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diff --git a/old/63793-0.txt b/old/63793-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index afefe6e..0000000 --- a/old/63793-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7047 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Helpers, by Margaret Vandegrift - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Little Helpers - -Author: Margaret Vandegrift - -Release Date: November 17, 2020 [EBook #63793] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE HELPERS *** - - - - -Produced by MFR and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - -[Illustration: “PICKING FLOWERS.” See page 218.] - - - - - LITTLE HELPERS - - BY - MARGARET VANDEGRIFT - AUTHOR OF “THE DEAD DOLL AND OTHER POEMS” ETC. - - Illustrated. - - [Illustration] - - BOSTON - TICKNOR AND COMPANY - 211 Tremont Street - 1889 - - COPYRIGHT, 1888, - BY TICKNOR AND COMPANY. - - ELECTROTYPED BY - C. J. PETERS & SON, BOSTON, - U. S. A. - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - CHAPTER. PAGE. - - I. INDEPENDENCE 11 - - II. THINKING AND THINKEPHONES 23 - - III. LETTER AND SPIRIT 39 - - IV. THE FIRST MOVE 50 - - V. INALIENABLE RIGHTS 61 - - VI. LEANING 70 - - VII. THE EXTRA HORSE 81 - - VIII. “LONG PATIENCE” 89 - - IX. A CONTRACT 99 - - X. NEIGHBORS 108 - - XI. BATTLE AND VICTORY 122 - - XII. FASTING 131 - - XIII. A CHANCE FOR A KNIGHTLY DEED 140 - - XIV. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 149 - - XV. MORE CHANCES 157 - - XVI. ENLISTING 168 - - XVII. THE WRONG END 178 - - XVIII. TURNING THE GLASS 189 - - XIX. AT THE FARM 195 - - XX. THE TIN MUG 204 - - XXI. SEEING WHY 212 - - XXII. THE WAY OF ESCAPE 221 - - XXIII. THE CIRCULAR CITY 232 - - XXIV. THE CIRCULAR CITY, CONTINUED 243 - - - - -FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. - - - “PICKING FLOWERS” _Frontispiece_ - - THE SKATING LESSON 75 - - THE NEW KNIFE 125 - - MINDING THE BABY 163 - - THE FIELD GLASS 185 - - POOR KATY 225 - - - - -LITTLE HELPERS. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -INDEPENDENCE. - - -His name was Johnny Leslie, and he was standing on an empty flour barrel; -in his hand was his United States History, and he was shouting at the top -of his little voice,— - -“All men are born free and equal, and endowed with certain -in-in-alienable rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of -happiness.” - -He stopped a minute to draw a long breath, and his audience, who was -sitting in an easy position upon the upturned kitchen coal scuttle, with -her oldest child in her arms, took the opportunity to ask meekly,— - -“What does that dreadful long word mean, Johnny? I never heard of that -kind of rights before.” - -[Illustration] - -“You’ll know when you’re older, Tiny,” said Johnny, loftily, and he was -going on with his oration, but the audience was not to be silenced in -this easy manner, and persisted,— - -“But I want to know right away, now! I don’t believe you know yourself, -Johnny Leslie!” - -“Well, I don’t believe I do,” said Johnny, candidly, and in his own -natural voice. “We might ask mamma, she’s up there at her window, I can -see the back of her head. O mamma!” - -[Illustration] - -There was no doubt about Mrs. Leslie’s hearing; if she had been in the -top of the apple tree, at the foot of the garden, she could have heard -that “O mamma!” perfectly well. - -A pleasant face appeared where Johnny had seen the head, and a sweet -voice said, “O Johnny!” - -“Mamma, what does in-a-li-en-able mean?” shouted the orator, still loudly -enough for the top of the apple tree. - -[Illustration] - -“I’ve the greatest mind in the world to drop my new ‘Webster’s -Unabridged’ on your head, you wild Indian,” said Mrs. Leslie, holding -the big dictionary threateningly, over the edge of the window-sill, and -Johnny’s head. “Don’t you suppose I have any inalienable rights? And do -you think I can even pursue my happiness, much less catch it, with all -this hullaballoo under my window when I am trying to write a letter?” - -“Well, mamma, Tiny and I would just as lief go to the barn,” replied -Johnny, in a reasonable tone of voice, “if you’ll just please tell us -first what that word means. You see, as Tiny’s asked me, maybe some of -the boys might ask, and I ought to be able to tell them.” - -[Illustration] - -“Come up here, then, if you please,” said Mrs. Leslie. “I am not a -Fourth-of-July orator, and so I do not need to practise shouting, just -now.” - -So Johnny and Tiny and Veronica—who was Tiny’s oldest child, and was made -of what had once been white muslin, with cotton stuffing—came upstairs, -and had it explained to them that inalienable meant that which cannot be -separated, or taken away. - -“But, I don’t see how that works,” said Johnny, looking puzzled, “for -folks do take our rights away; I’m having lots of mine taken away, all -the time. I’m very fond of you, mammy, and you know it, but still you -sometimes take away my rights yourself.” - -“For a Fourth-of-July orator,” said Mrs. Leslie, gravely, “you are -showing a painful amount of ignorance. We will suppose, for the sake of -argument, that I take away, or deprive you of, certain things to which -you have a right, but the right to have them is there, all the same. -Taking away the things does not touch that. Do you see what I mean?” - -“Yes, mamma, I think I do,” answered Johnny, thoughtfully, “but it’s -kind of puzzling. It’s most as bad as ‘if a herring and a half cost a -cent and a half, how much will three herrings cost?’ But I did get that -through my head, and I suppose I can get this.” - -“But, sometimes,” said Mrs. Leslie, “people’s ‘inalienable rights’ seem -to conflict; I say seem, for they never really do. For instance, as you -have a gentleman for a father, and a woman who tries to be a lady for a -mother, I feel as if I had an inalienable right to a gentleman for a son, -and a lady for a daughter; and when my son talks about getting a thing -through his head, I begin to wonder what is becoming of _my_ rights!” - -“Now, mamma,” said Johnny, appealingly, “that’s just nothing at all to -what some of the boys say. But I’d like to hear anybody say that you -aren’t a lady, or that papa isn’t a gentleman!” and Johnny doubled his -fists fiercely at the bare idea of such a statement. - -“You may live to have that pleasure,” said Mrs. Leslie, “if you let the -boys have more of a right in you than I have.” - -Johnny caught his mother in a “bear hug.” “I never thought of it that -way,” he said. “No ma’am! You’ve the very first, best right and title to -me, Mrs. Mother, and the boys may go bang—oh, there I go again! I mean -the boys may—what shall I say?” - -“You might say that the boys may exercise their inalienable rights -over somebody else,” said his mother, laughing and kissing him. “But -now I’ll tell you what we will do—I really don’t think it would look -well for a Fourth-of-July orator to read his oration out of an United -States History, so when papa comes home, I will ask him to have the -Declaration of Independence printed on two or three sheets of paper for -you, and we’ll tie them together with a handsome bow of blue ribbon, and -meanwhile, if you’ve no objection, you will practise in the barn.” - -“Of course I will, you loveliest woman alive!” said Johnny, rapturously, -“and I shall try not to have my rights treading on anybody else’s rights’ -toes!” with which extraordinary declaration, he pranced off to the barn, -closely followed by Tiny and Veronica. - -There was to be a picnic on the Fourth-of-July. Mr. and Mrs. Leslie and -three or four neighbor families had agreed to take their dinners in -baskets and butter-kettles, to a very pretty grove which grew obligingly -near to the little village-city where they lived, and where Mr. Leslie -edited the one newspaper of the place, which fact enabled him to have -the Declaration conveniently printed for Johnny, who had been chosen -by the boys for the orator of the day, because he stood highest in his -reading and declamation classes. It wanted three or four days, yet, of -the “glorious Fourth,” and Johnny was diligently practising his voice, -for he was afraid, notwithstanding his mother’s earnest assurances to the -contrary, that it was not loud enough for an open air oration! - -[Illustration] - -Johnny was a very sociable and friendly little boy, and he had -recently made acquaintance with a boy somewhat older than himself, -whose profession was bootblacking. This boy had a cool, knowing, and -business-like air, which had greatly taken Johnny’s fancy, and it -occurred to him that a partnership with Jim Brady might be a very good -thing. Jim had happened to mention that he owned a wheelbarrow, and -Johnny owned an apple tree, which had been planted by his father on the -day of Johnny’s birth, and which, this season, was full of promising -apples. So Johnny resolved, if Jim improved on acquaintance, and showed -symptoms of honor and honesty, to propose to him, when the apples should -be ripe, to take his wheelbarrow and peddle them “on shares.” - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - -He would probably have made Jim the offer on the second day of their -acquaintance, but his mother advised him to wait a little. She felt sure -that Johnny would tell her at once, if Jim should use bad language, or -say or do anything which would make him a dangerous acquaintance for -her boy, and she thought it would be time enough then to break off the -intercourse which might put a little pleasure into the hard life of the -bootblack, whose sturdy figure and face she had often noticed in passing -his stand, and she had also noticed that he was almost always busy, even -when other boys of his trade were idle. - -Johnny was such a very small boy that it had never entered his mother’s -head to forbid him to smoke. She thought of it once in a while, and hoped -that when the time came for him to choose about it, he would elect to -go without a habit which is certainly useless, and which in many cases -involves a great deal of selfishness. She wished Johnny’s wife, if he -should be so fortunate as to have a good wife some day in the far future, -to love him altogether, not with a “putting-up” with one thing, and -“making allowances” for another; and she meant, when the time came, to -lay the whole subject plainly before him, and let him choose rationally -for himself. It was quite true that his father smoked; but he smoked very -moderately, never where it could annoy any one, and, whenever he bought -cigars, he deposited a sum equal to that spent for them, in the little -earthern jug with which he presented his wife once a year, and this -money was neither “house money” nor “pin money”; it was for Mrs. Leslie -to spend absolutely as she liked. And Johnny’s mother meant him, if he -should smoke at all, to be just such a smoker as his father was. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - -But on the third of July, as “Johnny came marching home,” he met Jim at -the usual corner, and Jim had a long cigar in his mouth! Johnny felt a -good deal awed. He thought Jim looked very manly indeed. - -“Have a cigar?” asked Jim affably. “One of my best customers gave me -this,” he added, “and the one I’m smoking, and I tell you it’s not many -fellows I’d offer this to, for they’re prime! It was a regular joke on -him—he’s always poking fun at me, and this morning, when I said I’d give -anything to be a sailor, he just pulls these out of his pocket, and says, -seriously, ‘Smoke these, my boy, and you’ll be as sure you’re at sea as -you ever will if you really get there!’ He thought I wouldn’t take ’em, -but I did,” and Jim chuckled, “I thanked him kindly, and told him I’d -learned to smoke years ago!” - -“Learned?” said Johnny, “why, what is there to learn? It looks easy -enough.” - -“So it is,” said Jim, with another chuckle, “it’s like what the Irishman -said about his fall; ‘Sure, it’s not the fall, it’s the fetch up that -hurts!’ I wasn’t sea-sick after that first cigar? Oh, no! not at all!” -and he gave an indescribable wink. - -All this time Johnny held the cigar doubtfully in his hand. Was it worth -while deliberately to make himself “sea-sick?” That long, coarse, black -thing did not look as if it would taste nice. - -“What are you waiting for?” asked Jim, “a light? Here’s one,” and he -drew a match from his pocket, struck it, and handed it to Johnny, who, -prevented by a false and foolish shame, from saying what was in his mind, -lighted the cigar, hastily thanked Jim, and walked off, smoking. - -But he had not gone a block before a queer, dizzy feeling, and a bitter, -puckery taste in his mouth, which reminded him of a green persimmon, made -him resolve to finish his cigar another time; so he put it out, wrapped -it carefully in paper, thrust it into his trousers pocket, and then -hurried home. - -When he kissed his mother, she exclaimed, “Why, Johnny! You smell exactly -as if you had been smoking!” - -Johnny had never, in all his life, concealed anything from his mother; -what made him wish to, now? - -[Illustration] - -“I stopped to talk to Jim,” he said, hastily, “and he was smoking a cigar -that a gentleman had given him.” - -“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Mrs. Leslie, gravely; “I must speak to -Jim. He is too young to begin to smoke.” - -Johnny said nothing, but his mind was made up; he was not going to be -beaten by that cigar! There were no lessons to be learned for the next -day, and he could give the whole afternoon, and the whole of his mind to -it. - -He did. I am not going into particulars, they are not agreeable; but late -that afternoon, as a heavy thunderstorm was coming up, Mrs. Leslie grew -uneasy about Johnny, who had not been seen since dinner. - -“Run to the barn, Tiny,” she said, “and see if he is there—though I don’t -think he can be, for I haven’t heard a word of the oration.” - -Tiny ran, and came back in five minutes, breathless, and with a horrified -face. - -“Oh, mamma!” she exclaimed, “Johnny’s cap and his speech are on the barn -floor, and the most dreadfullest groans are coming out of the haymow!” - -Mrs. Leslie was running to the barn before Tiny had finished. - -“Johnny!” she called wildly. “My darling! What has happened?” - -A pale face, a rough-looking head, with hay sticking out of its hair, -appeared at the top of the ladder, and Johnny staggered weakly down. - -“Oh, mamma!” he groaned, “I think I must be going to die! I never felt -this way before!” - -His mother caught him in her arms, and as she did so, the smell of the -rank cigar which Johnny, with wasted heroism, had smoked to the end, -struck her indignant nose. - -“Johnny!” she exclaimed, reproachfully, “you’ve been smoking, and you -told me what was just as bad as a lie about it!” - -And the warm-hearted, offended little mother burst out crying, and sobbed -with her head on Johnny’s dusty shoulder. - -Nothing she could have said would have gone to Johnny’s heart of hearts -as those sobs did. He forgot his alarming illness as he caught her in his -arms, and said, imploringly,— - -“Oh, mammy, my darling mammy, please don’t cry like that; I’ll die before -I’ll ever tell you a lie, or act you one, again. Oh, please say you -forgive me!” - -Of course Tiny felt obliged to help with the crying, and when Mr. Leslie, -coming home to a deserted house, traced his family to the barn, he came -upon a place of wailing. - -At first, he was inclined to laugh, but when he heard of the deceit which -had followed Johnny’s first effort at smoking, he looked very grave. No -one, however, could doubt Johnny’s penitence, and as he lay on the lounge -in his mother’s room, while the heavy thunder and sharp lightning seemed -to fill the air, and waves of deathly sickness rolled over him, he made -some very good resolutions, which were not forgotten, as such resolutions -sometimes are, after his recovery. - -The orator of the day was somewhat paler than he usually was when he took -his place upon the barrel which he had previously assisted to the grove, -the next morning. - -[Illustration] - -He read the Declaration of Independence in a voice which reached the ears -of his most distant listener with perfect distinctness, and when he had -finished, and the applause had subsided, he added, “out of his head,” as -Tiny proudly announced. - -[Illustration] - -“I’ve got a declaration of my own to make, now—it’s not at all long, so -you needn’t worry—it’s just this: Folks sometimes think they’re being -independent, when they’re only being most uncommonly foolish, and you -never need think that anything you’re afraid to have anybody know is -independence—it’s pretty sure to be sneaking meanness! And I’ve heard -somebody that knows more than all of us put together, say that if we -want to be presidents and things, and govern other folks, we’d better -begin on ourselves!” - -And Johnny stepped, in a dignified manner, from the barrel to a box, and -thence to the ground, amid a storm of applause, while Mr. Leslie rose and -bowed gracefully, from his place among the audience, in acknowledgment of -the tribute paid him by the orator. - -A prisoner in a dungeon may be one of those “freemen whom the Truth makes -free,” and an absolute monarch may be “the servant of sin.” Each one of -us must frame for himself his own especial Declaration of Independence. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -THINKING AND THINKEPHONES. - - -It is a great pity that little boys’ legs are so short; they have to -hurry so much, and a pair of good long legs, like those of the stately -giraffe, for instance, would be such a convenience to a small boy, who -wished to run home from school—half a mile—ask his mother something, and -be back again, inside of five minutes. - -It is difficult to think and run both at once, but something like this -was passing through Johnny’s mind, as he tore home to ask if he might -spend his shiny new half dollar in going to the circus with “the other -boys.” - -[Illustration] - -Flaming posters on all the available fences and walls, had been -announcing for some days that Barnum was coming, and that there would -be two afternoon and two evening performances, “presenting in every -respect the same attractions.” Mr. Leslie had an engagement for the first -afternoon, but he had promised to take Tiny and Johnny, and as many -neighbor children as chose to join the party—with mothers’ and fathers’ -consent, of course—on the second afternoon, and with this promise Johnny -had been well content. - -But when he went to school, on the morning of the first day, he found -that several of his schoolmates had arranged to go that afternoon, and -they soon succeeded in talking him into a belief that life would not be -worth living unless he could join them. - -“You see, Johnny,” said Ned Grafton, solemnly, “some of the ‘feats of -strength and agility’ are about as hard to do as it would be for you or -me to turn ourselves inside out and back again, and it stands to reason -that they’ll not do them so well the second day as they will the first, -when they’ve just had a rest; and the beasts and things always roar and -fight more the first day, because they’re mad at having been shut up in -their boxes and jolted about so; and then, forty things may happen to -hinder your father from taking you to-morrow, and just think how you’d -feel, if you were the only fellow at school who hadn’t been! You couldn’t -stand it at all! So just cut home, and explain it to your mother, and ask -her to let you come with us to-day, and we’ll wait for you here.” - -“I’ll tell you what I can do,” said Johnny, eagerly, “I’ve half a dollar, -all my own, left from my apple money, so I’ll take that, and then I can -go with papa to-morrow, too,—I wouldn’t like to hurt his feelings, nor -Tiny’s either.” - -“Well, I should think your mother’d have to say yes to that,” said Ned, -“and you’ll be luckier than the rest of us, if you go twice; but hurry -up—you know it begins at three, and it’s after two, now.” - -So Johnny hurried up, and was so perfectly breathless when he reached -home, that he gasped for several minutes before he could begin to shout -through the house for his mother. - -His very first shout was enough; it was given at the foot of the front -stairs, and, as his mother was in the dining-room, it reached her -instantly, and without losing anything by the way. She came out at once, -and boxed his ears lightly with the feather-duster, saying,— - -“Johnny Leslie! This is _not_ a deaf and dumb asylum. Did you imagine, -when you came in that it was?” - -“I didn’t know you were so near, mammy dear,” panted Johnny, “and I’m in -the worst kind—I mean, a dreadful hurry, I don’t see why there couldn’t -be a thinkephone, so that we could just think things at each other, it -would save so much time. The boys are all waiting for me, and they want -me to go to the circus with them this afternoon, because Ned Grafton -says the first performance is always the best, before the beasts get the -roar out of them, and before the people are tired, so mayn’t I take my -own half dollar, and go with them, and then I can go with papa and Tiny -to-morrow, too—it isn’t that I don’t want to go with him, but I want to -have the best of it!” - -“Is any grown person going with the ‘boys’?” asked Mrs. Leslie. - -“N-o, mamma,” replied Johnny, hesitatingly, “at least, they didn’t say -there was, and I don’t believe there is, but some of the boys are quite -old, you know—Charley Graham is ’most fifteen—and there isn’t any danger; -all the things are in cages, except the Tattooed Man.” - -“I’m ever so sorry, dear,” said his mother, putting her arm around him, -“but indeed I don’t feel willing to have you go without some grown -person. There will be a very great crowd, and I don’t know all the boys -with whom you want to go, and you might be led into all sorts of dangers. -And it is all nonsense about the beasts getting the roar out of them -by to-morrow; poor things! they’ll keep on roaring as long as they are -caged. So you must be patient. I really think you’ll enjoy it more with -papa to explain things, and Tiny to help you.” - -“But they’re all waiting for me!” said Johnny, choking down a sob, “and -something may happen between now and to-morrow—it’s a great while! Oh, -_please_, dear mammy! I’ll be just as careful as if papa were there, and -come right straight home when it’s out!” - -Johnny’s mother looked nearly as sorry as he did. - -“Dear little boy,” she said, “I know just how hard it is, and how foolish -it seems to you that I am afraid to trust you there without papa, or some -other grown person, and _you_ know how dearly I love you, and now you -have a chance to wear my sleeve in earnest; you must run back and tell -the boys that you cannot go till to-morrow, and then come home to me, and -I’ll comfort you.” - -Johnny turned away without a word; he did not quite shake off his -mother’s arm, but he drew away from under it, and ran, not to keep the -boys waiting, back to the schoolhouse. But it was not the light-footed -running which had brought him home, and although, before he reached the -playground, he had conquered his tears, because he was ashamed for the -boys to see them, his voice trembled as he said,— - -“Mother says I can’t go to-day,—that I must wait till to-morrow, and go -with papa.” - -The boys all knew Johnny’s mother, more or less; those who knew her more -adored her, and those who knew her less admired her profoundly, so there -were no jeers or tauntings upon this announcement, but they all looked -sorry, and Ned Grafton said,— - -“We’re awfully sorry, old fellow, but we can’t wait—it wants only five -minutes of three now; good by.” - -There was a general rush, and the boys were gone. Johnny walked home very -slowly, thinking bitter thoughts. - -[Illustration] - -“I just believe it is because mamma never was a boy!” he thought. “If -papa had been at home, and I’d asked him first, he’d have let me go! -Ladies don’t know about boys—they can’t. Mamma knows more than most -ladies, but even she doesn’t know everything.” - -The circus tent was in plain sight all the way home; it stood on a vacant -lot about half way between the school and Mr. Leslie’s house, and, just -as Johnny entered the gate, a burst of gay music came to his ears. His -mother stood on the porch with a little basket in her hands. It was very -full, and covered with a pretty red doily. Tiny and little Pep Warren, -from next door, were jumping up and down on the porch, and the baby was -tottering from one to the other, chuckling, and talking in what they -called “Polly-talk.” - -“Johnny,” said his mother, eagerly, as he came heavily up the walk, “Tiny -says there are lots of blackberries in our field, and I want you and Pep -to go with her and get some for tea. You’ll have to eat up what is in the -basket first, and then you can fill it with blackberries. And I’m going -to lend you Polly!” - -Johnny’s dull face brightened a little; he and Pep were great friends; he -liked picking blackberries when he did not have to pick many, and to have -Polly lent to them for even so short and safe an expedition as this was -an honor which he appreciated. - -[Illustration] - -“Oh, thank you, mamma!” he said, almost heartily, as he took the basket, -and they started down the lane together, he and Pep holding Polly between -them, with one of her chubby hands in a hand of each, and Tiny marching -on in front. Pep sympathized deeply upon hearing of Johnny’s woe, but -added, at the same time:— - -“I can’t help being sort of glad, Johnny, that you’ll not see it before I -do. You know mamma is going to let me go with all of you to-morrow.” - -Johnny thought this was a little selfish in Pep, but he did not say so, -and the party reached the blackberry bushes in harmony. Polly was even -funnier than usual. She was just at that interesting age when babies -begin trying to say all the words they hear, and the children were never -tired of hearing her repeat their words in “Polly-talk.” - -[Illustration] - -It was necessary to empty the basket first, of course, so they chose a -nice grassy spot at the edge of the field, where the woods kept off the -afternoon sun, spread the little red shawl which Tiny had brought, seated -Polly on it, and themselves around it, and opened the basket. There -were two or three “lady-fingers,” labelled “For Polly,” three dainty -sandwiches, three generous slices of loaf cake, and three oranges. - -“I think your mother is the very nicest lady I know, except _my_ mother!” -said Pep, through a mouthful of loaf-cake, and Johnny, who had just -bitten deeply into his sandwich, nodded approvingly. - -The lunch was soon finished, and then they began, not very vigorously, -to fill the basket with blackberries, laughing at Polly as she tangled -herself in a stray branch, and then scolded it. - -Johnny put his hand in his pocket for his knife to cut the branch, and -drew it out again, as if something had stung it—there was his half -dollar! Then he remembered that he had taken it when he went to school in -the morning, because he had half made up his mind to buy a monster kite. -At that moment the music struck up once more in the distant tent. Johnny -stopped his ears desperately. - -“If I keep on hearing that, I shall go!” he said to himself. - -He could not pick blackberries and stop his ears at the same time. The -music swelled louder and louder. Then came a cheer from the audience. -Johnny looked round for the other children. They were all standing -together; Pep was holding down a branch for Polly, and he and Tiny were -laughing as the little lady stained her pretty fingers and lips with the -ripe berries. - -“She’s all safe with them; they’ll take her home,” he whispered to -himself, as he slipped into the wood, unseen by the other children. - -“Suppose you had your thinkephone _now_, Johnny Leslie!” somebody seemed -to say inside of his head, “you’d like your mother to know what you’re -thinking _now_, wouldn’t you?” - -[Illustration] - -“Papa would have let me go—mamma’s never been a boy, and she don’t know -anything about it!” said Johnny, stubbornly, and speaking quite aloud. He -ran fast as soon as he was through the wood, and, never stopping, handed -his half dollar to the doorkeeper, and went in. The vast crowd bewildered -him; he could not see a vacant seat anywhere, nor a single boy that he -knew, but a good-natured countryman pushed him forward, saying:— - -“Here, little fellow, there’s a seat on the front bench for a boy of your -size.” - -[Illustration] - -He struggled past the people into the place pointed out to him, and -leaned eagerly over the rope. The clown was in the ring performing with -the “trick donkey,” and everybody was roaring with laughter. - -The donkey wheeled around suddenly, and flashed out his heels, just as -Johnny, recognizing a boy on the other side of the tent, leaned still -farther forward and nodded. - -[Illustration] - -Johnny