sugar, but she was promptly sent home with it. Mrs. N. was "glad to let her have it, and it was too small a matter to be repaid."
This caused Mrs. Borrower to gasp and to wait a while before despatching the child for a cup of lard. This was given also, and when no return was allowed Mrs. B. realized the situation and was too proud to ask for further loans. She resented her neighbor's attitude, but her mouth was shut, especially as Mrs. N. continued as friendly as ever when they met. The result was that she was simply forced to exercise a little more head-*work thereafter in her household affairs, ordering supplies sufficiently in advance of her needs, and soon she had broken herself of the borrowing habit.—Lee McCrae, Zion's Advocate.
(276)
BOTTOM, BEGINNING AT THE
It was in the pursuit of a mission that
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., went to Thompsonville.
He might have found a more
showy position, for he had name and influence.
He might have found plenty of
things to do that would at the start have
brought him more money. For that matter,
he had enough of his own so that he need
not bother with work; and had he been like
some young men, he would never have been
seen in overalls or any other uniform of
the toiler. But he went to the carpet mill,
and he did what he was told. He began at
the bottom. He has worked hard. And
now we may understand what he did it for.
Announcement is made that he is to go West
as manager of one of the Hartford Carpet
Company's Western houses. It is for a purpose
that he has been learning the business
in all its details. He could not manage without
that knowledge.
It is an old lesson, but never was there an instance better showing it than does this of the son of the former President. If he could afford to begin at the bottom, others can. If he must, others must. If with his brains and education he needed to do that, nearly any young man does. If his prospective position is the reward of that sort of sacrifice, it is a sacrifice that any young man can afford to make.—New Haven Register.
(277)
Boy, A Chance for the—See Chance for the Boy.
Boy, a Dutiful—See Preservation.
BOY AND KING
Mark Twain tells a story of how a bootblack
saved a king. The king was sick;
his trouble defied the skill of all his doctors,
and it seemed as if he must die. The little
bootblack knew a peculiar but a sure remedy
for the disease; but how to get the king to
take a prescription from a bootblack was a
problem. He might have gone to the palace
doors and pleaded till he was hoarse without
any one listening. So he told his remedy to
the ash-boy, who was older than himself,
and the ash-boy told it to the butcher, and
the butcher told it to his wife, and she told
it to some one else, and so on it went, a
little higher each time, until it reached the
king's doctors. The king would have nothing
more to do with them, so they told it to
the favorite page, and since the king was very
fond of the page he tried the remedy just
to please him. The king was cured by the
bootblack's remedy.—James M. Stifler, "The
Fighting Saint."
(278)
Boy, A Noble—See Love, Filial.
Boy, His Own—See Fatherhood.
BOYS ADJUSTING THEIR TROUBLES
When Edward VII was a boy of ten, he
was with his mother, Queen Victoria, at Balmoral
Castle in the Highlands of Scotland.
At that time the Queen was quite a skilful
painter in water-colors and spent many days
by the waterfalls and in the glens making
pictures.
One day she was sitting at her easel on a sandy beach of the river beneath a waterfall. Young Edward was playing around her. The little Prince suddenly caught sight of a Highland lad in kilts. The lad was making a sand castle and adorning it with sprigs of heather and "chucky-stones."
The Prince advanced to him with royal hauteur and asked for whom the sand castle was being built.
"For bonnie Prince Charlie," was the playful reply of the boy, who stood with his hands on his hips to see the effect of a thistle on the top story. The lad had no idea that his interlocutor was any different from any other boy.
The young Prince, however, determined to make it clear that he—and not Prince Charlie—was to be King some day. He kicked over the sand castle.
The Highland boy glared at him and said:
