“What are you crying for?” called out the farmer.
“I’ve had a tumble,” whined the frightened boy.
“Climbing my wall to get at my apples! I’ll give you something to cry for!” and the rough farmer bestowed two or three sharp cuts with his lash on poor Owen, which made him yell with the smart, and sent him running home in such haste to escape from the farmer’s whip, that he never once thought of the ducks, till he saw his mother—a tall, bony woman—standing with a broom in her hand at the gate of her little garden.
“Where are the ducks?” shouted she.
Owen stopped, breathless and gasping, and looked around in dismay. Evening was closing in; his ducks had wandered he knew not whither. Mrs. Pell came angrily towards him. “I told you yesterday,” she exclaimed, raising the broomstick, “that if one of them ducks was lost—”
“None are lost!—none are lost!” called out a cheerful voice near; and from behind a knoll covered with furze, which had hidden him from view, appeared David Jones, driving home the ducks for Owen.
“Well, Davy, you’re a good-natured boy if ever there was one!” cried Mrs. Pell, her hard features relaxing into a kindly look. “Owen has escaped a beating this once, but next time he shall not be so easily let off. You look tired and heated, Davy,” she added. “Just step into my cottage and rest; and if you’d like a sup of new milk and a slice of plum-bread, you’ll be heartily welcome to both. There’s none for you,” she said sharply to Owen. “Go and shut up those ducks.”
David glanced at the boy as he slunk away. “I’m glad,” he thought, “that I did a good turn to that poor fellow, and saved him a beating.”
“You’ll always get on well in the world, Davy,” observed Mrs. Pell, as she cut for him a large slice of her home-made plum-bread. “You always keep steady to your duty, and you make friends wherever you go.”
Mrs. Pell was right. David passed through boyhood, youth, and manhood, prospering in what he undertook, till he became a wealthy farmer. Always ready to help others, he found others ready to help him. He made many friends on earth, but it was through earnestly seeking to please an Almighty Friend above. David had grown rich; and a noble use he made of his riches. The more he gained, the more he gave; and truly it appeared that the more he gave, the more he had. When David Jones had built the new aisle to the church, and set up a village lending-library, sent twenty pounds at once to the Bible Society, pensioned several poor widows, and feasted a hundred school children,—he might smile at the remembrance of the day when he had begun his work for God by such things as filling an old woman’s pail, feeding a hungry little girl, and driving home ducks from the common. But perhaps the kind acts of the penniless boy were as pleasing in the sight of God as the great gifts of the rich farmer; for they both sprang from the same motive,—a desire to show grateful love to his Lord by bearing the burdens of others.