VII

"I CAN'T"

No girl or boy ever says this about anything they love to do!

No matter how hard it is, if they like it, they try at least to do it. In fact, the harder it is, the more they try.

Who ever cares how many bumps he gets when learning to skate?

I saw a fellow once who was trying to vault over a pole. His chums laughed and jeered. "You can't!" they called out. Do you suppose he stopped? No! He kept right at it until he did.

Edison, the wizard of electricity, wanted to get a jewel point hard enough to be the right kind of an end for a phonograph needle. When it was suggested he could not get one, he just looked at the one who said it, and went right on and found it!

Every girl and boy should be like the man who refused to let that word appear in his dictionary.

When I was a little boy, I was brought up in a church where they would not sing anything but psalms. They called all others "man-made hymns" and one member of the church had sewed up all the paraphrases at the back for fear he might open them by mistake. That was a very foolish, narrow way to act; but if you have anywhere in your book of life the words, "I can't!" just sew those leaves together so you will never see them!

For you can—if you will, and if you want to!

And if you can't, it is only because you won't!

I do not know who wrote these verses and will apologize for using them, but would like to pass them on to girls and boys:

IT CAN BE DONE

"Somebody said that it couldn't be done;

But he, with a chuckle, replied

That maybe it couldn't, but he would be one

Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.

So he buckled right in, with the trace of a grin

On his face; if he worried, he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done—and he did it.

"Somebody scoffed: 'Oh, you'll never do that;

At least, no one has ever done it.'

But he took off his coat, and he took off his hat,

And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin;

Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done—and he did it.

"There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done;

There are thousands to prophesy failure;

There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

Then take off your coat and go to it.

Just start in to sing, as you tackle the thing

That 'cannot be done'—and you'll do it."

VIII

"I FORGOT"

Oh, how much trouble this little fox causes!

Out West near Fort William, once occurred a serious collision—all because an engineer forgot to watch the safety signals! A great train was wrecked and a whole railway district held up for hours; and some lives were lost—because a brakeman forgot to guard an open switch!

It's a bad fox, girls and boys!

It makes your character ragged and slovenly. It wastes people's time. It causes endless confusion. It holds up plans. Somebody forgets to do his duty and that upsets all some one else has to do; and so it goes on and around, until things become a regular mix-up.

There is a place for a good forgetter!

It is just to forget your worries and to forget yourself; and to forget the nasty things people do to you; and to forget your mistakes, if you are sorry for them; and to forget that you were not invited to somebody's party; and to forget that you fell down yesterday, if you got up again and are still on your feet!

But it is important to have a good memory too.

A little girl forgot to post her mother's letter, and it stopped the chance of a pleasant holiday for her grandmother, who was waiting for directions.

A little boy forgot to close the door of the nursery when he was told, and the baby nearly died of pneumonia.

In the days of the great war so recently closed, they had to spend millions of dollars on making shells. They had to be very carefully made. If a shell was more than 3/1000 of an inch more in diameter than was called for, it was sent back. It was important not to forget this. In fact, they had to watch against fuzz getting on the shell from the gloves worn by the workers.

One day an inspector found a shell that would not fit. Some one forgot to watch against the fine lint and sent in the shell which was at once sent back.

And surely if it was so important to remember all these fine points about a death-dealing shell, it is just as important not to forget the little things of life, that may spoil the whole day.

A bridge-builder made out all his plans and set the men to work, and when it was put together it was seventeen feet too short, because the plan-maker forgot one little measure that knocked the whole work out.

I read a rather strange thing that occurred across the line among our Southern neighbours.

A bill was passed, allowing certain goods to come in free of paying duty. Among them were what was called foreign fruit-plants. You know what that stroke between the two words is. It is a hyphen that joins the words and makes them one. A clerk was copying the bill and forgot all about the hyphen, and made the bill read "fruit, plants," etc., and for a whole year, until their parliament met, all foreign fruit came in free; and they say the government lost nearly $2,500,000, all because a clerk forgot a hyphen and put in a comma instead.

But it is not only the mistake that costs, but if we will just think that it is the memories that store up our thoughts. It is the things marked in memory that we use for all our mind's growth.

A girl or boy who is always forgetting will some day find the life grown up and full of emptiness; for it is what you remember that makes the furniture in your soul's living-rooms; and if you keep on forgetting, your soul will have bare walls, and bare floors, and all you will hear will be echoes.

