“Charlie,” says the voice, “I wonder if I could get you to mail this letter for me? Are you going near the post-office?”
“Near enough to be able to serve you, Mrs. Hampstead,” says the polite voice. “I will do it with pleasure.”
“I shall be very much obliged, Charlie, but I wouldn’t want to make you late at school on that account.”
“Oh! no danger at all, Mrs. Hampstead. It will not take two minutes to dash around the corner to the office.” And, as he receives the letter, his hat is again lifted politely.
“What a perfect little gentleman Charlie Holland is,” says Mrs. Hampstead to her sister, as the window closes. “Always so obliging; he acts as though it was a pleasure to him to do a kindness.”
Bend lower and let me whisper a secret in your ear: it is not five minutes since that boy’s mother said to him: “Charlie, can’t you run upstairs and get that letter on my bureau and mail it for me?” And Charlie, with three wrinkles on his forehead, and a pucker on each side of his mouth, said: “O, mamma! I don’t see how I can! I’m late now; and the office is half a block out of my way.”
And the mother said, well then he needn’t mind, for she didn’t want him to be late at school. So he didn’t mind, but left the letter on the bureau, and went briskly on his way until stopped by Mrs. Hampstead.
What was the matter with Charlie Holland? Was he an untruthful boy? He did not mean to be. He prided himself on his strict honesty.
It _was_ growing late, and he felt in a hurry, and he hated to go upstairs. Of course it would not do to refuse Mrs. Hampstead, and by making an extra rush, he could get to school in time; but the other lady was only his mother. Her letter could wait.
“Only his mother!” Didn’t Charlie Holland love his mother, then?
You ask him, with a hint of doubt about it in your voice, and see how his eyes will flash, and how proudly he will toss back his handsome head and say:
“I guess I _do_ love my mother! She’s the grandest mother a boy ever had.”
Oh! I didn’t promise to explain Charlie’s conduct to you; I am only introducing him; you are to study for yourselves. Do you know any boy like him?
_Volume 15, Number 4._ Copyright, 1887, by D. LOTHROP COMPANY. _November 26, 1887._
THE air was clear and fresh; a slight fall of snow just conveniently stopping at the point of becoming higher than the overshoes of the pedestrians, lay on the ground. It was an early fall, as the old farmers say when there is snow at Thanksgiving, and every sign gave promise of winter shutting in rapidly.
