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Title: The Play-day Book: New Stories for Little Folks
Author: Fern, Fanny
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Play-day Book: New Stories for Little Folks" ***
[Illustration]
THE
PLAY-DAY BOOK:
NEW STORIES
FOR LITTLE FOLKS.
BY FANNY FERN.
ILLUSTRATED BY FRED. M. COFFIN.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY MASON BROTHERS,
108 AND 110 DUANE-STREET.
1857.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by
MASON BROTHERS,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of
New York.
STEREOTYPED BY
THOMAS B. SMITH,
82 & 84 Beekman St.
PRINTED BY
C. A. ALVORD,
15 Vandewater St.
PREFACE.
Since “Little Ferns” was published, I have had many letters, and
messages, from little children all over the country, asking me “to write
them soon another little book of stories.” Here is one that I have
prepared for you and them: I hope you will like it; for some of you, it
will be too young a book; for some of you, too old; those for whom it is
too young, will perhaps read it to little brothers and sisters; those
for whom it is too old now, can look at the pictures and learn to read,
little by little, by spelling out the words in the stories. I call it
“The Play-Day Book;” because I made it to read when you are out of
school, and want to be amused. If, while you are looking only for
amusement, you should happen to find instruction, so much the better.
FANNY FERN.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
A RAINY DAY 7
THE BOY WHO WANTED TO SEE THE WORLD 25
THE JOURNEY 35
A PEEP OUT OF MY WINDOW 61
THE CIRCUS 64
WHAT EVERY LITTLE CHILD MAY SEE 70
A STORY FOR BOYS 72
KATY’S FIRST GRIEF 76
OUR NEW DOG DASH 87
FUN AND FOLLY 89
HISTORY OF A FAMILY OF CATS 96
THE POOR-RICH CHILD 102
THE HOD-CARRIER 107
THE TOM-BOY 120
THE LITTLE MUSICIAN 124
LIONS 128
THE CRIPPLE 133
BESSIE AND HER MOTHER 145
RED-HEADED ANDY 150
LITTLE NAPKIN 155
THE SPOILED BOY 160
PUSS AND I 166
LUCY’S FAULT 169
UNTIDY MARY 176
A LUCKY IRISH BOY 183
THE CHILD PRINCE AND THE CHILD PEASANT 191
THE WILD ROSE 194
JENNY AND THE BUTCHER 204
THE TWO BABES 212
THE LITTLE SISTERS 215
OURS; OR, A LOOK BACKWARD 220
CHILDREN’S TROUBLES 224
THE VACANT LOT 230
“FOOLISH NED” 233
GREENWOOD 235
BED-TIME 242
SOLILOQUY OF OVERGROWN FIFTEEN 248
A TEMPERANCE STORY 250
ALL ABOUT HORACE 256
A WALK I TOOK 269
SUSY FOSTER 273
“FEED MY LAMBS” 276
TWO LIVE PICTURES 280
A RIDDLE 282
THANKSGIVING 284
A RAINY DAY,
AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
“Oh, dear, I knew it would rain to-day, just because I didn’t want
to have it; every thing is so dark, and cold, and gloomy;
drip—drip—drip—oh, dear! had I made the world, mother, I never would
have made a drop of rain.”
“What would the cattle have had to drink, then?”
“I am sure I don’t know; I don’t see why they need drink. I could drink
milk, you know, mother.”
“But if it didn’t rain the grass would all dry up, and then the cows
would give no milk.”
“Well, I don’t know any thing about that. I know I don’t like rain, any
how; do you like a rainy day, mother?”
“Yes, very much: it gives me such a nice chance to work; I have nobody
to interrupt me. I can do a great deal on a rainy day.”
“But I have no work, mother.”
“Ah, that is just the trouble: time lies heavy on idle hands; suppose
you wind these skeins of silk into nice little balls for my
work-basket?”
“So I will; won’t you talk to me while I am doing it? tell me something
about yourself, when you was a little girl—little like me; tell me the
very first thing you can ever remember when you was a tiny little girl.”
“Bless me, that was so long ago that you will have to give me time to
think. Can you keep your chattering tongue still five minutes, while I
do it?”
Susy nodded her head, and fixed her eye very resolutely on a nail in the
wall.
A long pause.
“Hum—hum,” muttered Susy pointing to her lips, as her mamma moved in her
chair.
“Yes, you can speak now.”
“Have you thought of it, mother?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s nice; let me get another card to wind that skein on, when
I have done this; I hope it is a long story, I hope it is funny, I hope
there ain’t any ‘moral’ in it. Katy Smith’s mother always puts a moral
in; I don’t like morals, do you, mother?”
Susy’s mother laughed, and said that she didn’t like them when she was
her age.
“There now—there—I’m ready, now begin; but don’t say ‘Once on a time,’ I
hate ‘Once on a time;’ I always know it is going to be a hateful story
when it begins ‘Once on a time.’”
“Any thing more, Susy?”
“Yes, mother: don’t end it, ‘They lived ever after in peace, and died
happily.’ I hate that, too.”
“Well, upon my word. I did not know I had such a critic for a listener.
I am afraid you will have to give me a longer time to think, so that I
can fix up my story a little.”
“No, mother, that’s just what I don’t want. I like it best unfixed.”
“Well, the first thing I remember was one bitter cold Thanksgiving
morning, in November. My mother had told me the night before that the
next day was Thanksgiving, and that we were all invited to spend it ten
miles out of town, at the house of a minister in the country.”
“Horrid!” said Susy; “I know you had an awful time. I am glad I wasn’t
born, then. Well—what else?”
“We were all to get up and breakfast the next morning by candle-light,
so as to take a very early start, that we might have a longer stay at
Mr. Dunlap’s. My mother told me all about it the night before, as she
tucked me up in my little bed, after which I saw her go to the closet
and take down a pretty bright scarlet woolen frock and a snow-white
apron to wear with it, with a nice little plaited ruffle round the neck;
then she laid a pair of such snow-white woolen stockings side of them,
and a pair of bright red morocco shoes.”
“How nice—were you pretty, mother?”
“Of course my mother thought so; I think I looked very much as you do
now.”
Susy jumped up, and looked in the glass.
“Then you had light-blue eyes, a straight nose, a round face, and yellow
curly hair? Did you, mother, certain, true?”
“Yes.”
“Well, mother.”
“Well, then, my mother went down stairs.”
“Didn’t she kiss you, first?”
“Oh, yes, she always did that.”
“And heard you say your prayers?”
“Yes.”
“Our Father, and, Now I lay me?”
“Yes.”
“How queer for you to say my prayers when you were a little girl. I am
glad you said my prayers. Well, mother.”
“Then I lay a long while thinking about the visit.”
“In the dark?”
“Yes.”
“Any body with you?”
“No.”
“Wern’t you afraid?”
“Not a bit.”
“You funny little mother—well.”
“And by-and-by I went to sleep, and slept soundly till morning. Long
before daylight my mother lifted me out of bed, washed and dressed me by
a nice warm fire, and then took me down in her arms to breakfast. I had
never eaten breakfast by candle-light before. I liked the bright lights,
and the smell of the hot coffee and hot cakes, and my mother’s bright,
cheerful face. It did not take us long to eat breakfast, but before we
had done the carriage drove up to the door. Then my mother wrapped some
hot bricks upon the hearth in some pieces of carpet.”
“What for?”
“To keep our feet warm in the carriage, while we were riding, and then
she pulled another pair of warm stockings over my red shoes and
stockings, and put on my wadded cloak, and tucking my curls behind my
ears, tied a blue silk hood, trimmed with swan’s down under my chin, and
putting on her own cloak and bonnet, led me to the door.
“I had never seen the stars before; they glittered up in the clear blue
sky, oh, so bright, so beautiful! The keen frost-air nipped my little
cheeks, but when they lifted me into the carriage, I was sorry not to
see the pretty stars any longer; they wrapped up every thing but the tip
end of my nose, in shawls and tippets, and though I could not see the
bright stars any more, I kept thinking about them; I wondered what kept
them from falling down on the ground, and where they staid in the
daytime, and how long it would take me to count them all, and, if one
ever _did_ fall down on the ground, if it would be stealing for me to
keep it for ‘my ownty doan-ty.’
“I was not used to getting up so early, so the motion of the carriage
soon rocked me to sleep, and when I awoke it was broad daylight, and the
carriage had stopped at the minister’s door. Oh, how the snow was piled
up! way to the tops of the fences, and all the trees were bending under
its weight; every little bush was wreathed with it; the tops of the
barns, and sheds, and houses, were covered with it; and great long
icicles, like big sticks of rock candy, were hanging from the eaves. I
liked it most as well as the pretty stars; I was glad I had seen them
and the soft white snow.
“Then the minister, and his wife and boys came out, and we went in with
them to a bright fire, and the coachman put up his horses in the barn,
and went into the kitchen into the big chimney-corner, to thaw his cold
fingers. They gave me some warm milk, and my mother some hot coffee, and
then the grown people talked and talked great big words, and I ran about
the room to see what I could see.”
“What did you see?”
“First, there was a Maltese cat, with five little bits of kittens, all
curled up in a bunch under their mother, eating their breakfast;
by-and-by the old cat went out in the kitchen to eat hers, and then I
took one of the kittys in my white apron, and played baby with it. It
purred and opened its brown eyes, and its little short tail kept
wagging. I could not help thinking the little country kitty was glad to
see some city company. Then I got tired of the kitty, and went up to the
corner of the room to look at some shells, and the minister’s boy told
me to put them up to my ear, and they would make a sound like the sea,
where they came from; I asked him if they were alive? and he laughed at
me; and then my face grew as red as my frock, so that I had to hide it
in my white apron.
“Then, after a while, the bells rang for church, for the minister was
going to preach a Thanksgiving sermon; and my mother said that she was
going with him and his wife to hear it; but that she would be back soon,
and that I might stay, while she was gone, in the warm parlor, with the
kitty and the shells; and that the minister’s boy would stay with me if
I didn’t like to stay alone. Then I crept up into my mother’s lap, and
whispered that I did not like the minister’s boy because he had laughed
at me, and that I wanted his mother to take him away with her to church,
and leave me all alone with the kittys and the shells; then the
minister’s boy laughed again when they told him, and said ‘I was a queer
one;’ but I didn’t care for that, when I saw him tie on his cap and pull
on his mittens to go off. So they opened the door of the sitting-room
into the kitchen, that Betty might see I did not catch my apron on fire,
and then they went to church.”
“Didn’t they leave you any thing to eat?”
“Oh, yes, I forgot that; I had a plate of ‘Thanksgiving cookies,’ as
they called them, and as soon as the door was shut, I took the plate in
my lap and never stopped till I had eaten them all up.”
“Wasn’t you a little pig, mother?”
“Not so very piggish, after all, because I was so astonished with my
candle-light breakfast, before starting from home, that I forgot to eat
any thing. So, you see, I was very glad of the cookies.”
“I am glad the minister’s boy did not stay, mother; I dare say he would
have eaten them all up. Didn’t you get tired before church was out,
mother?”
“No; I looked out of the window a long while, at the pretty white snow;
and by-and-by I saw a cunning little bird pecking at the window; it was
all white but its head, and that was black. I wanted to open the window
and let it in; I thought it must be cold, but I was afraid the
minister’s wife would not like it if the snow should fly in from the
window-sill on her nice carpet; just then Betty the cook came in, and
she told me that it was a little snow-bird, and that she thought it had
become quite chilled, for the frost lay thick on the windows; Betty said
she would open the window, and in it flew on the carpet; then I tip-toed
softly up and caught him; he fluttered a little, but I think he liked my
warm hand. Betty told me to put him in my bosom, and so I did; and then
he got warm as toast, and the first thing I knew; out he flew, and
perched on top of a rose geranium in the window; then I gave him some
cookie crumbs, and he ate them, and then he began pecking at the window,
and Betty said she thought he wanted to get out to his little mates
outside. I did not want him to go, I liked him better than the kittys or
the shells, but when Betty said that perhaps the cat would catch and eat
him, I said, ‘Let him go;’ so she opened the window, and away he flew.
“Then I did not know what to do; I wished the minister would not preach
such a long sermon, and keep my mother away. I wondered what we were
going to have for dinner, for I began to smell something very nice in
the kitchen, and I wished more than ever that sermon was over. I went
and peeped through the crack of the door into the kitchen, to find out
what smelt so good, and I saw, oh, such a big fire-place, you might
almost have played blind-man’s buff in it, only I supposed that
ministers would not let their children play blind-man’s buff; and front
of the fire-place was a great tin-kitchen, and in the tin-kitchen was a
monstrous turkey, and front of the turkey kneeled Betty, putting
something on it out of a tin box.
“I said, ‘Betty, what is that tin thing?’
“Betty said, ‘It is a dredging-box, you little chatterbox;’ and then the
red-faced coachman, who was toasting his toes in the chimney-corner,
laughed, and said, ‘Come here, sis!’
“I did not go. I did not like to be laughed at, and I was not his sis;
but still I kept smelling things through the door-crack, because I had
nothing else to do, and because I liked the good smell. I saw Betty take
out three pies to warm; one, she said, was mince, and I thought when I
got a piece how I would pick out all the nice raisins and eat them; the
other was pumpkin, and the other was an apple pie; then there was a
large chicken pie, and a cold boiled ham, and some oysters; I knew my
mother brought the ham and oysters from the city, because I heard her
talking about it at home; and then I wondered if folks who went to eat
dinner with ministers had always to bring a part of their dinners. Then
Betty came in to set the table for dinner; I was afraid she would not
put on a plate for me, and that I should have to wait in the corner till
the big folks had eaten up all the good things; but she did, and set up
a little high chair with arms, that the minister’s boy used to sit in
when he was little. I told Betty I did not like the minister’s boy’s
chair, and that I wouldn’t sit in it; and then Betty said, ‘Sho,
sho—little girls must be seen and not heard.’ I asked Betty what that
meant, and then she and the red-faced coachman laughed again, and the
coachman said, ‘Sis, it is fun talking to you.’ Then I heard a great
noise in the entry, such a stamping of feet, and such a blowing of
noses; sure enough meeting was done; I was so glad, for I knew the
turkey was.
“Then the minister said, ‘Come to me, little one.’”
“Oh, mother! I am so sorry; I suppose he wanted you to say your
catechism, when you were so hungry; did you go?”
“I stood with my finger in my mouth, looking him in the face, and
thinking about it. I liked his face; it was not cross, and there was a
pleasant smile about his mouth, and a soft sweet look in his eyes; so I
went slowly up to him. I was glad he did not call me ‘sis,’ like the
coachman; I did not like to be called sis; I wanted people to be polite
to me, just as they were to my mother.”
“What did he say to you, mother? Did he make you say the catechism?”
“No; he pushed my curls back off my face, and kissed my forehead; then
he asked me if I liked to hear little stories?”
“Did he? Why, what a nice minister!”
“I said, ‘Yes; do you know any? I know some.’
“Then the minister asked me what I knew.
“Then I said,
“‘Two wise men of Gotham went to sea in a bowl; if the bowl had been
stronger, my tale would have been longer.’ Then the minister laughed and
asked me if I believed that; then I said ‘Yes, it is printed in a real
book, in my Mother Goose, at home;’ and then the minister told me to
‘say some more Mother Goose,’ and then I told him all about ‘Old Mother
Hubbard, who went to the cupboard,’ and ‘Jack and Gill,’ and
‘Four-and-twenty black-birds,’ and ‘Little Bo-peep;’ and then the
minister laughed and said, ‘Mother Goose forever!’ I did not know what
that meant, and I did not dare to ask, because the ministers boy came
into the room just then, and said, ‘What a nice baby you have got on
your knee, father;’ and that made my face very red; and I asked the
minister to let me get down, and then the minister’s boy came up to me
and said, ‘Sis!’ and I said, pouting, ‘I ain’t sis, I am Susy;’ and then
he laughed, and said again, ‘What a queer one!’ and began pulling the
cat’s tail.”
“How ugly—I wish I’d been alive then, I would have pulled his hair for
teasing my mother so. What happened next, mother?”
“Then Betty brought in the roast turkey, and the hot potatoes, and the
oysters, and things; and then the minister himself lifted me up in my
high chair, between him and my mother, and then he folded his hands and
said a blessing.”
“Was it very long, mother?”
“No, only a few words, and then he carved the turkey, and gave me the
wish-bone.”
“Why, mother, he was not a bit like a minister; was he? Well?”
“Then I ate, and ate, and ate; and the minister gave me all the plums
out of his pie, because he said that he could not find four-and-twenty
black-birds to put in it; and after dinner he picked out my nuts for me;
and when his boy called me ‘Sis,’ he said, ‘John, behave!’ After dinner,
I asked the minister if he knew how to play cat’s-cradle; he said he
used to know once; then he said to his wile, ‘Mother, can’t you give us
a string, this little one and I are going to play cat’s-cradle.’ He was
such a while learning that I told him I did not think ministers _could_
play cat’s-cradle; but his wife said he was stupid on purpose, to see
what I would do; he got the string into a thousand knots, and I got out
of patience, and then I wouldn’t teach him any more; then he told me to
see if I could spell cro-non-ho-ton-thol-o-gus, without getting my
tongue in a kink. Then the minister’s boy said, ‘Try her on
Po-po-cat-a-pet-el, father.’ Then the minister and I played ‘Hunt the
Slipper,’ and ‘Puss in the Corner,’ and ‘Grand Mufti,’ and I was so
sorry when a man drove up to the door, in a sleigh, and carried the
minister off to see a poor sick woman.”
“Why, mother, I never heard of such a kind of a minister as he was. I
thought ministers never laughed, and that they thought it was wicked to
play; and that’s why I don’t like them, and am afraid of them. I wish
our minister, Mr. Stokes, was like that minister you have been telling
about; then I wouldn’t cross over the street when I see him coming. Do
you think Mr. Stokes likes little children, mother? When he sees me he
says, ‘How is your mother, Susy?’ but he never looks at me when he says
it, and goes away after it as fast as ever he can; but what else
happened at your minister’s, mother?”
“Well, by that time, the sun began to go down, and the frost began to
thicken on the windows; and though the large wood fire blazed cheerfully
in the chimney, my mother said we had such a long, cold ride before us,
that it was time we were starting. So I went out in the kitchen to tell
the red-faced coachman to tackle up his horses, and there he lay asleep
on the wooden settle.”
“What is a settle?”
“A rough kitchen-sofa, made of boards, with a very high back. I touched
his arm, and he only said, as he turned over, ‘Whoa, there—whoa!’
‘John,’ said I, ‘we want you to tackle up the horses; my mother wants to
go home, John.’
“‘Get up, Dobbin, get up, Jack,’ said John, without opening his eyes.
“‘John,’ said I, right in his ear, for I was getting tired.
“‘Oh, that’s you sis, is it?’ said John, springing up, and knocking over
the old settle with a tremendous noise. ‘Bless my soul, that’s you;’ and
then he burst into a loud laugh, and I found out that he had not been
asleep a bit, and only did so to plague me.
“Well, we warmed the bricks again; and wrapped them up with the old
pieces of carpet, to put under our feet, and I drank some warm milk, and
the minister’s wife put some cookies in my bag, and tied my soft blue
silk hood round my face, and as she did it, she sighed such a long sigh,
that I said,
“‘Does it tire you to tie my hood?’
“‘No—no—no—no’—and then a great big tear came rolling down her cheek,
and then she said, ‘There is a little silken hood like yours in the
drawer up-stairs, but I have no little rosy face to tie it round now;’
and I stopped and thought a minute, for at first I did not understand;
and then I said softly,
“‘I’m sorry.’
“And then she wiped away her tears, and said, ‘Don’t cry dear; you
looked like her, in that little hood; but God knows better than we do—I
shall see her again some day.’
“Then she kissed me, and put me into the carriage, and John cracked his
whip, and we were just starting, when the minister’s boy came running
out with my little bag, and said,
“‘Here’s your bag, sis; kiss me and you shall have it.’
“‘I wouldn’t kiss you, no—not for twenty bags,’ said I; ‘I love your
mother, and I love your father; but I ain’t “sis” and I don’t love you,
and I won’t kiss you.’
“‘Queer one—queer one,’ said he, tossing my silk bag into the carriage,
and making a great snow-ball with his hands to throw at John.”
“Hateful thing.”
“You must not say that, Susy.”
“Why not?”
“Because that minister’s boy is your father.”
“Oh—oh—oh,” screamed Susy, hopping up and down, “did I ever—did I
ever—who would have thought it, that such a hatef—I mean that such a—boy
should make such a dear papa, oh, mother; oh, I am so happy, it is so
funny.”
“Happy on a _rainy_ day, Susy. I thought an hour ago that you were the
most miserable little girl in the world, because you could not make the
sun shine.”
“_You_ are my sunshine, mother.”
“And papa, that hatef—”
“Now don’t, mother. I would never have said, so—never, if I had
known—but how could _I_ tell he was going to turn out my papa? any more
than you could—when he used to call you sis.”
“Sure enough, Susy.”
THE
BOY WHO WANTED TO SEE THE WORLD.
“Nothing but school, school—I am tired of it; I am tired of living at
home; I am tired of every thing. My father is kind enough, so is my
mother; but I want to be a man for myself. I am a very tall boy of my
age; I am sure it is time I had off my round jacket. I want to see the
world; I don’t believe it is necessary for a fellow to swallow so many
Greek and Latin dictionaries before he can do it. I have a great mind to
‘clear out;’ there is a quarter of a dollar up in my box, and I am a
‘prime’ walker; pooh—who cares? They should not tie a fellow up so, if
they don’t want him to run off. I can’t stand it; I will go this very
day; of course I sha’n’t want any clothes but those I have on my back;
they ought to last me a year; they are right out of the tailor’s shop.
He didn’t know, when he made them, what a long journey they were going;
who knows but one of these days, this very suit of clothes may be shown
in a glass case, to crowds of people, as the very suit that the famous
traveler, John Sims, wore when he was a boy. I like that! I never could
see the use of keeping boys cooped up at home. Who wants to be a walking
dictionary? I don’t. I feel as if I could go round the world and back
again in twenty minutes; no—not _back_; you don’t catch me back in a
hurry! I should like to see myself come sneaking home, after Bill Jones,
and Sam Jackson, and Will Johnson, and all the fellows in the street,
had heard I had run off. Of course they’ll miss me awfully; I am ‘prime’
at ‘hop-scotch,’ and ‘bat-and-ball,’ and ‘hockey.’ I can stand on my
head longer than any fellow among them; and when it comes to leaping
over a post—ah, just ask my mother how many pairs of trousers I have
stripped out doing it. I guess Jack Adams will miss me in the geography
class; he always expects me to tell him his lesson; stupid dunce! I
guess the school-master will miss me, too, for I was always the
show-off-fellow, when company came into school; they can’t say I didn’t
study my lessons well; but I am sick of it, crammed to death, and now
I’m off. I wonder if I shall ever be sick when I am on my travels; that
would be rather bad; mother is so kind when a fellow is sick: pshaw—I
won’t be sick—who’s afraid? who’s a cry-baby? not I; I am John Sims, the
great traveler that is to be—hurrah! I wonder who will have my old sled
‘Winded Arrow?’ I dare say sis will be going down hill on it; what a
plague sisters are. Dora always has the biggest piece of pie; not that I
care about it—I am too much of a man; but it is confoundedly provoking;
if you try to have a little fun with girls; they holler out, ‘Oh, don’t,
you hurt!’ and they bawl for just nothing at all, except to get their
brothers a boxed ear. I can’t bear girls; I never could see any use in
them. Now, if Dora had been a boy—ah, that would have been fun; he could
have gone off with me on my travels; well—never mind about that, it is
time I was going, if I mean to go to-day; father will be home to dinner
soon, and then my plan will be all knocked in the head; I shall be sent
out of an errand, or some such thing. I guess I will go out at the back
door; it is ridiculous, but somehow or other I feel just as if every
body knew what I was going to do; but once round the corner—down ——
street—and off on the railroad track, and they may all whistle for
Johnny Sims, the famous traveler.”
“Thump—thump—thump! I wonder who that is, knocking at my front door,”
said Betty Smith; “I hope it is not the minister! I can’t leave these
preserves for any body! thump—thump! What a hurry some folks are in,
that they can’t give a body a chance to wipe their sticky fingers on a
roller; nobody comes here but the peddler and the tinman, unless it is
the minister; who can it be?” and Betty opened the door, and hurled from
between her teeth, her usual blunt, “What do you want?”
“A piece of bread, if you please; I’ve taken such a long walk, and I am
very hungry.”
“Where did you come from?” asked Betty, “and where are you going? and
why didn’t you put a piece of bread or something in your pocket before
you started, hey?”
“I did not think I should be so hungry,” said the boy.
“Well—where are you going now, any how?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know? that’s a pretty story! how did you come by those good
clothes? I’ll bet a sixpence you stole ’em; they are genuine
broadcloth—fine as our minister wears—and you begging for a piece of
bread! I can’t put that and that together. You don’t get any bread from
me, till you open your mouth a little wider, my young mister, and tell
me what you are up to. I shouldn’t wonder if you were sent here by some
bad people, or something, to see if my man was to home; I can tell you
now that he ain’t, but there’s a gun behind that kitchen door that’s
better than forty of him, and I know how to handle it, too. Do you hear
that, now? I’ll have you taken to—taken to—I’ll have something done to
you—see if I don’t; if you don’t tell me in two minutes who sent you to
my house!” said the curious Betty. “I don’t believe you are hungry—it is
all a sham!”
“I _am_, really,” said the boy. “Nobody sent me here; I never did any
thing bad. Won’t you give me a piece of bread, and tell me what road
this is?”
“He’s crazy!” said Betty, looking close into the boy’s eyes.
“No, I am not crazy. I—I—I don’t know the way home.”
“Where is your home?”
The boy hesitated, and hung his head.
“Tut, now, if you want your bread,” said Betty, growing more and more
curious, snatching a fragment of a loaf, and holding it up before
him—“if you want this now, tell me where you live?”
“In the city,” said the boy.
“Ten miles off! Did you walk all that?”
The boy nodded.
“Did your pa and ma know it?”
“No.”
“Come now, here’s another slice,” said Betty, “and I’ll put some butter
on it, if you’ll tell me what you did it for?”
“I wanted to run away.”
“Goodness! What for? Did your folks treat you bad?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“I wanted to travel.”
“Ha—ha—ha—ha!” said Betty, holding on to her sides. “That’s too good—too
good—and got tired a’ready—ha! ha!—and want to find the way home! Smart
traveler you are! How do you expect to get back to-night? It is most
sundown now.”
“I don’t know,” said the boy, sadly.
“Nor I,” said Betty. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll give you a
supper and a bed to-night; and my man is going in to market at four
o’clock to-morrow morning, with some vegetables; and he will give you a
lift, if I ask him. How’ll that do?”
“Thank you,” said the boy; “but—”
“But?” said Betty. “Oh yes, you are thinking of what a pucker your pa
and ma will be in about you, all night. Well, you should have thought of
that afore you started. It can’t be helped now. I know my man won’t
budge an inch before four o’clock in the morning; he’s just as sot as
the everlasting hills. There he comes now. I guess he’ll wonder where I
picked up you.”
“Halloo! Betty,” said Richard, rattling up to the door with his team.
“What boy is that?”
“Why, Richard!”
“Why, Johnny!”
“What does all that mean?” said the astonished Betty, as the little boy
flew into her husband’s arms. “What on earth does that mean? Did you
ever see him before?”
“Well, I should think I had,” said Richard, “seeing that I have found
his pa in vegetables all summer; and this boy, every blessed morning,
has jumped on to my team for me to give him a lift on his way to school.
Should r-a-t-h-e-r think I had seen him before, Betty; but how he came
out here, that’s what I want to know—didn’t know as ever I told him
where I lived.”
“You never did,” said Johnny. “I have been a bad boy, Richard—I ran away
from home. I read books about boys that went off to see the world, and I
thought it would be fun.”
“Well!” said Richard, laughing; “you are not the first fellow who has
found out that bread and butter and money don’t grow on the bushes. Now
I suppose you are quite ready for me to carry you back?”
“Yes,” said Johnny.
“Well, eat your supper, and then be off to bed, for I shall start before
the hens are awake; and mind you tell your folks that I had no hand in
your going off. It looks rather suspicious, you see—coming straight out
to my house. Lucky you did not fall into worse hands; and, Betty, you
might as well brush up his dirty shoes and take a little dust off his
jacket and cap. I can always tell a boy that hasn’t seen his mother for
four-and-twenty hours. Ah, Johnny, nothing like a mother. Don’t you be
too proud, now, to ask her pardon for running off; you young
scapegrace.”
“No I ain’t,” said Johnny.
“What are you laughing at?” asked Richard.
“I was thinking,” said Johnny, as he watched Betty dusting his jacket,
“what a silly boy I was, and how I thought that one of these days every
body would want to see the jacket and trowsers that the great traveler
John Sims had on, when he first started on foot to go round the world.”
“Never mind that,” said Richard, laughing; “it will be a cheap suit of
clothes for you, if it only teaches you that a good home is the best
place for boys, and a good father and mother the very best of friends.”
“Wake up, wake up,” shouted Richard, shaking John by the shoulder the
next morning, “my team is all harnessed, and at the door; and Betty has
some smoking-hot coffee down stairs; wake up, Johnny, and we’ll get into
town time enough to eat breakfast with your mother.”
Johnny jumped out of bed, and in his hurry, put his legs into the
sleeves of his jacket: he was not used to dressing in the dark; the hot
coffee was soon swallowed, and jumping into the market cart beside John,
they rattled off by starlight down the road. Richard did not talk much,
he was thinking how much money his turnips, and carrots, and beets, and
parsnips, would bring him, so that Johnny had plenty of time to think.
Every mile that brought them nearer to the city made him feel more and
more what a naughty boy he had been, to distress such a good father and
mother; so that he was quite ready when the market cart rattled over the
paved streets of the city, and up to his father’s door, to say all that
such a foolish boy should say, when his parents came out to meet him;
nor did he get angry when “the fellows” joked him about his “long
journey round the world.” And when they found _he_ could laugh at his
own folly, as well as they, they soon stopped teasing him. Johnny has
some little boys of his own now, and when they begin to talk big, he
always tells them the story of “John Sims, the famous traveler.”
THE JOURNEY.
CHAPTER I.
Did you ever go a journey with your mother? No? Little Nelly did; it was
great fun for her to see her mother pack the trunk. She had no idea
before how much may be got into a trunk by squeezing. She thought it
full half a dozen times, and laughed merrily when her mother pressed
down the things with her hands, and piled as many more on top of them.
Nelly and her mother were going to Niagara; that is a long way from New
York. They went to bed very early the night before, for they knew that
they must be up and off by daylight, breakfast, or no breakfast; for the
cars do not wait for hungry people, as you may have found out. Long
before daylight Nelly put her hand on her mother’s face, and said, It is
time to get up, mother, and sure enough it was; so they both sprang out
of bed, washed their eyes open, hurried on their clothes, and, I wish I
could say, eat their breakfast, but unfortunately Nelly and her mother
were boarding at a hotel. Now, perhaps you do not know that the servants
in the New York hotels set up nearly all night, to wait upon people who
stay out late at theaters, and like a nice dainty supper when they get
home; and to take care of strangers, too, who arrive late at night; so
you can imagine how tired they are, and how soundly they sleep, poor
fellows, in the morning. Many of them are most excellent people, who
bear without complaint all the hard words they get from those, whose
chairs they stand behind, and who consider themselves privileged for
that reason to insult and abuse them. No matter how weary they are, they
must dart like a flash of lightning wherever they are sent, and get
sworn at and abused even then for not going quicker. I remember well a
middle-aged man who was waiter in a hotel where I once lived. He was as
truly a gentleman as your own father. I could not bear that he should
answer the bell when I rang it; it seemed to me that I should rather
wait upon him. I could not bear that he should bow his head so
deferentially every time he spoke to me, or be so troubled if my tea or
coffee was not just as I was accustomed to have it. I could not bear
that he should beg my pardon for every little omission or accident, so
seldom occurring, too. I almost wished he would say something impudent
or saucy; it made me so uncomfortable to see such a fine, dignified,
gentlemanly man waiting upon my table, waiting upon people in the house,
too, who were not fit to wipe his shoes; running hither and thither at
the call of capricious, ill-bred children, whose wealthy parents had
never taught them that servants have hearts to feel, and that they
should be humanely treated. Ah, you should have seen our John; his
manners would not have disgraced the White House. In fact I should not
be surprised any day to hear that he was its master; for he who fills an
inferior position faithfully and well, is he who oftenest rises to the
highest. Remember that!
Well, as I was telling you, before I began about John, when Nelly and
her mother got up, the poor, sleepy servants, who had not been in bed
more than an hour or so, were not up, so Nelly nibbled a cracker and
drank a glass of water, and she and her mother jumped into the carriage
and were driven to the dépôt. How odd Broadway looked by early daylight!
