Key to the Gallery of Literary Portraits.
1. Swift.
2. Locke.
3. Young.
4. Fox.
5. Lamb.
6. Hogg.
7. Akenside.
8. Kane.
9. Gay.
10. Cowper.
11. Paley.
12. Cooper.
13. Bacon.
14. Longfellow.
15. Pitt.
16. Shakspeare.
17. Opie.
18. Pope.
19. Sparks.
20. Hood.
21. Herschel.
22. Hooker.
23. Drake.
24. Crabbe.
CHAPTER V.
A DAY AT SCHOOL.
Early the next Monday morning, a sleigh drove up to Mrs. Page’s door, containing a large man wrapped in a shaggy bear-skin coat, a girl about fourteen years old, to whose cheeks the frosty morning air had lent a beautiful glow, and a boy whose age might have been between twelve and thirteen years. The girl and boy hurried into the house, and were warmly greeted by all the family. They were Katharine and Otis Sedgwick, and had boarded in the family for six months past, during which period they had attended the academy. They belonged in a town about ten miles distant. Their father, after hitching his horse in the shed, and throwing a blanket over him, came in to have a chat with the family, and to settle the “term bills” with Marcus. He stopped about half an hour, and then set out for home; after which the young folks began to prepare for school.
The academy building was about a mile distant from Mrs. Page’s. In good weather, Marcus and the students in the family usually walked to and from school, taking their dinners with them. This first morning of the new term was a bright though cool one, and soon after half-past eight o’clock, the six “academicians,” as Ronald called them, might have been seen wending their way through the snow-path, towards a little white belfry that gleamed over the tops of an evergreen forest in the distance.
At nine o’clock the bell rang, and as the students assembled in the hall, it was found that the attendance was quite large. The old scholars took their former seats, and desks were assigned to the new ones. Mr. Upton, the preceptor, then touched a little hand-bell—the signal for silence; after which he took the Bible, and read from it a passage rich in instruction to the young—the fourth chapter of Proverbs. Every head was then bowed, as he offered up a simple and fervent prayer for the divine blessing upon the students and teachers there assembled.
After these exercises were concluded, Mr. Upton went to the large blackboard, facing the school, and wrote upon it this sentence, in characters that could be seen in the remotest part of the room:
“EXALT HER, AND SHE SHALL PROMOTE THEE.”
“‘Exalt her’—can any one tell me what this refers to?” inquired Mr. Upton.
“Wisdom,” was the general answer from all parts of the room.
“Right,” replied Mr. Upton. “It is found in the chapter I have just read. Can any of you tell me what wisdom means, in this case?”
There were several answers to this question, such as “Religion,” “Prudence,” “Knowledge,” etc., but they were mostly given in a hesitating manner, and only a few of the scholars made any reply to the question.
“The word wisdom,” continued Mr. Upton, “has several significations. As used in the Bible, it sometimes means learning or knowledge; and sometimes it means piety, or true religion. This last is the sense in which the word is used in the chapter I read to you. You will notice that it is a favorite word with Solomon, if you read his Proverbs. But you will also observe that much that he says about this heavenly wisdom, may also apply with great propriety to human wisdom, or that knowledge with which we store our minds. This is true of the motto I have written on the blackboard. ‘Exalt her, and she shall promote thee.’ That is, if you desire promotion, give attention to the acquisition of knowledge—strive after the wisdom and skill which come from patient study, practice and observation—give the work of education a prominent place in your thoughts and plans. This, to be sure, is not the highest motive we have for faithfulness in study, but it is a strong one, and I think it may be useful to press it upon your attention, as we are entering upon a new term. This is the idea I wish to impress upon your minds, viz., that knowledge brings promotion. Vice, immorality, idleness, improvidence, or misfortune, sometimes interfere with this general law; but on the whole the rule holds good, that a man’s happiness, position, property and influence are promoted by knowledge. I feel safe, therefore, in assuring you that for every dollar your education costs your parents, and for every hour of study, every act of self-denial, every effort and struggle it costs yourselves, you will be abundantly repaid hereafter. If you come here in a right spirit, you are putting your money, your time and your efforts into a safe bank. It will prove a capital investment to you, as long as you live.
“A gentleman at the South once employed a negro to kill a calf. When the animal was dressed and brought home, Cuffee, the butcher, demanded two dollars for the job. ‘Why, Cuffee! do you charge me two dollars for dressing a calf?’ exclaimed the gentleman. ‘No, massa, I charge one dollar for killin’ de calf, and one dollar for de know how,’ was Cuffee’s reply. Cuffee was right. A man has a perfect right to charge for the ‘know how.’ And generally men do charge for it, and get well paid, too.
“Suppose I am about to build a house. In the first place, I hire several common laborers to dig the cellar, and pay them one dollar per day. These are the most ignorant and unskilled laborers we have among us; that is, they have about as little ‘know how,’ as a man can get along with. Their tools are few, and do not cost much, and so we may take the dollar per day they earn as the standard market value of a mere unskilled pair of hands and a set of strong muscles.
“After the cellar is dug, I set carpenters to work, employing them all by the day. By-and-by the head carpenter brings in his weekly or monthly bill. I find he charges me at the rate of one dollar a day for one hand. This is his apprentice, a young man of sixteen or seventeen, who has worked but a year or two at the trade. The ‘know how’ he has acquired makes him even now of as much value to me as a full grown man of the common laborer sort. Then there are several journeymen carpenters, for whose services I am charged one dollar and a half or three-quarters per day. These men have no more physical strength than the dollar-a-day laborers—perhaps not so much. Then why should they receive fifty or seventy-five per cent. more for their daily labor? A small fraction offsets the cost of their tools, and the balance is to pay them for their ‘know how.’ But the boss carpenter, who has a general oversight of the job, and of the other carpenters, charges perhaps two and a half or three dollars per day for his time. He works no harder than the others, but he has more ‘know how’ than they, and is paid accordingly.
“So it is with the masons, painters, and all other workmen on my house—I must pay them in proportion to their ‘know how.’ And if I employ an architect, to make the drawings of the building, and he should charge me at the rate of five or ten dollars per day for the time he spent upon them, I should remember that his peculiar ‘know how’ cost more time, money and study than that of the carpenter or the mason, and therefore commands a higher price in the market.
“Thus you see one of the ways in which knowledge brings promotion. It has a market value, in dollars and cents. There are other ways in which it promotes a man. It saves him from errors and blunders. It increases his self-respect, and his means of enjoyment. It gives him a higher position in society. It endows him with greater influence among men. But I will not weary you by dwelling upon these ideas. You have come here avowedly to get wisdom, and I have held up to you one motive for persevering in the work. I hope we shall all earnestly seek, and find, not only earthly but heavenly wisdom, so that at last we may receive that ‘crown of glory’ which is promised, in the chapter that has been read, to those who get wisdom and understanding.”
Mr. Upton, aided by Marcus, then proceeded to arrange the classes, and perfect the organization of the school. Jessie was very glad to learn that her plan of paying for her own tuition by rendering occasional assistance, in the way of hearing the recitations of the lower classes, had been acceded to by the trustees. There was to her a double gratification in this; since she would not only earn her own tuition bills, but would all the while be gaining experience in the profession to which she was looking forward with so much interest. After breaking to her this pleasant intelligence, Mr. Upton added, in tones audible to those who sat near her:—
“I have been telling the scholars that ‘knowledge brings promotion’—now I am going to illustrate it by promoting you to the first monitorial desk. You will please to remove your books to that desk, as I want this one for another young lady.”
There were several monitorial desks in the hall, which were slightly elevated above the others, and so placed as to overlook them. They were usually assigned to the oldest and most trustworthy pupils, and were regarded as posts of honor. The one to which Jessie was transferred was near the teachers’ desks, and was the principal monitorial desk on the girls’ side of the room. With a modest blush she gathered up her books and took possession of her new dignity; but it was a long time before she could muster courage to look up, and meet the battery of as yet idle eyes that were directed towards her.
The organization of the school occupied most of the forenoon. At twelve o’clock the morning session closed, and the scholars were released for an hour and a half. About a score of them, who lived at a distance, remained, and either singly, or in little scattered groups, were for a time very busy over the contents of sundry small baskets and tin pails. The boys quickly found the bottoms of their dinner receptacles, and impatiently sallied forth, with a half-eaten apple, dough-nut or slice of bread in one hand, and a sled or pair of skates in the other.
“Good riddance to you!” cried one of the girls, as the last boy-muncher—one of the slow sort—closed the door.
“Look here, now! I’m not gone, yet,” replied the boy, opening the door.
“Well, you’d better go,—and tell your mother not to put you up so much dinner to-morrow, will you?” responded the girl.
“There, now, I’d come right back, and stay all the noon with you, only I don’t want to humor you so much,” replied the boy, who was as “slow to anger” as he was slow in eating—and none too slow in either case, after all, I suspect.
“O do come—we should be so delighted with your company,” retorted the girl; but the tramp, tramp, tramp of a stout pair of boots down the stairs was all the reply she got.
And now the girls seemed determined to have a good time among themselves. The little groups gradually enlarged, the tongues wagged in a more lively manner, and sundry choice tit-bits were transferred from one basket to another. There were two or three “new girls,” however, who did not venture into any of the social circles, but demurely sat at their own desks. Jessie was a favorite in the school, and quite a number of the girls gathered around her, among whom was Abby Leonard, who sometimes stayed at noon, by way of change, although her boarding-place was not far off. Abby, notwithstanding the foolish speech she made about associating with such poor girls as Jessie, a few months before this, was far from shunning the company of that young lady. On the contrary, she seemed to court it.
“Have a pickle, Jessie?” inquired Abby, holding out a good-sized cucumber.
“No, I thank you, I seldom eat pickles,” replied Jessie.
“You don’t?—why, I’ve eaten six as big as that, this noon,” replied Abby. “I had to ‘hook’ them, though, for Mrs. Miles would fidget herself to death if she knew how fast her pickles are going off. I love sour things, dearly. When I was at home, I used to eat a dozen pickled limes a day, sometimes. We always keep them in the house—father buys them by the barrel. I think it’s real mean, that they don’t keep them for sale here.”
“I shouldn’t think it could be very wholesome to eat so much of such things—they are very indigestible,” remarked Jessie.
“O, they never hurt me—I eat everything I want, and think nothing about it,” replied Abby.
Abby then prevailed upon Jessie to accept a piece of her cake, but immediately added:—
“I declare, it’s so mean I’m almost ashamed to offer it to you. At home, we shouldn’t think it was hardly fit to set before the servants. Mother never allows our cook to make anything plainer than nice pound cake.”
“I call that very good cake—good enough for anybody,” said Jessie, utterly indifferent to “our cook” and her “nice pound cake.”
“Just look at that squint-eyed girl—did you ever see such a fright?” continued Abby, in a whisper, alluding to one of the new scholars, who sat in her seat, alone, apparently listening with a good degree of astonishment to Abby’s remarks.
“Poor girl, she feels lonesome—some of us ought to go and speak to her,” said Jessie.
Abby now left the room, whereupon the girls in Jessie’s neighborhood began to make merry at her expense.
“My mother doesn’t allow the cook to make anything meaner than brown bread, and we have that on the table three times a day,” said one girl.
“When I’m at home, I eat six pints of pea-nuts a day—father buys them by the ton,” said another.
“Speaking of pickles—do you know what she eats them for?” inquired another girl. “I can tell you—she thinks they make her look pale and genteel. She eats chalk, and slate pencils, too—I’ve seen her do it, many a time.”
“Yes,” added Kate Sedgwick, who was one of the group, “and you ought to see her drink vinegar, too. Why, she makes nothing of drinking a whole cup full of clear vinegar at one draught.”
“I do think she is the most hateful thing”——
“Come, girls, this is scandal,” interposed Jessie, “let us talk about something else.”
“Scandal?—no, this is nothing but the truth, and telling the truth isn’t scandal,” replied Kate.
“I think it is, very often,” replied Jessie.
“Well, I don’t call telling the truth talking scandal, and I never heard anybody say it was, before,” remarked another girl, one of the largest in the school. “If a girl really eats chalk and slate pencils, and drinks vinegar, to make herself look genteel, it isn’t scandal to tell of it.”
The other girls in the group all took the same ground, and Jessie was at least half convinced she was in the wrong. She made no attempt to argue the point, but sought to give the matter a practical turn, by saying:—
“Well, I never hear a lot of girls talking about another one behind her back, without having a suspicion that I shall be served the same way, as soon as I am out of hearing. Abby was here a few moments ago, and we were all on good terms with her, and she spoke kindly to us. But every tongue is against her, as soon as her back is turned. It seems to me there is something inconsistent and unkind in this. If we had any criticisms to make on what she said, would it not have been better to have made them to her face?”
“Why, Jessie!” exclaimed Kate, “you are not in earnest, are you? Only think what an explosion there would be, if we should tell her just what we think of her. Everybody dislikes that girl, and I don’t believe you think any better of her than the rest of us do. I don’t see why you should stand up for her so, all at once—she doesn’t deserve it.”
“I haven’t ‘stood up’ for her more than I would for any of you, under the same circumstances,” replied Jessie. “I only proposed that we talk something beside scandal. Now I’m going to have a run out-doors—but first I must speak to Lucy Grant—nobody has spoken to her to-day, hardly, and the poor child feels bad—I can see it in her looks.”
Lucy was the “squint-eyed girl” who had attracted Abby’s notice a few minutes before. She was afflicted with that defect of the eye commonly called squinting, but the proper name of which is strabism, or strabismus. In her case, the difficulty originated in a severe fit of sickness which she experienced when she was about five years old, and which was attended by a great deal of nervous irritation. There are muscles on each side of the eye-ball, by which it is moved from side to side. Squinting is caused by one of these muscles (usually the inner one) contracting, or growing short, while the one on the other side of the ball is lengthened in the same proportion. Sometimes the defect is very slight, but in the case of Lucy the deformity was quite prominent, and it began to cause her much mortification, for she was just entering upon her teens. Within a few months she had thought seriously of submitting to a surgical operation—for strabismus is sometimes removed by cutting through the contracted muscle of the eye-ball; but the uncertainty of the operation, and the dread of the pain, were too much for her weak courage to overcome.
Lucy belonged in Highburg, and was more or less known to most of the scholars. Though she did not hear Abby Leonard’s allusion to her, she saw enough to satisfy her what the purport of the remark was; and this, together with the little notice the other girls took of her, exaggerated by a somewhat suspicious disposition, had depressed her into a not very enviable frame of mind. A few kind words, however, will often dispel the blackest cloud; and it was Jessie’s privilege to wield this potent power in behalf of Lucy. Greeting her with the cordial air of an old friend, and forgetting the disparity in their ages, Jessie chatted freely with her about several matters of common interest, for a few minutes, and then added:—
“Come, Lucy, let’s go out and see what is going on. You mustn’t get into the habit of sitting here all the noon-time—Mr. Upton tells us we must always go out and take the fresh air.”
Lucy went out with Jessie, and, after mingling in the society and the sports of the other girls for an hour, returned to her seat at the ringing of the bell, with a very different opinion of her school-mates from that which she entertained an hour before.
The afternoon session passed off quite pleasantly. When the hour to close arrived, Mr. Upton gave out a hymn to be sung, as was his custom. Before giving the signal to commence singing, he remarked:—
“My young friends, I think we have made a very good beginning to-day. Everything has gone favorably with us, and I feel much indebted to you all for coöperating with me so willingly, in organizing the school. I augur from this day’s work a pleasant and prosperous term. We seem all to be in harmony, and I trust we shall continue so to the end. In referring to this text this morning,” continued the preceptor, pointing to the motto on the blackboard, “I made a somewhat strong appeal to your ambition. I endeavored to show that pecuniary and other advantages would be your reward, for faithfulness to your studies. If any of you suppose that this is the highest and noblest motive for study, our evening hymn will, I hope, correct the error.”
The scholars then united in singing the following beautiful hymn, by “holy George Herbert:”
“Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see;
And what I do in any thing,
To do it as for Thee;—
“To scorn the senses’ sway,
While still to Thee I tend;
In all I do, be Thou the way,—
In all, be Thou the end.
