The hands, too, that had been going so fast, stood still. What could be the reason of it? Had it really stopped? Bessie put her ear quite near, and listened. Yes, there was not a sound.
She began to feel frightened, and to think that perhaps, after all, she had better have left it alone. Her mother came into the room and said, "What are you doing, Bessie? You must have broken the mainspring of the clock."
"I saw it was not going, mamma, and so I wound it up," sobbed out Bessie: "I did not mean to break it." That was all she could say.
DEEDS, NOT WORDS.
Benny says he'll be a soldier:
He will march to fife and drum,
With a musket on his shoulder;
Never stouter heart nor bolder,
Where the shots the thickest come.
(Yet I've seen the speckled hen
Put to rout brave Captain Ben!)
Willie longs to be sailor:
He will cross the farthest seas;
'Mid the terror and commotion
Of the dark, tempestuous ocean,
He will pace his deck at ease.
(Storms are certain when we scrub
Willie in his bathing-tub.)
Nellie hears with awe and wonder
Of the perils they will seek;
Weeps at thought of cruel slaughter;
Prays for seamen on the water;
Blushes for her courage weak:
(Yet the best thing, Nellie dear,
Is to do the duty near.)
A. D. W.