“Oh! may I help?” asked little Charley, “I’ll be very careful.”
“On that condition, that you be very careful, you may bring the little ones,” answered his mother.
The work progressed safely and rapidly for awhile. Geraniums, roses, fuchsias, heliotropes, and so following, came forth in profusion, many in bloom, and were placed in rows along the garden borders, ready to be transferred to the beds, for the summer. At last the little ones were all brought by Charley, and only larger ones remained.
“I’ll carry just this one big one,” he said to himself: “I’m stronger than mother thinks I am.” But the pot full of earth, was heavier than Charley had thought it, and before he reached the place to set it down it had grown very heavy indeed; and, glad to get it out of his aching arms as quickly as possible, he placed it on the curb so suddenly, that with a loud crash it parted in the middle and lay in pieces at his feet. Glancing quickly at his mother and seeing in her face impending reproach, he forestalled it by exclaiming:
“Well, that pot broke itself very easily. What’s it made of, any how?”
The mother couldn’t help but smile at this attempted shifting of the blame to the pot, but she answered, in a moment, gravely:
“The pot, Charley, was made of clay; the same weak material from which little boys are made; who, when they forget to obey their mothers, are as likely to meet disaster as the earthen pot.”
Charley didn’t care just then to discuss disobedient boys, so he turned at once to the subject of the pot.
“Made of clay,” he exclaimed, “well, I’d like to see a man make a thing like that of clay.”
“And so would I,” said sister Mary, who, from an upper window, had listened to the conversation.