Chapter 3

So Jonas and the three children walked on. Rollo carried the basket, and Jonas a lantern; and Jonas, as he went along, made, with his penknife, some flat, wooden spoons, to eat their potatoes with. They came to the bridge, and all got safely over, though Lucy was a little afraid at first.

They played around there a few minutes, as the twilight was coming on; and, soon after, they saw Rollo’s father and mother coming down through the trees, on the other side of the brook. They stopped on that side, as Rollo’s mother did not like to come across the bridge. Pretty soon they called out to Jonas to light the fires.

Jonas then took a large piece of birch bark, and touched the corner of it to the lamp in the lantern, and when it was well on fire, he laid it carefully on the ground. The bark began to blaze up very bright, sending out volumes of thick smoke and dense flame, writhing, and curling, and snapping, as it lay on the ground. The light shone brightly on the grass and sticks around.

“There,” said Jonas, “that will burn some time; now you may light your torches from that.”

“Torches?” said Rollo, “we have not got any torches.”

“Have not you made any torches? O, well,—I will make you some in a minute.”

So he took out his knife, and selected three long slender stems of bushes, and trimmed them up, and cut off the tops. Then he made a little split in the top end, and slipped in a piece of birch bark. Then he handed them to the children, one to each, and said, “There are your torches; now you can light your fires without burning your fingers.”

So they took their torches, and held the ends over the flame of the piece of birch bark, which, however, had by this time nearly burned out. Lucy’s took fire, but Rollo’s and James’s did not, at first; and as they pressed their torches down more and more to make them light, they only smothered what little flame was left, and put it out.

“O dear me!” said Rollo.

Lucy had gone a little way towards a pile; but when she saw what was the matter, she came back and said, “Here;—light it by mine.” So the boys held their torches over hers until they were all three in a bright blaze. They then carried them along, waving them in the air, and lighting pile after pile, until the whole forest seemed to be in a flame.

The children stood still a few moments, gazing on the fires, and on the extraordinary effect which the light produced upon the objects around. It was a singular scene. Flashing and crackling flames rose high from the heaps which were on fire, and shed a strong but unsteady light on the trees, the ground, and the banks of the brook, and penetrated deep into the forest on every side. Rollo called upon James and Lucy to look at his father and mother, who were across the brook; they stood there under the trees, almost invisible before, but now the bright light shone strongly upon their faces and forms, and cast upon them a clear and brilliant illumination, which was strongly contrasted with the dark depths of the forest behind them.

The children were silent, and stood still for a few minutes, gazing on the scene with feelings of admiration and awe. They expected to have capered about and laughed, but they found that they had no disposition to do so. The enjoyment they felt was not of that kind which leads children to caper and laugh. They stood still, and looked silently and soberly on the flashing flames, the lurid light, the bright red reflections on the woods, the banks, and the water,—and on the volumes of glowing smoke and sparks which ascended to the sky.

Before long, however, the light fuel upon the top of the piles was burned up, and there remained great glowing heaps of embers, and logs of wood still flaming. These the boys began to poke about with long poles that Jonas had cut for them, to make them burn brighter, and to see the sparks go up. Presently they heard their father calling them.

The boys all stopped to listen.

“We are going home,” said he; “we shall take cold if we stand still here. You may stay, however, with Jonas, only you must not sit down.”

So Rollo’s father and mother turned away, and walked along back towards the house, the light shining more and more faintly upon them, until they were lost among the trees.

“Why do you suppose we must not sit down?” said Lucy.

“Because,” said Jonas, “they are afraid you will take cold. As long as you run about and play around the fires, you keep warm.”

“O, then we will run about and play fast enough,” said James. “I know what I am going to do.”

So he took a large flat piece of hemlock bark, which he found upon the ground, and began tearing off strips of birch bark from the old tree, and piling them upon it.

“What are you going to do?” said Lucy.

“O, I am going to play steam-boat on fire,” said he; and he took up the piece of bark with the little pile of combustibles upon it, and carried it down to the edge of the brook. Then he went back and got his torch stick, and put a fresh piece of birch bark in the split end, and lighted it, and then came back to the brook, walking slowly lest his torch should go out.

Lucy held his torch for him while he gently put his steam-boat on the water; and then he lighted it with his torch, and pushed it out. It floated down, all blazing as it was, to the great delight of the three children, and astonishment of all the little fishes in the brook, who could not imagine what the blazing wonder could be.

The children followed it along down the brook, and began to pelt it with stones, and soon got into a high frolic. But as they were very careful not to hit one another with the stones, nor to speak harshly or cross, they enjoyed it very much. When at last the steam-boat was fairly pelted to pieces, and the blackened fragments of the birch bark were scattered over the water, and floating away down the stream, they began to think of roasting their corn and potatoes, which they did very successfully over the remains of the fires. When they had nearly finished eating, Rollo suddenly exclaimed,—

“O, I will tell you what we will do; we will go and set our wigwam on fire!”

