be raised and let down, and a sponge pillow when his head aches, and
oh! I don't know: all sorts of nice things?"
"No," said Hannah, the sullen look coming back; "he ain't got nothing
only a hard bed, and a chair with a cushion in, that mother made out of
our old quilt."
"Then I have found the 'other one' already," said Helen joyfully.
"What?" said Hannah.
And Helen laughed.
"You don't know what I mean. Why, you see long ago, when papa and mamma
began to get me so many things to help me bear my trouble, we planned
it that there should always be two bought, and the other one should be
given to somebody who needed it, and couldn't spare the money to get
it. So I know there is another one of these lovely chairs, and your
poor little brother shall be in it before night."
Sure enough, the widow Bancroft received, just at noon, the
strangest-looking parcel! It could only by great coaxing be gotten up
her narrow stairs. All the rest—what the pale little fellow who had not
walked a step in five years thought, and felt, and said, when he found
himself actually going across the room on wheels, and what the mother
thought as the tears rolled down her cheeks, and what Hannah thought
as she looked on and remembered her cross sentence: "Some folks has
everything, and some folks has nothing,"—I will leave you to imagine.
But then, you must remember that in the morning she had not heard
anything about "the other one."
————————————
THE THREE LITTLE M'S.—PART II.
BY MARGARET SIDNEY.
FOR the first two or three moments, Mary was too frightened to think of
anything but her heartbeats, which certainly, it seemed to her, must be
heard a mile away.
"I wish—" thump, thump, thump,—"I'd—been—good," at last she gasped out
in a muffled sob. "Oh dear, dear! I want to go—home to—'father!'"
Awl with a low wail of despair, she flung herself, a little heap of
woe, on an old potato bag, and shut her eyes tight.
A wise old rat peered out from behind a pile of corn, stopping his
nibbling long enough to stare at her.
"That child has been doing something wrong," he nodded sagely to
himself; and his little eyes gleamed. "'I' know the signs. Now I'm
going to scare her."
Thereupon, he rattled so suddenly among the dry kernels on the old
floor that Mary shivered with fright.
"I shall be killed!" she cried, stuffing back her tears, to bound up
into a sitting posture. "Oh, it's rats! And they'll eat me, every
single speck of me, bones and all! Oh dear, dear, dear!"
With a wild fling of his hind legs, Mr. Rat flew across the little room
from corner to corner, making such a noise that the little prisoner
screamed in very terror.
"I—never—will—be—bad—again." And then over she tumbled in a swoon.
Meantime, the little shop was all astir with excitement because the
youngest of the bunch hadn't come home.
"Pa," exclaimed Martha, the little housekeeper, who, in her anxiety,
had let all the bread burn to a cinder, "do, oh, do let me run down to
Mrs. Smith's and see if she's there!"
"Oh, poor Mary!" cried Matilda, wringing her hands. "I know she's lost,
and she never 'll come home, never, as long as she lives!"
"For the land sakes!" exclaimed Mr. Poser, throwing a stubby pencil,
with which he was vainly trying to cast up accounts, down on the
well-worn counter. "You'll worry the life out of me, some of you will;
an' then 'I' shall be dead. There! Reach me my hat an' stick, Marthy.
I'll go myself."
[Illustration: GOING TO FIND MARY.]
"I don't worry you, pa," said Matilda in a grieved may, turning back
from the small cracked window out of which she was peering into the
gathering dusk, for the first glimpse of the familiar little red hood.
"And I'm sure 'I' don't," broke in Martha, in a dreadfully injured
tone, as she handed up the articles mentioned. "Do take that back, pa,"
she begged.
"Well, somebody does," said the old gentleman doggedly, putting his hat
on his head with no gentle thrust, and grasping his stick, "so what
odds does it make 'who' 'tis. There, keep a sharp eye on the shop,
Matildy; an', Marthy, run along to your work. I'll be back soon."
But he got no further than the door, for a big woman with a very
determined face was marching in, and now confronted him sharply.
"Good day to you, Mr. Poser!" she exclaimed, with more the air of a
policeman than an ordinary visitor, "I'd like to inquire where my
quarter of a dollar is. 'Tisn't often a chopping-bowl is so very high
as the one I bought this morning. Not 'very' often."
"'Your quarter of a dollar!'" repeated the fat shop-keeper, glaring at
his visitor in sheer astonishment. "Why, hain't you got it? Where's my
Mary?" he demanded, in a tone to match hers in sharpness.
"I don't know where your Mary is, nor any other folks' Mary," declared
Mrs. Smith irritably, "an' I'm sure I don't care. All I want is my
quarter of a dollar. I'd thank you for that."
