A New Story Book For Children

JOHN BROWN.

You have all heard that song, sung at the piano at home, whistled in the street, and shouted by the soldiers as they went off to the war; well, shouldn’t you like to have me tell you what sort of a child John Brown was?

JOHN BROWN.—page 32.

33Little boys who live in cities, and wear velvet coats, and hats with plumes in them, and have long, silky curls, just like a little girl’s, hanging over their shoulders to their belts, and drag along through the streets holding on to a nurse’s hand, when they are seven or eight years old, and are more afraid of a little mud on their boots or on their velvet coats than anything else; who have more rocking horses, and whips, and humming tops, and velocipedes, and guns, and swords, and marbles, and Noah’s arks, and bat and balls, than they know what to do with, can hardly imagine how a little boy in the country, with none of these things, and with nobody to amuse him, or to tell him how to amuse himself, could possibly be happy or contented. I am going to tell you about John Brown, who was another kind of boy. He had never seen a city, or wore a hat on his head. He jumped out of bed himself without any nurse, and ran out of doors barefoot into the grass, eating a bit of bread for breakfast, or anything that came handy. There were no houses about, for he lived in a little hut, in the wilderness, with nothing but trees, and wild beasts, and Indians. He was only five years old when his father took him and his mother in an old ox cart, and went ’way off in the forest to live. As I told you, he had no toys; and he used, though such a little fellow, to help drive the cows home; and now and then he would ride a horse, without any saddle, to water. Sometimes he would watch his father kill rattlesnakes—great big fellows, too, such as you have shuddered to look at, even through a glass case in the Museum; and he learned not to be afraid of them, too. At first he trembled a little at a live 34Indian, when he met him in the woods, and was more afraid still of his rifle; but very soon he became used to them, and liked to hang about and see what they did; and after a while he learned some of their queer talk himself, so that they could understand each other very well. I suppose he got along with the Indians much better than his father, who stammered very badly, and is said never to have spoken plain at all, except when he was praying. Wasn’t that very strange? Johnny’s father used to dress deerskins; and Johnny learned it so well by watching him, that he could at any time dress the skin of a squirrel, or a raccoon, or a cat, or a dog. He learned, too, to make whiplashes of leather, and sometimes he would manage to get pennies for them, which made him feel very grand, just as if he kept shop. When he was about six years old, a poor Indian boy gave him a marble—the first he had ever seen. It was bright yellow, and Johnny thought it was splendid, and kept it carefully a long while, turning it over, and holding it up to the light, and rolling it on the floor of his father’s hut. One unlucky day, Johnny lost the yellow marble. I dare say you will laugh when I tell you that it took years 35to cure him of mourning for that marble; and that he used to have long fits of crying about it. But you must remember that it was the only toy he ever had, and that there were no shops about there where he could get more. One day, after the loss of the marble, he caught a little squirrel. It bit Johnny badly while he was catching it. However, Johnny held on to him, for he was not a kind of boy to let a thing go, after he had once made up his mind to have it; and so the squirrel made the best of it, particularly when he found he had lost his bushy tail in the fight, and he let Johnny tame him, and feed him, and he would climb up on Johnny’s shoulder, and look at him with his little bright eye, and then scamper down again over the grass, and then back again, and perch on Johnny’s hand, so that he was just as dear to him as your little brother is to you; or the good little boy next door, who plays with you in your father’s yard, and never once vexes you. One day Johnny and his squirrel went into the woods to play; and while Johnny was busy picking up sticks, the squirrel wandered away and got lost; and for a year or two after that, the poor boy mourned for his little pet, looking at all the 36squirrels he could see, for his own little bob-tailed squirrel, because no other squirrel would do but that one he had tamed and loved. But he never found him; and, between you and me, perhaps it was just as well for the squirrel. I dare say he is cracking nuts quite happily in some snug tree, and scampering about with his little baby squirrels, and has quite forgot Johnny and his lost tail.

What Johnny liked above all things, was to be sent off by his father a great way though the wilderness, with droves of cattle; and when he was only twelve years old, he used to go with them more than a hundred miles. What do you think of that? He was quite proud of it himself, and nobody could have affronted him more than to offer to help him at such times. He was more like a little Indian than anything else; he could hear so quickly any sound a long way off; and he declared that he had often smelled the frying of doughnuts at five miles’ distance. Pretty good nose, hadn’t he?

When Johnny was eight years old, his mother died. Ah! you may be sure that the loss of the yellow marble, and the bob-tailed squirrel, was nothing to this. He cried and mourned for her, 37as he wandered through the woods, or drove cattle for his father, and I suppose sometimes, though he loved his father, that when he came within sight of the little hut, he would rather have lain on the ground all night, than to have gone into it, and missed her pleasant “Well, Johnny, is that you, dear?” Well, he got along as well as he could, and grew a hardy, tough lad in the open-air work his father gave him to do.

Some time after this, when away some hundred miles from home with a drove of cattle, he stopped at an inn with a landlord who had a very bright little slave boy, just Johnny’s age. This little slave boy’s master made a great pet of Johnny, and brought him to the table with his best company, and repeated all his smart sayings, and asked them if they did not think it wonderful, that a boy of his age could drive so many cattle safely one hundred miles from home? And, of course, they petted Johnny too, and praised him, and thought he was quite a wonder. I suppose Johnny would have felt very nice about it, had it not been that the little slave boy, who was just his age, and as bright a little boy as Johnny, was beaten before his very eyes by his master, with an 38iron shovel, or anything that came handy; and while Johnny was fed with everything good, this little fellow was half starved, and half frozen with cold, on account of his thin clothing. Johnny could not forget that; he had never seen anything like it before; when he went to his comfortable bed, it troubled him; when he ate good food, it seemed to choke him; when he put on warm clothes, he felt ashamed to be warm, while the little slave boy was shivering; and Johnny felt worse, because he was only about ten years old, and couldn’t do anything to help him; but as he was going home through the woods, he said, aloud, as if he were telling it to “Our Father, who art in Heaven,” “When I grow bigger, I’ll fight for the slaves; and I’ll fight for the slaves wherever I see them, so long as I live.” For all this, Johnny was such a bashful boy, that about this time, when a lady to whom he was sent on an errand gave him a piece of bread and butter, he did not dare to tell her he didn’t eat butter, but as soon as he got out of the house he ran for a long distance, till he was out of sight, and then threw it away.

About this time a friend of Johnny’s, who 39owned some good books, offered to lend him some to read, for he knew how to read, although he had been to school but little. He liked history very much, and became so interested in these books, that he wanted to know all the people who had studied and read books too, and who could tell him about the world, and things which had happened in it, and how everything came about; and this desire for learning gave him a dislike to foolish talk and foolish people; and whenever he heard any sensible talk go on, as he traveled off with his cattle, he just pricked up his ears, and stored it away in his little head, to think of when he got home. You have no idea how much he picked up and how much he educated himself in that way. It would shame many boys who go to good schools, only to turn out lazy, stupid dunces.

When Johnny was fifteen, his father put him at the head of his currier and tanner establishment. Here Johnny had a large company of men and boys to look after. Now, men don’t like much to have a boy order them to do this or that, even though they are working for that boy’s father; but Johnny was so bright and knowing, 40and pleasant, that you will not be surprised to hear that they got along nicely together. Instead of quarreling with him, the men used to praise him for being so smart; so that, though he was very bashful when he began business, by the time he was twenty, he began to think he really was a smart fellow, sure enough. But that was natural, you know; and I only think it was a wonder he was not quite spoiled by so much praise, and so much power, when he was so young. His young brother used to make fun of him and call him “King Johnny,” because he spoke in such a decided way to the workmen, when he wanted anything done; but Johnny went about his business and let him talk. He had his hands full cooking his own dinners, and learning arithmetic, and surveying, and I don’t know what else besides; for he was not a fellow who could even be idle a minute, you may be sure of that. The world was too full of things he wanted to know, and he was in too great a hurry to get at them.

All the time John was a young man, he never wanted, or wore, fine clothes, although he was neat and tidy. He ate plain food, and never touched tobacco, or spirits, or tea, or coffee. He 41drank milk, or only water. So, you see, he had a clear head for study and business, and I don’t think he ever knew the meaning of the word “dyspepsia.” When John got a letter, he always wrote on the back of it the name of the person who wrote it, and either “Not answered,” or “Not time to read,” or “No answer needed.” I tell you this to show you how thoroughly he did everything he undertook; and so honest was John, that he refused to sell his customers any leather, until every drop of moisture had been dried out of it, because the water would make it weigh more, you know, and, of course, he would get money that did not really belong to him. I think, had John lived in New York, some of the business men here would have thought him crazy, or he would have thought them crazy; but, you see, John couldn’t cheat; not even though he should never be found out in it. Most young men, when they are of John’s age, think more about their own affairs than anything else—their own business, their own pleasures, etc.; whether they will ever be rich men, how rich they will be, and all that. It was not so with John. He wanted money, ’tis true, but all this time he had not 42forgotten the little slave boy, and others like him, and it was for such as he that he wanted money, that he might help them away from their masters, and help them to be free by and by. He married, and had many children of his own, and when these children grew up, they all felt just as their father did about the slaves. After a time, John helped eleven slaves to get away to Canada, where they were quite safe. How glad they must have been! and how they must have loved John! Somebody asked John how he felt when he got them there? he said that he was so happy about it, that he was quite ready to die then. But there was other work for John and his boys to do. There was a place called Kansas, where John’s boys went to live; but as soon as the people there found out that John’s boys and himself loved the slaves, they began to steal their cattle, and burn their fences, and try, in every possible way, to trouble and bother them. So John’s boys wrote home to the old man about it, and told him that he must send them some guns and muskets, to defend their property and their lives with. Well, the old man didn’t have to stop to think long about that. He told his other boys, who were living 43at home with him, about it, and they agreed to start right off for Kansas, with as many guns and muskets as they could get. John had no idea of his boys out there being murdered and robbed, without fighting for them, especially when they were treated so merely for pitying the poor slaves. When they reached there, John and his four boys, they each had a short, heavy broadsword strapped to their sides. Each one had a quantity of firearms and revolvers, and there were poles standing endwise round the wagon box, with fixed bayonets, pointing upward. Oh! I can tell you, he was in real earnest about it! Well, they suffered great hardships there, while fighting for their rights: one of John’s boys was taken by the enemy, and driven with chains on him, so far in a hot sun to prison, that he became a maniac; another of his sons was so injured, that he became a cripple for life; another son was murdered while quietly walking along the road, and as he lay a corpse on the ground, one of his brutal enemies discharged a loaded pistol in his mouth. All this John had to bear, but he only said, “It is very hard; but my sons have died in a good cause—died for the poor slaves.” Most people thought, “John has had 44enough of it now; he will fight no more about slavery; he has taken the rest of his boys back to his old home in the mountains, and he will not be in a hurry to have them killed.”

They were mistaken. John was only waiting to whet his sword. He knew how to wait. One day, the whole country about Harper’s Ferry was in a state of distraction. The women and children were frightened to death, for John Brown was down there; and it was said he was going to help all the slaves he could to get away from their masters; and that his boys were there to help him, and a great many other men; and that they had guns, and swords, and pistols in plenty, and meant to fight fiercely, if anybody tried to hinder them. John chose Harper’s Ferry, because there were mountains all about it, and he had known every turn in them, and all their valleys, too, for seventeen years, and in case they were beaten, he thought it would be a good place for himself and the slaves to hide in, as well as a good place to fight from. The first night of John’s attack on the town, he and his men put out all the lights in the street, and took possession of the armory, where the firearms, you know, are kept. 45Then they took three watchmen, and locked them up in the guardhouse. There must have been friendly black people in the town who helped them do all this. Some of them cut down the telegraph wires, and others tore up the railroad track after the train had passed. When it came daylight, John and his men took prisoner every person who came out into the streets, and when people said, “Why do you do this? What do you mean?” John and his men said, “We mean to free the slaves!” One of the workmen employed at the armory, when he came to work that morning, and saw an armed guard at the gate, asked of John’s guard, “By what authority have you taken possession of this building?” “By the authority of God Almighty!” said he.

Well, one after another, the workmen who came to their work in the armory that day, were taken prisoners. There was a terrible panic, I can tell you. John and his five sons were inside the armory grounds, while others were stationed outside the walls, to hold the town—some at the bridges, some at one place, some another. When the workmen whom John took prisoners told him how troubled their wives and children would be 46about them, John kindly allowed them to go home, under a guard of his soldiers, to tell them not to be frightened. John wanted, in doing this, to make the people understand that the prisoners in his hands should not be hurt; a brave man, you know, is always a tender-hearted man. Poor John! he lingered too long about these things. The people whom he allowed to go in the cars, before he tore up the railroad track, wrote on little slips of paper terrible accounts of him, and scattered them through the country as the cars went flying through; so the first thing he knew, one hundred soldiers came to Harper’s Ferry from Charlestown. Now, indeed, they had bloody work. John’s men began to get killed, but not one of them but sold his life as dearly as he could, fighting fiercely till he could fight no longer. Some lay dying in the street, some of the corpses floated down the river, some were taken, bleeding and gasping, to prison. Even after John’s men were dead, his enemies continued to kick and beat their insensible bodies, and many ran sticks into their wounds. And now John knew that all that was left him, was to sell his life as dearly as he could. With one son dead by his 47side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying boy with one hand, and held his rifle with the other, and told his few men about him to be firm and calm. He said that his boys came with him to fight of their own accord, and that they had died in a good cause. Well, the soldiers soon battered down the building, and got in where John and his men were. An officer, as soon as he saw John, although he and his men had then done firing, struck him in the face, and knocked him down. The same officer repeated the blow several times, and then, when John was lying on the ground, helpless, another soldier ran his bayonet twice into the old man’s body, whose face and hair were clotted with blood. Then they searched his pockets, and took what they wanted, and then carried him, bleeding, to the guard house, and laid him on the bare floor, without anything under him. Then the governor hurried down to see him, with several of his friends, and though the poor old man was writhing in agony with his wounds, and the blood and the smoke were not yet washed from his face, for thirty hours they let him lie upon the floor, with his head propped up on a chair, while they questioned him, and while 48the mob insulted him. After that, John was carried off to Charlestown jail, under a guard of soldiers. The body of John’s son was carried off for the doctors to cut up. Seven days after this John was dragged from his bed, and being unable to stand, was supported on each side by an officer into court, and there laid on a bed, to be tried by the laws of Virginia, for what he had done. Well, John had a “Virginia trial.”

A trial, you know, is a fair hearing on both sides. John was faint and bleeding, and unable to stand; they refused to let him have a lawyer to speak for him, and declared him guilty without hearing at all his side; although the law declares a man innocent till he is proved by law to be guilty. Then they told the jailer to shoot him if anybody tried to help him escape; and this was John’s trial. Now, John did not wish to die with the character of a robber or a murderer, and before they took him out of court, he lifted his head up from his mattress and told them that he had not had a fair trial; that he was too sick to talk; that his money, fifty or sixty dollars in gold, had been taken from him, and that he could not now pay anybody to do any errands for him; that 49they ought to give him time to send for his friends. But it was of no use, because they had determined not to give him time; so he was brought into court again on his bed soon after, and sentenced to be hung, i. e., if he did not die first, on Friday, the second day of December; and when the judge said that John would be hung where everybody would have a chance to see it, one man jumped up before John and clapped his hands, because he was so glad that he should see the brave old man die.

Forty-two days in all, John lay in a Charlestown prison. All that time, sick as he was, no clean clothes were given him, although sixty dollars of his money were taken from his pocket when he was arrested. All those forty-two days and nights, he had lain there in the stiff, dirty, blood-stained garments in which he fell.

Well, John had two Virginia militia companies come out of curiosity to see him in prison. He treated them civilly, but told the jailer, after they left, that he did not like being made a monkey show of. Everybody who loved slavery, was allowed to gape and stare at John as much as they pleased; but John’s friends, although they 50were ladies and gentlemen who had traveled a long distance, found it hard work to get leave to take a peep at him.

John’s wife wanted to come and see him before he died, and bid him good by. John told her she would be insulted and badly treated, and she had better stay at home with the children; and besides, I suppose, John was afraid it would make it harder for him to die, and leave her and the girls all alone in the world. But the poor woman could not bear not to look in the face of her children’s father once more, and at last John told her she might come. When she got there, the jailer led her into the cell, but she could not speak to John, nor John to her. She only laid her head upon his breast, and clasped his neck with her arms.

Then, seeing a heavy chain on John’s ankles, and fearing it might pain him, she kneeled on the floor and pulled two pair of woolen socks on his feet. Then John told her what to say to his children at home, and how he wanted them to live, when he was dead; and that she must pay some money to some persons for him, whom he named; and then he read her his “will,” which he had 51made. And then John and his wife ate their “last supper” together. Perhaps these words will remind you, as they did me, of another “Last Supper.” And then the jailer, Captain Anis, told the poor wife that she must go. And then John said to his wife, “God bless you! Mary; good by;” and then she went out, and never saw John more, till she looked upon his dead face.

There were three ropes sent to hang John Brown with; South Carolina sent one, Missouri one, and Kentucky one. They chose the Kentucky rope, because it was the stronger, and then it was shown, in public, to the people. Well, the second day of December, when the old man was to be strangled, came at last. It was a lovely day, so mild and warm that the windows of all the houses were open. The scaffold was to be in a field, half a mile from the jail. At seven in the morning the carpenters came to fix it. At eight o’clock the soldiers began to come; horsemen, dressed in scarlet jackets, were placed about the field, and a double line of sentries farther on; then the State of Virginia, fearing, after all this, that it would not be safe enough from a feeble, sick old man, brought a huge brass cannon, so 52placed and pointed, that if a rescue were attempted, John might be blown into little atoms in a moment. There were about five hundred soldiers in the field; and lines of them were stretched over fifteen miles. There were not many people of the place there to see John hung, for they dared not leave their slaves alone at home, for fear of mischief in their absence; for all the poor slaves knew very well that John was to be hung that day, because he was their friend.

At eleven o’clock, they brought John out of jail, and put him in the wagon, to drive him to execution.

As John stepped from out the door of his prison, a black woman, with a little child in her arms, stood near. He stopped for a moment, stooped over, and kissed the little black child. Soon after, as he passed along, another black woman said, “God bless you! old man. I wish I could help you, but I cannot.” This made the tears come in John’s eyes for the first time.

By John’s side was seated the undertaker, and on the wagon was a black coffin, enclosed in a box, because his body was to go to his poor wife after these Virginians had done with him. Then 53several companies of soldiers, mounted on horseback, rode beside the wagon, which was drawn by two white horses. As they went along, John looked at the lovely Blue Mountains and the bright sky, and the warm sunshine spread over all, and said, calmly, “This is a beautiful country; I have not seen it before.” The jailer, who sat beside him, could hardly say “yes,” he was so astonished to see John so quiet and smiling, as if he were only taking a ride on that lovely day. Then the undertaker said to John, “You are more cheerful than I am, Captain Brown.”

“Yes,” said the old man, “I ought to be.”

And now the wagon had come to the field, where stood the gallows, and all those hundreds of soldiers, and the great brass cannon. The bright sun shone on the bayonets and muskets of the soldiers and their gay uniforms, and the lovely Blue Mountains looked very calm and peaceful; and the soldiers kept very close to old John, for Virginia felt uneasy till the breath was out of him. Then John got out of the wagon and stood on the scaffold, and took his hat off for the last time, and laid it down by his side. Then he thanked the jailer, who had been kind to him; 54then they tied his elbows and ankles; then they drew a white cap over his eyes, and then they put the Kentucky rope around his neck. Then the sheriff told John to step forward; and John said, “I can’t see; you must lead me.” Then the sheriff asked John to drop his handkerchief, for a signal for him to hang him; and John said, “Now I am ready; only don’t keep me long waiting.”

When John asked his enemies for time for his trial, they wouldn’t let him have any; now, when he did not want any more time, they kept him waiting. So they made the old man stand there, blindfolded, full ten minutes, while they marched the soldiers up and down, and in and out, just as if they were drilling on parade. Some of the soldiers felt ashamed of this cruelty to the old man, and muttered between their teeth, for it was as much as their necks were worth to say it loud, “Shame! shame!” Then, at last, after the military maneuvers were over, the rope was cut, and John struggled and strangled and died. Then, you know, after that, Virginia had to be very sure the old man was really dead; so first the Charlestown doctors went up and poked him over, 55and pulled him about; then the military doctors had their turn; lifting up his arms, and putting their ears a great deal closer to his breast than they would have cared to do once, to see if he breathed; then they swung the body this way and that, in the air, for thirty-eight minutes. Then they lifted the body upon the scaffold, and it fell into a harmless heap. Then, although all the doctors who had pulled him around declared that he was dead, still Virginia was so afraid of John, that she insisted on cutting the dead body’s head off, or making it swallow some poison, for fear, by some hocus pocus, it might wake up again. But it didn’t wake—at least, not in the way they expected. But there is fierce fighting down in Virginia to-day; for, though John Brown’s body lies mouldering in the grave,

THE PLOUGHBOY POET.

Mother Nature does not always, like other mothers, lay her pet children on downy pillows, and under silken canopies. She seems to delight in showing that money shall buy everything but brains. At any rate, she not only opened our poet’s big, lustrous eyes, in a clay cottage, put roughly together by his father’s own hands, but, shortly after his birth, she blew it down over his head, and the mother and child were picked out from among the ruins, and carried to a neighbor’s for safe keeping—rather a rough welcome to a world which, in its own slow fashion, after the mold was on his breast, heaped over it honors, which seemed then such a mockery.

But the poor little baby and his mother, happy in their mutual love, knew little enough of all this. 57A good, loving mother she was, Agnes by name; keeping her house in order with a matron’s pride; chanting old songs and ballads to her baby-boy, as she glided cheerfully about; not discouraged when things went wrong on the farm, and the crops failed, and the table was scantily supplied with food—singing, hoping, trusting, loving still; a very woman, over whose head cottages might tumble, so that her heart was but satisfied.

Robert’s father was a good man, who performed each day’s duty as carefully as though each day brought other reward than that of having done his duty. It is a brave, strong heart, my dear children, which can do this. All can labor when success follows; it is disaster, defeat, difficulties, which prove what a man’s soul is made of. It is just here that the ranks grow thin in life’s battle—just here that the faint-hearted perish by the wayside, or desert, like cowards, to the enemy. William Burns stood manfully to his duty, plodding on, year after year;—when one plan failed, trying another; never saying, when his day’s work was done, “Ah! but this is too discouraging! I’ll to the alehouse, to drown my griefs in strong drink!” Neither did he go home 58moody and disconsolate, to drive his children into corners, and bring tears to the eyes of his toiling wife. But morning and evening the prayer went up, with unfailing trust in Heaven. Oh! but that was glorious! I love William Burns! Did he say at night, when so weary, “Now, at least, I’ll rest?” Not he: there were little bright eyes about him, out of which the eager soul was looking. So he gathered them about his armchair on those long winter evenings, and read to them, and taught them, and answered their simple yet deep questions. One of Robert’s sweetest poems, the Cotter’s Saturday Night, was written about this. Robert’s father told his children, too, of the history of their country; of skirmishes, sieges, and battles; old songs and ballads, too, he repeated to them, charming their young ears. Was not this a lovely home picture? Oh! how much were these peasant children to be envied above the children of richer parents, kept in the nursery, in the long intervals when their parents, forgetful of these sweet duties, were seeking their own pleasure and amusement. More blessed, surely, is the humblest roof, round whose evening hearth gather nightly, all its inmates, young and old.

59Nor—poor as they were—did they lack books. Dainties they could forego, but not books; confusedly thrown about—soiled and thumbed; but—unlike our gilded, center-table ornaments—well selected, and well read. And so the years passed on, as does the life of so many human beings, quiet, but eventful.

Who sneers at “old women”? I should like to trace, for a jeering world, the influence of that important person in the Burns family. Old Jenny Wilson! Little she herself knew her power, when, with Robert Burns upon her knee, she poured into his listening ear her never-ending store of tales about fairies, and “brownies,” and witches, and giants, and dragons. So strong was the impression these supernatural stories made upon the mind of the boy, that he declared that, in later life, he could never go through a suspicious-looking place, without expecting to see some unearthly shape appear. Who shall determine how much this withered old woman had to do with making the boy a poet? And yet, poor humble soul—that is an idea which seldom enters the mind of his admirers. The bent figure, with wrinkle-seamed face, gliding noiselessly about your house, 60doing odds and ends of household labor, now singing a child to sleep, now cooking at the kitchen fire, now repairing a garment, or watching by a sickbed—always on hand, yet never in anybody’s way; silent, grateful, unobtrusive, yet beloved of Heaven—have you not known them?

Robert’s mother, the good Agnes, had a voice sweet as her name. The ballads she sang him were all of a serious cast. She had learned them, when a girl, from her mother. Oh, these songs! Many a simple hymn, thus listened to by childhood’s ear, has been that soul’s last utterance this side the grave. All other childish impressions may have faded away, but “mother’s hymn” is never forgotten. That strain, heard by none else, will sometimes come, an unbidden, unwelcome guest; and neither in noise nor wine can that bearded man drown it—this mother’s hymn! Sing on, sing on, ye patient, toiling mothers! over the cradle—by the fireside. Angels smile as they listen. The lark whom the cloud covers, is not lost.

The father of Robert Burns did not consider, because he was a poor man, that it was an excuse for depriving his boys of any advantages of education within his reach, as many a farmer, similarly 61situated, and intent only on gain, has thought it right to do. His good sense, in this respect, was well rewarded; for Robert’s first teacher said of him, that “he took such pleasure in learning, and I in teaching, that it was difficult to say which of the two was most zealous in the business.” It is such scholars as these who brighten the otherwise dreary lot of the teacher. Pupils who study, not because they must, and as little as possible at that, but because they have an appetite for it, and crave knowledge. Of course, a good teacher endeavors to be equally faithful to all the pupils who are intrusted to him—the stupid and wayward, as well as the studious. But there must be to him a peculiar pleasure in helping, guiding, and watching over a pupil so eager to acquire. The mother bird, who coaxes her fledglings to the edge of the nest, and, by circling flights overhead, invites them to follow, understands, of course, how the little, cowering thing, who sits crouched on a neighboring twig, may be too indolent, or too timid to go farther; but she looks with proud delight upon the bold little soarer, who, observing well her lesson, reaches the top of the tallest tree, 62and sits, swaying and singing, upon its topmost branch.

Robert, however, had not always the good luck to have, as in this case, an intelligent, appreciative teacher. I suppose it is not treason to admit, even in a child’s book, which, by some, is considered a place for tremendous fibbing, that a teacher may occasionally err, as well as his pupil. That teachers have been known to mistake their vocation, when they have judged themselves qualified, after trying and failing in every other employment, to fill such a difficult and honorable position.

It seems there was a certain Hugh Rodgers, to whose school Robert was sent. It was the very bad custom of those times, when pupils of his age first entered a school, to take the master to a tavern, and treat him to some liquor. This Robert did, in company with another boy, named Willie, who entered at the same time. Do you suppose that schoolmaster ever thought remorsefully about this in after years, when he heard what a wreck strong drink had made of poor Robert? Well, the boy Willie and Robert became great friends from that day; often staying at each 63other’s houses, and always spending the intervals between morning and afternoon school, in each other’s company. When the other boys were playing ball, they would talk together on subjects to improve their minds. Now, as they walked while they talked, their omitting to play ball was not of so much consequence as it would otherwise have been—at least, according to my motto, which is, chests first, brains afterward. But to go on. These disputatious youngsters sharpened their wits on all sorts of knotty subjects, and also invited several of their companions to join their debating society—whether to improve them, or to have an audience to approve their skill, I can’t say; perhaps a little of both.

By and by the master heard of it. He didn’t like it. He had an idea boys should have no ideas that the master didn’t put into their heads for them. So one day, when the school was all assembled, he walked up to the desks of Robert and Willie, and began, very unwisely, to taunt them about it before all the scholars—something in this style: “So, boys, I understand that you consider yourselves qualified to decide upon matters of importance, which wiser heads usually let 64alone. I trust, from debating, you won’t come to blows, young gentlemen,” &c., &c. Now, the boys who had not joined their debating society, set up a laugh, like little rascals, at the rebuked Robert and Willie. This, of course, as the teacher should have known, stung them to the quick; and Robert, with a flushed face, resolved to “speak up” to the master. I find no fault with his reply, which was this; that both he and Willie rather thought that he (the master) would be pleased, instead of displeased, at this effort to improve their minds. At this, Hugh Rodgers laughed contemptuously, and said he should be glad to know what these mighty nonsensical discussions might be about. Willie replied that they had a new subject every day; that he could not recollect all; but that the question of that day had been, whether is a great general, or respectable merchant, the more valuable member of society. At this, Hugh Rodgers laughed more uproariously and provokingly than before, saying, that it was a very silly question, since there could be no doubt for a moment about it. “Very well,” said Robert Burns, now thoroughly roused, “if 65you think so, I will take any side you please, if you will allow me to discuss it with you.”

