Lulu's first thought on awaking the next morning, was of the talk of the
previous evening, with her father. He had said she might have the
pleasure of telling Gracie the good news in regard to the money to be
earned by good conduct, and that which was to be given by him in the
name of each of his older children; also the privilege he would accord
them of selecting the particular cause, or causes, to which the money
should go.
Eager to avail herself of the permission, and see Gracie's delight, she
sprang from her bed, ran to the door of communication between their
sleeping rooms, which generally stood open--always at night--and peeped
cautiously in.
Gracie's head was still on her pillow, but at that instant she stirred,
opened her eyes, and called out in a pleased tone, "O Lu, so you are up
first!" speaking softly though, for fear of disturbing their father and
Violet, in the room beyond, the door there being open also.
Lulu hurried to it and closed it gently, then turning toward her sister,
"Yes," she said, "but it's early, and you needn't get up just yet. I'm
coming to creep in with you for a few minutes while I tell you
something that I'm sure will please you."
She crept into Grace's bed as she spoke, and they lay for a while
clasped in each other's arms, Lulu talking very fast, Grace listening
and now and then putting in a word or two. She was quite as much pleased
with what Lulu had to tell, as the latter had anticipated.
"Oh won't it be just lovely to have so much money to do good with!" she
exclaimed when all had been told. "Haven't we got the very best and
dearest father in the world? I don't believe, Lu, there's another one
half so dear and kind and nice. We ought to be ever such good children!"
"Yes, but I'm not," sighed Lulu. "O Gracie, I'd give anything to be as
good as you are!"
"Now don't talk so, Lu; you make me feel like a hypocrite; because I'm
not good," said Grace.
"You are; at any rate you're a great deal better than I am," asserted
Lulu with warmth. "You never disobey papa, or get into a passion; and I
don't think you love finery as I do. Gracie, I want that ring yet; oh I
should like to have it ever so much! and I oughtn't to want it; it's
very selfish, because to buy it would use up money that ought to go to
send missionaries to the heathen, or do good to some poor miserable
creature; and it's wrong for me to want it, because papa says it
wouldn't be good for me; and if I were as good as I ought to be I'd
never want anything he doesn't think best for me to have. But, oh dear,
how can I help it when I'm so fond of pretty things!"
"Lu," said Grace, softly, "I do believe that if you ask the Lord Jesus
to help you to quit wanting it, he will. But if you didn't care for it,
it wouldn't be denying yourself to do without it for the sake of the
heathen."
"Maybe so; but I don't believe papa would let me have it even if I
wouldn't consent to give it up, and begged him ever so hard for it."
"No, I s'pose not, for he loves us too well to give us anything that he
thinks will make it harder for us to love and serve God and go to heaven
when we die."
"Yes, and of course that's the best way for people to love their
children. It's time for me to get up now, but you'd better lie still a
little longer."
With that Lulu slipped from the bed, ran back to her room, and kneeling
down there, gave thanks for the sleep of the past night, for health and
strength, a good home, her dear, kind father to take care of, and
provide for her, and love her, and all her many, many comforts and
blessings; and confessing her sins, she asked to be forgiven for Jesus'
sake, and to have strength given her to do all her duty that day,--to
be patient, obedient, industrious, kind and helpful to others and
willing to deny herself, especially in the matter of the ring she had
been wishing for so ardently.
When the captain came into the apartments of his little daughters for a
few minutes chat before breakfast, as was his custom, he found them both
neatly dressed and looking bright and happy.
"How are you, my darlings?" he asked, kissing them in turn, then seating
himself and drawing them into his arms.
"I think we're both very well, papa," answered Lulu.
"Yes, indeed!" said Grace, "and I'm ever so glad of what Lu's been
telling me 'bout the money you are going to give us if we're good, and
the choosing 'bout where the other shall go that you're going to give to
help send missionaries to the heathen. Thank you for both, dear papa;
but don't you think we ought to be good without being paid for it?"
"Yes, I certainly do, my dear little girl; but at the same time I want
my children to have the luxury of being able to give something which
they have, in some sense, earned for that purpose. I want you to learn
in your own experience the truth of the words of the Lord Jesus, 'It is
more blessed to give than to receive.'
