initial commit of ebook 9508HEADmain

2 files changed, 11035 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/wrere10.txt b/old/wrere10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d54655a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/wrere10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11035 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories Worth Rereading, by Various
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Stories Worth Rereading
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9508]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 7, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES WORTH REREADING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joel Erickson, and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+STORIES WORTH REREADING
+
+1913
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+All persons like stories. Children call for them from their earliest years.
+The purpose of this book is to provide children and youth with stories
+worth reading; stories relating incidents of history, missionary effort,
+and home and school experiences. These stories will inspire, instruct, and
+entertain the readers. Nearly all of these have appeared in print before,
+and are reprinted in this form through the courteous permission of their
+writers and publishers.
+
+"Stories Worth Rereading" can be obtained only as a premium with the
+_Youth's Instructor_, a sixteen-page weekly, published by the Review and
+Herald Publishing Association, Takoma Park, Washington, D. C.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+THEIR WORD OF HONOR
+
+MURIEL'S BRIGHT IDEA
+
+THE STRENGTH OF CLINTON
+
+THE DOCTOR'S COW
+
+HONEY AT THE PHONE
+
+ONE OF FATHER'S STORIES
+
+WHAT RUM DOES
+
+MY MOTHER'S RING
+
+THE BRIDAL WINE-CUP
+
+A MOTHER'S SORROW
+
+THE REPRIMAND
+
+AN EXAMPLE
+
+FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT
+
+TIGHTENING THE SADDLE-GIRTH
+
+"HERRINGS FOR NOTHING"
+
+THE POWER OF SONG
+
+JACK'S FIDELITY
+
+HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER
+
+THE SLEIGH-RIDE
+
+SAMUEL SMILES, THE AUTHOR OF "SELF-HELP"
+
+DAVID LIVINGSTONE
+
+A TRUE INCIDENT OF THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE
+
+LITTLE CORNERS
+
+IN THE HOME
+
+GIANTS AND GRASSHOPPERS
+
+AS GOOD AS HIS BOND
+
+PLAIN BERNICE
+
+HOW THE BOY WITHOUT A REFERENCE FOUND ONE
+
+AN HOUR A DAY FOR A YEAR
+
+"PLEASE, SIR, I WOULD RATHER NOT"
+
+THE RIGHT WORD
+
+THE SADDEST OF INDIA'S PICTURES (1912)
+
+ONE LITTLE WIDOW
+
+WHY THE MITE BOXES WERE FULL
+
+TI-TO AND THE BOXERS
+
+HOW NYANGANDI SWAM TO CHURCH
+
+THE LITTLE PRINTER MISSIONARY
+
+THE MISSIONARY'S DEFENSE
+
+LIGHT AT LAST
+
+THE BROWN TOWEL
+
+ONLY A BOY
+
+THE LITTLE PROTECTOR
+
+MOFFAT AND AFRICANER
+
+TWO TRIFLES
+
+A SECOND TRIAL
+
+THE SIN OF EXTRAVAGANCE
+
+A LITTLE CHILD'S WORK
+
+THE HANDY BOX
+
+THE RESULT OF DISOBEDIENCE
+
+LIVINGSTONE'S BODY-GUARD
+
+SPARE MOMENTS
+
+A GOLD MEDAL
+
+A GIRL'S RAILWAY ACQUAINTANCE
+
+HAROLD'S FOOTMAN
+
+ELNATHAN'S GOLD
+
+ONLY A JACK-KNIFE
+
+A SPELLING-BEE
+
+JACK'S QUEER WAYS
+
+WHAT ONE BOY DID
+
+HOW NICK LEARNED MANNERS
+
+WITHOUT BALLAST
+
+INFLUENCE OF A GOOD BOOK
+
+"STRAIGHTENING OUT THE FURROWS"
+
+A BOY WHO WAS WANTED
+
+WANTED: AN EMPLOYER
+
+HOW TO STOP SWEARING
+
+THE CAROLS OF BETHLEHEM CENTER
+
+STANDING BEAR'S SPEECH
+
+MABEL ASHTON'S DREAM
+
+A SAD BUT TRUE STORY
+
+"THE MAN THAT DIED FOR ME"
+
+OUR GRASS RUG AND--OTHER THINGS
+
+
+
+
+THEIR WORD OF HONOR
+
+
+The president of the Great B. railway system laid down the letter he had
+just reread three times, and turned about in his chair with an expression
+of extreme annoyance.
+
+"I wish it were possible," he said, slowly, "to find one boy or man in a
+thousand who would receive instructions and carry them out to the letter
+without a single variation from the course laid down. Cornelius," he looked
+up sharply at his son, who sat at a desk close by, "I hope you are carrying
+out my ideas with regard to your sons. I have not seen much of them lately.
+The lad Cyrus seems to me a promising fellow, but I am not so sure of
+Cornelius. He appears to be acquiring a sense of his own importance as
+Cornelius Woodbridge, Third, which is not desirable, sir,--not desirable.
+By the way, Cornelius, have you yet applied the Hezekiah Woodbridge test to
+your boys?"
+
+Cornelius Woodbridge, Junior, looked up from his work with a smile. "No, I
+have not, father," he said.
+
+"It's a family tradition; and if the proper care has been taken that the
+boys should not learn of it, it will be as much a test for them as it was
+for you and for me and for my father. You have not forgotten the day I gave
+it to you, Cornelius?"
+
+"That would be impossible," said his son, still smiling.
+
+The elder man's somewhat stern features relaxed, and he sat back in his
+chair with a chuckle. "Do it at once," he requested, "and make it a stiff
+one. You know their characteristics; give it to them hard. I feel pretty
+sure of Cyrus, but Cornelius--" He shook his head doubtfully, and returned
+to his letter. Suddenly he wheeled about again.
+
+"Do it Thursday, Cornelius," he said, in his peremptory way, "and whichever
+one of them stands it shall go with us on the tour of inspection. That will
+be reward enough, I fancy."
+
+"Very well, sir," replied his son, and the two men went on with their work
+without further words. They were in the habit of despatching important
+business with the smallest possible waste of breath.
+
+On Thursday morning, immediately after breakfast, Cyrus Woodbridge found
+himself summoned to his father's library. He presented himself at once, a
+round-cheeked, bright-eyed lad of fifteen, with an air of alertness in
+every line of him.
+
+"Cyrus," said his father, "I have a commission for you to undertake, of a
+character which I cannot now explain to you. I want you to take this
+envelope"--he held out a large and bulky packet--"and, without saying
+anything to any one, follow its instructions to the letter. I ask of you
+your word of honor that you will do so."
+
+The two pairs of eyes looked into each other for a moment, singularly alike
+in a certain intent expression, developed into great keenness in the man,
+but showing as yet only an extreme wide-awakeness in the boy. Cyrus
+Woodbridge had an engagement with a young friend in half an hour, but he
+responded, firmly:--
+
+"I will, sir."
+
+"On your honor?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"That is all I want. Go to your room, and read your instructions. Then
+start at once."
+
+Mr. Woodbridge turned back to his desk with the nod and smile of dismissal
+to which Cyrus was accustomed. The boy went to his room, opening the
+envelope as soon as he had closed the door. It was filled with smaller
+envelopes, numbered in regular order. Infolding these was a typewritten
+paper, which read as follows:--
+
+"Go to the reading-room of the Westchester Library. There open envelope No.
+1. Remember to hold all instructions secret. C.W., Jr."
+
+Cyrus whistled. "That's funny! It means my date with Harold is off. Well,
+here goes!"
+
+He stopped on his way out to telephone his friend of his detention, took a
+Westchester Avenue car at the nearest point, and in twenty minutes was at
+the library. He found an obscure corner and opened envelope No. 1.
+
+"Go to office of W.K. Newton, room 703, tenth floor, Norfolk Building, X
+Street, reaching there by 9:30 A.M. Ask for letter addressed to Cornelius
+Woodbridge, Jr. On way down elevator open envelope No. 2."
+
+Cyrus began to laugh. At the same time he felt a trifle irritated. "What's
+father at?" he questioned, in perplexity. "Here I am away up-town, and he
+orders me back to the Norfolk Building. I passed it on my way up. Must be
+he made a mistake. Told me to obey instructions, though. He usually knows
+just about why he does things."
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Woodbridge had sent for his elder son, Cornelius. A tall
+youth of seventeen, with the strong family features, varied by a droop in
+the eyelids and a slight drawl in his speech, lounged to the door of the
+library. Before entering he straightened his shoulders; he did not,
+however, quicken his pace.
+
+"Cornelius," said his father, promptly, "I wish to send you upon an errand
+of some importance, but of possible inconvenience to you. I have not time
+to give you instructions, but you will find them in this envelope. I ask
+you to keep the matter and your movements strictly to yourself. May I have
+from you your word of honor that I can trust you to follow the orders to
+the smallest detail?"
+
+Cornelius put on a pair of eye-glasses, and held out his hand for the
+envelope. His manner was almost indifferent. Mr. Woodbridge withheld the
+packet, and spoke with decision: "I cannot allow you to look at the
+instructions until I have your word of honor that you will fulfil them."
+
+"Is not that asking a good deal, sir?"
+
+"Perhaps so," said Mr. Woodbridge, "but no more than is asked of trusted
+messengers every day. I will assure you that the instructions are mine and
+represent my wishes."
+
+"How long will it take?" inquired Cornelius, stooping to flick an
+imperceptible spot of dust from his trousers.
+
+"I do not find it necessary to tell you."
+
+Something in his father's voice sent the languid Cornelius to an erect
+position, and quickened his speech.
+
+"Of course I will go," he said, but he did not speak with enthusiasm.
+
+"And--your word of honor?"
+
+"Certainly, sir." The hesitation before the promise was only momentary.
+
+"Very well. I will trust you. Go to your room before opening your
+instructions."
+
+And the second somewhat mystified boy went out of the library on that
+memorable Thursday morning, to find his first order one which sent him to a
+remote district of the city, with the direction to arrive there within
+three quarters of an hour.
+
+Out on an electric car Cyrus was speeding to another suburb. After getting
+the letter from the tenth floor of the Norfolk Building, he had read:--
+
+"Take cross-town car on L Street, transfer to Louisville Avenue, and go out
+to Kingston Heights. Find corner West and Dwight Streets, and open envelope
+No. 3."
+
+Cyrus was growing more and more puzzled, but he was also getting
+interested. At the corner specified he hurriedly tore open No. 3, but
+found, to his amazement, only the singular direction:--
+
+"Take Suburban Underground Road for Duane Street Station. From there go to
+Sentinel office, and secure third edition of yesterday's paper. Open
+envelope No. 4."
+
+"Well, what under the sun, moon, and stars did he send me out to Kingston
+Heights for!" cried Cyrus aloud. He caught the next train, thinking
+longingly of his broken engagement with Harold Dunning, and of certain
+plans for the afternoon which he was beginning to fear might be thwarted if
+this seemingly endless and aimless excursion continued. He looked at the
+packet of unopened envelopes.
+
+"It would be easy to break open the whole outfit, and see what this game
+is," he thought. "Never knew father to do a thing like this before. If it's
+a joke,"--his fingers felt the seal of envelope No. 4,--"I might as well
+find it out at once. Still, father never would joke with a fellow's promise
+the way he asked it of me. 'My word of honor'--that's putting it pretty
+strong. I'll see it through, of course. My, but I'm getting hungry! It must
+be near luncheon-time."
+
+It was not; but by the time Cyrus had been ordered twice across the city
+and once up a sixteen-story building in which the elevator service was out
+of order, it was past noon, and he was in a condition to find envelope No.
+7 a very satisfactory one:--
+
+"Go to Cafe Reynaud on Westchester Square. Take a seat at table in left
+alcove. Ask waiter for card of Cornelius Woodbridge, Junior. Before
+ordering luncheon read envelope No. 8."
+
+The boy lost no time in obeying this command, and sank into his chair in
+the designated alcove with a sigh of relief. He mopped his brow, and drank
+a glass of ice-water at a gulp. It was a warm October day, and the sixteen
+flights had been somewhat trying. He asked for his father's card, and then
+sat studying the attractive menu.
+
+"I think I'll have--" He mused for a moment, then said, with a laugh,
+"Well, I'm about hungry enough to eat the whole thing. Bring me the--"
+
+Then he recollected, paused, and reluctantly pulled out envelope No. 8, and
+broke the seal. "Just a minute," he murmured to the waiter. Then his face
+turned scarlet, and he stammered, under his breath, "Why--why--this can't
+be--"
+
+Envelope No. 8 ought to have been bordered with black, judging by the
+dismay its order to a lecture hall to hear a famous electrician, caused.
+But the Woodbridge blood was up now, and it was with an expression
+resembling that of his grandfather Cornelius under strong indignation that
+Cyrus stalked out of that charming place to proceed grimly to the lecture
+hall.
+
+"Who wants to hear a lecture on an empty stomach?" he groaned. "I suppose
+I'll be ordered out, anyway, the minute I sit down and stretch my legs.
+Wonder if father can be exactly right in his mind. He doesn't believe in
+wasting time, but I'm wasting it today by the bucketful. Suppose he's doing
+this to size me up some way; he isn't going to tire me out so quick as he
+thinks. I'll keep going till I drop."
+
+Nevertheless, when, just as he was getting interested, he was ordered to go
+three miles to a football field, and then ordered away again without a
+sight of the game he had planned for a week to see, his disgust was
+intense.
+
+All through that long, warm afternoon he raced about the city and suburbs,
+growing wearier and more empty with every step. The worst of it was, the
+orders were beginning to assume the form of a schedule, and commanded that
+he be here at 3:15, and there at 4:05; and so on, which forbade loitering,
+had he been inclined to loiter. In it all he could see no purpose, except
+the possible one of trying his physical endurance. He was a strong boy, or
+he would have been quite exhausted long before he reached envelope No. 17,
+which was the last but three of the packet. This read:--
+
+"Reach home at 6:20 P.M. Before entering house, read No. 18."
+
+Leaning against one of the big white stone pillars of the porch of his
+home, Cyrus wearily tore open envelope No. 18, and the words fairly swam
+before his eyes. He had to rub them hard to make sure that he was not
+mistaken:--
+
+"Go again to Kingston Heights, corner West and Dwight Streets, reaching
+there by 6:50. Read No. 19."
+
+The boy looked up at the windows, desperately angry at last. If his pride
+and his sense of the meaning of that phrase, "My word of honor," as the men
+of the Woodbridge family were in the habit of teaching their sons, had not
+both been of the strongest sort, he would have rebelled, and gone defiantly
+and stormily in. As it was, he stood for one long minute with his hands
+clenched and his teeth set; then he turned and walked down the steps away
+from the longed-for dinner, and out toward L Street and the car for
+Kingston Heights.
+
+
+As he did so, inside the house, on the other side of the curtains, from
+behind which he had been anxiously peering, Cornelius Woodbridge, Senior,
+turned about and struck his hands together, rubbing them in a satisfied
+way.
+
+"He's come--and gone," he cried, softly, "and he's on time to the minute!"
+
+Cornelius, Junior, did not so much as lift his eyes from the evening paper,
+as he quietly answered, "Is he?" But the corners of his mouth slightly
+relaxed.
+
+The car seemed to crawl out to Kingston Heights. As it at last neared its
+terminus, a strong temptation seized the boy Cyrus. He had been on a
+purposeless errand to this place once that day. The corner of West and
+Dwight Streets lay more than half a mile from the end of the car route, and
+it was an almost untenanted district. His legs were very tired; his stomach
+ached with emptiness. Why not wait out the interval which it would take to
+walk to the corner and back in a little suburban station, read envelope No.
+19, and spare himself? He had certainly done enough to prove that he was a
+faithful messenger.
+
+Had he? Certain old and well-worn words came into his mind; they had been
+in his writing-book in the early school-days: "A chain is no stronger than
+its weakest link." Cyrus jumped off the car before it fairly stopped, and
+started at a hot pace for the corner of West and Dwight Streets. There must
+be no weak places in his word of honor.
+
+Doggedly he went to the extreme limit of the indicated route, even taking
+the longest way round to make the turn. As he started back, beneath the arc
+light at the corner there suddenly appeared a city messenger boy. He
+approached Cyrus, and, grinning, held out an envelope.
+
+"Ordered to give you this," he said, "if you made connections. If you'd
+been later than five minutes past seven, I was to keep dark. You've got
+seven minutes and a half to spare. Queer orders, but the big railroad boss,
+Woodbridge, gave 'em to me."
+
+Cyrus made his way back to the car with some self-congratulations that
+served to brace up the muscles behind his knees. This last incident showed
+him plainly that his father was putting him to a severe test of some sort,
+and he could have no doubt that it was for a purpose. His father was the
+sort of man who does things with a very definite purpose indeed. Cyrus
+looked back over the day with an anxious searching of his memory to be sure
+that no detail of the singular service required of him had been slighted.
+
+As he once more ascended the steps of his own home, he was so confident
+that his labors were now ended that he almost forgot about envelope No. 20,
+which he had been directed to read in the vestibule before entering the
+house. With his thumb on the bell button he recollected, and with a sigh
+broke open the final seal:--
+
+"Turn about, and go to Lenox Street Station, B. Railroad, reaching there by
+8:05. Wait for messenger in west end of station, by telegraph office."
+
+It was a blow, but Cyrus had his second wind now. He felt like a machine--a
+hollow one--which could keep on going indefinitely.
+
+The Lenox Street Station was easily reached on time. The hands of the big
+clock were only at one minute past eight when Cyrus entered. At the
+designated spot the messenger met him. Cyrus recognized him as the porter
+on one of the trains of the road of which his grandfather and father were
+officers. Why, yes, he was the porter of the Woodbridge special car! He
+brought the boy a card which ran thus:--
+
+"Give porter the letter from Norfolk Building, the card received at
+restaurant, the lecture coupon, yesterday evening's _Sentinel_, and the
+envelope received at Kingston Heights."
+
+Cyrus silently delivered up these articles, feeling a sense of thankfulness
+that not one was missing. The porter went away with them, but was back in
+three minutes.
+
+"This way, sir," he said, and Cyrus followed, his heart beating fast. Down
+the track he recognized the "Fleetwing," President Woodbridge's private
+car. And Grandfather Cornelius he knew to be just starting on a tour of his
+own and other roads, which included a flying trip to Mexico. Could it be
+possible--
+
+In the car his father and grandfather rose to meet him. Cornelius
+Woodbridge, Senior, was holding out his hand.
+
+"Cyrus, lad," he said, his face one broad, triumphant smile, "you have
+stood the test, the Hezekiah Woodbridge test, sir, and you may be proud of
+it. Your word of honor can be depended upon. You are going with us through
+nineteen States and Mexico. Is that reward enough for one day's hardships?"
+
+"I think it is, sir," agreed Cyrus, his round face reflecting his
+grandfather's smile, intensified.
+
+"Was it a hard pull, Cyrus?" questioned the senior Woodbridge with
+interest.
+
+Cyrus looked at his father. "I don't think so--now, sir," he said. Both
+gentlemen laughed.
+
+"Are you hungry?"
+
+"Well, just a little, grandfather."
+
+"Dinner will be served the moment we are off. We have only six minutes to
+wait. I am afraid--I am very much afraid "--the old gentleman turned to
+gaze searchingly out of the car window into the station--"that another
+boy's word of honor, is not--"
+
+
+He stood, watch in hand. The conductor came in and remained, awaiting
+orders. "Two minutes more, Mr. Jefferson," he said. "One and a
+half--one--half a minute." He spoke sternly: "Pull out at 8:14 on the
+second, sir. Ah----"
+
+The porter entered hurriedly, and delivered a handful of envelopes into
+Grandfather Cornelius's grasp. The old gentleman scanned them at a glance.
+
+"Yes, yes--all right!" he cried, with the strongest evidences of excitement
+Cyrus had ever seen in his usually quiet manner. As the train made its
+first gentle motion of departure, a figure appeared in the doorway.
+Quietly, and not at all out of breath, Cornelius Woodbridge, Third, walked
+into the car.
+
+Then Grandfather Woodbridge grew impressive. He advanced, and shook hands
+with his grandson as if he were greeting a distinguished member of the
+board of directors. Then he turned to his son, and shook hands with him
+also, solemnly. His eyes shone through his gold-rimmed spectacles, but his
+voice was grave with feeling.
+
+"I congratulate you, Cornelius," he said, "on possessing two sons whose
+word of honor is above reproach. The smallest deviation from the outlined
+schedule would have resulted disastrously. Ten minutes' tardiness at the
+different points would have failed to obtain the requisite documents. Your
+sons did not fail. They can be depended upon. The world is in search of men
+built on those lines. I congratulate you, sir."
+
+Cyrus was glad presently to escape to his stateroom with Cornelius. "Say,
+what did you have to do?" he asked, eagerly. "Did you trot your legs off
+all over town?"
+
+"Not much, I didn't!" said Cornelius, grimly, from the depths of a big
+towel. "I spent the whole day in a little hole of a room at the top of an
+empty building, with just ten trips down the stairs to the ground floor to
+get envelopes at certain minutes. I had not a crumb to eat nor a thing to
+do, and could not even snatch a nap for fear I'd oversleep one of my dates
+at the bottom."
+
+"I believe that was worse than mine," commented Cyrus, reflectively.
+
+"I should say it was. If you don't think so, try it."
+
+"Dinner, boys," said their father's voice at the door, and they lost no
+time in responding.--_Grace S. Richmond, in Youth's Companion_.
+
+
+
+Heroism
+
+A tone of pride or petulance repressed,
+A selfish inclination firmly fought,
+A shadow of annoyance set at naught,
+A measure of disquietude suppressed,
+A peace in importunity possessed,
+A reconcilement generously sought,
+A purpose put aside, a banished thought,
+A word of self-explaining unexpressed,--
+Trifles they seem, these petty soul-restraints;
+Yet he who proves them so must needs possess
+A constancy and courage grand and bold.
+They are the trifles that have made the saints.
+Give me to practise them in humbleness,
+And nobler power than mine doth no man hold.
+--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+
+MURIEL'S BRIGHT IDEA
+
+
+My friend Muriel is the youngest daughter in a large family of busy people.
+They are in moderate circumstances, and the original breadwinner has been
+long gone; so in order to enjoy many of the comforts and a few of the
+luxuries of life the young people have to be wage-earners. I am not sure
+that they would enjoy life any better than they do now if such were not the
+case, though there are doubtless times when they would like to be less
+busy. Still, even this condition has its compensations.
+
+"Other people do not know how lovely vacations are," was the way Esther
+expressed it as she sat one day on the side porch, hands folded lightly in
+her lap, and an air of delicious idleness about her entire person. It was
+her week of absolute leisure, which she had earned by a season of hard
+work. She is a public-school teacher, belonging to a section and grade
+where they work their teachers fourteen hours of the twenty-four.
+
+Alice is a music-teacher, and goes all day from house to house in town, and
+from school to school, with her music-roll in hand. Ben, a young brother,
+is studying medicine in a doctor's office, also in town, and serving the
+doctor between times to pay for his opportunities. There are two others, an
+older brother just started in business for himself, and a sister in a
+training-school for nurses.
+
+So it was that this large family scattered each morning to their duties in
+the city ten miles away, and gathered at night, like chickens, to the home
+nest, which was mothered by the dearest little woman, who gave much of her
+time and strength to the preparation of favorite dishes with which to greet
+the wage-earners as they gathered at night around the home table. It is a
+very happy family, but it was not about any of them that I set out to tell
+you. In truth, it was Muriel's apron that I wanted to talk about; but it
+seemed necessary to describe the family in order to secure full
+appreciation of the apron.
+
+Muriel, I should tell you, is still a high-school girl, hoping to be
+graduated next year, though at times a little anxious lest she may not
+pass, and with ambitions to enter college as soon as possible.
+
+The entire family have ambitions for Muriel, and I believe that she will
+get to college in another year. But about her apron. I saw it first one
+morning when I crossed the street to my neighbor's side door that opens
+directly into the large living-room, and met Muriel in the doorway, as
+pretty a picture as a fair-haired, bright-eyed girl of seventeen can make.
+She was in what she called her uniform, a short dress made of dark print,
+cut lower in the neck than a street dress. It had elbow sleeves, and a bit
+of white braid stitched on their bands and around the square neck set off
+the little costume charmingly.
+
+Her apron was of strong dark-green denim, wide enough to cover her dress
+completely; it had a bib waist held in place by shoulder straps; and the
+garment fastened behind with a single button, making it adjustable in a
+second. But its distinctive feature was a row of pockets--or rather several
+rows of them--extending across the front breadth; they were of varying
+sizes, and all bulged out as if well filled.
+
+"What in the world?" I began, and stared at the pockets. Muriel's merry
+laugh rang out.
+
+"Haven't you seen my pockets before?" she asked. "They astonish you, of
+course; everybody laughs at them; but I am proud of them; they are my own
+invention. You see, we are such a busy family all day long, and so tired
+when we get home at night, that we have a bad habit of dropping things just
+where they happen to land, and leaving them. By the last of the week this
+big living-room is a sight to behold. It used to take half my morning to
+pick up the thousand and one things that did not belong here, and carry
+them to their places. You do not know how many journeys I had to make,
+because I was always overlooking something. So I invented this apron with a
+pocket in it for every member of the family, and it works like a charm.
+
+"Look at this big one with a B on it; that is for Ben, of course, and it is
+always full. Ben is a great boy to leave his pencils, and his
+handkerchiefs, and everything else about. Last night he even discarded his
+necktie because it felt choky.
+
+"This pocket is Esther's. She leaves her letters and her discarded
+handkerchiefs, as well as her gloves. And Kate sheds hair ribbons and
+hatpins wherever she goes. Just think how lovely it is to have a pocket for
+each, and drop things in as fast as I find them. When I am all through
+dusting, I have simply to travel once around the house and unpack my load.
+I cannot tell you how much time and trouble and temper my invention has
+saved me."
+
+"It is a bright idea," I said, "and I mean to pass it on. There are other
+living-rooms and busy girls. Whose is that largest pocket, marked M?"
+
+"Why, I made it for mother; but, do you know, I have found out just in this
+very way that mothers do not leave things lying around. It is queer, isn't
+it, when they have so many cares? It seems to be natural for mothers to
+think about other people. So I made the M stand for 'miscellaneous,' and I
+put into that pocket articles which will not classify, and that belong to
+all of us. There are hosts of things for which no particular one seems to
+be responsible. Is it not a pity that I did not think of pockets last
+winter, when we all had special cares and were so dreadfully busy? It is
+such a simple idea you would have supposed that any person would have
+thought of it, but it took me two years. I just had to do it this spring,
+because there simply was not time to run up- and down-stairs so much."
+
+"You have proved once more the truth of the old proverb, 'Necessity is the
+mother of invention,'" I said. "And, besides, you have given me a new idea.
+I am going home to work it out. When it is finished, I will show it to
+you." Then I went home, and made rows and rows of strong pockets to sew on
+a folding screen I was making for my work-room.--_Pansy, in Christian
+Endeavor World. By permission of Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Just Do Your Best
+
+Just do your best. It matters not how small,
+      How little heard of;
+Just do your best--that's all.
+Just do your best. God knows it all,
+And in his great plan you count as one;
+Just do your best until the work is done.
+
+Just do your best. Reward will come
+  To those who stand the test;
+God does not forget. Press on,
+  Nor doubt, nor fear. Just do your best.
+
+ERNEST LLOYD.
+
+
+
+
+THE STRENGTH OF CLINTON
+
+
+When Clinton Stevens was eleven years old, he was taken very sick with
+pneumonia. During convalescence, he suffered an unexpected relapse, and his
+mother and the doctor worked hard to keep him alive.
+
+"It is ten to one if he gets well," said Dr. Bemis, shaking his head. "If
+he does, he will never be very strong."
+
+Mrs. Stevens smoothed Clinton's pillow even more tenderly than before. Poor
+Clinton! who had always been such a rollicking, rosy-cheeked lad. Surely it
+was hard to bear.
+
+The long March days dragged slowly along, and April was well advanced
+before Clinton could sit at the window, and watch the grass grow green on
+the slope of the lawn. He looked frail and delicate. He had a cough, too, a
+troublesome "bark," that he always kept back as long as he could.
+
+The bright sunlight poured steadily in through the window, and Clinton held
+up his hand to shield his eyes. "Why, Ma Stevens!" he said, after a moment,
+"just look at my hands! They are as thin and white as a girl's, and they
+used to be regular paws. It does not look as if I would pull many weeds for
+Mr. Carter this summer, does it?"
+
+Mrs. Stevens took his thin hands in her own patient ones. "Never mind,
+dearie," she said, "they will grow plump and brown again, I hope." A group
+of school-children were passing by, shouting and frolicking. Clinton leaned
+forward and watched them till the last one was gone. Some of them waved
+their caps, but he did not seem elated. "Mother," he said, presently, "I
+believe I will go to bed if you will help me. I--I guess I am not quite
+so--strong--now as I used to be."
+
+Clinton did not pull weeds for Mr. Carter that summer, but he rode around
+with the milkman, and did a little outdoor work for his mother, which
+helped him to mend. One morning in July he surprised the village by riding
+out on his bicycle; but he overdid the matter, and it was several weeks
+before he again appeared. His cough still continued, though not so severe
+as in the spring, and it was decided to let him go to school in the fall.
+
+Dr. Bemis told Mrs. Stevens that the schoolroom would be a good place to
+test Clinton's strength. And he was right. In no other place does a young
+person's strength develop or debase itself so readily, for honor or
+dishonor. Of course the doctor had referred to physical strength; but moral
+strength is much more important.
+
+Clinton was a bright lad for his years; and, although he had not looked
+into his books during the summer, he was placed in the same grade he had
+left when taken sick. He did not find much difficulty in keeping up with
+any of his studies except spelling. Whenever he received a perfect mark on
+that subject, he felt that a real victory had been won.
+
+About Christmas-time the regular examinations were held. The teacher
+offered a prize to each grade, the pupil receiving the highest average in
+all studies to receive the prize. Much excitement, no little speculation,
+and a great deal of studying ensued. Clinton felt fairly confident over all
+his studies except spelling. So he carried his spelling-book home every
+night, and he and his mother spent the evenings in wrestling with the long
+and difficult words.
+
+Examination day came at length, and the afternoon for the seventh grade
+spelling was at hand. The words were to be written, and handed in. Across
+the aisle from Clinton sat Harry Meyers. Several times when teacher
+pronounced a word, Harry looked slyly into the palm of his hand. Clinton
+watched him, his cheeks growing pink with shame. Then he looked around at
+the others. Many of them had some dishonest device for copying the words.
+Clinton swallowed something in his throat, and looked across at Matthews,
+who pursed up his lips and nodded, if to say that he understood.
+
+The papers were handed in, and school was dismissed. On Monday, after the
+morning exercises, Miss Brooks gave out the prizes to the three grades
+under her care. "I have now to award the prize for the highest average to
+the seventh grade," she said. "But first I wish to say a few words on your
+conduct during the recent examination in spelling. I shall censure no one
+in particular, although there is one boy who must set no more bad examples.
+No one spelled the words correctly--Clinton Stevens the least of
+any--making his average quite low; yet the prize goes to him. I will tell
+you why--" as a chorus of O! O's! greeted her ears. "Spelling is Clinton's
+hardest subject, but he could easily have spelled more words right had he
+not possessed sufficient strength to prevent him from falling into the way
+followed by some of you."
+
+As Clinton went up the aisle for his prize, he felt like crying, but he
+managed to smile instead. A few days before, Harry Meyers had ridiculed him
+because he was not strong enough to throw a snowball from the schoolhouse
+to the road; now the teacher had said he was strong!
+
+Clinton's Aunt Jennie came to visit the family in December, bringing her
+little daughter Grace with her. Now Grace had a mania for pulling other
+people's hair, but there was no one in the Stevens family upon whom she
+dared operate except Clinton. She began on him cautiously, then
+aggressively. Clinton stood it for a while, and then asked her, politely
+but firmly, to stop. She stopped for half a day.
+
+One night Clinton came home from school pale and tired. Some of the boys
+had been taunting him on his spare frame, and imitating his cough, which
+had grown worse as the winter advanced. Sitting down by the window, he
+looked out at the falling snow. Grace slipped up behind him, and gave his
+hair a sharp tweak. He struck out, hastily, and hit her. She was not
+hurt,--only very much surprised,--but she began to cry lustily, and Aunt
+Jennie came hurrying in, and took the child in her arms.
+
+That night after supper Clinton went into the sitting-room, and called
+Grace to him. "I want to tell you something," he said. "I am sorry that I
+hit you, and I ask your pardon. Will you forgive me, dear?" Grace agreed
+quickly, and said, shyly, "Next time I want to pull any one's hair, I will
+pull my own."
+
+Aunt Jennie was in the next room and overheard the conversation. "It
+strikes me, Sarah," she said to Mrs. Stevens, later, "that Clinton is a
+remarkably strong boy for one who is not strong. Most boys would not have
+taken the trouble to ask a small girl to forgive them, even if they were
+very much in the wrong. But Clinton has a strong character."
+
+The year Clinton was thirteen, the boys planned to have a corn roast, one
+August night. "We will get the corn in old Carter's lot," said Harry
+Meyers. "He has just acres of it, and can spare a bushel or so as well as
+not. I suppose you will go with us, Clint?"
+
+Clinton hesitated. "No," said he. "I guess not; and I should think if you
+want to roast corn, you could get it out of your own gardens. But if Mr.
+Carter's corn is better than any other, why can you not ask him----"
+
+"O, come, now," retorted Harry, "do not let it worry you! Half the fun of
+roasting corn is in--in taking it. And don't you come, Clinton--don't. We
+would not have you for the world. You are too nice, Mr. Coughin."
+
+Clinton's cheeks flushed red, but he turned away without a word. When Mr.
+Carter quizzed Billy Matthews, and found out all about it, Clinton was made
+very happy by the old man's words: "It is not every chap that will take the
+stand you took. You ought to be thankful that you have the strength to say
+No."
+
+In the fall, when Clinton was fifteen, his health began to fail noticeably,
+and Dr. Bemis advised a little wine "to build him up."
+
+"Mother," said the boy, after thinking it over, "I am not going to touch
+any wine. I can get well without it, I know I can. I do not want liquor,"
+he continued. "'Wine is a mocker,' you know. Did you not tell me once that
+Zike Hastings, over in East Bloomfield, became a drunkard by drinking wine
+when he was sick?"
+
+"Yes, Clinton, I believe I told you so."
+
+"Well, then, I do not want any wine. I have seen Zike Hastings too many
+times."
+
+In December Aunt Jennie and Grace made their annual visit. With them came
+Uncle Jonathan, who took a great liking to Clinton.
+
+"My boy," said he one day, placing a big hand on the lad's shoulder, "early
+in the new year Aunt Jennie and I start for the Pacific Coast. Should you
+like to go with us?"
+
+"Well, I rather guess I should!" gasped the surprised boy, clasping his
+hands joyfully. "Very well, then, you shall go," returned Uncle Jonathan,
+"and your mother, too."
+
+Clinton began to feel better before they were outside of Pennsylvania. When
+they had crossed the Mississippi and reached the prairies, his eyes were
+sparkling with excitement. The mountains fairly put new life in him. Uncle
+Jonathan watched him with pleasure. "Tell me," he said one day, when they
+were winding in and out among the Rockies, "what has given you so much
+strength of character?"
+
+"Why, it was this way," said Clinton, bringing his eyes in from a chasm
+some hundreds of feet below: "one day when I was beginning to recover from
+that attack of pneumonia, I saw a lot of the boys romping along, and I felt
+pretty bad because I could not romp and play, too; then I thought that if I
+could not be strong that way, I could have the strength to do right; so I
+began to try, and----"
+
+"Succeeded admirably," said Uncle Jonathan, approvingly. "And, really, my
+boy, I see no reason why you should not shout and play to your heart's
+content in a few months."
+
+And Uncle Jonathan's words proved true; for Clinton, in a sun-kissed
+California valley, grew well and strong in a few months. But through all
+his life he will have cause to be glad that he learned the value of the
+strength that is gained by resisting temptation, controlling one's spirit,
+and obeying the Lord's commands.
+
+BENJAMIN KEECH.
+
+
+
+
+THE DOCTOR'S COW
+
+
+"I am afraid she is done for," said the veterinary surgeon as he came out
+of the barn with Dr. Layton, after working for an hour over Brindle, who
+had broken into the feed bins, and devoured bran and middlings until she
+could eat no more. "But keep up the treatment faithfully, and if she lives
+through the night, she will stand some show of getting well."
+
+The doctor walked down the driveway with the surgeon, and stood for a few
+minutes at the gate under the maple-trees that lined the sidewalk, talking
+earnestly. Then he went back into the house by the kitchen door. His wife
+met him, with the oft-repeated words, "I told you so; I said that boy would
+turn out of no earthly account."
+
+"But he has turned out of some account," contradicted the doctor mildly.
+"In spite of this carelessness, he has been a great help to me during the
+last month. It was boyish ignorance more than mere carelessness that
+brought about this disaster. To be sure, I have cautioned him not to leave
+the door of the feed-room unfastened. But he had no idea how a cow would
+make a glutton of herself if she had a chance at the bins. You cannot
+expect a boy who was reared in a city tenement to learn all about the
+country, and the habits and weaknesses of cattle, in one short month. No, I
+shall not send him adrift again--not even if poor Brindle dies."
+
+"You mean to say you are going to keep him just the same, John Layton?"
+cried the doctor's wife. "Well, if you are not the meekest man! Moses was
+not anything to you! He did lose his temper once."
+
+The doctor smiled, and said quietly: "Yes, and missed entering the promised
+land on account of it. Perhaps I should have done the same thing in his
+place; but I am sure that Moses, if he were in my place today, would feel
+just as I do about discharging Harry. It is pretty safe to assume that he,
+even if he did lose his temper at the continual grumbling of the croakers
+who were sighing for the flesh-pots of Egypt, never ordered a young
+Israelite boy whose father and mother had been bitten by the fiery serpents
+and died in the wilderness, to clear out of camp for not putting a halter
+on one of the cows."
+
+"John Layton, you are talking Scripture!" remonstrated the perturbed
+housewife, looking up reprovingly as she sadly skimmed the cream from the
+very last pan of milk poor Brindle would ever give her.
+
+"I certainly am, and I am going to act Scripture, too," declared the
+doctor, with the air of gentle firmness that always ended any controversy
+between him and his excellent, though somewhat exacting, wife. "Harry is a
+good boy, and he had a good mother, too, he says, but he has had a hard
+life, ill-treated by a father who was bitten by the fiery serpent of drink.
+Now because of his first act of negligence I am not going to send him
+adrift in the world again."
+
+"Not if it costs you a cow!" remarked the woman.
+
+"No, my dear, not if it costs me two cows," reasserted the doctor. "A cow
+is less than a boy, and it might cost the world a man if I sent Harry away
+in a fit of displeasure, disgraced by my discharge so that he could not
+find another place in town to work for his board, and go to school.
+Besides, Brindle will die anyway, and discharging the boy will not save
+her."
+
+"No, of course not. But it was your taking the boy in, a penniless, unknown
+fellow, that has cost you a cow," persisted the wife. "I told you at the
+time you would be sorry for it."
+
+"I have not intimated that I am sorry I took the boy in," remarked the
+doctor, not perversely, but with steadfast kindness. "If our own little boy
+had lived, and had done this thing accidentally, would I have been sorry he
+had ever been born? Or if little Ted had grown to be thirteen, and you and
+I had died in the wilderness of poverty, leaving him to wander out of the
+city to seek for a home in God's fair country, where his little peaked face
+could fill out and grow rosy, as Harry's has, would you think it just to
+have him sent away because he had made a boyish mistake? Of course you
+would not, mother. Your heart is in the right place, even if it does get
+covered up sometimes. And I guess, to come right down to it, you would not
+send Harry away any more than I would, when the poor boy is almost
+heart-broken over this unfortunate affair. Now, let us have supper, for I
+must be off. We cannot neglect sick people for a poor, dying cow. Harry
+will look after Brindle. He will not eat a bite, I am afraid, so it is no
+use to call him in now. By and by you would better take a plate of
+something out to him; but do not say a harsh word to the poor fellow, to
+make it any harder for him than it is."
+
+The doctor ate his supper hurriedly; for the sick cow had engaged every
+moment of his spare hours that day, and he had postponed until his evening
+round of visits a number of calls that were not pressing. When he came out
+to his buggy, Harry Aldis stood at the horse's head, at the carriage steps
+beside the driveway, his chin sunk on his breast, in an attitude of
+hopeless misery.
+
+"Keep up the treatment, Harry, and make her as easy as possible," said the
+doctor as he stepped into his buggy.
+
+"Yes, sir; I'll sit up all night with her, Dr. Layton, if I can only save
+her," was the choking answer, as the boy carefully spread the lap robe over
+the doctor's knees.
+
+"I know you will, Harry; but I am afraid nothing can save the poor
+creature. About all we can do is to relieve her suffering until morning,
+giving her a last chance; and if she is no better then, the veterinary
+surgeon says we would better shoot her, and put her out of her misery."
+
+The boy groaned. "O Dr. Layton, why do you not scold me? I could bear it
+better if you would say just one cross word," he sobbed. "You have been
+kinder to me than my own father ever was, and I have tried so hard to be
+useful to you. Now this dreadful thing has taken place, all because of my
+carelessness. I wish you would take that buggy whip to me; I deserve it."
+
+The doctor took the whip, and gently dropped its lash across the drooping
+shoulders bowed on the horse's neck as the boy hid his face in the silken
+mane he loved to comb. Indeed, Dandy's black satin coat had never shone
+with such a luster from excessive currying as in the month past, since the
+advent of this new little groom, who slept in the little back bedroom of
+the doctor's big white house, and thought it a nook in paradise.
+
+"There's no use in scolding or thrashing a fellow who is all broken up,
+anyway, over an accident, as you are," the doctor said, kindly. "Of course,
+it is a pretty costly accident for me, but I think I know where I can get a
+heifer--one of Brindle's own calves, that I sold to a farmer two years
+ago--that will make as fine a cow as her mother."
+
+"But the money, Dr. Layton! How can I ever earn that to make good your
+loss?" implored the boy, looking up.
+
+"The money? O, well, some day when you are a rich man, you can pay me for
+the cow!" laughed the doctor, taking up the reins. "In the meantime, make a
+good, trustworthy, honest man of yourself, no matter whether you get rich
+or not, and keep your 'thinking cap' on a little better."
+
+"You had better eat some supper," said a voice in the doorway a little
+later, as Mrs. Layton came noiselessly to the barn, and surprised the boy
+kneeling on the hay in the horse's stall adjoining the one where Brindle
+lay groaning, his face buried in his arms, which were flung out over the
+manger.
+
+The lad scrambled to his feet in deep confusion.
+
+"O, thank you, Mrs. Layton, but I cannot eat a bite!" he protested. "It is
+ever so good of you to think of me, but I cannot eat anything."
+
+"You must," said the doctor's wife, firmly. "Come outside and wash in the
+trough if you do not want to leave Brindle. You can sit near by and watch
+her, if you think you must, though it will not do a particle of good, for
+she is bound to die anyway. What were you doing in there on your
+knees--praying?"
+
+The woman's voice softened perceptibly as the question passed her lips, and
+she looked half-pityingly into the pale, haggard young face, thinking of
+little Ted's, and wondering how it would have looked at thirteen if he had
+done this thing.
+
+"Yes," muttered Harry, plunging his hands into the water of the trough, and
+splashing it over the red flame of a sudden burning blush that kindled in
+his ash-pale cheeks. "Isn't it all right to pray for a cow to get well? It
+'most kills me to see her suffer so."
+
+Mrs. Layton smiled unwillingly; for the value of her pet cow's products
+touched her more deeply than a boy's penitent tears, particularly when that
+boy was not her own. "There is no use of your staying in there and watching
+her suffer, you cannot do her any good," she insisted. "Stay out here in
+the fresh air. Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," choked Harry, drying his face on the sleeve of his gingham
+shirt. He sat down on a box before the door, the plate of food in his lap,
+and made an attempt to eat the daintily cooked meal, but every mouthful
+almost choked him.
+
+At about midnight, the sleepless young watcher, lying on the edge of the
+hay just above the empty manger over which a lantern swung, lifted himself
+on his elbow at the sound of a long, low, shuddering groan, and in another
+moment, Harry knew that poor Brindle had ceased to suffer the effects of
+her gluttonous appetite. Creeping down into the stall, he saw at a glance
+that the cow was dead, and for a moment, alone there in the stillness and
+darkness of the spring night, he felt as if he were the principal actor in
+some terrible crime.
+
+"Poor old boss!" he sobbed, kneeling down, and putting his arm over the
+still warm neck. "I--I have killed you--after all the rich milk and butter
+you have given me, that have made me grow strong and fat--just by my
+carelessness!"
+
+In after-years the memory of that hour came back to Harry Aldis as the
+dominant note in some real tragedy, and he never again smelled the
+fragrance of new hay, mingled with the warm breath of sleeping cattle,
+without recalling the misery and self-condemnation of that long night's
+watch.
+
+In the early dawn, Dr. Layton found the boy lying beside the quiet form in
+the stall, fast asleep from exhaustion and grief, his head pillowed on the
+soft, tawny coat he had loved to brush until it gleamed like silk.
+
+"Child alive!" he gasped, bending over and taking the lad in his arms, and
+carrying him out into the sweet morning air. "Harry, why did you not come
+and tell me, and then go to bed?" he cried, setting the bewildered boy on
+his feet, and leading him to the house. "Now, my boy, no more of this
+grieving. The thing is done, and you cannot help it now. There is no more
+use in crying for a dead cow than for spilled milk. Now come in and go to
+bed, and stay there until tonight; and when you wake up, the new heifer,
+Brindle's daughter, will be in the barn waiting for you to milk her. I am
+going to buy her this morning."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Five years after that eventful night, Harry Aldis stood on the doctor's
+front porch, a youth of eighteen, bidding good-by to the two who had been
+more to him than father and mother. He was going to college in the West,
+where he could work his way, and in his trunk was a high-school diploma,
+and in his pocket a "gilt-edge recommendation" from Dr. Layton.
+
+"God bless you, my boy! Don't forget us," said the doctor, his voice husky
+with unshed tears as he wrung the strong young hand that had been so
+helpful to him in the busy years flown by.
+
+"Forget you, my more than father!" murmured the young man, not even trying
+to keep the tears out of his eyes. "No matter how many years it may be
+before I see you again, I shall always remember your unfailing kindness to
+me. And can I ever forget how you saved me for a higher life than I could
+possibly have lived if you had set me adrift in the world again for leaving
+that barn door unfastened, and killing your cow? As long as I live, I shall
+remember that great kindness, and shall try to deserve it by my life."
+
+"Pshaw, Harry," said the doctor, "that was nothing but common humanity!"
+
+"Uncommon humanity," corrected the youth. "Good-by, Mrs. Layton. I shall
+always remember your kindness, too, and that you never gave me any less
+butter or cream from poor Brindle's daughter for my grave offense. You have
+been like an own mother to me."
+
+"You have deserved it all, Harry," said the doctor's wife, and there was a
+tear in her eye, too, which was an unusual sight, for she was not an
+emotional woman. "I do not know as it was such a great calamity, after all,
+to lose Brindle just as we did, for Daisy is a finer cow than her mother
+was, and there has not been another chance since to get as good a heifer."
+
+"So it was a blessing in disguise, after all, Harry," laughed the doctor.
+"As for you, you have been a blessing undisguised from that day to this.
+May the Lord bless and prosper you! Write to us often."
+
+        *        *        *        *        *
+
+Four years passed, and in one of the Western States a young college
+graduate stepped from his pedestal of oratorical honors to take a place
+among the rising young lawyers of a prosperous new town that was fast
+developing into a commercial center.
+
+"I am doing well, splendidly," he wrote Dr. Layton after two years of hard
+work, "and one of these days I am coming back to make that promised visit."
+
+But the years came and went, and still the West held him in its powerful
+clutch. Success smiled upon his pathway, and into his life entered the
+sweet, new joy of a woman's love and devotion, and into his home came the
+happy music of children's voices. When his eldest boy was eight years old,
+his district elected him to the State senate, and four years later sent him
+to Congress,--an honest, uncompromising adherent to principle and duty.
+
+"And now, at last," he wrote Dr. Layton, "I am coming East, and I shall run
+down from Washington for that long-promised visit. Why do you write so
+seldom, when I have never yet failed to inform you of my pyrotechnic
+advancement into the world of politics? It is not fair. And how is the
+family cow? Surely Madam Daisy sleeps with her poor mother ere this, or has
+been cut up into roasts and steaks."
+
+And to this letter the doctor replied briefly but gladly:--
+
+"So you are coming at last, my boy! Well, you will find us in the same old
+house,--a little the worse for wear, perhaps,--and leading the same quiet
+life. No, not the same, though it is quiet enough, for I am growing old,
+and the town is running after the new young doctors, leaving us old ones in
+the rear, to trudge along as best we can. There isn't any 'family cow' now,
+Harry. Daisy was sold long ago for beef, poor thing! We never got another,
+for I am getting too old to milk, and there never seemed to come along
+another boy like the old Harry, who would take all the barn-yard
+responsibility on his shoulders. Besides, mother is crippled with
+rheumatism, and can hardly get around to do her housework, let alone to
+make butter. We are not any too well off since the Union Bank failed; for,
+besides losing all my stock, I have had to help pay the depositors' claims.
+But we have enough to keep us comfortable, and much to be thankful for,
+most of all that our famous son is coming home for a visit. Bring your
+wife, too, Harry, if she thinks it will not be too much of a drop from
+Washington society to our humble home; and the children, all five of those
+bright boys and girls,--bring them all! I want to show them the old stall
+in the barn, where, twenty-five years ago, I picked their father up in my
+arms early one spring morning as he lay fast asleep on the neck of the old
+cow over whose expiring breath he had nearly broken his poor little heart."
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Yes, father, of course it has paid to come down here. I would not have
+missed it for all the unanimous votes of the third ballot that sent me
+East," declared the United States senator at the end of his three days'
+visit. Long ago, the Hon. Henry Aldis had fallen into the habit of
+addressing Dr. Layton, in his letters, by the paternal title.
+
+"It does not seem possible that it is twenty years since I stood here,
+saying good-by when I started West. By the way, do you remember what you
+told me that memorable night when the lamented Brindle laid down her life
+because of my carelessness, and her own gluttony? I was standing at the
+horse's head, and you were sitting in your buggy, there at the carriage
+steps, and I said I wished you would horsewhip me, instead of treating me
+so kindly. I remember you reached over and tickled my neck with the lash
+playfully, and told me there was no use in thrashing a fellow who was all
+broken up, anyway, over an accident."
+
+The doctor laughed as he held his arms more closely about the shoulders of
+Senator Aldis's two eldest boys; while "Grandmother Layton," with little
+Ted in her lap, was dreaming again of the little form that had long, long
+ago been laid in the graveyard on the hillside.
+
+"Yes, yes," said the doctor, "I remember. What a blessed thing it was I did
+not send you off that day to the tune the old cow died on," and he laughed
+through his tears.
+
+"Blessed!" echoed Mrs. Layton, putting down the wriggling Ted. "It was
+providential. You know, Harry, I was not so kind-hearted as John in those
+days and I thought he ought to send you off. But he declared he would not,
+even if you had cost him two cows. He said that if he did it might cost the
+world a man. And so it would have, if all they say you are doing out West
+for clean government is true."
+
+Senator Aldis laughed, and kissed the old lady.
+
+"I do not know about that," he said modestly. "I am of the opinion that he
+might have saved more of a man for the world; but certain it is, he saved
+whatever manhood there was in that boy from going to waste by his noble act
+of kindness. But what I remember most, father, is what you told me, there
+at the carriage step, that when I became a rich man, I could pay you for
+that cow. Well, I am not exactly a rich man, for I am not in politics for
+all the money I can get out of it, but I am getting a better income than my
+leaving that barn door open would justify any one in believing I ever could
+get by my brains; so now I can pay that long-standing debt without
+inconvenience. It may come handy for you to have a little fund laid by,
+since the Union Bank went to smash, and all your stock with it, and so much
+of your other funds went to pay the poor depositors of that defunct
+institution. It was just like you, father, not to dodge the assessments, as
+so many of the stockholders did, by putting all your property in your
+wife's name. So, since you made one investment twenty-five years ago that
+has not seemed to depreciate in value very much,--an investment in a raw
+young boy who did not have enough gumption to fasten a barn door,--here is
+the interest on what the investment was worth to the boy, at least a little
+of it; for I can never begin to pay it all. Good-by, both of you, and may
+God bless you! Here comes our carriage, Helen."
+
+When the dust of the departing hack had filtered through the morning
+sunlight, two pairs of tear-dimmed eyes gazed at the slip of blue paper in
+Dr. Layton's hand,--a check for five thousand dollars.
+
+"We saved a man that time, sure enough!" murmured the old doctor
+softly.--_Emma S. Allen in the Wellspring._
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+Brotherly Kindness
+
+  A man may make a few mistakes,
+    Regardless of his aim.
+  But never, never criticize
+    And cloud him o'er with blame;
+  For all have failed in many things
+  And keenly feel the smarting stings,
+  Which haunt the mind by day and night
+  Till they have made offenses right.
+
+  So liberal be with those you meet
+    E'en though they may offend,
+  And wish them well as on they go
+    Till all the journey end.
+  Sometimes we think our honor's hurt
+  When some one speaks a little pert;
+  But never mind, just hear the good,
+  And ever stand where Patience stood.
+
+  Look for the good, the true, the grand
+    In those you wish to shun,
+  And you will be surprised to find
+    Some good in every one;
+  Then help the man who makes mistakes
+  To rise above his little quakes,
+  To build anew with courage strong,
+  And fit himself to battle wrong.
+
+JOHN FRANCIS OLMSTED
+
+
+
+
+HONEY AT THE PHONE
+
+
+Honey's mama had gone to market, leaving her home with nurse. Nurse was
+up-stairs making beds, while little Honey, with hands behind her, was
+trudging about the sitting-room looking for something to do.
+
+There was a phone in the house, which was a great mystery to Honey when it
+first came. She could hear voices talking back to mama, yet could not see a
+person. Was some one hidden away in the horn her mother put to her ear, or
+was it in the machine itself?
+
+Honey never failed to be on hand when the bell rang, and found that her
+mother generally talked to her best and dearest friends, ladies who were
+such frequent callers that Honey knew them all by name.
+
+Her mama wrote down the names of her friends, with the number of their
+phones, and, because the child was so inquisitive about it, she very
+carefully explained to her just how the whole thing worked, never thinking
+that Honey would sometime try it for herself; and, indeed, for a while
+Honey satisfied herself by playing phone. She would roll up a piece of
+paper, and call out through it, "Hullo!" asking and answering all the
+questions herself.
+
+One day, on finding herself alone, she took down the receiver and tried to
+talk to one of her mama's friends, but it was a failure. She watched mama
+still more closely after that. On this particular morning, while mama was
+at market, she tried again, commencing with the first number on her mama's
+list.
+
+Taking down the receiver, she called out, "Hullo!" the answer came back,
+"Hullo!" "I wants A 215," said Honey, holding the receiver to her ear.
+
+"Yes," came the reply.
+
+"Are you Miss Samor?" asked Honey.
+
+"Yes," was the reply.
+
+"We wants you to come to our house tonight to supper, mama and me."
+
+"Who's mama and me?" asked the voice.
+
+"Honey," was the reply.
+
+"Honey, through the phone, eh?" laughed the voice. "Tell mama I will come
+with pleasure."
+
+Honey was not only delighted, but greatly excited. She used every number on
+her mother's list, inviting them all to supper.
