was a blanket; where the bedstead was made of twigs and branches; where
a big brown woman was stirring something, witch-fashion, in a boiling
pot over the fire; where copper-colored children, with diamond eyes, and
long, black, snaky locks, were squatted in the sun, outside the wigwam,
while the square-cheeked men caught fish in the little canoes, from the
sparkling “rapids,” that seemed just going to wash away their
bird’s-nest looking huts. As to the “romantic Indian maid” we read
about, I am sorry to tell you that she wears a hoop! for I saw it with
my own eyes. However, she seemed so proud and well pleased with her
first attempts at the genteel, that I wouldn’t smile, as I felt like
doing.
I didn’t ask her how she managed to get in and out of their little
egg-shell boats with that hoop, or through the small aperture that
served for a door to the wigwam. Perhaps she dropped it off on the
outside when she wanted to go into her queer house—who knows? I might
say I should have liked her better without it, on that bright morning,
as she stood there by the blue Sault River, with her glossy black hair
blowing about her bright eyes. Eleven days in all we were on these
beautiful lakes; more than long enough to go to Europe, which I hope
some day to see. _One night too long_ we were on the water before we
reached Chicago. And what a night that was, of fog and rain and thunder
and lightning. So vivid was the lightning that no one would have been
surprised at any moment had it struck the vessel. Every peal of thunder
seemed as if it thumped us directly on the head. The steamer tipped and
rolled, and the rain beat into the cabin windows and dripped on the bed,
and deluged the floor. The military company whom we took on board a few
hours before, hushed their songs and jests, and watched with us for the
daylight that was to ensure the safety of all on board. It came at last;
and we breathed freely as we stepped safely on shore. How little we
thought, as we shook hands with the merry captain, and I promised “to
take another trip on his nice boat next summer,” that the very next
night he would be shipwrecked on those waters!
Ah! the poor captain! My eyes fill, my heart aches, as if I had known
him years, instead of those few bright fairy days. Poor Captain Jack
Wilson, with his handsome, sunshiny face, cheery voice, and manly ways!
How little I thought there would be no “next summer” for him, when he so
kindly helped me up on the “hurricane deck,” and into the cosy little
“pilothouse” to look about; who was always sending me word to come
“forward” or “aft,” because he knew I so much enjoyed seeing all
beautiful things; who was all goodness, all kindness, and yet, after we
left him that morning, found a grave in that cruel surf!
The afternoon of the day we said our last good by to him on the Chicago
pier, we had taken a carriage to drive round the city, and reined up at
the draw, for a boat to pass through. It was the “Lady Elgin” going
forth to meet her doom! We kissed our hands gaily to her, in the bright
sunshine, and that night as we slept safely in our beds at the hotel,
that brave heart, with a little wailing babe pressed to it, had only a
treacherous raft between him and eternity. The poor, poor captain! It
was _so_ hard to give him up! As his strong arm sustained the helpless
in that fearful night, may God support his own gentle ones in this their
direst need.
This was indeed a gloomy ending to our lovely lake trip. We saw many
things to interest us on our return to New York through Cleveland and
Pittsburgh, but, as you may suppose, we were not very gay; every now and
then, when we saw anything beautiful, we would say to each other, “The
_poor_ captain!” You know there are some people whom it is so hard to
“make dead;” and he was one of these. So strong, so sunshiny, so full of
life! How blessed to know all this bright intelligence cannot be
extinguished like a taper; else, how sad, my dear children, would life
be to us.
WHEN I WAS YOUNG.
