Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1881 — WHAT MILLY DID. [ARTICLE]

WHAT MILLY DID.

* I van! to tell the children what Hilly has done. , She lives in a country village not kr from Boston, and one bright morning last autumn, as her father was hurrying from the breakfast table to eaten the morning train, she stopped him suddenly with this question: “Father, may I have ail the apples that fall off from the greening tree?”' “What, child?” exclaimed her fathI have all the apples that fall off from the greening tree?” she repeated. *• • - - “Ton may have the whole tree—all the trees in the orchard, little girl, only let mejgo now,” he answered, kissing Her hastily, and hurrying out, but looking hack over his shoulder to say, “Sarah, I shant be home for a week probably.” • T ‘ Aunt Sasah heard Milly’s question, but took no notice of it, or, if she thought of It at all, supposed it to be one of “that strange child’s notions.” Milly is ten years old now, and evar since her mother died, six yean ago, Aunt Sarah has been housekeeper., - Aunt Sarah thinks housework is enough to fill a woman’s days, so she had no time for anything else. Her brother, Mr. Packer, is one of the busy business men. There are business med who seem never to have anything to do: nothing seems to trouble them, mop«y Hows into their pockets, , even, „ tkough they stand .loaning »■, .-against their store counters; or sit calmly reading their newspapers. There are others who are aIiCMB in a great hurry; they can not stop to eat a meal leisurely, they never chat socially with a neighbor, and are the rarest guests in their own ftuniiies. They are the busy business men. Mr. Packer is one of them. - T 5 ’

He would never deny his little daughter anything yet be would never tiinh4o give her pleasant surprises as some fathers are always doing. Bo without even asking Milly the reason for her request,*ne nastily granted It. Milly was in school until three o’clock that afternoon, but, as fast as she eAM run, she rau home then and out into the beautifti) orchard behind the house. Hie empty hammock was Swinging invitingly under two great horse-chestnut trees, and any other time Milly would have jumped into it, and set herself swinging, but that day she hardly gave it aglaLOe.and ran on, past the grape vines, loaded with purple fruit and 'hever stopped until she was under the greening tree. There she stood still and got her breath. A pretty- little picture she made; her sailor hat on the back of her head, her long, bright hair flying In the wind, her fat arms akimbo as she stood gazing at the apples on the ground, and her plump cheeks rosy red with her long run. But Milly stood still only long enough to think what to do, and then, like a wise little girl, she set about doing it. She ran back to the bouse and said to Aunt Sarah, “I’m going to pick my applea, aud I want a basket, Auntie.'’ “You’d better take two baskets, and put the good apples into one ana the bad ones into, the other, and make two piles Under some tree,” said pracfci. A Aunt Sarah. So Milly took two small baskets and skipped back to the orchard, and set her hands to work.

The ground was covered with apples in eveiy stage of gbodness and badness. There were geat fair apples that must have dropped because of their own weight; thren there were apples with the spe ks of rot just coming; others a mass of rot, and now and then an apple with the side lying upward as fair as conld be, but with an ugly brown worm just eating into its heart from £he under side, lr MlUy had been a minister she might have found a ready-made sermon in the apple heap under the greening tree, but she was only a little girl with a loving heart full of wishes to do good. She turned each' apple round and round ae she picked;st up, and if there was the merest blemish of rot or bruise on it, she tossed it into the basket for bad wpples, and carried her basket to a spot near by and emptied it, But&n tne'laYge, smooth-skinned apples went into another basket, and were turned lifto a separate heap near tty. It idpw work and tiresome for such small hands and not very stong arms. Then Milly didn’t like to get hold of the soft, rotten apples, and she couldn’t help giving a little scream now and then, when she wduTffpiok up an ajipJe and find a long, brown, slimy worm wriggling oh the other side. Some of the apples were covered with black ants, and the air was full of wasps that were feeding on the sweet apples under the next tree. Yet she was very brave, and she worked till the supper bell rang. The next afternoon she did the same, and all that week of sunny September afternoons patient Milly picked and sorted apples, and every night her back aohed and her arms ached, and her knees were as a rheumatic old lady’s. . She had found an effipty barrel In the bam, and had brought the apples iu a basket all the way from the orchard, and poured them into the barrel. §he had made a great many trips to fill the bkrrel, but when Saturday night cam(|lt wife foil of nice apples. Mr. Packer returned that evening, and when he stooped to kiss his little girl, exclaitoed, “Why. Milly, whdt makes you bheeks so red ? they are hot aim your hands are burning, enough, the childoould scarcely speak aloud, she was so hoarse. She was really aipk, and began to cry from nervflusnpl and weakness. Millyls her father’s only darling, his anxiety-was very great that night Uhd the folfowing day, but it was only a sudden »tfd severe cold, brought on »V her and carelessness Milly had been «&>ing. “Picking apple* for the poor children in Boston,” ■be torn them,'mod when they asked what made her thihk todo it, she said I (I P«ivm> H-fc a 4*l "vr* J ... of apple. .Dd Mni h «

, MR#’* odld Soon got better, aud she haa aevem been sorry that she worked so hard that w*ek picking up Ben ia a aonundrum: If oae little girl can pick a barrel of apples, how many barrels of apples can a hundred little girls piek ? The answer Is easy, anybody cau give it. Why a hundred, of course. And think how much happiness a hundred barrets of apples might give? Thekla Warner. ' In Christian Press.