PART II._Pansy's Sunday Book

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PANSY’S

SUNDAY BOOK

FAMOUS AMERICAN WRITERS

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_FULLY ILLUSTRATED_

BOSTON

LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY

_All rights reserved._

J. J. Arakelyan, Printer, Boston.

[Illustration: IN LATE NOVEMBER.]

A STORY TO REMEMBER, IN NOVEMBER.

IF you’ll sit on my knee

As still as a stone,

And listen to me

While we’re all alone—

While the wind whistles cold,

And the snow falls so fast,

While the young and the old

Feel the chill of the blast—

I will tell you about

A poor little lad

Who now, without doubt,

Is smiling and glad.

(_His picture._)

Brown and curly his head,

Bright blue was his eye,

His feet bare and red,

His look rather shy;

His face, somewhat soiled,

Unfamiliar with soap,

Was thin, while there curled

In his neck, like a rope,

Certain locks which had grown,

Unhindered by shears

That he never had known,

You would think, all his years;

His shirt was a sight,

You may think, to behold,

Through which shone the light

Unblushingly bold.

His trousers, in shreds,

His legs dangled round,

Long needing the threads

Which they never had found;

While his cap—what was left

Of the original pattern—

Of all shape was bereft,

And looked like a slattern.

Such, such was the creature

Who stood in the door;

In dress, form and feature—

Nothing less, nothing more.

May you love this, my lad

From the slums of the city;

Not think him all bad,

But regard him with pity.

(_The name._)

Though nameless he stood

Clad in rags in that door,

Whether evil or good,

He is nameless no more.

We’ll call him hereafter,

If you make no objection,

In tears—or in laughter,

On further reflection—

Thomas Tinker, all told,

But “Tommy” for short,

Until he grows old—

Perhaps then, when in sport.

But I’ll tell you I think, sir,

Before saying more,

This is not the “Tom Tinker”

You’ve heard of before,

But another, whose fame

Is as worthy of mention

As the first of his name

Who claimed your attention.

(_The story._)

We will trace him as we may, on his way

From that doorstep, where at play on that day;

We will see just how he earned

That for which his young heart yearned,

How from good he firmly turned not astray.

Selling papers he began, little man,

Then on errands often ran, like a “van”;

Then his matches he would sell,

Blacking boots the while, as well;

And with cheerful voice would tell all his plan.

Tried his courage was, I’m told; nor condoled

By humanity, which rolled, with its gold,

On its laughing, rushing way,

Like a crowd of boys at play,

Or a flock of sheep astray from the fold.

But his heart was brave and true, and he knew

That to flinch would never do; so say you?

Thus he bravely bore his part

With a true and loyal heart,

Never doubting from the start; “tried and true.”

The days seemed often long; but his song

Rang brave and strong; just the song

Of the wares he had to sell;

Of the news they had to tell—

Good and bad alike as well, for the throng.

And he worked, and worked away, every day,

With his heart as light and gay, as the May;

And he did his level best, late and early;

Never grumbling, never sad, and never surly;

With a smile ’neath his golden head and curly, as at play.

So he fought the fiends of hunger and of cold, true as gold;

Like a veteran tried and bold, I am told,

Was this soldier in life’s battle

’Mid the daily hum and rattle;

Driven forth like sheep or cattle, to be sold.

Many brave fall by the way, every day;

Some survive, their country’s stay; well they may;

But of all the rank and file

Grandly marching up the aisle

Of stern duty, all the while, who can say

Which the most deserve the name, writ in fame?

Those who fell ’mid shot and flame, on land or main,

Or those who in obscurer strife

Have given heart, and soul, and life

For husband ill, for child, or wife, in duty “tame”?

Well, Tommy stood, sturdy and grave—no slave—

His soul had what we well might crave; no knave

Was he; but faithful in the daily fight,

Cheerful, happy, eager, bright—

A nineteenth century valiant knight, youthful, brave.

Perhaps you’d like to know his foes, who arose

To strike him down with deadly blows. Who knows

But such as he? Who else can tell

The horrid shapes, the cruel spell

These demons from the pit of hell disclose?

“Hunger,” you say, “sickness and cold; no fold;

No home that such as he might hold, to mould

And make them good, and true, and wise?”

Ah, yes! and on the streets before his eyes

Were Satan’s minions in disguise; so bold!

These dens of ill, they grow, you know;

We find them everywhere as we go, ready to throw

Their snares with fiendish skill.

Almost ’twould seem, to suit their will,

They’d gorge earth’s prisons to their fill below.

God looked on Tommy in the fight for right,

Saw darkness struggling with the light, so bright—

That light which shone on Eastern plain

Where shepherds heard angelic strain

Such as will surely come again some night.

God knew about the thrall, the small,

Weak hands which yet might fall, the call

Which all too loud might prove to be

For one so young, so little helped as he,

So tempted oft, and yet withal so free to fall.

And so, one cold Thanksgiving Day, so gay

With jingling bells, and sleigh and play,

The father sent a messenger in love,

To take poor Tommy to his home above,

Where, clad in garments whiter than the dove, he’ll stay.

And now no more he’ll walk that street, where sleet

And slush so cruel hurt his feet; repeat

No more his song of paper vending,

Shiver no more while restless horse attending,

But join in song triumphant, never ending and sweet.

But on this day of this November, remember

Tommies there are, with feet as cold and tender, remember,

As his once were, who now on golden strand

Meet rich and poor, of this and every land.

These need your store, your love, your helping hand, remember!

ROBERT TRUESDALE’S LOGIC.

THEY were great friends, Robert Truesdale and Claire Waterman. During

the long, bright summer at the seashore they spent as much time

together as possible, and discussed all sorts of questions. They had

opinions concerning everything under the sun, and agreed so well,

generally, that to find a subject upon which they totally differed only

added interest to the summer.

One of these subjects was found one morning when they sat together on

the beach. It began—that is, the discussion did—by Robert’s making the

astonishing statement that he never went to circuses.

Claire stopped playing with the sand which she was letting run idly

through her fingers, and turned so that she could see his face. “How

very queer!” she said; “I thought all boys went to circuses. Did you

never go?”

“I went once,” said Robert, low-voiced, “when I was quite a little

fellow, and that was once too often. I never cared to try it again.”

“I cannot imagine why. I think circuses are splendid. We never go in

the city, of course. Why, they don’t have circuses in cities, do they?

But I go to my Auntie’s every summer for two months—I always have until

this summer—and Uncle West takes us children to the circus just as

regularly. That is the reason I like the country so much better than

the city, you can go to such queer out-of-door things. And I think the

little circus ponies are too cunning for anything; I have always wanted

one for my own. Mamma laughs, and says she doesn’t know but I will be a

circus rider when I grow up—and then the clown is so funny. Why don’t

you want to go, Robert? What happened when you went once? Was there an

accident?”

“No,” said Robert slowly, “I suppose not; I am afraid it was an

every-day affair. It is a long story, Claire, and begins away back of

that day. I have been brought up differently from you, you know. My

father was a minister, and he and my mother did not approve of shows

of that kind, and I was never taken to them when I was a small boy. I

never heard nor thought much about them; we lived in a large town, but

not too large for the traveling circus; but I got the idea, somehow,

that only low people attended such places, and never coaxed to go.”

Claire exclaimed over this, “Why, Robert, where my Auntie lives

everybody goes, only the minister and a few old dried-up people.”

[Illustration: “HOW VERY QUEER!”]

“Yes, I know,” said Robert gravely; “some people in the country have

different views from those which my father and mother had; but I did

not know it when I was a little chap; I thought that all respectable

people thought alike. The first time I changed my ideas any was when I

had gone to spend the year with my Grandmother in the country—that was

the summer after mother died, and my father had died the winter before.

I found that a great many country people went to circuses. All the boys

and girls who went to school with me in the little old schoolhouse were

looking forward to going as a matter of course; and I heard more talk

about the circus that summer than I had ever heard in my life before.

I began to want to go very much. The more I talked with the boys, the

more I became convinced that it was because my father was a minister

that I had been held away from such places. ‘Of course ministers ought

not to go,’ I told myself, ‘because’—and there I would have to stop; I

knew no reason why they should not go where other people did, and could

not reason about it any better than some grown people can nowadays;

still I called it a settled point, and began to coax my grandmother to

let me go to the circus. ‘Just this once,’ I said to her; ‘I want to

see for myself.’

“I have never understood how she came to let me have my way, unless it

was because she was a very indulgent grandmother, and pitied the orphan

boy, and could not bear to say ‘No.’ Any way, I received permission,

and the necessary quarter of a dollar, and started off in great glee.

“I ought to tell you,” he continued, after a slight hesitation—and the

flush on his brown cheek deepened a little—“that although I was only

a little fellow ten years old, I was a member of the church, and was

trying to live my religion. There was a ragged little boy not much

older than myself, very ignorant and neglected, but a leader in all

sorts of mischief, whom I had had ambitions to help. I had been kind to

him, instead of making sport of his rags, as the other boys did, until

I had a certain sort of influence over him, and he had partly promised

me to try to be a better boy.

“Well, I went to the circus, and saw the ponies, and heard the

jokes, and was delighted; but as I stood around outside afterwards,

open-mouthed and open-eyed, I saw two of the men whom I had most

admired in the ring, fighting. They had been drinking just enough to

make them quarrelsome, and such horrid oaths as they were using I had

never even imagined possible before. I stood still with fright and

horror and watched the blows, and listened to the vile language, until

somebody touched my elbow, and there was little Pete, the ragged boy.

He was grinning wickedly. ‘My eyes!’ he said, ‘was you in there?’

nodding toward the tent. ‘I was struck all of a heap when I see you

come out. I didn’t think this kind was for you. I thought you belonged

to the “goody-goodies,” you know. Miss Wheeler, she said when she was

talking to us fellows about it, “O, no! Robert Truesdale won’t go to

the circus, I am sure; he is his father’s own boy, and is walking the

same road he did.” I guess you got off the road this time, didn’t you?’

“I do not believe I shall ever forget the wicked leer in the little

fellow’s face as he said those words; and I am sure I shall never

forget the feeling of shame which I had as I looked at those two

dreadful men with the blood streaming down their faces, and the vile

words streaming from their mouths, and realized that I had spent my

afternoon in laughing at their speeches, and had been found out of the

road in which my father had walked—so far out that this street boy had

noticed it! I turned and ran away as fast and as far as I could, and I

do not think I shall ever attend another circus.”

“How very strange!” said Claire; “but then, after all, Robert, bad men

will swear and drink and fight. You did not make them any worse by

going to see them ride.”

“I can’t be sure of that, Claire. What if my twenty-five cents helped

to encourage them to live the life which kept them in the midst of

such temptations? That is what good men who have studied and thought

about these things say of the circus. Besides,” and here the boy’s face

took on a little touch of lofty scorn, “I want to grow up to be such

a character that the jokes and jumpings of evil men cannot amuse me;

I want to learn to be above them. Then you see what the ragged little

street boy thought?”

“Yes,” said Claire gravely; “I never thought much about it; I just

went, of course, because the others did, but I shouldn’t like to be

counted on that side, exactly. Robert, maybe I won’t go any more. I

must think about it.”

MYRA SPAFFORD.

HOW THE DEER KNEW.

MY neighbor’s little boy one evening saw his teacher coming up the lane

and called her in to take a look at his pet fawn.

“Well, if he didn’t get half a foot taller since I saw him last,” said

the teacher; “if he keeps on like that, Tommy, he will be a big deer

the first thing you know.”

“Yes, he’s growing,” said Tommy; “but I wanted to see you about

something else. He seems to be sick, and we do not know what to do

about it.”

“Why, he looks all right now; what seemed to be the matter with him?”

“He doesn’t eat,” said Tommy, “and he upset his water dish when I tried

to make him drink. I went up on the hill to get him the best grass I

could find, but it’s no use; he must be sick.”

“Let me see that grass,” said the teacher. “I thought so,” she laughed,

when Tommy took her to the fawn’s fodder corner; “you got a lot of

wormwood leaves mixed up with the grass, and one of the leaves got in

that water dish.”

Tommy stared. “Oh! maybe that’s the reason he upset his water,” he

burst out; “but I had no idea that would make any difference. What

makes him so very particular about a few leaves, I wonder?”

“You will know if you taste them,” said the teacher; “and maybe your

fawn wanted to get even with you for teaching him to jump through a

hoop.”

“Why, he seems to like that,” laughed Tommy.

“That’s just what I mean,” said the teacher; “he felt so much obliged

to you and wanted to pay you back—by teaching you a good lesson. An

animal, you see, won’t touch any bad-tasting food if it is in good

health, and if you give it the wrong kind of drink it doesn’t mind its

thirst, but waits till it gets something better. And that’s an answer

to the question you asked me a few weeks ago, when you wanted to know

how people could help getting fond of drinks that make them drunk and

sick. They should let such stuff alone altogether, if they find out

it does not taste right at first. You found out something about that

yourself, didn’t you?”

“About what—the ugly taste of bad drinks, you mean?”

“Yes; don’t you remember what you told me about that hotel where you

got thirsty, and tried a glass of something you thought was lemonade,

and found it was beer?”

“O, yes! I remember,” laughed Tommy; “I never tasted anything worse

in my life. I don’t see how in the world people can get fond of such

stuff.”

“That’s just it,” said the teacher; “they should do as your little deer

did this afternoon, and never meddle with a drink that tastes very

bad the first time they try it, unless they should be sick and need a

bitter medicine for particular purposes. If a healthy person should

try to drink big glasses full of ugly medicine just for fun every day

he would soon be sick, and few medicines taste as bad as some of the

drinks so many people get drunk on.”

“Cod-liver oil doesn’t, nor herb tea,” said Tommy. “I tried them, and

know they are not half as ugly as beer. And they say beer isn’t the

worst yet,” he added; “there are drinks that taste like burning fire,

if you get a drop on your tongue. I don’t see how in the world anybody

can get fond of such stuff.”

“Let me tell you,” said the teacher. “The first time they try it

they cannot help disliking it, and they should take the hint to let

it alone altogether. But if they keep drinking it in spite of their

horror, it will lead to a very strange result. Their nature gradually

gets changed, till a time comes when they cannot do without a drink

that made them shudder when they tasted it first. It is that way with

beer and brandy, and even with a drink made of that very wormwood

that would have made your deer sick if it had eaten it. Just rub one

of those leaves between your fingers, and then put the tip of your

finger to your tongue. That is just exactly the taste of a stuff called

absinthe, and brandy and strong beer are almost as bad.”

“You say people get fond of it if they drink it again and again,” mused

Tommy, “but what makes them do that, I wonder? What makes them try it

at all?”

“They see other people do it,” said the teacher, “and so they try it

themselves, and keep on trying, because they think Mr. So-and-so ought

to know better than nature. Their own nature warns them against it,

but they do not mind that warning, and keep on till it is too late

to turn back. Now you might ask me to tell you who first took it in

his head to make himself sick with such a foolish habit. That seems a

puzzle, indeed, but it has been explained in this way. Before people

drank wine they drank the fresh juice of grapes—‘must,’ as they call

it—and probably tried to keep some of it in bottles and jars. Now in

warm weather sweet juices of that sort are very apt to spoil—they

ferment, as it is called, and their pleasant taste becomes sharp and

disagreeable. Some stingy housekeeper in old times may have forced his

servants to drink that spoiled stuff rather than throw it away, and

after a while they got fond of it, and the foolish habit spread all

over the country. Now wine is nothing but fermented or spoiled must.

Beer is fermented barley water. They let barley get soaked in water,

and then mix it and stir till it gets that sharp taste that made you

sick when you tried it by mistake in that summer hotel last year.”

“Yes; and on that same trip I once got in the wrong railway car,” said

Tommy, “and that car was full of tobacco smoke enough to make my

little brother cry, and I thought it would choke me before the train

stopped and we got back in the right car. I know a boy who got so sick

he had to go to bed when he first tried to smoke; but I am sure I shall

never try it at all.”

[Illustration: SHE’S SUCH A DARLING!]

“That’s right, Tommy; let such things alone altogether,” said the

teacher. “It’s very easy never to begin, but if you should get fond of

such bad habits you might find it hard to get rid of them.”

“I have a book about travels,” said Tommy, “and I read that the

American Indians first taught white men to smoke. One of my cousins has

been in Mexico, and when I asked him what made the Indians so fond of

tobacco smoke, he said they first used it to drive mosquitoes out of

their cabins. They burn tobacco leaves on a hot pan, and the gnats all

fly out of the window.”

“I should not wonder,” laughed the teacher; “and that would show that

mosquitoes have more sense than those Indians.”

FELIX L. OSWALD.

SOMETHING FOR MAMMA.

I GET the idea and most of the details from Harper’s Bazar. The article

from which they are taken says the contrivance is for an invalid, but

let me assure you that mamma will like it very much, or, for the matter

of that, papa also, though they have not thought of being invalids.

First, contrive to get a nice pine board about twenty-five inches

long and twenty-one wide (if you are making it for me I should like

the board a little narrower, but perhaps mamma might not); cover it

with felt of any color you please—perhaps it would be well to have

in mind the furniture in the room where it is chiefly to live, and

secure a color which will harmonize, or at least not “fight,” with the

prevailing color there.

Perhaps, however, you will be in the condition in which I have

sometimes found myself; namely, with a piece of felt of a certain

color which obstinately refuses to turn into another, no matter how

much I might desire it; in that case, if I were you I would go right

ahead with my present; I feel sure mamma will find it useful, even

though it is not just the shade which you and she like best. The same

remarks will apply to material. I have used cretonne, or even calico,

where I would have preferred felt if I could have got it. Well, we

will pretend to cover this pine board with felt; we will have the felt

so long and wide that it will reach say for six inches or so below

the board at both ends, and on the front side. Then make neat little

pockets for these ends and side, with a flap to button down over them

when desired. These are to hold letters, envelopes, bits of poetry,

scraps of prose, recipes, in fact anything which mamma desires to have

convenient when she sits down to write. If mamma uses a fountain pen

I think she will like exceedingly a little narrow pocket, just wide

enough for her pen to slip in easily, and just deep enough for it to

stand upright and put its head out for her to get hold of. If she does

not, a “traveler’s inkstand,” leather covered, may be glued at the

right end of the board; it has a “spring” cover, you will remember,

and takes faithful care of the ink when closed. A stamp box of wood or

paper may be glued at the other end.

What a delightful present that will be when you get it done! I am

sure “mamma” will appreciate and enjoy it. The Bazar says a row of

brass-headed nails should be driven all around the edges of the board,

I suppose to hold the felt firmly in place; but a little girl who had

no brass nails could very easily sew her felt or cretonne or calico

around the under side of the board, and make her pockets separately,

sewing them firmly to their places, if she wished.

In fact, there is room in this device for many changes and

improvements. I can imagine an ingenious girl or boy—or perhaps it

would be better to say girl and boy—putting their heads together, and

making many variations which would be a comfort to the fortunate owner.

Try it, and let me know the result.

PANSY.

[Illustration: SHE STRUGGLED WITH THE SLEEVES.]

NANNIE’S THANKSGIVING.

IT was very early in the morning; earlier, in fact, than Nannie was

in the habit of being up; but on account of Thanksgiving Day, and the

fact that they were all going, to Aunt Cornelia’s to dinner, Nannie

thought she ought to be on hand early. She was waiting for mamma to

give her her bath, and sat down to pet Rosamond Catherine Lorinda in

the meantime. The middle name, Catherine, was in honor of Grandma

Patterson, but Nannie did not like it very well, and felt obliged to

place it between two names which she called “delicious,” in order to

tolerate it. A bright thought occurred to her; she might dress the

child for the Thanksgiving dinner while she waited. It was while she

struggled with the sleeve which did not want to go on that the thought

came which caused all her trouble.

“This sleeve is too small,” she said; “I b’lieve my child’s arm must

have grown a great deal since she wore this dress before; she ought to

have had a new dress for Thanksgiving; she would look sweet in a white

embroidered one trimmed with lace.” Just then the baby in the willow

cradle at her side nestled in his sleep, and Nannie turned and looked

at him.

