Here he was interrupted by John Stubbins himself, who, hearing some strange voices mingling in earnest conversation in the other end of the building, came round to see who was there. With the entrance of this John Stubbins, I must turn over another leaf of my journal.
SECOND VISIT TO THE LITTLE NAILER.
The interest created in the United States by the above account of my first meeting with Josiah, encouraged me to propose that the children of America should, by a subscription of a half dime each, contribute as much money as would clothe and educate him for a year. The proposition met with a cordial response, and one hundred dollars were soon collected for this purpose.
At the time I first threw out the proposition in regard to the education of the little Nailer, I hardly believed that they could so abolish space and dry up the ocean intervening between them and such a young sufferer, as they have done. Bless your hearts, children, I reckoned you would have a merry time of it about Christmas, and have your pockets filled with all sorts of nice things, that would come by way of affectionate remembrance from grand-papa down to the fourth cousin; and you would bring to mind lots of boys and girls that had no one to give them a picture-book as large as a cent, and who couldn't read it if they had one. I thought this would be a good time to put in a word for "The Little Nailer;" and so I threw out the thought, very hopefully, that you should all contribute something from your Christmas presents and make the little fellow a Christmas gift of a year's schooling. I suggested this idea between doubt and hope. I did not know how it would strike you. I did not know but some of you might think that the great ocean was too wide to be crossed by your little charities; that others might say, "He is only an English boy—he doesn't belong to our family circle—let him alone," And so I waited anxiously to hear from you; for I was sure you would talk it over among yourselves in the "School-room," and on the way home, and by the fireside. Well, after waiting a few weeks, the English steamer came in from Boston, and brought me a letter from Ezekiel; and the happiest thing in it was, that the boys and girls of "Our School Room" had made no more of the Atlantic Ocean than if it had been a mud-puddle, which they could step across to give a helping hand to a lad who was down and couldn't get up alone. It made my heart get up in my mouth and try to talk instead of my tongue, when I read to some of my friends here what you had done for the little Nailer; when I told them to read for themselves and see that your sympathies knew nothing about any geography, any more than if the science of natural divisions had never been discovered, or if oceans, seas, rivers or mountains, or any such terms as American, English or African, were not to be found in the Dictionary. The letter stated that ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY half-dimes had already come in, from children all over the country, to pay the schoolmaster for teaching the little English nailer to read in the Testament, and to write a legible hand. Nor was this all.—Ezekiel said that there was no telling how many more half-dimes would come in; for not only had the children of our own "School-Room" taken up the matter, but those of other school-rooms, especially away down in Maine, were determined to have some share in fitting out the nailer-boy with an education sufficient to make a man of him, if he will use it aright. I saw it clear that the little fellow was to be put to school; that his hammer was to lie silent on the anvil for the space of one cold winter; and that the young folks in America would foot the bill. And I was determined that this should be a Christmas gift to him, that he and his young American benefactors might enjoy it together. So two days before Christmas, I started from Birmingham on foot to carry the present to him.
It was a bright, frosty morning, and, after a walk of twelve miles, I came in sight of the little brick cottage of the nailer by the wayside. I approached it with mingled emotions of solicitude. Perhaps it had been vacated by the poor man and his family, and some other nailer had taken his place. Perhaps the hand that spares neither rich nor poor had been there, and I should miss the boy at the anvil. I stopped once or twice to listen. The windows were open, but all was still. There was no clicking of hammers, nor blowing of bellows, to indicate that the nailer family were still its occupants. I began to fear that they were gone, and my imagination ran rapidly over a hundred casualties and changes which might have come upon them. The same gate was open that invited me to enter last summer; and as I passed through it, I met a woman who said the nailer was at dinner in the family apartment of the building. She went in before me, and the next moment I was in the midst of the circle of my old acquaintance, who had just risen from the table and were sitting around the fire. My sudden appearance in their midst seemed to cause as much pleasure as surprise. The father arose and welcomed me with the heartfelt expressions of good-will. Little Josiah, the hero of my story, came forward timidly with a sunny token of recognition brightening up his black, sharp eyes. The mother, a tidy, interesting looking woman in a clean, white cap, added her welcome; and I sat down with them, with Josiah standing between my knees, and told them my story—how some children in America had interested themselves in their boy—how they had thought of him on their way to school, and talked of him on their way home, and in the parlor, and the kitchen and the cottage;—how they had contributed their pennies, which they had saved or earned, to send Josiah to school to learn to read the Testament; and how I had come to bring them, and to ask if the boy could be spared from the anvil. I glanced around upon the group of children, whose eager eyes indicated that they partially comprehended my errand, and then at a couple of sides of bacon suspended over my head. The nailer's eyes followed my own, and as they reciprocally rested on the bacon, he commenced his reply from that end of the subject. He said it was true that many were worse off than he, and many were the comforts he had, that thousands of the poor knew nothing of. Here he glanced affectionately at his children; but my eyes brought him back to the bacon, and so he went on, apparently under a new impression of his resources of comfort. He said he had to sell some of his goods to buy the pig when very small, and had "luggled" along with some difficulty to feed and fatten him into a respectable size. Yes, he was a pretty clever pig; nor was that all—the nailing business had become better, by a half-penny a thousand, than when I was with them in the summer; and Josiah could now earn ninepence a day. He wanted to send all his children to school; if they could not read, they would be poor, even if they should come to own parks and carriages, he could not bear to see them growing up with no books in their hands. He worked long at the anvil as it was; and he was willing to work longer and harder to pay the schoolmaster for teaching his children to read. Josiah was now ten years old; he had been a faithful boy; he had made nails ever since he could hold a hammer; and it was for this that he desired the more to send him to school. It had troubled him much all along that the boy was working so long and so well at the anvil, without having any of his wages to pay the schoolmaster for teaching him something that would make him rich in his poverty when he came to be a man; and he had tried to make up this to him in a little way, by reading to him easy verses from the Testament, many of which he had learned by heart. Besides this, he had bought a little picture-reading-book, since I was with them last, and Josiah could master many easy words in it; for he had learned almost all the letters. But he knew this was a slow way of getting on, although he feared it was the best he could do for him. He knew not how he could manage to spare him for the winter. He had no other boy; there was a baby in the cradle only a fortnight old, which made him five children under ten years of age, to be fed, warmed and clothed through the winter months. Here he fell into a calculation of this kind—he could now earn nine shillings, or about two dollars and twenty cents, a week. His coal cost him three shillings a week, and his house-rent two; leaving him but four shillings a week for a family of seven persons to live upon. Josiah's clothes were well nigh gone; they were indeed ragged; there was nothing left to sew patches to; and all he had in the world was on him, except a smock frock which he put on over them on the Sabbath.
These considerations gave a thoughtful tone to the nailer's voice as they came upon his mind, and a thoughtful air came over the family group when he had finished, and they all looked straitly into the fire as much as to say, "It cannot be done." So I began at the bacon to soften down these obstacles—there were nearly 150 pounds of it, besides a spare-rib hanging from another joist—and suggested how much better off they were than ten thousands of poor people in the world. Could they ever spare Josiah better than during this winter? He would learn faster now than when he was older, and when they could not spare him so well. Nor was this all; if they could get on without him for a few months, he might not only learn to read without spelling, but he could teach his three little sisters to read during the winter nights, and the baby, too, as soon as it could talk; so that sending him to school now, would be like sending all his children to the same school. Yes, it might be more than this. Let him go for a few months, and when he came back to the anvil, he might work all day, and in the evening he might get together all the nailer children that lived within a mile, and teach them how to read and write. There was the little Wesleyan chapel within a rod of their own door, lying useless except on Sundays. It would be just the place for an evening school for fifty or even a hundred little children, whose parents were too poor to send them to the day-schools of the town. And wouldn't they like to look in and see Josiah with his primer in hand teaching their neighbors' children to read in this way; with his clean smock-frock on, setting copies in the writing-books of the little nailers? Josiah, who was standing between my knees, looking sharply into the fire with his picture book in his hand, turned suddenly around at this idea and fixed his eyes inquiringly upon my own. The thought vibrated through all the fine-strung sympathies of parental affection. The mother leaned forward to part away the black hair from the boy's forehead, and said softly to his father, that she would take the lad's place at the anvil, if they should want his wages while at school. This was the crisis of my errand; and, in my imagination, I tried to catch the eyes of the children in "Our School Room" in America, as I went on to say, that they would not be willing to have Josiah go to school in his old worn out clothes, to be laughed at or shunned by well-dressed school-mates; nor that he should stay at home for want of decent and comfortable clothes. I knew what they would say, if they were with me; and so I offered to fit him out at the tailor's shop with a good comfortable suit, as a part of the Christmas present from his young friends on the other side of the ocean. The little ones were too timid to crow, but they looked as if they would when I was gone; and the nailer and his wife almost cried for joy at what the children of a far-off land had done for their son. For myself, I only regretted that I could not share at the moment with those young friends all the pleasure I felt in carrying out their wish and deed of beneficence. I hope it is not the last time that I shall be associated with them in these little adventures of benevolence.
Perhaps I have made too long a story of my second visit to the nailer's cottage. I will merely add, that it was agreed that I should proceed into the town, a distance of a mile and a half, to make arrangements for the boy's schooling, and be joined there by him and his father. So, bidding adieu to the remainder of the family, I continued my walk into the town, of Bromsgrove, and soon found a kind-hearted school teacher who agreed to take the lad and do his best to forward his education. Having met several gentlemen in the course of my inquiries, they became interested in the case, and went with me to the inn, where the lad and his father were waiting for me. Thence we all proceeded to a clothing shop, where the little nailer was soon fitted with a warm and decent suit. One of the company, a Baptist minister, to whose congregation the Schoolmaster belonged, promised to call in and see the boy occasionally, and to let me know how he gets on. I hope Josiah will soon be able to speak for himself to the children in "Our School Room." On Monday after Christmas, he made his first entry into any school-room, for the object of learning to read.