Stories about —

I have numbered many pet boys among my kinsfolk and friends, and I am going to tell you a few of their pranks. It would not be fair, I suppose, to the little girls, to relate their pieces of mischief, for they are nearly all grown up now, and have boys and girls of their own, who would be very much shocked if they could know that mamma had ever been concerned in a small riot, or had nearly killed herself in attempting to fly down from a heap of piled up boxes, by means of large paper wings! I am sorry to say that my own chicks prefer the recital of their mother’s wrong doings to any other tale, and when,

I am taken prisoner, held captive in an armchair by the fire, and not released till I have told, for the hundredth time, most of my own childish scrapes. Once or twice I have tried to substitute a little stray bit of goodness, but that was not half as popular as ‘Mamma’s naughtiness.’

One of my earliest pets was a tiny boy who would have been very pretty if he had not been disfigured by a black and blue lump about as big as a pigeon’s egg on his forehead. At first I thought it was caused by a fall, but it turned out to be his own doing. Whenever he was thwarted or annoyed in any way he deliberately knelt down and thumped his head on the floor, even on that of the marble hall. I have seen him drop on his knees and hit his forehead against the pavement out walking, and the curious part of the story is that, although it must have hurt him a good deal, he never cried! He was not at all an ill-tempered child, but he was rather wilful; and if his wishes were not at once attended to, these knocks began and went on till he got his own way. The doctor said it was very bad for him, and his mother tried every means to cure this trick. In vain were all her attempts until some one suggested a little counter-irritation, and it proved quite successful. Whenever Master Willie dropped on his knees and began to knock his head, his mother produced a small light horsewhip, and applied it to his little bare legs with much vigour. At this unexpected treatment Willie scrambled to his feet as fast as possible; and very soon he would ask, before beginning to thump his forehead, ‘Is you goin’ to vitch me with dat vitch;’ his mother replied, ‘Yes, I am;’ whereupon Willie calmly said, ‘Den I wont hit my head no more;’ so in about a week the headthumping was quite given up, but it took a much longer time to get rid of the ugly mark.

Poor little Willie got into dreadful trouble when he was about six years old, for sealing up his sister’s lips. They were both nicely dressed, and seated at the nursery table to wait till it was time to go down to dessert. The stupid old nurse gave them two pieces of sealing wax and some seals, to amuse themselves by sealing up imaginary letters. But Willie soon got tired of this quiet play, and when his wax was flaring away he popped it down upon his poor little sister’s red lips. She was looking at him in great admiration, with her pretty smiling face up-turned, when he suddenly dropped a quantity of blazing wax on her lips, and firmly pressed the seal down, saying, ‘You shat (chatter) too much, miss.’ Of course he had no idea of the anguish he was inflicting, and the poor child suffered almost as much as his victim, and seemed quite glad to be punished in expiation of his thoughtlessness.

I once knew two little brothers who were really fond of each other, but who used to quarrel most dreadfully. I must say it was chiefly the fault of the elder boy, who had no patience with his small brother Franky’s shortcomings. Franky was devoted to Cecil, and would run his messages for him, and wait upon him in the most dutiful way; but he never got any thanks for his little services. One day I was calling on their mamma, and she took me into the dining-room, to see a large and beautiful ship which had been just given to Cecil. It stood in a sort of wooden rest on the floor, and was certainly a very fine model of an old-fashioned frigate. There were her guns and her portholes to open and shut, every block and rope was right, and her sails and flags were something lovely to behold. The only thing which struck me as being wrong was her crew; they were little composition figures of sailors, very pretty to look at, but hugely out of proportion: fancy an A.B. seaman reaching half way up the mainmast! However, Cecil thought it all beautiful, and walked round and round his new treasure with the greatest pride and delight.

