LEANING.
A pair of shiny steel skates had been among Johnny’s Christmas presents,
and had very nearly eclipsed all the rest, although he had many pretty
and useful things beside.
He had never yet learned to skate, for the only good skating-pond was at
some little distance from his home, and he had no big brother to take
him in hand, and see that he had only the number of falls which must be
accepted by nearly every one who ventures on skates for the first time.
But the winter following the famous picnic of which I have just told you,
Pep Warren’s almost grown-up brother Robert was at home, because he had
strained his eyes, and been forbidden to study for a month or two; but,
as he sensibly observed, he didn’t skate on his eyes, and, being a big,
jolly, good-natured fellow, he gave Pep a pair of skates exactly like
Johnny’s, and offered to teach both the little boys to skate.
He had made this offer privately to Johnny’s mother and father before
Christmas, for he had heard Johnny bewailing himself, and saying he
didn’t believe he ever should learn to skate till he was as old as papa,
and then he wouldn’t wish to!
Robert said nothing at the time, but made his kind offer in season for
Kriss Kringle to learn that nothing he could bring Johnny Leslie would so
delight his heart as a pair of steel skates would.
Johnny came home from his trial trip on the new skates with his
transports a little moderated. He was “not conquered, but exhausted with
conquering,” and quite ready to go to bed early that night, and to submit
to a thorough rubbing with arnica first. His head ached a little. Some of
the numerous and hitherto unknown stars which he had seen still danced
before his eyes, and he felt as if he had at least half-a-dozen each of
elbows and knees.
[Illustration]
“You see, mamma,” he said, confidentially, as his mother’s soft, warm
hand, wet with comforting arnica, passed tenderly over the black and blue
places, “I looked at the other fellows, and it seemed to me it was just
as easy as rolling off a log. Rob was cutting his name and figures of
eight and all sorts of things while Pep and I were putting on our skates,
and I thought I had nothing to do but sail in—begin, I mean, and it would
sort of come naturally, like walking!
“I think Pep must have been born sensible—he hardly ever wants to do
foolish things, the way I do, and, when Rob held out his hand, Pep just
took it, and went very slowly at first, exactly as Rob told him, and, if
you’ll believe it, he could really stand alone, and even strike out a
little, before we came home!
[Illustration]
“But I started out alone to meet Rob, and, first thing I knew, my feet
went up in the air, as if they had balloons on, and down I came, whack!
right on the back of my head! I tell you, I saw Roman candles and
rockets, but Rob helped me up, and only laughed a little, though I must
have looked dreadfully funny, and then he took my hand, and told me how
to work my feet, and I got along splendidly, till I felt sure my first
flop was only an accident, and that I could go alone well enough. So I
let go of Rob’s hand, and kept up about two minutes, and was just crowing
to myself when everything seemed to give way at once, and the ice flew
up and hit all my knees and elbows, and there I was in a heap, with my
skates locked together as if they were a padlock. Rob sorted me out, and
tried not to laugh, till I told him to go ahead, and then he just roared!
He said if I’d only been lighted, I’d have made such a gorgeous pin-wheel!
“Perhaps you’ll think I’d had enough—I thought I had then myself, but
just before we started for home I believed I really had got the hang of
it this time, so I let go again. I struck out all right, and went ahead
for two or three yards, and Rob and Pep had just begun to clap their
hands and hurrah when before I knew what had happened I was sure I felt
my backbone coming out of the top of my head, and there I was again,
sitting down as flat as a pancake, and feeling a good deal flatter! I
didn’t try any more after that, but just took off my skates and came
home.”
Mrs. Leslie could not help smiling at this graphic account of Johnny’s
first attempt at skating, but when she tucked him up and gave him his
last kiss, she said,—
“Johnny, do you know of what your adventures to-day have made me think? A
verse in the Bible—‘Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he
fall.’ Nearly all our falls come from being very sure we can stand, and
from refusing the offered help.”
“Pep didn’t fall once,” said Johnny, thoughtfully, “though it was his
first skate, too, and he’s younger than I am. Yes, I see what you mean,
mamma, and I hope I’ll remember it at the right time—but I’m so apt not
to remember till afterward!”
“That is why we are taught to ask that God’s grace ‘may always
prevent’—that is, go before to smooth the way—‘and follow us,’” replied
his mother, as she stooped to give him another last kiss.
Johnny applied his lesson to his next attempt at skating, and came home
triumphant, saying,—
“We didn’t fall once, mamma, either of us, and Rob let us go a little way
alone, but he skated backward, just in front of us, and caught us every
time we staggered much.”
But in two weeks, during which time the skating remained good, Rob’s
pupils ventured fearlessly all about the pond, without a helping hand,
and had even begun to try to cut letters and figures—though not, it must
be admitted, with any great amount of success. Mrs. Leslie declared that
she must see some of the wonderful performances of which she heard so
much, so one bright afternoon, when the mildness of the air threatened to
spoil their fun before long, she wrapped Tiny and Polly warmly up, hired
Mr. Chipman’s safest horse and best wagon, and drove in state to the pond.
