Chapter 2

Two years have gone by. It is August again. The sky is cloudless--the birds are singing--and little Floy's tears are all dried up. Her cheeks are plump and rosy; she has plenty to eat now; and another pair of shoes, when she has danced her toes out of those she has on. And mamma?--why, she can sit whole hours with her hands folded, if she likes, and go to sleep whenever she feels tired; for she has earned plenty of money for herself, and little Floy, too. Floy is glad of this, because mamma smiles now, and looks happier--and because all her old friends, who forgot all about her when she was poor, are so _delighted_ now whenever they meet her. Floy thinks it is very nice all round. Dear, innocent little Floy!

THE LAKE TRIP;

OR,

GOING A FISHING.

Oh! Aunty, it has done raining! The sun is shining _so_ brightly; we are going to the Lake to fish--Papa says so--you and Papa, and Bell, and Harry, and Emma, and Agnes, and our dog Bruno.

Of course, Aunty, who was always on hand for such trips, wasn't five minutes springing to her feet, and in less than half an hour Pat stood at the door with the carriage, (that somehow or other always held as many as wanted to go, whether it were five, or forty-five;) "Papa" twisting the reins over hats and bonnets with the dexterity of a Jehu; jolt--jolt--on we go, over pebble stones--over plank roads--past cottages--past farms--up hill and down, till we reach "the Lake."

Shall I tell you how we tip-toed into the little egg-shell boats? How, after a great deal of talk, we all were seated to our minds--how each one had a great fishing rod put into our hands--how Aunty, (who never fished before,) got laughed at for refusing to stick the cruel hook into the quivering little minnows used for "bait"--and how, when they fixed it for her, she forgot all about moving it round, so beautiful was the "blue above, and the blue below," until a great fish twitched at her line, telling her to leave off dreaming and mind her business--and how it made her feel so bad to see them tear the hook from the mouth of the poor fish she was so UN-lucky as to catch, that she coaxed them to put her ashore, telling them it was pleasure not pain she came after--and how they laughed and floated off down the Lake, leaving her on a green moss patch, under a big tree--and how she rambled all along shore gathering the tiniest little shells that ever a wave tossed up--and how she took off her shoes and stockings and dipped her feet in the cool water, and listened to the bees' drowsy hum from the old tree trunk close by, and watched the busy ant stagger home, under the weight of his well earned morsel--and how she made a bridge of stones over a little streamlet to pluck some crimson lobelias, growing on the other side, and some delicate, bell-shaped flowers, fit only for a fairy's bridal wreath,--and how she wandered till sunset came on, and the Lake's pure breast was all a-glow, and then, how she lay under that old tree, listening to the plashing waves, and watching the little birds, dipping their golden wings into the rippling waters, then soaring aloft to the rosy tinted clouds? Shall I tell you how the grand old hills, forest crowned, stretched off into the dim distance--and how sweet the music of childhood's ringing laugh, heard from the far-off shore--or how Aunty thought 'twas such a _pity_ that sin, and tears, and sorrow, should ever blight so fair a world?

But Aunty mustn't make you sad; here come the children leaping from the boat; they've "caught few fish," but a great deal of sunshine, (judging from their happy faces.) God bless the little voyagers, all; the laughing Agnes, the pensive Emma, the dove-eyed, tender-hearted Mary, the rosy Bell, the fearless Harry. In the green pastures by the still waters, may the dear Shepherd fold them.

"MILK FOR BABES."

Once in a while I have a way of thinking!--and to-day it struck me that children should have a minister of their own. Yes, a child's minister! For amid the "strong meat" for older disciples, the "milk for babes" spoken of by the infant, loving Saviour, seems to be, strangely enough, forgotten.

Yes, I remember the "Sabbath Schools;" and God bless and prosper them--as far as they go. But--there's your little Charles--he says to you on Saturday night,--"Mother, what day is it to-morrow?" "Sunday, my pet." "Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so _tired_ Sundays."

