THE CROSS FAMILY.

DEAR me! I think we are rightly named; for we are certainly the crossest family on record!” exclaimed Margaret Cross, as she threw herself on a stool and leaned her head on the window-sill. “There’s mother grumbling at Tom because he whistles in the house, and father just snapped at me because I asked a favor of him. And it’s just so all the time; sharp, harsh answers and cutting sarcasm are the most of our conversation with each other.”

“Why don’t you set the example by acting the Miss Amiable yourself, then?” retorted her sister Clara, who stood before the mirror arranging her hair.

“I should have a pleasant time of it in the way of snubs and sneers if I did,” replied Margaret. “But, really, Clara, it has troubled me very much of late; in fact, ever since I visited aunt Alice and saw such a contrast. They were all so polite to one another, and so careful of one another’s

feelings, that it was a comfort to be with them.”

“I hope you took a few lessons,” remarked Clara, sneeringly, “and can instruct in the art.”

“I should have a large field to labor in; but I very much fear most of it would prove to be stony soil,” replied Margaret. The conversation here ended, Clara soon left the room, and Margaret was alone with her thoughts.

“It is the truth,” she said bitterly to herself. “It’s the truth. We are so wrapt up in our mantles of selfishness that natural love between us is being frozen to death. Even father and mother seem to have lost all love for each other—if they ever had any, and I suppose they had once—and as for us girls and Tom, why we would as soon think of flying as of waiting upon one another; and I verily believe if one of us kissed another they would think that one insane. I am so tired of this endless snapping and snarling. I mean to try to do something to make our family a more united one; and if they laugh at me they may. I’ll begin this very moment. Mary has one of her hard

headaches. I will go and sit by her if I do no more.”

With a firm desire to do, and a resolution to try to bring about a more perfect state of harmony, Margaret arose and went to her sister’s room. She opened the door softly and walked in. Mary was lying with closed eyes, and moaning as if in great pain. She opened her eyes languidly at the sound of Margaret’s footsteps, but closed them immediately.

Margaret softly approached the bed, and, laying her hand on her sister’s head, said: “Poor girl! Does your head ache so? Let me bathe or rub it for you.”

Mary, all unused to sympathy or assistance, replied: “No; nothing will help it. Just let me alone and it will get well itself.”

“But can’t I do something for you?”

“No, I don’t want anything done. I’ve stood it so long, I guess I can stand it a little longer,” replied Mary fretfully.

If Margaret had expected to have her sympathy appreciated, this repulse might have disheartened her; but she had expected just such a greeting, and had made up her mind how to act. Without noticing her

sister’s words, she hastened to the kitchen, procured a basin of water, and returning to her sister’s side, she bound up the aching head, bathed the throbbing temples, and moistened the feverish hands. Mary made no resistance, but lay with her eyes closed, while Margaret performed these acts of kindness. Then she closed the blinds and sat down by the bedside, and very soon had the satisfaction of knowing, by the quiet breathing, that Mary was asleep. Then Margaret stole softly out of the room, and a feeling of joy stole into her own heart that had never been there before. This was her first lesson in the book of sympathy, and she found it sweet as the breath of morning.

Perhaps Margaret Cross would not have been at this time of her life experimenting, as it were, in this new field, had the circumstances of her life been other than they were. But the Cross children had been born and bred in the school of self-reliance. Their mother believed that children could be very easily spoiled by too much manifested love. Hence she had disciplined them to a rigid denial of caressings, and drove the wedge of selfishness in their hearts which was to make

the family one scene of discord. They easily learned how much sympathy to expect from the fountain head; for if they came with a bruised body, she might bind up the wounds with rags, at the same time taking particular pains to impress upon their minds the fact that their own carelessness was the prime cause of the disaster; but if they came with a bruised heart, sympathy cost more than rags, so was withheld. Thus it was that the Cross children grew up, “wrapt in their mantles of selfishness,” as Margaret had said, until, as far as regards the inner life, they were as far apart as if a continent divided them.

“What are you doing, Margaret? Why don’t you come to your dinner?” said Mrs. Cross, as the family, except Mary and Margaret, were seated at the table. “I’m coming soon, mother; but do not wait.” Presently Margaret entered with a waiter, on which was some nicely browned toast.

