TALKS TO LITTLE FOLKS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1197, 8 February 1895, Page 15

TALKS TO LITTLE FOLKS.

BE IN EARNEST! Let me tell you of little Rumtum, as he was called. Ho was a round-faced boy with rosy cheeks and bright eyes, very loving, but lazyjabout lessons and school. Happening to Ire late one morning, with a coaxing kiss, he said, “ Mother, tho school door will be shut, so may [ stop at home, and love you?" She laughed, and giving him a squeeze, as every mother would do in the same circumstances, she replied, “ No, no ; run to school, 3 ou little tempter, and knock at the door.” So Rumtum went off, stopping a minute at the gate to see if mother wouldn’t change her mind; but she cried, “Now, Rumtum, darling, go to school and knock at the door.” He went along the country lane wondering how the little sparrows were getting on in a nest he had found the previous day ; and for a moment stopped to watch the blacksmith shoeing a horse ; and when he crossed the plank bridge he saw the tiny fishes darting to and fro, and wished he had a stick with a.piece of thin string and a bent pin with a worm on it to catch some of them to put in a bottle next his new Bible and his Noah’s Ark; and he heaved a deep sigh when he said “No, no” to himself, “ I must go to school.” As he expected, the school door was closed. He knocked, but very gontly. He again knocked, and again very softly. For five minutes by the church clock opposite, he continued to knock, and once thought he heard someone moving the bolt inside, but to his great relief the door did not open. After patiently waiting, first standing on one leg and then on the other, while the clock finger went half way to another five minutes, Rumtum gave a sigh of content, and ran home whistling at the top of his

breath and swinging his school-bag like David’s sJing. “ Mother,” cried he almost out of breath, “ I knocked more than five minutes, but the door didn’t open ! ” She asked, “ JNow, Bum turn, did you knock in earnest ? ” He replied, “ Mother, I could hoar the knock all the way up to my ear.” “ Ah, but, Eumtum, your hand is fat and soft; you should have knocked with your new penny.” And as she looked lovingly into his little round face he could not help laughing, and confessed with a hug and a kiss that he wanted a holiday, and “ to love you, mother, dear,” as he said, “ all by our two selves. ’

His mother then gave him a serious talk on what she called his crime in not being in earnest to obey her and to learn to be a great... and a good man; 110 knelt down, saying, “ Mother, dear, forgive mo ! ” —as she afterwards said, “ looking lovely like the picture of Samuel with a sunbeam shining on his upturned face.” She also fell on her knees to pray God to bless him, and, while she was hugging and kissing him on her knees, they fell over on poor pussy who squealed and frightened them both. Then Rumtum was again sent off to school with alittle note to the teacher to forgive him for being late; and this time he knocked in earnest, when the door opened directly, and he entered. As was the custom in that school, he bent his head in prayer before he took his seat and said, “ May the Lord help me to be in earnest so that I may please dear mother.” Little folks, as you are earnest in play, so be earnest in learning to be good, to do good, and therefore to be great. In every right thing be in earnest!