These are blessed memories to keep the heart green. They are like the little swaying wild flower that the dusty traveler sometimes finds in a rock crevice, breathing out its sweetness all the same as if it were not hemmed in by flinty walls and bars; more beautiful than the most gorgeous garden flowers, which every passer by has gazed at, and handled, because to God and ourselves it is sacred. These childish memories! they are the first round of the ladder by which our world-weary feet shall climb to heaven, after those who have rocked our cradles.
Near Dewley Burn lived a widow, named Grace Ainslie, who kept a number of cows that used to nibble the grass along the woods. A boy was needed to watch them, and keep them from being run over by the coal wagons, or straying into the neighboring fields. To this boy’s duty was added that of barring the gates at night, after the coal wagons had passed through. George applied for this place, and to his great joy he got it, at two pence a day. It was easy work to loll about on the fresh green grass, and watch the lazy cows as they nibbled, or stretched themselves under the trees, chewing and winking, hour after hour. George had plenty of time to look for birds’ nests and make whistles out of sticks and straws, and build little mills in the water streams. But if you watched the boy, you would see that, best of all, when he and his friend Tom got together, he liked to build clay engines. The clay they found in the bogs, and of the hemlock which grew about, they made their steam pipes. I dare say some solemn wise head might have passed that way, and sighed that these boys were “wasting their time” playing in the mud; not remembering that children in their “foolish play,” by their little failures and successes in experimenting, sometimes educate themselves better than any book-read man in the land could do it; at least, at that age. Then it was a blessed thing that the child’s work lay out of doors, and not in a stifling close factory, or shop. That his limbs got strong and his cheek brown and sunburnt, and his eye bright as a young eagle’s. Every day now added to his growth, and of course to his employment; though scarcely big enough to stride, he led the horses when plowing, and when he was able to hoe turnips and do such farm work, he was very much delighted at his increased wages of fourpence a day. When he was thirteen, he made a sun-dial for his father’s cottage. You may be sure his father was very proud of that. His little head had been busy, you see, when he lay on the grass watching the cows. By and by George got eighteen pence a day, and at last the wish of his heart, in being taken as an assistant to his father in feeding the engine fire. George was very much afraid, he was such a little fellow, that he should be thought too young for the work, and when the overseer of the colliery went the rounds, to see if everything was done right, George used to hide himself, for fear he would think him too small a boy to earn his wages. Some lads as fond as he was of bird’s-nesting, and such amusements, would not have been in such a hurry to make themselves useful; but George’s parents worked hard, and he loved them; he knew that white hairs were creeping among those brown locks of his mother’s, and that his good, merry father would not always be able to tend the engine fire; and so though his tame black-bird, who made the cottage her home in winter, flying in and out, and roosting on the head of his bed, and disappearing in the spring and summer, in the woods, to pair and to rear its young, and then coming back again in winter to live with George; although his bird was a very pretty pet, and his tame rabbits were a great pleasure, too, yet little as he was, he was anxious to shoulder his share of the burden that was pressing so heavily on his parents. Ever since, too, that he had modeled that little clay engine in the bog, he had determined to be an engineer, and the first step to this was to be an assistant fireman. Imagine, then, his delight when, at fourteen years, he got the post at the wages of a shilling a day.
George’s home was one small room, crowded with three low-posted beds, in which father and mother, four sons, and two daughters slept. This one room was, of course, parlor, kitchen and sleeping-room, all in one. This cottage was furnished by the Duke who employed these people; he being also their landlord. Now I would be willing if I ever made bets, to bet you something handsome, that this Duke had a liveried servant behind his chair at home, and a table loaded with dainties, and silver and cut glass, and more wines in his castle than he knew how to use; and horses and hounds, and carriages and pictures, and statues, and conservatories and hot houses, and all that; and yet, that he was not one half as happy as the Stephensons in that little cottage with one room. Aching heads are apt to go with dainty food, and weak limbs with soft beds. When a poor man has a friend, he generally knows that he is loved for himself; when a rich man has one, he is never sure how much his riches have to do with his friendship. Many a rich man has sighed for the days when he used to run barefoot; and many a jeweled lady for the day when the little brook was her looking-glass. Things are more equal in this life, after all, than grumblers are apt to imagine. Well, to go back to George, all the time he was feeding that fire, he had his eyes open, watching everything about the engine; nothing escaped his notice; I have no doubt his father watched him, with an honest pride shining out of his eyes. It must have been very pleasant for the two to work together, and help each other; for George was growing strong and big, and used to try to make himself stronger by lifting heavy weights. When he was seventeen, he was made a “flagman.” That was a station as watchman above his father, as the flagman holds a higher rank than the fireman, and receives higher wages. No doubt good old Robert was as delighted as George could be at this promotion. We can imagine, too, how his mother and sisters, as they worked industriously to keep the little one room cottage tidy and comfortable, sang cheerfully as they worked, when they thought of their good strong brother. It is a flagman’s duty, when the engine is out of order, to call on the chief engineer to set it right. George had rarely need to do this. The engine was a perfect pet with him. He understood every part of it; he took it to pieces and cleaned it himself, and learned so well how it worked, and what it needed, that nobody could instruct him anything about it. It is said that all the important improvements of steam-engines have been made, not by learned literary men, but by plain laborers.
