"Mother," she said, at length, looking up from her work, "do you know what a generous little girl our Nelly would be if she was only a rich man's child?"
"Is she not generous now, Jennie?" asked her mother.
"Oh yes, surely she is. But I was thinking how much good she would do, and how much she would give away, if only we were not poor."
She saw that her mother was smiling softly to herself.
"She gives away more now, of course, than some rich children do. Just think how faithfully she works in that little garden, so as to have flowers to give away! I do not believe there is a house anywhere near us into which sickness or poverty comes where her simple flowers will not go."
"Did you ever think, dear Jennie, of the other garden which Nelly weeds and waters every day?"
"The garden of her heart, my dear child. You know that the rain which the clouds take from the lakes and rivers comes back to refresh and beautify our fields and gardens; and so it is with our little Nelly's good deeds and kind, loving words. She gives away more than a handful of violets, for with them goes a bright smile, which is like sunshine to the sick heart. She gives more than a bunch of roses, for with them always goes a kind word. And doing these little things, she gets a large reward. Her own heart grows richer."
We are told that the old Romans greatly delighted in witnessing the combats of wild beasts, as well as gladiators, and that they used to ransack their whole broad empire for new and unheard-of animals--anything and everything that had fierceness and fight in it. Those vast amphitheatres, like the Coliseum, were built to gratify these rather sanguinary tastes in that direction.
But I doubt whether even the old Romans, with all their large experience, ever beheld so strange and grotesque a "set-to" (I'm pretty sure none of our American boys ever did) as the writer once stumbled upon, on the shores of one of our Northern Maine lakes--Lake Pennesseewassee, if you can pronounce that; it trips up editors sometimes.
I had been spending the day in the neighboring forest, hunting for a black squirrel I had seen there the evening before, having with me a great, red-shirted lumberman, named Ben--Ben Murch. And not finding our squirrel, we were making our way, towards evening, down through the thick alders which skirted the lake, to the shore, in the hope of getting a shot at an otter, or a mink, when all at once a great sound, a sort of _quock, quock_, accompanied by a great splashing of the water, came to our ears.