Part 12

Faults are the easiest things to find in all this world. A fault is something that can be found without looking for it. And I guess no little boy or girl in all the world knows anything that is easier to find than something that he or she doesn’t have to look for. Well, faults are things that we can find without looking for them; so faults are the easiest things to find in all the world. Yet, boys and girls, the habit of fault-finding, or the habit of finding fault, is one of the worst habits that anybody could form. It does nobody good, generally speaking. Besides it stamps the person who is so easy to find fault with everything and everybody as being a mean, low, envious, evil-hearted person. It is a good deal better to look for something to praise than it is to look for something to blame. Yet there are some people—some little boys and girls—who are so constituted that they do not see any good in anything. When it is cold, it is too cold. When it is hot, it is too hot. They don’t like “vici kid” shoes; they want patent leathers. The singing at church or Sunday school last Sunday was just horrid. Old Mary Jones ought to be taken out of the choir. The preacher preaches too long, or the deacon prays too loud. The school teacher isn’t any good—I can beat him drawing myself. So they go on from day to day, finding fault with everything and everybody. Nothing pleases them; nothing delights them. If by any chance or mischance they should get to heaven they would, I believe, find fault with the way the Lord has arranged things up there. They are miserable people to have around—these good-for-nothing, lazy and trifling fault-finders. If you try real hard, boys and girls, you can find something good in everything and in everybody. That is one reason why we do not always see the good in people or things—we don’t look for it. We can find out what is bad—can find out the bad things without looking for them, but if we want to see the good things we must be on the lookout for them. If we are on the lookout—if we make up our minds that we are going to see the good, and only the good, we are always sure to find it.

There was an old woman once who was noted for being able to say something good about everything and everybody. She was never heard to speak evil of anything or anybody. Once upon a time a gambler died in the city where she lived. He was a miserable sinner, and nobody liked him and nobody had a good word to say for him, even after he was dead. Aunt Maria, the good old lady, went to see him after he had been put into his coffin. The people who were present wondered what good thing Aunt Maria could possibly say about the dead sinner. Aunt Maria entered the room and walked around on tiptoe. After awhile she raised her head and said:

“Friends, I tell you, he makes a mighty nice looking corpse.”

LXXI. THE PURITANS’ SABBATH.

If all the little boys and girls in America to-day knew how the people in the New England states were compelled by law to keep the Sabbath day I think they would realize how much better it is to be living in these days and times than to have lived in those.

The laws concerning the keeping of a New England Sabbath were very severe—that is, before the Revolutionary War, when what was called colonial rule was in force.

No manner of work was allowed to be done; no visiting, no playing, no gaiety of any kind was permitted; just think, boys and girls, it is said that one man was brought to trial and fined for kissing his wife on a Sabbath morning.

Slowly and solemnly, just as if they were going to a funeral, the families all walked to the meeting house on Sundays, some of them having to walk many and many miles.

On reaching the church the men took their places on one side of the house and the women on the other—they didn’t allow men and women to sit together. The children, also, had to sit by themselves, and there was a man appointed to keep them quiet. This man carried a long stick with a hard knob at one end and a little feather brush at the other. The feather end of this stick he would use to tickle the faces of the men and women who might chance to get sleepy and go to nodding during the preaching. The other end he used on the children.

I guess this poor man must have kept busy all the time, for the sermons were very long, lasting for whole hours. Sometimes a man would begin a sermon in the morning and preach up to dinnertime; the congregation would then go out for dinner, and come back and sit for hours during the afternoon to hear the sermon concluded.

The men carried their muskets to church with them, so that they might have them ready in case of an attack from the wild Indians.

The meeting houses were not warmed even in very cold weather; the people thought that in some way it would make them better Christians if they bore such discomforts without a murmur. Of course we know better now, and wouldn’t think of doing such a foolish thing.

After a time the people began to carry hot bricks and stones to keep their hands and feet from freezing, and by-and-by they carried foot stoves. These stoves were little tin boxes, with holes in the side, a cover, a door, and handles with which to carry them. In these boxes were put live coals and in that way the fire would last throughout the sermon.

I fear many and many a little boy and girl dreaded to see Sunday come, for, as a rule, it was a long, dreary day, and I am sure that they must have been glad when it was over.

I know you must be glad that people no longer have the idea that Sunday should be such a dismal, sober day; and I believe that our Heavenly Father is much more pleased to see the children spending the Lord’s day happily in their homes with their mothers and fathers, their little brothers and sisters.

Of course no Christian boy or girl even now believes in making Sunday a day of riot and fun; and no Christian man or woman believes in having the saloons open on Sunday anywhere. But most of us are away beyond the old Puritan idea of sadness and gloom for the Sabbath.

