See what a row of beds are in that long room, and a sick person in each. But we will not stop to look at them now, we have come to see Lucy, poor little crippled Lucy. There she lies in that cot yonder, next the window, with her little snow-flake of a hand lying outside the white coverlid; she raises her pale face from the pillow, and her eyes grow bright, for she knows that I love and pity her; she can’t move much, for (it will make you feel so bad that I can hardly bear to tell you) she has had her leg cut off, where the cars crushed it. She does not complain, as she shews you the bandaged stump that is left, but her sunken eyes, and the little drooping wrists, not much bigger than your papa’s cane, tell what she has suffered. Suppose I should tell you she had had it cut off twice? Poor, poor Lucy; the doctors cut it off first at the ankle, hoping to save the rest of the leg, but afterward, they found it must be taken off higher up, just above the knee, and the dear patient suffering child went through with the agony all over again. It makes one cry to think of it. But see, Lucy don’t cry, I wish she would; she is so much like an angel that I am afraid we shall lose her, after all, though the doctor says she will “get well, slowly.” She likes the flowers I bring her; she likes the little dainty doll too, with its changes of dresses, and skirts and aprons and bonnets; for she gets tired looking at that long row of beds, with a groaning sick person in each; at that row of windows too, down the long hall; she wearies of moving her little wasted forefinger, round and round the figures on her bed-quilt; she wearies of looking at her little stump of a limb, and wondering how she shall learn to walk with only one leg, and she wearies lying in one position hour after hour, without turning over. I don’t wonder. I thought as I sat there, how I should like to hang some pictures on those bare walls, for those sick folks to look at and think about, as they lie there; how I should like to give them all a fresh bunch of flowers every day; and how sad it was, when they were sick and nervous and weak, to see a patient in the next bed die, before their eyes, and be carried out. All these thoughts passed through my mind, as I sat fanning little Lucy; and it made me happy to see her turning over the doll’s little gay-colored dresses, and trying them on, one after another, and saying “How pretty!” Lucy wanted a name for the doll I brought her, so I gave it the name of “Fanny.” Lucy did not know why I chose that name, though you and I do. But we must go now, for the pleasant-looking fat nurse has brought Lucy her dinner, and I think that will do her more good than we can; but stop a minute, Lucy, should you like me to bring you a little book, next time I come? (Oh, dear, how could I ask the child? see, she hangs her head, she “can’t read,” although she is seven years old). Well, can you sew, Lucy? Yes, she can sew. Oh, that’s nice; then you shall have a little thimble, some needles, some spools, a pair of scissors, and some silk to make your doll some dresses, and a box to keep them all in; that’s what you shall have, you poor little patient lamb-like Lucy. You are a living sermon, and if I am not better for seeing you, it will not be because I don’t need improving.
THE TRUANT.
Johnny thought he knew better than his mother what was best for boys. Johnny’s mother thought it was not safe for boys to play about the streets. Johnny thought that was all nonsense. As Johnny could not get leave to play in the street, he thought he would play there without leave. One fine day, he snatched his cap slyly, when his mother was busy, and stepped out at the front door, and whipped round the corner in less time than I have taken to tell you about it. Wasn’t it delightful? What was the use of being a boy, if he must be tied to his mother’s apron-string, like a whimpering cry-baby of a girl? Other boys played in the street, plenty of them. True, they did not always have whole rims to their hats, and their jackets were buttonless, and their knees were through their trowsers; but what of that? They were “first-rate fellows to play.” True, they used bad words now and then, but he, Johnny, was not obliged to do so. His mother was a very nice mother, and he loved her; but his mother never was a boy, and how could she tell what boys wanted? He did not mean to disobey her—oh, no; he only meant—pshaw! what was the use of wasting time thinking about that. Halloo! there’s an organ-grinder with a monkey; and there’s a man with three little fat pups to sell, black pups, with white paws, and curly drooping ears, and tails so short that they can’t even wag them; and there’s a shop-window with marbles and fire-crackers—what a pity he had no pence! And there’s a boy stealing molasses out of a hole in a hogshead by sucking it through a straw; and there are two boys at a fruit-stall—one talks to the old woman who keeps it, while the other slyly pockets an apple, without paying for it; and there’s a boy sprawling in the middle of the street, who tried to steal a ride on an omnibus step, and got a smart cut on his temple for his pains; and there—yes—there’s Tom Thumb’s carriage on a high cart. What funny little ponies. How Johnny wishes he were General Tom Thumb, instead of plain Johnny Scott. Silly boy, as if it were not better to be a fine full-grown man, able to fight for his country if she needed him, as Johnny will be some day, than to be passed round the country for a little hop o’ my thumb puppet show? And yonder is a great stone building. What can it be? Perhaps a bank. No, it is too big for that. What a great heavy door it has. It is not a meeting-house. No—and Johnny drew nearer. Now the big gate opens, and a crowd of people gather outside. Johnny goes a little nearer; nearer, nearer still; now he sees a cart stop before the door. ’Tis not a baker’s cart, nor a grocer’s cart, nor a milkman’s cart—but never mind the cart.
See! inside the gate across that fenced yard, come a dozen or more boys, about Johnny’s age, and a man with them. Who are they? What are they there for? Why is that man with them? And where are they going? Johnny edges a little nearer. Now he has one foot inside the gate, for the little boys are passing through, and he wants to look at them. Now they have all passed through. Where are they going in that cart?
