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GREAT MYSTERIES
AND LITTLE PLAGUES.
BY JOHN NEAL.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1870.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
ROBERTS BROTHERS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Dist. of
Massachusetts.
STEREOTYPED BY REGAN & LEADBEATER,
55 Water Street.
[Illustration: CHILDREN--WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?
"I'll give oo a _kith_ if oo want one!"]
PREFACE.
I hate prefaces; and the older I grow, the more I hate them, and the
more unwilling I am to transgress--in that way--with my eyes open.
But something must be said, I suppose, if only by way of an
advertisement, or warning.
When I had finished what one of my daughters persists in calling my
"NAUGHTY-BIOGRAPHY," and the other, "PERSONALITIES"--while my hair has
grown visibly thinner, I will not say under what kind of domestic
remonstrance from another quarter, and a very amiable, though witty
somebody writes it "_Maundering_ Recollections"--I had an idea that, if
I went further, I might be found "painting the lily, gilding refined
gold," etc., etc., and so I pulled up--for the present.
But this little book was already under way. I had promised it, and such
promises I always keep--and for the best of reasons: I cannot afford to
break them.
When I turned out the original of "Children--What are they good for?"
some forty years ago, or thereabouts, I had never met with, nor heard
of, anything in that way. Children were overlooked. Their droppings were
unheeded--out of the nursery. But now, and in fact very soon after my
little essay appeared in the "Atlantic Souvenir," if I do not mistake,
the papers and magazines, both abroad and at home, were continually
brightened up with diamond-sparks and with Down-easterly or "Orient
pearls, at random strung," which seemed to have been picked up in
play-grounds, or adrift, or along the highway; and itemizers were seen
dodging round among the little folks, wherever they were congregated, or
following them as the Chinese follow a stranger, if they see him make
wry faces.
For amusement only, and to keep myself out of mischief--I hope I have
succeeded--just after the fire, not having much to do beyond twirling my
thumbs, and trying to whistle "I cares for nobody, and nobody cares for
me," I began collecting such as fell in my way.
My first idea was to call them "KINDLING-STUFF," or
"OVEN-WOOD," as characteristic, if not of them, at least of the
compiler; but finding the collection grew upon me, and myself growing
serious, I adopted "PICKINGS AND STEALINGS," which, on the whole, I
think still more characteristic, beside being both suggestive and
descriptive.
"GOODY GRACIOUS, A FAIRY STORY," I wrote for the purpose of showing--and
_proving_--that fairy stories need not be crowded with extravagant
impossibilities, to engage the attention of our little folks; and that
if they are so contrived as to seem true, or at least possible, they
need not be unwholesome. Am I wrong?
And furthermore saith not, as Jacob Barker used to write, at the bottom
of his letters,
"Your respected friend,"
J. N.
CONTENTS.
I.--CHILDREN--WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?
II.--GOODY GRACIOUS! AND THE FORGET-ME-NOT.
III.--PICKINGS AND STEALINGS.
CHILDREN--WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?
The child is father of the man. Men are but children of a larger growth.
How often do we meet with this array of words! Yet how insensible we are
to the profound philosophy they enwrap. Sublime and astonishing truths!
Uttered every day in our hearing, set before our eyes at every step of
our journey through life, written over all the monuments of Earth, upon
the pages and banners of all History, upon the temples and the pyramids,
the palaces and the sepulchres of departed Nations, upon all the doings
of the Past and the Present, as with unextinguishable fire, and sounding
forever and ever in the unapproachable solitudes of the Future! Yet
heard with indifference, read without emotion, and repeated from mouth
to mouth, day after day and year after year, without a suspicion of
their deep meaning, of their transcendent importance, of their
imperishable beauty. And why? The language is too familiar, the apparent
signification too simple and natural for the excited understandings of
the multitude. There is no curtain to be lifted, no veil to be rent as
with the hands of giants, no zone to be loosened, no mystery to be
expounded afar off, as in the language of another world, nothing to be
guessed at, or deciphered, nothing but what anybody might understand if
he would; and, _therefore_, nothing to be remembered or cared for.
But, in simple truth, a more sublime interrogation could not be
propounded than that which may appear to be answered by the language
referred to. _What are children?_ Step to the window with me. The
street is full of them. Yonder a school is let loose; and here, just
within reach of our observation, are two or three noisy little fellows;
and there another party mustering for play. Some are whispering
together, and plotting so loudly and so earnestly, as to attract
everybody's attention; while others are holding themselves aloof, with
their satchels gaping so as to betray a part of their plans for
to-morrow afternoon, or laying their heads together in pairs, for a trip
to the islands. Look at them, weigh the question I have put to you, and
then answer it, as it deserves to be answered. _What are children?_ To
which you reply at once, without any sort of hesitation perhaps,--"Just
as the twig is bent the tree's inclined"; or, "Men are but children of a
larger growth"; or, peradventure, "The child is father of the man." And
then, perhaps, you leave me, perfectly satisfied with yourself and with
your answer, having "plucked out the heart of the mystery," and uttered,
without knowing it, a string of glorious truths,--pearls of great price.
