older boy had been playmates. The little boy, unaware of his comrade's
departure, had stolen away, late in the afternoon, along the lonely
stretch of wood road, and had reached the cabin only to find it empty.
As the dusk gathered, he grew afraid to start for home and crept
trembling into the cabin, whose door would not stay shut. Desperate with
fear and loneliness, he lifted up his voice piteously. In the terrifying
silence, he listened hard to hear if anyone or anything were coming.
Then again his shrill childish wailings arose, startling the unexpectant
night, and piercing the forest depths, even to the ears of two great
panthers which had set forth to seek their meat from God.
The lonely cabin stood some distance, perhaps a quarter of a mile, back
from the highway connecting the settlements. Along this main road a man
was plodding wearily. All day he had been walking, and now as he neared
home his steps began to quicken with anticipation of rest. Over his
shoulder projected a double-barrelled fowling-piece, from which was
slung a bundle of such necessities as he had purchased in town that
morning. It was the prosperous settler, the master of the frame house,
who had chosen to make the tedious journey on foot.
He passed the mouth of the wood road leading to the cabin and had gone
perhaps a furlong beyond, when his ears were startled by the sound of a
child crying in the woods. He stopped, lowered his burden to the road,
and stood straining ears and eyes in the direction of the sound. It was
just at this time that the two panthers also stopped, and lifted their
heads to listen. Their ears were keener than those of the man, and the
sound had reached them at a greater distance.
Presently the settler realized whence the cries were coming. He called
to mind the cabin; but he did not know the cabin's owner had departed.
He cherished a hearty contempt for the drunken squatter; and on the
drunken squatter's child he looked with small favour, especially as a
playmate for his own boy. Nevertheless he hesitated before resuming his
journey.
"Poor little fellow!" he muttered, half in wrath. "I reckon his precious
father's drunk down at 'the Corners,' and him crying for loneliness!"
Then he re-shouldered his burden and strode on doggedly.
But louder, shriller, more hopeless and more appealing, arose the
childish voice, and the settler paused again, irresolute, and with
deepening indignation. In his fancy he saw the steaming supper his wife
would have awaiting him. He loathed the thought of retracing his steps,
and then stumbling a quarter of a mile through the stumps and bog of the
wood road. He was foot-sore as well as hungry, and he cursed the
vagabond squatter with serious emphasis; but in that wailing was a
terror which would not let him go on. He thought of his own little one
left in such a position, and straightway his heart melted. He turned,
dropped his bundle behind some bushes, grasped his gun, and made speed
back for the cabin.
"Who knows," he said to himself, "but that drunken idiot has left his
youngster without a bite to eat in the whole miserable shanty? Or maybe
he's locked out, and the poor little beggar's half scared to death.
_Sounds_ as if he was scared;" and at this thought the settler quickened
his pace.
As the hungry panthers drew near the cabin, and the cries of the lonely
child grew clearer, they hastened their steps, and their eyes opened to
a wider circle, flaming with a greener fire. It would be thoughtless
superstition to say the beasts were cruel. They were simply keen with
hunger, and alive with the eager passion of the chase. They were not
ferocious with any anticipation of battle, for they knew the voice was
the voice of a child, and something in the voice told them the child was
solitary. Theirs was no hideous or unnatural rage, as it is the custom
to describe it. They were but seeking with the strength, the cunning,
the deadly swiftness given them to that end, the food convenient for
them. On their success in accomplishing that for which nature had so
exquisitely designed them, depended not only their own, but the lives of
their blind and helpless young, now whimpering in the cave on the slope
of the moon-lit ravine. They crept through a wet alder thicket, bounded
lightly over the ragged brush fence, and paused to reconnoitre on the
edge of the clearing, in the full glare of the moon. At the same moment,
the settler emerged from the darkness of the wood road on the opposite
side of the clearing. He saw the two great beasts, heads down and snouts
thrust forward, gliding toward the open cabin door.
For a few moments the child had been silent. Now his voice rose again in
pitiful appeal, a very ecstasy of loneliness and terror. There was a
note in the cry that shook the settler's soul. He had a vision of his
own boy, at home with his mother, safe-guarded from even the thought of
peril. And here was this little one left to the wild beasts! "Thank God!
Thank God I came!" murmured the settler, as he dropped on one knee to
take a surer aim. There was a loud report (not like the sharp crack of a
rifle), and the female panther, shot through the loins, fell in a heap,
snarling furiously and striking with her fore-paws.
