American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Sunday schools -- United States -- Periodicals
On Saturday evening, divers little girls went about the streets of
Snyvyville with pails of wild strawberries, and the mothers or fathers
of every one of the members of the Do-Nothing Club, happened to buy
some of them for the Sunday dinner. But in each family there was great
amazement because the boy or boys thereof would eat no berries, and
because each boy had the headache and stomachache all day. "I don't
believe it was good for you to be out in the sun so long," said Mrs.
Post to Will, as she put a fresh cloth dipped in ice-water, on his
head. He made no reply, for he knew that it was not the exposure to the
sun that gave him the headache, but--quarts of wild strawberries! Too
much of a good thing is worse than none at all.
"James dear," said Mrs. Clay to her husband on Saturday evening, after
James, Jr., had gone to bed, "I don't believe it will be wise for Jamie
to pick all those berries out in the meadow. Couldn't you get somebody
to pick them, at two cents a quart? That would leave him quite a good
deal of money. The sun is so hot, I am afraid he would get sunstruck."
"I think that will be all right," said Mr. Clay, looking earnestly at
his newspaper; "I don't suppose you would mind at all if the person we
hired did get sunstruck?"
His wife laughed, but turned again to her mending, and said no more.
On Monday afternoon Mr. Clay went out to continue the work of banishing
the aforesaid offensive grass from the face of the earth, but lay down
again as he saw, through a crack in the fence, the Do-Nothing Club
wending its way toward the apple-trees where it was to meet to talk
over the success of the strawberry plan.
"Twenty quarts!" ejaculated George Shaw, "that was pretty good. I
hardly thought there would be so many. Wasn't my plan splendid, though,
Will--oh! I beg your pardon, Mr. President?"
"Fine!" said the president; "all that you planned for was, anyhow, for
I don't suppose you calculated for ten headaches and ten stomachaches,
as well as ten pails of berries, did you? As nearly as I can find out,
the other members of the club have suffered in these ways, like myself."
There was a good deal more talk; they decided what should be their
password, and a great many other private matters. They would have been
very much disgusted, I am certain, if they had guessed that Mr. Clay
was intently listening to everything that was said. Their motto was to
be "Fragi Agrestes," because, as John Clower, the only Latin student
of the club, announced, that meant "wild strawberries." Of course that
was to be used as the password, too. The seal was to be a leaf of that
plant, while the color of the club was to be red.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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