Dorothy Deane and her little brother Laurence were standing by the window watching for papa.
"There he comes!" cried Dorothy at last, and the children raced toward the corner as fast as their chubby little legs would carry them.
"Careful now!" said papa warningly, as the two hurrying little figures reached him. "Don't hit against my dinner pail!"
"What is in it?" asked Dorothy and Laurence in one breath, as they stood on tiptoe, trying to peep inside the cover.
"Guess!" said papa, laughing. "A nickel to the one who guesses right!"
"Candy!" cried Laurence.
"Oranges!" said Dorothy.
Papa shook his head at both these guesses, and at all the others that followed, until they had reached the house.
"Now let mamma have a turn," he said, holding the dinner pail up to her ear.
"Why, it isn't—" mamma began, with a look of greatest surprise.
"Yes, it is!" papa declared. Then he took off the cover and tipped the pail gently over in the middle of the kitchen table and out came ten of the fluffiest, downiest little chickens that any of them had ever seen.
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the children delightedly. "Are they really ours? Where did you get them?"
"They are power-house chickens," papa replied, smiling at their enthusiasm—"hatched right in the engine room!"
"What do you mean?" asked mamma in astonishment, gazing at the pretty little creatures.
"Just what I say," replied papa, who was an engineer in the big power house down town: "they were hatched on a shelf in the engine room."
"It was just this way," he explained, hanging up his hat. "Tom Morgan brought me a dozen eggs from his new hennery about three weeks ago. I put them on the shelf, intending to bring them home that night, but never thought of them until this morning, when there seemed to be something stirring up there. I looked, and, sure enough, there was a fine brood of chickens, just picking their way out of their shells!"
"But how did it ever happen?" asked mamma in a puzzled tone.
"Because the engine, running night and day, gave the eggs just as much heat as they would have found under a hen's wings," papa replied: "and they thought that they were put up there to hatch."
"Oh, aren't they darlings!" cried Dorothy, clapping her hands as the chickens began to eat the crumbs. "They are the nicest pets that we ever had in all our lives."
While papa was making a nice coop out of a wooden box, mamma found an empty tin can that had once held a gallon of maple syrup. She filled this full of boiling water, screwed the cover on tight, and then wrapped it up in pieces of flannel.
"There," she exclaimed triumphantly, fastening the last strip, "let us see how the chickens like this for a mother!"
Setting the can carefully in the center of the coop, she put the little chickens close by it. Finding it soft and warm, they cuddled up against the flannel cover, and began to chirp as contentedly as if it were a mother hen. Then she pinned a square of flannel to the upper side of the can, letting it spread either way like a mother hen's wings, and leaving the ends open for the chickens to go in and out.
"We will fill the can with hot water every night," said mamma, "and it will keep the chickens warm."
And here they lived quite happily with their syrup-can mother, until papa declared that they were large enough to go to roost in the barn.
Prince Goodheart had twin daughters about eight years old, named Myrtle and Violet. He had a number of other daughters, and sons too, for this was a large family. But to-day's story is about the twins.
When the nurse was getting them ready for bed at night she always told a story, and one night her story was about the good-luck plant. She told how the seeds of it had been scattered about over all the earth, and here and there the good-luck plant came up. Then she told about a child that had found one, and of all the pleasant things that happened to her. The little princesses listened with wide open eyes, and hoped they, too, would find a leaf of that marvelous plant some day.
The next morning Myrtle and Violet were out in the garden early.
"I'm going outside of the gate," said Myrtle. "I mean to find the good-luck plant to-day."
"But we haven't permission to go out," said Violet.
"I'm not going to ask," said Myrtle. "They'll all be glad when I come back with the plant. You'd better come with me."
"But I must get my lessons, and finish the hemming mother gave me to do, and afterward I promised to weed one of the flower beds for mother. I must do those things first."
"Oh, well, I can find it by myself," said Myrtle, and out she ran.
She didn't have as fine a time as she expected. She got tired and cross. She looked for the plant by the roadside, and in the park, and on the lawns. Whenever anyone spoke to her she answered crossly. When the sun set, and warned her that it was time to go home, she hadn't seen a thing that looked like the good-luck plant. She shed a few tears as she ran home.
At the castle gate she heard a pleasant noise of laughter and happy voices in the garden. "Could they have had a party without me?" she cried.
