lm anguish of his mother.

"O mamma, don't cry so, don't," said the little fellow. "I am alive, and
I can take care of you. Dear mamma, I pray for you every day." And Mary
was comforted even in her tears and thought, as she looked into those
clear, loving brown eyes, that her little intercessor would not plead in
vain; for saith Jesus, "Their angels do always behold the face of my
Father which is in heaven."

In a few days she learned to look her sorrows calmly in the face, like a
brave, true woman, as she was. She was a widow, and out of the sudden
wreck of her husband's plans but a pittance remained to her, and she
cast about, with busy hand and head, for some means to eke it out. She
took in sewing--she took in washing and ironing; and happy did the young
exquisite deem himself, whose shirts came with such faultless plaits,
such snowy freshness, from the slender hands of Mary. With that
matchless gift which old Yankee housewives call faculty, Mary kept
together all the ends of her ravelled skein of life, and began to make
them wind smoothly. Her baby was the neatest of all babies, as it was
assuredly the prettiest, and her little Fred the handiest and most
universal genius of all boys. It was Fred that could wring out all the
stockings, and hang out all the small clothes, that tended the baby by
night and by day, that made her a wagon out of an old soap box, in which
he drew her in triumph; and at their meals he stood reverently in his
father's place, and with folded hands repeated, "Bless the Lord, O my
soul, and forget not all his mercies;" and his mother's heart responded
amen to the simple prayer. Then he learned, with manifold puffing and
much haggling, to saw wood quite decently, and to swing an axe almost as
big as himself in wood splitting; and he ran of errands, and did
business with an air of bustling importance that was edifying to see; he
knew the prices of lard, butter, and dried apples, as well as any man
about, and, as the store-keeper approvingly told him, was a smart chap
at a bargain. Fred grew three inches higher the moment he heard it.

In the evenings after the baby was asleep, Fred sat by his mother with
slate and book, deep in the mysteries of reading, writing, and
ciphering; and then the mother and son talked over their little plans,
and hallowed their nightly rest by prayer; and when, before retiring,
his mother knelt with him by his little bed and prayed, the child often
sobbed with a stra