Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

PANSY’S

SUNDAY BOOK

BY

FAMOUS AMERICAN WRITERS

_FULLY ILLUSTRATED_

BOSTON
LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1888, 1893, by D. LOTHROP COMPANY.
COPYRIGHT, 1895, by LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.

_All rights reserved._

J. J. Arakelyan, Printer, Boston.

A STORY TO REMEMBER, IN NOVEMBER.

IF you’ll sit on my knee
As still as a stone,
And listen to me
While we’re all alone—
While the wind whistles cold,
And the snow falls so fast,
While the young and the old
Feel the chill of the blast—
I will tell you about
A poor little lad
Who now, without doubt,
Is smiling and glad.

(_His picture._)

Brown and curly his head,
Bright blue was his eye,
His feet bare and red,
His look rather shy;
His face, somewhat soiled,
Unfamiliar with soap,
Was thin, while there curled
In his neck, like a rope,

Certain locks which had grown,
Unhindered by shears
That he never had known,
You would think, all his years;
His shirt was a sight,
You may think, to behold,
Through which shone the light
Unblushingly bold.

His trousers, in shreds,
His legs dangled round,
Long needing the threads
Which they never had found;
While his cap—what was left
Of the original pattern—
Of all shape was bereft,
And looked like a slattern.

Such, such was the creature
Who stood in the door;
In dress, form and feature—
Nothing less, nothing more.
May you love this, my lad
From the slums of the city;
Not think him all bad,
But regard him with pity.

(_The name._)

Though nameless he stood
Clad in rags in that door,
Whether evil or good,
He is nameless no more.
We’ll call him hereafter,
If you make no objection,
In tears—or in laughter,
On further reflection—
Thomas Tinker, all told,
But “Tommy” for short,
Until he grows old—
Perhaps then, when in sport.

But I’ll tell you I think, sir,
Before saying more,
This is not the “Tom Tinker”
You’ve heard of before,
But another, whose fame
Is as worthy of mention
As the first of his name
Who claimed your attention.

(_The story._)

We will trace him as we may, on his way
From that doorstep, where at play on that day;
We will see just how he earned
That for which his young heart yearned,
How from good he firmly turned not astray.

Selling papers he began, little man,
Then on errands often ran, like a “van”;
Then his matches he would sell,
Blacking boots the while, as well;
And with cheerful voice would tell all his plan.

Tried his courage was, I’m told; nor condoled
By humanity, which rolled, with its gold,
On its laughing, rushing way,
Like a crowd of boys at play,
Or a flock of sheep astray from the fold.

But his heart was brave and true, and he knew
That to flinch would never do; so say you?
Thus he bravely bore his part
With a true and loyal heart,
Never doubting from the start; “tried and true.”

The days seemed often long; but his song
Rang brave and strong; just the song
Of the wares he had to sell;
Of the news they had to tell—
Good and bad alike as well, for the throng.

And he worked, and worked away, every day,
With his heart as light and gay, as the May;
And he did his level best, late and early;
Never grumbling, never sad, and never surly;
With a smile ’neath his golden head and curly, as at play.

So he fought the fiends of hunger and of cold, true as gold;
Like a veteran tried and bold, I am told,
Was this soldier in life’s battle
’Mid the daily hum and rattle;
Driven forth like sheep or cattle, to be sold.

Many brave fall by the way, every day;
Some survive, their country’s stay; well they may;
But of all the rank and file
Grandly marching up the aisle
Of stern duty, all the while, who can say

Which the most deserve the name, writ in fame?
Those who fell ’mid shot and flame, on land or main,
Or those who in obscurer strife
Have given heart, and soul, and life
For husband ill, for child, or wife, in duty “tame”?

Well, Tommy stood, sturdy and grave—no slave—
His soul had what we well might crave; no knave
Was he; but faithful in the daily fight,
Cheerful, happy, eager, bright—
A nineteenth century valiant knight, youthful, brave.

Perhaps you’d like to know his foes, who arose
To strike him down with deadly blows. Who knows
But such as he? Who else can tell
The horrid shapes, the cruel spell
These demons from the pit of hell disclose?

“Hunger,” you say, “sickness and cold; no fold;
No home that such as he might hold, to mould
And make them good, and true, and wise?”
Ah, yes! and on the streets before his eyes
Were Satan’s minions in disguise; so bold!

These dens of ill, they grow, you know;
We find them everywhere as we go, ready to throw
Their snares with fiendish skill.
Almost ’twould seem, to suit their will,
They’d gorge earth’s prisons to their fill below.

God looked on Tommy in the fight for right,
Saw darkness struggling with the light, so bright—
That light which shone on Eastern plain
Where shepherds heard angelic strain
Such as will surely come again some night.

God knew about the thrall, the small,
Weak hands which yet might fall, the call
Which all too loud might prove to be
For one so young, so little helped as he,
So tempted oft, and yet withal so free to fall.

And so, one cold Thanksgiving Day, so gay
With jingling bells, and sleigh and play,
The father sent a messenger in love,
To take poor Tommy to his home above,
Where, clad in garments whiter than the dove, he’ll stay.

