Bessie in the City

by Joanna H. Mathews

"There were more than a hundred dollars in that pocket-book, Maggie. It was only right that papa should let the owner know where it was to be found. But ten cents is a very small sum, and if he put half a dozen advertisements in the paper, it is not at all likely that any person would come for it."

"And no one came for the money in the pocket-book," said Maggie, "though papa kept it a great while. But, mamma, he said it did not belong to him; and since he could find no owner, he should think it belonged to the Lord. So he gave it to the Sunday-school. Well now, if I do not know who lost this ten cents, do you not think it belongs to the Lord, and I ought to return it to him?"

"Perhaps you ought, my darling," said Mrs. Bradford, well pleased to find her little girl so strictly honest, and so unwilling to keep that which she could not quite surely feel was her own. "Suppose you put it with your library money?"

"Would that be quite fair, mamma? Would it be giving to the Lord that which belonged to him to put it with that money which we are to earn?"

"Quite fair and right, I think, dearest. That money you have certainly devoted to the Lord's work; and you may put this with it with a clear conscience."

So the ten cents were added to the sum in the box, which, in one way and another, was fast growing to the desired amount.

Each Sunday Maggie and Bessie went over to the hotel to Mrs. Rush's class. Not one had they missed, for they counted so much upon it that their mother could not bear to keep them at home, even in bad weather. Two or three Sabbaths had been very rainy, but papa had wrapped Bessie in mamma's water-proof cloak, and carried her over to the hotel, while Maggie, in her own cloak and high india-rubber boots, trotted along by his side holding the large parasol, which made a capital umbrella for the small figure beneath it. Two bright little faces they were which peeped forth from the hoods of these water-proofs when they appeared in Mrs. Rush's parlor, and dearly did she and the colonel love to see them. Then the wrappings were pulled off, and there were the two darlings as warm and dry as if they had never stirred from their own nursery fire.

Mrs. Rush still did all the teaching herself, but since that first Sunday, she had quite given up the office of story-teller to her husband. She never could invent such stories as he did, she said, and since he had begun with it, he had better go on! So each Sunday he had one ready for them, and when the lessons were over, teacher and scholars were alike eager to listen. He had to repeat "Benito" more than once, so fond were they all of it, and the children, especially Bessie, would stop him if he told it in any way different from that in which they had first heard it, and tell him he was wrong. They remembered it, he said, better than he did.

Maggie and Bessie were very busy just now. Christmas was drawing near, and they were each working a book-mark which were to be presented to Colonel and Mrs. Rush. Bessie's was for "her soldier," and Maggie's for his wife. Aunt Annie had promised to show them how they were to be worked, and one afternoon took them out to buy the materials. They came home each with a piece of cardboard, a skein of silk, and half a yard of ribbon; and no lady who had spent hundreds of dollars that day took half the pleasure in her shopping that our little girls did in theirs.