Well, like other boys, Master Walter was sometimes at the top, and sometimes at the bottom of his class. On one occasion he made a sudden leap to the top. The master asked the boys “Is with ever a substantive?” All were silent, until the question reached Walter, nearly at the bottom of the class, who instantly replied by quoting from the book of Judges, “And Sampson said unto Delilah, ‘If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and as another man.’” Pretty keen! wasn’t it? The other boys twiddled their thumbs, and looked foolish, and he went to the top. I don’t believe his mother thought, when she read him the Bible, of his laying that text on the shelf of his memory, to be brought forth in that queer way. But a smart answer does not stand a boy in the place of hard study, as you may have found out if you ever tried it; so Master Walter found himself at the bottom of the class again one fine day. This didn’t suit the young man, and what suited him less was the fact that the boy who was at the head seemed to mean to stay there, too. Day after day passed, and nobody could get his place. Walter pondered deeply how he should manage. He looked sharply at him, to see if he could not accomplish by stratagem what he could not gain fairly. At length he observed that when a question was asked this—at-the-top boy—he always fumbled with his fingers at a particular button on the lower part of his waistcoat. If Walter could only succeed in cutting off that button! He watched his chance—knife in hand. When that top boy was again questioned, he felt, as usual, for the friendly button. It was gone! He looked down for it; it was no more to be seen than to be felt. He stuttered—he stammered—he missed his lesson; and that wretched, roguish Walter took his place. But I can tell you he didn’t feel happy about it; for he says he never passed him but his heart smote him for it, though the top boy never knew who stole his lesson button. Scott says he often promised himself to make some amends for the boyish injury he did him; but he never did. Scott also says that when this boy grew a young man, he became a drunkard, and died early. That was a pity, though I don’t think it was on account of that button; do you? Still, Scott always wished all the more that he had not been unkind to the poor, unfortunate fellow.
You will be glad to know that Walter continued to grow stronger and stronger, so that his limb, though it disfigured, did not disable him. He had not been taunted with it in his childhood, like poor Byron, till he imagined everybody who looked at him thought of nothing else. He had been very, very kindly cared for, and tenderly nursed. Pity Byron was not, though I think he never would have been half the man Scott was; but then, I’m “only a woman,” and you needn’t mind what I say. Well, when Walter grew to be a fine young man, he was very fond of strolling off to see beautiful scenery, and when he once began these journeys, he never knew how fast time was passing, how far he had gone, and when and where to stop. Not knowing how to draw pictures of the places he visited with his pencil (he did not know then how beautifully his pen would do it some day), he resolved to cut a branch of a tree from every place which particularly pleased him, and label it with the name of the spot where it grew, and afterward have a set of chess men made out of the wood, as he was then very fond of this game, which, by the way, with a courtesy to Paul Morphy, I think a very stupid game; though perhaps this is because I never could sit still long enough to learn how to play it. This idea of Walter’s was a very pretty one, though he never carried it into execution. He never played chess after boyhood—saying that it was a sad “waste of brains;” and he might have added, a sad waste of backbone; at least for “Young America,” who has few enough outdoor sports now, to keep his breastbone and his backbone from clinging together.
Walter’s mother was very anxious he should learn music; but he declares he had neither voice nor ear for it. He says that, when the attempt was made to instruct him, and the music teacher came to give him lessons, a lady who lived in their neighborhood sent in “to beg that the children in that house might not all be flogged at the same hour, because, though, doubtless, they all deserved it, the noise they made was really dreadful!”
Walter’s mother appears to have been a very intelligent, kind-hearted, well-educated woman. Not educated according to our standard, exactly; since, at the age of eighty, when sitting down, she never touched the back of her chair any more than if the eye of the schoolmistress was then upon her, who used to force pupils “to sit upright.” She died before Walter came to be the “great unknown” whom everybody was wondering about. But, after all, what matters it, so far as she was concerned? since it is love, not greatness, for which a mother’s heart hungers; and Walter loved his mother.
After her death, among her papers was found a weak, boyish scrawl, with penciled marks still visible, of a translation in verse from Horace and Virgil, by “her dear boy Walter.” I said, just now, what mattered it to her that he was famous? little, truly, so that he loved her; and yet, for him, for any one, to whom the world’s praises have come, ah, it is of the loved dead that they then think?
With all his glory, with all his troop of friends, seen and unseen, I doubt if he was ever so happy as when lying at her feet, wrapped in the warm sheepskin, in the little sunny parlor at Sandy Knowe. When you read his books—and it is a great thing to say that children may read them—you will remember all these little stories I have been telling you about his childhood; and that, when he came to die, full of age and honors, this is what he said to his son, as he stood by his bedside: “My dear, be a good man: be virtuous, be religious—be a good man. Nothing else will give you any real comfort when you come to lie here.”
AUNT MAGGIE.
Maggie More—that was her name; people who knew her well called her Aunt Maggie; this did not displease her; she was a sociable little body, quite willing to befriend anybody who felt the need of an aunt, or whom the world had used hardly. Maggie was not rich as we use the word, but she was rich in good health, in good temper, and a certain faculty of making the best of everything that happened. The little shop she kept would have made a Broadway storekeeper laugh. Well, let him laugh; he could afford to do it, if he never made a dishonest penny oftener than Aunt Maggie. She never told a poor soul who had scraped a few shillings together to buy a calico dress, that “it would wash,” (meaning that it would wash out.) Her yardstick never had a way of slipping, so that six yards and a half measured, when you got it home, but six yards. She never gave crossed sixpences and shillings to children who were sent to buy tape and needles; and so, as I told you, Aunt Maggie did not get rich as fast as they who do such things; but Maggie had read in a Book which the people I speak of seldom open, because, when they do, it is sure to prick their consciences—Aunt Maggie had read in that book, that “they who make haste to be rich shall not be innocent,” and she believed it. She had not yet outgrown the Bible; it did not lie on her little deal table merely to gather dust, or that the minister might see it when he called once a year. She did not think that, though the Bible was well enough for those who lived at the time it was written, it could teach her nothing at this day; she did not think it a proof of courage or of a superior understanding to make light of its blessed teachings. No, no, Aunt Maggie knew better; she had seen too many in her lifetime, who had talked that way when everything went well with them, sink down in despair when the waves of trouble dashed over them, and she had seen too many whom that blessed book had buoyed up through billows of trouble that rolled mountain high, not to cling to the Bible. No, no; Aunt Maggie was an old woman, but she was not yet old enough to let go her Heavenly Father’s hand, and try to walk alone. She knew how surely she should stumble and fall if she did.
Nor did Aunt Maggie’s religion consist merely in reading her Bible and going to church; when she read on its pages, “Visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction,” she did it.
“What is the matter, Aunt Maggie?” asked a bronzed sea captain, who had rolled into her little shop to buy a new watch ribbon. “This is the first time I ever saw you look as if there was a squall ahead. Got any watch ribbons, Aunt Maggie?—none of your flimsy things for an old sea-dog like me. Give us something that will stand a twitch or two—that’s it—take your pay—(throwing her his purse)—and mind you take enough—there’s nobody else wants it now”—and the old captain drew a long sigh.