Not one girl in ten, now-a-days, knows how to sew. “’Twas not so in my
time,” as the old ladies say, with an ominous shake of the head. No; in
my school-days proper attention was given to rivers, bays, capes,
islands, and cities in the forenoon—interspersed with, “I love, thou
lovest, he, she, or it loves;” then, at the child’s hungry
hour—(twelve)—we were dismissed to roast beef and apple dumplings. At
three we marched back with a comfortable dinner under our aprons—with
cool heads, rosy cheeks, and a thimble in our pockets; and never a book
did we see all the blessed afternoon. I see her—the schoolma’am (angels
see her now), with her benevolent face, and ample bosom—your
flat-chested woman never should keep school, she has no room for the
milk of human kindness; I see her sitting on that old cane-bottomed
chair, going through the useless ceremony of counting noses, to see if
there were any truants; and of course there never were from choice, for
our teacher never forgot that she was once a child herself. I see her
calling one after another to take from her hand a collar, or wristbands,
or shirt-bosom to stitch, or some button-holes to make;—good old soul!
and then, when we were all seated, she drew from her pocket some
interesting book and read it aloud to us—not disdaining to laugh at the
funny places, and allowing us to do the same—hearing, well pleased, all
our childish remarks, and answering patiently all our questions
concerning the story, or travels, or poetry she was reading, while our
willing fingers grew still more nimble; and every child uttered an
involuntary “Oh!” when the sun slanted into the west window, telling us
that afternoon school was over.
Ah, those were the days!
I bless that schoolmistress every time I darn a stocking or make or mend
a garment; and I am glad for her own sake that she is not alive now, to
see the ologies and isms that are thumped into children’s heads, to the
exclusion of things better suited to their age, and which all the French
and Italian that ever was mispronounced by fashion, can never take the
place of in practical life. Yes—girls _then_ knew how to sew. Where will
you find a schoolgirl who does it neatly, now? who does not hate a
needle, and most clumsily wields it when compelled to? and not by her
own fault, poor thing! though her future husband may not be as ready as
I to shield her with this excuse. Modern mothers never seem to think of
this. Male teachers, with buttonless shirts on their own backs, seem to
ignore it. No place for the needle _in_ school, and no time, on account
of long lessons, out. Where is a modern girl to learn this all-important
branch of education, I want to know? A fig for your worsted work, your
distorted cats, and rabbits, and cows! Give me the girl who can put a
shirt together, or the feminine of a shirt either—which, by the way, I
could never see the impropriety of mentioning, any more than its male,
though I am not going to make any old maid scream by saying “chemise”—of
course not!
I am concerned for the rising generation; spinally in the first place,
stitch-ically in the second. All the stitches they know of now are in
their sides, poor things! I should like every schoolhouse to have a
playground, where the pupils could stay when they were not in
school—which should be almost never, until ventilation, recesses, and
school hours are better regulated—in fact, till the whole system is
tipped over, and buried fathoms under ground, and only spoken of as the
tortures of the Inquisition are spoken of—with shuddering horror—as
remnants of darkness and barbarism. I don’t want children to be burned
up, but I don’t care how many badly conducted schoolhouses burn down. I
consider every instance a special interposition of Providence; and even
if some of the children _are_ burned—horrible as that is—is it not a
quicker mode of death than that they are daily put through, poor,
tortured things?
A NURSERY THOUGHT.
Do you ever think how much work a little child does in a day? How from
sunrise to sunset, the little feet patter round—to us—so aimlessly.
Climbing up here, kneeling down there, running to another place, but
never _still_. Twisting and turning, and rolling and reaching, and
doubling, as if testing every bone and muscle for their future uses. It
is very curious to watch it. One who does so may well understand the
deep breathing of the rosy little sleeper, as with one arm tossed over
its curly head, it prepares for the next day’s gymnastics. Tireless
through the day, till that time comes, as the maternal love which so
patiently accommodates itself hour after hour to its thousand wants and
caprices, real or fancied.
A busy creature is a little child. To be looked upon with awe as well as
delight, as its clear eye looks trustingly into faces that to God and
man have essayed to wear a mask. As it sits down in its little chair to
ponder precociously over the white lie you thought it “funny” to tell
it. As, rising and leaning on your knee, it says, thoughtfully, in a
tone which should provoke a tear, not a smile—“I don’t believe it.” A
lovely and yet a fearful thing is that little child.
THE USE OF GRANDMOTHERS.
A little boy, who had spilled a pitcher of milk, stood crying, in view
of a whipping, over the wreck. A little playmate stepped up to him and
said, condolingly:—Why, Bobby, haven’t you got a _grandmother_?
