Chapter 3

I turned my head: there stood a little girl of six years,--so filthy, dirty--so ragged, that she scarcely looked like a human being. Her skin was coated with dust; her pretty curly locks were one tangled mass; her dress was fluttering in strings around her bare legs and shoeless feet--and the little hand she held out to me for "a penny," so bony that it looked like a skeleton's. She looked so very hungry, I wouldn't make her talk till I had given her something to eat; so I took her to a baker's, and bought her some bread and cakes; and it would have made you cry (you, who were never hungry in your life,) to see her swallow it so greedily, just like a little animal.

Then I asked her name, and found out 'twas "Clara;" that she had no papa; that while he lived he was very cruel, and used to beat her and her mother; and that now her mother was cruel too, and drank rum; that she sent little Clara out each morning to beg,--or if she couldn't beg, to steal,--but at any rate to bring home something, "unless she wanted a beating."

Poor little Clara!--all alone threading her way through the great, wicked city--knocked and jostled about,--_so_ hungry--_so_ tired--_so_ frightened! Clara was afraid to steal, (not because God saw her--for she didn't know anything about _Him_,) but for fear of policemen and prisons--so she wandered about, hour after hour, saying pitifully to the careless crowd, "Only a penny--_please_ give me a penny to buy a loaf of bread!"

Yes--Clara's mother was very cruel; but God forbid, my little innocent children, that you should ever know how hunger, and thirst, and misery, may sometimes turn even that holy thing--a _mother's love_--to bitterness.

Poor Clara! she had never known a better home than the filthy, dark cellar, where poor people in cities huddle together like hunted cattle; her little feet had never pressed the soft, green meadows; her little fingers had never plucked the sweet wild-flowers; her little eyes had never seen the bright, blue sky, save between dark brick walls. Her little head often pained her. She was foot-weary and heart-sore; and what was worse than all, she had never heard of heaven, "where the weary rest." Wasn't it very pitiful?

Well, little Clara kissed my hand when she had eaten enough--(it was so odd for _Clara_ to have _enough_)--and her sunken eyes grew bright, and she said--"Now I shall not be beaten, because I've something left to carry home;" so she told me where she lived, and I bade her good bye, and told her I would come and see her mother to-morrow.

The next day I started again to find little Clara's mother. I was _very_ happy going along, because I meant, if I could, to get her away from her cruel mother; to make her clean and neat; to teach her how to read and spell, and show to her that the world was not _all_ darkness--not _all_ sin, and tears, and sorrow; and to tell her of that kind God who loves _everything_ that He has made. So as I told you I was very happy,--the sun looked so bright to me--the sky so fair,--and I could scarcely make my feet go fast enough.

Turning a corner suddenly, I met a man bearing a child's coffin. I cannot tell you _why_ I stood still--why my heart sank like lead--why I could not let him pass, till I asked him what little form he was bearing away,--or why my heart told me, before he answered, that it was my poor little Clara.

Yes--it was she! I was too late--_she_ was in the little coffin! No hearse--no mourners--no tolling bell! Borne along--unnoticed--uncared for--through the busy, crowded, noisy, streets. But, dear children, kind Angels looked pitying down, and Clara "hungers no more--nor thirsts anymore--neither shall the sun light on her, nor any heat."

A LITTLE BOY WITH A BIG HEART.

Such a rich man as little Georgey's father was; so _many_ houses, and shops, and farms as he owned; so many horses and carriages; such a big house as he lived in, by the Park, and so many servants as he had in it,--but he loved little Georgey better than any of them, and bought him toys enough to fill a shop, live animals enough to stock a menagerie, and jackets and trousers enough to clothe half the boys in New-York.

Georgey was a pretty boy; he had a broad, noble forehead, large, dark, loving eyes, and a form as straight and lithe as a little Indian's. His mother was very proud of him,--not because he was good, but because he was pretty. She was a very foolish woman, and talked to him a great deal about his fine clothes, and his curling hair; but for all that she didn't make out to spoil Georgey. _He_ didn't care an old marble, not he, for all the fine clothes in Christendom; and would have been glad to have had every curl on his merry little head clipped off.

