THE MIST ON THE MOUNTAIN.
I WAS once stopping at a friend's house. He and myself were talking in the parlor, when his little girl came in, and said, "O papa, I don't want to knit this stocking; I don't want to begin. It looks so tiresome."
A few minutes afterward his little boy came in and said, "O papa, I don't want to add up this great large sum. It looks so big. I don't want to begin."
My friend did not speak in a cross way to his children, but he only said, "Emma and Walter, would you like to hear a story?" "O yes, indeed," cried both the little ones. Emma threw down her knitting, and Walter's slate went flying into the corner.
"Some years ago," said Mr. Roundly, "I was traveling in the White Mountains with a companion who had been there before. We stopped a certain night at a hotel, and my friend said that he desired to remain there three or four days, because there were some fine mountain scenes which he wished me to see. So the next morning he awoke me early, and said, 'Come, let us be off on our tramp. There is the first mountain. You and I must climb to the top of that today.' I was surprised. The mountain seemed to stand almost straight up and down. 'No,' said I, 'no indeed; you don't catch me trying to get up there. Why, we would not go far before we would begin to slip down again. No indeed! "Oh come!' said my friend. But he could not persuade me. At last, the next day, to please him, I started out, although I told him that I would not know how to commence climbing such a high mountain. We went up and up. The walk did not seem very tiresome, and I said, 'How soon will we begin to mount the highest part?" Why, we are mounting now,' said my friend, 'and are nearly at the top.' At the top,' said I. 'Yes, indeed, and here we are.' As he spoke, a glorious view burst upon us. Our hotel seemed a little speck in the distance far below.
'Is it possible?' I exclaimed. The banks of mist around the brow of the mountain had made it look taller and steeper than it really was. But when we once bravely commenced to go up, we found the difficulties vanish."
As my friend ceased, he looked at his two children. "Do you understand the meaning of my story, Emma and Walter ?"
"O yes, we do, papa," cried both in one voice.
"Yes," said Emma, "and I will go to work at my knitting. It will not be so hard after I begin."
"And I," said Walter, "will go at my sum."
If we take hold of every duty in life with a strong will, it gets easier and easier.
—S. S. World