WHAT CAME OF MINDING.
Two little boys with scowling faces stood before their mamma. She had told them she did not think it best for them to visit Neddie Tucker that day, so they began to pout and behave in a very naughty manner.
"Now," said Mrs. Gray, "I am going out for a ride. Be good boys, and amuse yourselves until I come back."
"What shall we do?" whined Harry.
"Play with the soldiers," answered mamma.
"They are nearly all broken," cried both the boys.
"Then put your cut-up pictures together."
"Three of the pieces are lost."
"Play with your building blocks, or your tops, or swing in the hammock, or roll your hoops in the garden."
"We are tired of all those."
“Then," said mamma, "I don't see anything for you to do but to be my good boys."
"The clouds vanished from Charlie's face, and throwing his arms around his mother's neck, he exclaimed, "Yes, mamma, I will be your good boy."
Not so with Harry. As soon as the carriage drove away, he began, to fret, and at last said to his brother, "Let's go over to Neddie's." Charlie opened his blue eyes very wide as he replied, "Why, Harry! Mamma said we could not go."
"Never mind; she will never know if we do go.
Come on, Charlie, I am going."
Charlie looked very sober. "No," he said firmly, "whatever you may do, I shall mind mamma."
Harry's hand was on the gate. At that moment he paused to draw his handkerchief from his pocket, and with it came a small Sabbath-school card, on which was printed in pretty letters, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." Harry put the card back in his pocket, and drew a long breath. "I came pretty near being naughty," he said. Half an hour later, Grandpa Gray drove up in his great farmwagon, and called to the boys: "I am glad you are here, for I can't stop three minutes. I have come to take you up to the farm to stay two weeks. I met your mother on the way, and she says you may go. Now fly around, for I am in a hurry."
"Aren't you glad you didn't disobey mamma?" whispered Charlie to his brother, after Grandma Gray had tucked them up in bed that night.
"I guess I am," replied Harry, earnestly.
"And I am going to always remember that verse,
whenever I am tempted to do what papa or mamma
would not be pleased with."
Kind Words.