The Peddler's Boy Part 5

The men with whom Samuel had found a place, were large flour dealers.

Their new porter pleased them. He, too, was pleased with his business.

Nothing could be more pleasant for me now, than to relate to you scores of little incidents connected with Samuel's history, while he was in that store. But if I do that, I fear I shall spin out my thread so long that you will get weary. I will tell you a few things, though.

It was Samuel's daily duty to sweep out the store. This task he performed early in the morning, before either of the partners or any of the clerks were at their posts. One morning, the first thing he saw, after opening the store, was a roll of bank bills, lying on the floor. He took it up, and unrolled it. There were some ten or twelve dollars in it. As soon as the book-keeper came to the store, Samuel handed him the roll of bank bills, and went about his work. That was a small matter, wasn't it? But small as it was, those flour merchants, when they heard of it, noted it down in their memory.

Months pa.s.sed. The book-keeper went into business for himself. A new book-keeper was needed to take his place. Samuel was talked of. "But can Samuel be depended upon?" it was asked. "Can we trust him? Is he faithful, and honest, and capable?" I don't know what decision they would have come to, if it had not been for the affair of the bank bills. But his honesty in that particular was brought up. They thought it would do to trust a young man who could resist such a temptation as that. There was another thing they had heard about Samuel, which they thought pretty good evidence that he was honest. It was this: While Samuel was in the factory, he bought some articles at the village store. After he had paid for them, and got away a little distance, he found that the clerk had made a mistake in giving change, and that he had in his pocket fifty cents more than belonged to him.

So he turned right around, went back to the store, and returned the money to the clerk.

"He's the man," they all said, as soon as these facts were stated. So Samuel became the book-keeper in that large house, with a salary four times as large as he had received while he was the porter.

Some two or three years from the time he went to Boston to live, Samuel Bissell was one of the partners in that wealthy firm. He is by no means an old man now. Indeed, he is in the very prime of life. But he has got to be a rich man, and now owns one of the most beautiful country seats within a dozen miles of Boston, where he resides with his family. A great many merchants are so much engaged in making money, that they seem to care hardly anything about improving the mind, and so they let that get all full of weeds. But Mr. Bissell did very differently. He spent a great part of the time which he could spare from his business, in gathering new sheaves of knowledge, and cultivating the garden of the heart.

I hardly know of a man for miles around, in that charming district of country, who is more respected and beloved than Samuel Bissell. When I saw him last, he had just been elected the second time to a seat in the legislature of the State. I think he is a member of the Senate now.

I wish you could visit his place in the country, and see his fine garden and fine house. If you ever should happen that way, and should learn where he lives, you must not fail to make him a visit, and to tell him that Uncle Frank asked you to call. You will see there one of the happiest families that you ever came across in your life. Mr.

Bissell sometimes amuses his children with stories about his boyhood, and they are perfectly delighted with these stories.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. BISSELL AND HIS CHILDREN.]

Don't forget to inquire for the good old peddler, as soon as you get into the house. "What! is he living yet?" To be sure he is, and Samuel has fitted up for him one of the pleasantest rooms in the whole house. His hair is very white, and he was very feeble when I saw him last. But his heart was as young as ever; and he laughed, and played, and frolicked with his grandchildren just as merrily as if he had been a child himself.

Another thing I must tell you, while I think of it. There is a cupola on the top of Samuel's house, and I want you should go into that, if you can get a chance. There you will see quite a number of things which are worth seeing. One of them, perhaps, when you come to know what it is, will interest you more than all the rest. It is the very telescope which used to belong to Captain Lovechild, and which made Samuel's heart throb so, when he was a child--"put a new soul" into him, to use his own language. The old gentleman, some time since, left this world, I trust for a better and a happier one. Just before he died, he made a will, in which he remembered many of his friends, and Samuel, among the rest, to whom he gave the old telescope. Mr.

Bissell has more than once been heard to say, that he would not part with that telescope for a good farm.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAP. XV.

THE WINDING UP.

If I should undertake to tell my readers what lessons this story teaches, I am not sure but they would laugh at me. I fancy I see their bright eyes twinkle, as I begin to talk about these lessons, and I almost hear them say to one another, that Uncle Frank might as well carry a lantern in broad daylight, as to spend his time in telling us what this story teaches. Some of them wonder, perhaps, if Uncle Frank really takes his readers for a set of little dunces.

Well, then, my shrewd little boy, what does the story teach?

"Why it teaches that the Peddler's Boy set out to be somebody, and he was somebody."

Very well. Anything else, little girl? I must catechise you a little.

What do you learn from it?

"That anybody can do anything he sets out to do, and that he can be anything he sets out to be."

Bravo! that is pretty well, only a little too strong. And what else?

Why didn't Frederick get along in the world as well as Samuel?

"Because he was a coward."

I'm not sure but you are half right. It seems hard to call that poor, unfortunate youth a coward. But I do honestly think that he would have done well enough, if he had only sc.r.a.ped together a few more grains of courage. Look at that affair of the gla.s.s of gin. It was courage that he wanted there--courage to do right, no matter what his old playmate might say or think. He was afraid to offend the boy. He had more fear of the boy, it would appear, than he had of G.o.d. What that coa.r.s.e, profane boy said, had more weight with him than the words which his conscience uttered. It was _principle_, after all, that he lacked. And so he was led away, and lost.

"Uncle Frank, I shall never forget what one gla.s.s will do."

I hope you never will; and I hope you will remember, too, as long as you live, that the success of the Peddler's Boy was owing quite as much to his honesty, and temperance, and faithfulness, and religion--for he was a sincere and devoted Christian--as to his ambition, and industry, and energy, and resolution.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE END]

_Woodworth's Juvenile Works._

PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.

PUBLISH THE FOLLOWING JUVENILE WORKS,

By Francis C. Woodworth,

EDITOR OF "WOODWORTH'S YOUTH'S CABINET," AUTHOR OF "THE WILLOW LANE BUDGET," "THE STRAWBERRY GIRL," "THE MILLER OF OUR VILLAGE," "THEODORE THINKER'S TALES," ETC., ETC.

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