Canton Register

LUCY REYNOLDS' UNHAPPY DAY.

"Lucy! Lucy!" called Mrs. Reynolds from the foot of the stairway leading up to her daughter's room.

"Well, mother, what?" was the hurried reply, somewhat sharply given, as if Lucy was not quite willing to hear what her mother had to say.

"Come down and find Bennie. My hands are in the dough, and he has been missing some time."

"Oh, I can't, mother! It's almost school-time, and I've ever so much"

"Lucy!" Beside the reproof the mother's tone of voice conveyed, Lucy interpreted the command: "Obey this instant!"

Twitching the ribbon from her hair that she had been arranging in a very becoming bow, she tossed it on the bed, with an impatient exclamation, and went reluctantly down stairs. Entering the kitchen, where her mother was at work, and where her brother John sat crouching before the fire, half sick with a cold, "Where shall I look?" she sullenly inquired, gazing around the room with an indifferent air, that plainly said: "I don't want to look anywhere, and I think it actual abuse to be obliged to."

"Look on the pantry shelf, sis, or in the oven," remarked John, good-naturedly, who was just sick enough, Lucy mentally reflected, to be excused from doing anything himself, and not well enough to be reproved for tantalizing others.

"Search where your good judgment tells you you will be likely to find your brother," Mrs. Reynolds replied, ignoring her daughter's petulance and John's absurd suggestions. "He may be in the woodshed, or on the garret stairs; but it is too cold for him in either place, without his cloak and cap."

With a frown settling on her pretty features, Lucy hastened toward the garret stairs. Every door she opened received behind her a very spiteful slam.

Bennie was not there. As Lucy stretched her neck to look the entire length of the narrow passage, she bumped her head against a low rafter, which sent the blood tingling through her veins.

"Oh! that good-for-nothing little"

Lucy did not finish what she commenced saying about the small boy, who, quite ignorant himself of the pain and the displeasure he was causing his sister, was clapping his hands gleefully, just at that moment, in the face of a snow-man he had found standing near the wood-shed door.

"Bennie ought to be whipped for running off so—oh dear! and making me so much trouble—dear, dear!"

Lucy ejaculated, pressing an aching head between her hands, as she glanced hurriedly around the woodshed, without finding the missing child.

She was ready to tell her mother that Bennie could not be found, when through a crack of the door she suddenly espied her baby brother's scarlet dress.

"See, Lucy! My man! my man!"

Bennie exclaimed, as soon as he saw his sister.

"Come into the house, you wicked troublesome boy!" Lucy seized a tiny shoulder and shook its astonished owner severely. "Come into the house, I say, where you belong!"

"I won't! I say I won't! So there!"

Bennie planted his feet firmly in the snow. All the gladness faded from his face, and an ugly, defiant look came instead.

"You're a naughty, troublesome child!" Lucy declared, hurrying in to give her mother a glowing account of the rebellion that had arisen just outside.

"Tell your brother," said Mrs. Reynolds, after hearing Lucy's explanation of affairs, "firmly, not crossly—Lucy, there is a vast difference between the two—that I wish to have him come in immediately."

Bennie had not stirred from the position he had assumed; but stood calm and resolute in the snow.

"Mother says that you are to come in immediately, sir!" Lucy cried, reappearing in the doorway. "If you don't," she added, shaking her head significantly, "your ears will tingle worse than they're tingling now, young man."

"I say I won't! So there!"

Bennie made a wry face and ran out his tongue, in imitation of those badly-behaved boys one sees occasionally here and there.

"Oh! Benjamin Reynolds (when Lucy wished to express her deep abhorrence of his words or actions, she always spoke his whole name), what will mother say now?" hurrying in, with still more astounding information.

By letting Lucy prepare for school, Mrs. Reynolds went to her stubborn little son. Lucy lingered longer than necessity required after she was ready for school, hoping to see Bennie punished for his bad behavior. But Mrs. Reynolds kept both reprimand and counsel in reserve until she had her children together, in better humor, by-and-by.

The town clock was striking nine as Lucy passed it, on her way to school. She would be marked tardy, she was sure.

As she turned a corner, with this fear on her mind, some one spoke her name. It was Fannie Boothe. As soon her classmate reached her side, Lucy asked Fannie if she knew that they were late, and would, very likely, receive tardy marks to-day.

"Yes, I know," Fannie replied, breathing hurriedly and speaking in short, broken sentences. "But I couldn't help it. Mother's been gone all the morning: do you know, Lucy? Oh, Lucy! Susie Greyson's little brother Will is dead."

"Oh, Fannie!" Lucy grasped Fannie's arm and whirled her about until she stood facing her in the snow.

"Yes. He died this morning, with the croup. Poor Susie feels dreadfully, mother says," Fannie remarked, as the two girls walked along. "Willie was such a pretty little boy; almost as nice as your Bennie, Lucy, and just about his age, you know."

