only a bright calico of pretty figure
and neat make. But Hester was not used to anything better, and she
thought the new calico with a lace ruffle in the neck was beautiful.
So with her heart all full of happiness, she presently hopped out of
her warm nest and began to dress. It was less than two hours afterwards
that Hester's morning clouded.
"Hester!" came in an unusually loud sharp voice from Mrs. Denton's
room. Mrs. Denton was the woman with whom Hester lived; a pretty good
woman generally. Hester dropped the cloth she was polishing the knives
with and ran in haste; the tone was so unusually sharp.
Loud, excited voices sounded down to her from the room above, as she
ran up the stairs. Miss Cora was there, and Miss Emeline, and she could
hear Miss Cora's voice saying: "Of course she did it, mother, who else
would?"
Then Hester knocked timidly at the door.
"Hester, look here!"
Mrs. Denton's voice was positively awful. No wonder. She held, thrown
over her arm, Miss Cora's blue silk dress which always reminded Hester
of the sky in a winter day, or the sea getting ready for a storm.
Across the front breadth were great bright drops of blood. At least,
that was what they looked like to the horrified Hester. After awhile
she discovered that they were blotches of red ink: enough of them to
ruin the dress.
"Now," said Mrs. Denton, still in that awful voice, "suppose you give
us an account of this business!"
[Illustration: "WHO DID IT?"]
She give an account of that business! What did she know about it? How
could they think that she knew anything about those wonderful blue silk
waves?
"Me, ma'am?" she said, catching up the hem of her work-apron and
rolling it around her finger as she always did when she was startled,
her face growing red and white by turns.
"Yes, you! How came you to put those ink-stains on this dress? What
could have been your object, you wicked child? After all that we have
done for you, too. I cannot think it possible that it was an accident,
for you have no business near the dress. The least you can do is to
give an account of yourself."
"Why, ma'am," said Hester, her cheeks ablaze now, "why ma'am, how can
you think—I don't know—I never touched or saw—"
"Mamma," said Cora, "how can you stand there and hear her tell stories?
The deceitful, spiteful little thing! My best dress utterly ruined, and
I have nothing fit to wear to-day." And the young lady crumpled herself
into a heap on the foot of her mother's bed and sobbed aloud.
[Illustration]
"Hester," said Mrs. Denton, "there is no use in your trying to deceive
us in this way. It would be a great deal better for you to confess
your sin and explain what object you could have had. I am perfectly
astonished. I knew you were a high-tempered little girl, but I couldn't
have believed you guilty of such wickedness. When did you do it?"
"I never did! I never did!" almost screamed poor Hester, and her tears
rolled faster than Miss Cora's.
"Stop!" said the awful voice of Mrs. Denton. "How dare you stand
there and tell me what is false? Don't you know, you wicked child,
that Miss Cora had the dress on only last evening? That at tea time
it was in perfect order? That you were missing with colored inks all
the afternoon—foolish woman that I was to allow it!—and that when Miss
Cora changed the dress in my room at dusk, for her street one, she sent
you up-stairs with it, and here it is this morning lying across the
sofa where yen were told to put it, utterly ruined with the ink that
you, and you only, put on it? Naughty, wicked girl! I wouldn't have
believed that you could be so vindictive. Miss Cora says you slammed
the door as hard as you could last night, just because she reproved you
for brushing past Mr. Stuart's chair instead of going behind it as you
ought; and to think that you should have taken such a horrid revenge!"
Poor, red-faced Hester! What could she say or do? There was just one
part of this dreadful story that was true. She had felt cross at Miss
Cora for reproving her before Mr. Stuart, and she had slammed the door.
She remembered it well. The thought of it made her cheeks burn with
shame. But oh, to think that she was accused of inking that beautiful
silk dress, on purpose, too, and for revenge! What should she do? It
seemed of no use to say again that she didn't do it; for she could
hardly expect them to believe her. She had been amusing herself for a
whole bright hour with those lovely colored inks, and she was the only
one who had touched the silk dress after tea. How could the ink have
got on it? She didn't know. All that she could do was to cry. This
she did. She covered her face with her apron, and with one long, loud
wail, that, if Miss Cora's face had not been buried in the bedclothes,
might have gone to her heart, fled away to that attic room, there to
throw herself on the foot of the bed, and cry as though her heart would
break. And truly Hester thought that it would.
She did not know how many hours afterwards it was that she heard her
name called at the foot of the stairs.
"Hester!" There was nothing for it but to take her tear-stained face
and sore little heart down-stairs.
TO BE CONTINUED.
————————————
A DAY THAT JOHNNY NEVER FORGOT.
BY MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.
IT was a bright winter morning, and it was Saturday. It was early
yet—only half-past six—but Johnny Blynn was up and dressed.
[Illustration: THE BEGINNING OF THE DAY.]
He got up early now mostly—ever since he had a room to himself. He
was in a hurry to use his pretty blue washbowl and his new stiff hair
brush, and look about his beautiful room and think how nice it was
to be in there alone like any gentleman making his toilet, the door
locked, and even mamma not coming in without knocking.
It was a nice room. It had pea-green furniture, because that was
Johnny's favorite color. There were a pretty gray carpet with a green
border, and white muslin curtains at the window, and pictures on the
walls.
He did his work nicely. He was careful not to spill water, nor spatter
the drops about, although he washed himself till his face looked like
a pink and white morning-glory dripping with dew, then he brushed his
yellow curls, and dressed himself in his navy-blue suit. How like a
gentleman he looked when it was all done, his collar white as snow,
his necktie in a neat bow, everything all right, even his finger-nails
clean and white as any lady's.
He had one thing more to do before he went down-stairs. He drew his
rocking-chair near the register, and took his Bible and read a few
verses, then he knelt down and prayed. This part of his duties was
not so well done as the other had been. The Bible verses were gabbled
off as fast as he could make his tongue go. As to the prayer, the
words were all right. He asked God to bless him and make him a good
boy—obedient and kind, and keep him from being naughty to anybody, but
he was so busy thinking whether it was likely the creek was frozen
hard enough to skate on, that he scarcely knew what he was saying. He
hurried through the prayer and went down-stairs as fast as he could go.
In the dining-room was sister Nellie, standing by the grate warming her
hands. Johnny seized hold of one of her long braids and gave it such
a twitch that the blue ribbon that tied it came near falling into the
fire.
Then Johnny laughed, and Nellie said impatiently, as she twitched at
the knot in the ribbon:
"It's too bad! When I had my hair all ready for breakfast."
"Hair for breakfast! Ho! Ho!" shouted Johnny, dancing teasingly about
her. "Whoever heard tell of such a thing?"
Then did Nellie's patience vanish entirely, and she sprang up to give
Johnny a good shake, but he darted away and ran out-of-doors, appearing
soon in the kitchen, much to the dismay of Bridget who was flurrying
about trying to dish up breakfast. If there was anybody in the world
that Bridget didn't want to see in the kitchen, it was Johnny; so as
soon as he bounced in, she said:
"Now get out of this, Johnny Blynn, this very minute!"
But Johnny seized the spoon that was in the batter-cakes, shouting,
"I'll bake cakes for you."
Then he tried to put a cake on the griddle. He plunged the spoon deep
into the batter and carried it dripping across the table, and floor,
and stove, and splashed it on to the griddle.
Then Bridget seized both the spoon and the boy, put the spoon in the
dish and the boy through the open door, then shut and locked it, saying
wrathfully, as she put him out, "You're the very worst boy in this
world!"
This was a specimen of that whole day. He could not go out to skate,
because his mother said he was too hoarse to play out-of-doors such
a cold day, and such a day as they had of it! If Johnny's business
had been to torment everybody, make them lose their tempers and upset
nerves generally, he would have been a master-hand at business, for he
went from one thing to another as fast as possible, never once stopping
to rest himself.
He dropped papa's watch, and spilt the ink, and tipped over mamma's
work-basket, and quarreled with Nellie, played pranks on Bridget,
worried the cat, and teased the dog, till about four o'clock in the
afternoon; and then something happened.
From the window he saw two ladies coming to call upon his mother, and
immediately he ran into the parlor and hid behind the folding-doors,
when, as they stood open, were nice little corners behind them. "It
will be such fun," he said to himself, "to hear what they say when they
think they are all alone."