And now no more he’ll walk that street, where sleet
And slush so cruel hurt his feet; repeat
No more his song of paper vending,
Shiver no more while restless horse attending,
But join in song triumphant, never ending and sweet.

But on this day of this November, remember
Tommies there are, with feet as cold and tender, remember,
As his once were, who now on golden strand
Meet rich and poor, of this and every land.
These need your store, your love, your helping hand, remember!
R.

ROBERT TRUESDALE’S LOGIC.

THEY were great friends, Robert Truesdale and Claire Waterman. During the long, bright summer at the seashore they spent as much time together as possible, and discussed all sorts of questions. They had opinions concerning everything under the sun, and agreed so well, generally, that to find a subject upon which they totally differed only added interest to the summer.

One of these subjects was found one morning when they sat together on the beach. It began—that is, the discussion did—by Robert’s making the astonishing statement that he never went to circuses.

Claire stopped playing with the sand which she was letting run idly through her fingers, and turned so that she could see his face. “How very queer!” she said; “I thought all boys went to circuses. Did you never go?”

“I went once,” said Robert, low-voiced, “when I was quite a little fellow, and that was once too often. I never cared to try it again.”

“I cannot imagine why. I think circuses are splendid. We never go in the city, of course. Why, they don’t have circuses in cities, do they? But I go to my Auntie’s every summer for two months—I always have until this summer—and Uncle West takes us children to the circus just as regularly. That is the reason I like the country so much better than the city, you can go to such queer out-of-door things. And I think the little circus ponies are too cunning for anything; I have always wanted one for my own. Mamma laughs, and says she doesn’t know but I will be a circus rider when I grow up—and then the clown is so funny. Why don’t you want to go, Robert? What happened when you went once? Was there an accident?”

“No,” said Robert slowly, “I suppose not; I am afraid it was an every-day affair. It is a long story, Claire, and begins away back of that day. I have been brought up differently from you, you know. My father was a minister, and he and my mother did not approve of shows of that kind, and I was never taken to them when I was a small boy. I never heard nor thought much about them; we lived in a large town, but not too large for the traveling circus; but I got the idea, somehow, that only low people attended such places, and never coaxed to go.”

Claire exclaimed over this, “Why, Robert, where my Auntie lives everybody goes, only the minister and a few old dried-up people.”

“Yes, I know,” said Robert gravely; “some people in the country have different views from those which my father and mother had; but I did not know it when I was a little chap; I thought that all respectable people thought alike. The first time I changed my ideas any was when I had gone to spend the year with my Grandmother in the country—that was the summer after mother died, and my father had died the winter before. I found that a great many country people went to circuses. All the boys and girls who went to school with me in the little old schoolhouse were looking forward to going as a matter of course; and I heard more talk about the circus that summer than I had ever heard in my life before. I began to want to go very much. The more I talked with the boys, the more I became convinced that it was because my father was a minister that I had been held away from such places. ‘Of course ministers ought not to go,’ I told myself, ‘because’—and there I would have to stop; I knew no reason why they should not go where other people did, and could not reason about it any better than some grown people can nowadays; still I called it a settled point, and began to coax my grandmother to let me go to the circus. ‘Just this once,’ I said to her; ‘I want to see for myself.’

“I have never understood how she came to let me have my way, unless it was because she was a very indulgent grandmother, and pitied the orphan boy, and could not bear to say ‘No.’ Any way, I received permission, and the necessary quarter of a dollar, and started off in great glee.

“I ought to tell you,” he continued, after a slight hesitation—and the flush on his brown cheek deepened a little—“that although I was only a little fellow ten years old, I was a member of the church, and was trying to live my religion. There was a ragged little boy not much older than myself, very ignorant and neglected, but a leader in all sorts of mischief, whom I had had ambitions to help. I had been kind to him, instead of making sport of his rags, as the other boys did, until I had a certain sort of influence over him, and he had partly promised me to try to be a better boy.

“Well, I went to the circus, and saw the ponies, and heard the jokes, and was delighted; but as I stood around outside afterwards, open-mouthed and open-eyed, I saw two of the men whom I had most admired in the ring, fighting. They had been drinking just enough to make them quarrelsome, and such horrid oaths as they were using I had never even imagined possible before. I stood still with fright and horror and watched the blows, and listened to the vile language, until somebody touched my elbow, and there was little Pete, the ragged boy. He was grinning wickedly. ‘My eyes!’ he said, ‘was you in there?’ nodding toward the tent. ‘I was struck all of a heap when I see you come out. I didn’t think this kind was for you. I thought you belonged to the “goody-goodies,” you know. Miss Wheeler, she said when she was talking to us fellows about it, “O, no! Robert Truesdale won’t go to the circus, I am sure; he is his father’s own boy, and is walking the same road he did.” I guess you got off the road this time, didn’t you?’

“I do not believe I shall ever forget the wicked leer in the little fellow’s face as he said those words; and I am sure I shall never forget the feeling of shame which I had as I looked at those two dreadful men with the blood streaming down their faces, and the vile words streaming from their mouths, and realized that I had spent my afternoon in laughing at their speeches, and had been found out of the road in which my father had walked—so far out that this street boy had noticed it! I turned and ran away as fast and as far as I could, and I do not think I shall ever attend another circus.”

