“I’m sorry I told that lie about you to-day, Jessie.”
“So am I,” replied the simple-hearted girl; “it is always best to tell the truth, and I hope you will never tell another story as long as you live.”
“I won’t, I’m resolved I won’t; I told Uncle Morris so this afternoon, and (here she lowered her voice to a whisper) I’ve been asking God to help me keep my promise.”
“That’s the way! That’s the way!” replied Jessie. “Uncle Morris says if we mean to be good we must go to school to the Great Teacher who will both teach us, and help us do the lesson.”
With such words as these did Jessie encourage her cousin to enter that beautiful path in which all the pure, noble, and good children in the world are found.
The next day Emily was very quiet. She spent the morning helping Jessie work on her famous quilt. Charlie was as rude and as ugly as ever; having teased his sister for a long time in vain, to play out of doors with him, the spoiled boy hissed at her, and said, “You are an ugly old cat!” Then slamming the door after him, he went into the barn-yard, where the screaming of the pigs, the gabble of the geese, and the clucking of the hens, soon proclaimed that he was venting his ill-temper on the dumb creatures who had their home there. Poor Charlie! the indulgence of his mother, and the almost constant absence of his father from home, had made him a very unhappy, mischievous boy, if, indeed, it had not wholly spoiled him. If Charlie had known what was best for him he would have said to his friends,
“Please don’t let me have my own way.”
Emily needed to make the same request, for she too, had long done pretty much as she pleased; and, as we have seen, she was pleased to do some very bad things.
Two days before the time set for the cousins to return home, they went to spend the day with Carrie Sherwood. Jessie, who was to join them after her morning’s sewing was done, sat down to her work in high spirits. The quilt had grown large within a few days, and as she took it up this morning, she said:
“The little Wizard hasn’t been able to catch me for ever so many days. I guess he won’t trouble me much more now. See my quilt! (here she stood up, and drawing the quilt from the basket, spread it out.) Two more rows of patchwork will finish it. Ha! ha! only two more; I’m so glad. And won’t Uncle Morris be pleased when he sees it spread over his bed some night! ha! ha!”