thinking at the same time, "I am sure grandpapa need not have said that
to me."
"You do not always have as many temptations as you do here," said her
grandfather; "and let me tell you one thing, Amity: it is a very good
way of getting ready for a failure to think too much of yourself. If
you begin or try to go on in your own strength, you will never succeed."
Judge Bogardus did not often speak in this way, and Amity was all the
more struck with his words. They seemed to bring her down somehow from
a little pinnacle of self-conceit she had been standing on, and she
answered quite humbly:
"I know, grandpapa. That was what mother was always saying."
"Your mother was a good woman, my dear, and I hope you will be another.
Teach the poor little boy by all means if you can, but don't expect too
much of him; and now go and get your hat. I want you to ride with me."
The next morning the knitting lessons began. Poor Johnny was very slow,
and it was two or three days before he could catch the motions so as
to go on by himself; but at last he did so, and could make out to knit
a row without dropping more than half the stitches. Amity used to knit
every other row (a very good way to do when one is teaching any child
to knit).
"Shall I ever learn, do you think?" asked Johnny.
"Oh yes! You are doing a little better every day. Pretty soon you can
begin to knit sponge-towel, and when it is done, you can give it to
Mrs. Franklin for a present."
"Won't that be nice? When I go where my mamma is, Amity, I shall tell
her how good you have been to her poor little boy, And you, too," he
added, turning to Mrs. Franklin, who sat by as if afraid she might be
hurt; "I shall tell her you were almost the same as my own mother; not
quite the same, you know—nobody could be that."
"You are my dear little boy," said Mrs. Franklin, kissing the poor
little thin hand Johnny held out to her; "but your hands are hot,
Johnny; does your side ache again?"
"A little," said Johnny.
"Where have you been, and where do you keep yourself all the mornings?"
asked Emma Fairchild, as she met Amity on the veranda when the lesson
was done. "Why don't you come out after breakfast when it is cool and
pleasant?"
"I am busy then," said Amity.
"Why, surely you don't do lessons now you are here!" said Emma.
"Not my own lessons," returned Amity.
"I know what she does: she is teaching that idiot boy to knit," said
Maud. "Mrs. Franklin told mamma so."
"Are you really?" asked Emma.
Amity nodded.
"And can he learn?"
"Oh yes! He can knit quite a good deal, and he is so pleased, poor
little fellow! But, Maud, you shouldn't call him 'an idiot.' He is not
that, though he is backward, and oh, so slow!"
"And he really likes it?"
"Oh yes! And I have taught him some other things, too."
"What things?"
"Little hymns and verses and such things. He can learn almost anything
with a rhyme to it."
"Well, anyhow, I think you are real good to teach him," said Emma;
"isn't she, Maud?"
"Yes, I suppose so, but I shouldn't like it," said Maud; "and it isn't
so very much to do, either. Mamma knows a lady that founded a hospital
for poor children—paid for it all herself, and her name is on the front
of it. That would be something worth while—something that every one
would know."
"But we ought not to do good things just to have people know them, I
suppose; should we?" asked Emma, doubtfully. "I should not think that
was right."
"Of course it isn't right. It is just like the Pharisees sounding a
trumpet before them," answered Amity, with decision.
"Everybody does, anyhow," persisted Maud. "My mother gave ten dollars
and some clothes to the Old Woman's Home, and because it was not put in
the paper with the other donations, she said she would never give them
anything again. * But, Amity, you are very rich, ain't you?"
* A fact, I am sorry to say.
"I shall be some time, I suppose," said Amity.
"Then I should think you would like to do some grand thing—like
building a hospital or an asylum. Just think! You might have a
beautiful building on one of the avenues, with your name on it for
every one to read when you are dead."
"And what good would that do you?" asked Emma.
"Oh, I don't say I should do it. That is quite another thing," answered
Maud, arranging her sash as she spoke. "I believe in using your money
for yourself and having a good time. People are never grateful for
being helped—ma says so. She said, after Mrs. Franklin went away:
'Well, I only hope they will be grateful, that's all; but I don't
expect it;' and she said it was a shame for Mrs. Franklin to impose on
you so."
"She doesn't impose on me," said Amity, rather vexed.
"Oh, well! It's all right so long as you don't think so," said Maud,
with a disagreeable little laugh. "I should think it a good deal of an
imposition if any one was to get all that out of me. Ma says, 'Mrs.