"I sent it by my youngest little gal," said Mr. Poser, on a high key,
and punching his stick on the floor to emphasize each word, "four good
hours ago. Hain't you seen her?"
In the babel that followed of tears and bewailings on the part of the
two little sisters, Mrs. Smith protested three times solemnly on her
word and honor, that she had not seen Mary Poser that day. Then she
straightway magnanimously forgot the loss of her precious quarter of a
dollar, and turned comforter at once.
[Illustration]
"Oh, you'll find her," she said cheeringly; "don't be afraid. A girl
like her, such a run-about, always turns up like a cat."
"There's a last time to everythin'," said Mr. Poser solemnly, "an' I
guess Mary's run herself out this time."
Which encouraging statement caused such fresh wails of despair, that
Mrs. Smith was nearly frantic.
"Hush-sh!" she exclaimed warningly. "You'll have the house down around
your ears, if you don't look out, with all your noise. I'll go an' see
if I can't find her. There, do be still!"
"I'll go, too," said Mr. Poser, waddling to the door.
"And I'm going, too! Oh, I am!" cried Matilda, rushing after him to
grasp his hand.
"And I ain't going to stay home alone," exclaimed Martha, flying up,
the tears running down her chubby face; "I want to go and look for my
dear sister too."
"You might as well let 'em come, Mr. Poser," said Mrs. Smith decidedly.
"They'll scream themselves to death left behind. There now, we'll soon
find Mary safe and sound."
So the whole procession left the little shop, and started on their
dismal errand.
————————————
WHO DID IT?
PART SECOND.
"HESTER," said Mrs. Denton, still in the "awful" tone, "you have been
a very ungrateful little girl indeed; I could not have believed it! I
don't know but I ought to send you dinnerless and supperless to bed to
spend the day; but I have concluded to give you a chance, even yet, to
overcome your faults, great as they are. If you will confess the whole
thing to me from beginning to end, and will go to Miss Cora and say
that you are bitterly sorry for having been so wicked a girl, I will
allow you to go to the New Year's party, and say nothing about the
matter to your teacher for the present, at least; perhaps never, if I
find you are truly sorry and are trying hard to do right."
Poor Hester! This seemed to hem her in more than ever. Confess what?
That she had inked the beautiful dress in a fit of rage; and then had
told falsehood after falsehood to cover the sin?
As she stood before her waiting mistress, thinking it all over, one
minute her face was pale with fear, and the next it flushed with anger.
She "wanted so" to go to that party! More, perhaps, than you who have
been to many parties, can possibly imagine. The fear of giving it up
made her face pale. Then the thought that her word was not believed,
and that the only way to get to the party was actually to tell a lie,
made her face grow red with anger.
"Well," said Mrs. Denton at last, vexed more than ever at her
hesitation, "it seems to take you a long time to decide. Are you going
to confess the whole thing to me or not? I assure you I shall not stand
here waiting very long."
"Oh, ma'am!" burst forth Hester at last, the tears streaming from her
eyes. "Indeed! Indeed, I have told you the truth. I don't know one
thing about the pretty dress."
"Leave the room instantly!" was Mrs. Denton's stern command.
And Hester flew sobbing up the stairs into her attic, and threw herself
on the bed in a perfect passion of weeping.
Even then Mrs. Denton was sorry for her. "It is not so much the loss
of the dress," she said to her daughters, "though that is enough; but
to think that the creature will persist in falsehood! And yet I cannot
help being sorry for her. I suppose she is so frightened about it now,
that she is actually afraid to confess."
"Poor little wretch!" said Miss Cora, who by this time was dressed in
her new bottle-green suit, and found that she looked very nice indeed,
and so felt better. "Mamma, give her another trial. She has never been
to a party in her life; and she has talked about this one incessantly
all the week."
So Mrs. Denton, believing herself to be the most patient and forgiving
of women, sent up word that she would give Hester one hour, even now,
in which to decide to do right.
Oh! Can I describe to you how awfully tempted poor Hester was then?
What to do? Why, to say that she had inked the beautiful blue dress!
"Somebody must have done it," sobbed the poor little girl to herself;
"and they will always think I did it; and they will think I am awful,
awful wicked; and they will send me to the house of correction, maybe,
or somewhere, and she said she would forgive me if I would confess.
She will tell Mrs. Neilson all about it, and she will think I forgot
all she said to me, and didn't try a bit to do right; and she said she
would forgive me if I would confess it. Oh dear me! What 'shall' I do?"