No gayly dressed ladies swept the pavements with their silken robes; no
dandies thumped it with their high-heeled boots and dapper canes; no
little girls, dressed as old as their mammas, glided languidly up and
down, with their hands folded over their belts and an embroidered
handkerchief between their kidded fingers. No—none but the useful class
of the community were stirring: market-men, from the country, with their
carts laden with lettuce, parsnips, cabbages, radishes, and
strawberries, covered over with a layer of fresh, green grass, the very
sight and odor of which made one long to be where it grew. Then there
were milkmen, driving enough to tear up the pavement; then there were
rag-pickers, gray with dirt, raking the gutters; then there were
shop-boys and office-boys by the score, who had crossed the ferries to
their work, for board in New York is expensive business; then there were
tailoresses and sempstresses, more than I could count, with their shawls
drawn round their thin shoulders, and their faces shrouded in their
barege vails; then there were poor, tired news-boys asleep in entries
and on steps, while others of their number rushed past with their
bundles of damp papers. Little Nelly saw it all, for her eyes were sharp
and bright; and now she is at the dépôt. All is hurry, skurry;
carriages, cab-men, passengers, and baggage. Nelly’s eyes look
wonderingly about her, and she keeps close to her mother, for the loud
shouts of the men frighten her; now she is safe in the cars—how pale,
sleepy, and cross every body looks! They hang up their traveling-bags on
pegs over their heads, they fold up their shawls for cushions, they
examine their pockets to see if their purses and checks are all right,
they shrug their shoulders and pull down the windows to keep out the
steam from the car boiler, for we are not yet out of the dépôt, they put
their feet upon the seat, coil themselves up into a ball, and wonder why
the cars don’t start. Siz—z—z, off we go—good-by New York, with your
dust, and din, and racket—good-by to your sleepy belles, who are
dreaming of last night’s ball, and getting strength to go to another;
good-by to the gray old men who toil so hard to find them in dresses and
jewels; good-by to their thoughtless sons, who spend so freely what they
never earn; good-by to the squalid poor of whom they never think, though
they may some day keep them wretched company; good-by to the poor old
omnibus horses, who trot and stumble, stumble and trot, till one’s bones
ache to look at them; good-by to the merry, sun-burned drivers, who so
courteously rein up their horses, when ladies want to trip across the
slippery streets; good-by to the little flower-girls, who manufacture
those tempting little baskets of pinks, geraniums, and roses; good-by to
the pretty parks, with their fountains and trees, nurses and children;
good-by to the prisons, which often shut up better people than many whom
the judges suffer to go unpunished at large; good-by to the hospitals
with their groaning patients, watchful nurses, and skillful doctors.
Good-by, we shall not be missed, no more than the pebble which some idle
school-boy tosses into the pond, and which disappears and is thought of
no more. Good-by, busy, dirty, noisy, crowded, yet delightful New York,
for we are off to Niagara.
CHAPTER II.
How hot it is, how dusty—how hungry we all are. I hope we shall soon
stop to dinner, for our stock of crackers and patience is exhausted, and
nothing is left of the oranges but the peel. Ah, here we are! Only ten
minutes to eat; what _can_ the conductor be thinking about; does he take
us for boa-constrictors? or does he think that, like the cows, we can
store in our food and chew it whenever we get a chance? The fact is, he
does not think any thing about it; all he cares for is to pack us all in
the cars again and start at the last of the ten minutes. So I suppose we
must elbow our way into the dining-room with the rest and scramble for a
seat! “Beef, pork, mutton, veal, chicken, what’ll you have, ma’am?”
“What’ll I have? oh, any thing, something, only be quick about it,
please, for this little girl looks paler than I like to see her. Lamb
and green peas, that will do; but, oh, dear, where’s our knife and fork?
Turn round, Nelly, take that spoon and begin on the peas, we can’t stop
for trifles. There’s that horrid fizzing of the car boiler, which warns
us that we must swallow something or go hungry till bedtime. And here’s
a custard, but no spoon; next time I travel I will carry a knife, fork,
and spoon in my pocket. I wonder if the people who keep this
eating-place forget these things on purpose, so that we need not eat our
ten minutes’ worth of food? and we so hungry, too.” “Have an orange,
ma’am?” “Of course I will: I have not had any thing else.” “Passengers
ready—passengers please settle.” Poor Nelly swallows the last bit of
custard and looks wistfully at those we leave behind, and we pay for our
comfortless dinner, and scramble back into the cars. “All aboard.” Off
we go again. The fat old lady in front of us goes to sleep; the
gentlemen get out their newspapers. I wonder do they know how many
people have ruined their eyesight trying to read in the cars? It is a
losing way of gaining time, Mr. Editor; take my advice and put your
papers in your pockets to read when you get to the next stopping-place.
There is a woman taking out a needle and thread to sew—that is worse
yet—but every body imagines they know best about such things, so I’ll
not interfere. Here comes a boy into the cars with some books to sell.
Little Nelly pinches my arm slily and looks very wise; she has spelt
out, with her bright eyes, among the other books. “Fern Leaves.” Nelly
is a bit of a rogue, so she says to the boy, “Have you Fern Leaves?”
“Yes, miss, and Second Series and Little Ferns, too.” And he hands them
to me. Nelly touches my foot under the seat, and looks as grave as a
judge, while I turn over the pages, and when I ask the little boy who
wrote Fern Leaves, she does not laugh, but looks straight out of the
window at a cow munching grass by the road side, as if it were a matter
of no concern at all to her. The little bookseller repeats my question
after me, “Who wrote Fern Leaves?” and looks bewildered, then, after
scratching his head, he answers, with the air of one who has hit it,
“Fanny’s Portfolio, ma’am.” We did not buy the books, we had seen them
before. But not till the last rag of the little bookseller’s torn jacket
had fluttered through the door, did Nelly’s gravity relax: you should
have seen, then, the comical look she gave me behind her pocket
handkerchief, and heard her ringing laugh, well worth writing a book
for, and which nobody understood but we two, and that was the best part
of the joke.
By-and-by there was a quarrel in the cars about seats, for selfish
people travel as well as the good-natured. A cross-looking man, with a
wife to match, had monopolized two entire seats, in one of which they
sat, and on the other placed their feet and their carpet-bags. It was
not long before a large, well-dressed gentleman, with his wife,
requested leave to sit on the seat occupied by the cross gentleman’s
carpet-bags; to which the cross man replied, with a growl, and without
taking down his feet, that that seat was engaged to some persons who had
just stepped out. This was a fib; but the gentleman supposing it to be
true, led the lady back to the sunny seat which she had just left, and
which had given her a bad headache. An hour after, the big gentleman
stepped up to the cross man and says, “Your friends are a long time
coming, sir.” You should have seen the cross man then; how he sprang to
his feet like a little bristly terrier dog, which he strikingly
resembled; how he tauntingly asked the big, well-dressed man, how it
happened that such an aristocrat as he did not hire an entire car for
his lordship and her ladyship (meaning his wife). “I should have done
so,” replied the gentleman, in a very low tone, as he turned on his
heel, “had I known that _pigs_ were allowed to travel in this car.” The
laugh and the whisper, “Good enough for him!” which followed, might have
abashed any body but our terrier, who stepped up to the principal
laugher, who sat next me, and putting his face close to his, hissed
between his shut teeth, “Shut up!” Nelly did not know what “shut up”
meant, but she knew the meaning of the doubled-up fist which the terrier
thrust into our neighbor’s face, and looked up at me to see whether
there was any danger of our being thumped or not. Seeing only a
smothered smile on my face, and the conductor approaching to set matters
to rights, she soon became quiet.
On we flew, past houses, fences, trees, cows, sheep, and horses, some of
whom pricked up their ears for a minute, then went lazily on munching
grass, as much as to say, “That’s an old story;” others, finding an
excuse in it for a frolic, raced over the meadows, and kicked up their
heels, as if to say, “Just as if nobody could run but you!”
[Illustration]
Hark! what’s that? Nobody answers; but the cars tip half-way over, we
are all thrown in a heap on the floor, the window-glass comes smashing
in, and the hot steam rushes in. A great fat man doubles me up over a
seat, trying, like a great coward as he is, to climb over me to get out
the window. We don’t know yet what has happened; but, “Get out of the
cars!” says the conductor, “quick!” The window is too small to let out
the fat man, so he kindly allows me the use of my ribs again, which must
have been made of good material, or they would have been broken as he
bent me over that seat. I snatch Nelly, poor pale Nelly! who never
screams or speaks, for she is a real little Spartan—and we all clamber
out into the tall, wet meadow-grass. Then, the danger over, great big
tears roll out of Nelly’s eyes, and with an hysterical laugh, as she
looks at the broken cars, she sobs out, in a half sorrowful, half droll
way, this nursery snatch—“All of a sudden, the old thing bursted!”
“Any body hurt?” ask the pale, anxious passengers, as they creep out one
by one. “No—nobody’s hurt.” “Ah yes—ah yes—the poor brakeman is badly
scalded—poor fellow.” Now the country people come flocking out of the
farm houses—good, honest, kind souls—and they make a litter, and they
put the wounded man upon it, and bear him slowly away over the green
fields, under the drooping trees, carefully, carefully, heeding his
groans, into the nearest farm-house; then the doctor’s chaise drives
hurriedly up, and after a time, word is brought us that he will not die.
Little Nelly cries and laughs again, for she is very nervous from the
fright. And the conductor says, “Have patience, ladies; we will soon get
another car;” and some go into barns, and some go into houses, for the
rain is falling; and the poor watchmaker, whose trunk was broken to
pieces, stands looking at the fragments of broken watches, and saying
big words about damages and the railroad company. But every body else is
so glad to be alive, and to be in possession of sound limbs, that they
do not think of their baggage. And after a while the new car comes, for
every body helps us, and we all climb up into it, and the color comes
back to the lips of the ladies; and the great fat coward, who bent me
double over the seat, takes precious good care to sit near the door,
ready for a jump if any thing else turns up, or turns over.
CHAPTER III.
One o’clock at night, and this is Niagara. It might as well be Boston
Frog Pond, for all the enthusiasm has been shook, and jolted, and
stunned, and frightened out of us getting to it. And now here it is one
o’clock at night. I suppose not a bit of supper is to be had for poor
Nelly and me, although we have eaten nothing since we had that
scrambling twelve o’clock dinner. What a big hotel! bless us—there is a
supper though all ready; for they are used to little accidents, called
collisions, this way, and feed the survivors with as much alacrity as
they bury the dead; to be sure there is a supper—chicken—oh, Nelly!
chicken and hot tea. Sorry figures we cut by the light of the bright gas
chandeliers, with our jammed bonnets and torn riding-dresses, but who
cares? I am sure black John don’t; he is just as civil as if we were as
presentable as a Broadway belle; certainly he is used to it; he is used
to seeing ladies emerge from begrimed caterpillar riding-habits into all
sorts of gay butterfly paraphernalia; John is charitable; he always
suspends his judgment of passengers till the next morning at breakfast;
then he knows who is who. If a lady takes diamonds with her coffee, he
knows she talks bad grammar, and is not what she would have people think
her; he is not surprised to have her find fault with every thing from
the omelette to the Indian cake. He expects to see her nose turned up at
every thing, just as if she had every thing better at home.
She does not impose on John—he waits upon her with a quiet twinkle in
his eye, which says as plain as a twinkle can say: I have not stood
behind travelers’ chairs these two years for nothing; that game has been
played out here, my lady; but when a lady comes down to breakfast in a
modest-colored, quiet-looking breakfast robe, with smooth hair,
neatly-slippered feet, and a very nice collar, and speaks civily and
kindly to him, John knows he sees a real lady, whether she owns a
diamond or not—and her pleasant “Thank you,” when he has taken some
trouble to procure her what she desires, wings his feet for many a hard
hour’s work that day. I wish ladies oftener thought of this. I wish they
did not think it beneath them, or were not too indifferent or
thoughtless to attend to it. “What is that noise, John?” “Oh, them’s the
Rapids, ma’am.” “Rapids? sure enough, we almost forgot we were at
Niagara; how very dismal they sound!” John laughs and says, “You are
tired to-night, ma’am; when you look at them in the morning you will
like ’em; most ladies does.” But poor Nelly is half asleep over her
plate, so we will go to bed. What a little box of a chamber! not a
pretty thing in it but Nelly; a table, a chair, a bed, a bureau, and a
candle on it; the window shaking as if it had St. Vitus’s dance; the
Rapids, as John calls them, roaring like mad under the window. I can’t
stand the rattling of that window. I’ll stop it with the handle of a
tooth-brush. I suppose I have a tooth-brush left, if the cars did run
off the track; oh, yes! “Now tumble into bed, Nelly. What a dismal thing
those Rapids are, to be sure. I feel as if I were out at sea in an
egg-shell boat. I wonder how they will look in the morning? don’t you,
Nelly?” No answer. “Nelly’s asleep; I wish I could sleep, but I’m sure
those horrid Rapids will give me the night-mare.”
“Morning? you don’t mean that, Nelly! and you look as bright as if the
cars had kept right end up all the way here. Does the sun shine, Nelly?
Open the blinds and see. No? what a pity. ‘A great river under the
window!’ why, pussy, that river is the Rapids; I don’t wonder they shake
the window so; how they tumble about! Now, we will dress and breakfast,
and then, no! for the Falls. You and I are not to be frightened at a few
rain-drops, Nelly; we have had too many drenchings running to and fro
from printing-offices for that. That’s right, Nelly, dip your face into
the washbasin, it will make your eyes strong and bright; now smooth your
hair, and put on the plainest dress you can find, but let it be very
clean. I hope your finger-nails and teeth are quite nice, and then pull
your stockings smoothly up; of all things don’t wear wrinkled stockings.
Put stout boots on; don’t be afraid of a thick sole, Nelly; every thing
looks well in its place; and a thin shoe on Goat Island would be quite
ridiculous.
“You are glad to get out of that stifled bed-room? so am I. What a nice
wide breezy hall this is! Oh, there are more travelers who have just
arrived, and there are some more who are just leaving; and there comes
the servant to say breakfast is ready; gongs are out of fashion, I am
glad of that; I would run a mile to escape a gong; and beside, no
hospitable landlord, I think, would set such a machine in motion to
disturb sick and weary travelers, who prefer a longer sleep. Ah, this
landlord knows what he is about, I am sure of that; you can generally
judge of any house by the manners of the servants. How well trained they
are here, how quiet, how prompt! Good fellows; I hope they get well
paid, don’t you, Nelly? I hope they have a comfortable place to sleep,
when the day is over, don’t you? All black? I am glad of that, too; I
like black people; they are such a merry people, they are so easily made
happy, they are so affectionate, they are so neat. Oh, what nice bread
and coffee! Don’t touch those omelettes, Nelly; take a bit of beefsteak
and here’s some milk—_real_ milk; it is so long since I have tasted any,
that it seems like cream!
“Who are those people? How do I know, little puss? I dare say they are
asking the same question about us! You don’t like that lady’s face? Why
not? She don’t look as if she could laugh. That’s a fact, Nelly. She is
as solemn as an owl. But perhaps she is in trouble, who knows? We must
not laugh about her. Come, Nelly, let us get up and go to the Falls. Tie
on your bonnet; what a nice fresh air! See the shops, Nelly! shops at
Niagara, who would have thought it? and curiosities of all sorts to
sell! Well, never mind them now. Want a carriage? want a cab? Of course
we don’t—look at our democratic thick-soled shoes! what’s the use of
having feet, if we are not to be allowed to use them? No, of course we
don’t want a carriage; we feel, Nelly and I, as if we were just made;
don’t you see how we step off? No, keep your carriages for infirm,
proud, and lazy people. Carriage—who can run in a carriage? who can
skip? This way, Nelly, over the little bridge? Oh—pay toll here! Do we?
Twenty-five cents. And please register our names! Oh yes, of course—Mrs.
Nelly, and Miss Nelly. What are you laughing at, puss? come along; oh,
see this pretty island! now you see the use of thick shoes—off into that
grass, and pick me some of those wild-flowers. Oh, Nelly, there are some
blue, and pink, and purple—get a handful, Nelly! Oh, how delicious it is
to be alive; skip, Nelly, run, Nelly, sing Nelly.
“A real Indian? Where? Oh, that’s not a real Indian, no more than you or
I. She’s a pretty little sham Indian; but what are her pin cushions and
moccasins to these wild-flowers? No, no, little girl, don’t stop us with
those things; we left shopping in New York. Goat Island was not made for
that, I’m sure; come Nelly! A boy with crosses made of Table-rock; how
they plague us—we don’t want to buy any crosses, we are cross enough
ourselves, because you keep bothering us so; we came to see the Falls,
not to do shopping. Come away, Nelly! Oh, Nelly—look! look!”
But why describe the Falls to you, when all your school geographies have
a picture of it? when your teacher has taken all the school to see a
panorama of it? when your Uncle George, and Aunt Caroline, and Cousin
James have seen it? and yet no tongue, no pen ever could, ever has
described its beauty, its majesty. I would that I had never heard it
attempted; I would that I had never heard of Niagara; I would that I had
come upon it unawares some glorious morning before Indian girls had
peddled moccasins there, or boys, had profaned it by selling pictures
and crosses; I would have knelt on that lovely island, and seen God’s
majesty in the ceaseless, roaring torrent; God’s smile in the bright
rainbow, hung upon the fleecy mist; God’s love in making earth so
beautiful, for those who forget to thank Him for it. I would lead _him_
there who says there is no God, that he might hear His voice, and see
His glory.
But no two persons look on Niagara with the same eyes. You can not see
it through my spectacles; some it animates and makes jubilant; others it
depresses and terrifies; some hear in it the thunder and lightning of
Sinai; others hear in it the voice of Him who stilled the raging waves
with “Peace, be still!”
Yes, I was glad to have seen Niagara, but I was not sorry to leave it.
Its rushing torrent threw a shadow over my spirit. Its monster jaws
seemed hungry for some victim, other than the unconscious leaves which
it whirled so impatiently and disdainfully out of sight. Its
never-ceasing roar seemed like the trumpet-challenge to battle, telling
of mangled corpses and broken hearts. No;—dearer to me is the silvery
little brook, tripping lightly through green meadows, singing low and
sweet to the nodding flowers, bending to see their own sweet beauty
mirrored in its clear face. I like not that all Nature’s gentle voices
should be tyrannically hushed to silence, drowned by a despot’s
deafening roar. Give me the low murmur of the trees; I like the hum of
the bee; I like the flash of the merry little fish; I like the little
bird, circling, darting, singing, skimming the blue above, dipping his
blight wings in the blue below; I like the cricket which chirps the
tired farmer to sleep; I like the distant bleat of the lamb, the faint
lowing of the cow; I lay my head on Nature’s breast, in her gentler
moods, and tell her all my hopes and fears, and am not ashamed of my
tears. But she drives me from her when she roars and foams, and flashes
fierce lightning from her angry eyes; I close my ears to her roaring
thunder. But when, clearing the cloud from her brow, she hangs a rainbow
on her breast, throws perfume to the pretty flowers, and smiles
caressingly through her tears—ah, then I love her; then she is all my
own again.
Here I have been running on! and all this while you have been waiting to
know the rest of my story. Well, Nelly and I started to go back to New
York. Nelly did not like the idea of trusting herself in the cars, nor,
to tell the truth, did I; but there was no help for it: besides, it is
not wise to be a slave to one’s fears. So we tried to forget all about
it. A girl who lived with me once remarked, there is always something
happening most days. So we soon found amusement. An old lady in the
cars, when she had smelled up all her camphor and eaten all her
lozenges, commenced asking me questions faster than I could answer, and
looking at Nelly through her spectacles. Some of her questions were very
funny, and, from any body but an old lady, would have been impertinent;
but we answered them all, for it was very evident she did not ride in
the cars every day, and was determined to get her money’s worth. Poor
old lady! I suppose she had lived all her life in some small village
where there was only a blacksmith’s shop and a meeting-house, and where
every body knew what time every body got up, and what they had for
breakfast. Nice old lady! I hope somebody gave her a good cup of tea,
and a rocking-chair, when she got home, which, I regret to say, was the
first stopping-place after we left Niagara.
From the car-windows Nelly and I saw the Catskill Mountains. O the
lovely changing hues of their steep and misty sides; the billowy clouds
that rolled up, and rolled over, and rolled off;—then the far-off
summit, now hidden, now revealed, lying against the sky, tempting us to
see from thence the kingdoms of the earth, and the glory of them. And so
we will, some day. I will tell you what we see.
Night came, and we had not yet reached New York. Nelly was dusty, and
hungry, and tired; but she was a good traveler, and made no complaint.
The cars were dashing along through the darkness, close by the edge of
the Hudson River, and Nelly clasped my hand more closely as she looked
out of the windows upon its dark surface, and sighed as if she feared
some accident might tip us all over into it. But no such accident
occurred, and by-and-by the bright gas-lights of New York shone and
sparkled; and the never-failing gutter odor informed us that we were
back again upon its dusty streets.
THE MORNING-GLORY.
“How did Luly look?” Her eyes were brown, her hair was brown, too; she
was very pale, and slender, and had a soft, sweet voice, just such a
voice as you would expect from such a fragile little girl. Luly did not
like to be noticed: she was fond of being by herself, and would often
sit for an hour at a time, quite still, with her slender hands crossed
in her lap, thinking; her cheek would flush, and her eye moisten, but no
one knew what Luly was thinking about. Luly did not love to play; she
did not care for dolls, or baby-houses; she never jumped rope, or drove
hoop, or played hunt the slipper; this troubled her mother, who knew
that all healthy young creatures love to play and frolic; and so she
brought Luly all sorts of pretty toys, and Luly would say very sweetly,
“Thank you, dear mamma,” and put them on the shelf, but she never played
with them, and seemed quite to forget that they were there. Luly’s
grandmother shook her head, and said, “Luly will die; Luly will never
live to grow up.”
If Luly heard any one speak in a harsh, cross voice, she would shiver
all over, as if some cold wind were blowing upon her; and if she saw two
persons quarreling, she never would be satisfied till she had made peace
between them. One day, before she could speak plain, her mother sent her
down to the kitchen on an errand; when she got to the door, she stood
still, for the cook and the chambermaid were very angry with each other;
one was saying “You did,” and the other “I didn’t,” in very loud tones,
and their faces were very red with passion. Luly stood in the door-way,
looking, listening, and trembling, as she always did at any such sight.
Tears gathered slowly in her eyes, and unable to bear it any longer, she
stepped between them, and clasping her little hands, said in her broken
way, with her sweet, musical voice, “Oh, don’t _condict_, please don’t
_condict_.” So the girls stopped contradicting, ashamed before a little
child, “for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Luly never disobeyed her mother—never—never. If her mother told her not
to go out in the garden without her leave, and then went away for an
hour, she was just as sure that Luly had obeyed her, as if she had been
there to see; and yet, every night when this little girl went to bed,
she would say, as she laid her head upon the pillow, “Mother, do you
think God will forgive all my sins to-day? I hope he will, _I hope I
haven’t made God sorry, mother_;” and when her mother said, “Yes, I know
he will forgive you, Luly,” she would smile so peacefully, and say: “Now
you can go down stairs, mother.” Luly never was afraid of God; she never
thought or spoke of His “punishing” her; but she loved Him so much that
it was a great grief to her to think that she might have “made Him
sorry,” as she called it. One morning when she woke, one beautiful
summer morning, when the scent of the roses came in at the open window,
when the dew-drops were glistening, and the green trees waving, and the
birds singing, she crept out of her little crib, and stood at her window
looking out on the fair earth, with her little hands clasped, her eyes
beaming, and her cheek glowing.
“What is it, Luly?” said her mother, as tears rolled slowly down Luly’s
cheeks.
“I want to see Him,” whispered Luly.
“Who, my child?”
“God.”
Then Luly’s mother thought of what her grandmother had said: “Luly will
not live; Luly will die,” and she clasped her little girl tightly to her
breast, as if she feared even then she would go from her.
But no mother’s clasp could hold little Luly; no mother’s tears could
bribe the Death Angel. Rose-red grew the cheek, then white as snow, the
little hands grew hot, then icy cold, the soft eye bright, then dim, and
she who never grieved us living, grieved us dying.
A PEEP OUT OF MY WINDOW.
I wish I knew what that cow is thinking about; how lazily she stands
there, switching her sides with her tail, and looking up and down the
meadow. I am no judge of cows, but I think that is a pretty cow. Any
lady might be proud of her great, soft brown eyes. I am glad she does
not know that one of these days, the butcher will thump her on the head
and sell her for beef; I am glad she does not know that the pretty
little calf, which frolics by her side, will be eaten for veal, next
week. Munch away, old cow, and enjoy the fresh clover while you can; I
don’t believe you have any idea what a pretty picture you and your baby
calf make, as you stand with your hoofs in that brook and bend your
heads to drink. I like to think, though I know it is not so (because you
have no soul, old cow), that when you raise your head from the brook and
lift it toward the sky, you are thinking of Him who made the pretty
clover grow and the sparkling brook to flow. And now the little calf is
nursing. Pull away, little rogue? if _you_ have not a better right to
your mother’s milk than Sally, the dairy-maid, I will agree to go
without butter; pull away, it does me good to see you; now kick up your
heels and run like mischief over the meadow; see the old cow blink and
wink, as she looks after her, as if to say, Well, well, I was young
myself, once; calves will be calves, spite of cows. And there is a hen
and her cunning little chickens; I should like to catch that tiny white
one, which blows over the meadow like a piece of cotton wool, and cuddle
her right up in my neck; I am sure the old hen would not object if she
knew how I liked chickens; but she don’t, and she would probably take me
for a highwaywoman, and I can’t have my character called in question
that way, even by a hen; beside her beak is sharp, and so are her claws:
I think I had better admire her little soft white baby at a distance.
Nice little thing, how glad I am it does not have to be fixed up in lace
and embroidery, every morning, and have a nurse rubbing its nose enough
to rub it off, every time a stray breeze makes it sneeze; how glad I am
the little thing can roll and tumble in the grass, instead of being
stewed up in a hot nursery and sweltered under a load of crib-blankets,
till all its strength oozes out in perspiration; dear little chick, I
hope you will find plenty of little worms to eat, and I hope no old
rooster will cuff your ears for doing it; I hope you will have the
downiest side of your mother’s wing to sleep under, and plenty of meal
and water when worms are scarce. But, see! there’s a shower coming up;
you had better scamper under the shed; don’t you hear the thunder,
little chick? don’t you see that beautiful zig-zag lightning darting out
of that dark cloud? and don’t you see that lovely blue sky over yonder,
peaceful as the good man’s soul, when the cloud of trouble threatens
him? No, little chick, you don’t notice it a bit; you are only chasing
after your mother, and trying to dodge the rain-drops; well, pretty as
you are, I had rather be born with a soul; I am glad my soul will live
millions of years after you are dead; I want to know so much that
puzzles me here on earth, but which I am willing to believe is all
right, until God Himself explains it all to me. I am glad I am not a
little chick without a soul, because I want to learn about these things
in heaven.
[Illustration]
THE CIRCUS.
What a mob of boys! There’s Bill Saunders, and Ned Hoyt, and Tom Fagin,
and Lewis Coates, and John Harris; and, sure as the world, there’s that
little tomtit, Harry Horn, without a sign of a cap on, jumping up and
down as if there were pins in his trowsers. What _can_ be the matter, I
wonder? Now they shout, “Hurra—hurra!”—but then boys are always
screaming hurra. I have done breaking my neck leaning out of the window
to see what is the matter. I won’t look at the little monkeys. There it
goes again—“Hurra! hurra!” One would think General Washington,
Lafayette, or some other great person, was coming down street. Now they
move one side—ah, now I see what all the fuss is about! A great flaming
red and yellow handbill is posted on the fence; and on it is written,
“Pat Smith’s Circus! next Wednesday afternoon and evening.” Circus! no
wonder little Harry Horn forgot to put his hat on, and jumped up and
down as if he were trying to jump out of his trousers. If there is any
thing that drives boys crazy, it is a circus. I should like to know why;
I have a great mind to go to Pat Smith’s Circus myself, just to find
out; for I never was in a circus in my life. Yes, I will go, and I will
take Nelly; she never was in a circus either. No, I won’t; I will leave
her at home with black Nanny. No, I wont; I will take black Nanny too;
but then I am not sure Pat Smith allows colored people in his circus.
“Well, if he is such a senseless Pat as that, he may go without three
twenty-five cent pieces, that’s all, for Nanny likes a little fun as
well as if her skin were whiter; and if Nanny can’t come in, Nelly and I
won’t. But Nanny can; Pat is not such a fool. So, come along, Nanny;
come along, Nelly; it don’t matter what you wear. Walk a little faster,
both of you; we must get a good seat, or we shall lose half the fun.
Short people are apt to fare badly in a crowd. Here we are! This a
circus! this round tent? How funny! Music inside; that’s nice; I like
music; so do Nelly and Nanny. Here’s your money, Mr. Pat Smith.
Goodness! you don’t mean that we have got to clamber up in those high,
ricketty-looking seats, without any backs? Suppose we should fall
through on the ground below? Suppose the seats should crack, and let all
these people down? I think we’ll climb up to the highest seat, for in
case they do break, I had rather be on the top of the pile than
underneath it. That’s it; here’s a place for you, Nanny. Bless me, what
a “many people,” as little Harry Horn says. Little babies, too, as I
live;—well, I suppose their poor tired mothers wanted a little fun too;
but the babies are better off than we, because they can have a drink of
milk whenever they are thirsty. Ah, I was a little too fast there, for
Pat Smith has provided lemonade, and here comes a man with a pailful.
Circus lemonade!—no, I thank you; it may be very good, but I prefer
taking your word for it. How the people flock in! What’s that coming in
at yonder door? Nanny! Nelly!—look! Is it a small house painted
slate-color? No—it is an elephant—a live elephant. What a monster! what
great flapping ears! what huge paws! and what a rat-ty looking tail! I
don’t like his tail; but his trunk is superb. I am afraid he has had a
deal of whipping to make him behave so well. How he could make us all
fly, if he chose; what mince-meat he could make of those little fat
babies yonder. I am glad he don’t want to; they are too pretty to eat.
What are they going to do with him, I wonder? It can’t be that they mean
to make him walk up that steep pair of stairs. Yes—see him! Would you
believe such a great monster could do it so gracefully? He lifts his
paws as gently as a kitten. Now that’s worth seeing; but how in the
world are they going to get him down, now that he has reached the top?
See—he is going to back down; not one false step does he make; now he
has reached the bottom. Clever old monster! It seems a shame to make
such a great, grand-looking, kingly creature, perform such
dancing-master tricks. Now his master lies flat on his back on the
ground, and the old elephant is going to walk over him. Suppose he
should set that great paw of his on his master’s stomach, and crush him
as flat as a pancake? No; see how carefully he steps over him with those
big legs; never so much as touching his gay scarlet-and-white tunic.
Splendid old fellow, to have so much strength, and yet never use it to
the harm of those who torment him with all this nonsense. How I should
like to see you in your native jungles, old elephant, with all your baby
elephants; your little big babies, old fellow. There he goes. I am glad
they have done with him. It makes me sad to see him. Good-by, old
Samson.”
What now? a lady on horseback, Mr. Pat Smith’s wife; she sits her horse
very well, but that’s nothing remarkable; I can sit a horse as well as
that myself; but I couldn’t make a leap on his back over that
five-barred gate—mercy, no—he will break her neck, I know he will; I am
afraid Mr. Pat Smith wants a second wife. Oh, see, the horse has come
down safe with her on the other side of the gate; now she is going to
try it again; what a woman that is! I hope Mr. Pat Smith gives her half
the money that he takes this hot night, for I am sure she has earned it;
but wives don’t always get what they earn, and I dare say Mrs. Pat Smith
don’t.
Now here come a parcel of fellows in white tights, tight as their skin,
tumbling head over heels, up side down, standing on each others’ heads,
and cutting up untold and untellable capers. I must say their strong
limbs are quite beautiful, just as God intended limbs should grow, just
as I hope yours will grow, one of these days, though I think it may be
done without your being a circus tumbler. See how nimble they are, and
how like eels they twist and squirm about, leaping on each others’
shoulders like squirrels, leaping down again, running up tall poles and
sitting on the top and playing there with half a dozen balls at once,
which are tossed up at them from below. It is really quite wonderful,
and yet I can’t help thinking had they taken as much pains to learn
something really useful, as they have to learn to be funny, how much
good they might do; for, after all, a monkey, or a squirrel, or an
ourang-outang could do all that quite as well as a man, who is so much
superior to them, quite as gracefully, and without any teaching, too;
but, bless me, a circus is no place to think, and yet I wish those men’s
heads were as well trained as their heels; if you listen you will find
out they are not; just hear those stupid jokes they are making, how
badly they pronounce, how ungrammatically they express themselves, and
hear—oh, no—_don’t_ hear that! what a pity they should say any thing
_indelicate_ before ladies and pure little children. _Now_ I know why
fathers and mothers do not like their little boys and girls to go to the
circus. Mr. Pat Smith, Mr. Pat Smith, you must leave off those stupid
bad jokes, if you want to draw ladies and little children.
