The Play-day Book: New Stories for Little Folks

by Fanny Fern

John was once Teller in a bank. Do you know what a teller does? He counts over all the money that is brought into the bank, and gives an account of it to the president of the bank, and the directors. Of course he has to be very careful never to make a mistake in counting; or to mislay even a sixpence; lest the president and the directors of the bank might think he had stolen it. John was very careful and very honest; and all the people who had dealings with him, liked him very much; thousands and thousands of dollars passed through his fingers every day, but he never had a wish to steal a cent; although there were a great many things he could think of, which he wished to buy. At last John got married. His wife was a young girl, named Ellen Norris; she had bright black eyes, rosy lips and two very pretty dimples in her cheeks; John thought he had never seen any thing half so bewitching as those dancing dimples: he was half crazy, when Ellen said yes, to his question, “Will you marry me;” he thought Ellen loved him as well as he loved her, and that they could be as happy together as two robins in one nest. But I am sorry to say, that Ellen did not really love John; she was as poor as she was pretty, and had married him because she supposed he would buy her beautiful dresses, ribbons, and things, to set off her beauty; so after they were married, she kept coaxing for this thing, and coaxing for that, and coaxing for the other; and how could poor John bear to say no, to those two pretty dimples? So he bought one piece of furniture after another, that he knew he could not afford to buy; and silks and satins for Ellen, and hired carriages for her to ride in; and bought every thing which she took it into her foolish head, and selfish heart, to fancy. By-and-by, he found that he had used up all the money which belonged to him; but still Ellen kept coaxing and teazing; and one day when John, for the first time, ventured to say he could not buy something she wanted, Ellen burst into tears, and told John that he did not love her. John could not bear that; so he kissed her, and told her she should have it; but as he went down to the bank, his lips were very white, and there was a strange troubled look in his face, which was never seen there before. That night he put a roll of bills in Ellen’s hand, but long after she was sleeping, dreaming I suppose, of all the fine things money would buy, John might be seen pacing up and down the floor, and now and then striking his forehead with his clenched fist.

Many times after this, Ellen had rolls of bills, and many nights John walked the floor, in the way I have told you.

At last there came a day when Ellen waited for John to come home to dinner—waited—waited—waited—but he did not come. Instead, there came the messenger of the bank, and told her that John was put in jail to be tried for taking money from the bank that was not his. The messenger pitied Ellen, because she was so young, and because he believed her to be a good and loving wife; and he would have rather given a great deal of money, than to have told her such bad news, if he had had it to give. Every body was so astonished when they heard about John; every body had thought him “such a good fellow;” nobody knew how that foolish, selfish woman, had led him on to steal with her dimples and her tears. No—for John never told of it; not even to excuse himself; not even when his heartless wife refused to go and see him in jail; and when she packed up the silks, and ribbons, which had sent John to State Prison, and went off without saying good-by, after she found that he could not buy her any more. Not a word did poor John say against his wife; not a word would he hear any body else say, because she had deserted him in his trouble.

Poor John! he was sentenced to State Prison for several years; the best years of his life; when he was young, strong, and hearty; they shaved off his brown hair, put on the prison dress, and set him to work cutting stone. John made no complaint, he said it was just, that he had deserved his punishment: he did just as he was bid, but the light died out from his fine bright eye, his head drooped upon his breast, and when the day’s toil was over and the officer had locked him up for the long lonely night, into his narrow dark cell, could you have passed in, you would have seen him tossing on his straw bed, and now and then you might have heard him groan, “Oh, Ellen! Ellen!”

When he had staid his time out in prison, the officers took off his prison clothes, and gave him a new suit to go away with. John stood looking at them; the light fell from the window upon the face of the same man, who stood in that spot five years before, to have that prison uniform put on. Oh, how changed. Now his brown hair, was snow-white with sorrow; his eye dim, and his frame bent like an old man of fourscore. John looked at the new clothes they brought him; why should he put them on? where should he go? who on the wide earth would befriend the poor convict?

So poor John went staggering out through the heavy gate, as the warden unlocked it with his huge key, and slouched his hat over his eyes, as if he could not bear that even the sun should see his face, and wandered forth—he knew not whither. At last he came to a little village, and there in the woods, away from the curious gaze, away from the scornful finger, he built him a little cabin of boughs and logs; and now and then he wandered down to the village, and the farmers would give him a basket of potatoes, or a little meat, or corn.

This was the old man whom Bob thought it would be fun to tease; whose straw he set on fire, and who lay mangled and bleeding by the way-side, with none to care for him.

It is a pleasant afternoon, the warm sun shines on the sweet flowers, and the birds sing on, as if grief, and care, and sorrow had never entered this bright and beautiful world of ours. A hearse winds slowly down beneath the waving trees; no carriages follow it, and there are no mourners on foot; only the sexton stands at the grave, waiting to lay old John’s head on its last peaceful pillow. Poor John—death has knocked off his last fetter. He who forgave the thief on the cross, will surely show him mercy.

HISTORY OF A FAMILY OF CATS.

Mrs. Tabby Grimalkin, a highly respectable gray cat, had lived for several years with a maiden lady by the name of Stevens, in whose house she had lately reared five interesting young Grimalkins, of various sorts and sizes.