+
+About four o'clock in the afternoon the guests began to arrive, much to
+mama's amazement and consternation, especially when they divested
+themselves of their wraps, and proceeded to make themselves comfortable.
+What could it mean? She would think she was having a surprise party if
+every one had not come empty-handed. Perhaps it was a joke on her. If so,
+they would find she would take it pleasantly.
+
+There was not enough in the house to feed half that crowd, but she had the
+phone, and she fairly made the orders fly for a while.
+
+When her husband came home from his office, he was surprised to find the
+parlors filled with company. While helping the guests, he turned to his
+wife, saying, "Why, this is a sort of surprise, is it not?"
+
+Mama's face flamed, and she looked right down to her nose without saying a
+word.
+
+"Why did you not tell me you were going to invite them, and I would have
+brought home some flowers?" said Honey's papa.
+
+Honey, who sat next to her papa, resplendent in a white dress and flowing
+curls, clutched his sleeve, and said: "It's my party papa. I 'wited 'em
+frew the phone. Honey likes to have c'ean c'o'es on, and have comp'ny."
+
+It was the visitors' turn now to blush, but Honey's papa and mama laughed
+so heartily it made them feel that it was all right even if Honey had sent
+out the invitations. And not one went home without extending an invitation
+to her host and hostess to another dinner or supper, and in every one Honey
+was included.
+
+"Just what she wanted," said her papa, as he tossed her up in his arms and
+kissed her. Then, turning to his wife, he said, "Never mind, mother, she
+will learn better as she grows older."--_Mrs. A. E. C. Maskell.
+
+
+
+
+ONE OF FATHER'S STORIES
+
+
+When children, nothing pleased us more than to listen to father's stories.
+Mother Goose melodies were nothing beside them. In fact, we never heard
+fairy stories at home; and when father told of his boyhood days, the
+stories had a charm which only truth can give. I can hear him now, as he
+would reply to our request for a story by asking if he had ever told us how
+his father tried to have a "raising" without rum. Of course we had heard
+about it many times, but we were sure to want our memories refreshed; so we
+would sit on a stool at his feet or climb upon his knee, while he told us
+this story:--
+
+"My grandfather, George Hobbs, was one of the pioneers of the Kennebec
+Valley. He had an indomitable will, and was the kind of man needed to
+subdue a wilderness and tame it into a home. He was a Revolutionary
+pensioner, having enlisted when only twelve years of age. He was too young
+to be put in the ranks, and was made a waiter in camp. When I was a boy, I
+can remember that he drove twenty miles, once a year, to Augusta, Maine's
+capital, to draw his pension. Snugly tucked under the seat of his sleigh
+was a four-gallon keg and a box. The keg was to be filled with Medford rum
+for himself, and the box with nuts and candy for his grandchildren. After
+each meal, as far back as father could remember, grandfather had mixed his
+rum and water in a pewter tumbler, stirred in some brown sugar with a
+wooden spoon, and drunk it with the air of one who was performing an
+unquestionable duty.
+
+"Grandfather was a ship-carpenter by trade, and therefore in this new
+country was often employed to frame and raise buildings. Raisings were
+great social events. The whole neighborhood went, and neighbors covered
+more territory than they do now. The raising of a medium-sized building
+required about one hundred and fifty men, and their good wives went along
+to help in the preparation of the dinner. The first thing on the day's
+program was the raising, and not a stroke of work was done until all had
+been treated to a drink of rum, the common liquor of the day. After the
+frame was erected, one or two men, whose courage fitted them for the feat,
+had the honor of standing erect on the ridge-pole and repeating this
+rhyme:--
+
+  'Here is a fine frame,
+    Stands on a fine spot;
+  May God bless the owner,
+    And all that he's got.'
+
+Men would sometimes walk the ridge-pole, and sometimes one, more daring
+than the others, would balance himself on his head upon it.
+
+"Then followed a bountiful dinner, in which meat and potatoes, baked beans,
+boiled and fried eggs, Indian pudding, and pumpkin pies figured
+prominently. Often as many as one hundred and twenty-five eggs were eaten.
+After dinner came wrestling, boxing, and rough-and-tumble contests, in
+which defeat was not always taken with the best of grace.
+
+"This was before the subject of temperance was agitated much in the good
+old State of Maine. The spirit of it, however, was awakening in the younger
+generation. My father was enthusiastic over it, and announced his intention
+of raising his new house without the aid of rum. To grandfather this was no
+trifling matter. It was the encroachment of new ideas upon old ones--a
+pitting of the strength of the coming generation against his own. To his
+mind, no less than to father's, a principle was involved, and the old
+soldier prepared to fight his battle. With some spirit he said to father,
+'It cannot be done, Jotham; it cannot be done.' But father was just as sure
+that it could. It was grandfather's task to fit the frame. He went
+industriously to work, and father thought that he had quietly yielded the
+point.
+
+"The day for the raising came, the first in that part of the country to be
+conducted on temperance principles. There were no telephones to spread the
+news, but long before the day arrived, everybody, far and near, knew that
+Jotham Hobbs was going to raise his new house without rum. The people came,
+some eager to help to establish the era of temperance, and some secretly
+hoping that the project would fail. A generous dinner was cooking indoors;
+for the host intended to refuse his guests nothing that was good. The song
+of mallets and hammers rang out, and the timbers began to come together;
+but the master framer was idle. Over by the old house door sat grandfather.
+He positively refused to lend a hand to the enterprise unless treated to
+his rum. For a time the work progressed rapidly; then there came a halt.
+There was a place where the timbers would not fit. After much delay and
+many vain attempts to go on with the work, father asked grandfather to
+help; but he only shook his head, and grimly replied that it was ten to one
+if it ever came together without rum. There were more vain attempts, more
+delays. Finally, father, seeing that he must yield or give up the work, got
+some rum and handed it to grandfather. The old man gravely laid aside his
+pipe, drank the Medford, and walked over to the men. He took a tenon marked
+_ten_ and placed it in a mortise marked _one_. The problem was solved. He
+had purposely marked them in that way, instead of marking them alike, as
+was customary. With a sly twinkle in his eye he said, 'I told you it was
+ten to one if it ever came together.'
+
+"But the cause of temperance had come to stay, and grandfather met his
+Waterloo when Squire Low built his one-hundred-foot barn. Three hundred men
+were there to see that it went up without rum. Grandfather and a kindred
+spirit, Old Uncle Benjamin Burrill, stood at a safe distance, hoping to see
+another failure. But section after section was raised. The rafters went on,
+and finally the ridge-pole. The old men waited to see no more. They dropped
+their heads, turned on their heels, and walked away."
+
+These events occurred between 1830 and 1840. Since then the cause of
+temperance has made rapid progress.
+
+In the State Capitol at Augusta, Maine, is a petition sent to the
+legislature in 1835 by one hundred and thirty-nine women of Brunswick,
+Maine. It is a plea for a prohibitory law, and is, probably, the first
+attempt made to secure a legislative enactment against the liquor traffic.
+One paragraph, which is characteristic of the whole document, is worth
+quoting:--
+
+"We remonstrate against this method of making rich men richer and poor men
+poorer; of making distressed families more distressed; of making a portion
+of the human family utterly and hopelessly miserable, debasing the moral
+nature, and thus clouding with despair their temporal and future
+prospects."
+
+This petition met with no recognition by that legislature. There were many
+customs to be laid aside, many prejudices to be overcome, and it was not
+till 1851 that Maine became a prohibition State. Since that time her health
+and wealth have steadily increased, in greater proportion than other States
+which have not adopted temperance principles; and public sentiment, which
+is a powerful ally, is against the liquor traffic.
+
+ETHEL HOBBS WALTERS.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT RUM DOES
+
+
+I was sitting at my breakfast-table one Sunday morning, when I was called
+to my door by the ringing of the bell. There stood a boy about fourteen
+years of age, poorly clad, but tidied up as best he could. He was leaning
+on crutches; for one leg was off at the knee.
+
+In a voice trembling with emotion, and with tears coursing down his cheeks,
+he said: "Mr. Hoagland, I am Freddy Brown. I have come to see if you will
+go to the jail and talk and pray with my father. He is to be hanged
+tomorrow for the murder of my mother. My father was a good man, but whisky
+did it. I have three little sisters younger than myself. We are very, very
+poor, and have no friends. We live in a dark and dingy room. I do the best
+I can to support my sisters by selling papers, blacking boots, and doing
+odd jobs; but Mr. Hoagland, we are very poor. Will you come and be with us
+when father's body is brought home? The governor says we may have his body
+after he is hanged."
+
+I was deeply moved to pity. I promised, and made haste to the jail, where I
+found his father.
+
+He acknowledged that he must have murdered his wife, for the circumstances
+pointed that way, but he had not the slightest remembrance of the deed. He
+said he was crazed with drink, or he never would have committed the crime.
+He said: "My wife was a good and faithful mother to my little children.
+Never did I dream that my hand could be guilty of such a crime."
+
+The man could bravely face the penalty of the law for his deed, but he
+broke down and cried as if his heart would break when he thought of leaving
+his children in a destitute and friendless condition. I read and prayed
+with him, and left him to his fate.
+
+The next morning I made my way to the miserable quarters of the children. I
+found three little girls upon a bed of straw in one corner of the room.
+They were clad in rags. They would have been beautiful girls had they had
+the proper care. They were expecting the body of their dead father, and
+between their cries and sobs they would say, "Papa was good, but whisky did
+it."
+
+In a little time two strong officers came bearing the body of the dead
+father in a rude pine box. They set it down on two old rickety stools. The
+cries of the children were so heartrending that the officers could not
+endure it, and made haste out of the room.
+
+In a moment the manly boy nerved himself, and said, "Come, sisters, kiss
+papa's face before it is cold." They gathered about his face and smoothed
+it down with kisses, and between their sobs cried out: "Papa was good, but
+whisky did it! Papa was good, but whisky did it!"
+
+I raised my heart to God and said, "O God, did I fight to save a country
+that would derive a revenue from a traffic that would make a scene like
+this possible?"--_Youth's Outlook_.
+
+
+
+MY MOTHER'S RING
+
+
+I am living now on borrowed time. The sun of my allotted life-day has set,
+and with the mellow twilight of old age there come to my memory reflections
+of a life which, if not well spent, has in it enough of good at least to
+make these reflections pleasant. And yet, during all the years in which I
+have responded to the name Carter Brassfield, but a single fortnight of
+time, it seems to me, is worth recounting.
+
+We were living in Milwaukee, having recently moved there from York State,
+where I was born. My father, a bookkeeper of some expertness, not securing
+a position in our newly adopted city as soon as he had expected, became
+disheartened, and, to while away the time that hung so heavily, took to
+drinking beer with some newly acquired German friends. The result was that
+our funds were exhausted much sooner than they should have been, and mother
+took it upon herself to turn bread-winner for the family by doing some
+plain sewing.
+
+A small allotment of this money she gave to me one day on my return from
+school, and sent me to Mr. Blodget, the grocer, to purchase some supplies.
+After giving my order to one of the clerks I immediately turned my
+attention to renewing my acquaintance with Tabby, the store cat.
+
+While I was thus engaged, I heard my name repeated by a stranger who was
+talking with Mr. Blodget, and erelong the man sauntered over, spoke to me,
+and after some preliminary remarks asked if I was Carter Brassfield. He was
+dark, had a sweeping mustache, and wore eye-glasses. Upon being assured
+that I was Carter Brassfield, he took from his pocket a gold ring, and,
+turning it around carefully in the light, read the inscription on its inner
+side.
+
+"Is your mother's name Alice?" he asked.
+
+I told him that it was.
+
+"And your father's name Carter?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said I.
+
+Then he showed the ring to me and asked if I had seen it before.
+
+I at once recognized the ring as my mother's. Since I could remember she
+had worn it, until recently. Of late she had grown so much thinner that the
+ring would no longer stay on her finger, and she was accustomed, therefore,
+to keep the circlet in a small drawer of her dresser, secure in an old
+purse with some heirlooms of coins; and I was greatly surprised that it
+should be in the possession of this stranger. I told him that it was my
+mother's ring, and asked him how he came by it.
+
+"Your father put it up in a little game the other day," said he, "and it
+fell into my possession." He dropped the ring into his purse, which he then
+closed with a snap. "I have been trying for several days to see your father
+and give him a chance at the ring before I turned it in to the
+pawnbroker's. If your mother has any feeling in the matter, tell her she
+can get the ring for ten dollars," he added as he turned away.
+
+I did not know what to do. I was so ashamed and hurt to think that my
+father, whom I loved and in whom I had such implicit confidence, should
+have gambled away my mother's ring, the very ring--I was old enough to
+appreciate--he had given her in pledging to her his love. My eyes filled
+with tears, and as I stood, hesitating, Mr. Blodget came forward,
+admonishing me not to forget my parcels. He evidently observed my tears,
+although I turned my face the other way, for shame of crying. At any rate,
+he put his hand on my shoulder and said very kindly:--
+
+"It's pretty tough, Carter, my boy, isn't it?"
+
+He referred, I thought, to my father, for father was uppermost in my
+thoughts. Then, lowering his voice, he said:--
+
+"But I will help you out, son, I will help you out."
+
+I forgot all about hiding my tears, and faced about, attracted by his
+kindness.
+
+"I will redeem the ring, and keep it for you until you can get the money.
+What do you say? You can rest easy then, knowing that it is safe, and you
+can take your time. What do you say?"
+
+With some awkwardness I acquiesced to his plan. Then he called the
+stranger, and, leading the way back to his desk, paid to him the ten
+dollars, requiring him to sign a paper, though I did not understand why. He
+then placed the ring carefully in his safe.
+
+"There, Carter," said he, rubbing his hands together, "it is safe now, and
+we need not worry."
+
+I held out my hand to him, then without a word took my parcels and started
+on a run for home.
+
+That evening father was more restless than usual. He repeatedly lamented
+his long-enforced idleness. After retiring that night, I lay awake for a
+long time evolving in my mind plans whereby I might earn ten dollars to
+redeem the ring. Finally, with my boyish heart full of hope and adventure,
+I fell asleep in the wee hours of morning.
+
+After breakfast I took my books, as usual, but, instead of going to school,
+I turned my steps toward a box factory where I knew a boy of about my own
+age to be working. I confided to him as much of my story as I thought
+advisable, and he took me to the superintendent's office and introduced me.
+I was put to work, at five dollars a week, with the privilege of stopping
+at four each day. Every afternoon I brought my school-books home and
+studied as usual till bed-time, and took them with me again in the morning.
+
+During the two weeks I was employed at the factory neither father nor
+mother suspected that I had not been to school each day. In fact, I studied
+so assiduously at night that I kept up with my classes. But my mother
+observed that I grew pale and thin.
+
+At the end of two weeks, when I told the manager I wanted to stop work, he
+seemed somewhat disappointed. He paid me two crisp five-dollar notes, and I
+went very proudly to Mr. Blodget with the first ten dollars I had ever
+earned, and received that gentleman's hearty praise, and my mother's ring.
+
+That evening father was out as usual, and I gave the ring to mother,
+telling her all about it, and what I had done. She kissed me, and, holding
+me close in her arms for a long time, cried, caressing my hair with her
+hand, and told me that I was her dear, good boy. Then we had a long talk
+about father, and agreed to lay nothing to him, at present, about the ring.
+
+The next evening, when I returned from school, father met me at the hall
+door, and asked if I had been to school. I saw that he had been drinking,
+and was not in a very amiable mood.
+
+"I met Clarence Stevenson just now," he said, "and he inquired about you.
+He thought you were sick, and said you had not been to school for two
+weeks, unless you had gone today." I stood for a moment without answering.
+"What do you say to that?" he demanded.
+
+"Clarence told the truth, father," I replied.
+
+"He did, eh? What do you mean by running away from school in this manner?"
+He grew very angry, catching me by the shoulder, gave me such a jerk that
+my books, which I had under my arm, went flying in all directions. "Why
+have you not been to school?" he said thickly.
+
+"I was working, but I did not intend to deceive you father."
+
+"Working! Working! Where have you been working?"
+
+"At Mr. Hazleton's box factory."
+
+"At a _what_ factory?"
+
+"_Box_ factory."
+
+"How much did you earn?" he growled, watching me closely to see if I told
+the truth.
+
+"Five dollars a week," I said timidly, feeling all the time that he was
+exacting from me a confession that I wished, on his account, to keep
+secret.
+
+"Five dollars a week! Where is the money? Show me the money!" he persisted
+incredulously.
+
+"I cannot, father. I do not have it."
+
+I was greatly embarrassed and frightened at his conduct.
+
+"Where is it?" he growled.
+
+"I--I--spent it," I said, not thinking what else to say.
+
+A groan escaped through his shut teeth as he reeled across the hall and
+took down a short rawhide whip that had been mine to play with. Although he
+had never punished me severely, I was now frightened at his anger.
+
+"Don't whip me, father!" I pleaded, as he came staggering toward me with
+the whip. "Don't whip me, please!"
+
+I started to make a clean breast of the whole matter, but the cruel lash
+cut my sentence short. I had on no coat, only my waist, and I am sure a boy
+never received such a whipping as I did.
+
+I did not cry at first. My heart was filled only with pity for my father.
+Something lay so heavy in my breast that it seemed to fill up my throat and
+choke me. I shut my teeth tightly together, and tried to endure the hurt,
+but the biting lash cut deeper and deeper until I could stand it no longer.
+Then my spirit broke, and I begged him to stop. This seemed only to anger
+him the more, if such a thing could be. I cried for mercy, and called for
+mother, who was out at one of the neighbor's. Had she been at home, I am
+sure she would have interceded for me. But he kept on and on, his face as
+white as the wall. I could feel something wet running down my back, and my
+face was slippery with blood, when I put up my hand to protect it. I
+thought I should die; everything began to go round and round. The strokes
+did not hurt any longer; I could not feel them now. The hall suddenly grew
+dark, and I sank upon the floor. Then I suppose he stopped.
+
+When I returned to consciousness, I was lying on the couch in the
+dining-room, with a wet cloth about my forehead, and mother was kneeling by
+me, fanning me and crying. I put my arms about her neck, and begged her not
+to cry, but my head ached so dreadfully that I could not keep back my own
+tears. I asked where father was, and she said he went down-town when she
+came. He did not return at supper-time, nor did we see him again until the
+following morning.
+
+I could eat no supper that night before going to bed, and mother came and
+stayed with me. I am sure she did not sleep, for as often as I dropped off
+from sheer exhaustion, I was wakened by her sobbing. Then I, too, would
+cry. I tried to be brave, but my wounds hurt me so, and my head ached. I
+seemed to be thinking all the time of father. My poor father! I felt sorry
+for him, and kept wondering where he was. All through the night it seemed
+to me that I could see him drinking and drinking, and betting and betting.
+My back hurt dreadfully, and mother put some ointment and soft cotton on
+it.
+
+It was late in the morning when I awoke, and heard mother and father
+talking down-stairs. With great difficulty, I climbed out of bed and
+dressed myself. When I went down, mother had a fire in the dining-room
+stove, and father was sitting, or rather lying, with both arms stretched
+out upon the table, his face buried between them. By him on a plate were
+some slices of toast that mother had prepared, and a cup of coffee, which
+had lost its steam without being touched.
+
+I went over by the stove and stood looking at father. I had remained there
+but a moment, my heart full of sympathy for him, and wondering if he were
+ill, when he raised his head and looked at me. I had never before seen him
+look so haggard and pale. As his eyes rested on me, the tears started down
+my cheeks.
+
+"Carter, my child," he said hoarsely, "I have done you a great wrong. Can
+you forgive me?"
+
+In an instant my arms were about his neck--I felt no stiffness nor soreness
+now. He folded me to his breast, and cried, as I did. After a long time he
+spoke again:--
+
+"If I had only known--your mother has just told me. It was the beer,
+Carter, the beer. I will never touch the stuff again, never," he said
+faintly. Then he stretched out his arms upon the table, and bowed his head
+upon them. I stood awkwardly by, the tears streaming down my cheeks, but
+they were tears of joy.
+
+Mother, who was standing in the kitchen doorway with her apron to her eyes,
+came and put her arm about him, and said something, very gently, which I
+did not understand. Then she kissed me several times. I shall never forget
+the happiness of that hour.
+
+For a long time after that father would not go downtown in the evening
+unless I could go with him. He lived to a good old age, and was for many
+years head bookkeeper for Mr. Blodget. He kept his promise always.
+
+Mother is still living, and still wears the ring.--_Alva H. Sawins, M.D.,
+in the Union Signal_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Lad's Answer
+
+
+  Our little lad came in one day
+    With dusty shoes and weary feet
+  His playtime had been hard and long
+    Out in the summer's noontide heat.
+  "I'm glad I'm home," he cried, and hung
+    His torn straw hat up in the hall,
+  While in the corner by the door
+    He put away his bat and ball.
+
+  "I wonder why," his aunty said,
+    "This little lad always comes here,
+  When there are many other homes
+    As nice as this, and quite as near."
+  He stood a moment deep in thought,
+    Then, with the love-light in his eye,
+  He pointed where his mother sat,
+    And said: "Here she lives; that is why '"
+
+  With beaming face the mother heard,
+    Her mother-heart was very glad.
+  A true, sweet answer he had given,
+    That thoughtful, loving little lad.
+  And well I know that hosts of lads
+    Are just as loving, true, and dear,
+  That they would answer as did he,
+    "Tis home, for mother's living here."
+
+           ARTHUR V. FOX.
+
+
+
+
+THE BRIDAL WINE-CUP
+
+
+"Pledge with wine! Pledge with wine!" cried young and thoughtless Harvey
+Wood. "Pledge with wine!" ran through the bridal party.
+
+The beautiful bride grew pale; the decisive hour had come. She pressed her
+white hands together, and the leaves of the bridal wreath trembled on her
+brow. Her breath came quicker, and her heart beat wilder.
+
+"Yes, Marian, lay aside your scruples for this once," said the judge in a
+low tone, going toward his daughter; "the company expects it. Do not so
+seriously infringe upon the rules of etiquette. In your own home do as you
+please; but in mine, for this once, please me."
+
+Pouring a brimming cup, they held it, with tempting smiles, toward Marian.
+She was very pale, though composed; and her hand shook not, as, smiling
+back, she gracefully accepted the crystal tempter, and raised it to her
+lips. But scarcely had she done so when every hand was arrested by her
+piercing exclamation of "O, how terrible!"
+
+"What is it?" cried one and all, thronging together, for she had slowly
+carried the glass at arm's length and was fixedly regarding it.
+
+"Wait," she answered, while a light, which seemed inspired, shone from her
+dark eyes--"wait, and I will tell you. I see," she added slowly, pointing
+one finger at the sparkling ruby liquid, "a sight that beggars all
+description; and yet, listen! I will paint it for you, if I can. It is a
+lovely spot. Tall mountains, crowned with verdure, rise in awful sublimity
+around; a river runs through, and bright flowers grow to the water's edge.
+But there a group of Indians gather. They flit to and fro, with something
+like sorrow upon their dark brows. In their midst lies a manly form, but
+his cheek, how deathly! His eyes are wild with the fitful fire of fever.
+One friend stands before him--nay, I should say, kneels; for see, he is
+pillowing that poor head upon his breast.
+
+"O, the high, holy-looking brow! Why should death mark it, and he so young?
+Look, how he throws back the damp curls! See him clasp his hands! Hear his
+thrilling shrieks for life! Mark how he clutches at the form of his
+companion, imploring to be saved! O, hear him call piteously his father's
+name! See him twine his fingers together as he shrieks for his sister--his
+only sister, the twin of his soul, weeping for him in his distant native
+land!
+
+"See!" she exclaimed, while the bridal party shrank back, the untasted wine
+trembling in their faltering grasp, and the judge fell overpowered upon his
+seat--"see! his arms are lifted to heaven--he prays--how wildly!--for
+mercy. Hot fever rushes through his veins. He moves not; his eyes are set
+in their sockets; dim are their piercing glances. In vain his friend
+whispers the name of father and sister--death is there. Death--and no soft
+hand, no gentle voice to soothe him. His head sinks back; one convulsive
+shudder--he is dead!"
+
+A groan ran through the assembly. So vivid was description, so unearthly
+her look, so inspired her manner, that what she described seemed actually
+to have taken place then and there. They noticed, also, that the bridegroom
+hid his face in his hands, and was weeping.
+
+"Dead!" she repeated again, her lips quivering faster and faster, and her
+voice more broken. "And there they scoop him a grave; and there, without a
+shroud, they lay him down in that damp, reeking earth, the only son of a
+proud father, the only idolized brother of a fond sister. There he lies, my
+father's son, my own twin brother, a victim to this deadly poison. Father,"
+she exclaimed, turning suddenly, while the tears rained down her beautiful
+cheeks, "father, shall I drink it now?"
+
+The form of the old judge was convulsed with agony. He raised not his head,
+but in a smothered voice he faltered:--
+
+"No, no, my child; no!"
+
+She lifted the glittering goblet, and let it suddenly fall to the floor,
+where it was dashed in a thousand pieces. Many a tearful eye watched her
+movement, and instantaneously every wine-glass was transferred to the
+marble table on which it had been prepared. Then, as she looked at the
+fragments of crystal, she turned to the company, saying: "Let no friend
+hereafter who loves me tempt me to peril my soul for wine. Not firmer are
+the everlasting hills than my resolve, God helping me, never to touch or
+taste the poison cup. And he to whom I have given my hand, who watched over
+my brother's dying form in that last solemn hour, and buried the dear
+wanderer there by the river in that land of gold, will, I trust, sustain me
+in that resolve."
+
+His glistening eyes, his sad, sweet smile, were her answer. The judge left
+the room. When, an hour after, he returned, and with a more subdued manner
+took part in the entertainment of the bridal guests, no one could fail to
+read that he had determined to banish the enemy forever from his princely
+home.--"_Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer."_
+
+
+
+
+A MOTHER'S SORROW
+
+
+A company of Southern ladies, assembled in a parlor, were one day talking
+about their different troubles. Each had something to say about her own
+trials. But there was one in the company, pale and sad-looking, who for a
+while remained silent. Suddenly rousing herself, she said:--
+
+"My friends, you do not any of you know what trouble is."
+
+"Will you please, Mrs. Gray," said the kind voice of one who knew her
+story, "tell the ladies what you call trouble?"
+
+"I will, if you desire it; for, in the words of the prophet, 'I am the one
+who hath seen affliction.'
+
+"My parents were very well off; and my girlhood was surrounded by all the
+comforts of life. Every wish of my heart was gratified, and I was cheerful
+and happy.
+
+"At the age of nineteen I married one whom I loved more than all the world
+besides. Our home was retired; but the sun never shone upon a lovelier spot
+or a happier household. Years rolled on peacefully. Five lovely children
+sat around our table, and a little curly head still nestled in my bosom.
+
+"One night about sundown one of those fierce, black storms came up, which
+are so common to our Southern climate. For many hours the rain poured down
+incessantly. Morning dawned, but still the elements raged. The country
+around us was overflowed. The little stream near our dwelling became a
+foaming torrent. Before we were aware of it, our house was surrounded by
+water. I managed, with my babe, to reach a little elevated spot, where the
+thick foliage of a few wide-spread trees afforded some protection, while my
+husband and sons strove to save what they could of our property. At last a
+fearful surge swept away my husband, and he never rose again. Ladies, no
+one ever loved a husband more. But that was not trouble.
+
+"Presently my sons saw their danger, and the struggle for life became the
+only consideration. They were as brave, loving boys as ever blessed a
+mother's heart; and I watched their efforts to escape, with such an agony
+as only mothers can feel. They were so far off that I could not speak to
+them; but I could see them closing nearer and nearer to each other, as
+their little island grew smaller and smaller.
+
+"The swollen river raged fearfully around the huge trees. Dead branches,
+upturned trunks, wrecks of houses, drowning cattle, and masses of rubbish,
+all went floating past us. My boys waved their hands to me, and then
+pointed upward. I knew it was their farewell signal; and you, mothers, can
+imagine my anguish. I saw them perish--all perish. Yet that was not
+trouble.
+
+"I hugged my baby close to my heart; and when the water rose at my feet, I
+climbed into the low branches of the tree, and so kept retiring before it,
+till the hand of God stayed the waters, that they should rise no farther. I
+was saved. All my worldly possessions were swept away; all my earthly hopes
+were blighted. Yet that was not trouble.
+
+"My baby was all I had left on earth. I labored day and night to support
+him and myself, and sought to train him in the right way. But, as he grew
+older, evil companions won him away from me. He ceased to care for his
+mother's counsels; he sneered at her entreaties and agonizing prayers. He
+became fond of drink. He left my humble roof, that he might be unrestrained
+in his evil ways. And at last one night, when heated by wine, he took the
+life of a fellow creature. He ended his days upon the gallows. God had
+filled my cup of sorrow before; now it ran over. That was trouble, my
+friends, such as I hope the Lord of mercy will spare you from ever
+knowing."
+
+Boys and girls, can you bear to think that you might bring such sorrow on
+your dear father or mother? If you would not, be on your guard against
+intemperance. Let wine and liquors alone. Never touch them.--_Selected_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Ah, none but a mother can tell you, sir, how a mother's heart will ache
+  With the sorrow that comes of a sinning child,
+    with grief for a lost one's sake,
+  When she knows the feet she trained to walk have gone so far astray,
+  And the lips grown bold with curses that she taught to sing and pray!
+  A child may fear, a wife may weep, but of all sad things none other
+  Seems half so sorrowful to me as being a drunkard's mother."
+
+
+
+THE REPRIMAND
+
+
+At the sound of Mr. Troy's bell, Eleanor Graves vanished into his private
+office. Ten minutes later she came out, with a deep flush on her face and
+tears in her eyes.
+
+"He lectured me on the spelling of a couple of words and a mistake in a
+date," she complained to Jim Forbes. "Anybody's liable to misspell a word
+or two in typing, and I know I took the date down exactly as he gave it to
+me."
+
+Jim looked uncomfortable. "I would not mind," he said awkwardly. "We all
+have to take it sometime or other. Besides," he glanced hesitatingly at the
+pretty, indignant face, "I suppose the boss thinks we ought not to make
+mistakes."
+
+"As if I wanted to!" Eleanor retorted, stiffly.
+
+But she worked more carefully the next week; for her pride was touched.
+Then, with restored confidence, came renewed carelessness, and an error
+crept into one of the reports she was copying. The error was slight, but it
+brought her a sharp reprimand from Mr. Troy. It was the second time, he
+reminded her, that she had made that blunder. At the reproof the girl's
+face flushed painfully, and then paled.
+
+"If my work is not satisfactory, you had better find some one who can do it
+better," she said.
+
+Whirling round in his swivel-chair, Mr. Troy looked at her. He had really
+never noticed his latest stenographer before, but now his keen eyes saw
+many things that showed that she came from a home where she had been petted
+and cared for.
+
+"How long have you been at work?" he asked.
+
+"This is my first position," Eleanor answered.
+
+Mr. Troy nodded. "I understand. Now, Miss Graves, let me tell you
+something. You have many of the qualities of a good business woman; you are
+punctual, you are not afraid of work, you are fairly accurate. I have an
+idea that you take pride in turning out a good piece of work. But you must
+learn to stand criticism and profit by it. We must all take it sometime,
+every one of us. A weakling goes under. A strong man or woman learns to
+value it, to make every bit of it count. That is what I hope you will do."
+
+Eleanor braced herself to meet his eyes.
+
+"If you will let me, I will try again," she said.--_Youth's Companion_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+The Kingfisher
+
+
+  A kingfisher sat on a flagpole slim,
+  And watched for a fish till his eye was dim.
+  "I wonder," said he, "if the fishes know
+  That I, their enemy, love them so!
+  I sit and watch and blink my eye
+  And watch for fish and passers-by;
+  I must occasionally take to wing
+  On account of the stones that past me sing.
+  *
+  "I nearly always work alone;
+  For past experience has shown
+  That I can't gather something to eat,
+  And visit my neighbor across the street.
+  So whether I'm fishing early or late,
+  I usually work without a mate,
+  Since I can't visit and watch my game;
+  For fishing's my business, and Fisher's my name.
+  Maybe by watching, from day to day,
+  My life and habits in every way,
+  You might be taught a lesson or two
+  That all through life might profit you;
+  Or if you only closely look,
+  This sketch may prove an open book,
+  And teach a lesson you should learn.
+  Look closely, and you will discern."
+
+  CHAS. E.E. SANBORN.
+
+
+
+
+AN EXAMPLE
+
+
+Stealing away from the ones at home, who would be sad when they found out
+about it; stealing away from honor, purity, cleanliness, goodness, and
+manliness, the minister's boy and the boy next door were preparing to smoke
+their first cigarettes. They had skulked across the back pasture, and were
+nearing the stone wall that separated Mr. Meadow's corn-field from the
+road; and here, screened by the wall on one side and by corn on the other,
+they intended to roll the little "coffin nails," and smoke them unseen.
+
+The minister's boy, whose name was Johnny Brighton, and who was an
+innocent, unsuspicious child, agreed that it would be a fine, manly thing
+to smoke. So the lads waited and planned, and now their opportunity had
+come. The boy next door, whose name was Albert Beecher, saw old Jerry
+Grimes, the worst character in Roseland, drop a small bag of tobacco and
+some cigarette-papers. The lad, being unobserved, transferred the stuff
+from the sidewalk to his pocket, then hid it in the wood-shed.
+
+At last their plan seemed about to be carried out. Albert's mother was
+nursing a sick friend, and the minister, secure in his study, was preparing
+a sermon. Johnny's mother was dead. His aunt Priscilla was his father's
+housekeeper, and she was usually so busy that she had little time for small
+boys. Today, as she began her sewing, Johnny slipped quietly from the house
+and joined his chum.
+
+The boys reached the stone wall and sat down, with the tobacco between
+them, to enjoy (?) what they considered a manly deed. After considerable
+talk and a few blunders, each succeeded in rolling a cigarette, and was
+about to pass it to his lips, when a strange voice, almost directly above
+their heads, said, pleasantly, "Trying to kill yourselves, boys?"
+
+With a guilty start, Johnny and Albert turned instantly, and beheld the
+strangest specimen of humanity that either had ever seen. An unmistakable
+tramp, with a pale, sickly face, covered partly with grime and partly with
+stubby black beard, stood leaning with his arms on top of the wall, looking
+down at them. Although it was summer, he wore a greasy winter cap, and his
+coat, too, spoke of many rough journeys through dirt and bad weather. His
+lips were screwed into something resembling a smile; but as he spoke, his
+haunted, sunken eyes roved restlessly from one upturned face to the other.
+
+As the only answer the boys gave him was an astonished, frightened stare,
+the man continued: "I would not do it, boys. It is an awful thing--awful! I
+was trying to get a little sleep over here," he continued, "when I heard
+your voices, and thought I would see what was going on. Did not any one
+ever tell you about cigarettes? Why, each one contains enough poison to
+kill a cat; if it was fixed right, I mean." He passed a thin, shaking hand
+over his face, and went on: "Do you want to fool with such things?--Not if
+you are wise. You see, the cigarette habit will kill you sometime, by
+inches, if not right away, or else drive you crazy; and no sane person
+wants to kill himself or spoil his health. That is what I am doing,
+though," he admitted, with a bitter smile and a sad shake of his head. "But
+I cannot stop it now. I have gone too far, and I cannot help myself. I am a
+wreck, a blot on the face of the earth."
+
+Both lads had thrown their cigarettes to the ground, scrambled to their
+feet. Johnny, sober-faced and round-eyed, was gazing intently up at the
+man; but Albert, feigning indifference, stood digging his toe into the
+earth. He was listening, however.
+
+"It is this way with me," the stranger went on, seeing he had an audience:
+"I have gone from bad to worse till I cannot stop, no matter how hard I
+try. Why, I was once a clean little chap like you, but I got to reading
+trash, and then I began to smoke, and pretty soon I had drifted so far into
+evil ways that I had no control over myself."
+
+Here Johnny and Albert exchanged a painful glance.
+
+"The worst thing about cigarettes," the man continued, "is that they
+usually lead to something worse. I am a drunkard and a thief, because of
+evil associations. Tramps never have any ready money; so when I have to
+have cigarettes, which is all the time, I either steal them or steal the
+money to buy them with. Besides," with another sad shake of the head, "I am
+what is known as a drug fiend, and--yes, I guess I am everything bad. If
+your folks knew who was talking to you, their blood would run cold.
+
+"And it is all principally due to cigarettes!" he broke forth, savagely,
+emphasizing his words with his fist and speaking more excitedly. "Just look
+at me and behold a splendid example of the cigarette curse. Why, I was
+naturally bright; I might have been a man to honor. But a bad habit,
+uncontrolled, soon ruins one. My nerves are gone. I am only a fit companion
+for jailbirds and criminals. I cannot even look an honest man in the face,
+yet I am not naturally bad at heart. The best way is never to begin; then
+you will never have to suffer. Cigarettes will surely hurt you some day,
+though you may not be able to see the effects at first."
+
+The speaker's manner had changed greatly during the past few moments. At
+first he had spoken calmly, but he was now more than agitated. His eyes
+rolled and flashed in their dark caverns, and he spoke vehemently, with
+excited gestures. Johnny and Albert stood close together, regarding him
+with frightened eyes.
+
+"I wish I could reform," he exclaimed, "but I cannot! The poison is in my
+veins. A thousand devils seem dragging me down. I wish I could make every
+boy stop smoking those things. I wish I could warn them of the horrible
+end."
+
+With a sudden shriek, the man threw up his hands, fell backward, and
+disappeared. After a second's hesitation, both lads ran to the wall,
+climbed up, and looked over. In an unmistakable fit, the man was writhing
+on the ground. Johnny and Albert ran quickly across lots and into Rev. Paul
+Brighton's study. After learning that the boys had found a man in a fit,
+Johnny's father hailed two passing neighbors, and the little party of
+rescuers followed the lads to the scene of the strange experience.
+
+It was a sorry spectacle that greeted them. The poor fellow's paroxysm had
+passed, and he lay still and apparently lifeless, covered with dust and
+grime. The minister bent over him, and, ascertaining that he was alive and
+conscious, lifted him up; then, with the help of the two men, took the
+outcast to the parsonage.
+
+That evening, before the minister had asked his boy three questions, Johnny
+broke into convulsive sobs, and made a clean breast of the matter from the
+beginning. Blaming himself for not having won the child's heart securely
+long before this, the minister did not censure him severely. He knew that
+after such an example, the sensitive lad would never go wrong as far as
+cigarettes were concerned.
+
+Aunt Priscilla took her nephew in her arms, and, kissing the lips that were
+yet sweet and pure, said, "If I have neglected you, Johnny, I am sorry; and
+after this I am going to spend considerable time being good to my precious
+laddie."
+
+Johnny slipped an arm around Aunt Priscilla's neck. "That is just what I
+want," he said, happily.
+
+"I hope this will teach you a lesson, Albert," said Mrs. Beecher to her
+son, when he, with the help and advice of the minister, had made a full
+confession of his share in the matter. "After such an example, I should
+think you would never want to see another cigarette."
+
+"I do not," said Albert, soberly, "and if I can help it, I am not going to;
+I will fight them. Cigarettes certainly did not make a man of that fellow.
+They _unmade_ him."
+
+For several days, during which the minister thought of what could be done
+for him, the outcast stayed at the parsonage. He was invited to try the
+gospel cure. "If you will put yourself unreservedly in the hands of God,
+and remain steadfast," said Mr. Brighton, "there is hope for you. Besides,
+I know of some medical missionaries who can help doctor the poison out of
+your system, if you will let them."
+
+At last the poor fellow yielded. And after a hard, bitter struggle, during
+which a higher power helped him, he won the victory. He joined a band of
+religious people whose work is to help rebuild wrecked lives; and although
+weak at first and never robust, he was still able to point the right way to
+many an erring mortal. He did much good; and Johnny and Albert, at least,
+never forgot the practical example he gave them of what the cigarette can
+accomplish for its slaves. BENJAMIN KEECH.
+
+
+
+
+FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT
+
+
+A number of years ago, at an orphan asylum in a Northern State, there lived
+a boy whom we shall call Will Jones. He was just an ordinary boy. No, he
+was not so in one respect, which I must point out, to his discredit. Will
+Jones had a temper that distinguished him from the general run of boys.
+Will's temper might have been inherited from a Spanish pirate, and yet Will
+was a boy whom every one loved; but this hair-trigger temper at times
+terribly spoiled things. It would be tedious to recount his uprisings of
+anger, and the direful consequences that often followed.
+
+Mr. Custer, the superintendent of the asylum, had hopefully striven to lead
+Will to the paths of right; but it was a difficult task.
+
+Sometimes it needs but one small breach to begin the overthrow of a giant
+wall. One small key, if it is the right one, will open the most resisting
+door. One small phrase may start a germ-thought growing in a human mind
+which in after-years may become a mighty oak of character. So Will Jones,
+the incorrigible fighter was to demonstrate this principle, as we shall
+see.
+
+On a Sabbath evening, as the hundred or more orphans met at vespers and
+sang, "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" they saw a stranger seated at the
+speaker's desk in the home chapel. He was a venerable old Wan, straight and
+dignified, his hoary head a crown of honor; for he was all that he
+appeared--a father in Israel.
+
+In a brief speech he told the boys that he had once been a Union soldier,
+and had fought in the battles of his country. He told of the courage it
+required to face death upon the battle-field. He described the charges his
+company had made and met, the sieges and the marches, the sufferings they
+endured, and, lastly, the joys that victory and the end of the conflict
+brought.
+
+Then, when the boys were at the height of interested expectancy, he
+skilfully drew the lesson he wanted them to learn. He told of a greater
+warfare, requiring a higher courage, and bringing as a reward a larger and
+more enduring victory. "Boys," he said, "the real soldiers are the
+Christian soldiers; the real battle is the battle against sin; the real
+battle-ground is where that silent struggle is constantly waging within our
+minds." Then he told of Paul, who said, "I have fought a good fight." "Did
+any of you boys ever fight a bad fight?" Every head but one turned to a
+common point at this juncture, and the eyes of only one boy remained upon
+the speaker. Will Jones had the record for bad fights, and that is why
+about ninety-nine pairs of eyes had involuntarily sought him out when the
+speaker asked the question, which he hoped each would ask himself. And the
+reason Will Jones did not look around accusingly at any of the other boys
+was because he had taken to heart all that had been said; and, because of
+this, the turning-point had come; his conversion had begun. Henceforth he
+determined so to live that he could say with Paul, "I have fought a good
+fight."
+
+No sooner does a boy determine to fight the good fight than Satan accepts
+the challenge, and gives him a combat such as will seem like a "fiery
+trial" to try him. These struggles develop the moral backbone; and if a boy
+does not give in, he will find his moral courage increasing with each moral
+fight. Just let that thought stay in your mind, underscored in bold-faced
+italics, and printed in indelible ink; and if you have a tendency to be a
+spiritual "jelly-back," it will be like a rod of steel to your spine.
+
+The fear of Will Jones's knuckles had won a degree of peace for him. He had
+lived a sort of armed truce, so to speak. Now he was subjected to petty
+persecutions by mean boys who took advantage of his new stand. He did not
+put on the look of a martyr either, but kept good-natured even when the old
+volcano within was rumbling and threatening to bury the tormentors in hot
+lava and ashes. The old desire to fight the bad fight was turned into the
+new channel of determination to fight the good fight. Today Will Jones is
+still a good fighter, and I hope he always will be, and some day will be
+crowned with eternal victory; for he who fights the good fight is fighting
+for eternity.
+
+Will you not try so to live each day, subduing every sinful thought, that
+at night when you kneel to pray you can say to the Lord, "I have fought a
+good fight today"?
+
+S. W. VAN TRUMP.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Our Help Is Near
+
+
+  Temptations dark and trials fall
+    On all who labor here;
+  But we have One on whom to call:
+    Our Lord is ever near.
+  So let us when these trials come,
+    Lean on his strength alone,
+  Till we have reached the promised home
+    Where sorrows are unknown.
+
+MAX HILL.
+
+
+
+
+TIGHTENING THE SADDLE-GIRTH
+
+
+A time of grave crisis; upon the events of the next few minutes would hang
+the issue of a hard-fought battle. Already at one end of the line the
+troops seemed to be wavering. Was it indeed defeat?
+
+Just where the fight was most fierce, a young officer was seen to leap from
+his horse. His followers, sore pressed though they were, could not help
+turning toward him, wondering what had happened. The bullets flew like hail
+everywhere; and yet, with steady hand, the gallant soldier stood by the
+side of his horse and drew the girth of his saddle tight. He had felt it
+slip under him, and he knew that upon just such a little thing as a loose
+buckle might hinge his own life, and, perhaps, the turn of the battle.
+Having secured the girth, he bounded into the saddle, rallied his men, and
+swept on to victory.
+
+Many a battle has been lost on account of no greater thing than a loose
+saddle-girth. A loose screw will disable the mightiest engine in the world.
+A bit of sand in the bearing of an axle has brought many a locomotive to a
+standstill, and thrown out of order every train on the division. Lives have
+been lost, business houses wrecked, private fortunes laid in the balance,
+just because some one did not tighten his saddle-girth!
+
+Does it seem a small thing to you that you forgot some seemingly
+unimportant thing this morning? Stop right where you are and go back and do
+the thing you know you should have done in the first place.
+
+One of the finest teachers in the leading school of one of our cities puts
+stress day after day on that one thing of cultivating the memory so that it
+will not fail in time of stress. "Do the thing when it should be done," she
+insists. "If you forget, go back and do it. You have no right to forget; no
+one has."
+
+Tighten up the loose screw the moment you see it is loose. Pull the strap
+through the buckle as soon as you feel it give. Wipe the axle over which
+you have charge, clean of dust or grit. If your soul is in the balance,
+stop now, today, this very moment, and see that all is right between you
+and God.--_Kind Words_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+If You But Knew
+
+
+  O lad, my lad, if you but knew
+  The glowing dreams I dream of you,--
+  The true, straight course of duty run,
+  The noble deeds, the victories won,
+    And you the hero of them all,--
+  I know that you would strive to be
+  The lad that in my dreams I see;
+    No tempter's voice could make you fall.
+
+  Ah, lad, my lad, your frank, free smile
+  Has cheered me many a weary mile;
+  And in your face, e'en in my dreams,
+  Potent of future manhood beams,--
+    Manhood that lives above the small;
+  Manhood all pure and good and clean,
+  That scorns the base, the vile, the mean,
+    That hears and answers duty's call
+
+  And lad, my lad, so strong and true,
+  This is the prayer I pray for you:
+  Lord, take my boy, and guide his life
+  Through all the pitfalls of the strife;
+    Lead him to follow out thy plan,
+  To do the deeds he ought to do,
+  To all thy precepts ever true;
+    Make him a clean and noble man.
+
+MAX HILL.
+
+
+
+
+"HERRINGS FOR NOTHING"
+
+
+I want you to think of a bitter, east windy day, fast-falling snow, and a
+short, muddy street in London. Put these thoughts together, and add to them
+the picture of a tall, stout man, in a rough greatcoat, and with a large
+comforter round his neck, buffeting through wind and storm. The darkness is
+coming rapidly, as a man with a basket on his head turns the corner of the
+street, and there are two of us on opposite sides. He cries loudly as he
+goes: "Herrings! three a penny! Red herrings, good and cheap, three a
+penny!" So crying, he passes along the street, crosses at its end, and
+comes to where I am standing at the corner. Here he pauses, evidently
+wishing to fraternize with somebody, as a relief from the dull time and
+disappointed hopes of trade. I presume I appear a suitable object, as he
+comes close to me and begins conversation:--
+
+"Governor, what do you think of these yer herrings?"--three in his hand,
+while the remaining stock are deftly balanced in the basket on his head.
+"Don't you think they're good?" and he offered me the opportunity of
+testing them by scent, which I courteously but firmly declined, "and don't
+you think they're cheap as well?"
+
+I asserted my decided opinion that they were good and cheap.
+
+"Then, look you, governor, why can't I sell 'em? Yet have I walked a mile
+and a half along this dismal place, offering these good and cheap 'uns; and
+nobody don't buy none!"
+
+"I do not wonder at all at that," I answered, to his astonishment.
+
+"Tell us why not, governor."
+
+"The people have no work, and are starving; there are plenty of houses
+round here that have not a single penny in them," was my reply.
+
+"Ah! then, governor," he rejoined, "I've put my foot in it this time; I
+knew they was werry poor, but I thought three a penny 'ud tempt 'em. But if
+they haven't the ha-pence, they can't spend 'em, sure enough; so there's
+nothing for it but to carry 'em back, and try and sell 'em elsewhere. I
+thought by selling cheap, arter buying cheap, I could do them good, and
+earn a trifle for myself. But I'm done this time."
+
+"How much will you take for the lot?" I inquired.
+
+First a keen look at me, then down came the basket from his head, then a
+rapid calculation, then a grinning inquiry, "Do you mean profit an' all,
+governor?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I'll take four shillin', and be glad to get 'em."
+
+I put my hand in my pocket, produced that amount, and handed it to him.
+
+"Right, governor, thank'ee! Now what'll I do with 'em?" he said, as he
+quickly transferred the coins to his own pocket.
+
+"Go round this corner into the middle of the road, and shout with all your
+might, 'Herrings for nothing!' and give three to every man, woman, or child
+that comes to you, till the basket is emptied."
+
+On hearing these instructions, he immediately reproduced the money, and
+examined it. Being satisfied of its genuineness, he again replaced it, and
+then looked keenly and questioningly at me.
+
+"Well," I said, "is it all right and good?"
+
+"Yes," replied he.
+
+"Then the herrings are my property, and I can do as I like with them; but
+if you do not like to do as I tell you, give me back my money."
+
+"All right, governor, an' they are yours; so if you say it, here goes!"
+Accordingly, he proceeded into the middle of the adjoining street, and went
+along, shouting aloud: "Herrings for nothing! Good red herrings for
+nothing!"
+
+Out of sight myself, I stood at the corner to watch his progress; and
+speedily he neared the house where a tall woman stood at the first-floor
+window, looking out upon him.
+
+"Here you are, missus," he bawled, "herrings for nothing! A fine chance for
+yer! Come an' take 'em."
+
+The woman shook her head unbelievingly, and left the window.
+
+"Vot a fool!" said he. "But they won't be all so. Herrings for nothing!" A
+little child came out to look at him, and he called to her, "Yer, my dear,
+take these in to your mother. Tell her how cheap they are--herrings for
+nothing." But the child was afraid of him and them, and ran indoors.
+
+So down the street, in the snowy slush and mud, went the cheap fish, the
+vender crying loudly as he went, "Herrings for nothing!" and then adding
+savagely, "O you fools!" Thus he reached the very end; and, turning to
+retrace his steps, he continued his double cry as he came, "Herrings for
+nothing!" and then in a lower key, "O you fools!"
+
+"Well?" I said to him calmly, as he reached me at the corner.
+
+"Well!" he replied, "if yer think so! When you gave me the money for
+herrings as yer didn't want, I thought you was training for a lunatic
+'sylum. Now I thinks all the people round here are fit company for yer. But
+what'll I do with the herrings, if yer don't want 'em and they won't have
+'em?"
+
+"We will try again together," I replied. "I will come with you, and we will
+both shout."
+
+Into the road we both went; and he shouted, "Herrings for nothing!" and
+then I called out also, "Will any one have some herrings for tea?"
+
+They heard the voice, and they knew it well; and they came out at once, in
+twos and threes and sixes, men and women and children, all striving eagerly
+to reach the welcome food.
+
+As fast as I could take them from the basket, I handed three to each eager
+applicant, until all were speedily disposed of. When the basket was empty,
+the hungry crowd who had none, was far greater than those that had been
+supplied; but they were too late; there were no more herrings.
+
+Foremost among the disappointed was the tall woman, who, with a bitter
+tongue, began vehemently: "Why haven't I got any? Ain't I as good as they?
+Ain't my children as hungry as theirs?"
+
+Before I had time to reply, the vender stretched out his arm toward her,
+saying, "Why, governor, that's the very woman as I offered 'em to first,
+and she turned up her nose at 'em."
+
+"I didn't," she rejoined passionately; "I didn't believe you meant it!"
+
+"Yer just goes without, then, for yer unbelief!" he replied. "Good night,
+and thank'ee, governor!"
+
+You smile at the story, which is strictly true. Are you sure you are not
+ten thousand times worse? Their unbelief cost them only a hungry stomach;
+but what may your unbelief of God's offer cost you? God--not man--God has
+sent his messenger to you repeatedly for years, to offer pardon for
+nothing! Salvation for nothing! He has sent to your homes, your hearts, the
+most loving and tender offers that even an Almighty could frame; and what
+have you replied? Have you not turned away, in scornful unbelief, like the
+woman?
+
+God says, "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my
+hand, and no man regarded;... I also will laugh at your calamity; I will
+mock when your fear cometh." Prov. I:24-26. But he also says, "Ho, every
+one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come
+ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without
+price." Isa. 55:1. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
+begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
+everlasting life." John 3: 16.
+
+Answer him. Will you have it?--_C. J. Whitmore_.
+
+
+
+Come
+
+
+  Ho, every one that thirsteth,
+    Come to the living stream,
+  And satisfy your longing soul
+    Where silver fountains gleam.
+
+  Come, weary, faint, and hungry;
+    Before you now is spread
+  A rich supply for all your needs;
+    Receive the living Bread.
+
+  Why do you linger longer?
+    Come while 'tis called today.
+  Here's milk and honey without price;
+    O, do not turn away!
+
+  Why feed on husks that perish?
+    Enter the open door.
+  Thy Saviour stands with outstretched hands;
+    Eat, drink, and want no more.
+
+MAY WAKEHAM.
+
+
+
+
+THE POWER OF SONG
+
+My Own Experience
+
+
+Near the summit of a mountain in Pennsylvania is a small hamlet called
+Honeyville, consisting of two log houses, two shanties, a rickety old barn,
+and a small shed, surrounded by a few acres of cleared land. In one of
+these houses lived a family of seven,--father, mother, three boys, and two
+girls. They had recently moved from Michigan. The mother's health was poor,
+and she longed to be out on the beautiful old mountain where she had spent
+most of her childhood. Their household goods had arrived in Pennsylvania
+just in time to be swept away by the great Johnstown flood of 1889.
+
+The mother and her two little girls, Nina and Dot, were Christians, and
+their voices were often lifted in praise to God as they sang from an old
+hymn-book, one of their most cherished possessions.
+
+One morning the mother sent Nina and Dot on an errand to their sister's
+home three and one-half miles distant. The first two miles took them
+through dense woods, while the rest of the way led past houses and through
+small clearings. She charged them to start on their return home in time to
+arrive before dark, as many wild beasts--bears, catamounts, and
+occasionally a panther--were prowling around. These animals were hungry at
+this time of the year; for they were getting ready to "hole up," or lie
+down in some cozy cave or hole for their winter's nap.
+
+The girls started off, merrily chasing each other along the way, and
+arrived at their sister's in good time, and had a jolly romp with the baby.
+After dinner the sister was so busy, and the children were so absorbed in
+their play, that the time passed unheeded until the clock struck four. Then
+the girls hurriedly started for home, in the hope that they might arrive
+there before it grew very dark. The older sister watched until they
+disappeared up the road, anxiously wishing some one was there to go with
+them.
+
+Nina and Dot made good time until they entered the long stretch of woods,
+when Nina said:--
+
+"O, I know where there is such a large patch of wintergreen berries, right
+by the road! Let's pick some for mama."
