The Little Girl And Mushrooms

The Little Girl And Mushrooms

Short Story By Leo Tolstoy

Innocence and love are characteristic features of little children. Leo Tolstoy’s story about two sisters meeting with a near disaster brings out the extent of innocence, heart wrenching emotions and love that are the hall marks of kids all over the world. Read on to familiarize yourself with this story.

It was a fine summer morning, perfect to be outdoors. Two sisters had been out mushroom picking, and were on their home with heavy baskets full of mushrooms. They sang songs on the way, and played with each other.

Soon they reached a point where they had to cross a railway track. They did not think twice about crossing it since there was no train coming, and they could not hear any whistle. They slowly climbed the embankment to cross the track, taking care not to drop the baskets. They were very near the track and the little sister was about the cross it, when they heard the distinct horn of a train.

The older sister got frightened and ran back. She thought that the young one was following her. She turned back and was shocked to see her little sister still crossing the track. “Come back here, run back fast,” she screamed.

It seemed that the little girl could not hear her sister. She was still concentrating on stepping over the track with her little feet, and holding on to the basket. Then she tripped and fell on the track, scattering her mushrooms around. She sat down and began picking them up and putting in her basket.

In the meanwhile the elder sister had become hysteric. She cried and screamed, calling her little sister to leave the mushrooms and run back, but it seemed as though the little one could not hear her.

The engine driver panicked on seeing the girl and blew his whistle with all his might, but she appeared not to hear the whistle. Her sister was now crying loudly, overcome by panic, as the little sister crawled between the tracks on her hands and knees, to pick the rest of the mushrooms.

The engine driver was helpless as it was not possible for him to stop the engine suddenly. He blew the whistle as hard as he could, but the engine rolled over the little girl. The older sister clasped her face with her trembling hands and cried bitterly. The passengers too panicked at the thought of the sight they would have to witness. The guard ran down to the end of the train to see what happened to the little girl. When the train passed, everybody saw her lying very still between the tracks with her face down.

Then she raised her head, sprang to her knees and began gathering the remaining mushrooms.

The big sister ran towards her, tears streaming down her face. They hugged and kissed each other, crying out of happiness, tears of joy flowing down their little cheeks. Never were two souls so happily united as at that moment. She promised her little sister that thereafter she would hold her hand tightly while crossing the railway line.

The two sisters then picked all the remaining mushrooms, and hand in hand, solemnly walked back home. They were indeed two souls who had become wiser than their years, in the span of a few minutes.

Beautiful Garden

The story is told of a nobleman who had a lovely floral garden. The gardener who tended it took great pains to make the estate a veritable paradise. One morning he went into the garden to inspect his favorite flowers. To his dismay he discovered that one of his choice beauties had been cut from its stem. Soon he saw that the most magnificent flowers from each bed were missing. Filled with anxiety and anger, he hurried to his fellow employees and demanded, "Who stole my treasures?"

One of his helpers replied, "The nobleman came into his garden this morning, picked those flowers himself, and took them into his house. I guess he wanted to enjoy their beauty." The gardener then realized that he had no reason to be concerned because it was perfectly right for his master to pick some of his own prize blossoms.

Asking Not, Expecting Not

Our Daily Bread, June 4, 1997

Imagine what a heavy schedule of appointments President Abraham Lincoln had to keep day after day. Yet when an elderly woman with no official business in mind asked to see him, he graciously consented.

As she entered Lincoln's office, he rose to greet her and asked how he might be of service. She replied that she had not come to ask a favor. She had heard that the President liked a certain kind of cookie, so she had baked some for him and brought them to his office.

With tears in his eyes, Lincoln responded, "You are the very first person who has ever come into my office asking not, expecting not, but rather bringing me a gift. I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

Ronald Reagan and Clapping

Ronald Reagan was a favorite of mine. He served as President as, hopefully, most of you know, and also before he was President, he was Governor of California. He was Governor of California from 1967 to 1975. Ronald Reagan shares a story about going to Mexico City when he was Governor of California. And he gave a speech, and there was a big crowd. And after he finished with his speech, it just didn't go very well, and it was a very unenthusiastic little kind of clap like that when he was done. And he's like,

"Man..." And he thought did I do that bad' Is it just a rough crowd' What is it' Well, he went to sit down on the platform, and the guy that got up after him, man; he showed him it wasn't a bad crowd because he was slaying the crowd.

