The Apricot Tree | Page 7

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 to place us.' 'Be content with such things as ye have,' says St. Paul. And again, speaking of himself, he tells us, 'I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content.' Besides, Tom, the rich are not always happy. They have a great many cares and anxieties that we know nothing of. You cannot have forgotten what trouble Farmer Tomkyns was in last spring when so many of his cattle died of the distemper, and he was afraid he should lose the rest. It is true the Squire can afford to have always a grand dinner to sit down to; but of what use is that when he is, and has been for years, in such a bad state of health that the choicest dainties afford him no pleasure!