So, while they waited for his mother to come down, they talked. They
were friends of her school-girl days, and one of them had not seen her
for several years. They talked in low tones, but Johnny could hear
every word they said. One lady said to the other:
"Cornelia has a pleasant home."
"Yes," the other answered; "and Mr. Blynn is a very fine man."
"She has two children, you said. Are they nice children?"
"Why, yes, they are very smart and handsome. Nellie is a sweet child,
but Johnny is a perfect little torment. His mother spent the day with
me when I lived out at Riverdale, and she brought him along. He kept
my nerves on the stretch all day. There wasn't a thing on the mantel
or table but he must have hold of. I expected everything would go to
shivers that he touched, he was so rough. He brought mud on my carpet,
and trod on the lace curtains, and put his feet on the sofa, and his
mother kept saying, 'Johnny, don't! Johnny, stop!' And Johnny never
obeyed until he was spoken to three times. I guess his mother was glad
when night came; and I'm sure I was. I thought Cornelia would succeed
better in training children; she certainly has made a great failure in
this case."
[Illustration: HOW THE DAY ENDED.]
"What a pity that she should have such a burden to carry; you said her
health was frail."
"Yes, very; I should not be surprised if she did not live very long."
Just then the door opened, and Mrs. Blynn came into the room. Johnny
peeped through the crack at her—his sweet, beautiful mother; how pretty
she looked, dressed in white, with pink cheeks and bright eyes! What
dreadful thing was this he had just heard; his mamma die!—How could it
be? He had never thought of such a thing in his life. How he wished he
could get out of that place and go up to his room. He wanted to cry out
loud.
To think, too, that anybody should speak of him in that way—"a perfect
little torment!" Oh, it was too dreadful! Had he really done all those
awful things when he was at Mrs. Graham's last summer? He rolled over
on the floor and had hard work to keep from screaming outright.
Just then what did Mrs. Blynn say but:
"Is not this draught too strong for you, Mrs. Graham?" And arising,
closed the folding-doors, when behold! curled in a heap in the corner
was Johnny.
"Why!" said mamma.
But Johnny waited to hear no more. A dart and a bound took him through
the door, and on he went up to his own room, where he cried himself
almost sick; but while he cried, he did more thinking than ever he had
in his short life before.
"Nobody shall ever call me a torment again," he said with a long-drawn
sob. "I'll show 'em my mother does know how to bring up children; I
will!"
Don't suppose that Johnny grew to be a wonderfully good boy all at once
after that big resolve. He tried to keep it, but he kept forgetting and
doing the same naughty things day after day. He told it all to mamma
one night—how it was of no use for him to try and be good; he "just
couldn't!"
And then mamma said:
"Johnny, dear, don't you know you must pray just as you play, with all
your heart, and your heart must run to Jesus when you feel that you are
tempted to be naughty, just as you call after me when you are in any
danger?"
That made the way plainer, and everybody began soon to say, "Johnny is
certainly growing to be a better boy."
————————————
THREE LITTLE M'S.—A THREE-PART STORY.
BY MARGARET SIDNEY.
MATILDA, Martha, and Mary. That's what folks called them.
As to their looks, they were as alike as three peas in a pod. Even
their father, good fat old Mr. Poser, who kept the small shop where the
cross-roads met, said, "'Tain't in natur' to know which is the other,
unless you see 'em a-workin'."
And this is the way they worked—these three little M's. "Two," I should
say, for alas! one of these dear little girls was never a worker at
all. Although Matilda, the eldest, skipped around the small shop, busy
as a bee, helping father every day, and Martha, the next one, minded
the house, little Mary, the youngest of the bunch, let them work alone
while she tried to have a good time in her own naughty little way. For
she didn't believe in making life beautiful in the way God has intended
for all children as well as great folks, by cheerful, faithful labor,
that makes play-time when it comes just twice as jolly because earned.
Not she! She wanted high holiday "all" the time, and so she made her
father very unhappy, and the tears to trail down from the little
sister's big brown eyes very often, all because she "would" have her
own way, and spend every day in running and racing here, there, and
everywhere, for something new to look at.
Was she happy? Can a little child be, who turns her back on duty? And
didn't she ever stop that bad, bad habit? Well, we'll see. Stay! I'll
whisper it to you beforehand—my answer. Yes, she "did" stop, and all
because of—and here's my story!
"Oh, dear, dear, 'dear!'"
Fat Mr. Poser sat right down on the cover of a butter-tub, although
it was the busiest day in the week—Saturday—and just wrung his hands,
which were like two small pincushions.
"What's the matter, pa?" cried Matilda, taking, by a violent effort,
her eyes from off the jar of pink and white peppermint sticks. "Oh,
what 'is' the matter?" And she ran over to his side.
But the fat shop-keeper only groaned, and unclasped the two pincushions
enough to disclose in their centre a bright silver quarter of a dollar.
"'There!'" at last he said.
"Oh, my!" exclaimed Matilda, her eyes as big as good-sized cups;
"that's Mrs. Smith's change."
"I know it," said Mr. Poser. Then he groaned again; and getting up from
the butter-tub, he waddled to the door.
[Illustration: "OH, DEAR, DEAR!"]
"'Ma-a-ry!'" he called, as loud as he could scream.
A small blue gown, and a little red hood, that were flying past, came
to a full stop.
"Now you trot right straight off to Mrs. Smith's house in Crow Hollow
as fast as you can trot, an' tell her she left this quarter, after
buying that chopping-bowl this morning."
At that, there came such a whine from the little red hood, that
Mr. Poser cried sternly, "You might as well stretch your legs for
somethin'. Start now, an' don't you stop anywheres! 'Mind!'"
The whine ceased suddenly, as the blue gown and little red hood took
themselves slowly out of the big gate. For the first half-mile or more,
Mary went on quite steadily. Then she began to sigh—a sigh that soon
broke out into a dismal cry—a cry that only half made itself heard, for
the very good reason that Mary stopped to wink her eyes so violently,
she had no time to attend to anything else.
"Why—why—ee!" she cried to herself and the birds. "'Folks have moved
into the dungeon!'"
The "dungeon" was an old rambling stone mansion down on the edge of
the wood, unoccupied since the old squire had died, and given up to
the crows and the bats. Mary grasped her silver quarter tightly in her
little fist, while her two naughty feet began to carry her up to the
big green door.
"I'll take 'one' look," she whispered to her conscience; "only 'one;'
then I'll run all the faster to Mrs. Smith's."
But that "one look" showed her a pair of cunning little rabbits just
inside the barn-door, nibbling a cabbage-leaf.
"I wish 'I' had rabbits," she said, wistfully gazing at them. "I'm
going to ask the folks in there to let me play with 'em sometime. Maybe
there's a girl as big as me lives here. I mean to see."
So Mary stepped up a steep flight of short stairs leading into the
house, and was just going in, when a big black dog running suddenly
out, met her at the top, and coming to a full stop, showed all his
teeth and gave "such" a bark, that the little girl turned around in a
twinkling, and began to scuttle down the stairs with all her might.
The dog came tumbling after, barking violently at every step.
Frightened almost to death, Mary flew along the barn floor, out into a
dirty little court-yard, and, just in time to keep the little blue gown
from a sharp snip of the white, gleaming teeth, she plunged against a
door that stood conveniently open, threw herself on its other side,
slammed it to, and tumbled down in a small heap on a pile of potatoes,
to draw a long breath.
[Illustration: A PRISONER IN THE CORN-CHAMBER.]
It was a little room, all filled with corn piled up in small bins with
heaps of cobs thrown down just where children's busy fingers had been
shelling; bags of meal fresh from the mill, and everywhere else that
anything could be stowed, were heaps and heaps of potatoes. All this
while the dog was howling away smartly outside.
"Hum—hum—'hum!'" said Mary, trying to catch her breath. "Oh, me, ain't
I tired, though! Now when that dog goes away, I'll go right straight
off to Mrs. Smith's. I don't want to see any more of these folks. 'Why!
Where's—my—quarter!'"
For her fat little palm was empty.
Just then a loud voice struck up, outside the old door:
"Come off, Bose! 'Sharp,' sir."
"Er-r-'oof!'" Patter, patter, patter, went the dog's feet, as he
unwillingly obeyed, leaving Mary to wriggle in delight at her escape.
