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6 (630) THE
Our Boys
A BOY'S WISH.
I'd like to be a pirate
And sail the Spanish Main,
If every night when darkness fell
I could go home again
And slumber in my little bed,
So cozylike and still,
Where neither storms nor rolling waves
Might come to do me ill.
I'm brave enough in daytime
On land or on the sea,
And nothing in the world around
Can ever frighten me.
But when the ghosts of Shadowland
Are stealing through the gloam,
Somehow I always want to be
With mother, safe at home!
' ?Birmingham Age-Herald.
SEWING ON A BUTTON.
"Marian," called mamma from her chamber,
"will yon sew the button on grandpa's coat,
please? My head aches so I can't."
"Won't another time do?" answered a doleful
voice from the depths of a book. "I've just
come to the last chapter and it's so exciting!"
"No, dear," said mamma, "grandpa is going
to town in a few minutes and must have his coat.
He saved the button. It is in one of the
pockets."
Marian often sewed on grandpa's buttons. She
was proud of knowing how. Only, to-day, she
would rather finish her story first. Reluctantly
she got her workbag, threaded a big needle with
coarse black thread, found the button in tl c
pocket, and taking the coat in her nink gingham
lap began to sew. But lier head was full of her
story, as she took the first stitches. Then she
came to herself with a start.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed in dismay, "I've
sewed clear through the coat! And I've put the
knot on the wrong side instead of on the right,
under the button."
But she was so anxious to get back to her
hook that she would not stop to cut it off and
begin over again. Through and through the four
holes of the button, and way through the cloth
to the wrong side, too, in big stitches, and snipped
it off.
"There!" she said, "It's on."
But she had never sewed on one of grandpa's
coat-buttons like that before. Not a stitch ought
to have been visible on the wrong side any more
than on the right. Marian knew that. "But
it won't show," she assured herself.
"Thank you, my dear," said grandpa, as he
hurried on the coat. "I don't believe every
little girl can sew on a button as well as you
can." And he rushed off to catch his train.
Marian sat down with her book again. But
she didn't enjoy the chapter as much as she expected.
Grandpa's last words haunted her. She
hadn't sewed on that button as well as she
could.
"Captain!" a voice hailed grandpa on the
city street. "We want to get your picture
taken."
"What for?" demanded the captain, startled.
"To put in the paper," explained his friend.
"They are going to give a history of our regiment
Memorial Day, and your picture must go
with that." For grandpa had been the hero
of his regiment.
The captain objected. But the other pre
;i?^j v?a ?i_ e j l: 1* v. *
raucu, iuiu nc mivyniuif^iy iuumi iiiiiiNeir Derore
the photographer's camera. Just as he sat down
he unbuttoned his coat and threw back the lapels.
He felt more comfortable so.
"An excellent likeness," every one said, and
Marian was eager to see the Memorial Day paper.
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE Si
and Girls
There was the fine old face she knew so well,
and there
"Oh!" Marian caught her breath with a gasp.
There were all those clumsy stitches for every
one to see! "And I thought they wouldn't
show," she sobbed; "because they were on the
wrong side, I thought it wasn't any matter."
"It's all right," comforted grandpa, "I don't
care about a few threads."
But Marian was not consoled. She cut grandpa's
picture out of the paper and pinned it up
where she could see it every day. And after
that, when she felt like being careless about a
thing because she thought it wasn't going to
show, a look at those pictured stitches was
enough.?Alice M. Farrxngton, in Sunday School
Times.
MINDING HIS OWN BUSINESS.
"Well, Gus, I reckon it's time for a small
boy like you to be seeking your little trundle: so
good-bye.''
Gus, who was nearly six feet high, laughed at
the impudence of the boy, half his size, whom he
had just beaten handsomely on the tennis court.
"Better luck to you next time, G?s," continued
the young rascal, shouldering his racket
with a conquering air; "you aren't afraid to
stay by yourself, are you?"
"You'd better move on," laughed big, goodtempered
Gus, "or I'll give you something to
be afraid of."
"Oh, will you?" cried the smaller boy, taking
care to increase the distance between them;
"you couldn't scare me, though; not much you
couldn't; I don't scare easily."
Gus made a lunge or two at him, and Jack
went off in haste, laughing and jeering over his
shoulder.
It was getting late; as Jack hurried along
the suburban streets the twilight's dying struggle
with the electric lights suggested to him that
the hot muffins would be eaten up before he
could reach his mother's tea table.
