The Allis Family | Page 5

they did not find their prairie home as pleasant in the cold winter as it was in the glad summer-time. Oh, how they longed for spring! And when it came how they rejoiced over the little lambs and calves in their father's yard, and how delighted were they when the first sweet violets peeped forth! Still their joy was to be increased: a sweeter prairie-flower than any of these bloomed in their humble cabin, opening a fount of untold gladness in the hearts of all. One bright morning a sweet little sister was presented to the delighted children.
It was long before they could be made to realize that it was their own dear babe, and always to be theirs and to stay with them. At last they recovered themselves sufficiently to ask its name.
"It has no name, Annie," said her father.
"Oh, mother! mother!" cried the enthusiastic Susie, "let us call it _Love!_"
What a blessing that little unconscious one was to all beneath that lowly roof! Annie and Susie would sit beside its little cradle and watch it for hours; and if permitted to hold the tiny creature for a few moments they were never weary of caressing her. Daily and almost hourly they discovered some new beauty or perfection in the dear object of their most tender regard, and the day of her birth was made an era in the house; for almost every thing that was spoken of was said to have taken place either so long before or so long after the Baby came.
At length a school was opened about a mile distant, and the parents thought best that the little girls should have the advantage of attending it through the summer. At first they were quite reluctant to go; for they were strangers still to the children around them, and the young lady who taught them they had never seen until they met her among her pupils. After a few days they became very fond of their school and their young playmates, and the only drawback to their happiness was leaving the little darling Mary for so many long hours every day. But it was soon evident that they learned some evil things as well as good things. They grew less willing to submit to the gentle control of their parents, and were quite inclined to think the rules under whose influence they had been educated were altogether _too strict_, fortifying their occasional remonstrances with "Mary Jones says so," or "Fanny Adams thinks so." This gave their affectionate parents much solicitude and pain.
One evening the little girls came home with a petition that they might "go to school barefooted," and, as usual for the last few weeks, Susie said, "All the girls go without shoes."
"That, my child, is no reason why you should do so if we prefer you should wear your shoes."
"But, mother, it is so warm!" said Annie.
"What would you have thought, Annie, if I had told you to go to school barefooted while we lived in Massachusetts?"
"All the girls wore shoes and stockings there, mother."
"But was it not quite as warm there as here, my child?"
"I suppose so; but, mother, all the girls and boys laugh at us so. They say we are 'proud,' because we wear shoes and stockings."
"You must not mind being laughed at when you are doing right."
"But I can't see what wrong there is in going barefooted," said Annie.
"You are not now required to see the harm in it. All you have to do in this case is to obey."
"But won't you tell us _why_, mother?" persisted Susie.
"No, children, I shall not now tell you why. I have my reasons; and you must trust me now, and wait for an explanation until some future time."
* * * * *

ANNIE'S TEMPTATION.
A few days after, Susie was not very well, and her mother thought best to keep her at home. Annie, however, was sent to school, as usual. As she was preparing to set out, she thought to herself,--
"Now I am going all alone, and mother will never know it; I will not wear my shoes to-day." So, when she was just starting, she stole softly round to the back-side of the house, and hid her shoes behind the rain-barrel. On she skipped, but not so light-hearted and happy as usual. It was her first act of wilful disobedience. As she went on she at last repented that she had ventured to disobey her kind mother; but something seemed to whisper in her heart, "It will do you no harm: your mother will never find it out."
Do any of my little readers know whose voice that was in Annie's heart? It was the voice of him who spoke the first lie ever uttered in this beautiful world; who in the garden of