Chapter III (4)

“My mother knows about it,” said Lucy, with a vexed toss of her curls, “see, here is the money to pay you for cutting my hair.”

“Perhaps so—perhaps so!” said the assistant, “but I should rather not put scissors to that hair, till Mr. Wynne tells me to. I expect him in soon—you can wait, miss, if you choose.”

Lucy did choose; so untying her bonnet-strings, she seated herself before a cage, in which hung a red and green poll parrot, who cocked his head one side, and looking at her with a doleful twist in his red eye, said,

“Poll’s sick!”

Lucy had never seen a poll parrot before, and she looked this way and that way, as if she could not believe that the bird said this.

Then the poll parrot said,

“Give Poll some sugar! Poll’s sick!” and before Lucy had done laughing at this, he said,

“Want to be shaved? take a seat.”

“No,” said Lucy, laughing; “but I want my hair cut!”

The poll parrot cocked his head on one side again, and whined out,

“Poll’s sorry!”

“He don’t know what he is talking about, does he?” asked Lucy, looking a little abashed. “Any way I shall have my curls cut, Miss Polly; see if I don’t!”

“Your curls cut—_that_ hair cut!” exclaimed old Mr. Wynne, coming in at the door; “not at my shop, you little rogue. What do you suppose your mother would do to me? I’ll be bound she sets her life by ’em: Many a lady who brings her little girl here to have her hair curled with the curling-tongs, when she is going to a party, would give her eyes for these natural curls of yours. No, no, Miss Lucy, you would get me into a pretty scrape there at home. Ah! when you are a little older, you will not be in such a hurry to part with ’em, to my thinking—better run home to your ma, Miss Lucy!”

“My mother sent me here,” said Lucy; “and see here is the money to pay you for cutting my hair.”

“Now really, Miss Lucy? honor bright?

“Really and truly,” said Lucy.

“Well—it’s a sin and a shame; but I’ll do it if your ma said so; look here, Jacob!” and Mr. Wynne lifted the heavy curls on his finger; “not an uneven hair in ’em, Jacob, and just as soft as silk.”

“Make a dozen frizettes,” said Jacob; “a good job for us, any how.”

“Yes; and if it was a boy’s hair I shouldn’t mind. I hate to see a boy curled and befrizzed; I think somehow it puts puppy notions in his head, that he don’t ever get rid of; but a little girl is another matter. St. Paul says, you know.”

“Never mind St. Paul;” said Jacob, “it will make at least a dozen frizettes, good full ones at that!”

“Well—here goes then, Miss Lucy,” and snipping the sharp shears, down fall the curls in a golden shower one after another upon the floor. Jacob meanwhile looked on in delighted astonishment.

“There miss,” said old Mr. Wynne, rubbing some cologne over her cropped head, “I think it is a chance if your own mother would know you now.”

“Never fear,” said Lucy, passing her hand over her shaven crown; and tying on her bonnet without stopping to look in the glass.

“It has really quite changed her,” said Mr. Wynne, pocketing his shilling, as Lucy went out the door; “but as you say, Jacob, those curls are worth something to us.”

On flew Lucy, as if wings were at her heels, and bursting into the parlor, where her brothers, and sisters, and mother were sitting, twitched off her bonnet, and stood to be admired.

Such a shout!

“What’s the matter?” said the astonished Lucy.

“Look in the glass—only look in the glass,” was all the merry laughers could say. “Oh, Lucy, what a fright you are!”

“An escaped bedlamite,” said her brother John.

Lucy ran to the glass—the blush which overspread her cheeks and temples might plainly be seen crimsoning the very roots of her shaved hair. “Did old Mr. Wynne put a bowl on your hair, and cut it to the shape of it?” asked John, holding his sides.

Poor Lucy! She did not expect that old Mr. Wynne would make her so ridiculous a figure. Rushing up-stairs into her room and into bed, she sprang between the sheets, and drawing them tightly over her unfortunate head, sobbed out her vexation.

By-and-by her mother came up.

“Lucy.”

“Oh, mother, I did not think he would make me such a fright. Why did you let me go, mother?”

“Because I thought the loss of my little daughter’s curls would be but a small sacrifice, should it cure her of that impetuous, impatient spirit which leads her into so many difficulties. I could easily, my dear child, have cut your curls (were it advisable to do so) in such a way as not to disfigure you; but, as usual, you asked no advice, and thought you knew best about it. Mr. Wynne is much better at scraping men’s chins than at cutting young girls’ hair.”

“But can’t you fix me up a little, mother? I don’t want John to call me ‘a bedlamite.’”

“Don’t lie a-bed then, Lucy.”

Lucy was too troubled to laugh; but she got up slowly, and her mother managed, with a comb, a brush, and a little water, to coax up the few hairs she had left, as only a mother’s fingers know how.

Now, when Lucy has any pet plan in that little head of hers, she always goes to her mother first, and says, “Tell me what you think about it, mother.”

UNTIDY MARY.

