THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET. 
79 
to stop a little while, and see what a delightful change Mr. 
Green had made in his windows since the pea-nuts, pe¬ 
cans, filberts, walnuts and figs of Saturday night. 
There was a change. Such raisins he had never seen in 
all his life, as these great fat, imposing looking ones, that 
spread themselves, very much at their ease, upon dry 
branches, over a background of artistically mingled brown 
nuts. 
“ My !” he exclaimed. “ Phose raisins are like some 
grapes in our family Bible phwhat they call ‘ clusters of 
Eskle,’ and phwat takes two men to carry ’em ! Don’t I 
just wish I were Mr. Green’s little boy!” 
Ned looked lingeringly and long at those raisins. Mr. 
Green, inside, said to his clerk: 
“ Look a here, Joe! If eyes could eat, what a jolly 
stomach-ache Mr. Utley’s youngster would get!” 
All through his lessons that morning, Ned seemed, if 
not more thoughtful, at least less mischievous than 
usual. 
On his way home at noon he marched straight into Mr. 
Green’s store. 
“ My mother has sent me for some of your very best 
raisins, Mr. Green,” he said. 
“ All right, my little man. How many does she want ?” 
“ Oh, about phree !" answered Ned, with affectation of 
great carelessness. 
Mr. Green carefully selected three raisins from the win¬ 
dow. He then carefully weighed them, carefully did them 
up in a brown paper parcel, carefully tied the parcel with 
twine, and carefully presented it to Ned. 
“ To be charged,” said Ned, importantly, as he walked 
away. 
That same afternoon Mr. Utley stopped in at Green’s 
grocery to leave an order. The moment he appeared Mr. 
Green exploded with laughter. Then he t<?ld Mr. Utley 
the funny joke about Ned’s wholesale purchase of raisins. 
Mr. Utley looked grave. 
“ My poor boy has been weaker than a temptation ! ” 
he said to himself. “ How can I give him a lesson that 
punishment always follows wrong-doing? ” 
As Ned returned from school that afternoon, Mr. Green 
stood in his door. 
“ I find that your mother has no longer an account with 
me, Neddie,” he said. “ So you will oblige me by bring¬ 
ing the money for those raisins on your way to school to¬ 
morrow morning.” 
Ned was thunderstruck. He had scarcely realized be¬ 
fore that Mr. Green was paid for his groceries. He had a 
sort of dim idea that the grocer was a general benefactor 
of humanity, who dispensed his goods for the general ben¬ 
efit of the public, without thought of selfish gain. All 
the afternoon long the thought had been tormenting his 
heart. What a strapping, horrid big lie to have told, but 
it had never occurred to him before that, as well as dis¬ 
gracing himself by a deliberate lie, he had got possession 
of something that really belonged to another, and that 
must be paid for before it could be his. 
“ Am I a stealer as 'well as a tell-a-lie-er ? ” flashed 
sharply through his brain. 
“You ought to [have seen the poor little chap’s chin 
drop,” said Mr. Green to Joe. “ I declare, if twarn’t for 
Mr. Utley I’d a wished I hadn’t a done it. He just said 
‘ Oh ! ’ and took to his legs like a rabbit.” 
Ned went straight to his savings bank. It was deplor¬ 
ably light and perfectly empty. He remembered then 
that he had shaken out its last cent on Saturday morning 
to buy jujube paste, and that it had never held more than 
two cents at a time since he had owned it. He was very 
downcast, and his conscience never ceased crying “ stealer 
as well as tell-a-lie-er.” 
When Mrs. Utley went up stairs to her room that night, 
she thought she heard sounds of crying from Ned’s bed. 
She concluded herself mistaken, however, when Ned called 
to her: 
“ Mamma, how much do raisins cost ?” 
. She thought him dreaming, and-answered lightly : 
“ That depends, dear. The best are sometimes as 
high as twenty-five cents.” 
“ Twenty-five cents! And I had PHREE” groaned 
the boy to his pillow. 
Till nearly morning he lay awake trying to find out the 
cost of three raisins at twenty-five cents apiece. He had 
not made the calculation any closer than that it was more 
money than he had ever seen in his life, or ever expected 
to. When he started for school, Mr. Green stood in his 
door. 
“ Have you brought me my money for the raisins ? ” he 
asked, gravely. 
“ There wasn’t any in my bank!” said the frightened 
boy. 
“ And he just swung them little legs of his like casta¬ 
nets,” chuckled Mr. Green, telling the incident to’Joe. 
Poor Ned missed every one of his lessons that forenoon, 
and went from the head to the foot of his class. He re¬ 
turned sorrowfully at noon, looking sharply ahead to see 
if anybody stood in Mr. Green’s door. The coast seemed 
clear, and he was rushing by, as Mr. Green told Joe, “ like 
a chicken to a dough pan,” when that fatal person called 
to him : 
“Ned Utley! Ned Utley! You haven’t paid me for- 
those raisins!” 
There was really little need for Mr. Green to trouble 
himself so much ; for two voices were ringing incessantly 
in Ned’s ears, one crying : 
“ Stealer and tell-a-lie-er ! ” 
The other: 
“ You owe Mr. Green about a billion cents for phose 
raisins! ” 
He pondered deeply every night before he fell asleep, 
upon the ways and means by which a boy of eight could 
earn money. ♦ 
He surprised his mother when she passed his door, by 
calling out: 
“Mamma, did you ever hear of a boy who earned a 
billion cents by picking up old iron ? ” And made his 
father smile behind his newspaper, by asking gravely at 
breakfast: 
“ Papa, how long would it take me to get a drillion cents 
if I went without salt on my potaters ? ” 
He grew into deep disgrace at school by being always 
late. Green’s grocery store had become such a terror to 
him that he took roundabout ways to avoid passing it. He 