His mamma took advantage of his softened mood to say a word about being kind to poor little Franky, and showing it to him, which Cecil readily promised to do, when the door opened, and nurse led in Franky fresh from his mid-day sleep, in his pretty white frock and with cheeks as red as his ribbons. His large solemn eyes opened wide at the sight of this splendid man-of-war. He walked round it two or three times with many murmurs of admiration, for he could not speak plain; and suddenly, without the least warning, he sat down plump on the bowsprit, snapping it off close to the bows. Of course he toppled over, and came crash down on the back of his head, but, oh! what a wreck he made! So many ropes are fastened to the bowsprit, that when it is carried away in this sudden manner, the consequences are dreadful, and it is very difficult to repair such an accident. Cecil’s wrath was tremendous, and it certainly was enough to provoke a more patient little boy. He flew at his brother, (who was howling loudly) with both his fists doubled, and would no doubt have punished him severely, if nurse had not snatched up her darling in her arms, and carried him off; but Cecil could not be comforted for many a day.

You must not think they were always quarrelling, for they never were happy apart; and if one was in any trouble or difficulty, the other was wretched; for instance, Cecil once fastened himself into a room by accident; it was a long time before a locksmith could be brought to break open the door, and no ladder was long enough to reach to the window, so Cecil’s imprisonment was very tedious. All the time he was locked up Frank sat at his door trying to cheer and comfort his brother, refusing his own dinner. Every now and then he would say, ‘Never mind, Cis; I’m hungry too.’ And he looked quite faint and pale by the time Cecil was released; but when he took him into the dining-room, he would not touch food till Cecil had been helped and begun to eat. On another occasion when Cecil set himself on fire, and was very severely burnt, Franky kept making puffs at him as the poor child ran about in torture, thinking he could blow out the flames; and I heard him say afterwards, ‘I did try to blow him out, but the fire wouldn’t be blowed.’ He was such a dear little nurse to his brother all through the weeks of pain and suffering which followed this accident.

Frank was very anxious to be allowed to ride a certain donkey which was usually employed in drawing the mowing machine; but the donkey objected decidedly to being ridden when his day’s work was over, and always deposited Frank on the ground the moment he got into the road. Mr. Donkey walked sedately up to the gate of his favourite meadow, and then put his head down between his forelegs, hunched up his back—for it could hardly be called kicking—and soon got rid of poor little Frank, who, nothing daunted, scrambled on again to encounter the same fate directly. One day we met Frank a long distance from home, looking hot and dusty; he was walking along the high road leading the donkey by the rein. We immediately asked if he had been thrown oftener than usual, and why he was walking. He disdained to answer us, and turning with a little confidential smile to his mother said, ‘Well, you see, mother, he was trotting very nicely, and I got off to see how he was going!’ We all laughed at this reason a great deal, but Frank saw nothing amusing in it.

Frank and Cecil gave their mother a great fright one day. They were living in the country, and had a very quiet old pony which was used in the basket carriage. The boys begged that they might be allowed to ride this pony in a large field near the house. Now, as there was nothing whatever with which they could possibly hurt themselves in this field, they were permitted to do so; but, soon after they started, a great clatter and noise was heard in the porch; and, when the poor mamma went to find out what it could be, there was the pony without either of his riders, his reins broken, his saddle turned underneath him, and with a great cut on his side. He had evidently come to complain of the treatment he had received; but I fancy the mother thought more of her missing boys. At all events I know she rushed out, still followed by Mettle, and to her joy met both her troublesome treasures in the lane close to the house, safe and well, but nearly in as bad a plight as the pony: their clothes were torn and muddy, their hats off, and they were both crying bitterly. It seems that they were ‘playing at hunting,’ and, after several gallops round the field after a little terrier, who acted fox very well, the dog bolted through a hole in a high, quickset hedge, jumped the muddy ditch on the other side, and barked defiantly at them from the road. The ardour of the chase quite carried away the two small huntsmen, who put the pony at this big hedge, fully believing he could jump it; and Mettle must have thought so too, for he actually tried, landing of course in the middle of the thorns. The riders soon scrambled off, but alighted in the ditch. The pony was firmly fixed in the fence, and struggled a great deal before he could free himself, which he did at last at the expense of many scratches, and the loss of his stirrups and reins. It was not surprising to hear that he declined to be remounted, and set off home as fast as he could.

