THE MAN WITH A STONE IN HIS HEART.
THE MAN WITH A STONE IN HIS HEART.
Once, in the suburb of a beautiful village, which in our story we will
call Heatherford, there lived an old woman whose only wealth was her
garden and her little son Elijah, or Ligie, for that was the pet name
which the fond mother gave her boy. No cottage in all the village was
brighter and prettier with pots of flowers and tidy keeping than that
belonging to Ligie’s mother. Indeed, it was no unfrequent thing to see
rich people stop their carriages and look into the garden, where the
finely cultivated vegetables looked almost as well as the flowers that
fringed the beds where they grew. At the foot of the garden, which
sloped to the south, a spring broke out of a green wall of grass,
and, escaping from the shadow of a willow-tree that grew there, ran
crookedly away, shining and laughing as far as you could see. No corn
had blades so thick and so green as that which Ligie planted and hoed,
and no poppies were so large and so red as those fringing his cornfield.
Sometimes after sunset Ligie’s mother might be seen walking down the
clean paths between the lady-slippers and the lilacs, talking to her
child in a voice low and soft, and at other times gathering rose-leaves
or hops in her white apron, scaring the birds that went early to bed,
and making them sing their good-night songs anew. When the dew came
there was contention between the rose-bushes and the hop-vines as to
which smelled the sweeter, and Ligie and his mother, as they went up
and down the paths, could never decide it; the bees loved the roses
best, but the birds swung on the hop-vines, and sung in the hop-vines
the oftenest.
Often Ligie’s mother praised the industry and skill of her little
son; but she loved him more than the beautiful garden. It is probable
that the people who admired the blossoming bean-vines and the waving
corn saw only in Ligie a homely little gardener; but to his mother no
marigold was so bright as his head, and no violet so blue as his eyes,
and the spring-water running away in sunshine was to her music less
pleasant than his laughter.
As Ligie grew older, however, it was less and less often she heard this
pleasant music; for the boy grew silent and thoughtful, and, pitiful to
relate, more and more discontented,--sometimes, indeed, he would forget
the work, and wander away to the ends of the earth in dreams.
Every day the garden seemed narrower, and every day his thoughts
flew higher and more discontentedly away. Grass was seen to grow in
places from which it had been carefully kept in former times, the
raspberry-vines to lop untied, and the strawberries to blush more and
more faintly, as Ligie bent over them less and less often.
Many a time he leaned on his hoe-handle, and, gazing wistfully--I am
afraid enviously--after some gay equipage, wished himself anywhere away
from his mother’s little garden, and out of sight of her poor little
house. He wished there were no gardens in the world, sometimes, and
sometimes that he might wake up in the morning and find his pillow a
pillow all of gold; for he thought idleness and money were the greatest
blessings that could come to anybody, and desired most of all things to
wear fine clothes, and to ride horses that were sleek and galloped over
the country fleet as the wind.
“My dear son is sick,” thought the good mother of the discontented
boy, and she gave him time and times to rest from his work, and baked
cakes for him, and made him soft beds, and kissed and petted him very
tenderly. But Ligie had been always used to her loving care, and
received it as he did the air and the other common blessings of his
life.
One day, when the customary meal of bread and milk was set before him,
he went away from the table without so much as breaking the bread; he
said to his mother he was sick, but in his heart he thought if he could
not have meat and honey he would not eat at all. Discontented with
his mother, with himself, and with everything, he cast himself on the
ground by the spring beneath the willow; but the murmur of the waters
could not silence the murmur in his heart, and the hedge of bean-vines
near by was not strong enough to keep away wicked thoughts; his hot
hands wilted the cool grass on which they lay, and his hot brain
withered and blackened all that came into it.
