Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/63

Rh "Mr. Norton, the boys did it. When I cut up they talked to me, and they kept on talking till I just had to quit my old ways." Then I said to Ned, "Who is going to talk to Tom?" He replied quick as a flash, "Mr. Norton, I never could, for you see Tom and I used to be in the same boat, and if I should talk to Tom he would laugh at me good." I did not ask him to speak to his friend, but I did ask him who would do it and help get him on the up-grade. To make the story short, the outcome was that Ned volunteered to talk to Tom. Tom turned round, and in a year that Tom who had not, according to his own father's statement, a single literary aspiration, elected to enter the academy and go on with his education. Ned did a good work' for Tom. Tom was the hardest boy I ever knew who turned right about and set his face toward the top of the hill. I have known worse boys whose faces were always toward the foot of the hill.

(During the preceding narrative the class was an engaging sight. Their faces, grave at first, broadened. The little chap who had got good in "that room" expanded till he covered all that part of his desk separating him from Mr. Norton; he put his head on his outspread arms and opened every avenue to the reception of information regarding the boys who made it very interesting for their teachers. Suppressed chuckles showed his admiration for Mr. Norton's word-pictures of boys. Even Mary smiled protestingly. In Ned's relation to Tom, John saw his to Ward and Frank; the sense of his obligation to them grew stronger, and finally he screwed his courage up to volunteering to promise to do his duty and talk to them when they disturbed the class.)

Teacher. I know it is not always easy to speak to a friend who is doing wrong. One has to deny one's self for others. I visited a home a while ago in which were father, mother, three sons, and two daughters. There was a small salary and a little farm. The boys were to be sent to college—two were there. All the nicest fruit on the farm, the best vegetables, the cream were sold, and the family lived on the plainest food, that the boys might be educated. The father wore old clothes except when he preached. The mother had no nice dresses, she worked hard, her hands were not pretty, and her face was full of wrinkles. The father and mother were always denying themselves every luxury and many comforts for their children. Do you suppose they gained anything because they denied themselves?

Pupils. They grew good. They grew generous. They would have their reward.

Teacher. Yes, patience, fortitude, love, goodness showed in the faces of that father and mother. A reward comes to any one who denies himself through love of another; he is not just the same after the denial; he is better and stronger.