But, instead of answering you as another might, instead of saying, _Very
true_, what if I were to call you back to the window with words like
these: Do you know what you have said? do you know the meaning of the
language you have employed? or, in other words, _do you know your own
meaning_? what would you think of me? That I was playing the
philosopher, perhaps, that I wanted to puzzle you with a childish
question, that I thought I was thinking, or at best that I was a little
out of my senses. Yet, if you were a man of understanding, I should have
paid you a high compliment; a searcher after truth, I should have done
you a great favor; a statesman, a lawgiver, a philanthropist, a
patriot, or a father who deserved to be a father, I should have laid you
under everlasting obligations, I should have opened a boundless treasury
underneath your feet, I should have translated you instantly to a new
world, carried you up into a high mountain, as it were, and set before
you all the kingdoms of the earth, with all their revolutions and
changes, all future history, the march of armies, the growth of
conquerors, the waxing and the waning of empire, the changes of opinion,
the apparition of thrones dashing against thrones, the overthrow of
systems, and the revolution of ages.
Among the children who are now playing _together_,--like birds among the
blossoms of earth, haunting all the green shadowy places thereof, and
rejoicing in the bright air; happy and beautiful creatures, and as
changeable as happy, with eyes brimful of joy, and with hearts playing
upon their little faces like sunshine upon clear waters; among those who
are now idling together on that slope, or hunting butterflies together
on the edge of that wood, a wilderness of roses,--you would see not only
the gifted and the powerful, the wise and the eloquent, the ambitious
and the renowned, the long-lived and the long-to-be-lamented of another
age, but the wicked and the treacherous, the liar and the thief, the
abandoned profligate and the faithless husband, the gambler and the
drunkard, the robber, the burglar, the ravisher, the murderer, and the
betrayer of his country. _The child is father of the man._
Among them, and that other little troop just appearing, children with
yet happier faces and pleasanter eyes, the blossoms of the future--the
mothers of nations--you would see the founders of states and the
destroyers of their country, the steadfast and the weak, the judge and
the criminal, the murderer and the executioner, the exalted and the
lowly, the unfaithful wife and the broken-hearted husband, the proud
betrayer and his pale victim, the living and breathing portents and
prodigies, the embodied virtues and vices, of another age and of another
world, _and all playing together_! Men are but children of a larger
growth.
Pursuing the search, you would go forth among the little creatures, as
among the types of another and a loftier language, the mystery whereof
has been just revealed to you,--a language to become universal
hereafter, types in which the autobiography of the Future was written
ages and ages ago. Among the innocent and helpless creatures that are
called _children_, you would see warriors, with their garments rolled in
blood, the spectres of kings and princes, poets with golden harps and
illuminated eyes, historians and painters, architects and sculptors,
mechanics and merchants, preachers and lawyers; here a grave-digger
flying his kite with his future customers, there a physician playing at
marbles with his; here the predestined to an early and violent death for
cowardice, fighting the battles of a whole neighborhood; there a
Cromwell or a Caesar, a Napoleon or a Washington, hiding themselves for
fear, enduring reproach or insult with patience; a Benjamin Franklin
higgling for nuts or gingerbread, or the "Old Parr" of another
generation sitting apart in the sunshine, and shivering at every breath
of wind that reaches him. Yet we are told that "just as the twig is
bent, the tree's inclined."
Hereafter is made up of the shreds and patches of Heretofore. If "Men
are but children of a larger growth," then _what are children_? Men of
a smaller growth. And this happens to be the truth, not only in the
world of imagination, but in the world of realities; not only among
poets, but among lawyers. At law, children are men,--little children
murderers. A boy of nine, and others of ten and eleven, have been put to
death in England, two for murder, and a third for "cunningly and
maliciously" firing two barns. Of the little murderers, one killed his
playmate and the other his bedfellow. One hid the body, and the other
himself. And therefore, said the judges, they knew they had done
wrong,--they could distinguish between good and evil; and therefore they
ordered both to be strangled. And they were strangled accordingly. As if
a child who is old enough to know that he has done wrong, is therefore
old enough to know that he deserves death!
So with regard to children of the other sex. At law, babies are women,
women babies. The same law which classes our mothers and our wives, our
sisters and our daughters, with infants, lunatics, idiots, and "persons
beyond sea," allows a child to be betrothed at seven, to be endowed of
her future husband's estate at nine, and to agree or disagree to a
previous marriage at twelve. And what is law in England is law here. We
are still governed by the Court of King's Bench, the lawyers and the
judges of Westminister Hall. Let no man say, therefore, that these are
the dreams of poetry, the glittering shapes that wander about forever
and ever among the vast chambers of a disordered imagination. They are
not so. They are no phantasms,--they are realities, they are substantial
existences, they "are known to the law."
Such are children. Corrupted, they are fountains of bitterness for ages.
Would you plant for the skies? Plant in the live soil of the warm and
generous and youthful; pour all your treasures into the hearts of
children. Would you look into the future as with the spirit of prophecy,
and read as with a telescope the history and character of our country,
and of other countries? You have but to watch the eyes of children at
play.