He saw a good many boys dressed in fine clothes, and with shining curls
down their shoulders, riding by in splendid coaches; and some of them
held up their white hands tauntingly when they saw his tawny ones lying
on the grass,--some even sneered at his garden, and said they had much
better ones at home. Among the other passers, however, there came one
day an old man that looked exceedingly sad, and who was terribly bowed
down, and who, when he saw Ligie, called to his coachman to stop; and
when his prancing horses stood still, champing their silver bits, spoke
to him in words so friendly and so strange that he knew not what to
make of it. And no wonder Ligie knew not what to make of it, for,
among other things, the old man asked him whether he would not like to
be rich, and if he would sell his garden for a piece of gold as big
as his mother’s house. Ligie said nothing would make him so happy; to
which the old man replied that he did not want the garden, but that he
would give him all the gold he wanted if he would consent to perform
for him a trifling service; and when Ligie asked what it was, and
learned that it was only the carrying of a small burden, he readily
agreed to go with the old man. It would be easier than working in the
garden, he thought,--O, anything would be easier than that! and then to
have all the gold he wanted,--surely, he could not suffer, no matter
what he had to do; so, with a bound, he sprang from the grass and into
the coach; the door closed, the silver latch shut with a snap, and his
mother’s house was hid from him forever. At first he cared very little
about this; fortune was his and the great world before him; could he
not buy a great palace if he chose, and why should he fret about a poor
little cottage in a scarcely-heard-of village? And as for the garden,
why, he should be glad never to see it; and, for all he knew, his
riches would procure him the pleasure of walking in the king’s garden,
and his roses and hops he supposed were poor affairs compared with the
king’s roses and hops; probably he should see birds as big as eagles
before nightfall,--birds that would make the little brown twitterers at
home stay there for shame; and he was surprised as they rode on and on
to meet no such birds, and to see no prettier flowers than he had left
at home.
But one thing surprised him more than the fact of meeting no birds as
big as eagles,--the old man by whose side he rode gave him no burden to
carry. At last he ventured timidly to suggest it, for he feared he was
not earning his pleasure. “By and by,” said the old man, and that was
all.
Directly, however, he began to be secretly glad that no burden was
given him, and to say in his heart, “Perhaps the old man will forget
it altogether, and I have the gold all for nothing”; for when one bad
thought got into his mind, a thousand others ran in behind it.
“What a good thing I have done,” he kept saying, as they went along;
“everybody that sees me will envy me, and won’t that make me proud and
happy!”
That night he slept in a richly-furnished chamber, where perfumes that
seemed to him sweeter than roses loaded the air, and where a brilliant
light burned at the head of the bed he slept on,--a bed greatly softer
than the one he had left at home.
In the morning a rich repast was served to him on shining plate; he had
not only meat and honey, but wine, and stronger drink than wine.
The second day an immense distance was traversed; and once or twice,
when the motion of the coach grew tiresome, Ligie thought he heard a
voice in him saying, “You might as well have stayed at home, little
boy!” And each time he drowned it by inquiring of the old man whether
he should not now take the burden agreed upon. “By and by,” the old man
said, and that was all. “He is a very strange man,” thought Ligie; and,
turning to look at him, he perceived, for the first time, that there
was no smile in his face and no light in his eyes, and that his skin
was dried like parchment and wrinkled as though it was drawn over dry
bones. His hair was very white, and it seemed to Ligie as though it had
been dead a long time. Happening to touch one of his fingers, he found
it so cold that, shivering, he shrank away. Then first the old man
smiled,--a grim, sarcastic smile, as if the child’s motion were one he
was well used to, and expected.
Ligie feared he had offended, and the mysterious voice said to him very
plainly now, “You had better have stayed at home.” “No, no,” replied
Ligie, “I am glad I came away”; but they were only words, and the
feeling of gladness was not in his heart. Then came the thought of his
mother, and with it a pain shot through his bosom,--a pain that was
not only sharp, but hot as fire. “If you please, sir, I will take the
burden,” he said; “I am getting tired of doing nothing.” The old man
smiled again, and answered, “By and by,” and that was all.
Day after day they travelled so together,--the old man silent and sad,
and the boy growing impatient, and tired of the everlasting motion and
noise of the close-shut coach in which they rode. Night after night he
slept in a soft bed, and morning after morning was served with dainties
more dainty than he had ever imagined; but after a few weeks he began
to think of the plain fare at home with regret. Then the voice laughed,
and said, “Fool that you were to come away!” and this time poor Ligie
could make no answer.