had a dim impression that he had been struck by lightning; the -roaring of the crowd sounded like thunder; he did not remember what came -next. - -It was some minutes before the other children missed him; then they -called him several times at the top of their voices, and, when he neither -came nor answered, Tiny began to cry. Pep wished to explore the wood, but -Tiny fairly howled at the idea of being left alone with Polly. - -“I just believe,” she sobbed, “that some of the elephants and tigers and -things have broken out of the circus, and got into the wood, and eaten my -Johnny all up, and if we stay here they’ll eat us up, too!” - -And, taking Polly’s hand, she set off up the lane toward the house. Pep -followed her, greatly troubled. If the “elephants and tigers and things” -really were in the wood, he was missing a glorious opportunity! His -heart swelled at the thought of throwing a big stone at the elephant, -demolishing the tiger with a club, and leading the rescued Johnny home -to his glad and grateful mother! But Tiny was only a girl, and a badly -frightened one at that; they had been trusted with baby Polly, and -something seemed to tell him that it was his duty to see his charge -safely home, and lay the case before Mrs. Leslie, rather than to rush -into the wood and leave them frightened and alone. - -[Illustration] - -Mrs. Leslie was sitting in the back porch, peacefully sewing, when -the three children came up the garden walk, and she saw at once that -something was the matter. - -“Why, where’s Johnny, Pep?” she asked, anxiously, “and what has -happened?” and she sprang up, dropping her sewing. - -“We don’t know, ma’am,” said Pep, looking scared, “Tiny and I were -holding down the branches for Polly to pick, and when we looked ’round, -Johnny was gone, and I’m afraid he went into the wood, and that some of -the circus beasts have carried him off!” - -“Have any of them broken loose? Did anybody tell you?” gasped Mrs. -Leslie. - -“No ma’am,” said Pep, “but I don’t see what else could have gone with -him.” - -“Run home, dear,” said Mrs. Leslie, “I’m sorry to send you away, but I -must go look for Johnny. Take Polly to the nursery, Tiny, and I’ll send -Ann up to you.” - -And, only stopping to speak to the servant, Mrs. Leslie sped down the -lane and into the wood, calling “Johnny! Johnny!” - -It was a very small wood, and she soon satisfied herself that her boy was -not there. She ran up the lane, intending to go to Mr. Leslie’s office, -and see what he thought had better be done next, when the front gate -opened, and the man who had shown Johnny to a seat, came in with the poor -little boy in his arms. - -[Illustration] - -Johnny was still insensible, and at the first glance, his mother thought -that he was dead. Her face grew as white as his, and it was with great -difficulty that she kept herself from falling. - -“Don’t be scared, ma’am,” said the farmer, kindly, “the little feller’s -only fainted, and his hurt ain’t but a trifle—the donkey’s hoof just -grazed him kind of sideways. If it had struck him square, it would have -finished him, but a miss is as good as a mile.” - -While he was speaking, the farmer had laid Johnny on the bench in the -porch, and now he went hastily to the pump, and brought a dipperful of -water to Mrs. Leslie. - -“A little of that will bring him to,” he said, and as she gently bathed -Johnny’s face and head, his new friend fanned him gently with his own -large straw hat, and in two or three minutes the little boy “came to,” -and sat up, feeling strangely dizzy, and wondering where he was, and what -had happened. - -“There!” said the farmer, putting on his hat, and then making a bow, -“Good afternoon, ma’am—he’ll do now,” and he was gone before Mrs. Leslie -could even thank him. - -“I went to the circus, mammy!” said Johnny, feebly, and throwing his arms -around his mother’s neck as he spoke, “and the donkey was quite right to -break my head, only I don’t see how he knew, or how _you_ knew, and if -I’d really had the thinkephone, then you could have stopped me. But I’m -not good enough to wear your sleeve any more—you’ll have to take it back!” - -Johnny had been very much interested about knights, a few weeks before, -when his mother had told him some stories of the Knights of the Round -Table, and how each one chose a lady whom he might especially honor, and -for whom he was always ready to do battle, and wore her token, a glove, -or a silken sleeve, or something of the kind that she had given him, and -how Launcelot wore the sleeve of the fair Elaine. They were ripping up a -silk gown of Mrs. Leslie’s, which was to be made over for Tiny, at the -time of one of these talks; it was a summer silk, soft, and of a pretty -light gray color, and he had begged one of the sleeves. His mother had -humored him, and twisted the sleeve around his straw hat. - -“Be my own true knight,” she had said, as she gave him his decorated hat, -and Johnny had fully intended to render her all knightly service and -homage. So that now, when he had so flagrantly deceived and disobeyed -her, he felt that he was degraded, and had no longer any right to wear -her token. - -“We will not talk about that now, dear,” said his mother, very gently and -gravely, “You must go to bed at once, and have a mustard plaster on the -back of your neck. Does your head ache much?” - -“I should think it did!” said Johnny, feebly, “it feels as big as the -house, with an ache in every room!” and he closed his eyes. - -He was feverish at bedtime, and his mother, too anxious to go to bed, put -on a soft wrapper, and drew the easy-chair to his bedside. She had sent -for the doctor, but he was not at home, and she could not hope to see him -now, until morning. - -Johnny moaned and muttered a good deal in his sleep, through the night, -but toward morning he grew quiet, and when he woke, the pain was nearly -gone, but he felt very weak and forlorn. The doctor came, and said he had -better stay in bed until the next day, and against this advice he felt no -desire to rebel. - -“Mamma,” he said, earnestly, when the doctor had gone, “I wish I felt -well enough to want to go with papa and Tiny and Pep and the rest of -them, right badly. I don’t feel punished enough.” - -His mother stooped to kiss him. - -“The punishing will not help you for next time,” she said, “unless you -see just where the fault was. When did the going wrong begin?” - -Johnny was silent for a few moments; then he said,— - -“I think it began when I said to myself that you didn’t know about boys -because you were a lady. Then, when I found I had my half dollar in my -pocket, and heard the music, that seemed to make it all right,—I made -myself believe that if papa had been at home, he would have let me -go,—only I didn’t really and truly believe it, for he never does let me -do things that you don’t. - -“But, mamma, don’t you think it would be a splendid thing if there really -were thinkephones? Something like telephones, you know, only for thinks -instead of words? You see, if you and I had one, you would always be able -to stop me when I was going to do anything bad! I had such a queer dream -last night, when my head hurt so; I thought somebody had really and truly -invented thinkephones, and I was hearing everybody think, and some of -the people that I had liked ever so much were thinking such disagreeable -things that I did not like them any more, and they heard me think that, -and then _they_ didn’t like _me_ any more, and things were getting into a -most dreadful mess when you came in and cut the wires, and then the dream -stopped, and I went into a nice quiet sleep.” - -“So you see,” said his mother, smiling at this remarkable dream, “that -if anybody ever should invent the thinkephone, it will make more trouble -than pleasure, for no one, not even the best people, would be ready to -have all their thoughts known to any other human being. But, dear Johnny, -Who is it to whom all our thoughts lie bare, Who hears them just as if we -spoke, Who, if we ask Him, can take away the wicked ones, and put good -and holy ones in their place?” - -“It is the Saviour, mamma,” said Johnny, reverently, “and if I had just -asked Him yesterday, when I heard the music, and found the half dollar -in my pocket, that would have been better than stopping my ears. But it -seems to me that just when I am most bad and need Him the most, I forget -all about Him.” - -“We can teach our minds, as well as our bodies, to have habits,” said his -mother, “and the habit of sending up a quick, earnest prayer, whenever -we are especially tempted, will often save us from yielding to the -temptation, when there is nothing else to do it. Even if I could read -your thoughts, I cannot always be with you, and I could not always help -you, but the Saviour is always near, and always ‘mighty to save,’ from -small things as well as great, and you can _think_ to Him, and know that -it will be just the same as if you had spoken.” - -Johnny was obliged to keep rather quiet for several days, but he was much -more patient and gentle than he had ever been before during a slight -illness, and he seemed sincerely pleased when he heard what a good time -Tiny and Pep and the rest of his small friends had had at the circus. - -Tiny had been much impressed by seeing the identical donkey that had come -so near to breaking Johnny’s head. - -“I didn’t half like that part,” she said. “I wanted that donkey punished -for kicking you, Johnny.” - -“He didn’t do it on purpose, Tiny,” said Johnny, indulgently. “You see, -I stuck my head out over the rope, and, though I couldn’t help thinking -at first that he knew and did it to punish me, I know now that that -was foolish. And I’m really very much obliged to him! If nothing ever -happened to folks, I don’t believe they’d think of anything!” - -Mrs. Leslie left Johnny to decide for himself whether or not he should -give her back her sleeve, and, very sorrowfully, he brought her his hat -to have the “token” ripped off. - -“It wouldn’t be fair for me to keep it on, mamma,” he said, “when I -deserted Polly and Tiny and you all at once. But please don’t cut it -up, or anything,—just put it away safely, and the very first time I’ve -been tempted right hard, and remembered what you said, and been helped -through, then I’ll ask you to put it on my hat again!” - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -LETTER AND SPIRIT. - - -Tiny and Johnny congratulated themselves, and each other, at least once a -week, upon being the children of an editor. - -You will think, perhaps, that they had literary tendencies, and hoped to -grow up into co-editors? Not in the least! They each wondered, as they -groaned over “composition day,” how anybody could be found willing to -spend the greater part of his time either in writing, or in reading what -other people had written; they knew that at least a column of the “large -print” in their father’s paper, was always written by himself, and they -had often seen him plodding through pages of bad writing, which must be -read and decided upon, so that, proud as they were of him for being able -to do these things, and much as they admired him, I am afraid they pitied -him even more. - -[Illustration] - -“Poor papa!” they would say to each other, when they saw him at his desk, -with a mountain of manuscript before him; and sometimes, I must confess, -Mr. Leslie echoed this sigh, for an editor’s life is not invariably “a -happy one,” any more than a policeman’s is. - -[Illustration] - -No, their pleasure in having an editor for their father was a very -practical one; among the many books which were sent to him for review -were numbers of nice story and picture books for children; among the -“exchanges” which came to the office were delightful picture papers, -selected, apparently, with a view to playroom walls and scrap-books. And -last, but by no means least, there was the waste-paper basket! They had -learned the signs and tokens, and whenever a very fat manuscript was -being read, they would ask eagerly,— - -[Illustration] - -“Did she send any stamps, papa?” - -They were so nearly sure that the fat manuscript would prove “not -available for the purposes of, etc.,” that the whole thing hinged on -the stamps—if she had sent them, why then, of course, she must have her -“old manuscript” back, if she wished it; but if she had not, then, oh, -then! there were all those sheets of paper, perfectly blank on one -side, anyhow. And what with colored envelopes, and pamphlets printed on -pink and blue paper, and envelope bands, and monograms, and occasional -coats-of-arms, that waste paper basket, with skilful handling of its -contents, had yielded many a handsome kite. - -Its contents had been given over to Johnny, and those of the rag-bag to -Tiny, at the same time, but they preferred to make partnership affairs -of both. As the rag-bag yielded sails for boats, and covers for balls, -and “bobs” for kites, so did the waste-paper basket yield colored paper -wherewith to dress paper dolls, and stiff cards which made excellent -cardboard furniture, not to mention those pieces of blank-on-both-sides -writing paper, which could be cut into small sheets and envelopes. And if -a monogram is really handsome, why should not one person use it as well -as another? - -[Illustration] - -Johnny was beginning to be famous for his kites, and as he was a -warm-hearted and generous little boy, with a large number of friends, he -frequently made a kite to give away. Tiny was always ready to help him, -and was particularly “handy” at making the devices of bright paper with -which the kites were generally ornamented, and pasting them neatly on. -When the kite was very large, she did even more than this, and Johnny -never gave one away, without explaining that Tiny had shared in the -making. - -They had been saving all the best paper of every sort lately for the -largest kite they had ever undertaken; it was so large that it was -already named the Monster, and it was stretched, half finished, upon -the floor of the spare garret, where it would not be disturbed. It was -designed for a birthday present to one of Johnny’s very best friends, and -everybody in the house was interested in it. It was to be pure white, -with a pair of wings, and a bird’s head and tail, in brilliant red paper, -pasted upon one side, and on the other, in large blue letters, the -initials of the boy for whom it was intended. - -But, with the perversity of things in general, or rather because it had -been a very warm summer, and most of the poor authors had been taking -holidays as much as they could, the waste-paper basket of late had not -been worth the trouble of emptying. - -[Illustration] - -So it was with no very great expectations that Johnny went to it -one Saturday morning to see if by chance there should be a rejected -manuscript of sufficient length to satisfy the Monster. No, there was -nothing there but a letter written on both sides of the paper, a few -pamphlets, likewise without blank sides, and some envelopes and postal -cards. Johnny was turning away with a natural sigh, and the conviction -that, if the Monster was ever to be finished, he must make a small -appropriation out of his Christmas money, when behold! on the floor, just -under the edge of the desk, and hidden by the basket, he spied a lovely -manuscript; large sheets, firm, white, unruled paper, written upon only -on one side. - -He jumped for it with a joyful exclamation, but stopped as suddenly—had -it been _thrown_ down, and missed the basket, or had it fallen, and been -neglected for the moment, because it was hidden by the desk and basket? - -[Illustration] - -If Mr. Leslie had only been there, how quickly these questions could have -been answered! But alas! he had left home that very morning, to be gone -two days; and must a whole precious Saturday be lost on account of what -was, perhaps, after all, only a needless and foolish scruple? - -Then the two Johnnys—you may have observed that there are two of -you?—began an argument something like this:— - -Johnny No. 1. You’d better not take that thing till you’ve asked your -father about it. It looks to me as if it had merely fallen from the table. - -Johnny No. 2. But papa won’t be back till Monday morning, and I can’t -wait. Bob’s birthday is next Wednesday, and the kite’s only half done now! - -No. 1. That makes no difference. It is not the question. And you might at -least ask your mother what she thinks, and let her decide. - -No. 2. Mamma never knows anything about papa’s papers; I’ve heard her -say so a dozen times. And why should it have been on the floor if it was -worth anything? - -No. 1. You know quite well that your father never throws on the floor -things which are meant for the basket, and that it looks much more as if -it had fallen from the table. Come, put it back, and either wait till -Monday, or go and buy the rest of the paper you need. - -No. 2. Papa’s a very careful man, and he wouldn’t have gone off for two -days and left anything worth while on the floor. It was almost in the -basket, and it’s all the same, and I mean to take it, so there! - -The other Johnny made no reply to this conclusive argument—in fact, he -had no time, for the wrong Johnny rushed out of the library, shouting:— - -“Tiny! Oh, Tiny! come at once! Here’s enough to finish the Monster, tail -and all!” - -[Illustration] - -Tiny dropped some very important work for her best doll without a -moment’s hesitation, and reached the garret almost as soon as Johnny did. - -“Oh, that’s perfectly lovely!” she panted, “and it’s more than enough! -But oh, Johnny,” she added, in a changed tone, “if we should ever write -poems and stories and things, after we’re grown up, do you believe that -some dreadful editor will let his children make kites out of them?” - -“I’m afraid he will, of mine,” said Johnny, frankly, “for that’s about -all they’d be good for, but you write much better compositions than I do, -Tiny, for all you’re so much younger than I am, so perhaps the editors -will print yours. But it does seem a sort of shame, when you think of -all the time it must take them to do it, and how flat they must feel -when it turns out to have been for nothing. Now this one”—looking at it -critically—“is really beautifully written, and on such good paper. Why, -even the paper must cost them ever so much! I say, Tiny, it’s just as if -we had to put on five dollar gold pieces, or gold dollars, for bait when -we go fishing, and then had them nibbled off without catching anything. -I’ll tell that to papa—I think he might make a story, or a poem, or a -fable, or something out of it—don’t you?” - -“Yes, it’s just the kind of thing they use for a fable,” said Tiny, -approvingly, and so, in steady work at the kite, enlivened by such -intellectual conversations as this, the day flew by, and by evening the -Monster was finished, tail and all. - -There had been more than enough of the strong white paper for everything, -and Tiny had carefully cut the “bobs” out of it, fringing each one at -both ends. The colored paper for the enterprise had been on hand for some -time, and Mrs. Leslie put the crowning glory on, by drawing a monogram -to take the place of the separate initials of Bob’s name, which were to -have adorned one side of the kite. This monogram was cut by Tiny’s deft -fingers from pink and blue paper, and carefully pasted together in the -middle of one side. - -Johnny had so entirely succeeded in silencing his scruples about the -manuscript, that he would probably never have thought of it again, if it -had not been rather forcibly recalled to his memory. It had not occurred -to Tiny to ask any questions about it; such streaks of luck had come -to them before, and she had perfect faith in Johnny. So when, at the -dinner-table, on Monday, Mr. Leslie said to his wife,— - -“I’ve somehow mislaid a very bright article by Mrs. —— which I meant to -use in the next number. Did you empty the waste basket, dear, or did the -children?” - -Before his mother could answer, Johnny, with a very red face, and a lump -in his throat, had told the whole story. - -Mr. Leslie looked exceedingly grave. - -“I am very much annoyed by the loss of this manuscript,” he said, “for -even should Mrs. —— have a rough draft of it, she will be obliged to -take the trouble of making a second copy, and should she not, it will -be necessary for me to pay her for it, as if I had used it. But that is -not the worst of it, Johnny. If we deliberately stifle our consciences, -after a while, we cease to hear from them. Do you remember asking me what -‘Quench not the Spirit’ means?” - -“Yes, papa,” said Johnny, in a choked voice. - -“I think, then, that you remember what I told you, my boy, and I shall -pray that you may not again forget it. And now, the next thing is, -reparation, so far as you can make it. You must write to Mrs. —— and tell -her the whole story.” - -“Oh, papa! please! I’ll do _anything_ else!” said Johnny, piteously. “But -won’t you _please_ write for me, and let me sign it, or put that it’s all -true, at the bottom?” - -“No, my son,” said his father, firmly, “you must do this yourself, and I -shall take it as a proof of real repentance, if you do it promptly, and -without complaint.” - -Johnny said not another word, and that evening, when he bade his father -good-night, he handed him a letter, saying meekly,— - -“You’ll direct it for me, won’t you, papa?” - -“Certainly, I will, my dear boy,” said his father, throwing his arm -around Johnny’s shoulder, and drawing him near for another kiss. - -“And you’ll read it, and see if it will answer? Indeed, I did my very -best!” said poor Johnny. - -“I don’t doubt it, dear boy,” said his father, warmly, “and I shall add a -few lines to tell Mrs. —— so.” - -“Oh, will you do that? Thank you very much, dear papa!” said Johnny, and -he went to bed with a wonderfully lightened heart. - -This was his letter:— - - “DEAR MRS. —— Perhaps you will think I have no right to call - you that, when you hear what I have done. I took a story of - yours, which I heard papa say was a very bright one, and used - nearly all of it to finish a Monster Kite, which Tiny and I - were making. Tiny is my sister, but she knew nothing about - the way in which I took the story. It was this way. Papa lets - us have everything which he puts into the waste-paper basket, - but people don’t seem to have written much lately, and we had - not near enough. On Saturday morning I went to look. There was - nothing of any account in the basket, but your story had fallen - on the floor, and I made myself believe that I thought it had - been thrown at the basket, and missed it. Papa was away and - was not coming back till Monday, and we were in a great hurry - to finish the Monster for Bob Lane’s birthday, so I just took - it, and let Tiny think I found it in the basket, which was as - bad as a lie, though I didn’t say so. Now, I am so sorry that - I don’t know how to tell you, but that is not enough. If I - could unpaste your story, I would, but we put on a great deal - of paste—you have to, you know, or it don’t stick—and some of - it is all cut into fringe, for the bobs. But what I mean to say - is this: if you have any little boys, or little nephews, or - know anybody you would like to give that kite to, I will send - it right on. I have money enough, I am pretty sure, to pay for - expressing it, and I know a way of fixing it so that it will - not break. I sent one to my cousin. Will you please let me know - _at once_, if I may send it, and oblige, - - “Yours very sorrowfully and very respectfully, - - “JOHN LESLIE.” - -It had taken Johnny three good hours to write and copy that letter. His -father made no alteration in it, merely adding a few courteous lines to -express his own regret for what had happened, and to say that he believed -his boy had repented his fault very sincerely, and had done his best with -the enclosed letter. - -Mrs. —— was not a monster, if the kite was. She laughed till she cried, -and then cried a little till she laughed again, over Johnny’s letter. -Then she answered it, and this is what she said:— - - “MY DEAR JOHN,—You have my hearty forgiveness. And I would like - very much to have the kite for my son, who is nearly as old as - I imagine you are, and has never yet made one. But you must - allow me to pay the expressage; I can only accept it on that - condition. I have a rough copy of the article which helped to - make the Monster, and from this I will make a fair copy for - your father to-day and to-morrow. Please tell him so, with my - kindest regards,—and that I hope it will circulate as widely as - will the first one, and in as high circles! I should very much - like to hear from you again; if you will write once in a while, - so will I, and some day, I hope, you and my boy will meet and - be friends. In the meantime, believe me sincerely and cordially - your friend, - - “MARY ——.” - -Johnny proved the sincerity of his repentance still further by the -perfect willingness with which he packed the Monster for his journey. -Tiny helped him, having first, by working very carefully, soaked off the -monograms, not much the worse for wear, and, as they were so fortunate -as to have some gilt paper in stock, the rough spot was covered with a -shining star. - -An explanation was made to Bob, who, not having expected a kite, or -indeed any birthday present at all from Tiny and Johnny, was quite -resigned to wait, with so brilliant a prospect ahead of him, until one -or two more unfortunates had contributed a large enough supply of waste -paper. If they had known how eagerly it was welcomed, it might have -helped to console them a little, poor things! - -The children built a third Monster for themselves, after Bob’s was -finished, and on this they pasted, in large gilt letters, upon a blue -ground, the motto they intended to use if they should ever have a -coat-of-arms—“Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.” - -“Only I suppose it will have to be in Latin then,” said Johnny, as he -smoothed down the last letter of the last word, “and perhaps, by that -time, I’ll know enough Latin to do it myself!” - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -THE FIRST MOVE. - - -There were just two things which could keep Johnny quiet for more than -two minutes at a time; one was having some one read aloud to him, and -the other was playing checkers. He could read to himself, more or less, -but stopping once in a while to spell a long word, or to wonder what it -means, breaks the thread of the most entertaining story, so whenever -anything very attractive-looking in the way of books and magazines came -into the Leslie family, Johnny coaxed his mother to read it aloud. - -But it is one thing to hear reading because you have begged for it, and -have been running and jumping enough to make keeping still not only -possible but really quite pleasant, and another to hear it because your -mother asks you to stay in the house until it clears up, or your cold is -well. - -New Year’s Day had been bitterly cold and raw, and Johnny, coming from -the well-warmed church in the morning, had stopped on the way home to do -a little snowballing. He had “cooled off,” as he expressed it, rather too -quickly, and the result was an unpleasant cough. Now Johnny did not in -the least object to drinking the agreeable beverage made of Irish moss -and lemons and sugar, which his mother had prepared for him, but it was -hard work to stay in the house when all the other boys were building a -snow-fort, and making ready for a magnificent battle. - -[Illustration] - -“Oh, mammy dear!” he implored, “if you’d ever in your life been a boy, -you’d know how I feel when I look out of the window! If you’ll let me out -for just one little hour, right in the middle of the day, I’ll put on -my rubber-boots, and my overcoat, and my fur cap, and my ear-tabs, and -wind my neck all up in Tiny’s red scarf, and not stand still one single -moment—oh, please, please! They’re just building the tower!” - -“Poor Johnny!” said Tiny, with much sympathy, “would it hurt him that -way, mamma?” - -“Yes, dear, I’m afraid it would,” said Mrs. Leslie, and turning to -Johnny, she asked, “My Johnny, were you quite in earnest, when you said -you would try to win back my sleeve?” - -“Why mammy! of course I was!” he answered, opening his eyes very wide, -and for a moment forgetting his woes. No opportunity which he considered -large enough had yet occurred, for him to try to win back his mother’s -“silken sleeve,” which he had worn twisted around his hat to show that he -meant to render her knightly service, and which he had given back to her -the day after the circus, because he felt that he was unworthy to wear -it, and he often looked at it sorrowfully as it hung, where he had placed -it, above his mother’s picture, in his little room. - -[Illustration] - -“Very well,” she said, gently pulling him down upon her lap, and turning -his face away from the distracting window. “Imagine that you are really -a knight, and that you are storm bound in my castle, as the foreign -knight was in Sintram’s. You’d be too polite, in that case, I hope, to be -grumbling and howling because you were compelled to pass a whole day in -the charming society of the lady of the castle—now, wouldn’t you?” - -“Well, yes, mamma, I suppose I should,” admitted Johnny, reluctantly, -“but somehow it doesn’t seem exactly the same thing. You see, the snow -may all be melted before you let me out again, and when the real old -knights were storm bound, or anything, they always knew that their -enemies and battles and things would keep!” - -“Very well then,” replied his mother, promptly, “that gives you a chance -to be just so much more knightly than the ‘real old knights’ were! And if -you don’t give another howl, or scowl, or grumble, all day, but are my -very best Johnny, instead of my second best or third best, I’ll twist my -sleeve around your new school cap this very night!” - -“Oh, mammy! will I really and truly be winning it, that way?” asked -Johnny, eagerly. - -“Indeed you will,” said his mother, kissing him, “for you’ll never, even -if you should some day be a soldier, and fight for your country, find a -worse enemy, or one that will take more conquering, than my third-best -Johnny Leslie!” - -Johnny returned the kiss with interest, and then, resolutely turning his -back to the window, he said,— - -“Tiny, if you’ll bring your old black Dinah here, I’ll get out all the -blocks, and my pea-shooter, and my little brass cannon, and we’ll make a -huge fort, and put Dinah in the tower, and storm it! You don’t mind our -making a muss here, mammy, if we clear it up again, do you?” - -[Illustration] - -“Not a bit,” said his mother, cheerfully, while Tiny, with a little -scream of delight rushed off for Dinah. The playroom stove was out of -order, and the children were obliged to play in the dining-room, which -made Johnny’s imprisonment all the harder to bear. - -Tiny came back presently, with an assorted cargo, presided over by Dinah, -in the basket. - -“I brought all my tin housekeeping things,” she explained, as she -proceeded to unload. “I thought we could put them on top, and they’d make -such a lovely clatter when the fort fell!” - -“Now, that’s what I call really bright!” and Johnny nodded his head -approvingly. “It’s almost a pity you’re a girl, Tiny—you’d be such a -jolly little fellow if you were only a boy!” - -[Illustration] - -It made Tiny very happy when Johnny approved of her, so the building of -the fort went merrily on with so much laughing and talking that Mrs. -Leslie, who was in the kitchen, not “eating bread and honey,” but making -doughnuts, looked in once or twice to see if any of the children’s -friends had called. And when the stately fort, with its tin battlements, -at last yielded to the fierce attack of the brass cannon and the -pea-shooter, used after the manner of battering-rams, she rushed to the -scene of conflict with the dreadful certainty that the stove had been -knocked over, but an invitation to help hurrah for the victory quieted -her fears. - -The ruins had just been picked up and repacked in the basket, when Ann -came in to set the dinner table, and Johnny found, to his astonishment, -that the morning was gone. - -“But there’s all the great long afternoon yet!” he thought, ruefully, -“and mamma will have to lie down, I’m afraid, and Tiny’s going to -that foolish doll-party, and—hello! if I keep on this way I shall say -something, and, if I do, Tiny will stay at home; it would be just like -her, she’s such a good little soul. Brace up, Johnny Leslie, and win your -sleeve!” - -And Johnny marched up and down, and tried to sing “Onward, Christian -Soldier!” but only succeeded in coughing. - -“Mamma, I wish to whisper something to you,” said Tiny, after dinner. -“Don’t listen, please, Johnny,” and she whispered, “Don’t you think it -would be dreadfully mean for me to go to the doll-party, mamma, when poor -Johnny has such a cough and can’t go out? Because if you do, I’ll stay at -home, and I wouldn’t mind it, or not so very much, if Johnny would play -with me as he has played this morning.” - -“No, darling,” whispered her mother, “Johnny would not be so selfish as -to wish you to stay; and the other little girls you are to meet would be -disappointed, for they all know about your new Christmas doll. So run and -get ready, and Ann will carry you and your daughter across the street. -You will have a great deal to tell us when you come home, you know.” - -Tiny went, but not very briskly, and, when she was gone, Johnny said,— - -“I’ll bet—I mean I _think_ I know what Tiny said, mamma; didn’t she offer -to stay at home from her doll-party?” - -“What a brilliant boy!” said his mother, smiling. “She did, but I knew -you would not like her to make such a sacrifice; she has been counting -upon the party for a week.” - -“No, indeed!” said Johnny, warmly, “I hope I’m not such a great bear as -all that! But it was a jolly thing for the dear little soul to do, and -I’ll not forget it.” - -“Would you like me to read to you again, dear?” asked his mother, when -she had put the finishing touches to Tiny’s dress, and seen her off. - -“No, Mrs. Mother, thank you,” said Johnny, stoutly, “I am going to read -to myself, and you are going upstairs to lie down for at least an hour. -You’re making your back ache face, and if you don’t lie down I’ll not eat -one single doughnut or gingerbread—so there!” - -“I couldn’t stand that, of course,” said his mother, laughing, and -kissing him, “and I find my back does ache, now you mention it, so I will -take you at your word, my own true knight!” - -If they had been looking out of the window just then, they would have -seen a bright-faced little girl running up the walk, and before Mrs. -Leslie had started upon her upward journey the door-bell rang, and -there was Johnny’s especial friend, Kitty McKee, with a little basket -of rosy apples, and permission to spend the afternoon, “if it would be -convenient.” - -To say that Johnny was glad to see her but faintly expresses his -feelings. She was a year or two older than he was, and he considered -her friendship for him a flattering thing. She played checkers so well -that his occasional victories over her were triumphs indeed, and, what -was better still, she never lost her temper with her game. So, after -performing a war dance around her while she took off her cloak and hood, -Johnny rushed for the checker-board, and Mrs. Leslie, with an easy mind -and a tired body, went upstairs for a delightful nap. - -Johnny took a white checker in one hand, and a black one in the other, -mixed them up under the table, and held up his hand, asking,— - -“Which’ll you have?” - -“Right,” said Kitty, and, as it happened, that gave Johnny the first move. - -The battle was fierce, but the advantage which the first move had given -Johnny was followed up until he felt so sure of victory that he began -to grow a little careless, and was startled by losing a king and seeing -Kitty gain one in rapid succession. Then he resumed his caution; his hand -hung poised over the piece he was about to move until he had taken in -all the possible consequences. Slowly he pushed his man to the back row; -two more well-considered moves and the game was his! - -Perhaps the triumph of winning the first game made him too -self-confident; at any rate, victory perched upon Kitty’s banner for -the rest of the afternoon, and when the early dusk fell they drew their -chairs to the cheerful fire, quite willing to exchange their battle for -Tiny’s eager account of the doll-party. - -Mrs. Leslie had come down, rested and refreshed, and presently Mr. Leslie -was heard stamping the snow from his boots in the porch, and Kitty said -she really must go, if she did live only next door but one, and Mr. -Leslie said it was highly personal for her to rush off the minute she -heard his fairy footsteps, and he should step in and tell her mother they -were keeping her to tea. Kitty thanked him with a kiss, and the supper -was a very cheerful one. When it was over, the meeting adjourned to the -parlor, and Mr. Leslie found a Christmas _Graphic_ and a _London News_ -and a number of _Punch_ in his pockets, and it was time for Kitty to go -home and for Johnny to go to bed before anybody knew it. Tiny had gone an -hour ago, too sleepy even to wish to sit up longer. - -[Illustration] - -When Mrs. Leslie came to tuck Johnny up and give him his last dose -of cough mixture and last good-night kiss, she took down the sleeve, -saying,— - -“You’ll find it on your cap in the morning, my own true knight.” - -“But, indeed, mamma,” said Johnny, earnestly, “I don’t think I’ve half -won it. It hasn’t been hard at all, but the very pleasantest day since -Christmas Day.” - -“And why has it been so pleasant?” asked his mother, drawing a chair to -the bedside and sitting down. “Begin at the beginning, and tell me.” - -[Illustration] - -“Why, you know all that happened, mammy,” replied Johnny. “But I’ll go -over it, if you like. First, I had some good fun with Tiny, because she -played fort so nicely, and then you made us laugh with the doughnut woman -and gingerbread man, and then Kitty came with those beautiful apples, and -then I beat her the very first game of checkers we played—and I don’t see -why in thund—I mean _why_ I didn’t beat her any more, for we played six -games after that, and she beat me every single one. And then Tiny made us -laugh telling about the doll-party, and then papa kept Kitty to tea, and -gave us those jolly papers, and if that isn’t a pretty good day, I should -like to know what is!” - -“But you didn’t begin at the beginning,” said his mother. “Now I am going -to suppose. Suppose, when you found you could not go out this morning, -you had kept on looking out of the window and watching the boys until -your vexation and disappointment had made you cry, I am very certain -that would have set you to coughing, and then your body would have felt -worse, as well as your mind. Suppose that, instead of offering to play -with Tiny, and doing it heartily, you had been cross and sulky, and hurt -her feelings, and had spent the morning bemoaning your hard fate, and -thinking how ill-used you were; you would have been in such a bad way by -dinner-time that my doughnut woman and gingerbread man would scarcely -have made you smile, and by the time Kitty came, the sight of your face -would have been enough to make her turn round and go home again. Fretting -and fuming all the afternoon would have left you too tired of yourself -and everything else to care for Tiny’s account of the party and papa’s -papers. In short, everything would have looked to you the ugly color of -your own dark thoughts.” - -“Then it’s just like checkers!” exclaimed Johnny, sitting up in bed; “if -you get the first move, and make that all right, the rest is pretty sure -to come straight.” - -“Yes,” said his mother. “There is a French proverb which means, ‘It is -only the first step that costs.’ If we make the first step, or the first -move, in the right direction, we have gone a good deal more than one step -toward the right end.” - -“And it’s like checkers in another way,” said Johnny, thoughtfully; “if -we’re too uncommonly sure we’re all right, and can’t go wrong, we get -tripped up before we know it. I do believe that the reason why Kitty beat -me every time but that one, was because I felt so stuck up about the -first game that I didn’t try my best afterward; I thought I could beat -her anyhow.” - -“That is very likely,” answered his mother. “And now you see how needful -it is to ask that we may obey God’s ‘blessed will’ in all things—not only -large, important-looking things, which only come once in a while, but in -the veriest trifles, or what seem to us like trifles, that are coming all -the time. Sometimes I think that _there is no such thing as a trifle_, -Johnny. Good-night, darling—you will find my sleeve on your helmet in the -morning, my own true knight!” - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -INALIENABLE RIGHTS. - - -As time went on, from that Fourth of July when Johnny had reason to -change his views about independence, and as he thought more about that, -and other matters connected with it, he grew only the more firmly -convinced that any of his rights which trod upon the toes of other -people’s rights, were only wrongs under a false name. - -The boys at his school nearly all liked him; he “went into things” so -heartily, that he was wanted on both sides in all the games that had more -than one. But with all his love of fun, the boys soon found that there -were some sorts of fun—or what they called so—for which it was useless -to ask his help. So when recess came, the morning before school closed -for the summer, a group of boys gathered in a corner of the playground, -whispering together, and did not ask him to join them. He felt a little -left out in the cold, for some of his best friends were in the group, but -he was not naturally suspicious, and his mother had brought him up in a -wholesome fear of imagining himself injured or slighted. - -“Always take good-will for granted, Johnny,” she said to him once, when -he fancied himself neglected by somebody, “at least until you have the -most positive proof of ill-will.” - -[Illustration] - -So he joined some of the smaller boys, who did not seem to have been -invited to the conference, and made them supremely happy by getting up a -game of football. - -He had just parted from one of the larger boys, on his way home from -school that afternoon, and was near his gate, when a little fellow, the -youngest of all his schoolmates, stuck his head cautiously out of the -nearly closed gate, and, after seeing that the coast was clear, said in a -mysterious whisper,— - -“Hold on, Johnny, will you? I’ve got something to tell you, but if you -ever say I told you, you’ll get me into the awfullest scrape that ever -was!” - -If little Jamie Hughes had been talking to anybody but Johnny, he would -have exacted a very solemn “indeed and double deed and upon my sacred -honor I’ll never tell!” - -But the boys all felt very sure, by this time, that Johnny would not do -them an ill-turn, no matter what chance he might have; so Jamie went -hurriedly on, linking his arm in Johnny’s as he spoke, and drawing him -inside the gate and up the walk, as if he feared being seen. - -“You see, they didn’t mean me to hear,” said Jamie, talking very fast, -“but it wasn’t my fault. I was up the apple tree cutting my name, and -two of them were under it, and one of them said, ‘The old gentleman will -open his eyes, for once in his life,’ and then the other said, kind of -uneasy, ‘I don’t think we need take _cannon_ crackers; wouldn’t the small -ones do just as well?’ and then I began to sing, and they never let on -they heard me, but the first fellow said: ‘My dear boy, my grandfather -expressly requested that the salute in his honor should be fired with -cannon-crackers!’ and then they both burst out laughing, and walked away, -and I never thought, till ever so long afterward, that that one who spoke -last hadn’t a grandfather to his name, and I’m sure they’re going to do -something to—to Mr. Foster.” - -“What makes you think that, Jamie?” asked Johnny, kindly, “It may be all -a joke; perhaps they saw you up there, and are just putting up a game on -you.” - -Jamie shook his head. - -“No, they’re not!” he said, very positively, “they both jumped like -everything when I began to sing, and the one who said little crackers -would do turned as red as a beet. Now, Johnny, I came to you because I -knew you wouldn’t give me away, and because I thought you could think of -some way to checkmate them, and you’d just better believe it’s what I -think! You know Mr. Foster always leaves his window wide open at night, -and the ceilings are so low in that house where he boards that anybody -could throw a pack of crackers into a second-story window easy enough. -I was in his room once, and his bed’s right opposite the window, and -suppose those fellows should throw so hard that the crackers would hit -him in the face, or light in the bed and set the clothes afire? I can’t -tell you all I know, or you’d believe me, and spot the fellows in a -minute, and then _they’d_ spot _me_, and I wouldn’t give much for my skin -if they did!” - -[Illustration] - -Jamie would have been a good deal more nervous than he was if he had -known that Johnny had already, and without the least difficulty, -“spotted the fellows.” Jamie was a timid little boy, and his affection -for Mr. Foster, who was the teacher of mathematics at the school, had -grown out of that gentleman’s patient kindness to him. Mr. Foster never -mistook timidity for stupidity, but he was a very clear-headed man, -with little patience for boys who tried to make shifts and tricks do -duty for honestly-learned lessons. So the school was divided into two -pretty equal camps concerning him. The boys who really studied hard were -his enthusiastic admirers, and those who studied only enough to “pull -through,” as they expressed it, were very much the reverse. But when it -came to a question of “fun,” things were sometimes a little mixed, and it -seemed, in this particular case, as if some of the boys had thoughtlessly -gone over to the enemy, and then been somewhat dismayed when they saw -where they were being led. - -Johnny was very much troubled by what he had heard, and the more he -thought of it the less he liked it. A pack of cannon-crackers, flung -at random through a window, and flung all the harder by reason of the -flinger’s haste to put himself out of sight, might do untold mischief. -Beside the possibility that they would start a fire in the room, there -was another even worse one—they might explode dangerously near the face -of the sleeping victim. - -No, the thing must be stopped; but how to stop it? He thought of asking -the boys, point-blank, what they were whispering about, but, even should -any of them give him a truthful answer, they would probably suspect -that somebody had suggested the question to him, and then, of course, -remember Jamie’s presence in the tree. He thought of giving Mr. Foster -a confidential warning, but, if it took effect, it would be open to the -same objection, and he did not like to think of the life Jamie would lead -for the next few months were he even suspected of being the informer. - -Johnny’s face wore so puzzled and hopeless an expression, that evening -after he had learned his lessons, that his father said, kindly,— - -“There’s nothing so desperate that it can’t be helped somehow, my boy; -what’s the special desperation this evening? Grief at the prospect of a -temporary separation from your beloved studies?” - -Johnny laughed a little at that. - -“Oh, no, papa!” he said. “I like one or two of them well enough, but I -think I can stand it without them for a while. I wish I could tell you -all about what’s the matter, but I haven’t any right to. I will ask you -a question, though. Can you think of any kind of game, or spree, or -anything that would make the fellows at school take such an early start -on the Fourth that they wouldn’t have time for anything else first?” - -Mr. Leslie had not in the least forgotten how he had felt and acted when -he was a boy, and he also remembered various things which Johnny had said -from time to time about the way in which Mr. Foster was regarded by the -boys, so he had no great difficulty in guessing that some mischief was -on foot which Johnny was anxious to forestall, but could not hinder by -attacking the enemy on high moral grounds. - -“I should not be much of an editor if I had not enough invention and to -spare for such an emergency as that,” said Mr. Leslie, smiling; “How many -fellows are there, altogether?” - -Johnny thought a minute, and then said,— - -“Only thirty, papa, since the mumps broke loose—we had over forty before -that.” - -“I’ll call around to-morrow, just before the exercises are over,” said -Mr. Leslie, “and ask permission to address the meeting. By a curious -coincidence, a plan for jollifying the Fourth was seething in my brain -before you spoke, and I think a trifling alteration will make it fit the -case to a nicety.” - -Johnny fell upon his father’s neck with smothering affection, and went to -bed with a light and easy heart; if “papa” undertook the business, all -would go right. - -“And he didn’t ask me a single question, except about how many of us -there were!” said Johnny to himself, proudly, “What a first-class boy he -must have been himself!” - -Mr. Leslie was on very good terms with the principal of Johnny’s school, -and had no difficulty in obtaining leave to “address the meeting.” His -address was an invitation to attend an all-day picnic, on the Fourth of -July, and included teachers as well as scholars. Two hay-wagons, half -filled with hay, were to be the vehicles, and a brass band was to be in -attendance. The refreshments, Mr. Leslie stated, would be simple, but -abundant, nobody need feel called upon to bring anything, but anybody who -chose to bring fruit, and could bring it from home, would have the thanks -of the community. - -[Illustration] - -“It is not usual,” concluded Mr. Leslie, “to impose conditions in giving -an invitation, but I must ask a promise from all of you, as we are to -start at seven, sharp, on our collecting tour, not to leave your homes -that morning until you are called for. We shall have a long drive to -take, and I wish to have it over before the heat of the day begins. Will -all the boys who agree to grant me this favor raise their right hands?” - -Most of the right hands flew up as if their owners had nothing to do with -it; there was a very short pause, and then the remainder followed. Johnny -drew a long breath of intense relief. He knew that, although some of -the boys were anything but strictly truthful, they would consider it “a -little too mean” to break their pledge to their entertainer, and besides, -Mr. Leslie had said, emphatically, that there would be no hunting for -absentees, but simply a call at each door. - -That picnic was unanimously pronounced the most brilliant of this, or -of any, season. Mr. Leslie was voted “as good as forty boys,” and the -woods rang again with laughter and joyous shouting. But when a long tin -horn had given the signal which had been agreed upon, and the boys were -gathered together for the return, Mr. Leslie mounted a convenient stump. - -“Boys!” he said, as the noisy throng grew silent to listen, “No Fourth of -July celebration is complete without a speech, so I feel called upon to -make a short one. How does the Declaration of Independence begin?” - -“‘All men are born free and equal, and endowed with certain inalienable -rights!’” shouted at least half the party. - -“And what does ‘inalienable’ mean?” pursued the orator. - -Silence. And then somebody said doubtfully, “Something you can’t lose or -give away?” - -“Exactly,” said Mr. Leslie. “So, as we travel through life, we are to -bear in mind this fact, that no matter how great, or wise, or rich, or -powerful, or poor, or oppressed, or injured we may be, we are bound to -respect the ‘inalienable rights’ of other people, and that we shall never -gain anything really worth gaining, or that will bring a blessing with -it, by disregarding those rights. - -“I will not undertake to tell you what they are; I think we can generally -tell nearly enough for all practical purposes by two ways; remembering -what we consider our own rights, and imagining what we should consider -our rights, were we in the places of the people with whom we are dealing. -We have had a happy day, I think; I know I have——” - -“So have we!” in a vast shout from the audience—— - -“——and I have been pleased to see what good Republicans you all may be, -if you choose. I see you are pleased with my pleasure, and I want to -ask you all to remember, as each day closes, leaving its record of good -or evil, that the longest life must close some time, and that nothing -will be of much value to us then, but the Master’s ‘Well done, good and -faithful servant.’ Thank you for listening to me so patiently. This day -will be a pleasant memory, I hope, for all of us.” - -“Three cheers for Mr. Leslie!” shouted the “fellow” who had not any -grandfather, and the amount of noise that followed was truly astonishing. - -But a good many people’s ideas of what it is to be manly underwent a -gradual change from that evening. - -“If Johnny’s father thinks so—why, there’s nothing mean about Johnny’s -father! I should hope we all knew that!” - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -LEANING. - - -A pair of shiny steel skates had been among Johnny’s Christmas presents, -and had very nearly eclipsed all the rest, although he had many pretty -and useful things beside. - -He had never yet learned to skate, for the only good skating-pond was at -some little distance from his home, and he had no big brother to take -him in hand, and see that he had only the number of falls which must be -accepted by nearly every one who ventures on skates for the first time. - -But the winter following the famous picnic of which I have just told you, -Pep Warren’s almost grown-up brother Robert was at home, because he had -strained his eyes, and been forbidden to study for a month or two; but, -as he sensibly observed, he didn’t skate on his eyes, and, being a big, -jolly, good-natured fellow, he gave Pep a pair of skates exactly like -Johnny’s, and offered to teach both the little boys to skate. - -He had made this offer privately to Johnny’s mother and father before -Christmas, for he had heard Johnny bewailing himself, and saying he -didn’t believe he ever should learn to skate till he was as old as papa, -and then he wouldn’t wish to! - -Robert said nothing at the time, but made his kind offer in season for -Kriss Kringle to learn that nothing he could bring Johnny Leslie would so -delight his heart as a pair of steel skates would. - -Johnny came home from his trial trip on the new skates with his -transports a little moderated. He was “not conquered, but exhausted with -conquering,” and quite ready to go to bed early that night, and to submit -to a thorough rubbing with arnica first. His head ached a little. Some of -the numerous and hitherto unknown stars which he had seen still danced -before his eyes, and he felt as if he had at least half-a-dozen each of -elbows and knees. - -[Illustration] - -“You see, mamma,” he said, confidentially, as his mother’s soft, warm -hand, wet with comforting arnica, passed tenderly over the black and blue -places, “I looked at the other fellows, and it seemed to me it was just -as easy as rolling off a log. Rob was cutting his name and figures of -eight and all sorts of things while Pep and I were putting on our skates, -and I thought I had nothing to do but sail in—begin, I mean, and it would -sort of come naturally, like walking! - -“I think Pep must have been born sensible—he hardly ever wants to do -foolish things, the way I do, and, when Rob held out his hand, Pep just -took it, and went very slowly at first, exactly as Rob told him, and, if -you’ll believe it, he could really stand alone, and even strike out a -little, before we came home! - -[Illustration] - -“But I started out alone to meet Rob, and, first thing I knew, my feet -went up in the air, as if they had balloons on, and down I came, whack! -right on the back of my head! I tell you, I saw Roman candles and -rockets, but Rob helped me up, and only laughed a little, though I must -have looked dreadfully funny, and then he took my hand, and told me how -to work my feet, and I got along splendidly, till I felt sure my first -flop was only an accident, and that I could go alone well enough. So I -let go of Rob’s hand, and kept up about two minutes, and was just crowing -to myself when everything seemed to give way at once, and the ice flew -up and hit all my knees and elbows, and there I was in a heap, with my -skates locked together as if they were a padlock. Rob sorted me out, and -tried not to laugh, till I told him to go ahead, and then he just roared! -He said if I’d only been lighted, I’d have made such a gorgeous pin-wheel! - -“Perhaps you’ll think I’d had enough—I thought I had then myself, but -just before we started for home I believed I really had got the hang of -it this time, so I let go again. I struck out all right, and went ahead -for two or three yards, and Rob and Pep had just begun to clap their -hands and hurrah when before I knew what had happened I was sure I felt -my backbone coming out of the top of my head, and there I was again, -sitting down as flat as a pancake, and feeling a good deal flatter! I -didn’t try any more after that, but just took off my skates and came -home.” - -Mrs. Leslie could not help smiling at this graphic account of Johnny’s -first attempt at skating, but when she tucked him up and gave him his -last kiss, she said,— - -“Johnny, do you know of what your adventures to-day have made me think? A -verse in the Bible—‘Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he -fall.’ Nearly all our falls come from being very sure we can stand, and -from refusing the offered help.” - -“Pep didn’t fall once,” said Johnny, thoughtfully, “though it was his -first skate, too, and he’s younger than I am. Yes, I see what you mean, -mamma, and I hope I’ll remember it at the right time—but I’m so apt not -to remember till afterward!” - -“That is why we are taught to ask that God’s grace ‘may always -prevent’—that is, go before to smooth the way—‘and follow us,’” replied -his mother, as she stooped to give him another last kiss. - -Johnny applied his lesson to his next attempt at skating, and came home -triumphant, saying,— - -“We didn’t fall once, mamma, either of us, and Rob let us go a little way -alone, but he skated backward, just in front of us, and caught us every -time we staggered much.” - -But in two weeks, during which time the skating remained good, Rob’s -pupils ventured fearlessly all about the pond, without a helping hand, -and had even begun to try to cut letters and figures—though not, it must -be admitted, with any great amount of success. Mrs. Leslie declared that -she must see some of the wonderful performances of which she heard so -much, so one bright afternoon, when the mildness of the air threatened to -spoil their fun before long, she wrapped Tiny and Polly warmly up, hired -Mr. Chipman’s safest horse and best wagon, and drove in state to the pond. - -The boys were delighted, and did their best, but of course, in his -eagerness to excel himself, Johnny managed to fall once or twice, and Rob -was obliged to testify that this was now quite unusual. - -Then they begged for Polly—Tiny had been allowed to leave the wagon when -it first arrived, and was successfully and joyfully sliding. - -“Oh, do let us have Polly, if it’s just for five minutes, mamma!” said -Johnny, eagerly. “We’ll take off our skates and give her a slide. It’s -first-rate sliding, here by the bank, and it’s quite safe.” - -So Miss Polly, chuckling with delight, was lifted from the wagon, while -Johnny and Pep pulled off their skates, but she was a little frightened -when she felt the slippery ice under her feet, and “hung down like a rag -doll,” as Johnny said, instead of putting herself in sliding position. - -[Illustration: THE SKATING LESSON.] - -“Stand up straight, Polly, and put your feet down flat, _so_,” said -Johnny, as Polly slid helplessly along on the backs of her heels, resting -all her little weight confidingly upon the boys. And, after two or -three earnest explanations from Johnny and Pep, she suddenly seemed to -understand; she stiffened up, grasped a hand on each side, and went off -in such style that the boys had almost to run to keep up with her, and -she obeyed her mother’s call very unwillingly. - -“Wasn’t it fun to see her little face, though!” said Johnny, as he and -Pep walked home, having declined the proffered drive for the sake of a -little more skating. “I think she thought something had made her feet -slippery, all of a sudden—she’d never been on ice before.” - -The thaw came very soon after this, as thaws will come, even when people -have new steel skates, but happily, there are always tops and marbles, -and, as some wise person has remarked, “When one door shuts, another -opens.” - -[Illustration] - -Johnny did not play marbles “for keeps”; his father had explained to him -that taking anything without giving a fair return for it is dishonesty, -and as he quite understood this, he had no desire to “win” marbles from -boys who could not shoot so well as he could, but he enjoyed playing -fully as much as anybody did, and found the game exciting enough when -played merely for the hope of victory. - -It was in the midst of a very even game that the school bell rang one -morning. Johnny and one other boy were the champions; the rest had “gone -out.” They lingered for one more shot—two more—then just a third to -finish the game, and then, as they hurried into the schoolroom, they -found that the roll had been called, and they were marked late. - -Johnny had intended to take one more look at his history lesson, but -there was no time. He was sure of it all, except two or three dates, and -of course, one of those dates came to him—or rather, didn’t come; it -was the question that came. The next boy gave the answer, and Johnny’s -history lesson for the first time that term, was marked “Imperfect.” - -This vexed him so, that he gave only a small half of his mind to his -mental arithmetic, and he lost his place in the class,—lost it to a boy -who was almost certain to keep it, too. - -Thinking of this misfortune, he dropped a penful of ink on his spotless -new copy-book, and, although he promptly licked it off, an ugly smear -remained, and the writing teacher reproved him for untidiness. So he was -very glad when two o’clock struck, and he could go home and tell his -mournful story, for he had an uncomfortable feeling, under the injured -one, that the real, responsible cause of his misfortunes was one Johnny -Leslie. - -When his mother had heard it all with much sympathy, she paused a moment, -and then repeated these words,— - -“‘That they who do lean only upon the hope of Thy Heavenly grace, may -evermore be defended by Thy mighty power.’” - -A sudden light came into Johnny’s face, and he exclaimed,— - -“That was it, mamma dear! I wasn’t leaning on it at all, and of course, -I went down! I know all about it now. I didn’t get up when you called me -the first time, and I said my prayers in a hurry, just as if they were -the multiplication table, and I didn’t wait to read the verse in my -little book—I meant to do it after breakfast, but the marbles rattled -in my pocket, and I forgot all about it, I was in such a hurry to have -a game before school. And I wouldn’t stop to think, when the bell rang, -except a sort of make-believe think that a minute more would not make me -too late to answer to my name, and so I lost the chance to go over those -dates. And the question I missed in mental arithmetic was a mean little -easy thing, if I’d had my wits about me, but I was worrying about the -history, and I made that dreadful blot because I was thinking of both, -and did not look, and dug my pen down to the bottom of the inkstand. It’s -just like ‘The House that Jack built.’” - -[Illustration] - -“Yes,” said his mother, “I don’t think anything, the smallest thing, -stands quite alone; it is fast to something else that it pulls after it, -so we must keep a sharp lookout for the first things. We can’t rub out -this bad day—it is like the blot on your copy book; you will keep seeing -the mark, even if you don’t make another. But then, you can use the mark, -with the dear Saviour’s help, to keep you from making another. To-morrow -will be another day. You know Tiny and you like Tennyson’s ‘Bugle Song’ -so much, here is something else he said,— - - ‘Men may rise on stepping-stones - Of their dead selves, to higher things.’ - -So to-morrow you must stand on this thoughtless, careless Johnny, who -forgets what he ought to remember, and be the Johnny you _can_ be, if -you ‘lean only on the hope’ of that Heavenly grace which God gives to His -faithful children.” - -It was an humble, but bright and hopeful Johnny who sprang up at the -first call the next morning, and started for school, with fresh courage -and resolution. - -Try not to be defeated, little soldier, but, if defeats come, do you too -try to make them stepping-stones to victory. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE EXTRA HORSE. - - -Johnny did not have a great deal of time for thinking. It is difficult -to think when one is running, or jumping, or hammering, or shouting, and -still more difficult when one is asleep! He often intended to “take a -think” about something that bothered him, after he was in bed, and before -he went to sleep, but somehow, no matter how wide awake he supposed he -was before he began thinking, he always found, before he had finished, -that it was next morning, and time to get up. - -But he actually walked all the way home from school, one day, without -shouting once at anybody; he came and sat down in the sewing-room, after -he had put his books away, and was so quiet for five minutes that his -mother was just going to ask him if his head ached, when he suddenly -asked her,— - -“Mamma, would you object to my keeping a peanut-stand—out of school -hours, you know, I mean?” - -“Not at all,” replied Mrs. Leslie, “if you were obliged to earn your -living at once, and that were the only way in which you could possibly do -it. But papa and I are both anxious that you should earn your living in -a way which will help as many people as possible to earn theirs, and if -you were to set up a peanut-stand now, while you are trying to learn a -better way, I am afraid it would hinder our plans for you.” - -Johnny’s eyes had sparkled when his mother began with “Not at all,” and -now he looked a good deal disappointed. - -“Yes, mamma,” he said, meekly, “I see that’s your side of it, but may I -just tell you my side?” - -“Of course you may!” said Mrs. Leslie, smiling, and stopping her sewing -long enough to give him a hug and kiss. “I always like to hear your side, -even if I can’t agree with it, and I know you trust me enough to come -over to my side, even when you can’t see why.” - -“It would be queer if I didn’t, mamma,” he said, drawing his stool -closer, and resting his arms on her knees, “you’ve come out right so -often when I was pretty sure you wouldn’t, you know. Now, its just this -way—I know you and papa aren’t rich, and I know I oughtn’t to ask you -for any more money than you give me now, but I do want more, dreadfully, -sometimes! F’r instance, here’s Tiny’s birthday next week, and I’ve only -twenty-five cents to buy her a birthday present with, and she really -needs a new doll; that old dud she carries about isn’t fit to be seen, -but what kind of a doll can you buy for twenty-five cents? And then your -birthday will be coming along, and then papa’s and then Easter, and I -want to give presents and send cards to lots and lots of people, and how -can I do it without any money?” - -Mrs. Leslie could not help laughing. - -“O Johnny, Johnny!” she said, “you’re as bad as the old woman who called -her lazy maids on Monday morning: ‘Come girls! Get up! It’s washing day, -and to-morrow’s ironing day, and Wednesday’s baking day—here’s half the -week gone, and you not out of bed yet!’ Dear little boy, we can’t have -more than one day at a time, and here you are borrowing trouble for -almost a whole year!” - -“Well, anyhow, mamma,” said Johnny, laughing in spite of himself, and -looking a little foolish, “Tiny’s birthday is, most here, and if I might -buy a quarter’s worth of peanuts, and sell them, and then invest the -money again, I do believe I’d have a dollar before it was time to buy her -present.” - -“And I wonder,” said his mother, “how many of your lessons you would -learn, and on how many errands you would go for me, and how many -steps you would save for papa, when he comes home tired, and how much -carpentering you would do for Tiny and her little friends? No, darling, -if you can’t quite see what I mean, you must just trust me. You can help -a great many people, in a great many ways, without money, and it is all -beautiful practice for you, against the time when you can help them with -money too; but just now, your main business is to see that papa and I are -not disappointed in the man that, with the dear Father’s help, we are -trying to help you to grow into. Keep your heart and your eyes open, and -you’ll see plenty of chances without the peanut-stand.” - -Johnny looked, and felt, a good deal disappointed, but he was a boy of -his word, so he said resolutely,— - -“I promised to trust you, mamma, and I will, for although you never were -a boy, papa was, and I sometimes think he’s a kind of one yet; but you -see I can’t help feeling pretty badly about it. Perhaps it’s partly from -sitting still so long—my legs are all cramped up. Come out and race me -just twice ’round the house,” he added, coaxingly. “I should think _your_ -legs would be as stiff as pokers, sitting sewing here the way you do, for -half a day at a time!” - -“They do feel a little stiff,” said Mrs. Leslie, springing up, and -dropping her sewing into the never-empty basket, “but for all that, I -think I can beat you yet, Mr. Johnny.” - -She took off her apron and tucked up her skirt a little, and Johnny made -a line on the gravel-walk with a stick. - -“Now, mamma, are you ready? One, two, three, off!” and away they skimmed, -down the walk, across the grassplot; into the walk again, over the line, -around once more, and then— - -“There!” said Mrs. Leslie, triumphantly, “you’re beaten again, Johnny -Leslie!” - -“I don’t care,” said Johnny, panting, and very red in the face, “you’re -only a foot ahead this time, mamma, and at that rate, I’ll be two feet -ahead, next time.” - -The dinner-bell rang while Mrs. Leslie was smoothing her tumbled hair and -straightening her dress. - -“I have an errand that will take me almost to the park this afternoon, -Johnny,” she said, at dinner, “Tiny is going with me, and if you’d like -to go, I will call for you at three, and ask to have you excused from the -writing hour, and then we can have a whole hour in the park before we -need come home to supper. Shall I?” - -This was an extremely pleasing arrangement, and when the time arrived, a -happy party took seats in the horse car, for the park was more than two -miles from Mr. Leslie’s house, and the last part of the way was decidedly -an “up-grade.” - -“Oh mamma!” exclaimed Tiny, “how will these two poor horses pull such a -car full of people up that steep hill? It’s too much for them! Suppose we -get out and walk?” - -Tiny was always on the watch about the comfort of horses and dogs and -cats. - -Just then the car stopped, and a third horse, that had been standing -patiently under a tree near the sidewalk, was fastened to the pole in -front of the other two, and, with his help, the car went easily up the -slope. - -[Illustration] - -“That’s nice,” said Tiny, looking greatly relieved, “I didn’t remember -that they kept an extra horse here, mamma; how good it must make him -feel, when the poor tired horses stop and say, ‘That hill’s a great deal -too steep for us to drag this great heavy car up it’; and then he says, -‘Hold on, I’m coming. You can do it easily, with me to help you!’” - -“But, then,” said Mrs. Leslie, “just think how much of his time he spends -standing under the tree, doing nothing but wait.” - -“Why, mamma,” put in Johnny, “you know he knows the car will be along -presently, and while he’s waiting he’s resting from the last trip, -and getting up his muscle for the next one, so it isn’t exactly doing -nothing, even when he’s standing still.” - -“And you don’t imagine that it makes him feel sorry that he hasn’t a -special car of his own to pull, but must just help other horses pull -theirs?” pursued Mrs. Leslie. - -“I should think he’d be pretty foolish if he felt that way,” said Johnny, -confidently; “he’s doing something just as good, in fact, I think perhaps -it’s better, for he must make the two regular horses feel good every time -they come ’round there. Oh mamma, you’re laughing! You’ve made me catch -myself the worst ki—I mean dreadfully! I see just what you mean; you -might as well have said it; you think that till I am old enough to have a -car of my own, I ought to be an extra horse!” - -“But how could Johnny be a horse, mamma?” asked Tiny, deeply puzzled. - -They were out of the car by this time, and Tiny amiably joined in the -laugh which greeted this question. - -“I’ll explain how he could when we sit down by the lake, darling,” said -her mother, “You and Johnny walk on slowly, now, while I stop here for a -few minutes and leave my work—the parcel, Johnny, please!” - -For Johnny was marching off with the parcel under one arm, and Tiny under -the other. - -When they were comfortably seated on the shady green bank by the lake, -Mrs. Leslie explained to Tiny that she did not really expect Johnny to -turn into a horse, but that everybody who is looking out for chances to -help other people over their hard places will be sure to find plenty to -do. - -“The world has a great many tired people in it,” said Mrs. Leslie, “and -a great many sick and sorrowful and discouraged and disappointed people, -and what a beautiful thought it is that the very smallest and weakest of -us may give help, and comfort, and encouragement, every day of our lives, -if we only will.” - -“You do, mamma,” said Johnny, softly, stealing his hand into his mother’s -as he spoke, “and so does papa, but I’m afraid I’ve been too busy with my -own fun and things to try to help the poor tired ones pull, but I truly -mean to turn over a new leaf. I shall put it in my prayers,” he added, -reverently, and—“when, do you think, is a good time for me to think, -mamma? The time never seems to come.” - -“While you are dressing in the morning and undressing at night would be -very good times,” said his mother, “just before you say your prayers, you -know. You can think over in the morning what you need most for that day, -and at night what you have done and left undone. I know your dressing and -undressing don’t take long,” she added, smiling, “but one can do a good -deal of thinking in a few minutes, if one gives the whole of one’s mind -to it.” - -The red sun, peeping under the tree beneath which they were sitting, -reminded Mrs. Leslie to look at her watch. It was high time to start for -home, and Tiny and Johnny, as the car went down the steep hill, looked -out with much affectionate interest for the “extra horse,” and softly -called good bye to him, as he stood quietly under the tree, panting a -little from his last pull, and patiently waiting for the next. - -I wonder how many of the dear little men and women who will read this -are training for their own life race by watching for chances to help -the hard-pressed runners who have started. Here is a motto for all of -you; the motto which a noble and earnest man has already given to many -people—“Look up, not down; look out, and not in; look forward, not back; -and lend a helping hand.” - -And if you want his authority for this beautiful motto, it is easily -found, for you will all know where to look for these words,— - -“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -“LONG PATIENCE.” - - -Tiny and Johnny were planting their gardens, and Jim Brady was helping -them. Johnny had happened to mention to Jim that he liked a garden very -well, after the things were up, but that he did hate digging; and Jim, -after thinking hard for a minute, had said,—— - -“See here! If you’ll teach me some of the things you’re learning at -school, of evenings, after my day’s work is done, I’ll dig your garden -for you, and do it better than you can, for I’m a good sight stronger -than you are, and I’ll help you keep it clean all summer, too. Is it a -bargain?” - -Johnny hesitated. He did not like Jim’s tone. It was quite true that -Jim was the stronger of the two, but Johnny thought it showed bad taste -to mention it in that defiant sort of manner. And he did not see any -particular fun in teaching Jim, especially on summer evenings. But it -would be a great thing to have such good help with his garden as he knew -Jim would give, so he swallowed his pride, and said, as graciously as he -could,— - -“All right. You come up after tea this evening, and we’ll begin. We have -tea at six, and I’ll hurry through mine, and then, when it’s too dark to -work any more, we can come into the playroom and have the lesson.” - -You will remember that it was this Jim Brady who had given Johnny his -first, and—there is reason to believe—his last cigar, and so led him, -though quite unintentionally, into his first act of deceit to his mother. -And the remembrance of this act was a very sorrowful one, for although -Johnny, as you know, had both confessed and repented, and had been freely -forgiven, the shameful act remained, never to be undone. Do you ever -think of that, when you are tempted to do some mean, wicked thing? - -Mrs. Leslie had called on Jim, at his bootblacking stand, soon after this -occurrence, and had a long talk with him, and the next time the boys met, -Jim had said, severely,— - -“If _I_ had an Angel for a mother, Johnny Leslie, I’d be shot before I’d -behave anyhow but on the square to her, and now I’ll put you on your -honor—if you find you’re learning anything she wouldn’t like, from me, -you’ve only to let me know, and I’ll cut you dead!” - -This was a rather mixed statement, but Johnny understood it, and felt -himself blushing. It seemed to him that Jim had somehow got things -backward, but his recent downfall had humbled him, in more ways than one, -so instead of replying, as he was greatly tempted to, that if anybody -did any cutting, he would be the person to do it, he merely said, rather -shortly,— - -“Very well, I guess I know a little more about my mother than you do, so -you attend to your mother-minding, and I’ll attend to mine!” - -“Glad to hear it,” said Jim, easily, “but _my_ mother’s what the -dictionary-talkers call a traydition; I never saw her, so I’d find it -a little impossible to mind her, don’t you see? But I’ll tell you one -thing—if your mother ever cares enough about me to give me a little extra -minding to do for her, I’ll see what I’m equal to in that line, perhaps!” - -Johnny had reported this speech to Mrs. Leslie, and she had begun to work -on the suggestion. Jim had already set his mark to a promise not to smoke -until he was twenty-one, and, although he did not know it, Mrs. Leslie -was trying to find him a situation where he would have a certain, if -small, salary, and be less exposed to temptation than he now was. She was -very glad when she heard of the bargain which Johnny had made, and she -presented the new scholar with a slate and spelling book, at once. She -also gave the schoolmaster a little advice. - -[Illustration] - -“You must remember, Johnny,” she said, “that Jim has had no chance -to learn anything, compared with your chances, and you mustn’t look -superior, whatever you do. Whenever you feel very grand, just imagine -how it would be if papa should write to you in Greek, and talk to you in -French and Latin, and then call you a little stupid because you could not -understand him.” - -Tiny looked rather mournful when she heard of the new arrangement, but -she brightened up, presently. - -“Is he a very big boy indeed, Johnny?” she asked. - -“Why, no,” said Johnny, considering, “at least, he’s not much bigger -than I am, Tiny. He’s only about half a head taller, but he’s a good deal -thicker.” - -“What did you say you’d teach him?” pursued Tiny. - -“Oh, all the things I’m learning at school, I s’pose!” replied Johnny, -“we didn’t settle about that, exactly, for I don’t know yet how much he -knows—he can’t write, but maybe he can read a little—I hope so, for it -must be awfully stupid work to teach people their letters. But why do you -want to know, Tiny?” - -“I have a reason,” said Tiny, nodding her head wisely. “You needn’t think -you know all of everything, Johnny Leslie!” - -“I never said I did!” retorted Johnny, warmly; then he looked at Tiny, -and began to laugh, she was so little, and was trying so hard to look -wise and elderly. - -“You may laugh if you like,” she said, serenely, “_I_ don’t mind. But if -you don’t know what you are going to teach him, perhaps you know what -you’re not. Are you going to teach him to sing?” - -Johnny accepted Tiny’s gracious permission, and laughed a good deal, but -at last he answered,— - -“No, Tiny, I’m not going to teach him to sing. I am quite sure about -that. Mamma says I can sing straight ahead first rate, but she never knew -me to turn a tune yet. I wish I could sing the way you do,” he added, -regretfully, “I’m so full of sing sometimes that I don’t know what to do, -but I can’t make it come out.” - -They were sitting on the back porch, pasting their scrap-books, and Mrs. -Leslie was sewing at the window. - -“Never mind, Johnny,” she said, consolingly, “you’ll not ‘die with all -your music in you’ while you do so much shouting.” - -“Very well, then,” said Tiny, with a look of great satisfaction, “when -Jim comes, I shall tell him that if he will dig my garden for me, I will -teach him to sing.” - -Mrs. Leslie expected to hear Johnny first laugh, and then try to dissuade -Tiny from carrying out her plan, but to her surprise, he did neither. He -said,— - -“I shouldn’t wonder if he’d do it, Tiny; he’s all the time whistling, and -he whistles just like a blackbird, so very likely he’ll be glad to learn -to sing, too.” - -When Jim came that evening, Tiny and Johnny were both in the garden, and -as Tiny had not yet met Jim, Johnny introduced them thus,— - -“Tiny, this is Jim. Jim, this is my sister Tiny, and she wants to be in -our bargain, too. Go ahead, Tiny.” - -And so encouraged, Tiny went ahead. - -“I have a garden, too,” she said, “but Johnny knows more of everything -than I do, except singing, and I thought perhaps you’d like to learn to -sing, and if you would, I’ll teach you that, and then, if you think it -is worth it, will you just do the hard digging for me? I can do the rest -myself, watching you and Johnny.” - -A very gentle look came over Jim’s bold face, as he answered,— - -“If you’ll teach me how to sing, Miss Tiny, it will be worth as much to -me as all Johnny can teach me of other things, and I’ll be proud and -happy to take charge of your garden.” - -“Oh, thank you very much!” said Tiny, warmly. “What a nice, kind boy you -are! Do you mind if I watch you while you dig?” - -“Not a bit!” said Jim, cheerfully, “I’m not bashful. But you’d better sit -down.” - -“Wait a minute, and I’ll bring you your camp-chair, Tiny,” said Johnny, -and he raced to the porch for Tiny’s small chair, while Jim pulled off -the coat which he had put on as a mark of respect to Mrs. Leslie, whom he -hoped to see before the evening was over, and went valiantly to work with -the spade. - -“What nice big spadefuls you make!” Tiny said, after watching him a -while. “When I dig, it ’most all slides off while I am picking up the -spade.” - -“That’s because you are not quite so strong as I am,” said Jim, smiling, -and turning over an extra large spadeful by way of proving his statement. - -The two little gardens were thoroughly dug by the time that it was too -dark to work any more, and Johnny had hoed and raked Tiny’s smooth, while -Jim was digging his. Then they went into the playroom, and Mrs. Leslie -brought them a lamp to light up the lesson. - -[Illustration] - -“We will have a little singing first,” she said, opening the organ. “Tiny -and I will sing the evening hymn, and you must listen, Jim, and try to -catch the tune.” - -Jim listened, and by the time they reached the Doxology, he had joined -them, and went through the tune without a mistake, seeming even to -know the words. His voice was a very sweet tenor, and Tiny exclaimed -delightedly,— - -“It will be just as easy as anything to teach him to sing, mamma!” - -“I’d have come in sooner,” said Jim, looking very much pleased, “but that -last verse was the only one I knew. I went to Sunday-school a few times -when I was a little boy, and that verse came back to me as soon as you -began to sing it.” - -Then Johnny and his pupil sat down by the table, and Mrs. Leslie took -Tiny’s hand and went to the parlor, thinking that the two boys would -manage their undertaking better without an audience. - -Johnny felt very much embarrassed, but he plunged in boldly, as the best -way of overcoming his feelings. - -“I’ll do you the way they did me, the first day I went to school,” he -began, and taking his First Reader, he opened it, and handed it to Jim, -saying,— - -“Just read a little, will you?” - -Jim burst out laughing. - -“It’s heathen Greek to me,” he said. “I don’t know more than half the -letters. Why, if I’d known how to read, I could have picked up the rest -somehow, and that’s why I asked you to teach me.” - -Johnny was about to whistle, but he suddenly recollected his mother’s -warning. - -“All right,” he said, composedly; “we’ll begin with the letters, and I’ll -teach you the way mamma teaches Tiny—it’s easier than the way they do in -school. Wait a minute, and I’ll borrow her card, the letters are so much -larger than they are in the spelling-book.” - -He came back with a large card, covered with letters in bright colors, -and pointing to A, asked, - -“Now, what does that look like to you?” - -“It looks something like the tents those soldiers put up when they camped -near here,” said