RED CORAL BEADS.
"Did I ever tell you how I lost my red coral beads, and where they were found?" I said this to my boys, Roy and Fred, one frosty night, when we were all gathered around the bright open fire.
"No!" said Fred decidedly. "That is a new story. Does it tell about the time when you were a little girl? and about the farmhouse and the sitting-room with the big fireplace, and the bellows, and the queer hour-glass, and the old-fashioned iron snuffers in a red tray?"
"Yes," I answered, "it is about every thing you like to hear so well." Then I told the story as follows:—
"My story begins in the long, low, pleasant farmhouse sitting-room, with its big beam running across the low ceiling. There was also a great fireplace, and a wide stone hearth. There we children cracked our nuts, and there, on winter evenings, a great basket of Rhode-Island Greenings always stood warming in the corner. Of course there was a wide mantel over the fireplace. On it stood two tall silver candlesticks, between them were the hour-glass and the snuffer-tray, and at each end of the shelf was a stiff vase, filled with peacock feathers."
"Don't forget the windows," interrupted Roy.
"Never fear," I said.
"The windows were the loveliest I ever saw,—wide, and deep, and low, and cushioned with red morseen."
"And your grandmother always sat at the south window, knitting, and reading out of the Bible or the Pilgrim's Progress," said Fred.
"And she had a bag of red-and-white sugar-plums, to give you when you were good," continued Roy.
"That is all true," I observed. "What comes next?"
"Why, the chrysanthemum-window, of course," said both boys in a chorus.
"There were yellow, red, and white ones," continued Roy.
"Yes," said I, "and I will tell you of the many other pleasant things in the room that I so dearly love to remember."
"There was a chintz lounge, a striped home-made carpet, a big arm-chair for father, and a high-backed rocking-chair for my mother.
"But the most attractive place in the whole room was the corner cupboard. It had a carved green door, and was painted inside a bright vermilion-red. On one shelf stood a silver tankard filled with solid silver spoons, and behind it, in stately shining rows, my grandmother's pewter platters.
"On the next higher shelf stood a set of pink china, a little stout green pitcher, a dozen wine-glasses, and a great blue punch-bowl, gorgeous with yellow butterflies hovering over great double pink roses.
"There were tumblers of jelly on the top shelf, and jars of preserves, and covered glass dishes of honey, and a box made of colored porcupine-quills, in which mother kept her currants, raisins, citron, and candied lemon-peel.
"Now comes the story-part. One day my brothers were all out in the woods setting traps. Mother had just run into Mrs. Newman's for a little call, grandma was spending the day in town, and Alice, my sister, was out working among the flowers.
"Suddenly I thought, 'How good those raisins in the porcupine box would taste!' I did not pause long to consider, but climbed the red shelves of the closet, took down the blue-and-yellow box, and helped myself. I set it back again hastily, for I heard Alice coming in at the back-door. That very night I missed my red coral beads.
"'They are gone for good,' said my grandma, 'for I saw the child playing on the sand-bank before I went away.'—'And she has been on the hay-mow,' chimed in my brothers.—'And all over the pine-grove with me,' said Alice.—'And down to the grist and saw mill with me,' observed father.
"I mourned greatly over my loss; for my beads were precious, and I prized them more highly than any thing else I possessed. A few nights after my loss, mother, who had gone up to bed with us as usual, said very gravely, 'Susan, I have found your beads; and where do you think they were?'
"I could not tell, of course. 'They were in the porcupine-box,' continued mother; 'and now how came they there?' I told her all about it. My little sin had found me out.
"'Your necklace was a silent witness,' said my mother. I wanted to ask what a 'silent witness' was, but was too much ashamed. The next day I was sent to the store for more raisins and citron. Alice went with me.
"As we left the store, I heard Mr. Dallas, the merchant, say to his clerk, 'Mrs. Chapin is a good customer. She bought two pounds of raisins and a pound of citron only last week, and to-day as much more. I guess they are expecting company. Shouldn't at all wonder if John's folks were coming.'
"My uncle John did come, and brought his pretty new wife, aunt Dorothy. Mother made lovely frosted pound-cake with plums in it, and mince-pies filled with fruit; but what I remember best of all is that she made for me a little plain cake, and left out all the raisins and currants."
"I think it was real mean for your mother to do so," said Fred, excited, and almost tearful.
"I think it was just right," I added. "It taught me a lesson I never forgot."
Since telling this story to my boys, I have observed that the lump-sugar that I keep in the blue china punch-bowl lasts much longer than it has for months before.
And this is the moral of my story, I suppose.
SARAH THAXTER THAYER.