Next Sunday, boys and girls, when you enter your pleasant Sunday school rooms and find your schoolmates and teachers so glad to see you, and where everything is bright and pleasant, think of those poor little children who had no books and cards and no pretty songs and who were made to pass the whole day without even being allowed to laugh.

LXXII. THE DEVIL ON AN EXCURSION.

I wonder how many boys and girls have ever witnessed a cyclone—a great big hurricane of wind and rain, of lightning and thunder, that just knocks down all the trees and takes the roofs off all the houses.

It is a terrible thing, the cyclone is!

The other day one came to our town. We could look up into the sky and see coming, from afar, a great big black cloud that looked for all the world like a balloon—a great big balloon, ever so large. The wind was blowing at a rapid rate, the dust flying, and everybody was frightened.

The roof was lifted off the school house, a church was blown down, many houses were unroofed, and men and beasts were alike hurled right and left. I do not think anybody was killed but a great many were frightened nearly to death.

The cyclone took one poor little boy and landed him in the midst of a mud puddle. The little fellow stretched out stiff and stark, as if he had been killed. An old man ran up to the edge of the ditch and said:

“Isaac, is you dead?”

Isaac said nothing, but his eyes, were rolling in their sockets. The old man asked again:

“Isaac, is you dead? ’Cause ef you is dead d’ain’t no use uv my comin’ in dar to try to git you out.”

This time Isaac grunted, rolled his eyes, and asked:

“Where is he, Uncle Reuben?”

“Whar’s who?” asked Uncle Reuben.

“The devil,” said Isaac.

“He done gone,” said Uncle Reuben, “he done clean gone; but you bettah git up f’um dar!”

“I can’t,” said Isaac. “I can’t; I’m ’most dead!”

Uncle Reuben studied a short while. He was planning what to do next. He didn’t want to go into the mud and water and get his clothes soiled in trying to rescue the little boy. By-and-by Uncle Reuben threw up his hands, looked up the big road and said:

“De goodnis gracious! I see dat ole cycloom cornin’ back ag’in. He look blackah and wussah dan he done befo’. Run, Isaac, run!”

You ought to have seen Isaac jump out of that hole. He got out hallooing, and he ran and hallooed for nearly a quarter of a mile. Uncle Reuben hallooed after him to stop, but it did no good. The poor little fellow was well nigh scared to death.

A few days after the cyclone Uncle Reuben was telling some of his friends about the occurrence. Among other things he said:

“Little Isaac wasn’t ready fur Judgment—dat’s all! He wasn’t ready! W’en a man’s ready to go to judgment, he ain’t ’fraid uv nothin’. No, sah; he ain’t ’fraid uv nothin’. Isaac wasn’t ready, an’ he hallooed an’ squealed jes like death done struck him. Mens, I tell you, dat ole cycloom jes ’tuck de roof off’n ev’ybody’s house. Look like ev’ybody’s house he come to he dip down an’ say, ‘Take yo’ hat off to me; don’t you see me cornin’; ain’t you got no mannahs?’ Den he’d strike ’em an’ take deir hats off hisse’f. He took de roof off’n de cullud school house an’ he took de roof off’n de white school house. De cycloom ain’t no respectah uv persons—he sho ain’t. W’en little Isaac done come to his senses an’ done got clean ovah his fright, I ax’d him what a cycloom was. He told me dat a cycloom wa’n’t nothin’ ’tall in dis worl’ but de debbil on a flyin’ ’scursion. The mo’ I think ’bout it, the mo’ I b’lieve dat boy was right. De cycloom sho is de debbil on a ’scursion, an’ w’en de debbil is a-ridin’ you’d bettah lay low.”

LXXIII. RANDOM REMARKS.

In the olden times parents used to rule their children, but in these days and times there are many people who believe that the children rule their parents. So many misguided parents in these days and times believe in sparing the rod and spoiling the child. Boys don’t get many whippings at home nowadays, and if a boy happens to get a good flogging at school it will cause a big row, and sometimes cause the teacher to be threatened with arrest. Whenever my teacher used to whip me I was always afraid to mention it at home for fear of getting another. I heard a man say the other day: “Never whip a child; raise your boy on love and kindness and reason!” Yes; and when that boy is twelve or thirteen years old somebody will have to go to him and talk to him and try to persuade him not to whip his father or mother.

I was at church the other day and I saw two boys about ten or eleven years old. After service they lit their cigarettes and went marching off as big as Trip. A man of the old school looked at them for awhile, and then, turning away, he said:

“I just wish I could have my way with those boys for about two minutes.”