Franklin knows which side her bread is buttered.'"
"It wasn't a very pretty speech if ma did say it," said Emma, imitating
Maud's affected pronunciation. "Come, Amity, let's go and get some
Columbia water."
The girls took their glasses of the clear, sparkling water, and then
walked away through the grounds. Emma chattered away in her usual
off-hand fashion, which, to do her justice, was usually a very pleasant
and good-natured one. Amity was so silent that Emma presently broke off
her prattle, and asked her what she was thinking about.
"About Maud," answered Amity. "I don't think you need have been so
sharp with her, Emma. I am afraid she was offended."
"Well, I dare say you are right," replied Emma. "I don't think I am
apt to be sharp," (which was quite true), "but, somehow, Maud does
always rub me the wrong way—she and her mother. Well, I don't know how
to say what I mean, but they somehow seem to me to care only for the
outside—not for what things really are, but only what people will say
about them."
"You needn't have mimicked her, or spoken so about her mother any way,"
said Amity. "You wouldn't like it yourself, and I think you ought to be
more careful. People will think you are very inconsistent."
Now all this was true enough, and if Amity had hinted it or even spoken
it out to Emma in a more gentle and humble manner, I have no doubt that
the little girl would have taken it kindly, for she was really trying
hard to be a good Christian child. But Amity spoke sharply, and with
a tone of superiority which "rubbed Emma the wrong way," as she said
directly.
"Well, you needn't lecture me if I did," said she, sharply, in her
turn. "You talk just like that horrid girl in the book we were reading,
who scolded her grandmother for wasting her time knitting a bed-quilt." *
* I cannot now remember in what book I met this young lady, but she is
no creation of mine.
Amity drew herself up. "If you are going to talk like that, I think we
had better drop the subject," said she, trying, without much success,
to look and speak like Aunt Julia. But the air which may be quite
imposing in a tall, handsome grown-up lady has quite the contrary
effect in a dumpy, tow-headed little girl.
And Emma only laughed.
"Dear me, how grand!" said she. "But it isn't a bit of use, Amity: you
can't look tall if you try."
Amity did not condescend to say another word. She turned and walked
back as quickly as possible by the way she had come.
"Oh don't, Amity!" called Emma, sorry in a moment, as she always was if
she hurt any one's feelings. "I didn't mean to make you angry; I was
only in fun."
But Amity would not look around.
"Oh dear!" said Emma to herself. "How sorry I am! And she was right,
too: I ought not to have spoken so to Maud. To be sure, she need not
have put on such airs, but then I need not have laughed. I mean to find
both the girls after dinner, and make it up."
And Emma, who, as I have said, was really trying to serve her Master,
folded her hands and said a little silent prayer for forgiveness and
help to do better another time.
It would have been well for Amity if she had done the same. But she did
not. She only thought how unkind Emma had been, and how careless and
thoughtless she was. And then she began to think about what Maud had
said, and to wonder whether Mrs. Franklin and Johnny were really as
grateful as they ought to be for her kindness to them.
In fact, Amity had for some days been getting into a bad way. She had
been thinking how much better it was to be good and useful (as she was)
than to be handsome like Emma, or splendidly dressed like Maud, or to
play the piano and sing like Jenny Barnard! How good it was in her to
stay a whole hour with Johnny every morning, instead of running out
to play! There is no more sure and certain way of becoming worse than
other people than this of thinking how much better we are than other
people.
Then it was such a grand idea, this of founding an institution like
the lady Maud had spoken of. What should it be—an orphan asylum, or a
hospital for children, or a school for idiots like Johnny? All that
money would be hers when she was twenty-five, and the great place at
Rockside, and the two grand houses in Fifth Avenue that Aunt Julia had
shown her. Perhaps she might turn Rockside itself into an asylum, to be
called "The Bogardus Institute"; or should she call it "Amity Park"?
Yes, that would be the best; then, when people asked the meaning of the
name, they would be told that it was the name of the young lady who
had given all her fortune to found this noble charity. The last phrase
pleased Amity very much, for it sounded like something she had read.
The same evening Amity and Maud were standing together on the veranda.
Amity had not seen Emma since their little tiff in the morning, but she
had sought out Maud as soon as she returned from her afternoon ride
with her grandfather.
"Perhaps I can do her some good," she had said to herself. "At any
rate, I ought to show her that I don't mean to insult her, like Emma."
