IT is only a farthing, and I do not believe it would be stealing if I spent it. And I do not think Aunt Mary would mind, besides she need never know. If it were a penny or even a halfpenny, I would not be mean enough to keep it; but what is the use of a farthing? and I should like to taste those red sweets so much.”
Half aloud Bertie Lee was turning the matter over in his mind, as, instead of making haste home with the flour for which he had been sent an hour before, he lingered near the window of a shop where trays of candy and hard-bake vied with a long row of show glasses filled with acid and pear drops, as well as other sweet things, in tempting small boys and girls to enter and spend their pocket money.
Bertie's mother had died a year before my story opens, but Aunt Mary, who kept house for Mr. Lee, was very fond of, and kind to her little nephew, and Bertie loved her dearly, though he was sometimes willful and disobedient.
When sending Bertie for the flour, Aunt Mary had been careful to give him the exact sum she thought would be needed to pay for it, but the price of flour having fallen slightly during the week, Mrs. Mills who kept the baker's shop in the High Street, had, after weighing Bertie's flour, taken a farthing from the till and handed it him with his bag.
“It is only a farthing," Bertie repeated this time in a louder tone, "and who knows but Mrs. Mills meant it for me? She gave me a large currant bun one day when I ran to the Chemist's for the cough mixture, and I know that was worth more than a farthing. Besides, I must have some sweets, so it is no use my standing here all day." And Bertie turned quickly, and was about to enter the shop, when the sound of crutches coming round the corner made him stop.
He knew who was coming—Archie Craig, or, as all the boys called him, lame Archie. A fall from a high chair when quite an infant had hurt his hip so badly that he was unable to walk or even stand without crutches. But the look of peace on his thin pain-worn face, and the light in his large gray eyes, had won their way to many hearts, and the lame boy was a general favorite.
At almost any other time Bertie would have been pleased to meet his friend and eager to tell him some story of schoolboy fun; but on the present occasion he advanced without a word, only opening the hand which still held the farthing.
Archie's quick eye saw it in a moment, and he asked, "Who gave it you, Bertie?”
A simple question, but Bertie turned quite red in the face and hesitated before answering. Then he said, “Mrs. Mills;" but added quickly, "No, I do not mean she gave it to me, but it was change out of the flour money, and I am going to spend it; only a farthing you know, and so not worth making a fuss about.”
But the look on Archie's face, and the pleading tone of his voice, made Bertie start, as his friend said gently, "Oh do not, Bertie, please do not think of spending that farthing. It is not yours, you know, and what is not yours must be somebody else's. So it would be stealing to keep it. You do not know how sorry I should be to think Bertie Lee had turned thief. But there is somebody else who would be more grieved than Archie Craig.”
“Whom do you mean?" Bertie asked, "You do not know Aunt Mary if you think she would take the loss of a farthing very deeply to heart.”
“It was not your Aunt Mary I was thinking of, but of the Lord Jesus Christ," Archie replied. "Do not you remember the motto text Miss King gave us when we all went to tea at her house? ‘The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.' (Prov. 15:33The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. (Proverbs 15:3).) And I cannot tell you, Bertie, what a help it has been to me, when tempted to go wrong, just to remember that God sees me, and a comfort, too, when I am trying to do right, for then I love to think that the eyes of the Lord are upon me and that He knows how hard the battle is sometimes; but all Christ's soldiers must fight, you know, and He has said, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.'" (Heb. 13:55Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. (Hebrews 13:5).)
“‘The eyes of the Lord,'" Bertie repeated slowly. "I wonder I did not think of that before. How different things do look when we put them side by side with Bible words, do they not, Archie?”
“But I think I must make haste home now with this flour. I have been gone long enough to fetch it twice over. So good-bye, old fellow." And without another word Bertie was off.
When he reached home he found Aunt Mary had gone to see the sick child of a neighbor, so his long absence was not noticed.
But that evening, when tea was over and Bertie and his Aunt were having a quiet talk—somehow or other he never could be sure how it began—Bertie found himself telling her the whole story of his temptation.
Aunt Mary was a good listener; Bertie always felt sure she understood him better than any one had ever done, except perhaps his own dear mother.
She heard him through, then said, as she kissed him, "I am so glad you were kept from doing wrong to-day. I think Archie Craig must have been the King's messenger. But your story reminds me of something that happened many years ago when Uncle George was about your age. Shall I tell you about it, Bertie?”
“Yes, please, Auntie," Bertie said eagerly, for there are few things he enjoyed more than one of Aunt Mary's stories.
“You know, dear, that when Uncle George and myself were young we lived with our parents in a pretty cottage in Kent. We were very happy children. After school, or on half-holidays we used to go for long rambles in the woods and fields, always returning with hands and baskets well filled, in the spring-time, with wild flowers and in autumn with nuts and berries.
“But perhaps the greatest treat of all was when mother gave us leave to pay a visit to our much-loved grandmother, who lived about two miles from our cottage. She was always pleased to see us, and would often take us into her pretty little parlor, and opening a drawer in her sideboard, where a store of things good to eat was kept, give us each a slice of home-made cake or a rosy apple.
“What a wonderful place that parlor always seemed to us, I cannot stop now to tell you, or all the curious things that were in it. But I think what we admired most was a large china plate brought by grandfather from a place called Delft in Holland.
“In the center of the plate was a large eye, and round its edge in old English letters, ‘Thou God seest me.'
“One day George had gone alone on a visit to grandmother. The day was hot, the road dusty, and when George got to the end of his journey he was tired and thirsty.
“The cottage door stood open, but grandmother was nowhere to be seen, so George walked into the parlor, meaning to amuse himself with a book. But before long he began to wonder what nice things were hidden away in the drawer. He knew it was not kept locked; could there be any harm in just looking? He was not going to touch anything. So thinking, George opened the drawer. It was half full of large rosy-cheeked apples. How good they looked; grandmother would be sure to give him one when she came in. Would it make any difference if he took one?
“His hand was stretched out when some slight noise outside made him look round. Was the painted eye on the plate looking at him? It seemed as if it was. And as the words, ‘Thou God seest me,' came to his mind, forgetting in his fright even to close the drawer, he rushed out of the house, and never stopped running till he got across two or three fields.
“When grandmother heard all about it, she said, ‘The best thing, George, would have been not to open the drawer, but the next best thing was to run away from temptation. Always remember that the all-seeing eye of God is upon you, and you will be kept from many a sin and many a sorrow, too.' I have never forgotten that little incident, and I dare say your Uncle George has not forgotten it either. It would be a lesson for him in all his after life.”