The Story of a Needle by A. L. O. E. - HTML preview

BEARING BURDENS.

BEAR ye one another’s burdens,” said David Jones to himself, repeating the text as he walked home from church. “Our pastor has made it very plain. In this world, he says, every soul has some burden of sorrow or trial to bear, and every one who loves God must try to help his neighbour to bear it. Now it is clear enough that the squire does this when he gives blankets and coals to the poor at Christmas; and our parson does this, for every one in trouble is sure to go straight to him; but I can’t see how a boy like me is to do it. I can’t give like the squire, or talk like the parson; yet I should like to help to bear some one’s burden; for, as it was said in the sermon, it is a blessed thing to do anything for the Lord who has done everything for us; and when we help a poor neighbour for His sake, He counts it as done to Himself. I’ll pray God to show me some way of bearing another’s burdens.”

So before David went to rest that night, he made a little simple prayer that God would give him some work, however small, to do for Him, and let him be useful to others.

The first thought of David, when the bright rays of the sun awoke him on Monday morning, was,—“Here is another day; I hope that it will not pass over without my helping some one to bear his burden;” and again he turned the thought into a prayer. While David was putting on his clothes, an idea came into his mind,—

“Poor old Mrs. Crane, she is almost bent double with age, and hard work it is for her to draw up water from her well. She is a good old woman, Mrs. Crane, and was always ready to help others before she grew so feeble. I’ll have time, before I set out for school, to draw up a pail of water and carry it to her door. Won’t it be a nice surprise to her, when she comes out to draw, to find the water all ready! Old age is her burden—I can help her a little to bear it.”

David was soon off to the well. He let down the bucket and filled it; and as he turned the windlass to raise it again, a very sweet thought came into the mind of the boy. “Our Lord asked the woman of Samaria to draw water for Him, and she did not do it; yet what an honour it would have been to her—had she been a queen—to have drawn water for the Son of God! Now the Lord said, Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto Me;” so I really am doing what the woman would not do,—I am drawing water for the blessed Saviour; for I am sure that Mrs. Crane is His servant, and so, working for her, I am working for Him.”

The boy cheerfully placed the pail of water at the door of Mrs. Crane, and soon after set out for school, carrying with him his dinner of bread and cheese, wrapped up in a bit of brown paper. “I am glad that I have done one little kind act to-day,” thought David; “but it does not seem very likely that I shall be able to do any other.”

He very soon found that he was wrong. There are so many burdens, great and small, in the world, that even a child who is on the look-out for an opportunity of doing good, will not wait long before he find one.

David overtook on the road little Steeney Clark, who was slowly walking towards school.

“Good morning, Steeney,” cried David. “Why do you look so dull and sad?”

“’Cause I’m sure Mr. Day will punish me again,” answered the poor dull boy, who was always getting into trouble with the master at his school. “I didn’t know my lesson yesterday, I don’t know it to-day, I don’t think as I ever shall know it!” and the boy rubbed his forehead hard, as if he fancied that he could make his wits brighter by rubbing.

“Let’s see what you have to learn,” said David. “Maybe if you and I go over it together as we walk along, you may understand it a bit better. Pluck up a brave heart, Steeney. You know ‘perseverance conquers difficulties,’ and ‘slow and steady wins the race.’”

It was very cheering to poor Steeney to have some one to help and encourage him, instead of laughing at his natural dulness. David was one of the sharpest boys in the school, but he did not despise his poor young companion for not being so clever as himself. As the two walked on together, David explained all the difficulties of the lesson so clearly to Steeney, that the dull face of the boy brightened. He was able at last to master the task—he would not be set down as a hopeless dunce by his master. David entered the school-room feeling very happy. He had helped a fellow-creature again to bear a burden.

