Chapter III: Part 3

With all the dirt and carelessness and waste of the household, there was more real love and comfort within its walls than in many a fine house kept in the best manner. But then, Mary might have been just as good-natured without leaving the potato parings in a heap on the floor by the stove, and her Sunday gown in another heap on a chair for the cat and kittens to make a bed of, spoiling it more than a year's careful wear and putting away would have done.

Phil, however, was used to his mother's heaps, and did not mind them. Granny did mind, but she could not help herself, and did not let her daughter-in-law's ways make her unhappy for more than a few minutes at a time. Phil hung up the gown, picked up the potato skins and gave them to the cow, and then sat down to breakfast. Looking at his grandmother as he gave her her cup of tea, he saw that she had been crying.

"Has anything happened, granny?" he asked.

"No, dear; just nothing at all. I was thinking of old times, that's all. An old woman will have her thoughts."

"You are sure it isn't anything else? Have your pains come on again? Shall I go to the doctor for some medicine?"

"Well, you might just take the bottle down if you like. It's well to have it on hand; and as you go step into Mrs. Barnard's, and tell Mr. Regan I'd like to speak to him if he can spare the time to come round."

Phil made haste to finish his breakfast. He washed up the dishes, put the house to rights, and set within reach of granny's chair everything she was likely to want, that she might be spared the pain of moving. Then he washed his own face and hands, and "made himself decent" to go to the town.

He liked any business which took him down to Rockside, and he still better liked calling at Mrs. Barnard's. He was sure to meet the lady herself in her flower garden, and to have a kind word from her. He liked to walk down through the grounds, and peep through the windows of the green-house to see the strange and lovely flowers that grew there. All this was very pleasant.

Phil did not think of being envious or unhappy because none of these fine things belonged to him. It seemed to him quite natural that some people should have fine houses and gardens, and others should live in tumble-down houses, as at Irishtown, and have no gardens at all. He did his errand at the doctor's first, to make sure of finding him at home.

"Do you think granny will ever be well, sir?" he asked, when he had told the doctor just how granny was, and received directions to get the same medicine as before.

"Why, no, not well exactly," said the doctor, kindly. "You see granny is an old woman, and we can't make a mill to grind old people young again. But I presume that as the warm weather comes on, she will be much better, and be able to get about the house and out of doors once more."

Cheered by these words, Phil turned toward home. As he drew near a pretty little cottage on the street where the doctor lived, he saw a young lady come to the gate and empty a quantity of little folded papers from the pocket of her linen gardening apron into the road.

As she went back into the house, Phil stopped and picked up some of the papers to see what they were. They turned out to be little bags which had once held flower seeds. The young lady had planted most of the seeds, but as Phil felt the papers, he found that almost every one had three or four seeds left in it, and one, marked on the outside "Viola tricolor," was quite full, though it had been opened like the others.

"I wonder why did she throw that away?" said Phil to himself, as he stuffed the papers into his pocket and went on his way. "Maybe they wasn't a good kind. Anyhow, I mean to plant them and see what they turn out. There's the corner back of the cow-shed at the foot of the rock, where the wild flowers come out so early. There's a bit of a fence now, and I could mend it up with poles and things. Enough of those are lying round the place to fence an acre. I don't see why I shouldn't have a garden as well as any of them."

Phil's head was so full of his garden that he came near passing Mrs. Barnard's place without going in, but he recollected himself and hurried in at the gate. As he expected, Mrs. Barnard was at work among her flowers.

"Is that you, Phil?" she asked, pleasantly. "How is your granny?"

Phil answered the question, and then asked for Mr. Regan.

"Regan is in the green-house," was the answer; "you can go in and speak to him if you wish."

This was a pleasure Phil did not expect, though he had often longed to find himself within those curious glass walls. It was with great delight that he breathed the warm, damp, spicy smell of the green-house, filled with geraniums, roses, and all sorts of plants, some of which, Phil thought, must have come straight from Fairy-land.

"I'll step round this evening," said Regan, when Phil had delivered his message. "Did she say what she wanted of me?"

"No, sir, only that she wanted to spake to you. What a beautiful place! Shure, I'd like to be a gardener like yourself, Mr. Regan!"

"It's the sweetest trade and the wholesomest trade in the world, besides being the oldest," said Regan. "Adam was a gardener, you know."

"Adam got into lots of trouble, though," said Phil.

"Yes, through keeping bad company, and not minding his work. You can stay and help me a bit if you like; I'm full of business this morning."

Phil knew he could be spared for an hour longer at least, and the time passed very happily in handing Mr. Regan the large pots he wanted to use, and piling away the small ones.

"You're a handy boy," said the gardener. "Here, you may have this fine red geranium to carry home if you like. Take care of it, and you'll have flowers all summer."

Phil was delighted not only with the present but with the kindness, for Mr. Regan was a great man in his eyes. He ventured to ask a favor.

