Now, you would have thought that amongst so many children one would scarcely have been missed, but Charlie was. The children felt as though they could not play, now that he was not with them. Then they remembered what a sweet, unselfish little fellow he had been.
“We gave him the lame chicken!” said Dora regretfully.
“I never once offered him a ride on Dobbin,” sighed Tommy.
“I don’t think any of us were very kind to him,” said Alice. “He was so contented that we thought anything would do for him.”
The week that Charlie was ill was the most miserable the children had ever spent, and when at the end of that time the Doctor said the worst was over and Charlie began to mend, there was nothing his brothers and sisters would not have given him, they were so thankful. The chickens were secretly carried up to Charlie’s bedside, but Mother said she could not have the sick-room turned into a poultry-yard.
“But we gave him the lame chicken,” the children pleaded; “and oh! Mother, we are so sorry!”
“Well,” said Mother, “he loves Hopperty best now; but, my darlings, Charlie will be down amongst you all soon, I hope, and then you must remember to try and be as unselfish to him as he has always been to you.” The children did not forget Mother’s words, and as for Charlie, he is the happiest little boy in the world, and the other children are all the happier too, I know, for having learnt to be a little more like their unselfish little brother.
L. L. Weedon.
