Chapter III (6)

Horace found another friend, too, for good boys who are eager to learn, no matter how poor they may be, always get on somehow; this friend was a minister who used to teach him grammar, for the pleasure of teaching such a bright little fellow. Sometimes, to see whether he had understood what he had been taught, he would tell him wrong, but Horace could not be caught that way; when he had once understood a thing he stuck to it, and it was of no use trying to shake his belief in it.

Perhaps you are thinking that he was not good for any thing but study; there again you are mistaken. He was just as good at farm-work, and just as thorough as he was at study. Sometimes, when his father had set Horace and his brothers a task to do while he went away from home, his roguish brother would say, “Come, Hod, let’s go fishing!” Did he go? This was his answer, I want you to remember it, “Let us do our stint first!” Horace could play, too; he could catch more fish than all the other fellows put together; but shooting, which the other boys were so fond of, he disliked; when they went to murder a little bird or rabbit, he would lie down and stuff his ears full of grass till the murder had been done; he could not bear to hear a gun go off, and he could not bear to see these creatures killed. Why he did not feel so about fish seems strange to me, but then he was a strange boy altogether.

I dare say you wonder, when his friends were so poor, how he got books, and where, and when, he found time amid the farm-work to read them, and how he learned to read at all. I will tell you; you are not tired, are you? I am not. You see when he was only two years old, he used to lie on the floor with the big Bible, and pore over it, and pick out the letters, and ask questions about them. The fact was, the child taught himself; he could read at three years any child’s book, and at four, any book you could bring him; and what is funnier, at four years he could read a book up side down, or sideways as well as right side up. He learned all this, not because he was told to, but of his own accord, and because he loved it. The nearest school-house was a mile and a half from home, and when he was six, he began to go to it. Sometimes tremendous snowstorms would blow over the New Hampshire hills, where Horace lived, and many a little fellow was lost in the snow-drifts, or frozen to death. This did not keep Horace at home, and when he could not wade through the snow himself, he would mount on the shoulders of a good-natured schoolmate, who was stouter and bigger, and who would even pull off his own mittens, and draw them over Horace’s little hands to keep them from freezing. Do you think you would have taken as much pains as did Horace, to learn? or would you have clapped your hands when the noiseless snowflakes came sailing lazily down, because they would afford you an excuse for staying at home, to pop corn in the big old-fashioned fire-place.

Speaking of the big fire-place, reminds me to tell you another thing about Horace. All his evenings he spent in reading; he borrowed all the books he could muster for miles round. Poor people can not afford to burn many candles or lamps; but this was not to keep Horace from reading the borrowed books. How could he read without a light? ah—that’s just the question. He collected together in a safe place a parcel of pine-knots, and when it came evening he set one of those up in the great big chimney-corner, set it on fire, and then curled himself up, like a kitten on the hearth, and read away with all his might; neighbors dropped in to talk with his father and mother, but he neither saw nor heard them, nor they him, the still, puny, busy little reader. It was like waking up a person from a sound sleep, to rouse him from his dear book. Sometimes his little schoolmates would come in to spend the evening, for they liked Horace’s mother as well as Horace, and had often listened to the pretty stories she used to tell; they did not like him to lie on the hearth and read, when they wanted to play; so they would go up and seize him by one leg, and draw him away from the pine knot and the book. Horace would quietly get on his legs and walk straight back again, without showing the least anger; then they would snatch away his book and hide it, thinking in that way to get him to play with them; then he would very quietly go and get another book and lie down again to read. What could you do with such a boy? Why, let him read, of course. The boys couldn’t quarrel with him, because he was always so good-natured; beside, his learning was a mighty good thing for them; even boys twice his age, wanted him to explain sums they could not understand, or other lessons too, which never puzzled his little flaxen head a bit. Ah, he was a great boy, that Horace, for all he was so little.

One day he went into a blacksmith’s shop, and was looking on so intently while the blacksmith shoed the horses, that the blacksmith said to him, “I think you had better come and learn my trade.”

“No,” said little Horace, with quite a determined air, “I am going to be a printer.” The blacksmith laughed, as well he might, that such a little button of a boy, should already have made up his mind so decidedly about what puzzles young men at the age of twenty; but Horace always knew his own mind and was not afraid, when it was proper for him to do so, to speak it.

And now I suppose you would like to know whether this little fellow ever _did_ become a printer? whether all this learning ever did him or any body else any good; and what became of such a queer boy any how.