Don't you see how Satan came to torment this poor little friendless
mouse? He actually made her think that it wouldn't be such a dreadful
thing just to say she was sorry for what she had never done. She told
herself that she could think in her heart that she only meant she was
sorry because the blue dress was spoiled, and she was sure that would
be true. Besides, oh, what an important matter she made of that New
Year's party! What would all the other girls think was the reason she
was not there? That fat Anna Parks, who didn't like her a bit and was
always saying ugly things about her, would be sure to find out why she
was kept away, and would tell all the girls, and they would believe it,
and it would do more harm than one poor little story possibly could.
[Illustration: "SOMEBODY MUST HAVE DONE IT," SOBBED HESTER.]
"Oh dear! Oh dear!" she said, hopping up suddenly as she heard a clock
down in the sitting-room strike the half hour. "The time is almost
gone, and if I don't do it, I shall have to stay here all day, and all
night, and be sent away and never see Mrs. Neilson any more, and they
will never forgive me. Oh, I must! I must!"
TO BE CONTINUED.
————————————
[Illustration: SIDE BY SIDE]
SIDE BY SIDE.
[PART II.]
YE HAVE NOT CHOSEN ME, BUT I HAVE CHOSEN YOU, AND ORDAINED YOU, THAT YE
SHOULD GO AND BRING FORTH FRUIT, AND THAT YOUR FRUIT SHOULD REMAIN.
HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME.
HE THAT HATH AN EAR, LET HIM HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT SAITH UNTO THE
CHURCHES.
THERE SHALL BE A HANDFUL OF CORN IN THE EARTH UPON THE TOP OF THE
MOUNTAINS; THE FRUIT THEREOF SHALL SHAKE LIKE LEBANON.
THE girls gathered in little groups and talked over the matter.
Something new to be done. Miss Mason was in charge of their room, and
in the reading-class that morning had told them of the custom when she
went to school of "choosing sides and spelling down." These girls and
boys knew nothing about it, but, most of them had agreed that it would
be "fun," and at recess they had crowded about Miss Mason, and coaxed
her to let them have a spelling-match. So this very afternoon it was to
be tried; and the leaders had already been chosen, one of them being
Ethol Harrison.
"Our side will beat, you'll see if it won't," she said, tossing back
her pretty curls. "I know who all the best spellers are, and I'll
choose them as fast as I can, and the others may keep their seats for
all I care."
"But Johnnie Burns has every other turn," objected one of the girls;
"what if he chooses some of the best ones before you get a chance?"
"Oh, he won't!" said Ethol. "Johnnie doesn't think fast enough to know
who the best spellers are."
Just then Ethol caught sight of Sarah Lambert standing just outside the
group, looking wistfully at them. Sarah was almost always just outside
of things.
"Just see that girl stare at us!" Ethol said. "She always looks hungry
out of her eyes. Did you ever notice? I wonder if she expects to get
chosen? I shan't choose her, I'm sure."
"She's a pretty good speller, though," answered one of the girls,
thoughtfully.
"I don't care. I shan't choose her; and I don't believe Johnnie will;
he won't if I tell him not to. She doesn't belong to us girls. It
always makes me cross to see her standing around. Her faded old dress,
and straight, yellow hair, and no ruffle, and worn-out shoes, don't
match in with the rest of us." And Ethol tossed her curls again, and
smoothed the overskirt of her handsome all-wool blue dress, and looked
down at her trim, buttoned boots with an air that said as plainly as
words: "Could you imagine two people who looked more unlike that Sarah
Lambert and I?"
Presently the group around the register moved away in different
directions, but Sarah Lambert's eager eyes followed Ethol. She had
caught stray words here and there from the girls, and she knew that
a good deal of the talk had been going on about choosing; so she
determined to do what took a good deal of courage.
"Did He choose you?" She asked the question eagerly, her great eyes
looking hungrier than ever.
"Did who choose me?" Ethol's voice was almost cross. "What 'are' you
talking about? You always begin in the middle of things."
"I want to know if He chose you, and if He has told you what to do, and
if you know how to do it, and how He let you know that He wanted you?"
Then did Ethol look at her in utter amazement. "Sarah Lambert, I
believe you are crazy!" she said slowly. "Nobody is to choose me;
Johnnie Burns and I do the choosing of the others. Of course I know how
to do it. And as to his wanting me, I don't know what you mean."
The eagerness went out of Sarah's eyes a little.
"I didn't mean about the spelling," she said gravely, "it's about the
other choosing. Don't you know?" And she took from her pocket a card,
carefully wrapped in paper, and pointed to the verse at the head of
this story. "I meant Him; the one Miss Mason talked about yesterday.