Be alert. Keep your eyes open. Attend to business. Put your mind on things. Do not say, "I forgot!" Be ashamed to! You have no right to forget!

You can pardon an old man whose teeth are all out and whose hair is all off, and who is bent with age, but you have no excuse.

Your forgetter has no right to be working at all.

Stop forgetting!—Remember!

IX

"BY-AND-BY"

"Oh, dear me! What a child that is! Johnny, will you please do that errand for me?"

"Yes, Mother, by-and-by!"'

"Mary, will you pick up your things and tidy your room? It looks as though a storm had struck it!"

"Oh, yes, I will, by-and-by!"

When are you going to do your home work? By-and-by!

When are you going to start that job you wanted to do? By-and-by!

When are you going to be useful? By-and-by!

When are you going to bed? By-and-by!

When are you going to get up? By-and-by!

When? When? When?—By-and-by! By-and-by! By-and-by!

"By-and-by is a very bad boy,

Shun him at once and forever;

For he that goes with By-and-by

Soon comes to the town of Never!"

 

They say that Rothschild, one of the wealthiest men of the world, made the beginning of his fortune by acting at the moment. He was in Brussels and heard the report of the battle, and spurred his horse and paid a large sum to be ferried across a river; and got to London early in the morning before the news was abroad; and laid the foundations of his wealth in a few hours.

That is one of the roads to success—being prompt.

The dilly-dallying, shirking, waiting girl or boy will always be at the tail-end of things, and will never catch up enough to catch on.

Do you want to catch on?

Then do it now—not by-and-by!

There is a little poem printed in Messenger for the Children. I want to repeat it to you:

PUT-OFF TOWN

Did you ever go to Put-Off town,

Where the houses are old and tumble-down,

And everything tarries and everything drags,

With dirty streets and people in rags?

On the street of Slow lives Old Man Wait,

And his two little boys named Linger and Late;

With unclean hands and tousled hair,

And a naughty little sister named Don't Care.

Grandmother Growl lives in this town,

With her two little daughters called Fret and Frown;

And Old Man Lazy lives all alone

Around the corner on Street Postpone.

Did you ever go to Put-Off town

To play with the little girls, Fret and Frown,

Or to the home of Old Man Wait,

And whistle for his boys to come to the gate?

To play all day in Tarry Street,

Leaving your errands for other feet?

To stop or shirk, or linger, or frown,

Is the nearest way to this old town.

X

BOLDNESS

There is a splendid kind of boldness.

One day, years ago, sometime after the death of Jesus, two of His disciples, Peter and John, were arrested and brought before their bitter enemies who were ready and able to kill them. And Peter, the noble soul, stood up without a pang of fear and just told them face to face what he thought; and then the New Testament story says: "When they saw the boldness of Peter and John they marvelled."

It is a fine thing to see men and women and girls and boys who are not afraid to do and stand for the right.

Listen to this story which I will give you just as I got it:

He was small for his age, worked in a signal box, and booked the trains. One day the men were chaffing him about being so small. One of them said:

"You will never amount to much. You will never be able to pull these levers; you are too small."

The little fellow looked at them.

"Well," said he, "as small as I am, I can do something which none of you can do."

"Ah! what is that?" they all said.

"I don't know that I ought to tell you," he replied.

But they were anxious to know, and urged him to tell what he could do that none of them were able to do. Said one of the men:

"What is it, boy?"

"I can keep from swearing and drinking!" replied the little fellow.

There were blushes on the men's faces, and they didn't seem anxious for any further information on the subject.

Was not he the right kind of a bold boy?

Or what do you think of a lot of officers at a dinner, drinking and telling unclean tales.

Everybody had to tell a story or sing a song.

One young, shy fellow said, "I cannot sing but I will give a toast in water." And the toast he gave was "Our Mothers."

The rest were so touched by his splendid courage that they shook his hand and thanked him, and the Colonel said it was one of the bravest acts he ever saw.

A great Scotch preacher was so brave that it was said, "he never feared the face of man."

Every girl and boy should be bold in that way—fearless, heroic, full of courage and with a stiff, brave heart.