The unfortunate schoolmaster consented. He commenced the argument with a pompous flourish in favor of the general. Burns took the other side, and soon had the upper hand of the schoolmaster, who made a very lame reply. Soon the schoolmaster’s hand was observed to shake, his voice to tremble, and, in a state of pitiable vexation, he dismissed the school.

Poor man! he understood mathematics better than human nature; and himself least of all. This was an unfortunate victory, for two reasons. It was an unnecessary degradation of a man who had his estimable qualities, and it increased the self-sufficiency of young Burns, who was born with his arms sufficiently a-kimbo. Alexander-fashion, he soon sighed for another conquest. His bedfellow, John Nevins, was a great wrestler. Nothing would do, but he must floor John Nevins. Strutting up to John, he challenged him to the combat. John soon took that nonsense out of him, by laying him low. Vanquished, he sprang to his feet, and challenged him to a discussion. There he had him!—John having more 66muscle than brain. Burns’s pride was comforted, and he retreated, a satisfied youth. This is all I know about Robert’s childhood.

Silver hairs were now gathering thickly on his good father’s temples, as he toiled on, to little use, while children grew up fast about his knees, to be fed, schooled, and clothed by his labor. Robert and his brother looked sadly on, as his health declined. Robert had little inclination for his father’s work, and yet, somebody must take his place; for consumption was even then making rapid and fearful havoc with his constitution. The good old man ceased from his labors at last, and went where the weary rest. For a while, Robert strove to fill his place—strove well, strove earnestly. But the farmer who stops to write poems over his plough, seldom reaps a harvest to satisfy hungry mouths. And so, poverty came, instead of potatoes, and Robert Burns, although the troubled eyes of his wife looked into his, and his little children were growing up fast about him, and needed a good father, to teach them how to live in this world, and to earn bread for them till they became big enough to earn it for themselves, it came about that, instead of doing 67this, he drank whisky to help him forget that he ought to keep on ploughing, if poetry did not bring him bread, and so made poverty a great deal worse. His wife was very, very sorrowful about it, and his little children became tired of waiting for him to love them, and care for them. Perhaps you say, Oh, how could he do so? My dear children, how can anybody ever do wrong? How can you ever vex your dear mother, who is so good to you, and go pouting to bed, and never tell her that you are “sorry”? and still, while you are sleeping, that dear, good, forgiving mother stoops over your little bed, and kisses your forehead, and looks to see if you are warm and comfortable, before she can sleep, the same as if you had been a good child, instead of a bad one. I hope you will think of this before that good mother dies, and tell her that you are very sorry for grieving her; and I hope, too, that Robert Burns, before it was too late, said that he was sorry for grieving those who loved him, and for wasting his life; but I do not know about that.

OLD HICKORY.

Many a time, I dare say, you have sat on your bench at school, with your cotton handkerchief spread over your knee, looking at the stern face of this famous man upon it; every bristling hair upon his head seeming to say for itself, In the name of the commonwealth, stand and deliver! You have thought, perhaps, that a man with such a sharp eye and granite face as that, must be a very terrible person, whose heart was quite left out when he was made, and whom little children had better run away from. It is just because this was not true, that I first believed in General Jackson. A brave man is never a mean one; and it is mean to despise or bully children and women. I place children first, because every woman who has ever had one, does so. But to my story. We, who have lived so peacefully and quietly in the 69land for which our brave ancestors fought, do not think as often as we ought of the sufferings and trials through which they purchased it for us. Until lately, our houses were not burned down over our heads, or ransacked and robbed, nor our mothers and sisters insulted before our eyes, nor our fathers and brothers dragged off as prisoners of war, and kicked and cuffed for sport by the enemy. All this, Andrew Jackson’s boyish eyes saw. Do you wonder at the fire in them? One of his earliest recollections was of the meeting house in his native place turned into a hospital for his wounded, maimed, dying, brave countrymen; and his own widowed mother, leading him there by the hand to nurse them, and dress their wounds, and comfort them, as only a woman with a strong heart and angel touch can. Could the boy stand by and see all this, and not long for the time when he should grow big, and stout, and tall, and help fight for his country? Could he help being impatient, he, the son of this unprotected mother, when one after another of these poor fellows was brought in, with their fresh, ghastly wounds, and laid down to die? And when, later, his cousin’s house was taken by the 70British, and the furniture was broken in pieces, and his cousin’s wife was insulted by the officers, and he and his brother were taken prisoners, and ordered by the officer, with an oath, to clean his muddy boots; and, because they both refused, were cut and slashed across the face and head by this bullying, cowardly fellow, Andrew then being only twelve years old; and then were marched miles and miles away down South, and not allowed a morsel of food by the way, and forbidden even to scoop up water from the streams they were fording, to quench their feverish thirst? Ah! do you wonder now at that stern face? Suppose your dear mother, whom your dear father, whom you can just remember, loved so tenderly, was driven across the country with you and your little brother, from place to place, for safety, in those troublous times, and subjected to all kinds of hardships, bearing up under it bravely, as good women will. Suppose that when you and your brother—still boys—were dragged off as prisoners of war, this dear, brave mother traveled off alone, and never rested till she managed, by an exchange of prisoners with the British general, to get her dear boys back again; but wan and wasted with 71small pox, and the wounds that they had received from that big, cowardly British officer, all undressed and uncared for; these boys, her Andrew, her Robert? Well, as your mother would have nursed you and your brother through her tears, so Andrew Jackson’s mother nursed her fatherless boys. But was Andrew a boy to forget either his mother’s love, or the British? No, indeed! And when, after he became well, and the whole band went to live in the house of a friend, and Andrew picked beans, and pulled fodder, and drove cattle, and went to mill, do you wonder that when he was sent to the blacksmith’s, to get the farm tools mended, he brought home spears of iron, and all sorts of odd-looking, rough weapons, that, while waiting for the blacksmith, he had himself manufactured “to kill the British with”? Do you wonder that he fastened the blade of a scythe to a pole, and exclaimed, fiercely, as he cut down the weeds with it, “Oh! if I were only a man, wouldn’t I sweep off the British with my grass blade?” And he did it, too, afterward. Let those who call him “fierce, savage, vindictive,” remember how these sorrows of his childhood were burned in upon his soul; remember 72what burning tears must have fallen upon the little bundle containing all his dead mother’s clothes, she who had struggled and suffered through the war of the Revolution, and left him an orphan at fifteen years, with only the memory of her love and his country’s wrongs. As he stood weeping over that little bundle, friendless, homeless, and heart-broken, thinking of all she had been to him, and looking wistfully forward into the dim unknown, he did not see the future President of the United States, and hear his voice falter as he said, “I learned that, years ago, from my dear, good mother!” Well might he remember her then. You ask me if Andrew found no opportunity to get an education in these troublous times? You may be sure his mother knew the value of that! and sent her boys, when quite young, to the best schools she could find in their native place. Schools, in those days, were not the furnace-heated, mahogany-desked affairs we see now. Pupils did not carry an extra pair of shoes to put on when they entered, for fear of soiling the floor. Velvet jackets were not worn by the boys, nor gold bracelets by the girls. Andrew Jackson’s schoolroom was an old log house 73made of pines, the crevices being filled in with clay, which the boys used to pick out when it came spring, to let in the fresh air. In this school no French, nor drawing, nor “moral science,” was taught. Reading, writing, and arithmetic was all. For a gymnasium, there were the grand old trees, which the freckled, sunburnt, redheaded Andrew was free to swing upon when school was done; and he went up and down them like a squirrel. I think he was better at that than at his books, if the truth must out; however, “learning” did not go before chests in those days, luckily for us, who enjoy the blessings for which our fathers’ strong arms fought. So Andrew studied some, and leaped, and wrestled, and jumped more;—was kind to defenceless small boys, but had his fist in the face of every fellow who made fun of him, or taunted him, or in any way pushed him to the wall.

Andrew had one very bad habit when a boy, which, I am sorry to say, followed him all his life. He swore fearfully! An oath, from anybody’s mouth, is hateful; but from a child’s mouth! I know nothing more saddening and pitiful. Often, I know, children will use such words, quite unconscious 74of their meaning, as they pick them up from those who have no such excuse for their utterance, till the habit becomes so fixed, that only in later life, when they pain some person who is “old-fashioned” enough to reverence the name they use so lightly, do they become conscious of the extent of this disgusting habit. The idea of its being “manly” to swear is ridiculous enough; since the lowest, most brutal ruffian in creation, can, and does, outdo you in this accomplishment. I think Andrew would have enjoyed his boyish sports quite as well without these bad words; and he was a splendid fellow for all athletic exercises. Had he been alive when that game of cricket was won by the English cricketers, I don’t know what would have happened; well, it wouldn’t have happened; or had it, the victors would never have gone home alive to tell of it!

Andrew was a good son to his mother; he was honest, and truthful, and kind to her always. He never forgot her as long as he lived. He used often, when President of the United States, to stop in the midst of his conversation, and say, 75reverently and proudly, “That I learned from my good mother!”

One cannot help feeling sad that she should have lived long enough only to bear the burden and heat of the day, and not share with her boy its calm repose and reward. And yet, who can believe that a mother and son so loving are divided, though one crosses alone the dark river before the other? We have seen, of a fine summer morning, after the sun shone out, fine gossamer threads, before invisible, floating, yet fixed, in the air above us. So, when the light of eternity shines on our life-path, shall these chords of a mother’s love be seen to have entwined themselves around and about us—leading us in a way we knew not.

Jackson’s life was a strange one. It is for me only now to speak of his childhood and youth. His relation to our country’s history will not suffer you to rest satisfied with this. His after-life is better told than I could tell it you, by a man who is now looking over my shoulder, and who says, I have just told you a fib. If you read “Parton’s Life of Andrew Jackson,” however, you will see that I have told the truth.

THE DEAF AND DUMB FRENCH BOY.

I was sitting, this morning, at my window, looking at a fine sunrise, when suddenly I thought, how terrible, were I to become blind! And then I asked myself, were I to choose between blindness and deafness, how should I decide? Never to see the dear faces, never to see the blue sky, or green earth, or delicate flowers;—never to listen to the melody of birds, or the sweet voices of the trees and streams, or hum of busy insect-life; or, more dreadful still, never to hear the sweet voices of those I love;—oh, how could I choose? When we murmur and complain, surely we forget the blessings of hearing and sight; they are so common, that we forget to be grateful; so common, that we need to have written pitying words to the deaf of our own kin, 77or led the sightless, fully to understand their sufferings. And yet all the world is not now dark to the blind, or voiceless to the deaf, thanks to the good people who teach both these unfortunates. How different was their position once, a long while ago! Let me tell you about it.

In France lived a little boy, born of parents who had six deaf and dumb children, three boys and three girls. It must have been very dull to them all; but one of them, little Pierre, seemed to feel it most. Children of his own age would not play with him, they seemed to despise him; so he trotted round like a little dog, trying to amuse himself with sticks, and stones, and anything that came in his way; his body grew tall, like other children’s, but his mind remained a little baby. He didn’t know whether he had been made, or had made himself. His father taught him to make prayers by signs, morning and evening. Poor little fellow! he would get on his knees, and look upward, and make his lips move, as if he had been speaking; but he did not know there was any God: he was worshiping the beautiful sky. He took a great fancy to a particular star, because it was so bright and beautiful; 78and at one time, when his mother lay very sick, he used to go out every evening, and kneeling down, make signs to it, to make her well; but finding that she did not get any better, he grew very angry, and threw stones at the star, supposing that it might, after all, be the cause of his deafness, his mother’s sickness, and all their other troubles. Seeing others move their lips when speaking, he moved his, hoping the talk would come out; and sometimes he made noises like an animal. When people told him the trouble was in his ears, then he took some brandy, poured it into his ears, and then stopped them up with cotton, as he had seen people do who had cold in their heads. Pierre desired much to learn to read and write. He often saw young boys and girls who were going to school, and he desired to follow them; not that he knew what reading and writing really were, but from a feeling that there were some privileges and enjoyments from which he ought not to be shut out. The poor child begged his father, as well as he knew how, with tears in his eyes, to let him go to school. His father refused, making signs to him that he was 79deaf and dumb, and therefore could never learn anything. Then little Pierre cried very loud, and taking some books, tried to read them; but he neither knew the letters nor the words. Then he became angry, and putting his fingers into his ears, demanded impatiently to have them cured. Then his father told him again, that there was no help for it; and Pierre was quite heart-broken. He left his father’s house, and without telling him, started off alone to school, and going into the schoolhouse, asked the master, by signs, to teach him to read and write. The schoolmaster (I think he could not have had any little children of his own) refused him roughly and drove him away from the school. Then Pierre cried very much; but you will be glad when I tell you that, although only twelve years old, he was such a little hero that he wouldn’t give up. He took a pen, and tried, all alone, to form the writing signs; and that, indeed, was the best and only thing he could do, and he stuck to it, though everybody discouraged him.

His father used sometimes to set him to watch the flocks; oftentimes people, in passing, who 80found out his condition, gave the boy money. One day—and it was a great day for poor Pierre—when he was thus watching the flocks, a gentleman who was passing took a fancy to him, and inviting him to his house, gave him something to eat and drink. Then the gentleman went off to Bordeaux, where he lived. Not long after, Pierre’s father, for some reason or other, moved to Bordeaux; and then this kind gentleman spoke of Pierre to a learned man of his acquaintance, who was interested in deaf and dumb persons, and he consented to take Pierre and try to teach him. Are you not glad? and you will be gladder still, when I tell you how fast he learned, and how, by his own strong will, assisted by his kind tutor, he unriveted, one by one, the chains with which his wits were bound, and casting them aside, stood forth under the bright star, at which he used to throw stones, and understood now what it was, and who made it. You may be sure that nobody had to tease little Pierre to learn his lessons, as some little children have to be teased to study theirs. No indeed! he felt like jumping and leaping for joy that he was able to learn; and it seemed to him that there was nothing 81left in the world worth fretting about, now that he could learn, like other children.

That is all I know about little Pierre, but I hope he grew up a good as well as a smart man; don’t you?

THE THREE GIFTED SISTERS.

According to this text, Charlotte Brontë, though no orphan, had no father. She was born in the little village of Haworth, England. Her father was a clergyman, and a very curious man, if the stories told of him are true. I dare say he may have been a good man in his way, but I don’t fancy his way. I don’t like his burning up some pretty little red shoes, belonging to his little children, because he did not like the color. I don’t like his firing off pistols, when he got angry, and terrifying his little meek wife. I shouldn’t want to hear such a terrible minister preach, had I gone to his church. Well, never mind that. His feeble little wife was taken very sick, and the doctor said she must die; die, and leave those little children to the care of this father I have spoken of, who seemed to be about as fit for the charge, as an elephant would be to take care of little humming birds. One touch of his great paw would crush the life out of them.

LITTLE CHARLOTTE.—Page 82.

83You may be sure the poor dying mother felt badly enough about all this, as she lay in her bed, growing thinner, and paler, and weaker each day. She could see the churchyard where she was to be buried from her chamber window; in fact, one had to pass through it, with its moss-grown tombstones, to get to the house, which was a very gloomy one at best, as parsonage houses are too apt to be. I suppose she tried very hard to feel willing to leave them; but she found she could not do it, if she saw their dear little faces every day. So they did not go to her sick-room any more; she could hear the pattering of their tiny feet in the entry, and their hushed whispers as they passed her door, and so, pressing her hands tightly over her mother heart, to still its pain, and leaning on the Crucified, she passed away.

It is very dreadful for a child to lose its mother—much worse, I think, than to lose a father; because a father, be he ever so good and kind, 84must be away from his little ones, and cannot, by any possibility, understand their little wants and ways as a mother can; and a child’s heart is such a tender thing to touch; one may mean well, and give it such exquisite pain, and the poor thing cringes, and shrinks, and has no words by which it can tell its distress. But suppose the father understands nothing about a child’s heart. Suppose he thinks to treat it like a grown person’s, who has been knocked about the world till he don’t care for anything, who never cries, never laughs, never is glad, never is sorry, never wants to lay his head on a dear, kind shoulder, and cry—what then? Suppose that father, instead of taking breakfast, dinner, and supper with his lonely little children, takes his meals up in his own room, and leaves them sobbing over theirs, while they try to swallow the food that tasted so sweet when their dear mother sat at the head of the table—what then? Suppose it was a bleak, dreary country where they lived, where no flowers grew, where were no gardens; and that, when these little children became tired of huddling together, like a frightened flock of lambs, in their gloomy nursery, where never a cheerful fire was lighted, or cheerful 85lamps twinkled when night came on—suppose they tied on their little bonnets, and, led by the eldest, who was only seven, went through the damp churchyard, past their mother’s grave, and out on the bleak, cold hills to walk, without their father to lead them by the hand, or take them up in his arms when tired, or speak a kind word, or warm their little chilled hearts or hands in any way? Suppose day after day went by in this fashion, what sort of children do you suppose they would become? Healthy, hearty, rosy, jumping little things, such as God and man love to see, loving play and frolic, with broad chests and shoulders, and bright eyes and hearts? Not at all. They never once thought of playing; they hadn’t a toy in the house; their heads grew big, and their bodies grew little; and they were as wide awake at night, as if somebody had hired them not to go to sleep. But their father slept soundly, all the same as if their little hearts were not like an empty cage, out of which music and beauty has taken wing forever. Well, God loved them; that’s a comfort, and that thought kept little Charlotte’s heart from sinking, when she tried to be mother to her younger brothers and 86sisters; all the while she needed a mother herself, more than any dictionary could ever tell.

After a while, an aunt came to their house, to take charge of them. I was glad of that. I hoped she would make them play dolls, and run, and jump about; I hoped she would make the fires and lamps burn cheerily, and go round the house shedding brightness from her finger tips, as only a woman knows how. I hoped she would go out to walk with the little orphans, and when they came home to supper, sit down with them at the table, and say funny things to make them laugh; and good things to make them happy and glad. I hoped she would tie on their little night dresses with her own hands, and kiss them down on their pillows, and say, God bless you, my little darlings! It was such a pity she didn’t. I am sure a woman ought to understand little children better than she seemed to. But she just shut herself up in her room, the same way their father did, and took all her meals alone. I have no patience with her. I wish I had lived near them; they should have eaten and drank with me, poor little souls! Well, they had a kitchen, and a good old servant, named Tabby, in it, and, from what I can find out, she 87was more of a mother to them, in her rough fashion, than anybody else. I told you these children had no toys; and, what was worse, they did not want any; they used to read newspapers and talk politics, just as your father and his gentleman friends might, in your parlor. As to “Mother Goose,” I am sure they never heard of her, though they read many books that are considered much wiser, and which were just as much out of place in a nursery, as a joint of roast beef would be to set before your little month-old baby, for its dinner. But how should they know that? Nobody about them seemed to think that childhood comes but once; or, in fact, was intended to come at all for them. “Milk for babes” was not the fashion at Haworth parsonage. Well, time passed on, till their father concluded to send Charlotte away to school, with her sisters. So they were put into a little covered cart with their things, and jolted along. I hope their father kissed them when they went away, but I am not at all sure of it. I am afraid he was too dignified. It is hard enough for a child to go away to school with a warm kiss on the lips, and a trunk full of comfortable clothes, in every stitch of which is woven a mother’s 88blessing. It is hard enough for a healthy, romping child, who is able to ask for what it wants everywhere, and on all occasions, to leave home, and go a long distance to a strange school, even though it may have letters often, and plum cakes often, and all sorts of little love-tokens, which home delights to send to the absent one. But to these little timid ones, who had never played with children, and were as much afraid of them as of strange, grown people; who had come up, shy and awkward and old-fashioned, and were painfully conscious of it, as soon as it was brought to their notice by contrast with those children, who had come from their warm firesides like some graceful house-plants, full of blossoms and verdure—ah! it was very sad for the poor little Brontë girls. What could they do when they got there, but stand at the window, and cry, as they looked out upon the snowy landscape? And when the girls urged them to play ball, and other such healthful games, they had no heart for it—no physical strength for it, either; they would have been tumbled over forty times in a minute, by their playmates, like so many ninepins, with a great, thumping ball. Well, they had a bad time 89of it, any way, at this school—bad food, bad air, and exposure. I suppose, too, their clothes were not warm enough, for the hand was cold that would have made the warm garment for those bloodless, shrunken limbs. It is “mother’s” fingers that fit the cloak close to the little neck, so that through no treacherous crevice the cruel “croup” may creep; it is “mother’s” fingers that quilt the little winter skirt with the soft, warm wool, and furnish the thick stocking, and comfortable hood. It is “mother’s” eye which sees just the thing that is needed to meet all weathers. We can imagine how they went shivering along, half clad, to the church on Sunday, where never a fire was lighted; how blue were their fingers; how cold their little feet! No wonder they grew sick. Little Maria Brontë, who was delicate under the remains of the whooping cough, suffered most severely from cold, and want of nourishing food. A blister was applied to her side for her relief, and the poor, weak child, happening to linger in bed one morning later than the usual hour for rising, was harshly dragged in this state into the middle of the room, and then punished, because she had not strength enough to dress herself in 90time to appear with the other scholars. This must have been very hard to bear. Perhaps you ask, Why didn’t Charlotte Brontë write home about it? She had two reasons: one was, that both she and her sisters were most anxious to learn everything that they could learn at this school; and in the next place, they had been so accustomed to keep all their childish troubles to themselves, although their hearts were nearly breaking, that I don’t suppose they once imagined, if they thought of it, that it would do any good to complain. So they shivered in the cold, and tried to swallow the bad food that was given them, when they grew so hungry they could not do without it, until poor little Maria grew so very bad, that her father had to be sent for. God pitied the poor child, and took her to heaven, to be with her mother. She died a few days after reaching home. Charlotte and Emily, the two remaining sisters, did not long stay in the school after their sister’s death. I think their father at last woke up to the thought, that they might die too, and nobody might be left at the old, gloomy parsonage, to send up his meals, or wait upon him, or read to him, or mend his clothes. So he brought 91them home too. I believe all children are fond of being in the kitchen. They are active, and like to see what is going on; they like to watch the cooking, and ask questions about it—often, much better than the cook likes to answer. The little Brontë girls’ cook was named Tabby, and a funny old woman she was. She was very kind to them, but she would have her own way, and made them do as she said; still, I have no doubt, from what I know of her, that she put by many a nice little bit for their hungry mouths, and told them a great many fairy stories, as they cuddled round the old kitchen fire, when her work was done; but I think they had to be very careful not to meddle with anything without leave, or get in her way, when she was hurried or busy; and that was all right enough, for the poor old thing must have elbow-room, you know; besides, it is a good thing for a child to be taught that it may not order about a good, faithful servant, old enough to be its mother, merely because she is a servant.

About this time the little girls began to amuse themselves writing little plays, poetry, and “compositions” for their own amusement. They had a little “make believe” newspaper, too, for which 92they and their brother Patrick used to write, and old Tabby had to speak pretty sharp, sometimes, to make them go to bed, when they were busy with these things. I suppose they did not care to go to bed early, for they did not sleep as healthy, happy children do, the moment their heads touch the pillow, until a mother’s soft kiss wakes them to a new day of joy; but no doubt they turned and tossed, and wished it were daylight, and all their sorrows grew larger and more intolerable to bear in the silent, dreary night. They who have been in great trouble know this; when the faintest leaf-whisper, from one tree to another, seems like spirit voices, torturing one with a language which you try, but cannot understand; when the dear ones who are dead seem so very near, and yet so very far away; when their faces seem to look out from the darkness, like a star suddenly appearing from a black cloud, and then again wrapped in its dusky folds. No wonder the nervous, lonely little Brontës begged Tabby not to send them to bed.

Charlotte did not stay long at home; her father resolved to send her away to school again, 93and her little sister and brother were forced to do without her.

When persons interest us very much, it is natural to wish to know how they look.

Well, then, Charlotte Brontë, at the time she went to this school, was a very homely little girl. One of her schoolmates draws for us this picture of her, at that time: “I first saw her coming out of a covered cart, in very old-fashioned clothes, looking very cold, and very miserable. When she afterward appeared in the schoolroom, her dress was changed, but just as old-fashioned. She looked like a little old woman, so short-sighted that she always appeared to be seeking something, and moving her head from side to side to catch sight of it. She was very shy and nervous, and spoke with a strong Irish accent. When a book was given her, she dropped her head over it, till her nose nearly touched it, and when she was told to hold her head up, up went the book after it, so that it was not possible to help laughing.” Another schoolmate says, that the first time she saw Charlotte, she was standing by the schoolroom window, looking out on the snowy landscape and crying, while all the rest of the girls were at play. 94Poor child! no doubt she felt desolate enough. Fortunately for Charlotte, her teacher, Miss Woolen, was a lady of intelligent mind and kind heart. She understood the odd-looking, timid, wise little being before her. She knew that there was a gem, all but the setting. So she did not overlook the knowledge stowed away in that little busy brain, because grammar and geography had found no place there. Then came the question, how to manage this little sensitive pupil, without keeping back the other girls in the class, who already understood these branches, though, perhaps, they were far behind her in others. At first she thought she must put her in the second class, till, as school girls say, she had “caught up” with the other girls. But the moment she mentioned it, Charlotte’s mortification and distress were such, that, like a wise teacher, she saw that if she only saved her this pain, by allowing her to go into the first class, she immediately would make up by private study wherein she was deficient; and so it proved.

One feels as glad at this kindness, as though she were one’s own little sister. We find her, at this time, not playing with the other romping 95girls, but standing in the playground with a book, or looking dreamily at the scenery. When urged to join them in their sports, she said No—always pleasantly. Playing ball, and such healthful games, she probably disliked, as much, perhaps, for lack of bodily strength, as from any other cause; though that would have come by degrees, had she only allowed herself to try; it was a great pity she did not. However, she was always so good-natured and amiable, that she was a favorite with the girls, although she wouldn’t play with them. Sometimes, with the natural freedom of their age, they would tell her that she was “awkward,” or ugly; but this never displeased her, though, I have no doubt, she felt sorry that they thought so. In the portraits of that fine face of hers, which I have seen, the term “ugly” seems to be sadly misapplied. Those might think so, who fancy a pink and white doll-face; but neither could such see the moral beauty of her daily life, over that thorny road, every meek, patient step of which was as the Saviour’s at Gethsemane.

Charlotte remained a year at this school, studying very hard. This was well, had she also remembered that her fragile body needed equal 96care with her mind; for of what use is knowledge if there is no bodily strength by which we can make it useful to those about us? Charlotte had no watchful mother, to impress this upon her as a religious duty; to remind her that she was as responsible for the care of her body, as for the improvement of her mind. And so her mind kept on expanding, and threatening to shatter its feeble prison house in pieces. It was a great pity; but it seems even in England, where so much more attention is paid than here to “raising” perfect, robust specimens of men and women, such things do happen. At Miss Woolen’s school, Charlotte formed an agreeable intimacy with two schoolmates—young ladies of her own age. This was a great benefit to her, because she had been made so prematurely old in her feelings, by loneliness and sorrow. One cannot help catching animation and hope from a bright, joyous, fresh-hearted, breezy companion, though one is ever so apt to look on the gloomy side of things. And so it is quite cheering to know that, upon leaving Miss Woolen’s school, and going back to her father’s dull house, these young girls exchanged letters and visits with one another. And now, perhaps, you 97suppose, that when Charlotte reached home, she sat down and folded her hands in utter hopelessness, saying, “How awful dull it is here! there is no use in trying to live in such a desolate old cage of a place; it is really too bad for a young creature like me to be shut up here. It is too bad for any girl so fond of reading, writing, and drawing, to be a mere drudge in this lonesome place!” Perhaps you think that, as she was a “genius,” she said or thought all this. Not at all; and I’ll tell you why; because her genius was genuine, not sham. It is only make believe geniuses who think the every-day duties of life beneath their intellects. I want you to remember that Charlotte Brontë did not shrink from one of them. She swept, and she dusted, and she made beds, and she made bread (good, light, wholesome bread, too), and pared potatoes, and watched the pot boil, and kept everything in as nice order as if she had no taste for anything but housekeeping. Perhaps you think then that she folded her hands, and said, “I should think I had done enough now!” There you are wrong again. She looked from her window into the little churchyard, where her mother was lying, and said, “Now I must be 98a mother to my brothers and sisters!” and she repaired their clothes, and she taught them; for she had thoroughly learned her own lessons and all those things she had studied at school. There’s a girl for you! and all this, when she was so very fond of reading and writing, which stood to her lonely heart in place of loving friends, for whom she longed.

