[Illustration: T]HE brave girl was now full of hope that a good day was
about to dawn for the P. S. P. S. Uncle John was there. He had said as
much; and what could not he do?
The members must each be visited and urged to attend the meeting and
hear what Uncle John had to say.
She would undertake it. Of course they would be so glad to hear that
the Society was now to be revived and go on finely again. So she
thought.
With a light heart and face full of sunshine she started on her way.
The first ring brought a servant to the door, only to say that the
children had just gone away for some days. The next door opened
promptly as she still held the knob in her hand, but only to assure her
that Carrie was not well—probably could not go out for weeks. The third
call found no one at home.
A fourth was answered with, “My! I thought the P. S. P. S. was dead.
But I’ll see what mamma says. Maybe she’ll let me come.”
A little further on Jennie met an old member and laid before her Uncle
John’s plans for a meeting, and all about it, only to receive a stare
and, “Who is your Uncle John?” And the inquirer, without waiting to be
told, went skipping on her way.
Sometimes Jennie was told, “Don’t get me to any more P. S. P. S. poky
meetings;” or, “Oh! I’m invited to a card-party the very night of your
meeting. Of course I must go. And there’ll be dancing and ice-cream,
and ever so much fun;” or, “Mamma says I can never attend any more,”
etc., etc.
A sunny sky is sometimes overcast and the rain falls instead of beams
of light.
Do not blame Jennie if she cried. It was such a sharp disappointment.
Thus far not one word of encouragement. Every one seemed to frown
upon her, and all the laughing she met or saw on either side of the
streets through which she passed, seemed to be at her expense. She was
mistaken, but a heavy heart often feels a sting where there is really
no stinger.
What shall she do?
“It’s no use, Jennie; I told you so,” came from one of the committee
boys, who happened to follow her track and overhear some of the rebuffs
received by Jennie, and who now came up by her side to put the last
straw upon her breaking heart. “What’s the use?” he went on. “They
say you are making yourself ridiculous, and—” and he was about to add
another straw when they turned a corner and met Uncle John coming
towards them. Without noticing her face, he took Jennie by the hand
and turned up another street, leaving her companion to go his way.
Uncle John went on to say how he had thought of little else besides the
Poplar Street Pansy Society and now he was all ready for the meeting.
[Illustration: SNOW HOUSES.]
A little further on the other member of the committee was met, who
reported that he had called upon some of the others, but no one had
promised to attend the meeting.
But blessed Uncle John cheered Jennie by saying it was always darkest
before the day and that no matter how matters had turned out this time,
it might be just the contrary to-morrow.
So the tears were wiped away, and the young heart said, “I’ll try
again, for Jesus’ sake.” That night she went and told Jesus. The next
day there was joy in store for her. Not one laughed or mocked. Some
said they would come and bring others.
Sure enough. Jennie must needs bring in twice as many chairs as were
arranged for the meeting.
Everything being ready, Uncle John began:
“A long time ago there lived in one of our large cities a—Mr. Riddle.
He was a banker. But no matter about him. I am now going to describe
another member of the Riddle family, and if you will sharpen your wits
and be wide-awake some of you good guessers can guess who or what he
is, and I will promise you he will take you into copartnership and let
you share his riches.”
At this point every eye began to open at the thought of suddenly
growing rich.
“He was born before Methusaleh,” continued Uncle John, “and”—the eyes
opened still wider—“he lives now;” at which not only were the eyes open
to their utmost, but many mouths, and questions came thick and fast:
“Born before Methusaleh?” “Lives now?” “Do you really mean it just
so?” “How can it be?” “Who ever heard of such a thing?” “Is not it a
conundrum, or a puzzle, or a riddle, or”—
“Yes,” from Uncle John; “and if you will listen closely and do some of
the best thinking of your life you will surely guess my riddle.”
“And share the riches you spoke of?” asked one.
“And share the riches, just as I said.” And here Uncle John looked
around, silent and amused at the perplexed faces of the young folks.
Then he continued: “This Mr. Riddle will probably live hundreds of
years more. He was and he is a banker, richer than all other bankers,
the Rothschilds thrown in to boot. There isn’t a place in all the world
where he has not a bank. Some are hundreds of feet in the earth; some
as high in the air; some, built of iron; some, of silver, tin, glass,
paper, dirt, ice, clouds, coal and much more of which I may tell you
more by and by. This is enough now. Don’t ask me any more questions
to-night. We will sing a verse of a hymn, and have a short prayer, and
then you must all go promptly home and to bed and be up early to-morrow
morning and do all the sharp thinking you can get time for, and come
again in the evening at seven o’clock, and I will tell you more about
this puzzling banker, Mr. Riddle.”