I wish somebody would get up a _good_ circus without these faults. I can
not think so badly of the people as to believe that they would like it
less if it were purified. I think it might be made a very pleasant and
harmless amusement for little children, who seem to want to go so much,
and who have often felt so badly because their parents were not willing.
Perhaps there _are_ such good circuses, that I may not have heard of. I
like good schools, I like study, but I should like to write over every
school-room door:
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
WHAT EVERY LITTLE CHILD MAY SEE.
I hope you love to look at the bright sunsets; oh the joy they are to
me! Yesterday it had been raining all day; dark, gloomy clouds hovered
overhead; the birds and the children were nested out of sight; the hens
crept up under the shed corners, and the old cows stood patiently
waiting under the trees for the sun to shine out. It shone at last, and
oh, with what a glory; I wished I had a hundred eyes to gaze, for every
moment the lovely hues changed to hues more beautiful—sapphire, topaz,
emerald, ruby, opal, amethyst, diamonds. Overhead, the mottled gold and
purple; in the west, a field of blue, clear and pure as a baby’s eyes,
with fringes of brown, like its sweet-drooping lashes; farther still,
floated golden clouds, bright enough to bear the baby’s spirit to
heaven; while in the east, the dark heavy, rain-clouds, were rolled up
and piled away; back of the snow-white cottages, back of the tall
church-spire, which pointing upward seemed to say, Praise him who made
us all. Who could help it? Oh, if earth is so lovely, what must heaven
be? if God’s foot prints are so beautiful, what must be His throne?
Evening came, and all this glory faded out only to be replaced by
another; countless stars, sparkled and glittered over head; then came
the moon, slowly; veiling itself bride-like in fleecy clouds, as if not
to dazzle us with her beauty. On came the still midnight; when sleep
fell like flower-dew on weary lids; when the whispering leaves told each
other all their little secrets, and the queen moon glided about,
silvering the poor man’s roof while he slept, as if it had been a
palace. Morning came, and the jealous sun shot forth at her a golden
arrow, to tell her that her reign was past. She grew pale, and moved
slowly on, one little star keeping her kindly company. Up flashed the
sun, brighter for his eclipse. The flowers and the children opened wide
their dewy eyes; the dew-drops danced, the little birds shook their
bright wings, tuned their throats, and trilled out a song, oh, so
bright, so joyous. God listened for man, but he was dumb.
A STORY FOR BOYS.
Now, boys, I am going to write a story for you. I don’t know why I have
written more stories for girls than for boys, unless it is because all
the boys I ever had have been girls. Sometimes I have been sorry this
was so, because I think boys can rough it through the world so much
better than girls, especially should the latter have the misfortune to
lose their father when they are young. I hope this is not the case with
you; it is very sad for young eyes to be watching the way he used to
come, and see only other happy gleeful children with their living,
breathing, loving, fathers.
But I will not talk about this now. I want to tell you that I do love
boys, though I am very much afraid of them.
Afraid?
Yes; now you need not look so innocent, just as if you never, when a
lady had picked her way carefully through the sloppy streets, jumped
into a big puddle near her, and sent the dirty water all over her nice
white stockings, and pretty gaiter boots—ah—you see I know you; just as
if you hadn’t come rushing round a corner when you were playing tag, and
knocked the breath out of a woman before she could say “Don’t;” just as
if you didn’t eat peanuts in an omnibus and let the wind blow the shells
into her lap; just as if you didn’t put your muddy shoes up on the
omnibus seat, and soil the cushions, and spoil ladies’ dresses; just as
if you did not—you rogues—say saucy things to bashful little girls, at
which your schoolmates Tom Tules and Sam Hall would burst into a loud
laugh and the poor little girl would have to go a long way round to
school the next morning merely to get rid of you. I should be sorry to
believe that you know how much pain you sometimes give a little girl in
this way: perhaps her mother is a widow and has to earn her own living,
and can not spare time every morning to go with her daughter to school,
or to call for her when school is done; and it pains her very much to
have to send the weeping child who is so afraid of you, out alone; and
she sighs when she thinks of the time when that child’s father was
alive, and they had plenty of money to hire a nurse-maid to see that she
did not get run over or troubled on her way.
I don’t believe you think of this, when you slyly pull their curls as
you go by, or make believe snatch their satchels, or elbow them off the
sidewalk, to please that naughty Frank Hale, who says, “’Tis fun.” I am
sure you never thought seriously of all I have just told you, or you
would not do it.
A stupid boy who never wants “fun” will never be good for any thing. But
it is not “fun” to give pain to the weak, timid, and helpless; it is not
fun to play the tyrant. Oh, no, no. It is fun to play ball, and
hop-scotch; and it is fun to skate, and slide, and “coast,” as the
Boston boys call it (_i.e._, go down a steep, icy hill on a sled); but
this steep, icy hill should not be in the street, where horses and
carriages are, crossed by other streets, through which people are
passing. A little boy was once coasting very fast down such a hill as
this, and when a very prim maiden lady was picking her way across it. On
came the boy, like lightning, tripped up her heels, and carried her down
on his sled, on top of him, to the bottom of the hill. She was,
fortunately, not hurt. She got slowly up, smoothed out her rumpled
dress, bent her bonnet straight, put her spectacles on the end of her
nose, and looking at the little boy (who stood there quite as much
astonished as she at what he had done), she remarked, “Young man, it was
not my intention to have come this way!” He got off easily, didn’t he?
But had he broken any of her bones, a policeman would perhaps have rung
at his father’s door some time that day, and his father would have been
obliged to pay a fine, because his boy broke the law by “coasting” in
the streets—(that’s Boston law). And beside that, had the lady been
poor, his father would have had to pay a doctor for mending her bones.
Don’t think I do not approve of coasting in safe places. It is what boys
call “prime.” I like to coast as well as you do; and when you get a nice
sled, with good “runners,” I should like to try it. If it goes like
chain-lightning, you may name it Fanny Fern; but if it twists round at
every little thing in the path, and don’t go straight ahead, you may
call it—what you like; but don’t you dare to name it after me.
KATY’S FIRST GRIEF.
Little Katy, so they told me, was an only child. I don’t know how that
could be, when she had two little sisters in heaven. But Katy had never
seen them; they turned their cheeks wearily to the pillow and died years
before she was born. Katy had heard her mamma speak of them, and she had
seen their little frocks and shoes, and a little blue silk hood, trimmed
round the face with a soft white fur, soft as the baby’s velvet skin;
and she had seen a dry crust of bread, with the marks of tiny teeth in
it, carefully put away in the drawer; and a small string of coral beads,
red as the baby’s lip; and she had seen her mother put her fingers
through the sleeve of a little fine cambric shirt, and look at it till
tears blinded her eyes. Katy was not strong herself; her mother was very
much afraid that she would die too; she was very careful always to tie
her tippet closely about her throat, when she went out, and to see that
her feet were warm, and her little arms covered. There were very few
days in which Katy felt quite well, and I don’t suppose she could help
crying and fretting a great deal; she wanted to be in her mother’s lap
all the while, and did not like to have strangers come in and talk to
her mother. That could not be helped you know, and then Katy would cry
very loud, and nothing seemed to pacify her.
As she grew older, her mother took such good care of her, that her
health began to improve, and she grew stronger; but she had been petted,
and had her own way so much (because they disliked to trouble her when
she was sick) that she had become very selfish; she liked nobody to
touch her toys, or even look at them. This was a pity. One morning Katy
woke, climbed up in her crib, and called out “Mamma!” but there was no
mamma there. “Papa!” there was no papa either. This was something very
uncommon; for they were always there when she woke in the morning. Then
Katy set up a great cry, louder than you would ever believe such a
little bit of a thing could cry, and then a strange woman came in, and
said, “Hush!” and then Katy screamed louder than ever, and grew very red
in the face, and said, “I won’t hush, I want my mamma—I will have my
mamma!” and then Katy’s papa came up and whispered to the strange woman,
and then the strange woman nodded her head and went out of the room; and
then Katy’s papa told Katy that her mamma was in the other room, and
that, if she would be a good girl, and stop crying, and let him dress
her, she should go and see her. Katy had a great mind not to stop, but
she wanted so much to see her mamma that she made up her mind she would;
so her papa put on her little petticoats, and as he never had dressed
his little girl, he buttoned them before, instead of behind; and then
Katy had a cry about that, and then her papa was a great while finding
out how her frock fastened; he saw some “hooks” on it, but he could not
find any “eyes” to hook them into, and so he told Katy, who kept
wriggling round on his lap like a little eel, slipping off his knee, and
slipping back, and fretting like a little tempest to see “mamma;” then
papa’s forehead began to have great drops of perspiration on it, as he
fumbled away at the little frock with his big fingers, and by-and-by he
found out that there were things called “loops,” so small he could
hardly see them, to hold the hooks, instead of eyes, and then he said,
drawing a long breath, “Now, little Katy, I’ll have you dressed in a
twinkling!” so he fastened it, and then put on her stockings, and one
shoe; but when he looked for the other, it was nowhere to be found; it
was not in the crib, nor under it, in the closet, or in the bureau
drawers; it was not anywhere, that he could see. Katy wanted to go
without it, but her papa said, no, she would get cold: and then Katy set
up another of her great cries, and just as two big tears, big enough to
wet the whole front of her frock, came rolling down, her papa found the
little red shoe under the wash-stand. Then he put it on, and saying,
“Now, Katy,” he took her in his arms, and carried her through the entry,
into the “best chamber;” it was so dark, with all the blinds shut and
the curtains drawn, that Katy at first could not see who or what was in
it. In a minute or two her eyes got used to the dim light, and then she
saw her mamma on the bed, and a little white bundle of something lying
on her arm. Katy’s papa moved a little nearer, and whispered to Katy,
“See, mamma has a cunning little brother for you to play with.” Katy
looked at him a minute, and then her face puckered up all over, and she
burst out into _such_ a cry, you never heard the like; “I don’t want
him—I don’t want him, _I_ want to lay on mamma’s arm, I don’t want any
little brother!” Then the strange woman motioned to Katy’s papa to take
her out of the room, and then Katy clung to the bed-post, and cried
louder than ever, “No, no—take him away, take him away—I don’t want that
little brother!”
Poor little Katy—you should have heard her sob, going down stairs; all
that papa could say did not comfort her. He took her on his lap to the
breakfast table, gave her some _real tea_ out of his saucer, and let her
eat with mamma’s nice silver fork; it did no good, not more than a
minute at a time; she could not forget that “little brother,” who was
cuddled up so comfortably in her place on mamma’s arm. And now even papa
could not stay any longer with Katy, for it was already past nine
o’clock, and he must go down town to attend to his business; so he
called Bridget, and told her to keep Katy in the parlor with her
playthings, till her mamma sent for her; and kissing his little sobbing
girl, he went away. Papa and mamma both gone! what _should_ Katy do?
Bridget tried to comfort her, and sang her a song, called “Green grow
the rushes, O,” but it was of no use. Then the strange woman came down
to eat her breakfast. Katy wiped the tears out of her eyes, and looked
at her from under the corner of her apron. The strange woman sat down to
her breakfast, and ate away; how she _did_ eat! one egg—two eggs—three
eggs—two cups of coffee, and several slices of bread and butter; then
she said to Bridget, “Where’s that crying child? Mrs. Smith wants to
have her brought up-stairs; I never heard of such a thing since I went
out nursing, as having such a troublesome little thing in a sick
chamber. She will make her mother sick with her fussing, and so I told
her; but she told me to bring her up when I had done my breakfast, and
to I suppose I must; where is she?”
“There,” said Bridget, pointing to Katy, cuddled up in the corner, so
afraid of the strange woman, that she had forgotten to cry.
“Sure enough—well—I am glad to see you are in a better temper, Miss
Katy; your mother wants you to go up-stairs, but I can tell you that you
won’t stay there long, unless you are as hush as a mouse; for I have
come here to take care of her, did you know that? and I never allow
naughty children to stay with their sick mothers. Now, if you will
promise to be good, I will take you up-stairs; will you promise?”
Katy’s under lip quivered a little, but not a word came out of it.
“Say, will you be good?”
No answer.
“Well, then, you can stay down stairs, that’s all, I sha’n’t take you
up-stairs.” Then the strange woman took a cup and saucer in her hand and
went up into the sick room.
Then Katy cried so hard and so loud.
Katy’s sick mother turned her head on the pillow and sighed. “Is that
Katy, crying, Mrs. Smith?” she asked of the strange woman, who just then
came in to the door.
“Oh, don’t you be bothering your head now about your family,” said Mrs.
Smith, pouring a little gruel into the cup.
“It is very well to say that,” said Katy’s mamma; “Katy has been a
sickly child always, and I can’t help feeling anxious about her. We have
been obliged to fondle her more on that account; I am sure she will
outgrow her pettishness, as she gets her health, and it is very hard to
turn her off so all at once; it is hard for grown people to bear it,
when another person steps in and takes their place with a friend whom
they love, and how can you expect a little sick child to feel willing
and happy about it all at once?”
“Well, I told her she could come up, if she would promise to be good,
but she wouldn’t, and so I left her down there; I can’t have her here
fretting you.”
Katy’s mamma laid her hand on her forehead and closed her eyes for a
moment, and sighed again; then she said, “It frets me much more to hear
her cry down stairs; I think I can make it all right to her about the
baby if she comes up here.”
“Just as you please, of course,” said Mrs. Smith, giving her gingham
apron a twitch; “just as you please; but you must recollect, if the
child frets you into a fever, the blame will be laid at my door. Oh,
just as you please, of course, you are mistress of the house; but I
always likes to see ladies a little reasonable;” and Mrs. Smith went
into the entry and told Bridget to bring up Katy to see her mamma.
Now Katy was, on the whole, a good little girl, as good as she could be,
with all the pains and aches and ails she had; she was very affectionate
too, and loved her papa and mamma very very dearly, and believed every
thing they told her, and they had patience with her faults, believing
that when her health was better she would be less fretful. That was why
her mamma was troubled at what the nurse had said to her little grieved
sorrowful daughter; and that was why, though she felt very sick, she
sent for her to try and make her feel happy. Oh, you never will know,
any of you, until you have little children of your own, how strong a
_mother’s_ love is.
Well, little Katy crept into her mother’s room, and sidled up to the
bed, with an eye on the strange woman, Mrs. Smith, as if she feared
every moment that she would snatch her up, before she could get to her
mother’s bedside.
Katy’s mother put out her pale hand and took hold of her little
daughter’s trembling fingers. Katy was trying to choke down the tears,
but one of them fell upon her mother’s hand. Then Katy’s mother told her
to climb upon a chair and get carefully on the bed.
Katy did not look at Mrs. Smith, though she heard her mutter something,
but scrambled upon the bed as her mother told her.
“Katy, look here,” and her mamma unrolled the soft folds of a little
fleecy blanket, and there lay a little baby, so little, so cunning, with
such a funny little fuzz all over its head, and such little pink bits of
fingers.
“Katy, I want you to help me take care of this little brother; I am
sick, and can not wait upon him, and I want you to hand me his little
blankets, and frocks, and shoes, and caps; and I want you to pat him
with your little soft hand when he cries. See, he is no bigger than your
big doll; and by-and-by, when he is a little older, you shall sit in
your little rocking-chair, and rock him and get him to sleep for me; and
when he gets fast asleep, you and I will put him in the cradle, and tuck
him all up nice and warm, and you shall sit by him and sing him the
little song papa taught you. He is your little live doll, and can open
and shut his eyes—see there!”
“Yes, I see,” said Katy, in a soft whisper, and the ugly frown all went
away from her pretty white forehead. “I see. Has he got any toes?”
Then Katy’s mother showed Katy the little bits of pink toes all curled
up in a heap on his funny little foot. And then Katy’s mother said, that
her head ached so badly, she must try to sleep, but that she wanted Katy
to sit in the chair beside the bed, very still, and take care of the
little baby, while she slept; and Katy looked quite pleased, and said
she would. So every time the little baby breathed hard, Katy would pat
the quilt with her forefinger, but she never spoke a word any more than
a little mouse. And all that day she staid in her mamma’s room and did
exactly as she told her; and when her papa came home, she went down
stairs with him, and drank some “real tea” out of his saucer, and put a
piece of butter on his plate, because she said she promised to help
mamma while she was sick; and then her papa undressed her and put her to
sleep in his bed; but after she had said, “Now I lay me” and “Our
Father,” her little lip quivered, and looking up in her papa’s face, she
said, “Are you sure my mamma can love little brother and me too?” and
when her papa said, “Yes, I am sure,” she believed him, because she knew
he never told her wrong, and then she laid her head quietly down to
sleep.
I could not tell, when a great many weeks had gone by, how she learned
to love her little brother, how dearly she loved to help wash him and
dress him, and smooth his soft silky hair; how patiently she picked up
his playthings when he grew bigger, and gave him all her own too; and
how pretty she looked as she sat in her little chair, holding him and
peeping into his bright blue eyes. Oh Katy’s mamma knew better about her
own little girl than the strange woman, Mrs. Smith, did. She knew how
badly a little child’s heart may sometimes ache, and how a few kind
words, said at the right time, may cure it and make it happy.
Love your mother, little ones.
OUR NEW DOG DASH.
Dash! go away! how do you suppose I can write when you are jumping at my
elbow, playing with my robe-tassels, and cutting up such antics, as you
have been this last half hour? I know it is a pleasant morning, as well
as you do; I should like a ramble as well as you would; but business is
business, Dash, and neither you nor those great fleecy-white clouds,
sailing so lazily over the blue sky; neither the twitting birds, nor the
sweet soft air, every breath of which makes my blood leap; neither the
fresh green grass, nor the pretty morning-glories which have opened
their blue eyes under my window, can get me out of this chair till my
work is done. So, go away, Dash; you need not sniff, and bark, and jump
up on the window-sill that way; you don’t know me, or you would know
that, in my dictionary, won’t _means_ won’t. Beside, what is to hinder
you from going out by yourself, I’d like to know? Dog-days are over, no
policeman or covetous boy, in want of half a dollar, will knock you on
the head. Why not go out by yourself till I get ready to come, if you
are in such a mortal hurry? What are you afraid of? That solemn flock of
geese? those hens and roosters? or that great Newfoundland dog, who
looks big enough to swallow you at a mouthful? or that steady old brown
cow? A pretty fellow you are to be afraid! you who fell upon poor puss,
shook her, and chased her up-stairs and down, and in my lady’s chamber,
till her back had a hump as big as any camel’s, and her eyes looked like
two great emeralds; oh, you blustering little coward! Suppose that great
Newfoundland dog should serve you in that fashion! That’s why you are
afraid to go out of doors without me, sir, is it? Ah ha!—none of us so
big but we can find our match, let me tell you. Remember that, next time
you shake a poor harmless pussy, because you were jealous of a saucer of
milk I gave her. Let me tell you, sir, ladies first, after that the
gentlemen. Where were you brought up, I would like to know, that you
have not learned that? Let me see you ruffle one hair of my little
Maltese pussy, sir, and I will—no I won’t, for here comes my husband,
your master. I like to have forgotten what I told you just now, that
none of us are so big but we can find our match. Never fear, Dash, I
won’t touch you; for I’ve found mine.
[Illustration]
FUN AND FOLLY;
A STORY FOR THOUGHTLESS BOYS.
Halloo! there’s old John coming down the street, top of a load of straw,
in that crazy old cart, with that old skeleton of a horse. Gemini! what
a turn out, isn’t it Bob? what fun it would be to step up behind the
cart, and set that straw on fire with a match; I say, Bob, wouldn’t the
old fellow jump down quicker? Let’s do it.
Bob, always ready for “fun,” took a match, and applying it to the dry
straw, in an instant set it all of a blaze; then they both ran off, and
hid behind a wall to see what would come of it.
Down scrambled old John, head first, and rolled off into the road; the
horse feeling the heat, started, and the wheel of the cart passing over
old John’s head, left him bleeding and almost lifeless, on the ground.
“Think he’s dead?” whispered Bob with white lips. “I didn’t mean to hurt
him, I only wanted a little fun Sam.”
“They’ll put us in jail if they find us,” said Sam, “oh what shall we
do; old John will die, he don’t move a bit;” and the naughty boys crept
still more closely together behind the wall.
Old John was not dead; only stunned and bleeding; a farmer who came by,
seeing him, took him up in his cart, and carried him to the almshouse:
and there we will leave him groaning on his small bed, while I tell you
his story.
John was once Teller in a bank. Do you know what a teller does? He
counts over all the money that is brought into the bank, and gives an
account of it to the president of the bank, and the directors. Of course
he has to be very careful never to make a mistake in counting; or to
mislay even a sixpence; lest the president and the directors of the bank
might think he had stolen it. John was very careful and very honest; and
all the people who had dealings with him, liked him very much; thousands
and thousands of dollars passed through his fingers every day, but he
never had a wish to steal a cent; although there were a great many
things he could think of, which he wished to buy. At last John got
married. His wife was a young girl, named Ellen Norris; she had bright
black eyes, rosy lips and two very pretty dimples in her cheeks; John
thought he had never seen any thing half so bewitching as those dancing
dimples: he was half crazy, when Ellen said yes, to his question, “Will
you marry me;” he thought Ellen loved him as well as he loved her, and
that they could be as happy together as two robins in one nest. But I am
sorry to say, that Ellen did not really love John; she was as poor as
she was pretty, and had married him because she supposed he would buy
her beautiful dresses, ribbons, and things, to set off her beauty; so
after they were married, she kept coaxing for this thing, and coaxing
for that, and coaxing for the other; and how could poor John bear to say
no, to those two pretty dimples? So he bought one piece of furniture
after another, that he knew he could not afford to buy; and silks and
satins for Ellen, and hired carriages for her to ride in; and bought
every thing which she took it into her foolish head, and selfish heart,
to fancy. By-and-by, he found that he had used up all the money which
belonged to him; but still Ellen kept coaxing and teazing; and one day
when John, for the first time, ventured to say he could not buy
something she wanted, Ellen burst into tears, and told John that he did
not love her. John could not bear that; so he kissed her, and told her
she should have it; but as he went down to the bank, his lips were very
white, and there was a strange troubled look in his face, which was
never seen there before. That night he put a roll of bills in Ellen’s
hand, but long after she was sleeping, dreaming I suppose, of all the
fine things money would buy, John might be seen pacing up and down the
floor, and now and then striking his forehead with his clenched fist.
Many times after this, Ellen had rolls of bills, and many nights John
walked the floor, in the way I have told you.
At last there came a day when Ellen waited for John to come home to
dinner—waited—waited—waited—but he did not come. Instead, there came the
messenger of the bank, and told her that John was put in jail to be
tried for taking money from the bank that was not his. The messenger
pitied Ellen, because she was so young, and because he believed her to
be a good and loving wife; and he would have rather given a great deal
of money, than to have told her such bad news, if he had had it to give.
Every body was so astonished when they heard about John; every body had
thought him “such a good fellow;” nobody knew how that foolish, selfish
woman, had led him on to steal with her dimples and her tears. No—for
John never told of it; not even to excuse himself; not even when his
heartless wife refused to go and see him in jail; and when she packed up
the silks, and ribbons, which had sent John to State Prison, and went
off without saying good-by, after she found that he could not buy her
any more. Not a word did poor John say against his wife; not a word
would he hear any body else say, because she had deserted him in his
trouble.
Poor John! he was sentenced to State Prison for several years; the best
years of his life; when he was young, strong, and hearty; they shaved
off his brown hair, put on the prison dress, and set him to work cutting
stone. John made no complaint, he said it was just, that he had deserved
his punishment: he did just as he was bid, but the light died out from
his fine bright eye, his head drooped upon his breast, and when the
day’s toil was over and the officer had locked him up for the long
lonely night, into his narrow dark cell, could you have passed in, you
would have seen him tossing on his straw bed, and now and then you might
have heard him groan, “Oh, Ellen! Ellen!”
When he had staid his time out in prison, the officers took off his
prison clothes, and gave him a new suit to go away with. John stood
looking at them; the light fell from the window upon the face of the
same man, who stood in that spot five years before, to have that prison
uniform put on. Oh, how changed. Now his brown hair, was snow-white with
sorrow; his eye dim, and his frame bent like an old man of fourscore.
John looked at the new clothes they brought him; why should he put them
on? where should he go? who on the wide earth would befriend the poor
convict?
So poor John went staggering out through the heavy gate, as the warden
unlocked it with his huge key, and slouched his hat over his eyes, as if
he could not bear that even the sun should see his face, and wandered
forth—he knew not whither. At last he came to a little village, and
there in the woods, away from the curious gaze, away from the scornful
finger, he built him a little cabin of boughs and logs; and now and then
he wandered down to the village, and the farmers would give him a basket
of potatoes, or a little meat, or corn.
This was the old man whom Bob thought it would be fun to tease; whose
straw he set on fire, and who lay mangled and bleeding by the way-side,
with none to care for him.
It is a pleasant afternoon, the warm sun shines on the sweet flowers,
and the birds sing on, as if grief, and care, and sorrow had never
entered this bright and beautiful world of ours. A hearse winds slowly
down beneath the waving trees; no carriages follow it, and there are no
mourners on foot; only the sexton stands at the grave, waiting to lay
old John’s head on its last peaceful pillow. Poor John—death has knocked
off his last fetter. He who forgave the thief on the cross, will surely
show him mercy.
HISTORY OF A FAMILY OF CATS.
Mrs. Tabby Grimalkin, a highly respectable gray cat, had lived for
several years with a maiden lady by the name of Stevens, in whose house
she had lately reared five interesting young Grimalkins, of various
sorts and sizes.
She was a most watchful and affectionate mother, and had endeavored, to
the best of her ability, to bring up her kittens in the manner best
approved by all sensible and well-bred cats.
They were allowed to remain with their mother, until the critical period
of weaning was past, when Miss Stevens declared one day, in Mrs.
Grimalkin’s hearing, that such a scampering round her kitchen was not to
be endured, and that she intended the next day to distribute them round
the neighborhood among her friends.
This was sad news for their mother, as you may suppose; but after
turning it over in her mind several times, she concluded it was better
than having them strangled or drowned, and forthwith began to give them
advice as to their conduct when away from her.
They all set up a piteous mewing at their hard fate, but with one shake
of her paw she shut up their mouths and went on with her speech. She
especially forbade their associating promiscuously with all the cats in
the neighborhood, or attending any moonlight concerts without her leave.
She told them any time when they needed exercise, they could call for
each other, and come down to the maternal wood-shed, when she would be
most happy to see them; and she would occasionally, when mousing was
scarce, and there was nothing going on, return their call.
So Muff, and Jet, and Brindle, and Tabby, and Spot lay down by their
mother’s side for the last time, and purred themselves to sleep; as for
their mother, she wandered up and down the yard half the night, in a
very unquiet frame of mind, occasionally returning, to look at her
kittens, who lay cuddled up in a bunch in blissful unconsciousness.
About a month after this, I was one day passing through the yard, and
who should I spy but Mrs. Grimalkin, surrounded by her family, the
happiest cat in all Pussdom. I stepped softly behind the door,
determined for once to play eaves-dropper, and hear what was going on.
Muff “had the floor,” and was giving her mother an account of the
treatment she met in the family she lived with. She said there were four
ungovernable children, who amused themselves when out of school in
trying to see whether her tail and ears were really fastened on tight or
not. Then they had stroked her back the wrong way, till every hair stood
up, as if it was frightened; had shut her up in a shower-bath, and
turned water on her till she had fits, and never found her comfortably
snoozing in a warm corner, that they did not rouse her up to make her
run round after a ball, till she was as crazy as a fly in a drum. In
short, mother, said she, I’ve heard people say such a one “leads a dog’s
life of it.” I say, let them try a cat’s life once.
As soon as she had finished, up jumped her brother Jet. He was as black
as a little negro, with the exception of four little milk-white paws; he
had little shining black eyes, and whiskers as trim as any modern
dandy’s. He had no such misfortune to relate, not he. He slept on a rug,
in the corner of his mistress’s parlor, and had a nice chicken-bone to
pick, and a saucer of milk to drink, when he wanted it. His mistress was
an old lady, and she had such nice little parties to tea, and they all
made a pet of him, and it was so amusing to lie curled up on the rug,
and hear them talk over all the gossip of the village. So, with a very
complacent look, as if he had quite fulfilled his destiny, he trimmed
his whiskers, and sat down on his hind paws, to hear what his sister
Brindle had to say.
Poor Brindle was very bashful, and it was a long time before she could
speak at all. She looked thin and bony, as if the world in general, and
her mistress in particular, had snubbed her; indeed she acknowledged
that she was half starved, and beaten every day beside, for stealing
food enough to keep her bones together. Here she was seized with a
horrid fit of coughing, which so distressed her mother, that she forbade
her talking any more, and told her to stay and spend the night with her,
and she would give her some supper, and some catnip, to cure her cough.
It was now Spot’s turn. She said she had her story all “cut and dried,”
but really she had been so shocked at the idea that Brindle had been
stealing, that she thought it was a chance if she could recollect any of
it. She said, for her part, she should be ashamed to have any cat in the
neighborhood know that she was related to her. Here her mother sprang at
her and gave her a box on the ear; and told her, that her grandmother,
Mrs. Mouser, who was as correct a cat as ever mewed, brought her (Mrs.
Grimalkin) up, to find her living when and where she could, and that
every cat that had been born since Adam’s cat (if he had any), had done
the same, and she never could find out that they were expected to do any
differently. Spot looked a little ashamed, for in fact she had taken
many a sly nibble herself, and her mother knew it.
Just then she seemed to be looking at the opposite corner of the
wood-shed; her mother’s eyes following the direction of hers, espied a
strange cat looking very intently at Spot. Mrs. Grimalkin walked up to
him, and with a scratch gave him to understand that his room was better
than his company; and though he protested he had only come in a quiet
way, to wait upon Miss Spot home, another scratch from her mother
settled the matter without any useless words.
As soon as quiet was restored, little Tabby jumped up, in a state of
great excitement, and said, she had that day caught her first mouse,
which she brought forward and laid as a trophy at her mother’s feet.
Tabby evidently had not recovered from the excitement of the capture,
for her little eyes snapped, like two fire coals, and she kept moving
her tongue about her mouth, as if she just longed to eat him up herself.
She told her mother, it made her feel bad when he first began to squeal,
and she was so little, she thought it rather doubtful, at first, whether
the mouse would eat her, or she should eat the mouse; and as for
squealing, she concluded, there must be a first time for every thing,
and she had got to get used to that.
It was getting late, and Mrs. Grimalkin rose, and put it to vote, who
should have the mouse for supper, and without a dissenting voice, even
from Spot, it was unanimously awarded to poor starved Brindle. So
bidding her and their mother good-night, the rest walked home by the
light of the moon, Spot occasionally looking round, to see if she could
see any thing of her discarded lover.
For my own part, I came out of my hiding-place deeply interested in the
welfare of Mrs. Grimalkin’s family, and fully determined that I would
treat my kitty kindly, and feed her so well that she should never
complain.
THE POOR-RICH CHILD.
“I never saw such a little torment as that child, never; he’s just the
mischievousest little monkey that ever was made; nothing in the house
will stand before him. I wish his mother would take a little care of
him, and make him behave. I should like to whip him an hour without
stopping. I do believe he is the worst boy who ever lived.”
No—Eddy was not the worst boy who ever lived; I am sure he does not look
like it. He hears what Betty says, about wanting “to whip him an hour
without stopping:” but he does not pout, or kick out his foot, or throw
his ball after her; he picks up a bit of string, and begins to play
horse with a chair, as good-humoredly as if Betty had said he was the
best boy in the world. No—Eddy was not a bad boy; but, like a great many
other children who did not deserve it, he got that name. I will tell you
about it. Eddy’s mother did not like the care of children; she liked to
go shopping, and buy handsome dresses, and spend a great deal of time in
talking with dressmakers about trimming them; and after she got them
finished, she liked to sit down in her handsome parlors, and fold her
white hands, and admire herself, till somebody or other called to admire
her; or else she liked to walk out in the street, and hear people
say—“Splendid! beautiful! what taste Mrs. Van Wyck always shows in her
dress!” Then she was happy! that repaid her for all the pains she had
taken to make a doll of herself; but when she came home, and her little
boy, whom perhaps she had not seen before that day, ran into the hall
and said, “Mamma!” Mrs. Van Wyck caught her beautiful dress quickly up
in her hand, and said, “Martha! do take that child away; I am sure he
will ruin my dress.” Then Martha would take Eddy up into the nursery,
and shut the door, and call him a little plague; and Eddy would stand at
the nursery window, and look out into the neighbors’ yards; and see, for
the hundredth time, a long row of wooden sheds, with clothes dangling on
the lines, and a long row of tall brick houses and tall brick chimneys;
and then he would turn away and take up his top, and then his cart, and
then his marbles; and then he would look at Betty, who had thrown
herself down on the bed to read a novel; and then Eddy would say,
timidly, “Betty?” and Betty would answer, “Be quiet, can’t you?” and
then Eddy would wander round the small, hot nursery again; and then he
would say, “Betty, won’t you please take me out to walk? I am so tired
and hot, Betty;” and Betty would say, “No, there’s no need of your
walking; go draw your cart, and let me alone; what a plague you are!”
and then Eddy would pick up a pair of scissors on the floor, and seeing
a piece of white cloth lying on the table, he would begin to cut
it—because the poor tired child didn’t know what else to do; and
by-and-by Betty would get through with her novel, and the first thing
Eddy knew she would shake him half out of his jacket, and scream out,
“You little torment! you have cut my night-cap into inch pieces;” and
when Eddy said, “I did not know that piece of cloth was a night-cap,
Betty,” she would say, “Don’t you tell me that, you little fibber; you
did it on purpose, I know you did.”
