Chapter III (3)

Because lions that you see at menageries are taken from their mothers before they are weaned. They are then carried away from their native forests, where they might have run about and grown hearty and strong, and fed, not on the milk of the old lioness, but on whatever their keepers see fit to give; then they are cramped up in close unwholesome cages, where they can scarce turn round; what chance have they of growing up to look like lions? Instead of that bold, kingly look, that magnificent form and flowing mane, which they would have had, if the old lioness had brought them up according to _her_ notions, their shapes become mean and poor, their manes thin, their look unhappy and broken-spirited, and their whole appearance very miserable. Ah, a wild lion is quite another affair, as you would soon find, could he but crunch your little heads between his jaws.

Now _I_ should like to see a real forest lion, at a safe distance of course; I should wish to be up on a tree, or on top of a high mountain perhaps. _He_ is not afraid of any thing, not he! he comes tramping along, cracking the bushes as he goes, and sniffing round to find two or three big men to make a luncheon of. A little kid would be only a mouthful for him. Lions are like cats in one respect: they do not kill at once, and put the poor creature out of his misery, any more than pussy does the poor frantic little mouse. The lion stands and looks the man in the eye, and makes believe he is going to eat him in about a half a minute, and when he has frightened the poor fellow almost to death, he gives him a great slap with his paw, or flaps his great bushy tail in his face, as if to say, how do you like that? this is only the beginning, old fellow, I will chew you up pretty soon. I don’t like that in the lion; it is too petty and mean for such a great grand creature. A lion will never eat a dead body; he likes warm, live creatures, and if, when he has killed one for the fun of it, he finds that he is not hungry enough to eat the whole of him at one standing, he never goes back again afterward to take another meal, he would scorn to do that; he leaves such second-hand pickings to such poor miserable loafers as jackals and hyenas, and strides off with his great grand nose up in the air, as if to say, the best is good enough for me.

When a lion and lioness leave their home in the forest to take a ramble, the lioness always goes first and leads the way; and when she stops in her walk, the old lion stops too, till she is ready to go on. Ask your mother if she don’t think that’s about the proper way to do things? When they come to an Arab’s tent where they mean to get their supper, the lioness lies down a short distance off, while the old lion bounds in and snatches whatever he thinks madam will like best, and then lays it down at her feet. He looks on all the time she is eating it with a great deal of satisfaction, and never thinks of touching a bit till she has had enough. Just tell your father that!

When the lioness’s little baby-cubs are born, she does not leave them (even for an instant), for a great many days; the old lion goes to market, as he ought, and brings home the family dinner. When the little baby-lions are three months old, and have got all their teeth (a great many lion-babies, like other babies, die getting their teeth), when they have got all their teeth, not before, the affectionate mother lioness goes out for a walk to get them food; but she only stays two or three hours. I wish those foolish young mothers, who go to balls and dance till daylight, while their poor little hungry babies are screaming themselves sick, would take pattern by the old lioness. Well, when she comes back from her walk, she brings along some mutton (we won’t be particular about asking her where she got it, because she might give us a rough answer). Then she carefully skins the mutton, and after tearing it into small bits, she gives it to her baby-lions to eat.

The old pa-lion does not like to stay with his little babies, because their frolics disturb his dignity; so he won’t sleep in the same place with them and their mother, but chooses a place near by, where the old lady can roar after him if any thing happens. If I were she, some night, when the old fellow was fast asleep, I would take my little cubs, and creep off, where his “dignity” would never be disturbed by my babies again—what! not play with my pretty smart little babies? Solemn old goose, I say! When the old lion takes his young ones out to hunt, if the poor little things seem afraid of any strange noise they hear, he just puts his mouth close to their ear, and roars into it, loud as thunder, as if to say, stop that now, you cubs! or I’ll give you something worth while to be afraid of. And now I will tell you a curious thing: this lion, so strong, so grand, so terrible, whose roar makes the strongest man’s heart to quake, this lion has his deadly foe in the shape of flies. Often lions have ulcers on their bodies, the flies get into them, and make them very sore and corrupt; and the lion not knowing how to rid himself of them, they soon put an end to his life. Ah, you old forest Goliath! strong and brave as you are, you yet have your David!

THE CRIPPLE.

