All Earth might look for from its hallow’d energies!
THE BARLOW KNIFE.
BY ROBERT JONATHAN.
There was one event of my boyish days which is the cause of such amusing reminiscence in my later years, that I cannot refrain, dear reader, from making you acquainted with it. It happened upon a time, after I had worn out my first frock coat, and got tired of trundling hoops and wagons, and drawing sleds, that I felt, as many boys do, an inordinate desire to experience the comforts of whittling; but I had no knife—always excepting an old case-knife which mother used to lend me. But then, this was not the thing; for, besides being inconvenient, I could not shut it up, and put it in my pocket, and walk about with the proud consciousness that it was my own—not borrowed from any one, but MINE—sacred to my individual use and behoof. However, believing that my youthful happiness depended upon the gratification of this desire, I treated with mother to negotiate with father upon the subject of procuring me a knife. This was on a Saturday afternoon in the month of July. Mother told me that, if I would be a good boy, and keep that night and the next day (Sunday) as I ought, and go to school every day, and study hard, and mind the schoolmistress, and divers other conditions—to all of which I eagerly consented without considering the possibility of fulfilling them—on these conditions, I say, she, on her part, promised to ask father to give me a knife. Accordingly, in pursuance of our stipulations, I kept Saturday night very well—went to bed early—went to sleep, and straightway to dreaming of the glorious fruition of all my hopes. I dreamed that I had a new knife—that I “sharpened it up” until it would cut a hair—that I had a soft piece of seasoned white pine—that, in fact, I was whittling! And how inexpressible was the delight which I experienced! Surely moral philosophers should give mankind—at least the boy part of it—credit for a new and additional sense, which they should term Whittleation, and upon which they should base a new science and denominate it Whittleology. For what natural sensation is there which can be compared with that which is experienced while drawing the keen-edged blade through the delicate fibres of some soft, well-seasoned wood? So far as my boyish experience extends, there is no enjoyment so deep, so soothing, and so satisfactory as that derived from whittling; whether it be upon a shingle or a school-bench—upon the squire’s picket-fence or the village sign-post. But to my dream. All things went on charmingly until an unfortunate turn of my shingle brought my knife-blade in contact with one of my fingers, and the pain of the wound thus inflicted, dispelled the delightful vision which had enthralled me. And so impatient was I to have Monday morning come round, that I could sleep no more that night, and, although it was but an hour before daybreak, still it appeared to me that weeks were crowded into that short period, while I was waiting and watching for the blessed dawn of the Sabbath. Finally, daylight appeared; and with its earliest dawn I arose and began to whistle “Heigh Betty Martin,” in great glee; but on recollection of my treaty with mother, I ceased whistling and walked down into the sitting-room with all the assumed gravity of a Friar Tuck, and with a face long as a grape-vine, and sombre as a dying cypress. I attended church all day, and did not take my eyes off the minister, except during prayers; but sat up in the pew straight as a new pin, the big drops, (not tear drops, however,) following each other down my cheeks and neck at stated intervals, much as though a frozen squash was thawing on my head. After returning from church I took up my catechism, and when I thought mother’s eyes were on me, my own were on the book; but when she was out of the room I amused my little brother Dick, by telling him in a whisper sufficiently loud to be heard over all the room, that
“In Adam’s fall
We made stone-wall,
But ever sense
We’ve made brush-fence.”
And
“By Washington