Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life Part 10

A pause of expectancy followed. The boy held his breath and gazed spellbound at the radiant vision on whom all eyes were riveted. The orchestra struck the first notes of a plaintive melody, and the glorious voice of the great singer filled the vast hall, as the words of the sad little song of the child composer floated on the air. It was so simple, so touching, so full of exquisite pathos, that many were in tears before it was finished.

And little Pierre? There he sat, scarcely daring to move or breathe, fearing that the flowers, the lights, the music, should vanish, and he should wake up to find it all a dream. He was aroused from his trance by the tremendous burst of applause that rang through the house as the last note trembled away into silence. He started up. It was no dream.

The greatest singer in Europe had sung his little song before a fas.h.i.+onable London audience. Almost dazed with happiness, he never knew how he reached his poor home; and when he related the incidents of the evening, his mother's delight nearly equaled his own. Nor was this the end.

Next day they were startled by a visit from Madame M----. After gently greeting the sick woman, while her hand played with Pierre's golden curls, she said: "Your little boy, Madame, has brought you a fortune. I was offered this morning, by the best publisher in London, 300 pounds for his little song; and after he has realized a certain amount from the sale, little Pierre here is to share the profits. Madame, thank G.o.d that your son has a gift from heaven." The grateful tears of the invalid and her visitor mingled, while the child knelt by his mother's bedside and prayed G.o.d to bless the kind lady who, in their time of sorrow and great need, had been to them as a savior.

The boy never forgot his n.o.ble benefactress, and years afterward, when the great singer lay dying, the beloved friend who smoothed her pillow and cheered and brightened her last moments--the rich, popular, and talented composer--was no other than our little Pierre.

"IF I REST, I RUST"

"The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight; But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night."

The significant inscription found on an old key,--"If I rest, I rust,"--would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted with the slightest taint of idleness. Even the industrious might adopt it with advantage to serve as a reminder that, if one allows his faculties to rest, like the iron in the unused key, they will soon show signs of rust, and, ultimately, cannot do the work required of them.

Those who would attain

"The heights by great men reached and kept"

must keep their faculties burnished by constant use, so that they will unlock the doors of knowledge, the gates that guard the entrances to the professions, to science, art, literature, agriculture,--every department of human endeavor.

Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury of achievement.

If Hugh Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry, had devoted his evenings to rest and recreation, he would never have become a famous geologist. The celebrated mathematician, Edmund Stone, would never have published a mathematical dictionary, never have found the key to the science of mathematics, if he had given his spare moments, s.n.a.t.c.hed from the duties of a gardener, to idleness. Had the little Scotch lad, Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he tended sheep on the hillside, instead of calculating the position of the stars by the help of a string of beads, he would never have become a famous astronomer.

"Labor vanquishes all,"--not in constant, spasmodic, or ill-directed labor, but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose. Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the price of n.o.ble and enduring success.

"Seize, then, the minutes as they pa.s.s; The woof of life is thought!

Warm up the colors; let them glow With fire of fancy fraught."

A BOY WHO KNEW NOT FEAR

Richard Wagner, the great composer, weaves into one of his musical dramas a beautiful story about a youth named Siegfried, who did not know what fear was.

The story is a sort of fairy tale or myth,--something which has a deep meaning hidden in it, but which is not literally true.

We smile at the idea of a youth who never knew fear, who even as a little child had never been frightened by the imaginary terrors of night, the darkness of the forest, or the cries of the wild animals which inhabited it.

Yet it is actually true that there was born at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, England, on September 29, 1758, a boy who never knew what fear was.

This boy's name was Horatio Nelson,--a name which his fearlessness, ambition, and patriotism made immortal.

Courage even to daring distinguished young Nelson from his boy companions. Many stories ill.u.s.trating this quality are told of him.

On one occasion, when the future hero of England was but a mere child, while staying at his grandmother's, he wandered away from the house in search of birds' nests. When dinner time came and went and the boy did not return, his family became alarmed. They feared that he had been kidnapped by gypsies, or that some other mishap had befallen him. A thorough search was made for him in every direction. Just as the searchers were about to give up their quest, the truant was discovered sitting quietly by the side of a brook which he was unable to cross.

"I wonder, child," said his grandmother, "that hunger and fear did not drive you home."

"Fear! grand-mamma," exclaimed the boy; "I never saw fear. What is it?"

Horatio was a born leader, who never even in childhood shrank from a hazardous undertaking. This story of his school days shows how the spirit of leaders.h.i.+p marked him before he had entered his teens.

