"I WONDER why it's been such a good year for fruit?" said a little boy, looking up in the face of an elder one who was resting against a stile, still keeping a crutch in his hand and leaning on it, while a basket of blackberries lay at his feet.
"I suppose there has been just enough rain and just enough sun to suit them, Tommy!"
The tone made Tommy look up, and then his eyes wandered to the crutch, and back again to the patient face wistfully.
"If the blackberry hedges had nothing but sun, they would be scorched up, Tommy, boy! And if my life had been all pleasure, perhaps there would have been no fruit on my bush!"
"Fruit?"
"Yes, don't you remember how the lesson in Sunday School, yesterday, was 'He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit?'"
"Oh, I see!" said Tommy.
"And if," pursued the elder boy, "there had been nothing but rain and storm and sorrow and pain, my little bush would have got mildewed and spoilt, and so no fruit would have come either."
"I like sunshine best!" said Tommy. "But—what sort of things do you mean would have scorched up your bush?"
He hesitated, for though several years younger than his companion, he had a thoughtful little heart, and he began to guess.