Happy Days for Boys and Girls

FROM BAD TO WORSE

COME, children, leave your playing,
And gather round my knee,
And I’ll tell you a little story:
Away across the sea,
In a meadow where the mosses
And the grass were frozen brown,
Three little maids sat milking
One day as the sun went down —
Not cows, but goats of the mountain;
And before their pails were full,
The winds, they pierced like needles
Through their gowns of heavy wool.
And as one hand, then the other,
They tried to warm in their laps,
The bitter weather froze their breath
Like fur about their caps.
And so, as they sat at their milking,
They grew as still as mice,
Save when the stiff shoes on their feet
Rattled like shoes of ice.

At last out spoke the youngest
As she blew on her finger-nails:
I have planned a plan, sweet sisters:
Let us take our milking-pails,
And go to the side of the mountain
As fast as we can go,
And heap them up to the very top
From the whitest drifts of snow;
And let us build in the meadow
Where we will milk our goats at night
A house to keep us from the cold,
With walls all silver white.

We will set the door away from the wind.
The floor we will heap with moss,
And gather little strips of ice
And shingle the roof across.

Then all the foolish maidens,
They emptied their pails on the ground,
And bounded up the mountain-side
As fast as they could bound,
And came again to the meadow
With pails heaped high with snow,
And so, through half the night, the moon
Beheld them come and go.

But when with the daybreak roses
The silver walls shone red,
The three little foolish maidens
Were lying cold and dead.
The needles of the frost had sewed
Into shrouds their woollen coats,
And with cheeks as white as the ice they lay
Among their mountain goats.

    Alice Cary.

MY STORY

MANY years ago, when the sky was as clear, the flowers as fragrant, and the birds as musical as now, I stood by a little mahogany table, with pencil and paper in hand, vainly trying to add a short column of figures. My small tin box, with the word Bank in large letters upon it, had just been opened, and the carefully hoarded treasure of six months was spread out before me. Scrip had not come into use then; and there were one tiny gold piece, two silver dollars, and many quarters, dimes, half-dimes, and pennies. For a full half hour I had been counting my fingers and trying to reckon up how much it all amounted to; but the problem was too hard for me. At last I took pencil and paper, and sought to work it out by figures.

“What are you doing, Gracie?” pleasantly inquired my father, entering the room with an open letter in his hand.

“O, papa! is that you?” I cried, eagerly turning towards him. “Just look – see how much money I’ve got! John has just opened my bank. It is six months to-day since I began to save, and I’ve more than I expected.”

“Yes, you are quite rich.”

“So much that I can’t even count it. I’ve done harder sums in addition at school; but somehow, now, every time I add, I get a different answer. I can’t make it come out twice alike.”

“Where did you get that gold piece?”

“Why, don’t you know? You gave it to me for letting Dr. Strong pull out my big back tooth.”

Father laughed.

“Did I?” said he; “I had forgotten it. But where did you get those two silver dollars?” he inquired.

“O, grandmother gave me this one. It’s chicken money. She gave it to me for feeding the chickens every morning all the while I staid there; and the other is hat money. Aunt Ellen told me if I’d wear my hat always when I went out in the sun, and so keep from getting sun-burned, that she would give me another dollar; and she did.”

“Where did the remainder come from?”

“Mostly from you, papa. You are always giving me money. These two bright, new quarters you gave me when you looked over my writing-book, and saw it hadn’t a blot. How much is there in all?” I earnestly asked.

Father glanced at the little pile, and smilingly said, —

“Seven dollars and ten cents. That’s a good deal of money for a little girl only nine years old to spend.”

“And may I spend it just as I please?”

“Certainly, my dear; just as you please. It’s a great thing for little people to learn to spend money wisely.”

Saying this, he seated himself by the window, and drawing me towards him, placed me upon one knee.

“Gracie, dear, I have just received a letter from grandmother. She proposes that I come to Vermont and bring you; that I remain as long as business will admit, and leave you to pass the summer just as you did last year. How would that suit?” fixing his kind dark eyes full upon my upturned face to read my changing thoughts.