“All may of Thee partake:
Nothing so small can be,
But draws, when acted for Thy sake,
Greatness and worth from Thee.
“If done beneath Thy laws,
E’en servile labors shine;
Hallowed is toil, if this the cause,—
The meanest work divine.”
CHAPTER VI.
SWEETS AND BITTERS.
Among the sources of amusement and instruction enjoyed by Mrs. Page’s family, was a weekly newspaper. I do not mean one of those folio medleys of literature, news and advertisements, whose weekly visits one or two dollars per annum will insure to all who desire them—though this useful class of publications was fully appreciated in the family; but the newspaper par excellence was quite another affair. Its title was “The Home Wreath;” the publishers were “Page & Co.;” the terms were “gratis;” the publication day was Saturday. It was usually composed of one, two or three sheets of letter paper, according to the lack or press of matter supplied. All the members of the family were regular contributors, and Aunt Fanny was the editress. The contents consisted of original articles, and short selections cut from other newspapers. All original articles were written on one side of narrow strips of paper, of uniform size, so that they could be neatly pasted into the columns—for the “Wreath” was not printed, and only one copy was issued. There was a letter-box in the entry, in which all contributions were dropped, and through which private communications were exchanged between members of the family. Before the newspaper was established, the family had resolved itself into a “Letter-Writing Society,” each member of which was bound by the by-laws to write at least one letter or note per week to some other member. This proved for a while a pleasant and profitable arrangement; but the newspaper enterprise had now nearly superseded it.
Jessie’s conversation with some of her school-mates on scandal, mentioned in the last chapter, led her thoughts to that subject, afterward; and the longer she reflected on it, the more confirmed was she in the belief that she had taken the right ground in the dispute. Still, she did not know how to silence objections, and prove that she was right, and her investigations did not aid her much. She looked into Webster’s large Dictionary, and found that one definition of scandal was “something uttered which is false and injurious to reputation.” This rather bore against her; but the other definitions, “reproachful aspersion,” “opprobrious censure,” and “defamatory speech or report,” seemed to favor her side of the question, as they did not distinctly recognize falsity as an ingredient of scandal. The matter was by no means clear to her mind, however, and as she felt the need of further light, she wrote the following communication for the “Wreath,” and dropped it in the letter-box, in the evening:
“Miss Editor:—Several of the scholars of the academy had a little dispute, to-day, on the question whether a person is guilty of scandal who merely tells the truth about another. I took the ground that to circulate evil reports about a person, even if they were true, was scandal; but the others all disagreed with me. Please inform me, through the columns of the ‘Wreath,’ whether I am right or wrong; and if I am right, have the kindness to tell me how I can prove it.
“Inquirer.”
Several days passed, and it was now the middle of the week. Nothing had been seen of Henry since the Friday evening previous, when the referee case was decided, and Jessie began to feel uneasy about his absence. It was expected that he would come over on Saturday afternoon, and help build the “Temple of Peace.” It was now too late to do this, a warm rain and thaw having carried off most of the snow. On Wednesday afternoon Ronald and Otis were going in search of the truant, that being one of the regular half-holidays of the week in all the schools; but before they were ready to start, Henry made his appearance.
“Well, you’re a pretty fellow!” cried Ronald, as soon as Henry hove in sight. “So you’ve come over to help me build that snow temple, now the snow has all gone.”
“Can’t we scrape up enough in the garden to do it now?—let’s go and see,” replied Henry.
The boys went to the rear of the house, and found some depth of snow yet remaining under the shadow of the buildings and fences. But it was too hard and icy to answer their purpose, even had there been enough of it. Henry seemed to be quite disappointed, and exclaimed, with considerable warmth:—
“It’s too bad! But there, I knew it would be just so. I could have come over Saturday afternoon just as well as not, but Mrs. Allen wouldn’t let me. She never lets me go anywhere, when I want to.”
“Never mind,” said Ronald, “it’s likely we shall have plenty of snow yet, and we’ll build the temple when it does come.”
“I don’t know about that,” replied Henry, shaking his head. “Besides, I wanted to build the temple right away—it spoils all the fun, waiting so long. I wish I had come over here Saturday afternoon, in spite of her.”
“How did you happen to get away this afternoon?” inquired Otis.
“I asked Mr. Allen to let me come, this morning, and he said I might. She tried to keep me at home, as it was; but I got the start of her, this time. Mr. Allen is a real good man—I like him first rate; but I can’t bear his wife—she’s just as cross as she can be to me.”
Henry remained with his friends most of the afternoon, and spoke rather freely of his mistress, in the presence of other members of the family. Jessie was much pained by these remarks, and before her brother returned home, she had a private interview with him, and cautioned him against speaking so disrespectfully of Mrs. Allen. After a few moments’ conference, however, she was more inclined to pity than to censure the boy. The resentful feeling he had manifested in the presence of others, melted into grief, as he opened his heart to his sister, and poured into her ear the story of his sorrows. The poor fellow was still the victim of homesickness, and not without good reasons, it seemed. He had found a father, in Mr. Allen, who treated him with parental kindness and indulgence, but he wanted a mother. He was persuaded that Mrs. Allen had no affection for him. He thought she actually disliked him. She manifested no motherly interest in his welfare—she evidently felt little sympathy for him. She never praised, commended or encouraged him, but spoke to him only to give orders and find fault. She actually seemed to take pleasure in thwarting his plans and wishes, and interfering with his enjoyment.
Such was Henry’s opinion of Mrs. Allen. It may have been unjust to her, but he evidently was persuaded in his heart that the woman disliked him, and he felt unhappy in consequence, and hinted of running away. As an illustration of his trials, he said that whenever he finished up his work, and wanted to go anywhere, Mrs. Allen would set him to braiding husk mats, just to keep him busy, although “she had mats enough to last her fifty years,” he added, rather indignantly. It was mat-braiding that prevented his coming over to build the snow temple at the appointed time, and he could not refer to his severe disappointment, even now, without some petulance.
“Well,” said Jessie, after listening patiently to this outpouring of complaint, “I am very sorry to hear this. I thought you had got a good home, and were happy. But I cannot believe that Mrs. Allen is as bad as you represent. There must be some mistake about this. She appears to be a good, kind-hearted woman, and she speaks of you as though she felt an interest in you. I can’t think that she dislikes you, unless you have given her cause. Are you careful to try to please her?”
“Why, yes, I do everything she tells me to do,” replied Henry.
“That may be,” continued Jessie, “and yet you may not try to please her. Do you remember the anecdote about the little girl who was asked why everybody loved her? ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘unless it’s because I love everybody.’ Now isn’t it possible that you think Mrs. Allen doesn’t love you, because you don’t love her?”
“I know I don’t love her—but it’s because I can’t,” replied Henry.
“Suppose, now,” resumed Jessie, “you go home with the determination of making her love you. Try to please her in everything. Do everything cheerfully, and do it just right. Anticipate her wishes. Don’t let her see any scowls, or impatient looks, or hear any fretting. Try to feel grateful and affectionate towards her, and think as well of her as you can. Come, Henry, will you do this?”
“It’s of no use to try that,” replied Henry. “You wouldn’t talk so, if you knew her as well as I do. I don’t like her, and I can’t.”
“Then do it for Mr. Allen’s sake,” continued Jessie, “if you cannot for hers. He treats you kindly, and you like him, and I suppose you would be glad to show your gratitude to him. But what would he think of you, if he knew how you feel towards his wife, and how you speak of her? For his sake, if for no other reason, you ought to try to get along pleasantly with her. But in any event, I beg of you never to say another word about running away, unless you want to wholly break mother’s heart. Sam ran away from home, and you know the consequences of it. You and I are all that mother has left now, and if we——” but emotion checked her utterance, and she gave way to her tears.
Henry seemed somewhat affected by the advice and entreaties of his sister, and before he left her, he promised to do his best to please Mrs. Allen, for one week, and to refrain, during that period, from saying anything evil of her, and from cherishing any unkind feelings towards her, whatever provocation she might give him. At the end of that time, or as soon after as convenient, he was to report the result to Jessie.
The “sugar season” had now commenced. The rock or sugar maple is a common tree, in Vermont, and every spring the farmers make large quantities of sugar from its sap. The sap, when it begins to ascend, and before the foliage has put forth, is very rich in sugar. The time when this takes place varies from February to May, according to the season. It was now the second week in March, and the sap had begun to run freely. Mrs. Page did not own a “sugar plantation,” as a maple forest is called; but there were several large maple trees on her land, near the house, which Marcus had always been accustomed to tap, in the spring, for his own amusement. The process of sugar-making was familiar to all the family except Oscar, who had resided in Highburg only since the previous autumn, and had never witnessed the operation. As Ronald hinted pretty broadly that he was quite willing to undertake the responsibility of extracting from the aforesaid half dozen trees their yearly rental of molasses and sugar, Marcus, remembering the pleasure he derived from the same occupation when a boy, gave up the business into the hands that coveted it.
Ronald commenced his sugar operations early the next morning. With a small auger he bored several holes in each tree, two or three inches deep, and inclining upwards. These holes were about eighteen or twenty inches from the ground, and on the south side of the tree. Into each hole he drove a spile, which consisted of a piece of sumac, elder, or sassafras, with the pith bored out, and one end sharpened. The sap flowed through these spiles into the tubs or buckets placed to receive it. When Ronald came home from school, in the afternoon, he found he had collected several gallons of the sweet liquid, which he and the other boys removed to the house. A large iron kettle was filled with the sap, and placed over the fire. We are so accustomed to speak of “making” sugar, that it is possible the word sometimes misleads us. We cannot make sugar. The cane, the maple, the beet, and other plants, are our sugar factories, but they give us their saccharine treasures greatly diluted in water. We boil this water away, or evaporate it, and the solid sugar remains—and that is the way we “make” sugar. As fast as the water evaporated in Ronald’s kettle, new sap was added, so that the mass did not thicken much that evening.
The next morning, Ronald again emptied his buckets, which were partly filled. The kettle was kept over the fire, through the day, the sap being turned in as fast as room was made for it by evaporation. In the afternoon, when the liquid had thickened to a syrup, Mrs. Page removed it from the fire, and strained it through woollen, and then suffered it to cool and settle. In the evening, the boiling was resumed, under Ronald’s direction, the white of an egg and a little milk being thrown into the kettle, to clarify the compound. The scum was carefully removed as it rose to the surface, and then the syrup was boiled with a gentle fire until it began to grain. All hands were now called into the kitchen, and the poetry of sugar-making commenced in earnest. Some of the children had provided themselves with pieces of ice hollowed out upon the upper surface, like saucers, into which a ladle full of the delicious liquid was dropped, when it immediately assumed the consistency of wax. Others dipped snow-balls into the “liquid sweetness,” or dropped the syrup into cold water, in which it assumed the waxy form; while the older ones were content to eat their “maple honey” out of plain saucers. The syrup was by this time hard enough to be taken off the fire. And now it had to be stirred vigorously until it was cool enough to cake, when it was dipped into little round fluted moulds. The grain now quickly hardened, the molasses drained off, and the boys had a good supply of prime maple sugar the next morning.
The next morning was Saturday, and as the day was fine, and the maple sugar fever was now fully developed, when Oscar proposed a visit in the afternoon to a “sugar camp” about a mile distant, there was a general response in favor of the suggestion, among the young folks, and Marcus promised to go with them. When the party were about starting, after dinner, it was found that Jessie was not among them. Her brother Henry, too, whom Ronald had seen, on his way home from school, and invited, did not make his appearance—a circumstance ominously suggestive of “husk mats” to Jessie’s mind. Perhaps it was partly this fact, and not entirely her sense of duty to the family, that led her to insist on remaining at home and doing her part of the Saturday afternoon’s work, although Marcus and Mrs. Page both urged her to join the party. She had her reward, however, in an approving conscience, whichever may have been the motive of the act of self-denial.
The “sugar camp” which the young people visited that afternoon, belonged to one of their neighbors, who had about a hundred and fifty maple trees. They found the man and one of his sons engaged in collecting and boiling down the sap. The kettles were suspended by chains and hooks attached to a stout pole, which was supported by two crotched posts. There was a lively fire under the kettles, which was often replenished by wood that had been seasoned and split. During the boiling process, it is necessary to have some one on the ground night and day, and so they eat and sleep in the camp, and there is no rest until the work is done. A rude shed was erected, opposite the fire, for their protection. The side towards the fire was open, for the sake of the warmth, and for convenience in watching the boiling. The floor was thickly carpeted with straw, and here the men sometimes took a nap when weary. One of the men in the engraving is represented as bringing sap, and the other is blowing the candy or wax, to ascertain how far the boiling has advanced.
Marcus and his companions passed an hour or two very pleasantly in the camp, chatting with the men, watching their operations, and occasionally taking a sip of the delicious syrup. Meanwhile Jessie, by virtue of their absence, got the first reading of the “Home Wreath,” which made its appearance in the afternoon. Under the editorial head, she found the inquiry she had sent to the editress, appended to which was the following reply:
“Our correspondent is right. To circulate evil reports about another, without a good object in view, is wrong, even if the reports be true. Those who do this from a habit of tattling, or to gratify an idle curiosity, or from envy or malice, or from no cause whatever, are guilty of scandal. We have no right to publish the evil deeds of others, unless there is a prospect that we can accomplish good by doing so. There are several ways in which our correspondent can prove this to the satisfaction of her young friends, if they possess ordinary candor.
“1st. She can prove it from the Bible, by such passages as these: ‘Thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer among thy people.’[[3]] ‘Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause.’[[4]] ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’[[5]] ‘Speak evil of no man.’[[6]] There are many other passages, enjoining the same duty.
[3]. Lev. 19:16.
[4]. Prov. 24:28.
[5]. Matt. 7:1.
[6]. Tit. 3:2.
“2d. She can prove it from writers on moral science, who generally teach that it is wrong to utter injurious truth concerning others, except in certain specified cases, where the ends of justice require it”.
“3d. She can prove it by an argument drawn from analogy, thus:—Every person possesses a reputation, which is the estimation in which he is held by the community. This is a priceless possession, and the greatest harm we can do to another, next to corrupting his moral character, is to injure his reputation. This is what scandal does, and it is this that makes it wrong. When we expose another’s faults, without adequate cause, we virtually declare that he has more estimation than he deserves, and we proceed to strip him of a portion of it. If this is right, then when we find a dishonest man, who has more property than really belongs to him, it would be right for us to rob him of a part of it. Nobody would justify the latter case, and the other must be settled on the same principles.”
“The exceptions to this rule are few and simple. When the ends of justice, the protection of the innocent, or the good of the offender, demand the exposure of a transgressor, we are bound to tell what we know of his guilt, to those whose duty it is to call him to account, or who may be exposed to danger from him.
“We are glad our friend has called our attention to this subject. Evil-speaking is a sadly prevalent sin, in our community. Some wise man once said, that ‘if all persons knew what they said of each other, there would not be four friends in the world.’ We are afraid there are many people in our town who would think themselves suddenly deserted by every friend they ever had, if all the scandal and gossip in circulation should be borne to their ears. Let us set our faces against this mean and debasing sin.”
Miss Lee, while alluding to the facility with which scandal was circulated in that community, might have pointed to a striking exception, had it been proper. There was in that town a youth who had run a wild and reckless course, bringing sorrow and shame to his parents, and retribution to himself. He had twice been put into prison on a charge of crime, and had finally been tried and sentenced for larceny. There were three persons in the town who knew these facts in his history, and only three. So inviolably had they kept the secret, that no one else, not even the members of their own family, suspected that the young man had ever departed from the path of rectitude. That youth was Oscar Preston; and the three friends who had so jealously guarded his reputation in Highburg from injuries which seemed almost inevitable, were Mrs. Page, Miss Lee, and Marcus. They were induced to receive him into their home, because he expressed a sincere desire to reform; and to encourage him in his good purposes, they had carefully refrained from all allusion to his past errors. Oscar at one time feared that the secret had been divulged, by one of his old city comrades who passed through the town with a circus company; but so far as he could ascertain, his apprehensions were unfounded. He had now lived about six months in Highburg, and had proved himself worthy of the kindness which had been shown to him by his aunts and cousin.[[7]]
[7]. The early career of Oscar is related at length in the first two volumes of this series, “Oscar,” and “Clinton.”