Who of us cannot remember this family mediator, always ready with an
excuse for broken china, or torn clothes, or tardy lessons, or little
white fibs? Who was it had always on hand the convenient stomach-ache,
or headache, or toothache, to work on parental tenderness? Whose
consoling stick of candy, or paper of sugar plums, or seed-cake, never
gave out; and who always kept strings to play horse with, and could
improvise riding whips and tiny kites, and dress rag-babies, and tell
stories between daylight and dark to an indefinable amount to ward off
the dreaded go-to-bed hour?
Who staid at home, none so happy, with the children while papa and mamma
“went pleasuring?” Who straightened out the little waxen limbs for the
coffin when papa and mamma were blind with tears? Who gathered up the
little useless robes and shoes and toys, and hid them away from
torturing sight till heaven’s own balm was poured into those aching
hearts? “Haven’t you got a grandmother?” Alas! if only our grown up
follies and faults might always find as merciful judgment, how many whom
harshness and severity have driven to despair and crime, were now to be
found useful and happy members of society!
THE INVENTOR OF THE LOCOMOTIVE.
Did you ever ride in an old-fashioned stage coach? cramped in your back,
cramped in your legs, with a “crick” in your neck, while you were packed
in, and strapped in so closely that it was next to impossible to move a
toe or a finger? Was the day hot and dusty, and had the tired horses
hill after hill to crawl and climb up? Was some fellow-passenger’s knee
boring a hole in your back, and did you bump, and thump, and bob about,
hour after hour, unable to sleep, and too weary almost to live, till,
when you drew up at last to some little country tavern, before which
Lafayette or Washington hung creaking on a sign, with John Smith’s Hotel
underneath, you didn’t care whether you ever got out or not; whether you
ever ate, or drank, or laughed again; whether your trunk was safe, or
lost on the road, miles back? Well, if you have not experienced all
this, perhaps your father or mother, or uncle, or aunt have; and they
will tell you that is one of the slow methods in which people used to
travel before railroads and cars were invented. Ah, but, you say, stages
were safer than railroad cars! Were they? They never tipped over, I
suppose, or rolled over a precipice of a dark night, or had defective
wheels, or drunken drivers, or balky horses, or any thing of that sort.
And if anybody was very sick, or dying, at a distance, they might not
have been buried weeks, I suppose, before one could reach them.
Well, people after a while thought they might travel faster than this,
and quite as safely, too.
George Stephenson, the great Railway Engineer, was one of the first who
thought this, and worked hard, and long, to make it possible. I want to
tell you about him, because it seems to me quite beautiful that a poor,
uneducated boy, as he was, should have brought so great a thing to pass.
I rejoice in it, because I love to think that in our country our most
useful and best men have, many of them, been very poor and humble when
young; and because I want every boy who reads this to feel encouraged to
try what _he_ too can do, instead of folding his hands and saying, “oh,
what’s the use? I was born poor, and I shall die poor; I’m ignorant, and
I shall die ignorant. Who cares what becomes of _me_?” I tell you _I_
care for one, and if nobody cared, you ought to care _yourself_. It is
very certain, if you _don’t_ care yourself, that nobody can do much for
you. Well, George Stephenson was the son of a poor collier, in England.