Poor Charley! he goes to church because he is bid--and often when he gets there, has the most uncomfortable seat in the pew--used as a sort of human wedge, to fill up some triangular corner. From one year's end to another, he hears nothing from that pulpit he can understand. It is all Greek and Latin to him, those big words, and rhetorical flourishes, and theological nuts, thrown out for "wisdom-teeth" to crack. So he counts the buttons on his jacket, and the bows on his mother's bonnet, and he wonders how the feathers in that lady's hat before him can be higher than the pulpit or the minister; (for he can't see either.) And then he wonders, if the chandelier should fall, if he couldn't have one of those sparkling glass drops,--and then he wonders if Betty will give the baby his humming top to play with before he gets home--and whether his mother will have apple dumplings for dinner? And then he explores his Sunday pocket for the absent string and marble, and then his little toes get so fidgety that he can't stand it, and he says out loud, "hi--ho--hum!" and then he gets a very red ear from his father, for disturbing _his_ comfortable nap in particular, and the rest of the congregation generally.

Yes, I'd have a church for children, if I could only find a minister who _knew enough_ to preach to them! You needn't smile! It needs a very long head to talk to a child. It is much easier to talk to older people whose brains are so _cobwebbed_ with "isms" and "ologies," that you can make them lose themselves when they get troublesome; but that straight-forward, childish, far-reaching question! and the next--and the next! That clear, penetrating, searching, yet innocent and trusting eye! How will you meet them? You'll be astonished to find how often you'll be cornered by that little child--how many difficulties he will raise, that will require all your keenest wits to clear away. Oh, you must get off your clerical stilts, and drop your metaphors and musty folios, and call everything by its right name when you talk to children.

Yes, I repeat it. Children should have a minister. Not a gentleman in a stiff neck-cloth and black coat, who says solemnly, in a sepulchral voice, (once a year, on his parochial visit,)--"S-a-m-u-e-l--my-- boy--how--do--you--do?" but a genial, warm-hearted, loving, spiritual father, who is neither wiser, nor greater, nor better than he who took little children in his arms and said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

THE LITTLE "MORNING GLORY."

Dear little pet! She was going a journey in the cars with mamma; and her little curly head could not stay on the pillow, for thinking of it. She was awake by the dawn, and had been trying to rouse mamma for an hour. She had told her joy in lisping accents to "Dolly," whose stoical indifference was very provoking, especially when she knew she was going to see "her dear, white-haired old grand-papa," who had never yet looked upon her sweet face; although pen and ink had long since heralded her polite perfections. Yes, little pet must look her prettiest, for grand-papa's eyes are not so dim, that the sight of a pretty face doesn't cheer him like a ray of glad sunlight; so the glossy waves of golden hair are nicely combed, and the bright dress put on, to heighten, by contrast, the dimpled fairness of the neck and shoulders; then, the little white apron, to keep all tidy; then the Cinderella boots, neatly laced. I can see you, little pet! I wish I had you in my arms this minute!

Good bye! How the little curls shake! What a nice seat our tiny voyager has, by that pleasant open window, upon mamma's knee! How wonderfully fast the trees and houses and fences fly past! Was there ever anything like it? And how it makes her eyes wink, when the cars dash under the dark bridges, and how like the ringing of silver bells that little musical laugh is, when they dart out again into the fair sunlight. How cows, and horses, and sheep, all run at that horrid whistle. Little pet feels as though she was most a woman, to be traveling about, seeing so many fine things. On they dash!--it half takes her breath away--but she is not _afraid_; no, indeed! What little darling ever could be afraid, when its hand was in _mamma's love clasp_?

Alas! poor little pet!

Grand-papa's eye grow weary watching for you, at the little cottage window. Grand-mamma says, "the cakes will be quite spoiled;" and she "knits to her seam needle," and then moves about the sitting-room uneasily; now and then stopping to pat the little Kitty, that is to be pet's play-fellow. And now lame Tim has driven the cows home; and the dew is falling, the stars are creeping out, and the little crickets and frogs have commenced their evening concert, and _still_ little pet hasn't come! Where _is_ the little stray waif?

Listen! Among the "unrecognized dead" by the late RAILROAD ACCIDENT, was a female child, about three years of age; fair complexion and hair; had on a red dress, green sack, white apron, linen gaiters, tipped with patent leather, and white woolen stockings.