"Now while you are so young, not capable of earning much in any other
way, your proper business the task of gaining knowledge and skill to fit
you for future usefulness, I see no more fitting way than this for you
to be furnished with money for religious and benevolent purposes."
"Papa," asked Lulu, "do you think it is never right for anybody to have
diamonds or handsome jewelry of any kind?"
"I do not think it my business to judge in such matters for everybody,"
he answered, caressing her and smiling down tenderly into her eyes; "but
I must judge for myself--applying the rules the Bible gives me--and to a
great extent for my children also while they are so young."
"Not for Mamma Vi?" Lulu asked, with some little hesitation.
"No; she is my wife, not my child, and old enough to judge for herself."
"She has a great deal of beautiful jewelry," remarked Lulu with an
involuntary sigh, "and Grandma Elsie has still more. Rosie asked her
once to show it to us children, and she did. Oh she has just the
loveliest rings and whole sets of jewelry--pins and ear-rings to
match--and chains and bracelets! I'm sure they must be worth a great
deal of money; Rosie said they were, and I'm sure Grandma Elsie is a
real true Christian--a very, very good one and that Mamma Vi is too."
"And I agree with you in that," was the emphatic reply. "But my daughter
and I have nothing to do with deciding their duty for them in regard to
this or other things. God does not require that of us; indeed forbids
it; 'Judge not, that ye be not judged,' Jesus said.
"But I see plainly that my duty is as I explained it to you last
evening, and I thought then you were convinced that it would be selfish
and wrong for you and me to spend a large sum for useless ornament that
might otherwise be used for the good of our fellow creatures, and the
advancement of Christ's kingdom."
"Yes, papa, I was, and I'm trying, and asking God to help me, not to
want the ring I asked you for; but I'm afraid it'll take me quite a
while to quite stop wishing for it," she sighed.
"You will conquer at length, if you keep on trying and asking for help,"
he said, giving her a tender kiss.
"A good plan will be to fill your thoughts with other things," he went
on; "your lessons while in the school-room, after that you may find it
pleasant to begin planning for Christmas gifts to be made or bought for
those you love, and others whom you would like to help. I shall give
each of you--including Max--as much extra spending money as I did last
year."
"Beside all that for benevolence, papa?" they asked in surprise and
delight.
"Yes; what I provide you with for benevolence, is something aside from
your spending money, which you are at liberty to do with as you please,
within certain bounds," he said rising and taking a hand of each as the
breakfast bell sounded out its summons to the morning meal.
Misconduct and poor recitations were alike very rare in the school-room
at Woodburn; neither found a place there to-day, so that the captain had
only commendations to bestow, and they were heartily and gladly given.
The ice and snow had entirely disappeared, and the roads were muddy; too
muddy, it was thought, to make travel over them particularly agreeable;
but the children obtained sufficient exercise in romping over the wide
porches and trotting round the grounds on their ponies.
But in spite of the bad condition of the roads, the Ion carriage drove
over early in the afternoon, and Grandma Elsie, Mrs. Elsie Leland--her
namesake daughter--Rosie and Evelyn alighted from it. Everybody was
delighted to see them, and to hear that they would stay to tea.
"O girls," said Lulu, "come up to my room and take off your things. I've
something to tell you," and she looked so gay and happy that they felt
quite sure it was something that pleased her greatly.
"I think I can guess what it is," laughed Rosie; "your father has
promised you the diamond ring you want so badly."
"No, it isn't that; you may have another guess; but I don't believe you
could hit the right thing if you should guess fifty or a hundred times."
"Then I sha'n't try. I give it up. Don't you, Eva?"
"Yes, please tell us, Lu," said Evelyn.
Then Lulu, talking fast and eagerly, repeated to them what she had told
to Grace, in bed that morning.
"Oh how nice!" Evelyn exclaimed. "How I should like to be in your place,
Lu!"
"I think it's nice, too," Rosie said, "and I'd like mamma or grandpa to
do the same by me. But I'd want my pearls too," she added, laughing.
"Mamma's rich enough to give me them, and do all she need do for
missions and the poor beside."
"But so very, very much is needed," remarked Evelyn.