In the garden attached to the boarding school at North Walsham, which he and his elder brother, William, attended, there grew a remarkably fine pear tree. The sight of this tree, loaded with fruit was, naturally, a very tempting one to the boys. The boldest among the older ones, however, dared not risk the consequences of helping themselves to the pears, which they knew were highly prized by the master of the school.

Horatio, who thought neither of the sin of stealing the schoolmaster's property, nor of the risk involved in the attempt, volunteered to secure the coveted pears.

He was let down in sheets from the bedroom window by his schoolmates, and, after gathering as much of the fruit as he could carry, returned with considerable difficulty. He then turned the pears over to the boys, not keeping one for himself.

"I only took them," he explained, "because the rest of you were afraid to venture."

The sense of honor of the future "Hero of the Nile" and of Trafalgar was as keen in boyhood as in later life.

One year, at the close of the Christmas holidays, he and his brother William set out on horseback to return to school. There had been a heavy fall of snow which made traveling very disagreeable, and William persuaded Horatio to go back home with him, saying that it was not safe to go on.

"If that be the case," said Rev. Mr. Nelson, the father of the boys, when the matter was explained to him, "you certainly shall not go; but make another attempt, and I will leave it to your honor. If the road is dangerous, you may return; but remember, boys, I leave it to your honor."

The snow was really deep enough to be made an excuse for not going on, and William was for returning home a second time. Horatio, however, would not be persuaded again. "We must go on," he said; "remember, brother, it was left to our honor."

When only twelve years old, young Nelson's ambition urged him to try his fortune at sea. His uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, commanded the Raisonnable, a s.h.i.+p of sixty-four guns, and the boy thought it would be good fortune, indeed, if he could get an opportunity to serve under him. "Do, William," he said to his brother, "write to my father, and tell him that I should like to go to sea with Uncle Maurice."

On hearing of his son's wishes, Mr. Nelson at once wrote to Captain Suckling. The latter wrote back without delay: "What has poor Horatio done, who is so weak, that he, above all the rest, should be sent to rough it out at sea? But let him come, and the first time we go into action, a cannon ball may knock off his head and provide for him at once."

This was not very encouraging for a delicate boy of twelve. But Horatio was not daunted. His father took him to London, and there put him into the stage coach for Chatham, where the Raisonnable was lying at anchor.

He arrived at Chatham during the temporary absence of his uncle, so that there was no friendly voice to greet him when he went on board the big s.h.i.+p. Homesick and heartsick, he pa.s.sed some of the most miserable days of his life on the Raisonnable. The officers treated the sailors with a harshness bordering on cruelty. This treatment, of course, increased the natural roughness of the sailors; and, altogether, the conditions were such that Horatio's opinion of the Royal Navy was sadly altered.

But in spite of the separation from his brother William, who had been his schoolmate and constant companion, and all his other loved ones, the hards.h.i.+ps he had to endure as a sailor boy among rough officers and rougher men, and his physical weakness, his courage did not fail him.

He stuck bravely to his determination to be a sailor.

Later, the lad went on a voyage to the West Indies, in a merchant s.h.i.+p commanded by Mr. John Rathbone. During this voyage, his anxiety to rise in his profession and his keen powers of observation, which were constantly exercised, combined to make him a practical sailor.

After his return from the West Indies, his love of adventure was excited by the news that two s.h.i.+ps--the Racehorse and the Carca.s.s--were being fitted out for a voyage of discovery to the North Pole. Through the influence of Captain Suckling, he secured an appointment as c.o.xswain, under Captain Lutwidge, who was second in command of the expedition.

All went well with the Racehorse and the Carca.s.s until they neared the Polar regions. Then they were becalmed, surrounded with ice, and wedged in so that they could not move.

Young as Nelson was, he was put in command of one of the boats sent out to try to find a pa.s.sage to the open water. While engaged in this work he was instrumental in saving the crew of another of the boats which had been attacked by walruses.

His most notable adventure during this Polar cruise, however, was a fight with a bear.

One night he stole away from his s.h.i.+p with a companion in pursuit of a bear. A fog which had been rising when they left the Carca.s.s soon enveloped them. Between three and four o'clock in the morning, when the weather began to clear, they were sighted by Captain Lutwidge and his officers, at some distance from the s.h.i.+p, in conflict with a huge bear.

The boys, who had been missed soon after they set out on their adventure, were at once signaled to return. Nelson's companion urged him to obey the signal, and, though their ammunition had given out, he longed to continue the fight.

"Never mind," he cried excitedly; "do but let me get a blow at this fellow with the b.u.t.t end of my musket, and we shall have him."