What children are, neighborhoods are. What neighborhoods are,
communities are,--states, empires, worlds! They are the elements of
Hereafter made visible.
Even fathers and mothers look upon children with a strange
misapprehension of their dignity. Even with the poets, they are only the
flowers and blossoms, the dew-drops, or the playthings of earth. Yet "of
such is the kingdom of heaven." The Kingdom of Heaven! with all its
principalities and powers, its hierarchies, dominations, thrones! The
Saviour understood them better; to Him their true dignity was revealed.
Flowers! They are the flowers of the invisible world,--indestructible,
self-perpetuating flowers, with each a multitude of angels and evil
spirits underneath its leaves, toiling and wrestling for dominion over
it! Blossoms! They are the blossoms of another world, whose fruitage is
angels and archangels. Or dew-drops? They are dew-drops that have their
source, not in the chambers of the earth, nor among the vapors of the
sky, which the next breath of wind, or the next flash of sunshine may
dry up forever, but among the everlasting fountains and inexhaustible
reservoirs of mercy and love. Playthings! God!--if the little creatures
would but appear to us in their true shape for a moment! We should fall
upon our faces before them, or grow pale with consternation,--or fling
them off with horror and loathing.
What would be our feelings to see a fair child start up before us a
maniac or a murderer, armed to the teeth? to find a nest of serpents on
our pillow? a destroyer, or a traitor, a Harry the Eighth, or a Benedict
Arnold asleep in our bosom? A Catherine or a Peter, a Bacon, a Galileo,
or a Bentham, a Napoleon or a Voltaire, clambering up our knees after
sugar-plums? Cuvier laboring to distinguish a horse-fly from a
blue-bottle, or dissecting a spider with a rusty nail? La Place trying
to multiply his own apples, or to subtract his playfellow's gingerbread?
What should we say to find ourselves romping with Messalina, Swedenborg,
and Madame de Stael? or playing bo-peep with Murat, Robespierre, and
Charlotte Corday? or puss-puss in the corner with George Washington,
Jonathan Wild, Shakspeare, Sappho, Jeremy Taylor, Mrs. Clark, Alfieri,
and Harriet Wilson? Yet stranger things have happened. These were all
children but the other day, and clambered about the knees, and rummaged
in the pockets, and nestled in the laps of people no better than we are.
But _if_ they had appeared in their true shape for a single moment,
while playing together! What a scampering there would have been among
the grown folks! How their fingers would have tingled!
Now to me there is no study half so delightful as that of these little
creatures, with hearts fresh from the gardens of the sky, in their first
and fairest and most unintentional disclosures, while they are indeed a
mystery, a fragrant, luminous, and beautiful mystery. And I have an idea
that if we only had a name for the study, it might be found as
attractive and as popular, and perhaps--though I would not go too
far--_perhaps_ about as advantageous in the long run to the future
fathers and mothers of mankind, as the study of shrubs and flowers, or
that of birds and fishes. And why not? They are the cryptogamia of
another world,--the infusoria of the skies.
Then why not pursue the study for yourself? The subjects are always
before you. No books are needed, no costly drawings, no lectures,
neither transparencies nor illustrations. Your specimens are all about
you. They come and go at your bidding. They are not to be hunted for,
along the edge of a precipice, on the borders of the wilderness, in the
desert, nor by the sea-shore. They abound, not in the uninhabited or
unvisited place, but in your very dwelling-houses, about the steps of
your doors, in every street of every village, in every green field, and
every crowded thoroughfare. They flourish bravely in snow-storms, in the
dust of the trampled highway, where drums are beating and colors
flying--in the roar of cities. They love the sounding sea-breeze and the
open air, and may always be found about the wharves, and rejoicing
before the windows of toy-shops. They love the blaze of fireworks and
the smell of gunpowder; and where that is, they are, to a dead
certainty.
You have but to go abroad for half an hour in pleasant weather, or to
throw open your doors or windows on a Saturday afternoon, if you live
anywhere in the neighborhood of a school-house, or a vacant lot, with
here and there a patch of green, or a dry place in it, and steal behind
the curtains, or draw the blinds, and let the fresh wind blow through
and through the chambers of your heart for a few minutes, winnowing the
dust and scattering the cobwebs that have gathered there while you were
asleep, and lo! you will find it ringing with the voices of children at
play, and all alive with the glimmering phantasmagoria of leap-frog,
prison-base, or knock-up-and-catch.
Let us try the experiment. There! I have opened the windows, I have
drawn the blinds, and hark! already there is the sound of little voices
afar off, like "sweet bells jangling." Nearer and nearer come they, and
now we catch a glimpse of bright faces peeping round the corners, and
there, by that empty inclosure, you see a general mustering and
swarming, as of bees about a newly-discovered flower-garden. But the
voices we now hear proceed from two little fellows who have withdrawn
from the rest. One carries a large basket, and his eyes are directed to
my window; he doesn't half like the blinds being drawn. The other
follows him, with a tattered book under his arm, rapping the posts, one
after the other, as he goes along. He is clearly on bad terms with
himself. And now we can see their faces. Both are grave, and one rather
pale, and trying to look ferocious. And hark! now we are able to
distinguish their words. "Well, I ain't skeered o' you," says the
foremost and the larger boy. "Nor I ain't skeered o' you," retorts the
other; "but you needn't say you meant to lick me." And so I thought.
