Authors. Page.
What shall we Build? T.S.A. 13
The Two Cousins F.C.W. 16
A Noble Act T.S.A. 28
The Word of God T.S.A. 35
Harsh Words and Kind Words T.S.A. 36
The Herons and the Herrings F.C.W. 41
Early Spring Flowers F.C.W. 43
Temptation Resisted T.S.A. 51
Evening Prayer T.S.A. 61
Stretching the Truth F.C.W. 63
The City Pigeon T.S.A. 67
A Day in the Woods T.S.A. 72
The Spider and the Honey Bee F.C.W. 81
Emma Lee and her Sixpence T.S.A. 88
Uncle Roderick's Stories F.C.W. 93
Honesty the Best Policy F.C.W. 94
How a Rogue Feels when he is Caught F.C.W. 97
The Weekly Newspaper F.C.W. 100
The Cider Plot F.C.W. 103
My First Hunting Excursion F.C.W. 107
Saturday in Winter T.S.A. 111
Rover and his Little Master T.S.A. 113
Something Wrong T.S.A. 117
The Favorite Child F.C.W. 121
The Mine T.S.A. 129
The Miner T.S.A. 132
Visit to Fairy Land F.C.W. 135
The Hermit T.S.A. 143
A Picture T.S.A. 147
The Boy and the Robin F.C.W. 150
Something about Conscience F.C.W. 152
Old Ned T.S.A. 166
The Freed Butterfly T.S.A. 175
Julia and Her Birds F.C.W. 177
The Song of the Snow Bird T.S.A. 185
How to Avoid a Quarrel T.S.A. 189
Passing for More than One is Worth F.C.W. 197
The Lament of the Invalid F.C.W. 205
The Use of Flowers T.S.A. 207
Sliding Down Hill F.C.W. 211
A Garden Overrun with Weeds T.S.A. 217
Disappointment Sometimes a Blessing F.C.W. 221
The Old Man at the Cottage Door T.S.A. 232
Story of a Stolen Pen F.C.W. 234
WREATHS.
WHAT SHALL WE BUILD?
Four children were playing on the sea-shore. They had gathered bright
pebbles and beautiful shells, and written their names in the pure, white
sand; but at last, tired of their sport, they were about going home, when
one of them, as they came to a pile of stones, cried out:
"Oh! let us build a fort; and we will call that ship away out there, an
enemy's vessel, and make believe we are firing great cannon balls into
her!"
"Yes, yes! let us build a fort," responded Edward, the other lad.
And the two boys--for two were boys and two girls--ran off to the pile of
stones, and began removing them to a place near the water.
"Come, Anna and Jane," said they, "come and help us."
"Oh, no. Don't let us build a fort," said Jane.
[Illustration: WHAT SHALL WE BUILD?]
"Yes; we will build a fort," returned the boys. "What else can we build?
You wouldn't put a house down here upon the water's edge?"
"No; but I'll tell you what we can build, and it will be a great deal
better than a fort."
"Well; what can we build?"
"A light-house," said the girls; "and that will be just as much in place on
the edge of the sea as a fort. We can call the ship yonder a vessel lost in
the darkness, and we will hang out a light and direct her in the true way.
Won't that be much better than to call her an enemy, and build a fort to
destroy her? See how beautifully she sits upon and glides over the smooth
water! Her sails are like the open wings of a bird, and they bear her
gracefully along. Would it not be cruel to shoot great balls into her
sides, tear her sails to pieces, and kill the men who are on board of her?
Oh! I am sure it would make us all happier to save her when in darkness and
danger. No, no; let us not build a fort, but a light-house; for it is
better to save than to destroy."
The girls spoke with tenderness and enthusiasm, and their words reached the
better feelings of their companions.
"Oh, yes," said they; "we will build a light-house, and not a fort." And
they did so.
Yes, it is much better to save than to destroy. Think of that, children,
and let it go with you through life. Be more earnest to save your friends
than to destroy your enemies. And yet, when a real enemy comes, and seeks
to do evil, be brave to resist him.
THE TWO COUSINS;
OR, HOW TO ACT WHEN "THINGS GO WRONG."
"There, mother, I knew it would be so. Lucy Wallace has just sent over to
tell me she can't walk out in the woods with me. There's no use in my
trying to please any body--there's no use in it. I'm an odd sort of a
creature, it seems. Nobody loves me. It always was so. Oh, dear! I wish I
knew what I had done to make the girls hate me so!"