Well, his father lost what little property he had, and Horace, who was always a kind son, helped him all he could, and when he thought it would be helping his father best, to try to support himself, he started off with a clean shirt under his arm to seek his fortune, and learn to be a printer. I could not tell you all the disappointments and discouragements this bright little fellow met with, or how nobly he bore up under them all; but I will tell you how at last he came to New York, where so many rich men live, who like himself first came to the city on foot, with only a few cents in their pockets, and a change of clothes tied up in a bundle, and slung over their shoulders. It costs so much to live in New York that Horace tried at several places before he could find lodgings where he could afford to stay. He did not care for delicacies, he had been used at home to sit round a howl of porridge with his father and mother, brothers and sisters, and all eat with the same spoon out of the family bowl. After making many inquiries he found at last a cheap place, and after taking breakfast there, set out to wander through the city in search of employment.

You boys, who have always been fed, clothed, and lodged, by your kind parents, and who take it as a matter of course, can have little idea what weary discouraging, disheartening work, this search for employment is—how roughly harsh words fall upon the ear, used only to loving tones; how hard it is to smother down angry feelings when you are wrongfully suspected; how tough it must have been for Horace, who was so happy over the family bowl of porridge, because love sweetened it, when on his first application for employment, the gentleman to whom he spoke looked sharply at him, saying, “My opinion is, that you are a runaway apprentice, and you had better go home to your master,” and when Horace tried to explain that it was not so, the gentleman stopped him short with, “Be off about your business, and don’t bother me.” But this rough answer did not discourage Horace, who kept on, all that day, going up-stairs and down into different offices asking for employment and receiving the same chilling “No.” Ah, I can tell, I, who have tried it, how weary and forlorn he must have felt, that Friday night, as he went home to his cheap lodgings, and how hopeless seemed the idea of commencing again the next morning, and returning again the next night with no better success. Sunday came, and Horace, as many have done before him, went to church with his troubled spirit, and forgot the body and all its little petty needs, the earth and all its little toils and cares, and came away, as “the poor in spirit” always come from God’s temple, rich in blessing.

The next day, Horace heard of a place where he might probably find employment. Did he say, “It is no use, I have spent two whole days now, wandering up and down the city, in and out of offices, for nothing?” No, he did not say this; he was on the steps of the printing-office at half past five in the morning. Not a soul was there but himself, and Horace sat down upon the steps to wait till it was open, poor fellow, with his bundle on his knees, pale and anxious, and there waited and waited a long, long while before any one came. By-and-by, one of the journymen who worked in the office, came, and sat down on the steps too, and began talking with Horace. _That_ man had a heart, and he pitied Horace, whom he believed to be a good, honest fellow, and whom he resolved to befriend. When the office was opened he took him into it. Every body who came in laughed at Horace, because he was dressed in such a shabby way. Did he mind that? Of course he did not, no more than you would mind the barking of your dog, Tray. The foreman in the office looked at him, the apprentices looked at him, they all looked at him, and thought that such a countrified-looking fellow must, of course, be a fool, and it was all nonsense to try him; however, to oblige the kind journeyman who brought him in, they consented to give him a piece of work to do, the only work they had, and a very difficult job, so much so that several in the office had tried and given it up in despair. Well, Horace, nothing discouraged, went right at it with a will. By-and-by the master of the office came in, and glancing at Horace, asked the foreman, contemptuously, what he had hired that fool for?

“He is the best we could get, and we must have somebody,” was the answer.

“Well,” said the vexed man, “pay him off to-night and send him about his business.”

Did they send him off? Not they; not by six dollars, which they were glad to pay him every week, for the sake of keeping such a good workman in their office. The men and boys in the office, nick-named him “the Ghost,” on account of his pale complexion. I could not tell you all their tormenting tricks, which never kept Horace from working steadily on; or how they got the black, inky, printer’s balls, and rubbed them all over his yellow hair, and played other roguish tricks to torment him; and how he kept steadily on with his work, never getting angry, never noticing their nonsense, till they were forced to let him alone, for it is no fun to keep on trying to plague any body who don’t mind it a bit. I couldn’t tell you all his adventures, but I will tell you that when he earned money he always sent nearly the whole of it to his father and mother, never buying what young lads like best to spend money for, in the way of eatables and new clothes. I will tell you that he did become a printer, and astonished every body by his learning and intelligence; that he not only became a printer but an editor, and a member of Congress, and what is better, always in his paper takes the part of the working-people and farmers, among whom he was brought up, instead of turning his back upon them and getting proud because he grew rich; and famous—he tells them all about new plows, and new breeds of cattle, and how to manage their farms to the best advantage, and always has a kind, encouraging word for those who, like himself, are struggling to get on in the world without friends or fortune; and that is the best part of the whole. And now, when the carrier drops his paper at your father’s door, I want you to read the articles Horace Greeley writes for it, and feel proud, if he does not, of him and of the NEW YORK TRIBUNE.

