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THE CROOKED TREE

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 22, 1880

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 28.

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THE CROOKED TREE.

"Such a cross old woman as Mrs. Barnes is! I never would send her jelly or anything else again," said Molly Clapp, setting her basket down hard on the table. "She never even said, 'Thank you,' but, 'Set the cup on the table, child, and don't knock over the bottles. Why don't your mother come herself instead of sending you? I'll be dead one of these days, and then she'll wish she had been a little more neighborly.' I never want to go there again, and I shouldn't think you would."
"Molly! Molly! come quick and see Mr. Daws straighten the old cherry tree!" called Tom through the window; and old Mrs. Barnes was forgotten as Molly flew out over the green to the next yard.
Her mother watched with a good deal of interest the efforts of two stout men as, with strong ropes, they strove to pull the crooked tree this way and that, but it was of no use.
"It's as crooked as the letter S and has been for twenty years. You're just twenty years too late, Mr. Daws," said Joe as he dropped the ropes and wiped the sweat from his face.
"Are you sure you haven't begun twenty years too late on tobacco and rum, Joe?" asked Mr. Daws.
"That's a true word, master, and it's as hard to break off with them as to make this old tree straight. But I signed the pledge last night, and with God's help, I mean to keep it."
"With God's help you may hope to keep it, Joe," responded the master. "Our religion gives every man a chance to reform. No one need despair so long as we have such promises of grace to help."
"That's my comfort, sir," said the man, humbly, "but I shall tell the boys to try and not grow crooked at the beginning."
"Mother," said Molly as she stood at the window again at her mother's side, "I know now what is the matter with old Mrs. Barnes. She needn't try to be pleasant and kind now, for she's like the old tree: it's twenty years too late."
"It's never too late, with God's help, to try to do better, but my little girl must begin now to keep back harsh words and unkind thoughts; then she will never have to say, as Joe said about the tree, 'It is twenty years too late.'—Child's World."