Caleb in the Country by Jacob Abbott (best ebook reader android txt) 📕

It would sound as if I wanted him to say you had not been a good boy."

"How must I ask him, then?" said Caleb.

"Why you can say, 'Raymond, Aunt Marianne wants to know what sort of a boy I have been to-day,' that way of putting the question would not lead him one way or the other."

"Why, he might know," said Caleb, "that I should want him to say I have been good."

"Yes, but not from the form of the question. The question would not lead him."

While Mary Anna was saying this, Caleb was standing with his hand upon the latch of the door, ready to go; and when she had finished what she was saying, he started off to find Raymond.

As he passed across the yard, he heard the sound of voices before the house. It was Dwight and David coming home from school. In a minute they appeared in view, by the great elm. Dwight had a long slender pole in his hands, which he was waving in the air, and David had a small piece of wood, and a knife. He sat down under the elm, and began to shave the wood with the knife.

Caleb ran to tell them about his squirrel; but before he got there, Dwight, seeing him, began to wave his pole in the air, and shout, and then said, "See what a noble flag-staff we have got."

"Is that your flag-staff?" said Caleb.

"Yes. John Davis gave it to us. He got it out of his father's shop. We are going to set it up out at the end of our mole."

"Yes," said David, "and I am going to make a truck on the top, to haul up the flag by. Marianne is going to make us a flag."

"A truck?" said Caleb, enquiringly.

"Yes," said David, "a little wheel to put a string over to hoist it by."

Caleb looked upon the pole, and upon David's work, for a minute in silence, and then said,

"I have got something better than a flag-staff."

"What?" asked Dwight.

"A squirrel."

"A squirrel!" said David in surprise.

"Yes," said Caleb, "a grey squirrel."

"Where is he?" said David, looking up eagerly, from his work.

"In the back-room," said Caleb. "Raymond put him in a box.--Come, and I will shew him to you."

Down went Dwight's pole, in a moment; David, too, shut his knife, and put it in his pocket, and off they went to see the squirrel.

The little nut-cracker was frightened at seeing so many eyes peeping in upon him from every crevice and opening in his box. He looked much brighter and better than he did when he was put into the box, and Caleb thought he would get entirely well.

"O, I wish I had him," said Dwight.

"I am going to keep him in a cage," said Caleb.

"I wish he was mine," said Dwight. "Why can't you give him to me, Caleb?"

"O, no," said Caleb, "I want to keep him."

"You don't know how to take care of him," said Dwight. "Come, you give him to me, and I will give you my flag-staff."

"No," said Caleb, "I don't want any flag-staff. I want to keep the squirrel."

"See, see," said David, "he is creeping along."

"O," said Dwight, "I wish he was mine."

"There, he is curling up in the corner."

"Would you give him to me for my top?" said Dwight, very eagerly.

"He's going to eat that kernel of corn," said David.

"I should think you might give him to me," said Dwight, pettishly, "for that top; the top is worth a great deal the most."

After a few minutes, Dwight finding that there was no prospect of inducing Caleb to sell him the squirrel, desisted from his attempts; and then, after a moment's pause, he said,

"I don't think it is your squirrel, after all, Caleb."

"Whose is it then?"

"Raymond's. He saved it. The poor thing would have been burnt up, if he had not run and caught it up."

"No, he wouldn't," said Caleb, "I was just going to get him myself."

Dwight, having decided in his own mind that the squirrel was Raymond's, ran off to find Raymond, with the design of asking him to give the squirrel to him. But Raymond said the squirrel was Caleb's.

"But you caught him," said Dwight.

"Yes, but I caught him for Caleb, not for myself."

"And you fixed the box to bring him home in," said Dwight.

"I know it, but I only did it to please Caleb. The squirrel is his altogether."

So Dwight had to return disappointed.

When Caleb came in, Mary Anna was putting up her work, and arranging her things neatly in her drawer.

"Well, Caleb," said she, "and what did Raymond say?"

"O, he said it was mine," replied Caleb.

"What was yours?" said Mary Anna.

"The squirrel."

"The squirrel!" repeated Mary Anna; "you went to ask him what sort of a boy you had been."

"O!" said Caleb--"there!--I forgot all about that. I'll run and ask him now."

"No,--stop," said Mary Anna; "it is time for supper now; and besides, I will take your word for it; you are a pretty honest boy. You say you was a pleasant boy all day."