Poor little pet! Poor old grand-papa! Go comfort him; tell him it was a "_shocking accident_," but then "_nobody was to blame_;" and offer him a healing plaster for his great grief, in the shape of "damage" money.

THE CHARITY ORPHANS.

"Pleasant sight, is it not?" said my friend, glancing complacently at a long procession of little charity children, who were passing, two and two--two and two--with closely cropped heads, little close-fitting sun-bonnets and dark dresses; "pleasant sight, is it not, Fanny?" Yes--no--_no_, said I, courageously, it gives me the heart-ache. Oh, I see as you do, that their clothes are clean and whole, and that they are drilled like a little regiment of soldiers, (heads up,) but I long to see them step out of those prim ranks, and shout and scamper. I long to stuff their little pockets full of anything--everything, that other little pets have. I want to get them round me, and tell them some comical stories to take the care-worn look out of their anxious little faces. I want to see them twist their little heads round when they hear a noise, instead of keeping them straight forward as if they were "on duty." I want to know if anybody tucks them up comfortably when they go to bed, and gives them a good-night kiss. I want to know if they get a beaming smile, and a kind word in the morning. I want to know who soothes them when they are in pain; and if they _dare say so_, when they feel lonely, and have the heart-ache. I want to see the tear roll freely down the cheek, (instead of being wiped slyly away,) when they see happy little ones trip gaily past, hand in hand, with a kind father, or mother. I want to know if "Thanksgiving" and "Christmas" and "New Year's" and "_Home_" are anything but empty sounds in their orphan ears.

I know their present state is better than vicious poverty, and so I try to say with my friend, "it is a pleasant sight;" but the words die on my lip; for full well I know it takes something more than food, shelter and clothing, to make a child happy. Its little heart, like a delicate vine, _will_ throw out its tendrils for something to _lean on_--something to _cling to_; and so I can only say again, the sight of those charity orphans gives me the heart-ache.

DON'T GET ANGRY.

"I hate you," Aunt Fanny, said a little boy, pouting and snapping his boots with the little riding whip in his hand; you laughed to-day at dinner, when I burned my mouth with my soup, and I never shall love you again--_never_!--said the little passionate boy.

_Now_, Harry, _what a pity_!--and my pocket handkerchiefs all in the wash, too! That's right--laugh;--now I'll tell you a story.

I've been to the State Prison to-day, and I almost wish I hadn't gone--such a sick feeling came over me when I saw those poor prisoners. Oh, Harry! how pale and miserable they looked, in those ugly, striped clothes, with their heads closely shaven, working away at their different trades, with a stout man watching them so sharply, to see that they didn't speak to each other; and some of them very young, too. Oh, it was very sad. I almost felt afraid to look at them, for fear it would hurt their feelings, and I longed to tell them that my heart was full of pity, and not to get discouraged, and not to despair.

Such little, close cells as they sleep in at night,--it almost stifled me to think of it,--and so dismal and cheerless, too, with an iron door to bolt them in. On Sunday they stay in their cells nearly all day, and some of the cells are so dark that they cannot see even to read the Bible allowed them: and there they lie, thinking over, and over, and over, their own sad thoughts. So you can't wonder that they dread Sunday very much, and are very glad to be put to hard work again on Monday, to get rid of thinking.

Then we saw them march into dinner--just like soldiers, in single file, with a guard close beside them, that they should not run away. I suppose they were very glad to eat what was laid on those wooden plates, but you or I would have gone hungry a long while first. In fact, I think, Harry, that PRISON _food_ would choke me any how, though it were roast turkey or plum pudding. I'm quite sure my _gypsey_ throat would refuse to swallow it.

Then we went into the Hospital for the sick prisoners. It is hard to be sick in one's own home, even, with kind friends around; but to be sick in a _prison_!--to lie on such a narrow bed that you cannot toss about,--to bear, (beside your own pain and misery,) the moanings of your sick companions,--to see through the grated windows the bright, blue sky, the far off hills, and the silver streams threading the green meadows,--to be shut in from the fresh breeze, that would bring you life and health,--to pine and waste away, and think to die, without one dear hand to press yours lovingly--_oh, Harry_!

