Part 11
Are you tired hearing stories about him? Because I have another one I want to tell you, though I dare say, if you are reading this book of mine aloud to your mother, she has said to herself fifty times (and I like her fifty times better for saying it), “Pooh! our Ben, or our Sam, or our Harry, said a great many wonderful things, quite as wonderful as these, as I could show, if ‘a mother’ ever had a minute’s time to write and tell the world of it.” I’ve no doubt of it, my dear madam; I shall certainly die in the belief that children say about all there is worth listening to in this world; but to proceed with my story. One day, when Walter was sitting at the gate with an attendant, a woe-begone old beggar came up, and asked for charity. After he had received it, the attendant said, “Walter, how thankful should you be, that you are not obliged to beg your bread in that way.” Walter looked up wistfully, as if he did not comprehend; then replied, “Homer was a beggar.” “How do you know?” asked the attendant. “Why, don’t you remember?
“‘Seven Roman cities strove for Homer dead, Through which the living Homer begged his bread.’”
How lucky that Walter was not kept in the city! I think nothing could have made him well but taking him just where he was taken; out on the crags, where the fresh wind blew, and the grass was so sweet, and everything about him tempted him to crawl on a _little_ farther, and then a _little_ farther; a tuft of moss, or a curious stone, or some little thing which he wished to take in his own hand, and examine more closely. Oh, I am quite sure he must have died in the city; his poor lame leg would have shrunk more and more, for want of exercise; for a carpet ever so soft, can never be like that which God has spread for the bare feet of the poorest country child. But you must not suppose, all this while, that he learned nothing save that which the sky, and the crags, and the sheep taught him. Aunt Janet used to give him lessons when he was well enough, and as he could bear them. Ah! it is well that there are some good women who never marry. Else, what would so many sick children do, for patient, careful, good, loving nurses? How many of them have been coaxed by such round the most dangerous point of childhood, where medicine was nothing, and good nursing _everything_, to the astonishment of all who prophesied an early death. Such women have their reward, for these little ones become almost as dear to them as if in name—as well as in self-forgetting love—they were mothers. God bless them all! as the silver threads gleam amid their tresses. They will not be lonely in Heaven.
Children are full of funny whims; though I think, if we follow them but carefully, we shall, oftener than not, find good reason for them. Walter had a dislike almost amounting to terror of a _statue_. Very likely, he might first have seen one by a dim light, which, to his startled vision, gave it a ghostly look. It might have been so, though I don’t know that it was. When his Uncle Robert, who was very fond of him, found this out, he did not laugh at him, or scold him, but he took him, whenever it was possible, to see fine statues; and he soon learned, not only to conquer his dislike, but to admire their beauty exceedingly.
By and by his friends thought it was time he went to school, he was growing so much stronger, though not well of his lameness; in fact, I believe that all his after life he walked with a stick. So to school he went, I dare say, with many misgivings; I dare say he wondered whether the boys would make fun of his lameness. I dare say he wondered what he should do with himself while they were running, and leaping, and playing all sorts of rough-and-tumble plays out of doors, and out of school hours. I dare say he dreaded, as do all children, the first day at a new school. I dare say he wondered whether the education he had picked up by bits, as his lame leg would let him, would pass muster at a big boys’ school; or whether he would be called “a dunce,” as well as “lame.” I don’t know that he thought any of these thoughts, but I shouldn’t wonder if he had. I suppose his grandpa, and his Uncle Robert, and his Aunt Janet all felt anxious, too; but, as it turned out, there was no great occasion for it, for he seemed quite well able, after he got there, to manage his own little affairs. In the first place, knowing that he couldn’t “rough it” much in the playground, and not liking, of course, to be left in a corner alone, he commenced telling such wonderful tales and stories, that the boys were glad to crowd round him and listen; and they were worth listening to; else the boys wouldn’t have staid, I can tell you. How they _would_ have stared, had they then been told that this lame fellow was destined to set the whole world by the ears by the stories he should write. Ah! you don’t know, you boys, what famous men you may be sharing your apples and cake with in the playground. You don’t know what a big man you may become _yourself_, only by being _his_ boyhood’s friend. How his future biographer will hunt you out, and catechise you about the color of his eyes, and hair, and the shape of his finger nails, and what he said, and did, and ate, and drank, and what he did like, and what he didn’t like; and it is very well you don’t know all this, because it would spoil your present fun and freedom; and it is very well “the master” don’t know “a genius” when he is boxing his ears, because they might _grow very long_ for the need of such discipline!
