"How you grow, Charley," said John, tossing him up on his shoulder, and
walking up to the looking-glass. "It seems but yesterday that you lay
wrapped up in your blanket a-board Captain Lucas' ship with your thumb
in your mouth (that unfailing sign of a good-natured baby), thinking of
nothing at all; and now here you are six years' old to-day--think of
that man? and I dare say you expect a birth-day present."
"Yes, if you please," said Charley.
"There, now; that is to the point. I like an honest boy. What will you
have, Charley?"
"Something pretty for my mamma," said the loving little heart.
"Better still," said John; "but mamma won't take presents. I have tried
her a great many times. There is one I want very much to make her, but
she always says 'No.'" And John glanced at Gertrude.
"Mind what you say," whispered his sister. "He might chance to repeat it
to his mother."
"So much the better, Gertrude. Then she will be sure to think of me at
least one minute.
"But, Charley, tell me what _you_ want. I would like to get you
something for _yourself_."
"I want my papa," said Charley, resolutely. "Tommy Fritz keeps saying
that I 'haven't got any papa.' _Haven't_ I got a papa, cousin John?"
"You have a Father in heaven," said John, kissing Charley as he evaded
the earnest question.
"When did he die? I want you to tell me all about him, cousin John,
because Tommy Fritz sits next me at school and teases me so about not
having any papa."
"Fritz?" repeated John, turning to Gertrude; "Fritz?--the name sounds
familiar. Where could I have heard it? Fritz?" and John paced up and
down the room, trying to remember.
"Yes, Tommy Fritz," repeated Charley; "and Tommy's big brother comes to
school with him some days, and he saw me, and told Tommy that I hadn't
any papa."
"Did you say any thing to your mamma about it?" asked John.
"No," said Charley, with a very resolute shake of the head, "because it
always makes mamma look so sad when I talk to her about papa; but I
don't want Tommy to plague me any more. Is it bad not to have a papa,
cousin John?"
"There are a great many little boys whose papas are dead," said John.
"Yes, it is bad for them, because they feel lonesome without them, just
as you do."
Charley looked very earnestly in John's face, as if he were not
satisfied with his answer, and yet as if he did not know how better to
make himself understood. Looking thoughtfully on the ground a few
moments, he said--
"Was my papa good, cousin John?"
John drew Charley closer to his breast. "I did not know your papa, my
dear, but your mamma loves him very much, and she is so good herself
that I think she would not love him so were he not a good man."
"I'm _so_ glad!" exclaimed Charley, with sparkling eyes. "May I tell
Tommy Fritz that?" he asked, with the caution acquired by too early an
acquaintance with sorrow.
"Certainly," said John, secretly resolving to inquire into this Fritz
matter himself.
"Your mother is calling you, Charley," said Gertrude. "Poor little
fellow," she added, as he ran nimbly out of the room. "Just think of a
child with such a frank outspoken nature, burying such a corroding
mystery in his own loving little heart, rather than pain his mother by
asking for a solution. Poor Rose--the haunting specter which her
prophet-eye discerned in her child's future, has assumed shape sooner
than even she dreamed. Who can this 'big Fritz' be, John? and where
could he have known Rose?"
"I have it," exclaimed John, stopping suddenly before his sister, with a
deep red flush upon his face. "This Fritz was a fellow-passenger of
Rose's and mine on board Captain Lucas's vessel. The conceited puppy
imagined that Rose would save him the trouble of gathering her by
dropping at his feet--he found thorns instead of a rose, and his wounded
vanity has taken this mean revenge. But he shall learn Rose has a
protector," said John, folding his arms, and closing his lips firmly
together.
"I shall do nothing rashly," said he, shaking off the clasp of
Gertrude's hand. "Puppy"--he exclaimed--"contemptible coward, with all
his pretensions to the title of a gentleman, to slander a woman!"
"Defining the word gentleman in that way," answered Gertrude, "the ranks
would be pretty well thinned out. Some do it with a shrug--some with an
uplifted eyebrow--some with a curl of the lip--some with a protracted
whistle; and many a 'gentleman,' to make himself the paltry hero of the
hour, has uttered boasting words of vanity, false as his own black
heart; and many a virtuous woman has had occasion to repel insults
growing out of this dastardly mention of her name before strangers, that
else would never have been offered her. The crime is so common as to
excite little or no reprehension, as to be little or no barrier in the
intercourse between gentlemen. If every man who honors woman, and who
finds himself in such unscrupulous society--testified his abhorrence by
turning his back upon such a circle, the rebuke would soon tell. There
_are_ those whose standard of manly honor requires this in an associate.
"What! going, John?"
"Yes, I am too irritable to be good company; I must cool off my
indignation by a walk in the open air. Go and sit with Rose, Gertrude;
it may be that Charley may drop some word that will make known to her
this new trouble."
"Never fear him," said Gertrude, "I don't know whether to call it
instinct or tact, but he always seems to know what to say, and what to
leave unsaid; he has the most lightning perceptions of any child I ever
saw. No subtle shade of meaning in conversation seems to escape him, and
he will often drop a remark which convinces you that he has grasped the
subject at the very moment you are contriving some way to elucidate your
meaning. Poor little Charley--it is always such natures whose heritage
is sorrow."