“Oh, Mary, Mary, how your room looks! Books, scissors, pincushions, spools, dresses, shoes and stockings, all lying pell-mell upon the floor. One would think your bureau-drawers had been stirred up with a pudding-stick; and as to your closets, it makes me quite sick to peep into them. “You cleaned it up?” Yes, I know you did, about a week ago, and ever since, after having used any thing, you have thrown it down just where it came handiest, instead of putting it in its place. You are only a little girl—I know that, too; but women are made out of little girls, and wives and mothers out of women; and most likely as you keep your room now, and all your little property in the way of books and toys, just so you will keep your house when you are mistress of one. That’s why I speak to you about it. That’s why it is so important you should learn _now_ to be tidy and neat.”

Now I will tell you what I would like you to do. It does not matter to me whether you have plenty of servants in the house or not. I would like you to make your own bed every morning. Not _spread_ it up, but _make_ it up. You may need help to turn over your mattress, but that done, the rest is easy. Then I would like you to sweep your room. Then I would like you to dust it. Then I would like you to place every article in the room where it would look best and prettiest. Then wind up all your spools of cotton, and disentangle all the odds and ends in your work-basket. Now I am ready to sit down in that chair opposite, and tell you a story. If you think I could have done it just as well while things were in such disorder, you are mistaken. I would have swept and dusted it myself first. What is the story to be about? Don’t be in a hurry. I have to do every thing after my own fashion, and I have not got through with what I had to say yet. Just look round your room. Don’t you feel a pleasure in seeing that nice smooth bed without a hump in it? and those nice smooth pillows set up against the head-board? Does not your looking-glass look better, now the fly-specks are wiped off? and the rounds of your chairs and your bureau, for being dusted? does not your wash-bowl look better emptied of its dirty water, with the pitcher set in it, and the nice white towel spread over? do not your dresses look better on the closet-pegs than on the floor, and your bonnet in its band-box instead of on a chair? and does it not give you pleasure that you know how to wait upon yourself, without jerking the bell-wire for a poor tired servant to do it for you? “Yes?” That’s right. Now I will tell you the story.

Once on a time.

No, that won’t do, every body begins a story that way.

When I was a little girl I—that won’t do either, because it was such a while ago that perhaps you will think I can’t remember correctly. Nonsense, supposing I couldn’t, a story is a story, isn’t it? You need not laugh.

When I was a little girl, children used to “go to catechize,” as they called it then, _i.e._, the minister, once a month, collected all the children of his church, in a vestry, to recite the lessons he had given out to them, in the catechism. Some of the answers in this catechism were long, and all of them difficult for a child to understand. Now there was one defect (if you choose to call it so) about me, which has stuck by me ever since. It is next to impossible for me to commit to memory any thing I do not fully understand. To be sure, when I stated my difficulty, they explained it; but the mischief was, that the explanation was often harder still to comprehend than the thing explained; now you see why I used to dread “catechism afternoons.” Most of the girls had the parrot-faculty of rattling off the answers in a manner, to me, truly astonishing and discouraging. Then I had a very thin skin, and a very distressing habit of blushing through it, when spoken to, of which I was very much ashamed; added to this, every little girl who was called upon to answer a question, had to stand up and look “the minister” in the eye, while she did it. See now what a double and twisted distress there was about it. Then all the parrot-girls called me “stupid.” Now I knew that I was _not_ stupid, but that was small comfort when every body thought so. I thought it over and cried about it, and thumbed my catechism, thinking perhaps that was the way to “have it at my finger ends,” as people often say; and then I cried again, for that word “stupid,” troubled me. Now the very next lesson contained a very long and very hard answer, that I was very sure, for that reason, would come to me. I read it over; it might as well have been Greek or Latin for all I could make of it. No, it was of no use, I never could learn it, that point was settled. I shut up my catechism and folded my hands; perhaps they were right, after all, perhaps I was “stupid,” and I cried again.

No, I was _not_ stupid. I sprang up and wiped my tears away; I looked in the glass, my face was not handsome, certainly, but it was not a stupid face, it was as bright as the faces of those parrot-girls, at any rate; well I just locked the door, and sat down on a cricket very resolutely, in the middle of the room, opened the catechism, laid it in front of me, then with my elbows on my knees and my fingers in my ears, to keep out all sounds, I studied away as if my life depended on it; the butterflies flew into the window and folded their bright wings, but it was of no use—the swallows twittered at me, “Never mind your catechism, only look at us;” but I took no notice of them. The flies lit on the end of my nose, I took my fingers out of my ears, gave them a good cuff and began to study again; a little mouse blinked his black eyes at me, from the closet-door, but I was neither to be frightened or coaxed away from that catechism.

I said nothing about my learning it to any body, but all dinner time I kept muttering it softly over to myself. Well, three o’clock came, and so did the big girl who always went with me “to catechize,” and who always knew her lesson, to every comma and semicolon, and thought me the greatest little dunce who ever wore a pinafore. Well the vestry was full when we got there, as usual, of rows of children on rows of benches, in their “go to meetin’” bonnets and shoes, with their pocket-handkerchiefs and catechisms, waiting for the minister.

