"Mrs. Brown wants you to look at a lock in her house to-morrow, Charlie; it will neither lock nor unlock. And the bottle-jack has gone wrong; it went off with such a noise when she was winding it up yesterday: she wants you to see if you can do anything to it."
Charlie's face crimsoned with pleasure: his great delight was in locks, clocks, engines—anything mechanical, in fact; but the only way in which he could indulge his love for such things was in taking off, oiling, putting to rights, and screwing on again all the locks in their own house, or any of the neighbours that would let him. As he often conquered refractory locks, he became quite of importance in "the Row," and was often sent for. He had an old timepiece that some one had given him, and would spend hours in taking it to pieces and putting it together again; but he could not prevail upon his mother to let him touch "the clock."
The lessons were soon learned, and then Charlie got to his painting. What a happy night he had, cutting out pictures from some illustrated papers, colouring them, and chattering incessantly, unless he was putting in any particular touches that he seemed to think required profound silence and holding of the breath!
"There, mother!" he exclaimed, holding up in triumph a picture of a very stylish lady that he had finished, "that's the way you should be dressed if I had my way; isn't she a beauty?"
"She looks gay indeed, Charlie," said his mother, smiling; "but I'm afraid that style of dress would not quite suit me. Let me see, what has she on? A bright blue dress, a scarlet cloak"—"Like Mrs. Greenwell's, you know, mother," interrupted Charlie, "and a blue bonnet with a green feather on it."
"Wouldn't a blue feather or a black one have looked better?" said his father, looking up from his newspaper; "blue and green are not considered pretty together."
"Well, I don't know why they shouldn't, father." Charlie felt touched at his taste being called into question. "The forget-me-nots, the bluebells, and the blue hyacinths grow amongst green leaves and grass, and I'm sure God would not have put them there if they didn't look beautiful."
"You have conquered me there, Charlie," said his father, laughing; "still I am not reconciled to the blue bonnet with the green feather."
When it was Charlie's bedtime, he gathered up all the cuttings of paper and burned them, washed his paint-brushes, and put everything tidily away into a drawer that his mother had given him to himself, so that he might have no excuse for leaving things about. The contents of that drawer were miscellaneous indeed. There lay his pet the old timepiece, surrounded by bits of string, screws, old nails, a hammer, a screw-driver, old tops, bits of coloured glass, odd pieces of tin, brass, and wire, two or three apples, a pair of pincers, an old padlock, curious pebbles, a dog's collar, packets of flower seeds, a couple of door-knobs, two or three rusty keys, and many other treasures.
When the putting away was finished, he brought the Bible to his father and quietly took his seat. They made it a rule to have prayers before Charlie went to bed, that he might join them; and special mention was always made of him, that he might realize that every little thing connected with his spiritual life was of the same consequence to God as if he was a grown-up person. To-night there was much to ask for him—pardon for the past and help for the future; and Charlie's heart was very full as he listened to the simple, earnest prayer that was sent up on his behalf.