“How very strange!” said Claire; “but then, after all, Robert, bad men will swear and drink and fight. You did not make them any worse by going to see them ride.”

“I can’t be sure of that, Claire. What if my twenty-five cents helped to encourage them to live the life which kept them in the midst of such temptations? That is what good men who have studied and thought about these things say of the circus. Besides,” and here the boy’s face took on a little touch of lofty scorn, “I want to grow up to be such a character that the jokes and jumpings of evil men cannot amuse me; I want to learn to be above them. Then you see what the ragged little street boy thought?”

“Yes,” said Claire gravely; “I never thought much about it; I just went, of course, because the others did, but I shouldn’t like to be counted on that side, exactly. Robert, maybe I won’t go any more. I must think about it.”

MYRA SPAFFORD.

HOW THE DEER KNEW.

MY neighbor’s little boy one evening saw his teacher coming up the lane and called her in to take a look at his pet fawn.

“Well, if he didn’t get half a foot taller since I saw him last,” said the teacher; “if he keeps on like that, Tommy, he will be a big deer the first thing you know.”

“Yes, he’s growing,” said Tommy; “but I wanted to see you about something else. He seems to be sick, and we do not know what to do about it.”

“Why, he looks all right now; what seemed to be the matter with him?”

“He doesn’t eat,” said Tommy, “and he upset his water dish when I tried to make him drink. I went up on the hill to get him the best grass I could find, but it’s no use; he must be sick.”

“Let me see that grass,” said the teacher. “I thought so,” she laughed, when Tommy took her to the fawn’s fodder corner; “you got a lot of wormwood leaves mixed up with the grass, and one of the leaves got in that water dish.”

Tommy stared. “Oh! maybe that’s the reason he upset his water,” he burst out; “but I had no idea that would make any difference. What makes him so very particular about a few leaves, I wonder?”

“You will know if you taste them,” said the teacher; “and maybe your fawn wanted to get even with you for teaching him to jump through a hoop.”

“Why, he seems to like that,” laughed Tommy.

“That’s just what I mean,” said the teacher; “he felt so much obliged to you and wanted to pay you back—by teaching you a good lesson. An animal, you see, won’t touch any bad-tasting food if it is in good health, and if you give it the wrong kind of drink it doesn’t mind its thirst, but waits till it gets something better. And that’s an answer to the question you asked me a few weeks ago, when you wanted to know how people could help getting fond of drinks that make them drunk and sick. They should let such stuff alone altogether, if they find out it does not taste right at first. You found out something about that yourself, didn’t you?”

“About what—the ugly taste of bad drinks, you mean?”

“Yes; don’t you remember what you told me about that hotel where you got thirsty, and tried a glass of something you thought was lemonade, and found it was beer?”

“O, yes! I remember,” laughed Tommy; “I never tasted anything worse in my life. I don’t see how in the world people can get fond of such stuff.”

“That’s just it,” said the teacher; “they should do as your little deer did this afternoon, and never meddle with a drink that tastes very bad the first time they try it, unless they should be sick and need a bitter medicine for particular purposes. If a healthy person should try to drink big glasses full of ugly medicine just for fun every day he would soon be sick, and few medicines taste as bad as some of the drinks so many people get drunk on.”

“Cod-liver oil doesn’t, nor herb tea,” said Tommy. “I tried them, and know they are not half as ugly as beer. And they say beer isn’t the worst yet,” he added; “there are drinks that taste like burning fire, if you get a drop on your tongue. I don’t see how in the world anybody can get fond of such stuff.”

“Let me tell you,” said the teacher. “The first time they try it they cannot help disliking it, and they should take the hint to let it alone altogether. But if they keep drinking it in spite of their horror, it will lead to a very strange result. Their nature gradually gets changed, till a time comes when they cannot do without a drink that made them shudder when they tasted it first. It is that way with beer and brandy, and even with a drink made of that very wormwood that would have made your deer sick if it had eaten it. Just rub one of those leaves between your fingers, and then put the tip of your finger to your tongue. That is just exactly the taste of a stuff called absinthe, and brandy and strong beer are almost as bad.”

“You say people get fond of it if they drink it again and again,” mused Tommy, “but what makes them do that, I wonder? What makes them try it at all?”

“They see other people do it,” said the teacher, “and so they try it themselves, and keep on trying, because they think Mr. So-and-so ought to know better than nature. Their own nature warns them against it, but they do not mind that warning, and keep on till it is too late to turn back. Now you might ask me to tell you who first took it in his head to make himself sick with such a foolish habit. That seems a puzzle, indeed, but it has been explained in this way. Before people drank wine they drank the fresh juice of grapes—‘must,’ as they call it—and probably tried to keep some of it in bottles and jars. Now in warm weather sweet juices of that sort are very apt to spoil—they ferment, as it is called, and their pleasant taste becomes sharp and disagreeable. Some stingy housekeeper in old times may have forced his servants to drink that spoiled stuff rather than throw it away, and after a while they got fond of it, and the foolish habit spread all over the country. Now wine is nothing but fermented or spoiled must. Beer is fermented barley water. They let barley get soaked in water, and then mix it and stir till it gets that sharp taste that made you sick when you tried it by mistake in that summer hotel last year.”