A crowd! a crowd! a crowd! Well, what of that? You must have come from the country, or you would not stop to look at a crowd in New York. Nothing short of an earthquake ever astonishes a New Yorker. Ah, but this is a very serious matter; a little girl has been run over by the street-cars, and lies there on the pavement, maimed, bleeding, and senseless. Well, she should have been more careful; well, she should not have been playing in the street; well, she should have been at home with her mother. Suppose she had no home which deserved the name? Suppose she had no mother? What is a mother? You throw your little arms around the neck of that sweet gentle woman near you, who has loved you, cared for you, watched over you, ever since you can remember; and that is your answer. Well, then, by that touching reply, I tell you, that the poor little crippled Lucy, though she has a mother, is motherless. Ah, I see by the tear in your eye that you have rightly read my riddle. You look pityingly in my face, and say, Oh what will become of her? What will she do now that she is hurt so badly, perhaps dying, if her own mother does not love her? You remember when you had the measles, how you were moved into your mamma’s room, and had a nice soft bed to lie on, with snowy pillows and quilt, and how gently your mother glided about you, now stooping to kiss your hot forehead, now bathing your feverish hands, or moistening with cool drink your parched lips; how she was never tired waiting on you, though her face was so very pale; how she brought you every little toy you fancied you wanted, although she knew that the moment you had it you would want it taken away again; you remember, when she brought you your medicine, that she did not deceive you into swallowing it by telling you it was “sweet” or “good;” but that she said it was very disagreeable indeed to take, and that she did not wonder you did not like it, and that she wished she could take it for you; and you remember how pitiful she looked as she said this, and how it gave you courage to drink it down at one swallow, without making a single complaint. And then you remember the good old doctor whom your mother sent for to come and see you; that kind old man, with snow-white hair, and a big old-fashioned watch-chain and seals that he gave you to play with, and shoes that did not creak a bit; that pleasant old doctor, who was acquainted with you as long back as your mother was, and who knew the history of every tooth in your head. How nice it was to have him walk up to your bed, beside your mother, and say so cheerfully, “Mary, my dear, we will soon have you driving hoop and picking dandelion blossoms in the park;” and then, when he went away, you remember how your mother drew the window-curtain, and, seating herself by the bed, sang very, very low, almost as low as a little humming-bird’s drowsy hum, some pretty little song, to lull you to sleep!

Oh, yes, you have not forgotten it, and you ask me again, What will poor little crippled Lucy do, without all this love and comfort, and without a kind mother?

Now just suppose it to be several weeks from the time when little Lucy was run over. Take hold of my hand and come with me. You see that large house yonder, standing back from the street? You see those bright green grassy banks in front of it, and those fine old trees? Well, that is the Hospital, where people who meet with sad accidents are carried, to be cured by the doctors, who do not make them pay money for it, unless they can afford it. There poor little Lucy has been seven long weeks. Let us go in and see her. Up, up the steep steps; I am glad the house stands back so far from the street, because the noise of the passing carriages will not disturb those sick people. Queen Anne gave them this house. I had as lief kiss the hem of her robe as not, for doing it. Up—up—there you are; now step into the hall; what a nice wide one it is, and how deliciously the cool summer breeze plays through it. Oh how glad I am the sick have such a nice place! “All right!” the porter says, as we show him a paper which one of the doctors has given us, to admit us whenever we please;—“all right!”—yes, all right; right that there should be such a fat, wholesome-looking, smiling, pleasant-voiced head-nurse for the sick to look at and draw strength from: I am very sure that, were I sick, the sight of her roly-poly limbs, and rosy face, would make me better every time her clean gingham dress and snow-white apron swept past.

See what a row of beds are in that long room, and a sick person in each. But we will not stop to look at them now, we have come to see Lucy, poor little crippled Lucy. There she lies in that cot yonder, next the window, with her little snow-flake of a hand lying outside the white coverlid; she raises her pale face from the pillow, and her eyes grow bright, for she knows that I love and pity her; she can’t move much, for (it will make you feel so bad that I can hardly bear to tell you) she has had her leg cut off, where the cars crushed it. She does not complain, as she shews you the bandaged stump that is left, but her sunken eyes, and the little drooping wrists, not much bigger than your papa’s cane, tell what she has suffered. Suppose I should tell you she had had it cut off _twice_? Poor, poor Lucy; the doctors cut it off first at the ankle, hoping to save the rest of the leg, but afterward, they found it must be taken off higher up, just above the knee, and the dear patient suffering child went through with the agony all over again. It makes one cry to think of it. But see, Lucy don’t cry, I wish she would; she is so much like an angel that I am afraid we shall lose her, after all, though the doctor says she will “get well, slowly.” She likes the flowers I bring her; she likes the little dainty doll too, with its changes of dresses, and skirts and aprons and bonnets; for she gets tired looking at that long row of beds, with a groaning sick person in each; at that row of windows too, down the long hall; she wearies of moving her little wasted forefinger, round and round the figures on her bed-quilt; she wearies of looking at her little stump of a limb, and wondering how she shall learn to walk with only one leg, and she wearies lying in one position hour after hour, without turning over. I don’t wonder. I thought as I sat there, how I should like to hang some pictures on those bare walls, for those sick folks to look at and think about, as they lie there; how I should like to give them all a fresh bunch of flowers every day; and how sad it was, when they were sick and nervous and weak, to see a patient in the next bed die, before their eyes, and be carried out. All these thoughts passed through my mind, as I sat fanning little Lucy; and it made me happy to see her turning over the doll’s little gay-colored dresses, and trying them on, one after another, and saying “How pretty!” Lucy wanted a name for the doll I brought her, so I gave it the name of “Fanny.” Lucy did not know _why_ I chose that name, though you and I do. But we must go now, for the pleasant-looking fat nurse has brought Lucy her dinner, and I think that will do her more good than we can; but stop a minute, Lucy, should you like me to bring you a little book, next time I come? (Oh, dear, how _could_ I ask the child? see, she hangs her head, she “can’t read,” although she is seven years old). Well, can you sew, Lucy? Yes, she can sew. Oh, that’s nice; then you shall have a little thimble, some needles, some spools, a pair of scissors, and some silk to make your doll some dresses, and a box to keep them all in; that’s what you shall have, you poor little patient lamb-like Lucy. You are a living sermon, and if I am not better for seeing you, it will not be because I don’t need improving.

