IF I WERE YOU.
"THERE, Carrie," said grandma," if I were you, I wouldn't go whining about, fussing for something to do; but I'd do some of the many, many things that are all ready and waiting to be done by just such a little girl as you. When I see a bright, active little girl like you, I can hardly help wishing I could be little again; for when I look back, I see so many things I didn't do, that I might have done just as well as not."
"What things, grandma?" said Carrie.
"All sorts of things I might have done to help and cheer other people. Carrie, why do not you begin now, and try it? Then, when you get to be an old grandma like me, you won't have to look back and be sorry.
"How I wish that when I was a child and went to school, I had been on the lookout for kind things to do? There was Dinah Jones, a little black girl whom we used to tease. I wish I had been kind to her! I did not even say, Come, girls, don't let's tease Dinah.' Why didn't I give her an apple or a cookie once in a while? How her black eyes would have shone!
"Why didn't I think to let poor' Johnny Green take my sled once in a while? I can see him now, standing at the top of the hill, with his little cap drawn down over his white hair, shivering, as he watched us slide down, full of fun and frolic. No doubt his heart was aching all the time, because somebody did not give him a slide.
"Why didn't I give a smile or kind word, if nothing more, to forlorn Katie Snow and her sister, who got nothing but kicks and cuffs at home, and were coolly left out of all the good times everywhere?
"O child, it makes my heart ache now to think how many times I might have made a sad heart happy, and I let it go. Just think, if I had begun, when a little girl like you, to show a kindness every time I had a chance, and had kept on every day of my life since, what good I might have done?
"Begin now, and see if it doesn't pay. Help mother, help Jennie, amuse the baby; keep your eyes open on the street, at school, everywhere, and my word for it, you’ll find enough to do; and by and by you'll be glad enough you've done it."
"There are smiles to be given, kind deeds to be done,
Gentle words to be dropped by the way;
For the child that is seeking to follow the Lord,
There is something to do every day."
The Well-Spring.
THE best way to do good to ourselves is to do it to others; the right way to gather is to scatter.