THE MISSION-BOX:

OR,

DOING GOOD AND GETTING GOOD.

BY

LUCY ELLEN GUERNSEY

AUTHOR OF

"WASHINGTON AND '76," "THE STORY OF A HESSIAN," "IRISH AMY," "OPPOSITE NEIGHBORS," "TWIN ROSES," ETC.

————————— "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."—1 COR. xiii. 13. —————————

PHILADELPHIA:

AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION

NO. 1122 CHESTNUT STREET. —————————— NEW YORK: 8 & 10 BIBLE HOUSE, ASTOR PLACE. CHICAGO: 73 RANDOLPH ST.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by the AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

CONTENTS.

——————

CHAPTER I.

THE CLASS-MEETING

CHAPTER II.

THE TEA-PARTY

CHAPTER III.

THE PLANTS

CHAPTER IV.

FLORA ARABELLA

CHAPTER V.

THE SEWING-MEETING

CHAPTER VI.

THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG

CHAPTER VII.

READING CHARACTER AT A GLANCE

CHAPTER VIII.

IDA'S THUMB

CHAPTER IX.

SARAH SOUTHMAYD

CHAPTER X.

MATILDA DISTINGUISHES HERSELF

CHAPTER XI.

"HE WILL DO ANYTHING FOR SUGAR"

CHAPTER XII.

THE CLASS-MEETING

CHAPTER XIII.

CONCLUSION

THE MISSION-BOX. —————————

CHAPTER I.

THE CLASS-MEETING.

"MOTHER," said Ida Van Zandt, "Miss Ackerman has invited the whole class to spend the afternoon with her next Thursday."

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Van Zandt. "Miss Ackerman will have quite a party. How many are there in your class?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. The class is very full," answered Ida.—"How many are there, Julia?"

"Sixteen," said Julia, "and Miss Ackerman has asked every one."

"Of course she would ask every one if she asked any," remarked Ida.

"Well, I don't know. I think she might have left out some of them. There is Norah Flynn. She said she would come if she could be spared, and Miss Ackerman said,—

"'Oh, you must come; I want you all. I shall ask Mrs. Barnard to spare you.'

"I must say I think it is queer she should invite such girls as Norah Flynn and Eunice Riker to meet us," added Julia, drawing herself up with an air of dignity.

"Why so?" asked Mrs. Van Zandt. "You are all in the same class."

"But, aunt, just think! Norah Flynn is the daughter of Mrs. Eagen's gardener, and works out—just a common servant at Mrs. Barnard's; and Eunice is the daughter of a washerwoman. I don't think such people are very suitable company for us."

"Why not?" asked Ida bluntly. "Eunice is one of the very best scholars in the class.—Only think, mother! She goes to the Public Library on Saturday to study her lesson, and she can answer more questions than any other girl in the class.—Didn't she tell all about Darius this morning? And I am sure she is as much of a lady in her manners as you or I either. And what if Norah does live out? I think it is to her credit to help her father when he works so hard and there are so many of them; don't you, mother?"

"I certainly do, my dear."

"And I don't know what you would have had Miss Ackerman do, I am sure," continued Ida. "Would you have had her ask all the class except Eunice and Norah? How would that have looked?"

"I don't think we want such girls in our class, anyhow," said Julia, with another toss of her head; "I don't believe in mixing things up in that way. I think distinctions in society ought to be preserved. Mamma says Mrs. Barnard is spoiling Norah. She treats her just as if she were a young lady; she lets her sit in her own library to learn her Sunday-school lessons—that is worse than going to the Public Library—and she converses with her about them."

"Well, why shouldn't she?" asked Ida.

"Well, I don't believe in such notions. I believe in ordering servants; don't you, aunt?"

"My dear, I never order my servants; I always ask them," replied Mrs. Van Zandt, who knew that Julia was only repeating what she had heard at home. "But, Julia, don't you expect to go to heaven with all sorts of people? And did not our Lord when on earth mix with all sorts alike?"

"And he says all Christians are brethren; doesn't he, mother? I was reading that only this morning:

"'One is your Master, "even" Christ, and all ye are brethren.' Matt. xxiii. 8.

"If that is so, I don't see why we should look down on people because we pay them to do something that we don't want to do, or don't know how to do, perhaps."