She said He chose folks now, and gave them things to do for Him; and I
thought you was one, because you are so pretty, you know, and dress so
nice; and I wondered what He had given you to do; and I was thinking
maybe there was something even for me to do in my old dress, and with
my shoes all out at the toes; but I don't suppose there is."
[Illustration: "I MEANT HIM; THE ONE MISS MASON TALKED ABOUT
YESTERDAY."]
I wish I could give you a picture of Ethol as she stood looking at the
ill-dressed girl at that moment. If I could show you a picture of both
of them, you would see that though side by side there was a very great
difference between them.
"You are the queerest girl that I ever heard of in my life!" Ethol said
at last. It was all the answer that she seemed to know how to make.
When three o'clock came, and the two champions took their places on
the floor of the schoolroom, ready to call their helpers, some of the
girls were very much astonished to hear Ethol call "Sarah Lambert" for
her first choice. It seems Ethol had made up her mind that at least the
"queer girl" should be chosen for something. I don't suppose she had
the slightest idea what a surprise and delight this was to Sarah; she
had never been chosen for anything before.
[Illustration]
THE THREE LITTLE M'S.—PART III.
BY MARGARET SIDNEY.
THE two little girls stumbled along over the rough ground, crying so
that they could scarcely see. Mr. Poser stalked on with never a word to
say. Of course that left Mrs. Smith to do all the talking, which she
did with a right good will.
At last Martha broke out:
"I know bears have eaten Mary all up, or else snakes, or else
wild-cats, or—"
"Or she's peeked into a cave, an' the doors rolled to, an' she can't
get out," suggested Matilda.
At these horrible pictures, they wailed afresh.
"Mr. Poser, I can't go another step," cried Mrs. Smith. "I'm all beat
out. These young ones have made me so nervous, seems ef I sh'd scream
myself." With that, she came to a dead stop.
"Set down there," said Mr. Poser, who began to feel as if the rank and
file of the procession was going to be of very little help to him after
all.
Mrs. Smith looked around for a convenient resting place. The little
girls wailed on.
"There's the 'Dungeon,'" she said, pointing to the old gloomy house.
"They do say folks have moved in there, but it don't look as if a
livin' soul had ever been nigh it. I remember there's a bench round the
corn-house. There, I shall rest my bones."
So they all trailed dismally into the overgrown enclosure, and seeing
nobody, they deposited themselves on a worm-eaten bench that ran around
two sides of the corn-house. If they had only known what was on the
other side of that wall!
[Illustration: "ANY OF YOU BEEN IN OUR BARN?"]
A boy came slowly over the rough ground where a long time ago there had
been a path. He was looking closely at something in his hand, turning
it over and over in great curiosity. He stopped short in front of the
bench and its occupants.
"Any of you been in our barn?" he asked abruptly.
"No," said Mr. Poser, "we hain't been in any one's barn."
"Oh well, then, you haven't lost—"
"'Lost?'" cried Mrs. Smith jumping up in great excitement to seize his
arm. "Oh yes, we have too, every single one of us has lost. That's what
we've come for."
At that, all four of them gathered around the boy, but he began again
before they could any of them speak.
"Was the head all punched in?" he demanded, eying them sharply. "And
were the figures all shaved off?"
"'Head all punched in?' and 'figures all shaved off?' Oh! My senses,"
exclaimed Mrs. Smith, going back to sit down on her bench again.
"'Cos then tain't yours!" said the boy triumphantly, beginning to move
off. "An' you don't git this quarter of a dollar away from me 'that'
way."
"Boy!" commanded old Mr. Poser. His little eyes flashed their sternest,
as he raised his stick. "Hand that quarter of a dollar to me!"
The boy took one look at the stick and silently put the silver bit into
the old man's hand.
"I sent that quarter of a dollar five hours ago to you, Mrs. Smith,"
said Mr. Poser solemnly. "I could swear to it. You see the head o' the
Goddess of Liberty 'is' punched in, and the figures 'are' shaved off.
'Now, where is my Mary?'"
It was now the boy's turn to be questioned, as the old man turned
around on him sternly.
"I haven't seen any Mary," he said, backing off, and wishing he hadn't
locked the dog in the house.
"Where did you find that quarter?" asked Mr. Poser.
"In the barn," said the boy shortly. "I'd give ten cents to get hold of
Bose," he muttered under his breath.
"Then we go to the barn," said the old man. "Where that quarter was,
Mary has been. Lead on!"
