EMMA L. BURNETT.

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A MISSIONARY TWIG.

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CHAPTER I.

EDITH TRIES TO EXPLAIN.

“I do think Edith is the queerest girl I ever saw in all my life!” said Marty Ashford.

“Don't jump up and down behind my chair that way, Marty,” said her mother; “you shake me so that I can scarcely hold my needle. What does Edith do that is so queer?”

“Oh, she's always putting ten into things.”

“Putting ten into things?”

“Yes'm. I mean when she gets any money she always says ten will go into it so many times, and then she takes a tenth of it—you know we learn about tenths in fractions at school—and goes and puts it in a blue box she has.”

“I should call that taking ten out of things.”

“Well, whatever it is, that's what she does.[Pg 6] Every time she gets ten cents she puts one cent in her blue box.”

“What does she do if she only gets five cents?”

“Oh, she keeps it very carefully till she gets another five, and then she takes her tenth out of it. And would you believe it, when we were all at Asbury Park last summer—”

“Marty,” interrupted her mother, “can't you tell me just as well sitting still? You fidget so that you make me dreadfully nervous. Can't you sit still?”

“I don't believe I can, but I'll try real hard,” said Marty, crowding herself into Freddie's little rocking-chair and clasping her arms around her knees, as if to hold herself still.

“Well, what about Asbury Park?” Mrs. Ashford asked.

“Why, when we were at Asbury Park and Edith's father was going to New York, he gave her a whole dollar to do what she pleased with. Now you know it would be the easiest thing in the world to spend a dollar there. I could spend it just as easy as anything.”

“I dare say you could,” said Mrs. Ashford, laughing.

“And any way you know it was vacation, and even if you save tenths other times you oughtn't to feel as if you must do it in vacation.[Pg 7] But Edith had to go and get her dollar changed and put ten cents of it in the old blue box.”

“So she would not take a vacation from her tenths?”

“No, indeed. And the other day when her uncle from Baltimore was here, he gave her fifty cents, and it would just pay for a perfectly lovely paintbox that she wants; but she couldn't buy it because five cents of the fifty was tenths; and now she'll have to wait till she gets some more money.”

“What does she do with all the money in the blue box?” Mrs. Ashford inquired.

“Oh, she gives it to some mission-band!” replied Marty in a tone of disgust.

“Is that the mission-band Miss Agnes Walsh wanted you to join?”

“Yes, ma'am; but I didn't want to take up my Saturdays going to a thing like that, I'd rather play.”

“Let me see,” said Mrs. Ashford, “what is the name of that band?”

“Missionary Twigs,” replied Marty. “Funny kind of a name, isn't it?”

Then presently she said, “I don't think Edith always takes the tenths out fair; for when her grandma was away lately for six days she paid Edith three cents a day for watering her plants, and of course that was eighteen cents.[Pg 8] So the tenth was a good deal over one cent and not quite two, and yet Edith put two cents of it away.”

“I think that was more than fair.”

“Well, I suppose it was,” Marty admitted. She actually sat quite still for two or three minutes thinking, and then asked,

“Mamma—I never thought of this before but what do you suppose is the reason she saves tenths? Why doesn't she save ninths or elevenths or something else?”

“Why don't you ask her?” suggested Mrs. Ashford.

“I will,” exclaimed Marty. “I'll ask her the very next time I go over there.”

Which was in about five minutes, for Edith lived in the same block and the little girls were constantly visiting each other. This being Saturday, of course there was no school. Marty ran in at the side gate and through the kitchen with a “How do, Mary?” to the cook. Edith heard her coming and called over the stairs,

“O Marty, come right up! I was just wishing you would come over and help me.”

Marty flew up stairs and into the nursery. Edith's dolls were sitting in a row on the little bureau, some dressed and some undressed, and Edith was standing in front of them looking very much perplexed.[Pg 9]

“Oh! I'm so glad you've come,” she said. “Now you can help me with these troublesome dolls.”

“What's the matter with them?”

“Why, we've just heard that Aunt Julia and Fanny are coming to tea this evening, and of course I want the dolls to look decent. I wouldn't have Fanny see them in their everyday clothes for anything; and they don't seem to have enough good clothes to go around.”