+
+So they climbed over a few stones and logs, and, sure enough, the berries
+were plentiful. They picked and talked, sometimes playing hide-and-seek
+among the bushes. When they started on again, the sun was sinking low in
+the west, and the trees were casting heavy shadows over the road, which
+lengthened rapidly. When about half of the distance was covered, Dot began
+to feel tired and afraid. Nina tried to cheer her, saying, "Over one more
+long hill, and we shall be home." But now they could only see the sun
+shining on the top of the trees on the hill.
+
+They had often played trying to scare each other by one saying, "O, I see a
+bear or a wolf up the road!" and pretending to be afraid. So Dot said:
+"Let's scare each other. You try to scare me." Nina said, "All right."
+Then, pointing up the road, she said, "O, look up the road by that black
+stump! I see a--" She did not finish; for suddenly, from almost the very
+spot where she had pointed, a large panther stepped out of the bushes,
+turning his head first one way and then another. Then, as if seeing the
+girls for the first time, he crouched down, and, crawling, sneaking along,
+like a cat after a mouse, he moved toward them. The girls stopped and
+looked at each other. Then Dot began to cry, and said, in a half-smothered
+whisper, "O Nina, let's run!" But Nina thought of the long, dark, lonely
+road behind, and knew that running was useless. Then, thinking of what she
+had heard her father say about showing fear, she seized her little sister's
+hand, and said: "No, let's pass it. God will help us." And she started up
+the road toward the animal.
+
+When the children moved, the panther stopped, and straightened himself up.
+Then he crouched again, moving slowly, uneasily, toward them. When they had
+nearly reached him, and Nina, who was nearest, saw his body almost rising
+for the spring, there flashed through her mind the memory of hearing it
+said that a wild beast would not attack any one who was singing. What
+should she sing? In vain she tried to recall some song, but her mind seemed
+a blank. In despair she looked up, and breathed a little prayer for help;
+then, catching a glimpse of the last rays of the setting sun touching the
+tops of the trees on the hill, she began the beautiful hymn,--
+
+  "There is sunlight on the hilltop,
+    There is sunlight on the sea."
+
+Her sister joined in, and although their voices were faint and trembling at
+first, by the time the children were opposite the panther, the words of the
+song rang out sweet and clear on the evening air.
+
+The panther stopped, and straightened himself to his height. His tail,
+which had been lashing and switching, became quiet as he seemed to listen.
+The girls passed on, hand in hand, never looking behind them. How sweet the
+words,--
+
+  "O the sunlight! beautiful sunlight!
+    O the sunlight in the heart!"
+
+sounded as they echoed and reechoed through the woods.
+
+As the children neared the top of the hill, the rumbling of a wagon fell
+upon their ears, so they knew that help was near, but still they sang. When
+they gained the top, at the same time the wagon rattled up, for the first
+time they turned and looked back, just in time to catch a last glimpse of
+the panther as he disappeared into the woods.
+
+The mother had looked often and anxiously down the road, and each time was
+disappointed in not seeing the children coming. Finally she could wait no
+longer, and started to meet them. When about half-way there, she heard the
+words,--
+
+  "O the sunlight! beautiful sunlight!
+    O the sunlight in the heart!
+  Jesus' smile can banish sadness;
+    It is sunlight in the heart."
+
+At first a happy smile of relief passed over her face; but it faded as she
+listened. There was such an unearthly sweetness in the song, so strong and
+clear, that it seemed like angels' music instead of her own little girls'.
+The song ceased, and the children appeared over the hill. She saw their
+white faces, and hurried toward them. When they saw her, how their little
+feet flew! But it was some time before they could tell her what had
+happened.
+
+What a joyful season of worship they had that night, and what a meaning
+that dear old hymn has had to them ever since!
+
+A few days later, a party of organized hunters killed the panther that had
+given the children such a fright. But the memory of that thrilling
+experience will never fade from the mind of the writer, who was one of the
+actors in it.--_Nina Case_.
+
+
+
+
+JACK'S FIDELITY
+
+
+There was held, in Hartford, some years ago, a convention of the colored
+Baptist Association of New England. I was invited to address one of the
+sessions. To show what those converted in early life are sometimes enabled
+to endure by God's grace, I related the following story:--
+
+"What's dat, Willie?"
+
+"That's a spelling-book, Jack."
+
+"What's de spellin'-book for?"
+
+"To learn how to read."
+
+"How's you do it?"
+
+"We learn those things first."
+
+And so Jack learned A, B, C, etc., mastered the spelling-book, and then
+learned to read a little, though the law forbade any colored person to do
+it.
+
+One day Willie brought home a little black book, and Jack said:--
+
+"What's dat, Willie?"
+
+"That is the New Testament, that tells about Jesus."
+
+And, erelong, Jack learned to read the New Testament, and when he read that
+"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
+believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," and that he
+really loved us and died for us, and that "if we confess our sins, he is
+faithful and just to forgive us our sins," his heart went out in love to
+Jesus. He believed in him, his sins were forgiven, his heart was changed,
+and he became a happy Christian.
+
+Though a mere child, he at once began to tell others of Jesus' love. When
+he became a young man, he was still at work for the Lord. He used to go to
+the neighboring plantations, read his Bible, and explain it to the people.
+
+One day the master said to him, "Jack, I am told that you go off preaching
+every Sunday."
+
+"Yes, mas'r, I must tell sinners how Jesus died on de cross for dem."
+
+"Jack, if you go off preaching on Sunday, I will tell you what I will do on
+Monday."
+
+"What will do you on Monday, mas'r?"
+
+"I will tie you to that tree, take this whip, and flog all this religion
+out of you."
+
+Jack knew that his master was a determined man, but when he thought of
+Christ's sufferings for us, and heard his Lord saying unto him, "Be thou
+faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life," he resolved to
+continue his work for the Lord the next Sunday.
+
+With his New Testament in hand, he went down to the plantation and told
+them that his master might whip him half to death the next day, but if he
+did, he would not suffer more than Christ had suffered for us.
+
+The next morning his master said, "Jack, I hear you were preaching again
+yesterday."
+
+"Yes, mas'r. I must go and tell sinners how Jesus was whipped that we might
+go free."
+
+"But, Jack, I told you that if you went off preaching Sunday, I should whip
+you on Monday, and now I will do it."
+
+Blow after blow fell upon Jack's back, while oaths fell from the master's
+lips. Then he said:--
+
+"There, Jack, I don't believe you will preach next Sunday. Now go down to
+the cottonfield and go to work."
+
+When next Sunday came, Jack could not stand straight, for his back was
+covered with sores and scars. But, with his Testament in his hand, he stood
+before the people of the plantation, and said, "Mas'r whip me mos' ter
+death last Monday, an' I don't know but he will kill me tomorrow, but if he
+does, I shall not suffer more than Jesus did when he died on the cross for
+us."
+
+Monday morning the master called him and said,
+
+"Jack, I hear you have been preaching again."
+
+"Yes, mas'r. I must go an' tell sinners how Christ was wounded for our
+transgressions, how he sweat drops of blood for us in the garden, an' wore
+that cruel crown of thorns that we might wear a crown of joy when he
+comes."
+
+"But I don't want to hear your preaching. Now bare your back, and take the
+flogging I told you I should give you if you went off preaching."
+
+Fast flew the cruel lashes, until Jack's back was covered with wounds and
+blood.
+
+"Now, Jack, go down to the cotton-field and go to work. I reckon you'll
+never want to preach again."
+
+When the next Sunday came, Jack's back was in a terrible condition. But,
+hobbling along, he found his friends in the neighboring plantation, and
+said:--
+
+"Mas'r whipped me mos' ter death last Monday, but if I can only get you to
+come to Jesus and love him, I am willing to die for your sake tomorrow."
+
+If there were scoffers there, do you not think they were led to believe
+there was a reality in religion? If any were there who were inclined to
+think that ministers preach only when they get money for it, do you not
+think they changed their minds when they saw what wages Jack got? Many were
+in tears, and some gave themselves to that Saviour for whose sake Jack was
+willing to die the death of a martyr.
+
+Next morning the master called Jack, and said,
+
+"Make bare your back again; for I told you that just as sure as you went
+off preaching, I would whip you till you gave it up."
+
+The master raised the ugly whip, and as he looked at Jack's back, all
+lacerated, he could find no new place to strike, and said:--
+
+"Why do you do it, Jack? You know that as surely as you go off preaching
+Sunday, I will whip you most to death the next day. No one pays you
+anything for it. All you get is a terrible flogging, which is taking your
+life from you."
+
+"Yer ax me, mas'r, what I'se doin' it fer. I'll tell you, mas'r. I'se goin'
+ter tak all dos stripes an' all dos scars, mas'r, up to Jesus, by an' by,
+to show him how faithful I'se been, 'cause he loved you an' me, mas'r, an'
+bled an' died on the cross for you an' me, mas'r."
+
+The whip dropped, and that master could not strike another blow. In a
+subdued tone he said:--
+
+"Go down in the cotton-field."
+
+Do you think Jack went away cursing his master, saying, "O Lord, punish him
+for all his cruelty to me"?
+
+No, no! His prayer was, "Lord, forgive him, for Jesus Christ's sake."
+
+About three o'clock, a messenger came down to the cotton-field, crying:
+"Mas'r dyin'! Mas'r's dyin'! Come quick, Jack. Mas'r's dyin'!"
+
+In his private room, Jack found his master on the floor in agony, crying:
+"O Jack, I'm sinking down to hell! Pray for me! Pray for me!"
+
+"I'se been prayin' for you all de time, mas'r. You mus' pray for yourse'f."
+
+"I don't know how to pray, Jack. I know how to swear, but I don't know how
+to pray."
+
+"You mus' pray, mas'r."
+
+And finally they both prayed, and God revealed Christ on the cross to him,
+and then and there he became a changed man.
+
+A few days after, he called Jack to him and said:--
+
+"Jack, here are your freedom papers. They give you your liberty. Go and
+preach the gospel wherever you will, and may the Lord's blessing go with
+you."
+
+While telling this story at the convention, I noticed a man, perhaps sixty
+years of age, with quite gray hair, who was deeply moved. When I had
+finished, he sprang to his feet, and, with a clear but tremulous voice,
+said:--
+
+"I stand for Jack. Mr. Hammond has been speaking of me. He has been trying
+to tell my sufferings, but he cannot describe the terrible agony I endured
+at the hands of my master, who, because I was determined to preach the
+gospel on the plantations around us, every Monday morning for three weeks
+called me up and laid the cruel lash upon my back with his own hands until
+my back was like raw beef. But God helped me to pray for him, until he was
+forgiven and saved through Christ. And, thank God, Jack still lives."
+
+I have given you only a few of his burning words, but I can tell you there
+were many eyes filled with tears during this touching scene, which will not
+soon be forgotten by those who witnessed it.--_E. Hammond, in "Early
+Conversion."_
+
+
+
+
+HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER
+
+
+Here is a touching story told of the famous Dr. Samuel Johnson which has
+had an influence on many a boy who has heard it. Samuel's father Michael
+Johnson, was a poor bookseller in Lichfield, England. On market-days he
+used to carry a package of books to the village of Ottoxeter, and sell them
+from a stall in the market-place. One day the bookseller was sick, and
+asked his son to go and sell the books in his place. Samuel, from a silly
+pride, refused to obey.
+
+Fifty years afterward Johnson became the celebrated author, the compiler of
+the English Dictionary, and one of the most distinguished scholars in
+England; but he never forgot his act of unkindness to his poor,
+hard-toiling father. So when he visited Ottoxeter, he determined to show
+his sorrow and repentance. He went into the market-place at the time of
+business, uncovered his head, and stood there for an hour in the pouring
+rain, on the very spot where the bookstall used to stand. "This," he says,
+"was an act of contrition for my disobedience to my kind father."
+
+The spectacle of the great Dr. Johnson standing bareheaded in the storm to
+atone for the wrong done by him fifty years before, is a grand and touching
+one. There is a representation of it in marble on the doctor's monument.
+
+Many a man in after-life has felt something harder and heavier than a storm
+of rain beating upon his heart when he remembered his acts of unkindness to
+a good father or mother now in the grave.
+
+Dr. John Todd, of Pittsfield, the eminent writer, never forgot how, when
+his old father was very sick, and sent him away for medicine, he, a little
+lad, been unwilling to go, and made up a lie, saying that the druggist had
+no such medicine.
+
+The old man was dying when little Johnny came in, but he said to Johnny,
+"My boy, your father suffers great pain for want of that medicine."
+
+Johnny started, in great distress, for the medicine, but it was too late.
+On his return the father was almost gone. He could only say to the weeping
+boy, "Love God, and always speak the truth; for the eye of God is always
+upon you. Now kiss me once more, and farewell."
+
+Through all his after-life, Dr. Todd often had a heartache over that act of
+falsehood and disobedience to his dying father. It takes more than a shower
+to wash away the memory of such sins.
+
+The words, "Honor thy father and thy mother," mean three things,--always do
+what they bid you, always treat them lovingly, and take care of them when
+they are sick and grown old. I never yet knew a boy who trampled on the
+wishes of his parents who turned out well. God never blesses a wilful boy.
+
+When Washington was sixteen years old, he determined to leave home and
+become a midshipman in the colonial navy. After he had sent off his trunk,
+he went to bid his mother good-by. She wept so bitterly because he was
+going away that he said to his Negro servant: "Bring back my trunk. I am
+not going to wake my mother suffer so, by leaving her."
+
+He remained at home to please his mother. This decision led to his becoming
+a surveyor, and afterward a soldier. His whole glorious career in life
+turned on simple act of trying to make his mother happy, happy, too, will
+be the child who never has occasion to shed bitter tears for any act of
+unkindness to his parents. Let us not forget that God has said,
+
+"Honor thy father and thy mother."--_Theodore L. Cuyler, in Pittsburgh
+Christian Advocate_.
+
+
+
+
+THE SLEIGH-RIDE
+
+
+In one of the larger cities of New England, fifty years ago, a party of
+lads, all members of the same school, got up a grand sleigh-ride. There
+were about twenty-five or thirty boys engaged in the frolic. The sleigh was
+a large and splendid conveyance drawn by six gray horses. The afternoon was
+as beautiful as anybody could desire, and the merry group enjoyed
+themselves in the highest degree. It was a common custom of the school to
+which they belonged, and on previous occasions their teacher had
+accompanied them. Some engagement upon important business, however,
+occupying him, he was not at this time with them. It is quite likely, had
+it been otherwise, that the restraining influence of his presence would
+have prevented the scene which occurred.
+
+On the day following the ride, as he entered the schoolroom, he found his
+pupils grouped about the stove, in high merriment, as they chatted about
+the fun and frolic of their excursion. He stopped awhile and listened; and,
+in answer to some inquiries which he made about the matter, one of the
+lads, a fine, frank, manly boy, whose heart was in the right place, though
+his love of sport sometimes led him astray, volunteered to give a narrative
+of their trip and its various incidents. As he drew near the end of his
+story, he exclaimed:--
+
+"O, sir, there was one little circumstance which I almost forgot to tell
+you! Toward the latter part of the afternoon, as we were coming home, we
+saw, at some distance ahead of us, a queer-looking affair in the road. We
+could not exactly make out what it was. It seemed to be a sort of
+half-and-half monstrosity. As we approached it, it proved to be a rusty old
+sleigh fastened behind a covered wagon, proceeding at a very slow rate, and
+taking up the whole road. Finding that the owner was disposed not to turn
+out, we determined upon a volley of snowballs and a good hurrah. These we
+gave with a relish, and they produced the right effect, and a little more;
+for the crazy machine turned out into the deep snow by the side of the
+road, and the skinny old pony started on a full trot. As we passed, some
+one who had the whip gave the jilt of a horse a good crack, which made him
+run faster than he ever did before, I'll warrant. And so, with another
+volley of snowballs pitched into the front of the wagon, and three times
+three cheers, we rushed by. With that, an old fellow in the wagon, who was
+buried up under an old hat and beneath a rusty cloak, and who had dropped
+the reins, bawled out, 'Why do you frighten my horse?'
+
+"'Why don't you turn out, then?' said the driver.
+
+"So we gave him three rousing cheers more. His horse was frightened again,
+and ran up against a loaded team, and, I believe, almost capsized the old
+man; and so we left him."
+
+"Well, boys," replied the instructor, "that is quite an incident. But take
+your seats; and after our morning service is ended, I will take my turn and
+tell you a story, and all about a sleigh-ride, too."
+
+Having finished the reading of a chapter in the Bible, and all having
+joined in the Lord's Prayer, he began as follows:--
+
+"Yesterday afternoon a very venerable and respectable old man, a clergyman
+by profession, was on his way from Boston to Salem to pass the residue of
+the winter at the house of his son. That he might be prepared for
+journeying, as he proposed to do in the spring, he took with him his light
+wagon, and for the winter his sleigh, which he fastened behind the wagon.
+He was, as I have just told you, very old and infirm. His temples were
+covered with thinned locks which the frosts of eighty years had whitened.
+His sight, and hearing, too, were somewhat blunted by age, as yours will be
+should you live to be as old.
+
+"He was proceeding very slowly and quietly, for his horse was old and
+feeble, like his owner. His thoughts reverted to the scenes of his youth,
+when he had periled his life in fighting for the liberties of his country;
+to the scenes of his manhood, when he had preached the gospel of his divine
+Master to the heathen of the remote wilderness; and to the scenes of riper
+years, when the hard hand of penury had lain heavily upon him. While thus
+occupied, almost forgetting himself in the multitude of his thoughts, he
+was suddenly disturbed, and even terrified, by loud hurrahs from behind,
+and by a furious pelting and clattering of balls of snow and ice upon the
+top of his wagon. In his trepidation he dropped his reins; and as his aged
+and feeble hands were quite benumbed with cold, he found it impossible to
+gather them up, and his horse began to run away.
+
+"In the midst of the old man's troubles, there rushed by him, with loud
+shouts, a large party of boys in a sleigh drawn by six horses.
+
+"'Turn out, turn out, old fellow!' 'Give us the road, old boy!' 'What'll
+you take for your pony, old daddy?' 'Go it, frozen nose!' 'What's the price
+of oats?' were the various cries that met his ear.
+
+"'Pray, do not frighten my horse,' exclaimed the infirm driver.
+
+"'Turn out, then! Turn out!' was the answer, which was followed by repeated
+cracks and blows from the long whip of the grand sleigh, with showers of
+snowballs, and tremendous hurrahs from the boys.
+
+"The terror of the old man and his horse was increased; and the latter ran
+away, to the imminent danger of the man's life. He contrived, however,
+after some exertion, to secure the reins, which had been out of his hands
+during the whole of the affray, and to stop his horse just in season to
+prevent his being dashed against a loaded team.
+
+"As he approached Salem, he overtook a young man who was walking toward the
+same place, whom he invited to ride. The young man alluded to the grand
+sleigh which had just passed, which induced the old gentleman to inquire if
+he knew who the boys were. He replied that he did; that they all belonged
+to one school, and were a set of wild fellows.
+
+"'Aha!' exclaimed the former, with a hearty laugh, for his constant good
+nature had not been disturbed, 'do they, indeed? Why, their master is very
+well known to me. I am now going to his house, and I think I shall give him
+the benefit of the affair.'
+
+"A short distance brought him to his journey's end, the home of his son.
+His old horse was comfortably housed and fed, and he himself provided for.
+
+"That son, boys, is your instructor; and that aged and infirm old man, that
+'old fellow,' that 'old boy,' who did not turn out for you, but who would
+gladly have given you the whole road had he heard your approach, that 'old
+boy,' that 'old daddy,' and 'frozen nose,' is Rev. Daniel Oliver, your
+master's father, now at my home, where he and I will gladly welcome any and
+all of you."
+
+As the master, with an undisturbed and serene countenance, gave this
+version of the ride, it was very manifest from the expression of the boys'
+faces, and the glances they exchanged, that they recognized the history of
+their doings of the previous day; and it is not easy to describe nor to
+imagine the effect produced by this new translation of their own narrative.
+Some buried their heads behind their desks; some cried; some looked askance
+at one another; and many hastened down to the desk of the teacher, with
+apologies, regrets, and acknowledgments without end.
+
+"We did not know it was your father," they said.
+
+"Ah, my lads," replied the teacher, "what odds does it make whose father it
+was? It was probably somebody's father,--an inoffensive traveler, an aged
+and venerable man, entitled to kind treatment from you and everybody else.
+But never mind; he forgives it all, and so do I."
+
+Freely pardoned, they were cautioned that they should be more civil for the
+future to inoffensive travelers, and more respectful to the aged and
+infirm.
+
+Years have passed by. The lads are men, though some have found an early
+grave. The boy who related the incident to his master is "in the deep bosom
+of the ocean buried." They who survive, should this story meet their eye,
+will easily recall its scenes and throw their memories back to the
+schoolhouse in Federal Street, Salem, and to their friend and teacher.
+
+--_Henry K. Oliver_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+The Tongue Can No Man Tame
+
+
+  Lord, tame my tongue, and make it pure,
+    And teach it only to repeat
+  Thy promises, all safe, all sure;
+    To tell thy love, so strong and sweet.
+
+  Lord, tame my tongue, and make it kind
+    The faults of others to conceal
+  And all their virtues call to mind;
+    Teach it to soothe, to bless, to heal.
+
+ELIZABETH ROSSER
+
+
+
+
+SAMUEL SMILES, THE AUTHOR OF "SELF-HELP"
+
+
+When Samuel Smiles was a schoolboy in Scotland, he was fonder of frolic
+than of learning. He was not a prize-winner, and so was not one of his
+teacher's favorites. One day his master, vexed by his dulness, cried out,
+"Smiles, you will never be fit for anything but sweeping the streets of
+your native borough!" From that day the boy's mates called him by the name
+of the street sweeper in the little town. But he was not discouraged.
+
+"If I have done anything worthy of being remembered," he wrote, more than
+sixty years later, when his name was known over the whole world, "it has
+not been through any superiority of gifts, but only through a moderate
+portion of them, accompanied, it is true, with energy and the habit of
+industry and application. As in the case of every one else, I had for the
+most part to teach myself.... Then I enjoyed good health, and health is
+more excellent than prizes. Exercise, the joy of interest and of activity,
+the play of the faculties, is the true life of a boy, as of a man. I had
+also the benefit of living in the country, with its many pleasures and
+wonders."
+
+When he was fourteen, he was apprenticed to a physician. In the intervals
+of his work, he sought to continue his education by reading. Books were
+expensive then, but several libraries were open to him.
+
+The death of his father near the end of his medical course, and consequent
+financial reverses, made him hesitate as to the wisdom of finishing his
+studies. In speaking of this, he made mention for the first time of his
+indebtedness to his mother. "You must go back to Edinburgh," she said, "and
+do as your father desired. God will provide." She had the most perfect
+faith in Providence, and believed that if she did her duty, she would be
+supported to the end. She had wonderful pluck and abundant common sense.
+Her character seemed to develop with the calls made upon her. Difficulties
+only brought out the essence of her nature. "I could not fail to be
+influenced by so good a mother."
+
+But he was not to find his life-work as a doctor. For some years he
+practised medicine. Then he became editor of a political paper. Later, he
+was a railroad manager. Experience in writing gained in the newspaper
+office prepared him for literary work, by which he is best known.
+
+These being the chief events and influences of his boyhood, the story of
+his most famous book, "Self-Help," is just what might be expected. It is a
+story full of inspiration.
+
+In 1845, at the request of a committee of working men, he made an address
+to the society which they represented, on "The Education of the Working
+Classes." This excited such favorable comment that he determined to enlarge
+the lecture into a book. Thus "Self-Help" was written. But it was not to be
+published for many years. In 1854 the manuscript was submitted anonymously
+to a London publisher, and was politely declined. Undaunted, he laid it
+aside and began an account of the life of George Stephenson, with whom he
+had been associated in railway work. This biography was a great success.
+
+Thus encouraged, he took from the drawer, where it had lain for four years,
+the rejected manuscript of "Self-Help," rewrote it, and offered it to his
+publishers. It was not his intention, even then, to use his name as author,
+so little did he think of himself. But, listening to the advice of friends,
+he permitted his name to appear. Very soon he was famous, for thirty-five
+thousand copies were sold during the first two years. In less than forty
+years two hundred and fifty-eight thousand copies have been disposed of in
+England alone. American publishers reprinted the book almost at once, and
+it soon became a favorite in school libraries in many States. It was
+translated into Dutch, German, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Czech,
+Croatian, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Danish, Polish, Chinese,
+Siamese, Arabic, and several dialects of India.
+
+But the author did not look on the fame and fortune brought to him by his
+book as his chief reward. It had been his desire to be helpful to the
+plodding, discouraged men and boys. As he expressed it himself: "It seemed
+to me that the most important results in daily life are to be obtained, not
+through the exercise of extraordinary powers, but through the energetic use
+of simple means, and ordinary qualities, with which all have been more or
+less endowed."
+
+As his greatest reward he looked upon the grateful testimony of men of many
+countries who had been inspired by the book to greater effort, and so
+spurred on to success. An emigrant in New England wrote that he thanked God
+for the volume, which had been the cause of an entire alteration in his
+life. A working man wrote: "Since perusing the book I have experienced an
+entire revolution in my habits. Instead of regarding life as a weary
+course, which has to be gotten over as a task, I now view it in the light
+of a trust, of which I must make the most." A country schoolboy received a
+copy as a prize, and his life was transformed by the reading. By
+perseverance he secured an education, and became a surgeon. After a few
+years he lost his life in an attempt to help others. Such testimonies as
+these made Mr. Smiles happy, and are a fitting memorial to him. He died in
+1904, at the age of ninety-two.
+
+How much more satisfying to look back on a life of such usefulness than to
+say, as Jules Verne, author of many books, was compelled to say, "I amount
+to nothing ... in literature."--_John T. Faris, D. D., in "Self-Help"
+published by Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Life's Battles
+
+
+  Life's battles thou must fight all single-handed;
+    No friend, however dear, can bear thy pain.
+  No other soul can ever bear thy burdens,
+    No other hand for thee the prize may gain
+
+  Lonely we journey through this vale of sorrow;
+    No heart in full respondeth to our own:
+  Each one alone must meet his own tomorrow,
+    Each one must tread the weary way alone
+
+  Ah, weary heart! why art thou sad and lonely?
+    Why this vain longing for an answering sigh?
+  Thy griefs, thy longings, trials, and temptations
+    Are known and felt by Him who reigns on high.
+
+ARTHUR V. FOX
+
+
+
+
+DAVID LIVINGSTONE
+
+
+On March 19, 1813, a hero was born in Blantyre, central Scotland. It was an
+age of great missionary activity, and the literal fulfilment of the spirit
+of the great commission had led Carey, Judson, Moffat, and scores of others
+to give their lives to the promulgation of the gospel of the kingdom of God
+in heathen lands. A dozen missionary societies were then in their youth.
+Interest in travel and exploration was at its height, and the attention of
+adventurers centered in the Dark Continent, the last of the great unknown
+regions of the world to be explored. Into the kingdom for such a time, and
+to do a divinely appointed work, came David Livingstone.
+
+His home was a humble cottage. A rugged constitution came to him as a
+birthright, for his parents were of sturdy peasant stock. They served God
+devoutly, and though poor in this world's goods, were honest and
+industrious, being able to teach their children lessons in economy and
+thrift which proved of lifelong help to them.
+
+David was a merry, brown-eyed lad, and a general favorite. Perseverance
+seemed bred in his very bone. When only nine years old, he received from
+his Sunday-school teacher a copy of the New Testament as a reward for
+repeating the one hundred nineteenth psalm on two successive evenings with
+only five errors. The following year, at the age of ten, he went to work in
+the cotton factory near his home, as a "piecer." Out of his first week's
+wages he saved enough to purchase a Latin grammar, and set himself
+resolutely to the task of thoroughly mastering its contents, studying for
+the most part alone after leaving his work at eight o'clock in the evening.
+His biographer tells us that he often continued his studies until after
+midnight, returning to work in the factory at six in the morning.
+Livingstone was not brighter than other boys, nor precocious in anything
+save determination. He was very fond of reading, and devised the plan of
+fastening a book on his spinning-jenny in the factory so that he could
+catch a sentence now and then while tending the machines. In this way he
+familiarized himself with many of the classics.
+
+His aptitude for scientific pursuits early revealed itself, and he had a
+perfect passion for exploration. When only a boy, he usually chose to spend
+his holidays scouring the country for botanical, geological, and zoological
+specimens.
+
+In his twentieth year the embryo missionary and explorer was led to accept
+Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour. Out of the fulness of peace, joy, and
+satisfaction which filled his heart, he wrote, "It is my desire to show my
+attachment to the cause of him who died for me by devoting my life to his
+service." The reading of an appeal by Mr. Gutzlaff to the churches of
+Britain and America in behalf of China brought to the young student's
+attention the need of qualified missionaries, and led him to dedicate his
+own life as well as all that he possessed to foreign service.
+
+As a surgeon carefully selects the instruments with which he works, so it
+is ever with the divine Physician; and though Livingstone was anxious to
+enter his chosen field, providence led him to tarry for a little while in
+preparation. During this time of waiting he put into practise the motto
+which in later life he gave to the pupils in a Sunday-school, "Trust God
+and work hard." Having set his face toward China, he had no notion of
+turning back in the face of difficulties, and finally, after four years of
+untiring effort, he earned in 1840 a medical diploma, thus equipping
+himself with a training indispensable for one whose life was to be hidden
+for years in the fever jungles of Africa. He wrote, "With unfeigned delight
+I became a member of a profession which with unwearied energy pursues from
+age to age its endeavors to lessen human woe."
+
+Livingstone also secured the necessary theological training, and was duly
+accepted by the London Missionary Society as a candidate for China. But the
+breaking out of the Opium war effectually closed the doors of that field.
+Just at this time came his providential acquaintance with Robert Moffat.
+The missionary was home on a furlough, and at a meeting which the young
+physician attended, stated that sometimes he had seen in the morning
+sunlight the smoke of a thousand villages in the Dark Continent where no
+missionary had ever been to tell the sweet old story of redeeming love.
+This message came to Livingstone as a Macedonian cry, and he willingly
+answered, "Here am I; send me." The purpose once formed, he never swerved
+from it.
+
+The change of fields caused some alteration in his plans, and he remained
+for a time in England, further preparing for his mission with scrupulous
+care. On Nov. 17, 1840, Dr. Livingstone spent the last evening with his
+loved ones in the humble Blantyre home, going at once to London, where he
+was ordained as a missionary. He sailed for the Cape of Good Hope on the
+eighth of December.
+
+Arrived in Africa, the new recruit immediately turned his steps toward the
+interior, where there were real things to do. After a brief stop at
+Kuruman, the home of the Moffats, he spent six months alone among the
+Bakwains, acquainting himself with their language, laws, and customs. In
+that time he gained not only these points, but the good will and affection
+of the natives as well. His door of opportunity had opened, and from the
+Bakwains he pressed farther north, until, within the first three years of
+his service in the Dark Continent, he was giving the gospel to heathen far
+beyond any point before visited by white men.
+
+Both Livingstone and his wife learned early the secret of power that comes
+from living _with_ the heathen, rather than merely living _among_ them. He
+possessed a certain indefinable power of discipline over the native mind,
+which made for orderly, thorough, and effective service. The natives knew
+him for their friend as well as their teacher. Under his loving care,
+heathen chiefs became Christian leaders of their own people; Christian
+customs replaced heathen practises; and peace settled down where trouble
+had been rife.
+
+Leaving his well-established work among the Namangwato, the Bakaa, the
+Makalaka, and the Bechuana tribes to be carried on by trained native
+helpers, this fearless man pressed on--always toward the dark interior.
+When his course was criticized, he wrote, "I will go anywhere, provided it
+be forward," and "forward" he went.
+
+Livingstone's mind was one of that broad character which at the outset
+grasps the whole of a problem, and to those who have followed his later
+course it is clear why he saw no duty in settling down on one fixed spot to
+teach and preach in a slavery-harrowed land. He knew that, first, there
+must be a mighty clearing out of this evil. As for his own intent, he said,
+"Cannot the love of Christ carry the missionary where the slave-trade
+carries the trader?" And so, right through to the west coast he marched,
+carrying and diffusing everywhere a knowledge of the redeeming Christ, and
+illustrating by his own kindly life and words and deeds the loving mercies
+of the Lord.
+
+The physician and the scientist, the minister and the reformer, were all
+combined in this one purposeful man. The people believed him to be a
+wizard, and even credited him with power to raise the dead. Heathen, sick
+and curious, crowded about his wagon, but not an article was stolen. One
+day the chief of a savage tribe said: "I wish you would change my heart.
+Give me medicine to change it; for it is proud, proud and angry, angry
+always."
+
+Livingstone left on record in his journals invaluable data of rivers,
+lakes, and streams, treacherous bogs, and boiling fountains, plants,
+animals, seasons, products, and tribes, together with the most accurate
+maps.
+
+Near the mighty but then unknown Zambesi, Livingstone found the Makololo
+people, a tribe from which came his most devoted native helpers. When he
+left them to journey toward the west coast, as many men as he needed
+willingly agreed to accompany him. After a terrible journey of seven
+months, involving imminent starvation and endless exposure, the party at
+last reached their destination, St. Paul de Loanda, a Portuguese
+settlement.
+
+Full as this journey was of incident, one of the most impressive things
+about it all was the horrors of the slave-trade, which came home to the
+missionary with heart-rending directness. "Every day he saw families torn
+asunder, dead bodies along the way, gangs chained and yoked, skeletons
+grinning against the trees by the roadside. As he rowed along on the
+beautiful river Shire, the paddles of his boat were clogged in the morning
+with the bodies of women and children who had died during the night, and
+were thus disposed of by their masters." And when he was sure that the
+wretched system was entrenched from the center of the continent to the
+coast, is it any wonder that he determined to make the exposure of this
+gigantic iniquity his principal work until "the open sore of the world"
+should be healed?
+
+The slave-raiders were Livingstone's bitter enemies, and did everything
+possible to hinder his work. Just a story:--
+
+Into a quiet little village on the shores of Lake Nyassa came some
+strangers one beautiful afternoon. The king sent to inquire as to their
+business. "We are Livingstone's children," they said. "Our master has found
+a road to the coast, and sent us back for his supplies. The day is late; we
+wish to spend the night in your village." "The white master is our friend,"
+said the king, and he commanded his men to prepare the best huts for
+Livingstone's children. Some of the servants left at once to carry out the
+king's command, and soon the visitors were comfortably settled. The people
+flocked to their huts, bringing many gifts, and lingered about until the
+day was ended.
+
+Late that night, when all the village was asleep, suddenly there was a
+piercing scream, then another, and another. The people rushed from their
+huts; for many of their homes were on fire. The white men, who called
+themselves Livingstone's children, were seizing women and children, and
+binding them with strong cords of leather. Around the necks of the men they
+fastened great Y-shaped sticks, riveting the forked ends together with
+iron. "We have been deceived," cried the natives. "The visitors were not
+Livingstone's children. They were slave-raiders. O! why did we ever trust
+them? If the white master were here, he would save us. He never takes
+slaves."
+
+In the gray light of the morning, leaving their village a heap of
+smoldering ruins, the sad procession was marched off, heavily guarded. For
+two days their merciless captors drove them under the hot tropical sun
+without food or water. Late the second afternoon, they suddenly came upon a
+camp, at a sharp bend of the road, and there, in plain view, stood Dr.
+Livingstone. Every slave-driver took to his heels and disappeared in the
+thickets. They had all respect for that one white man. They knew he was in
+Africa to stop the slave-trade. The whole procession of slaves fell on
+their knees in thanksgiving, rejoicing in this unexpected deliverance, and
+were soon returning to their own country.
+
+Do you wonder that the poor heathen loved the missionary? He never once
+betrayed their confidence. Almost immediately after reaching the Portuguese
+settlement on the coast, he was prostrated with a very severe illness. An
+English ship in the harbor was about to sail. In his great weakness,
+Livingstone longed for the bracing air of the Scottish highlands, and a
+sight of his beloved wife and children in the home land. But he prepared
+his reports, charts, and observations, put them aboard the ship, and, after
+watching it set sail, made ready to march back into the interior. Why did
+he not go home?--There was just one reason. He had promised his native
+helpers that if they would journey with him to the coast, he would see them
+back safely to their homes, and "his word to the black men of Africa was
+just as sacred as it would have been if pledged to the queen. He kept it as
+faithfully as an oath made to Almighty God. It involved a journey of nearly
+two years in length, a line of march two thousand miles long, through
+jungles, swamps, and desert, through scenes of surpassing beauty." But the
+result was worth the cost; for two years later, when he came out on the
+east coast at Quilimane, "he was the best known, best loved, and most
+perfectly trusted man in Africa."
+
+Many times through all these wanderings he was in danger. Once, during his
+early explorations, he had an adventure with a lion, which nearly cost his
+life. He says of it in a letter: "The beast rushed from the bushes and bit
+me on the arm, breaking the bone. I hope I shall never forget God's mercy.
+It will be well before this reaches you. Do not mention it to any one. I do
+not like to be talked about." He never voluntarily referred to it; but "for
+thirty years thereafter, all adventures and exposures and hardships were
+undertaken with an arm so maimed that it was painful to raise a
+fowling-piece to his shoulder." After his death, the body was identified by
+that scar and the compound fracture made by the lion's teeth.
+
+Livingstone's visits to the home land were brief, and each day was filled
+to the brim with interviews, lectures, and literary work. He returned to
+Africa for the third and last time in 1866, ascended the Rovuma, and for
+three years was lost to the outside world. During this time he visited
+lakes Meroe and Tanganyika, preaching the gospel to thousands and tens of
+thousands waiting in heathen darkness.
+
+In 1871 his strength utterly gave way, and on October 23, reduced to a
+living skeleton, he reached Ujiji, after a perilous journey of six hundred
+miles taken expressly to secure supplies. He was bitterly disappointed to
+find that the rascal to whom the delivery of the goods had been charged had
+disposed of the whole lot. For eighty days he was obliged to keep his bed,
+and during this time he read his Bible through four times. On the fly-leaf
+he wrote: "No letters for three years. I have a sore longing to finish and
+go home, if God wills." Relief, letters, and supplies had all been sent
+him, but he never received them. Many of the letters which he wrote never
+even reached the coast, as the Portuguese destroyed them whenever possible.
+
+During all this time England--and, in fact, the world--waited with intense
+anxiety for news of the hero. A report came that he was dead. Then a relief
+expedition brought back the word that Livingstone was alive, and in Africa,
+but that they had not been able to find him.
+
+Just at this crucial moment Henry M. Stanley was sent out by James Gordon
+Bennett, of the New York _Herald_, with the order: "Take what money you
+want, but find Livingstone. You can act according to your own plans in your
+search, but whatever you do, _find Livingstone_--dead or alive." Stanley
+went. For eleven months he endured incredible hardships, but his expedition
+pressed forward into the interior. One day a caravan passed and reported
+that a white man had just reached Ujiji. "Was he young or old?" questioned
+Stanley anxiously. "He is old; he has white hair on his face; he is sick,"
+replied the natives. As the searching party neared the village, flags were
+unfurled, and a salute fired from the guns. They were answered by shouts
+from hundreds of Africans. Stanley was greeted by Susi, Livingstone's
+servant, and soon stood face to face with the great missionary-explorer. He
+had found Livingstone.
+
+The brief visit which they enjoyed meant much to both men. In vain did
+Stanley plead with the doctor to go home with him. The old explorer's heart
+was resolute, and he set his face as a flint. He did not feel that his work
+was done. At length the newspaper man and his company started eastward.
+Livingstone went some distance with them, and then, a broken old man, "clad
+in faded gray clothes," with bowed head and slow step, returned to his
+chosen solitude. Five months later the relief party reached Zanzibar, and
+news of Livingstone's safety and whereabouts was flashed to all parts of
+the world.
+
+As the explorer again took up his weary way, physically weak and in
+constant pain, the buoyant spirit rose above hardship, and Scotch pluck
+smiled at impossibilities. He wrote in his diary: "Nothing earthly will
+make me give up my work in despair. I encourage myself in the Lord my God,
+and go forward." Weary months followed, filled with travel, toil, and
+physical suffering. The last of April, 1873, a year after Stanley left him,
+he reached the village of Ilala, at the southern end of Lake Bangweolo. He
+was so ill that his attendants were obliged to carry him as they journeyed,
+but the heroic spirit was still struggling to finish a work which would
+make possible the evangelization of the Dark Continent.
+
+While the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak indeed, and on the morning
+of the first of May, his faithful servants found him kneeling at the
+bedside, with his head buried in his hands upon the pillow. "He had passed
+away without a single attendant, on the farthest of all his journeys. But
+he had died in the act of prayer--prayer offered in that reverential
+attitude about which he was always so particular; commending his own
+spirit, with all his dear ones, as was his wont, into the hands of his
+Saviour; and commending Africa, his own dear Africa, with all her woes and
+sins and wrongs, to the Avenger of the oppressed and the Redeemer of the
+lost."
+
+LORA CLEMENT.
+
+
+
+
+A TRUE INCIDENT OF THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE
+
+
+He was by no means handsome; he had a turned-up nose, and a little squint
+in one eye; and Jennie Mills said you could not stick a pin anywhere on his
+face where there was not a freckle. And his hair, she said, was carrot
+color, which pleased the children so much that they called him "Carroty"
+for short. O, nobody ever thought of calling Tommy Carter handsome! For
+that matter, no one thought him a hero; yet even then he had some of the
+qualities which help to make heroes.
+
+For instance, he was brave enough to go to school day after day with
+patched knees and elbows, the patches of quite a different color from the
+trousers and shirt-waist, and to say not a word at home of the boys who
+shouted, "Hello, Patchey!" or of Jennie Mills's asking whether she should
+not bring him a piece of her yellow cashmere for patches, to match his hair
+and freckles.
+
+He had shed a few tears in private that day. The boys yelled and shouted so
+over what Jennie said that he could not help it. The scholars were used to
+laughing at Jennie Mills's sayings, and she was spoiling her character by
+always trying to think of something to say that would make people laugh.
+But on his way home Tommy stopped at the fountain on the square, and gave
+his eyes a good wash, so his mother would not suspect tears. Tommy knew
+that he had his mother to think about; she had been left in his care.
+
+Tommy was only seven when his father, Tom Carter, was crushed between two
+engines. Nobody seemed to know just how it happened, only the man who had
+charge of the other engine had been drinking; anyway, it happened. They
+took Tom Carter home on a stretcher. Just before he died, he said;
+"Good-by, Tommy. Father trusts you to take care of mother and Sissy." After
+that would Tommy say anything to his mother about patches or teasing, or
+let her see tears?
+
+There was another thing that Tommy had courage to do; that was to take
+constant care of Sissy. All day Saturday and all day Sunday, and just as
+much time as he could spare on school-days, Tommy gave to Sissy. It was he
+who fed her, and washed her face a great many times a day, and coaxed her
+to sleep, and took her to ride in her little cart, or walked very slowly
+when she chose to toddle along by his side, and changed her dress when she
+tumbled into the coal-box or sat down in a mud puddle. And he had been
+known to wash out a dress and a nightgown for Sissy when his mother was
+ill. There was really nothing too hard or too "girlish" for Tommy to do for
+his little sister. Once, somebody who saw him trying to mend a hole in the
+baby's petticoat called him "Sissy," and the name clung; for a time the
+school yard rang with shouts of "Sissy Carter." But not one word of this
+did Mother Carter hear.
+
+"Did you have a good time today?" his mother would ask, and Tommy, with
+Sissy in his arms, crowing with delight that she had got him again, would
+answer, cheerfully: "A first-rate time. I got a big A for spelling, and
+teacher said I had improved in my writing." And not a word would be hinted
+about the nicknames or the jeers.
+
+But better school-days came to Tommy before the last thing happened by
+which the people found out that he was a hero.
+
+A new little girl came into the fourth grade. She was a pretty girl, and
+wore pretty dresses, and had a fluff of brown curls about her face. She was
+"smart," too, the boys said; they said she could say "lots funnier things
+than Jennie Mills." Then her name pleased them very much; it was Angela.
+
+Whether or not she was smarter than Jennie Mills, it is true that Angela
+said some things that Jennie had never thought of.
+
+"Tommy Carter is real good-natured," she said one day. "And he is not one
+bit selfish. Don't you know how he gave the best seat to little Eddie
+Cooper this morning, and stood off in a corner where he could not see much?
+I like Tommy."
+
+The scholars stared. Somehow it had never occurred to them to "like Tommy;"
+but, when once it had been mentioned, they seemed to wonder that they had
+not thought of it. Tommy was good-natured and very obliging. Not a day
+passed in which he did not in some small way prove this. As for his
+patches, Angela did not seem to notice them at all; and, if she did not,
+why should anybody? So in a few days a queer thing happened. The boys
+stopped teasing Tommy, and began in little ways to be kind to him. Some of
+the older ones, when they happened to have an extra apple or pear, fell
+into the habit of saying, "Here, want this?" and would toss it to Tommy.
+And when they discovered that he saved a piece of everything for Sissy,
+they did not laugh at all, for Angela said, "How nice for him to do that!"
+
+Soon they began to save up bright little things themselves for Sissy--bits
+of paper, half-worn toys, once a new red ball. None of them realized it,
+but this really the influence of the new little girl with brown curls.
+
+In that way it came to pass that Tommy lost many of his chances for being a
+hero; but a new chance was coming.
+
+Tommy lived in a large tenement-house on one of the back streets of San
+Francisco. Seven other families lived in the same house. One Tuesday
+evening, Mrs. Carter told the woman who lived across the hall that she had
+done the hardest day's work of her life, and was so dead tired that she
+felt as if she would like to go to bed and never get up.
+
+At five o'clock the next morning, she, Sissy, close beside her, and Tommy,
+in a little cot at the farther end of the room, were all sound asleep.
+Suddenly the walls of the big tenement-house began to sway from side to
+side in the strangest manner, and there was at the same second a terrible
+crashing noise. The kitchen table in the corner tipped over, and the dishes
+in the corner cupboard slid to the floor and went to pieces. The big
+wardrobe, which was a bureau and a clothes-closet all in one, moved out
+into the middle of the room, and the stove fell down. All these things
+happened so fast, and the earth was full of such strange, wild noises, that
+for a second nobody knew what was the matter.
+
+Tommy Carter got to his mother's side before the noise was over, but he
+found that she could not stir; her bed was covered with bricks, and there
+was a great hole in the wall. Tommy did not know it then, but he understood
+afterward that the chimney had fallen on his mother's bed.
+
+"Tommy," she gasped, "it is an earthquake! Take Sissy and run."
+
+"But, mother," he cried, "O mother, I cannot leave you!"
+
+"Never mind me, Tommy; take her quick! She is not hurt. Maybe there will be
+another. Tommy? you take care of Sissy! _Run_!"
+
+And Tommy ran, with just the little shirt on in which he had been sleeping,
+and with an old quilt that his mother's hands had wrapped around the
+sleeping baby.
+
+What an awful street was that into which he ran! What an awful road he had
+to go to get to it! Part of the side wall of the house was gone, and the
+stairs swayed from side to side as he stepped on them; but he reached the
+street, and it looked as if everything on it had tumbled down, and all the
+people in the world were running about, wringing their hands, and crying.
+Then suddenly an awful cry arose, "Fire! Fire! Fire!"
+
+"Mother! O mother!" Tommy screamed, and he hurried to scramble back over
+the fallen walls by which he had come. He must take care of his mother. But
+a strong hand held him.
+
+"Keep away, youngster. Don't you see that the wall is falling! Run!"
+
+But where should he run? The whole city seemed to be burning, and
+everywhere was horror and terror. In trying to cross a street, Tommy was
+knocked down, and was for a second under the feet of a plunging horse. But
+he got out, and reached the sidewalk, with Sissy still safe, and he did not
+know that his arm was broken.
+
+"Wasn't it lucky that Sissy was on the other arm?" he said, speaking to no
+one.
+
+That awful day! Nobody who lived through it will ever forget it. Tommy
+Carter spent it struggling, pushing, panting, tugging, trying to get
+somewhere with Sissy. And Sissy cried for food and then for water, and
+there was none of either to give her; and then she lay back still, and he
+thought she was dying. The crowds swarmed and surged about him, crying,
+groaning, praying, cursing, yelling orders; and above all that fearful din
+arose the terrifying roar of the fire. The city was burning up! O, _where_
+was mother? And where was a safe place for Sissy? And why did his arm hurt
+so? What was the matter with him? His head was whirling round and round.
+Was he going to die and leave Sissy?--He never would!
+
+Suddenly he roused with fresh energy. Somebody was trying to take Sissy.
+
+"Don't you touch her!" he cried, fiercely. "Don't you dare! Let her alone,
+I say!" and he fought like a wild animal.
+
+"But, my poor boy," said the doctor, who was bending over him. But Tommy
+was insane with pain and fear.
+
+"Let her be, I say!" he screamed. "Mother said I was not to let anybody
+take her, and I won't! I will kill you if you touch her! I'll, _I'll_--"
+and then Tommy fell back in a dead faint.
+
+When he wakened, he was in a large, quiet room, in a clean bed. "Where is
+Sissy?" he called out in terror. A woman in white bent over him and spoke
+low: "Hush, dear; do not try to move. Sissy is safe and well and happy."
+
+"Where is she, ma'am?" said Tommy. "I must have her right here by me. I can
+take care of her as well as not; I always do; and--I promised mother, you
+see; and she's awfully afraid of strangers."
+
+"She is not afraid of us; she is very happy here. I have sent for her to
+come and see you. Ah, here she comes this minute!"
+
+And there was Sissy, smiling, in the arms of a woman in a white gown and
+cap, and herself in the prettiest of white dresses. She laughed for joy at
+sight of Tommy, but was quite willing to stay in the young woman's arms.
+
+"Little darling!" said the nurse. "She was not hurt a bit; and she is so
+sweet!"
+
+"And where is mother, ma'am?" asked Tommy. "Was she hurt so that she cannot
+take care of Sissy? I am afraid that she was. When can I go to her? I have
+to take care of mother. Does she know that I kept Sissy safe?"
+
+The two nurses looked at each other, and seemed not to know just how to
+answer so many questions; but the doctor, who had come up a moment before,
+stepped forward and spoke cheerily.
+
+Tommy smiled gratefully.
+
+"And when can I go and take care of her, sir? Was mother hurt? I remember
+all about it now. Is mother safe?"
+
+"You have been very ill, and did not know what was happening. You did not
+even know Sissy when we brought her to see you."
+
+"O!" said Tommy, with a faint smile. "How queer! Did not know Sissy! It is
+so nice that she takes to the pretty lady, and that mother is safe. I am
+very sleepy, sir. Would it be right to go to sleep if the pretty lady can
+take care of Sissy for a little while?"
+
+"Quite right, my boy. We will take the best possible care of Sissy."
+
+The doctor's voice was husky, and he turned away soon, with his own eyes
+dim, as Tommy's heavy eyes had closed.
+
+"O doctor!" said both nurses.
+
+"He is going, the brave little hero!" he said. "And we, you and I, will
+take care of Sissy for him."
+
+"Yes, indeed!" said the pretty nurse, with a sob; she kissed Sissy.--_Mrs.
+G.R. Alden, in Junior Endeavor World, by permission of Lothrop, Lee &
+Shepard Co._
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE CORNERS
+
+
+Georgia Willis, who helped in the kitchen, was rubbing the knives. Somebody
+had been careless and let one get rusty, but Georgia rubbed with all her
+might, rubbed, and sang softly a little song:--
+
+  "In the world is darkness,
+    So we must shine,
+  You in your small corner,
+    And I in mine."
+
+"Why do you rub at the knives forever?" asked Mary. Mary was the cook.
+
+"Because they are in my corner," Georgia said, brightly. "'You in your
+small corner,' you know, 'and I in mine.' I will do the best I can; that is
+all I can do."
+
+"I would not waste my strength," said Mary. "I know that no one will
+notice."
+
+"Jesus will," said Georgia; and then she sang again,--
+
+  "You in your small corner,
+    And I in mine."
+
+"Cooking the dinner is in my corner, I suppose," said Mary to herself. "If
+that child must do what she can, I suppose I must. If Jesus knows about
+knives, it is likely that he does about dinners." And she took particular
+pains.
+
+"Mary, the dinner was very nicely cooked today," Miss Emma said.
+
+"That is all due to Georgia," said Mary, with a pleased face. Then she told
+about the knives.
+
+Miss Emma was ironing ruffles; she was tired and warm. "Helen will not care
+whether they are fluted or not," she said. "I will hurry them over." But
+after she heard about the knives, she did her best.
+
+"How beautifully my dress is done!" Helen said. Emma, laughing, answered,
+"That is owing to Georgia." Then she told about the knives.
+
+"No," said Helen to her friend who urged, "I really cannot go this evening.
+I am going to prayer-meeting; my 'corner' is there."
+
+"Your 'corner'! What do you mean?"
+
+Then Helen told about the knives.
+
+"Well," the friend said, "if you will not go with me, perhaps I will with
+you," and they went to the prayer-meeting.
+
+"You helped us ever so much with the singing this evening," their pastor
+said to them as they were going home. "I was afraid you would not be here."
+
+"It was owing to our Georgia," said Helen. "She seemed to think she must do
+what she could, if it were only to clean the knives." Then she told him the
+story.
+
+"I believe I will go in here again," said the minister, stopping before a
+poor little house. "I said yesterday there was no use; but I must do what I
+can."
+
+In the house a sick man was lying. Again and again the minister had called,
+but the invalid would not listen to him. Tonight the minister said, "I have
+come to tell you a little story." Then he told him about Georgia Willis,
+about her knives and her little corner, and her "doing what she could." The
+sick man wiped the tears from his eyes, and said, "I will find my corner,
+too. I will try to shine for Jesus." And the sick man was Georgia's father.
+
+Jesus, looking down at her that day, said, "She hath done what she could,"
+and gave the blessing.
+
+"I believe I will not go for a walk," said Helen, hesitatingly. "I will
+finish that dress of mother's; I suppose I can if I think so."
+
+"Why, child, are you here sewing?" her mother said. "I thought you had gone
+for a walk."
+
+"No, mother; this dress seemed to be in my 'corner,' so I thought I would
+finish it."
+
+"In your 'corner'!" her mother repeated in surprise, and then Helen told
+about the knives. The doorbell rang, and the mother went thoughtfully to
+receive her pastor. "I suppose I could give more," she said to herself, as
+she slowly took out the ten dollars that she had laid aside for missions.
+"If that poor child in the kitchen is trying to do what she can, I wonder
+if I am. I will make it twenty-five dollars."
+
+And I seemed to hear Georgia's guardian angel say to another angel,
+"Georgia Willis gave twenty-five dollars to our dear people in India
+today."
+
+"Twenty-five dollars!" said the other angel. "Why, I thought she was poor?"
+
+"O, well, she thinks she is, but her Father in heaven is not, you know! She
+did what she could, and he did the rest."
+
+But Georgia knew nothing about all this, and the next morning she
+brightened her knives and sang cheerily:--
+
+  "In the world is darkness,
+    So we must shine,
+  You in your small corner,
+    And I in mine."
+
+--_The Pansy_.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE HOME
+
+
+When John Howard Payne wrote the immortal words of  "Home, Sweet Home,"
+adapting them to the beautiful Sicilian melody, now so familiar to us all,
+he gave to the world a precious legacy, which has brought sunshine into
+millions of hearts. "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." And
+there is no other place in all the world where the little courtesies of
+life should be so tenderly given; where loving ministrations should be so
+cheerfully bestowed; in short, where good manners, in all the varied
+details of life, should be so diligently practised. "Home, sweet home!" the
+place where childhood days are spent, where habits are formed which are to
+continue through the future, and where the foundation is laid upon which
+the superstructure of after-years is to be built. What a halo lingers about
+the blessed spot! and how the soul of the exile cherishes the pictures
+which adorn the halls of memory,--pictures which the rude hand of time can
+never efface!