Then Uncle John’s rich voice led, and, “Praise God from whom all
blessings flow,” filled the room and swelled hearts with new and
strange thoughts.
Then they all joined in “Our Father,” etc., and the meeting was out.
HOW BENNIE WAS TEMPTED.
[Illustration: B]ENNIE crawled out of his bed that morning with his
mind full of the thought of apples.
“The harvests are getting mellow!” so Jack Burnes had announced the
day before, and every boy knows just what that means to all the boys
who are so unfortunate as to have no harvest apple-tree to climb and
shake. After the climbing and shaking comes the scrambling down and the
picking out of the fairest and best, and then comes the stuffing of
pockets and the gradual, though not very slow, process of transferring
from the pockets to the stomach. To all such unfortunates it means an
indescribable longing, an unutterable desire to climb somebody else’s
harvest apple-tree! It means an uncontrollable appetite which only
harvest apples can satisfy. You all know how Bennie felt. There was no
apple-tree in his father’s garden; how could there be when there was no
garden! The place which Bennie called home had no advantages in that
direction, being two or three rooms in a rickety old tenement house.
Now Bennie went to Sunday-school, and he had learned the Lord’s Prayer,
and he never forgot to repeat it as he lay down at night upon his not
very luxurious bed; and I think that Bennie understood what it meant
when he prayed “Give us this day our daily bread,” for he had sometimes
known what it was to want for daily bread, but when he repeated “Lead
us not into temptation,” his ideas of that for which he asked were
rather vague. That morning he started out with hair uncombed, face
unwashed; with a ragged coat and battered hat and walked directly
towards temptation in the shape of Mr. Vinton’s harvest-tree with its
loaded limbs hanging over the wall. To be sure he knew that trespassers
were threatened with the constable and the jail, but then he thought
maybe some apples will have dropped over the wall into the road in
the night, and if I get there first why “I’ll have them if there are
any. What’s in the road belongs to folks as finds ’em first!” And so
he hastened along until he stood under the overhanging branches. There
were no “finds” on the ground, and as Bennie looked up into the tree
the thought of climbing up the wall and filling his pockets came to
him. Why not? There were plenty of apples; the Squire would never miss
a few; as for getting caught, it was too early for any of the family to
be about. That sign was meant for boys who wanted to carry off a lot of
apples; he meant to take only a few. And so reasoning, dallying with
temptation, poor Bennie was overcome!
Not more than five minutes later Bennie lay helpless upon the ground,
half-buried under the broken branch and the fallen sign.
“It is a wonder you weren’t killed outright!” said the Squire’s man
who came to pick him up. “As it is I guess the harvest apples and the
Astrachans and the pippins, too, are safe from you for this year! Where
do you live, youngster?”
A broken arm and a sprained ankle! not long in the doing, but what a
long, weary time was the undoing!
“The little rascal! serves him right!” said Mr. Vinton when told of the
accident. “Send Dr. Grant down to set the arm, and tell him to attend
to the boy, but don’t let May hear of it. She will be in a worry if she
gets hold of it.”
But when was there a case of suffering among the poor, especially in
her vicinity, that May Vinton did not get hold of sooner or later? It
was not many days before Ellen appeared at Bennie’s poor home with a
basket of necessaries and delicacies for the boy’s comfort, and asking
if there was anything further needed. In the basket was a quantity of
great mellow-looking, yellow harvest apples; but when Bennie saw them
he turned his face away and said, “Take them away! I don’t want to
see any harvests, ever! It was good of Miss Vinton to send them, but
I can’t bear them! It seems just as if they had printed all over them
‘Thief! thief!’”
Poor Bennie, his sin had found him out!
FAYE HUNTINGTON.
======
OH, dear December, hurry on,
Oh, please—oh, please come quick:
Bring snow so white,
Bring fires so bright,
And bring us good St. Nick!
—_Selected._
THE COMPLAINT OF SANTA CLAUS.
THE snow lies deep on the frozen ground,
And the Christmas night is cold,
And I shine before the rime so hoar—
Can it be I am growing old?
Long years ago when the Christmas chimes
Made merry the midnight sky,
When the carolers’ call filled houses and hall,
And wassail and mirth ran high;
When the harlequin mummers reeled and danced,
And the great Yule log blazed bright;
When the walls were green with a summer sheen,
In holly and yew bedight;
When the faces of all, the young, the old,
Were brimming with sparkling cheer—
Aye, those were the times when Christmas chimes
Were the merriest sounds of the year!