One day, and almost before their poor mother’s nerves had had time to recover this shock, she heard a tap at the drawing-room door, and on going to see who it could possibly be, she found Franky with a very pale face but an extraordinary polite manner, who said, ‘Oh mamma, dear, if you please I think I have put out Cecil’s eye!’ Was not that a pretty thing to hear? Poor Mrs. E—— flew off to the play-room to find Cecil crouching in the corner with the blood streaming from between his fingers, which were pressed to his right eye. At first she really thought his sight was injured, but it turned out fortunately that the deep cut had only gone very close to, but not actually into, the eye. Do you know how this happened? Through disobedience: they had climbed up to a high shelf and got down some foils (Papa will tell you what those are, and how dangerous to play with), and were fencing away in fine style. The silly boys had never put on the buttons which even grown-up people use when they fence; nor had they covered up their faces with the wire masks which were kept with the foils. It was a very narrow escape I assure you, and served as a severe lesson to both the children not to touch forbidden things.

And now that I have told you of so many scrapes which these boys fell into, it is only fair to tell you of something very nice about them. They were the most generous little fellows in the world, and were never so happy as when they could give a penny or a bun to a hungry child, or a toy to a sick one. I was spending a week with their mamma about Christmas-time one year, and a friend of hers chanced to call. Mrs. E—— asked where she had been staying, and this lady gave us a description of a charming home far away in the wilds of Yorkshire. Its inmates were a young clergyman and his wife, and a house full of children. She told us how rich they were in goodness, in love, in self-denial, in all that makes life beautiful and noble. She described the air of refinement over the simple house, the way the elder children helped their mother, and how all were busy and cheerful and happy. There was, however, no money to spare for toys or picture-books, and some of the younger ones had never possessed anything of the sort. We laughed at her account of a sixpenny harlequin having been sent to the house by some friend, when, after a reference to the nursery history it was solemnly announced by sister Edith, the second mother to the little flock, that it was ‘Polly’s turn to have the next new toy;’ so the harlequin was given to Polly, who rejoiced greatly over her first plaything. Cecil asked how old Polly was, and seemed quite shocked to hear she was actually five years old, and that there were three children below her, whose turn had not yet come for a toy! He retired to a corner with Franky and they held a long consultation, which resulted in their leaving the room with an air of great importance, saying to their mother, ‘Don’t want us, please mamma, for we are going to be very busy.’

And they were indeed busy, all that wintry afternoon, mending, sorting, and arranging, putting maps together to make sure that all the pieces were right, finding the bricks belonging to a large box, and at last they came to ask their mother to go with them to the play-room as they wanted her to ‘see something very particular.’ I went too, unasked, and there was quite a large heap of toys, balls, carts, and picture-books, all so neatly mended and in good order. By the table stood Cecil holding his brother’s hand and saying, ‘Me and Franky think we should like to send these to the children in Yorkshire, and do, please mamma, pack them up at once so that they may arrive on Christmas morning.’ Dear little fellows! how enchanted they were when Mrs. E. set to work at once, sent for a huge cake and a big box of barley sugar, and finally filled a large hamper with toys and Christmas cheer, which was sent off that same night to the distant parsonage, with messages of love and good will from Cecil and Franky to the unknown children who were so happy in spite of their independence of toys from a shop; and when a letter came back saying, in simple, graceful words, that the gifts had been received in the same spirit in which they were sent, and that the little flock had been made supremely happy by the sudden shower of presents, Cecil leant his head on his mother’s shoulder and whispered, ‘O mamma! isn’t it nice to make children comfortable?’ We all laughed so much at his idea of comfort.

