“Of God’s birds, mother. The men said at the store last night, that lots of birds died round there in the fall and spring—starved to death, and all the grain is God’s. I’m going to sow a field on purpose for them, and nobody shall reap it but them. I love them because God loves them. I’ll feed them as he feeds me.”
Tears filled her eyes as she laid her hand tenderly on the brown head of her smitten son. Was she not happier than many a mother whose bright boy has wandered far from innocence and truthfulness?
One day, not long after this, Jotham’s minister saw him walking over the fields in a strange, circuitous manner, describing curves and angles like a drunken man. Waiting till he came up to the road, the gentleman asked, “What makes you walk in that way, Jotham?”
“For fear I’ll step on the ant-hills, sir. There never were so many ants before, sir; the fields and the roads are full of their little houses. They built them grain by grain; and what would God think of me if I trod on them just for carelessness,—as if a giant should tear our house down to amuse himself, or because he didn’t care! You know, sir,” he added, in a whisper, looking reverently up to the skies, “He hadn’t any home down here, though the foxes and the birds had; and He’s very careful of all homes now,—homes are such beautiful things, sir.”
“God bless you, dear boy,” said the minister. “It was for Christ’s sake you cast seed broadcast over that rocky field, for His sake that you turned your foot away from the home of the poor ant; and for this love He will never leave you hungry or homeless.”
“Thank you, sir,” was the innocent reply of poor Jotham.
“God’s birds” gathered one harvest under the eye of their grateful patron, and then he was called away from his simple work.
His step had long been growing weaker, and the hectic burning more brightly in his cheek, when, one evening, as he lay on the lounge beside his mother, in light slumber, he called her, and said, “Did you hear that, mother?”
“No, Jotham. What do you hear?”
“The fluttering of a great many wings—birds of every color; and all the other creatures I have loved, are enjoying themselves in the sunshine. The black ants have all turned to gold, and all the other creatures that men hate. I hear a voice, mother—hark! ‘Ye are of more value than many sparrows. Go to the ant; consider her ways.’ I never hurt anything God made—did I, mother?”