THE RIDE TO TOWN.
Lucy’s father lived not a great many miles from a town which was quite
large; and the family used often to ride to the town in a chaise or
carryall. When only two wanted to go, they took the chaise; but if more
than two, the carryall, as that had seats for four.
One pleasant morning, Lucy, Miss Anne, and Royal, set out in the
carryall to go to the town, to do some shopping. Royal sat upon the
front seat to drive. Lucy and Miss Anne sat behind. Royal moved out to
the end of the front seat, and then sat with his back turned a little
to the side of the carryall; and by this arrangement he could see the
horse, and could also join in the conversation with Lucy and Miss Anne.
“What are you going to buy in town, Miss Anne?” asked Royal.
“O, various things,” replied Miss Anne; “among the rest, I am going to
buy a book for Lucy.”
“What book?” asked Royal.
“We have not decided. We are going to choose it when we get to the
bookstore.”
Just at this moment, Royal’s attention was attracted by the sight of
the heads of a yoke of oxen, just coming into view, in the road before
them, as they were coming up a hill. The heads seemed to shake and
to be agitated, as if the oxen were running. As they came up higher,
and Royal could see a part of their bodies, he found that they were
running, and drawing after them a large hay cart; that is, a cart with
a large rack upon the axletree, for holding hay, instead of the common
cart-body. The hay cart was empty. There was nobody near the oxen to
drive them.
In an instant, however, Royal’s eye glanced farther down the hill,--for
he had now advanced so far towards the brow of it, that he could see
better,--and there he perceived a man running up the hill, with a
goad-stick in his hand, and shouting out all the time, for the oxen to
stop.
“O dear me!” said Lucy, “O dear me! now we shall all be run over.”
“Take the reins, Miss Anne,” said Royal; “just take the reins.” So
saying, he passed the reins into Miss Anne’s hands on the back seat,
and sprang out of the carryall. He ran forward, and began to march up
towards the oxen with a bold and determined look, brandishing his whip,
and shouting to them, to make them stop.
The oxen slackened their pace a little, but did not seem much inclined
to stop. They, however, turned a little to one side. Royal then
concluded to let them go on, but to drive them away out to one side,
so that they should not run against the carryall. So he flourished his
whip at them, and turned them off more and more. The oxen shook their
heads at Royal, but ran on, until, at length, one wheel of the cart
passed over a large stone by the side of the road, while the other sank
into a hole, and the cart upset. The great rack tumbled off upon one
side, and the oxen, having come up against the fence, stopped. Just at
this moment, the man came running up to them.
“I am very much obliged to you for stopping my steers,” said the man.
“They are as wild as a pair of colts.”
Royal looked at the oxen, and observed that they were quite small.
“I have been to get this hay cart,” continued the man, “and, while
I stepped into the blacksmith’s shop a minute, they got away, and
undertook to run home. I am much obliged to you for stopping them.”
“But I am sorry your cart is broken,” said Royal.
“O, it is not broken,” replied the man, “only the rack has come off. I
can put it right on again,--if you would be so good as to stop and help
me a moment, about backing the oxen.”
Just then the man happened to see a boy coming up the road, and he
immediately said,--
“Ah, no; here comes Jerry. Jerry!” said he, in a louder voice, calling
to the boy, “come here quick, and help me get this rack on.”
Then Royal, finding that he was no longer needed, got into the carryall
again, took the reins from Miss Anne’s hands, and drove on.
“The man seems very glad to get his oxen again,” said Miss Anne.
“His steers,” said Lucy. “He said they were steers.”
“Yes,” added Royal; “but he need not have thanked me so much for
stopping his steers; I did not think of doing him any good,--but only
of keeping them from running against the carryall.”
Lucy here kneeled up upon the seat, and put her head out at the side of
the carryall, where the curtain had been rolled up, and looked back to
see what they were doing.
“How do they get along, Lucy?” said Royal.
“Why, the man has got the hay cart out in the road, and the oxen and
the wheels too.”