"Please, sir, would you tell me what kind of flowers these make?"

"Viola tricolor—Pansy," read Mr. Regan from the parcel Phil gave him. "Well, some of them are like this, and this," pointing out some plants growing in the cold frame outside the door. "There's a great many kinds of them. Where did you get them?"

"I found them in the street along with these others," said Phil, producing the rest of the parcels. "They've all got a few seeds in them, and I thought I'd try to plant them."

"Dig up your ground well and put in plenty of manure, not too new, and you're sure to have them grow, only be careful to make your soil fine enough. You get it ready and I'll take a look at it when I come round to-night, and show you how to plant the seeds."

"Granny," said Phil, when he had given his messages and the bottle of medicine, and told his grandmother how he had been employed, "can't I have a garden of my own? There's that warm bit behind the cowhouse, where the violets come so early. Why can't I dig it up and make a little garden?"

"There's nothing in life to hinder, if you want to do the work," answered granny. "Your father used to have a garden bit in that very spot, and raise radishes and what not. You'll find all his tools up in the garret if you want them. But the fence is all down, isn't it?"

"Not so but I can mend it up again," said Phil. "I didn't mean a real garden though—only a bed for flowers and maybe some radishes or the like. I can dig up the ground and mend the fence and plant my seeds before it's time to take the cow out, and then they'll be growing while we're sleeping. Mr. Regan said he'd show me how to plant the seed. I'd like to be a gardener when I'm grown-up, granny. I think it is so nice all among the trees and plants; better than working in the dusty, woolly carpet factory, or in the hat factory among the dyestuffs and smells."

"Thrue for you, dear; I'd like it better for ye. Them factories isn't very healthy, they say."

"And it's a good trade too," continued Phil. "Mr. Regan gets large wages I know, and Mrs. Barnard thinks everything of him."

"And well she may. There, go and dig in your garden if you like."

"Granny's got something on her mind," thought Phil as he climbed to the garret where he slept, and turned over a great heap of mostly useless lumber to find the tools he wanted. "I wonder what it is. Here's the things at last—spade, rake, and hoe—good luck to me. I'll want the hatchet too, so I'd best take it along."

Phil would have liked to go at once to digging, but his own common sense told him that there would be no use in making a garden for the neighbors' pigs to run over, so he set to work on the fence first. It was hard, tiresome work for one not very large boy, and more than once he was tempted to give it up. But the thought of his flower seeds and of what Mr. Regan would say gave him courage. He only stopped long enough to cook his own and granny's dinner, and by night he had made a pretty good fence and dug up part of his ground. It was the hardest day's labor of his life, but he felt rewarded when Mr. Regan looked over his work and declared that he had made a very good beginning.

"I'll give you a bit of a vine to run up on the rock here, and some morning-glories and scarlet beans. Oh! You'll have a fine garden if you take pains. But then you must remember that a garden is a thing that can't be just made and left. You've got to work at it every day, and pull up the weeds just as fast es they show themselves, or else they'll get ahead of you.

"Well, Mrs. O'Connor, I've looked at the cow all over, and I think I can in conscience advise Mrs. Barnard to take her at the price. She is a nice creature, and we know the stock she comes of. I'll let you know in two or three days."

"Why, granny, do you mean to sell the cow?" asked Phil, in great surprise.

He knew how much granny thought of Crummie, and with how much reason. Crummie was a nearly pure-blooded Jersey cow. Her mother had been given to granny many years before by a lady whom she had nursed in a very bad fever, and was of the best breed. Crummie might have been sold many times over, but granny had always refused to part with her.

"Well, yes, dear, I think I will," said granny. "You see what with me being helpless and your mother away all day, the poor thing don't get the best of care, and our milk customers is mostly fell off. I sha'n't be here long, anyhow, and I'd rather know she had a good home with a kind lady like Mrs. Barnard, than think she'd maybe grow old or go dry, and then be sold to a drover. And, besides, if there's no cow to tend, what will hinder your going to school? But don't you say a word till we see what the lady says. I don't want this one and that one coming and talking to me about it."

"But if you feel so bad about it," said Phil, seeing granny wipe her eyes.

"Oh, never mind that, my dear. I'd be hard-hearted not to feel bad for the poor creature that I brought up from a baby, as I might say. But she'll be real well off with Mrs. Barnard."

"She'll have an elegant stable," said Phil. "Their barn is nicer than many houses, and as neat as a new pin."

"It isn't the elegant stable I'm thinking of," said granny. "The Maberlys have got that and more, and it's not to them I'd be selling a cow of mine. It's the care and the kindness, and not the fineness, that makes cows happy as well as children. Come, get your book and read me a bit to cheer me up a little before I go to bed."

CHAPTER THIRD.

THE WEEDS.

