“Come, Alfred, it is time to go to bed,” said Mrs. Penrose to her little son, one evening.

Alfred was busy making pictures on a slate, and did not want to go to bed yet. He begged that he might finish off his horse. His mamma said he might finish his horse, although his hour for going to bed had come.

Because he was allowed to sit up a little later than usual on that evening, Alfred wanted to do so at another time. When his mamma said,

“Alfred, take the lamp, and go into the bed-room,” he would hesitate and linger, as if he only obeyed his mamma because he was obliged, and not because he loved to.

One morning Alfred’s mamma said,

“I am afraid my little boy has forgotten his old text, ‘Children, obey your parents.’”

“Why, mamma,” said Alfred, “I think I do always obey you.”

“But you do not obey me directly; and you do not always seem to like to do what I tell you. When I call you to me, you do not run quickly. And lately, when I have told you to go to bed, you draw up your face, and behave as if you went because you must, and not because you loved to do what your mother desires. Now that is not the way that God would have little children behave. He tells them to honor their parents. Children should always obey willingly, and not stop to ask for a reason, when they are commanded to do anything.”

Then Alfred’s papa, who had been reading in the room, but who had heard what mamma had said to Alfred, said,

“I will tell you a story, Alfred, which I read when I was a very little boy.”

“O, papa!” said Alfred, “did you use to read stories when you were a little boy, and did you like to have stories told you as I do now, and did you have a good papa to tell them to you, as I have? Or perhaps your mamma told them to you.”

“You ask a great many questions in a breath, my little boy,” said his father; “but I will try to answer them. I did love to read stories when I was a little boy, and I did like to have them told to me; but my papa was always too busy to tell me stories, and my mamma was dead; so I had no one to tell me stories, as you have.”

Alfred stood still a moment, as if he were thinking. Then he said,

“O, papa, it must be very sad not to have a mamma! Did you never see your mother? Were you a little baby when she died?”

Then his papa told Alfred that he was not a little baby when his mother died; but that he was only five years old.

“I only remember one thing about her,” said he. “I went into her bed-room one morning, and said, ‘Mamma, will you go down stairs now?’ And she answered me, ‘In a few minutes, Arthur. Go and stand by the window until I am ready.’ Then as I stood by the window I saw my mamma kneel down by the side of her bed, and put her hands over her face. When she was done I asked her what made her cry? She answered, ‘I was not crying, my child. I was praying to God.’ That is almost all I recollect of my dear mamma, Alfred.”

“I think that was a pleasant remembrance, papa,” said little Alfred. “Perhaps your mamma then prayed for you, and maybe that is the reason why you are good now. But please tell me the story that you read when you were a little boy.”

Then Alfred’s papa told him the little story, which you will find in the next chapter.