9 
3 
short, so they can understand it, and I 
Iknow they will keep it, for I shall help 
them.” 
So busy was the boy with his work that 
he never saw a man steal from behind the 
ipen where he had been listening 1 and laugh¬ 
ing at Jimmy’s lecture, till something 
seemed to change the smiles to tears, for, as 
he peeped over the lad’s shoulder, he saw 
how worn the little jacket was, how bruis¬ 
ed and blistered the poor hands were with 
too hard work, and how he stood on one 
foot, because his toes were out of the old 
shoes. 
A month’s wages were in the man's pock¬ 
et, and he meant to spend them in more 
whisky when his jug was empty. Now 
the money seemed all too little to make 
his son tidy, and he couldn’t hear to think 
how much he had wasted on low pleasures 
that made a worse brute of him than the 
pigs. 
‘•There!” said Jimmy, “I guess lhat will 
do. We, Tom and Jerry, do solemly prom¬ 
ise never to touch, taste or handle anything 
that can make us drunk.” 
“Now for the names. Which shall mark 
first ?” 
“I will!” said the man, startling Jimmy 
so much that he nearly tumbled into the 
pen as he was climbing up. The paper 
fluttered down inside, and both forgot it 
as the boy looked up at the man, saying, 
half ashamed, half glad,— 
“Why, father, did you hear me? I was 
only sort of playing.” 
“I am in earnest, for your lecture was a 
good one; and I am not going to be a 
beast any longer. Here’s money for new 
shoes and jacket. Give me the saw. I'll do 
my own work now, and you go tell mother 
what I say.” 
Jimmy was about to race away, when 
the sight of Tom and Jerry eating up the 
paper made him clap his hands exclaiming 
joyfully,— 
“They’ve taken the pledge really and 
truly. I’m so glad!” 
It was impossible to help laughing; but 
he man was very sober again as he said 
slowly, with his hand on Jimmy’s shoul¬ 
der,— 
“You shall write another for me. I’ll 
sign it, and keep it too, if you will help me, 
my little son.” 
“I will, father, I will!” cried Jimmy 
with all his happy heart, and then ran in to 
carry the good news to mother. 
That was his first lecture, but not his 
last; for he delivered many more when he 
was a man, because the work begun that 
day prospered well, and those pledges were 
truly kept .—Louisa M. Alcott , in The Press. 
• ---- 
Why Eve Didn’t Need a Girl. 
A lady writer in one of our exchanges 
furnishes some of the reasons why Eve did 
not keep a hired girl. She says: There has 
been a great deal said about the faults of 
women and why they need so much wait¬ 
ing on. Some one (a man of course) has 
the presumption to ask, “Why, when Eve 
was manufactured out of a spare rib, a 
servant was not made at the same time to 
wait on her?” She didn't need any. A 
bright writer has said: Adam never came 
whining to Eve with a ragged stocking to 
be darned, buttons to be sewed on, gloves 
to be mended “right away—quick, now?” 
He never read the newspapers until the sun 
went down behind the palm trees, and he 
stretching himself, yawned out, “Is supper 
ready yet. my dear?” Not he. He made 
the fire, and hung the kettle over it himself, 
we’ll venture, and pulled the radishes, 
peeled the potatoes, and did everything 
else he ought to do. He milked the cows, 
and fed the chickens and looked after the 
pigs himself, and never brought home half 
a dozen friends to dinner when Eve hadn’t 
any fresh pomegranates. He never stayed 
out till eleven o'clock at night and then 
scolded because Eve was sitting up and 
crying inside the gates. He never loafed 
around corner groceries while Eve was 
rocking little Cain’s cradle at home. He 
neyer called Eve up from the cellar to put 
aw^/lus slippers. Not he. AVhen he took 
them olf he put them under the fig tree 
beside his Sunday boots. In short he did 
not think she was especially created for the 
purpose of waiting upon him, and he wasn't 
under the impression that it disgraced a 
man to lighten a wife’s cares a little. That’s 
the reason Eve did not need a hired girl! 
and with it is the reason her descendants 
did.— Ex. 