By-and-by he came, took off his black hat, set it under the spindle-legged table, pulled off his black gloves, put them in his black hat, seated himself in the big leather arm-chair, used his handkerchief twice, looking round over the benches the while to see if any lamb of his fold was missing, and then opening the catechism and glancing over its passages, asked the question the answer to which I had been studying all the day, then he paused and glanced round the room to select the little girl whom he intended should answer it. I watched his black eye, and it was a very beautiful one, pass by all the Susans and Janes and Claras and Lucys and finally, rest on me, as I knew it would.

To my astonishment, I did not feel myself blush, or tremble as usual; and when he said, “Susan, can you answer this question?” I stood erect, and was about to begin, when the big girl who came with me, thinking I was about to make a fool of myself, and disgrace her, jumped up too, and said, “I am sure she can’t say that long one, sir.” Not deigning to notice the interruption, and fixing my eye on a peg in the wall, I went straight through the long answer like a well-trained locomotive, never stopping to take breath till I had jerked out the last syllable.

Did I ever blush after that? Not I. Did I hold up my head while there? To be sure I did, but when I sat down, Clara jerked my sleeve, and said, pouting, “You are the oddest, most provoking little thing I ever saw, and nobody ever knows what you are going to do next. I never felt so silly in all my life; it is the last time I will come to catechize with you.” But one thing is very certain, those parrot-girls never called me stupid afterward, and what was worth a mine of gold to me, when I went out of the vestry, the minister laid his hand of blessing on my head, and, gave me a smile, I am sure, as radiant as the one he now wears in heaven.

A LUCKY IRISH BOY.

“Halloo there! little fellow, what are you doing here, on my door-step? why don’t you run home to your dinner?”

“I was waiting for you to come home, thinking you’d give me some,” said the boy.

The gentleman smiled, and looked in Johnny’s face; there was nothing vicious in it; it was a bright, honest little face, lit up by a pair of round blue eyes, and shaded by locks of tangled brown hair; there was nothing impertinent in his answer to Mr. Bond, had you heard the tone in which he made it.

“Where do you live?” asked the gentleman.

“I don’t live, I stay round.”

“Who takes care of you?”

“Nobody.”

“Where did you sleep last night?”

“In that big stone house.”

“Don’t tell fibs,” said Mr. Bond; “I know the gentleman who lives there.”

“Ask him, then,” said Johnny, with his chin comfortably resting on the palms of his hands, “I never tell a lie.”

“Well, then, tell me how you came to sleep there.”

“Why, you see, sir, I was sitting on the gentleman’s steps when he came home in the evening, and he asked me what I was there for, and why I did not go home and go to bed; and I told him that I was waiting for him to come home, thinking perhaps he would give me a bed, and he did, sir, in the coach-house; and that’s how I came to sleep there.”

“I see,” said Mr. Bond, laughing; “but I hope you would not be willing always to live on people that way, even if they would let you; a strong healthy boy like you, might earn his living. Would you like to get work to do?”

“Ay,” said Johnny, “and send the money to my mother in Ireland.”

“Have you no friends out of Ireland?”

“No, sir.”

“What made you think I would give you some dinner?”

“Because every body is kind to me,” said little Johnny, looking trustfully up in Mr. Bond’s face.

No wonder, thought Mr. Bond. “Well Johnny, I’ll give you some dinner, and then I must try to find you some work; did you ever hear the old rhyme,

“‘Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do?’

“Come in, come to the kitchen with me; here, Betty, give this boy a good dinner, quick as you can, and after I have eaten mine I want to see him again.”

“Dinner! I guess so,” muttered Betty; “I wonder if master thinks I roasted those chickens, and made those apple tarts, and custards, for that little rag-a-muffin, that dirty little hop o’ my thumb?”

“Can’t I help you lift that pot off the fire,” asked Johnny, as Betty’s face grew red, trying to move it.

“You? well I don’t know but you kin,” said the mollified and astonished Betty; “why yes, you may if you have a mind to; what put that into your head? and what made you speak so civil to me after I spoke so cross to you; there’s something under that, I reckon;” and Betty looked at him sharply; poor Betty, she had been knocked round the world so roughly, that she had learned to suspect every body.

“What did you do it for, I say, you queer thing?” asked Betty, standing before him.

“I wanted to help you,” said Johnny, “you looked so hot and tired.”

“And cross, hey?” said Betty, suspiciously; “why didn’t you say cross, and done with it? well never mind, I won’t pester you, and I’ll give you some dinner, so long as master says so, but I can’t say I have much faith in beggar children; its ‘God bless you,’ if you give them what they want, and it’s something else, that I won’t repeat, if you don’t; that’s the upshot on’t, but sit down in that chair, and munch your bread and butter, and don’t you dare to lay hands on them silver forks now, d’ye hear?”

As Betty said this, and as she crossed the kitchen with a pot of hot water, her foot slipped on an apple-paring, and she would have fallen and scalded herself badly, had it not been for Johnny, who sprang to help her.

