Despise not a small wound."

"Every little helps, said the pig, when it snapped at a gnat."

"The whole of the ocean is made up of single drops."

"Drop by drop fills the tub."

"The longest life is but a parcel of moments."

"Gold is more frequently found in grains than in lumps."

"Great businesses turn on a little pin."

CHAPTER IX.

WHAT LAME FELIX SAID CONCERNING LITTLE THINGS.

AME FELIX was always ready with a pro

verb or parable to prove the importance of

trifles. He never liked to hear little things despised or spoken of contemptuously. He seemed to have well pondered the Bible injunction, "Despise not the day of small things," and invariably asserted that great events sprang from little causes, that small beginnings made great endings, and that although one grain of corn did not make a sackful, it helped; that the sand of the sea-shore was made up by particles, and the ocean of drops of water.

I well remember one of his discourses or chats upon the value of little things. One of my schoolfellows, Joe Clark, had accidentally scratched his hand with a rusty nail. The wound was but a slight one, and, boy-like, he took no heed, thinking it would speedily heal, like a great many previous scratches

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THE SMALL WOUND.

had done. This time, however, instead of healing, it festered and became inflamed, and gradually the hand grew worse and worse, the inflammation extending along the arm to the shoulder, until he was compelled to carry it in a sling; several months elapsed before it became well, during all which time poor Joe was in the dumps, because he was unable to engage in his usual sports and pastimes, and only follow the surgeon's advice. I called one evening to see how he was getting on, and to try and cheer him up a little, when I found him lying on the sofa looking the very picture of discontent.

He brightened up a bit when he saw me, greeting me with, "Hallo, Harry, is that you? Well, you are a trump! I thought you were away at the cricket match."

"How is the hand, eh?"

"Oh! getting on, but precious slow; I'm bored to death here. A fellow might just as well be in prison. I can't think why the doctor don't give me some draught, so that I might sleep all the time the hand remained bad; but no, not he! he prates some stuff about assisting nature, and nature wouldn't be assisted if I slept so long. why she should not. you've come?

For my part I don't see any reason

I'm

Well, what shall we do now tired, I can tell you. I've teased the cat till her tail is as thick round as my leg. Why don't I read? That's all very well; but a fellow gets enough of that at school. Besides, where is the

PROVERBS ABOUT TRIFLES.

145

pleasure in lying on your back all day, with a book in your hand, like a dying duck with a leaf in its claw? Catch me doing it. What, go down to Lame Felix? Well, I don't mind if I do. It will be a change, anyhow, and he always has something lively to say. Come along."

So away we went, and found the old man seated outside his cottage door, enjoying his evening pipe. He gave us a cheery welcome, and inquired whether the hand was progressing.

"Ah! my boy," he continued, "you did not anticipate such a result from so small a cause; but great results often spring from trifling causes. 'Small wounds, if many, may be mortal 'Poor Richard'

says 'A little leak will sink a great ship,'—a truth no one can gainsay who knows anything about ships, and least of all myself, for I've known many a brave ship, with precious cargo, and more precious lives, lost from a little leak.

"It shows us how careful we ought to be over little things. Foolish men despise them, wise men know their value. When I was over in India I heard a Hindoo proverb, which runs—' Little things should not be despised; many straws united may bind an elephant." And there is another I have heard somewhere, but where I cannot say now: 'The greatest things are done by the help of small ones; and we have a well-known English one- The greatest oaks have been little acorns.'

K

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A GIANT OLD OAK.

"One day a rook picked an acorn from the branch of an oak, and in flying across a field to its nest, dropped it; where it fell it buried itself in the black earth. The earth and the snow kept it warm during the cold winter, and when spring came, with its warm sunshine and gentle showers, the acorn began to be troubled, it swelled and expanded, and presently a little stem shot from its centre, and, struggling upward, burst into the light and air.

"As time went on, the stem grew both in height and bulk, and shot out branches and leaves. Very often fierce storms of wind blew against it, but that only made it shoot its roots farther and firmer into the earth; the cold nipped it, the hail and frost beat upon it, but in spite of all it grew; and though great hard boles, and crooked and cross-grained branches, characterised it, it still became a mighty tree; and when centuries had passed over it, its huge branches stretched far and wide, while its trunk was so bulky that two or three boys joining hands together could not have clasped it round. So thick were the leaves on every twig, that it might have been the oak amidst whose branches King Charles hid when the Parliament troops pursued him. Be that as it may, through long bright summer days, and cool summer evenings, young men and young women held pic-nics beneath its branches, when many leaves were plucked and twisted into wreaths to adorn the brows of the one dearly loved; the cattle huddled for shelter beneath