One of the sick prisoners had a little squirrel. The squirrel was a prisoner, too. He was in a cage--but then sometimes he was let out; and to please me, the door was opened for him. _Didn't_ he jump? poor squirrel! He had no soul--so he wasn't as miserable as his sick keeper; but I'm mistaken if he wouldn't have liked a nut to crack, of _his own finding_ in some leafy wood, where the green moss lies thickly cushioned, and the old trees serve him for ladders!

On a bench in the Hospital was seated a poor, sick black-boy. "Pompey's" mother was a very foolish mother. She had always let him have his own way. If he cried for anything he always got it, and when he was angry and struck people, she never punished him for it; so Pompey grew up a very bad boy, because his mother never taught him to govern his temper. So one day he got very angry, and did something that sent him to the State Prison, where I saw him. And he grew sick staying so long in doors, and now he was in a consumption--all wasted away--with _such_ hollow cheeks, that it made the tears come to my eyes to look at him. Oh how glad I was when the keeper told me that _next Sunday_ his time would be up, so that he could go out if he liked. The keeper said, "He had better stay there, because they could take good care of him, and he had no friends." I guess the keeper didn't think that poor Pompey had rather crawl on his hands and knees out to the green fields, and die alone, with the sweet, fresh air fanning his poor temples, than to stay with all the doctors in the world in that tomb of a prison.

Harry! I wanted so much to go and shake hands with Pompey, and tell him how happy it made me to know that he was going to get out next Sunday, and that I hoped the sun would shine just as bright as _ever it could_, and all the flowers blossom out on purpose for _him_ to see; and then I hoped that when his heart was so full of gladness he would feel like _praying_; and then I hoped no cruel, hard-hearted person would point at him and say, "That is a State Prison boy," and so make his heart all hard and wicked again, just as he was trying to be good.

* * *

And now, Harry, shake hands with me, and "make up." You know if poor Pompey hadn't got so angry, he wouldn't have been in prison; and as for Aunt Fanny, she must learn to be as polite as a French woman, and never laugh again when you burn your mouth with a "hasty plate of soup."

"LITTLE BENNY."

So the simple head-stone said. Why did my eyes fill? I never saw the little creature. I never looked in his laughing eye, or heard his merry shout, or listened for his tripping tread; I never pillowed his little head, or bore his little form, or smoothed his silky locks, or laved his dimpled limbs, or fed his cherry lips with dainty bits, or kissed his rosy cheek as he lay sleeping.

I did not see his eye grow dim; or his little hand droop powerless; or the dew of agony gather on his pale forehead; I stood not with clasped hands and suspended breath, and watched the look that comes but once, flit over his cherub face. And yet, "little Benny," my tears are falling; for, _somewhere_, I know there's an empty crib, a vacant chair, useless robes and toys, a desolate hearth-stone, and a weeping mother.

"Little Benny!"

It was all her full heart could utter; and it was enough. It tells the whole story.

A RAP ON SOMEBODY'S KNUCKLES.

It is very strange my teacher never says a kind word to me. I am quite sure I say my lessons well. I haven't had an "error" since I came to school six months ago. I haven't been "delinquent" or "tardy." I have never broken a rule. Now there's Harry Gray, that fat boy yonder, with the dull eyes and frilled shirt-collar, who never can say his lesson without some fellow prompts him. He comes in half an hour after school begins, and goes home an hour before it is done, and eats pea-nuts all the time he stays; he has all the medals, and the master is always patting him on the head, and smiling at him, and asking him "if the room is warm enough," and all that; I don't see through it.

My dear, honest, conscientious, unsophisticated little Moses! if you only knew what a rich man Harry Gray's father was; what nice old wine he keeps in his cellar; how easy his carriage cushions are; what nice nectarines and grapes ripen in his hot house; and how much "the master" is comforted in his inner and outer man thereby, you'd understand how the son of such a nabob couldn't be anything but an embryo "Clay," or "Calhoun," or "Webster,"--though he didn't know "B from a buzzard."