“If Rosamond Catherine Lorinda only had one dress like what Teddy has

so many of, I should be too perfectly happy,” she said. “Just think, I

b’lieve he has as many as ’leven or eight! Mamma might borrow me one

just for to-day; it would be too long, but I could cut it off at the

bottom; it would be just as easy to sew it on again when Teddy needed

it; and the sleeves I could loop up with pink ribbons, and she would

look too perfectly sweet!”

The more she thought about it, the more the longing grew; at last it

began to seem a positive injustice that Teddy should have so many

clothes and not be willing to lend any to Rosamond Catherine Lorinda.

“I know he would, if he understood,” said Nannie, looking approvingly

upon the sleeping baby; “he loves my Rosamond, and kisses her just as

cunning! And he has such a perfectly lovely lot of dresses! I just

mean to look in the bruro drawer and count them.” Saying which, she

tiptoed toward the bureau behind the cradle, and opened the second

drawer. To be sure she was barefooted, and could not have made much

noise; besides, if she was doing right why should she care if her

footsteps were heard? Nevertheless, she instinctively tiptoed along,

and opened the drawer as softly as she could; and it was not for fear

of waking Teddy, either.

There lay the dresses in a fluffy white heap; on the top was the one

which Nannie most coveted.

“Teddy hardly ever wears it,” she said reassuringly, as she drew it

out; “I guess mamma doesn’t like it very much or she would put it on

him oftener; and Rosamond Catherine will look too perfectly sweet for

anything in it. I am most sure mamma would not care. I could cut it off

right through all those little embroidery holes, then Grandma could sew

them together again just as easy.”

I grieve to tell you that she did exactly that dreadful thing. Not

immediately; she resolved to try the dress on first, and see if it

would do; and despite the fact that the waist was many times too large,

and the limp arms were altogether lost in the sleeves, the waxen-haired

beauty looked so enchanting to her mother’s eyes, under those billows

of white, that in a very short space of time the shining shears were

making a long, crooked line through the costly embroidery with which

Teddy’s best dress was trimmed.

O, me! the troubles which in this way were stored up for naughty,

foolish Nannie. They began almost immediately; for despite the fact

that Nannie had coaxed herself into the fancy that there was no harm

in what she did, she found she was not willing to have her mother

know about it, and crumpled the elegant dress into a small bundle and

thrust it under the great rug at her feet when she heard her mother’s

footsteps. All through the breakfast hour, and even at family worship,

she was engaged in planning how she should get Rosamond Catherine

Lorinda dressed and wrapped in her traveling cloak without any one

having seen her; for fond as she was of exhibiting the beauty, she

found that to-day she would rather her charms were hidden from all eyes.

She was still planning ways and means when the discovery came. She was

not prepared for it, because when Teddy had so many dresses, how could

she suppose that when her mother opened the drawer to select one she

would exclaim, “Why, what has become of his dress? I laid it on top so

as to get it without disturbing the others.”

A good deal of talk followed. Papa suggested that she had laid it in

some other drawer, and Aunt Laura said perhaps Grandma had taken it to

set a stitch in; and Grandma affirmed that she had not, and asked what

Nannie was longing to: “Why don’t you take one of the others, daughter,

and get the little fellow ready while he is good-natured?”

“Well, but where can it be?” asked the puzzled mother, closing the

drawer. “I am sure I laid it here, on the top. I wanted Adelaide to see

him in that dress, because she sent me the embroidery for it, you know,

and it is more expensive than any I should have bought.”

Nannie caught her breath nervously over this; she had not supposed the

embroidery was so choice; she might just as well have taken one of the

other dresses if she had only known.

Just at that moment Susan, who was bustling about, packing Teddy’s

traveling bag, stooped down and pulled at something white under the

rug, as she said, “Shall I put in some playthings, Mrs. Walters? Why,

what’s this?”

What was it, sure enough, but the lost dress cut in two, in a fearful

zigzag manner, directly through the costly embroidery! Can you imagine

what followed? I am sure you will not be surprised to learn that poor,

naughty little Nannie had a whipping then and there. Her mother did

not even wait for Susan to leave the room, as she generally did before

punishing any of her children. It is true the whipping was not very

severe, for Mrs. Walters was never severe; but the disgrace of it was

terrible, for Nannie was very rarely whipped.

However, this was by no means the worst of her troubles; behold, mamma

declared that she could not go to the Thanksgiving dinner, but must

stay at home with Susan and the cat. Now when you reflect that they

were to ride four miles in a beautiful sleigh drawn by two prancing

horses, and meet a baker’s dozen of little cousins, some of whom Nannie

had never seen, to say nothing of the delights of the Thanksgiving

dinner, and the little pies with their names on, done in sugar plums,

which were to be ready for each cousin, I am sure you will feel with

Nannie that her punishment was greater than she could bear. In truth,

the others thought so. Papa said, “My dear, couldn’t you reconsider,

somehow?” Aunt Laura said, “Jennie, I think you are horrid!” And even

Susan ventured to say, “I don’t think she knew it was his best dress,

ma’am; and she says Grandma can sew it together, poor little heart.”

But Mrs. Walters was very firm. She did not deign to answer Laura

or Susan, but said to her husband, “Richard, I don’t know how I can

change, now. I said she couldn’t, and you know I ought to keep my word.

Besides, the child needs a serious lesson; it is quite as hard for me,

I think, as for her,” and the mother’s lip quivered a little. Then the

father said soothingly, that of course he knew she was doing it for

Nannie’s best good, and he could trust her judgment where he couldn’t

his own. But Aunt Laura remained indignant, and the whole household was

in trouble. “Our Thanksgiving is spoiled,” said Aunt Laura; “I’ve a

good mind not to go.”

Meantime, Grandma said not a word. It was nearly an hour afterwards,

and the preparations for starting, which had gone on much more

silently, were almost completed, when Grandma opened the door of Mrs.

Walters’ room, dressed in her best black silk, with her beautiful white

satin hair peeping out from under the soft laces of her best cap, and

holding by the hand a little girl with very red eyes, and a red nose,

who kept up a suspicious little sniffing, as though it was only by

great effort she refrained from bursting into fresh tears. Grandma

walked straight toward her daughter, and said, “Mamma, we have come to

ask you if you will not forgive poor little Nannie, who is very sorry,

and let her go to-day, for Grandma’s sake—not for hers at all, but for

Grandma’s.”

And the handsome mother, with a sudden glad light flashing in her gray

eyes, stooped and kissed the cheek of her sweet old mother, and then of

her own little daughter, as she said, “Dear mother, you know what you

ask for your own sake I could certainly never refuse.”

The years have rolled on since then, enough of them to make little

Nannie twenty-six, and the mother of one Rosamond, who has golden hair

like the dollie, her namesake, but who is mischievous, as Rosamond of

old never was. And I heard the sweet mother say, last Thanksgiving

morning, after having told this story of her past for the benefit of

some young mothers, “I am thankful for two things: that I had a mother

who taught me that wrong-doing must bring unhappiness, not only to

myself, but to others; and that I had a dear Grandmother who taught me

what it was to have a powerful friend to come between me and Justice,

and say, ‘For my sake.’“

PANSY.

[Illustration: PAPA’S CHOICE.]

HERE stands my baby,

On two little feet;

With her bushy brown head,

And her dimples so sweet.

Her arms are all ready

To give me a hug;

So give me my baby,

And you keep your pug.

NOVEMBER.

WHAT is thy mission, November,

Thou link ’twixt the living and dead?

What message would’st have us remember,

Writ on thy dried leaves, to be read

As lessons to youth and to age,

To the simple, the student, the sage?

Stern duty, thy scepter of power,

The husbandman readily sees;

And takes up the tasks of the hour

As the limbs bear the buds on the trees;

For he sows not, ploughs not, nor reaps;

He laughs not, he frowns not, nor weeps.

The frosts, without cost, starch the ground;

Spread a mirror o’er river and lakes;

While nuts scattered thickly around,

More treasured than apples and cakes,

The children may gather with ease,

With the squirrels which hide in the trees.

The apples are now in the bins,

The pumpkins upon the barn floor,

Save those which, bereft of their skins,

Hang to dry on the biggest barn door;

The banking’s high piled ’gainst the house,

To keep it as snug as a mouse.

Thou wast wisely ordained for man,

For time was much needed, we see,

In which for cold winter to plan,

And prepare for the storms which must be;

So, while few may sing of thy praise,

We will welcome and treasure thy days.

Not all the best things of this grand old earth,

Not all the hours of the year around,

Are welcomed here with the songs of mirth,

Nor in fields of pleasure are ever found,

For cloudy are the days of welcome rain,

And sharp the sickle for the golden grain.

G. R. A.

* * * * *

THE soul that perpetually overflows with kindness and

sympathy will always be cheerful.

[Illustration: NOVEMBER.]

BABY’S CORNER.

WHAT MADE BABY LAUGH?

BABY DALE’S mamma had a great many pictures of her little boy, but they

were not pretty.

The trouble was, he would not sit still even for one little minute. He

was always jumping or clapping his fat hands, or saying “Baa, baa!”

One of his pictures had three eyes, and one had no nose.

One funny one had his mouth wide open like a big O, for he was crying.

And there was one where he had his mouth shut, but he looked very

cross. He had a frown between his eyes. Mamma said she would not know

it was her sunny boy.

But by and by a man came who could take pictures whether babies kept

still or not.

One day little Dale was in his high chair by the window. Outdoors it

was snowing.

Baby thought the snowflakes were pretty white feathers coming down from

the sky. Mamma and he played with a feather once that came out of his

pillow. It was nice.

Such a lot of feathers! They made pretty white caps on the fence posts.

And there were great heaps of them on the ground!

“Some day,” thought Baby, “I will go out that door, and I will creep

right down the steps, and I will go to that big pile of feathers, and I

will get my hand full, and I will throw them away up, up, back into the

sky!”

Then baby laughed, and the man who had come to take his picture touched

a button on a queer little box he had, and there was Baby just as you

see him.

That is how Baby Dale came to have a picture that mamma loved.

All the aunties, when they saw it, said, “Oh! how sweet.”

[Illustration: “I WILL GET MY HAND FULL.”]

Mamma sent a picture to the grandma down in Flor-i-da, and one to the

grandma up in Maine. One went over the ocean to Uncle John who loves

Baby Dale very dearly. One went out West to Auntie Lou, and one went to

Boston, to be printed for you.

MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.

* * * * *

SOMETIMES in the early springtime,

The sunbeams floating ’round

Are caught out in the showers,

And are washed into the ground.

But, ere the summer’s over,

They take root in the sod,

And grow up with fresh brightness

In the form of Golden Rod.

—_Selected._

LORA’S SERMON.

IT was Sunday morning, and all the family except Lora and her mother

had gone to church. As a rule they, or at least Lora, were the first to

be tucked into the sleigh; but on this particular morning Mrs. Wheeler

had said she was not going; that she had a little cold, she believed,

and was “all tuckered out” with the week’s work, and just in condition

to get more cold very easily; and Lora’s coat did look too ridiculous

to wear to church, so she had better stay at home with her.

“By next Sunday you will have your new coat,” she said, to console the

child, “and be all in order for church for the rest of the winter.”

Lora looked sober for a few minutes; she was very fond of riding to

church tucked in among the great soft robes, and she did not mind the

service so very much, though the sermon was pretty long. However, she

was naturally a sunny little girl, and her face soon cleared as she

buttoned her somewhat shabby coat, and went out to watch the snowbirds,

who were gathering in great numbers near the barn doors.

Lora and the snowbirds were friends; indeed she made friends with all

sorts of dumb animals, and had queer little ideas about them.

“You will fall,” she said gravely, addressing a fat bird who swung on

a tiny branch almost at her side; “you have picked out a very slimsy

branch; it looks as though it was almost broked off; maybe it will

break while you are swinging on it—I most know it will—then you will

fall down in the snow and hurt yourself. I falled off of a limb once,

and it hurted.”

The bird paid not the slightest attention to this friendly warning, but

Lora continued to stand still, looking at the swaying bush, her face

full of earnest thought. She had already turned from the bird, and was

thinking about the verse sister Nannie had taught her that morning. It

was a long verse for a little girl, with some hard words in it; but

Lora had mastered them, and said them over in her mind, revolving,

meanwhile, the explanation which Nannie had made of them. “If a man

abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered.”

“Branches do wivver as soon as they are broked off,” said Lora. “I’ve

seen them; and papa and Moses burn them up—that is what it said.

“This stick is broked off,” she continued, carefully examining the one

which she grasped with both chubby hands; “it used to grow, but it

won’t ever any more. All the leaves have wivvered off it, and some day

it will get burned up, I s’pose; it isn’t good for much.”

Words stopped just here, but that little Lora’s brain went on with the

great thoughts which she could not express, was evident from the look

on her face. The Bible verse and Nannie’s careful explanation of it had

taken deep root in her heart. She went into the house presently; the

thoughts had grown so large that she felt as though she must ask some

more questions.

As a usual thing, Sunday quiet reigned in Mrs. Wheeler’s kitchen at

this hour of the day. But this day was an exception. Mrs. Wheeler,

bustling about doing up the last things connected with the morning

work, had come across a bowl of mince meat and a lump of dough

evidently left from pie crust. “I declare for it!” she exclaimed, “I

thought Kate made up all the pies yesterday. What a careless thing, to

leave this bowl of mince meat here over Sunday! It would make two good

pies, and if all the folks come for Thanksgiving we may fall short;

they set such store by my pies. I wonder what Kate was about? It must

have got dark before she finished. These must be made up the first

thing to-morrow—but there is pretty near everything to do to-morrow,

too; it makes a great deal of work getting ready for such a house full;

and pie crust is none the better for standing, either; I declare,

I’ve a mind to slap this on to a couple of tins and set them in the

oven; there is fire enough to bake them nicely, and it won’t take five

minutes, hardly, and there are so many ways to turn to-morrow.”

There were more thoughts about it not put into words, but it ended in

the moulding board being spread out on the table, and the flour jar

and rolling-pin and pastry knife being laid beside it. I wonder they

did not all blush for shame, for such a thing had never happened to

them before on a Sabbath. Mrs. Wheeler’s cheeks were rather red, and

she felt what she would have called “kind of queer”; but she flew about

very fast, and meant to be soon seated in the best room in her Sunday

dress.

It was just at that moment that Lora pushed open the kitchen door and

entered, her eyes large with the thoughts about which she wanted to

question. They grew larger as she took in the situation. Her mother

rolling out pie crust! And it was Sunday! Such a thing had never

happened in Lora’s experience. Nobody knows why the queer little brain

put together the thoughts which had come to her outside, and the pie

crust in the kitchen; but it did, and there came, presently, this

question: “Did you get broked off, muvver?”

“Did I what?” said Mrs. Wheeler, her cheeks very red. There was

something in Lora’s look and tone which made them redder.

“Get broked off. That is what Nannie said. She said folks that got

broked off did things that Jesus did not want done; and kept doing

them. Does he want you to make pies to-day, muvver?”

“If I ever saw such a child!” said Mrs. Wheeler, making the rolling-pin

revolve over the board at railroad speed. “What does Nannie mean

putting such notions into your head? Go into the other room, child, and

take off your coat; I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m not going to

make pies; I shall wad up this dough and keep it until to-morrow.”

And she did.

MYRA SPAFFORD.

THAT RAINY DAY.

THE Stautenbergers were not rich, neither were they poor. Their house

was not large, neither was it very little; but there was none too much

room in it.

Mrs. Stautenberger was dead; had “fallen asleep,” as the father called

it, that very autumn; so when he went to the shop for his day’s work,

Pauline, the eldest, had to be both sister and mother to her three

sisters, and one little brother.

The teacher of the school in their district was very kind, and after

her first call at the “home without a mother,” she said to Pauline, “Do

not stay at home to care for baby sister; bring her with you, and we

will manage in some way. I think she will be a good little girl.”

Then Pauline felt sure she should love the teacher very much. When her

father came home she told him what Miss Gilbert had said, and as he

wiped a tear away, he, too, thought she would be a nice teacher, and

must have a good heart to be so willing to help his motherless ones.

There are a great many things I would like to tell you about this

little family and their splendid teacher, but all I will have time for

now, is the story of one rainy day, and what they did about it.

The storm was so hard they could none of them venture out; certainly

little Gretchen must not be taken out, so there seemed a prospect for a

dull, dreary, lonesome day.

The few dishes were soon put away, and all were hungry for school.

“I know what to do,” said Pauline; “let’s play school. We can read and

spell and make numbers, and maybe we can study geography a little; then

when we go to school to-morrow teacher will be so s’prised to see how

much we have learned; and then she’ll smile, and maybe she will kiss

us, every one! Won’t that be fun?”

She didn’t try to rhyme, but in her eagerness it came of itself.

So they had school, and Metza played teacher, and Pauline sat by little

Gretchen, and Fritz and Mary sat with them on the long lounge, and they

had such a nice time they forgot that it was storming outside, and were

much astonished when at noon papa came home to lunch, and so sorry they

had forgotten to heat the water for his coffee.

But when they told him what a nice time they had had, he smiled, and

said, “My Pauline has been a good mother to-day.” And she thought, “I

have the best papa in the world.”

G. R. A.

[Illustration: “THIS STICK IS BROKED OFF,” SAID LORA.]

PERFUMED GLOVES.

PERFUMED gloves were brought from Italy by Edward Vere, Earl of

Oxford, after his exile, and his present to Queen Elizabeth of a pair

with embroidered roses is mentioned in history. But the refinement of

perfumed gloves had been known for three centuries in France before

the days of the Virgin Queen, and in Spain the gloves were famous

for the scent imparted to them long before her day. The luxurious

court of Charles the Second used perfumed gloves, and those “trimmed

and laced as fine as Nell’s,” you have no doubt read about. Louis

the Fourteenth also issued letter patents of his “_marchands maitres

gantiers parfeumeurs_.” In Venice, where the love of dress was

conspicuous, perfumed gloves were introduced by a dogess as early as

1075.—_Selected._

[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH WHEN A PUPIL.]

* * * * *

THAT day is best wherein we give

A thought of others’ sorrows;

Forgetting self, we learn to live,

And blessings born of kindly deeds

Make golden our to-morrows.

A SABBATH IN A BOARDING-SCHOOL IN TURKEY.

IT was the dawn of a winter morning. Ding-dong-ding clanged the

chapel bell. I sprang up and began to dress, while Marta went to the

mission-house for a cup of coffee. As I fastened the last button, there

was a rap at the door. “Come,” I called, and in walked the dear little

maid with a cup of coffee carefully covered to keep in the steam, and a

roll done up in a napkin, which the cook had insisted upon her bringing.

Ding-dong began the bell again. “Tell the girls not to wait for me,” I

said; and soon the clatter of many feet on the stairs indicated their

departure. The coffee must be swallowed, and the little roll must not

be wholly neglected; then putting on bonnet and ulster, I started to

follow. Fido, our little spaniel, was standing disconsolate in the

hall below. Her eyes were full of entreaty, and wagging her tail

persuasively, she accompanied me to the door.

“Go back, Fido. Can’t take little dogs to church!” I exclaimed. She

knew it was no use to tease, and stood watching me as I opened the

heavy door with difficulty, and slammed it after me—it would not latch

unless slammed. As I reached the church door, I heard the organ—that

meant the service had begun, and I was late! something I never meant

to be, but this was so early to go to church! The Armenians are all

accustomed in the Gregorian Church to a service even earlier, and when

they become Protestant, or Evangelical, they still cling to the old way

of making worship the first thing in the morning, and giving breakfast

the second place.

Instead, then, of going up the men’s aisle, and sitting at the further

end where we missionaries usually do, I went on to the door at the

left—the women’s—and slipped into a back seat. A little girl just in

front of me passed me her hymn book, so that I could join with the

congregation in singing “_Garode yem, voh garode yem_”—“I need Thee,

O, I need Thee.” Just as the hymn closed, the sun’s rays struck the

eastern window and streamed in; then the preacher arose and read the

epistle to Philemon, and also 1 Cor. vii. 22. . . .

The benediction was pronounced, and the congregation slowly streamed

out. The walk from the chapel to the street is narrow, and as it is

not proper for women to crowd in among the men, we waited till they

had mostly passed on. While standing outside, Shushan, one of our day

pupils, came along with her mother; both were completely enveloped

in the white crapy wrap which is worn by the Armenian women in this

section. Shushan’s bright-colored dress showed through, and at the same

time set off the figure in the wrap.

