PART I

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BEHOLD I WILL SEND MY MESSENGER, AND HE SHALL PREPARE THE WAY BEFORE ME.

THE PEOPLE THAT WALKED IN DARKNESS HAVE SEEN A GREAT LIGHT.

I, EVEN I, AM HE THAT BLOTTETH OUT THY TRANSGRESSSIONS FOR MINE OWN SAKE, AND WILL NOT REMEMBER THY SINS.

REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY, TO KEEP IT HOLY.

SARAH LAMBERT lived with her mother in one room over Mr. Dunlap's stable. The stairs leading up to it were narrow and steep and dark. The room was dark when you reached it; only one window, with small, old-fashioned panes of glass. The window was dirty, too, and trimmed with cobwebs. There were two wooden-seated chairs, a poor bedstead, a table of the old-fashioned kind, with one leaf gone, a cooking-stove that smoked, of course, as all worn-out stoves do, and that stood on three legs, its door hanging by one hinge.

In this room one winter morning, Sarah Lambert washed her face from a tin basin, on a corner of one chair, snarled at her tangled hair a few minutes with a broken comb, put on a pair of ragged stockings and ragged shoes, and, over some very thin and old undergarments, a dark brown calico dress, patched in three places, wound a piece of brown and white plaid shawl about her, put on a gray felt hat without any trimming, and without any breakfast stole out of the room.

Her mother was still sleeping, though the sun was high. She went to bed the night before intending to sleep until she was ready to wake up; for she knew that the next day would be Sunday. As for Sarah, she was going to Sunday-school, whatever that meant; she had promised a lady the day before that she would.

[Illustration: SIDE BY SIDE.]

Ethol Harrison lived with her father and mother and brothers and sisters in the great stone house three squares away from Sarah Lambert's. The room in which she slept late that Sunday morning had a crimson carpet on the floor, and crimson curtains at the windows, and costly and elegant furniture.

When Ethol had eaten a breakfast of broiled chicken, and toast, and canned fruit, she was dressed by Hannah in a dark blue velvet suit with hat to match, having a long white plume winding all about it, kid gloves on her bits of hands, and kid boots on her bright stockinged feet, lovely white furs, cape, and muff, to crown all, and she too went to Sunday-school.

Behold, she and Sarah Lambert sat side by side in the bright room full of people. Ethol smoothed down her new velvet dress, and buttoned her glove, and tossed back her plume, and smiled and nodded to her friends, and Sarah sat like a statue at her side and stared. She had never seen such a light, bright, beautiful room as that in her life. Both of the girls received cards with the words on them that are at the head of this story. Both girls read them at once, for Sarah went to day-school and knew how to read. They were new words to her. She was so astonished over them, that she forgot her awe of Ethol and nudged at the blue velvet sack nod whispered:

"What was it?"

"What was 'what?'"

"That great light; where was it—what did it show them?"

Then Ethol giggled.

"Miss Mason," she said, "this little girl wants to know what they saw by the great light."

Miss Mason turned to Sarah, whose checks were now very red.

"Don't you know who the light is, dear?" she said gently.

"No," said Sarah, but she felt comforted. Miss Mason's voice made her think of the music that she heard as she passed the church.

"It means Jesus, my child; you know the world was very dark until he came."

"Wasn't there any sun to shine?" asked Sarah; and Ethol giggled again.

"Yes; but I don't mean that kind of darkness. I mean full of sin, and sorrow, and trouble; and the people did not know the way out. While He was here they used to bring sick people to him; those whom no doctor could cure; and he would just touch them, or speak to them, and they would be well at once."

"I don't believe it," said Sarah, promptly.

And Ethol said: "Oh-h! What a wicked girl!"

"That is what some of the people said who were looking on," Miss Mason told her. "'They' wouldn't believe in the great light though Jesus gave them so many reasons for believing. Open your Bibles, girls. Here is one for you, Sarah. Let us read the story about the sick woman who was cured of fever in an instant."

Sarah looked at the place pointed out to her, and listened, and read when her turn came; she had never heard of such a thing in her life. She asked a great many questions, and amused Ethol so much that she almost forgot her new hat with its long plume.

"Where has he gone?" asked, Sarah, suddenly, interrupting Miss Mason in the middle of a sentence. "Where has this great doctor gone to?"

Then Miss Mason tried to explain, that though he had gone back to heaven, his spirit was here and could do just as great and wonderful things as ever.

"He can't cure people in a minute now." said Sarah, positively; "'cause Mr. Dunlap's Nettie was awful sick, and had doctors and doctors, and she died. If this man could have cured her, Mr. Dunlap would have had him, for he loved her just awful."

"Did you ever 'see' such a girl?" whispered Ethol to the little girl on her left. "Why, she is a perfect heathen."

Well, the Sunday-school was over, and Sarah took her motto-card home with her, and thought about the verses, and studied them, and read them to her mother, and wondered over them, and wished a hundred times a day that she could see Jesus just for a minute.