IN two or three days' time the bargain was completed about the cow. Mrs. Barnard paid a good price for her, and Phil went with Mr. Regan, at his granny's desire, to put the money in the savings bank at Rockside. He was also allowed to lead Crummie to her new home, and give her her first meal in the fine cowhouse.

The poor thing was very unhappy and homesick at first, and lowed so pitifully when Phil left her that he had to go into the barn and cry a little.

"Don't you grieve, little boy," said John, the coachman. "She'll soon be wonted and as happy as ever she was."

"I know it," answered Phil, wiping away his tears; "but you see I've known her so long, and tended her every day since I was old enough."

"And that's true, and I don't blame you for not liking to part with her. But look here, didn't I hear your granny was wanting a cat?"

"Yes, sir. Our old gray died two or three days ago."

"Well, you may have your pick of these, or take two if you want them," said John, showing Phil an empty manger where some kittens by sleeping all coiled up in a warm, furry heap. "Maybe you'd better take two. They will be company for each other, and you can give one away when they grow older."

Phil was delighted. He chose a tabby, and a black kit with a white nose and white feet.

"When can I take them?" he asked.

"Now, if you like. The cat has weaned them so they won't miss her. That is the way to have a nice, clean, useful cat, to let the mother bring them up herself."

"Shure, it stands to reason she would know best," said Phil, admiring and stroking the kittens, while John hunted up a basket to put them in. "Won't granny be pleased though? She says the house don't seem like home without a cat in it."

Granny was as much pleased as Phil had hoped she would be. The two kits soon made themselves at home, and were as happy and playful as possible.

It was now settled that Phil was to go to school, but he was obliged to wait till he could get some new clothes, his old ones being quite unfit. Even his Sunday suit was growing shabby, and it was decided that he should take this into every-day wear, while on Saturday his mother would go with him to the village and buy him an entire new suit with some of the money that had come from the sale of the cow.

Meantime, Phil worked in his garden and got it all in nice order. He had seen how Mr. Regan planted his seeds, putting down a flower-pot to mark an exact ring, and then marking a little trench for the seeds more or less deep according to their size. He made the mould very fine and picked out all the stones, just as his friend had done; for Phil not only had bright eyes to see, but good brains behind them to think and remember.

He had at last sowed all his seeds, and stood, looking at the ground with great delight, when he was startled by hearing granny's voice. The old woman was getting better with the warm weather, as the doctor had said she would, and she had crept out, with the help of her cane, to see what Phil was about.

"It's a nice little garden you've made, dear. And what have you got planted in all these places?"

"Flower seeds, granny—the seeds I picked up in the street, you know—and some morning-glories and scarlet runners that Mr. Regan gave me. This bed is the pansy seed. I'll have a lot of them, the bag was full."

"I'm not just clear about them seeds," said granny; "I mistrust you ought to have gone in and asked the young lady did she mean to throw them away."

Phil was a little vexed. He had "mistrusted" the same thing himself more than once; but then he wanted so very much to see what the flowers would be like.

"Anyhow, we can't help it now, they are in the ground," said he. "Mr. Regan said maybe she didn't think they were a good kind. The gentlemen and ladies are very particular what they have in their gardens. Mr. Regan was looking at the daisies he had in a 'cold frame,' he called it, the day I was up to see the cow. There was a good many that had a little bit of yellow in the middle. I thought they were as pretty as any, but he said he should only plant out the double ones, and I might have as many of the others as I liked. I'm going down to get them this very day. Haven't I made the fence good and tight? I put that bush at the top so the chickens couldn't fly over. See, the morning-glories and runners are planted down here, so when they grow they can run all over it."

"And that's a good plan too. But if you are going so far, you might step on to the village and get me some more medicine. The last did me a deal of good. There's fifty cents to pay for it, and you may have the change for yourself."

Phil undertook the errand with a very good will. He left his basket at Mrs. Barnard's, and went down town. Mr. Ryan, the nurseryman, had just brought in a wagon load of blossoming plants, and Phil stopped to look at them. They were geraniums, verbenas, plants with red and yellow and dark brown leaves like velvet, and a great many more of what are called "bedding-out plants."

A lady was also looking at the plants, and Phil listened with great interest to hear what she and Mr. Ryan were saying, as she took up one and another.

"Are all these hardy?" asked the lady.

"Oh yes, ma'am. These are all bedding-out plants. This coleus is new, and one of the finest we have."

"How much do they cost?"

"From a dollar to a dollar and a half a dozen," was the answer. "From twelve to fifteen cents each, if we sell them singly."

The lady selected a few of the plants, saying she would look over her list and see what more she needed. She then asked for some flower seeds, and followed Mr. Ryan into the shop. Phil stood looking at the plants. Oh, if he could only have even one of those lovely velvety-leaved things! He knew just where he could set it, and how beautiful it would be all summer long, But fifteen cents! He had not so much in the world. Granny had said he might have the change from the fifty-cent piece, but that would be only five cents.