“Heigho!” exclaimed her brother Tom. “Queen Margaret feels dainty to-night; so do I,” and reaching over, he took the brown slice. All now expected an outburst. None more than Tom himself. But Margaret only looked at him with a queer expression about

the mouth—a half-laugh, and half-serious pucker—and said: “Well, I can make more; take it, Tom, if you wish.” But Tom did not want it. He had taken it for the sole purpose of teasing her, and failed. So he passed it back to her, saying: “I don’t want your baby feed, I only wanted to see your eyes snap.”

“Was that your game? Then you deserve a box;” and she good-naturedly slapped his ear and started for the stairway.

“Where are you going?” asked her mother, calling sharply after her.

“To Mary’s room. I thought maybe she could eat something if I took it to her,” answered Margaret.

“Is Mary so sick?” inquired Mr. Cross.

“I didn’t know ’t was anything but one of her headaches,” answered Mrs. Cross, anxiously.

“That’s all it is, too,” said Clara. “But Margaret has turned good Samaritan. I looked into the room this afternoon, and there sat Margaret bathing Mary’s head, which was all bundled up, and fanning her as if she were in the last stages. I offered to do something for her this morning, but

she very coolly told me to let her alone, and so I did.”

No more was said until Margaret returned, when Mrs. Cross asked if Mary was better.

“She says she is, but she is very weak. She has suffered intensely,” said Margaret.

“How did she consent to let you administer to her needs?” asked Clara, raising her eyebrows and looking at Margaret. “She sent me off pretty quick when I offered my services.”

“I didn’t offer my services,” answered Margaret.

“She did not ask them, I am sure. She would die first,” said Tom.

“No, she did not ask them, nor did I ask, ‘What wilt thou have me to do?’ There’s always plenty to do if one wants to do it,” said Margaret pleasantly.

“Oh, dear!” said Clara. “That’s your practice, is it? Well, I am sure if one does not accept my services when I offer them I shall not urge the matter.”

“It’s my opinion that precious few have ever had the chance to refuse them,” said Tom, rising from the table and preparing for his visit down town.

“No one asked for your opinion, sir,” retorted Clara.

“How quick she can ruffle up,” said Tom, provokingly.

“O Tom!” said Margaret, anxious to prevent a collision. “Did you know that Ned Rogers had gone South?”

“I merely heard of it; he owes me twenty-five dollars, the rogue,” replied Tom.

“Don’t you think you will get it again?” asked Margaret, showing her interest at once.

“Perhaps.”

“Well, it will hurt him worse than it will you,” said Margaret. “For it only hurts your pocket, and it hurts his reputation.”

“Humph! My pocket is worth more to me than his reputation,” said Tom, lighting his cigar.

Margaret did not purpose to enter into an argument with her brother, she had only sought to avert the quarrel between him and Clara and had succeeded, so without replying to her brother’s last remark, she hurried off to Mary’s room. She found the invalid sitting up, and kindly inquired after her health.

“I am ever so much better,” said Mary.

“I never had my head ache worse, and it never got well so soon before. And I was just thinking, Margaret, that a little nursing does one good sometimes.”

“If it has helped you as much as it has me, we will know better how to do another time,” said Margaret, picking up the things about the room in an embarrassed way; for such confidences and confessions were entirely new between the sisters. That evening as Mr. and Mrs. Cross sat alone in the sitting-room, Mr. Cross inquired after Mary’s health.

“She came down-stairs after dinner; I guess she is not any worse than usual,” said Mrs. Cross.

“It was kind of Margaret to nurse her and wait on her,” said Mr. Cross, nervously, for he knew he was treading on dangerous ground.

Mrs. Cross never believed in noticing little ailments; it was unwholesome, she said. Children so soon knew how to counterfeit illness. Much to his surprise, she answered: “Yes, Margaret made quite a hero of herself, for all the rest are talking about it. I always thought Margaret was more affectionate than any of the rest. More like

your sister Alice. There’s a difference in people,” continued Mrs. Cross. “Some are always a-loving and a-kissing and hanging around somebody, others think as much, but do not care to demonstrate it. Don’t you think there’s a great difference, Mr. Cross?”