And day after day he asked the old man to allow him to carry the burden
agreed upon, and day after day the old man replied, “By and by,” and
that was all.
At last the rolling and swinging of the coach made him sick, the
healthful color went from his cheek, and all the strength he used
to have seemed to forsake him. The time was come that people looked
enviously upon him as he rode along; but so far from gratifying, it but
added to Ligie’s discomfort; no one thought of giving him love and
sympathy now, he could very well afford to do without them, so they
who saw him believed. Poor Ligie! the less he was pitied, the more he
pitied himself; and so, day after day, and week after week, he and the
old man journeyed on and on, searching for pleasure which they never
found. So weary grew Ligie at length, that he resolved to quit the old
man, who had never given him the proposed burden, but still said, “By
and by,” whenever reminded of it; and one day, seeing him asleep, and
his gray hair fallen low about his eyes, the wretched child softly
unlocked the coach-door, and made haste to be gone, or tried to make
haste, for, to his horror, he found that it was with the greatest
difficulty he could move at all. His limbs were as limbs asleep, and
his back was doubled down almost like the old man’s back.
“So ho!” exclaimed his mysterious companion, “you repent your bargain,
do you? Well, I am sorry, but a bargain is a bargain; I never fail to
fulfil mine.”
“How can you say that?” said Ligie; “have I not been with you the
longest year that was ever made, and where is the burden I was to
carry? I can’t live this way any longer, for doing nothing is the
hardest work I ever did.”
Then the old man laughed aloud, and said, “My son, you have the burden
already; it is that that weighs you down.”
“It is not true,” answered Ligie; and he unfolded his arms to convince
the old man that he had no burden; but he only shook his head
incredulously, and added, “You have it concealed; it is the way rich
people carry burdens.”
Ligie was now angry, and opened his clothing even to his bosom, to
convince the old man that he concealed nothing.
“You have it for all that,” was the reply; “and because of it you
cannot lift yourself up.”
Then Ligie grew pale, and trembled, saying, “How can I have a burden
which I cannot see?”
“Is pain the less certain because you cannot see it?” the old man said.
“I did not stipulate whether you were to carry the burden in your
arms, or on your head, or in your heart”; and he smiled a smile half
bitterness and half sadness as he spoke.
Then came the truth crushing through Ligie’s senses,--the burden was in
his heart; and covering his face with his hands, he cried a long while.
“In mercy,” said the old man, “I gave you little by little; but it was
none the less sure, and ‘By and by’ has come.”
The low voice never spoke so clearly as it spoke now, saying, “O
mistaken youth, you have sold your birthright for a mess of pottage!”
“O terrible, terrible voice, why do you torment me?” said Ligie; and
the voice answered, “Such is my work.”
After a season of despair, however, Ligie began to imagine, very
foolishly, that strong drink and strong pleasures would dissolve the
stone which he was persuaded had been wickedly gotten into his heart.
Without sorrow on the part of either, he and his friend--if friend he
might be called--took separate ways. True to his foolish imaginings, he
saw dances, and heard music, and drank wine, and stronger drink than
wine, and bought great houses and much land, gazed on fine pictures,
some of them painted by the greatest artists in the world; but, through
all, Ligie remembered his mother’s little house and garden with
painful regret, and over all he heard the low voice reproaching him.
He even came to walk in the king’s garden, and to speak familiarly
with princes; but they seemed to him not unlike other men, and even
for their praises he felt none the better, but, while they smiled,
often found his thoughts travelling away to the obscure village of
Heatherford, and when he drank wine it seemed to him not so sweet as
the cool water of his mother’s well.
All his childish dream was fulfilled,--he had waked to find his pillow
a pillow of gold; but he would gladly have given it for the pillow
of common down which his mother’s hands used to make so pleasant;
nevertheless, something held him back. Was he ashamed to have his rich
friends know that he was born in a low, little house, and that his
mother was a poor woman? I am afraid so.
