Abbott Jacob
Caleb in the Country
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 I suppose that something that the ass said, hurt the horse's feelings.”
“What was it, David, that the ass said?” asked Dwight.
“Why—he said, I believe that the horse was proud, or something like that.”
“No matter about that fable now,” said their mother; “you understand the meaning of the verse. It was written to good men; it says that God gave them life and feeling, when they were dead in trespasses and sins. But I must first tell you what dead means.”
“O, we know what 'dead' means, well enough,” said Dwight.
“Perhaps not exactly what it means here,” said Madam Rachel.
“Dead means here insensible.”
“But I don't know what insensible means,” said Caleb.
“I will explain it to you,” said she. “Once there were two boys who quarreled in the recess at school; and the teacher decided that for their punishment they should be publicly reproved before all the scholars. So, after school, they were required to stand up in their places, and listen to the reprimand. While they were standing, and the teacher was telling them that they had done very wrong,—had indulged bad passions, and displeased God, and destroyed their own happiness, and brought disgrace upon the school,—one of them stood up with a bold and careless air, while the teacher was speaking, and afterwards when he took his seat, looked round to the other scholars, and laughed. The other boy hung his head, and looked very much ashamed; and as the teacher had finished what he was saying, he sunk into his seat, put his head down upon his desk before him, and burst into tears. Now, the first one was insensible, or as it is called in this text, dead to all sense of shame. The other was alive to it. You understand now?”
“Yes, mother,” said the boys.
The party walked on for a short time in silence, admiring the splendid and beautiful scenery which was presented to view, in the setting sun, and the calm tranquility which reigned around.
Suddenly Caleb, seeing a beautiful lily growing in a border, as they were walking by, stopped to gather it. Madam Rachel was afraid that he was not attending to what she was saying.
“Now, Caleb,” said she, “that's a very pretty lily; but suppose you should go and hold it before Seizem. Do you suppose he would care any thing about it?”
Seizem was a great dog that belonged to Madam Rachel.
“No, grandmother,” said Caleb, “I don't think he would.”
“And suppose you were to go and pat him on his head, and tell him he was a good dog, would he care any thing about that?”
“Yes,” said Dwight; “he would jump, and wag his tail, and almost laugh.”
“Then you see, boys, that Seizem is 'quick' and alive to praise; but to beauty of colour, and form he is insensible, and as it were, dead. The beauty makes no impression upon him at all, he is stupid and lifeless, so far as that is concerned.
“Now, what is meant by men being dead in trespasses and sins is, that they are thus insensible to God's goodness, and their duty to love and obey him. Suppose, now, I was to go out into the street, and find some boys talking harshly and roughly to one another, as boys often do in their plays; and suppose they were boys that I knew, so that it was proper for me to give them advice; now, if I were to go and tell them that it was the law of God that they should be kind to one another, and that they ought to be so, and thus obey and please him, what effect do you think it would have?”
“They would not mind it very much,” said David.
“I expect that they would though,” said Dwight.
“I don't think that they would mind it much myself. Each one wants to have his own way, and to seek his own pleasures, and they do not see the excellence of obeying and pleasing God at all. It seems to me a very excellent thing for boys to try to please God, but I know very well that most boys care no more about it than Seizem would for your lily, Caleb. In respect to God they are insensible and dead; dead in trespasses and sins, and the only hope for them is, that God will quicken them; that is, give them life and feeling; and then, if I say just the same things to them, they will listen seriously and attentively, and will really desire to please God. As it is now with almost all boys, they are so insensible and dead to all sense of regard to God, that when we want to influence them to do their duty, we must appeal to some other motive; something that they have more sensibility to.
“For example, you remember the other day when you went a strawberrying with Mary Anna.”
“Yes,” said Dwight.
“Now, I recollect that I thought there was great danger that you might be troublesome to Mary Anna, or to some others of the party; and I wanted to say something to you before you went, to make you a good boy. The highest and best motive would have been for me to say, 'Now, Dwight, remember and do what is right to-day. The trees and fields, and pleasant sunshine; the flowers and the strawberries, your own health and strength, and joyous feelings, all come from God; the whole scene that you are going to enjoy to-day, he has contrived for you, and now he will watch over you all the time, and be pleased if he sees you careful and conscientious in doing right all day. Now, be a good boy, for the sake of pleasing him.' Suppose I had said that to you, do you think it would have made you a good boy?”
