Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: SALOME WOULD NOT PART WITH HER TESTAMENT.]
[Illustration]
TAKEN OR LEFT.
BY
MRS. O. F. WALTON
AUTHOR OF
"CHRISTIE'S OLD ORGAN," "A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES," ETC.
NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS,
530 BROADWAY.
MRS. WALTON'S STORIES.
I. CHRISTIE'S OLD ORGAN; or, Home, Sweet Home.
18mo, cloth. 40 cents.
"One of the sweetest, simplest stories it has been our lot to read
for a long time."—_Vermont Chronicle._
II. SAVED AT SEA.
40 cents.
III. LITTLE FAITH; or, The Child of the Toy-Stall.
40 cents.
IV. CHRISTIE'S OLD ORGAN, SAVED AT SEA, and LITTLE FAITH. All in one
volume, nine engravings. $1.00.
V. A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES.
16mo. $1.00.
"A very touching and beautiful story, with a sweet and true
lesson."—_S. S. Times_
VI. WAS I RIGHT?
16mo. $1.00.
"A capital book for the Sunday-school library, and for family or
private reading."—_Episcopal Methodist._
VII. OLIVE'S STORY.
16mo. 75 cents.
VIII. NOBODY LOVES ME.
18mo. 50 cents.
IX. NOBODY LOVES ME, and OLIVE'S STORY.
In one volume. 16mo. $1.00.
X. SHADOWS, SCENES AND INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF AN OLD ARM-CHAIR.
$1.00.
XI. TAKEN OR LEFT.
18mo. 40 cents.
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS
NEW YORK.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. SALOME'S HOME
II. THE LOST MONEY
III. NOT TO BE TRUSTED
IV. A CHILDREN'S SERVICE
V. THE STORM IN THE NIGHT
VI. MY FIRST PLACE
VII. MASTER REGGIE
VIII. THERE IS NO TIME TO LOSE
IX. THE ROBBER'S CAVE
X. THE STORM
XI. A TERRIBLE TIME
XII. SALOME'S RECOVERY
XIII. GREAT SORROW
XIV. AFTER TWENTY YEARS
[Illustration]
TAKEN OR LEFT.
CHAPTER I.
SALOME'S HOME.
MY mother had ten boys. It was no wonder that she often looked weary
and out of spirits. It was no wonder that we seldom saw her in a
cheerful and hopeful state of mind, for she was never strong, and she
had to work and to toil as if she were.
I used to wish sometimes that our mother would laugh more and sigh
less. I could not understand then what care and anxiety we all were to
her. But I can see now that she was too tired to be very merry, and
that it was not strange that she found plenty to make her sigh.
I can remember the pile of stockings which she had to mend every
Saturday night—heels out, and toes out, and many a hole beside.
Poor mother, she would turn them over with a sigh before she began!
Then there were the endless patches to be put in trousers and
knickerbockers, there was the constant struggle to keep us in clean
collars, there was the heavy washing every Tuesday, and the still
heavier ironing every Thursday. I can see now that our mother had a
very hard life.
But I never, thought of it then. I did not know what it was to be
tired; I was strong, and hearty, and happy, and I am afraid I gave my
mother as much work to do as any of the rest did.
I was the third boy. John and James were older than I was, and Andrew,
and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and Simon, and
Jude were younger. My own name was Peter. Father wished us all to be
called after the Apostles.
"They had good old-fashioned names," he said.
My mother told me she was very thankful there were only ten of us; she
was so much afraid he would call the next one Judas Iscariot, for he
said it would be a pity to make a break, when they had kept it up so
long.
Father had a large provision shop in the outskirts of the town; he sold
groceries, and flour, and bacon, and cheese, and sausages, and butter,
and eggs, and meat in tins, and countless other things. He was doing
a good business, people said; but he did not grow rich. That was our
fault more than his, I suppose. What could a man with ten boys do?
Twenty pairs of new boots every year,—ten new suits,—three hundred and
sixty-five breakfasts for ten hungry boys,—three hundred and sixty-five
dinners for ten boys, still more hungry, at the end of three hours'
schooling,—three hundred and sixty-five suppers for ten boys, perfectly
ravenous with work, and play, and mischief; it would, indeed, have
taken a very full till to have supplied all this, and left enough and
to spare, so that our father could have reckoned himself a rich man.
