of nothing else; and when he found that they were to have a holiday on
his arrival, he was almost beside himself. He bought a picture of the
Prince, and pinned it up on the wall over his bed; and when he came
home at night, tired and hungry, he would sit down by his mother, who
mended rents in the clothes brought to the laundry, and talk about the
Prince until he could not keep his eyes open longer; then his mother
would kiss him and send him to bed, where he knelt down and prayed the
Lord to keep the Prince, and then slept and dreamed of him, dressing
him in all the gorgeous colors that his poor imagination could devise,
while his mother worked late in her solitary room, thinking of her
only boy; and when she knelt down at night, she prayed the Lord to
keep him, and then slept, dreaming also, but with various fancies; for
sometimes she seemed to see Job like his dead father,--strong and
handsome and brave and quick-witted,--and now she would see him
playing with the children, or shuffling down the court with his head
leaning on his shoulder.
To-day he hurried so fast that he was panting for want of breath when
he reached the shed-like house where they lived. His mother was
watching for him, and he came in nodding his head and rubbing his warm
face.
"The cannon has gone off, mother," said he, in great excitement. "The
Prince has come!"
"Everything is ready, Job," said his mother. "You will find all your
things in a row on the bed." And Job tumbled into his room to dress
himself for the holiday. Everything was there as his mother had said;
all the old things renewed, and all the new things pieced together
that she had worked on so long, and every stitch of which Job had
overlooked and almost directed. If there had but been time to spare,
how Job would have liked to turn round and round before his scrap of
looking-glass; but there was no time to spare, and so in a very few
minutes he was out again, and showing himself to his mother.
"Isn't it splendid!" said he, surveying himself from top to toe, and
looking with special admiration on a white satin scarf that shone
round his throat in dazzling contrast to the dingy coat, and which had
in it an old brooch which Job treasured as the apple of his eye.
Job's mother, too, looked at them both; and though she smiled and did
not speak, it was only--brave woman!--because she was choking, as she
thought how the satin was the last remnant of her wedding-dress, and
the brooch the last trinket left of all given to her years back.
"If you would only have let me wear the feather, mother!" said Job,
sorrowfully, in regretful remembrance of one he had long hoarded, and
which he had begged hard to wear in his hat.
"You look splendidly, Job, and don't need it," said she, cheerfully;
"and, besides, the Prince wears one, and what would he think if he saw
you with one, too?"
"Sure enough," said Job, who had not thought of that before; and then
he kissed her and started off, while she stood at the door looking
anxiously after him. "I don't believe," said he, aloud, as he went up
the court, "that the Prince would mind my wearing a feather; but
mother didn't want me too. Hark! there are the bells! Yes, he has
started!" And Job, forgetting all else, pushed eagerly on. It was a
long way from the laundry to his home, and it was a long way, too,
from his home to the main street; and so Job had no time to spare if
he would get to the crowd in season to see the grand procession, for
he wanted to see it all,--from the policemen, who cleared the way, to
the noisy omnibuses and carts that led business once more up the
holiday streets.
On he shambled, knocking against the flag-stones, and nearly
precipitating himself down areas and unguarded passage-ways. He was
now in a cross street, which would bring him before long into the main
street, and he even thought he heard the distant music and the cheers
of the crowd. His heart beat high, and his face was lighted up until
it really looked, in its eagerness, as intelligent as that of other
people quicker witted than poor Job. And now he had come in sight of
the great thoroughfare; it was yet a good way off, but he could see
the black swarms of people that lined its edges. The street he was in
was quiet, so were all the cross streets, for they had been drained of
life to feed the great artery of the main street. There, indeed, was
life! upon the sidewalks; packed densely, flowing out in eddies into
the alleys and cross streets, rising tier above tier in the
shop-fronts, filling all the upper windows, and fringing even the
roofs. Flags hung from house to house, and sentences of welcome were
written upon strips of canvas. And if one at this moment, when weak
Job was hurrying up the cross street, could have looked from some
house-top down the main street, he would have seen the Prince's
pageant coming nearer and nearer, and would have heard the growing
tumult of brazen music, and the waves of cheers that broke along the
lines.
