A LUCKY IRISH BOY.
“Halloo there! little fellow, what are you doing here, on my door-step? why don’t you run home to your dinner?”
“I was waiting for you to come home, thinking you’d give me some,” said the boy.
The gentleman smiled, and looked in Johnny’s face; there was nothing vicious in it; it was a bright, honest little face, lit up by a pair of round blue eyes, and shaded by locks of tangled brown hair; there was nothing impertinent in his answer to Mr. Bond, had you heard the tone in which he made it.
“Where do you live?” asked the gentleman.
“I don’t live, I stay round.”
“Who takes care of you?”
“Nobody.”
“Where did you sleep last night?”
“In that big stone house.”
“Don’t tell fibs,” said Mr. Bond; “I know the gentleman who lives there.”
“Ask him, then,” said Johnny, with his chin comfortably resting on the palms of his hands, “I never tell a lie.”
“Well, then, tell me how you came to sleep there.”
“Why, you see, sir, I was sitting on the gentleman’s steps when he came home in the evening, and he asked me what I was there for, and why I did not go home and go to bed; and I told him that I was waiting for him to come home, thinking perhaps he would give me a bed, and he did, sir, in the coach-house; and that’s how I came to sleep there.”
“I see,” said Mr. Bond, laughing; “but I hope you would not be willing always to live on people that way, even if they would let you; a strong healthy boy like you, might earn his living. Would you like to get work to do?”
“Ay,” said Johnny, “and send the money to my mother in Ireland.”
“Have you no friends out of Ireland?”
“No, sir.”
“What made you think I would give you some dinner?”
“Because every body is kind to me,” said little Johnny, looking trustfully up in Mr. Bond’s face.
No wonder, thought Mr. Bond. “Well Johnny, I’ll give you some dinner, and then I must try to find you some work; did you ever hear the old rhyme,
“‘Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do?’
“Come in, come to the kitchen with me; here, Betty, give this boy a good dinner, quick as you can, and after I have eaten mine I want to see him again.”
“Dinner! I guess so,” muttered Betty; “I wonder if master thinks I roasted those chickens, and made those apple tarts, and custards, for that little rag-a-muffin, that dirty little hop o’ my thumb?”
“Can’t I help you lift that pot off the fire,” asked Johnny, as Betty’s face grew red, trying to move it.
“You? well I don’t know but you kin,” said the mollified and astonished Betty; “why yes, you may if you have a mind to; what put that into your head? and what made you speak so civil to me after I spoke so cross to you; there’s something under that, I reckon;” and Betty looked at him sharply; poor Betty, she had been knocked round the world so roughly, that she had learned to suspect every body.
“What did you do it for, I say, you queer thing?” asked Betty, standing before him.
“I wanted to help you,” said Johnny, “you looked so hot and tired.”
“And cross, hey?” said Betty, suspiciously; “why didn’t you say cross, and done with it? well never mind, I won’t pester you, and I’ll give you some dinner, so long as master says so, but I can’t say I have much faith in beggar children; its ‘God bless you,’ if you give them what they want, and it’s something else, that I won’t repeat, if you don’t; that’s the upshot on’t, but sit down in that chair, and munch your bread and butter, and don’t you dare to lay hands on them silver forks now, d’ye hear?”
As Betty said this, and as she crossed the kitchen with a pot of hot water, her foot slipped on an apple-paring, and she would have fallen and scalded herself badly, had it not been for Johnny, who sprang to help her.
“Now what do you do that for?” asked Betty again, when she had wiped up the puddle of hot water from the floor; “you are the queerest young one I ever saw. Don’t you ever get mad when people snap you up; I can’t stand it a minute. I guess you are better than you look, after all; I will give you some chicken when master has done with it; it is lucky that hot water didn’t splash all over me, what’s your name?”
“Johnny.”
“Johnny what?”
“That’s it,” said Johnny—“Johnny Watt; how did you know?”
“Don’t be poking fun at me;” said Betty; “where’s your mother?”
“In Ireland.”
“Do tell if you are all alone over here?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you know nobody?”
“No.”
“Where do you—how do you—mercy on us! I never hearn of such a thing. How old are you?”
“Seven.”
“Why didn’t you stay to home?”
“Because we had nothing to eat, and I wanted to come here, and earn money, and go back and buy something for my mother; and I told the captain so, and he said he would bring me over, if I thought I could take care of myself when I got here.”
“Well, how was I to know all that?” said Betty, penitently. “I’ve got a mother too. Won’t you have another bit of bread and butter? don’t you like sugar on your bread and butter? I wish master would be done with them chickens, so that I could give you a drumstick. Ah, here comes the dish; set it down here, Sukey; this child don’t know a living soul out of Ireland, and has come away on here to earn his own living; have this side-bone, Johnny? and this wing? To think I should have spoken so cross to the child; but how was I to know that he was all alone in the world? these children who come begging to the back door here, tell such fibs, and are such little cheats—it’s enough to dry up all the milk of human kindness in a body; eat away, Johnny! I hope master will keep you here, you might run of errands, and the like, for old Pomp is growing stiff in the joints, and there’s a power of running to be done, for mistress is as full of notions as an old maid; but that’s always the way with folks that has no children.”
