Excerpt
VOL. 37. No. 18. WEEKLY.DAVID C. COOK PUBLISHING CO., ELGIN, ILLINOIS.GEORGE E. COOK. EDITOR.MAY 3, 1914.
It was a warm May afternoon: all the little flowers were stretching up their heads to catch the rain that was falling patter-spatter everywhere. Francis stood by the window pouting. He had been playing lovely games outside, and now the rain had spoiled his fun.
Mother was at her sewing machine. She felt sorry for Francis, he was such a little boy and he had no playmates, but she was too busy to invent games for him. But he began to make up one for himself. He came and stood by the machine and hummed as it hummed, louder and louder. Then the humming almost died away, as mother ran the wheel slower.
Mother was at her sewing machine."Oh, dear." Francis said. "I want something to do." Just then he heard a robin singing in the rain. He tried to sing with the bird, as he had hummed with the machine, and was surprised that he couldn't.
"Why can't I, mamma?" he asked.
"Because you are Francis, and the robin is robin, I suspect," said mother, laughing. "You can do many things that the robin can't, you know."
Francis threw himself down on the sofa and watched the bird as it swung back and forth in the apple tree, and by and by he dropped asleep. When he woke up he ran to the window to find the robin.
"Oh, he's gone," he said, very disappointed. "Did you hear what he told me, mamma?"
Mother shook her head.
"Why, he said to me that little boys can't sing with their lips as sweetly as birds can, but they can sing with their hearts: are you sure you didn't hear him, mother?"
"I'm sure as sure," said mother. "But I know that's what you heard him say in your dream for it's true as can be."
"What did he mean, mother?"
"He meant that in spite of rain, little boys can be happy, just as the birds are, and can carry smiling faces to show they have singing hearts."
Francis laughed happily. "I'll try to have a singing heart. Oh, the sun's out, and I'm going out to find the robin."
THREADING NEEDLES.
Mrs. Sargent's sunny sitting room was a very busy place that Wednesday afternoon.
Four long sticks with their corners fastened together by wooden pegs, and placed on the backs of chairs, made a large frame in the center of the apartment. On this frame there were basted, first, some strips of pale blue cheesecloth sewed together, then cotton wadding was arranged evenly over this, and over all another large square of cheesecloth of dainty pink, was placed.
Now, I dare say that all you little readers know what this meant. It was a quilting-frame, of course, and the half-dozen ladies gathered around it were busily engaged in tying a comfortable; and, more-over, that same comfortable was to be sent to a good missionary out on our Western frontier.
There was a big box of other things to be sent, too—but never mind about them now; it is the pink and blue comfortable in which we are most interested.
Little Ruth Sargent was also interested in it. She wished that she were tall enough and nimble enough with her fingers to help fasten the pretty little tufts of white Saxony yarn that tied the comfortable....