“Yes; and on that same trip I once got in the wrong railway car,” said Tommy, “and that car was full of tobacco smoke enough to make my little brother cry, and I thought it would choke me before the train stopped and we got back in the right car. I know a boy who got so sick he had to go to bed when he first tried to smoke; but I am sure I shall never try it at all.”

“That’s right, Tommy; let such things alone altogether,” said the teacher. “It’s very easy never to begin, but if you should get fond of such bad habits you might find it hard to get rid of them.”

“I have a book about travels,” said Tommy, “and I read that the American Indians first taught white men to smoke. One of my cousins has been in Mexico, and when I asked him what made the Indians so fond of tobacco smoke, he said they first used it to drive mosquitoes out of their cabins. They burn tobacco leaves on a hot pan, and the gnats all fly out of the window.”

“I should not wonder,” laughed the teacher; “and that would show that mosquitoes have more sense than those Indians.”

FELIX L. OSWALD.

SOMETHING FOR MAMMA.

I GET the idea and most of the details from Harper’s Bazar. The article from which they are taken says the contrivance is for an invalid, but let me assure you that mamma will like it very much, or, for the matter of that, papa also, though they have not thought of being invalids.

First, contrive to get a nice pine board about twenty-five inches long and twenty-one wide (if you are making it for me I should like the board a little narrower, but perhaps mamma might not); cover it with felt of any color you please—perhaps it would be well to have in mind the furniture in the room where it is chiefly to live, and secure a color which will harmonize, or at least not “fight,” with the prevailing color there.

Perhaps, however, you will be in the condition in which I have sometimes found myself; namely, with a piece of felt of a certain color which obstinately refuses to turn into another, no matter how much I might desire it; in that case, if I were you I would go right ahead with my present; I feel sure mamma will find it useful, even though it is not just the shade which you and she like best. The same remarks will apply to material. I have used cretonne, or even calico, where I would have preferred felt if I could have got it. Well, we will pretend to cover this pine board with felt; we will have the felt so long and wide that it will reach say for six inches or so below the board at both ends, and on the front side. Then make neat little pockets for these ends and side, with a flap to button down over them when desired. These are to hold letters, envelopes, bits of poetry, scraps of prose, recipes, in fact anything which mamma desires to have convenient when she sits down to write. If mamma uses a fountain pen I think she will like exceedingly a little narrow pocket, just wide enough for her pen to slip in easily, and just deep enough for it to stand upright and put its head out for her to get hold of. If she does not, a “traveler’s inkstand,” leather covered, may be glued at the right end of the board; it has a “spring” cover, you will remember, and takes faithful care of the ink when closed. A stamp box of wood or paper may be glued at the other end.

What a delightful present that will be when you get it done! I am sure “mamma” will appreciate and enjoy it. The Bazar says a row of brass-headed nails should be driven all around the edges of the board, I suppose to hold the felt firmly in place; but a little girl who had no brass nails could very easily sew her felt or cretonne or calico around the under side of the board, and make her pockets separately, sewing them firmly to their places, if she wished.

In fact, there is room in this device for many changes and improvements. I can imagine an ingenious girl or boy—or perhaps it would be better to say girl and boy—putting their heads together, and making many variations which would be a comfort to the fortunate owner. Try it, and let me know the result.

PANSY.

NANNIE’S THANKSGIVING.

IT was very early in the morning; earlier, in fact, than Nannie was in the habit of being up; but on account of Thanksgiving Day, and the fact that they were all going, to Aunt Cornelia’s to dinner, Nannie thought she ought to be on hand early. She was waiting for mamma to give her her bath, and sat down to pet Rosamond Catherine Lorinda in the meantime. The middle name, Catherine, was in honor of Grandma Patterson, but Nannie did not like it very well, and felt obliged to place it between two names which she called “delicious,” in order to tolerate it. A bright thought occurred to her; she might dress the child for the Thanksgiving dinner while she waited. It was while she struggled with the sleeve which did not want to go on that the thought came which caused all her trouble.

“This sleeve is too small,” she said; “I b’lieve my child’s arm must have grown a great deal since she wore this dress before; she ought to have had a new dress for Thanksgiving; she would look sweet in a white embroidered one trimmed with lace.” Just then the baby in the willow cradle at her side nestled in his sleep, and Nannie turned and looked at him.

“If Rosamond Catherine Lorinda only had one dress like what Teddy has so many of, I should be too perfectly happy,” she said. “Just think, I b’lieve he has as many as ’leven or eight! Mamma might borrow me one just for to-day; it would be too long, but I could cut it off at the bottom; it would be just as easy to sew it on again when Teddy needed it; and the sleeves I could loop up with pink ribbons, and she would look too perfectly sweet!”