CHAPTER VII.
HOW TO BE HAPPY.
When Henry Hapley left his sister, after making the promise mentioned in the last chapter, he came to the conclusion, upon a few moments’ reflection, that he had been coaxed into doing a foolish thing. The idea of loving Mrs. Allen seemed absurd; and as to pleasing her, he did not believe he could do it, if he should try as hard as possible. However, as he had made the promise, he finally concluded that he must try to keep it, at least for the week to which it was limited.
Jessie, in her conversation with her brother, had come very near to the true origin of Henry’s troubles, though she knew but little of the facts in the case. The truth was, he did not try to please his mistress, and it was mainly owing to this that he had become so unhappy. Mrs. Allen, like most other people, had her peculiarities. One of the most prominent of these was her extreme neatness. She carried this excellent virtue to excess. A grain of sand in the eye could hardly be more painful to her than was a grain of dirt on her floors. Everything about the premises that would bear contact with soap and water, had to undergo its regular ablution, even to the outside of the house. Her husband, sometimes, while witnessing the terrible scrubbings which were of almost daily occurrence, used pleasantly to remind her, by way of warning, of the good Dutch woman who scoured her floor until she tumbled through into the cellar. But her motto was, that “nothing is clean that can be made cleaner;” and so she patiently scrubbed on, in spite of the warning, wherever there was dirt, or even a “might, could, would or should have been,” upon which to hang a suspicion.
Now there can be no doubt that a boy thirteen years old is capable of bringing a vast deal of dirt into a house. So Mrs. Allen discovered, to her dismay, before Henry had been an inmate of her dwelling twelve hours. Not that he was unusually dirty or careless in his habits, for he was as neat as boys will average; but he had never been trained to that rigid observance of the laws of cleanliness which was the rule in Mrs. Allen’s family. He could scarcely stir an inch in the house, no matter how silently or secretly, but Mrs. Allen, with her keen sight, could track his every step. There would always be snow, ice, water or mud from his boots, hay-seed from his clothing, crumbs and litter from his pockets, or something else, to tell that he had been there, and call for the broom.
Mrs. Allen began at once to combat this alarming evil—at first kindly and hopefully, then despondingly, and then chidingly. Henry thought she made unnecessary trouble about a small matter, and soon began to feel provoked by the measures she deemed necessary to insure greater neatness on his part. Frequently hearing Mr. Allen good-naturedly rally his wife for being so over-nice, Henry soon came to think he had a right to set himself in opposition to this peculiarity of her character. So, after a few weeks, he grew more careless than at first, in regard to making dirt; and, when irritated by the scoldings that were sure to follow, he sometimes even took a sort of malicious satisfaction in the mischief he had done.
Mrs. Allen was really a kind-hearted woman, though everybody did not find it out at first sight. She readily assented to Mr. Allen’s proposal to give Henry a home, and she felt much sympathy for the boy on account of the misfortunes that had overtaken his family. But now her feelings towards him began to change. Henry little imagined that he was closing the door to her heart, and locking himself out; but this he was doing. Mrs. Allen could not help noticing that he took little or no pains to please her, and she soon came to feel that it was of little consequence whether she consulted his wishes and happiness, in her arrangements. So the unhappy antagonism between them grew from day to day.
When Henry reached his home, after his interview with Jessie, he found Mrs. Allen in a rather unamiable mood. She said nothing, but her looks indicated anything but peace within. She was getting supper. Henry usually “set the table,” and assisted in other ways in getting the meals, and clearing away after them; but the table was already spread, and seeing no chance to render assistance, he inquired, after sitting a few moments:—
“Is there anything I can do?”
“You can eat your supper, I suppose,” replied Mrs. Allen; “you’re always sure to be on hand for that. The work is of no consequence—I can do it all—yours and my own too. You haven’t brought a stick of wood into the house to-day—I’ve had to go out twice after some, this afternoon.”
“Oh, there! I forgot all about the wood—that’s too bad,” exclaimed Henry, with a feeling of real regret at his own heedlessness; and he started to get an armful of wood, but was called back by Mrs. Allen, who told him it was not wanted now.
“You went off, as usual,” continued Mrs. Allen, “leaving your coat on a chair, and your old muddy boots right in the passage-way, for everybody to tumble over. I think it is very strange that you should have to change your clothes every time you go out to play. Who do you think can afford to clothe you, if you put on your best clothes whenever you get a chance?”
“I haven’t been playing, this afternoon—I went over to see my sister,” replied Henry.
“There was no need of changing your clothes, to go there,” continued Mrs. Allen.
“Well, I wont do so again, if you don’t want me to,” replied Henry.
This answer, though made in a respectful tone, surprised Mrs. Allen so much, that she looked at the boy a moment, as if in doubt whether he could be in earnest.
“I don’t see how I could have forgotten about the wood,” continued Henry. “I thought of it as I was coming home from school; and I started out to get it, almost the first thing after I got home; but just then I heard the cows making a racket in the barn, and I went to see what the matter was, and I never thought of the wood again. After this I mean to keep enough in the back-room all the time to last two or three days; then if I should happen to forget it, once in a while, you wont get out.”
Henry had usually received the reprimands of Mrs. Allen in sullen silence, and no wonder she was surprised at the spirit manifested in this reply. But her husband came in, tea time had arrived, and the subject was dropped.
Henry was at this time attending school, as Mr. Allen had little for him to do. He was to have from four to six months’ schooling a year, and to devote the rest of his time to work. This was the agreement made with Mrs. Hapley. Of course, while attending school, Henry could have but few play hours, unless he encroached upon time that should have been devoted to work, which he was sometimes tempted to do. The next day, however, after the conversation just reported, he was careful to do his work up thoroughly, although it left him no time for sport. He had the kitchen fire started in the morning before any one else was up—a feat almost without a precedent. Instead of cutting a scanty mess of hay for the day, as usual, he cut enough to last two days. The wood-box in the house was heaped full in the morning, and again replenished at night. And so with all his other work. The yard and roads were very muddy, but Mrs. Allen searched in vain for his tracks on her clean floors, and as she did so, “wondered what was going to happen.”
Thus matters went on for several days. No one appeared to notice that Henry was not doing just as he had done for several weeks. He got no commendation or encouragement, either by words or looks. He was a little disappointed that his efforts to please were not noticed; but then it was some satisfaction that no fault had been found with him, since he began to reform. Even when, while wiping the supper dishes one evening, he had the ill luck to drop a saucer, which flew into fragments, Mrs. Allen did not scold him, but simply remarked that it was fortunate it was an odd one. He also found a good deal of satisfaction in the consciousness that he was trying to do right. He felt on better terms with himself and every one else, than he did a few days before, His moping, homesick feelings were fast disappearing.
When Henry came home from school on Saturday, he mentioned to Mrs. Allen that he had been invited to go over to the sugar camp with his sister and others. As he had been away one afternoon, that week, he did not like to ask for another half day; but he hoped permission would be given him to go, without his request, and he finished up his work as quickly as possible, that he might be ready to start the moment the word was spoken. But when these things were attended to, Mrs. Allen had other jobs for him to do, which he cheerfully performed; and when these were finished, knowing it was too late to join the excursion party, he actually went to braiding husks of his own accord, and so filled up the remainder of the afternoon.
“Why, Henry!” exclaimed Mrs. Allen, as she went into the barn towards sunset, and found the boy at work, “I thought you had gone off to play. You needn’t have done this, to-day.”
“I thought I would be getting the husks out of the way, they have been lying around so long,” replied Henry.
“Well, I think you have got enough braided—you can use the rest for litter,” said Mrs. Allen.
Henry was delighted to hear this, for he was heartily sick of braiding husks. The bin was quickly emptied of its contents, and before the barn was shut up for the night, the two horses were standing knee deep in clean, sweet corn husks.
Henry faithfully kept his promise to Jessie, through the week agreed upon, which ended the next Wednesday afternoon. He expected to have an opportunity to see Jessie, at least for a few moments, that afternoon, and to tell her of his success; but after dinner, Mr. Allen and his wife went away, to be gone until night, leaving the house and their little boy in charge of Henry. So his plans were again frustrated. He did not manifest any ill-humor, however, although for a moment he was inclined to. Willie, Mr. Allen’s only child, was about six years old. He had the hooping-cough, at this time; and as the day was very windy and blustering, his mother wished him to stay in the house during her absence. Instead of fretting at his disappointment, and brooding over his irksome confinement, Henry sat down with Willie, and began to amuse him with stories about the wind. He told him of a whirlwind or tornado he had once heard about, which unroofed several buildings, completely demolished others, and then cut a clean path for itself through a forest, for nearly a mile, prostrating every tree in its course, and tearing up the ground as though an immense plough had run through it.
“Now,” continued Henry, “I’ll tell you something that happened a year or two ago, not a great way from here. There was a stage-coach crossing the mountains, one blustering afternoon, with a number of passengers. They got along pretty well, until they came to a place where the wind blew tremendously. They call it the bellows-pipe of the mountains, the wind rushes through the place so strong.”
“Does it blow there all the time?” inquired Willie.
“No, I suppose not,” replied Henry; “but it blew like everything, that day. The trunks and bundles on the top of the stage blew off, first. When the driver stopped to go after them, the passengers were so frightened that they got out; and then the body of the coach was so light, that the wind lifted it right off from the wheels.”
“What became of the horses?” inquired Willie.
“Oh, they were too heavy to blow away,” replied Henry; “but they must have been pretty well frightened. I suppose some of the men held them. But there was a lady among the passengers that actually blew away into the fields. Some men had to go after her, and help her back, for she couldn’t stand before the wind. The men lost their hats, and you can’t imagine what a time they had of it. They were afraid to travel any further, while the wind blowed so hard. So they went to a tavern that was near, and stayed all night; and the next day they finished their journey.”
“Is that all?” inquired Willie; “I thought you were going to say the house blew down.”
“No, not quite so bad as that,” added Henry. “The man that built the house, knew the winds blew very hard in that place, and I suppose he made his house just as strong as he could, so that it might stand the hardest blows. But I shouldn’t wonder if the house rocked a little that night, after all.”
“Our house is strong, isn’t it? It would take a pretty hard wind to start it, don’t you think so?” inquired Willie.
“Yes, this house is firm enough,” replied Henry; “we don’t feel the wind here at all, to speak of. Now you keep still a few minutes, Willie, and I’ll see if I can’t write you a little song about the wind.”
“Oh, do! do! that’s just what I should like,” exclaimed Willie.
Henry occasionally amused himself by writing rhymes, for which exercise he had quite a knack. So he took his slate, and was soon deeply engaged in his “song,” while Willie amused himself with some little experiments on the power of wind—setting a piece of wood up on end, and then trying to blow it over. In a little while, Henry finished his lines, and read them aloud. They were as follows:
“TO THE WIND.
“Blow, wind, blow!
Over the ice and over the snow,
Blow—blow—blow!
Rattle the windows and shake the doors,
Whistle down chimney, and creep up through the floors;
Send the old cod-fish[[8]] whizzing around,
And thrash the trees till they bend to the ground;
Blow up, and blow down—blow in and blow out—
Blow sideways, and crosswise, and blow all about;
But you can’t start our house—it’s as firm as a rock;
Willie and I only laugh at the shock.
So blow, wind, blow!
Over the ice and over the snow,
Blow—blow—blow!
And when you are done, then go—go—go!
And don’t you come back, oh, no—no—no!”
[8]. The vane on the barn.
Willie was delighted with this little song, and made Henry repeat it over and over again, which he did in a half singing, half reciting tone. After hearing it several times, Willie was able to repeat it himself, and I can assure you he clapped his hands with glee the first time he reached the “no—no—no!” without tripping over a single word.
Willie now teased Henry to draw some pictures on the other side of the slate—for notwithstanding he had transferred the wind song to his memory, he would not yet risk rubbing it out from the slate. So Henry made several pictures, such as a horse, a cow, a woman, a barn, etc. I would show you a specimen or two of them, if I were not afraid you would laugh at them. But you should remember that it is not for any one person to know or do everything. Because a girl sews beautifully, you ought not to expect that she will sing like a nightingale; and if a boy writes clever rhymes, that is no reason why he ought to draw fine pictures. But Henry’s rude drawings answered their end. They pleased Willie, and that was all they were designed to do.
But Henry drew one picture on his slate that I think you will like to look at. It was a picture of a top, drawn in writing, or rather a little poem arranged in the form of a top, which he had learned to make some time before. Here it is:
THE
TOP,
THE
TOP,
YOU
SEE
HIM
HOP,
SOON AS YOU LET HIM DROP,
AND BY THE WHIP HE’S MADE TO SKIP;
HOW STILL HE KEEPS WHEN FAST HE SLEEPS;
BUT NOW HE NODS, HE SOON WILL FALL,
FOR WHIP ONCE MORE HE SEEMS TO
CALL; PUT ON THE LASH WHILE
YET HE SPINS; WHO FASTEST
GOES THE SOONEST WINS.
HIM HERE YOU SEE,
DRAWN OUT BY ME,
AND ENDED
WITH A
POINT-
ED
V
“Now tell me another story,” said Willie, after he had looked at the pictures as long as he wished.
“I can’t think of any more stories, now,” replied Henry.
“Yes, do please to think of one more,” persisted Willie.
“Well, I’ll tell you a story I learned a long time ago,” said Henry. “It is this. But you don’t like long stories, do you?” he added, as if a sudden thought had struck him.
“Yes, I do—I like long ones the best,” was the reply.
“Well, then,” resumed Henry, “if I tell you this story, you must try to keep awake till I get through, and you must give close attention, too, so as not to lose any of it.”
“I will—I don’t feel sleepy a bit,” eagerly replied Willie.
“Then I’ll tell you the story,” said Henry. “It is this:
“There was a man,
And he had a calf;
And that’s half.
He took it out of the stall,
And put it on a wall;
And that’s all.”
“Pooh! that isn’t any story at all,” cried Willie, with evident disappointment, after a pause. “Come, tell me a real story—you said you would.”
“Yes, that’s a story, and a pretty good one, too, I think,” said Henry. “Come, say it after me, and see if you don’t think so.”
Willie repeated the lines after him, until he had learned them. Though at first vexed with the story, he now seemed rather pleased with it.
Willie sat silently at a window for several minutes, watching the vain attempts of a venerable and solemn cock turkey to maintain his dignity in a wind blowing at the rate of twenty or thirty miles an hour; and then he suddenly exclaimed:—
“Henry, I don’t think we shall have to send you to Marcus, after all.”
“Why not?” inquired Henry, laughing.
“Because you are good enough without going to him,” replied Willie.
“Well, that’s a bran-new idea,” added Henry. “I should like to know how long that’s been—ever since dinner-time?”
“No, a good while longer than that—I can’t tell how long,” replied Willie.
Willie had often heard his parents speak of Marcus, and knew something of his success as a “boy-tamer.” It was a habit with him, whenever he saw a boy who did not come up to the mark of duty, to say he “ought to be sent to Marcus.” One day, while his mother was reproving Henry for some fault, Willie followed up the admonition with the remark, uttered with all soberness:—
“We shall have to send you to Marcus, if you don’t behave better.”
Now although Willie did not mean any harm, Henry thought it was impudent for such a little boy to speak to him in that way; and when Mrs. Allen, instead of reproving her boy, seemed to repress a smile with difficulty, Henry felt angry with both of them. But the matter soon blew over, and Henry never thought of it again until this unexpected taking back of the offensive remark. While he was musing over this gratifying proof that his good resolution had not been wholly in vain, Jessie suddenly made her appearance, to his great joy. She said she could stop only a few minutes, but had run over because she was anxious to hear from him. Through the week she had felt many misgivings about Henry; but now she heard from his lips that he had kept his promise, and saw by his altered appearance the beneficial effect it had exerted upon him; and Willie artlessly confirmed it all by telling what a first-rate time they had had all the afternoon, and repeating the little song Henry had written for him. It was a happy moment to Jessie; and when Henry promised her in the entry, as she was about leaving, that he would keep on in that same way until she saw him again, she went home with a lighter heart than she had before known for several weeks.