The male walked around her in fierce and anxious amazement. Presently,
as the smoke lifted, he discerned the settler kneeling for a second
shot. With a high screech of fury, the lithe brute sprang upon his
enemy, taking a bullet full in his chest without seeming to know he was
hit. Ere the man could slip in another cartridge the beast was upon him,
bearing him to the ground and fixing keen fangs in his shoulder. Without
a word, the man set his strong fingers desperately into the brute's
throat, wrenched himself partly free, and was struggling to rise, when
the panther's body collapsed upon him all at once, a dead weight which
he easily flung aside. The bullet had done its work just in time.
Quivering from the swift and dreadful contest, bleeding profusely from
his mangled shoulder, the settler stepped up to the cabin door and
peered in. He heard sobs in the darkness.
"Don't be scared, sonny," he said, in a reassuring voice. "I'm going to
take you home along with me. Poor little lad, _I'll_ look after you, if
folks that ought to don't."
Out of the dark corner came a shout of delight, in a voice which made
the settler's heart stand still. "_Daddy_, Daddy," it said, "I _knew_
you'd come. I was so frightened when it got dark!" And a little figure
launched itself into the settler's arms, and clung to him trembling. The
man sat down on the threshold and strained the child to his breast. He
remembered how near he had been to disregarding the far-off cries, and
great beads of sweat broke out upon his forehead.
Not many weeks afterwards the settler was following the fresh trail of a
bear which had killed his sheep. The trail led him at last along the
slope of a deep ravine, from whose bottom came the brawl of a swollen
and obstructed stream. In the ravine he found a shallow cave, behind a
great white rock. The cave was plainly a wild beast's lair, and he
entered circumspectly. There were bones scattered about, and on some dry
herbage in the deepest corner of the den, he found the dead bodies of
two small panther cubs.
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS: "Earth's Enigmas."
(Adapted)
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, "_Thou must_,"
The youth replies, "_I can_."
EMERSON
A SONG OF THE SEA
The Sea! the Sea! the open Sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions 'round;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.
I'm on the Sea! I'm on the Sea!
I am where I would ever be;
With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go;
If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? _I_ shall ride and sleep.
I love (oh! _how_ I love) to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west blasts do blow.
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great Sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she _was_ and _is_ to me;
For I was born on the open Sea.
The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the Ocean-child!
I've lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a sailor's life,
With wealth to spend, and a power to range,
But never have sought nor sighed for change;
And Death whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wide unbounded Sea!
B. W. PROCTER: ("Barry Cornwall")
LITTLE DAFFYDOWNDILLY
"I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty;
I woke, and found that life was duty."
Daffydowndilly was so called because in his nature he resembled a
flower, and loved to do only what was beautiful and agreeable, and took
no delight in labour of any kind. But while Daffydowndilly was yet a
little boy, his mother sent him away from his pleasant home, and put him
under the care of a very strict schoolmaster, who went by the name of
Mr. Toil. Those who knew him best affirmed that this Mr. Toil was a
very worthy character; and that he had done more good, both to children
and grown people, than anybody else in the world.
Certainly he had lived long enough to do a great deal of good; for, if
all stories be true, he had dwelt upon earth ever since Adam was driven
from the garden of Eden.
Nevertheless, Mr. Toil had a severe and ugly countenance, especially for
such little boys or big men as were inclined to be idle; his voice, too,
was harsh; and all his ways and customs seemed very disagreeable to our
friend Daffydowndilly. The whole day long this terrible schoolmaster sat
at his desk overlooking the scholars, or stalked about the school-room
with a certain awful birch rod in his hand. Now came a rap over the
shoulders of a boy whom Mr. Toil had caught at play; now he punished a
whole class who were behindhand with their lessons; and, in short,
unless a lad chose to attend quietly and constantly to his book, he had
no chance of enjoying a quiet moment in the school-room of Mr. Toil.
"This will never do for me," thought Daffydowndilly.
Now the whole of Daffydowndilly's life had hitherto been passed with his
dear mother, who had a much sweeter face than old Mr. Toil, and who had
always been very indulgent to her little boy. No wonder, therefore, that
poor Daffydowndilly found it a woeful change to be sent away from the
good lady's side and put under the care of this ugly-visaged
schoolmaster, who never gave him any apples or cakes, and seemed to
think that little boys were created only to get lessons.
"I can't bear it any longer," said Daffydowndilly to himself, when he
had been at school about a week. "I'll run away and try to find my dear
mother; and, at any rate, I shall never find anybody half so
disagreeable as this old Mr. Toil!"
So the very next morning, off started poor Daffydowndilly, and began his
rambles about the world, with only some bread and cheese for his
breakfast, and very little pocket-money to pay his expenses. But he had
gone only a short distance when he overtook a man of grave and sedate
appearance, who was trudging at a moderate pace along the road.
"Good-morning, my lad," said the stranger; and his voice seemed hard and
severe, but yet had a sort of kindness in it. "Whence do you come so
early, and whither are you going?"