The procession was now increased to five, the boy having the honor to
be captain. The barn was searched in every nook and cranny, but no
little girl in a red hood rejoiced their anxious, weary eyes.
"We will go all over this place," said Mr. Poser with a very white
face. "Begin and take us straight through!"
"There ain't any other part of the place been open," said the boy
doggedly. "Father's away, an' the rest of the folks, an' I've been
round all day, so I know—'xcept about quarter of an hour," he added
honestly, "when I run home with Jim Saunders after he'd been here
shellin' corn with me. But the corn-house is locked. I locked it
myself; so she 'couldn't' be in there."
"Unlock that corn-house," said Mr. Poser briefly.
And before any one could think twice, the procession stood in front of
the old door.
The boy grunted something as he rattled the key in the rusty lock; the
door flew open, to disclose little Mary, huddled up in fright on a big
bag of potatoes.
"I'm never going to be naughty again."
How often she has said that since. And then she looks and sighs at the
dim old silver quarter that hangs by a ribbon from her neck.
[Illustration: "I'M NEVER GOING TO BE NAUGHTY AGAIN."]
It has never been off since that night when her father made a hole
through it and put it in its place. "It's to make you think," he said.
For thoughts:—May none of those who join hands and hearts in the Pansy
Society for brave battling against their faults, ever look on their
lovely badges with the sadness with which little Mary sees her old
silver quarter of a dollar!
————————————
[Illustration: PANSIES P. S. THOUGHT]
PANSIES P. S. THOUGHT.
NOW, all you dear people who "belong," listen to me. I've something to
tell you about a book:
"Five Little Peppers and How They Grew."
Ever hear of them? Don't go to imagining they were little round black
things growing in a pod (by the way, I've something funny to tell you
about that very thing, some day). Never were any nicer and neater and
better-behaved Peppers, so far as they knew how, than lived in that
little old kitchen. Five little treasures of a dear mother. Pollie, and
Ben, and Davie, and Joel, and Phronsie. Really, it is hard to decide
which of the dear, bright, unselfish Peppers I like the best.
A big book that tells about them all. A book with four hundred and ten
pages, and a beautiful cover, and ever so many pictures. A book that
you older brothers and sisters will enjoy, with bits all through it
that you will delight to read to the little ones. A book that costs a
good deal of money, of course, for how could people get up a good and
handsome book full of pictures, unless they spent a good deal of money
on it?
Besides, it is written by a lady whose writings have to be paid for,
because she knows how to write, and the publishers know it, and are
glad to get her to write them a book. Her name, or at least the
name which she puts on paper, is Margaret Sidney. I'm sure you are
acquainted with her, for isn't she giving us the account of that
ridiculous little Mary Posey?
And, now for a secret! Bend your heads! The publishers told me to tell
you that every boy and girl whose name is on our P. S. roll could have
a copy of that book for seventy-five cents. Just half what other people
have to pay.
Now I do hope you'll all get it, and write and tell me what you think
of Polly's cake, and Phronsie's gingerbread man, and ever so many other
queer and quaint and sweet things in the story. Another thing: Tell me
what it was in that family that made such a happy home. Yours lovingly,
PANSY.
————————————
WHO DID IT?
PART THIRD.
IN great haste she flew about for a comb to smooth her disordered
hair; it would never do to go down to Mrs. Denton with hair all in
a tousle. She wished that the bright, tin basin which hung over the
sink, was there, with water in it, for she knew her eyes must be very
red. Suddenly she stood still in the middle of her little room, her
hand partly raised to her head, holding the comb. Did somebody speak?
Whose voice repeated those words which she had learned only the Sabbath
before:
"He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still."
What had that to do with her, anyway? Why should it come to her just
now, and make her feel as though somebody was whispering the words in
her ear?
No wonder she stood still to think. What a great fierce storm this was
to beat about poor Hester! The waves were very high and her poor little
boat had almost struck on the shoals of falsehood. Would it sink? Was
the Master in the boat with her?
A minute more, then down went the comb, and down went Hester on her
knees, and was sobbing out her cry before the same Master who calmed
the storm on Galilee.
"Oh, dear Jesus," she said, "don't let me do it! Don't let me say
I inked the dress when I didn't, I 'didn't,' and I don't know anything
about it! Satan wants me to tell them that I did it, so I can go to
the party. Oh! 'Don't' let me do it; and make me willing to stay at
home from that dear party, and don't let the girls believe it, nor Mrs.
Neilson, when they hear the wicked, 'wicked' story; I don't see how
they can help believing it, but please don't let them, for Jesus' sake.
Amen."