"Well," answered Don, "I s'pose it's just as pretty, but some way the weeds make it look ugly."
"That's just what I was thinking about," said Grandma. "I have seen children who were like this flower in the weeds. They had beautiful faces; but they let the weeds of disobedience, selfishness, deceit, and pride grow all about them until you could not see their beauty for the ugly weeds.
"This garden makes me think of two cousins that I knew once. One was obedient, unselfish, and kind to everybody; and although she did not have a beautiful face, she was loved by all who knew her. The other girl had a beautiful face; but she had such an unlovely disposition that nobody cared for her, and so she was left very much to herself. Her beauty, like this lovely flower, was quite hidden by the ugly weeds growing up all around her.
"These weeds in the flower-bed were very small in the beginning; but they grew and grew, until now they are taller than the flowers. And the weeds in God's child-gardens are small at first, too. To begin with, there springs up the weed of telling a story that is not quite true. If it is not pulled up at once, soon it grows up into a big ugly lie weed. Other weeds—disobedience, selfishness, and unkindness—spring up around it; and soon the beautiful flower is hidden by the tall weeds. And when the Master of the Garden wants a lovely flower-child to do a kind deed for Him, He never thinks of choosing one that is surrounded by weeds."
"What a nice story!" exclaimed Joyce. "But it wasn't about a bee,
Grandma."
"Yes, it was," said Don—"Don't Bee Weedy."
"But there haven't been any Don't Bee's in the stories before," said
Joyce. "Besides, I wouldn't call that Don't Bee Weedy; I'd call it Bee
Clean."
"That's a good name for it," said Grandma. "I hope you'll always keep your lives clean from the weeds that children so often allow to grow up around them."
Grandma went back to the house, while the children set to work weeding the rest of the flower-bed. They were very careful not to pull up any of the flowers with the weeds. When they had finished, the flower-bed looked beautiful, cleared as it was of all weeds and grasses.
"I surely don't want any ugly weeds to grow in my garden, so I shall always listen to Bee Clean," said Joyce softly, as she walked slowly toward the house.