“I’ll tell you what I think, mother. I think there is a difference, but I think folks make it themselves. I believe that God puts warm feelings into every heart, but influences change or develop them. But I think we all stifle these warm impulses too much, and allow ourselves to think all demonstrations of tenderness weakly and ‘soft,’ and so crush them out of our hearts, and freeze up, as it were, until it would take an angel from Heaven to thaw us out.”

Mr. Cross had grown eloquent in his theme. Mrs. Cross only gave a little sigh, and said: “Well, I don’t know, I’m no hand to make a fuss, but I believe I love my children as much as any mother can love her children, but I sometimes think they do not think so.” Poor mother! She had sown and now was reaping.

“I wish Tom would stay at home evenings,” said Margaret, one evening as the

sisters were seated at their work, around the center table. “I wonder why boys always want to run off somewhere evenings.”

“Because they like rough company, I guess,” replied Mary.

“I think they are apt to go where they think they are most appreciated,” said Margaret. “We are always scolding at him when he is in the house.”

“Well, is it any wonder,” said Clara, “when he tangles our worsteds, ridicules our dress, and makes himself a nuisance generally. For my part I am always glad to see him take himself off.”

After a long pause, Margaret said: “Mother, may I have that old stove that is out in the shed?”

“What in the world will you do with that?” asked Mrs. Cross, looking in astonishment at her daughter.

“Put it in Tom’s room. Perhaps if we fix up his room with a stove and things to make it comfortable he would stay in it more.”

“Well, you may try if you wish, but I’m afraid you’ll have your trouble for your pains.”

The next day Margaret went to work. She was not discouraged by the sneers of Clara, nor by the frowns of her mother, who said she could see no use of tearing up the house at that time. She tore down the ragged old paper curtains which adorned the windows, and substituted neat muslin ones in their places, mended the carpet neatly, put up the old stove, and polished it until it shone again, cleared the table of its rubbish, of cigar stumps, paper collars, newspapers and shoe brushes, brought a box and gathered up the boots, old and new, and put them into it, found a hanging place for the old clothes which lay scattered on chairs and trunks, and for a last finishing stroke brought up an old rocker which had lost an arm and a round, covered it with an old delaine skirt, padded the back, and placed it beside the stove in which she had arranged a fire, and then took a view of her work. “I think Tom will like this,” she said to herself. “At any rate I hope he will.”

“Come up stairs, Tom,” said she, after dinner, “I have something to show you.”

“Bring it down, I’m in a hurry,” answered the ungracious Tom.

Margaret laughed. “I can’t bring it down. You will have to go where it is,” she said, taking his arm and leading the way to his own room.

The fire was burning and shedding a soft light over the narrow passage which led to the room. Tom looked amazed, as Margaret, stopping before the door, said, with mock gravity: “Allow me to introduce your proprietor, Thomas Cross, Esq. We hope you will be mutually pleased with each other.”

“This is nice; whose work is this?” inquired the bewildered Thomas, looking around as in a dream.

“Are you pleased with it?”

“Rather.”

“Enough to spend your evenings in it?”

“Well, yes; if you’ll agree to have a fire for me,” said Tom, lazily eyeing the neat room.

“I’ll do it!” exclaimed Margaret, clapping her hands gleefully. “And keep you company too, if you will allow me.”

It was a mutual agreement, and it proved a happy one to both brother and sister. Together they read their favorite books and discussed their merits. They gave and received

confidence and learned all those sweet influences which spring from an intercourse of warm, loving hearts. Nor were these seasons confined to Tom’s room. He often sought the family circle, and by his good nature broke away the barriers of reserve and selfishness which had closed around them all. So out of Margaret’s resolve and its performance sprang a growth of tenderness that grew and blossomed until every heart in that family was firmly united in the bonds of sympathy and love.

THE TALENTS.

HAVE you read of the servant who hid in the earth The talent his master had given? When by diligent use to redouble its worth He ought to have faithfully striven?

My friend, you have talents—God gave them to you And will surely require them again; Take care not to waste them, if ever so few, Let them not have been given in vain.

