Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1876 — Our Young Readers. [ARTICLE]

Our Young Readers.

PRISSY DEAN’S DONATION PARTY. Sombthino which Prissy had heard on Sunday had stirred her up to do a deed of benevolence. She wished to be someIxxty’s benefactor and to - have a good time doing it. She had her oyn proper sphere of benevolence, as everybody has. Her’s was her little brother Tommy, who was two years old and needed a great deal of patieuce and of playing with. But Prissy wanted to do something fine and praise-' worthy, outside of her own little round of childish doty. ... ■ , . Two things happened on Monday which gave her an idea. The first was hearing one of her schoolmates tell what a splendid time they had at a donation party at her minister’s house —how they all carried things and had asupper and played games. And it was just like a party or a picnic. And it was all in the newspaper the next day. The second thing that happened was this: When she went home, she found a stout old woman sitting in the sewing room, with her mother. It was Mrs. Kyte. She hud on a green gingham dress and blue cheeked apron, a small red shawl, and a large pink sunbonnet. There was a basket on the floor on one side of her and a bundle on the other, and she was leaning forward upon the top of a big, baggy, brown umbrella, which she grasped firmly with both hands. She was saying: “I’m obleeged to you, I’m sure, Miss Deans, for the meat and the puddin’ you’ve give me. What you haven’t no use for is a great help to me. Haven’t you got a dress or a petticoat you could spare?” “No, Mrs. Kyte,” said Mrs. Dean, “ I gave the last I had to spare to a poor woman, with a sick baby, yesterday. ” " That’s what I tell um,” said Mrs. Kyte, with a sigh. “These tramps gets better took care of than us that’s members of the church in good an’ reg’lar standin’. Haven’t you got a couple of handkerchers Si could give me, or an old parasol ? is umbreller’s so heavy!” “ No,” said Mrs. Deau again. “ I don’t think I have anything more to give you to-day.” “ Well, I must be a-goin’, I suppose. Prissy, you haven't been to see me this long time. I think if young people and children was brought up to visit tlie widow and the poor it would be a great advantage to them. Good-day, Miss Deans. Good day. Prissy.” Now Prissy was feeling so good and benevolent that her mother’s treatment of. Mrs. Kyte seemed to her rather cold and unkind. “She has three parasols,” she said to herself —“her little one and her large one and her pretty new one; and I think she might have given one to that poor old woman, who is a member of the church and has nothing to carry but that horrid old cotton umbrella.” Prissy was “wise in her own conceit ” that day, which prevented her being really wise at all. That evening, -while she seomed to be studying her geography, she was considering a plan of beneficence. Her idea was to have a donation party at Mrs. Kyte’s. It would be very pleasant to manage such an affair and to be head of a movement so benevolent and •o entertaining; and she resolved to find out next day a little more about the way to conduct it. Prissy was only eleven years old, and Kate Morrow, who knew about the donation party at her minister’s, was no older. Yet it did not occur to either of them to consult their parents until they had their little plan all arranged and had chosen five little girls, who were to be asked to meet with them at Prissy’s house on Saturday afternoon, each with a basket of good things for supper. The five might have been seen after school by the side of the road, huddled together in a little bunch, while Prissy and Kate, with an air of greaj importance and mystery, disclosed their benevolent plan. The five said: “Oh, won’t it be fun!” And then they all added at once; “I’ll go right home and ask mamma.” And then Prissy and Kate bethought themselves that they had better go and do likewise. Mrs. Dean thought it a little too late to raise objections to Prissy’s plan, when six other mothers were consenting to it, thinking it of her devising; so, like the rest, she promised to have biscuits, sandwiches and cake ready for her on Saturday after : noon, to take to old Mrs. Kyte. It was a warm, bright, summer afternoon when Kate and the other five, with three little sisters, appeared at Mrs. Dean’s fate, with their bright faces and their basets and their clean cambric frocks. Prissy went out to join them, in the best of spirits. Poor little Tommy was crying to go too. Of course, he could not w alk so tar, and his mother w'as trying to console him with promise of a donation party all to themselves at home. Meanwhile the ten little girls trudged away over the hill, with their baskets. It was pretty warm, and they w ere glad to sit down as soon as they reached a bit of shade on (he other side of the hill. Tnen Prissy encouraged the tired children by repeating to them Mrs. Kyte’s remark about it being so good for young people to go and see poor old widows; and Kate encouraged them still more by telling them how they wouid all sit in the shade"on the steps of the little piazza, or “stoop,” as they called it, and have a splendid supper with old Mrs. Kyte; “and there will be enough good things left for ever so many breakfasts and dinners and suppers.” • So the ten trudged on down the hill, till they came to the little whitewashed house where the old woman lived all alone. It had a little garden in front of it, which her grandsons kept up. On one side of the walk were cabbages and on the other side were potatoes. Near the house were four hollyhocks and a sunflower. Mrs. Kyte heard the children’s voices at the gate, and she came out. “Well, Prissy,” she said, “so you’ve got round to see me at last. I thought you’d forgotten me. Children ought to come and see old folks like me. Its good for them. And you’ve brought Kate Morrow and a lot more. Well, come in.” The children went timidly in and sat down, two on each chair, and three on the box under the window, and one on a small footstool, till they were all stowed away, with their baskets on the floor beside them. Then Prissy began her little speech. “ We thought we would come and see you. We thought you would like a little donation party” — “To take our tea with you,” she was going to add; but Mrs. Kyte interrupted “ Of course I would; and I’m ohleeged to you all. I tell inn I always like to see children brought up to go abont doing good. 'Now I’M read you a chapter.” And she put on her glasses and read, with some difficulty and many blunders, about Dorcas, whom Peter raised to life. The ten little girls fidgeted on their uncomfortable seats and thought of the good things in the baskets, and were glad when the large Bible was closed.