At length, on account of want of money, it became necessary for some one of the family to go out into the world to earn it. Who should it be? One would have naturally supposed the brother, as being a sturdy, healthy fellow, better able to fight his way than his delicate sisters, who shrank timidly from the sight of strange faces and strange voices. It seemed not the thing for them to go out into the wilderness, to make the path easy for his feet? If so, which of the sisters should do this? Emily? Anne? or Charlotte? Emily grew homesick to that degree when away, that her life was in danger, and was obliged to be recalled for that reason. So, whoever was sent, she must not go; for were there not two sisters already in the churchyard? Anne was too young. Charlotte, then, was, as usual, to buckle on the 99armor of duty over her brave heart, and stagger forth with what strength she might, to face the world. She was to be a governess! Imagine, if you can, the most torturing situation in which to place such a nature as hers; and the daily trial of it, could not come up to that included to her in the little word “governess.” Fortunately, her first experiment was with Miss Woolen, her old teacher—her scholars being younger sisters of her own playmates. Whatever she did, she did with her might; therefore, so zealous was she to make herself useful in her new situation, and so conscientious in the discharge of duties which a less noble girl would have dodged, or evaded sufficiently, at least, to make the position bearable, that we soon hear of the breaking down of her feeble body, so that she almost became crazy.

She had frightful thoughts and gloomy ideas about religious things; anxiety about her sister Emily, who, resolving not to burden her father with her support, had concluded to go forth likewise. Then she was troubled, too, about the home affairs, which, as the elder sister, she could not, even at a distance, shake off; and thus, leaving childhood, which had been but childhood in 100name to her, we find Charlotte a woman, brave yet fearful; timid but courageous; the lion’s heart in the humming bird’s body. I meant only to have told you about her childhood; and yet you may ask me, was Charlotte never again comfortable, light-hearted, and happy? Did nobody but her sisters ever love her very dearly? Did nobody else find out what a good, intelligent, gifted girl she was? Oh yes, at last! At last came fame and honor to the little, quiet Charlotte. Great men and great women wanted to know her, because she wrote so beautifully, or, as they said, was “a genius;” and she had plenty of complimentary letters and invitations to visit, and all the publishers wanted to publish her books; and she earned money enough to put a great many pretty things in the little dull parlor at home, so that she hardly knew it to be the same room; but, dear me! by that time all her sisters lay in the little churchyard with her mother; and poor Charlotte looked about at all these pretty things, and great tears came into her eyes, as she thought, Oh, why didn’t all my money and my friends come while they were alive, and could have been made comfortable and happy by them, so that we could all 101have lived at home together, and not been separated, to go away and teach school? Why? Poor Charlotte could not find out that why, as she sat in that little parlor, looking, with tearful eyes, at all the pretty things her money had bought. Perhaps you ask what her father said now to his good, gifted daughter. Oh, he sat up alone in his room, and was very proud of her; but that didn’t warm her heart any, you know. By and by a gentleman came along and asked her to be his wife. And after a while she said, Yes, I will. I suppose she thought, I want to be loved, more than anything in this world. It is very well, perhaps, to be “a genius,” and to be admired; but my heart aches all the same. Yes, I will be loved; and then I shall be happy; for, after all, the brightest world is cold and chilly, without love to warm it. I am glad she was married; because her husband was good and kind to her, and she began to smile, and look so bright you would not have known her. She was happier than she had ever been in all her life. But one day, not long after she was married, she caught a very bad cold, and everybody saw that she was going to die; she had suffered very much in her 102life, and she was not strong enough to struggle any more. Now, don’t say, “What a pity!” when I tell you that she really died. It is never a pity, when the loving and the tender-hearted go where there is no more grieving.

THE KIND WORD.

Not many years since, a poor blind man was feeling his way through some of the public roads to a small town in England, in search of employment, having only about him a small sum of money, contributed by some friends of the same trade as himself. Though he could see nothing, he yet felt the blessed, warm sunshine, and the soft southwest breeze that lifted his locks so gently, and bore to him the perfume of the early flowers. This was a joy. On his way a young woman, a foot traveler like himself, inquired of him if he could tell her whether she was on the right way to a certain town she wished to reach. Her voice was tremulous. The kind-hearted blind man said at once to himself, the poor young thing is desolate and troubled. I will help her. His kindness gave her confidence, and she told him, as well as 104she could for her tears, that she was turned out of her own father’s house by the unkindness of a mother-in-law, and was then looking out for a situation as house maid in some respectable family. The blind man was older than she; he knew well the danger to which her youth exposed her. He immediately found the young girl a safe place to lodge, and the next day gave himself no rest, till he had groped his way through the streets of the town, and found a kind family, who agreed to take her under the shelter of their roof. Afterward he learned from her, that this act of kindness had saved her from throwing herself into the river, when the poor creature was nearly crazy with misery. I tell you this little bit of a story, to show you that there is nobody in this world so poor or so miserable, that he cannot help somebody else. Because kind words, you know, cost nothing; and one can certainly always give them to the unfortunate. Of what use is a kind word? Oh, surely you never were in trouble, or you could not ask that! I believe heaven is full of those whom a kind word has helped there; and our jails and prison houses here are full of poor creatures who have gone there for want of a kind 105word when they were tempted to do wrong—for want of somebody to say, Don’t do it! for if nobody else cares for you, God cares for you; and you must care for yourself, because you are to live forever.

THE CORSICAN AND THE CREOLE.

In the lovely island of Martinique, a little girl was born. With her soft, dark eyes, lithe form, and fairy step, she was beautiful enough to have been its fairy queen. The livelong day she sang and danced among the flowers, the soft breeze lifting her locks, and tinting her cheeks with rose. The servants who had charge of her, as she floated past them in her light tissue robes, exclaimed, How beautiful she is! She was good as well as beautiful; she did not abuse her power over them; therefore they loved as well as admired her. Pity she ever left that pretty island home, with its birds and flowers! Pity that diamonds should lie heavily on the brow that looked so fair from under its wild-rose wreath. But in another island—rugged, rocky, with bandit-infested mountains—a little boy was born.

107His majestic, strong-hearted mother stepped like a Roman matron. One day this Corsican mother was bending over the little Napoleon as he lay upon her lap, when an old man came in. Looking at the child’s uncovered back, he called Madame Letitia’s attention to a mark upon it, which he said was that of a tree, feeble in its roots, but whose branches should reach to the heavens. “This child,” said the gray-haired old prophet, “will one day rule the world.” The beautiful young mother smiled incredulously, as she looked around their simple room, where little Napoleon’s brothers and sisters played and studied from day to day, under her own eye, their hours for refreshment, sleep, and lessons marked out by her, and never departed from, any more than if it were a convent, and she its stately but loving lady abbess. “Rule the world!” She looked into the baby’s calm blue eyes, and thought no more of it. Were they not happy enough? It was a loving mother’s thought, but none the less heaven-born for that. Rule the world! She took the white, dimpled baby hand in hers, but never dreamed of “Marengo” or Austerlitz, and alas!—least of all—St. Helena!

108By and by this little boy grew out of his mother’s lap, and began to cry for a little cannon. When he got it, he collected around him a company of little Corsican boys, himself the commander—even his baby head never dreamed of taking any place but the highest—and began to drill them to fight a battle with another boy company in the town. You may be sure they all had to step to his tune, even his elder brothers; and as time went on, it was very soon understood in the family, that what Master Napoleon said, was pretty likely to be done. His father looked on and thought very deeply, and, like a wise man, carried his son to a military school, where his wishes could be gratified, under proper restraints—where he learned that he who wishes to command must first learn how to submit. Here, being in his element, he was happy, quiet, and diligent. Only once his fiery spirit broke out. His quartermaster, one day, for some fault, condemned him to eat his dinner on his knees, in the woolen dress of disgrace, at the door of the refectory. Napoleon’s “sense of honor” was so deeply wounded by this, that he fell upon the floor in a fit. When the headmaster heard of it, he became very angry, and 109said, “What! punish so severely my best mathematician!” It was a good, wholesome lesson for him, though, for all that. He didn’t die of it! On the contrary, when he went home to Ajaccio, his native place, to pay a visit in vacation, he gave his orders about the education of his brothers and sisters as if he were the father of the family, instead of the second son. We must do him the justice to say, however, that his advice on these subjects was sensible, and well timed. Perhaps his mother began to think there was something in the prophecy of the old man about her son, more than she had dreamed of. We can imagine her watching the young soldier, as he sat, for hours, under an old oak tree near the house, dreaming about a future with which he had already begun to grapple, although about it he could know so little. But dreaming did not content him. He formed clubs among the young men, delivered speeches, and, all unconsciously to himself, was working out the destiny, step by step, foretold on his baby back by the old Corsican herdsman. His eye had a strange fire in it, his voice a trumpet tone; and they who listened, bowed to its strange, wild music, they could scarce tell why. 110Even then he was no mere ranter; he had studied hard, studied ceaselessly; the more difficulties he encountered in any branch of knowledge, the more eager he grew to master them. It is said that at school he never spent an idle moment; and when he came among his young companions, they felt this. They knew, when Napoleon opened his mouth, that he had something to say. It is all very fine for boys to dodge school duties, and school tasks. Ah! how many of them, in after life, would give worlds to recall those wasted hours in some great crisis, when strong, powerful, well-chosen words, from him who knows how to use them, would place in their hands so mighty a sceptre for the defense of human rights! Not that this power is never perverted; but we are not to speak of this now. The habits of intense study, industry, and close application of the young Napoleon were the solid foundation upon which the superstructure of his future greatness rested. This concentration of mind it was that enabled him, in after years, with the rapidity of lightning, to despatch business over which other military men would have droned till the precious moment in which action would have 111been available, had flown past. Remember this of Napoleon: he was a hard student in his youth. Whatever he undertook he did thoroughly. He knew what he knew.

Meantime the lovely young girl of whom we have spoken, all unknown to the young soldier, was dancing and singing the hours away. One day her young friends said to her, “Josephine, come with us to Euphemia, the old mulatto woman, and have your fortune told.” Josephine was not superstitious, but still she held out her pretty hand to the old witch, who examined it with great care, and, it is said, told her exactly what really happened to her in after life. The gay Josephine only laughed and tossed her bright head, saying, “Who promises so much, only creates distrust,” and went back to her cottage home, quite unmoved at the prospect of “becoming the wife of a man who would one day rule the world.” If you ask me how the old Corsican herdsman, or how the old mulatto woman in Martinique, knew what should befall Josephine and Napoleon, I answer, “More than likely, the prophecies, like all rumors, grew by repetition, and were mainly filled out after these things had 112actually happened; because no sensible person ever believes that a human hand is allowed to draw aside the curtain behind which God has wisely hidden mysteries so great.” Josephine was young and happy; why should she wish to be “great”? The old mulatto woman might chatter all day; she did not chirp one sweet note the less. Unlike Napoleon, she disliked study. Her mother, Madame Tascher, used to threaten her with a convent if she did not skip less and study more. “My good and pretty child,” she would say to her, “your heart is excellent, but your head—ah, what a head! I must send you away from home to France, among companions who, knowing more than yourself, will show you how ignorant you are.” All this, Madame said very seriously and coldly, for she saw that it was high time something was done. Then she left her daughter to think it over.

To be found fault with, and threatened! That, indeed, was something new to the petted child. She began crying in good earnest, so that her servant women came running, to see what was the matter. Not being able, as usual, to comfort her, they cried too, till the noise reached the ears 113of her father, who was very fond of her. Now I am about to tell you a secret. The truth was, it was not the idea of hard study which frightened this pretty young lady, when her mother spoke of sending her to France; but the idea of separation from a little boy-lover about ten years old, named William K. I don’t wonder you laugh; the idea is funny; but you must remember that a little Creole girl and boy, are as old at ten, as a boy and girl of sixteen in our cold climate. Well, this is all about it. Listen: William’s parents had come to Martinique to live, in consequence of the misfortunes of the unhappy Prince Edward, whose banner they followed. Arriving at Martinique, a friendship had sprung up between the two families, and there Josephine and William had been promised by their parents to each other, when they should be old enough. Now you know why the little girl-wife that was to be, cried so hard at the idea of being sent away from Martinique. Well, the very first chance my little lady had, she told her dear William what her mother had threatened to do. Then William ran, crying, to his mother, about Josephine’s being sent away to France, and teased her to go to Josephine’s 114mother, and beg her not to afflict her dear boy William so cruelly; and that the child had actually fallen sick of a fever in consequence, raving continually for “Josephine,” and begging his mother to hide her from every eye, lest he should “lose his little promised wife.” After a while, what with his mother’s comforting words, he grew better, and William’s teacher being chosen for Josephine’s teacher, that young lady suddenly took to study with a vigor which astonished everybody, except William himself, who had his own reasons for not being surprised. Suffice it to say, she drew well, learned to play both the harp and piano, and was making great progress in the English language. For a time all went on happily and well. But one evil day for Josephine, William’s father found it necessary to leave Martinique for England, with his family, to claim some property which had been left him. Now, it was true that he had to leave on business; but it was also true, that both the parents of the children had changed their minds about the marriage of the little lovers. Now, I agree with you that this was very cruel, after promising them to each other; but the fact was, in plain black and white, 115that each loved money and position, better than the happiness of these young people; however, they did not want a fuss, so they kept quiet, and said nothing to the children about all that; they merely separated them; and each was to suppose, after many anxious days and months, spent in waiting for letters, that the other was forgotten. It was too bad—I am quite angry about it myself; a promise is a promise, and just as binding when made to a child, as to a grown person; and more, too, because children are so trusting, that it is a greater shame to deceive them. So William went to England with his father, and Josephine wandered round the beautiful island, carving his name on the trees, and saying to herself each day, now, to-day, I shall certainly hear from him! Surely, to-morrow, I shall have a letter! Meantime the beautiful Maria Tascher, Josephine’s elder sister, was taken very sick. All that love and skill could do for her, was of no avail. She died. After this, poor Josephine grew more sad than ever. She never smiled now, or put roses in her hair, or danced with her young companions; but sighed—oh, such deep sighs for such a young thing—and grew almost as pale as the dead Maria.

116It is very strange, but Josephine could talk much more freely with her father than she could with her mother. So, when he questioned her one day as to her unhappiness, she told him all. Now, Monsieur Tascher loved his daughter after a fashion, but, as I told you, he loved money better; and what do you think was his answer to the poor girl, who was so broken-hearted about her lover, and so sad without the company of her dear, dead sister? Why, he told her, that now that her sister was dead, she (Josephine) must marry the gentleman whom her sister was engaged to marry, had she lived. Monsieur Beauharnais was his name. Then the little Creole cried till her eyes were half blind. In vain she told him that she had promised William to marry none but him. Her father replied, that in marrying M. Beauharnais, she would make the best match in Martinique, but, as to William, he would never be a rich man. Josephine still kept on crying. At last he told her a wicked fib: that since William had gone to England, he had quite forgotten her. He did not tell her, though, that Josephine’s mother had in her possession twenty letters, which he had written to his dear little wife, and which they 117had purposely kept from her. Well, Josephine was spirited as well as loving, and when her father told her that William had forgotten her, she said to herself, It is very true; he has never written me one line. Then she shook the tears from her beautiful eyes, as the rough wind shakes the dew-drops from the rose, and holding up her flushed face to the bright sunlight, said, proudly, “Marry me to whom you like; I will obey.” For all that, she walked more than ever under the trees where they used to sit, and never once did she carve the name of M. Beauharnais on her favorite trees.

Now, Josephine had an aunt in Paris named Madame Renardin, who was constantly writing to Madame Tascher to come to Paris with Josephine, that the marriage might more easily be brought about. But Madame Tascher was very fond of her own beautiful island, and replied to Madame Renardin, Ah, it is very easy to make Paris look fine, when I am two thousand leagues away from it; no, no! I will not come to Paris; but Monsieur Tascher and I will send Josephine there to be married. This they did not tell Josephine, however. There was no need. She knew what was 118going on. She was too keen-sighted not to understand what all the long talks meant, between her father and mother. In an agony of grief at the idea of leaving the place where she and William had been so happy, to go among strangers and marry a man whom she had never even seen, she threw herself at her mother’s feet, and using the only argument which she thought would avail her, cried, “Oh, mamma, save me! save Maria’s sister!” At the mention of her lost and favorite daughter, Josephine’s mother fainted. Josephine’s father turned upon his daughter, and frowning as he pointed to her insensible mother, said, “Has, then, her precious life ceased to be dear to you?” Poor Josephine said no more. From that moment she resigned herself to her fate.

Short work was made of the preparations for the voyage to France; Josephine, meantime, walking for the last time under the trees, each one of which had some happy story to tell—each one of which seemed to her like a dear friend, from whom it were almost impossible to part. Now, the day came when the ship was to set sail. A large number of islanders had gathered upon the beach to wave hands and see her off. She had 119taken leave of her father and mother, and stepped on board the ship. Suddenly, a luminous meteor appeared in the heavens overhead, and by the aid of a telescope which the captain handed her, Josephine examined it. Then the captain told her, in great triumph, that “she was the cause of it! she—the future empress of France!” Then Josephine, for the first time, remembered the prophecy of the old mulatto woman, who had told the captain of it, and this was why the old sea-dog was in such glee at his good fortune in having the illustrious little empress that was to be, on board his ship. This phosphoric flame, called “St. Elmo’s fire,” was considered a good omen, and, at the time of their leaving, seemed to form a sort of wreath around the ship. But everybody seemed more interested in it than the poor, homesick Josephine, who could think only of the home she was leaving, and the unknown home to which she was going. The voyage proved very rough, and once they were in great danger; but the mulatto woman had promised them a “through ticket,” and, of course, they went through, right side up! A young Creole named Lucy accompanied Josephine, who was at this time only fifteen 120years old. You will laugh when I tell you that the future empress carried her doll with her, and that both she and Lucy used to play with them on the voyage. But you will stop laughing when I tell you that when Lucy turned her back, poor little Josephine used to talk to her doll about “William.” Poor child! When her foot touched the coast of France, her woman’s life began. The web was woven round her, and struggling was of no avail.

Madame Renardin bore away her beautiful niece in triumph to her own house, to show her to the rich husband they had selected for her. No more doll-playing for her; no more rose wreaths; but, instead, diamonds, and fashion, and frivolity, and an aching heart. Did “William” never come? Ah, yes; he came to Paris, spite of them all, to see his Josephine. He called at her Aunt Renardin’s, but of this they never told her. He continued, however, to write her a letter, in which he begged her to tell him why she had neglected him, which was conveyed to her by a servant, who was immediately dismissed for giving it to her. Then, for the first time, Josephine knew that William had been true to her, that he loved 121her still! But she had given her promise to her parents, and resolutely refused to see him. Poor Josephine! In her sixteenth year, she married, to please her friends, her dead sister’s lover, Monsieur Beauharnais. The marriage proved an unhappy one, through no fault of little Josephine’s, who most carefully endeavored to please the husband thus forced upon her.

Meanwhile the young Bonaparte was making rapid strides toward the fulfillment of the old Corsican herdsman’s prediction. On the death of Josephine’s husband, she really became, as you all know, the wife of the future emperor of France. How devotedly she performed her wifely duties to the great conqueror, you all know, and how cruelly the ambitious emperor set this noble woman aside, for the insipid little German princess who was the mother of his much-coveted child, the Duc de Reichstadt. In St. Helena, Bonaparte had plenty of time to think of his injustice toward the good, brave Josephine, who, forgetting all the misery he had caused her, would even then have lightened, by her presence, the dreary exile from which his baby-faced German wife had fled affrighted, back to the luxury of her father’s 122court. But death stepped in, and snatched from the selfish Bonaparte this great consolation of his last dreary hours. With his name on her lips, and her eyes fixed on his picture, which hung opposite her couch, she left all France weeping over her grave. You ask, what of the child—the little duke, whose birth this noble woman unselfishly rejoiced over, because it made Napoleon so happy? Ah! it is of him I would now tell you. This little duke, the child of so many hopes, did he, after all, sit upon the throne of France? God is just. We shall see.

The Emperor of Austria was the little duke’s maternal grandfather. It was to his palace the little, pale child was taken. It was the wish of this grandfather, who, notwithstanding all the stories told to the contrary, dearly loved the boy, to make a German prince of him. If it should prove that, as he grew up, he had a fondness for military life, he should follow it; still, he was to be kept away from agitating Frenchmen as much as possible, for reasons you will very well understand. The child was delicate, as I told you, and his grandfather petted him, and had the doctor to him, and, between you and me, I dare say that 123last might have been the reason he did not grow stronger. But, notwithstanding the pink spot on his pale cheek, he had the fiery spirit of his father, the great Napoleon. Oh! how he hated to be physicked, and how he pined to grow strong, that he might dash over the ground on a fiery horse, with staring eyes, big nostrils, and pawing hoofs, who would go straight through a cannon if he bade him, and come out at the other end, without losing a hair of his tail. But the more the poor fellow wanted to make a soldier of himself, the feebler he seemed to grow, till he could hardly sit upright on the horse, at the side of which might always be found his kind old grandfather, when not called away by his duties, saying kind things to his grandson, and trying to keep up his spirits. You ask, Where was his mother, Maria Louisa? Ah! you may well ask that. She was anywhere but where she ought to be; she could not be a good woman, even for the sake of her sick boy, in whose face she might have seen death written, had she stopped flirting long enough to take one good look at him. She was a miserable, bad woman, and if the little duke had any good qualities, she took no pains to encourage them. It 124was well he had a good, kind grandfather to love him, poor, fatherless child! The French people did not relish having Napoleon’s son at an Austrian court. Not they. They disliked Maria Louisa, the young duke’s mother, who never said such gracious, graceful things, as did the kind, whole-souled Josephine, who brought them all at her feet with one of her beautiful, sunny smiles. Maria Louisa was quite another thing, with her skim-milk face, as rigid when they saluted her, as if they hadn’t a drop of generous blood in their bodies. They needn’t have fretted lest the little duke should grow up like his mother, if he grew up at all; for I can tell you that all Austria could not get the Napoleonic fire out of his veins, nor, alas! poor fellow! disease either. All his thoughts were about his father. He knew not only every detail of his battles and campaigns, but all the peculiarities of his marshals and generals. “Oh!” said he, speaking of Waterloo, “I have often wondered my father did not follow my uncle, and perish at the head of his guards; what a magnificent close would that have been to his brilliant life. Ah! those perfidious English! why could they not have treated him as I know he would 125have treated their great Wellington, had the fortune of war thrown him into my father’s hands.” He was passionately fond of reading everything he could lay his hands on, pertaining to his father. He had, somehow or other, accumulated a perfect library of biographies concerning him. To Prince Metternich he once said, “The object of my life should be, to make myself worthy of my distinguished father; I hope to reach this point, and appropriate to myself his high qualities; taking care, however,” added he, with great good sense, “to avoid the rocks upon which he split.” Afterward he said, “How I hate this miserable, sickly body, which thus sinks under my will!” As he said this, there was a gleam of the eye, and compression of the lip, truly Napoleonic.

On the eighteenth of June, 1831, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel, and took command of the Hungarian regiment when in garrison at Vienna. An immense crowd gathered to witness the spectacle; but alas! every eye saw with what difficulty the poor young duke—fighting disease—sat upon his horse. So evident was his great weakness, spite of his unquenchable determination, that Dr. Margate, his physician, said to him, 126after he had gone through his drill with the soldiers, “Monseigneur, I desire you to remember that you have a will of iron in a body of glass; if you persist in this exercise, it will kill you.” The next day, the doctor considered it his duty to tell his grandfather the same thing. The frightened old emperor, turning to his beloved grandson, said, “You have heard what the doctor says; you must do this no more, but go directly to my summer palace at Schönbrunn, and take care of your health.” The disappointed duke bowed respectfully to his grandfather; but as he raised his head, he glanced angrily at the doctor, saying, “It is you, then, sir, who have put me under arrest!” A few weeks after this he was attacked with quick consumption. He grew weaker and weaker, as he was wheeled about the beautiful gardens of Schönbrunn, and he knew himself that he must soon die; his chief anxiety seemed now to be, whether he should be able to know his father in the other world. Poor Napoleon! how he had coveted the love of this son! How eagerly that unhappy exile at St. Helena had looked forward to it, and yet he was never to enjoy it; was not the unhappy Josephine avenged? And not only 127in that! Her grandson now sits upon the throne, to obtain an heir to which, the unhappy woman was thrust aside, for the foolish, weak daughter of the house of Hapsburg; while her child, of whom I have been telling you, has long since lain in his bronze coffin, under the church of the Capuchins, among the buried majesties of Austria.

TWO QUARRELSOME OLD MEN.

I saw such an unpleasing sight to-day! Two old, gray-headed men, their lips white with passion, clenching their fists in each other’s faces, and calling each other all the disagreeable names they could think of; while the bystanders looked on, laughed, took sides, and encouraged them to fight, for their own amusement. I could not laugh. I felt more like crying. These old men, with one foot in the grave, who seemed to have outlived everything but their own bad passions—it was a pitiable spectacle! Ah! said I, to myself, as I walked away, I am afraid there are two mothers somewhere (may be they are not alive now), who have been sadly to blame; or those respectable-looking old men would not be here, degrading themselves by a brawling street fight. I think, when they were little boys, that “I 129will!” and “I won’t!” must have been intimate friends of theirs (and very bad company they are, too). I think these fighting old gentlemen were allowed, when they were boys, to come and go when and where they liked, and to lie abed till ten o’clock in the morning, till breakfast was all cold, and then stamp and kick till they got a hot one. I think, when they neglected to get their lessons, and were, very properly, reproved for it, at school, that their mamma thought it was dreadful bad treatment, and took them away; and I think that, when she sent them to another school, they often played truant; and then told the teacher that they had been sick. I think they were stuffed with pies, and cake, and candy, and I think they called upon poor, tired servant girls to brush and black their shoes, when they should have learned to do it themselves. I think, when their sisters asked them to go of any little errand, they roughly replied, “Do it yourself!” I think, when their mothers said, “John (or Thomas) go to the grocer’s for me, that’s a good boy!” that they replied, “How much’ll you give me if I go?” and then, I think, when their mother gave them a three-cent piece, that they pouted, and said 130that they wouldn’t go, without they could have sixpence. That is the way such gray-haired old men as I saw fighting in the street to-day, are made.

THE LITTLE PRINCES.

“As happy as a king—as happy as a queen!” Ah! what thoughtless words are these! The tall pine rocks to and fro, and struggles with the fierce winds and storms; one by one, its beautiful green branches are torn off, and in an unexpected moment comes the terrible lightning flash, scorching its very heart, and leaving it but a blackened cinder. All the time the little flower at its feet sleeps, secure in its sweetness, its very lowliness its surest safeguard and protection. Do you never think of this when you envy the rich and the great? Perhaps you are poor, and meanly clad, and poorly fed; and it seems to you that God is not good and just, to make such a difference between you and another child of your own age, who seems to be born only to have everything it wants, and to rule over others? 132Have you never, when walking in the field, spied upon some rocky height, a gaudy flower, which you imagined to be sweet-scented and beautiful? Have you never torn your clothes, and sprained your limbs, and nearly put your eyes out with briers, to get it, only to find it, when obtained, nauseous, and full of thorns? Have you never chased the brilliant butterfly over the meadows, till your breath gave out, only to hold in your rash hand, after the eager, weary chase, but a handful of glittering dust?

Well, just like this is human greatness, seen at a distance—just so unsatisfactory its possession. Now, I suppose, you sometimes sit down and dream with your eyes open, what you would like to be when you grow up. I know I did, when I was a child. I don’t remember that I ever wished to be great or celebrated; I never cared for that, and I care for it now less than ever; but I wanted to be loved, oh! so much—so much! I forgot that they whom I loved might die, or change, and so, you see, my house, built upon the sand, was as likely to tumble over as they who desire greatness. But I used to hear my little companions say, Oh, if I were a prince or a princess! and I suppose 133children now-a-days wish the same wishes as then; for childhood is childhood, while it lasts, all the world over, with its blue skies, and rosy clouds, and angel dreams—never seeing the dark cloud in the distance; never hearing the low, muttered thunder, or seeing the brief lightning flash. And oh! it is well that it is so, else the little bud would not dare to unfold its bright leaves; but would close them tightly round its little, fragrant heart, and shrivel up in its green inclosure, and drop from the stem, before the world had praised God for the gift of its sweetness.

Perhaps you think princes and princesses are happy? Let me tell you the story of two little princes.

They had lived in a great deal of splendor in a beautiful palace—had plenty of rich clothes, plenty of toys, plenty of little ponies in the stable to ride, plenty of servants to wait on them, and to do whatever they wished; and I suppose the poor little things thought it would always be so. But kings have enemies as well as friends, and so had their father; and these enemies grew more numerous, and wished that the father of these little princes were dead; and after a while they succeeded 134in having things their own way, and the king was sentenced to have his head cut off. Ah! it was not well to be a little prince then! for little princes, if they live long enough, will one day be kings, you know, unless they are put out of the way; and so these bad men thought. Therefore, when their father was led out to be beheaded, these cruel wretches forced the little princes to see it done, and then took their father’s blood, and sprinkled it upon their bright, fair locks, and upon their little garments. And then they took them, although they had committed no crime, unless it was a crime to be the children of this king whom they hated, and put them in prison. This was bad enough; but they did worse than that. They shut them each up in a separate cage, made very broad at the top, but narrowed down to a point at the bottom, so that the little prisoners could neither stand straight, nor sit, nor lie down; and then they fastened them in. The elder of these little boys was but eight years old, and the other only six. Just fancy it! The only comfort they had, was to put their arms through the bars of their cages, and hold each other by the hand.

