Part 7

He had one thing more to do before he went down-stairs. He drew his rocking-chair near the register, and took his Bible and read a few verses, then he knelt down and prayed. This part of his duties was not so well done as the other had been. The Bible verses were gabbled off as fast as he could make his tongue go. As to the prayer, the words were all right. He asked God to bless him and make him a good boy—obedient and kind, and keep him from being naughty to anybody, but he was so busy thinking whether it was likely the creek was frozen hard enough to skate on, that he scarcely knew what he was saying. He hurried through the prayer and went down-stairs as fast as he could go.

In the dining-room was sister Nellie, standing by the grate warming her hands. Johnny seized hold of one of her long braids and gave it such a twitch that the blue ribbon that tied it came near falling into the fire.

Then Johnny laughed, and Nellie said impatiently, as she twitched at the knot in the ribbon:

"It's too bad! When I had my hair all ready for breakfast."

"Hair for breakfast! Ho! Ho!" shouted Johnny, dancing teasingly about her. "Whoever heard tell of such a thing?"

Then did Nellie's patience vanish entirely, and she sprang up to give Johnny a good shake, but he darted away and ran out-of-doors, appearing soon in the kitchen, much to the dismay of Bridget who was flurrying about trying to dish up breakfast. If there was anybody in the world that Bridget didn't want to see in the kitchen, it was Johnny; so as soon as he bounced in, she said:

"Now get out of this, Johnny Blynn, this very minute!"

But Johnny seized the spoon that was in the batter-cakes, shouting, "I'll bake cakes for you."

Then he tried to put a cake on the griddle. He plunged the spoon deep into the batter and carried it dripping across the table, and floor, and stove, and splashed it on to the griddle.

Then Bridget seized both the spoon and the boy, put the spoon in the dish and the boy through the open door, then shut and locked it, saying wrathfully, as she put him out, "You're the very worst boy in this world!"

This was a specimen of that whole day. He could not go out to skate, because his mother said he was too hoarse to play out-of-doors such a cold day, and such a day as they had of it! If Johnny's business had been to torment everybody, make them lose their tempers and upset nerves generally, he would have been a master-hand at business, for he went from one thing to another as fast as possible, never once stopping to rest himself.

He dropped papa's watch, and spilt the ink, and tipped over mamma's work-basket, and quarreled with Nellie, played pranks on Bridget, worried the cat, and teased the dog, till about four o'clock in the afternoon; and then something happened.

From the window he saw two ladies coming to call upon his mother, and immediately he ran into the parlor and hid behind the folding-doors, when, as they stood open, were nice little corners behind them. "It will be such fun," he said to himself, "to hear what they say when they think they are all alone."

So, while they waited for his mother to come down, they talked. They were friends of her school-girl days, and one of them had not seen her for several years. They talked in low tones, but Johnny could hear every word they said. One lady said to the other:

"Cornelia has a pleasant home."

"Yes," the other answered; "and Mr. Blynn is a very fine man."

"She has two children, you said. Are they nice children?"

"Why, yes, they are very smart and handsome. Nellie is a sweet child, but Johnny is a perfect little torment. His mother spent the day with me when I lived out at Riverdale, and she brought him along. He kept my nerves on the stretch all day. There wasn't a thing on the mantel or table but he must have hold of. I expected everything would go to shivers that he touched, he was so rough. He brought mud on my carpet, and trod on the lace curtains, and put his feet on the sofa, and his mother kept saying, 'Johnny, don't! Johnny, stop!' And Johnny never obeyed until he was spoken to three times. I guess his mother was glad when night came; and I'm sure I was. I thought Cornelia would succeed better in training children; she certainly has made a great failure in this case."

"What a pity that she should have such a burden to carry; you said her health was frail."

"Yes, very; I should not be surprised if she did not live very long."

Just then the door opened, and Mrs. Blynn came into the room. Johnny peeped through the crack at her—his sweet, beautiful mother; how pretty she looked, dressed in white, with pink cheeks and bright eyes! What dreadful thing was this he had just heard; his mamma die!—How could it be? He had never thought of such a thing in his life. How he wished he could get out of that place and go up to his room. He wanted to cry out loud.

