The only thing I could advise was that she should insert an advertisement of her loss in the paper; and as she did not know how to write, I wrote one for her. Then I said, "How came you to lose your pocket-book? Was there a hole in your pocket?"
She showed me a rip between the lining and the outside of her dress, and said she supposed she had slipped her money through that instead of into the right place. "I've been meaning to sew that for a week," she said, very sadly.
I felt too sorry for her to tell her that experience had taught her a very dear lesson, but it did seem hard that the savings of two months should have been lost for want of a stitch in time.
The homely old proverb says, "A stitch in time saves nine." Please think of it when you are studying your etymology, and are not sure about a derivation. It will take only a few seconds to look it up now, but it may save you much trouble at examination-day to be sure on the subject. Think of it, too, when your little playmate passes you coldly; and when you feel that you have given offense to your teacher or mother, a frank word of apology, a kind, forgiving look in time, may save you from many hours of regret and distress. A great many tangled and troublesome things in this world would be set right speedily if everybody believed in a stitch in time. You may apply this principle to everything in life, and it will never fail you. A great poet, Mr. Tennyson, says,
"It is the little rift within the lute
That by-and-by will make the music mute."
A very tiny leak, if not repaired, will cause the great ship to go down in the midst of the sea. Any small wrong thing may be corrected or mended while it is small, but every day that it is left alone it will grow larger and stronger. One weed is easier to pull up than ten are. Don't forget the stitch in time, wherever you may be.
[THE CALL OF THE CROW.]
Caw! caw! caw!
Over the standing corn
The cheery cry is borne—
Caw! caw! caw!
Caw! caw! caw!
Into the school-room door,
Over the clean-swept floor—
Caw! caw! caw!
Caw! caw! caw!
The crow he is free to fly,
But the boy must cipher and sigh—
Caw! caw! caw!
Caw! caw! caw!
And I wish I could go with him
Where the woods are wild and dim—
Caw! caw! caw!