“We cannot live this way long,” said little 135Frank, the younger, as the tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Would papa like to see you cry?” asked Henri. “Do you not see,” said the courageous child, “that they treat us like men of whom they are afraid; let us not, then, act like babies.”

So little Frank dried his tears, as his brother bade him; and they talked about the beautiful palace they used to live in, and the fountains, and the groves, and the gardens; and tried to imagine themselves back there, and so to forget their troubles; but, after all, it was dreary work.

One day, a little mouse peeped out of its hole in the lonely dungeon. I dare say you have often run away from a mouse, or else wanted to have it killed, or taken away; but then you were never shut up in a dungeon, with nobody to care for you, else you would feel as these little prisoners did, and have been glad to see even a friendly mouse. At first the mouse was afraid, and ran back to its hole at sight of the little princes. They called and called, and coaxed it to come back, for they were very weary of their cages, and of having nothing to do, day after day. Besides, their cramped limbs ached badly, and it 136was hard work to bear pain of body as well as pain of mind, and have no one to say, I am sorry for you, dear child. At last the little children thought of throwing out a few crumbs of their prison bread. The little hungry mouse understood that, and ventured out, and by and by, after a few days, he would climb up into their cages, and eat from their hands.

When the wicked wretches who put them there heard of this, and found out how patiently and sweetly these dear children bore their trials, and that their little innocent heads drooped every night in peaceful slumber, they were very angry; so they resolved to try other means of tormenting them. So they called the executioner, and ordered him to go to their dungeon once a week, and draw out one tooth from each of them. Just think of that! You have had a tooth taken out, I dare say, but your mother, or father, or sister was by your side, and holding your hand, and pitying you with all their might, and wishing they could bear the pain for you, and that gave you courage. And then it was soon over, and only for once; and the bad toothache from which it delivered you was, after all, worse to bear. But the little 137princes had no toothache; they had a bad heartache, but trusting in God, they were trying to be patient, and love even a little mouse, since they were denied everything else. Oh! how mean and cowardly that great, big, strong man—that executioner—must have felt, when he went in to torment two such little angels!

When he told them what he had come for, the youngest boy commenced crying, and the elder brother said to the executioner, “I beg you not to draw out a tooth from Frank; you see how weak he is, and how ill!”

Then the executioner, hard as he was, shed tears; still he knew that he must carry back two teeth, or have his own head cut off; and so told the boys.

“Well, then,” said the elder brother, the brave Henri, “take out two from my mouth, instead of one from my brother’s; I am strong, but the slightest pain will kill him.” For a long time the two boys struggled which should suffer for the other, until a messenger was sent, to know why the executioner did not return—why he delayed. Then he advanced to the cage, and drew a tooth from Henri, and was going toward Francis, when 138Henri cried out, “No, no; take the other from my mouth; don’t touch Francis!” and the executioner carried back two teeth; but they were both from the mouth of the brave Henri. Every week he went back to the dungeon, and every week did this heroic boy lose two teeth, one for himself one for his brother; but alas! his bodily strength began to fail, though his little lion heart was strong as ever. His limbs no longer sustained him; he doubled up in the bottom of the cage, and tried to put out his hand to his little brother.

“Frank,” said he, “I am dying; but perhaps, some time, you may get out; if you should, and you should find our mother, oh, tell her how I love her, just as I am about to die. Good by, Frank! give some crumbs every day to our little mouse for me, won’t you, Frank?” and the next moment, before Frank could answer him—so stupefied was the child with grief—the brave Henri was dead, and nobody was in the dungeon but Frank and the little mouse.

Nobody, did I say? Ah! God was there. Why he permitted all this suffering, neither you nor I know; but I hope we shall know one of these days. The angels are always learning such 139things in heaven. It puzzles me often now, when I think about them, and sometimes I get impatient, and wish God would tell me right off why he permits this, when he could so easily prevent it; and then I think of the many, many times, in which I have shed impatient tears at my own troubles, and then time has passed on, and I have seen, even in this world, with my dim, earthly eyes, how much better it was that those very things should have happened which grieved me so. But with our bright, heavenly eyes, in the broad, clear light of eternity, how easily, dear children, shall we untwist these tangled threads of life, which seem to mock our efforts here. We can wait, for, just as sure as that God reigns, it is all right.

Dear me! I suppose you are very impatient to know what became of poor Frank, when he was left alone? Well, soon after Henri died, the wretches who imprisoned the two innocent children died also; and then Frank was taken from his dungeon, and set at liberty. Oh! how glad he must have been to see the blue sky, and the green fields, and the sweet flowers, and, better than all, to find his dear mother.

140What a sorrowful story he had to tell her! and how many times they wept, to think of poor Henri, and how the mother wept at night, over little Frank, while he was sleeping, whose dungeon tortures had made him a cripple for life. Ah! it is not well to be a little prince.

Let me tell you another story, of a child who was born of a noble family in France. His father and grandfather were both great generals; they had been in many battles, and were considered very brave men; but war is such a terrible, terrible thing, is it not? husbands, fathers, and brothers falling to the ground, like grass before the mower’s scythe; but in those days war was not spoken of in this way. Dead men were thought no more of than dead sheep; unless, indeed, it might be some great commander or general. As if a soul wasn’t a soul, no matter whether it lodged in the body of a common soldier or his officer. As if a common soldier’s relatives would not grieve at his loss as much as the relatives of his commanding officer for him. As if sorrow did not sit down in the hovel, as well as in the hall. As if an orphan were not an orphan, and a widow a widow, in every rank of life. But, as I tell you, 141people did not think this way when this lad lived, of whom I am about to tell you. It was all glory and epaulettes. Little Paul had guns and swords, and flags and drums, put into his hands almost as soon as he was born, by his father and grandfather, who wished to train him up for a great hero. When he was a very good boy, his reward was to play battle with his grandfather, with a set of pasteboard soldiers, to teach him how to manage the enemy in difficult positions; and all this boy’s dreams, by day and night, were of such things. When he was only ten years old, his father was commanded to join the army, for there was to be a great battle, a real battle. So he told his wife, who cried very much, that he was going to leave her, perhaps for ever; and then he took his little boy in his arms, to bid him good by. Paul did not cry, but he looked his father in the face very steadily, and said, “Papa, I must go too. I must fight by your side in that battle!” This pleased his father and grandfather very much; and his mother began to be frightened, for fear that they would really consent to the child’s going; and sure enough they did, and little Paul was half beside himself with joy, that he was to 142take part, with real swords and real men, in a real battle. Perhaps you say, Oh, of course, his father took care that he should not be in any danger, and made everything easy for him. Not at all, as you shall hear; for little Paul insisted, as soon as he joined the army, that no favor should be shown him because he was so young, and because he had been born of a noble family, and brought up tenderly; he insisted upon sharing all the fatigue and danger, and felt quite insulted, if any of the old men in the army seemed to fear for him, or not think him capable of his duty. He wanted to do just as the common soldiers did; sleep on the bare ground, and eat of their common food. A week after he had joined the army, he had proved himself so brave, that they made him ensign, and gave him the colors to carry. Perhaps you say, Of course, his father did that! No; the whole regiment were quite proud of him, and said that the little fellow deserved it. You must not think that he forgot his mother, who was so anxious about her boy. He wrote her a little letter, which was a funny mixture of childishness and manliness, telling her that he had a wound in his right arm from the enemy, who wished to seize 143his pretty flag. “That would have been fine, indeed!” wrote little Paul, “when I had just had it given me to defend!” Then he tells her, that his new hat was spoilt, but that he can get another, and that once he fell off his horse, when the enemy rushed at them, but soon was up again, firing his pistols after them. Three months the child was there, in the army, and often suffered much from cold and other causes; but he never complained; and when not engaged in fighting, used to laugh as merrily as any other child of ten years old, and at as trifling things.

But at last came a day, which was to decide the battle, one way or another. On the morning of that day, Paul’s father took him in his arms, and said, “Give me a kiss, Paul; for we may never meet again.” Paul gave him two—one for his mother—and then they separated. Little Paul was stationed away from his father, at a post which he was not to leave without permission from a superior officer.

The battle went on; the dead and dying strewed the ground. Little Paul saw his brave companions falling all around him. Still the child stood at his post, until a ball fractured his leg; 144then, in his agony, he said, what all children say in their pain, “Mother!” fainting as he said it. Some time after, a soldier flying from the field, saw a child lying beneath his horse. All the army knew Paul, and loved him; so the soldier forgot all about his own danger, and stopped to pick up poor little Paul from the dead soldiers around him, and put him on his shoulders, to carry him to the camp. Several times the enemy stopped him; but he had only to point to the wounded child—for everybody had heard of “Little Paul,”—and they let him pass.

When he got to the camp, little Paul came to his senses; and then they told him that it would be necessary to cut off his leg.

“Better that, than my head!” said Paul; “but stop!” said he, as a thought struck him; “it may kill me, may it not?” The doctor bowed his head; he could not say yes, he felt so sorry for him.

“Give me, then, half an hour first, and let me write to my mother!” said Paul; and with great agony he wrote tremblingly a few lines to her whose thoughts were always of her boy.

After this he said, “Now I am ready!” His 145father stood by, holding his little hand, and whispering, “Courage, my child! courage!”

Little Paul smiled and answered, “Oh, I have plenty—more than any of you!” but as he said it, the smile faded, and a deadly pallor overspread his face.

“Oh, papa, I am dying!” said Paul.

You have seen a cloud-shadow flit over a sunny meadow.

“Oh, papa, I am dying!”

Little Paul never spoke again, and the smile faded from his face, and the small hand grew cold in the father’s grasp. Ah! poor little brave Paul! He did not think of this when he and his grandfather played battle, with wooden soldiers, evening after evening, on the study table, in their pleasant chateau in France. I think it was a great shame ever to take little Paul from there; don’t you?

OLD DOCTOR JOHNSON,

The man who wrote the big dictionary. It makes my head ache to think of it; but Dr. Johnson’s head and mine are about as much alike as a pea and a pumpkin, so there’s no use in talking about that. He lived through it, and made himself famous by it, as well as by many other things he said and did. It always comforts me to think that these literary giants, after all, had to begin life as we all did—in a cradle; the doctor was a baby once, like the rest of us; ate candy, I suppose, and cried for his mammy, although he grew up into such a shaggy lion, that his roar frightened timid folks half out of their wits. But, like other big animals, who sniff gently when little bits of creatures run past, as much as to say, I could munch you up, were you worth the trouble, so the doctor, in his solemn grandeur, 147let ladies frisk round him unharmed; and liked it, too! But I am outrunning my story; let us go back to his cradle.

The first thing we hear of him is, his being perched on his father’s shoulder, at church, when he was only three years old, looking earnestly—for he couldn’t have understood what was said—at a famous minister who preached in those days. Somebody asked his father, why he brought such a little baby into such a crowd? His answer was, that he could not keep him at home, and that he would have stayed forever in church, contentedly, looking at the minister. He was not the first little Samuel who went early to the temple, as you know, if you have read your Bible. It would be worth something to know what kept him so bewitched there, on his father’s shoulder, and what the little creature was really thinking about. Perhaps the clergyman had a very loving look in his face; and a baby’s eyes are quick to see that. Or, perhaps he had a sweet, lullaby voice, which charmed that little ear, like sweet music. Or, perhaps, being tired of seeing the same things over and over again at home, that sea of faces, in the crowded church, had a strange fascination for 148him; but we might go on perhaps-ing forever, since nobody can tell us the truth about it.

By and by, getting down from his father’s shoulder, he went to school. One day, the servant sent to bring him home, not arriving in time, he started to return by himself, although he was so very near-sighted that he was obliged to get down on his hands and knees, and take a view of the crossing, before venturing over. His good, careful schoolmistress, fearing that he might miss his way, or fall, or be run over, followed him at a distance, to see that no harm came to him. Master Samuel, happening to turn round, saw this, to his great displeasure. Immediately he commenced beating her, in a furious rage, as fast as his little hands could fly, for what he considered an insult to his future beard. Imagine the little, insane, red-faced pigmy, and the placid schoolma’am! I wonder, did he ever think of it, when he grew up; when he made war with that sharp tongue of his, instead of his fists. I do not consider this an improvement on his juvenile style of warfare; inasmuch as bruised flesh heals quicker than a bruised spirit, and there are words that hurt worse than the most stunning blow. However, there 149was this excuse for his life-long irritability, in the fact that, from childhood, he was a victim to that dreadful disease, the scrofula, which disfigured his face, and nearly destroyed the sight of one eye. His heart was good and kind, as you will see.

Samuel was quite remarkable for his wonderful memory. When he was a little fellow in petticoats, and had learned to read, his mother, one morning, placed the prayer book in his hands, and pointing to the “collect” for the day, said, “Sam, you must get this by heart!” Leaving him to study it, she shut the door, and went up stairs. By the time she had reached the second floor, she heard him following her. “What’s the matter?” asked she. “I can say it,” Sam replied. His mother did not believe him; still, she took the book, and bade him begin; and, sure enough, he said it off like a minister, although he could not possibly have had time to read it over more than twice. They tell another story of him: that when three years old, he happened to tread on a little duckling, the eleventh of a brood, and killed it, whereupon he wrote the following epitaph:

Pretty well, for three years old. Sam, however, declared, when he grew older, that his father wrote it, and tried to pass it off for his. That amiable fib, if it was such, was hardly worth while, as there needed no proof of the child’s cleverness.

I told you how much he was troubled with scrofula. There was a superstition in those days, that if any one afflicted by this disease could be touched by the royal hand of a king, a cure would speedily follow. Many persons, who had a great reputation for wisdom, were foolish enough to believe this. Sam’s mother, therefore, may be excused, for what, in other circumstances, would have been called “a woman’s whim.” At any rate, up to London she went with little Sam. Queen Anne was king then, if you’ll pardon an Irish-ism; and Sam’s childish recollection of her was a solemn lady in diamonds, with a long, black hood. Did she cure him? Of course not; though his kind mother, I’ve no doubt, always 151felt better satisfied with herself for having tried it. Sam still continued to go to school, however, and one old lady to whom he went, had such an affection for him, that, years after, when he was a young man, just about to enter college, she came to bid him good by, bringing with her a big, motherly piece of gingerbread, as a token of her affection, adding that “he was the best scholar she ever had.” Sam didn’t make fun of it behind her back, as would many young men; he had sense enough to understand the great compliment conveyed in that piece of cake.

The Latin and other masters who succeeded the old lady, did not admire young Sam as much as she did; instead of “gingerbread,” he got tremendous whippings, one of the masters saying, benevolently, while he “laid it on,” “And this I do, to save you from the gallows.” I myself have more faith in the gingerbread than in the whipping system, which, I believe, has as often driven boys to the gallows, as “from” it. But it seems Samuel owed them no grudge; for being asked, later in life, how he came to have such an accurate knowledge of Latin, replied, “My master whipt me very well;” and all his life long, 152he insisted and persisted, that only by the rod was learning ever introduced into a boy’s head. Still, to my eye, “birches” look best in the woods. I can’t help thinking that the gentle sway of the old lady would have carried him safe through his Latin too, had she but known enough to teach it.

In all schools, the boy who knows the most, rules the rest. So it was with Sam; who, if he helped them into difficulty with his roguish pranks, helped them also with their lessons, when they came to a standstill for want of his quick comprehension. They all looked up to him with great deference, and so far did this carry them, that they carried him! actually and really. Three boys used to call at his lodgings every morning, as humble attendants, to bear him to school. One, in the middle, stooped, while he sat on his back; while one on each side supported him; and thus the great, lazy Sam was borne along in triumph!

There is one thing which I believe to be true of the childhood and youth of all persons distinguished for true knowledge. It is this: they never rest satisfied with ignorance on any point, which, 153by any possibility, can be explained or made clear. It was so with Samuel; also, he never forgot what he thus heard, or had read. I know well that a young person who is “inquisitive” is much more troublesome than one who never thinks, and only rests satisfied with just what is put into the ear, and desires no more; and parents and teachers, too, are too apt to silence the inquisitive mind with “don’t ask questions!” or “don’t be so troublesome!” or, if they answer, do it in a careless, lazy way, that only surrounds the questioner with new difficulty, instead of helping him out of it; never reflecting that it is by this self-educating process that the child arrives at the best half of what he will ever know. Don’t misunderstand me; don’t think I mean that a child, or a young person, is impertinently to interrupt the conversation of his elders, and clamor for an immediate answer. I don’t mean so, any more than I think it right to snub him back into ignorance with that harrowing “little pitcher” proverb, which used to make me tear my hair out, at being forced to “be seen,” while I was not allowed “to be heard.”

It is my private belief, spite of my admiration 154of the great Sam, that he was physically—lazy. Riding boy-back to school gave me the first glimmering of it. Afterward, the fact that his favorite, indeed, only diversion in winter was, being drawn on the ice by a barefooted boy, who pulled him along by a garter fixed around him—no easy job for the shivering barefooter, as Sam was not only “great” intellectually, but physically. His defective sight prevented him from enjoying the common sports of boys, if this is any excuse for what would seem to be a piece of selfishness on his part. Perhaps to his inability for active sports, we may ascribe his appetite for romances in his leisure hours—a practice which he afterward deeply regretted, because, as he declared, it unsettled his mind, and stood very much in the way of his decision upon any profession in life.

At the age of twenty, Samuel’s disease took the form of an overpowering melancholy, which, I am sorry to say, never wholly left him during his life. In every possible way the poor fellow struggled against it, by study, by reading, by going into company, by sitting up late at night, till he was sure of losing himself in sleep. This melancholy took the form of great fear of death. He 155could not bear to hear the word “death” mentioned in his presence. I think, however, it was “dying” he feared, not “death.” I think he feared physical pain and suffering, not another state of existence; for all his ideas of that were pleasant and happy, like those of a child going home to its parent, whom, though he may have sinned against, he tenderly loves, and constantly implores forgiveness from. A more kind-hearted man than Samuel Johnson never lived, with all his bluntness, which, after all, is much preferable to the smooth tongue which rolls deceit, like a sweet morsel, in honeyed words. He had also this noble trait: he was quick to ask forgiveness where his blunt words had wounded. He did not think either his dignity or his manliness compromised by confessing himself in the wrong. I want you to notice this particularly; because small, narrow minds think it “mean and poor-spirited” to do this, even when convinced that they are wrong. This blunt, rough, ordinary-looking, ill-dressed old man (for he lived, after all, to be an old man), had a kingly heart. I could tell you many instances of his kindness to the poor and unfortunate; of his devoted love for his wife, who died 156many years before him, and whose memory he sacredly and lovingly cherished. He numbered among his friends many great and talented people, who were attracted to him by the good qualities I have named, as, also, by his brilliant and intellectual conversation. Royalty, too, paid him special honor; and in his latter days, when money was not so plenty as it should have been in the pocket of a man to whom the world owes so much, the highest people in the land most assiduously endeavored to make his descent to the grave easy, by travel, change of scene, and more comfortable accommodations than he could otherwise have had. Rough as Dr. Johnson was reputed to be, he was a great favorite with ladies. No dandy could outdo him in a neat, graceful compliment to them, and no insect could sting sharper than he either, if they disgusted him with their nonsense and folly. Nice, honest, sham-hating old man! I am glad that the Saviour he loved, smiled so lovingly on him at the last, that he fearlessly crossed the dark waves he had dreaded, to lay that weary head upon His bosom.

THE LITTLE LORD.

Everybody has heard of Lord Byron. The world says, he had a very bad temper; and the world says his mother had a very bad temper, too. For once the world was right; but when I tell you that Byron’s mother, when a pretty, warm-hearted girl, married a man she dearly loved, and found out, after marriage, that it was her money, not herself, that he loved, and that, while spending this extravagantly, he was at the same time mean enough to ill-treat and abuse her, I think we should inquire how sweet-tempered we could have been under such circumstances, before we call her hard names. I believe this is the way God judges us, and that he always takes into account, as man does not, the circumstances by which we have been surrounded for good or evil. 158It is easy for anybody to be amiable, when there is nothing to thwart or annoy.

Well, as I have said, poor Mrs. Byron had a weary life of it; and little George, hearing his mother say violent words, when her misery pressed hard upon her, learned to say them, too; and set his handsome lips together, till he looked like a little fiend; and tore his frocks to tatters when things did not suit him; and later, when he was too old for this, he used to turn so deadly pale with speechless rage, that one would almost rather have encountered the violent words of his childhood.

A mother who cannot, or does not, control herself, cannot, of course, control her child; so that there was presented at their home that most pitiable of all sights, mother and child always contending for the mastery.

I should tell you that this handsome boy was born with a deformed foot, which prevented him from exercising, like other children; and that he suffered not only from this restraint, but from the painful, and, as it proved, useless remedies, that were resorted to for his cure. An active, restless, lame boy! Cannot you see that this must have 159been hard to bear? But when I add that his own mother, in her angry fits, used to taunt him with his lameness, till the mere mention of his twisted foot, or even a glance at it, nearly drove him crazy, I am sure you cannot but pity him. And so this personal defect, which she might have soothed and loved him into feeling it a happiness to bear, because it should naturally have called out the fullness of a mother’s pitying heart, became to him, through her mismanagement, like a nest of scorpions, to lash into fury his worst passions. This was very dreadful. I try to remember it, and you must, when you read the bitter, bad words of his manhood, which stand over against his name, and, alas! will always stand; for the hand is cold and powerless now, which should have dashed them out; the eyes are closed now, from which the tear of repentance should fall to wash them away; the voice is forever hushed, which should say, beware! to the young feet, which he would lure with flowers, only to be bitten by serpents.

And yet, it is beautiful to know, that his unhappy childhood, which, like a blighting mildew, overspread all his future life, had not power quite 160to extinguish the angel in him. Thus we hear that, when sent away to an English school, he interfered, notwithstanding his lameness, between a big boy and a little one, whom the former was severely punishing. Unable to fight in defence of the poor little fellow, upon whom the torturing blows were descending, Byron stood boldly up before his persecutor, and begged, with crimson cheeks and tearful eyes, that he might, at least, “take half the blows that were intended for the little boy.” I think you will agree with me that this was very brave and magnanimous. I have another little anecdote of the same kind to tell you. Not long after this, a little boy came to the school, who had just recovered from a severe illness, which had left him very lame. Byron, seeing a bigger boy threatening him, took him one side, and said, “Don’t be troubled; if he abuses you, tell me, and I’ll thrash him if I can,” and he afterward did it.

Unfortunately for Byron, he became a lord, while he was yet a schoolboy. I say unfortunately, because, had he been a poor boy, I think it might have made a man of him. His mother, delighted at his being a lord, took every opportunity 161to make him as proud as a little peacock, by telling him of how much consequence it would make him in the eyes of the world; as if being a lord was of any account if he did nothing but strut about to parade his title, and enjoy the mean pleasure of forcing those who were “beneath him” (by so much as that they lacked a coat of arms) to make gracious way for him. Imagine this little schoolboy, so puffed up with that idea of his mother, that the first time he was called by his title in school, he actually burst into tears—from sheer delight! One can’t smile at it, for it was the sowing of a poisonous seed, which should spring up into a “tree,” under whose shadows should die the sweet flowers of kindness and generosity which, I have already told you, were springing up in the child’s heart. Such grand airs did “my lord” put on, that the boys used to nickname him “the baron.” You will not be surprised to hear, that this foolish pride of rank grew with his youth, and strengthened with his strength, so that, when he became a man (could he be said to be one, when under the dominion of such a childish feeling?) he would have his coat of arms put on his bed-curtains, and everywhere else where it could 162possibly be placed; and upon one occasion, when his title was omitted, he flew into the most absurd paroxysm of rage. Petty and pitiful, was it not?

It is a dreadful thing when a child is unable to respect and reverence a parent. There are such cases; this was one. Byron’s mother sometimes came to school to see him. On one occasion, being displeased with something she met there, she burst into a furious passion with the teacher. When one of Byron’s schoolmates, with more simplicity than politeness, said to him, “George, your mother is a fool,” “I know it!” was the boy’s gloomy reply. This seems to me the saddest thing that ever fell from a child’s lip. Still, it is due to him to say, that with this knowledge bitterly burned in upon his soul, he never failed in outward attention to her wishes, or in letters during his absence, informing her carefully of all that most nearly concerned him; although for the sweet, holy name of “mother,” he substituted “Madam,” or “Dear Madam.” Unhappy mother! unhappy son! So much that was naturally kind in both, each loving the other, and yet, in each, the active elements of perpetual discord. Each yearning for affection with the intensity of strong 163natures, and yet perpetually a great gulf between them, over which their outstretched hands might never meet!

I wish I could tell you that this unhappy child grew up a happy, and, what is better, a good man. But neither was true. His fine poetical talent was not used to bless, or soothe, or instruct his fellow beings. His powers of pleasing were exerted for unworthy purposes, and wasted upon unworthy objects—and the miseries which his unbridled temper and extravagance brought upon him in after years, he neither accepted as his just punishment, nor strove, in a manly way, to atone for, and retrieve. Lord Byron has been called “a great man.” I do not think him such. The “greatness” which lacks moral courage to meet the ills of life, which only makes them an excuse for wallowing in wickedness, must of necessity be a spurious greatness. It is put to shame by the quiet heroism of thousands of women, many of whom can neither read, write, nor spell, who toil on by thousands all over our land, facing misery, poverty, wretchedness in every form, with trust in God unwavering to the last moment of life. That’s what I call “greatness.” One would think, that 164the more a man knew, the better should he be able to hold the fiery horses of his passions with a master hand—to keep them subservient by a strong bit and bridle. Else, of what use is his intellect? He might as well be a mere animal; better, too, by far, because for the animal there is no remorseful future. He is but a pitiable specimen of manhood, who has resolution enough in a land of plenty to endure the keen pangs of hunger day by day, lest eating should spoil the outline of his handsome face and form, and yet is powerless to control passions which, scorpion-like, will sting him, long after his perishable body has crumbled into dust.

THE POLICEMAN.—Page 165.

THE POLICEMAN.

I heard a little boy say, the other day, “When I grow up, I mean to be a policeman!” He liked the bright star on the policeman’s breast, and the big club in his hand. He thought it would be “fun” to sound his whistle, when he spied a fellow getting a ride for nothing on the steps of an omnibus, and to see him running off as fast as he could, for fear of a crack from the driver’s long whip. He thought it would be nice to walk up and down, and scare the little beggar girls, who were teasing for “one penny, please,” from the ladies on the sunshiny side of the street, as they came out of the shops. But he didn’t think, how many policemen have kissed their little boys and girls, when they left at night, and been killed before these little ones woke in the morning, by some robber, or murderer, 166whom they had to catch in the night. He didn’t think how many wretched, drunken men and women they have to drag through the streets, to the station houses, every day, and how many shocking fights they have to see and take part in. He didn’t think how forlorn it must be to pace up and down of a cold, dismal night, that other people might lie snug and safe in their warm beds, till morning. He didn’t think how sick a policeman might get of misery, and poverty, and wretchedness, and how glad he was sometimes to walk into a nice, clean neighborhood, where people had enough to eat, and drink, and wear, and live clean and comfortable. You see, Johnny was only nine years old, and didn’t know about all these things. It was his birthday, that very day that he said, “I want to be a policeman,” and he had beautiful presents, and a little sugared plumcake, made on purpose for him by his grandmother; and he was to have a little party in the evening, and ice cream and cake to eat; and they were to play blind man’s buff, and all go to the circus in the evening, to see the horses, who flew round so fast that you could hardly tell what color they were. Well, that very day the policeman he was looking 167at, and envying, had seen a dreadful sight. As he was going round on his “beat,” through one of the narrow streets in New York, he heard a little girl, who was just nine years old that very day like Johnny, crying piteously. He went into the room where the noise came from, and saw, not a birthday party, of warmly-dressed little children, and a bright fire, and pretty pictures on the walls, and such beautiful roses on the pretty carpet, that one almost hated to step on them. No, indeed! The floor was bare, and so were the walls; there was no bed in the room, no chairs, no tables; but on the floor lay a dead woman, and over her stood her own little girl, named Katy, only nine years old that very day, crying, as I told you, as if her little heart would break. In her hand was a basket of cold victuals, that her mother had sent her out alone to beg; and there lay her mother, dead! and now little Katy was all alone in the great city, with no friend to whom she could tell her troubles, and no money even to buy a coffin for her dead mother. No wonder she cried. The policeman asked the little girl how long her mother had been dead; and when she could stop sobbing, she told him, that her mother 168told Katy, in the morning, to go beg some food, and that she had to be gone a long while, before she could get any; and when she came back, she found her mother lying so still on the floor; and that she called “Mother!” and she didn’t speak; and that, when she touched her, she was so cold, she knew she must be dead; and then poor little Katy trembled, because she didn’t know what was to become of her, or whether the policeman would take her away from her mother; for, while her body lay there on the floor with her, the poor little girl felt as though her mother was still with her. But the policeman didn’t speak, for he was looking round the room, and presently he found a bottle; there was nothing in it now, but there had been some rum in it; and now you know why it was the room had no fire and no furniture, and how a mother could stay at home, and send her poor little girl out alone in a great city to beg. Katy didn’t say a word. I suppose she, too, knew that her mother used to get drunk; but she didn’t want to talk about it. She only knew that her mother was all the friend she had, bad or good, and that she lay there dead, and would never say “Katy” any more; and so she began to cry 169again, as if her heart would break. Well, the policeman had a little girl of his own, and he felt very sorry for her; so he didn’t take her to the “station house,” where all sorts of drunken people are carried, but he took her to his own home, and asked his kind-hearted wife, to whom he told Katy’s story, to give her some warm breakfast, and keep her till he came back again. At first Katy didn’t want to stay there, warm and pleasant as it was. She would rather have sat on the bare floor, beside her dead mother; but the sorrows of most little children are soon forgotten by them; and when little Katy looked round again at the clean, bright, warm room, and had eaten a nice little bit of beefsteak, and some bread, and drank a cup of warm milk, she began to feel a great deal better. Nanny, the policeman’s little girl, had a beautiful doll, which she let Katy hold in her own hands. This pleased Katy very much; she had often seen dolls in the shop windows, but she never thought to have one in her own hand all her life. Well, little Nanny gave her leave to take off the dolly’s dress, and put it to bed; and Katy was so bright and happy, when the policeman came back, that he 170hardly knew she was the same little Katy; but at the sight of him, tears came into her eyes, she gave the dolly back to Nanny, and sobbed out, “I want to see my mother.”

