Part 8 (2/2)
”Father,” said I, after bearing the penance for the greater part of the forenoon, ”how much longer must I stay in the field?”
”About an hour,” was the reply.
An hour seemed a great while in the circ.u.mstances, and I ventured to say, ”I wish I could go home now--my head aches.”
”I am very sorry,” said my father; ”but can't you stay till it is time to go home to dinner?”
I thought not--my headache was getting to be pretty severe.
”Well,” said he, taking me off the horse, and no doubt suspecting that my disease was rather in my _heart_ than my head--a suspicion far too well-founded, I am sorry to say--”well, you may go home. I don't want you to work if you are sick. Go straight home, and tell your mother that I say you must take a good large dose of rhubarb. Tell her that I think it will do you a great deal of good!”
There was no alternative. I went home, of course, and delivered the message to my mother. I told her, however, that I thought my head was better, hoping to avoid taking the nauseous medicine. But it was of no use. It was too late. She understood my case as well as my father did. She knew well enough my disease was laziness. So she prepared the rhubarb--an unusually generous dose, I always thought--and I had to swallow every morsel of it.
Dear me! how bitter it was! It makes me sick to think of a dose of rhubarb, let me be ever so well. I am sure I would have rode horse all day--and all night, too, for that matter--rather than to have been doctored after that sort. But it cured my laziness pretty effectually, and it was a long time before I told another lie, too.
”Honesty is the best policy,” children, depend upon it, though there is another and a better reason, as you very well know, why you should always speak the truth.
STORY SECOND.
HOW A ROGUE FEELS WHEN HE IS CAUGHT.
When I was a little boy, as near as I can recollect, about nine years of age, I went with my brother one bright Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when there was no school, to visit at the house of Captain Perry. The captain was esteemed one of the kindest and best-natured neighbors in Willow Lane, where my father lived; and Julian, the captain's eldest son, very near my own age, was, among all the boys at school, my favorite play-fellow. Captain Perry had two bee-hives in his garden, where we were all three at play; and as I watched the busy little fellows at work bringing in honey from the fields, all at once I thought it would be a very fine thing to thrust a stick into a hole which I saw in one of the hives, and bring out some of the honey. My brother and Julian did not quite agree with me in this matter. They thought, as nearly as I can recollect, that there were three good reasons against this mode of obtaining honey: first, I should be likely to get pretty badly stung; secondly, the act would be a very mean and cowardly piece of mischief; and, thirdly, I should be found out.
Still, I was bent on the chivalrous undertaking. I procured a stick of the right size, and marched up to the hive to make the attack. While I was deliberating, with the stick already a little way in the hole, whether I had better thrust it in suddenly, and then scamper away as fast as my legs could carry me, or proceed so deliberately that the bees would not suspect what was the matter, Captain Perry happened to come into the garden; and I was so busy with my mischief, that I did not notice him until he advanced within a rod or two of the bee-hives. He mistrusted what I was about.
”Roderick,” said he. I looked around. I am sure I would have given all I was worth in the world, not excepting my little pony, which I regarded as a fortune, if, by some magic or other, I could have got out of this sc.r.a.pe.
But it was too late. I hung my head down, as may be imagined, while the captain went on with his speech: ”Roderick, if I were in your place (I heartily wished he was in my place, but I did not say so; I said nothing, in fact), if I were in your place, I would not disturb those poor, harmless bees, in that way. If you should put that stick into the hive, as you were thinking of doing, it would take the bees a whole week to mend up their cells. That is not the way we get honey. I don't wonder you are fond of honey, though. Children generally are fond of it; and if you will go into the house, Mrs Perry will give you as much as you wish, I am sure.”
This was twenty years ago--perhaps more. I have met Captain Perry a hundred times since; yet even now I cannot look upon his frank, honest countenance, but I distinctly call to mind the Quixotic adventure with the bees, and I feel almost as much ashamed as I did when I was detected.
STORY THIRD.
THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER.
I never shall forget what a sensation it used to produce in our family, years ago, when the newspaper came. We children--there were three of us, one brother and two sisters--used to watch for the post, on the all-important day, as anxiously as a cat ever watched for a mouse. Peter Packer, the bearer of these weekly dispatches, deserves a little notice. He was a queer man, at least he had that reputation in our neighborhood. As long as I can remember, he went his rounds; and, for aught I know, he is going to this day.
Peter's old mare--she must be mentioned, for the two are almost inseparable--was as odd as he was. I should think she belonged to the same general cla.s.s and order with Don Quixote's renowned Rosinante; but she had one peculiarity which is not put down in the description of Rosinante, to wit, the faculty of diagonal or oblique locomotion. This mare of Peter's went forward something after the manner of a crab, and a little like a s.h.i.+p with the wind abeam, as the sailors say. It was a standing topic of dispute among us boys, whether the animal went head foremost or not. But that did not matter much, so that she made her circuit--and she always did, punctually; that is, she always came some time or another. Sometimes she was a day or two later than usual; but this never occurred except in the summer season, and it was in this wise: she had a most pa.s.sionate love for the practical study of botany; and not being allowed, when at home, to pursue her favorite science as often as she wished, owing partly to a want of specimens, and partly to her master's desire to educate her in the more solid branches, she frequently took the liberty to divest herself of her bridle, when standing at the door of her master's customers, and to gallop away in search of flowers. She was a great lover of botany, so much so, that, as I said before, her desire to obtain specimens sometimes interfered a little with her other literary engagements; and I am sure I can forgive her--
”For e'en her failings leaned to virtue's side.”
Just so it was with Peter himself. No storm, or tempest, or snow-bank, could detain him--that is, not longer than a day or two--in his weekly round. But he loved the theory of making money as much as his mare loved botany; and he was a practical student, too, and the road which he traveled afforded a good many opportunities both for extending his knowledge of that science and of practically applying his principles. So, between the two, our newspaper sometimes got thoroughly aired before it came to the house.
But Peter was punctual--I insist upon it--for he always came some time or another.
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