sitive. There are many who fear the consequences of wrong-doing rather than the sin of it. A father who was giving his boy a whip- ping for being caught stealing, explained to him: “It is not for the

stealing I am whipping you but for letting them catch you.” My con- science caught me and punished me.

These raids on orchards by boys were looked upon as boyish pranks, rather than serious crimes, but they were bad pranks. Any kind or amount of stealing is bad.

If one of my older brothers had been there to advise me he would have kept me from going into that mischief. It might have had seri- ous consequences.

That was the first and last time I got mixed up with an apple stealing expedition. I hope any boy who reads this will take care and keep away from such mischief, and be watchful what kind of com- pany he keeps. We are not only known by, but soon become like the company we keep.

Rescuing a Little Girl

One day in summer, I was a long distance from home in another distriCt where I did not know the people. I was walking along where ‘ a house and barn stood near the road. When I was opposite the barn a woman rushed out in wild excitement and alarm, she called to me in a shrill voice to come quickly and rescue her little girl. I got her to Show me where the child had fallen; we could hear her but could not see her. The men had made a chute for getting grain down from the bin on the loft, which was quite high. ‘ It was a long funnel-shaped wooden pipe, a foot and a half across at the upper end, and tapering down to three or four inches at the lower end. The bin was empty. Some hay had fallen into the chute and choked it up at the lower end. The little girl was about two years of age, she had climbed up on the loft and had fallen into this chute. She went down until she jammed near the lower end of the pipe. The mother could not reach her, and she was jammed in so tightly and doubled up she would soon smother. To attempt to break the chute would endanger her life all the more. I rushed up on the loft and went down, head first into the chute as far as I could, hanging on by my feet and one hand. I got hold of the child by the arm; she was so tightly jammed in I had to take a

77