DUSTY FEET.
You never saw a kinder, sweeter woman than Joe's mother. His name was
Joseph but of course nobody called him that. He was a jolly, happy boy
with lots of freckles on his nose, and one reason he was so happy,
though he never stopped to think about that, was that he had such a kind
mother.
He lived on a farm, and his short trousers were held on by one
suspender, as barefooted, he ran about from morning until night. Plenty
of other boys came to play with him and one reason was that the kind
mother nearly always had time, with all her work, to stop and spread a
thick slice of bread and butter for a boy to eat.
"Dear little fellows, they're growing," she would say to herself,
whenever Joe asked.
He and the other boys went fishing in the creek and played they were
Indians in the woods. They climbed on the barn roof; they ran swift
express trains, and when Joe had his chores to do there was usually some
boy ready to help him do them.
He had to feed the pigs, squealing under the barn, and at evening go to
fetch the cows. After such an active day it is no wonder that after
supper every night Joe soon became drowsy.
While his mother washed the supper dishes he would get into a big calico
covered arm chair, and those legs that had run about so busily all day
long would feel as if they couldn't move, and his eyes would blink and
stare, and close, before he knew it.
When her work was done his mother would say, "Come, Joe, come now. It is
time to wash your feet and get ready for bed."
And Joe would pull his eyes open and stretch, and say, "O, Ma, why do I
have to wash my feet every night?"
Day after day those nimble feet of Joe's stepped into all sorts of
places all over the farm, and night after night he argued for a long
time before he would wash them.
One evening when his mother had put all her clean dishes away she went
over to the arm chair and Joe was so sound asleep that her gentle
shaking did not wake him; so she just smiled down on him in that very
nice way mothers have and decided to have pity on the child.
She threw a large apron over him and blowing out the lamp, left him to
spend the night in the big, soft old chair.
Very early in the morning Joe woke up, cramped in his small quarters,
and rather cold; so he crept upstairs and crawled into bed without
disturbing anyone, and without washing his feet.
When morning came and the family had eaten breakfast, Joe's busy mother
said nothing about last evening, and he rushed out to play without
worrying his head about yesterday's dust; for this was vacation time and
Joe knew that the end of it would soon come, and back to school he must
go. So he and his playmates worked as hard as ever, playing ball, and
climbing trees and leap frogging over each others' backs, and eating any
quantity of bread and butter.
Of course that night he was again very drowsy and when his mother called
him to get ready for bed, he remembered the evening before and how he
had slept half the night under the old apron, and how he had not washed
his feet. He became quite wide awake thinking about it, and he began to
picture a heaven where boys whose legs were too heavy to move at night
would never hear anyone remind them to scrub the dust off their ten
toes. He began to try to think of a way to make such a heaven; and a
plan came into his head.
So while his mother was finishing the dishes and calling him to go, he
staggered out of his chair, and seeming to be half asleep and half awake
stumbled into the front room where the sofa was, and with a groan of
fatigue he fell upon its soft old springs and stretched himself out.
He thought he knew what would happen, and sure enough it really did. The
kind mother, coming in later found him enjoying such a deep, peaceful
sleep that she hadn't the heart to waken the boy and make him go and put
his feet into cold water. She shivered a little herself, just to think
of it. So she covered him up carefully with a shawl and left him.
A very strange thing happened then. Joe found that he was not lying on
the sofa at all, but on a bench in a beautiful garden. Who had such a
garden in their neighborhood? He knew he had never seen it before and he
gazed about at the nodding lilies and the roses that climbed high on a
lattice, just as they did in a picture book he had. There were paths
leading about this garden and small blue flowers grew thickly along
their edges.
Joe was wonderfully comfortable and happy in the midst of so much
beauty, and he lay there looking at the bees seeking for honey in the
flower cups, and the butterflies that played together in the air, and
alighted on the flowers, sipping the dew, while they opened and closed
their golden wings.
Suddenly there came into sight a lovely little girl, strolling along the
path toward him. Joe was so surprised and delighted to see her that he
sat right up. He remembered her well. She was the girl whom he had seen
ride, standing on a milk white horse in the circus a few weeks ago. O
that proud horse, with his fine arched neck, and O, the wonderful girl
in the white, lacy dress, and the gold star on her forehead! How
fearlessly she had smiled. To think that she should be here!
She was smiling now at the flowers as she strolled along, and
butterflies circled around that golden star as it gleamed in the
sunlight. Her lacy dress blew in the summer breeze, just as it had in
her flight on the milk white horse.
Joe sat up and gazed and gazed. He could hardly wait to tell her how
glad he was she had come, and ask her if he might ride once on her
wonderful horse. He was springing up to go to meet her, when a fairy
suddenly appeared from the lily-bell near him. The fairy had wings
brighter than the butterflies, and a blue-bell was perched on his saucy
head.
At least he seemed saucy to Joe, for he waved him back with the wand in
his tiny hand, with as much an air of authority as if he had been six
feet tall.
"But I want to speak to her," said Joe, "I want to play with her."
The little girl had come quite near now, and she heard this. Her smiling
face grew very sober as she looked at him, and she shook her head.
"No, I must never play with boys with dusty feet," she said, and lifting
the gold star on her forehead very high, she passed down another flowery
path and disappeared.
The fairy smiled (he looked mischievous) and waved his wand. In a
second, Joe was standing in the middle of a big puddle of sticky mud.
His face grew red with shame and disappointment and he felt tears
pressing hard at the back of his eyes, but of course he could not be a
cry baby.
The mud seemed to get tangled with strings and they got in between his
toes when he tried to pull his feet out, and then he saw that it was his
mother's apron that was all smeared with mud, and turning around in
distress he saw her shawl; the very one she had thrown over him on the
sofa. He tried to get free of the black stickiness and step over on to
the shawl when his toes trod on something that felt like an old shoe,
and how he did wish for his shoes and stockings!
Suddenly he felt cold and shivered. The mud turned into snow, and his
feet were so cold that he tried to wriggle his toes and found he
couldn't. They were numb. He couldn't feel that he had any toes; and
just then the beautiful little girl came walking slowly back, and O,
how he felt, standing there, splashed with the mud he had spattered all
over himself trying to get out of the puddle.
He must not cry, for that would be worse than being dirty. She might
think he was in the dirt by accident, but no accident would excuse a boy
for crying.
She stood there, looking at him, not scornfully as before, but with a
pitying, kindly look, and all at once she began to float up from the
ground.
She poised, suspended in the air, leaning over him with such sweet
sadness in her gentle eyes that he became frightened and awoke with a
start.
It was morning and his mother was gazing down on him with her kind
smile.
He looked up sheepishly and blinked his eyes. "Mother dear," he said,
and he reached up for her hand, "I guess I forgot to wash my feet."