The Apricot Tree | Page 7

he had, I was so much
frightened, and so surprised at him for stealing all your fruit. He
besides ordered me not to tell what he had done, and bullied me a great
deal about it, till at last I got away from him. I was too much afraid to
tell you for a good while, but I could not bear that you should think I
had been so very wicked; and at last I made up my mind to tell you
exactly how it was.

"I know that I have been very wrong," continued Tom; "and that if it
had not been for me the apricots would not have been stolen. I can't be
more sorry than I am. And now that you have heard all, Ned, will you
forgive me, and try not to think as badly of me as I deserve?"
Ned said he was glad to hear Tom had had no more share in the affair;
and then, holding out his hand to Tom, he assured him of his entire
forgiveness.
"Indeed, Tom," he added, "I forgave you in my heart long ago."
"I am sure you did," rejoined Tom warmly, "or you would not have
been so kind to me. O Ned, you cannot think how unhappy it makes me
when I recollect how often I have been teasing and ill-natured to you,
notwithstanding your good-nature to me!"
"Say no more about that," replied Ned; "you have not been teasing or
ill-natured lately. We shall, I hope, always be good friends for the
future."
When Tom was gone, Ned related this conversation to his grandmother.
"I think," she observed, when he concluded, "that all Tom's sin in this
matter came from breaking the tenth commandment. If he had not first
coveted the apricots, he would not have been tempted to steal them.
Through earnestly desiring what did not belong to him, he was led not
only to commit a great sin himself, but to be the means of leading a
fellow-creature into sin also. Fred Morris would not have thought of
robbing the apricot-tree had not Tom put it into his head. In the Bible
we are frequently charged not to lead our brother into sin; and heavy
punishments are denounced against him who shall cause another to do
evil."
"I used to think, grandmother," observed Ned, "that the tenth
commandment must be the least important of all; I did not suppose
there could be any very great harm in merely wishing for what belongs
to another person; but I shall never think so in future."

Several weeks passed away, and the weather began to grow cold and
winterly. Ned could not help sighing when he saw his grandmother
suffering from the cold, and recollected that she had no cloak to keep
her warm, and would have none all the winter.
He sometimes sighed, too, as he looked at the apricot-tree, whose
branches were now dead and withering; and so did Tom. Both the boys
agreed that it had better be cut down, and taken away entirely.
"How I wish," exclaimed Tom, "that we had another to put in its
place!"
"So do I," rejoined Ned; "but apricot-trees, I believe, are very dear to
buy. A gardener my father used to work for, and who is now dead, gave
me this. I fear there is no chance of our ever getting another."
"How I do wish I was rich!" cried Tom; "I would give you an
apricot-tree, and all manner of things besides. I should like to be as rich
as our Squire best; but it would do to be as rich as Farmer Tomkyns.
Oh, if I had only half as many sheep, and pigs, and cows, and haystacks,
as he has, how happy I should be! Don't you wish you had some of the
Squire's or Farmer Tomkyns's riches, Ned?"
"No," replied Ned, "I don't; because we ought not to wish for other
people's things."
He then told Tom all that he could remember of what his grandmother
had said to him about the sin of coveting what does not belong to us;
and that doing so, besides breaking one commandment, is very likely to
lead to the breaking of others also.
"But," asked Tom, "how is it possible to help longing sometimes for
things we have not got, and yet see other people have?" "We may not,"
said Ned's grandmother, who had come out to call the boys in to tea,
and had overheard the latter part of their conversation; "we may not,
perhaps, be always able to prevent covetous or envious thoughts from
entering our mind; but we should directly endeavour to drive them
away, and pray to God to make us contented with 'that state of life in

which it has pleased Him