Prissy said: “ Now shall we talye th things out ?”—i«he was going to say “and have our supper?” . But Mrs. Kyte gave her no opportunity. . “Yes, my dear. Just bring the basket here to the pantiv door.” Prissy obeyed, and the old woman speedily transferred the firings to her shelf and reached out her hand tor Kate’s basket. Tlie childrch all rose and contemplated tbe things on the broad shelf with satisfaction, expecting to see the table set as soon as all were taken out. Alas! the old woman had no such idea, and not one of the ten little girls had courage to propose that they should themselves eat what had been taken as an dut-and-out gift from them. They lingered, however, till Mrs. Kyte told them it was time for them to go Jiome, for it would be sundown presently. Then, with a choking in their throats, they bade her good-by and went away. „• Poor little souls! They were so tired and hungry and disappointed! “I didn’t want to hear about that dead woman,” said one of the youngest. “ I wanted one of those hearts and rounds with frosting on them.” And as they climbed the weary hill they became a little cross—two of them were crying and two attacked Kate and Prissy. “ You told us we should have a good time and a nice supper. You brought us away out here to see that ugly old woman, and we didn’t have a good time, and she has got -all our nice things, and it’s too bad!” By that time four were crying. Then Kate said it was all Prissy’s fault, for she did not tell Mrs. Kyte they had come to take supper; and Prissy said it was Kate’s fault, for it was she who first told about a donation party. So the talk as they went back over the hill, with their empty baskets, was neither pleasant nor edifying. Ten little girls went home and told a doleful tale, and were fed and comforted at cheerful supper tables. They will not undertake another donation party very soon. A few weeks after, when Prissy came home from school and caught a of a large pink sunbonnet in the sewingroom, she did not go in, but crept quietly away, with strange dislike to the voice she heard saying: “ I tell um it does children good to go and see old folks and poor widows.” It did do Prissy good, however. She consulted her mother about the next plan she made for doing a work of charity. She lost a little selr-confidence and gained a little experience at her memorable donation party. — MissM. E. Atkinson.