The boys were delighted, and did their best, but of course, in his
eagerness to excel himself, Johnny managed to fall once or twice, and Rob
was obliged to testify that this was now quite unusual.
Then they begged for Polly—Tiny had been allowed to leave the wagon when
it first arrived, and was successfully and joyfully sliding.
“Oh, do let us have Polly, if it’s just for five minutes, mamma!” said
Johnny, eagerly. “We’ll take off our skates and give her a slide. It’s
first-rate sliding, here by the bank, and it’s quite safe.”
So Miss Polly, chuckling with delight, was lifted from the wagon, while
Johnny and Pep pulled off their skates, but she was a little frightened
when she felt the slippery ice under her feet, and “hung down like a rag
doll,” as Johnny said, instead of putting herself in sliding position.
[Illustration: THE SKATING LESSON.]
“Stand up straight, Polly, and put your feet down flat, _so_,” said
Johnny, as Polly slid helplessly along on the backs of her heels, resting
all her little weight confidingly upon the boys. And, after two or
three earnest explanations from Johnny and Pep, she suddenly seemed to
understand; she stiffened up, grasped a hand on each side, and went off
in such style that the boys had almost to run to keep up with her, and
she obeyed her mother’s call very unwillingly.
“Wasn’t it fun to see her little face, though!” said Johnny, as he and
Pep walked home, having declined the proffered drive for the sake of a
little more skating. “I think she thought something had made her feet
slippery, all of a sudden—she’d never been on ice before.”
The thaw came very soon after this, as thaws will come, even when people
have new steel skates, but happily, there are always tops and marbles,
and, as some wise person has remarked, “When one door shuts, another
opens.”
[Illustration]
Johnny did not play marbles “for keeps”; his father had explained to him
that taking anything without giving a fair return for it is dishonesty,
and as he quite understood this, he had no desire to “win” marbles from
boys who could not shoot so well as he could, but he enjoyed playing
fully as much as anybody did, and found the game exciting enough when
played merely for the hope of victory.
It was in the midst of a very even game that the school bell rang one
morning. Johnny and one other boy were the champions; the rest had “gone
out.” They lingered for one more shot—two more—then just a third to
finish the game, and then, as they hurried into the schoolroom, they
found that the roll had been called, and they were marked late.
Johnny had intended to take one more look at his history lesson, but
there was no time. He was sure of it all, except two or three dates, and
of course, one of those dates came to him—or rather, didn’t come; it
was the question that came. The next boy gave the answer, and Johnny’s
history lesson for the first time that term, was marked “Imperfect.”
This vexed him so, that he gave only a small half of his mind to his
mental arithmetic, and he lost his place in the class,—lost it to a boy
who was almost certain to keep it, too.
Thinking of this misfortune, he dropped a penful of ink on his spotless
new copy-book, and, although he promptly licked it off, an ugly smear
remained, and the writing teacher reproved him for untidiness. So he was
very glad when two o’clock struck, and he could go home and tell his
mournful story, for he had an uncomfortable feeling, under the injured
one, that the real, responsible cause of his misfortunes was one Johnny
Leslie.
When his mother had heard it all with much sympathy, she paused a moment,
and then repeated these words,—
“‘That they who do lean only upon the hope of Thy Heavenly grace, may
evermore be defended by Thy mighty power.’”
A sudden light came into Johnny’s face, and he exclaimed,—
“That was it, mamma dear! I wasn’t leaning on it at all, and of course,
I went down! I know all about it now. I didn’t get up when you called me
the first time, and I said my prayers in a hurry, just as if they were
the multiplication table, and I didn’t wait to read the verse in my
little book—I meant to do it after breakfast, but the marbles rattled
in my pocket, and I forgot all about it, I was in such a hurry to have
a game before school. And I wouldn’t stop to think, when the bell rang,
except a sort of make-believe think that a minute more would not make me
too late to answer to my name, and so I lost the chance to go over those
dates. And the question I missed in mental arithmetic was a mean little
easy thing, if I’d had my wits about me, but I was worrying about the
history, and I made that dreadful blot because I was thinking of both,
and did not look, and dug my pen down to the bottom of the inkstand. It’s
just like ‘The House that Jack built.’”
[Illustration]
“Yes,” said his mother, “I don’t think anything, the smallest thing,
stands quite alone; it is fast to something else that it pulls after it,
so we must keep a sharp lookout for the first things. We can’t rub out
this bad day—it is like the blot on your copy book; you will keep seeing
the mark, even if you don’t make another. But then, you can use the mark,
with the dear Saviour’s help, to keep you from making another. To-morrow
will be another day. You know Tiny and you like Tennyson’s ‘Bugle Song’
so much, here is something else he said,—
‘Men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves, to higher things.’
So to-morrow you must stand on this thoughtless, careless Johnny, who
forgets what he ought to remember, and be the Johnny you _can_ be, if
you ‘lean only on the hope’ of that Heavenly grace which God gives to His
faithful children.”
It was an humble, but bright and hopeful Johnny who sprang up at the
first call the next morning, and started for school, with fresh courage
and resolution.
Try not to be defeated, little soldier, but, if defeats come, do you too
try to make them stepping-stones to victory.