"I've read in some of the religious papers, that if every church member
would give but a small sum yearly, there would be enough," said Rosie;
"and mamma gives hundreds and thousands of dollars; and grandpa gives a
great deal too. So I don't see that I ought to do without the set of
pearls I've set my heart on. It isn't mamma's place to do other people's
duty for them--in the way of giving, any more than in other things."
Grandma Elsie and her older daughters were in Violet's boudoir.
"I had letters this morning, from your brothers Harold and Herbert, Vi,
and have brought them with me to read to you," the mother said, taking
the missives from her pocket.
"Thank you, mamma; I am always glad to hear what they write; their
letters are never dull or uninteresting," Violet replied, her sister
Elsie adding, "They are always worth hearing, Lester and I think. What
dear boys they are!"
"And quite as highly appreciated by my husband as by yours, Elsie,"
Violet said with a bright, happy look.
"They are a great blessing and comfort to their mother," Grandma Elsie
remarked, "as indeed all my children are--their letters always a source
of pleasure, but these even more so than most; for they show that my
college boys are greatly stirred up on the subject of missions at home
and abroad; full of renewed zeal for the advancement of the Master's
cause and kingdom."
She then read the letters which gave abundant evidence of the
correctness of her estimate of the state of her sons' minds.
They were working as teachers in a mission Sunday school, as Bible
readers and tract distributors among the poor and degraded of the city
where they were sojourning; doing good to bodies as well as souls--their
mother supplying them with means for that purpose in addition to what
she allowed them for pocket-money;--also exerting an influence for good
among their fellow students.
They told of interesting meetings held for prayer and conference upon
the things concerning the kingdom; of renewed and higher consecration on
the part of many who were already numbered among the Master's followers,
and the conversion of others who had hitherto cared for none of these
things.
The reading of the letters was followed by an earnest talk between the
mother and her daughters, in which Violet told of her husband's plans
for giving through his children, in addition to what he would give in
other ways.
"What excellent ideas?" Grandma Elsie exclaimed, her eyes shining with
pleasure. "I shall adopt both with my younger two children, one with all
of you."
"Which is that last, mamma?" asked Violet sportively.
"The letting each of you select an object for a certain sum which I
shall give."
"Mamma, that is very nice and kind," remarked her daughter Elsie, "but
we should give of our own means. Do you not think so?"
"You may do that in addition," her mother said. "I have seven children
on earth--eight counting Zoe, and one in heaven. I shall give a thousand
dollars in the name of each."
"Mamma, I for one fully appreciate your kindness, but think you would
make a wiser choice of objects than we," said Violet, looking lovingly
into her mother's eyes.
"I want you to have the pleasure," her mother answered, "and I am
reserving much the larger part of what I have to give, for objects of my
own selection; for it has pleased the Lord to trust me with the
stewardship of a good deal of the gold and silver which are his."
At that moment the little girls entered the room, and Rosie, hurrying up
to her mother, asked, "Mamma, have you heard, has Vi told you what the
captain intends doing? how he is going to reward his children for good
behavior?"
"Yes; and I shall do the same by you and Walter."
"That's a dear, good mamma!" exclaimed Rosie with satisfaction. "I
thought you would."
"And I intend to follow the captain's lead in another matter," Grandma
Elsie went on, smiling pleasantly upon her young daughter; "That is in
allowing each of my sons and daughters to select some good object for me
to give to."
"That's nice too," commented Rosie: "I like to be trusted in such
things--as well as others," she added laughing, "and I hope you'll trust
me with quite a sum of money to give or spend just as I please!"
"Ah, my darling, you must not forget that your mother is only a
steward," was the sweet toned response, given between a smile and a
sigh; for Grandma Elsie was not free from anxiety about this youngest
daughter, who had some serious faults, and had not yet entered the
service of the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Evelyn, dear, you too, as my pupil and a sort of adopted daughter, must
share the reward of good behavior," she said, with a tenderly
affectionate look at the fatherless niece of her son-in-law.
Evelyn flushed with pleasure; but more because of the loving look than
the promise of reward. "Dear Grandma Elsie, how very kind and good you
always are to me!" she exclaimed feelingly, her eyes filling with tears
of love and gratitude.
"Dear child, whatever I have done for you has always been both a duty
and a pleasure," Mrs. Travilla returned, taking the hand of the little
girl, who was standing by her side, and pressing; it affectionately in
her own.