Jim, after looking at it for a moment. - -“Very well; that’s A. Now, when you say ‘_A_ tent,’ there you have it, -all right.” - -“That’s easy enough to remember,” said Jim, “I thought it would be -harder.” - -“I’ll tell you what this second fellow looks like, to me,” said -Johnny, delighted with Jim’s quickness, “it always makes me think of a -bumble-bee, and its name’s B.” - -[Illustration] - -“That’s queer,” answered Jim, “it does look like a big, fat bee, sure -enough. I guess I can remember that, too.” - -It was not easy to find likenesses like these for all the letters, but -when Johnny could not think of anything in the way of a likeness, he told -Jim of something strange or funny that the letter “stood for,” and felt -quite sure, when the alphabet had been “gone through,” that every letter -was firmly impressed upon Jim’s memory. - -“Do you want to begin to learn to write now, or wait till you’ve learned -to read?” inquired Johnny, when the reading-lesson was finished. - -“I don’t know,” said Jim, “what’s the first thing you do when you learn -to write, anyhow?” - -“You make ‘strokes’ first, like that—” and Johnny made a few rapidly on -the slate—“to sort of get your hand in, and then, when you can make them -pretty well, you go on to ‘pot-hooks and trammels’—like these”—and he -illustrated on the slate again—“and when you can make them pretty well, -then you begin to make letters.” - -“Well, then, I might as well begin right off,” said Jim, “I don’t have -to know how to read before I can make ‘strokes,’ that’s plain, and if it -takes so long just to get your hand in, the sooner I start, the better!” - -“Yes, I think so too,” said Johnny, encouragingly, “for of course, you -needn’t know how to read, to make ‘strokes’ or ‘pot-hooks and trammels’ -either, and you see you’ll be all ready, this way, to make the letters, -by the time you can read printing—maybe before. Here, I’ll rule your -slate, but I’ll ask mamma to set you the copy. I can’t make as good -strokes—or anything else for that matter—as she can, and papa says a -copy, any kind of a copy, ought to be perfect.” - -Mrs. Leslie willingly set the copy, and guided Jim’s hand over the first -row. Nothing in her look or manner suggested to Jim that her soft white -fingers felt any objection to taking hold of his grimy ones, but from -that time he always asked Johnny for soap and water, when the gardening -was done, and came to his lessons with hands as clean as vigorous -scrubbing could make them. - -When he had covered both sides of his new slate with “strokes,” which -Johnny assured him were quite as good as the first ones he had made, they -both decided that the lesson had been long enough for that time, and -parted with cordial good-nights. - -“I didn’t know it was so easy to teach people, mamma!” said Johnny, -exultingly, as soon as his pupil was out of hearing, “why, it’s no -trouble at all!” - -Mrs. Leslie smiled. - -“Jim seems to be a bright boy,” she said, “but you must remember that -his mind is like your garden; things must be planted in it, and you must -wait a while for them to come up. I don’t wish to discourage you, dear, -but learning is a new business to him, as teaching is to you, and I think -this would be a good text for both of you to start with—‘Let not him that -girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.’” - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -A CONTRACT. - - -A three days’ rain which set in the morning after Johnny’s first -appearance as a schoolmaster, put a stop to gardening, and Jim decided -for himself that he was not entitled to any more lessons until he had -done some more work. - -This had not been Tiny’s and Johnny’s idea of the contract at all; they -expected Jim to help them whenever they needed help, and intended to keep -on regularly with their teaching, unless some very special engagement -should prevent them. But, as they remembered when they came to talk it -over, they had not made this plain to Jim, and they decided to draw up a -contract, and have it ready for his signature, or rather his “mark,” if, -as Johnny said rather mournfully, “it should ever clear up again.” They -lamented very much not having planted anything before the rain. - -“It would be soaking and swelling all the time,” mourned Johnny, “and -come bouncing up the minute the sun comes out!” - -They tried shooting some radish seed at the beds with Johnny’s -pea-shooter, from an upstairs window, and had the pleasure of seeing a -flock of hungry sparrows make a breakfast of the seed almost before it -had touched the ground. Johnny was indignant, but Tiny said tranquilly,— - -“I’m glad I saw that. It was in last Sunday’s lesson, you know, -Johnny,—about the fowls of the air devouring it up. When things don’t -come up in my head, now, I shall know it was because I didn’t plant them -deep enough.” - -It was after it had rained for two days and part of another, that they -drew up the contract, and thus it ran,— - - “We are going to teach James Brady all we know, that he wants - to learn, and he is to come every evening, unless we ask - him not to, which we shall not do except for something very - particular, like a birthday party, or having folks here to tea. - And he is going to help us work in our gardens, when we want - help, but he is to come all the same in the evening, whether he - has helped that day or not. - - “Signed, - - “CLEMENTINE AND JOHN LESLIE - “James Brady.” X HIS MARK - - -They admired this production so much, that they made arrangements for -framing it, when Jim should have added, “his mark.” The arrangements -consisted chiefly of an old slate-frame, which Tiny painted bright red, -using up her entire cake of vermillion to do it, and Johnny was obliged -to copy the contract in very large letters, to make it fill the frame. - -A day of brilliant sunshine followed the three days’ rain. Johnny passed -Jim’s stand on his way from school, reproached Jim for his absence, told -him of the contract, and secured his promise to come that evening at a -quarter past six, sharp. Tiny carefully practised a little song for which -she could herself play the accompaniment, and both the children had their -stock of seeds in readiness, before tea. - -When Jim appeared, punctually at the appointed time, Mrs. Leslie came -out on the porch, and wished him good evening, and she noticed with much -pleasure that he had on a clean shirt, and that a fresh patch covered the -knee of his trousers, where a gaping rent had been, four days ago. His -face and hands shone with scrubbing, and his hair with brushing, and he -made the best bow at his command, as he came up the steps. - -“You’ll have to come too, mamma,” said Tiny, “for we haven’t quite made -up our minds where the things are to go, and we want you to help us.” - -“I’ll bring a camp-stool, and a board for your feet, mamma dear,” chimed -in Johnny, “and you can ‘sit on a cushion as grand as a queen,’ and watch -us work.” - -“But I haven’t given papa his second cup of tea yet,” remonstrated Mrs. -Leslie, “nor eaten my piece of cake.” - -“You can pour out the tea, and then ask papa to please excuse you, and -you can bring your cake with you,” said Johnny, coaxingly, and to this -Mrs. Leslie consented, although she said something about tyrants. She -came out, presently, with two pieces of cake on a plate, and insisted -upon Jim’s eating one of them, which he did without the slightest -reluctance, and then went vigorously to work. You might have thought a -large farm was being planted, if you had heard the earnest discussion, -and the number and variety of seeds named, and dusk overtook them before -they were half done. It was decided that Tiny’s lesson should be given -first, as her bedtime came before Johnny’s did. The little song was quite -new to Jim, and he could not join in it as readily as he had joined in -the hymn, but Tiny went patiently over it, again and again, until he -caught the air, and knew the words of one verse, and she did not stop -until they were singing together in perfect harmony. - -Then she gave him up to Johnny, and considerately left the room. Johnny -brought out the card with a flourish, saying confidently,— - -“We’ll just run over the letters again, to make sure, and then we’ll go -on to the a-b-abs. Oh, here’s the contract—you just put your mark to it -there, where we’ve left a place, and then we’ll frame it and give it to -you.” - -Jim listened thoughtfully, while Johnny read him the contract, but he -made no motion toward affixing his mark to it. - -“It don’t seem to me to be fair,” he said, “you’ll not need much work -done in those little gardens, and here you’ve promised to teach me nearly -every evening; I think I ought only to have a lesson when I’ve done some -work.” - -“Oh fiddlesticks!” said Johnny, impatiently, “you’ve worked like -everything already, and besides, we like to teach you; papa says it’s the -very best way to learn things, teaching them to somebody, so you see it’s -just as good for us as it is for you. Come, put your mark there, where -we left the hole for it,” and Johnny dipped the pen in the inkstand, and -handed it to his pupil, who reluctantly made his mark in the “hole.” - -“I’ll frame it to-morrow,” said Johnny, “Now for the letters. What’s -that?” and he pointed to V. - -Jim pondered a moment, then,— - -“That’s A,” he said, confidently. - -Johnny controlled himself by a violent effort, pointed out the difference -between A and V, and then “skipped” Jim through the rest of the alphabet. -To his utter consternation, Jim only remembered about half the letters, -and of some of these he was not perfectly certain. - -“I didn’t think I was such a stupid,” said poor Jim, humbly, “but I -suppose that’s because I never tried to learn anything before. I thought -I knew half the letters before I began, but the boys must have fooled -me—I’m certain somebody told me that was K,” and he pointed to R. - -This made Johnny laugh, and Jim’s humility gave him such a comfortable -feeling of superiority, that he took courage, and went through the -alphabet once more, with tolerable patience. But Jim was too keen-sighted -not to notice the effort which Johnny was making, and when the lesson was -at last over, he said,— - -“It’s going to be more of a job than you thought it would, Johnny; I can -see that, and if you want to be off your bargain, I’ve nothing to say.” - -But he looked so dull and disappointed, that Johnny’s conscience -reproached him with selfishness, and he said cheerfully,— - -“Oh, you mustn’t give up the ship so soon, Jim. I’ll stick to it as -long as you will, and it will get easier after you’ve once learned the -letters. You’d better take your spelling-book home with you to-night, and -then to-morrow you can try to pick out the letters whenever you have a -little time, you know.” - -“I will do that,” said Jim, brightening, “and I’ll not forget this on -you, Johnny—you’ll see if I do!” - -Johnny went into the parlor, when Jim was gone, and dropped his head on -his mother’s shoulder. - -“O mamma!” he said, dolefully, “he’d forgotten nearly every single -letter, and I could see he hardly believed me, when I told him that R -wasn’t K!” - -Mrs. Leslie gently pulled Johnny down on her lap. - -“You must go out bright and early to-morrow morning, and see if your -seeds are up,” she said. - -Johnny looked at her in amazement. - -“Why, mamma!” he exclaimed, “they’re only just planted! It will be -several days before they show the least little nose above ground.” - -“Oh!” said Mrs. Leslie, but she said nothing more, only looking into -Johnny’s eyes with a little smile in hers. - -He suddenly clapped his hands, exclaiming,— - -“I see what you mean, mamma! I’m sowing seeds in Jim’s head, and -expecting to see them come up before they’re fairly planted! But indeed, -it’s harder work than digging.” - -“‘Fair exchange is no robbery,’” said Mrs. Leslie, laughing at Johnny’s -mournful face. And then she said, quite seriously,— - -“I will give you another text, dear; one that I thought of when I was -watching you plant your seeds this evening. ‘The husbandman waiteth for -the precious fruit of the earth, and hath _long patience_ for it, until -he receive the early and latter rain.’ You see, the patience is needed -not only before the seeds come up, but while the plants are blossoming, -and while the fruit is forming, and while it is ripening. It is not being -patient just for a day, or a week, or a month, but for the whole season, -for it says ‘the early and latter rain.’ Now a great many of us can have -a little—a short patience, but it takes much more grace to have the long -patience, and this is what my little boy must strive for.” - -[Illustration] - -“I don’t think I’m naturally patient, mamma,” said Johnny, with a sigh. - -“No, I don’t think you are,” replied his mother, “but Tiny is, and her -patience will be a great help to you, if you will only let it, just as -your courage and energy are a help to her, for she is naturally timid, -and a little inclined to be faint-hearted. You have a chance now to win -a great victory, and, at the same time, you are running the risk of a -great defeat; but you must not try to have patience for the whole thing -at once—ask every day for just that day’s patience. You know when it -is that we don’t receive; it is when we ‘ask amiss.’ All our fighting -for our Great Captain will be in vain, unless we are ‘strengthened -with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and -long-suffering, with joyfulness.’ We will see, next Sunday, how many -times we can find this word ‘patience’ in the Gospels and Epistles; you -will be surprised, I think, to find how often it is used.” - -“It will be a help to remember, mamma,” said Johnny, with a more hopeful -look, “working in the garden, first. And I shall say ‘long patience’ to -myself ever so many times, before we begin our lessons.” - -So instead of going to bed with the discouraged feeling which the lesson -had left, Johnny went with a vigorous determination not to be beaten, and -he added to his evening prayer a petition for patience. - -“If it hadn’t been for that contract, I wouldn’t have come a step -to-night,” said Jim, as they finished planting the gardens, the next -evening, “but I thought I would try one more shot, and then, if it’s like -last night, you must just let me off, and burn the contract up.” - -“Indeed I shall not!” said Johnny, stoutly, “there it is, all framed and -glazed, and here I am, and there you are, and you’ll not get off till you -know how to read, and then you’ll not wish to!” - -[Illustration] - -We will not follow Johnny through all the discouragements and -encouragements which attended his career as a teacher; but you will be -glad to hear that, with that help which is always near, he conquered, -and that by the time he and Jim were husking the corn which the little -gardens had yielded, Jim could read as fluently as his teacher could, and -was beginning to write a legible, if somewhat uncertain hand. He had -shown a real talent for music, and, having learned all that Tiny could -teach him, was joyfully and gratefully taking lessons from Mrs. Leslie. - -“And just suppose my patience had turned out to be only the short kind, -Tiny!” said Johnny, as Tiny and he, with heads close together, proudly -popped the corn from their own farms. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -NEIGHBORS. - - -The desk next to Johnny’s had been vacant for a long time, and he did -not like this much, for he was a sociable boy, and although of course, -no great amount of conversation was permitted during school hours, it is -something to be able to make faces to a sympathetic desk-mate. There was -not an absolute rule against talking in the school which Johnny attended. -The teacher had said, at the beginning of the term,— - -“Now, boys, I don’t forbid you to speak to each other during school -hours, if you have anything really worth saying on your minds, and -will speak so that you will not disturb your neighbors, but all long -conversations can be saved till school is out, and I hope you will be -honorable enough not to talk foolishly, or to take advantage of this -permission. If I find it necessary, I shall resort to a rule, so you have -the matter in your own hands.” - -It had not been found necessary, so far, although the school was full, -excepting that one vacant seat next to Johnny’s. - -“It may be a coincidence, you know, Tiny,” said Johnny, one day, when he -had been lamenting his lonely lot to his sister, “but I don’t know—I -have a kind of a sort of an idea that it isn’t.” - -“What is a coincidence, anyhow, Johnny?” inquired Tiny, who was never -above asking for information. - -“It’s two things happening together, accidentally, that look as if they -had been done on purpose,” explained Johnny, with the little air of -superior wisdom that he always wore when Tiny asked him a question that -he could answer. I am afraid he sometimes hunted up one or two long -words, to be worked into his next conversation with Tiny, purely for the -purpose of explaining to her! It was so pleasant to see her large eyes -raised admiringly to his face. - -“But why shouldn’t it be a really and truly coincidence, Johnny?” pursued -Tiny. - -“Oh well, because Mr. Lennox said one day that he thought Harry Conover -and I might be shaken up together, and equally divided, to advantage, and -Harry’s the quietest boy I ever knew, so it’s pretty plain what he meant -by that. And I’ve noticed how he does with the other boys; he finds out -where their weak spots are, and then tries to brace them up there, but -while he’s trying, he sort of keeps things out of their way that would be -likely to make them slip up, and so I s’pose that is what he is doing to -me. But it’s very stupid to be all alone, and I wish another boy would -come—then he’d have to use that desk, for it’s the only one that’s left.” - -Two or three days after this talk with Tiny, Johnny rushed in from school -in a state of great excitement, exclaiming, as he entered the room where -his mother and sister were sitting,— - -“The seat’s taken, mamma! And it wasn’t a coincidence, Tiny! Mr. Lennox -made a little sort of a speech to me, all by myself, after school; he -knew this boy was coming, and he saved the seat on purpose for him, and -I’m dreadfully afraid he’s a prig! He didn’t act the least bit like a new -boy, he just studied and ciphered and wrote as if he’d been going there -all his life! And whenever I spoke to him, he just looked at me—so!” -and Johnny’s round face assumed an expression of mild and reproachful -surprise, which made Tiny laugh, and even made his mother smile, though -she shook her head at him at the same time, saying reprovingly,— - -“Johnny, Johnny, you know I don’t like you to mimic people, dear!” - -“I beg your pardon, mammy darling!” and Johnny poked his rough head into -his mother’s lap, “that sort of went off of itself! But indeed, I didn’t -talk much to him, and it was about very useful things. He hadn’t any -sponge, and I offered him mine, and he was hunting everywhere but in the -right place for the Danube river, and I just put my finger on the map, -and said, ‘Here it is,’ and he didn’t so much as say ‘thank you!’ And -at recess I said, ‘Do you love cookies, Ned?’—his name is Ned Owen—and -he said, with a sort of a sniff, ‘I don’t _love_ anything to eat,’ so I -thought I’d—I’d see him further before I’d give him one of your cookies, -mamma!” - -“Now Johnny Leslie,” said his mother, smoothing his hair softly with her -nice little cool hands, “you’ve taken a prejudice against that poor boy, -and if you don’t stop yourself, you’ll be quarrelling with him before -long! Something I read the other day said that, when we find fault with -people, and talk against them, there is always envy at the bottom of our -dislike. I don’t think it is quite always so, but I do believe it very -often is. While you are undressing to-night, I want you to sort yourself -out, and put yourself just where you belong.” - -Johnny hung his head; he did not have to do a great deal of sorting to -find the truth of what his mother had said. - -There was a careful completeness about everything the new boy had done, -which, to a head-over-heels person, was truly exasperating. - -And as days passed on, this feeling grew and strengthened. There was a -curious little stiffness and formality about all Ned Owen said and did, -which Johnny found very “trying,” and which made him overlook the boy’s -really pleasant side; for he had a pleasant side, as every one has, only, -unfortunately, we do not always take as much pains to find it as we do to -find the unpleasant one. - -It seemed to most of the boys that Ned did not mind the fun which was -certainly “poked” at him in abundance, but Johnny was very sure that he -did. The pale, thin face would flush suddenly, the slender hands would -be clinched, either in his pockets, or under cover of his desk. Johnny -generally managed to keep himself from joining in the fun, as it was -considered by all but the victim, but he did this more to please his -mother than because he allowed his conscience to tell him the truth. - -Boys are not always so funny and witty as they mean to be and think -they are. There was nothing really amusing in calling Ned “Miss Nancy,” -and asking him what he put on his hands to whiten them, and yet these -remarks, and others of the same lofty character, could raise a laugh at -any time. - -But deep under Johnny’s contempt for Ned, was the thorn of envy. Before -Ned came, Johnny had stood first in just one thing. Twice a week the -“Scholar’s Companion” class was required to write “sentences”; that is, -each boy must choose a word out of the spelling and defining lesson, and -work it into a neatly turned sentence of not less than six, or more than -ten lines. Johnny liked this; it seemed to him like playing a game, and -he had stood at the head of the class for a long time, for it so happened -that no other boy in the class shared his feeling about it. But now, -Ned went above him nearly every other time, and they changed places so -regularly, that this too became a standing joke among the other boys. - -Johnny was walking home from school one day with such unnatural -deliberation, that Jim Brady, whose stand he was passing without seeing -where he was, called out with much pretended anxiety,— - -“You’re not sunstruck, or anything, are you, Johnny? I’ve heard that when -folks are sunstruck, they don’t recognize their best friends!” - -Johnny laughed, but not very heartily. - -“I beg your pardon, Jim,” he said, “I didn’t see you, really and truly—I -was thinking.” - -“All right!” said Jim, cordially, “it’s hard work, thinking is, and sort -of takes a fellow’s mind up! I know how it is myself.” - -While he was speaking, a little lame boy, ragged, dirty, and totally -unattractive-looking, shuffled up, and waited to be noticed. - -“Well, Taffy,” said Jim, with a gentleness which Johnny had only seen -displayed to his mother and Tiny, before, “did you sell them all?” - -[Illustration] - -“I did, Jimmy!” and the ugly, wizened little face was brightened with -a smile, “every one I sold—and look here, will you?” and he held up a -silver quarter. - -“Well done, you!” and Jim patted him approvingly on the back. “Now see -here; here’s two tens and a five I’ll give you for it; you’ll give me one -of the tens, to buy your papers for you in the morning, and the fifteen -will get you a bed at Mother Rooney’s, and buy your supper and breakfast. -You’d better peg right along, for it’s quite a walk from here. Be along -bright and early, and I’ll have the papers ready for you.” - -The little fellow nodded, and limped away. - -“Who is he, anyhow?” asked Johnny, when he was out of hearing. - -“Oh, I don’t know!” and Jim looked embarrassed, for the first time in his -life, so far as Johnny’s knowledge of him went. “He’s a little beggar -whose grandmother or something died last week, and the other people in -the room kicked him out. You see, your mother had just been reading us -that piece about neighbors—about that old fellow that picked up the one -that was robbed, and gave him a ride, and paid for him at the tavern, -and then she said it ought to be just the same way now—we ought to be -looking out for chances to be neighborly, and it just happened—” - -Jim had grown quite red in the face, and now he stopped abruptly. - -“I think that was jolly of you,” said Johnny, warmly, “how near you did -he live, before he was kicked out?” - -“About two miles off, I should say, if I was to survey it,” and Jim -grinned, recovering his composure as he did so. - -“I often wonder at you, Johnny Leslie,” he continued, “and think maybe -you came out of a penny paper story, and were swapped off for another -baby, when you were little!” - -“What on earth do you mean?” asked Johnny, impatiently. He was somewhat -afraid of Jim’s sharp eyes and tongue. - -“Oh, nothing much,” replied Jim, “it’s just my little lively way, you -know. But your mother don’t think neighbors need to live next door to -each other; you ask her if she does!” - -“Oh!” said Johnny, “why can’t you say what you mean right out, Jim?” - -“Well, I might, possibly, I suppose,” and Jim looked thoughtful, “but -I’ve a general idea it wouldn’t always give satisfaction all round, and -I’m the last man to hurt a fellow-critter’s feelings, as you ought to -know by this time, Johnny!” - -“I must go home,” said Johnny, suddenly, “Goodbye, Jim.” - -“Goodbye to you,” responded Jim, affably, “I’ll be along as usual, if -you’ve no previous engagement.” - -“All right—but look here, Jim,” and Johnny wheeled abruptly round again, -“why do you buy that little Taffy’s papers for him?” - -“You’d better go home, Johnny—you might be late for your tea, my dear -boy!” - -“Now, Jim Brady, you tell me!” - -“Because the big boys hustle him, and he can’t fight his way through -because he’s lame. Now get out!” - -Johnny obeyed, but he was thinking harder than ever, now. And a sort of -refrain was running through his mind—a sentence from the story Jim had -recalled to him: “And who is my neighbor?” - - * * * * * - -“Do you know, Johnny,” said Tiny, a few days after Johnny had met Jim, -and heard about Taffy, “I don’t believe you mean to—but you are growing -rather cross. Perhaps you don’t feel very well?” - -Johnny burst out laughing; Tiny’s manner, as she said this, was so very -funny. It was what her brother called her “school-marm air.” - -“That’s much better!” said Tiny, nodding her head with a satisfied look, -“I was ’most afraid you’d forget how to laugh, it’s so easy to forget -things.” - -“Now Tiny!” said Johnny, with the fretful sound in his voice which had -struck her as a sign that he didn’t feel well, “you say a thing like -that, and you think you’re smart, but it isn’t easy to forget things at -all, some things, I mean. I do believe folks forget all they want to -remember, and remember all they want to forget!” - -“I don’t know of anything _I_ want to forget,” remarked Tiny, “and I -should not think you would either. Is it a bad dream?” - -“No,” replied Johnny, “I don’t suppose it is, though sometimes it kind of -seems to me as if it might be, and I’m a little in hopes I’ll wake up and -find it is, after all!” - -“But I do not wish to forget my bad dreams,” said Tiny, “for after -they’re over, they are very interesting to remember, like that one about -walking on the ceiling, you know, like a fly. It was dreadful, while it -lasted, but it pleases me to think of it now. Aren’t you going to tell me -what it is that you ’most hope is a dream?” - -“I don’t know,” said Johnny, doubtfully, “you are a very nice little -girl, Tiny, _for_ a girl, but you can’t be expected to know about things -that happen to boys. Though to be sure, this sort of thing might happen -to girls, I suppose, if they went to school. You know that new boy I told -you about?” - -Tiny nodded. - -“Well, he isn’t having much of a good time. The other fellows plague him. -But I don’t see that’s it’s any of my business, now; do you?” - -“I’m afraid—” began Tiny, and then stopped short. - -“Out with it!” said Johnny, impatiently, “you’re afraid—what?” - -“I’m afraid that’s what the priest and the Levite said,” finished Tiny, -slowly. - -“What do you?—oh yes, I suppose you mean about the Good Samaritan, and, -‘now which of these was neighbor?’ Is that what you’re driving at?” - -Tiny nodded again, even more earnestly than before. - -“Now that’s very queer,” said Johnny, musingly, “but Jim said almost -exactly the same thing. He’s picked up a little lame fellow—no relation -to him at all, and no more his concern than anybody’s else—and he’s -keeping the boys off him, and behaving as if he was the little chap’s -grandmother, and I do believe it is all because of things mamma has -said to him. He doesn’t know about Ned Owen; what he said was because I -happened to catch him grandmothering this little Taffy, as he calls him, -but it was just exactly as if he had known all about everything. It’s -very well for him; he isn’t all mixed up with the other bootblacks, the -way I am with the boys at school, and he can do as he pleases, but don’t -you see, Tiny, what a mess I should get myself into, right away, if I -began to take up for that boy against all the others?” - -[Illustration] - -Tiny replied with what Johnny considered needless emphasis,— - -“I don’t see it at all, Johnny Leslie, and what’s more, I don’t believe -you do either! The boys at school would only laugh at you, if the worst -came to the worst, and I’m pretty sure, from things Jim has told mamma, -that the kind of boys he knows would just as lief kick him, or knock him -down, if they were big enough, as to look at him! And if you’d stand up -for that poor little boy, I think some more of them would, too. Don’t you -remember, papa said boys were a good deal like sheep; that if one went -over the fence, the whole flock would come after him; sometimes, I wish -I could do something for that boy! I don’t see how you can bear to let -them all make fun of him, and never say a word, when it made you so mad, -that time, when those two dreadful boys tried to hang my kitten. It seems -to me it’s exactly the same thing!” - -Tiny’s face was quite red by the time she had finished this long speech, -and Johnny’s, though for a very different reason, was red too. He had -been angry with Tiny, at first, but before she stopped speaking, his -anger had turned against himself. She was a little frightened at her own -daring in “speaking up” to Johnny in this way, but she soon saw that her -fright was needless. - -“Tiny,” he said, solemnly, after a rather long pause, “you can’t expect -me to wish I was a girl, you know, they do have such flat times, but I -will say I think its easier for them to be good than it is for boys,—in -some ways, anyhow,—and I think I must be the beginning of a snob! You -didn’t even look foolish the day mamma took Jim with us to see the -pictures, and we met pretty much everybody we knew, and my face felt red -all the time. I’m really very much obliged to you for shaking me up. I -shall talk it all out with mamma, now, and see if I can’t settle myself. -To think how much better a fellow Jim is than I am, when I’ve had mamma -and papa and you, and he don’t even know whether he had any mother at -all!” And Johnny gave utterance to his feelings in something between a -howl and a groan. To his great consternation, Tiny burst into a passion -of crying, hugging him, and trying to talk as she sobbed. When he at -last made out what she was saying, it was something like this,— - -“I thought you were going to be mean and horrid—and you’re such a dear -boy—and I couldn’t _bear_ to have you like that—and I love you so—oh, -Johnny!” - -Johnny may live to be a very old man; I hope he will, for good men are -greatly needed, but no matter how long he lives, he will never forget the -feelings that surged through his heart when he found how bitter it was to -his little sister to be disappointed in him. He hugged her with all his -might, and in a very choked voice he told her that he hoped she’d never -have to be ashamed of him again—that she shouldn’t if he could possibly -help it. - -And after the talk with his mother that night, he hunted up the “silken -sleeve,” which he had worn until it was threadbare, and then put away so -carefully that he had a hard time to find it. It was too shabby to be -put on his hat again, but somehow he liked it better than a newer one, -and he stuffed it into his jacket, when he dressed the next morning, -about where he supposed his heart to be. He reached the schoolhouse a few -minutes before the bell rang, and found everybody but Ned Owen laughing -and talking. He was sitting at his desk with a book, on which his eyes -were intently fixed, held before him, but his cheeks were flushed, and -his lips pressed tightly together. - -Johnny did not hear anything but a confusion of voices, but he could -easily guess what the talk had been about. He walked straight to his -desk, and, laying his hand with apparent carelessness on Ned’s shoulder, -he glanced down at the open history, saying, in his friendliest manner, -which was very friendly,— - -“It’s pretty stiff to-day, isn’t it? I wish I could reel off the dates -the way you do, but every one I learn seems to drive out the one that -went in before it!” - -The flush on Ned’s face deepened, and he looked up with an expression of -utter astonishment, which made Johnny tingle with shame from the crown of -his head to the soles of his feet. And Johnny thought afterward how, if -the case had been reversed, he would have shaken off the tardy hand and -given a rude answer to the long-delayed civility. - -Ned replied, very quietly,— - -“It is a little hard to-day, but not half so hard as—some other things!” - -And just then the laughing and talking suddenly stopped, for Mr. Lennox -opened the door, but Johnny had already heard a subdued whistle from one -quarter and a mocking “Since when?” from another, and, what, was worse, -he was sure Ned had heard them too. - -To some boys it would have been nothing but a relief to find that, as -Tiny had suggested, Ned’s persecutors were very much like sheep, and, -with but few exceptions, followed Johnny’s lead before long, and made -themselves so friendly that only a very vindictive person could have -stood upon his dignity, and refused to respond. Ned was not vindictive, -but he was shy and reserved; he had been hurt to the quick by the -causeless cruelty of his schoolmates, and it was many days before he was -“hail fellow well met” with them, although he tried hard not only to -forgive, but to do what is much more difficult—forget. - -As for Johnny, when he saw how, after a trifling hesitation, a few -meaningless jeers and taunts, the tide turned, and Ned was taken into -favor, his heart was full of remorse. It seemed to him that he had never -before so clearly understood the meaning of the words, “Inasmuch as ye -did it _not_ to the least of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me.” - -Some one has likened our life to a journey; we keep on, but we can never -go back, and, as “we shall pass this way but once,” shall we not keep a -bright lookout for the chances to help, to comfort, to encourage? How -many loads we might lighten, how many rough places we might make smooth -for tired feet! Not a day passes without giving us opportunities. Think -how beautiful life might be made, and, then,—think what most of us make -of it! Travellers will wander fearlessly through dark and winding ways -with a torch to light their path, and a slender thread as a clue to -lead them back to sunlight and safety. The Light of the World waits to -“lighten our darkness, that we sleep not in death.” If we “hold fast that -which is good,” we have the clue. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -BATTLE AND VICTORY. - - -“It’s a queer world, and no mistake.” - -Jim looked unusually grave, as he gave Johnny the benefit of these words -of wisdom. Johnny was on his way home from school, and he had stopped to -show Jim a certain knife, about which they had conversed a good deal, -at various times. It had four blades, one of them a file-blade; it was -strongly made, but pretty too, with a nice smooth white handle, and a -little nickel plate on one side, for the fortunate owner’s name. They had -first made its acquaintance from the outside of a shop-window, where it -lay in a tray with about a dozen others of various kinds, all included in -the wonderful statement,— - -[Illustration] - -“Your choice for fifty cents!” - -Johnny and Jim had both chosen immediately, but as Johnny, who was -beginning to take an interest in politics, remarked, it was one thing to -nominate a knife, and quite another to elect it! A slight difficulty lay -in the way of their walking boldly into the store, and announcing their -choice; neither of them had, at that precise moment, floating capital to -the amount of fifty cents! - -“And some fellow who _has_ fifty cents will be sure to snap up such a -bargain before the day’s over,” said Johnny, mournfully. “What fun it -must be to be rich, Jim; just to walk into a store when you see anything -you like, and say, ‘I’ll take that,’ without even stopping to ask how -much it is.” - -“Yes, it sounds as if it would be,” said Jim, “but though I can’t exactly -say that I’m intimate with many of ’em, it does seem to me, looking at it -from the outside, as it were, that they get less sugar for a cent than -some of us ’umble sons of poverty do!” - -And Jim winked in a manner which Johnny admired all the more because he -was unable to imitate it. - -“I don’t see how you can tell,” said Johnny, “and I think you must be -mistaken, Jim.” - -“Well now, for instance,” replied Jim, who delighted in an argument, “I’m -taking what the newspaper-poetry-man would call an ever-fresh delight -in those three jolly warm nightshirts your mother had made for me. I’d -never have saved the money for ’em in the world, if she hadn’t kept me up -to it, and I feel as proud as Cuffee, every time I put one on, to think -I paid for every stitch of it—I can’t help feeling sort of sorry that -it wouldn’t be the correct thing to wear them on the street. Now do you -suppose your millionaire finds any fun in buying nightshirts? I guess -not! And that’s only one thing out of dozens of the same sort. See?” - -“Yes,” answered Johnny, thoughtfully, “I see what you mean; I didn’t -think of it in that way, before. But, all the same, I’d be willing to try -being a millionaire for a day or two. And I do wish the fellow in there -would kind of pile up the other knives over that white one till I can -raise money enough to buy it!” - -It is needless to say that the shopkeeper did not act upon this -suggestion—perhaps because he did not hear it; and yet, by some singular -chance, day after day passed, and still the white-handled knife remained -unsold. And then Johnny’s uncle came to say goodbye, before going on a -long business journey, and just as he was leaving, he put a bright half -dollar in his nephew’s hand, saying,— - -“I’ll not be here to help keep your birthday this year, my boy, so will -you buy an appropriate present for a young man of your age and inches, -and give it to yourself, with my love?” - -Would he? Uncle Rob knew all about that knife, in less than five minutes, -and then, as soon as he was gone, Johnny begged hard to be allowed to -go out after dark, “just this once,” to secure the knife; he felt so -entirely sure that it would be gone the next morning! - -But it was not. And its presence in his pocket, during school hours, had -a rather bad effect upon his pursuit of knowledge. On his way home, as I -have said, he stopped to show his newly-acquired treasure to Jim, and he -was a little disappointed that Jim did not seem more sympathetic with his -joy, but simply said, thoughtfully,— - -“It’s a queer world, and no mistake!” - -[Illustration: THE NEW KNIFE.] - -“I don’t see anything so very queer about it, myself,” said Johnny, -contentedly, adding, with a little enjoyment of having the best of it, -for once, with Jim, “papa says, that if we think more than two people -are queer to us, we may be pretty sure that we are the queer ones, and -that the rest of the world is about as usual—at least, that’s the sense -of what he said; I don’t remember the words exactly.” - -“I wasn’t thinking of myself just then, for a wonder!” said Jim, with -the slightly mocking expression on his face which Johnny did not like. -“It’s a good enough world for me, but when I see a little chap like Taffy -getting all the kicks and none of the halfpence, I don’t know exactly -what to think. He’s taken a new turn, lately; twisted up with pain, half -the time, and as weak as a kitten, the other half.” - -“Where is he, anyhow?” asked Johnny. - -“Well,” said Jim, turning suddenly red under his coat of tan, “I’ve got -him round at my place. The fact is, it was too unhandy for me to go and -look after him at that other place; it was noisy, too. He didn’t like it.” - -Several questions rose to Johnny’s lips, but he repressed them; he had -discovered that nothing so embarrassed Jim as being caught in some good -work. So he only asked,— - -“But how did my new knife make you think of Taffy?” - -“Oh, never mind!” and Jim began to walk away. - -“But I do mind!” said Johnny, following him and catching his arm. “And I -do wish you wouldn’t think it is smart to be so dreadfully mysterious. -Come, out with it!” - -“Very well, then,” said Jim, stopping suddenly, “if you don’t like it, -maybe you’ll know better another time. It made me think of him because -I have been meaning to buy him one of those knives as soon as I could -raise the cash, but I’ve had to spend all I could make lately for other -things. The little chap keeps grunting about a knife he once found in -the street, and lost again; and he seems to fancy that when he’s doing -something with his hands he don’t feel the pain so much. He cuts out -pictures with an old pair of scissors I happened to have, whenever I can -get him any papers, but he likes best to whittle, and he broke the last -blade of that old knife of mine the other day; he’s been fretting about -it ever since. I’m glad you’ve got the knife, Johnny, since you’re so -pleased about it, and wanted it so, but I couldn’t help thinking—” and -here Jim abruptly turned a corner, and was gone before Johnny could stop -him. - -“I should just like to know what he told me all that yarn for!” said -Johnny to himself; a little crossly. “He surely doesn’t think I ought -to give my knife, my new knife, that uncle Rob gave me for a birthday -present, to that little Taffy? Why, I don’t even know him!” - -And Johnny tried to banish such a ridiculous idea from his mind at once. -But somehow it would not be banished. The thought came back to him again -and again; how many things he had to make life sweet and pleasant to him; -how few the little lonely boy, shut up all day in Jim’s dingy bed room, -the window of which did not even look on a street, but on a narrow back -yard, where the sun never shone. The more he thought of it, the more it -appealed to his pity. And here was a chance,—but no, surely people could -not be expected to make such sacrifices as that. - -He managed to shake off the troublesome thought for a few minutes, when -he showed the knife to his mother and Tiny. They both admired it to his -heart’s content, and said what a bargain it was, and what a wonder that -nobody had bought it before, and what a suitable thing for him to buy for -Uncle Rob’s birthday present to him. But, when he went up to his room, -the question again forced itself upon him, and would not be shaken off. -Over and over again in his mind, as they had done that other time, the -words repeated themselves,— - -“And who is my neighbor?” - -He did not see Jim again for several days, and this made him unreasonably -angry. It seemed to him that Jim had taken things for granted altogether -too easily. How did Jim know that he, Johnny, was not waiting for a -chance to send the knife to poor little Taffy? - -But was he? He really hardly knew himself until one day when, by dint of -hard running, he caught Jim, and asked him,— - -“See here! How’s that little chap, and what’s gone with you lately?” - -“He’s worse,” said Jim, gruffly, “and I’m busy—that’s what’s gone with -me. I can’t stop, I’m in a hurry.” - -“Oh, very well!” said Johnny, in an offended tone. “I thought we were -friends, Jim Brady, but I’ll not bother you any more. Goodbye.” - -“Johnny,” said Jim, putting his hand on Johnny’s shoulder as he spoke, -“can’t you make any allowance for a fellow’s being in trouble? I can’t -stop now, I really and truly can’t, but I’ll be on the corner by the -library this afternoon, and if you choose to stop, I’ll talk all you want -me to.” - -“All right, I’ll come,” said Johnny, his wounded self-love forgotten at -sight of Jim’s troubled face. - -He hurried home, and, with the help of an old table knife, he managed -to work ten cents out of the jug that he had “set up” for a Christmas -present fund. With this he bought the largest picture paper he could find -for the money. Then he gathered together a handful of pictures he had -been saving for his scrap book, wrapped the knife first in them, then -in the large paper, and then tied the whole up securely in a neat brown -paper parcel. - -When he saw Jim that afternoon he asked him as cautiously as he could -about Taffy’s needs, and at last he said,— - -“Jim, why haven’t you told mamma about him, and let her help you?” - -“It seemed like begging. I didn’t like—” and Jim stopped, looking very -much embarrassed. - -“Well, I mean to tell her as soon as I go home,” said Johnny, resolutely, -“for I know she’ll go and see him, and have something done to make him -better, and—Jim, I must go now, but will you please give this to Taffy, -with my love?” - -And, putting the parcel in Jim’s hand, Johnny turned, and ran home. - -But was he really the same Johnny? Had wings grown on his feet? Had his -heart been suddenly changed into a feather? He whistled, he sang, he -stopped to turn somersets on the grass in the square. No one but his -Captain had known of the battle. None, but the Giver of it, knew of the -victory. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -FASTING. - - -Johnny had been talking to his mother, as he often talked, about a Bible -verse which he did not fully understand— - -“But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face, -that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which seeth -in secret,”—and she had told him that a sacrifice, to be real and -whole-hearted, must be made not only willingly, but cheerfully; “not -grudgingly, or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver.” - -“I don’t wonder at all at that, mamma,” Johnny had replied, “when you -think how hateful it is to have people do things for you as if they -didn’t wish to. I’d rather go without a thing, than take it when people -are that way.” - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Leslie, “people do sometimes say ‘oh bother’ when -‘certainly’ would be more appropriate,”—Johnny laughed, but he blushed -a little, too—“and ‘directly,’ or ‘in a minute,’” continued his mother, -“when it would be more graceful, to say the least of it, to go at once, -without any words. We forget too often that ‘even Christ pleased not -Himself,’ and we fret over the disturbing of our own little plans and -arrangements, as if we were all Great Moguls.” - -“You don’t, mammy,” and Johnny kissed his mother in the particular spot, -just under her chin, where he always kissed her when he felt unusually -affectionate. - -“Oh, yes I do, dear, oftener than you know,” said Mrs. Leslie, “but I -am trying all the time, and when I am nearly sure that I am going to be -cross, I go away by myself, if I can, for a few minutes, where I can -fight it out without punishing any one else, and when I can’t do that, I -ask for strength just to keep perfectly still until pleasant words will -come.” - -“You’ve been practising so long, mamma,” said Johnny, wistfully, “that -you’re just about perfect, I think; but I don’t believe I will be, if I -live to be as old as Methusaleh! I wish I had some sort of an arrangement -to clap on the outside of my mouth, that would hold it shut for five -minutes!” - -“But don’t you see, dear,”—and Mrs. Leslie laughed a little at Johnny’s -idea—“that if you had time to remember to clap on your ‘arrangement,’ you -would have time to stop yourself in another and better way?” - -“Yes, mamma, I suppose I should,” admitted Johnny, “but it somehow -seems as if the other way would be easier, especially if I had the -‘arrangement’ somewhere where I could always see it.” - -“But don’t you remember, dear,” said his mother, “that even after Moses -lifted up the brazen serpent, the poor Israelites were not saved by it -unless they looked up at it? That came into my mind the other day when -we were playing the new game—‘Hiding in plain sight,’ you know. Every -time we failed to find the thimble, it was in such ‘plain sight’ that we -laughed at ourselves for being so stupid, and then I thought how exactly -like that we are about ‘the ever-present help.’ It is always ready for -us, and then we go looking everywhere else, and wonder that we fail! And -I think you would find it so with your ‘arrangement.’ You would see it -and use it, perhaps, for a day or two, and then you would grow used to -it, and it would be invisible to you half the time, at least.” - -This game of “Hiding in plain sight” was one which Ned Owen had recently -taught them, and it was very popular both at school and in the different -homes. A thimble was the favorite thing to hide; all but the hider either -shut their eyes or went out of the room, while he placed the thimble in -some place where it could be very plainly seen—if one only knew where to -look for it! Sometimes it would be on a little point of the gas fixture; -sometimes on top of a picture-frame or mantel-ornament, and then the -hider generally had the pleasure of seeing the seekers stare about the -room with puzzled faces, and finally give it up, when he would point it -out triumphantly, and they would all exclaim at their stupidity. - -[Illustration] - -The rule was, that if any one found it, he was merely to say so, and not -to point it out to the rest. - -Johnny was very much impressed with his mother’s comparison, and -resolved, as he said to himself, to “look sharper” for the small chances -of self-denial which come to all of us, while large chances come but to -few, or only at long intervals. There was a poem of which Mrs. Leslie was -very fond, and which Tiny and Johnny had learned just to please her, -which had this verse in it:— - - “I would not have the restless will - That hurries to and fro, - Seeking for some great thing to do, - Or secret thing to know. - I would be dealt with as a child, - And guided where to go.” - -And another verse ended with,— - - “More careful, than to serve Thee much, - To please Thee perfectly.” - -Tiny and Johnny were given to “making believe” all sorts of startling -and thrilling adventures, in which they rescued people from avalanches, -and robbers, and railway-accidents; and, to do Tiny justice, all this -making believe did not in the least interfere with the sweet obedience -and thoughtfulness for the comfort of others which marked her little life -every day. She was much more practical than Johnny was, and would never -have thought of these wonderful “pretends” by herself, but she was always -ready to join him in whatever he proposed, unless she knew it to be -wrong, and he was quite proud of the manner in which she had learned from -him to invent and suggest things in this endless game of “pretending.” - -[Illustration] - -But while it did her no harm at all, I am afraid it sometimes made -Johnny feel that the small, everyday chances which came in his way -were not worth much, and this was why his mother had made her little -suggestions about self-denial. So, though Johnny still hoped that he -could think of, or discover, some “great thing,” he resolved to be very -earnest, meanwhile, in looking out for the small ones. - -He had just begun to study Latin, and it was costing him many groans, and -a good deal of hard work. He did not exactly rebel against it, for he -knew how particularly his father wished him to be a good Latin scholar, -but he expressed to Tiny, freely and often, his sincere wish that it had -never been invented. - -He went back to school immediately after dinner, one day, in order to “go -over” his lesson once more. He had studied it faithfully the afternoon -before, but one great trouble with it was that it did not seem to “stay -in his head” as his other lessons did when he learned them in good -earnest. - -“It’s just like trying to hang your hat up on nothing, mamma,” he said, -mournfully, as he kissed his mother goodbye. - -He had counted on having the schoolroom entirely to himself, so he felt a -little vexed when he saw one of the smaller boys already at his desk in a -distant corner, and his “Hello, Ted! What’s brought you back so early?” -was not so cordial as it was inquiring. - -He realized this, and felt a little ashamed of himself when Ted answered, -meekly,— - -“I didn’t think I’d be in anybody’s way, Johnny, and if I don’t know my -map questions this afternoon, I’ve got to go down to the lower class!” - -The little boy’s face looked very doleful as he said this; it would not -be pleasant to have his stupidity proclaimed, as it were, in this public -manner. Not that his teacher was doing it with any such motive as this. -Teddy had missed that particular lesson so frequently, of late, that Mr. -Lennox was nearly sure it was too hard for him, and that it would be only -right, for Teddy’s own sake, to put him in a lower class; and this was -why, if to-day’s lesson, which was unusually easy, proved too hard for -him, the change was to be made. - -“You’re not in my way a bit, Ted,” said Johnny, heartily, “and this -bothering old Latin is as hard for me as your map questions are for you, -so we’ll be miserable together—‘misery loves company’ you know.” - -With that Johnny sat down and opened his book, but his mind, instead of -settling on the lesson, busied itself with the unhappy little face in the -corner. - -“But if I go over there and help him,” said Johnny, to himself, almost -speaking aloud in his earnestness, “I’ll miss my own lesson, sure!” - -“And suppose you do,” said the other Johnny, “you will only get a bad -mark in a good cause, but if Teddy misses his, he will be humiliated -before the whole school.” - -“But papa doesn’t like me to have bad marks.” - -“Don’t be a mean little hypocrite, Johnny Leslie! If your father knew all -about it, which would he mind most, a bad mark in your report, or a worse -one in your heart? And besides, you’ve twenty-five minutes, clear. You -can do both, if you’ll not be lazy.” - -That settled it—that, and a sort of fancy that he heard his mother -saying,— - -“Even Christ pleased not Himself.” - -He sprang up so suddenly that Teddy fairly “jumped,” and went straight -over to the corner, saying, as he resolutely sat down,— - -“Here, show me what’s bothering you, young man, and perhaps I can help -you. Don’t stop to palaver—there’s no time!” - -But Teddy really couldn’t help saying,— - -“Oh, _thank_ you, Johnny!” and then he went at once to business. - -“It’s all the capitals,” he said, “I can learn them fast enough, when -I’ve found them, but it does seem to me that the folks who make maps hide -the capitals and rivers and mountains, on purpose. Now, of course Maine -has a capital, I s’pose, but can you see it? I can’t, a bit.” - -“Why, here it is, as plain as the nose on your face,” said Johnny, and -put his finger on it without loss of time. - -Teddy screwed up his eyes and forehead as he looked at the map, saying -finally,— - -“So it is! I _saw_ that, but it looked like ‘Atlanta,’ and I didn’t see -the star at all.” - -This was repeated with almost every one; Teddy was unusually quick at -committing to memory, but he made what at first seemed to Johnny the most -stupid blunders in seeing. However, the lesson was learned, or rather, -Teddy was in a fair way to have it learned, and Johnny was back at his -Latin, fifteen minutes before the bell rang. And, to his astonishment, -the Latin no longer refused to be conquered. He had done good work at it, -the day before, better work than he knew, and now, feeling how little -time he had left, he studied with unusual spirit and resolution. When the -bell rang, he was quite ready for it, and his recitation that afternoon -was entirely perfect, for the first time since he began that terrible -study. He did not know how much more he had gained in the conquest of -his selfishness; but all large victories are built upon many small ones, -and the same is, if possible, even truer of all large defeats. Habit is -powerful, to help or to hinder. - -And a most unexpected good to little Ted grew out of that day’s -experience; one of the things which prove, if it needs proving, that we -never can tell where the result of our smallest words and deeds will -stop. One of Johnny’s young cousins had recently been suffering much -from head-ache, which was at last found to be caused wholly by a defect -in her eyes. They saw unequally, and a pair of spectacles remedied the -defect and stopped the head-ache, beside affording much enjoyment for -the cousinhood over her venerable appearance. Johnny was puzzling over -Teddy’s apparent stupidity in one way, and evident brightness in another, -when he suddenly remembered his cousin Nanny, and clapped his hands, -saying to himself as he did so,— - -“That’s it, I do believe! He can’t see straight!” - -Johnny lost no time in suggesting this to Teddy, who, in his turn, spoke -of it to his mother. She had already begun to notice the strained look -about his eyes, and she took him at once to an oculist. The result was, -that he shortly afterward appeared in a pair of spectacles, and told -Johnny with some little pride,— - -[Illustration] - -“The eye doctor says that, as far as seeing goes, one of my eyes might -about as well have been in the back of my head; and it seems queer, but -everything looks different—I didn’t know so many things were straight! -And you won’t catch me missing my map questions any more! Why, the places -seem fairly to jump at me, now. And—and—I do hope I can do something for -you before long, Johnny, for it’s all your doing, you know. If you hadn’t -helped me that day, there’s no telling when I’d have found it out.” - -“Don’t you worry about doing something for me, Ted,” said Johnny, kindly. -“You’ve done enough, just putting on those spectacles. You look exactly -like your grandfather seen through the wrong end of a spyglass!” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -A CHANCE FOR A KNIGHTLY DEED. - - -After that first perfect Latin lesson, Johnny’s road to success seemed -in a measure broken, and though he by no means achieved perfection every -time, his failures were less total and humiliating, day by day, and, -to use his own beautiful simile about the hat, he began to find “pegs” -in his head whereon he could hang his daily stint of Latin. But it was -still hard work; there was no denying that; and if his affection for -his father had not been very strong and true, the task would have been -still more difficult. But somehow, whenever Mr. Leslie came home looking -more tired than usual, or turned into a joke one of the many little acts -of self-denial and unselfish courtesy which helped to make his home so -bright, it seemed to Johnny that it would be mean indeed to grumble over -this one thing, which he was doing to please his father. - -[Illustration] - -He had been much impressed by the manner in which he had learned that -first perfect lesson, for, on the previous Sunday, when he had recited -the verses which told how the five barley loaves and two small fishes had -fed the hungry multitude in the wilderness, he had thought, and said, -that it must have been easier for those people who saw the Master perform -such miracles, to follow him, than it was now for those who must “walk by -faith” entirely, with no gracious face and voice to draw them on. - -His mother did not contradict him, just then; she rarely did, when he -said anything like that; she preferred to wait, and let him find out for -himself, with more or less help from her. So she only answered, this -time,— - -“Was the thimble really hidden last night, Johnny? You know I was called -away before anybody found it, and you were all declaring that this time, -you were sure, it couldn’t be ‘in plain sight.’” - -Johnny laughed, but he looked a little foolish, too, as he answered,— - -“Why no, mamma—it was perched on the damper of the stove. I declare, that -game puzzles me more and more every time we play it; I might as well be -an idiot and be done with it! But what made you think of that just now, -mamma dear?” - -“I suppose it came into my mind because I want you to look a little -harder before you let yourself be quite certain about the miracles,” -replied his mother, “and I will give you a sort of clue. You know papa’s -business is a very absorbing one, and you often hear people wondering -how he finds time for all the other things he does, but I never wonder; -it seems to me that he gives all his time to the Master, and that he -is so free from worrying care—so sure he will have time enough for all -that is really needful, that he loses none in fretting or hesitating; -he just goes right on. There is a dear old saying of the Friends that I -always like—‘Proceed as the way opens.’ Now if you will think about it, -and about how uses for money, and for all our gifts and talents, come in -some way to all who are in earnest about using them rightly, perhaps you -will see what I mean. ‘A heart at leisure from itself’ can do a truly -wonderful amount of work for other people.” - -A dim idea of his mother’s meaning had come into Johnny’s mind, even -then, and suddenly, after he had done work which he had thought would -fill half an hour, in fifteen minutes, a flash of light followed, and he -“saw plainly.” - -I cannot tell you of all the small chances which came to him daily, but -many of them you can guess by looking for your own. He tried hard to -remember what his mother had said about willing service and cheerful -giving. “Oh bother!” was not heard very often, now, and when it was, it -was generally followed speedily by some “little deed of kindness” which -showed that it had been repented of. - -He was rushing home from school one day in one of his “cyclones,” as Tiny -called the wild charges which he made upon the house when he was really -in a hurry. It was a half-holiday, and most of the boys had agreed to go -skating together, just as soon as some ten or fifteen mothers could be -brought within shouting distance. The ice was lasting unusually late, and -the weather was delightfully clear and cold, but everybody knew that a -thaw must come before long, in the nature of things, and everybody who -skated felt that it really was a sort of duty to make the most of the -doomed ice, while it lasted. - -Johnny was like the Irishman’s gun in one respect—he could “shoot round -a corner;” but he did not always succeed in hitting anything, as he did -to-day. The anything, this time, happened to be Jim Brady, and as Jim was -going very nearly as fast as Johnny was, neither had breath enough left, -after the collision, to say anything for at least a minute. Then Jim -managed to inquire, between his gasps,— - -“Any lives lost on your side, Johnny?” - -“No, I b’lieve not,” said Johnny, rather feebly, and then they both -leaned against the fence, and laughed. - -“I was coming after you, Johnny,” began Jim, and then he stopped to -breathe again. - -“Well, you found me!” said Johnny, who, being smaller and lighter than -Jim, was first to recover from the shock, “but tell me what it is, -please, quick, for I’m in a hurry!” - -And almost without knowing that he did so, he squared his elbows to run -on again. Jim saw the motion, and his face clouded over. - -“I can’t tell you everything I had to say in half a second, so I’ll not -bother you; maybe, I can find somebody else,” and Jim began to walk off. - -Johnny sprang after him, caught his arm, and gave him a little shake, -saying as he did so,— - -“See here, Jim Brady, if you don’t stop putting on airs at me like this, -I’ll—I’ll—” and he stopped for want of a threat dire enough for the -occasion. - -“I would,” said Jim, dryly, “but if I were you, I’d find out first what -airs was—were—and who was putting ’em on. I see you’re in a hurry, and -I’m sorry I stopped you. Let go of my arm, will you?” - -“No, I won’t!” said Johnny, “so there now! And if you won’t be decent, -and turn ’round, and walk towards home with me, why, I’ll walk along with -you till you tell me what you were going to say. I never _did_ see such -a—” and again Johnny stopped for want of a word that suited him. - -Jim made no answer, and his face remained sullen, but he turned at once, -and the two walked on arm in arm, toward Johnny’s home. - -“Well,” said Johnny, presently, “we’re ’most there. Are you going to say -anything?” - -“I wouldn’t, if it was for myself—not if you hung on to me for a week!” -and Jim’s face worked; Johnny even thought his voice trembled a little. - -“Taffy’s sick,” continued Jim, “and I can’t find out what ails him. He -says he don’t hurt anywhere, but he won’t eat, and as far as I can make -out he don’t sleep much, and he feels as if he was red hot. And all he -cares for is when I am with him evenings, and read to him. That old -Turkess where I have the room sort of looks after him; she knows I’ll -look after her if she doesn’t! But it must be lonesome for the little -chap all day, and yet I daresn’t lose any more time with him than I do -now, or I wouldn’t have the money—I mean—oh, I can’t leave my business -for anybody! And I thought, maybe, you’d give him an hour two or three -times a week, Johnny; so I set a fellow to mind my stand, and if you -_can_ come, and your mother doesn’t mind, I’ll show you the way.” - -Johnny was silent a moment. How the sun shone, and how the pond sparkled -and glittered! Three or four of the boys, at a distant street corner, -beckoned frantically to him with their skates, to hurry him. - -Perhaps you think Johnny must have been very selfish, to hesitate even -for a moment, but then, you know, you are looking at him, and not at -yourself! Before Jim’s sensitive pride had time to take fire again, the -answer was ready. - -“I’ll do it, Jim,” said Johnny, cordially, “if you’ll wait half a second -till I ask mamma—she always likes to know where I am.” - -“Thank you,” said Jim, briefly, and then, with a sudden thought, he -asked,— - -“Have you had your dinner yet?” - -“Why no! I forgot all about it!” and Johnny suddenly realized that he was -alarmingly hungry. - -[Illustration] - -“You see,” he added, “I had a big sandwich at recess, and somebody gave -me an apple, so I can just ask mamma to save me something, and go right -along with you; you can’t be away from your stand all the afternoon, I -suppose.” - -“You’ll do nothing of the kind!” said Jim, firmly, “I’ll wait for you -out here, so go in, and eat as much as you can hold. I’m in no hurry -whatsomever!” - -And Jim leaned against the fence with as much composure as if the keen -March wind had been a June zephyr. - -He felt a little surprise, however, when Johnny, without another word, -marched into the house and left him there; a surprise which did not -last long, for in less than five minutes, Mrs. Leslie’s hand was on his -shoulder, and she was gently pushing him up the steps, and into the -dining-room. - -“Oh please, Mrs. Leslie!” and Jim’s face grew suddenly red, “I’m not fit. -I didn’t wait to fix up—I’m not a bit hungry!” - -His distress was so evidently real, that Mrs. Leslie paused, half way to -the table. - -“I’ll compromise,” she said, laughing, “since you are too proud to come -in anything but full dress, you shall hide yourself here, and we’ll -pretend you didn’t come in at all!” - -[Illustration] - -She opened the door into the neat, cosey inner kitchen. No one was there, -and Jim sat down by the fire with a feeling of great relief. For dinner -had just been put on table, in the dining-room; Tiny, in spotless white -apron and shining yellow curls, stood by her chair, and he murmured to -himself,— - -“I’d ’a’ choked to death, first mouthful!” - -The dining-room door was not quite closed, and presently he heard Tiny -saying,— - -“Oh, please let me, mamma! I want to—please!” - -And then she came softly in with a tempting plate of dinner, which she -set upon the table. - -“There!” she said, “there’s some of everything there, except the pudding, -and I’ll bring you that when we have ours. I’m so glad you came to-day, -because there’s a Brown Betty. I think you’d better sit this way, hadn’t -you? Then you can look at the fire; it looks nice, such a cold day.” - -It was all said and done with such simple sweetness and good-will, that -Jim’s defences gave way at once. - -“Thank you, Miss Tiny,” he said, with the grave politeness which never -failed him when he spoke either to her or to her mother, and he sat down -at once in the place she had chosen—for worlds he would not have wounded -that gentle spirit. And he found it no hardship, after all, to eat the -dinner she had brought him; what “growing boy” could have resisted it? - -[Illustration] - -After dinner, when the comforting food had done more than he knew to -put him in good-humor, Mrs. Leslie asked him many questions about -Taffy, filling a basket as she talked, with jelly and delicate rusks -and oranges. A few of the questions were by way of making sure that the -place was a safe one for Johnny. She meant to go herself, the next day, -to see the little boy, but she did not wish to interfere to-day with the -arrangement which Jim had made. So the two boys went off together, and -Jim, sure now of Johnny’s good-will, and a little ashamed of his own -“cantankerousness,” as he called it to himself, talked about Taffy all -the way, but only as they neared the door of the dreary lodging-house did -Jim succeed in saying what lay nearest his heart. - -“I haven’t told you the worst of it, Johnny,” he said, in a troubled -voice, from which all the usual mocking good-nature was gone, “the -little chap has somehow found out that he’s dying, and—he’s afraid!” - -There was no time for more; they were already on the stairs, and Johnny -gave a sort of groan; who was he to comfort that little trembling soul? - -“Oh,” he thought, “if mamma were only here!” - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. - - -The room they entered was much more neat and clean than Johnny had -expected to find it, and there was even some attempt at decoration, -in the way of picture cards and show bills tacked upon the dingy -walls. A stove, whose old age and infirmities were concealed by much -stove-blacking, held a cheerful little fire, and the panes of the one -window were bright and clear. The bed, which looked unpleasantly hard, -and was scantily furnished, had been pulled to a place between the fire -and the window, and Taffy, sitting up against a skilfully arranged -chair-back and two thin pillows, looked eagerly towards the door as it -opened. The sharp, thin little face brightened with a smile, as he saw -Jim, but he did not speak. - -[Illustration] - -“Taffy,” said Jim, gently, “here’s Johnny Leslie. He’s come to see you, -and read to you a little bit. He’s Miss Tiny’s brother, you know, and -Mrs. Leslie’s son. Won’t you shake hands with him?” - -Taffy held out his hand, nodding to Johnny with much friendliness. - -“Oh, yes,” he said, in a voice so low and hoarse that Johnny bent nearer -to catch his meaning. “I’ll shake hands with him; I thought it was some -strange boy, but that’s different.” - -[Illustration] - -“And see,” continued Jim, opening the basket, and setting out the things -upon a rough pine table, which held a pitcher of water and a tumbler, -two or three medicine bottles, a very small orange, and a big red apple, -which Johnny recognized; he had given it to Jim a day or two ago. The -little fellow’s eyes sparkled as he saw the pretty eatables come out of -the basket, one after another, and he stroked the glass which held the -bright-colored jelly, saying hoarsely,— - -“That’s pretty, that is. His folks must be rich,” and he nodded toward -Johnny. - -“I must go now,” Jim said, not noticing this last remark of Taffy’s, “but -Johnny will stay awhile, and after that it won’t be long till I’m home. -Be a good boy, and don’t bother Johnny; he’s not used to you like I am.” - -Jim went, with a very friendly goodbye; and Johnny was left alone with -Taffy, who eyed him shyly, but did not speak. - -“Wouldn’t you like some of this jelly?” asked Johnny, hastily; “I can put -some in this empty tumbler for you, you know, so as not to muss it all up -at once.” - -Taffy shook his head. - -“Well, then, an orange?” went on Johnny. “I know a first-rate way to fix -an orange, the way they do ’em in Havana, where they grow. Papa showed -me, the winter he went there. Shall I do one for you? I don’t believe you -ever ate one that way.” - -Taffy nodded eagerly, opening his parched lips, but still not speaking. -So Johnny hunted up a fork, and then, with Taffy’s knife, cut a round, -thick slice of skin, about the size of a half-dollar, off the stem and -blossom ends of the orange. These pieces of skin he put together, and -stuck the fork through them. Then he peeled half the orange, cutting off -all the white skin, as well as the yellow, then he stuck it on the fork, -at the peeled end, finished peeling it, and handed it to Taffy, who had -been looking on with breathless interest. - -“There!” said Johnny, “you just hold on to the fork, and bite, and you’ll -get all the good part of the orange, and none of the bad.” - -“Now wasn’t that first-rate?” he asked, as Taffy handed him back the -fork, with the “bad” of the orange on it. - -Taffy laughed delightedly. His shyness was quite gone, but Johnny saw -that his breath came with difficulty, and that it cost him an effort to -speak. - -“When I get well, and go sellin’ papers again,” he said, “I’ll fix up -oranges that way on sticks. Folks would buy ’em, hot days; now don’t you -think they would?” - -“Why, yes,” said Johnny, seeing he was expected to answer, “I daresay -they would.” - -“The old woman down there,” and Taffy pointed to the floor, “_she_ says -I’m dyin’. Don’t you think she’s just tryin’ to scare me? Now _don’t_ -you, Johnny Leslie?” - -Johnny was dismayed. What should he say? He sent up a swift, silent -prayer for help, then he spoke, very gently. - -“Taffy, you’ve heard Jim tell about my mother, haven’t you?” - -Taffy silently nodded. - -“Well, suppose, while I’m here, my sister Tiny was to come, to say mother -wanted me to go home; do you think I’d be afraid to go—home, to mother -and father, you know?” - -Taffy shook his head. - -“Then, don’t you see,” pursued Johnny, and in his earnestness he took the -little hot hands, and held them fast. “That when our Father in Heaven -says He wants us, we needn’t be afraid to go? Mother says we oughtn’t to -be—not if we love Him.” - -Johnny was afraid that Taffy would not understand, but he did. Since Jim -had taken charge of him, he had begun to go to Sunday-school, and having -quick ears and a good memory, he had learned fast. - -“But s’pos’n we ain’t minded him?” and the feverish grasp on Johnny’s -hands grew tighter. - -“We _haven’t_ minded Him, any of us,” said Johnny, softly, “and that’s -why our Saviour died for us. Now see here, Taffy; if a big boy was going -to whip you, because you’d taken something of his, and Jim stepped up, -and said, ‘Here, I’ll take the whipping, if you’ll let him go,’ then you -wouldn’t be whipped at all. Don’t you see?” - -“I didn’t know it meant just that,” said Taffy, “what made Him do it, -anyhow, if He didn’t have to?” - -“Because He loved us—because He was so sorry for us!” Johnny’s voice -trembled as he said this; it seemed to him that he had never before fully -realized what the Saviour had done for the world. “He wanted to have us -all safe and happy with Him in Heaven, after we die, and it’ll be only -our own fault, if we don’t get there—just the same as if a wonderful -doctor was to come in, right now, and tell you to take his medicine, and -he’d make you well, and then you wouldn’t take the medicine.” - -“But I would, though!” said Taffy, eagerly, and as if he half believed -it would happen. “I’d take it, if it was ever so nasty, but the doctor -Jim fetched, he said he couldn’t do nothing for me, only make me a little -easier. Do you s’pose he knew?” - -“Yes,” said Johnny, gravely, “I’m afraid he did, Taffy; but we needn’t be -afraid, either of us. The Saviour is stronger, and cares more about us, -than all the doctors in the world.” - -Taffy did not answer; he lay back, looking up through the window at the -little patch of blue sky that showed between the tops of the tall houses. -Johnny could not tell whether or not his words had given any comfort. He -read a little story from a paper Tiny had sent, and Taffy listened with -eager interest; then a distant clock struck four, and Johnny rose to go. -Taffy made no objection to being left alone, but when Johnny took his -hand for goodbye, he said,— - -“Come to-morrow. I want to hear more about Him.” - -“I will if I can,” said Johnny, “but I go to school, you know. To-day was -a half holiday.” - -Taffy made no answer to this, but he nodded and smiled, as Johnny backed -out of the door. - -Mrs. Leslie went the next day to see the poor little boy, and many times -after that; Tiny was allowed to go once or twice, but she was not so -strong as Johnny was, and felt everything more keenly, so her mother did -not think it best to let her go often. - -And now Johnny had a full chance to test his desire for self-denial. -Taffy could not himself have told why he preferred Johnny to every one -else, but so it was, and many were the hidden battles which Johnny fought -with self-love, not always coming off conqueror, but struggling up again, -after each defeat, with a fresh sense of his own helplessness, and a -stronger dependence on the “One who is mighty.” - -It was hard to tell just when Taffy passed out from under the cloud of -fear into the full sunshine of the “knowledge and love of God,” but, as -his poor little body grew weaker, the eager soul seemed to strengthen, -and be filled with love and joy. Then he began to express his wish that -“everybody” might be told about the Saviour, and he lost no chance of -telling, himself, when kind-hearted neighbors came in to help Jim with -him. - -The words “obedient unto death” having once been read and explained to -him, seemed constantly in his mind, and once, after lying still for a -long while, he said,— - -“They killed Him—cruel! cruel!—and He never stopped ’em, and now see how -nice and easy He lets me lie here and die in my bed!” - -It was the evening before Easter Sunday, that lovely festival which is -finding its way into all hearts and churches; the last bell was ringing -for evening service, and Johnny had just taken his seat, with his mother -and Tiny, in the church which they attended, when, to his great surprise, -Jim stepped quietly in, and sat down beside him. Jim was very neatly -dressed in his Sunday suit, but the flaming necktie which he usually wore -was replaced by a small bow of black ribbon. His face had a gentle and -subdued expression quite unusual to it, and Johnny felt sure, at once, -that Taffy was gone. - -[Illustration] - -As the boys knelt side by side in the closing prayer, their hands met in -a warm, close grasp, and a smothered sob from Jim told how deeply his -heart was touched. - -Taffy had died that evening, very peacefully, in his sleep, a few minutes -after Jim came home from his work. - -“And I somehow felt as if, maybe, I’d get a little nearer to him, if I -was to come to church,” said Jim, in a subdued voice, as he walked part -of the way home with Mrs. Leslie, “and I thought, maybe, you wouldn’t -mind if I came to your pew, it seemed sort of lonesome everywhere.” - -Mrs. Leslie made him very sure that she did not “mind,” and would not, no -matter how often he came there. - -And he came regularly, after that. At first he sat with his friends; then -he chose a sitting among the free seats in the church, and sat there, -but he found that, in this way, he was apt to have a different place -every Sunday, and this he did not like. It made him feel as if he did not -“belong anywhere,” he told Johnny; so, as soon as he could command the -money, he rented half a pew for himself, and after that he nearly always -brought some one with him. Once or twice it was the old woman who kept -the eating-stand where he usually bought his lunch; sometimes it was a -wild, rather frightened-looking street Arab, sometimes a fellow bootblack. - -He evidently enjoyed doing the honors of his half pew, but there was a -deeper and better motive under that; the soul that has heard its own -“call” is eager that other souls should hear, too. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - -MORE CHANCES. - - -Perhaps, if you had seen Johnny starting for school on a certain Thursday -of which I mean to tell you, you would have thought that somebody was -imposing on his good nature, for he carried in his book-strap a very -large bundle, so large, that there was scarcely room enough left in the -strap for his geography and arithmetic. But a glance at his face would -have told you that he did not feel in the least “put upon,” for he looked -very well satisfied, and ran back, when he reached the gate, to give his -mother an extra kiss. - -The bundle contained a great deal of sewing for a woman in whom Mrs. -Leslie was interested, and it meant that Johnny was to be trusted to go -quite alone to this woman’s home, which was a long way from his own, -and near the park. He was to go after school, and when he had done his -errand, he was to be allowed to go to the park, and watch a base-ball -match which was to take place that afternoon, until it should be time to -come home to tea. And this was not all. By way of saving precious time, -he was to take his dinner to school with him, and eat it at the noon -recess, and there it was in Tiny’s new straw basket—three sandwiches, -two hard-boiled eggs, with a little paper of salt, a very large and a -middling-sized piece of gingerbread, and a slice of yesterday’s “queen of -puddings.” - -[Illustration] - -“You’d better save a sandwich and the gingerbread to eat at the park,” -said Mrs. Leslie, as she packed this delightful dinner, “you can wrap -them in this nice piece of paper—see, it is that large brown envelope in -which my handkerchiefs came—for it will not be best to take Tiny’s basket -with you, you might so easily lose it. You can leave it in your desk, and -bring it home to-morrow. And be sure to ask somebody what time it is, as -soon as the sun is down to the tops of the trees in the park—you can see -them quite well from the base-ball ground, you know—and don’t stay later -than half past five, dear. - -“All right, mamma,” said Johnny, cheerfully, “what a jolly dinner! I hope -I shan’t be too hungry at twelve to save the cake and sandwich, but I -don’t know!” - -Mrs. Leslie laughed, but she made another sandwich, and cut another slice -of cake, and perhaps it was the recollection of this generous deed which -sent Johnny back for one more kiss. - -He had hard work to keep his thoughts where they belonged during school -hours, but he succeeded pretty well, for he thought it would be “mean” -not to behave at least as well as usual, with such a treat in prospect. -He also succeeded in saving the cake and sandwich. “But I couldn’t have -done it,” he thought, as he wrapped them in the nice brown envelope, -ready for an immediate start, when school should be out, “if mamma hadn’t -put in that last sandwich and piece of cake!” - -Some proverb maker has said that “chosen burdens are light,” and Johnny -certainly did not seem weighed down by his burden, as he hailed a horse -car, and stepped gayly on board. When they came to the “up-grade” he felt -like shaking hands with the patient extra horse, and telling him how -many good thoughts he had caused. And then he resolved to be more on the -lookout for chances to help the heavily-laden; perhaps he had kept too -near home with his efforts; he would try to do more. - -He did not put into words, in his mind, the feeling that he had so many -things to make him happy, that he ought to hand some of his happiness -on to less favored people, but it was some such feeling as this which -prompted his resolve, and made him shyly offer his envelope-full of lunch -to a very ragged and dirty little newsboy, who was being hustled out of -the car by the conductor. It was accepted without the least shyness, -and also without any very special thanks; but Johnny, craning his neck -backward as the car moved on, saw the delighted face of the little -fellow, as he opened the envelope, and was more than satisfied. It set -him thinking of Taffy, and that was a thought which always filled his -heart with a sort of quiet Sunday happiness. - -He found the house where he was to leave the bundle, without any trouble, -and his knock was answered by the woman for whom it was intended. She -was a gentle-faced, tired-looking little woman, and she held on one arm -a sturdy baby-boy, who seemed trying to make himself heavier by kicking -and struggling. She attempted to take the bundle with her free hand, but -Johnny held it fast, saying pleasantly,— - -[Illustration] - -“If you’ll tell me where you want it put, Mrs. Waring, I’ll take it in -for you.” - -“Oh, thank you,” she answered, “you’re very kind—right in here, please,” -and she led the way to a room which would have been quite pretty and -attractive, if it had been in order, but it was evident that Master Baby -had had everything his own way, at least for the past few hours. - -[Illustration] - -“I can’t keep things straight five minutes,” said his mother, wearily, -“as fast as I get settled with my work at the machine, he’s into -something, and I have to jump up and take it away from him. Some of the -kind ladies I sew for have given him nice playthings, but no—he just -wants everything he can’t have, and he’s got so heavy, lately, that I -can’t take him about with me as I did. There’s a parcel of work that -I promised to take home this afternoon, and I don’t see how I’m going -to do it, for the neighbor that offered to mind