“How pale Mr. Day looks,” thought David, as the schoolmaster stood up behind his desk and rapped with the ruler to command silence. Mr. Day was not a great favourite with the boys, for he was sometimes severe, and easily put out of temper. The truth was that his work was too much for him, as any one might have seen by looking at his thin worn face with its deep furrow between the brows. Mr. Day would have liked David for his quickness in learning, but for the trouble which he gave by his love of frolic and fun; for David was a very merry boy, and could scarcely keep quiet in school-time. He would drum on a desk, or kick on the floor, and set the other boys laughing. David had never seen much harm in this, though it had often brought him into a scrape with the master; but it struck him this day for the first time that it was not fair to a tired hard-worked master to add to the labour of teaching.

“Mr. Day looks as if he’d a mighty heavy burden to bear, and I’m afraid I’ve often helped to make it heavier. I’ll try and be quiet and steady to-day, and set a good example to the boys about me,” thought David.

He kept his resolution; and glad indeed would he have been that he had done so, had he known with what an aching heart and aching head the poor master had begun his day’s work. Mr. Day had private griefs, about which his pupils knew nothing, which sorely imbittered his life. He was also subject to racking headaches, which the noise of a school-room increased to such a painful degree, that he would long before have given up his office, had he not had a wife and children to support.

“I fear that I cannot stand this work much longer,” poor Mr. Day had said to himself that morning. He was like a weary pack-horse dragging a weight beyond its strength up a steep hill; and, from mere thoughtlessness, his pupils had often acted like boys dragging on behind. But things went on better on this Monday; and Mr. Day told his wife as they sat down to dinner that he had had much less worry than usual with the boys. He did not guess the cause of the relief—that one of his best scholars had been on that day helping to bear his burden.

David Jones, as I have said, had brought with him his dinner of bread and cheese, as his home was at some distance from the school. He sat down under a hedge with a good appetite to enjoy his simple meal. Scarcely had David begun it, when, chancing to raise his eyes, he saw a ragged half-starved-looking child, wistfully watching him as he ate.

“I dare say that poor little creature has had no breakfast to-day,” thought David, “and maybe no supper last night. Should I not be doing a little thing to please my Lord if I shared my dinner with her?”

He broke off a piece of bread, and, smiling, held it out to the girl, who eagerly ran forward to get it, and ate it as if she were famished.

“And there’s a bit of the cheese too,” said David kindly, watching the hungry girl’s enjoyment with a pleasure which made his own scanty meal appear like a feast. David knew well that our best works deserve no reward from God, yet he could not but recall with joy the gracious promise to those who feed the poor: They cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

When afternoon lessons were over, David, whistling as he went, set out on his homeward way. “It is a strange thing,” thought he, “but whenever we try to bear other people’s burdens, it seems as if our own hearts grew lighter and lighter!”

As David passed by an orchard, divided from the road by a rough stone wall, he heard a voice calling to him, and came up to Owen Pell—a boy of about his own age—who was looking up at the fine ripe fruit hanging almost over the wall.

“I say, Davy; lend me a hand. I think I can climb over here.” He was already mounting the wall. “Let’s fill our pockets with apples. Don’t they look tempting and nice?”

“Nice or not, they’re not ours,” replied David, who remembered that God’s commandment, Thou shalt not steal, is broken not only by robbers who take a man’s purse, but by boys who take his apples.

“We’ll soon make ’em ours,” laughed Owen. “If you don’t choose to climb yourself—though I know you’re active as a kitten—just lend me your stick, and I’ll knock some fruit off from that bough.”

“No, no, Owen,” said David; “leave the apples alone. Farmer Ford does not grow them for you or for me. I’ll neither pluck nor help you to pluck them.”

“Oh, indeed!” cried the angry Owen. “You’re afeard of a thrashing from the farmer, are you?”

“It’s not that I’m afraid of,” said David, turning quickly away; for he felt his passion rising, and was much inclined to use his stick in a very different way from that which the insolent boy had requested, by knocking him down instead of the apples.

“I can’t bear that Owen,” muttered David to himself. “How he is yelling after me, calling me all sorts of bad names, just because I won’t join him in theft!”

