The Grey Story Book/How Walter Was Treed

by Katherine Merritte Yates

How Walter was Treed

AVE you the bags for the nuts, Mattie?"

"Yes, and Helen has the luncheon basket. What are you going to do with that long pole, Walter?"

"I'm going to use it to knock down nuts. I'm not a very good climber, we don't have much chance to climb, in the city. The country boys out here make me feel awfully ashamed; but I'm learning how, and next year I'll be as good as any of them. I'm not afraid, now, only I get sort of dizzy and shaky when I get up high."

The girls laughed. Mattie had been brought up in the country and was not afraid of anything on the farm, and she thought it was great fun to go about with her two city cousins, who were both a little older than she, and show them how brave she was. To-day they were going nutting, and expected to spend the entire day in the woods, gathering chestnuts, hickory nuts and walnuts for the city children to take home with them on the morrow.

It was only about a mile to the woods, and though they had a rather late start, yet by noon their bags were nearly full, and they sat down under a big chestnut tree to eat their luncheon.

"I think we have a fine lot!" exclaimed Helen, patting one of the fat bags, "only we have so few chestnuts. I did want a lot of chestnuts for Hallowe'en. Just look at them, up in the top of this tree. Oh, dear, if we could only reach them!"

"The next frost will bring them just rattling down," said Mattie, "but you'll be gone home by that time. It's too bad."

"Can't you reach some more with the pole, Walter?" asked Helen.

"No," said Walter, ruefully. "I've thrashed the tree just as high as I can reach. I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll climb it."

"No, don't," exclaimed Helen, hastily "We've got enough, plenty. Please don't climb it, Walter."

"Yes," said Walter, decidedly, "I'm going to. If I can get up to the first branches, I guess I'll be all right, and then I'can shake the boughs as I climb higher."

"Oh, please don't, Walter," cried Helen, clutching his arm. "You'll be sure to get dizzy up there, and then you'll fall."

"Helen!" exclaimed Walter, turning to her quickly, "you ought not to say things like that, and you a Christian Scientist. I'm surprised at you."

Helen dropped his arm and swallowed a sob. "Well," she said, "I won't say any more, but I do wish you wouldn't go up, Walter."

Walter laughed and patted her on the shoulder. "You're too careful of me, Sis," he said, affectionately, and began to climb the tree.

"There's no danger," he called out, presently; "hold your aprons ready, for it's going to rain chestnuts in about a minute."

And so it did. The chestnut burrs had cracked, and as the limbs were shaken, the glossy brown nuts came pattering thickly down upon the dry leaves.

Helen forgot her fear in the excitement of filling the luncheon basket, for all the bags were now stuffed to their utmost. "Come on down now, Walter," she called in a few minutes. "We have plenty, all we can carry."

"All right," answered Walter, and there was a rustling and scratching among the branches. Presently the sounds ceased. Helen noticed it.

"Come on, Walter," she called, again; "we can't carry any more."

"All right, in a minute," came from up in the tree, and then all was silent again for a time.

The girls sat on the grass chatting for a few moments, and then Helen grew impatient and getting up, approached the tree, coming close to the trunk and peering up into the branches, "Walter," she called, "why don't you come?"

Walter was sitting on one of the boughs high up in the tree, with his arms clasped tightly about the trunk and his eyes closed.

"Oh, Walter!" cried Helen, in dismay, "you're dizzy, I know you are, and you'll fall and get killed. I knew how it would be when you went up there."

Walter did not open his eyes; but he called down in a very sober voice: "Helen, if that's what you've been thinking, and what you're thinking now, you'd just better begin to think the other way as quick as ever you can. Can't you see that it's you, more than anything else, that's making me feel this way? I have hardly a bit of trouble—when I'm out with the boys. I'm trying to work in Science so that my head will be clear again, and you might just as well take that pole and try to poke me off of this branch as to stand there thinking that sort of thing. You know how to work in Science; why don't you try to help me to feel all right, instead of helping me to tumble?"

Helen bravely choked back her sobs. "Oh, Walter, I didn't think!" she exclaimed penitently. "Of course I'll help you. God is taking care of you, you know. It's only mortal mind that says you're dizzy, and mortal mind doesn't know anything, and can't tell anything but lies. It really isn't anything but a lie, itself. You're God's child, and God always takes care of His children when they trust Him." Helen stopped for breath.

"Walter," called Mattie, "are you saying the Scientific Statement of Being?"

"Yes," said Walter.

"Well, then you know you are spiritual and not made of matter, and Spirit can't be dizzy or fall, can it?"

Walter opened his eyes. "No, it can't," he said stoutly, "and I can't, either," and he began climbing carefully down the tree. The girls did not watch him, but kept on doing their work, silently, until he dropped safely to the ground beside them.

"I'm all right," he said, stretching his arms and limbs, gratefully. "Just as soon as you girls began helping me instead of hindering me, I had no more trouble. Much obliged to you."

Helen gave him a little hug. "I've had a lesson, Walter," she said earnestly, "and I never will think error at you again, nor at anybody else. If anything had happened to you, it would have been all my fault."