Suppose he should not pay for the medicine. He knew Mr. Eddy, at the drug store, would trust him, because he had done so before when granny was so sick. Then he could buy two or three plants of various kinds. But what would granny say when she knew it? She was, as Mr. Regan said, "honest as daylight," and nothing vexed her so much as a debt. She had more than once scolded his mother for buying even such things as sugar and tea on credit, and had declared that she would sell her place and go to the hospital or almshouse sooner than run into debts which she might never be able to pay.

"She need never know it!" whispered the tempter in Phil's ear. "You can earn the money somehow and pay the bill at the druggist's. You can save the money off your new clothes and pay it that way. You can tell her Mr. Regan gave you the plants."

"She's sure to speak about it the first time she sees him," said Phil to the tempter.

"She is old and forgetful," answered the tempter. "Come, you had better buy the plants now. They will be gone by Saturday perhaps, and then you will be sorry. Come, let us at least go in and ask the price. That can do no harm."

That is the way the tempter almost always acts. "That can do no harm," he says. "Let us just go a step further," and so he leads people on, till the way down hill grows so steep that they need no more leading, but run head-long down.

Phil followed the tempter into Mr. Ryan's shop, and then all at once he saw who had been leading him, and what he had been going to do. What was it that opened his eyes so suddenly? Just the sight of Miss Isabel in her pretty gray dress and India striped shawl, the very dress she had worn on Sunday, buying seeds at the counter. Just the sight of her made Phil open the eyes of his conscience and see what he was going to do. What would Miss Isabel think? What would his heavenly Father think?

"Miss Isabel won't know," said the tempter, making a last effort.

"But God will," said Phil, and then the tempter went away for that time.

"Why, Philip, is this you?" said Miss Isabel kindly. "How do you do, and how is you grandmother this fine weather?"

Phil answered her questions, and then yen. Lured to ask one for himself.

"Please, Miss Isabel, what kind of seeds can I buy for five cents that will make sweet-smelling flowers?"

"Why, let me see. You might have mignonette, or sweet alyssum, or sweet peas."

"Is it sweet peas that are so many different colors—pink and white and purple?" asked Phil eagerly.

"The very same. I think you will like them best. Mr. Ryan, how many sweet peas can you afford to give this little boy for five cents?"

"Oh, quite a good handful," said Mr. Ryan, taking a little bag and filling it from a drawer that stood open. "There, that will make you a fine row, and very nice ones they are. Only if you want plenty of new flowers, you must keep cutting the old ones. Flowers mostly, madam, are like the riches of the man in the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' perhaps you remember:

"'A man there was, though some did count him mad,
The more he cast away, the more he had.'"

"True," said Miss Isabel. "So you have a garden, Philip. I must come and see it some day."

Phil paid for his seeds, and after buying his granny's medicine, he went on his way home. Perhaps you think the tempter let him alone after being defeated. Not at all. All the way home, he kept whispering, "How silly you were! You might just as well have bought the plants as not. Nobody would have known it." And Phil was just silly enough to listen to him, and let himself be put out of humor.

The daisies with which Mr. Regan filled his basket were just as pretty as they had been before, but somehow they looked like mean little weeds compared to the plants he had seen at Ryan's. He almost thought he would not set them out at all. He looked at the plants in the green-house and stopped to watch Mr. Anderson's gardener planting the odd-shaped flower beds in the lawn, and thought how small and rough his own little garden looked by the side of this grand place; why the very bed the gardener was filling with red geraniums was larger than his whole garden. What was the use of poor people trying to do anything?

It was in a very bad humor that Phil arrived at home, and found granny sitting on the bench in the sunshine. She exclaimed over the daisies; they were just such as used to grow in the old country, she said, and the sight of them warmed her very heart.

"'Twas very kind, entirely, to give them to you," said she.

"No such great kindness," answered Phil, rather shortly; "he was going to throw them away if I hadn't taken them. But I suppose they are good enough for poor folks."

"It's likely they are, seeing who made them," answered the old woman, quietly. "Who did you see down town?"

"Nobody but Miss Isabel. Has any one been here?"

"Yes, Horace Maberly. His mother wants Mary to go up and help the cook Saturday. It's a grand dinner they are to have."

"Just so she can't buy my new clothes!" said Phil. "It is just my luck. Everything goes wrong that I want to do."

"Take care it isn't yourself that's going wrong," said granny. "It is in a bad humor you are this afternoon. What's happened to you?"

Phil turned away without reply, and taking up his basket went to his garden. As he turned round the corner of his house, he started and ran as fast as he could go. The little gate which he had contrived with so much pains and fastened with so much care was open. An old hen and a flock of chickens were scratching in the fine newly-turned dirt, and a white goat, which belonged to a neighbor, was just cropping off the head of his beautiful geranium.