“Now what do you do that for?” asked Betty again, when she had wiped up the puddle of hot water from the floor; “you are the queerest young one I ever saw. Don’t you ever get mad when people snap you up; I can’t stand it a minute. I guess you are better than you look, after all; I will give you some chicken when master has done with it; it is lucky that hot water didn’t splash all over me, what’s your name?”

“Johnny.”

“Johnny what?”

“That’s it,” said Johnny—“Johnny Watt; how did you know?”

“Don’t be poking fun at me;” said Betty; “where’s your mother?”

“In Ireland.”

“Do tell if you are all alone over here?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you know nobody?”

“No.”

“Where do you—how do you—mercy on us! I never hearn of such a thing. How old are you?”

“Seven.”

“Why didn’t you stay to home?”

“Because we had nothing to eat, and I wanted to come here, and earn money, and go back and buy something for my mother; and I told the captain so, and he said he would bring me over, if I thought I could take care of myself when I got here.”

“Well, how was I to know all that?” said Betty, penitently. “I’ve got a mother too. Won’t you have another bit of bread and butter? don’t you like sugar on your bread and butter? I wish master would be done with them chickens, so that I could give you a drumstick. Ah, here comes the dish; set it down here, Sukey; this child don’t know a living soul out of Ireland, and has come away on here to earn his own living; have this side-bone, Johnny? and this wing? To think I should have spoken so cross to the child; but how was I to know that he was all alone in the world? these children who come begging to the back door here, tell such fibs, and are such little cheats—it’s enough to dry up all the milk of human kindness in a body; eat away, Johnny! I hope master will keep you here, you might run of errands, and the like, for old Pomp is growing stiff in the joints, and there’s a power of running to be done, for mistress is as full of notions as an old maid; but that’s always the way with folks that has no children.”

“You think so, do you, Betty?” said Mr. Bond, laughing; “well, I don’t think you will have that to say after to-day; there will be _one_ child in the house, at least; I have been talking to Pomp about keeping Johnny to help in the carriage-house, and do little jobs generally; and if you can tidy him up, Betty, for Mrs. Bond is not willing to have any trouble about it, he can stay. I think a little water, a hard brush, and a new suit of clothes would improve him; and Pomp says that he can sleep with him in the chamber over the carriage-house.”

You would hardly have known Johnny the next morning, he looked so spruce and tidy and handsome, as he ran up-stairs and down, in a pair of soft shoes, which Betty had carefully provided him, lest he should shock Mrs. Bond’s nerves. Poor useless Mrs. Bond, who had been brought up to be a fine lady, and who thought one proof of it, was to be constantly talking of “her nerves;” poor unhappy Mrs. Bond, who never thought of any thing, or any body save herself; who never knew the luxury of doing a kind action, and whose greatest pleasure consisted in making every body wait upon her. It would have been a blessing had her house caught fire, and turned her out of doors, and had she been obliged to work for her living; I think nothing else would have cured “her nerves,” or made her understand that there were other people in the world beside herself. I am sure little Johnny was five times as happy as she, with all her wealth. It was like a glimpse of sunshine to see his face after looking at hers, all knotted up with selfishness and discontent. I think Mr. Bond thought so too; I think he was glad to escape from her and her poodle, the long winter evenings, and teach Johnny to read and write in the library, and I think he hardly imagined, when he did so, that the poor little Irish boy would one day be taken in as a partner in the firm of “Bond & Co.;” but so it was, and a very good partner he proved to be; and many a bright gold-piece he sent over to Ireland for his old mother, and many a warm shawl he bought for his friend Betty, who was so afraid the first day he came, to have him in the same room with the “silver forks.” Poor old Betty, she could not bear joking about it now; she said “it made her feel like crawling through the key-hole,” but then, as she said, how should she know that she was “entertaining an angel unawares?”

THE
CHILD PRINCE AND THE CHILD PEASANT.

You know that Queen Victoria has a brood of little children; fat little cubs they are, too, if we may trust the pictures of them that we see in the shop-windows; and although they are a queen’s children, I will bet you a new kite that you have more cake and preserves and candy than they ever had all together in their lives, for English people do not allow their children such unwholesome things. Their rosy cheeks come of good roast beef and mutton, dry bread, and very plain puddings, with plenty of sweet milk. That is the way to make stout, healthy boys and girls. Victoria is a right good, sensible mother; her children, though they are princes and princesses, do not go unpunished, you may be sure, when they do naughty things. She wants to make them fit to rule England when they are called to do so; and in order to do that properly and wisely, she knows that they must first learn to rule themselves. Not long since she went with her little family to the Isle of Wight. While there, her young son, the Prince of Wales, took it into his royal little head to pick up shells by the sea-shore. While doing this, his little lordship noticed a poor little peasant-boy who had picked quite a basket-full of pretty shells for himself. The naughty little prince thought it would be good fun to knock the poor boy’s basket over, and spill out all his shells; so he gave it a kick with his royal little foot, and away it went! Now, the little peasant-boy did not relish that sort of fun as well as the prince. He quietly picked them all up, replaced them in his basket, and then said, “Do it again if you dare,” for he knew he had _his_ rights as well as the prince. Up went the prince’s naughty little foot again, and over went the peasant-boy’s shells. Very soon after, the prince went crying home to his mother, Victoria, with a bloody nose and a swelled face. Victoria asked him where he had been, and how he got hurt so badly; and the prince told her that the little peasant-boy had done it, because he (the prince) had kicked over his basket of shells. Did Victoria hug up the little prince, and say, “You poor, dear little child, how _dare_ that good-for-nothing little peasant-boy lay his hands on my noble little son? I will send and have him severely punished for his impertinence?” Did she, the queen, say this to the little bruised, crying prince? No, indeed. She looked him sternly in the eye, and said, “The peasant-boy served you just right, sir. I hope you will always be thus punished when you do so mean an action.” Then she sent for the little peasant-boy, made him some presents, and provided his father with means to give him an education. Was she not a sensible mother? and was not this a good lesson for the little proud prince? I warrant you he will remember it all his life long, and when he gets to be king, if he is half as sensible as his mother, he will thank her for it. Another good thing I must tell you of Queen Victoria; they say that she has each of her children taught some trade; so that if Fortune’s wheel should turn round so fast as to whirl them off the throne some day, they would then be able to get their own living. I like Queen Victoria, and I hope her little family will grow up to be a great comfort to her, for a mother is a mother, all the world over, whether she wears a crown on her head or not, and queens have a great deal of care, and much less happiness than you think.