Ethol put her card in her pocket—crumpling it as she did so—and I don't think she thought of it again until the next Sabbath morning.

Now I want, during the year 1882, to tell you a good deal about these two girls who often sat side by side, and stood side by side, and walked side by side, and yet were so different. You will see if you keep watch of their lives, that the difference between them reached beyond their clothes, and their homes, even into their hearts. But you must wait until next month to hear more. The name of this story, each month, will be, "Side by Side."

[Illustration]

"THE OTHER ONE."

"SOME folks has everything, and some folks has nothing."

This is precisely what the sour-faced little girl, Hannah Bancroft, thought as she stood in the doorway and saw Helen's mother bend over the bed and kiss her. Hannah was this favored Helen's little nurse-girl, who had not yet been in the house twelve hours, and was taking her first peep at Helen and Helen's room. She had never seen such a beautiful room before in her life! Lovely carpet, that looked as though somebody had been to the woods for mosses and ferns, and strewn them all over the room. Lovely paper on the wall, that on the stormiest winter days made the room look as though a golden sun was setting. Soft couches and easy-chairs, and a mantel filled with many pretty things. She thought of the one in which she had slept only two nights before; no carpet on the floor, no mantel at all, no chairs, only a wooden one with three legs, and part of the back broken off.

"I've something for my darling when she gets up," the mother said, bending over Helen. "A nice surprise."

"Mamma, you always have nice surprises," said the little girl with a low, happy laugh.

"This is the nicest one mamma has found in many a day," the mother said and she began to make preparations for the little girl to get up.

"Lazy thing!" said Hannah to herself. "Lying there and letting her mother hunt her shoes, and pick up her things. Why don't she bound out and wait on herself? She is just horrid; I know she is."

[Illustration: "MAMMA, YOU ALWAYS HAVE NICE SURPRISES," SAID THE LITTLE GIRL.]

"Now, darling," said the mother, and she bent over the bed again, and to Hannah's great surprise lifted the slight little form in her arms and carried her to an easy-chair. Then Hannah saw that the poor little feet were much smaller than they ought to be, and that there was a bandage around one of them.

"Didn't you know that you were to be feet for my little girl?" Mrs. Stevens said, speaking to Hannah, an she saw her startled face.

"Can't she walk at all?" was her dismayed answer.

"Not now," the mother said, gently; "she is going to some day, we hope. You may come in now."

"Mamma," she said, "I can go visiting now whenever I want to, can't I?" And that happy little laugh gurgled out; then almost in the same breath she said: "Mamma, what about the other one?"

"I don't know about that yet," the mother said. "I will leave you to plan for it."

"The other one," muttered Hannah. "What can she want of two?" The sullen look had come back.

"Don't you think my new carriage is lovely?" Helen ventured this to the gloomy-faced little girl.

"Yes 'm," said Hannah absently; "yes 'm, I s'pose so."

"But you don't think you would like it as well as walking?"—this with the least bit of a sigh. "I like it very much, though; it is such a rest to me. I haven't walked a step in two years."

She expected to see the gloomy face change into one of surprise and pity; but Hannah said, speaking almost fiercely: "I know a boy who hasn't walked a step in five years."

"Oh dear me!" There was instant sympathy in Helen's voice. "Who is he? What is the matter with him? How old is he?"

"He's my brother," said Hannah in a gentler tone. "He is most twelve years old, but he is so little and weak, you wouldn't think he was six. I can carry him just as easy! He had a very had fall when he was seven, and he won't never walk again."

"Poor little fellow! And has he a wheeled chair, and a couch that can be raised and let down, and a sponge pillow when his head aches, and oh! I don't know: all sorts of nice things?"

"No," said Hannah, the sullen look coming back; "he ain't got nothing only a hard bed, and a chair with a cushion in, that mother made out of our old quilt."

"Then I have found the 'other one' already," said Helen joyfully.

"What?" said Hannah.

And Helen laughed.

"You don't know what I mean. Why, you see long ago, when papa and mamma began to get me so many things to help me bear my trouble, we planned it that there should always be two bought, and the other one should be given to somebody who needed it, and couldn't spare the money to get it. So I know there is another one of these lovely chairs, and your poor little brother shall be in it before night."

Sure enough, the widow Bancroft received, just at noon, the strangest-looking parcel! It could only by great coaxing be gotten up her narrow stairs. All the rest—what the pale little fellow who had not walked a step in five years thought, and felt, and said, when he found himself actually going across the room on wheels, and what the mother thought as the tears rolled down her cheeks, and what Hannah thought as she looked on and remembered her cross sentence: "Some folks has everything, and some folks has nothing,"—I will leave you to imagine.

But then, you must remember that in the morning she had not heard anything about "the other one."

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THE THREE LITTLE M'S.—