There was no doubt about it—Johnny had, to use one of his own expressions, “got up wrong end foremost,” that morning. Not that he had really and literally come out of bed upon his head instead of his feet; that would not have mattered at all, for he would have been right end up again in a minute. No, it was much worse than that, for the plain English of it was, that he was in a very bad humor, and did not know it!
What he thought he knew was, that everything went wrong. The fire had gone out in the furnace, the night before, and his room, although by no means freezing cold, was uncomfortably chilly. A button snapped off his new school jacket as he was dressing; the bell rang before he was quite ready, and he had intended, lately, to be punctual at every meal, “really and truly”; it was one of the ways in which, without saying anything about it, he was trying to do right.
He was only a moment or two late, after all; the rest of the family had only just sat down, and he was in time for grace, but he felt “flustered.” He was ashamed to grumble aloud when he found the smoking brown batter-cakes were “only flannel-cakes,” instead of his favorite buckwheats, but his face certainly grumbled.
He strapped his books together, after breakfast, with a good deal of needless force; the strap suddenly gave way, and the books flew about the floor in various directions.
“Bother the old strap!” said Johnny, savagely, as he gathered up his books.
“I think the old strap has bothered you!” said Tiny, merrily, as she stooped to help him.
“I wouldn’t be so silly, if I were you, Tiny!” and Johnny turned his nose up, and the corners of his mouth down, all at once.
“Oh yes you would, don’t you see, Johnny, if you were me!” and Tiny laughed again. She thought Johnny was being solemn “for fun,” or she would not have laughed.
Johnny grunted something which sounded a little like “thank you,” as she handed him the last book, and a nice strong piece of twine, which was conveniently lying in a little coil on the table. The strap had broken in the middle, so there was no use in trying to do anything with it, and he discontentedly used the twine instead. His mother passed through the hall just as he was tying up his books, and, seeing the broken strap, said pleasantly,—
“So the new jacket must needs have a new strap to keep it company? How much will it be? Fifteen cents? Well, here it is—you can buy one as you come home from school, I am afraid you would hardly have time before.”
Johnny thanked his mother, and kissed her goodbye, with a pretty good grace; he even said, of his own accord,—
“I’m afraid I pulled a little harder than I needed to, mamma, but the old thing couldn’t have been good for much, anyway, to break just for that!”
“It will make lovely trunk-straps; and a shawl-strap too. May I have it, Johnny?” and Tiny measured the pieces approvingly on her finger, as she spoke. It is needless to say that the articles she mentioned were for the latest addition to her doll family.
“Oh yes, you may have it, but how girls can be so foolish about dolls—!” and Johnny marched off, leaving Tiny to make the most of this gracious permission.
“I was afraid he would want it for a sling or something,” she said, contentedly. “You don’t think dolls are foolish, do you, mamma?”
“No, darling, or I wouldn’t have helped papa to give you that beauty for Christmas. I cared more for my dolls than for all the rest of my toys put together, and while you are such a good mother to your family, and make such neat clothes for it, and at the same time are such a good little daughter to me, I shall find no fault with either the dolls or their mamma.”
Tiny looked very much pleased, and went, in her usual orderly manner, to put the strap away, until she could coax Johnny into cutting it up for her. It was remarkable, considering his contempt for the whole doll race, how much he had done to better its condition! Trunks and furniture, vehicles of various sorts, and even a complete summer residence, had in turn been coaxed from him, and not a few of Tiny’s small playmates openly expressed the wish that they had brothers “just like Johnny Leslie.”
Though the cloud had lifted for a moment, it lowered again as Johnny walked to school. The twine cut his hand, the wind blew his hat off, as he was passing Jim’s stand, and I am afraid that Jim’s kindness in picking up and restoring the wanderer, just before it reached the gutter, was quite lost sight of because Jim clapped it on Johnny’s head with rather more force than was strictly necessary.
“Got the toothache?” asked Jim, sympathizingly, as he caught sight of Johnny’s glum face.
“No; what makes you think I have?” and Johnny “bristled”; he was not a little afraid of Jim’s sharp tongue.
“Oh, I thought I saw a sort of a swelled-out look around your mouth,” said Jim, very gravely, “and you don’t look happy; and those two things are what I heard a big doctor call symptom-atic!”
Johnny’s face cleared a little.
“Look out you don’t choke, Jim,” he said, briskly, and, with a nod by way of good morning, began to run, to make up for lost time.
He barely did it, and he felt that he was looking red and breathless, while everybody else had a particularly cool and comfortable expression—“as if they’d been here a week!” he grumbled to himself.
Things went on in this style all day. He nearly quarrelled with one of his best friends, at recess, about such a mere trifle that he was ashamed to remember it, afterward. His sums “came wrong”; he lost a place in one of his classes; he tripped and tumbled, scattering his books again, just as he was starting for home; the stationery store was entirely out of book straps, and although the polite stationer promised to have a very superior one, direct from the saddle-and-harness-maker’s, by the next afternoon, at latest, Johnny was not consoled.
So, altogether, he came home in a rather worse humor than that in which he had gone away, and although, fortunately, nothing happened to cause an explosion, he certainly did not add to the general happiness at the tea table. He studied his lessons in silence, for the half hour after tea which was all the evening time he was allowed for study, and then took up a book in which he had been very much interested, but it seemed suddenly to have turned dull, and he rose with unusual promptness, when the clock struck nine, and bade his father good night. His good night to his mother came later, when he was snugly in bed.
“Don’t you feel well to-night, my boy?” asked Mr. Leslie, laying a kind hand on Johnny’s head, as he spoke.
“Oh, yes, papa, I’m all right, I suppose,” replied Johnny, soberly, “but it just seems as if everything had gone sort of upside down, to-day, somehow!”
“Will you allow me to try a simple and comparatively painless experiment upon you, John?”
Mr. Leslie spoke very seriously, but there was a twinkle in his eye which Johnny well knew meant mischief. It meant fun, too, though, and Johnny replied with equal gravity,—
“Certainly, papa, unless it is very painful.”
He had hardly finished speaking when, with alarming suddenness, he found himself standing on his head, his feet held firmly up in the air by his father’s strong hands. He was reversed, immediately, and Mr. Leslie inquired,—
“How did the world—or what you saw of it—look to you while you were standing on your head, my son?”
“Why, upside down, papa, of course!” said Johnny, laughing in spite of himself as he recalled the queer effect which had come from seeing everything, apparently, hanging from the ceiling, “without visible means of support.”
“Do you believe,” continued Mr. Leslie, “that the world really was upside down for a moment?”
“Why no, papa; I’m not such a goose as all that, I hope!”
“And yet,” said Mr. Leslie, thoughtfully, “I think you remarked, a while ago, that it seemed as if everything had sort of gone upside down to-day.”
“But that’s quite different, papa,” said Johnny, hastily.
“Oh!” said Mr. Leslie, “When mamma comes to tuck you up, suppose you ask her to tell you the story of The Little Boy and the Field Glass. Good night, my dear little son, and pleasant, right-side-up dreams to you!”
Johnny went off, almost in a good humor. It was not the first time he had taken what his father called “an order for a story” to his mother, and he knew he should hear something entertaining, even though, as his heart misgave him, he should also be made to feel the point of the story a little.
His mother laughed when she, heard the “order.”
“I must make haste,” she said, “or you’ll lose your beauty sleep; but, fortunately, it is not a long story.”
“Once upon a time there was a little boy about five years old, who had been very ill indeed, and, when he grew well enough to be up and dressed, the doctor said he must be taken to the sea-side. So his mother took him for two weeks to a beautiful rocky place on the New England coast.”
“Like Prout’s Neck, mamma?”
“Very much like Prout’s Neck, dear. And she put a little blue flannel suit, and a big hat on him, and tried to keep him out in the salt air and the sunshine all day. But he was weak, and grew tired very soon, and did not seem to feel able to play with the healthy, strong little children, of whom there were plenty about, and he used to beg to go indoors, and be read to, so that his mother was very glad when the kind-hearted old sailor, whose wife kept the boarding-house, offered them the use of a fine field-glass.
“‘The little man can lie on the rocks and watch the ships go by,’ said the captain, ‘and he’ll soon lose that peak-ed look he has, and be as brown as a berry.’
“And sure enough, the boy was quite willing, now, to go out and sit on the rocks, for he was eager to use the wonderful glass, which was to make the great ships seem almost within reach of his hand. He took the glass, and when his mother had screwed it to the right length, he put it to his eyes, and slowly turned about, first toward the sea, then toward the house where they were lodging, and last to his mother; then he let the glass drop, with a puzzled, almost frightened look on his little face.
“‘Why, mamma!’ he said, ‘the ships look miles and miles and miles farther away, and the captain’s house looks like a pigeon-house, and you look like a little bit of a girl at the end of a great long lane. And the captain said it would make everything look large and near.’” Johnny began to laugh.
“What a little goose!” he said. “He’d turned the wrong end foremost, hadn’t he, mamma?”
“That was just what he had done,” said Mrs. Leslie, smiling, “and you should have seen his face clear, and have heard his exclamations of delight, when his mother showed him how to use the glass, and he turned it the right way. There was no more trouble about keeping him out of doors, after that. And now, perhaps you’d like to know who he was. His name was Johnny Leslie, and he had just had measles.”
“Oh, mamma! Really and truly? I remember all about the sea and the rocks, but I’d forgotten about the glass. What a little simpleton I must have been! And I do believe I’ve been growing into a bigger one ever since! I see what papa meant, now. But just look here, mamma—how could things have seemed right to-day, any way I looked at them?”
And Johnny gave a rapid sketch of his various annoyances and misfortunes.