"Now, then," she was just going to say, when, "click—'snap!'" went the
key in the lock, and before she quite knew it, she was fast a prisoner
in the old corn-chamber.
TO BE CONTINUED.
————————————
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
"FIZZ! Sizzle!" said the mixture in the big pot on the stove. Miss
Penelope stirred it, looking meantime so grim that it might almost have
soured the mixture, whatever it was.
The kitchen was in after-dinner order; the stove shone brightly—the
only bright thing to be seen, for the sun could not look in, and
furniture was very scarce.
Suddenly the door opened, and a rush of cold air came in, with a few
flakes of snow, and a pretty girl, in a green flannel suit, with a
green velvet hat to match.
"Did you say come?" she asked in a cheery voice. "The wind blows so I
couldn't tell. Miss Penelope, mamma wants to know if I may come and
stay twenty-four hours with you? She was called away very suddenly, and
she didn't know what to do with me."
[Illustration: "DID YOU SAY COME?"]
"'Well,'" said Miss Penelope, after standing up straight, and looking
at her visitor in amazed silence for a minute, "I should think you
'had' come!"
The pretty girl laughed a silvery laugh. "That is true," she said,
stepping in, and closing the heavy door. "Mamma didn't know what else
to do; she was in 'such' a flurry. The telegram never came until about
an hour before the last train; it was from my uncle in the city. Mamma
doesn't know him very much, and I never saw him in my life; but it
seems he is 'very' sick, and wants to see mamma. She thought she ought
to go, but of course she couldn't take me, and she said she knew you
would take care of me until the four o'clock train to-morrow, when she
would come back: she didn't like to trust me anywhere else. So I have
my brush and comb, and all my night things in this bag."
"Humph!" said Miss Penelope. "Sit down, and take off your things."
Her face was, if possible, grimmer than before. If there was any one
thing that she disliked more than flies, and dogs, and tramps, it
was visitors. She never had them if she could possibly help it. The
green-dressed maiden's mother, who had known her all her life, and took
more liberties with her than anybody else, never ventured to come to
tea; yet here she had sent her daughter to stay twenty-four hours.
"Whatever shall I do with her, or say to her?" said Miss Penelope,
dashing around her kitchen like a great frightened fly.
But the first thing to do was to get her some supper, as the
old-fashioned clock in the corner said "almost five o'clock." Miss
Penelope never was known to have supper one minute after five o'clock.
The new-comer, whose name was Helena, did not seem uncomfortable in
the least. She hung up her own hat and sack, then hovered around Miss
Penelope.
"Let me set the table, please," she said eagerly; "I always do for
mamma. It will seem so funny to eat supper without her."
She did not wait for permission, but helped herself to two
old-fashioned blue and white plates, two cups and saucers, and the
quaint little sugar-bowl, exclaiming as she did so over the pretty
pictures on them.
Miss Penelope seemed too much astonished to speak. When had her table
ever been set "for" her before! In fact, she could not remember the
time. But she could remember the time when it was always set for two.
Not very long ago, her old mother sat at the foot of the table.
It was in the evening, when the kitchen was trim and proper again, and
the old-fashioned lamp was lighted, and Miss Penelope sewed on a "very"
dark calico apron, large enough to cover her all up, that Helena said:
"I brought my Bible among my night things; shall I get it and read my
verses aloud, as I do to mamma?"
What could Miss Penelope do but give a sort of grunt for assent; of
course, being a decent woman, she couldn't very well refuse to have a
chapter in the Bible read to her, though the old mother had been the
only one who had ever done it.
So the clear voice of the young reader commenced: "And there came a
leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying
unto him: If thou wilt thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with
compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him,
I will, be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the
leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed."
"Only think how quick!" said Helena, looking up with shining eyes.
"Just for the 'asking!' Oh, Miss Penelope, don't you wish Jesus was
on earth now? Then uncle might have asked Him to make 'him' well, and
mamma need not have gone away; but that is silly, I know; He can hear
us just as well, and do just as much for us; only the trouble people
is, people won't 'ask.' Uncle never asks Him for anything, mamma says.
It sometimes seems to me if such people could 'see' Him they would ask
Him for what they need: but I don't suppose they would. Mamma says
they would be like those people who wanted Him to go away out of their
country and not bother them."
Then she went on with her reading.
Miss Penelope did not hear much more. Her heart went back to the day
when her old mother had read her that very story, and how she told of
the time when "she" asked Him for healing, and he gave t; and then the
tired old voice would say: "Oh, Penelope, my girl, I wish you would go
to Him!" Penelope never had.
The next day passed busily to Helena. A telegram came for her. She was
to be put on the four-thirty train, and go to the city; mamma would
meet her at the depot.
Helena never came back to the little village. The old uncle died—not
then, nor the next day, nor the next, but after weeks of pain.
[Illustration]
He left all his money to Helena's mother, and the little bit of a
cottage home where she and her daughter used to live, was broken up,
and they lived in the grand city home. Helena never saw Miss Penelope
again; for, strange to say, before the uncle died, God called for the
lonely old woman. So Helena doesn't know yet, but some day when she
goes to heaven she will—for there will be a bright star in her crown,
and when she inquires for whom it shines, she will learn in great
astonishment that it stands for the soul of Miss Penelope, who was led,
through those simple, earnest words of hers, and through the words read
to her from the Bible that was among her "night things," to go herself
and "ask Jesus."
————————————
P. S.
NOW, what does that stand for? Not "Postscript," because every one is
to be told the first thing. So all you bright Pansies, now listen!
"P. S." forever and forever, and then again forever after this stands
for—
"PANSY SOCIETY!"
And it is to be all our own? Yes, indeed! And we are to have all the
say about it too? Yes, indeed! again.
Now, then, "who will join? What shall be our motto? What shall we do?
How shall we do it? Where shall we meet? When shall we meet? What will
come of it?"
Oh, wait—wait—wait! You fairly overwhelm me with questions. It is late,
and this paper should go to press. I can't answer now. Let me give just
a little hint.
In the first place, the name is the "PANSY SOCIETY." That's settled.
Then the motto comes, and that is "Pansies for Thoughts." What kind of
thoughts? Oh, sweet, good, pure, unselfish, helpful thoughts, such as
Pansies, beautiful Pansies, ought to inspire.
And we'll have a badge? Of course we will! Whoever heard of a society
without a badge. And ours will be the most beautiful in all the world.
That's settled, too. Just hear what it is going to be. The most
beautiful round locket of wood, on the face of which is a lovely pansy,
naturally colored. Above is the name, "PANSY SOCIETY," underneath the
motto, "Pansies for Thoughts." A perforation at the top holds the
ribbon to suspend the locket on the neck.
Now, "who may join?"
Every boy and girl who takes the PANSY, and is willing to promise to
try to overcome his or her faults, to encourage every good impulse, to
try to conquer some hard lesson at school, to do "anything" that shows
a disposition to help the cause of right in the world. Any one who will
say from the heart: "I promise to try each day to do some kind act, or
say some kind word that shall help somebody;" and honest effort will
be rewarded as much as if success were gained. Whoever will promise
this shall receive the badge "at once," on sending notice of such
determination to the editor.
This promise must be dated, and will be copied into the "P. S."
roll-book. Each child is invited to write to the editor how far the
trial has proved a success, how many temptations have been resisted,
how much progress in any direction has been made, etc., feeling sure of
encouragement and loving help.
And we will have some beautiful books of our own to read, which all the
"P. S." people can get for much less money than anybody else. We will
have local meetings. If any of you want to ask, "what in the world are
those?" Go to mother, or father, or big brother John. They will tell
you.
That is enough for now—excepting the most important of all—our whisper
motto: "I will do it for Jesus' sake."
"FOR JESUS' SAKE."
Whatever He will own, the "P. S." will be proud and glad to copy on its
roll-book.
And the PANSY will help. As it has always been glad to encourage those
who are struggling up toward the light, so now it reaches forth its
helping hand to those little ones who will rally bravely around it, to
the work of putting down the evil, and the support of all things good
and beautiful. That is all for now. Just a hint in a hurry; more next
month.
Meantime, how many names shall we receive? Send postal-card with name
to D. LOTHROP & CO., 32 Franklin St., Boston, Mass.