THE WILD ROSE.

Maud was a funny little thing; she was so fat that she could scarcely waddle. Her eyes were so round, and so black, and so full of fun! her cheeks so plump and red, her shoulders so white and dimpled, and her hands looked like two little white pincushions. Maud was a country child, as you might know. Her parents were good, honest farming-people, who were not afraid of rain, or sun, or dew; who worked hard from Saturday till Monday, and from Monday till Saturday again; who owed nobody a cent, owned the farm they lived on, and were as contented and happy as two persons could possibly be.

Maud had no nursery-maid—not she. Maud took care of herself, and liked it right well too. She toddled round after her mother, into the dairy-room, into the kitchen, up chamber, out to the well, over to the barn, crowing, laughing, tumbling and picking herself up again, for her mother was too busy to stop to do it; eating bits of bread, drinking drops of milk, peeping into every thing she saw, and educating herself, as nobody else could possibly do; and when she tumbled into her little bed at night, she slept so soundly, that the old rooster had hard work to crow her awake the next morning. Maud’s playthings were corn-cobs, squashes, clothes-pins, rusty nails, broken broom-handles, bits of string, and a broken snuff-box—then there were the hens and chickens, who went in and out of the house whenever they liked, and the old horse, who often stepped his hoofs inside the back door, to see how things were going on; beside a little lamb and a flock of geese, who made noise enough for a small regiment. Yes, Maud had enough to do. It is city children, with a whole nursery full of toys and half a dozen nurses to take care of them, who are always crying because they “don’t know what to do.”

One morning, when little Maud was sitting on the door-step watching the old hens catch grasshoppers, a woman came through the gate and up the path toward the house. Maud did not run away; she liked the looks of the strange woman with moccasins on her feet, embroidered in bright-colored beads, with a gay blanket pinned round her shoulders, and a man’s hat on her head, with a bright red feather in it.

“Pretty papoose,” said the Indian woman, looking at little Maud’s rosy face and black eyes; “pretty papoose;” and down she sat beside Maud on the door-step. Maud did not know that papoose meant baby. In fact, she did not think any thing about it, she was so busy looking at something on the Indian woman’s back that was bobbing up and down inside her shawl. Maud thought perhaps it was a cat or a kitten, and she put out her little hand to feel of it.

“Want to see Indian papoose,” said the strange woman to Maud, and reaching her hands up over her head, she pulled off her back from under her shawl, a little brown Indian baby, with twinkling black eyes, and hair as black as ink.

Maud’s mother hearing some one talking on the door-step, came out with her sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and spots of flour all over her check apron, for she was making some good country pies. When she saw the Indian woman, she took her papoose in her arms, and invited her to come in to the kitchen and get some dinner; for country folks are always kind to travelers. So the woman said, “Good,” and went in, and the little brown baby seemed to think it was “good” too, when Maud put a crust of bread in its fist for it to nibble. Then the Indian woman asked leave to light her pipe, for she was as fond of smoking as any Broadway loafer, and down she sat on the kitchen door-step—puff—puff—puff—while Maud’s mother stepped round to get her breakfast ready. The little Indian papoose did not laugh when Maud said “boo” to it, and touched its dusky chin with her little white forefinger. It looked as solemn as a judge, as it lay there twinkling its beadlike black eyes. Little sociable Maud did not like that; when she played with her spotted kitty, the good-natured kitty always said “purr—purr—purr;” when she went out to see the little frisky, pink, and white pigs, they ran up to the side of the pig-stye and said, “ugh! ugh! ugh!” when she met the old rooster, he halloed out as loud as he could, “cock-a-doodle-do!” the horse said “neigh!” the cow said “moo!” the dog Ponto said “bow-wow!” and that little Indian papoose was as dumb as a dead toad, and would not even laugh. Maud did not like such solemn babies.