A WALK I TOOK.

Did you ever see the New York Battery? Of course you have, if you are a New Yorker. You have stood a thousand times looking toward Staten Island, over the blue water, and seen the gallant ships, and the little pleasure-boats, and the mammoth steamers, and listened to the far-off “yeave-ho,” of the good honest sailors, and felt the fresh sea-breeze fan your heated cheek; sat down under the shady trees, and watched the children roll upon the grass, and heard their merry shouts. Not the children of the rich—no; luckily for poor children, the Battery, one of the most beautiful spots in New York, was long ago voted “unfashionable;” after that, of course, it would never do for any body who wished to be thought any body, to walk there, and to admire this beautiful view or enjoy the cool shade of the lovely trees—no, indeed. So these fashionables left the beautiful Battery to the poor people, and I thanked God for it, as I sat there under the trees, one hot summer afternoon, and saw them come streaming in through the gates, from the filthy alleys, and by-streets, with their little barefooted children, and their care-worn anxious-looking wives. They had it all to themselves now, no fear of intruding, for, as I told you, nobody who cared to be thought fashionable would ever dare to venture there, much less sit down beside them on the benches. But I was not fashionable, so I sat there and watched the face of the tired, worn-out mother, and saw her faded eye brighten, as it rested on the blue water and the beautiful sunset clouds, enjoying the cool wind as it lifted the tangled curls from her sick baby’s face. Her poor little baby! who had been shut up in a dark underground room all day, while his mother stood scrubbing out clothes at the wash-tub—ah! it was quite another thing for them this fresh sea-breeze, this pretty grassy velvet carpet, dotted with butter-cups and dandelion blossoms. The little baby hardly knew its own mother’s face, it looked so pleasant and fresh and happy; hardly knew her voice, which grew softer and sweeter, though she did not know it, as she felt that God had made some things for the poor as well as the rich; and as I sat beside them, and watched the little pale baby tumble round on the soft grass, picking butter-cups, I thanked God, as I told you before, that the Battery had become “unfashionable,” so that these poor creatures and I, could go there and enjoy all this beauty without having it spoiled by their foolish presence. Just as I was going away from the Battery, thinking of these things, I saw a group of emigrants before me, who had just landed from some ship. How oddly they were dressed! Most of them were young, hale, and strong; and glad to leap from the rocking vessel to the shore, which they had been told was the “poor man’s paradise.” On they went, gazing bewilderingly about, jostled hither and thither as they passed through the streets. Strange sights, strange sounds, strange faces all. There was nothing there to remind them of the old “fatherland.” How odd the vehicles, how curious the houses, how new the dresses; how little all the busy people about them seemed to care what became of the poor emigrants in a strange land.

Now, as the emigrants pass along, still gazing, still wondering, they see a church. They understand that! Ah! the great loving heart of God beats for his children in all lands, beneath all skies! And so the poor emigrants stopped, and the old man reverently uncovered his silver head; the child hushed its gleeful prattle; the rosy maiden checked her merry laugh, and with one accord they all knelt upon the pavement, to render thanks to Him who held the winds and waves in the hollow of His hand, and who had brought them safely to this foreign land.

It was a holy and beautiful sight! The man of business stared at that kneeling group as he rushed by, and for the first time for many, many a day, he thought of the long-forgotten prayer at his dead mother’s knee; and the half-way Christian crimsoned with shame, as he looked at these poor emigrants, and remembered how the noisy voices of the world had drowned for him the still, small whisper of God’s Spirit.

Ah! my dear little children, believe me, there are many good sermons which are never preached in churches.

SUSY FOSTER.