"Not all your fault," he said, patting her shoulder, lovingly. "I ought to have been so sure of the truth that your thought couldn't hurt me; but you were helping mortal mind instead of me, and you should help your only brother, instead of an old fibber and knownothing like that," and he gave her ear a little tweak.

Just then Mattie, whose lips had been twitching for some time, burst into a merry peal of laughter. "Oh, Walter!" she gasped, "if you only knew what you made me think of while you were up there! I wanted to laugh, even though I was so frightened," and she gave way to another peal of laughter.

"Well, what was it?" asked Walter, grinning ruefully. "I know I must have seemed awfully silly."

"Oh, it wasn't that; but—but—did you ever see a cat on the top of a telegraph pole, afraid to come down? Oh, dear, I kept thinking of that all the time until I almost expected you to cry 'meow'!" and Mattie dropped down upon the ground, overcome with laughter, in which the other children joined heartily.

"Well," said Walter, as soon as he could get his breath, "if you ever see me believing error again like that, just you saw 'meow,' and I'll remember the cat on the telegraph pole, and I'll brace up and give Mr. Mortal Mind his walking papers. It isn't the first time that I've been treed by mortal mind, but it's the last. Now come on, girls, it's time to go home."

The children gathered up their bags and baskets and set out for the farm-house. The distance was not long, but as they were heavily loaded it seemed much greater than when they came out in the morning.

As they neared the last field Mattie dropped her bag of hickory nuts upon the ground. "Let's go through the five-acre lot," she said.

"What for?" asked Walter. "It is hardly a bit nearer, and we will have two fences to climb instead of one."

"And, beside," put in Helen, "the cattle are in there, and Uncle Jim says that some of them are dangerous, and that we are not to go into that lot at all."

But Mattie stood still, one foot on the lower rail of the fence. "I'm not afraid," she said. "They probably wouldn't notice us at all. I'm going this way, but you two can do as you choose. I'm a Christian Scientist and nothing can hurt me, you know that. Come and help me put my bag over the fence, Walter."

But Walter stood looking at her, doubtfully. "There isn't any reason why you should go that way, Mattie," he said.

"Well, I don't care if there isn't," said Mattie, sharply. "I want to go this way, and I shall. You needn't help me if you don't wish to," and she began trying to hoist the bag of nuts over the fence.

Walter came slowly forward and took hold of the bag. "I don't think you are right, Mattie," he said, soberly. "Let's sit down and rest and talk it over for a few minutes."

Mattie let go of the bag and seated herself on the grass rather sullenly.

"Now," said Walter, "what is it that wants you to go across that field? Is it Truth or error?"

"Why," said Mattie, stoutly, "it's Truth, of course. I want to prove to you that Christian Scientists are not afraid."

"No," said Walter, thoughtfully, "I think it's error. You want to prove that you are not afraid, not that God will take care of you, for we know that already. Now, isn't that so? I think we have to use common sense in Science, and not go into danger just to show off. You know that Jesus wouldn't throw himself down from the high place, but said 'thou shalt not tempt.'"

"But suppose we had to go across the field," said Mattie, stubbornly.

"That would be very different," said Walter. "If we had to do it, and there wasn't any other way, we would climb over and go right straight across, and work in Science, to know that God was protecting us, all the way; but when there isn't any reason for going that way, I don't think it would be right. What do you think, Helen?"

"I think it is error that's telling her to," said Helen, confidently, "especially as Uncle Jim said that we were not to go into that field, and if she goes, she will be disobeying him."

"Yes, we have to learn to be obedient, too," said Walter.

"But," argued Mattie, "suppose there was a little bit of a child over in the field, would it be error to disobey and go and save it?"

Walter laughed. "We don't have to suppose any of those things," he said. "If the child was there, God would let us know what was the best thing to do, if we had our hearts open to Him. Come on, Mattie," and he rose to his feet, "you don't want to go across there. It wouldn't look brave to me, at all, it would only look conceited and foolish."

Mattie chewed a blade of grass for a moment, thoughtfully, then her face brightened again and she jumped up. "All right," she said, cheerfully, "I guess error was trying to handle me, and I was trying to make myself believe that it was Truth. I was always doing things like that before I knew about Science, and I guess I was just making Science an excuse for showing off this time. Well, Walter, every time that I say 'meow' to you, you can say 'moo-o-o' to me, and I'll think of the cattle and remember. Come on, it's almost supper time, and there's going to be sponge cake and floating island."

"Well," said Helen, as she lifted her basket of chestnuts, "I've had two lessons to-day, and I have another to learn between here and the house."

"What is it?" asked Walter.

Helen glanced down at her basket and then smiled. "Well, I thought this basket was going to be as heavy as it was when I set it down—but as soon as I thought of to whom the 'weary and heavy laden' are to go, and realized that Christ is Understanding, and that it meant for us just to know the truth, that God's child can't be tired, it don't seem heavy at all any more."

"'I'll drop my burden at His feet,
And bear a song away,'"

sang Mattie, and as she started another verse, the other two joined in, and they walked on across the meadow, singing happily together.