“_Par-ee loo-is_, Shushan; are you of the same mind as yesterday about

going to Kozloo?”

She returned my good-morning, and said she was; yes, indeed!

“Why should we change our minds?” said her mother. “Are we not also

Christ’s servants?” referring to the sermon we had just heard.

You see, Shushan’s brother was bitterly opposed to her going away

to teach, and I thought it quite possible that he had influenced her

to give it up. It was years after girls’ schools were opened before

people were willing to send their children to a woman teacher—I mean a

native—still worse if she was “only a girl.” They would far rather send

them to a man, however ignorant and incapable. That long struggle has

ended at last in victory, and we have no more trouble in finding work

for our girls; but we have another difficulty now. Well-to-do parents

and brothers consider it a disgrace—at least many of them do—to have

their daughters and sisters work as though they were obliged to earn

their support.

“Haven’t you food and clothes?” they ask indignantly, when a girl,

filled with a desire to do something for her people, intimates a

purpose to teach. Perhaps I may as well complete this little tale here

and now, although it does not belong to the incident of the Sabbath I

have been describing.

A few days later the (native) pastor came to me and asked anxiously,

“Can’t you persuade Shushan, for the sake of peace, to give up going to

Kozloo? Her brother is very violent, and talks terribly, declaring that

even if she were mounted, and going through the most public street, he

would drag her off the horse; if she should by any chance succeed in

carrying out her plan, she should never come home again—he would never

again acknowledge her as his sister.” The pastor went on to say that he

thought the brother had offered to send her away to school if she would

give up “this crazy scheme,” as he called it.

I sent for Shushan, and finding that her brother had made the offer

referred to, advised her to accept it. The sacrifice of her will for

the sake of avoiding scandal, would, I was sure, be as acceptable

to the Master as the service she had intended. In less than a week

thereafter, she was on her way to a distant school.

We passed out through the arched gateway, and then parted with a mutual

“_yer-tak par-rov_”—“good-by.” How the sun sparkled on the snowy

street, on the mountains which seemed to stand across it, so near they

looked, and reared their dazzling summits into the brilliant blue of

the winter sky.

The girls with their shawls modestly over their heads, crossed the

street in a straggling little procession. Fido appeared in the window

which she had pried open with her little black nose—windows are hung

like doors—gave an eager and joyful bark or two, and rushed down to

welcome them home. Then they sat down to their breakfast of tea and

bread. The former was seasoned with white lump sugar (brown sugar is

unknown), but there was no butter for the bread.

I doubt whether my readers would have recognized the thin, whity-brown

sheets, or the rags placed before one of the girls who had elected

to take the pieces, as bread, but so it was. They have many kinds in

Turkey, and this thin kind, a little thicker than blotting-paper, is

very popular here. In the autumn it is a very common thing for a girl

to come and say, “Teacher, mother says will you please excuse me from

school to-day?” And she explains that they are baking bread, and need

her help.

“But why doesn’t your mother get some woman to help her?”

Then I find that it is a regular “bee”—a bread bee! The neighbors are

already there, and they will work all night—it is no small job to roll

it out so thin. There will be no more baking till the worst of the

winter is over. It is stacked away in a dry place, and when wanted the

requisite number of sheets (about two feet long by one wide) is taken,

sprinkled as you would clothes for ironing, and after a few moments,

folded once lengthwise and laid around the edge of the table. If,

instead of being sprinkled, the bread is held over the fire a moment,

it becomes crisp and really nice; but this is seldom done.

After the housework was done we had prayers, and then the girls were

dismissed with a charge not to hang about the halls or stairways,

as the boys were coming over again to sing, and to keep their doors

closed. “Not ajar as last Sunday, to my mortification and your

disgrace; most likely the boys thought you left them open on purpose so

that they could look in.” Somehow the boys and girls are wonderfully

interesting to each other all the world over.

Soon the young fellows filed in, looking half-pleased, half-shy—big,

six-foot Isaac, and clever little Bo-ghos; Sumpad, with his bright,

frank smile; poor, awkward Deekran, the best writer in school, and

his brother Arsen. We practiced “Hold the Fort”; there were two bad

mistakes with which we struggled for a while. Then we sang “What a

Friend we have in Jesus,” “Sweet By and by,” “Almost Persuaded,” “Go

Bury thy Sorrow,” “The Ninety and Nine,” and others—all in Armenian, of

course.

Then I said just a word to Deekran about money I entrusted to

him—merely a caution to be careful to return any money that might

be left over. It was hardly the thing for the Sabbath, but I was

not likely to see him for some days, and I wanted to prevent any

carelessness—it is so important for boys that they learn to be careful

and business-like.

HARRIET G. POWERS, _in the Evangelist_.

THE HARD TEXT.

(_Matt._ xii. 31, 32.)

MANY have been troubled over this text. Some have been in despair of

being saved because they thought they had committed this unpardonable

sin.

Probably many are mistaken. Any one that truly feels sorrow for his

sins, and really longs for forgiveness and hungers for holiness, shows

some of the best signs that he has not committed this. God will not

cast out such a person, if he comes in Jesus’ name.

But there is a sin against the Holy Ghost so great that it cannot be

forgiven, and probably when one has committed it he is so desperately

wicked, so hard in heart, that he never asks to be forgiven.

You will wish to know what this awful sin is, so that you may never

commit it. The thought of being doomed never to see heaven and

Christian friends after death fills you with horror.

But then, why should you not tremble at committing any sin? One

little sin leads to another, and so on, until the sin of sins is the

end of it all. Take care!

[Illustration: A SELFISH KID.]

But how is it—or was it—worse to sin against the Holy Ghost than

against the Son of Man?

Well, the first might be done in ignorance. The Roman soldiers did not

know what a dreadful thing they were doing when they nailed the dear

Lord to the tree. They might be forgiven that. But the Holy Ghost comes

to show one the truth; then that one has no excuse, you see. His sin is

against light. It is most deliberate, willful, determined. It is much

more. But remember it is sinning against light, great light.

AN AMUSING ANECDOTE.

SOME time ago an amusing little anecdote was related about the German

Crown Prince whilst having a lesson in grammar from his tutor. One is

now being told about the second son of the imperial couple, Prince

Eitel Fritz. The Emperor is exceedingly strict about his son’s behavior

at table. Not long since little Prince Eitel Fritz, using his fingers

instead of his knife and fork, was corrected by his father several

times to no purpose. At last the Emperor’s patience was exhausted, and

he said:

“Children who eat with their fingers are like little dogs that hold

their food with their paws. If you use your fingers again you must

go under the table, the proper place for little dogs.” The little

Prince did his utmost not to forget this time, and used his knife and

fork like a man; but all at once he forgot again and began using his

fingers. “March under the table,” said his father. Prince Eitel Fritz

crept under as bidden. After a little while the Emperor, thinking the

Prince very quiet, lifted up the tablecloth and peeped underneath.

There sat little Prince Eitel Fritz undressed. His father asked him

what he meant by undressing himself. The child answered, “Little dogs

don’t wear clothes; they only have skin.”—_Selected._

A STRANGE GENERAL.

YEARS and years ago there was a busy housekeeper thrown into a fever of

anxiety because she heard a certain famous general was coming, and that

she would be expected to entertain him. She flew about in the greatest

haste, pressing all the people around her into service to help make

ready for the distinguished guest.

Among others was a man who, by his dress and general appearance, she

took to be a neighbor’s servant. “Take hold and help us here a minute,”

she said, and set him at some work in the kitchen. That being done the

man volunteered to split some wood to a certain size, as it was greatly

needed. While he was thus employed the lady’s husband, who had been

absent, reached home, and was informed of the honor in store for him.

He, too, set about helping with the preparations, and presently went to

the kitchen, where the strange servant was just laying down an armful

of the wood he had split.

Imagine the man’s stare of astonishment, mingled with dismay, when he

recognized in the stranger the famous general in whose honor all this

bustle of preparation was going forward.

In stammering confusion he approached the supposed servant, who, by

the way, was slightly deformed, and asked for the meaning of such an

extraordinary state of things.

“Why,” said the helper, with a broad smile on his face, “I am paying

the fine for my deformity.”

I leave the Pansies to learn who this great man was, and who was the

woman who in her haste to honor him mistook him for a house servant,

and also what happened in consequence of this.

PANSY.

* * * * *

CRICKETS are bought and sold in various parts of

Africa. People capture them, feed them, and sell them.

The natives are very fond of their music, thinking that

it induces sleep. Superstitions regarding the cricket’s

chirp are varied. Some believe it is ominous of sorrow

and evil, others consider it a harbinger of joy.

[Illustration: CASTLE QUEER.]

BABY’S CORNER.

A HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

“CHRISTMAS is coming! Christmas is coming!”

That is what little Lucy sang as she went through the hall with a hop,

skip and jump, clapping her hands for joy.

“And what is little daughter going to do to make somebody happy on

Christmas day?”

[Illustration: ONE OF THOSE LOVELY ROSES.]

Papa asked this as he came out into the hall. Then he kissed Lucy

good-by, took down his hat from the rack, and went out of the front

door before she had time to tell him.

Lucy stopped running, and looked out of the window and thought about it.

Then she went upstairs to mamma and said:

“Mamma, what am I going to do to make somebody happy to-morrow? What

can little girls do?”

“You can be just as sweet as a rose all day, and obey mamma as soon as

she speaks. That will make me very happy,” said mamma.

“But I want to give something to somebody to s’prise ’em and make ’em

glad,” Lucy said.

“Who is there that you would like to surprise?” her mamma asked.

Lucy thought a minute, then she said:

“Mrs. Bly.”

Mrs. Bly lived in the “Home for Aged Women.” She was a nice old lady,

and Lucy often went with her mother to call upon her.

“Very well, dear,” said mamma; “there is your gold dollar; if you want

to give it you may.”

“May I buy ’zactly what I please, mamma?”

“Yes, dear.”

“O, how nice!” said Lucy. “Can’t we go now, right off, to buy it?”

Mamma said “Yes” again, and Lucy ran off to get her hood and cloak and

mittens. In a few minutes she was out on the street with mamma, gazing

into all the shop windows. “What shall I buy? What shall I buy?” she

kept asking.

Mamma said a little shawl for Mrs. Bly’s shoulders would be nice, or a

pair of warm stockings or some handkerchiefs. But Lucy shook her head.

“Wouldn’t she like a bu’ful dollie or a sweet little kitty better?” she

asked.

Mamma had to laugh at that.

Just then Lucy cried out, “There it is! I see it! That is what I want.”

Guess what it was.

[Illustration: WHAT THEY NEED.]

It was a beautiful large rosebush in a pretty pot. There were two roses

on it and plenty of buds.

So they went in and bought it. The man said he would send it up right

away.

Old Mrs. Bly was sitting in her rocking-chair knitting. There came a

knock at the door. She opened it, and who should be there but Lucy and

her mamma, and a boy with a rosebush!

How surprised Mrs. Bly was, and how pleased, when she knew that little

Lucy bought the plant with her own money.

“You dear little lamb,” she said; “it will make me very happy. It is

like the roses in my old home.”

When Christmas morning came Mrs. Bly cut off one of those lovely roses

and put it in a vase. She carried it to a poor old lady across the hall

who was ill in bed, and it made her glad.

So you see little Lucy made three people happy that Christmas day—the

sick old lady, Mrs. Bly and herself.

MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.

FROM THE HEART.

ON the eve of Christmas,

Ready each for bed,

And with heart most anxious,

Bends each little head,

While the prayer was whispered

Close to Grandma’s chair.

Were the angels bending

O’er a sight so fair?

“Dear Jesus, please to listen,

For Christmas comes to-morrow,

And we so much need some dollies,

So we needn’t have to borrow!

Please have them made of wax,

Wiv blue eyes, and pretty curls;

And we’ll love you more than ever!

We’re your own dear little dirls.”

A LONG CHRISTMAS.

THERE had been the usual Christmas-tree, which the cousins from three

homes had gathered to enjoy. There had not been a Christmas since the

oldest of them could remember—and he was sixteen—that the cousins had

not been together in one of the homes, and had a frolic around the

Christmas-tree. It was always hung with bright-colored balls, and

strings of popcorn, and all the bright and pretty and useless things

which people from year to year have contrived for such trees. It always

had clustered about it the various sorts of fruits which refused,

because of their weight, to be hung upon the branches—dolls, and kites,

and wagons, and swords, and books and baskets. Every year the fruit

grew stranger in some respects, with a dreary sameness in others, which

was actually beginning to weary the hearts of the cousins.

The first excitement was over. The fathers and mothers and maiden

aunts, together with three grandmothers and two grandfathers, had

retired to quieter parts of the house, and the young people were left

to their enjoyment. It was not very noisy in the room, nor were most of

the cousins absorbed in their gifts; in fact their faces were already

sobering. Little Nell was still happy over her new building-blocks,

and Dell, her other self, was trying to advise her concerning them,

while Harold tried his new paints and brushes on the chair he occupied,

his guardian sister leaning over the back of the chair, so absorbed

the while in her own grave thoughts that she did not even notice the

mischief he was doing.

“It is all over once more,” said Holly. He was the sixteen-year-old

cousin, and he thrust his hands in his pockets, and said it with a yawn.

“Some of it is a good deal of a bore,” answered Tom, the cousin next

in age, echoing the yawn. “I didn’t get the first thing I expected or

wanted.”

“Neither did I; but then I don’t know what I wanted, I am sure, unless

it was a bicycle, and you can’t put that on a Christmas-tree very

well.”

“Why not, as well as the trumpery which is put on?” asked Tom

contemptuously. “I tell you the whole thing is getting to be a bore.

Even the small fry don’t care for it half so much as they think they

do; there’s Nannie sulking this minute because her dollie, which she

has deserted, is not so nice according to her notion as Lily’s is. And

Ted has turned his back on the whole of it because he didn’t get a

drum. This crowd needs something new.”

“I don’t know what it would be; we have had everything imaginable, and

if the simple truth were told need presents less than any young folks

in the kingdom, I do suppose. My father says there is nothing new to

get for pampered young people like us; and I don’t know but he is about

right.”

“There’s a whole lot of money spent about it every year, though.”

This was from Hortense, the oldest of the girl cousins, and a sort of

adviser of the two older boys.

“I know it,” said Holly; “and a good deal of it is wasted. Nannie, for

instance, did not need another doll any more than the cat needs two

tails, and as for me I have seven jack-knives now.”

At that moment Helen turned away from the paint brush which she had not

noticed, and joined in the conversation.

“Isn’t it funny? I have five new balls, and I don’t care for any of

them. They keep giving us the same things over and over.”

“They forget,” said Holly; “and there is nothing new for them to get

us, anyhow.”

“I know something that would be new.” It was Hortense again, speaking

with grave thoughtfulness. The boys turned and looked at her

inquiringly. “Don’t you know what Mr. Briggs told about the children

out in the Colorado mountains, who never had a Christmas present in

their lives, and didn’t know anything about such times as we have? I

was thinking what if we could make up a box and put into it all the

dollies, and balls, and jack-knives, and things that we don’t want, and

some books, and perhaps a little candy, and send it out there, wouldn’t

it be nice?”

[Illustration: THEIR FACES WERE ALREADY SOBERING.]

“Too late for this year,” said Tom promptly.

“Why, no, it isn’t; if we hadn’t had any Christmas at all, ever, we

would be willing to have one come to us in January.”

The boys laughed, and Holly said heartily, “That’s so.” And Hortense

began to tell a story that she had heard Mr. Briggs tell to her uncle,

and the younger ones gathered about her, leaving dolls and paints, and

the interest grew.

It was the very next day that Hortense and Tom and Holly went to Dr.

Parsons’ house to see Mr. Briggs.

“Why, yes,” he said, looking perfectly delighted with them, when Holly

explained; “let me tell you about a brave little chap out there, only

eleven years old; his father was guide to the tourists who wanted to

climb the dangerous and difficult mountains, and lost his life from

exposure, hunting a party of men who had strayed away. Little Teddy

is as brave as a soldier. He is a guide himself, though so young, and

getting to be one of the surest and safest to be found in that region,

only he is so young and small yet, that strangers are afraid to trust

him. A dreary life Teddy leads; he and his mother live all alone in a

little house at the foot of a mountain. The boy has only the clothes

which his father left, made over for him the best way his mother can.

He never had anything that fitted him; and he never had any playthings

in his life, only what he picked up; as for knives, or balls, or any

of the things which boys like him enjoy, I don’t know what he would

think if one should happen to come to him. You needn’t suppose that

he hasn’t heard all about Christmas; his mother used to live in a

farmhouse in New York State, and the stories she has told have almost

driven him wild. A few rods away from their cottage lives a family with

five children—three little girls, and a four-year-old boy and a baby. I

happen to know that Teddy set his heart this year on having some sort

of a Christmas present for every one of those children—and failed! I

did not mean that he should, but I was sick at just the wrong time

after I reached home, and my plans did not work. I heard from there

only last night, and poor Teddy’s plans did not work, either.”

Holly had his note book and pencil in hand. “Will you give us his full

name and address?” he said.

Such a time as the cousins had packing that box! Every baby of them

contributed, not only the toys which they did not want, but a few that

they loved, and parted from with sighs. The same may be said of the

elder cousins, especially when it came to books; Holly was a miser

where these were concerned, and Hortense knew how to sympathize with

him. It took these two several hours to be willing to pack in that box

some of their handsomely bound volumes, written by favorite authors.

But they had to go; for Mr. Briggs, among other things, had said, “I

never saw a boy so hungry for reading in my life as Teddy; and he has

only scraps of old newspapers, which he has picked up from time to time

among the tourists.”

And more than books and toys went into that box.

“It is a shame for a fellow to have no clothes that fit him!” declared

Tom. “I’ve been there myself, and I know how it feels. I had to wear my

brother Dick’s overcoat once, and it was too large for me. Mr. Briggs

says he is about the size of Roger”—he meant Teddy, and not Mr. Briggs.

“We must ask mother about that.”

They asked her to such purpose, and Aunt Cornelia as well, that two

neat suits of Roger’s and Cousin Harry’s second best clothes went into

the box.

The day in which it was finally packed was a jubilee. The cousins were

all invited to Aunt Cornelia’s to supper, and packed the box in the

large dining-room after supper, with a little of Aunt Cornelia’s and

Uncle Roger’s help.

“I don’t know as I ever had so much fun in my life,” said Holly,

looking up from the driving of the last nail to make the remark. “It

is better than Christmas a dozen times; in fact it is a Christmas

extension.”

“And won’t it be fun to hear from Teddy?” said Hortense.

But as for us, we cannot expect to hear from Teddy until January.

PANSY.

[Illustration: THE BELLS SWING AND RING.]

VOICES OF THE BELLS.

IN yonder tower high hangs the brazen bell,

Tolling, tolling;

Upon the frosty air its echoes heave and swell,

Tolling, tolling:

The bell has a tongue that is easily heard;

When it is swung many hearts may be stirred,

Though its tale it tells with never a word—

Tolling, tolling.

It swings and dings in the morning air,

Ringing, ringing!

Tells of the birth of a baby fair,

Ringing, ringing!

Tells the glad news so that all may know;

Those in the village asleep below,

Those on the streets moving to and fro—

Ringing, ringing!

Aloft it swings in the schoolhouse tower,

Dinging, dinging;

With brazen tongue it proclaims the hour,

Dinging, dinging:

Calls to the work of storing the mind

With useful knowledge of every kind,

Urging the laggards left far behind,

Dinging, dinging.

Gently it swings in the steeple high,

Pealing, pealing;

The steeple that points to the upper sky,

Pealing, pealing:

Calling to worship on hallowed day,

Calling the faithful to come and pray,

Even to those who are far away—

Pealing, pealing.

Again it calls in a joyful tone,

Ringing, ringing!

Hinting that man should not walk alone,

Ringing, ringing!

And so they throng with the bridal pair,

And the glad bells sound on the clear sweet air,

For the bells all ring for the belle so fair—

Ringing, ringing!

