Chapter II

HE brave girl was now full of hope that a good day was about to dawn for the P. S. P. S. Uncle John was there. He had said as much; and what could not he do?

The members must each be visited and urged to attend the meeting and hear what Uncle John had to say.

She would undertake it. Of course they would be so glad to hear that the Society was now to be revived and go on finely again. So she thought.

With a light heart and face full of sunshine she started on her way.

The first ring brought a servant to the door, only to say that the children had just gone away for some days. The next door opened promptly as she still held the knob in her hand, but only to assure her that Carrie was not well—probably could not go out for weeks. The third call found no one at home.

A fourth was answered with, “My! I thought the P. S. P. S. was dead. But I’ll see what mamma says. Maybe she’ll let me come.”

A little further on Jennie met an old member and laid before her Uncle John’s plans for a meeting, and all about it, only to receive a stare and, “Who is your Uncle John?” And the inquirer, without waiting to be told, went skipping on her way.

Sometimes Jennie was told, “Don’t get me to any more P. S. P. S. poky meetings;” or, “Oh! I’m invited to a card-party the very night of your meeting. Of course I must go. And there’ll be dancing and ice-cream, and ever so much fun;” or, “Mamma says I can never attend any more,” etc., etc.

A sunny sky is sometimes overcast and the rain falls instead of beams of light.

Do not blame Jennie if she cried. It was such a sharp disappointment.

Thus far not one word of encouragement. Every one seemed to frown upon her, and all the laughing she met or saw on either side of the streets through which she passed, seemed to be at her expense. She was mistaken, but a heavy heart often feels a sting where there is really no stinger.

What shall she do?

“It’s no use, Jennie; I told you so,” came from one of the committee boys, who happened to follow her track and overhear some of the rebuffs received by Jennie, and who now came up by her side to put the last straw upon her breaking heart. “What’s the use?” he went on. “They say you are making yourself ridiculous, and—” and he was about to add another straw when they turned a corner and met Uncle John coming towards them. Without noticing her face, he took Jennie by the hand and turned up another street, leaving her companion to go his way.

Uncle John went on to say how he had thought of little else besides the Poplar Street Pansy Society and now he was all ready for the meeting.

A little further on the other member of the committee was met, who reported that he had called upon some of the others, but no one had promised to attend the meeting.

But blessed Uncle John cheered Jennie by saying it was always darkest before the day and that no matter how matters had turned out this time, it might be just the contrary to-morrow.

So the tears were wiped away, and the young heart said, “I’ll try again, for Jesus’ sake.” That night she went and told Jesus. The next day there was joy in store for her. Not one laughed or mocked. Some said they would come and bring others.

Sure enough. Jennie must needs bring in twice as many chairs as were arranged for the meeting.

Everything being ready, Uncle John began:

“A long time ago there lived in one of our large cities a—Mr. Riddle. He was a banker. But no matter about him. I am now going to describe another member of the Riddle family, and if you will sharpen your wits and be wide-awake some of you good guessers can guess who or what he is, and I will promise you he will take you into copartnership and let you share his riches.”

At this point every eye began to open at the thought of suddenly growing rich.

“He was born before Methusaleh,” continued Uncle John, “and”—the eyes opened still wider—“he lives now;” at which not only were the eyes open to their utmost, but many mouths, and questions came thick and fast: “Born before Methusaleh?” “Lives now?” “Do you really mean it just so?” “How can it be?” “Who ever heard of such a thing?” “Is not it a conundrum, or a puzzle, or a riddle, or”—

“Yes,” from Uncle John; “and if you will listen closely and do some of the best thinking of your life you will surely guess my riddle.”

“And share the riches you spoke of?” asked one.

“And share the riches, just as I said.” And here Uncle John looked around, silent and amused at the perplexed faces of the young folks.

Then he continued: “This Mr. Riddle will probably live hundreds of years more. He was and he is a banker, richer than all other bankers, the Rothschilds thrown in to boot. There isn’t a place in all the world where he has not a bank. Some are hundreds of feet in the earth; some as high in the air; some, built of iron; some, of silver, tin, glass, paper, dirt, ice, clouds, coal and much more of which I may tell you more by and by. This is enough now. Don’t ask me any more questions to-night. We will sing a verse of a hymn, and have a short prayer, and then you must all go promptly home and to bed and be up early to-morrow morning and do all the sharp thinking you can get time for, and come again in the evening at seven o’clock, and I will tell you more about this puzzling banker, Mr. Riddle.”