THE TRUANT.

Johnny thought he knew better than his mother what was best for boys. Johnny’s mother thought it was not safe for boys to play about the streets. Johnny thought that was all nonsense. As Johnny could not get leave to play in the street, he thought he would play there without leave. One fine day, he snatched his cap slyly, when his mother was busy, and stepped out at the front door, and whipped round the corner in less time than I have taken to tell you about it. Wasn’t it delightful? What was the use of being a boy, if he must be tied to his mother’s apron-string, like a whimpering cry-baby of a girl? Other boys played in the street, plenty of them. True, they did not always have whole rims to their hats, and their jackets were buttonless, and their knees were through their trowsers; but what of that? They were “first-rate fellows to play.” True, they used bad words now and then, but he, Johnny, was not obliged to do so. His mother was a very nice mother, and he loved her; but his mother never was a boy, and how could she tell what boys wanted? He did not mean to disobey her—oh, no; he only meant—pshaw! what was the use of wasting time thinking about that. Halloo! there’s an organ-grinder with a monkey; and there’s a man with three little fat pups to sell, black pups, with white paws, and curly drooping ears, and tails so short that they can’t even wag them; and there’s a shop-window with marbles and fire-crackers—what a pity he had no pence! And there’s a boy stealing molasses out of a hole in a hogshead by sucking it through a straw; and there are two boys at a fruit-stall—one talks to the old woman who keeps it, while the other slyly pockets an apple, without paying for it; and there’s a boy sprawling in the middle of the street, who tried to steal a ride on an omnibus step, and got a smart cut on his temple for his pains; and there—yes—there’s Tom Thumb’s carriage on a high cart. What funny little ponies. How Johnny wishes he were General Tom Thumb, instead of plain Johnny Scott. Silly boy, as if it were not better to be a fine full-grown man, able to fight for his country if she needed him, as Johnny will be some day, than to be passed round the country for a little hop o’ my thumb puppet show? And yonder is a great stone building. What can it be? Perhaps a bank. No, it is too big for that. What a great heavy door it has. It is not a meeting-house. No—and Johnny drew nearer. Now the big gate opens, and a crowd of people gather outside. Johnny goes a little nearer; nearer, nearer still; now he sees a cart stop before the door. ’Tis not a baker’s cart, nor a grocer’s cart, nor a milkman’s cart—but never mind the cart.

See! inside the gate across that fenced yard, come a dozen or more boys, about Johnny’s age, and a man with them. Who are they? What are they there for? Why is that man with them? And where are they going? Johnny edges a little nearer. Now he has one foot inside the gate, for the little boys are passing through, and he wants to look at them. Now they have all passed through. Where are they going in that cart?

“Come along, you little scapegrace. None of your lagging behind,” says the man who was with the boys, seizing Johnny roughly by the shoulder. “Come along, don’t you pull away from me. Come, it is no use crying for your mother—you should have thought of her before you stole those peaches. Where you are going? You know well enough that the Judge has sent the whole gang of you to Blackwell’s Island and there’s the city cart to take you there; and I am the man to put you into it, and see that you go. None of your kicking, now. Come along, or it will be the worse for you.” And he seized Johnny, and lifting him by his trowsers into the cart as easily as you would handle a kitten, he locked him in with the other boys, and told the driver to go ahead. “Stop there,” said a man in the street to the driver; “stop there. That little fellow don’t belong to those bad boys. His name is little Johnny Scott. His mother is a neighbor of mine, a very nice woman too. I know her very well. He was only looking round the gate of ‘The Tombs’ to see what was going on. Let him out, I say. I will see him safe home. Oh, Johnny, Johnny, this comes of running about the street. You might have been carried to Blackwell’s Island, had it not been for me. What do you suppose your mother would say to see you here?”

Sure enough, that’s what Johnny thought, as he clambered out of the prison-wagon and wiped his eyes on his jacket sleeve. Sure enough, how could he ever look her in the face?