If any one had told Amity that she wanted to show how much better she
was than Emma, Amity would have denied with scorn that she ever thought
of such a thing.
As Maud and Amity were standing together, Emma came up to them, her
cheeks very pink and her eyes looking brighter than usual, and a little
as if the tears might be pretty near them.
"Maud," said she, winking rather hard, "I am sorry I mimicked you this
morning, and spoke so about your mother. Please forgive me."
Maud stared a moment, as if she did not quite understand Emma's
meaning. Then she laughed, not mockingly, but quite good-humoredly.
"My! That wasn't anything," said she. "I had forgotten all about it,
and I didn't care anyway. I say a great deal worse things than that
myself, very often. I couldn't think what you meant at first."
"Then you are not angry?" said Emma.
"No, not a bit. I am not so silly as that, I hope. I did not mind it at
all and if I had, I should have got all over it by this time. I never
can keep mad, if I try ever so hard. But anyhow, it is real sweet in
you to come and say you are sorry—isn't it, Amity?"
"It is better to take care and not say things one has to be sorry for,"
said Amity. Somehow she did not feel pleased at all with the turn
things had taken.
Her remark did not make Emma's task any easier, but she had come to do
her duty, and she did it.
"And, Amity, I am sorry I laughed at you, and said you were like that
horrid girl in the book. It was all true what you said, and I have been
thinking about it ever since."
"If you are sorry, of course that is all about it," answered Amity,
coldly; "only, another time I hope you won't be so ready to snap one
up, that's all."
"Well now, Amity, I call that mean," said Maud, as Emma went slowly
away, and entered the house.
"What is mean?"
"Taking Emma up that way, when she said she was sorry. I am sure it
is more than I would have done, after what you said, and I don't set
myself up to be pious either. I sha'n't forget it in a hurry. How
lovely she looked, didn't she?"
"Handsome is that handsome does," replied Amity, quoting her
grandfather's proverb. "She just wanted to make a scene."
"Amity, for shame!" said Maud, who had a good disposition, and might
have been a good girl if she had been taught. "I don't believe she ever
thought of such a thing."
"Of course you know all about it," said Amity, tartly.
"I don't know anything about it, nor you either," returned Maud. "You
can't see inside of Emma's heart any more than I can. You know what we
had in the Bible lesson only last Sunday—'Judge not, that ye be not
judged' (Matt. 7:1)."
"It doesn't mean such things," said Amity.
"What does it mean then? I don't pretend to be pious—sometimes I think
I should like to be."
"Then why don't you?" asked Amity, contemplating her, and thinking that
here was a nice opening for the "talk" she had prepared to give Maud.
"Well, for several reasons. I wasn't brought up that way, for one
thing; but if I were going to be pious, I would rather have Emma's kind
than yours."
The "talk" did not seem possible after this very outspoken remark.
And when Maud said, "I am going to find Emma," Amity did not try to
keep her.
CHAPTER FIFTH.
THE KNITTING FINISHED.
ALL that evening Amity staid by herself, thinking over the wonderful
and glorious things she would do when she was grown-up, and had her
fortune in her own hands. She had not been given to thinking very much
about this fortune, and therefore it had hitherto done her no harm;
for it is not money, but "the love of money," which "is the root of
all evil." But now she was thinking of it, and that in one of the most
undesirable ways in the world, for she was considering how she should
spend it, not for the glory of God and the good of others, but to
increase her own consequence in the eyes of the world.
The result was that she quite forgot the cotton and needles she had
promised to buy for Johnny, and came near forgetting his lesson in the
morning. She was so late in coming that Mrs. Franklin sent a messenger
to know if she meant to give the lesson.
"Of course I do," answered Amity, so shortly that her grandfather
looked over his spectacles. "I only wish I had said I would come every
other morning."
"It might have been as well," remarked her grandfather; "but you cannot
very well change the plan now you have begun, especially as we go away
so soon. But don't waste any more time, for I want you to go over to
Albany with me at half-past twelve to meet Aunt Julia, and it is after
nine now."
"I might miss the lesson for one morning," said Amity.
"No, no, don't do that: the poor little fellow will feel very much
disappointed. And besides, a promise is a promise; remember that,
little girl."