To think, too, that anybody should speak of him in that way—"a perfect little torment!" Oh, it was too dreadful! Had he really done all those awful things when he was at Mrs. Graham's last summer? He rolled over on the floor and had hard work to keep from screaming outright.

Just then what did Mrs. Blynn say but:

"Is not this draught too strong for you, Mrs. Graham?" And arising, closed the folding-doors, when behold! curled in a heap in the corner was Johnny.

"Why!" said mamma.

But Johnny waited to hear no more. A dart and a bound took him through the door, and on he went up to his own room, where he cried himself almost sick; but while he cried, he did more thinking than ever he had in his short life before.

"Nobody shall ever call me a torment again," he said with a long-drawn sob. "I'll show 'em my mother does know how to bring up children; I will!"

Don't suppose that Johnny grew to be a wonderfully good boy all at once after that big resolve. He tried to keep it, but he kept forgetting and doing the same naughty things day after day. He told it all to mamma one night—how it was of no use for him to try and be good; he "just couldn't!"

And then mamma said:

"Johnny, dear, don't you know you must pray just as you play, with all your heart, and your heart must run to Jesus when you feel that you are tempted to be naughty, just as you call after me when you are in any danger?"

That made the way plainer, and everybody began soon to say, "Johnny is certainly growing to be a better boy."

————————————

THREE LITTLE M'S.—A THREE-PART STORY.

BY MARGARET SIDNEY.

MATILDA, Martha, and Mary. That's what folks called them.

As to their looks, they were as alike as three peas in a pod. Even their father, good fat old Mr. Poser, who kept the small shop where the cross-roads met, said, "'Tain't in natur' to know which is the other, unless you see 'em a-workin'."

And this is the way they worked—these three little M's. "Two," I should say, for alas! one of these dear little girls was never a worker at all. Although Matilda, the eldest, skipped around the small shop, busy as a bee, helping father every day, and Martha, the next one, minded the house, little Mary, the youngest of the bunch, let them work alone while she tried to have a good time in her own naughty little way. For she didn't believe in making life beautiful in the way God has intended for all children as well as great folks, by cheerful, faithful labor, that makes play-time when it comes just twice as jolly because earned. Not she! She wanted high holiday "all" the time, and so she made her father very unhappy, and the tears to trail down from the little sister's big brown eyes very often, all because she "would" have her own way, and spend every day in running and racing here, there, and everywhere, for something new to look at.

Was she happy? Can a little child be, who turns her back on duty? And didn't she ever stop that bad, bad habit? Well, we'll see. Stay! I'll whisper it to you beforehand—my answer. Yes, she "did" stop, and all because of—and here's my story!

"Oh, dear, dear, 'dear!'"

Fat Mr. Poser sat right down on the cover of a butter-tub, although it was the busiest day in the week—Saturday—and just wrung his hands, which were like two small pincushions.

"What's the matter, pa?" cried Matilda, taking, by a violent effort, her eyes from off the jar of pink and white peppermint sticks. "Oh, what 'is' the matter?" And she ran over to his side.

But the fat shop-keeper only groaned, and unclasped the two pincushions enough to disclose in their centre a bright silver quarter of a dollar.

"'There!'" at last he said.

"Oh, my!" exclaimed Matilda, her eyes as big as good-sized cups; "that's Mrs. Smith's change."

"I know it," said Mr. Poser. Then he groaned again; and getting up from the butter-tub, he waddled to the door.

"'Ma-a-ry!'" he called, as loud as he could scream.

A small blue gown, and a little red hood, that were flying past, came to a full stop.

"Now you trot right straight off to Mrs. Smith's house in Crow Hollow as fast as you can trot, an' tell her she left this quarter, after buying that chopping-bowl this morning."

At that, there came such a whine from the little red hood, that Mr. Poser cried sternly, "You might as well stretch your legs for somethin'. Start now, an' don't you stop anywheres! 'Mind!'"