After a while Eddy’s father would come home, and Eddy would run out in
the hall, and say, “Papa, here’s Eddy;” and his father would say, “So I
see, and I suppose you want a top or a ball, don’t you?” and Eddy would
say, “No, I want you, papa;” and then his father would say, “Not now,
Eddy, by-and-by.” But “by-and-by” never came to poor Eddy, for his
father was a very long time eating dinner, and then came wine, and then
came cigars, and then came company; and Eddy was hurried off to bed,
only to begin another day just like it, on the morrow. You see how it
was; he was an active little fellow; he could not keep still; nobody
talked to him, they gave him nothing to do; and when he got into what
they called “mischief,” then they said he was a bad boy. Oh how many
such little suffering, rich people’s children I have seen; a thousand
times more to be pitied than the children of poor parents.
One night Eddy awoke and said, “Betty!” Betty wanted to sleep, so she
pretended she did not hear him; Eddy tossed about his little bed, a
while longer; and then his throat felt so bad he said again, “Betty!”
but Betty never spoke, and it was all dark; so little patient Eddy lay
back again on his pillow—lay there all night without any one to take
care of him. In the morning, Betty roused up and said, “Get up, Eddy;”
but Eddy did not move; then Betty went to his little bed, and shook his
arm; then she peeped into his face; she had never seen Eddy look that
way before. Every body in the house now came to look at Eddy; then the
doctor came and looked at him; but death had stepped in before him; that
poor little throat was filling, filling; the doctor could do nothing. He
said Eddy died of croup. You and I know he was murdered. Died as
hundreds of children die every year, of wicked neglect. Oh, there is
room for children in Heaven; they are never “in the way” there—that’s
one comfort.
THE HOD-CARRIER.
Your name is George, eh? well that is a good name: I will tell you a
story about a little boy of that name. He was the son of a farmer, in
the town of Jackson, Washington county, State of New York, who was
called “Butter John,” on account of his keeping a large dairy in that
place. Little George, the son of “Butter John,” was about six years old
when war was declared between England and the United States. He was
lying one evening in his little bed, when his Uncle Robert came in and
told his father the news. Little George did not say any thing, but he
lay very still and listened, and thought a great deal about the coming
war with the British. Not long after this, one afternoon, his mother
took him with her to gather some fruit in the orchard. It was a
beautiful day; the sun shone very brightly, when suddenly little George
heard something which sounded like distant thunder, and yet it could not
be thunder, because there was not a single cloud in the blue sky. Hark!
there it is again! what can it be? thought George. At last George put
his ear to the ground and heard—what do you think? the low booming of
artillery. George jumped up with his face all aglow and his eyes
sparkling, and said, “Mother, our folks are certainly whipping the
British, on the lake.” “Sure enough,” said his mother, “I shouldn’t
wonder if you were right, George.” And the very next day they heard of
Commodore McDonough’s victory over the British, on Lake Champlain.
Little George was all excitement about the battle; he could think and
talk of nothing else. A few days afterward, the British prisoners were
to be brought along the road, and to pass within a mile of George’s
father’s house. George ran to his father and mother and said, “Oh, do
let me go and see them, won’t you, father? won’t you, mother?” They both
said no, thinking it best for such a little fellow to stay at home. This
was a dreadful disappointment to George, who had the greatest desire to
look at those British prisoners; he sat down on the door-step of his
father’s farm-house and thought over it, and thought over it, and
wondered why he _couldn’t_ go, just to take one peep and see what those
British fellows looked like, and, for the first time in his life, he
made up his mind not to obey his father and mother, whom he loved so
much, but to go. So he looked all about to see if any body was watching
him; no, the coast was clear, off he started across the fields, as fast
as his little legs could carry him, to see the British, never stopping
to get his hat, to cover his little bare head: hats might be had any
day, but the British were a rarity.
By-and-by he reached the road, where he had heard people say they were
to pass, and seating himself by the side of it, he waited with great
round eyes of wonder to see them come along; and as they came, he
counted three hundred prisoners and sixty guards to take care of them,
lest they should run away. By-and-by they all halted in the pleasant
green fields to eat their dinner. George wanted dreadfully to go close
up to them, but he was a little afraid; he did not know but they might
want to dine off of him; but his curiosity got the better of his fears,
and after watching them for a while, he climbed over the fence. The
soldiers spied him, and beckoned to him to come see them. He was in for
it then, Master George! however, he went boldly up to them, and they
began talking and laughing with him very pleasantly, and by-and-by they
liked him so well, that they coaxed him to eat dinner with them; so
George who had never eaten with the British, thought he would try that
too, and so down he sat with them to dinner. One of the soldiers said to
him, “You will make a capital soldier when you get bigger.” This pleased
Master George hugely, and made him feel as grand as a corporal; he held
up his head, when—lo and behold, who should he see but his father, who
had come to catch the little bare-headed runaway. _Then_ George was
afraid in good earnest, for he expected a tremendous spanking; but
luckily for him, his father, old “Butter John,” became so interested
hearing the soldiers tell about the battle, that he forgot all about
spanking George, and did not even scold him.
[Illustration]
I told you George’s father was a farmer, and farmers in those days had
very few books; but as soon as George learned to read, he got hold of
those few, and every evening he would read so long as his candle would
burn, and before he was twelve years old, he had read all those books,
“Life of Washington,” “Cook’s Voyages,” “Carver’s Travels,” “Plutarch’s
Lives,” “Josephus’s Works,” and “Hume and Smollett’s History of
England.” Pretty well that, for a little farmer boy only twelve years
old. Sunday he was not allowed to read these books, but on that day he
read the Bible with his mother, and what Mr. Scott, a minister, had
written about the Bible. George used to get up very early in the
morning, just as all boys have who ever became any thing in the world;
your lie-a-beds are always drones in the hive. I dare say he used to do
some of his reading then; I know he did not get time during the day,
because he had to do “chores,” as they call it, on the farm of his
father “Butter John,” and as this farm had five hundred acres in it, and
plenty of cattle on it to be taken care of, you may be sure Master
George had no extra time for reading; but somehow he managed to read a
book called “Life of William Ray,” which told all about a boy who left
his father’s farm, and went off to seek his fortune in the world. This
book bewitched George who was tired of farm-work, and was quite as
anxious now when he was a big boy, to see what the world was made of, as
he was when six years old, to see what the British were made of. He
spoke to his father about it, when he was seventeen, but the sturdy old
farmer shook his head and said no. He wanted George at home to do
farm-work.
About this time there was a great talk in the neighborhood about the
Erie Canal, and George began thinking about that; for you must know
that, when he was a little fellow, he used to be very fond of building
all sorts of things; he would get boys together and build miniature
bridges and dams, and every chance he could get, he would go among
mechanics and watch them at their work. The truth was, nature did not
cut him out for a farmer, but his father, good old man, did not see it,
perhaps because he was so busy with his dairy and his cattle, perhaps
because, like almost all fathers, he wished him to follow the same
profession which he followed, and this is natural enough; but if a boy
will make a better architect or builder than he will a farmer, I think
it is a pity he should not be one; mothers see quicker than fathers
generally, what their boys are cut out for, and George’s mother, as she
watched him build the little bridges with the boys, said, “You never
will be a farmer, George!” and she said right.
At last George said to his father, “Father, I have made up my mind to go
away from home to see what I can do.” The cautious old farmer shook his
head again, told George that he would regret it, that he did not know
what it was to be away from home. But George was a young man now, and he
felt restless and unhappy on the farm, where his old father was so
contented to stay year after year, and dig, and plant, and plow, and
reap, and make butter and cheese. I suppose he thought George was so
safe there, and comfortable, that it was a pity for him to trudge off
like a peddler with his pack on his back to seek his fortune. He knew
the world was a tough place to make fortunes, and he had an idea that
George, his boy George, was not the fellow to find one, at any rate away
from the farm; but George’s heart was set upon going, and go he did,
though he had no money to start with, and nothing in the world but the
clothes on his back. He went straight to an uncle of his and worked for
him till he had earned forty dollars, and then started for Troy, New
York, where he hired himself out as a day laborer, at one dollar a day,
to wait on some stone masons, who were engaged in building. George knew
that to learn a trade thoroughly it is necessary to begin at the
beginning, and not to be above doing the smallest job; he wanted to
learn every thing from brick-laying to stone cutting, and so he went
afterward to a man who was going to build a house, and worked for him
all that season, laying brick, cutting stone, and learning every thing
he could learn at the mason’s trade, as diligently as he knew how. Poor
industrious George: after working so hard all summer, the man he worked
for could not pay his workmen in the fall, what he owed them; was not
that too bad? I expect when “Butter John” heard of that he said, “I told
him so; I told George he would regret going away from the farm.” But
George was not discouraged; he went in a straight-forward manly way to
the man with whom he had boarded while he was at work, and said: “Mr.
Noel, my master, Mr. Galt, has not paid me the money he owed me, and so
I can not pay my board bill as I expected to do, but I am going to get
some more work to do, and just as soon as I get paid for it, you shall
have your money.” Did Mr. Noel bluster and scold, and put him in jail?
No, he had sense enough to know that if a man has no money to pay his
debts, he surely can not earn any, when he is shut up in jail; beside he
trusted in George, and saw he was a good fellow, who meant to be honest,
so he said pleasantly, “Time enough George,” and then George walked
twenty-two miles, to hire himself out to lay brick until cold weather,
and this time he got his pay for it. Now did he forget his promise to
Mr. Noel, who was twenty-two miles off? Did he run farther off with what
he had earned, and say that good Mr. Noel might whistle for his pay, as
many a dishonest man has done, who wears a finer coat than honest George
did then? No—that’s what he didn’t. He started for Hoosack Four Corners
at very short notice, where he paid every single cent he owed Mr. Noel.
What do you think of that? forty-four miles to walk in one day to pay an
old debt, twenty-two miles there, and twenty-two back. I call that an
honest deed, and the young man who did it, a young man to be honored and
believed in.
Well, George trudged back again, as I told you, with a light heart, and
a light pocket too, for not a cent had he left in it; but what of that?
he was young, healthy and hopeful. What could Misfortune do to him? She
knew it was no use, so she left George for some poor whining wretch, who
sniveled at the first discouragement he met with and spent his breath,
not in working, but in saying “I can’t.”
Well, George kept on working and studying too; every chance he got he
bought a few books and read them thoroughly and well, and when he had
mastered them, he would look about for more, for he was anxious to lay
up something better than money, a good education, which is in fact,
always a fortune to its possessor; better than bank stock, because
nobody can swindle or cheat you out of it. By the time he was twenty
George had saved one hundred and fifty dollars; perhaps you may think
that was not a great deal of money. Ah, you don’t know what it is to be
poor, and earn every cent by hard labor, or you would not think so. You
don’t know how delicious it is, after a tough struggle, to become
independent and eat bread of your own earning. Part of the money George
had earned he spent in books again and with the remainder of it, and the
little library he had collected, he started for Pennsylvania. George now
understood thoroughly the building of locks, bridges and all sorts of
mason work. All this time he had hired himself out to do work for other
people.
It occurred to George now, that he was fit to become a master-workman
himself; _i.e._ agree to build a bridge or some such thing, and hire men
to work under him; he was certain that he knew quite as much as a great
many other men who did this; in fact, a master-workman who employed
George, told him one day, that he was a great fool to be working for
him, when he (George) knew more than he did. But just then he was taken
with fever and ague, and had to lie by a while; he thought he would then
to go home to his native place, and perhaps that might help him, but he
did not go to his father’s and live on the old man, not he; he was too
proud, now that he was a grown man, to live on his parents, and hear the
neighbors say that he “had come to sponge them out of their money;” no,
he paid his own board at a tavern near, till he got better; then he
worked again perseveringly—worked—worked—though still troubled with an
ague chill every day; and now he had earned $2,350—hurrah for George!
Then he thought it was about time to treat himself to a gold watch.
George always thought it the cheapest in the end to buy a _thoroughly
good article_, even should it cost more at first; and there’s where he
was right; so he went to Marquand, a jeweler in Broadway, and purchased
a watch worth $300—what do you think of that? Well—after he had treated
himself to a watch, what does the fellow do but treat himself to a wife.
I don’t know what she cost him; a few blushes I dare say, a gold ring I
know; to say nothing of the fee for the minister who married them; but I
rather think it paid. After his marriage, as he had plenty of money, he
thought he would live a while without working; but he was too good a
fellow to relish an idle life; he did not believe we were made only to
enjoy ourselves. So, like a sensible man he engaged to make part of the
famous “Croton-water Works,” which all New York boys have heard of. His
part of the work was in “Sleepy Hollow,” which Washington Irving has
made so famous. Well, there he lived peaceably and happily with his
wife; there he had two dear little children, named Josephine and Mary
Alice, and there little Mary closed her bright eyes, and went away with
“The Good Shepherd,” who loveth the little lambs. I could tell you a
great deal more about George, how he, after a while went to Europe, and
visited all the great foreign cities; how, when he came back, he found
that his old father had got into debt, and how George, like the good
fellow he was, paid all the old man’s debts, with his own earnings; How
happy he must have been to do that for Butter John! How he built “the
High Bridge;” how he built a great thumping steamer, called the
_Oregon_; how he launched her (that was a splendid sight, I know); and
how he bought another steamer, called the _Neptune_, for I tell you
this, George couldn’t be idle to save him—it was not in him; how,
afterward he built steamers to carry the United States Mail to
California viâ New Orleans and Chagres; and that was a great benefit to
his country, greater than I can tell you; how he purchased the Staten
Island ferry; how he purchased property in Fifth Avenue, one of the
finest streets in New York, and how he went there to live; how there is
every thing elegant and comfortable in his house, but what he most
values, a splendid library; how he preserves and shows to this day in
that library, the old thumbed, dog’s-eared arithmetic, and other books,
which he used to pore over when he was a poor boy; and how he can look
around his beautiful home and think that it was all honestly and hardly
earned, “beginning at the foot of the ladder” (sure enough), as a
hod-carrier. Can you wonder that such a man, of such honesty, and
energy, and intelligence, should be put up for the highest office our
country has to give? Can you wonder that thousands of his
fellow-citizens said, in September, 1855, “Give us George—GEORGE LAW—for
President of the United States!”
THE TOM-BOY.
“For shame, Maria!”
I turned my head. A little girl was just clambering down from a pile of
boards in a vacant lot near the house. It was Saturday afternoon; and
all the long week “Maria” had been shut up in a school, from nine
o’clock till two, although she was only seven years old; and every
afternoon, when she should have been playing, she was trying to cram her
poor bewildered head with great long lessons, which some stupid person
had made for little children, full of great big words, which it was
impossible for her to understand, even if she could manage to commit
them to memory. No wonder Maria was glad when Saturday afternoon came
and lessons and school were over for one week at least; no wonder she
skipped off into “the vacant lot,” and climbed up and down the pile of
boards, to stretch her poor little cramped limbs, and to see if there
was really any life left in them; and a very good time she had been
having of it, too; jumping off of one end of the pile down on the soft
grass, then making a “teeter,” by pulling out one of the boards and
balancing it on the others; she on one end, now sailing up so high! and
Sarah Jane Clarke on the other, going down so low! and now and then both
would roll off into the grass and laugh so merrily; then they would pelt
each other with handfuls of grass, and chase each other round the pile
of boards, till their pale cheeks were as red as fresh-blown roses; to
be sure Maria had torn a hole in a shilling calico apron; but that is
easily repaired, much more easily than a crooked spine, much more easily
than a diseased brain; but I suppose Mrs. Mott did not think of this
when she frowned on her little daughter, and said, “For shame, Maria,
what a tom-boy.” She never had heard, as I have, a poor worn-out little
girl, tossing from side to side in her bed, at night, repeating parts of
her grammar and geography _in her sleep_, and dreaming that she was
being punished for not getting them more perfectly. She never stood over
a little girl who was dying—dying because her little brain had been
worked at school harder than her little feeble growing body could bear.
Ah, if she had, she would have been so glad to have seen the rose bloom
on the pale cheeks of her little daughter, that Saturday afternoon, that
she would never have minded the torn apron, or made the child ashamed of
what was really proper and good for her to do; what it would have been
well for Maria had she done every afternoon of her life.
“Tom-boy?” no, a girl is not a tom-boy for playing “teeter” and climbing
boards; no more than her brother is a girl, because he sometimes sits on
a chair. I say romp; I say shout; I say fly kites; play ball; drive
hoop; climb sheds and fences, tear your aprons (mind you learn to mend
them yourself), soil your hands and faces, tangle your hair, do any
thing that’s innocent, but _don’t_ grow up with crooked backs, flat
chests, sallow faces, dull eyes and diseased brains; _your_ mother, and
yours, and yours, I hope, think as I do about these things. Ask them.
Maria’s mother did not think so. So she went on frowning at her little
daughter, every time she saw her using her limbs, and reproved her as
severely for tearing her apron as she would had she told a lie, and
perhaps more so. So Maria studied and grew crooked, grew crooked and
studied until she was sixteen years old; then her mother sent her to
Professor Cram-all’s school “_to be finished_.” This gentleman used to
give his young ladies longer and harder lessons than their brothers had
in college, and was very proud of his scholars and his school. So Maria
used to sit up every night till eleven and twelve o’clock, getting her
lessons, beside being in school from nine in the morning till three; and
Maria’s mother thought it was a grand school, and Professor Cram-all,
the very king of teachers. Well, Maria staid there two years, and “_got
finished_,” and when she came from there, she went straight to a
“water-cure establishment” (your mother will tell you what that is), and
there she is now, trying to get her poor crooked back straightened. Poor
sick girl, what good does all her Greek and Latin do her now? Ah! had
her mother only let her play as well as study, study less and play more,
until her limbs grew stronger. I know she thinks so now, when she drives
out to the water-cure establishment, to see her dying daughter. And yet
her mother _meant_ to do right—when she was young, she never was taught
at all, and so she grew up very ignorant; this often made her ashamed
when she was a lady, and so she determined that her daughter, Maria,
should know every thing; and in her hurry to do this she forgot her poor
little childish body altogether. So I say, again, to all of you, don’t
mind being called “a tom-boy”—run, jump, shout, fly kites, climb boards,
tangle your hair, soil your hands and tear your aprons, and Nature will
reward you with strong straight backs, full chests, bright eyes, rosy
cheeks, and a long life.
THE LITTLE MUSICIAN.
“Little nuisance!”
So said a young school-girl who sat next me in the city cars. She was
out of humor; perhaps she had an imperfect lesson at school; perhaps she
was weary of sitting in a close room so many hours; perhaps her head
ached badly, and she was faint for her dinner.
“Little nuisance!” Who was a little nuisance? It was a poor boy, who had
first paid his five pennies to the conductor, and had commenced playing
on an accordeon, in the hope of getting some money from the gentlemen
and ladies in the car. Some scowled, some pouted, and some, like the
young lady I have mentioned, loudly called him “a nuisance.” Still the
boy played on, though with a weary, spiritless look in his young face,
as if to say, “I know it is poor music, very poor, to ears which are
used to opera or concert singing; but have pity on a poor boy, who would
earn a few honest pence for his bread, who will not steal, and dislikes
to beg.” It was of no use. The gentlemen were busy reading their
newspapers, the ladies in taking care of their hooped skirts and
flounces. “Lily Dale” charmed them not, nor “Auld Lang Syne.” There were
diamond pins flashing in the sunlight from gentlemen’s shirt bosoms,
rubies and emeralds from ladies’ fingers, and a massive gold bracelet
clasped a snowy arm that was never pinched by cruel want. Little
parcels, too, the ladies had, from which peeped costly purchases in
embroidered lace and muslins. Little boys were with them, so unlike the
little musician, in their silk-velvet jackets, frilled collars, and
plump rosy faces, that one could hardly believe both to belong to the
same human family.
Still the boy played on, with the old, weary, spiritless look, with his
soft eyes fixed upon those unsympathizing faces: silver and gold
glistened through the net-work of dainty purses, but not for him. One
more tune the child played; then, folding his accordeon up under his
arm, he stepped from the car, and was out of sight.
Where? In the great busy city? Did he sink down fainting from hunger and
fatigue, feeling that God and his good angels had left him? Did he stand
before some broker’s shop-window, as I have seen many a little ragged
child stand, counting the shining piles of dollars, half-dollars, and
quarters, and the great round gold pieces—only one of which would make
his weary feet to leap for joy? God help the lad! Did he look at them,
with hungry eyes, and count them over and over, till wrong seemed to him
to be right, and the little hand that never was stained by dishonesty
became foul with crime? No—it were sad to be hungry and houseless; but
it were sadder yet to be shut up in a prison—a bad conscience keeping
him tormenting company.
Where did he go?—the “little nuisance”—where? The papers told me the
next morning. Listen:
“A little boy who is accustomed to play the accordeon in the
street-cars, in stepping from the Fulton ferry-boat to the pier, last
evening, accidentally lost his footing, and was drowned.”
No more fault-finding voices to ask why don’t the lad earn his living,
or call him “a nuisance” when he tried the only thing he could do, and
failed; no more returns at nightfall with leaden feet, and empty
pockets. The boats plough on just as merrily; the water dances and
sparkles all the same as if the light in his blue eyes were not quenched
forever.
Where is the little nuisance? where?
Ask them who, through much tribulation, have washed their robes white,
who neither thirst nor hunger any more, and in whose song is no jarring
discord. Of such is the little musician!
LIONS.
Did you ever see a live lion?
Yes, at the menagerie.
Pooh! that was no more a lion than your little baby-sister is a
full-grown woman; to be sure this lion had a stout old lion for its
father, and a lioness for its mother; but that does not make it a lion,
though the keeper of the menagerie might tell you so till he is black in
the face.
Why?
Because lions that you see at menageries are taken from their mothers
before they are weaned. They are then carried away from their native
forests, where they might have run about and grown hearty and strong,
and fed, not on the milk of the old lioness, but on whatever their
keepers see fit to give; then they are cramped up in close unwholesome
cages, where they can scarce turn round; what chance have they of
growing up to look like lions? Instead of that bold, kingly look, that
magnificent form and flowing mane, which they would have had, if the old
lioness had brought them up according to _her_ notions, their shapes
become mean and poor, their manes thin, their look unhappy and
broken-spirited, and their whole appearance very miserable. Ah, a wild
lion is quite another affair, as you would soon find, could he but
crunch your little heads between his jaws.
Now _I_ should like to see a real forest lion, at a safe distance of
course; I should wish to be up on a tree, or on top of a high mountain
perhaps. _He_ is not afraid of any thing, not he! he comes tramping
along, cracking the bushes as he goes, and sniffing round to find two or
three big men to make a luncheon of. A little kid would be only a
mouthful for him. Lions are like cats in one respect: they do not kill
at once, and put the poor creature out of his misery, any more than
pussy does the poor frantic little mouse. The lion stands and looks the
man in the eye, and makes believe he is going to eat him in about a half
a minute, and when he has frightened the poor fellow almost to death, he
gives him a great slap with his paw, or flaps his great bushy tail in
his face, as if to say, how do you like that? this is only the
beginning, old fellow, I will chew you up pretty soon. I don’t like that
in the lion; it is too petty and mean for such a great grand creature. A
lion will never eat a dead body; he likes warm, live creatures, and if,
when he has killed one for the fun of it, he finds that he is not hungry
enough to eat the whole of him at one standing, he never goes back again
afterward to take another meal, he would scorn to do that; he leaves
such second-hand pickings to such poor miserable loafers as jackals and
hyenas, and strides off with his great grand nose up in the air, as if
to say, the best is good enough for me.
When a lion and lioness leave their home in the forest to take a ramble,
the lioness always goes first and leads the way; and when she stops in
her walk, the old lion stops too, till she is ready to go on. Ask your
mother if she don’t think that’s about the proper way to do things? When
they come to an Arab’s tent where they mean to get their supper, the
lioness lies down a short distance off, while the old lion bounds in and
snatches whatever he thinks madam will like best, and then lays it down
at her feet. He looks on all the time she is eating it with a great deal
of satisfaction, and never thinks of touching a bit till she has had
enough. Just tell your father that!
When the lioness’s little baby-cubs are born, she does not leave them
(even for an instant), for a great many days; the old lion goes to
market, as he ought, and brings home the family dinner. When the little
baby-lions are three months old, and have got all their teeth (a great
many lion-babies, like other babies, die getting their teeth), when they
have got all their teeth, not before, the affectionate mother lioness
goes out for a walk to get them food; but she only stays two or three
hours. I wish those foolish young mothers, who go to balls and dance
till daylight, while their poor little hungry babies are screaming
themselves sick, would take pattern by the old lioness. Well, when she
comes back from her walk, she brings along some mutton (we won’t be
particular about asking her where she got it, because she might give us
a rough answer). Then she carefully skins the mutton, and after tearing
it into small bits, she gives it to her baby-lions to eat.
The old pa-lion does not like to stay with his little babies, because
their frolics disturb his dignity; so he won’t sleep in the same place
with them and their mother, but chooses a place near by, where the old
lady can roar after him if any thing happens. If I were she, some night,
when the old fellow was fast asleep, I would take my little cubs, and
creep off, where his “dignity” would never be disturbed by my babies
again—what! not play with my pretty smart little babies? Solemn old
goose, I say! When the old lion takes his young ones out to hunt, if the
poor little things seem afraid of any strange noise they hear, he just
puts his mouth close to their ear, and roars into it, loud as thunder,
as if to say, stop that now, you cubs! or I’ll give you something worth
while to be afraid of. And now I will tell you a curious thing: this
lion, so strong, so grand, so terrible, whose roar makes the strongest
man’s heart to quake, this lion has his deadly foe in the shape of
flies. Often lions have ulcers on their bodies, the flies get into them,
and make them very sore and corrupt; and the lion not knowing how to rid
himself of them, they soon put an end to his life. Ah, you old forest
Goliath! strong and brave as you are, you yet have your David!
THE CRIPPLE.
A crowd! a crowd! a crowd! Well, what of that? You must have come from
the country, or you would not stop to look at a crowd in New York.
Nothing short of an earthquake ever astonishes a New Yorker. Ah, but
this is a very serious matter; a little girl has been run over by the
street-cars, and lies there on the pavement, maimed, bleeding, and
senseless. Well, she should have been more careful; well, she should not
have been playing in the street; well, she should have been at home with
her mother. Suppose she had no home which deserved the name? Suppose she
had no mother? What is a mother? You throw your little arms around the
neck of that sweet gentle woman near you, who has loved you, cared for
you, watched over you, ever since you can remember; and that is your
answer. Well, then, by that touching reply, I tell you, that the poor
little crippled Lucy, though she has a mother, is motherless. Ah, I see
by the tear in your eye that you have rightly read my riddle. You look
pityingly in my face, and say, Oh what will become of her? What will she
do now that she is hurt so badly, perhaps dying, if her own mother does
not love her? You remember when you had the measles, how you were moved
into your mamma’s room, and had a nice soft bed to lie on, with snowy
pillows and quilt, and how gently your mother glided about you, now
stooping to kiss your hot forehead, now bathing your feverish hands, or
moistening with cool drink your parched lips; how she was never tired
waiting on you, though her face was so very pale; how she brought you
every little toy you fancied you wanted, although she knew that the
moment you had it you would want it taken away again; you remember, when
she brought you your medicine, that she did not deceive you into
swallowing it by telling you it was “sweet” or “good;” but that she said
it was very disagreeable indeed to take, and that she did not wonder you
did not like it, and that she wished she could take it for you; and you
remember how pitiful she looked as she said this, and how it gave you
courage to drink it down at one swallow, without making a single
complaint. And then you remember the good old doctor whom your mother
sent for to come and see you; that kind old man, with snow-white hair,
and a big old-fashioned watch-chain and seals that he gave you to play
with, and shoes that did not creak a bit; that pleasant old doctor, who
was acquainted with you as long back as your mother was, and who knew
the history of every tooth in your head. How nice it was to have him
walk up to your bed, beside your mother, and say so cheerfully, “Mary,
my dear, we will soon have you driving hoop and picking dandelion
blossoms in the park;” and then, when he went away, you remember how
your mother drew the window-curtain, and, seating herself by the bed,
sang very, very low, almost as low as a little humming-bird’s drowsy
hum, some pretty little song, to lull you to sleep!
Oh, yes, you have not forgotten it, and you ask me again, What will poor
little crippled Lucy do, without all this love and comfort, and without
a kind mother?
Now just suppose it to be several weeks from the time when little Lucy
was run over. Take hold of my hand and come with me. You see that large
house yonder, standing back from the street? You see those bright green
grassy banks in front of it, and those fine old trees? Well, that is the
Hospital, where people who meet with sad accidents are carried, to be
cured by the doctors, who do not make them pay money for it, unless they
can afford it. There poor little Lucy has been seven long weeks. Let us
go in and see her. Up, up the steep steps; I am glad the house stands
back so far from the street, because the noise of the passing carriages
will not disturb those sick people. Queen Anne gave them this house. I
had as lief kiss the hem of her robe as not, for doing it. Up—up—there
you are; now step into the hall; what a nice wide one it is, and how
deliciously the cool summer breeze plays through it. Oh how glad I am
the sick have such a nice place! “All right!” the porter says, as we
show him a paper which one of the doctors has given us, to admit us
whenever we please;—“all right!”—yes, all right; right that there should
be such a fat, wholesome-looking, smiling, pleasant-voiced head-nurse
for the sick to look at and draw strength from: I am very sure that,
were I sick, the sight of her roly-poly limbs, and rosy face, would make
me better every time her clean gingham dress and snow-white apron swept
past.
[Illustration]
See what a row of beds are in that long room, and a sick person in each.
But we will not stop to look at them now, we have come to see Lucy, poor
little crippled Lucy. There she lies in that cot yonder, next the
window, with her little snow-flake of a hand lying outside the white
coverlid; she raises her pale face from the pillow, and her eyes grow
bright, for she knows that I love and pity her; she can’t move much, for
(it will make you feel so bad that I can hardly bear to tell you) she
has had her leg cut off, where the cars crushed it. She does not
complain, as she shews you the bandaged stump that is left, but her
sunken eyes, and the little drooping wrists, not much bigger than your
papa’s cane, tell what she has suffered. Suppose I should tell you she
had had it cut off _twice_? Poor, poor Lucy; the doctors cut it off
first at the ankle, hoping to save the rest of the leg, but afterward,
they found it must be taken off higher up, just above the knee, and the
dear patient suffering child went through with the agony all over again.
It makes one cry to think of it. But see, Lucy don’t cry, I wish she
would; she is so much like an angel that I am afraid we shall lose her,
after all, though the doctor says she will “get well, slowly.” She likes
the flowers I bring her; she likes the little dainty doll too, with its
changes of dresses, and skirts and aprons and bonnets; for she gets
tired looking at that long row of beds, with a groaning sick person in
each; at that row of windows too, down the long hall; she wearies of
moving her little wasted forefinger, round and round the figures on her
bed-quilt; she wearies of looking at her little stump of a limb, and
wondering how she shall learn to walk with only one leg, and she wearies
lying in one position hour after hour, without turning over. I don’t
wonder. I thought as I sat there, how I should like to hang some
pictures on those bare walls, for those sick folks to look at and think
about, as they lie there; how I should like to give them all a fresh
bunch of flowers every day; and how sad it was, when they were sick and
nervous and weak, to see a patient in the next bed die, before their
eyes, and be carried out. All these thoughts passed through my mind, as
I sat fanning little Lucy; and it made me happy to see her turning over
the doll’s little gay-colored dresses, and trying them on, one after
another, and saying “How pretty!” Lucy wanted a name for the doll I
brought her, so I gave it the name of “Fanny.” Lucy did not know _why_ I
chose that name, though you and I do. But we must go now, for the
pleasant-looking fat nurse has brought Lucy her dinner, and I think that
will do her more good than we can; but stop a minute, Lucy, should you
like me to bring you a little book, next time I come? (Oh, dear, how
_could_ I ask the child? see, she hangs her head, she “can’t read,”
although she is seven years old). Well, can you sew, Lucy? Yes, she can
sew. Oh, that’s nice; then you shall have a little thimble, some
needles, some spools, a pair of scissors, and some silk to make your
doll some dresses, and a box to keep them all in; that’s what you shall
have, you poor little patient lamb-like Lucy. You are a living sermon,
and if I am not better for seeing you, it will not be because I don’t
need improving.
THE TRUANT.
Johnny thought he knew better than his mother what was best for boys.
