HE DID THAT WHICH WAS RIGHT IN THE SIGHT OF THE
LORD.
THE HARVEST IS PAST, THE SUMMER IS ENDED, AND WE
ARE NOT SAVED.
FOR UNTO THIS DAY THEY DRINK NONE, BUT OBEY THEIR
FATHER'S COMMANDMENT.
BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON, THERE WE SAT DOWN, YEA,
WE WEPT WHEN WE REMEMBERED ZION.
"WHY, yes," said Grandma, with her finger on Rollo's verse, and her
eyes tender with old memories, "I remember a story about that verse;
and it is a story which I think likely I shall remember in Heaven."
"Let's hear it right away, if you please," Ralph said, and the others
settled into quiet as soon as possible.
"It wasn't so very many years ago, not more than fifty-five," began
Grandma, and then Rollo nudged Harold, and chuckled; and Marion looked
with grave astonished eyes at a woman who thought fifty-five years was
not a long, long time! But Grandma took no notice of them.
"Yes," she said, "it is just about fifty-five years ago. There was a
pretty little boy whom I knew; he had yellow hair, and the bluest eyes,
and he was a dear bright little fellow. One day he went visiting out
to a nice old lady's who lived near his father's old place. While he
was there, who should come along but two trim little girls who were
out getting signers to the Total Abstinence Pledge. We called it the
tetotal pledge in those days. There was quite an excitement about it in
town. A man lectured every evening, and had meetings for the children
afternoons, and gave them each pledge books, and the one who got the
greatest number of signers was to have a medal with his name on. It
wasn't a gold medal, but it shone, and had a nice blue ribbon to put
around your neck; and the children all liked it.
"Well, these two came to aunt Patty's door and asked for signers. Aunt
Patty invited them in and got out her quill pen which wasn't used very
often, and she and her oldest girl, Prudence, put down their names.
The little fellow stood looking on; he wasn't four years old yet, but
he lived where he saw a great deal of writing going on, and behold he
wanted to sign his name. Aunt Patty laughed, and tried to explain to
him that he was too young; but he said No, he "writed" his name once
when "favver" held his hand, and he wanted to do it again. That was
true enough. One day his father bought him a picture book, and guided
the pencil in his hand and let him put his name in it. After a good
deal of coaxing, aunt Patty sat down and took him in her lap, and held
that old quill, guiding it as well as she could, and he did get what
looked something like his name in the book. It was very queer writing,"
said Grandma, stopping to laugh at the thought of it, with that same
tender look in her eyes, "but the little fellow was just as proud of it
as could be. He told of it the first thing when he went home, but his
mother--oh! you don't know how badly she felt."
"Why?" interrupted Marion and Rollo. "Wasn't she a good mother?" asked
Marion. "Didn't she believe in temperance?" asked Rollo.
"O, yes, she believed in temperance; but she had some very strong
notions about promises. She wanted her little boy to understand all
about it whenever he made one, and then to keep it as he would the
eighth commandment; and she said he was too young to take a pledge,
that he could not understand what it meant, and he would think that
signing his name to a paper was a light thing, just for play. Why,
children, she felt so badly about it that she just sat down and cried."
"Ho!" said Rollo, "I think she was foolish. I dare say he understood."
"Go on, Grandma," said Marion.
"Well, while the mother was crying, the father came home, and wanted
to know all about it; and he thought as Rollo does, that the boy
understood, or could be made to. He took him on his knee and they had
a long talk all about drinking; what a dreadful thing it was, and
about pledges, and then what should he tell him but this old story of
the Rechabites; how they kept the promise made to their father, never
forgetting it once; and how God was pleased, and rewarded them. Then
he made the little fellow hold up his hand and say after him: 'Unto
this day they drink none, but obey their father's commandment.' Then
he explained that the paper the child had signed was a promise that
he would obey _his_ father's command and never touch liquor. 'I won't,
favver,' the boy said; 'I'll 'member.' And he looked very earnest. But
in two or three minutes he was playing with the cat; and his mother
couldn't feel that he really understood much about it.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE FELLOW LOOKED ON.]
"It was three years afterwards, and the little boy was seven years
old--a beautiful child. One winter his mother was very sick, every
one thought she would die; she was so low that she didn't know her
own little boy, and she couldn't bear the least noise; so her boy was
taken to his auntie's, and stayed there for weeks. One evening he
was in the parlor with his uncle, there were three or four gentlemen
there, and pretty soon cider was brought in. The little boy sat beside
a gentleman who offered him a drink of cider from his glass; the boy
refused politely; and the gentleman thinking he was timid, coaxed him.
Then his uncle spoke up: 'That young man has never tasted cider, he
tells me.' At this they all laughed; it was a very unusual thing in
those days to find a child seven years old who had never tasted cider;
it sounded almost as strange as it would to say now that one had never
tasted water.
"The gentleman said that accounted for his not wanting some; that he
did not know how good it was; so he urged him to just try a swallow,
and kept coaxing until at last his uncle said, 'Try it, my boy; if you
don't like it you need not take any more.' 'No, sir,' the boy said, 'I
don't want to try it!' Well, then his uncle thought he was rude and
disobedient and ought to be made to mind; so he said: 'I _command_ you
to take a swallow of it, my boy, and I am to be obeyed, you know.' What
did that little seven-year-old baby do but get up in the middle of the
floor, with his eyes flashing, and his cheeks glowing, and shout out in
a loud strong voice: '"Unto this day they drink none, but obey their
father's commandment," and I don't either. I promised, I did; and I
never will; not if you whip me to death.' Then he burst out crying, and
ran out of the room."
"Good for him!" said Rollo.
"Oh, hurrah!" said Harold.
"I am _so_ glad!" said Marion. "I wonder what his mother thought then,
if she ever heard of it. Did she get well, Grandma?"
"Yes, she got well; and was a proud and happy mother when she heard the
story. But that is only the beginning of it. I saw that boy when he was
a young man and came home from college as handsome as a picture, and I
heard his father say to him: 'Well, my boy, they tell me most of the
young men use liquor more or less; how do you get on with them?'
"And he looked around with his bright laughing eyes and said:
"'I'm all right, father; to this day I drink none, but obey my
father's commandment. That pledge of mine ought to be printed in gold
on my tombstone when I die, for it has held me in the midst of many
temptations.'
"And there his mother thought he was too young to understand!"
And Grandma Burton actually wiped the tears from her eyes, though she
was smiling yet.
"Grandma," said Marion, "what was that boy's name? You haven't spoken
his name once."
"I guess something," said Ralph eagerly. "Wasn't his name Mott,
Grandma?"
"Robert Mott Burton, that was his name, my darlings."
"Our own uncle Mott!" said astonished little Sarah.
"Then that's what makes him such a red-hot temperance man now, isn't
it?" said Rollo. "Didn't he begin early, though?"