“It’s too late to settle all that to-night,” said his mother, “and besides, I’d rather have you think it all out for yourself, first, so we will postpone the ‘how’ till to-morrow night. Can you say ‘Let me with light and truth be blest,’ for me, before I go?”
It was the psalm Johnny had learned for the previous Sunday, and he said it very perfectly, for he had liked it, and so remembered it better than he did some things. His mother tucked him up, and kissed him, and left him with his heart full of love and repentance, and a determination to “begin all over again” the next morning.
Johnny did a good deal of thinking, at odd times, the next day, and the more he thought, the more he saw why his mother had wanted him to think, before their next talk. As he picked up his injuries, and looked at them one by one, trying to do it as if he had been somebody else, they looked so very different, that he wondered how he could have been so blind, and when his mother came, as usual, for the talk, he was inclined to beg off from going into particulars. But he decided not to, for he was very certain that he had never yet been sorry for talking things out with his mother. So he faced the music, and declared himself ready to “begin at the beginning and go on to the end.”
“What was the first thing that went wrong?” inquired Mrs. Leslie, as she touched up Johnny’s hair with her nice soft fingers, adding, before he could answer, “You shall tell me how the things looked to you yesterday, and then I will turn the glass for you.”
“The first thing,” said Johnny, “was, that when I got up my room was cold—or no, not exactly cold, perhaps, but sort of chilly and uncomfortable, and when I opened the register, only cold, cellar-y air came up; and you know, mamma, that generally, when I turn on the heat, it’s warm in five minutes.”
“What a comfortable state of things!” said his mother, “to have, always, a nice warm room in which to wash and dress, and what a good thing it was that on the very night when, for the first time in weeks, the furnace fire went out, the weather was so mild that the house was only chilly, not really cold. Next!”
“A button came off my new jacket, and though it was the last one, and didn’t matter much, just for one day, it provoked me to have it come off then, when I was in a hurry.”
“It was such a good thing that it wasn’t the top button!” said his mother, brightly, “and that I had a new jacket at all, at all! Next!”
“I said my prayers too fast, mamma, and I’m afraid I didn’t think them much.”
“There is nothing to make up for that, dear,” said his mother, gravely and sadly; “but the ‘hearty repentance,’ and ‘steadfast purpose’ can follow even that downfall, as I think you know.”
“I’d be in a bad way if I didn’t, mamma, for it does seem to me that I go down just as fast as I get up! Then I was provoked that I came so near being late for breakfast; I was only just in time, you know, for all I’d got up when I was called.”
“But you were in time, dear, and it was not your fault that the button came off your jacket, and delayed you, so that should not have worried you. Well, what came next?”
“Oh mamma, you’ll think I’m only a baby!” and Johnny hid his face in his mother’s neck. “I was vexed because we had flannel cakes for breakfast, instead of buckwheat cakes!”
“But they were such very good flannel cakes. And that new maple syrup would almost have made them seem good, even if they had been poor.”
“I know—it was only because I was in such a bad humor. The next was my book strap; I suppose I did pull too hard, for I felt like pulling something. But it was such a nice strap, when it was new, and such a bother to carry my books in a piece of twine! And the ridiculous things went flying all over the entry—or ’most all over.”
“And a kind little sister flew to the rescue, and was too loving even to know that she was growled at,” answered Mrs. Leslie, “and a dear old mother came forward in the handsomest manner, without even waiting to be asked, and subscribed the price of a new strap for the sufferer.”
“A dear young, lovely, beautiful mother!” and Johnny gave her a hug which made her beg for mercy. Then he went on.
“My hat blew off just as I was passing Jim’s place, and he clapped it on my head about five times as hard as he needed to, but you’ll have to let me tell the other end of that, mamma. It was nearly in the gutter when he caught it, and the gutter was full of dirty water and mud, and I never half thanked him, because I was afraid he was making fun of me. Then I had to run to make up the time I had lost talking to Jim, and I just saved my distance—the bell rang before I was fairly in my seat.”
“Then you were in time to answer to your name, and didn’t get a bad mark. That was a comfort. Next!”
“I was ’most ready to fight Ned, because he said he was taller than I am, and he walked off and left me, and didn’t come near me all the rest of the day.”
“And so avoided having a quarrel with you, for I suppose he saw that if you stayed together you would be very apt to quarrel. I think that was sensible.”
“Yes, I know it was, now, and I’m very glad he did it, but it only made me more provoked, then. The next was, I had to do all my sums over twice, and some of them three times, and I missed a question, and lost my place in the mental arithmetic class—my place that I’ve kept all this term, next but one to the head, and ’most all the boys in the class are older than I am.”
“I have noticed that you were careless about your arithmetic lessons lately,” said his mother, “I think you have depended too much upon your natural quickness, and not enough upon study, and I hope that these two little defeats will be the cause of far greater victories.”
“Yes, mamma, I think they will. I didn’t think it was worth while to study that lesson much, but I know it is, now. Then I had a most ridiculous tumble, just as I was leaving the playground, and my books went flying again. I was glad there was nobody by but one of the little fellows, and he didn’t laugh a bit. He asked me if I was hurt, as if he’d been my grandfather, and helped me pick up my books, too; he’s a good little chap; so that’s the other end of that! Then they hadn’t any book straps left at the store, and Mr. Dutton couldn’t promise me one for certain till this afternoon, because he had to have it made at Skilley’s.”
“Then you will be sure of a good strong, well-made one, for all the work they do at Skilley’s seems to be well done. It was worth waiting, to have a better strap, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, mamma, such a little wait as that. I got it this afternoon, and it is a beauty—nearly twice as long as the old one, and with such a nice strong buckle. And he didn’t charge a bit more, either. Yes, I see it, now; I was looking through the wrong end of the spyglass, all yesterday. But how can anybody see a thing when he doesn’t see it, mamma? I couldn’t have seen everything this way yesterday, no matter how hard I might have tried.”
“Are you quite sure about that, dear?” asked Mrs. Leslie. “If you had tried very hard, from the beginning, don’t you think you could have turned your spyglass, by school time at latest? When things seem to be going wrong, we have only to behave as we should do if we had lost some earthly possession, that we valued very much,—look carefully back to where the trouble seemed to begin, and then, if we can, set straight whatever went wrong there. You may be very sure, always, when you feel as you felt yesterday morning, that you are the one chiefly, if not wholly, in fault, and you should lose no time in arresting yourself, and pronouncing sentence.
“And another thing; you had far better accuse yourself wrongly a dozen times, than anybody else once. Few things grow upon people so fast as complaining, and suspecting, and fault-finding do; and few faults cause more unhappiness to the people who commit them, for to anybody on the look out for slights and disagreeable things, they are to be found everywhere, and all the time. So watch the beginnings, dear. There is the whole thing, in two words, ‘Watch and pray.’”
“I hope I’m not going to be one of those dreadful people!” and Johnny sighed. The “Hill Difficulty” looked rather long and steep, just then.
“I don’t think you are, my darling,” said his mother, cheerfully. “Knowing the danger is half the battle, and I think you are awake to it, now. If you wish to think kindly of people, make them think kindly of you; lose no opportunity to help, and comfort, and do good, and you will find it more and more easy to believe in the good-will of every one around you.”
“You’ve turned the field-glass around for me again, mamma. What a poor concern I’d be if it wasn’t for you! But as long as you don’t give up, I’ll try not to, though it’s pretty discouraging sometimes; now isn’t it?”
“It would be,” said his mother, with another loving kiss, “if we did not so well ‘know in whom we have believed.’ He lets us cast all our care on Him, for He is ‘mighty to save.’ Now good-night, darling. It is high time you were asleep. To-morrow will be a bright, brand-new day!”
When Tiny and Johnny had measles, as they had so many things, together, one spring, they were both left rather weak and good-for-nothing, so Mr. Leslie, after a good deal of hunting, found a farmhouse which seemed to him about what he wanted, and took board there for the whole summer, and the whole family. He meant to arrange his work so that he could often take a two-or-three-days’ holiday, beside going home every evening, for he was never so busy in the summer as he was in the winter, and he felt the need of rest and change.
It was a “really and truly farmhouse,” as Tiny said, standing back from the road, at the end of a long green lane, shaded by tall, thick pine trees. And, better still, the nearest railway station was five miles away, and a large, old-fashioned stage, drawn by two tall, thin horses, met the morning and evening trains.
The farmhouse was long and low, with a gambrel roof and great dormer windows, and what garrets that combination makes! It was whitewashed all over the outside—and the inside, too, for that matter—and had faded green shutters. There was a large porch at the front door, with benches at each side, and a small one at the back door, and a wide hall ran straight through the middle of the house, from one porch to the other.
The farm was no make-believe affair of a few acres, with only two or three horses and cows, and a flock of chickens. Orchards and grain fields, meadows and “truck-patches,” stretched away on all sides, almost as far as one could see. Twenty sleek cows came meekly every morning and evening to be milked; six horses were to be watered three times a day; at least a hundred solemn black chickens, with white topknots, scratched about the great barn. Turkeys strutted, ducks and geese quacked, and there was even a pair of proud peacocks. In short, Johnny informed Tiny, before they had been there a day, that it was exactly the sort of farm he meant to have when he was grown up; the only difference he should make would be to have the slide down the side of the haymow a little higher, and to turn half the farmhouse into a gymnasium.
Mr. and Mrs. Allen, who owned this land of enchantment, and let people live in it for six dollars a week, apiece, were kind, comfortable people, who liked to see their boarders eat heartily, and drink plenty of milk.