+
+This earth has many lingering traces of Eden yet remaining, which enrapture
+the eye of the beholder. But there is no sight in all the world so
+beautiful as that of a well-ordered, harmonious Christian home,--a home
+where love reigns; where each esteems the other better than himself; where
+the parents are careful to practise what they preach; where the daily
+lessons instilled into the minds of the children from babyhood to maturity
+always and forever include the indispensable drills in good manners.
+
+There is no school so important as the home school, no teacher so
+responsible as the parent, no pupil under such weighty obligations to
+deport himself creditably as is the son or daughter of the household. And
+may it not be asserted truthfully that there is no more thrilling
+commencement scene than that which sees the noble young man or young woman,
+having passed successfully through all the grades of the parental school,
+bid a regretful adieu to the dear childhood home, to enter upon a career of
+usefulness elsewhere, to spend and be spent in saving humanity? But how few
+such commencement scenes do we witness! How few pupils ever pass the test
+satisfactorily in the important branch of ethics! When parents practice
+good manners toward their children; when they find as much pleasure in the
+unaffected "please" and "thank you" of the home kindergarten as they do in
+the same marks of politeness elsewhere; when the deportment in the grades
+of the home school is considered of greater importance than that in the
+schools away from home, our preparatory schools and colleges will have less
+trouble in securing good behavior on the part of those in attendance, and
+the problem of how to maintain proper decorum will have lost its
+perplexity.
+
+Every time a child says "please" it is a reminder that he is not
+independent, that he is in need of assistance. Every time he says "thank
+you," he has yet another reminder that he is not independent, that he is
+under obligations to another for assistance received. Pure and undefiled
+religion and good manners cannot be separated. The child who is taught to
+say "please" because he is in need of human aid, may be made easily to
+comprehend the beautiful significance of prayer, because he is in need of
+divine aid. The child who is taught to say "thank you" for favors received
+from earthly friends, may be led easily to see the appropriateness of
+offering praise and thanksgiving for divine blessings.
+
+Children who are made to realize that to appear well always in the society
+of home is infinitely more important than to try to appear well
+occasionally when away from home, cause little parental anxiety as to how
+they will deport themselves when absent. And children who practise good
+behavior in the home when no company is present, do not need to be called
+aside for a hasty lesson in this line when some one is about to call. Such
+lessons are very unsatisfactory, and are seldom remembered, being much like
+music lessons taken without the intervening practise.
+
+Good manners cannot be put on and off with the best clothing, or donned
+momentarily to suit the occasion. But, unlike our ordinary apparel, the
+more they are worn, the more beautiful they appear. Good manners in the
+home means good manners everywhere; and each individual simply stands
+before the world an epitome of all his former training. If the child has
+learned to be honest and truthful in all the details of the home life, he
+may face the world in later years a worthy example of uprightness to all
+with whom he comes in contact. If he has learned to be habitually kind and
+courteous in the home, he is the same wherever he may be. If he always
+appears neat and tidy in the home, these pleasing characteristics will
+remain with him throughout life.
+
+If the loved members of his own family circle never discover that he has a
+"temper of his own," there is little danger that any one else will ever
+find it out. If his habits and practises at home are such as to ennoble and
+beautify his own life, his influence will rest as a benign benediction upon
+the beloved of his household, and the great world outside will be be better
+because of his having lived in it. O, that every boy and girl might rightly
+appreciate the vast difference between manners of the soul and manners of
+the head,--manners of the heart and manners of the outward appearance! One
+is Christian religion, the other is cold formality. One means the salvation
+of souls; the other is but vanity and outward show.
+
+But we are instructed that "true refinement and gentleness of manners can
+never be found in a home where selfishness reigns." "We should be
+self-forgetful, ever looking out for opportunities, even in little things,
+to show gratitude for the favors we have received from others, and watching
+for opportunities to cheer others, and to lighten and relieve their sorrows
+and burdens, by acts of tender kindness and little deeds of love. These
+thoughtful courtesies that begin in our families, extend outside the family
+circle, and help to make up the sum of life's happiness; and the neglect of
+these little things makes up the sum of life's bitterness and sorrow."
+
+Boys and girls who rightly appreciate good manners will be polite and
+courteous in the home, and will share cheerfully in all the little duties
+of the household. Some one has said that idleness is "the chief author of
+all mischief." And surely any individual who chooses to be idle rather than
+to be usefully employed, is exceedingly ill-bred. Children should be taught
+the nobility of labor, and to respect those who faithfully perform the
+humblest duties of life, just as much as those who accomplish the more
+difficult tasks.
+
+There is pointed truth in the assertion that there is gospel in a loaf of
+good bread; but it is a sad comment on the home training of the present day
+that so few of our young people recognize this fact. It is to be deplored
+that the children nowadays receive so little training in the ins and outs
+of good housekeeping. No young lady should consider herself accomplished
+until she has acquired the art of making good bread, and of knowing how to
+prepare healthful and palatable meals. Even if it never should be her
+privilege to become the queen of a kitchen, there are always ample
+opportunities to impart such valuable knowledge to others.
+
+The world is in direful need of practical boys and girls, practical young
+men and young women, who are not afraid to perform faithfully even the
+smallest duties that lie in the pathway of life, and who are willing to tax
+their thinking powers in order that their work may be done in the best
+possible manner. How much more in keeping with Christian manners that the
+son of the household should share in the burden of keeping the domestic
+machinery running smoothly, rather than misemploy his time, and grow up
+unacquainted with the practical duties of life! How much more appropriate
+that the daughter should assist the mother in performing the various
+household duties, rather than occupy a hammock or an easy chair, and spend
+her time in reading cheap books! Many a weary mother would appreciate such
+kindness on the part of her children more than words can express, and the
+children themselves would be the happier because of such thoughtful
+service.
+
+The boy or girl who grows up in the belief that honorable labor in any
+direction is a God-given privilege, will realize that housework is not
+without its fascinations, and that manual training in the school is an
+important part of the daily curriculum. Such a child will realize that even
+an empty water-pail or a vacant wood-box presents a golden opportunity for
+usefulness which should not be slighted. He will not appropriate for
+himself the last pint of cold water from the pail, or the last cup of hot
+water from the teakettle, and complacently leave them for some one else to
+fill. That child, even though he be grown up who sees nothing in these
+little opportunities for usefulness, will let greater ones pass by with the
+same lack of appreciation.
+
+Laziness is a deadly enemy to success; and the child who is indolent in the
+home, is likely to bring up the rear in the race of life. Laziness is no
+kin to true happiness. The lazy child is not the truly happy child. He lies
+in bed until late in the morning, is often careless about his personal
+appearance, is late to breakfast, late to school, and his name is entirely
+wanting when the highest credits are awarded. Such a child may be sometimes
+recognized by the neglected appearance of his teeth and finger-nails, the
+"high-water marks" about his neck and wrists, the dust on his clothing and
+shoes, his untidy hair, etc. In fact, he seems to have adopted as his life
+motto the paraphrase, "There is no excellence about great labor."
+
+A trite story is told of a man who was to be executed because of his
+persistent laziness. While being driven to the scaffold, he was given one
+more chance for his life by a kind-hearted individual who offered him a
+quantity of corn with which to make a new start. Upon hearing the
+suggestion, the condemned man slowly raised himself up, and rather
+dubiously inquired, "I-s i-t s-h-e-l-l-e-d?" Being informed to the
+contrary, he slowly settled down again, with the remark, "W-e-l-l, then,
+drive on."
+
+Now, boys and girls, you will find many occasions in life when it will be
+necessary for you to put forth an extra effort in order to succeed. But
+when some golden opportunity presents the corn to you, do not stop to
+inquire, "Is it shelled?" Learn to shell your own corn. Use your muscle as
+well as your brain, ever bearing in mind that increased strength, both
+physical and mental, comes as the result of the proper use of that which
+you now possess. Be workers, be thinkers, in the great world about you. The
+old saying that it is better to wear out than to rust out is not without
+forceful meaning.
+
+In accordance with heaven-born manners, "let all things be done decently
+and in order." All things include even the little chores which may be done
+by the members of the home kindergarten; it also includes the greatest task
+of which man is capable. If we would learn how particular Heaven is in
+regard to neatness and order, we should become familiar with God's
+instructions to ancient Israel. The arrangement of the camp of Israel, and
+the whole round of tabernacle service, present a systematic demonstration
+of order and neatness such as Heaven approves. And the sad fate of Uzzah,
+Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, attests to how particular God is in regard to
+perfect order.
+
+If systematic order and neatness are to be maintained in the home, the
+members of the household must be united in putting forth the necessary
+efforts. And blessed is that family who make of home "a little heaven to go
+to heaven in."
+
+But let me repeat that "true refinement and gentleness of manners can never
+be found in a home where selfishness reigns." And how many temptations to
+selfishness there are in the home life! Every day brings the choice between
+selfishness and self-sacrifice. Shall I take for myself the choicest apple?
+or shall I share in that which is not so agreeable? These may appear to be
+very insignificant questions. But, boys and girls, do you know that the
+habitual decisions at which you arrive in childhood, determine largely
+whether or not you will live by principle later on? "As the twig is bent,
+so the tree inclines."
+
+But the lesson of always giving cheerfully to others that which the natural
+heart would selfishly appropriate as its own, can be learned only in the
+school of Christ. And blessed is that parent or teacher who rightly
+appreciates the privilege of becoming an assistant in that school. Blessed
+is that pupil who realizes what it means to become such a devoted learner
+that he can find joy in denying self that he may minister to the comfort of
+others whenever an opportunity is afforded, recognizing that every
+heaven-appointed task is a part of the great cause of truth--the giving of
+the "gospel to all the world in this generation." Every kindness shown to
+others, if done in the right spirit, is counted in the records of heaven as
+done to Christ himself. Even the cup of cold water given in his name, is
+never forgotten.
+
+Kind words and loving deeds are as pebbles cast upon the great sea of
+humanity, the ever-widening circle of whose influence extends beyond the
+limited vision of him who projects them; and the eternal ages alone will
+reveal how many souls have been saved, and saved forever, as the grand
+result. How many girls and boys are watching every opportunity to share in
+this blessed work?
+
+MRS. M. A. LOPER.
+
+
+
+
+SOMETIME, SOMEWHERE
+
+
+  You lent a hand to a fallen one,
+    A lift in kindness given;
+  It saved a soul when help was none,
+    And won a heart for heaven.
+  And so for the help you proffered there,
+  You'll reap a crown, sometime, somewhere.
+
+D. G. BICKERS
+
+
+
+
+GIANTS AND GRASSHOPPERS
+
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Mrs. Hamlin. "What is hindering the work?"
+
+Mr. Hamlin glanced up from his paper. "The work?" he said. "O, the old
+story; there are 'giants' in the land, and the committee feel like
+'grasshoppers'!"
+
+It was Earle's turn to look up. Earle was reading, but he generally had one
+ear for any conversation that was going on about him. His eyes went back to
+his book, but he kept wondering just what his father meant. Of course there
+were no giants in these days! He waited until his father was turning the
+paper to another page, then put in his question:--
+
+"Father, what do you mean about 'giants' and 'grasshoppers'?"
+
+Mr. Hamlin laughed. "Your ears heard that, did they? Why, I meant what the
+ten spies did when they whined about giants, and called themselves
+'grasshoppers,' instead of seizing their chance, as the other two wanted
+them to do. Don't you remember the story? I fear you are not so well posted
+on Old Testament history as you are in your school history. The report of
+the spies makes very interesting reading; you would better look it up."
+
+"I remember about it now," said Earle, "and I guess what you mean about the
+committee. There lots of giants around nowadays, aren't there?"
+
+"Plenty of them!" said his father. "Look out that none of them scare you
+away from an opportunity."
+
+Earle laughed, and went back to his book. He knew he was the sort of boy of
+whom the other boys said that he did not "scare worth a cent."
+
+It was nearly twenty-four hours afterward that he was in the dining-room,
+which was his evening study, bent over his slate, his pencil moving
+rapidly. His friend and classmate, Howard Eastman, sat on the arm of the
+large rocker, tearing bits from a newspaper wrapper and chewing them, while
+he waited for Earle.
+
+"I do wish you would come on!" he said, between the bites of paper. "The
+boys will be waiting for us; I told them I would bring you right along, and
+the fun will all be over before we get there."
+
+"Bother!" said Earle, consulting his book. "That is not anywhere near
+right."
+
+"Of course it is not. I knew it would not be. There is not a fellow in the
+class, nor a girl, either, for that matter, who has got that example. Why,
+I know, because I heard them talking about that very one; and haven't I
+done that seventy-five times myself? My brother Dick tried to do it for me,
+and he did not get it either; he said there was some catch about it."
+
+"I would like to find the catch," said Earle, wistfully.
+
+"Well, you can't. I tell you there is not one of them who can. You need not
+think you are smarter than anybody else. We won't get marked on that
+example; they do not expect us to have it. I heard Professor Bowen tell
+Miss Andrews that there would not be a pupil in the room who could conquer
+it."
+
+"Is that so?" said Earle, running his fingers through his hair, and looking
+wearily at the long rows of figures on his slate.
+
+"I have not got it, that is certain; and I have tried it in every way I can
+think of. I do not know as there is any use of my going over it again."
+
+"Of course there is not! It is just one of those mean old catch problems
+that nobody is expected to get So just put up your tools, and come on. I
+know the boys are out of all patience with us for being so late."
+
+It happened that Cousin Carrol was in the library, which opened from the
+dining-room. Cousin Carrol was seventeen, and her thirteen-year-old cousin
+admired her extremely. He had known her but three weeks, and already they
+were the best of friends; he valued her good opinion next to his father's
+and mother's. At that moment her face appeared in the doorway, and she said
+in the sweetest and gentlest of tones:--
+
+"And there we saw the giants."
+
+Howard Eastman made haste to take the wads of paper out of his mouth, and
+to get off the arm of the chair; but Miss Carrol's face vanished, and they
+heard her open the hall door and pass out. Earle's face, meantime, had
+reddened to his hair.
+
+"What did she say?" inquired Howard, his eyes big with wonder.
+
+"O, never mind what she said! She was talking to me. Look here, Howard
+Eastman, you may as well cut down to Timmy's, and tell them I cannot come;
+they need not wait for me any longer. There is no use in talking; I am
+going to conquer that example if I have to sit up all night to do it. I am
+no grasshopper, and it has got to be done!"
+
+"O, say now! I think that is mean!" growled Howard. "There won't be half so
+much fun without you; and, besides--why, you almost got started. You began
+to put up your books."
+
+"I know I did; but I am not starting now, and there is no hope of me. Skip
+along, and tell the boys I am sorry, but it is not my fault; it is this old
+giant of a problem that is trying to beat me; and he can't. I do not feel a
+bit like a grasshopper."
+
+"Say," said Howard, "what have giants to do with that example? _She_ said
+something about them."
+
+"They have not a thing to do with it," said Earle with energy, "and I will
+prove that they have not. Now you skip, Howard, that's a good fellow, and
+let me alone. I have a battle to fight."
+
+Howard groaned, and growled, and "skipped." Next morning, just as the hour
+for recitation arrived, and the arithmetic class were filing in, company
+was announced.
+
+"Just our luck!" muttered Howard Eastman. "Any other morning this term I
+should have been ready for them. Did you know they were coming, Earle?"
+
+No, Earle did not. He looked up in surprise. There were not only his father
+and Cousin Carrol, but a stranger, a fine-looking man, who, it was
+presently telegraphed through the class, was Judge Dennison, of Buffalo,
+who used to attend this school when he was a boy. And then, behold, came
+Principal Bowen, who stood talking with his guests a moment, after which
+they all took seats and stayed through the entire hour.
+
+Work went on well until that fatal thirty-ninth example was reached, and
+Howard Eastman was called upon to go to the board and perform it.
+
+"I cannot do it, Miss Andrews," he said, "I tried it as many as fifty
+times, I think, in fifty different ways, and I could not get near the
+answer."
+
+"That is very sad!" said Miss Andrews, trying not to laugh. "If you had not
+tried so many ways, but worked faithfully at one, you might have done
+better."
+
+Then she called on the boy next to him, with no better success. A long row
+of downcast eyes and blushing faces. Some of the pupils confessed that they
+had not even attempted the problem, but had been discouraged by the reports
+of others.
+
+"Is there no one who is willing to go to the board," said Miss Andrews,
+"and attempt the work, carrying it as far as he can?"
+
+At just that moment she caught sight of Earle Hamlin's face, and spoke to
+him.
+
+"Will you try it, Earle?"
+
+And Earle went. Silence in the class-room. All eyes on the blackboard, and
+the quick fingers of one boy handling the crayon. How fast he worked! Had
+be multiplied right?--No. Yes, that was right. O, but he had blundered in
+subtraction! No, he had not; every figure was right. Ah! now he had reached
+the place where none of them knew what to do next. But he knew! Without
+pause or confusion, he moved on, through to the very last figure, which he
+made with a flourish. Moreover, he knew how to explain his work, just what
+he did, and why he did it. As he turned to take his seat, the admiring
+class, whose honor he had saved, broke into applause, which the smiling
+teacher did not attempt to check.
+
+"I think we owe Earle a vote of thanks," she said. "I confess my surprise
+as well as pleasure in his work; I did not expect any of you to succeed. In
+truth, I gave you the example rather as a trial of patience than in the
+hope that you could conquer it. You remember, however, that I gave you
+permission to secure help if you utterly failed. Will you tell us, Earle,
+if you had any help?"
+
+"Yes'm," said Earle. "My Cousin Carrol helped me."
+
+And then Cousin Carrol's astonishment suddenly broke into laughter.
+
+"I have not the least idea what he means," she said, in her clear, silvery
+voice. "I was so far from helping him that I tried all by myself to do the
+example, and failed."
+
+The class began to cheer again, but hushed suddenly to hear what Earle was
+saying.
+
+"All the same, she helped me," he said, sturdily. Then, seeing that he must
+explain, he added, hurriedly "We had been talking about the giants, you
+know, and the grasshoppers, just the night before, and I thought to myself
+then that I was not a grasshopper, anyhow; but I never thought about the
+example being a giant, and I was just going to quit it when Cousin Carrol
+came to the door and spoke about the giants, and then I went at it again."
+
+Some of the pupils looked hopelessly puzzled. Mr. Hamlin's face was one
+broad smile. "Students of Old Testament history have the advantage here
+today, I fancy," he said.
+
+"Earle," said Miss Andrews, "are you willing to tell us how long you worked
+on the example?"
+
+"I began it at six o'clock," said Earle, "and I got it just as the clock
+struck eleven."
+
+There was no use in trying to keep that class from cheering. They felt that
+their defeat had been forgotten in Earle's victory.
+
+Mr. Hamlin and Judge Dennison stood talking together after the class was
+dismissed.
+
+"Do you know, I like best of all that word of his about his cousin's
+helping him?" said Judge Dennison. "It was plucky in the boy to keep
+working, and it took brains to study out that puzzle; but that little touch
+which showed that he was not going to accept the least scrap of honor that
+did not belong to him was what caught me. You have reason to be proud of
+your son, Mr. Hamlin."--_Pansy, by permission of Lothrop, Lee & Shepard
+Co._
+
+
+
+
+AS GOOD AS HIS BOND
+
+
+I remember that a good many years ago, when I was a boy, my father, who was
+a stone-mason, did some work for a man named John Haws. When the work was
+completed, John Haws said he would pay for it on a certain day. It was late
+in the fall when the work was done, and when the day came on which Mr. Haws
+had said he would pay for it, a fearful storm of sleet and snow and wind
+raged from morning until night. We lived nine miles from the Haws home, and
+the road was a very bad one even in good weather. I remember that father
+said at the breakfast-table:--
+
+"Well, I guess that we shall not see anything of John Haws today. It will
+not make any difference if he does not come, as I am not in urgent need of
+the money he owes me. It will make no difference if it is not paid for a
+month."
+
+But about noon Mr. Haws appeared at our door, almost frozen, and covered
+with sleet and snow.
+
+"Why, John Haws!" exclaimed my father, when he opened the door, and saw who
+it was that had knocked. "I had not the least idea that you would try to
+ride away out here in this fearful storm."
+
+"Did I not say that I would come?" asked John Haws, abruptly.
+
+"O, yes; but I did not regard it as a promise so binding that you must
+fulfil it on a day like this!"
+
+"Any promise that I make is binding, regardless of wind and weather. I said
+that I would pay the money today, and I am here to keep my word."
+
+"But, then, it is only a small sum, and I do not really need it."
+
+"I need to keep my word. If the sum had been but ten cents, and you were a
+millionaire, and I had said that I could pay it today, I would be here to
+pay it if I had been compelled to ride fifty miles."
+
+Do you wonder that it was often said of John Haws that his word was as good
+as his bond? He was as truthful as he was honest. I remember that a
+neighbor of ours stopped at our house one day on his way home from the
+town. He had an almost incredible story to tell about a certain matter, and
+father said:--
+
+"Why, it hardly seems possible that such a thing can be true."
+
+"John Haws told me about it."
+
+"O, then it is true!"
+
+"Yes, or John Haws never would have told it."
+
+It is a fine thing to have a reputation like that. It is worth more than
+much worldly glory and honor when they are combined with the distrust of
+the people. There are men in high positions, with all that wealth can buy
+at their command, who are much poorer than humble John Haws, because their
+word is of no value, and they have none of that high sense of honor that
+glorifies the humblest life.--_Selected_,
+
+
+
+
+PLAIN BERNICE
+
+
+The last stroke of the bell was dying away ere Bernice Dahl walked timidly
+across the schoolroom floor, and sat down in the nearest empty seat.
+
+"O, my, my!" whispered Myrtle Fling across the aisle to her chum. "She is
+the plainest-looking girl I ever saw."
+
+Elizabeth nodded her head very positively, and two or three others
+exchanged knowing glances. A moment later a little piece of paper fluttered
+down at Myrtle's feet from a desk top. On it was written: "She's so plain.
+She's Rocky Mountainy--all ridges and hubbles."
+
+Meanwhile Bernice sat very still, her great black eyes fixed on the
+teacher's face.
+
+Have you ever held a frightened bird in your hand, and felt its heart beat?
+That is the way Bernice's heart was going. She was a stranger. Her father
+had moved to this place from a distant town, and she had walked to school
+that morning with a pupil who lived on the same street, but who had
+fluttered away into a little bevy of children almost as soon as she had
+shown the new girl the cloak-room; and Bernice, naturally a bit diffident
+and sensitive, felt very much alone.
+
+This feeling was heightened when the bell struck, and one by one the pupils
+filed past into the schoolroom, with only a rude stare or indifferent
+glance, quite as if she were some specter on exhibition. When the last one
+had passed her, she clasped and unclasped her hands nervously.
+
+"It is because I am so homely!" she thought.
+
+A month or more went by. Somehow Bernice and her schoolmates had not made
+so much progress in getting acquainted as one would have thought. The new
+girl was unobtrusive, attended strictly to her studies, and made few
+demands on those about her; yet it was true that there was among them at
+least an unacknowledged conspiracy to taboo her, or an understanding that
+she was to be ignored almost completely. This Bernice attributed to her
+looks. Ever since she could remember, she had been called "homely," "ugly,"
+"plain," and similar epithets. Now, though she preserved a calm exterior,
+she could not help being unhappy because she was thus slighted.
+
+One Monday morning a little flurry of excitement was visible among the
+pupils of the up-town grammar-school. Elizabeth Weston had announced a
+party to come off later in the week, and several of them had been invited.
+
+"Will you invite Bernice Dahl?" asked Myrtle, bending over her friend.
+
+"I have been thinking about it," Elizabeth answered, slowly. "Miss Somers
+says she has the best lessons of any one in her class, and then she was so
+nice to Jimmy Flanders that day he sprained his arm. I have half a mind
+to." And she really did.
+
+That night when Bernice was telling her mother of the invitation she had
+received, she said, doubtfully, "I think I shall not go."
+
+"Why not?" was the reply. "It can do no good to stay away, and something
+may be gained by going."
+
+So it chanced that Bernice found herself at Elizabeth's home on the evening
+of the party. Her hostess met her smilingly. "She is really glad that I
+came," thought Bernice. And she felt her soul suddenly warm to life, just
+as the thirsty earth brightens and glows and sends up little shoots of new
+green at a patter of summer rain.
+
+The long parlor was decorated in green and white. The bright lights, the
+gay figures stirring beneath, and the shining faces, half of which were
+strange to Bernice, formed a pretty picture, and the girl moved here and
+there in the constantly shifting kaleidoscope with a freedom and happiness
+she had not known since coming to the town.
+
+At last she found herself, with the others, sitting very quiet and
+listening to two girls playing a duet on the piano. Then one of them sang a
+Scotch song. There was warmth and richness, the warbling of birds, the
+melody of brooks, in the rendering, and Bernice heard a half-sigh close
+beside her.
+
+"I wish I could sing! O, always I wanted to sing!"
+
+Then for the first time she saw who sat there--a tall, handsome,
+beautifully gowned girl whom she had noticed several times during the
+evening, and to whom everybody seemed to defer. She had heard vaguely that
+this was Elizabeth's cousin, and wondered if it was for her that Elizabeth
+had given the party.
+
+"And can't you?" she asked, evincing instant interest.
+
+The girl turned toward her with a smile. "Not at all. Sometimes I used to
+try when no one heard, and once when I was in the hammock with my brother's
+little girl, I joined her in the song she was singing. She looked at me in
+a minute with a rueful countenance, and said, 'Aunt Helen, I can't sing
+when you are making such a noise!'" Bernice laughed. "I haven't tried much
+since," the tall girl added.
+
+"We have singing lessons at school twice a week," Bernice said, presently,
+"but I like the every-day lessons better."
+
+"Do you? I like mathematics, and sloyd, and a hammer and nails and saw.
+Mama tells me I ought to be a carpenter."
+
+"But you don't look like one," Bernice smiled, critically; and then
+continued: "We began physical geography this term. It is so interesting.
+And Miss Somers makes language beautiful; I can't help liking grammar!"
+
+"I never understood it--it was always so blind!"
+
+But Bernice was laughing again. The tall girl turned toward her
+inquiringly.
+
+"I was thinking of what Johnny Weeks said down in the primary room the
+other day," Bernice began in explanation. "The teacher asked him what 'cat'
+was. I guess he was not paying attention. He looked all around, and finally
+said he did not know. She told him it was a noun. 'Then,' he said, after
+some deliberation, 'kitten must be a pronoun.'"
+
+An hour afterward, all the lights but one in the house were out. Elizabeth
+sat with her cousin talking over the events of the evening.
+
+"And how do you like Bernice Dahl?" she asked, and lent an eager ear; for
+Helen's word could make or mar things irretrievably.
+
+"Like her? I have never liked any one better. Perhaps I would not have
+noticed, had you not spoken particularly about her."
+
+"Well?" said Elizabeth, as her cousin paused.
+
+"She is all life and vivacity. I thought you said she was 'dummified.'"
+
+"But she was. I never saw her like this before."
+
+"Then something woke her. If any seemed ill at ease or lonely, she went to
+them, and, behold, they chatted like magpies! I saw some of her schoolmates
+look at her wonderingly, and at least one sneered, but I watched. She had
+just one thought, and that was to make every one happy. You could have
+spared any one of the girls better; in fact, any three of them."
+
+Long after Helen had gone to sleep, Elizabeth lay thinking. "Jimmy
+Flanders," she said, and counted off one finger; another followed, and then
+another. After all, it was wonderful how many good deeds she could reckon
+up, and all so quietly done. Strange she had never thought of them en masse
+before. How could Bernice be gay among so many frowns and slights?
+
+The next forenoon session of the grammar-school was well under way. Bernice
+opened her history, and in it was a little slip of paper that she had used
+as a book-mark since that first morning. An odd spirit seized her, and
+almost before she knew it, she had gone up the aisle, and laid it on
+Elizabeth's desk. The next instant she would have given much to withdraw
+it. Elizabeth glanced down and flushed painfully. There it was: "She's so
+plain. She's Rocky Mountainy--all ridges and hubbles." But Bernice was back
+at her work again, evidently unruffled.
+
+When the bell tapped for intermission, Elizabeth went to her. "Bernice, I
+did write it. O, I am so ashamed!" and, bursting into tears, she hid her
+face on Bernice's shoulder.
+
+One of those smiles that somehow have the power of transforming the
+harshest features, swept over the girl's face, and, picking up Elizabeth's
+hand, she kissed it softly again and again. "I won't kiss her face," she
+thought, "I am so homely!" but from that day she slipped into the queenly
+place she had a right to occupy, and it was not long before every one
+forgot her plainness.
+
+And let me whisper you a secret, girls,--for even now Bernice does not seem
+to know,--as she grew older, the rough lines mellowed and softened, the
+short figure stretched upward, till she was beautiful as ever her dearest
+wish had pictured. Was it not lovely spirit within, for Bernice was a
+Christian, molding and modeling the clay into a fit dwelling-place for
+itself? That is a beauty that never quite withers away. Its roots are
+planted in the soul beautiful, and a beautiful soul can never die.
+
+MRS. CORA WEBBER.
+
+
+
+Say "Thank You"
+
+
+  I saw a needy one relieved,
+  And forth he went, and glad,
+  But not one word of gratitude
+  That lightened spirit had.
+  His benefactor, bent by cares,
+  Went wearily all day;
+  While him his kindnesses had served
+  Went careless on his way.
+
+  If you have given aught for me,
+  Ought not my voice return
+  One little word of graciousness?
+  O, breaking spirits yearn
+  Just for the human touch of love
+  To cheer the aching heart,
+  To brighten all the paths of toil,
+  And take away the smart!
+
+  Say "Thank you!" then. 'Tis small enough
+  Return for help bestowed
+  Say "Thank you!" You would spurn to slight
+  The smallest debt you owed;
+  But is not this a debt?--Ah, more!
+  And honor, if true blue
+  Your loyal heart of rectitude,
+  Impels to say "Thank you!"
+
+B. F. W. SOURS.
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE BOY WITHOUT A REFERENCE FOUND ONE
+
+
+John was fifteen, and anxious to get a desirable place in the office of a
+well-known lawyer, who had advertised for a boy. John doubted his success
+in obtaining this position, because, being a stranger in the city, he had
+no reference to present.
+
+"I am afraid I will stand a poor chance," he thought, despondently;
+"however, I will try to appear as well as I can, and that may help me a
+little."
+
+So he was careful to have his dress and person neat, and when he took his
+turn to be interviewed, went in with his hat in his hand and a smile on his
+face.
+
+The keen-eyed lawyer glanced him over from head to foot. "Good face," he
+thought, "and pleasant ways." Then he noted the neat suit,--but other boys
+had appeared in new clothes,--saw the well-brushed hair, and clean skin.
+Very well; but there had been others quite as cleanly. Another glance,
+however, showed the finger-nails free from soil. "Ah, that looks like
+thoroughness," thought the lawyer.
+
+Then he asked a few direct, rapid questions, which John answered as
+directly. "Prompt," was his mental comment; "can speak up when necessary."
+
+"Let's see your writing," he added aloud.
+
+John took a pen and wrote his name.
+
+"Very well; easy to read, and no flourishes. Now, what references have
+you?"
+
+The dreadful question at last! John's face fell. He pad begun to feel some
+hope of success, but this dashed it again.
+
+"I haven't any," he said, slowly. "I am almost a stranger in the city."
+
+"Cannot take a boy without references," was the brusque rejoinder.
+
+As he spoke, a sudden thought sent a flush to John's cheek. "I haven't any
+reference," he said, with hesitation; "but here is a letter from mother I
+just received. I wish you would read it."
+
+The lawyer took it. It was a short letter:--
+
+"MY DEAR JOHN: I want to remind you that wherever you find work, you must
+consider that work your own. Do not go into it, as some boys do, with the
+feeling that you will do as little as you can and get something better
+soon, but make up your mind that you will do as much as possible, and make
+yourself so necessary to your employer that he will never let you go. You
+have been a good son to me, and I can truly say that I have never known you
+to shirk. Be as good in business, and I am sure God will bless your
+efforts."
+
+"H'm!" said the lawyer, reading it over the second time. "That's pretty
+good advice, John, excellent advice. I rather think I will try you, even
+without the references."
+
+John has been with him six years, and last spring was admitted to the bar.
+
+"Do you intend taking that young man into partnership?" asked a friend
+lately.
+
+"Yes, I do. I could not get along without John; he is my right-hand man!"
+exclaimed the lawyer, heartily.
+
+And John always says the best reference he ever had was his mother's good
+advice and honest praise.
+
+--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+
+AN HOUR A DAY FOR A YEAR
+
+
+"Only an hour a day!" that does not seem much; it hardly seems worth
+mentioning.
+
+But let us consider a little. An hour a day may mean more than we think. In
+a year it represents three hundred and sixty-five hours, and, allowing
+sixteen hours for a waking day, three hundred and sixty-five hours gives
+nearly twenty-three days,--waking days, too, which is worth taking note of,
+not days one third of which is spent in necessary sleep.
+
+Now, time is a possession to be parted with for something else; indeed, it
+forms a large part of the capital with which we trade. We give it and
+labor, and in exchange get education, money, dexterity, and almost all
+other things of value. To be watchful of time, then, is wise economy. A
+person who had astonished many by his achievements was once asked how he
+had contrived to do so much.
+
+"The year," he replied, "has three hundred and sixty-five days, or eight
+thousand seven hundred and sixty hours. In so many hours great things may
+be done; the slow tortoise makes a long journey by losing no time."
+
+Just think what an hour's reading daily would amount to in a year. You can
+read easily a page of an ordinary youth's paper in twenty minutes, and at
+that rate could get through, in three hundred and sixty-five hours, no
+fewer than one thousand and ninety-five pages. And suppose the matter were
+printed in small pages, of, say, three hundred words apiece, your daily
+reading for one hour would in a year cover something like twelve thousand
+pages.
+
+As to the books in which the year's reading is to be found, let every one
+take his choice, remembering that people are known by the company they
+keep, and that to lead a noble life one should associate as much as
+possible with the noble.
+
+Instead of reading, suppose one took to writing: an hour a day would then
+produce quite as remarkable results. Even the short rule of "no day without
+a line," has resulted in the production of volumes--we might say almost of
+libraries.
+
+What results may, indeed, be arrived at by an hour's daily industry in
+anything! "An hour in every day," says a writer, "withdrawn from frivolous
+pursuits, would, if properly employed, enable a person of ordinary capacity
+to go far toward mastering a science. It would make an ignorant man a
+well-informed one in less than ten years."
+
+Of course, the hour's work must not be done listlessly. "Whatsoever thy
+hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." It is an advantage, too, to work
+at intervals instead of a long period at a time. We come to the work
+fresher, and in better condition to do it justice. When working hours come
+together, the best work is usually done during the first hour; after that
+even the most energetic fall off.
+
+In music, an hour's practising every day will carry one far in a year. But
+remember that practising must be gone through with strict attention. An
+hour with strict attention is worth more than three hours with
+carelessness; and if a girl who wants to get on has only one hour to spare
+each day, she must be to herself a very exacting music master.
+
+It is wise to spend an hour a day in exercise. In an hour one can, without
+making too great haste, walk three miles. At this rate, a year's walking
+represents over a thousand miles. Relaxation is essential to keep up the
+spirit and prevent life from becoming monotonous, as if one were sentenced
+to perpetual treadmill. Recreation is necessary, and the pursuit of
+pleasure is sometimes a duty.
+
+If we had but an hour a day to spare, what would be the best conceivable
+use to put it to?--The best use, perhaps, would be to sit down and think.
+Suppose we came every day to a full stop for an hour, and thought: "What am
+I doing? What is to be the end of all this busy life for me? How may I so
+act that when I go out of the world, it will be the better for my having
+been in it?" This thinking and planning would make us better characters
+altogether, would prepare us to face the future, ready for anything that
+might happen, and would fit us for coming duties. An hour a day spent thus
+would be a bright streak running through the year.
+
+You say it is easy to talk about devoting an hour a day to anything, and
+easy to make a start, but very difficult to keep it up. True enough, but
+there is no end of wonders that can be wrought by the exercise of the human
+will.
+
+"We all sorely complain," says Seneca, "of the shortness of time. And yet
+we have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent
+in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are
+always complaining that our days are few, and acting as if there would be
+no end to them."
+
+An hour a day for a year squandered in idleness or in foolish pursuits
+means the sacrifice of all the advantages just mentioned. And any one who
+keeps up idleness or folly for a year, usually ends in having a lifetime of
+it.--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+
+"PLEASE, SIR, I WOULD RATHER NOT"
+
+
+An old sailor tells the following story of a boy who suffered much in
+resisting temptation:--
+
+When offered a drink, the lad said, "Excuse me; I would rather not."
+
+They laughed at him, but they never could get him to drink liquor. The
+captain said to the boy:--
+
+"You must learn to drink grog if you are to be a sailor."
+
+"Please excuse me, captain, but I would rather not."
+
+"Take that rope," commanded the captain to a sailor, "and lay it on; that
+will teach him to obey orders."
+
+The sailor took the rope, and beat the boy most cruelly.
+
+"Now, drink that grog," said the captain.
+
+"Please, sir, I would rather not."
+
+"Then go into the foretop and stay all night."
+
+The poor boy looked away up to the masthead, trembling at the thought of
+spending the night there, but he had to obey.
+
+In the morning the captain, in walking the deck, looked up, and cried,
+"Halloo, up there!"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Come down!"
+
+Still no answer.
+
+One of the sailors was sent up, and what do you think he found? The poor
+boy was nearly frozen. He had lashed himself to the mast, so that when the
+ship rolled, he might not fall into the sea. The sailor brought the boy
+down in his arms, and they worked upon him until he showed signs of life.
+Then, when he was able to sit up, the captain poured out some liquor and
+said:--
+
+"Now, drink that grog."
+
+"Please, sir, I would rather not. Let me tell you why, and do not be angry.
+In our home in the cottage we were so happy, but father took to drink. He
+had no money to get us bread, and at last we had to sell the little house
+we had lived in, and everything we had. It broke my poor mother's heart. In
+sorrow she pined away, till, at last, before she died, she called me to her
+bedside, and said: 'Jamie, you know what drink has made of your father. I
+want you to promise your dying mother that you will never taste drink. I
+want you to be free from that curse that has ruined your father,' O, sir,"
+continued the little fellow, "would you have me break the promise I made to
+my dying mother? I cannot, and I will not do it."
+
+These words touched the heart of the captain. Tears came into his eyes. He
+stooped down, and, folding the boy in his arms, said: "No, no, my little
+hero. Keep your promise, and if any one tries again to make you drink, come
+to me, and I will protect you."--_Selected_.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+  "There were plans of mischief brewing;
+     I saw, but gave no sign,
+   For I wanted to test the mettle
+     Of this little knight of mine.
+  'Of course, you must come and help us,
+     For we all depend on Joe,'
+   The boys said; and I waited
+     For his answer--yes or no.
+
+  "He stood and thought for a moment;
+     I read his heart like a book,
+  For the battle that he was fighting
+     Was told in his earnest look.
+   Then to his waiting playmates
+     Outspoke my loyal knight:
+  'No, boys; I cannot go with you,
+     For I know it wouldn't be right.'"
+
+
+
+
+THE RIGHT WORD
+
+
+An instance of the transforming power of the right word is furnished by the
+following incident:--
+
+Many years ago a minister was passing through a prison crowded with
+convicts showing every phase of ignorance and brutality. One gigantic
+fellow crouched alone in a corner, his feet chained to a ball. There was an
+unhealed wound on his face, where he had been shot when trying to escape.
+The sight of the dumb, gaunt figure touched the visitor.
+
+"How long has he to serve?" he asked of the guard.
+
+"For life."
+
+"Has he anybody outside to look after him--wife or child?"
+
+"How should I know? Nobody has ever noticed him all the time he has been
+here."
+
+"May I speak to him?"
+
+"Yes, but only for a minute."
+
+The minister hesitated. What could he say in one minute? He touched the
+man's torn cheek.
+
+"I am sorry," he said. "I wish I could help you."
+
+The convict looked keenly at him, and he nodded to indicate that he
+believed in the sympathy expressed.
+
+"I am going away, and shall never see you again, perhaps; but you have a
+Friend who will stay here with you."
+
+The keen, small eyes were upon him. The prisoner dragged himself up,
+waiting and eager.
+
+"Have you heard of Jesus?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He is your friend. If you are good and true, and will pray to God to help
+you, I am sure he will care for you."
+
+"Come, sir," called the keeper. "Time's up."
+
+The clergyman turned sorrowfully away. The prisoner called after him, and,
+catching his hand, held it in his own while he could. Tears were in the
+preacher's eyes.
+
+Fourteen years passed. The convict was sent into the mines. The minister
+went down one day into a mine, and among the workmen saw a gigantic figure
+bent with hardship and age.
+
+"Who is that?" he asked the keeper.
+
+"A lifer, and a steady fellow--the best of the gang."
+
+Just then the "lifer" looked up. His figure straightened, for he had
+recognized the clergyman. His eyes shone.
+
+"Do you know me?" he said. "Will He come soon? I've tried to be good."
+
+At a single word of sympathy the life had been transformed, the convict
+redeemed.--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+A Friend
+
+
+  A friend--how much it means
+    To be so true
+    In all we do
+  That others speak of us as such,
+  And call us by that noble name.
+
+  A friend--how much it means
+    To have a friend
+    Who'll gladly lend
+  A helping hand to help us on
+  When weary seems the path we tread.
+
+  A friend--may we be such to Christ,
+     Who gladly gave,
+     Our lives to save.
+  His life a willing sacrifice,
+  And showed himself a friend of men.
+
+E. C. JAEGER
+
+
+
+
+THE SADDEST OF INDIA'S PICTURES (1912)
+
+
+I saw a sad little picture when I was at the hills; it haunts me even now.
+It was a sight that should be seen; for words convey very little idea of
+the pathos of the scene. We were walking through the thick jungle on the
+hillside when on the narrow path we saw a little procession wending its way
+toward us. In front walked a big, hardened-looking man, in the prime of
+life; behind him came a child, a slim, wonderfully fair girl of about ten
+years, lithe and graceful, with large, expressive dark eyes. After her came
+a woman prematurely old, her face lined and seamed in every direction.
+
+Just after they passed us, the little girl and woman stopped; and the child
+bent low to the earth and caressed her mother's feet. Then she flung
+herself into her mother's arms and clung to her, while the big, beautiful
+eyes filled with tears. The mother embraced her lovingly; then she tried to
+thrust her away from her, her own tears running down her face all the time.
+The child clung piteously, with a yearning love in her eyes. Then she
+glanced toward that hardened figure still continuing its way, and, O, the
+awful look of terror on that sweet face! It is that look which continues to
+haunt me, the look of sweet, yearning love giving place to that awful
+terror. Then terror overcame, and the child sped swiftly and silently after
+that man, ever and anon turning back for one more gaze at her heartbroken
+mother. Then she was lost to sight in the thick jungle.
+
+The wretched mother over and over again lifted up her voice and called her
+child by name, but there was no voice, and none that gave answer, and she
+turned her dreary steps homeward. We questioned her, and it was just as we
+feared. This sweet, innocent girl was leaving her mother's care for the
+first time, to go and live with that man to whom she now belonged. And only
+those who know something of the East know what that would mean to that
+frail, innocent little one.
+
+For days that scene haunted me in all its freshness, and it haunts me
+still. My heart bleeds for the little girls of India, for I love them so.
+O, that something could be speedily done for these little sisters of ours!
+
+VERA CHILSON.
+
+
+
+A Plea for Missions
+
+
+  O, SOULS that know the love of God,
+  And know it deep and true,
+  The love that in your heart is shed abroad
+  Shall others share with you?
+
+  And do you count it joy to give
+  Of what to you is given,
+  That erring souls may hear the word, and live
+  In hope of rest and heaven?
+
+  If not, lift up your blinded eyes,
+  And let the light break in;
+  Behold a world that, bruised and groaning, lies
+  Beneath the curse of sin.
+
+  Then higher lift your eyes, to meet
+  Your Master's tender gaze,
+  And say, "Dear Lord, thy will in us complete,
+  And pardon our delays."
+
+--_Jessie H. Brown_.
+
+
+
+
+ONE LITTLE WIDOW
+
+
+Seven years a widow, yet only eleven years old! The shadow--nay, the
+curse--of widowhood had hung over little Sita ever since she remembered
+anything. The little brown girl often wondered why other little girls
+living near her had such happy, merry times while she knew only drudgery
+and ill treatment from morning until night. One day when six of the weary
+years had passed, and she was ten years old, Sita found out what widow
+meant. Then, to the cruelties she had already endured, was added the
+terrors of the woe to come. She had gone, as usual, in her tattered
+garments, with three large brass water-pots on her head, to the great open
+well from which she drew the daily supply of water for a family of nine.
+She was so tired, and her frail little back ached so pitifully, that she
+sat down on a huge stone to rest a minute. Resting her weary head on one
+thin little hand, she was a picture of childish woe. Many deep sorrows had
+fallen on her young heart, but she was still a child in mind and years,
+yearning for companionship and love.
+
+Many Brahman servants were drawing water near her, and looked bright and
+happy in their gay-colored cotton _saris_. A woman so poor that she must
+draw her own drinking-water, but still a Brahman, came near, and to her
+Sita appealed for help.
+
+"Will you not draw a little water for me? I am ill and tired, and the well
+is very deep."
+
+The woman turned angrily, and uttered, in a scathing tone, the one word,
+"Widow!" then she burst out: "Curse you! How dare you come between me and
+the glorious sun! Your shadow has fallen upon me, and I'll have to take the
+bath of purification before I can eat food! Curse you! Stand aside!"
+
+Poor Sita stood bewildered. She made no answer, but the tears coursed down
+her cheeks. Something akin to pity made the woman pause. Halting at a safe
+distance from the shadow of the child, she talked to her in a milder tone.
+She was thinking, perhaps, of her two soft-eyed daughters, very dear to her
+proud heart, though she mourned bitterly when they were born, because the
+gods had denied her sons.
+
+"Why should I help you," she said, "when the gods have cursed you? See, you
+are a widow!"
+
+Then, in answer to the child's vacant gaze, she continued: "Don't you
+understand? Didn't you have a husband once?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," Sita answered; "an old, bad man who used to shake me,
+and tell me to grow up quickly to work for him; perhaps he was my husband.
+When he died, they said I killed him, but I did not."
+
+"So you call him bad?" the woman cried. "Ah, no wonder the gods hate you!
+No doubt you were very wicked ages and ages ago, and so now you are made a
+widow. By and by you will be born a snake or a toad." And, gathering up her
+water-pots, she went away.
+
+The slender, ill-fed child hurriedly filled the brass vessels, knowing that
+abuse awaited her late return. Raising the huge jars to her head, she
+hastened to her house--a home she never knew. The sister-in-law met the
+little thing with violent abuse, and bade her prepare the morning meal. The
+child was ill, and nearly fell with fatigue.
+
+"I'll show you how to wake up!" the woman cried, and, seizing a hot poker,
+she laid it on the arms and hands of the child.
+
+Screaming with pain, the poor little creature worked on, trembling if the
+sister-in-law even looked her way. This was one day. Each of the seven long
+years contained three hundred and sixty-five such days, and now they were
+growing worse. The last year, in token of the deep disgrace of widowhood,
+the child's soft dark tresses had been shaved off, and her head left bare.
+When that has been done, but one meal a day is permitted a widow, no matter
+how she works.
+
+Most of the little girls who saw Sita ran from her, fearing pollution. But
+there was one who shone on her like a gleam of sunshine whenever she saw
+her. One day after the woman had abused her at the well, Sita found a
+chance to tell Tungi about it.
+
+"There is a better God than that," Tungi said. "Our people do not know him,
+and that is why I am not allowed to talk with you. I am married, and my
+husband lives in a distant city. If I speak to you, they believe that he
+will die. But in the school I attend, many do not believe these things."
+
+"How can you go to school?" Sita asked. "My sister-in-law says that only
+bad people learn to read."
+
+"So my mother used to think," said Tungi; "but my husband is in school, and
+he has sent word that I must go until he calls for me to come to his home.
+Then he can have a wife who can understand when he talks about his books.
+He says the English have happy families, and it is this that makes them so.
+The wives know books, and how to sing, and how to make home pleasant. My
+mother says it is all very bad, but he is my husband, and I must do as he
+says. I am very glad; for it is very pleasant there."
+
+Thus the bright-eyed little Brahman wife chatted away, as gay as a bird.
+The fount of knowledge was opened to her--the beaming eye, the elastic
+figure, and the individuality of her Western sisters were becoming hers.
+But none of these things seemed for Sita.
+
+For nine weary months after Tungi went to school, the shaven-headed child,
+living on one meal a day, went about sad and lonely. When she again saw her
+bright-faced little friend, her condition had grown worse. Her neck and
+arms were full of scars where bits of flesh had been pinched out in
+vindictive rage by her husband's relatives, who believed her guilty of his
+death. Brutality, growing stronger with use, made them callous to the
+sufferings of the little being in their power. No one who cared knew of the
+pangs of hunger, the violent words, and the threats of future punishment.
+Once or twice she had looked down into the cool depths of the well, and
+wondered how quickly she could die. Only the terror of punishment after
+death kept this baby widow from suicide.
+
+One day as she was weeping by the gateway of Tungi's house, the little
+child wife told the little child widow of a safe refuge for such as she,
+where neither poverty nor ignorance could exclude her--a home under the
+loving care of one who knew the widow's curse. After many difficulties,
+Sita found this shelter. Here she forgot her widowhood, and found her
+childhood. Here, in the beautiful garden, or at her lessons, helping with
+cooking, or leaning lovingly on the arms of Ramabai's chair, she passed
+many sweet and useful years. By and by she found the greatest joy in love,
+higher and better than human love can ever be. Later, when a beautiful
+young womanhood had crowned her, she was sought by an earnest young
+Christian as his wife.
+
+Many of the millions of the child widows in India never find release from
+the bonds of cruel custom and false religion. In Hinduism there is no hope
+for such accursed ones.--_"Mosaics From India," published by Fleming H.
+Revell Company._
+
+
+
+
+WHY THE MITE BOXES WERE FULL
+
+
+Rosella had a blue mite box, and so had her brother Drew. The mite boxes
+had been given out in Sunday-school, and were to be kept two months. All
+the money saved in the mite boxes was to go toward sending the news about
+Jesus to the heathen girls and boys across the ocean. The Sunday-school
+superintendent said so, and so did the sweet old blind missionary woman,
+who had talked to the scholars.
+
+Rosella and Drew carried their mite boxes across the fields toward their
+tent. They and their mother and aunt and cousins had come several miles
+from their farm to tent, with a number of other folks, near the Farmers'
+Cooperative Fruit Drying buildings, during the fruit season, to cut fruit
+for drying.
+
+Another girl was going across the fields with a blue mite box. She was the
+Chinese girl, Louie Ming, whose father and mother had come from the city to
+cook for some of the owners here.
+
+"Louie Ming's got a mite box!" said Rosella.
+
+Drew laughed. "Do you suppose she'll save anything in it?"
+
+"I don't believe she will," said Rosella.
+
+Rosella and Drew carried their mite boxes into their mother's tent.
+
+"We're going to cut apricots and peaches to help the heathen!" announced
+Rosella.
+
+Mother nodded.
+
+"We'll have a whole lot of money in our mite boxes when we carry them
+back," said Rosella.
+
+"We'll see," said mother.
+
+For two or three mornings Rosella and Drew rose early, and after breakfast
+hurried to the cutting-sheds to work. But, after a while, Rosella and Drew
+grew tired. It was more fun to run over the fields, and mother never said
+Rosella and Drew must cut fruit, anyhow, though she looked sober.
+
+"The heathen children won't know," said Rosella to herself. "Suppose the
+heathen children were me, I wonder if they'd cut apricots every day to send
+me Bibles and missionaries? I don't believe they would."
+
+The first month melted away. When it was over, Rosella had two nickels in
+her mite box, and Drew had three in his.
+
+"The heathen children won't know," said Rosella.
+
+But one Saturday night Rosella and Drew were going by the tent where Louie
+Ming lived. Inside the tent sat Louie Ming, with her week's pay in her lap.
+In the Chinese girl's hand was her blue mite box. Louie Ming was putting
+her money into her mite box, and did not notice Rosella and Drew.
+
+"Why-ee!" whispered Rosella. "See there! Why, Drew! I do believe Louie
+Ming's putting every bit of her pay into her mite box! Do you suppose she
+knows what she's doing?"
+
+Rosella and Drew stood watching.
+
+"Do you suppose Louie Ming understands?" whispered Rosella again. "Why,
+she's giving it all! Drew, she's been working in the cutting-sheds every
+time I've been there. She didn't cut fruit till she got her mite box.
+There, she's given every cent!"
+
+When Louie Ming looked up, and suddenly discovered Rosella and Drew, she
+looked half scared. Rosella stepped toward the tent, and said:--
+
+"What made you give all your money? Why didn't you save some? You've worked
+hard for it. The heathen children wouldn't know if you kept some for candy
+and things."
+
+Louie Ming looked shy.
+
+"You say wha' fo' I give money?" she asked softly.
+
+"Yes," said Rosella. "Why do you give so much?"
+
+Louie Ming looked down at the blue mite box. Somehow it seemed hard for her
+to answer, at first. Then she spoke softly: "One time I have baby brudder.
+He die. Mudder cry, cry, cry. I cry, cry all time. I say, 'Never see poor
+little baby brudder again, never again!' An' I love little brudder. Then I
+go mission school. Teacher say, 'Louie Ming, love Jesus, an' some day you
+see your baby brudder again.' O, teacher make me so happy! See little
+brudder again! I go home and tell my mudder. She not believe, but I get
+teacher to come and tell. She tell about Jesus to my fadder and mudder.
+They learn love him. Some day we all go heaven and see little brudder! Now
+I save money to put in mite box. Way over in China many little girls don't
+know about Jesus. Their little brudders die. They cry, cry, all the same me
+did. Maybe some my money send teacher tell those poor Chinese girls how go
+to heaven, see their baby brudders again. So I work very hard to put money
+in my box, because Jesus come into my heart."
+
+Rosella did not answer, but stood looking at Louie Ming. Then she suddenly
+turned and caught Drew's hand, and pulled him along till they were running
+toward their own tent. Rosella rushed in. The baby was sitting on the straw
+floor, and Rosella caught him up, crying:--
+
+"O baby, baby brother, don't you ever die! I couldn't spare you!"
+
+"Goo!" said baby brother, holding out his arms to Drew.
+
+Drew did not say anything, but he took baby brother.
+
+"Drew," said Rosella, "I'm going straight to work. Aren't you? I'm ashamed
+of myself. To think that a Chinese girl who once did not know about Jesus,
+would work so hard now for her mite box, and you and I haven't! Why, Drew
+Hopkins, I haven't acted as though I cared whether the heathen boys and
+girls knew about Jesus or not! I'm going to work to fill my mite box. Why,
+Drew, Louie Ming's box is most full, and she used to be a heathen!"
+
+Drew nodded, and hugged baby brother tighter.
+
+The next Monday Rosella and Drew began working hard cutting fruit. How they
+cut fruit the remaining month! How they saved! And how glad they were that
+their mite boxes were heavy when the day came to carry them back!
+
+The blind missionary woman was at Sunday-school again. After the school
+closed, the superintendent, who knew Rosella and Drew, introduced them to
+the missionary. And the blind missionary said, "Bless the dear girl and boy
+who have cut peaches for two whole months to help send the gospel to
+heathen children!"