Then the policeman’s wife wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, and turned away to the window; for she thought, Oh, how dreadful it would be, if my little, curly-headed Nanny were as friendless as this poor little girl. And then she and the policeman whispered together at the window a long while, and Katy heard the policeman say, “But it will be so much trouble for you, Mary, and, you know, I can hardly earn enough now to eat and to wear for you and me and Nanny!” but his wife only cried the more, and said, “Poor little thing! suppose it were our own little Nanny, John!” and then they whispered together again; and then the policeman patted his wife on the shoulder, and took up his hat and his big club, and went out; and then his wife got some warm water, and some soap, and washed Katy’s face, and hands, and neck, and combed her bright, brown hair smooth and nice, and put on one of Nanny’s little dresses, and told her, while she was doing it, that she was going to be Nanny’s little 171sister now, and always live there with them, and have plenty to eat, and never go shivering out in the streets, to beg cold victuals any more; but still little Katy sobbed out, every now and then, “I want to see my mother.” Poor little girl! she forgot that her mother was very unkind to her sometimes; that she used to drink rum, and beat her when she came home, if she did not beg cold victuals enough, or bring some pennies; she forgot all this; and every time she thought of her, it was only as lying on the floor, cold and dead; and the great big lump came up again in her throat, and she wanted to go back to the old, dreadful room, and look at her dear, dead mother once more. But Katy’s mother was not there, though she did not know it; they had carried her away and buried her out of sight; but they didn’t tell Katy that, till she became used to living with them, for fear it would make her little heart ache so bad; but by and by, when her little thin cheeks had grown round and rosy, like Nanny’s, and when she began to run about the house and play “Puss in the Corner” with Nanny, then they told her. And, do you know, after a while, it seemed to little Katy that she had always lived with the 172good policeman and his wife, and that the dreadful, desolate room, and the cold victuals, and the ragged clothes, were only a bad dream, and not real at all. It just seemed to her as though Nanny were really her little own sister, when they slept in the same bed at night, and laid their rosy cheeks on the same pillow. By and by the policeman’s wife was taken very sick, and then she found out what a good heart the little beggar girl had; for Katy ran up stairs and down for her, and gave her the doctor’s medicine; and sat by her bed, and bathed her hot forehead, and repaid her for all her care; and, after many years, when the policeman’s wife died, and Katy was married, and had a home of her own, she took poor, motherless Nanny there, and gave her a nice little room all by herself, and a table to put her dear mother’s workbox on, and very pretty pictures on the wall; and when Nanny said, with wet eyes, “How good you are to me, Katy!” she said, “Ah! I haven’t forgotten who took me in when I had no mother, and fed and clothed me!”

LITTLE ADRIAN.

I wonder if you like pictures as well as I do? I dare say your father may have hung some on his parlor, or study, or chamber walls, and perhaps you have often sat alone in those rooms, looking at them and thinking. They were pleasant company for you—you liked the shapely trees and contented cattle, the beautiful clouds, and the grass that you could almost see waving, as the fragrant breeze swept by. You thought, perhaps, how well the artist must have studied nature, and with what a loving eye, thus successfully to create it; and you imagined, perhaps, that his heart was as tranquil and unruffled, while at his work, as the clear lake you saw in his picture. I remember thinking so, when I was a child, and wishing I, too, were an artist, that, when the storm raged without, and the chill rain came 174slanting down, I could still create sunny skies, and blooming, fadeless flowers. I did not know then, what I know now, how painfully many artists struggle up to notice from poverty and obscurity; what a sad history those pictures, could they only speak, might tell of sleepless nights and hungry days, and fireless hearths (for it is adversity that brings out the strength of our natures). I did not think of the wealth and fame which come so often only to the filming eye and palsied hand of age, and then to be left at the grave’s brink. I did not know, what I know now, that they who have genius in any department of art, stand upon a dizzy pinnacle, what with those who, unable to reach the same elevation themselves, and who would fain throw or pull them down, and what with the danger that they themselves should lose sight of the thorny path by which they reached it, and, satisfied with human applause, never think that upon every gift, every talent, should be written “Holiness to the Lord.” I did not reflect that by so much as talent increases influence, by so much it places in the hands of its possessor the means of improving and benefiting, as well as amusing and delighting, those for whom this short life is 175but the porch to the temple whose splendors they whose garments are washed white, alone shall surely see. And how beautiful, how fitting it is, that at His feet who bestowed the gift of genius, its fruit should be laid.

No; these thoughts came with after years, when I went out into the world; but now, I never look at a beautiful picture or statue, or read an interesting book, that I do not think of these things; and when I read of an artist who, with great powers, paints pictures which harm the looker on, and influence him to evil—for pictures, though tongueless, have eloquent voices; when I read of a great artist, who can command any price, how large soever, for anything he may choose to paint, yet often wanting a meal of victuals, not because he gave it to the poor, but because he swallowed it all in the wine cup, and only rouses himself to work when he wants more, oh! then I feel sorrier than I can tell you; for genius is not an every-day gift, and life is short enough to learn our lessons for eternity, without pulling the minute hands of time forward.

It is pleasant to see artists and men of talent honored by kings and princes. I once heard a 176story of the Emperor Maximilian and the painter Albert Durer, which pleased me very much. Durer was painting on a wall of the palace one day, in presence of the emperor and his courtiers. He was a small man, and being unable to reach sufficiently high to complete the upper part of one of the figures he was painting, he looked around for something to raise him higher. The emperor, noticing this, ordered one of the gentlemen present to hand him a stool. The courtier was very angry at this; he considered the artist beneath him, and so he handed it to him in a very ungracious manner, muttering as he did so.

The emperor heard him, and turning sharply round, made him this proper and noble answer: “Sir, I can make a noble out of a peasant any day, but I cannot form an ignoramus into a man of genius like Durer.” I think the pompous courtier must have blushed a little at this, or, if he did not, so much the worse for him.

There was once a little boy, named Adrian. His mother was a poor peasant, and little Adrian used to sit on the floor with a pencil and paper in his hand, to keep him out of mischief. By and by his mother, seeing him very busy with his 177drawing, peeped over his shoulder, and lo! there, upon the paper, were beautiful birds and flowers, and all sorts of pretty things, which the little rogue had drawn; for he did not know, any more than his mother, that he was an artist. Still, his mother thought them very pretty—what mother wouldn’t, had they been ever so ugly?—and it occurred to her that she could copy in needlework those pretty pictures, on the caps and neckerchiefs she was in the habit of embroidering, to sell to the peasant women who came to market. One day, while little Adrian sat in the shop where his mother sold her needlework, an artist happened to pass, and, stopping at the window, watched through the glass the little Adrian as he drew the patterns. After a while he went in, and asked the boy if he would not like to become an artist. “Oh, yes!” he almost screamed out; “better than anything in this world, if my mother is only willing!” The poor woman was glad enough of the offer, and little Adrian went home with his master as happy—not “as a king,” for that’s a lying phrase—but as happy as a little robin of a bright spring morning.

Oh, how diligently he worked, and how fast 178he learned what was taught him! His master had no need to rap him over the knuckles with “Come, come, what are you thinking about?” not at all; he scarcely lifted his eyes from his work, so eager was he. His master had other pupils, but he took Adrian away from them, and shut him up in a little attic in the top of the house, to draw. The other scholars didn’t like this, for Adrian was very good company, and they all liked him; besides, they did not see the reason why he should be shut up there, and they felt curious to find it out. So one day, when the master was out, they stole softly up to the attic, and peeping through a window, saw the poor little prisoner painting very beautiful pictures for his jailer, who used to sell them, and pocket the money for himself.

It was very lucky that they found him, for he had become very thin and emaciated, what with hard work and poor food. The boys told Adrian that he was a great artist, though he did not know it, and that he might earn a great deal of money; and they offered, if he could draw some pictures slily, to sell them for him when his master did not know it, and get him some pocket 179money, for his own use. The hungry little boy artist was delighted at this, and soon found means to do it; but his cruel master and his wife soon found it out, and put a stop to it, by watching him so closely that it was quite impossible. Then the poor child grew thinner and thinner, until one of the boys contrived a plan for him to escape; in the daytime he wandered in the back streets, and at night he curled himself up in the organ loft of one of the churches, and all the time he was turning over plans in his bewildered head for the future. One day, while he was thus situated, he met a person who had once seen him at his master’s house. “Why,” said he to Adrian, looking pityingly at his thin figure, “have you left your master’s roof?” The child began to cry, for he was quite worn out, and besides, was overcome by the kind manner of his questioner, so different from that of his old master. So he very honestly told him the truth, and why he had run away. His pale face, his sobs, and his wretched clothes were so many proofs of the truth of his story, and the gentleman said, “If you will agree to return to your master, I will talk to him, and see that he treats you better in future.” While all this was 180going on, his old master Hals had hunted everywhere for him, for he could ill afford to part with so valuable a pupil. One would suppose that this thought, if no better one, would have made Hals treat him better; but, after all, avarice is very short-sighted, though it is said to be so keen.

Well, of course, he was overjoyed to get Adrian back, caressed him, and gave him a new suit of clothes, and all that, so that the innocent, trusting child really believed all that he said was gospel truth, and commenced painting again, with so much industry and so well, that his master got larger prices than ever for his little drawings. Still, the miserly Hals never gave Adrian any of it, and so Adrian made up his mind that, as fair promises would neither feed nor clothe him, he would run away again. This time he planned better, for he ran so far his master couldn’t find him—way off into another city, and took refuge with an innkeeper, who liked artists, because his own son was one, though, like many other children, nobody thought him famous but his own father. He soon grew cheerful, and fat, and merry, under kind treatment; it is a blessed thing, is it not? that youth is so elastic—that it is always 181ready, after a disappointment, to begin again with fresh courage. For a while, Adrian kept steadily at his work, and to his delight and astonishment, they brought him higher prices than ever, though no one knew who the artist was. One day he came panting home to his friend the innkeeper in a great state of excitement. His pockets were full of gold—he could scarcely believe it was not all a dream. He emptied it all out on the bed, and then jumped into the middle of it, that he might, as he said, know how it felt for once “to roll in wealth.” Well, we can pardon him that. None but they who have been kicked and cuffed round the world, and had a crust of bread thrown grudgingly at them, can understand the full deliciousness of independence, especially when that independence is the result of their own honest labor. Adrian had a right to wave his hat in the air; and, had I been there, I would have helped him hurra! and when we had finished, I would have said, “Now you have felt how uncomfortable a thing poverty is—don’t squander that money foolishly, because it was quickly earned; put it away safely, where it may do you and others good, and keep on working.” But, I am sorry to 182tell you that Adrian did neither. He gathered up all his money, left the house, and did not return for more than a week. On his return, his friend the innkeeper asked him what he had done with his money. “All gone!” said the foolish fellow; “I’ve not a bit left.” And that is the way he went on—first a fit of work, then a fit of wasteful dissipation. He earned a great deal, and spent more than he earned; so that he who might have been so free and independent, was constantly obliged to be running away from those to whom he owed money. Was it not a pity? On one of these occasions, he forgot to provide himself with what is called a passport, i. e., permission from the government to pass from one city to another; and because he had not this permission, they supposed him to be a spy, and threw him into prison. Confined in the same prison was a certain duke, to whom he told his pitiful story, assuring him that he was no spy, but only an artist who had come to that city to follow his profession. Of course, the duke did not know whether he was fibbing or not; he had only the artist’s own word for it. Adrian saw this, so he said, “Bring me painting materials, and I’ll soon prove to you that what I 183say is true.” The duke, having a friend in the city who was a great artist, had a mind to try him. So he got his friend to procure Adrian, the suspected spy, the materials he desired. Just below the windows of his cell, a group of soldiers were assembled, playing cards. This scene Adrian painted, and so well, that every man’s figure was a complete portrait in itself. The duke was delighted, and sent for his friend the artist, to see what his opinion might be. The moment he saw it, he exclaimed, “It must be Adrian Brauwer’s; no other artist could paint with such force and beauty!” and immediately offered a high price for it. But the duke would not part with it. It was painted under singular circumstances, and was, besides, a very beautiful picture. He immediately interested himself with the governor to get Adrian out of prison, which he succeeded in doing, and then, being liberated himself, he took Adrian home to his own house, gave him new suits of clothes, and tried to keep him from wasting his talents and time, and throwing himself away on bad companions. You will be sorry to know that it was quite useless; sorry to know that his bad passions had become, from indulgence, his tyrants, 184so that he was no longer his own master, but theirs; sorry to know that he ran away from the house of his benefactor, sold the very clothes he gave him, mixed with all sorts of bad people in loathsome places, till finally, destitute and diseased, he was carried to one of the public hospitals, where, unknown by any who had admired his talents, and pitied his follies, he died miserably, at the early age of thirty-two, and was buried in a cemetery among the paupers. When the duke, his benefactor, heard of this, he shed tears at the melancholy end of a life which might have been so useful, so honored, and so honorable. He ordered the corpse to be taken up from its pauper grave, gave it a funeral in a church, and designed a monument for the erring man, which last, however, was never accomplished, as he died himself soon after.

It is pleasant to turn from so sad a story to that of other artists, who labored on, though steeped to the very lips in poverty, for loving wives and children, who, in turn, did all in their power to lighten the artists’ toil. Living lives full of love, and without reproach, creating beauty 185when everything around them was miserably shabby and forlorn—everything but the love and patient endurance which can make out of the dreariest earthly home a heaven.

THE PEDDLER’S SON.

I am only a poor boy, what can I do? what can I ever be, but just what I am? ignorant, uneducated, insignificant? Stop, no creature of God is insignificant; that is impossible, because you are to live forever. Fettered and cramped in this life you may be; but this life is not all, nor is it impossible even here for you to take your place with the wise and the honorable of this world. You look about you, and shake your head doubtfully. Your father and mother are good and kind to you, as far as they can be. But they never read; they know nothing, care for nothing, save that they are to work day by day till they die, merely to get bread enough to keep them alive. But your mind is hungry; you want something for that. Bread and meat for your body don’t suffice you; you know there is something 187better. How shall you find it? who will help you to it? And you look about and around you, and reach out your arms, as if to implore some invisible power to come to your aid. Do you know how many whose names are loved, honored, and cherished by thousands, began life just so? Do you know what might there is in the little words “I will”?

Let me tell you a story.

In a poor hut in Germany lived a lad. This hut had only one room, with a fireplace in it, and no stairs. Instead, a ladder in it went up to the roof. Besides the lad of whom I have spoken, there was the usual supply of a poor man’s children.

The principal support of the family was a cow, and the principal employment of Komer, the name of my hero, was to collect, in the spring, the sedges which had been thrown up by the waters, to make litter for the cow. After the meadows had become green, he passed the long summer days in watching her, sometimes alone, and sometimes in company with other boys. He also brought dry wood to burn, and helped glean in harvest time; and when the autumn winds shook 188the trees roughly, he gathered acorns, and sold them to those who kept geese. When he grew larger, he helped his father, who was a peddler, to carry his bundles from hut to hut. There was a small school, too, where Komer learned to read and write, but that was all he learned there.

One evening (Komer never forgot that evening) he was sitting at a table with his parents. A small lamp was burning upon it, and his father, who had just come home with his peddler’s pack, was talking to his mother about his business. The old peddler loved smoking, and had brought home with him a packet of tobacco, the wrapper of which lay upon the table. On it was the picture of a horse.

Little Komer idly took up the picture. This is very good, thought he; I wonder if I could draw one like it, if I should try? Who knows but I might? Little Komer looked at his father; he was very busy talking; so he took pen, ink, and a piece of paper, and shyly began. When he had finished, he looked at it; it seemed to him very perfect, and his little heart swelled with a new, strange delight. Then Komer showed it to his parents—one can’t be happy alone—and they 189praised and admired it, more because Komer did it, than anything else. By and by Komer went to bed; it was dark, but still he saw his horse—he couldn’t sleep for thinking of it; he tossed and turned, and longed for daylight, that he might really see it with his bodily eyes again; for he was not quite sure, after all, but that he was dreaming. Morning came; it was no dream—there was the horse; but Komer was never again the same Komer. All that day he was excited, restless, and the next, and the next; how was he to become a real painter? Near his father’s hut lived a potter, who had some outlines, as models for painting his plates and dishes. Little Komer went to him, and begged the loan of these outlines for a little while. Then he made a blank book, and very carefully copied them into it with pen and ink. The people in the huts round thought it quite wonderful, and they were handed about, till, at last, they came to a man who was a sort of “mayor” of the place where Komer lived. He was so pleased and astonished, that he sent for the boy, made him presents, praised his drawings, and asked him if he would like to be a painter.

Like it? of course, Komer nearly jumped out 190of his skin for joy. Like to go to a great city to a master painter, and learn how to be one himself? Of course, he could not find his tongue to tell all the joy that filled his heart. There was no need—his glowing face was enough. The gentleman said he would talk of it to his parents. Now, his parents never heard of any kind of painting, save doors and houses; therefore, when the gentleman asked them, they answered that it was a very dangerous trade; for houses in cities were sometimes seven stories high, and Komer might break his legs or neck. And so Komer did not go to the city, but kept on watching the old cow.

But for all that, this gentleman, and others to whom he showed Komer’s drawing, did not forget him or them, but kept on talking about the wonderful child; and, what was more to their credit, tried to help him. They sent for him to take lessons with their children in French, Latin, and music. That he need not be ashamed to come among them, they gave him better clothing, and the gentleman who first saw him brought him to eat with his family, at his own table.

Little Komer did not think—as you do—that 191it was a hardship to study; not he. He flew at his books with a will; and till he was sixteen, never spent an idle moment in lesson hours. After this, he did some copying for a gentleman, besides other writing, in order to earn money. Then, for the first time, he went to a great city, and gazed on splendid paintings, till he was nearly beside himself with rapture. Now, indeed, nothing could stop him. He made the acquaintance of a young artist, and commenced immediately; weeping, that he was not permitted to do so, when he first had the offer; so hard did he work—so absorbed was he with this one idea—that he grew sick; his hands began to tremble, like those of a palsied old man, and he could no longer hold a pencil. Now, indeed, he must rest, if he would not die; but he was too active to lie upon the shelf and be quite idle; if he could not draw, he would read. He took up a volume of poems. Why could not he write? He, Komer? Why not? He seized his pen; he wrote poem after poem; they were copied, praised, and set to music!

Now Komer turned his attention to writing books. Gifted men were proud of his friendship; 192he could talk with them on any subject. His four and twentieth year found him famous. The old cow, were she living, which was doubtful, must take care of herself; he had “browsing” of his own to do. I hope he kept that horse he copied from the tobacco paper. I hope he made a drawing of the old hut where he was born; and the peddler, with his pipe, and his pack, and the green meadows where he used to dream away the lonely summer days, while old Brindle switched the flies, and winked lazily at the patches of blue sky, as she lay under the broad tree shadows. I hope he did not forget his old mother, if she was ignorant; because she knew enough to love him, and perhaps, had she not praised that horse, because her little Komer drew it, he might have tended cows all his life; who knows?

JEMMY LAWTON.

School was out! “Hurra!” screamed all the boys, and up went their caps in the air, as they all commenced trying the strength of their limbs and trowsers, some by climbing up trees, some over fences, some by leap-frog, some by bat and ball; and thus they all separated, and went their different ways home, and Jemmy Lawton went his, too. It was not with so light a step as his schoolfellows; and when the last boy was out of sight, he drew a deep sigh, and crowding his cap down over his eyes, and looking carefully about him in every direction, as if to reassure himself that not one boy lingered to keep him company, moved on. He was an honest boy; he had no thought of stealing anything on the way—it was not that; he was not afraid of “the master,” for he was always at the head of his class, and seemed 194more anxious to understand his lessons than any boy in school. He was not afraid any big boy would thrash him, nor was he lying in wait for any smaller boy to thrash. No, Jemmy was no such coward. On he moved, with leaden feet, past the old, familiar spots; past the grocer’s, with his peanuts, and oranges, and cocoanuts, and nicely potted flowers, that he hoped would attract the housewives who came to buy his sugar and tea; past the baker’s, with his tempting pies and tarts, and piles of sugared cakes, and heaps of candy; past the toy shop, and the tinman’s, and the shoe store: he had read all their signs till they were as familiar to him as his own name, and now he had turned the last corner of the street in which was his own house. Now it was that the child turned pale, and set his white teeth together, and drew his breath hard. His house was a very pretty one, with a nice little garden spot in front, in which were fragrant flowers, for his mother was very fond of them—almost as fond as she was of Jemmy.

He had a kind mother, then? Yes; but do you see that crowd of boys, like a little black swarm, round the pretty white gate before his 195house? You cannot see what they are looking at so earnestly inside the fence, but you can hear their shouts and laughter, and so, alas! does Jemmy. His face is not white now—it is as red as the daisies in his mother’s garden, and his eyes flash like the raindrops on the daisies’ bosoms, that the bright sun is now shining upon. Alas! when will there be sunshine in Jemmy’s house?

“Ah, there’s Jim now,” said a rude boy, loud enough for Jemmy to hear. “Here’s your drunken father, Jim.”

“Stand away! go home! off with you all!” shouted Jemmy, in a harsh, fierce voice, that contrasted strangely with his slight figure, and sweet, infantile face; “off with you!” and he walked into the centre of the group, where, crouched upon the ground, was a man, vainly trying, on his hands and knees—for he could not stand—to reach the door to get in; his nice broadcloth coat was covered with dirt; his hat was crushed in; bits of straw and grass were sticking in his thick, black hair; his eyes were red, and he did not even see his own little boy, who was crimson with shame as he stood over him, and vainly tried to help him to his feet. “Off with you!” shouted 196Jemmy again to the boys, who laughed as his father fell against him, almost knocking him over; “off with you, I say!” bringing his little foot to the ground with a stamp that made them all start; then, rushing up to the door, he rang the bell violently, and turned his head away, to conceal the tears that would no longer be kept back. A woman came to the door—it was Jemmy’s mother, and together they helped in the drunken husband and father.

No wonder Jemmy dreaded going home from school! It was not the first time, nor the second, nor the third, that he had helped his father in at the area door when he was too drunk to find his way up the front steps to his own house; and sometimes Jemmy, only that he thought of his mother, would have wished himself dead. It was so terrible—the brutal laugh and jests of those cruel boys. Oh! I hope you never do such mean things. I have known children who taunted their playmates and schoolfellows with such troubles when they were angry with them, or sometimes, as in this case, for mere sport. It is a sign of a base, mean, cruel nature, and the boy or girl who would remind any child of their acquaintance of a 197disagreeable thing of this kind, which is hard enough to hear at best, and twit and taunt them with it, or pain them by noticing it in any way, is a boy or a girl to be shunned and avoided. Nero, the tyrant, who roasted people for his amusement, must have been such a boy. I am sorry to say I have known little girls equally malicious and wicked—bad women they will surely grow up, if not broken of such mean cruelty before they are women.

A drunkard is a drunkard all the same, whether he gets drunk on bad rum or champagne; whether he takes his senses away at the club house, or low, corner grocery: he comes to the gutter just as surely in the end. It made no difference to little Jemmy that his father got drunk on rich old wine, and sipped it from cut glasses in a handsome apartment; his mother was just as heart-broken, and her children just as miserable as they could be. Dollar after dollar the man was swallowing; and Jemmy might well study hard, and be at the head of his class, for he would need all he could earn to coin into bread and butter, by the time he got old enough to keep his mother and little brothers and sisters. And 198Jemmy’s father used to be so kind—that memory came often to the child, to make him patient under his trouble, to help him to excuse him for the wrong he was doing both himself and them. “He was so kind once!” Jemmy would sob out in his little bed at night. “I remember——,” and then he would beguile himself by remembering the walks and rides he used to take with him—the Christmas presents—how pleased father was to hear his lessons well recited—and now! Oh, nobody who has not dropped from such a height of happiness down to that dreadful “now” can tell how bruised the poor heart may be by the fall! God help little Jemmy and all like him, who have sorrows all the greater that they must bear the burden alone; that they are unspeakable sorrows, save to Him who will never taunt us with their heavy burden, or turn to us a careless ear.

You may be sure that when Jemmy grew up he never drank. Long before the beard grew on his soft, white chin, his father’s bloated face was hidden under a tombstone; and when, in after years, young men of his own age locked arms, or clapping each other on the shoulder, as they passed some gilded saloon, said to one another and to 199him, “Come in and take a drink,” you may be sure that the smile died away on Jemmy’s face, and he saw—not the bright lights in the saloon window, nor the gay, laughing throng inside—but instead, a form crouching like a beast at his feet, dirt-besmeared, with bloodshot eyes—creeping, crawling, like a loathsome reptile, who has no soul to save—for whom there is no Heaven, no glorious future after death—nothing but annihilation. Ah, no; Jemmy could not “take a drink”—his very soul sickened when they asked him.

HOW A GREAT LORD EDUCATED HIS SON.

Did you ever hear of Lord Chesterfield? I dare say you have; if not, you very likely will, before you are much older. He wrote some letters to a son of his, which have become famous, telling how to eat, and drink, and walk, and talk politely; how to dress, how to carve, how to dance, how to write letters; how to enter a room, how to go out of it; how to smile at people whom he disliked; what books to read, what sort of people to visit, and to choose for his friends. Every now and then I used to hear of this book, and hear some person say, in speaking of another person, “He has very fine manners—he is quite Chesterfieldian;” which seemed to mean very great praise. Now, I have no boys—more’s the pity; 201but still, I thought, I will read this Lord Chesterfield’s book, and see how he thinks a boy should be brought up, because I have my own notions on that subject, as well as his lordship, although I have had no occasion to practice them; and I think good manners are by no means to be despised, though they are not at all the most important part of a boy’s education.

Well, there was just the mistake I think this gentleman made about his son, whom he drilled in these things like a little soldier; it was the outside only that he was most careful about polishing and adorning. It was to get a high place in this short-lived world that he was to make his best bow, wear his hat and coat gracefully, and study Latin, and talk French and Italian. It was to secure the notice of great, and powerful, and fashionable people, that he was to cultivate his taste and talents, and improve his person; not to do good, not to benefit in any way his fellow creatures by the great influence all this would give him to do good, but solely to benefit himself, and to hear it said that he was a perfect gentleman, which, by the way, would have been untrue, had he done all this and done no more, because no man acting 202from such selfish motives can be a perfect gentleman, though, to careless eyes, he may appear so. Then this Lord Chesterfield told his son never to get angry with anybody, not because anger was wrong, and debased the soul of him who indulged it, but because it was not good policy to make an enemy even of the meanest person, who might some day be able either to help or to injure one. Then he advised him to speak very respectfully of God and religious things, because it was considered “decorous” to do so, and because it gave a man influence, not because it is base and ungrateful to receive all the good things God showers down upon us at every moment, while we little Lilliputians are, practically, at least, denying His very existence, and doing all we can to blot and deface and mar His image in our souls, and helping others to do the same; not because He who loves and pities us so tenderly waits month after month, year after year, with patience unspeakable, to see us turn to Him with a loving, penitent “Our Father;” not for this, but because it was “respectable” to be religious. It is quite pitiful to read this gentleman’s letters to his son, and see, while he appeared to love him so fondly, how 203entirely he was educating him for this world, with not a thought beyond, for those ages upon ages which that immortal spirit must travel through in joy or pain, just as he prepared for it here. It is pitiful that he never said one word to the boy about using his talents and influence for lightening the burdens which were so heavily weighing down his less favored fellow mortals, but everything was to begin and end in himself; that he was to shine in public and private; that he was to be admired, not for his goodness of heart, but, like the peacock, for his fine plumage—like the bird, for his sweet voice.