Dwight held down his head, and said, hesitatingly, that he did not think it would.
“That motive would have been piety. If a boy takes pains to do what is right, and avoid what is wrong, because he is grateful to God, and wishes to please him, it is piety. But I was afraid that would not have much influence with you, and so I tried to think of some other motive. I thought of filial affection next.”
“What is that?” said Caleb.
“Filial affection is a boy's love for his father or mother,” replied Madam Rachel. “I said to myself, How will it do to appeal to Dwight's filial affection, to-day? I can say to him, 'Now, Dwight, be a good boy to-day, to please me. I shall be very happy to-night if Mary Anna comes home and says that you have been kind, and gentle and yielding all day.' But then, on reflection, I thought that that motive would not be powerful enough. I knew you had at least some desire to please me, but I had some doubt whether it would be enough to carry you through all the temptations of the whole day. Do you recollect what I did say to you, Dwight?”
“Yes, mother,” replied Dwight, “you told me just before I went away, that if I was a good, pleasant boy, Mary Anna would want to take me again some day.”
“Yes, and what principle in your heart was that appealing to?”
Dwight did not answer. David said, “Selfishness.”
“Yes,” said his mother; “or rather not selfishness, but self-love. Selfishness means not only a desire for our own happiness, but injustice towards others. It would have been wrong for me to have appealed to Dwight's selfishness, as that would have been encouraging a bad passion; but it was right for me to appeal to his self-love, that is, to shew him how his own future enjoyment would depend upon his being a good boy that day.
“Now, Dwight, do you think that what I said had any influence over you that day?”
“Yes, mother,” said Dwight, “I think it did. I thought of it a good many times.”
“Would it have had as much influence if I had asked you to be a good boy only to please me?”
Dwight acknowledged that he did not think it would.
“Do you think it would have had as much influence if I had asked you to do right to please God?”
“No, mother,” said Dwight.
“Do you think that would have had any influence at all?”
Dwight seemed at a loss, and said he didn't know.
“Do you think it would?” said Caleb.
“Why, yes,” said Madam Rachel, though she spoke in rather a doubtful tone. “I rather think it would have had some influence—not much, but some. He would not have thought of it very often, but still, I rather think, at least I hope, that Dwight has some desire to please God, and that it now and then influences him a little. But in boys generally, I don't think that such a motive would have any influence at all.”
“Not any at all?” said David.
“Why, you can judge for yourself. Do you suppose that the boys at school, and those that you meet in the street, are influenced in their conduct every day, by any desire to please God?”
“Why, nobody tells them,” said Dwight.
“O, yes, they have been told over and over again, at church, and in the Sabbath school, till they are tired of hearing it.”
The boys were silent, and the whole party walked along very slowly, for several steps; and then David said that he thought that though the boys were pretty bad, he did not think they were quite so bad as they would be, if they did not hear any thing about God. He said it seemed to him that it had some influence upon them.
“O, yes,” said Madam Rachel, “I have no doubt that what is said to them about their duty to God has a very important influence over them in various ways. Religious instruction produces a great many good effects upon the conduct of boys and men, even where it does not awaken any genuine love for God, and honest desire to please him. That is a peculiar feeling. I will tell you.”
So saying, Madam Rachel paused, and seemed a moment to be lost in thought. The whole party had by this time gone almost the whole round of the walk, and were now slowly sauntering towards the house and as Madam Rachel said those last words, they were just passing along by the side of the rocky declivity at the back of the garden. Madam Rachel looked upon the rocks, and saw a beautiful little blue-bell growing there in a crevice, and hanging over at the top.
“What a beautiful blue-bell there is!” said she.
“Where?” said the boys, looking around.
“There,” said she, “just by the side of the little fir-tree. How Mary Anna would admire it.”
“I'll climb up and get it for her,” said Dwight. “I'll have it in a minute.”
He dropped his mother's hand, and began scrambling up the rocks. They were jagged and irregular fragments, with bushes and trees among them, and Dwight, who was a very expert climber, soon had the blue-bell in his hand, and was coming down delighted with his prize. He brought the leaves of the plant with it, and it was in fact an elegant little flower.