It was a glimpse of this sight, and a note of this sound, that weak
Job caught in the still street, and with new ardor, although hot and
dusty, he pressed on, almost weeping at thought of the joy he was to
have. "The Prince is coming," he said, aloud, in his excitement. But
at the next step, Job, recklessly tumbling along, despite his weak and
troublesome legs, struck something with his feet, and fell forward
upon the walk. He could not stop to see what it was that so suddenly
and vexatiously tripped him up, and was just moving on with a limp,
when he heard behind him a groan and a cry of pain. He turned and saw
what his unlucky feet had stumbled over. A poor negro boy, without
home or friends, black and unsightly enough, and clad in ragged
clothing, had sat down upon the sidewalk, leaning against a tree, and,
without strength enough to move, had been the unwilling
stumbling-block to poor Job's progress. As Job turned, the poor boy
looked at him beseechingly, and stretched out his hands. But even that
was an exertion, and his arms dropped by his side again. His lips
moved, but no word came forth; and his eyes even closed, as if he
could not longer raise the lids.
"He is sick!" said Job, and looked uneasily about. There was no one
near. "Hilloa!" cried Job in distress; but no one heard except the
black, who raised his eyes again to him, and essayed to move. Job
started toward him.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" sounded in the distant street. The roar of the
cheering beat against the houses, and at intervals came gusts of
music. Poor Job trembled.
"The Prince is coming," said he; and he turned as if to run. But the
poor black would not away from his eyes. "He might die while I was
gone," said he, and he turned again to lift him up. "He is sick!" he
said again. "I will take him home to mother!"
"Hurrah! hurrah! there he is! the Prince! the Prince!" And the dull
roar of the cheering, which had been growing louder and louder, now
broke into sharp ringing huzzas as the grand procession passed the
head of the cross street. In the carriage drawn by four coal-black
horses rode the Prince; and he was dressed in splendid clothes and
wore a feather in his cap. The music flowed forth clearly and sweetly.
"God save the king!" it sang, and from street and window and house-top
the people shouted and waved flags. Hurrah! hurrah!
Weak Job, wiping the tears from his eyes, heard the sound from afar,
but he saw no sight save the poor black whom he lifted from the
ground. No sight? Yes, at that moment he did. In that quiet street,
standing by the black boy, poor Job--weak Job, whom people pitied--saw
a grander sight than all the crowd in the brilliant main street.
Well mightst thou stand in dumb awe, holding by the hand the helpless
black, poor Job! for in that instant thou didst see with undimmed eyes
a pageant such as poor mortals may but whisper,--even the Prince of
Life with his attendant angels moving before thee; yes, and on thee
did the Prince look with love, and in thy ears did the heavenly choir
and the multitudinous voices of gathered saints sing, for of old were
the words written, and now thou didst hear them spoken to thyself,--
"_Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my
brethren, ye have done it unto me._
"_For whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name,
receiveth me._"
Weak Job, too, had seen the Prince pass.
_Horace Scudder._
FANCIES OF CHILD LIFE.
FANCIES OF CHILD LIFE.
THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS.
Once there was a nice young hen that we will call Mrs. Feathertop. She
was a hen of most excellent family, being a direct descendant of the
Bolton Grays, and as pretty a young fowl as you should wish to see of
a summer's day. She was, moreover, as fortunately situated in life as
it was possible for a hen to be. She was bought by young Master Fred
Little John, with four or five family connections of hers, and a
lively young cock, who was held to be as brisk a scratcher and as
capable a head of a family as any half-dozen sensible hens could
desire.
I can't say that at first Mrs. Feathertop was a very sensible hen. She
was very pretty and lively, to be sure, and a great favorite with
Master Bolton Gray Cock, on account of her bright eyes, her finely
shaded feathers, and certain saucy dashing ways that she had, which
seemed greatly to take his fancy. But old Mrs. Scratchard, living in
the neighboring yard, assured all the neighborhood that Gray Cock was
a fool for thinking so much of that flighty young thing,--that she had
not the smallest notion how to get on in life, and thought of nothing
in the world but her own pretty feathers. "Wait till she comes to have
chickens," said Mrs. Scratchard. "Then you will see. I have brought up
ten broods myself,--as likely and respectable chickens as ever were a
blessing to society,--and I think I ought to know a good hatcher and
brooder when I see her; and I know _that_ fine piece of trumpery, with
her white feathers tipped with gray, never will come down to family
life. _She_ scratch for chickens! Bless me, she never did anything in
all her days but run round and eat the worms which somebody else
scratched up for her!"
When Master Bolton Gray heard this he crowed very loudly, like a cock
of spirit, and declared that old Mrs. Scratchard was envious because
she had lost all her own tail-feathers, and looked more like a
worn-out old feather-duster than a respectable hen, and that therefore
she was filled with sheer envy of anybody that was young and pretty.