But his mother did not punish him. No, she thought rightly that he had punished himself enough; and so he had. It was a good lesson to him, and for a long time he was ashamed to go out into the street, for fear some boy who was looking on that day, and had seen him pushed into the prison-cart, would halloo after him, “There goes a Blackwell Island boy.”

BESSIE AND HER MOTHER.

Bessie was very fond of reading. Well, I think I hear some of you say, I hope you are not going to find fault with that. Oh, but I am, though; because as wise old Solomon said thousands of years ago, there is a time for every thing. Bessie did not believe this; she thought that time was never made to sew; she thought that time was never made to dust, or sweep, or keep herself tidy, or attend to visitors, or go of errands, or do any thing, in fact, but read, read, read, from Monday till Saturday, and Saturday till Monday. She would sit down with a story-book in her hand, the first thing after breakfast, the sun shining in through the closed windows upon an un-made bed, which needed airing, upon dresses, shoes, and stockings, which needed putting away, upon her own unsmoothed locks, unbrushed teeth, uncleansed finger-nails, and torn morning-dress; what do you think of that? Then her mother would call, “Bessie!” and Bessie would answer “Yes,” without stirring or raising her eyes from the story-book; then her mother would call again, “Bessie!” louder than before, and then Bessie would begin to move slowly across the room, still reading, to see what was wanted; then her mother would tell her to “go down and tell the cook to make apple dumplings for dinner;” then Bessie, with her mind still on the book, would go down and tell Sally “_not_ to make apple dumplings for dinner;” then her mother would tell her to “shut the front entry-door, where the hot sun was beating in;” then Bessie would go and shut the china-closet door instead; then her mother would say, “Bessie, have you mended your stockings this week?” and Bessie would answer, without knowing what she was talking about, “Yes, mother;” and then that afternoon, Bessie’s mother would tell her to “get ready to go out with her;” and then Bessie would say, “I have no stockings mended to wear;” and then her mother would remind her of what she said about it, and Bessie would look at her as bewildered as if she had been dreaming, for she did not know when she told her so what she was saying. Was it right for Bessie to do so? and was it wrong in Bessie’s mother, who knew how necessary it is for girls to be tidy, and orderly, and neat, to tell Bessie that she must only read so much a day, and that, not before she had attended to all these things which I have said she was in the habit of neglecting? Was it wrong for Bessie’s mother to insist upon her going into the kitchen sometimes, and learning how to clean silver, and how to cook and make pies and cakes? was it wrong for her to oblige her to keep her thimble and scissors in her work-basket, instead of on the piazza-floor, and her shawl in the drawer instead of under the bed? was it wrong for her to make her lace up her gaiters neatly, instead of letting the strings tangle round her feet? It would have been much less trouble to Bessie’s mother had she allowed her to take her own way about these things, instead of trotting up-stairs and down to see what she was about, and how things looked in her room; but Bessie’s mother knew that a woman is always disgusting, no matter how much she knows, or has read, unless she is neat and tidy in her habits, and that she is not worthy the name of a woman, if she can not take proper care of her house, or is too indolent, or slovenly to do it; she loved her daughter better than she did her own ease, and she knew, spite of Bessie’s tears, that it were cruel kindness to heed them; she knew that many a man has become a drunkard because he never found any thing fit to eat on his table, or his house in decent order when he came home; it is quite as necessary for a woman to know how to make wholesome bread and puddings, as it is that she should read, and study, and be able to talk about books, or even to write them herself; yes, though she may be able to have cooks and chambermaids to do her work. Suppose she wants a pudding for dinner; suppose she has a cook who does not like to work any better than her mistress if she can help it; and suppose the cook not caring to take trouble to make the pudding, tells her ignorant mistress, that “there is not time now to make and boil it before dinner.” Such things have been done, and many a fine lady, I can tell you, has been obliged to go without her pudding, because she did not know enough to tell the cook that what she said was not true.

Beside, suppose this lady who knows so much about books, should get into difficulty with her servants, and they should all go off and leave her; must her husband go without his dinner because she can not, at a moment’s notice, get more servants to cook for her? how helpless such a woman is—how ashamed she must feel, as her husband puts on his hat and goes to an eating-house to get his dinner. Bessie did not think of all this, but her mother did. By-and-by when Bessie grew up, and was married, and had a nice pretty house, she knew how to mend her husband’s clothes and get him a good dinner, as well as she did how to talk with him about books, and other things in which he was interested; and when, looking round his comfortable home, he kissed his wife, and said, “Bessie you are my treasure,” Bessie would point to the little grave-yard within sight of her window and as her tears fell fast she would say, “Oh, if I could but thank my mother now for all she did for me when I was so naughty and wayward.”

Think of this, dear children, when you pout to lay down an interesting story-book, when your mother calls you to do some necessary work; and don’t wait till the tombstone lies heavy on her breast before you believe that she knows better than you what is best for you.

RED-HEADED ANDY.