Johnny’s mother thought it was not safe for boys to play about the
streets. Johnny thought that was all nonsense. As Johnny could not get
leave to play in the street, he thought he would play there without
leave. One fine day, he snatched his cap slyly, when his mother was
busy, and stepped out at the front door, and whipped round the corner in
less time than I have taken to tell you about it. Wasn’t it delightful?
What was the use of being a boy, if he must be tied to his mother’s
apron-string, like a whimpering cry-baby of a girl? Other boys played in
the street, plenty of them. True, they did not always have whole rims to
their hats, and their jackets were buttonless, and their knees were
through their trowsers; but what of that? They were “first-rate fellows
to play.” True, they used bad words now and then, but he, Johnny, was
not obliged to do so. His mother was a very nice mother, and he loved
her; but his mother never was a boy, and how could she tell what boys
wanted? He did not mean to disobey her—oh, no; he only meant—pshaw! what
was the use of wasting time thinking about that. Halloo! there’s an
organ-grinder with a monkey; and there’s a man with three little fat
pups to sell, black pups, with white paws, and curly drooping ears, and
tails so short that they can’t even wag them; and there’s a shop-window
with marbles and fire-crackers—what a pity he had no pence! And there’s
a boy stealing molasses out of a hole in a hogshead by sucking it
through a straw; and there are two boys at a fruit-stall—one talks to
the old woman who keeps it, while the other slyly pockets an apple,
without paying for it; and there’s a boy sprawling in the middle of the
street, who tried to steal a ride on an omnibus step, and got a smart
cut on his temple for his pains; and there—yes—there’s Tom Thumb’s
carriage on a high cart. What funny little ponies. How Johnny wishes he
were General Tom Thumb, instead of plain Johnny Scott. Silly boy, as if
it were not better to be a fine full-grown man, able to fight for his
country if she needed him, as Johnny will be some day, than to be passed
round the country for a little hop o’ my thumb puppet show? And yonder
is a great stone building. What can it be? Perhaps a bank. No, it is too
big for that. What a great heavy door it has. It is not a meeting-house.
No—and Johnny drew nearer. Now the big gate opens, and a crowd of people
gather outside. Johnny goes a little nearer; nearer, nearer still; now
he sees a cart stop before the door. ’Tis not a baker’s cart, nor a
grocer’s cart, nor a milkman’s cart—but never mind the cart.
See! inside the gate across that fenced yard, come a dozen or more boys,
about Johnny’s age, and a man with them. Who are they? What are they
there for? Why is that man with them? And where are they going? Johnny
edges a little nearer. Now he has one foot inside the gate, for the
little boys are passing through, and he wants to look at them. Now they
have all passed through. Where are they going in that cart?
“Come along, you little scapegrace. None of your lagging behind,” says
the man who was with the boys, seizing Johnny roughly by the shoulder.
“Come along, don’t you pull away from me. Come, it is no use crying for
your mother—you should have thought of her before you stole those
peaches. Where you are going? You know well enough that the Judge has
sent the whole gang of you to Blackwell’s Island and there’s the city
cart to take you there; and I am the man to put you into it, and see
that you go. None of your kicking, now. Come along, or it will be the
worse for you.” And he seized Johnny, and lifting him by his trowsers
into the cart as easily as you would handle a kitten, he locked him in
with the other boys, and told the driver to go ahead. “Stop there,” said
a man in the street to the driver; “stop there. That little fellow don’t
belong to those bad boys. His name is little Johnny Scott. His mother is
a neighbor of mine, a very nice woman too. I know her very well. He was
only looking round the gate of ‘The Tombs’ to see what was going on. Let
him out, I say. I will see him safe home. Oh, Johnny, Johnny, this comes
of running about the street. You might have been carried to Blackwell’s
Island, had it not been for me. What do you suppose your mother would
say to see you here?”
Sure enough, that’s what Johnny thought, as he clambered out of the
prison-wagon and wiped his eyes on his jacket sleeve. Sure enough, how
could he ever look her in the face?
But his mother did not punish him. No, she thought rightly that he had
punished himself enough; and so he had. It was a good lesson to him, and
for a long time he was ashamed to go out into the street, for fear some
boy who was looking on that day, and had seen him pushed into the
prison-cart, would halloo after him, “There goes a Blackwell Island
boy.”
BESSIE AND HER MOTHER.
Bessie was very fond of reading. Well, I think I hear some of you say, I
hope you are not going to find fault with that. Oh, but I am, though;
because as wise old Solomon said thousands of years ago, there is a time
for every thing. Bessie did not believe this; she thought that time was
never made to sew; she thought that time was never made to dust, or
sweep, or keep herself tidy, or attend to visitors, or go of errands, or
do any thing, in fact, but read, read, read, from Monday till Saturday,
and Saturday till Monday. She would sit down with a story-book in her
hand, the first thing after breakfast, the sun shining in through the
closed windows upon an un-made bed, which needed airing, upon dresses,
shoes, and stockings, which needed putting away, upon her own unsmoothed
locks, unbrushed teeth, uncleansed finger-nails, and torn morning-dress;
what do you think of that? Then her mother would call, “Bessie!” and
Bessie would answer “Yes,” without stirring or raising her eyes from the
story-book; then her mother would call again, “Bessie!” louder than
before, and then Bessie would begin to move slowly across the room,
still reading, to see what was wanted; then her mother would tell her to
“go down and tell the cook to make apple dumplings for dinner;” then
Bessie, with her mind still on the book, would go down and tell Sally
“_not_ to make apple dumplings for dinner;” then her mother would tell
her to “shut the front entry-door, where the hot sun was beating in;”
then Bessie would go and shut the china-closet door instead; then her
mother would say, “Bessie, have you mended your stockings this week?”
and Bessie would answer, without knowing what she was talking about,
“Yes, mother;” and then that afternoon, Bessie’s mother would tell her
to “get ready to go out with her;” and then Bessie would say, “I have no
stockings mended to wear;” and then her mother would remind her of what
she said about it, and Bessie would look at her as bewildered as if she
had been dreaming, for she did not know when she told her so what she
was saying. Was it right for Bessie to do so? and was it wrong in
Bessie’s mother, who knew how necessary it is for girls to be tidy, and
orderly, and neat, to tell Bessie that she must only read so much a day,
and that, not before she had attended to all these things which I have
said she was in the habit of neglecting? Was it wrong for Bessie’s
mother to insist upon her going into the kitchen sometimes, and learning
how to clean silver, and how to cook and make pies and cakes? was it
wrong for her to oblige her to keep her thimble and scissors in her
work-basket, instead of on the piazza-floor, and her shawl in the drawer
instead of under the bed? was it wrong for her to make her lace up her
gaiters neatly, instead of letting the strings tangle round her feet? It
would have been much less trouble to Bessie’s mother had she allowed her
to take her own way about these things, instead of trotting up-stairs
and down to see what she was about, and how things looked in her room;
but Bessie’s mother knew that a woman is always disgusting, no matter
how much she knows, or has read, unless she is neat and tidy in her
habits, and that she is not worthy the name of a woman, if she can not
take proper care of her house, or is too indolent, or slovenly to do it;
she loved her daughter better than she did her own ease, and she knew,
spite of Bessie’s tears, that it were cruel kindness to heed them; she
knew that many a man has become a drunkard because he never found any
thing fit to eat on his table, or his house in decent order when he came
home; it is quite as necessary for a woman to know how to make wholesome
bread and puddings, as it is that she should read, and study, and be
able to talk about books, or even to write them herself; yes, though she
may be able to have cooks and chambermaids to do her work. Suppose she
wants a pudding for dinner; suppose she has a cook who does not like to
work any better than her mistress if she can help it; and suppose the
cook not caring to take trouble to make the pudding, tells her ignorant
mistress, that “there is not time now to make and boil it before
dinner.” Such things have been done, and many a fine lady, I can tell
you, has been obliged to go without her pudding, because she did not
know enough to tell the cook that what she said was not true.
Beside, suppose this lady who knows so much about books, should get into
difficulty with her servants, and they should all go off and leave her;
must her husband go without his dinner because she can not, at a
moment’s notice, get more servants to cook for her? how helpless such a
woman is—how ashamed she must feel, as her husband puts on his hat and
goes to an eating-house to get his dinner. Bessie did not think of all
this, but her mother did. By-and-by when Bessie grew up, and was
married, and had a nice pretty house, she knew how to mend her husband’s
clothes and get him a good dinner, as well as she did how to talk with
him about books, and other things in which he was interested; and when,
looking round his comfortable home, he kissed his wife, and said,
“Bessie you are my treasure,” Bessie would point to the little
grave-yard within sight of her window and as her tears fell fast she
would say, “Oh, if I could but thank my mother now for all she did for
me when I was so naughty and wayward.”
Think of this, dear children, when you pout to lay down an interesting
story-book, when your mother calls you to do some necessary work; and
don’t wait till the tombstone lies heavy on her breast before you
believe that she knows better than you what is best for you.
RED-HEADED ANDY.
What should you do were your mother to fall down in a fit? stand still
and scream? or run out of the house, and leave her lying half-dead upon
the floor? Or, should you have what people call, “presence of mind?”
that is, call for somebody to help her, and do all you could for her
till they came. It is a great thing to have “presence of mind;” there
are very few grown people who have it; there are plenty of people when a
bad accident happens, who will crowd round the sick person, keep all the
good fresh air away from him; wring their hands, say oh! and ah! and
shocking! and dreadful! but there are few who think to run quickly for
the doctor, or bring a glass of water, or do any one of the thousand
little things which would help so much to make the poor sufferer better.
If grown people do not think of these things, we certainly should not be
disappointed if children do not; and yet, wonderful, though it may be,
they are often quicker-witted at such a time than their elders. I will
tell you a story, to show you that it is so.
Andy Moore, was a short, stunted, freckled, little country boy; tough as
a pine knot, and with about as much polish. Sometimes he wore a hat, and
sometimes he didn’t; he was not at all particular about that; his shaggy
red hair, he thought, protected his head well enough; as for what people
would think of it—he did not live in Broadway, where one’s shoe-lacings
are measured; his home was in the country, and a very wild, rocky
country, at that; he knew much more about chip-munks, rattle-snakes, and
birds’-eggs, than he did about fashions; he liked to sit rocking on the
top of a great tall tree; or standing on a high hill, where the wind
almost took him off his feet; he thought the sunset, with its golden
clouds, “well enough,” but he delighted in a thunder-storm; when the
forked lightning darted zig-zag across the heavy black clouds, blinding
you with its brightness; or when the roaring thunder seemed to shake the
very hills, and the gentle little birds cowered trembling in their nests
for fear.
Andy’s house was a rough shanty enough, on the side of a hill; it was
built of mud, peat and logs, with holes for windows; there was nothing
very pleasant there; his mother smoked a pipe when she was not cooking
or washing, and his father was a day laborer who spent his wages for
whisky and tobacco. No wonder that Andy liked to rock on the top of the
tall trees, and liked the thunder and lightning better than the eternal
jangling of their drunken quarrels. Andy could hear the hum of busy life
in the far-off villages; but he had never been there; he had no books,
so he did a great deal of thinking, and he hoped some day to be
something beside just plain Andy Moore, but how or when, the boy had not
made up his mind. In the mean time, he grew, and slept, and ate, and
thought—the very best thing at his age that he could have done,
anywhere, had he but known it.
There was a railroad track near the hut of Andy’s father; and Andy often
watched the black engine, with its long trail, as it came fizzing past,
belching out great clouds of steam and smoke, and screeching through the
valleys and under the hills like a mad demon. Although it went by the
hut every day, yet he had never wished to ride in it; he had been
content with lying on the sand bank, watching it disappear in the
distance, leaving great wreaths of smoke curling round the treetops. One
day as Andy was strolling across the track, he saw that there was
something wrong about it; he did not know much about railroad tracks,
because he was as yet quite a little lad, but the rails seemed to be
wrong somehow; and Andy had heard of cars being thrown off by such
things. Just then, he heard a low distant noise; dear, dear, the cars
were coming, coming then! He was but a little boy, but perhaps he could
stop them in some way, at any rate there was nobody else there to do it.
Andy never thought that he might be killed himself; but he went and
stood right in the middle of the track, just before the bad place on it,
that I have told you about, and stretched out his little arms as far as
he could. On, on came the cars, louder and louder. The engineer saw the
boy on the track, and whistled for him to get out of the way; Andy never
moved a hair; again he whistled; Andy might have been made of stone, for
all the notice he took of it; then the engineer of course had to stop
the train, swearing as he did so, at Andy, for “not getting out of the
way;” but when Andy pointed to the track, and he saw how the brave
little fellow had not only saved his life but the lives of all the
passengers, his curses changed to blessings, very quick. Every body
rushed out to see the horrible death they had escaped, had the cars
rushed over the bad track and tossed headlong down the steep bank into
the river. Ladies kissed Andy’s rough freckled face, and cried over him;
and the gentlemen, as they looked at their wives and children, wiped
their eyes and said “God bless the boy;” and that is not all, they took
out their porte-monnaies and contributed a large sum of money for him;
not that they could ever repay the service he had done them; they knew
that; but to show him in some way beside mere words, that they felt
grateful. Now THAT boy had presence of mind. Good, brave little Andy!
The passengers all wrote down his name, Andy Moore, and the place he
lived in; and if you want to know where Andy is now, I will tell you. He
is in college; and these people whose lives he saved, pay his bills and
are going to see him safe through. Who dare say, now, when a little
jacket and trowsers runs past, “It is only a boy!”
LITTLE NAPKIN.
I am sure I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Poor little “Napkin!”
Of course you know that “Napkin” is Louis Napoleon’s little baby;
perhaps you don’t know that his mamma does not nurse him herself. I
wonder does she know how much pleasure she loses by not doing it? I
wonder does she know how sweet it is to wake in the night, and find a
baby’s soft little hand on her neck, and his dear little head lying upon
her arm? I wonder does she know how beautiful a baby is when it first
wakes in the morning, raising its little head from the pillow, and
gazing at you with its lustrous eyes and rosy cheeks, so like a
fresh-blown dewy flower? I wonder does she know how delicious it is to
give the little hungry rogue his breakfast? No, no; poor Eugenia! poor
empress! She knows nothing of all this. She has had all a mother’s pain,
and none of a mother’s pleasure. She hires a woman to nurse and sleep
with little “Napkin;” she never sees how sweet he looks in the bath, the
water dripping from his round polished limbs; she never puts his little
fat arms into the cunning little sleeves of his clean white robe, or
puts his little foot, with its rosy-tipped toes, into the little warm
stocking. I wouldn’t be the empress, no, not for all her beauty and
diamonds, if I could not do all this for my little “Napkin.” The
handsomest dresses in all Paris would not comfort me any if I knew
Madame Baut, or Madame any body else, was giving my little Napkin his
milk, instead of myself; no, indeed. I should be afraid, too, all the
time, that some pin was pricking him, or that his frock-strings were
tied too tight, or that Madame Baut, or whoever the nurse is, would—but
what is the use of talking about it? I would not have any Madame Baut.
What is the use of being empress, if you can’t do as you like,
especially with your own baby? One might as well be a slave-mother. I
had rather be that Irish woman yonder, hanging out her husband’s clothes
in the meadow, while her baby creeps after her on all fours, picking
butter-cups. Not nurse my own baby! Not wash him, dress him, or sleep
with him? Ah, Monsieur Louis Napoleon, it is lucky _I_ am not Eugenie.
If you wanted your empress, I am afraid you would have to come to little
Napkin’s nursery for her. “Happy as a queen.” It makes me laugh when any
body says that; or happy as an empress, either. I don’t want half a
dozen maids of honor to dress and undress me, and put me to bed. I don’t
want them following at my heels whenever I walk in the halls, gardens,
or drawing-rooms. I should go crazy at the thought of it. I should lock
the door on the whole of them. I wouldn’t be dressed so many times a
day. I wouldn’t have so much twisting, and braiding, and curling, and
plaiting of my hair. I wouldn’t call my husband “Sire!” Sire! Just
imagine it? How you would laugh to hear your mother call your father
“Sire.” No, I would say, Napoleon, or Nappy (just as the whim suited
me), suppose we put our little “Napkin” in the basket-wagon, and draw
him to the Tuileries; and then I, the empress, would—but, thank
goodness, I am _not_ an empress. I am very sure if I were, I should get
my head cut off.
Little Napkin had an uncle named Napoleon Charles, who died when he was
very young. One day he was sitting with his mamma, Hortense, at a window
of her beautiful palace, which looked out on the avenue. It had been
raining very hard, and the avenue was filled with little puddles of
water, in which some barefooted children were playing with little boats
made of chips. The little Prince Napoleon Charles was beautifully
dressed, and had more costly toys to play with than I suppose you or I
ever saw in our lives, some of which were given him by his good, dear,
beautiful grandmother Josephine, whom all France, and indeed every body
who ever heard of her, loved. But the little Prince Napoleon Charles did
not seem to care for the beautiful presents, nor his beautiful clothes,
nor the splendid furniture of the palace, but stood looking out of the
window on the avenue.
His mamma, noticing it, said, “So, my son, you do not thank your
grandmamma for all her kindness and those pretty presents she sent you?”
“Oh, yes, mamma,” said little Napoleon Charley, “but grandmamma is so
good, I am used to it; but look at those little boys, mamma.”
“Well,” said his mother, “what of them? Do you wish you had some money
to give them?”
“No; papa gave me some money this morning, and it is all given away.”
“Well, then, what ails my dear child? What do you want?”
_“Oh,” said the little prince, hesitatingly, “I know you won’t let me;
but if I could run about in that beautiful puddle, it would amuse me
more than all good grandmamma’s presents!”_
You whose fathers are not rich, and who envy other children their fine
clothes, fine toys, and fine carriages, must remember this little story.
There are plenty of rich men’s children who would be glad to part with
all these things, could they only make “dirt-pies,” and splash their
bare toes in the gutters, as you do. All is not gold that glitters;
believe this, and it will cure you of many a heartache.
THE SPOILED BOY.
If there ever was a boy who needed a dose of the old-fashioned medicine
called “oil of birch,” it was Tommy Sprout. He had scowled and fretted
till his face looked like a winter-apple toward spring, all shriveled,
and spotted, and wrinkled. The moment Tommy sat down to table, before
the rest of the family had a chance to get settled in their chairs,
Tommy would begin this fashion: “I say Ma” (Tommy pronounced it “Mha,”
through his nose), “I say mha, give me some milk, quick!”
Then his “mha,” instead of sending him away from the table, as she
should have done, would say,
“Presently, my son; wait a few minutes, till I have poured out the
coffee!”
“I whon’t whait, I say, mha, I whon’t whait; so there, now;” and Tommy
would catch hold of his mother’s arm and jerk the coffee all about.
“Come now, mha, gim’ me my mhilk, quick!”
Then his mother would stop pouring out the coffee, no matter how many
older persons than Tommy were waiting for it, and give him his milk,
which he would drink down, hardly stopping to breathe, making a noise
like a little pig who is sucking his corn out of a trough. Then he would
set down his cup, wipe his mouth on his jacket sleeve, catch hold of his
mother’s elbow, and say, “Mha, give me an egg!”
“Wait my son, till I can fix it for you.”
“No I won’t; I want to fix it myself; I say, give me one.”
“Oh, Tommy, what a boy you are; well, take it, then;” and his mother
would give him an egg.
Then Tommy would begin to pound the shell with his tea-spoon, and pretty
soon it would break, and the egg would fly all over him, and all over
the table-cloth, while Tommy tried to ladle it up with his tea-spoon.
Then he would cram a great wedge of bread and butter into his mouth, and
before it was half swallowed, he would ask his “mha” where the hammer
was, “’cause he and Sam Gill were going to make a prime box;” and when
he had found out where it was, he would jump up and fly through the
door, leaving it wide open, and his mother would get up and shut it, and
say for the hundredth time, “Did you ever?”
One day Tommy was sitting astride the garden-gate, playing horse, when a
lady came up to call on his mother. Tommy sat still, and never offered
to let her pass in.
“Let me come in, my dear, please,” said the lady.
“Get up, Dobbin, get up, old hoss,” said Tommy lashing the gate with a
willow switch, without answering the lady.
“Let me pass, will you, dear?”
“No, I won’t; I’m playing hoss; you may just go round to the back gate.”
So the lady went round to the back gate, wetting her feet in the dewy
grass. Tommy’s mother was quite surprised when the lady appeared
suddenly before her kitchen window, where she was making cake, instead
of ringing at the front door, as visitors always did; and when she found
out how it was, she said again, “Did you ever?”
Tommy went on lashing his “hoss.”
Tommy was a great cry-baby; though he was very fond of plaguing other
people, he was not quite so fond of being teazed himself; if a boy did
but point at him, he would run screaming in to his mother like a mad
bull, and she would hug him up, and wipe his great red face with her
pocket-handkerchief, and give him a piece of frosted cake to comfort
him.
“Did you ever?”
Well, you can imagine what sort of a man such a boy would make, when he
grew up. When he was twenty, he got married, and brought his wife home
to his mother’s to live; his father had been dead many years. Ah, then
the poor old lady, his mother, reaped the bitter fruit of the seed she
had sown. Tom ordered her round like a servant; sitting with his feet up
in a chair, while she limped up-stairs and down to wait upon him. Poor
old lady; she saw too late the sad mistake she had made; and how cruel
had been her kindness to Tommy. By-and-by she died; Tom’s wife had been
driven off long before by her husband’s bad conduct, and now he was all
alone at the old farm-house. Then he was taken with a shocking
rheumatism in all his limbs; he could not even so much as lift a finger
to help himself; he had no friends now to come in and comfort him,
because he had made all his acquaintances dislike him; he had nobody but
the doctor, and “old Maggie,” whom he hired to come and make his tea,
and there he lay on the bed groaning and swearing. Oh! it would chill
your blood to hear him—you, whom I hope, never take the dear and holy
name of God in vain. Nobody pitied him, because, they said, “he had been
so bad.”
One Sunday Tom lay in bed groaning; the sun streamed in through the
half-closed shutters, and the little motes were swimming round in the
sunbeams; the window was partly open, and the scent of the clover
blossoms and new-mown hay floated in on the summer air. Sabbath-school
was over, for the little children were singing their parting hymn; and
this was what they were singing:
“Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;
The darkness thickens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!
“Swift to the close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see,
Oh, Thou who changest not, abide with me!”
Very sweet were those little childish voices; very sweet were the words
they sang. It was a long, long time since Tom had shed a tear; but he
did so now. Poor, wicked, lonely Tom! and long after the childrens’ eyes
were closed, like flowers, in sleep, as he lay awake, that night, the
words came to him, again and again, “Help of the helpless, oh, abide
with me!”
I told you that none of Tom’s acquaintances wanted to go near him,
because he was so bad. Oh, is it not well that God does not feel so
toward us, sinners? that He pities us because we are so bad and wicked?
and that when every body forsook poor bad Tom, He drew near to him, in
the voices of the dear little children, softening his icy heart, as the
sun melts the snow? What else could have made Tom willing to linger and
to suffer, longer or shorter, as God willed it? What else made him ask
old Maggie’s pardon for his oaths and rough words to her? What else
could have made him so lamb-like, those two long, painful years, before
Death came to set the spirit free, from his worn-out body? None, during
all that time, ever heard a complaint from the lips once so full of
curses; but often, in the night-time, as the traveler passed the old
farm-house, he would stop to listen to these words, from poor sleepless,
but happy Tom:
“Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!”
PUSS AND I.
Muff, come here! Don’t stop to clean your paws, that is only an excuse
for not minding, you naughty little mischief. Come here, Muff; you need
not play with my watch-chain or your tail either. I do not wonder that
you dislike to look me in the eye, you are not the first guilty one who
has dreaded to look in the eye of the person whom they had wronged.
Muff, who jumped upon the marble table and frightened the poor
gold-fish, by putting a paw into the glass globe? who went down cellar
and lapped milk out of the pan? who jumped on the breakfast-table, and
helped herself to beefsteak, before her mistress could get down to
table? who flew at the looking-glass-doors of my new secretary, to play
with another Muff, who seemed to play with her? who scratched and
defaced the rosewood ornaments upon the side of the secretary, with her
sharp claws? who took a nap on the velvet sofa, without asking
by-your-leave? and, worse than all, Muff, oh, Muff, who stole into my
chamber, before I woke, in the morning, and, with one spring, lit on my
astonished face, startling me into a headache for the rest of the day?
what have you got to say to all that, Miss Muff?
Well, in the first place, if you please, madam, I will answer your
question (Yankee fashion) by asking another. Whose cook was it who threw
her apron over me, when I was quietly taking a walk in the street one
day, and brought me here without saying by-your-leave, for a play-mate
for your own little girl? As to the “gold-fish,” I did put my paw on the
glass globe, there’s no use denying that, because you peeped into the
parlor just as I was doing it; but that does not prove that I wanted to
kill and eat them, and if I did, did not you buy a fresh lobster this
morning, of the market-man, and tell your cook to boil him, boil him
_alive_? if you kill creatures for your dinner how should a poor little
cat be expected to do better?
“Lapped milk out of a pan,” did I? don’t you often, when you pass into a
confectioner’s shop, pick up bits of candy and peppermint-drops, and put
them in your mouth, while you are wailing to be waited upon? People who
live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, mistress! As to helping
myself “to beefsteak,” if your girl had not kidnapped me, and brought me
to this bran-new house, where there is not a sign of a mouse to be had,
I would not have been obliged to steal your beefsteak. With regard to
“looking in the glass,” the less you say about that, the better.
Where’s the harm if I did want to trim my whiskers a little, and admire
my soft white paws, I am not the only person in this house who looks in
the glass, I reckon. I also plead guilty to “taking a nap on your velvet
sofa,” but I will leave it to any outsider, if I did not look better on
it than did the _boots of that gentleman_ who called to see you the
other evening, and who certainly _ought_ to know what velvet sofas were
intended for.
Yes, and I jumped on your face in the morning too, I am not going to
back out of that, but you must recollect that you have a way of sleeping
too long in the morning; and that I never can get my breakfast till your
ladyship has had yours; as to the headache you say I gave you by doing
it, it is my opinion, that the preserves, and hot biscuit, you ate for
tea the night before, were answerable for that. But what a fool I am to
waste words with a woman who lays down one rule of right for her cat,
and another for herself; thank goodness there’s a mouse, the first I’ve
seen here, now you’ll see science, or my name is not kitty; keep your
old cold beefsteak and welcome, and I will take my first independent
meal in this house, off hot mouse, and no thanks to you.
LUCY’S FAULT.
Lucy had long silken golden curls, they fell quite to her waist. Her
mother did not “do them up” in paper; her hair curled naturally. Lucy
was not proud of her curls; she did not care any thing about them;
ladies in the street, often stopped her to look at them: and her little
playmates often said, “I wish my hair curled like Lucy’s,” but Lucy
always said, “I wish they were off.”
One day Lucy went to her mother, and said: “May I have my curls cut
off?”
“No,” said her mother, “I should not like to have them cut; I think it
would be a great pity, they are so soft, so long, and so even; your head
is always full of notions, run away and play.”
Lucy went away, but she kept thinking about her hair, and wishing her
mother would let her have it all cut off, and when Lucy once got her
heart set on any thing, she never would be satisfied till she got it.
A few days after, she thought she would try again, so she said, “Mother,
if you would only let me go to Mr. Wynne, the barber, and have my hair
cut close; may I mother?”
“Yes,” said her mother.
Lucy looked up in astonishment. “May I really? Do you know what you are
saying?”
“Yes.”
Up sprang Lucy, her long golden curls streaming out behind her like a
vail, up three steps at a time to her room, to get her bonnet and shawl,
then down three stairs at a time to her mother, to get the money to pay
Mr. Wynne for cutting her hair. Lucy never asked any one to go with her,
she was a very independent little girl, she knew the way to the
barber’s, because her father used to go there to get shaved, and when
Lucy was much smaller, he used sometimes to take her with him.
So Lucy soon found the shop; there were no customers in it. Lucy was
glad of that; nobody to bother her; but unfortunately Mr. Wynne was not
in, either. But Lucy was determined that she would not be disappointed,
so when the barber’s assistant said,
“What do you want of Mr. Wynne?”
She answered, “I want him to cut off my curls.”
“Cut your curls?” replied the man; “were they my sister’s, I would not
have them cut off for a five dollar bill; one don’t see such curls as
yours every day, miss.”
“They must be cut,” said little Lucy, shutting her lips together very
firmly. “Why can’t you cut them for me?”
“Not I,” said the assistant, “at least not till Mr. Wynne comes in.”
“My mother knows about it,” said Lucy, with a vexed toss of her curls,
“see, here is the money to pay you for cutting my hair.”
“Perhaps so—perhaps so!” said the assistant, “but I should rather not
put scissors to that hair, till Mr. Wynne tells me to. I expect him in
soon—you can wait, miss, if you choose.”
Lucy did choose; so untying her bonnet-strings, she seated herself
before a cage, in which hung a red and green poll parrot, who cocked his
head one side, and looking at her with a doleful twist in his red eye,
said,
“Poll’s sick!”
Lucy had never seen a poll parrot before, and she looked this way and
that way, as if she could not believe that the bird said this.
Then the poll parrot said,
“Give Poll some sugar! Poll’s sick!” and before Lucy had done laughing
at this, he said,
“Want to be shaved? take a seat.”
“No,” said Lucy, laughing; “but I want my hair cut!”
The poll parrot cocked his head on one side again, and whined out,
“Poll’s sorry!”
“He don’t know what he is talking about, does he?” asked Lucy, looking a
little abashed. “Any way I shall have my curls cut, Miss Polly; see if I
don’t!”
“Your curls cut—_that_ hair cut!” exclaimed old Mr. Wynne, coming in at
the door; “not at my shop, you little rogue. What do you suppose your
mother would do to me? I’ll be bound she sets her life by ’em: Many a
lady who brings her little girl here to have her hair curled with the
curling-tongs, when she is going to a party, would give her eyes for
these natural curls of yours. No, no, Miss Lucy, you would get me into a
pretty scrape there at home. Ah! when you are a little older, you will
not be in such a hurry to part with ’em, to my thinking—better run home
to your ma, Miss Lucy!”
“My mother sent me here,” said Lucy; “and see here is the money to pay
you for cutting my hair.”
[Illustration]
“Now really, Miss Lucy? honor bright?
“Really and truly,” said Lucy.
“Well—it’s a sin and a shame; but I’ll do it if your ma said so; look
here, Jacob!” and Mr. Wynne lifted the heavy curls on his finger; “not
an uneven hair in ’em, Jacob, and just as soft as silk.”
“Make a dozen frizettes,” said Jacob; “a good job for us, any how.”
“Yes; and if it was a boy’s hair I shouldn’t mind. I hate to see a boy
curled and befrizzed; I think somehow it puts puppy notions in his head,
that he don’t ever get rid of; but a little girl is another matter. St.
Paul says, you know.”
“Never mind St. Paul;” said Jacob, “it will make at least a dozen
frizettes, good full ones at that!”
“Well—here goes then, Miss Lucy,” and snipping the sharp shears, down
fall the curls in a golden shower one after another upon the floor.
Jacob meanwhile looked on in delighted astonishment.
“There miss,” said old Mr. Wynne, rubbing some cologne over her cropped
head, “I think it is a chance if your own mother would know you now.”
“Never fear,” said Lucy, passing her hand over her shaven crown; and
tying on her bonnet without stopping to look in the glass.
“It has really quite changed her,” said Mr. Wynne, pocketing his
shilling, as Lucy went out the door; “but as you say, Jacob, those curls
are worth something to us.”
On flew Lucy, as if wings were at her heels, and bursting into the
parlor, where her brothers, and sisters, and mother were sitting,
twitched off her bonnet, and stood to be admired.
Such a shout!
“What’s the matter?” said the astonished Lucy.
“Look in the glass—only look in the glass,” was all the merry laughers
could say. “Oh, Lucy, what a fright you are!”
“An escaped bedlamite,” said her brother John.
Lucy ran to the glass—the blush which overspread her cheeks and temples
might plainly be seen crimsoning the very roots of her shaved hair. “Did
old Mr. Wynne put a bowl on your hair, and cut it to the shape of it?”
asked John, holding his sides.
Poor Lucy! She did not expect that old Mr. Wynne would make her so
ridiculous a figure. Rushing up-stairs into her room and into bed, she
sprang between the sheets, and drawing them tightly over her unfortunate
head, sobbed out her vexation.
By-and-by her mother came up.
“Lucy.”
“Oh, mother, I did not think he would make me such a fright. Why did you
let me go, mother?”
“Because I thought the loss of my little daughter’s curls would be but a
small sacrifice, should it cure her of that impetuous, impatient spirit
which leads her into so many difficulties. I could easily, my dear
child, have cut your curls (were it advisable to do so) in such a way as
not to disfigure you; but, as usual, you asked no advice, and thought
you knew best about it. Mr. Wynne is much better at scraping men’s chins
than at cutting young girls’ hair.”
“But can’t you fix me up a little, mother? I don’t want John to call me
‘a bedlamite.’”
“Don’t lie a-bed then, Lucy.”
