The Allis Family | Page 6

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 Eden said to our first mother, "Ye
shall not surely die."
As she approached the school-room, she stopped near a huge pile of
rocks at the road-side to gather some flowers for her teacher. She found
a great many, and, among others, some which she had never seen
before. As she stooped forward hastily to pluck them, she heard a
sound close by her. Looking quickly about her, she spied a large snake
just below her naked feet, among the loose stones. Uttering a loud
scream, she sprang terrified from the spot; nor did she slacken her
speed until she reached the schoolhouse, her delicate feet cut and
bleeding in several places, and a large thorn in the side of one foot,
which pained her sadly. The girls laughed at her fright, and one rude
boy ran out, shouting, at the top of his voice,--
"Hallo, boys! hallo! Annie Allis has come to school barefooted."
Poor, foolish child! what would she have given if she had only obeyed
her mother!
The little white feet swelled and ached all the day long. Annie had
hardly ever felt so much pain in all her life, and there was nobody to
pity her. But the pain in her feet was nothing to the pain in her heart.
How could she meet her dear mother, after having so wickedly
disobeyed her? At length school was out. Slowly and painfully she
walked homeward. As she approached the house she shook with pain
and dread. Down in the little grove at her right hand she saw Susie and
Mary with the dear little baby, and they beckoned her to come to them;
but she could not. Oh, how could the guilty child look into the clear,
sweet eyes of that innocent one, with such a load of sin and
disobedience on her heart?
Softly--just like a _thief_--she stole round the house, as she thought,
unobserved. She sat down on the little green mound beside the
rain-barrel, and reached behind it. Suddenly she started back as if a
serpent had stung her. Again she reached quite around the barrel, as far
as she could stretch her little arms; but nothing was there. Then she
peered carefully into the place; but no shoes were to be found. It is
plain now,--quite plain. What shall be done? Some one has taken the
shoes away! Overpowered entirely, she bursts into a passionate fit of

crying. Who is it that approaches the erring child and so kindly and
tenderly inquires,--
"What is the matter, Annie?"
It is the mother, weary as she can be, and made still more weary and
sorrowful by her little daughter's disobedience. She takes the child into
the house and lays her upon the bed. The aching feet are bathed in
water, the dirt is washed from the scratches and wounds, while poor
Annie weeps and sobs as if her little heart would break. But the ugly
thorn would not come out: it must ache on until father comes. Silently
and sadly the mother bends over her suffering child, bathing her aching
head. At length Annie said,--
"Dear, dear mother, forgive me; and I will never, never want to disobey
you again!"
I suppose every child knows just what this good Christian mother said
to her little unhappy daughter,--how she told her that she had offended
God as well as her mother, and broken his good law. She told her, too,
how sinful it was to try to deceive, and then comforted her with her full
and free pardon, and said that her heavenly Father would pardon her
even more freely than her mother did, if she truly repented of her fault
and asked his forgiveness with her whole heart. Then she taught Annie
to pray, "Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil;" and,
although the little one had said that prayer many times, never, never
had she understood its meaning so perfectly before: now she felt her
dependence on God.
Soon Susie and Mary came in with the baby; and, while they