The whine ceased suddenly, as the blue gown and little red hood took themselves slowly out of the big gate. For the first half-mile or more, Mary went on quite steadily. Then she began to sigh—a sigh that soon broke out into a dismal cry—a cry that only half made itself heard, for the very good reason that Mary stopped to wink her eyes so violently, she had no time to attend to anything else.

"Why—why—ee!" she cried to herself and the birds. "'Folks have moved into the dungeon!'"

The "dungeon" was an old rambling stone mansion down on the edge of the wood, unoccupied since the old squire had died, and given up to the crows and the bats. Mary grasped her silver quarter tightly in her little fist, while her two naughty feet began to carry her up to the big green door.

"I'll take 'one' look," she whispered to her conscience; "only 'one;' then I'll run all the faster to Mrs. Smith's."

But that "one look" showed her a pair of cunning little rabbits just inside the barn-door, nibbling a cabbage-leaf.

"I wish 'I' had rabbits," she said, wistfully gazing at them. "I'm going to ask the folks in there to let me play with 'em sometime. Maybe there's a girl as big as me lives here. I mean to see."

So Mary stepped up a steep flight of short stairs leading into the house, and was just going in, when a big black dog running suddenly out, met her at the top, and coming to a full stop, showed all his teeth and gave "such" a bark, that the little girl turned around in a twinkling, and began to scuttle down the stairs with all her might.

The dog came tumbling after, barking violently at every step. Frightened almost to death, Mary flew along the barn floor, out into a dirty little court-yard, and, just in time to keep the little blue gown from a sharp snip of the white, gleaming teeth, she plunged against a door that stood conveniently open, threw herself on its other side, slammed it to, and tumbled down in a small heap on a pile of potatoes, to draw a long breath.

It was a little room, all filled with corn piled up in small bins with heaps of cobs thrown down just where children's busy fingers had been shelling; bags of meal fresh from the mill, and everywhere else that anything could be stowed, were heaps and heaps of potatoes. All this while the dog was howling away smartly outside.

"Hum—hum—'hum!'" said Mary, trying to catch her breath. "Oh, me, ain't I tired, though! Now when that dog goes away, I'll go right straight off to Mrs. Smith's. I don't want to see any more of these folks. 'Why! Where's—my—quarter!'"

For her fat little palm was empty.

Just then a loud voice struck up, outside the old door:

"Come off, Bose! 'Sharp,' sir."

"Er-r-'oof!'" Patter, patter, patter, went the dog's feet, as he unwillingly obeyed, leaving Mary to wriggle in delight at her escape.

"Now, then," she was just going to say, when, "click—'snap!'" went the key in the lock, and before she quite knew it, she was fast a prisoner in the old corn-chamber.

TO BE CONTINUED.

————————————

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.

"FIZZ! Sizzle!" said the mixture in the big pot on the stove. Miss Penelope stirred it, looking meantime so grim that it might almost have soured the mixture, whatever it was.

The kitchen was in after-dinner order; the stove shone brightly—the only bright thing to be seen, for the sun could not look in, and furniture was very scarce.

Suddenly the door opened, and a rush of cold air came in, with a few flakes of snow, and a pretty girl, in a green flannel suit, with a green velvet hat to match.

"Did you say come?" she asked in a cheery voice. "The wind blows so I couldn't tell. Miss Penelope, mamma wants to know if I may come and stay twenty-four hours with you? She was called away very suddenly, and she didn't know what to do with me."

"'Well,'" said Miss Penelope, after standing up straight, and looking at her visitor in amazed silence for a minute, "I should think you 'had' come!"

The pretty girl laughed a silvery laugh. "That is true," she said, stepping in, and closing the heavy door. "Mamma didn't know what else to do; she was in 'such' a flurry. The telegram never came until about an hour before the last train; it was from my uncle in the city. Mamma doesn't know him very much, and I never saw him in my life; but it seems he is 'very' sick, and wants to see mamma. She thought she ought to go, but of course she couldn't take me, and she said she knew you would take care of me until the four o'clock train to-morrow, when she would come back: she didn't like to trust me anywhere else. So I have my brush and comb, and all my night things in this bag."

"Humph!" said Miss Penelope. "Sit down, and take off your things."