"Very true, my dear; I am glad to see that you have thought about the matter. It is not well, especially for young people, to associate familiarly with those who have bad habits or rude, uncultivated manners, because they are apt to learn undesirable things from them; but we ought to make it a rule to treat all persons as we should like to be treated in their place.—Suppose anything should happen, Julia, which should make it needful for you to work for a living; would you like it if nobody said a pleasant word to you or spoke to you at all except to give you an order?"

Julia found it convenient to change the conversation:

"How does your lace-work get on, Ida? Have you finished your square yet?"

"No," answered Ida, blushing a little.

"How much have you done on it?"

"Only one side, but I am going to finish it this week."

"Only one side! Why, I finished mine two weeks ago, and I have the border almost done. Mamma says she will have Miss Smith paint me a ribbon to mount it on. And, by the way, what did you do with the tidy you made in appliqué? I thought you were going to put it on your father's chair for his birthday?"

"It is up stairs," said Ida, her cheeks growing still redder. "I could not match the silk for ever so long, and then it was too late for papa's birthday; so I thought I would leave it till Christmas."

"You will have your hands full if you finish that and your lace too. However, I suppose you have finished your sofa-pillow long ago?" Julia smiled maliciously as she spoke. She knew very well that the sofa-pillow was not nearly completed.

"See here, Julia: suppose you just attend to your own affairs and let mine alone?" said Ida with some heat.

"Dear me! What have I done?" asked Julia in a tone of great surprise. "I am sorry I have offended you, Ida. I didn't mean any harm. It seems to me, for a person who can quote Scripture so piously, you get angry pretty easily."

Ida turned away to the window to choke down her rising anger and wipe the tears from her eyes. She was really trying very hard to keep her temper, and she succeeded. Turning round, she said, pleasantly enough,—

"If you didn't mean any harm, that is all about it, of course. Won't you take off your hat and stay to lunch?"

"Oh dear me! How good we are!" muttered Julia under her breath, but so that Ida would hear. "No, I can't stay to-day. By the way, if you have done with that crochet-book, I should like to have it back. I promised to lend it to Miss Eagen. I suppose you have done enough of the patterns to go on with it now?"

"Oh yes, you shall have it," answered Ida readily. "I gave up the task of doing the shawl. Mother thought it was not best for me to begin another large piece of work just now."

"I don't wonder," said Julia with a sneer. "I should think the house must be pretty well-filled with your pieces of work already."

"I suppose you will be at Miss Ackerman's on Thursday?" remarked Ida as she accompanied her cousin to the door.

"Oh yes, I suppose so. The Ackermans are first-class people, though Miss Ackerman has some odd notions. I wonder if Percy Denham is here?"

"She is, I know. She went to church in town with Amity Bogardus, because some friend of her father's—some missionary bishop, I believe—was going to preach."

"I should think she would be going back to school."

"I believe she is not going to school this year," said Ida. "She has not been well since her other aunt died, and they think she needs a rest and change. I am glad of it, for I like her ever so much."

"Shall you take your work?"

"Why, yes, I suppose so. Miss Ackerman asked us all to bring our work."

"Well, you will have plenty of pieces to choose from." And with this parting shot, Julia went her way.

"There! I have paid her off," she said to herself as she closed the gate: "she won't attack me again very soon with her Bible-texts. Little Pharisee! Anyhow, I do what I undertake. I don't disappoint everybody by making promises and then not keeping them. When I say I will do a thing, it is as good as done." By which remark Julia showed plainly that she was something of a Pharisee herself.

"What does she want to act so for, I wonder?" said Ida to herself. "But what she says is true enough, for that matter. I am always beginning things and not finishing them. But then I always seem to have an excuse. I could not work at my lace-piece as steadily as Julia did, because my cold made my eyes so weak. And then there was the silk for my tidy; Selig said he should have to send abroad for it. And I have had the pillow so long in hand that I hate the sight of it."

"But your eyes have been quite well this long time," interposed Conscience; "and you have never asked whether your silk has come, though you have been to the city half a dozen times since you ordered it; and if the pillow has been about a long time, that is nobody's fault but your own. You might easily finish it in two or three days. You are only making excuses to yourself."

"Well, I mean to get out all my pieces of work to-morrow, and work at them one by one till they are all finished," said Ida. "I did feel flat when I had to tell papa that I had no present for his birthday. Anyhow, I don't take pleasure in teasing people; and I am glad I didn't give Julia a word back, though I might have told her of plenty of things that she had done."