Some day you will read and study Shakespeare, and he will give you this message:

"What's brave, what's noble, let's do it, and

make death proud to take us."

 

Another writer, whose name I do not know, is quoted as saying:

"We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us."

 

Dear girls and boys, was it not a great moment for Canada when a little handful of Canadians stood at Ypres, in the first poison gas attack and dare to face it, and stand fast? Their boldness helped to stem the tide, and that first stand was the beginning of the events that won the war for the Allies.

That sort of a bold person makes history, and makes the history of their country.

The poet Emerson puts it this way:

"Not gold, but only men can make

A people great and strong.

Men who for truth and honour's sake

Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,

Who dare while others fly—

They build a nation's pillars deep

And lift them to the sky."

 

But there is a boldness that acts on life like foxes in a garden.

It is seen in the rude, rough, saucy, forward girl or boy.

The boy who becomes a "smart Alec." Sometimes other boys call him "Smarty."

Or the girl who does not know how to blush; with no sense of shame. You can always tell them. She dresses loud, and laughs loud, and makes a fool of herself on the street; and he stares at you and acts impudently, and thinks he is manly.

They like to be looked at, and stare back.

They lack gentle, quiet refinement, and if that spirit grows, it will ruin the character and make the girl or boy disliked by everybody who cares for a gentleman or a lady; and in later years they will be ashamed.

Take a dictionary if you have one, and see the two uses of the word.

Bold—heroic, brave, gallant, courageous, fearless.

Bold—rude, without shame, impudent.

 

Which are you going to be?

XI

REVENGE

This is a fox whose bite brings blood.

It represents a very bad spirit.

It means, "I am going to pay him back." "I am going to get even." "You just see, I'll catch him and make him sorry!"

It does make him sorry, not in the sense of being penitent and wishing he had not done it, or longing to undo it; but sorry because of the blow he gets in return.

It is a bitter heart that takes revenge. It goes with a hard, unforgiving spirit.

It is an awful way for girls and boys to act, because they should be so bright and smiling. They are so fresh and sunny. They are so young they should not grow hard like an old shell.

They ought to be all mercy, forgiveness, kindness, because they have so much of it shown to them.

I hate to see a kiddie who is always looking for a chance to hit some one who happened to hit him.

Johnny Pay-him-back once was hurt when he was playing with a schoolmate, and instead of turning up a rosy face and laughing it off, the way the sun does when a piece of mud flies up in the face of the sky, he opened the door of his heart and this little fox began to chew away all his finer feelings. As the fox chewed, Johnny chewed on his hurt, just the way he was chewing a wad of gum in his mouth. The more he chewed the hotter he grew under his collar.

You see, in your heart there is a cooling plant called Love, but the pesky little fox chewed it all up, and he got so hot that he paid the boy back and sent him to bed for a whole month to suffer pain; simply because he wanted revenge.

I read of a man once who was injured by another man of high rank in society, and he said to a friend, "Would it not be manly to resent it?" The friend answered, "Yes, but it would be God-like to forgive!"

It is not easy to forgive. It takes a real man to do it, but it makes you very much like God, who forgives us so much day after day!

And the gentle, forgiving spirit does so much to make the world bright, while the revengeful spirit adds so much to its gloom. Put that in a house or a school, and you pull down all the blinds and stop all the music of life.

Part of the horrors of the war were bred of revenge.

Germany had piled up all she could on France in 1870. France could not forget it, and the terrible thing about revenge is it burns so long. It may be that even now after victory, sparks of that old fire are still burning in the heart of France. If it should blaze up nobody can tell how awful the results would be.

Brighten up your hearts by keeping them sweet with mercy.

Instead of making yourself dark with the desire to pay back—just shine up a little. Keep the air fresh, and polish off your windows and put the flowers of kindness on the sills and hand out mercy to those who pass by.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy." And if you and I can't forgive, how can we hope to be forgiven?

Oh, there is nothing like the sunny life to cast out the shadows of hate.

It was the radiant sunshine of Pollyanna that changed a whole community and brought two people together who had not spoken for years; so

Smile, don't frown. Love, don't hate.

"Are you feeling cross to-day?

Stop and smile.

And of course, if you feel gay,

Why, you'll smile.

You will find that it will pay

If everywhere and every day

At your work or at your play

You will smile. Just smile."