When Mrs. Allen got home, she found the tea-kettle boiling, the table ready for supper, and the house in as good order as when she left it—three things which she hardly dared to expect. She was still further surprised, when Willie, at the first opportunity, commenced telling a very long story about what had been going on at home through the afternoon. “Well,” she thought to herself, “Henry can be a good boy, when he pleases to be.”
CHAPTER VIII.
SABBATH LESSONS.
Jessie had a small, old-fashioned miniature in her trunk, at which she often gazed intently and sadly, in her hours of retirement. It was a likeness of a young man of pleasing features and apparent intelligence—one who was evidently on good terms with himself and the world, and who had known little of the rough experiences of life. There were very sad associations connected with this picture, in Jessie’s mind. She never could look at it without recalling the lines of the poet—
“Of all sad words of tongue or of pen,
The saddest are these—it might have been.”
That young man was the only son of the most prosperous farmer in all that region. Foolishly petted by his parents, he was not required to perform any hard work, because he did not like to do it. For the same reason, he left school and gave up all thoughts of educating himself, before he was fourteen years old. After an idle, unprofitable and not perfectly blameless youth, he thought it would be a fine thing to become a merchant, and so his father set him up in business in a large town twenty or thirty miles distant. It was at this period that the miniature was painted, for a young lady who shortly after became his wife. For a while he flourished; but owing to his loose habits, and his want of business training, he soon became a bankrupt, his father being the principal sufferer. Within a year after this, he followed both of his parents to the grave. The fine farm thus came into his possession, but it was heavily mortgaged for debt, owing to his own failure, and to the fact that his father, during the latter part of his life, had used intoxicating liquors to excess, to the injury of his business and property. The son followed but too swiftly in the steps of the father, emulating, not his many years of honest and prosperous toil, but only the sad errors by which he embittered his last days. He became a fast-bound victim of strong drink. He saw his patrimony slowly melting away, and his family coming to want. The pinching hand of poverty at length came upon them, and he felt ashamed to look his neighbors in the face, so bitter were his self-reproaches. He made one or two feeble attempts to reform, and then died as the fool dieth. He was overtaken by a dreadful snow-storm while intoxicated, and the next day was found stiff in death, with a jug of rum by his side.
Such was the sad history of Jessie’s father, whose tragic death occurred only about two months previous to the time of which I am now writing. No wonder the tears filled her eyes, as she gazed on the handsome face of the miniature, and thought how different might have been the life and destiny of the one who sat for it. She saw in that capacious brow, in that mild and thoughtful eye, and in those fine features, indications of capacities and feelings, that had never been developed. Oh, how mournful was it to contrast these things with the coarse, bloated and besotted features which relentless memory always called up at the mention of father!
Such thoughts as these were passing through Jessie’s mind, one Sabbath morning, as she sat in her room, awaiting the signal to start for church. The weather was dull and drizzly, and her feelings were so much in sympathy with it, that she could scarcely keep the tears from her eyes. She thought of her father, whose miniature she held before her; of her mother, whose health was quite poor, as a letter received a few days before had informed her; of her brother Sam, in his gloomy prison cell, who had not taken the slightest notice of the affectionate letters she had sent him; of Henry, with his peculiar trials and dangers; and of Benny, too, on whose little grave the snows were for the first time melting. Everything seemed to present its dark side to her, and she felt as though she could spend the day in weeping.
It was a rule in Mrs. Page’s house that every one should attend church regularly on the Sabbath, unless prevented by sickness or other sufficient cause. Perhaps I should say it had been a rule, for it had now become a custom—a habit—a matter of mutual agreement, rather than of law. Oscar chafed a little against the regulation, when he first came into the family; but finding that it would not be bent to suit him, he submitted to it, and now had no desire to absent himself from the house of public worship. The distance from Mrs. Page’s to the church was about a mile, and the family generally walked, unless the weather was bad. On the morning to which reference has been made, the female portion rode to church, and Marcus and the boys walked.
The sermon which the good pastor, Mr. Merrill, preached that morning, seemed intended expressly for Jessie. It was exactly adapted to the frame of mind in which she went up to the house of God. The course of thought was so plain and simple, that I think I can tell you about it so that even the youngest reader can understand it, and feel some interest in it. This was the text, and a sweet one it is:—“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.” You will find it in the twenty-second verse of the fifty-fifth Psalm. The pastor said that everybody who comes into the world, brings a burden with him. The young and the old, the rich and the poor, the high and the low, the wise and the ignorant, the virtuous and the wicked, all have their burdens. These burdens have various names, such as temptations, trials, disappointments, regrets, sorrows, sins, etc.; but there is one general name under which they may all be included, and that is, unhappiness.
The next thing the preacher noticed, was, that we are all running about trying to get rid of our burdens. We don’t want to be unhappy. Some try to laugh away their sorrows. They may succeed with a few of the lighter ones, but there are others too far down in the heart to be reached by laughter. Others mope, and cry, and fret over their troubles, and so make them worse. Others travel to new scenes, or plunge into new cares, or yield themselves up to their passions and desires, to get rid of the burden, but in vain. It only grows heavier, instead of lighter. And then the pastor repeated a German fable about a man who had a frightful goblin in his house, which haunted him day and night. After trying every way he could think of to get rid of the goblin, and all in vain, he shut up his house, and set it on fire, so that the tormentor might roast within, and flung himself into the saddle, and galloped away, homeless and pennyless, but merry in the thought that he was at last rid of the demon that made his life miserable. So after galloping a while, he turned round to see if his house burned merrily, and what was it he saw? The house burned, indeed, but the goblin, there he sat, cowered behind the rider, on his saddle’s cantle! “And do you know,” inquired the pastor, “what is the goblin’s name? His name is Sorrow.”
But, continued the preacher, there is a way, and only one way, to get rid of this pressing burden, this terrible goblin in our hearts. It is pointed out in the text. Bring all your cares and sorrows and cast them upon the Lord, and he will sustain you. He does not promise to remove them at once; but if he does not take them away now, he will give you strength to bear them, so that they will seem light. We must not expect to escape all pain, disappointment and trial in this world. It would not be good for us, if we should. But we can be happy, in spite of these, if we cast our burden upon the Lord, for He careth for us. The only truly happy people are those who have done this. The Christian can sing, in his darkest hour:
“I’ll drop my burden at His feet,
And bear a song away.”
The concluding portion of the sermon was devoted to an explanation of the way in which we can cast our burdens on the Lord. The preacher said we must do just what the little child does, when any trouble befalls it, and it runs crying to its mother. It believes its mother can and will relieve it. That is faith. It pours out its little complaints and desires. That is prayer. It is ready, if it goes in a proper spirit, to follow its mother’s directions. That is submission. So, if we would cast our burdens upon the Lord, we must believe in His promises, and ask Him to sustain us, and submit ourselves to His will.
After the morning service, Jessie attended the Sabbath school, as was her custom. She was a member of a Bible class of young ladies, and took much interest in its weekly lessons. The subject of the lesson, on this Sabbath, was prayer. The point of inquiry was simply why we ought to pray, the manner in which the duty should be performed being reserved for another lesson. Each member of the class had been requested to note down on a slip of paper such reasons as she could think of for offering prayer to God, and most of them had done so. The teacher called upon one of the younger pupils first, to give a reason for believing prayer is a duty.
“Because God commands it, in the Bible,” replied the girl, and she quoted several texts, in proof of the assertion.
“Yes,” replied the teacher, “God requires it, and I am glad you have given this as the first reason, for it is sufficient to make the duty imperative, if there were no other. Can any of you think of any other texts which inculcate the duty of prayer?”
A number of additional passages from the Bible were repeated, and then another pupil was asked to give a second reason why prayer is a duty.
“Because we are dependent upon God for everything, and it seems proper that we should ask Him to supply our wants, just as a child asks his father for what he wants,” was the reply.
“Very good,” replied the teacher. “Nothing is more natural than that we should pray to God. We cannot take a step, or draw a breath, and our hearts cannot beat for an instant, without Him; and how strange it is that any of us should ever rise up in the morning or lie down at night, without asking Him to preserve us! What should we think of a little child who had a very kind father, and yet never took any notice of him,—never showed any gratitude for his goodness, never asking him for any favor, and never even spoke to him? And yet this is the way in which many people treat their heavenly Father.”
The teacher then called upon another scholar for a reason in favor of prayer, who gave the following:
“We ought to pray, because we are sinners, and need forgiveness.”
“Yes,” resumed the teacher, “that is another good argument for prayer. We are not only dependent upon our heavenly Father for everything we need, but we have rebelled against Him, and we feel that we deserve to be punished. Now if we have not enough gratitude to make us thank Him for the thousands of blessings He bestows, one would suppose that we should fear Him enough to ask Him to forgive our sins, and save us from their consequences. I once asked a boy about a dozen years old, if he ever prayed. He hesitated a moment, as if afraid even to talk about such a thing, and then replied, ‘No, but I used to when I was a little boy.’ ‘Why don’t you pray now?’ I asked. ‘Oh, I left off a good while ago,’ he said. ‘Why did you leave off?’ I inquired. His lips quivered a moment, and then he replied, ‘Because I thought I was too old.’ ‘Too old to pray!’ I exclaimed; ‘why, that is the strangest thing I ever heard of. I thought the older people were, the more they needed to pray. They certainly have more favors to be thankful for, and more sins to be forgiven, as they advance in years; and if that is the case, don’t you think they need to pray more than they did when they were young? When did you stop praying?’ I inquired. He said he could not remember exactly, but he thought it was about two years previous to that time. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘have you received any blessings from God, during these two years?’ He said he had, a great many. ‘And have you committed any sins during that period?’ I continued. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I suppose I sin every day.’ I asked him if he didn’t think he was exposed to more temptations, at that time, than he was two years before. I suppose he had never thought much about that, for he did not give me any decided answer. I told him I thought it was usually the case with the young, that their temptations to do wrong increased very rapidly every year, until they reached maturity; and then I put to him the question, whether, with all these increased blessings, and sins, and temptations, he was not under much greater obligations to pray, at that time, than he was two years before. And what kind of an answer do you suppose he gave me? Why, he said all the boys would laugh at him, if they knew he prayed! I felt almost disheartened, when he said that. Only think of a boy twelve years old giving such a ridiculous excuse as that for treating his Maker with utter neglect! But I did not let him hide himself long behind such a miserable refuge. ‘What,’ said I, ‘is it possible you are ashamed to say any thing to your best Friend, for fear a few thoughtless boys will laugh at you? And is it possible you can make such a confession without hiding your face in shame? Why, it seems to me, if you ever did a thing in this world that you ought to be heartily ashamed of, it was giving up prayer to God. I don’t think any body can do a much meaner thing than that, and instead of being ashamed of praying, I wonder that everybody is not ashamed to live without prayer.’ Then I said it was no matter if the whole world laughed at us—that should not deter us from what we know to be our duty. But I told him I knew ‘all the boys’ would not laugh at him for praying, and that even the few foolish ones who did laugh, would secretly respect him in their hearts for doing his duty. Now, Jessie, can you give us a fourth reason why we ought to pray?”
“We know we ought to pray,” said Jessie, “because our feelings and conscience tell us so. There is a voice within, a sort of instinct, that urges us to pray. This is proved by the fact that even the most degraded heathen offer up prayers to their idols. It is said there never was a nation or religion that did not have some form of prayer. Of course, if prayer is so universal, it must be a dictate of nature.”
“Very good,” said the teacher; “and this is not only true of nations, but of individuals. I doubt whether any person ever lived to mature age, who never offered a prayer at some period of his life, in some way or other. Let some terrible calamity suddenly threaten even the most abandoned man, and how quickly does he begin to pray! Even infidels cannot repress this natural instinct of prayer. It is said that Thomas Paine, when in danger of shipwreck, called loudly on God for mercy; and Lord Herbert, the celebrated deist,[[9]] after he had written a book against Christianity, actually prayed to God to tell him whether he should publish it. I have even read an argument written by an avowed infidel, trying to prove that it was right and consistent for an atheist to pray to God. He maintained that if there were only one chance in a thousand that there is a Deity who hears prayer, and will reward or punish us for our conduct, it was a matter of policy to call upon Him, rather than run the risk of offending Him.”
[9]. A Deist is one who rejects the Bible, but believes in a Supreme Being. By an Atheist, is commonly understood one who professes to believe there is no God; but there are very few if any real atheists. We read that “the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God;” but he does not, he cannot believe it. The term Infidel is applied to both atheists and deists.
“Prayer brings down blessings,” was given by another pupil as a fifth reason why we ought to pray; and in proof, she cited several examples from the Old and New Testaments.
“How do you account for it, then, that some people who never pray receive so many blessings?” inquired the teacher.
“It is because God is so good, that he often bestows blessings when they are not asked for,” was the reply.
“You are right,” said the teacher. “The Lord is good to all; He is kind unto the unthankful and the evil; but He often bestows special favors in answer to prayer. His choicest blessings are spiritual ones, and these He usually gives only in answer to prayer. They are offered to us conditionally. We must ask for them if we want them.”
Another reason was now called for, but the class seemed to have exhausted the theme, and no one responded. The teacher then continued:
“Supposing it were possible to overthrow all the arguments that have been mentioned, there is one more that would still have great weight with me. It is this—prayer exerts a good influence on our hearts. It improves our temper, and disposition. It makes us better children, better parents, better men and women. It seems as if God rewarded us for the very act of coming to Him in prayer, even when He does not think it best to grant our petition. It appears to me that if this were the only benefit we derived from prayer, we should be very unwise to give it up.
“Can any of you think of another argument in favor of this duty?” inquired the teacher. No one replying, she continued: “The fact that the best people that have ever lived have always been praying people, is, I think, a strong argument in favor of prayer. The Bible is full of examples of this kind, and so is all history. The purest men that the world has ever known, and those that have done the most for mankind, have been men who communed with God. I should like to have the members of the class name some examples, if they can think of any.”
Moses, Samuel, David, Daniel, Paul, and several other Bible saints, were mentioned by different scholars.
“Can you think of any striking examples besides those that are recorded in the Bible?” inquired the teacher.
“Washington,” suggested one of the girls.
“Yes,” resumed the teacher, “Washington is an illustration of this truth, from our own history. It is well known that he was a man of prayer. And so was Alfred the Great, the wisest and best ruler England ever had. We are told that he devoted one third of his time to study and devotion. The same rule holds good even among the heathen. Socrates was one of the purest of the Greek philosophers, and though he knew nothing of the Scriptures, he rebuked those who did not look to God in prayer for guidance and assistance. Now if such men as these, and thousands of others of the wisest and best that ever lived, thought it a duty and a privilege to pray, it seems to me their example ought to have some influence on us.”
The teacher then reviewed the arguments for prayer that had been brought forward, requesting each scholar to note them down in the following form and order:
“WHY WE OUGHT TO PRAY.”
“1. Because God commands it.
“2. Because we are dependent upon Him.
“3. Because we are sinners against Him.
“4. Because instinct prompts us to pray.
“5. Because God answers prayer.
“6. Because prayer benefits the heart.
“7. Because the wisest and best men pray.”
The lesson was one of much interest to Jessie. She had learned something of the value of prayer during the past few months. She had often secretly poured her troubles into the gracious ear that is ever ready to hear, and had found comfort in doing so. Her heart warmly responded to all the motives to pray that had been mentioned, and but for her diffidence in alluding to her own religious feelings, she would have suggested an eighth motive, viz., “Because it is delightful to pray.”
Before retiring at night, Jessie copied into her journal the foregoing list of motives for prayer, adding the eighth. She then knelt down, as was her daily habit, and offered to her Maker the homage of a grateful heart.
CHAPTER IX.
RAINY-DAY DIVERSIONS.