Now it is really one of the most vexatious things in the world to have a neighbor's hens come in and scratch up one's flower garden. I know, because I have tried it a great many times. Still I don't think Phil would have sworn as he did if he had not been listening to those whispers of the tempter all the morning. Nor would he have pounded the poor little nanny-goat, who did not know any better, with such a big stick; for he was very far from being a cruel boy, and he had not sworn for a long time before—not since he had been in Miss Isabel's class.

He drove the animals out, pelting them with stones, laming two or three of the poor little downy chicks, and killing one outright. It was this last act which brought him to his senses a little. He picked the chicken up and looked at it. The poor thing was not quite dead, and as he held it in his hand, it opened the little round eyes which had just been so bright, and looked at him as he thought with a glance of reproach, made a piteous little peeping noise, and then its eye grew dim and filmy, its little feet curled up—it was dead.

Phil stopped swearing, sat down on a stone, and cried as if his heart would break—partly for the chicken, partly for his garden. He did not despise it any more. Now that it was spoiled as he thought, it seemed to him that nothing could be more precious than the little bit of ground on which he had worked so hard. And then he was so sorry for the chicken. How pretty it was, and how happy! It did not know that it was doing anything wrong, and now he had killed it. And he had hurt the poor little white nanny-goat too. It limped as it ran away. As if that would bring back his geranium!

"What is it, dear?" said granny. She had heard the noise, and hobbled round the house to see what was the matter, and was surprised and alarmed when she saw the state Phil was in.

"What's the matter, dear?" she repeated as Phil did not answer. "What has happened to make you cry so?"

Phil pointed to the garden.

"Oh, what a pity! What is it that's done it—the chickens?"

"The chickens and that white goat of Ryan's," answered Phil. "But they couldn't have got in unless somebody had left the gate open."

"Maybe the goat opened it: they're full of cunning, them goats."

"She couldn't," answered Phil. "It was fastened with a wire as tight as it could be. I don't see who would have done such a mean thing."

"She's a troublesome beast, that same white goat," said granny. "I'd complain of her only she's all the dependence they have for the sickly baby that has no mother, poor thing! But there, don't cry." For Phil was crying harder than ever. "See, here's your best bed they haven't touched at all."

Phil looked. It was true. The pansies had quite escaped. That was some comfort. Perhaps they had not dug up quite all the seeds in the other beds, though they had thrown down the sticks with their labels, so that he would never know which was which. That did not matter so much if only the plants grew. But then his geranium! Nothing could help that.

"I may as well pull it up and throw it away," said he, when he had made all neat again and planted his sweet peas. "I can't bear to see the poor thing."

"I wouldn't," said granny, who had sat on a stone in the sun watching Phil at his work. "Maybe 'twill come out again. I've seen the gardeners cut them down as close as that, and they grew all the better. Just tread down the soil around it and give it some water. You mustn't be so easy discouraged, dear. Sure everything has hitches in it sometimes."

"My things are all hitches I think," said Phil.

Granny did not reason with Phil just at that time. She saw that his heart was as full as it could hold, and she was a wise woman, though she could not read a word. There is a great deal of wisdom which does not of books. She coaxed Phil to go into the woods and see if he could not cut her a longer cane, as the end of hers was worn off.

"And maybe you'll find a pretty five-leaf vine to plant at the end of your garden and run up on the rocks. Not the three-leaved mind: that's poison, and will make your hands and face swell. And some of those brakes would look pretty growing in with your flowers."

"Mr. Regan has them I know," said Phil. "Well, granny, I'll get you your cane and the vine too, if I can find one. But it's no use: poor folks can't have anything."

"You just put that notion right out of head, Phil O'Connor," says granny severely, "It's envy makes you say that, and it's one of the devil's own weeds, worse than the three-leaved poison vine that spoils all it touches. Don't the poor have the blessed sunshine, and the sight of the trees and green fields, and all the fine things that God has made for all alike? Don't we have a roof over our heads, and plenty to eat and drink and wear? And don't you have the best of teaching on Sundays, and as good a chance to learn as anybody? Put all that out of your head if you don't want it to poison everything for you. It's an ill weed, and no plant of grace ever throve where it grew."

CHAPTER FOURTH.

FLOWERS.

AS I said, granny was a wise woman, though she could not write her own name or read it when it was written. She knew that there was no use in talking to Phil while his mind was so worked up and troubled with the misfortune to his garden.

"Sure it was enough to vex a saint," said she to herself, "but when the boy gets away from the sight of his trouble into the woods, and sees all the pretty things growing, he'll be diverted, and feel better, and then he'll be ready to hear reason. It's a real turn he has for the gardening, and as soon as he learns to write and gets a bit more learning in figures, I'll get Mr. Regan to look him up a place with some nurseryman or gardener where he can learn the trade—that's what we'll do. Pusheen!"