Well, like other boys, Master Walter was sometimes at the top, and sometimes at the bottom of his class. On one occasion he made a sudden leap to the top. The master asked the boys “Is _with_ ever a substantive?” All were silent, until the question reached Walter, nearly at the bottom of the class, who instantly replied by quoting from the book of Judges, “And Sampson said unto Delilah, ‘If they bind me with seven green _withs_ that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and as another man.’” Pretty keen! wasn’t it? The other boys twiddled their thumbs, and looked foolish, and he went to the top. I don’t believe his mother thought, when she read him the Bible, of his laying that text on the shelf of his memory, to be brought forth in that queer way. But a smart answer does not stand a boy in the place of hard study, as you may have found out if you ever tried it; so Master Walter found himself at the bottom of the class again one fine day. This didn’t suit the young man, and what suited him less was the fact that the boy who was at the head seemed to mean to stay there, too. Day after day passed, and nobody could get his place. Walter pondered deeply how he should manage. He looked sharply at him, to see if he could not accomplish by stratagem what he could not gain fairly. At length he observed that when a question was asked this—_at-the-top boy_—he always fumbled with his fingers at a particular button on the lower part of his waistcoat. _If Walter could only succeed in cutting off that button!_ He watched his chance—knife in hand. When that top boy was again questioned, he felt, as usual, for the friendly button. It was gone! He looked down for it; it was no more to be seen than to be felt. He stuttered—he stammered—he missed his lesson; and that wretched, roguish Walter took his place. But I can tell you he didn’t feel happy about it; for he says he never passed him but his heart smote him for it, though the top boy never knew who stole his _lesson button_. Scott says he often promised himself to make some amends for the boyish injury he did him; but he never did. Scott also says that when this boy grew a young man, he became a drunkard, and died early. That was a pity, though I don’t think it was on account of that button; do you? Still, Scott always wished all the more that he had not been unkind to the poor, unfortunate fellow.
You will be glad to know that Walter continued to grow stronger and stronger, so that his limb, though it disfigured, did not disable him. He had not been taunted with it in his childhood, like poor Byron, till he imagined everybody who looked at him thought of nothing else. He had been very, very kindly cared for, and tenderly nursed. Pity Byron was not, though I think he _never_ would have been half the man Scott was; but then, I’m “_only a woman_,” and you needn’t mind what _I_ say. Well, when Walter grew to be a fine young man, he was very fond of strolling off to see beautiful scenery, and when he once began these journeys, he never knew how fast time was passing, how far he had gone, and when and where to stop. Not knowing how to draw pictures of the places he visited with his pencil (he did not know then how beautifully his pen would do it some day), he resolved to cut a branch of a tree from every place which particularly pleased him, and label it with the name of the spot where it grew, and afterward have a set of chess men made out of the wood, as he was then very fond of this game, which, by the way, with a courtesy to Paul Morphy, I think a very stupid game; though perhaps this is because I never could sit still long enough to learn how to play it. This idea of Walter’s was a very pretty one, though he never carried it into execution. He never played chess after boyhood—saying that it was a sad “waste of brains;” and he might have added, a sad waste of backbone; at least for “Young America,” who has few enough outdoor sports now, to keep his breastbone and his backbone from clinging together.
Walter’s mother was very anxious he should learn music; but he declares he had neither voice nor ear for it. He says that, when the attempt was made to instruct him, and the music teacher came to give him lessons, a lady who lived in their neighborhood sent in “to beg that the children in that house might not all be flogged at the same hour, because, though, doubtless, they all deserved it, the noise they made was really dreadful!”