"Yes," said Caleb, "I was." He had forgotten his feelings of ill-humour, when Raymond would not come and light his fire.

"And you think I ought to make you a picture book for a reward."

"Yes," said Caleb, "I wish you would."

"But I cannot tell how pleasant in mind you have been all day, unless I know what you have had to try you."

"To try me?" asked Caleb.

"Yes, I want to know what troubles, or difficulties, or disappointments you had to bear, and did bear patiently and pleasantly."

Caleb looked a little perplexed.

"You know, Caleb," she continued, "there is no merit in being pleasant unless things go wrong."

"Isn't there?" said Caleb.

"Why, no," said Mary Anna, as she shut up her work-table drawer, "is there?"

"Why no," said Caleb, smiling; for he could not help smiling, while yet he was a little disappointed at finding all his fancied goodness melted away.

"Now, did you have a good time in the woods to-day?"

"Yes," said Caleb.

"Did Raymond take good care of you?"

"Yes," said he.

"And did you have a good dinner?"

"Yes; and a noble great fire," said Caleb.

"You little rogue, then!" said Mary Anna, laughing, and stabbing at his sides with her finger; "here you have been having a beautiful time in the woods, amusing yourself all day, and had every thing to please you; and now you come to me to pay you for not having been impatient and fretful! You little rogue!"

Caleb turned, and ran laughing away, Mary Anna after him, and pointing at him with her finger. Caleb made his escape into the front entry, and hid behind the door. Mary Anna pretended to have lost sight of him, and not to know where he was; and she went about, saying,

"Where is that little rogue? He came to get away one of my picture-books for nothing. He wanted to be paid for bearing happiness patiently. The rogue! I'll pinch him if I can only find him."

So saying, Mary Anna went and sat down to supper, and soon after Caleb came and took his seat too; Mary Anna roguishly shaking her finger at him all the time. He had to hold his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing aloud.

Perhaps some of the readers of this book may smile at Caleb's idea of his merit in having been a pleasant boy all day, when he felt vexed and unsubmissive in the only case which brought him any trial; but it is so with almost all children, and some grown persons too. A great deal of the goodness upon which we all pride ourselves, is only the quiescence of bad propensities in the absence of temptation and trial.


CHAPTER XII.

THE WALK.


Outside of the window in Madam Rachel's bedroom, where the children used to sit and talk with her just before going to bed, there was a little platform, with a plain roof over it, supported by small square posts, altogether forming a sort of portico. Below this window there were two doors, opening from the middle out each way, so that when the window was raised, and the doors were opened, a person could walk in and out. There were seats in the portico, and there was a wild grape-vine growing upon a plain trellis, on each side. In front of the portico was one of the broad walks of the garden, for on this side the garden extended up to the house. At least there was no fence between, though there was a small plot of green grass next to the house; and next to that came the trees and flowers.

One pleasant evening Dwight and Caleb were playing on this grass, waiting for Madam Rachel to come and call them in to the sofa. It was about eight o'clock, but it was not dark. The western sky still looked bright; for though the sun had gone down, so that it could no longer shine upon the trees and houses, it still shone upon the clouds and atmosphere above, and made them look bright.

Presently Madam Rachel came, and stood at the window.

"Where's David?" said she.

"Out in the garden," said Dwight, "and mother," he continued, "I wish you would walk in the garden to-night."

At first, Madam Rachel said she thought she could not very well that evening, for she had a difficult text to talk about; but the boys promised to walk along quietly, and to be very sober and attentive; and so she went and put on her garden bonnet, and came out.

The garden was not large, it extended back to some high rocky precipices, where the boys used sometimes to climb up for play.

"I am afraid," said Madam Rachel, as she sauntered along the walk, the children around her, "that you will not like the verse that I am going to talk with you about this evening, very well, when you first hear it."

"What is it mother?" said Dwight.

"'And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.'"

"What does quickened mean?" asked David.

"Made alive, or brought to life. Quick means alive , sometimes; as for instance, the quick and the dead, means the living and the dead. And so we say, 'cut to the quick,' that is, cut to the living flesh, where it can feel."

"Once I read in a fable," said David, "of a horse being stung to the quick."

"What, by a hornet?" said Dwight.

"No," said David, "by something the ass said."

"O, yes," said Madam Rachel, "that means it hurt his feelings. If a bee should sting any body so that the sting should only go into the skin, it would not hurt much; but if it should go in deep, so as to give great pain, we should say it stung to the quick, that is, to the part which has life and feeling. So