The more she thought about it, the more the longing grew; at last it began to seem a positive injustice that Teddy should have so many clothes and not be willing to lend any to Rosamond Catherine Lorinda. “I know he would, if he understood,” said Nannie, looking approvingly upon the sleeping baby; “he loves my Rosamond, and kisses her just as cunning! And he has such a perfectly lovely lot of dresses! I just mean to look in the bruro drawer and count them.” Saying which, she tiptoed toward the bureau behind the cradle, and opened the second drawer. To be sure she was barefooted, and could not have made much noise; besides, if she was doing right why should she care if her footsteps were heard? Nevertheless, she instinctively tiptoed along, and opened the drawer as softly as she could; and it was not for fear of waking Teddy, either.

There lay the dresses in a fluffy white heap; on the top was the one which Nannie most coveted.

“Teddy hardly ever wears it,” she said reassuringly, as she drew it out; “I guess mamma doesn’t like it very much or she would put it on him oftener; and Rosamond Catherine will look too perfectly sweet for anything in it. I am most sure mamma would not care. I could cut it off right through all those little embroidery holes, then Grandma could sew them together again just as easy.”

I grieve to tell you that she did exactly that dreadful thing. Not immediately; she resolved to try the dress on first, and see if it would do; and despite the fact that the waist was many times too large, and the limp arms were altogether lost in the sleeves, the waxen-haired beauty looked so enchanting to her mother’s eyes, under those billows of white, that in a very short space of time the shining shears were making a long, crooked line through the costly embroidery with which Teddy’s best dress was trimmed.

O, me! the troubles which in this way were stored up for naughty, foolish Nannie. They began almost immediately; for despite the fact that Nannie had coaxed herself into the fancy that there was no harm in what she did, she found she was not willing to have her mother know about it, and crumpled the elegant dress into a small bundle and thrust it under the great rug at her feet when she heard her mother’s footsteps. All through the breakfast hour, and even at family worship, she was engaged in planning how she should get Rosamond Catherine Lorinda dressed and wrapped in her traveling cloak without any one having seen her; for fond as she was of exhibiting the beauty, she found that to-day she would rather her charms were hidden from all eyes.

She was still planning ways and means when the discovery came. She was not prepared for it, because when Teddy had so many dresses, how could she suppose that when her mother opened the drawer to select one she would exclaim, “Why, what has become of his dress? I laid it on top so as to get it without disturbing the others.”

A good deal of talk followed. Papa suggested that she had laid it in some other drawer, and Aunt Laura said perhaps Grandma had taken it to set a stitch in; and Grandma affirmed that she had not, and asked what Nannie was longing to: “Why don’t you take one of the others, daughter, and get the little fellow ready while he is good-natured?”

“Well, but where can it be?” asked the puzzled mother, closing the drawer. “I am sure I laid it here, on the top. I wanted Adelaide to see him in that dress, because she sent me the embroidery for it, you know, and it is more expensive than any I should have bought.”

Nannie caught her breath nervously over this; she had not supposed the embroidery was so choice; she might just as well have taken one of the other dresses if she had only known.

Just at that moment Susan, who was bustling about, packing Teddy’s traveling bag, stooped down and pulled at something white under the rug, as she said, “Shall I put in some playthings, Mrs. Walters? Why, what’s this?”

What was it, sure enough, but the lost dress cut in two, in a fearful zigzag manner, directly through the costly embroidery! Can you imagine what followed? I am sure you will not be surprised to learn that poor, naughty little Nannie had a whipping then and there. Her mother did not even wait for Susan to leave the room, as she generally did before punishing any of her children. It is true the whipping was not very severe, for Mrs. Walters was never severe; but the disgrace of it was terrible, for Nannie was very rarely whipped.

However, this was by no means the worst of her troubles; behold, mamma declared that she could not go to the Thanksgiving dinner, but must stay at home with Susan and the cat. Now when you reflect that they were to ride four miles in a beautiful sleigh drawn by two prancing horses, and meet a baker’s dozen of little cousins, some of whom Nannie had never seen, to say nothing of the delights of the Thanksgiving dinner, and the little pies with their names on, done in sugar plums, which were to be ready for each cousin, I am sure you will feel with Nannie that her punishment was greater than she could bear. In truth, the others thought so. Papa said, “My dear, couldn’t you reconsider, somehow?” Aunt Laura said, “Jennie, I think you are horrid!” And even Susan ventured to say, “I don’t think she knew it was his best dress, ma’am; and she says Grandma can sew it together, poor little heart.” But Mrs. Walters was very firm. She did not deign to answer Laura or Susan, but said to her husband, “Richard, I don’t know how I can change, now. I said she couldn’t, and you know I ought to keep my word. Besides, the child needs a serious lesson; it is quite as hard for me, I think, as for her,” and the mother’s lip quivered a little. Then the father said soothingly, that of course he knew she was doing it for Nannie’s best good, and he could trust her judgment where he couldn’t his own. But Aunt Laura remained indignant, and the whole household was in trouble. “Our Thanksgiving is spoiled,” said Aunt Laura; “I’ve a good mind not to go.”

