Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends Part 22

It was very weary on s.h.i.+p board. Julien and Victor had spied out all there was to be seen the first week they set sail, and the sailors had told them all the stories they could possibly think of. Mrs. Adrian (their mother) was too sick to leave the cabin, and the little boys were getting very impatient to reach sh.o.r.e.

How would America look? What sort of houses did they have there? What sort of children? Would they be good play-fellows? These were the things little Julien and Victor were thinking about.

Their father was thinking of the price of provisions, and about house rent, and the probabilities of his finding customers for his tailoring work; and whether they should all have to live in the shop, and whether his sickly wife would thrive under the changeable climate, and whether they should make a _home_, or always be like "strangers in a strange land."

And their mother; she was thinking of the gray-haired old father who had blessed her for the last time, and of the sunny homes of England, with their wealth of shrub and tree and blossom, and of a dear little girl whom she left sleeping in a quiet church-yard, between whom and herself the swift blue waves were building up a wall of separation.

Land ho! shouted the old tars.

Land ho! echoed the merry little boys.

And this was America! this New-York! How very odd and strange everything was! How anxious the people all looked! How slender!--how pale!--and what a hurry they all seemed to be in! How they jostled about, as if they were afraid they shouldn't get their share of terra-firma! How the cab-men and porters and hack-drivers were just as independent as the gentlemen and ladies they worked for! and how showily and gaily the ladies dressed, just to take a promenade.

It was all very funny.

The children and their mother looked with all their eyes; they could not make up their minds whether they should like it or not; but that was not the first thing to be considered; they must first decide where to live.

Mr. Adrian concluded to go to B----, about two days' journey by the railroad. So their trunks were taken from the s.h.i.+p and carried to the baggage cars. Little Julien and Victor had nice seats by the window, and it was very delightful to see the green fields after having seen nothing but the das.h.i.+ng billows for so many weeks. They felt as glad as Noah's dove did, when she spread her wings from the door of the ark, after "the waters were abated." They threw their limbs about, whenever the cars stopped for the great "iron horse" to lay in some wood for his supper, as if they were determined to make up for the time they had been cramped on s.h.i.+p-board.

"Things are not so very cheap after all, over here in America," said Mr. Adrian, with a sigh, as he took possession of the room that was to serve them for shop, parlor, kitchen and bed-room. "Well, we must be patient and industrious; I will put up my sign to-day, and if you and the children (turning to his wife) are only in good health, I shall have courage to work."

So the sign was put up: "John Adrian, tailor, from England--all orders promptly and neatly executed." Then John took out his shears and "goose," crossed his legs and seated himself with a jacket to make, in front of the window, where pedestrians could see that he was at his post, ready for orders.

Julien and Victor, the rosy little Englishmen, didn't fancy much the small room they lived in. It was almost as much of a prison to them as the vessel; they liked better to play in the streets. Their mother looked out the window at them, with a sigh, for her children had been carefully brought up, and she shuddered at the bad words they were hearing, and the groups of idle, noisy, vicious children, swarming about the neighborhood. Oh, how should she keep her little boys pure and unspotted?

Three weeks had pa.s.sed by. Little Julien came in, one day, from his play, when his mother met him at the door, saying, "Run, Julien, quick--quick--for the doctor."

"Where, mother--where shall I find him?"

"Oh! I don't know," said the distracted woman, chafing her husband's temples; "ask somebody--quick, dear Julien, for the love of G.o.d!--the death dew is on your father's forehead."

"Cholera," said the doctor. "I can do nothing for him, my poor woman; the disease is raging fearfully here; he cannot live an hour."

"_Nothing_ to be done?" said the poor wife, fixing her eyes on her dying husband, and watching his spasms; "_nothing_ to be done? Oh, sir, don't tell me _that_."

But even while she spoke the dark shadow fell. The loving eyes grew gla.s.sy; the hand she held relaxed its hold, and that "change," so subtle, so fearful, (that all have _seen_ yet none may _tell_,) flitted over his face.

Death came for more than _one_ victim, to that doomed house. First one little head drooped, then another, then the soft eyes closed, and the little lip said, quiveringly, "It is all dark; kiss us, dear mother;"

and Mrs. Adrian was a childless widow.

