LITTLE BY LITTLE.
WHEN Charlie woke up one morning and looked from the window, he saw that the ground was deeply covered with snow. The wind had blown it in great drifts against the fence and the trees.
Charlie's little sister Rosey said it looked like hills and valleys. On the side of the house nearest the kitchen the snow was piled higher than Charlie's head. Mamma said she did not know how black Aunt Patsey could get through it to bring in the breakfast.
"There must be a path cleared through this snow," said papa. "I would do it myself, if I had time. But I must be at my office early this morning." Then he looked at Charlie. "Do you think you could do it, my son?" "I, papa! Why, it is higher than my head!
How could a little boy like me melt a path through that deep snow?"
"Ho? Why, by doing it little by little.
Suppose you try; and if I find a nice path cleared when I come home to dinner, you shall have the sled you wished for."
So Charlie got his wooden snow-shovel and set to work. He threw up first one shovelful, then another; but it was slow work. "I don't think I can do it, mamma," he said. "A shovelful is so little, and there is such a heap of snow to be cleared away!"
"Little by little, Charlie," said his mamma.
"That snow fell in tiny bits, flake by flake, but you see what a great pile it has made."
"Yes, mamma; and if I throw it away shovelful by shovelful, it will all be gone at last. So I will keep on trying." Charlie soon had a space cleared from the snow, and as he worked on, the path grew longer. By-and-by it reached quite up to the kitchen door.
It looked like a little street between snow-white walls.
When papa came home to dinner, he was pleased to see what his little boy had done. Next day he gave Charlie a fine blue sled, and on it was painted its name, in yellow letters,
"Little by Little."
The boys all wanted to know how it came to have such a name. And when they learned about it, I think it was a lesson to them as well as to Charlie.—
Our Little Ones.