“Can you make a pretty bird like this?” his mother asked, pointing to the drooping bird in her hand. Her son was silent.
“Then why seek, wantonly, to take its life?” she continued. “Were you envious of its happiness? Like an evil spirit, did a sight of innocent delights inflame you with a desire to destroy it? Can you restore health to its wounded body? No! Can you ever assuage its present agonies? No—you cannot. Cruel boy! what could you have been dreaming about? Think, how terrible it would be, if there were a race of beings stronger than we are, who, with the power, had the will to destroy us for mere sport. Some day I might be walking out, and become the victim of one of these, and then my children would have no mother. Perhaps Henry might leave me, and while on his way to school might be shot at, as he shot at the birds, and be killed like this pretty blue-bird, or fatally wounded like this oriole. Would you think such sport innocent? I think not. Poor bird! See how it trembles! See how it flutters its wings in pain! See how it gasps! Now it has fallen over upon its side—and now it is dead! Alas, that my son should have done this cruel deed—that my son should have caused all this pain!”
The words of Henry’s mother touched him deeply. They caused him to see how cruel he had indeed been. They made him conscious that it was most wicked to hurt or kill any one of God’s creatures in mere sport. So moved was he, that he could not refrain from bursting into tears and sobbing bitterly.
“O mother!” he said, after he had gained some little command over his feelings, “I never thought how wicked and cruel it was to take pleasure in hunting the pretty birds. I don’t want a gun. I wouldn’t have a gun now, if father would buy me the handsomest one in town.”
Henry’s mother was glad to hear him say this, for it showed that he felt all she wished him to feel—sorrow at having indulged in a cruel sport. It showed, also, that he had determined in his own mind, from seeing how wicked it was, never to do so again. From this determination Henry never swerved. He was never known afterwards to hurt any animal in sport. And more than this, by talking to his little friend Alfred, he caused him to see how wrong it was to shoot the birds; and Alfred gave his gun back to his father, who sold it for him, and with the money bought him a number of good and useful books.
The Holiday.
“HOW are you going to spend your holiday?” asked Edgar Williams of Charles Manly.