JACK'S BEANS |
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| It was spring time, so warm and sunny. The
gardens were planted, the wheat in the field waved fresh and green. The cornfield showed
long lines of little green spears. It was a good stand of corn. Although everything was so pleasant, little seven-year-old Jack was not very happy. He had just been given a small tin pail holding about a pint of speckled beans. Mother said for him to go down to the cornfield and count two rows of corn from the end of the field. Then on the third row he was to plant two beans in every second hill. When he reached the far end of the field, he could miss one row and plant in the second row all the way back. Now Jack did not want to plant beans, he wanted to make a paper windmill. Mother gave him a cookie and an apple, and told him to hurry along and it would not take very much time to plant all the beans. Jack ate the cookie and the apple on his way to the field. He counted the rows of corn and began to plant beans. He made two little holes in the ground with a sharp stick, put in two beans; then two more holes and two more beans. Oooh! his back ached before he was half way down the field. He kept on stopping now and then to throw clods at an old crow who followed after him. By the time he had planted two rows across the field he was just too tired to walk any more. He sat down in the shade of the fence and looked in the pail. It seemed to him there were as many beans as when he began; he was almost ready to cry, he never could plant all those beans. He sat there thinking of the windmill and plowing his heels in the soft earth and making a big hole. Suddenly he knew what he would do; he would plant all the beans in that hole. If any one asked him if he had planted the beans he would say, "Yes." He quickly poured out all the beans into the hole and covered them up. "Nobody will ever know I planted them all in a heap." Somehow Jack did not feel very good about it, but he went back to the house, put down the pail on the step, and went off to make his windmill. About two weeks after this Jack’s mother went down to the field to see how the beans were coming up. Two rows were doing nicely, she supposed the others were planted a little deeper, so she said nothing about them. A week later she went again. There were but two rows of beans. She decided to ask Jack about the beans. As she was leaving the field she noticed a heap of earth where little bean plants were crowding up thru the soil in the cornfield. Jack’s beans had come up and told on him. Be sure your sin will find you out.
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