But the pet boy of all my boy-friends lies sleeping far away on a sunny slope of the Himalaya Mountains, and the myrtles growing so luxuriantly over his grave are meant to tell of the love which all bore to the man who, even as a boy, was never guilty of a mean or a cruel action. My darling little unknown friends, do not think that, because you are only children, it does not matter what you do or say. That silent voice inside you, which men have agreed to call conscience, but which is really a spark from a Divine fire, will always tell you pretty loudly—when you stop and listen to it—whether the thing you either wish to do, or have done, is right or wrong, whether it is true or false, mean or generous. Above all, think to yourselves whenever you are going to hurt an animal: ‘Should I like a great giant to come and do this to me?’ And when the voice says, as it will, nine times out of ten, ‘No, you wouldn’t like it at all,’ then don’t do it. I have seen this pet boy of mine, though he was not at all quarrelsome, rush out into the street to defend a wretched draggled kitten which a big boy was torturing, getting of course well knocked about; but, as in the struggle the kitten escaped, Georgy did not mind a black eye in what he thought was a good cause. I need hardly tell you how much all animals loved and trusted him: a homeless dog never failed to follow him if it crossed his path, a restive horse became as gentle as a lamb under his care. You see I put Georgy’s behaviour to dumb creatures first in my sketch of his character. Do you know why I do so? It is because I have never known a boy who was wilfully cruel to animals, or careless of their comfort and well-being, grow up into such men as I should like you all to be. It is only a very little baby for whom we can make the excuse that it does not mean to hurt pussy when it tweaks its fur; but I have actually seen a mother, and a very fond mother too, pull her baby’s fluffy hair to make it feel how it hurt a dog or a cat to have their hair grasped; and, after all, this practical teaching seemed to answer, for, long before her babies could speak, they quite understood that they were not to hurt any living thing which God has made. We know, both from the Old and New Testaments, how our Father which is in heaven takes real thought and care for His dumb creatures, for He condescended to make laws for their good, at the same time that He gave commandments to His chosen people; and you all know how our gentle loving Saviour taught us that His Father and ours cared for the sparrows on the housetop.

If a boy is thoughtful and good to animals he will probably be kind and considerate to his brothers and sisters; and then how happy they must all be together, and is it not wonderful to think that quite little children can help to make grown-up people comfortable by being patient and unselfish to each other? One of my pet boys used always to call that word ‘slefish,’ and his greatest blame of any thing or any one consisted in calling it ‘slefish.’ He quite understood what selfish meant, although he was not old enough to pronounce it properly. His name was Basil, and the great joke against him used to be that he never had any mind of his own, but required to be told by his favourite sister what he liked! For instance, at dinner he would say to her, confidentially, ‘Connie, do you think I shall like that pudding?’ and if Connie said yes, then when his turn to be helped arrived Basil said, ‘Yes if you please.’ I once knew of his having been discovered sitting on the steps dressed to go out for a walk, and on being asked what he waited for, Basil answered, ‘I’m only waiting for Connie to tell me whether I shall like to go to Highfield.’ Fortunately, at this moment, Connie appeared and assured him that he would like it very much; so they both set off as happy as possible. Basil and Connie are grown up now, and Basil has learnt to know what he likes for himself; but they are just as fond of each other as in the days when Connie was the queen of the nursery, and ruled her tiny subjects with a wand whose touch expressed as much love and gentleness as did that of the beautiful golden sceptre which King Ahasuerus held out to Queen Esther.

Now I think I shall tell you of a terrible scrape which one of my pet boys got into. Pray do not try to imitate him however, and he would be the last person to advise you to do so, for he retains to this day a lively recollection of the penalties which followed swiftly on the heels of what he and his schoolfellows thought was a very good joke indeed at the time. It happened a great many years ago at an old-fashioned school for boys; Dick was the name of the hero of the adventure, and I never could quite make out how he came to have the performance of the principal character thrust upon him, for he was a quiet, studious boy, with a great turn for invention. However that may be, or whoever was the first originator of the plan, it is certain that poor Dick had to bear the blame; but, in order to make you understand all about it, I must begin at the beginning of the plot, which arose from one of the big boys, who was very popular in the school, saying, that he wished the big school bell, which always sounded at unwelcome hours, was ‘at Jericho.’ Now it was not possible to send it quite so far away at a moment’s notice, and poor Dick, who chanced to be next Burrows Major when he made this new and original remark, said dreamily, pointing to a tall elm which stood in the playfield near the house, ‘What a lark it would be to fix it up there, at the very top of that tree!’ It did indeed seem fun; but there were serious difficulties in the way, for the tree was a very high one, and it was considered a great feat to climb up to the top, without being encumbered by a great bell, especially as its clapper was not one which could be taken out whilst the climbing was in progress, so every step was likely to be marked by a tremendous toll. Then, when once it was fixed up there, how was it to be rung at unseasonable hours? The most submissive fag could not be induced, by either bribes or threats, to climb up and ring it in the middle of a dark night. It was early spring, but a few days of sunshine had brought the leaves out thickly enough to afford some cover to the conspirators, and now the weather had changed to keen and cutting easterly winds. Dick promised to see what he could do, and spent several days in making little models of a machine very like a gallows, in which, however, the bell played the part of the culprit. At last he announced that ‘he thought he could do something;’ when Dick said as much as that, everybody knew it was a settled thing, so the next step was to elect a Bell Committee, and their first act was to open an account at the village shop for wire, string, blocks, and pulleys to the enormous sum of five shillings.