The dull Sabbath morning mentioned in the last chapter, proved the beginning of one of those long and dreary storms, not unusual in the spring of the year. The sun did not show himself for half an hour during the whole week, but snow, sleet, rain, drizzle, high winds, and leaden skies, had everything their own way. The old people said it was the “equinoctial,” or “line” storm; and their opinion was not in the least disturbed, if Marcus suggested that many scientific men believed the notion of such a storm to be a popular delusion. It certainly was not a very auspicious time to express any doubts on this point—in the midst of a seven days’ storm, happening in the very week of the equinox; so Marcus, without seriously doubting that the men of science were right, concluded it were wiser to postpone any argument on the subject until a dryer season.
The younger members of Mrs. Page’s family found little chance for out-door sports, during this tedious storm. Still, the time did not pass heavily with them. All but Kate and Otis had their regular daily work to perform; but as it was divided among several pairs of hands, it was not very arduous, at this season of the year. Jessie’s work, however, was an exception, for she insisted upon devoting most of her time, when released from study, to household duties. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, Marcus frequently invited Oscar and Ronald to help him about some extra job or other; but all such jobs were now finished up, as far as they could be until the season should open for out-door operations. The farming tools had been put in complete order, the potatoes sorted for planting, the cellar cleaned out, and when Wednesday afternoon came, with a pouring rain, Marcus told the boys they must amuse themselves as best they could, as he had nothing for them to do.
For awhile, the state of things was rather dull indoors as well as out. Marcus and Oscar were reading. Kate sat down to practise a music lesson, but the notes which her fingers called forth were so dull and spiritless, that she soon abandoned the attempt. Otis sat looking dreamily out of the window, towards the distant hills just visible through the rain. Ronald, after trying in vain to get somebody to go out to the barn and “have some fun,” went alone; but he evidently did not find what he went after, for he soon returned, repeating, on the way, a queer alliterative exercise in rapid pronunciation he had recently learned for his own amusement. It was as follows, only each line was repeated in four different ways, as indicated at the beginning:
“Andrew Airpump asked his aunt her ailment,
Did Andrew, etc.,
If Andrew, etc.,
Where is the, etc.
Billy Button bought a buttered biscuit,
Did, etc,
Captain Crackskull cracked a catchpole’s coxcomb.
Davy Doldrum dreamt he drove a dragon.
Enoch Elkrig eat an empty eggshell.
Francis Fripple flogged a Frenchman’s filly.
Gaffer Gilpin got a goose and gander.
Humphrey Hunchback had a hundred hedgehogs.
Inigo Impey itched for an Indian image.
Jumping Jackey jeered a jesting juggler
Kimbo Kemble kicked his kinsman’s kettle.
Lanky Lawrence lost his lass and lobster.
Matthew Mendlegs missed a mangled monkey.
Neddy Noodle nipped his neighbor’s nutmeg.
Oliver Oglethorpe ogled an owl and oyster.
Peter Piper picked a peck of peppers.
Quixote Quixite quizzed a queerish quidbox.
Rawdy Rumpus rode a rawboned racer.
Sammy Smellie smelt a smell of small coal.
Tiptoe Tommy turned a Turk for twopence.
Uncle Usher urged an ugly urchin.
Villiam Voedy viped his vig and vaistcoat.
Walter Waddle won a walking wager.
X Y Z have made my brains to crack O.
X smokes, Y snuffs, Z chews too strong tobacco.
Though oft by X Y Z much lore is taught,
Still Peter Piper beats them all to nought.”
Ronald kept on repeating these very sensible lines after he had entered the house; but before he had finished “Captain Crackskull,” he was interrupted by Marcus, who said:—
“Ronald, if you are going through with that long yarn, I think you had better take it back to the barn with you, and reel it off to the cows.”
“I can say it right straight through, to X Y Z,” said Ronald.
“Well, we’ll take your word for it—we wont ask you to prove it,” replied Marcus.
“What do you call it, when all the words in a line begin with the same letter?” inquired Ronald.
“When two or more words, near together, commence with the same letter, it is called alliteration,” replied Marcus. “It is what the poet calls ‘apt alliteration’s artful aid.’”
“I’ve got a curious specimen of alliteration, that I found in an old newspaper,” said Kate; and from a small roll of paper clippings which she had in her pocket she drew forth the curiosity. It contained five little poems, or “univocalic verses,” as they were called, each of which contained only one of the vowels. The following is a specimen. It is on the fall of Eve, and contains no vowel but e, as will be observed;
“Eve, Eden’s Empress, needs defended be:
The Serpent greets her when she seeks the tree;
Serene, she sees the speckled tempter creep;
Gentle he seems—perversest schemer deep—
Yet endless pretexts, ever fresh prefers,
Perverts her senses, revels when she errs,
Sneers when she weeps, regrets, repents she fell;
When deep revenged, reseeks the nether hell!”
“That is not alliteration, exactly,” observed Marcus, “as the words do not begin with the same letter. I should call it a sort of ‘task poetry.’ By the way, Kate, did you ever see a little task poem that old George Herbert wrote?” and taking down a volume from the book-case, he turned to the following lines, in which it will be seen, the rhyming words are obtained by dropping a letter from the last word of the preceding line:
“Inclose me still, for fear I start,
Be to me rather sharp and tart,
Than let me want thy hand and art.
“Such sharpness shows the sweetest friend,
Such cuttings rather heal than rend,
And such beginnings touch their end.”
Marcus turned to a still more curious specimen of task poetry, in the same book. It was a couplet, formed of three lines of the fragments of words, so that those of the middle one read with either of the other two. Here it is:
cur- f- w- d- dis- and p-
A -sed -iend -rought -eath -ease -ain.
bles- fr- b- br- and ag-
The couplet is to be read thus:
“A cursed fiend wrought death, disease and pain;
A blessed friend brought breath and ease again.”
“Come, all hands, I move that we have a game of ‘thread-paper poetry’—we haven’t played it for a long time,” said Kate.
“What sort of a game is that?” inquired Jessie, who had but just come in from the kitchen, and sat down to sew.
“Why, didn’t you ever play it?” inquired Kate, with surprise. “It’s a real good game, if you have the right sort of players. The first player takes a slip of paper, and writes a line of poetry upon it—original or selected, just as he pleases. Then he folds the paper so as to hide the line, but he tells the next player what the last word is, and he must write a line to rhyme with it, and another line beside; and so they pass it around, until they have got enough, and then it is read aloud. It makes great sport, sometimes, I can assure you.”
The company generally assented to Kate’s proposal, and it was agreed, at the outset, that each line should contain eight syllables, every other one accented, commencing with the second. No other restriction was laid upon any one. Jessie was selected to commence the play, and she wrote the following line:
“How dark the day! how drear the scene!”
Doubling over the paper, she passed it to Oscar, and thus it went round the circle twice, Marcus finally winding up the poem with an extra rhyme, to give it a fitting conclusion. He then unfolded the paper, and read the contents aloud. Here is a copy of it. The figures indicate where it passed from one hand to another:
1. How dark the day! how drear the scene! 2. Now I do think you’re real mean To get me into such a scrape! 3. I sing the glories of the grape, Delicious fruit, so rich and nice. 4. Oh, I can do it in a trice— My lines are written—here they are, 5. Shining like evening’s brightest star, Or like the fire-bug’s milder ray! 6. This is a very rainy day, The walking, it is dreadful bad. 7. To find a rhyme I’m always glad,
“Now let’s write some cento verses,” cried Kate, after this had been read.
“What kind of verses are those?” inquired Otis.
“Don’t you know what cento verses are?” replied Kate. “Why, you take a number of lines of poetry from different authors, and arrange them together so that they will rhyme, and make some sort of sense—that’s the way to make cento verses.”
“Pooh! I don’t think much of that,” said Ronald.
“A person needs to have a good deal of poetry at his tongue’s end, to find amusement in writing cento verses,” observed Marcus. “Kate and Jessie have a poetical turn, and might succeed at it, but I am afraid the rest of us would find it rather hard work.”
“Well, I’m going to try,” said Kate; “and if there isn’t poetry enough on my tongue’s end, there’s plenty up in the book-case.”
Kate took a piece of paper, and commenced jotting down some lines, occasionally consulting Jessie, or turning to a volume of poetry. Ronald and Otis found more congenial amusement, in a couple of toys of which they had recently come in possession. They were “pith-tumblers,” made by an ingenious boy in their class, who realized quite a little fortune of pocket-money by manufacturing these comical figures for his mates. They were made of the pith of elder trees, and the figures were neatly cut, to represent Turks, Chinese Mandarins, Brahmins, clowns, and other characters. Ronald’s tumbler was a Turk, and he named him the Grand Mufti. He was seated on half a bullet, composedly smoking his long pipe. Otis called his figure the Sleepy Brahmin. It had a lead cap, and consequently was under the disagreeable necessity of standing on its head. Both the Mufti and the Brahmin, when jarred, seemed ready to fall over, but were sure to right themselves very quickly, owing to the centre of gravity being in the leaden base. While the boys were playing with these trifles, Marcus stepped out of the room, and soon returned with a bottle and a couple of forks. Seeing the curiosity of the boys was excited, Marcus asked them if they could make a quarter of a dollar spin round on the point of a needle.
“Give me a quarter, and I’ll try,” said Ronald.
Marcus chose to make the trial himself, and in a few minutes he accomplished the feat, to the no small astonishment of the boys. This was the way he did it. In the cork of the bottle he fixed a needle. He then took another cork, and cut a slit in it, large enough to receive the edge of the coin. Then he stuck into the cork the two forks, opposite each other, with the handles inclining downwards. The edge of the coin was now placed on the needle, and the whole apparatus,—coin, cork, and forks,—was made to spin round without falling off.
“Now, Ronald, can you explain the philosophy of that?” inquired Marcus.
“No, sir, I’m sure I can’t,” replied Ronald.
“Well, can you explain why your little pith-tumblers operate as they do?” inquired Marcus.
“It’s because the centre of gravity is in one end of the figures, in the lead,” replied Ronald.
“What do you mean by the centre of gravity?” inquired Marcus.
“Why, the point where the weight of the whole thing is evenly balanced,” said Ronald; “for instance, if I balance this book on the end of my finger, the point that rests on my finger will be the centre of gravity.”
“Yes, you have the idea,” resumed Marcus; “and this little experiment is explained on the same principle. The weight of the forks, projecting as they do so much below the coin, brings the centre of gravity of the arrangement below the point of the needle, which is the point of suspension; and the coin is much less liable to fall off than it would be if the centre of gravity were higher.”
“Now let me show you a little experiment,” said Ronald. “I’m going to put two chairs back to back, take off my shoes, and jump over them. Do you believe I can do it?”
“This isn’t a suitable place for such rough play—if you want to do any jumping, you had better go out-doors,” said Mrs. Page.
“But I wont do the least harm in the world,” replied Ronald. “Let me show you how I do it, wont you?”
Mrs. Page making no reply, Ronald inferred that she consented; and placing the chairs as he had described, he took off his shoes, and drawing back to the end of the room, ran and jumped over the—shoes, to the great amusement of those who were watching the “experiment.”
Marcus and Oscar had resumed their reading, and Ronald and Otis now began to amuse themselves with a puzzle which they called the Moslem Oracle. It was a table, divided by lines into a hundred little squares, in each of which was written a letter, as follows:
| d | w | w | a | w | o | h | a | b | h |
| i | o | i | s | o | t | d | t | t | w |
| w | o | a | a | a | i | e | n | i | i |
| t | s | d | n | t | h | i | a | a | e |
| o | t | t | n | t | u | w | t | d | h |
| t | i | a | e | s | f | l | i | n | u |
| e | l | n | j | c | a | d | t | o | c |
| r | o | h | y | e | o | w | y | p | e |
| f | r | w | e | d | i | o | i | a | e |
| l | n | s | c | t | l | g | h | e | h |
The boy from whom they obtained a copy of this Oracle, told them he had read that it was sometimes actually used by the superstitious Moslems, when they were in doubt about any thing they thought of doing. The rule is to repeat certain verses of the Koran, and then to place the finger upon the table, without looking at it. The Moslem then looks to see on what letter his finger has rested, and writes it down, with every fifth following letter in the table, until he has got back to his starting place. For example, we will suppose his finger fell on the letter e in the sixth line. He writes down every fifth letter, and the following appears:
enjoypeaceabstainand
In reading the sentence, he commences with the first of the letters taken from the upper line; and so the utterance of his Oracle is:
“Abstain, and enjoy peace.”
This Oracle is capable of giving five distinct answers, as any reader can easily verify; and commence with what letter we will, we shall obtain one of these answers. It is, of course, a superstition, which gives any authority to these answers; but it is curious to observe that the Oracle is so arranged as to be likely to do good rather than harm to those who consult it. It contains but one affirmative and four negative answers, and it is evident that its framer knew that when men hesitate about doing an action, it is generally safer to abstain from it than to perform it. Men are more disposed to consult oracles for leave to do wrong, than for advice to do right.
Kate had now finished her cento poem, and read it aloud. It was as follows:
When the immortals at their banquet lay [Moore.
Butchered to make a Roman holiday, [Byron.
By all their country’s wishes blest, [Collins.
The fright was general; but the female band, [Dryden.
Waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand, [Milton.
’Scaped all the toils that life molest, [Cowley.
And on a sudden sung the hundredth Psalm. [Gay.
Of living lakes, in summer’s noontide calm. [Akenside.
The wanton troopers, riding by, [Marvell.
To sweep the cobwebs from the sky, [Mother Goose.
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, [Goldsmith.
Peered from the curtained gallery, [Croly.
And strewed with sudden carcasses the land. [Armstrong.
The piper loud and louder blew [Burns.
A circle regularly true, [Prior.
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills [Byron.
Twelve bottles ranged upon the board, [Gay.
And the world’s cold neglect, which surest kills, [Hunt.
He watched, he served, he cheered his lord. [Spencer.
O heaven! he cried, my bleeding country save, [Campbell.
Poor human ruins, tottering o’er the grave! [Young.
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high, [Campbell.
When in the valley of Jehoshaphat, [Dryden.
For whom contending kings are proud to die— [Falconer.
Die, and endow a college or a cat! [Pope.
“That’s pretty fair,” said Marcus; “but I suspect memory didn’t have a great deal to do with it—only a few of the lines have a familiar sound to my ear.”
“Well, to tell the truth,” replied Kate, “my memory is one of the kind that never can think of anything when you happen to want it; so I helped it along a little, with two or three books of poetry.”
The request was general that a copy of these lines, and also of the “thread-paper poem,” should be furnished for publication in the “Home Wreath.” The successive numbers of this little paper were carefully kept on file, after all had read them, and it was a custom to insert in its pages anything of suitable length that the family wished to preserve. The next number of the “Wreath,” which appeared on Saturday afternoon, contained one of these poems, together with an unusual variety of original matter, which an editorial paragraph pleasantly attributed to the protracted storm, remarking that “it was an ill wind that blew nobody any good.” Among the contributions were several arithmetical problems. One was as follows: “So arrange four nines as to make one hundred.” Another was:—“If you take nine from six, ten from nine, and fifty from forty, there will then six remain.” Jessie, in the course of the evening, threw off the following rhyming answers to these questions, designing to send them to the editor for insertion the next week:
“Two nines I place upon a line,
And that will make just ninety-nine; ... 99
In form of fraction then I write
Nine-ninths, and to the first unite, .... ⁹⁄₉
And that the number makes just right ... 100.”
“From S, I, X, I take I, X,
And that will leave an .... S,
Thus standing by itself alone,
And nothing more nor less.
Then from I, X, I take the X,
(So you can if you try,)
And that, you see, leaves only this
Poor slender letter .... I.
“From X, L, next, as Pat might say,
The L I disannex,
And then there’s left, as here you see,
This little saw horse, .... X.
These three remainders thus I fix,
And they read plainly S, I, X.”
Such were some of the ways in which the young folks in Mrs. Page’s family amused themselves, when kept indoors by stress of weather.
CHAPTER X.
ALL FOOLS’ DAY.