She darted in. "Oh, Myrtle!" called her little brothers and sisters. "What do you think! Violet has found the good-luck plant, and she let us all hold it awhile, and we've had such a lovely time since lessons are done."
Myrtle's face flushed. "You are a deceitful girl," she said to her twin. "You said you meant to stay home."
"So I did," said Violet. She looked so happy and sweet that even cross Myrtle stopped frowning. "I found it while I was weeding mother's flower bed. There it was among the pansies. I knew it at once by the horseshoe shape on the leaves."
"Please tell us a story, grandpa," said Arthur.
"A story about papa when he was a boy," added Willie.
"Well, I'll tell you what your papa did, right over there, when he was only four years old."
"We had a very gentle old horse that we called Jenny. When I came home from any place, and was going to turn her into the pasture, your papa always wanted to do it himself, so I would give him the end of the halter, and let him lead her through the lane to the bars. He could drop down the ends of the bars, for they were only poles, and then Jenny would hold her head so that he could slip off the halter.
"Well, one time it was near night when I came home, and your papa was gone to the bars as usual, so it was growing dark when I saw him coming back."
"'What took you so long?' I asked. 'Didn't Jenny hold her head down good?'
"'Oh, yes,' he said; 'but I saw a black calf out there in the bushes, and I thought I'd put the halter on him and lead him home.'
"'There's no calf in the pasture,' I said.
"'Yes, there was,' he persisted—'a funny-looking black calf! I went up to him and tried to put on the halter, but he wouldn't hold his head down when I told him to; and then he turned around and went off into the woods, so I came home.'
"I remembered then that a bear had been seen not far from us a few days before, and I wondered if my little boy had been trying to put a halter on a bear!
"I called the hired man, and got my gun, and we went over there. It was not so dark but that we could see the bear's tracks in the mud about the rock, and right among them were the tracks of your papa's little shoes!"
Both boys' eyes were "as big as saucers."
"Did papa do that, really?" asked Willie.
"Yes, he did, for this is a true story."
"He didn't know any better, he was so little," said Arthur. "I wouldn't want to try it."
"I think," laughed grandpa, "that even your papa wouldn't want to try it now, old as he is!"
Often did Maisie play the good fairy when out in fields. When she saw a lamb caught in the fence, she freed it; when a little bird fell from its nest she replaced it; when a wee chick lost its mother, she helped it out of its misery. So did she try each day to make the world happier.
One day as she was roaming about, she saw something dark in the grass. She stooped and picked up a pocketbook. Her eyes opened wide with excitement when she found inside of the pocketbook several five-dollar bills and some silver.
"Who could have lost it?" she asked herself.
Maisie was going to run to the house to show her mother what she had found when she caught sight of a boy lying face downward upon the ground beside the road.
She ran to the boy and knelt beside him. Touching him lightly upon the cheek with a wisp of grass, she said:
"Look up, boy. What is the matter?"
"I've lost my father's pocketbook," sobbed the boy. "I drove ten sheep to market and the man paid me for them. But I dare not go home because I've lost the money."
"Do you believe in fairies?" asked Maisie.
"What good are fairies?" replied the boy.
"Maybe they would bring you good luck," said Maisie.
"I don't believe it," said the boy.
"Suppose you try them. Close your eyes."
The boy closed his eyes.
"Now repeat after me:
"Bright eyes, light eyes! Fairies of the dell,The boy did as he was told.
"Now open your eyes," ordered Maisie.
The boy opened his eyes and within six inches of his hand lay the pocketbook. Eagerly he took it and opened it.
"Is the money all there?" asked Maisie.
"Every cent!" cried the boy with joy.
"You had better believe in good fairies," said Maisie, as she ran away laughing.
"Ah, you are the good fairy!" called the boy after her. "Many, many thanks for your kindness."
"Whoa, Buck! Whoa, Bright!" called out Stephen Harris, pioneer, and the glossy red oxen halted in the forest opening. "This shall be our dinner camp to-day, boys," said he. "See what a fine spot."
The pair of stalwart lads, with rifles on their shoulders, who had been walking all the forenoon beside the big covered wagon, thought it was, truly, a fine spot and began to make camp for dinner, unyoking the oxen and turning them out to graze, kindling a fire with dry twigs and moss and fetching water from the clear brook that rippled by.