————————————
[Illustration: SARAH LAMBERT.]
SIDE BY SIDE.
[PART I.]
BEHOLD I WILL SEND MY MESSENGER, AND HE SHALL PREPARE THE WAY
BEFORE ME.
THE PEOPLE THAT WALKED IN DARKNESS HAVE SEEN A GREAT LIGHT.
I, EVEN I, AM HE THAT BLOTTETH OUT THY TRANSGRESSSIONS FOR MINE OWN
SAKE, AND WILL NOT REMEMBER THY SINS.
REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY, TO KEEP IT HOLY.
SARAH LAMBERT lived with her mother in one room over Mr. Dunlap's
stable. The stairs leading up to it were narrow and steep and dark.
The room was dark when you reached it; only one window, with small,
old-fashioned panes of glass. The window was dirty, too, and trimmed
with cobwebs. There were two wooden-seated chairs, a poor bedstead, a
table of the old-fashioned kind, with one leaf gone, a cooking-stove
that smoked, of course, as all worn-out stoves do, and that stood on
three legs, its door hanging by one hinge.
In this room one winter morning, Sarah Lambert washed her face from
a tin basin, on a corner of one chair, snarled at her tangled hair a
few minutes with a broken comb, put on a pair of ragged stockings and
ragged shoes, and, over some very thin and old undergarments, a dark
brown calico dress, patched in three places, wound a piece of brown
and white plaid shawl about her, put on a gray felt hat without any
trimming, and without any breakfast stole out of the room.
Her mother was still sleeping, though the sun was high. She went to bed
the night before intending to sleep until she was ready to wake up; for
she knew that the next day would be Sunday. As for Sarah, she was going
to Sunday-school, whatever that meant; she had promised a lady the day
before that she would.
[Illustration: SIDE BY SIDE.]
Ethol Harrison lived with her father and mother and brothers and
sisters in the great stone house three squares away from Sarah
Lambert's. The room in which she slept late that Sunday morning had a
crimson carpet on the floor, and crimson curtains at the windows, and
costly and elegant furniture.
When Ethol had eaten a breakfast of broiled chicken, and toast, and
canned fruit, she was dressed by Hannah in a dark blue velvet suit
with hat to match, having a long white plume winding all about it, kid
gloves on her bits of hands, and kid boots on her bright stockinged
feet, lovely white furs, cape, and muff, to crown all, and she too went
to Sunday-school.
Behold, she and Sarah Lambert sat side by side in the bright room full
of people. Ethol smoothed down her new velvet dress, and buttoned her
glove, and tossed back her plume, and smiled and nodded to her friends,
and Sarah sat like a statue at her side and stared. She had never seen
such a light, bright, beautiful room as that in her life. Both of the
girls received cards with the words on them that are at the head of
this story. Both girls read them at once, for Sarah went to day-school
and knew how to read. They were new words to her. She was so astonished
over them, that she forgot her awe of Ethol and nudged at the blue
velvet sack nod whispered:
"What was it?"
"What was 'what?'"
"That great light; where was it—what did it show them?"
Then Ethol giggled.
"Miss Mason," she said, "this little girl wants to know what they saw
by the great light."
Miss Mason turned to Sarah, whose checks were now very red.
"Don't you know who the light is, dear?" she said gently.
"No," said Sarah, but she felt comforted. Miss Mason's voice made her
think of the music that she heard as she passed the church.
"It means Jesus, my child; you know the world was very dark until he
came."
"Wasn't there any sun to shine?" asked Sarah; and Ethol giggled again.
"Yes; but I don't mean that kind of darkness. I mean full of sin, and
sorrow, and trouble; and the people did not know the way out. While He
was here they used to bring sick people to him; those whom no doctor
could cure; and he would just touch them, or speak to them, and they
would be well at once."
"I don't believe it," said Sarah, promptly.
And Ethol said: "Oh-h! What a wicked girl!"
"That is what some of the people said who were looking on," Miss Mason
told her. "'They' wouldn't believe in the great light though Jesus gave
them so many reasons for believing. Open your Bibles, girls. Here is
one for you, Sarah. Let us read the story about the sick woman who was
cured of fever in an instant."
Sarah looked at the place pointed out to her, and listened, and read
when her turn came; she had never heard of such a thing in her life.
She asked a great many questions, and amused Ethol so much that she
almost forgot her new hat with its long plume.
"Where has he gone?" asked, Sarah, suddenly, interrupting Miss Mason in
the middle of a sentence. "Where has this great doctor gone to?"
Then Miss Mason tried to explain, that though he had gone back to
heaven, his spirit was here and could do just as great and wonderful
things as ever.
"He can't cure people in a minute now." said Sarah, positively; "'cause
Mr. Dunlap's Nettie was awful sick, and had doctors and doctors, and
she died. If this man could have cured her, Mr. Dunlap would have had
him, for he loved her just awful."
"Did you ever 'see' such a girl?" whispered Ethol to the little girl on
her left. "Why, she is a perfect heathen."
Well, the Sunday-school was over, and Sarah took her motto-card home
with her, and thought about the verses, and studied them, and read them
to her mother, and wondered over them, and wished a hundred times a day
that she could see Jesus just for a minute.
Ethol put her card in her pocket—crumpling it as she did so—and I don't
think she thought of it again until the next Sabbath morning.
Now I want, during the year 1882, to tell you a good deal about these
two girls who often sat side by side, and stood side by side, and
walked side by side, and yet were so different. You will see if you
keep watch of their lives, that the difference between them reached
beyond their clothes, and their homes, even into their hearts. But you
must wait until next month to hear more. The name of this story, each
month, will be, "Side by Side."
[Illustration]
"THE OTHER ONE."
"SOME folks has everything, and some folks has nothing."
This is precisely what the sour-faced little girl, Hannah Bancroft,
thought as she stood in the doorway and saw Helen's mother bend
over the bed and kiss her. Hannah was this favored Helen's little
nurse-girl, who had not yet been in the house twelve hours, and was
taking her first peep at Helen and Helen's room. She had never seen
such a beautiful room before in her life! Lovely carpet, that looked as
though somebody had been to the woods for mosses and ferns, and strewn
them all over the room. Lovely paper on the wall, that on the stormiest
winter days made the room look as though a golden sun was setting. Soft
couches and easy-chairs, and a mantel filled with many pretty things.
She thought of the one in which she had slept only two nights before;
no carpet on the floor, no mantel at all, no chairs, only a wooden one
with three legs, and part of the back broken off.
"I've something for my darling when she gets up," the mother said,
bending over Helen. "A nice surprise."
"Mamma, you always have nice surprises," said the little girl with a
low, happy laugh.
"This is the nicest one mamma has found in many a day," the mother said
and she began to make preparations for the little girl to get up.
"Lazy thing!" said Hannah to herself. "Lying there and letting her
mother hunt her shoes, and pick up her things. Why don't she bound out
and wait on herself? She is just horrid; I know she is."
[Illustration: "MAMMA, YOU ALWAYS HAVE NICE SURPRISES," SAID THE LITTLE
GIRL.]
"Now, darling," said the mother, and she bent over the bed again, and
to Hannah's great surprise lifted the slight little form in her arms
and carried her to an easy-chair. Then Hannah saw that the poor little
feet were much smaller than they ought to be, and that there was a
bandage around one of them.
"Didn't you know that you were to be feet for my little girl?" Mrs.
Stevens said, speaking to Hannah, an she saw her startled face.
"Can't she walk at all?" was her dismayed answer.
"Not now," the mother said, gently; "she is going to some day, we hope.
You may come in now."
"Mamma," she said, "I can go visiting now whenever I want to, can't I?"
And that happy little laugh gurgled out; then almost in the same breath
she said: "Mamma, what about the other one?"
"I don't know about that yet," the mother said. "I will leave you to
plan for it."
"The other one," muttered Hannah. "What can she want of two?" The
sullen look had come back.
"Don't you think my new carriage is lovely?" Helen ventured this to the
gloomy-faced little girl.
"Yes 'm," said Hannah absently; "yes 'm, I s'pose so."
"But you don't think you would like it as well as walking?"—this with
the least bit of a sigh. "I like it very much, though; it is such a
rest to me. I haven't walked a step in two years."
