One little fellow, who had brought many before, came one day with an overgrown girl of fifteen, and finding several new boys in the house ready to take the pledge, he felt the dignity of the situation and tried to help Ted’s mother in her little sermon by shouting: “Now, boys, this is a good thing if you only mean to keep it, but it don’t do to put your name down here for a form or a fashion.”
I recently met dashing little Susie Hall. I knew her as one of the head centres of those temperance circles. How her black eyes danced as she told me of her contempt for mince-pies, egg-nog, etc. Few Southern cooks know how to make mince-pies without brandy. I asked Susie who gave her the egg-nog she told me of refusing so bravely. “Oh, ma cooks for white folks and we lives in the yard, and on Christmas the white lady called me to scrape out the bowl, but I couldn’t touch it.”
I have just come in from a visit to the Gate City Grammar School, an eight room city school for colored children, all the teachers being former students of Atlanta University. I noticed upon the wall of each room, as soon as I entered a sheet of fools-cap with names written upon it. For a border it had the beautiful rainbow pasting which the children in the Storrs Kindergarten make. As the brilliant setting of those names caught my eye, I supposed it was some roll of honor, and so it was, but it seemed to me an enrollment of honor far greater than that given for perfection in scholarship or school deportment. This is the heading. “We, the undersigned, do promise not to drink, or ask others to drink, any wine, cider, whiskey, beer, egg-nog, or anything that can intoxicate, from this day, Dec. 18, 1882, to Feb. 1, 1883.” From Dec. 18, to Feb. 1, is only six weeks to be sure, so this is only a bridge-pledge to bridge over that awful chasm which yawns and buries so many during those fearful days of the old and new year when we honor the birthday of the Christ-child, and which ought to be the purest of all the year. If the children get safely through these feasting days of egg-nog, brandy-peaches, and syllabubs, they are pretty safe the rest of the year.
“Weary watching, wave on wave,
But still the tide heaves onward.”
Ted’s Society has a growing mission. I take courage as I think of Hale’s beautiful story, “Ten Times One is Ten,” and see how easily these children can carry on a grand temperance work, and
“Look up and not down,
Look out and not in,”
If somebody would only
“Lend a hand.”
RECEIPTS FOR MARCH, 1883.
| MAINE, $935.95. | |
| Bluehill. Ladies of Cong. Ch., forFreight | $2.00 |
| Brewer. Dea. John Holyoke, to const.Nathan H. Harriman L. M. | 30.00 |
| Brunswick. Young Ladies’ Miss. Soc,by Miss Edith J. Boardman, for StudentAid, Talladega C. | 10.00 |
| Castine. Mrs. Lucy S. Adams, to const.Rolaston Woodbury L. M. | 30.00 |
| Falmouth. A. N. Ward | 5.00 |
| Falmouth. First Cong. Ch., Bbl. of C.,5 for Freight, for Selma, Ala. | 5.00 |
| Farmington. Hiram Holt | 150.00 |
| Garland. Cong. Ch. | 5.00 |
| Gorham. Ladies of Maine, by Miss M.E. Smith, for Lady Missionaries, Wilmington,N.C., and Selma, Ala. | 543.89 |
| Gorham. Bbl. of C., 2 for Freight;Mrs. Truesdale, 5 for Selma, Ala. | 7.00 |
| Hallowell. Mrs. H. K. Baker | 5.00 |
| Hermon. Mrs. M. A. Peabody, frompocket of a deceased young lady | 1.00 |
| Lyman. Cong. Ch. | 12.37 |
| Machias. Centre St. Cong. Ch. and Soc. | 6.21 |
| New Gloucester. Cong. Ch. | 71.00 |
| New Gloucester. Cong. Ch. Sab. Sch.,for Student Aid, Talladega C. | 10.00 |
| Orono. Cong. Sab. Sch. | 1.64 |
| South Berwick. Ladies of Cong. Ch.,Bbl. of C., for Wilmington, N.C. | |
| South Paris. Cong. Ch. and Soc. | 7.00 |
| Yarmouth. Central Ch. | 15.84 |
| Washington. Miss A. L. McDowell, forSelma, Ala. | 1.00 |
| Weld. Rev. D. D. Tappan | 3.00 |
| Windham. Cong. Ch. | 14.00 |