Did you ever think that a person may be very selfish and very unselfish at the same time? Ethel is very fond of making presents to her friends. If Edith or Nannie admires a work-box, a book, or a pencil of hers, it is at her service. She delights to surprise her school-mates with little gifts, and often Mattie finds a bunch of violets on her desk, which have come from Ethel's conservatory, or a great golden orange is added to Sadie's luncheon, and it is sure to have been brought from Florida by Ethel's Uncle Tom. Ethel is full of kind thoughts, and is as liberal and generous as possible with things that cost her nothing. But still I do not regard her as unselfish, and I will tell you why.
She is not the least bit obliging. If she is seated in her little rocker by the south window, and mamma or auntie comes in, ever so tired, it does not occur to Ethel to offer her chair, that either of the ladies may rest. Indeed, if you hint it to her, she shakes her head and says, "There are plenty of chairs in the room; why should I give up mine?" Not long since Cousin Polly and little Agnes Lee arrived unexpectedly, and as there were other guests in the house, mamma was compelled to ask Ethel to give up her pretty room, and sleep for the night with her younger sister. Would you believe it, Ethel was so vexed that she pouted and sulked in Cousin Polly's face, would take no notice of the child, and finally cried herself to sleep? Not one of the family ever dreams of asking Ethel to run up stairs or down on an errand, to mend a ripped glove, to carry a message, or to do the slightest thing which will put her out of her usual way. They know that she is not an obliging girl, and, strangely enough, the very school-mates who accept her flowers and oranges, are much more fond of Mary Ann, a plain, dumpy little body, who never has anything to give away, but who is always greeting everybody with kind looks and words, and who, wherever she goes, is helping along.
[JIM, THE FERRY BOY.]
BY WADE WHIPPLE.
Waterview is in West Virginia. It overlooks the Great Kanawha River, and a very pretty river it is, too. You would think so if you were permitted to look out of any of the eastern windows of Waterview some bright summer morning, and see the willow and plane trees nodding to you from the opposite shore, and opening here and there to give you a glimpse of beautiful hills crowned with snowy clouds and bright blue sky.
And maybe if your eye chanced to rest on the cabin just at the foot of those beautiful hills, with its white-washed face peeping out of the maze of green and gold that almost hid it from view, you might wish to live there, even though the only way to bring it about would be by exchanging homes and natures with Jim, the Ferry Boy.
Jim was the light of that little cabin—yes, the light, for though his skin was as dark as the dusk, his happy and contented spirit shone out of his laughing eyes like sunbeams breaking through the chinks in a black cloud.
He was the ferryman at Waterview—a boy, and yet a man in all that was needed to fit him for his calling, being strong, courageous, and faithful. To be sure, "the ferry" was nothing more than a skiff of one-boy power, but it called upon Jim to get up at all hours of the night, and face the wettest kind of storms and the roughest kind of people, and these elements would have taken all the picnic flavor out of the business for you.