Don’t know Susy Foster? bless me! I thought every body knew Susy. Did you never meet her trudging to school, with her satchel and her luncheon? did you never look at her and wonder how people could ever call Susy Foster “homely?” Did you never notice how many different shades of color her eyes would take while you were talking to her? and how the blood would come and go on her pale cheek? Did you never notice her stoop to pick up a cane for some old man, whose limbs were so stiff, that it was difficult to do it for himself? Did you never see her help some younger child safely across the muddy, crowded street? Did you never see her give away her scanty luncheon to some little girl who had eaten no breakfast? Did you never see her walk _round_ an ant hill on the sidewalk, instead of walking _over_ it? Did you never see her in school recess, helping some child, whose wits were not as quick as her own, to do a puzzling sum in arithmetic, or teach her some long word in geography? Did you never see her thoughtfully tie up a little schoolmate’s shoe, for fear the loose string would trip her on the sidewalk? or untie a knot in her bonnet-strings, or pin her cloak together for her when the button came off? Did you never see her put her arm round a little child, who was crying because her school-fellows had made fun of a big patch on her gown? Did you never hear her sing when school was over, “I want to be an angel?” and did tears never dim your eyes, that a little thing like her, who was only a poor little errand-girl, apprenticed to Miss Snip, the milliner, and who never knew what it was to be loved by father, or mother, brother or sister, should be so much kinder to every body, and so much better than yourself, who had all these and many more blessings? Susy Foster homely? I never saw her little brown head, but there seemed to me to be a halo round it, such as one sees on pictures of the infant Jesus. Susy Foster homely? She is not homely, now. The bright sun, as it slants across the village green, goes down upon the little childish group who come tripping out of the old school-house, but Susy is not among them, her seat in school is vacant, her satchel lies idly on the shelf. Miss Snip still scolds and frets, but Susy does not hear her; the spider weaves his busy web upon the wall in Susy’s garret, but there are no little curious lonely eyes to watch him. The old blind man at the street corner, stands leaning on his staff, listening till he is weary, for Susy’s pleasant voice. He did not see the poor’s hearse, as it rumbled past him with little Susy in it; but some day the film will fall from his sightless eyes—_not here_—and he _will_ see Susy, and many like her, of whom the earth was not worthy.

“FEED MY LAMBS.”

What can that gentleman be doing with all those children? there is one whole car quite filled with them. He is not their father, that is very certain, though he is as kind to them as if he were. No, he can not be their father. Some of those little faces are I Irish, some Scotch, some French. They all look happy, and yet they are leaving father and mother, brothers and sisters, never more perhaps to meet them again in this world.

“Happy?” you exclaim; “happy” to go away thus from home and friends? Suppose that home were at the “Five Points?” suppose their fathers and mothers drank, and stole, and quarreled, and taught those children to do the same, till their very souls sickened at the name of home? till even the grave, dark and gloomy as it appears to fresh young life, would seem a safer, better, happier place? What then? Then suppose a good man, with his heart full of compassion for those little suffering, tempted, and, as yet, innocent children, should lay his hand of blessing on their heads, as Jesus did, and say, “Come unto me.” Suppose he should tell them that if they would leave these wretched homes he would take them thousands of miles away from the great swarming city, into the country, where the air is pure and fresh as the hearts of the people, among whom he would find them happy homes; where they would be taught to read and write, and never be beaten because they were unwilling to steal or lie. Suppose I should tell you that this gentleman, Mr. Van Meter, has taken many, many cars full of such children, to the far West, and that many of them have been adopted as own children into families who love all that is good, and to whom God has given means to provide for all their wants. Oh, what a change from the dirty, dark, noisome dens of the Five Points; no wonder the little children feel happy; no wonder they look up in Mr. Van Meter’s cheerful face, with eyes brim-full of trust and tenderness; no wonder they put their little hands in his and say, “Take us, we will go wherever you tell us;” and no wonder that his heart swells when, months after he leaves them in their new homes, he receives their letters, thanking him for bringing them there, and telling him how much they have learned, and how kind are their new friends, and how one of them is to be a farmer, and one a doctor, and one a minister; and then they beg him to bring away more children from those dreadful places, to the good and beautiful homes of the West. And well they may beg for their old playmates, the poor children who are left behind; oh, you can have no idea how wretched, how dreadful, are the lives they lead. Not long since, two young girls, five and nine years old, were living alone in a miserable room, with no fire, no food, and scarcely any clothing; but they were thankful even for a shelter at night, and in the day, they begged from door to door, for a mouthful of food; it was pitiful how hungry they were; it was pitiful their pinched, care-worn, old little faces. One day when they came home from begging, they found their landlord in the old dirty desolate room they called their home. He had come for the money they were to pay him for the use of it.

“Money?”

The poor little frightened girls looked up in his face.

“Money?”

They had none to give—not a cent; and so they were turned into the street.

Taking hold of each other’s hands, and wiping, with their ragged aprons, the fast falling tears, on they went, those little sisters, past happy homes, where rosy, well-fed children peeped at them from out richly curtained windows; past many a little happy face, upon the sidewalk, never stained with such bitter, desolate tears; past the good, past the bad, past the indifferent, up to the gate of a large stone building, where they stopped, knocking with their little half-frozen fingers. Why should the little sisters knock there? That is a prison; they have committed no crime—why should the little sisters knock there?