Suddenly a cry of pain and distress reached
him, and called a halt, though but for a moment;
it was an unpleasant sound and quite out of tune
with the bright, merry-hearted time he had been
having that afternoon.
"It'8 none of my business," Jack said to himself,
as he started off. But the pitiful sound
caught him again before he had gone ten steps.
It was plainly the cry of some child in trouble;
there was pain in it; there was terror, too, and
this time Jack turned back and followed the
sound.
"Maybe it is my business," thought the young
tennis player, as the cries led him up a rather
ugly-looking alley and into a dirty, roughly
paved court. Half a dozen small children were
huddled into one corner of this court, like
chickens before a hawk; and there, sure enough,
was the hawk! An ill-looking boy was amusing
himself by twisting the arm of the little girl
whose cries Jack had heard.
Jack hesitated one prudent minute; the
"hawk" was larger and heavier than he; where
were the mothers and protectors of this little
flock? Was it, after all, any of his business?
"That fellow can chew me up, most likely,"
thought Jack; and then a bitter cry from the
child brought the blood to his face.
"I've got to do it," he said to himself,
as a dim, unuttered thought floated through his
mind that this is what God made boys strong
for.
"I say, let her alone; will youf" His voice
0 U T H [ July 5, 1911
was hoarse with fear aud auger; undoubtedly
he was afraid of this tough customer.
"1 see myself doing it," roared the bully,
turning with a horrid oath to meet this unexpected
demand, "where did you get those
pretty little feet? You are honin' for a smashed
mouth, ain't you? 1 gi' you just one second
to get out of this, aud go about your own business.
''
"You little kids run as hard as you can tear,"
said Jack to the terrified children ; and under the
wing of this new protector they were off in a
flash?all except the poor little prisoner; her
tormentor still held her in a tight grip, though
he had forgotten to hurt her while he was curs
' er upstart defender.
"Turn her loose," said Jack, coming up closer
As an answer the boy gave the child a savage
twist, but let go bis hold the next minute to defend
himself from Jack's tennis racket. This
weapon he instantly struck out of his opponent's
hand and returned the blow with heavy interest.
Having lost his racket, Jack had no weapon
now, and only a little very unpracticed science
with which to oppose the experience and strength
of the street bully.
Though stinging under his enemy's blows,
bleeding, and faint, he had a taste of the fierce
joy of victory; for had he not made this bully
let go of the child? And when his antagonist
drew off for a minute to take breath Jack remembered
that he had felt no disposition to run.
On the contrary, he used his small remnant of
breath to cry out. "You won't let her go, won't
you? I made you, though!" And the next
instant he was felled to the pavement.
But the children were doing their little best
for their defender. At the mouth of the alley
they were screaming lustily for a "perlice." No
policeman was at hand, but a tall boy, in a
tennis suit, shouldering a handsome racket, was
passing.
"Hello! What's up?" said this second tennis
player.
"It's down he is, sir," said the largest of the
little Irish woman, glancing fearfully behind
her; "and his pritty clothes, the like o' yourn,
all dirtied wi' blood an' dust."
But before the child could finished her tale
Jack's triumphant enemy was measuring his
length on the stones, while Gus, in considerable
haste, was getting Jack away before the tardy
officer should pounce on him.
The next scene in this rapid little play opens
upon a terrified family party around a tea table.
"I couldn't help it, mother," said her battered-up
boy, evidently expecting disapproval;
"you will think it was none of my business, but
I just couldn't go by.''
"I should think not, indeed," cried his
mother; "what else could you do? It strikes
me that you were minding your own business
just beautifully."
"Aha!" cheered the father, well pleased:
"you see where he gets his fighting blood from
Gus."
" 'Neither count I my life dear unto myself,'
" quoted the mother proudly; "that sort
of fighting spirit which takes us into weaker
people's battles, comes from the Bible, I think."
"Gus," said Jack, "what brought you around
that way, anyhow?"
"I declare I don't know," answered his companion,
soberly; "it was just a sudden notion."
But some day Jack will tell Gus that when
he first turned up the alley he asked God to
help him, and that he knows now Gus himself
u. ^ -
?<?r? me answer v*oa sent.
"I say, Jack, do you know what you said as
you left the tennis court T''
"No, indeed; my memory was thumped out
of me on those old stones."