Not Quite Eighteen Part 13

Meanwhile, as Fate willed it, the dripping Ha.s.san was handed ash.o.r.e precisely at that point of the esplanade where stood his father and mother! They had not seen the accident, nor understood that it was a boy who had fallen in and been rescued by a bird; so when a wet little object was set to drip almost at their feet, and they recognized in it their own offspring, whom they supposed to be safely asleep at home, it will be easily imagined that their wrath and astonishment knew no bounds.

"Ahi! child of sin, contaminated by the unbeliever, is it indeed thou?"

cried the irate Mustapha. "What djinnee, what imp of Eblis hath brought thee here?"

"He hath been in the water, Allah preserve us!" cried the more tender-hearted mother. "He might have been drowned."

"In the water! Nay, then; wherefore is he not in bed where we left him?

We will see if this imp of evil be not taught to avoid the water in the future. On my head be it if he is not, Inshallah!"

So the weeping Ha.s.san was led home by his family, his garments leaving a trail of drip on the concrete all the way up the long distance; and in the seclusion of the temporary harem he was caused to see the error of his way.

"Thou shalt be made to remember," declared his irate parent in the pauses of discipline. "I will not have thee as the sons of these infidels who despise correction, saying 'I will' and 'I will not,' and are as a blemish and a darkening to the faces of their parents. The Prophet rebuke me if I do! Inshallah!"

But Coco, when the lights were put out and the great crowd streamed away, leaving the Fair Grounds to silence and loneliness, and the lagoons became again a soft land of shadows broken by reaches of moonlight, sailed back to his perch among the sedges with a calm and satisfied mind. He had a right to be pleased with himself. Had he not saved two "people," one very small and hard, and the other very big and soft? Nothing whispered of that dreadful half-dollar which was coming on the morrow to vex his spirit. No one said to _him_ "Inshallah." He tucked his head under his wing and went to sleep, a peaceful and contented flamingo; and the moral is, "Be virtuous and you will be happy."

TWO PAIRS OF EYES.

Did it ever occur to you what a difference there is in the way in which people use their eyes? I do not mean that some people squint, and some do not; that some have short sight, and some long sight. These are accidental differences; and the people who cannot see far, sometimes see more, and more truly, than do other people whose vision is as keen as the eagle's. No, the difference between people's eyes lies in the power and the habit of observation.

Did you ever hear of the famous conjurer Robert Houdin, whose wonderful tricks and feats of magic were the astonishment of Europe a few years ago? He tells us, in his autobiography, that to see everything at a glance, while seeming to see nothing, is the first requisite in the education of a "magician," and that the faculty of noticing rapidly and exactly can be trained like any other faculty. When he was fitting his little son to follow the same profession, he used to take him past a shop-window, at a quick walk, and then ask him how many objects in the window he could remember and describe. At first, the child could only recollect three or four; but gradually he rose to ten, twelve, twenty, and, in the end, his eyes would note, and his memory retain, not less than forty articles, all caught in the few seconds which it took to pa.s.s the window at a rapid walk.

It is so more or less with us all. Few things are more surprising than the distinct picture which one mind will bring away from a place, and the vague and blurred one which another mind will bring. Observation is one of the valuable faculties, and the lack of it a fault which people have to pay for, in various ways, all their lives.

There were once two peasant boys in France, whose names were Jean and Louis Cardilliac. They were cousins; their mothers were both widows, and they lived close to each other in a little village, near a great forest.

They also looked much alike. Both had dark, closely shaven hair, olive skins, and large, black eyes; but in spite of all their resemblances, Jean was always spoken of as "lucky," and Louis as "unlucky," for reasons which you will shortly see.

If the two boys were out together, in the forest or the fields, they walked along quite differently. Louis dawdled in a sort of loose-jointed trot, with his eyes fixed on whatever happened to be in his hand,--a sling, perhaps, or a stick, or one of those snappers with which birds are scared away from fruit. If it were the stick, he cracked it as he went, or he snapped the snapper, and he whistled, as he did so, in an absent-minded way. Jean's black eyes, on the contrary, were always on the alert, and making discoveries. While Louis stared and puckered his lips up over the snapper or the sling, Jean would note, unconsciously but truly, the form of the clouds, the look of the sky in the rainy west, the wedge-shaped procession of the ducks through the air, and the way in which they used their wings, the bird-calls in the hedge. He was quick to mark a strange leaf, or an unaccustomed fungus by the path, or any small article which had been dropped by the way. Once, he picked up a five-franc piece; once, a silver pencil-case which belonged to the _cure_, who was glad to get it again, and gave Jean ten sous by way of reward. Louis would have liked ten sous very much, but somehow he never found any pencil-cases; and it seemed hard and unjust when his mother upbraided him for the fact, which, to his thinking, was rather his misfortune than his fault.

