Jewel's Story Book Part 50

"Ada. We've always had so much fun, and now it's all over."

"Oh, I guess not. Ada Singer's all right."

Lucy didn't think so. She was convinced that her friend had done this last unkindness to Alma, and it was the shock of that discovery that was causing a portion of her suffering now.

Frank and Lucy talked for a few minutes longer, and it was agreed that the former should return to the school and get any other valentines that should be there for Lucy and himself; then, as soon as it grew dark, they would run to the Driscoll cottage with an offering.

Late that afternoon three mothers were called to interviews with three little girls. Lucy Berry surprised hers by rushing in where Mrs. Berry was seated, sewing.

"Oh!" exclaimed the little girl, "I'm so sorry all over, mother!"

"Then you must know why you can't be," returned Mrs. Berry, looking up at the flushed face and seeing something there that made her put aside her work.

Lucy usually considered herself too large to sit in her mother's lap, but now she did so, and flinging her arms around her neck, poured out the whole story.

"To think that Ada _could_ send it!" finished Lucy, with one big sob.

"Be careful, be careful. You don't know that she did," replied Mrs. Berry.

"'Thou shalt not bear false witness.'"

"Oh, I do _hope_ she didn't," responded Lucy, "but Ada is stuck up. I've been seeing it more and more lately."

"And how about the beam in my little girl's own eye?" asked Mrs. Berry gently.

"Haven't I been telling you all about it? I've been just as selfish and cowardly as I could be." Lucy's voice was despairing.

"I think there's a beam there still. I think you are angry with Ada."

"How can I help it? If it hadn't been for her I shouldn't have been so mean."

"Oh, Lucy dear!" Mrs. Berry smiled over the head on her shoulder. "There is old Adam again, blaming somebody else for his fall. Have you forgotten that there is only one person you have the right to work with and change?"

"I don't care," replied Lucy hotly. "I've been calling evil good. I have.

I've been calling Ada good and sticking to her and letting her run me."

"Was it because of what you could get from her, or because of what you could do for her?" asked Mrs. Berry quietly.

Lucy was silent a minute, then she spoke: "She wanted me. She liked me better than anybody."

"Well, now you see what selfish attachments can turn into," returned Mrs.

Berry. "Do you remember the teaching about the worthlessness of mortal mind love? Here are you and Ada, yesterday thinking you love one another, and to-day at enmity."

"I'm going with Alma Driscoll now, and I'm going to eat my lunch with her, and everything. I should think that was unselfish."

"Perhaps it will be. We'll see. Isn't it a little comfort to you to think that it will be some punishment to Ada to see you do it?"

"I don't know," replied Lucy, who was so honest that she hesitated.

"Well, then, think until you do know, and be very certain whether the thoughts that are stirring you so are all loving. You see, dearie, we're all so tempted, in times of excitement, to begin at the wrong end: tempted to begin with ourselves instead of with G.o.d. The all-loving Creator of you and Ada and Alma has made three dear children, one just as precious to Him as another. If the loveliness of His creation is hidden by something discordant, then we must work away at it; and one's own consciousness is the place where she has a right to work, and that helps all. It says in the Bible 'When He giveth quietness who then can make trouble?' You can rest yourself with the thought of His great quietness now, and you will reflect it."

Mrs. Berry paused and her rocking-chair swayed softly back and forth during a moment of silence.

"You know enough about Science," she went on, at last, "to be certain that weeks of an offended manner with Ada would have no effect except to make her long to punish you. You know that love is reflected in love, and that its opposite is just as certain to be reflected unless one knows G.o.d's truth."

"But you don't say anything at all about Alma," said Lucy. "She's the chief one."

Mrs. Berry smiled. "No," she returned gently. "You are the chief one. Just as soon as your thought is surely right, don't you know that your heavenly Father is going to show you how to unravel this little snarl? You remember there isn't any personality to error, whether it tries to fasten on Ada, or on you."

Lucy sat upright. Her cheeks were still flushed, but her eyes had lost their excited light. "Frank Morse and I are going to take some pretty valentines to Alma's as soon as it is dark," she said.

"That will be pleasant. Now let us read over the lesson for to-day again, and know what a joyous thing life is."

"Well, mother, will you go and see Mrs. Driscoll some time?"

"Certainly I will, Sunday. I suppose she is too busy to see me other days."

In the Singer house another excited child had rushed home from school and sought and found her mother.

Mrs. Singer had just reached a most interesting spot in the novel she was reading, when Ada startled her by running into the room and slamming the door behind her.

"Mother, you know you don't want me to go with the factory people," she cried.

"Of course not. What's the matter?" returned Mrs. Singer briefly, keeping her finger between the leaves of her half-closed book.

"Why, Lucy Berry is angry with me, and I don't care. I shall never go with her again!"

"Dear me, Ada. I should think you could settle these little differences without bothering me. What has the factory to do with it?"

"Why, there is a new girl at school, Alma Driscoll, and her mother works there; and she tried to come with Lucy and me, and Lucy would have let her, but I told her you wouldn't like it, and, anyway, of course we didn't want her. So to-day when the valentine box was opened, Alma Driscoll got a 'comic;' and she couldn't take a joke and cried and went home. I can't bear a cry-baby, anyway. And then Miss Joslyn made a fuss about it and _she_ went home, and after that Lucy Berry flared up at me and said she was going to be friends with Alma after this, and _she_ went home. It just spoiled everybody's fun to have them act so silly. Lucy got Frank Morse to bring out all his valentines and hers. I'll never go with her again, whether she goes with Alma or not!"

Angry little sparks were shining in Ada's eyes, and she evidently made great effort not to cry.

"What was this comic valentine that made so much trouble?"

"Oh, something about a factory girl. You know the verses are always silly on those."

"Well, it wasn't very nice to send it to her before all the children, I must say. Who do you suppose did it?"

"No one ever tells who sends valentines," returned Ada defiantly. "No one will ever know."

"Well, if the foolish child, whoever it was, only had known, she wasn't so smart or so unkind as she thought she was. Mrs. Driscoll isn't an ordinary factory hand. She is an a.s.sistant in the bookkeeping department."

"Well, they must be awfully poor, the way Alma looks, anyway," returned Ada.

"I suppose they are poor. I happened to hear Mr. Knapp begging your father to let a Mrs. Driscoll have that position, and your father finally consented. I remember his telling how long the husband had been away trying for work, and what worthy people they were, old friends of his. They lived in some neighboring town; so when Mrs. Driscoll was offered this position they came here. They live"--

"Oh, I know where they live," interrupted Ada, "and I knew they were factory people anyway, and you wouldn't want me going with girls like Alma."

"I'd want you to be kind to her, of course," returned Mrs. Singer.