And, having indulged her own little bit of phariseeism, Ida went up stairs feeling very virtuous indeed.

The next day, as soon as she had finished her practising, Ida went up to her own pretty room and began searching for the unfinished and neglected pieces of work. How many there were! There was the square of guipure with the centre and half of one side done; there was the flannel petticoat for Annie's doll with the pattern marked and about six scallops finished; there was the appliqué tidy with its half-fledged bird; there was the sofa-pillow begun as a present for grandmamma so long ago that grandmamma had gone to her rest without ever seeing it. Ida laid it on one side, and the tears came to her eyes as she remembered how the dear old lady had said on her last Christmas Day on earth, "I thought I should have a bit of Ida's work to-day."

"I don't want to finish that, I am sure," said Ida. "Well, I suppose I may as well take the lace as anything. I will do just so much every day till it is done. I wonder where the thread is?"

It took some time to collect Ida's working-materials together, but she found them at last, and sat down in the window with her frame. She had only darned one square when her mother entered the room:

"Ida, did you remember to ask at Miss Floyd's on Saturday whether she would make your dresses this week?"

"No, mother. At least, I did not exactly forget it," she added hastily, seeing that her mother looked displeased. "I stayed at Julia's till it was so late that I did not like to go round by Miss Floyd's, for fear it should be dark before I got home. You know you said you did not like to have me out after dark."

"But why did you not set out in time?"

"I did not think how late it was getting."

"Ida, do you know that is the third time you have promised to do that errand, and yet have come home without keeping your word?"

"Well, mother, the first time—"

"I do not want any excuses," interrupted Mrs. Van Zandt; "I am tired of hearing them. Put away your work, get your hat, and go down directly to Miss Floyd. Don't stop anywhere, either going or coming."

"There! That is always the way!" resumed Ida. "If I try to finish anything, something always happens to prevent me. There is no use in trying."

Ida came back from her errand in such good time that she might have had two hours of daylight in which to work at her lace. But the postman had meanwhile brought a number of magazines, her favorite English "Ladies' Journal," which always had so many pretty working patterns in it, among the rest.

Ida never thought of the lace-piece again till she went up to her room at night and found her bed covered with the things she had "routed out," as she said. She tossed them all into an empty drawer in her bureau, meditating all the time on the possibility of converting an old woollen dress into such a rug as that she had been reading about in the "Ladies' Journal."

CHAPTER II.

THE TEA-PARTY.

THREE o'clock on Thursday afternoon found all Miss Ackerman's class assembled in her mother's beautiful drawing-room, opening with a wide, long window on the veranda and commanding such a fine view of the river. All the girls were present, even to North Flynn. Mrs. Barnard had not only spared her, but she had given her a pretty dark-blue frock trimmed at the wrists and neck with white ruffles, that North might not feel awkwardly at being more poorly dressed than her classmates. Norah was a pretty girl, in the finest style of Irish prettiness, with black curling hair, long black lashes, very dark gray-blue eyes, and a clear, fine-grained skin. And as she came in bright and sparkling with pleasure, and shook hands with Mrs. and Miss Ackerman, Julia could not but allow that Norah looked and behaved as much like a lady as any girl in the room.

"How pretty she looks!" whispered Ida, thinking with a little regret of her own freckles.

"Pretty enough!" answered Julia with a toss of her head. "I suppose Mrs. Barnard has given her one of Jenny's old dresses."

"'Deed, then, you're mistaken, then, for 'tis a brand-new dress it is, that Mrs. Barnard bought for me in the city with her own hands, and Bessy Melville made it. So there, Miss Julia!" laughed Norah, her eyes dancing with mischief and looking prettier than ever.

Julia bit her lip with anger.

"But if it had been Jenny's old dress made-over, I am sure Norah would not have minded wearing it," said Ida. "I'm sure I wear made-over dresses lots of times."

"Not I," answered Norah. "I'd be proud to wear anything that Miss Jenny had touched, let alone worn; but I can never get the chance. As soon as she has done with her dresses, she rips them up and cleans them, and lays them away smooth and nice to send to some poor lady she knows that has a hantle of little ones. Many's the time I've helped her with them. Oh, 'tis just an angel she is, too good for this world; and I'm thinking she won't be here long." And a tear glittered in Norah's bright eyes.

"I hope dear Miss Jenny may be spared to us many years yet," said Miss Ackerman kindly; "but you know, Norah, that our loss would be a great gain to her. She would change her cross for a crown of glory."