Meanwhile, children of all ages began to climb down from the wagon. There were ten of them, fine healthy children; the youngest, Martha, was a little yellow-haired girl of three, the pet and pride of them all.
The wagon, which had been their traveling house for a month was well fitted up for the comfort. The seats were built along the sides and so contrived as to hook back at night; then the bedding, tightly rolled up by day, was spread out on the wagon bottom. Under the wagon swung the large copper kettle, the most important of all things in the households of those early times.
After dinner the oxen were yoked up, and in great spirits the pioneers scrambled to their places in the wagon, and the oxen started on at a good pace, and they had gone a mile or two before the fearful discovery was made that little Martha was missing!
The patient oxen were turned about, and as fast as possible the distracted family traveled back to the dinner camp, Mr. Harris and the big brothers calling, as they went, the name of the child.
The camp was finally reached—but little Martha was not there and no trace of her could be found.
The forest had seemed so peaceful an hour before, but now it was filled with terrors. What wild animals might not lurk in the thickets! The very brook seemed to murmur of dangers—quicksands and treacherous water-holes.
"Baby! Baby!" called Mr. Harris suddenly, breaking into a sharp cry; and this time, in the anxious waiting pause of silence, a shrill little voice from right under the wagon piped out, "Here I is!" and over the rim of the great copper kettle popped Martha's golden head. Scrambling out, "head-over-heels," she rushed into her mother's arms, as fresh and rosy from her after-dinner nap as though she had been rocked in the downiest cradle in the land.
—Selected.
After Hiram sowed the field of rye, he left the big wooden roller standing in the lane. It was a big roller, almost five feet high! One sunny forenoon Roy and Dorothy raced up the lane with little black Trip and white Snowball at their heels.
Dorothy was a gay, prancy horse and Roy was a coachman armed with a long whip. They paused for breath beside the roller. Roy clambered up to the high seat and flourished his whip. Dorothy drummed on the hollow-sounding sides with her chubby fingers. Suddenly a loose board rattled to the ground. Dorothy thrust her curly head inside the roller.
"Oh, what a nice playhouse!" she cried.
Roy got down and peered in.
"So it is," he cried. "We can live here when it rains, for there's a really roof and a truly floor."
"We'll call it Clover Cottage," said Dorothy, "for see how thick the clover is all around it."
In about an hour "Clover Cottage" was in perfect order. Pictures and cards were tacked up, and the dolls and the furniture and the dishes all in place. Snowball was purring on a little bed of pine needles, and Trip lay beside her fast asleep.
Tired of her work, Dorothy cuddled down a minute, too. Roy put back the loose board to shut out the blazing sun. Then he cuddled down beside his sister, and it was all dark and quiet.
At twelve o'clock Norah came to the kitchen door and blew the great tin dinner horn. Hiram promptly unhitched "Old Dolly" from the hay rake and started for the house. "I may as well haul the roller along and put it under cover," he said to himself, as he passed the lane.
He backed patient Dolly into the thills and mounted the high seat. "Clover Cottage" gave a sudden lurch forward. Dorothy woke with a scream. Trip was thrown violently into her lap, yelping wildly. Snowball clawed madly at the slowly-turning roof. Roy tried to shield his sister with his short arms, as dolls, dishes and themselves rolled together in confusion. "Old Dolly" pricked up her ears and stopped short. Hiram sprang down and tried to peer through the cracks of the roller.
Helped by Roy within, the loose board was soon pushed aside and the unhappy little inmates of "Clover Cottage" crawled out, one by one. Frightened Trip shot down the lane. Snowball scrambled up the nearest tree trunk.
"Well," said Hiram, "I call this quite an earthquake!"
—Child Garden.
When the passenger train stopped at the little station up in the mountains, Carl and Rosalie were helped out of one of the Pullman cars by the porter. Sam, their Uncle Jack's big hired man, was there to meet them with the mountain hack and a team of splendid ponies.
"So you're all here safe, I see," said Sam in his hearty way.
"I know that we're here all right," said Rosalie, "but I'm not so sure about Rex. I haven't seen him since we left Kansas City."
"Who's Rex?" asked Sam.
"Why didn't Uncle Jack tell you about Rex?" said Carl. "Rex is our collie. He was put into the baggage car."