“You think so, do you, Betty?” said Mr. Bond, laughing; “well, I don’t think you will have that to say after to-day; there will be one child in the house, at least; I have been talking to Pomp about keeping Johnny to help in the carriage-house, and do little jobs generally; and if you can tidy him up, Betty, for Mrs. Bond is not willing to have any trouble about it, he can stay. I think a little water, a hard brush, and a new suit of clothes would improve him; and Pomp says that he can sleep with him in the chamber over the carriage-house.”
You would hardly have known Johnny the next morning, he looked so spruce and tidy and handsome, as he ran up-stairs and down, in a pair of soft shoes, which Betty had carefully provided him, lest he should shock Mrs. Bond’s nerves. Poor useless Mrs. Bond, who had been brought up to be a fine lady, and who thought one proof of it, was to be constantly talking of “her nerves;” poor unhappy Mrs. Bond, who never thought of any thing, or any body save herself; who never knew the luxury of doing a kind action, and whose greatest pleasure consisted in making every body wait upon her. It would have been a blessing had her house caught fire, and turned her out of doors, and had she been obliged to work for her living; I think nothing else would have cured “her nerves,” or made her understand that there were other people in the world beside herself. I am sure little Johnny was five times as happy as she, with all her wealth. It was like a glimpse of sunshine to see his face after looking at hers, all knotted up with selfishness and discontent. I think Mr. Bond thought so too; I think he was glad to escape from her and her poodle, the long winter evenings, and teach Johnny to read and write in the library, and I think he hardly imagined, when he did so, that the poor little Irish boy would one day be taken in as a partner in the firm of “Bond & Co.;” but so it was, and a very good partner he proved to be; and many a bright gold-piece he sent over to Ireland for his old mother, and many a warm shawl he bought for his friend Betty, who was so afraid the first day he came, to have him in the same room with the “silver forks.” Poor old Betty, she could not bear joking about it now; she said “it made her feel like crawling through the key-hole,” but then, as she said, how should she know that she was “entertaining an angel unawares?”
THE
CHILD PRINCE AND THE CHILD PEASANT.
You know that Queen Victoria has a brood of little children; fat little cubs they are, too, if we may trust the pictures of them that we see in the shop-windows; and although they are a queen’s children, I will bet you a new kite that you have more cake and preserves and candy than they ever had all together in their lives, for English people do not allow their children such unwholesome things. Their rosy cheeks come of good roast beef and mutton, dry bread, and very plain puddings, with plenty of sweet milk. That is the way to make stout, healthy boys and girls. Victoria is a right good, sensible mother; her children, though they are princes and princesses, do not go unpunished, you may be sure, when they do naughty things. She wants to make them fit to rule England when they are called to do so; and in order to do that properly and wisely, she knows that they must first learn to rule themselves. Not long since she went with her little family to the Isle of Wight. While there, her young son, the Prince of Wales, took it into his royal little head to pick up shells by the sea-shore. While doing this, his little lordship noticed a poor little peasant-boy who had picked quite a basket-full of pretty shells for himself. The naughty little prince thought it would be good fun to knock the poor boy’s basket over, and spill out all his shells; so he gave it a kick with his royal little foot, and away it went! Now, the little peasant-boy did not relish that sort of fun as well as the prince. He quietly picked them all up, replaced them in his basket, and then said, “Do it again if you dare,” for he knew he had his rights as well as the prince. Up went the prince’s naughty little foot again, and over went the peasant-boy’s shells. Very soon after, the prince went crying home to his mother, Victoria, with a bloody nose and a swelled face. Victoria asked him where he had been, and how he got hurt so badly; and the prince told her that the little peasant-boy had done it, because he (the prince) had kicked over his basket of shells. Did Victoria hug up the little prince, and say, “You poor, dear little child, how dare that good-for-nothing little peasant-boy lay his hands on my noble little son? I will send and have him severely punished for his impertinence?” Did she, the queen, say this to the little bruised, crying prince? No, indeed. She looked him sternly in the eye, and said, “The peasant-boy served you just right, sir. I hope you will always be thus punished when you do so mean an action.” Then she sent for the little peasant-boy, made him some presents, and provided his father with means to give him an education. Was she not a sensible mother? and was not this a good lesson for the little proud prince? I warrant you he will remember it all his life long, and when he gets to be king, if he is half as sensible as his mother, he will thank her for it. Another good thing I must tell you of Queen Victoria; they say that she has each of her children taught some trade; so that if Fortune’s wheel should turn round so fast as to whirl them off the throne some day, they would then be able to get their own living. I like Queen Victoria, and I hope her little family will grow up to be a great comfort to her, for a mother is a mother, all the world over, whether she wears a crown on her head or not, and queens have a great deal of care, and much less happiness than you think.