Three Mormon Boys
By Homespun [Susa Young Gates]
Chapter 6
The next morning Bertie’s aunt called him into the sitting room and asked him some questions. She was utterly ignorant of what had been going on down at Jerrold’s, but she had discovered that her own peaches were being taken by somebody. Who that was she was determined to find out; although she had plenty, yet she abhorred robbery of all kinds.
“Bertie,” asked his aunt, “have you been taking the peaches?”
“Why, you gave me five yesterday, and all I wanted before that.”
“That isn’t what I mean; have you taken any peaches which were not given to you by myself? Have you taken any without my permission, Bertie?”
“No, aunty, not one.”
One long look into the frank gray eyes of her truthful darling convinced Aunt Mary that he had not been the culprit.
“Has anyone else taken any?”
“You know you told me I could give Mart Thompson some, day before yesterday, and that is every one I know anything about.”
“Hem! All right, Bertie; I don’t want you to take any more today. Now you can go and play.”
Aunt Mary was an odd woman, full of eccentricities, but withal honest to a fault. She arose from her lounging attitude on the bed, where she had been busy reading, and throwing her sun-bonnet on — I say throwing advisedly, for all Aunt Mary’s things looked as if thrown on — she betook herself over to her neighbor’s house.
.She was invited to sit down by Sister Thompson, and forthwith ensued a conversation on things in general. Aunt Mary was no gossip and therefore the talk was somewhat one-sided.
“Have you bought any peaches, Sister Thompson, this season?”
“No, indeed, I haven’t. I didn’t feel as if I could afford it. We shall have some next year on our own trees, and after that we will have plenty. Our trees are very young yet, you know.”
“Well, surely, you have got some for your little children?”
“No, I haven’t. Martie has been teasin’ and teasin’ for some; but I couldn’t get one. I told him he would have to earn them if he wanted them.”
“I saw him down to the store yesterday morning with his pocket full of great, big cling-stone lemon peaches, and I thought you had been lucky enough to find some for him, as he is so fond of them.”
“Someone must have give ‘em to him, for I didn’t.” Then a sudden dark suspicion of her visitor’s meaning flashed across her mind. Half angrily, she asked, “Did you think he had been stealing yours? You needn’t be afraid; our Mart would be above such things. I know him, I can tell you. He knows I would lick him within an inch of his life if I found him out in any such deviltry. No, ma’am, you needn’t worry about our Mart.”
And the mother bristled and bustled, with an angry face and a resentful heart.
“Why, Sister Thompson, I haven’t said anything about your Mart taking my peaches. I confess I wondered if anyone else in the neighborhood had lemon cling-stones like mine. But I never said anything about his stealing them. I wanted to ask you if you would like to have a part of my peaches to dry on shares — you and Sister Brown. Neither of you have any, and your boys and girls can dry them, and thereby earn enough to buy them coats and shoes for winter. You know I am too miserable in health to do such work, and so I shall have to call upon my neighbors. But if I were you, I would have a talk with Martin, and just see where he got his peaches. You know all boys need watching — yours as well as the rest.”
“Not my Mart! I have told him too many times that I would lick him if he got into such mischief.”
“But stealing is not simply mischief, and all boys are apt to do little wrong things which may grow into greater ones if allowed to run on.”
“My boy is not a thief; and I don’t thank anyone for calling him such. You may be alluding to that affair of old man Jerrold; but I can tell you that that was made up by the old man. Our boys had nothing to do with it. Mart may have picked up a peach under the trees when going through the lot to school, but he would not steal, I know that.”
“Don’t you call it stealing to take anything from another person’s place, even if the fruit lies on the ground?”
“Good gracious, how fussy you are Aunt Mary. I never heard anyone so particular. I suppose you know your Bertie was talked about by the old man as much as my Mart?” And the mother smiled maliciously to see how quickly the color mounted to the cheek of the aunt at her words.
“What is it you are talking about?”