What should you do were your mother to fall down in a fit? stand still and scream? or run out of the house, and leave her lying half-dead upon the floor? Or, should you have what people call, “presence of mind?” that is, call for somebody to help her, and do all you could for her till they came. It is a great thing to have “presence of mind;” there are very few grown people who have it; there are plenty of people when a bad accident happens, who will crowd round the sick person, keep all the good fresh air away from him; wring their hands, say oh! and ah! and shocking! and dreadful! but there are few who think to run quickly for the doctor, or bring a glass of water, or do any one of the thousand little things which would help so much to make the poor sufferer better. If grown people do not think of these things, we certainly should not be disappointed if children do not; and yet, wonderful, though it may be, they are often quicker-witted at such a time than their elders. I will tell you a story, to show you that it is so.

Andy Moore, was a short, stunted, freckled, little country boy; tough as a pine knot, and with about as much polish. Sometimes he wore a hat, and sometimes he didn’t; he was not at all particular about that; his shaggy red hair, he thought, protected his head well enough; as for what people would think of it—he did not live in Broadway, where one’s shoe-lacings are measured; his home was in the country, and a very wild, rocky country, at that; he knew much more about chip-munks, rattle-snakes, and birds’-eggs, than he did about fashions; he liked to sit rocking on the top of a great tall tree; or standing on a high hill, where the wind almost took him off his feet; he thought the sunset, with its golden clouds, “well enough,” but he delighted in a thunder-storm; when the forked lightning darted zig-zag across the heavy black clouds, blinding you with its brightness; or when the roaring thunder seemed to shake the very hills, and the gentle little birds cowered trembling in their nests for fear.

Andy’s house was a rough shanty enough, on the side of a hill; it was built of mud, peat and logs, with holes for windows; there was nothing very pleasant there; his mother smoked a pipe when she was not cooking or washing, and his father was a day laborer who spent his wages for whisky and tobacco. No wonder that Andy liked to rock on the top of the tall trees, and liked the thunder and lightning better than the eternal jangling of their drunken quarrels. Andy could hear the hum of busy life in the far-off villages; but he had never been there; he had no books, so he did a great deal of thinking, and he hoped some day to be something beside just plain Andy Moore, but how or when, the boy had not made up his mind. In the mean time, he grew, and slept, and ate, and thought—the very best thing at his age that he could have done, anywhere, had he but known it.

There was a railroad track near the hut of Andy’s father; and Andy often watched the black engine, with its long trail, as it came fizzing past, belching out great clouds of steam and smoke, and screeching through the valleys and under the hills like a mad demon. Although it went by the hut every day, yet he had never wished to ride in it; he had been content with lying on the sand bank, watching it disappear in the distance, leaving great wreaths of smoke curling round the treetops. One day as Andy was strolling across the track, he saw that there was something wrong about it; he did not know much about railroad tracks, because he was as yet quite a little lad, but the rails seemed to be wrong somehow; and Andy had heard of cars being thrown off by such things. Just then, he heard a low distant noise; dear, dear, the cars were coming, coming then! He was but a little boy, but perhaps he could stop them in some way, at any rate there was nobody else there to do it. Andy never thought that he might be killed himself; but he went and stood right in the middle of the track, just before the bad place on it, that I have told you about, and stretched out his little arms as far as he could. On, on came the cars, louder and louder. The engineer saw the boy on the track, and whistled for him to get out of the way; Andy never moved a hair; again he whistled; Andy might have been made of stone, for all the notice he took of it; then the engineer of course had to stop the train, swearing as he did so, at Andy, for “not getting out of the way;” but when Andy pointed to the track, and he saw how the brave little fellow had not only saved his life but the lives of all the passengers, his curses changed to blessings, very quick. Every body rushed out to see the horrible death they had escaped, had the cars rushed over the bad track and tossed headlong down the steep bank into the river. Ladies kissed Andy’s rough freckled face, and cried over him; and the gentlemen, as they looked at their wives and children, wiped their eyes and said “God bless the boy;” and that is not all, they took out their porte-monnaies and contributed a large sum of money for him; not that they could ever repay the service he had done them; they knew that; but to show him in some way beside mere words, that they felt grateful. Now THAT boy had presence of mind. Good, brave little Andy! The passengers all wrote down his name, Andy Moore, and the place he lived in; and if you want to know where Andy is now, I will tell you. He is in college; and these people whose lives he saved, pay his bills and are going to see him safe through. Who dare say, now, when a little jacket and trowsers runs past, “It is only a boy!”

LITTLE NAPKIN.