When the Indian woman had eaten her breakfast, she said “good” again; then she asked Maud’s mother if she and the other Indians could have some trees which stood on the farm, “down in the lot;” they wanted the bark from them to make into baskets to sell, to buy blankets with. Maud’s mother said “she would ask John,” meaning Maud’s papa; and if he said yes, they might have them; but John was gone off in the fields, nobody knew where. And so the Indian woman knocked the ashes out of her pipe, strapped the solemn little papoose on her back, and tramped off, down the road, looking like a picture in her gay feathers, and bright blanket, as she wound in and out among the trees.

Perhaps you think because Maud’s papa had to plow, and hoe, and rake, and dig, that he had no time to play with his little girl. Ah, you are mightily mistaken; the minute the old farmer turned the corner of the road, which led up to the house, he gave a loud whistle for little Maud; she heard it, with her little sharp ears, and out she toddled, out the gate, and down the road, with her brown hair blowing about her rosy face, and her eyes all a glow with love and fun; then the old farmer would open his arms wide to catch her, and then she would laugh such a musical laugh that it made the little birds jealous; and then the old farmer would hoist Maud up on his broad, strong shoulder, her fat little calves dangling, and one round arm thrown about his neck, and away they would go under the trees, home. Then when they got there, they went into the kitchen (the floor of which was as white as snow), and the farmer would wash his sun-burned face, and honest brown hands, and then sitting down to the supper-table with his good wife opposite him, and Maud on his knee, he would thank God for them both, and ask His blessing on their supper; and the setting sun streaming in at the window on his silver hair, would light up little Maud’s sweet innocent face till you could almost believe it to be an angel’s.

After John, and his wife, and Maud, had finished their supper, Maud’s mother told John what the Indian woman said about wanting the bark of his trees to make baskets of.

John crossed his arms on the table, and leaning over it, so as to look his wife full in the face said, “Jenny! I can understand why the Lord made snakes, and musquitoes, and rats, and cockroaches, but I never could understand why an Indian was made. Now, I don’t want to hate any thing He has seen fit to make; but I should rather no Indians would cross my path. As to the trees, I can find a better use for them than to make Indian baskets of them, and so I told one of the tribe whom I met over yonder in the woods, a cut-throat looking rascal he was too.”

“Oh, John,” said Jenny, looking fearfully at little Maud; “I am always so careful to be friendly with those Indians.”

John laughed heartily, and getting up stretched out his brawny arms, as if it were impossible for any danger to come near any one whom _he_ loved.

It was twelve o’clock of a bright Saturday noon. John’s wife had been very busy all the morning making pickles; now she took in her hand the huge bell to call John in to dinner, and rang it loudly outside the door. John heard its clear sharp tones, and stopping only to plow to the end of a furrow, unyoked his oxen, and trudged whistling home. “Where is Maud?” he asked, as he sat down to his smoking-hot dinner. “Out in the garden,” said his wife, “busy as a bee, picking berries in her little tin pail.”

John went to the door and whistled, shading his eyes with his hand, as he did so, to see if his pet were near.

He listened; no merry laugh met his ear. Ah, Maud must be hiding, for fun, amid the tall currant-bushes; the little rogue! and John crossed over the garden, to look for her. No, she was not there; nor swinging on the low branches of the great apple-tree; nor up in the barn, where the old horse contentedly munched his oats, and the little gray mice scampered over the floor, for grain; nor up on the log, peeping into the pig-stye; nor at the spring, looking at the darting little fish. Where was she? John went back to the house.

“The Indians!” was all Maud’s mother could whisper, through her white lips, as her husband returned alone.

“Pshaw!” said John, but his brow grew dark, and snatching up his hat, he darted across the fields and plunged into the woods.

Maud’s mother stood in the door-way, looking after him and helplessly wringing her hands. When he disappeared she went back into the kitchen, and set the untasted dinner down to the fire, for John, and moved about here and there as if it were a relief to her not to sit still. Maud’s kitty came up and purred round her feet, and then Maud’s mother, unable to keep back the tears, bowed her head upon her hands and wept aloud.

The long afternoon crept slowly on; the sun stole in to the west sitting-room window; and still no tidings of little Maud or John. It was so weary waiting; if she had only gone with John to look for her child; but it was too late now. No, why should not she look too? any thing were better than sitting there, hour after hour, in such misery. Throwing a shawl over her head, Maud’s mother passed through the gate and out into the open fields. Oh, how desolate they looked to her now: and yet the ripe grain waved before the breeze, the trees bent to the ground with their golden fruit, and large fields of buckwheat waved their snowy blossoms, to reward the farmer’s industry and care. But what were rich crops to them if Maud were not found? Maud, for whom they toiled so gladly, early and late; Maud, the sunshine of their cottage home? and then the poor mother thought of all her pretty little winning ways; she remembered how that very morning, she had climbed upon a chair, when she was busy in the dairy-room, and put up her rosy mouth to kiss her. Oh, if harm should come to her! No, surely God would care for one so pure and innocent.