“Let's see what they've got,” said Marty, plunging into business with her usual energy.

“Well,” said Edith, “Queenie has her new white Swiss, so she's all right, and she can have Virginia's surah sash. Louisa Alcott can wear her black silk skirt and borrow Queenie's blue cashmere waist. But Harriet has nothing fit for an evening.”

“Let her wear the sailor suit she came in, and say she's just home from the seaside,” suggested Marty, after a moment's meditation.

“Yes, that will do,” replied Edith. “But what about Virginia? Her white dress is soiled, her red gauze is badly torn, and she can't borrow from the others because she's so much larger. To be sure she has this pale blue tea-gown I made myself. Do you think it would be good enough?” and she held it up doubtfully.

“No,” said Marty candidly, “I don't think[Pg 10] it would. It isn't made very well. It's kind of baggy. Hasn't she anything else?”

“Nothing but a brown woollen walking dress and a Mother Hubbard wrapper.”

“Neither of those will do,” Marty decided.

Then she put her finger to her lip and thought.

A bright idea occurred to her presently.

“Put her to bed and make believe she's sick. She can wear the best nightdress, trimmed with lace, and we can put on the ruffled pillow-cases and fix up the bed real nice.”

“That will be splendid!” cried Edith. “I knew you'd think of something!”

They went to work on the plans proposed, and soon had the whole family in presentable condition. So busy were they with the dolls that Marty would have forgotten the errand she came on, had she not happened to catch a glimpse of the blue box when Edith opened a drawer. Then she exclaimed,

“Oh! Edie, what I came over for was to ask you why you save tenths.”

“Why I do what?” said Edith, wondering.

“Why you put tenths away in your box. Why don't you save eighths or ninths or something else?”

“Because the Bible says tenths,” Edith replied.[Pg 11]

“The Bible!” cried Marty. “Does the Bible say anything about saving tenths for a mission-band?”

“No, not just that; but it says—wait, I'll get my Bible and show you what it does say.”

She ran into her room, and bringing her Bible, sat down on a low chair and eagerly turned the leaves. Marty knelt close beside her, bending over the book also, so that her brown curls pressed against Edith's wavy golden hair.

“Here's one of the verses,” said Edith. “Leviticus twenty-seventh chapter and thirtieth verse: 'And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's; it is holy unto the Lord.'”

“There's nothing about tenths in that,” said Marty.

“Tithes means tenths—the tenth part,” Edith explained.

“Oh! does it? Well, you see, I didn't know.”

“Yes; here it is in the thirty-second verse: 'And concerning the tithe of the herd or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.'”

“But there's nothing in all that about money,” Marty objected. “It's all fruit and flocks and herds.”[Pg 12]

“I know,” Edith replied, “but mamma says that flocks and herds and money are all different kinds of property. The Jews hadn't much money; their property was flocks and herds and such things. Giving tenths of what they had for the Lord's service was a very important part of their religion.”

“Yes, but you are not a Jew,” said Marty. “Besides, you give your tenths to a mission-band.”

“But the mission-band sends the money to a big society that uses it to send people to tell the heathen about God.”

“Is that what mission-bands are for—to send people to teach the heathen?” asked Marty.

“Yes, and to tell us about the heathen, so that we shall want to send the gospel to them,” said Edith. “Giving to help teach people about God is giving to him, isn't it?”

“And does the Bible say that everybody must give tenths?” asked Marty.

“No,” said Edith, “there is another plan in the New Testament. Mamma says that it is good for older people, but for little children who haven't good judgment, the Jewish plan of giving tenths is better.”

“It must be pretty hard to have to give some of your money away, whether you want to or not,” said Marty.[Pg 13]

“Oh! but I always want to,” Edith declared. “The longer I do this way the better I like it.”

“Well,” remarked Marty consolingly, “a tenth isn't much any way; you'd hardly miss it. Neither would the Jews, for I guess they were pretty rich.”

“Oh! the tenth wasn't all they gave, and it isn't all I give. For me it is just the—the—beginning, the sure thing. The Jews had other ways of giving—first-fruits and thank-offerings and praise-offerings and free-will-offerings. And sometimes I give thank-offerings and praise-offerings too, but they are extra; the tenths I give always.”

“It's all dreadfully mixed up,” said poor Marty.

