“Good-morning, Edward, and Napoleon and Josephine,” said he, as they alighted on him like a flock of birds. “Is thy mother well, and about the house? There now, I must hurry and let out my prisoners.”
The children followed him into the stable, where he opened his coat-pockets, and out jumped a handful of dizzy, crazy flies.
“I’ve kept them in jail, where they couldn’t do any mischief,” laughed the Quaker; “but now they can get an honest living in your stable, and not trouble anybody.”
Little Pollio and Posy laughed aloud at this, and, seizing their tender-hearted old friend by the arms, led him into the house through the kitchen. Eliza looked up very pleasantly, for she knew Friend Littlefield and liked him; but she was in the act of doing something which made him unhappy. Some flies had settled on the table to sip a few drops of molasses, and she was pouncing down on them with a wet towel.
“Eliza, Eliza,” said he sorrowfully, “those are God’s creatures. Consider! Thee can’t make a fly!”
“And I’m sure I shouldn’t want to,” said Eliza, with another dash of the towel. “I’m sorry you feel so, sir; but I’ve no notion of being turned out of the house by an army of flies.”
Mr. Littlefield sighed, and Pollio drew him along to the parlor. There were no flies there; and the room was so beautiful with pictures and flowers, that the good man smiled, and forgot Eliza’s cruelty. He took Posy on his knee, and talked to her mother about the dreadful accident to the steamboat, and thanked God again and again that the little girl was saved.
“How did thee feel when the boat blew up, Napoleon?”
“I thought I was a gone man,” replied Pollio; “and, I tell you, I tried hard to keep the children still.”