They had two tall sunburnt “boys,” who did most of the farm work, except in the very busy season, when three or four “hired men” helped them. And they had two daughters, one a fine, handsome girl, twenty years old, and the other three or four years older, and with no beauty in her face but that of a very sweet and pleasant expression. It was this one, whose name was Ann, who showed the tired travellers to their rooms, on the evening of their arrival, and waited on them while they ate their supper, and brought a pitcher of fresh water and a lighted lamp, when she heard Mrs. Leslie tell the children it was bedtime. She seemed surprised, they thought, when Mrs. Leslie gently thanked her.
They found, the next day, that the other daughter was named Julia, and as time went on, and they saw more and more of the daily life on the farm, they could not help noticing that, while Julia did her share of the general work cheerfully and well, it was always Ann who seemed to think of little uncalled-for kindnesses and helps, although she did this so quietly and unobtrusively, that it was some time before they observed it.
Her mother and sister were in the habit of asking her to “just” do this or that, to run upstairs or “down-cellar” for something; her father and the boys nearly always came to her for any chance bit of sewing they wanted done, and even the great watch dog and the sober old yellow cat seemed to take for granted that she should be the one to feed them. And the children saw that to all these calls upon her time and attention she responded not only willingly, but gladly.
Mrs. Allen, good-tempered as she usually was, was sometimes“tried,” as she expressed it, when things “went contrary,” and Julia, although generally in a good humor, and sometimes even frolicsome, was inclined to be fretful if her wishes and plans were crossed; but the pleasant serenity of Ann’s face was seldom ruffled, and before long the children found themselves going to her for help and sympathy in their plans and arrangements, just as her own family did.
“And I tell you, Tiny, she’s first rate!” said Johnny, warmly, one day, when “Miss Ann” had left her sewing to help him find his knife, and had found it, too. “Mrs. Allen’s very kind and nice, and Miss Julia’s thundering—I mean very—pretty, but I do think Miss Ann has one of the pleasantest faces I ever saw, and I’d be willing to lose my knife, and have it stay lost, if I could find out how she manages always to know just what everybody wants, and to do it as if it was what she wanted herself. I’ve three quarters of a mind to ask her. Would you?”
“Why, yes, I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” said Tiny, after thinking a minute; “only I would put in, to please not tell unless she really and truly didn’t mind, for you know she might not like to tell, and yet not like to say so. I’d make her promise that first, before you say what it is.”
“I sometimes think you have more sense than I have, Tiny—about some things, that is,” said Johnny, nodding his head approvingly. “I’ll fix her that way; and if you see her off in the orchard, or anywhere where it would be a good chance, I wish you’d tell me.”
To this Tiny agreed, and for several days she and Johnny kept watch over their unconscious victim, hoping for a chance to see her alone, growing quite impatient, at last, and declaring that they didn’t believe she ever did sit down!
“Except to eat her breakfast and dinner and supper,” amended Johnny.
“And to put on and take off her shoes and stockings,” added Tiny; “though you can do even that sort of hopping about on one foot, for I’ve tried it.”
“Well, I should think she would be just about tired to death, every night of her life,” said Johnny; “and yet she’s every bit as nice and pleasant when she says good night, as she is when we go down to breakfast in the morning. I tell you what it is, Tiny Leslie, I’m tired of waiting for her just to happen to sit down where we can catch her. I mean to write her a note, and ask her to meet us in the haymow, and fix her own time!”
“Why, yes,” said Tiny, joyfully; “that’s the very thing. Why didn’t we think of it sooner, I wonder? Will you write it right away, Johnny, or wait till after dinner?”
“Oh, right away,” said Johnny; “dinner won’t be ready for an hour and more.”
So Johnny asked his mother for a sheet of paper and an envelope, and wrote very carefully,—
“Dear Miss Ann:—We want to speak to you about something, but you don’t ever sit down, or at least we never see you. Can you meet us in the haymow this afternoon, at four o’clock? If you haven’t time, we will do something to help you, if you will let us.
“Very respectfully yours,
“John Leslie.
“P. S. If you can come, please let us know at dinner time. Any other time would do.
“J. L.”
The note was duly delivered across the ironing-board, and when they went to dinner Miss Ann smiled, and nodded mysteriously at Johnny, to his great delight, and whispered to him, as she handed him his plate,—
“I’ll be there, and you needn’t help me, dear; but I’m just as much obliged to you as if you did.”
But when she said this, she did not know that a carriage-load of cousins would arrive that afternoon at half past three, and respond to the very first cordial request to “Take off your things, now do, and stay to tea?”
So four o’clock found Miss Ann in the kitchen, not by any means eating bread and honey, but mixing light biscuit for tea; and when Johnny and Tiny, having waited impatiently in the haymow for fully five minutes, went to hunt her up, they found her so engaged, and she said, pleasantly,—
“I hope it’ll keep till to-morrow, dear, for I shall be busy right on from now till bedtime, I’m afraid. Cousin Samuel’s folks don’t come here often, and mother’s set her heart on giving them a real good tea.”
“But where’s Miss Julia?” asked Johnny, without stopping to think that he had no right to ask this question; for he was very much disappointed.
“Oh, she’d just dressed herself all clean for the afternoon,” said Miss Ann, cheerfully; “so I told her to go along in and talk to ’em, while mother fixed up. I’d rather cook than talk to a lot of folks, any day in the year!” And she laughed so contentedly that Tiny and Johnny found themselves laughing too.
Two or three more days passed, and still Miss Ann was hindered from keeping her mysterious appointment, until Tiny and Johnny, growing desperate, marched into the kitchen one afternoon, at four o’clock, and appealed to Mrs. Allen, who was sitting in the old green rocking-chair, knitting a stocking, while Miss Ann, her round face flushed with heat, stood by the stove, waiting for her third and last kettleful of blackberries to be ready to go into the jars.
“Mrs. Allen,” said Johnny, solemnly, “we’ve been trying for one week to catch Miss Ann; we want her up in the haymow for something very particular, and every day something happens, and we’ve never seen her sit down once since we’ve been here, and you’re her mother, and we thought perhaps you’d not mind telling her she must come!”
Mrs. Allen laughed heartily, but she did something better, too; she put down her knitting, and, marching up to Miss Ann, took the spoon out of her hand, saying with good-natured authority,—
“There! you go right along with the children, and don’t show your head in this kitchen till tea’s ready! Because you’re a willing horse, is no reason you should be drove to death, and I’m quite as able to finish up these blackberries as you are!”
So, in spite of her laughing protests, the children dragged their victim off in triumph, and never let go of her until they had throned her in state upon a pile of hay.
Now, Miss Ann,” said Johnny, taking charge of the meeting, and quite forgetting to ask “if she would mind telling,” “we want you to please tell us how you manage always to seem to like what you are doing, and to want to do what everybody wants you to do and not to—not have any yourself at all!”
Miss Ann’s pleasant round face turned even redder than it had been as she bent over the blackberries, and she seemed too astonished to speak, for a moment; then she put an arm about each of the children, and gave each a hearty kiss, and somehow, although Johnny had begun to think he was too old to be kissed, he did not mind it at all.
“You dear little souls!” said Miss Ann, and Tiny thought there was a sort of quaver in her voice, “it’s only your own good-nature that makes you feel that way. Why, I’ve never been able to hold a candle to mother for work, nor to father and Julia and the boys for smartness, and there was a time, five or six years ago, when I felt sort of all discouraged. They couldn’t help laughing at me when I said silly things, and made stupid blunders, and my ugly face worried me every time I looked in the glass.”
“But you’re not ugly at all!” burst in both the children, indignantly.
Again the color swept over Miss Ann’s face, but she laughed in a pleased, childlike way, as she said,—
“There you go, again! What sweet little souls you are. I’m real glad you feel that way, dears, but I know too well it’s only your kind hearts that make you think so. And it seemed to me that I might about as well give up, I couldn’t make myself pretty, no matter how hard I tried, nor how I fixed my molasses-candy-colored hair—every way seemed to make me a little uglier than the last. And I was so slow,—I was always thinking about that poor man in the Bible, that wanted so to get into the pool, and while he was coming somebody else would step down before him. Mother would lose her patience, and Julia and the boys would laugh, a dozen times a day, and then I would get all of a tremble with nervousness, and like as not say something I’d be sorry for the minute it was said, and maybe wind up with a crying spell. They didn’t any of them know how I really felt, or they wouldn’t have laughed and joked about it, for kinder folks than mine you couldn’t find in a day’s walk, and somehow, though it sounds crooked to say so, that very thing made it hurt all the more. And when mother said she calculated to take boarders that summer, for we’d had two or three bad years, and things were getting behindhand, I came near running away, and taking a service place where nobody knew me. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to that, and I can’t tell you how thankful I’ve been ever since, that I couldn’t, for I’d have missed the best thing that ever happened to me, besides shirking a plain duty, like a coward. The first boarders that came that season were a dear old lady and her husband. He was real nice, and not a bit of trouble, but she! I lost my heart to her the first time I saw her, and I kept losing it more and more all the time she stayed. She hadn’t very good health, but most well people will give twice the trouble she did, and never stop to think of it. She was going to stay all summer, and the way I came to begin waiting on her was a sort of an accident. Julia made me take up the pail of fresh water to fill her pitcher, just to plague me, and I found her with her trunk and the top bureau drawer open, and she sitting down between them, looking very white and weak.
“‘I’m not good for much, my dear, you see,’ she said, with that sweet, gentle smile I grew to love so, ‘I thought I would begin to unpack and settle things a little, but it’s too soon after the journey; I must have patience for a day or two—there is nothing here that will not keep.’
“I wouldn’t have believed it, if anybody’d told me beforehand that I would do it, but I said, just as free as if I’d known her all my life, ‘If you don’t mind my big rough hands, ma’am, I’ll take out your things for you. There’s a real nice closet, and your dresses will be all creased if they stay too long in the trunk.’