So young Mrs. Feathertop cackled gay defiance at her busy rubbishy
neighbor, as she sunned herself under the bushes on fine June
afternoons.
Now Master Fred Little John had been allowed to have these hens by his
mamma on the condition that he would build their house himself, and
take all the care of it; and, to do Master Fred justice, he executed
the job in a small way quite creditably. He chose a sunny sloping bank
covered with a thick growth of bushes, and erected there a nice little
hen-house, with two glass windows, a little door, and a good pole for
his family to roost on. He made, moreover, a row of nice little boxes
with hay in them for nests, and he bought three or four little smooth
white china eggs to put in them, so that, when his hens _did_ lay, he
might carry off their eggs without their being missed. The hen-house
stood in a little grove that sloped down to a wide river, just where
there was a little cove which reached almost to the hen-house.
This situation inspired one of Master Fred's boy advisers with a new
scheme in relation to his poultry enterprise. "Hullo! I say, Fred,"
said Tom Seymour, "you ought to raise ducks,--you've got a capital
place for ducks there."
"Yes,--but I've bought _hens_, you see," said Freddy; "so it's no use
trying."
"No use! Of course there is! Just as if your hens couldn't hatch
ducks' eggs. Now you just wait till one of your hens wants to set, and
you put ducks' eggs under her, and you'll have a family of ducks in a
twinkling. You can buy ducks' eggs, a plenty, of old Sam under the
hill; he always has hens hatch his ducks."
So Freddy thought it would be a good experiment, and informed his
mother the next morning that he intended to furnish the ducks for the
next Christmas dinner; and when she wondered how he was to come by
them, he said, mysteriously, "O, I will show you how!" but did not
further explain himself. The next day he went with Tom Seymour, and
made a trade with old Sam, and gave him a middle-aged jack-knife for
eight of his ducks' eggs. Sam, by the by, was a woolly-headed old
negro man, who lived by the pond hard by, and who had long cast
envying eyes on Fred's jack-knife, because it was of extra-fine steel,
having been a Christmas present the year before. But Fred knew very
well there were any number more of jack-knives where that came from,
and that, in order to get a new one, he must dispose of the old; so he
made the trade and came home rejoicing.
Now about this time Mrs. Feathertop, having laid her eggs daily with
great credit to herself, notwithstanding Mrs. Scratchard's
predictions, began to find herself suddenly attacked with nervous
symptoms. She lost her gay spirits, grew dumpish and morose, stuck up
her feathers in a bristling way, and pecked at her neighbors if they
did so much as look at her. Master Gray Cock was greatly concerned,
and went to old Doctor Peppercorn, who looked solemn, and recommended
an infusion of angle-worms, and said he would look in on the patient
twice a day till she was better.
"Gracious me, Gray Cock!" said old Goody Kertarkut, who had been
lolling at the corner as he passed, "a'n't you a fool?--cocks always
are fools. Don't you know what's the matter with your wife? She wants
to set,--that's all; and you just let her set! A fiddlestick for
Doctor Peppercorn! Why, any good old hen that has brought up a family
knows more than a doctor about such things. You just go home and tell
her to set, if she wants to, and behave herself."
When Gray Cock came home, he found that Master Freddy had been before
him, and established Mrs. Feathertop upon eight nice eggs, where she
was sitting in gloomy grandeur. He tried to make a little affable
conversation with her, and to relate his interview with the Doctor
and Goody Kertarkut, but she was morose and sullen, and only pecked at
him now and then in a very sharp, unpleasant way; so, after a few more
efforts to make himself agreeable, he left her, and went out
promenading with the captivating Mrs. Red Comb, a charming young
Spanish widow, who had just been imported into the neighboring yard.
"Bless my soul!" said he, "you've no idea how cross my wife is."
"O you horrid creature!" said Mrs. Red Comb; "how little you feel for
the weaknesses of us poor hens!"
"On my word, ma'am," said Gray Cock, "you do me injustice. But when a
hen gives way to temper, ma'am, and no longer meets her husband with a
smile,--when she even pecks at him whom she is bound to honor and
obey--"
"Horrid monster! talking of obedience! I should say, sir, you came
straight from Turkey!" And Mrs. Red Comb tossed her head with a most
bewitching air, and pretended to run away, and old Mrs. Scratchard
looked out of her coop and called to Goody Kertarkut,--
"Look how Mr. Gray Cock is flirting with that widow. I always knew she
was a baggage."