I am sure I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Poor little “Napkin!” Of course you know that “Napkin” is Louis Napoleon’s little baby; perhaps you don’t know that his mamma does not nurse him herself. I wonder does she know how much pleasure she loses by not doing it? I wonder does she know how sweet it is to wake in the night, and find a baby’s soft little hand on her neck, and his dear little head lying upon her arm? I wonder does she know how beautiful a baby is when it first wakes in the morning, raising its little head from the pillow, and gazing at you with its lustrous eyes and rosy cheeks, so like a fresh-blown dewy flower? I wonder does she know how delicious it is to give the little hungry rogue his breakfast? No, no; poor Eugenia! poor empress! She knows nothing of all this. She has had all a mother’s pain, and none of a mother’s pleasure. She hires a woman to nurse and sleep with little “Napkin;” she never sees how sweet he looks in the bath, the water dripping from his round polished limbs; she never puts his little fat arms into the cunning little sleeves of his clean white robe, or puts his little foot, with its rosy-tipped toes, into the little warm stocking. I wouldn’t be the empress, no, not for all her beauty and diamonds, if I could not do all this for my little “Napkin.” The handsomest dresses in all Paris would not comfort me any if I knew Madame Baut, or Madame any body else, was giving my little Napkin his milk, instead of myself; no, indeed. I should be afraid, too, all the time, that some pin was pricking him, or that his frock-strings were tied too tight, or that Madame Baut, or whoever the nurse is, would—but what is the use of talking about it? I would not have any Madame Baut. What is the use of being empress, if you can’t do as you like, especially with your own baby? One might as well be a slave-mother. I had rather be that Irish woman yonder, hanging out her husband’s clothes in the meadow, while her baby creeps after her on all fours, picking butter-cups. Not nurse my own baby! Not wash him, dress him, or sleep with him? Ah, Monsieur Louis Napoleon, it is lucky _I_ am not Eugenie. If you wanted your empress, I am afraid you would have to come to little Napkin’s nursery for her. “Happy as a queen.” It makes me laugh when any body says that; or happy as an empress, either. I don’t want half a dozen maids of honor to dress and undress me, and put me to bed. I don’t want them following at my heels whenever I walk in the halls, gardens, or drawing-rooms. I should go crazy at the thought of it. I should lock the door on the whole of them. I wouldn’t be dressed so many times a day. I wouldn’t have so much twisting, and braiding, and curling, and plaiting of my hair. I wouldn’t call my husband “Sire!” Sire! Just imagine it? How you would laugh to hear your mother call your father “Sire.” No, I would say, Napoleon, or Nappy (just as the whim suited me), suppose we put our little “Napkin” in the basket-wagon, and draw him to the Tuileries; and then I, the empress, would—but, thank goodness, I am _not_ an empress. I am very sure if I were, I should get my head cut off.

Little Napkin had an uncle named Napoleon Charles, who died when he was very young. One day he was sitting with his mamma, Hortense, at a window of her beautiful palace, which looked out on the avenue. It had been raining very hard, and the avenue was filled with little puddles of water, in which some barefooted children were playing with little boats made of chips. The little Prince Napoleon Charles was beautifully dressed, and had more costly toys to play with than I suppose you or I ever saw in our lives, some of which were given him by his good, dear, beautiful grandmother Josephine, whom all France, and indeed every body who ever heard of her, loved. But the little Prince Napoleon Charles did not seem to care for the beautiful presents, nor his beautiful clothes, nor the splendid furniture of the palace, but stood looking out of the window on the avenue.

His mamma, noticing it, said, “So, my son, you do not thank your grandmamma for all her kindness and those pretty presents she sent you?”

“Oh, yes, mamma,” said little Napoleon Charley, “but grandmamma is so good, I am used to it; but look at those little boys, mamma.”

“Well,” said his mother, “what of them? Do you wish you had some money to give them?”

“No; papa gave me some money this morning, and it is all given away.”

“Well, then, what ails my dear child? What do you want?”

_“Oh,” said the little prince, hesitatingly, “I know you won’t let me; but if I could run about in that beautiful puddle, it would amuse me more than all good grandmamma’s presents!”_

You whose fathers are not rich, and who envy other children their fine clothes, fine toys, and fine carriages, must remember this little story. There are plenty of rich men’s children who would be glad to part with all these things, could they only make “dirt-pies,” and splash their bare toes in the gutters, as you do. All is not gold that glitters; believe this, and it will cure you of many a heartache.

THE SPOILED BOY.

If there ever was a boy who needed a dose of the old-fashioned medicine called “oil of birch,” it was Tommy Sprout. He had scowled and fretted till his face looked like a winter-apple toward spring, all shriveled, and spotted, and wrinkled. The moment Tommy sat down to table, before the rest of the family had a chance to get settled in their chairs, Tommy would begin this fashion: “I say Ma” (Tommy pronounced it “Mha,” through his nose), “I say mha, give me some milk, quick!”

Then his “mha,” instead of sending him away from the table, as she should have done, would say,

“Presently, my son; wait a few minutes, till I have poured out the coffee!”

“I whon’t whait, I say, mha, I whon’t whait; so there, now;” and Tommy would catch hold of his mother’s arm and jerk the coffee all about. “Come now, mha, gim’ me my mhilk, quick!”

