THE ONLY WAY TO STUDY--TAKING COLD--RILEY’S FAMILY--THE HARE
LIP---FISHING FOR SHEEPHEAD---FRANK CHOKED WITH A FISH BONE--HIS
RELIEF--HIS STORY OF THE SHEEP’S HEAD AND DUMPLINGS--"TILL THE WARFARE
IS OVER"
Dr. Gordon began to feel dissatisfied that his children were losing so
much valuable time from study; for the house was yet loaded with baggage
which could be put nowhere else, and their time was broken up by
unavoidable interruptions. Until a more favourable opportunity,
therefore, he required only that they should devote one hour every day
to faithful study, and that they should spend the rest of their time as
usefully as possible.
His theory of education embraced two very simple, but very efficacious
principles. First, to _excite in his children the desire of acquiring
knowledge_; and, secondly, to train them to _give their undivided
attention to the subject in hand_. This last, he said, was the only way
to study; and he told them, in illustration, the story of Sir Isaac
Newton, who, on being asked by a friend, in view of his prodigious
achievements, what was the difference, so far as he was conscious,
between his mind and those of ordinary people, answered simply in the
power of concentration.
Harold had been greatly discouraged at finding himself so far behind his
cousins in the art of study, but by following the advice of his uncle,
he soon experienced a great and an encouraging change. At first, it is
true, he could scarcely give his whole mind to any study more than five
minutes at a time, without a sense of weariness; but he persevered, and
day by day his powers increased so manifestly that he used frequently to
say to himself, "_concentration is everything--everything in study_."
But Dr. Gordon’s instructions were by no means confined to books and the
school-room; he used every favourable opportunity to give information on
points that promised to be useful.
"Mary," said he one day, to his daughter, who was sitting absorbed in
study, beside a window through which the sea breeze was pouring freshly
upon her head and shoulders, and who had, in consequence, began to
exhibit symptoms of a cold, "Mary, my daughter, remove your seat. Do
you not know that to allow a current of air like that to blow upon a
part of your person, is almost sure to produce sickness?"
"I know it, father," she replied, "and I intended some time since to
change my seat, but the sum is so hard that I forgot all about the
wind."
"I am glad to see you capable of such fixedness of mind," said he, "but
I will take this opportunity to say to you, and to the rest, that there
are two seasons, especially, when you should be on your guard against
these dangerous currents of air,--one is when you are asleep, and the
other is when your mind is absorbed in thought. At these times the
pores of the skin are more than usually open, as may be seen by the flow
of perspiration; and a current of cool air, at such a time, especially
if partial, is almost certain to give cold."
"But how can we be on our guard, father," asked Mary with a smile, "when
we are too far gone in sleep or in thought, to know what we are about!"
"We must take the precaution beforehand," he replied. "Make it a rule
never to sleep nor to study in a partial current of air; and also
remember that _the first moment_ you perceive the tingling sensation of
an incipient cold, you must obey the warning which kind nature gives you
or else must bear the consequences."
Mary’s cold was pretty severe. For days she suffered from cough and
pain. But that day’s lecture on currents of air, followed by so
impressive an illustration, was probably more useful than her lesson in
arithmetic; certainly it was longer remembered and more frequently acted
upon.
True to his promise, Riley appeared at the appointed time with his
supply of game. He said, however, that he should remain only a few
days, because he had left his young wife sick. It interested Mary not a
little to perceive that a savage could feel and act so much like a
civilized being; and she was trying to think of something complimentary
to say upon this occasion, when he threw her all aback, by adding, that
this was his _youngest_ and _favourite_ wife.
"What! have you two wives?" she exclaimed in horror.
"Yes, only two, now; one dead."
Her mind was sadly changed at this evidence of heathenism; but ere the
day was over she received a still more impressive proof.
Dr. Gordon perceiving that he looked sad whenever an allusion was made
to his home, he asked him if his wife was seriously sick, to which he
answered, No.
"When I go home, last week," said he, "my squaw had a fine boy, big and
fat. My heart glad. But I look and see a big hole in his mouth, from
here to here," pointing from the lip to the nose.
"That is what we call a hare lip," said Dr. Gordon, "it is not
uncommon."
"I sorry very much," continued Riley. "Child too ugly."