Meantime, Grandma said not a word. It was nearly an hour afterwards, and the preparations for starting, which had gone on much more silently, were almost completed, when Grandma opened the door of Mrs. Walters’ room, dressed in her best black silk, with her beautiful white satin hair peeping out from under the soft laces of her best cap, and holding by the hand a little girl with very red eyes, and a red nose, who kept up a suspicious little sniffing, as though it was only by great effort she refrained from bursting into fresh tears. Grandma walked straight toward her daughter, and said, “Mamma, we have come to ask you if you will not forgive poor little Nannie, who is very sorry, and let her go to-day, for Grandma’s sake—not for hers at all, but for Grandma’s.”

And the handsome mother, with a sudden glad light flashing in her gray eyes, stooped and kissed the cheek of her sweet old mother, and then of her own little daughter, as she said, “Dear mother, you know what you ask for your own sake I could certainly never refuse.”

The years have rolled on since then, enough of them to make little Nannie twenty-six, and the mother of one Rosamond, who has golden hair like the dollie, her namesake, but who is mischievous, as Rosamond of old never was. And I heard the sweet mother say, last Thanksgiving morning, after having told this story of her past for the benefit of some young mothers, “I am thankful for two things: that I had a mother who taught me that wrong-doing must bring unhappiness, not only to myself, but to others; and that I had a dear Grandmother who taught me what it was to have a powerful friend to come between me and Justice, and say, ‘For my sake.’“

PANSY.

HERE stands my baby,
On two little feet;
With her bushy brown head,
And her dimples so sweet.

Her arms are all ready
To give me a hug;
So give me my baby,
And you keep your pug.
R.

NOVEMBER.

WHAT is thy mission, November,
Thou link ’twixt the living and dead?
What message would’st have us remember,
Writ on thy dried leaves, to be read
As lessons to youth and to age,
To the simple, the student, the sage?

Stern duty, thy scepter of power,
The husbandman readily sees;
And takes up the tasks of the hour
As the limbs bear the buds on the trees;
For he sows not, ploughs not, nor reaps;
He laughs not, he frowns not, nor weeps.

The frosts, without cost, starch the ground;
Spread a mirror o’er river and lakes;
While nuts scattered thickly around,
More treasured than apples and cakes,
The children may gather with ease,
With the squirrels which hide in the trees.

The apples are now in the bins,
The pumpkins upon the barn floor,
Save those which, bereft of their skins,
Hang to dry on the biggest barn door;
The banking’s high piled ’gainst the house,
To keep it as snug as a mouse.

Thou wast wisely ordained for man,
For time was much needed, we see,
In which for cold winter to plan,
And prepare for the storms which must be;
So, while few may sing of thy praise,
We will welcome and treasure thy days.

Not all the best things of this grand old earth,
Not all the hours of the year around,
Are welcomed here with the songs of mirth,
Nor in fields of pleasure are ever found,
For cloudy are the days of welcome rain,
And sharp the sickle for the golden grain.
G. R. A.

* * * * *

THE soul that perpetually overflows with kindness and
sympathy will always be cheerful.

BABY’S CORNER.

WHAT MADE BABY LAUGH?

BABY DALE’S mamma had a great many pictures of her little boy, but they were not pretty.

The trouble was, he would not sit still even for one little minute. He was always jumping or clapping his fat hands, or saying “Baa, baa!”

One of his pictures had three eyes, and one had no nose.

One funny one had his mouth wide open like a big O, for he was crying.

And there was one where he had his mouth shut, but he looked very cross. He had a frown between his eyes. Mamma said she would not know it was her sunny boy.

But by and by a man came who could take pictures whether babies kept still or not.

One day little Dale was in his high chair by the window. Outdoors it was snowing.

Baby thought the snowflakes were pretty white feathers coming down from the sky. Mamma and he played with a feather once that came out of his pillow. It was nice.

Such a lot of feathers! They made pretty white caps on the fence posts. And there were great heaps of them on the ground!

“Some day,” thought Baby, “I will go out that door, and I will creep right down the steps, and I will go to that big pile of feathers, and I will get my hand full, and I will throw them away up, up, back into the sky!”

Then baby laughed, and the man who had come to take his picture touched a button on a queer little box he had, and there was Baby just as you see him.

That is how Baby Dale came to have a picture that mamma loved.

All the aunties, when they saw it, said, “Oh! how sweet.”

Mamma sent a picture to the grandma down in Flor-i-da, and one to the grandma up in Maine. One went over the ocean to Uncle John who loves Baby Dale very dearly. One went out West to Auntie Lou, and one went to Boston, to be printed for you.

MRS. C. M. LIVINGSTON.

* * * * *

SOMETIMES in the early springtime,
The sunbeams floating ’round
Are caught out in the showers,
And are washed into the ground.

But, ere the summer’s over,
They take root in the sod,
And grow up with fresh brightness
In the form of Golden Rod.
—_Selected._

LORA’S SERMON.

IT was Sunday morning, and all the family except Lora and her mother had gone to church. As a rule they, or at least Lora, were the first to be tucked into the sleigh; but on this particular morning Mrs. Wheeler had said she was not going; that she had a little cold, she believed, and was “all tuckered out” with the week’s work, and just in condition to get more cold very easily; and Lora’s coat did look too ridiculous to wear to church, so she had better stay at home with her.