Years and years went by, and the little gardener was a little gardener
no more; and thicker than the years crowded upon each other crowded the
wrinkles in his face; and before the pleasure he sought was found, his
hair grew white as the frost, and his step slow as the sloth.
Celebrated waters he plunged into, and hired with much gold physicians
of great repute to treat his malady, which, in spite of all their
skill, grew only the worse; indeed, it seemed to Ligie sometimes that
the stone in his heart was grown to be a mountain.
And all the night and all the day the voice within him said to him,
“Go home, Ligie”; and all the night and all the day Ligie said to
the voice, “At the new year, or in the spring-time, or when the
leaves fall, I will go.” And still, as he sailed in vessels or rode
on cushions, his prayer was for the feet of his lost youth and the
strength of his lost youth, to walk as he used to do. Often he tried to
walk, feeling his way along with a stick; but he fancied he frightened
the birds and spoiled their songs, for sure was he they sang not as
they used to sing among the sweet-smelling hops of his mother’s garden.
The little boys that were laughing and kicking up the dust stopped
their playing as he came near, and gazed on him with eyes full of fear,
instead of sunshine. If flowers fringed the wayside, their tops seemed
dusty and dry, and not dewy and sweet as they used to be. The young
girl who sat singing her ditty at the window, when she saw his frowning
visage and bent form, drew in her breath and her music, and hastily
pulled down the sash.
The very cattle ran away from him, stopping not till the width of the
meadow in which they pastured was between themselves and him. The hens
left their peeping broods and crept away, afraid to fly at him as they
did at the urchin who plagued them.
Seeing the sorry effect he had upon bird and beast, he grew more and
more dissatisfied, and the burden in his heart weighed heavier and
heavier upon him.
Something like the shadow of gladness passed over him, when in a valley
before him he saw rising the spires of a quiet village. “I will abide
here,” he said, “and try if the air will not soften this terrible
stone.” So he hired a house, and physicians, and attendants, and made
himself a home, but found little of the peace he sought. Consternation
ran up and down the streets, when it was known among the people that an
old man with a stone in his heart would thenceforth abide among them,
for the physicians pronounced his malady not only incurable, but the
most infectious of all diseases; so the attendants he had went away
from him, and all his gold could not hire others in their places. In
vain he sought religious comfort; the clergyman to whom he applied was
of the opinion that Ligie had not only a stone in his heart, but that
he had a demon there, into the bargain; and this was certainly poor
consolation.
Then the doctors resolved that the poor man should not go abroad any
more, for there was never such fright as the stone and the demon
occasioned.
When the doomed man was informed of the verdict, he said it was just
and right, and he furthermore admitted that when he listened he
could hear a voice within him that condemned him. Then the wise men
recommended entire abstinence from all exertion of mind and body, and
constant listening to the condemning voice, with as much meditation on
the stone as possible.
And all the people exclaimed, “Yea, verily, these physicians are wiser
men than till now we knew them to be!” and their fame stood before them
like a light that made common people almost afraid.
Poor Ligie submitted patiently to the treatment, and also to separation
from all human society, and found all the satisfaction he had in
hugging his woes. However, he grew no better. Sometimes he would creep
to his windows, and indulge in the harmless occupation of looking into
the sunshine; but this habit was no sooner discovered than it was
resolved by the people that the man with the stone in his heart should
be put in irons for the first offence, and that for the second he
should be imprisoned for life.
“He has already offended twice,” said one of the most fearful; and upon
himself he took the administration of justice, and, stealing to the old
man’s house in the night, secured the door with a ponderous bar.
It was dreadful to hear the prisoner’s moans after that; no one who
heard them once could be induced to go near him again; so he lay
moaning and groaning to himself. Some of the more superstitious
believed it was the demon that cried, and not the man himself; but
there were some who thought a stone in the heart was enough to make
anybody moan.
“We shall have to break his heart, and so free it from the stone,” said
the surgeon; and but for an accident it is likely the cruel suggestion
might have been carried out.