“The hay _rack_, you mean,” said Royal.
“Yes,” said Lucy, “that great thing like a cage, which tumbled off.
Now the man is holding it up, and the boy is backing the oxen so as to
get the wheels under it. Do you think you could have backed the oxen,
Royal, if his boy had not come?”
“Yes,” said Royal, “I could have backed them, I have no doubt.”
“There was one thing,” said Miss Anne, “that I noticed, that was
singular.”
“What was it?” asked Royal.
“Why, the great difference in the man’s way of speaking, when he was
asking Royal to help him put his cart together, and when he called the
boy to come.”
“Yes,” said Royal; “he asked me if I would be kind enough to do it; but
he said to Jerry, ‘Here, Jerry, come here quick.’”
“Yes,” rejoined Miss Anne; “now, what was the reason of the difference?”
“Why, Jerry was _his_ boy, I suppose,” said Lucy.
“I don’t see that that makes any difference,” said Royal. “A man ought
to speak as pleasantly to his boy as to any other boy.”
“He did speak pleasantly,” said Miss Anne, “only he spoke to Jerry in
the form of command; but in speaking to you, he only made a request.
The reason was, as Lucy says, that Jerry was _his_ boy, and so bound
to do whatever he should say; but you were not his boy, and therefore
under no obligation to help him.”
“No,” said Royal, “I might do just as I pleased about it.”
“And yet,” said Miss Anne, “are you not under obligation to help any
one whom you find in trouble or difficulty when you can do it so
easily?”
“Why, yes,” said Royal.
“So it seems, in that point of view, that you _were_ under obligation
to help the man, as truly as his boy Jerry was,--though it was an
obligation of a different kind. He was bound to do it, because it is
every boy’s duty to obey his father; you, because it is every boy’s
duty to help those who are in difficulty or trouble.”
“Yes,” said Royal.
“It is a case very much like the one we had the other day, when Lucy
would not run to help you tie the knot. I asked your father about it
afterwards, and he explained it to me.”
“And what did he say about it?” asked Royal.
“Why, he said,” rejoined Miss Anne, “that it very often happens that
there is a duty which we ought to perform to a person, and yet we are
not responsible to _him_ if we do not perform it. He told me a story to
help explain it.”
“What was the story, Miss Anne?” said Lucy. “Tell it to us.”
“It was about a widow and her garden. The widow was poor, and rather
cross, and she had one son, who took care of her garden. At last her
son became sick, and so the poor widow’s garden was neglected.
“Now, it happened that a gentleman lived near, who had a gardener. He
was walking by the widow’s house, and he looked over the fence, and he
saw that the weeds were getting up pretty high. So he told the widow
that the next morning he would bring his gardener, and let him put it
in order for her.
“The widow said that she had hired a man to come the next morning.
“‘Very well,’ said the gentleman, ‘I will let my gardener come and
help; and then you will not have so much to pay.’
“Accordingly he came the next morning, and set his gardener at work,
telling him what to do. Then he went away, and the two men went on
working, one upon one side of the garden, and the other on the other.
“At length, after they had been working about an hour, the woman came
out and began to scold them because they did not work faster. When she
came to the gentleman’s gardener, he stopped, and listened to her a few
minutes, leaning on his hoe, and then he said,--
“‘I will thank you, ma’am, to go and scold your own man. I am
responsible to my master.’”
“Is that all the story, Miss Anne?” said Lucy, when she found that Miss
Anne paused.
“Yes,” said Miss Anne, “that is all.”
“I don’t see how that explains the difficulty, exactly,” said Royal.
“Why, it is to show that, though the gardener was performing a duty
which was for the advantage of the woman, yet he was not responsible
to her for the performance of it. He was under obligation, but not
under obligation _to her_. So it often happens that persons are under
obligation to do things, and yet they are not under any obligations _to
us_. And in such cases, we have no right to insist upon their doing
them, nor to _command_ them to do them. You were under obligation to
help the man out of his difficulty with the cart, but you were not
under obligation _to him_.”