Ronald and Otis occupied the same chamber. It was in the second story of the house, and had two windows, one looking to the north-east and the other to the south-east. At this season of the year, Ronald was obliged to rise soon after day-break, to attend to his work. He was very apt to feel sleepy in the morning, and Marcus, who was an early riser, usually called him when it was time to get up. Otis, being a boarder, did not rise so early, but commonly slept until the sun poured its light into the chamber through the north-east window, and sometimes long after. He was, in fact, rather fond of his bed.
On the morning of the first day of April, Ronald played quite a serious trick upon his room-mate, by way of celebrating “All Fools’ day.” The windows of their chamber happened to be provided with old-fashioned tight shutters, which, however, were not now used, curtains having been substituted for them. On the morning in question, Ronald arose very slyly, at early day-break, and commenced disarranging and secreting the several articles of Otis’s every-day apparel. One of his suspenders he hid under the bed-clothes, and the other he tied into knots; he turned the legs of his pantaloons and the sleeves of his jacket inside out; deposited one stocking in his jacket pocket, and crowded the other into the toe of his shoe; hid the other shoe on the upper shelf of the closet, after emptying into it the contents of his trousers pockets; and, in short, put things into such a plight, that he supposed it would take Otis at least an hour to dress himself. He then closed the shutters, and left the room, carefully shutting the door, lest the movements of the rest of the family should disturb the sleeper.
Otis did not make his appearance at the breakfast table, when the bell rang, but as this had occasionally happened before, it did not excite any surprise. The table was left standing for him, after breakfast, and the several members of the family went about their business. Ronald, somewhat to his disappointment, was despatched to school nearly an hour before the usual time, that he might do an errand in a distant part of the town, on his way. Before he started, he crept up to the door of his chamber, and, listening, heard the loud breathing of Otis, as if still asleep. As he passed out through the dining-room, he noticed a clean plate and knife at Otis’s place, and impelled by the spirit of mischief which had taken possession of him, he snatched them from the table, and put dirty ones in their place. A moment after, Jessie came in, and began to clear off the table, when Miss Lee, who was in the kitchen, seeing Ronald about to leave, said:
“Before you go, Ronald, I wish you would run up stairs and call Otis—he hasn’t been to breakfast yet.”
“Yes, ma’am, he’s been to breakfast and gone,” said Jessie, deceived by the appearance of the table.
“Then he was very quick about it, for I haven’t seen him this morning,” said Miss Lee.
Ronald said nothing, but, availing himself of Jessie’s mistake, hurried away without calling Otis, congratulating himself that his plot had worked so admirably. After doing his errand, he had time and opportunity to fool several of his school-mates, which he diligently improved. He made one simple boy believe that his back was covered with chalk, and thank him for drubbing it off in vigorous style, when there was not a particle of chalk upon the poor fellow’s jacket. He exhibited to a group of boys what he called a “railroad whistle.” It looked like an ordinary whistle, with a number of holes on the top, but he represented it as having remarkable power, if a boy only had wind enough to sound it. One of the boys, more curious than wise, gave it a vigorous blast, and blew into his face a cloud of flour, with which the whistle had been filled, to the great amusement of all who witnessed the experiment.
Ronald was born and lived for eight years among a people of French extraction, in Canada. He still remembered some of the habits and customs of his native village, among which was the observance of Easter. Easter is a festival in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ, and is quite generally observed in European countries. It occurs about the first of April. In some countries, it is customary to give eggs to the children, on this occasion, which are ornamented in various ways. In Ronald’s native town, the children used to boil their Easter eggs in water containing a dye of some color, by which the shells became red, blue, purple, or of any other hue that was desired. If they wished to inscribe a name or ornament on an egg, they first plunged it into hot water, and then wrote the name or drew the design on the shell with tallow. The egg was then boiled in the colored water, but the dye would not penetrate any part of the shell which had been covered with grease, and consequently the ornament or inscription would appear white.
Ronald had been indulged in his Easter eggs every year since he was adopted into Mrs. Page’s family. He called them Easter eggs, but they might more appropriately have been termed “April-Fool” eggs, for, regardless of the ecclesiastical calendar, the first day of the fourth month was always Easter to him. He carried several of these stained eggs to school, on the morning whose history I am recounting; and after the “railroad whistle” experiment, he exhibited them to some of the girls. They were blue, with white fillets around them, and looked quite pretty. Somebody inquiring about their strength, Ronald said they were boiled very hard, and would stand a pretty smart blow. He said he boiled them as soon as they were laid, which was the way to do, if you wanted a real hard egg. He invited two of the girls to make a trial of their hardness, by each taking an egg in her hand, and striking them together, promising that the egg which stood the test should be the property of the one who held it. They did so, and at the first trial, neither egg was damaged, the blow being too light. The next time, however, one of the eggs was crushed, but the other was uninjured.
The girl who won the blue egg, refused to hazard it again in a trial with an uncolored boiled egg, which Ronald wished her to submit it to. So Ronald drew from his pocket a second white egg, and persuaded Kate Sedgwick and another girl to a trial of strength, similar to the first. Each held the egg firmly in her palm, and measured the distance carefully with her eye, and then, after a moment’s pause, came the shock, the crash, and the smash. And a smash it was indeed; for the egg Kate held was just as raw and tender as when biddy laid it, and in the rude encounter, its liquid contents spirted out in an astonishing manner upon both the contestants, but especially upon Kate. The fragments that remained in her hand she hurled at Ronald’s head, but the rogue was too spry for her, and they fell short of the mark.
It would have been strange if a boy who was so active as Ronald in playing off his pranks upon others, had himself wholly escaped from similar practical jokes. But he did not. One trick was played upon him, which annoyed him very much. Some one, he could not ascertain who, spread upon his seat a quantity of soft pitch, upon which he unsuspiciously sat. The sticky gum adhered so pertinaciously to his clothing, that he could not remove it, but through the day, whenever he attempted to make the slightest movement upon his seat, he found himself held fast by an invisible power.
When the morning session of the academy opened, Marcus was not a little surprised to discover that Otis was missing. He went to Ronald’s seat and asked where he was.
“I don’t know,” replied Ronald.
“Didn’t he go with you to Mr. Bright’s, this morning?” inquired Marcus.
“No, sir, I haven’t seen him since I got up,” replied Ronald.
“But haven’t you any idea where he is?” continued Marcus.
“I don’t know where he can be, unless he’s abed,” said Ronald.
“A-bed this time of day! How can that be?” exclaimed Marcus.
Ronald made no farther reply, and Marcus then questioned Kate, Jessie and Oscar, but none of them could say they had seen Otis, that morning. Meanwhile, Aunt Fanny was making quite as surprising a discovery at home, as Marcus made at school. She went up stairs, to take care of the boys’ room, and found Otis asleep, and the room as dark as at night.
“Why, Otis Sedgwick! are you asleep yet?” exclaimed Aunt Fanny, shaking the boy by the shoulder. “Come, wake up! It’s after nine o’clock.”
“Is it this morning, or last night?” inquired the drowsy and bewildered boy, rubbing his eyes, as if to let the day-light into them.
Aunt Fanny pulled open the shutters, and the sun, two hours and a half high, came streaming in upon the bed, to the astonishment of Otis.
“This is one of Ronald’s tricks, I suppose,” said Aunt Fanny. “But he has carried the joke altogether too far. You are too late to go to school this forenoon.”
“Well, this is a pretty piece of business, I do think,” said Otis, who now began to comprehend the joke that had been played upon him.
Aunt Fanny withdrew, telling Otis she would go and prepare his breakfast. After waiting some time, as the boy did not appear, she again went to his room, to call him. She found him partly dressed, and crying with vexation because he could not find the rest of his apparel. With her aid, the missing articles were soon found, and Otis sat down to his breakfast, in not a very pleasant mood, about half-past nine o’clock.
Otis went to school in the afternoon. He at once informed Marcus of the cause of his absence, but he kept out of the way of Ronald, with whom he felt offended. At recess, Ronald determined to speak to Otis, and he did.
“Hullo, Otis,” he said, “why didn’t you come to school, this morning?”
Otis took no notice of the question, except to turn away from his persecutor.
“Sun didn’t rise as early as common, did it?” continued Ronald, laughing.
Otis made no reply.
“Come, now,” added Ronald, laying his arm over the shoulder of Otis, “don’t get mad with a fellow for a joke—it was all in fun, you know.”
“It was fun to you, but it wasn’t to me,” replied Otis, slipping away from under Ronald’s arm, and leaving him alone.
Ronald felt rather sober after this decided rebuff. He began to realize that a joke carried too far, is no joke at all; the difficulty with which he moved about on his pitchy seat, helping him materially to this conclusion. After school, he walked home alone, in advance of the others, who, by the way, were discussing his conduct with much interest. Kate and Otis told how they had been served, and several other jokes of Ronald were related. All concurred in the opinion that the custom of “making fools” of each other on the first of April, was a senseless one, and very liable to abuses. Still, Marcus said it was not worth while to get angry about such things, and he tried to make Otis forget the resentment which it was evident he felt towards Ronald.
On reaching his home, Marcus learned from his mother some facts in regard to Ronald’s trick upon Otis, which made it even more serious than it at first appeared. In carrying it out, it appeared he had really been guilty of something that looked very much like disobedience and falsehood, and had fooled several others besides Otis. When spoken to, however, Ronald seemed unwilling to admit that he had done anything blameworthy, and was especially astonished when he was charged with doing violence to the truth. He defended himself against this latter charge with considerable ingenuity, contending that if any falsehood was told, Jessie was the guilty one.
“I think,” said Marcus, after talking with him awhile, “we had better have a court to try this case, as it involves some important principles.”
“Well, I’ll agree to that,” replied Ronald. “Give me a fair trial, and if I’m beat, I won’t say a word.”
A custom had been introduced into the family of occasionally holding a court to try offences of a peculiar nature. When there was some doubt as to the measure of blame due to an offender, or when it was uncertain to whom the blame principally belonged, or when important moral principles were involved in a wrong act, or when disputes arose about perplexing points, the affair was sometimes settled by resolving the family into a court to try the case. This was what Marcus now proposed to do; and, as Ronald agreed to it, the evening of the next day was appointed for holding the court, and all concerned were immediately notified, that suitable preparation might be made.
In these little courts, no attempt was made to imitate the cumbrous machinery, the solemn dignity, the slow and formal movements, or the “glorious uncertainty,” which usually characterize the tribunals established by law. Instead of a long indictment, setting forth a simple act in all sorts of wicked shapes, and magnifying and multiplying it till it looked like a dozen huge crimes, stuck together, the court I am describing based their action on a simple complaint, written in plain, unexaggerating language. They had no constable, sheriff, clerk or crier, because they did not need them. A judge, two lawyers, (one to prosecute and the other to defend the accused,) a jury, (usually consisting of two or three persons,) witnesses, and a prisoner, were all the functionaries necessary to this court. The law they administered was that “common law” written in every unperverted heart, and their statute book was the Bible.
The trial of Ronald commenced early on the evening appointed. Marcus presided as judge. Oscar was the prosecuting attorney. As the accused intended to conduct his own defence, no counsel appeared for him. Mrs. Page, Kate, and Jessie’s brother Henry, who happened to be present, were the jury. Miss Lee, Jessie and Otis were summoned as witnesses.
After the court had come to order, the prosecuting attorney arose, and said that several complaints had been made against the accused, very similar in their character, all of them being for improper and unwarrantable jokes perpetrated on the first day of April. He thought, however, that the ends of justice would be sufficiently met by trying the prisoner for only one of these offences. He then read the indictment, or complaint, which was drawn up with care, and was in the following form:
“COMPLAINT.
“I hereby charge Ronald D. Page with entering into an unjustifiable plot on the morning of the first day of April, 185–, to detain his room-mate, Otis Sedgwick, in his chamber until an unusual hour, which design he carried out by darkening the room, displacing and disarranging the clothing of said Sedgwick, and closing the door, contrary to his usual custom, thereby keeping said room-mate in his chamber until it was too late to go to school; which act was against the peace, dignity and good order of the family.
“I also charge said Page with disobedience, in neglecting to call said Sedgwick, when told to do so by Miss Lee.
“I also charge said Page with being virtually guilty of falsehood, inasmuch as he deceived Miss Hapley by removing certain articles from the breakfast table, and allowed an erroneous statement, which she made in consequence, to go uncorrected.
“Oscar Preston, Pros. Att’y.
“Highburg, Vt., April 2, 185–.”
A copy of this complaint had been given to Ronald in the morning, that he might know precisely what points he had got to meet. He at first doubted whether it would be right to plead not guilty to all the charges, as he admitted that he played the joke upon Otis, referred to in the first charge. But Marcus explained that while he admitted the acts specified, he might if he chose deny the bad character ascribed to them in the complaint. He said that if Ronald did not believe his April-fool trick upon Otis was “unjustifiable,” and “against the peace, dignity and good order of the family,” he had a moral as well as legal right to plead not guilty to the complaint. Accordingly, when the complaint was read in court, and the judge asked the accused whether he was guilty or not guilty, the reply was, “Not guilty.”
The witnesses were now introduced. Otis first appeared, and related all that he knew about the trick that had been played upon him. After he had got through, Ronald put a few questions to him.
“Do you generally know what is going on when you are sound asleep?” inquired the accused.
“No,” replied the witness.
“How, then, do you know that I did the mischief?”
“Because—because I know you did it.”
“Did you see me do it?”
“No.”
“Did you hear me?”
“No.”
“Did you smell me?”
A titter ran through the room, which the judge promptly rebuked by calling out “Order!” The reply to the last question was not heard, and the accused told the witness he might take his seat, remarking, at the same time, to the prosecuting attorney:
“I don’t think you have made much out of him—why, he undertakes to tell what was going on when he was sound asleep!”
Aunt Fanny was the next witness. She testified to finding Otis asleep, late in the morning, and described the state of things in his room, at that time. She also related what took place in the kitchen, when she told Ronald to call Otis to breakfast. Jessie was then called to the stand, and corroborated a part of the testimony of Miss Lee.
The evidence for the prosecution all being in, the prisoner said he should summon no witnesses to rebut the testimony given, although he presumed he could call upon every person in the court-room, from the learned judge down to the witness who pretended to tell what took place when he was asleep, to testify to his (the prisoner’s) good character, if necessary. He then reviewed the evidence, and pronounced it all guess-work. Certain things had been done. There was no proof that he did them, and he did not know why they should be so positive he was the offender.
“May it please your honor,” interrupted the prosecuting attorney, “if the prisoner thinks there is any room for doubt, on that point, I can call several witnesses to prove that he has confessed that he did all that we have charged him with.”
“If it please your honor,” replied the accused, “I suppose I could claim that anything I may have said shall not be used against me. Am I not right?”
“Whatever the law or usage may be in other tribunals,” replied the judge, “this court is of the opinion that any confession made by the defendant may be used as evidence against him, unless it can be shown that he was influenced by fear, or a hope of gaining some end, in making the confession.”
“Well,” continued the accused, “I will save the prosecuting attorney the trouble of bringing forward any more witnesses. I merely wished to show him the flaw in the net in which he thinks he has caught me; but I had no idea of crawling off through such a small hole. No, your honor, I admit that I played an April-fool trick upon my young friend.”
The accused then went on to justify himself, in a speech of considerable length, which was very attentively listened to. He took the ground that the custom of playing April-fool tricks was an old and almost universal one; that it was one of the established and inalienable rights of boys; that there is no harm in playing off a pleasant joke in a good-natured way; that he had no malice against Otis, and in reality did him no harm; that there was no excuse for his sleeping till after school-time, even if the room was darkened; that in removing Otis’s plate from the breakfast table, he only made an April-fool of Jessie; that it was not his business to contradict Jessie, and correct her errors; that he did not call Otis, because he supposed Aunt Fanny did not expect him to, after what Jessie had said; and that he did not feel that he had been guilty of disobedience or falsehood, in anything he had done, in connection with this affair. He closed with an earnest appeal to the jury, beseeching them to judge him by his motives rather than his acts, and reminding them that it was better to err on the side of mercy than of severity.