Georgey had no brothers or sisters. He was so sorry for that--he would rather have had such a playmate than all the toys his father bought him. His little heart was brim full of love, and his birds, and rabbits, and ponies were well enough, but they couldn't say, "Georgey, I love you;" neither could he make them understand what he was thinking about; so he wearied of them, and would often linger in the street, and look after the little groups of children so wistfully, that I quite pitied him. I used to think that, with all his money, he wasn't half as happy as little Pat and Neil Connor, two little Irish brothers who played hop-scotch every day under my window.

* * *

It was a very cold day in January. Jack Frost had been out all day on a frolic, and was still busily at work. He had drawn all sorts of pictures on the window panes, such as beautiful trees and flowers, and great towering castles, and tall-masted ships, and church spires, and little cottages, (so oddly shaped); beside birds that "Audubon" never dreamed of, and animals that Noah never huddled into the ark. Then he festooned all the eaves, the fences, and trees, and bushes with crystal drops, which sparkled and glittered in the sunbeams like royal diamonds--then he hung icicles on the poor old horses' noses, and tripped up the heels of precise old bachelors, and sent the old maids spinning round on the sidewalks, till they were perfectly ashamed of themselves; and then he got into the houses, and burst and cracked all the water pitchers, and choked up the steady old pump, so that it might as well have been without a nose as with one, and pinched the cheeks of the little girls till they were as red as a pulpit cushion, blew right through the key hole on grandpa's poor, rheumatic old back, and ran round the street corner, tearing open folks' cloaks, and shawls, and furred wrappers, till they shook as if they had an ague fit. I verily believe he'd just as quick trip up our minister's heels as yours or mine! Oh, he is a graceless rogue--that Jack Frost! and many's the time he's tipped Aunt Fanny's venerable nose with indigo.

Georgey didn't care a penny whistle for the fellow, all muffled up to the chin in his little wadded velvet sack, with a rich cashmere scarf of his mother's wound about his neck, and a velvet cap crushed down over his bright, curly head.

How the sleighs did fly past! with their gaily fringed buffaloes, and prancing horses necklaced with little tinkling bells. How merry the pretty ladies peeped from out their gay worsted hoods! Oh! it was a pretty sight,--Georgey liked it--everybody moved so briskly, and seemed so happy!

What ails Georgey now? He has crossed the street, stopped short, and the bright color flushes his cheeks, till he looks quite beautiful. Ah! he has spied a little apple girl, seated upon the icy pavement. The wind is making merry with her thin rags,--her little toes peep, blue and benumbed, from out her half-worn shoes,--and she is blowing on her stiffened fingers, vainly trying to keep them warm.

Georgey looked down at his nice warm coat, and then at Kate's thin cotton gown. Georgey never was cold in his life, never hungry. His eyes fill--his little breast heaves. Then quickly untwisting the thick, warm scarf from his little throat, he throws it round her shivering form and says, with a glad smile, _That will warm you!_--and bounds out of sight before she can thank him. Old Mr. Prince stands by, wiping his eyes, and says, "God bless the boy!--that's worth a dozen sermons; I'll send a load of wood to little Kate's mother."

MAY MORNING.

Oh, May is a coquette! Don't trust her. She will smile on you one minute, and frown on you the next--toss you flowers with one hand, and hail stones with the other. _I_ know her. Many's the time she has coaxed me out of a good, warm bed, wheedled me into the fields in a white dress and thin shoes, and then sent me home wet as a drowned kitten, with a snapping headache, to a cold breakfast.

Yes--I used to "go a-Maying."

