Mary F. Waterbury

“ We’ll all go. Joe, and Will, and Ben, and Kate, and Lou, and you, and I. Then, you know, us boys’ll keep the Indians and bears away.”
“That’ll be splendid,” said Millie, clapping her hands as delightedly as though Frankie had been planning a school picnic on the bank of the creek.
The spirit of adventure had so taken possession of the children that they found it very hard to study. Every high snow-bank was the Rocky Mountain range, and every gully or ravine the entrance into a mine. ”

“ When school closed they all joined in singing one of their Sunday school hymns—“Let us walk in the Light.” Frankie lingered a little after the others went out, and going to Miss Ruth said, “Won’t you tell me, please, just what it means to walk in the light? Is it to be good?”
“To be good?” said Miss Ruth. “Yes; those who walk in the light of God’s commandments are good. But I will explain it. If you were walking alone in the woods on a night so dark that you could not see one step before you, would you not be in danger of falling? ”

“ Western. “It is an exotic, and cannot endure our severe frosts and snow.”
“What is an exotic?” asked Frankie.
“A plant that does not grow naturally in our climate. This rose belongs to a warmer climate, and that is why we keep it in the house during the winter. Thus God takes care of his children. Heaven is our home, and when the winds blow too coldly and roughly for us here, God transplants us. He has taken Aleck from all the cold and storms to the heavenly garden. We should not mourn for him, Frankie. Does not our Father know best? ”

“ In the spring, Frankie commenced going to school. Miss Campbell, his Sabbath School teacher, received a dozen little boys and girls at her own house. They were all nearly of an age and old playmates, so a merry little company they made—full of fun and mischief; but never had school a gentler, lovelier mistress than Miss Campbell, or Miss Ruth, as she wished the children to call her. ”

“ It was the last time he failed to study his Geography lesson, but by no means the last time he did wrong. He had the faults and temptations from which none are free, and was but a “babe in Christ,” just learning to “walk in the narrow way.” But he trusted in Jesus, and tried to imitate his example. The Saviour loves his “little ones” very tenderly, and one of his last commands to his disciples, “Feed my lambs.”
In the spring a small marble slab was placed at Aleck’s grave, and Frankie set out the white rose bush again, and some lilies of the valley. ”

“ Willie said.
“I’d give it to him,” said Joe, as he carefully examined Express to see if it was marred by its tumble into the ditch.
“I beat anyhow,” Ben said, sullenly, kicking in the snow.
“I think Frank Western beat the best,” said little Millie Ray. “Let’s judge that Frank beat, girls.” So Millie, and Kate, and Lou, and all the girls said that Frankie beat.
“No,” said Frankie, “that isn’t fair. I didn’t beat. Perhaps I might, but I didn’t.”
“Just like girls,” muttered Ben. “Go for a fellow they like.” ”

“ All this Frankie said, as he brushed the snow from his clothes, and his flashing eyes looked every word of it.
“Guess I ain’t ashamed to beat,” Ben said, sullenly.
“But it wasn’t fair,” said the girls, all in a breath. “You know Frank was ahead till you steered your sled right into his.”
“You’d better keep still. I don’t want girls meddlin’ with my business,” said Ben, rudely.
“We are the judges,” answered Lou White. “We aren’t meddling.”
By this time, Frankie had thought what he ought to do. It was hard, but Jesus gave him strength to do it bravely. “Never mind,” he said. ”

“ Joe looks around to see Willie, Express runs off from the track, and both are landed in a ditch on the left. The race is now for Lightning, Victor, and Light; Light being a little in advance, Lightning next, then Victor. Ben is very anxious to win the race. By a push he may turn Light from the track, and thus gain upon Frankie. He steers his sled to the right, and comes down upon Light so suddenly that Frankie is thrown off into the snow, and Victor and Lightning reach the foot of the hill nearly at the same time.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Ben Field. ”

“ The inside was just as pleasant, that is, if any house can be as pleasant as the sky, and clouds, and trees filled with singing birds. The sun came in at the window, where there bloomed scarlet geraniums and heliotropes, and near which a golden canary sang his cheerful songs ”

“ You must get well. Why, you are only two years older than I am. You oughtn’t to die yet.”
“Dinna feel bad, Frankie,” Aleck said, “I am sorry to leave you, but I’m glad to be wi’ mither, an’ O Frankie, think of it, how soon I sha’ see the Saviour. I wi’ wait for you. You wi’ mind a’ our talks about Jesus when I’m gone, Frankie, and try to do something for him every day. There’s Ben, an’ Joe, an’ Willie, an’ a’ the lads—tell them how guid it is to hae sic a friend as Jesus.” ”

“ When I hear the angels singin’ in my Ain Countree.
“Like a bairn to its mither, a wee birdie to its nest,
I wad fain be gangin’ noo unto my Saviour’s breast;
For he gathers in his bosom witless, worthless lambs like me,
An’ carries them himsel’ to his Ain Countree.”
The time was nearer than they thought when he should go to his “Ain Countree.” Frankie would not believe that Aleck would die. When his mother told him that it must be, he ran at once to Aleck, and, throwing himself on the bed beside him, cried, “O Aleck, you are not going to die. ”

“ Thus did the little sufferer, forgetful of self, seek to comfort others. Very tenderly did the Shepherd bear this wounded lamb away from the earthly fold to the shelter of the heavenly,—so quietly that they knew not when he died, but thought he slept. In his sleep he murmured faintly, “Mither,” and again, “Jesus loves me,” and a line of his favorite hymn, “he wi’ carry me himsel’ to his Ain Countree.” Then came a quiet slumber, followed by that sleep whose waking is in heaven.
CHAPTER IX.
THE VISIT TO ALECK’S GRAVE. THE FATHER’S RETURN.
Frankie missed his friend sadly. ”

“ What was his name?”
“Frankie Western,” replied his mother. “God, his heavenly Father, has given him a letter, the Holy Bible, which will tell him how to live every day so as to escape all the sins that lie in his path, like the stones and thorns and briers which troubled the little boy. His Father has told him to leave his work and play on the Sabbath, and study this letter, the Bible ”