Little Daffydowndilly was a boy of a very ingenuous disposition, and had
never been known to tell a lie in all his life. Nor did he tell one now.
He hesitated a moment or two, but finally confessed that he had run away
from school, on account of his great dislike for Mr. Toil; and that he
was resolved to find some place in the world where he should never see
or hear of the old schoolmaster again.
"Oh, very well, my little friend!" answered the stranger. "Then we will
go together; for I, likewise, have had a good deal to do with Mr. Toil,
and should be glad to find some place where he was never heard of."
Our friend Daffydowndilly would have been better pleased with a
companion of his own age, with whom he might have gathered flowers along
the road-side, or have chased butterflies, or have done many other
things to make the journey pleasant. But he had wisdom enough to
understand that he should get along through the world much easier by
having a man of experience to show him the way. So he accepted the
stranger's proposal, and they walked on very sociably together.
They had not gone far, when the road passed by a field where some
haymakers were at work, mowing down the tall grass and spreading it out
in the sun to dry. Daffydowndilly was delighted with the sweet smell of
the new-mown grass, and thought how much pleasanter it must be to make
hay in the sunshine under the blue sky, and with the birds singing
sweetly in the neighbouring trees and bushes, than to be shut up in a
dismal school-room, learning lessons all day long, and continually
scolded by old Mr. Toil. But, in the midst of these thoughts, while he
was stopping to peep over the stone wall, he started back and caught
hold of his companion's hand.
"Quick, quick!" cried he. "Let us run away, or he will catch us!"
"Who will catch us?" asked the stranger.
"Mr. Toil, the old schoolmaster!" answered Daffydowndilly. "Don't you
see him amongst the haymakers?"
And Daffydowndilly pointed to an elderly man, who seemed to be the owner
of the field, and the employer of the men at work there. He had stripped
off his coat and waistcoat, and was busily at work in his shirt sleeves.
The drops of sweat stood upon his brow; but he gave himself not a
moment's rest, and kept crying out to the haymakers to make hay while
the sun shone. Now, strange to say, the figure and features of this old
farmer were precisely the same as those of old Mr. Toil, who, at that
very moment, must have been just entering his school-room.
"Don't be afraid," said the stranger. "This is not Mr. Toil, the
schoolmaster, but a brother of his, who was bred a farmer; and the
people say he is the more disagreeable man of the two. However, he won't
trouble you unless you become a labourer on the farm."
Little Daffydowndilly believed what his companion said, but he was very
glad, nevertheless, when they were out of sight of the old farmer, who
bore such a singular resemblance to Mr. Toil. The two travellers had
gone but little farther, when they came to a spot where some carpenters
were erecting a house. Daffydowndilly begged his companion to stop a
moment; for it was a very pretty sight to see how neatly the carpenters
did their work, with their broad-axes and saws, and planes, and hammers,
shaping out the doors, and putting in the window-sashes, and nailing on
the clap-boards; and he could not help thinking that he should like to
take a broad-axe, a saw, a plane, and a hammer, and build a little house
for himself. And then, when he should have a house of his own, old Mr.
Toil would never dare to molest him.
But, just while he was delighting himself with this idea, little
Daffydowndilly beheld something that made him catch hold of his
companion's hand, all in a fright.
"Make haste. Quick, quick!" cried he. "There he is again!" "Who?" asked
the stranger, very quietly.
"Old Mr. Toil," said Daffydowndilly, trembling.
"There! he that is overseeing the carpenters. 'Tis my old schoolmaster,
as sure as I'm alive!"
The stranger cast his eyes where Daffydowndilly pointed his finger; and
he saw an elderly man, with a carpenter's rule and compass in his hand.
This person went to and fro about the unfinished house, measuring pieces
of timber and marking out the work that was to be done, and continually
exhorting the other carpenters to be diligent. And wherever he turned
his hard and wrinkled visage, the men seemed to feel that they had a
task-master over them, and sawed, and hammered, and planed, as if for
dear life.
"Oh, no! this is not Mr. Toil, the schoolmaster," said the stranger. "It
is another brother of his, who follows the trade of carpenter."
"I am very glad to hear it," quoth Daffydowndilly; "but if you please,
sir, I should like to get out of his way as soon as possible."
Then they went on a little farther, and soon heard the sound of a drum
and fife. Daffydowndilly pricked up his ears at this, and besought his
companion to hurry forward, that they might not miss seeing the
soldiers. Accordingly they made what haste they could, and soon met a
company of soldiers gaily dressed, with beautiful feathers in their
caps, and bright muskets on their shoulders. In front marched two
drummers and two fifers, beating on their drums and making such lively
music that little Daffydowndilly would gladly have followed them to the
end of the world. And if he was only a soldier, then, he said to
himself, old Mr. Toil would never venture to look him in the face.
