Child Life in Prose Part 18

The snow melted, the April sun reappeared, but the little boy played out of doors no more. His sister went out again to gather nettles and blue anemones, but no longer with a merry heart. When she came home, she would place the anemones on her little brother's sick-bed. And as time went on, one day he lay there stiff and cold, with eyes fast closed. In a word, he was dead. They placed him in a coffin, took him to the churchyard, and laid him in the ground, and the priest threw three handfuls of earth over the coffin. Karine's heart was so heavy that she did not heed the blessed words which were spoken of the resurrection unto everlasting life.

Karine only knew that her brother was dead, that she had no longer any little brother whom she could play with, and love, and be loved by in return. She wept bitterly when she thought how gentle and good he was. She went crying into the meadows, gathered all the flowers and young leaves she could find, and strewed them on her brother's grave, and sat there weeping for many hours.

One day she took the pot with the balsam in it, and also the chrysalis, and said, "I will plant the balsam on the grave, and bury the b.u.t.terfly's grub with my dear little brother." Again she wept bitterly while she thought to herself: "Mother said that my brother lives, and is happy with G.o.d; but I saw him lying in the coffin, and put into the grave, and how can he then come back again? No, no; he is dead, and I shall never see either of them again."

Poor little Karine sobbed, and dried her tears with the hand that was free. In the other lay the chrysalis, and the sun shone upon it. There was a low crackling in the sh.e.l.l, and a violent motion within, and, behold! she saw a living insect crawl out, which threw off its sh.e.l.l as a man would his cloak, and sat on Karine's hand, breathing, and at liberty. In a short time wings began to appear from its back. Karine looked on with a beating heart. She saw its wings increase in size, and become colored in the brightness of the spring sun. Presently the new-born b.u.t.terfly moved its proboscis, and tried to raise its young wings, and she recognized her nettle b.u.t.terfly. And when, after an hour, he fluttered his wings to prepare for flight, and flew around the child's head and among the flowers, an unspeakably joyful feeling came over Karine, and she said, "The sh.e.l.l of the chrysalis has burst, and the caterpillar within has got wings; in like manner is my little brother freed from his mortal body, and has become an angel in the presence of G.o.d."

In the night she dreamed that her brother and herself, with b.u.t.terfly's wings, and joy beaming in their eyes, were soaring far, far away, above their earthly home, towards the millions of bright s.h.i.+ning stars; and the stars became flowers, whose nectar they drank; and over them was a wondrous bright light, and they heard sounds of music,--so grand and beautiful! Karine recognized the tones she had heard on earth, when their father played for her and her little brother in their poor cottage, when they were hungry. But this was so much more grand! Yet it was so beautiful, so exceedingly beautiful, that Karine awoke. A rosy light filled the room, the morning dawn was breaking, and the sun was looking in love upon the earth, reviving everything with his gentleness and strength.

Karine wept no more. She felt great inward joy. When she again went to visit the nettles, and saw the little caterpillars crawling on the leaves, she said in a low voice, "You only crawl now, you little things! By and by you will have wings as well as I, and you know not how glorious it will be at the last."

_From the Swedish._

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LITTLE ARTHUR'S PRAYER.

The little school-boys went quietly to their own beds, and began undressing and talking to one another in whispers; while the elder, amongst whom was Tom, sat chatting about on one another's beds, with their jackets and waistcoats off. Poor little Arthur was overwhelmed with the novelty of his position. The idea of sleeping in the room with strange boys had clearly never crossed his mind before, and was as painful as it was strange to him. He could hardly bear to take his jacket off; however, presently, with an effort, off it came, and then he paused and looked at Tom, who was sitting at the bottom of his bed, talking and laughing.

"Please, Brown," he whispered, "may I wash my face and hands?"

"Of course, if you like," said Tom, staring; "that's your washhand-stand under the window, second from your bed. You'll have to go down for more water in the morning if you use it all." And on he went with his talk, while Arthur stole timidly from between the beds out to his washhand-stand, and began his ablutions, thereby drawing for a moment on himself the attention of the room.

