XXVII. BAD COMPANIONS.
You have seen the men at work mending the roads, and you know how sometimes they spread little stones all over the road, and then roll them flat with a steam-roller. But in some places the roads are laid with stones as large as bricks, and when these have all been placed together, the men take a large can with a spout, full of hot pitch, and pour it into the spaces between the stones to fasten them together.
A little boy, named Martin, was watching the men do this one day, and he said to himself, "I should like a piece of that black stuff; it has cooled now, and looks like a black piece of dough; I could make all sorts of shapes with it, and I do not believe it would soil my hands". So he picked up a length that lay near him, rolled it into a ball, and put it in his pocket. Some of the tar stuck to his hands, and when he washed them it did not come off, but it was now school time, and away he went. When he came out of school, he put his hand in his pocket to get the tar, and oh, what a sticky mess it was! His pocket was all over tar, so was his hand, and when he reached home, his mother set to work to get it off, and it took her a long, long time.
Martin was mistaken in thinking he could play with the pitch and not get soiled.
64. Stealing Strawberries.
When Martin grew older he had some playmates who were not very good, and his mother said, "Martin, I wish you would not play with those boys; I fear they will get you into trouble".
"Oh! no, mother," replied Martin, "if they wanted me to do anything wrong I would not; I need not learn their bad ways if I do play with them." But his mother shook her head, for she knew better.
Some time afterwards the boys had a half-holiday, and Martin went with his friends into the country. Presently they came to a large garden, with a high wall round it, and the boys began to climb the wall.
"Where are you going?" asked Martin.
"Oh!" said one of the boys, laughing, "a friend of ours owns this garden, and we are going to help him gather strawberries."
There was a large bed of strawberries on the other side of the wall, and as soon as the boys were over, they began to pick and eat.
What the boy had told Martin was quite untrue—they were stealing the strawberries; but before very long the gardener spied them, and with one or two other men came upon them so quietly, that they had no time to get away, and every boy was made prisoner. The gardener locked them up in the tool-house until the owner came, and he took their names and addresses, and said they should be brought before the magistrates, as it was not the first time they had stolen his fruit. Of course Martin had not been with them the other times, but he was caught with them now, and can you imagine how dreadfully ashamed he felt, and how his cheeks burned when he thought of his dear mother, and the trouble it would be to her. When he reached home, he told his mother all that had happened, and begged her forgiveness. His mother was greatly distressed, and said: "You remember playing with the pitch, Martin, when you were a very little boy—you thought you could handle it, and still keep clean, but you could not; so neither can you have bad companions without being mixed up in wrong-doing".
(Blackboard.)
To mix with Bad Company is like Playing with Pitch.