Walter’s mother appears to have been a very intelligent, kind-hearted, well-educated woman. Not educated according to our standard, exactly; since, at the age of eighty, when sitting down, she never touched the back of her chair any more than if the eye of the schoolmistress was then upon her, who used to force pupils “to sit upright.” She died before Walter came to be the “great unknown” whom everybody was wondering about. But, after all, what matters it, so far as she was concerned? since it is _love_, not greatness, for which a mother’s heart hungers; and Walter loved his mother.
After her death, among her papers was found a weak, boyish scrawl, with penciled marks still visible, of a translation in verse from Horace and Virgil, by “her dear boy Walter.” I said, just now, what mattered it to _her_ that he was famous? little, truly, so that he loved her; and yet, for _him_, for any one, to whom the world’s praises have come, ah, it is of the loved dead that they _then_ think?
With all his glory, with all his troop of friends, seen and unseen, I doubt if he was ever so happy as when lying at _her_ feet, wrapped in the warm sheepskin, in the little sunny parlor at Sandy Knowe. When you read his books—and it is a great thing to say that children _may_ read them—you will remember all these little stories I have been telling you about his childhood; and that, when he came to die, full of age and honors, _this_ is what he said to his son, as he stood by his bedside: “My dear, be a good man: be virtuous, be religious—be a _good_ man. _Nothing else will give you any real comfort when you come to lie here._”
AUNT MAGGIE.
Maggie More—that was her name; people who knew her well called her Aunt Maggie; this did not displease her; she was a sociable little body, quite willing to befriend anybody who felt the need of an aunt, or whom the world had used hardly. Maggie was not rich as we use the word, but she was rich in good health, in good temper, and a certain faculty of making the best of everything that happened. The little shop she kept would have made a Broadway storekeeper laugh. Well, let him laugh; he could afford to do it, if he never made a dishonest penny oftener than Aunt Maggie. _She_ never told a poor soul who had scraped a few shillings together to buy a calico dress, that “it would wash,” (meaning that it would wash _out_.) _Her_ yardstick never had a way of slipping, so that six yards and a half measured, when you got it home, but six yards. She never gave crossed sixpences and shillings to children who were sent to buy tape and needles; and so, as I told you, Aunt Maggie did not get rich as fast as they who do such things; but Maggie had read in a Book which the people I speak of seldom open, because, when they do, it is sure to prick their consciences—Aunt Maggie had read in that book, that “they who make haste to be rich shall not be innocent,” and she believed it. She had not yet outgrown the Bible; it did not lie on her little deal table merely to gather dust, or that the minister might see it when he called once a year. She did not think that, though the Bible was well enough for those who lived at the time it was written, it could teach her nothing at this day; she did not think it a proof of courage or of a superior understanding to make light of its blessed teachings. No, no, Aunt Maggie knew better; she had seen too many in her lifetime, who had talked that way when everything went well with them, sink down in despair when the waves of trouble dashed over them, and she had seen too many whom that blessed book had buoyed up through billows of trouble that rolled mountain high, not to cling to the Bible. No, no; Aunt Maggie was an old woman, but she was not yet old enough to let go her Heavenly Father’s hand, and try to walk alone. She knew how surely she should stumble and fall if she did.
Nor did Aunt Maggie’s religion consist merely in reading her Bible and going to church; when she read on its pages, “Visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction,” she did it.
“What is the matter, Aunt Maggie?” asked a bronzed sea captain, who had rolled into her little shop to buy a new watch ribbon. “This is the first time I ever saw you look as if there was a squall ahead. Got any watch ribbons, Aunt Maggie?—none of your flimsy things for an old sea-dog like me. Give us something that will stand a twitch or two—that’s it—take your pay—(throwing her his purse)—and mind you take enough—there’s nobody else wants it now”—and the old captain drew a long sigh.
