Roll the Pumpkin | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 27, 1882

Roll the Pumpkin.

MR. SAMUEL HAYNES happening one day to pass by the open door of a room where his daughters and some young friends were assembled, thought, from what he overheard, that they were making too free with the characters of their neighbors; and after their visitors had departed, he gave his children a lecture on the sinfulness of scandal. They answered, "But, father, what shall we talk about? We must talk of something." "If you can do nothing else," replied he, "get a pumpkin and roll it about; that will at least be innocent diversion." A short time afterwards an association of ministers met at his house, and during the evening some discussions on points of doctrine were earnest, and their voices were so loud as to indicate the danger of losing the Christian temper, when his eldest daughter, overhearing them, procured a pumpkin, and entering the room gave it to her father and said, "There, father, roll it about, roll it about." Mr. Haynes was obliged to explain, and good humor was instantly restored. —Sel.