Frank and Fanny

by Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore

"Why not, grandmother? Wouldn't that be an errand of mercy?" This made her grandmother smile; but she told her that the poor bird's sufferings were now over, and that it was to shorten them, that she had given her consent to Frank's carrying it into the woods, on the Sabbath.

After dinner, they all went to church again, but Fanny was very warm and tired; so her grandmother took off her bonnet, and laid her head in her lap, and she soon fell asleep. Just as the minister sat down, after finishing his sermon, Fanny turned restlessly, and said, "poor, dear little birdie." The church was so still, that though she spoke low, she was heard all around. It made the children smile, but Frank blushed, and felt almost as badly as his grandmother did. She woke Fanny up, and soon after service was over, and they walked slowly home again. Then Frank and herself sang little hymns, and read their Sabbath school books until sundown, when their grandmother gave them permission to walk in the garden. They talked a great deal about the bird. Frank said he would make a coffin for it, and Fanny picked mullen leaves to wrap around it.

The next morning they woke up very early, and Frank nailed some pieces of shingles together, and Fanny folded the leaves about the bird, and laid it in. Then she picked rose buds, and put them around, and every thing was prepared for the little bird's funeral.

But their grandmother said there was too much dew on the grass for them to go down through the meadows that morning; so they borrowed a piece of black cambric from Sally, and spread it over the little box, which they called the coffin; and Frank darkened the windows, as he remembered they had done when his mother died. Then they left the bird alone, and went down stairs to breakfast, after which they studied their lessons until school time.

At school, they looked very solemn all the forenoon. Their teacher noticed it, and asked Fanny what was the matter.

"We are going to a bird's funeral, Miss Norton," said Fanny, "and we feel very afflicted." The teacher had to bite her lips to keep from smiling. Frank noticed it, and said,

"It was Sally, Miss Norton, that put that into Fanny's head; but we have reason to feel badly, for if it had not been for us, the little bird would have been alive now."

When they had told Miss Norton about it, she said that she did not wonder that they should feel bad, and the children saw that they had her sympathy also.

At noon, their grandmother thought there would scarcely be time for them to go down to the woods, and back, between dinner and school time; so the funeral was again postponed.

But after school was out in the afternoon, the children hastened home, and bearing the little box, still covered with the black cambric, they walked slowly down through the meadows, stopping just at the edge of the woods, a few rods from the tree that contained the nest, from which Frank had taken the little bird only two days before.