I didn’t say anything, but deep down in my heart I sympathized with the old man, and felt that both of the youngsters ought to have had a good whipping.

Some girls are almost as bad as some boys. Girls are most too fast in these days. As soon as they get their dresses to their shoetops they are gone. They go crazy over their clothes, for they think that they must keep in the fashion. They read too much trash, for they think that is the way refined and cultured people do. Old-fashioned modesty is at a discount. The girls don’t wait for the boys to come now—that is, many of them don’t; they go after them. I have seen some girls running around in these new-fashioned night gowns, and they call it a Mother Hubbard party. If their mothers don’t allow them to go with the boys they will slip around and meet them somewhere anyhow. And where they are allowed to go with the boys they generally go to extremes. What business has a little girl—ten or twelve or fourteen years old—to be locked-arms with a little stripling of a boy, going home at night from church or some social entertainment. It always disgusts me whenever I see it. Worse than a mannish boy is a womanish girl. What business has a little girl, or a larger one, to allow a man to throw his arm around her waist in the round dance? It is immodest, to say the least, and there is not a good mother in the land who approves it. A girl who goes to a promiscuous ball and waltzes around with promiscuous fellows puts herself in a promiscuous fix to be talked about by the dudes and rakes and fast young fellows who have encircled her waist. Slander is very common, I know, especially slander of young ladies; there are not many young ladies who escape it; but the trouble about it is that it is not all slander—some of it is the truth.

In the olden times when folks got married they stayed married, but nowadays the courts are full of divorce cases. The land is spotted with what are called “grass widows,” and in many a household there is hidden grief over a daughter’s shame. Why is it? What causes it? Lack of proper training and care of the young. Habits are great things—good habits or bad habits. If girls are reared to clean their teeth and keep their fingernails clean they will keep them clean all their lives. If boys are reared to chew tobacco and smoke they will never quit. The same about loving and courting and getting married. Much depends upon training, upon habits. Young flirts make old flirts. Young devils make old devils!

LXXIV. BENJAMIN BANNEKER, THE NEGRO ASTRONOMER.

The little colored boys and girls of America should be proud to know, as I suppose the little white boys and girls will be surprised to learn, that the first clock of which every portion was made in America was made by a colored man.

The colored children will also be glad to know, I think, that among the earliest almanacs prepared for general use in this country were those which were published for several years by this same colored man. His name was Benjamin Banneker. I have found a good and true account of this wonderful man in The Atlantic Monthly for January, 1863. I am going to give a good portion of that account in this book, because I believe every colored person in America should be acquainted with that man’s history. The account says:

“Benjamin Banneker was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, near the village of Ellicott’s Mills, in the year 1732. There was not a drop of white man’s blood in his veins. His father was born in Africa, and his mother’s parents were both natives of Africa. What genius he had, then, must be credited to that race. When he was approaching manhood he went, in the intervals of toil, to an obscure and remote country school. At this school Benjamin acquired a knowledge of reading and writing, and advanced in arithmetic as far as ‘Double position.’ Beyond these rudiments he was his own teacher. Young Banneker had no books at all, but in the midst of labor for a living he so improved upon what he had gained in arithmetic that his intelligence became a matter of general observation. He was such an acute observer of the natural world and had so diligently observed the signs of the times in society that it is very doubtful whether at forty years of age this African had his superior in Maryland.

“Perhaps the first wonder amongst his comparatively illiterate neighbors was excited, when, about the thirtieth year of his age, Benjamin made a clock. It is probable that this was the first clock of which every portion was made in America; it is certain that it was purely his own invention as if none had ever been made before. He had seen a watch, but never a clock, such an article not being within fifty miles of him. He used the watch as a model for his clock. He was a long time at work on the clock,—his chief difficulty, as he used often to relate, being to make the hour, minute, and second hands correspond in their motion. But at last the work was completed, and raised the admiration for Banneker to quite a high pitch among his few neighbors.

“The making of the clock proved to be of great importance in assisting the young man to fulfill his destiny. It attracted the attention of the Ellicott family, who had just begun a settlement at Ellicott’s Mills. They were well-educated men, with much mechanical knowledge, and some of them Quakers. They sought out the ingenious negro, and he could not have fallen into better hands. In 1787 Mr. George Ellicott gave him Mayer’s “Tables,” Ferguson’s “Astronomy,” and Leadbetter’s “Lunar Tables.” From this time astronomy became the great object of Banneker’s life, and in its study he almost disappeared from the sight of his neighbors. He slept much during the day, that he might the more devotedly observe at night the heavenly bodies whose laws he was slowly, but surely, mastering.