This not very good-natured speech was made by a little girl, whom I shall
call Angeline Standish. She was some ten or twelve years old, as near as I
can recollect. Perhaps my readers would like to know something about the
occasion which called for this speech; but it is a long story, and hardly
worth telling. The truth is, when little boys and girls get very angry, or
peevish, or fretful, they sometimes blow out a great deal of ill-humor,
something after the manner that an overcharged steam boiler lets off
steam--with this difference, however, that the steam boiler gets cooler by
the operation, while the boy or girl gets more heated. The throat is a poor
safety-valve for ill-humor; and it is bad business, this setting the tongue
agoing at such a rate, whenever the mercury in one's temper begins to rise
toward the boiling point.
As is usual, in such cases, Angeline felt worse after these words had
whistled through the escape pipe of her ill-nature, than she did before;
and, for want of something else to do, she commenced crying. She was not
angry--that is, not altogether so--though the spirit she showed was a
pretty good imitation of anger, it must be confessed. She was peevish.
Matters had not gone right with her that day. She was crossed in this thing
and that thing. Her new hat had not come home from the milliner's, as she
expected; one of her frocks had just got badly torn; she had a hard lesson
to learn; and I cannot repeat the whole catalogue of her miseries. So she
fretted, and stormed, and cried, and felt just as badly as she chose.
Not long after the crying spell was over, and there was a little blue sky
in sight, Jeannette Forrest, a cousin of Angeline's, came running into the
room, her face all lighted up with smiles, and threw her arms around her
cousin's neck, and kissed her. This was no uncommon thing with Jeannette.
She had a very happy and a very affectionate disposition. Every body loved
her, and she loved every body.
One not acquainted with Angeline, might very naturally suppose that she
would return her cousin's embrace. But she did no such thing. Her manner
was quite cool and distant. Human nature is a strange compound, is it not?
"Why, cousin," said the light-hearted Jeannette, "what is the matter? You
are not well, are you?"
"Yes, well enough," the other replied, rather crustily. Take care,
Angeline, there's a cloud coming over your cousin's face. Speak a kind word
or two, now. Then the sun will beam out again, brightly as ever. Jeannette
was silent for a moment, for she was astonished, and did not know what to
make of her cousin's manner. It would have appeared uncivil and rude to
most little girls. But the sweet spirit of Jeannette--loving, hoping,
trusting--was differently affected. She saw only the brighter side of the
picture. So the bee, as she flies merrily from flower to flower, finds a
store of honey where others would find only poison.
"Dear Angeline," said her cousin, at length, "I'm sure something is the
matter. Tell me what it is, won't you? Oh, I should love to make you happy,
if I only knew how!"
Angeline seemed scarcely to hear these words of love. That is strange
enough, I hear you say. So it is, perhaps, and it may be stranger still,
that she read not the language of love and sympathy that was written so
plainly in her cousin's countenance. It is true, though, for all that. She
did not say much of any thing to this inquiry--she simply muttered, between
her teeth,
"I don't believe any body loves me."
Jeannette was no philosopher. She could not read essays nor preach sermons.
Her argument to convince her cousin that there was, at least, one who loved
her, was drawn from the heart, rather than from the head. It was very
brief, and very much to the point. She burst into tears, and sobbed,
"Don't say so, dear."
Jeannette could not stay long. Her mother had sent her on an errand, and
told her she must make haste back. Perhaps it was as well that she could
not stay--and perhaps not. Human nature is a strange sort of compound, as I
said before; and it may be that the ice which had covered over the streams
leading from Angeline's heart would not have melted under the influence
even of the warm sun that, for a moment or two, beamed upon them so kindly.
For one, however, I should like to know what would have come out of that
conversation, if it had been allowed to go on. Jeannette went home, and
Angeline was again left to her own reflections, which were any thing but
pleasant. It was Saturday afternoon; and, there being no school, she had
hoped to be able to ramble in the woods with some of her little companions.
But here she was disappointed, too, and this increased her peevishness;
though the reason why she could not go was, because she did not learn her
lesson in season, and that was her own fault. Toward night, when Mrs
Standish had leisure to sit down to her sewing, she called Angeline, and
reminded her of the ill-natured spirit she had shown in the early part of
the afternoon. The child was rather ashamed of what she had said, it is
true; but she tried to excuse her conduct.
"Every thing went wrong to-day, mother," she said; "I couldn't help feeling
so. Oh, dear! I don't see how any body can be good, when things go in this
way--I mean any body but Jeannette. I wish I was like her. It is easy for
her to be good."
"Your cousin has, no doubt, a very different disposition from yours," said
the mother. "But it is much easier for you to be always good-natured and
happy than you suppose, Angeline."
