Various

“ Carefulness, when once learned, becomes a habit, and is easier than carelessness. Young as Margaret was when her mother died, she had been taught by her to sweep and dust her own little room, and to hang her clothes at night on hooks placed within her reach, and always to put a thing in its place after using it. She had, besides, inherited dainty tastes and neat ways from her mother, so it was not such a task for her to be orderly as it was for some others.
And so it was with a pang that she saw Amelia walk into her room and take possession with the air of one who had a right there. ”

“ Just so many will be sure to have a happy Christmas, and a happy year.
One other thing: Some of our Blossoms have been transplanted during the year that is past. God has sent his angels and gathered them to bloom in His upper garden, where flowers never wither. Now, while we are glad for them, shall we not remember the homes from which they have gone? The dear fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters, who cannot, sometimes, keep the tears from coming, because they miss their darlings so? Will not every Pansy Blossom ask the dear Lord to help and comfort these sorrowing hearts? ”

“ Sometimes she stole out in the evening and walked up and down the street with Hester, and talked them over. So she constantly lived in another world. She was in a frenzy of eagerness to get through whatever she was doing, and drown all her senses in a book. As a natural consequence, nothing went well with her. She hated her lot and its duties. She longed to get away and live with the beautiful, unreal people she had read about.
Novel-readers are usually cross. Poor Margaret was very cross. She disputed constantly with Weston, and boxed Johnnie’s ears when he teased her. ”

“ When you say that you live in a Christian land or in a Christian community, you do not mean that all the people in the land or in the community are real Christians, but you mean that all or at least the most of the people believe in Christianity.
Now how did it come about that these ignorant worshipers of false gods have become a Christian nation? You are not surprised to learn that it has been brought about through the efforts of a few earnest and faithful missionaries who have given their lives to the work of lifting up this people. ”

“ The most costly and precious thing in the world, is the strong true heart which has its home in your body, my boy—or my girl. I want you, this Christmas month, to give it away to the Lord Jesus Christ. ”

“ BENNIE 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. ”

“ Brimmer, laughing, “they last so long.”
“I’m going to pretend,” said Corny, nailing away vigorously on his mother’s washboard, which a rainy day had allowed him to mend, “that we’re going to have some more on Christmas.”
“Better not,” said Mother Brimmer wisely, “for you’re not going to, and when the time comes you’ll be disappointed.”
“No, I sha’n’t, Mamsie,” said Cornelius decidedly, “’cause I know you aren’t going to make any. But I remember just how they tasted, and when I’m pretending we can have ’em all over again, it’s ’most as good as eating any.” ”

“ They might be wicked; all the more reason that he should do what he could to bring them to love the good. Mean, contemptible fellow that he was to even look his disapproval to what Rosy was doing!
Jack threw back his head, and Cornelius gave a long breath of delight.
“Go on, Rose,” said the big boy of the family, “and I’ll help you.” Thereupon Jack sprang forward, and seized an orange and laid it in the basket, and followed with two or three handfuls of butternuts.
“Ow—ow!” cried Corny in despair. ”

“ Corny whirled around and pointed to the senior partner triumphantly. “He knows; and you ought to do as he says, Rosy.”
Company’s little right hand dropped to the side of the basket, while her round face took on a pained expression as she looked at Jack.
The big boy flushed up to his dark hair, and he dropped his eyes to the floor to follow the working of his uneasy boot. He longed to say “I think it’s ridiculous, when we are all working so hard, to give away such things to those idle, good-for-nothing Corner boys,” but a verse from the Bible came ringing through his ears. ”

“ But let him break forth from the contracted circle of a worldly life, let him cultivate hopes worthy his immortal destiny, let him look upon God as his Father, and himself as the heir of boundless creation, and he shall grow in greatness and in joy ”

“ Wakefield was always kind, but she stood in a little awe of him because he was the minister, and so, unless strongly excited, was too timid to talk freely with him.
When a girl of thirteen resolves to be dignified toward any body it means that she is going to make herself very disagreeable whether she knows it or not. Amelia Barrows was not an ill-natured young woman, and if Margaret had tried she might have made a friend of her. ”

“ NEW MEXICO is peopled largely by a superstitious, ignorant race, intensely bigoted, and under the almost absolute sway of a degraded priesthood, who have a deadly hatred of the spelling-book as well as of Christian instruction.
“For centuries the people have dwelt in isolation, separated from civilization by vast reaches of barren, waterless, cactus-bearing plains. During these centuries they have made no advance either mentally or morally, but have sunk deeper and deeper into the sloughs of ignorance. ”

“ What soul could thrive on such mental food? “Satan is at the bottom of it!” he said, half-aloud, flinging the book from him. He sat a long time with his face between his hands, thinking.
The next evening, after tea, Mr. Wakefield lingered in the sitting-room and asked Margaret to try some of the pieces in the new Sabbath-school hymn-book. Margaret’s cabinet organ had been her mother’s, and was now a source of much pleasure to herself. She had learned to play sacred music nicely, so she and the minister often sang together. Johnnie sang a few minutes and then ran off. ”

“ I have many, many, many naughty traits. Send me a badge. It may help me. Mamma and my good auntie read The Pansy to me, and they enjoy it as much as I. Papa died before I was three years old. I want to be good “For Jesus’ sake.”
Annie T. Dana.
Dear Pansy:
Your answer to my last did me a world of good. I have it in my album, as one of my [5] most precious treasures. I’m determined to grow up a useful Christian woman—thanks to the “Whisper Motto” and the influence of Pansy and my mother. Mamma has no ambition for her children but that they become genuinely good. ”