“I suppose it is, the way I tell it,” Edith candidly admitted. “Let us go and get mamma to tell you, the way she told me.”

Marty willingly agreed, and they went into the sitting-room where Mrs. Howell was sewing.

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CHAPTER II.

WHAT MRS. HOWELL TOLD THEM.

“Mamma,” cried Edith, “I've been trying to tell Marty about tenths and offerings, and why I give my money that way, but I can't do it so that she can understand. Wont you tell her, and show her some of the verses you showed me?”

“Good-morning, Marty,” said Mrs. Howell pleasantly to the little girl who ran to kiss her. “What is it you don't understand?”

“I don't quite understand why the Jews gave tenths, nor why Edith has to do what the Jews did.”

“Well, bring your Bible, Edith, and give Marty mine, and I will show you some of the passages about giving. The first mention in the Bible of giving tithes to the Lord is when Jacob was at Bethel.”

“Wasn't that when he slept on a stone pillow, and had the beautiful dream of angels going up and down a ladder that reached to heaven?” Edith asked.

“Yes; and you remember the Lord appeared to him in the dream, and promised to be with[Pg 15] him wherever he went. And Jacob made a vow to the Lord, in which he said, 'And of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee.' You will find it all in the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis.”

“Yes,” said Marty, after turning the leaves a few minutes. “Here it is: I never noticed it before.”

“Then,” Mrs. Howell went on, “you know when God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt into the promised land, he gave them a great many laws, for they were just like children, and had to be told exactly what to do on every occasion. Among other things he told them how to give. Edith, find the eighteenth chapter of Numbers and the twenty-first verse.”

Edith found the place and read, “And behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for the service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.”

“Why should the children of Levi have it?” asked Marty.

“Because the tribe of Levi was set apart for the service of God in the tabernacle, and afterward the temple, and had no 'inheritance' of land to till and pasture flocks upon like the other tribes; so the rest of the nation was instructed to provide for them. So you see these[Pg 16] tithes were for what we should call the support of the gospel; and Levi was the ministering tribe.”

Then Mrs. Howell showed the children passages in Second Chronicles and Nehemiah where bringing tithes is spoken of, and in Malachi where the people are rebuked for not bringing them. Then she bade them turn to places in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke where our Saviour commends the giving of tithes, though he says that there are “weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.”

“But tithes were not all the Israelites gave,” Mrs. Howell resumed, after the little girls had read the verses. “They gave in many other ways. Let me take that Bible a moment, Marty. Here in Deuteronomy, twelfth chapter and sixth verse, you see that many things are mentioned besides tithes—vows and free-will-offerings and the firstlings of the herds and of the flocks. Then at their feast times, three times in the year, they were told, in the sixteenth chapter of the same book, the sixteenth and seventeenth verses, that every man was to give as he was able.”

“Seems to me they must have been giving all the time,” observed Marty.

“Yes, it has been estimated that a truly devout Jew gave away about a third of his income.[Pg 17] That is more than three-tenths, you know. Giving freely to the Lord's service and to the poor was part of a Jew's religion.”

“That's what Edith says,” Marty remarked. “'Tisn't part of ours, is it?”

“Oh, yes it is,” said Mrs. Howell, smiling a little; “though perhaps not as much as it should be. All through the Bible we are taught the duty of giving, and though, of course, those particular directions in the Old Testament were intended especially for the Jews, we may learn from them that the best way of giving is to give systematically.”

“What do you mean by systematically?” asked Marty.

“I mean not giving just when we happen to feel particularly interested in some object, or when we don't want the money for something else, but having some plan about it and giving regularly, intelligently, and, above all, prayerfully.”

“Tell Marty the New Testament plan for giving, mamma,” Edith requested.

“St. Paul tells the Corinthians in the sixteenth chapter and second verse of the first epistle: 'Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him.' You see that is somewhat different from tenths. No particular portion is[Pg 18] mentioned, but we are to regularly set aside for religious purposes as much as we can afford, and the amount is to be increased as our means increase.”

“Why doesn't Edith do that way?” Marty inquired.

“When she is older and better able to judge how much she ought to give, she may adopt that plan. But it is simpler and easier just to give a tenth, and it is well for little people who are learning to have a plain and easy rule to go by.”