“She looked as if I’d given her a gold mine, and thanked me, and said she wasn’t a bit afraid of my hands, but could I be spared? Wasn’t I busy downstairs? Now I’d only just broke one of the best dishes, and mother’d told me my room was better than my company, so I said, sort of ugly, that she needn’t worry; nobody wanted me downstairs, nor anywhere else.
“She put her little soft, thin hand on my great big red one, and said, so nice and quietly,—
“‘I want you, dear. Will you begin with the tray, and put the things in the top drawer. There are a few that I want put on that convenient shelf, and that pretty corner-bracket, but I’ll tell you as you go along.’
“Now most folks would just have said ‘bracket’ and ‘shelf,’ but that was her, all over! She never missed a chance to say a pleasant word, I do believe—any more than she ever took one to say anything ugly—and yet you didn’t feel as if it was all soft-sawder, and just to your face, the way you do with some people. It seems to me—though I’ve a poor memory, in common—that I can remember almost every word that was said that first day, for I turned a corner then, if ever anybody did.
“I’ve wondered, ever since, if it was just one of those blessed chances, as we call them, for want of a better word, that the Lord sends to help us along, or whether she’d seen, already, just how things were, and meant to help me, without letting on she saw—which, as far as I’ve seen, is the best sort of help, by a long shot! Anyhow, she made some little pleasant talk about almost everything I took out, a little history of where it came from, or something like that, and every other thing, it seemed to me, of her books and pretty nick-nacks, was given to her by her grandson or granddaughter. In the middle of the tray was a little bundle of raw cotton, as I thought, but she smiled, and said to please unwrap it, and I found it was only cotton wrapped, of all things, round an old tin mug. I’ve such a foolish face, it always shows what I’m thinking, and she answered, just as if I’d spoke,—
“‘It doesn’t look worth all that tender care, my dear, does it? But look inside, and see what it is guarding.’
“And then I saw, wrapped in tissue-paper, and just fitting nicely into the old mug, a little tumbler, and when I unwrapped it, it was so thin, I was ’most afraid to touch it, and it looked just like the soap-bubbles Julie and I used to blow, all the colors of the rainbow, when the light caught it.
“‘I was puzzling myself how to carry my precious little tumbler,’ she said, ‘when Nelly—my granddaughter—came in, and she thought of the mug; it was one she had bought for five cents of a tin-pedler, thinking it was silver, dear little soul! She had played with it till it was tarnished, and then put it away in the nursery till she should go to the country; it would do so nicely for picnics, she said. I did not like to take it, at first, but I want them to learn to give, so I tried the tumbler in it, and was surprised to find that it fitted very well, with a little paper put in between, so I thanked her, and kissed her, and she was more pleased, I really believe, than she was when she thought her mug was made of silver.’
“Mrs. Anstiss—her name was Anstiss—didn’t say any more just then, but after a little she took up the mug, and put it on the shelf in the little chimney closet. ‘I must take care of it,’ she said, ‘for I feel now that it is the safekeeper of my dear little tumbler, as well as my Nelly’s gift. We can’t all be’—I didn’t catch the name she called the glass, it was some great long word—‘but if we feel like being discouraged because we are not, why then our best plan is to try to do something for our superiors. That we can all do; the weakest and humblest of us can help to clear the way, to make straight paths, and remove stumbling-blocks for the strong and the capable, and the dear Father will look upon this work, done for His, as done for Him.’
“She never said another word about the glass all the time she stayed, and somehow I do believe that was one thing made me remember and treasure up what she did say. I turned it over and over and over in my slow mind, and the more I thought of it, the more it seemed to me I’d been too foolish to live! I’d just been thinking of nobody at all but my stupid self, instead of trying to help on the smart ones all I could. And now I’d once begun, you’d be surprised to know how soon things began to come easy. I couldn’t be thinking of my own awkwardness when I was looking out for chances to help the others along, and the more I forgot about myself and my ways, the happier I seemed to get. And before long, for once that they’d laugh at me and tell me I was clumsy, there’d be twice that one of them would say, ‘Where’s Ann?’ or ‘Here, Ann, will you just do this? You did it so well last time.’ And I do believe”—and the plain, broad face, without one really pretty feature, grew radiant and almost beautiful with the light of love—“I do believe there isn’t one of them, now, that wouldn’t miss me like everything, if I was to die!”
“I should rather think!” said Johnny, and found himself unable to say anything more, just because there were so many things he wished to say.
“Oh, please don’t stop!” said Tiny, breathlessly, “it’s such a lovely, lovely story.”
Miss Ann laughed heartily now.
“Well, of all things!” she said, “I never thought I’d live to tell a story! Who knows but I’ll be writing one, next? I don’t see how I’ve come to say all this, only you’ve made so much of me, and sort of flattered me on with your sweet little loving faces, but I’ve talked quite enough for all summer; only I would like to say to you a little bit out of a hymn that Mrs. Anstiss sent me after she went away. I’ve tried to learn it all, over and over, but I’ve such a poor memory, and I don’t get much time to sit down, but I did like this verse best of all, and perhaps that’s one reason why it stayed in my head, though I mayn’t have it quite straight as to all the words,—
“‘I ask Thee for a thankful love,
Through constant watching, wise,
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
And to wipe the weeping eyes;
And a heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathize.’
I do think that’s lovely, now; don’t you?”
“Yes, indeed!” cried the children, both together, and Tiny added, warmly,—
“It’s all lovely, as lovely as it can be, and that hymn is one of mamma’s favoritest hymns—aren’t you glad of that? Dear Miss Ann, I wonder if we can grow up like you, if we begin to try right away?”
Miss Ann looked absolutely startled.
“Oh, my dears!” she said, softly, “like me! You don’t know what you’re saying. When I think of the Perfect Pattern, and my poor blundering—” she stopped, and hid her face in her hands, and they both fell upon her and hugged her so hard that it was a good thing that the distant sound of the tea bell made her spring up and rush to the house, saying, in conscience-stricken tones,—
“I declare! While I’ve been sitting here, chattering like a magpie, mother and Julie have been doing all my work! I ought to be ashamed of myself.”
“Umph?” grunted Johnny, as Tiny and he followed her more slowly. “She ought to be ashamed of herself! I wonder what we ought to be? Tiny, let’s begin right straight off. I kept the best whistle myself, when I made those two to-day; here it is, and you needn’t say a word—you must just swap with me right away, whether you want to or not.”
It was a bright, fresh Saturday afternoon in October, and Johnny, who had found it a little hard to settle down into school habits again, after the boundless freedom of the vacation at the farm, remarked at the dinner-table that he knew just how the horses felt when they went kicking up their heels all over the pasture, after having been in harness all day.
“And where do you propose to kick up your heels this afternoon?” inquired Mrs. Leslie, as she filled Johnny’s plate for the second time with Indian pudding.
“That’s just what I wanted to consult with you about, mamma,” said Johnny, “there’s a base-ball match over at the south ground, and a tennis match at the new court; it’s just the same to get in for either. I’ve enough of my birthday money left, and I thought if Tiny’d like to go, I’d take her to see the tennis, I mean, of course, if you’re willing—but if she couldn’t go, I’d go to see the base-ball match.”
Now Tiny, although she was only a small girl, had that treasure which Miss Ann considered so desirable—“a heart at leisure from itself,” and she felt very sure that Johnny would rather help do the hurrahing at one base-ball match, than watch a dozen games of tennis, so she said at once,—
“Oh thank you, Johnny, you’re very kind, but if mamma will let me, I’m going to ask Kitty to come this afternoon, and help me dress my new doll, and cover the sofa you made me.”
Mrs. Leslie understood quite well the little sudden sacrifice which Tiny had made, but she was not going to spoil it by talking about it, so she only said,—
“Yes indeed—I always like you to play with Kitty. Ask her to come to tea, and then Johnny will have a share of her too. And if you’ll ‘fly ’round,’ you and I can make some ginger snaps, first, and then, with the cold chicken and some dressed celery, we shall have quite a company tea.”
Tiny’s face fairly shone. Of all things, she enjoyed helping her mother make cake, and it would be especially nice to-day, because the maid-of-all-work was going out for the afternoon, and they would have the kitchen quite to themselves. And Johnny, who really did prefer the base-ball match very much, was entirely satisfied. He could take his fun without feeling that he was taking it selfishly. It was only one o’clock, and the match did not begin until two, so Johnny sprang up, saying,—
“I’ll help you ‘fly ’round’! Load me up for the cellar, Tiny.”
Two loadings up cleared the table of all the eatables, and a race, which was a little dangerous to the dishes, was just beginning, when Mrs. Leslie said,—
“If you’ll do an errand for me, Johnny, I can take a nice little nap, after Tiny and I have finished. I don’t think it will make you late for your base-ball match, if you start at once, for you need not come home again before you go to the ground.”
“Now, mamma!” and Johnny’s tone was slightly injured as he spoke, “don’t you suppose I’d do it for you, and like to do it, even if it made me late? You shouldn’t say ‘if’ at all! Waiting orders!”
And he stood up stiffly, drawing his heels together, and touching his cap.
Mrs. Leslie laughed, but she kissed him, too.
“There’s a bundle in it,” she said, “quite a large bundle—some work to be taken to your friend Mrs. Waring, upon whom you have called so many times at my invitation. I’m afraid, from what one of her neighbors told me yesterday, that the poor woman has had very little work lately, and less than very little money; so I have hunted up all I could for her. And please tell her, Johnny, that I have some things for Phil, which I will give her when she brings the work home; and to please bring it as soon as she can. She will find two car tickets in the bundle.”