"Well, Eva," said Rosie, lightly, "you can calculate to a cent what
you'll have for benevolence, for you're sure to earn the quarter every
day of your life."
"Not quite, Rosie," Evelyn answered in her gentle, refined tones, "I am
liable to fall as well as others, and may astonish both you and myself
some day by behaving very ill indeed."
"I certainly should be astonished, Eva," laughed her Aunt Elsie. "I am
quite sure it would be only under great provocation that you would be
guilty of very bad behavior; and equally certain that you will never
find that at Ion."
"No," Evelyn said, "I have never received anything but the greatest
kindness there."
"And you are so sweet-tempered that you would never fly into a passion
if you were treated ever so badly," remarked Lulu, with an admiring,
appreciative look at her friend, accompanied by a regretful sigh over
her own infirmity of temper.
"Perhaps my faults lie in another direction; and how much credit do
people deserve for refraining from doing what they feel no temptation to
do?" said Evelyn, with an arch look and smile directed toward Lulu.
"And those that tease quick tempered people, and make them angry,
deserve at least half the blame," Rosie said softly in Lulu's ear,
putting an arm affectionately about her as she spoke. "I don't mean to
do so ever again, Lu, dear."
"I'm sure you don't, Rosie," returned Lulu, in the same low key, her
eyes shining, "and it's ever so good in you to take part of the blame of
my badness."
The visitors went away shortly after tea, Violet carried her babies off
to bed, and the older three of the Woodburn children were left alone
with their father.
They clustered about him, Grace on his knee, Lulu on one side, Max on
the other, while their tongues ran fast on whatever subject happened to
be uppermost in their thoughts, the captain encouraging them to talk
freely; for he was most desirous to have their entire confidence in
order that he might be the better able to correct wrong ideas and
impressions, inculcate right views and motives, and lead them to tread
the paths of rectitude, living noble, unselfish lives, serving God and
doing good to their fellow creatures.
Sensible questions were sure to be patiently answered, requests
carefully considered, and granted if reasonable and within his power;
and instruction was given in a way to make it interesting and
agreeable; reproof, if called for, administered in a kind, fatherly
manner that robbed it of its sting.
They talked of their sports, their pets, the books they were reading,
the coming holidays, the enjoyment they were looking forward to at that
time, and their plans for helping to make it a happy time to others.
Evidently they were troubled with no doubt of their father's fond
affection, or of the fact that he was their best earthly friend and
wisest counsellor.
"There are so many people I want to give to," said Lulu; "it will take
ever so much thinking to know how to manage it."
"Yes; because of course we want to give things they'd like to have, and
that we'll have money enough to buy, or time to make," said Grace.
"Perhaps I can help you with your plans," said their father. "I think it
would be well to make out a list of those to whom you wish to give, and
then decide what amount to devote to each, and what sort of thing would
be likely to prove acceptable, yet not cost more than you have set apart
for its purchase."
"Oh what a nice plan, papa!" exclaimed Lulu. "We'll each make a list,
sha'n't we?"
"Yes; if you choose. Max, my son, you may get out paper and pencils for
us, and we will set to work at once; no time like the present, is a
good motto in most cases."
Max hastened to obey and the lists were made out amid a good deal of
pleasant chat, now grave, now gay.
"We don't have to put down all the names, papa, do we?" Grace asked with
an arch look and smile up into his face.
"No; we will except present company," he replied, stroking her hair
caressingly, and returning her smile with one full of tender fatherly
affection.
The names were all written down first, then came the task of deciding
upon the gifts.
"We will take your lists in turn, beginning with Max's and ending with
Gracie's," the captain said.
That part of the work required no little consultation between the three
children; papa's advice was asked in every instance, and almost always
decided the question; but, glancing over the lists when completed, "I
think, my dears, you have laid out too much work for yourselves," he
said.
"But I thought you always liked us to be industrious, papa," said Lulu.
"Yes, daughter, but not overworked; I can not have that; nor can I allow
you to neglect your studies, omit needed exercise, or go without
sufficient sleep to keep you in health."
"Papa, you always make taking good care of us the first thing," she
said gratefully, nestling closer to him.
