Geoff's little sister

by Evelyn R. Garratt

He did not turn in at the garden gate with Forbes, but telling him he had some business to do before going in to tea, he gave his presents into his brother's keeping, and ran down the hill on the summit of which their house stood.

At the bottom of the hill, he came upon a tumbled-down cottage, standing quite by itself. Old Rachel, of whom Mrs. Green had told them, lived here.

The thought of Rachel had lain very heavily on Geoffrey's heart the last two or three days. He could not forget that she was a mother, and a mother neglected by her only child, who, when she gave her anything at all, only passed on to her what she couldn't eat herself. He was thinking of Rachel when the apple puffs were passed round at dinner.

Now apple puffs was a favourite dish of Geoffrey's, as I fancy it is of most boys. They looked particularly tempting to-day, and he ate the first with a relish. It was just as he was taking his second, that Mrs. Green's words came across his mind, "and if ever she gives her anything, you may be quite sure it ain't fit to eat, something they can't eat themselves because it's turned."

Geoffrey looked at the puff as it lay so invitingly on his plate. It was three cornered, and a little burnt at the edges, which made it all the nicer in Geoffrey's opinion, and a nice layer of white sugar lay on the top.

How good it looked! For a moment the boy gazed at it undecidedly, then, when no one was looking, he put it into his jacket pocket, and resolved to take it round to old Rachel when they came back from Ipswich.

"For once," thought Geoff, "she shall have something that somebody else wants."

He had had some difficulty in knowing how to stow away his many presents so as not to crush his apple puff, but he had managed somehow, and now as he stood outside the door of Rachel's cottage, he took the puff out and was glad to find it still whole. It certainly looked very tempting, and Geoffrey was hungry after his walk. No one would see if after all he ate it, instead of giving it to old Rachel, and no one would consciously miss it.

For a moment the boy's resolution wavered, then he knocked at the door.

Now an apple puff was not a very great thing to give up for the sake of another, and perhaps some of my little readers may think that it would not have signified very much if Geoffrey had eaten it after all. But we must remember, that life is made up of little things, and the great battle of life, on which so much depends, consists often of little victories and little losses, and this small victory that Geoffrey gained that afternoon helped him in after years to gain a far greater one.