[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE STOLEN ORANGE

"Mamma will never know," thought Flora Marshall to herself, as she took a large orange from the piled-up dish on the table, and, putting it in her pocket, went hastily up stairs.

She was expecting two or three little friends to spend the day with her, and had been busily arranging the doll her kind mother had given her; but while lingering about, waiting for them to come, she was tempted to take one of the oranges which had been placed on the table ready for dinner. She hurried from the room, but had not reached the top of the stairs before her brother's voice stopped her, calling, "Flora, Flora, make haste, I see some of your visitors coming in at the gate;" and directly after there was a knock at the door, and she could hear the voices of Kate and Effie Somers.

Flora ran quickly down stairs, but her face was flushed, and she felt miserable and ashamed as she met her young friends, and took them to the parlor to speak to her mamma.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Blindman's Buff"_]

Flora tried to laugh and talk as merrily as any of them, but she could not forget how wrong she had been; and the dish of oranges setting right before her on the table kept her fault ever in her mind. Besides this, not having been able to eat the orange she had taken, she was in constant fear lest she might draw it from her pocket with her handkerchief, and thus be covered with shame in the sight of her young friends.

Poor Flora! she had sinned against G.o.d, and against her kind mother, and had spoiled all her afternoon's pleasure for the sake of an orange. At dinner time she could not raise her head to meet her mother's glance, who saw that something was wrong with her, and who said very kindly, "Flora, dear, you are scarcely eating anything--are you not well?" This made Flora ready to cry with shame and repentance. Her conscience was too tender to allow her to be happy while her fault remained unconfessed.

All the afternoon they had merry games, in which everybody joined. They played "Lady's Toilet," "Hunt the Slipper," and many more such games, winding up with "Blindman's Buff." After this the little girls went home, and Flora was left alone with her papa and mama while the younger children were getting ready for bed.

Several times she had fancied she had dropped the orange in some of the rough movements of the games, and had gone more than once quietly into a corner of the room to feel in her pocket if it was still there. Yes, it was quite safe enough. "How could I be so wicked and so greedy?" thought Flora; "mama always gives me as much fruit as is best for me, and yet I have made myself a thief, and after all have not eaten the orange, or been able to put it back, and it has spoiled all my pleasure." She sat still, miserable and unhappy for a little longer, and then her resolution was made--she would tell her mama before she lay down to sleep that night. With a slow step and a beating heart she went toward the window where her mother was sitting. "Well, Flora," said Mrs.

Marshall kindly, "you seem tired and out of spirits to-night; have you come to wish me good-night?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Here it is, Mama."_]

"O mama!" sobbed Flora, "I have come to tell you how wicked I have been, and how very sorry and miserable I am;" and hiding her face in the folds of her mama's dress, she told the story.

"Here it is, mama," she said, drawing the orange from her pocket, "and I think I shall never see an orange again without remembering this bad afternoon."

Very gravely, but gently, her mother spoke to her about her sin, and the consequences it had brought upon her. "I shall not punish you, Flora,"

she said; "your own conscience has been a sufficient punishment. I have watched your pale, troubled face all the afternoon, and should have wondered what was wrong with you had I not seen you take the orange as I pa.s.sed the door, which was slightly open. Knowing what you had done, I was not surprised that you seemed unhappy."

"But can you forgive me mama, and believe that I will never do such a thing again?"

"I will forgive you, Flora, because you have told me of your fault; but remember there is One above whose forgiveness you must seek as well as mine, whose eye is always upon you, and who is grieved when you do wrong. Go now, and before you sleep to-night ask G.o.d to pardon you, and cleanse you from this and every other sin for the sake of his Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ."

With a sorrowful, repentant heart Flora went to her room, and kneeling there asked G.o.d to forgive all her sins, and to help her for the future to resist temptation; but it was a long time before she forgot the stolen orange and how miserable she had been that afternoon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_He used to chase them and threaten to cut off their ears._"]

WEE JANET'S PROBLEM

Everything small and helpless was once afraid of a certain ragged, barefooted little boy who had recently come to live in the country. His home was the old Perkins' house, in which no one had lived for years; at least no one but wild-wood folks, like birds and squirrels. They didn't stay long after the arrival of Pete and his family, because Pete threw stones even at the bluebirds.

