TAKING MEDICINE.
AFTER tea Nelly had a fine romp with her cousins on the lawn. Margie and
Ponto were there too; and papa and mamma sat on the front steps,
laughing and enjoying their sport. As the children ran round and round,
the lady saw that Nelly's apron was unbuttoned, and that it troubled her
as she played. She called, "Nelly, come here a minute."
The little girl stopped at once, and then ran to her aunt. Before this,
when any one called her, she would say, "I can't come now;" or, "In a
minute I will." The lady was very much pleased to see that the child
obeyed promptly. When she had fastened the apron, Nelly clasped her arms
about her aunt's neck, and kissed her. Her uncle smiled, and said, "You
look very happy now, Nelly; I wish your mamma could see your rosy
cheeks."
"Come, Nelly, it's your turn now," shouted Willie from the lawn.
A few days after this, Mrs. Gray sat busily sewing, while Frankie made a
barn with his blocks, in which to put up the pedler's cart, and Nelly
was undressing her doll. The sleeve did not come off easily, and as she
pulled it roughly it tore. The little girl was angry, and began to cry.
"What is the matter?" asked her aunt.
"Dolly's dress is ugly, and it's all torn."
"Should you like to have a needle, and mend it, my dear?"
"O, yes, aunty."
"May I sew some too?" asked Frankie.
"Yes, darling, you may mend this stocking." She then threaded a needle
for the little girl, and showed her how to put the stitches through, and
afterwards gave Frankie a darning needle with some yarn. He had often
sewed before, and he liked the business very much. There was no knot in
the thread, and so he pulled it through and through. But he thought it
was sewing for all that.
Nelly sat steadily at her work for a minute; but at last she threw it
on the floor, and said, "I hate sewing, it's so hard."
"Let me see it, dear," said aunty.
Nelly picked it up, and put it into her hand.
She laughed when she looked at it, and Nelly laughed too; and then
Frankie said, "O, what funny sewing!"
"I'll baste you some easier work," said her aunt; "and you shall have a
little thimble to put on your finger. Then you will like to sew."
Nelly had behaved much better since she was punished, so that her uncle,
aunt, and cousins loved her better than ever. Still there were many
things in which they hoped she would improve.
One day her aunt found her sitting on the piazza alone, eating
something, and as soon as she saw some one coming, she put it hastily
in her pocket. It was not more than an hour before she complained of a
bad pain in her stomach.
"What have you been eating, my dear?" asked her aunt.
"Nothing," said Nelly.
"Are you sure?" and the lady looked earnestly in her face.
"Yes, I am very sure," answered Nelly.
Mrs. Gray sent Sally for some warm peppermint water, and then laid the
child on the lounge.
For some time she lay quite still, sucking her finger; but when her aunt
glanced toward her to see if she were asleep, she noticed that Nelly
looked very pale about the mouth; and presently she jumped up, and
carried her to the closet, where she threw up a great quantity of
raisins, which she had stolen from her aunt's box.
She continued very sick all that night, and in the morning the doctor
came, and said she must take a large dose of castor oil.
The sight of oil always made the lady very sick, and so her uncle said
he would give it to her. He poured it out, and mixed it with a little
hot milk, and held it to her lips. But she would not take it. He tried
to persuade her, promised her a ride, told her she would be very sick
if she did not obey the doctor, but all was of no use. She shut her
teeth, and would not touch it.
Then Sally tried her skill. "I'll make your great dolly a new dress,"
she said; "come, now, be a good girl, and then I'll tell you how Frankie
took his medicine." It was all in vain; Nelly still shook her head, and
refused to obey.
Mrs. Gray then took the child in her lap, and spread a large cloth under
her chin, at the same time telling Sally to bring a cup of blackberry
jelly from the store closet. "Now, my little Nelly," she said, "you must
take this to make you well. If you will open your mouth and swallow it
all down like a good girl, I will give you some nice jelly to take the
taste out, for it is very bad. But if you don't take it before I count
three, I shall hold you and force it down your throat."
Then she began to count,--"one, two,"--but before she could say three,
Nelly caught the spoon and swallowed the medicine, and then took some
jelly so quickly, that she hardly tasted the oil.
"That was a right good girl," said her uncle. "I couldn't have taken it
any better myself."
When Nelly was well, her aunt kindly talked with her of the great sin
which she had committed. "You have done just as naughty Moses did," she
said. "First, you stole the raisins, as he stole the orange; and then
you told a wicked lie to hide it from me, as he did to hide his sin from
his mother." Then she told Nelly, "God hears all we say, and sees all we
do. We can hide nothing from him; and he says in his holy book, 'liars
shall have their portion in the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone.'"
Nelly cried; and promised over and over again to be a good girl, and she
really tried to improve. She saw how happy her cousins were, and how
every body loved them, and she said to herself, "I mean to try to be
just as good as I can."