Daniel Wise

“ Now poor Madge can stay here!”
“Why, Jessie, you surprise me,” said Mrs. Carlton. “Is it any thing to be glad about, that a little girl has lost her mother?”
With a blush mantling her cheek: the little girl exclaimed—
“Her mother is a wicked woman, Ma, and don’t make her happy, nor teach her to be good. If Madge has lost her, and you let her live with us and be a mother to her, she will be a good deal better off, and much happier than she could be with her own mother.”
“Spoken like a philosopher!” exclaimed Uncle Morris. ”

“ Emily was about to strike back, but Jessie stepped between them, and separating them, said:
“O Emily! don’t strike your brother! It’s so wicked, you know, for brothers and sisters to fight.” Then turning to Charlie, she added, “Don’t you know how mean it is for a boy to strike a girl? Boys should protect girls, and not beat them. If you hit Emily again, I shall not be able to love you any more.” ”

“ You expected her, poor thing, to behave like an angel, for your sake. Instead of that, she has, at times, let her evil nature and her bad habits break out, in a way to give you trouble and pain, and to cause you to feel disappointment. Are not these things so, my sweet little puss?”
“Yes, Sir. But—but ought not poor people to be grateful and obedient to those who help them?” asked Jessie, who, though she began to perceive that a regard for her own pleasure had been mixed with the kindness to Madge, was not quite ready to plead guilty to her good uncle’s charge. ”

“ The purpose of the “Glen Morris Stories” is to sow the seed of pure, noble, manly character in the mind of our great nation’s childhood. They exhibit the virtues and vices of childhood, not in prosy, unreadable precepts, but in a series of characters which move before the imagination as living beings do before the senses. Thus access to the heart is won by way of the imagination. While the story charms, the truth sows itself in the conscience and in the affections. The child is thereby led to abhor the false and the vile, and to sympathize with the right, the beautiful, and the true. ”

“ I could almost wish myself a child again for the sake of tasting that fresh, perfect, unmixed delight which welled up from Jessie’s heart on the afternoon of that clear December day. First came the play of coasting. Taking her on his sled—“The Never-say-die”—Guy drew her to the lane near Mr. Sherwood’s cottage and amused her until the merry sleigh-bells caused her to turn round. Then she saw a splendid sleigh drawn by two noble horses, and driven by a man who, from the way he handled the whip and reins, seemed born to be a coachman. Her mother and Uncle Morris were in the sleigh. ”

“ On a bright afternoon of a warm day in October, Jessie Carlton sat in the parlor of Glen Morris Cottage. Her elbows rested on the table, her face was held between her two plump little hands, and her eyes were feasting on some charming pictures which were spread out before her. A pretty little work-basket stood on a chair at her side. It contained several yards of rumpled patchwork, two pieces of broadcloth with figures partially worked on them as if they were intended for a pair of slippers, a watch-pocket half finished, and a small piece of silk composed of very little squares. ”

“ The hawk did, indeed, catch my chicken on the day that she was pleased. Do you understand my proverb, now, Jessie?”
“Yes, Uncle, but what shall I do?”
“Do, my child? There is only one way by which any of us can escape from the chains of evil. Confess your sin to God, ask his forgiveness for the Great Shepherd’s sake, and apologize to your friends for giving them pain.” ”

“ Don’t put on that frightful pout, my little puss, for, really, I should have to live as long a life as an ancient patriarch if I do not die before you are likely to finish the handkerchief. There are the quilt, the slippers, the watch-pocket, the chair-cushion, and the handkerchief all begun for me, but nothing finished. That little wizard—his name is Impulse, you know—which led you to drop the quilt that you might begin the slippers, and the slippers that you might begin the chair-cushion, will soon tempt you to drop the handkerchief for something else. ”

“ Please tell me about it, Guy?”
“Can’t do it, Jessie. You know girls can’t keep secrets,” replied Guy, laughing and looking archly at his sister.
“I can, Guy. Do tell me. I won’t tell Hugh, nor Carrie Sherwood, no, nor even Uncle Morris, though I can’t see why you should keep a secret from him.”
Just then Guy and his sister were passing some open lots in the village street. Several rough boys were standing round a small bonfire which they had made out of the dead branches and leaves of trees, which the fall winds had scattered over the streets and open lots. ”

“ How do women learn to drink, Pa? They don’t go to the tavern like men, do they?”
“Not at first, Guy. Usually they begin at home, or at parties, or when stopping at the great hotels, where wine is drunk at the dinner-table. In many families, also, wine is used at the table, and fathers and mothers teach their daughters to drink it as a daily beverage. But generally, I believe, ladies begin their habit of drinking wine at parties, taking it, at first, not from choice, but because they don’t like to be thought singular.” ”

“ This was a home thrust that went right to the good old man’s heart. “The alms-house,” he thought, “is not a very likely place to grow goodness in. It is too chilly and heartless. There will be little sympathy there with the struggles and sorrows of a child like this; Jessie shall have her way this time. She shall go with us.”
After forming this purpose, he looked at his niece, and said—
“Perhaps you are right, Jessie. The poor creature shall go home with us, at least, for to-night.” ”

“ Oh, a great little man is Corporal Try!”
“I know it,” replied Jessie, “and I’ve joined his company; so if you meet little Impulse the wizard, please tell him not to come here again unless he wishes to be beaten with a big club called good resolution.”
“Bravely spoken, Lady Jessie! May you never desert the Corporal’s colors! Above all, may you always obtain grace from above whereby to conquer yourself, which is the grandest deed you can possibly perform.”
Jessie sat down to her work-basket, and took up one of the pieces of cloth for her uncle’s slippers. ”

