“Are you quite sure about that, dear?” asked Mrs. Leslie. “If you had tried very hard, from the beginning, don’t you think you could have turned your spyglass, by school time at latest? When things seem to be going wrong, we have only to behave as we should do if we had lost some earthly possession, that we valued very much,—look carefully back to where the trouble seemed to begin, and then, if we can, set straight whatever went wrong there. You may be very sure, always, when you feel as you felt yesterday morning, that you are the one chiefly, if not wholly, in fault, and you should lose no time in arresting yourself, and pronouncing sentence.
“And another thing; you had far better accuse yourself wrongly a dozen times, than anybody else once. Few things grow upon people so fast as complaining, and suspecting, and fault-finding do; and few faults cause more unhappiness to the people who commit them, for to anybody on the look out for slights and disagreeable things, they are to be found everywhere, and all the time. So watch the beginnings, dear. There is the whole thing, in two words, ‘Watch and pray.’”
“I hope I’m not going to be one of those dreadful people!” and Johnny sighed. The “Hill Difficulty” looked rather long and steep, just then.
“I don’t think you are, my darling,” said his mother, cheerfully. “Knowing the danger is half the battle, and I think you are awake to it, now. If you wish to think kindly of people, make them think kindly of you; lose no opportunity to help, and comfort, and do good, and you will find it more and more easy to believe in the good-will of every one around you.”
“You’ve turned the field-glass around for me again, mamma. What a poor concern I’d be if it wasn’t for you! But as long as you don’t give up, I’ll try not to, though it’s pretty discouraging sometimes; now isn’t it?”
“It would be,” said his mother, with another loving kiss, “if we did not so well ‘know in whom we have believed.’ He lets us cast all our care on Him, for He is ‘mighty to save.’ Now good-night, darling. It is high time you were asleep. To-morrow will be a bright, brand-new day!”
CHAPTER XIX.
AT THE FARM.