“ Elmer Newton’s older brother was obliged, from ill health, to spend the winter in the South, and wished to have Elmer with him. Mrs. Duncan felt anxious about her sick brother, and at the last decided to accompany them and remain a few weeks, which lengthened into months. This made a lonely, gloomy time for Margaret, she had come to depending so much upon their help and counsel. She felt as if there was nobody to go to with her troubles and doubts. ”

“ The petals of the lotus lily are rose-pink, growing brighter and redder toward the tips, where one can almost imagine the life-blood of the flower is oozing out, and will soon drop upon the white mat of the table. ”

“ God made the body so that it cannot go without food at regular times, and keep in order. He made the soul in the same way. It must get food from the Bible, and by thinking about God and speaking to him, or it cannot be a healthy soul. This poor little Christian knew she must eat her breakfast or she would feel faint and weak by ten o’clock, but she had not learned that she must not starve the other and better part of herself. ”

“ Last Tuesday was a lovely winter day, just the one for beginning some of my beautiful plans, and I had been wishing I could get Aunt Helen to go down town with me to help me do some shopping. I thought of asking her, but she is a rather new auntie, you know, and I didn’t quite like to.
Just after dinner mamma asked me if I didn’t want to take a basket of tea rolls to Grandma Dunlap. She isn’t my grandma, but a very nice old lady whom everybody calls grandma; she is quite poor and people send her things very often. ”

“ JOEY and Jamie are two little bits of boys.
They live in a nice house and play under a big tree.
One little boy is just as old as the other little boy.
When they stand up to see how high they are, Joey is no bigger than Jamie. They are twins.
They look as much alike as peas in a pod. Only Joey has big black eyes and Jamie has blue ones.
They have good times playing when they are good. Sometimes they are naughty. Joey is naughty most. ”

“ My papa kept many sheep, and one spring there were two little lambs born that were disowned by the mother sheep. Of course, it would not do to let the little things die for want of care, so they were brought to the woodshed, and put under my mamma’s protection. They were soon named Dicky and Biddy, and being fed often with warm milk from a bottle, they grew rapidly. From the first Tiger showed a great liking for the pet lambs, and would stretch himself out on the floor by the side of the basket, where he would remain for hours at a time. ”

“ Ralph Westwood learned that the boy was an orphan; was working at the freight depot beyond his strength and on very small pay, because times were hard, and boys plenty; that he had a little sister in the Orphans’ Home, and the ambition of his life was to learn, and become a scholar, and earn money to support the little sister. He went to school regularly while mother lived, and worked between times to help support himself ”

“ As the record of a race that has yielded to the dominant energy of its conquerors, the book merits more than passing attention and must stand as a glimpse at a life that has long since lost its manhood and its identity, and the story of a race that has fallen victim to the vices rather than the prowess of a higher civilization. ”

“ Margaret waited to hear no more. She turned to go into her own room, but Amelia was there; growing desperate, she went back into the dark hall and softly opening the door that led up garret, groped her way up the narrow stairs. She must be alone somewhere. It was a long, wide garret stretching over the whole house. This was the old homestead of the Moore family, and “take it up garret,” had been said of all the lame furniture and not-wanted articles for a whole generation. It was a cheerful place by daylight; a capital place for a romp ”

“ There were afternoons when Amelia had leisure [44] to stay with her sister and Margaret was at liberty. One day she went to take a walk, and was sauntering slowly along when Hester Andrews tapped on the window and beckoned her in. Margaret hesitated. She had not been going much with Hester of late, but she finally went into the house. “You poor thing!” Hester said, meeting her with a kiss, “I wonder if you have got out at last! It is just too bad for you to be shut up in the house all winter, waiting on somebody who’s nothing to you ”

“ My papa used to go to Boston every day and return at evening on the horse-cars, and Tiger could usually be found at the gate to meet him. Although these cars were constantly passing the house, Tiger never made the mistake of going to meet an earlier or a later train, but a few minutes before the customary time for my papa’s arrival, Tiger could be seen going leisurely down the walk to be in readiness for the expected greeting.
At last Tiger commenced to get old, and did not like the active sports of his youthful days, but much preferred to stay in the house and lie by the fire. ”

“ By Pansy.
The seed is the word of God.
The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.
So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just.
Morrisville, December, 1887.
Dear Girls:
I took that first verse for mine: not because it was short, but because the talk we had in Sunday-school kept me thinking about it. We were planning the next Sunday’s lesson, and one of the girls said she didn’t see how Bible verses could be called seeds: that set Mrs. Wheeler off into an explanation ”

“ I want to say a word about this book to a certain dear little girl I know who has a whole dollar with which to buy papa’s Christmas present, and who cannot decide what to buy. She knows papa likes books better than almost anything else, but then, how should a young girl know what book to select for a man who has gray hair? ”

“ VALUE OF ARABIC NUMERALS. FEW people, probably, have any adequate idea of the great difficulties in which arithmetic would be involved were it not for the happy invention of the Arabic numerals. Here is a very simple little sum in addition put Roman fashion.
The reader will find it “a nice amusement,” as the model papa always tells his daughters, to work it out as it stands without having recourse to Arabic notation:
None of these figures reach two thousand, and yet what a hopeless task to sum them up without an abacus! ”

“ But we’re richer now, and we ought to give her a better stocking this Christmas,” he added decidedly, with quite an air.
“I don’t know about being richer,” said Mother Brimmer cautiously, and giving a final stir to the several ingredients in the kettle, she put on the cover, took down her pans and set about moulding her bread; “our expenses increase every year as you children grow older; and it isn’t right to plan taking anything that isn’t actually necessary, out of the nest-egg. Roly Poly will need every bit we can give her toward her education by and by.” ”