+
+Then Rosella, being honest, could not bear to have the missionary think it
+had been two months instead of one, and she suddenly burst out,
+half-crying, and said, "O, I wasn't so good as that! I didn't work two
+months, and I--I'm afraid if Louie Ming hadn't loved Jesus better than I
+did, Drew and I wouldn't have had hardly any money in our mite boxes."
+
+The blind missionary wanted to know about Louie Ming, and Rosella told the
+missionary all about her. Then the blind missionary kissed Louie Ming's
+cheek, and said, "Many that are last shall be first."
+
+But Rosella was glad that she and Drew had worked to send the news about
+Jesus to heathen children.--_Mary E. Bamford, in "Over Sea and Land."_
+
+
+
+
+TI-TO AND THE BOXERS
+
+A True Story of a Young Christian
+
+
+It was late in May when we last saw Ti-to's father. He was attending the
+annual meeting of the North China Mission at Tung-chou, near Peking when
+word came that the Boxers were tearing up the railway between Peking and
+Pao-ting-fu. For twelve years he had been the pastor of the Congregational
+Church in Pao-ting-fu, having been the first Chinese pastor ordained in
+north China. Without waiting for the end of the meeting, he hastened to the
+assistance of the little band of missionaries.
+
+During the month of June dangers thickened about the devoted band of
+missionaries and Christian Chinese who lived in the mission compound not
+far from the wall of Pao-ting-fu. There was no mother in Pastor Meng's home
+to comfort the hearts of five children living face to face with death. But
+thirteen-year-old Ti-to, the hero of our story, was as brave a lad as ever
+cheered the hearts of little brothers and sisters. Straight as an arrow,
+his fine-cut, delicate face flushed with pink, with firm, manly mouth and
+eyes that showed both strength and gentleness, Ti-to was a boy to win all
+hearts at sight.
+
+By the twenty-seventh of June it was plain that all who remained in that
+compound were doomed to fall victims to Boxer hate. Pastor Meng called his
+oldest boy to his side, and said: "Ti-to, I have asked my friend, Mr. Tien
+to take you with him and try to find some place of refuge from the Boxers.
+I cannot forsake my missionary friends and the Christians, who have no one
+else to depend upon, but I want you to try to escape."
+
+"Father," said the boy, "I want to stay here with you. I am not afraid to
+die."
+
+"No," the father replied. "If we are all killed, who will preach Jesus to
+these poor people?"
+
+So, before the next day dawned, Ti-to said good-by, and started with Mr.
+Tien on his wanderings. That same afternoon Pastor Meng was in the chapel
+when a company of Boxers suddenly burst into the room and seized him. A
+Christian Chinese who was with him escaped over the back wall, and took the
+sad tidings to his friends. The Boxers dragged Pastor Meng to a temple, and
+there, having learned that his eldest son had fled, tortured him to make
+him tell Ti-to's hiding-place. But the secret was not revealed. In the
+early morning scores of Boxer knives slowly stabbed him to death. But the
+face of the Master smiled upon this brave soul, "faithful unto death."
+
+Three days later, four of his children, his only sister and her two
+children, and the three missionary friends for whom he had laid down his
+life, were killed.
+
+But what of the little one who had left home four days before? Determined
+that not one member of the family should be left, the Boxers searched for
+him in all directions. But Mr. Tien had taken Ti-to to the home of a
+relative only a few miles from Pao-ting-fu, and they escaped detection.
+This relative feared to harbor them more than two or three days, so they
+turned their faces northward, where a low range of sierra-like mountains
+was outlined against the blue sky. Seventeen miles from Pao-ting-fu, and
+not far from the home of an uncle of Mr. Tien's, they found a little cave
+in the mountainside, not high enough to allow them to stand upright. Here
+they crouched for twenty days. The uncle took them a little food, but to
+get water they were obliged to go three miles to a mountain village,
+stealing up to a well under cover of darkness. In that dark cave, hunger
+and thirst were their constant companions, and the howling of wolves at
+night made their mountain solitude fearsome.
+
+Ti-to had lived for five days in this retreat when word was brought to him
+that father, brothers, sisters, aunt, cousins, and all the missionaries
+belonging to the three missions in Pao-ting-fu, had been cruelly massacred,
+and that churches, schools, homes, were all masses of charred ruins.
+
+After twenty days of cave life, Mr. Tien's uncle sent them warning that
+Boxers were on their track, and that they must leave their mountain refuge
+immediately. Then began long, weary wanderings toward the southwest, over
+mountain roads, their plan being to go to Shansi. One day in their
+wanderings they had just passed the village of Chang-ma, about sixteen
+miles south of Pao-ting-fu, when a band of Boxers, some armed with rifles,
+some brandishing great swords, rushed after them, shouting, "Kill! kill!
+kill the secondary foreign devils!"
+
+Escape was impossible. Before this howling horde had overtaken them, a man
+who was standing near them asked Ti-to, "Are you a Christian?"
+
+"Yes," the boy replied. "My father and mother were Christians, and from a
+little child I have believed in Jesus."
+
+"Do not be afraid," the stranger said; "I will protect you."
+
+Then the Boxers closed about them. Mr. Tien was securely bound, hand and
+foot. Ti-to was led by his queue, and soon they were back by the Boxer
+altar in the village. When the knives were first waved in his face, and the
+bloodthirsty shouts first rang in his ears, a thrill of fear chilled
+Ti-to's heart; but it passed as quickly as it came, and as he was dragged
+toward the altar, it seemed as if some soft, low voice kept singing in his
+ear the hymn, "I'm not ashamed to own my Lord." All fear vanished.
+
+When they began to bind Mr. Tien to the altar, he spoke no word for
+himself, but pleaded most earnestly for the little charge committed to his
+care, telling how all his relatives had been murdered, and begging them to
+spare his life. Perhaps it was those earnest, unselfish words, perhaps it
+was the boy's gracious mien and winsome face, that moved the crowd; for one
+of the village Boxers stepped forward, saying: "I adopt this boy as my son.
+Let no one touch him. I stand security for his good behavior."
+
+Ti-to's deliverer was one of the three bachelor brothers, the terror of the
+region. But it was evident that Mr. Chang's heart was completely won by the
+boy. For three months he kept him in his home, tenderly providing for every
+want. Let Ti-to tell the story of those days in his own words:--
+
+"Of course I could not pray openly. But sometimes when my adopted father
+was away with the Boxers on their raids, I would shut the door tight and
+kneel in prayer. Then every evening when the sun went down, I would turn my
+face to the west, and in my heart repeat the hymn:--
+
+"'Abide with me: fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens: Lord, with
+me abide.'
+
+"Mr. Chang was in Pao-ting-fu when my father was killed, and told me how
+they stabbed and tortured him. I supposed that my uncle and his wife, who
+had gone to Tung-chow, had been killed, too, and all the missionaries in
+China. But I knew that the people in America would send out some more
+missionaries, and I thought how happy I would be sometime in the future
+when I could go into a chapel again and hear them preach."
+
+But Ti-to had not long to wait for this day of joy In October expeditions
+of British, German, French, and Italian soldiers from Peking and Tientsin
+arrived at Pao-ting-fu, and the Boxer hordes scattered at their coming.
+Soon to the brave boy in the Boxer's home came the glad tidings that his
+uncle was still living, and had sent for him to come to Pao-ting-fu.
+
+Mr. Chang loved the boy so deeply that he could not but rejoice with him,
+sad though he felt at the thought of parting with him. Fearful of some
+treachery or of harm coming to Ti-to, he went with him to Pao-ting-fu, then
+returned to the village home from which the sunshine had departed.
+
+Later Ti-to studied in the Congregational Academy in Peking, and then in
+Japan. He is now an earnest teacher of Christianity, for which he so
+bravely faced death.--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+What the Flowers Say to Me
+
+
+  Our Father made us beautiful,
+  And breathed on us his love,
+  And gave us of the spirit that
+  Prevails in heaven above.
+
+  We stand here meekly blooming for
+  The stranger passing by;
+  And if unnoticed we are left,
+  We never stop to sigh,
+
+  But shed our fragrance all abroad,
+  And smile in shine or rain
+  And thus we do the will of God
+  Till he restores again
+
+  A realm of peace on earth, to last
+  The countless ages through;
+  Where flowers bloom and never fade;
+  And there is room for you.
+
+IDA REESE KURZ.
+
+
+
+
+HOW NYANGANDI SWAM TO CHURCH
+
+
+Nyangandi lived in west Africa, near the Ogowe River. She was going away
+from the missionary's house one afternoon, where she had been to sell
+bunches of plantains to the missionary, when his wife said:--
+
+"Now, you must not forget that you have promised to come tomorrow to
+church."
+
+"Yes," the girl replied, "I will surely come if I am alive."
+
+The next morning she found that somebody had stolen her canoe, and no one
+would lend her one to go to church in. But she had promised to go, and she
+felt that she must. She swam all the way! The current was swift, the water
+deep, and the river fully a third of a mile wide, but by swimming
+diagonally she succeeded in crossing the river.
+
+Remember this little heathen girl in west Africa when you feel tempted to
+stay away from the house of God for some trivial reason.--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+To Those Who Fail
+
+
+  "All honor to him who shall win the prize!"
+  The world has cried for a thousand years;
+  But to him who tries, and who fails and dies,
+  I give honor and glory and tears.
+
+  O, great is the hero who wins a name!
+  But greater many and many a time
+  Some pale-faced fellow who dies in shame,
+  And lets God finish the thought sublime.
+
+  And great is the man with the sword undrawn,
+  And good is the man who refrains from wine,
+  But the man who fails and who still fights on,
+  Lo! he is the twin brother of mine.
+
+--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE PRINTER MISSIONARY
+
+
+A ragged printer's boy, who lived in Constantinople, was in the habit of
+carrying the proof-sheets to the English editor during the noon lunch-time.
+The editor was a busy man, and exchanged no words, except such as were
+necessary, with him. The boy was faithful, doing all that he was bidden,
+promptly and to the best of his ability, but he was ragged, and so dirty as
+to be positively repulsive. This annoyed the editor; but, as he was no
+worse in this respect than most of the boys of his class, the busy man did
+not urge him to improve his personal appearance, much as he would have
+enjoyed the change. But one morning the boy came in with clean face, hands,
+and garments. Not a trace of the old filth was to be seen about his person;
+and so great was the change that his master did not recognize him.
+
+"Why, you are a new boy entirely!" he said when convinced of the lad's
+identity.
+
+"I am going away, back to my own home." said the boy, quickly, "and I came
+to ask a favor of you. Will you pray for me after I am gone?"
+
+"Pray for you!" exclaimed the editor.
+
+"Yes," returned the boy. "You think I am a heathen, but I am not. I have
+been attending chapel and Sunday-school in the Bible house. I have learned
+to read and to write, and, best of all, I have learned to love Jesus, and
+am trying to be his boy. But I cannot stay here while my father, mother,
+brothers, and sisters do not know about him. So I go back to my own village
+to tell friends and neighbors about him. I don't know much yet, and I want
+you to pray that I may be helped when I try to tell my people what he is to
+me."
+
+"And it is because you are going away that you have washed and fixed
+yourself up so well?" asked the editor, thinking what a fine boy clothes
+and cleanliness had made of him.
+
+"It is because I am Christ's boy now," was the answer. "I want to be clean
+and to have my clothes whole in honor of the Master I am trying to serve."
+
+"I hope your friends will receive as much from Christ's love as you have,"
+said the man.
+
+"And you will pray for them and for me?" urged the boy.
+
+The man promised; and, full of hope, the lad started on his long walk
+homeward, to tell the story of the cross to the dear ones there, in his own
+wretched home first, and afterward to the neighbors among whom he had spent
+his childhood days.--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+Consecration
+
+
+  Ready to go, ready to wait,
+  Ready a gap to fill;
+  Ready for service, small or great,
+  Ready to do His will.
+
+--_Phillips Brooks_
+
+
+
+
+THE MISSIONARY'S DEFENSE
+
+
+The following occurrence was related by Missionary von Asselt, a Rhenish
+missionary in Sumatra from 1856-76, when on a visit to Lubeck:--
+
+"When I first went to Sumatra, in the year 1856 I was the first European
+missionary to go among the wild Battas, although twenty years prior, two
+American missionaries had come to them with the gospel; but they had been
+killed and eaten. Since then no effort had been made to bring the gospel to
+these people, and naturally they had remained the same cruel savages.
+
+"What it means for one to stand alone among a savage people, unable to make
+himself understood, not understanding a single sound of their language, but
+whose suspicious, hostile looks and gestures speak only a
+too-well-understood language,--yes, it is hard for one to realize that. The
+first two years that I spent among the Battas, at first all alone and
+afterward with my wife, were so hard that it makes me shudder even now when
+I think of them. Often it seemed as if we were not only encompassed by
+hostile men, but also by hostile powers of darkness; for often an
+inexplicable, unutterable fear would come over us, so that we had to get up
+at night, and go on our knees to pray or read the Word of God, in order to
+find relief.
+
+"After we had lived in this place for two years, we moved several hours'
+journey inland, among a tribe somewhat civilized, who received us more
+kindly. There we built a small house with three rooms,--a living-room, a
+bedroom, and a small reception-room,--and life for us became a little more
+easy and cheerful.
+
+"When we had been in this new place for some months, a man came to me from
+the district where we had been, and whom I had known there. I was sitting
+on the bench in front of our house, and he sat down beside me, and for a
+while talked of this, that, and the other. Finally he began, 'Now _tuan_
+[teacher], I have yet one request.'
+
+"'And what is that?'
+
+"'I should like to have a look at your watchmen close at hand.'
+
+"'What watchmen do you mean? I do not have any.'
+
+"'I mean the watchmen whom you station around your house at night, to
+protect you.'
+
+"'But I have no watchmen,' I said again; 'I have only a little herdsboy and
+a little cook, and they would make poor watchmen.'
+
+"Then the man looked at me incredulously, as if he wished to say, 'O, do
+not try to make me believe otherwise, for I know better!'
+
+"Then he asked, 'May I look through your house, to see if they are hid
+there?'
+
+"'Yes, certainly,' I said, laughing; 'look through it; you will not find
+anybody.' So he went in and searched in every corner, even through the
+beds, but came to me very much disappointed.
+
+"Then I began a little probing myself, and requested him to tell me the
+circumstances about those watchmen of whom he spoke. And this is what he
+related to me: 'When you first came to us, _tuan_, we were very angry at
+you. We did not want you to live among us; we did not trust you, and
+believed you had some design against us. Therefore we came together, and
+resolved to kill you and your wife. Accordingly, we went to your house
+night after night; but when we came near, there stood always, close around
+the house, a double row of watchmen with glittering weapons, and we did not
+venture to attack them to get into your house. But we were not willing to
+abandon our plan, so we went to a professional assassin [there still was
+among the savage Battas at that time a special gild of assassins, who
+killed for hire any one whom it was desired to get out of the way], and
+asked him if he would undertake to kill you and your wife. He laughed at us
+because of our cowardice, and said: "I fear no God, and no devil. I will
+get through those watchmen easily." So we came all together in the evening,
+and the assassin, swinging his weapon about his head, went courageously on
+before us. As we neared your house, we remained behind, and let him go on
+alone. But in a short time he came running back hastily, and said. "No, I
+dare not risk it to go through alone; two rows of big, strong men stand
+there, very close together, shoulder to shoulder, and their weapons shine
+like fire."
+
+"Then we gave it up to kill you. But now, tell me, _tuan_, who
+are these watchmen? Have you never seen them?"
+
+"'No, I have never seen them.'
+
+"'And your wife did not see them also?'
+
+"'No, my wife did not see them.'
+
+"'But yet we have all seen them; how is that?'
+
+"Then I went in, and brought a Bible from our house, and holding it open
+before him, said: 'See here; this book is the Word of our great God, in
+which he promises to guard and defend us, and we firmly believe that Word;
+therefore we need not to see the watchmen; but you do not believe,
+therefore the great God has to show you the watchmen, in order that you may
+learn to believe.'"--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+
+LIGHT AT LAST
+
+
+Dr. Kirkpatrick, with the Baptist Mission in the Shan States of Burma,
+tells in the _Missionary Review_ of an aged woman whom he met on a tour in
+a mountain district, where no missionary had ever before set foot:--
+
+"This old woman listened attentively, and apparently believed. She had
+never seen a white man, although, according to her birth certificate, she
+was one hundred and twenty-three years old. As she sat huddled together by
+the fire, she said: 'Teacher, is it true that the Lord can and will save
+me, a woman? Do not deceive me; I am very old, and must soon fall into
+hell, unless this new religion is true. I have made many offerings, and
+made many long pilgrimages to the most sacred shrines, and still find no
+relief from the burden of sin. Please teach me to pray to this Jesus that
+can save.'
+
+"I explained the plan of salvation, and God's love for her, and taught her
+a simple prayer of a few words. She seemed very grateful. As I was about to
+leave her, she said:--
+
+"'Teacher, you come from the great American country, do you not?'
+
+"'Yes,' I answered.
+
+"'Is your country greater than the Shan country?'
+
+"I assured her that it was.
+
+"'Are the people there all Christians?'
+
+"I had to confess that they were not, but that there were many Christians.
+
+"'Were your parents Christians?'
+
+"'Yes, and my grandparents, and ancestors for several generations.'
+
+"'My parents,' she said, 'died when I was young My brothers and sisters all
+are dead. I have been married three times, and my husbands are all dead. I
+had nine children, and they are all dead. I had many grandchildren, and
+they are all dead except this one with whom I am living. I have seen three
+generations fall into hell. Now I believe in Jesus, and hope to go to the
+heavenly country when I die. If there are so many Christians in your
+country, and you have known about this Lord that can save for so long, why
+did you not come and tell us before, so that many of my people could have
+been saved?' With the tears running down her cheeks, she said: 'I am so
+glad to hear this good news before it it too late; but all of my loved ones
+have fallen into hell. Why did you not come before?'
+
+"That question still haunts me. I wish every Christian in America could
+hear it as I did.
+
+"A few weeks later I saw some of the men from this village, in the bazaar
+at Namkhamm, and asked them about the 'old grandmother of the village.'
+They told me that she died the day before, and that they had come to buy
+things for the funeral. After much questioning, they said they were ashamed
+to tell me that she was crazy. As she grew weaker, she told everybody that
+she was going to die in a few days, and she was very happy about it. She
+was going to the heavenly country, and other such foolish things. When she
+was too weak to speak aloud, she kept whispering, '_Yasu hock sung; Yasu
+hock sung_' (Jesus loves me; Jesus loves me), with her last breath. The
+first and only time this woman ever heard the gospel, she accepted it. It
+is an exceptional case, but there are others like it."
+
+
+
+
+THE BROWN TOWEL
+
+
+"One who has nothing can give nothing," said Mrs. Sayers, the sexton's
+wife, as the ladies of the sewing society were busily engaged in packing
+the contents of a large box, destined for a Western missionary.
+
+"A person who has nothing to give must be poor, indeed," said Mrs. Bell, as
+she deposited a pair of warm blankets in the already well-filled box.
+
+Mrs. Sayers looked at the last-named speaker with a glance which seemed to
+say, "You who have never known self-denial cannot feel for me," and
+remarked, "You surely think one can be too poor to give?"
+
+"I once thought so, but have learned from experience that no better
+investment can be made, even from the depths of poverty, than lending to
+the Lord."
+
+Seeing the ladies listening attentively to the conversation, Mrs. Bell
+continued: "Perhaps, as our work is finished, I can do no better than to
+give you my experience on the subject. It may be the means of showing you
+that God will reward the cheerful giver.
+
+"During the first twenty-eight years of my life, I was surrounded with
+wealth; and not until I had been married nine years did I know a want which
+money could satisfy, or feel the necessity of exertion. Reverses came with
+fearful suddenness, and before I had recovered from the blow, I found
+myself the wife of a poor man, with five little children dependent upon our
+exertions.
+
+"From that hour I lost all thought of anything but care of my family. Late
+hours and hard work were my portion, and to my unskilled hands it seemed
+first a bitter lot. My husband strove anxiously to gain a subsistence, and
+barely succeeded. We changed our place of residence several times, hoping
+to do better, but without improvement.
+
+"Everything seemed against us. Our well-stocked wardrobe had become so
+exhausted that I felt justified in absenting myself from the house of God,
+with my children, for want of suitable apparel. While in this low
+condition, I went to church one evening, when my poverty-stricken
+appearance would escape notice, and took my seat near the door. An agent
+from the West preached, and begged contributions to the home missionary
+cause. His appeal brought tears to my eyes, and painfully reminded me of my
+past days of prosperity, when I could give of my abundance to all who
+called upon me. It never entered my mind that the appeal for assistance in
+any way concerned me, with my poor children banished from the house of God
+by poverty, while I could only venture out under the friendly protection of
+darkness.
+
+"I left the church more submissive to my lot, with a prayer in my heart
+that those whose consciences had been addressed might respond. I tried in
+vain to sleep that night. The words of the text, 'Give, and it shall be
+given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and
+running over, shall men give into your bosom,' seemed continually sounding
+in my ears. The eloquent entreaty of the speaker to all, however poor, to
+give a mite to the Lord, and receive the promised blessing, seemed
+addressed to me. I rose early the next morning, and looked over all my
+worldly goods in search of something worth bestowing, but in vain; the
+promised blessing seemed beyond my reach.
+
+"Hearing that the ladies of the church had filled a box for the
+missionary's family, I made one more effort to spare something. All was
+poor and thread-bare. What should I do? At last I thought of my towels. I
+had six, of coarse brown linen, but little worn. They seemed a scanty
+supply for a family of seven; and yet I took one from the number, and,
+putting it into my pocket, hastened to the house where the box was kept,
+and quietly slipped it in. I returned home with a light heart, feeling that
+my Saviour's eye had seen my sacrifice, and would bless my effort.
+
+"From that day success attended all my husband's efforts in business. In a
+few months our means increased so that we were able to attend church and
+send our children to Sabbath-school, and before ten years had passed, our
+former prosperity had returned fourfold. 'Good measure, pressed down, and
+shaken together, and running over,' had been given us.
+
+"It may seem superstitious to you, my dear friends, but we date all our
+success in life to God's blessing, following that humble gift out of deep
+poverty. He may not always think best to reward so signally those who give
+to him, but he is never unmindful of the humblest gift or giver. Wonder not
+that from that day I deem few too poor to give, and that I am a firm
+believer in God's promise that he will repay with interest, even in this
+life, all we lend to him."
+
+Glances of deep interest, unmixed with envy, were cast from the windows at
+Mrs. Bell, as, after bidding the ladies adieu, she stepped into her
+carriage. Her consistent benevolence had proved to all that in her
+prosperity she retained the same Christian spirit which, in her days of
+poverty, had led to the bestowal of the brown towel.
+
+"Well," exclaimed Mrs. Sayers, "if we all had such a self-denying spirit,
+we might fill another box at once. I will never again think that I am too
+poor to give."--_Our Young Folks_.
+
+
+
+
+ONLY A BOY
+
+
+More than half a century ago a faithful minister coming early to the kirk,
+met one of his deacons, whose face wore a very resolute expression.
+
+"I came early to meet you," he said. "I have something on my conscience to
+say to you. Pastor, there must be something radically wrong in your
+preaching and work; there has been only one person added to the church in a
+whole year, and he is only a boy."
+
+The old minister listened. His eyes moistened, and his thin hand trembled
+on his broad-headed cane.
+
+"I feel it all," he said; "I feel it, but God knows that I have tried to do
+my duty, and I can trust him for the results."
+
+"Yes, yes," said the deacon, "but 'by their fruits ye shall know them,' and
+one new member, and he, too, only a boy, seems to me rather a slight
+evidence of true faith and zeal. I don't want to be hard, but I have this
+matter on my conscience, and I have done but my duty in speaking plainly."
+
+"True," said the old man; "but 'charity suffereth long and is kind; beareth
+all things, hopeth all things.' Ay, there you have it; 'hopeth all things'!
+I have great hopes of that one boy, Robert. Some seed that we sow bears
+fruit late, but that fruit is generally the most precious of all."
+
+The old minister went to the pulpit that day with a grieved and heavy
+heart. He closed his discourse with dim and tearful eyes. He wished that
+his work was done forever, and that he was at rest among the graves under
+the blossoming trees in the old kirkyard. He lingered in the dear old kirk
+after the rest were gone. He wished to be alone. The place was sacred and
+inexpressibly dear to him. It had been his spiritual home from his youth.
+Before this altar he had prayed over the dead forms of a bygone generation,
+and had welcomed the children of a new generation; and here, yes, here, he
+had been told at last that his work was no longer owned and blessed!
+
+No one remained--no one?--"Only a boy."
+
+The boy was Robert Moffat. He watched the trembling old man. His soul was
+filled with loving sympathy. He went to him, and laid his hand on his black
+gown.
+
+"Well, Robert?" said the minister.
+
+"Do you think if I were willing to work hard for an education, I could ever
+become a preacher?"
+
+"A preacher?"
+
+"Perhaps a missionary."
+
+There was a long pause. Tears filled the eyes of the old minister. At
+length he said: "This heals the ache in my heart, Robert. I see the divine
+hand now. May God bless you, my boy. Yes, I think you will become a
+preacher."
+
+Some few years ago there returned to London from Africa an aged missionary.
+His name was spoken with reverence. When he went into an assembly, the
+people rose. When he spoke in public, there was a deep silence. Priests
+stood uncovered before him; nobles invited him to their homes.
+
+He had added a province to the church of Christ on earth; had brought under
+the gospel influence the most savage of African chiefs; had given the
+translated Bible to strange tribes; had enriched with valuable knowledge
+the Royal Geographical Society; and had honored the humble place of his
+birth, the Scottish kirk, the United Kingdom, and the universal missionary
+cause.
+
+It is hard to trust when no evidence of fruit appears. But the harvests of
+right intentions are sure. The old minister sleeps beneath the trees in the
+humble place of his labors, but men remember his work because of what he
+was to one boy, and what that one boy was to the world.
+
+  "Do thou thy work: it shall succeed
+    In thine or in another's day;
+  And if denied the victor's meed,
+    Thou shalt not miss the toiler's pay."
+
+
+--_Youth's Companion_.
+
+
+
+When Some One's Late
+
+
+    Some one is late,
+    And so I wait
+  A minute, two, or ten;
+    To me the cost
+    Is good time lost
+  That never comes again.
+
+
+    He does not care
+    How I shall fare,
+  Or what my loss shall be;
+    His tardiness
+    Is selfishness
+  And basely rude to me.
+
+    My boys, be spry,
+    The moments fly;
+  Meet every date you make.
+    Be weather fair
+    Or foul, be there
+  In time your place to take.
+
+    And girls, take heed,
+    And work with speed;
+  Each task on time begin;
+    On time begun,
+    And work well done,
+  The highest praise will win.
+
+MAX HILL.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE PROTECTOR
+
+
+He was such a little fellow, but he was desperately in earnest when he
+marched into the store that snowy morning. Straight up to the first clerk
+he went. "I want to see the 'prietor," he said.
+
+The clerk wanted to smile, but the little face before her was so grave that
+she answered solemnly, "He is sitting at his desk."
+
+The little fellow walked up to the man at the desk. Mr. Martin, the
+proprietor, turned around. "Good morning, little man. Did you want to see
+me?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir. I want a wrap for my mama. I can make fires and pay for it."
+
+"What is your name, my boy?"
+
+"Paul May."
+
+"Is your father living?"
+
+"No, sir; he died when we lived in Louisville."
+
+"How long have you lived here?"
+
+"We haven't been here long. Mama was sick in Louisville, and the doctor
+told her to go away, and she would get well."
+
+"Is she better?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Last Sunday she wanted to go to church, but she didn't have any
+wrap, and she cried. She didn't think I saw her, but I did. She says I'm
+her little p'tector since papa died. I can make fires and pay for a wrap."
+
+"But, little man, the store is steam-heated. I wonder if you could clean
+the snow off the walk."
+
+"Yes, sir," Paul answered, quickly.
+
+"Very well. I'll write your mama a note and explain our bargain."
+
+When the note was written, Mr. Martin arose.
+
+"Come, Paul, I will get the wrap," he said. At the counter he paused. "How
+large is your mother Paul?" he asked.
+
+Paul glanced about him. "'Bout as large as her." he said, pointing toward a
+lady clerk.
+
+"Miss Smith, please see if this fits you," requested Mr. Martin. Paul's
+eyes were shining.
+
+Miss Smith put on the wrap and turned about for Paul to see it. "Do you
+like it?" she asked him.
+
+"Yes, I do," he answered very emphatically.
+
+The wrap was marked twelve dollars, but kind-hearted Mr. Martin said: "You
+may have it for five dollars, Paul. Take it to Pauline and have her take
+the price tag off," he added to Miss Smith. When she brought the bundle
+back to him, he put it in Paul's arms. "Take it to your mama, Paul. When
+the snow stops falling, come and sweep off the walk. I will pay you a
+dollar each time you clean it. We shall soon have enough to pay for the
+wrap."
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Paul, gravely. He took the bundle and trudged out into
+the snow.
+
+When he reached home, his mother looked in surprise at his bundle. "Where
+have you been, dear?"
+
+"I went to town, mama," Paul answered. He put the note into her hand. She
+opened it and read:--
+
+"MRS. MAY: This little man has bought a wrap for you. He says he is your
+protector. For his sake keep the wrap and let him work to pay for it. It
+will be a great pleasure to him. He has the making of a fine man in him.
+WILLIAM MARTIN."
+
+Paul was astonished to see tears in his mothers eyes; he had thought she
+would be so happy, and she was crying. She put her arm about him and kissed
+him. Then she put on the wrap and told how pretty she thought it.
+
+When the snow stopped falling, Paul went down to the store and cleaned the
+snow from the front walk. He did not know that Mr. Martin's hired man swept
+it again, for the little arms were not strong enough to sweep it quite
+clean.
+
+The days passed, and one morning Paul had a very sore throat.
+
+"You mustn't get up today, dear," his mother said. When she brought his
+breakfast, she found him crying. "What is making you cry? Is your throat
+hurting much?"
+
+"No, mama. Don't you see it is snowing, and I can't go and clean the walk?"
+cried Paul.
+
+"Shall I write a note to Mr. Martin and explain why you are not there?"
+
+"Yes, please, mama. Who will take it?"
+
+"I'll ask Bennie to leave it as he goes to school."
+
+The note was written, and Bennie, a neighbor boy, promised to deliver it.
+
+While Paul was eating his dinner, there was a knock at the door. Mrs. May
+answered it, and ushered in Mr. Martin.
+
+"How is the sick boy?" he asked. He crossed the room and sat by Paul. He
+patted the boy's cheek, and then turned to the mother. "Mrs. May," he said,
+"my wife's mother is very old, but will not give up her home and live with
+us. She says she wants a home for her children to visit. She has recently
+lost a good housekeeper, and needs another. Since I met Paul the other day,
+I have been wondering if you would take the housekeeper's place. Mother
+would be glad to have you and Paul with her, and would make things easy for
+you, and pay you liberally."
+
+"I shall be very glad to accept your offer, Mr. Martin. I am sorely in need
+of work. I taught in the public school in Louisville until my health
+failed. Since then I have had a hard struggle to get along," answered Mrs.
+May.
+
+"I will give you mother's address. You can go out and arrange matters. Make
+haste and get well little protector," said Mr. Martin, as he rose to go.
+
+When he had gone, the mother put her arms about her boy. "You are my
+protector," she said. "You brought me a wrap, and now you have helped me to
+get work to do."--_Mrs. P. Binford, in the Visitor_.
+
+
+
+If I Ought To
+
+
+  There's a voice that's ever sounding.
+  With an echo oft rebounding,
+  In my heart a word propounding,
+    Loudly speaking, never still;
+  Till at last, my duty viewing,
+  Heart replies to charge renewing,
+  Let my willing change to doing,--
+    If I ought to, then I will.
+MAX HILL
+
+
+
+
+MOFFAT AND AFRICANER
+
+
+Robert Moffat, the poor Scotch lad, who, by living on beggar's fare,
+managed to get an education in theology and medicine, must evermore stand
+as one of the great pioneers of Central African exploration. When on the
+last day of October, 1816, that memorable year in missions, he set sail for
+the Cape of Good Hope, he was only twenty years of age. But in all the
+qualities that assure both maturity and heroism, he was a full-grown man.
+
+As not infrequently occurs, his greatest obstacles were found, not in the
+hopeless paganism of the degraded tribes of the Dark Continent, but in the
+apathy, if not antipathy, of the representatives of Christian governments.
+The British governor would have penned him up within the bounds of Cape
+Colony, lest he should complicate the relations of the settlers with the
+tribes of the interior. While fighting out this battle, he studied Dutch
+with a pious Hollander, that he might preach to the Boers and their
+servants.
+
+Afterward, when permission was obtained, while traveling to the country of
+the Bechuanas, at the close of his first day's journey he stopped at a
+farmhouse and offered to preach to the people that evening. In the large
+kitchen, where the service was to be held, stood a long table, at the head
+of which sat the Boer, with his wife and six grown children. A large Bible
+lay on the table, and underneath the table half a dozen dogs. The Boer
+pointed to the Bible as the signal for Mr. Moffat to begin. But, after
+vainly waiting for others to come in, he asked how soon the working people
+were to be called.
+
+"Working people?" impatiently cried the farmer.
+
+"You don't mean the Hottentots,--the blacks! You are not waiting for them
+surely, or expecting to preach to them? You might as well preach to those
+dogs under that table!" A second time, and more angrily he spoke, repeating
+the offensive comparison.
+
+Young as Mr. Moffat was, he was disconcerted only for a moment. Lifting his
+heart to God for guidance, the thought came into his mind to take a text
+suggested by the rude remarks of the Boer. So he opened the Bible to the
+fifteenth chapter of Matthew and read the twenty-seventh verse: "Truth,
+Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
+Pausing a moment, he slowly repeated these words, with his eyes steadily
+fixed on the face of the Boer. Again pausing, a third time he quoted these
+appropriate words. Angrily the Boer cried out, "Well, well, bring them in."
+A crowd of blacks then thronged the kitchen, and Moffat preached to them
+all.
+
+Ten years passed, and the missionary was passing that way again. Those
+work-people, who held him in the most grateful remembrance, seeing him, ran
+after him to thank him for telling them the way to Christ in that sermon.
+
+His whole life in Africa was a witness to miracles of transformation. He
+had no scorn nor contempt for the sable sons of Africa. He found the most
+degraded of them open to the impressions of the gospel, and even the worst
+and unimpressionable among them were compelled to confess the power of that
+gospel to renew. One savage, cruel chief, who hated the missionaries, had a
+dog that chewed and swallowed a copy of the book of Psalms for the sake of
+the soft sheepskin in which it was bound. The enraged chief declared his
+dog to be henceforth worthless: "He would no more bite or tear, now that he
+had swallowed a Christian book."
+
+This godly, devoted missionary preached and taught the warlike Bechuanas
+till they put away their clubs and knives, and farming utensils took the
+place of bows and arrows and spears. This strange change in African savages
+came to be talked over among the people. It was so wonderful that the other
+tribes could account for it only as an instance of supernatural magic.
+There was nothing they knew of that would lead men like the Bechuanas to
+bring war to an end, and no longer rob and kill.
+
+Mr. Moffat was especially warned against the notorious Africaner, a chief
+whose name was the terror of the whole country. Some prophesied that he
+would be eaten by this monster; others were sure that he would be killed,
+and his skull turned into a drinking-cup, and his skin into the head of a
+drum. Nevertheless, the heroic young missionary went straight for the kraal
+of the cruel marauder and murderer. He was accompanied by Ebner, the
+missionary, who was not in favor in Africaner's court, and who soon had to
+flee, leaving Mr. Moffat alone with a bloodthirsty monarch and a people as
+treacherous as their chief.
+
+But God had armed his servant with the spirit, not of fear, but of power,
+and of love, and of a sound mind. He was a man of singular grace and tact.
+He quietly but firmly planted his foot in Africaner's realms, and began his
+work. He opened a school, began stated services of worship, and went about
+among the people, living simply, self-denyingly, and prayerfully.
+
+Africaner himself was his first convert. The wild Namoqua warrior was
+turned into a gentle child. The change in this chief was a moral miracle.
+Wolfish rapacity, leonine ferocity, leopardish treachery, gave way before
+the meekness and mildness of the calf or kid. His sole aim and ambition had
+been to rob and to slay, to lead his people on expeditions for plunder and
+violence, but he now seemed absorbed by one passion, zeal for God and his
+missionary. He set his subjects to building a house for Mr. Moffat, made
+him a present of cows, became a regular and devout worshiper, mourned
+heartily over his past life, and habitually studied the Word of God. He
+could not do enough for the man who had led him to Jesus.
+
+When the missionary's life hung in the balance with African fever, he
+nursed him through the crisis of delirium. When he had to visit Cape Town,
+Africaner went with him, knowing that a price had been set for years upon
+his own head as an outlaw and a public enemy. No marvel that when he made
+his appearance in Cape Colony, the people were astonished at the
+transformation! It was even more wonderful than when Saul, the
+arch-persecutor, was suddenly transformed into Paul, the apostle.
+
+Mr. Moffat once said that during his entire residence among this people, he
+remembered no occasion on which he had been grieved with Africaner or found
+reason for complaint; and even his very faults leaned to the side of
+virtue. On his way to Cape Town with Mr. Moffat, a distance of six hundred
+miles, the whole road lay through a country which had been laid waste by
+this robber and his retainers. The Dutch farmers could not believe that
+this converted man was actually Africaner; and one of them, when he saw
+him, lifted his hands and exclaimed: "This is the eighth wonder of the
+world! Great God, what a miracle of thy power and grace!"
+
+He who had long shed blood without cause would now with as little
+hesitation shed his own for Christ's sake. When he found his own death
+approaching, he gathered his people around him, and charged them, as Moses
+and Joshua did Israel: "We are not now what we once were, savages, but men
+professing to be taught according to the gospel. Let us, then, do
+accordingly." Then, with unspeakable tenderness and gentleness, he
+counseled them to live peaceably with all men, to engage in no undertaking
+without the advice of Christian guides, to remain together as one people,
+and to receive and welcome all missionaries as sent from God. Then he gave
+them his parting blessing.
+
+His dying confession would have graced the lips of the apostle of the
+Gentiles: "I feel that I love God, and that he has done much for me, of
+which I am totally unworthy. My former life is stained with blood: but
+Jesus Christ has bought my pardon, and I shall live with him through an
+eternity. Beware of falling back into the same evils into which I have so
+often led you, but seek God, and he will be found of you, and direct you."
+
+Having said this, Africaner fell asleep, himself having furnished one of
+the most unanswerable proofs that the gospel is the power of God unto
+salvation.--_Arthur T. Pierson, in "The Miracles of Missions," second
+series, copyright by Funk and Wagnalls Company, New York._
+
+
+
+
+TWO TRIFLES
+
+
+"Isn't Aunt Sue the dearest person you ever saw!" exclaimed Helen Fairmont
+as she and her visitor sank into a garden seat in the beautiful grounds
+surrounding Mrs. Armour's lovely home. "Nothing ever seems to be too much
+trouble for her, if she can make others happy."
+
+"Yes," answered Mary Sutton, "I just felt like giving her a good hug when
+she told you her plan. It is really just for me that she is going to let
+you give the picnic here."
+
+"Just for that very reason. It will be simply fine. O, she is so sweet! You
+see, two weeks ago, when you wrote that finally you could arrange to visit
+me for the summer, I was so full of the good news that I couldn't get to
+Aunt Sue's quickly enough to tell her about it,--somehow one always wants
+to tell Aunt Sue about things,--and she said she used to go to school with
+your mother, and was very fond of her, and she was all ready to like you,
+too, and that just the very minute you reached here, we were both to come
+over--I mean you and I were."
+
+"O, dear," laughed Mary, "I think you'd better stop and take a good long
+breath, and get the we's and you's straightened."
+
+"I don't care," Helen went chattering on. "You know what I mean, just what
+we've done. We, you and I,--is that right?--were to come to her house and
+choose what kind of entertainment we wanted her to give, so you might meet
+my friends."
+
+"Who thought of the garden picnic?" inquired Mary, her face all animation.
+Then, not waiting for Helen's answer, she said, enthusiastically, "Isn't
+this a beautiful spot in which to have a picnic?"
+
+The girls stopped talking long enough to look about at the pride of Mrs.
+Armour's heart, the lovely grounds round her home. They surrounded a fine
+old house of colonial type, for which they made a pretty setting. A double
+row of dignified and ancient elms flanked a pathway leading from the gate.
+The lawn on each side of the walk made one think of the answer the English
+gardener gave to the inquiry as to the cause of the velvety beauty of
+England's lawns. "Why, sir," said he, "we sows 'em, and we mows 'em, and we
+mows 'em, and we sows 'em." Mrs. Armour's lawn had the appearance of having
+undergone a like experience. At the back and sides of the house was a
+variety of shrubs and bushes whose blossoms in the spring made the place
+indescribably sweet. Mrs. Armour boasted that there were forty kinds of
+bushes, but her husband laughingly said that he had never been able to
+count more than thirty-nine and a half; "for you certainly couldn't call
+that Japanese dwarf a whole one!"
+
+June roses ran riot in season. Later, more cultivated varieties, blooming
+regularly through the summer, took their part in providing fragrance.
+Sweet, old-fashioned garden plants and more valuable products, procured at
+much trouble and expense, helped to make a bower that might have satisfied
+even more fastidious eyes than those which reveled in them now.
+
+Mrs. Armour's great delight was in using her garden, and she had given
+Helen the privilege of inviting all her young friends to picnic there the
+following Thursday evening.
+
+"And, O Mary, you just can't imagine how pretty it is here with the Chinese
+lanterns swung from tree to tree, and the dainty tables scattered round!"
+Helen scarcely contain herself.
+
+Mary laughed merrily. She was equally delighted but naturally she took
+everything in a more quiet manner. Smiling at Helen's exuberance of spirit,
+she asked, "What was it your aunt said about the sandwiches?"
+
+"She wants to help us make them, and she was telling me she'd like me to
+cut them a little more carefully than I did the last time I helped her.
+You'd never think Aunt Sue has a hobby, would you?"
+
+"No, I don't think I should."
+
+"Well, she has. She's the most particular old darling about little things
+that you ever saw. Now those sandwiches I made I will admit were not cut
+very evenly, but, dear me! they tasted good enough. Tom Canton ate six. I
+told her so, but she said they should have looked good, too."
+
+"Well, what's her hobby?"
+
+"I just told you. It's trifles. She says life is made of them, and trifles
+with the rough edges polished off make beautiful lives. And she loves to
+quote such things as, 'Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no
+trifle.' She says trifles decide almost everything for us, and shape our
+characters. She says it is interesting to study how most big things grow
+from little ones.
+
+"Helen, I think she's right." Mary's dark, thoughtful eyes looked into her
+friend's.
+
+"O, I don't! It isn't trifles, trifles, that decide things and make the
+real difference. It is the big things. For instance, it is brother Tom's
+education in the school of technology that placed him in the responsible
+position we are all so proud of him for obtaining."
+
+"Yes, but I heard him say himself that he just happened, by mistake, to
+leave one of his scribbled figures on your uncle's desk, and your uncle,
+picking it up by mistake, too, said that a boy who could do that should
+have a chance at the right training."
+
+"Why, that's a fact, Mary mine," said Helen, in surprise. "I never thought
+of it in that way. Well, I won't agree that it happens so often. For
+example,"--glancing about for an idea, she caught sight of a young man, a
+former schoolmate, passing just in front of the Armour home,--"for example,
+I don't suppose it was a trifle that made Alson Jarvis turn out the kind of
+individual he has become lately. He used to be a fine boy, but I am afraid
+he is getting dissipated. He doesn't go with our crowd much now. I guess he
+is not invited the way he used to be before he began going with those South
+Town boys."
+
+"I wish I could prove to you my side of the argument. Let's try your Aunt
+Sue's idea of studying how the big things come from little ones. Wouldn't
+it be interesting to find the cause of this one case? I would not be one
+bit surprised if it were just some little thing which was the pivot that
+turned him."
+
+"All right," agreed Helen. "I don't believe your theory, but it would be
+fun, as you say, to try it. Will"--Will was her brother--"insists Al's not
+so black as he has been painted lately. We will get Will to find out for us
+if he can."
+
+Then the talk drifted to the more absorbing subject of sandwiches and
+cakes.
+
+At dinner-time the two girls confided to the accommodating Will their
+desire to find what had changed Al.
+
+"Trying to pry into private closets, regardless of the kind of welcome
+their enclosed skeletons may accord you, are you?" said Will, banteringly.
+
+Mary, not accustomed to his teasing, blushed, wondering if she had really
+been guilty of an indelicate presumption, but Helen spoke up quickly in
+their defense:--
+
+"Now, Will you know perfectly well it is not any such thing. As a pledge of
+our good faith--does that sound nice and lawyer-like?" Will was studying
+law, and Helen, too, liked to tease occasionally--"I do affirm that if you
+will do that for us, I will do something nice for him, on your account."
+
+"Then I certainly will. It is what I have been trying to convince you for a
+month that you ought to do."
+
+The girls told him why it was they were so anxious to know more of Alson's
+private affairs.
+
+"I would like to prove that your Aunt Sue and I are right, you know," said
+Mary.
+
+"Well," said Will, turning to his sister's guest, "don't let them prejudice
+you against Al. He is off the track just now, I know. The girls are not
+having much to do with him, but I have seen worse than he is." Will went
+off whistling. The next day he was ready with his report.
+
+"Girls," he began, "Mary wins in the argument about trifles, and as a
+result I am feeling pretty mean about the business. I guess I am the trifle
+in the case."
+
+Both girls laughed as they glanced at his six feet of length, and his
+great, broad shoulders.
+
+"O, it is no laughing matter," he said, good-naturedly. "This is the way it
+happened: Washington's birthday, you know, everything in town was closed,
+and I thought, as Al was living in a boarding-house, I would better ask
+mother if I might bring him home the night before, and have him spend the
+day here with us; we were going to have a kind of celebration anyway, you
+know. So about seven o'clock that evening, just before I started for the
+travel lecture, I ran up to mother's room. It was on the tip of my tongue
+to ask her if she would not include Al in the number of her guests, when I
+noticed that she looked pretty blue. I know she whisked away a tear so I
+should not get sight of it. I pretended I didn't see it but I said, 'Got
+some troubles, little mother?'"
+
+Helen knew in just what a hearty, cheerful way he said it.
+
+"'Not very many, dear,' she said; but I didn't feel like bothering her
+about anything then, and decided it would do just as well to bring Al home
+the following Saturday night and keep him over Sunday."
+
+Will looked dubious.
+
+"But it didn't do," he continued. "Having nothing to keep him busy that
+holiday, Al went off with a crowd he had always before refused to join--a
+pretty gay set, I am afraid. The man who had half promised him the position
+he had been slaving for during the past year happened to see him with those
+people, and the very next day he informed Al very curtly that, after due
+consideration, he found he had no place for him. Alson guessed why, and now
+he feels reckless, and says he might as well have the game as the name,
+might as well be really bad since he has to suffer anyway. He talked in a
+desperate sort of way this morning when he told me about it. Somehow I feel
+responsible for the whole thing, because I hesitated about asking mother."
+
+Will looked thoughtfully across at the girls, whose faces expressed real
+sympathy. Suddenly Helen exclaimed:--
+
+"The night before Washington's birthday, you say?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Mother was nearly crying alone in her room?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"About seven o'clock?"
+
+"Yes. Is this a cross-examination?"
+
+"Then," said Helen, sitting upright and paying no attention to her
+brother's question, "it's all my fault."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Bridget was out that evening, and I had to stay home from the lecture to
+put away the dinner things and I said I did not see why I always had to do
+such disagreeable things. I did not see why all our relations were rich,
+and why we had to be always scrimping and missing everything. Of course I
+repented in a little while and apologized. It made mother feel pretty bad,
+I knew, but I did not think she minded it as much as that, though."
+
+"It was a pretty serious mix-up all around, wasn't it, sister?" Will spoke
+consolingly, but he looked worried.
+
+"Well," came Mary's soothing tones, "you must not take all the blame, for
+probably there were a great many more 'little nothings' that had something
+to do with it. Al must take his share, too."
+
+"Yes, perhaps," said Will; "but we have to take the blame that belongs to
+us."
+
+Helen was aghast at the enormous result of her few minutes' irritability.
+Such outbursts were not common with her. There was a catch in her voice as
+she said, "Poor Al!"
+
+Mary went directly to the heart of the matter. "It is done," she said. "It
+is somebody's fault, of course, but what is to be done first to rectify
+it?"
+
+"I don't know, I am sure," Helen answered, musingly. "I have not had a
+thought of anything but the garden picnic for the last two days, and I
+don't seem to have any idea but picnic in my head."
+
+"O, good!" ejaculated Mary. The joy of the discoverer shone in her eyes.
+"The picnic! That is just the thing. Ask him, of course."
+
+Alson Jarvis had hidden the hurts of his schoolmates' recent slights under
+a nonchalant manner. Each one, while it cut deeply, seemed to aggravate him
+to greater wilfulness. Well bred as he was, took no real pleasure in the
+sports of the company of which he had made a part since the loss of the
+position he so desired, and for which he had worked so faithfully. He felt
+himself disgraced and barred from the old associates; so, from pure
+discouragement, he continued with the new.
+
+Helen Fairmont's note of invitation came as a surprise. It ran:--
+
+"DEAR ALSON: I am inviting, for Aunt Sue, a number of my friends to meet
+Miss Mary Sutton, my guest from Amosville. We are to have a garden picnic
+Thursday evening. I think you will enjoy meeting Miss Sutton, as she has
+the same love for golf you have, and I have already told her of the scores
+you made last summer. Yours sincerely,
+
+"HELEN FAIRMONT."
+
+He read it with pleasure. Then the accumulated unkindnesses of his old
+friends came before him. A spirit of resentment took hold of him. No, they
+had shown how little they cared for him. Why should he go among them again?
+There was plenty of other company he could enter. But why had she asked him
+if she did not want him? O, well, they were all alike anyway! Even if she
+had not already done so, Helen would pass him by sooner or later, like so
+many of the others. But Will Fairmont had stuck to him. Maybe he had got
+his sister to pity him. Al winced at the thought. "I am getting
+contemptible. Will Fairmont would not do that. O, well, I might as well be
+done with them all right now!" His eyes flashed defiantly. Then he caught
+sight of the little note.
+
+"Friendly enough," he said. "Sounds as honest and sincere as her brother."
+Then he added: "I might give her the benefit of the doubt, I suppose. Yes,
+I will go, if for no other reason than that she is Will's sister."
+
+He went. And he enjoyed himself thoroughly thanks partially to Mrs.
+Armour's knowledge of human nature. Where others saw only weakness, she
+found smarting hurts. She felt that he was on dangerous ground, that he was
+ashamed of himself, and that his self-pride and self-respect needed
+propping, and she immediately proceeded to prop them.
+
+Helen's grief over her own unsuspected part in his career resulted in an
+especial effort to make the picnic a pleasure and success for him. With
+that kindly compliance which is more common in those about us than we
+sometimes think, the other young people accepted the idea of Alson's being
+one of them again, and he found himself, before the termination of the
+evening, on almost his old footing with them.
+
+"Wasn't it a success all round?" said Mary that night. "I congratulate you,
+Helen, on your ability to extend real hospitality. It was just lovely."
+
+"They did seem to have a good time, didn't they? Al Jarvis was on my
+conscience all the evening. Do you think he enjoyed himself?"
+
+"Yes, I do, Helen."
+
+"After what I did it was such a little return to make."
+
+Simultaneously the girls laughed.
+
+"Trifles again! They keep bobbing up, don't they? I suppose this is one of
+those of little consequence."
+
+"'Time will tell,'" sententiously quoted Mary.
+
+Time did tell. Years afterward two successful lawyers sat in an office, one
+congratulating the other on his brilliant speech of the day.
+
+"It might never have been, Will," said Alson Jarvis, "if your aunt hadn't
+somehow, without a single definite word on the subject, shown me the broken
+road down which I had about decided to travel through It was at a party she
+had in her grounds one night long ago for your sister and Mary Sutton. Do
+you remember it?"
+
+Did he? Will's heart glowed with pleasure and gratitude as he thought of
+the great result of Mary's little suggestion about inviting Al. How unlike
+this was the outcome of that miserable trifle which had played so important
+a part in the lawyer's experience.--_Elisabeth Golden, in the Wellspring_.
+
+
+
+
+Finish Thy Work
+
+
+  No other hand thy special task can do,
+  Though trivial it may seem to thee.
+  Thou canst not shirk
+  God-given work
+  And still be blest of Heaven, from sin be free.
+  O idler in life's ripened harvest-field,
+  Perform thy task, that rich thy work may yield!
+
+  Ah, sweet the thought that comes at set of sun,
+  If finished is the work of that one day.
+  But O the joy
+  Without alloy,
+  Awaiting him who at life's close can say,
+  "I'm ready, Father, to go home to thee;
+  The work is finished which thou gavest me."
+
+MRS. M A LOPER.
+
+
+
+
+A SECOND TRIAL
+
+A College Scene
+
+
+It was commencement day at college. The people were pouring into the church
+as I entered. Finding the choice seats already taken, I pressed onward,
+looking to the right and the left for a vacancy, and on the very front row
+I found one. Here a little girl moved along to make room for me, looking
+into my face with large gray eyes, whose brightness was softened by very
+long lashes. Her face was open and fresh as a newly blown rose. Again and
+again I found my eyes turning to the rose-like face, and each time the gray
+eyes moved, half-smiling, to meet mine. Evidently the child was ready to
+make friends with me. And when, with a bright smile, she returned my
+dropped handkerchief, we seemed fairly introduced.
+
+"There is going to be a great crowd," she said to me.
+
+"Yes," I replied; "people always like to see how schoolboys are made into
+men."
+
+Her face beamed with pleasure and pride as she said: "My brother is going
+to graduate; he's going to speak. I have brought these flowers to throw at
+him."
+
+They were not greenhouse favorites, but just old-fashioned domestic
+flowers, such as we associate with the dear grandmothers. "But," I thought,
+"they will seem sweet and beautiful to him, for his little sister's sake."
+
+"That is my brother," she went on, pointing with her nosegay.
+
+"The one with the light hair?" I asked.
+
+"O, no;" she said, smiling and shaking her head in innocent reproof; "not
+that homely one with red hair; that handsome one with brown, wavy hair. His
+eyes look brown, too; but they are not, they are dark blue. There! he's got
+his hand up to his head now. You see him, don't you?"
+
+In an eager way she looked from him to me, as if some important fate
+depended on my identifying her brother.
+
+"I see him," I said. "He is a very good-looking brother."
+
+"Yes, he is beautiful," she said, with artless delight, "and he's good, and
+he studies so hard. He has taken care of me ever since mama died. Here is
+his name on the program. He is not the valedictorian, but he has an honor
+for all that."
+
+I saw in the little creature's familiarity with these technical college
+terms that she had closely identified herself with her brother's studies,
+hopes, and successes.
+
+"He thought at first," she continued, "that he would write on 'The Romance
+of Monastic Life.'"
+
+What a strange sound these long words had, whispered from her childish
+lips! Her interest in her brother's work had stamped them on the child's
+memory, and to her they were ordinary things.
+
+"But then," she went on, "he decided that he would write on 'Historical
+Parallels,' and he has a real good oration, and says it beautifully. He has
+said it to me a great many times. I almost know it by heart. O, it begins
+so pretty and so grand! This is the way it begins," she added, encouraged
+by the interest she must have seen in my face: "'Amid the combinations of
+actors and forces that make up the great kaleidoscope of history, we often
+find a turn of Destiny's hand.'"