 

It was a piece of fine advice one gave another. It was this:

"Smile a while,

And while you smile

Another smiles!

And soon there will be miles

And miles

Of smiles.

And life's worth while

Because you smile."

 

May I add:

Don't frown and groan

Or throw your stone.

But pile up high

Yes, just sky-high

Your joy and love.

Then by-and-by

Down from above

The holy dove

Will come and move

Our world with love.

XII

UNTRUTHFULNESS

"Oh, what do you want to talk so much about that?" said a boy to his mother. "It was only a white lie!"

And the poor little silly thought that you got your opinion of a lie by its colour!

A bad man may be white, or brown, or black, or yellow, but he is a bad man all the same! The colour does not matter; and so is a lie a bad thing, whether it is little or big, or white or black. I'll tell you why, girls and boys!

1. White lies give you a habit of telling lies, and when you get the habit you become a liar! In fact, white lies are almost the worse of the two, because a big black lie would scare you, but the little white lie eats into you without you knowing it.

2. White lies are like that awful disease called Cancer.

We hear a lot about it to-day, and the doctors are puzzled because they do not know how to trace it. But it eats and eats away until some of us have seen most loathsome forms of it consuming the poor body, while the life is still there, often in very intense suffering. And the doctors say, "Take care of the first pimple and have it cut out." Cancer often starts in a tiny spot or the smallest growth.

Now, the liar is just the same. He starts with lie pimples—just little white spots on his language tongue, but they grow until they eat away his best life.

In the East there is a dread disease called Leprosy.

It often begins with a little white spot, which grows and grows until the body gets rotten, and the poor fellow who has the disease has to be sent away by himself. And white lies grow and grow until the man becomes an evil one, who sometimes has to be sent off by himself in a jail, and the boy is sent off to some industrial home to keep him away so he cannot hurt others, until he has learned a better way of talking and living.

Be afraid of a lie!

3. They make people whom you cannot trust, and almost anything else I would wish for you than to be one who cannot be trusted.

You can't rely on a liar. Not only one who lies with his tongue, but who acts lies. He gets by-and-by so full of lies that if you try to lean on him, down you go!

Out in the West, one of the great wheat elevators at Fort William suddenly slid down into the river, because the foundation was too weak to hold it up.

And a liar is like that! He is a bad foundation for home or school or society!

He caves in if any weight is put on him.

Let the girls and boys who study about these foxes watch this bad one, and be straight and true and upright and strong, so people can be sure of them.

I like the story I read once of a Scottish schoolboy who was called "Little Scotch Granite." When the boys were supposed to tell how often they had whispered in school—and if they had not at all, got a perfect mark called "Ten"—they got the habit of saying "Ten," even when they had broken the school rule. Little Scotty came, and although he was bright and full of fun he would not say "Ten"—although his record got very low.

But he changed the whole school.

He was always a good sport, but he never would tell a lie to save himself.

At the close of the term he was away down on the list, but when the teacher said he had decided to give a special medal to the most faithful boy in the school and asked to whom he would give it—forty voices called out together, "Little Scotch Granite!"

XIII

"I CAN'T BE BOTHERED!"

Did you ever hear any girl or boy say that?

"Sonny, go and do that little job, will you?" "Oh, I can't be bothered!"

"Johnny, your sister Mary is having a hard time with her home work. Go and see if you can help her." "Oh, I can't be bothered!"

A load of firewood was dumped at the back gate and Billy, who was lying kicking up his heels on the porch in the sun, was asked to go and pile some of it in the cellar. "Oh, I can't be bothered! Wait till Dad comes home, he'll do it!"

The next door neighbour had a sick baby and Nellie was asked to go to the drug store for something. Now, Nellie really loved babies and she was a good little kiddie usually; but she was busy on some ribbons she was fixing for herself—so busy she forgot to shut the garden gate and that fox came in and bit one of the flowers off her soul, and she said, "Oh, don't bother me!"

My, girls and boys, you let that fox loose in your garden, and he'll make an awful mess of it! He'll chew up the loveliest thing and leave a wreck!

If he gets abroad in the home or the church or the city, or society, he'll ruin things without a doubt.

Because:

1. If everybody said that nothing ever would be done to help anybody, this poor old world would be left so that none of us would want to live in it.