It was necessary to proceed with great caution, so as not to excite suspicion in the minds of the masters, and as it happened to be the time of year for bird-nesting, the frequent sight of Dick swarming up a big elm tree was not sufficiently uncommon to arouse any remark. It is perhaps just as well that I cannot give you a description of how Master Dick arranged his numerous lines, and wires, and pulleys; I can only tell you the result, which was that one cold night, when a bitter gale from the east was blowing, the servant whose duty it was to ring the bell for evening prayers returned to say that the bell could not be found anywhere. ‘Nonsense, man,’ said the portly Doctor; ‘the bell must be there.’ Poor old John went out again in the cold porch to have another unsuccessful hunt after the bell, and to return with the same story. It was too late and too cold to continue the search, so there was nothing for it but to go to chapel without the bell, and the boys were afterwards marshalled into their dormitories with extra precautions. Their names were called over as they passed the masters at the doors and these latter remained to watch that each boy got quietly into bed. No boys could behave better that night; indeed they were suspiciously good, if one may use such an expression in speaking of young gentlemen. But the peace of the establishment was broken about midnight by a loud ‘Boom, boom, boom,’ from the elm tree. This unusual sound aroused the Doctor, who threw his window open letting in such an icy blast. There was no mistaking the clang of his own favourite bell; but how on earth did it get up into the sky, for that was where the sound proceeded from. ‘I see, you Smith,’ roared the Doctor, ‘you shall pay for this, sir, to-morrow;’ and he shouted for a monitor, who announced on his arrival that, whoever it might be, Smith was not the culprit, for he was snugly tucked into his bed. ‘Well, then, it must be Jones,’ shouted the enraged Doctor. ‘Jones, if you don’t come down directly and bring the bell also, it will go hard with you to-morrow.’ The monitor of No. 3. dormitory appeared to assure the Doctor that Jones’s snores were keeping all his neighbours awake.

In the meantime poor Mrs. Doctor was shivering with cold, and entreating her husband to shut the window and return to bed; but the old gentleman was too much enraged to listen to her; and every time the bell sounded, which it did frequently through the night, he jumped out of his warm bed, and flung up the window again calling out loudly, ‘I see you sir, come down directly.’ He thought it safer not to mention any names. The consequence of all this exposure to a biting east wind was, that when the boys assembled in the morning, they very nearly got a flogging all round for the broad grin which saluted the Doctor’s appearance with such a swollen face. It must be very difficult to look calm and dignified if you have one side of your face tremendously swelled and red and shining. This was the poor Doctor’s plight, and his efforts to conceal his suffering ought to have touched his pupils’ hearts. I daresay their titters and grins did not really arise from want of feeling, only boys are such sad creatures for laughing at the wrong time!