Rollo pointed to the wigwam. James and Lucy looked, and observed that it had been dried and browned in the sun, and Rollo thought it was no longer good for any thing as a wigwam, but would make a capital bonfire. He proposed that they should all go into it and sit down, and put a torch near the side so as to set it on fire, as if accidentally. They would go on talking as if they did not see it, and when the flames burst out, they would jump up and run out, crying, Fire! as people do when their houses get on fire.

Lucy said she should not like to do that. She should be afraid, she said. The sparks would fall down upon her and burn her. So the boys gave that plan up. Then James proposed that they should make believe that they were savages, going to set fire to a town. The wigwam was to be the town. They would take their torches, and all go and set it on fire in several places.

“But, then, I could not help,” said Lucy, “for women do not go to war.”

“O yes, they do, if they are savages,” said James. “We play that we are savages, you see.”

So it was all agreed to. They lighted their torches, and marched along, waving them in the air, until they came to the wigwam, and then they danced around it, singing and shouting as they set it on fire in many places on all sides. The flames spread rapidly, and flashed up high into the air, and soon there was nothing left of the poor wigwam but a few smoking and blackened sticks lying on the ground.

The children then crept along over the bridge, and went towards home. There were still great beds of burning embers remaining, and in some places the remains of logs and stumps were blazing brightly. And that night, when Rollo went to bed, he lay looking out the window which was towards the woods, and saw the light still shining among the trees, and the smoke slowly rising from the fires, and floating away through the air.

THE HALO ROUND THE MOON; OR, LUCY’S VISIT.

“A ROUND RAINBOW.”

About six miles from the house where Rollo lived, there was a mountain called Benalgon, which was famous for bears and blueberries. There were no bears on it, but there were plenty of blueberries. The reason why it was so famous for bears, when in fact there were none there, was because the boys and girls that went there for blueberries every year, used to see black logs and stumps among the trees and bushes of the mountain, and they would run away very hastily, and insist upon it, when they got down the mountain, that they had seen a bear.

Now, Rollo’s father and mother, together with his uncle George, formed a plan for going up this mountain after blueberries, and they were going to take Rollo and his cousin Lucy with them. Uncle George and cousin Lucy were to come in a chaise to Rollo’s house immediately after breakfast, and Rollo was to ride with them, and his father and mother were to go in another chaise.

Rollo got his little basket to pick his blueberries in, all ready the night before, and he got a string to tie around his neck, intending to hang his basket upon it, so that he could have both his hands at liberty, and pick faster. He also thought he would take all the heavy things out of his pocket, so that he could run the faster, in case he should see any bears. He put them all on a window in the shed. The things were a knife, a piece of chalk, two white pebble stones, and a plummet. When he got them all out, he asked Jonas, who was splitting wood in the shed, if he would not take care of them for him, till he came back.

“Why, yes,” said Jonas, “I will take care of them if you wish; but what are you going to leave them for?”

“O, so that I can run faster,” said Rollo.

“Run faster? I do not think you will run much, up old Benalgon, unless he holds his back down lower than when I went up.”

Rollo did not mean that he was going to run up the mountain, but he did not explain what he did mean, for he thought that Jonas would laugh at him, if he told him he was afraid of the bears. So he said, “Jonas, don’t you wish you were going with us?”

“I should like it well enough, but I must stay at home and mind my work.”

“I wish you could go. I will go and ask my father if he will not let you.”

Rollo ran into the house with great haste and eagerness, leaving all the doors open, and calling out, “Father, father,” as soon as he had begun to open the parlor door.

“Father, father,” said he, running up to him, “I wish you would let Jonas go with us to-morrow.”

Now, Rollo’s father had come home but a short time before, and was just seated quietly in his arm-chair, reading a newspaper, and Rollo came up to him, pulling down the paper with his hands, and looking up into his father’s face, so as to stop his reading at once. Heedless boys very often come to ask favors in this way.

His father gently moved him back and said,

“No, my son, it is not convenient for Jonas to go to-morrow. Besides, I am busy now, and cannot talk with you;—you must go away.”

Rollo turned away disappointed, and went slowly back through the kitchen. His mother, who was there, and who heard all that passed, as the doors were open, said to him, as he walked by her, “What a foolish way that was to ask him, Rollo! You might have known it would have done no good.”

Rollo did not answer, but he went and sat down on the step of the door, and was just beginning to think what the foolishness was in his way of asking his father, when a little bird came hopping along in the yard. He ran in to ask his mother to give him some milk to feed the bird with. She smiled, and told him milk was good for kittens, but not for birds; and she gave him some crumbs of bread. Rollo threw the crumbs out, but they only frightened the little thing away.