Her face was, if possible, grimmer than before. If there was any one thing that she disliked more than flies, and dogs, and tramps, it was visitors. She never had them if she could possibly help it. The green-dressed maiden's mother, who had known her all her life, and took more liberties with her than anybody else, never ventured to come to tea; yet here she had sent her daughter to stay twenty-four hours.

"Whatever shall I do with her, or say to her?" said Miss Penelope, dashing around her kitchen like a great frightened fly.

But the first thing to do was to get her some supper, as the old-fashioned clock in the corner said "almost five o'clock." Miss Penelope never was known to have supper one minute after five o'clock.

The new-comer, whose name was Helena, did not seem uncomfortable in the least. She hung up her own hat and sack, then hovered around Miss Penelope.

"Let me set the table, please," she said eagerly; "I always do for mamma. It will seem so funny to eat supper without her."

She did not wait for permission, but helped herself to two old-fashioned blue and white plates, two cups and saucers, and the quaint little sugar-bowl, exclaiming as she did so over the pretty pictures on them.

Miss Penelope seemed too much astonished to speak. When had her table ever been set "for" her before! In fact, she could not remember the time. But she could remember the time when it was always set for two. Not very long ago, her old mother sat at the foot of the table.

It was in the evening, when the kitchen was trim and proper again, and the old-fashioned lamp was lighted, and Miss Penelope sewed on a "very" dark calico apron, large enough to cover her all up, that Helena said: "I brought my Bible among my night things; shall I get it and read my verses aloud, as I do to mamma?"

What could Miss Penelope do but give a sort of grunt for assent; of course, being a decent woman, she couldn't very well refuse to have a chapter in the Bible read to her, though the old mother had been the only one who had ever done it.

So the clear voice of the young reader commenced: "And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him: If thou wilt thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will, be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed."

"Only think how quick!" said Helena, looking up with shining eyes. "Just for the 'asking!' Oh, Miss Penelope, don't you wish Jesus was on earth now? Then uncle might have asked Him to make 'him' well, and mamma need not have gone away; but that is silly, I know; He can hear us just as well, and do just as much for us; only the trouble people is, people won't 'ask.' Uncle never asks Him for anything, mamma says. It sometimes seems to me if such people could 'see' Him they would ask Him for what they need: but I don't suppose they would. Mamma says they would be like those people who wanted Him to go away out of their country and not bother them."

Then she went on with her reading.

Miss Penelope did not hear much more. Her heart went back to the day when her old mother had read her that very story, and how she told of the time when "she" asked Him for healing, and he gave t; and then the tired old voice would say: "Oh, Penelope, my girl, I wish you would go to Him!" Penelope never had.

The next day passed busily to Helena. A telegram came for her. She was to be put on the four-thirty train, and go to the city; mamma would meet her at the depot.

Helena never came back to the little village. The old uncle died—not then, nor the next day, nor the next, but after weeks of pain.

He left all his money to Helena's mother, and the little bit of a cottage home where she and her daughter used to live, was broken up, and they lived in the grand city home. Helena never saw Miss Penelope again; for, strange to say, before the uncle died, God called for the lonely old woman. So Helena doesn't know yet, but some day when she goes to heaven she will—for there will be a bright star in her crown, and when she inquires for whom it shines, she will learn in great astonishment that it stands for the soul of Miss Penelope, who was led, through those simple, earnest words of hers, and through the words read to her from the Bible that was among her "night things," to go herself and "ask Jesus."

————————————

P. S.

NOW, what does that stand for? Not "Postscript," because every one is to be told the first thing. So all you bright Pansies, now listen!

"P. S." forever and forever, and then again forever after this stands for—

"PANSY SOCIETY!"

And it is to be all our own? Yes, indeed! And we are to have all the say about it too? Yes, indeed! again.

Now, then, "who will join? What shall be our motto? What shall we do? How shall we do it? Where shall we meet? When shall we meet? What will come of it?"

Oh, wait—wait—wait! You fairly overwhelm me with questions. It is late, and this paper should go to press. I can't answer now. Let me give just a little hint.

