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Ebook has 101 lines and 6628 words, and 3 pages

Editor: Pansy Alden)

W. BAKER & CO., Dorchester, Mass.

Like all our chocolates, is prepared with the greatest care, and consists of a superior quality of cocoa and sugar, flavored with pure vanilla bean. Served as a drink, or eaten dry as confectionery, it is a delicious article, and is highly recommended by tourists.

W. BAKER & CO., Dorchester, Mass.

AWARDED HIGHEST PRIZE AND ONLY MEDAL, PARIS EXPOSITION, 1878.

Send , , , or for retail box by Express of the best Candies in America, put up in elegant boxes, and strictly pure. Suitable for presents. Express charges light. Refers to all Chicago. Try it once.

Address C. F. GUNTHER, Confectioner, Chicago.

WORLD MANUF'G CO., 122 Nassau St., New York.

JOYFUL News for Boys and Girls!! Young and Old!! A NEW INVENTION just patented for Home use!

Fret and Scroll Sawing, Turning, Boring, Drilling, Grinding, Polishing, Screw Cutting. Price to . Send 6 cents for 100 pages.

EPHRAIM BROWN, Lowell, Mass.

Use "Our Trade Mark" Hams and Boneless Bacon.

WORK SHOPS

THE PANSY.

LIVES THAT TOUCHED.

WHEN they reached their hotel, they had much to say about the brave little girl with a kind voice, and a strong arm. Daniel the cook knew at once by the description who they must be. "It will be Janet Burns, the fisherman's girl, Miss Celia; and a nicer one never breathed. The care she takes of them children; and the life they lead her!" The next morning the Raymond children left the shore, and went back to their city home. And they were sorry, for they wanted to see more of Janet. Weeks passed, and the business of Christmas time came again to the Raymonds. The box which the children were always allowed to send to whom they would, was being planned.

"We would like to send it to the fisherman's children down the coast; Janet, you know, and all her children; Daniel told us all about them." This was the verdict of both Celia and Annie, and to it they clung, in the face of all objections in the shape of not knowing what they needed, or how they would receive a gift. "They need everything, mamma; if you had seen them, you would know. And of course they will like it; who wouldn't like to have a Christmas box?" So the box went its way.

It was delayed, as boxes are apt to be, so it was Christmas morning when it reached the desolate little home where Janet lived. It was very desolate that day; and Janet who did not often lose her courage, had given up and cried. No work, and hungry mouths and worn-out clothes. That was the whole sad story. Positively, Christmas day as it was, there was not a mouthful in that house to eat! They had had some breakfast, but where the dinner was to come from none of them knew. The father, after sitting with his head leaning on his hands for awhile, had risen up very slowly as though he had grown old in a few hours, and said: "If worse comes to worst I can go to Daniel at the hotel and ask him for some cold pieces; but I do hate to beg."

Then he went out, to take one more look through the dreary little village in search of work. It was then the express wagon stopped at the door, and a great box was carried in. "Janet Burns" was the name in heavy black letters on the box. It was a work of time to get it open. The hammer, axe, an old file and a big old knife each had to be tried in turn. But at last it was open and the treasures began to come out.

Oh! the wonders of that box. Two plump fat chickens bearing in their breasts a card on which was written: "We are cooked all ready to be eaten; or, if you like us hot, just plump us into the oven a few minutes, for it is a cold day and we have come fifty miles by train."

A beautiful ham which had another card: "I'm boiled, and am very good eaten cold." A bag of potatoes which said: "We are not cooked, but if you will wash our coats and put us in your oven you will see how fast we will get ready for dinner." So, through the box. There were two pies, and a cake full of raisins, and a bag of nuts and candies. And there was a package over which Janet cried for joy; she had laughed about all the rest; but this had warm flannels, and three dresses for the baby; and two suits almost as good as new for the little girls; and a woollen blanket for father's bed, and could it be! Yes, there was a new dress for herself; besides this, there were stockings and shoes, and two flannel sacks, and I really have not time to tell you what else. But pinned into a corner of a pretty handkerchief which had Janet's name on it, was a shining bit of gold worth five dollars! Can you imagine Mr. Burns' face when he came back with a loaf of bread he had earned, not begged, a bit of dried beef, and found the table set, a chicken before his plate, flanked by a dish of potatoes in such a hurry to be eaten every one burst through their coats? All the talk there was during the next hour, would make a book in itself.

"And you ain't no notion where they came from?" he asked for the third or fourth time.

"Not the least in the world. One card says: 'From Santa Claus, to the little girl who takes good care of her brothers and sisters;' but who knows whether I take good care of them or not?"

"I suspect the Lord does," said Joseph Burns reverently, "and He has told some of his children to send you a Christmas box. We must thank the Lord, and trust to Him to pay the others. He will do it." But I cannot help thinking, what if Janet had been cross that windy day!

HE DID THAT WHICH WAS RIGHT IN THE SIGHT OF THE LORD.

