"A PROFOUND SECRET."
"CAN you keep a secret, Daisy?" asked Nell Clay of her younger sister.
"Yes, indeed!" replied Daisy, trying to look dignified. Nell bent down and whispered something in Daisy's ear, to which Daisy clapped her hands, and cried, "O goody!"
"Remember, it's a profound secret," said sister Nell.
Daisy ran off to school, feeling very important, and overtook Conny Travers on the way.
"O Conny," she said, "I know something awful nice!"
"What is it?" asked Conny, opening her eyes very wide.
"Oh, I mustn't tell," said Daisy, screwing up her lips. "Sister Nell told me this morning. It's a profound secret."
"Oh, my!" said Conny. "Can't you tell just me!"
"Nell wouldn't like it."
"She wouldn't mind me," pleaded Conny.
"Wont you never, never, NEVER tell?" whispered Daisy.
"Never, 's long as I live!"
"Honest and true?"
"Truer'n steel!" declared Conny.
"Well, Sarah Bell's father is going to give her a piano for her birthday tomorrow, but they wouldn't have her know it for anything, until she comes home and finds it in the parlor."
"How splendid! " exclaimed Conny.
"It's a profound secret," said Daisy.
A few days later, Mrs. Bell called upon Mrs. Clay.
"I suppose Sarah was surprised and delighted about the piano," said the latter.
"She was delighted enough," was the reply,
"but she wasn't a bit surprised. She heard it at school."
"That Conny Travers must have told," said Daisy, indignantly, after Mrs. Bell had gone home.
"But who told Conny?" asked sister Nell.
"I did, but I didn't s'pose she'd be mean enough to tell."
"And I didn't think you would," replied Nell.
"Well, children," said Mrs. Clay, it's an old saying that 'if you can't keep your own secret, nobody else will keep it for you.' If you remember this, it will save a great deal of trouble."
"There's an older sentence that I like much better," said sweet Aunt Peace from her window.
"Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.'"
—The Myrtle.
GENTLE WORDS.
UPON the wall of the room in which an Association of Dairymen recently held their annual
meeting, was hung this motto,—
"Talk to your cow as you would to a lady."
It was a wise and kind man who wrote that
motto. He had learned the worth of gentle words,
and without doubt his horses and cattle are all
gentle. So true it is that even dumb animals
share the spirit of their master.
Some one has suggested that boys who have to
do with horses and cows should hang over the
stable and cow-shed these Hebrew proverbs :—
.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger."
"By long forbearing is a prince persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the bone."
Last summer we were walking about the pleasant grounds of a country house, when from the
barn, not far distant, we heard an angry voice, and a sound as of an animal kicking. The lady
looked distressed, and said,—
"I am afraid our boy is in trouble again with the cow. He will not treat her kindly, and we shall have to send him away, for we think too much of our pretty Alderney to have her ruined."
And so a boy who was sadly in need of a good home and kind friends, such as he might have had here, was in danger of losing his place because he would not remember that dumb animals have feeling, and should be treated accordingly.
Believe us, boys, and girls too, the "soft answer," and "soft tongue," have a wonderful charm.
You will try what they can do, will you not?
—Selected.