Ah, me! but that tongue will swing again,

Tolling, tolling;

Swing again with a solemn strain,

Tolling, tolling:

It will tell how some one beloved has died,

How the cold dark earth has claimed his bride;

And ’twill seem in its strains as though it sighed—

Tolling, tolling.

But the bells above may swing and ring,

Swinging, ringing,

In the temple towers of the Lord the King,

Swinging, ringing;

And the bells below, with the bells up there,

May sound their joys for this Child and Heir,

Who is called to heaven its joys to share—

Swinging, ringing.

G. R. A.

[Illustration: THE BELL HAS A TONGUE THAT IS EASILY HEARD.]

EASTER LILIES.

A STALK of tall white lilies

Bloomed out in a garden fair;

Their breath, so sweet and fragrant,

Scented the ambient air.

As Easter day came on apace,

It seemed as if they tried

To grow still sweeter, for the morn

When rose the Crucified.

When dawned the holy Easter tide,

And they were full in bloom,

A sad-eyed woman gathered them

And laid them on a tomb.

And as she knelt in deepest woe

Beside the flower-decked mound,

And felt that all her hope was dead,

The lilies’ fragrance stole around.

It stole into her wounded breast;

The sacred odors seemed to be

A message for her bleeding heart—

“The Crucified pities thee.”

CAROLINE STRATTON VALENTINE.

[Illustration: THE BELL HANGS IN THE TOWER.]

CHARACTER STUDIES.

EDWARD STEADMAN was at home for the Christmas holidays. Everybody

was glad to see him, of course, particularly his mother; because in

the first place mothers always are a little bit more glad over the

home-coming of their boys than anybody else in the world can be, and

secondly because she needed some help very much, and knew that he

could give it. She explained matters to him that morning: “I want to

get Grandma’s room all in order, Edward, and her new carpet down, and

every thing, before Christmas, you know; and we shall have to work

like bees. I’m so glad you came home this week, instead of stopping at

your uncle’s first. To-day we can hang all her pictures, and put up

the curtains and the wall-pockets, and do things of that kind; they

will not make a speck of dust in putting down the carpet—it is new,

you know. I want to get all those things done to-day, they are so

puttering—take a great deal of time and judgment. I’m so glad to have

you to depend upon; you are such a tall boy that you can reach where

mother can’t; and Dick is so clumsy I hate to have him stumping about

Grandma’s room. Your father was going to help me, though he did not

know how to spare the time; he was as pleased as could be when I told

him that you could do it all. ‘Sure enough!’ he said; ‘we have got a

boy to depend upon once more; how good it seems!’”

The sentence closed with a fond smile, and such a look in the mother’s

eyes as ought to have made a boy happy. Edward was happy; he whistled

as he went down the stairs, and thought to himself that there were not

many fellows who had such a mother as his, and that he would show her

just how tall, and how handy and how wise he was.

She called after him as she heard the street door open.

“Where are you going, Edward? We ought to get right to work; it will be

an all-day job, do the best we can, and the light is good in Grandma’s

room now for hanging the pictures. Must you go to the post-office

first? O, well! that is but a short distance; run along, and get back

as soon as you can.”

“Halloo!” said Mr. Arkwright, the postmaster, who had known Edward

ever since he was a little fellow in kilts and curls, “back again, are

you? How you do shoot up, to be sure! I believe you are about a foot

taller than you were in the fall. Here’s your mail; nothing but papers

this time, but enough of them to snow you under!” And he pitched them

through the little window so fast that they fell to the right and left.

“Catalogues, some of them,” said Edward, smiling; “I asked them to send

me a number of the new ones; and the reports of our commencement and

society exercises are in these papers.”

“Like enough,” said Mr. Arkwright; “had a grand time, I suppose? You

carried off a first prize, I hear? Glad of it. I always knew it was in

you. Do you happen to be going directly home? If you are, would you

mind taking this letter and handing it in at Westlake’s as you pass? I

see it is marked ‘Important,’ and it may save him some trouble to get

it right away. He’s all alone in the office to-day; his boy is sick.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Edward, reaching for the letter, and dropping it

into his jacket pocket. Then he walked away, looking steadily at one of

the papers, which he had already opened.

“I do not see what in the world can have detained Edward!” said Mrs.

Steadman, speaking as well as she could with her mouth full of tacks.

She was mounted on a box which in its turn was mounted on a chair, and

was trying to reach to fasten the curtain in Grandma’s room.

“I should think you would wait for him,” said her daughter Fannie

anxiously. “You ought not to climb up like that, mother; father would

not like it at all, and I’m afraid you will fall. You are not high

enough yet to get it right.”

“I know it; and I can’t drive a nail away up here, either. I cannot

understand why Edward doesn’t come; it seems as though something must

have happened to him. I explained to him particularly what a hurry we

were in, and how much there was in which he could help me.”

[Illustration: “CERTAINLY, SIR,” SAID EDWARD.]

“What has happened to him is that he has found something to read, I

suppose, and has seated himself somewhere to enjoy it.” Fannie spoke a

little irritably; she was worried about her mother, and they had been

waiting for Edward for more than two hours. The short December day was

hurrying toward its noon, and nothing had been done of the many things

in which he was to have been a central figure. Fannie was very fond of

her brother, but she realized his besetments better than the others

did, or at least she said more about them.

“O, no!” said the mother decidedly, taking a tack out of her mouth to

enable her to speak plainly; “Edward wouldn’t do that, after all I said

to him this morning. He knew how anxious we were to have everything

ready for Grandma by Christmas. Something unusual has happened, I feel

sure. I don’t know but Tommy would better run out and see if he can

find him, only it seems rather absurd to be sending out in search of a

big boy like Edward.”

“I should think so!” Fannie said, and they waited another half-hour.

Then a sharp ring at the door-bell startled Mrs. Steadman so that she

nearly lost her balance. Fannie screamed a little, and ran toward her.

“I didn’t fall,” she said, leaning against the window-casing for

support; “but I think I shall have to get down. I don’t see what makes

me so nervous. It seems all the time as though something was going to

happen; I suppose it is because Edward doesn’t come. Did Jane go to the

door?”

Yes, Jane had; and now they listened and heard Mr. Westlake’s, their

neighbor’s, voice.

“Is Edward here?”

No, Jane said, somewhat shortly, he was not; and as to where he was,

that was more than they knew. Jane had been called from her work three

times that morning to help with something which Edward could have done,

and she did not feel sweet-natured.

“Well, I wish you would ask your folks if they have any idea where I

might find him,” Mr. Westlake said anxiously; “I have just come from

the office—it was the first chance I had for going this morning—and

Arkwright says he sent a letter to me marked ‘Important’—sent it by

Edward nearly three hours ago, he should think. I have some business

matters that are very important, and I thought this might be a summons

to me to go away on the express, and there is but a half-hour or less

before it goes.”

Before this long sentence was finished Mrs. Steadman was at the door;

but she had no information to give, and could only tell the annoyed man

that she was sorry, and that she could not imagine what had detained

Edward.

“I can,” muttered Jane, as he turned hurriedly away; “his own sweet

notion is detaining him; he’s enjoying himself somewhere, readin’ a

book or paper, and letting others get along the best way they can.” But

Jane was only talking to herself.

The Steadman dinner bell was sounding through the house when Edward,

flushed and embarrassed, came bounding up the stairs two steps at a

time, to assure his mother how sorry he was.

“I hadn’t the least idea how time was going,” he explained; “never

was so astonished in my life as I was to hear the bell ring for noon!

Why, you see,” in answer to her anxious questions, “I got a lot of

papers at the office—all about our closing days, you know; of course I

was anxious to see what they said about the examinations, and essays,

and things, so I stepped into Dr. Mason’s office just to glance them

over. The doctor was out, and I sat and read first one thing and then

another, and talked a little with folks who kept coming in search of

the doctor, until, to my utter astonishment, as I tell you, I heard the

bell.”

“Then nothing detained you, Edward?”

“Why, no, ma’am; nothing but the papers, as I tell you. I had not the

faintest idea”—

She interrupted him. “Have you seen Mr. Westlake?”

“Yes’m,” and now Edward’s face crimsoned; “I met him on the street and

gave him his letter. I’m dreadfully sorry about that; almost as sorry

as I am about keeping you waiting, mother.”

“He said it might want him to take the train; do you know if it did?”

“Yes’m, it did.”

“And he missed it?”

“Why, of course, mother dear; the train goes at eleven, you know. I’m

awfully sorry. It is perfectly unaccountable what has become of this

forenoon!”

Mrs. Steadman made no comment; she did not want to trust herself to do

so just then. She turned away with a sigh so deep that it would have

cut Edward’s heart, had he heard it.

And Jane nodded her gray head and muttered, “I told you so!”

MYRA SPAFFORD.

A TEN-DOLLAR CHRISTMAS.

ADELE CHESTER had never spent a Christmas in the country before;

neither had she ever felt quite so desolate. Mother and father were in

Europe, in search of health for the father, and Adele, who had been

left in charge of Aunt Martha, had herself decreed that she would go

nowhere for Christmas.

“I can’t be happy and frolic when papa is sick,” she said; “and as for

the country, if Aunt Martha can live there all her life, I think I can

endure one Christmas.” So she had staid; but it must be confessed that

the world looked dreary to her that wintry morning, with nothing but

snow to be seen from her window. She almost thought she would have been

wiser to have joined the Philadelphia cousins. “At least there would

have been a chance to spend my Christmas money,” she murmured gloomily,

as she tapped on the frosty window pane with restless fingers. “I’m

sure I don’t know what I can buy in this little tucked-up place.”

The “tucked-up place” was really a nice town with about five thousand

people living in it, but to Adele, whose home was in New York City,

it seemed absurd to call it a town. Aunt Martha’s farmhouse was only

half a mile from some very good stores, where Adele had found a few

things to suit her during the three months she had spent there, and on

the whole she had managed to be quite happy. But she did not feel like

being suited with anything this morning. Such a queer Christmas for

her! She had had her presents, as usual—a new fur cap from Aunt Martha,

a writing-desk well furnished from Uncle Peter, a lovely ring with a

real diamond in it from mamma, and a new chain for her pretty watch

from papa. What more could a reasonable girl want? Truth to tell, she

wanted nothing but the dear home, and mamma’s kisses, and papa’s arms

around her. The ring and chain were beautiful, but they did not seem

like presents from them, when she knew they crossed the ocean weeks

ago, and had been lying in Aunt Martha’s bureau drawer waiting for this

morning. She valued the letter more which had arrived only the night

before, and she drew it from her pocket and kissed it, letting a tear

or two fall on the words, “My Darling Child,” as she read them once

more. “Papa and I are so sorry to be away from you to-day,” the letter

read; “we have tried to find something suitable to send on so long a

journey, and planned to reach you on the very day, but have failed;

papa has not been well enough to look about much for a few weeks, and

I could not go alone. At last we decided to send you a fifty-dollar

bank note and bid you go and spend it in the way which would make you

happiest.”

“The idea!” said Adele, smiling through her tears, as she refolded

the letter, “just as though I could find anything here to buy to make

me happy! Mamma must have forgotten for the moment where I was. Yet I

want a few things, some Christmas bonbons, at least, if they know the

meaning of the word in this little place, and above all, I want a brisk

walk in the snow. I shall take ten dollars of my fifty, and go out and

spend it; I won’t waste another cent on this old town. I wonder what I

can do with ten dollars to make me happy?” She laughed half scornfully.

Ten dollars seemed so very little to this girl, who had always spent

money as freely as water, and done as little thinking about it as the

birds do over the spring cherries.

In a very few minutes she was wrapped in furs and out upon the snowy

road. Aunt Martha offered her the sleigh and the driver, and her

“leggings” and woollen mittens, but she would have none of them. She

was a good walker, and had been used to miles in the city. She hid her

nose in her muff, because the wind over this wide stretch of snow was

very keen, and sped along “like a snowbird,” Aunt Martha said, watching

her from the window. And then she sighed, this dear old auntie whom the

country satisfied. She saw the shade on the face of her darling this

morning, and was sorry for her, and wished so much that she could do

something to brighten her Christmas day.

The little town was reached in due time, and the streets were gay with

Christmas finery; the stores were open quite generally, to catch the

belated Christmas buyers. In an hour or two they would close for the

day; but the custom in this thriving manufacturing town was to give

the tardy ones a Christmas morning chance. Adele went from one store

to another, dissatisfied, disconsolate. Nothing suited her. The truth

is, when a girl does not need an earthly thing, and is yet determined

to spend some money, she is sometimes rather difficult to suit. She

halted at last before a show window and looked at the bright fineries

displayed there. So did little Janey Hooper, who had come out with ten

cents to buy a soup bone for the day’s dinner. Adele, turning from the

window, jostled against her, and looked down upon the mite. She seemed

not more than eight, yet there was a wise, grown-up look in her eyes

which held the homesick girl’s attention.

“Are you trying to make Christmas too? What do you see in the window

you like?”

“Everything,” said the little girl simply.

“Do you? you are fortunate. Are you going to buy them all?”

“O, no! not a single one. I couldn’t.”

Adele, looking closely at her, was seized with a sudden impulse.

“Suppose you could buy one thing, what would it be?” she asked.

The little girl’s eyes flashed. “Oh! I would buy that shawl—that soft

gray one with pussy fringe—it looks just like mother.”

It was a dingy little shoulder shawl, of the kind which can be bought

for two dollars. “Does your mother need a shawl?” asked Adele.

“O, yes’m! she needs it badly enough; but we are not going to get one,

not this year; we can’t.”

There was decision and composure in the tone, like a woman who had

settled the whole question, and put it beyond the range of argument.

Her manner amused Adele.

“That was for your mother,” she said; “what would you choose for

yourself?”

“Me?” said the child, surprised. “Oh! I don’t know. I might take that

brown coat, maybe, or some mittens, or—I don’t know which I would take.

What’s the use?”

She was turning away; but Adele’s gloved hand detained her. The little

sack she wore was much too thin for so cold a morning.

“Wait a minute,” she said gently. “Tell me what your name is, won’t

you, and where you live, and what you came out for this cold morning

with so thin a sack?”

“I’m Janey Hooper; we live down there on Factory Lane. It wasn’t far to

go, and my sack is worn out, that is why it is so thin; but it will do

very well for this winter. I came out to buy the Christmas dinner.”

“Did you, indeed! Aren’t you very young to go to market?”

“O, no, ma’am! I’m turned nine, and the oldest of four, and father’s

dead. Of course I have to do all I can. I know how to choose a lovely

soup bone.”

“Do you? Are you going to have soup to-day?”

“Yes’m, a big kettle full; I’ve got ten cents to buy a bone with. I

generally get a five-cent one; but we thought for Christmas we would

have it fine. My brother is to be home to dinner; he is most twelve,

and likes soup.”

There was a mist before Adele’s eyes that the frosty air did not make.

She brushed it away and settled her plans.

“Come in here with me a minute,” she said; “I want your help about

something.” The child followed her wonderingly, with eyes that grew

every moment larger, as the thick brown coat which hung on a wire

figure was taken down and deliberately tried by the smiling shop girl

on her quaint little self.

“It fits to a T,” said the girl; “Janey has a pretty figure, and that

just suits her.”

“It is warm, at least,” said Adele. “Did you say it was two and a

half? What an absurd price! Keep it on, child; it is for you. This is

Christmas, you know, and Santa Claus sent it to you. Now that shoulder

shawl.”

A moment more, and it was in Janey’s astonished arms. Her eyes

sparkled, but she made an earnest protest: “Oh! if you please, I don’t

think I can; I am afraid mother would not”—

“Your mother cannot help herself,” interrupted Adele. “Don’t you know I

told you it was Santa Claus? He does what he likes always. Come along,

I’m going to market with you; I want to see you pick out a soup bone.

Is it to go in that basket?”

She picked it out with grave care and with skill, Adele and the market

man watching her the while. “Isn’t it a nice one, Bobby?” said the

child, to a stout boy who had also stopped. Adele turned as the

freckled boy nodded.

“Who is this? Is he a friend of yours? Well, Bobby, Santa Claus wants

you to do an errand for him, will you? He will give you four of those

red-cheeked apples if you will.”

The boy laughed good-naturedly, and said he didn’t know much about

Santa Claus, but he would do whatever she wanted done.

“Very well,” said Adele merrily; “I want that market basket which hangs

up there. Can you lend it to this boy for a little while?” The market

man declared his entire willingness to do so, and kept Janey Hooper

waiting for her bone while he filled that basket with everything which

Adele’s eyes could discover, which might add to a Christmas dinner.

There was a plump chicken, a roast of beef, a string of sausage, some

potatoes, apples, onions, turnips, a great bunch of celery, and, in

short, whatever the market man suggested, after the girl’s skill was

exhausted.

“Is that too heavy for you?” said Adele.

“O, no, ma’am!” Bobby assured her.

“Very well; I want you to take it to this little girl’s mother’s house,

and tell her Santa Claus sent it to go with the soup, and that it has

given him a happy Christmas to do so. Will you remember?”

He nodded brightly, stuffing rosy-cheeked apples into his pocket the

while, and they trudged away, Janey trying to murmur her bewildered

protests, while Adele paid her bill.

“I’ve spent every cent of my ten dollars,” she told Aunt Martha an hour

later. “I hadn’t even enough to buy you any Christmas bonbons; but

I have obeyed mamma’s directions; I was to buy something to make me

happy, and I haven’t felt so happy in weeks as I do this minute. When I

get my things put away I’ll come down and tell you all about it.”

Aunt Martha watched her bound up the stairs, a glow on her cheeks and

a sparkle in her eyes which they had lacked when she went out; and

whatever the purchase had been, she was grateful.

As for Janey Hooper and her mother, to say nothing of Bobby, who took

dinner with them, you must imagine how they felt.

PANSY.

[Illustration: MAKING THE SHEEP CLEAN.]

MISS PARKER’S GIRLS.

THERE were thirteen of them, all told. An “unlucky number,” one of

them said, and laughed; they were girls who did not believe in “luck.”

They laughed a great deal during these days, and were very happy. They

had as lovely a secret on their minds as thirteen girls, all of them

between the ages of eleven and thirteen, ever had. They were also very

busy, and held many committee meetings, and discussed plans, and went

in companies of twos and threes to transact business. “We were never so

busy before at this time of year, were we?” they said to one another.

“And we never had so much fun in our lives!” some one would be sure to

say. To this sentiment they all agreed.

“This time of year” was a few days before Christmas. The preparations

for Christmas, so far as these girls are concerned, began two weeks

before. It started on Sunday afternoon in the Bible class. Miss Parker

had been even more interesting than usual that day. She succeeded in so

filling their hearts with the lesson, especially with one thought in

it, that Cora Henderson said, half enviously:

“O, dear! I can’t help wishing that we had lived in those times. Of

course it was dreadful; but then, after all, it gave one such splendid

opportunities! Think of John having a chance to take Jesus’ mother home

and do for her. And to know that Jesus wanted him to, and was pleased

with it! I think it would have been just lovely; there are no such

chances nowadays,” and Cora, aged thirteen, sighed.

Miss Parker smiled on her brightly. “Are you sure of that, my dear

girl? Remember we are talking about a history which is different from

any other in the world, because Jesus is ‘the same yesterday, to-day

and forever.’”

“O, yes’m!” Cora said civilly; “I know it; but then, of course, things

are different. His mother is not here on earth for us to take care of;

I should love to do it, I know I should,” and Cora’s fair face glowed,

and her eyes had a sweet and tender light in them.

Miss Parker looked at her fondly. “My dear child,” she said, “I think

you would; but do you forget how He said, ‘Whosoever shall do the will

of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and

mother’?”

Cora looked a little bewildered, and Miss Parker explained.

“I think we all forget that according to that verse Jesus has many

‘mothers’ on earth, in the persons of his dear old saints, who are

poor, and weak, and tired, and are only waiting to be called home.

There are so many things we could do for their comfort, if we only

remembered that they were the same to Jesus as his own dear mother.”

The girls looked at one another wonderingly. This was a new way of

putting it. Cora did more than look. “What a lovely thought!” she

said; “I should never have thought it out for myself, but it must be

so, because what would that verse mean if it were not? O, Miss Parker!

couldn’t we girls do it? Do you know of any old lady whom we could help

a little—make a pretty Christmas for, perhaps? Girls, wouldn’t you all

like to do it?”