"Quick step! Forward march!" shouted a gruff voice.
Little Daffydowndilly started, in great dismay; for this voice which had
spoken to the soldiers sounded precisely the same as that which he had
heard every day in Mr. Toil's school-room, out of Mr. Toil's own mouth.
And, turning his eyes to the captain of the company, what should he see
but the very image of old Mr. Toil himself, with a smart cap and feather
on his head, a pair of gold epaulets on his shoulders, a laced coat on
his back, a purple sash round his waist, and a long sword, instead of a
birch rod, in his hand. And though he held his head so high, and
strutted like a turkey-cock, still he looked quite as ugly and
disagreeable as when he was hearing lessons in the school-room.
"This is certainly old Mr. Toil," said Daffydowndilly, in a trembling
voice. "Let us run away for fear he should make us enlist in his
company!"
"You are mistaken again, my little friend," replied the stranger, very
composedly. "This is not Mr. Toil, the schoolmaster, but a brother of
his, who has served in the army all his life. People say he's a terribly
severe fellow; but you and I need not be afraid of him."
"Well, well," said little Daffydowndilly, "but if you please, sir, I
don't want to see the soldiers any more."
So the child and the stranger resumed their journey; and, by and by,
they came to a house by the road-side, where a number of people were
making merry. Young men and rosy-cheeked girls, with smiles on their
faces, were dancing to the sound of a fiddle. It was the pleasantest
sight that Daffydowndilly had yet met with, and it comforted him for all
his disappointments.
"Oh, let us stop here," cried he to his companion; "for Mr. Toil will
never dare to show his face where there is a fiddler, and where people
are dancing and making merry. We shall be quite safe here!"
But these last words died away upon Daffydowndilly's tongue; for,
happening to cast his eyes on the fiddler, whom should he behold again
but the likeness of Mr. Toil, holding a fiddle-bow instead of a birch
rod, and flourishing it with as much ease and dexterity as if he had
been a fiddler all his life! He had somewhat the air of a Frenchman, but
still looked exactly like the old schoolmaster; and Daffydowndilly even
fancied that he nodded and winked at him, and made signs for him to join
in the dance.
"Oh, dear me!" whispered he, turning pale, "it seems as if there was
nobody but Mr. Toil in the world. Who could have thought of his playing
on a fiddle!"
"This is not your old schoolmaster," observed the stranger, "but another
brother of his, who was bred in France, where he learned the profession
of a fiddler. He is ashamed of his family, and generally calls himself
Monsieur le Plaisir; but his real name is Toil, and those who have known
him best think him still more disagreeable than his brothers."
"Oh, take me back!--take me back!" cried poor little Daffydowndilly,
bursting into tears. "If there is nothing but Toil all the world over, I
may just as well go back to the school-house!"
"Yonder it is,--there is the school-house!" said the stranger, for
though he and Daffydowndilly had taken a great many steps, they had
travelled in a circle instead of a straight line. "Come; we will go back
to school together."
There was something in his companion's voice that little Daffydowndilly
now remembered, and it is strange that he had not remembered it sooner.
Looking up into his face, behold! there again was the likeness of old
Mr. Toil; so that the poor child had been in company with Toil all day,
even while he was doing his best to run away from him. Some people, to
whom I have told little Daffydowndilly's story, are of the opinion that
old Mr. Toil was a magician, and possessed the power of multiplying
himself into as many shapes as he saw fit.
Be this as it may, little Daffydowndilly had learned a good lesson, and
from that time forward was diligent at his task, because he knew that
diligence is not a whit more toilsome than sport or idleness. And when
he became better acquainted with Mr. Toil, he began to think that his
ways were not so very disagreeable, and that the old schoolmaster's
smile of approbation made his face almost as pleasant as even that of
Daffydowndilly's mother.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
THE SANDPIPER
Across the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I;
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit,--
One little sandpiper and I.
Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud black and swift across the sky:
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white lighthouses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach
I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach,--
One little sandpiper and I.
I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;
He starts not at my fitful song,
Or flash of fluttering drapery;
He has no thought of any wrong,
He scans me with a fearless eye.
Stanch friends are we, well-tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.
Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood-fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky:
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I?
CELIA THAXTER
FROM "THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT"
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for their's is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are
the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do
hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed
are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in
heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they
shall be called the children of God.
Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou
shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths.
But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's
throne: nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem;
for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy
head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and
hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of
your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the
evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the
publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more
than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even
as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
ST. MATTHEW, V.
THE LEGEND OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER
For many a year Saint Christopher
Served God in many a land;
And master painters drew his face,
With loving heart and hand,
On altar fronts and churches' walls;
And peasants used to say,--
To look on good Saint Christopher
Brought luck for all the day.