"I wish I knew how, mother."
"Well, you say things went wrong with you this afternoon. I think I know
what some of these things were. They were not so pleasant as they might
have been, certainly. They were troublesome. But don't you think the
greatest trouble of all was in your own heart?"
"No, ma'am. I was well enough until the things began to go wrong; and then
I felt bad, and I couldn't help it."
Mrs Standish laughed, as she said, "So, then, as soon as the things begin
to go wrong, you take the liberty to go wrong too. Every thing works well
inside, until it is disturbed by something outside?"
"That is it, mother."
"And when the things inside go smoothly, because every thing is smooth
outside, you have a very good and happy disposition?"
"Pretty good, I think."
"And so, when there is a hurricane inside, because the wind blows rather
more than usual outside, you are cross, and unhappy, and bad enough to make
up for being so good before?"
"Yes, ma'am, I am afraid I am, sometimes."
"No, my child, you are wrong, all wrong. If all was right inside, the other
things you speak of would not disturb you so, if they should happen to go
wrong."
"Why, mother, wouldn't they disturb me at all?"
"They might, occasionally, but not near as much. Do you remember that our
clock went wrong last winter?"
"Yes, ma'am; we couldn't tell what time it was, and it used to strike all
sorts of ways."
"What do you suppose made the clock act so, Angeline? It goes well enough
now, you know."
"I believe Mr Mercer said one of the wheels was out of order."
"That was all. It was not the weather--not because we forgot to wind it
up--not because things did not go right in the room. Now, your mind is
something like a clock. If it is kept in order, it will run pretty well, I
guess--no matter whether it rains or shines--whether it is winter or
summer. Milton says, very beautifully, in his poem called the 'Paradise
Lost,'
"'The mind is its own place, and of itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.'
"He means by this, that our happiness or unhappiness depends more upon what
is within us than it does upon what is without. And he is right. Do you
understand, my child?"
"I understand what you mean, but it is not so easy to see how I am to go to
work and be good all the time, like cousin Jeannette. I'm not like her,
mother, and I never can be like her, I know."
"True, you will always be very unlike your cousin. But I don't know of any
thing to hinder your being as good and amiable as she is, for all that."
"Oh, mother! I'd give every thing in the world, if I only knew how!"
"I think you can learn, my child, with much less expense; though, to be
sure, you will have to give up some things that perhaps you will find it
hard to part with. You will be obliged to give up some of your bad habits."
"That would be easy enough."
"Not so easy as you think, it may be. It is a good deal easier to let a bad
habit come in, than it is to turn one out. But 'where there's a will,
there's a way,' you know."
"Well, mother, what shall I do? I should like to begin pretty soon, for
scarcely any body loves me now,"
"Before you learn much, it might be well to unlearn a little. When any
thing goes wrong, as you say, you must, at least, not make it go worse. You
must not make every body around you unhappy, if you do feel a little cross
and peevish."
"Oh, mother, I can't speak pleasantly when I don't feel so."
"Then, in most cases, you had better not speak at all."
"I never thought of that. I can stop talking, if I try."
"So you can, and you can do more. You can get into the habit of finding
'the south or sunny side of things,' as Jean Paul says, and if you do, you
will not be likely to have a snow-storm in your heart very often. Besides,
you ought to remember, that all these disappointments and crosses are a
part of your education for heaven, and you should endeavor to improve them
as such, so that their good effect will not be lost. And another thing, my
child: you ought to ask God to assist you in this self-government--to make
you his child--to give you a new heart--to teach you to love Christ, and to
be like him. Then you will seldom feel cross and fretful, because things go
wrong. You will be cheerful and good-natured. You will make others
happy--and you will very soon forget the old story, that nobody loves you."
Now, many little boys and girls--possibly some who read this story--would
have thought this task too hard. They would have regarded it as a pretty
severe penance. Perhaps they would have concluded, after having put all
these difficult things into one scale, and the thing to be gained by them
into the other, that the reward was not worth so great a sacrifice. So
thought not Angeline, however. She began the work in earnest, that very
day. She went over to her uncle's, with an unusual amount of sunshine in
her countenance, and made it all right with Jeannette. In the evening, she
told her little brother James what she intended to do, and invited him to
help her; and before they retired to rest that night, they knelt down
together and offered up a prayer, that God, for Christ's sake, would help
them in governing themselves.
One day--perhaps some six weeks after this--Mrs Standish said, smilingly,
to her daughter,
"Well, my dear, does Lucy Wallace love you any better?"
"Oh, mother," said Angeline, as a tear of joy stood in her eye, "every body
loves me now!"