Of course, I know there is a lot of "bother" that we should not bother with—the "bother" that your mother means when she says, "Stop bothering the baby!"—the "bother" that means teasing, and vexing and annoying, and making yourself a nuisance.

But think where you would have been if your mother and father had never bothered over you.

Think of where the world would have been if all men and women had refused to be bothered about its history. It would have had no heroes, no authors, and no leaders, and what we call history would have been a perfect mess!

It is because savages do not bother that we have the dark places where the missionary goes and bothers his soul to help; and if he did not, there would be no progress; and if he never had gone, you and I would still be savages!

Whenever you are tempted to say, "Don't bother me!"—just remember and be glad that it was bothering about things gave you home and friends and school and all that makes your life worth while!

1. There is another queer thing about bothering.

A lot of girls and boys never think it half as much a bother to bother about some people outside as they do to bother about people in their own homes. Some boys, and girls too, can be as sweet as an all-day sucker when some other lady asks them to go a message, and as sour as a dose of vinegar when their own mother wants something done!

"Oh, yes, dear Mrs. Smith, it will be no trouble at all to take that letter to the post. I'll gladly go!"

"Oh, confound it, Mother! I can't do that! I wanted to go down to the pond to skate!"

Girls and boys! Don't say, "I can't be bothered!"

Bothering for others is the bliss of life!

If you want to be happy, aid some one to-day!

XIV

THANKLESSNESS

Don't you love to hear the gentle voice of a child say, "Thank you!"?

Don't you like to see a girl or boy that feels and shows gratitude?

Everything in Nature seems to have it!

The birds twittering in the tree-tops always seem to be chirping, "Thanks." The flowers bordering the green lawn breathe out a fragrance that makes you so glad, it must be the odour of thanks! The sun is so glorious and scatters its rays so brightly, I think if you could hear it speaking as it shines, you would hear it saying, "Oh, I am so thankful I have all this power of sifting down these drops of sunlight!" When the rain sees the brown-burnt grass starting up into bright greenness, how thankful it must feel for its ability to refresh! I think even the wind is glad it can shake things up and scatter nasty germs and clean the air that people breathe!

"All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all."

And I really believe there is not one that is not glad and thankful for being and doing!

There is no spirit so dark, unhappy and unattractive as the one that is thankless.

Shakespeare says:

"Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend

More hideous in a child

Than the sea monster."

And again he says:

"How sharper is it than a serpent's tooth

To have a thankless child."

 

Once Jesus cured ten lepers, and you know leprosy was a dreadful disease that little by little ate away the body and turned it into a rotting sore; and of the ten who were healed of that frightful trouble, only one came back to say, "I thank you!"

Isn't it a lovely sight to see the sweet spirit of a thankful heart saying it—to find people who appreciate what you do—that is, who think it is worth something, for appreciation just means putting a value on, and they say so!

The Bible says, "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so."

Don't keep it to yourself. Say so! Pass it on! Tell some one you are glad they did something for you!

Everybody dislikes a girl or boy who is like a sponge, always soaking in!

I saw a lovely flower once. At first it was only a dirty-looking bulb. But it was put in nice clean water, in a glass, and soon beautiful white rootlets began to fill up the bottle; and one day the bulb was so glad that it was no longer a nasty earthy-looking brown bulb, but had graceful white roots, and a bud shooting out that it burst in a splendid poem of thanks; only the poem was called a flower, and its name was Hyacinth!

We all love to see a thankful life—At home it makes the atmosphere so soft and helpful—At school it straightens wrinkles off the teacher and fills the room with light—With one another it acts like good oil in an automobile. It makes things run smoother.

And girls and boys, God likes it too!

There is a fable of a lion that lay hot and tired, trying to sleep, when some field mice ran over his body and made him so mad he clapped down his paw and was going to tear it when the little mouse pled for mercy in such a way that the lion set him free.

Sometime later he heard a great roaring and found it was the lion caught by hunters in a great net. He remembered the mercy of the lion, and telling him not to fear, he set to work with his little sharp teeth and gnawed away at the cords and knots of the trap and set the lion free.

It is fine to be thankful.

It is even finer to prove it by doing things that make others thankful.

Be thankful for home, and school, for church and gospel.

Be thankful you are not children in a heathen land.

Be thankful for your happy girl and boy life.

