Child Life in Prose

by Unknown

I retain a vivid recollection of the joy which used to light up the household on my fathers arrival; and how I learned to distinguish for myself his sloop when in the offing, by the two slim stripes of white that ran along her sides and her two square topsails.

I have my golden memories, too, of splendid toys that he used to bring home with him,—among the rest, of a magnificent four-wheeled wagon of painted tin, drawn by four wooden horses and a string; and of getting it into a quiet corner, immediately on its being delivered over to me, and there breaking up every wheel and horse, and the vehicle itself, into their original bits, until not two of the pieces were left sticking together. Further, I still remember my disappointment at not finding something curious within at least the horses and the wheels; and as unquestionably the main enjoyment derivable from such things is to be had in the breaking of them, I sometimes wonder that our ingenious toymen do not fall upon the way of at once extending their trade, and adding to its philosophy, by putting some of their most brilliant things where nature puts the nut-kernel,—inside.

Then followed a dreary season, on which I still look back in memory as on a prospect which, sunshiny and sparkling for a time, has become suddenly enveloped in cloud and storm. I remember my mother's long fits of weeping, and the general gloom of the widowed household; and how, after she had sent my two little sisters to bed, and her hands were set free for the evening, she used to sit up late at night, engaged as a seamstress, in making pieces of dress for such of the neighbors as chose to employ her.

I remember I used to wander disconsolately about the harbor at this season, to examine the vessels which had come in during the night; and that I oftener than once set my mother a-crying by asking her why the shipmates who, when my father was alive, used to stroke my head, and slip halfpence into my pockets, never now took any notice of me, or gave me anything. She well knew that the shipmasters—not an ungenerous class of men—had simply failed to recognize their old comrade's child; but the question was only too suggestive, notwithstanding, of both her own loss and mine. I used, too, to climb, day after day, a grassy knoll immediately behind my mother's house, that commands a wide reach of the Moray Frith, and look wistfully out, long after every one else had ceased to hope, for the sloop with the two stripes of white and the two square topsails. But months and years passed by, and the white stripes and the square topsails I never saw.

I had been sent, previous to my father's death, to a dame's school. During my sixth year I spelled my way, under the dame, through the Shorter Catechism, the Proverbs, and the New Testament, and then entered upon her highest form, as a member of the Bible class; but all the while the process of acquiring learning had been a dark one, which I slowly mastered, with humble confidence in the awful wisdom of the schoolmistress, not knowing whither it tended, when at once my mind awoke to the meaning of the most delightful of all narratives,—the story of Joseph. Was there ever such a discovery made before? I actually found out for myself, that the art of reading is the art of finding stories in books; and from that moment reading became one of the most delightful of my amusements.

I began by getting into a corner on the dismissal of the school, and there conning over to myself the new-found story of Joseph nor did one perusal serve; the other Scripture stories followed,—in especial, the story of Samson and the Philistines, of David and Goliah, of the prophets Elijah and Elisha; and after these came the New Testament stories and parables.

Assisted by my uncles, too, I began to collect a library in a box of birch-bark about nine inches square, which I found quite large enough to contain a great many immortal works,—"Jack the Giant-Killer," and "Jack and the Bean-Stalk," and the "Yellow Dwarf," and "Bluebeard," and "Sinbad the Sailor," and "Beauty and the Beast," and "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp," with several others of resembling character.

Old Homer wrote admirably for little folks, especially in the Odyssey; a copy of which, in the only true translation extant,—for, judging from its surpassing interest and the wrath of critics, such I hold that of Pope to be,—I found in the house of a neighbor. Next came the Iliad; not, however, in a complete copy, but represented by four of the six volumes of Bernard Lintot. With what power, and at how early an age, true genius impresses! I saw, even at this immature period, that no other writer could cast a javelin with half the force of Homer. The missiles went whizzing athwart his pages; and I could see the momentary gleam of the steel ere it buried itself deep in brass and bull-hide.

I next succeeded in discovering for myself a child's book, of not less interest than even the Iliad, which might, I was told, be read on Sabbaths, in a magnificent old edition of the "Pilgrim's Progress," printed on coarse whity-brown paper, and charged with numerous woodcuts, each of which occupied an entire page, that, on principles of economy, bore letter-press on the other side. And such delightful prints as they are! It must have been some such volume that sat for its portrait to Wordsworth, and which he so exquisitely describes as