"And his poor wife left at home alone," said Goody Kertarkut. "It's
the way with 'em all!"
"Yes, yes," said Dame Scratchard, "she'll know what real life is now,
and she won't go about holding her head so high, and looking down on
her practical neighbors that have raised families."
"Poor thing, what'll she do with a family?" said Goody Kertarkut.
"Well, what business have such young flirts to get married," said Dame
Scratchard. "I don't expect she'll raise a single chick; and there's
Gray Cock flirting about fine as ever. Folks didn't do so when I was
young. I'm sure my husband knew what treatment a setting hen ought to
have,--poor old Long Spur,--he never minded a peck or so now and then.
I must say these modern fowls a'n't what fowls used to be."
Meanwhile the sun rose and set, and Master Fred was almost the only
friend and associate of poor little Mrs. Feathertop, whom he fed daily
with meal and water, and only interrupted her sad reflections by
pulling her up occasionally to see how the eggs were coming on.
At last "Peep, peep, peep!" began to be heard in the nest, and one
little downy head after another poked forth from under the feathers,
surveying the world with round, bright, winking eyes; and gradually
the brood was hatched, and Mrs. Feathertop arose, a proud and happy
mother, with all the bustling, scratching, care-taking instincts of
family life warm within her breast. She clucked and scratched, and
cuddled the little downy bits of things as handily and discreetly as a
seven-year-old hen could have done, exciting thereby the wonder of the
community.
Master Gray Cock came home in high spirits and complimented her; told
her she was looking charmingly once more, and said, "Very well, very
nice!" as he surveyed the young brood. So that Mrs. Feathertop began
to feel the world going well with her,--when suddenly in came Dame
Scratchard and Goody Kertarkut to make a morning call.
"Let's see the chicks," said Dame Scratchard.
"Goodness me," said Goody Kertarkut, "what a likeness to their dear
papa!"
"Well, but bless me, what's the matter with their bills?" said Dame
Scratchard. "Why, my dear, these chicks are deformed! I'm sorry for
you, my dear, but it's all the result of your inexperience; you ought
to have eaten pebble-stones with your meal when you were setting.
Don't you see, Dame Kertarkut, what bills they have? That'll increase,
and they'll be frightful!"
"What shall I do?" said Mrs. Feathertop, now greatly alarmed.
"Nothing as I know of," said Dame Scratchard, "since you didn't come
to me before you set. I could have told you all about it. Maybe it
won't kill 'em, but they'll always be deformed."
And so the gossips departed, leaving a sting under the pinfeathers of
the poor little hen mamma, who began to see that her darlings had
curious little spoon-bills different from her own, and to worry and
fret about it.
"My dear," she said to her spouse, "do get Doctor Peppercorn to to
come in and look at their bills, and see if anything can be done."
[Illustration]
Doctor Peppercorn came in, and put on a monstrous pair of spectacles,
and said, "Hum! Ha! Extraordinary case,--very singular!"
"Did you ever see anything like it, Doctor?" said both parents, in a
breath.
"I've read of such cases. It's a calcareous enlargement of the
vascular bony tissue, threatening ossification," said the Doctor.
"O, dreadful!--can it be possible?" shrieked both parents. "Can
anything be done?"
"Well, I should recommend a daily lotion made of mosquitoes' horns and
bicarbonate of frogs' toes, together with a powder, to be taken
morning and night, of muriate of fleas. One thing you must be careful
about: they must never wet their feet, nor drink any water."
"Dear me, Doctor, I don't know what I _shall_ do, for they seem to
have a particular fancy for getting into water."
"Yes, a morbid tendency often found in these cases of bony
tumification of the vascular tissue of the mouth; but you must resist
it, ma'am, as their life depends upon it." And with that Doctor
Peppercorn glared gloomily on the young ducks, who were stealthily
poking the objectionable little spoon-bills out from under their
mother's feathers.
After this poor Mrs. Feathertop led a weary life of it; for the young
fry were as healthy and enterprising a brood of young ducks as ever
carried saucepans on the end of their noses, and they most utterly set
themselves against the doctor's prescriptions, murmured at the muriate
of fleas and the bicarbonate of frogs' toes, and took every
opportunity to waddle their little ways down to the mud and water
which was in their near vicinity. So their bills grew larger and
larger, as did the rest of their bodies, and family government grew
weaker and weaker.