"And that's true, Miss, but I'm that selfish I can't feel to spare her yet." And Norah's ready tears overflowed.

"You are my dear girl," said Miss Ackerman, kissing her, "but don't borrow trouble. Miss Jenny may outlive us all yet."

"What a fuss they do make over her!" thought Julia. "I think Mrs. Barnard might at least have made her wear an apron."

"Well, are we all assembled?" asked Miss Ackerman, looking round: "Where is Eunice Riker? Oh, here she comes."

Eunice was the most plainly, not to say poorly, dressed of all the girls. Her brown linen suit had faded and shrunk, as linen suits will in time, even with the most careful washing, and her frills had evidently been done up a great many times. She was not at all a handsome girl, either; her features were too large and old for her years, and her complexion was not very good. But her eyes were bright and clear, and her somewhat large mouth firm and good-tempered; and people who noticed her said, "That girl will make a fine-looking woman by and by." She excused herself for being late with straightforward directness.

"Mother had just finished doing up some white frocks for Mrs. Edgar's little girls, and she was so tired I went to take them home for her; and then Mrs. Edgar kept me waiting a little while."

"Oh, how stupid I was!" exclaimed Mary Edgar, who was a member of the class. "Sister told me to stop and say that she would call for the things this evening; and I forgot it. What a shame it was, to make you take all that long walk for nothing! Sister will scold me, and serve me right."

"Oh, it wasn't any matter," answered Eunice, smiling brightly. "I liked the walk, and your sister lent me two nice books."

"Well, you are good-natured!" said Mary. "If any one had served me so, I should be just hopping."

"Eunice does not get 'hopping,' as you call it so easily as some of us, I fancy," remarked Miss Ackerman.—"But now we are all here, girls, we will proceed to business.—Percy, are you and Amity ready with your budget?"

"Yes, Cousin Margaret," answered a voice from the inner room; and presently Percy Denham and Amity Bogardus appeared, carrying a large work-basket between them.

Those of my young friends who have read the "Round Spring" books will remember Percy Denham. She was the orphan daughter of an army officer, and since her parent's death, she had made her home partly with her aunt, Miss Devine, who lived at Bridgeport, and partly with her other aunt, Mrs. Ackerman, a very rich widow lady who had a fine house in New York and another at Rockdale. But now Miss Devine was dead, and Percy had come to live altogether with Mrs. Ackerman. Her health was rather delicate, and she was a good deal worn with taking care of her aunt. And Mrs. Ackerman, who loved the country at all seasons much better than the city, had made Percy's health an excuse for letting her town-house and establishing herself permanently at Rockdale. Percy had shot up into a tall, handsome young lady, as slender and graceful as a weeping birch, with dusky velvety hair and a clear olive skin—a great contrast to Amity, with her straw-colored hair and freckles, and no figure at all.

"Well, young ladies, we are ready to hear what you have to say," said Miss Margaret.

"Will you make the speech, Percy, or shall I?" asked Amity.

"Oh, you make it; I haven't any gift at all in that line."

"Well, then, the matter is this," said Amity. "You all know that the ladies of the church are preparing to send a box to the family of the Rev. Mr. Swift, a missionary among both Indians and white people in Dakota Territory. Mr. Swift has a wife, and five children of various ages, from a young lady sixteen years old down to a baby of six months. One of his daughters, about twelve years old, has received the present of a scholarship in a good school for young ladies. But she has no clothes—none, at least, suitable for such a place—and the young ladies' Bible-class propose to furnish her with a wardrobe. Our class will provide the materials, and we thought, as Cousin Margaret's class came next in rank, we would ask them to help us with the sewing. Percy, Emma Andrews, and myself have been appointed a committee to prepare the work and to distribute it, as well as to consult with your class on the subject. We have done the first, and are now ready to do the second. There! I have made my speech; I hope I have explained the matter decently."

"Mr. Webster could not have spoken more to the purpose," answered Miss Margaret; "only you have left one point unexplained. Where is Emma?"

"Mrs. Andrews has a sick headache, and Emma could not leave her. If there are any more questions, I shall be happy to answer them to the best of my ability."

"What is the little girl's name?" asked Ida.

"Her name is Ethelind Swift," replied Amity—"Ethelind Amelia Swift, to give it in full."

"What a fine name!" said Julia, sneering as usual.