"Yes." Lucy remembered that, and, with an unusual sadness in her heart, she wondered if Susie had ever spoken sharply to her little brother. She wondered if she had ever shaken him and called him a naughty, troublesome child. It would be very unpleasant for Susie to remember, if she had, Lucy considered, "now that Willie lay cold and dead." She sincerely wished that she had not spoken so crossly to little Bennie that morning. She wondered if Bennie had not taken cold standing in the snow. Why had she not thought of that before? she wondered. Perhaps Bennie would have the croup and die before she saw him again.

Lucy's heart was aching and her eyes were full of tears when she entered the school-room, where an unusual sadness seemed to prevail. School had been in progress several minutes; but Lucy did not mind that now. There was a vacant seat beside her own before Susie Greyson's desk. A friendly hand had laid thereon some rosebuds, pure and white, and a black ribbon was tied, where blue had been, around Susie's case of books. As Lucy took her seat and waited for the Scripture that she would soon be called to read, she wondered if Bennie disliked her very much, and if she had caused him as much unhappiness as she endured to-day. It was her turn to read now, and these were the words that came to her, "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Lucy did not comprehend that "offend," in this instance, means to cause to sin, nor that by "little ones" the Master refers, doubtless, to those weak in faith; but she knew that Bennie was a little one, and that she had offended him, and felt sure that those Bible truths were written purposely for her.

The day proved long and wearisome to Lucy. She had brought her dinner with her; so there was no excuse for returning home at noon, as she wished to do. The words of the verse she had read in the morning were so constantly in her mind that there seemed little room for anything else, and Lucy carried imperfectly-learned lessons to the recitation bench several times that day.

As soon as school was dismissed, the unhappy girl hurried home. As she came in sight of the house, Dr. Pierson's carriage was driving from the gate, and Lucy believed that her worst fears were soon to be confirmed.

"Bennie was sick—dead, perhaps."

she said to herself, as she fairly flew up the path that led to the kitchen door.

Her mother was in the sitting-room, sewing busily, when Lucy entered; and Bennie lay on a lounge in the same room, asleep.

"Oh! mother, Bennie is not dead, is he? Is he very sick?"

Mrs. Reynolds looked up from her sewing in surprise.

"Why, I saw the doctor, mother."

Lucy explained, sitting down on the floor at her parent's feet and bursting into tears, "and I thought—Oh! I am so sorry for my cross words this morning, mother."

"My poor child!" said Mrs. Reynolds, compassionately, smoothing tenderly her daughter's brown hair.

"The doctor called to leave some drops for John's cold. Bennie is quite well. If my little girl is truly sorry for her petulance this morning, I am very thankful."

"Oh! I am sorry," Lucy sobbed. "and I was so afraid that Bennie would die without knowing that. Do you know, mother," Lucy wiped her eyes and spoke softly, as she looked up in her mother's face, "Susie Greyson's little brother Will is dead?"

"Yes, I know; and I think that Susie has always been so kind to her little brother that she need not shed many regretful tears."

"Do you suppose that I'll ever learn to be good, like Susie, mother? I love John and Bennie dearly; but when I'm cross and angry I say so many hateful things. Oh! mother!"

Lucy again burst into tears. Bennie awoke now, and looked at his sister in astonishment. Lucy sprang to her feet, ran to the lounge, and, throwing her arms round Bennie's neck, told him she was "very, very sorry," that she had been so cross.

"Won't Bennie forgive Lucy," she begged, "if sister will try and never be unkind again?"

Bennie rubbed his eyes and raised himself slowly from the pillows, without understanding just what was required of him.

"Bennie'll give 'oo his sugar doggie, Lucy, with the shaggy tail," he exclaimed.

Lucy laughed then, and told her mother she was sure she was forgiven, since Bennie was willing to give her the toy he prized so highly.

"I'm so glad you forgive me, Bennie!" she cried, kissing the little boy again.

"That is much nicer than to have a sugar dog, mother," she said, crossing the room, slowly and thoughtfully, to her mother's side. "I think I'll write that verse about the little ones' and the 'millstone' on the fly-leaf of my Bible."

Lucy then told her mother about the verse in Scripture that had troubled her so all day; Mrs. Reynolds explaining, in return, as plainly as she could, its literal meaning.

"Our beloved Master says," remarked the mother, after a little pause,

"If ye love Me, keep My commandments,' and those commandments teach us not only to love one another, Lucy, but to be patient, gentle and forbearing. Every boy and girl who desires to be one whom the Master loves must first of all ask for His grace in the heart to help overcome evil and do good, and then 'strive earnestly to do that, always.'"

Lucy buried her face, that was red with the crimson tide of remorse now, in her mother's lap.

"I am going to try and be sweet and patient," she said, after a little spell of silence, looking up, with a new and strong determination in her heart. "I don't mean to be cross and impatient and say unkind things to any one again. Indeed, I do not, mother. No one can be happy who does that, I know."

Lucy looked up at John, who was just entering the room. Mrs. Reynolds talked with her children pleasantly a little longer; and then, bidding them kneel around her, that good mother prayed for the dear ones her Lord had given her, and thanked Him for His mercy, truly believing that from the day's experience her children had learned something of that wisdom which oftentimes "is hidden from the wise and prudent" and revealed "unto babes."—Alice M. Ball, in N. Y. Independent.