“ She hasn’t got the perseverance of a kitten.”
“And yet she has more of it, than Master Hugh Carlton, for he has never finished any thing but his dinner, and she has finished her quilt,” said Uncle Morris, who as he was crossing the hall to the dining-room, heard Hugh’s unkind remark.
“There, Hugh, you are fairly hit now,” said Guy, laughing.
“They who live in glass-houses shouldn’t throw stones, should they, my little puss?” said Uncle Morris, leading Jessie into the dining-room.
“Hugh is always teasing me,” replied Jessie, “I wish he was more like Guy.” ”

“ As he spoke, Walter leaped over the rail-fence of a pasture, and giving his hand to Jessie, she mounted the top bar.
“Now jump!” cried Walter.
Jessie did as she was told. Carrie followed. Then Walter led them along the pasture, until they struck a bend in the brook where the water having flowed over a flat basin, was very shallow. Along the edge of this basin the water was frozen hard.
“Isn’t this nice?” shouted Jessie, as she slid over the glass-like surface.
“It’s perfectly beautiful,” replied Carrie, gliding along in an opposite direction. ”

“ It was the coming up of old Rover which had cooled off Idle Jem and his crew. The dog had been strolling about the pasture while Jessie was skating. Having missed his young master and mistress on returning to the pond, the faithful fellow had followed them. He came up just at the right moment. His rows of big white teeth, and his low growl, taught the idlers the discretion which Guy praised and which led them to cease their angry jibes. With Guy alone they might have contended. But Rover was an enemy they had not courage to face. ”

“ But Jessie, I trust you have now so far conquered yourself that henceforth your impulses will no longer be like little wizards tempting you astray, but that they will be guided by right resolutions, and carried out with perseverance. You will thus become a true member of the Try Company, and live both a good and a useful life. ”

“ I’ll sew, let me see; well, I’ll sew a strip long enough to go once around my quilt before I stir, let the little wizard say what he will.”
Stitch, stitch, stitch, went Jessie’s bright, swift, little needle for the next half-hour. Then her two cousins bounced into the room, shouting—
“O Jessie, come and see! There is one of the funniest little men out here you ever did see. He’s got no neck, and he wears the queerest sort of a hat! ”

“ I wish he didn’t like Glen Morris so well.”
Then the little girl told her uncle how Guy’s book had lured her into the wizard’s power.
“Never mind, my child,” said Uncle Morris, patting her head as he spoke, “never mind. Never give up. Attack him again with your tiny spear. Resolve that you will yet conquer him, as little David did big Goliath, in the name of the Lord. A little girl can be what she wills to be, if she only wills in the name of Him who is the teacher and the friend of children.” 143
“I’ll try, Uncle,” said Jessie, with the fire of resolution kindling in her eyes. ”

“ Impulse, the little wizard, had followed her, even into that old quarry!
“It will be first-rate fun,” said Emily. “How they will search for us! It will be as good as a game of hide and seek.”
“Halloo! Halloo! Jessie! Emily! It’s time to go home! Halloo-o!” shouted Guy again from the pasture. The wind being fair, his words were heard quite distinctly by the two girls.
Jessie and Emily Sailing Boats in the Quarry. ”

“ They felt, he said, a very sweet satisfaction in themselves; they were smiled upon by the Father and Saviour of men; and they would, in the better land, be more than rewarded with mansions, robes, crowns, and honors, which selfish people would forever envy but never enjoy.
This talk with her uncle did Jessie good. She afterwards bore Madge’s outbreaks of temper with more patience, and tried to set her such an example as would make her feel her own faults far more than by scolding or fretting. ”

“ Nobody loves, trusts, or believes a liar. Please Charlie, please Emily, let me tell pa just how it happened. He won’t be very angry. I know he won’t. But if he is, I will tell him to whip me, instead of scolding Charlie.”
Charlie winced under this noble speech of Jessie’s, and for a moment was inclined to yield. But his sister’s temper was roused, and she urged him to stick to her, and to say that Jessie threw the ottoman, “and now,” said she, “I will go and tell my aunt directly.” ”

“ Before her purpose was fairly formed, however, Walter or Carrie would cry out, “What, getting tired already! You are not half a slider.”
“Just once more, and then I’ll go,” Jessie would say to herself. But before that one more slide was through, she would purpose to add yet another. Thus time fled until the morning was almost gone, and the quilt, the little wizard, Uncle Morris, and even the ugly cousins, were nearly forgotten, in the excitement of this pleasant sport.
This delight was, however, brought to an end by a loud scream, followed by a shrill voice crying, “Charlie! Charlie! Charlie! ”

“ Even the bird knows where it finds food, much more should intruders know where they intruded,” replied Uncle Morris.
Jessie then looked at her mother, and said—
“Ma, Uncle means me and Guy, by his intruders. We went into his room last night to hang his watch-pocket over his bedstead.”
“But what about the hole in the wall, Jessie? Did you and Guy dig that?” asked Hugh.
“Ha, ha, ha! That’s only Uncle Morris’s fun. Guy bored a little hole with his gimblet, to screw in the hook which was meant to hang the pocket on; that’s all,” replied Jessie. ”