THE LITTLE COWARD.
When Willy had been some time at his grandmother's, and made acquaintance with every thing about the farm, and had been taught by the old gardener to take care of his little garden, his grandmother told him that she expected some friends from London. She said they would bring with them a little boy about his own age, who, she hoped, would make a pleasant companion for him; "I do not know him," added she, "but as he has always lived in London, I dare say every thing in the country will be new to him and amuse him." The thoughts of a play-fellow pleased Willy much, and he was watching the greater part of the day for the arrival of the carriage: at last he heard the trotting of the horses, and the rolling of the wheels, and presently a carriage stopped at the door, and the bell rung. The party soon alighted, and appeared in the drawing-room; but the little boy, whose name was Tommy, attracted all Willy's attention. There was some shyness between them at first, but they soon got over it, and made acquaintance; and then Willy took Tommy away to show him his garden. There they feasted on gooseberries and currants; but unfortunately Tommy, in thrusting his hand into a gooseberry-bush, got a thorn into one of his fingers, which hurt him sadly.
"Oh! you must come in and have it taken out," said Willy, "and then the pain will be over."
But Tommy did not like to do this, for he fancied that taking it out would give him still more pain; however he was ashamed to say so, and went into the house and told his mamma what had happened.
"You see, Mamma," said he, "that I was not afraid of thrusting my hand into the gooseberry-bush." Poor Tommy knew he was a coward, and therefore he was very glad when he had any thing which he thought courageous to boast of.
"I think it would have been better if you had been afraid," replied his mother. "There is always danger of being pricked, at least by thorns, when you put your hand into a gooseberry-bush, and you should never run into danger when there is no reason for it."
"Well, now let us look at this finger," and she brought her needle for the purpose of taking out the thorn. At sight of the needle poor Tommy's courage was all gone, and instead of holding out his hand he ran off to the farthest corner of the room, and it was not without some difficulty that she got him to consent to have the thorn taken out. When this was done, and he found the pain entirely gone, he thought he had been very foolish to make such a fuss about it, for the pain of taking out the thorn had been very short, and now it was all over, and he should have felt quite happy if he had not been ashamed of his cowardice.
At night he slept in the same room as Willy, and in the morning he was awakened by the crowing of the cocks, and he wanted Willy to get up that he might go and see them in the poultry-yard. Willy said it was too early, and that he must turn about and go to sleep again; but Tommy remained awake listening with delight to the noise of cock-a-doodle-do, cock-a-doodle-doo. By and by he heard another noise, and he could not conceive what it was; it sounded like beating somebody, and he was sadly frightened, thinking perhaps they might come and beat him. But he was ashamed to awake Willy, who had fallen asleep again, lest he should again laugh at him for his cowardice. So he lay awake, trembling with fear, till Willy awoke. He then asked him what the noise was, and Willy burst out laughing when he saw how frightened Tommy was.
"But are they not beating somebody very hard?" cried Tommy.
"No," replied Willy; "they are beating some thing, not some person."
"Well! but they must hurt it very much: I wonder you can laugh so."
"Dress yourself quickly, and come and see what it is, and then you will laugh too."
As soon as they were dressed, Willy took him to the barn, and there they saw four men threshing corn.
Tommy tried to laugh, but he did not do it heartily, for he could not help thinking that those broken sticks tied together might by chance give him a blow, instead of the corn. Willy told him those sticks always struck at the same distance, so it was very easy for them to know how near they might go to the threshers without danger, and he walked boldly on, whilst Tommy followed him timidly, always keeping at a greater distance than Willy; and he was very glad when Willy proposed that they should go and see the cocks and hens, for he was not at all afraid of them. Then there were ducks, too, swimming about in a pretty little round pond, with their little ducklings swimming after them. "I wonder the little chickens do not go into the water too," said Tommy. Willy told him they could not swim, so that if they went into the water they would be drowned; and the dairy-maid, who was there feeding the poultry, took up a little duckling, and showed Tommy how its feet were made. "They look like long fingers," said Tommy, "only they are joined together by a thick skin." Then she took up a chicken, and showed him it had no skin between its toes. "It is this skin," said she, "which makes the ducks swim: look how the great duck paddles in the water with his two legs, just as a man paddles in a boat with his paddles or oars." She then gave the boys some food to throw to the poultry, upon which they all gathered round Willy and Tommy, ducks, chickens, turkeys, and all; and even the pigeons flew down from the pigeon-house to partake of the feast. Tommy thought this extremely diverting, though he could not help sometimes shrinking back a little when a great turkey, or a cock with his red comb, came very near him. Many of the birds quarrelled with each other for the crumbs, and at last the turkey-cock grew so enraged, that he stretched out his great black tail like a fan, his throat swelled and became purple, his eyes and comb became red and fiery, and he screamed out gobbledy, gobbledy, gobbledy; upon which Tommy let fall the dish in which he held the crumbs, and scampered away as fast as his legs could carry him. Willy hallooed after him to stop him, but nothing could persuade him to come near the squalling turkey-cock. "Well," said Willy, "I think it is of no use your coming into the country, if you are afraid of every thing that is amusing."