On went the talk and laughter. Arthur finished his was.h.i.+ng and undressing, and put on his night-gown. He then looked round more nervously than ever. Two or three of the little boys were already in bed, sitting up with their chins on their knees. The light burned clear, the noise went on. It was a trying moment for the poor little lonely boy; however, this time he did not ask Tom what he might or might not do, but dropped on his knees by his bedside, as he had done every day from his childhood, to open his heart to Him who heareth the cry and beareth the sorrows of the tender child, and the strong man in agony.

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Tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlacing his boots, so that his back was towards Arthur, and he did not see what had happened, and looked up in wonder at the sudden silence. Then two or three boys laughed and sneered, and a big brutal fellow who was standing in the middle of the room picked up a slipper, and s.h.i.+ed it at the kneeling boy, calling him a snivelling young shaver. Then Tom saw the whole, and the next moment the boot he had just pulled off flew straight at the head of the bully, who had just time to throw up his arm and catch it on his elbow.

"Confound you, Brown; what's that for?" roared he, stamping with pain.

"Never mind what I mean," said Tom, stepping on to the floor, every drop of blood in his body tingling; "if any fellow wants the other boot, he knows how to get it."

What would have been the result is doubtful, for at this moment the sixth-form boy came in, and not another word could be said. Tom and the rest rushed into bed and finished their unrobing there, and the old verger, as punctual as the clock, had put out the candle in another minute, and toddled on to the next room, shutting their door with his usual "Good night, genl'm'n."

There were many boys in the room by whom that little scene was taken to heart before they slept. But sleep seemed to have deserted the pillow of poor Tom. For some time his excitement, and the flood of memories which chased one another through his brain, kept him from thinking or resolving. His head throbbed, his heart leapt, and he could hardly keep himself from springing out of bed and rus.h.i.+ng about the room. Then the thought of his own mother came across him, and the promise he had made at her knee, years ago, never to forget to kneel by his bedside, and give himself up to his Father, before he laid his head on the pillow, from which it might never rise; and he lay down gently, and cried as if his heart would break. He was only fourteen years old.

It was no light act of courage in those days for a little fellow to say his prayers publicly, even at Rugby. A few years later, when Arnold's manly piety had begun to leaven the school, the tables turned; before he died, in the schoolhouse at least, and I believe in the other houses, the rule was the other way. But poor Tom had come to school in other times. The first few nights after he came he did not kneel down because of the noise, but sat up in bed till the candle was out, and then stole out and said his prayers, in fear lest some one should find him out. So did many another poor little fellow. Then he began to think that he might just as well say his prayers in bed, and then that it did not matter whether he was kneeling, or sitting, or lying down. And so it had come to pa.s.s with Tom, as with all who will not confess their Lord before men; and for the last year he had probably not said his prayers in earnest a dozen times.

Poor Tom! the first and bitterest feeling which was like to break his heart was the sense of his own cowardice. The vice of all others which he loathed was brought in and burned in on his own soul. He had lied to his mother, to his conscience, to his G.o.d. How could he bear it?

And then the poor little weak boy, whom he had pitied and almost scorned for his weakness, had done that which he, braggart as he was, dared not do. The first dawn of comfort came to him in vowing to himself that he would stand by that boy through thick and thin, and cheer him, and help him, and bear his burdens, for the good deed done that night. Then he resolved to write home next day and tell his mother all, and what a coward her son had been. And then peace came to him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his testimony next morning. The morning would be harder than the night to begin with, but he felt that he could not afford to let one chance slip. Several times he faltered, for the Devil showed him first, all his old friends calling him "Saint," and "Squaretoes," and a dozen hard names, and whispered to him that his motives would be misunderstood, and he would only be left alone with the new boy; whereas it was his duty to keep all means of influence, that he might do good to the largest number. And then came the more subtle temptation, "Shall I not be showing myself braver than others by doing this? Have I any right to begin it now? Ought I not rather to pray in my own study, letting other boys know that I do so, and trying to lead them to it, while in public at least I should go on as I have done?" However, his good angel was too strong that night, and he turned on his side and slept, tired of trying to reason, but resolved to follow the impulse which had been so strong, and in which he had found peace.

