After the sermon was over, and the scholars were ranged in order, in single file, they marched up to the table near the chests, and each one received a quarter of a sheet of gingerbread! How rich we were! How sweet the cake tasted! We were in perfect ecstasies at the "great piece" given to each of us! Such rows of happy children are seldom seen, and all because two cents worth of gingerbread was given to them all alike! We had thought of it for weeks, and it was delightful to anticipate the occasion. We felt paid for all the trouble we had met in learning lessons, in getting to school on rainy days, and keeping still and orderly when we got there. And why all this happiness from so slight a cause? Because we all felt loving and happy; we loved our teachers and our school; and it seemed so odd to get gingerbread in the church and from the Sabbath school superintendent.
But how is it now? A long ride or sail; swings, music, cakes, pies, fruit, lemonade, and a vast variety of "good things," must be had, or else the Sabbath school children do not have "a good time!" After all this is had and enjoyed, I do not believe it is any better than our simple quarter of a sheet of gingerbread, unless the scholars love each other more, and their schools better, than we did. Do you, reader?
NELLY GREY.
"Nelly! Nelly! Where can the child be? Nelly! Nelly!" But Nelly Grey was away off in dreamland, and the cheerful tones of her mother's voice fell all unheeded upon her ear, as did the impatient touch of her little dog Frisk's cold nose upon her hand. She was sitting on the last step of the vine-covered portico in front of the cottage,—the warm June sun smiling down lovingly upon her, and the soft wind kissing the little rings of chestnut-colored hair that clustered about her temples.
What could make the child so quiet? It must be some weighty matter that would still her joyous laugh. Why, she was the merriest little body that ever hunted for violets. There was a laugh lodged in every dimple of her sunny face, and her busy little tongue was all the day long carolling some happy ditty.
"Nelly, what are you dreaming about? I've been calling you this long time, and here you are in this warm sun, almost asleep."
"No, no! mother dear, I've only been thinking, and haven't heard you call once. Only to think that you couldn't find me mother! how funny!"