Such a watching of the clouds and weather-cock the night before; such a fixing of sashes, and wreaths, and hats, and dresses; so many charges to Betty, the cook, to wake us up by daylight; such a wondering how mother and father could lie a-bed of a May morning;--such a tossing, and twisting, and turning, the night before; such a putting aside of muslin curtains, to see if it wasn't "most daylight;" such surprise when Aunt Esther came creeping up stairs, shading her night-lamp and saying, "it was only ten o'clock!" Such broken slumbers as we had--such funny dreams--and such a galvanic jump out of bed the next morning, when Betty gave us one of her pump-handle shakes. Then such a time washing, and combing, and dressing! such long faces when a great thumping rain drop fell upon the window! such a consultation as to the expediency of wearing our "best clothes;" such clapping of hands when the sun finally shone out again; such fears lest Anna Maria and Sarah Sophia's mother wouldn't let them come to meet us as they promised. Such a tip-toeing over wet sidewalks, out into the country; such a talk after we got off the brick pavements, as to which was the prettiest road; such a wondering what _had_ become of all the flowers; such regrets that we didn't think to fill our pockets with crackers; such a picking out of pebble stones from thin shoes; such a drawing up of thin shawls over shivering shoulders; such a dismay when a great black cloud emptied itself down on our "best clothes;" such congratulations when our good-natured, rosy-faced, merry milkman meeting us, stowed and wedged us away amid his milk-cans, to bring us safely back to the city. Such a creeping in the back way, lest "that torment of a Tom" should laugh at us; such a coaxing of Betty to cook us a good, hot breakfast; and such a gaping and yawning in school for a week after.

Oh! you know all about it,--everybody knows that it is just as sure to rain on a May morning, as it is to thaw when your schoolmaster attempts to treat himself and you to a sleigh-ride on _your_ hoarded ninepences!

So take my advice and turn your back on May--she is a fickle little gypsey. Ask the first Irishman you meet if June isn't the month to go a-Maying?--June, with her light, green robe, and violet-slippered feet, and sweet, warm breath, and rose-garlanded hair? ah, June is the month to go a-Maying! Pat will tell you so.

THE LITTLE DANDELION MERCHANT.

Tattered straw hat, buttonless jacket, and shoeless feet. That is a large basket for so young a lad as Jemmy to carry. He brushed the dew from the grass this morning by daylight; his stock in trade consisting of only a jack-knife and that basket; but "Uncle Sam" owns the dandelions, and Jim is a Yankee, (born with a trading bump,) and ninepence a basket is something to think of. To be sure he has cut his bare feet with a stone, but that's a trifle. See, he is on his way to the big house yonder, for the old housekeeper and her mistress have both a tooth for dandelions. Jemmy swings the tattered part of his hat round behind, and using a patch of grass for a mat, steps lightly up the avenue.

How still and mirror-like the little pond looks. How gracefully the long willow-tips bend to kiss the surface; how lazily the little gold fish float beneath. There is not air enough to shake the perfume from out the locust blossoms, and old Bruno has crawled into the shade, although the sun is not two hours high.

What a fine old house! and how many dandelions somebody must have dug to buy it!--Jemmy's arithmetic couldn't compute it; and that fine statue, too, on the brink of the pond, with its finger on its lip; (it's no use, is it Jemmy?) the birds won't "hush" for the daintiest bit of marble ever sculptured; nested to their minds; no taxes to pay;--nothing to do but warble. May no sportsman's gun send them quivering through the branches.

Now Jemmy has reached the kitchen door, and gives a modest rap. Smart "Tim," the footman, opens it, and with one application of his aristocratic toe, sends the dandelion basket spinning down the avenue! Jemmy's Yankee blood is up; his dark eyes flash lightning, he clenches his brown fist, sets his ivory teeth together, and brings his little bare foot down on the gravel-walk, with an emphasis; but he sees it is no use, he is no match for the pampered footman; and great rebellious tears gather in his eyes, as he picks up his scattered treasures, saying,--"Ninepence would have bought my book."

"Would it, Jemmy? Well--here it is--'the fairies' have sent it you."

What a pretty picture he makes, as he pushes back his thick locks, and flashes those great, dark, Italian eyes--it is worth a hundred ninepences to see such a beaming face.

After all, dear reader, one need not be a "Rothschild," to make a fellow creature glad. Happiness is a cheaper thing than we are apt to think.

WALTER WILLET.

Did you ever live in a hotel? I dare say you may have, (some time or other, when you have been on a journey.) Perhaps your _home_ is in a hotel. I hope not; because a good, cozy, quiet house of one's own, away from noise and bustle, is so much better for little children--and grown people too.

Walter lived in a hotel, with his father and mother and two little sisters. Walter was very tired of it. His mother never staid in the nursery; she was always down in the drawing-room, talking to finely-dressed ladies; and, when his father came home from the store, he never played with his little boy, but went into the gentlemen's room, to smoke cigars.