"Don't you know that's what fathers are for?" he said, smiling down on
her. "My children were given me to be taken care of, provided for, loved
and trained up aright. A precious charge!" he added, looking from one to
another with glistening eyes.
"Yes, sir, I know," she said, laying her head on his shoulder and
slipping a hand into his, "and oh but I'm glad and thankful that God
gave me to you instead of to somebody else!"
"And Gracie and I are just as glad to belong to papa as you are," said
Max, Grace adding, "Yes, indeed!" as she held up her face for a kiss,
which her father gave very heartily.
"But, papa, what are we to do about the presents if we mustn't take time
to make them?" asked Lulu.
"Make fewer and buy more."
"But maybe the money won't hold out."
"You will have to make it hold out by choosing less expensive articles,
or giving fewer gifts."
"We'll have to try hard to earn the quarter for good behavior every day,
Lu," said Max.
"Yes, I mean to; but that won't help with Christmas gifts; it's only for
benevolence, you know."
"But what you give to the poor, simply because they are poor and needy,
may be considered benevolence, I think," said their father.
"Oh may it?" she exclaimed. "I'm glad of that! Papa, I--haven't liked
Dick very much since he chopped up the cradle I'd carved for Gracie's
dolls, but I believe I want to give him a Christmas present; it will
help me to forgive him and like him better. But I don't know what would
please him best."
"Something to make a noise with," suggested Max; "a drum or trumpet for
instance."
"He'd make too much racket," she objected.
"How would a hatchet do?" asked Max, with waggish look and smile.
"Not at all; he isn't fit to be trusted with one," returned Lulu,
promptly. "Papa, what do you think would be a suitable present for him?"
"A book with bright pictures and short stories told very simply in words
of one or two syllables. Dick is going to school and learning to read,
and I think such a gift would be both enjoyable and useful to him."
"Yes; that'll be just the right thing!" exclaimed Lulu. "Papa, you
always do know best about everything."
"I hope you'll stick to that idea, Lu," laughed Max. "You seem to have
only just found it out; but Grace and I have known it this long while;
haven't we, Gracie?"
"Yes, indeed!" returned the little sister.
"And so have I," said Lulu, hanging her head and blushing, "only
sometimes I've forgotten it for a while. But I hope I won't any more,
dear papa," she added softly, with a penitent, beseeching look up into
his face.
"I hope not, my darling," he responded in tender tones, caressing her
hair and cheek with his hand, "and the past shall not be laid up against
you."
"Papa, will you take us to the city, as you did last year, and let us
choose, ourselves, the things we are going to give?" asked Max.
"I intend to do so," his father said. "Judging from the length of your
lists, I think we will have to take several trips to accomplish it all.
So we will make a beginning before long, when the weather has become
settled; perhaps the first pleasant day of next week, if you have all
been good and industrious about your lessons."
"Have we earned our quarters to-day, papa?" asked Grace.
"I think you are in a fair way to do so," he answered smiling, "but you
still have a chance to lose them between this and your bedtime."
"It's just before we get into bed you'll give them to us, papa?" Lulu
said inquiringly.
"I shall tell you at that time whether you have earned them, but I may
sometimes only set the amount down to your credit and pay you the money
in a lump at the end of the week."
"Yes, sir; we'll like that way just as well," they returned in chorus.
Violet had come in and taken possession of an easy chair on the farther
side of the glowing grate.
Looking smilingly at the little group opposite, "I have a thought," she
said lightly; "who can guess it?"
"It's something nice about papa; how handsome he is, and how good and
kind," ventured Lulu.
"A very close guess, Lu," laughed Violet; "for my thought was that the
Woodburn children have as good and kind a father as could be found in
all the length and breadth of the land."
"We know it, Mamma Vi; we all think so," cried the children.
But the captain shook his head, saying, "Ah, my dear, flattery is not
good for me. If you continue to dose me with it, who knows but I shall
become as conceited and vain as a peacock?"
"Not a bit of danger of that!" she returned gaily. "But I do not
consider the truth flattery."
"Suppose we change the subject," he said with a good-humored smile. "We
have been making out lists of Christmas gifts and would like to have
your opinion and advice in regard to some of them."
"You shall have them for what they are worth," she returned, taking the
slips of paper Max handed her, and glancing over them.