Aunt Judys Tales | Page 7

she would set them a nice little puzzle to amuse them
till the second course arrived. But now, what do you think the puzzle
was? It was a question, and this was it. 'Which is the harder thing to
bear--to have to wait for your dinner, or to have no dinner to wait for?'
"I do not think the little Victims would have quite known what the
stranger lady meant, if she had not explained herself; for you see THEY
had never gone without dinner in their lives, so they had not an idea
what sort of a feeling it was to have NO DINNER TO WAIT FOR. But
she went on to tell them what it was like as well as she could. She
described to them little Tommy Brown, (whom they envied so much
for having no lessons to do,) eating his potatoe soaked in the dripping
begged at the squire's back-door, without anything else to wait--or hope
for. She told them that HE was never teazed as to how he sat, or even
whether he sat or stood, and then she asked them if they did not think
he was a very happy little boy? He had no trouble or bother, but just ate
his rough morsel in any way he pleased, and then was off, hungry or
not hungry, into the streets again.
"To tell you the truth," pursued Aunt Judy, "the Victims did not know
what to say to the lady's account of little Tommy Brown's happiness;
but as the roast meat came in just as it concluded, perhaps that diverted
their attention. However, after they had all been helped, it was suddenly
observed that one of them would not begin to eat. He sat with his head
bent over his plate, and his cheeks growing redder and redder, till at last

some one asked what was amiss, and why he would not go on with his
dinner, on which he sobbed out that he had 'much rather it was taken to
little Tommy Brown!'"
"That was a very GOOD little Victim, wasn't he?" asked No. 8.
"But what did the keepers say?" inquired No. 5, rather anxiously.
"Oh," replied Aunt Judy, "it was soon settled that Tommy Brown was
to have the dinner, which made the little Victim so happy, he actually
jumped for joy. On which the stranger lady told them she hoped they
would henceforth always ask themselves her curious question
whenever they sat down to a good meal again. 'For,' said she, 'my dears,
it will teach you to be thankful; and you may take my word for it, it is
always the ungrateful people who are the most miserable ones.'"
"Oh, Aunt Judy!" here interposed No. 6, somewhat vehemently, "you
need not tell any more! I know you mean US by the little Victims! But
you don't think we really MEAN to be ungrateful about the beds, or the
dinners, or anything, do you?"
There was a melancholy earnestness in the tone of the inquiry, which
rather grieved Aunt Judy, for she knew it was not well to magnify
childish faults into too great importance: so she took No. 6 on her knee,
and assured her she never imagined such a thing as their being really
ungrateful, for a moment. If she had, she added, she should not have
turned their little ways into fun, as she had done in the story.
No. 6 was comforted somewhat on hearing this, but still leant her head
on Aunt Judy's shoulder in a rather pensive state.
"I wonder what makes one so tiresome," mused the meditative No. 5,
trying to view the matter quite abstractedly, as if he himself was in no
way concerned in it.
"Thoughtlessness only," replied Aunt Judy, smiling. "I have often heard
mamma say it is not ingratitude in CHILDREN when they don't think
about the comforts they enjoy every day; because the comforts seem to
them to come, like air and sunshine, as a mere matter of course."
"Really?" exclaimed No. 6, in a quite hopeful tone. "Does mamma
really say that?"
Yes; but then you know," continued Aunt Judy, "everybody has to be
taught to think by degrees, and then they get to know that no comforts
ever do really come to anybody as a matter of course. No, not even air
and sunshine; but every one of them as blessings permitted by God, and

which, therefore, we have to be thankful for. So you see we have to
LEARN to be thankful as we have to learn everything else, and mamma
says it is a lesson that never ends, even for grown-up people.
"And now you understand, No. 6, that you--oh! I beg pardon, I mean
THE LITTLE VICTIMS--were not really ungrateful, but only
thoughtless; and the