They were having a rough-and-tumble time of it and Pansy was getting
some pretty hard blows. She took them all good-naturedly, nevertheless,
and tried to give as good as she received, much to the delight of her
little boy friends. A lady who was standing near, afraid for the little
girl, chided the boys and said:
“You shouldn’t handle Pansy so roughly--you might hurt her.”
And then Pansy looked up in sweet surprise and said with amusing
seriousness:
“No; they won’t hurt me. I don’t break easy.”
It was a thoroughly childlike expression, but it had more wisdom in it
than Pansy knew. She spoke out of a little girl’s experience with dolls,
some of which, as she had learned, broke very easily. Pansy knew how
delightful it was to have a doll that didn’t break so easily. Though she
was not a homely girl by any means, and though she was not a wicked
little girl, yet she wanted it understood that she was not like a piece
of china. That was why the other children liked her so much--because she
knew how to rough it without crying or complaining at every turn. Pansy
was not a cry-baby.
[Illustration: “I DON’T BREAK EASY.”]
There is all the time, my dear boys and girls, a great demand everywhere
all through life for people who don’t break easily--people who know how
to take hard knocks without going all to pieces. The game of life is
sometimes rough, even among those who mean to play fair. It is very
trying when we have to deal with people who break easily, and are always
getting hurt and spoiling the game with their tears and complaints. It
is so much better when we have to deal with people who, like little
Pansy, do not break easily. Some of them will laugh off the hardest
words without wincing at all. You can jostle them as you will, but they
don’t fall down every time you shove them, and they don’t cry every time
they are pushed aside. You can’t but like them, they take life so
heartily and so sensibly. You don’t have to hold yourself in with them
all the time. You can let yourself out freely without being on pins as
to the result. Young people of this class make good playmates or good
work-fellows, as the case may be.
So, boys and girls, you must learn to rough it a little. Don’t be a
china doll, going to smash at every hard knock. If you get hard blows
take them cheerily and as easily as you can. Even if some blow comes
when you least expect it, and knocks you off your feet for a minute,
don’t let it floor you long. Everybody likes the fellow who can get up
when he is knocked down and blink the tears away and pitch in again.
Learning to get yourself accustomed to a little hard treatment will be
good for you. Hard words and hard fortune often make us--if we don’t let
them break us. Stand up to your work or play courageously, and when you
hear words that hurt, when you are hit hard with the blunders or
misdeeds of others, when life goes roughly with you, keep right on in a
happy, companionable, courageous, helpful spirit, and let the world
know that you don’t break easily.