I snapped my fingers in Jack Frost’s teeth,
While the snow was wavering down,
And the icicles hung from my beard I flung—
My beard that was then so brown!
And I wrapped myself in my grizzly coat,
And lit my pipe with a coal
From Hecla’s crest, where I stopped to rest,
On my way from the Northern Pole.
My reindeers—O, they were brisk and gay—
My sledge, it could stand a pull;
My pack, tho’ great, seemed a feather’s weight,
No matter how crammed and full!
My heart it was stout in those good old days,
And warm with an inward glee;
For I thought of the mirths of a thousand hearts,
Where the little ones watched for me.
So I gathered my sweets from far and near,
And I piled my cunningest toys
(Unheeding the swirls) for the innocent girls,
And the rollicking, roguish boys.
But the times have sobered and changed since then,
My merriment flags forlorn;
My beard is as white as on Christmas night
Of old was the Glaston thorn.
Tho’ my wrinkled-up lips still hold the pipe,
No longer the smoke-wreath curls;
But saddest to see, of sights for me—
My frolicsome boys and girls
Have grown so knowing, they dare to say—
Those protesters wise and small—
That all saints deceive, and they don’t believe
In a Santa Claus at all!
Ah, me! ’tis a fateful sound to hear;
’Tis gall in my wassail cup;
The darlings I’ve spoiled, so wrought for and toiled,
The children have given me up!
My heart is broken. I’ll break my pipe,
And my tinkling team may go,
And bury my sledge on the trackless edge
Of the wastes of the Lapland snow.
My useless pack I will fling away,
And in Germany’s forests hoar,
From an icy steep I will plunge leagues deep,
And never be heard of more.
MARGARET J. PRESTON.
INTRODUCTIONS.
[Illustration: H]IS name is Bobby Williams, and he is the boy who
stands with smiling face, and hands in pockets, watching the huge snow
ball being rolled to its place.
He has been doing something besides watch; not a boy in the crowd
worked harder than he, until he was red in the face and quite out of
breath, and two others came to take his place; then stood Bobby in the
biting northeast wind, watching.
You should have seen that same boy at midnight, or a little later.
Sitting bolt upright in the big chair in his mother’s room; a hurried
fire burning in the grate; his feet in hot water up to his knees, his
hands in hot water up to his elbows, spoonfuls of disgusting stuff
being poked down his throat every few minutes, and his very wail in
protest,—so hoarse that you would have been in danger of mistaking it
for the voice of the big dog out in the back kitchen.
It seemed as though the doctor would never reach there, and when he
came, as though he did nothing; and when something was really done, and
Bobby was somewhat relieved, it seemed as though the weary night would
never be gone.
But it was, at last; and Bobby, pale and limp, with flannel about his
neck, and a smell of pork and oil in the air, was tucked into his
mother’s bed, and listened to the merry jingle of the school bell.
Then said the tired mother: “Bobby, how was it all; did you get very
warm yesterday, playing?”
“I guess I did!” replied Bobby hoarsely; “I never was so hot in my
life! We was rolling a great big snow-ball; the biggest we ever made.”
“And when you stopped rolling, what did you do?”
“I stood still and watched the other fellows, four of them; it was as
much as they could do to move it an inch.”
“Stood still in the sharp wind, all in a perspiration, I suppose! And
did you have your overcoat on?”
“No, ma’am,” said Bobby hoarsely, his cheeks growing red for shame. “I
forgot.”
“And don’t you remember, Bobby, how often I have told you not to stand
still, out in a cold wind, when you are warm?”
Said Bobby, “I forgot.”
Now the truth is, that you are very well acquainted with Bobby, for
that night’s work for father and mother, and grandma, and auntie, and
the doctor and himself is a fair specimen of what Bobby can do for the
discomfort of the world; and the words on his lips in excuse for all
sorts of heedlessnesses, and even downright disobediences, are always
“I forgot.”
Oh, me! What a “forgetter” has Bobby!
PANSY.
[Illustration: BOBBY WATCHES THE “OTHER FELLOWS.”]
_Volume 15. Number 8._ Copyright, 1887, by D. LOTHROP COMPANY.
_December 24, 1887._
THE PANSY.
[Illustration: COCKATOO
AN AUSTRALIAN CHRISTMAS.]
THE OLD BRIMMER PLACE.
BY MARGARET SIDNEY.