He was the second of six children, for whom their father and mother
worked hard to find bread and butter. Little George lived like other
working people’s children: played about the doors, went bird’s nesting
now and then, or of errands to the village; and as he grew bigger,
carried his father’s dinner to him when at work; or helped nurse his
brothers and sisters at home; for in a poor man’s house, you know, every
little hand and foot must do something in the way of helping. As to
school, none of them thought of such a thing; it was as much as they
could do to keep a roof over their heads, and something to eat and
drink. Dewley Burn was the name of the place where the one-roomed
cottage stood, in which George was born; and near which his father was
employed, to tend the engine-fire near the coalpit. Robert Stephenson,
George’s father, was a kind-hearted, pleasant man. You may know that,
because all the young people of an evening used to go and sit round his
engine-fire while he told stories to them; sometimes about Sinbad the
Sailor; sometimes about Robinson Crusoe, and often something which he
himself “made up” to please them. Of course “Bob’s engine-fire” was a
great place. No stoop of a village tavern on “muster day” was ever more
glorious to happy urchins. You can almost see the picture; the bright
fire blazing, and rows of bright eyes glistening in its light, some
black, some blue, some gray; curly locks and straight locks, slender
lads, and fat lads; some with chins on their palms, and elbows on their
knees, some flat on their backs or sides, on the ground; and all
believing every word of Bob’s, as you now do storybooks, which they
would have given their ears to get hold of, though I have my doubts, if
they are better, after all, than were “Bob’s stories.” Now you are not
to think because George’s father worked as a collier, that he had no
love for beautiful things. On the contrary, he used to take nice long,
breezy summer walks, whenever he got a chance, with his little son. And
when George had grown up to be a man, and long after his good father’s
white head was under the sod, George used to speak often of his lifting
him up to look into a black-bird’s nest, and of the delight and wonder
with which he gazed at the little peeping creatures for the first time.
I dare say your father and mother can tell you some such little thing
which _they_ remember about their childhood’s home, which stands out in
their memory now, from the mist of years, like a lovely picture, sunny
and glowing and untouched by time.
These are blessed memories to keep the heart green. They are like the
little swaying wild flower that the dusty traveler sometimes finds in a
rock crevice, breathing out its sweetness all the same as if it were not
hemmed in by flinty walls and bars; more beautiful than the most
gorgeous garden flowers, which every passer by has gazed at, and
handled, because to God and ourselves it is sacred. These childish
memories! they are the first round of the ladder by which our
world-weary feet shall climb to heaven, after those who have rocked our
cradles.
Near Dewley Burn lived a widow, named Grace Ainslie, who kept a number
of cows that used to nibble the grass along the woods. A boy was needed
to watch them, and keep them from being run over by the coal wagons, or
straying into the neighboring fields. To this boy’s duty was added that
of barring the gates at night, after the coal wagons had passed through.
George applied for this place, and to his great joy he got it, at two
pence a day. It was easy work to loll about on the fresh green grass,
and watch the lazy cows as they nibbled, or stretched themselves under
the trees, chewing and winking, hour after hour. George had plenty of
time to look for birds’ nests and make whistles out of sticks and
straws, and build little mills in the water streams. But if you watched
the boy, you would see that, best of all, when he and his friend Tom got
together, he liked to build clay engines. The clay they found in the
bogs, and of the hemlock which grew about, they made their steam pipes.
I dare say some solemn wise head might have passed that way, and sighed
that these boys were “wasting their time” playing in the mud; not
remembering that children in their “foolish play,” by their little
failures and successes in experimenting, sometimes educate themselves
better than any book-read man in the land could do it; at least, at
_that_ age. Then it was a blessed thing that the child’s work lay _out
of doors_, and not in a stifling close factory, or shop. That his limbs
got strong and his cheek brown and sunburnt, and his eye bright as a
young eagle’s. Every day now added to his growth, and of course to his
employment; though scarcely big enough to stride, he led the horses when
plowing, and when he was able to hoe turnips and do such farm work, he
was very much delighted at his increased wages of fourpence a day. When
he was thirteen, he made a sun-dial for his father’s cottage. You may be
sure his father was very proud of that. His little head had been busy,
you see, when he lay on the grass watching the cows. By and by George
got eighteen pence a day, and at last the wish of his heart, in being
taken as an assistant to his father in feeding the engine fire. George
was very much afraid, he was such a little fellow, that he should be
thought too young for the work, and when the overseer of the colliery
went the rounds, to see if everything was done right, George used to
hide himself, for fear he would think him too small a boy to earn his
wages. Some lads as fond as he was of bird’s-nesting, and such
amusements, would not have been in such a hurry to make themselves
useful; but George’s parents worked hard, and he loved them; he knew
that white hairs were creeping among those brown locks of his mother’s,
and that his good, merry father would not always be able to tend the
engine fire; and so though his tame black-bird, who made the cottage her
home in winter, flying in and out, and roosting on the head of his bed,
and disappearing in the spring and summer, in the woods, to pair and to
rear its young, and then coming back again in winter to live with
George; although his bird was a very pretty pet, and his tame rabbits
were a great pleasure, too, yet little as he was, he was anxious to
shoulder his share of the burden that was pressing so heavily on his
parents. Ever since, too, that he had modeled that little clay engine in
the bog, he had determined to be an engineer, and the first step to this
was to be an assistant fireman. Imagine, then, his delight when, at
fourteen years, he got the post at the wages of a shilling a day.