Are you aware, my boy, that your clothes, though clean and neat, are threadbare and patched?--that your mother is a poor widow, whom nobody knows?--that no "servant man" ever brought your satchel to school for you?--that you have positively been seen carrying a loaf of bread home from the grocer's?--and that "New Year's day" passed by, without your appropriating any of your mother's hard earnings to make "a present" to your disinterested and discriminating teacher? How can you be anything but the dullest and stupidest boy in the school? It is a marvel to me that "the master" condescends to hear you recite at all.

Stay a bit, Moses; don't cry; hold on a while. If your forehead tells the truth, you'll be President of the United States by and by. Then, "the master" (quite oblivious of Harry Gray,) will go strutting round, telling all creation and his cousin, that _he had the honor of first teaching your "young ideas how to shoot!_"

Won't that be fun? Oh, I tell you, Moses! Fanny has seen some strange specimens of human nature. Still she tells you, (with tears in her eyes,) that the Master above is the "friend of the friendless;" and _you_ must believe it too, my little darling, and wait, and _trust_.

LITTLE FREDDY'S MUSINGS.

Wish my mamma would please keep me warm. My little bare legs are very cold with these lace ruffles; they are not half as nice as black Jim's woolen stockings. Wish I had a little pair of warm rubbers. Wish I had a long-sleeved apron, for my bare neck and arms. Wish I might push my curls out of my eyes, or have them cut off. Wish my dress would stay up on my shoulders, and that it was not too nice for me to get on the floor to play ninepins. Wish my mamma would go to walk with me sometimes, instead of Betty. Wish she would let me lay my cheek to hers, (if I would not tumble her curls, or her collar.) Wish she would not promise me something "very nice," and then forget all about it. Wish she would answer my questions, and not always say, "Don't bore me, Freddy!" Wish when we go out in the country, she wouldn't make me wear my gloves, lest I should "tan my hands." Wish she would not tell me that all the pretty flowers will "poison me." Wish I could tumble on the hay, and go into the barn and see how Dobbin eats his supper. Wish I was one of those little frisky pigs. Wish I could make pretty dirt pies. Wish there was not a bit of lace, or satin, or silk, in the world. Wish I knew what makes mamma look so smiling at Aunt Emma's children, (who come here in their papa's carriage,) and so very cross at my poor little cousins, whose mother works so hard and cries so much. Wish I knew what makes the clouds stay up in the sky, and where the stars go in the day time. Wish I could go over on that high hill, where the bright sun is going down, and just touch it with my finger. Wish I didn't keep thinking of things which puzzle me, when nobody will stop to tell me the reason for anything. If I ask Betty, she says, "Don't be a fool, Master Freddy!" I wonder if I am a fool? I wonder if Betty knows much herself? I wonder why my mamma don't love her own little boy? I wonder when I'm grown a man, if I shall have to look so nice all the time, and be so tired of doing nothing?

ONLY A PENNY.

Now I am going to tell you a story about little Clara. Those of you who live in the city will understand it; but some of my little readers may live in the country, (or at least I hope they do,) where a beggar is seldom seen; or if he is, can always get of the good, nice, kind-hearted farmer, a bowl of milk, a fresh bit of bread, and liberty to sleep in the barn on the sweet-scented hay; therefore, it will be hard for you to believe that there is anybody in the wide world with enough to eat, and drink, and wear, who does not care whether a poor fellow creature starves or not; or whether he lives or dies.

But listen to my story.

One bright, sunny morning I was walking in Broadway, (New-York,) looking at the ladies who passed, in their gay clothes--as fine as peacocks, and just about as silly--gazing at the pretty shop windows, full of silks, and satins, and ribbons, looking very much as if a rainbow had been shivered there--looking at the rich people's little children, with their silken hose, and plumed hats, and velvet tunics, tip-toeing so carefully along, and looking so frightened lest somebody should soil their nice clothes--when a little, plaintive voice struck upon my ear--

"Please give me a penny, Madam--_only_ a penny--to buy a loaf of bread?"