She expected to see the gloomy face change into one of surprise and
pity; but Hannah said, speaking almost fiercely: "I know a boy who
hasn't walked a step in five years."
"Oh dear me!" There was instant sympathy in Helen's voice. "Who is he?
What is the matter with him? How old is he?"
"He's my brother," said Hannah in a gentler tone. "He is most twelve
years old, but he is so little and weak, you wouldn't think he was six.
I can carry him just as easy! He had a very had fall when he was seven,
and he won't never walk again."
"Poor little fellow! And has he a wheeled chair, and a couch that can
be raised and let down, and a sponge pillow when his head aches, and
oh! I don't know: all sorts of nice things?"
"No," said Hannah, the sullen look coming back; "he ain't got nothing
only a hard bed, and a chair with a cushion in, that mother made out of
our old quilt."
"Then I have found the 'other one' already," said Helen joyfully.
"What?" said Hannah.
And Helen laughed.
"You don't know what I mean. Why, you see long ago, when papa and mamma
began to get me so many things to help me bear my trouble, we planned
it that there should always be two bought, and the other one should be
given to somebody who needed it, and couldn't spare the money to get
it. So I know there is another one of these lovely chairs, and your
poor little brother shall be in it before night."
Sure enough, the widow Bancroft received, just at noon, the
strangest-looking parcel! It could only by great coaxing be gotten up
her narrow stairs. All the rest—what the pale little fellow who had not
walked a step in five years thought, and felt, and said, when he found
himself actually going across the room on wheels, and what the mother
thought as the tears rolled down her cheeks, and what Hannah thought
as she looked on and remembered her cross sentence: "Some folks has
everything, and some folks has nothing,"—I will leave you to imagine.
But then, you must remember that in the morning she had not heard
anything about "the other one."
————————————
THE THREE LITTLE M'S.—PART II.
BY MARGARET SIDNEY.
FOR the first two or three moments, Mary was too frightened to think of
anything but her heartbeats, which certainly, it seemed to her, must be
heard a mile away.
"I wish—" thump, thump, thump,—"I'd—been—good," at last she gasped out
in a muffled sob. "Oh dear, dear! I want to go—home to—'father!'"
Awl with a low wail of despair, she flung herself, a little heap of
woe, on an old potato bag, and shut her eyes tight.
A wise old rat peered out from behind a pile of corn, stopping his
nibbling long enough to stare at her.
"That child has been doing something wrong," he nodded sagely to
himself; and his little eyes gleamed. "'I' know the signs. Now I'm
going to scare her."
Thereupon, he rattled so suddenly among the dry kernels on the old
floor that Mary shivered with fright.
"I shall be killed!" she cried, stuffing back her tears, to bound up
into a sitting posture. "Oh, it's rats! And they'll eat me, every
single speck of me, bones and all! Oh dear, dear, dear!"
With a wild fling of his hind legs, Mr. Rat flew across the little room
from corner to corner, making such a noise that the little prisoner
screamed in very terror.
"I—never—will—be—bad—again." And then over she tumbled in a swoon.
Meantime, the little shop was all astir with excitement because the
youngest of the bunch hadn't come home.
"Pa," exclaimed Martha, the little housekeeper, who, in her anxiety,
had let all the bread burn to a cinder, "do, oh, do let me run down to
Mrs. Smith's and see if she's there!"
"Oh, poor Mary!" cried Matilda, wringing her hands. "I know she's lost,
and she never 'll come home, never, as long as she lives!"
"For the land sakes!" exclaimed Mr. Poser, throwing a stubby pencil,
with which he was vainly trying to cast up accounts, down on the
well-worn counter. "You'll worry the life out of me, some of you will;
an' then 'I' shall be dead. There! Reach me my hat an' stick, Marthy.
I'll go myself."
[Illustration: GOING TO FIND MARY.]
"I don't worry you, pa," said Matilda in a grieved may, turning back
from the small cracked window out of which she was peering into the
gathering dusk, for the first glimpse of the familiar little red hood.
"And I'm sure 'I' don't," broke in Martha, in a dreadfully injured
tone, as she handed up the articles mentioned. "Do take that back, pa,"
she begged.
"Well, somebody does," said the old gentleman doggedly, putting his hat
on his head with no gentle thrust, and grasping his stick, "so what
odds does it make 'who' 'tis. There, keep a sharp eye on the shop,
Matildy; an', Marthy, run along to your work. I'll be back soon."
But he got no further than the door, for a big woman with a very
determined face was marching in, and now confronted him sharply.
"Good day to you, Mr. Poser!" she exclaimed, with more the air of a
policeman than an ordinary visitor, "I'd like to inquire where my
quarter of a dollar is. 'Tisn't often a chopping-bowl is so very high
as the one I bought this morning. Not 'very' often."
"'Your quarter of a dollar!'" repeated the fat shop-keeper, glaring at
his visitor in sheer astonishment. "Why, hain't you got it? Where's my
Mary?" he demanded, in a tone to match hers in sharpness.
"I don't know where your Mary is, nor any other folks' Mary," declared
Mrs. Smith irritably, "an' I'm sure I don't care. All I want is my
quarter of a dollar. I'd thank you for that."
"I sent it by my youngest little gal," said Mr. Poser, on a high key,
and punching his stick on the floor to emphasize each word, "four good
hours ago. Hain't you seen her?"
In the babel that followed of tears and bewailings on the part of the
two little sisters, Mrs. Smith protested three times solemnly on her
word and honor, that she had not seen Mary Poser that day. Then she
straightway magnanimously forgot the loss of her precious quarter of a
dollar, and turned comforter at once.
[Illustration]
"Oh, you'll find her," she said cheeringly; "don't be afraid. A girl
like her, such a run-about, always turns up like a cat."
"There's a last time to everythin'," said Mr. Poser solemnly, "an' I
guess Mary's run herself out this time."
Which encouraging statement caused such fresh wails of despair, that
Mrs. Smith was nearly frantic.
"Hush-sh!" she exclaimed warningly. "You'll have the house down around
your ears, if you don't look out, with all your noise. I'll go an' see
if I can't find her. There, do be still!"
"I'll go, too," said Mr. Poser, waddling to the door.
"And I'm going, too! Oh, I am!" cried Matilda, rushing after him to
grasp his hand.
"And I ain't going to stay home alone," exclaimed Martha, flying up,
the tears running down her chubby face; "I want to go and look for my
dear sister too."
"You might as well let 'em come, Mr. Poser," said Mrs. Smith decidedly.
"They'll scream themselves to death left behind. There now, we'll soon
find Mary safe and sound."
So the whole procession left the little shop, and started on their
dismal errand.
————————————
WHO DID IT?
PART SECOND.
"HESTER," said Mrs. Denton, still in the "awful" tone, "you have been
a very ungrateful little girl indeed; I could not have believed it! I
don't know but I ought to send you dinnerless and supperless to bed to
spend the day; but I have concluded to give you a chance, even yet, to
overcome your faults, great as they are. If you will confess the whole
thing to me from beginning to end, and will go to Miss Cora and say
that you are bitterly sorry for having been so wicked a girl, I will
allow you to go to the New Year's party, and say nothing about the
matter to your teacher for the present, at least; perhaps never, if I
find you are truly sorry and are trying hard to do right."
Poor Hester! This seemed to hem her in more than ever. Confess what?
That she had inked the beautiful dress in a fit of rage; and then had
told falsehood after falsehood to cover the sin?
As she stood before her waiting mistress, thinking it all over, one
minute her face was pale with fear, and the next it flushed with anger.
She "wanted so" to go to that party! More, perhaps, than you who have
been to many parties, can possibly imagine. The fear of giving it up
made her face pale. Then the thought that her word was not believed,
and that the only way to get to the party was actually to tell a lie,
made her face grow red with anger.
"Well," said Mrs. Denton at last, vexed more than ever at her
hesitation, "it seems to take you a long time to decide. Are you going
to confess the whole thing to me or not? I assure you I shall not stand
here waiting very long."
"Oh, ma'am!" burst forth Hester at last, the tears streaming from her
eyes. "Indeed! Indeed, I have told you the truth. I don't know one
thing about the pretty dress."
"Leave the room instantly!" was Mrs. Denton's stern command.