Just then the station agent walked from the front end of the train leading an immense dog by a chain.
"This is Rex," said Rosalie. "Isn't he a fine dog?"
"We got rid of a dog just last week," said Sam.
"Why did you get rid of him?" asked Carl.
"Oh, he wasn't worth his keep. He didn't do anything but eat. It costs money to feed a dog up our way. I haven't much use for dogs, anyway. They are a bother where there are a lot of sheep around."
"But Rex loves sheep," said Rosalie.
Sam did not look as if he believed this.
When Rosalie and Carl arrived at their uncle's sheep ranch far up in the mountains, they were given a warm welcome by their Aunt Janet.
"Your Uncle Jack told me to kiss you for him as he had to go to his other ranch for a week," said Aunt Janet.
Two days later Rex got his chance to prove his worth. Aunt Janet and Carl and Rosalie were just finishing their supper when a man from a neighboring sheep ranch knocked at the door and said that the herder of Uncle Jack's flock of yearlings had broken his leg and that someone ought to go for a doctor at once.
"Sam must go," said Aunt Janet.
"But who will take care of your sheep to-night, ma'am?" said the neighbor. "I would do it but I left my flock with my little son and must return at once."
"Rex will take care of the sheep," said Carl. "I know he will for he guards anything I ask him to."
"He looks like a sure enough shepherd dog," said the neighbor. "I would trust him with a flock of my own."
So while Sam was hurrying down the mountain side after the doctor, Carl and Rosalie went with the neighbor through the woods to the place where Uncle Jack's flock of yearling sheep were feeding. And Rex went with them.
"I heard wolves howling last night," said the neighbor. "Your dog will have to keep close watch to-night."
"Oh, he will sir," said Rosalie.
And sure enough! When Sam went to the sheep in the morning he found not one of them missing. Nor would Rex allow Sam to go near the sheep until Carl came out and called him away from his post of duty.
—Frederick Hall in "Little Folks."
Perhaps you think nobody can shock a cat. But just wait.
This particular Persian kitten was only six months old, and nearly as big as he could ever expect to be, and he was a beautiful creature to look at—all black except his white mittens, boots, nose and shirt-front, as a Persian cat ought to be; and he had a cunning tassel in each ear, and a great plumy tail like an ostrich feather, and big topaz-golden eyes.
Miss Mary's room and the next one opened into each other and were quite large, and both were covered with heavy rugs. Pussy's favorite game was to race back and forth from one end of the rugs to the other; sometimes he would poke his nose under the edge of a rug and wriggle in between the rug and the floor until he was simply a hump in the middle of it, like a dumpling. It was well Miss Mary always knew where he was, or he might have been stepped on some fine evening. But he was feeling altogether too lively for any such amusement as that, this cold night. It was one of those dry, cold, clear evenings when you feel like running races, or snowballing, and pussy was as full of life and go as even a cat could be. So he had a little Wild West Show all by himself, with the rugs for tanbark, and went so fast that he looked like a long black-and-white fur streak on the bright Persian rugs.
Now, if you walk and jump about on a heavy carpet for a few minutes, on a cool night, you may find that if you touch your fingers to anything iron you will get an electric spark. So when pussy had raced about for fifteen or twenty minutes on the rugs, he was, though he did not know it, one capering little battery of electricity.
Then he jumped up on the bed and began to race over the blankets. He was going so fast that he could not stop quite quick enough, and the bedstead was iron. He came up against the foot of it before he could stop, and though he did not touch it, he got an electric spark right on the end of his nose!
If you have ever had a little shock from an electric machine, and can imagine how it would have felt on the tip of your nose, you will have no doubt that pussy was shocked.
He backed off very slowly, considering. His topaz eyes got bigger and brighter, and his back higher and higher, and his tail plumier and plumier, every minute. His fur stood out in all directions, and he lifted his paws and set them down most carefully. He backed, and he backed, until he came up against the pillows, and then he turned around and realized that there was another iron thing behind him. Was that bewitched, too? At any rate, he would be cautious this time and see what happened. He sat and looked at it for some seconds. Then he reached out a paw very deliberately and daintily—and got another spark on the tip of that!
You see, he had come all the way across the woolen blankets, and made electricity at every step.
