Johnny had been talking to his mother, as he often talked, about a Bible verse which he did not understand—
“But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which seeth in secret,”—and she had told him that a sacrifice, to be real and whole-hearted, must be made not only willingly, but cheerfully; “not , or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
“I don’t wonder at all at that, mamma,” Johnny had replied, “when you think how hateful it is to have people do things for you as if they didn’t wish to. I’d rather go without a thing, than take it when people are that way.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Leslie, “people do sometimes say ‘oh bother’ when ‘certainly’ would be more appropriate,”—Johnny laughed, but he blushed a little, too—“and ‘directly,’ or ‘in a minute,’” continued his mother, “when it would be more , to say the least of it, to go at once, without any words. We forget too often that ‘even Christ pleased not Himself,’ and we over the disturbing of our own little plans and arrangements, as if we were all Great Moguls.”
“You don’t, mammy,” and Johnny kissed his mother in the particular spot, just under her chin, where he always kissed her when he felt unusually affectionate.
“Oh, yes I do, dear, oftener than you know,” said Mrs. Leslie, “but I am trying all the time, and when I am nearly sure that I am going to be cross, I go away by myself, if I can, for a few minutes, where I can fight it out without punishing any one else, and when I can’t do that, I ask for strength just to keep still until pleasant words will come.”
“You’ve been practising so long, mamma,” said Johnny, wistfully, “that you’re just about perfect, I think; but I don’t believe I will be, if I live to be as old as Methusaleh! I wish I had some sort of an arrangement to clap on the outside of my mouth, that would hold it shut for five minutes!”
“But don’t you see, dear,”—and Mrs. Leslie laughed a little at Johnny’s idea—“that if you had time to remember to clap on your ‘arrangement,’ you would have time to stop yourself in another and better way?”
“Yes, mamma, I suppose I should,” admitted Johnny, “but it somehow seems as if the other way would be easier, especially if I had the ‘arrangement’ somewhere where I could always see it.”
“But don’t you remember, dear,” said his mother, “that even after Moses lifted up the serpent, the poor Israelites were not saved by it unless they looked up at it? That came into my mind the other day when we were playing the new game—‘Hiding in plain sight,’ you know. Every time we failed to find the thimble, it was in such ‘plain sight’ that[133] we laughed at ourselves for being so stupid, and then I thought how exactly like that we are about ‘the ever-present help.’ It is always ready for us, and then we go looking everywhere else, and wonder that we fail! And I think you would find it so with your ‘arrangement.’ You would see it and use it, perhaps, for a day or two, and then you would grow used to it, and it would be invisible to you half the time, at least.”
This game of “Hiding in plain sight” was one which Ned Owen had recently taught them, and it was very popular both at school and in the different homes. A thimble was the favorite thing to hide; all but the hider either shut their eyes or went out of the room, while he placed the thimble in some place where it could be very plainly seen—if one only knew where to look for it! Sometimes it would be on a little point of the gas ; sometimes on top of a picture-frame or mantel-ornament, and then the hider generally had the pleasure of seeing the seekers stare about the room with puzzled faces, and finally give it up, when he would point it out , and they would all exclaim at their stupidity.
The rule was, that if any one found it, he was merely to say so, and not to point it out to the rest.
Johnny was very much impressed with his mother’s comparison, and resolved, as he said to himself, to “look sharper” for the small chances of self-denial which come to all of us, while large chances come but to few, or only at long . There was a poem of which Mrs. Leslie was very fond, and which Tiny and Johnny had learned just to please her, which had this verse in it:—
“I would not have the restless will
That hurries to and fro,
Seeking for some great thing to do,
Or secret thing to know.
I would be dealt with as a child,
And guided where to go.”
And another verse ended with,—
“More careful, than to serve Thee much,
To please Thee perfectly.”
Tiny and Johnny were given to “making believe” all sorts of startling and thrilling adventures, in which they rescued people from , and robbers, and railway-accidents; and, to do Tiny justice, all this making believe did not in the least with the sweet and thoughtfulness for the comfort of others which marked her little life every day. She was much more practical than Johnny was, and would never have thought of these wonderful “pretends” by herself, but she was always ready to join him in whatever he proposed, unless she knew it to be wrong, and he was quite proud of the manner in which she had learned from him to invent and suggest things in this endless game of “pretending.”
But while it did her no harm at all, I am afraid it sometimes made Johnny feel that the small, everyday chances which came in his way were not worth much, and this was why his mother had made her little suggestions about self-denial. So, though Johnny still hoped that he could think of, or discover, some “great thing,” he resolved to be very earnest, meanwhile, in looking out for the small ones.
He had just begun to study Latin, and it was costing him many , and a good deal of hard work. He did not exactly rebel against it, for he knew how particularly his father wished him to be a good Latin scholar, but he expressed to Tiny, freely and often, his sincere wish that it had never been invented.
He went back to school immediately after dinner, one day, in order to “go over” his lesson once more. He had studied it faithfully the afternoon before, but one great trouble with it was............