"You'll wear me out, children, you certainly will," said poor Mrs.
Feathertop.
"You'll go to destruction,--do ye hear?" said Master Gray Cock.
"Did you ever see such frights as poor Mrs. Feathertop has got?" said
Dame Scratchard. "I knew what would come of _her_ family,--all
deformed, and with a dreadful sort of madness, which makes them love
to shovel mud with those shocking spoon-bills of theirs."
"It's a kind of idiocy," said Goody Kertarkut. "Poor things! they
can't be kept from the water, nor made to take powders, and so they
get worse and worse."
"I understand it's affecting their feet so that they can't walk, and a
dreadful sort of net is growing between their toes; what a shocking
visitation!"
"She brought it on herself," said Dame Scratchard. "Why didn't she
come to me before she set? She was always an upstart, self-conceited
thing, but I'm sure I pity her."
Meanwhile the young ducks throve apace. Their necks grew glossy like
changeable green and gold satin, and though they would not take the
doctor's medicine, and would waddle in the mud and water,--for which
they always felt themselves to be very naughty ducks,--yet they grew
quite vigorous and hearty. At last one day the whole little tribe
waddled off down to the bank of the river. It was a beautiful day, and
the river was dancing and dimpling and winking as the little breezes
shook the trees that hung over it.
"Well," said the biggest of the little ducks, "in spite of Doctor
Peppercorn, I can't help longing for the water. I don't believe it is
going to hurt me,--at any rate, here goes." And in he plumped, and in
went every duck after him, and they threw out their great brown feet
as cleverly as if they had taken rowing lessons all their lives, and
sailed off on the river, away, away, among the ferns, under the pink
azalias, through reeds and rushes, and arrow-heads and pickerel-weed,
the happiest ducks that ever were born; and soon they were quite out
of sight.
"Well, Mrs. Feathertop, this is a dispensation," said Mrs. Scratchard.
"Your children are all drowned at last, just as I knew they'd be. The
old music-teacher, Master Bullfrog, that lives down in Water-Dock
Lane, saw 'em all plump madly into the water together this morning;
that's what comes of not knowing how to bring up a family."
Mrs. Feathertop gave only one shriek and fainted dead away, and was
carried home on a cabbage-leaf, and Mr. Gray Cock was sent for, where
he was waiting on Mrs. Red Comb through the squash-vines.
"It's a serious time in your family, sir," said Goody Kertarkut, "and
you ought to be at home supporting your wife. Send for Doctor
Peppercorn without delay."
Now as the case was a very dreadful one, Doctor Peppercorn called a
council from the barn-yard of the Squire, two miles off, and a brisk
young Doctor Partlett appeared, in a fine suit of brown and gold, with
tail-feathers like meteors. A fine young fellow he was, lately from
Paris, with all the modern scientific improvements fresh in his head.
When he had listened to the whole story, he clapped his spur into the
ground, and, leaning back, laughed so loud that all the cocks in the
neighborhood crowed.
Mrs. Feathertop rose up out of her swoon, and Mr. Gray Cock was
greatly enraged.
"What do you mean, sir, by such behavior in the house of mourning?"
"My dear sir, pardon me,--but there is no occasion for mourning. My
dear madam, let me congratulate you. There is no harm done. The simple
matter is, dear madam, you have been under a hallucination all along.
The neighborhood and my learned friend the doctor have all made a
mistake in thinking that these children of yours were hens at all.
They are ducks, ma'am, evidently ducks, and very finely formed ducks,
I dare say."
At this moment a quack was heard, and at a distance the whole tribe
were seen coming waddling home, their feathers gleaming in green and
gold, and they themselves in high good spirits.
"Such a splendid day as we have had!" they all cried in a breath. "And
we know now how to get our own living; we can take care of ourselves
in future, so you need have no further trouble with us."
"Madam," said the Doctor, making a bow with an air which displayed his
tail-feathers to advantage, "let me congratulate you on the charming
family you have raised. A finer brood of young healthy ducks I never
saw. Give claw, my dear friend," he said, addressing the elder son.
"In our barn-yard no family is more respected than that of the ducks."
And so Madam Feathertop came off glorious at last; and when after this
the ducks used to go swimming up and down the river like so many
nabobs among the admiring hens, Doctor Peppercorn used to look after
them and say, "Ah! I had the care of their infancy!" and Mr. Gray Cock
and his wife used to say, "It was our system of education did that!"
_Harriet Beecher Stowe._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BLUNDER.