And Hester flew sobbing up the stairs into her attic, and threw herself
on the bed in a perfect passion of weeping.
Even then Mrs. Denton was sorry for her. "It is not so much the loss
of the dress," she said to her daughters, "though that is enough; but
to think that the creature will persist in falsehood! And yet I cannot
help being sorry for her. I suppose she is so frightened about it now,
that she is actually afraid to confess."
"Poor little wretch!" said Miss Cora, who by this time was dressed in
her new bottle-green suit, and found that she looked very nice indeed,
and so felt better. "Mamma, give her another trial. She has never been
to a party in her life; and she has talked about this one incessantly
all the week."
So Mrs. Denton, believing herself to be the most patient and forgiving
of women, sent up word that she would give Hester one hour, even now,
in which to decide to do right.
Oh! Can I describe to you how awfully tempted poor Hester was then?
What to do? Why, to say that she had inked the beautiful blue dress!
"Somebody must have done it," sobbed the poor little girl to herself;
"and they will always think I did it; and they will think I am awful,
awful wicked; and they will send me to the house of correction, maybe,
or somewhere, and she said she would forgive me if I would confess.
She will tell Mrs. Neilson all about it, and she will think I forgot
all she said to me, and didn't try a bit to do right; and she said she
would forgive me if I would confess it. Oh dear me! What 'shall' I do?"
Don't you see how Satan came to torment this poor little friendless
mouse? He actually made her think that it wouldn't be such a dreadful
thing just to say she was sorry for what she had never done. She told
herself that she could think in her heart that she only meant she was
sorry because the blue dress was spoiled, and she was sure that would
be true. Besides, oh, what an important matter she made of that New
Year's party! What would all the other girls think was the reason she
was not there? That fat Anna Parks, who didn't like her a bit and was
always saying ugly things about her, would be sure to find out why she
was kept away, and would tell all the girls, and they would believe it,
and it would do more harm than one poor little story possibly could.
[Illustration: "SOMEBODY MUST HAVE DONE IT," SOBBED HESTER.]
"Oh dear! Oh dear!" she said, hopping up suddenly as she heard a clock
down in the sitting-room strike the half hour. "The time is almost
gone, and if I don't do it, I shall have to stay here all day, and all
night, and be sent away and never see Mrs. Neilson any more, and they
will never forgive me. Oh, I must! I must!"
TO BE CONTINUED.
————————————
[Illustration: SIDE BY SIDE]
SIDE BY SIDE.
[PART II.]
YE HAVE NOT CHOSEN ME, BUT I HAVE CHOSEN YOU, AND ORDAINED YOU, THAT YE
SHOULD GO AND BRING FORTH FRUIT, AND THAT YOUR FRUIT SHOULD REMAIN.
HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME.
HE THAT HATH AN EAR, LET HIM HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT SAITH UNTO THE
CHURCHES.
THERE SHALL BE A HANDFUL OF CORN IN THE EARTH UPON THE TOP OF THE
MOUNTAINS; THE FRUIT THEREOF SHALL SHAKE LIKE LEBANON.
THE girls gathered in little groups and talked over the matter.
Something new to be done. Miss Mason was in charge of their room, and
in the reading-class that morning had told them of the custom when she
went to school of "choosing sides and spelling down." These girls and
boys knew nothing about it, but, most of them had agreed that it would
be "fun," and at recess they had crowded about Miss Mason, and coaxed
her to let them have a spelling-match. So this very afternoon it was to
be tried; and the leaders had already been chosen, one of them being
Ethol Harrison.
"Our side will beat, you'll see if it won't," she said, tossing back
her pretty curls. "I know who all the best spellers are, and I'll
choose them as fast as I can, and the others may keep their seats for
all I care."
"But Johnnie Burns has every other turn," objected one of the girls;
"what if he chooses some of the best ones before you get a chance?"
"Oh, he won't!" said Ethol. "Johnnie doesn't think fast enough to know
who the best spellers are."
Just then Ethol caught sight of Sarah Lambert standing just outside the
group, looking wistfully at them. Sarah was almost always just outside
of things.
"Just see that girl stare at us!" Ethol said. "She always looks hungry
out of her eyes. Did you ever notice? I wonder if she expects to get
chosen? I shan't choose her, I'm sure."
"She's a pretty good speller, though," answered one of the girls,
thoughtfully.
"I don't care. I shan't choose her; and I don't believe Johnnie will;
he won't if I tell him not to. She doesn't belong to us girls. It
always makes me cross to see her standing around. Her faded old dress,
and straight, yellow hair, and no ruffle, and worn-out shoes, don't
match in with the rest of us." And Ethol tossed her curls again, and
smoothed the overskirt of her handsome all-wool blue dress, and looked
down at her trim, buttoned boots with an air that said as plainly as
words: "Could you imagine two people who looked more unlike that Sarah
Lambert and I?"
Presently the group around the register moved away in different
directions, but Sarah Lambert's eager eyes followed Ethol. She had
caught stray words here and there from the girls, and she knew that
a good deal of the talk had been going on about choosing; so she
determined to do what took a good deal of courage.
"Did He choose you?" She asked the question eagerly, her great eyes
looking hungrier than ever.
"Did who choose me?" Ethol's voice was almost cross. "What 'are' you
talking about? You always begin in the middle of things."
"I want to know if He chose you, and if He has told you what to do, and
if you know how to do it, and how He let you know that He wanted you?"
Then did Ethol look at her in utter amazement. "Sarah Lambert, I
believe you are crazy!" she said slowly. "Nobody is to choose me;
Johnnie Burns and I do the choosing of the others. Of course I know how
to do it. And as to his wanting me, I don't know what you mean."
The eagerness went out of Sarah's eyes a little.
"I didn't mean about the spelling," she said gravely, "it's about the
other choosing. Don't you know?" And she took from her pocket a card,
carefully wrapped in paper, and pointed to the verse at the head of
this story. "I meant Him; the one Miss Mason talked about yesterday.
She said He chose folks now, and gave them things to do for Him; and I
thought you was one, because you are so pretty, you know, and dress so
nice; and I wondered what He had given you to do; and I was thinking
maybe there was something even for me to do in my old dress, and with
my shoes all out at the toes; but I don't suppose there is."
[Illustration: "I MEANT HIM; THE ONE MISS MASON TALKED ABOUT
YESTERDAY."]
I wish I could give you a picture of Ethol as she stood looking at the
ill-dressed girl at that moment. If I could show you a picture of both
of them, you would see that though side by side there was a very great
difference between them.
"You are the queerest girl that I ever heard of in my life!" Ethol said
at last. It was all the answer that she seemed to know how to make.
When three o'clock came, and the two champions took their places on
the floor of the schoolroom, ready to call their helpers, some of the
girls were very much astonished to hear Ethol call "Sarah Lambert" for
her first choice. It seems Ethol had made up her mind that at least the
"queer girl" should be chosen for something. I don't suppose she had
the slightest idea what a surprise and delight this was to Sarah; she
had never been chosen for anything before.
[Illustration]
THE THREE LITTLE M'S.—PART III.
BY MARGARET SIDNEY.
THE two little girls stumbled along over the rough ground, crying so
that they could scarcely see. Mr. Poser stalked on with never a word to
say. Of course that left Mrs. Smith to do all the talking, which she
did with a right good will.
At last Martha broke out:
"I know bears have eaten Mary all up, or else snakes, or else
wild-cats, or—"
"Or she's peeked into a cave, an' the doors rolled to, an' she can't
get out," suggested Matilda.
At these horrible pictures, they wailed afresh.
"Mr. Poser, I can't go another step," cried Mrs. Smith. "I'm all beat
out. These young ones have made me so nervous, seems ef I sh'd scream
myself." With that, she came to a dead stop.
"Set down there," said Mr. Poser, who began to feel as if the rank and
file of the procession was going to be of very little help to him after
all.
Mrs. Smith looked around for a convenient resting place. The little
girls wailed on.
"There's the 'Dungeon,'" she said, pointing to the old gloomy house.
"They do say folks have moved in there, but it don't look as if a
livin' soul had ever been nigh it. I remember there's a bench round the
corn-house. There, I shall rest my bones."
So they all trailed dismally into the overgrown enclosure, and seeing
nobody, they deposited themselves on a worm-eaten bench that ran around
two sides of the corn-house. If they had only known what was on the
other side of that wall!