Then his mother would stop pouring out the coffee, no matter how many older persons than Tommy were waiting for it, and give him his milk, which he would drink down, hardly stopping to breathe, making a noise like a little pig who is sucking his corn out of a trough. Then he would set down his cup, wipe his mouth on his jacket sleeve, catch hold of his mother’s elbow, and say, “Mha, give me an egg!”

“Wait my son, till I can fix it for you.”

“No I won’t; I want to fix it myself; I say, give me one.”

“Oh, Tommy, what a boy you are; well, take it, then;” and his mother would give him an egg.

Then Tommy would begin to pound the shell with his tea-spoon, and pretty soon it would break, and the egg would fly all over him, and all over the table-cloth, while Tommy tried to ladle it up with his tea-spoon. Then he would cram a great wedge of bread and butter into his mouth, and before it was half swallowed, he would ask his “mha” where the hammer was, “’cause he and Sam Gill were going to make a prime box;” and when he had found out where it was, he would jump up and fly through the door, leaving it wide open, and his mother would get up and shut it, and say for the hundredth time, “Did you ever?”

One day Tommy was sitting astride the garden-gate, playing horse, when a lady came up to call on his mother. Tommy sat still, and never offered to let her pass in.

“Let me come in, my dear, please,” said the lady.

“Get up, Dobbin, get up, old hoss,” said Tommy lashing the gate with a willow switch, without answering the lady.

“Let me pass, will you, dear?”

“No, I won’t; I’m playing hoss; you may just go round to the back gate.”

So the lady went round to the back gate, wetting her feet in the dewy grass. Tommy’s mother was quite surprised when the lady appeared suddenly before her kitchen window, where she was making cake, instead of ringing at the front door, as visitors always did; and when she found out how it was, she said again, “Did you ever?”

Tommy went on lashing his “hoss.”

Tommy was a great cry-baby; though he was very fond of plaguing other people, he was not quite so fond of being teazed himself; if a boy did but point at him, he would run screaming in to his mother like a mad bull, and she would hug him up, and wipe his great red face with her pocket-handkerchief, and give him a piece of frosted cake to comfort him.

“Did you ever?”

Well, you can imagine what sort of a man such a boy would make, when he grew up. When he was twenty, he got married, and brought his wife home to his mother’s to live; his father had been dead many years. Ah, then the poor old lady, his mother, reaped the bitter fruit of the seed she had sown. Tom ordered her round like a servant; sitting with his feet up in a chair, while she limped up-stairs and down to wait upon him. Poor old lady; she saw too late the sad mistake she had made; and how cruel had been her kindness to Tommy. By-and-by she died; Tom’s wife had been driven off long before by her husband’s bad conduct, and now he was all alone at the old farm-house. Then he was taken with a shocking rheumatism in all his limbs; he could not even so much as lift a finger to help himself; he had no friends now to come in and comfort him, because he had made all his acquaintances dislike him; he had nobody but the doctor, and “old Maggie,” whom he hired to come and make his tea, and there he lay on the bed groaning and swearing. Oh! it would chill your blood to hear him—you, whom I hope, never take the dear and holy name of God in vain. Nobody pitied him, because, they said, “he had been so bad.”

One Sunday Tom lay in bed groaning; the sun streamed in through the half-closed shutters, and the little motes were swimming round in the sunbeams; the window was partly open, and the scent of the clover blossoms and new-mown hay floated in on the summer air. Sabbath-school was over, for the little children were singing their parting hymn; and this was what they were singing:

“Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;
The darkness thickens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!

“Swift to the close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see,
Oh, Thou who changest not, abide with me!”

Very sweet were those little childish voices; very sweet were the words they sang. It was a long, long time since Tom had shed a tear; but he did so now. Poor, wicked, lonely Tom! and long after the childrens’ eyes were closed, like flowers, in sleep, as he lay awake, that night, the words came to him, again and again, “Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!”

I told you that none of Tom’s acquaintances wanted to go near him, because he was so bad. Oh, is it not well that God does not feel so toward us, sinners? that He pities us because we are so bad and wicked? and that when every body forsook poor bad Tom, He drew near to him, in the voices of the dear little children, softening his icy heart, as the sun melts the snow? What else could have made Tom willing to linger and to suffer, longer or shorter, as God willed it? What else made him ask old Maggie’s pardon for his oaths and rough words to her? What else could have made him so lamb-like, those two long, painful years, before Death came to set the spirit free, from his worn-out body? None, during all that time, ever heard a complaint from the lips once so full of curses; but often, in the night-time, as the traveler passed the old farm-house, he would stop to listen to these words, from poor sleepless, but happy Tom:

“Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!”

PUSS AND I.

