“Nice or not, they’re not ours,” replied David, who remembered that God’s commandment, Thou shalt not steal, is broken not only by robbers who take a man’s purse, but by boys who take his apples.
“We’ll soon make ’em ours,” laughed Owen. “If you don’t choose to climb yourself—though I know you’re active as a kitten—just lend me your stick, and I’ll knock some fruit off from that bough.”
“No, no, Owen,” said David; “leave the apples alone. Farmer Ford does not grow them for you or for me. I’ll neither pluck nor help you to pluck them.”
“Oh, indeed!” cried the angry Owen. “You’re afeard of a thrashing from the farmer, are you?”
“It’s not that I’m afraid of,” said David, turning quickly away; for he felt his passion rising, and was much inclined to use his stick in a very different way from that which the insolent boy had requested, by knocking him down instead of the apples.
“I can’t bear that Owen,” muttered David to himself. “How he is yelling after me, calling me all sorts of bad names, just because I won’t join him in theft!”
Before David reached his home, he came on a wide tract of common, and noticed a number of ducks splashing about in a pool half hidden by rushes.
“Why, these are Mrs. Pell’s ducks, that her boy Owen ought to be watching on the common, instead of hunting after apples. I heard her scolding him yesterday for leaving them out so late, and promising him a sound beating if any should stray and get lost. There’s Brown’s big dog coming this way; he has had a mind to a duckling for supper before now. If Owen does not keep a better look-out, it’s not many of the brood that he’ll ever drive home. What a scrape he’ll be in! When Mrs. Pell promises a beating, she is certain to keep her word. Well, let Owen be beaten,—what do I care!”
That was David’s first thought; but a more generous one succeeded. “I might drive home these ducks for Owen, and keep them and him out of trouble. To be sure, he deserves nothing from me; but are we not told to be kind even to the unthankful and the evil? I should think that God is pleased when we bear the burdens of our friends; more pleased when we bear the burdens of strangers; but most pleased of all when, for His sake, we show kindness to those who have done us a wrong.”
In the meantime, Owen Pell had had cause to regret that he had neglected his mother’s ducks to go after the farmer’s apples. Owen was not an active boy. In struggling to climb up the wall, he missed his footing, and came down with a heavy bang on the back of his head. He had just scrambled on his feet again, bruised and crying with pain, when who should ride up to the spot but Farmer Ford, with a great horse-whip in his hand!