You have Speech; then remember to watch your words well, And let them be gentle and kind. It may seem a small matter, but no one can tell The comfort a word leaves behind.

You have Time; every minute and hour of the day, Is lent by your Father in Heaven, Make haste to improve ere it passes away, The talent so graciously given.

You have Influence, too, though it seems very small; Yet in greater or less degree, You affect the improvement and comfort of all With whom you may happen to be.

You have talents of Gold which by Heaven were lent Every want of the poor to relieve. Oh, use them as blessings so graciously sent, ’Tis more blessed to give, than receive.

And the man who in earnest endeavors to live As an heir of eternity ought, By his silent Example a lesson may give, Which by words he would never have taught.

Then consider the talents entrusted to you, And may they be duly improved, Let your service be hearty and free, as is due From children so greatly beloved.

THE WAY OF TRANSGRESSORS.

Do not go out to-night, Amanda. The pavements are damp, and the air is loaded with vapor.”

“Indeed, mother, I must go.”

“Amanda, there is no necessity for your attending this party; but there are very urgent reasons why you should stay at home. Your cough is still troublesome, and a little exposure might give it permanency. You know that from your father you inherit a predisposition to disease of the lungs.”

“You only say that to alarm me.”

“Not so, my child; I know your constitution, and know how fatally the exposure of a night like this may affect you.”

“But I’ll wrap up warmly, and put on my India rubbers.”

“A necessary precaution, if you will go out, Amanda. But I wish I could persuade you to be guided by me. You know that the Bible says, the way of transgressors is hard.”

“I don’t know how you will apply that

to me, mother. I am transgressing no law of divine appointment.”

“Be not sure of that, Amanda.”

“I do not understand you, mother.”

“I will try and make my meaning clear. In our creation, as organized beings, we were so constituted as to bear a certain relation to every thing around us, and our bodily health was made dependent upon this relation. Here then, we have a law of health, which may be called a divine law—for there is nothing good that does not flow from the divine Creator. Violating this law, we become transgressors, and shall certainly prove the way we have chosen to be a hard one.”

“Oh, is that all?” said the daughter, looking up with a smile, and breathing more freely. “I’ll risk the consequences of breaking the law you have announced.”

“Amanda!”

“Don’t be so serious, mother. I will wrap up closely and have my feet well protected. There is not the least danger of my taking cold.”

“Well, you must do as you please. Still I cannot approve of your going, for I see that there is danger. But you are fully of age, and I will not seek to control you.”

So strong was Amanda’s desire to attend a large but select party, that she went, in company with a young man who called for her, notwithstanding the atmosphere was so humid and dense with fog that breathing it became oppressive.

At eleven, after having passed an evening of much pleasure, she started for home with her companion. She was so well wrapped up that she did not feel the cold, and her feet were protected from the damp pavement by the impervious India rubbers.

“I’m safe home, mother, after all!” she exclaimed with a merry ringing laugh, as she bounded into the chamber where her ever watchful and interested mother sat awaiting her daughter’s return.

“I am glad to see you back, Amanda,” said Mrs. Beaufort kindly, “and hope no ill consequences will follow what I must still call a very imprudent act.”

“Oh, I’m just as well as ever, and have not taken the least cold. How could I, wrapped up so warm?”

Still, on the next morning, unaccountable as it was to Amanda, she was quite hoarse, and was much troubled by a cough occasioned

by a slight but constant tickling in her throat. Accompanying these symptoms was a pale anxious face and a general feeling of lassitude.

“I feared all this, Amanda,” said her mother, with manifest concern.

“It’s only a slight cold, mother. And, anyhow, I don’t believe it was occasioned by going out last night, I was wrapped up so warm.”

“What to one is a slight cold, my daughter, is a very serious affair to another; and you are one of those who can never take a slight cold without shocking the whole system.”

Amanda tried to make light of this, but every hour she felt worse and worse. Her hoarseness, instead of diminishing, increased, and her cough grew more and more troublesome. Finally, she was compelled to go to bed, and the physician was called in. “Is there any danger?” asked Mrs. Beaufort, with an anxious and troubled countenance, as the physician, after prescribing among other things a stimulating application to the throat externally, was about leaving the house.

