Alice and Beatrice

								

good, dear children. God sends us the rain when we want it, and we thank
God for it.’
‘Why do you thank God, grandmamma,’ asked Alice, ‘for the rain? What
good can the rain do?’
‘It makes the grass grow; and horses, cows, and sheep, and all other
animals that eat grass, live upon it; and the rain makes the corn grow,
and from corn we make our bread; and what would you or I do, or any one
else, if the corn did not grow and we had no bread? The rain makes the
trees and the flowers grow, and all the fruit too, and my little girls
would be sorry if there were no fruit.’
‘Yes, indeed, grandmamma,’ cried both children.
‘But I thought,’ said Alice, ‘that the sun made the fruit ripe.’
‘Yes, so it does; but the sun alone could not make the plants grow, and
the rain alone could not make the flowers open their leaves, or the
fruit or the corn get ripe. We want both sun and rain, and we must thank
God that He gives us enough of each to do good on earth.’
After the two little girls had finished their little lessons, and done
all that their grandmamma wished them to do, she said to them—
‘As you have both been good this morning, and because it rains, I will
tell you a story of my two dogs, when I lived in Russia.
‘It was a hot summer’s day, a long time ago, when my little dog Pretty
came to me yelling and barking. I was busy writing in a little
sitting-room that opened into my bedroom, and my rooms in Russia were
all downstairs, as there was but one floor.
‘When I looked at Pretty, I saw that the dog was trembling all over, and
every hair was standing up, for he was so frightened; and he whined and
ran about, and howled and barked in great distress; and at last he ran
into my bedroom, and crept under the bed, and there he lay trembling and
whining.
‘All the doors stand open in a house in Russia; so I went into the hall
and then out of the open front door, and I soon saw what was the cause
of Pretty’s fear. There was a great brown bear; and though little Pretty
had never seen a bear before, yet his terror was so great.
‘The bear had a leathern strap round his mouth, a small iron chain was
fixed to the strap; and when I looked nearer, I saw that a hole had been
made in the bear’s upper lip, and a ring was put through the hole, and
the chain was fastened to the ring as well as to the leathern strap.
‘A Russian peasant was with the bear, and he wore blue striped linen
trousers, and his trousers were tucked into his boots, but he had
neither stockings nor socks. He had a red and white checked shirt, which
hung loose over his trousers, and funny pieces of blue linen sewed into
the sleeves of his shirt. He had a fur cap on his head, and in his hand
he carried a long stout pole.
‘The Russian peasant called to the bear to get up, for the bear seemed
tired, and had laid down to rest himself. The bear growled, but did not