In the first place, the name is the "PANSY SOCIETY." That's settled. Then the motto comes, and that is "Pansies for Thoughts." What kind of thoughts? Oh, sweet, good, pure, unselfish, helpful thoughts, such as Pansies, beautiful Pansies, ought to inspire.

And we'll have a badge? Of course we will! Whoever heard of a society without a badge. And ours will be the most beautiful in all the world. That's settled, too. Just hear what it is going to be. The most beautiful round locket of wood, on the face of which is a lovely pansy, naturally colored. Above is the name, "PANSY SOCIETY," underneath the motto, "Pansies for Thoughts." A perforation at the top holds the ribbon to suspend the locket on the neck.

Now, "who may join?"

Every boy and girl who takes the PANSY, and is willing to promise to try to overcome his or her faults, to encourage every good impulse, to try to conquer some hard lesson at school, to do "anything" that shows a disposition to help the cause of right in the world. Any one who will say from the heart: "I promise to try each day to do some kind act, or say some kind word that shall help somebody;" and honest effort will be rewarded as much as if success were gained. Whoever will promise this shall receive the badge "at once," on sending notice of such determination to the editor.

This promise must be dated, and will be copied into the "P. S." roll-book. Each child is invited to write to the editor how far the trial has proved a success, how many temptations have been resisted, how much progress in any direction has been made, etc., feeling sure of encouragement and loving help.

And we will have some beautiful books of our own to read, which all the "P. S." people can get for much less money than anybody else. We will have local meetings. If any of you want to ask, "what in the world are those?" Go to mother, or father, or big brother John. They will tell you.

That is enough for now—excepting the most important of all—our whisper motto: "I will do it for Jesus' sake."

"FOR JESUS' SAKE."

Whatever He will own, the "P. S." will be proud and glad to copy on its roll-book.

And the PANSY will help. As it has always been glad to encourage those who are struggling up toward the light, so now it reaches forth its helping hand to those little ones who will rally bravely around it, to the work of putting down the evil, and the support of all things good and beautiful. That is all for now. Just a hint in a hurry; more next month.

Meantime, how many names shall we receive? Send postal-card with name to D. LOTHROP & CO., 32 Franklin St., Boston, Mass.

————————————

SIDE BY SIDE.

[PART I.]

BEHOLD I WILL SEND MY MESSENGER, AND HE SHALL PREPARE THE WAY BEFORE ME.

THE PEOPLE THAT WALKED IN DARKNESS HAVE SEEN A GREAT LIGHT.

I, EVEN I, AM HE THAT BLOTTETH OUT THY TRANSGRESSSIONS FOR MINE OWN SAKE, AND WILL NOT REMEMBER THY SINS.

REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY, TO KEEP IT HOLY.

SARAH LAMBERT lived with her mother in one room over Mr. Dunlap's stable. The stairs leading up to it were narrow and steep and dark. The room was dark when you reached it; only one window, with small, old-fashioned panes of glass. The window was dirty, too, and trimmed with cobwebs. There were two wooden-seated chairs, a poor bedstead, a table of the old-fashioned kind, with one leaf gone, a cooking-stove that smoked, of course, as all worn-out stoves do, and that stood on three legs, its door hanging by one hinge.

In this room one winter morning, Sarah Lambert washed her face from a tin basin, on a corner of one chair, snarled at her tangled hair a few minutes with a broken comb, put on a pair of ragged stockings and ragged shoes, and, over some very thin and old undergarments, a dark brown calico dress, patched in three places, wound a piece of brown and white plaid shawl about her, put on a gray felt hat without any trimming, and without any breakfast stole out of the room.

Her mother was still sleeping, though the sun was high. She went to bed the night before intending to sleep until she was ready to wake up; for she knew that the next day would be Sunday. As for Sarah, she was going to Sunday-school, whatever that meant; she had promised a lady the day before that she would.

Ethol Harrison lived with her father and mother and brothers and sisters in the great stone house three squares away from Sarah Lambert's. The room in which she slept late that Sunday morning had a crimson carpet on the floor, and crimson curtains at the windows, and costly and elegant furniture.