Another, less acquainted with children, might not be able to see the
connection; but I could,--it was worthy of Aristotle himself, or John
Locke. "I _didn't_ say I meant to lick ye," rejoined the first, "I said
I _could_ lick ye, and so I can." To which the other replies, glancing
first at my window and then all up and down street, "I should like to
see you try." Whereupon the larger boy begins to move away, half
backwards, half sideways, muttering just loud enough to be heard, "Ah,
you want to fight now, jest 'cause you're close by your own house." And
here the dialogue finished, and the babies moved on, shaking their
little heads at each other, and muttering all the way up street. Men are
but children of a larger growth! Children but Empires in miniature.
How beautiful and how strange are the first combinations of thought in a
wayward or peevish child! And then, how alike we all are in our
waywardness and peevishness! It is but a change of name, and one trifle
is about as good as another to breed a quarrel, or to throw the wisest
and the best of our grown babies off their balance. A bit of writing,
the loss of a paper with pictures on it, a handful of glittering dust,
or somebody making mouths at us, a word or a look, and we are stamping
with rage, or miserable for half a day. A cloud coming up when the
horses are at the door, a little bad weather, a spot upon our new
clothes, or a lump of sugar not quite so large as another's; and what
children we are! How perfectly wretched!
I once knew a little boy, who, after sitting awhile as if lost in
thought, turned to his mother, and said: "Mother! what did you marry my
father for? Why didn't you wait till I grew up, and then marry me?"
Rather a strange question, to be sure, and the little fellow was but
just old enough to put his words together. But compare it with many a
question put by the sages of earth. Consider it side by side with the
ponderings and the misgivings, the inquisitiveness and the apprehensions
of a great Philosopher, when he interrogates the Builder of the
Universe, and sets himself in array, face to face, with Jehovah.
Nay, I have heard a very intelligent person of mature age betray a
confusion of thought altogether as laughable as that of the poor boy.
She had been to see a captious old lady whom her father, in his youth,
had once intended to marry. "And how did you like her?" said I. "Not at
all," she replied; "oh, you don't know how glad I am that father did not
marry her; I never should have liked her, I am sure." As if, marry whom
he might, she must have been born, _she_ herself, with precisely the
same preferences, prejudices and opinions!
"Oh, mother!" said little Mary, aged two years and a half at the time,
looking up as she heard a noise, and blushing from head to foot, "_I
hear a bad smell_,--'taint me nor brother. It was an old man in the next
house;" hemming loudly and suddenly, with a cough. Modesty is one
thing,--squeamishness about children another; and this is really too
good to be lost.
I remember a little boy who was a lexicographer from his birth, a
language-master and a philosopher. From the hour he was able to ask for
a piece of bread and butter, he never hesitated for a word, not he! If
one wouldn't serve, another would, with a little twisting and turning.
He assured me one day, when I was holding him by the hand rather tighter
than he wished (he was but just able to speak at the time), that I
should _choke_ his hand; at another, he came to me all out of breath, to
announce that a man was below _shaving_ the wall. Upon due inquiry, it
turned out that he was only _whitewashing_. But how should he know the
difference between whitewash and lather, a big brush and a little one?
Show me, if you can, a prettier example of synthesis or generalization,
or a more beautiful adaptation of old words to new purposes. I have
heard another complain of a school-fellow for _winking_ at him _with
his lip_; and he took the affront very much to heart, I assure you, and
would not be pacified till the matter was cleared up.
Another, now at my elbow, hardly five, has just been prattling about the
_handle_ of a pin, meaning the _head_; to him _shavings_ were
_board-ravellings_, above a twelvemonth ago, and I never shall forget
his earnestness about what he called the _necklace_ of the gate,--a
heavy iron chain with a large weight swinging to it,--which a
wood-sawyer had forgotten to replace after finishing his work.
It is but yesterday that a little boy, being asked by an elder sister in
my presence what a _widow_ was--he had been talking about a
widow--replied, _A poor woman that goes out a-washing_. What better
definition would you have? At home or abroad, is not the poor widow
always a-washing,--now the floors of a wealthier neighbor, and the
clothes of somebody who happens not to be a widow,--and now with her own
tears the face of her little baby, that lies half asleep and half
sobbing in her lap? Other children talk about the _bones_ in
peaches,--osteologists are they; and others, when they have the
toothache, aver that it _burns_ them. Of such is the empire of poetry. I
have heard another give a public challenge in these words to every child
that came near, as she sat upon the door-step with a pile of
tamarind-stones, nutshells, and pebbles lying before her: "Ah! I've got
_many-er_ than you!" That child was a better grammarian than Lindley
Murray; and her wealth, in what was it unlike the hoarded and useless
wealth of millions?