Lucy was too troubled to laugh; but she got up slowly, and her mother
managed, with a comb, a brush, and a little water, to coax up the few
hairs she had left, as only a mother’s fingers know how.
Now, when Lucy has any pet plan in that little head of hers, she always
goes to her mother first, and says, “Tell me what you think about it,
mother.”
UNTIDY MARY.
“Oh, Mary, Mary, how your room looks! Books, scissors, pincushions,
spools, dresses, shoes and stockings, all lying pell-mell upon the
floor. One would think your bureau-drawers had been stirred up with a
pudding-stick; and as to your closets, it makes me quite sick to peep
into them. “You cleaned it up?” Yes, I know you did, about a week ago,
and ever since, after having used any thing, you have thrown it down
just where it came handiest, instead of putting it in its place. You are
only a little girl—I know that, too; but women are made out of little
girls, and wives and mothers out of women; and most likely as you keep
your room now, and all your little property in the way of books and
toys, just so you will keep your house when you are mistress of one.
That’s why I speak to you about it. That’s why it is so important you
should learn _now_ to be tidy and neat.”
Now I will tell you what I would like you to do. It does not matter to
me whether you have plenty of servants in the house or not. I would like
you to make your own bed every morning. Not _spread_ it up, but _make_
it up. You may need help to turn over your mattress, but that done, the
rest is easy. Then I would like you to sweep your room. Then I would
like you to dust it. Then I would like you to place every article in the
room where it would look best and prettiest. Then wind up all your
spools of cotton, and disentangle all the odds and ends in your
work-basket. Now I am ready to sit down in that chair opposite, and tell
you a story. If you think I could have done it just as well while things
were in such disorder, you are mistaken. I would have swept and dusted
it myself first. What is the story to be about? Don’t be in a hurry. I
have to do every thing after my own fashion, and I have not got through
with what I had to say yet. Just look round your room. Don’t you feel a
pleasure in seeing that nice smooth bed without a hump in it? and those
nice smooth pillows set up against the head-board? Does not your
looking-glass look better, now the fly-specks are wiped off? and the
rounds of your chairs and your bureau, for being dusted? does not your
wash-bowl look better emptied of its dirty water, with the pitcher set
in it, and the nice white towel spread over? do not your dresses look
better on the closet-pegs than on the floor, and your bonnet in its
band-box instead of on a chair? and does it not give you pleasure that
you know how to wait upon yourself, without jerking the bell-wire for a
poor tired servant to do it for you? “Yes?” That’s right. Now I will
tell you the story.
Once on a time.
No, that won’t do, every body begins a story that way.
When I was a little girl I—that won’t do either, because it was such a
while ago that perhaps you will think I can’t remember correctly.
Nonsense, supposing I couldn’t, a story is a story, isn’t it? You need
not laugh.
When I was a little girl, children used to “go to catechize,” as they
called it then, _i.e._, the minister, once a month, collected all the
children of his church, in a vestry, to recite the lessons he had given
out to them, in the catechism. Some of the answers in this catechism
were long, and all of them difficult for a child to understand. Now
there was one defect (if you choose to call it so) about me, which has
stuck by me ever since. It is next to impossible for me to commit to
memory any thing I do not fully understand. To be sure, when I stated my
difficulty, they explained it; but the mischief was, that the
explanation was often harder still to comprehend than the thing
explained; now you see why I used to dread “catechism afternoons.” Most
of the girls had the parrot-faculty of rattling off the answers in a
manner, to me, truly astonishing and discouraging. Then I had a very
thin skin, and a very distressing habit of blushing through it, when
spoken to, of which I was very much ashamed; added to this, every little
girl who was called upon to answer a question, had to stand up and look
“the minister” in the eye, while she did it. See now what a double and
twisted distress there was about it. Then all the parrot-girls called me
“stupid.” Now I knew that I was _not_ stupid, but that was small comfort
when every body thought so. I thought it over and cried about it, and
thumbed my catechism, thinking perhaps that was the way to “have it at
my finger ends,” as people often say; and then I cried again, for that
word “stupid,” troubled me. Now the very next lesson contained a very
long and very hard answer, that I was very sure, for that reason, would
come to me. I read it over; it might as well have been Greek or Latin
for all I could make of it. No, it was of no use, I never could learn
it, that point was settled. I shut up my catechism and folded my hands;
perhaps they were right, after all, perhaps I was “stupid,” and I cried
again.
No, I was _not_ stupid. I sprang up and wiped my tears away; I looked in
the glass, my face was not handsome, certainly, but it was not a stupid
face, it was as bright as the faces of those parrot-girls, at any rate;
well I just locked the door, and sat down on a cricket very resolutely,
in the middle of the room, opened the catechism, laid it in front of me,
then with my elbows on my knees and my fingers in my ears, to keep out
all sounds, I studied away as if my life depended on it; the butterflies
flew into the window and folded their bright wings, but it was of no
use—the swallows twittered at me, “Never mind your catechism, only look
at us;” but I took no notice of them. The flies lit on the end of my
nose, I took my fingers out of my ears, gave them a good cuff and began
to study again; a little mouse blinked his black eyes at me, from the
closet-door, but I was neither to be frightened or coaxed away from that
catechism.
I said nothing about my learning it to any body, but all dinner time I
kept muttering it softly over to myself. Well, three o’clock came, and
so did the big girl who always went with me “to catechize,” and who
always knew her lesson, to every comma and semicolon, and thought me the
greatest little dunce who ever wore a pinafore. Well the vestry was full
when we got there, as usual, of rows of children on rows of benches, in
their “go to meetin’” bonnets and shoes, with their pocket-handkerchiefs
and catechisms, waiting for the minister.
By-and-by he came, took off his black hat, set it under the
spindle-legged table, pulled off his black gloves, put them in his black
hat, seated himself in the big leather arm-chair, used his handkerchief
twice, looking round over the benches the while to see if any lamb of
his fold was missing, and then opening the catechism and glancing over
its passages, asked the question the answer to which I had been studying
all the day, then he paused and glanced round the room to select the
little girl whom he intended should answer it. I watched his black eye,
and it was a very beautiful one, pass by all the Susans and Janes and
Claras and Lucys and finally, rest on me, as I knew it would.
To my astonishment, I did not feel myself blush, or tremble as usual;
and when he said, “Susan, can you answer this question?” I stood erect,
and was about to begin, when the big girl who came with me, thinking I
was about to make a fool of myself, and disgrace her, jumped up too, and
said, “I am sure she can’t say that long one, sir.” Not deigning to
notice the interruption, and fixing my eye on a peg in the wall, I went
straight through the long answer like a well-trained locomotive, never
stopping to take breath till I had jerked out the last syllable.
Did I ever blush after that? Not I. Did I hold up my head while there?
To be sure I did, but when I sat down, Clara jerked my sleeve, and said,
pouting, “You are the oddest, most provoking little thing I ever saw,
and nobody ever knows what you are going to do next. I never felt so
silly in all my life; it is the last time I will come to catechize with
you.” But one thing is very certain, those parrot-girls never called me
stupid afterward, and what was worth a mine of gold to me, when I went
out of the vestry, the minister laid his hand of blessing on my head,
and, gave me a smile, I am sure, as radiant as the one he now wears in
heaven.
[Illustration]
A LUCKY IRISH BOY.
“Halloo there! little fellow, what are you doing here, on my door-step?
why don’t you run home to your dinner?”
“I was waiting for you to come home, thinking you’d give me some,” said
the boy.
The gentleman smiled, and looked in Johnny’s face; there was nothing
vicious in it; it was a bright, honest little face, lit up by a pair of
round blue eyes, and shaded by locks of tangled brown hair; there was
nothing impertinent in his answer to Mr. Bond, had you heard the tone in
which he made it.
“Where do you live?” asked the gentleman.
“I don’t live, I stay round.”
“Who takes care of you?”
“Nobody.”
“Where did you sleep last night?”
“In that big stone house.”
“Don’t tell fibs,” said Mr. Bond; “I know the gentleman who lives
there.”
“Ask him, then,” said Johnny, with his chin comfortably resting on the
palms of his hands, “I never tell a lie.”
“Well, then, tell me how you came to sleep there.”
“Why, you see, sir, I was sitting on the gentleman’s steps when he came
home in the evening, and he asked me what I was there for, and why I did
not go home and go to bed; and I told him that I was waiting for him to
come home, thinking perhaps he would give me a bed, and he did, sir, in
the coach-house; and that’s how I came to sleep there.”
“I see,” said Mr. Bond, laughing; “but I hope you would not be willing
always to live on people that way, even if they would let you; a strong
healthy boy like you, might earn his living. Would you like to get work
to do?”
“Ay,” said Johnny, “and send the money to my mother in Ireland.”
“Have you no friends out of Ireland?”
“No, sir.”
“What made you think I would give you some dinner?”
“Because every body is kind to me,” said little Johnny, looking
trustfully up in Mr. Bond’s face.
No wonder, thought Mr. Bond. “Well Johnny, I’ll give you some dinner,
and then I must try to find you some work; did you ever hear the old
rhyme,
“‘Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do?’
“Come in, come to the kitchen with me; here, Betty, give this boy a good
dinner, quick as you can, and after I have eaten mine I want to see him
again.”
“Dinner! I guess so,” muttered Betty; “I wonder if master thinks I
roasted those chickens, and made those apple tarts, and custards, for
that little rag-a-muffin, that dirty little hop o’ my thumb?”
“Can’t I help you lift that pot off the fire,” asked Johnny, as Betty’s
face grew red, trying to move it.
“You? well I don’t know but you kin,” said the mollified and astonished
Betty; “why yes, you may if you have a mind to; what put that into your
head? and what made you speak so civil to me after I spoke so cross to
you; there’s something under that, I reckon;” and Betty looked at him
sharply; poor Betty, she had been knocked round the world so roughly,
that she had learned to suspect every body.
“What did you do it for, I say, you queer thing?” asked Betty, standing
before him.
“I wanted to help you,” said Johnny, “you looked so hot and tired.”
“And cross, hey?” said Betty, suspiciously; “why didn’t you say cross,
and done with it? well never mind, I won’t pester you, and I’ll give you
some dinner, so long as master says so, but I can’t say I have much
faith in beggar children; its ‘God bless you,’ if you give them what
they want, and it’s something else, that I won’t repeat, if you don’t;
that’s the upshot on’t, but sit down in that chair, and munch your bread
and butter, and don’t you dare to lay hands on them silver forks now,
d’ye hear?”
As Betty said this, and as she crossed the kitchen with a pot of hot
water, her foot slipped on an apple-paring, and she would have fallen
and scalded herself badly, had it not been for Johnny, who sprang to
help her.
“Now what do you do that for?” asked Betty again, when she had wiped up
the puddle of hot water from the floor; “you are the queerest young one
I ever saw. Don’t you ever get mad when people snap you up; I can’t
stand it a minute. I guess you are better than you look, after all; I
will give you some chicken when master has done with it; it is lucky
that hot water didn’t splash all over me, what’s your name?”
“Johnny.”
“Johnny what?”
“That’s it,” said Johnny—“Johnny Watt; how did you know?”
“Don’t be poking fun at me;” said Betty; “where’s your mother?”
“In Ireland.”
“Do tell if you are all alone over here?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you know nobody?”
“No.”
“Where do you—how do you—mercy on us! I never hearn of such a thing. How
old are you?”
“Seven.”
“Why didn’t you stay to home?”
“Because we had nothing to eat, and I wanted to come here, and earn
money, and go back and buy something for my mother; and I told the
captain so, and he said he would bring me over, if I thought I could
take care of myself when I got here.”
“Well, how was I to know all that?” said Betty, penitently. “I’ve got a
mother too. Won’t you have another bit of bread and butter? don’t you
like sugar on your bread and butter? I wish master would be done with
them chickens, so that I could give you a drumstick. Ah, here comes the
dish; set it down here, Sukey; this child don’t know a living soul out
of Ireland, and has come away on here to earn his own living; have this
side-bone, Johnny? and this wing? To think I should have spoken so cross
to the child; but how was I to know that he was all alone in the world?
these children who come begging to the back door here, tell such fibs,
and are such little cheats—it’s enough to dry up all the milk of human
kindness in a body; eat away, Johnny! I hope master will keep you here,
you might run of errands, and the like, for old Pomp is growing stiff in
the joints, and there’s a power of running to be done, for mistress is
as full of notions as an old maid; but that’s always the way with folks
that has no children.”
“You think so, do you, Betty?” said Mr. Bond, laughing; “well, I don’t
think you will have that to say after to-day; there will be _one_ child
in the house, at least; I have been talking to Pomp about keeping Johnny
to help in the carriage-house, and do little jobs generally; and if you
can tidy him up, Betty, for Mrs. Bond is not willing to have any trouble
about it, he can stay. I think a little water, a hard brush, and a new
suit of clothes would improve him; and Pomp says that he can sleep with
him in the chamber over the carriage-house.”
You would hardly have known Johnny the next morning, he looked so spruce
and tidy and handsome, as he ran up-stairs and down, in a pair of soft
shoes, which Betty had carefully provided him, lest he should shock Mrs.
Bond’s nerves. Poor useless Mrs. Bond, who had been brought up to be a
fine lady, and who thought one proof of it, was to be constantly talking
of “her nerves;” poor unhappy Mrs. Bond, who never thought of any thing,
or any body save herself; who never knew the luxury of doing a kind
action, and whose greatest pleasure consisted in making every body wait
upon her. It would have been a blessing had her house caught fire, and
turned her out of doors, and had she been obliged to work for her
living; I think nothing else would have cured “her nerves,” or made her
understand that there were other people in the world beside herself. I
am sure little Johnny was five times as happy as she, with all her
wealth. It was like a glimpse of sunshine to see his face after looking
at hers, all knotted up with selfishness and discontent. I think Mr.
Bond thought so too; I think he was glad to escape from her and her
poodle, the long winter evenings, and teach Johnny to read and write in
the library, and I think he hardly imagined, when he did so, that the
poor little Irish boy would one day be taken in as a partner in the firm
of “Bond & Co.;” but so it was, and a very good partner he proved to be;
and many a bright gold-piece he sent over to Ireland for his old mother,
and many a warm shawl he bought for his friend Betty, who was so afraid
the first day he came, to have him in the same room with the “silver
forks.” Poor old Betty, she could not bear joking about it now; she said
“it made her feel like crawling through the key-hole,” but then, as she
said, how should she know that she was “entertaining an angel unawares?”
THE
CHILD PRINCE AND THE CHILD PEASANT.
You know that Queen Victoria has a brood of little children; fat little
cubs they are, too, if we may trust the pictures of them that we see in
the shop-windows; and although they are a queen’s children, I will bet
you a new kite that you have more cake and preserves and candy than they
ever had all together in their lives, for English people do not allow
their children such unwholesome things. Their rosy cheeks come of good
roast beef and mutton, dry bread, and very plain puddings, with plenty
of sweet milk. That is the way to make stout, healthy boys and girls.
Victoria is a right good, sensible mother; her children, though they are
princes and princesses, do not go unpunished, you may be sure, when they
do naughty things. She wants to make them fit to rule England when they
are called to do so; and in order to do that properly and wisely, she
knows that they must first learn to rule themselves. Not long since she
went with her little family to the Isle of Wight. While there, her young
son, the Prince of Wales, took it into his royal little head to pick up
shells by the sea-shore. While doing this, his little lordship noticed a
poor little peasant-boy who had picked quite a basket-full of pretty
shells for himself. The naughty little prince thought it would be good
fun to knock the poor boy’s basket over, and spill out all his shells;
so he gave it a kick with his royal little foot, and away it went! Now,
the little peasant-boy did not relish that sort of fun as well as the
prince. He quietly picked them all up, replaced them in his basket, and
then said, “Do it again if you dare,” for he knew he had _his_ rights as
well as the prince. Up went the prince’s naughty little foot again, and
over went the peasant-boy’s shells. Very soon after, the prince went
crying home to his mother, Victoria, with a bloody nose and a swelled
face. Victoria asked him where he had been, and how he got hurt so
badly; and the prince told her that the little peasant-boy had done it,
because he (the prince) had kicked over his basket of shells. Did
Victoria hug up the little prince, and say, “You poor, dear little
child, how _dare_ that good-for-nothing little peasant-boy lay his hands
on my noble little son? I will send and have him severely punished for
his impertinence?” Did she, the queen, say this to the little bruised,
crying prince? No, indeed. She looked him sternly in the eye, and said,
“The peasant-boy served you just right, sir. I hope you will always be
thus punished when you do so mean an action.” Then she sent for the
little peasant-boy, made him some presents, and provided his father with
means to give him an education. Was she not a sensible mother? and was
not this a good lesson for the little proud prince? I warrant you he
will remember it all his life long, and when he gets to be king, if he
is half as sensible as his mother, he will thank her for it. Another
good thing I must tell you of Queen Victoria; they say that she has each
of her children taught some trade; so that if Fortune’s wheel should
turn round so fast as to whirl them off the throne some day, they would
then be able to get their own living. I like Queen Victoria, and I hope
her little family will grow up to be a great comfort to her, for a
mother is a mother, all the world over, whether she wears a crown on her
head or not, and queens have a great deal of care, and much less
happiness than you think.
THE WILD ROSE.
Maud was a funny little thing; she was so fat that she could scarcely
waddle. Her eyes were so round, and so black, and so full of fun! her
cheeks so plump and red, her shoulders so white and dimpled, and her
hands looked like two little white pincushions. Maud was a country
child, as you might know. Her parents were good, honest farming-people,
who were not afraid of rain, or sun, or dew; who worked hard from
Saturday till Monday, and from Monday till Saturday again; who owed
nobody a cent, owned the farm they lived on, and were as contented and
happy as two persons could possibly be.
Maud had no nursery-maid—not she. Maud took care of herself, and liked
it right well too. She toddled round after her mother, into the
dairy-room, into the kitchen, up chamber, out to the well, over to the
barn, crowing, laughing, tumbling and picking herself up again, for her
mother was too busy to stop to do it; eating bits of bread, drinking
drops of milk, peeping into every thing she saw, and educating herself,
as nobody else could possibly do; and when she tumbled into her little
bed at night, she slept so soundly, that the old rooster had hard work
to crow her awake the next morning. Maud’s playthings were corn-cobs,
squashes, clothes-pins, rusty nails, broken broom-handles, bits of
string, and a broken snuff-box—then there were the hens and chickens,
who went in and out of the house whenever they liked, and the old horse,
who often stepped his hoofs inside the back door, to see how things were
going on; beside a little lamb and a flock of geese, who made noise
enough for a small regiment. Yes, Maud had enough to do. It is city
children, with a whole nursery full of toys and half a dozen nurses to
take care of them, who are always crying because they “don’t know what
to do.”
One morning, when little Maud was sitting on the door-step watching the
old hens catch grasshoppers, a woman came through the gate and up the
path toward the house. Maud did not run away; she liked the looks of the
strange woman with moccasins on her feet, embroidered in bright-colored
beads, with a gay blanket pinned round her shoulders, and a man’s hat on
her head, with a bright red feather in it.
“Pretty papoose,” said the Indian woman, looking at little Maud’s rosy
face and black eyes; “pretty papoose;” and down she sat beside Maud on
the door-step. Maud did not know that papoose meant baby. In fact, she
did not think any thing about it, she was so busy looking at something
on the Indian woman’s back that was bobbing up and down inside her
shawl. Maud thought perhaps it was a cat or a kitten, and she put out
her little hand to feel of it.
“Want to see Indian papoose,” said the strange woman to Maud, and
reaching her hands up over her head, she pulled off her back from under
her shawl, a little brown Indian baby, with twinkling black eyes, and
hair as black as ink.
Maud’s mother hearing some one talking on the door-step, came out with
her sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and spots of flour all over her
check apron, for she was making some good country pies. When she saw the
Indian woman, she took her papoose in her arms, and invited her to come
in to the kitchen and get some dinner; for country folks are always kind
to travelers. So the woman said, “Good,” and went in, and the little
brown baby seemed to think it was “good” too, when Maud put a crust of
bread in its fist for it to nibble. Then the Indian woman asked leave to
light her pipe, for she was as fond of smoking as any Broadway loafer,
and down she sat on the kitchen door-step—puff—puff—puff—while Maud’s
mother stepped round to get her breakfast ready. The little Indian
papoose did not laugh when Maud said “boo” to it, and touched its dusky
chin with her little white forefinger. It looked as solemn as a judge,
as it lay there twinkling its beadlike black eyes. Little sociable Maud
did not like that; when she played with her spotted kitty, the
good-natured kitty always said “purr—purr—purr;” when she went out to
see the little frisky, pink, and white pigs, they ran up to the side of
the pig-stye and said, “ugh! ugh! ugh!” when she met the old rooster, he
halloed out as loud as he could, “cock-a-doodle-do!” the horse said
“neigh!” the cow said “moo!” the dog Ponto said “bow-wow!” and that
little Indian papoose was as dumb as a dead toad, and would not even
laugh. Maud did not like such solemn babies.
When the Indian woman had eaten her breakfast, she said “good” again;
then she asked Maud’s mother if she and the other Indians could have
some trees which stood on the farm, “down in the lot;” they wanted the
bark from them to make into baskets to sell, to buy blankets with.
Maud’s mother said “she would ask John,” meaning Maud’s papa; and if he
said yes, they might have them; but John was gone off in the fields,
nobody knew where. And so the Indian woman knocked the ashes out of her
pipe, strapped the solemn little papoose on her back, and tramped off,
down the road, looking like a picture in her gay feathers, and bright
blanket, as she wound in and out among the trees.
Perhaps you think because Maud’s papa had to plow, and hoe, and rake,
and dig, that he had no time to play with his little girl. Ah, you are
mightily mistaken; the minute the old farmer turned the corner of the
road, which led up to the house, he gave a loud whistle for little Maud;
she heard it, with her little sharp ears, and out she toddled, out the
gate, and down the road, with her brown hair blowing about her rosy
face, and her eyes all a glow with love and fun; then the old farmer
would open his arms wide to catch her, and then she would laugh such a
musical laugh that it made the little birds jealous; and then the old
farmer would hoist Maud up on his broad, strong shoulder, her fat little
calves dangling, and one round arm thrown about his neck, and away they
would go under the trees, home. Then when they got there, they went into
the kitchen (the floor of which was as white as snow), and the farmer
would wash his sun-burned face, and honest brown hands, and then sitting
down to the supper-table with his good wife opposite him, and Maud on
his knee, he would thank God for them both, and ask His blessing on
their supper; and the setting sun streaming in at the window on his
silver hair, would light up little Maud’s sweet innocent face till you
could almost believe it to be an angel’s.
After John, and his wife, and Maud, had finished their supper, Maud’s
mother told John what the Indian woman said about wanting the bark of
his trees to make baskets of.
John crossed his arms on the table, and leaning over it, so as to look
his wife full in the face said, “Jenny! I can understand why the Lord
made snakes, and musquitoes, and rats, and cockroaches, but I never
could understand why an Indian was made. Now, I don’t want to hate any
thing He has seen fit to make; but I should rather no Indians would
cross my path. As to the trees, I can find a better use for them than to
make Indian baskets of them, and so I told one of the tribe whom I met
over yonder in the woods, a cut-throat looking rascal he was too.”
“Oh, John,” said Jenny, looking fearfully at little Maud; “I am always
so careful to be friendly with those Indians.”
John laughed heartily, and getting up stretched out his brawny arms, as
if it were impossible for any danger to come near any one whom _he_
loved.
It was twelve o’clock of a bright Saturday noon. John’s wife had been
very busy all the morning making pickles; now she took in her hand the
huge bell to call John in to dinner, and rang it loudly outside the
door. John heard its clear sharp tones, and stopping only to plow to the
end of a furrow, unyoked his oxen, and trudged whistling home. “Where is
Maud?” he asked, as he sat down to his smoking-hot dinner. “Out in the
garden,” said his wife, “busy as a bee, picking berries in her little
tin pail.”
John went to the door and whistled, shading his eyes with his hand, as
he did so, to see if his pet were near.
He listened; no merry laugh met his ear. Ah, Maud must be hiding, for
fun, amid the tall currant-bushes; the little rogue! and John crossed
over the garden, to look for her. No, she was not there; nor swinging on
the low branches of the great apple-tree; nor up in the barn, where the
old horse contentedly munched his oats, and the little gray mice
scampered over the floor, for grain; nor up on the log, peeping into the
pig-stye; nor at the spring, looking at the darting little fish. Where
was she? John went back to the house.
“The Indians!” was all Maud’s mother could whisper, through her white
lips, as her husband returned alone.
“Pshaw!” said John, but his brow grew dark, and snatching up his hat, he
darted across the fields and plunged into the woods.
Maud’s mother stood in the door-way, looking after him and helplessly
wringing her hands. When he disappeared she went back into the kitchen,
and set the untasted dinner down to the fire, for John, and moved about
here and there as if it were a relief to her not to sit still. Maud’s
kitty came up and purred round her feet, and then Maud’s mother, unable
to keep back the tears, bowed her head upon her hands and wept aloud.
The long afternoon crept slowly on; the sun stole in to the west
sitting-room window; and still no tidings of little Maud or John. It was
so weary waiting; if she had only gone with John to look for her child;
but it was too late now. No, why should not she look too? any thing were
better than sitting there, hour after hour, in such misery. Throwing a
shawl over her head, Maud’s mother passed through the gate and out into
the open fields. Oh, how desolate they looked to her now: and yet the
ripe grain waved before the breeze, the trees bent to the ground with
their golden fruit, and large fields of buckwheat waved their snowy
blossoms, to reward the farmer’s industry and care. But what were rich
crops to them if Maud were not found? Maud, for whom they toiled so
gladly, early and late; Maud, the sunshine of their cottage home? and
then the poor mother thought of all her pretty little winning ways; she
remembered how that very morning, she had climbed upon a chair, when she
was busy in the dairy-room, and put up her rosy mouth to kiss her. Oh,
if harm should come to her! No, surely God would care for one so pure
and innocent.
Hark, what is that? other footsteps beside hers are in the woods. Can it
be John? John and Maud? No, it is an Indian; she sees the fluttering
blanket, the red feather, ’tis the very woman who smoked the pipe in her
own kitchen, but yesterday. Oh, surely _she_ could not have stolen Maud,
and the poor troubled mother strained her eyes and pressed her hand
tightly over her heart. The Indian woman had something in her arms, but
the blanket is wrapped about it, it is not her own baby, no, that is
strapped as usual upon her back; now she lifts the blanket; ’tis Maud,
Maud! and with a wild cry, the poor mother runs to the Indian woman, and
clasping her feet, says, “I was kind to _your_ child. Oh, give me
_mine_.”
And then the Indian woman told her, partly by signs partly by words,
that one of the tribe, to whom John had spoken about the trees, stole
Maud, because he was angry with John, and brought her away to their
encampment; but that when she saw the child she remembered her, and told
the Indian (who was her own brother), that he must not harm Maud, but
must give the child to her to take back, because its mother had fed her
and lighted her pipe at her fire, and so Nemekee gave up Maud, and the
good Indian woman was hurrying back with the child to her own home. Poor
little Maud, she was too frightened to cry, but she reached out her
little trembling hands to her mother, and nestled her head in her bosom,
like a timid little dove when the hungry hawk is near.
At nightfall, John came slowly home; he looked a year older since
morning; no tidings yet of the little wanderer. He had been to the spot
of the Indian encampment, but the tents were gone, and only a blackened
heap, where they had cooked their food, marked the spot. What should he
tell his poor weeping wife?
Ah! there were tears and smiles under that little cot-roof, that night;
nor did John and his wife forget to thank Him who noteth even the fall
of the sparrow, and who had safely returned their little lost lamb.
JENNY AND THE BUTCHER.
Little Jenny was an only child. Now, I suppose you think she was a
great, petted cry-baby. “Petted” she certainly was, but all the petting
in the world could not spoil Jenny. If you should miss her from the
parlor, ten to one she would be found binding a wet napkin round the
forehead of her mother’s cook, to cure her headache, or applying a bit
of court-plaster to her cut finger. Sally used to say that the dark,
underground kitchen seemed to grow lighter whenever Jenny flitted
through it with her sunshiny face. Now, perhaps you think that Jenny was
a beauty; there, again, you are mistaken; for she had light-blue-gray
eyes, a pug-nose, and a freckled skin. But what of that? Did it ever
enter your head when you kissed your mamma whether she was handsome or
not? Is not every person whom we _love_, handsome to us? Certainly. And
I would defy any body to be with Jenny ten minutes, and not love her.
Even the milkman, who brought such a wholesome odor of clover and
hayfields into the city kitchens, always had a pretty little nosegay
slyly tucked away among his milk-cans for Jenny. A ball-room belle might
have turned up her nose at it; for often it was only a simple bunch of
red and white clover, with one or two butter-cups to brighten it up; but
to Jenny it was quite as beautiful as the scentless hot-house
Camelia—yes—and more so; for a Camelia always reminds one of a beautiful
woman without a soul.
Then—beside the milkman, there was Shagbark, the grocer’s boy, for whom
Jenny had once opened the back gate, when Sally’s hands were in the
dough; I should like to have counted the great three-cornered nuts he
used to empty on the kitchen-table, from his pockets, for Jenny, every
time he brought in a pound of tea or sugar. Oh, I can tell you that a
good-humored, smiling face, and a voice made musical by a kind heart,
are worth all the beautiful Camelia faces that ever peeped from under a
green vail.
Jenny was quite a little musician. She could hum tunes correctly before
she could speak plain; and as soon as she was high enough to reach her
little hands up to the piano-keys, she began to play “by ear,” for she
could not read a note of music. When she heard fine singing, it seemed
to throw her into an ecstacy of pleasure; her plain face grew so
luminous and beautiful, that you would hardly know it to be little
freckled Jenny’s. Her kind father and mother procured her good teachers,
and Jenny was not discouraged at the idea of practicing, as, I am sorry
to say, are some little girls; for she knew that nothing great is ever
attained without patient labor; and long before even Sally was up in the
morning, Jenny would be running up and down the scales, as fast as her
little fat fingers could fly. Sally used to say, as she set the
breakfast-table, that “she did not like that tune as well as Yankee
Doodle.” This made Jenny laugh very heartily, but she did not pain Sally
by calling her an ignoramus for saying so. And so things went on very
pleasantly in Jenny’s home, as is always the case where each one strives
to make the other happy.
Little Jenny was in the habit of watching for her father to come home;
and when she heard his step in the hall, she would bound down stairs
like a little antelope, and jump into his arms, and kiss his face, just
as if it were not all covered with beard, whiskers, mustaches, and
things. One day she seated herself at the front window, as usual, to
wait his turning the corner of the street which led toward the house.
“There he comes!” exclaimed Jenny; and then her little hands fell at her
side, and she bent her head forward, and pressed her bright face close
to the window-pane. _Was_—that—her—papa, walking so slowly, like an old
man, his head bent down upon his breast, and never one look for his
little girl? He must be sick—and Jenny ran down stairs, and out at the
front door, to meet him on the threshold.
When she asked him, “Was he sick?” he said “No;” but his voice trembled,
and a great warm tear fell on Jenny’s face, as he bent over her; and as
he turned from her to meet her mamma, Jenny heard him say, “God shield
the little lamb;” then Jenny’s mamma told her that “she had better go
and practice her music-lesson;” and then Jenny’s father and mother had a
long—long talk; and when they came in to dinner, her mamma’s eyes were
red with weeping, and her father looked as though he had had a fit of
sickness.
Little Jenny asked no questions, for she had a great deal of delicacy,
and she knew that if it was proper she should know what troubled her
father, that he would tell her; but every time he helped his little
daughter to any thing at the table, she would kiss his hands, and at the
dessert, she put the biggest orange and largest bunch of grapes upon his
plate. Her papa’s heart seemed too full to thank her, but his eyes
brimmed with tears, as he laid his hand on her little brown head.
The truth was, Jenny’s father had failed, and lost all his money; and
when he looked at Jenny, and thought that he might die before he could
earn any more, and leave her, and her mamma, helpless in the world, it
was too bitter a thought for him to bear: then the people to whom he
owed the money which he had hoped to pay, were coming to take away all
the furniture, and fine things; and Jenny’s favorite piano, of course,
must go with the rest; and he could not find heart to say a word to her
about it.
Well, the day came on which all the things were to be sold; and nobody
_yet_ had had courage to tell Jenny—good little Jenny, who never gave a
minute’s pain to any body in her life, not even to a little fly. Jenny
wondered what made Sally, and all the family look so strangely at her,
but she was put off with excuses of one kind and another, and so the
bewildered child went to her old friend the piano, for comfort.
As she was playing, she heard a strange voice in the hall; then the door
opened, and her father came in with the butcher, of whom he had
purchased all the meat for the family since they had lived in that
house.
Then—Jenny’s father put his arm around his little girl, and told her
that the butcher had come to take her piano for some money which he owed
him. Jenny looked at her father as though she could not believe her
ears—then she looked at the piano—then at the butcher—while great tears
gathered slowly in her eyes.