"But it can be easily cured," observed Dr. Gordon.
Riley looked at him inquiringly, and Dr. Gordon added, "O, yes, it can
be easily cured. If you will bring your child here, any time, I will
stop that hole in half an hour; and there will be no sign of it left,
except a little scar, like a cut."
The Indian shook his head mournfully, "Can’t bring him. Too late now."
"O, the child is dead?" inquired the Doctor. "I am sorry."
"Dead now," replied Riley. "I look at him one day, two day, tree day.
Child too ugly. I throw him in the water."
"What!" exclaimed Dr. Gordon, suddenly remembering that it was the
practice of the Indians to destroy all their deformed children. "You
did not drown it?"
"Child ugly too much," answered Riley, with a softened tone of voice.
"Child good for nothing. I throw him in the water."
Dr. Gordon was not only shocked, as any man of feeling would have been,
under the circumstances, but he felt as a Christian, whose heart moved
with compassion towards his dark skinned brother. He uttered not one
word of rebuke or of condemnation; his time for speaking to the purpose
had not yet come; and he carefully avoided everything in word and look
which should widen the space which naturally exists between the white
man and the Indian, the Christian and the pagan.
Poor Mary! She no sooner heard this confession, than she sidled away
from her interesting savage, until wholly beyond his reach, and could
scarcely look at him during his stay that week, without feelings akin to
fear. An Indian, she learned, was an Indian after all.
While Riley was there the boys often borrowed his boat, and Harold tried
to imitate his dexterity in the use of the paddle. They soon became
great friends. On one of their excursions for fish, they went, by his
direction, around a point of land where the head of a fallen live oak
lay in the water, and its partially decayed limbs were encrusted with
barnacles and young oysters. There they soon caught a large supply of
very fine fish of various sorts, particularly of the sheephead,--a
delicious fish, shaped somewhat like the perch, only stouter and
rounder, beautifully marked with broad alternate bands of black and
white around the body, and varying in weight from half a pound to ten or
fifteen pounds.
No one was more delighted than Frank, with the result of the excursion;
for he was fond, as a cat, of everything in the shape of fish. But, it
is said, there is no rose without its thorn; and so he found in the
present case. He was enjoying, rather voraciously, the luxury of his
favourite food, when a disorderly bone lodged crossways in the narrow
part of his throat, and gave him excessive pain. Frank was a polite
boy. Avoiding, as far as possible, disturbing the others by his
misfortune, he slipped quietly from the table, and tried every means to
relieve himself. But it was not until he had applied to his father,
and, under his direction, swallowed a piece of hard bread, that he was
able to resume his place.[#]
[#] Unwilling to mislead any of my young readers, by describing
expedients and remedies that might not serve them in case of necessity,
I have submitted my manuscript to several persons for inspection, and
among others to a judicious physician and surgeon. It never occurred to
me that in mentioning so simple a thing as swallowing a crust for the
removal of a fish-bone, I could possibly do harm. To my surprise,
however, my medical friend observed, that he supposed Dr. Gordon knew
that the fishbone, which Frank swallowed, was _small_ and _flexible_, or
he would not have used that expedient.
"If," said he, "the substance which lodges in the throat is so stiff (a
pin for instance) as not to be easily bent, the attempt to force it down
by swallowing a piece of bread may be unsafe; it may lacerate the lining
membrane, or, being stopped by the offending substance, it may cause the
person to be worse choked than before."
"But, Doctor, what should the poor fellow do in such a case?" he was
asked.
"I suspect Dr. Gordon would have used a large feather?"
"Indeed!"
"Yes, he would have rumpled its plume, so as to reverse the direction of
the feathery part, and would have thrust that down the throat, below the
pin or bone. On withdrawing the feather, the substance would be either
found adhering to its wet sides, or raised on end, so that it could be
easily swallowed."
With many thanks for this suggestion, the promise was made that the
young readers of Robert and Harold should have the benefit of his
advice. But I think that the best plan is to avoid the fish-bones.
Being not quite so humble as he was polite, however, he began to condemn
the fish instead of himself for his accident. His father told him he
had no right to say one word against the fish, which was remarkably free
from bones, and was just preparing to give him a gentle lecture on
gormandizing, when Frank, foreseeing what was to come, was adroit enough
to seize a moment’s pause in the conversation, and to divert the
subject, by asking with a very droll air,
"I wonder, father, if these sheephead are of the same kind with that one
that butted the dumplings?"