Not long ago, while passing through a narrow, unfrequented street, my
attention was attracted by two little girls at play together: one a
perfect tomboy, with large laughing eyes, and a prodigious quantity of
hair; the other a little timid creature, altogether too shy to look up
as I passed. The romp was balancing her body over the gate, and the
little prude was looking at her. On the opposite side of the way were
two smart-looking boys, whom I did not observe till I heard a sweet,
clear voice at my elbow saying--almost singing, indeed--"I'll give oo a
_kith_ if oo want one!" I stopped and heard the offer repeated by the
shy looking puss, while the romp stared at her with her mouth wide open,
and the boys cleared out with a laugh, being too shame-faced to profit
by the offer. Verily, verily, men _are_ but children of a larger
growth--_and women too_.
There was the language of truth, of innocence, of unadulterated nature!
There are no mealy-mouthed human creatures among the pure. But lo! that
child is going forth into the world, leaving behind her the green and
beautiful places, haunted with wild flowers, where everything appeared
in the language of truth; and after a little time, with far less purity,
she may blush and tremble at every thought of being kissed, with or
without her leave. And the poor boys,--anon they are to be the pursuers,
and pray and beseech, where, but for a newly-acquired and counterfeit
nature, they might loiter along by the wayside, and be sure of a call
from the rosy lips and bright eyes that hovered about their path. Poor
boys!
But children are wonderful for their courage, their patience, and their
fortitude. I have known a little boy completely worn out by watching and
suffering, tear off the bandages at last, and, looking up into the face
of a woman who watched over him, say to her with a sweet
smile,--"Georgee muss die, Chamber (her name was Chambers), _Georgee
muss die--Georgee want to die_." And he did die, with that very smile
upon his mouth.
Not many years ago, another was caught in a mill: they stopped the
machinery, and took the wheel to pieces; but it was an hour and a half
before they could free her entirely. During this time she threw her arms
about her father's neck, and kissing him, whispered: "_Am I dead,
papa?_" She died within two hours after she was liberated. One might
almost expect to see winglets of purple and gold, budding before death,
from between the shoulders of such a child.
The _reasoning_ of the little creatures, too, is always delightful; and
if you are good-natured enough to follow them through their own little
demonstrations, without insisting upon the language of a syllogism,
always _conclusive_. Take two or three examples in proof: A child about
three years of age, unperceived by its mother, followed her down cellar,
and, when its mother returned, was left there. By-and-by the little
thing was missed: inquiries were made in every quarter; the whole
neighborhood was alarmed; the well searched, the hen-house, the barn,
the very pigsty; but all in vain. At last, somebody had occasion to go
into the cellar, and there, upon the bottom step of the stairs, the
little creature was found, sitting by herself, as still as death, and
purple with cold. Half frantic with joy, the mother snatched her up,
and, running to the fire with her, asked her why she did not cry. "_I
toudn't, ma_" was the reply,--"I toudn't, ma,--_it war tho dark_!" After
all, now, was not that a capital reason?--was it not the truth? How
many are there who cannot, or will not cry, even to their Father above,
because _it is so dark_. Another child of about the same age used to lie
awake and chatter by the hour, after she went to bed. Out of all
patience with her one night, her bedfellow said to her,--
"Will you hold your tongue, Lucinda, and let me go to sleep?"
"No, I _tan't_."
"You can't,--why not, pray?"
"Cause it _mates my tomach ache, Ant Rachel_!"
And even that child--why do you laugh at her?--didn't she tell the
truth? and was not that a capital reason? How many grown people are
there who _cannot hold their tongues_--and, if the truth were told,
because _it makes their stomach ache_! or for some other reason not half
so much to the purpose.
They are decided politicians, too. A friend of mine has a boy just able
to speak.
"Houyah for Jackson!" said he one day, before his father.
"Why, Charles! why do you hurra for Jackson--I am not a Jackson man."
"Don't tare 'foo aint--I ar!" was the reply.
A _leader_, of course, for the next generation--of those who are to
think for themselves.
Their childish cunning, too, is exquisite. I remember seeing a little
boy about four years of age bite his eldest sister's finger in play so
as to leave a mark, for which he was chidden by his mother, whereupon he
stole away to his sister and put his finger into her mouth, and told her
to _bite_: she refused, he insisted; after a good deal of persuasion,
she yielded. "Harder! harder!" whispered he.
At last a mark appeared--a little _dent_. (You understand French, I
hope.)
"_Now!_" said he, pulling her toward his mother. "_Now_"--his large eyes
sparkling with triumph, and holding up his plump, rosy little finger,
and making all sorts of faces--"_Now! tum to mother oosef!_"
Was there ever a better illustration of the Thistlewood Plot--of the
Gunpowder Plot--or of that policy which, here as well as there, makes
offences profitable to the informer? That boy was but another Vidooq; or
another First Consul of the French Empire.
And have you never, when riding by in a stage-coach, seen a little
fellow at the window or the door of a house in the country crying as if
his very heart would break? Did not he always stop till you got by,--and
then didn't he always begin again? with the same look, the same voice,
and the same outcry, refusing to be comforted? These are the fellows
for office--he only wanted an augmentation of salary; that was all--and
I dare say he got it.