Then Uncle John’s rich voice led, and, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” filled the room and swelled hearts with new and strange thoughts.

Then they all joined in “Our Father,” etc., and the meeting was out.

HOW BENNIE WAS TEMPTED.

ENNIE crawled out of his bed that morning with his mind full of the thought of apples.

“The harvests are getting mellow!” so Jack Burnes had announced the day before, and every boy knows just what that means to all the boys who are so unfortunate as to have no harvest apple-tree to climb and shake. After the climbing and shaking comes the scrambling down and the picking out of the fairest and best, and then comes the stuffing of pockets and the gradual, though not very slow, process of transferring from the pockets to the stomach. To all such unfortunates it means an indescribable longing, an unutterable desire to climb somebody else’s harvest apple-tree! It means an uncontrollable appetite which only harvest apples can satisfy. You all know how Bennie felt. There was no apple-tree in his father’s garden; how could there be when there was no garden! The place which Bennie called home had no advantages in that direction, being two or three rooms in a rickety old tenement house. Now Bennie went to Sunday-school, and he had learned the Lord’s Prayer, and he never forgot to repeat it as he lay down at night upon his not very luxurious bed; and I think that Bennie understood what it meant when he prayed “Give us this day our daily bread,” for he had sometimes known what it was to want for daily bread, but when he repeated “Lead us not into temptation,” his ideas of that for which he asked were rather vague. That morning he started out with hair uncombed, face unwashed; with a ragged coat and battered hat and walked directly towards temptation in the shape of Mr. Vinton’s harvest-tree with its loaded limbs hanging over the wall. To be sure he knew that trespassers were threatened with the constable and the jail, but then he thought maybe some apples will have dropped over the wall into the road in the night, and if I get there first why “I’ll have them if there are any. What’s in the road belongs to folks as finds ’em first!” And so he hastened along until he stood under the overhanging branches. There were no “finds” on the ground, and as Bennie looked up into the tree the thought of climbing up the wall and filling his pockets came to him. Why not? There were plenty of apples; the Squire would never miss a few; as for getting caught, it was too early for any of the family to be about. That sign was meant for boys who wanted to carry off a lot of apples; he meant to take only a few. And so reasoning, dallying with temptation, poor Bennie was overcome!

Not more than five minutes later Bennie lay helpless upon the ground, half-buried under the broken branch and the fallen sign.

“It is a wonder you weren’t killed outright!” said the Squire’s man who came to pick him up. “As it is I guess the harvest apples and the Astrachans and the pippins, too, are safe from you for this year! Where do you live, youngster?”

A broken arm and a sprained ankle! not long in the doing, but what a long, weary time was the undoing!

“The little rascal! serves him right!” said Mr. Vinton when told of the accident. “Send Dr. Grant down to set the arm, and tell him to attend to the boy, but don’t let May hear of it. She will be in a worry if she gets hold of it.”

But when was there a case of suffering among the poor, especially in her vicinity, that May Vinton did not get hold of sooner or later? It was not many days before Ellen appeared at Bennie’s poor home with a basket of necessaries and delicacies for the boy’s comfort, and asking if there was anything further needed. In the basket was a quantity of great mellow-looking, yellow harvest apples; but when Bennie saw them he turned his face away and said, “Take them away! I don’t want to see any harvests, ever! It was good of Miss Vinton to send them, but I can’t bear them! It seems just as if they had printed all over them ‘Thief! thief!’”

Poor Bennie, his sin had found him out!

FAYE HUNTINGTON.

======

OH, dear December, hurry on,
Oh, please—oh, please come quick:
Bring snow so white,
Bring fires so bright,
And bring us good St. Nick!
—_Selected._

THE COMPLAINT OF SANTA CLAUS.

THE snow lies deep on the frozen ground,
And the Christmas night is cold,
And I shine before the rime so hoar—
Can it be I am growing old?

Long years ago when the Christmas chimes
Made merry the midnight sky,
When the carolers’ call filled houses and hall,
And wassail and mirth ran high;

When the harlequin mummers reeled and danced,
And the great Yule log blazed bright;
When the walls were green with a summer sheen,
In holly and yew bedight;

When the faces of all, the young, the old,
Were brimming with sparkling cheer—
Aye, those were the times when Christmas chimes
Were the merriest sounds of the year!