Hark, what is that? other footsteps beside hers are in the woods. Can it be John? John and Maud? No, it is an Indian; she sees the fluttering blanket, the red feather, ’tis the very woman who smoked the pipe in her own kitchen, but yesterday. Oh, surely _she_ could not have stolen Maud, and the poor troubled mother strained her eyes and pressed her hand tightly over her heart. The Indian woman had something in her arms, but the blanket is wrapped about it, it is not her own baby, no, that is strapped as usual upon her back; now she lifts the blanket; ’tis Maud, Maud! and with a wild cry, the poor mother runs to the Indian woman, and clasping her feet, says, “I was kind to _your_ child. Oh, give me _mine_.”

And then the Indian woman told her, partly by signs partly by words, that one of the tribe, to whom John had spoken about the trees, stole Maud, because he was angry with John, and brought her away to their encampment; but that when she saw the child she remembered her, and told the Indian (who was her own brother), that he must not harm Maud, but must give the child to her to take back, because its mother had fed her and lighted her pipe at her fire, and so Nemekee gave up Maud, and the good Indian woman was hurrying back with the child to her own home. Poor little Maud, she was too frightened to cry, but she reached out her little trembling hands to her mother, and nestled her head in her bosom, like a timid little dove when the hungry hawk is near.

At nightfall, John came slowly home; he looked a year older since morning; no tidings yet of the little wanderer. He had been to the spot of the Indian encampment, but the tents were gone, and only a blackened heap, where they had cooked their food, marked the spot. What should he tell his poor weeping wife?

Ah! there were tears and smiles under that little cot-roof, that night; nor did John and his wife forget to thank Him who noteth even the fall of the sparrow, and who had safely returned their little lost lamb.

JENNY AND THE BUTCHER.

Little Jenny was an only child. Now, I suppose you think she was a great, petted cry-baby. “Petted” she certainly was, but all the petting in the world could not spoil Jenny. If you should miss her from the parlor, ten to one she would be found binding a wet napkin round the forehead of her mother’s cook, to cure her headache, or applying a bit of court-plaster to her cut finger. Sally used to say that the dark, underground kitchen seemed to grow lighter whenever Jenny flitted through it with her sunshiny face. Now, perhaps you think that Jenny was a beauty; there, again, you are mistaken; for she had light-blue-gray eyes, a pug-nose, and a freckled skin. But what of that? Did it ever enter your head when you kissed your mamma whether she was handsome or not? Is not every person whom we _love_, handsome to us? Certainly. And I would defy any body to be with Jenny ten minutes, and not love her. Even the milkman, who brought such a wholesome odor of clover and hayfields into the city kitchens, always had a pretty little nosegay slyly tucked away among his milk-cans for Jenny. A ball-room belle might have turned up her nose at it; for often it was only a simple bunch of red and white clover, with one or two butter-cups to brighten it up; but to Jenny it was quite as beautiful as the scentless hot-house Camelia—yes—and more so; for a Camelia always reminds one of a beautiful woman without a soul.

Then—beside the milkman, there was Shagbark, the grocer’s boy, for whom Jenny had once opened the back gate, when Sally’s hands were in the dough; I should like to have counted the great three-cornered nuts he used to empty on the kitchen-table, from his pockets, for Jenny, every time he brought in a pound of tea or sugar. Oh, I can tell you that a good-humored, smiling face, and a voice made musical by a kind heart, are worth all the beautiful Camelia faces that ever peeped from under a green vail.

Jenny was quite a little musician. She could hum tunes correctly before she could speak plain; and as soon as she was high enough to reach her little hands up to the piano-keys, she began to play “by ear,” for she could not read a note of music. When she heard fine singing, it seemed to throw her into an ecstacy of pleasure; her plain face grew so luminous and beautiful, that you would hardly know it to be little freckled Jenny’s. Her kind father and mother procured her good teachers, and Jenny was not discouraged at the idea of practicing, as, I am sorry to say, are some little girls; for she knew that nothing great is ever attained without patient labor; and long before even Sally was up in the morning, Jenny would be running up and down the scales, as fast as her little fat fingers could fly. Sally used to say, as she set the breakfast-table, that “she did not like that tune as well as Yankee Doodle.” This made Jenny laugh very heartily, but she did not pain Sally by calling her an ignoramus for saying so. And so things went on very pleasantly in Jenny’s home, as is always the case where each one strives to make the other happy.

Little Jenny was in the habit of watching for her father to come home; and when she heard his step in the hall, she would bound down stairs like a little antelope, and jump into his arms, and kiss his face, just as if it were not all covered with beard, whiskers, mustaches, and things. One day she seated herself at the front window, as usual, to wait his turning the corner of the street which led toward the house. “There he comes!” exclaimed Jenny; and then her little hands fell at her side, and she bent her head forward, and pressed her bright face close to the window-pane. _Was_—that—her—papa, walking so slowly, like an old man, his head bent down upon his breast, and never one look for his little girl? He must be sick—and Jenny ran down stairs, and out at the front door, to meet him on the threshold.

