Mary F. Waterbury
Light for Little Ones
After breakfast he was about to run out as usual, when his mother said,
“No, Frankie. Mother wants you to stay in the house this morning. She has something to say to you.”
“But I don’t want to stay, mamma,” and he walked slowly toward the door.
“Frankie must stay.” This was decisive, and he sat down in his chair.
After his mother had finished her work, she took him into the sitting-room, and gave him a seat on a stool by her side.
“Now, Frankie,” she said, “I want you to tell me just what you did and where you went yesterday afternoon.”
Frankie gave a truthful account of his adventures at the creek. Then his mother said, “Did you know you were disobeying your mother, and, more than that, disobeying God?”
“O mamma, I didn’t think, I wanted to go so much,” and Frankie looked as though he wanted to cry.
“I know you wanted to go, but you must do what is right, not what you want to do. I will teach you a verse from the Bible that you must remember whenever you are tempted to disobey your mother. It is this: ‘Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.’ Can you repeat it now?”
After a few trials, Frankie could say it without a mistake, and he seemed to understand it, for, when his mother told him that he could run out and play, he put his arms around her neck and kissed her, saying softly, “I’ll remember, mamma, that God tells me to mind you.”
CHAPTER III
ALECK—THE NEW FRIEND
Frankie had never been to school, but his mother had taught him to read, and had given him some nice books. These he used to read over and over again until he almost had them by heart. Then, every Sunday his teacher selected a good Sunday School book for him to read during the week. The book she gave him on the Sabbath after his adventure in the creek, was the story of a naughty boy who disobeyed his parents. Frankie read the story with great interest, and did not leave it until it was finished; then, going to his mother, he said, earnestly,
“Mamma, did Miss Campbell know I didn’t mind you and went to the creek?”
“I don’t know, Frankie,” replied his mother. “Why do you ask?”
“Because she gave me a book that tells about a little boy that didn’t mind, and ran away to a pond, and got drowned; and I thought she must have known it.”
“It may be that she did, but that is of less consequence than the fact that God knows it. Think of it, Frankie, the great and holy God! He sees everything you do, and hears everything you say, and knows all your thoughts.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed Frankie. “I wish he didn’t. I never can have any more fun when I think of that. Is he looking at us all the time, every one of us?”
“‘Every one of us, and all the time,’” answered his mother. “‘His eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.’ But that need not trouble you, if you do right.”
“But I don’t do right, you know, mamma, always, and I don’t believe I can if I try ever so hard. I get tired being good too. I want to play and have fun.”
“‘Tired being good,’ my child. It is the only way to be happy. I know a little boy who is happy all day long, and all he has to make him so, is ‘being good.’ I am going to take something to his sick mother this evening, and you may go with me.”
“Is it the little lame boy, mamma, that lives down by the paper-mill? Oh, won’t that be nice! and may I take him one of my books to read?” Frankie asked eagerly.
His mother helped him choose a book, and, after tea, they started. Their way led them along the bank of the creek. The sun was just setting and all the sunset colors were reflected in the water. The hush of the Sabbath was on the busy, noisy village, and nothing could be heard but the faint hum of insects and the good-night song of the birds. Walking by his mother’s side, with his hand in hers, all these pleasant sights and sounds around them, and in his heart the thought of pleasing poor, lame Aleck,—all these made Frankie quietly happy. Looking up into his mother’s face, he said, “God is looking at us now, mamma, and I ain’t afraid. I wish I could see him too.”
“If you love and obey God, Frankie, you will see him, for when you die, He will take you to heaven, to live with him forever.” This and much more his mother said, and Frankie listened and pondered her words in his childish heart.
At last they reached the widow’s little brown house at the foot of a steep, wood-covered hill. It was a “wee sma’ place,” as widow Espey said, but “didna they hae a’ the bonny world outside?”
The sick woman was lying on a clean white bed in one corner of the room. Her face was pale and thin, but the light of a sweet content shone through her eyes. The lame boy, Aleck, was sitting by the bed, his crutches lying on the floor beside him. He had his mother’s face, and the same patient, happy look.
“We have been talkin’, my bairn an’ I, o’ the guid land on the ither side,” the widow said, after her visitors were seated. “I dinna ken the time, but it wi’ nae’ be lang before I sha’ gang awa’ to my ain countrie.”
Tears came into Aleck’s eyes and rolled down his thin, white cheeks.
“Dinna greet, laddie, dinna greet,” and the mother stroked his hand that was clasped in hers. “The time wi’ be as naething before the guid God wi’ ca’ ye too, an’ we sha’ aye dwell thegither. Dinna doot his word, my bairn.”
The child bravely kept back his tears and said, “Nae, mither, I ken it wi’ a’ be for the best; but oh, my ain mither, take your laddie wi’ ye,” and again the tears came to his eyes.
Frankie’s tender heart was touched. Going to Aleck’s side, he said eagerly, “Don’t cry, little boy. You may have my mamma if your mamma dies.”
Instantly the dying mother’s face brightened, and she said, in faint, earnest tones, “O Mrs. Western, if ye wad be a mither to my mitherless bairn.”
“With God’s help I will. He shall be to me as my own child,” said Mrs. Western, going nearer the bedside.
“Noo I can gang to my hame wi’ a gladsome heart. The Laird wi–.” The voice grew fainter, fainter, the breathing shorter. The sobbing child clung about his mother’s neck, all the anguish of his soul in the cry, “O mither, mither.” The mother’s lips moved silently, a glorified look overspread the pallid face, then came the awful stillness. The boy had lost a mother; heaven had gained an angel.
All the sad rites were performed under Mrs. Western’s supervision, and, when everything was done, even to the turfing of the last resting-place in the quiet cemetery, the brown cottage was sold, and Aleck was taken to Frankie’s home. He shared Frankie’s room, and Mrs. Western did all that she could to lighten his lonely little heart. He mourned for his mother in a quiet, patient way, but seemed anxious to be cheerful, and grateful for his pleasant home and kind friends.
Thus, in the great darkness, the Lord made his pathway light. “He carries the lambs in his arms.”