"I wish grandfather would not always call me a little girl, and before
people too," said Amity to herself as she went along the hall and up
the long stairs: "I am not such a baby as all that. And I don't see why
he should care so much more for Johnny's comfort than mine. I do think,
as Mrs. Wickford says, it is taking a great deal out of me to expect me
to spend an hour every day with that poor little idiot."
Johnny was looking out for Amity, and his first eager words were, "Have
you got the cotton, Amity?"
Amity was vexed at her own forgetfulness, and seized the first excuse
that came to her mind. Now excuses are very dangerous things to handle
for people who wish to speak the exact truth.
"I haven't got the cotton, Johnny, because I am going over to Albany
to-day, and can get it so much better there."
Johnny's pale face flushed and his eyes filled with tears. Like other
people of deficient mind, he was apt to set his heart very strongly on
whatever was promised him. People who have the care of such persons
cannot be too careful not to disappoint them.
"But you said you would get it—you said you would!" he repeated
piteously. "And now you haven't brought it at all!"
"Hush, Johnny; don't cry, my dear," said Mrs. Franklin: "you will make
your head ache. Amity will get your cotton in Albany, and that will be
a great deal nicer."
"Of course it will," said Amity, feeling both vexed and ashamed. "And
besides, you will be able to knit a great deal better when you have had
another lesson. We will begin the towels to-morrow."
"'To-morrow' never comes," said Johnny. "It is always to-day, all the
time. I don't see the use of talking about 'to-morrow' when it never is
'to-morrow.'" *
* This remark was really made by a child like Johnny.
"There is some truth in that," said Mrs. Franklin, smiling; then, in
a low voice, she said to Amity, "Never mind—only don't disappoint him
again. It is so hard to divert his mind from anything he has set his
heart on, and especially anything that has been promised him."
"Well, come, Johnny, if you want to knit; I haven't any time to spare,"
said Amity, not in the pleasantest tone in the world. "Take care! You
will have all your stitches off."
The sharp warning, as often happens brought on the very trouble it was
meant to prevent. Johnny started nervously, and out came the needle.
Johnny was not as well as usual, and he was already nervous and excited
with waiting and with his disappointment. He dropped the work and began
to cry.
"There now, don't cry," said Amity. "I will pick up the stitches, and
you must be more careful another time. But do stop crying first of
all!" she added, more sharply still, as Johnny sobbed. "I won't touch
the work till you do. There is no earthly use in your being such a
baby. Hush now!"
But for Johnny to stop crying when he once began was impossible, and
the more Amity scolded him the more he cried. Till Mrs. Franklin, who
had gone out, came back to find him utterly beside himself, sobbing and
calling for "mamma" and "Aunty Franklin" by turns.
"You cannot do anything with him now," said Mrs. Franklin to Amity. "He
will go on till he cries himself to sleep. I presume that will be the
worst of it."
"I should think you would govern him, and not let him cry so," remarked
Amity, vexed with herself, with Johnny, and everybody. "I don't believe
it is any kindness to him to let him be so naughty and troublesome."
"Johnny is neither naughty nor troublesome," answered Mrs. Franklin,
a good deal annoyed, for she was very fond of her poor little charge.
"He is very good considering how many hindrances he has. Pray, Miss
Amity, how would you go to work to govern a child with spinal and heart
disease?"
"Anyhow, there is no use in my trying to do any more this morning,"
said Amity, as Johnny's sobs grew worse and worse; "and I must get
ready to go to Albany with grandfather. Good-by, Johnny. I will buy
your cotton in Albany, and if you will be good and not cry, I will
begin your work to-morrow."
"Now you must not talk to me, my dear," said Judge Bogardus, when they
were safely seated in the drawing-room car; "I have a paper to look
over." So saying, he took from his pocket one of those long written
papers which Amity was learning to know by sight, and Amity was left to
her own thoughts.
They were not very pleasant. Amity had been brought up to speak the
truth and to consider a lie one of the worst of sins; and as she looked
back over the events of the morning, she could not but see that the
excuse she had made to Johnny about the cotton was a false one. She
had never thought of buying the cotton in Albany till that minute. She
had forgotten all about it. Moreover, she had been cross and unkind
to Johnny, and pert to Mrs. Franklin. In short, she had behaved like
anything but a Christian.