George’s home was one small room, crowded with three low-posted beds, in
which father and mother, four sons, and two daughters slept. This one
room was, of course, parlor, kitchen and sleeping-room, all in one. This
cottage was furnished by the Duke who employed these people; he being
also their landlord. Now I would be willing if I ever made bets, to bet
you something handsome, that this Duke had a liveried servant behind his
chair at home, and a table loaded with dainties, and silver and cut
glass, and more wines in his castle than he knew how to use; and horses
and hounds, and carriages and pictures, and statues, and conservatories
and hot houses, and all that; and yet, that he was not one half as happy
as the Stephensons in that little cottage with one room. Aching heads
are apt to go with dainty food, and weak limbs with soft beds. When a
poor man has a friend, he generally knows that he is loved for
_himself_; when a rich man has one, he is never sure how much his riches
have to do with his friendship. Many a rich man has sighed for the days
when he used to run barefoot; and many a jeweled lady for the day when
the little brook was her looking-glass. Things are more equal in this
life, after all, than grumblers are apt to imagine. Well, to go back to
George, all the time he was feeding that fire, he had his eyes open,
watching everything about the engine; nothing escaped his notice; I have
no doubt his father watched him, with an honest pride shining out of his
eyes. It must have been very pleasant for the two to work together, and
help each other; for George was growing strong and big, and used to try
to make himself stronger by lifting heavy weights. When he was
seventeen, he was made a “flagman.” That was a station as watchman above
his father, as the flagman holds a higher rank than the fireman, and
receives higher wages. No doubt good old Robert was as delighted as
George could be at this promotion. We can imagine, too, how his mother
and sisters, as they worked industriously to keep the little one room
cottage tidy and comfortable, sang cheerfully as they worked, when they
thought of their good strong brother. It is a flagman’s duty, when the
engine is out of order, to call on the chief engineer to set it right.
George had rarely need to do this. The engine was a perfect pet with
him. He understood every part of it; he took it to pieces and cleaned it
himself, and learned so well how it worked, and what it needed, that
nobody could instruct him anything about it. It is said that all the
important improvements of steam-engines have been made, not by learned
literary men, but by plain laborers.
Everything that George undertook, howsoever small the matter might be,
he determined to understand perfectly, and to do well and thoroughly.
When George _said_ that he knew he could do a thing, all his friends
knew it was no idle boast. So you will not be astonished when I tell you
that he went on studying and improving till he became a famous man; so
famous that he received calls from abroad, asking his advice as “a
constructing engineer” about building bridges and railways, and all such
things. I guess he never thought of _that_, when he was building bridges
of mud with his play-fellows. Little children, you see, are not _always_
“wasting their time” when they are playing quietly by themselves. No,
indeed. I guess he didn’t think then that he should build a two-mile
bridge across the St. Lawrence in connection with the Grand Trunk
Canadian Railway, which should be so much admired and praised for its
_taste_ as well as skill; or, when he slept in the little cottage with
only one room in it, that he should one day become “a Member of
Parliament;” or that when he died, he should be buried in state at
Westminster Abbey, where all the famous, great men were buried, and that
immense crowds of people should go to his funeral, and be so sorry that
a man who was so useful to his country should die, when he was only
fifty-six years old. But so it was. I think George made good use of
those fifty-six years; don’t you?
TO MY LITTLE FRIENDS.
I want to say a few words to the _little children_ who write me such
nice letters.