The first thing the Doctor did was to make a long speech to the boys, telling them (as if the young pickles did not know it already) of the loss of the bell and of its re-appearance at the top of the tree, and urging them to confess how they had managed it; but a stony silence was all he met with, and each boy’s countenance looked more hopelessly vacant than his neighbour’s. When play-hours came the whole school was kept in to write a line of Latin verse so many hundred times over. This had a very sobering effect on the young gentlemen, and even the Doctor’s expression of face at chapel with his head tied up in flannel could not raise a smile from the depressed conspirators. However, when midnight arrived, ‘Boom, boom, boom,’ went the bell, and it continued to sound at intervals through the night, but in a jerky and spasmodic manner, not the deep regular tones of the night before. After chapel the next morning the boys were called over before the Doctor, and, in spite of one of his eyes being now quite closed up, and his voice sounding as if he had plums in his mouth, his demeanour was so stern that the stoutest heart quailed. His address was short but very much to the purpose. He said that, if the bell was not brought down in broad daylight and restored to its proper place by twelve o’clock, the whole school should be flogged, and all half holidays stopped for the remainder of the term. He gave them half an hour to decide, and full liberty to discuss the subject in the schoolroom without the presence of the masters. The moment he had finished his little speech, he got up and left the room, followed by all the masters and the monitors. I need hardly tell you how stormy was the debate which followed, or how soon it became evident that the funny side of the story was over for the present. Poor quiet old Dick saw the situation at once, shrugged his shoulders, and merely observing ‘I’m in for a good ‘un,’ was deep in a few minutes in some fresh invention, the model of which he took out of his pocket and began to examine. At first the general feeling was, that, as Dick had not originated it he should not bear the punishment; but Dick himself scouted the idea of being let off, and was the first to walk boldly into the Doctor’s study, and with a noble disregard of grammar, which even at that exciting moment made the Doctor wince, say, ‘Please sir, it’s me.’ ‘Me will catch it then,’ was the Doctor’s grim answer; and poor ‘me’ did catch it, and so did everyone concerned in the exploit in the remotest way. The boys declared that Mrs. Doctor was the most venomous of the two, and that it was she who stirred up her portly husband to go down to the village shop and blow up its mistress in no measured terms; but the woman’s sharp tongue could not keep silence very long, and she actually stormed at the Doctor in return till he was glad to get out of the shop.

Do you know there is one rather solemn-looking gentleman of my acquaintance whom I never can see without laughing. I am sure he must sometimes wonder why I should always appear amused when I shake hands with him, particularly if he happens to have his pretty, young-looking mother leaning on his arm. I dare not tell him why I laugh, but I will tell you, in strict confidence, remember!

One day, when this Mr. F. was a small boy, he was locked up in his mother’s bedroom, there to repent of his transgressions in general, and of some recent offence in particular. Now it was a half holiday, and there was a delightful excursion to the woods in prospect. All the other children were wild with delight about it, for they were to have tea in gipsy fashion, with a fire out of doors, and all sorts of pleasant things; but an edict had gone forth that, until Mr., or rather Master, F. had repented of his fault and apologised, he was not to be allowed to go in the spring-cart to the place of meeting. The hours were passing away, and his mother was very uneasy lest her pet boy should be deprived of his share of the afternoon’s fun, so she thought she would try what her gentle persuasions would do towards softening his heart. I must explain to you that there was a sort of partition off this bedroom, and a glass door in it which did not fit very well, consequently there was a gap of a couple of inches between the floor and the bottom of the door. Mrs. F went close up to this, and began to expostulate through the chink at the side with her naughty darling. There was quite a little audience at her back, composed of the other children, who were eagerly listening for any signs of contrition on the part of the prisoner; and it caused great dismay when mamma turned her head round to the young ones and said, ‘I’m afraid he is not good yet.’ ‘Tell him to put the naughty pinnit (spirit) up the chimbley,’ suggested a tiny brother, who disposed of his little evil tempers very successfully in this way. Mrs. F. drew still closer to the door, and began a fresh entreaty to the culprit to make up his mind to confess and beg pardon; but at the most touching part of her discourse she suddenly jumped back upon her little listeners with a loud shriek of pain, and caught up one of her feet with many groans, hopping about on the other. What do you think this dreadful boy had done? He had found a hammer in the room, and when he saw his mother’s toes sticking out under the door, he had deliberately knelt down and hammered them!

I need hardly tell you that there was no gipsy tea for Master F. that evening, and I believe he was afterwards very sorry for his conduct; but it is not surprising that, whenever the recollection of this story comes over me, I should feel inclined to laugh. Sometimes I see Mr. F. taking great care of his mother at supper, getting her nice things to eat, wrapping her carefully up in her shawl when she is going away from a party, and so on; but instead of admiring his dutiful devotion to her, this unfortunate piece of naughtiness recurs to my memory, and I cannot help smiling at the wrong time; so you see it is very dangerous to do naughty things, even when you are quite little, for people are apt to remember them in after years.