Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 09, March 1, 1914

The days that came after were still worse, for the doctor put her in a plaster cast, so she had to lie straight and stiff like a wooden doll, and she was so homesick she could hardly speak, and her big black eyes were full of tears most of the time. But one day a little girl came down between the white beds and stopped at hers. O Sanna San had never seen anyone like her before; for her eyes were blue, her hair yellow, and her skin was not brown, but pink and white.

"I am Frances," she said, "my papa is the doctor. He told me about you, so I have brought you my doll and a picture book."

"I shall love the doll," said O Sanna San, "but I cannot read, there is no school in our village."

"Never mind," Frances smiled, "I am coming to see you every day, and I will teach you to read. My papa says you will soon be able to walk again, then you shall go with me to the Plum Blossom school for girls."

O Sanna San's eyes were shining. "Oh, I shall not be homesick any more."

–Written for Dew Drops by Adele E. Thompson.

SAM'S LITTLE DOG

"Mother," cried Sam, raising his tousled head up from his no less tousled pillow, "I had the funniest dream you ever heard."

"Well," said mother, drawing the comb through her long brown hair, "I'll give you just five minutes to tell it in; then you must jump up quickly and run over to the bathroom."

"It seems to me I was dreaming it all night," said Sam, "but I believe I can tell it in less than five minutes: I thought I was going along, and a little black dog was following me. As long as I kept walking on straight ahead he trotted on behind me like a lamb, but every time I got out of the path, and tried to cross the fields, he barked and snapped at me till I came back to the path.

"I got tired staying in the path, so I dashed out on one side presently, but the doggie barked so furiously that I got scared and climbed a little tree. Just as I got to the top, the tree broke off at the roots and 'down came Sammy, tree top and all.' The fall woke me, and I found I had rolled out of bed. Wasn't that a funny dream?"

"Sam," said his mother, who had been much interested in his dream, "don't you wish you had a little dog to go around with you and bark when you went out of the right way?"

"I don't know, mother," answered Sam, doubtfully; "maybe I don't."

"I hoped you would say you did," said mother, looking disappointed, "and I was going to tell you that conscience was that very little dog, and if you tried to get away from conscience's barks, either up a tree or elsewhere, you would certainly fall and come to grief. Time's up, little boy; hie off to the bathroom."

–Selected.

How Eskimo Dogs Sleep on a Journey

You have heard a great deal, very likely, about Eskimo dogs that haul the sledges over the snow in Alaska. Have you ever heard what becomes of them at night, when the traveler must stop in a snowstorm? Would you like to hear?

When the traveler with his guides must stop, the sledge is turned up, and the men get into their fur sleeping-bags, and lie down under such protection as it offers, if there is nothing better. But the dogs are all turned loose. You would think that there was danger of not finding them in the morning, but there is no danger of that at all. When it is time to get up next day, the guides look around, and see as many snow mounds as there are dogs in the train, and in each mound where a dog has burrowed, and let the snow cover him, is a hole made by his breath. It is very easy to find the dogs by these holes, and they never go far from the sledge.

–Written for Dew Drops by Julia H. Johnston.

It was very evident that Judy was in trouble. There she stood in the middle of the yard, her tiny brows drawn together in a pucker, one finger resting between her rosy lips in a way that would have been irresistibly lovely if the lips had been smiling instead of pouting, her eyes cast down on the ground at her feet.

"I sha'n't! I sha'n't!" she kept saying every now and again, with a shake of her short, sturdy self.

"Judiet, come here!" called her mother from the kitchen, where she was making a pie for dinner. "Why, what's the matter, child?" she added, as she saw the very evident traces of displeasure on her little daughter's face.

"It's Tom, and I'll never forgive him!" she cried.

"Hush! hush! you mustn't say that, Judy. What has Tom been doing?"

"He's gone off playing, and he wouldn't let me go with him, and Daisy's gone with her brother."

"But perhaps Tom has gone some place where it would be too far for you to walk," said Mrs. Tewsbury, as she sliced the apples into the dish.

"He's only gone to watch the boys fly their kites, and he said I should stay home and play with my dolls. But I sha'n't!"

"Well, Judy, I want you to go to the store for me, and then, when you come back, we'll talk about Tom. There, run along now. Get the basket and bring me two pounds of sugar."

Judy started on her errand, her little heart very sore against the brother who rarely found time to make things pleasant for his sister. Tom always had something he wanted to do when Judy asked him to help her. He had felt a little prick as he went off that morning, when he remembered that George Brown had promised to take his sister with him to the top of the hill. "Oh, Judy couldn't walk so far!" he tried to comfort himself by saying. "I'll take her to some other place another day." But Master Tom knew he was making a promise to himself that he was not likely to keep.

And so Judy went to the store, and by the time she returned home she did not feel quite so angry with Tom. Perhaps her mother hoped this would be the case when she sent her little daughter. It is always well to wait and think when one feels angry, before saying things that afterward one will be sorry for having spoken.

"Judy, I've been thinking," said Mrs. Tewsbury, as the girl entered the kitchen, "that we'll teach Tom a lesson. Shall we?"

"What kind of a lesson, mamma?" asked Judy.

"A good lesson, of course. Now, when he comes home he'll expect to find you cross, and perhaps sulky with him. Suppose, instead, he finds you smiling and with a nice little apple turnover that you have made for him; what do you suppose he will think? Why, that you are too good a girl to be treated so badly; and, perhaps, too, if he sees you smiling and loving, he will realize how much better it is to be that way than selfish as he has been."

"Oh, mamma!" And now there were no frowns on Judy's rosy, dimpled face; nothing but smiles. To make a turnover was a delightful treat in itself. But to help Tom to be a nice boy was more of a satisfaction. So the little girl started to work, and under her mother's tuition soon had a very wonderful-looking turnover made and baked.

"I'd most like to put salt in instead of sugar, just to pay Tom up," Judy thought to herself; and then a better feeling came to her and she added: "Oh, no. I wouldn't, 'cause that wouldn't be right. I want Tom to think I'm as nice as Daisy's brother thinks she is."

Master Tom came home whistling shortly after the dainty had been removed from the oven. He thought Judy would be waiting for him with angry words. So she was waiting for him, but with a beautiful smile, a rosy face, and on a plate in her hand what seemed to Tom a very delicious tit-bit.

"I made it—made it for you, all by myself. Mamma said I could."

"Oh, Judy! And I wouldn't take you with me!" exclaimed Tom regretfully.

"But you will next time, if I'm good; won't you, Tom?" said Judy, coaxingly.

"As true as my name's Tom Tewsbury. I say, Judy, it was good of you to make this for me, when I don't deserve it, but I won't forget it of you."

And Judy felt well paid for her turnover.

HELPFUL AND HAPPY

"I am so little!" sighed Helen,
"Tell me, dear mamma, the way,
How to make somebody happy;
How to be helpful each day."

Mamma replied: "To be helpful,
Be of a sweet, willing mood;
And, to make somebody happy.
Little girls need to be good."

Written for Dew Drops by Eugene C. Dolson.

OUR LESSON.—For March 1

PREPARED BY MARGUERITE COOK