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and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team





THE

APRICOT TREE.



PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF

THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION,

APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING

CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.



LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THE

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE;

SOLD AT THE DEPOSITORY,

GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS;

AND 4, ROYAL EXCHANGE.

1851.

       *       *       *       *       *

Price TWOPENCE.

_R. Clay, Printer_,

_Bread Street Hill_.

[Illustration]



THE APRICOT-TREE.


It was a fine evening in the beginning of autumn. The last rays of the
sun, as it sunk behind the golden clouds, gleamed in at the window of a
cottage, which stood in a pleasant lane, about a quarter of a mile from
the village of Ryefield. On each side of the narrow gravel walk that led
from the lane to the cottage-door, was a little plot of cultivated
ground. That on the right hand was planted with cabbages, onions, and
other useful vegetables; that on the left, with gooseberry and
currant-bushes, excepting one small strip, where stocks, sweet-peas, and
rose-trees were growing; whose flowers, for they were now in full bloom,
peeping over the neatly trimmed quick-hedge that fenced the garden from
the road, had a gay and pretty appearance. Not a weed was to be found in
any of the beds; the gooseberry and currant-bushes had evidently been
pruned with much care and attention, and were loaded with fine ripe
fruit. But the most remarkable thing in the garden was an apricot-tree,
which grew against the wall of the cottage, and which was covered with
apricots of a large size and beautiful colour.

The cottage itself, though small and thatched with straw, was clean and
cheerful, the brick floor was strewed with sand, and a white though
coarse cloth was spread on the little deal table. On this table were
placed tea-things, a loaf of bread, and some watercresses. A cat was
purring on the hearth, and a kettle was boiling on the fire.

Near the window, in a large arm-chair, sat an old woman, with a Bible on
her knees. She appeared happy and contented, and her countenance
expressed cheerfulness and good temper. After reading for some time with
great attention, she paused to look from the window into the lane, as if
expecting to see some one. She listened as if for a footstep; but all
was silent. She read again for about ten minutes longer, and then
closing the Sacred Volume, rose, and, having laid the Book carefully on
a shelf, opened the door, and went out into the garden, whence she could
see farther into the lane, and remained for a considerable time leaning
over the little wicket gate, in anxious expectation.

"What can be the reason that Ned is so late?" she said, half aloud, to
herself. "He always hastens home to his poor old grandmother as soon as
he has done work. What can make him an hour later than usual? I hope
nothing has happened to him. But, hush!" she continued, after a few
minutes' pause, "surely I hear him coming now."

She was not mistaken, for in a minute or two Ned appeared, running quite
fast up the lane, and in a few moments more he was standing by her side,
panting and breathless.

"Dear grandmother," he exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered breath
enough to speak, "I have a great deal of good news to tell you. Farmer
Tomkyns says he will employ me all through the winter, and pay me the
same wages that he does now. This is one piece of good news. And the
other is, that Mr. Stockwell, the greengrocer, will buy all my apricots,
and give me a good price for them. I am to take them to him next
market-day. I had to wait more than half-an-hour before I could speak to
him, and that made me so late. O how beautiful they are!" continued he,
gazing with admiration at the tree. "O grandmother, how happy I am!"

His grandmother smiled, and said she was glad to hear this good news.
"And now come in and have your tea, child," she added; "for I am sure
you must be hungry."

"O grandmother," said Ned, as they sat at tea, "now that Mr. Stockwell
will buy the fruit, you will be able to have a cloak to keep you warm
this winter. It often used to grieve me, last year, to see you obliged
to go to church such bitter cold weather, with only that thin old shawl
on. I know you said you could not spare money to get a cloak for
yourself, because you had spent all you could save in buying me a
jacket. My tree has never borne fruit till this year; and you always
said that when it did, I should do what I pleased with the money its
fruit would fetch. Now, there is nothing I should like to spend it on
better than in getting a cloak for you."

"Thank you, Ned," replied his grandmother; "it would indeed be a very
great comfort. I do not think I should have suffered so much from
rheumatism last winter, if I had had warmer clothing. If it was not for
your apricot-tree, I must have gone without a cloak this winter also;
for, what with our pig dying, and your having no work to do in the
spring, this has been but a bad year for us."

"The money Mr. Stockwell is going to give me," resumed Ned, "will be
enough all but sixpence; and I have a new sixpence, you know, in a
little box upstairs, that my aunt gave me last June, when I went to
spend the day with her; so when I carry him the fruit, I shall take that
in my pocket, and then when I come home in the evening I can bring the
cloak with me. O that will be a happy day!" continued Ned, getting up to
jump and clap his hands for joy.

"There is another thing I am very glad of," said he, sitting down again.
"Master is going to turn Tom Andrews away next week."

"You ought not to be glad of that, Ned. Tom is one of a large family;
and his father being very poor, it must be a great help to have one of
his children earning something."

"But he is ill-natured to me, and often plagues me very much. It was
only yesterday he broke the best hoe, by knocking stones about with it,
and then told master it was my doing. Besides, he is idle, and does not
mind what is said to him, and often gets into mischief."

"And do you think being turned away from Farmer Tomkyns's will help to
cure these faults?"

"No," answered Ned; "I do not suppose it will."

"On the contrary, is it not likely that he will grow more idle, and get
oftener into mischief, when he has no master to look after him, and
nothing to do all day long but play about the streets?"