The nursery was very small, and Walter's two little sisters cried a great deal--sometimes from pain, and sometimes because Betty, the nurse, got cross and shook them roughly, and took no pains to amuse them when their mother staid away such a long, long while. So, little Walter didn't fancy staying in the nursery much, and as he was not allowed to go into the drawing-room, for fear his shirt-collar might be tumbled, or his jacket on awry, or his boots have a mud speck on them, the poor child had nothing left to do but wander round the hall and lobbies, and see the chambermaids sweep the rooms, and hear the waiters swear at each other, and watch the stages and trunks and passengers come and go.

When Walter wearied of this, he'd creep into the "bar-room," and watch the clerk pour out brandy, and wine and whiskey for the gentlemen to drink. Walter liked to see them drink it, because it made them laugh so hard, and clap each other on the back, and tell such funny stories; and then, sometimes, they would call to him and feed him with the sugar and brandy in the bottom of the tumbler; and Walter thought it very sweet and nice, and made up his mind that when _he_ grew to be a man, he'd have just as much brandy as ever he could drink.

Walter's mamma didn't think, as she sat there in the drawing-room, dressed like a French doll, that her little curly headed Walter was learning how to be a drunkard; no, she was a careless young mamma, and didn't think, (perhaps she didn't know,) how closely little children must be watched, to make them grow good men and women.

Sometimes Walter went down to peep into the kitchen. There is always a great deal going on in a hotel kitchen,--so many turkeys and chickens and birds and fish to fix for dinner. Walter liked to see them roast a little pig whole, and then put an ear of corn in his mouth and lay him on a plate--or make a lobster salad look like a turtle, or a boiled ham like a _pork_-upine! Then Pietro, the cook, was worth looking at, himself. He was a great six-footer of an Italian; with eyes--(my senses, how big and how black they were!) Walter thought he must look like the robbers that his uncle John, who had been across the seas, used to tell about. Then, Pietro had such big, fierce whiskers, too, and always wore a bright scarlet cap, with a long gilt tassel, and altogether, for a cook, he looked very picturesque--(Aunt Fanny knows that's a long word, but you must look it out in the dictionary.) When Pietro got angry with any of the waiters, I promise you he'd make his frying-pan fly across the kitchen as if it were bewitched, and then poor little Walter would fly up stairs as fast as his little fat legs could carry him.

But Pietro was not always cross, for all he looked as though he had been fed on thunder; no--he often tossed Walter a bunch of raisins, or a rosy apple; and it was quite beautiful when he _did_ smile, to see his white teeth glitter. Sometimes, when he was waiting for some dish to cook, he would take Walter on his knee, and tell him of his own beautiful bright Italy, where the skies were as soft and blue as Walter's eyes, and where (if we might believe Pietro) one might dance and sing and eat grapes forever, without working for them; but when Walter looked up innocently and said, "then why didn't you stay there, Pietro?" Pietro would drop him as if he had been a red-hot potatoe, and hiss something in Italian from between his teeth, that poor little Walter could not begin to understand; but as he was a pretty sensible little boy, he always took himself off till Pietro felt better natured, and asked him no more questions.

One rainy day Walter had wandered all over the hotel, trying to get amused. The nurse had a friend call to see her, and she had given his little sisters all Walter's playthings, to keep them quiet, that they need not trouble _her_; and Walter's mamma told him, when he put his little head into the drawing-room, that "she didn't care what he did, if he didn't bother _her_;" so the poor little fellow was quite at his wits' ends to know what to do with himself. Finally it struck him that it would be fine fun to "play fish." So he went to one of his mother's drawers and got a long string, on the end of which he fastened a crooked pin; then he went way up--up--up--so _many_ flights of stairs, to the very highest entry he could find, way to the top of the house; from there the stair-case wound round, and round, and round, like a cork-screw, down into the front entry, far enough to make you dizzy to look over.

Well, Walter let down his line, and then he reached over his little curly head to see how far it went. Poor, merry, bright-eyed little Walter!--how can I tell the rest? Over he went, beating and bruising his little head--down--down--till he reached the marble floor in the lower entry, where he was taken up--_dead_!