So that was the beginning. Yes, Miss Parker knew an old lady; had had

her in mind all the week; had wondered how she could set to work to

interest her dear girls in her. She needed a great deal of help, and

Miss Parker had very little of this world’s goods. She knew that some

of her girls came from homes where there was plenty. “But I do not like

to be always begging,” she told her mother. Then she had asked the Lord

Jesus to show her some way of interesting the girls in poor Grandmother

Blakslee. And here they were asking for the name of an old lady whom

they could help! What a lovely answer it was to her prayer.

[Illustration: “NOW LET US ASK A BLESSING.”]

Grandmother Blakslee’s story was a sad one, though only too common.

Her two daughters and her one son had died long years before, leaving

a little granddaughter, who had grown to girlhood and married a

worthless drunkard, who deserted her, and at last she died, leaving to

Grandmother Blakslee the care of her poor little baby boy. In many ways

life had gone hard with Grandmother Blakslee; and now in her old age,

when she was too feeble to work, the thing which she had dreaded most

in the world, next to sin, had come to her door. She could no longer

pay the rent for her one little bare room, and must send her little boy

to the orphan asylum, and go herself to the poorhouse. It seemed a very

pitiful thing to Grandmother Blakslee that she should have had to plan

to leave the bare little room on Christmas morning, but that happened

to be the day when it was convenient for the man who had promised to

take her and her old arm-chair. Poor little Johnnie was to go with

her for that one day, and the next morning he was to be taken in the

market wagon to the asylum. Poor Grandmother Blakslee! her heart was

very sad and sore, but she tried to keep her face quiet and peaceful

for Johnnie’s sake. She had not been able to make the little fellow

understand that he was to be separated from her; the most he realized

was that they were to take a ride together and spend the day in a big

house, and he was happy. On the little three-cornered table was set a

dish with baked potatoes and warm rolls, and the teapot stood near it;

a neighbor only a little less poor than themselves had remembered them.

Grandmother tried to have only thankfulness in her heart; but could she

forget that she had lived in that town more than sixty years, and been

a member of the church all that time? Occasionally she could not help

feeling it was strange that there could have been no other way but to

go to the poorhouse. “It won’t be long now for me,” she told herself,

“and I should like to have kept Johnnie while I staid, poor little

boy! But it was not to be.” Then she smothered a sigh and said, “Come,

Johnnie, let us ask a blessing, then we will have our last breakfast

alone together.”

It was while Johnnie stood with clasped hands, saying after Grandmother

the words of blessing, that a knock was heard at the little door. “Come

in,” said Grandmother Blakslee the moment the words of prayer were

spoken, and a strange head was thrust in at the door.

“I can wait, ma’am,” said the owner of it respectfully. “I’m to take

you in my rig, and my orders were to wait until you were ready.”

“Did Mr. Patterson send you?” asked Grandma, her voice all in a

tremble. “I thought he meant to come himself, and I thought he said

about ten o’clock; but we’ll hurry, Johnnie and me; we won’t keep you

long. Can you take the chair, too?”

“Yes’m; them’s my orders; and no hurry in life, ma’am, take your time,”

and he closed the door.

Johnnie stuffed in the buns and potatoes, and pronounced them good; but

poor Grandmother Blakslee only swallowed a few mouthfuls of tea which

almost choked her. Life was very hard.

She was soon ready; it would not do to keep Mr. Patterson’s team

waiting. But she stared at it when she came out. It was not the market

wagon; instead it was a handsome two-horse sleigh, with gay robes’ on

the seats, and gay bells on the handsome horses. “You needn’t be at

all afraid, ma’am,” said the strange man, “these horses is gentle as

kittens, if they do love to go,” and he lifted her in as though she had

been a kitten, tucked Johnnie under the robes beside her, and before

she could get her breath to speak they were off. Just a gay dash around

the corner, down one familiar street, up another, and they halted

before a tiny white house set back among tall trees which staid green

even in winter.

“There is some mistake,” faltered Grandma Blakslee, more breathless

than ever. “I wasn’t to be brought here; I was to go to the asylum out

on the Corning Road, near two miles; I don’t know the folks that live

here; I didn’t know it was rented.”

The strange man chuckled. “I guess there’s no mistake,” he said, “and

you’ll like to make their acquaintance; anyhow, I must do my duty and

leave you here; I’m under orders.”

Trembling and bewildered, poor Grandma, because she did not know what

else to do, let herself be set down in front of the door, which the

man opened hospitably, saying as he did so, “Step right in; the folks

that live here will be glad to see you.” Then he shut the door and went

away. They were left, Grandmother and Johnnie, in a little hall opening

into a pretty room at the right. The door was wide open, and a bright

fire burned in a shining stove. There was a bright carpet on the floor;

there was a rose in blossom in one window, and some geraniums in the

other. There was a large easy chair in front of the stove, with a table

beside it on which was set out a lovely breakfast for two. On the stove

the tea-kettle sang, and some genuine tea in a little brown teapot on

the right-hand corner back, sent out its delicious aroma. In an alcove,

behind some pretty curtains which were partly drawn, waited a plump

white bed; and Grandma Blakslee stood in the midst of all this luxury

and stared.

“Grandma,” said Johnnie, “have we got there? Is this the big house?

Where are all the folks? Where is this, and whose breakfast is that?

Are we to eat it, Grandma? It is nicer than ours. Why don’t you sit

down in that pretty chair? Here is a little one for me, with wed

cushions. Can’t we stay here every day, Grandma?”

Grandma, feeling unable to stand another minute, tottered forward and

dropped into the softness of the easy chair, and spied, tucked under

the edge of a plate, a sheet of folded paper. Then she fumbled for

what Johnnie called the “speticles that could wead,” and read:

Welcome home, dear Grandma Blakslee. Merry Christmas to

you and Johnnie.

FROM MISS PARKER’S GIRLS.

No, they hadn’t “done it every bit themselves.” There had been several

fathers and mothers who were glad to help, as soon as they thought

about it. Cora Henderson’s father had said, “Why, Grandma Blakslee

might live in the little empty cottage this winter and welcome;” he

wondered they had not thought of it before. Anna Smith’s mother said

she would be glad to get rid of that carpet rolled up in the attic;

she had no use for it, and it was a pattern she had never liked. Ella

Stuart’s mother said the old arm-chair and the old lounge would do

nicely if they were re-covered, and she was sure she did not want them.

And so the plan grew and grew, and the girls were O, so busy and happy!

It was the best Christmas of their lives, they all declared, especially

after they made their call on Grandma, and found her almost too happy.

“It is almost pitiful,” said Anna Smith, “to see a poor woman cry for

joy over one little room and a few old duds!”

And Cora Henderson, with her eyes shining like stars, said, “Isn’t it

lovely? I’m so glad that verse is in the Bible, and Miss Parker thought

it all out!”

PANSY.

A SABBATH IN A BOARDING-SCHOOL IN TURKEY.

II.

I MUST explain that some time before this I had learned that the boys

in the boarding-school who had no pocket money, could not go to the

bath as often as I thought they ought. While I was considering this

problem, an Armenian gentleman gave me something over two dollars to

use as I saw fit. Thinking “cleanliness next to godliness,” though the

Bible does not say it in just those words, I used to give Deekran a

quarter or so now and then to use for himself and the other poor boys.

When they rose to go, I asked Sumpad if he could stop a moment, I

wanted to have a little talk with him. How glad I was to find that he

had a hope in Christ, and was trying to live for him. It was a great

privilege to speak a few words of sympathy and encouragement.

How can I believe the terrible news that has just come to me here in

free America? How can I think of him in his young, Christian manhood

as dead in a horrible Turkish dungeon! Why, what had he done? He had

written a few lines of boyish admiration for the heroes of his own

race, the Armenians. And so he must die alone of typhus fever after a

four months’ imprisonment, utterly cut off from all his friends. Poor

young martyr! No one could get access to him; yes, there was one Friend

whose entrance neither bolts nor bars could prevent—the King of heaven

and earth; what need of any other? Death has now unlocked the prison

door, and opened the gate of heaven; no more tears should be shed for

him—happy young martyr.

But I have wandered far, both as to place and time, far from that

peaceful, happy Sabbath.

It was now lunch time; then came Sabbath-school. The men and boys met

in the chapel, but as it was not large enough to accommodate more, the

women’s, girls’ and the infant class met elsewhere. Isgoohe, a member

of the senior class in the high school, took charge of the second of

these. After going over the lesson, she began to ask personal questions:

“Now, girls, what have you done for Jesus this week?”

A hand was raised.

“What is it, Marta?”

“I let Funduk have my comb for Jesus’ sake. It was such a nice one, I

did not like to have her use it; but Miss Goulding told me I ought to

be kind to Funduk.”

Then Armenoohe said that going home from school one day, a girl she

did not know very well called out, “Armenoohe, run and get me another

clog; mine’s broken.” (The clog is a wooden sole with a heel at each

end, as it were, and a leather strap to slip the foot into. These heels

are from one to three or four inches in height, and raise the foot well

out of the mud or snow.) “At first,” said she, “I thought that it was

no affair of mine, and that the girl was rather impudent to ask such a

thing. Then I remembered what you told us, Isgoohe, about not pleasing

ourselves; so I asked her which was her house, and got the clog and

brought it to her, and she never even thanked me!” (It was not so very

long since Armenoohe herself had learned to say “thank you.”)

Two or three others told their little efforts at denying self; then the

bell rang for the afternoon service.

In the evening I invited any who wished to talk with me to come to my

room. Soon afterward Rakel came. She was rather a pretty girl, with

bright red hair; she was full of fun, and a dreadful tease. She dropped

on to the hassock at my side in a bashful sort of a way.

“Was there something you wanted to say, Rakel?”

“Yes,” came the whispered answer; “I want to love my companions.”

I enlarged a little upon the duty and privilege of loving others,

and then waited for her to speak; but she was silent so long, that I

finally asked if there was anything else she wished to say.

“Yes; how can I love those who make me angry?”

Well, that was a problem, to be sure! But then, the dear Saviour can

help us solve every problem, so we knelt and prayed, both of us, for

his help in this particular matter.

She had been gone but a minute, when her cousin Sarra came, Bible in

hand, to ask the meaning of the verse, “Whether therefore ye eat, or

drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” There were

several other verses she wanted explained, and then by a little gentle

questioning, I learned some more of the trouble between her and Rakel,

who she said was always teasing her, using her books, and leaving them

about carelessly. Then she hung her head and confessed that when she

found her Bible on the divan, and Fido tearing out a leaf, she had at

once blamed Rakel, and retaliated by getting her Bible and banging it

on to the floor.

“Was that right, Sarra? Do you think that was one way to glorify God?”

“No,” she replied honestly, but her voice was low and husky. Then we

talked of the way Christ bore with men and their cruelty and sins, and

we asked him to make us gentle and patient, kind to others, even when

they were unkind to us.

The retiring bell tinkled through the hall, and so ended the beautiful,

blessed day.

HARRIET G. POWERS, _in the Evangelist._

* * * * *

[Illustration: GOOD FUN!]

[Illustration: THE BATTLE IS ON.]

[Illustration: HE WAS COMING FROM THE OLD WELL.]

“WHAT IF I HAD!”

NEW YEAR’S morning and the snow lying deep over all the paths, drifted

even to the tops of the fences! Plenty of work for Stephen Watson;

he frowned a little as he looked out of his attic window in the cold

gray of the early morning and saw his nicely-made paths all carefully

covered. But almost before the frown had cleared away he laughed,

and broke at last into a cheery whistle. “No great loss without some

gain.” He stopped to make this wise remark aloud, then went on with his

whistling. What he longed for just now was a holiday—a chance to take a

run across lots to Dick Wheeler’s home and see the new book which his

uncle sent him for Christmas. A beautifully bound book with “oceans of

pictures,” and telling all about a journey to Europe. “Not a stupid

history,” Dick reported, “but a regular story, telling all about how

some folks went and had jolly times, and saw no end of things, and

described them.” Stephen’s brain was fairly whirling with a desire to

examine this book. It may as well be owned that a book of almost any

sort had wonderful attractions for this boy; and books and papers, and

indeed reading matter of any kind, were painfully scarce in the country

farmhouse where Stephen was chore boy. Mrs. Griggs, the mistress, did

not more than half believe in them; she eyed even Stephen’s Geography

with suspicion, and occasionally asked her husband “What sense there

was in that boy’s learning where all the rivers and mountains in

creation with outlandish names were to be found. What good would it do

him? He would never find them outside of a book.”

Well, Stephen had smiled and whistled, because he saw that this heavy

fall of snow was likely to further his plans for a holiday. If it had

only drifted enough to make the roads to the ledge farm impassable then

Mr. and Mrs. Griggs would stay at home and take care of the house, and

when his chores were done, he might possibly be allowed to go over to

Dick’s.

Everything seemed to be shaping according to his plans. Mr. Griggs

remarked at the breakfast table that there “wouldn’t be no sense in

trying to get to Mary Ann’s that day; the ledge road always drifted

if it could get a chance, and the wind was still blowing in that

direction.” Mrs. Griggs had sighed, it is true, and said that “Mary

Ann would be dreadfully disappointed,” but she, too, had said that she

supposed there was no use in trying to go.

Stephen went about his chores with a will, a trifle sorry for Mrs.

Griggs, and a little curious over the idea that anybody in the world

could be much disappointed over not receiving a visit from her and

Mr. Griggs. “But then I suppose it is because they are her father

and mother, and that makes a difference,” said this orphan boy, with

a sigh. But he could not help being glad that they were not to go.

What if he got the chores all done so early that there were several

hours before dinner, and Mr. Griggs would let him go in the forenoon?

Wouldn’t that be a lark worthy of the day! Dick Wheeler’s mother was

always good-natured, and twice she had asked him to stay to supper with

Dick; there was everything to be hoped for in that direction. He was

coming from the old well with two brimming pails of water, when Mr.

Griggs, out by the ash barrel, with his hands in his pockets to keep

them warm, dashed the boy’s hopes to the ground. “Got about through,

Stephen? Then I guess you may hitch up, after all. The wind has gone

down, and Mis’ Griggs is disappointed, and she thinks we better try it.

You may get things ready as fast as you can; we ought to be off if we

are going; then you’ll have a long warm day in the kitchen. Don’t on no

account leave the place; that wouldn’t do, of course.”

Not a word said Stephen, though he would like to have thrown the pails

of water over Mr. Griggs, and kicked the empty pails into a snowdrift.

He had never been so disappointed in his life! “A long warm day in the

kitchen!” If there was any day which he utterly hated it was such an

one; not even a new almanac to read—Farmer Griggs had been waiting for

one to be sent to him from somewhere, and it had not come. Of course

there was nothing to do but obey; but Stephen felt that he hated New

Year’s dinners, and wished that “Mary Ann” lived fifty miles away, and

hoped that Farmer Griggs would encounter a drift so deep that Mother

Griggs would be rolled over in the snow! Oh! he was fierce enough to

wish almost anything.

It was because of all this that a very glum-faced boy looked out of

the small-paned kitchen window about two hours afterwards, and watched

a single horse and cutter skim gaily along. Only one person in the

sleigh, and he muffled in furs, and looking as though life was one

long holiday. Stephen believed that everybody but himself was having a

holiday. Suddenly the sleigh drew up in front of their gate. “Halloo!”

said the man in furs, and Stephen ran out and down the snowy path.

“Good-morning! Happy New Year,” said a pleasant voice. “Can you tell me

whether this is the right road to Mr. Bennett’s farm?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“How far from here to Mr. Bennett’s?”

“Five miles, sir; but there are none of them at home.”

“They are not? How do you know that?”

“I know the boy who drives their horses, and he went by awhile ago; he

was on his way back from Dr. Freeman’s, where he had been to take Miss

Carrie—Mr. Bennett’s daughter—and the boy said his folks were all away

for the day, and he was going to his grandmother’s to dinner.”

Stephen could not help adding that last, because it had been a very

bitter drop in his cup of trouble. Mr. Bennett’s house could stay

alone, it seemed, while the boy went to his grandmother’s to dinner,

whereas this old farmhouse had to be watched as though there was danger

of its running away.

“That is the state of things, is it?” said the stranger. “Thank you; I

do not care to take a five-mile drive through these drifts to find a

shut-up house. Can you tell me where Dr. Freeman lives?”

“He lives about a mile from here; but Miss Carrie Bennett isn’t there

now, sir; she has gone with Miss Freeman to bring a Miss Banks, who

lives two miles west, to eat dinner with them at the doctor’s.” Stephen

told this story with an amused twinkle in his eye; it struck him as a

queer thing that he should be so well posted concerning matters which

evidently interested this handsome stranger. The stranger turned on him

a keen, questioning glance. “You seem to understand your neighbors’

affairs very well indeed, my boy. How does it happen?”

Stephen laughed. “Why, Pete just happened to tell me about it, sir;

he said he was in luck, and did not have to drive them there himself,

because the doctor’s team drove up in just the nick of time and took

them. Everybody is in luck except me.”

“Is that so?” asked the stranger, his face breaking into a genial

smile. “I am certainly, since I have found a quick-witted boy who has

saved me ten miles of useless driving. Can you do me another favor

now, and let me come in and visit with you for awhile, until in your

judgment the doctor’s team has had time to find Miss Banks and bring

her back? I do not happen to be acquainted with any of the party save

Miss Bennett, and would prefer waiting until she is there before I make

my call.”

Mr. Griggs never refused travelers a chance to warm, and of course

Stephen invited this one into the house and did the honors of the

kitchen as well as he could. Somehow—he never quite understood how it

was—he found himself telling the story of his bitter disappointment to

this stranger—all about the wonderful book full of pictures and stories

of travel. He was astonished afterwards to think how much he talked;

but then, the stranger listened so kindly, and his eyes were so bright,

and his smile so pleasant, and he asked so many questions, it seemed

impossible not to confide in him.

“So you like books,” he said, as at last he arose; “and books of

travel? Well, I do myself; and it happens curiously enough that I

have a package of books in my sleigh at this moment, two of which I

think you would enjoy. I was taking them to a nephew of mine, and

missed seeing him; probably because it was intended that you should

have them instead. I owe you a debt of gratitude; and I’ll exchange the

information you gave me for whatever information you can find in the

books, which are yours to keep, you understand. And now don’t you think

Miss Banks may have arrived at the doctor’s by this time?”

Stephen helped him off in good style, but in such a flutter of

excitement that he could hardly respond to the cheery “good-by,” for in

his hands were two very large, very handsomely bound books, sparkling

with pictures, and with the most inviting-looking reading. They must

certainly be larger than Dick Wheeler’s one, for that had been minutely

described to him. Besides, there were two of these; and besides, oh!

besides, they were his very own, to keep!

As he turned the leaves, like one in fairyland, he said aloud, “What

if I had got a chance to go to Dick Wheeler’s this morning and missed

this? O, my! what if I had!”

PANSY.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

[Illustration: LOOK OUT! WE’RE COMING.]

BABY’S CORNER.

WHAT HAPPENED TO BUNNY.

BUNNY is the name of a squirrel with a very long tail.

When nuts were ripe Bunny worked hard to pick them and store them up

for his family to live on through the cold winter.

His house was in a big hollow tree. The door to it was a little round

hole. He had a nice large pantry.

All day long, in the pleasant Oc-to-ber weather, when children were

playing, Bunny was picking nuts and scampering down the trees to put

them safe in his pantry.

He had a good many kinds of nuts. There were butternuts and walnuts and

chestnuts, and tiny beechnuts for the teeny weeny squirrels. At last

Bunny’s pantry was full, and he was all ready for December with its

cold winds and snowflakes.

One morning something happened! Just as Bunny started out he found

a wire cage in front of his door. He thought it was a pretty little

house, so he walked in.

Snap! went the door of this pretty little house, and shut itself tight.

Bunny tried on every side to get out, but he could not. He was in a

prison.

While he wondered what he should do a big boy came and looked at him.

“Hurrah!” he said.

Then big boy took up the cage and carried it off home.

He gave Bunny to his little sister Susie.

Susie was kind to Bunny. She put him in a basket with a soft bed and

gave him cake and candy.