“The Lord does,” answered Aunt Maggie, folding her arms on the counter, and looking earnestly in the captain’s face.
“What do you mean by that, hey? Has some Bible society run a-foul of you? Want a church built, to shut out everybody who don’t believe as you do, eh, Aunt Maggie?” and the old captain stowed away a bit of tobacco in his cheek, with a knowing look.
“It’s just here,” said Aunt Maggie—“the poor ye have always with you; that was said a great many thousand years ago, but it is just as true now.”
“I don’t know who should know, Aunt, better than you,” said the captain; “you who are always helping them. Go on.”
“Well, there’s a poor young creature who lies dead a stone’s throw from here, an English girl, whose husband brought her to this country, and then left her to take care of herself. I was with her all last night, and this morning she laid her little babe in my arms, and I promised to care for it when she was gone. Poor thing! she had her senses but a few minutes to tell me anything. Her parents, it seems, disinherited her for marrying her husband. She would not tell their name. She had pawned, one by one, every article in her possession, for money; and now, there’s the babe. God helping me, she shall be taken care of as I promised, but you know it’s little I have—and the mother must have decent burial.”
“English—did you say she was?” asked the captain.
“Aye—English,” said Aunt Maggie—“fair-haired and blue-eyed—the pride of some home. Oh! how little they, who must have loved her once, think how cold and desolate she lies now. It is well,” said Aunt Maggie, “that _God_ can forgive—when earthly parents turn away.”
“You don’t know what it is, Aunt Maggie,” said the captain, striding across the floor, “to have the child you loved better than your heart’s blood, leave your arms for a stranger’s, whom she has known mayhap but a day.”
“It must be bitter,” said Aunt Maggie, “and yet, year after year, we turn our backs upon Him who has done more for us than any earthly parent can. If He still feeds us, cares for us, forgives us, what are _we_ to——”
“True—true!” said the old captain, dashing his hand across his eyes; “this girl is English, you say?”
“Yes; and as you are English too, I thought mayhap you’d like to help a countrywoman; I am going to see to the babe now,” said Aunt Maggie; “mayhap you’d like to see it too?”
“Aye—aye,” replied the captain.
On they went, to the end of the long street—past grog shops, and pawn shops, and mock-auction shops, and second-hand furniture shops, and rickety old tenement houses, where ragged clothes flapped, and broken windows were stuffed with paper; where dogs barked and parrots screamed—for many of these poor people, who can scarcely keep themselves, keep these pets,—past young girls, homeless and shameless, alas!—past young men, old, not in years, but in sin—past little children, who only knew God’s blessed name to blaspheme it. At last Aunt Maggie turned down an alley, dark, narrow, and dingy, and entering one of the low doors, began to ascend the creaky stairs, that seemed swarming with children, of all sorts and sizes, dwarfed in the cradle by disease and neglect. When Aunt Maggie reached the top flight, she stopped before a door, through which came the faint wailing of a little babe, and the low lullaby of a woman’s voice. Upon the bed, opposite the door, lay the dead woman, with a sheet thrown over her face.
“Would you like to see her?” asked Aunt Maggie, turning to the captain. “’Tis a sweet face.”
“Yes—no,” answered the captain, turning away, and then advancing again toward the bed.
“Mary! Mary!” he cried, as the pale upturned face lay uncovered before him: “_my_ Mary _here_!” and he threw his arms around the neck of the dead girl, and trembled like the strong tree before the tempest blast.
“_His_ Mary!” murmured Aunt Maggie, taking the motherless babe from the old woman’s arms; “_his_ Mary—then this is his grandchild. Didn’t I say that the Lord would provide for the helpless?”
Yes, “_his_ Mary!” Death hides all faults. We only remember the goodness of those upon whose marble faces our tears fall fast; and so the old captain took his little grandchild to his heart, and Aunt Maggie left her little shop and became its nurse. And not till many years after, when the little babe had grown to be a tall girl, did Aunt Maggie tell her the story that I have been telling you.