“By next Sunday you will have your new coat,” she said, to console the child, “and be all in order for church for the rest of the winter.”

Lora looked sober for a few minutes; she was very fond of riding to church tucked in among the great soft robes, and she did not mind the service so very much, though the sermon was pretty long. However, she was naturally a sunny little girl, and her face soon cleared as she buttoned her somewhat shabby coat, and went out to watch the snowbirds, who were gathering in great numbers near the barn doors.

Lora and the snowbirds were friends; indeed she made friends with all sorts of dumb animals, and had queer little ideas about them.

“You will fall,” she said gravely, addressing a fat bird who swung on a tiny branch almost at her side; “you have picked out a very slimsy branch; it looks as though it was almost broked off; maybe it will break while you are swinging on it—I most know it will—then you will fall down in the snow and hurt yourself. I falled off of a limb once, and it hurted.”

The bird paid not the slightest attention to this friendly warning, but Lora continued to stand still, looking at the swaying bush, her face full of earnest thought. She had already turned from the bird, and was thinking about the verse sister Nannie had taught her that morning. It was a long verse for a little girl, with some hard words in it; but Lora had mastered them, and said them over in her mind, revolving, meanwhile, the explanation which Nannie had made of them. “If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered.” “Branches do wivver as soon as they are broked off,” said Lora. “I’ve seen them; and papa and Moses burn them up—that is what it said.

“This stick is broked off,” she continued, carefully examining the one which she grasped with both chubby hands; “it used to grow, but it won’t ever any more. All the leaves have wivvered off it, and some day it will get burned up, I s’pose; it isn’t good for much.”

Words stopped just here, but that little Lora’s brain went on with the great thoughts which she could not express, was evident from the look on her face. The Bible verse and Nannie’s careful explanation of it had taken deep root in her heart. She went into the house presently; the thoughts had grown so large that she felt as though she must ask some more questions.

As a usual thing, Sunday quiet reigned in Mrs. Wheeler’s kitchen at this hour of the day. But this day was an exception. Mrs. Wheeler, bustling about doing up the last things connected with the morning work, had come across a bowl of mince meat and a lump of dough evidently left from pie crust. “I declare for it!” she exclaimed, “I thought Kate made up all the pies yesterday. What a careless thing, to leave this bowl of mince meat here over Sunday! It would make two good pies, and if all the folks come for Thanksgiving we may fall short; they set such store by my pies. I wonder what Kate was about? It must have got dark before she finished. These must be made up the first thing to-morrow—but there is pretty near everything to do to-morrow, too; it makes a great deal of work getting ready for such a house full; and pie crust is none the better for standing, either; I declare, I’ve a mind to slap this on to a couple of tins and set them in the oven; there is fire enough to bake them nicely, and it won’t take five minutes, hardly, and there are so many ways to turn to-morrow.”

There were more thoughts about it not put into words, but it ended in the moulding board being spread out on the table, and the flour jar and rolling-pin and pastry knife being laid beside it. I wonder they did not all blush for shame, for such a thing had never happened to them before on a Sabbath. Mrs. Wheeler’s cheeks were rather red, and she felt what she would have called “kind of queer”; but she flew about very fast, and meant to be soon seated in the best room in her Sunday dress.

It was just at that moment that Lora pushed open the kitchen door and entered, her eyes large with the thoughts about which she wanted to question. They grew larger as she took in the situation. Her mother rolling out pie crust! And it was Sunday! Such a thing had never happened in Lora’s experience. Nobody knows why the queer little brain put together the thoughts which had come to her outside, and the pie crust in the kitchen; but it did, and there came, presently, this question: “Did you get broked off, muvver?”

“Did I what?” said Mrs. Wheeler, her cheeks very red. There was something in Lora’s look and tone which made them redder.

“Get broked off. That is what Nannie said. She said folks that got broked off did things that Jesus did not want done; and kept doing them. Does he want you to make pies to-day, muvver?”

“If I ever saw such a child!” said Mrs. Wheeler, making the rolling-pin revolve over the board at railroad speed. “What does Nannie mean putting such notions into your head? Go into the other room, child, and take off your coat; I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m not going to make pies; I shall wad up this dough and keep it until to-morrow.”

And she did.

MYRA SPAFFORD.

THAT RAINY DAY.

THE Stautenbergers were not rich, neither were they poor. Their house was not large, neither was it very little; but there was none too much room in it.

Mrs. Stautenberger was dead; had “fallen asleep,” as the father called it, that very autumn; so when he went to the shop for his day’s work, Pauline, the eldest, had to be both sister and mother to her three sisters, and one little brother.

The teacher of the school in their district was very kind, and after her first call at the “home without a mother,” she said to Pauline, “Do not stay at home to care for baby sister; bring her with you, and we will manage in some way. I think she will be a good little girl.”

Then Pauline felt sure she should love the teacher very much. When her father came home she told him what Miss Gilbert had said, and as he wiped a tear away, he, too, thought she would be a nice teacher, and must have a good heart to be so willing to help his motherless ones.