[Illustration: "ANY OF YOU BEEN IN OUR BARN?"]
A boy came slowly over the rough ground where a long time ago there had
been a path. He was looking closely at something in his hand, turning
it over and over in great curiosity. He stopped short in front of the
bench and its occupants.
"Any of you been in our barn?" he asked abruptly.
"No," said Mr. Poser, "we hain't been in any one's barn."
"Oh well, then, you haven't lost—"
"'Lost?'" cried Mrs. Smith jumping up in great excitement to seize his
arm. "Oh yes, we have too, every single one of us has lost. That's what
we've come for."
At that, all four of them gathered around the boy, but he began again
before they could any of them speak.
"Was the head all punched in?" he demanded, eying them sharply. "And
were the figures all shaved off?"
"'Head all punched in?' and 'figures all shaved off?' Oh! My senses,"
exclaimed Mrs. Smith, going back to sit down on her bench again.
"'Cos then tain't yours!" said the boy triumphantly, beginning to move
off. "An' you don't git this quarter of a dollar away from me 'that'
way."
"Boy!" commanded old Mr. Poser. His little eyes flashed their sternest,
as he raised his stick. "Hand that quarter of a dollar to me!"
The boy took one look at the stick and silently put the silver bit into
the old man's hand.
"I sent that quarter of a dollar five hours ago to you, Mrs. Smith,"
said Mr. Poser solemnly. "I could swear to it. You see the head o' the
Goddess of Liberty 'is' punched in, and the figures 'are' shaved off.
'Now, where is my Mary?'"
It was now the boy's turn to be questioned, as the old man turned
around on him sternly.
"I haven't seen any Mary," he said, backing off, and wishing he hadn't
locked the dog in the house.
"Where did you find that quarter?" asked Mr. Poser.
"In the barn," said the boy shortly. "I'd give ten cents to get hold of
Bose," he muttered under his breath.
"Then we go to the barn," said the old man. "Where that quarter was,
Mary has been. Lead on!"
The procession was now increased to five, the boy having the honor to
be captain. The barn was searched in every nook and cranny, but no
little girl in a red hood rejoiced their anxious, weary eyes.
"We will go all over this place," said Mr. Poser with a very white
face. "Begin and take us straight through!"
"There ain't any other part of the place been open," said the boy
doggedly. "Father's away, an' the rest of the folks, an' I've been
round all day, so I know—'xcept about quarter of an hour," he added
honestly, "when I run home with Jim Saunders after he'd been here
shellin' corn with me. But the corn-house is locked. I locked it
myself; so she 'couldn't' be in there."
"Unlock that corn-house," said Mr. Poser briefly.
And before any one could think twice, the procession stood in front of
the old door.
The boy grunted something as he rattled the key in the rusty lock; the
door flew open, to disclose little Mary, huddled up in fright on a big
bag of potatoes.
"I'm never going to be naughty again."
How often she has said that since. And then she looks and sighs at the
dim old silver quarter that hangs by a ribbon from her neck.
[Illustration: "I'M NEVER GOING TO BE NAUGHTY AGAIN."]
It has never been off since that night when her father made a hole
through it and put it in its place. "It's to make you think," he said.
For thoughts:—May none of those who join hands and hearts in the Pansy
Society for brave battling against their faults, ever look on their
lovely badges with the sadness with which little Mary sees her old
silver quarter of a dollar!
————————————
[Illustration: PANSIES P. S. THOUGHT]
PANSIES P. S. THOUGHT.
NOW, all you dear people who "belong," listen to me. I've something to
tell you about a book:
"Five Little Peppers and How They Grew."
Ever hear of them? Don't go to imagining they were little round black
things growing in a pod (by the way, I've something funny to tell you
about that very thing, some day). Never were any nicer and neater and
better-behaved Peppers, so far as they knew how, than lived in that
little old kitchen. Five little treasures of a dear mother. Pollie, and
Ben, and Davie, and Joel, and Phronsie. Really, it is hard to decide
which of the dear, bright, unselfish Peppers I like the best.
A big book that tells about them all. A book with four hundred and ten
pages, and a beautiful cover, and ever so many pictures. A book that
you older brothers and sisters will enjoy, with bits all through it
that you will delight to read to the little ones. A book that costs a
good deal of money, of course, for how could people get up a good and
handsome book full of pictures, unless they spent a good deal of money
on it?
Besides, it is written by a lady whose writings have to be paid for,
because she knows how to write, and the publishers know it, and are
glad to get her to write them a book. Her name, or at least the
name which she puts on paper, is Margaret Sidney. I'm sure you are
acquainted with her, for isn't she giving us the account of that
ridiculous little Mary Posey?
And, now for a secret! Bend your heads! The publishers told me to tell
you that every boy and girl whose name is on our P. S. roll could have
a copy of that book for seventy-five cents. Just half what other people
have to pay.
Now I do hope you'll all get it, and write and tell me what you think
of Polly's cake, and Phronsie's gingerbread man, and ever so many other
queer and quaint and sweet things in the story. Another thing: Tell me
what it was in that family that made such a happy home. Yours lovingly,
PANSY.
————————————
WHO DID IT?
PART THIRD.
IN great haste she flew about for a comb to smooth her disordered
hair; it would never do to go down to Mrs. Denton with hair all in
a tousle. She wished that the bright, tin basin which hung over the
sink, was there, with water in it, for she knew her eyes must be very
red. Suddenly she stood still in the middle of her little room, her
hand partly raised to her head, holding the comb. Did somebody speak?
Whose voice repeated those words which she had learned only the Sabbath
before:
"He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still."
What had that to do with her, anyway? Why should it come to her just
now, and make her feel as though somebody was whispering the words in
her ear?
No wonder she stood still to think. What a great fierce storm this was
to beat about poor Hester! The waves were very high and her poor little
boat had almost struck on the shoals of falsehood. Would it sink? Was
the Master in the boat with her?
A minute more, then down went the comb, and down went Hester on her
knees, and was sobbing out her cry before the same Master who calmed
the storm on Galilee.
"Oh, dear Jesus," she said, "don't let me do it! Don't let me say
I inked the dress when I didn't, I 'didn't,' and I don't know anything
about it! Satan wants me to tell them that I did it, so I can go to
the party. Oh! 'Don't' let me do it; and make me willing to stay at
home from that dear party, and don't let the girls believe it, nor Mrs.
Neilson, when they hear the wicked, 'wicked' story; I don't see how
they can help believing it, but please don't let them, for Jesus' sake.
Amen."
Meantime, down in the parlor the young ladies were entertaining New
Year's caller's, and, between times, talking about Hester and her
naughtiness.
"I didn't think the child was untruthful," said Cora, "I always knew
she was a spunky little piece, but I must say I am surprised at her
telling so many falsehoods, and insisting on them in the way she has."
"So am I," said Mrs. Denton. "If there were any other possible way of
accounting for it, I should think the child really didn't know how it
happened; she is so persistent in her words!"
Then all three ladies agreed that of course she must have done it;
there was simply no other way of accounting for it.
"There is that game, Cora," said Miss Emeline, in one of the pauses,
"spread over the table yet, just as you had it last night."
"I know it," said Miss Cora. "I hadn't energy enough to put it away;
stupid thing! I never did get so weary of anything as I was of that
last night; I believe I will hide those cards. I think Author's Game is
very dull anyway."
And she sauntered toward the little table where the cards were strewn
in confusion, and taking a seat began slowly to gather them up, reading
lines from one and another, and talking about them with her sister.
When she arose, there were plainly to be seen on her handsome new suit
of bottle-green, large bright drops of the same ink that had ruined
her blue silk. Just imagine the exclamations, and the dismay, and the
rushing for water and sponge to try to repair the mischief, and the
sudden jerking open of the drawer of that little card-table, which act
brought to view a small phial of ink lying on its side; from the puddle
in the drawer, drops were slowly oozing, dropping now on the carpet.
[Illustration]
"Whew!" This was the exclamation of Mrs. Denton's son Willis, who had
just banged the hall door, and rushed into the parlor, stopping in
astonishment over the sight before him.
"That's me, to a dot," he said frankly, as he took in the picture.
"Mother, if you are looking about for the fellow to punish, here he is.