"Ah, ah, hourra! hourra! here's a fellow's birthday!" cried a boy in my
hearing once. A number had got together to play ball; but one of them
having found a birthday, and not only the birthday, but the very boy it
belonged to, they all gathered about him, as if they had never witnessed
a conjunction of the sort before. The very fellows for a committee of
inquiry!--into the affairs of a national bank, too, if you please.
Never shall I forget another incident which occurred in my
presence, between two other boys. One was trying to jump over a
wheel-barrow--another was going by; he stopped, and, after considering a
moment, spoke:
"I'll tell you what you can't do," said he.
"Well, what is it?"
"You can't jump down your own throat."
"Well, _you_ can't."
"_Can't I though!_"
The simplicity of "Well, you can't," and the roguishness of "Can't I
though!" tickled me prodigiously. They reminded me of sparring I had
seen elsewhere--I should not like to say where--having a great respect
for the Temples of Justice and the Halls of Legislation.
"I say '_tis_ white-oak."
"I say it's red-oak."
"Well, I say it's white-oak."
"I tell ye 'taint white-oak."
Here they had joined issue for the first time.
"I say 'tis."
"I say 'taint."
"I'll bet ye ten thousand dollars of it."
"Well, I'll bet you ten thousand dollars!"
Such were the very words of a conversation I have just heard between two
children, the elder about six, the other about five. Were not these
miniature men? Stock-brokers and Theologians? or only _Land
Speculators_?
"Well, my lad, you've been to meeting, hey?"
"Yes, sir."
"And who preached for you?"
"Mr. P----."
"Ah! and what did he say?"
"I can't remember sir, he put me out so."
"Put you out?"
"Yes, sir--he kept lookin' at my new clothes all meetin' time."
That child must have been a _close_ observer. Will anybody tell me that
he did not know what people go to meeting for?
It was but yesterday that I passed a fat little girl with large hazel
eyes, sitting by herself in a gateway, with her feet sticking straight
out into the street. She was holding a book in one hand, and with a bit
of stick in the other, was pointing to the letters.
"What's that?" cried she, in a sweet chirping voice; "_hey!_ Look on!
What's that, I say?--F--No--o--o--oh!" shaking her little head with the
air of a school-mistress, who has made up her mind not to be trifled
with.
It reminded me of another little girl somewhat older, who used to sit
and play underneath my windows, and look down into the long green grass
at her feet, and shake her head, and laugh and talk by the hour, as if
she had a baby there, to the infinite amusement of all the neighborhood.
That girl should have betaken herself to the stage. She was the very
spirit of what may be called the familiar drama.
Talk as we may about children, their notions are sometimes both
affecting and sublime; and their adventures more extraordinary than were
the strangest of Captain Cook's,--more perilous than that of him who
discovered America. I have known a child, not three years of age, and
hardly tall enough to reach the round of a ladder, clamber up the side
and along the roof, and seat himself on the ridge-pole of a two-story
house, before they discovered him.
Very odd things occur to all parents, if they would but observe them,
and treasure them--in the flowering of their children's hearts.
"When I am dead, sister Mary, I'll come back to see you, and you must
save all the crumbs and feed me--won't ye, sister Mary?" said a little
boy to his sister.
Upon full inquiry, I found that he had associated the idea of little
angels, that would fly about, with the pigeons belonging to a neighbor,
which he had been accustomed to toll from the perch into the back-yard,
with little crumbs of bread, saved at the table. On another occasion, he
laid down his knife and fork, and looking up with the most perfect
seriousness and apparent good faith, said,--
"Father, I mustn't eat any more fat meat."
"Why not, my boy?"
"God told me I must not."
"God!--when?"
"Last night, father."
Of course the child had been dreaming--so I urged the inquiry a little
further:
"Did you see God?"
"Yes, father."
"And how did He look?"
"Oh, He looked like a--like a--" thoughtfully, and casting about for a
comparison--and then all at once he brightened up and said,--
"Like a woodchuck, father!"
For a moment I was thunder-struck--where could he have got such an idea?
He had never seen a woodchuck in his life. Instead of laughing at the
absurdity of the notion, however, I treated the matter very seriously,
and after a while found that he had been on the watch at the window
every day for nearly a month, to see a woodchuck which had escaped from
a neighbor, and burrowed under our wood-house, and used to come out
after nightfall to feed. The little fellow was perfectly honest--he had
no idea of untruth or irreverence; others had seen the woodchuck, and he
had not, and nothing occurred to him half so strange or mysterious for a
comparison. It would not do to compare God with anything he had seen,
and a woodchuck was the only thing he had not seen which corresponded at
all with his notions of the Invisible.
But children have other characters. At times they are creatures to be
afraid of. Every case I give, is a fact within my own observation. There
are children, and I have had to do with them, whose very eyes were
terrible: children who, after years of watchful and anxious discipline,
were as indomitable as the young of the wild beast dropped in the
wilderness; crafty, and treacherous, and cruel. And others I have known,
who, if they live, _must_ have dominion over the multitude; being
evidently of them that, from the foundations of the world, have been
always thundering at the gates of Power.