“Couldn’t you roll ’em up with the work, and let me take ’em to her now, mamma?” asked Johnny.
“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Leslie, “if it would not be too heavy for you; but the other bundle is quite as large as this, dear. Do you think you can manage so much?”
Johnny lifted Tiny, swung her round once, and set her down with a triumphant “There!”
“The double load would certainly not be so heavy as Tiny,” said Mrs. Leslie, “so I will tie them together at once.”
While his mother did this, Johnny marched up and down, whistling, with Polly on his shoulder. Then a bright idea struck him: he put Polly down, ran for his shinny stick, thrust it through the twine, and slung the bundle over the shoulder where Polly had just been.
“I’ll pretend I’m an emigrant, starting for the ‘Far West,’” he said. “Goodbye, my dear mother, my dear sisters!” and, with a heart-rending sob, followed by a wild prance down the walk, Johnny was gone.
Now the particular horse car which he was to take only came along every half-hour. He saw one as he walked up the cross street, about a block away, and was just going to shout, when he heard a crack and a “flop”; the shinny stick flew up in the air, and, turning round, he saw his bundle, a bundle no longer, but a confused heap. The twine, worn through by the stick, had given way, and the paper had been burst by the fall.
Johnny gathered up the things as best he could, and was vainly trying to put them once more into portable shape, when a shop door opened, and a good-natured voice called,—
“Fetch them in here, sonny, and I’ll tie them up in a strong paper for you.”
He was only too glad to accept this good offer, and the pleasant-faced woman who had called him made a very neat parcel out of the wreck which he had brought her, and tied it with a stout string. He thanked her very heartily, afraid of offending her if he offered to pay for the paper and string and looking about the little shop for something he could buy.
A soft ball of bright-colored worsted caught his eye, and when he found the price of it was only ten cents, he quickly decided to buy it for Phil. He had missed his car, and had nearly half an hour to wait. He would be late for the match, but—
“Never mind,” he thought, “here’s a first-rate chance to keep from getting mad!”
So he talked cheerfully with the woman as she wrapped up the ball, and before the car appeared they were on very friendly terms, and parted with cordial goodbyes.
But his troubles were not over yet. He had not gone half a mile, when a “block” took place on the car track, and it was another half-hour before they were free to move on. But for the bundle, Johnny would have jumped out and walked, and as it was he started up once or twice, but each time the driver announced that they were “’most through,” and he sat down again.
He reached the house at last, and knocked vigorously; he felt that he had no time to lose. There was no answer, and he knocked again, and then again, until he was satisfied that anybody, no matter how sound asleep she might have been, in that house, could not have failed to hear him. He was strongly tempted to leave the bundle on the step, and run; but he resisted the temptation, and at last, tired of knocking, sat down on the step, saying doggedly to himself,—
“She’ll have to come home to her supper!”
And as he said it, she turned the corner of the nearest street, in a provokingly leisurely manner, leading her baby boy by the hand. Johnny dropped the bundle and ball on the step, rushed to meet her, poured out his message, and was gone before the bewildered little woman quite realized who he was. On he sped, as if he had wings on his heels, to be suddenly and most unexpectedly stopped by a violent collision with a very small girl, who had toddled across his path just in time to be knocked down.
Very much frightened—for, “Suppose anybody did that to Polly!” he thought—he picked up the baby girl, petted, coaxed and cuddled her, until she laughed before her tears were dry. He found, to his great relief, that she was much more frightened than hurt, and was trying to make her tell him where she lived when her mother appeared, and carried her off, scolding and kissing her all at once.
“I declare,” thought Johnny, “those old fellows who talked about the Fates would say I’d better give up this base-ball business! It’s a little too provoking! I wonder what kind of a trap I’ll find in this field.”
For he had at last come to the open space from which the base-ball ground had been fenced off; one of those left-out regions consisting of several fields, which one often finds on the edge of a town or city. It was covered with high grass and coarse weeds, and in a far distant corner two or three cows were feeding.
But, as Johnny neared the high fence, thinking that his troubles were certainly over now, and wondering why he had never before taken this short cut, something bright caught his eye; a little scarlet hood, not so very much above the tops of the rank grasses and weeds, and there was another baby! One hand was full of the ragged purple asters, which grew among the grass, and her little face was grave and intent. Nobody else was near, and once more Johnny thought, “Suppose it was Polly!”
The child looked fearlessly up at him as he advanced, and nodded.
“What are you doing, baby, all by yourself, in this big field?” asked Johnny, in the kind, hearty voice which made him more friends than he knew of, and the baby answered, gravely,—
“Picking f’owers for my mamma! And I’m not baby. Baby at home.”
“Come on, then, let’s go see him;” and Johnny took the little hand, groaning to himself,—
“I can’t leave this mite all alone in a field with cows,—suppose it was Polly!”
At that moment a wild shout went up from the base-ball ground. The quiet cows in the corner raised their heads; one stepped forward, caught sight of the scarlet hood, gave a vicious bellow, and began to run straight for the baby; and when Johnny, breathless and almost exhausted, scrambled over the rail fence, which ran around three sides of the field, with the baby in his arms, he was only just in time—the sharp horns struck the fence as he and his charge struck the ground, and the enraged cow stood there, bellowing and “charging,” as long as the hood remained in sight.
The little girl, quite unconscious of her narrow escape, took Johnny’s hand once more, and led him gravely on for nearly a block; then she pointed out a pretty little frame house, standing in a small lawn, and said, in a satisfied voice, “There!” He rang the bell, and was almost angry to find that the child had not even been missed.
“Sure,” said the Irish nursemaid, “I tould her to play in the front yard a bit, and I thought she was there.”
“There’s a cross cow in that field where she was,” said Johnny, briefly. “You’d better not let her out by herself again, I should think.”
He turned away without stopping for farther explanation. But he did not go to the ball ground; he walked slowly home, with his mind full of confused thoughts, eager to pour it all out to his mother. How vexed he had been at the various delays! How needless, how troublesome they had seemed! And yet, if that shout had risen five minutes sooner—he shuddered, and left the picture unfinished. Dear little girl, with her innocent hands full of “f’owers for mamma!”
Kitty was there when he reached home, and she and Tiny were merrily setting the table. They were full of sympathy when they found he had not seen the match, and Tiny’s face glowed with joyful pride in him, when he told about the baby’s narrow escape.
But the real talk was when his mother came for her last kiss, after he was in bed; and it was a talk that he never forgot. “This time, dear,” Mrs. Leslie said, “you can see and understand the great good which came of the hindrances and interruptions of your plan, and I love to think that the dear Father has sent you this lesson so early in your life, just to make you trust him hereafter, when you cannot see. You know what the loving Saviour said to his weak and doubting disciple: ‘Thomas, because thou hast seen, thou hast believed. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.’
“I do not mean that we are to excuse ourselves, and give up weakly, for every small hindrance, but that, when honest effort fails to overcome the barriers in our path, we are to believe, with all our hearts, that it is because the dear Father wishes us to go some other way. That is all, Johnny, darling, ‘the conclusion of the whole matter,’—just to rest on His love.”
“Mamma,” said Johnny, holding his mother fast in a long, close hug, “I don’t think I ever loved Him so much as I do to-night; and I don’t think I’ll ever be really worried, or not long, anyhow, when things seem to go crosswise again.”
It must have been most beautiful,” said Tiny, “I wonder if it looked at all like that?” and she pointed to a large, bright star, which seemed quite alone in the sky, for the sun had only just set, and no other star could yet be seen near this one.
“I think it was much larger, Tiny,” said Johnny, who was standing close beside her. “You know if it hadn’t been quite different from the other stars, no one would have thought it was anything in particular, and the wise men said, quite positively, ‘We have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him.’ So you see, it must have been different.”
“Yes,” said Tiny, “I didn’t think of that. And how glad they must have been to see it, for they seemed perfectly certain about what it meant. They didn’t ask if He really had come, or if the people at Jerusalem thought He had, but just ‘Where is He?’ And then they found out right away; I don’t believe they would, if they hadn’t been so certain.”
“And just think,” said Johnny, “how splendid it must have been for them to be the first ones to tell the people about it, when they got back to their ‘own country.’ That was even better than it is to be a missionary now. I wonder if any of the people they told it to laughed at them, and didn’t believe them.”
“I don’t see how they could,” said Tiny. “Why, you know everybody was looking for the Saviour, then; and so when the wise men told them how He had been born just where the prophets had said He would be, and that they had really seen Him, how could anybody not believe them?”
Tiny and Johnny were standing by the library window, waiting for their mother and Jim, for it was Sunday evening, and time for the “talk.” The lesson was about the leading of the star, and it seemed to the children unusually beautiful, although there was never any lack of interest in these talks. They were growing impatient, when Jim came in sight, walking fast, as if he were afraid of being late, but they hastily agreed not to question him; for Johnny had found that this always annoyed him as nothing else did. He had a keen eye for “chances” to help his less fortunate neighbors, and more than once, Johnny had accidentally caught him giving time, and thought, and even money, although, industrious as he was, he seldom made more in a day than sufficed his actual needs. But he seemed so thoroughly disconcerted when anything of this kind was discovered, that Johnny tried hard to resist the temptation to tease him which was offered by his sensitiveness on this point.
Mrs. Leslie came down a few minutes after Jim arrived, and a beautiful talk followed. She had brought an old book about the Holy Land, which she had recently found at a second-hand book store, and it described in such good, clear language the state of affairs throughout the world, and the manners and customs of the people at the time of the birth of our Saviour, that the children, deeply interested, felt as if they had never before so clearly realized it all.
