Such a selfish boy as Matthew was! You wouldn't have given a fig to play with him. He had carpenters' tools and books, and chequers and chess, and drawing materials, and balls and kites, and little ships and skates, and snow-shovels and sleds. Oh! I couldn't tell you all he had, if I talked a week.
Well, if you went in of a Saturday afternoon to play with him, he'd watch all these things as closely as a cat would a mouse; and if you went within shooting distance of them, he'd sing out,—"D-o-n-'t; t-h-a-t-'s m-i-n-e!" Of course it wasn't much fun to go and see him. You'd got to play everything he wanted, or he'd pout and say he wouldn't play at all. He had slices of cake, that he had hoarded up till they were as hard as his heart; and cents, and dimes, and half dimes, that he used to handle and jingle and count over, like any little miser. All the beggars in the world couldn't have coaxed one out of his pocket had they been starving to death.
Then Matthew was such a cry-baby. I love a brave boy. He'd go screaming to his mother if he got a scratch, as if a wild tiger were after him; and if you said anything to him about it, he'd pout, and stick out his lips so far that you might have hung your hat on 'em! It was like drawing teeth to get him to go across the room to hand you a newspaper. He ought to have had a little world all to himself, hadn't he?
Well, I used to pity him—there was nothing child-like about him. He always seemed to me like a little wizzled-up, miserly old man. He never tossed his cap up in the air, and laughed a good hearty laugh; he never sprang or ran, or climbed or shouted; no—he crawled round as if he had lead weights on his heels, and talked without scarce moving his lips, and wore a face as long as the horse's in your father's barn. Such a boy as he was! Had he been mine I should have tried to get some life into him somehow.
When his mother was told of his faults, she'd say, "Oh, he'll out-grow them by and by." I knew better. I knew that his selfishness would grow as fast as he did; and that when he came to be a man, he would be unfeeling to the poor, and make hard bargains with them, and wring the last penny out of their poor, threadbare pockets.
Poor Matthew! he'll never be happy; no—he never'll know the luxury of making a sad face bright, or of drying up the tear of the despairing; and when he dies he can't carry his money with him—he has got to leave it at the tomb door,—and who, do you suppose, will come there to mourn for him?
Oh, dear children, be generous—if you haven't but half a stick of candy, give somebody a bite of it. Perhaps some child will say "But I haven't anything to give." That's a mistake; that boy or girl isn't living who has nothing to give. Give your sympathy—give pleasant words and beaming smiles to the sad and weary-hearted. If a little child goes to your school who is poorly clad, patched, darned; nay, even ragged;—if the tear starts to his eye when your schoolmates laugh, and shun, and refuse to play with him—just you go right up and put your arms round his neck; ask him to play with you. Love him;—love sometimes is meat and drink and clothing. You can all love the sad and sorrowful. Then never say you have "nothing to give."