I snapped my fingers in Jack Frost’s teeth,
While the snow was wavering down,
And the icicles hung from my beard I flung—
My beard that was then so brown!

And I wrapped myself in my grizzly coat,
And lit my pipe with a coal
From Hecla’s crest, where I stopped to rest,
On my way from the Northern Pole.

My reindeers—O, they were brisk and gay—
My sledge, it could stand a pull;
My pack, tho’ great, seemed a feather’s weight,
No matter how crammed and full!

My heart it was stout in those good old days,
And warm with an inward glee;
For I thought of the mirths of a thousand hearts,
Where the little ones watched for me.

So I gathered my sweets from far and near,
And I piled my cunningest toys
(Unheeding the swirls) for the innocent girls,
And the rollicking, roguish boys.

But the times have sobered and changed since then,
My merriment flags forlorn;
My beard is as white as on Christmas night
Of old was the Glaston thorn.

Tho’ my wrinkled-up lips still hold the pipe,
No longer the smoke-wreath curls;
But saddest to see, of sights for me—
My frolicsome boys and girls

Have grown so knowing, they dare to say—
Those protesters wise and small—
That all saints deceive, and they don’t believe
In a Santa Claus at all!

Ah, me! ’tis a fateful sound to hear;
’Tis gall in my wassail cup;
The darlings I’ve spoiled, so wrought for and toiled,
The children have given me up!

My heart is broken. I’ll break my pipe,
And my tinkling team may go,
And bury my sledge on the trackless edge
Of the wastes of the Lapland snow.

My useless pack I will fling away,
And in Germany’s forests hoar,
From an icy steep I will plunge leagues deep,
And never be heard of more.
MARGARET J. PRESTON.

INTRODUCTIONS.

IS name is Bobby Williams, and he is the boy who stands with smiling face, and hands in pockets, watching the huge snow ball being rolled to its place.

He has been doing something besides watch; not a boy in the crowd worked harder than he, until he was red in the face and quite out of breath, and two others came to take his place; then stood Bobby in the biting northeast wind, watching.

You should have seen that same boy at midnight, or a little later. Sitting bolt upright in the big chair in his mother’s room; a hurried fire burning in the grate; his feet in hot water up to his knees, his hands in hot water up to his elbows, spoonfuls of disgusting stuff being poked down his throat every few minutes, and his very wail in protest,—so hoarse that you would have been in danger of mistaking it for the voice of the big dog out in the back kitchen.

It seemed as though the doctor would never reach there, and when he came, as though he did nothing; and when something was really done, and Bobby was somewhat relieved, it seemed as though the weary night would never be gone.

But it was, at last; and Bobby, pale and limp, with flannel about his neck, and a smell of pork and oil in the air, was tucked into his mother’s bed, and listened to the merry jingle of the school bell.

Then said the tired mother: “Bobby, how was it all; did you get very warm yesterday, playing?”

“I guess I did!” replied Bobby hoarsely; “I never was so hot in my life! We was rolling a great big snow-ball; the biggest we ever made.”

“And when you stopped rolling, what did you do?”

“I stood still and watched the other fellows, four of them; it was as much as they could do to move it an inch.”

“Stood still in the sharp wind, all in a perspiration, I suppose! And did you have your overcoat on?”

“No, ma’am,” said Bobby hoarsely, his cheeks growing red for shame. “I forgot.”

“And don’t you remember, Bobby, how often I have told you not to stand still, out in a cold wind, when you are warm?”

Said Bobby, “I forgot.”

Now the truth is, that you are very well acquainted with Bobby, for that night’s work for father and mother, and grandma, and auntie, and the doctor and himself is a fair specimen of what Bobby can do for the discomfort of the world; and the words on his lips in excuse for all sorts of heedlessnesses, and even downright disobediences, are always “I forgot.”

Oh, me! What a “forgetter” has Bobby!

PANSY.

_Volume 15. Number 8._ Copyright, 1887, by D. LOTHROP COMPANY.
_December 24, 1887._

THE PANSY.

AN AUSTRALIAN CHRISTMAS.]

THE OLD BRIMMER PLACE.

BY MARGARET SIDNEY.