And Johnny spoke once more of the happiness of the wise men, in being the bearers of this great news back to their own country.
“I think it must have been much more interesting to be alive then, than it is now,” he said, with a little discontent in his voice, “for don’t you believe, mamma, that it seemed a great deal more wonderful about the Saviour then, when it was all happening, than it seems now, after so many, many years?”
“Perhaps it did,” said Mrs. Leslie, “but you know how it was when the apostles began to tell the good news. Besides being disbelieved, and persecuted, and imprisoned, and banished, they had to endure something which, to some people, would be hardest of all—we are told that they were ‘mocked’; that is what you would call at school, being made fun of.”
“I never thought of that before,” said Johnny, “I do believe that must have been the hardest of all! You see, a person can screw himself up to something pretty bad, like having a tooth out, or being killed, or anything; but to see a whole lot of people making faces and laughing at you—do you believe you could ever stand that, mamma?”
“It would be very hard, and yet it is part of their daily work for some of our missionaries, at this very day,” said Mrs. Leslie, “I have heard a missionary who had been preaching and teaching in India say that nothing delighted some of the natives more than to bait and worry a teacher until it was next to impossible for him to keep his temper. And no doubt the wise men had that very thing to contend with, when they went back to their own country. I think every one has, at some time or other. And then is, above all other times, the time to ‘let our light so shine before men that they may glorify our Father which is in Heaven.’ When people see that the power of God is a power, it nearly always makes some impression on them. So here is a chance for every one to ‘make manifest,’ and how beautiful the blessing is! ‘That which doth make manifest is light.’ We are allowed to carry to others the Light of the World.”
This was the end of the talk, for that time, and it made more impression upon Jim and Johnny than it did upon Tiny, for Jim, as we have said, carried his sensitiveness too far, often—as in the case of little Taffy—allowing it to hinder him from asking for help for others, when he had come to the end of his own ability, but not the needs of the case, and when such help would have been most gladly and efficiently given; as for Johnny, he was foolishly alive to ridicule, and many of the slips of temper which he afterwards lamented were due solely to this cause. A jeering laugh or a mocking speech always had power to make his face flush and his hands clinch, and the effect did not always stop there—he often said things for which he was bitterly sorry as soon as the rush of angry feeling was past. And somehow it seemed to him that the attacks upon his temper always took place when he was unusually off his guard, and open to them.
The effect of this talk upon Jim was very marked. He began, from that time, shyly to take Mrs. Leslie into his confidence, whenever he felt that she could help him, and he schooled himself to bear, without wincing, any and all allusions to the various and unobtrusive acts of kindness which he was able to perform. And he very soon had the encouragement of finding his usefulness greatly increased, while he still had the satisfaction of doing many things which were known only to himself and those whom he helped. To his firm and resolute character, the plan of the campaign was more than half the battle, while Johnny, who was naturally more heedless and forgetful, found great difficulty in keeping his good resolutions where he could find them in a hurry.
He had, for the time being, quite forgotten this talk about the wise men, when, one day during the following week, as he was playing with the boys at recess, a little girl strayed into the playground, with a basket of apples and cakes, hoping to sell some of her wares to the schoolboys. Johnny remembered her at once, for she was one of the many people whom Mrs. Leslie had helped and befriended; she had found the poor child in great trouble and destitution, a few months before, and had put her to board with an old woman who only demanded a very moderate amount of work in payment for the care which she gave the little girl.
Katy employed her spare time in trying to sell whatever she could pick up most cheaply, whenever she had a few cents at her command; matches, sometimes, and what Tiny called “dreadful” cakes of soap; very thick china buttons, blunt pins, or, when she had not enough even for these investments, a few apples or oranges, and unpleasant-looking cakes.
She was a solemn and anxious-looking child, and although, through Mrs. Leslie’s care and teaching, her clothes were nearly always whole and clean, they had a look of not belonging to her, and Tiny and Johnny, while they pitied her very much, and were always willing to help her in any way they could, did not admire her.
It had never before occurred to her to visit the playground with her basket, a fact over which Johnny had secretly rejoiced, and it was with a feeling of dismay quite beyond the occasion that he saw her come in at the gate. She did not see him, just at first, and he was attacked, as he afterward told Tiny, with a mean desire to “cut and run.” Before he could make up his mind to do this, however, she recognized him, and a smile broke over her solemn countenance.
“Why!” she said, in the drawl which always “aggravated” Johnny, “I didn’t know you went to school here, Johnny Leslie! I’m right glad I came in. Don’t you want to buy an apple? And don’t some of these other boys want to? They’re real nice—I tried one.”
“I haven’t any money here, Katy,” said Johnny, briefly, “and I don’t believe the other boys have, either. And I wouldn’t come here, again, if I were you; it’s not a good place to sell things at all—at least, some things,” he added hastily, as he remembered how a basketful of pop-corn candy had vanished in that very yard, a few days before.
Katy’s face grew solemn again, and she was turning to go, with the meekness which, to Johnny, was another of her offences. But a few of the boys who were standing near, and who had heard the conversation, saw how anxious Johnny was to get rid of her, and one of them called out mockingly, loud enough to be heard all over the playground,—
“Boys! Here’s a young lady friend of Johnny Leslie’s, with some wittles to sell! His friends in this crowd ought to patronize her!”
The mischief was done, now; the boys flocked around Katy, and being, most of them, good-natured fellows, as boys go, they said nothing unmannerly to her, but they contrived, in their politely worded remarks, which she did not in the least understand, to sting Johnny to the verge of desperation. And yet, when he thought it over afterwards, nothing had been said which was really worth minding; it was the manner, not the matter, and the mocking laughter, which had roused him.
“I think your friends are real nice, Johnny Leslie,” said Katy, as she turned, with her empty basket, and her hand full of small coins, to leave the yard, “and I won’t come back, if you don’t like me to, but I don’t see why you don’t!” and she walked dejectedly away.
But before she reached the gate, Johnny had fought his battle—and won it. He sprang after her, and held open the gate, as he would have done for his mother, saying, loud enough for every one to hear him,—
“I’m glad you’ve had such good luck, Katy! Come back every day, if you like, and you wait for me here after school, and I’ll show you a first-rate place to buy things, where the man won’t cheat you!”
She thanked him all too profusely, as she went slowly through the gate, and then he turned, feeling that his face was fiery red, to receive the volley which he fully expected, and had braced himself to bear. But it was not exactly the sort of volley for which he was prepared.
“Hurrah for Johnny Leslie!” called one of the little boys; the others caught it up with a deafening cheer, and an unusual amount of “tiger,” and Johnny saw that they were quite in earnest.
And then came back to his mind once more the words which had so often come there, since he had read the quaint and beautiful story of “The Pilgrim’s Progress from this world to a better,”—“The lions were chained.”
The fact was, several of the boys had heard about Katy through Tiny and their sisters, but they could not, or rather would not, resist the temptation to tease Johnny, when they saw the foolish annoyance which her coming had caused him. It has often been noticed how a word, or even a look, will turn the tide, in affairs like this, and even in much larger ones, and Johnny’s bold championship of Katy had done this at once.
It was a good day for her when she invaded the playground, for Johnny kept his word about showing her where to buy, and, knowing as he did the things which would be most likely to sell well, the result was that, after a few lessons, poor little Katy, who was slow rather than stupid, began to show real judgment in her purchases. She was always modest and quiet in her manner to the boys, and the result of this was that their chaffing never passed the bounds of harmless fun. They called her “The Daughter of the Regiment,” and threatened her with dire penalties, should she not always come “first and foremost” to their playground with her new stock.
“I’ve often thought, Tiny,” said Johnny, long afterward, when Katy had made and saved enough to buy a second-hand counter, have shelves put in the front room of the two which she and the old woman occupied, and start a small but promising business. “I’ve often thought of how it would have been if I had cut and run. And it seems to me that the ‘way of escape’—about temptations, you know—is right straight ahead!”
Mr. Leslie made a discovery.
He had remarked, early in the spring, that when he was really rich, when he had five or six millions of dollars, he was going to build a city in the form of a very large circle, only two streets deep, and inside of this circle was to be an immense farm.
“I shall begin,” he said, “by finding and buying a ready-made farm, for the farmhouse and barns and orchard and garden must all be old. I shall put all this in perfect order, without making it look new. Then I shall build twenty-five Swiss cottages, each with three rooms and a great deal of veranda. I shall buy twenty-five excellent tents, and hide them about in the orchard and shrubberies, and I shall invite my friends, fifty families at a time, to come and stay a month with me on my farm; and if my friends should all be used up before the summer is over, I will ask some of them to nominate some of their friends. And in the meantime,” he added, dropping his millionaire tone of voice suddenly, “if we can find the farm and the farmhouse, we will make a beginning by going there for the summer, and planning the rest out.”
The others laughed at this dreadful coming down, but after that it became a favorite amusement to make additions to the “circular city,” and I could not begin to tell you all the plans which were made for the comfort and happiness and goodness of the “circular citizens,” as one thought of one thing, and one of another. And the best of this popular “pretend” was, that it set everybody thinking, and it was surprising to find how many of the plans for the dream-city might, in much smaller ways, of course, be carried out without waiting for all the rest.
For instance, when Tiny said that all the little girls should have dolls, her mother reminded her that she knew how to make very nicely those rag dolls which one makes by rolling up white muslin—a thick roll for the body, and a thin one for the arms; coarse thread sewed round where the neck ought to be, the top of the head “gathered” and covered with a little cap, eyes and nose and mouth inked, or worked in colored thread, upon the face, and the fact that the infant has only one leg concealed by a nice long petticoat and frock.