When she asked him, “Was he sick?” he said “No;” but his voice trembled, and a great warm tear fell on Jenny’s face, as he bent over her; and as he turned from her to meet her mamma, Jenny heard him say, “God shield the little lamb;” then Jenny’s mamma told her that “she had better go and practice her music-lesson;” and then Jenny’s father and mother had a long—long talk; and when they came in to dinner, her mamma’s eyes were red with weeping, and her father looked as though he had had a fit of sickness.

Little Jenny asked no questions, for she had a great deal of delicacy, and she knew that if it was proper she should know what troubled her father, that he would tell her; but every time he helped his little daughter to any thing at the table, she would kiss his hands, and at the dessert, she put the biggest orange and largest bunch of grapes upon his plate. Her papa’s heart seemed too full to thank her, but his eyes brimmed with tears, as he laid his hand on her little brown head.

The truth was, Jenny’s father had failed, and lost all his money; and when he looked at Jenny, and thought that he might die before he could earn any more, and leave her, and her mamma, helpless in the world, it was too bitter a thought for him to bear: then the people to whom he owed the money which he had hoped to pay, were coming to take away all the furniture, and fine things; and Jenny’s favorite piano, of course, must go with the rest; and he could not find heart to say a word to her about it.

Well, the day came on which all the things were to be sold; and nobody _yet_ had had courage to tell Jenny—good little Jenny, who never gave a minute’s pain to any body in her life, not even to a little fly. Jenny wondered what made Sally, and all the family look so strangely at her, but she was put off with excuses of one kind and another, and so the bewildered child went to her old friend the piano, for comfort.

As she was playing, she heard a strange voice in the hall; then the door opened, and her father came in with the butcher, of whom he had purchased all the meat for the family since they had lived in that house.

Then—Jenny’s father put his arm around his little girl, and told her that the butcher had come to take her piano for some money which he owed him. Jenny looked at her father as though she could not believe her ears—then she looked at the piano—then at the butcher—while great tears gathered slowly in her eyes.

Now, the butcher was a great rough fellow, with a fist like a sledge-hammer, and a voice like a bass drum; he had killed many a fat little calf, and bleating lamb, in his day; but he had never met such a sweet, pleading, tearful look, as Jenny gave him that minute, and he melted down under it, just like a pile of snow when the warm sun kisses it.

Rubbing the corner of his white butcher’s frock into his eyes, and turning to Jenny’s father, he said,

“_I’m_ not the fellow to take that little girl’s piano away from her; and, what’s more, I won’t!” and before Jenny could thank him, he, and the carman whom he had brought to carry away the piano, were through the door and out of sight.

Now, shouldn’t you like to _hug_ that butcher? I should. I tell you what it is, the best hearts are oftenest found under the roughest coats; and this Jenny’s father and mother soon found out, for the gay people who had eaten their dinners and drank their wine, took flight as soon as Poverty came in and sat down at the table with them.

The good butcher did not lose sight of little Jenny, I promise you; he not only forgave her father’s debt but offered to lend him some money to begin business again. What do you think of that?

By-and-by Jenny grew up a big girl, and learned a deal more about music; then she gave lessons on her piano, and helped her father, and beside that played the organ on Sunday in one of the churches. This was very lucky, for her father, through disappointment and too close attention to business, was taken sick, and was unable to earn any more money. By-and-by trouble overtook the good butcher too, and he had a long, and painful, and expensive sickness. Did Jenny forget her benefactor now? Did she draw down her face and her purse-strings and tell him to “trust in Providence?” Did she try to hunt up some fault, which he might at some time in his life have committed, and make that a cover for her parsimony, and an excuse for not helping him in his necessity? Not she. She stood by his bed, gave him his medicines, brought him wine, jellies, and broths, sang to him, read to him, prayed God to save his life, and was as much of an angel as she could be, and be flesh and blood. But the good butcher died, and left a little orphan daughter. Oh, how far the influence of one good deed may reach! He had not laid up money for her in “The Bank of Commerce,” or “The City Bank,” or “The Exchange Bank,” but he had laid a treasure up for her in the BANK OF HEAVEN, by his many benevolent and charitable deeds, and God remembered it; and Jenny took the little weeping Susy home, and fed her, and clothed her, and sent her to school, and taught her to sing and play; and none who listen to the sweet voice, or look upon the sweet face of the butcher’s daughter, as she sings in one of our great churches of a Sunday, know this little story that I have been telling you.

Oh, _never_ believe, dear children, that a good deed goes unrewarded. Angels bend to see it, and a richer, sweeter song, rings through the golden streets of heaven, whenever the strong, loving hand of compassion is held out to the weak, unfortunate and despairing.

THE TWO BABES.

“Cannon thundering, bells pealing, flags waving, illuminations, military parades, peasants, nobles and princes, all crowding to that big house! What the mischief is all this fuss about? Some great victory perhaps. No; as sure as your name is Johnny, it is all about an hour-old baby; but for all that, you had better not speak of him, without taking your hat off; that baby is of some consequence, I can tell you, for all he lies there, wheezing and sneezing, winking and blinking, like an astonished little pup.