Granny always talked to animals as if they could understand every word. Pusheen (that was the name of the tabby kitten) looked very wise and solemn for just about half a minute, and then made a dive after Silvertoe's tail. Silvertoe was the name of the black kitten, but Phil called her Tozy "for short."

Granny was right. Phil walked on pretty fast till he came to the woods. They were such woods as some of my little readers have never seen—steep and full of gray mossy ledges of rock which seemed to stand straight up on their edges like books in a bookcase, while here and there were piled great loose rocks as big as houses. On these grew little clumps of white flowers called rock saxifrage, and tufts of red and yellow columbines nodding their pretty heads with every breeze, and sprawling ugly prickly pears which were just beginning to get the winter wrinkles out of their faces and to look as pleasant as the poor things knew how.

The ground in some places was white with anemones, and in others blue with violets. The ferns were sticking up their curly frizzy heads, and long wreaths and sprays of the evergreen ferns were lying on the moss beds, all the prettier for the cold weather they had been through. Birds of different kinds were singing in the branches, and the cat-bird was making fun of them all.

It was not easy for Phil to keep cross long at any time, and as he looked about him and breathed the sweet smell of the evergreens and other growing things, he almost forgot his troubles. "Almost," but not quite. He could not forget what wicked words he had used, nor how cruelly he had hurt the poor goat. He had a pain in his conscience, and that is the worst pain that I know anything about; but it has the advantage of other pains, because there is a cure for it which never fails.

Phil found a cane without any trouble, a very nice one with a natural crook for a handle. He knew that he might have it, for Mr. Anderson, to whom the woods belonged, had told him to get a cane for granny whenever she needed a new one. Then he began to look for a vine, which he also found without much trouble, for the woods were full of them. He dug it up carefully with as long a root as possible, and wrapped it in a paper which he had brought on purpose, that the roots need not get dry.

"What lovely flowers?" said he as he looked around him. "I mean to pick a good large bunch to take home. Granny always says it does her good to see them. And I will carry some to Matty Mehan too. Poor thing! She can't get away from the house and the baby for an hour's pleasure, let alone a day's."

Now Matty Mehan was the owner of the goat which had eaten Phil's geranium. She was the oldest girl in a family of four children. Her mother was dead; her father was away at his work all day, and Matty had to do the housework, look after the little ones, and take care of the poor sickly baby, which had never thriven since its mother died. The poor thing was thin as a little skeleton, and cried till the neighbors were tired of hearing it.

"It would be a good thing if the poor child were taken too," they said, but Matty did not think so.

She loved the little pale thin creature, that was hardly larger than a doll, though it was six months old, and she often wished she had nothing to do but to tend it. Bridget, her sister, was a good-natured little thing, but she was not old enough either to be trusted with the baby or to do the work. However, she helped Matty before and after school, and was always pleasant and good-natured, even when poor tired Matty was rather cross and unreasonable.

When Phil came down to the Mehan house, which was more properly a shanty than a house, he found Matty at the door stroking the white goat, while it ate some beans out of a pail.

"Just see here, Phil, how somebody has hurt our goat," said she, before Phil had time to speak. "Isn't it a shame? I'm afraid her leg is broken."

Phil felt his face turn scarlet as he bent down and carefully felt the goat's leg.

"Oh no, it isn't broken," said he, trying to speak cheerfully. "I dare say it will be quite well in a few days. See what a fine bunch of flowers I have brought you."

"Oh how lovely!" exclaimed Matty, who loved flowers as well as did Phil himself. "But won't you rob yourself?"

"I got them on purpose for you," said Phil. "I knew you couldn't get away. How's little Patsy?"

"I think he's a little better, poor dear," said Matty, looking tenderly at the thin little mite. "He don't cry so much, and he eats more. I'm sure I don't know what we shall do if the goat gets sick, for he won't touch any milk but hers. I don't see who could be so wicked as to hurt her."

All at once Phil resolved to make a clean breast of it.

"Well, to tell you the truth, Matty, 'twas myself that did it, but I didn't mean to—"

"Oh, Phil! How could you?"

"Well, you see, Mr. Regan gave me a fine geranium, and when I came home she was just eating off the head of it, and 'twas kind of provoking, you see."

"What made you leave the plant in the poor thing's way then?" said Matty. "You know 'tis the beast's nature to eat every such thing. And now I dare say she'll die," exclaimed Matty, bursting into tears, "and then my dear precious little Patsy will die too, and you'll be just a murderer, Phil O'Connor, as bad as King Herod that killed the innocents."

Phil felt that this was unreasonable in Matty. The goat was not much hurt after all, and not in the least likely to die; and even if she did, there was a good deal of difference between killing several little babies on purpose and hurting a troublesome goat more than one meant. But then Matty was tired, and anxious about poor Patsy, and it was no wonder she was cross when she never had a bit of real rest, much less fun, from one week's end to another. I say he felt this. We often feel in an instant things it would take a long time to think.