Then he gave it up. He hopped off the bed in a panic and fled down the stairs. He came up again after awhile, and curled up on his usual cushion to go to sleep, but he was a very much puzzled cat, and there is no doubt that pussy was shocked.
Title.—The Cost of Discipleship.—Luke 14:25-35.
Golden Text.—Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.—Matt. 16:25.
Golden Text for Beginners.—Be ye kind one to another.—Eph. 4:32.
Truth.—If we would belong to Jesus, we must deny ourselves.
1. Jesus spoke to a great crowd that followed him and told them that if they wanted to be his disciples they must love him better than all else in the world.
2. He said if they would be his disciples they must be willing to take up their cross and follow him.
3. He meant that they must be willing to do hard things for his sake.
4. He said if a man wanted to build a tower he would first see if he had money enough to build it all.
5. If the man began to build and could not finish it people would laugh at him.
6. Jesus wanted to teach them that they should be patient and finish whatever they began.
7. If we want to be friends of Jesus we must love him best of all and obey his words, no matter how hard we may find it to do so.
8. The love of Jesus in our heart helps us to be good and makes it easy for us to obey him and do hard things for his sake.
9. Salt is useful to keep food good and to make it taste pleasant to us.
10. If the salt loses its taste and strength it is useless and is thrown out.
11. So it is with our love for Jesus; if it is not strong and true it will be of no use to us or anyone else.
12. The true love of Jesus in our hearts grows stronger day by day and makes us useful and helpful to those around us.
What is the Golden Text?
What is the Truth?
1. What did Jesus tell the people they must do if they wanted to be his disciples?
2. If they would be his disciples what must they be willing to do?
3. What did he mean by this?
4. If a man wanted to build a tower what would he first do?
5. When would the people laugh?
6. What did Jesus want to teach them?
7. If we want to be friends of Jesus what must we do?
8. What does the love of Jesus in our hearts do?
9. Of what use is salt?
10. When is salt thrown out?
11. When is our love for Jesus of no use to us or anyone else?
12. What does the true love of Jesus in our hearts do?
Tune.—"Jesus loves me, this I know," omitting chorus (E flat).
Jesus said, "Come, follow me,The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin.—Luke 15:1-10.
There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.—Luke 15:10.
God is love.—1 John 4:8.
Willard wondered how old the pretty graceful maple that grew outside his window was.
"I don't know exactly," said mother, "five or six years I should think. But the maple has the story of each birthday shut up safe inside its trunk. If the tree should blow down, or we should ever cut it down we could tell how many years it had lived.
"Each year a layer of soft green wood grows right next to the bark, and when winter comes this wood hardens until it is like the other wood. So when the tree is cut down we see in rings of wood the number of years it has been growing."
—Zelia Margaret Walters.
Grace had a sprained ankle when the new little girl moved next door. One afternoon a week later mother came in to tell Grace that the new little girl had come over for a visit.
"I'm glad," said Grace. "Please bring her up, mother, I like her."
"Why," said mother, "you've never seen her."
"Yes, but I could hear her every day from my window," said Grace. "I heard her talk to her little brother, and she's so kind and jolly, and she never says mean things to the dog, and when her mother calls, she says, 'yes, mother,' just as pleasant, and runs right away to see what she wants. She's always singing, too. I know she's nice."
"So little June has been hanging out signs telling just what she was though you haven't seen her," said mother with a smile. "I hope my daughter is putting out as good signs both for those who hear her, and those who see her."
What kind of signs are you hanging out, boys and girls? You are putting out some kind all the time. What would the next-door neighbor think of you if she only heard what you said to mother, and little brother, and the pets? Would she know you were kind, or would she think you were cross? Or suppose your neighbor were deaf, and could only see what you did. Would she read the sign of smiles on your face, or the sign of frowns? Would she see prompt obedience, and cheerful work, or lagging footsteps, and the shirking of tasks? Look over your signs to-day, and see if you are hanging out pleasant ones so that people will be sure you are nice.
—Jane West.
[Entered at the Post Office at Elgin, Ill., as Second Class Mail Matter.]
Price of Dew Drops.—In lots of five or more, to one address, 20 cents per copy per year, or 5-1/2 cents per copy per quarter. Address,
DAVID C. COOK PUBLISHING CO., ELGIN, ILL.