Frankie was very much delighted, and ran around the garden with it for several hours, Ponto following close at his heels, quite delighted with the new sport. At last he came in, and, sitting down by his mamma, began to play with the string she had tied around the head of the cane. Then he looked very thoughtful for a minute, when he said, "I don't like that cane any more."
"Why don't you like it?" she asked, in surprise.
"Because it killed good Abel, you know."
"O, no," said mamma, with a laugh. "That Cain was a man, and not a stick."
The little fellow was once playing out near the barn, when he fell and cut his finger against a piece of glass. It bled very freely, so that mamma could not bind it up. She told Sally to bring a bowl of water, and held his poor finger in it. The water was soon red with the blood; and Frankie cried louder than ever. All at once he stopped, and said, "Mamma, it seems like the Red Sea. How could the Israelites get through so much blood?"
"That was not red with blood, my dear," said mamma. "It was only the name of the sea. There are the Red Sea, and the Black Sea, and the White Sea."
Frankie was very fond of cake, and would have liked to make his whole supper of it. But mamma knew it would make him sick. Sometimes, when he was in the kitchen, Jane gave him a piece; and one day his mother was very much pleased when he came running to her with a rich cake in his hand, fresh from the oven. "May I eat it, mamma?" he asked. "I didn't taste it without your leave."
Mamma broke off a small piece, and gave it to him, and then took him in her lap, and repeated a pretty little hymn she had learned when she was a child. I think you will like to hear it too.
"Mamma, do hear Eliza cry;
She wants a piece of cake I know;
She will not stir to school without;
Do give her some, and let her go."
"O, no, my dear; that will not do;
She has behaved extremely ill;
She pouts instead of minding me,
And tries to gain her stubborn will.
"This morning, when she had her milk,
She gave her spoon a sudden twirl,
And tipped it over on the floor;
O, she's a naughty, wicked girl!
"And now, forsooth, she cries for cake;
But that I surely shall refuse;
For children never should object
To eating what their parents choose.
"The pretty little girl who came
To sell the strawberries here to-day,
Would have been very glad to eat
What my Eliza threw away;—
"Because her parents are so poor
That they have neither milk nor meat;
But gruel and some Indian cake
Are all the children have to eat.
"They have four little girls and boys;
Mary's the oldest of the whole,
And hard enough she has to work,
To help her ma—poor little soul!
"As soon as strawberries are ripe,
She picks all day, and will not stop
To play or eat a single one,
Till she has filled her basket up.
"Then down she comes and sells them all,
And lays the money up at home,
To buy her stockings and her shoes,
To wear when freezing winter's come.
"For then she has to trudge away,
And gather wood through piles of snow,
To keep the little children warm,
When bites the frost, and cold winds blow.
"And then, when she comes home at night,
Hungry and tired, with cold benumbed,
How she would jump to find a bowl
Of bread and milk all nicely crumbed!
"But she, dear child, has no such thing;
Of gruel and the Indian cake,
Whether she chooses it or not,
Poor Mary must her supper make.
"Eliza, dear, will you behave
So ill again, another day?
Be cross and pert, and cry for cake,
And fling your breakfast all away?"
"Ah, never, never, dear mamma!
I'm sorry that I gave you pain;
Forgive me, and I never will
Be such a naughty girl again."