His young mamma cried very hard,--but that didn't bring back her poor, neglected little boy; but it made her a better mother. She loves to stay in the nursery now, with Walter's little sisters nestled in her lap; and sometimes when they smile, she will part the sunny curls from their little foreheads, and the tears will fall like rain drops on their rosy faces, as she remembers her poor, darling, mangled, little Walter.

CHILDREN, DID YOU EVER HEAR OF MR. "THEY SAY?"

I shan't ask you if you ever saw him, because I know that, like other cowards, he generally skulks out of sight; but I'm very sure if you could get a peep at him, you would find that he had a "cloven foot." But if I can't tell you _who_ Mr. "They Say" is, I can tell you _what_ he is.

It quite drives him frantic to see any person happier than himself, or more fortunate; and as sure as any one gets more love, or more money, than he has, he will knit his ugly brows to contrive somehow to give them the heart-ache. Sometimes he will do it in one way, and sometimes in another; sometimes he will do it by shrugging his shoulders, shaking his head, and looking as if he _could_ say something dreadful bad about a person, if he only had a mind to. He has made many a poor woman, who had no brave arm to strike the coward down, weep her bright eyes dim, till she longed to lay her aching head with the silent company in the quiet church-yard.

You'd suppose that nobody who owned a heart, would ever choose the society of such a wicked villain. You'd suppose nobody who loved God, would ever listen to him, or repeat his false sayings; but, alas! people are so fond of hearing "something new," that they can't make up their minds to turn their backs upon him; so they sit, and smile, and listen, till he has nothing more to tell, and then they draw down their faces, and tell him he "_ought not to talk so_!"--just as if Mr. "They Say" didn't see that they were perfectly delighted with him? Certainly, he goes off laughing in his sleeve to think they suppose him such a fool.

Mr. "They Say" is a very great traveler. It is astonishing how much ground he can get over without the help of steamboats, cars, stages, or telegraph wires. He may be found in a thousand places at once--in every little village in the United States--in every house and shop and hotel and office. _Editors_ are very fond of Mr. "They Say." They always give him the best chair in the office, for he is an amazing help to them. In fact, it is Aunt Fanny's opinion, that their newspapers would die a natural death without him. To be sure, he sometimes gets them into shocking scrapes with his big fibs; but they know how to twist and turn out of it.

Yes, Mr. "They Say" is a cowardly liar! He couldn't look an honest man straight in the eye, any more than he could face a cannon ball. He would turn as pale as a snow-wreath, and melt into nothing just about as quick.

Oh! Aunt Fanny knows all about him. So when he comes on _her_ track, she looks straight at her inkstand, and minds her own business. She knows that nothing plagues the old fellow like being treated with perfect indifference. _That's_ the way to kill him off!

THE LITTLE MARTYR.

How brightly the silver moon shines in that little bow window! Let us peep in. What do you see? A little girl lies there sleeping. She is very fair--tears are upon her cheeks--she sighs heavily, and clasps a letter tightly to her little bosom.

She is young to know sorrow. Life's morning should be all sunshine;--clouds come at its noon and eve.

* * *

Listen! some one glides gently into Nettie's room. It is a very old lady, but her form is drawn up as straight as your own, though her face is seamed with wrinkles and her hand trembles with age. She is stern and hard-featured. Should you meet her anywhere you would feel a chill come over you, as if the bright sun were clouded. You never would dare to lay your head upon her lap, and you would not think of kissing her, any more than you would a stone post.

See! she creeps up to Nettie's bed, and a heavy frown gathers on her wrinkled face as she spies the letter on her bosom. Now she draws it from between the child's fingers, reads it, mutters something between her closed teeth, and then burns it to cinders in the candle; then she shakes her head, and frowning darkly at little Nettie, glides, spectre-like, out of the room.

* * *

The same bright moon shines in at a window in the city. It is past midnight, but a lady sits there, toiling, toiling, toiling, though her lids long ago drooped heavily, and the candle is nearly burned to the socket. _Why_ does she toil? Why does she sigh? Why does she get up and walk the floor as if afraid that sleep may overtake her?