Wee Janet was afraid of Pete. All the Primer Cla.s.s children who attended the country school were afraid of the boy. He used to chase them and threaten to cut off their ears; once he whispered across the aisle to Bessie Saunders that he would like to eat little girls, and she believed it.

The teacher said that Pete was a bad boy. There was never a school day when the child wasn't justly punished for something. It did seem as if no one ever said a kind word about Pete. Wee Janet thought that even his mother was discouraged, because he cruelly teased his own brothers and sisters until they were in tears half the time.

No one in the country knew where Pete and his family lived before they came to the Perkins' farm. In reply to that question Pete said "None of yer business!" to the Sabbath school superintendent.

Wee Janet was much troubled about Pete. "He'll be a dreadfully bad man,"

she said to her mother, "unless someone can make him into a good little boy. The teacher says she can't do it--she's tried. She says it's a problem."

"I'll tell you what to do, little daughter," said Wee Janet's mother.

"Try to think Pete is the lovely boy he might have been if he had been born in the Perkins' house, and dear old Grandma Perkins was his own grandmother."

"But--but my thinker isn't strong enough," objected Wee Janet. "Besides, that wouldn't make Pete into a different kind of a boy."

"No," agreed Wee Janet's mother; "but if you could imagine Pete is lovely, you must treat him in a different way, and it might make him better."

The following day Wee Janet tried her best to do as her mother suggested. The day after she begged all the little girls in the Primer Cla.s.s to treat Pete as if he were a good boy. At last Wee Janet and the Primer Cla.s.s gave it up.

"He just gets worse and worse," Wee Janet told her mother. "He says he 'don't care for nuthin' nor n.o.body,'--that's just what he said."

"Well," replied Janet's mother, "there is one thing you can do, and that is, always be polite and kind to him. 'Overcome evil with good.'"

Days pa.s.sed. Every night when she said her prayers Wee Janet remembered Pete. Each day she tried to be kind to him in every way known to a little girl eight years old and extremely small for her age. He threw the flowers she gave him into the dusty road and danced on them. He accepted her gifts only to destroy them, every one, and then called her "Cry-baby."

At last the Sabbath-school superintendent learned that Pete was born and had lived all his life in a tenement house in a great city. His father died in State's Prison. After that it seemed to Wee Janet that there was almost no hope for Pete.

One Thursday morning the little girl's mother asked her to carry a pail of b.u.t.termilk to Aunt Nancy. "You needn't be afraid to go by the Perkins' house this morning," she said, "because your father was told that Pete went fishing to-day."

Wee Janet was half way to Aunt Nancy's when not far up the road she beheld Mr. Mason's red cow eating gra.s.s outside instead of inside the fence.

"Oh, the hooking cow!" exclaimed the child, almost dropping her pail of b.u.t.termilk.

At that moment the red cow lifted her head. It is possible she thought that Janet was a big clover blossom. Anyway, on came the cow lowing gently. Mr. Mason always said the cow was harmless.

Janet, too frightened to stir, screamed in terror. That scream brought a barefooted boy running over the fields. That boy was Pete.

"What's the matter, Weejan?" he called.

At that moment Pete looked beautiful to Wee Janet. It seemed to her that she never saw a finer looking boy than Pete, the ragged, when he picked up a stick and made the cow turn around and go the other way.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Janet screamed in terror._"]

"Come on, Weejan," called Pete. "I won't let her hurt yez. I'll drive her back in her pasture and lock the gate. Yez see if I don't!"

After the cow was in her pasture Pete insisted upon going to Aunt Nancy's with Wee Janet. "Yer might see a rattler," he explained, as if such a thing were probable.

"Now I'll take yer home," the boy observed when Wee Janet found him waiting at the gate. "Yer too little to be out alone."

Janet's mother thanked Pete for taking care of her small daughter. Then she gave him a piece of gingerbread. After that she showed him Wee Janet's robin's nest and told him all about how the mother robin worked to build the nest, and how long she sat upon the eggs before the little nestlings were hatched. Father Robin scolded the boy so vigorously Wee Janet was afraid Pete's feelings might be hurt. "You see," she explained, "he knows that you're a stranger. Now, Father Robin, don't make such a fuss. If Pete took care of me, he'd take care of your babies, too. Wouldn't you, Pete.

"Sure!" Pete replied with a broad grin.