Mamma leaned over her plate, and said, softly, "Is Satan here again?"
"Yes, mamma," said Frankie; "may I whip him out?"
She nodded yes; and he then jumped down from the table, and began to blow with all his might. Then he caught up a newspaper, and whisked it all about, saying, "Go long, old feller; go long out of this house."
"Whew! whew!" said papa; "what is all this?"
Mamma smiled, as if she understood it well; and presently the little fellow climbed up in his chair, looking very bright and happy, but quite out of breath with his exercise.
"Satan"s gone, papa," he said. "Now I"m your dear little Frankie."
"Yes, indeed, you are," said his father, laughing heartily. "I am glad we have found a way to get rid of Satan so easily."
"What does it mean?" asked Willie.
"I will tell you presently, my dear," said papa.
When they had done breakfast, Mr. Gray opened the Bible for prayers, and taking Frankie on his knee, and calling Willie to stand by his side, he said, "In G.o.d"s book, he tells us that Satan is our great enemy, who is trying to make us do wrong. He is called a roaring lion, who goeth about seeking whom he may devour. This means that he loves to destroy our happiness, and to see people miserable; and he knows if we are naughty, we shall suffer. He goes about whispering in the ears of little boys and girls, prompting them to mischief, persuading them to tell lies, to be disobedient and unkind. If children listen to his voice, they soon become like him; but if they say, "Get thee behind me, Satan," or drive him away, as Frankie did, the Holy Spirit will come and put good thoughts into their minds, and teach them, as the Bible says, what they ought to say and what they ought to do."
Papa then knelt down, and holding Frankie"s little hand, prayed that he might always listen to the voice of the good Spirit, and be led by it to do all that is right.
CHAPTER V.
FRANKIE AND THE SUGAR.
ONE morning Mrs. Gray was finishing a piece of work which she wished to send away, when Frankie ran in from the dining hall, and asked, "Mamma, may I have some chucher?" He meant sugar, but he could not speak the word plainly.
"Where is the sugar that you want, my dear?" asked mamma.
"On the table," said Frankie. "Nurse is washing the dishes."
"Look in my face, darling," said mamma, "Did you take any sugar without my leave?"
Frankie looked up with his clear, truthful eyes, and said, "No, mamma, I didn"t take any."
"Then go and get two large lumps, and bring them to me."
The little boy ran off, saying, "I will, mamma; I will get some."
Presently he returned with them; and she said, "Now, my dear, you shall have these, because you didn"t take any without asking leave."
A few months before this time, Willie one day found Frankie in the store closet dipping up sugar with his hand from the barrel, and crowding it into his mouth. His whole face was covered with sugar, when Willie lifted him down from the chair, and led him to his mother.
When mamma had washed his hands and face, she took him in her lap, and told him it was very naughty to take mother"s sugar without her permission. When he wanted sugar, or candy, or figs, he must always ask for them. Since that time she had not known him to touch any thing until he had first asked leave. Once she had left a paper of cough candy in her drawer for several days, and she knew he often went to this drawer on errands for her. She was coughing severely one afternoon, and said, "I really wish I had some candy."
"I will get you some," he said. "I saw some in the drawer;" and away he ran for it.
Mamma was so much pleased that he had not taken any, that she gave him a small paper of sugar plums. The cough candy was not good for him.
Ever since Frankie could remember, his mamma had told him the pretty stories in the Bible. The account of Adam and Eve in the garden; the sad death of good Abel, and the punishment of wicked Cain; the ark, and the dreadful flood; the stories of Joseph and his brethren, of Samuel and of Ruth, were as familiar to him as the names of the family circle. Indeed, the little boy seemed to connect the events of the Bible with every thing he saw.
One day a gentleman gave him a short cane. He had often seen Frankie play horse with his father"s cane, and he thought it would please the child to have one of his own.
Frankie was very much delighted, and ran around the garden with it for several hours, Ponto following close at his heels, quite delighted with the new sport. At last he came in, and, sitting down by his mamma, began to play with the string she had tied around the head of the cane.
Then he looked very thoughtful for a minute, when he said, "I don"t like that cane any more."
"Why don"t you like it?" she asked, in surprise.
"Because it killed good Abel, you know."
"O, no," said mamma, with a laugh. "That Cain was a man, and not a stick."
The little fellow was once playing out near the barn, when he fell and cut his finger against a piece of gla.s.s. It bled very freely, so that mamma could not bind it up. She told Sally to bring a bowl of water, and held his poor finger in it. The water was soon red with the blood; and Frankie cried louder than ever. All at once he stopped, and said, "Mamma, it seems like the Red Sea. How could the Israelites get through so much blood?"
"That was not red with blood, my dear," said mamma. "It was only the name of the sea. There are the Red Sea, and the Black Sea, and the White Sea."
Frankie was very fond of cake, and would have liked to make his whole supper of it. But mamma knew it would make him sick. Sometimes, when he was in the kitchen, Jane gave him a piece; and one day his mother was very much pleased when he came running to her with a rich cake in his hand, fresh from the oven. "May I eat it, mamma?" he asked. "I didn"t taste it without your leave."
Mamma broke off a small piece, and gave it to him, and then took him in her lap, and repeated a pretty little hymn she had learned when she was a child. I think you will like to hear it too.
"Mamma, do hear Eliza cry; She wants a piece of cake I know; She will not stir to school without; Do give her some, and let her go."
"O, no, my dear; that will not do; She has behaved extremely ill; She pouts instead of minding me, And tries to gain her stubborn will.
"This morning, when she had her milk, She gave her spoon a sudden twirl, And tipped it over on the floor; O, she"s a naughty, wicked girl!
"And now, forsooth, she cries for cake; But that I surely shall refuse; For children never should object To eating what their parents choose.
"The pretty little girl who came To sell the strawberries here to-day, Would have been very glad to eat What my Eliza threw away;--
"Because her parents are so poor That they have neither milk nor meat; But gruel and some Indian cake Are all the children have to eat.
"They have four little girls and boys; Mary"s the oldest of the whole, And hard enough she has to work, To help her ma--poor little soul!
"As soon as strawberries are ripe, She picks all day, and will not stop To play or eat a single one, Till she has filled her basket up.
"Then down she comes and sells them all, And lays the money up at home, To buy her stockings and her shoes, To wear when freezing winter"s come.
"For then she has to trudge away, And gather wood through piles of snow, To keep the little children warm, When bites the frost, and cold winds blow.
"And then, when she comes home at night, Hungry and tired, with cold benumbed, How she would jump to find a bowl Of bread and milk all nicely crumbed!
"But she, dear child, has no such thing; Of gruel and the Indian cake, Whether she chooses it or not, Poor Mary must her supper make.
"Eliza, dear, will you behave So ill again, another day?