+
+"Why, bless the baby!" I thought, looking down into her proud face. I
+cannot describe how very odd and elfish it did seem to have those sonorous
+words rolling out of the smiling mouth. The band striking up put an end to
+the quotation and to the confidences. As the exercises progressed and
+approached nearer and nearer the effort on which all her interest was
+concentrated, my little friend became excited and restless. Her eyes grew
+larger and brighter; two deep red spots glowed on her cheek. She touched up
+the flowers, manifestly making the offering ready for the shrine.
+
+"Now it's his turn," she said, turning to me a face in which pride and
+delight and anxiety seemed equally mingled. But when the overture was
+played through, and his name was called, the child seemed, in her
+eagerness, to forget me and all the earth except him. She rose to her feet
+and leaned forward for a better view of her beloved as he mounted to the
+speaker's stand. I knew by her deep breathing that her heart was throbbing
+in her throat. I knew, too, by the way her brother came to the front, that
+he was trembling. The hands hung limp: his face was pallid, and the lips
+blue, as with cold. I felt anxious. The child, too, seemed to discern that
+things were not well with him. Something like fear showed in her face.
+
+He made an automatic bow. Then a bewildered, struggling look came into his
+face, then a helpless look, and he stood staring vacantly, like a
+somnambulist, at the waiting audience. The moments of painful suspense went
+by, and he still stood as if struck down. I saw how it was; he had been
+seized with stage fright.
+
+Alas, little sister! She turned her large, dismayed eves on me. "He's
+forgotten it," she said. Then a swift change came over her face, a strong,
+determined look; and on the funeral-like silence of the room broke the
+sweet child voice:--
+
+"'Amid the combinations of actors and forces that make up the great
+kaleidoscope of history, we often find that a turn of Destiny's hand--'"
+
+Everybody about us turned and looked. The breathless silence, the sweet,
+childish voice, the childish face, the long, unchildlike words, produced a
+weird effect.
+
+But the help had come too late; the unhappy brother was already staggering
+in humiliation from the stage. The band quickly struck up, and waves of
+lively music were rolled out to cover the defeat.
+
+I gave the sister a glance in which I meant to show the intense sympathy
+which I felt, but she did not see. Her eyes, swimming with tears, were on
+her brother's face. I put my arm around her. She was too absorbed to feel
+the caress, and before I could appreciate her purpose she was on her way to
+the shame-stricken young man, sitting with a face like a statue's. When he
+saw her by his side, the set face relaxed, and a quick mist came into his
+eyes. The young men got closer together to make room for her. She sat down
+beside him, laid her flowers upon his knee, and slipped her hand into his.
+I could not keep my eyes from her sweet, pitying face. I saw her whisper to
+him, he bending a little to catch her word. Later, I found out that she was
+asking him if he knew his "piece" now, and that he answered yes.
+
+When the young man next on the list had spoken, and the band was playing,
+the child, to the brother's great surprise, made her way up the platform
+steps, and pressed through the throng of professors, trustees, and
+distinguished visitors, to the president.
+
+"If you please, sir," she said, with a little courtesy, "will you and the
+trustees let my brother try again? He knows his 'piece' now."
+
+For a moment, the president stared at her through his gold-bowed
+spectacles, and then, appreciating the child's petition, he smiled on her,
+and went down and spoke to the young man who had failed.
+
+So it happened that when the band had again ceased playing, it was briefly
+announced that Mr. Duane would now deliver his oration, "Historic
+Parallels."
+
+"'Amid the combinations of actors and forces that----'" This the little
+sister whispered to him as he arose to answer the summons.
+
+A ripple of heightened and expectant interest passed over the audience, and
+then all sat stone-still as if fearing to breathe lest the speaker might
+again take fright. No danger. The hero in the youth was aroused. He went at
+his "piece" with a set purpose to conquer, to redeem himself, and to bring
+back the smile into the child's tear-stained face. I watched the face
+during the speaking. The wide eyes, the parted lips, the whole rapt being,
+said the breathless audience was forgotten, that her spirit was moving with
+his.
+
+And when the address was ended, with the ardent abandon of one who catches
+enthusiasm, in the realization that he is fighting down a wrong judgment
+and conquering a sympathy, the effect was really thrilling. That dignified
+audience broke into rapturous applause; bouquets intended for the
+valedictorian rained like a tempest. And the child who had helped save the
+day, that one beaming little face, in its pride and gladness, is something
+to be forever remembered.--_Our Dumb Animals_.
+
+
+
+
+THE SIN OF EXTRAVAGANCE
+
+
+"It may be a folly, but you would not think of calling extravagance a sin?"
+asked a young man of his minister.
+
+"I do not care to offend you by harsh terms, but if we agree that it is a
+folly, that is reason enough for wishing to be wiser."
+
+"But it is very easy to spend money when one is with others, and one does
+not like to be called 'tight.'"
+
+"John," said the minister, "I do not propose to argue with you, but I want
+to tell you two stories, both of them true, recent, and out of my own
+experience. They will illustrate the reason why, knowing you as well as I
+do, having baptized you and received you into the church, I cannot view
+without concern your growing extravagance, and the company into which it
+leads you, and the interests from which it tends to separate you.
+
+"A few months ago a young man came to this city, and spent his first days
+here under my own roof. I have known his father for many years, an earnest,
+faithful man, who has denied himself for that boy, and prayed for him, and
+done everything that a father ought.
+
+"I chance to remember a word which his father spoke to me a number of years
+ago, when the boy was a young lad, and was recovering from a sickness that
+made it seem possible he would need a change of climate. I happen to
+remember meeting his father, who told me of this, and how he was arranging
+in his own mind to change his business, to make any sacrifice, to move to
+the ends of the earth, if necessary, for that boy's sake.
+
+"The boy is not a bad boy. But he had not been in my home an hour before he
+asked me for the address of a tailor, and when his new suit came,--a suit
+which I thought he might very well have waited to earn,--it was silk-lined
+throughout. I do not believe the suit which his father wears as he passes
+the plate in church every Sunday is silk-lined.
+
+"I knew what the boy was to earn, and could estimate what he could afford,
+and I knew that he could not buy that suit out of his own earnings.
+
+"I had a letter from his father a few days ago. Shall I read it to you? It
+is very short. It reads as follows:--
+
+"'MY DEAR FRIEND: I hope you will never know how hard it is for me to write
+to you to say that you must not under any circumstances lend money to my
+dear boy.'
+
+"And those last three words make it the more pathetic.
+
+"The second story, too, is recent. Another boy, from another State, came to
+this city, and for the first few Sundays attended our church. We tried to
+interest him in good things; we liked him, and did our best for him. I saw
+little in him to disturb me, except that he was spending more money than I
+could think he earned. Recently I received a letter from his father. It is
+longer, and I will not read it, but will tell you the substance of it. He
+wrote saying that his son was employed in a business where, with economy,
+he ought to be able to make a living from the start, and with hope for
+advancement, but that from the first week he had written home for money.
+Not only so, but the father had all too good reason to believe that the boy
+was still leaving bills unpaid. The father wrote to ask me whether he could
+not arrange with some one connected with the church to receive the boy's
+money from home week by week, and see that it was applied to the uses for
+which it was sent. He added that he would be glad to consider himself a
+contributor to the church during the period of this arrangement.
+
+"I had little hope that any arrangement of this kind would help matters,
+but I took it as indicating that the boy needed looking after, and I sent
+at once to look him up. Where do you think we found him?--In jail.
+
+"These are not imaginary stories, nor are they of a remote past. And I see
+other young men for whom I am anxious. Wear the coat a little longer, but
+pay for it out of your own money. Be considered 'tight' if necessary, but
+live within your means. It is good sense; more than that, it is good
+religion.
+
+"And now I will answer your question, or rather, you may answer it: Is
+extravagance merely a folly, or is it also a sin? What do you
+think?"--_Youth's Companion._
+
+
+
+
+A LITTLE CHILD'S WORK
+
+
+Near one of the tiny schoolhouses of the West is a carefully tended mound,
+the object of the tenderest interest on the part of a man known far and
+wide as "Preacher Jim," a rough, unministerial-looking person, who yet has
+reached the hearts and lives of many of the men and women in that region,
+and has led them to know the Master whom he serves in his humble fashion.
+
+Twenty years ago Preacher Jim was a different man. Rough and untaught, his
+only skill was shown by the dexterity with which he manipulated the cards
+that secured to him his livelihood. Then, as now, he was widely known, but
+in those days his title was "Gambler Jim."
+
+It was during a long, tiresome trip across the Rockies that a clergyman and
+his wife, having undressed their little boy and tucked him snugly into his
+berth, repaired to the observation-car in order to watch the November
+heavens.
+
+An hour passed swiftly; then suddenly a rough-looking fellow made his way
+toward the group of which the clergyman was one.
+
+"Anybody here got a kid what's dressed in a red nightgown and sings like a
+bird?" he demanded, awkwardly.
+
+The father and mother sprang excitedly to their feet, gasping in fear. The
+man nodded reassuringly.
+
+"The' ain't nothing the matter of him," he said, with yet deeper
+embarrassment. "The matter's with--_us_. You're a parson, ain't you? The
+kid, he's been singin' to us--an' talkin'. If you don't mind, we'd take it
+mighty good of you to come with me. Not you, ma'am. The kid's all safe, an'
+the parson'll bring him back in a little while."
+
+With a word to his wife, the minister followed his guide toward the front
+of the train, and on through car after car until thirteen of them had been
+traversed. As the two men opened the door of the smoking compartment, they
+stopped to look and listen.
+
+Up on one of the tables stood the tiny boy, his face flushed, his voice
+shrill and sweet.
+
+"_Is_ you ready?" he cried, insistently. "My papa says the Bridegroom is
+Jesus, an' he wants everybody to be ready when he comes, just 'cause he
+loves you." Then, with a childish sweetness, came the song which had
+evidently made the deepest impression upon the child's mind: "Are you ready
+for the Bridegroom when he comes?"
+
+"He's sung it over 'n' over," whispered the clergyman's companion, "'nd I
+couldn't stan' no more. He said you'd pray, parson."
+
+As the two approached, the boy lifted his sweet, serious eyes to his
+father's.
+
+"They want to get ready," he said, simply. And, his boy snuggled childishly
+in his arms, the minister prayed, as he never had prayed before, for the
+men gathered about the child.
+
+It was only a few moments before the clergyman bore the child back to the
+sleeping-car, where the mother anxiously awaited his coming. Then he
+returned to talk with the men, four of whom that night decided to "get
+ready," and among them was, of course, the man who sought out the father of
+the child, Gambler Jim.
+
+To this day it remains a mystery how the child succeeded in reaching the
+smoking-car unnoticed and unhindered.
+
+As for the little fellow himself, his work was early done, for a few weeks
+later, upon the return trip through the mountains, he was suddenly stricken
+with a swift and terrible disease, and the parents tenderly laid the little
+form under the sod near the schoolhouse where Preacher Jim now tells so
+often the story, which never grows old.--_Youth's Companion_.
+
+
+
+Christ Is Coming
+
+
+  Little children, Christ is coming,
+    Coming through the flaming sky,
+  To convey his trusting children
+    To their glorious home on high
+
+  Do you love the Lord's appearing?
+    Are you waiting for the day
+  When with all his shining angels
+    He will come in grand array?
+
+  All who keep the ten commandments
+    Will rejoice his face to see;
+  But the wicked, filled with anguish,
+    From his presence then will flee
+
+  Now while yet probation lingers,
+    Now while mercy's voice is heard,
+  Haste to give your heart to Jesus,
+    Seek to understand his Word
+
+  Quickly help to spread the message,
+    You to Christ some soul may turn.
+  Though the multitudes his goodness
+    And his tender love may spurn.
+
+  Little children, Christ is coming,
+    Even God's beloved Son;
+  When in glory he descendeth,
+    Will he say to you, "Well done"?
+
+DORA BRORSEN.
+
+
+
+
+THE HANDY BOX
+
+
+"Grandmother, do you know where I can find a little bit of wire?" asked
+Marjorie, running from the shed, where an amateur circus was in
+preparation.
+
+Grandmother went to a little closet in the room and disappeared a moment,
+coming out presently with the wire.
+
+"O, yes! and Fred wanted me to ask if you had a large safety-pin." Marjorie
+looked a little wistful, as if she did not quite like to bother
+grandmother.
+
+There was another trip made to the closet, and the safety-pin was in
+Marjorie's hand.
+
+"You are a pretty nice grandma," she said, over her shoulder, as she ran
+out.
+
+Not very long after, Marjorie came into the kitchen again. This time she
+stood beside the sink, where grandmother was washing dishes, and twisted
+her little toes in her sandals, but seemed afraid to speak.
+
+"Fred wants to know"--began grandmother, laughing.
+
+"Yes'm," said Marjorie, blushing.
+
+"If I can't find him a piece of strong string?" finished grandmother.
+
+"O, no--it's a little brass tack!" declared Marjorie, soberly.
+
+She was a patient, loving grandmother, and she went to the little closet
+again. Marjorie could hardly believe her eyes when she saw the tacks, for
+there were three!
+
+"He--said--" she began slowly, and stopped.
+
+"You ought to tell him to come and say it himself," and grandmother
+laughed; "but we will forgive him this time. Was it 'Thank you,' he said?"
+
+"He feels 'Thank you' awfully, I'm sure," said Marjorie, politely, "but
+what he said was that if wasn't too much bother--well, he could use a kind
+of hook thing."
+
+Her grandmother produced a long iron hook, and Marjorie looked at her
+wonderingly. "Are you a fairy?" she asked, timidly. "You must have a wand
+and just make things."
+
+Grandmother laughed. "Come here," she said. And she opened the little dark
+closet, and from the shelf took a long wooden box. This she brought to the
+table, and when she opened it, Marjorie gave a little cry of delight. It
+seemed to her that there was a little of everything in it. There were bits
+of string, pins, colored paper, bobbins, balls, pieces of felt, and every
+sort of useful thing generally thrown away.
+
+"When I knew my grandchildren were coming here to spend the summer," she
+said, "I began on this box, and whenever I find anything astray that would
+naturally be thrown out I just put it in."
+
+"Do you want me to help save, too?" asked Marjorie, who thought the story
+should have a moral.
+
+"You must start a handy box of your own when you go back, and keep it in
+the nursery. You don't know how many times a day you will be able to help
+the others out. A little darning yarn, an odd thimble, a bit of soft linen,
+and all the things that clutter and would be thrown away, go to fill up a
+handy box. You can be the good fairy of the nursery."
+
+"It is just wonderful!" said Marjorie. "If I had a little--just a little
+wooden box, I would begin today, and when I go home I can have a larger
+one."
+
+Grandmother smiled, and brought out a smaller wooden box, just the right
+size. From that moment Marjorie was a collector, and her usefulness
+began.--_Mira Jenks Stafford, in Youth's Companion_.
+
+
+
+
+THE RESULT OF DISOBEDIENCE
+
+
+My parents and their six children, including myself, lived in Flintville,
+Wisconsin, near the Suamico River and Pond, where a great number of logs
+had been floated in for lumber. On the opposite side from us were woods,
+where wintergreen berries were plentiful. One pleasant Sunday morning in
+October, 1857, one of our playmates came to ask mother if we, my older
+sister, a younger brother, and I, might go with her to pick some of these
+berries.
+
+Mother said we might go if we would go down the river and cross the bridge.
+She knew that we had crossed the pond several times on the logs, but the
+water was unusually high for that time of the year, and there was danger in
+crossing that way. We promised to cross by the bridge, really intending
+when we left home to do so. Mother let my two younger sisters, one four and
+the other six years old, go with us.
+
+We left the house as happy as could be. My mother smiled as she stood in
+the door and watched us go. She had always trusted us, and we seldom
+disobeyed her. But this time we had our playmate with us, and the had been
+in the habit of having her own way. As she was a little older than we were,
+we thought that what she said or did was all right.
+
+We had gone but a short distance when this girl, whose name was Louise,
+suggested that we run across the logs, and get to the berries so much the
+sooner. We reminded her of what our mother had told us; but she said, "Your
+mother does not know how snug the logs are piled in, and that it would be
+such fun, and no danger, to cross on them."
+
+We began to look at the matter in the same way, and after playing a few
+minutes, we started across. I took one of my little sisters, and Louise was
+going to take the younger one; but, as she was about to start, her brother,
+whom she had not seen for some time, drove up and took her home with him.
+My brother, thinking he could take our little sister across, started with
+her, but I called to him to go back and wait for me to do it; for I was
+then about half-way over. The stream was not wide, and he thought he could
+take her over as well as I.
+
+Just as I started back, O, what a sight met my eyes! I saw my little sister
+slip off the log into the water. I ran to catch her, but was not quick
+enough. As I reached for her, my brother and I both rolled from the log
+into the water with her. Then my sister, who had been standing on the bank
+to see if we got over safely, came to our rescue; but we were so frightened
+that we caught hold of her, and, instead of her pulling us out, we pulled
+her in with us.
+
+By that time our screams had reached our mother's ears, and she came
+running to see what the trouble was. She saw only one of us, as the others
+were under water, or nearly so, and, supposing there was only one in the
+water, she came on the logs to help. By the time she got to us, the logs
+were under motion, so that she could not stand on them; and she, too, fell
+into the water.
+
+The six-year-old sister, whom I had taken across, saw it all and made an
+attempt to come to us. Mother called to her to go back. She turned back,
+and reached the shore all right. Just as mother spoke, she felt something
+come against her feet. She raised her foot with the weight, and caught the
+dress of little Emeline, who was sinking for the last time. Mother managed
+to hold her till help came.
+
+It being Sunday, nearly every man that lived near was away from home.
+Fortunately, a Mr. Flint, who had company visiting him, was at home. The
+men were eating their dinner when a woman who had seen us in the water
+rushed into the dining-room and told them that Mr. Tripp's family were in
+the mill-pond drowning. They rushed from the table, tipping it over and
+breaking some dishes.
+
+When they reached us, the logs and water were so disturbed that nothing
+could be done for us until boards were brought to lay on the logs. During
+this time I had caught hold of a log that was crowded between others, so I
+could pull myself up without rolling, but could get no farther. My sister
+Sarah and brother Willard were helped ashore. Emeline, whom mother had been
+trying hard to hold up, was taken out, but showed no signs of life. She was
+laid on a log while they helped mother out.
+
+As soon as mother saw Emeline, she told the men to turn her on her stomach.
+They then saw that there was life. She was quickly taken to the house, and
+cared for by an old lady we called Aunt Betsey, who had come to help.
+
+While taking mother to shore, the nine men who had come to our rescue fell
+into the water. They all had to walk on the same long board to get to
+shore. The boards having been placed so very quickly, it was not noticed,
+until too late, that one was unsafe. The men were near enough to shore
+where they fell in, so that they could touch bottom, and were not long in
+getting out.
+
+Mother had to be taken home, where she was cared for by the best help we
+could procure. It was impossible to get a doctor where we lived in those
+days. Little Emeline and mother were watched over all night, and at sunrise
+the next morning they were pronounced out of danger.
+
+The men who fell in got off with only an unpleasant wetting. The water was
+quite cold; the pond froze over the following night. They did not start for
+home that day, as they were intending to do, but spent the rest of the day
+drying their clothing.
+
+About noon our father, who had been away for three days, came home. When he
+heard the story of our disaster, he wept, and thanked God for sparing our
+lives.
+
+All this happened because we did not obey our mother; and we children never
+forgot the lesson.
+
+MRS. M. J. LAWRENCE.
+
+
+
+Likes and Dislikes
+
+
+  I had a little talk today--
+    An argument with Dan and Ike:
+  First Dan, he said 'twas not his way
+    To do the things he didn't like.
+
+  And Ike, he said that Dan was wrong;
+    That only cowards dodged and hid.
+  Because it made him brave and strong,
+    The things he didn't like, he did!
+
+  But then I showed to Ike and Dan
+    An easy way between the two:
+  I always try, as best I can,
+    To like the things I have to do.
+
+--_Arthur Guiterman, in Youth's Companion_.
+
+
+
+
+LIVINGSTONE'S BODY-GUARD
+
+
+The work of David Livingstone in Africa was so far that of a
+missionary-explorer and general that the field of his labor is too broad to
+permit us to trace individual harvests. No one man can quickly scatter seed
+over so wide an area. But there is one marvelous story connected with his
+death, the like of which has never been written on the scroll of human
+history. All the ages may safely be challenged to furnish its parallel.
+
+On the night of his death he called for Susi, his faithful servant, and,
+after some tender ministries had been rendered to the dying man,
+Livingstone said: "All right; you may go out now," and Susi reluctantly
+left him alone. At four o'clock the next morning, May 1, Susi and Chuma,
+with four other devoted attendants, anxiously entered that grass hut at
+Ilala. The candle was still burning, but the greater light of life had gone
+out. Their great master, as they called him, was on his knees, his body
+stretched forward, his head buried in his hands upon the pillow. With
+silent awe, they stood apart and watched him, lest they should invade the
+privacy of prayer. But he did not stir; there was not even the motion of
+breathing, but a suspicious rigidity of inaction. Then one of them,
+Matthew, softly came near and gently laid his hands upon Livingstone's
+cheeks. It was enough; the chill of death was there. The great father of
+Africa's dark children was dead, and they were orphans. The most refined
+and cultured Englishmen would have been perplexed as to what course to
+take. They were surrounded by superstitious and unsympathetic savages, to
+whom the unburied remains of the dead man would be an object of dread. His
+native land was six thousand miles away, and even the coast was fifteen
+hundred. A grave responsibility rested upon these simple-minded sons of the
+Dark Continent, to which few of the wisest would have been equal. Those
+remains, with his valuable journals, instruments, and personal effects,
+must be carried to Zanzibar. But the body must first be preserved from
+decay, and they had no skill nor facilities for embalming; and if
+preserved, there were no means of transportation--no roads nor carts. No
+beasts of burden being available, the body must be borne on the shoulders
+of human beings; and, as no strangers could be trusted, they must
+themselves undertake the journey and the sacred charge.
+
+These humble children of the forest were grandly equal to the occasion, and
+they resolved among themselves to carry the body to the seashore, and not
+give it into other hands until they could surrender it to his countrymen.
+Moreover, to insure safety to the remains and security to the bearers, it
+must be done with secrecy. They would gladly have kept secret even their
+master's death, but the fact could not be concealed. God, however, disposed
+Chitambo and his subjects to permit these servants of the great missionary
+to prepare his emaciated body for its last journey, in a hut built for the
+purpose, on the outskirts of the village.
+
+Now watch these black men as they rudely embalm the body of him who had
+been to them a savior. They tenderly open the chest and take out the heart
+and viscera. These they, with a poetic and pathetic sense of fitness,
+reserve for his beloved Africa. The heart that for thirty-three years had
+beat for her welfare must be buried in her bosom. And so one of the Nassik
+boys, Jacob Wainright, read the simple service of burial, and under the
+moula-tree at Ilala that heart was deposited, and that tree, carved with a
+simple inscription, became his monument. Then the body was prepared for its
+long journey; the cavity was filled with salt, brandy poured into the
+mouth, and the corpse laid out in the sun for fourteen days, and so was
+reduced to the condition of a mummy, Afterward it was thrust into a hollow
+cylinder of bark. Over this was sewed a covering of canvas. The whole
+package was securely lashed to a pole, and so at last was ready to be borne
+between two men upon their shoulders.
+
+As yet the enterprise was scarcely begun, and the most difficult part of
+their task was before them. The sea was far away, and the path lay through
+a territory where nearly every fifty miles would bring them to a new tribe,
+to face new difficulties.
+
+Nevertheless, Susi and Chuma took up their precious burden, and, looking to
+Livingstone's God for help, began the most remarkable funeral march on
+record. They followed the track their master had marked with his footsteps
+when he penetrated to Lake Bangweolo, passing to the south of Lake Lumbi,
+which is a continuation of Tanganyika, then crossing to Unyanyembe, where
+it was found out that they were carrying a dead body. Shelter was hard to
+get, or even food; and at Kasekera they could get nothing for which they
+asked, except on condition that they would bury the remains they were
+carrying.
+
+Now indeed their love and generalship were put to a new test. But again
+they were equal to the emergency. They made up another package like the
+precious burden, only it contained branches instead of human bones; and
+this, with mock solemnity, they bore on their shoulders to a safe distance,
+scattered the contents far and wide in the brushwood, and came back without
+the bundle. Meanwhile others of their party had repacked the remains,
+doubling them up into the semblance of a bale of cotton cloth, and so they
+once more managed to procure what they needed and go on with their charge.
+
+The true story of that nine months' march has never been written, and it
+never will be, for the full data cannot be supplied. But here is material
+waiting for some coming English Homer or Milton to crystallize into one of
+the world's noblest epics; and it deserves the master hand of a great poet
+artist to do it justice.
+
+See these black men, whom some scientific philosophers would place at one
+remove from the gorilla, run all manner of risks, by day and night, for
+forty weeks; now going around by circuitous route to resort to strategem to
+get their precious burden through the country; sometimes forced to fight
+their foes in order to carry out their holy mission. Follow them as they
+ford the rivers and travel trackless deserts; facing torrid heat and
+drenching tropical storms; daring perils from wild beasts and relentless
+wild men; exposing themselves to the fatal fever, and burying several of
+their little band on the way. Yet on they went, patient and persevering,
+never fainting nor halting, until love and gratitude had done all that
+could be done, and they laid down at the feet of the British consul, on the
+twelfth of March, 1874, all that was left of Scotland's great hero.
+
+When, a little more than a month later, the coffin of Livingstone was
+landed in England, April 15, it was felt that no less a shrine than
+Britain's greatest burial-place could fitly hold such precious dust. But so
+improbable and incredible did it seem that a few rude Africans could
+actually have done this splendid deed, at such a cost of time and such
+risk, that not until the fractured bones of the arm, which the lion crushed
+at Jabotsa thirty years before, identified the body, was certain that this
+was Livingstone's corpse. And then, on the eighteenth of April, 1874, such
+a funeral cortege entered the great abbey of Britain's illustrious dead as
+few warriors or heroes or princes ever drew to that mausoleum.
+
+The faithful body-servants who had religiously brought home every relic of
+the person or property of the great missionary explorer were accorded
+places of honor. And well they might be. No triumphal procession of earth's
+mightiest conqueror ever equaled for sublimity that lonely journey through
+Africa's forests. An example of tenderness, gratitude, devotion, heroism,
+equal to this, the world had never seen. The exquisite inventiveness of a
+love that lavished tears as water on the feet of Jesus, and made tresses of
+hair a towel, and broke the alabaster flask for his anointing; the feminine
+tenderness that lifted his mangled body from the cross and wrapped it in
+new linen, with costly spices, and laid it in a virgin tomb, have at length
+been surpassed by the ingenious devotion of the cursed sons of Canaan.
+
+The grandeur and pathos of that burial scene, amid the stately columns and
+arches of England's famous Abbey, pale in luster when contrasted with that
+simpler scene near Ilala, when, in God's greater cathedral of nature, whose
+columns and arches are the trees, whose surpliced choir are the singing
+birds, whose organ is the moaning wind, the grassy carpet was lifted, and
+dark hands laid Livingstone's heart to rest, In that great cortege that
+moved up the nave no truer nobleman was found than that black man, Susi,
+who in illness had nursed the Blantyre hero, had laid his heart in Africa's
+bosom, and whose hand was now upon his pall.
+
+Let those who doubt and deride Christian missions to the degraded children
+of Africa, who tell us that it is not worth while to sacrifice precious
+lives for the sake of these doubly lost millions of the Dark
+Continent,--let such tell us whether it is not worth while, at any cost, to
+seek out and save men with whom such Christian heroism is possible.
+
+  Burn on, thou humble candle, burn within thy hut of grass,
+  Though few may be the pilgrim feet that through Ilala pass;
+  God's hand hath lit thee, long to shine, and shed thy holy light
+  Till the new day-dawn pour its beams o'er Afric's long midnight.
+
+--_Arthur T. Pierson, in "The Miracles of Missions," second series.
+
+
+
+
+SPARE MOMENTS
+
+
+A lean, awkward boy came to the door of the principal of a celebrated
+school one morning, and asked to see him. The servant eyed his mean
+clothes, and thinking he looked more like a beggar than anything else, told
+him to go around to the kitchen. The boy did as he was bidden, and soon
+appeared at the back door.
+
+"I should like to see Mr. Slade," said he.
+
+"You want a breakfast, more like," said the servant girl, "and I can give
+you that without troubling him."
+
+"Thank you," said the boy; "I should like to see Mr. Slade, if he can see
+me."
+
+"Some old clothes maybe you want," remarked the servant again, eying the
+boy's patched clothes. "I guess he has none to spare; he gives away a
+sight." And, without minding the boy's request, she went about her work.
+
+"May I see Mr. Slade?" again asked the boy, after finishing his bread and
+butter.
+
+"Well, he is in the library; if he must be disturbed, he must. He does like
+to be alone sometimes," said the girl in a peevish tone.
+
+She seemed to think it very foolish to admit such a fellow into her
+master's presence. However, she wiped her hands, and bade him follow.
+Opening the library door, she said:--
+
+"Here's somebody, sir, who is dreadful anxious to see you, and so I let him
+in."
+
+I do not know how the boy introduced himself, or now he opened the
+business, but I know that, after talking awhile, the principal put aside
+the volume that he was studying, and took up some Greek books, and began to
+examine the boy. The examination lasted for some time. Every question the
+principal asked was answered promptly.
+
+"Upon my word," exclaimed the principal, "you do well!" looking at the boy
+from head to foot over his spectacles. "Why, my boy, where did you pick up
+so much?"
+
+"In my spare moments," answered the boy.
+
+Here was a poor, hard-working boy, with few opportunities for schooling,
+yet almost fitted for college by simply improving his spare moments.
+
+Truly are spare moments the "gold-dust of time"! How precious they should
+be regarded! What account can you give for your spare moments? What can you
+show for them? Look and see. This boy can tell you how very much can be
+laid up by improving them; and there are many, very many other boys, I am
+afraid, in jail and in the house of correction, in the forecastle of a
+whaleship, in the gambling-house, in the tippling-shop, who, if you should
+ask them when they began their sinful course, might answer, "In my spare
+moments." "In my spare moments I gambled for marbles." "In my spare moments
+I began to swear and drink." "It was in my spare moments that I began to
+steal chestnuts from the old woman's stand." "It was in my spare moments
+that I gathered with wicked associates."
+
+Then be very careful how you spend your spare moments. The tempter always
+hunts you out in small seasons like these; when you are not busy, he gets
+into your hearts, if he possibly can, in just such gaps. There he hides
+himself, planning all sorts of mischief Take care of your spare
+moments.--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+
+A GOLD MEDAL
+
+
+[Right and generous deeds are not always rewarded nor always recognized;
+but the doing of them is our duty, even diough they pass unnoticed.
+Sometimes, however, a noble, unselfish, manly act is met by a reward that
+betrays, on the part of the giver, the same praiseworthy spirit as that
+which prompted the act. Do right, be courteous, be noble, though man may
+never express his appreciation. The God of right will, in his own good
+time, give the reward.]
+
+
+I shall never forget a lesson I once received. We saw a boy named Watson
+driving a cow to pasture. In the evening he drove her back again, we did
+not know where. This was continued several weeks.
+
+The boys attending the school were nearly all sons of wealthy parents, and
+some of them were dunces enough to look with disdain on a student who had
+to drive a cow. With admirable good nature Watson bore all their attempts
+to annoy him.
+
+"I suppose, Watson," said Jackson, another boy, one day, "I suppose your
+father intends to make a milkman of you?"
+
+"Why not?" asked Watson.
+
+"O, nothing! Only don't leave much water in the cans after you rinse them,
+that's all."
+
+The boys laughed, and Watson, not in the least mortified, replied:--
+
+"Never fear. If ever I am a milkman, I'll give good measure and good milk."
+
+The day after this conversation, there was a public examination, at which
+ladies and gentlemen from the neighboring towns were present, and prizes
+were awarded by the principal of our school. Both Watson and Jackson
+received a creditable number; for, in respect to scholarship, they were
+about equal. After the ceremony of distribution, the principal remarked
+that there was one prize, consisting of a gold medal, which was rarely
+awarded, not so much on account of its great cost, as because the instances
+were rare which rendered its bestowal proper. It was the prize of heroism.
+The last medal was awarded about three years ago to a boy in the first
+class, who rescued a poor girl from drowning.
+
+The principal then said that, with the permission of the company, he would
+relate a short anecdote:--
+
+"Not long ago some boys were flying a kite in the street, just as a poor
+lad on horseback rode by on his way to the mill. The horse took fright and
+threw the boy, injuring him so badly that he was carried home, and confined
+some weeks to his bed. Of the boys who had unintentionally caused the
+disaster, none followed to learn the fate of the wounded lad. There was one
+boy, however, who witnessed the accident from a distance, who not only went
+to make inquiries, but stayed to render service.
+
+"This boy soon learned that the wounded boy was the grandson of a poor
+widow, whose sole support consisted in selling the milk of a cow, of which
+she was the owner. She was old and lame, and her grandson, on whom she
+depended to drive her cow to the pasture, was now helpless with his
+bruises. 'Never mind,' said the friendly boy, 'I will drive the cow.'
+
+"But his kindness did not stop there. Money was wanted to get articles from
+the apothecary. 'I have money that my mother sent me to buy boots with,'
+said he, 'but I can do without them for a while.' 'O, no,' said the old
+woman, 'I can't consent to that; but here is a pair of heavy boots that I
+bought for Thomas, who can't wear them. If you would only buy these, we
+should get on nicely.' The boy bought the boots, clumsy as they were, and
+has worn them up to this time.
+
+"Well, when it was discovered by the other boys at the school that our
+student was in the habit of driving a cow, he was assailed every day with
+laughter and ridicule. His cowhide boots in particular were made matter of
+mirth. But he kept on cheerfully and bravely, day after day, never shunning
+observation, driving the widow's cow and wearing his thick boots. He never
+explained why he drove the cow; for he was not inclined to make a boast of
+his charitable motives. It was by mere accident that his kindness and
+self-denial were discovered by his teacher.
+
+"And now, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you, Was there not true heroism in
+this boy's conduct? Nay, Master Watson, do not get out of sight behind the
+blackboard. You were not afraid of ridicule; you must not be afraid of
+praise."
+
+As Watson, with blushing cheeks, came forward, a round of applause spoke
+the general approbation, and the medal was presented to him amid the cheers
+of the audience.--_The Children's Own_.
+
+
+
+
+A GIRL'S RAILWAY ACQUAINTANCE
+
+
+Most young people do not adequately realize what consummate address and
+fair seeming can be assumed by a deceiving stranger until experience
+enlightens them, and they suffer for their credulity. The danger,
+especially to young girls traveling alone, is understood by their parents;
+and no daughter is safe who disregards their injunction to permit no
+advances by a new and self-introduced acquaintance, either man or woman.
+
+A lady gave, some years ago, in one of the religious papers, an experience
+of her own when she was a girl, which shows one of the artful ways by which
+designing men win the confidence of the innocent.
+
+Traveling from Boston to New York, she had the company of a girl friend as
+far as Springfield. For the rest of the way she was to ride alone, and, as
+she supposed, unnoticed, save by the watchful conductor, to whose care her
+father had entrusted her.
+
+She was beginning to feel lonely when a gentlemanly looking man of about
+forty-five approached her seat with an apology, and, by way of question,
+spoke her name. Surprised, but on her guard, for she remembered her home
+warnings, she made no reply; but the pleasant stranger went on to say that
+he was a schoolmate of her mother, whom he called by her girl name. This
+had its effect; and when he mentioned the names of other persons whom she
+knew, and begged to hear something of these old friends with whom he once
+went to school, she made no objection to his seating himself by her side.
+
+The man made himself very agreeable; and the young girl of sixteen thought
+how delighted her mother would be to know she had met one of her old
+playmates, who said so many complimentary things about her. He talked very
+tenderly about the loss of his wife, and once went back to his own seat to
+get a picture of his motherless little girl, and a box of bonbons.
+
+The conductor passed just then, and asked the young lady if she ever saw
+that gentleman before. She told him No; but, though the question was put
+very kindly and quietly, it made her quite indignant.
+
+As they approached the end of the journey, the man penciled a brief note to
+her mother on a card, Signed what purported to be his name, and gave it to
+her. Then he asked if he might get her a carriage provided her uncle, whom
+she expected, did not meet her, and she assented at once.
+
+When the train arrived in New York, and the conductor came and took her
+traveling-bag, she was vexed, and protested that the gentleman had promised
+to look after her. The official told her kindly, but firmly, that her
+father had put her in his care, and he should not leave her until he had
+seen her under her uncle's protection or put her in a carriage himself. She
+turned for appeal to her new acquaintance, but he had vanished.
+
+When she reached home after her visit, and told her experience, and
+presented the card, her mother said she had never known nor heard of such a
+man. The stranger had evidently sat within hearing distance of the girl and
+her schoolmate, and listening to their merry chatter all the way from
+Boston to Springfield, had given him the clue to names and localities that
+enabled him to play his sinister game. Only the faithfulness of the wise
+conductor saved her from possibilities too painful to be recorded
+here.--_Youth's Companion_.
+
+
+
+
+HAROLD'S FOOTMAN
+
+
+"Bob," called Harold to his little brother, who was playing on the back
+door-step, "trot out to the barn and bring me my saw, will you?"
+
+Bobby left his two pet cats, Topsy and Tiger, on the steps, and ran
+obediently for the tool. Harold was very busy constructing a hen-coop, and
+he needed a great deal of assistance.
+
+"Thanks," he said, shortly, as the little boy returned. "Now, where did I
+put those nails? O, they're on the kitchen table! Hand them out." Bobby
+produced the nails, and sat down again to watch the work.
+
+"Are you going to finish it today, Hal?" he asked.
+
+"No; haven't time. I am going to the commons in about ten minutes. There is
+a lacrosse match on; but I want to drive these nails first. O, say, Bob, my
+lacrosse stick is up in my room! You go and bring it down, I am so awfully
+busy."
+
+Bobby ran eagerly up the stairs. He always went on errands for his big
+brother very willingly, but this time he made special haste; for a hope was
+entering his heart that perhaps Hal would take him to see the match.
+
+"Mother!" he cried, poking his head out to the shady front veranda where
+his mother and aunt sat sewing, "Hal's going to the commons; may I go too?"
+
+His mother looked up from her sewing rather doubtfully.
+
+"O, I really don't know, dearie!" she began.
+
+"O, let the poor wee man go!" pleaded Aunt Kate. when she saw the look of
+disappointment on Bobby's round face. "Hal will take care of him."
+
+"Well, keep near Hal, Bobby. I don't like your crossing the railroad
+track."
+
+Bobby bounded out to the back yard in high glee, waving the lacrosse stick.
+
+"Mother says I can go, too," he shouted, jumping down the steps in a manner
+that made Tiger and Topsy rise up indignantly and move to one side.
+
+"O pshaw!" cried his brother, hammering a nail rather viciously. "What do
+you always want to follow me round for?"
+
+"O, can't I go?" cried the little fellow, in distress. "Aw, Hal, do let
+me!"
+
+"I can't have a kid like you forever tagging after me. Why can't you play
+with boys of your own age? You can't come today, that's all about it."
+
+"O Hal! you--you might let me! I won't be a bother!" Bobby's eyes were
+beginning to brim over with tears. His face wore a look of despair.
+
+"O, cry-baby; of course you must howl! You can stay at home and play with
+the cats."
+
+And the big brother, whom Bobby had served so willingly all day, shouldered
+his lacrosse stick and went off whistling.
+
+Harold met his Aunt Kate in the hall.
+
+"Where's your little footman?" she asked gaily. "Isn't he going?"
+
+"Who? Bob? O Aunt Kate, he's too small to go everyvhere with me!"
+
+"Ah!" Aunt Kate looked surprised. "I thought he was quite big enough to be
+with you when there was work to be done, but I see, a footman is wanted to
+run errands and do such things."
+
+Harold was not very well acquainted with his aunt, and he was never quite
+sure whether she was in fun or not. The idea of her saying Bob was his
+footman! He felt quite indignant.
+
+He had just reached the street when he remembered that he had left his ball
+where he had been working. He half wished Bobby were with him, so he could
+send him back for it. And then he felt ashamed when he remembered his
+aunt's words. Was she right, after all, and did he make use of his little
+brother, and then thrust him aside when he did not need him?
+
+He did not like the idea of facing Aunt Kate again, so he slipped in
+through the back gate, and walked quietly around the house. As he
+approached the house, he heard a voice, and paused a moment, hidden by a
+lilac bush. Poor, lonely Bobby was sitting on the steps, one hand on
+Tiger's neck, while the other stroked Topsy. He was pouring out to his two
+friends all his troubles.
+
+"He doesn't like me, Tops, not one little bit. He never wants me round,
+only to run and get things for him. You don't be bad to Tops just 'cause
+she's littler than you, do you, Tiger? But I guess you like Topsy, and Hal
+don't like me. He don't like me one little teenty bit." Here a sob choked
+him, and through the green branches Harold could see a big tear-drop upon
+Topsy's velvet coat.
+
+"I wish I had a brother that liked me." went on the pitiful little voice.
+"Tom Benson likes Charlie. He likes him an awful lot. And Charlie doesn't
+do nearly so many things as I do. I guess I oughtn't to tell, Tiger, but
+you and Tops wouldn't tell tales, so 'tisn't the same as tellin' father, or
+mother, or Auntie Kate, is it, Tige? But I think he might like me a little
+wee bit, don't you, Tiger?" And Harold could see the blue blouse sleeve
+raised to brush away the hot tears.
+
+Harold drew back quietly, and tiptoed down the walk to the street. He had
+forgotten all about the ball. His eyes were so misty that he did not notice
+Charlie Benson, waiting for him at the gate, until Tom called:--
+
+"Hello there! I thought you were never coming, What kept you?"
+
+"Say, is Charlie going?" asked Harold, suddenly.
+
+"Of course I am!" cried the little fellow, cutting a caper on the sidewalk.
+"Tom said I could. Didn't you, Tom?"
+
+Tom laughed good-naturedly. "He was bound to come," he said. "He won't
+bother us."
+
+"Well--I--think Bob wants to come, too," said Harold, hesitatingly, "and if
+Charlie is going--"
+
+"O, goody!" cried Charlie, who was Bobby's special chum. "Where is he?"
+
+Harold put his fingers to his lips, and uttered two sharp whistles. Bobby
+understood the signal, and came around the side of the house. He had
+carefully wiped away his tears, but his voice was rather shaky.
+
+"What d'ye want?" he called. He felt sure Hal had an errand for him.
+
+"Charlie's going to the commons with us," shouted his brother, "so I guess
+you can come, if you want to."
+
+Bobby came down the path in leaps and bounds.
+
+"I'm going, mother!" he shouted, waving his cap. And away he and Charlie
+tore down the street ahead of their brothers.
+
+"Hold on, there!" cried Harold, with a laugh. "Don't get crazy! And mind
+you two keep near us at the track!"
+
+It was about a week later that Aunt Kate laid her hand on Harold's
+shoulder, and said: "I am afraid I made a mistake the other day, Hal. I
+believe Bobby's been promoted from the rank of footman to be a
+brother."--_Martha Graham, in the King's Own._
+
+
+
+
+ELNATHAN'S GOLD
+
+
+One morning Christopher Lightenhome, aged sixty-eight, received an
+unexpected legacy of six hundred dollars. His good old face betokened no
+surprise, but it shone with a great joy. "I am never surprised at the
+Lord's mercies," he said, reverently. Then, with a step to which vigor had
+suddenly returned, he sought out Elnathan Owsley, aged twelve.
+
+"Elnathan," he said, "I guess I am the oldest man in the poorhouse, but I
+feel just about your age. Suppose you and I get out of here."
+
+The boy smiled. He was very old for twelve, even as Christopher Lightenhome
+was very young for sixty-eight.
+
+"For a poorhouse this is a good place," continued Christopher, still with
+that jubilant tone in his voice. "It is well conducted, just as the county
+reports say. Still there are other places that suit me better. You come and
+live with me, Elnathan. What do you say to it, boy?"
+
+"Where are you going to live?" asked Elnathan, cautiously.
+
+The old man regarded him approvingly. "You'll never be one to get out of
+the frying-pan into the fire, will you?" he said. "But I know a room. I
+have had my eye on it. It is big enough to have a bed, a table, a
+cook-stove, and three chairs in it, and we could live there like lords.
+Like lords, boy! Just think of it! I can get it for two dollars a month."
+
+"With all these things in it?"
+
+"No, with nothing in it. But I can buy the things, Elnathan, get them cheap
+at the second-hand store. And I can cook to beat--well to beat some women
+anyway--" He paused to think a moment of Adelizy, one of the pauper cooks.
+"Yes," he thought, "Adelizy has her days. She's systematic. Some days
+things are all but pickled in brine, and other days she doesn't put in any
+salt at all. Some days they're overcooked, and other days it seems as if
+Adelizy jerked them off the stove before they were heated through." Then he
+looked eagerly into the unresponsive young face before him. "What's the
+matter with my plan, Elnathan?" he asked, gravely. "Why don't you fall in
+with it? I never knew you to hang off like this before."
+
+"I haven't any money," was the slow answer. "I can't do my share toward it.
+And I'm not going to live off of you. Your money will last you twice as
+long as if you don't have to keep me. Adelizy says six hundred dollars
+isn't much, if you do think it is a fortune, and you'll soon run through
+with it, and be back here again."
+
+For a moment the old man was stung. "I sha'n't spend the most of it for
+salt to put in my victuals anyway," he said. Then his face cleared, and he
+laughed. "So you haven't any money, and you won't let me keep you," he
+continued. "Well, those are pretty honorable objections. I expect to do
+away with them though, immediately." He drew himself up, and said,
+impressively: "'That is gold which is worth gold.' You've got the gold all
+right, Elnathan, or the money, whichever you choose to call it."
+
+Elnathan stared.
+
+"Why, boy, look here!" Mr. Lightenhome exclaimed, as he seized the hard
+young arm, where much enforced toil had developed good muscle. "There's
+your gold, in that right arm of yours. What you want to do is to get it out
+of your arm and into your pocket. I don't need to keep you. You can live
+with me and keep yourself. What do you say now?"
+
+The boy's face was alight. "Let's go today," he said.
+
+"Not today--tomorrow," decided Mr. Lightenhome, gravely. "When I was young,
+before misfortune met me and I was cheated out of all I had, I was used to
+giving spreads. We'll give one tonight to those we used to be fellow
+paupers with no longer ago than yesterday, and tomorrow we will go. We
+began this year in the poorhouse; we will end it in our own home. That is
+one of the bad beginnings that made a good ending, boy. There is more than
+one of them. Mind that."
+
+The morrow came, and the little home was started. Another morrow followed,
+and Elnathan began in earnest to try getting the gold out of his arm and
+into his pocket. He was a dreamy boy, with whom very few had had patience;
+for nobody, not even himself, knew the resistless energy and dogged
+perseverance that lay dormant within him. Mr. Lightenhome, however,
+suspected it. "I believe," he said to himself, "that Elnathan, when he once
+gets awakened, will be a hustler. But the poorhouse isn't exactly the place
+to rouse up the ambition of Napoleon Bonaparte in any boy. Having a chance
+to scold somebody is what Adelizy calls one of the comforts of a home. And
+she certainly took out her comforts on Elnathan. and all the rest helped
+her--sort of deadening to him, though. Living here with me and doing for
+himself is a little more like what's needed in his case."
+
+Slowly Elnathan wakened, and Mr. Lightenhome had patience with him. He
+earned all he could, and he kept himself from being a burden on his only
+friend, but he disliked work, and so he lagged over it. He did all that he
+did well, however, and he was thoroughly trustworthy.
+
+Three years went by. Elnathan was fifteen years old, and Christopher
+Lightenhome was seventy-one.
+
+The little room had always been clean. There had been each day enough
+nourishing food to eat, though the old man, remembering Adelizy's
+prediction, had set his face like flint against even the slightest
+indulgence in table luxuries. And, although there had been days when
+Elnathan had recklessly brought home a ten-cent pie and half a dozen
+doughnuts from the baker's as his share of provision for their common
+dinner, Mr. Lightenhome felt that he had managed well. And yet there were
+only fifty dollars of the original six hundred left, and the poorhouse was
+looming once more on the old man's sight. He sighed. An expression of
+patience grew on the kind old face. He felt it to be a great pity that six
+hundred dollars could not be made to go farther. And there was a
+wistfulness in the glance he cast upon the boy. Elnathan was, as yet, only
+half awake. The little room and the taste of honest independence had done
+their best. Were they to fail?
+
+The old man began to economize. His mittens wore out. He did not buy more.
+He needed new flannels, but he did not buy them. Instead he tried to patch
+the old ones, and Elnathan, coming in suddenly, caught him doing it.
+
+"Why, Uncle Chris!" he exclaimed. "What are you patching those old things
+for? Why don't you pitch 'em out and get new ones?"
+
+The old man kept silent till he had his needle threaded. Then he said,
+softly, with a half-apology in his tone, "The money's 'most gone,
+Elnathan."
+
+The boy started. He knew as well as Mr. Lightenhome that when the last coin
+was spent, the doors of the poorhouse would open once more to receive his
+only friend. A thrill of gladness went through Elnathan as he recognized
+that no such fate awaited him.
+
+He could provide for himself. He need never return. And by that thrill in
+his own bosom he guessed the feeling of his friend. He could not put what
+he guessed into words. Nevertheless, he felt sure that the old man would
+not falter nor complain.
+
+"How much have you?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Lightenhome told him.
+
+Then, without a word, Elnathan got up and went out. His head sunk in
+thought, and his hands in his trousers' pockets, he sauntered on in the
+wintry air while he mentally calculated how long Mr. Lightenhome's funds
+would last. "Not any later than next Christmas he will be in the poorhouse
+again." He walked only a few steps. Then he stopped. "Will he?" he cried.
+"Not if I know it."
+
+This was a big resolve for a boy of fifteen, and the next morning Elnathan
+himself thought so. He thought so even to the extent of considering a
+retreat from the high task which he had the previous day laid before
+himself. Then he looked at Mr. Lightenhome, who had aged perceptibly in the
+last hours. Evidently he had lain awake in the night calculating how long
+his money would last. The sight of him nerved the boy afresh. "I am not
+going back on it," he told himself, vigorously. "I am just going to dig out
+all the gold there is in me. Keeping Uncle Chris out of the poorhouse is
+worth it."
+
+But he did not confide in the old man. "He would say it was too big a job
+for me, and talk about how I ought to get some schooling," concluded the
+boy.
+
+Now it came about that the room, which, while it had not been the
+habitation of lords, had been the abode of kingly kindness, became a silent
+place. The anxious old man had no heart to joke. He had been to the
+poorhouse, and had escaped from it into freedom. His whole nature rebelled
+at the thought of returning. And yet he tried to school himself to look
+forward to it bravely. "If it is the Lord's will," he told himself, "I will
+have to bow to it."
+
+Meanwhile those who employed Elnathan were finding him a very different boy
+from the slow, lagging Elnathan they had known. If he was sent on an
+errand, he made speed. "Here! get the gold out of your legs," he would say
+to himself. If he sprouted potatoes for a grocer in his cellar, "There's
+gold in your fingers, El," he would say. "Get it out as quick as you can."
+
+He now worked more hours in a day than he had ever worked before, so that
+he was too tired to talk much at meals, and too sleepy in the evening. But
+there was a light in his eyes when they rested on Mr. Lightenhome that made
+the old man's heart thrill.
+
+"Elnathan would stand by me if he could," he would say to himself. "He's a
+good boy. I must not worry him."
+
+A month after Elnathan had begun his great labor of love, an astonishing
+thing happened to him. He had a choice of two places offered him as general
+utility boy in a grocery. Once he would have told Mr. Lightenhome, and
+asked his advice as to which offer he should take, but he was now carrying
+his own burdens. He considered carefully, and then he went to Mr. Benson.
+
+"Mr. Benson," he said, "Mr. Dale wants me, too, and both offer the same
+wages. Now which one of you will give me my groceries reduced as you do
+your other clerks?"
+
+"I will not," replied Mr. Benson, firmly. "Your demand is ridiculous. You
+are not a clerk."
+
+The irate Mr. Benson turned on his heel, and Elnathan felt himself
+dismissed. He then went to Mr. Dale, to whom he honestly related the whole.
+Mr. Dale laughed. "But you are not a clerk," he said, kindly.
+
+"I know it, but I mean to be, and I mean to do all I can for you, too."
+
+Mr. Dale looked at him, and he liked the bearing of the lad. "Go ahead," he
+said. "You may have your groceries at the same rate I make clerks."
+
+"Thank you," responded Elnathan, while the gratitude he felt crept into his
+tones. "For myself," he thought, "I would not have asked for a reduction,
+but for Uncle Chris I will. I have a big job on hand."
+
+That day he told Mr. Lightenhome that he had secured a place at Mr. Dale's,
+and that he was to have a reduction on groceries. "Which means, Uncle
+Chris, that I pay for the groceries for us both, while you do the cooking
+and pay the rent."
+
+Silently and swiftly Mr. Lightenhome calculated. He saw that if he were
+saved the buying of the groceries for himself, he could eke out his small
+hoard till after Christmas. The poorhouse receded a little from the
+foreground of his vision as he gazed into the eyes of the boy opposite him
+at the table. He did not know that his own eyes spoke eloquently of his
+deliverance, but Elnathan choked as he went on eating.
+
+"Now hustle, El!" he commanded one day on his way back to the store.
+"There's gold in your eyes if you keep them open, and in your tongue if you
+keep it civil, and in your back and in your wits if they are nimble. All I
+have to say is, Get it out."
+
+"Get it out," he repeated when he had reached the rear of the store. And he
+began busily to fill and label kerosene cans, gasoline cans, and molasses
+jugs. From there he went to the cellar to measure up potatoes.
+
+"Never saw such a fellow!" grumbled his companion utility boy. "You'd think
+he run the store by the way he steps round with his head up and them sharp
+eyes of his into everything. 'Hi there!' he said to me. 'Fill that measure
+of gasoline full before you pour it into the can. Mr. Dale doesn't want the
+name of giving short measure because you are careless.' Let's do some
+reporting on him, and get him out of the store," he said. "But there's
+nothing to report, and there never will be."
+
+But the boy persisted, and very shortly he found himself out of a position.
+
+"You needn't get another boy if you don't want to, Mr. Dale," observed
+Elnathan, cheerily. "I am so used to the place now that I can do all he
+did, as well as my own work. And, anyway, I would rather do the extra work
+than go on watching somebody to keep him from measuring up short or wrong
+grade on everything he touches." And Elnathan smiled. He had lately
+discovered that he had ceased to hate work.
+
+Mr. Dale smiled in return. "Very well," he said. "Go ahead and do it all if
+you want to."
+
+A week he went ahead, and at the end of that time he found, to his delight,
+that Mr. Dale had increased his wages. "Did you think I would take the work
+of two boys and pay for the work of one?" asked Mr. Dale.
+
+"I didn't think at all, sir," replied Elnathan, joyously; "but I am the
+gladdest boy in Kingston to get a raise."
+
+"Uncle Chris," he said that night, "I got a raise today."
+
+Mr. Lightenhome expressed his pleasure, and his sense that the honor was
+well merited, but Elnathan did not hear a word he said, because he had
+something more to say himself.
+
+"Uncle Chris," he went on, his face very red, "I have been saving up for
+some time, and tomorrow's your birthday. Here is a present for you." And he
+thrust out a ten-dollar piece, with the words, "I never made a present
+before."
