Your father and all of us were very glad to see that photograph, for it
seemed next thing to seeing you, you dear child. We couldn’t bear to
send it away so soon. I kept it on the mantel-piece, with my spectacles
close by, so that when I went past it I could take a look. We sent word
in to your aunt Phebe and in a few minutes little Tommy came running
across and said his “muzzer said he must bwing Billy’s Pokerdaff in,
wight off.” But I told him to tell his muzzer that Billy’s Pokerdaff
must be sent back very soon, and wasn’t going out of my sight a minute
while it stayed, and they must come in. And they did. We all think ’t is
a very natural picture, only too sober. You ought to try to look smiling
at such times. I wish you’d had somebody to pull down your jacket, and
see to your collar’s being even. But Aunt Phebe says ’t is a wonder you
look as well as you do, with no woman to fix you. I should know Dorry’s
picture anywhere. Uncle Jacob wants to know what you were both so cross
about? Says you look as if you’d go to fighting the minute you got up.
Little Tommy is tickled enough with that sled, and keeps looking up in
the sky to see when snow is coming down, and drags it about on the bare
ground, if we don’t watch him.
I had almost a good mind to keep the skates at home. Boys are so
venturesome. They always think there’s no danger. I said to your father,
“Now if anything should happen to Billy I should wish we’d never sent
them.” But he’s always afraid I shall make a Miss Nancy of you. Now I
don’t want to do that. But there’s reason in all things. And a boy
needn’t drown himself to keep from being a Miss Nancy. He thinks you’ve
got sense enough not to skate on thin ice, and says the teachers won’t
allow you to skate if the pond isn’t safe. But I don’t have faith in any
pond being safe. My dear boy, there’s danger even if the thermometer is
below zero. There may be spring-holes. Never was a boy got drowned yet
skating, but what thought there was no danger. Do be careful. I know you
would if you only knew how I keep awake nights worrying about you.
Anybody would think that your uncle Jacob had more money than he knew
how to spend. He went to the city last week, and brought Georgiana home
a pair of light blue French kid boots. He won’t tell the price. They are
high-heeled, very narrow-soled, and come up high. He saw them in the
window of one of the grand stores, and thought he’d just step in and buy
them for Georgie. Never thought of their coming so high. I’m speaking of
the price. Now Georgie doesn’t go to parties, and where the child can
wear them, going through thick and thin, is a puzzler. She might to
meeting, if she could be lifted out of the wagon and set down in the
broad aisle, but Lucy Maria says that won’t do, because her meeting
dress is cherry-color. Next summer I shall get her a light blue barege
dress to match ’em, for the sake of pleasing her uncle Jacob. When he
heard us talking about her not going anywhere to wear such fancy boots,
he said then she should wear them over to his house. So twice he has
sent a billet in the morning, inviting her to come and take tea, and at
the bottom he writes, “Company expected to appear in blue boots.” So I
dress her up in her red dress, and the boots, and draw my plush
moccasins over them, and pack her off. Uncle Jacob takes her things, and
waits upon her to the table, and they have great fun out of it.
My dear Billy, I have been thinking about that boy that wears
cinnamon-colored clothes. I do really hope you won’t be so cruel as to
laugh at a boy on account of his clothes. What a boy is, don’t depend
upon what he wears on his back, but upon what he has inside of his head
and his heart. When I was a little girl and went to school in the old
school-house, the Committee used to come, sometimes, to visit the
school. One of the Committee was the minister. He was a very fine old
gentleman, and a great deal thought of by the whole town. He used to
wear a ruffled shirt, and a watch with a bunch of seals, and carry a
gold-headed cane. He had white hair, and a mild blue eye, and a pleasant
smile, that I haven’t forgotten yet, though ’t was a great many years
ago. After we’d read and spelt, and the writing-books and
ciphering-books had been passed round, the teacher always asked him to
address the school. And there was one thing he used to say, almost every
time. And he said it in such a smiling, pleasant way, that I’ve
remembered it ever since. He used to begin in this way.
“I love little children. I love to come where they are. I love to hear
them laugh, and shout. I love to watch them while they are at play. And
because I love them so well, I don’t want there should be anything bad
about them. Just as when I watch a rosebud blooming;--I should be very
sorry not to have it bloom out into a beautiful, perfect rose. And now,
children, there are three words I want you all to remember. Only three.
You can remember three words, can’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” we would say.
“Well, now, how long can you remember them?” he would ask,--“a week?”
“Yes sir.”
“Two weeks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A month?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A year?”
“Guess so.”
“All your lives?”
Then some would say, “Yes, sir,” and some would say they guessed not,
and some didn’t believe they could, and some knew they couldn’t.
“Well, children,” he would say at last, “now I will tell you what the
three words are: Treat--everybody--well. Now what I want you to be
surest to remember is ’everybody.’ Everybody is a word that takes in a
great many people, and a great many kinds of people,--takes in the
washer-women and the old man that saws wood, and the colored folks that
come round selling baskets, and the people that wear second-hand
clothes, and the help in the kitchen,--takes in those we don’t like and
even the ones that have done us harm. ‘Treat--_everybody_--well.’ For
you can afford to. A pleasant word don’t cost anything to give, and is a
very pleasant thing to take.”
The old gentleman used to look so smiling while he talked. And he
followed out his own rule. For he was just as polite to the poor woman
that came to clean their paint as he was to any fine lady. He wanted to
make us feel ashamed of being impolite to people who couldn’t wear good
clothes. Children and grown people too, he said, were apt to treat the
ones best that wore the best clothes. He’d seen children, and grown
folks too, who would be all smiles and politeness to the company, and
then be ugly and snappish to poor people they’d hired to work for them.
A real lady or gentleman,--he used to end off with this,--“A real lady,
and a real gentleman will--treat--everybody--well.” And I will end off
with this too. And don’t you ever forget it. For that you may be, my
dear boy, a true gentleman is the wish of
Your loving Grandmother.
P. S. Do be careful when you go a skating. If the ice is ever so thick,
there may be spring-holes. Your father wants you to have a copy of that
picture taken for us to keep, and sends this money to pay for it. I
forgot to say that of course it is mean for a boy not to pay his part.
And for a boy not to pay his debts is mean, and next kin to stealing.
And the smaller the debts are the meaner it is. We are all waiting for
your Report.
* * * * *
I did not think it at all strange that Uncle Jacob should buy the blue
boots. It is just what I would like to do myself. I never go past one of
those wonderful shoe-store windows, and look at the bright array of
blue, yellow, and red, without wishing I had six little girls, with six
little pairs of feet. For then I should have half a dozen excuses to go
in and buy, and now I haven’t one.
Georgie’s boots looked pretty, with the nice white stockings her
grandmother knit. And I couldn’t see any harm in her wearing a red dress
with them. The red, white, and blue are the best colors in the world for
me, and I’ll never turn against them!
“Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue!”
* * * * *
_William Henry to his Grandmother._