"Why, yes, that is true. Still, it will serve him right to be turned
away. I have heard Mr. Harris, our rector, say that those who do wrong
ought to be punished."

"Pray, Ned," asked his grandmother, "can you tell me what is the use of
punishment?"

"The use of punishment!--" repeated Ned, thoughtfully. "Let me think.
The use of punishment, I believe, is to make people better."

"Right. Now, Ned, you have allowed that Tom's being turned away is not
likely to make him better, but worse; so that I am afraid the true
reason why you rejoice at his disgrace is because you bear resentment
against him, for having been ill-natured to yourself. Think a minute,
and tell me if this is not the case."

Ned owned that his grandmother was right; and then observed, "It is very
difficult not to bear ill-will against any one who has done us wrong."

"Yet," rejoined his grandmother, "it is our duty to pardon those who
have injured us. St. Paul says, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, 'Be ye
kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God
for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.' And our blessed Saviour has
commanded us to 'love our enemies,' to 'do good to them that hate us,
and to pray for those that despitefully use us, and persecute us.' If
you will look at the fourteenth and fifteenth verses of the sixth
chapter of St. Matthew, you will see what else our Lord says on the
subject."

Ned took the Bible, and having found the place, read, "For if ye forgive
men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if
ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father
forgive your trespasses."

"Before you go to bed," said his grandmother, when he had finished
reading, "I wish you to get by heart these three texts, and repeat them
to me."

Ned did as he was desired, and then his grandmother kissed him, and bid
him good-night.

Ned loved his grandmother very much, for she had always been kind to
him. His parents had both died when he was very young; and she then
brought him home to live with her, and had taken care of him ever since.
She taught him to read and write, and cast up sums; to be steady and
industrious; and, above all, it was her great care to instil into his
mind religious principles. She had often told him that the way to profit
by what we read, as well as by the good advice that may be given us, is
to think upon it afterwards; and she frequently desired him to make a
practice of saying over to himself every night whatever verses from the
Bible he had learnt by heart during the day.

This evening, when Ned repeated his texts, he felt that he had been
wrong to rejoice at Tom Andrews's disgrace, because he had behaved ill
to himself; and he prayed God to make Tom see his faults, and leave off
his bad ways.

The next day Ned, as usual, went early to his work. Tom Andrews was
very teasing, but Ned tried not to be provoked; and when Tom said
ill-natured things to him, he checked the angry replies he was tempted
to make. Two days afterwards, when Ned came home to tea, he thought with
pleasure that to-morrow was market-day at the town where Mr. Stockwell
lived; and he ran in and out twenty times, to look at, and admire, his
beautiful apricot-tree. "I must get up very early indeed to-morrow
morning," he said to his grandmother, "that I may gather the apricots,
and take them to Mr. Stockwell before I go to my work." Accordingly the
next morning he rose as soon as it was light, and, taking a basket the
greengrocer had lent him in his hand, went into the little garden to
line it with fresh green leaves, before putting the fruit into it.

What was his surprise and sorrow when he saw that every one of his
apricots was gone, and the tree itself sawn nearly in two, close to the
root!

Throwing down his basket, Ned ran to his grandmother, who was just come
down stairs, and had begun to light the fire.

He could only exclaim, "O my apricots, my apricots, they are all gone!
And my beautiful tree--" then covering his face with his hands, he burst
into tears.

"What is the matter, my dear?" inquired his grandmother.

Ned replied by taking her by the hand, and leading her into the garden.

"Who can have done this?" he exclaimed, sobbing. "If they had only
stolen the apricots, I could have borne it better! But to see my dear
tree spoiled--It must die--it must be quite killed--only look how it is
cut!"

"I am very sorry for you, my poor boy," said his grandmother, kindly.
"It is a most vexatious thing."

"Oh!" cried Ned, "if I did but know who it was that had done it--"

"I would be revenged on them, some how or other," he was going to have
added; but the texts which he had learned a few days before concerning
the forgiveness of injuries, and which he had frequently repeated to
himself since, came into his mind, and he stopped short.

On looking round the garden, to see if they could discover any traces of
the thief, Ned and his grandmother saw the prints of a boy's shoe,
rather bigger than Ned's, in several of the beds, and hanging on the
quick-hedge were some tattered fragments of a red cotton handkerchief
checked with white. "I know this handkerchief," said Ned; "it is Tom
Andrews's; I have often seen him with it tied round his neck. It must be
he who stole my apricots."

"You cannot be sure that it is Tom who stole your apricots," rejoined
his grandmother. "Many other people besides him have red handkerchiefs."

"But I am sure it can be no one but Tom; for only yesterday, when I told
him about my apricots, and the money I expected to get for them, he said
he wished he knew how to get some, that he might have money too. Oh! if
I could but get hold of him--"

Again he stopped, and thought of our Saviour's words; then, turning to
his grandmother, he said, "Whoever it is that has robbed us of the
fruit, I forgive him, even if it is Tom Andrews."

Ned went to work that day with a heavy heart. Tom Andrews was in high
glee; for his master had said he would give him another week's trial.
Ned told him of the misfortune that had happened to him, and thought
that Tom looked rather confused. He also remarked that his companion had
not got the red handkerchief on that he usually wore about his neck;