ONLY A PIN.


ONLY two or three days ago, an overseer in the mills found a pin, which cost the company about three hundred dollars.

"Was it stolen?" asked Susie. 

"I suppose it must have been very handsome. Was it a diamond pin?"

Oh, no! Not by any means. It was just such a pin as people buy every day and use without stint. Here is one upon my dress. 

"Such a pin as that cost three hundred dollars?" exclaimed John. "I don't believe it."

I know it to be true. And this is the way the pin happened to cost so much:

You know that calicoes, after they are printed and washed, are dried and smoothed by being passed over heated rollers. Well, by some mischance, a pin dropped so as to lie upon the principal roller, and, indeed, became wedged into it, the head standing out a little way from the surface.

Over and over went the roller, and round and round went the cloth, winding at length upon still another roller until the piece was measured off. Then another piece began to be dried and wound; and so on, until a hundred pieces had been counted off. These were not examined immediately, but removed from the machinery, and laid aside.

When, at length, they came to be inspected, it was found that there were holes in every piece throughout the web, and only three-quarters of a yard apart. Now, in each piece, there were from thirty-five to forty-five yards; and, at twelve cents a yard, that would count up to about five hundred dollars.

Of course the goods could not be classed as perfect goods: so they were sold as remnants at less than half the price they would have brought had it not been for the hidden pin.

When a boy takes for his companion a Sabbath-breaker, or a lad who is untruthful, and a little girl has for her playmate one who is unkind or disobedient, or in any way a wicked child, they are like the roller which took to its bosom the pin. 

Without their being able to help it, often the evil influence clings to them, and leaves its mark upon everybody with whom they come in contact.

That pin damaged irreparably forty hundred yards of new print; but bad company has ruined thousands of souls for whom Christ died. Remember, "one sinner destroyeth much good;" therefore avoid evil companions. 



  

The Child's Treasure.