Well, the boy was to travel and see the world, and everything in it worth seeing, but by no means to associate with any but “fashionable people;” as if he could see all that was “worth seeing,” in such an artificial atmosphere; as if fashionable people were “the world;” as if God’s purest, and brightest, and best, did not shine out like diamonds from dirt-heaps; as if that was the way to read human nature, which the boy was told to study so perfectly that he could play upon the chords of human feeling and human passion, as does a skillful musician upon his favorite instrument. No; as well might he 204judge of a book by looking at its gilt binding. He was to talk to women, who, his father told him, “were only grown up children.” I wonder had he a mother? I wonder had she whispered a prayer over his cradle? I wonder had she never gone without sleep and rest, that his little head might be pillowed softly? I always ask these questions when men speak disrespectfully of women; well, he was to talk to women, and be good friends with, and flatter them, because, foolish and silly as they were, they had, after all, influence in the world, and might “make or mar his fortune;” there you see it is again the everlasting I, at the top and bottom of everything.

Now, you will naturally inquire how this paragon turned out, when he became a man; whether this boy, educated with so much care, and at so much expense, repaid it all;—you will naturally suppose, that with such advantages of education and society, he overtopped all his fellows. His father’s ambition was to see him in Parliament, which answers in England, you know, to our American Congress—except that there is no head-breaking allowed in that honorable body. Our hero had now grown to man’s stature; he wore a coat any tailor might be proud of; made a bow 205equal to a dancing master; and could tell fibs so politely that even his father was delighted. So far, so good. Now he was to put the crown on it all, by making his first speech in Parliament; he who had the dictionary at his tongue’s end, and the rules of etiquette at his finger ends; who had been drilled in rhetoric, and oratory, and diplomacy, and in all the steps considered necessary by his father to make a great public man. Well—he got up—and stuttered—and stammered—and hemmed—and ha-ha-d—and made a most disgraceful failure. Do you suppose he would have done it, had his whole soul been on fire with some grand, God-like project for helping his fellow creatures? Never! But his whole thoughts were centered in himself; what sort of figure he cut—what impression he should make; what this—that—and the other great person was thinking of him. Of course he came down like a collapsed balloon, as all men do who have no higher standard than the approbation of human beings.

Oh, I tell you what it is; you may cram a man’s head as full as you please, if you neglect his heart, he will be, after all, like a Dead Sea apple—and yield you only—ashes.

THE BOY WALTER SCOTT.—Page 206

THE BOY WALTER SCOTT.

A weakly child sent to his grandfather’s, for change of air! Nothing extraordinary in that. It has happened to many children, of whom the world never even heard that they were born. Grandfather’s house! It is the child’s paradise. He has only to cry for what he wants, to obtain it. Grandpa quite forgets the wholesome authority he exercised with the parents of his little grandchild, and how well they were made “to mind;” and he will always find some excuse, when they say to him while he is spoiling their boy, “Grandpa, you never allowed us to do thus, and so.” He only shakes his silver head, and kisses the noisy rogue. He is old, and it may seem to him the least troublesome way to manage; or, being so near the grave, love may seem to the poor old man the most precious thing while he stays here; and he will long have slept his last sleep, before that pretty but willful boy will know enough to love him better for restraining him. And so old grandpa, wanting all the love he can get, from everybody, before his heart grows cold forever, won’t see the child’s little tricks, or, if he does, but says, “Ah, well, he’s only a child!” or, “He don’t feel well to-day!” or, “We must not be too hard upon him, till he gets older and wiser.” Then it is really very difficult for grandpa, or anybody else, to manage a sick child. One cannot tell what is obstinacy and what disease. One fears to be harsh and cruel to a little crippled thing; the pale face appeals so irresistibly to a kind heart; and “What if he should die?” is apt to decide all doubts in the child’s favor. And then, a child almost unbearably irritable, the first years of its life, grows sweet-tempered, docile, and affectionate, with returning health. But I have rambled a long way from my story—of lame little Walter Scott, who was sent to his grandfather, to “Sandy Knowe,” for change of air, in charge of his nurse. Now, this nursemaid had a lover, whom she had been obliged to leave behind when she went with the sick child. This made her 208cross; from that she began to hate the poor sick boy; and from that, to entertain thoughts of killing him with a pair of scissors, that she might get back again to her lover. Luckily, this was discovered, and she was sent off; Grandpa Scott, of course, pitying the boy all the more on account of the danger he had been in. Of course, he asked everybody what was good for his grandson’s complaint. One person recommended that a sheep should be killed, and the child immediately wrapped in its warm skin. This was done; and behold little Walter lying on the floor, in his woolly covering, and Grandpa Scott sitting there coaxing him to crawl round, and exercise his little lame leg. There was his Grandma Scott, too, in her elbow chair, looking on. Now and then a visitor would drop in—some old military man, to see grandpa; and the two would sit and talk about “the American Revolution,” then going on. These stories made little Walter’s eyes shine, for under the lamb’s woolly skin there beat a little lion heart; and then this little three-year-old boy crawled nearer and nearer the chairs where the old men were sitting, and devoured every word they said. All children like stories that are wonderful 209and marvelous, but perhaps little Walter would never have been such a beautiful story writer when he grew up, had he not lain there in his lamb skin, in the little parlor at Sandy Knowe, listening to those old men’s stories. People don’t think of these things when they talk before children, who look so unconscious of what is going on.

Besides his good grandparents, Walter had a very kind aunt, by the name of Janet, who liked children, and was fond of telling Walter stories, and teaching him to repeat little ballads. Of one of these in particular, he was very fond; and when he lay sprawling on the floor, he used to say it over to himself. It seems that among his grandpa’s friends was one of those persons who have no love for, and, of course, no patience with, children. This person had a very long face, very thin legs, and a very narrow chest; so I suppose we must forgive him. Did you ever know a fat, broad-chested man or woman to hate children? I never did. Well, when little Walter lay there under foot, amusing himself with his favorite ballad, this long-legged man would frown, and turning to his grandpa, say, “One may as well speak in the mouth of a cannon as where that 210child is!” It is so unnatural a thing to dislike children, that I prefer to believe, when persons do so, that it is because they are sick and nervous. However, little Walter did not bear this gentleman any ill-will for it; because, long afterward, when he heard that he was sick and dying, he went to see him, and they took a kind farewell of each other.

It seems that Walter’s sickness did not sour his disposition; an old woman by the name of Tibby, at Sandy Knowe, says that “he was a sweet-tempered little bairn, and a darling with all the house.” The shepherds delighted to carry him on their backs among the crags, and he soon learned to know every sheep and lamb in the flock, by the mark put on their heads. Best of all, he liked an old man, who had the superintendence of all the flocks, who was called “the cow-bailie;” when Walter saw him in the morning, he never would be satisfied until he had been put astride his shoulder and carried to the crags, to keep him company while he watched his flocks. After a while, he became weary of this, as children will; then the nice old man blew a particular note on his whistle, to let the maid servant know that she 211was to come up and carry him down the crags to his grandpa, in the little cozy parlor. Many—many—many years after this, when Walter was an old man, he went back to see those crags, and this is what he said: “Oh, how I used to love the sheep and lambs when I rolled round here upon the grass; I have never forgotten the feeling—no, not till this day!”

Once, when little Walter was up on the crags, the people in the house where he lived forgot him. A thunder storm came up. Suddenly his Aunt Janet remembered that he was there, and ran up, much frightened, to bring him home. There she found him, lying comfortably on his back, the sharp, forked lightning playing overhead, and little Walter clapping his hands and crying, “Bonny! bonny!” at every flash. Walter’s grandpa, finding that he was fond of riding on the old cow-bailie’s shoulder, bought him a cunning little Shetland pony, hardly as large as a Newfoundland dog; in fact, he was so small that he used to walk into the parlor like a dog, and feed from the child’s hand. He did not think then that one day he should have a little grandchild lame like himself, and that he should buy him just such a little 212pony, and name it like that—“Marion;”—but so it was.

Walter was a great reader. He read to his aunt, read to himself, and read to his mother. One day he was reading to his mother an account of a shipwreck, and became very much excited; lifting his hands and eyes, and saying, “There’s the mast gone! crash! now they’ll all perish!” While he was reading, a lady had come in to see his mother. After he had recovered a little from his agitation, he turned to the lady-visitor with a politeness quite remarkable in a child of only six years, and said, “This is too melancholy! had I not better read you something more amusing?” The lady thought, as well she might, that if she wanted to be “amused” she had better make him talk; so she said, knowing he had been reading Milton, “How did you like Milton, Walter?” “I think,” said he, “that it is very strange that Adam, who had just come newly into the world, should know everything. I suppose, though, it must be only the poet’s fancy.” “You forget,” said the lady, “that God created Adam quite perfect.” Walter reflected a moment, seemed satisfied, and yielded the point. When his Aunt Janet 213took him up to bed that night, he said, “Auntie, I like that lady; I think she is a virtuoso like myself.” “Dear Walter!” exclaimed Aunt Jenny, opening wide her eyes, “what is a virtuoso?” “Why, aunt, it is one who wishes, and will know, everything.” Of course, you may believe that his Aunt Jenny tucked him up that night in the full belief that he would never live to grow up. Luckily for us all, she was mistaken.

Are you tired hearing stories about him? Because I have another one I want to tell you, though I dare say, if you are reading this book of mine aloud to your mother, she has said to herself fifty times (and I like her fifty times better for saying it), “Pooh! our Ben, or our Sam, or our Harry, said a great many wonderful things, quite as wonderful as these, as I could show, if ‘a mother’ ever had a minute’s time to write and tell the world of it.” I’ve no doubt of it, my dear madam; I shall certainly die in the belief that children say about all there is worth listening to in this world; but to proceed with my story. One day, when Walter was sitting at the gate with an attendant, a woe-begone old beggar came up, and asked for charity. After he had received 214it, the attendant said, “Walter, how thankful should you be, that you are not obliged to beg your bread in that way.” Walter looked up wistfully, as if he did not comprehend; then replied, “Homer was a beggar.” “How do you know?” asked the attendant. “Why, don’t you remember?

How lucky that Walter was not kept in the city! I think nothing could have made him well but taking him just where he was taken; out on the crags, where the fresh wind blew, and the grass was so sweet, and everything about him tempted him to crawl on a little farther, and then a little farther; a tuft of moss, or a curious stone, or some little thing which he wished to take in his own hand, and examine more closely. Oh, I am quite sure he must have died in the city; his poor lame leg would have shrunk more and more, for want of exercise; for a carpet ever so soft, can never be like that which God has spread for the bare feet of the poorest country child. But you must not suppose, all this while, that he learned 215nothing save that which the sky, and the crags, and the sheep taught him. Aunt Janet used to give him lessons when he was well enough, and as he could bear them. Ah! it is well that there are some good women who never marry. Else, what would so many sick children do, for patient, careful, good, loving nurses? How many of them have been coaxed by such round the most dangerous point of childhood, where medicine was nothing, and good nursing everything, to the astonishment of all who prophesied an early death. Such women have their reward, for these little ones become almost as dear to them as if in name—as well as in self-forgetting love—they were mothers. God bless them all! as the silver threads gleam amid their tresses. They will not be lonely in Heaven.

Children are full of funny whims; though I think, if we follow them but carefully, we shall, oftener than not, find good reason for them. Walter had a dislike almost amounting to terror of a statue. Very likely, he might first have seen one by a dim light, which, to his startled vision, gave it a ghostly look. It might have been so, though I don’t know that it was. When his Uncle 216Robert, who was very fond of him, found this out, he did not laugh at him, or scold him, but he took him, whenever it was possible, to see fine statues; and he soon learned, not only to conquer his dislike, but to admire their beauty exceedingly.

By and by his friends thought it was time he went to school, he was growing so much stronger, though not well of his lameness; in fact, I believe that all his after life he walked with a stick. So to school he went, I dare say, with many misgivings; I dare say he wondered whether the boys would make fun of his lameness. I dare say he wondered what he should do with himself while they were running, and leaping, and playing all sorts of rough-and-tumble plays out of doors, and out of school hours. I dare say he dreaded, as do all children, the first day at a new school. I dare say he wondered whether the education he had picked up by bits, as his lame leg would let him, would pass muster at a big boys’ school; or whether he would be called “a dunce,” as well as “lame.” I don’t know that he thought any of these thoughts, but I shouldn’t wonder if he had. I suppose his grandpa, and his Uncle Robert, and his Aunt Janet all felt anxious, too; but, as it 217turned out, there was no great occasion for it, for he seemed quite well able, after he got there, to manage his own little affairs. In the first place, knowing that he couldn’t “rough it” much in the playground, and not liking, of course, to be left in a corner alone, he commenced telling such wonderful tales and stories, that the boys were glad to crowd round him and listen; and they were worth listening to; else the boys wouldn’t have staid, I can tell you. How they would have stared, had they then been told that this lame fellow was destined to set the whole world by the ears by the stories he should write. Ah! you don’t know, you boys, what famous men you may be sharing your apples and cake with in the playground. You don’t know what a big man you may become yourself, only by being his boyhood’s friend. How his future biographer will hunt you out, and catechise you about the color of his eyes, and hair, and the shape of his finger nails, and what he said, and did, and ate, and drank, and what he did like, and what he didn’t like; and it is very well you don’t know all this, because it would spoil your present fun and freedom; and it is very well “the master” don’t know “a genius” 218when he is boxing his ears, because they might grow very long for the need of such discipline!

Well, like other boys, Master Walter was sometimes at the top, and sometimes at the bottom of his class. On one occasion he made a sudden leap to the top. The master asked the boys “Is with ever a substantive?” All were silent, until the question reached Walter, nearly at the bottom of the class, who instantly replied by quoting from the book of Judges, “And Sampson said unto Delilah, ‘If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and as another man.’” Pretty keen! wasn’t it? The other boys twiddled their thumbs, and looked foolish, and he went to the top. I don’t believe his mother thought, when she read him the Bible, of his laying that text on the shelf of his memory, to be brought forth in that queer way. But a smart answer does not stand a boy in the place of hard study, as you may have found out if you ever tried it; so Master Walter found himself at the bottom of the class again one fine day. This didn’t suit the young man, and what suited him less was the fact that the boy who was at the head seemed to 219mean to stay there, too. Day after day passed, and nobody could get his place. Walter pondered deeply how he should manage. He looked sharply at him, to see if he could not accomplish by stratagem what he could not gain fairly. At length he observed that when a question was asked this—at-the-top boy—he always fumbled with his fingers at a particular button on the lower part of his waistcoat. If Walter could only succeed in cutting off that button! He watched his chance—knife in hand. When that top boy was again questioned, he felt, as usual, for the friendly button. It was gone! He looked down for it; it was no more to be seen than to be felt. He stuttered—he stammered—he missed his lesson; and that wretched, roguish Walter took his place. But I can tell you he didn’t feel happy about it; for he says he never passed him but his heart smote him for it, though the top boy never knew who stole his lesson button. Scott says he often promised himself to make some amends for the boyish injury he did him; but he never did. Scott also says that when this boy grew a young man, he became a drunkard, and died early. That was a pity, though I don’t 220think it was on account of that button; do you? Still, Scott always wished all the more that he had not been unkind to the poor, unfortunate fellow.

You will be glad to know that Walter continued to grow stronger and stronger, so that his limb, though it disfigured, did not disable him. He had not been taunted with it in his childhood, like poor Byron, till he imagined everybody who looked at him thought of nothing else. He had been very, very kindly cared for, and tenderly nursed. Pity Byron was not, though I think he never would have been half the man Scott was; but then, I’m “only a woman,” and you needn’t mind what I say. Well, when Walter grew to be a fine young man, he was very fond of strolling off to see beautiful scenery, and when he once began these journeys, he never knew how fast time was passing, how far he had gone, and when and where to stop. Not knowing how to draw pictures of the places he visited with his pencil (he did not know then how beautifully his pen would do it some day), he resolved to cut a branch of a tree from every place which particularly pleased him, and label it with the name of the spot where 221it grew, and afterward have a set of chess men made out of the wood, as he was then very fond of this game, which, by the way, with a courtesy to Paul Morphy, I think a very stupid game; though perhaps this is because I never could sit still long enough to learn how to play it. This idea of Walter’s was a very pretty one, though he never carried it into execution. He never played chess after boyhood—saying that it was a sad “waste of brains;” and he might have added, a sad waste of backbone; at least for “Young America,” who has few enough outdoor sports now, to keep his breastbone and his backbone from clinging together.

Walter’s mother was very anxious he should learn music; but he declares he had neither voice nor ear for it. He says that, when the attempt was made to instruct him, and the music teacher came to give him lessons, a lady who lived in their neighborhood sent in “to beg that the children in that house might not all be flogged at the same hour, because, though, doubtless, they all deserved it, the noise they made was really dreadful!”

Walter’s mother appears to have been a very 222intelligent, kind-hearted, well-educated woman. Not educated according to our standard, exactly; since, at the age of eighty, when sitting down, she never touched the back of her chair any more than if the eye of the schoolmistress was then upon her, who used to force pupils “to sit upright.” She died before Walter came to be the “great unknown” whom everybody was wondering about. But, after all, what matters it, so far as she was concerned? since it is love, not greatness, for which a mother’s heart hungers; and Walter loved his mother.

After her death, among her papers was found a weak, boyish scrawl, with penciled marks still visible, of a translation in verse from Horace and Virgil, by “her dear boy Walter.” I said, just now, what mattered it to her that he was famous? little, truly, so that he loved her; and yet, for him, for any one, to whom the world’s praises have come, ah, it is of the loved dead that they then think?

With all his glory, with all his troop of friends, seen and unseen, I doubt if he was ever so happy as when lying at her feet, wrapped in the warm sheepskin, in the little sunny parlor at 223Sandy Knowe. When you read his books—and it is a great thing to say that children may read them—you will remember all these little stories I have been telling you about his childhood; and that, when he came to die, full of age and honors, this is what he said to his son, as he stood by his bedside: “My dear, be a good man: be virtuous, be religious—be a good man. Nothing else will give you any real comfort when you come to lie here.”

AUNT MAGGIE.

Maggie More—that was her name; people who knew her well called her Aunt Maggie; this did not displease her; she was a sociable little body, quite willing to befriend anybody who felt the need of an aunt, or whom the world had used hardly. Maggie was not rich as we use the word, but she was rich in good health, in good temper, and a certain faculty of making the best of everything that happened. The little shop she kept would have made a Broadway storekeeper laugh. Well, let him laugh; he could afford to do it, if he never made a dishonest penny oftener than Aunt Maggie. She never told a poor soul who had scraped a few shillings together to buy a calico dress, that “it would wash,” (meaning that it would wash out.) Her yardstick never had a way of slipping, so that six yards and a half measured, 225when you got it home, but six yards. She never gave crossed sixpences and shillings to children who were sent to buy tape and needles; and so, as I told you, Aunt Maggie did not get rich as fast as they who do such things; but Maggie had read in a Book which the people I speak of seldom open, because, when they do, it is sure to prick their consciences—Aunt Maggie had read in that book, that “they who make haste to be rich shall not be innocent,” and she believed it. She had not yet outgrown the Bible; it did not lie on her little deal table merely to gather dust, or that the minister might see it when he called once a year. She did not think that, though the Bible was well enough for those who lived at the time it was written, it could teach her nothing at this day; she did not think it a proof of courage or of a superior understanding to make light of its blessed teachings. No, no, Aunt Maggie knew better; she had seen too many in her lifetime, who had talked that way when everything went well with them, sink down in despair when the waves of trouble dashed over them, and she had seen too many whom that blessed book had buoyed up through billows of trouble that rolled mountain 226high, not to cling to the Bible. No, no; Aunt Maggie was an old woman, but she was not yet old enough to let go her Heavenly Father’s hand, and try to walk alone. She knew how surely she should stumble and fall if she did.

Nor did Aunt Maggie’s religion consist merely in reading her Bible and going to church; when she read on its pages, “Visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction,” she did it.

“What is the matter, Aunt Maggie?” asked a bronzed sea captain, who had rolled into her little shop to buy a new watch ribbon. “This is the first time I ever saw you look as if there was a squall ahead. Got any watch ribbons, Aunt Maggie?—none of your flimsy things for an old sea-dog like me. Give us something that will stand a twitch or two—that’s it—take your pay—(throwing her his purse)—and mind you take enough—there’s nobody else wants it now”—and the old captain drew a long sigh.

“The Lord does,” answered Aunt Maggie, folding her arms on the counter, and looking earnestly in the captain’s face.

“What do you mean by that, hey? Has some Bible society run a-foul of you? Want a church 227built, to shut out everybody who don’t believe as you do, eh, Aunt Maggie?” and the old captain stowed away a bit of tobacco in his cheek, with a knowing look.

“It’s just here,” said Aunt Maggie—“the poor ye have always with you; that was said a great many thousand years ago, but it is just as true now.”

“I don’t know who should know, Aunt, better than you,” said the captain; “you who are always helping them. Go on.”

“Well, there’s a poor young creature who lies dead a stone’s throw from here, an English girl, whose husband brought her to this country, and then left her to take care of herself. I was with her all last night, and this morning she laid her little babe in my arms, and I promised to care for it when she was gone. Poor thing! she had her senses but a few minutes to tell me anything. Her parents, it seems, disinherited her for marrying her husband. She would not tell their name. She had pawned, one by one, every article in her possession, for money; and now, there’s the babe. God helping me, she shall be taken care of as I promised, but you know it’s little 228I have—and the mother must have decent burial.”

“English—did you say she was?” asked the captain.

“Aye—English,” said Aunt Maggie—“fair-haired and blue-eyed—the pride of some home. Oh! how little they, who must have loved her once, think how cold and desolate she lies now. It is well,” said Aunt Maggie, “that God can forgive—when earthly parents turn away.”

“You don’t know what it is, Aunt Maggie,” said the captain, striding across the floor, “to have the child you loved better than your heart’s blood, leave your arms for a stranger’s, whom she has known mayhap but a day.”

“It must be bitter,” said Aunt Maggie, “and yet, year after year, we turn our backs upon Him who has done more for us than any earthly parent can. If He still feeds us, cares for us, forgives us, what are we to——”

“True—true!” said the old captain, dashing his hand across his eyes; “this girl is English, you say?”

“Yes; and as you are English too, I thought mayhap you’d like to help a countrywoman; I 229am going to see to the babe now,” said Aunt Maggie; “mayhap you’d like to see it too?”

“Aye—aye,” replied the captain.

On they went, to the end of the long street—past grog shops, and pawn shops, and mock-auction shops, and second-hand furniture shops, and rickety old tenement houses, where ragged clothes flapped, and broken windows were stuffed with paper; where dogs barked and parrots screamed—for many of these poor people, who can scarcely keep themselves, keep these pets,—past young girls, homeless and shameless, alas!—past young men, old, not in years, but in sin—past little children, who only knew God’s blessed name to blaspheme it. At last Aunt Maggie turned down an alley, dark, narrow, and dingy, and entering one of the low doors, began to ascend the creaky stairs, that seemed swarming with children, of all sorts and sizes, dwarfed in the cradle by disease and neglect. When Aunt Maggie reached the top flight, she stopped before a door, through which came the faint wailing of a little babe, and the low lullaby of a woman’s voice. Upon the bed, opposite the door, lay the dead woman, with a sheet thrown over her face.

230“Would you like to see her?” asked Aunt Maggie, turning to the captain. “’Tis a sweet face.”

“Yes—no,” answered the captain, turning away, and then advancing again toward the bed.

“Mary! Mary!” he cried, as the pale upturned face lay uncovered before him: “my Mary here!” and he threw his arms around the neck of the dead girl, and trembled like the strong tree before the tempest blast.

“His Mary!” murmured Aunt Maggie, taking the motherless babe from the old woman’s arms; “his Mary—then this is his grandchild. Didn’t I say that the Lord would provide for the helpless?”

Yes, “his Mary!” Death hides all faults. We only remember the goodness of those upon whose marble faces our tears fall fast; and so the old captain took his little grandchild to his heart, and Aunt Maggie left her little shop and became its nurse. And not till many years after, when the little babe had grown to be a tall girl, did Aunt Maggie tell her the story that I have been telling you.

A FUNERAL I SAW.

I have been to a funeral to-day. It was in a church;—I had to pass through a garden to reach it;—the warm rain was dropping gently on the shrubs and early flowers, and inside warm tears were falling; for before the chancel lay a coffin, and in it was a fair young wife and mother, pale and sweet as the white flowers that lay upon the coffin-lid. Near it was her husband, and beside him were her aged parents, bowed down with grief that she who they thought would close their fading eyes, should fade first. In a house opposite the church, were the dead mother’s babe, only a few days old, and two other little ones, just old enough to prattle unconsciously as they went from room to room, “Mamma has gone away.” I knew, though they did not, how day after day would pass, and these little girls, who 232had always seen mamma come back again, after she had “gone away,” would stand at the window, looking this way and that, with their little bright faces, and listening for her light footstep; and my heart ached and my eyes filled as I thought how every day, as they grew older, they would need her care and feel her loss the more; for it is only in part that a father, even the kindest, can fill a watchful mother’s place;—he, whose business must be out of doors and away; how can he know how weary the little feet get wandering up and down, with no mamma’s lap to climb upon; how weary the little hands,—putting down one thing, and taking up another, with no mamma to nod smilingly and say, “I see”—or “it is very pretty, dear;” how homesick the little rifled heart feels, though it scarce knows why; how tasteless the pretty cup of milk mamma used to hold to the rosy lips; how empty parlor and nursery, chamber and hall? How much less gentle is nurse’s touch than hers; how much sooner she wearies of answering little curious questions, and getting bits of string and toys for restless fingers to play with; how much longer seems the time now, before papa comes home to dinner and tea,—poor papa—who, 233with an iron hand, crushes down his own great sorrow and tries and fails to speak to them in her soft, sweet, winning way; and tries and fails to soothe their little insect griefs, though he would die to save them a heart-pang.

All this I thought of as I looked at these two little curly-headed girls and their baby sister; and I said to myself, I do not know why God took away their young mother, whose work just seemed begun, and left the aged grand parents who were waiting to go. Why he made that house desolate and silent, once so musical. Why he turned those tender lambs out from that soft, warm fold. With all my thinking I could not find that out; but I am just as sure, as if I could, that He did it in love, not in anger; I am just as sure as if I were in Heaven this minute, that it was best and right; though they, and you, and I, must wait till we get there to know the how and why.

WATCHES.

Every urchin has had the little gilt toy-watch that is always at half-past seven o’clock. Who should attempt to convince its happy possessor that it did not keep good time, or it was not the exact counterpart “of father’s,” would be trespassing upon the good old proverb, that where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise. Next to this comes the silver watch, which “goes;” really goes; and which is susceptible of being wound up by its short-jacketed owner, on his way to school, to drive some non-watch-possessing boy to the verge of distraction. The manner in which this watch is alternately set forward and allowed to run down at the caprice of its owner, is known only to anxious parents, whose entreaties in favor of a more systematic mode of treatment, and whose threats of taking 235it away, go into one ear only to go out at the other. Then there is the Ladies’ Lilliputian watch; the dear little mite, perhaps set around with diamonds. This dear little mite, so pretty to look at, with its curious chatelaine of little trinkets, dangling at the belt. Time would fail to tell how often it is unnecessarily inspected in omnibuses, cars, and ferry-boats; in shops, and places of amusement, and on the public promenade; and how dainty looks the jeweled forefinger of the owner, as the obedient lid obeys the touch on the spring. All this is interesting till it gets to be an old story; till all its owner’s lady-friends have commented approbatively or despairingly upon it as the case may be. Then, it is occasionally left on the sofa, or piano, or mantel, over night, instead of nestling in its soft-cushioned box in the drawer, as at first; or it is dropped on the hearth, or it is left hanging for days in the watch-pocket of some one of the many dresses in the closet, until a speedy visit to the watchmaker’s seems essential to its restoration to activity.

The watchmaker smiles as he examines it; he has seen “ladies’ watches” many a time, and oft. He understands without explanation why it don’t 236“keep as good time as my husband’s,” or “my brother Tom’s watch;” he keeps his gravity when he is asked if hanging it up, or wearing it, is most conducive to its health, or if it can possibly be that its galloping one time and standing still at others is owing to a defect in the machinery. He smiles blandly; advises leaving it on a short visit; has the hands pointed right, and the case polished up with chamois-skin and rouge; and restores it to its dainty owner, always with the proper charge for its board and lodging, with a suppressed grin.

Next comes the “presentation watch,” which is often seen on exhibition at the show-windows of Topaz and Brothers; a massive showy affair, bought by some public person, to give to himself, or herself, through this flattering medium. The uninitiated stand gaping, gazing, wondering and coveting, through the glass windows, as they read the laudatory inscription. Bless ’em, they will be wiser, if they live long enough.