The prosecuting attorney now arose, and made the closing plea. He set forth in vivid colors the provoking nature of the offence, and the loss of time, temper and school privileges which Otis had suffered in consequence of it. Even allowing that there is no evil in playing harmless practical jokes on the first day of April, he held that this was a very different affair. It was too serious a matter to be passed off as a joke. It was an offence against good order and good feeling. But he was ready to go farther than this, and condemn all kinds of April-fool tricks. It was a foolish custom, if it was an old one. As to boys having an “inalienable right” to make fools of each other, on any day of the year, as had been claimed by the defendant, he said the proposition need only be stated, to be laughed at. There were serious evils connected with this fooling business, as was abundantly illustrated in the case under trial. It was very apt to be carried too far, and to degenerate into impudence, rowdyism, recklessness, revenge, etc. Besides, it begets lying. He believed there were more lies told among boys on April first than on any other day of the year. Lying is almost essential to the playing off of an April-fool hoax. Lies may be acted, as well as spoken; they may be implied, as well as expressed. Any attempt to deceive, is a falsehood.
“I would like to ask the learned counsel,” interrupted Ronald, “whether I am guilty of falsehood, when I give my hens glass nest-eggs?”
This question produced some merriment in the room, and for a moment it seemed to stagger the attorney. He got over it, however, by saying that a falsehood could be told only to a rational being. A hen is not capable of lying, or of being lied to.
Ronald again interposed. He said he admitted that a hen could not tell a lie; but she could be deceived with a glass egg, just as he was sometimes deceived by lying boys why, then, could she not be lied to, as well as he?
The prosecuting attorney appeared somewhat confused, for a moment, but he proceeded to say that this discussion had nothing to do with the case on trial, and he would thank the defendant not to interrupt him again with irrelevant matters. He then resumed his argument. He thought there could be no doubt that if we allowed another to make an erroneous statement in our hearing, innocently, and we did not correct it, we were not blameless; but if we had previously set a trap to mislead the person into this very false statement, we certainly were greatly to blame. He then took up the question of Ronald’s disobedience, and argued that he was without excuse for neglecting to call Otis, when told to. In concluding, he said he had been informed that the accused had been guilty of similar offences, though in a milder degree, a year previous to this time, and had been faithfully warned against repeating them. Justice, both to himself and to the family, seemed to require that efficient means should be adopted to put a stop to such proceedings, and he called upon the jury to do their duty firmly, and not allow their verdict to be influenced by fear, favor, or a mistaken charity.
The judge now arose and charged the jury. He set forth the facts that had been proved against the accused, and stated in an impartial manner the questions which the jury were to consider. He said he did not consider it proper to offer them any instruction as to the moral law on which their decision must be based, as they were as well versed in that as he was himself. He closed by urging them to render an honest and impartial decision.
The jury now retired to another room, and the judge announced that the court would take a recess. Judge and prisoner, counsel and witness, now chatted together quite familiarly for a little while, until the jury returned, when the court was called to order, and the verdict announced, as follows:
“We find the prisoner guilty on all the charges; but as we are of opinion that he has erred through thoughtlessness rather than from malice, we recommend that as light a penalty be inflicted as in the opinion of the court will serve the ends of justice.”
The judge, who had probably anticipated such a verdict, and had decided in his mind what the penalty should be, now told the prisoner to arise, and proceeded to address him in these words:
“Ronald D. Page, you have been tried by a jury, and found guilty of taking unwarrantable liberties with your room-mate, and with being virtually guilty of disobedience and falsehood, that you might the better carry out your plot. The court concurs in the justice of this verdict, and also in the propriety of the recommendation of mercy that accompanies it. But the court is of opinion that while the sentence is tempered with mercy, it should be of sufficient severity to prevent a repetition of the offence. Its sentence, therefore, is, that on Wednesday next, at two o’clock in the afternoon, you be taken to your chamber, and stripped of your clothing.”
The judge here paused a moment, the prisoner’s face fell, and there was a decided sensation throughout the room. Marcus continued:
“That you then be put to bed, and there remain for the space of four hours, or until six o’clock, when you shall be released. And the court appoints Mr. Preston an officer, to see that this sentence is faithfully carried out.”
So ended what was in after days memorable in the annals of the family as “the great April-fool case.” The sentence was fully carried out, the next Wednesday afternoon, with the exception that, as Ronald pledged his honor to put himself to bed, and remain there for four hours, Oscar allowed him to perform that office for himself. The “judge” happened to peep into his chamber, an hour or two after, and was not a little surprised to find his prisoner sleeping as soundly, and snoring as complacently, as if going to bed at two o’clock were a very pleasant arrangement!
CHAPTER XI.
SCHOLARS.
The preceptor of the academy, Mr. Upton, used to say a great deal to the scholars about the importance of good spelling, and was always sure to point out any sins against this virtue which he discovered in the various written exercises of the school. He said that even if a man was well educated in other respects, but deficient in this, his bad spelling would often cause him to be mistaken for an ignorant person. Occasionally, by way of enlivening the exercises of the school, and interesting the pupils in this important branch of study, Mr. Upton would allow them to have a “spelling match,” as it was called. Sometimes the contest was between the girls, arranged on one side of the room, and the boys on the other. A leader was appointed on each side, to give out the words to his or her regiment. A pretty hard lesson was selected, and the leaders, beginning at the heads of their respective bands, took turns in giving out the words. No waiting or hesitation was allowed, but if a scholar could not promptly spell the word given out, he had to return to his seat. The ranks were rapidly thinned out, and the band which retained the largest number, when the exercise closed, were the victors.
These contests became still more exciting, when, as it sometimes happened, the leaders were allowed to “choose sides.” Selecting by turns any one they pleased from the whole school, they picked out the best spellers first, and so kept on till all the scholars were enlisted on one side or the other.
Though these spelling matches were greatly enjoyed by the scholars, and were profitable to them, too, they were liable to some objections, and for this reason, probably, were not often indulged in. On one occasion, when Jessie was one of the leaders, she chose Abby Leonard on her side, when her list was only one-fourth full. She did this, to save Abby the mortification of being left to the last, as she would otherwise have been; for she was a notoriously bad speller, and somebody had said of her, with more truth than kindness, that she ought to count only half of one, in a spelling match. The struggle proved to be a pretty hard one, and after the two bands had been reduced down to the best spellers, they were so equally balanced that it was for a time doubtful whether either would be able to claim a victory over the other. At length, however, one of Jessie’s company missed a word, and the match was decided against them, as the time had come to dismiss the school. The next day, Jessie learned that under the excitement and disappointment of the moment, two or three of the scholars on her side had found much fault with her for choosing Abby instead of a good speller, whom she might have had, and thus gained the day. Thus, in doing an act of kindness to one, she had provoked censure from several of her associates. And, on reflection, she was led to doubt whether she did not deserve blame; for ability to spell, and not favor, was the principle on which the leaders were expected to make their choice.
At the next spelling match, the leaders thought of nothing but getting the best spellers, and Abby sank to her natural level. She was almost the last one called; and when her name was called, she turned a look of scorn upon the young man who conferred this tardy honor upon her, and refused to take her place. Mr. Upton whispered a few words to her, but evidently without changing her mind, for he told the scholars to go on without her. That was the last of “choosing sides” during that term. The preceptor said nothing about the affair, but this unhappy exhibition of temper probably led him to abandon an exercise that had been a favorite one with the scholars generally.
Jessie maintained a high rank as a scholar, although she labored under some disadvantages, no small portion of her time being occupied with her work at home, and her duties as assistant in the school-room. These disadvantages, however, were not so great as they seemed; for what she lost, on account of them, was made up to her in other ways. Those very obstacles to her success served as a spur, inciting her to effort, and leading her to appreciate better the advantages within her reach.
Some of the scholars thought Jessie must be peculiarly gifted, because her lessons were uniformly so perfect. But this was not the case. Study was study, to her, and not play. It was not because she learned easily, but because she worked hard, that her recitations rarely fell below the required mark.
“I’d give anything in the world if I could have such a memory as you’ve got,” said Abby Leonard to Jessie, one day.
“Why, do you think I’ve got a good memory?” inquired Jessie.
“Of course you have,” replied Abby. “You couldn’t learn your lessons so easily, if you hadn’t. And then only think how little time you have to study, too!”
“I think my memory is rather poor,” resumed Jessie. “I get almost out of patience with myself, sometimes, it takes me so long to learn anything. If you knew how hard I work to get my lessons, you wouldn’t think I learned easily. In fact, I shouldn’t wonder if your memory was better than mine, after all.”
“Why, Jessie Hapley, how absurd!—when everybody knows you’ve got such a splendid memory!” exclaimed Abby.
“Then everybody is mistaken,” replied Jessie, “for my memory is no better than the average, if it is as good. What was that long story I heard you telling some of the girls, yesterday noon?”
“Oh, I was telling them the adventures of Lord Adolphus D’Orsay, the hero of a novel I read a few days ago,” said Abby. “He’s a beautiful character, I can tell you—tall, and handsome, and rich, and his father—”
“No matter about that, now,” interrupted Jessie; “what I want to find out, is, how long it took you to commit that story to memory?”
“Commit it to memory?” inquired Abby, with manifest surprise. “You didn’t suppose I committed that novel to memory, did you? Why, I only read it once—and I went through it like lightning, too, and skipped all the uninteresting parts, besides, I was dying so to see how it was going to end.”
“And yet,” added Jessie, “you could relate, several days after, a large part of this story, and give many minute particulars about the characters. I don’t believe my memory would be equal to such a feat as that.”
“Oh, well,” said Abby, “that was only a story, and it’s easy enough to remember stories. But take such a lesson as our class had this morning—that hateful list of irregular verbs—I can’t learn it, and I wont try. I should think Mr. Upton would know better than to tell us to learn such a stupid mess of words—what good would it ever do us, if we did learn them?”
“I learned the list of irregular verbs two years ago, and I did not find it half so hard as I thought it would be,” said Jessie. “I remember all about it, as well as though it was last week. I thought it was a hard lesson, and so I studied it just before I went to bed, and then repeated it over two or three times, after I was in bed.”
“Why, is that a good way to learn a hard lesson?” inquired Abby.
“I think it is,” replied Jessie, “and I’ve heard others say that if you want to remember words, it is a good rule to fix them in the memory just before you go to bed. They say the best way to teach a parrot to talk, is to darken his cage, and keep repeating the words he is to learn while he is going to sleep. I kept saying over the irregular verbs until I fell asleep, and the next morning I found I knew them by heart, and I haven’t forgotten them yet.”
“Oh, well, that just proves what I said, that you’ve got a better memory than I have,” added Abby.
“No, Abby, it proves no such thing,” replied Jessie. “You say you can’t learn the list, and you wont try; I said, I can learn it, and I will—and I did. That is all the difference between us. I have no doubt you could commit the list to memory without much trouble, if you would only think so, and would try. That’s the secret of good lessons.”
“I don’t believe I could learn that lesson, if I should study it a week—it’s a long string of words, without any sense or reason, and I can’t learn such things,” said Abby.
“Oh, yes, you can learn it if you will only determine to do so,” replied Jessie.
“But I know I never could learn it—it isn’t in me,” said Abby, and she declined further conversation on the subject by walking off.
Jessie was on the right track, in attributing the difference between her memory and that of Abby to a will and a wont. She might have carried the comparison still farther, and something like the following, I think, would have been the result:
| THE GOOD AND THE POOR SCHOLAR. | |
|---|---|
| JESSIE. | ABBY. |
| Her motto is, Learn all you can. | Her motto is, Get through as easily as possible. |
| She makes sacrifices to obtain an education, and fully appreciates the privileges she enjoys. | Her privileges are themselves a burden and a hardship, and she longs to get rid of them. |
| She thinks much of the future benefit to be derived from her studies. | She cares far less about future good than present ease. |
| She makes it a rule to thoroughly master every task allotted to her, and to understand what she learns. | She thoroughly masters nothing, and is satisfied if she can repeat the words of a lesson, without troubling herself about ideas. |
| She diligently improves her time. | She wastes many precious hours. |
| She concentrates her mind upon her studies. | Her mind is seldom earnestly fixed on her studies. |
| Result.—Her lessons are perfect. | Result.—Her lessons are failures. |
It was by a diligent improvement of her time, and a concentration of her mind on her studies, that Jessie mainly owed her high standing in the academy. When she studied, she studied in earnest. It is no easy thing to fix the mind attentively upon one subject, and exclude every thing else. Martin Luther says: “Let any one try how long he can rest on one idea he proposed himself, or take one hour and avow that he will tell me all his thoughts. I am sure he will be ashamed before himself, and afraid to say what ideas have passed through the head, lest he should be taken for a mad dog, and be chained.” And to illustrate this, he relates an anecdote of St. Bernard, who once complained to a friend that he found it very difficult to pray aright, and could not even pronounce the Lord’s prayer once without a host of strange thoughts. His friend was astonished, and gave it as his opinion that he could fix his thoughts on his prayer without any difficulty. Bernard offered him the wager of a fine horse, on condition he should commence forthwith. The friend commenced, “Our Father,” etc., but before he had finished the first petition, it occurred to him, if he should gain the horse, whether he would also receive saddle and bridle. In short, he was so entangled in his own thoughts, that he had to quit, and give up the prize.
It should be added, that this difficulty, which every student encounters, can in a great measure be overcome, by early culture and discipline. The best scholars are those who can control and direct their thoughts, and keep them fixed upon a subject as long as they please. The extent to which this power may be acquired is wonderful. There is a school in New England in which many of the pupils have accomplished the feat of multiplying nine figures by nine figures, mentally, or “in the head;” and the teacher thinks any child of ordinary capacity can learn to do this.
Some of the scholars wondered that two girls so little alike as Jessie and Abby, should be such good friends as they seemed to be. The intimacy, however, appeared greater than it really was, because Abby, by her upstart ways and her bad temper, had alienated nearly all the other girls, and had no bosom friends among them. Jessie’s forbearance and kindness had won her affection, and the poor drunkard’s daughter, whom she at first treated with contempt, and then regarded with a patronizing air, she now looked upon as her superior, whose friendship was to be prized. On the part of Jessie, it is true, there was no particular partiality for Abby. There was little, either in the manners or the character of the young scion of aristocracy, that was attractive, and if Jessie had not been guided by the golden rule, and influenced by a kindly heart, her intercourse with Abby would have been very slight.
Abby was a great novel reader. She eagerly devoured everything in the shape of fiction that she could lay her hands on. In fact, her reading was wholly confined to this class of books. She would often read an entire novel in one or two days, neglecting everything else, except attendance at school, until it was finished. This habit interfered so much with her studies, and was so manifestly injuring both her mind and heart, that Mr. Upton tried to induce her to break it up. He told her that her devotion to novels would destroy her taste for useful reading and study; would give her false views of life; would weaken her intellect, deaden her sympathy for real sorrow, and harden her heart; would corrupt her principles, and break down the distinction in her mind between vice and virtue, shame and glory; and would disincline and unfit her for the duties of actual life. All his arguments and warnings, however, were of no avail. The spell was already so strongly upon her, that she could not, or would not, break from it, and her exploits, in the way of novel-reading, were limited only by the somewhat meagre supply which that small town afforded. She occasionally tried to tempt Jessie to read one of her favorite tales, but never succeeded. Jessie had no time to waste over such books, even had not her principles and inclination stood in the way of novel-reading.
CHAPTER XII.
A FEW BUSINESS MATTERS.
“Jessie’s a first-rate hand to drive a bargain—you ought to have heard her beat Mr. Simpson down, this afternoon,” said Oscar, at the tea-table, one evening.
“I didn’t beat him down, nor ask him to take one cent less—he put his price down of his own accord,” replied Jessie.
“Oh yes, that’s the beauty of it,” retorted Oscar. “She didn’t say hardly anything, but she acted it out completely, and she got the dress for her own price. I call that the perfection of beating down. I’m going to get you to make my purchases, hereafter, Jessie; for you know folks say I’m extravagant when I buy anything.”