Father was a very silent man; he never spoke two words where one would
answer the same purpose. I think that was one reason why our mother was
so careworn and depressed. She could never talk out her anxieties with
him, but had to keep them all to herself. The only one in the house
to whom my father talked was little Salome. She was the youngest, and
the only girl, and everybody loved her. It was a wonder she was not
spoiled, mother said; but I do not think any one could have spoiled
Salome.
I was ten years old when she was born, and I shall never forget our
excitement when father told us we had a little sister.
Father was quite talkative that day, and said to us, "Boys, you must be
good to her all your lives; she ought to be well taken care of, with
ten brothers to fight her battles."
I do not know what the others thought that day, but I know I made up my
mind that nothing on earth should ever hurt my little sister so long
as I could be near her to defend her. She was a very pretty child; she
had dark brown hair, and dark eyes, with soft long eyelashes, and very
rosy cheeks. She was far the best-looking of the family, every one said
so. Mother told us she was like our grandmother, who had been quite
a beauty, and had had her picture painted by some painter, who was
lodging in the village where she lived.
When Salome was a baby, we used at first to quarrel about her a great
deal. We all wanted to nurse her, and to play with her, and to carry
her out; and she was like a favorite toy, which every one of us wanted
at the same time. But after a few months had gone by, and Salome was no
longer such a novelty to us, the other boys were not so anxious to take
charge of her, and, indeed, sometimes grumbled when mother called them
from their games to take care of their little sister. And so it came to
pass that Salome and I became such great friends. I was never tired of
her; it was never a trouble to me to nurse her and to look after her.
"Where are Peter and Salome?" mother would call out at meal-times, for
she knew we were always together.
When I was at school, Salome would go into the shop to father, and stay
with him while I was away. Not one of his ten boys had been allowed to
go into the shop at a time when customers were expected; we were turned
out directly if our heads were seen peeping in at the shop door. But
Salome used to sit for hours perched on a sack of flour, looking at her
picture-book, or watching the customers coming in and going out, from
father's high stool behind the counter. But she was always standing at
the shop door watching for me, when she knew that it was the time for
me to come home, and she would run to meet me, and throw her arms round
my neck with a shout of joy, and then jump on my back to be carried
home again.
There was a church at the end of the street in which we lived, and my
father went to it every Sunday morning. My mother very seldom went
with him; she had got out of the way of going while the children were
babies, and once having got out of the way, it was very hard for her to
get into it again. But my father took his five eldest boys with him,
and my mother got us ready, and brushed our hair, and pinned on our
clean collars, and then stood on the doorstep watching us go down the
street, with little Salome in her arms.
We had a pew of our own, quite at the end of the large church, and here
we sat in a row, always in the same order, first James, then John, then
myself, then Andrew, then Philip, then our father at the door of the
pew. We sat pretty quietly while service went on; but it always seemed
a very long and dull time to me. The old clergyman's voice sounded very
far away, and I scarcely heard or cared to hear what he said. I was
always glad when the last prayer came, and the blessing was pronounced,
and the organ began to play, and we could go home again. I do not
remember anything that I heard at church, until one Sunday, of which I
shall soon have to write. After that Sunday, church never seemed quite
the same place to me as it did in the days which went before.
But I must tell you first of another day, which came before that
Sunday, for it is a day which I shall never forget as long as I live.
I think that it is the first day in my life which I can remember as
being at all different from the rest. There was not much variety in
our life, nor in our poor mother's work. We were always hungry, always
noisy, and always wearing out our clothes. There was always some one
ill, or some one naughty, or some one in mischief. There was the daily
hurrying off to school, and the daily hurrying home again. There was
the great getting up every morning, when all ten of us lost everything
we wanted; and the great going to bed every night, when our poor mother
used to look quite worn out and exhausted, long before we were all of
us tucked up in bed.
But through all the weeks and months and years of Salome's babyhood,
she was learning to love me more, and I was getting still more fond of
her. And the day which I shall never forget, and of which I must now
write, was Salome's fourth birthday.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]