Mary F. Waterbury
Light for Little Ones
CHAPTER X
CONCLUSION
Frankie was the hero of the school after his father’s coming. Boys and girls gathered about him at noon, and recess, and after school, to listen to his stories of his father’s life in California—of the giant trees, the mines, the snow-covered mountains, and all the wonders of the Land of Gold.
“Let’s go some time, boys,” said Joe West, one noon, as they stood listening, with wide-open eyes.
“I’ll go,” said Willie Prime, “just as soon as I’m a man.”
“I’ll go before that,” said Ben. “’Tain’t no use for me to stay here.”
Poor boy! Having a drunken father, it was not strange he thought it of no use to remain at home.
“Are you ever going, Frank?” asked Millie Ray. “Is it too far for girls to go?”
“Oh no, Millie,” answered Frank. “’Tisn’t too far, but girls would be afraid of the Indians an’ bears and everything. But I’ll tell you how we’ll fix it. We’ll all go. Joe, and Will, and Ben, and Kate, and Lou, and you, and I. Then, you know, us boys’ll keep the Indians and bears away.”
“That’ll be splendid,” said Millie, clapping her hands as delightedly as though Frankie had been planning a school picnic on the bank of the creek.
The spirit of adventure had so taken possession of the children that they found it very hard to study. Every high snow-bank was the Rocky Mountain range, and every gully or ravine the entrance into a mine.
Miss Ruth had, finally, to insist upon well-learned lessons, under the penalty of being kept after school. Frankie was one of the first to suffer this penalty. He had failed in his geography lesson, having spent his time tracing the overland route to California. Ben Field was the other culprit. It was not new to him, so he cared but little about it, excepting that it pleased him to have such a good boy as Frankie Western kept too.
“How do you like it, Frank?” he asked, as soon as Miss Ruth had left the room.
Frankie had begun to study with all his might, so he looked up only a moment as he said, “I deserve it,” and after that Ben could not make him speak. Through the force of Frankie’s example, Ben also studied faithfully, and when, an hour later, Miss Ruth came in to hear the lesson, both boys recited it perfectly.
It was hard for Frankie to tell his father and mother why he was so late that night, and, for a moment, he felt tempted to give some other reason than the true one; but he thought of what the Bible says of him “who loveth or maketh a lie,” and decided to tell the whole truth. It was the last time he failed to study his Geography lesson, but by no means the last time he did wrong. He had the faults and temptations from which none are free, and was but a “babe in Christ,” just learning to “walk in the narrow way.” But he trusted in Jesus, and tried to imitate his example. The Saviour loves his “little ones” very tenderly, and one of his last commands to his disciples, “Feed my lambs.”
In the spring a small marble slab was placed at Aleck’s grave, and Frankie set out the white rose bush again, and some lilies of the valley.
The slab had for an inscription only Aleck’s name and two lines of his hymn:
“For he gathers in his bosom witless, worthless lambs like me,
An’ carries them himsel’ to his Ain Countree.”
Frankie still mourned for his lost playmate and friend; but he was happy in his pleasant home, in trying to please his parents, and in endeavoring to obey his Heavenly Father.
Miss Ruth is still happy in teaching her little ones; Joe, Willie, and Millie have joined in the service of Christ, and Miss Ruth hopes that Kate, and Lou, and even Ben, are thinking of what they owe their Saviour. Now we must leave them, rejoicing in the thought that though the world lieth in darkness, in Jesus Christ there is “light for little ones.”