But Bunny was not happy. He was too warm in the house with his fur coat

on, and he wanted to get back to his dear children. He would not play;

he sat still and looked sad.

“Poor Bunny!” said Susie’s mamma; “he is used to being outdoors, and

frisking about. He wants to see his little children and eat the nuts he

laid up.”

“Then he shall go,” Susie said.

[Illustration: “THEN HE SHALL GO.”]

So she told him good-by, and carried the cage out in the garden and

opened its door.

Away went Bunny! He scampered over the fence and whisked up a tall tree

as quick as wink.

How happy he was to get to his hollow tree once more.

Was not Susie a nice little girl?

MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.

A LONG CHRISTMAS.

PART II.

IT was a January night, very cold. The snow which was always on the

mountains looked down on the snow which sometimes melted from the

valleys, and seemed to smile at it in a hard, cold way, for supposing

itself to be of any importance at all. The white cross made by the

peculiar shape of the mountains, and the action of the sun on the snow,

gleamed in the moonlight more beautiful than usual to Teddy Simpson,

as he pushed back the overcoat several times too large for him, thrust

his hands into his pockets, and leaned against the snow-covered hill

to think. Hundreds of stars twinkled down upon him, brighter and more

filled with jewels than they ever are in any other sky, I think; but

Teddy’s thoughts were not of them.

He was waiting for the teamster whose route lay along this mountain

side, and who always brought the mail from the distant settlement, as

well as any supplies or packages which the miners might need. Not that

Teddy expected any mail! Bless your heart, he had never received a

letter in his life, nor even a paper through the mails. To have done so

even once would have almost taken his breath away. Yet he was deeply

interested in the teamster’s wagon; as he stood still in the moonlight

to think, there was an eager look in his eyes, and he listened for the

sound of the cracking whip with such an air of expectancy as his face

did not often wear. The fact is, Teddy Simpson had planned a wonderful

surprise for his mother which his friend the teamster was helping him

to carry out. Very poor they were, he and his mother; she cooked for

the miners, and washed for them, and mended their clothes, but the

miners, too, were poor, and could pay but little. The truth is, the

people who lived and worked in this beautiful, desolate region were all

poor together. Teddy had had plans, beautiful plans, for the Christmas

three weeks behind him, and had failed in them. He and his mother

knew all about Christmas; had not she hung up her stocking every year

of her life until she was a great girl fifteen years old? Teddy never

had, because Santa Claus seemed never to get so far West as where he

lived; but while the father was alive Teddy always had at least one

Christmas present, if it was nothing but a picture cut from some of

the illustrated papers of the tourists, and framed by his mother with

some bits of bright paper laid away for such purposes. Teddy had been

a man grown now for two years—at least he felt like one—with no time

for such trifles; but he had longed to make a bright Christmas for the

miner’s family with five little children, their nearest neighbors. If

his mother had not had a sick day when he was obliged to do her work as

well as he could, and in doing it wasted some of the material and lost

a good deal of time, he thought he should have accomplished it. As it

was, he could not get the Christmas treat ready for them, but promised

himself that another year he would be on hand. Then he had turned his

thoughts to a surprise for his mother. That, too, had been a Christmas

plan, but failing then, he resolved that he would not wait for the next

season. The surprise was nothing more nor less than a half-pound of the

best tea which the silver half-dollar he had sent by the teamster could

supply. The poor little overworked mother was very fond of tea; he

had often heard her say that a good cup of it after a hard day’s work

seemed to rest her as nothing else would; but since the father died,

she had bravely put it aside as one of the luxuries which they could

not now afford.

If there were time to tell you how long and hard Teddy had worked for

that extra half-dollar, never taking a cent for it from the regular

wages of the day which he earned as his share of the family support,

you would not wonder that he had grown almost feverish in his anxiety

as the weeks went on, lest he should fail in having the right amount.

He had accomplished it, and the day had come for the teamster to go

on his fortnightly trip, and the day and evening had arrived for his

return, and here at a bend in the road Teddy waited for him.

Away in the distance on the still frosty air broke at last the sound of

a cheery whistle, and Teddy held himself still and listened. Jim Coon,

the teamster, was a friend of his, and Teddy did not believe he would

whistle if anything so cruel had happened as that the supply grocer had

been out of tea.

“Halloo!” said Jim, as he came with a flourish around the bend in the

snowy road, “waitin’, be you? I thought it was a ghost froze stiff

to the rocks. Climb up here, and we’ll be home in a jiffy. Beats all

what a hurry this team has been in this afternoon—all owing to you, I

s’pose. O, yes! I got it, safe and sound; the very best kind of tea

ever brought to these parts, Joe Derrick says, and he put in a good big

half-pound of it, I’m witness to that.”

Then Teddy drew a long breath, and immediately the longing which he had

kept in the background came to the front; also the problem over which

he had been studying for weeks. Wouldn’t it on the whole have been

better to have gotten a quarter of a pound of tea and spent the rest

of the money in sugar? mother did so like a little sugar with her tea.

But then, a quarter of a pound seemed such a very little bit, and the

winter was long in this mountain region, and there was no telling when

he would have a chance to get any more. But he wished, O, so much! that

he knew how to get just a little sugar; that would make the present

complete.

“I got somethin’ else,” said Jim, with a curious note of suppressed

excitement in his tones; “somethin’ for you.”

“For me?” echoed Teddy, amazed.

“Yes, sir, for you; Teddy Simpson is the name on the box, as large as

life.”

“On the box!” In his astonishment and excitement all that Teddy could

do was to echo Jim’s words.

“Yes, sir, on the box; a good-sized box, and as heavy as though it had

been stuffed with lead. Come by freight; got there yesterday just about

an hour before I drove into town; come all the way from New York State,

too.”

After that, the quarter of a mile between Teddy Simpson and home seemed

endless. A box by freight for him! What would mother think, and the

neighbors! Above all, what could be in the box?

Before it was half-unpacked the question became what was not in it? Two

suits of clothes for Teddy, two new dresses for his mother—or dresses

quite as good as new—a warm, bright shawl, and a fur hood. Shoes, and

stockings, and socks, and mittens, and oh! books, and papers, and

pictures, and more books. Was ever anything so wonderful? Then there

were toys—dolls, and balls, and tops, and wooden dogs, and wax cats,

and cloth elephants—and some little bits of dresses and sacks which

could fit only the children further down the mountain. Teddy felt this,

even before he discovered that these were all labeled, “For Teddy to

give to his friends, the little Perkinses.” Moreover, there was a

little leather bag in the very bottom of the box, drawn together by a

bright cord and securely tied, which when opened was found to contain

seventeen bright silver dollars, the gifts of the cousins and aunts and

uncles for Teddy to use as he thought best. Do you want to know what he

thought of first? A whole pound of sugar to go with that half-pound of

tea which was still lying snugly in his overcoat pocket, where Teddy

meant to leave it until the next morning. Such a box as that, and a

half pound of tea in the bargain, he considered altogether too much for

his mother’s nerves in one evening.

Such a wonderful morning as it was—such a wonderful day, indeed!

The Perkinses were hopelessly wild all day, and their poor little

half-discouraged mother was not much better.

The next time teamster Jim went over the snow road between the

mountains he carried a fat little letter written in Teddy’s best round

hand—and he was by no means a bad writer; his mother had taught him.

In this letter he described to the cousins just how he stood by the

rocks and waited for Jim Coon’s team, just how surprised he was, just

how the box was opened, just what he and his mother exclaimed as long

as they had any breath for exclaiming, just how the Perkinses acted

the next day—at least as well as language would do it—and altogether

wrote so surprising a letter that Hortense said, drawing a long sigh of

delight: “Isn’t it lovely? Hasn’t this been a long Christmas? It is

better than the Christmas-tree a great deal, isn’t it?”

“It is the jolliest Christmas I ever had,” said Holly.

“And it has taught us how to have some more jolly ones,” said Tom.

As for Tom’s father, he said: “That boy Teddy is a smart fellow; he

ought to have an education. There ought to be a good school out there.

Why wouldn’t that be a good place for us to send Richard Winston? He

would be a grand fellow to work among just such people.”

So the “long Christmas” is in a fair way to grow longer, you see, for

every cousin in the three homes is interested in Tom’s father’s idea,

and so is Richard Winston.

PANSY.

[Illustration: “HE STOOD STILL IN THE MOONLIGHT TO THINK.”]

SOMETHING FOR MAMMA.

YOU want it for Christmas, of course; and you are a little girl who has

very few pennies of your own to spend; and mamma, like other mammas,

thinks that something which her daughter has made with her own hands

is of far more value than an article, however fine, bought at a store.

You have been disconsolate for several days because there are so few

“things” which you know how to make, and because you have so little

money with which to buy material. Take heart, my dear, there are happy

surprises in store for mamma.

How much money have you for this particular gift? “Twenty-five cents,”

and you blush and are troubled, and say in your heart, “Just as though

anything worth having could be made for twenty-five cents!” Why, my

dear, that is enough and to spare. Did you notice the table mats

yesterday at dinner? They are made of bits of oiled wood ingeniously

put together, and in their prime were pretty, and rather expensive; but

they are sadly worn now—so much so, indeed, that Hannah declared only

yesterday that she did not know what to do with the things; they were

so much worn that she could not wash them any more. She knew what she

would like to do with them; if she had her way she would “chuck” them

into the fire.

What I propose is, that you plan your Christmas present so that Hannah

can have the pleasure of doing just that thing.

What you want is a ball of macremé cord, of a delicate creamy tint,

price fifteen cents, and a ball of candle wicking for three cents, or

possibly five, though it ought not to be if your merchants are up with

city prices. Positively that is all. O, yes! a crochet needle, large

size; but that of course you have; or if not, I am almost certain that

mamma, or better still grandma, will make you a present of one, because

of the many useful things you can make with it; still, if you wish to

be entirely independent, why, buy one, for five cents surely (a large

price), and you are ready.

Hold the end of candle wicking over your left forefinger and crochet

the macremé cord over it with what is known as the long stitch; it is

very rapid work after you have once mastered the stitch, and before you

realize it, you will have a long, long rope of creamy cord. Do not pull

hard on the crochet cord, but let the work lie up loose and fluffy.

When you think you have enough done to experiment with, get your neat

little work box, thread a needle with strong cotton—number thirty

being a very good size—curl the beginning of your cord into a graceful

circle, and take firm stitches on the under side to hold it there; then

another coil, and another, sewed neatly and firmly, and continue until

you have a table mat large enough round to take the vegetable dishes,

or the soup tureen, or whatever you wish to set on it. Then cut off

the supply, fasten the end firmly, and finish the whole with a pretty

crocheted scallop all around. Just compare that mat with the slippery,

stained wood one with frayed edges! You admire it now, but what will

it be when Hannah has washed and starched it until it holds its shape

as firmly as the wooden one, and yet is flexible and graceful? More of

them? Certainly, an entire set, varying in size to match the uses to

which they are to be put.

Have I made a mistake? Are your vegetable dishes all oval? Well, my

dear, your table water pitcher is not, I am sure. Just use this first

one for it, and start your next sewing with an oval shape instead of a

circle; it must be a very small oval for the beginning—not over three

quarters of an inch in length—else your mat will grow too long for its

width. Your best plan would be to experiment a little. Lay the work

loosely, confined by a mere basting stitch, and see whether, when the

mat has grown as long as your paper pattern, it will be of the proper

width. You will not find the planning difficult; it merely needs the

patience and carefulness which I feel sure you will bestow; and the

result will be an entire nest of pretty and useful mats which will be a

delightful surprise to mamma on Christmas morning, and a comfort to her

as well as to Hannah throughout the year. Try it, and be sure to let me

hear how you succeeded.

PANSY.

[Illustration: CHRISTMAS EVENING.]

ETHEL CARLISLE’S FACE.

(_Character Studies._)

I CAN see her now as she looked to me that winter morning wrapped in

furs, ready all but her fur cap to brave the frosty air, when she held

up in triumph a spray of brilliant bloom, and said: “Look, Aunt Myra,

did you ever see anything prettier than that from a conservatory? And

they blossomed in my window-seat!” I was not her auntie, but was so old

and intimate a friend of the family that the children had adopted me.

“Hasn’t Ethel a beautiful face?” I said to Miss Margaret, another

friend of the family, who, with myself, was a guest at the Carlisles’.

“It is so very bright. Did you notice what a peculiar brightness there

is to her eyes when she smiles? And she has a lovely smile.”

Miss Margaret looked grave, almost troubled. “It is a sweeter face than

it will be in a few years, I am afraid,” she said, shaking her head,

which already had threads of silver in it. Miss Margaret was a wise

sweet woman, not given to croaking, so I waited somewhat anxiously

to hear her words. “Ethel is cultivating habits which will spoil her

face,” she said; “I have not been here before for two years, and I

notice a very decided change in it since then. She was one of the

sweetest little children I ever knew, but if you watch through only one

day you will discover what I mean. Unless something occurs to change

her habits, there will be another spoiled face in the world in a few

years.”

I had been in the house but a day, and had been absent from the

country for more than two years, so I knew very little of the younger

Carlisles. Ethel had always been my favorite, and it made me sad and a

trifle annoyed to hear Miss Margaret’s words. I felt sure she must have

grown over particular.

Of course, with such a warning, it would have been impossible not to

have watched. Long before night I knew what Miss Margaret meant.

“Where in the world is my French Grammar?” I heard Ethel’s voice, with

a very sharp note in it, rasping through the hall. “I left it on the

dining-room table while I ran out to speak to Nellie, and somebody has

taken it. I declare, I cannot lay down a thing for a second and find it

again. I do wish Ann could be taught to let my books alone!”

“Indeed, Miss Ethel, I have not touched a book this morning; I have not

dusted in the dining-room yet.” This was Ann’s voice; then Ethel’s,

by no means sweetened: “That is perfect nonsense, Ann; I left it here

not two minutes ago, and now it is gone. What do you think could have

become of it? It couldn’t walk off without hands.”

“Ethel!” from Mrs. Carlisle, in a reproving tone, “do not speak so to

Ann, daughter; she has not been in the dining-room since breakfast.”

“Well, but, mother, my French Grammar is gone that I just laid there,

and the bell is ringing; I shall be late, and I think it is just too

bad!” There was an ugly frown all over the fair forehead, and a sharp

and at the same time whining tone to the voice which had been so sweet

but a little while before.

“Ethel,” called her older sister Nannie from the hall above, “here is

your book; you left it on the hat rack a few minutes ago.”

Away went Ethel without a word of explanation to mother or to Ann, and

we heard her voice, still sharp, saying to Nannie, “Why couldn’t you

have told me before, and not kept me hunting half the morning?”

I heard the mother sigh, and was sorry for her, and glad that the

alcove curtains shaded me from view, and that I had a book in my hand

and could appear not to have heard.

Ethel came home at lunch time, and was out of sorts with the soup

because it tasted of onions, and with the squash because it had been

peppered. She said she wished anybody ever consulted her tastes, and

she would just as soon think of puffing tobacco smoke in the face of

people as of eating onions for them to smell afterwards. She scolded

her brother Tom for forgetting the music he was to call for; and when

he said he was very sorry, and it was because he had so many important

errands for his father that he forgot it, she tossed her head and said

sharply, “Oh! you needn’t explain; of course you would forget what I

wanted; I’m of no consequence.”

[Illustration: ETHEL HELD UP A SPRAY OF BRILLIANT BLOOM.]

In short, with my eyes opened as they had been by Miss Margaret I could

not help seeing that Ethel spoiled the sweetness of almost every room

she entered that day, and complained of unkindness or of discomforts at

every turn. Yet at family worship, when she played,

“Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear,”

and led the singing with a very sweet voice, she looked like an angel.

It broke my heart to hear her, not ten minutes afterwards, scolding

Baby Frank for overturning her spool basket. “You are just a little

nuisance!” she said, sharp-voiced again; “I think mamma ought to whip

you. Well, mamma, I do,” in response to a reproving look from her

mother; “you are just spoiling him, I think.”

“Is it possible that this is a fair specimen of that child’s days?” I

asked Miss Margaret, as we went down the hall together.

“I am afraid it is,” said Miss Margaret. “She is learning to frown and

fret over the veriest trifles, and to answer even her mother rudely,

as you noticed just now. How many years of such living will it take to

utterly spoil the pretty face? Isn’t it strange that a young girl who

believes herself such an ardent admirer of beauty, should deliberately

undertake to spoil the lovely work of art which God gave her to take

care of?”

MYRA SPAFFORD.

ORIGIN OF A NEW ENGLAND INDUSTRY.

IN 1798 Betsey Metcalf, of Dedham, Mass., made a bonnet out of oat

straw, fashioning it after an English bonnet then very fashionable.

She flattened the straw with the blade of her scissors, split it

with her thumb nail, braided it into the requisite number of strands

and bleached it by holding it over the vapor of burning sulphur. She

afterward taught the young ladies of her vicinity how to do it, and

thus laid the foundation of the extensive business now carried on in

straw hats in New England.—_Selected._

MOTHER DUNLAP’S STORY.

IF my father and mother had been at home it would never have happened,

but they started in the morning as soon as they could see the road for

my Aunt Margaret’s, taking Emeline with them. I remember just how I

felt when I saw them drive from our gate with Emeline sitting between

them; it seemed so terrible, somehow, to think of her sitting in my

place, because I was the one who always sat between father and mother.

But Cousin Emeline was Aunt Margaret’s little girl, and word had come

that Aunt Margaret was very sick, and that Emeline must be brought home

as fast as possible; so of course they started, though there was every

sign of a storm, Uncle Peter said, and he hardly ever made a mistake in

the weather. He was our “signal service” in those days. Cousin Edward

was at our house, too; he was Uncle Edward’s son, and always spent his

short vacation with us, because his folks lived too far away for him

to go home. He was thirteen years old, and thought he knew all there

was to know in life. He was a smart fellow, and would have been real

nice if he had not felt so sure of it himself. Father and mother had

not been gone an hour when he began to plan to drive to town to the New

Year festival which was to be held in one of the churches, and take me

along. Kirke said everything in the world to hinder us from going; he

thought it was going to storm.

“Who’s afraid of a few snowflakes?” said Edward. “I want Nannie to have

a cheery time for New Year’s; it is dreadful dull for her with Auntie

and Uncle both gone.”

Kirke was a boy who did chores at our house for his board, and went to

school; we lived two miles nearer the schoolhouse than his mother did,

and they were pretty poor, and Kirke earning his board away from home

helped them a good deal. We all loved Kirke; he was a good sensible

boy, and stood at the head of his classes in school. But I did not

approve of him that day; I wanted to go to town. I was a silly little

thing in those days, not afraid of anything; I laughed at the storm

just as Edward did.

“It will be more than a few flakes,” Kirke said, shaking his head

gravely; “I think we are going to have the worst storm of the season.”

Then Edward began to make fun of him—call him Uncle Peter, and ask what

kind of a winter it was forty years ago; because Uncle Peter was always

going back to old times and telling stories about the weather. Kirke

kept good-natured, and laughed with me over Edward’s speeches, but for

all that he did not stop trying to keep us from going to town.

“Look here,” he said, “I have a tip-top plan for this afternoon. Mrs.

Baker gave me a jug of molasses and some splendid ears of pop-corn to

take home: suppose you and Nannie walk out home with me, and we will

pop some corn, and make candy with hickory nuts in? We’ve got a bushel

of nuts stored away in the garret, and we’ll have no end of fun. Nannie

can stay all night—she has done it before, you know—and sleep with my

sister Mary, and you and I will turn in with little Billy up in the

attic; he likes company.”

The picture looked quite inviting to me; I had often been out to

Kirke’s house, for my father and mother liked their family very much,

and were always willing to have me play with their children.

But Edward was not to be persuaded. “No, you don’t, old fellow,” he

said; “candy and nuts are first-rate things for any night in the year

but New Year’s; a fellow needs something extra then. I’ve set my heart

on seeing the festival tables, and watching them give out the prizes,

and I’m going; my uncle said three days ago that I could.”

“But he did not know that it was going to snow,” Kirke said, more and

more anxious. “Really, Edward, I do not think Mr. and Mrs. Baker would

like to have you take Nannie out when it looks so much like a storm.”