"How can I help it?" he asked. "The saints are kind to Jean, and they are not kind to me,--_voila tout_!"

"The saints help those who help themselves," retorted his mother. "Thou art a look-in-the-air. Jean keeps his eyes open, he has wit, and he notices."

But such reproaches did not help Louis, or teach him anything. Habit is so strong.

"There!" cried his mother one day, when he came in to supper. "Thy cousin--thy lucky cousin--has again been lucky. He has found a truffle-bed, and thy aunt has sold the truffles to the man from Paris for a hundred francs. A hundred francs! It will be long before thy stupid fingers can earn the half of that!"

"Where did Jean find the bed?" asked Louis.

"In the oak copse near the brook, where thou mightest have found them as easily as he," retorted his mother. "He was walking along with Daudot, the wood cutter's dog--whose mother was a truffle-hunter--and Daudot began to point and scratch; and Jean suspected something, got a spade, dug, and crack! a hundred francs! Ah, _his_ mother is to be envied!"

"The oak copse! Near the brook!" exclaimed Louis, too much excited to note the reproach which concluded the sentence. "Why, I was there but the other day with Daudot, and I remember now, he scratched and whined a great deal, and tore at the ground. I didn't think anything about it at the time."

"Oh, thou little imbecile--thou stupid!" cried his mother, angrily.

"There were the truffles, and the first chance was for thee. Didn't think anything about it! Thou never dost think, thou never wilt. Out of my sight, and do not let me see thee again till bedtime."

Supperless and disconsolate poor Louis slunk away. He called Daudot, and went to the oak copse, resolved that if he saw any sign of excitement on the part of the dog, to fetch a spade and instantly begin to dig. But Daudot trotted along quietly, as if there were not a truffle left in France, and the walk was fruitless.

"If I had only," became a favorite sentence with Louis, as time went on.

"If I had only noticed this." "If I had only stopped then." But such phrases are apt to come into the mind after something has been missed by not noticing or not stopping, so they do little good to anybody.

Did it ever occur to you that what people call "lucky chances," though they seem to come suddenly, are in reality prepared for by a long unconscious process of making ready on the part of those who profit by them? Such a chance came at last to both Jean and Louis,--to Louis no less than to Jean; but one was prepared for it, and the other was not.

Professor Sylvestre, a famous naturalist from Toulouse, came to the forest village where the two boys lived, one summer. He wanted a boy to guide him about the country, carry his plant-cases and herbals, and help in his search after rare flowers and birds, and he asked Madame Collot, the landlady of the inn, to recommend one. She named Jean and Louis; they were both good boys, she said.

So the professor sent for them to come and talk with him.

"Do you know the forest well, and the paths?" he asked.

Yes, both of them knew the forest very well.

"Are there any woodp.e.c.k.e.rs of such and such a species?" he asked next.

"Have you the large lunar moth here? Can you tell me where to look for _Campanila rhomboidalis_?" and he rapidly described the variety.

Louis shook his head. He knew nothing of any of these things. But Jean at once waked up with interest. He knew a great deal about woodp.e.c.k.e.rs,--not in a scientific way, but with the knowledge of one who has watched and studied bird habits. He had quite a collection of lunar and other moths of his own, and though he did not recognize the rare _Campanila_ by its botanical t.i.tle, he did as soon as the professor described the peculiarities of the leaf and blossom. So M. Sylvestre engaged him to be his guide so long as he stayed in the region, and agreed to pay him ten francs a week. And Mother Cardilliac wrung her hands, and exclaimed more piteously than ever over her boy's "ill luck"

and his cousin's superior good fortune.

One can never tell how a "chance" may develop. Professor Sylvestre was well off, and kind of heart. He had no children of his own, and he was devoted, above all other things, to the interest of science. He saw the making of a first-rate naturalist in Jean Cardilliac, with his quick eyes, his close observation, his real interest in finding out and making sure. He grew to an interest in and liking for the boy, which ripened, as the time drew near for him to return to his university, into an offer to take Jean with him, and provide for his education, on the condition that Jean, in return, should render him a certain amount of a.s.sistance during his out-of-school hours. It was, in effect, a kind of adoption, which might lead to almost anything; and Jean's mother was justified in declaring, as she did, that his fortune was made.

"And for thee, thou canst stay at home, and dig potatoes for the rest of thy sorry life," lamented the mother of Louis. "Well, let people say what they will, this is an unjust world; and, what is worse, the saints look on, and do nothing to prevent it. Heaven forgive me if it is blasphemous to speak so, but I cannot help it!"

But it was neither "luck" nor "injustice." It was merely the difference between "eyes and no eyes,"--a difference which will always exist and always tell.

THE PONY THAT KEPT THE STORE.

