Martin was mistaken in thinking he could play with the pitch and not get soiled.
When Martin grew older he had some playmates who were not very good, and his mother said, "Martin, I wish you would not play with those boys; I fear they will get you into trouble".
"Oh! no, mother," replied Martin, "if they =wanted= me to do anything wrong I would not; I need not learn their bad ways if I =do= play with them." But his mother shook her head, for she knew better.
Some time afterwards the boys had a half-holiday, and Martin went with his friends into the country. Presently they came to a large garden, with a high wall round it, and the boys began to climb the wall.
"Oh!" said one of the boys, laughing, "a friend of ours owns this garden, and we are going to help him gather strawberries."
There was a large bed of strawberries on the other side of the wall, and as soon as the boys were over, they began to pick and eat.
What the boy had told Martin was quite untrue--they were =stealing= the strawberries; but before very long the gardener spied them, and with one or two other men came upon them so quietly, that they had no time to get away, and every boy was made prisoner. The gardener locked them up in the tool-house until the owner came, and he took their names and addresses, and said they should be brought before the magistrates, as it was not the first time they had stolen his fruit. Of course Martin had not been with them the other times, but he was caught with them now, and can you imagine how dreadfully ashamed he felt, and how his cheeks burned when he thought of his dear mother, and the trouble it would be to her. When he reached home, he told his mother all that had happened, and begged her forgiveness. His mother was greatly distressed, and said: "You remember playing with the pitch, Martin, when you were a very little boy--you thought you could handle it, and still keep clean, but you could not; so neither can you have bad companions without being mixed up in wrong-doing".
To mix with Bad Company is like Playing with Pitch.
It was Maggie's birthday, and her father brought her as a present something that she had been wishing for a very long time. It was a beautiful yellow canary, and its little house was the prettiest cage imaginable, for it was made of brass wire, which was so bright that you could almost think it was gold. Of course Maggie was delighted. "It is just what I have been wishing for," said she; "I shall feed the canary myself, and give it fresh water every day; it is the prettiest bird I ever saw."