Now, the butcher was a great rough fellow, with a fist like a
sledge-hammer, and a voice like a bass drum; he had killed many a fat
little calf, and bleating lamb, in his day; but he had never met such a
sweet, pleading, tearful look, as Jenny gave him that minute, and he
melted down under it, just like a pile of snow when the warm sun kisses
it.
Rubbing the corner of his white butcher’s frock into his eyes, and
turning to Jenny’s father, he said,
“_I’m_ not the fellow to take that little girl’s piano away from her;
and, what’s more, I won’t!” and before Jenny could thank him, he, and
the carman whom he had brought to carry away the piano, were through the
door and out of sight.
Now, shouldn’t you like to _hug_ that butcher? I should. I tell you what
it is, the best hearts are oftenest found under the roughest coats; and
this Jenny’s father and mother soon found out, for the gay people who
had eaten their dinners and drank their wine, took flight as soon as
Poverty came in and sat down at the table with them.
The good butcher did not lose sight of little Jenny, I promise you; he
not only forgave her father’s debt but offered to lend him some money to
begin business again. What do you think of that?
By-and-by Jenny grew up a big girl, and learned a deal more about music;
then she gave lessons on her piano, and helped her father, and beside
that played the organ on Sunday in one of the churches. This was very
lucky, for her father, through disappointment and too close attention to
business, was taken sick, and was unable to earn any more money.
By-and-by trouble overtook the good butcher too, and he had a long, and
painful, and expensive sickness. Did Jenny forget her benefactor now?
Did she draw down her face and her purse-strings and tell him to “trust
in Providence?” Did she try to hunt up some fault, which he might at
some time in his life have committed, and make that a cover for her
parsimony, and an excuse for not helping him in his necessity? Not she.
She stood by his bed, gave him his medicines, brought him wine, jellies,
and broths, sang to him, read to him, prayed God to save his life, and
was as much of an angel as she could be, and be flesh and blood. But the
good butcher died, and left a little orphan daughter. Oh, how far the
influence of one good deed may reach! He had not laid up money for her
in “The Bank of Commerce,” or “The City Bank,” or “The Exchange Bank,”
but he had laid a treasure up for her in the BANK OF HEAVEN, by his many
benevolent and charitable deeds, and God remembered it; and Jenny took
the little weeping Susy home, and fed her, and clothed her, and sent her
to school, and taught her to sing and play; and none who listen to the
sweet voice, or look upon the sweet face of the butcher’s daughter, as
she sings in one of our great churches of a Sunday, know this little
story that I have been telling you.
Oh, _never_ believe, dear children, that a good deed goes unrewarded.
Angels bend to see it, and a richer, sweeter song, rings through the
golden streets of heaven, whenever the strong, loving hand of compassion
is held out to the weak, unfortunate and despairing.
THE TWO BABES.
“Cannon thundering, bells pealing, flags waving, illuminations, military
parades, peasants, nobles and princes, all crowding to that big house!
What the mischief is all this fuss about? Some great victory perhaps.
No; as sure as your name is Johnny, it is all about an hour-old baby;
but for all that, you had better not speak of him, without taking your
hat off; that baby is of some consequence, I can tell you, for all he
lies there, wheezing and sneezing, winking and blinking, like an
astonished little pup.
Long before he came to town, there were more baby-clothes made up for
him than he could wear, should he stay a baby twenty years; and all
loaded with lace and embroidery, and finified with silk and satin; and
the people left their workshops, and ran to see them, as if they had not
another minute to live. Then there were half a dozen rooms, all prepared
for his expected little cry-babyship; for you had better not believe
that he was going to stay in _one_ room, like any common baby; not he!
Then all the gray-haired old men, and beautiful women, bent over his
magnificent cradle, and declared him to be the most splendid baby that
ever was born; and it was as much as his nurse’s life was worth to stick
a pin into him, or wash his little flabby nose the wrong way, or tie his
frock a tenth of an inch too tight or too loose, or nurse him a minute
too long or too short, or allow an impertinent sunbeam to make him
sneeze, when he didn’t want to. Oh, he was a great baby that! Even his
playthings were gold crosses and ribbons, that kings have been known to
cut each other’s heads off for, scrambling which should wear. Step
softly—bend low before his cradle; royal blood flushes that little face.
He is the _King of Algiers_.
Peep with me into yonder stable; the door is a-jar; there is nothing
there to frighten you. The light glances through a chink in the roof
upon the meek, submissive cattle, who with bowed heads, drowsily dose
the listless hours away. Is there nothing else in the stable? Look
again. Yes, there in yonder corner, sits a fair young mother. Her coarse
mantle is wrapt around her shrinking form, and her small head is
drooping, partly with weariness, partly with tender solicitude for the
new-born babe upon her lap. No rich wardrobe awaits the little stranger;
clothed only in his own sweet loveliness, he slumbers the quiet hours
away. But see! above that stable glows a star, brighter than ever
glittered on the breast of earthly prince or king; and above that star
is a city, “which hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon to shine in
it, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light
thereof;” and that is the Heavenly Home of the lowly “Babe of
Bethlehem.”
THE LITTLE SISTERS.
Hark! there is a bird singing—the first one I have heard this spring.
How can you expect me to sit looking this stupid sheet of paper in the
face, when that pretty bird is calling me out-doors, with all his sweet
might? I have a great mind to throw my inkstand right out of the window!
No I won’t; it might hit that bent old woman, who is raking the gutter
with her long iron poker. Oh, it is hard enough for young people to be
poor; but to be poor, feeble, and gray-headed—oh, ’tis very sad! The
_young_ heart is always hopeful; it can bear a great deal of
discouragement; it leaps to a bird’s sweet trill, or a patch of green
grass, or a bit of blue sky, although its owner may be covered with
rags, and knows not where he shall get his next meal, or find his next
night’s shelter.
The other day, I saw two little bits of girls, with tangled hair, dirty
skins, bare legs, and ragged skirts, crouching down upon the pavement,
and clapping their little tan-colored hands, because they had found—what
do you think? A diamond? No—they never saw such a thing; though could
they have seen their own eyes just then in a looking-glass, they might
have found out how diamonds look. Had they found a sixpence or a
shilling? No, I think by their appearance, they might never have seen so
much money. “A London doll, with blue eyes, and red checks, and flaxen
curls?” No; all the dolls they ever saw were made of old newspapers
rolled up. What then? Why, two little blades of grass, that even the
mayor, aldermen, and Common Council could not keep from struggling up
through the pavement, to tell those poor little children that spring had
come. No more little shivering toes and fingers, no more imprisonment in
a dark, damp, underground cellar room, gloomy enough to chill even the
light, hopeful heart of a little child. No, indeed! Oh, but they were
lovely, those two tiny blades of grass! and the children lay flat down
on their stomachs upon the pavement, and called it their “little
garden,” and kicked their poor thin calves up in the air, and were
happier with their treasure, than many a rich man, worth millions, with
his hot-house and conservatory full of costly flowers and mimic
fountains, whose beauty he scarce notices, for thinking of some great
ship of his, off on the water, and trembling for fear she may be lost,
with her rich freight of silks and laces.
“Get out of the way, there,” growled a pompous old gentleman, with a big
waistcoat, and a gold-headed cane, thrusting the two children rudely
aside, as he strutted past; “Dirty little vagabonds—ought to be sent to
‘the Island.’ Pah!” “Yes—off with you,” said the policeman, bowing low
before the gold-headed cane and the golden calf who carried it; “off
with you, d’ye hear?”
“He has trod on our pretty garden,” whimpered the distressed little
things, looking back; “he has spoiled our garden,” and they rubbed their
dirty little fists into their eyes.
“Dis—gust—ing,” replied a lady, whose flounces the children had run
against in their endeavor to “get out of the way.” Poor things—ever
since they were born they had heard nothing but “get out of the way;”
they had begun to think the world was not intended for children. Ah! but
another lady who is coming along, and who has watched the whole scene,
does not think so.
“Would you like this—and this?” said she, putting in their hands two of
those delicious little bouquets, sold by the flower-girls of New York.
A shilling to give so much happiness! Who would have thought it? How the
smiles drank up the tears on those little faces? Was there ever any
thing so beautiful as those forget-me-nots? See those little bare feet
trip so lightly home with them; now they crawl down into the dark cellar
room. Comfortless enough, is it not? Their mother stands wringing out
her husband’s red-flannel shirts, at the wash-tub; both children begin
at once to tell about “the lady who gave them the flowers,” and their
mother wipes the suds from her hands, and gets an old cracked mug, and
places the violets in it, up against the dingy window-pane; and now and
then she stops to smell them, for she has not always lived in the dirty,
close, dark alleys of the city, and the odor of those violets brings the
tears to her faded eyes, once as blue as they; but she must not think of
that; and bending over them once more, with an “Ah me!” she goes back
again to her work: for well she knows that by-and-by a step will be
heard stumbling down those stairs, and a man’s voice—not singing,
cheerily, because his home, his wife and children are so near, but
cursing—cursing that patient, toiling woman, cursing those half-starved
innocent little girls. Oh, what could have turned that once kind man
into such a cruel brute? Ask him, who, for a few paltry pence, sells the
_Rum_ that freezes the hearts of so _many_ little girls’ fathers, and
sends their patient, all-enduring mothers weeping to the grave!
OURS; OR, A LOOK BACKWARD.
Yes, Swissdale was ours! The title-deeds were “without a flaw,” so
lawyer Nix informed us. Ours—the money was paid down that very day.
Those glorious old trees were ours; tossing their branches hither and
thither, as if oppressed with exuberant animal life; or stooping to
caress the green earth, as if grateful for its life-sustaining power.
Ours were the broad sloping meadows, dotted with daisies and clover,
waving responsive to every whisper of the soft west wind; ours were the
dense woods, which skirted it, where the sentinel squirrel cocked up his
saucy eye, then darted away to the decayed tree-trunk, with his smuggled
mouthful of acorns; ours the pretty scarlet berries, nestled under the
tiny leaves at our feet; ours the rose-tinted and purple anemones, whose
telltale breath betrayed their hidden loveliness; ours the wild rose,
fair as fleeting; ours the green moss-patches, richer than courtly
carpet, trod by kingly feet; ours the wondrously fretted roof, of oak
and maple, pine and chestnut, now jealously excluding the sun’s rays,
now by one magic touch of their neighborly leaves, making way that their
bright beams might crimson the heart of some pale and tremulous flower,
languishing like a lone maiden for the warm breath of Love. Ours were
the robins and orioles, sparrows and katy-dids; ours the whip poor-will,
wailing ever amid marshy sedge, where the crimson lobelia, more gorgeous
than kingly robes, defied the covetous eye, and timorous foot. Ours the
hedges, tangled with wild grape, snowy with blossoming clematis, woven
with sweet briar, guarded by its protecting thorns. Ours the hill-side;
where the creeping myrtle charily hid under the tall grass its cherished
blue-eyed blossoms; ours the gray old rocks, whose clefts, and fissures,
the golden moss made bright with verdure; ours the valley lillies,
ringing ever their snow-white bells for the maidens’ bridal. Ours the
bower-crowned, vine-wreathed, hill-summit, whence with rapt vision we
drank in that broad expanse of earth, and sea, and sky, in all its
waving, glowing, sparkling, changing, glorious beauty!—one perpetual
anthem to Him, who hath neither beginning nor end of days.
Ours was the little blue-eyed one, who, though of infant stature,
measured thought with angels; and with finger on hushed lip and lambent
eyes, listened to voices, alas! all unheard by us, that were wooing her
fragile form away.
“Ours—” was she? God rest thee, Mary—naught is left us now, but this
sweet memory, and our falling tears!
But we were not the only ones who had exultingly said, “Swissdale is
ours.” One fine morning I stood upon the lawn, under the broad spreading
trees, watching the mist, as it slowly rolled off the valleys, and up
the hill sides. The air was laden with fragrance and music, and the
earth bright with beauty. I heard a stifled sob near me! Oh, who could
sorrow on such an Eden morning? I turned my head. Three young sisters,
clad in sable, with their arms about each other, were looking at a
luxuriant rose-vine whose drooping clusters hung above my door.
“Our mother planted it,” they sobbed—“she died in that room,” pointing
to the second window, over which the rose-vine—_her_ rose-vine had
clambered up.
“Could they roam over the old place?” I pressed a hand of each, and
nodded affirmatively, for their tears were infectious.
There are sorrows with which a stranger may not inter-meddle; but hour
after hour passed, and still those sable-clad sisters sat, on the
hill-summit, with their arms about each other, mingling their tears. Oh,
how plaintive to them the blithe song of the bird of the _unrifled_
nest, the musical murmur of the careless brook! Every twig, every tree,
every flower, had its sorrowful history!
Ah! how little I thought as I looked at that weeping group—that years
hence—I too, should make to that very spot, the same sorrowing
pilgrimage! That strange eyes should moisten for _me_, when I asked
leave to roam over the “old place;” that I, too, with streaming eyes,
and tremulous finger should point to the trees and vines which _my_ dead
had planted.
Wise as merciful is the Hand which draws before our questioning eyes the
vail of the future!
CHILDREN’S TROUBLES.
I believe in children, and I can’t say that of all grown-up people, by a
great deal. For instance, I don’t believe in an editor who feels too
important or too busy to say a word now and then to the children of his
subscribers. I would not give a copper for him; I don’t care how much he
knows about politics (which you and I always skip when we read his
paper) if he does not love children he is not the editor for me—there is
something wrong about him. Why need he put on such big airs? Ten to one,
if we inquired, we should find out he was once a little boy _himself_;
cried for sugar candy; was afraid of the dark, and ran screaming to his
mother whenever he saw a poor, harmless, old black man. He put on big
airs indeed! that’s a joke! I’ve a great mind to set up a paper for you
myself, and not notice the grown-up folks at all. Wouldn’t it be fun?
But you see I have my own ideas about things—and there’s your Aunt
Nancy, who was born and brought up when children were thumped on the
head for asking the reason for things. She would take up our little
paper, and scowl at it over her spectacles. Other papers for children
generally keep an eye out for Aunt Nancy—and papers for big people too,
for the matter of that. But _I_ couldn’t do it. Your Aunt Nancy believes
that children should talk, move, and act as if they were a hundred years
old. I respect your Aunt Nancy, but I can’t believe in that; and what is
more, I am sure that God does not. I believe that the merry laugh of a
little child is just as sweet in His ear, as the little prayer it lisps.
He loves you all; oh, how much! He _likes_ you to be happy; He _made_
you to be happy as well as good. And He never—_never_ thinks, great as
He is, that what little children say or think, is “of no consequence.”
And though He keeps the sun, moon, and stars in their right places, and
holds the roaring winds and the great mighty sea in His fists, and makes
all the trees and flowers, and birds and beasts, and human beings all
over the earth, He is never “so busy” that He can not bend down His ear
whenever a little child sobs, or, looking up to Heaven, calls Him
“Father.”
Well, you see, it looks very small when an editor or any body else,
thinks himself too important or too busy to remember the dear little
children whom God can watch over so lovingly. I don’t like it; and I
don’t like a great many other things you children have to bear, and
sometimes I get so troubled about it, that I want to go all round
battling for your rights.
Now, the other day I saw a lady very gayly dressed, leading along her
little girl by the hand. It was a bitter cold day, and by-and-by this
lady met a lady friend of hers, and they both stopped just as they
reached a corner where the wind blew the coldest, to admire each other’s
new bonnets and cloaks. Now, though the lady had wrapped _herself_ up
warmly in furs, her little girl’s legs, for two inches above her pretty
gaiter-boots, were quite bare, and the cold wind nipped her little
calves till they were quite purple, and she began to cry, as well she
might; but her mamma only shook her impatiently, and went on for half an
hour longer, talking about the fashions—foolish fashions, which tell
foolish mammas to let their little children go bare-legged in winter,
and tell them that a muslin ruffle will keep their little calves warm
enough.
Now I did not know the name of that little girl; so, when I looked day
after day at the list of deaths, I could not tell whether God had taken
her up to heaven or not, but I hoped so, because I did not want her to
suffer, and because I thought that a mother who would be so foolish as
to do that, would make a great many other very sad mistakes in bringing
up her little girl.
Yes, I felt very badly about it; and I felt badly about my little friend
George, the other day. George goes to school; he has a great many
lessons to get out of school. He is a very conscientious little boy, and
can not be tempted away from his lessons after he sits down to learn
them; so, when it was proposed the other night, after tea, to take him
to some place of amusement, he said, “I would rather not go, because I
am not sure that I have my French lesson perfectly for to-morrow.” So he
staid at home and studied it, and the next morning trudged off to
school, quite happy in the thought that he knew it perfectly.
Now, the boys in George’s school have a bad way of “telling” each other
in the class. George is too honest to do this; he neither will tell
them, nor let them tell him.
Poor little George! he missed in his lesson that morning, although he
had tried so hard to learn it. The teacher reprimanded him (that means
scolded him), and gave him a bad mark, while the naughty boys who had
scarcely looked at their lessons got _good_ marks, because they peeped
in the book and told each other the answers.
Poor little George!
He came home, with his large brown eyes full of tears, looking sick and
discouraged. He could not eat a bit of dinner, though there was roast
turkey and plum-pudding. His little heart was almost broke.
So I took him in my lap, and I told him that a great many men and women,
too, all over the world, were suffering just such injustice; that when
they tried hardest to do right, they got no credit for it from their
fellow-creatures, and often had “bad marks” for it just as he did, and
that it really seemed to them sometimes as if the lazy and deceitful
prospered most.
But then I told little George that it was only in _seeming_ that they
prospered, because God, who, as you know sees every thing, and is never
careless or short-sighted as George’s teacher was, never lets those who
do right suffer for it. He may take His own time to right them, (which
is always the best time), but He _does_ it; and I told George that those
naughty boys would grow up ignorant though they _did_ get good marks,
and that he would grow up to be well educated and useful if he did get
bad ones when he did not deserve them; and I told George that one of
these days, when they all grew up, that while those lazy, ignorant
fellows found it impossible to earn a living, and what was worse, had no
heart to do good, some College which wanted a splendid president, would
write a letter to George and make him one, and he could become at once
both honorable and useful.
Yes, my children, just so surely as the bright sun shines over your dear
little heads, our loving God, who writes down in His book every act of
injustice and wrong-doing, even to little children, will, if you only
work on with a brave, patient heart, turn all your trials into
blessings.
_True as heaven—Aunt Fanny knows it._
THE VACANT LOT.
So they call it. Vacant? I wonder have they noticed its tenants? The
noisy flock of geese, which waddle in procession to greet the rising
sun, with a screech of delight; unfurling and clapping their huge snowy
wings, as if to say, “Ah, we can have it all our own way, now, while
yonder sluggards slumber.” Not so fast: yonder, with solemn step and
slow, struts a pompous old rooster, whose blood-red crest defies
goose-dom, and all its waddling works. See how meekly those wives of
his—black, brown, white and speckled, tag behind his rooster-ship; too
happy to pick up the smallest fragment of a worm which his delicate
appetite disdains—and even that is to be approached at a proper distance
from this two-footed Nero, or a handful of feathers remind their
hen-ships that the lord of the harem is, and will be, cock of the walk.
Pompous old tyrant! you should have a little tar mixed with your
feathers. I could laugh at your ridiculous struttings, were you not the
type of many a biped of whom _human_ laws take no notice.
Vacant lot?
See yonder urchin, who has crept from his bed while “mammy” is sleeping,
that he may enjoy an unrebuked frolic with the hens and geese. Could any
artist improve him? The red-flannel night-gown, scarce reaching to the
bare fat calves, and falling gracefully away from the ivory shoulders;
the little snowy feet, scarce bending the dewy grass; the white arms
tossed joyously over the curly brown head. Pretty creature! that ever
time should transform you into a swearing, drinking, roystering,
bar-room loafer.
Vacant lot?
What could be more picturesque than the group round yonder pump? Those
big Newfoundland dogs shaking the glistening drops from their shaggy
sides. The master, and his two horses neighing, plunging, rearing,
tossing their flowing manes and tails, and rolling upon the grass, hoofs
uppermost, in uproarious fun; while the pretty occupant of the
red-flannel night-gown, claps his dimpled hands in fearless ecstacy.
Vacant lot?
That old pump is a picture, any hour in the twenty-four. The matron,
with her round white arms bared to the shoulder, poising the well-filled
pitcher, the wee babe hanging at her skirts; the toil-worn father,
laving his flushed brow and soiled hands, and quaffing the cool nectar.
Were I an artist, the rosy morning light should show me no prettier
pictures than may be found in “the vacant lot.”
“FOOLISH NED.”
So they call him. I have seen many persons who thought themselves quite
in their senses, more foolish and less useful than Ned. Ned does an
errand very correctly; he brings home the marketing as promptly as you
could do it. He flies a kite for little Sam Snow till its tail is lost
in the clouds, and the boys are lost in astonishment; he makes little
boats for the school-children to sail in the pond; he carves wooden
whistles; nobody can make a better horsewhip out of common materials; he
picks up all the runaway babies in the neighborhood and carries them
safely home to their mothers; he leads the gray horse to water, and rubs
his glossy coat as well as any groom. I do not think he can read, at
least not as you and I were taught to read; he sees the blue sky, and
the green grass, and the flowers; he stops short and listens when a
little bird sings; he looks up into the tall trees, and watches the
shifting sunbeams light up their leaves; he lies under the tree-shadows
and gazes, well pleased, at the soft white clouds. Who shall say that in
their graceful flight they drop no message from their Maker (unheard by
us) to “Foolish Ned?”
When Ned’s hat and coat are old, it does not fret him; when a bank
fails, Ned laughs all the same; he likes Winter; he likes Summer; he
likes Spring; he makes garlands of the Autumn leaves, and glides with
nimble foot over the ice-bound brook. He stands at the church porch, and
bows his head, as the grand old organ sends out on the summer air its
holy anthem-peal. And yet, they who with careless foot cross its sacred
threshold, call him “_Foolish_ Ned!”
Unto whom much is given; of him (only) shall God require much.
[Illustration]
GREENWOOD.
Come—let us go to Greenwood. Where’s Greenwood? Oh, I forgot you were
not a little New Yorker. Greenwood is the great cemetery, or
burial-place, of the New Yorkers, on Long Island, and a very lovely
place it is, too. I like to see burial-places filled with flowers, and
waving trees, and sparkling fountains; I do not like that death should
be made a gloomy thing. I do not like that children should lie awake
nights in shuddering fear of it. Were you away on a journey from your
pleasant home, and were your dear father to send a messenger for you to
come to his arms, would you say, No, the messenger is ugly, I do not
like his looks, I would rather never see my father than to go with him?
Would you not say to yourself, it is but a short journey, I can trust a
dear father who has been so kind to me, and who loves me so well, I will
put my hand in that of the messenger he has sent, and go with him; my
father surely knows what is best for me, I have never had any thing but
kindness at his hands. Now why can not you think thus of the messenger
whom your _Heavenly_ Father sends for you, even though his name is
Death? Now, I do not like you to be afraid of death; I do not like you
to pray to God because, if you do not, you are afraid he will do
something dreadful to you. Oh, never pray that way, pray to him just as
you would run up to your mother and throw your arms about her neck and
love her, and thank her because she was so good and kind to you, not
because you are afraid she will whip you. That is the way God wants you
to pray to him. I am sure of it; and I am sure he loves you even better
than your mother, and were she to die, would watch over you tenderly,
for he takes special care of little orphans. No, do not think gloomily
of the good loving God, or of His messenger, Death. Love him—how can you
help it, when you see this beautiful earth He has made for you, and read
all His sweet words that have comforted so many who are now happy with
Him, beyond what you or I ever dreamed of.
But I must tell you about Greenwood, and how glad I was to see the
pretty flowers blooming over the graves, and the long graceful willow
branches dipping into the silver lakes, and then streaming out on the
fresh wind as if they were too full of happiness to keep still. I liked
the little squirrels which ran across the path, with their tails curled
saucily over their backs, and their black eyes twinkling sociably at us
as we passed. I saw some graves there of little children; there were no
tombstones or monuments over them; their fathers and mothers had brought
them to this country from far away beyond the blue sea, and in that
country it is the custom, when a little child dies, to place all his
little toys on the grave, with a little glass case over them (not to
keep them from thieves, oh, no, I can’t believe that any thief who ever
stole, would touch a little dead child’s toys, nobody is bad enough for
that); the glass case was to keep the rain from spoiling them, because
often the father and mother, little brothers and sisters, would like to
come and look at them, and think of their little Wilhelm, or little
Meta. On one little boy’s grave was a little rusty cannon, which he used
to play with, on another, only a pair of half-worn little shoes, with
the strings tied together, very coarse homely little shoes, with the
little toes turned up, just as the child’s foot had shaped them. I think
the little boy was too poor to have playthings, and this was all his
sorrowing mother had to tell us that her little boy lay dead beneath.
The tears came into my eyes when I saw them, not for the little dead
boy, oh, no, I was glad he had gone home to God, but for his lonely
mother, for I too, have little half-worn shoes, but the tiny feet which
used to wear them, I may never see or hear again in this world, but
heaven is not so far off from me, since little “Mary” went there, and I
think that is why God often takes our dear ones to keep for us, just as
the shepherd when he takes the lamb in his arms, knows that the mother
will want to follow.
Well, then I saw another little grave and under the glass-case upon it
was a little doll, a tiny tea-set, and three locks of hair, golden,
brown, and black, cut from the little heads that lay pillowed there. On
another grave was a riding-whip and a little horse, with the reins lying
idly about his neck; there are no little busy fingers now “to
make-believe ride;” but the little boy who used to play with them knows
more now than the most learned person on earth, and perhaps if you and I
go to heaven, as I hope we shall (not because we are “afraid of hell”
but because we want to be there with “our Father”), if we should go
there, perhaps that very little boy will sing us the first sweet song of
welcome. Who knows?
After wandering round Greenwood a long while, and seeing many, many
beautiful things, I got into the cars to come back to New York; beside
me I saw two little girls, one about five years and the other three. I
could scarcely see their bright black eyes for the curls which hung over
them. The younger was playing with a bunch of flowers, humming the while
a simple little song, just as if she were all alone by herself, instead
of amid a car full of people. Presently the little five year old girl
looked up in my face; then she said with a very sweet little voice,
“Have you been to Greenwood?”
“Yes, dear.”
“There’s _a_ many people dead there, ain’t there?”
“A great many.”
“Are any of your peoples dead?”
“Yes, my dear,” said I.
“Is?” (and the little creature put her hand in my lap, as if that
brought us nearer to each other), “Is? we just put little brother in
Greenwood.”
“What ailed him?” said I.
“Sick,” answered the little girl, playing with my bracelet.
“Mother is dead too, mother is in Greenwood, we put _her_ there two
weeks ago.”
“What ailed your mamma?”
“Sick,” answered the little one again.
“I hope you have a father,” said I, looking around the cars, for the
little sisters seemed quite alone.
“Yes, out there (pointing out on the platform to a man with black crape
on his hat, who was—shall I tell you? laughing and joking with some men
outside), that’s father.”
“Yes, that’s father!” sang the little one, twisting her flowers, “that’s
father.”
Poor little things.
“I loved mother,” said the elder girl, as she saw my eyes moisten;
“mother loved me too. I used to go to store for mother; when she died
she kissed me, and gave me her parasol;” and the poor child drooped her
head over my hand with which she was playing.
“Do you know that you will see your mother again?” said I.
“No! shall I?”
“Yes; she will not come here; but God will take you to see her, if you
are a good child.”
“I’m glad;” said she, softly.
“Don’t go away,” said she, as the cars stopped for me and my party to
get out.
“Rock-a-baby—by-baby,” sang the happy little sister, still twisting the
flowers.
I kissed them both. I looked into their father’s face, as I passed him
on the platform. I read nothing there that made my heart happier when I
thought of his little girls; but I looked up in the bright blue sky, and
I read there that “not a sparrow falls to the ground without God’s
knowledge,” and I knew that He who cares for the sparrows, would surely
care for the motherless little sisters.
BED-TIME.
“Just half an hour; only just half an hour more, mother.”
“Not one minute, Tommy—you have been saying ‘just half an hour more,’
these two hours; I think you would keep on saying so till daybreak, if I
would let you set up all night; little boys should go to bed early, that
they may get up early.”
“I wish there was no such thing as bed,” muttered Tommy, as he picked up
his playthings, and followed his mother up-stairs.
“I am sorry to hear you say that, my boy; bring me your night-gown, and
while I am undressing you, I will tell you a little story.
“The other night I was lying in my bed awake; it was between eleven and
twelve o’clock; it was a damp, chilly night, but there are always plenty
of people about the New York streets, long after twelve o’clock. I lay
there listening to a hand-organ beneath my window; I don’t like
hand-organs much, but this was a very good one, and the tunes were
sweet, mournful tunes, such as I like best to listen to. The organist
played as long as he could get any pennies, and then strapping his organ
across his back trudged off. Lulled by the sweet music, I was just
falling asleep, when I heard a child’s scream beneath the window—then
another—then another; then the words ‘Oh—don’t! oh—don’t! let me go—oh,
dear—oh, dear!’ What could a little child be doing out in the street at
that time of night? and who could be hurting it? I flew to the window
and opened it. There was a great crowd beneath the window, for the
little girl had screamed so loud that every body had run, as I did, to
know what was the matter. At first I could not make out what it all
meant; it seemed so strange that not one of all those people who were
looking on, should take the little girl away from that great tall man,
who was holding her so tight, while she still kept on screaming, ‘Oh,
don’t! oh, let me go!’
“Not only did they not take hold of him, but they moved on one side to
let him go off with the little girl, who was throwing herself about in
his arms, as if she were wild with fear. Presently the man who had the
child, passed under a bright gas-light, and as he did so I saw a _star_
glitter upon his broad breast. A policeman! that was why nobody meddled
with him then; but what naughty thing could a little girl like that have
done, that she must be carried off by a policeman at twelve o’clock at
night? Surely—surely—so young a child as that could not have done any
thing so _very_ bad.
“But the policeman carried her off, still shrieking, and as her voice
died away in the distance, I could still hear ‘Oh don’t! oh let me go!’
and then the crowd scattered, and every body went home; and I went back
to bed, and dreamed that the little girl was going to be hung, and that
I saved her. Not till the next morning, could I find out what was the
cause of the trouble. The little girl’s name was Ann Mahon. Her father
and mother were Irish, and lived in a cellar, with a great many people,
black and white, who were all very bad and idle. Little Ann had never
lived in any other way than this; she was born in a cellar; and had been
beaten and starved and abused, till she was not more than half the size
of children of her own age. Her father and mother were both drunkards;
they were too idle to work for a living, so they sent poor little Ann
out into the streets at nine o’clock at night, to beg money; thinking
that people would pity a little girl so much for being all alone at that
time of night, that they would certainly give her something. But to make
sure of her getting it, they told little Ann, when they pinned the thin
ragged dirty shawl over her little brown head, that if she sat down on
the steps anywhere, and went to sleep, or did not bring some money when
she came back, they would whip her, till she was almost dead. So the
poor little thing went out, and pattered up and down the cold pavements,
with her bare, weary feet, hour after hour, never daring to sit down a
moment to rest herself, running up to the gentlemen who were hurrying
home, with ‘A penny please sir? a penny please sir?’ Now, a lady would
come along, a bright beautiful lady, with a gay cloak, just from the
theater or opera, leaning on a gentleman’s arm, her eyes flashing like
the diamonds in her bosom; she would hear little Ann’s ‘A penny please,’
as she stepped into her carriage, and gathering up her beautiful clothes
in her snowy fingers, lest Ann should soil them, would turn away and
pass on, and the gentleman with her, would say, ‘What a pest these
beggars are.’ Sometimes some gentlemen who had little girls at home like
Ann, would put their hands in their pockets, and give her a penny, and
say kindly, ‘Run home, my dear, out of the street,’ but the poor child
did not dare to go, till she had more pennies, and so she wandered on.
‘By-and-by little Ann heard the organ under my window; she liked the
music, it sounded like kind words to her, and poor Ann had heard so few
of those, in her little lifetime; so she drew closer to the crowd to
listen still saying, in a low voice, ‘Penny please, penny please,’ to
the people who stood there; for she did not dare to stop saying it on
account of what her mother had told her, and because it was getting
late, and she had as yet only two pennies.
“Presently little Ann felt a heavy hand on her shoulder; she started,
and turned round—there was a tall policeman! Little Ann screamed; she
knew well enough what a policeman was—poor little girl, she had seen the
bad people among whom she was forced to live, hide away from them, many
a time; and she had seen them, when the policeman caught them, struggle,
and kick, and scream, to keep from being carried to prison; no wonder
that little Ann screamed out, ‘Oh, don’t—let me go—oh, don’t!’ as the
policeman lifted her up in his arms, just as he would a feather, to
carry her off, as she thought, to jail.
“But that was not what the policeman was going to do; he was only going
to take her to the watch-house, and keep her safely till morning, and
then have her show him where her parents (who sent the poor thing out
nights) lived; that he could take them and have them punished for doing
it; that was what the policeman was going to do with little Ann; but the
poor child did not know that, nor if she had, would it have comforted
her any to have been told that her father and mother were to be sent to
jail, and she to the almshouse; for bad as they were, they were all she
had to care for; and so the poor little friendless thing clung to them.