“Very soon after the possession of the books already mentioned, Banneker determined to compile an almanac, that being the most familiar use that occurred to him of the information he had acquired. To make an almanac then was a very different thing from what it would be now, when there is an abundance of accurate tables and rules. Banneker had no aid whatever from men or rules; and Mr. George Ellicott, who procured some tables and took them to him, states that he had already advanced very far in the preparation of the logarithms necessary for the purpose.

“The first almanac prepared by Banneker for publication was for the year 1792. By this time his acquirements had become generally known, and among those who were attracted by them was Mr. James McHenry. Mr. McHenry wrote to Goddard and Angell, then the almanac-publishers of Baltimore, and procured the publication of this work, which contained from the pen of Mr. McHenry, a brief notice of Banneker. When his first almanac was published, Banneker was fifty-nine years old, and had received tokens of respect from all the scientific men of the country. Among others, Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State under George Washington, wrote him a most flattering and complimentary letter. In his letter Jefferson said, ‘Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that Nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America.’

“Banneker continued to calculate and publish almanacs until 1802.

“Mr. Benjamin H. Ellicott, who was a true friend of Banneker, and collected from various sources all the facts concerning him, wrote in a letter as follows: ‘During the whole of his long life he lived respectably and much esteemed by all who became acquainted with him, but more especially by those who could fully appreciate his genius and the extent of his acquirements.’

“Banneker’s head was covered with a thick mass of white hair, which gave him a very dignified and venerable appearance. His dress was invariably of superfine drab broadcloth, made in the old style of a plain coat, with straight collar and long waistcoat, and a broad-brimmed hat. His color was not jet black, but decidedly negro. In size and personal appearance, the statue of Franklin at the library in Philadelphia, as seen from the street, is a perfect likeness of him.

“Banneker died in the year 1804, beloved and respected by all who knew him. Though no monument marks the spot where he was born and lived a true and high life, and was buried, yet history must record that the most original scientific intellect which the South has yet produced was that of the pure African, Benjamin Banneker.”

The above is the story of that wonderful black man told in splendid terms of high and well-deserved praise by a white man. Every little black boy in America may well be fired with inspiration to do something beyond the ordinary by reading the story of Banneker’s life.

LXXV. “A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM.”

It is truly astonishing what a boy can do when once he has made up his mind to do his best. Dr. Len. G. Broughton, the famous pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist church, Atlanta, Ga., in a little book, which he calls “The Modern Prodigal,” has told a very pathetic story about a little boy. It is so true to life, and so typical of what a black or white boy may do under similar circumstances, if he only decides for the true and the right, that I have decided to reproduce the little story in this book. It is well worth reading. Dr. Broughton says:

“Not long after I entered the ministry, I went to a certain town to hold a series of meetings. It was one of these good old Southern towns, the inhabitants of which banked on aristocracy and fed their souls upon the glory of departed days. They had never known what it was to be spiritually warm. The first night I was there I preached to a great audience. It was in my early ministry, when I made many propositions. The first one I made that night was for any one to stand who wanted prayers offered for their friends. As soon as I made it a little boy got up and walked out in the aisle, where he stood looking me square in the face. I said, ‘God bless you, little man,’ and he sat down. I then asked any one who wanted the prayers of God’s people to rise. That boy got out in the aisle again and looked me in the face, and again I said, ‘God bless you.’ I asked if there was anybody present who was willing to accept Jesus. That boy stood up again and looked me in the face, and again I said, ‘God bless you.’ Nobody else stood up that night, and I began to think I had struck about the hardest and coldest crowd I had ever run up against.

“The next night I preached as hard as I knew how to sinners, and when I finished, I asked anybody who wanted to be prayed for to stand up. The same little rascal popped out into the aisle, as he had done the night before, and stood looking at me until I saw him and said, ‘God bless you.’ I thought I’d vary the thing a little, so I asked if anybody present was willing to come forward and give me his hand as an indication that he would accept Jesus. That same boy came shuffling out of his seat, straight down the aisle and gave me his hand. I saw smiles on the faces of some in the congregation. Nobody but the boy showed any interest, and I went off somewhat disheartened. The third night I preached, and when I asked all who wanted prayer to rise, that boy popped out into the aisle. The people had begun to regard it as a joke, and they nudged each other with their elbows, while a broad smile flared from one side of the house to the other. When I asked anybody who was willing to accept Jesus to come and give me his hand, that boy came, and the congregation smiled broader than before. After the meeting the deacons came to me and told me that the boy must be stopped, as he was a half-idiot, and was throwing a damper on the meeting. I said: ‘Stop nothing! How are you going to throw a damper on an ice-house?’