Next morning he was up and washed and dressed, all but his jacket and waistcoat, just as the ten minutes' bell began to ring, and then in the face of the whole room he knelt down to pray. Not five words could he say,--the bell mocked him; he was listening for every whisper in the room,--what were they all thinking of him? He was ashamed to go on kneeling, ashamed to rise from his knees. At last, as it were from his inmost heart, a still small voice seemed to breathe forth the words of the publican, "G.o.d be merciful to me a sinner!" He repeated them over and over, clinging to them as for his life, and rose from his knees comforted and humbled, and ready to face the whole world. It was not needed; two other boys besides Arthur had already followed his example, and he went down to the great school with a glimmering of another lesson in his heart,--the lesson that he who has conquered his own coward spirit has conquered the whole outward world; and that other one which the old prophet learned in the cave at Mount h.o.r.eb, when he hid his face, and the still small voice asked, "What doest thou here, Elijah?" that however we may fancy ourselves alone on the side of good, the King and Lord of men is nowhere without his witnesses; for in every society, however seemingly corrupt and G.o.dless, there are those who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

He found, too, how greatly he had exaggerated the effect to be produced by his act. For a few nights there was a sneer or a laugh when he knelt down, but this pa.s.sed off soon, and one by one all the other boys but three or four followed the lead.

"_School-Days at Rugby._"

FAITH AND HER MOTHER.

Aunt Winifred went again to Worcester to-day. She said that she had to buy tr.i.m.m.i.n.g for Faith's sack.

She went alone, as usual, and Faith and I kept each other company through the afternoon,--she on the floor with her doll, I in the easy-chair with Macaulay. As the light began to fall level on the floor, I threw the book aside,--being at the end of a volume,--and, Mary Ann having exhausted her attractions, I surrendered unconditionally to the little maiden.

She took me up garret, and down cellar, on top of the wood-pile, and into the apple-trees; I fathomed the mysteries of Old Man's Castle and Still Palm; I was her grandmother; I was her baby; I was a rabbit; I was a chestnut horse; I was a watch-dog; I was a mild-tempered giant; I was a bear, "warranted not to eat little girls"; I was a roaring hippopotamus and a canary-bird; I was Jeff Davis, and I was Moses in the bulrushes; and of what I was, the time faileth me to tell.

It comes over me with a curious, mingled sense of the ludicrous and the horrible, that I should have spent the afternoon like a baby and almost as happily, laughing out with the child, past and future forgotten, the tremendous risks of "I spy" absorbing all my present, while what was happening was happening, and what was to come was coming. Not an echo in the air, not a prophecy in the suns.h.i.+ne, not a note of warning in the song of the robins that watched me from the apple-boughs.

As the long, golden afternoon slid away, we came out by the front gate to watch for the child's mother. I was tired, and, lying back on the gra.s.s, gave Faith some pink and purple larkspurs, that she might amuse herself in making a chain of them. The picture that she made sitting there on the short dying gra.s.s--the light which broke all about her and over her at the first, creeping slowly down and away to the west, her little fingers linking the rich, bright flowers, tube into tube, the dimple on her cheek and the love in her eyes--has photographed itself into my thinking.

How her voice rang out, when the wheels sounded at last, and the carriage, somewhat slowly driven, stopped!

"Mamma, mamma! see what I've got for you, mamma!"

Auntie tried to step from the carriage, and called me: "Mary, can you help me a little? I am--tired."

I went to her, and she leaned heavily on my arm, and we came up the path.

"Such a pretty little chain, all for you, mamma," began Faith, and stopped, struck by her mother's look.

"It has been a long ride, and I am in pain. I believe I will lie right down on the parlor sofa. Mary, would you be kind enough to give Faith her supper and put her to bed?"

Faith's lip grieved.

"Cousin Mary isn't _you_, mamma. I want to be kissed. You haven't kissed me."

Her mother hesitated for a moment; then kissed her once, twice; put both arms about her neck, and turned her face to the wall without a word.

"Mamma is tired, dear," I said; "come away."

She was lying quite still when I had done what was to be done for the child, and had come back. The room was nearly dark. I sat down on my cricket by her sofa.

"Did you find the sack-tr.i.m.m.i.n.g?" I ventured, after a pause.

"I believe so,--yes."

She drew a little package from her pocket, held it a moment, then let it roll to the floor forgotten. When I picked it up, the soft, tissue-paper wrapper was wet and hot with tears.

"Mary?"