Dear children, G.o.d be praised that the world is not all a desert--that there are hearts that feel, eyes that weep, and hands that minister to the sorrow-stricken. Mammon has left some hearts that he has not shrivelled, some eyes that he has not blinded, some hands that he has not fettered.

Poor Mrs. Adrian! She knew that there were strangers about her, and that their voices were kind, and their hands busy straightening the dear limbs, and smoothing the cherished locks, and placing them reverently in "the narrow house;" she knew that the hea.r.s.e came at their bidding, and bore her dead away; she knew that they led her back to that forsaken room, and held the tempting morsel to her grieved lip, and she felt their warm tears drop upon her cheek, and their kind hands upon her throbbing forehead; but it was all like a dream to her.

Oh, my dear children, where could she have turned in that dark hour if not to _Heaven_? What if she had said, with the unbeliever, "There is no G.o.d?" How could she try to lean on reeds that bent and broke beneath her? Oh, no, no! when sickness and trouble come, our hearts _must have a G.o.d_. Heaven _only_ can bring healing to a heart so stunned with pain; and there the poor English woman sought it.

Did G.o.d ever forsake those who threw themselves on _His_ great loving heart for comfort?

Never!

If Mrs. Adrian could not smile, she did not weep. True, she looked for rosy little faces she never more might see; listened for tripping little feet she never more might hear; but, dear children, peace came gently down upon her heart, like dew upon the closed flowers, and she said, with bowed head, "'Tis well."

NEW-YORK SUNDAY.

Dear children: There is the bell for church; but Sunday is not _Sunday_, here in New-York. I wish I were going to church in the country with you, where everything is quiet, and sweet, and holy,--where people go to church to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d, and not to see and to show the fas.h.i.+ons. No, it is not Sunday here, if the bells _do_ say so.

Why? Because there's a woman, at the corner of that street, spreading out on her stall, apples and candy, and bananas, and oranges, and cookies, and sugar-toys, and melons, and cocoa-nuts, and ginger beer; because there's a cigar shop--(the shutters, closed to be sure,) but with the door wide open, and the owner already beginning to trade with customers; because, there's a man selling bouquets, and a confectioner's saloon open, and people eating ice-creams in it; and little ragged news boys, who have been screeching ever since day-light, "New York Herald--Times--Sunday Despatch--dreadful collision and _la.s.s o' life_--Times, Despatch, and Herald"--and drunken men whom you meet at every few blocks, and people going everywhere but into the church doors.

Well, you go into a city church,--it is not like _yours_ in the country, where the blessed sunlight s.h.i.+nes cheerfully in, and the sweet breeze wafts through the open windows the breath of clover blossoms and new mown hay; where the minister preaches to poor people, who are not forced to carry a _dictionary_ to church; where people don't frown and hastily b.u.t.ton the pew door when a stranger comes in; where neighbors smile kindly on each other, and never gather up the folds of their dress lest it should sweep against a s.h.i.+lling de-laine; where good "Old Hundred" and "St. Martins" are sung, instead of twistified, finical, modern tunes, that old-fas.h.i.+oned folks can't follow; where the minister is not too stately to pat the little children on the head coming out the porch, or to give them a pleasant smile to make them feel that they are part of his parish; where they all walk home, not over crowded, dusty pavements, but under the leafy trees, with hearts filled with a quiet joy, seeing "the cattle on a thousand hills," the springs which run among the hills, "and the birds which build their houses in the branches;" where the golden sun goes down, not on the bloated drunkard and noisy Sabbath breaker, but on the hale old man "of silver hairs,"

teaching the cherub on his knee to lisp the evening hymn--upon kneeling groups under cottage roofs, where envy and hatred and ill-will find no resting place for their swift and evil feet. That is what Aunt f.a.n.n.y calls _Sunday_.

Children, there is one thing I like in New-York: almost all the churches have "the ivy green" clambering over the windows and turrets, and pretty willow trees drooping their graceful branches about the doorways. I love to see it, because I love the beautiful, and because it is pleasant to get even a glimpse of nature in the artificial city.