An old woman, residing in the suburbs of the town, remarkable for
nothing but industry, modesty, and strong common sense, chanced to come
near this old man’s house one stormy midnight, as she was returning
home from having dressed a corpse. She had gone abroad so little, and
been so given to minding her own affairs, that she had never once heard
of the old man with a stone in his heart, and came fearlessly to the
very door. The moon shone bright and friendly through the chinks, and
as she peeped in she saw the glitter of two eyes that looked like the
eyes of a famished wolf.
In vain the prisoner cried out to her to flee away, saying he had a
great stone in his heart, and was possessed of a demon; the assertion
sounded so much like nonsense to the ears of the old woman, she refused
to go, and furthermore the glitter of the man’s eyes told plainly
enough that he was starving; so, notwithstanding his entreaties that
she should leave him to his fate, and save herself, she made haste to
unbar the door, and, walking straight to the straw where he lay, bade
him arise and go with her.
At first he refused, saying that he had a stone in his heart, and a
demon in his bosom, and that to go with her was impossible.
[Illustration: THE MAN WITH A STONE IN HIS HEART.]
“Ah, yes,” said the old woman, “I see how it is,” for she knew that
too much brooding on light afflictions will sometimes produce heavy
ones, and was resolved to humor his disease in order to cure it. “I
know a great witch who can cure you,” she said; “there is not a doubt
of it; she has brought many back to health and happiness, whose minds
were gone far astray, and whose feet were near the borders of the
grave. Rise quickly, and come along with me.”
The old man lifted himself on one elbow, and said he had tried all
remedies in vain, and that he had no courage for a new trial; but
though he said he had no courage, he smiled faintly, and felt a very
little courage.
“Ah, it is not such medicine as you have been used to with which the
witch cures,” said the old woman; “it is with a charm known only to
herself, said to be the pleasantest thing in the world.”
She spoke hopefully and cheerfully, and the man answered, “Let us go to
her at once,” and he arose, and looked with shining, hungry eyes close
in the old woman’s face; and, taking his limber, weak, and worthless
hands in hers, she led him out of his miserable den, and they took
their way together through the village, and struck into a sweet-scented
clover-field, lighted by the clearest and brightest of moons.
As they went along, Ligie told of the many things he had suffered in
the hope of cure, and that withal he had grown worse and worse, till
he had come to be the miserable creature she beheld.
At first the old woman was obliged to walk very slowly; but gradually
she quickened her steps, and, unaware, her companion quickened his,
too; and as he walked faster and faster he straightened himself more,
and when they reached the nice little home where the woman lived he
stood nearly upright.
The first care of the nurse was to feed her patient with plain but
wholesome and nutritious food; and this done, she made him a bed, very
clean and comfortable, where he slept soundly till morning.
His first inquiry on waking was for the witch, and his first desire was
for an immediate interview.
“The witch lives a good way off,” said the nurse, “and to leave home
for so long a journey, I must needs make some preparation; and if you
will consent to help a little, only a very little, I shall be ready so
much the sooner.”
Ligie said he had not done a chore for years; nevertheless, he would
attempt whatever task she would set for the sake of being brought so
much the sooner to the witch. So the old woman took him to the garden,
and set him to weeding the beds there; and as he worked he gained
strength to work, so before noon the garden-beds were as clean as they
could be.
When the old woman came out and saw what he had done, she was well
pleased, and said she had never found so good a gardener in her life;
and she added, “We will soon be ready for the journey at this rate.”
Ligie was a good deal tired and a little hungry with the work, and
when the nurse brought a platter containing bread and fruit and meat,
and placed it on a bench that stood in a shady place, he quite forgot
in the enjoyment of it the stone in his heart; and after the meal he
forgot it for an hour longer in the pleasant sleep that came to him as
he lay on the cool, grassy bed that Nature had made for him.
Toward sunset the old woman appeared, and directed her patient to cut
off all the ends of the bean-vines that were trailing from the tops of
the poles toward the ground.
When Ligie hesitated, and said he could not lift himself up for such
work, she encouraged him to believe that he might straighten himself
sufficiently for the task, and assured him of the impossibility of
making the journey to the witch’s house till the bean-vines were
attended to. Hearing this, he lifted himself up, and began to clip off
the ends of the bean-vines. They were sweet with blossoms, reminding
him of the old garden at home; and in the interest of his occupation,
he thought nothing about the terrible crook in his back, and when at
last he felt for it, it was gone.
