"Oh dear! what shall I do?" cried George, fretfully, one rainy afternoon. "Mamma, do tell me what to do."

"And I'm so tired!" echoed Helen, who was lazily playing with a kitten in her lap. "I don't see why it should rain on a Friday afternoon, when we have no lessons to learn. We can't go out, and no one can come to see us. It's too bad, there!"

"Helen, do you know better than God?" asked her mother, speaking[8] very gravely. "You forget that He sends the rain."

"I suppose I was thoughtless, mamma," answered the child; "I did not mean to be wicked, but, dear me, the time passes so slowly, with nothing to do."

"Have you and George read all your books?"

"Oh yes! two or three times over," they both answered; "and oh, mamma," continued Helen, "if the one who wrote 'Two Little Heaps,' or the 'Rollo' book writer, or the author of 'The Little White Angel,' would only write some more books, I, for one, would not care how hard it rained. If I was grown up and rich, I wouldn't mind giving a dollar a letter for those stories."[9]

"Nor I," shouted George in an animated tone, quite different from the discontented whine he had favored his mother with a few moments before; "the best thing is to have them read aloud to you; that makes you understand all about it so much better. I say, mamma, couldn't you write a letter to one of those delightful people and beg them to hurry up with more stories, especially some about bad children;—not exactly wicked, you know, but full of mischief. Then I am sure that they are all true. Only wait till I'm a man! I'll just write the history of some jolly fellows I know who are always getting into scrapes, but haven't a scrap of meanness about them. That's the kind of[10] book I like! I'll write dozens of them, and give them to all the Sunday school libraries."

His mother smiled at this speech, and then said quietly, "I know a gentleman who likes the story of 'The Little White Angel,' as much as you do, and he has written a letter to request the author to write six books for him."

"Six! hurrah!" shouted George, "how glad I am!" and he skipped up to Helen, caught her by the hands, and the two danced round the room, upsetting a chair, till Helen, catching her foot in the skirt of her mother's dress, they both tumbled down on the carpet together.

"If you cut up such violent capers,"[11] said the kind mother, laughing, "at the first part of my information, it may be dangerous to tell you what the author replied."

"Oh no, do tell us!" cried the children. "We'll be as still as our shadows;" and while they made violent efforts to look grave and stand quiet, their mother told them that the author had consented, the six books were to be written, and she would buy them the very first day they were published. "Perhaps," she continued, "mind, only perhaps, I may get them for you before they are ever printed."

"Why, how, mamma?" they both asked.

"Well, suppose you make some very good resolutions—let me see,"[12] and she took a pencil out of her pocket, and drawing a sheet of paper toward her, began to write:

"1st. To endeavor to say your prayers morning and evening without a wandering thought.

"2d. To try to keep faithfully 'the Golden Rule.'

"3d. To obey your parents immediately, without asking 'why?'

"4th. (A little rule, but very important.) To keep your teeth, nails, and hair scrupulously clean and neat.

"5th. To bear disappointments cheerfully.

"There, I think that will do. They are all hard rules except the fourth. I do not keep them well myself, my dear children. No one can,[13] without constant watchfulness and prayer for help from above; but you can try, will you?"

"I will, mamma," said Helen, in a low, earnest tone, her blue eyes filling with tears.

"And you, George, will you?"

"Yes, mamma, I will try. I can't be a very good boy, as you know. I get so tired of being good sometimes, that I feel like jumping over the house to get the badness out of me, instead of sitting down quietly and thinking about my duty, as papa says I must. When papa locked me up in his dressing room last summer, and I kicked the door as hard as ever I could, which made him call out that I should stay there two hours longer, I was[14] mad enough, I tell you! but I did not cut my name with a knife on his rosewood bureau because I was angry. It was because I was almost crazy with doing nothing but think what a bad boy I was. That made me worse, you see. The best way to punish me is to see you crying about my conduct. I can't stand that," and the boy put his arms round his mother's neck, and kissed her fondly.

"My dear boy," said his mother, returning the caress, "there is One whom you grieve more than me. I wish you would think oftener of that. I know that different children require different sorts of punishment, and as neither your father nor I approve of beating you like a dog, and you say[15] that shutting you up with nothing to do only makes you worse, I shall advise him the next time you are naughty, to send immediately for a load of wood, and make you saw it all up into small pieces, or take you where some house is building and order you to run up and down a long ladder all day with a hod of bricks on your shoulder, or hire you out to blow the big bellows for a blacksmith. How do you think you would like that?"

"I had a great deal rather run after the fire engines, to put the fire out. That's the kind of work I would like. Every body screaming, and pumping, and playing streams of water—twenty firemen rushing up ladders, pulling old women and cats out[16] of the windows, and somebody inside pitching out the looking glasses and crockery to save them! I wish our house was on fire this very minute, so I could pull you and Helen out, and save all the furniture. That would be the greatest fun in the world!"

"Please don't set fire to the house," cried his mother, laughing, "for the fun of saving our lives. I prefer to keep it just as it is, and walking quietly out at the door." As she spoke, the sun suddenly burst forth from the clouds, and his bright rays darting into the room, the children sprang joyfully up, and, with their mother's consent, were soon out of the house with jumping-rope and[17] hoop, to join their little companions in a neighboring park.

George and Helen were two charming, ingenuous children. George was full of frolic, mischief, and fun, with generous impulses and excellent intentions, which only required peculiar and careful training and encouragement to develop him into a steady, high-principled man. Locking him up with nothing to do, as he truly said, did him more harm than good; he required active punishment, and his mother wisely intended to take the hint for his future benefit. Her little Helen, though just as full of play and fun, was more easily managed. A present of a book so won upon her love and gratitude, that her mother[18] had only to hold out the prospect of a new one, and a loving kiss (Helen prized the kiss even more than the book) as a reward for good behavior, to make her quite a pattern of a dear, amiable little girl.

The next morning the kind mother called upon her friend Aunt Fanny, bringing George and Helen with her, as it was Saturday. First she told all the conversation of the afternoon before, which amused Aunt Fanny very much, and then she continued, "You told me the other day that your daughter was very busy writing six books for Mr. Leavitt the publisher. I know you love my children."

"Yes, indeed!" cried Aunt Fanny. "I love children from my heart,[19] straight out to the ends of my fingers; and when a pen is in my hands, the love runs into it, and then out again, as fast as it can scratch all over ever so many sheets of paper. My thumb aches so sometimes with writing, that I often wish I had half a dozen extra ones, so I could take the tired one off and screw another on, and even then I am afraid I could never exhaust my love for my darlings;" and she looked at the children and held out her hand with such an affectionate smile, that Helen came timidly up and gave her a little winning kiss immediately, while George, blushing all over his face, showed two great dimples in his cheeks, but had not the courage to leave his chair.[20]

You may be sure that Aunt Fanny, after Helen's kiss, was quite ready to grant any favor the mother might ask for her children. She was perfectly willing to catch a comet for them to play with, or jump down a volcano to find out who lived in the bottom of it, if anybody would only show her how. Helen's mother knew this, but she hesitated a little before she made this strange request:

"My dear friend, my two children have made me the promises I have told you of, in regard to keeping my little rules and resolutions, and now I think it will be the most wonderful and delightful reward possible, if they were to be permitted to see and read your daughter's stories in manuscript."[21]

"Manuscript! what does that mean, mamma?"

"In her own handwriting, dear."

"Oh yes! yes! how very strange and delightful! And then to see the very ............