THE QUARREL SETTLED.
IT was scarcely a week after the nutting party, when one morning Sallie
was missing from school. This was so unusual that the teacher inquired
of the scholars whether any of them knew why she was not in her place.
But no one had seen her that day; and as her brother Edward was also
absent, nothing could be ascertained till night.
When the teacher called, she found the family of Mrs. Munson greatly
afflicted. Three of the children were in bed with fever, and the widow
was scarcely able to drag herself about.
"I've had trouble on trouble," she said, sighing. "Month after month,
for five long years, I've stood at the door where I could see the ocean,
and watched for the ship that never came. I've laid one child beneath
the sod, and now it's likely three more will follow. Still I can
say,--'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee,
because he trusteth in thee.'"
At school, both Edward and Sallie were greatly missed, the first
question in the morning being: "Have you heard from Mrs. Munson's? Is
Sallie better?"
Hatty went about her studies with a sad countenance. She was much
afraid that her friend would die without having given her heart to the
Saviour.
One day, when she was going home from school, she passed two boys who
were quarrelling terribly about a book one of them had lost.
The young girl lingered near them for a few moments, wishing, yet
scarcely daring to speak. At last she said,--
"Oh Ethel! how can you quarrel when one of your companions is so very
sick? Think if you were to be taken down with the fever, how sorry you
would be that you had called any one such hard names."
The boy hung his head, somewhat ashamed, but then said,--
"It's too bad to lose a new book. I'm sure Bill took it home with him."
"I didn't. I haven't seen it since Ethel showed it to me at recess. I
don't see why he need to lay it to me."
"At recess?" murmured Ethel. "Oh dear! Bill, wait a minute."
He was off without a word, and in ten minutes more he came running at
full speed, shouting,--
"I've found it. Here 'tis, all safe. I left it on the rock when we were
playing ball."
"And now you're sorry you charged Bill with carrying it home," exclaimed
Hatty, eagerly.
"Yes, I am. As soon as he spoke about recess I thought where I laid
it."
"Don't you think it would be a good plan to ask him to forgive you?"
inquired the little peace-maker, drawing him aside.
He made a wry face and hesitated.
"You know, you said some awful hard things," she urged. "I thought then
he was pretty good-tempered not to take offense."
She looked in his face so eagerly that he laughed outright.
[Illustration: "Look here, Bill, Hatty thinks I ought to ask your
pardon." Vol. VI, p. 9.]
"Well," he said, "for your sake, I will. You always have everything
your own way, you know."
"Look here, Bill," he exclaimed, walking back to the fence where his
companion stood, and holding out his hand, "I was wrathy and called you
names you didn't deserve. Hatty thinks I ought to ask your pardon."
"Oh, Ethel! don't tell him that. You owned you were sorry first."
"So I am; and if Bill will say quits, I'll do him as good a turn some
other time."
"All right," said Bill, giving his hand.
"Here, Hatty," cried Ethel, "you must shake hands too. You're better
than Squire Morse to settle up quarrels."
She laughed and blushed, giving her little hand first to one, and then
to the other.
"Now promise me," she said, "that you'll never quarrel again."
"That's pretty steep. I wouldn't dare venture," cried Ethel, growing
very red.
"Oh!" urged Hatty, "I always thought you two the bravest boys in school.
Such good scholars ought to be brave."
"I promise to _try_ to be peaceable," answered Bill.
"And I'll agree to think of you, Hatty Maynard, when I want to call hard
names. I guess that will cool off the hot blood."
"You must think of somebody better than I am," she urged, growing very
serious. "Don't you recollect what the minister said, about living in
peace? And the Bible tells us, to 'follow peace with all men,' to
'follow after the things that make for peace.' Esther says that means,
we must be kind and affectionate, one to another; we must show our
companions that we love them; and if we ever do wrong, we must ask
forgiveness as you did, Ethel. I think Bill was real generous to forgive
so quick; but I knew he would, if you told him how sorry you were."
"Come on, Bill," exclaimed Ethel, laughing. "I guess we sha'n't be
fighting again in a hurry, after all the compliments we've had to-day."
The next morning, when Hatty went down from her unfurnished attic to
make a fire in the stove, she found a string of nice, fresh fish laid on
the kitchen table. There was a small piece of soiled paper tied to the
end of the string, on which was written in a school boy's hand,--
"For Hatty Maynard, peace-maker to the town of Shrewsbury; from Ethel
and Bill."
"'Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of
God,'" repeated Hatty, tears gushing to her eyes. "I do love to make
peace; and I may call myself his child."
She was so full of joy that she ran up the steep stairs again to her low
couch, and there kneeling down, she asked her heavenly Father to make
her indeed his own child, and by and by to take her to dwell with him
in heaven, where all was peace, and love, and joy, forever and ever.
[Illustration]