"I do not know what dumplings you mean," said his father.
"O, did you never hear the story of the sheep’s head and the dumplings?
Well, brother Robert can tell you all about it."
"No, no," returned his father, who saw through the little fellow’s
stratagem. "No, no, Frank, it is your own story, and you must go
through with it."
This was a trial, for Frank had never in his life made so long an
extempore speech in the presence of the assembled family, as he had now
imposed upon himself. But, in the desperation of the moment, he mustered
courage, and thus spoke,
"There was once an old woman that left her little boy to mind a pot that
had in it a sheep’s head and some dumplings boiling for dinner, while
she went to a neighbour’s house to attend some sort of preaching. The
little boy did not seem to have much sense; and had never minded a pot
before; so when he saw the water boiling over, and the sheep’s head and
the dumplings bobbing about in every direction, he became frightened and
ran for his mother, bawling at the top of his voice, ’Mammy! the
dumplings! run!’ She saw him coming in among the people, and tried to
stop his bawling by shaking her head and winking her eyes at him; but he
would not stop. He crowded right up to her, saying, ’Mammy, you needn’t
to wink nor to blink, for the sheep’s head is butting all the dumplings
out of the pot!’"
Throughout this story Frank did not make a balk or a blunder. He kept
straight on, as if brimful of fun, and uttered the last sentence with
such an affectation of grave terror, as produced a universal laugh.
His father had tried hard to keep up his dignity for the intended
lecture, but it also gave way, and he contented himself with saying,
"Well, master Frank, I see you are at your old tricks again. And since
you show such an aptitude for putting people into good humour, there
will be reason to think you are in fault, if you ever put them out.
Harold, has your aunt ever told you how Frank once _kissed himself out
of a scrape with her_?"
Harold said she had not, and his uncle went on,
"It was when he was between three and four years of age. His mother had
taken him on a visit to a friend of hers in the neighbourhood of
Charleston, and he was allowed to sit at the dinner table with the
ladies. But he became so disorderly and perverse that his mother, after
an ineffectual reprimand or two, ordered him to go up stairs, meaning to
her room above. The language was indefinite, and Frank interpreted it
to suit his own pleasure. He went up stairs, it is true, but only half
way, where he seated himself so as to look at the table and the company,
and then began to drum with his feet and to talk loud enough to be
heard,
"’H-m-n-h! This is a very good place. I love these nice stairs. I’d
rather be here than anywhere else in the world. I don’t want any of
that old dinner!’
"This was very rude language, and more especially when used in a house
where he was a guest. His mother was so much mortified that as soon as
dinner was over she took him to her room, gave him a sound strapping,
and put him in a corner, where he was to stay, until he promised to be a
good boy. Then she lay down on her bed as if to take a nap, but in
reality to meditate what course to pursue towards her rude little child.
"Frank, you know, is fond of singing. There was a wild religious melody
which he had learnt about that time, and which he was constantly
singing. It had a short chorus at the end of every line, and a long
chorus at the end of each verse, running this way,
"’Children of the heavenly King,
Till the warfare is over, Hallelujah,
As ye journey sweetly sing,
Till the warfare is over, Hallelujah.’
I forget the long chorus.
"Well, your aunt had not been upon the bed more than a few minutes,
before Frank quietly slipped from his corner and stole close to the
bedside to make friends. But his mother would not notice him. He bent
over and gave her a kiss. Still she looked displeased. He tried
another kiss, but she turned away her face. This was a damper. Frank
was disheartened, but not in despair. He leaned over the bed, making a
long reach, to try the effect of a third kiss.
"’There, Frank,’ said his mother, in a displeased tone, ’that is enough.
You need not kiss me any more.’
"’Yes, mother,’ said he, leaning far over, and taking hold of her, ’I
mean to kiss you _till the warfare is over, Hallelujah_.’
"I need not say that, from that moment, the warfare _was_ over, and
Frank behaved himself well through the remainder of the visit.
"And now, since he has managed to escape the lecture I was about to give
him on eating too fast, I hope he will hereafter cultivate the
recollection of _today and the fish-bones_."