It was a shabby old store, built where two cross-roads and a lane met at the foot of a low hill, and left between them a small triangular s.p.a.ce fringed with gra.s.s. On the hill stood a summer hotel, full of boarders from the neighboring city; for the place was cool and airy, and a wide expanse of sea and rocky islands, edged with beaches and wooded points, stretched away from the hill's foot.

In years gone by, the shabby old store had driven quite a flouris.h.i.+ng trade during the months of the year when the hotel was open. The boarders went there for their ink and tacks; their sewing-silk and shoe-b.u.t.tons; for the orange marmalade and potted ham which they carried on picnics; for the liquid blacking, which saved the boot-boy at the hotel so much labor; the letter-paper, on which they wrote to their friends what a good time they were having; and all the thousand and one things of which people who have little to do with their time and money fancy themselves in want. But a year before the time at which the events I am about to relate took place, the owner of the store built himself a new and better one at a place a mile further on, where there was a still larger hotel and a group of cottages, and removed thither with his belongings. The old building had stood empty for some months, and at last was hired for a queer use,--namely, to serve as stable for a very small Shetland pony, not much larger than a calf, or an extra large Newfoundland dog.

"Cloud" was the pony's name. He belonged to Ned Cabot, who was nine years old, and was not only his pony, but his intimate friend as well.

Ned loved him only the better for a terrible accident which had befallen Cloud a few months before.

The Cabots, who had been living on Lake Superior for a while, came back to the East with all their goods and chattels, and among the rest, their horses. It had been a question as to how little Cloud should travel; and at last a box was built which could be set in a freight-car, and in which, it was hoped, he would make the journey in safety. But accidents sometimes happen even when the utmost care is taken, and, sad to relate, Cloud arrived in Boston with his tiny foreleg broken.

Horses' legs are hard to mend, you know; and generally when one breaks, it is thought the easiest and cheapest way out of the trouble to shoot the poor animal at once, and buy another to take his place. But the bare mention of such a thing threw Ned into such paroxysms of grief, and he sobbed so dreadfully, that all his family made haste to a.s.sure him that under no circ.u.mstances should Cloud be shot. Instead, he was sent to a hospital,--not the Ma.s.sachusetts General, I think, but something almost as superior in its line, where animals are treated, and there the surgeons slung him up, and put his leg into plaster, exactly as if he had been a human being. Had he been a large, heavy horse, I suppose they could hardly have done this; but being a little light pony, it was possible. And the result was that the poor fellow got well, and was not lamed in the least, which made his little master very happy. He loved Cloud all the more for this great escape, and Cloud fully returned Ned's affection. He was a rather over-indulged and overfed pony; but with Ned, he was always a pattern of gentleness and propriety. Ned could lie flat on his back and read story books by the hour without the least fear that Cloud would jump or shy or shake him off. Far from it! Cloud would graze quietly up and down, taking pains not to disturb the reading, only turning his head now and then to see if Ned was comfortable, and when he found him so, giving a little satisfied whinny, which seemed to say, "Here we are, and what a time we are having!" Surely, no pony could be expected to do better than that.

So now little Cloud, with his foreleg quite mended and as strong as ever, was the sole occupant of the roomy old country store. A little stall had been part.i.tioned off for him in a corner where there was a window, out of which he could see the buckboards and cut-unders drive by, and the daisies and long gra.s.s on the opposite slope blowing in the fresh sea wind. Horses have curiosity, and like to look out of the window and watch what is going on as well as people do.

There were things inside the store that were worth looking at as well as things outside. When Mr. Harrison, the storekeeper, moved away, he carried off most of his belongings, but a few articles he left behind, I suppose because he did not consider them worth taking away. There were two blue painted counters and some rough hanging shelves, a set of rusty old scales and weights, a row of gla.s.s jars with a little dab of something at the bottom of each,--rice, brown sugar, cream-of-tartar, cracker crumbs, and fragments of ginger-snaps. There was also a bottle half full of fermented olives, a paper parcel of musty corn flour, and, greatest of all, a big triangle of cheese, blue with mould, in a round red wooden box with wire sides, like an enormous mouse-trap. It was quite a stock-in-trade for a pony, and Cloud had so much the air of being in possession, that the smallest of the children at the hotel always spoke of the place as his store. "I want to go down to Cloud's store," they would say to their nurses.

Ned and his sister Constance took a great deal of the care of the pony on themselves. A freckled little country lad named d.i.c.k had been engaged to feed and clean him; but he so often ran away from his work that the children were never easy in their minds for fear lest Cloud had been forgotten and was left supperless or with no bed to lie upon. Almost always, and especially on Sunday nights, when he of the freckles was most apt to absent himself, they would coax their mother to let them run down the last thing and make sure that all was right. If it were not, Ned would turn to, and Constance also, to feed and bed the pony; they were both strong and st.u.r.dy, and could do the work very well, only Constance always wanted to braid his mane to make it kink, and Ned would never let her; so they sometimes ended with quarrelling.