Everything that George undertook, howsoever small the matter might be, he determined to understand perfectly, and to do well and thoroughly. When George said that he knew he could do a thing, all his friends knew it was no idle boast. So you will not be astonished when I tell you that he went on studying and improving till he became a famous man; so famous that he received calls from abroad, asking his advice as “a constructing engineer” about building bridges and railways, and all such things. I guess he never thought of that, when he was building bridges of mud with his play-fellows. Little children, you see, are not always “wasting their time” when they are playing quietly by themselves. No, indeed. I guess he didn’t think then that he should build a two-mile bridge across the St. Lawrence in connection with the Grand Trunk Canadian Railway, which should be so much admired and praised for its taste as well as skill; or, when he slept in the little cottage with only one room in it, that he should one day become “a Member of Parliament;” or that when he died, he should be buried in state at Westminster Abbey, where all the famous, great men were buried, and that immense crowds of people should go to his funeral, and be so sorry that a man who was so useful to his country should die, when he was only fifty-six years old. But so it was. I think George made good use of those fifty-six years; don’t you?
TO MY LITTLE FRIENDS.
I want to say a few words to the little children who write me such nice letters.
Some of you live in and about New York, some at a great distance from it. I should be very glad, had I time, to write each of you a long letter—indeed, many long letters; but how is this possible, if I “make some more books for you,” as you all request me to do? One cannot write a book as fast as one can read it through; perhaps you do not think of that. Besides, I write every week for the New York Ledger. Then I have a great many other calls upon my time, of which you know nothing. Like your own mamma, I have children. They sometimes say, “Oh, do throw away that tiresome pen, and talk to us.” And then I say, “Yes, presently.” But still I have to keep on writing. Then, you know, if I only used my head, and never my feet, my head would not last long. I must exercise a great deal every day, else I should fly up the chimney, or through the roof, like a witch. But for all that I don’t forget one little girl or boy who ever wrote to me; and although I cannot answer, it always pleases me to hear from you. I want you all to believe this, and write me whenever you feel like it.
BABY EFFIE.
Do you see this little baby? Her name is Effie, and her young mother is dead. Well, partly on that account, and partly because she is just the loveliest, and brightest, and sweetest baby that ever was born, she rules every one in the house. How? why, by one smile or cunning little trick, she can make them all go and come, fetch and carry, rise and sit down, all the same as if they had no will but hers. For instance, you may say, now at such a time I will go to such a place; but if that baby catches sight of you going out, and makes up a little grieved mouth because you are going, unless you could coax her to forget it, with a piece of the moon, or some such wonderful thing, you would very likely stay at home with her. If you say your side aches, and really, Effie grows so fat on her good sweet milk, that you must let nurse carry her more, even if she does whimper a little; and you may really mean to do it; but oh, why has she such a dear little red mouth, and such a distracting way of fixing her lips, and such a pleading look in her soft eyes, and such a musical little coax to make believe talk, unless it be that her dimpled feet shall always be on your obedient neck? You can’t look at her as if she were only a rag baby. And very likely you’d get thinking, too, that nobody could tie her bonnet, or cloak, save yourself, or button her little red boots right; so that no fold of her mite of a stocking should double under her ridiculous little toes.
Perhaps you think it is a very simple thing to wash and dress little Effie. That shows how little you know. Now listen. That baby has four distinct little chins that you must watch your chance to wash between her frantic little crying-spells; then she has as many little rolls of fat on the back of the neck, that have to be searched out, and bathed; and all the time you are doing this you have to be talking little baby talk to her, to make her believe you are only playing, instead of washing her. Then baby won’t have her ears or nose meddled with; and if you interfere with her toes, she won’t put up with it a minute; and it takes two people to open her chubby little fists when it is time to wash them. Then you haven’t the least idea of the job it is to get one of her stiff little vexed arms out of her cambric sleeve; or how many times she kicks while you are tying on her tiny red shoe. Then she is just as mad as can be when you lay her over on her stomach to tie the strings of her frock; and she is still more mad if you lay her on her back. And besides, she can stiffen herself out, when she likes, so that “all the king’s men” couldn’t make her sit down, and at another time she will curl herself up in a circle, so that neither they nor anybody else could straighten her out; then you had better just count the garments that have to be got off and on before this washing and dressing business is done; and then every now and then you have to stop to see that she is not choking or strangling; or that you have not put any of her funny little legs or arms out of joint, or hurt her bobbing little head. Now, I hope you understand what a delicate job it is. But when the last string is tied, and little Effie comes out of this daily misery into scarlet-lipped, diamond-eyed peace, looking fresh and sweet as a rosebud, and dropping off to sleep in your arms, with quivering white eyelids and pretty murmurings of the little half-smiling lips, while the perfect little fat waxen hands lie idly by her side, ah—then you should see her!