Muff, come here! Don’t stop to clean your paws, that is only an excuse for not minding, you naughty little mischief. Come here, Muff; you need not play with my watch-chain or your tail either. I do not wonder that you dislike to look me in the eye, you are not the first guilty one who has dreaded to look in the eye of the person whom they had wronged. Muff, who jumped upon the marble table and frightened the poor gold-fish, by putting a paw into the glass globe? who went down cellar and lapped milk out of the pan? who jumped on the breakfast-table, and helped herself to beefsteak, before her mistress could get down to table? who flew at the looking-glass-doors of my new secretary, to play with another Muff, who seemed to play with her? who scratched and defaced the rosewood ornaments upon the side of the secretary, with her sharp claws? who took a nap on the velvet sofa, without asking by-your-leave? and, worse than all, Muff, oh, Muff, who stole into my chamber, before I woke, in the morning, and, with one spring, lit on my astonished face, startling me into a headache for the rest of the day? what have you got to say to all that, Miss Muff?

Well, in the first place, if you please, madam, I will answer your question (Yankee fashion) by asking another. Whose cook was it who threw her apron over me, when I was quietly taking a walk in the street one day, and brought me here without saying by-your-leave, for a play-mate for your own little girl? As to the “gold-fish,” I did put my paw on the glass globe, there’s no use denying that, because you peeped into the parlor just as I was doing it; but that does not prove that I wanted to kill and eat them, and if I did, did not you buy a fresh lobster this morning, of the market-man, and tell your cook to boil him, boil him _alive_? if you kill creatures for your dinner how should a poor little cat be expected to do better?

“Lapped milk out of a pan,” did I? don’t you often, when you pass into a confectioner’s shop, pick up bits of candy and peppermint-drops, and put them in your mouth, while you are wailing to be waited upon? People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, mistress! As to helping myself “to beefsteak,” if your girl had not kidnapped me, and brought me to this bran-new house, where there is not a sign of a mouse to be had, I would not have been obliged to steal your beefsteak. With regard to “looking in the glass,” the less you say about that, the better.

Where’s the harm if I did want to trim my whiskers a little, and admire my soft white paws, I am not the only person in this house who looks in the glass, I reckon. I also plead guilty to “taking a nap on your velvet sofa,” but I will leave it to any outsider, if I did not look better on it than did the _boots of that gentleman_ who called to see you the other evening, and who certainly _ought_ to know what velvet sofas were intended for.

Yes, and I jumped on your face in the morning too, I am not going to back out of that, but you must recollect that you have a way of sleeping too long in the morning; and that I never can get my breakfast till your ladyship has had yours; as to the headache you say I gave you by doing it, it is my opinion, that the preserves, and hot biscuit, you ate for tea the night before, were answerable for that. But what a fool I am to waste words with a woman who lays down one rule of right for her cat, and another for herself; thank goodness there’s a mouse, the first I’ve seen here, now you’ll see science, or my name is not kitty; keep your old cold beefsteak and welcome, and I will take my first independent meal in this house, off hot mouse, and no thanks to you.

LUCY’S FAULT.

Lucy had long silken golden curls, they fell quite to her waist. Her mother did not “do them up” in paper; her hair curled naturally. Lucy was not proud of her curls; she did not care any thing about them; ladies in the street, often stopped her to look at them: and her little playmates often said, “I wish my hair curled like Lucy’s,” but Lucy always said, “I wish they were off.”

One day Lucy went to her mother, and said: “May I have my curls cut off?”

“No,” said her mother, “I should not like to have them cut; I think it would be a great pity, they are so soft, so long, and so even; your head is always full of notions, run away and play.”

Lucy went away, but she kept thinking about her hair, and wishing her mother would let her have it all cut off, and when Lucy once got her heart set on any thing, she never would be satisfied till she got it.

A few days after, she thought she would try again, so she said, “Mother, if you would only let me go to Mr. Wynne, the barber, and have my hair cut close; may I mother?”

“Yes,” said her mother.

Lucy looked up in astonishment. “May I really? Do you know what you are saying?”

“Yes.”

Up sprang Lucy, her long golden curls streaming out behind her like a vail, up three steps at a time to her room, to get her bonnet and shawl, then down three stairs at a time to her mother, to get the money to pay Mr. Wynne for cutting her hair. Lucy never asked any one to go with her, she was a very independent little girl, she knew the way to the barber’s, because her father used to go there to get shaved, and when Lucy was much smaller, he used sometimes to take her with him.

So Lucy soon found the shop; there were no customers in it. Lucy was glad of that; nobody to bother her; but unfortunately Mr. Wynne was not in, either. But Lucy was determined that she would not be disappointed, so when the barber’s assistant said,

“What do you want of Mr. Wynne?”

She answered, “I want him to cut off my curls.”

“Cut your curls?” replied the man; “were they my sister’s, I would not have them cut off for a five dollar bill; one don’t see such curls as yours every day, miss.”

“They must be cut,” said little Lucy, shutting her lips together very firmly. “Why can’t you cut them for me?”

“Not I,” said the assistant, “at least not till Mr. Wynne comes in.”