Mrs. Leslie promised to supply as many “rags” as Tiny would use, in the making and dressing of these dolls, and it became the little girl’s delight to carry one of them in her pocket, when she was going for a walk, and to give it to the poorest, most unhappy-looking child she could find. There are very few small girls who do not love to mother dolls, and Tiny’s heart would feel warm all day, remembering the joyful change in some little pinched face, and the astonished,—
“For me? For my own to keep?”
And when Johnny said that all the sick people should have flowers every day, his mother reminded him that the “can’t-get-aways” were glad even of such common things as daisies and buttercups and clover blossoms. And after that he took many a long walk to the fields outside the town, where these could be found.
They had all hoped to go back to Mr. Allen’s for the summer, but when Mrs. Leslie wrote to ask Mrs. Allen if they could be received, Mrs. Allen replied, that since Ann had married and left them, half the house seemed gone, and she really didn’t think she could take any boarders this summer.
“Perhaps you did not hear that Ann was married,” she wrote; “but I miss her so, all the time, that I feel as if everybody must know it. She’s married a widower with two little children,—a nice, quiet, pleasant sort of a man,—but we all told Ann she only took him because she fell in love with the children! And she does seem as happy as a queen, and, for that matter, so does he; but it provokes me to think how little we set by her, considering what she was worth, till after we’d lost her.”
It was a week or two after this letter was received, that Mr. Leslie made his discovery. He found the farmhouse, the “very identical” farmhouse, for which he was longing, and he found it when he was not looking for it, as he was riding a horse which a friend had lent him.
The gate of the long lane which led up to the house was only half a mile from the railway station, and only eight miles from the town where the Leslies lived, and two dear old Quaker people, who “liked children,” lived there all alone, save for their few servants.
“No, they had never taken boarders,” Friend Mercy said, “and she was afraid the children—her married boys and girls—might not quite like it.”
But Mr. Leslie, at her hospitable invitation, dismounted, and tied his horse and sat down on the “settee,” under the lilac bushes, and drank buttermilk and ate gingerbread, and I am afraid he talked a good deal, and the result of it all was, that, just as he was going away, Friend Mercy said,—
“Well, thee bring thy wife and little ones to-morrow afternoon, Friend Leslie, and have a sociable cup of tea with us. I will talk with Isaac in the meantime, and with thy wife when she comes, and—we’ll see.”
Mr. Leslie had no desire to break his children’s hearts, so, although it was hard work not to, he did not tell them all that Friend Mercy and he had said to each other, for fear she should not “see her way clear” to take them; so he only told of his pleasant call, and of this magnificent invitation to a real country tea, in the “inner circle”; and they were so nearly wild over that, that it was a very good thing he stopped there!
Friend Mercy had suggested the four o’clock train, which would give the children time for “a good run” before the six o’clock tea. So, while Tiny and Johnny played in the hay, and sailed boats on the brook, the older people talked; and the result was, that the Leslies were to be permitted to come and board in the “inner circle,” until the end of September.
A little talk which Friend Mercy had with her husband that evening, after the guests were gone, and when he said he was “afraid it wouldn’t work,” will explain this.
“Thee sees, Isaac,” she said, “those two dear little things have played here half the afternoon, and there was no quarrelling, or tale-bearing, or cruelty. They did not stone the chickens and geese, nor tease Bowser and the cat; and when I asked John to drive the cows to the spring—which, I will confess, I did with a purpose—he used neither stick nor stone. I would not have any children brought here who would teach bad tricks to Joseph’s and Hannah’s children, for the world; but with these I think we should be quite safe. Did thee notice how they put down the kittens, and came at once, when their father called them to go to the train? When they obey so implicitly such parents as these seem to be, there is nothing to fear.”
“Thee has had thy own way too long for me to begin to cross thee now, I’m afraid, mother,” said Friend Gray, with an indulgent smile. “So, if thy heart is really set upon it, let them come! The trouble of it will fall chiefly on thee, I fear.”
It did not seem to fall very heavily. The one strong, willing maid-of-all-work declared she could “do for a dozen like them.”
Mrs. Leslie and Tiny made the three extra beds, and dusted the rooms every morning; and both Tiny and Johnny found various delightful ways of helping “Aunt Mercy and Uncle Isaac,” as the dear old host and hostess were called by everybody, before a week was out.
The days went by on swift, sunny wings, and everybody was growing agreeably fat and brown. But, when they stopped to think of it, there was a shadow over the children’s joy.
They were in the “inner circle”—even the five or six millions, they thought, could do no more for them; but, oh, the hundreds and hundreds who were hopelessly outside!
It was not very long, you may be sure, before Aunt Mercy heard all about the “circular city”; and although at first she treated the whole matter as a joke, she soon caught herself making valuable suggestions. And then, when Tiny and Johnny began to lament to her about all the “outsiders,” she began to think in good earnest, and the day before the next market day she spoke, and this is what she said,—
“Father is going to take some chickens to town, to-morrow, and there will be a good deal of spare room in the wagon. That’s half. He passes right by the house where a good city missionary lives. That’s the other half. And the whole is, that if two little people I know would pick up all those early apples that the wind blew down last night, in the orchard, and make some nice big bunches of daisies and clover, with a sweet-william or a marigold in the middle of each, father would leave them at Mr. Thorpe’s door, to be given round to the poor people.”
Tiny and Johnny went nearly as wild over this announcement as they had gone over the news that they were to spend the summer in the inner circle—and then they went to work. By great good fortune, two of the grand-children came that very day, and asked nothing better than to help; and when, the next morning, at the appointed hour, which was five o’clock, these four conspirators brought out their treasures, there was a barrel of apples, and another barrel of bouquets.
Uncle Isaac laughed, and said he had no idea what a “fix” he was getting himself into, when he let Mercy make that speech, but he took the fruit and flowers, all the same. And after that, it was really surprising to see the number of things which, it was found, “might as well go to those poor little ones as to the pigs.”
Wild raspberries, dewberries, blackberries, whortleberries, were all to be had for the picking; Johnny was told that it was only fair for him to keep one egg out of every dozen for which he had hunted, and these eggs, which he at first refused to take, and afterward, when he found that Aunt Mercy was “tried” about it, accepted, were very carefully packed, and plainly labelled, “For the sickest children.” Then a very brilliant idea occurred to Tiny.
“Do the pigs have to eat all that bonny-clabber, Aunt Mercy?” she asked, one morning, as David, the “hired man,” picked up two buckets full of the nice white curds, and started for the pig-pen.
“Why no, deary,” Aunt Mercy replied, “I was saying to father, only yesterday, that I was afraid we were over-feeding them, but we don’t know what else to do with it. Had thee thought of anything, dear?”
“If you really don’t need it,” said Tiny, hesitating a little, “I’ve watched thee make cottage cheese till I’m sure I could do it; and I wouldn’t be in the way—I’d be ever so careful, and clear up everything when I was done. And I thought dear little round white cheeses, tied up in clean cloths, would be such lovely things to send! Don’t thee think so, Aunt Mercy?”
Tiny was trying very hard to learn the “plain language”; she thought it was so pretty.
“Yes, indeed!” said Aunt Mercy, “and of course thee shall! That’s one of the best things thee’s thought of, dear. Father shall buy us plenty of that thin cotton cloth I use for my cheese and butter rags, the very next time he goes to town, and thee shall have all the spare clabber, after this.”
“But you must let Johnny and me pay for the cotton cloth, Aunt Mercy,” said Tiny, earnestly. “We’ve been saving up for the next thing we could think of, and we’ve forty-five cents.”
Aunt Mercy had her mouth open to say “No indeed!” but she shut it suddenly, and when it opened again, the words which came out were,—
“Very well, deary.”
So Johnny cut squares of cheese cloth, which was three cents a yard at the wholesale place where Uncle Isaac bought it, and Tiny scalded and squeezed and molded the white curd into delightful little round cheeses, and then Johnny tied them up in the cloths.
“And the cloths will be beautiful for dumplings, afterward!” said Tiny.
“Yes, if they can get the dumplings, poor things!” answered Johnny, soberly.
“There’s a way to make a crust, if the poor souls only knew it,” said Aunt Mercy, “that’s real wholesome and good for boiled crust and very cheap. It’s just to scald the flour till it’s soft enough to roll out, and put in a little salt. And another way, that’s most as cheap, and better, is to work flour into hot mashed potatoes, till it makes a crust that will roll out.”
The next time there was a barrel of “windfall” apples to go, Tiny and Johnny came to Aunt Mercy, each with a sheet of foolscap paper and a sharp lead pencil, and Tiny said, “Aunt Mercy, will thee please tell us, quite slowly, those two cheap ways to make apple-dumpling crust?”
So Aunt Mercy gave out the recipes as if they were a school dictation, and each of her scholars made twelve copies. It took a long time, and was a tiresome piece of work, but it was a fine thing when it was done!
The twenty-four copies were put in a large yellow envelope, addressed to “Mr. Thorpe,” and Johnny added a note, in the best hand he had left, after all that writing,—
“Dear Mr. Thorpe,—Will you please put one of these recipe papers with each batch of apples you give away? They are all right.
“Very respectfully,
“T. & J.”
This was the beginning of a most interesting correspondence. When Uncle Isaac came home the next evening, he brought an envelope addressed to “T. and J.,” and inside was a card, with “John Thorpe” on one side of it, and on the other, in a clear, firm hand,—
“God bless you both, my dear T. and J. You will never know how many sad lives you have gladdened, this summer. Is there any moss in your land of plenty? Have any of your wild-flowers roots? And may I not know your names?”
Now this was, as Tiny said, “Too beautiful for anything!” especially as the early apples and all the berries were about gone, and the children were beginning to wonder what they could find to send next.
