THAT BOY
AFTER the snow and the rain and the cold, our sidewalks are so slippery that it is a difficult thing to walk down the street, especially if the wind blows so hard that your feet can scarcely keep up with your body. So when I turned the corner on my way home yesterday, and saw on the next block a group of noisy boys, some on skates and some on sleds, I wondered how I should steer safely through them. But I soon forgot myself in watching an old lady who crept cautiously along a little way ahead of me. Surely, I thought, she cannot keep her footing among those shooting sleds and jumping boys; so I quickened my pace to come to the rescue.
Just as she neared the group, one of the wide-awake boys noticed her, and stepped forward, saying courteously, "Sha'n't I help you along? It's awful slippery here." I could not hear the old lady's answer, but she took the boy's arm; and with a manner as gentle as it was manly, he led her down the length of the block to the house on the other corner, and then rushed back into the thick of the frolic, as if nothing had happened.
This morning I rode with the doctor as he made the round of morning calls among his patients; and while I was sitting in the sleigh on B street, this same boy went running up the steps into the next house, carrying a bundle of neatly strapped books, his whole appearance wearing that unmistakable just-out-of-school air, which a boy unconsciously puts on when his lessons are recited. In a minute he rushed out with his skates in his hand; but before he was across the street, a sweet-faced lady came to the door, calling to him,-
"Charlie, my dear, do you know grandma has not come?"
"Well, mamma?" he said interrogatively, and yet as if he was in a great hurry to be off.
"What do you suppose is the reason, Charlie'" it's a fact, it is too slippery for her to step out; but I'm just going skating."'
"Wouldn't my boy enjoy his skating better if he made somebody happy before he starts?" The boy came back, and laying his skates on the doorstep, was going off "in a jiffy," when his mother detained him a moment. And If grandma is not quite ready, don't make her feel that you have anything else to do, but wait her convenience. She will not keep you more than five minutes, and when we do a little service for others, we must make it a pleasure for them to receive it."
Charlie scampered off, and in a short time appeared again, carefully guiding the steps of a bright-looking old lady, who leaned proudly on his arm, while he chatted gaily, and his boyish laugh told of the sweet confidence underlying his respect for her. Just then the doctor came out, and we drove off.
I had wondered not only at the thoughtful kindness so often lacking in heedless boyhood, but at the easy grace with which the thing was done.
But that glimpse of mother and grandmother revealed the secret. Boys who would not be intentionally rude, are often thoughtlessly so, or if they have an observant eye and kind heart, feel awkward in offering courtesies or rendering little services. The habitual exercise of a kind disposition, the everyday practice of politeness, is the only way in which a boy can acquire that unaffected ease and grace which make little attentions a pleasure to himself and others.
Christian Weekly.