CHAPTER XIV
Be Kind
The story is related of a king who had a boy in whom he took great delight. He gave him beautiful rooms to live in, with rich pictures and books, and servants to wait on him wherever he went. He also provided teachers who were to impart knowledge to him of things which would make him good and great; but with all this the young prince was unhappy. He wore a frown wherever he went, and was always wishing for something he did not have. At length one day a magician came to court. He saw the scowl on the boy’s face, and said to the king, “I can make your son happy and turn his frowns into smiles, but you must pay me a large sum for telling him the secret.” “All right,” said the king, “whatever you ask I will give.” The price was agreed upon and paid, and the magician took the boy into a private room. He wrote something with a white substance on a piece of paper, then gave the boy a candle, and told him to light it, hold it under the paper, and see what he could read. He then departed. The boy did as he had been told and the white letters turned into a beautiful blue. They formed these words, “Do a kindness to some one every day.” The prince was very much impressed with these words and undertook to put them into practice, and this resulted in his becoming very popular and useful in the realm.
KINDNESS AND UNKINDNESS.
Few words are greater in the English language than kindness. It is as mighty as it is gentle. Few things cost so little, yet benefit so much. But unkindness always arises from a heart inclined more or less to be cruel. Because of this the memory of Nero has been treated with contempt for ages. When a boy, he delighted in torturing flies by pulling off their legs, and then watching them struggle to get away. When he became emperor he burnt the Christians in his gardens, and wished that all the Romans had but one neck that he might cut off their heads at one blow. Thoreau, on the other hand, is revered for his gentle, loving disposition. Though an ardent naturalist he seldom if ever inflicted death for the sake of the furtherance of his scientific observations. About the year 1845 he took to the woods near Walden Pond, Massachusetts, and built a house, to the surprise of the raccoons and squirrels. But the animals soon learned that he meant them no harm. He would lie down on a fallen tree, or on the edge of a rock, and at his call they would come to him. Even the snakes would wind around his legs, and the squirrels would hide their heads in his waistcoat. The fish in the river knew him, and would allow him to lift them from the water. He could pull a woodchuck out of his hole by its tail. Rabbits and birds paid no heed whatever to him while he sat and watched them or plied his work by chopping trees and raising vegetables, and when he built his house over the nest of a woodmouse, which at first became alarmed, it soon became so tame as to pick the crumbs at his feet and nibble the cheese in his hand.
THE BRAVEST ARE THE TENDEREST.
Some years ago, General David S. Stanley was laying out the route for a great railroad across the plains. There were two thousand men, twenty-five hundred horses and mules, and a train of two hundred and fifty wagons heavily laden. One day the general was riding at the head of the broad column, when suddenly his voice rang out: “Halt!” A bird’s nest lay on the ground directly in front of him. In another moment the horses would have trampled on the nestlings. The mother bird was flying about and chirping in the greatest anxiety. But the brave general had not brought out his army to destroy a bird’s nest. He halted a moment, looked at the little birds and then gave the order: “Left oblique!” Men, horses, mules and wagons turned aside and spared the home of the helpless bird. Years after, those who crossed the plains saw a great bend in the trail, which was the bend made to avoid crushing the bird’s nest.
George Stephenson, when a boy, would never rob a bird’s nest, because, as he used to tell his companions: “It grieves the old bird.” One day when his genius was changing the face of the earth by the railway engine, he went to an upper room of his house and closed a window. It had been open a long time because of the intense summer heat, but now the weather was becoming cooler, and Mr. Stephenson thought it would be well to shut it. Two or three days later he chanced to observe a bird flying against it with all its might as if trying to break it. His curiosity was aroused. He went at once and opened the window and as he did so the bird flew straight to one particular spot in the room, where Stephenson saw a nest. The poor bird looked at it and then fluttered to the floor, broken-hearted and almost dead. The great man drew near. There sat the mother bird, and under her wings four tiny ones, all dead. Tenderly he lifted the exhausted bird from the floor and carefully tried to revive it, but it speedily died. In its beak was a worm it had long struggled to bring to its home and little ones, and as Mr. Stephenson looked, he wept.
The brave Colonel John Sobieski thought the unwanton killing of birds nothing short of murder. Speaking of one of his hunting trips he said, “Sauntering leisurely along under tall elms, I heard a bird singing, and looking up, I saw a wee bit of a bird perched upon a lofty limb, singing very sweetly. Without a moment’s thought, and without the slightest idea that I could hit so small a mark, I up and banged away. I saw some feathers fly, and the little songster came dropping down from branch to branch, and fell at my feet. I stooped down and picked it up. It was a tiny little thing, not much bigger than my thumb, of a yellowish-green color, as beautiful as it could be. Then, like a flash, the thought came to me, ‘What a contemptible deed I have done. Here was one of God’s beautiful creatures that had just as much right to existence as I, and its life, doubtless, was as sweet to it as mine was to me, and at that very moment that it was singing its beautiful songs to make the world more pleasant and glorious, I had brutally shot it to death.’ I carefully buried it among the leaves, and then promised myself that I would never again wantonly destroy life. I regard this the greatest crime I ever committed.”
DUMB ANIMALS.
Sometimes boys are unkind to dumb animals, teasing them for sport or imposing on them for gain. Few animals show more fidelity and attachment to us than the dog and horse. What warnings the former gives! How faithfully he watches by day and night! With what cheerful alacrity the “Shepherd” goes for the cattle and the “Mastiff” protects the home! How many lives have been saved from a watery grave by the “Newfoundland,” or from a snowy one by the “St. Bernard!”