+
+Slowly the old man took the money, and again his eyes outdid his tongue in
+speaking his gratitude. And there was a great glow in the heart of the boy.
+
+"That's some of the gold I dug out of myself, Uncle Chris," he laughed.
+"You are the one who first told me it was in me. I do not know whether it
+came out of my arms or my legs or my head."
+
+"I know where the very best gold there is in you is located, Elnathan,"
+smiled the old man. "It is your heart that is gold, my boy."
+
+Two months later Elnathan was a clerk at twenty-five dollars a month. "Now
+we're fixed, Uncle Chris!" he cried, when he told the news. "You and I can
+live forever on twenty-five dollars a month."
+
+"Do you mean it?" asked the old man, tremblingly. "Do you wish to be
+cumbered with me?"
+
+"No, I do not, Uncle Chris," answered the boy, with a beaming look. "I do
+not want to be cumbered with you. I just want to go on living here with
+you."
+
+Then to the old man the poorhouse forever receded from sight. He remembered
+Adelizy no more, as he looked with pride and tenderness on the boy who
+stood erect and alert before him, looked again and yet again, for he saw in
+him the Lord's deliverer, though he knew not that he had been raised up by
+his own kind hand.--_Gulielma Zollinger, in the Wellspring_.
+
+
+
+
+ONLY A JACK-KNIFE
+
+
+When the lamented James A. Garfield was struggling to obtain an education,
+he supported himself for several years by teaching. His first school was in
+Muskingum County, Ohio, and the little frame house where he began his work
+as a teacher, is still standing, while some of the boys and girls who
+received instruction from him that term are yet alive to testify to his
+faithfulness as a common-school teacher. He was quite a young man at that
+time, in fact, he was still in his teens, and it must have been rather
+embarrassing for him to attempt to teach young men and women, some of them
+older than himself; but he was honest in his efforts to try to do his best,
+and, as is always the case under such circumstances, he succeeded
+admirably.
+
+One day, after repeatedly cautioning a little chap not to hack his desk
+with the new Barlow in his possession, the young teacher transferred the
+offending knife to his own pocket, quietly informing the culprit that it
+should be returned at the close of the afternoon session.
+
+During the afternoon two of the committeemen called to examine the school,
+and young Garfield was so interested in the special recitations conducted
+that he let the boy go home in the evening without even mentioning the
+knife. The subject did not recur to him again until after supper, and
+perhaps would not have been recalled to him then had not he chanced to put
+his hand into his pocket for a pencil.
+
+"Look there!" he exclaimed, holding up the knife. "I took it from Sandy
+Williams, with the promise that it should be returned in the evening, and I
+have let him go home without it. I must carry it to him at once."
+
+"Never mind, man! Let it stand till morning," urged Mrs. Ross, the motherly
+woman with whom he boarded.
+
+"I cannot do that," replied Garfield; "the little fellow will think I am a
+thief."
+
+"No danger of that, James," insisted the well-meaning woman. "He will know
+that you forgot it, and all will be well in the morning."
+
+"But, you see, I promised, Mrs. Ross, and a promise is always binding. I
+must go tonight, and carry it to him," urged the young man, drawing on his
+coat.
+
+"It is all of two miles to his father's, and just look how dark it is, and
+raining, too," said the woman, opening the door to convince her boarder
+that things were as bad as she had represented them.
+
+"I am young and strong, and can make my way quite easily," insisted
+Garfield. "It is always better to right a wrong as soon as you discover it,
+and I would rather walk the four miles in the mud and rain than disappoint
+one of my scholars. Sometimes example is more powerful than precept, and if
+I am not careful to live an honest life before my pupils, they will not
+give much heed to what I say on such subjects. There is no rule like the
+golden rule, but he who teaches it must also live it, if he expects others
+to follow his teaching."
+
+Mrs. Ross said no more, and James went on, as he had proposed; and before
+the little boy went to sleep, he was happy again in the possession of his
+treasure, over which he had been lamenting all the evening. The young
+teacher declined the hospitality of the family for the night, and walked
+back in the darkness to his boarding-house, and, as he afterward said, felt
+all the better for standing up to his principles.--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+
+A SPELLING-BEE
+
+
+"I am going to have a spelling-bee tonight," said Uncle John, "and I will
+give a pair of skates to the the boy who can spell man best."
+
+The children turned and stared into one another's eyes.
+
+"Spell 'man' best, Uncle John? Why, there is only one way!" they cried.
+
+"There are all sorts of ways," replied Uncle John. "I will leave you to
+think of it awhile," and he buttoned up his coat and went away.
+
+"What does he mean?" asked Bob.
+
+"I think it is a joke," said Harry, thoughtfully; "and when Uncle John asks
+me, I am going to say, 'Why, m-a-n, of course.'"
+
+"It is a conundrum, I know," said Joe; and he leaned his head on his hand
+and settled down to think.
+
+Time went slowly to the puzzled boys, for all their fun that day. It seemed
+as if "after supper-time" would never come; but it came at last, and Uncle
+John came, too, with a shiny skate runner peeping out of his coat pocket.
+
+Uncle John did not delay; he sat down and looked straight into Harry's
+eyes.
+
+"Been a good boy today, Hal?"
+
+"Yes--n-o," said Harry, flushing. "I did something Aunt May told me not to
+do, because Ned Barnes dared me to. I cannot bear a boy to dare me. What's
+that got to do with spelling 'man'?" he added, half to himself.
+
+But Uncle John had turned to Bob.
+
+"Had a good day, my boy?"
+
+"Haven't had fun enough," answered Bob, stoutly. "It is all Joe's fault,
+too. We boys wanted the pond to ourselves for one day, and we made up our
+minds that when the girls came, we would clear them off But Joe, he----"
+
+"I think this is Joe's to tell," interrupted Uncle John. "How was it, boy?"
+
+"Why," said Joe, "I thought the girls had as much right on the pond as the
+boys, so I spoke to one or two of the bigger boys, and they thought so,
+too, and we stopped it all. I thought it was mean to treat the girls that
+way."
+
+There came a flash from Uncle John's pocket; the next minute the skates
+were on Joe's knees.
+
+"The spelling-match is over," said Uncle John, "and Joe has won the prize."
+
+Three bewildered faces mutely questioned him.
+
+"Boys," he answered, gravely, "we've been spelling 'man,' not in letters,
+but in acts. I told you there were different ways, and we have proved it
+here tonight. Think it over, boys, and see."--_Sunday School Evangelist._
+
+
+
+
+JACK'S QUEER WAYS
+
+
+Everybody liked Jack. He was a pleasant, manly boy, about fourteen years
+old, a boy who was on friendly terms with the whole world. His father was a
+physician, and his family lived in a small country town.
+
+Of course Jack went to school. In the afternoon, when school was over, he
+always ran up to his mother's room to tell her, in his bright, boyish way,
+how the day had passed, and to see if she had any errands for him to do,
+always glad to help in any way he could. After this little chat with his
+mother, he would dash off into the yard to play, or to busy himself in some
+other way. But he was never far away, ready to be called any moment, and
+generally where he could be seen from some of the many windows of the big,
+old-fashioned house.
+
+This had always been his custom until the winter of which I am speaking.
+This winter Jack seemed to have fallen into queer ways. He came home, to be
+sure, at the usual time, but, after the little visit with his mother,
+seemed to disappear entirely. For an hour and a half he positively could
+not be found. They could not see him, no matter which way they looked, and
+they could not even make him hear when they called.
+
+This all seemed very strange, but he had always been a trusty boy, and his
+mother thought little of it at first. Still, as Jack continued to
+disappear, day after day, at the same hour, for weeks, she thought it best
+to speak to his father about it.
+
+"How long does he stay out?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Very often till the lamps are lighted," was the answer.
+
+"Have you asked him where he goes?"
+
+"Why, yes," the mother replied; "and that's the strangest part of it all!
+He seems so confused, and doesn't answer directly, but tries to talk about
+something else. I cannot understand it, but some way I do not believe he is
+doing wrong, for he looks right into my eyes, and does not act as if he had
+anything to be ashamed of."
+
+"It is quite strange," said the doctor. Then he sat quiet for a long time.
+At last he said, "Well, little mother, I think we will trust the lad awhile
+longer, and say nothing more to him about it; though it is strange!"
+
+Time passed on, and the mother looked anxious many an evening as she
+lighted the lamps and her boy was not home yet. And when at last he did
+come in, flushed and tired, and said not a word as to how he had spent his
+afternoon, she wondered more than ever.
+
+This kept up all winter. Toward spring the doctor was slowly driving home
+one day just at twilight, when, as he passed a poor, forlorn cottage, he
+heard a rap on the window. He stopped his horse at once, got out of his
+gig, and walked to the door. He knocked, but no one opened, only a voice
+called, "Come in!"
+
+He entered the shabby room, and found a poor old woman, lying on a
+miserable bed. The room was bare and cheerless except for the bright fire
+burning in the small stove, beside which lay a neat pile of wood. The
+doctor did what he could to ease the poor woman s sufferings, and then
+asked who lived with her to take care of her.
+
+"Not a soul," she said. "I am all alone. I haven't a chick nor child in all
+the wide world!"
+
+The doctor looked at the wood near the stove, and wondered to himself how
+the sick old woman could chop and pile it so nicely; but he said nothing,
+and she went on sadly:--
+
+"I have had a hard time of it this winter, and I would have died sure if it
+hadn't been for that blessed boy."
+
+"Why, I thought you lived alone, and had no children!" exclaimed the
+doctor.
+
+"No more I haven't," she said. "I am all alone by me lone self, as I told
+ye, but the good Lord has been a-takin' care of me; for a bit of a boy,
+bless his heart! has been a-comin' here every day this winter for to help
+me. He chopped the wood the minister sent me, and brought some in here
+every night, and piled it up like that" (pointing to the sticks in the
+corner): and the harder it stormed, the surer he seemed to come. He'd never
+so much as tell me where he lived, and I only know his name is----"
+
+"Jack?" asked the doctor, with unsteady voice.
+
+"Yes, sir; that's it. Do ye be knowing him, doctor?"
+
+"I think perhaps I do," was the husky answer.
+
+"Well, may the Lord bless him, and may he never be cold himself, the good
+lad!"
+
+The doctor did not speak for a few moments; then he left, promising to send
+some one to care for the sick woman that night. He drove home very fast,
+and a strange dimness came into his eyes every now and then, as he thought
+it all over.
+
+He went to his wife's room, and began, as usual, to tell her all that had
+happened during the day. When, at last, he came to his visit at the
+cottage, he watched his wife's face, as he told of the lonely, sick old
+woman, the warm fire, and the young chopper.
+
+When he had finished, tears were in her eyes, but she only said, "Dear
+Jack!"
+
+Jack's queer ways were explained at last. And "Jack's old woman," as they
+called her, never wanted from this time for any comfort as long as she
+lived. So, after all, Jack could not feel so very sorry that his kindness,
+done in secret, had at last "found him out."--_The Round Table_.
+
+
+
+My Missionary Garden
+
+
+  Some money I desired to earn
+    To send to foreign lands,
+  So mother took some garden seeds
+    And placed them in my hands.
+
+  Then earnestly I went to work
+    With spade and rake and hoe;
+  I planted every seed I had,
+    And wondered if they'd grow.
+
+  It wasn't long before I saw
+    Some little leaves of green;
+  I thought they looked more beautiful
+    Than any I had seen.
+
+  Each day when I came home from school,
+    I to my garden went;
+  In hoeing and in pulling weeds,
+    My leisure time I spent.
+
+  My mother said to me, "My child,
+    You've worked so very well
+  I'll buy of you, if you desire,
+    Whate'er you have to sell."
+
+  I never tasted anything
+    So tender and so sweet;
+  I thanked the Lord most heartily
+    For all I had to eat.
+
+  My mother is so good to me,
+    But God is better still;
+  Whatever I can do for him,
+    With all my heart I will.
+
+DORA BRORSEN.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT ONE BOY DID
+
+
+"Don't tell me that boys have no influence," said the dark-eyed lady, with
+emphasis. "Why, I myself know a boy of twelve whose influence changed the
+manners of an entire hotel. Tell you about it?--Certainly. It was a family
+hotel on the seacoast in southern California, and almost all the guests in
+the house were there for the winter. We had become well acquainted,
+and--well, lazy I guess is the best word for it. So we decided that it was
+too much trouble to dress for meals, and dropped into the habit of coming
+in just as we chanced to be, from lounging in the hammock, or fishing off
+the pier, or bicycle riding down the beach. Our manners, too, had become
+about as careless as our dress; we were there for a rest, a good time, and
+these little things didn't matter, we said.
+
+"One day there was a new arrival. Mrs. Blinn, a young widow, with her
+little son, Robert, as sturdy, bright-faced a lad of twelve as one often
+sees. The first time he came into the dining-room, erect, manly, with his
+tie and collar and dress in perfect order, escorting his mother as if she
+had been a princess, and standing till not only she, but every lady at the
+table was seated, we all felt that a breath of new air had come among us,
+and every one there, I think, straightened up a little. However we looked
+at one another and nodded our heads, as much as to say, 'He won't keep this
+up long.' We were strangers, and in the familiarity of every-day life we
+did not doubt that it would soon wear away.
+
+"But it did not. Rob was full of life, and active and busy as a boy could
+well be. At the same time, when, twenty minutes before meals, his mother
+blew a little silver whistle, no matter where he was or what he was doing,
+everything was dropped, and he ran in to make himself ready. And every time
+he came to the table, with his clean face and smooth hair and clothes
+carefully arranged or changed, he was in himself a sermon on neatness and
+self-respect, which, though none of us said much about it, we felt all the
+same. Then by and by one and another began to respond to the little silver
+whistle, as well as Rob. One laid aside a bicycle dress, another a
+half-invalid negligee, till you could hardly have believed it was the same
+company of a few weeks before.
+
+"It was the same with manners. Rob's politeness, simple, unaffected, and
+unfailing, at the table, on the veranda, upon the beach, wherever you met
+him; his readiness to be helpful; his deference to those older; his
+thoughtfulness for all, was the best lesson,--that of example. As a
+consequence, the thoughtless began to remember, and the selfish to feel
+ashamed, and the careless to keep themselves more in hand.
+
+"And so, as I said in the beginning, in less than a month the whole
+atmosphere of that hotel had been changed by the influence of one boy; and
+the only one utterly unconscious of this was Rob himself."
+
+This is truly a pleasing incident. We like to think of this boy who,
+because he was at heart a true little gentleman, drew what was kindly and
+courteous and gracious in those about him to the surface as by a magnet. In
+like manner it is possible for every boy to be so true and kindly and
+tender, so unselfish of action, so obedient to duty, so responsive to
+conscience, that, wherever he goes, he shall carry an inspiring atmosphere
+and influence with him; and whoever he meets shall, because of him, be
+drawn to better thoughts and nobler living.--_Adele E. Thompson_.
+
+
+
+
+HOW NICK LEARNED MANNERS
+
+
+"Hallo, Doc! Where'd you get that horse?" called Nick Hammond as he
+approached his father and Dr. Morris, as they were talking at the gate one
+evening.
+
+"Why, halloo, little man! I got this horse over the river. Ever see him
+before?" answered the old doctor, genially, little thinking that he was
+somewhat to blame for Nick's lack of good manners in thus accosting an
+older person.
+
+When the doctor had gone, Mr. Hammond called Nick to him and said, "Nick,
+did not your mother tell you last evening not to say, 'Halloo,' when you
+meet people?"
+
+Nick's eyes fell, for he remembered, and he said, "Yes, sir."
+
+"Then why did you say it to Dr. Morris this evening?"
+
+"O, I don't think he cares what I say to him!"
+
+"No, I do not suppose he does care; but I do, and I think if your mother
+had heard you address the doctor as Doc, she would have been very much
+ashamed; for she has tried very hard to teach you good manners."
+
+"Well, everybody says 'Halloo,' papa, and I can't help it, and I'm sure Mr.
+Evans said 'Doc' when he was talking out there this evening."
+
+"It is true that a great many people do use both those words, but that is
+no reason why you should use them, when you have been told not to do so.
+There is also some difference, I think, between the age of Mr. Evans and
+yourself. Men can say things to one another that would be quite improper
+for a boy to say to a man. Now I want you to be more careful, and speak
+respectfully to every one you meet."
+
+Nick went to his play, but he took up a string of reasoning like this:
+"Because I am the only boy mama has set out to make me as good as Mabel,
+and she doesn't allow me to use slang nor anything of the kind. I know if
+there were half a dozen boys here, it would be different. I suppose it is
+all right for girls and women, but, bah! I can't be a goody-goody. I am
+only a boy. I guess it won't pay to bother about good manners, like a girl.
+I am too busy these days, when there is no school, to learn manners or
+anything else, anyway," and he went off with his goat, to forget everything
+else.
+
+Time after time Nick failed to heed what he had been told, and each time he
+had to suffer a just penalty; but it seemed as if he never could learn
+manners. The real reason was that he had no desire to have good manners.
+
+One morning Mrs. Hammond said: "Now, Nick, I am expecting your Aunt Ella
+and Uncle Alfred today, and I want you to be on your guard while they are
+here, and not act as if you were a backwoods boy who does not know
+anything. I especially want you to be gentlemanly; for Uncle Alfred is such
+a stranger to us yet that he will not understand you, and will think less
+of your papa and myself for seeing you rude and ill-mannered. You see, you
+owe it to yourself to make every one like you as much as possible. They
+live so far away that it may be a long time before they will see you
+again."
+
+"Well, I should like to see my new Uncle Alf. I hope they won't stay long;
+for I do hate to be afraid to halloo and do things."
+
+"Now, don't say Uncle Alf, Nick. You know better than that. Say Uncle
+Alfred, but don't say it too often. As for making a noise, you can relieve
+yourself when away from the house, but I do not want you to talk when
+others are talking, and, above all, do not contradict them, no matter what
+they say."
+
+"All right, mama, I'll try," promised Nick.
+
+But, alas for his promise! It belonged to the large family of promises that
+Nick had been making for many months. It was as easily broken as a broom
+straw. Aunt Ella and her husband, who was president of a great Western
+college, were not long in seeing the worst side of little Nick. He
+repeatedly did the very things his mama had urged him not to do, and was
+recklessly disobedient in general.
+
+The last day of the visit was to be spent with some distinguished friends
+of Uncle Alfred's at the Lake House, nine miles away. Mr. and Mrs. Hammond
+were going with them, and Nick was determined to go, too. When his mama
+went to her room to get ready, Nick followed her and begged her to take
+him. "No, Nick," she said, in a positive way, "I shall not take you
+anywhere until you learn to behave as a boy of your age should. Go to the
+dining-room and wait there until we are ready to start, and then you can
+come down to Grandma Hammond's and stay until four o'clock."
+
+He knew that it was no use to tease, so he went to the couch in the
+dining-room. He felt very sullen and bitter, and threw himself down on the
+friendly pillows to indulge in a few tears. In a few moments he heard
+subdued voices on the veranda just outside the window. Aunt Ella was
+saying, "I know they would both enjoy the drive this lovely day." "Of
+course they would," said Uncle Alfred, "and I would like to have them with
+us, but what would Dr. and Mrs. Watson think of Nick? He surely is the
+rudest child I have ever known. I am sorry to cheat Mabel out of pleasure,
+for she is a dear little girl, but really Ella, I should be ashamed of
+Nick's behavior, shouldn't you?"
+
+Nick waited to hear no more. He slipped out quickly, and said to the cook
+in the kitchen, "Please tell mama I didn't wait; I've gone to grandma's."
+
+He was so quiet and gentle all day that Grandma Hammond worried a great
+deal, saying: "I never saw the like of it. The boy is either sick or
+something is going to happen to him."
+
+That something had already happened to him, but grandma was not aware of
+it. For the first time in his life, Nick felt ashamed of himself. During
+that long, long day he made a strong resolution, which he never purposely
+broke, never to do anything to make himself or anybody else
+ashamed.--_Atwood Miller, in Youth's Evangelist_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "O! There are many actors who can play
+  Greatly great parts, but rare indeed the soul
+  Who can be great when cast for some small role;
+  Yet that is what the world most needs,--big hearts
+  That will shine forth and glorify poor parts
+  In this strange drama, Life."
+
+
+
+
+WITHOUT BALLAST
+
+
+Not many years ago the "Escambia," a British iron steamer, loaded with
+wheat, weighed anchor and started down the bay of San Francisco. The pilot
+left her about five miles outside the Golden Gate. Looking back from his
+pilot-boat a short time after, he saw the vessel stop, drift into the
+trough of the sea, careen to port, both bulwarks going under water, then
+suddenly capsize and sink. What was the cause of this sad catastrophe?--A
+want of ballast.
+
+She came into port from China, a few weeks previous, with a thousand
+emigrants on board. But she had in her hold immense tanks for what is
+called water ballast. The captain, wishing to carry all the wheat he could
+between decks, neglected to fill those tanks. He thought the cargo would
+steady the ship. But it made it top-heavy, and the first rough sea capsized
+it.
+
+Here, then, was a vessel, tight and strong, with powerful engines, with a
+cargo worth one hundred thousand dollars, floundering as soon as she left
+the harbor, taken down with her crew of forty-five men, because the captain
+failed to have her properly ballasted. The moment she began to lurch, all
+the wheat tumbled over to the lower side, and down into the sea she went.
+
+How this wreck of the "Escambia" repeats the trite lesson that so many have
+tried to teach, and that they who need it most are so slow to learn! Young
+men starting out in life want to carry as little ballast as possible. They
+are enterprising, ambitious. They are anxious to go fast, and take as much
+cargo as they can. Old-fashioned principles are regarded as dead weight. It
+does not pay to heed them, and they thrown overboard. Good home habits are
+abandoned in order to be popular with the gay and worldly. The Bible is not
+read, the Sabbath is not kept holy, prayer is neglected, and lo! some day,
+when all the sails are spread, a sudden temptation comes that wrecks the
+character and life.
+
+We cannot urge too strongly upon the young, in these days of intense
+activity, the vital importance of ballast. A conscience seems to be an
+encumbrance--an obstacle to prosperity. But it is a safe thing to have on
+board. It steadies the soul. It keeps it from careening when the winds
+drive it into the trough of the sea. If the "Escambia" had taken less wheat
+and more ballast, it might be afloat today. And this is true of many a man
+now in prison or in the gutter. The haste to be rich, the impatience of
+restraint, alas! how their wrecks lie just outside the world's golden
+gates.--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+Reflex Influence
+
+  The artist Hoffmann, it is said, became
+  In features like the features that he strove
+  To paint,--those of his Lord. Unconsciously
+  His thoughts developed in his face that which
+  He sought upon the canvas to portray;
+  And with the walls about him covered o'er
+  With pictures he had made, he toiled and thought
+  And gave the world his ideal of the Christ,
+  Becoming more and more like him.
+
+                              And thus
+  May we by thinking o'er and o'er again
+  Christ's thoughts, and dwelling on his love, become
+  In heart as he, all undefiled and pure,--
+  Perfect within. The beauty sweet and joy
+  Of holiness, communion with our God,
+  The prayer of faith, the song of praise, and all
+  The peace and uplift grand that Jesus knew
+  May be our own, our very own, to give
+  Unto a world made sick and sad by sin.
+
+ELIZA H. MORTON.
+
+
+
+
+INFLUENCE OF A GOOD BOOK
+
+
+I lost my Christian mother when I was a youth, but not before the
+instruction I had received from her beloved lips had made a deep impression
+upon my mind, an impression which I carried with me into a college
+(Hampden, Sidney), where there was not then one pious student. There I
+often reflected, when surrounded by young men who scoffed at religion, upon
+the instruction of my mother, and my conscience was frequently sore
+distressed. I had no Bible, and dreaded getting one, lest it should be
+found in my possession.
+
+At last I could stand it no longer, and requested a particular friend, a
+youth whose parents lived near, and who often went home, to ask his
+excellent mother to send me some religious books. She sent me "Alleine's
+Alarm," an old black book, which looked as if it might have been handled by
+successive generations for a hundred years.
+
+When I received it, I locked my door and sat down to read it, when a
+student knocked at the door. I gave him no answer, dreading to be found
+reading such a book, but he continued to knock and beat the door until I
+had to open it. He came in, and seeing the book lying on the bed, seized
+it, and examined its title. Then he said, "Why, Hill, do you read such
+books?"
+
+I hesitated, but God enabled me to be decided, and to tell him boldly, but
+with much emotion, "Yes, I do."
+
+The young man replied with much agitation: "O Hill, you may obtain
+religion, but I never can! I came here a professor of religion; but through
+fear I dissembled it, and have been carried along with the wicked, until I
+fear there is no hope for me."
+
+He told me that there were two others who he believed were somewhat
+serious. We agreed to take up the subject of religion in earnest, and seek
+it together. We invited the other two, and held a prayer-meeting in my room
+on the next Saturday afternoon. And, O, what a prayer-meeting! We knew not
+how to pray, but tried to do it. We sang in a suppressed manner, for we
+feared the other students. But they found us out, and gathered round the
+door, and made such a noise that the officers had to disperse them.
+
+So serious was the disturbance that the president, the late excellent Rev.
+Dr. John B. Smith, investigated the matter at prayers that evening in the
+chapel hall. When he demanded the reason of the riot, a ringleader in
+wickedness rose up and stated that it was occasioned by three or four of
+the boys holding prayer-meetings, and they were determined to have no such
+doings there. The good president heard the statement with deep emotion,
+and, looking at the youths charged with the sin of praying, said, with
+tears in his eyes, "O, is there such a state of things in this college?
+Then God has come near to us. My dear young friends, you shall hold your
+next meeting in my parlor." We did hold our next meeting in his parlor, and
+half the college was there. And there began a glorious revival of religion,
+which pervaded the college, and spread into the country around.
+
+Many of those students became ministers of the gospel. The youth who
+brought me "Alleine's Alarm" from his mother was my friend, the Rev. C.
+Stitt, who is preaching in Virginia. And he who interrupted me in reading
+the work, my venerable and worthy friend, the Rev. Dr. H., is now president
+of a college in the West.--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+
+"STRAIGHTENING OUT THE FURROWS"
+
+
+"Boys," he said, "I have been trying every day of my life for the last two
+years to straighten out furrows, and I cannot do it."
+
+One boy turned his head in surprise toward the captain's neatly kept place.
+
+"O, I do not mean that kind, lad! I do not mean land furrows," continued
+the captain, so soberly that the attention of the boys became breathless as
+he went on: "When I was a lad about the age of you boys, I was what they
+call a 'hard case,' not exactly bad or vicious, but wayward and wild. Well,
+my dear old mother used to coax, pray, and punish. My father was dead,
+making it all the harder for her, but she never got impatient. How in the
+world she bore all my stubborn, vexing ways so patiently will always be to
+me one of the mysteries of life. I knew it was troubling her, knew it was
+changing her pretty face, making it look anxious and old. After a while,
+tired of all restraint, I ran away, went off to sea; and a rough time I had
+of it at first. Still I liked the water, and I liked journeying around from
+place to place.
+
+"Then I settled down to business in a foreign land, and soon became
+prosperous. Now I began sending her something besides empty letters. And
+such beautiful letters as she always wrote me during those years of
+absence. At length I noticed how long they grew, longing for the son who
+used to try her so, and it awoke a corresponding longing in my heart to go
+back to the clear waiting soul. So when I could stand it no longer, I came
+back, and such a welcome, and such a surprise!
+
+"My mother is not a very old lady, boys, but the first thing I noticed was
+the whiteness of her hair and the deep furrows on her brow; and I knew I
+had helped to blanch that hair to its snowy whiteness and had drawn those
+lines in that smooth forehead. And those are the furrows I have been trying
+to straighten out.
+
+"But last night, while mother was asleep in her armchair, I was thinking it
+all over, and looked to see what progress I had made. Her face was very
+peaceful, and the expression as contented as possible, but the furrows are
+still there. I have not succeeded in straightening them
+out--and--I--never--shall,--never.
+
+"When they lay my mother, my fair old sweetheart, in her casket, there will
+be furrows on her brow; and I think it a wholesome lesson to teach you,
+that the neglect you offer your parents' counsel now, and the trouble you
+cause them, will abide, my lads, it will abide!"
+
+"But," broke in Freddie Hollis, with great, troubled eyes, "I should think
+if you are so kind and good now, it need not matter so much!"
+
+"Ah, Freddie," said the quavery voice of the strong man, "you cannot undo
+the past. You may do much to atone for it, do much to make the rough path
+smooth, but you cannot straighten out the old furrows; remember that."
+
+"Guess I'll go and chop some wood mother spoke of. I had most forgotten,"
+said lively Jimmy Hollis, in a strangely quiet tone for him.
+
+"Yes, and I have some errands to do," suddenly remembered Billy Bowles.
+
+"Touched and taken!" said the kindly captain to himself, as the boys
+tramped off, keeping step in a soldier-like way.
+
+Mrs. Bowles declared a fortnight afterward that Billy was "really getting
+to be a comfort!" And Mrs. Hollis, meeting the captain about that time,
+remarked that Jimmy always meant to be a good boy, but now he was actually
+being one.
+
+"Guess your stories they like so much have good morals in them now and
+then," added the gratified mother, with a smile.
+
+As Mrs. Hollis passed, Captain Sam, with folded arms and head bent down,
+said softly to himself, "Well, I shall be thankful if a word of mine will
+help the dear boys to keep furrows from their mothers' brows; for, once
+there, it is a difficult task to straighten them out."--_Selected_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "If you were busy being good,
+  And doing just the best you could,
+  You'd not have time to blame some man
+  Who's doing just the best he can.
+
+  "If you were busy being true
+  To what you know you ought to do,
+  You'd be so busy you'd forget
+  The blunders of the folks you've met.
+
+  "If you were busy being right,
+  You'd find yourself too busy quite
+  To criticize your neighbor long
+  Because he's busy being wrong."
+
+
+
+
+A BOY WHO WAS WANTED
+
+
+"Well, I have found out one thing," said Jack as, hot, tired, and dusty, he
+came to his mother.
+
+"What is that?" she asked.
+
+"That there are a great many boys in the world."
+
+"Didn't you know that before?"
+
+"Partly; but I didn't know there were so many more boys than are wanted."
+
+"Why do you think there are more than are wanted?"
+
+"Because I have been 'round and 'round till I am worn out, trying to find a
+place to work. Wherever I go, there are more boys than places. Doesn't that
+show that there are too many boys?"
+
+"Not exactly," said his mother, with a smile. "It depends entirely on the
+kind of boy. A good boy is always wanted somewhere."
+
+"Well, if I am a good boy, I wish that I knew that I was wanted."
+
+"Patience, patience, my boy. In such a great world as this is, with so many
+places and so many boys, it is no wonder some of them do not find their
+places at once. But be sure, dear," as she laid a very caressing hand on
+his arm, "that every boy who wants a chance to do fair, honest work will
+find it."
+
+"That's the kind of work I want to do," said Jack. "I don't want anybody's
+money for nothing. Let me see, what have I to offer?--All the schooling and
+all the wits I have been able to get up in thirteen years; good, stout
+hands; and a civil tongue."
+
+"And a mind and heart set on doing faithful duty, suggested his mother.
+
+"I hope so," said Jack. "I remember father used to say: Just as soon as you
+undertake to work for any one, you must bear in mind that you have sold
+yourself for the given time. Your time, your strength, your energy, are
+his, and your best efforts to seek his interests in every way are his
+due.'"
+
+The earnest tone in which the boy spoke seemed to give assurance that he
+would pay good heed to the words of the father whose counsel could no more
+reach him.
+
+For two or three days longer Jack had reason to hold his opinion that there
+were more boys than the world wanted, at the end of which time he met a
+business man who, questioning him closely, said: "There are a great many
+applications for the place, but a large number of the boys come and stay a
+short time, and then leave if they think they can do a little better. When
+a boy gets used to our route and customers, we want him to stay. If you
+will agree to stay at least three years, we will agree to pay you three
+dollars a week as errand boy."
+
+"That is just what I wanted to do, sir," said Jack, eagerly. So he was
+installed, and proud enough he was to bring his wages home every week, and
+realize that, small as they were, the regular help was of great value to
+his mother.
+
+It is not to be wondered at that the faithful carrying out of his father's
+admonition after a while attracted the attention not only of his employers,
+but of others with whom he was brought in contact in the pursuit of his
+duties. One day he was asked into the office of Mr. Lang, a gentleman to
+whom he frequently carried parcels of value.
+
+"Have you ever thought of changing your situation?" asked Mr. Lang.
+
+"No, sir," said Jack.
+
+"Perhaps you could do better," said the other. "I want a boy who is quick
+and intelligent, and who can be relied on; and, from what I see of you, I
+think you are that sort of boy. I want you to drive a delivery wagon, and
+will pay you five dollars a week."
+
+Jack's eyes opened wide.
+
+"It is wonderfully good pay for a boy like me, I am sure. But I promised to
+keep on with Mr. Hill for three years, and the second year is only just
+begun."
+
+"Well, have you signed a regular agreement with Mr. Hill?"
+
+"No, sir; I told him I would stay."
+
+"You have a mother to assist, you told me. Could not you tell Mr. Hill that
+you feel obliged to do better, when you have a chance?"
+
+"I don't believe I could," said Jack, looking with his straight, frank gaze
+into the gentleman's face. "You see, sir, if I broke my word with him, I
+should not be the kind of boy to be relied on that you want."
+
+"I guess you are about right," said Mr. Lang, with a sigh. "Come and see me
+when your time is out; I dare say I shall want you then."
+
+Jack went home very much stirred by what had been said to him.
+
+After all, could it be wrong to go where he would do so much better? Was it
+not really his duty to accept the position? He could then drive the wagon
+instead of trudging wearily along the streets. They had never felt so hot
+and dusty as they did just now, when he might escape from the tiresome
+routine. Might, but how?--By the sacrifice of his pledged word; by selling
+his truth and his honor. So strongly did the reflection force itself upon
+him that when he told his mother of the offer he had received, he merely
+added, "It would be a grand good thing if I could take it, wouldn't it,
+mother?"
+
+"Yes, it would."
+
+"Some boys would change without thinking of letting a promise stand in
+their way."
+
+"Yes, but that is the kind of boy who, sooner or later, is not wanted. It
+is because you have not been that sort of boy that you are wanted now."
+
+Jack worked away, doing such good work, as he became more and more
+accustomed to the situation, that his mother sometimes wondered that Mr.
+Hill, who seemed always kindly interested in him, never appeared to think
+of raising his pay. This, however, was not Mr. Hill's way of doing things,
+even though he showed an increasing disposition to trust Jack with
+important business.
+
+So the boy trudged through the three years, at the end of them having been
+trusted far more than is usually the case with errand boys. He had never
+forgotten the offer made by Mr. Lang, and one day, meeting that gentleman
+on the street, ventured to remind him that his present engagement was
+nearly out, adding, "You spoke to me about driving the wagon, sir."
+
+"Ah, so I did; but you are older now and worth more. Call around and see
+me."
+
+One evening, soon after, Jack lingered in Mr. Hill's office after the other
+errand boys had been paid and had gone away.
+
+"My three years are up tonight, sir," he said.
+
+"Yes, they are," said Mr. Hill, looking at him as if he had remembered it.
+
+"Will you give me a recommendation to some one else, sir?"
+
+"Well, I will, if you are sure that you want to leave me."
+
+"I did not know that you wanted me to stay, but"--he hesitated, and then
+went on--"my mother is a widow, and I feel as if I ought to do the best I
+can for her, and Mr. Lang told me to call on him."
+
+"Has Mr. Lang ever made you an offer?"
+
+Jack told him what Mr. Lang had said nearly two years before.
+
+"Why didn't you go then?" asked Mr. Hill.
+
+"Because I had promised to stay with you; but you wouldn't blame me for
+trying to better myself now?"
+
+"Not a bit of it. Are you tired of running errands?"
+
+"I'd rather ride than walk," said Jack with a smile.
+
+"I think it is about time you were doing better than either. Perhaps you
+think that you have been doing this faithful work for me through these
+years for next to nothing; but if so, you are mistaken. You have been doing
+better work than merely running errands. You have been serving an
+apprenticeship to trust and honesty. I know you now to be a
+straight-forward, reliable boy, and it takes time to learn that. It is your
+capital, and you ought to begin to realize it. You may talk to Mr. Lang if
+you wish, but I will give you a place in the office, with a salary of six
+hundred dollars for the first year, with the prospect of a raise after
+that."
+
+Jack did not go to see Mr. Lang, but straight to his mother, with a shout
+and a bound.
+
+"You're right, you're right, mother!" he cried. "No more hard work for you,
+mother. I'm wanted, you see, wanted enough to get good pay! All the hardest
+part is over."--_Congregationalist_.
+
+
+
+
+WANTED: AN EMPLOYER
+
+
+There was a north-bound car temporarily disabled on Broadway, near Fourth
+Street, and, in consequence, as far south as the eye could reach stood a
+row of motionless cars. Also, in consequence, along the curb was ranged a
+fretting, impatient, helpless crowd, among whom the most anxious was
+probably Edward Billings Henry.
+
+In stature Edward Billings Henry was briefer than his name would indicate,
+but to a certain two-room dwelling on Jackson Street he made up in
+importance what he lacked in height; and it was his overwhelming sense of
+this importance which made every thin muscle taut and strained every nerve
+as he stood in the forefront of the crowd, his bare feet planted on the
+cold asphalt, one hand gripping his remaining stock of papers, the other
+clutching a nickel.
+
+"I never was in a tearing hurry in my life but that this thing happened!"
+exploded a man just behind the boy.
+
+Edward Billings Henry turned and looked up. The man was jingling a lot of
+loose coins in his pocket. The boy looked at his one nickel, and said, with
+conviction, "You can't need to have 'em go like I do."
+
+The big man stared down at the little man, in surprise, with a gruff "Huh?"
+but Edward Billings Henry had no time to repeat. His hope had revived. The
+two men who lay on their backs under the injured car began to crawl out,
+and the boy rushed forward.
+
+"Will it go now?" he inquired of one of the numerous conductors clustered
+around.
+
+"Maybe so--in half an hour," replied the conductor, carelessly.
+
+"O," cried the boy, in dismay, "I just can't wait that long!"
+
+"Walk, then!" said the conductor, crossly.
+
+"It's too far," replied the boy, "when you've got a stone toe."
+
+"A what?" ejaculated the conductor; but his voice was lost in the honk!
+honk! of a big white touring car which pushed slowly through the crowd.
+
+In front of the car Edward Billings Henry raced limpingly on his stone toe
+back to the curb and to the man jingling the coins in his pocket.
+
+"Just what time is it, please?" he asked.
+
+The man pulled out a watch and showed it to him. Edward Billings Henry
+heaved a great sigh.
+
+"Half past ten! It'll likely be filled up before I can get there."
+
+"What will be?"
+
+"The place I'm after."
+
+Skilfully he raised the limping foot, laid it across the other leg, and
+nursed the stone-bruised big toe, his eyes on the automobile, which had
+halted almost in front of him.
+
+"Halloo, Junius!" a voice in the crowd sang out. "Lucky man you, not to
+have to depend on street-cars!"
+
+The driver of the car was a young man. That is, Edward Billings Henry
+judged him to be young by the only feature visible, a flexible, wide mouth,
+with clean-shaven lips. His eyes were behind goggles, and a cap covered his
+forehead and ears, meeting the tip of a high collar, which effectually
+concealed his chin. But the mouth smiled as the goggles turned toward the
+pavement, the owner answering lightly:--
+
+"Halloo yourself, Dick! Jump in and try my luck."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Up to Congress Square."
+
+"Well, get along then!" returned the other. "That's no good to me."
+
+Congress Square! What luck! Exactly where Edward Billings Henry wished to
+go! And here was a rapid-transit vehicle, with room enough for ten such
+diminutive persons as he! Without loss of time, he limped up on his aching
+stone toe and jogged the arm of the driver.
+
+Junius looked down at the boy. Edward Billings Henry removed a man's derby
+from his head and looked out of eyes kindling with hope, as he asked
+eagerly:--
+
+"Do you suppose you could get me up there inside of twenty-five minutes,
+mister?"
+
+"What do you mean?" Junius stared hard through his goggles.
+
+"To Congress Square," said Edward Billings Henry, impatiently. "It's
+business, and if I don't get there I'm out of a job, that's all." The boy
+mounted the step and clung to the seat, proffering his nickel. "I'll pay
+just what I'd pay on the car," he argued, "so you'd be making some money as
+well as giving me a lift."
+
+The goggled eyes looked at the nickel in the dirty hand, and then traveled
+up and down the small figure back of the hand. The eyes noticed that while
+those parts of the boy's anatomy which had been exposed all the morning to
+the city dirt had collected grime, the rims, as it were, of the exposed
+parts revealed hidden cleanliness.
+
+"Congress Square is an awful way up," urged Edward Billings Henry, "and we
+mustn't waste much time; for I would like to get that job." The small hand
+extended the nickel enticingly toward the glove. "You'll be earning as much
+as the street-car by giving a lift," the boy repeated.
+
+The driver's lips twisted a bit. "That's so," he said. "Huh!" he chuckled,
+and gracelessly extended his hand for the nickel. "Get in, my man, and I'll
+give you the lift."
+
+Edward Billings Henry drew a deep sigh of relief dropped the coin into the
+other's palm, and engulfed himself in the soft front seat.
+
+"Whom have I the honor of giving a lift?" asked Junius, formally, dropping
+the nickel into a pocket, where it lay alone. After it he sent a curious,
+lingering smile.
+
+"Edward Billings Henry, Junior," replied the boy.
+
+The lips beneath the goggles smiled. "And where am I lifting you to, may I
+also ask, Edward Billings?"
+
+"To Mr. Florins's office, where they're going to select an office boy this
+morning 'tween ten and eleven."
+
+The driver busied himself a moment with the steering-gear as the car passed
+the crowded mail-wagons behind the post-office building. Then he turned and
+shot a curious glance at his small companion, asking abruptly:--
+
+"And you think you'll get the job, do you?"
+
+Edward Billings Henry leaned forward as if he could push the machine into a
+yet faster pace. "I can try for it," he replied. "Father says you never
+know what you can do unless you try. He's always wanting me to try."
+
+"Yes," muttered Junius, still more interested. "Fathers seem much alike,
+whether they live up-town or down-town."
+
+"Can't we go faster?" asked Edward Billings Henry, sitting on the edge of
+the seat.
+
+Junius shook his head. "Too many blue-coats around. But about that job,
+now--you'll not be the only boy after it. There will probably be dozens
+older----"
+
+"I'm eleven, if I am small," interrupted the boy.
+
+"And stronger----"
+
+The boy stretched out a thin arm defiantly, and closed his fist. "Just
+feel!" he cried. "I've got a good muscle, and on my legs it's better yet.
+Just now I've got a stone-bruise on my big toe, but I tell you I can get
+round pretty fast just the same. I don't believe Mr. Florins would ever be
+sorry he took me."
+
+"Yes, I'm inclined to believe that myself," mused the man. "But how are you
+going to make him believe that in the beginning?"
+
+The boy raised his lame foot and gently rubbed the swollen big toe. "Well,"
+he began, "I'm going to talk up big. Father says you have to sometimes when
+nobody's round to do it for you, and he says it's all right if you do
+afterward just as big as you talk."
+
+The driver wagged his head wisely. "That's sound business sense," he
+agreed, gravely. "You intend to deliver the same goods that you sell. Let's
+hear what you have to say."
+
+"Well, if you get me there in time to say anything, I'm going to tell Mr.
+Florins that father went to school a lot when he was young. He went through
+high school and got all ready to go through college."
+
+Edward Billings emphasized his verbs as if "going through" was solely a
+physical exercise on the flying-wedge order; and Junius chuckled.
+
+"Then I'll tell him that father stood almost at the head of his class in
+high school, and he almost took a lot of honors."
+
+"Well," assented Junius, "that 'almost' is a step farther than some of the
+rest of us got."
+
+"Yes," exulted the boy, "I guess Mr. Florins will say so, too. Then I'll
+tell him that father taught a lot when he couldn't go through college."
+
+"What next?" inquired Junius.
+
+They were approaching Twelfth Street now, and the car was hardly moving in
+the press of vehicles.
+
+Edward Billings curled his bare toes under, and unconsciously pushed
+forward with all his slender might. "Then I'll tell him that father used to
+read a lot, law books and things, same as he does----"
+
+"But see here!" interrupted Junius. "All this talk will be about your
+father. What are you going to say about yourself?"
+
+A cloud overspread Edward Billings's face. He raised a pair of troubled
+eyes to his questioner. "Why, I never stopped to think of that," he began,
+slowly, all the brightness fading out of his tone. "There's nothing much to
+say about me. I sell papers and help father----"
+
+"What does your father do?" asked Junius.
+
+The boy hesitated. His face flushed, and he looked up uncertainly at the
+goggles. "He used to teach, I told you," was the evasive answer, "until his
+eyes gave out."
+
+"And now?"
+
+Edward Billings Henry wriggled about on the padded leather. "He's always
+had bad legs,"--the evasion continued,--"but his arms and back are strong,
+and his legs all right to stand on."
+
+"Yes?" insisted Junius, and waited.
+
+"So he's doing something he ain't going to do if I can get this job. Then I
+could sell papers after and before office hours, and earn a lot of money."
+Edward Billings Henry talked rapidly, but the young man beside him was not
+to be turned from his purpose.
+
+"Then what is it he's not going to do?"
+
+The boy hesitated again. "Father takes in washing," he finally burst out,
+proudly defiant, "and I help him, and we do it good, I tell you! No one
+ever complains. Father says if you can't do what you want to, you can try
+something else, and that was all he could do, so he tried, and found out he
+could wash and iron good, and a lot of it!"
+
+Junius considerately looked straight ahead of him, not wishing to add to
+the embarrassment of Edward Billings Henry, Junior, but he could not resist
+asking, "Are you going to tell this to Mr. Florins?"
+
+"No-sir-ee!" responded the boy, proudly. "Father ain't going to
+do--washings--any longer if I can get the job."
+
+The car entered Congress Square, drew up in front of an imposing stone
+building, and stopped. The driver removed his goggles and turned a pair of
+pleasant gray eyes on the boy.
+
+"Well, Edward Billings, here we are, and you've got the job all right. Can
+you come in the morning?"
+
+Edward Billings Henry nearly fell off the seat.
+
+"W-hat?" he stammered.
+
+"The job is yours," smiled the young man. "I happen to be that same Mr.
+Florins who, you have assured me, will never regret employing you. My
+office is on the second floor here. I did advertise for a boy, but had
+totally forgotten it." He gave a short laugh. "Report in the morning,
+please, and we'll see about a suit and some shoes and that stone-bruised
+toe."
+
+Out of the automobile Edward Billings Henry tumbled in a dazed condition,
+and stood beside his new employer, looking up speechlessly.
+
+"I'll advance you a car fare on your salary," the young man continued. He
+carefully avoided the pocket where lay the nickel previously owned by his
+passenger, and produced the change. "And, Edward Billings, just tell your
+father from me that his maxims work out so well that I'm thinking of
+adopting them myself."--_Alice Louise Lee, in Youth's Companion, used by
+permission_.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO STOP SWEARING
+
+
+When I was out West thirty years ago I  was preaching one day in the open
+air when a man drove up in a fine turnout. After listening for a while he
+put his whip to his fine-looking steed, and away he went. I did not expect
+to see him again, but the next night he came back; and he kept on coming
+regularly night after night.
+
+I said to a gentleman: "Who is that man who drives up here every night? Is
+he interested?"
+
+"Interested! I should think not. You should have heard the way he talked
+about you today."
+
+"Well," I said, "that is a sign he is interested."
+
+I asked where he lived, but my friend told me not to go to see him; for he
+would only curse me. I said, "It takes God to curse a man: man can only
+bring curses on his own head."
+
+I found out where he lived, and went to see him. He was the wealthiest man
+within a hundred miles of that place, and had a wife and seven beautiful
+children. Just as I reached his gate, I saw him coming out of the front
+door. I stepped up to him, and said:--
+
+"You are Mr. Davis, I believe?"
+
+He said, "Yes, sir, that is my name." Then he asked, "What do you want?"
+
+"Well," I said, "I should like to ask you a question, if you won't be
+angry."
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"I am told that God has blessed you above all men in this part of the
+country; that he has given you wealth, a beautiful Christian wife, and
+seven lovely children. I do not know whether it is true, but I hear that
+all he gets in return is cursing and blasphemy."
+
+He said, "Come in, come in." I went in. "Now," he said, "what you said out
+there is true. If any man has a fine wife, I am the man, and I have a
+lovely family of children, and God has been good to me. But, do you know,
+we had company here the other night, and I cursed my wife at the table, and
+did not know it till after the company was gone. I never felt so mean and
+contemptible in my life as when my wife told me of it. She said she wanted
+the floor to open and let her down out of her seat. If I have tried once, I
+have tried a hundred times to stop swearing. You preachers don't know
+anything about it."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I know all about it; I have been a traveler."
+
+"But," he said, "you don't know anything about a business man's troubles.
+When he is harassed and tormented the whole time, he can't help swearing."
+
+"O, yes," I said, "he can. I know something about it. I myself used to
+swear."
+
+"What! you used to swear?" he asked. "How did you stop?"
+
+"I never stopped."
+
+"Why, you don't swear now, do you?"
+
+"No, I have not sworn for years."
+
+"How did you stop?"
+
+"I never stopped. It stopped itself."
+
+He said, "I don't understand this."
+
+"No," I said, "I know you don't. But I came to talk to you so that you will
+never want to swear again as long as you live."
+
+I began to tell him about Christ in the heart; how he would take the
+temptation to swear out of a man.
+
+"Well," he said, "how am I to get Christ?"
+
+"Get right down here and tell him what you want."
+
+"But," he said, "I was never on my knees in my life. I have been cursing
+all the day, and I don't know how to pray, or what to pray for."
+
+"Well," I said, "it is mortifying to call on God for mercy when you have
+never used his name except in oaths, but he will not turn you away. Ask God
+to forgive you, if you want to be forgiven."
+
+He knelt down and prayed, only a few sentences. After he prayed, he rose
+and said, "What shall I do now?"
+
+I said, "Go down to the church, and tell the people there that you want to
+be an out-and-out Christian."
+
+"I cannot do that," he said; "I never go to church except to some funeral."
+
+"Then it is high time for you to go for something else," I said.
+
+At the next church meeting the man was there, and I sat right in front of
+him. He stood up and put his hands on the seat, and he trembled so much
+that I could feel the seat shake. He said:--
+
+"My friends, you know all about me; if God can save a wretch like me, I
+want to have you pray for my salvation."
+
+That was thirty years ago. Some time since I was back in that town, but did
+not see him. But when I was in California, a man asked me to have dinner
+with him. I told him I could not do so. Then he asked me if I remembered
+him, and told me his name.
+
+"O!" I exclaimed. "Tell me, have you ever sworn since that night you knelt
+in your drawing-room, and asked God to help you?"
+
+"No," he replied, "I have never had a desire to swear since then."--_D.L.
+Moody, in "Weighed in the Balances," Published by Morgan & Scott._
+
+
+
+
+THE CAROLS OF BETHLEHEM CENTER
+
+
+There might have been no church had not the Rev. James McKenzie come just
+when it seemed tottering to a fall. There might have been no Sunday-school
+had not Harold Thornton tended it as carefully as he tended his own
+orchard. There might have been no class number four had it not been for
+Gertrude Windsor. But there would have been no glad tidings in one wintry
+heart save for the voices with which Eddie and the two Willies and Charlie
+and little Phil sang the carols that morning in the snow; and they came
+straight from Him who gave the angels the songs of, "On earth peace, good
+will to men."
+
+At the end of the winter term in Gertrude's junior year the doctor had
+prescribed a year of rest for her, and she had come to find it with Aunt
+Mehitable, in the quiet of Bethlehem Center.
+
+On her first Sunday she attended the little Sunday-school, and at the close
+of service there was an official conference.
+
+"She would be just the one if she would," said the pastor.
+
+"It can't go on as it is," answered the superintendent. "The deacon means
+well, but he doesn't know boys. There wasn't one here today, and only Eddie
+last Sunday. I wish she'd be chorister, too," he added. "Did you hear her
+sing?"
+
+"I doubt if she would do that. I am told she nearly broke down in college,
+and is here to rest."
+
+"Yes, so Mr. Thompson told me. But we do need her."
+
+"Well, I will call on her, and let you know what I learn."
+
+Gertrude hesitated; for had not the doctor said "It is not so much college,
+Miss Windsor; it is church and Sunday-school and Christian Endeavor and
+Student Volunteer, and all the rest on top of college work that is breaking
+you down, and you must stop it"?
+
+But the wistful face of Harry, who brought their milk, decided her; and the
+second Sunday saw her instructing Eddie and little Phil in the quarterly
+temperance lesson. It was not until school was over that she learned the
+reason of little Phil's conscious silence; and next day, when she met him
+with his father on the street, she tried to atone for her former ignorance.
+
+"Are you Phil's father?" she asked, stepping toward them.
+
+Tim Shartow, who was believed by some to regard neither God, man, nor the
+devil, grew strangely embarrassed as he took her hand, after a hurried
+inspection of his own.
+
+"Yes'm," he answered.
+
+"I am to be his Sunday-school teacher," she went on; "and of course I want
+to know the fathers and mothers of my boys. I hope Phil can come regularly.
+We are going to have some very interesting lessons."
+
+"I guess he can come," answered his father. "It's a better place for him
+than on the street, anyway."
+
+This was faint praise, but well meant. Gertrude smiled her appreciation,
+and in that brief meeting won not only Phil's lifelong regard, but, had she
+known it, that of his father as well; for thenceforth Tim Shartow felt that
+he had two friends in Bethlehem Center of whom he need not be ashamed.
+
+His other friend was the Rev. James McKenzie. The mutual though qualified
+respect which they felt for each other dated from their first meeting, when
+Mr. McKenzie had walked into the saloon and asked permission to tack up
+some bills advertising his revival services.
+
+"I guess you can," the proprietor had answered, standing alertly on his
+guard.
+
+The bills had been posted, and the unwonted visitor turned to the man
+behind the bar. They were alone together.
+
+"We should be very glad, Mr. Shartow," he said, "if you would attend some
+of the meetings."
+
+"It'll be a cold day when I do," answered the saloon-keeper.
+
+Mr. McKenzie did not reply.
+
+"The worst enemies I've got are in that church," added Tim, by way of
+explanation.
+
+A smile lighted up the pastor's earnest face. "No, Mr. Shartow," he said,
+"you're wrong. They don't like your business,--_I_ don't like your
+business,--but you haven't an enemy in our church. And I want to tell you
+now"--his foot was upon the bar rail, and he was looking straight into the
+eyes of the man to whom he spoke--"that every night, as I pray that God
+will remove this saloon, I shall pray that he will bring you to know my
+Saviour. And if ever you need help that I can give, I want you to feel free
+to come to me. We are traveling different roads, Mr. Shartow, but we are
+not enemies; we are friends."
+
+And the pastor departed, leaving Tim, the saloonkeeper, "that shook up," to
+use his own phrase, that it is doubtful whether he ever entirely regained
+his former attitude toward "them church folks."
+
+By Gertrude's second Sunday as teacher, the two Willies had come to test
+the truth of rumors that had reached them. Charlie and Harry came next,
+and, after Gertrude announced the mid-week class-meetings as a reward for
+full attendance, not one absence occurred for thirteen weeks.
