DANGER SIGNALS
Our Little Friend: May 19:1916.
WHEN I was a very small girl, I lived with my grandfather in the city. Every
summer, I looked forward to going home to see my mother, and the dear little
brothers and sisters, who lived on a large farm.
One day in early summer, my mother came for me, to take me to the farm, where I
was to spend four happy weeks. It was a long, long way; so I amused myself, as
we rode along in the carriage, by reading the signs I saw beside the road. I was
just learning to read, so it was great fun to pick out the longest words I saw,
and try to read them. But I did not know them all; and when I came to a large
sign by the side of a railroad track, my mother helped me read the words,
"Danger-Look-out for the train-cars."
"Has my little girl never learned to know the danger signals?" my mother asked,
when we had safely crossed the track. "You will always find one of these signs
at every railroad crossing. They are placed there to tell us that a crossing is
a dangerous place; and we must see if any trains are coming, before we try to
cross."
And then it was that she told me something I shall never, never forget. She said
there were many kinds of danger signals in the world, and she wanted me to know
them; for some of them were so very small, and looked so harmless, that I might
not be able to find them all alone.
"One of these danger signals," she said, "is using bad language; and whenever
you are with anyone who uses bad words, that is a signal for you to hurry away
as fast as you can."
She said that "Bad Manners" and "Keeping Bad Company" were other, danger
signals. Bad manners always go with bad company; and when we are not careful
about our manners, we are really putting out a danger signal that will make
people afraid to be with us.
The dull, sleepy feeling that we sometimes have after eating, is a signal that
we have eaten too much. It is a signal we should watch closely; for if we do not
learn to control our appetites while we are children, we will riot be able to
resist bigger temptations when we are older.
Telling untruths is still another signal we should be sure to see; and boys (&
girls) especially must watch the signal that says "Smoking." It is a danger they
should always avoid, or when they get to be bigger, they will not be able to
run when they see the signals "Drinking," "Swearing," and "Stealing.""
"But we are almost home," said mother, "and I cannot talk to you longer.
To-night however, I will tell you how even the animals teach their little ones
the danger signals'"
That night, when story time came, and I, with the other children, was sitting by
the side of my mother, she told us this story:
"In some parts of the world, there lives an animal something like a reindeer. It is called a caribou. I have read that one day a man was walking through the woods, when, from the top of a little hill, he saw a mother caribou and her calf feeding in the valley below him. He quickly hid behind a stump; but the wind was blowing in the direction of the caribou, and already she had caught his scent.
"At once she thought of her little calf, and the danger it might be in. Here was
a danger signal, and she must teach her little one to avoid the danger. So she
brought her baby up the hill some distance toward the man, and made it smell the
ground where the man had walked. Then, to teach it that whenever it got this
scent again, it must run for its life, she got behind the calf, and butted it
down the valley as fast as it could go.
"That is why I am telling you to-night about the danger signals. I want my boys
and girls to learn to watch for them, and when they see them, to run quickly
away from them. In this way, you will grow up to be strong and clean and pure."