That night, when Rollo went to bed, his father said, that when he was all ready, he would come up and see him. When he came into his chamber, Rollo called out to him,

“O, father, look out the window, and see what a beautiful ring there is round the moon.”

“So there is,” said his father; “I am rather sorry to see that.”

“Sorry, father! why? It is beautiful, I think.”

“It does look pretty, but it is a sign of rain to-morrow.”

“Of rain? O no, father; it is a kind of a rainbow. It is a round rainbow. I am sure it will be pleasant to-morrow.”

“Very well,” said his father, “we shall see in the morning.” Then he sat down on Rollo’s bed-side some time, talking with him on various subjects, and then heard him say his prayers. At length he took the light, and bade Rollo good night.

Rollo’s eye caught another view of the moon as his father was going, and he said,

“O, father, just look at the moon once more; that _is_ a rainbow; I see the colors. I expect it will grow into a large one, such as you told me was a sign of fair weather. I will watch it.”

“Yes,” said his father, “you can watch it as you go to sleep.”

So Rollo laid his face upon his pillow in such a way that he could see the moon through the window; and he began to watch the bright circle around it, but before it grew any bigger, he was fast asleep.

WHO KNOWS BEST, A LITTLE BOY OR HIS FATHER?

The next morning, Rollo awoke early, and he was very much pleased to see, as soon as he opened his eyes, that the sun was shining in at the windows. He was not only pleased to find that the prospect was so good for a pleasant ride, but his vanity was gratified at the thought that it had turned out that he knew better about the weather than his father. He began to dress himself, as far as he could without help, and was preparing to hasten down to his father, to tell him that it was going to be a pleasant day. When he was nearly dressed, he was surprised lo observe that the bright sunlight on the wall was gradually fading away, and at length it wholly disappeared. He went to look out the window to see what was the cause. He found that there was a broad expanse of dark cloud covering the eastern sky, excepting a narrow strip quite low down, near the horizon. When the sun first rose, it shone brightly through this narrow zone of clear sky; but now it had ascended a little higher, and gone behind the cloud.

“Never mind,” said Rollo to himself. “The cloud is not so very large after all, and the sun will come out again above it when it gets up a little higher.”

Rollo came down to breakfast, and he went out into the yard every two or three minutes, to look at the sky. The cloud seemed to extend, so that the sun did not come out of it, as he expected, but still he thought it was going to be pleasant Children generally think it is going to be pleasant, whenever they want to go away.

His father thought it was probably going to rain, and that at any rate it was very doubtful whether Uncle George would come. However, he said they should soon see, and, true enough, just as they were rising from the breakfast table, a chaise drove up to the door, and out jumped Uncle George and cousin Lucy.

Lucy was a very pleasant little blue-eyed girl, two or three years older than Rollo. She had a small tin pail in her hand, with a cover upon it.

“Good morning, Rollo,” said she. “Have you got your basket ready?”

“Yes,” said Rollo; “but I am afraid it is going to rain.”

While the children were saying this, Uncle George said to Rollo’s father,

“I suppose we shall have to give up our expedition to-day. I am in hopes we are going to have some rain.”

“In _hopes_,” thought Rollo; “that is very strange when we want to go a blueberrying.”

Rollo’s father and mother and his uncle looked at the clouds all around. They concluded that there was every appearance of rain, and that it would be best to postpone their excursion, and then went into the house. Rollo was very confident it would not rain, and was very eager to have them go. He asked Lucy if she did not think it was going to be pleasant, but Lucy was more modest and reasonable than he was, and said that she did not know; she could not judge of the weather so well as her father.

Rollo began by this time to be considerably out of humor. He said he knew it was not going to rain, and he did not see why they might not go. He did not believe it would rain a drop all day.

Lucy just then pointed down to a little dark spot on the stone step of the door, where a drop had just fallen, and asked Rollo what he called that.

“And that,—and that,—and that,” said she, pointing to several other drops.

Rollo at first insisted that that was not rain, but some little spots on the stone.

Then Lucy reached out her hand and said,

“Hold out your hand so, Rollo, and you will feel the drops coming down out of the sky.”

Rollo held out his hand a moment, but then immediately withdrew it, saying, impatiently, that he did not care; it was not rain; at any rate it was only a little sprinkling.

Lucy observed that Rollo was getting very much out of humor, and she tried to please him by saying,

“Rollo, I would not mind. If it does rain, I will ask my father to let me stay and play with you to-day, and we can have a fine time up in your little room.”

“No, we cannot,” said Rollo; “and besides, they will not let you stay, I know. I went yesterday to ask my father to let Jonas go with us to-day, and he would not.”

It was certainly very unreasonable for Rollo to imagine that his father and uncle would be unwilling to have Lucy stay just because it had not been convenient to let Jonas go with them. But when children are out of humor, they are always very unreasonable.