THE HARVEST IS PAST, THE SUMMER IS ENDED, AND WE ARE NOT SAVED.

FOR UNTO THIS DAY THEY DRINK NONE, BUT OBEY THEIR FATHER'S COMMANDMENT.

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON, THERE WE SAT DOWN, YEA, WE WEPT WHEN WE REMEMBERED ZION.

"WHY, yes," said Grandma, with her finger on Rollo's verse, and her eyes tender with old memories, "I remember a story about that verse; and it is a story which I think likely I shall remember in Heaven."

"Let's hear it right away, if you please," Ralph said, and the others settled into quiet as soon as possible.

"It wasn't so very many years ago, not more than fifty-five," began Grandma, and then Rollo nudged Harold, and chuckled; and Marion looked with grave astonished eyes at a woman who thought fifty-five years was not a long, long time! But Grandma took no notice of them.

"Yes," she said, "it is just about fifty-five years ago. There was a pretty little boy whom I knew; he had yellow hair, and the bluest eyes, and he was a dear bright little fellow. One day he went visiting out to a nice old lady's who lived near his father's old place. While he was there, who should come along but two trim little girls who were out getting signers to the Total Abstinence Pledge. We called it the tetotal pledge in those days. There was quite an excitement about it in town. A man lectured every evening, and had meetings for the children afternoons, and gave them each pledge books, and the one who got the greatest number of signers was to have a medal with his name on. It wasn't a gold medal, but it shone, and had a nice blue ribbon to put around your neck; and the children all liked it.

"Well, these two came to aunt Patty's door and asked for signers. Aunt Patty invited them in and got out her quill pen which wasn't used very often, and she and her oldest girl, Prudence, put down their names. The little fellow stood looking on; he wasn't four years old yet, but he lived where he saw a great deal of writing going on, and behold he wanted to sign his name. Aunt Patty laughed, and tried to explain to him that he was too young; but he said No, he "writed" his name once when "favver" held his hand, and he wanted to do it again. That was true enough. One day his father bought him a picture book, and guided the pencil in his hand and let him put his name in it. After a good deal of coaxing, aunt Patty sat down and took him in her lap, and held that old quill, guiding it as well as she could, and he did get what looked something like his name in the book. It was very queer writing," said Grandma, stopping to laugh at the thought of it, with that same tender look in her eyes, "but the little fellow was just as proud of it as could be. He told of it the first thing when he went home, but his mother--oh! you don't know how badly she felt."

"Why?" interrupted Marion and Rollo. "Wasn't she a good mother?" asked Marion. "Didn't she believe in temperance?" asked Rollo.

"O, yes, she believed in temperance; but she had some very strong notions about promises. She wanted her little boy to understand all about it whenever he made one, and then to keep it as he would the eighth commandment; and she said he was too young to take a pledge, that he could not understand what it meant, and he would think that signing his name to a paper was a light thing, just for play. Why, children, she felt so badly about it that she just sat down and cried."

"Ho!" said Rollo, "I think she was foolish. I dare say he understood."

"Go on, Grandma," said Marion.

"It was three years afterwards, and the little boy was seven years old--a beautiful child. One winter his mother was very sick, every one thought she would die; she was so low that she didn't know her own little boy, and she couldn't bear the least noise; so her boy was taken to his auntie's, and stayed there for weeks. One evening he was in the parlor with his uncle, there were three or four gentlemen there, and pretty soon cider was brought in. The little boy sat beside a gentleman who offered him a drink of cider from his glass; the boy refused politely; and the gentleman thinking he was timid, coaxed him. Then his uncle spoke up: 'That young man has never tasted cider, he tells me.' At this they all laughed; it was a very unusual thing in those days to find a child seven years old who had never tasted cider; it sounded almost as strange as it would to say now that one had never tasted water.

"Good for him!" said Rollo.

"Oh, hurrah!" said Harold.

"Yes, she got well; and was a proud and happy mother when she heard the story. But that is only the beginning of it. I saw that boy when he was a young man and came home from college as handsome as a picture, and I heard his father say to him: 'Well, my boy, they tell me most of the young men use liquor more or less; how do you get on with them?'

"And he looked around with his bright laughing eyes and said:

"'I'm all right, father; to this day I drink none, but obey my father's commandment. That pledge of mine ought to be printed in gold on my tombstone when I die, for it has held me in the midst of many temptations.'

"And there his mother thought he was too young to understand!"

And Grandma Burton actually wiped the tears from her eyes, though she was smiling yet.

"Grandma," said Marion, "what was that boy's name? You haven't spoken his name once."

"I guess something," said Ralph eagerly. "Wasn't his name Mott, Grandma?"

"Robert Mott Burton, that was his name, my darlings."

"Our own uncle Mott!" said astonished little Sarah.

"Then that's what makes him such a red-hot temperance man now, isn't it?" said Rollo. "Didn't he begin early, though?"

A CHRISTMAS STORY.

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