Then Edward got angry and told Kirke to mind his own business, that

we were not left in his charge at least, and that he should do as he

liked; and Kirke was to remember that Mr. and Mrs. Baker were his own

uncle and aunt, and that he might be supposed to know as much about

what they would like as a stranger could. Kirke said no more, but he

looked very much troubled. I was half-disposed to give up the plan,

but Edward laughed at me. The good-natured housekeeper in whose care

we were left never paid much attention to the weather, and made no

objection to my going. I don’t know but that it would have come out all

right even then, if Edward’s pride had not got the upper hand. He took

a notion to drive to town by the old road.

“O, don’t!” I urged; “you do not know that way at all, and Uncle Peter

said this morning that the wind last night must have drifted the snow

on the old road.”

“Poh!” said Edward, “Uncle Peter is an old croaker; he’s an old man,

Nannie, and always makes mountains out of molehills. The wind will be

at our backs part of the time on the old road, and I’m going that way.

What if I have not driven it? The horse won’t get lost, if you think I

will.”

Well, we started, and for the first ten minutes everything was right;

then we began to come to drifts, and I was dreadfully scared. We almost

turned over two or three times. I kept squealing out, and that provoked

Edward. “Keep still,” he would say; “I did not know you were such a

little coward.” To make matters worse, it began to snow harder than I

ever saw it before, and grew so dark that we could hardly see our way.

We had been riding a good while, and ought to have reached the town,

but no sign of a town was to be seen.

After a while Edward made up his mind that he must have taken the

wrong turn, and said he was going back a little way to see if he had.

He tried to turn around, but the wind blew so that the snow blinded

his eyes; and it was not a good place for turning around, any way. The

first thing I knew over went the sleigh, and I was in a snowdrift!

That was not the worst of it, either; the runner of the sleigh snapped

as if it had been a pipe-stem. Good old Jim stood still, fortunately.

But there we were with a driving storm, with a broken sleigh! I do

not think I was ever so glad of anything in my life as I was to hear

Kirke’s voice above the roar of the wind.

“What in the world are you doing there?” he said, bounding along over

drifts of snow. “Is Nannie hurt? If she is not all right never mind

anything else. Oh! the sleigh is broken. How came you to be on this

road? This is not the way to town; it is an old wood road that was used

early in the winter, but it is all snowed up; you could not have got

much farther; you ought to have turned to the right a mile below here;

I thought you knew the way. Now I’ll tell you what will have to be

done. Nannie must go to our house—it is less than a quarter of a mile

from here—and I’ll get a rope and tie up that sleigh somehow, enough to

get it and Jim back to the stable; then I’ll tell your folks that you

are going to stay at our house all night—shall I?”

[Illustration: “THERE WE WERE, WITH A BROKEN SLEIGH!”]

He seemed to have forgotten how disagreeably Edward had spoken to him,

and was just as nice as could be. But Edward’s cheeks were pretty red.

“No, sir,” he said firmly; “I started out to have my own way and ought

to have the benefit of it. If you will take Nannie to your house I’ll

get this rig home myself and take care of Jim; it is not fair that you

should lose your New Year’s fun to help me out. I’ll foot it out to

your house if it is not too late after I have been to see Mr. Ormstead

about mending this sleigh; but I’m not going to let you go for me a

single step.”

No amount of coaxing could turn him from his purpose. So at last Kirke,

after helping him to tie up the runner with some twine which they found

in their pockets, tucked me under his arm, and we marched off to their

little house.

Their kitchen was the cleanest, brightest, cheeriest place you ever

saw, and the molasses taffy was splendid. I had a lovely time; but

there was such a dreadful storm that Edward could not get back that

night, and Jim had lamed himself somehow in stumbling through deep

drifts; and it cost four dollars to mend the sleigh, which Edward had

to pay, because my father said he did not believe in boys having their

own way and not being willing to take the consequences. To be sure he

gave the money back again, and more too, when Edward’s next birthday

came. But I don’t think Edward ever forgot the lesson. I ought to have

been punished too, for I pretended to agree with Edward, even when I

thought he was foolish; but some way I slipped through the trouble and

had all the pleasure, just as girls often do, I think.

[Illustration: THEY STARTED FOR AUNT MARGARET’S. (“_Mother Dunlap’s

Story._”)]

“Mother,” said little Cathie Dunlap, “father’s middle name is Kirke;

did he have anything to do with the nice boy who took care of you?”

“Why, yes,” said Mother Dunlap, laughing, “come to think of it, his

full name was William Kirke Dunlap.”

MYRA SPAFFORD.

HUNGER AND THIRST.

THERE is a story of a little boy who was very fond of angling, and who

one day told his grandfather that he had caught a fish as large as a

horse.

“Look here, Tom,” said the old man, “don’t you know it’s wrong for a

little boy like you to tell such a big untruth? You are not six years,

are you?”

“No,” said Tommy; “I am only five, and I’ll not do it again. After this

I’m going to tell only little bits of fish stories.”

That boy often reminds one of people who talk about being “temperate”

and “moderate” in the use of things which they ought to let alone

altogether. A little glass of strong drink, a little cigar, are just as

certainly wrong as a little untruth.

But how can we know what is good or bad for the body? The answer is,

that our body itself will tell us. The body has a conscience as well as

the soul. Put your hand into a potful of warm water, and your hand will

at once let you know if the water is too hot. Go out sleigh-riding in a

light straw hat on a cold winter morning, and your ears will soon ask

for a warmer cover. After a laborer has been hard at work for eight or

ten hours, his body will ask for rest. Make a child sit down in a chair

without moving for six hours, and its body will ask for exercise. Our

body soon lets us know if a coat or a shoe is too tight, or if a burden

is too heavy. And it can just as certainly be relied upon to warn us

against unwholesome food. It is true that we can silence that voice of

our body’s conscience. After a man has swallowed a good many glasses

of bad drink or smoked a cigar every morning for a couple of weeks, he

at last gets “used to it,” as we call it; his nature gets changed, and

at last he is unable to let such things alone. But at the first trial

our sense of taste will plainly warn us against unwholesome food and

drink. Before an apple is ripe it tastes sour. The taste of over-ripe

or spoiled fruit gets more and more disagreeable.

An Italian naturalist, during his travels in Southern Africa, noticed

that a little pet monkey of his never made a mistake in choosing

its food, and could tell poisonous herbs and berries from good ones

the moment he tasted them. The traveler made that little creature

his kitchen master, as he called it, and always let it try a bit of

every kind of food that was offered to him for sale. “If Jocko ate a

spoonful of honey and stretched out his hand for more,” he writes, “I

was satisfied that it was worth buying; if the little chap grinned and

flung the sample away, I felt sure that the bees must have gathered

their honey from poisonous flowers. Jocko never made mistakes in such

things, and that our own people blundered so often might be explained

by the fact that we have blunted our sense of taste with strong drink

and hot spices.”

A boy who has been brought up on perfectly wholesome food can tell

injurious things almost as quick as that little monkey. He will dislike

the taste of sharp pepper sauces, of pickles, of strong cheese, of

spoiled meat, and will not be apt to mistake a bitter swamp berry for a

huckleberry.

Our stomach also lets us know when we should stop eating. In that case,

too, it is not safe to disregard the warnings of our bodily conscience.

If a boy keeps eating, just to while time away, after he feels that he

has had enough, and after his stomach has asked him again and again to

stop, his nature at last changes, and he wants to be stuffing himself

all the time. I knew a little chap of ten years who seemed to think

it a pity to lose a chance for gorging himself, and who had to be

watched like a tricky cat to keep him from slipping into his mother’s

pantry and helping himself to all the good things in sight. On his

way to school he would stop to buy a package of peanuts or pick up a

pocketful of apples on the outside of an orchard, and when he came home

for dinner he ate away as if nothing had happened. All his schoolmates

called him “Glutton Joe.”

Such gluttons are apt to think that they are getting more fun out of

life than other people. The truth is, that they hardly ever know an

hour of real happiness. They feel dull and weary; they become too

sluggish to play; they take no interest in their studies, and drop a

new book or new paper after a short look at the pictures; they would

rather not know the end of a pretty story than go to the trouble of

reading it through. They feel drowsy as soon as the weather gets a

little warm, but when they go to sleep their rest is broken by ugly

dreams. Glutton Joe had no friends; he was so cross and lazy that

nobody wanted him for a playmate.

An old fisherman once told me that it was worth while going out sailing

in bad, chilly weather, just for the fun of getting home again and

taking a rest in a warm chimney-corner, and I have often thought that

many people would find it worth while to fast once in a while, when

they begin to complain that they cannot enjoy their meals. After a

day’s exercise in the woods and mountains the plainest food tastes

well. A supper of bread, milk and huckleberries tastes better to the

poor Tennessee mountain boy, who has been out herding cows all day,

than a banquet of thirty dishes tastes to a rich merchant who has

not yet digested his last meal. There is no danger in an occasional

fast, though some people seem to think it a misfortune to miss one of

their three daily meals. There was a time when rich and poor thought

it enough to eat one good meal a day. The old Romans and Greeks ate a

biscuit and perhaps half a handful of dried fruit in the morning, and

then did not eat again till they had finished their day’s work, when

they took a bath, changed their dress, and then sat down to a good

supper. An Indian hunter thinks nothing of going a day without any food

at all. A few years ago an American physician thought it worth while to

try how long a man could fast without hurting himself. People thought

he was crazy, and told him he would kill himself in less than a week.

He made no reply, and his friends changed their opinion when he had

fasted forty days and nights. Few of those friends would have cared to

try their own pluck in that manner, but they would certainly have been

ashamed to complain of an accident that might lose them a dinner and

oblige them to eat their principal meal in the evening.

But though there can be no harm in a day’s fast, it is never safe to

suffer for want of drinking water. The same doctor who passed nearly

six weeks without a mouthful of food, took a sip of cold lemonade every

few hours, and it is a curious fact that in warm weather a glass of

water served with our dinner is by far the most important part of the

meal. Hunger, or what we call a “good appetite,” often stops after

the mealtime has passed without a chance of getting a mouthful of

food, but thirst cannot be put off in that way, and becomes at last so

intolerable that a starved traveler, after a three days’ journey in the

desert, would give a wagon-load of food for a drink of cold water.

FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D.

WOULD AND SHOULD.

A PUPIL in a quiet boarding-school in —— displayed some time since no

small degree of industry in collecting autographs of distinguished

persons. The late James Russell Lowell was one of the number addressed.

The address to him was in substance: “I would be very much obliged for

your autograph.” The response contained a lesson that many besides the

ambitious pupil have not learned: “Pray do not say hereafter ‘I would

be obliged.’ If you would be obliged, be obliged and be done with

it. Say ‘I should be obliged,’ and oblige yours truly, JAMES RUSSELL

LOWELL.”—_Selected._

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

YOU see it is most beautiful to the eye, though you Pansies of the

great cities may think some of your churches quite as handsome. But

none of them has such a history. This church was founded—started, as

some would say—more than a thousand years ago! Now where’s your pretty

“meeting-house” which was built only last year?

Old King Siebert, a Saxon, built Westminster Abbey, and many of the

Saxons really believed that the Apostle Peter dedicated it, though

Peter had died nearly one thousand years before!

[Illustration: A VIEW OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]

However, this building is not the very same that King Siebert put up.

That one stood several hundred years, when Edward, “the Confessor,” as

he was called, rebuilt it. Two hundred years later King Henry the Third

enlarged it, making it look about as it now is.

For years and years the English kings and queens have been crowned

here, and buried, too, nearly all. Here the great ones of the nation

are buried—Shakespeare, Milton, Ben Jonson, Wordsworth, and many more,

the poets in the “Poets’ Corner.”

Under the coronation (crowning) chair is the “Stone of Scone,” which

some actually say is the very one Jacob laid his head upon when he

dreamed! However that be, many kings have sat upon it when they were

crowned.

Of course you will search out the “Jerusalem Chamber” when you visit

Westminster. The Presbyterian Church began in this chamber. Here, too,

the Bible was revised (re-translated from the Hebrew and Greek).

“Why do they call it the ‘Jerusalem Chamber’?”

Probably because its windows came from that old city, and the Cedar of

Lebanon forms the wainscoting.

So this wonderful building has served many purposes besides that of a

church. For some hundred years the House of Commons (something like

our House of Representatives) made laws here, especially laws to secure

the liberties of the people.

So you see this building is something like Faneuil Hall of Boston and

Independence Hall of Philadelphia.

What a book Westminster Abbey could make if it only could write. But

somehow, like Nineveh and such places, it will rise up in the Judgment;

then what will it say of the people who have had to do with it?

A NEW YEAR’S TRIP.

TO Africa! Yes; here it is ’92, January 1, early in the morning, and we

are in the sleigh, and away we glide over the snow to Africa, to return

to-night.

“Twenty thousand miles in twelve hours, pooh! and going to hot Africa

in a sleigh!”

Suppose, then, we just think we are there, and we are there to all

intents and purposes.

“Well, here goes; I think I’m in South Africa at the mouth of some

diamond hole (tunnel), January 1, ’92. Of course I’m there picking up

diamonds to bring back for New Year’s presents, eh?”

Indeed you—the best part of you, your soul, your thought—are. Just wake

up your imagination, and it’s about the same. Now you step down into

the dark hole. Deeper you descend, as down a steep hill, to the very

bottom—eight hundred feet or more—through fields full of diamonds.

See, just before you dim forms. They are naked natives digging. They

fill up the small car of dirt, dotted with the precious stones, and

away it goes up and out. It dumps its load and returns. It’s a dirty,

dreadful place. Every little while there’s a roar; the ground shakes.

There’s dynamite blasting to loosen the earth.

Hurry out now; the tunnel may cave in, and you’ll be choked, as were

several hundred a few years ago.

Here we are outside. See, the ground is two feet deep with the earth

carted out. They are harrowing it, or the rain is falling upon it. It

is crumbling fine. Ah! see the shining treasures. But look out! Don’t

put one into your pocket without permission; you are watched.

Now back we come—in thought. There! have not we had one of the

brightest New Year’s?

Thus brighten up your imagination and you need not be bothering

yourself forever with cars and steamboats and ships and seasickness

and such things to see foreign lands. With a good book of travels or

newspaper you can just trip over there—to Europe, Asia and Africa—in a

moment, and see all you can carry back in a few more moments, and be

home to tea the same day to show (tell) your treasures!

ON A VISIT TO GERMANY.

HERE we are. It is midwinter—

“In Maine or New Hampshire or Canada, I guess.”

Guess again, you mistaken Pansy.

“Norway, then.”

Nor Norway, but just simply in Germany.

“Such snow-storms in Germany?”

Yes, and that miss with umbrella and fat face trudging on is—

“Fräulein, I dare say. Isn’t that, or something like it, the name of

all the German girls?”

Wouldn’t that mix things in a family of six girls? Think of a mother

calling each one Fräulein!

But that girl is no other than Bessie—

“Bessie a German girl? Never heard one called that in all my life.”

Who said she was a German girl? Can’t one be in Germany and not be a

German? Do you expect to turn into one as soon as you get to—“Sweet

Bingen on the Rhine,” or Frankfort? Frankfort, once the home of the

great poet, Goethe, some of whose sayings it may make your dear head

ache to understand. Frankfort, once a free city, as free from any king

or great ruler as—the United States is of Mexico; a queer, bright old

city—

“Bessie! Bessie! what about Bessie? Won’t she be lost in Frankfort? Who

is she, any how?”

A Pansy, quite likely from Boston, by that name, on a visit to Germany.

She will spend a few months in Frankfort, studying German and seeing

the German sights, among them Luther’s house.

“But you do not explain what Bessie is doing out in a Frankfort

snow-storm.”

Maybe she is after red cheeks; she left Boston looking pale enough.

Her mamma thought a sea voyage and a few months in France and as many

more in Germany would color her face again with rose tints as formerly.

You see how she has improved. Now the Christmas festival of Frankfort

begins, lasting three days. There will be trees and trees, and so much

more that paper can hardly hold it or ink write it.

Bessie is on her way to the festival to see the German of it with

Yankee eyes.

[Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS BULL-TERRIER, “CAMP.”

(_From the painting by Raeburn._)]

A DELIGHTFUL WRITER.

[Illustration: STATUE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, IN EDINBURGH.]

WHEN you go to Edinburgh, Scotland—as some day go you may—you must not

fail to visit one of the finest structures there, the monument of Sir

Walter Scott.

Before you go it would be well to read some of his charming books:

Ivanhoe, Old Mortality, Tales of a Grandfather, etc.

The Scottish folks are justly proud of Sir Walter. Few nations have

produced so delightful a writer. So no wonder this grand monument was

built. It is a Gothic edifice, the top of the spire of which is two

hundred feet from the ground. The lower part is open, and here is a

fine marble statue of Sir Walter, his favorite dog by his side.

Seventy-five thousand dollars have been put into this edifice! Many of

you would be satisfied with a house costing one thousand. Young Walter

Scott did not expect to become so great a man when he first took up his

pen.

[Illustration: OUT IN A SNOW-STORM.]

A HERO.

AT Fort Smith, Ark., is Mrs. Edith M. Degen. She knows a great deal

about Mr. “In.” If you will write her a letter saying you want to know

something more about him, and if you will put in your letter a postal

card addressed to yourself, it will soon get back to you with writing

on the other side which you will like to read. Try it.

Now this man is really Mr. Lewis F. Hadley of Massachusetts. He has

been many years among the Indians, studying their Sign Language.

You see the different tribes of Indians have different mouth or spoken

languages, as do white people. To understand each other’s speech they

must have an interpreter to give its meaning; but they all seem to have

about the same sign speech; by using this the different tribes can

understand each other when they meet.

[Illustration: MR. LEWIS F. HADLEY.]

You know the deaf and dumb talk with their hands. So with the Indians

of different tribes when they can’t understand each other’s speech.

Here is a specimen of the sign language:

[Illustration: Country west I sit writing.

Morning come I give it firewagon;

go fast; pretty soon you catch it.

Day you catch it you show it

man, woman, all Maybe so give it

money print book many. Printing

done, I show it Indian The same

see it, know it good. Done.

Lightning Afraid Not.]

Well, Mr. Hadley has been mastering these signs, and now, after many

years’ hard study, you see he can write it.

“What for?”

To spread knowledge among the Indians. To give them the Gospel—the

blessed good news about the Lord who came and died for them.

“But has not the Bible been put into Indian for them to read, and don’t

the missionaries preach to them in their own language?”

Yes, indeed; but don’t you see that for each one of the many tribes it

may be necessary to have just the Bible and missionary that each can

understand? But if all the tribes now know this one Sign Talk, then all

can read the Lord’s Prayer, and any other part of the Bible, if put in

this sign talk. And all the more so because every one can understand a

thing better if he can see the language as well as hear it.

Now to do this good work Mr. H—— lived among the Indians. He is a

missionary unlike any other. He has suffered much living as the Indians

do to learn this language. Read what Mrs. Degen says: “Would you like

to go out to dine where all the family kneel on an earth floor around

the tin dish-pan in which the dinner has been cooked, and grab for ‘a

little white meat,’ or ‘a little dark meat,’ or a ‘little of both, if

you please’? Would you like to see your fellow diners throw the bones

they have picked back into the pan? Or would you like to have your food

brought to you in a wash-basin?”

Now you can see something of what Mr. Hadley bears. He is a hero. You

can help him. So write to Mrs. Degen.

HIS GIFT.

A LITTLE boy in Russia lay dying. But a few months before he had heard

of Jesus and his love, and given his heart to that wonderful friend.

His greatest desire in life was to have other Russian children get

acquainted with Jesus. He meant when he grew up to be a missionary

among his people; but God wanted him in heaven. Just before he died he

called his father, and told him how much he wanted to have the Bible

sent to people who were not acquainted with Jesus. Said he: “I haven’t

much money, you know, father, but if you would take what is in my box

and send it to the house where they print Bibles, I think there might

be enough to dot the I’s in the name of Christ. I feel sure there must

be enough to do that in one Bible, and I would like it so much! Will

you, father?”

You do not need to be told that the father carried out his boy’s last

directions, and the little purse of money is helping to-day to “dot the

I’s” in that blessed name.