him had to leave home -unexpectedly, and it isn’t safe to trust him for five minutes, let alone -two hours!” - -“Maybe I could leave it on my way home,” said Johnny, “where’s it to go?” - -“You’re very kind,”—she said, gratefully, “but it’s quite the other way -from your house, and besides, I’ve forgotten the number, though I know -the house when I come to it. No, I’ll just have to wait till to-morrow, -but I did want the money to-night.” - -Johnny stood irresolute for a minute or two; could he give up his chance -to watch that game of base-ball? But was not this another chance? Yes, he -would do it! - -“See here, Mrs. Waring,” he said, earnestly, “if it’s only to watch the -little chap, and keep him out of mischief, I could do that, as well as -anybody. He doesn’t seem afraid of me, and he has lots of things here to -play with. You just go, and I’ll stay here till you come back—I suppose -you’ll be back by five?” - -“Oh yes, easily,” she replied, “and I’d trust you with the baby quick -enough, for there’s not many boys would offer, but I’m afraid your mother -will worry about you if you stay so long. And besides, I’d hate to keep -you in the house such a nice, bright afternoon.” - -“Mamma wouldn’t worry,” said Johnny. “She doesn’t expect me home till tea -time; and you needn’t mind keeping me in, just for once.” - -There was a little more talk about it, and then Mrs. Waring consented -to go, and Johnny was left alone with the baby, whose name, as he had -ascertained, was Phil, and who seemed quite pleased with his new nurse. -He was a good-natured, rollicking baby, and he pulled Johnny about the -room, talking in his own fashion, and trying one sort of mischief after -another, looking up with roguish laughter as Johnny gently stopped him. -But at last his fat legs seemed to grow tired, and he subsided on the -floor, where he actually remained quiet for five minutes, trying to make -his wooden horse “eat” a large India-rubber ball. Johnny found he was -tired, too, and he sat down on the sofa, where, unfortunately, he had -thrown his school books. He picked up his mental arithmetic. - -[Illustration] - -“I’ll not study,” he said, as if he were answering some one, “but I just -want to see if to-morrow’s lesson is hard.” - -[Illustration] - -It began with,— - -“If it takes four men three days to build five miles of stone wall, how -much can one man build in a day?” - -What a question! Johnny’s forehead puckered, he grasped the book as if -he would pinch the answer out, and gradually slipped down on the sofa, -until he came near joining the baby on the floor. Meanwhile, Master Phil, -tired of feeding a horse who would not eat, began to wrestle with the -table-cover, and a large Bible, which lay near the edge of the table, -fell to the floor with a bang, narrowly missing the baby’s head. - -[Illustration: MINDING THE BABY.] - -Johnny sprang to his feet, thoroughly roused and frightened, for Phil, -startled by the crash, and also expecting the “Naughty baby!” and little -slap on his hands which always followed any unusual piece of mischief, -burst into a roar, although he was quite unable to squeeze out a single -tear. - -But this Johnny was too much alarmed to notice, and, picking up the -offender as if he had been made of glass, the amateur nurse felt him very -carefully all over, to find out if any bones were broken! - -When he came to the little sinner’s ribs, Phil made up his baby mind that -he was being tickled instead of scolded, and roared again, but this time -with laughter, in which Johnny could not help joining, though he was -provoked both with his interesting charge and himself. - -“You little rascal!” he said, catching Phil up, and rolling him on the -sofa; “don’t you dare to wriggle off there till I straighten up the muss -you’ve made—do you hear me?” - -“Phil vely good boy now!” saying which, the baby folded his fat hands -together, and actually sat still until the table was restored to order. - -Johnny gave the whole of his mind to his business, after this, and when -Mrs. Waring came back, she paused outside the window to look and listen, -and she laughed as she had not laughed for many a day. For there was her -“troublesome comfort,” on Johnny’s back, shouting and shrieking with -laughter, while Johnny cantered up and down the room, rearing, bolting, -plunging, and whinnying. - -“I don’t know how to thank you enough, dear,” she said, gratefully, when -she at last opened the door. “I’ve got my money, and bought all I shall -need for three or four days, and the walk’s done me good, and you’ve -given baby such a game of romps as he hasn’t had in a month of Sundays. -Poor little soul, it goes to my heart to pen him up so, but how am I to -help it? He’ll sleep like a top to-night, and so shall I. You tell your -dear mother that I say she has a son to be proud of.” - -Johnny colored high with pleasure, and plans for missionary work among -unplayed-with babies began to flock into his mind. He said nothing of -them, however, remembering, just in time, one of his father’s rules,— - -“Never promise the smallest thing which you are not sure of being able to -perform.” - -So he only said, heartily,— - -“I’m very glad if I’ve helped you, Mrs. Waring; he’s a jolly little chap, -and it has really been good fun for both of us. But I ought to tell you—I -began to study a little, when he seemed busy with his toys, and next -thing I knew, he pulled off the table-cover and that large Bible, and it -wasn’t my doings that it didn’t smash him!” - -“Oh well, it didn’t! And a miss is as good as a mile,” said Mrs. Waring, -cheerfully. She was so used to Phil’s hair-breadth escapes, that this one -did not seem worth mentioning. - -But Johnny went home, thinking at a great rate. Learning lessons was not -wrong, nobody could say that it was. But it seemed that a thing good in -itself could be made wrong, by being allowed to get out of place. - -“It’s like what mamma said about ‘watching,’” he thought; “it isn’t that -we must not ever do anything besides, but we mustn’t let anything ‘come -between.’ If that little scamp had gone to sleep, now, it would have been -no harm at all to pull my chair up to the sofa, so that he couldn’t roll -off, and study till he woke. But he didn’t go to sleep!” - -He had almost forgotten the base-ball match, and his brief, but very -sharp feeling of disappointment. The “reward” is sure; not praise and -petting, not the giving back to you that which you have foregone, but -“the answer of a good conscience,” the “peace which the world cannot -give,” the fresh strength which comes with every victory, however small, -and which may, by God’s grace, be wrested even from defeat, when defeat -is made the stepping-stone to conquest. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. - -ENLISTING. - - -It was Sunday, and Jim was walking home from church with the Leslies. A -gradual, but very great change had come over him since Taffy’s death. He -had grown nearly as cheerful as he was before it happened, and did not -seem to be exactly unhappy, but only the day before, Johnny had said to -his mother,— - -“I don’t think Jim can be well, mamma; he let slip the best kind of a -chance for taking me off, the way he’s so fond of doing, this morning, -and when I come to think of it, he hasn’t said any of those things for a -good while.” - -Mrs. Leslie smiled at Johnny’s conclusion; she did not think that was the -reason, and she said,— - -“He looks perfectly well, dear. He is growing fast, and so getting -thinner, but I don’t see any signs of ill health about him.” - -“There’s something about him,” said Johnny, in puzzled tones, “I never -knew him to miss a chance of saying one of his sharp things, till lately; -in fact, I used to think he was watching out for them!” - -Johnny had not been mistaken in thinking so. Somebody has said that if -we look to the very root of our ill-will against anyone, we shall find -that it is envy; and though this does not, perhaps, always hold good, it -certainly does in many instances. Ever since Jim had known Johnny, there -had been in his heart an unacknowledged feeling of envy, of which he was -himself only dimly aware. Why should Johnny have been given that safe, -pleasant home, with a father and mother and sister of whom he could be -both fond and proud, while he, Jim, was left to fight for even his daily -bread, with no ready-made home and friends, such as most people had? For -even among the boys with whom he was chiefly thrown, many had some place -which they called home, and somebody who cared, were it ever so little, -whether they lived or died. He persuaded himself that it was because -Johnny was “foolish,” and “needed taking down” that he said disagreeable -things to him, but, since Taffy died, he had, as he expressed it to -himself, been “sorting himself out, and didn’t think much of the stock.” - -His face, this morning, wore a troubled look, which Mrs. Leslie was quick -to notice, but she had learned that, in dealing with Jim, she must use -very much the same tactics that one uses in trying to tame some little -wild creature of the woods—a sudden attack, or even approach, scared him -off effectually; and although now he no longer ran, literally, as he had -done at first, he would take refuge in silence, or an awkward changing of -the subject. - -She had stopped asking him to take meals with them, when she saw how it -distressed him. He was painfully conscious of his want of training, and -shrank from exposing it, and he was shrewd enough to know that there is -no surer test of “manners” than behavior at the table. - -But the evening visits, begun with the making of the gardens, and the -reading and singing lessons, she had managed to have continued after the -gardens were frostbitten, and the early nightfall made the evenings long. -Yet even about this she had been obliged to exercise a great deal of tact -and care. Jim had announced that the lessons were to end the moment there -was no more work for him to do, and she knew that he meant what he said, -so, after thinking a good deal, she appealed to Mr. Leslie for help. - -“You don’t happen to want kindling-wood just now, perhaps?” he asked, -after thinking a little. - -“Don’t I?” she replied. “Why, we _always_ want kindling-wood! I believe -that fair kitchen-maid could burn ‘the full of the cellar,’ as she would -put it, in a week, if she could get that much to burn.” - -“Oh, well then,” said Mr. Leslie, cheerfully, “It’s all right. I -happen to know where I can get a wagon load of pine logs and stumps, -in comparison with which a ram’s horn is a ruler! I should think half -a stump, or one log, an evening might be considered a fair allowance, -and you shall have them before the gardens are done for, to make sure. -You can explain to your muscular scholar that, by having a few days’ -allowance chopped at a time, the reckless maiden can be kept within -bounds. But Jim will have my sympathy when he comes to those stumps!” - -“He will like it all the better for being so hard, I do believe,” replied -Mrs. Leslie, and this proved to be true. When Jim had wrestled for half -an hour with a stump which looked like a collection of buffaloes’ heads, -he sat down to his lesson with calm satisfaction; no one could say that -he had not earned it. - -Mrs. Leslie had been very much pleased by his consent to share the Sunday -evening talk—for it could scarcely be called a lesson—without offering -to do anything in return, and, although he had always been respectfully -attentive, she had noticed a growing interest and earnestness, since -Taffy’s death, which made her feel very glad and hopeful. - -She could not help thinking, to-day, as she glanced at Jim, of the -great change in his appearance. He had bought a cheap, but neat and -well-fitting suit of dark clothes, and he still wore the little black -necktie. This suit he kept strictly for Sundays, except that he always -brought the coat on his lesson evenings, and put it on when his chopping -was done. He was very careful, now, to be clean and neat, even when he -wore his old clothes. - -Extraordinary patches and darns had taken the place of rents and holes, -about which, formerly, he had neither thought nor cared. His face had -always been honest and cheerful, and a new gentleness made it, now, very -pleasant to look at. And he was growing tall. He had always been somewhat -taller than Johnny, and now he overtopped him by a head, a fact which -gave Johnny no satisfaction whatever. Mrs. Leslie bade Jim goodbye at the -gate, with an allusion to their meeting in the evening, and he assured -her that he was coming. - -“Something is troubling Jim,” she said to the children, as they all -went upstairs, “and I want very much, if I can do it without asking -impertinent questions, to find out what it is. Perhaps we could help him.” - -“_You_ could, mamma dear,” said Johnny, “even if Tiny and I couldn’t. -Jim’s queer; he doesn’t like to talk things out, the way I do—and I’ll -tell you what, Tiny, I think you and I had better leave Jim alone with -mamma a little while, when we’ve finished talking about our verses. He’d -be much more apt to tell her if there were nobody else there.” - -Mrs. Leslie kissed her boy very lovingly. He was growing in the grace of -unselfishness and thoughtfulness for others, in a way that warmed her -heart. - -Jim brought a great bunch of wild roses to Mrs. Leslie, when he came that -evening, and she thanked him warmly. - -[Illustration] - -“I did not think they had come yet,” she said, “and I never feel as if -summer were really here to stay until the roses come. Where did you find -them, dear?” - -Jim’s heavy face brightened for a moment. He saw that Mrs. Leslie had -called him “dear” without knowing it—just as naturally as she said it to -Johnny, and a wave of happy feeling went over his heart. - -“Away out in the country, down a lane,” he said, “but I don’t know -just where. I walked further than I’ve ever gone yet, this afternoon, -straight out into the fields. I meant to go to church, but I felt full -of walk, somehow, and as if my legs wouldn’t keep still, and I got to -thinking, as I went along, and first thing I knew, I was about half a -mile beyond the church! So I just kept right on, and I don’t see what -folks live in cities for, anyhow—even little cities like this. I was -under a big tree, lying on the grass, for an hour or so, and—” - -[Illustration] - -Jim stopped suddenly, for want of words that exactly suited him. - -Mrs. Leslie thanked him again for the roses, and Tiny ran to fill the -“very prettiest” vase with water. And then they settled down to their -talk about the Sunday-school lesson which they had all recited that -morning. It was the story of Nicodemus; his “coming by night” to the -Saviour, and hearing about the “new birth unto righteousness.” - -[Illustration] - -For these Sunday evening talks, they always sat in the library, and, -unless the evening was quite too warm, a little wood fire sparkled on the -hearth, and no other light disputed its right to make the room cheerful. -Tiny and Johnny had become skilful in building these little fires, in a -way to make them give light, rather than warmth, so to-night, although -the windows were open to the soft summer-twilight air, three or four -pine-knots blazed upon the hearth, and sent dancing shadows about the -room. Mrs. Leslie had noticed that, in this close companionship and half -light, the reserve and restraint which sometimes tied Jim’s tongue seemed -taken away. - -[Illustration] - -The cause of the trouble which showed so plainly in his face came out by -degrees, as the lesson was discussed. - -“I felt somehow, when Taffy died,” he said, “as if I’d been walking the -other way, and I’ve been trying to turn ’round, and travel towards where -I hope he is. And I don’t mean, either, that I’ve been trying just by -myself; I’ve been asking, you know, for help, and it seemed to me I got -it, whenever I asked in dead earnest. And then, when I was going over the -lesson for to-day, it seemed to mean that people who got religion got it -all of a sudden, and didn’t want to do, or say, or think any of the bad -things they’d been full of, any more, and down I went, right there, for -no matter how I try, and ask, and mean, to keep straight, I don’t do it; -in fact, it’s seemed to me lately, that the more I try the more I don’t, -and—and—if it wasn’t for Taffy, and all of you, Mrs. Leslie, I’d just -give the whole thing up, and try to forget it, and be comfortable! It’s -too much to ask of anybody, if it’s that way!” - -He spoke with increasing warmth, and in a curiously injured tone, almost -as if he thought he had been deceived. - -Mrs. Leslie laid her hand gently on his, saying,— - -“Dear Jim, God never asks impossibilities. The new birth is the giving -ourselves wholly to Him, the full surrender, keeping back nothing from -His service. The other part, the making into His likeness, is always the -work of a lifetime. And He knows that; He knows all we have to contend -with. Don’t you remember—‘He knoweth whereof we are made, He remembereth -that we are but dust’—so, while we must not make excuses for ourselves, -beforehand, we may be very sure that, after every unwilling fall, He will -help us up again, and freely forgive us.” - -“But there’s something else”—and Jim’s face still looked cloudy—“I don’t -see how it is, anyhow, that after we say we’ll be His, and try to do what -we think He would like, He _lets_ us fall. Couldn’t He keep us up, and -keep us going, in spite of ourselves?” - -“My dear,” said Mrs. Leslie, very solemnly, “that is the question which -has puzzled and staggered God’s people for ages, or rather, the people -who are only partly His. And there is no answer for it. All we know is -just this, that there are two great powers abroad in the world, the -power of God, and that of the devil; that if we choose God’s service and -protection, He will join His mighty will to our weak ones, and that then -we can be ‘more than conquerors,’ but that if we let go this stronghold, -we are at the mercy of every sinful impulse and wicked desire. With His -help, we may attain to strength, and victory, and peace, and if we do -not, it is simply because we refuse this ‘ever-present help.’ And when -we turn away from Him, when we withhold our allegiance, we never know -how many others will be turned away by our example, nor how terribly we -may be hindering the coming of God’s kingdom. Questioning and doubting -are worse than useless; we are told that we shall ‘know hereafter,’ and -where we place our love we may well place our trust. Now, I wish you to -do something for me. I wish you to notice how those who are really, with -heart and soul, following the Master are held above the things which -other people count troubles and trials. There are too many who are only -half-heartedly following, and how can these expect more than half a -blessing? And one more thing; you have not yet confessed your allegiance. -If you wished to be a soldier in your country’s army, what would be the -very first thing for you to do?” - -“Go to headquarters, and say so, and have my name put down,” said Jim, -slowly and reluctantly. - -“Yes. And that is the first thing, now. Own to the world that you are -His, that you mean, with his help, to ‘fight manfully under his banner,’ -and then He will ‘surely fulfil’ His part of the contract. Will you do -this, dear?” - -There was a breathless pause. Tiny’s hand stole into Jim’s on one side, -Johnny’s on the other; Mrs. Leslie’s motherly hand was pressed lightly on -his head. With a sudden burst of tears, he said, brokenly,— - -“I will! I will! I knew I ought to, but the devil’s been putting me off -with all this—this—” he stopped as suddenly as he had begun. - -Mrs. Leslie rose and knelt, and the others knelt with her. Briefly and -fervently she prayed for a blessing upon Jim’s resolve, and that he might -be “strengthened with all might” to carry it out. - -“Nothing is so dreadful as the want of love and faith,” she said, -presently, “and against this you must fight and pray. Times will come -to you, as they come to all of us, dear, when it must be just a sheer -holding on to that which you have proved; but never, never listen to -those who would take away your stronghold, and who offer less than -nothing in exchange.” - -Mrs. Leslie’s good-night kiss when he rose to go—the first kiss he could -remember having received—seemed to him like a seal upon all that she had -said. He felt brave, and strong, and free; the fears which had held him -down were gone, and when, on the following Sunday afternoon, he took the -vows of allegiance to the great Captain of our salvation, there was a -ring of glad triumph in his strong young voice, as if, at the beginning -of the battle, he saw the victor’s crown. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII. - -THE WRONG END. - - -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.” - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - -“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.’ - -[Illustration: THE FIELD-GLASS.] - -“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. - -[Illustration] - -“‘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. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. - -TURNING THE GLASS. - - -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!” - - - - -CHAPTER XIX. - -AT THE FARM. - - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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?” - -[Illustration] - -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. - - - - -CHAPTER XX. - -THE TIN MUG. - - -“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. - -[Illustration] - -“‘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.’ - -[Illustration] - -“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?” - -[Illustration] - -“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.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXI. - -SEEING WHY. - - -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. - -[Illustration] - -“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!” - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXII. - -THE WAY OF ESCAPE. - - -“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. - -[Illustration: POOR KATY.] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII. - -THE CIRCULAR CITY. - - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -“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. - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -“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.” - -[Illustration] - -“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,— - -[Illustration] - -“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. - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -“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?” - -[Illustration] - -“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. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV. - -THE CIRCULAR CITY, CONTINUED. - - -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.” - -[Illustration] - -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.” - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -“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.” - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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. - -[Illustration] - -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.” - - - - -[Illustration] - -THE DEAD DOLL - -AND OTHER VERSES. - -BY MARGARET VANDEGRIFT. - -Author of “Little Helpers,” etc. - -1 Vol. Square 8vo. Fully illustrated. Uniform with “Davy and the Goblin,” -etc. $1.50. - - -A charming collection of wise and witty verses for children, many of -which, like “THE DEAD DOLL,” “THE FATE OF A FACE-MAKER,” etc., are very -popular, and have been copied all over the country; and are household -words in thousands of families, where this complete and beautiful edition -will be eagerly welcomed. Among the other poems are - - THE GALLEY CAT. - SLUMBER-LAND. - AT SUNSET. - WINNING A PRINCESS. - THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE. - A DREAM OF LITTLE WOMEN. - THE CLOWN’S BABY. - THE KING’S DAUGHTER. - -These poems are not only very attractive and interesting to children, but -they also have a great fascination for all who care for children, and for -sweetness and innocence of life. - -_Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the publishers_, - -TICKNOR & CO., BOSTON. - - - - -[Illustration: AT CLOSE QUARTERS THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG.] - -The Recollections of a Drummer Boy. - -BY REV. HARRY M. KIEFFER, LATE OF THE 150TH PENNSYLVANIA VOLUNTEERS. - -Copiously illustrated with scenes in camp and field. 1 vol. Square 8vo. -Revised and enlarged, and printed from entirely new plates. $1.50. - - -A new and enlarged edition of this admirable book, which is particularly -adapted for youths, and should be placed in the hands of every lad in the -country, to impart a knowledge of the old war days. - -The position of the author, as a clergyman of the Reformed Church, -gives the book a certain value to all persons interested in true and -pure literature, which is also of the greatest power of attraction. -“The Recollections of a Drummer Boy” has become a very popular book for -Sunday-school libraries; and should be read by all old soldiers and their -children. The great demand for the book has compelled the publishers to -issue this enlarged and beautified new edition. - -“The author describes the war fever and enlistment, the advance to -Virginia, the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, -Petersburg, and the end, with a simplicity and straightforwardness that -are full of pathos. The evening camps, the frugal ‘hard tack,’ the long -marches over ‘the sacred soil,’ the Bucktail cantonments under the -dark Virginia pines, the whir of the long roll, the silent watch of -midnight pickets, the songs of the camp, the moans of the hospital, the -white tents on Maryland hills, the joyous rush of artillery coming into -action, the imposing splendors of Presidential reviews—all these and -a thousand other phases of that exciting era are reproduced here with -picturesque fidelity; and once more its readers are ‘Tenting on the old -Camp-ground.’”—_Washington Herald._ - -_Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the Publishers_, - -TICKNOR & CO., BOSTON. - - - - -[Illustration] - -JUAN AND JUANITA. - -By FRANCES COURTENAY BAYLOR. - -Author of “On Both Sides,” etc. - -1 vol. Square 4to. With many illustrations $1.50. - - -Miss Baylor’s charming and “ower true” tale has formed (_though only -given in part_) the chief attraction of the “St. Nicholas” for a year, -and in its present and complete form will be heartily welcomed, most -of all by those who have already learned to love its little hero and -heroine, and will eagerly look for the full story of their adventures. - -The _locale_ of these events, amid the romantic scenery of Northern -Mexico and Western Texas, is brilliantly and accurately described, with -the ways and habits of the Texans, Mexicans, and Indians. With these -are the records of the young hero and heroine, in and beyond the Cañon -of Roses, and their numerous strange and diverting adventures, making a -volume of rare and permanent interest for young or old. - - - - -[Illustration] - -THREE GOOD GIANTS. - -BY FRANÇOIS RABELAIS. - -_Translated by John Dimitry. With 175 Pictures by Gustave Doré and Anton -Robida._ - -$1.50. Uniform with “Davy and the Goblin,” etc. - - -“The present beautiful edition of an amusing book cannot fail to amuse -thousands of little ones, who perhaps in these days are growing tired of -‘Gulliver’s Travels,’ ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ and ‘The -Arabian Nights.’”—_The Week._ - -“Coleridge classes Rabelais with ‘the great creative minds, Shakspeare, -Dante, and Cervantes.’ In ‘Three Good Giants,’ children, young and -old, will find a story which will vie in delightful interest with -‘Robinson Crusoe.’ The adventures of the hearty, good-natured old king -Grandgousier, his son Gargantua, and his grandson Pantagruel, all of them -mighty heroes and doers of wonderful deeds, will be read and re-read with -ever-increasing enjoyment. In paper, printing, and binding, ‘Three Good -Giants’ is everything that a choice holiday hook should be.”—_Washington -Transcript._ - -_Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price by the publishers_, - -TICKNOR & CO., BOSTON. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Helpers, by Margaret Vandegrift - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE HELPERS *** - -***** This file should be named 63793-0.txt or 63793-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/7/9/63793/ - -Produced by MFR and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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