He began now to think his hostess was the witch who had charmed the
stone out of his heart, and from that time manifested no unwillingness
to do whatever she bade.
Day by day she set him harder tasks, professing all the time when such
a tree was felled, and such a field ploughed, or the orchard-trees
pruned, or some other task accomplished, she would journey with him
to the witch’s house. But the work stretched itself out before Ligie
as far as he could see; for while he gathered apples he saw the corn
ripening, and of itself breaking out of the husk; and as he thought
more about his work he thought less about the witch, and finally began
to conclude there was no such thing in the world as a witch.
At last the heap in the crib was rounded up with the last golden ears,
the oxen turned loose among the corn-stalks, and a bright wood-fire
made on the hearth of the good old woman’s house. In the middle of the
floor the table was spread with pumpkin-pies, and apple-tarts, and
sweetcakes, and all the variety which a country housewife knows so
well how to provide. All the friends of the old woman had been invited
to rejoice with her over the restoration of her patient; but, strange
to say, where one came there were a dozen who stayed away, for they
now feared the harmless old woman as much as they had formerly feared
Ligie. If he was cured of stone in the heart, she must be a witch,
that was all; so hard is it for us to believe in the virtue of simple
things, and that we have only to wash and be clean. If Ligie had done
some great thing, then it would have been easy to believe.
“O, if my mother were here to rejoice with me, how happy I should
be!” sighed Ligie, as he concluded reflections not unlike what I have
written; “for though I am old and worn and weary, I might yet do much
good; but how much more might I have done if in youth I had improved my
opportunities, instead of wasting them in vain and foolish dreaming and
repining,--dreaming of impossible things, and repining that good things
were not the best things!”
Then in his mind he made a picture of his mother’s little house he had
once so come to despise, and of the garden he had grown so tired of,
and it seemed to him that the king’s garden was not half so beautiful,
that Eden itself could not have been so beautiful. In the light of
memory the loveliness, which in reality he had failed to see, came out
clear and distinct, and he marvelled that he could have received such
blessings and been so unconscious of them.
Tears came to his eyes, and in the anguish of repentance he wept
aloud, saying over and over, “O, to have back my lost youth!” Then it
was he seemed to hear, between his sobbings, a voice like his mother’s,
saying, “My son, my dear, little son!”
A thrill of joy ran through him, which was as if all the heavens had
opened, and in the rapture of the moment he awoke,--for he had been all
this time in a dream,--awoke to find himself little Ligie, and to see
the sunset shadows on the water of the spring, that flowed from its
fountain under the willow-tree, by which he remembered to have thrown
himself at noonday. But when he was fully awake the thrill of joy kept
still thrilling through his bosom; it was not all a dream; he heard the
sweet voice of his mother still saying, “My dear, little son,” and all
the beauty he had seen shining so clearly in the light of memory he saw
shining all round about him.
Over a bank of golden clouds the sun was peeping and smiling his
good-night, the birds were hushing in the hop-vines and under the
roses, and under his feet the grass was cool and green as it could be.
In the distance stood dark, leafy woods, with cows and sheep and lambs
feeding along the hills.
But the brightest spot of all the picture was the little house under
the apple-tree, and with the morning-glory at the window, and the red
creepers over the porch, where stood his mother smiling, and calling,
“Ligie, my son, my dear, little son!”
You may be sure he lingered not long even for the sake of the beautiful
landscape, glorified as it was by the last red light of the day, and
the first white light of the stars, but ran at once up the smooth
path between the lilacs and lady-slippers, answering, “I am coming,
mother, I am coming!” it was as if he had new feet and new hands and
new senses; as if a new world had been made about him; as if, indeed,
a great stone had been taken out of his heart. There was the table
spread in the middle of the floor with cakes and apple-tarts and meat
and milk, just as he had dreamed, and his hair was all unfaded, and his
limbs strong and full of health.