“Now, Dwight,” said Madam Rachel, as they walked along again, Dwight holding his flower very carefully in his hand, “notice this feeling you have towards Mary Anna, which led you to get the flower. It was not fear of her,—it was not hope of getting any reward from her, I suppose.”
“No, indeed, mother,” said Dwight.
“It was simply a desire to give her pleasure. When you go in, you will take a pleasure yourself in going to her, and gratifying her with the present. Now, do you suppose that the boys generally have any such feeling as that towards God?”
“No, mother,” said David, “I don't think they have.”
“Nor do I. They are dead to all such feelings. They take no pleasure in pleasing God. They don't like to think of him, and I don't see that they shew any signs of having any love for him at all.”
They walked along, after this, silently. Dwight saw how destitute of love to God his heart had been, and still was; and yet he could not help thinking that he did sometimes feel a little grateful to God for all his kindness and care; and at least some faint desires to please him.
It was nearly dark when they arrived at the house; and Dwight asked his mother to let him run and give Mary Anna her blue-bell. She was very much pleased with it indeed. She arranged it and the leaves that Dwight had brought with it, so as to give the whole group a graceful form, and put it in water, saying she meant to rise early the next morning to paint it. Dwight determined that he would get up too and see her do it.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE JUNK
A few days after this, when David and Dwight were at work one evening upon their mole, and Caleb was playing near, sometimes helping a little and sometimes looking on, Mary Anna came down to see them. They had nearly finished the stone-work and were trying to contrive some way to fasten up their flag-staff at the end.
“We can't drive the flag-staff down into our mole,” said Dwight, looking up with an anxious and perplexed expression to Mary Anna, “for it is all stony.”
“Couldn't you drive it down into the bottom of the brook, and then build your mole up all around it?” said Mary Anna.
“No,” said Dwight, “the bottom of the brook is stony too.”
“It looks sandy,” said Mary Anna, looking down through the water to the bottom of the brook.
“No, it is very hard and stony under the sand, and we cannot drive any thing down at all.”
“Well,” said Mary Anna, “go on with your work, and I will sit down upon the bank and consider what you can do.”
After some time, Mary Anna proposed that the boys should go up to the wood-pile and get a short log of wood, which had one end sawed off square, and roll it down to the mole. Then that they should dig out a little hole in the bottom of the brook with a hoe, so deep that when they put in the log, the upper end would be a little above the surface of the mole. Then she said they might put in the log, with the sawed end uppermost, and while one boy held it steady, the other might throw in stones and sand all around it till it was secure in its place. Then they could build the mole a little beyond it; and thus there would be a solid wooden block, firmly fixed in the end of the mole.
“But how shall we fasten our flag-staff to it?” said David.
“Why you must get an augur, and bore a hole down in the middle of it, and make the end of your flag-staff round so that it will just fit in.”
The boys thought this an excellent plan, and went off after the log. While they were gone, Mary Anna asked Caleb if he had fed his squirrel that evening, and Caleb said he had not.
“Hadn't you better go now and feed him before it is too dark?”
“Why, no,” said Caleb, “I don't want to go now; besides, I am going to let Dwight feed him to-night. I promised Dwight that I would let him feed him sometimes.”
The truth was that Caleb wanted to stay and see the boys fix their log. He had had his squirrel now several days, and had lost his interest in him, as boys generally do in any new play-thing, after they have had it a few days. He was really, under this show of generosity and faithful performance of his promise, only gratifying his own selfish desires, but he did not see it himself. The heart is not only selfish and sinful, but it is deceitful; it even deceives itself.
So, presently, when Caleb saw David and Dwight rolling the log down from the house, he ran off to meet them, and said,
“Dwight you may feed my squirrel to-night, and I will help David roll down the log.”
Dwight looked up with an air of indifference, and said he did not want to feed the squirrel that night.
Caleb was quite surprised at the answer; and he walked along by the side of Dwight and David towards the mole, as they rolled the log along, scarcely knowing what to do. He did not want to leave the poor squirrel without his supper; and, on the other hand, he did not want to go away from the mole. Mary Anna saw his perplexity, and she understood the reason of it.
