HOW MUCH? by Sallie Campbell

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 6, 1904

HOW MUCH?

By Sallie Campbell

"YESTERDAY was mother’s birthday," remarked Billy Stone, as he walked proudly by the side of Miss Fowler, his Sunday-school teacher. "We gave her presents."

"How nice! I suppose you love her very much, don’t you?"

"Lots."

"Well, Billy, my man," said Miss Fowler, stopping a minute at the corner where she was to turn off, "don’t forget our lesson last Sunday. You know what the Bible tells us about how true love shows itself."

Yes, Billy knew. He walked on thinking of it, and presently his round face grew very sober.

"Yesterday we told mother that we gave her the presents with our love. To-day is only a day off, and I wouldn’t get up in time for breakfast. I was late at school; I made the twins mad, and I sneaked out of the back door so as not to have to go for the mail. I can’t see how anybody by looking at the way I’ve acted could tell that I liked my mother at all."

It was beginning to rain when Billy reached home. He and the twins, who had been playing in the yard, all went into the shelter of the kitchen together.

Mrs. Stone, at work in the next room, looked out of the window with a sigh. She had so much to do, and there was so liable to be trouble when the children must stay indoors.

Billy thought of this, too.

The twins were hanging their caps up with a scuffle.

"I say, Robin," asked Billy abruptly, "how much do you love mother this afternoon?"

Robin turned around and stared at him. What a queer question! It was not a bit like a boy.

"Why?" he giggled. "Do you want to write poetry about it?"

"Poetry!" snuffed Billy. "I want to know how much—just plain how much. That isn’t poetry, is it?"

"That’s arithmetic," said Dora.

Dora was the oldest of them all. She was bolstered up in a big chair by the fire; she had been ill for a fortnight.

"How much?" repeated Robin. "How can you tell how much you love a person?"

"In plenty of ways," said Billy, wisely. "I’ll tell you one right now. I love mother a boxful."

With that he picked up the kindling-box and marched out into the shed.

A light broke upon the twins.

"O-ho!" cried Harry, "that’s what you mean, is it? Well, I love her a pailful," seizing the water-bucket and starting for the pump.

"I love her a scuttleful," said Robin; and he plunged down the cellar steps after coal.

Dora looked at the clock. She had looked at it five minutes before and had said to herself:—

"I do believe that my darling mother is going to forget the medicine this time. I shall not remind her, that is one thing certain, sure!"

"But I guess," she said now, reaching for the bottle with a wry face, "I guess at least I can love her a spoonful."

There was a shout of laughter.

Mrs. Stone heard and glanced anxiously toward the door.

"I hope that there is no mischief on foot. I’m in such a hurry to get this sewing done."

Kitty Stone had roused herself from her book in the old-fashioned window-seat to listen to Billy and the rest. So far, she said nothing. But, when the kindling-box was full, and the pail, and the scuttle, and the medicine-bottle was a little less full, the covers of Kitty’s book went together with a snap.

"Don’t you think," she said, "that all of us together, if we hurried, could love mother this whole roomful before she came in and caught us? I’ll clean the stove out and blacken it."

They worked like beavers. The last tin was hung on its nail, and the last chair set back to the wall, when Mrs. Stone’s step was heard coming rapidly down the hall.

"Dora, child, your medicine!" she said.

"Yes’m," said Dora demurely; "I took it for pure love—to you, not to it."

Her mother looked around the tidy room, and when she saw how spick and span it was, and when she saw the ring of smiling faces, she kissed them every one, and her own was just as bright as the brightest.

"There’s no other mother in the country," said Mrs. Stone, "that has such children as mine!"

"There now, do you see?" said Billy to Robin. "Can’t you tell how much you love a person! It feels nice, doesn’t it?"—Sallie Campbell.