Mr. Bond was coming home! the glad news was in Nannie's hand, and he was
even then bounding over the waters toward his lowly friends.
The room looked very sunny that morning, and the hearts of the expectant
ones danced for joy. He would be there the next week, and they must all
be there to meet him on Friday--that seemed so like a reality, to name
the very day. Pat could request a holiday of his employers, and, as for
Mrs. Minturn, she was sure to participate in all of Nannie's pleasures,
and would be ready with the permission to spend the important day at her
mother's. The greatest trouble was the intervening hours; how could they
be comfortably disposed of! they had duties enough to perform, and yet
the time went slowly and wearily; but it had an end, and a happy
one--for the kind face was before them, as fat and merry and amiable as
ever, and the immense corporosity moved about the room with as much
gravity as so jolly a person was capable of. Nobody would have suspected
that he had ever been ill, or that the shadow of a sorrow had ever
troubled him. Seated beside the window with the June air playing blandly
upon his forehead, he congratulated himself that he was once more among
his friends. What if they were humble and poor! there was a depth and
richness in their love for him that neither comes of station nor wealth,
and it sunk soothingly and gratefully into his glad heart, making it
fruitful in a pure joy.
"It is not quite so pleasant bouncing up and down at the will of the
angry waves, Nannie," said he, "as to sit quietly in this lolling-chair
with your friends all about you, I can tell you, my girl!" and he looked
at Nannie with a twinkle and a laugh, as if to say, "I'm well out of it,
though. The ocean doesn't have any mercy on a body's bones, but tosses
you about as if you were an India-rubber ball made on purpose;" added
he, bursting into a hearty roar as he caught Mrs. Bates' eye fastened
upon his rotund proportions, as if to ascertain where the bones were.
"Oh! well, my good woman," continued he, "even a porpoise couldn't stand
the bumping and thumping that we poor mortals are subject to when we
trust ourselves on shipboard. Why, I solemnly protest that I've been
pitched from my berth, many a time, quite across the cabin into my
neighbor's and back again, in a trice, and that without ceremony, too!"
The old gentleman did not seem very indignant, but smiled upon his
auditors as placidly as if there had been nothing but calm on his
homeward journey, and he did not even mind their merriment as they
pictured to themselves his robust figure bounding about like a
foot-ball.
You are in the right of it, Mr. Bond. If you are the object of an
innocent glee, it is better to join in the merry laugh, rather than to
don a severe and offended dignity. It is quite a funny thought, though,
that, amid such pitiless peltings you should escape with not even the
slightest impression upon your fleshless bones! well, there's some
comfort in being fat, you have that to console you. He doesn't look as
if he ever needed to be consoled, but I can tell you that even Mr. Bond
is not wholly exempt from the annoyances and trials of life! He has
learned how to make the best of every thing, and that is more than half
toward averting a trouble. Put a cheerful face upon the matter, it will
but make it worse to fret and frown and keep your neighbors
uncomfortable about it, besides working yourself into a teapot! Mr. Bond
crowded all the evils down into the deepest corner of his heart and
turned the key upon them, and that was the end of them. Nobody ever got
hold of and magnified them, until he felt that they were too painful for
any mortal to bear, for he kept them so close that they had not room to
breathe, and so suffocated, and he knew nothing more about them.
It was a way of Mr. Bond's--there, couldn't every body do it--there's a
certain process to go through before one can learn, and he had tried it
thoroughly, and was really a proficient in the thing. It isn't every
body that cares to learn--it is very pleasant to draw a friend into a
corner and pour into a willing and sympathizing ear all that affects one
depressingly, but it is a question whether either is benefited by the
confidence--the gloom may not only be deepened upon your own face, but
it may reflect itself upon the countenance before you also. Better
imitate the amiable and wise bachelor, and impart nothing but that which
will bring a bright gleam with it.