“Come along, you little scapegrace. None of your lagging behind,” says the man who was with the boys, seizing Johnny roughly by the shoulder. “Come along, don’t you pull away from me. Come, it is no use crying for your mother—you should have thought of her before you stole those peaches. Where you are going? You know well enough that the Judge has sent the whole gang of you to Blackwell’s Island and there’s the city cart to take you there; and I am the man to put you into it, and see that you go. None of your kicking, now. Come along, or it will be the worse for you.” And he seized Johnny, and lifting him by his trowsers into the cart as easily as you would handle a kitten, he locked him in with the other boys, and told the driver to go ahead. “Stop there,” said a man in the street to the driver; “stop there. That little fellow don’t belong to those bad boys. His name is little Johnny Scott. His mother is a neighbor of mine, a very nice woman too. I know her very well. He was only looking round the gate of ‘The Tombs’ to see what was going on. Let him out, I say. I will see him safe home. Oh, Johnny, Johnny, this comes of running about the street. You might have been carried to Blackwell’s Island, had it not been for me. What do you suppose your mother would say to see you here?”
Sure enough, that’s what Johnny thought, as he clambered out of the prison-wagon and wiped his eyes on his jacket sleeve. Sure enough, how could he ever look her in the face?
But his mother did not punish him. No, she thought rightly that he had punished himself enough; and so he had. It was a good lesson to him, and for a long time he was ashamed to go out into the street, for fear some boy who was looking on that day, and had seen him pushed into the prison-cart, would halloo after him, “There goes a Blackwell Island boy.”
BESSIE AND HER MOTHER.
Bessie was very fond of reading. Well, I think I hear some of you say, I hope you are not going to find fault with that. Oh, but I am, though; because as wise old Solomon said thousands of years ago, there is a time for every thing. Bessie did not believe this; she thought that time was never made to sew; she thought that time was never made to dust, or sweep, or keep herself tidy, or attend to visitors, or go of errands, or do any thing, in fact, but read, read, read, from Monday till Saturday, and Saturday till Monday. She would sit down with a story-book in her hand, the first thing after breakfast, the sun shining in through the closed windows upon an un-made bed, which needed airing, upon dresses, shoes, and stockings, which needed putting away, upon her own unsmoothed locks, unbrushed teeth, uncleansed finger-nails, and torn morning-dress; what do you think of that? Then her mother would call, “Bessie!” and Bessie would answer “Yes,” without stirring or raising her eyes from the story-book; then her mother would call again, “Bessie!” louder than before, and then Bessie would begin to move slowly across the room, still reading, to see what was wanted; then her mother would tell her to “go down and tell the cook to make apple dumplings for dinner;” then Bessie, with her mind still on the book, would go down and tell Sally “not to make apple dumplings for dinner;” then her mother would tell her to “shut the front entry-door, where the hot sun was beating in;” then Bessie would go and shut the china-closet door instead; then her mother would say, “Bessie, have you mended your stockings this week?” and Bessie would answer, without knowing what she was talking about, “Yes, mother;” and then that afternoon, Bessie’s mother would tell her to “get ready to go out with her;” and then Bessie would say, “I have no stockings mended to wear;” and then her mother would remind her of what she said about it, and Bessie would look at her as bewildered as if she had been dreaming, for she did not know when she told her so what she was saying. Was it right for Bessie to do so? and was it wrong in Bessie’s mother, who knew how necessary it is for girls to be tidy, and orderly, and neat, to tell Bessie that she must only read so much a day, and that, not before she had attended to all these things which I have said she was in the habit of neglecting? Was it wrong for Bessie’s mother to insist upon her going into the kitchen sometimes, and learning how to clean silver, and how to cook and make pies and cakes? was it wrong for her to oblige her to keep her thimble and scissors in her work-basket, instead of on the piazza-floor, and her shawl in the drawer instead of under the bed? was it wrong for her to make her lace up her gaiters neatly, instead of letting the strings tangle round her feet? It would have been much less trouble to Bessie’s mother had she allowed her to take her own way about these things, instead of trotting up-stairs and down to see what she was about, and how things looked in her room; but Bessie’s mother knew that a woman is always disgusting, no matter how much she knows, or has read, unless she is neat and tidy in her habits, and that she is not worthy the name of a woman, if she can not take proper care of her house, or is too indolent, or slovenly to do it; she loved her daughter better than she did her own ease, and she knew, spite of Bessie’s tears, that it were cruel kindness to heed them; she knew that many a man has become a drunkard because he never found any thing fit to eat on his table, or his house in decent order when he came home; it is quite as necessary for a woman to know how to make wholesome bread and puddings, as it is that she should read, and study, and be able to talk about books, or even to write them herself; yes, though she may be able to have cooks and chambermaids to do her work. Suppose she wants a pudding for dinner; suppose she has a cook who does not like to work any better than her mistress if she can help it; and suppose the cook not caring to take trouble to make the pudding, tells her ignorant mistress, that “there is not time now to make and boil it before dinner.” Such things have been done, and many a fine lady, I can tell you, has been obliged to go without her pudding, because she did not know enough to tell the cook that what she said was not true.
Beside, suppose this lady who knows so much about books, should get into difficulty with her servants, and they should all go off and leave her; must her husband go without his dinner because she can not, at a moment’s notice, get more servants to cook for her? how helpless such a woman is—how ashamed she must feel, as her husband puts on his hat and goes to an eating-house to get his dinner. Bessie did not think of all this, but her mother did. By-and-by when Bessie grew up, and was married, and had a nice pretty house, she knew how to mend her husband’s clothes and get him a good dinner, as well as she did how to talk with him about books, and other things in which he was interested; and when, looking round his comfortable home, he kissed his wife, and said, “Bessie you are my treasure,” Bessie would point to the little grave-yard within sight of her window and as her tears fell fast she would say, “Oh, if I could but thank my mother now for all she did for me when I was so naughty and wayward.”