“I think it would be a good plan for you to get somebody to do your trading,” replied Jessie. “You gave seventy-five cents for that flimsy cravat, last week, and I’ll engage to buy the silk and make a better one for one-half the money.”
“Oh well, don’t say another word about that,” replied Oscar, whose cravat speculation was not a very pleasant thing to dwell upon. “What can’t be cured must be endured. But I wont get shaved in that way again, for I’ve engaged you to do my shopping. And remember you must beat them down just as you would for yourself.”
“But I don’t make a practice of beating the shopkeepers down, for myself,” said Jessie. “If a man asks more for a thing than I can afford to give, I tell him so; and if he has a mind to offer it for less, very well, but if he doesn’t, I can’t trade.”
“Yes, you understand how to do it,” said Oscar, with a chuckle.
“Do you call that beating a man down, Mrs. Page?” inquired Jessie.
“No, I think that is fair enough,” replied Mrs. Page. “I don’t approve of beating a man down below a fair price, on the one hand, and I don’t approve of giving more for an article than it is worth, on the other. I try to act on these principles, when I am trading. If I can’t afford to pay a fair price for a thing, I conclude that I can’t afford to buy it.”
“That is just the way I feel,” added Jessie. “But to tell the truth, I was almost ashamed to take that dress pattern, although I don’t think I was to blame. It came to just nine shillings, and there was nothing else in the store cheaper, that suited me. But I could not afford to go over a dollar for a dress, and I told Mr. Simpson so. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it was no matter about the money now—I could pay any time when I had it.’ I told him I made it a rule never to run in debt for anything. Then he said I might have the dress for eight and three pence—”
“You mean a dollar and thirty-seven cents—we have no shillings and pence in our currency,” interrupted Marcus, who always set his face against this common but very un-American way of reckoning.
“Yes, a dollar and thirty-seven,” continued Jessie, “and then he said he’d take a dollar and a quarter, which was just what the goods cost him. But I told him I could not go over a dollar, and then he proposed to split the difference, and let me have it for a dollar and nine pence—I mean a dollar and twelve cents. But the trimmings would make the price count up so, that I concluded I couldn’t go one cent over a dollar, and I started off, and got as far as the door-steps, when he called me back, and told me I might have it for a dollar. I had no idea at first that he would let me have it at that price, and I didn’t ask him to take off a cent, nor think of beating him down; but I declare I felt really ashamed, when he called me back. If it cost him a dollar and a quarter, it seems mean for me to buy it for a dollar. What do you think of it, Mrs. Page—did I do wrong?”
“No, under the circumstances I can’t say that you did wrong,” replied Mrs. Page. “If you could not afford to give over a dollar, it was right for you to stop at that mark; and if Mr. Simpson fell of his own accord to that price, that was his own affair. If you had had plenty of money, or if you had coaxed him down to a dollar, the case would have been different.”
“Merchants sometimes find it for their advantage to sell an article for less than it costs, rather than not dispose of it,” observed Marcus. “That was probably the case with Mr. Simpson. Perhaps the dress pattern was the last of a lot.”
“No, it was from a new lot, just received,” replied Jessie.
“Then,” continued Marcus, “perhaps he thought you might go somewhere else and buy, and he should lose your trade; or perhaps he was a little short for money; or perhaps he knew you fancied the dress, and in the kindness of his heart he determined you should have it, at some price or other. He had a reason, no doubt, for doing as he did.”
“Well, I can’t bear to be thought mean,” continued Jessie; “but poor folks have to put up with many things they dislike, and that is one of them.”
“There was nothing mean in doing as you did,” said Miss Lee, “and I do not believe Mr. Simpson thought so. I don’t approve of driving a hard bargain, any more than I do of paying extravagant prices for things. There is a golden mean between the two, which honest people ought to seek after. I think you were wise in refusing to run in debt. Spending money before we get it is one great source of extravagance, and keeps many people poor all their lives.”
“Everybody ought to get out of debt just as quick as they can, hadn’t they?” inquired Ronald.
“Certainly,” said Miss Lee.
“Then, mother, I wish you would let me have fifty cents—I want to pay my debts,” continued Ronald.
“Your debts! Pray what do you owe?” inquired Mrs. Page.
“I owe a boy fifty cents, and he’s dunned me for it two or three times,” replied Ronald.
“Who is he, and how came you to owe him fifty cents?” inquired Mrs. Page.
“The fellow is Joe Baker,” replied Ronald. “I lost my Reader, about a month ago, and as he didn’t use his, he wanted to sell it to me, so I bought it.”
“How came you to lose your Reader?” inquired Marcus.
“I don’t know—I never could tell what became of it,” replied Ronald.
“Why didn’t you come to me or to Marcus, if you wanted a new one?” inquired Mrs. Page.
“I didn’t like to—I thought you would think I was careless, to lose my old one,” was the reply.
“And so you ran into debt, with nothing to pay, trusting I would foot the bill some time or other?” said Mrs. Page.
“I thought I could sell some maple sugar, and raise the money, but——” the family ate up nearly all the sugar, he intended to say, but did not.
“When did you agree to pay Baker?” inquired Marcus.
“Oh, he said I might pay him any time when I had the money,” replied Ronald.
“And he has already asked you for it two or three times?” inquired Marcus.
“Yes, sir, he duns me every time he sees me,” said Ronald.
“You are experiencing some of the pleasures of being in debt,” remarked Miss Lee.
“I hope it will be a good lesson to you,” said Mrs. Page.
“Will you let me have the fifty cents?” inquired Ronald.
“I will talk with you about that, some other time,” replied Mrs. Page, and the subject was dropped.
Mrs. Page and Marcus, after talking over Ronald’s financial embarrassment, concluded it would be better not to relieve him at once, but to let him bear the burden of his debt until he could earn the money to pay it up. They thought that by adopting this course the transaction would make a deeper impression on his mind, and perhaps serve as a useful lesson to him as long as he lived. Joseph Baker, who held the demand against Ronald, attended the academy, and Marcus, after consulting him, effected a settlement on the following terms: Ronald gave his promissory note to Joseph for the amount due, running three months from the date of the purchase; and Joseph, in return, gave a receipt in full for the demand. Ronald’s note ran as follows:
Highburg, March 12, 185—.
50 cents.
Three months after date, for value received, I promise to pay to Joseph Baker, or order, Fifty Cents, with interest.
Ronald D. Page.
As the note was dated back one month, Ronald had but two months in which to raise the money. He objected to putting the note on interest, the amount was so small; but Marcus told him this was the proper way to do, and added that possibly the note would not be paid when due, in which case the interest would be larger.
The receipt Ronald received was as follows:
| Highburg, March 12, 185—. | |
| Ronald D. Page, | |
| To Joseph Baker, Dr. | |
| For one second-hand “Reader,” | 50 cents. |
| Received payment by note, | Joseph Baker. |
Marcus told Joseph that if he should happen to want the money at any time before the note was due, to bring it to him, and he would “discount” it—that is, give him the money for the note; in which case Ronald would owe the debt to Marcus, instead of to Joseph. This transfer could be made, because the note was payable “to Joseph Baker, or order;” and all Joseph would have to do, to make it the property of another, would be, to write his name across the back of the note.
Jessie’s rule, never to buy anything she could not pay for at the time, is a wise one, for a person situated as she was. She had another excellent business habit, which all might imitate with profit. She kept a strict account of all her money transactions. Every cent she received or expended was noted down in a little book kept for the purpose. She thus cultivated habits of order and economy, had the satisfaction of knowing just where her money went, and could always tell what any particular article cost her, and how long it lasted, by turning to her book.
But Jessie’s account book was after all a small affair. The columns of dollars and cents, on both the Cr. and Dr. side, increased slowly; for the reason that dollars and cents were a very scarce article with her. The little pittance which her mother was able to spare her, was all the money that passed through her hands, and this, with strict economy and self-denial, was barely sufficient to clothe her decently. No one knew how sadly she was sometimes straitened for money, for she never complained of her many disappointments and deprivations.
But though Jessie did not complain, she often sighed in secret for the day when she should be free from dependence and poverty—when she should become a help, instead of being a burden, to her mother. A door of deliverance opened to her sooner than she anticipated. One day, on returning from school, she found her uncle Morrison at the house, waiting to see her. He lived about forty miles distant, and as he had but seldom visited Highburg, when Jessie’s parents were living there, his appearance was quite unexpected. He remained with the family over night, and in the evening explained to his niece the object of his visit. About six months previous to this time, he had buried his only child, a daughter. His wife had been very low-spirited ever since, and both of them deeply felt their loss. They now wished to adopt Jessie in place of the lost child, receiving her into their home as a daughter, and lavishing upon her the care and affection of parental hearts. They knew something of Jessie’s amiable disposition, varied accomplishments, and excellent character, and judged that she was not unworthy of the great favor they sought to confer upon her.
Jessie did not instantly accept the offer, with profuse thanks, as Mr. Morrison expected she would, but she promised to give her answer the next morning. It was no trifling struggle which she passed through that night, in coming to a decision on her uncle’s proposition. If she accepted it, she would at once be delivered from griping poverty, would cease to be an expense to her mother, and would enjoy the comforts and advantages of a permanent home. If this had been all, she might have easily decided the question. But there was something more to be taken into the account. Mr. Morrison, who was a large, jovial and good-hearted, though rather coarse and uncultivated man, kept the tavern in the village where he lived. Jessie had once visited him, and had a vivid recollection of his house, which was pervaded from top to bottom with a mingled flavor of alcohol and tobacco, and was the favorite resort, especially during the evening and the Sabbath, of a set of idle and not very prepossessing men, whose low and profane conversation sometimes penetrated beyond the piazza and the bar-room. Mr. Morrison, though apparently an honest, well-meaning man, seemed to have no religious principle. He was not a church-goer, but spent the Sabbath pretty much as he did other days. He relished the coarse jest, and the story spiced with vulgarity or profaneness, as much as did any of the idlers who frequented his house; and Jessie had a suspicion that he slyly relished his own liquors, too, but of this she was not positive.
Such was the man who proposed to become a father to Jessie. He was doubtless kindly disposed, had ample means, and would do all for her that he had promised. His wife was an excellent woman, with whom Jessie would have esteemed it a privilege to live. The temptation was strong, but the next morning Jessie was prepared to give a firm and decided answer to her uncle. She told him she thought she had better remain where she was—that she was with kind friends, and should soon be fitted to support herself by teaching. Mr. Morrison was surprised at her decision, and tried to reason her out of it, pointing out the advantages she would enjoy, if she went to live with him. Mistaking the ground of her refusal, he told her that if she did not wish to be dependent upon any one, he would give her a first-rate education, after which she might have the privilege of supporting herself by teaching, if she preferred. But his arguments and persuasions all failed, and he was obliged to go home without her. He was not without hope, however, that she would yet “come to her senses,” as he expressed it—for he evidently thought she was beside herself in rejecting such a fine offer; and he told her he would come for her at any time within a few weeks, if she would write. She did write, to thank her aunt for her kindness, and to express her regret that she felt compelled to decline the liberal offer, and that was the end of the matter. She preferred poverty and toil, in her present position, rather than money and ease, coupled with influences that might work disastrously upon her character and her happiness.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE NEW GAME.
The “Home Wreath” continued to make its appearance promptly every Saturday afternoon, and had of late acquired new popularity, by an attractive feature it had adopted. It was now illustrated, almost every week, by original drawings, usually executed by Miss Lee or Jessie. These sketchings were small, and not very elaborate, but they served to give a new interest to the sheet. They were entitled “Family Portraits,” and at first were confined to likenesses of creatures kept on the farm or in the house. Rover, the faithful spaniel, was sketched to the life, and so was Goldy, the cat. The two horses, Charley and Kittie, Cora, the calf, and a hen with a brood of chickens, were also honored with places in the gallery. No one thought of extending this collection of portraits beyond the domain of the brute portion of the family, until, one Saturday afternoon, the whole house was startled by an editorial announcement in the “Wreath,” to the effect that “the portrait of one of its contributors would be given next week.” The editor positively refused to let any one into the secret, and no one else appeared to know anything about the matter. Curiosity was excited almost to a painful degree, among the young folks, and all put on and wore for a week their most amiable looks, each one anxious to appear as pretty as possible on paper, if he or she were the favored individual. After a week of suspense, Saturday came, and with it came the “Wreath.” Kate got first possession of the sheet, and as she opened it, and the annexed “portrait” disclosed itself, labelled “Our Sociable Contributor,” there was a peal of laughter from the other members of the family who were peeping over her shoulders, that woke the echoes under the old roof. Marcus was of course the hero of the picture. He was an attentive reader of the news of the day, and had a habit of getting so absorbed in the paper as sometimes to become oblivious to remarks addressed to him, so that the boys used to say the newspaper made him deaf. The likeness was unanimously voted a capital one, inasmuch as there was no mistaking who it was intended for.
A week or two after this, the portrait of another contributor was promised, and a lively sensation was again awakened. Expectation was on tip-toe until the next number of the “Wreath” appeared, when a pair of boy’s legs on stilts, labelled “Our High-minded Contributor,” sent another merry shout through the house. A mania for stilts just then prevailed among the boys, and Ronald, for several days, had scarcely deigned to walk upon the earth, but “intent on high designs,” went awkwardly hobbling round on two long poles, to the amazement of the cows and chickens, and somewhat to the risk of his limbs and trousers. Of course, nobody could mistake this portrait; but Ronald seemed much disappointed because the artist (whether Aunt Fanny or Jessie, he could not find out,) did not finish it up, to his full length. And, really, it was provoking to come so near being immortalized, and yet miss it.
But Ronald’s mind was not altogether taken up with stilts, April-fool hoaxes, or maple sugar speculations. He had been for several weeks, and was at this very time, at odd moments, engaged on a literary enterprise of considerable magnitude, for a boy but half way into his thirteenth year. He let Jessie, alone, into the secret, and received from her some useful suggestions and assistance; and a paragraph from her pen in the “Wreath,” was the first announcement of the matter to the rest of the family. The paragraph was as follows:
“A New Pleasure.—We learn that a young member of our family will in a few days issue, in manuscript, a new and very amusing game of transformations, upon which he has been engaged for some time. We predict that it will prove quite popular with the young folks. Besides the amusement it will afford, it has a peculiar feature which will transform it at pleasure into a puzzling and useful exercise for the intellect. Our readers will probably know more about it, before the next number of the ‘Wreath’ appears.
J.”
Immediately on this announcement, there was great inquiry about the “new pleasure,” and Ronald was compelled to produce his game, the moment it had received the finishing touches. As this game will perhaps amuse my young readers, I shall copy it here, though it is rather long. At the end of Peter’s “story,” will be found a list of phrases, which, before playing the game, should be copied off, each upon a separate slip of card or paper.[[10]] One person should be selected to read the story aloud, and the cards should be distributed among the rest of the company. Whenever the reader comes to a blank in the narrative, he should look to some one of the company, who must immediately read aloud the uppermost card in his pile; and so the game proceeds to the end. Of course the story will read differently every time the game is tried, for the transformations it is capable of are infinite. No, not exactly infinite, which means without limits; but it would take many lines of figures to express the precise number, as any reader who has studied arithmetic as far as permutation can easily satisfy himself. This game is called the “Game of Transformations.”
[10]. This game may be procured of the publishers in separate form, and put up in a neat paper box.
There is another game which Ronald called the “Game of Literary Patchwork,” that may be played with the same cards. One person reads the story, as in the other game, and the company, instead of taking the cards hap-hazard, select at each pause one that they suppose will fit the sentence. If the match proves in any case incongruous or absurd, the reader may be empowered to exact a forfeit from the offender.
It should also be noticed that this is not merely a game to amuse an idle hour. It is also a “Literary Puzzle,” designed to exercise and sharpen the wits; for it is so arranged that it can be put together so as to make sense, from beginning to end. There is a particular place for each phrase, but it will call into exercise some ingenuity, judgment and carefulness, to give to each “Jack” its own appropriate “Gill.” It will, however, be a profitable exercise, and, I think, will repay the young reader for the attempt, even if he should not be perfectly successful.
Now for the game: