IV.
_LILY'S PROVERB PICTURE._
Lily was still in a very subdued and melancholy frame of mind when shereached the Bradfords' house on the following day; and when her littleplaymates inquired the cause, she made answer,--
"If mamma had given me my deservings, she would have shut me up in aroom by myself, and never let me come out in all my life, nor come tospend the day with you any more. It's a great deal too good for sucha sinner as me, and something ought to be done to me. I don't mean tohave a nice time to-day."
This virtuous resolution was forgotten, however, before the day wasover; but at the time it much astonished her young friends, as did alsothe low state of Lily's spirits.
Fresh questions followed; and Lily told her story, mingling her ownbitter self-accusations with reproaches against the supposed thief.
"For I told her she was not to come in, 'cause there was no one aboutto 'tend to her," she said, as if this were an added aggravation of hersorrows; "and I only left the door open for fear her feelings wouldbe hurt; but now I don't b'lieve she had any to hurt. I don't s'posethieves have many feelings, do you, Maggie?"
"No, I don't believe they have," answered Maggie. "I just expect theirfeelings are 'lost to sight, and not to memory dear.'"
This fine sentiment, having been properly appreciated, called up therecollection of the promised proverb picture.
"Did you find a proverb that would be a lesson for me, or did you haveto make one?" asked mournful Lily.
"Mamma told us one," said Maggie. "It is 'Procrastination is the thiefof Time.'"
"You'd better say the thief of inkstands," said Lily, ruefully. "Maggieand Bessie and Belle, I feel 'most as if it was me who had stolenmamma's inkstand."
The other little girls all set about consoling her; and Bessie took anopportunity to whisper to Maggie that she thought they had better notgive Lily the proverb picture that day because it might make her feelworse.
But this was not by any means Lily's view of the matter; and shepresently asked to be shown this joint production of her three littlefriends, Maggie and Bessie and Belle.
Accordingly, the picture, or rather pictures, were brought forth, andwith them the poem which Maggie had composed to accompany them.
When the red ribbon which tied the first was taken off, and thepictures unrolled, they proved quite a panorama; and Lily's mournfulface lighted up at the sight.
"How good of you!" she said. "It must have taken you ever so long todraw all those pictures."
"There are four of them," said Bessie. "Belle made two, 'cause she candraw the best, and Maggie made one, and I one; but Maggie made 'mostall the ideas. I think they're so very plain you can make them out foryourself, Lily, but we'll 'splain them to you if you like."
"I'll see how much I can find out, and you can tell me the rest," saidLily, setting herself at once to the study of the drawings.
"What's the reading on this one?" she asked."P-r-o-pro-c-r-a-s-cras--Oh! I s'pose this is 'Procrastination is thethief of Time.'"
"Yes," said Maggie.
"And this is a skeleton," said Lily, "a skeleton with a goblet in onehand, and a--and a"--Lily hesitated, wishing to be sure to hit theright nail on the head--"and a--I'm not quite sure if it's a featherdust-brush, or a coachman's whip."
"Oh!" exclaimed Belle, indignant.
"Why, Lily!" said Bessie, "that's Time with his hour-glass and scythe,and Belle drew that picture, and we think it's the very best one ofall."
"I'm sorry," said Lily, rather ashamed of not having at once recognizedthe articles in question.
"You know in the pictures Time is always a very thin old man," saidBessie, "so we had to make him so to have it real; and Maggie toldBelle she'd better make him as thin as she could, 'cause that horridthief Procrastination bothers him so he hardly has any flesh on hisbones. This is a kind of allegory picture, you see, Lily."
"Yes, I understand. And this rather beggar-looking child--" Lilyhesitated again, unwilling to run the risk of making any more suchuncomplimentary mistakes. "I think you'd better tell me about it. I'm'fraid I'm rather stupid this morning. I think I went crazy last nightabout that inkstand, and I'm hardly recovered yet. I b'lieve that'sthe reason I didn't know Time's hour-glass and scythe at first."
Never before had her little friends known Lily to speak and look withsuch solemnity, and they all felt very much for her.
Maggie, however, thought it well to improve the occasion.
"I did not want to seem severe with her," she said afterward to Bessieand Belle, "but I thought the picture might make a deeper impression ifI let her see to what a dreadful condition procrastinating people mightcome."
"Yes," she said to Lily, "yes, that is Procrastination, all ragged anddirty and starved. He never has a nice time, and he hardly ever has anything to eat, 'cause when people say to him, 'Procrastination, dinneris ready,' he says, 'I think I'll eat by and by;' and then when hecomes, the dinner is all gone, and he has to go hungry: and when theysay, 'Go and get washed, and have on clean clothes,' he says, 'Anotherday I will;' so he becomes all ragged, and his friends are so ashamedof him that they just let him take care of himself. That's the wayhe looks so horridly. And poor old Time hardly knows what to do withhimself for the way that troublesome fellow worries him. He doesn'tleave Time alone to do his duty one minute. Do you see these things inProcrastination's hand?"
"Yes; what are they?" asked Lily, deeply interested.
"They are Time's purse and pocket handkerchief that Procrastination--Ithink we'd better call him Pro, because it takes so long to sayProcrastination--that Pro has stolen out of his pocket; and here at hisfeet are some broken hour-glasses; and now he is running after Time,and trying to steal his last hour-glass, so that the poor old fellowwill have none left. That means, when you're not talking allegory, thatPro steals the hours and makes you lose all your time; but he can notcatch him up, which means that when you have lost your time, you nevercan catch up with it."
"Yes," said Lily, dolefully; "but I think it would be better if youmade Pro stealing inkstands. It's just what I deserve. Is that allabout that picture?"
"Yes," answered Maggie; "now we come to real life. Bessie, this is yourpicture; tell Lily about it."
It is to be observed that the ragged figure which representedProcrastination, or "Pro," was to be seen in each successive picture.This was considered a judicious mingling of the allegorical withreality.
"This," said Bessie, "is a little girl whose mamma said to her, 'Mydear, there is a match upon the carpet; pick it up right away.' ButProcrastination"--Bessie would not on any account have shortened herwords, especially on such a grave occasion--"came and whispered to her,'By and by will do; it's time enough;' and presently her little sistercame in and picked up the match, and set herself on fire, and she wasquite burnt up before she could be put out, and she was the onlysister the put-offing child had, and she stayed unhappy all the rest ofthe days of her life."
"Like me," said Lily.
"Oh, no," said Maggie, cheerfully, "you'll get over that inkstand. Ifind people generally do get over things; at least, I do. Take courageby me, Lily. I thought I never should recover having papa's coatstolen, but you see I have; and I think I'm about as happy as any childcould be."
"Ah! but you wasn't disobedient, and didn't put off," said Lily. "Tellme some more."
"Perhaps we'd better not, 'cause you feel so badly," said Bessie.
"They do me good," answered Lily. "I don't think I can care for anything else to-day. Who made this picture?"
"I did," said Maggie, "and this is the story of it. This is fable orallegory too;" and, unrolling another sheet of paper, Maggie read aloudher famous poem, which had been pronounced a great success by bothBessie and Belle. Her picture consisted of a series of small drawings,which explained themselves as she read the verses.
"There's a bad little fellow, His name it is Pro- Cras-tin-a-_ti_-_on_; And to you I will show How he robs and he steals And
he plagues Father Time. I'll tell you all this, And I'll tell you in rhyme.
When to school he is sent, He most slowly doth go, For he stops first to play, Then to look at some show; By the hour he is there, Why! the school is 'most out. That's one way he robs Time, This sad putting-off lout.
When his mother doth say, 'Go this errand for me,' He will say, 'By and by;' 'Pretty soon;' 'I will see;' Till at last 'tis too late, Or his mother must go. 'Tis a base, heartless crime, For a child to do so.
But there's worse yet to tell, For to church he goes late; And he reaches God's house In a sad, dirty state; For he never is dressed, And he never is clean. That 'tis all putting off, Is quite plain to be seen.
He ne'er has a book, Or a toy, or a pet, For to put them away He doth always forget; So they're broken or lost, Or most shamefully torn; And he's nothing to do, Which is very forlorn.
Take heed now, ye children, And list to my tale; What e'er you've to do, Do at once, without fail; For if you'd be happy, And useful, and gay, Don't put off till to-morrow The work of to-day.
Remember, 'tis minutes That make up the hours; As the small, tiny seeds Bring the beautiful flowers. Don't procrastinate then, O ye daughters of earth! For woman's but grass From the day of her birth."
In the ears of the little listeners this was a perfect gem of poetry,far beyond any thing Maggie had ever written before, whether it were"divine song," or "moral poem." The concluding lines were consideredparticularly fine, and, indeed, had been added on account of theirstriking effect.
Bessie and Belle had heard it before, but they listened with raptattention, and Lily was very much impressed. The third verse shefelt particularly adapted to her case, though Maggie had intended nohome thrust when she wrote it. But, to Lily's mind, it just suitedthe affair of the inkstand; and when Maggie finished reading, sheexclaimed,--
"I should think I _was_ a base, heartless crime!"
The children all hastened to console her, and to assure her that theythought she would not fail to improve, now that she saw her fault soplainly.
"I didn't mean that the child in the poem was really you," said Maggie."That's the reason I made Pro a boy instead of a girl. I only wantedto show you what people might come to who procrastinated all the time,and never were punctual."
Maggie's drawing, as you have heard, was divided up into a number ofsmaller pictures, each one suited to a particular verse of the poem;and they explained themselves to one who had read or heard the latter.
The fourth and last picture had been drawn by Belle, the chief artistamong the little party.
This also represented Father Time, who had now grown fat andflourishing, which was somewhat singular under the circumstances. Hewas accompanied by another burly figure, and both were armed with manylashes and whips with which they chased "Pro," now himself reduced to askeleton state, and vainly endeavoring to escape from his tormentors.
"This," said Belle, "is my drawing, but it is Maggie's idea, and Bessieand I think it is pretty grand. Here is that naughty Pro, and he haslost every thing and every one he had in the world, all through hisown putting off; and here," pointing to little dots and round _o_'swith which the page was covered, "here are the hours and minutes flyingaway from him too. The largest ones are the hours; the little ones, theminutes. And here are Father Time and Remorse coming after him withtheir--their--What kind of whips do they have, Maggie?"
"_Scorpion_ whips," answered Maggie. "It was a very convenient thingthat I happened to read the other day about the 'scorpion whip ofRemorse,' and it just gave me the idea for this picture. It means thatwhen we feel very badly about something we know we deserve, it is justas bad as the stings of scorpions and bugs and other horrid things. AndI thought we'd make believe Remorse had two scorpion whips, and lentone to Time to chase Procrastination with."
"Here's the ocean," said Belle, directing Lily's attention to wherehigh, curling waves were supposed to be leaping and dashing upward,"and Pro was running away so fast from those dreadful scorpion whipsthat he never saw it, but ran right into the water, and was drowned;and that was the end of _him_."
Belle's tone was very triumphant when she uttered the last word, asthough she were glad to have thus disposed of a troublesome customer.
"I'm sure," said Lily, with an air of melancholy satisfaction, "I'msure I'm very much obliged to you all for taking so much trouble toimprove me; and I don't see how I can help being better now."
"Then that's all we ask," said Maggie, "and we shan't regret anytrouble we took. Now let's go and play."
If the other children had had any fears that Lily's remorse and the"lesson" they had given her would interfere with her enjoyment of theday, such fears were soon put to flight; for in ten minutes she wasas merry and roguish as ever, and quite disposed to join in all theentertainment provided for her.