Then there is Papa’s watch, which was “never known to go wrong,” no more than its owner; oh no! Other clocks, other watches may point where 237and as they like; his is the only infallible. Biddy, the cook, may quote the kitchen clock till she is black in the face to bear her out in serving the family meals at just such a moment; her retort of, “and sure didn’t the masther set the kitchen clock his own self,” avails her nothing, while that oracular watch is five minutes ahead of it.

Then there is grandpa’s lumbering, great, old-fashioned, silver watch; with a great big cornelian seal hanging to the silver chain; grandpa laughs to scorn all the flibbertigibbet inventions of modern days; he tells how that watch was worn by his brave grandsire at the battle of Bunker Hill; yes, sir; and shows a place where a bullet should have spoiled it, if it didn’t; so narrow was the escape. Grandpa has left that watch in his will to his favorite grandson; and never dreams, poor old man, that he will very likely use it to pay off some foolish debt, one of these degenerate days.

Lastly, there is the matron’s solid, sensible, gold watch; worn for use, not show, on a simple black cord about the neck; unless when it hangs over the toilet-table while she is changing her dress. Examine it closely, and you will see 238numerous little indentations in the case. Not for worlds would she have them removed, by any jeweler who ever polished a diamond. Sometimes she sits in her nursery, with that watch in her hand, passing her finger slowly over those indentations, while warm tears drop over them; for little Johnny—whose little frocks lie folded away, and may never more be worn—little Johnny made those places, with the pained teeth which caused at last the cruel death-spasms. How many times she has sat with him on her knee, holding that watch between his lips, and hearing the grit of those two little front teeth upon it. She remembers the very morning she first discovered that those little pearly treasures had found their way through the swollen flesh; and she remembers how papa was called, and the watch put between the coral lips, that he too might hear the wonderful sound; and she remembers how baby laughed; and how rosy his cheeks were, that morning; and how they both kissed him; and how——but dear, dear! the tick of that watch is the only music in the nursery now.

OLD ZACHARIAH.

Did you ever see Zachariah Tubbs? No, of course you haven’t; he was not a man you’d be likely to notice; you, who take off your hat so killingly to a dainty French bonnet; you who make way for old Lorenzo Dives, the fat, wealthy old whited sepulchre of a banker; of course you never saw Tubbs. Tubbs didn’t belong to “your set.” Tubbs was a hale old man who believed carriages were for sick folks, and legs were to walk with. Tubbs never ran away with another man’s wife, nor got drunk, nor cheated his neighbor. How should you know Tubbs?

Sunday after Sunday his shiny bald head came into church, with its fringe of snow-white hair; the ruddy hue of his cheek deepening and deepening as he grew older. There he was in his place, forenoon and afternoon, singing as only those sing, 240who have learned to say lovingly and filially “Our Father;” he, and the children God had given him,—a good round dozen—girls and boys,—half and half—“not one too many,” as the old man said every time a new name was registered in the Family Bible; Sally’s and Mary’s and Jenny’s and Helen’s; Tommy’s, Charley’s, Billy’s, and Sammy’s; all of them free to chop up the piano for kindling wood if they chose, and that perhaps was the reason they didn’t choose. I don’t think the old man ever thought of the phrase “family government;” but for all that he had a way of laying his hand on little heads, that was as soothing as the “hop” pillows, which country ladies use to hurry up their naps with. One after another the girls grew up to maidenhood and womanhood, and one after another married, and left the old homestead for houses of their own; throwing their arms round the neck of the good old man as they went, but still, with a world of love and pride in the tearful glance which rested the next minute on the husband they had chosen. Ah me—! one after another they all came back, doubled and trebled, to lay their heads again under the old roof-tree, where they 241could never know again the lightsome, care-free dreams of girlhood.

Not a complaint, not a reproach for their misfortunes (for such things have been) from the silver-haired old patriarch. He, smiling, blessed them all the same, rising up and sitting down, going out and coming in—they and theirs; that they were poor and desolate built up no separating wall between him and them. A few more chairs at the hearth—a few more loaves on the table—that was all. There was enough and to spare in that father’s house, for their tastes were simple, and the morning and evening prayer went up on as strong wings of faith as if no cloud had settled on the fair, matronly faces about him.

The boys? oh, yes, the boys; well, they outgrew jackets, and went into longtailed coats and “stores.” Business fought shy of them. I suppose, because they were too honest to cheat; but the old man said, “Never mind; try again, boys; there’s always a place for you here, when things go awry.” And things did go awry; and one after another the boys came home too, till they could “turn round again.” Never a wrinkle more on the smooth white forehead of Zachariah—never 242a smile less on his placid face; no frownings and fidgetings and pshawings when little feet pattered loudly in parlor and hall; some on his shoulders, some on his knees, some at his feet; still, “not one too many,” and each, as he said, worth a thousand dollars apiece; and Heaven knows they cost him that, first and last; but he was not a man to remember it, as he sat in their midst, with his spectacles on his nose and his Bible on his knee, reading all the precious promises garnered there, for just such as he. “It is all right,” he said at the altar; “It is all right,” he said over the coffin; “It is all right,” he said, when he folded his worse than widowed daughters to his warm, fatherly heart.

Ah! laugh at this good old man’s Bible if you like; I know it is the fashion; it is considered smart and knowing, and all that, to put out the sun, and try to grope through the world by one’s own little glimmering taper. Wait a bit—till your feet stumble on the dark mountains; till the great cry of your agony goes up to that God, whom, loading you with blessings, you yet reject and disown; like the willful son, who, in the lordly 243pride of new-fledged manhood, turns contemptuously from the mother who will never cease to love him; and yet—and yet—his first great sorrow finds him with his head on her breast.

LITTLE GERTRUDE.

And so you are “sorry it is Sunday.” That is a pity. I would like to make Sunday the pleasantest day of the whole week to you. I should not require you to sit still with your hands folded. I could not do that myself, so I am sure I should not expect it of a restless little child. I should not make you read all day, because I should know you would get too weary to understand what you were reading; I should be almost sure, when my eye was off you, or my back turned, that you would pull a string out of your pocket to play with, or tie your handkerchief up in knots, or fall asleep. I should expect if I did so that you would say, “I am sorry Sunday has come.” I know that a great many very good people think very differently from me about these things; but I can’t help thinking, when I hear their children 245say, “I am sorry Sunday has come,” that I am more right than they. Let me tell you a story:

Gertrude’s father was dead. He loved Gertrude better than anything in the world except Gertrude’s mother. He was never weary of her—never too tired with business to kiss her when he came home. On Sunday he took her on his knee, and told her how cunning little Moses looked in his little cradle in the bulrushes, where his mother had placed him, hoping that the king’s daughter would take him for her own baby, and so keep him from being killed like the other little Hebrew babies; and then Gertrude would ask him all sorts of questions about it, and clap her little hands when the king’s daughter did take him and chose his own dear mother (though she did not know her to be his mother) to be his nurse. And then Gertrude would wonder how this nurse could possibly keep from telling little Moses, when he got big enough to understand her, that she was his own mother; and then she would say, “Oh, papa, I know they did have nice times when nobody was by to see the poor Hebrew mother kiss her own baby.”

Well—when they had done talking about that, 246Gertrude’s father would tell her of the Syrian maid who cured the sick prophet; and the story of Daniel, and the story of the ravens who fed Elijah; and then by and by the bells would ring for church, and Gertrude would take hold of her father’s hand and walk along with him past the beautiful fields, where the tall grass waved, and the little ground-bird built her nest, and down the winding grassy road, under the shady oaks, and elms, and maples, round whose trunks the sweet brier and wild grape climbed, and then Gertrude would stop to pick the wild roses; and her Papa did not tell her it was “wicked” or wrong to gather flowers on Sunday, but he would tell her to bring him a clover blossom, or a daisy, or a rose, and show her how different they were one from the other in shape, color and perfume, and yet how beautiful was each; and then he would show her the dew-drops strung upon the blades of grass glistening in the sunlight; and the contented cattle, their tired necks relieved from the heavy yoke, lying in the shade, thanking God for Sunday by enjoying it, teaching us a dumb lesson, which we should do well to learn, always keeping in mind that we have souls, while 247they have not. Well—then Gertrude and her Papa went into church. Gertrude liked the singing very much; her Papa sung beside her, and sometimes after looking cautiously round, for she was a timid little thing, she would sing softly too, her little finger moving along the line of the hymn they were singing. Gertrude did not understand all the sermon, her Papa did not expect that she would, but he always took her to church half a day, because the minister never forgot that little children had souls, and always had something to say to them in every sermon. After church, when Gertrude skipped along home like a little kid, by his side, her father did not think it a sin, or say “sh—sh”—when she gave a merry little laugh because God had made the world so fair and given her so much love and happiness that she could not possibly keep it all pent up in her little heart; not he—he patted her pure uplifted forehead, and the world seemed very fair to him too, and Sunday very blessed.

Gertrude’s father has blessed Sabbaths still—but not on earth; and little Gertrude, with her warm trusting heart, has passed from his pleasant smile, and sheltering arms, over the threshold of 248a strange, cold home. Sunday comes and goes to little Gertrude, but oh how wearily! They who have the care of her think that God is pleased with long faces, and so Gertrude is placed in a chair after breakfast Sunday morning, and forbidden to stir till the bell rings for church; she may not step out on the piazza to see God smile on the green earth; she may not enjoy the blue sky, or bright flowers, which he has spread out to make the Sabbath “a delight;” she must fix her eyes on a book, and read—read—read—till her brain reels, and then she goes to church morning—afternoon—evening—till at last she too has learned to say, “I am so sorry ’tis Sunday.”

THE FAITHFUL DOG.—Page 249.

THE FAITHFUL DOG.

We all know that animals have no souls, and yet it is sometimes hard to believe it, when they give, as they often do, such proofs of intelligence. I am very sure that I have been as much attached to a dog or a horse, which has been my constant companion, as I have to human beings. And, after all, who more human than they? what beautiful examples they have set us of constancy, of patience, and of kindness to those who have injured them.

Listen, while I tell you a story of a dog belonging to an English nobleman. The farmers in the neighborhood of this gentleman complained to him that the dog frightened their flocks; and one of them finding a dead lamb, one day, brought it in his arms to the nobleman, accusing the dog of the murder. The nobleman 250had no proof that his dog killed the lamb; but, as he was just about starting upon a long journey, and not wishing either to take the dog with him, or leave him behind to the angry farmers, he said to his servant, pointing to the dog, who lay upon the carpet, “Take that dog, after I have gone, and give him away to somebody at a distance, that these farmers may not be finding fault with him, and troubling me when I come back.” He then left the room. The dog, who understood, at least, the tones of his master’s voice, and the glance of his eye, if nothing else, waited till he heard his footsteps die away, and then immediately took leave of the house, and all it contained, and started off by himself. In the evening, the nobleman, not seeing the dog about as usual, asked his servant if he had disposed of him. The servant said he had not, and spent an hour to no purpose, in searching for him. All the servants were questioned, but none knew anything of the dog; and they, together with the nobleman, came to the conclusion, that the angry farmer who had imagined that he had killed his lamb, had killed him out of revenge.

About a year after this, the nobleman, who 251was journeying with his servant in Scotland, being overtaken by a storm, took shelter in a very poor inn, quite away from the main road. As the storm kept increasing, he concluded to stay all night. The landlord and his wife looked strangely at each other, when he told them this, and the maid servant who spread the cloth for his supper seemed quite disconcerted. “She is evidently not accustomed to wait upon lords,” said the nobleman to his servant, “and is awkward and embarrassed, you see, in consequence.”

He ate with a good appetite the plain fare that she set before him, and was still seated at the table, when the door was pushed open and in came—a dog—his dog,—the very dog he thought had been killed by the farmer. “Good heavens!” he exclaimed to his servant, “my dear old dog;” and he stretched out his hand to pat him. But the dog, after looking long and earnestly at his master, shrank away from him, and took the first opportunity to go out of the room; but still took his station on the outside, as if watching for something. Of the dog’s history, the nobleman learned from the hostler, that he had followed some travelers there, and being 252very foot-sore and weary, remained there when they went away, and had been there ever since; “and,” added the hostler, “he is as harmless a dog as ever lived.” By and by the nobleman went up to his chamber; when he got to the top of the stairs, the dog sprang before him, with a fierce growl, and planted himself between his old master and the door, as if to prevent his entrance. The nobleman patted him, calling him by the kind old names he used to like, and the dog licked his hand, as if to say, “oh yes, I remember them all;” but still he stood before the door to prevent his master from going inside.

Then the dog, still looking at his master, moved in advance a few paces, would go down one stair, then run back, and tug at his master’s clothes with the greatest violence; then rub his face fondly against his master’s side, and whine and coax, trembling all the while with agitation and excitement.

“One would suppose, by the behavior of my dog, that there was something wrong about this house,” said the nobleman to his servant.

The servant looked anxious, but only said, “I wish we had not come here, your honor.”

253“There is no help for it now,” said his master; “the storm is perfectly furious, so I’ll make the best of it and go to bed. We have pistols, if there’s mischief brewing; you sleep, I suppose, in the little room near mine.”

During this conversation, the dog seemed very uneasy, and when the servant left the room he ran to the door, looking back, as if hoping his master would go too; and when he advanced a few steps, he jumped up and down as if beside himself with joy; but, upon finding that he only did it to close the chamber door, he hung his head, and looked as disconsolate as he had just before looked delighted.

His master could not help observing all this, but he felt determined not to give way to his fears. The dog chose a particular part of the room to lie down in, and no entreaties could get him away from that spot. So the nobleman got into bed, and after listening awhile, and hearing nothing but the storm, and being wearied with his journey, fell asleep.

He did not sleep long, for the dog kept pacing about the chamber, sometimes coming close to the bed-curtains, and sometimes whining piteously, 254and seeming not at all comforted even when his master’s hand patted him so kindly. Again his master fell asleep; but he was soon roused by his faithful four-footed watchman, whom he heard scratching violently at the closet-door, and gnashing his teeth, and growling furiously. His master jumped out of bed and listened; the storm had ceased, so that he heard distinctly every noise. The dog was still trying to force a passage into the closet with his paws, and not being able to do so, attempted with his strong teeth to gnaw at it mouse-fashion.

There is no doubt the mischief, whatever it may be, is in that closet, thought the nobleman; yet it was impossible to open it, because, after forcing the lock, it was found secured on the inside.

A slight rapping was now heard at the chamber door, and the servant whispered through the key-hole—“For mercy’s sake, my lord, let me in.” The nobleman, taking his pistols in his hand, went to the door and opened it.

“I have never closed my eyes,” said the servant; “all seems quiet up stairs and down, but why does that dog keep up such a furious barking?”

255“That’s just what I mean to know,” replied his master, bursting in the closet door. The moment the dog saw that, in he rushed with his master and the servant; but unfortunately, just then the candle went out, so that they could see nothing, though they heard a rustling noise at the farther end of the closet, and the nobleman thought best to fire off one of his pistols, by way of alarm; as he did so, the dog uttered a piercing cry, and then a low groan.

“It is not possible I have killed my brave dog my noble defender!” said the nobleman mournfully. He started for a light, and met the landlord coming with one in his hand, which he snatched from him without answering any of his questions; the landlord followed; and giving one glance at the closet, exclaimed to his attendants, who were behind him, “It is all over.”

Well, without horrifying you with particulars, the amount of the matter was, that a door led from that closet out into the stable yard; that through that door, up into the closet, and then into the chamber, the bad landlord had entered, and killed a traveler for his money, just before the nobleman arrived. He had then hurriedly 256thrust the bloody body into a sack and thrown it into that closet, intending when the nobleman went to sleep to take it away, and then murder him also. But the dog was too keen for him. It made no difference to the dog, that the master, whose life he wished to save, had once turned him, a petted favorite, out of doors. The dog remembered not that he had injured him, but that he was still his master, and was once kind to him, and by every sign, except speech, had he entreated him not to sleep in that room.

The wounded dog, after the discovery, licked his master’s hand, as if to say, “I have saved your life, now I am willing to die.”

You can imagine the feelings of his master as he afterward bound up his wounds, and when the innkeeper and his accomplices were handed over to justice, how tenderly he carried the dog in his arms till he reached his home; how the nobleman’s wife and children hugged and petted him, and made a soft bed for his wounded limb; and how the tears came into their eyes, whenever they thought how generously he had taken his revenge for being turned out of doors. Ah, it will not do for us to call those “brutes” whose daily lives put ours to shame!

257One thing more, how surely the Eye that never sleeps, brings hidden wickedness to justice! and what humble agents, as in this case, are sometimes employed to do it, and how often those wretches who plan a murder or robbery with such wonderful skill, yet after all, overlook some little thread which they have left behind, which the law seizes hold of, and winds round their throats. Ah! it is only in seeming that sin prospers.

A QUESTION ANSWERED.

TO THE LITTLE GIRL WHO WRITES FOR MY INTERCESSION IN HER FAVOR, “BECAUSE HER MOTHER DOES EVERYTHING AS I SAY.”

Does she? Then I must be very careful what I say. I have had many letters from little girls, whose bright eyes I never shall see, begging me to say this, that, or the other thing, in print, that their mammas may see it, and so grant them the favors they desire. Now I don’t like to come between a mother and her own little girl. I should not allow any one to do that to me. I think I know more about my little girl than any one else can possibly know. I watch her closely, I know all her faults and all her good points, and I think I understand how to deal justly with both, though I may be mistaken. I have never “forbidden her to read tales or stories,” as you say your mother has you, because I think children 259should be allowed to read them at proper times, when they are good and innocent, no matter how “startling” and “wonderful” they may be. Studying is dry work, though necessary, and most schools, as now conducted, inexpressibly tedious to a restless, active child; and after school hours are over, and a good dinner has been eaten, and a brisk run has been taken out of doors for exercise, I think it does a child good to read a nice, bright story. I often bring storybooks to my little girl, and when I find any interesting anecdote in a big book I am reading, I turn down the leaf, that she may read it too, and we often talk it over, and sometimes she thinks very differently from me about it, and then I like to get at her reasons for doing so; and often she will use a big word to express herself that I doubt she knows the meaning of, although she has used it quite correctly, and when I say, “Now, what does that big word mean?” she says, “Oh, I can’t tell you, but I know it fits in there;” and so it does. Now I think this makes home pleasant for her, and I always fancy she is more willing to go back to her books and her lessons after it.

260Now perhaps it is your fault that your mother has denied you “tales and stories.” It may be that you not only neglect your lessons altogether for them, but your home duties also—for even little girls can and ought to help their mothers at home in a thousand ways. Suppose you try getting your lessons, and doing whatever she wishes at home and at school, and then see if she is not willing you should read good, innocent stories. I think she would be, for every mother knows that her household duties go on much more smoothly and pleasantly if she occasionally takes a walk, or visits a friend, or reads a pleasant book, and surely this must be true of a little girl, after sitting many hours in a schoolroom, repeating words which often convey no ideas to her mind, sometimes because the teacher only makes it more misty when he tries to explain it; mamma, perhaps, thinking it is the teacher’s business, and the teacher thinking it is mamma’s fault, when the child complains to either; sometimes because the little brain is so overtasked, that its owner settles down into listless discouragement; sometimes because the air of the schoolroom is so bad as to stupefy both teacher and scholar. I often 261wish that when teachers see their pupils’ cheeks flush, and their heads droop, they would stop study, and read some interesting book aloud for half an hour. I am very sure that their scholars would study all the better after it. I don’t think a good story at proper times hurts any girl or boy. Childhood craves it, and, I think, should have it, and I hope many good men and women will continue to keep up the supply for them, and I hope that no little child, because I say this, will be so foolish as to think that eating cake all the time is better than to live on bread, and eat cake occasionally, for it is labor, after all, that sweetens amusement, when we feel and know that we have earned it. You know you can’t play all your life. You can’t read storybooks always. One of these days you must be an earnest woman, take care of your own house, tend your own little baby, who will look straight into your eyes and believe everything you tell it, right or wrong, as if God himself were speaking. This is very sweet, but it is very solemn too; you must prepare for this, and one way is never to neglect duty for pleasure. Labor first—amusement afterward.

THE NURSE’S DAY OUT.

We all know that “nobody is to blame” when a railroad accident occurs. The same is true of waking up a baby. Mothers know what delicate management is often required to lull baby to sleep. How many tunes have sometimes to be hummed, how many walkings up and down the floor, how many trottings, how many rockings, how many feedings, before this desirable event comes off. At last the little lids give promise of drooping, the little waxen paws fall helpless, the little kicking toes are quiescent, mamma draws a breath of relief, as she pushes her hair off her heated face, and baby looks as if nothing on earth could ever disturb its serenity. Won’t there? Tramp, tramp, tramp, comes the baby’s papa up stairs with a pair of creaking boots. Mamma rushes to the nursery 263door, with warning forefinger on her lips and an imploring “John, dear, the baby! it is the nurse’s day out—pray don’t wake her up.” “John, dear,” true to his sex, creaks on, and argues this wise, “My dear, I’ve often noticed that it isn’t that kind of noise that ever wakes baby.” Of course, mamma is too much of a woman not to know that a man is never mistaken even with regard to a subject he knows nothing about; but it strikes her that sometimes strategy is a good thing; so the next day she places his slippers below stairs in a very conspicuous and tempting position, trusting that his tired feet may naturally seek that relief. I say naturally, because she knows that he would as soon thrust his feet into two pots of boiling water as put them in those slippers, if he thought the idea came from a female mind, so naturally does the male creature hedge about his godlike dignity. Well, the baby is quieted and patted down again; when in comes its aunty, and begins to brush the lint off her dress with a stiff scraping sound. To a remonstrance she replies, “Just as if that noise could wake up baby;” and while she yet speaks, up go the little fat hands in the air, and the eyelids 264struggle to unclose, and mamma begins humming again “Yankee Doodle” or “Old Hundred,” saucy or sacerdotal, no matter which, it is all the same to Morpheus. This accomplished she creeps on tiptoe away from the bed, congratulating herself that now certainly she can get a breathing spell and time to change her morning dress. Just then “dear John” appears again, and wants something; a bit of string, or a bottle, maybe, but whatever it is, he is sure it is on the top shelf in the closet of that room; and though he is not going to use it immediately, he wants it found immediately because—he wants it! and because, though “impatient woman can never wait an instant for anything,” man is very like her in that respect, though he don’t see it. So the search is instituted, and down tumbles one thing and then another off the shelves, rattling and rustling and bumping, and finally it is discovered that “the pesky thing” isn’t there, but is down in the kitchen cupboard; this piece of information dear John conveys to his wife in a shrill “sissing” whisper, “because a whisper,” he says, how loud soever, “never yet woke up a baby!”

265Just then the large violet eyes unclose and the little mouth dimples into a pretty smile of recognition, and “dear John,” whose attention is called to it, exclaims, peeping into the crib, “Well now, who’d have thought it?” and creaks off down stairs after his bottle or ball of string as calm as a philosopher; and then asks his wife at dinner “if she has mended that lining in his coat-sleeve that he spoke about at breakfast time.”

SWEET SIXTEEN.

Poetically, it is very well. Practically, I object to it. Has it ever “a decent dress,” although the family seamstress works from morning till night of every day in the year, taking in and letting out, lengthening and shortening, narrowing here and widening there? The very first day a new dress is worn, don’t “sweet sixteen” tear it, and that in a most conspicuous place, and in the most zig-zag manner? Could she “help it,” when there is always a protruding nail or splinter lying in wait purposely for her, which by no foresight of hers could be walked round, or avoided? Don’t the clouds always seem to know when she has on a new bonnet, and the mud when she wears new gaiters? And when she wants her umbrella at school, isn’t “the nasty thing” always at home, and when she needs it at home, is it not always perversely at school? 267Don’t “sweet sixteen,” when she takes a notion to sit down and sew, always locate herself by the side of the bed, which she sticks full of needles, and going her way straightway forgetteth, till roused by the shrieks of punctured sufferers? Don’t “sweet sixteen” always leave the street door open, and the gas in her room burning at high pressure all night? Does she ever own a boot-lacing, or a pin, or a collar, although purchases of these articles are made for her continually, if not oftener? Isn’t her elder sister always your “favorite,” and was she ever known to like her breakfast, dinner or supper, or prefer wholesome food to sweet and dyspeptic messes? Is she ever ready to go to bed of a night, or get up of a morning? Don’t she always insist on wearing high heels to her boots, which are constantly putting her feet where her head should be? Don’t she always, though consulted as to the hues and make of her garments, fret at the superior color and fit of those of Adelina Seraphina Elgitha Smith’s? And finally, although she has everything she wants, or thinks she wants, isn’t everything, and everybody, “real mean, and so there!”

SITTING FOR MY PORTRAIT.

The other day I was riding in an omnibus, when it got too full by one little girl, whom I offered to take on my lap, as the mother had her arms full of parcels. She sat for a moment on my knee with her finger in her mouth, and head turned shyly away. Then she made up her little mind to look round in my face, and see whether or no she would continue to stay with me. I declare that I awaited that scrutiny as bashfully as ever a timid lover did his maiden’s answer. I actually felt the blood rushing up to my cheek, as the clear blue eyes looked searchingly into mine, as if God himself were asking, “Lovest thou me?”

Then the little thing turned her head away again, but not till she had given me a warm, bright smile, by which I knew that her heart 269knew no fear of me. I did not speak, because we understood each other; I waited as one waits near a bush upon which a little humming bird has alighted—fearful lest a breath should disturb it. By and by she gave a careless glance out the omnibus window, and says—by way of encouraging me—“There’s horses out there.”

“Yes,” said I.

She waited a few minutes longer—then finding me still apparently bashful—she says—

“There’s shops out there.”

“Yes,” said I again.

Then she waited another while—and then turning her cunning little face full upon me as if determined to make me speak, she says—

“Ain’t there many peoples out there?”

Now you may laugh—but that child’s favorable verdict, after looking at me so intently, gave me more pleasure than I know how to tell you; had she jumped down off my lap—I shouldn’t have dared to face my looking-glass that day, lest some hateful passion, born of the world’s strife, had written its satanic “Get thee behind me,” on my face.

ABOUT A JOURNEY I TOOK.

When I was a little girl, I disliked traveling, above all things; the very idea of going away from the chimney-corner, gave me a homesick feeling at once. I would rather have stayed all alone in the house, than ridden off with the merriest party that ever wore traveling dresses. I had a kind of cat-liking for my corner, and as I always had plenty to think about, I was never troubled at being left alone. Now, that I have girls of my own, I like “my corner” better than ever, but I have changed about traveling, which I like very much in pleasant company. By “traveling” I don’t mean going round the country with heaps of dresses in big trunks, and parading up and down on the piazza of a hotel, to show them off. Not at all. I mean that I like to take as few changes of garments as I can possibly get 271along with, and putting on some very plain dress, which it will not fret me to have trod on, and rained on, and powdered with dust, with a nice book or two in my trunk, in case of a rainy day, start off to see what beautiful things nature has hidden away for those of her children who love to search them out. In this way, I started last summer to make the trip of the Northern lakes. That was something new for me. I had seen Niagara, and the Catskills, and been to Saratoga, Lake George, and all the places where people usually go in the summer months; now I wanted something entirely different. I found it in Toronto; and the difference, I am sorry to say, did not please me. The city wore to me a very dilapidated and tumble-down air; the houses, with scarcely an exception, looked streaked and shabby; pigs ran loose about the streets, and over the plank sidewalks. Now and then I saw a handsome private carriage, or a large hotel-looking house; but the high walls about the grounds looked forbidding, gloomy and unsocial; not a peep was to be had of the pretty flowers behind, if indeed there were any. In that it seemed to me a very desolate kind of place; and the mammoth hotel where we 272stayed, with its immensely high, wide halls, echoing back the footsteps of the few travelers who walked through them, to their large, dreary, immense rooms, seemed to make me still gloomier. For all that, the people whom I met in the street had fine broad chests, and a healthy color in their faces, and looked out of their clear bright eyes as if life were a pleasant thing to them; as I doubt not it is. Still, I would rather not live in Toronto; and after spending two days in it, I was very willing to get into the cars, and rush through the backwoods country, on my way to Detroit. Such splendid trees as I saw in those backwoods! I could only think of the “cedars of Lebanon,” tall, straight, green columns of foliage, that looked as if they had grown, and would continue to grow hundreds of years. Nestled under them, were now and then rude log huts. In the doorway stood the stately mother with her bronzed face, and clinging to her skirts, rosy little barefooted children, rugged as the wild vine that twisted its arms round the huge trees before their door.

Near by, stood their father, the woodman, 273resting on his ax, to look at the cars, as the shrieking whistle sent the cattle bounding through the clearing, and the train disappeared, leaving only a wreath of smoke behind. And so on, for miles and miles through that bright day, we never wearied of gazing till the sun went down. Once I caught a glimpse of a tiny log hut, the low roof festooned with morning glories—pink, blue, and white. I cannot tell you what a look of refinement it gave the little place, or how pretty a little, curly, golden-haired girl, in a red frock, and milk-white feet, looked, standing in the doorway. Some gentle heart beat there, in the lone wilderness, I knew by those morning glories. The pretty picture has often come up before me; and I have wished I were an artist, that I might show you the lovely lights and shadows of that leafy backwoods home. When we reached the pretty city of Detroit, it was so dark we could only dimly see it. We were very tired, too, having ridden in the cars from early morning till nearly nine in the evening. So we gazed sleepily out the carriage windows, as we were being rattled through the streets to the hotel, now and then seeing a church-spire, now a garden, now a brilliantly 274lighted row of stores, now a large square, and passing groups of men, women, and children, of whom we knew no more than of the man in the moon, and who had eaten their breakfasts, dinners and suppers, and had been born, vaccinated, baptized, and married, all the same as if they did not know we were in existence. It is a strange feeling, this coming into a strange place, and at night, and wondering what daylight will have to show to us the next morning, as we sleepily close the bedroom shutters, and lie down in that strange bed.

The familiar picture, your eyes have opened upon so many mornings, does not hang on that wall; it is hundreds of miles away. Joseph and his brethren, or Henry Clay, or the Madonna, or the Benicia Boy, may be there; but you don’t feel acquainted with them, and feel a strange delicacy about washing, and combing your hair, in their company. Breakfast, however, above all things! especially when you have not dared to eat heartily the night before. So we got ready, and, having satisfied ourselves, took a carriage to see Detroit. I liked it very much; the people were wide awake, and not content with tumble-down 275old institutions. New handsome buildings were being put up, besides many that were already finished. The streets were clean, and prettily set off by little garden-patches, with flowers, trees and vines about the houses. There was selling and buying too, and a thorough go-ahead air, in the place, as if this world was not yet finished by any manner of means, as they seemed to think in Toronto. Our coachman was very intelligent and civil, so I catechized him to my heart’s content as to who lived here, and who lived there, and what this church steeple believed, and who worshiped in the other; or why General Cass, being such a big man, didn’t live in a bigger house, and where all the nice peaches came from, about the streets, and where I could find some nice crackers to nibble, when I went off in the steamboat that afternoon, and where were the bookstores, and how much we were to pay for asking so many questions!

Exchanging our carriage for a steamboat, or “propeller” as they called it, we bade good by to Detroit, and glided away up to Lake St. Clair; to the head of Lake Superior. Eleven days we were on the water, more than long enough to 276cross the ocean to Old England. I was very fearful I should not prove a good sailor, particularly as I was told, before starting, that the lakes sometimes had a touch of old Ocean’s roughness. My fear was lost in delight as our boat plowed its way along so gently, day after day, and I sat on deck, the fresh wind blowing over my face, looking down upon the bright foam-track of the vessel, or upon the pretty sea-gulls which with untiring wing followed us hundreds of miles, now and then dipping their snowy breasts in the blue waves, or riding securely on their foaming tops. Sometimes little tiny brown birds flew upon the deck of the vessel, as if glad to see human faces, in their trackless homes. Winter begins very early up on these lakes; so while it was still sweltering weather in New York, we were not surprised to see the gay autumn leaves hung out, like signal flags, here and there on the shore, warning us not to stay too long, where the cold winds lashed the waves so furiously, or without a word of warning locked them up in icy fetters without asking leave of any steamboat. It was hard to believe it, even in sight of the pretty autumn leaves, so soft was the wind, so 277blue was the sea and sky, so gently were we rocked and cradled. Now and then an Indian, a real live Indian, in a real Indian canoe, would pass us with a blanket for a sail, shouting us a rough welcome in his own way, as he passed. Now and then a little speck, just on the edge of the water where it seemed to meet the sky, would gradually grow larger and larger till it turned out to be another boat, and with a burst of music, from the band on board, they too would pass away, and leave us silent as before. Now, where the lake grew narrow, we saw little huts, dotted in and out along the line of shore. There life and death with its solemn mysteries went on, just as it does in your home or mine. Now and then we stopped at what the captain called “a landing,” for wood or coal or freight for the boat. Then the people who lived there flocked down to see us, and to buy melons of us, which were a great treat, where nothing but pines and potatoes would grow. Then we would leap over the gangway to the wharf, and scamper up into the town, to take the exercise we needed after being lazy so long, and then “all hands on board!” and 278away we glided again; the strange friendly faces on the pier smiling as we passed away.

Oh, it was lovely! I never wanted to leave the boat; I wanted you, and every body else, who enjoy such things, to come there and float on those blue waters, with me forever.

Oh, had you only been there beside me on one of many heavenly evenings, you would never, never have forgotten it! The red sun sank slowly into the blue waves, on one side of us, while the moon rose majestically out of the water, on the other; and before us the beautiful island of “The Great Spirit” was set like an emerald in the sapphire sea. Then, when all this glory passed away into the darkness, and I sat marveling if Heaven with “its golden streets and gates of pearl,” could be fairer, up flashed “the Aurora” in long quivering lines of light, rose-color and silver, till earth and sea and sky were all ablaze with glory!

My heart beat quick, I held my breath, as though some great being were sweeping past, whose glorious silken robe I would, but dare not, bow my lips to press.

Now I must tell you, that I went into an 279Indian wigwam, where the door was a blanket; where the bedstead was made of twigs and branches; where a big brown woman was stirring something, witch-fashion, in a boiling pot over the fire; where copper-colored children, with diamond eyes, and long, black, snaky locks, were squatted in the sun, outside the wigwam, while the square-cheeked men caught fish in the little canoes, from the sparkling “rapids,” that seemed just going to wash away their bird’s-nest looking huts. As to the “romantic Indian maid” we read about, I am sorry to tell you that she wears a hoop! for I saw it with my own eyes. However, she seemed so proud and well pleased with her first attempts at the genteel, that I wouldn’t smile, as I felt like doing.

I didn’t ask her how she managed to get in and out of their little egg-shell boats with that hoop, or through the small aperture that served for a door to the wigwam. Perhaps she dropped it off on the outside when she wanted to go into her queer house—who knows? I might say I should have liked her better without it, on that bright morning, as she stood there by the blue Sault River, with her glossy black hair blowing about 280her bright eyes. Eleven days in all we were on these beautiful lakes; more than long enough to go to Europe, which I hope some day to see. One night too long we were on the water before we reached Chicago. And what a night that was, of fog and rain and thunder and lightning. So vivid was the lightning that no one would have been surprised at any moment had it struck the vessel. Every peal of thunder seemed as if it thumped us directly on the head. The steamer tipped and rolled, and the rain beat into the cabin windows and dripped on the bed, and deluged the floor. The military company whom we took on board a few hours before, hushed their songs and jests, and watched with us for the daylight that was to ensure the safety of all on board. It came at last; and we breathed freely as we stepped safely on shore. How little we thought, as we shook hands with the merry captain, and I promised “to take another trip on his nice boat next summer,” that the very next night he would be shipwrecked on those waters!

Ah! the poor captain! My eyes fill, my heart aches, as if I had known him years, instead of those few bright fairy days. Poor Captain 281Jack Wilson, with his handsome, sunshiny face, cheery voice, and manly ways! How little I thought there would be no “next summer” for him, when he so kindly helped me up on the “hurricane deck,” and into the cosy little “pilothouse” to look about; who was always sending me word to come “forward” or “aft,” because he knew I so much enjoyed seeing all beautiful things; who was all goodness, all kindness, and yet, after we left him that morning, found a grave in that cruel surf!

The afternoon of the day we said our last good by to him on the Chicago pier, we had taken a carriage to drive round the city, and reined up at the draw, for a boat to pass through. It was the “Lady Elgin” going forth to meet her doom! We kissed our hands gaily to her, in the bright sunshine, and that night as we slept safely in our beds at the hotel, that brave heart, with a little wailing babe pressed to it, had only a treacherous raft between him and eternity. The poor, poor captain! It was so hard to give him up! As his strong arm sustained the helpless in that fearful night, may God support his own gentle ones in this their direst need.

282This was indeed a gloomy ending to our lovely lake trip. We saw many things to interest us on our return to New York through Cleveland and Pittsburgh, but, as you may suppose, we were not very gay; every now and then, when we saw anything beautiful, we would say to each other, “The poor captain!” You know there are some people whom it is so hard to “make dead;” and he was one of these. So strong, so sunshiny, so full of life! How blessed to know all this bright intelligence cannot be extinguished like a taper; else, how sad, my dear children, would life be to us.

WHEN I WAS YOUNG.

Not one girl in ten, now-a-days, knows how to sew. “’Twas not so in my time,” as the old ladies say, with an ominous shake of the head. No; in my school-days proper attention was given to rivers, bays, capes, islands, and cities in the forenoon—interspersed with, “I love, thou lovest, he, she, or it loves;” then, at the child’s hungry hour—(twelve)—we were dismissed to roast beef and apple dumplings. At three we marched back with a comfortable dinner under our aprons—with cool heads, rosy cheeks, and a thimble in our pockets; and never a book did we see all the blessed afternoon. I see her—the schoolma’am (angels see her now), with her benevolent face, and ample bosom—your flat-chested woman never should keep school, she has no room for the milk of human kindness; 284I see her sitting on that old cane-bottomed chair, going through the useless ceremony of counting noses, to see if there were any truants; and of course there never were from choice, for our teacher never forgot that she was once a child herself. I see her calling one after another to take from her hand a collar, or wristbands, or shirt-bosom to stitch, or some button-holes to make;—good old soul! and then, when we were all seated, she drew from her pocket some interesting book and read it aloud to us—not disdaining to laugh at the funny places, and allowing us to do the same—hearing, well pleased, all our childish remarks, and answering patiently all our questions concerning the story, or travels, or poetry she was reading, while our willing fingers grew still more nimble; and every child uttered an involuntary “Oh!” when the sun slanted into the west window, telling us that afternoon school was over.

Ah, those were the days!

I bless that schoolmistress every time I darn a stocking or make or mend a garment; and I am glad for her own sake that she is not alive now, to see the ologies and isms that are thumped 285into children’s heads, to the exclusion of things better suited to their age, and which all the French and Italian that ever was mispronounced by fashion, can never take the place of in practical life. Yes—girls then knew how to sew. Where will you find a schoolgirl who does it neatly, now? who does not hate a needle, and most clumsily wields it when compelled to? and not by her own fault, poor thing! though her future husband may not be as ready as I to shield her with this excuse. Modern mothers never seem to think of this. Male teachers, with buttonless shirts on their own backs, seem to ignore it. No place for the needle in school, and no time, on account of long lessons, out. Where is a modern girl to learn this all-important branch of education, I want to know? A fig for your worsted work, your distorted cats, and rabbits, and cows! Give me the girl who can put a shirt together, or the feminine of a shirt either—which, by the way, I could never see the impropriety of mentioning, any more than its male, though I am not going to make any old maid scream by saying “chemise”—of course not!

I am concerned for the rising generation; 286spinally in the first place, stitch-ically in the second. All the stitches they know of now are in their sides, poor things! I should like every schoolhouse to have a playground, where the pupils could stay when they were not in school—which should be almost never, until ventilation, recesses, and school hours are better regulated—in fact, till the whole system is tipped over, and buried fathoms under ground, and only spoken of as the tortures of the Inquisition are spoken of—with shuddering horror—as remnants of darkness and barbarism. I don’t want children to be burned up, but I don’t care how many badly conducted schoolhouses burn down. I consider every instance a special interposition of Providence; and even if some of the children are burned—horrible as that is—is it not a quicker mode of death than that they are daily put through, poor, tortured things?

A NURSERY THOUGHT.

Do you ever think how much work a little child does in a day? How from sunrise to sunset, the little feet patter round—to us—so aimlessly. Climbing up here, kneeling down there, running to another place, but never still. Twisting and turning, and rolling and reaching, and doubling, as if testing every bone and muscle for their future uses. It is very curious to watch it. One who does so may well understand the deep breathing of the rosy little sleeper, as with one arm tossed over its curly head, it prepares for the next day’s gymnastics. Tireless through the day, till that time comes, as the maternal love which so patiently accommodates itself hour after hour to its thousand wants and caprices, real or fancied.

A busy creature is a little child. To be looked upon with awe as well as delight, as its clear eye 288looks trustingly into faces that to God and man have essayed to wear a mask. As it sits down in its little chair to ponder precociously over the white lie you thought it “funny” to tell it. As, rising and leaning on your knee, it says, thoughtfully, in a tone which should provoke a tear, not a smile—“I don’t believe it.” A lovely and yet a fearful thing is that little child.

THE USE OF GRANDMOTHERS.

A little boy, who had spilled a pitcher of milk, stood crying, in view of a whipping, over the wreck. A little playmate stepped up to him and said, condolingly:—Why, Bobby, haven’t you got a grandmother?

Who of us cannot remember this family mediator, always ready with an excuse for broken china, or torn clothes, or tardy lessons, or little white fibs? Who was it had always on hand the convenient stomach-ache, or headache, or toothache, to work on parental tenderness? Whose consoling stick of candy, or paper of sugar plums, or seed-cake, never gave out; and who always kept strings to play horse with, and could improvise riding whips and tiny kites, and dress rag-babies, and tell stories between daylight and dark to an indefinable 290amount to ward off the dreaded go-to-bed hour?

Who staid at home, none so happy, with the children while papa and mamma “went pleasuring?” Who straightened out the little waxen limbs for the coffin when papa and mamma were blind with tears? Who gathered up the little useless robes and shoes and toys, and hid them away from torturing sight till heaven’s own balm was poured into those aching hearts? “Haven’t you got a grandmother?” Alas! if only our grown up follies and faults might always find as merciful judgment, how many whom harshness and severity have driven to despair and crime, were now to be found useful and happy members of society!

THE INVENTOR OF THE LOCOMOTIVE.

Did you ever ride in an old-fashioned stage coach? cramped in your back, cramped in your legs, with a “crick” in your neck, while you were packed in, and strapped in so closely that it was next to impossible to move a toe or a finger? Was the day hot and dusty, and had the tired horses hill after hill to crawl and climb up? Was some fellow-passenger’s knee boring a hole in your back, and did you bump, and thump, and bob about, hour after hour, unable to sleep, and too weary almost to live, till, when you drew up at last to some little country tavern, before which Lafayette or Washington hung creaking on a sign, with John Smith’s Hotel underneath, you didn’t care whether you ever got out or not; whether you ever ate, or drank, or laughed again; whether your trunk was safe, or lost on the road, 292miles back? Well, if you have not experienced all this, perhaps your father or mother, or uncle, or aunt have; and they will tell you that is one of the slow methods in which people used to travel before railroads and cars were invented. Ah, but, you say, stages were safer than railroad cars! Were they? They never tipped over, I suppose, or rolled over a precipice of a dark night, or had defective wheels, or drunken drivers, or balky horses, or any thing of that sort. And if anybody was very sick, or dying, at a distance, they might not have been buried weeks, I suppose, before one could reach them.

Well, people after a while thought they might travel faster than this, and quite as safely, too.

George Stephenson, the great Railway Engineer, was one of the first who thought this, and worked hard, and long, to make it possible. I want to tell you about him, because it seems to me quite beautiful that a poor, uneducated boy, as he was, should have brought so great a thing to pass. I rejoice in it, because I love to think that in our country our most useful and best men have, many of them, been very poor and humble when young; and because I want 293every boy who reads this to feel encouraged to try what he too can do, instead of folding his hands and saying, “oh, what’s the use? I was born poor, and I shall die poor; I’m ignorant, and I shall die ignorant. Who cares what becomes of me?” I tell you I care for one, and if nobody cared, you ought to care yourself. It is very certain, if you don’t care yourself, that nobody can do much for you. Well, George Stephenson was the son of a poor collier, in England. He was the second of six children, for whom their father and mother worked hard to find bread and butter. Little George lived like other working people’s children: played about the doors, went bird’s nesting now and then, or of errands to the village; and as he grew bigger, carried his father’s dinner to him when at work; or helped nurse his brothers and sisters at home; for in a poor man’s house, you know, every little hand and foot must do something in the way of helping. As to school, none of them thought of such a thing; it was as much as they could do to keep a roof over their heads, and something to eat and drink. Dewley Burn was the name of the place where the one-roomed cottage stood, in which 294George was born; and near which his father was employed, to tend the engine-fire near the coalpit. Robert Stephenson, George’s father, was a kind-hearted, pleasant man. You may know that, because all the young people of an evening used to go and sit round his engine-fire while he told stories to them; sometimes about Sinbad the Sailor; sometimes about Robinson Crusoe, and often something which he himself “made up” to please them. Of course “Bob’s engine-fire” was a great place. No stoop of a village tavern on “muster day” was ever more glorious to happy urchins. You can almost see the picture; the bright fire blazing, and rows of bright eyes glistening in its light, some black, some blue, some gray; curly locks and straight locks, slender lads, and fat lads; some with chins on their palms, and elbows on their knees, some flat on their backs or sides, on the ground; and all believing every word of Bob’s, as you now do storybooks, which they would have given their ears to get hold of, though I have my doubts, if they are better, after all, than were “Bob’s stories.” Now you are not to think because George’s father worked as a collier, that he had no love for beautiful things. On the 295contrary, he used to take nice long, breezy summer walks, whenever he got a chance, with his little son. And when George had grown up to be a man, and long after his good father’s white head was under the sod, George used to speak often of his lifting him up to look into a black-bird’s nest, and of the delight and wonder with which he gazed at the little peeping creatures for the first time. I dare say your father and mother can tell you some such little thing which they remember about their childhood’s home, which stands out in their memory now, from the mist of years, like a lovely picture, sunny and glowing and untouched by time.

These are blessed memories to keep the heart green. They are like the little swaying wild flower that the dusty traveler sometimes finds in a rock crevice, breathing out its sweetness all the same as if it were not hemmed in by flinty walls and bars; more beautiful than the most gorgeous garden flowers, which every passer by has gazed at, and handled, because to God and ourselves it is sacred. These childish memories! they are the first round of the ladder by which 296our world-weary feet shall climb to heaven, after those who have rocked our cradles.

Near Dewley Burn lived a widow, named Grace Ainslie, who kept a number of cows that used to nibble the grass along the woods. A boy was needed to watch them, and keep them from being run over by the coal wagons, or straying into the neighboring fields. To this boy’s duty was added that of barring the gates at night, after the coal wagons had passed through. George applied for this place, and to his great joy he got it, at two pence a day. It was easy work to loll about on the fresh green grass, and watch the lazy cows as they nibbled, or stretched themselves under the trees, chewing and winking, hour after hour. George had plenty of time to look for birds’ nests and make whistles out of sticks and straws, and build little mills in the water streams. But if you watched the boy, you would see that, best of all, when he and his friend Tom got together, he liked to build clay engines. The clay they found in the bogs, and of the hemlock which grew about, they made their steam pipes. I dare say some solemn wise head might have passed that way, and 297sighed that these boys were “wasting their time” playing in the mud; not remembering that children in their “foolish play,” by their little failures and successes in experimenting, sometimes educate themselves better than any book-read man in the land could do it; at least, at that age. Then it was a blessed thing that the child’s work lay out of doors, and not in a stifling close factory, or shop. That his limbs got strong and his cheek brown and sunburnt, and his eye bright as a young eagle’s. Every day now added to his growth, and of course to his employment; though scarcely big enough to stride, he led the horses when plowing, and when he was able to hoe turnips and do such farm work, he was very much delighted at his increased wages of fourpence a day. When he was thirteen, he made a sun-dial for his father’s cottage. You may be sure his father was very proud of that. His little head had been busy, you see, when he lay on the grass watching the cows. By and by George got eighteen pence a day, and at last the wish of his heart, in being taken as an assistant to his father in feeding the engine fire. George was very much afraid, he was such a little fellow, that he 298should be thought too young for the work, and when the overseer of the colliery went the rounds, to see if everything was done right, George used to hide himself, for fear he would think him too small a boy to earn his wages. Some lads as fond as he was of bird’s-nesting, and such amusements, would not have been in such a hurry to make themselves useful; but George’s parents worked hard, and he loved them; he knew that white hairs were creeping among those brown locks of his mother’s, and that his good, merry father would not always be able to tend the engine fire; and so though his tame black-bird, who made the cottage her home in winter, flying in and out, and roosting on the head of his bed, and disappearing in the spring and summer, in the woods, to pair and to rear its young, and then coming back again in winter to live with George; although his bird was a very pretty pet, and his tame rabbits were a great pleasure, too, yet little as he was, he was anxious to shoulder his share of the burden that was pressing so heavily on his parents. Ever since, too, that he had modeled that little clay engine in the bog, he had determined to be an engineer, and the first step to 299this was to be an assistant fireman. Imagine, then, his delight when, at fourteen years, he got the post at the wages of a shilling a day.

George’s home was one small room, crowded with three low-posted beds, in which father and mother, four sons, and two daughters slept. This one room was, of course, parlor, kitchen and sleeping-room, all in one. This cottage was furnished by the Duke who employed these people; he being also their landlord. Now I would be willing if I ever made bets, to bet you something handsome, that this Duke had a liveried servant behind his chair at home, and a table loaded with dainties, and silver and cut glass, and more wines in his castle than he knew how to use; and horses and hounds, and carriages and pictures, and statues, and conservatories and hot houses, and all that; and yet, that he was not one half as happy as the Stephensons in that little cottage with one room. Aching heads are apt to go with dainty food, and weak limbs with soft beds. When a poor man has a friend, he generally knows that he is loved for himself; when a rich man has one, he is never sure how much his riches have to do with his friendship. Many a rich man 300has sighed for the days when he used to run barefoot; and many a jeweled lady for the day when the little brook was her looking-glass. Things are more equal in this life, after all, than grumblers are apt to imagine. Well, to go back to George, all the time he was feeding that fire, he had his eyes open, watching everything about the engine; nothing escaped his notice; I have no doubt his father watched him, with an honest pride shining out of his eyes. It must have been very pleasant for the two to work together, and help each other; for George was growing strong and big, and used to try to make himself stronger by lifting heavy weights. When he was seventeen, he was made a “flagman.” That was a station as watchman above his father, as the flagman holds a higher rank than the fireman, and receives higher wages. No doubt good old Robert was as delighted as George could be at this promotion. We can imagine, too, how his mother and sisters, as they worked industriously to keep the little one room cottage tidy and comfortable, sang cheerfully as they worked, when they thought of their good strong brother. It is a flagman’s duty, when the engine is out of 301order, to call on the chief engineer to set it right. George had rarely need to do this. The engine was a perfect pet with him. He understood every part of it; he took it to pieces and cleaned it himself, and learned so well how it worked, and what it needed, that nobody could instruct him anything about it. It is said that all the important improvements of steam-engines have been made, not by learned literary men, but by plain laborers.

Everything that George undertook, howsoever small the matter might be, he determined to understand perfectly, and to do well and thoroughly. When George said that he knew he could do a thing, all his friends knew it was no idle boast. So you will not be astonished when I tell you that he went on studying and improving till he became a famous man; so famous that he received calls from abroad, asking his advice as “a constructing engineer” about building bridges and railways, and all such things. I guess he never thought of that, when he was building bridges of mud with his play-fellows. Little children, you see, are not always “wasting their time” when they are playing quietly by themselves. 302No, indeed. I guess he didn’t think then that he should build a two-mile bridge across the St. Lawrence in connection with the Grand Trunk Canadian Railway, which should be so much admired and praised for its taste as well as skill; or, when he slept in the little cottage with only one room in it, that he should one day become “a Member of Parliament;” or that when he died, he should be buried in state at Westminster Abbey, where all the famous, great men were buried, and that immense crowds of people should go to his funeral, and be so sorry that a man who was so useful to his country should die, when he was only fifty-six years old. But so it was. I think George made good use of those fifty-six years; don’t you?

TO MY LITTLE FRIENDS.

I want to say a few words to the little children who write me such nice letters.

Some of you live in and about New York, some at a great distance from it. I should be very glad, had I time, to write each of you a long letter—indeed, many long letters; but how is this possible, if I “make some more books for you,” as you all request me to do? One cannot write a book as fast as one can read it through; perhaps you do not think of that. Besides, I write every week for the New York Ledger. Then I have a great many other calls upon my time, of which you know nothing. Like your own mamma, I have children. They sometimes say, “Oh, do throw away that tiresome pen, and talk to us.” And then I say, “Yes, presently.” But still I have to keep on writing. Then, you know, if I only used my 304head, and never my feet, my head would not last long. I must exercise a great deal every day, else I should fly up the chimney, or through the roof, like a witch. But for all that I don’t forget one little girl or boy who ever wrote to me; and although I cannot answer, it always pleases me to hear from you. I want you all to believe this, and write me whenever you feel like it.

BABY EFFIE.

Do you see this little baby? Her name is Effie, and her young mother is dead. Well, partly on that account, and partly because she is just the loveliest, and brightest, and sweetest baby that ever was born, she rules every one in the house. How? why, by one smile or cunning little trick, she can make them all go and come, fetch and carry, rise and sit down, all the same as if they had no will but hers. For instance, you may say, now at such a time I will go to such a place; but if that baby catches sight of you going out, and makes up a little grieved mouth because you are going, unless you could coax her to forget it, with a piece of the moon, or some such wonderful thing, you would very likely stay at home with her. If you say your side aches, and really, Effie grows so fat on her good sweet milk, that you 306must let nurse carry her more, even if she does whimper a little; and you may really mean to do it; but oh, why has she such a dear little red mouth, and such a distracting way of fixing her lips, and such a pleading look in her soft eyes, and such a musical little coax to make believe talk, unless it be that her dimpled feet shall always be on your obedient neck? You can’t look at her as if she were only a rag baby. And very likely you’d get thinking, too, that nobody could tie her bonnet, or cloak, save yourself, or button her little red boots right; so that no fold of her mite of a stocking should double under her ridiculous little toes.

Perhaps you think it is a very simple thing to wash and dress little Effie. That shows how little you know. Now listen. That baby has four distinct little chins that you must watch your chance to wash between her frantic little crying-spells; then she has as many little rolls of fat on the back of the neck, that have to be searched out, and bathed; and all the time you are doing this you have to be talking little baby talk to her, to make her believe you are only playing, instead of washing her. Then baby won’t have her ears or 307nose meddled with; and if you interfere with her toes, she won’t put up with it a minute; and it takes two people to open her chubby little fists when it is time to wash them. Then you haven’t the least idea of the job it is to get one of her stiff little vexed arms out of her cambric sleeve; or how many times she kicks while you are tying on her tiny red shoe. Then she is just as mad as can be when you lay her over on her stomach to tie the strings of her frock; and she is still more mad if you lay her on her back. And besides, she can stiffen herself out, when she likes, so that “all the king’s men” couldn’t make her sit down, and at another time she will curl herself up in a circle, so that neither they nor anybody else could straighten her out; then you had better just count the garments that have to be got off and on before this washing and dressing business is done; and then every now and then you have to stop to see that she is not choking or strangling; or that you have not put any of her funny little legs or arms out of joint, or hurt her bobbing little head. Now, I hope you understand what a delicate job it is. But when the last string is tied, and little Effie comes 308out of this daily misery into scarlet-lipped, diamond-eyed peace, looking fresh and sweet as a rosebud, and dropping off to sleep in your arms, with quivering white eyelids and pretty murmurings of the little half-smiling lips, while the perfect little fat waxen hands lie idly by her side, ah—then you should see her!

You would understand then, how hard it is to keep from spoiling her; not by loving her too much; that never hurt anybody; but by giving her everything she wants, whether it is best for her or not, just because it is so heart-breaking to see the tears on her cheeks. That would never do, you know, not even for little motherless Effie; for how is she ever to become good, if she can get everything she wants by crying for it? She can’t understand that now, but by and by she will; and then those who have care of her must learn to say no, no matter how pretty and coaxing she is, if she should want a hammer and a watch to play with; yes, even though she should cry about it.

Nobody can tell whether Effie is loveliest sleeping or waking. Poor little dear; when she is asleep she often makes the motion of nursing 309with her lips, just as if her mother were living, instead of dead, and she were lying on her warm breast. And then, too, she often smiles till little dimples come in her cheeks, and her lips part, and show her four little white teeth, which have troubled her so much in coming, and which look so like little pearls. And sometimes in her sleep she kicks her little fat leg, with its pretty white foot, and pink toes, out on the coverlet, just as if she were fixing herself for a pretty picture that some artist might paint her. And when she wakes, she puts her little cheek up against yours to be loved and kissed, and—but dear me, you will think I am quite a fool, if I go on this way; and I shouldn’t wonder; for it really is true that I am never tired of telling dear little Effie’s perfections all the same as if she were the only lovely baby that was ever born; although every house holds half a dozen, more or less; still perhaps you might as well not say to me that any of them can begin to compare with little Effie.

But really, after all, I can’t stop till I tell you how much that child knows. I am not certain that it would do to tell state secrets before her; for though she can’t talk, and though she sits on 310the floor, playing with her toys, I sometimes feel, when she drops them, and looks up with her sweet, earnest little face, as if she had lived another life somewhere, and her grown-up-soul had come back and crept into that little baby’s body. Sometimes, when I look at her, I wish, oh! so much, that I could always keep all sorrow, and all suffering from her, and make her whole life happy; but this cannot be. Besides, I know, that He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, will surely care for little motherless Effie.