There are a great many things I would like to tell you about this little family and their splendid teacher, but all I will have time for now, is the story of one rainy day, and what they did about it.

The storm was so hard they could none of them venture out; certainly little Gretchen must not be taken out, so there seemed a prospect for a dull, dreary, lonesome day.

The few dishes were soon put away, and all were hungry for school.

“I know what to do,” said Pauline; “let’s play school. We can read and spell and make numbers, and maybe we can study geography a little; then when we go to school to-morrow teacher will be so s’prised to see how much we have learned; and then she’ll smile, and maybe she will kiss us, every one! Won’t that be fun?”

She didn’t try to rhyme, but in her eagerness it came of itself.

So they had school, and Metza played teacher, and Pauline sat by little Gretchen, and Fritz and Mary sat with them on the long lounge, and they had such a nice time they forgot that it was storming outside, and were much astonished when at noon papa came home to lunch, and so sorry they had forgotten to heat the water for his coffee.

But when they told him what a nice time they had had, he smiled, and said, “My Pauline has been a good mother to-day.” And she thought, “I have the best papa in the world.”

G. R. A.

PERFUMED GLOVES.

PERFUMED gloves were brought from Italy by Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, after his exile, and his present to Queen Elizabeth of a pair with embroidered roses is mentioned in history. But the refinement of perfumed gloves had been known for three centuries in France before the days of the Virgin Queen, and in Spain the gloves were famous for the scent imparted to them long before her day. The luxurious court of Charles the Second used perfumed gloves, and those “trimmed and laced as fine as Nell’s,” you have no doubt read about. Louis the Fourteenth also issued letter patents of his “_marchands maitres gantiers parfeumeurs_.” In Venice, where the love of dress was conspicuous, perfumed gloves were introduced by a dogess as early as 1075.—_Selected._

* * * * *

THAT day is best wherein we give
A thought of others’ sorrows;
Forgetting self, we learn to live,
And blessings born of kindly deeds
Make golden our to-morrows.

A SABBATH IN A BOARDING-SCHOOL IN TURKEY.

I.

IT was the dawn of a winter morning. Ding-dong-ding clanged the chapel bell. I sprang up and began to dress, while Marta went to the mission-house for a cup of coffee. As I fastened the last button, there was a rap at the door. “Come,” I called, and in walked the dear little maid with a cup of coffee carefully covered to keep in the steam, and a roll done up in a napkin, which the cook had insisted upon her bringing.

Ding-dong began the bell again. “Tell the girls not to wait for me,” I said; and soon the clatter of many feet on the stairs indicated their departure. The coffee must be swallowed, and the little roll must not be wholly neglected; then putting on bonnet and ulster, I started to follow. Fido, our little spaniel, was standing disconsolate in the hall below. Her eyes were full of entreaty, and wagging her tail persuasively, she accompanied me to the door.

“Go back, Fido. Can’t take little dogs to church!” I exclaimed. She knew it was no use to tease, and stood watching me as I opened the heavy door with difficulty, and slammed it after me—it would not latch unless slammed. As I reached the church door, I heard the organ—that meant the service had begun, and I was late! something I never meant to be, but this was so early to go to church! The Armenians are all accustomed in the Gregorian Church to a service even earlier, and when they become Protestant, or Evangelical, they still cling to the old way of making worship the first thing in the morning, and giving breakfast the second place.

Instead, then, of going up the men’s aisle, and sitting at the further end where we missionaries usually do, I went on to the door at the left—the women’s—and slipped into a back seat. A little girl just in front of me passed me her hymn book, so that I could join with the congregation in singing “_Garode yem, voh garode yem_”—“I need Thee, O, I need Thee.” Just as the hymn closed, the sun’s rays struck the eastern window and streamed in; then the preacher arose and read the epistle to Philemon, and also 1 Cor. vii. 22. . . .

The benediction was pronounced, and the congregation slowly streamed out. The walk from the chapel to the street is narrow, and as it is not proper for women to crowd in among the men, we waited till they had mostly passed on. While standing outside, Shushan, one of our day pupils, came along with her mother; both were completely enveloped in the white crapy wrap which is worn by the Armenian women in this section. Shushan’s bright-colored dress showed through, and at the same time set off the figure in the wrap.

“_Par-ee loo-is_, Shushan; are you of the same mind as yesterday about going to Kozloo?”

She returned my good-morning, and said she was; yes, indeed!

“Why should we change our minds?” said her mother. “Are we not also Christ’s servants?” referring to the sermon we had just heard.

You see, Shushan’s brother was bitterly opposed to her going away to teach, and I thought it quite possible that he had influenced her to give it up. It was years after girls’ schools were opened before people were willing to send their children to a woman teacher—I mean a native—still worse if she was “only a girl.” They would far rather send them to a man, however ignorant and incapable. That long struggle has ended at last in victory, and we have no more trouble in finding work for our girls; but we have another difficulty now. Well-to-do parents and brothers consider it a disgrace—at least many of them do—to have their daughters and sisters work as though they were obliged to earn their support.