There sits a little girl with raisins in her lap. She had enough to
spare a few minutes ago, but now she has given them all away, handful
by handful, to a much older and more crafty child. She has not another
left; and as she sits by him, and looks him up in the face, and asks him
for one now and then _so_ innocently, he keeps cramming them into his
mouth, and occasionally doles one out to her with such a look! so
strangely made up of reluctance and self-gratulation. And she, poor
thing, whenever she gets one, affects to enjoy it prodigiously, shaking
her head, and making a noise with her mouth as if it were crammed full.
Just as the twig is bent, etc., etc.
And it is but the other day--only a week ago--I had an opportunity of
seeing a similar case. A girl of eighteen months was overhauling her
play-basket before a boy of seven. She was ready enough to show all her
toys, but whatever he took into his hand, she would instantly reach
after. Before two minutes were over, I found him playing the man of
business, pretending to like what he did not, and to dislike what he
most coveted. There were heaps of playthings strewed about over the
floor. Among them were the remains of a little dog which had been sadly
pulled to pieces, but which the boy took a decided fancy to,
nevertheless. He kept his eye upon them, and after taking possession
leaned over toward the little girl, and shook his head, and spoke in
that peculiarly soothing voice, and with that coaxing manner, which are
common to horse-dealers, and which children so well know how to
counterfeit when they have a worthy object in view.
"Oh, the pretty teapot! Oh my! Mary want it," said he, turning it over
and over, and carefully displaying the crooked nose, the warped handle,
and the useless bottom, while he secured the dog.
That over, he tried his hand at a little Indian basket, talking all the
time as fast as his tongue could run, in favor of the toys he had no
relish for. A diplomatist in embryo, a chess-player, a merchant, a
lawyer? What more can the best of them do? What more have they ever
done?
I saw three children throwing sticks at a cow. She grew tired of her
share in the game at last, and, holding down her head and shaking it,
demanded a new deal. They cut and run. After getting to a place of
comparative security, they stopped, and holding by the top of a
board-fence, over which they had clambered, began to reconnoitre.
Meanwhile another troop of children hove in sight, and, arming
themselves with brick-bats, began to approach the same cow; whereupon
two of the others called out from the fence,--
"You Joe! you better mind! that's our cow!"
The plea was admitted without a demurrer, and the cow was left to be
tormented by the legal owners. Hadn't these boys the law on their side?
A youth once lived with me who owned a little dog. One day I caught the
dog worrying what I supposed to be a rat, and the boy standing over him
and encouraging him. It proved to be a toad; the poor creature escaped
during my interference. Before a month had gone over, the dog showed
symptoms of hydrophobia, and I shot him. Not long after this I found the
boy at a pump trying to keep a tub full, which appeared to have no
bottom. I inquired what he was doing, and it turned out that he was
trying to drown a _frog_. I asked the reason: Because a _toad_ had
poisoned the poor little dog.
Here was a process of ratiocination worthy of any autocrat that ever
breathed. Because A suffered soon after worrying B, therefore C shall be
pumped to death. Precisely the case of Poland.
I know another little boy who once lost a favorite dog. About a week
afterward the dog reappeared, and the boy was the happiest creature
alive. But something happened a little out of the way, which caused
further inquiry, when it turned out that the new dog was not the old
one, though astonishingly like. The only difference I could perceive was
a white spot under the neck. Well, what does our boy do? receive the
stranger with thankfulness, and adopt him with joy, for his
extraordinary resemblance to a lost favorite? No, indeed; but he gives
him a terrible thumping, and turns him neck-and-heels out of doors on a
cold, rainy night! As if the poor dog had been guilty of personating
another! How perfectly of a piece with the behavior of grown people who
have cheated themselves, and found it out. Woe to the innocent and the
helpless who lie in their path! or sleep in their bosom, or inhabit
among their household gods!
But children are not merely unjust, and cruel, and treacherous, even as
men are. Like men, they are murderers, mischief-makers, devils, at
times. I knew two boys, the older not more than four, who caught a hen,
and, having pulled out her eyes with crooked pins, they let her go;
after which, on seeing her stagger and tumble about, and perhaps afraid
of discovery, they determined to cut off her head. One was to hold her,
and the other to perform the operation; but for a long while they could
not agree upon their respective shares in the performance. At last they
hit upon a precious expedient. They laid her upon the steps, put a board
over her body, upon which one of the two sat, while the other sawed off
her head with a dull case-knife. Parents! Fathers! Mothers! What child
of four years of age was ever capable of such an act, without a long
course of preparation? for neglect is preparation. Both were murderers,
and their parents were their teachers. If "the child is father of the
man," what is to become of such children? If it be true that "just as
the twig is bent the tree's inclined," how much have you to answer for?
If "men are but children of a larger growth," watch your children
forever, by day and by night! pray for them forever, by night and by
day! and not as children, but as _Men_ of a smaller growth,--as men
with most of the evil passions, and with all the evil propensities, that
go to make man terrible to his fellow-men, his countenance hateful, his
approach a fiery pestilence, and his early death a blessing, even to his
father and mother!
