Sign the Pledge at School.
"There goes Madge after her father," said Alice Gray, as she stood looking out of the second story window. "You'll see her almost every evening about this time start off for him," she added, as her cousin, Bessie Young, who was visiting her, came and looked curiously over her shoulder. "What an old face the child has!" "I should think so! Why, Bessie, that child works like a big woman, and the people about here are mean enough to let her do a woman's work and only pay her child's wages! She has washed and scrubbed all day long for thirty cents!" "That little girl go out washing? Why, Alice, you must be mistaken." "You'd better tell Bessie about Madge; perhaps she'll be as fond of her as you are," said Mrs. Gray, looking up from her sewing. "Well, to begin at the beginning, Madge's father was a schoolmate of papa's, and, though I can hardly believe it, papa says he was one of the handsomest, brightest boys in the school. Father says one day a lady came to the school and talked to the boys about the harm that liquor and tobacco do in the world, and asked them to sign a pledge not to touch either liquor or tobacco. Father signed, and about half a dozen boys, but Jim Robson, Madge's father, made fun of the pledge and said a man ought not to be afraid of liquor or tobacco; a man ought to know when he'd had enough and stop, but a little would not harm him. He talked so that a lot of the boys would not sign, and then when Jim smoked a cigar just to show his independence, and bought a glass of beer instead of lemonade, just to seem grown up, those boys did the same. "Still, father says Jim Robson never drank much, and was thought to be a very fine young fellow, and married one of the prettiest girls in the village. Father married, too, and moved away; for fifteen years he never saw Jim again, and then three years ago he saw a mite of a girl coaxing a drunken man to come home, and—it was Jim Robson! His wife was dead and two of the five children, but Madge keeps house for him, and the two little boys, younger than her, earn money by blacking shoes, putting out ash-barrels, and so on." Just as Alice finished her sentence Bessie caught sight of the poor little girl leading her father home. He was so drunk that she could hardly keep him up, and in spite of all her coaxing he would cross the street just as a heavy wagon drove by. They saw Madge push him in front of her, but a moment more and the wheel had struck the child—she was not run over, but lay as if stunned in the street. Alice and Bessie were pushing their way through the little crowd which had gathered, and with the help of a policeman carried the poor girl into Mrs. Gray's sitting-room. Jim Robson walked in with them, sobered at once by his fright. "If she's dead, I've killed her," he kept saying. "She might better die," said Alice bluntly, "than live such a wretched life as you make her lead." "Hush, Alice!" said Mrs. Gray, really frightened lest the drunkard should knock her daughter down—"hush." "No, no, ma'am!" said the poor man, sadly, "she says but true. It's a miserable life the lass has led! But, by the help of God, if my girl is but spared I'll drink not another drop." The last words Jim spoke loudly and solemnly, as if taking an oath, and they seemed to waken poor Madge. She opened her eyes and said:— "What's that? Father, do you mean it?" "I do! I do! O Madge! you've held by your poor father when all else gave him up; don't525leave him now, and I'll never let a drop stronger than coffee pass my lips." "I'll be all right soon," said Madge, with a wonderfully happy smile. Yet, though she did not die, Madge was badly hurt. She lay for many weeks unable to move or help herself, but Alice and Bessie did all they could. Mr. Gray found work for Jim, and Madge thought the fall the best thing that ever happened. "God let me fall to save father," she said again and again, and would not complain. Jim Robson did not drink again, and became a sober, steady man; but oh! how often he wished he had signed and kept the pledge when he was a boy at school!—Youth's Temperance Banner.