"Oh come, Matty dear, 'tisn't so bad as that," said he; "Nanny isn't going to die—she'll be as well as ever to-morrow. I'm real sorry I hurt her so, but then you see 'twas vexing to have my only flower eaten up as cool as if it had been an old stump of cabbage. Come now, let me take Patsy and carry him about a little. See how he puts out his arms to me, the dear. Yes, he will come to Phil, won't he?"

Matty could not help relenting when she saw the poor baby stop its wailing, smile, and put out its hands to Phil, who took it carefully in his arms.

"I do believe he remembers you," said she. "I'll just put on the kettle for daddy's tea, and put my flowers in water, and then I must mend Bridget's frock decent for the sewing-school to-morrow."

"I'll tend him while you do it," said Phil, whose heart began to feel a good deal lighter.

He walked up and down, or sat on the seat by the door, crooning a song till the poor little baby fell fast asleep and had a good nap.

"Thank you ever so much; he'll be quiet now," said Matty. "Just lay him in his cradle. And, Phil, I'm sorry I said what I did."

"Oh, never mind; it didn't signify," answered Phil. "Do you mean to go to Sunday-school?"

"I can't get away, but I learn my lessons all the same," said Matty. "'Tis a beautiful Golden Text we have this week: 'If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another' (1 John 4:11). He gave his Son to die for us, and that's the way we are to be saved. Well, good-by, Phil, and thank you for the flowers, and for tending Patsy."

Phil planted his vines, and then went into the house, where he found his mother.

"You've been gone a long time," said she.

"I went to carry Matty Mehan some flowers, and then stayed to tend Patsy a bit," said Phil.

"Oh well, you're right to help the poor thing when you can," said his mother, who with all her careless ways was very kindhearted. "I think I'll go up to-morrow when I've done our own washing and wash their bits of clothes for them. But now look on granny's bed and see what fine clothes I brought you from Mrs. Barnard's the day, as good as new, and better than any new you would get at the store."

Phil took up the clothes and looked at them one by one. There was an entire suit, good as new, and, as his mother said, of better fashion and material than any he could afford to buy.

"They look as if they'd just come out of the store," said he in wonder. "Why did she give them away?"

"She said Mr. Cornelius had outgrown them—he grows like a vine in the spring—and she told me herself she had saved them for Phil, because she had heard from Miss Isabel that he was such a good boy."

Phil blushed to the top of his hair as he thought, "Miss Isabel wouldn't say so if she knew how I had sworn at the chickens and hurt the goat, and how I wanted to steal granny's money. Oh dear, if only I hadn't done it!"

He tried on the clothes and found that they fitted very well. They were somewhat large, but that was a "good fault," as granny said, since he was growing very fast.

"So now Phil is fixed for clothes," said granny, "and, Mary dear, you can take the money and buy yourself a new gown for summer."

"Oh, I shall do very well a while yet," said Mary pleasantly. "You need one more than I do."

Phil finished his supper, did up all the chores, and paid a last visit to his garden to see that all was right. As he did so his eyes fell on something half buried in the soft mould. He took it up. It was a handsome pearl-handled knife, with several blades and a corkscrew, and on the handle was a silver plate with the letters H. M. Phil knew the knife, which he had often seen in Horace Maberly's hands. He had evidently used it in opening the gate.

So Horace had left the gate open. Phil's blood tingled with anger again, but he stamped his foot and clenched his teeth so that not a word came through. He put the knife in his pocket, and getting out his Bible, he sat down in his favorite corner to learn his Sunday-school lesson. He looked up the Golden Text, though he had it on his "lesson paper," for he liked to read the verses which came before and after. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another" (1 John 4:10, 11).

Phil did not know the exact meaning of all the long words, but he knew what Christ had come to do, to die for sinners that they might be saved. God loved us so well as that! And "if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."

It is a very great thing when any person comes to know that God loves him—himself—despite all his faults and foolishness. It is too great a thing to put into any words of mine. It helps to make the hardest tasks easy and the heaviest burdens light, to conquer the worst sins and make us long to forgive those who have done us the most harm. And more than that, there is nothing which makes any one feel so little in his own eyes as the conviction that the great and wise and perfectly lovely God loves him.

So Phil felt. Oh how wicked and ungrateful and stupid he had been! How he had taken that holy name in vain, and insulted that one who loved him, even him, all the time! Phil went away up into a dark corner among the rocks, where two great slabs had fallen together so as to make a kind of little cave, into which he could just squeeze himself, though there was plenty of room to turn round and sit down when he got in. It had been a favorite playing place of his, and he liked it all the better because nobody else seemed to know of it. He crept into this little cave and knelt down.