Surely that little fellow ought to have had engraved upon his

headstone, “He hath done what he could.”

WORK ENOUGH.

SOME years ago—

“Some years ago!” Why, it was as long ago as five times the age of your

grandpapa—he was eighty, I think—a brave man and a few sailors got into

a small ship on the coast of Spain, spread its sails, and away westward

they sped, over the ocean wide and rough with waves. They found America

at last. Others came. Villages grew up. Still they came.

About this time, three thousand miles away, walked two—

“Lovers, I guess.”

Indeed they did love each other, if that is what you mean. See them in

the picture of the “Two Missionaries;” were there ever sweeter faces,

purer and more pitiful? It is because the love of God is shed abroad in

their hearts. Dress and feathers don’t make beauty so much as a right

heart, you must know.

These two hearts were walking near the dear old church, and as they

walked they thought of the sermon the day before about bearing the

tidings—the Gospel—to the needy. They had heard of America, and their

hearts bled for the people here.

“And did they go to a seminary, and learn how to teach and preach,

and get ordained, and get married, and come over here and have a

Sunday-school and church?”

They left all to follow Jesus—fathers, mothers, everybody, everything,

“for Jesus’ sake,” for wild America.

“And how did most of the people in America look when they got here?”

How does this creature on the following page look? or that one?

“Now you don’t mean that the Americans then were such objects?”

The very same. And our two sweet, beautiful missionaries came to them

and learned their language and lived among them, and taught them of the

true God, and Jesus Christ, the Saviour.

“Did they stay more than a year that way?”

They lived and died among them. Then their children took up the work,

and they have been carrying it on ever since!

“And what came of it all?”

[Illustration: ONE OF THE FIERCE SAVAGES.]

Why, many of those fierce savages put off their war paint and wild

ways, and settled down in good homes like nice Christian people,

with churches and Sunday-schools and ministers of their own. Some

of them now look almost as sweet as the two sweet faces of the Two

Missionaries. That’s the way it often works when God puts his grace

into a rough heart. It really changes the face too into beauty. God can

make everything beautiful.

“But what about the picture on the next page?”

You mean that queer-looking man going ahead with a child in his arms

and a big boy by his side?

“It is a family on a journey somewhere.”

The “somewhere” is America. They are peasants (the poor working folks)

of—Denmark, maybe.

They have heard of America—what a goodly land it is for the poor and

homeless, and where they can be free to worship God—so they have sold

the cow and poultry and a few other things, and putting into bundles

what they have over, and saying a sad good-by to the dear old hut where

they have always lived, they are on their march to the sea. They will

soon be aboard the ship, Safety; then, after two months—

“Two months! why, the Teutonic of the White Star Line has just crossed

the Atlantic in five days, sixteen hours and a few seconds.”

Yes, but this was long ago.

But the two months are gone; they have landed at Castle Garden, New

York, and now those nine have become ninety thousand. You see, no

sooner had they got nicely settled upon a little spot of land, and in a

neat cottage, and two or three cows about them, and a patch of potatoes

growing near by, when away went a letter back to Denmark to their

cousins to pack up and come too.

Well, ever since the ships have grown larger and faster, bringing loads

and loads of peasants, five hundred thousand some years, from almost

every nation on the other side of the ocean.

[Illustration: ANOTHER TYPE OF SAVAGES.]

“And those two sweet-faced missionaries, did they teach all these low

people the good ways of God?”

[Illustration: DO YOU THINK THEY LIVE IN A PALACE? (_See “Work

Enough.”_)]

Yes; they and their children. Don’t you see, they stand for all good

missionaries whom Jesus sends? They are all beautiful in his eyes.

Where in the Bible does it say something like “How beautiful upon

the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings; that

publisheth peace, etc?” If beautiful feet, beautiful everything—so

beautiful that all among whom they go with these tidings become

beautiful too!

[Illustration: GOING ON A JOURNEY.]

See those children in the opening picture, coming down the road with

bundles under their arms? Look them over, and say if you think they

live in a palace, and if they wear silks or furs.

No, no, poor things! a sorry dinner they’ve had. A bed of straw for

them to-night. But in a few years some cousins in America will send

them some money; then they will be here, and somehow they must be made

beautiful as those two sweet-faced ones. Oh! so much work in this land

for Jesus, to meet these heathen at Castle Garden with the good news

and make them beautiful. Oh! for more home missionaries. What say you?

DOLLIES TO THE FRONT.

I CAME across an old paper which told a pretty story that ought not to

grow old. It was about a “doll’s reception” which a certain Mission

Band gave. The dollies were lent by the members and their friends, and

the friends of their friends, until there was a great army of them.

Then they were arrayed in choice robes and grouped with artistic skill.

On the piano, under a lovely marriage bell of sweet-smelling flowers,

were two bridal groups, dressed in satin and old lace regardless of

expense. The friends of the bride and groom were numerous. Some of them

were old, appearing in costumes of sixty years before; some were in

Mother Hubbard dress, and one very large rag doll, with lips made of

beet juice and eyes of black beads, came to the wedding in the little

wooden cradle which had belonged to her mother’s grandmother.

There was an “old ladies’” group arranged on a round table, two of

them dressed in Quaker attire, the others in the sweet old fashion of

our great-grandmothers. Then there was a babies’ group, and a group of

children fresh from the schoolroom; there was a German table, a French

table, and I do not know what all.

One hundred and thirty dolls were lent for the occasion. The

description of each group was printed in rhyme made by the friends of

the Band, and from time to time, as a crowd gathered near any of the

tables, one member stepped forward and recited the descriptive poem.

Ten cents admission was charged, and the hall was thronged on two

afternoons. There was not a cent of expense in the entire affair, and

there was nothing to sell. Over forty dollars were taken in at the

door, and the Mission Band went home happy in the thought that they and

their dollies had enriched a certain school in Japan by that amount.

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

I LAY my finger on time’s wrist to score

The forward-surging moments as they roll;

Each pulse seems quicker than the one before;

And lo! my days pile up against my soul

As clouds pile up against the golden sun.

Alas! what have I done? What have I done?

I never steep the rosy hours in sleep,

Or hide my soul, as in a gloomy crypt;

No idle hands into my bosom creep;

And yet, as water-drops from house-eaves drip,

So, viewless, melt my days, and from me run;

Alas! what have I done? What have I done?

I have not missed the fragrance of the flowers,

Or scorned the music of the flowing rills,

Whose numerous liquid tongues sing to the hours;

Yet rise my days behind me, like the hills

Unstayed by light of mighty triumphs won;

Alas! what have I done? What have I done?

Be still, my soul, restrain thy lips from woe!

Cease thy lament! for life is but the flower,

The fruit comes after death; how can’st thou know

The roundness of its form, its depth of power?

Death is life’s morning. When thy work’s begun,

Then ask thyself—what yet is to be done?

LILLIAN BLANCHE FEARING,

_In Home Mission Monthly._

WHEN ST. CHRYSOSTOM PRAYED.

’TWAS not enough to kneel in prayer,

And pur his very soul away

In fervid wrestlings, night and day,

For those who owned his shepherd care;

But faith and works went hand in hand,

As test of each petition made,

And saints were helped throughout the land

When St. Chrysostom prayed.

Within the closet where he knelt

A box of Bethlehem’s olive wood—

“For Christ” engraved upon it—stood;

And ever as he daily felt

The pressure of the church’s need,

Therein the daily gift was laid;

For word had instant proof of deed

When St. Chrysostom prayed.

Beneath his folded hands he placed

Whatever gold was his; and when

He travailed for the souls of men,

So long by pagan rites debased,

The more he agonized, the more

The burden on his spirit weighed;

And piece by piece went all his store

When St. Chrysostom prayed.

O, golden mother! let this thine alms

Rouse us to shame who daily bow

Within our sacred places now,

With outstretched yet with empty palms!

We supplicate indeed; but has

Our faith brought answering works to aid?

Have words by deeds been proven, as

When St. Chrysostom prayed?

MARGARET J. PRESTON,

_in Missionary World._

PUT TO SHAME.

THEY were sitting in the window-seat, Magdalene and Mabel, busy with

their work, and talking. “The Mission Band meets this week, you know,”

said Mabel.

“I know it,” Magdalene said, with a scowl on her face; “I’ve got to go,

I suppose, but I don’t want to a bit; I haven’t any money to spare to

give; I’m not going to give but a cent, anyhow, I just can’t afford it.

Isn’t this blue silk sash lovely, Mabel? It just fits my dollie’s eyes.

It was horridly expensive; I had to give twenty cents just for this

little piece.”

“Nell is going to Mission Band,” said that small woman from the carpet,

where she played with her dollie. “Nell knows all about it; mamma told

her. Nell doesn’t want to be a selfish little girl and not give to the

heathens; Nell is going to give her bestest thing.”

Magdalene nudged her friend’s elbow to call attention to what her

darling little sister was saying, and the two listened.

“What are you going to give, Pet?” asked Magdalene at last, as the baby

voice ceased its talking.

The little girl looked up with surprised eyes; she had not supposed

anybody was paying attention to her.

“What are you going to give to the Mission Band for the heathens?”

“I’m going to give my bestest thing,” said the baby, with sweet

gravity; “I shall give my wubber dollie, that I love.”

Mabel laughed, but Magdalene looked sober. Nobody understood better

than she how the “wubber dollie” was loved, and she knew that Baby Nell

meant what she said.

“I think I will give my twenty-five cents, after all,” she said, after

a moment’s silence, “and let my doll go without a fur cape; there is a

lovely fur cape for sale at the doll store for twenty-five cents, and I

meant to have it; but I believe I won’t.”

“You want to match Nell’s ‘wubber dollie,’” said Mabel, with a

good-natured laugh; “but I don’t believe you can.”

* * * * *

SOME summer day you may be in Saratoga, N. Y. Among other sights you

may see Indian encampments. Thither they come to sell their curious

manufactures—bows, arrows, bead bags and many other queer things.

The squaws (women) will be among them, dressed as Indian women have

always dressed, but hardly so well as “Teweelema.”

[Illustration: TEWEELEMA.]

If you wish to see her you can now find her on her goodly farm near

Lakeville, Mass., or traveling among the neighboring villages selling

her wares—moccasins, necklaces of shells and beads, etc. She can chop a

tree down or spade up the ground, and do almost any man’s work. She and

her sister manage the farm. Her name is Wootonekanuske.

At Oneida, N. Y., you may always see a few Indian women on the cars or

at the station, looking something like Teweelema.

But in a few more years there may not be any Indians left east of the

Mississippi River. The Gospel is now among them, and maybe you will

never again read of so fierce a warrior as Sitting-Bull or King Philip,

Teweelema’s great, great, greatest grandfather.

[Illustration: EVERYTHING IS GAY AND HAPPY.]

CARL HAMMOND’S LESSON.

FOR a boy who was usually happy, Carl Hammond certainly spent a very

uncomfortable winter. It is true it was his first away from home, and

some people thought he was young to be sent from home, but that was not

the trouble. He was with Aunt Mary, which was almost the same as being

with mother; and the schools where Aunt Mary lived were so much better

than at Carl’s own home, that his mother had made the sacrifice, and

sent him away.

His unhappiness had to do with a certain September day which was as

bright and beautiful as a sunny day in early autumn can be. Carl

remembered every little thing about that afternoon—just how his

father’s desk looked, and what books were piled on the table at its

left, and above all, just how Bunce looked when he bounded in at the

window. He was writing to Aunt Mary then, he remembered, telling her on

what train to expect him, and he had held the pen in hand and turned to

laugh at Bunce because he was so ridiculously glad over having found

him. He had leaned over and patted the dog’s eager head, and had asked

him how he was going to manage to get along without his playmate all

winter; and Bunce had begun to run around his chair in that absurd

fashion he had when especially pleased, and had bumped against the

table just as Carl had shouted to him to “take care!” The shout came

too late. Bunce succeeded in jostling the table, so that a ponderous

book set too near the edge tumbled off, taking the great cut-glass

inkstand with it, and the contents of that dreadful inkstand spread

itself not only over the costly book, but the handsome carpet as well.

If it had happened but the day before, Carl could not have remembered

every little particular more vividly.

Especially what followed; there is no denying that Carl was very much

frightened. It seems a strange thing to say, but the truth is, he was

not very well acquainted with his father. Mr. Hammond was connected

with a business firm which sent him every year, and sometimes two or

three times a year, to Europe; and between times he had to go South

and West, and Carl hardly knew where else, on business; so that he

was not often at home for many days together, and when there, was so

crowded with business as to have little leisure for his family. Carl

had once complained that whenever his father was at home for an hour or

two it was always after he had gone to bed. Perhaps on this account he

was the more frightened; for his father had great respect for books,

and was particularly careful of the large one that Bunce had ruined.

Carl could seem to hear his quick firm voice giving directions:

“Remember, my son, you are on no account to allow Bunce in the study;

he is a dangerous fellow in such a place; he can hardly move without

doing injury. Be careful always to close the sash window when you go

there, lest he might follow you.” And Carl had been in the study on the

day in question for a half hour, with the sash window wide open. Not

that he had forgotten, but he believed Bunce to be a mile away taking a

walk with his young mistress; and he said to himself: “It is very much

pleasanter with the window open, and of course papa does not care when

Bunce is away.” As if Bunce could not return at any moment! which he

presently did. Even then Carl might have ordered him instantly out and

closed the sash, but the dear fellow was so absurdly glad to see him,

and ran around in such a funny fashion to show his joy that it seemed

too bad to dismiss him at once. Therefore the result which I have given

you.

But this was not the end of the story. Carl arose in great alarm, and

without even attempting to repair damages, which indeed would have been

beyond his skill, made all haste from the room, taking Bunce with him

and closing the sash window carefully. Then, an hour afterwards, when

his father’s stern voice questioned: “Carl, do you know anything about

the accident in the study?” What did Carl do but ask: “What accident,

sir?”

“The overturning and breaking of the large inkstand and the spoiling of

a very valuable book. Did you have anything to do with it?”

“No, sir,” said Carl; “I had not.”

The poor fellow told his conscience that he really did not have a

thing to do with it, that the dog did all the mischief while he sat

perfectly still, and that his father was the one who had left the book

open on the table so dangerously near the edge. But his conscience had

been better taught than that, and would have nothing to do with such

flimsiness. It told him plainly before he slept that night, that the

name of such talk, in plain English, was lying!

Nobody questioned Carl further; his friends were in the habit of

believing his word, and his father had been almost immediately

called away by a telegram, so that indeed there had been no time to

investigate. Two days afterwards, Carl himself left home. Now you know

why his winter had been uncomfortable. The simple truth was, that

he was an honorable, truth-loving boy, who had been astonished and

dismayed at himself for telling what was not true, and who could not

help despising himself for it. Moreover, he knew that if there was

one sin more than another which his father hated with all his earnest

nature, it was the sin of lying.

It may be surprising to think that a boy like Carl should be half the

winter making up his mind to tell the exact truth; nevertheless such

was the case. The longer he put it off, the more impossible it seemed

to him to write to his father and explain his share in the mischief.

But at last, one snowy winter day, only two weeks before the holidays,

he did it. He felt better as soon as the letter was mailed. He told

himself that no matter what his father said in reply, he knew he had at

last done right, and should be glad over it. Still he watched for the

home letter more anxiously than ever before. It was from his mother,

with a little note enclosed, for Carl’s private reading, from his

father.

“A fellow couldn’t have a better letter,” said Carl, wiping his eyes,

and feeling a warm glow in his heart for the dear father who had been

so kind and gentle, and yet honest and plain-spoken. Less than a

week afterwards, Carl was on his way home. His mind was in a strange

confusion as the train neared the home station. He could not help

feeling just a little sorry that his father was at home. “Of course

he will punish me,” thought the poor fellow. “I suppose he must; he

always punishes disobedience. What if he should not let me see mother

to-night! Or perhaps he will not let me go to Grandma’s with the family

to-morrow. I’d most rather he would whip me, and perhaps he will!”

Over this thought the twelve-year-old boy’s heart almost stood still.

His father had not often punished him in this way, but on the very

rare occasions when it had to be done, it was managed in such a manner

that Carl distinctly remembered it. By the time the train ran into

the station he had succeeded in working himself up to such a pitch

of excitement that he was almost tempted to run away, to avoid the

disgrace of this home-coming. But his father was there, waiting.

“Here’s my boy!” Carl heard him say, and in a minute more the father’s

arms were around him, and the father’s kiss was on his cheeks. Mother

was waiting in the carriage, and not a word during the quick ride home,

nor at the joyous supper table afterwards, was said to him about his

fault. They went to Grandma’s the next day in great happiness, and

the next day they went to Uncle Will’s. “I am having a holiday,” his

father explained, “in honor of my boy’s home-coming. I am taking a

longer vacation from business than I have had before in two years.” The

days passed, and not a word was said to Carl about his disobedience

and falseness. Nobody could be kinder or more thoughtful for his

comfort and pleasure than his father, yet Carl could not help wondering

when and how his punishment was to come. At last, one evening, when

they were alone together for a few minutes, he resolved to discover.

“Father,” he said, and his voice trembled a little, “when are you going

to punish me?”

His father turned astonished eyes upon him. “Punish you, my dear boy!

For what?”

Carl’s cheeks were very red. “Why, father, don’t you know—surely you

remember? I wrote about it.”

“But surely, my boy, I wrote you about it! Did I not tell you I forgave

you utterly?”

“O, yes, sir! but then I thought—that you would think”—Carl stopped in

confusion.

“You thought I must remember the sin, and punish the sinner, even

though I had forgiven him? Is that it?”

“Yes, sir,” said Carl, low-voiced and troubled.

“No,” said Mr. Hammond, and Carl noticed how tender his voice was;

“I do not remember anything about it in the sense which you mean. Do

you remember my telling you once that God meant fathers to be object

lessons to their children, giving them some faint idea, at least, of

what kind of a father God would be to those who trusted him?”

“Yes, sir,” said Carl.

“Very well, then, here on this card, which I would like you to keep in

your Bible, is my answer to your question.”

The card was a lovely blue celluloid, and had printed on it in gold

letters, the words, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember

their sin no more.”

One evening, when Carl was twenty years old, he repeated that verse

in a Christian Endeavor prayer meeting, and said that his father’s

commentary on it had made him understand it. Then he told, in brief,

the story which I have given you.

MYRA SPAFFORD.

[Illustration: HE REMEMBERED JUST HOW BUNCE LOOKED.]

[Illustration: THE STATE HOUSE AT BOSTON.]

HOWARD’S WAY.

(_Character Studies._)

THEY were all in the library after dinner, and were all talking at

once, as the Edwards family were inclined to be. “I don’t see why

we always have so much more to say than other people seem to,” Lora

Edwards had once remarked, setting them all into shouts of laughter.

Howard was not talking; his head was bent low over a Latin dictionary.

They were waiting for some of the family, because they always gathered

at this hour in the library for evening prayers; but Howard, while he

waited, saved the minutes, remembering the hard lesson of the morning,

and the liability to be interrupted in his study hour.

The back parlor door was pushed open and Uncle Edward’s handsome form

appeared. “Where is Ashman Square?” he inquired.

Several voices at once attempted to answer him. “It is just off of

Second Street,” said Lora. And Emma in the same breath said, “It is

over by the river somewhere; near Park Street, isn’t it?” Then Dickie,

“Why, Lora, it can’t be near Second Street, because Wyeth Avenue runs

in there.”

“No, it doesn’t; Wyeth Avenue crosses at Third Street.”

Then exclamations from at least four: “Why, Lora Edwards! Wyeth Avenue

isn’t near Third Street. I think Ashman Square is down by the Lincoln

Statue; isn’t it, papa?”

“I am sure I don’t know,” said papa, who just then entered the room.

“The city changes so rapidly and adds so many fancy names that I cannot

keep track of it. Who wants to know—Edward? There is a map about

somewhere. I shouldn’t wonder if Ashman Square was down near the old

Ashman place, towards the river.”

“There!” said Emma, “I was sure it was near the river.”

“But the river is quite a stream, my dear niece,” Uncle Edward said,

smiling.

“Yes; but Ashman Square is not very far down; it is near the Westfield

car line.”

Then a perfect babel of voices ensued.