A FUNERAL I SAW.
I have been to a funeral to-day. It was in a church;—I had to pass through a garden to reach it;—the warm rain was dropping gently on the shrubs and early flowers, and inside warm tears were falling; for before the chancel lay a coffin, and in it was a fair young wife and mother, pale and sweet as the white flowers that lay upon the coffin-lid. Near it was her husband, and beside him were her aged parents, bowed down with grief that she who they thought would close their fading eyes, should fade first. In a house opposite the church, were the dead mother’s babe, only a few days old, and two other little ones, just old enough to prattle unconsciously as they went from room to room, “Mamma has gone away.” I knew, though they did not, how day after day would pass, and these little girls, who had always seen mamma _come back again_, after she had “gone away,” would stand at the window, looking this way and that, with their little bright faces, and listening for her light footstep; and my heart ached and my eyes filled as I thought how every day, as they grew older, they would need her care and feel her loss the more; for it is only in part that a father, even the kindest, can fill a watchful mother’s place;—he, whose business must be out of doors and away; how can he know how weary the little feet get wandering up and down, with no mamma’s lap to climb upon; how weary the little hands,—putting down one thing, and taking up another, with no mamma to nod smilingly and say, “I see”—or “it is very pretty, dear;” how homesick the little rifled heart feels, though it scarce knows why; how tasteless the pretty cup of milk mamma used to hold to the rosy lips; how empty parlor and nursery, chamber and hall? How much less gentle is nurse’s touch than hers; how much sooner she wearies of answering little curious questions, and getting bits of string and toys for restless fingers to play with; how much longer seems the time now, before papa comes home to dinner and tea,—poor papa—who, with an iron hand, crushes down his own great sorrow and tries and fails to speak to them in _her_ soft, sweet, winning way; and tries and fails to soothe their little insect griefs, though he would die to save them a heart-pang.
All this I thought of as I looked at these two little curly-headed girls and their baby sister; and I said to myself, I do not know why God took away their young mother, whose work just seemed begun, and left the aged grand parents who were waiting to go. Why he made that house desolate and silent, once so musical. Why he turned those tender lambs out from that soft, warm fold. With all my thinking I could not find that out; but I am just as sure, as if I could, that He did it in love, not in anger; I am just as sure as if I were in Heaven this minute, that it was best and right; though they, and you, and I, must wait till we get there to know the how and why.
WATCHES.
Every urchin has had the little gilt toy-watch that is always at half-past seven o’clock. Who should attempt to convince its happy possessor that it did not keep good time, or it was not the exact counterpart “of father’s,” would be trespassing upon the good old proverb, that where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise. Next to this comes the silver watch, which “goes;” _really_ goes; and which is susceptible of being wound up by its short-jacketed owner, on his way to school, to drive some non-watch-possessing boy to the verge of distraction. The manner in which this watch is alternately set forward and allowed to run down at the caprice of its owner, is known only to anxious parents, whose entreaties in favor of a more systematic mode of treatment, and whose threats of taking it away, go into one ear only to go out at the other. Then there is the Ladies’ Lilliputian watch; the dear little mite, perhaps set around with diamonds. This dear little mite, so pretty to look at, with its curious chatelaine of little trinkets, dangling at the belt. Time would fail to tell how often it is unnecessarily inspected in omnibuses, cars, and ferry-boats; in shops, and places of amusement, and on the public promenade; and how dainty looks the jeweled forefinger of the owner, as the obedient lid obeys the touch on the spring. All this is interesting till it gets to be an old story; till all its owner’s lady-friends have commented approbatively or despairingly upon it as the case may be. Then, it is occasionally left on the sofa, or piano, or mantel, over night, instead of nestling in its soft-cushioned box in the drawer, as at first; or it is dropped on the hearth, or it is left hanging for days in the watch-pocket of some one of the many dresses in the closet, until a speedy visit to the watchmaker’s seems essential to its restoration to activity.