“Is your daughter subject to these fits of hoarseness, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, whenever she takes cold.”

“And does that frequent irritating cough always attend the recurrence of hoarseness?”

“Always.”

“Then, madam, it is but right that you should know, that such results, following a slight cold, indicate a very great tendency to pulmonary or bronchial affections. The predisposition existing, very great care should be taken to prevent all exciting causes.”

“But, doctor, how is she now?” was Mrs. Beaufort’s anxious inquiry.

“Not dangerous, madam, but still in a condition requiring care and skill to prevent unfavorable consequences.”

It was a week before Amanda was able to go about again, and then her pale cheeks, and debilitated frame indicated but too plainly the sad consequences of a single imprudent act.

A few weeks after she had become restored apparently to her usual health, as she was dressing one morning to go out, her mother said:—

“Your clothes are a great deal too tight, Amanda,”

“Oh, no, they are not tight at all, mother. Julia Mason laces as tight again. She gets her sister to draw her lacings for her, and she has to pull with all her strength.”

“That is wrong in Julia Mason, and yet half the pressure that she can bear would seriously injure you.”

“How can that be, mother? I am as healthy as she is.”

“I will tell you, Amanda. She has a full, round chest, giving free play to the lungs; while your chest is narrow and flat. Without any compression, the action of your lungs is not so free and healthy as hers would be, laced as tightly as you say she laces. But when to your natural conformation you add artificial pressure, the action of your lungs becomes not only enfeebled, but the unhealthy action induced tends to develop that peculiar form of disease, the predisposition to which you inherit.”

“That is only an idea of yours, mother. I am sure I have quite a full chest.”

“There you are mistaken. I have noticed this defect, with much anxiety, ever since you were a child; and having had my attention called to it, have frequently made

comparisons, and have found that you are remarkably narrow-chested, and what is more, have a tendency to stoop, which still lessens the size of the cavity in which the lungs play.”

“Well, mother, my clothes are not tight. Just see here.”

Mrs. Beaufort tried her clothes, and found them to be much tighter than in her judgment was good for her health.

“You are still unwilling, Amanda, to be governed by your mother, where her wishes come in opposition to your pride or inclinations. I know that you are compressing your chest too much, but you are not willing to yield to my judgment. And yet I prescribe no arbitrary rules, but endeavor to guide you by a rational consideration of true principles. These you will not see; and the consequences that must follow their violation will be the transgressor’s reward.”

“Indeed, mother, you are too serious. You are frightened at a shadow. Not one of my friends enjoys better general health than I do.”

“And so might the graceful maple say of the sturdy oak in the first years of its existence.

But long after the first had been humbled beneath the hand of decay, the other would stand with its roots more firmly imbedded in the earth, and its limbs battling the storms as vigorously as ever.”

Amanda made no reply to this, for she was suddenly struck with its force. Still she only pretended to loosen her stays to satisfy her mother, while the lacings remained as tense as ever.

It is unnecessary to trace, step by step, the folly of Amanda Beaufort through a series of years—years that caused her mother much painful anxiety—up to her twenty-sixth summer, when, as a wife and mother, she was suffering the penalty of her indiscretion, proving too clearly the truth, that the way of transgressors is hard. In spite of all her mother’s warnings and remonstrances, she had continued to expose herself to the night air in damp weather, to attend parties, and remain at them to a very late hour, and to lace herself so tightly as to seriously retard the healthy action of the vital organs.

It was toward the close of one of those calm days in September, when nature seems

pausing to note the first few traces of decay which autumn has thrown upon garden, field, and forest, that Mrs. Beaufort, and the husband of her daughter, with a few friends, were gathered in the chamber of their beloved one, to see her die. How sad, how very sad is the death-bed of the young, sinking beneath premature decay! In the passing away of one who has met the storms of life, and battled with them through vigorous maturity, and sinks at last in the course of nature, there is less to pain the feelings. But when the young and beautiful die, with all their tenderest and earliest ties clinging to them—an event so unlooked for, so out of the true order of nature—we can only turn away and weep. We can extract from such an affliction but few thoughts of comfort. All is dreary, and blank, and desolate.