+
+To Harold Thornton it had the look of a miracle that the class for whom no
+teacher could be found was as clay in the hands of the potter. There was
+nothing Gertrude could not do with them. They listened spellbound while she
+talked, took part in the responsive readings, answered questions, studied
+their lessons, sat wherever the superintendent wished; they even pocketed
+their papers without a glance at them until the session was over. And they
+sang with a wild abandon that was exhilarating to hear. Even Harry, who
+held throughout the note on which his voice first fastened, never failed to
+sing; and, though it added little to the harmony, it spoke volumes for the
+spirit of the school and the devotion to the chorister.
+
+But if Gertrude was doing much for the boys, they were doing much for
+Gertrude; and in obeying her orders to rest, exercise, and grow strong, she
+could not have had better helpers. From the time when the first pale
+blossoms of the bloodroot showed beside the snow, through the seasons of
+violets and wild strawberries and goldenrod, to the time when the frost had
+spread the ground with the split shucks of the hickory-nuts, the spoil of
+all the woodland was brought to her.
+
+Their class-meetings became long tramps, during which Gertrude told them
+interesting things about insects, birds, and flowers, and they told as much
+that was strange to her. Every one of them had become a conspirator in the
+plot to keep her out of doors, away from her books; hardly a day passed
+that she did not go somewhere with one or more of them. And as the healthy
+color began to show beneath the tan, as strength came back, and every pulse
+beat brought the returning joy of life, she often felt that all her work
+for class number four had been repaid a hundredfold.
+
+It was one mid-August afternoon, when the tasseled corn stood high, and the
+thistles had begun to take wing and fly away to join the dandelions, that
+there came the first thoughts of the carols. Harry had to drive cows that
+day; but the others were with her, and as they came out through Mr.
+Giertz's woods, and looked down upon the pasture where the sheep were
+feeding, little Phil began the quaint old version of the shepherd psalm
+that she had taught them,--
+
+  "The Lord is my shepherd;
+    I shall not want;
+  He maketh me down to lie,"--
+
+and, the other boys joining, they sang through to the end.
+
+It was beautiful. She had never realized that they could sing so well, and,
+suddenly, as she listened, the plan came full-grown into her mind, and she
+proposed it then and there. The boys were jubilant; for a half-hour they
+discussed details; and then, "all seated on the ground," like those of whom
+they sang, she taught them the beginning of, "While shepherds watched their
+flocks by night."
+
+That was the first of many open-air rehearsals, transferred, when the
+weather grew colder, to Willie Giertz's, where there were no near neighbors
+to whom the portentous secret might leak out. There was not one defective
+voice in the class save Harry's, and he was at first a puzzle; but that
+difficulty vanished when it was learned that his fondest ambition was
+satisfied by striking the tuning-fork. Thereafter all went smoothly, with
+much enthusiasm and a world of mystery.
+
+When the program was complete, they had by heart six songs: "While
+shepherds watched their flocks by night," "Away in a manger," "We three
+kings of Orient are," "Hark! the herald angels sing," "There came three
+kings ere break of day," and last, but best, because it seemed especially
+made for them, the song that began:--
+
+  "O little town of Bethlehem,
+    How still we see thee lie!
+  Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
+    The silent stars go by."
+
+And so at length came Christmas eve. Little eyes were closing tight in
+determined efforts to force the sleep that would make the time till morning
+so much shorter. But in Bethlehem Center were six boys who, it is safe to
+say, were thinking less of the morrow's gifts than of the morning's plan;
+for preparations for early rising had been as elaborate as if it were
+fourth of July, and there was a solemn agreement that not one present
+should be looked at until after their return.
+
+Gertrude had fallen asleep thinking of the letter beneath her pillow,
+promising her return to college at the beginning of next term; but at the
+first tinkle of her alarm-clock she was up, and, dressing by candlelight,
+went softly down the stairs and out into the keen air of the morning. The
+stars were still bright overhead, and there was no light in the east; but
+Gertrude Windsor was not the first abroad; for at the gate Eddie, the two
+Willies, and little Phil stood waiting, and already Harry and Charlie were
+seen coming at top speed.
+
+"Are we all here?" asked Eddie in a stage whisper; and the other boys
+huddled close together, and wriggled with suppressed excitement.
+
+"Yes," answered Gertrude. "Which place is first?"
+
+"Mr. McKenzie's," announced Charlie, whose part it was to lay out the
+route; and, crossing the road, they passed through the parsonage gate.
+Beneath the study windows, Harry, at a given signal, struck the tuning-fork
+against his boot heel, Gertrude gave the key, and then, like one, there
+rose to greet the dawning of another Christmas day those clear young
+voices:--
+
+  "Hark! the herald angels sing,
+  'Glory to the new-born King;
+  Peace on earth and mercy mild,
+  God and sinners reconciled.'"
+
+There were sounds from within before they had finished the first stanza;
+but when, after the "Amen," the pastor started to open a window, the boys
+were too quick for him. There was a volley of "Merry Christmas," and his
+answer reached only the rearguard tumbling over the picket fence.
+
+Beneath the bare apple-tree boughs in Harold Thornton's yard, Charlie,
+Eddie, and little Phil sang, "We three kings of Orient are," while the
+others joined in the chorus. At the song's close, the superintendent,
+swifter of foot than the pastor, overtook them with a great box of candy.
+
+Tears came into the eyes of Mrs. Martin as, watching beside her sick child,
+she heard again the story of the Babe "away in a manger, no crib for his
+bed." Old Uncle King forgot for a moment his vexing troubles as he listened
+to the admonition to "rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing."
+Mrs. Fenny cried, as sick people will, when she heard the boys reiterate
+the sweet, triumphant notes.
+
+So from house to house the singers went, pausing at one because of
+sickness, at another because those within were lonely, at some for love, as
+they had serenaded the pastor and the superintendent, and bringing to each
+some new joy.
+
+The stars were fading out, and they had started to return. On their side of
+the street was the post-office, and opposite them was the saloon, with its
+gaudy gilt sign, "Tim's Place." Little Phil was behind Gertrude; and as
+they passed that building,--it was home to him--his hand just touched her
+sleeve.
+
+"Do you think," he whispered, and she could see the pitiful quiver of his
+chin as he spoke--"do you suppose--we could sing one for m' father?"
+
+Tears filled Gertrude's eyes; and had she not known boys so well, she would
+have stooped and caught him in her arms.
+
+"Why, surely," she answered. "Which one do you think he would like best?"
+
+Phil had shrunk behind her, and beneath the gaze of the other boys his eyes
+were those of a little hunted animal at bay. "Bethlehem," he said, huskily.
+
+And when Harry had struck the tuning-fork, they began to sing together,--
+
+  "O little town of Bethlehem,
+    How still we see thee lie!
+  Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
+    The silent stars go by."
+
+The twenty-fourth had been a good day for business in Tim Shartow's place.
+He had had venison for free lunch; two mandolin and guitar players had been
+there all the evening; and there was more than two hundred dollars in the
+till. But now, in the quiet of the early morning, as he sat alone, the
+reaction had come. He remembered how Rob MacFlynn had had too much, and
+gone home maudlin to the wife who had toiled all day at the wash-tub. He
+thought of the fight Joe Frier and Tom Stacey had had. And--he did not
+drink much himself; he despised a drunkard--and these things disgusted him.
+There was little Phil, too,--"the saloon-keeper's boy,"--and that cut deep.
+Wouldn't it pay better, in the long run--and then the music floated softly
+in.
+
+He did not hear the words at first, but he had a good ear,--it was the
+singing that had brought him, as a boy, into the beer-gardens,--and,
+stepping to the window, he listened, all unseen by those without. There the
+words reached him:--
+
+  "How silently, how silently,
+    The wondrous gift is given!
+  So God imparts to human hearts
+    The blessings of his heaven.
+
+  No ear may hear his coming,
+    But in this world of sin
+  Where meek souls will receive him"--
+
+and until they sang the "Amen," Tim Shartow never stirred from the window.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+The storm that had been threatening all day had descended. Without, a
+blizzard was raging; but within, beside his study fire, the little ones
+tucked away in bed up-stairs, and a book in his hand, the Reverend McKenzie
+could laugh at weather. A knock at that hour surprised him; but when he saw
+who stood upon the threshold, he knew how the saloon-keeper felt when he
+posted his bills so many months before.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Shartow," he said. "Won't you come in?"
+
+The face of his visitor was tense and haggard; for the struggle had lasted
+the day long.
+
+"I've come for help," he answered, shortly. "I guess it's the kind you can
+give, all right."
+
+For a moment the pastor searched his face. "God bless you!" he exclaimed.
+"Come in, come in."
+
+And so was wrought again, before the close of the day that had been ushered
+in by the singing of the carols, the ever new miracle of Christmas; for
+God's gift to men had been again accepted, and into another heart made meek
+and ready to receive him the dear Christ had entered.--_Frederick Hall, in
+Christian Endeavor World._
+
+
+
+
+STANDING BEAR'S SPEECH
+
+
+The first time an Indian was permitted to appear in court in this country
+and have his rights tried, was in the year 1897. Previous to this every
+Indian in the United States was subject to the orders of the Secretary of
+the Interior. If he happened to be a man of a tyrannical nature, the
+Indians fared hard. One Secretary of the Interior at the point of the
+bayonet had caused all the Poncas Indians to be driven from northern
+Nebraska down to Indian Territory, depriving them of lands to which they
+held government deeds. They were left in the new country for months without
+rations, and more than one third of them died. Among these was the son of
+Standing Bear. The old chief refused to have the boy buried in the strange
+country, and, gathering about thirty members of his tribe together, he
+started for their ancient hunting-grounds, intending to bury his boy where
+generations of the Poncas chiefs lay.
+
+The Secretary of the Interior heard of the runaways, and through the War
+Department telegraphed to General Crook, of Omaha, to arrest the Indians,
+and return them to Indian Territory. So General Crook arrested Standing
+Bear and his followers, and took them all, with the old wagon that
+contained the body of the dead boy, down to Omaha.
+
+Standing Bear told his story to the general, who was already familiar with
+many wrongs that had been committed against the Indians, and who was
+indignant at their treatment. He detained the Indians at Omaha until he
+consulted with a Mr. Tibbies, an editor of a newspaper. They agreed to
+espouse the cause of the Indians, securing to Standing Bear a trial in the
+United States court. It was the most notable trial ever brought in the
+West, and, in fact, the scope was as wide as any ever tried in this
+country; for upon its decision one hundred thousand persons were made
+citizens.
+
+Mr. Tibbles, who attended every session of the court, describes what took
+place, in the following words:--
+
+"The court-room was crowded with fashionably dressed women; and the clergy,
+which had been greatly stirred by the incident, were there in force.
+Lawyers, every one in Nebraska, and many from the big Eastern cities;
+business men; General Crook and his staff in their dress uniforms (this was
+one of the few times in his life that Crook wore full dress in public); and
+the Indians themselves, in their gaudy colors. The court-room was a galaxy
+of brilliancy.
+
+"On one side stood the army officers, the brilliantly dressed women, and
+the white people; on the other was standing Bear, in his official robes as
+chief of the Poncas, and with him were his leading men. Far back in the
+audience, shrinking from observation, was an Indian girl, who afterward
+became famous as a lecturer in England and America. She was later known on
+both continents by a translation of her Indian name, In-sta-the-am-ba,
+Bright Eyes.
+
+"Attorney Poppleton's argument was carefully prepared, and consumed sixteen
+hours in the delivering, occupying the attention of the court for two days.
+On the third day Mr. Webster spoke for six hours. And during all the
+proceedings, the court-room was packed with the beauty and culture of the
+city.
+
+"Toward the close of the trial, the situation became tense. As the wrongs
+inflicted on the Indians were described by the attorneys, indignation was
+often at white heat, and the judge made no attempt to suppress the applause
+which broke out from time to time. For the department, Mr. Lambertson made
+a short address, but was listened to in complete silence.
+
+"It was late in the afternoon when the trial drew to a close. The
+excitement had been increasing, but it reached a height not before attained
+when Judge Dundy announced that Chief Standing Bear would be allowed to
+make a speech in his own behalf. Not one in the audience besides the army
+officers and Mr. Tibbies had ever heard an oration by an Indian. All of
+them had read of the eloquence of Red Jacket and Logan, and they sat there
+wondering if the mild-looking old man, with the lines of suffering and
+sorrow on his brow and cheek, dressed in the full robes of an Indian chief,
+could make a speech at all. It happened that there was a good interpreter
+present--one who was used to 'chief talk.'
+
+"Standing Bear arose. Half facing the audience, he held out his right hand,
+and stood motionless so long that the stillness of death which had settled
+down on the audience, became almost unbearable. At last, looking up at the
+judge, he said:--
+
+"'That hand is not the color of yours, but if I prick it, the blood will
+flow, and I shall feel pain. The blood is of the same color as yours. God
+made me, and I am a man. I never committed any crime. If I had, I would not
+stand here to make a defense. I would suffer the punishment and make no
+complaint.'
+
+"Still standing half facing the audience, he looked past the judge, out of
+the window, as if gazing upon something far in the distance, and
+continued:--
+
+"'I seem to be standing on a high bank of a great river, with my wife and
+little girl at my side. I cannot cross the river, and impassable cliffs
+arise behind me. I hear the noise of great waters; I look, and see a flood
+coming. The waters rise to our feet, and then to our knees. My little girl
+stretches her hands toward me and says, "Save me." I stand where no member
+of my race ever stood before. There is no tradition to guide me. The chiefs
+who preceded me knew nothing of the circumstances that surround me. I hear
+only my little girl say, "Save me." In despair I look toward the cliffs
+behind me, and I seem to see a dim trail that may lead to a way of life.
+But no Indian ever passed over that trail. It looks to be impassable. I
+make the attempt.'
+
+"'I take my child by the hand, and my wife follows after me. Our hands and
+our feet are torn by the sharp rocks, and our trail is marked by our blood.
+At last I see a rift in the rocks. A little way beyond there are green
+prairies. The swift-running water, the Niobrara, pours down between the
+green hills. There are the graves of my fathers. There again we will pitch
+our teepee and build our fires. I see the light of the world and of liberty
+just ahead.'
+
+"The old chief became silent again, and, after an appreciable pause, he
+turned toward the judge with such a look of pathos and suffering on his
+face that none who saw it will forget it, and said:--
+
+"'But in the center of the path there stands a man. Behind him I see
+soldiers in number like the leaves of the trees. If that man gives me the
+permission, I may pass on to life and liberty. If he refuses, I must go
+back and sink beneath the flood.'
+
+"Then, in a lower tone, 'You are that man.'
+
+"There was silence in the court as the old chief sat down. Tears ran down
+over the judge's face. General Crook leaned forward and covered his face
+with his hands. Some of the ladies sobbed.
+
+"All at once that audience, by one common impulse, rose to its feet, and
+such a shout went up as was never heard in a Nebraska court-room. No one
+heard Judge Dundy say, 'Court is dismissed.' There was a rush for Standing
+Bear. The first to reach him was General Crook. I was second. The ladies
+flocked around him, and for an hour Standing Bear had a reception."
+
+A few days afterward Judge Dundy handed down his famous decision, in which
+he announced that an Indian was a "person," and was entitled to the
+protection of the law. Standing Bear and his followers were set free; and,
+with his old wagon and the body of the dead child, he went back to the
+hunting-grounds of his fathers, and buried the body with tribal honors.
+--_Indian Journal_.
+
+
+
+Some Things We Need
+
+
+  The courage born of God, not man,
+    The truth to speak, cost what it may;
+  The patience to endure the trials
+    That form a part of every day;
+  The purpose firm, the will to do
+    The right, wherever we may be;
+  The wisdom to reprove the faults
+    That in our loved ones we may see,--
+  Reprove in tone and spirit sweet,
+    And ne'er in temper's eloquence;
+  The heart to love the ones in wrong,
+    While wrong we hate in every sense;
+  The strength to do our daily task
+    As unto God,--for we're his own,--
+  To seek his approbation sweet,
+    And not men's praise, fame, or renown,--
+  These, these, and more, are things we need
+    If Christ we'd represent indeed.
+
+C. C. ROBERTS
+
+
+
+
+MABEL ASHTON'S DREAM
+
+
+As the guests came together in the brilliantly lighted parlors at the home
+of Mabel Ashton that crisp winter evening, there was nothing unusual in the
+appearance of the rooms to indicate that the party to which they had been
+invited was to be in any respect different from the round of gaiety to
+which they had been devoting themselves for the greater part of the winter.
+Some of the guests, as they greeted their young hostess, noticed an unusual
+degree of nervousness in her manner, but, attributing it to the excitement
+of preparation and anticipation, thought no more of it, and all were soon
+engaged in conversation.
+
+The musicians were in their places, and the young people were beginning to
+wonder why the signal was not given for the orchestra to strike up, when
+Mabel Ashton, her sweet face flushed and pale by turns, took her stand near
+the musicians. After closing her eyes for a moment, during which the room
+became perfectly still, in a voice at first trembling, but clear and
+steady, she said:--
+
+"Friends, I know you will think me very queer; but before we do anything
+else, I must tell you a little story.
+
+"I had a dream last night, which has made such an impression on my mind and
+heart that I must tell it to you. I dreamed that tonight had arrived, and
+you had all assembled in these rooms, when there came to the door, and was
+ushered in, a guest who seemed strangely familiar, and yet whom I could not
+recognize. He had a rare face, peaceful, yet a little sad in its
+expression, and his eyes were more penetrating than any that I had ever
+before seen. He was dressed in neat yet very plain clothing, but there was
+something in his appearance which marked him as no ordinary man.
+
+"While I was trying to think where I had seen him, he advanced to me, took
+my hand, and said, gently, 'You do not recognize me, Mabel?' Surprised at
+such a form of salutation from a stranger, I could only say, 'Your face,
+sir, seems familiar, yet I cannot recall your name.'
+
+"'Yet I am one whom you have invited here this evening, or, I should rather
+say, one to whom both you and your parents have extended many invitations
+to be present here whenever I am able to come. You have even invited me to
+make my home here; and I have come tonight to join your little company.'
+
+"'I beg a thousand pardons,' I replied, 'but you mystify me all the more,
+and I beg you will relieve me by telling me whom I have the pleasure of
+greeting.'
+
+"Then he offered to my view the palms of his hands, in which were scars as
+of nail wounds, and looked me through and through with those piercing yet
+tender eyes; and I did not need that he should say to me, 'I am Jesus
+Christ, your Lord.'
+
+"To say that I was startled would be to express only a very small part of
+my feelings. For a moment I stood still, not knowing what to do or say. Why
+could I not fall at his feet and say with all my heart, 'I am filled with
+joy at seeing you here, Lord Jesus'?
+
+"With those eyes looking into mine, I could not say it; for it was not
+true. For some reason, on the instant only half comprehended by myself, I
+was sorry he had come. It was an awful thought, to be glad to have all the
+rest of you here, yet sorry to see my Saviour! Could it be that I was
+ashamed of him, or was I ashamed of something in myself?
+
+"At length I recovered myself in a degree, and said, 'You wish to speak to
+my parents, I am sure.'
+
+"'Yes, Mabel,' as he accompanied me to where my mother and father sat
+gazing in surprise at my evident confusion in greeting an unexpected guest;
+'but I came this evening chiefly to be with you and your young friends; for
+I have often heard you speak enthusiastically in your young people's
+meetings about how delightful it would be if you could have me visibly
+present with you.'
+
+"Again the blush came to my cheeks as the thought flashed through my mind,
+Tomorrow night is prayer-meeting night; I should have been delighted to see
+him then. But why not tonight, on this pleasant occasion? I led him to my
+parents, and, in a somewhat shamefaced fashion, introduced him.
+
+"They both gave a start of amazed surprise, but, convinced by his
+appearance that there was no mistake, my father recovered a degree of
+self-possession, and bade him welcome, as he offered him a seat, remarking
+that this was an unexpected pleasure. After a somewhat lengthy pause, he
+explained to Jesus that his daughter Mabel, being very closely occupied
+with her studies, and having little variety in life, had been allowed to
+invite a few friends in for a social evening, with a little quiet dancing
+by way of healthful exercise. Her friends were all of the very choicest,
+and he felt that this was a harmless amusement, which the church had come
+to look upon in a somewhat different light from that in which it was viewed
+forty years ago. Removing the objectionable feature of bad company, had
+made this pleasant pastime a safe indulgence.
+
+"As my father stammered out, in the presence of Jesus, these words of
+apology, which had fallen from my own lips, I felt myself flush crimson
+with shame both for my dear father and for myself. Why should he apologize
+at all for what he considered unquestionably right? How hollow it all
+sounded there in the presence of the Lord! Did not Jesus know that my
+studies were not so pressing but that I could keep late hours, sometimes
+several nights in the week, at parties?
+
+"Then father, anxious to relieve my evident embarrassment, said, 'I am sure
+we can leave these young people safely to themselves, and nothing would
+please me so well as to take you, my Lord Jesus, off into my study for a
+talk.'
+
+"'No,' said Jesus, 'Mabel has often invited me, and I came tonight
+especially to be with her. Will you introduce me to your friends, Mabel?
+Some of them I know, but some I do not know.'
+
+"Of course, all this time you, friends, were looking much in our direction,
+wondering at our embarrassment, and perhaps guessing that we had been made
+uncomfortable by the arrival of a not altogether welcome guest. I led him
+first to some of the church-members among you, and there was not one of you
+who looked so comfortable after the introduction as before.
+
+"As it became known who the guest was, faces changed color, and some of you
+looked very much as if you would like to leave the room. It really seemed
+as if the church-members were quite as unwilling to meet Jesus as those who
+were not Christians.
+
+"One of you came up quietly and whispered to me, 'Shall I tell the
+musicians not to play the dance music, but to look up some sacred pieces?'
+Jesus caught the question, and, looking us both squarely in the face, he
+simply asked, 'Why should you?' and we could not answer. Some one else
+suggested that we could have a very pleasant and profitable evening if we
+should change our original plans, and invite Jesus to talk to us. And he
+also was met with that searching question, 'Why should my presence change
+your plans?'
+
+"After I had introduced the Lord Jesus to you all, and no one knew what to
+do next, Jesus turned to me and said: 'You were planning for dancing, were
+you not? It is high time you began, or you cannot complete your program
+before daylight. Will you not give the word to the musicians, Mabel?'
+
+"I was much embarrassed. If my original plan was all right, his presence
+ought only to add joy to the occasion; yet here were all my guests, as well
+as myself, made wretchedly uncomfortable by the presence of him whom most
+of us called our best Friend. Determined to throw off this feeling and be
+myself, at his word I ordered the musicians to play for the first dance.
+
+"The young man with whom I was engaged for that dance did not come to claim
+me, and no one went upon the floor. This was still worse embarrassment. The
+orchestra played once more, and two or three couples, more to relieve me
+than for any other reason, began to dance in a rather formal fashion. I was
+almost beside myself with shame and confusion, when the Lord Jesus turned
+to me and said: 'Mabel, your guests do not seem at ease. Why do you not, as
+their hostess, relieve their embarrassment by dancing, yourself? Would it
+help you any if I should offer to dance with you?'
+
+"My confusion gave way to an expression almost of horror, as I looked into
+those tenderly sad eyes and cried, 'You dance! You cannot mean it!'
+
+"'Why not, Mabel? If my disciples may dance, may not I? Did you think all
+this winter, when you and others of my disciples have gathered for the
+dance, or the card-party, or at the theater, that you left me at home or in
+the church? You prayed for my presence in the prayer-meeting; you did not
+quite want it here; but why not, my dear child? Why have you not welcomed
+me tonight, Mabel? Why has my presence spoiled your pleasure? Though I am
+"a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," yet I delight to share and
+increase all the pure joys of my disciples. Is it possible that you leave
+me out of any of your pleasures, Mabel? If so, is it not because you feel
+that they do not help you to become like me and to glorify me; that they
+take your time and strength and thought to such an extent that you have
+less delight in my Word and in communion with me? You have been asking,
+"What's the harm?" Have you asked, "What is the gain?" Have you done these
+things for the glory of God?'
+
+"It was plain to me now. Overcome with self-reproach and profound sorrow, I
+threw myself on the floor at his feet, and sobbed out my repentance.
+
+"With a, 'Daughter, go in peace; thy sins be forgiven thee,' he was gone. I
+awoke and found that it was all a dream. And now I want to ask you, my
+friends, shall we go on with the program tonight, or shall we take these
+lists which we have prepared, and discuss for a time with our partners the
+question, 'What can young people do to make the world better for their
+having lived in it'?"
+
+As the vote was unanimous in favor of the latter plan, which was followed
+by other wholesome recreations, and as the social evening was declared the
+most delightful of the winter, it is safe to say that the Lord Jesus had
+sent that dream for others besides Mabel Ashton.--_Presbyterian Journal_.
+
+
+
+
+A SAD BUT TRUE STORY
+
+
+It was in the large parlors of a mansion in Missouri, where, on a pleasant
+October evening, ten or twelve young people were gathered from the
+wealthiest homes of the elite of the city. Among them was a young woman
+who, though always genial and social with the young, was ever clad in
+mourning garb, and bore the name of Mara, chosen by herself to express the
+grief and bitterness of her life, since the time when she, seven or eight
+years before, had been bereft of all her family.
+
+The pleasant hours flew fast till about half past ten in the evening, when
+one of the company pulled out a pack of cards and flung it on the table
+where Mara Moor was sitting. The effect was startling. Her face took on a
+deathly pallor; she trembled, arose from her seat, staggered across the
+room, and took a chair in the remotest corner. So great was her agitation
+that every one saw it, but none was aware of the cause.
+
+One of the party, who had been reading law for some time, not imagining the
+seriousness of her anguish, went to her, and in a bantering way threatened
+her with a legal prosecution before an impaneled jury in case she refused
+to return to her place at the table, and submit to the regulations of the
+evening. While the lawyer was urging her to this, a thoughtless young man
+of the company stepped up to them and placed a few cards in her hand. She
+jerked her hand away, and gave it a sling as if to rid it of the
+contaminating filth of the cards; and, with an agonizing scream, she began
+weeping and sobbing as if her heart would break.
+
+Surprised at this new outburst, the lawyer sought to soothe the wounded
+spirit; and when she had become somewhat quiet, he, with the rest,
+entreated her to give them the reason for her terrible agitation. This she
+at first refused to do, but being urged very strongly by all the company,
+she at length consented. At the first word a shudder passed over her whole
+frame; but pausing to regain her self-control, she began:--
+
+"When I was nineteen years old, I was living in an Eastern city, in one of
+the happiest homes within its limits. A rich and tender father, with a
+loving and gentle mother, and as bright and true a brother as ever a sister
+could want, were my companions in the delightful home of my childhood.
+Wealth and comfort smiled upon us, and prophesied of future happiness,
+until, with my own hand, I plucked down upon us all the greatest curse
+imaginable.
+
+"Two of our cousins, a brother and sister, came to visit us, and we spent
+the evening in pleasant conversation, as we did this evening; and just as
+those cards were thrown upon the table, and at about the same hour, my
+parents having retired, our cousin threw a deck upon our table. They two
+and I sat down to play, while my dear and tenderly loved brother, not
+liking the idea of playing cards, turned to his music, which he was
+composing as a graduating exercise for examination day, and went to work at
+that. We three needed a fourth one to make the game go properly, and we
+began trying to persuade my brother to come and take part with us; but he
+declared he thought it was not right to spend time in card-playing--that it
+was an amusement of the lowest character, and he did not want to get into
+it.
+
+"After using all our arguments to induce him to assist us, but to no
+purpose, I went to him, put my arm around his neck, and told him that I was
+a Christian, and was trying to get to heaven, and thought it no harm to
+play cards just for amusement; that I thought he ought to lay aside his
+scruples, and come and help us, as we could have no fun without his nelp;
+that he was too fastidious, anyway. With this he arose from his seat very
+reluctantly, and came, protesting that he knew nothing about it. We told
+him he could soon learn, and he did, only too quickly; for, in a little
+time, he was enough for any of us; and when we three had become tired of
+the sport, he was so delighted with it that he sat for an hour studying the
+cards and shuffling them.
+
+"We laughed heartily at him for his interest in the matter, and finally
+retired for the night, leaving him with the cards. Next morning he took
+them up again, and tried to induce us to play with him; but our cousins had
+to go home, and soon left us, taking the deck with them. But the fatal act
+had been done. That night my brother was in the city until a late hour,
+which was a thing that had never occurred before. When he came home, he
+seemed morose; and to our inquiries for the cause, his replies were
+evasive.
+
+"The next night he was out again; and this continued for some nights, until
+his money--two hundred dollars--was all gone. He then went to father for
+more, and, as he had unbounded confidence in my brother, father very
+readily gave him quite a little sum, without asking what he was going to do
+with it. This was soon gone. When he asked for more, father desired him to
+tell what he was doing with so much money. Not receiving a direct answer,
+father gave him a small sum, and told him he could get no more unless he
+would give a clear report of the use he made of his money. This money was
+soon spent, and when he went for more, but was unwilling to account for
+what he had received, father refused to give him more. With this refusal he
+became angry, and told father he would make him willing to let him have the
+money. My brother then went into the city again, and, as usual, into a
+gambling-den, where he managed to get money for gaming, or sat and looked
+on. He was absent for nearly a week.
+
+"During this time my mother neither ate nor slept, as I might say; and when
+my brother was brought home drunk, she took her bed, and never got up
+again, but died of a broken heart, within a few days.
+
+"We hoped this would stop my brother's course, but it did so only for a
+short time. He soon began gambling and drinking again; and, being young and
+rather delicate, it was not long until he was brought home in delirium
+tremens. Upon this father took his bed, languished, sank, and died, leaving
+myself and my brother alone in the world. O, how I wished I could die, too!
+But it seemed that God determined that I should see the end of my work in
+wrecking our family, and I was compelled to still remain, and reap the
+harvest of my own doings.
+
+"Every influence that could be brought to bear on my poor brother I made
+use of, but to no avail; and, O, how I prayed for him! But it was of no
+use! He went even more rapidly down the way of ruin, now that father was
+dead and out of his way. Only a few weeks after I had followed my father to
+his resting-place in the silent grave, my brother was brought home with
+delirium tremens again, and, after suffering for a short time the most
+terrible agony, the poor boy died, and was laid in a drunkard's grave. O my
+God! why was I ever born? Why cannot I die, too? But what will my eternity
+be for having thus ruined my own brother, the bright and beautiful boy?
+This is why I spell my name Mara."
+
+Soon after the lady commenced her sad story, the ladies in the company
+began weeping; and when it was finished, they were all sobbing as if their
+hearts would break; and the eyes of the men also were moist. The cards had
+disappeared, and vows were solemnly expressed by the entire company that
+never again would one of them be guilty of engaging in that sport, but that
+they would ever do their best to endeavor to put the practise out of
+society.--_Selected_.
+
+
+
+Sowing to the Flesh
+
+
+    Are you sowing to the flesh, O youth?
+  Have you turned your back upon the truth?
+    Are you scattering seeds of evil
+    From the garner of the devil?
+    Are you thinking of the harvest
+      By and by?
+    Soon will spring and summer pass,
+    Brown and sere will grow the grass;
+    No time then for good seed-sowing:
+      You and I
+  Must gather what we've sown, forsooth.
+  Are you sowing to the flesh, O youth?
+
+  Are you sowing to the flesh, O maid?
+  Can you think of the harvest unafraid?
+    Is this world your only treasure?
+    This life all your joy and pleasure?
+    Are you laying up no portion
+      In the sky?
+    He that soweth to the wind
+    Shall a whirlwind's harvest find,
+    And he'll see himself a pauper
+      By and by.
+  We must reap of what we sow, it is said:
+  Are you sowing to the flesh, O maid?
+
+ELIZABETH ROSSER.
+
+
+
+
+"THE MAN THAT DIED FOR ME"
+
+
+For many years I wanted to go as a foreign missionary, but my way seemed
+hedged about. At last I went to live in California. Life was rough in the
+mining country where I lived, with my husband and little boys.
+
+While there I heard of a man who lived over the hills and was dying of
+consumption. The men said: "He is so vile that no one can stay with him; so
+we place some food near him, and leave him for twenty-four hours. We will
+find him dead sometime, and the sooner the better. Never had a relative, I
+guess."
+
+This pitiful story haunted me as I went about my work. For three days I
+tried to get some one to go to see him and find out if he was in need of
+better care. As I turned from the last man, vexed with his indifference,
+the thought came to me: "Why not go yourself? Here is missionary work, if
+you want it."
+
+I will not tell how I weighed the probable uselessness of my going, nor how
+I shrank from one so vile as he. It was not the kind of work I wanted.
+
+But at last one day I went over the hills to the little abode. It was a mud
+cabin, containing but one room. The door stood open. In one corner, on some
+straw and colored blankets, I found the dying man. Sin had left awful marks
+on his face, and if I had not heard that he could not move, I should have
+retreated. As my shadow fell over the floor, he looked up and greeted me
+with an oath. I stepped forward a little, and again he swore.
+
+"Don't speak so, my friend," I said.
+
+"I ain't your friend. I ain't got any friends," he said.
+
+"Well, I am your friend, and--"
+
+But the oaths came quickly, and he said: "You ain't my friend. I never had
+any friends, and I don't want any now."
+
+I reached out, at arm's length, the fruit I had brought for him, and
+stepping back to the doorway, asked if he remembered his mother, hoping to
+find a tender place in his heart; but he cursed her. I spoke of God, and he
+cursed him. I tried to speak of Jesus and his death for us, but he stopped
+me with his oaths, and said: "That's all a lie. Nobody ever died for
+others."
+
+I went away discouraged, saying to myself that I knew it was of no use. But
+the next day I went again, and every day for two weeks. He did not show the
+gratitude of a dog, and at the end of that time I said that I was not going
+any more. That night as I was putting my little boy to bed, I did not pray
+for the miner. My little boy noticed it and said:--
+
+"Mama, you did not pray for the bad man."
+
+"No," I answered, with a sigh.
+
+"Have you given him up, mama?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so."
+
+"Has God given him up, mama? Ought you to give him up till God does?"
+
+I could not sleep that night. I thought of the dying man, so vile, and with
+no one to care! I rose and went away by myself to pray; but the moment that
+I knelt, I was overpowered by the sense of how little meaning there had
+been to my prayers. I had had no faith, and I had not really cared, beyond
+a kind of half-hearted sentiment. I had not claimed his soul for God. O,
+the shame of such missionary zeal! I fell on my face literally, as I cried,
+"O Christ, give me a little glimpse of the worth of a human soul!" Did you,
+Christian, ever ask that and mean it? Do not do it unless you are willing
+to give up ease and selfish pleasure; for life will be a different thing to
+you after this revelation.
+
+I remained on my knees until Calvary became a reality to me. I cannot
+describe those hours. They came and went unheeded; but I learned that night
+what I had never known before, what it was to travail for a human soul. I
+saw my Lord as I had never seen him before. I knelt there till the answer
+came.
+
+As I went back to my room, my husband said:--
+
+"How about your miner?"
+
+"He is going to be saved."
+
+"How are you going to do it?  he asked.
+
+"The Lord is going to save him; and I do not know that I shall do anything
+about it," I replied.
+
+The next morning brought a lesson in Christian work which I had never
+learned before. I had waited on other days until afternoon, when, my work
+being over, I could change my dress, put on my gloves, and take a walk
+while the shadows were on the hillsides. That day, the moment my little
+boys went to school, I left my work, and, without waiting for gloves or
+shadows, hurried over the hills, not to see "that vile wretch," but to win
+a soul. I thought the man might die.
+
+As I passed on, a neighbor came out of her cabin, and said, "I will go over
+the hills with you."
+
+I did not want her to go, but it was another lesson for me. God could plan
+better than I could. She had her little girl with her, and as we reached
+the cabin, she said, "I will wait out here."
+
+I do not know what I expected, but the man greeted me with an awful oath.
+Still it did not hurt; for I was behind Christ, and I stayed there; and I
+could bear what struck him first.
+
+While I was changing the basin of water and towel for him, things which I
+had done every day, but which he had never thanked me for, the clear laugh
+of the little girl rang out upon the air.
+
+"What's that?" said the man eagerly.
+
+"It's a little girl outside waiting for me."
+
+"Would you mind letting her come in?" said he, in a different tone from any
+I had heard before.
+
+Stepping to the door, I beckoned to her; then, taking her hand, said, "Come
+in and see the sick man, Mamie." She shrank back as she saw his face, but I
+assured her with, "Poor sick man! He can't get up; he wants to see you."
+
+She looked like an angel, her bright face framed in golden curls and her
+eyes tender and pitiful. In her hands she held the flowers that she had
+picked from the purple sage, and, bending toward him, she said: "I'm sorry
+for 'ou, sick man. Will 'ou have a posy?"
+
+He laid his great, bony hand beyond the flowers, on the plump hand of the
+child, and tears came to his eyes, as he said: "I had a little girl once.
+_Her_ name was Mamie. _She cared for me_. Nobody else did. Guess I'd been
+different if she'd lived. I've hated everybody since she died."
+
+I knew at once that I had the key to the man's heart. The thought came
+quickly, born of that midnight prayer service, and I said, "When I spoke of
+your mother and your wife, you cursed them; I know now that they were not
+good women, or you could not have done it."
+
+"Good women! O, _you_ don't know nothin' 'bout that kind of woman! You
+can't think what they was!"
+
+"Well, if your little girl had lived and grown up with them, wouldn't she
+have been like them? Would you have liked to have her live for that?"
+
+He evidently had never thought of that, and his great eyes looked off for a
+full minute. As they came back to mine, he cried: "O God, no! I'd killed
+her first. I'm glad she died."
+
+Reaching out and taking the poor hand, I said, "The dear Lord didn't want
+her to be like them. He loved her even better than you did, so he took her
+away. He is keeping her for you. Don't you want to see her again?"
+
+"O, I'd be willing to be burned alive a thousand times over if I could just
+see my little girl once more, my little Mamie!"
+
+O friends, you know what a blessed story I had to tell that hour, and I had
+been so close to Calvary that night that I could tell it in earnest! The
+poor face grew ashy pale as I talked, and the man threw up his arms as if
+his agony was mastering him. Two or three times he gasped, as if losing his
+breath. Then, clutching me, he said, "What's that you said t'other day
+'bout talkin' to some one out o' sight?"
+
+"It is praying. I tell Him what I want."
+
+"Pray now, quick. Tell him I want my little girl again. Tell him anything
+you want to."
+
+I took the hands of the child, and placed them on the trembling hands of
+the man. Then, dropping on my knees, with the child in front of me, I bade
+her pray for the man who had lost his little Mamie, and wanted to see her
+again. As nearly as I remember, this was Mamie's prayer:--
+
+"Dear Jesus, this man is sick. He has lost his little girl, and he feels
+bad about it. I'm so sorry for him, and he's sorry, too. Won't you help
+him, and show him how to find his little girl? Do, please. Amen."
+
+Heaven seemed to open before us, and there stood One with the prints of the
+nails in his hands and the wound in his side.
+
+Mamie slipped away soon, and the man kept saying: "Tell him more about it.
+Tell him everything. But, O, you don't know!" Then he poured out such a
+torrent of confession that I could not have borne it but for One who was
+close to us at that hour.
+
+By and by the poor man grasped the strong hand. It was the third day when
+the poor, tired soul turned from everything to him, the Mighty to save,
+"the Man that died for me." He lived on for weeks, as if God would show how
+real was the change. I had been telling him one day about a meeting, when
+he said, "I'd like to go to a meetin' once."
+
+So we planned a meeting, and the men from the mills and the mines came and
+filled the room.
+
+"Now, boys," said he, "get down on your knees, while she tells about that
+Man that died for me."
+
+I had been brought up to believe that a woman should not speak in meeting,
+but I found myself talking, and I tried to tell the simple story of the
+cross. After a while he said:--
+
+"Boys, you don't half believe it, or you'd cry; you couldn't help it. Raise
+me up. I'd like to tell it once."
+
+So they raised him up, and, between his short breathing and coughing, he
+told the story. He had to use the language he knew.
+
+"Boys," he said, "you know how the water runs down the sluice-boxes and
+carries off the dirt and leaves the gold behind. Well, the blood of that
+Man she tells about went right over me just like that. It carried off about
+everything; but it left enough for me to see Mamie, and to see the Man that
+died for me. O boys, can't you love him?"
+
+Some days after, there came a look into his face which told that the end
+had come. I had to leave him, and I said, "What shall I say tonight, Jack?"
+
+"Just good night," he said.
+
+"What will you say to me when we meet again?"
+
+"I'll say, 'Good morning,' over there."
+
+The next morning the door was closed, and I found two men sitting silently
+by a board stretched across two stools. They turned back the sheet from the
+dead, and I looked on the face, which seemed to have come back nearer to
+the image of God.
+
+"I wish you could have seen him when he went," they said.
+
+"Tell me about it."
+
+"Well, all at once he brightened up, 'bout midnight, an' smilin', said:
+'I'm goin', boys. Tell her I'm going to see the Man that died for me;' an'
+he was gone."
+
+Kneeling there with my hands over those poor, cold ones, which had been
+stained with human blood, I asked that I might understand more and more the
+worth of a human soul, and be drawn into a deeper sympathy with Christ's
+yearning compassion, "not willing that any should perish."--_Mrs. J. K.
+Barney_.
+
+
+
+How Wonderful!
+
+
+    He answered all my prayer abundantly,
+  And crowned the work that to his feet I brought,
+  With blessing more than I had asked or thought,--
+  A blessing undisguised, and fair, and free.
+  I stood amazed, and whispered, "Can it be
+  That he hath granted all the boon I sought?
+  How wonderful that he for me hath wrought!
+  How wonderful that he hath answered me!"
+  O faithless heart! He _said_ that he would hear
+  And answer thy poor prayer, and he _hath_ heard
+  And proved his promise. Wherefore didst thou fear?
+  Why marvel that thy Lord hath kept his word?
+  More wonderful if he should fail to bless
+  Expectant faith and prayer with good success!
+
+--_F. R. Havergal_.
+
+
+
+
+OUR GRASS RUG AND--OTHER THINGS
+
+
+Our house isn't so very nice. We own it, of course, and that is a great
+deal, as mother has often reminded us when we grumbled. But we girls always
+thought there were some drawbacks even to that, because we couldn't ask a
+landlord for new paper or fresh paint, and as for us--we never had money to
+spare for such superfluities.
+
+There are only four of us,--mother and Jack, Rose and me. We children have
+been busy all our lives trying to get educated, so we could keep mother in
+luxury after a while. In the meantime, she had done with bare necessities,
+for the life-insurance father left wasn't large enough to take any liberty
+with. Mother has things spick and span. No palace could be more beautifully
+kept than our home, but the furnishing is nothing whatever to boast of.
+
+Our room was almost the worst of all, with its odds and ends of things.
+"Other girls have silver-backed hair-brushes!" wailed Rose one night,
+regarding her old one with a scornful glance.
+
+"Yes, and chairs that don't tip one over," I added, as I managed to save
+myself from a fall.
+
+"Isn't it horrid to be poor, Meta?" said Rose.
+
+"It's no joke." I was very grim because I had bruised my hand on the
+rickety chair, and tomorrow was music-lesson day, as I remembered.
+
+It was then and there we rebelled. Not so mother could hear us--we weren't
+mean enough for that! She'd have been only too glad to help matters if she
+could. So we had our indignation meeting by our two selves. We said we'd
+had enough of old furniture and cheap sash curtains, and we decided it was
+time to act.
+
+Having reached this decision, we proceeded to carry it out, and we
+surprised ourselves with the speed of our achievements. My hope lay in
+music, Rose's in arithmetic. I trailed around the neighborhood, next day,
+looking for scholars, and Rose betook herself straight down to the Cowans,
+who had been hunting for a "coach" for their twins. We had discussed the
+Cowan possibility some time before, but Rose declared then that she
+couldn't spare a minute from the demands of her studies, while I knew it
+would keep me busy to be graduated on schedule time without doing anything
+outside.
+
+It makes a difference when you get interested in something for yourself. As
+soon as ever we girls viewed these occupations in the light of furnishings
+for our room, we felt sure we could squeeze them in--and we did. I got six
+beginners, and Rose captured the Cowans, root and branch--four instead of
+two; for it seemed they were not proficient in mathematical pursuits, and
+their mother was delighted to get them off her distracted hands. All our
+friends know that Rose adores sums and problems, and she didn't need any
+other recommendation.
+
+Well, we did it! It wasn't easy, either. If my half-dozen aspirants for
+fame escaped shaking till their teeth chattered, it wasn't because I didn't
+ache to administer it. And Rose feared her hair would be white before the
+end of the term. You see, when there's a certain amount of housework you
+feel obliged to do, and when your studies fairly clamor for attention the
+rest of the time, it sets your nerves all awry to keep the tempo for clumsy
+fingers that go just half as fast as they should; or to teach over and over
+again that four times five are _always_ twenty.
+
+But I suppose all these trials helped us to appreciate our possessions when
+we did get them. They were just as sweet and dainty as we had hoped. We got
+two single beds--white enamel with brass trimmings--and a pretty mirror in
+a neat frame. Our old dressing-table looked like new with fresh drapery,
+and there were full-length curtains to match. Two cunning white rockers,
+two other chairs, and a little round stand made us feel simply blissful. We
+painted our book-shelves with white enamel paint, and did our woodwork
+ourselves. Jack painted the floor a soft gray that would blend with
+anything, and after it was dry we laid on it one of our chief treasures. It
+was a grass rug, in two shades of green, with a stenciled border and a
+general air of elegance that almost overpowered us. It was large enough
+almost to cover the floor, and we stenciled green borders on our curtains
+and drapery in the same Grecian pattern.
+
+It seemed too good to be true as we stood in the door and viewed the
+landscape o'er after we had it done. "It isn't often that our dreams come
+true!" sighed Rose.
+
+"But this one has," I assured her.
+
+She nodded happily. "Yes, and it's just as nice as we thought it would be!"
+
+"Won't it do our hearts good to 'give notice,' as the cooks say?"
+
+"I can hardly wait to tell those awful Cowans that they may get along as
+best they can. I'm so tired of them, Meta!"
+
+"I know you are. I wouldn't mind the music so much if I had time. But it's
+dreadful when your own studies drag like millstones about your neck. I'm
+not clever at learning as you are, Rose. I have to work for what I get. So
+I shall tell them, next Tuesday, that I've decided not to teach any more
+till school's out."
+
+Jack stopped on his way down the hall to look over our shoulders. "Huh!" he
+said, if you know what that means.
+
+"Doesn't it look lovely?" asked Rose, her face all full of dimples. Rose is
+as pretty as a picture, anyway, and when she smiles, you can't help smiling
+back. Jack patted her cheek, and said, "It certainly does," and then he
+passed on abruptly.
+
+"Something doesn't suit him!" I declared as he shut his room door behind
+him. "I can't imagine what it is, and it's of no earthly use to ask him."
+It wouldn't have been. You can't worm a thing out of that boy till he gets
+ready to tell.
+
+Mother came up the stairs just then waving a note in her hand. "It's from
+Helen Hunt!" she announced joyfully. "She is going to spend a day and a
+night with us next week on her way to Grovesport. I shall be so glad to see
+her." Mrs. Hunt and mother have been friends more years than Rose and I
+have lived, and they very seldom meet any more. So we girls were almost as
+glad as mother was, because that dear woman doesn't have as many pleasures,
+as she deserves.
+
+After we went to bed that night, we planned the surprise. The visitor
+should have our lovely new nest, and we'd go and camp in the shabby old
+guest-room. We knew it would please mother, for she hadn't had so pretty a
+place to entertain Mrs. Hunt in for many years. It did please her, too, so
+much that she almost cried, and she hugged us and thanked us till we felt
+very happy and self-satisfied. Jack was standing by, and he said "Huh!"
+again, in that same queer tone. Then mother turned and hugged him, and Rose
+and I said to each other how strange it was that Jack should be jealous of
+his own sisters.
+
+It shone the day she came--the room, I mean, though the sun was on duty.
+too. Mother went to the station to meet her, and, as she started out, she
+called back, "Children, if any of you have occasion to go into my room
+while I'm gone, be sure to shut the door when you come out!"
+
+We answered "All right!" all three at once, and then Rose said, "How funny!
+What do you suppose made her tell us to do that?"
+
+"I can't imagine," I replied, and then Jack smiled. If it had been anybody
+but our jolly old Jack, I'd have said his smile was sarcastic; but no one
+ever accused that boy of anything so ill-natured. Then he said in a quiet,
+even voice: "It doesn't take a Solon to see through that. She wants to make
+sure that Mrs. Hunt doesn't see the contrast between her room and the one
+across the hall. She might not understand--or approve."
+
+And with that he took his cap and went out.
+
+Stunned? I guess we were! Rose and I stared at each other as if we'd seen a
+ghost. Then we put our arms around each other and went up-stairs without a
+word. It was mother's door we opened, and we stood there and gazed as if
+we'd never seen that room before. She had been darning her carpet again. We
+could see the careful stitches and the frayed edges her art couldn't quite
+conceal. "She has polished her furniture, too! See how it shines, Meta. She
+tried to make it look its best." Rose's voice was mournful, so I tried to
+speak up cheerfully.
+
+"To be sure she did, and succeeded!" Then we turned, and both of us choked
+back a sob at what we saw. She had taken our discarded dressing-table
+drapery, cut out the best portions, ruffled it daintily, pressed it neatly,
+and put it on her own bureau. Our worn-out sash curtains, nicely laundered,
+veiled her book-rack.
+
+"Meta, our mother--our precious jewel of a mother! We've taken everything
+for ourselves and left her the rags!"
+
+Rose had her head on my shoulder, and by that time I was crying as hard as
+she was.
+
+"No wonder Jack was dissatisfied!" I sobbed. "Rose, why didn't he tell us?"
+
+"O Meta, why did we need telling? That's what breaks my heart. Even our
+rickety chair fixed up and set back in the shadow! O, I can't stand it!"
+
+"We've got to!" I stiffened up grimly. "We've got to stand it, and it
+serves us right. But we'll make it up to her as soon as Mrs. Hunt is gone!"
+
+"Yes, if we can live till then!"
+
+"I think we'll manage to. Mortification won't kill us in twenty-four hours.
+We'll make her sleep in there tonight, and they can have one cozy visit in
+suitable quarters. Monsters!"
+
+Rose didn't resent the epithet. She knew it was appropriate.
+
+We did some thinking that night. I never felt so utterly insignificant in
+my life. We realized at last that there are other ways to show love than
+letting its object do all the sacrificing, all the giving and enduring,
+while the one who bestows it revels in selfishness. We didn't say anything
+then, but mother wasn't allowed to touch that supper, only the portion of
+it that filled her own plate, and she didn't wash a dish after it, either!
+If Rose and I sat over our books an hour after our usual bedtime, in
+consequence, it hurt no one but ourselves, and we deserved it.
+
+They had a lovely time together. We could hear their soft voices rise and
+fall, with once in a while a ripple of laughter, till we dropped off to
+sleep. The next night, mother went back to her own room. We didn't say a
+word to prevent it, though it hurt us to think of our old duds in there for
+mother to use.
+
+Next day the early morning post brought a note from Mrs. Hall, an old
+neighbor, urging mother to meet her down-town at ten o'clock. There was
+some important shopping on hand, and mother's advice was indispensable. The
+dear thing didn't suspect that her daughters had frantically besought Mrs.
+Hall the day before to concoct some scheme that would clear the coast at
+home. "All day, Mrs. Hall!" we pleaded. "We've planned a surprise for her,
+and it will take a good while to arrange it."
+
+Mother didn't see how she could be spared to go, but we assured her that
+since we'd be at home, she wasn't needed at all. If this struck her as a
+most unusual state of affairs, she was too polite to say so, and, true to
+her habit of helpfulness, she dressed and went to Mrs. Hall's rescue.
+
+We didn't waste any time, I assure you. We couldn't paint her floor then,
+but Jack stained it around the edges where it wouldn't have to be walked
+on, and the grass rug covered the rest. We burned the made-over rags. It
+did our hearts good to see them crisp and turn to ashes.
+
+Into the attic went the ugly old things, and across the hall came the
+pretty new ones,--curtains, dressing-table, chairs, every single dainty
+belonging, even the drapery from our book-shelves. Teddy Ward came in and
+helped carry things, and Jack worked like a beaver. He didn't need any
+urging, either. If ever a boy's face shone like a full moon, Jack's did
+that happy day, though he stopped at least a dozen times to hug his
+sisters. "What a beast I was to think you could be as selfish as all that!"
+he exclaimed once, "I ought to have known better!"
+
+"But we were just that selfish, Jacky," we told him. We didn't mean to sail
+under false colors. "We'd never have thought, if it hadn't been for you."
+
+"Yes, you would. The first jolt would have waked you up. Lend a hand here,
+Meta!"
+
+It was done at last, all cozy and fresh. Rose stopped in the door. "It
+looks like mother," she said, and her voice was husky. "It's pure and sweet
+like her!"
+
+"The other one looks pretty forlorn, girls. What are you going to do about
+it?" Jack had a hand on our shoulders as he spoke, and we felt his
+sympathy.
+
+"Do?" we chirped up as brisk as millionaires. "Why, furnish it, of course."
+
+"We have one bed to start on," Rose reminded him. "That's a big help, and
+the floor and woodwork are still painted. How are we to do it? Lessons, to
+be sure. Cowans and scales!"
+
+"Thought you wanted to quit." Our brother looked troubled, for all his
+satisfaction.
+
+"My son, we have changed our minds. Our most ardent desire now is to keep
+on," I told him. Rose smiled drolly. "I am seriously considering
+refurnishing the entire domicile," she remarked. "The Cowans are good for
+the next twenty years, judging from their present attainments, and it's
+fine practise for me!"
+
+We didn't give mother a hint till after supper. It was hard to wait, but we
+made ourselves do it so everything would come about quite naturally. She
+took her bonnet and wrap up to put them away, and we three tagged, as
+softly as if we had pads on our feet, like cats. She opened her door and
+gave one bewildered glance, then she turned and saw us. "It's yours, Lovey,
+every bit!" we told her.
+
+"Darlings, I couldn't!" she said. "Your hard work--your dear new treasures!
+I couldn't permit such a sacrifice, my darlings!" We just would not cry,
+though the lumps in our throats made our voices sound as if they belonged
+to some other family.
+
+"They aren't _our_ new treasures, they're _yours_."
+
+"Who has been making sacrifices all our lives?"
+
+"We love you so--you couldn't hurt us by refusing, Lovey!"
+
+"There is no question of refusing." Rose spoke with great emphasis. "This
+room is hers, once for all, and there is no more to be said about it."
+
+We tucked her into her pretty white bed that night, and we kissed the dear
+face on the ruffled pillow. Jack came in for his good night, too, and we
+all stood looking down at her, so happy we couldn't talk. She lifted her
+arms--those arms that had worked so hard for us--and gathered the three of
+us to her at once. "My darlings!" was all she said, and we crept out
+softly, knowing we had received her benediction.
+
+Yes, we are getting our second collection of furniture into shape slowly
+but surely. But we have learned that there are more precious things to be
+had in homes than beds and chairs, or even green grass rugs. We have
+them--the precious things--so, now that mother's room is accomplished, we
+can wait very happily for the beds and chairs--Rose, and Jack, and
+I.--_Elisabeth Price, in St. Nicholas, copyrighted by the Century Company,
+1913_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "The tender words unspoken,
+    The letters never sent,
+  The long-forgotten messages,
+    The wealth of love unspent,--
+  For these some hearts are breaking,
+    For these some loved ones wait;
+  Show them that you care for them
+    Before it is too late."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories Worth Rereading, by Various
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES WORTH REREADING ***
+
+This file should be named wrere10.txt or wrere10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, wrere11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, wrere10a.txt
+
+Produced by Joel Erickson, and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/wrere10.zip b/old/wrere10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7bb73db
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/wrere10.zip