But I _don't_ like the stained gla.s.s windows. I don't like to see the congregation with green eyes and pink noses and blue cheeks and yellow lips. It excites my troublesome b.u.mp of mirthfulness, (and that's wrong, you know, in church;) beside, I catch myself examining the windows, to see if there are any two of them alike, and counting the red and pink and blue diamonds, and squares, and wondering whether, were they transposed this way and that way, the effect would not be better. And then I know that most of those windows are so arranged that they can't be opened, to let in the fresh air, and that gives me a stifled feeling, and I involuntarily untie my bonnet strings, and draw a long breath, to see if my breathing apparatus is all right!

No, I don't like these modern _improvements_ (?) in churches: in fact, to tell you the truth, I had rather wors.h.i.+p, like the old Covenanters, among the green hills--the blue sky for a roof, the gnarled old tree trunks for pillars, the branches for galleries, and the birds for an orchestra; and unless the minister preached because his heart was _so full of love to G.o.d that he couldn't help_ preaching, I should rather hear my _Maker_ preach to me, in the soft whisper of the leaves, the happy hum of the tiny insect, and the low, soft murmur of the stream.

Now, my dear children, don't mistake me. It is our duty to go to church; and it is wrong to think of anything else in church but wors.h.i.+pping G.o.d; but there's so much display, and show, and fas.h.i.+on now-a-days, in the churches--so much to distract the thoughts--so much hollow pretension to piety, that I sometimes feel, as I told you, that I would rather wors.h.i.+p amid the green hills, like the old persecuted Covenanters. Oh! there was _heart_ in their wors.h.i.+p! they sang every hymn as if they might sing the next one in Heaven.

_So ought we!_ Are you tired of my sermon?

Well, what do you think I saw here in New-York to-day? A boy of _eight_ years old walking in the street, with his hands in his jacket pockets, _smoking a cigar_! I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at the little monkey. Finally, I laid my hand on his shoulder and said,

"You don't _like_ that nasty cigar, I hope, my dear child." He blushed, and taking it out of his mouth, said,

"Yes, I do, but I'll throw it away if you want me to."

"Thank you," said I, "for your politeness, but it is not of myself I was thinking. I can easily get out of the way of it, you know, but it is such a shocking bad habit to get into; so young as you are, too. Oh, you have no idea how much it costs to smoke. You must always offer a friend one, else he will call you 'a stingy fellow.' Why, my dear boy, only think, it will take all your pocket money to buy _cigars_. You forget that by and by, you will want a store in Broadway, full of goods, and clerks to sell them, and a house to live in, and may be a wife, too; ah, you needn't laugh, for I don't believe you'll be able to get a wife if you keep on smoking till you get old enough to be engaged. By that time you'll be so stupefied, that n.o.body will have you!

"Yes, and many a time when you want a pair of new boots, you'll have to do without them because you can't _possibly_ go without your cigar, and you haven't money enough for both. Now, I'd just like to know if a smart little fellow like you is going to be made such a slave of, by a miserable little dirty roll of tobacco?"

Well, he said he would not smoke any more, but I've been afraid ever since to turn a corner, for fear I shall see the precocious young man walking behind a cigar.

Oh, the country is the place for boys,--on a nice farm, where there is ploughing, and hoeing, and digging, and sowing, and reaping going on; where they can jump upon a horse, without any saddle, and ride him to water, with his mane for a bridle; where they can help build fences, and help make hay, and help milk cows, and drive them to pasture; where they can go blackberrying, and strawberrying, and chestnuting, and everything but bird-nesting. I wouldn't like to leave my purse in the way of a boy who went bird-nesting. I should know he had a bad heart.

Yes, the country is the place for boys. There are no oyster saloons there; no cigar shops for them to loitre round; no gangs of bad, idle boys to teach them all sorts of mischief;--plenty going on in the country to amuse them innocently--terrible rattlesnakes to be slaughtered; woodchucks to be hunted; hawks to be shot (who make mince-meat of the poor little chickens); maple sugar and cider to make; husking frolics to go to. Just as if I didn't know what was best for boys, if I _am a woman_. I tell you, some of the greatest heroes in the world have had _women for mothers_.

THE BOY WHO LIKED NATURAL HISTORY.

Hal Hunt lived at the "Seven Corners;" he was just six years old last Fourth of July; and as "independent" as you might suppose, with _such_ a birth-day to boast of.