“And why does Edith give her tenths to foreign missionary work instead of to something else?” asked Marty.

This led to a long talk about the duty of obeying Christ's last command to carry the gospel to all nations; and Mrs. Howell explained how missionary societies are trying to obey this command, and how important it is that Christians should be very prompt and regular with their contributions, so that the good work may not be hindered.

“You see,” said Mrs. Howell, “in order to send the gospel to these far-away people, we must send missionaries to them. There is no other way, while there are a good many ways in which even children may help people near by. For instance, they can persuade other children to go to church and Sunday-school. And then[Pg 19] they can be kind to the poor, and can help them in other ways beside giving money to them. Edith mends her old toys for poor children. She keeps her bright cards and picture books as nice as possible, and when done with them carries them to the Children's Hospital or to the Almshouse; and she is very careful of her clothes, so that when she has outgrown them they will do for poor little girls. There are children now down town going to Sunday-school in her clothes. So you see that even if your money goes to the missionary work, you need not neglect other ways of doing good.”

“I think it's grand!” said Marty with long-drawn breath. “I've a great mind to begin trying to do somebody some good, and not keep everything myself. I have a dime every week to do what I please with, and sometimes I get other money besides.”

“I am sure you would find a great deal of satisfaction in helping others,” said Mrs. Howell.

“Mrs. Howell,” asked Marty, after studying the verse in First Corinthians for some time, “what does it mean about laying by in store the first day of the week?”

“The first day of the week is the Sabbath, and that is a fitting time to consider how God has prospered you and to lay aside your offering.”[Pg 20]

“I think if I had a box and saved tenths I'd like to do that way,” said Marty. “I suppose papa could give me my dime just as well Saturday as Monday. I do believe I'd like to belong to that band and give some money to send Bibles and teachers to the heathen.”

“Oh! do, do join our mission-band,” urged Edith. “You'll like it ever so much,” and she went on so enthusiastically telling how delightful it was, that Marty at once decided, if her mamma approved, she would “join” at the very next meeting. Of course she could not have been so constantly with Edith without already having heard much about the band, but she had never been so interested in it as this morning, and was now very anxious to go to the meeting the coming Saturday.

“I'll run right home and ask mamma,” she said.

CHAPTER III.

[Pg 21]

MARTY GETS STARTED.

“O Mamma!” cried Marty, bursting into her mother's room, “may I have—”

Then she stopped suddenly, for she saw her mother was sitting in the rocking-chair with Freddie in her arms, evidently trying to put him to sleep. He looked around when Marty came in so noisily, and Mrs. Ashford said, in a vexed tone,

“O Marty! why do you rush in that way? I have been trying for half an hour to put Freddie to sleep, and have just got him to lay his head down.”

“Now I will lay my head up,” Freddie announced, and sat up with his eyes as wide open as if he never meant to go to sleep in his life.

“I'm so sorry, mamma,” said Marty, “but I didn't know he'd be going to sleep at this time.”

“It is sooner than usual, but he seemed so sleepy and was so fretful, I thought I would just give him his dinner early, and put him to sleep before our lunch.”[Pg 22]

“Maybe he will lie on the bed with me, and go to sleep that way, as he did the other day,” suggested Marty, who was always very ready to make amends for any mischief she had caused. “Wont Freddie come and lie down beside sister?”

“No, no, no!” said Freddie, shaking his curly head and pushing Marty away with his foot.

“I'll tell you a pretty story,” said Marty coaxingly.

“No, no,” said the little boy.

“Pretty story about the three bears.”

At this mention of his favorite story Freddie began to relent, and presently stretched out his arms to Marty. Mrs. Ashford put him on the bed, and he cuddled up to Marty while she told him the thrilling story of the Great Huge Bear, the Middle-sized Bear, and the Little Small Wee Bear; but long before she came to the place where little Silver Hair was found, Freddie was fast asleep.

“What were you going to ask me, Marty?” inquired her mamma, when they were seated at lunch.

“Oh, yes!” said Marty, in her excitement laying down her fork and twisting her napkin. “I was going to ask you if I might have a box to put tenths in, and if I mayn't belong to the mission-band.”[Pg 23]

“I thought you didn't want to belong to the band.”