They were just clapping and cheering. And he was speaking in Spanish and Ronald Reagan didn't understand anything he said. He felt embarrassed and awkward. And he thought, You know, this is going to be weird. So he said, "Well, I'm just going to start clapping, too, and I'll clap longer and louder and first and then they'll know that, hey, I'm okay with who I am. And just because they didn't clap for me, that's okay. I'm still going to clap. And so he was doing it, clapping first, and clapping longest, and clapping loudest.

Finally, somebody leaned over to him and said, "Hey, I wouldn't do that if I were you." He said, "That man's interpreting your speech" (laughter). A little embarrassing!

Remember Dorothy

At an ordination service several years ago, the minister who gave the ordination sermon urged the one who was being ordained to “Remember Dorothy.” No one knew what he was talking about, including the one being ordained.

The minister told a story about a woman who was in nursing school. One day the Professor came in and said those seven words students hate to hear, “We’re going to have a pop quiz.” She made it through the quiz until she got to the last question. It read, “What is the name of the woman who cleans the school?”
 

You’re going to meet a lot of people when you get out in the field of medicine. You may be tempted to treat them as diseases instead of as people. But each one is important and each one has a name. And by the way, her name is Dorothy.” There are a lot of Dorothy’s out there and in here. If we are going to fulfill God’s purposes as God’s servants (which is what a deacon and all Christians are supposed to be), we need to love people which require at least a little bit of knowledge about who our members are and what their needs are. The more we know them, the more we can love them.

I challenge our newly elected and newly ordained deacons to get to know our folks better so that they can be the best they can be. And I challenge the rest of us to do the same.

Poverty and Unbelief

On the corner of Park Row and Beekman Street, New York City, where Horace Greeley’s Statue now stands, stood a man offering $20 gold pieces for $1 each. All day he kept up loudly announcing his wares, but of the thousands that passed him, most paid no attention and others either laughed or scowled at him.

About 15 minutes before six o’clock, when he was about to quit, a woman timidly approached him and, after carefully investigating the gold piece, by biting it and testing its sound, but throwing it on the pavement, she reluctantly paid the dollar and pocketed the golden double eagle. Ten minutes later, just as the man was about to go home, the woman reappeared accompanied by two friends and between them they purchased the rest of the man’s stock, worth $160, for $8 in bills.

The next and for several following mornings, the street was crowded for blocks with the same woman in the lead waiting for the vender of gold coins, but he never appeared again.

This story is known to be true and Horace Greeley is responsible for the incident in demonstration of his theory that most poverty is due to the fact that the general public refuses to believe even in the face of overwhelming evidence and there is the point.

Is that a perfect example of many people in America today? Many who come to church would probably fall into this category. But God does not call us to unbelief He calls us to believe. Faith and unbelief can not live together they do not mix.

Try doing this sometime. Take an empty 2-Liter bottle, and fill it up half way with just plain water, and the other half fill up with vegetable oil. Then try shaking that bottle up and mixing those two things together. What’s going to happen? Well, you can shake that bottle all day, but as soon as you stop shaking it, the oil and the water are going to separate from each other in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Why? Back in 11th Grade Chemistry Class you learned that oil and water are “polar opposites” of each other. These two substances have a totally different chemical make-up from each other, which makes it impossible for them to mix together. Polar opposites just don’t mix.

what we’re going to focus on this morning are the polar opposites in this story. We are going to study the characters and see a number of things that just don’t mix very well inside a person: 1. Faith & Unbelief 2. Humility & Pride.

When you are tempted to doubt God’s promises, remember that 2-Liter bottle with oil and water not mixing. Neither can your doubt mix with faith! Get rid of it, and have a simple, strong trust that God is going to work everything out. Remember that 2-Liter bottle when you are tempted to think of yourself as an important person. Pride sure doesn’t mix very well with humility.

Good Friend

Back in the 1980’s Sam Rayburn - Speaker for the House of Representatives - learned that one of his friends had just lost his teenage daughter. 

 

Early the next morning Rayburn knocked on his door and said, “I just came by to see what I could do to help.” 

 

The father replied that there was nothing to do. “Well,” Rayburn said, “have you had your coffee this morning?” 

 

The man replied that they had not taken time for breakfast. So Rayburn went to work in the kitchen. While he working on making breakfast, his friend came in, and said, “Mr. Speaker, I thought you were supposed to be having breakfast at the White House this morning.” “Well, I was, but I called the President and told him I had a friend who was in trouble and I couldn’t come.”

This is great example of true friend is all about. He is willing to rearrange his schedule no matter how important it might be to help a friend out that is need.