Before David reached his home, he came on a wide tract of common, and noticed a number of ducks splashing about in a pool half hidden by rushes.

“Why, these are Mrs. Pell’s ducks, that her boy Owen ought to be watching on the common, instead of hunting after apples. I heard her scolding him yesterday for leaving them out so late, and promising him a sound beating if any should stray and get lost. There’s Brown’s big dog coming this way; he has had a mind to a duckling for supper before now. If Owen does not keep a better look-out, it’s not many of the brood that he’ll ever drive home. What a scrape he’ll be in! When Mrs. Pell promises a beating, she is certain to keep her word. Well, let Owen be beaten,—what do I care!”

That was David’s first thought; but a more generous one succeeded. “I might drive home these ducks for Owen, and keep them and him out of trouble. To be sure, he deserves nothing from me; but are we not told to be kind even to the unthankful and the evil? I should think that God is pleased when we bear the burdens of our friends; more pleased when we bear the burdens of strangers; but most pleased of all when, for His sake, we show kindness to those who have done us a wrong.”

In the meantime, Owen Pell had had cause to regret that he had neglected his mother’s ducks to go after the farmer’s apples. Owen was not an active boy. In struggling to climb up the wall, he missed his footing, and came down with a heavy bang on the back of his head. He had just scrambled on his feet again, bruised and crying with pain, when who should ride up to the spot but Farmer Ford, with a great horse-whip in his hand!

“What are you crying for?” called out the farmer.

“I’ve had a tumble,” whined the frightened boy.

“Climbing my wall to get at my apples! I’ll give you something to cry for!” and the rough farmer bestowed two or three sharp cuts with his lash on poor Owen, which made him yell with the smart, and sent him running home in such haste to escape from the farmer’s whip, that he never once thought of the ducks, till he saw his mother—a tall, bony woman—standing with a broom in her hand at the gate of her little garden.

“Where are the ducks?” shouted she.

Owen stopped, breathless and gasping, and looked around in dismay. Evening was closing in; his ducks had wandered he knew not whither. Mrs. Pell came angrily towards him. “I told you yesterday,” she exclaimed, raising the broomstick, “that if one of them ducks was lost—”

“None are lost!—none are lost!” called out a cheerful voice near; and from behind a knoll covered with furze, which had hidden him from view, appeared David Jones, driving home the ducks for Owen.

“Well, Davy, you’re a good-natured boy if ever there was one!” cried Mrs. Pell, her hard features relaxing into a kindly look. “Owen has escaped a beating this once, but next time he shall not be so easily let off. You look tired and heated, Davy,” she added. “Just step into my cottage and rest; and if you’d like a sup of new milk and a slice of plum-bread, you’ll be heartily welcome to both. There’s none for you,” she said sharply to Owen. “Go and shut up those ducks.”

David glanced at the boy as he slunk away. “I’m glad,” he thought, “that I did a good turn to that poor fellow, and saved him a beating.”

“You’ll always get on well in the world, Davy,” observed Mrs. Pell, as she cut for him a large slice of her home-made plum-bread. “You always keep steady to your duty, and you make friends wherever you go.”

Mrs. Pell was right. David passed through boyhood, youth, and manhood, prospering in what he undertook, till he became a wealthy farmer. Always ready to help others, he found others ready to help him. He made many friends on earth, but it was through earnestly seeking to please an Almighty Friend above. David had grown rich; and a noble use he made of his riches. The more he gained, the more he gave; and truly it appeared that the more he gave, the more he had. When David Jones had built the new aisle to the church, and set up a village lending-library, sent twenty pounds at once to the Bible Society, pensioned several poor widows, and feasted a hundred school children,—he might smile at the remembrance of the day when he had begun his work for God by such things as filling an old woman’s pail, feeding a hungry little girl, and driving home ducks from the common. But perhaps the kind acts of the penniless boy were as pleasing in the sight of God as the great gifts of the rich farmer; for they both sprang from the same motive,—a desire to show grateful love to his Lord by bearing the burdens of others.

END