There are, as you know, places on the railroad called switches, where two tracks come together. By means of a curious contrivance, a train of cars may be shifted from one track to the other. The two tracks are close together at first. You can hardly tell the difference. But the switchman puts down his lever, and the rail is moved a little tiny bit, and presently the train which would perhaps have gone to New York is flying toward Philadelphia, and the two tracks are growing farther and farther apart all the time.

There are just such places in people's lives. The lives which were going one way get what seems a very little push, and their whole course is altered. The life which might have gone right is turned wrong, and the life which seemed going to ruin is turned into the right track.

Phil had come to one of these switches this very afternoon. He had taken the right turn, and his whole life was going to be made the better by it.

CHAPTER FIFTH.

THE FRUIT.

ON Sunday morning Phil set out for school dressed in his new clothes, with a clean shirt on, and his face and hair polished with extra care. He had his Bible in his hand, and in his pocket Horace Maberly's knife, which he meant to give him after school. He was quite early, and finding that nobody had come to church but the sexton, he chose a shady place behind the cedar hedge and sat down to look at his lesson once more. As he was thus sitting, he heard voices on the other side of the hedge.

"You ought to have heard him swear," said a voice which he knew to be Horace's. "The way he ripped out the big words! I only wish Miss Isabel had been there to hear her pattern boy."

"And I wish she had been there to see you, and somebody else with a good thick boot on," said another voice, John Drayton's. "I never heard of a meaner trick in my life—to turn a goat into another boy's garden."

"And a poor boy at that," said Henry Merton. "Phil thinks so much of flowers too. I've seen him go down on his knees and fairly worship a geranium or verbena."

"Garden—much of a garden! One of my father's hotbeds is bigger than the whole of it."

"What of that? It was all he had, and he thought all the more of it," said Harry, whose father was as rich as Mr. Maberly, and had beautiful grounds and gardens.

"Well there, you needn't make such a fuss," said Horace, who began to be sorry he had said anything, when he saw what the other boys thought of him. "I'll pay the little beggar for it, only I don't want him to know I did it. Those people are so revengeful, he might set our barn on fire."

This was a little more than Phil could stand. He jumped up and went forward so as to meet the boys at the gate.

"Here's your knife, Horace," said he, holding out the knife and speaking quite steadily. "You dropped it in my garden, and I found it."

Horace looked blank for a minute, and then broke into a sneering laugh.

"Oh ho, Paddy! So you were listening, were you? Just like your sort of people. You needn't look so mad. Here's money enough to pay for your beggarly old garden ten times over."

Phil dropped the bill which Horace had thrust into his hand, into a puddle which last night's rain had left at the gate, and walked into the church without a word.

"Served you right, you snob," said John.

"Well, I think he might have taken the money, so long as he is not too proud to wear Neil Barnard's old clothes. I knew them the minute I saw them."

"It's one thing to take a present given in kindness, and another thing altogether to take it when it is thrown in your face," said Harry. "You think you can do just what you like because you are rich; but there are some things money won't buy. Poor as he is, Phil is a better gentleman than you are."

"See if I don't tell Miss Isabel of him, anyway," said Horace.

"Do, and I'll tell her of you. Come, boys, let's go into school."

Phil was sitting quietly in his place When the boys went in. They all spoke kindly to him except Horace, who felt very mean and very angry.

Horace had not had much chance to learn to be a good boy. He was the only son of a very foolish, uneducated father and mother, who spoiled him in every way, and made him think he was a person of very great consequence. Mr. and Mrs. Maberly thought and talked of nothing but money. They valued things for what they cost, and always told the price of everything to their visitors. It was quite natural, therefore, that Horace should do the same. Moreover, Horace had all his life been allowed to do any piece of mischief that came into his head; to torment cats, and dogs, and horses, and everything that fell in his way.

"He had such spirits," his mother said, "and bright boys are always full of mischief—" a very great mistake, by the way.

But Mr. Maberly was at last beginning to think that Horace was rather too full of mischief, especially since he had utterly spoiled a valuable horse which he had taken out without leave and then wantonly and cruelly over-driven. The horse would never be good for anything again.

"It is a dead loss of a thousand dollars," Mr. Maberly said to Horace, angrily. But he never uttered a word about the disobedience, nor about the cruelty to the horse.

Brought up in this way, it was perhaps no great wonder that Horace should think it good fun to let the goat and hens into Phil's garden, and then watch behind a rock to see what he would do and say.

Despite that Golden Text and the prayer behind the rock, Phil found it very hard to forgive. He felt that Horace had done him a wanton injury, and the way in which he had sought to pay for it only made matters worse. If Horace had only said he was sorry! But then it was plain to be seen he was not sorry. And yet he knew that he must forgive, or God would not forgive him.

"I mean to ask Miss Isabel after school," said he to himself, and this was in itself a victory, though Phil did not know it. It was a great thing for him to wish to forgive, and to try to find out the way to do so, for Phil, like almost all boys of his age, was very shy of talking about his feelings.