Because their father and mother are there—because they have no home on the wide earth if that wretched prison can not be their home. Do you wonder now, that Mr. Van Meter begs people to give him money, that he may take such children away from sin and suffering, to the pure homes of the beautiful West? I know your heart says with mine, God speed!

TWO LIVE PICTURES.

I wish I were an artist. I would paint two pictures that I saw to-day.

This was the first.

At the basement window of a house I passed, sat a mother and her little sick girl. On the window was a tumbler containing some physic, into which the mother had just dipped a spoon, which she was holding to the sick child’s mouth. You should have seen that little girl’s disgusted, shuddering face, as she turned it away from the spoon, over her right shoulder. I doubt if the physic itself was “worse to take!”

This was the second picture.

A little girl, about five years old, had been sent, by her mother, to the butcher’s, for a beefsteak, with an open basket. She had done her errand, and was tripping home with the meat, singing as she went, when a great bouncing Newfoundland dog came toward her, and with a bound, placed his two fore-paws on her shoulder, while the poor child reached her little arms as high as they would go, above her curly head, to save the precious beefsteak. There, now, there are two subjects, for any of you who can draw. I only wish I could, and I would have had them in this very book.

A RIDDLE;
OR, MAMMA’S CHRISTMAS PRESENT.

“Hurrah for Christmas! How it snows! how it blows! who cares? who’s got a Christmas present?”

“Mother! well, what has mother got in her stocking? Nothing?—that’s too bad.”

“Aye; but I did not say she had nothing; I said she had nothing _in her stocking_.”

“Did not Santa Claus bring her any thing?”

“Yes.”

“Well, why not put it in her stocking, then?”

“It was too big.”

“What can it be? Tell us; a work-table?”

“No.”

“A rocking-chair?”

“No.”

“A new silk dress?”

“No.”

“A muff?”

“No.”

“A writing-desk?”

“No.”

“A picture? an ottoman? a statue? a new bonnet?”

“No—no—no—no!”

“Pshaw, it was nothing.”

“But I tell you it was something!”

“Something? then, a table-bell?”

“No; it is not a bell now, but it may be.”

“Not a bell now, but may be! Oh, pshaw, we give it up; tell us, what is it?”

“Well then—a live baby!”

THANKSGIVING.

To-morrow is Thanksgiving.

No joyful clapping of hands when this was said, and the newspaper laid down in which the Thanksgiving proclamation had just been read. No little eyes brightened, or rosy lips said, “How nice—how glad I am!” and yet the little group, gathered there around the warm fire, were well fed and well clothed; there would be the usual turkey, and mince-pie, and plum-pudding at the Thanksgiving dinner; but grandpapa would not be there. Grandpapa was “gone!” What was Thanksgiving, without grandpapa’s silver head at the table? Little curly heads would miss the trembling hands of blessing; little ears would listen vainly for the faltering kindly voice; little eyes would watch when the hall door opened, but hear no tottering footstep; there would be no loving strife now, who should put away his “staff.” Grandpapa has a surer Staff now.

Dear old grandpa! who ever heard him speak a fretful, unkind word? No need to say Hush, children, grandpa is coming—no need to put away the humming-top, marbles, or ball; no need to draw down the merry little faces; no need for little chests to heave the half-stifled, disappointed sigh; no, indeed; grandpa’s hands trembled, grandpa’s feet tottered, grandpa’s forehead was seamed with wrinkles, and his hair was snow-white; but grandpa’s heart was fresh and green, and the sparkle in his eye was as merry as when he was a little boy himself.

Oh, what will Thanksgiving be without grandpa? Did grandpa ever think his children were not his children, because they were grown up, and had married, and left their old home? Did grandpa ever scowl at them when trouble and poverty came, as if it were a crime to be sick or poor? Was grandpa only glad to see them when they were rich and prosperous, and did he love them only when the world noticed them? No—no—else they would not all say to-day,

“Oh, what will Thanksgiving be without grandpa?” Dear old grandpa—there will be no sorrow mixed with his Thanksgiving to-morrow. You will all, I am sure, give thanks for that; his eyes are no longer dim, but the glorious things he sees, neither you or I may know, till our earthly Thanksgivings are over. No pillow to place for the feeble head, there is no sickness there; no cooling draught for the parched lips, for there is no more thirst; neither does he hunger any more; no need to trim the watcher’s midnight lamp, there is no night there. Oh, happy, blessed, sainted grandpapa. Surely the memory of Thanksgiving we will keep, and _it shall not be without thee_!

THE END.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.