“Who is it, then, that I am under obligation to, in such a case?” asked
Royal.
“Why, to conscience,--or to God. But you are not responsible _to the
man_ at all. Of course, if he wishes you to do it, he ought only to
request it. He must not command. But his boy is under obligation _to
him_. The obligation is, perhaps, no greater in itself, but it runs to
the man himself, and the man has a right to exact the fulfilment of it.
But your obligation is not to him at all; and he has no right to insist
upon your fulfilling it, or to call you to account for it at all.”
Royal listened very attentively to this explanation, though Lucy did
not understand it very well. However, Lucy understood better what
followed.
“Your father told me,” continued Miss Anne, “that this was a
distinction in moral philosophy, very important for children to
understand.”
“Is that moral philosophy?” asked Royal.
“Yes,” rejoined Miss Anne. “He said it would very much promote peace
and harmony among children, if they only knew the difference between
what they have a right to insist upon from each other, and what they
have not. They often think that, because a playmate _ought_ to do a
thing, therefore they have a right to insist upon it. For instance,
one boy wanted another to go and be his horse, and was displeased with
him because he would not go, and found a great deal of fault with him.
Another boy, named Thomas, had two apples, and his brother James had
none. James asked Thomas to give him one, but Thomas would not. So
James sat down muttering sullenly, and looking very ill-humored, and
every now and then would tease Thomas to give him an apple. Just then
his father came along, and asked him what was the matter. ‘Why, Thomas
won’t give me an apple,’ said he, ‘when he has got two, and I haven’t
got any.’ ‘Well,’ said his father, ‘you ought not to look out of humor
about that, and to try to compel him to give you the apple, by teasing
and fretting.’ ‘Why, father,’ said James, ‘I am sure he ought to do as
he would be done by; and I know he would want me to give him an apple
if I had two.’ ‘Yes,’ replied his father, ‘I don’t deny that he ought
to give you the apple. I only deny that you have any right to insist
upon it. He is not responsible to you, at all. If he had agreed to give
you an apple, on account of something which you had done for him, then
the obligation would have been to you, and you might have insisted upon
it. But in this case it is only his general obligation to be kind and
friendly; and you have no jurisdiction over that. He is not responsible
to you for that, at all.’
“So, you see,” continued Miss Anne, “children often insist upon things
which they have no right to insist upon,--though perhaps the other
children ought to do them.”
“Yes,” said Royal. “Once we were playing together, and there were four
boys, and it takes four to play ball,--and we all wanted to play but
one, and he wouldn’t, and so the rest of us could not play.”
“Yes,” said Miss Anne. “Now, I suppose that, in such a case, he ought
to have been willing to play; but, if he would not, you would have no
right to insist upon it. Children very often are unreasonable in urging
others to play with them, when they do not wish to.”
“Yes,” said Lucy, “that is the way that Royal always does with me.”
“O no, I don’t, Lucy, I’m sure.”
“Yes,” added Lucy, “you want me to be your horse, very often, when I
don’t want to;--and, besides, I don’t think it is proper for me to be
your horse.”
“Well, never mind that now,” said Miss Anne. “We won’t spoil the
pleasure of our ride by a dispute.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “and I mean to take out my money-purse, and count my
money, and see if it is all safe.”
Lucy had several pieces of money which her father had given her to buy
something with, in the town. She was going to buy a book, and any thing
besides, which Miss Anne might approve. So she poured the money out
upon her lap, and began to count it.
“What would you buy with this money, Miss Anne?” said Lucy, after she
had counted it, and found it all safe.
“Why, I can hardly say, till I see what they have got to sell. But I
can tell you what I think I would not buy.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “what?”
“Why, I think I would not buy any very _perishable_ property.”
“What do you mean by perishable property?”
“Property that is soon consumed or destroyed. Sugar-plums are very
perishable property indeed; for you eat them, and they are gone.”