What more could he have? Nothing, nothing. Ligie felt this, and
clasping his hands, he bowed his head, and said, “How good God is, and
how unmindful and bad we are!”
And seeing how his spirit was changed, his mother inquired of him what
had happened; and when he told her all his dream, and his thoughts
previous to the dream, they laughed and wept together, and wished that
everybody could have such a dream, and learn by it to appreciate the
blessings they have, rather than mourn for those they have not; and
to work with willing hands and a resolute will in whatever field their
portion may be cast.
CATY JANE.
One summer morning, as I walked
Along a shady lane,
I met a black-eyed little girl,
Whose name was Caty Jane.
She had a pretty basket full
Of blossoms blue and white,
And when I asked her where she went,
She hid her face from sight;
And sitting where the clover grew
So sweet and thick and red,
She said, “I had a sister once
Who loved me, and is dead;
“And yonder, to the slope on which
You see the willows wave,
I’m going with my flowers, for there
Is little Annie’s grave.
“Her goodness and her gentleness
I oftentimes forgot;
She never said an unkind word,--
I wish that I had not.
“We had a play-house once, beside
This very shady lane;
I wish it never had been made,”
Said little Caty Jane.
“’T was carpeted with grass, and weeds
Were piled to make the walls;
The beds were spread with burdock-leaves,
And mother gave us dolls.
“We had some broken cups, and had
Some skeins of thread, I know,
And sometimes we pretended we
Were women, and would sew;
“And often I would visit her,
And she would come again,
And make believe to visit me,”
Said little Caty Jane.
“One day, when cloudily the sun
Was going down the hill,
Dear Annie said, ‘We must go home,’
The wind was growing chill.
“And when she wrapt her apron round
Her neck and shoulders bare,
I laughed, and called her grandmamma,
And said it wasn’t fair
“That she should run away, nor care
For playing, nor for me.
‘O Caty Jane,’ said Annie, then,
‘I’m cold as I can be.’
“‘It seems as if no fire nor quilt
Could make me warm again.’
And, sure enough, they never did,”
Said little Caty Jane.
“She said that more and more her head
Kept aching all the while,
And from her hands the playthings fell,
But still she tried to smile.
“And when the moon came up and shone
So cold across the floor,
She said that we would never play
Together any more.
“‘Well, if you feel so very bad,
Do let’s go home,’ said I,
‘That you may have a chance to make
Your will before you die.’
“And so I ran and left her in
Our play-house by the lane,
And ran the faster when she called,
‘Don’t leave me, Caty Jane.’
“And sitting by the warm wood-fire,
In little Annie’s chair,
I fell asleep, and woke in fright,--
My sister wasn’t there.
“‘She must be in a neighbor’s house,’
My mother said; but I
Hid in her lap my face, and cried
As hard as I could cry;
“And told her I had left her in
Our play-house by the lane;
And there they found her, sure enough,”
Said little Caty Jane,
“Lying upon the frozen ground,
As cold as cold could be;
And when I called her pretty names
She did not speak to me.
“But with pale cheek and shut eyes lay
Upon our little bed.
And when the sun arose at morn,”
Poor mourning Caty said,
“I called her to get up, and kissed
Her cheek to make her wake;
And when she did not speak nor smile,
I thought my heart would break.
“I brought my playthings and my dolls,
And laid them on the bed,
And told her they were hers to keep,”
Poor little Caty said.
“And, waiting there in fear and doubt,
They softly kissed my brow,
And told me I must live without
My sister Annie, now.
“O then I knew how dear she was,”
Said little Caty Jane,
“And thought if she could be alive,
And play with me again,
“I’d say a thousand things to her
That I had never said.
’T was easy work to think kind words
To say when she was dead.”
And with her eyes brimful of tears,
She went along the lane;
No sister now had she to love,--
Poor little Caty Jane!
Seeing how very long she stayed
By Annie’s lonesome bed,
I thought, If other little girls,
Whose sisters are not dead,
Could know how blest they are, and see
The sad look Caty wore,
They never would be heard to speak
A cross word any more.
For we must do to others just
As we would be done by,
If we would learn to live in peace,
Or peacefully to die.