Thereupon followed a full account of the affair, the old man’s preaching, the trick the boys had played on him, and how, through the Bishop, the story of the two men’s watch and discomfiture had leaked out, it having come to Mrs. Thompson’s ears that very morning. She failed to tell of the scuffle under the trees between her boy and honest John, although she had heard it from the same source as she had heard the rest of the story. What harm was there, indeed, in picking up one peach when there were so many around? The mother had reprimanded Martie, however, and had succeeded, during her talk, unconsciously to herself, in impressing upon him the fact that John Brown was an impudent, hulking fellow, to presume to talk about thieving to her son, and he and his family dependent on her for a house to live in. Such impertinence! — it was the warming of an adder in one’s breast. However, Martie was warned that if he was ever caught stealing he should receive, at the hands of his mother, a good whipping.
Aunt Mary soon departed to engage the willing help of Mrs. Brown to assist her in putting away her dried fruit, and the two oldest boys and the two oldest girls of each family were speedily set to work with all the help the mothers could possibly give them.
Aunt Mary went back to her home to cogitate on the perversity of everybody but Aunt Mary, and especially the blindness of most of mothers to the faults of their children. She heard the peach-pit episode repeated by Mrs. Brown, but told in such a way that she could see the incident was amusing to the mother, who was too honest to attempt to shield her son from blame or to excuse his possible fault.
“Do you know, Mrs. Brown, I have a theory about these traits of character,” said Aunt Mary, “and it is a theory I have never heard spoken of by anybody. It is this: Whatever trait you may discover in your child, you will notice one thing in connection with it. If that trait be properly moulded, it is capable of being developed into the highest glory to its possessor. Or if it be allowed to be developed in the opposite direction, it will bring shame and confusion on the owner. In other words the Lord plants good seeds in our nature, and if we are careful every trait of our character may be made a means of happiness; and it will bring misery, according as we allow it to run. As their intensity, so will be their power for good or evil. Now, for instance, here is your boy John, he has an unlimited capacity for fun and work; that is force, and if it is properly directed it will develop into great good to him and to the Church. If it goes to weeds, he will be a very bad boy, and his force will make of him an exceedingly wicked man. He will not be contented to be simply weak and vicious; he would be a powerfully wicked man. Then, there is the trait of lying. If that trait were properly cultivated, it would make an eloquent man or woman of its possessor. You look surprised, but the two traits of imagination and love of approbation go to make up a liar. That is, in a child. Of course, if allowed to grow, that trait would make a dishonest person, and, perhaps, lead to other and graver sins. But there, I am not going to talk any more now, for I must hurry home. I shall leave you to think out my idea by yourself.”
Aunt Mary’s words are worthy the consideration of every mother and father in the Church. We will leave them where she did, and let everyone elaborate her theory to suit himself.
In the course of two weeks the nimble fingers of the Thompson and Brown boys and girls had prepared all the fruit they could find on Aunt Mary’s trees. John had built a rough scaffold down in the yard on the Thompson place, and it was almost full of delicious halves of juicy peaches, their moisture being slowly sucked up by the sun’s hungry beams, but retaining within themselves all the sweet flavors of a thousand happy days spent on the trees ripening in the June sunshine, to be given out to the sympathizing heat and steam of the winter’s saucepan. You may be sure that those same drying peaches were objects of much solicitude to the four boys and girls, who had worked so hard to get them out there on the long scaffold.
One day the three chums were seated in Bertie Wilson’s home, and were talking of whisky drinking and smoking.
“I think a boy — or a man, either — that drinks liquor, or even cider, is about as near ruin as he can be.” Thus spoke up honest John Brown.
“And it’s pretty near as bad to hear a man curse and swear. My pa says that it looks like a man didn’t have much brains in his head when he gets to cursing with his mouth,” assented sturdy Bertie Wilson.
“Say, boys, I’ll tell you what let us do,” says John. “Let us swear and vow that none of us will ever drink, curse or smoke. We can do that, and it will help us to say no to anyone who may want us to do those wicked things. Will you agree?”
Bertie was quite willing and even anxious to make the vow, but Martin was not quite so enthusiastic. However, there had so much been said by all of them, and he had talked as well as the others, and so he felt himself obliged to seem quite willing. Indeed, as they talked more and more of the matter, he gradually became the most enthusiastic of the lot. And he seemed, and was, for the moment, the most virtuous of any of them.
How that vow was kept will appear in the course of this story. At any rate it is worthy of record, and I am proud of my young friends for being so wise in the days of their youth.
(To be continued)