“But a doll isn’t perishable, is it?” said Lucy.
“No, not so perishable as sugar-plums or candy. But you have got a
doll.”
“Yes, but I want a new one, for my doll is old and worn out.”
“So, you see, dolls are perishable; that is, they will wear out.”
“Then every thing is perishable,” said Royal, “for every thing will
wear out in time.”
“Yes,” replied Miss Anne, “but then some things will last so long that
we do not consider them perishable. A silver bowl, for instance, will
last for several generations; but then it would wear out in time.”
“I should not think it would ever wear out, if it was really silver,”
said Lucy.
“Yes, if it was used, it would wear out in time; but it would take
a very long time. At any rate, we should not consider it perishable
property. A silver thimble would not be perishable property.”
“Is a book perishable?” asked Lucy.
“Yes, more so than many other things; for it gets worn out and defaced,
so that its value is destroyed before a great while. A box is not so
perishable,--a handsome, well-made box.”
“I believe I’ll buy a box,” said Lucy.
“I’d buy something not very perishable, if I were you, at any rate,
and then you can keep it and enjoy it a great many years.”
“Well,” replied Lucy. “But what other kind of things are there that you
would not buy?”
“I would not buy any thing that you are growing away from. I would
rather buy something that you are growing up to.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” said Lucy.
“Why, once there was a boy about three years old. He had never had any
playthings bought for him, because his father had no money to spare.
But one day his uncle came to visit him, and he gave him a shilling to
go and buy himself a plaything with. So he went to the toy-shop, and
they showed him a whistle and a ball. Now, he was not quite old enough
to play with a ball, though it was almost time for him to be too old
to be amused much with a whistle. However, he concluded to take the
whistle. It was a very good whistle, and it lasted a long time; but he
very soon ceased to care any thing about it. On the other hand, he very
soon became big enough to play ball, and then almost every time that he
saw his whistle for two years, he wished that it was a ball. He did not
consider, when he bought it, that the time for him to be pleased with
a whistle was almost gone by, while the time for him to be pleased with
a ball was all to come. He bought something that he was growing away
from.”
“What kind of a ball was it, Miss Anne?” asked Royal.
“An India rubber ball,” replied Miss Anne, “large, and round, and
smooth.”
“What a foolish boy!” said Royal.
“Yes, he was not so wise as a girl I knew once, named Harriet.”
“Why, what did she do?” asked Lucy.
“When she was twelve years old, her father gave her five dollars to
buy whatever she pleased with, for a birthday present. There were two
things which she thought of, which she could have for five dollars.
One was a beautiful waxen doll, with eyes that would open and shut,
and a handsome cradle to put it in. The other was a portable desk, to
hold writing materials,--such as paper, pens, an inkstand, wafers,
sealing-wax, &c. There was also room in it to keep her notes and
papers, and any valuable treasures which she might have. She asked her
mother which she thought she had better take; and her mother said that
she thought the doll would give her the most pleasure for a few days.
“‘And after that, would the desk give me most pleasure?’ asked Harriet.
“‘Yes,’ said her mother,--‘because your time for playing with dolls has
nearly gone by. You will feel less and less interest in them now every
year,--and the interest will soon be gone entirely. But your interest
in writing and in other intellectual pleasures, will increase every
year. So that I would recommend to you to buy the desk. If you were
three years old instead of twelve, perhaps I should recommend to you to
buy the doll; but for you to buy it now, would be like a man’s buying a
trunk at the end of his journey.’”
“Well,” said Lucy, “and what did Harriet do?”
“O, she bought the desk, and she liked it better and better every
year. She used to write notes, and a journal upon it; and she kept the
notes which the other girls wrote to her, and her journal books, and
her drawings, and her pencils, and all her treasures, in it. Thus she
bought something that she was growing up to.”
Lucy determined to follow Miss Anne’s advice; but she had not time to
hear any more, for very soon after this they reached the town.