SUGAR-PLUMS.
I do not want to study,
It is so warm to-day;
So I’ll run into the meadow,
And roll among the hay.
CHARLOTTE FOX.
At length the time came when Alfred’s pleasant visit must end. When he
was going away, Walter gave Flora a very beautiful box, as a keepsake.
The box was filled with sugar-plums.
He also gave one to Alfred, on which was a picture of a boy flying a
kite.
When they were in the steam-boat, Alfred brought the box to his mother,
and said,
“Mamma, how many of these sugar-plums may I eat to-day?”
His mother said,
“You had better give me the box to keep for you, my dear; and when you
say your lessons well, I will give you a few sugar-plums at a time, as a
reward.”
Alfred loved sugar-plums very much; and he said he would rather keep the
box himself, and eat them just when he liked.
His mother told him that if he did he would eat them all up, as the boy
in the story-book eat his cake, and very likely get as sick as he;
therefore he had better give them to her to deal out to him. So Alfred
consented that his mamma should do this.
There were some very hot days after Alfred’s return to Norwood. On one
of these he felt very lazy, and said,
“O, mamma, my lesson is so hard that I cannot get it to-day!”
Then, instead of studying it, he would play with his shoe-string, or
pocket-handkerchief.
His mamma said, many times,
“Alfred, it is getting quite late. Are you not ready to say your lesson
yet?”
But Alfred did not get ready until twelve o’clock; and even then did not
know his first lesson quite well; and the second one had to be put off
until the afternoon. In the afternoon it was hotter than it had been in
the morning. Alfred held his book in his hand, and did everything but
study. He would lie down upon the floor, and look out of the window,
although nothing was to be seen there but the still trees, and the
drooping flowers, and the parched grass, and the hot, blinding sun,
which seemed to have frightened the katydids, and the bees, and the
birds, into entire stillness.
At night, when he went to bed, he called to his mamma, who was in the
next room,
“O, my sugar-plums, mamma! I have not had my sugar-plums!”
“No, I know you have not, my dear. But why should you have them?”
“O, because I love them! And you know, mamma, I was to have a few every
day.”
“Yes, if you deserved them. You know they were to be a kind of reward;
but you certainly cannot, feel that you ought to have any to-night.”
Alfred confessed that he had not deserved them, and said he would try to
do better the next day; and so, after saying the little verse which he
used to repeat after he had said his prayers, he went to sleep.
This is the verse which Alfred said:—
“At night I lay my little head
To rest upon my nice soft bed;
Lord, let thy holy angels keep
Thy watch around me while I sleep.”
After this Alfred got his lessons well, even without sugar-plums. He
began to think, too, that he was too large to eat them, and gave them
all away; although he still kept the box with the picture of the boy and
the kite on it. But it became quite a saying among the children, when
any one wanted something that they had not earned, “O, you must not have
the sugar-plums, when you have not got your lesson.”
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