Journeys Through Bookland Volume Vi Part 13

"But Isabel, my mother will be your mother, too. Come, Bella, we will go ask her if we may go."

And there I am, the happiest of boys, pleading with the kindest of mothers. And the young heart leans into that mother's heart--none of the void now that will overtake it in the years that are to come. It is joyous, full, and running over!

"You may go," she says, "if your uncle is willing."

"But mamma, I am afraid to ask him; I do not believe he loves me."

"Don't say so, Paul," and she draws you to her side; as if she would supply by her own love the lacking love of a universe.

"Go, with your cousin Isabel, and ask him kindly; and if he says no--make no reply."

And with courage, we go hand in hand, and steal in at the library door.

There he sits--I seem to see him now--in the old wainscoted room, covered over with books and pictures; and he wears his heavy-rimmed spectacles, and is poring over some big volume, full of hard words, that are not in any spelling-book.

We step up softly; and Isabel lays her little hand upon his arm; and he turns, and says--"Well, my little daughter?"

I ask if we may go down to the big rock in the meadow?

He looks at Isabel, and says he is afraid--"we cannot go."

"But why, uncle? It is only a little way, and we will be very careful."

"I am afraid, my children; do not say any more: you can have the pony, and Tray, and play at home."

"But, uncle----"

"You need say no more, my child."

I pinch the hand of little Isabel, and look in her eye--my own half filling with tears. I feel that my forehead is flushed, and I hide it behind Bella's tresses--whispering to her at the same time--"Let us go."

"What, sir," says my uncle, mistaking my meaning--"do you persuade her to disobey?"

Now I am angry, and say blindly--"No, sir, I didn't!" And then my rising pride will not let me say, that I wished only Isabel should go out with me.

Bella cries; and I shrink out; and am not easy until I have run to bury my head in my mother's bosom. Alas! pride cannot always find such covert! There will be times when it will hara.s.s you strangely; when it will peril friends.h.i.+ps--will sever old, standing intimacy; and then--no resource but to feed on its own bitterness. Hateful pride!--to be conquered, as a man would conquer an enemy, or it will make whirlpools in the current of your affections--nay, turn the whole tide of the heart into rough and unaccustomed channels.

But boyhood has its GRIEF too, apart from PRIDE.

You love the old dog, Tray; and Bella loves him as well as you. He is a n.o.ble old fellow, with s.h.a.ggy hair, and long ears, and big paws, that he will put up into your hands, if you ask him. And he never gets angry when you play with him, and tumble him over in the long gra.s.s, and pull his silken ears. Sometimes, to be sure, he will open his mouth, as if he would bite, but when he gets your hand fairly in his jaws, he will scarce leave the print of his teeth upon it. He will swim, too, bravely, and bring ash.o.r.e all the sticks you throw upon the water; and when you fling a stone to tease him, he swims round and round, and whines, and looks sorry, that he cannot find it.

He will carry a heaping basket full of nuts, too, in his mouth, and never spill one of them; and when you come out to your uncle's home in the spring, after staying a whole winter in the town, he knows you--old Tray does! And he leaps upon you, and lays his paws on your shoulder, and licks your face; and is almost as glad to see you, as cousin Bella herself. And when you put Bella on his back for a ride, he only pretends to bite her little feet--but he wouldn't do it for the world.

Ay, Tray is a n.o.ble old dog!

But one summer, the farmers say that some of their sheep are killed, and that the dogs have worried them; and one of them comes to talk with my uncle about it.

But Tray never worried sheep; you know he never did; and so does nurse; and so does Bella; for in the spring, she had a pet lamb, and Tray never worried little Fidele.

And one or two of the dogs that belong to the neighbors are shot; though n.o.body knows who shot them; and you have great fears about poor Tray; and try to keep him at home, and fondle him more than ever. But Tray will sometimes wander off; till finally, one afternoon, he comes back whining piteously, and with his shoulder all b.l.o.o.d.y.

Little Bella cries loud; and you almost cry, as nurse dresses the wound; and poor old Tray whines very sadly. You pat his head, and Bella pats him; and you sit down together by him on the floor of the porch, and bring a rug for him to lie upon; and try and tempt him with a little milk, and Bella brings a piece of cake for him--but he will eat nothing.

You sit up till very late, long after Bella has gone to bed, patting his head, and wis.h.i.+ng you could do something for poor Tray; but he only licks your hand, and whines more piteously than ever.

In the morning, you dress early, and hurry downstairs; but Tray is not lying on the rug; and you run through the house to find him, and whistle, and call--Tray--Tray! At length you see him lying in his old place, out by the cherry tree, and you run to him; but he does not start; and you lean down to pat him--but he is cold, and the dew is wet upon him--poor Tray is dead!

[Ill.u.s.tration: POOR TRAY IS DEAD]

You take his head upon your knees, and pat again those glossy ears, and cry; but you cannot bring him to life. And Bella comes, and cries with you. You can hardly bear to have him put in the ground; but uncle says he must be buried. So one of the workmen digs a grave under the cherry tree, where he died--a deep grave, and they round it over with earth, and smooth the sods upon it--even now I can trace Tray's grave.

You and Bella together put up a little slab for a tombstone; and she hangs flowers upon it, and ties them there with a bit of ribbon. You can scarce play all that day; and afterward, many weeks later, when you are rambling over the fields, or lingering by the brook, throwing off sticks into the eddies, you think of old Tray's s.h.a.ggy coat, and of his big paw, and of his honest eye; and the memory of your boyish grief comes upon you; and you say with tears, "Poor Tray!" And Bella too, in her sad sweet tones, says--"Poor old Tray--he is dead!"

FOOTNOTES:

[124-1] From _Reveries of a Bachelor_, by Donald G. Mitch.e.l.l (Ik Marvel).

THE BUGLE SONG

_By_ ALFRED TENNYSON

The splendor falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going!

O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Or echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

FROM THE IMITATION OF CHRIST

_By_ THOMAS a KEMPIS

OF FOLLOWING CHRIST AND DESPISING ALL WORLDLY VANITIES

Our Lord saith: he that followeth me walketh not in darkness.

These are the words of Christ in the which we are admonished to follow his life and his manners if we would be truly enlightened and be delivered from all manner of blindness of heart.

Wherefore let our chief study be upon the life of Jesus Christ.