I was teasing that dumpling of a Hester, last night, and I ran away
with the ink she was using, and set it in this drawer. As to who turned
it upside down, I don't know. I'm sure I set it in all right. Is the
dress spoiled, Cora? I'm awful sorry."
I think you will almost forgive Cora for her tears and sharp words of
the night before, when I tell you that the first words she said, were:
"That poor child up-stairs! Mamma, is it too late for her to go?"
Considering the fact that this was the second pretty dress spoiled by
the ink, I think Cora did very well.
"I hope not;" said Mrs. Denton, looking at the little clock on the
mantel, and laying down the sponge.
"Who would have imagined that the dress could have been inked in any
other way!"
"What's all that?" Willis asked, but his mother had gone up-stairs.
Poor little Hester! She was on her knees again; this time her prayer
could be plainly heard through the thin partition.
"Oh, dear Jesus, if you only would make a way for them to find out it
wasn't me, and let me go to the party! I don't see how you can do it,
but the verse said: 'Be not afraid, only believe;' and I know you can
do anything, and if you only would please to; I can't think of a way
for them to find out, but I know you could make a way."
Just at that moment Mrs. Denton pushed open the door.
"We have found out, Hester," she said, trying to speak in her natural
tone. "You had nothing to do with inking the dress; we are very sorry
that you have had such an unhappy time, and glad to find that you told
the truth; now, if you hurry as fast as you can, I think there will be
time for you to get to the party."
"Mamma," sounded Cora's voice as she came up the stairs, "Mrs. Neilson
has sent her carriage; the driver said it was such a long walk from
here, she told him to call on his way back, and he will wait for
Hester; let me help her."
How fast the nimble fingers flew over Hester's hair, tying it with some
bright ribbons of Miss Cora's own! The dress and shoes were buttoned,
and coat and hood hurried on almost as fast as I can tell the story,
and still in such bewilderment that she hardly understood who she
was, Hester flew down-stairs and was seated in Mrs. Neilson's elegant
carriage, tucked in like a lady among gay robes.
"And how did they find out their mistake, dear?"
Mrs. Neilson asked the question very gently as she stooped and kissed
Hester's check. She was very fond of Hester, and her eyes had been
full of tears while the sad little story of trouble and temptation and
victory had been told her by Hester's own lips, for the child decided
that she would like to have Mrs. Neilson know what made her so very
late. So she had lingered to talk, while the others played.
[Illustration: WILLIS STOPPED IN ASTONISHMENT.]
"I don't know, ma'am," said Hester, after a minute's thought, during
which time she remembered that no one had explained that to her. "I
don't know, ma'am, unless God told them. I don't see how anybody else
could."
————————————
[Illustration: SIDE BY SIDE]
SIDE BY SIDE.
[PART III.]
HE MAKETH THE STORM A CALM, SO THAT THE WAVES THEREOF ARE STILL.
FOR THIS PURPOSE THE SON OF GOD WAS MANIFESTED, THAT HE MIGHT DESTROY
THE WORKS OF THE DEVIL.
BE NOT AFRAID, ONLY BELIEVE.
HE HATH SENT ME TO BIND UP THE BROKEN-HEARTED, TO PROCLAIM LIBERTY TO
THE CAPTIVES.
"SHE doesn't know what she is saying," said Mrs. Harrison, and she
turned away with a sigh that came from her very heart. On the bed lay
Ethol, all her beautiful curls cut off, her face purple with fever, and
her eyes unnaturally bright.
"Yes, I do know, mamma, and I want her very much; she is in our class
in Sunday-school, and I want to ask something. Send for her, mamma,
right away."
"But my darling child, the doctor said you must be kept very still, and
see no one, and try to sleep."
"I have tried, mamma, with all my might; it seems to me as though I had
tried for a hundred years, and every minute I am wider awake. I want to
see Sarah—Sarah Lambert."
You have discovered before this that Ethol was sick; so sick that
Doctor Everett, with a very grave face, had told her father and mother
only that morning, that he feared she could not get well.
"You see," he said, "it would really be better if she were quite out of
her head. As it is, she is just delirious enough to have vague ideas
of what is going on, and to be troubled, and she gets no rest day
nor night. But we will do all we can. Don't let her be worried about
anything, and don't let any one see her; and try all you can to get her
to sleep."
And here she was, an hour afterwards, insisting on having Sarah Lambert
sent for! Her mother did not know what to do. She only knew Sarah as a
little girl who wore the same ugly calico to school day after day, and
very ragged shoes, and lived over Mr. Dunlap's stable. So much she had
heard from Ethol. The very fact that Ethol wanted to see her, showed
that she did not know what she was about.
Now, what was the mother to do? Here were the doctor's orders: "Don't
let her see anybody," and "Don't let her be worried about anything."
One of them must be disobeyed; they ran across each other. It ended in
a message being sent to school building No. 34 for Sarah Lambert to
call at Mr. Harrison's at once.
[Illustration: "HE MAKETH THE STORM."]
Then Ethol frightened her mother still more by urging that she be left
quite alone with Sarah. She was so eager, and her fever rose so much
higher while she urged, that Mrs. Harrison gave frightened consent, and
then went out and cried, to think of what she had done.
"Little girl," she said to Sarah, "do you know she is very, very sick,
and there is great danger that you will make her worse? You must come
away just as soon as she will let you, and don't talk to her any more
than you can help, and don't for anything in the world, let her know
how sick she is."
Then Sarah went into the pretty room, and the first words that Ethol
said to her were:
"Do they think I am going to die?"
Now the truth was that Sarah Lambert had learned to do one thing well,
and that was, to speak the truth: she always gave strictly honest
answers in school; some of the girls laughed at her, but everybody
believed her. A memory of this may have been running through Ethol's
sick little brain, when she insisted on having her sent for.
"I guess they think so," said Sarah, gravely, "but I don't."
There was something so quietly earnest in this answer, that Ethol could
not help thinking about the last, instead of the first.
"Why don't you?" she asked.
"Because I've been telling Him all about you; he can cure you so
easy—just like he did the little girl. She was twelve years old. They
laughed at him because he said she was only asleep; she was dead, you
know, but he waked her up. He can cure people after they are dead, and
of course he can before; and I told him about you, just as her father
did about her, and asked him to come and lay his hand on you, and he
said to me 'Be not afraid, only believe.' So now I do believe."
"I don't understand you," said Ethol, her eyes seeming to grow larger;
"you are talking about Jesus, I know, but how 'could' he say that to
you?"
"Whispered it; just like his ear was close down to mine. I heard him; I
often hear him; he's chosen me, you know. Don't you remember that time
I asked you if you was chosen?"
"Yes," said Ethol, gravely, "I remember. But I'm not a chosen one."
"I guess you are. I've asked him about you lots of times. He wants you
to belong, and he's going to make you well, so you can. You must 'Be
not afraid, only believe.'"
"Believe what?" said Ethol.
"Everything he says. I learn new things all the time. I didn't know
much of anything about him when I went to the Sunday-school; you got me
to go, you know. I told him that, too. There! I forgot I wasn't to talk
to you; you are to go to sleep."
"I can't go to sleep," said Ethol; "I've tried for days and days, and I
know mamma thinks I am going to die; and oh, Sarah, I'm afraid to die!"
"You must 'Be not afraid, only believe,'" said Sarah again. "That is
what he said to his disciples when he was on his way to cure the sick
girl; that is what he said to me. He is on his way to cure you now, and
I guess he wants you to sleep so he can. Look here, shut your eyes, and
I'll tell you the words on my card, over and over, and when I have said
them ten times, you must be asleep."
What strange power had the grave little voice over Ethol's throbbing
veins? She began in a low, steady tone:
"'He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.'
'For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy
the works of the devil.'
'Be not afraid, only believe.'
'He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty
to the captive.'"
Then, without the slightest pause, the low steady voice began again:
"'He maketh the storm a calm—'"
Mrs. Harrison had promised her little daughter that she should not be
interrupted while talking with Sarah Lambert, but at last the poor
mother grew so frightened over the stillness, that she opened the door.
But Sarah shook her head, and put her finger on her lip, and went on in
the same low tone:
"'He maketh the storm a calm—'"
And Ethol was asleep.
[Illustration]
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