"Well, I will buy his cotton, and that will make it true, and I will
get him a pretty present beside. Let me see. I have four dollars that
I meant for my sofa cushion like Mrs. Fairchild's, but the cushion can
wait. I wonder if I could buy a little musical box for that. He would
like it, I know, for he is so fond of music; and that would be giving
up something, too, because I really want the cushion, and I shall not
have any more money till next month. Yes, I will buy the music-box if I
can find it, and if not, I will buy him a bird. That will do nicely."
Amity felt quite good as she made mind to sacrifice her cushion to
Johnny, and the good feeling lasted till late in the evening, when
they took the last train for Saratoga. Aunt Julia had not come after
all. They had waited for her to the last minute, and then received a
telegram that she would not arrive for two days more. Amity was tired
and hungry. The car was too dark to read, and grandpapa was too sleepy
to talk; so she had nothing to do but to think.
She had found a very pretty music-box for four dollars, and she had
bought the cotton and some pretty wooden needles for Johnny beside, but
somehow she did not feel satisfied. The lie she had told stuck in her
conscience. You know you sometimes get a "pricker" in your finger, and
do not feel it for some hours or even days. Then it begins to throb and
burn, and unless you can get it out, you will have a bad time with it.
Amity's false excuse was like the thorn. It had been quiet for a while,
but now it began to trouble her. Conscience would persist in calling
it by its right name, and in telling her that she had been unkind and
unfaithful to the poor little motherless, helpless child, and perhaps
had done him more harm than she would ever do him good. She had a very
uneasy feeling as she remembered what Mrs. Franklin said about "heart
disease." What if Johnny should die?
When a person has been brought up in the habit of listening to the
voice of conscience, the habit is not easily broken up. That voice may
be silenced or disregarded for a time, but in some interval of quiet it
will make itself heard, and must be silenced a great many times before
it ceases to speak whenever it has a chance. Now, as Amity sat in the
quiet, half-lighted car, with nobody to talk to and nothing to look at
but the lamps and the two or three gentlemen nodding in their chairs,
her faults showed themselves to her in all their ugliness. She had been
unkind to the poor, helpless little boy who loved her so dearly, she
had broken a promise which she might just as well have kept, and she
had told a lie to hide her own carelessness. Yes, a lie! She I called
it by its right name now. She knew she could have bought the cotton in
Saratoga just as well as in Albany, if she had not forgotten it.
But Amity had not yet gotten quite to the root of the thorn. She felt
ashamed and sorry for her faults, and honestly asked for forgiveness,
and for help to do better. Then she began to think how she had fallen
into such trouble.
"It seems strange it should have come from my wanting to help Johnny!"
she said to herself.
And then, all at once, as if some one had held a mirror up to her, she
saw herself as she really had been for some days. She had not been
thinking nearly so much of helping Johnny as of showing off herself—of
showing how good and self-sacrificing she was—so much better than
Maud, who cared for nothing but her fine white frocks and colored silk
stockings—than Emma, who cared for nothing but play. She had been
thinking how much better it was to be good, as she was, than to be
dressy like Maud or beautiful like Emma. She had taken pains to have
every one know that she spent an hour after breakfast teaching the
little boy to knit, and she had been greatly "set up" in her own good
opinion when the ladies praised her.
Then all those foolish dreams about setting up a hospital, and making
her name famous—Amity could not think of them now without disgust. It
had been her self—her own dear precious self—who was to be praised and
glorified. Of her GOLDEN TEXT—of the motto which her friend Mrs. Paget
had given her that day in the summer-house—she had never thought at all.
Amity buried her face in her hands, leaned her head against the side
of the car, and cried bitterly. She had never been so ashamed and so
unhappy in all her life.
"I wish I had never seen Johnny! I wish I had never come to Saratoga at
all!" was her first thought. "But then I dare say I should have been
just as bad anywhere else!" was her second. And she began to remember
other cases where she had done things "to be seen of men."
It was a very sad two hours that Amity passed in the parlor-car that
night, but it Was one of the most profitable evenings of her whole
life. They were very late in reaching Saratoga, and Amity went straight
to her own room. She was very tired and sleepy, and her head ached
with sight-seeing and with crying, but she did not go to bed till she
had kneeled down and confessed all her sin to her heavenly Father,
and asked forgiveness in his name whose blood "cleanseth us from all
sin" (1 John 1:7). Then feeling somewhat comforted she lay down to
sleep, after she had taken from her bag the presents she had bought for
Johnny, and set them on her dressing-table.