The big boy flushed up to his dark hair, and he dropped his eyes to the floor to follow the working of his uneasy boot. He longed to say “I think it’s ridiculous, when we are all working so hard, to give away such things to those idle, good-for-nothing Corner boys,” but a verse from the Bible came ringing through his ears. For a moment, he thought the parson must be repeating it, and he glanced up quickly. No; there he sat in the high-backed chair looking at him silently. Then Jack remembered it was in church that very morning that he had heard the words “Do good to them that hate you.” Here was the direct command from the Master. Jack in the past year of work and responsibility, had drawn very near to his Heavenly Father; at the last, glad to enroll himself as a member of the Church of Christ. And, yet, on this blessed day of thankfulness for the wealth of mercies that had been showered upon him, he was avariciously shutting his heart to the good impulse that would help some of God’s poor, needy ones, up into the range of human sympathy and love. They might be wicked; all the more reason that he should do what he could to bring them to love the good. Mean, contemptible fellow that he was to even look his disapproval to what Rosy was doing! Jack threw back his head, and Cornelius gave a long breath of delight. “Go on, Rose,” said the big boy of the family, “and I’ll help you.” Thereupon Jack sprang forward, and seized an orange and laid it in the basket, and followed with two or three handfuls of butternuts. “Ow—ow!” cried Corny in despair. “Come on, Corny,” cried Jack, his color deepening into a bloom to match that in Wild Rose’s cheeks, and his dark eyes dancing with delight, “if you want any hand in this basket; see, it’s almost full.” And the next thing that Corny knew, he was tucking in the drumsticks of the chickens, that he had fondly hoped to pick clean on the morrow; and Jack had saved himself from being the one to pull down the sweet impulses of his younger brother and his little sister, into the mire where all was hateful and of evil growth. “I suppose,” said the parson, when all the packing was done, even to the tying of the string across the cover, “that you don’t want my company on your walk over to the Corners—eh, Jack?” “Don’t we, though,” cried the boy, never the least bit afraid of the minister; now, warmed up to self-forgetfulness, in a mood light-hearted enough for anything. “Yes, sir, we do!” echoed Corny, whipping out his knife to cut off the string-end. “That’ll be just gay, if you’ll come.” “Suppose we all accompany the basket party,” proposed Miss Peaseley slowly, and taking her feet away from the cheerful blaze of the snapping hickory; “that is, those who care to,” she added, with a thought in time for the widow and her daughter, and lame Joey Clark. Joey looked wistfully across at his sister; but she shook her head, and he sat back obediently in the depths of his chair.