They wrote to Mr. Thorpe. Of course they did! They promised the moss and roots, and told him how glad they were that the people had been pleased with what they sent, and would he be so very kind as to write and tell them whether he had heard of anybody who had tried the apple dumplings?
“And if any of your people are ill, dear Mr. Thorpe,” wrote Tiny, in her share of the letter, “and there is anything particular that you would like for them, will you please tell us, and perhaps it will be something we can send you.”
The answer to this letter was delightfully prompt. Yes, several of the women who had shared the apples had “tried” the dumplings, and been much pleased with them. Were there any more nice cheap dishes? And would it be too much trouble to print the recipes in large, clear letters? Some of the poor people who could read print quite easily could not read writing at all. And there was “something particular.” It was almost impossible for any of “his people” to buy pure milk, and he felt sure that many little children were suffering and dying for want of proper food. If he might have only two or three quarts a week of really pure, sweet milk, he would give it to those who most needed it.
“But perhaps,” he wrote, “it is not in your power to supply this want, and if it is not, you must not be troubled. God never asks for any service which we cannot, with His help, render to Him, and the knowledge of this should keep us from fretting when we cannot carry out all our wishes and plans.”
Tiny and Johnny each received ten cents a week for spending money, and it did not take them long to decide that, if Uncle Isaac would sell them three quarts of milk a week, and lend them a milk can, they would send that milk, if it took every cent of their allowance. Uncle Isaac entered into the plan with spirit; if they took three quarts of milk a week “straight along,” he said, it would only be four cents a quart, and he would lend them a can, and deliver it, with pleasure.
“But that would be skimmed milk, wouldn’t it, Uncle Isaac?” asked Tiny, doubtfully.
“Oh no,” he answered, “not at all! It shall either be from the milking over night, with all the cream on it, or, if Johnny chooses, I’ll call him in time to milk the three quarts that very morning—perhaps that would be best, for then some of it would keep till next day, if Mr. Thorpe could find a cold place for it.”
The children were jubilant. There would still be eight cents a week left, and they admitted to each other that it would have been “very bad” to be reduced to “nothing at all a week!” And Johnny agreed at once to do the milking. He had been learning to milk “for fun,” and could do it quite nicely.
“And that’s a real blessing, Tiny,” he said, “for the milk will be so nice and fresh, as Uncle Isaac says, that Mr. Thorpe can keep some till next day. I do hope he has a refrigerator.”
You will begin to see, by this time, that the things which these little people were doing by way of sharing their happiness, were not by any means all play, and that some of them were very downright work. Picking berries in the hot sun, or even flowers, when one picks them by the bushel, is not amusing. It always seemed to Johnny, on the milking mornings, that he had only just fallen asleep when Uncle Isaac gave him the gentle shaking which had been agreed upon, because a knock or call would wake the rest of the family needlessly early. Very often most interesting things, such as building a dam, or digging a pond, or making a house of fence rails, had to be put aside for hours, that the “consignment,” whatever it happened to be that time, might be ready for Uncle Isaac over night. But how sweet and happy was the play which followed their labors of love, and how small their sacrifices seemed, when they thought of the little children, crowded, packed, into narrow, foul-smelling courts and alleys, and, inside of these again, into stifling rooms!
The long rambles, in which Mrs. Leslie always, and Mr. Leslie sometimes, joined, in search of mosses and wild-flower roots, were only a delight, and quite paid for the work of printing the simple rules for cheap cookery, which Aunt Mercy told them from time to time, as she could remember.
They caught Uncle Isaac, nearly every time that he took one of their cargoes, slipping in something on his own account—vegetables, or fruit, or eggs, and even, sometimes, a piece of fresh meat, when one of his own sheep had been killed to supply the table.
“That’s a first-rate way to make a stew, that thy Aunt Mercy gave thee yesterday,” he said, gravely, to Tiny, on one of these occasions; “but I thought if I took the mutton, and a few carrots and potatoes, along with it, it would stand a good deal better chance of getting made than if I didn’t!”
And Tiny and Johnny delightedly agreed that it would.
Mr. Leslie came home, one evening, looking a little troubled.
“I haven’t seen Jim at his usual place for two or three days,” he said; “and if I could only have remembered the street and number of his lodgings, I would have made time to go and ask after him. Please write the address on a card for me, dear, and I’ll go to-morrow, or send if I can’t go.”
The happy days in the country had by no means made Tiny and Johnny forget Jim, in the hot and weary city; and, as Mr. Leslie often saw him at his stand, messages were exchanged, and gifts of fruit and flowers sent, which cheered his loneliness not a little, for he missed them more than even they could guess. Aunt Mercy and Uncle Isaac had heard a good deal about him, too, by this time; and it so happened that they had come to a decision concerning him that very day.
So now Aunt Mercy said,—
“I was going to speak to thee of that lad this very evening, Friend Leslie. Our hired man, David, is obliged to leave us next month, and I have taken a notion to ask thy young friend to take his place. The work will not be heavy through the winter, and by spring, with good care and good food in the meantime, he might well be strong enough to keep on with David’s work, until our time for hiring extra help comes. And we think it would be well if he could come at once, while David is still here to instruct him, and we would pay him half wages until David leaves. Would thee object to laying our proposal before him, if thee sees him to-morrow?”
The applause which followed this speech quite embarrassed Aunt Mercy; but she was made to understand very clearly that Mr. Leslie would not have the slightest objection to undertaking her mission.
Tiny and Johnny were confident that Jim would come the very next day; and when Mr. Leslie saw the blank faces which greeted him as he returned, the next evening, alone, he pretended that he meant to go back to the office immediately.
“For the office cat is always glad to see me,” he said, “and especially so when I come alone!”
He received, immediately, an overwhelming apology and testimonial, all in one. But when it was over, Tiny asked,—
“Why didn’t Jim come with you, papa, really and truly?”
“Jim is slightly ill at his lodging,” said Mr. Leslie. “It is nothing serious,” he hastened to add, as he saw the anxious faces. “I took the doctor to see him, and he says Jim has a slight touch of bilious fever. He is wretchedly uncomfortable, of course, for the old woman of the house does as little for him as she decently can; but I gave her a talking to, and the doctor says, he hopes to have Jim on his legs again in two or three days, though, of course, he will be rather weak for a while.”
This news caused much lamentation, which was instantly changed to joy, when Uncle Isaac said, quietly, and as if it were the only thing to be said under the circumstances,—
“If thee will give me the address, Friend Leslie, I will drive in for the lad to-morrow. Mercy can arrange a bed in the bottom of the spring wagon, and I think the slight risk we shall cause him to run will be justifiable, under the circumstances. The kitchen-chamber is vacant, and he can sleep there, until David goes.”
Mr. Leslie clasped the old man’s hand with affectionate warmth, nor could he help saying softly, so that only Uncle Isaac heard,—
“‘I was a stranger, and ye took Me in; sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me.’”
Aunt Mercy asked Tiny and Johnny to help her make ready the kitchen chamber, the next day, and Johnny will never receive any more delightful flattery than her gentle,—
“Thee is such a carpenter, Johnny, and so handy, that I thought perhaps thee could bore a gimlet-hole in the floor, here by the bed, and then fix a piece of twine along one of the rafters in the kitchen, till it reached the door-bell—no one-ever rings that, thee knows, and that poor boy may want something, and be too weak to call.”
So Johnny arranged the bell-pull, while Aunt Mercy and Tiny tacked up green paper shades, and white muslin curtains, to the two windows and spread the straw mattress, first with three or four folded “comfortables,” and then with lavender-scented sheets and a white bed-spread, and put a clean cover on the bureau, and on the little one-legged and three-footed table which was to stand by the bed. Two or three braided rugs were laid upon the floor, and then, when Tiny had decorated the bureau with a bunch of the brightest flowers she could find, the room was all ready, “and too lovely for anything,” as Tiny said.
Jim was afraid, at first, that his new friends would not understand why he could not, try as he might, find voice to say anything, when Uncle Isaac and David carried him upstairs, and gently placed him on the white bed. There was a lump in his throat which would not let any words pass it, but he raised his eyes to Aunt Mercy’s face, with a look which somehow made her stroke his hot forehead with her soft, cool hands, and say tenderly,—
“There, my dear, thee is safe and at home, and all thee has to do is to lie here and get well as fast as thee can!”
He did it, and with everything to help forward his recovery, his strong young frame soon shook off disease and languor.
Three weeks after he came to the farm, he was “all about again,” as Aunt Mercy said, and so eager for work, that he soon left David little to do. And what famous help he was about the “mission!” He seemed to have an especial faculty for finding the places where shy mosses and delicate wild-flowers hid; he had “spotted” every nut tree within five miles before the nuts were ripe, and he packed their various findings in a way which excited wonder and admiration.
The “beautiful time” in the inner circle came to an end at last, or rather, to a pause; nobody was willing to believe it the end. There were plans and hopes for next year, and for the winter which must come first, but, in spite of all the hopes, nobody looked very cheerful when the last evening came, and if Mrs. Leslie and Aunt Mercy did not mingle their tears with those of Tiny and Johnny, the next morning, it was only because they felt that they must set a good example even if nobody were able to follow it!
And you, who are reading this? Are you trying, ever so little, to share your happiness? Think about it. No one is too poor to do this. Those of you who enjoy, every summer, a free, happy holiday in the country, can be “faithful in much,” and those who are themselves suffering privation can give, always, love and sympathy, and often the “helping hand” which does so much beside the actual help it gives. And remember, dear children who are listening to me, that with the “Inasmuch as ye did,” comes the far more solemn “Inasmuch as ye did it not, unto the least of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me.”