No, Ann did not know where she was going or what for, and the policeman
being used to seeing misery, did not take any trouble to explain, or to
quiet her, as he should have done; so when poor Ann had screamed till
she was all tired out, she fell asleep in the dreary watch-house, with
the policemen.
“What do you think that little girl would have given, Tommy, for a nice
safe home like this; a clean warm little bed, and a kind mother to
undress her every night, and put her into it? Think of that, my boy,
when you scowl, and pout, and wish that ‘there never was such a thing as
a bed.’”
SOLILOQUY OF OVERGROWN FIFTEEN.
I sprang up, like Jonah’s gourd, in a night; I am as tall as a
bean-stalk and as green; I am thick where I ought to be thin, and thin
where I should be thick; I am too big to drive hoop, and not old enough
to wear one; too tall to let my hair loose on my shoulders, and not old
enough to fix it up with a comb; I am too large to wear an apron, and I
can’t keep my dress clean without one; I have out-grown tucks, and am
not allowed to wear flounces; I have to pay full price in the omnibuses,
and yet gentlemen, because of my baby-face never pull the strap for me;
I have lost my relish for “Mother Goose,” and am not allowed to read
love-stories; old men have done giving me sugarplums, and young men have
not begun to give me “kisses;” I have done with gingerbread hearts and
nobody offers me the other sort; I have given up playing with
“doll-babies,” and am forbidden to think of a husband; if I ask my
mother for a “dress-hat,” she says “Pshaw! you are nothing but a child;”
if I run or jump in the street, she says, “My dear, you should remember
that you are a young lady now.” I say it’s real mean; so there, now, and
I don’t care.
A TEMPERANCE STORY.
Charley Colt’s father was a grocer. There was a great sign stuck up on
the corner with a sugarloaf painted on either end; and outside the door
were hogsheads of “Jamaica brandy,” and “Old Cogniac.” He was not a
temperance man of course; temperance was not so much talked about in
those days as it is now; it was a matter of course that drunkards went
reeling home from such places as Mr. Colt’s, and nobody seemed to think
the worse of the man who sold such maddening stuff. Many a poor
heart-broken woman turned away her head when the fat, jolly Mr. Colt
walked, on Sundays, into the best pew in church, and sat up as straight
as if he had not taken the bread out of the mouths of so many widows and
their children. Nobody thought the worse of Mr. Colt for taking, for
liquor, all the wages which a poor man had been all the week earning,
instead of telling the foolish fellow to take it home to his destitute
family. Mr. Colt slept just as soundly as if he had not been doing this
for years; and the law did not meddle with him for it; and as to that
old-fashioned book, the Bible, which says, “Love thy neighbor as
thyself,” Mr. Colt never troubled himself to wipe the dust from its
covers. Mr. Colt had a bright little boy named Charley, of whom he was
very fond; he was an only child. Charley spent all his time in the store
when he was not in school, listening to the men who came there to drink,
as they lounged round the door, or sat on the counter, or perched
themselves on top of the barrels of whisky and rum. Sometimes they would
ask him questions, to see what queer old-fashioned answers he would
make, and then his father would wink with one eye and say “Oh, he’s a
case, that boy, he is going to college one of these days, and going to
be a gentleman, ain’t you, Charley?” and then the men would set him up
on the barrels and give him the sugar and rum in the bottom of their
glasses, and then Charley would talk so fast and so loud that you would
think he was crazy, and so things went on at the grocer’s till Charley
was a big boy, big enough to go to college. Then his father fitted him
out with a great many fine clothes, because he said his handsome Charley
should be a gentleman, and gave him a purse full of money, and told him
to hold up his head, and not let any body tread him down. And Charley
opened his bright eyes and shook his thick curls, and said, whoever
wanted to get the better of him would have “to get up early in the
morning.” And so off he went to college “to be made a gentleman of.”
When Charley got there, he found out that the way to be a gentleman in
college was to insult his teachers, break windows, run up great long
bills at the tailor’s, the hatter’s, the pastry cook’s, and the eating
and drinking saloons.
It was very easy work, and when he got through, the bills were sent to
his father to pay. As to his lessons, his father had never said any
thing about those—it was stupid work studying, well enough for poor
men’s sons, whose fathers were not rich, and who would have to earn
their own living, but all he was sent there for, was to learn to be a
gentleman. His teachers reproved him for neglect of study, and Charley
plainly told them it was none of their business to speak to a gentleman
in that way; and when his tutor told him that he must not use such
language to him, he knocked the tutor down with his gentlemanly fists.
To be sure he was drunk when he did it, but the tutor did not seem to
think much, even of that gentlemanly excuse, and so Charley was
expelled—that is, sent away from college, and went back again to his
father. Mr. Colt did not keep the store now; he had made so much money,
making drunkards, that he could afford to sell out all his rum-barrels
to another man, who wanted to get rich too, by breaking women’s hearts,
and starving poor innocent children. Mr. Colt now lived in a fine large
house, with great high stone steps like a palace, and a great bronze
lion on each side of the door. There were beautiful sofas and chairs
inside, and mirrors the whole length of the wall, from floor to ceiling.
The carpets were as thick and soft as the moss-patches in the woods, and
the flowers in them so beautiful that you hesitated to put your foot on
them. Then there was silver, and cut-glass, and porcelain, and a whole
army of servants, all bought with the poor drunkards’ money; and Mr.
Colt walked up and down his rooms, and thought himself a good man, and a
gentleman. Charley Colt thought it was all very fine when he came back
from college. But what he liked better than any thing else was his
father’s wine-cellar. He smoked and drank, and drank and smoked, and
lolled around the streets to his heart’s content. One night he was
brought home very drunk, by two policemen, who had found him quarreling
in the street; his head was badly cut, and his fine clothes were soiled
and covered with mud, and his hat was so bruised, that you could not
have told what shape it was when it was made.
Old Mr. Colt was sitting in his handsome parlor, in his dressing-gown
and slippers, reading the evening paper, when the policemen rang at the
door; hearing a scuffling in the entry, he opened the door of the parlor
and there was his son, bruised, ragged, dirty, bleeding, and dead drunk.
Old Mr. Colt had often seen other men’s sons, whom he had helped to make
drunkards, in this condition, without being at all troubled by it; but
his _own_ son—his fine handsome Charley—his only child—to look so
beastly—to be so degraded—ah, that was quite another thing. His brain
reeled, his knees tottered under him, his hand shook as if he had the
palsy; then, for the first time in his life, he knew the misery he had
brought to other firesides, other happy homes. All that night he walked
up and down the floor of those splendid rooms; now he remembered the
poor women who used to come to his shop to coax home their drunken sons
and husbands, and all the fine furniture in his rooms seemed to be
stained with their tears; now he remembered an old gray-haired man, who
prayed him with clasped hands never to sell his son another drop of that
maddening drink; and then there seemed to come a hand-writing on the
wall, and this it was: “With what measure ye mete, it shall be meted to
you again!” and the wretched old man bowed his head upon his breast and
said, “Oh, God, thou art just!”
ALL ABOUT HORACE.
Now what is that little boy crying for? A rocking-horse? Some marbles? A
bat and ball? A pair of skates? What a curious-looking boy he is! Thin,
small, stooping, awkward; but what clear blue eyes; and what a
singularly sweet innocent expression in his colorless face. Every body
hates to see him cry, because every body loves Horace. His father and
mother are poor, hard-working people, and have other children beside him
to take care of; and each one must do something toward helping support
the family, too. Horace’s mother works in the field, hoes, rakes up the
hay, plants, and digs, just like his father: perhaps you think she must
get so tired doing all this, and in door women’s work beside, that she
could have no time at all to attend to her little boy, Horace. Don’t you
believe it; women in those days were made of better stuff than most of
the women of our day. Horace’s mother could not have planted potatoes or
raked hay, in corsets or a hoop-skirt. She could not have done it had
she lived on cake, cordial, pies and confectionery. She could not have
done it had she slept in close, heated apartments. She did none of all
those foolish things. Neither was she cross or ill-tempered, nor did she
beat and push little Horace round and tell him that he was always in the
way, as some poor, tired, hard-working women do; not she—she was the
merriest, jolliest, funniest, story-telling-est woman you ever heard of;
went singing after the hay-cart, singing to the plow, singing to the
barn-yard, singing to dinner, and singing to bed. That robbed labor of
half its weariness, and winged the feet of every body about her; so
little Horace was not afraid to follow his mother about. No matter how
busy she was, she always found time to speak a pleasant word to her
fair-haired little boy. And _such_ stories as she told him, and such “a
lot” of them, fairy stories, and “old legends,” why, she was as good as
a whole library of child’s story-books; and better too, because half of
those are written either so that children can not understand them, or so
babyish as to disgust them. She was better than any story-book, you may
be sure, and Horace would have run his legs off for her any day, as well
he might.
But I have not told you yet, what Horace was crying about. Well, it was
because he had missed a word and lost his place in the class. You must
know that Horace was a famous speller; but the best sometimes are caught
tripping, and so it proved with him, and it mortified him so much that
he could not choke the tears away. Now, perhaps you think the boys who
got above him in the class were glad of this; perhaps you have known
boys who have felt so. Horace’s schoolmates did not: they all loved him
because he was so good and gentle, and when they saw how badly he felt,
they refused to go above him: that dried up his tears very quick. There
is nothing like kind words and deeds to dry up tears; try it, and you
will see.
Little Horace’s fame as a speller (you must not think because he
occasionally tripped at it, that this was not true, any more than that
because there are some hypocrites that there is nothing in
religion)—little Horace’s fame as a speller went all over the country.
There was an old captain of a vessel who lived on a farm near, and who
had heard of him; whenever he met the boy he would say, “Horace, how do
you spell Encyclopædia?” or “Kamschatka,” or “Nebuchadnezzar.” Then he
used to lend him books to read, and question him about them afterward,
and I promise you that Master Horace was always able to answer any of
his questions, for he did not read “skipping” as do some boys. The old
captain was kind to Horace’s brother, too; and gave him a sheep, and a
load of hay to feed the sheep on, one winter.
Horace found another friend, too, for good boys who are eager to learn,
no matter how poor they may be, always get on somehow; this friend was a
minister who used to teach him grammar, for the pleasure of teaching
such a bright little fellow. Sometimes, to see whether he had understood
what he had been taught, he would tell him wrong, but Horace could not
be caught that way; when he had once understood a thing he stuck to it,
and it was of no use trying to shake his belief in it.
Perhaps you are thinking that he was not good for any thing but study;
there again you are mistaken. He was just as good at farm-work, and just
as thorough as he was at study. Sometimes, when his father had set
Horace and his brothers a task to do while he went away from home, his
roguish brother would say, “Come, Hod, let’s go fishing!” Did he go?
This was his answer, I want you to remember it, “Let us do our stint
first!” Horace could play, too; he could catch more fish than all the
other fellows put together; but shooting, which the other boys were so
fond of, he disliked; when they went to murder a little bird or rabbit,
he would lie down and stuff his ears full of grass till the murder had
been done; he could not bear to hear a gun go off, and he could not bear
to see these creatures killed. Why he did not feel so about fish seems
strange to me, but then he was a strange boy altogether.
I dare say you wonder, when his friends were so poor, how he got books,
and where, and when, he found time amid the farm-work to read them, and
how he learned to read at all. I will tell you; you are not tired, are
you? I am not. You see when he was only two years old, he used to lie on
the floor with the big Bible, and pore over it, and pick out the
letters, and ask questions about them. The fact was, the child taught
himself; he could read at three years any child’s book, and at four, any
book you could bring him; and what is funnier, at four years he could
read a book up side down, or sideways as well as right side up. He
learned all this, not because he was told to, but of his own accord, and
because he loved it. The nearest school-house was a mile and a half from
home, and when he was six, he began to go to it. Sometimes tremendous
snowstorms would blow over the New Hampshire hills, where Horace lived,
and many a little fellow was lost in the snow-drifts, or frozen to
death. This did not keep Horace at home, and when he could not wade
through the snow himself, he would mount on the shoulders of a
good-natured schoolmate, who was stouter and bigger, and who would even
pull off his own mittens, and draw them over Horace’s little hands to
keep them from freezing. Do you think you would have taken as much pains
as did Horace, to learn? or would you have clapped your hands when the
noiseless snowflakes came sailing lazily down, because they would afford
you an excuse for staying at home, to pop corn in the big old-fashioned
fire-place.
Speaking of the big fire-place, reminds me to tell you another thing
about Horace. All his evenings he spent in reading; he borrowed all the
books he could muster for miles round. Poor people can not afford to
burn many candles or lamps; but this was not to keep Horace from reading
the borrowed books. How could he read without a light? ah—that’s just
the question. He collected together in a safe place a parcel of
pine-knots, and when it came evening he set one of those up in the great
big chimney-corner, set it on fire, and then curled himself up, like a
kitten on the hearth, and read away with all his might; neighbors
dropped in to talk with his father and mother, but he neither saw nor
heard them, nor they him, the still, puny, busy little reader. It was
like waking up a person from a sound sleep, to rouse him from his dear
book. Sometimes his little schoolmates would come in to spend the
evening, for they liked Horace’s mother as well as Horace, and had often
listened to the pretty stories she used to tell; they did not like him
to lie on the hearth and read, when they wanted to play; so they would
go up and seize him by one leg, and draw him away from the pine knot and
the book. Horace would quietly get on his legs and walk straight back
again, without showing the least anger; then they would snatch away his
book and hide it, thinking in that way to get him to play with them;
then he would very quietly go and get another book and lie down again to
read. What could you do with such a boy? Why, let him read, of course.
The boys couldn’t quarrel with him, because he was always so
good-natured; beside, his learning was a mighty good thing for them;
even boys twice his age, wanted him to explain sums they could not
understand, or other lessons too, which never puzzled his little flaxen
head a bit. Ah, he was a great boy, that Horace, for all he was so
little.
One day he went into a blacksmith’s shop, and was looking on so intently
while the blacksmith shoed the horses, that the blacksmith said to him,
“I think you had better come and learn my trade.”
“No,” said little Horace, with quite a determined air, “I am going to be
a printer.” The blacksmith laughed, as well he might, that such a little
button of a boy, should already have made up his mind so decidedly about
what puzzles young men at the age of twenty; but Horace always knew his
own mind and was not afraid, when it was proper for him to do so, to
speak it.
And now I suppose you would like to know whether this little fellow ever
_did_ become a printer? whether all this learning ever did him or any
body else any good; and what became of such a queer boy any how.
Well, his father lost what little property he had, and Horace, who was
always a kind son, helped him all he could, and when he thought it would
be helping his father best, to try to support himself, he started off
with a clean shirt under his arm to seek his fortune, and learn to be a
printer. I could not tell you all the disappointments and
discouragements this bright little fellow met with, or how nobly he bore
up under them all; but I will tell you how at last he came to New York,
where so many rich men live, who like himself first came to the city on
foot, with only a few cents in their pockets, and a change of clothes
tied up in a bundle, and slung over their shoulders. It costs so much to
live in New York that Horace tried at several places before he could
find lodgings where he could afford to stay. He did not care for
delicacies, he had been used at home to sit round a howl of porridge
with his father and mother, brothers and sisters, and all eat with the
same spoon out of the family bowl. After making many inquiries he found
at last a cheap place, and after taking breakfast there, set out to
wander through the city in search of employment.
[Illustration]
You boys, who have always been fed, clothed, and lodged, by your kind
parents, and who take it as a matter of course, can have little idea
what weary discouraging, disheartening work, this search for employment
is—how roughly harsh words fall upon the ear, used only to loving tones;
how hard it is to smother down angry feelings when you are wrongfully
suspected; how tough it must have been for Horace, who was so happy over
the family bowl of porridge, because love sweetened it, when on his
first application for employment, the gentleman to whom he spoke looked
sharply at him, saying, “My opinion is, that you are a runaway
apprentice, and you had better go home to your master,” and when Horace
tried to explain that it was not so, the gentleman stopped him short
with, “Be off about your business, and don’t bother me.” But this rough
answer did not discourage Horace, who kept on, all that day, going
up-stairs and down into different offices asking for employment and
receiving the same chilling “No.” Ah, I can tell, I, who have tried it,
how weary and forlorn he must have felt, that Friday night, as he went
home to his cheap lodgings, and how hopeless seemed the idea of
commencing again the next morning, and returning again the next night
with no better success. Sunday came, and Horace, as many have done
before him, went to church with his troubled spirit, and forgot the body
and all its little petty needs, the earth and all its little toils and
cares, and came away, as “the poor in spirit” always come from God’s
temple, rich in blessing.
The next day, Horace heard of a place where he might probably find
employment. Did he say, “It is no use, I have spent two whole days now,
wandering up and down the city, in and out of offices, for nothing?” No,
he did not say this; he was on the steps of the printing-office at half
past five in the morning. Not a soul was there but himself, and Horace
sat down upon the steps to wait till it was open, poor fellow, with his
bundle on his knees, pale and anxious, and there waited and waited a
long, long while before any one came. By-and-by, one of the journymen
who worked in the office, came, and sat down on the steps too, and began
talking with Horace. _That_ man had a heart, and he pitied Horace, whom
he believed to be a good, honest fellow, and whom he resolved to
befriend. When the office was opened he took him into it. Every body who
came in laughed at Horace, because he was dressed in such a shabby way.
Did he mind that? Of course he did not, no more than you would mind the
barking of your dog, Tray. The foreman in the office looked at him, the
apprentices looked at him, they all looked at him, and thought that such
a countrified-looking fellow must, of course, be a fool, and it was all
nonsense to try him; however, to oblige the kind journeyman who brought
him in, they consented to give him a piece of work to do, the only work
they had, and a very difficult job, so much so that several in the
office had tried and given it up in despair. Well, Horace, nothing
discouraged, went right at it with a will. By-and-by the master of the
office came in, and glancing at Horace, asked the foreman,
contemptuously, what he had hired that fool for?
“He is the best we could get, and we must have somebody,” was the
answer.
“Well,” said the vexed man, “pay him off to-night and send him about his
business.”
Did they send him off? Not they; not by six dollars, which they were
glad to pay him every week, for the sake of keeping such a good workman
in their office. The men and boys in the office, nick-named him “the
Ghost,” on account of his pale complexion. I could not tell you all
their tormenting tricks, which never kept Horace from working steadily
on; or how they got the black, inky, printer’s balls, and rubbed them
all over his yellow hair, and played other roguish tricks to torment
him; and how he kept steadily on with his work, never getting angry,
never noticing their nonsense, till they were forced to let him alone,
for it is no fun to keep on trying to plague any body who don’t mind it
a bit. I couldn’t tell you all his adventures, but I will tell you that
when he earned money he always sent nearly the whole of it to his father
and mother, never buying what young lads like best to spend money for,
in the way of eatables and new clothes. I will tell you that he did
become a printer, and astonished every body by his learning and
intelligence; that he not only became a printer but an editor, and a
member of Congress, and what is better, always in his paper takes the
part of the working-people and farmers, among whom he was brought up,
instead of turning his back upon them and getting proud because he grew
rich; and famous—he tells them all about new plows, and new breeds of
cattle, and how to manage their farms to the best advantage, and always
has a kind, encouraging word for those who, like himself, are struggling
to get on in the world without friends or fortune; and that is the best
part of the whole. And now, when the carrier drops his paper at your
father’s door, I want you to read the articles Horace Greeley writes for
it, and feel proud, if he does not, of him and of the NEW YORK TRIBUNE.
A WALK I TOOK.
Did you ever see the New York Battery? Of course you have, if you are a
New Yorker. You have stood a thousand times looking toward Staten
Island, over the blue water, and seen the gallant ships, and the little
pleasure-boats, and the mammoth steamers, and listened to the far-off
“yeave-ho,” of the good honest sailors, and felt the fresh sea-breeze
fan your heated cheek; sat down under the shady trees, and watched the
children roll upon the grass, and heard their merry shouts. Not the
children of the rich—no; luckily for poor children, the Battery, one of
the most beautiful spots in New York, was long ago voted
“unfashionable;” after that, of course, it would never do for any body
who wished to be thought any body, to walk there, and to admire this
beautiful view or enjoy the cool shade of the lovely trees—no, indeed.
So these fashionables left the beautiful Battery to the poor people, and
I thanked God for it, as I sat there under the trees, one hot summer
afternoon, and saw them come streaming in through the gates, from the
filthy alleys, and by-streets, with their little barefooted children,
and their care-worn anxious-looking wives. They had it all to themselves
now, no fear of intruding, for, as I told you, nobody who cared to be
thought fashionable would ever dare to venture there, much less sit down
beside them on the benches. But I was not fashionable, so I sat there
and watched the face of the tired, worn-out mother, and saw her faded
eye brighten, as it rested on the blue water and the beautiful sunset
clouds, enjoying the cool wind as it lifted the tangled curls from her
sick baby’s face. Her poor little baby! who had been shut up in a dark
underground room all day, while his mother stood scrubbing out clothes
at the wash-tub—ah! it was quite another thing for them this fresh
sea-breeze, this pretty grassy velvet carpet, dotted with butter-cups
and dandelion blossoms. The little baby hardly knew its own mother’s
face, it looked so pleasant and fresh and happy; hardly knew her voice,
which grew softer and sweeter, though she did not know it, as she felt
that God had made some things for the poor as well as the rich; and as I
sat beside them, and watched the little pale baby tumble round on the
soft grass, picking butter-cups, I thanked God, as I told you before,
that the Battery had become “unfashionable,” so that these poor
creatures and I, could go there and enjoy all this beauty without having
it spoiled by their foolish presence. Just as I was going away from the
Battery, thinking of these things, I saw a group of emigrants before me,
who had just landed from some ship. How oddly they were dressed! Most of
them were young, hale, and strong; and glad to leap from the rocking
vessel to the shore, which they had been told was the “poor man’s
paradise.” On they went, gazing bewilderingly about, jostled hither and
thither as they passed through the streets. Strange sights, strange
sounds, strange faces all. There was nothing there to remind them of the
old “fatherland.” How odd the vehicles, how curious the houses, how new
the dresses; how little all the busy people about them seemed to care
what became of the poor emigrants in a strange land.
Now, as the emigrants pass along, still gazing, still wondering, they
see a church. They understand that! Ah! the great loving heart of God
beats for his children in all lands, beneath all skies! And so the poor
emigrants stopped, and the old man reverently uncovered his silver head;
the child hushed its gleeful prattle; the rosy maiden checked her merry
laugh, and with one accord they all knelt upon the pavement, to render
thanks to Him who held the winds and waves in the hollow of His hand,
and who had brought them safely to this foreign land.
It was a holy and beautiful sight! The man of business stared at that
kneeling group as he rushed by, and for the first time for many, many a
day, he thought of the long-forgotten prayer at his dead mother’s knee;
and the half-way Christian crimsoned with shame, as he looked at these
poor emigrants, and remembered how the noisy voices of the world had
drowned for him the still, small whisper of God’s Spirit.
Ah! my dear little children, believe me, there are many good sermons
which are never preached in churches.
SUSY FOSTER.
Don’t know Susy Foster? bless me! I thought every body knew Susy. Did
you never meet her trudging to school, with her satchel and her
luncheon? did you never look at her and wonder how people could ever
call Susy Foster “homely?” Did you never notice how many different
shades of color her eyes would take while you were talking to her? and
how the blood would come and go on her pale cheek? Did you never notice
her stoop to pick up a cane for some old man, whose limbs were so stiff,
that it was difficult to do it for himself? Did you never see her help
some younger child safely across the muddy, crowded street? Did you
never see her give away her scanty luncheon to some little girl who had
eaten no breakfast? Did you never see her walk _round_ an ant hill on
the sidewalk, instead of walking _over_ it? Did you never see her in
school recess, helping some child, whose wits were not as quick as her
own, to do a puzzling sum in arithmetic, or teach her some long word in
geography? Did you never see her thoughtfully tie up a little
schoolmate’s shoe, for fear the loose string would trip her on the
sidewalk? or untie a knot in her bonnet-strings, or pin her cloak
together for her when the button came off? Did you never see her put her
arm round a little child, who was crying because her school-fellows had
made fun of a big patch on her gown? Did you never hear her sing when
school was over, “I want to be an angel?” and did tears never dim your
eyes, that a little thing like her, who was only a poor little
errand-girl, apprenticed to Miss Snip, the milliner, and who never knew
what it was to be loved by father, or mother, brother or sister, should
be so much kinder to every body, and so much better than yourself, who
had all these and many more blessings? Susy Foster homely? I never saw
her little brown head, but there seemed to me to be a halo round it,
such as one sees on pictures of the infant Jesus. Susy Foster homely?
She is not homely, now. The bright sun, as it slants across the village
green, goes down upon the little childish group who come tripping out of
the old school-house, but Susy is not among them, her seat in school is
vacant, her satchel lies idly on the shelf. Miss Snip still scolds and
frets, but Susy does not hear her; the spider weaves his busy web upon
the wall in Susy’s garret, but there are no little curious lonely eyes
to watch him. The old blind man at the street corner, stands leaning on
his staff, listening till he is weary, for Susy’s pleasant voice. He did
not see the poor’s hearse, as it rumbled past him with little Susy in
it; but some day the film will fall from his sightless eyes—_not
here_—and he _will_ see Susy, and many like her, of whom the earth was
not worthy.
“FEED MY LAMBS.”
What can that gentleman be doing with all those children? there is one
whole car quite filled with them. He is not their father, that is very
certain, though he is as kind to them as if he were. No, he can not be
their father. Some of those little faces are I Irish, some Scotch, some
French. They all look happy, and yet they are leaving father and mother,
brothers and sisters, never more perhaps to meet them again in this
world.
“Happy?” you exclaim; “happy” to go away thus from home and friends?
Suppose that home were at the “Five Points?” suppose their fathers and
mothers drank, and stole, and quarreled, and taught those children to do
the same, till their very souls sickened at the name of home? till even
the grave, dark and gloomy as it appears to fresh young life, would seem
a safer, better, happier place? What then? Then suppose a good man, with
his heart full of compassion for those little suffering, tempted, and,
as yet, innocent children, should lay his hand of blessing on their
heads, as Jesus did, and say, “Come unto me.” Suppose he should tell
them that if they would leave these wretched homes he would take them
thousands of miles away from the great swarming city, into the country,
where the air is pure and fresh as the hearts of the people, among whom
he would find them happy homes; where they would be taught to read and
write, and never be beaten because they were unwilling to steal or lie.
Suppose I should tell you that this gentleman, Mr. Van Meter, has taken
many, many cars full of such children, to the far West, and that many of
them have been adopted as own children into families who love all that
is good, and to whom God has given means to provide for all their wants.
Oh, what a change from the dirty, dark, noisome dens of the Five Points;
no wonder the little children feel happy; no wonder they look up in Mr.
Van Meter’s cheerful face, with eyes brim-full of trust and tenderness;
no wonder they put their little hands in his and say, “Take us, we will
go wherever you tell us;” and no wonder that his heart swells when,
months after he leaves them in their new homes, he receives their
letters, thanking him for bringing them there, and telling him how much
they have learned, and how kind are their new friends, and how one of
them is to be a farmer, and one a doctor, and one a minister; and then
they beg him to bring away more children from those dreadful places, to
the good and beautiful homes of the West. And well they may beg for
their old playmates, the poor children who are left behind; oh, you can
have no idea how wretched, how dreadful, are the lives they lead. Not
long since, two young girls, five and nine years old, were living alone
in a miserable room, with no fire, no food, and scarcely any clothing;
but they were thankful even for a shelter at night, and in the day, they
begged from door to door, for a mouthful of food; it was pitiful how
hungry they were; it was pitiful their pinched, care-worn, old little
faces. One day when they came home from begging, they found their
landlord in the old dirty desolate room they called their home. He had
come for the money they were to pay him for the use of it.
“Money?”
The poor little frightened girls looked up in his face.
“Money?”
They had none to give—not a cent; and so they were turned into the
street.
Taking hold of each other’s hands, and wiping, with their ragged aprons,
the fast falling tears, on they went, those little sisters, past happy
homes, where rosy, well-fed children peeped at them from out richly
curtained windows; past many a little happy face, upon the sidewalk,
never stained with such bitter, desolate tears; past the good, past the
bad, past the indifferent, up to the gate of a large stone building,
where they stopped, knocking with their little half-frozen fingers. Why
should the little sisters knock there? That is a prison; they have
committed no crime—why should the little sisters knock there?
Because their father and mother are there—because they have no home on
the wide earth if that wretched prison can not be their home. Do you
wonder now, that Mr. Van Meter begs people to give him money, that he
may take such children away from sin and suffering, to the pure homes of
the beautiful West? I know your heart says with mine, God speed!
TWO LIVE PICTURES.
I wish I were an artist. I would paint two pictures that I saw to-day.
This was the first.
At the basement window of a house I passed, sat a mother and her little
sick girl. On the window was a tumbler containing some physic, into
which the mother had just dipped a spoon, which she was holding to the
sick child’s mouth. You should have seen that little girl’s disgusted,
shuddering face, as she turned it away from the spoon, over her right
shoulder. I doubt if the physic itself was “worse to take!”
This was the second picture.
A little girl, about five years old, had been sent, by her mother, to
the butcher’s, for a beefsteak, with an open basket. She had done her
errand, and was tripping home with the meat, singing as she went, when a
great bouncing Newfoundland dog came toward her, and with a bound,
placed his two fore-paws on her shoulder, while the poor child reached
her little arms as high as they would go, above her curly head, to save
the precious beefsteak. There, now, there are two subjects, for any of
you who can draw. I only wish I could, and I would have had them in this
very book.
A RIDDLE;
OR, MAMMA’S CHRISTMAS PRESENT.
“Hurrah for Christmas! How it snows! how it blows! who cares? who’s got
a Christmas present?”
“Mother! well, what has mother got in her stocking? Nothing?—that’s too
bad.”
“Aye; but I did not say she had nothing; I said she had nothing _in her
stocking_.”
“Did not Santa Claus bring her any thing?”
“Yes.”
“Well, why not put it in her stocking, then?”
“It was too big.”
“What can it be? Tell us; a work-table?”
“No.”
“A rocking-chair?”
“No.”
“A new silk dress?”
“No.”
“A muff?”
“No.”
“A writing-desk?”
“No.”
“A picture? an ottoman? a statue? a new bonnet?”
“No—no—no—no!”
“Pshaw, it was nothing.”
“But I tell you it was something!”
“Something? then, a table-bell?”
“No; it is not a bell now, but it may be.”
“Not a bell now, but may be! Oh, pshaw, we give it up; tell us, what is
it?”
“Well then—a live baby!”
THANKSGIVING.
To-morrow is Thanksgiving.
No joyful clapping of hands when this was said, and the newspaper laid
down in which the Thanksgiving proclamation had just been read. No
little eyes brightened, or rosy lips said, “How nice—how glad I am!” and
yet the little group, gathered there around the warm fire, were well fed
and well clothed; there would be the usual turkey, and mince-pie, and
plum-pudding at the Thanksgiving dinner; but grandpapa would not be
there. Grandpapa was “gone!” What was Thanksgiving, without grandpapa’s
silver head at the table? Little curly heads would miss the trembling
hands of blessing; little ears would listen vainly for the faltering
kindly voice; little eyes would watch when the hall door opened, but
hear no tottering footstep; there would be no loving strife now, who
should put away his “staff.” Grandpapa has a surer Staff now.
Dear old grandpa! who ever heard him speak a fretful, unkind word? No
need to say Hush, children, grandpa is coming—no need to put away the
humming-top, marbles, or ball; no need to draw down the merry little
faces; no need for little chests to heave the half-stifled, disappointed
sigh; no, indeed; grandpa’s hands trembled, grandpa’s feet tottered,
grandpa’s forehead was seamed with wrinkles, and his hair was
snow-white; but grandpa’s heart was fresh and green, and the sparkle in
his eye was as merry as when he was a little boy himself.
Oh, what will Thanksgiving be without grandpa? Did grandpa ever think
his children were not his children, because they were grown up, and had
married, and left their old home? Did grandpa ever scowl at them when
trouble and poverty came, as if it were a crime to be sick or poor? Was
grandpa only glad to see them when they were rich and prosperous, and
did he love them only when the world noticed them? No—no—else they would
not all say to-day,
“Oh, what will Thanksgiving be without grandpa?” Dear old grandpa—there
will be no sorrow mixed with his Thanksgiving to-morrow. You will all, I
am sure, give thanks for that; his eyes are no longer dim, but the
glorious things he sees, neither you or I may know, till our earthly
Thanksgivings are over. No pillow to place for the feeble head, there is
no sickness there; no cooling draught for the parched lips, for there is
no more thirst; neither does he hunger any more; no need to trim the
watcher’s midnight lamp, there is no night there. Oh, happy, blessed,
sainted grandpapa. Surely the memory of Thanksgiving we will keep, and
_it shall not be without thee_!
THE END.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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