“Why would not he let Jonas go?” asked Lucy.

“I do not know. Mother said it was because I did not ask him right.”

“How did you ask him?”

“O, I interrupted him. He was reading.”

“O, that is not the way. I never _interrupt_ my father if I want to ask him any thing.”

“Suppose he is busy, and you want to know that very minute; what do you do?”

“I will show you. Come with me and I will ask him to let me stay with you to-day.”

So Lucy and Rollo walked in. When they came to the parlor door, they saw that their parents were sitting on the sofa, talking about other things.

Rollo stopped at the door, but Lucy went in gently. She walked up to her father’s side, and stood there still.

Her father took no notice of her at first, but went on talking with Rollo’s father. Lucy stood very patiently until, after a few minutes, her father stopped talking, and said,

“Lucy, my dear, do you want to speak to me?”

“Yes, sir,” said Lucy, “I wanted to ask you if you were willing to let me stay here to-day and play with Rollo, if you do not go to the mountain.”

“I do not know,” said her father, hesitating, and patting Lucy on the head—“that is a new idea; however, I believe I have no objection.”

Lucy ran back joyfully to Rollo, and after a short time, her father went home. Rollo, however, did not feel in any better humor, and all Lucy’s endeavors to engage him in some amusement, failed. She proposed building with bricks, or going up into his little room, and drawing pictures on their slates, or getting his storybooks out and reading stories, and various other things, but Rollo would not be pleased.

Rollo ought, now, when he found that he must be disappointed about his ride, to have immediately banished it from his mind altogether, and turned his thoughts to other pleasures; but like all ill-humored people, he _would_ keep thinking and talking, all the time, about the thing which caused his ill-humor. So he sat in a large back entry, where he and Lucy were, looking out at the door, and saying a great many ill-natured things about the weather, and his father’s giving up the ride just for a little sprinkling of rain that would not last half an hour. He said it was a shame, too, for it to rain that day, just because he was going to ride.

Just then, his father spoke to him from the window, and called him in.

He and Lucy went in together into the parlor.

“Rollo,” said his father, “did you know you were doing very wrong?”

Rollo felt a little guilty, but he said rather faintly, “No, sir, I was not doing any thing.”

“You are committing a great many sins, all at once.”

Rollo was silent. He knew his father meant sins of the heart.

“Your heart is in a very wicked state. You are under the dominion of some of the worst of feelings; you are self-conceited, ungrateful, undutiful, unjust, selfish, and,” he added in a lower and more solemn tone, “even impious.”

Rollo thought that these were heavy charges to bring upon him; but his father spoke calmly and kindly, and he knew that he could easily show that what he said was true.

“You are _self-conceited_—vainly imagining that you, a little boy of seven years old, can judge better than your father and mother, and obstinately persisting in your opinion that it is not going to rain, when the rain has actually commenced, and is falling faster and faster. You are _ungrateful,_ to speak reproachfully of me, and give me pain, by your ill-will, when I have been planning this excursion, in a great degree, for your enjoyment, and only give it up because I am absolutely compelled to do it by a storm; _undutiful_, in showing such a repining, unsubmissive spirit towards your father; _unjust_ in making Lucy and all of us suffer, because you are unwilling to submit to these circumstances that we cannot control; _selfish_, in being unwilling that it should rain and interfere with your ride, when you know that rain is so much wanted in all the fields, all over the country; and, what is worse than all, _impious_, in openly rebelling against God, and censuring the arrangements of his providence, and pretending to think that they are made just to trouble you.”

When he had said this, he paused to hear what Rollo would say. He thought that if he was convinced of his sin, and really penitent, he would acknowledge that he was wrong, or at least be silent;—but that if, on the other hand, he were still unsubdued, he would go to making excuses.

After a moment’s pause, Rollo said,—“I did not know that there was need of rain in the fields.”

“Did not you?” said his father. “Did not you know that the ground was very dry, and that, unless we have rain soon, the crops will suffer very much?”

“No, sir,” said Rollo.

“It is so,” said his father; “and this rain, which you are so unwilling to have descend, is going down into the ground all over the country, and into the roots of all the plants growing in the fields, carrying in the nourishment which will swell out all the corn and grain, and apples and pears. In a few days there will be thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of fruit and food more than there would have been without this rain; and yet you are very unwilling to have it come, because you want to go and get a few blueberries!”

Rollo was confounded, and had not a word to say.

“Now, Rollo,” continued his father, “all the rest of us are disposed to be good-humored, and to acquiesce in God’s decision, and try to have a happy day at home; and we cannot have it spoiled by your wicked repinings. So you must go away by yourself, until you feel willing to submit pleasantly and with good humor. Then you may come back, but be sure not to come back before.”

REPENTANCE.