GOODY GRACIOUS!
AND THE
FORGET-ME-NOT.
Once there was a little bit of a thing,--not more than so high,--and her
name was Ruth Page; but they called her Teenty-Tawnty, for she was the
daintiest little creature you ever saw, with the smoothest hair and the
brightest face; and then she was always playing about, and always happy:
and so the people that lived in that part of the country, when they
heard her laughing and singing all by herself at peep of day, like
little birds after a shower, and saw her running about in the edge of
the wood after tulips and butterflies, or tumbling head-over-heels in
the long rich grass by the river side, with her little pet lamb or her
two white pigeons always under her feet, or listening to the wild bees
in the apple-blossoms, with her sweet mouth "all in a tremble," and her
happy eyes brimful of sunshine,--they used to say that she was no child
at all, or no child of earth, but a Fairy-gift, and that she must have
been dropped into her mother's lap, like a handful of flowers, when she
was half asleep; and so they wouldn't call her Ruth Page,--no indeed,
that they wouldn't!--but they called her little Teenty-Tawnty, or the
little Fairy; and they used to bring her Fairy Tales to read, till she
couldn't bear to read anything else, and wanted to be a Fairy herself.
Well, and so one day, when she was out in the sweet-smelling woods, all
alone by herself, singing, "Where are you going, my pretty maid, my
pretty maid?" and watching the gold-jackets, and the blue dragon-flies,
and the sweet pond-lilies, and the bright-eyed glossy eels, and the
little crimson-spotted fish, as they "coiled and swam," and darted
hither and thither, like "flashes of golden fire," and then huddled
together, all of a sudden, just underneath the green turf where she sat,
as if they saw something, and were half frightened to death, and were
trying to hide in the shadow; well and so--as she sat there, with her
little naked feet hanging over and almost touching the water, singing to
herself, "My face is my fortune, sir, she said! sir, she said!" and
looking down into a deep sunshiny spot, and holding the soft smooth hair
away from her face with both hands, and trying to count the dear little
fish before they got over their fright, all at once she began to think
of the Water-Fairies, and how cool and pleasant it must be to live in
these deep sunshiny hollows, with green turf all about you, the
blossoming trees and the blue skies overhead, the bright gravel
underneath your feet, like powdered stars, and thousands of beautiful
fish for playfellows! all spotted with gold and crimson, or winged with
rose-leaves, and striped with faint purple and burnished silver, like
the shells and flowers of the deep sea, where the moonlight buds and
blossoms forever and ever; and then she thought if she could only just
reach over, and dip one of her little fat rosy feet into the smooth
shining water,--just once--only once,--it would be _so_ pleasant! and
she should be _so_ happy! and then, if she could but manage to scare the
fishes a little--a very little--that would be such glorious fun,
too,--wouldn't it, you?
Well and so--she kept stooping and stooping, and stretching and
stretching, and singing to herself all the while, "Sir, she said! sir,
she said! I'm going a-milking, sir, she said!" till just as she was
ready to tumble in, head first, something jumped out of the bushes
behind her, almost touching her as it passed, and went plump into the
deepest part of the pool! saying, "_Once! once!_" with a booming sound,
like the tolling of a great bell under water, and afar off.
"Goody gracious! what's that?" screamed little Ruth Page; and then, the
very next moment, she began to laugh and jump and clap her hands, to see
what a scampering there was among the poor silly fish, and all for
nothing! said she; for out came a great good-natured bull-frog, with an
eye like a bird, and a big bell-mouth, and a back all frosted over with
precious stones, and dripping with sunshine; and there he sat looking
at her awhile, as if he wanted to frighten her away; and then he opened
his great lubberly mouth at her, and bellowed out, "_Once! once!_" and
vanished.
"Luddy tuddy! who cares for you?" said little Ruth; and so, having got
over her fright, she began to creep to the edge of the bank once more,
and look down into the deep water, to see what had become of the little
fish that were so plentiful there, and so happy but a few minutes
before. But they were all gone, and the water was as still as death; and
while she sat looking into it, and waiting for them to come back, and
wondering why they should be so frightened at nothing but a bull-frog,
which they must have seen a thousand times, the poor little simpletons!
and thinking she should like to catch one of the smallest and carry it
home to her little baby-brother, all at once a soft shadow fell upon
the water, and the scented wind blew her smooth hair all into her eyes,
and as she put up both hands in a hurry to pull it away, she heard
something like a whisper close to her ear, saying, "_Twice! twice!_" and
just then the trailing branch of a tree swept over the turf, and filled
the whole air with a storm of blossoms, and she heard the same low
whisper repeated close at her ear, saying, "_Twice! twice!_" and then
she happened to look down into the water,--and what do you think she saw
there?
"Goody gracious, mamma! is that you?" said poor little Ruth; and up she
jumped, screaming louder than ever, and looking all about her, and
calling "Mamma, mamma! I see you, mamma! you needn't hide, mamma!" But
no mamma was to be found.