THE STREET BEGGAR.
Shake not your glossy curls with a “No,”
As you sit in the warm and rosy glow
’Twixt your hearth and pictured wall;
Ah, my lady, you do not know
How folk feel with their feet in the snow,
And no bright fire at all.
A sixpence! that you will never miss;
See what a baby you have to kiss,
Honor and wealth to prove;
Ah, my lady, you cannot guess
How folk feel in a night like this,
With no little child to love.
From house to house I have gone all day,--
“Nothing for beggars,” is all they say,
Though a banquet waiting stands;
Ah, you never have known the way
Poor folk feel when their heads are gray
And palsy shaking their hands.
For sake of charity say not “No.”
I am almost famished,--I cannot go,--
I must steal or starve,--and why?
Because, my lady, you do not know
How folk feel with their feet in the snow,
Turned out from your fires to die.
EVIL CHANCE.
When falls the hour of evil chance,--
And hours of evil chance will fall,--
Strike, though with but a broken lance,--
Strike, though you have no lance at all.
Shrink not, whate’er the odds may be,--
Shrink not, however dark the hour,--
The barest possibility
Of good deserves your utmost power.
PLEA FOR THE BOYS.
Young men must work, and old men rest,
They have earned their quiet joys;
And everywhere, from east to west,
The boys must still be boys.
They do not want your larger sight,
Nor want your wisdom grim:
The boy has right to the boy’s delight,
And play is the work for him.
The idle day is the evil day,
And work in its time is right;
But he that wrestles best in the play
Will wrestle best in the fight.
Then do not, as their hour runs by,
Their harmless pleasures clip;
For he that sails his kite to the sky
May sometime sail a ship.
And soon enough the years will steal
Their mood of frolic joys;
So keep your shoulder to the wheel,
And let the boys be boys.
WORK.
Down and up and up and down,--
Over and over and over,--
Turn in the little seed, dry and brown,
Turn out the bright red clover!
Work, and the sun your work will share,
And the rain in its time will fall,
For Nature, she worketh everywhere,
And the grace of God through all.
With hand on the spade and heart in the sky,
Dress the ground and till it;
Turn in the little seed, brown and dry,
Turn out the golden millet;
Work, and your house shall be duly fed,
Work, and rest shall be won;
I hold that a man had better be dead
Than alive, when his work is done!
Down and up and up and down,
On the hill-top, low in the valley;
Turn in the little seed, dry and brown,
Turn out the rose and the lily.
Work with a plan, or without a plan,
And your ends they shall be shaped true;
Work, and learn at first-hand, like a man,
The best way to _know_ is to _do_!
Down and up till life shall close,
Ceasing not your praises;
Turn in the wild, white, winter snows,
Turn out the sweet, spring daisies.
Work, and the sun your work will share,
And the rain in its time will fall,
For Nature, she worketh everywhere,
And the grace of God through all.
COUNSEL.
Though sin hath marked thy brother’s brow,
Love him in sin’s despite,
But for his darkness, haply thou
Hadst never known the light.
Be thou an angel to his life,
And not a demon grim;
Since with himself he is at strife,
O be at peace with him.
Speak gently of his evil ways,
And all his pleas allow;
For since he knows not why he strays
From virtue, how shouldst thou?
Love him, though all thy love he slights,
For ah, thou canst not say
But that his prayerless days and nights
Have taught thee how to pray.
Outside themselves all things have laws,
The atom and the sun;
Thou art thyself, perhaps, the cause
Of sins which he has done.
If guiltless thou, why surely then
Thy place is by his side,--
It was for sinners, not just men,
That Christ the Saviour died.
THE END.
Cambridge: Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Inconsistencies in capitalization after question and exclamation marks,
have been left unchanged.
Some portions of the front matter have been rewrapped for readability.
Page 17: misprinted punctuation removed.
Page 52: typo in “rabbit-skin” corrected.
Page 67: missing apostrophe added.
Page 95: indentation corrected for “With heads that are growing gray.”
Page 118: missing period in header restored.
Page 198: missing closing quote added.