the
matter.

How ashamed Tommy felt! "Trying to steal some of my apples, were you,
eh?" said Mr. Allen, and Tommy could not answer a word.

Little May Allen felt very sorry for him. "Can't you give him some
apples, papa?" she said.

"No," said Mr. Allen; "if he had come and asked me I would have given
him some gladly. But he ought to be ashamed to try to get them in this
way. But he can go. I sha'n't punish him."

So Tommy picked up his hat and went home. He told his mother all about
it.

"Tommy," she said, "you shouldn't have stood and looked at those
apples, and wished for them, when they were not yours. It is always
best to run away from temptation."

A BEAR STORY.

When mother was a young girl, she taught school in Illinois. Very few
people lived there at that time. The settlements were far apart. The
schoolhouse was built of rough logs, and the chinks were filled with
clay and straw. Instead of glass windows, they had oiled paper to let
in the light.

One night mother staid late at the schoolhouse, to help the girls trim
it with evergreens. It was almost dark when she started for home. She
walked very fast, as she felt lonely. Her way lay through a thick,
tall woods, and the path was narrow.

All at once she saw a big animal in front of her. What was it? A calf?
No; it was a big black bear.

Was she afraid? Of course she was afraid. Shouldn't you be afraid if
you met a big bear in the woods? She had an umbrella in her hand, and
she held the point close to the bear's nose, and opened and shut it as
fast as she could. She called him all the bad names she could think
of, and he walked off, growling.

He was a brave bear, wasn't he, to be afraid of an umbrella? Mother
hurried on, and just as she got to the edge of the woods, out he came
again. Then she opened the umbrella at him again, and shouted as loud
as she could, and away he went.

Mother was so tired and frightened she almost fainted when she got
home. "I don't believe it was a bear; it must have been neighbor
Clapp's big heifer," grandma said.

But just as she said it, they heard a loud squeal. They ran to the
door, and there was the bear carrying off a pig. He had jumped into
the pen and got it.

[Illustration: THE BEARS AT THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN.]

Aunt Stella seized the dinner horn and blew a loud blast. That was
the way they used to call the settlers together when anything was the
matter. There was a great rush for grandfather'