Be thankful God cares for you.

A minister once told a bishop of a wonderful escape he had from a burning ship. He called it a "great providence of God."

"Yes," said the bishop, "but I know a greater. I know a ship where nothing happened and it arrived safely." That was God's providence too, for which he was thankful.

And all your life God is working over you.

Are you thankful?

And do you show it by helping others and being kind to those who are kind to you?

There is a legend from Norway, that wonderful sea-washed land in Europe, so full of tales that girls and boys like. It is called the legend of the "Gertrude Bird."

It is a woodpecker that is said to have been a woman once, who was making bread, when two men passed by who happened to be Christ and His disciple Peter, although she did not know.

They asked for some of the dough, for they had had a long walk and fast; and she pinched a piece off when lo, it grew till it filled the bake box. So she said, "No, that is too much," and pinched a piece off it, when the same thing happened! Three times it happened, and each time she got more selfish and hard and stingy. At last, as she saw how much dough she was getting, she said to the two strangers, "I cannot give you any. Go on, you can't stop here!"

They passed on and then she knew them; and oh, she got humble and sorry, and fell down asking for pardon, and the Christ said, "I gave you much, but you had no thanks. Now I'll try poverty. After this you must get your food between the bark and the tree. But because you are sorry, when your clothing is all black with your sorrow, it will stop, because then you will have learnt to be thankful!"

And so she was punished for a while by becoming a woodpecker, picking her food between the bark and the tree, until as she grew older her back and wings all got black; and then God turned them all white again!

Dear girls and boys, God loves you and me to be thankful!

XV

CRUELTY

There are two ways you can get a bad bite from the fox called Cruelty.

(1) By being cruel to people. Of course, most normal girls and boys would hardly like to be called cruel; and yet how often you can be without just knowing its name.

A boy that is a bully is a cruel boy. At school he likes to lord it over other boys, especially if they are smaller than he is.

I knew a boy once in a school in Toronto, who at recess was knocked down by a bigger boy who pushed his face into a snow bank and sat on him until he was in an agony of suffocation. I don't suppose the boy realized what he was doing, but he was a bully just the same.

He is the fellow who likes to see smaller fellows afraid of him, and likes to strut around with the feeling that he is cock of the walk!

I was going to a funeral one day, and saw a large boy on the street, seated on a small boy who was lying helpless on his back and enduring all kinds of nasty actions by the young bully. If I had not been at the head of the funeral, I would have stopped and gone and spanked him!

How boys hate a bully. He is a coward, you know, at heart. A real brave boy will never take advantage of some one weaker and smaller than himself. A real brave hero protects others. The boy who hurts some one who can't defend himself is a mean coward. It does not matter how big his breast is or how far it sticks out, his inside heart is small, and narrow and hard. Now, don't you be like that!

(2) You can be cruel to animals—torturing them—loving to hurt them, just for the fun of killing. It is so strange the way some people think they are having no sport unless something is suffering.

"It's a fine day," some one is reported as saying, "let us go out and kill something."

We live in a day when Children's Aid Societies and Humane Societies are telling us of the beauty of a kind life, and that even animals are God's creatures and should be treated with reverence, or at least with the gentleness that will not cause unnecessary pain.

The cruel spirit hardens us. It takes away what learned men call sensitiveness; i.e., it makes us so we do not feel. It makes our hearts like our hands sometimes get when not cared for—it makes callous marks; and when fine feeling is lost, we are less than we ought to be.

A little Indian girl, the educated daughter of a chief, said she could never forget the first time she ever heard God's name.

In her play she found a wounded bird by her tent and picked it up and said, "This is mine." One of the men who saw her said, "What have you?" "A bird," she said, "it's mine."

He looked at it and said, "No, it's not yours. You must not hurt it." "Not mine," she said, "then whose is it?" "It's God's," he said. "He can care for it. Give it back to Him." She felt scared and awed. "Who is God? Where is God? How will I give it back?" "Go and lay it down near its nest," he said, "and tell God there is His bird."

She went very softly back and laid it down and said, "God, there is your bird."—And she never forgot!

Be kind to all things, girls and boys.

"There's nothing so kingly as kindness

And nothing so royal as truth."

And watch carefully that you may not be a cruel girl or boy to any person or to any of God's creatures.