TWO little boys with scowling faces stood before their Mamma. She had told them she did not think it best for them to visit Neddie Tucker that day, so they began to pout and behave in a very naughty manner.
“Now,” said Mrs. Gray, “I am going out for a ride. Be good boys, and amuse yourselves until I come back.”
“What shall we do?” whined Harry. “Play with the soldiers,” answered mamma.
“They are nearly all broken,” cried both the boys.
“Then put your cut-up pictures together.”
“Three of the pieces are lost.”
“Play with your building-blocks or your tops, or swing in the hammock, or roll your hoops in the garden.”
“We are tired of all those.”
“Then,” said mamma, “I don’t see anything for you to do but to be my good boys.”
The clouds vanished from Charlie’s face, and throwing his arms around his mother’s neck, he exclaimed, “Yes, mamma, I will be your good boy!”
Not so with Harry. As soon as the carriage drove away, he began to fret, and at last said to his brother, “Let us go over to Neddie’s.”
Charlie opened his blue eyes very wide as he replied, “Why, Harry! mamma said we could not go!”
“Never mind; she will never know it if we do go. Come on, Charlie; I am going.” Charlie looked very sober.
“No,” he said firmly; “whatever you may do, I shall mind mamma.”
Harry’s hand was on the gate. At that moment he paused to draw his handkerchief from his pocket, and with it came a small Sunday-school card, on which was printed in pretty letters, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” Harry put the card back in his pocket, and drew a long breath.
“I came pretty near being naughty,” he said.
Half an hour later, Grandpa Gray drove up in his farm-wagon, and called to the boys—
“I am glad you are here, for I can’t stop three minutes. I have come to take you up to the farm to stay for a little. I met your mother on the way, and she says you may go. Now fly off, for I am in a hurry.”
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t disobey mamma?” whispered Charlie to his brother after Grandma Gray had tucked them up in bed that night.
“I guess I am,” replied Harry earnestly. “And I am going to always remember that verse whenever I am tempted to do what my parents would not be pleased with.”
“God is in heaven: would He know
If I should tell a lie?”
“Yes; if thou saidst it soft and low,
He’d hear it in the sky.”
ML 02/18/1917