“Bring me my children,” the dying mother said, rousing up from a state of partial slumber, with an earnest emphasis, that brought both her mother and husband to her bedside.

“What did you want, dear Amanda?” asked the husband, laying his hand gently upon her white forehead that was damp with the dews of coming dissolution.

“My dear babes,” she replied in a changed tone, rising up with an effort. “My Anna and Mary. Who will be a mother to them, when I am laid at rest? Oh, that I could take them with me!”

Tears came to the relief of her overwrought feelings, and leaning her head upon her husband, she wept and sobbed aloud. When she had recovered herself a little, the infant was brought in by her mother, and laid in her arms.

“Oh, my babe! my dear babe!” she said, with tender animation. “I cannot give you up!” And she clasped it to her breast with an energy of affection, while the large drops rolled over her pale cheek. “And Anna, dear little girl! where is my Anna?” she asked.

Anna, a beautiful child, a few months past her second birthday, was brought in and lifted up on the bed.

“Don’t cry, mama,” said the little thing, seeing the tears upon her mother’s cheeks, “don’t cry; I’ll always be good.”

“Heaven bless you and keep you, my child!” the mother sobbed, eagerly kissing the sweet lips that were turned up to hers;

and then clasped the child to her bosom in a strong embrace.

The children were removed after a time, but the thoughts of the dying mother were still upon them; and with these thoughts were self-reproach, that made her pillow one of thorns.

“I now see and feel,” said she, looking up into the face of her mother, “that all my sufferings, and this early death, which will soon be upon me, would have been avoided, if I had only permitted myself to be guided by you. I do not wonder now that my constitution gave way. How could it have been otherwise, and I so strangely regardless of all the laws of health? But, my dear mother, the past is beyond recall; and now I leave to you the dear little ones from whom I must soon part forever.”

The lips of the young wife and mother moved feebly, and inarticulate whispers fell faintly from her tongue for some moments, and then she sank to sleep—the sleep of death.

Thus, at the age of twenty-six, abused and exhausted nature gave up the struggle; and the mother, who had violated the laws of

health, sank to the earth just at the moment when her tenderest and holiest duties called loudest for performance.

Who, in this brief sketch, does not recognize familiar features? Amanda Beaufort is but one of a class which has far too many representatives. These are in every town and village, in every street and neighborhood. Why do we see so many pale-faced mothers? Why are our young and lovely females so soon broken down? The answer, in far too many cases, may be found in their early and persevering transgression of the most palpable physiological laws. The violation of these is ever followed, sooner or later, in a greater or less degree, by painful consequences.

LESSON OF THE WATER-WHEEL.

LISTEN to the water-mill; Through the live-long day— How the clinking of its wheel Wears the hours away. Languidly the autumn wind Stirs the greenwood leaves, From the field the reapers sing, Binding up their sheaves; And a proverb haunts my mind. As a spell is cast, “The mill cannot grind With the water that is past.”

Autumn winds revive no more Leaves that once are shed, And the sickle cannot reap Corn once gathered; And the ruffled stream flows on Tranquil, deep and still, Never gliding back again To the water-mill. Truly speaks the proverb old, With a meaning vast, “The mill cannot grind With the water that is past.”

Take the lesson to thyself, Loving heart, and true, Golden years are fleeting by— Youth is passing, too; Learn to make the most of life, Love, while love shall last; “The mill cannot grind With the water that is past.”

Work, while the daylight shines, Man of strength and will; Never does the streamlet glide Useless by the mill. Wait not till to-morrow’s sun Beams upon the way, All that thou canst call thy own Lies in thy to-day; Power, and intellect, and health, May not always last; “The mill cannot grind With the water that is past.”

Oh! the wasted hours of life, That have drifted by— Oh! the good that might have been, Lost without a sigh. Love, that we might once have saved By a single word, Thoughts conceived, but never penned, Perishing unheard; Take the proverb to thyself, Take, and hold it fast, “The mill cannot grind With the water that is past.”

Continue reading: BE JUST BEFORE GENEROUS.