Now, it happened that Mary Anna had been forming a very curious plan about the squirrel, from the very day when he was brought home; though she had not said any thing to the boys about it. To carry her plan into execution, it was necessary that the squirrel should be hers; and she resolved from the beginning, that as soon as a convenient opportunity should offer, she would try to buy him. She determined, therefore, to wait quietly until she saw some signs of Caleb's being tired of his squirrel, and then she determined to buy him.
She did not suppose that Caleb would have got tired of the care of his squirrel quite so soon as this; but when she found that he had, she thought that the time had arrived for her to attempt to make the purchase. So when Caleb came back to the mole, she said,
“Caleb, I have a great mind to go and feed your squirrel for you, if you want to stay here and help the boys to make the mole. In fact, I should like to buy him of you, if you would like to sell him.”
“Well,” said Caleb, “what will you give me for him?”
“Let me see—what can I make you.” And Mary Anna tried to think what she could make Caleb that he would like as well as the squirrel. She proposed first a new picture-book, and then a flag, and next her monthly rose; and, finally, she said she would make him something or other, and let him see it, and then he could tell whether he would give his squirrel for it or not.
“I shall, I know,” said Caleb, “for I can see him just as well if he is yours as I can if he is mine.”
“But perhaps I shall let him go,” said Mary Anna.
“O no,” said Caleb, “you must not let him go.”
“If I buy him of you,” replied Mary Anna, “he will be mine entirely, and I must do whatever I please with him.”
“O, but I shall make you promise not to let him go,” said Caleb, “or else I shall not want to sell him to you.”
“Very well,” said Mary Anna; “though you can tell better when you see what I am going to make you.”
Mary Anna then went up to the house, and fed the squirrel, and as it began to grow dark pretty soon after that, the boys themselves soon came up. She asked David if he would make her a mast, and also a small block of wood for a step.
“A step!” said David; “a step for what?”
“A step for the mast,” said Mary Anna.
“What is a step for a mast?”
“It is a block, with a hole in it for the lower end of the mast to fit into,” said Mary Anna.
“Do they call it a step?” said David.
“Yes,” said Mary Anna; “I read about it in a book where I learned about rigging. Any little block will do.”
David's curiosity was very much excited, and he begged Mary Anna to tell him what she was going to make.
“Well,” said Mary Anna, “if you will keep the secret.”
“Yes,” said David, “I will.”
“A Chinese junk!” said Mary Anna.
“A Chinese junk!” said David, with surprise and delight.
“Yes, now run along to mother.”
So David went, and Mary Anna began to think of her work. She happened to have recollected that there was in the garret an old bread-tray, of japanned ware, which had been worn out and thrown aside, and was now good for nothing; and yet it was whole, and Mary Anna thought it would make a good boat. As, however, it was not shaped like a boat, she thought she would call it a Chinese junk, which is a clumsy kind of vessel, built by the Chinese. Accordingly after the boys had gone to bed, she got all her materials together; the old bread-tray for the hull of the junk, some fine twine for the rigging, David's mast and step, and a piece of birch bark, which she thought would represent very well the mats of which the Chinese make their sails. She carried all those things to her room, so as to have them all ready for her to go to work upon the vessel very early the next morning.
And early the next morning she did get to work. On the whole, the craft, when finished, if it was not built exactly after the model of a real Chinese junk, would sail about as well, and was as gay. She got it all done before breakfast, and carried it down, and hid it under some bushes near the mole.
Then, after breakfast, she took the boys all down, and told Caleb that she was ready to make him an offer for his squirrel. She then went to the bushes, and taking out the junk, she went to the mole, and carrying it out to the end, she gently set it down into the water. The boys looked on in great delight, as the junk wheeled slowly around in the great circles of the whirlpool.
Caleb hesitated a good deal before he finally decided to give Mary Anna his squirrel, and he tried to stipulate with her, that is, make her agree, that she would not let him go; but Mary Anna would not make any such agreement. She said that if she had the little fellow at all, she must have him for her own, without any condition whatever; and Caleb, at length, finding the elegance of the Chinese junk irresistible, decided to make the trade.
And now for Marianna's plan. She liked to see the squirrel very much; she admired his graceful movements, his beautiful grey colour, and his bushy tail, curled over his back, like a plume. But then she did not like to have him a prisoner. She knew that he must love a life of freedom,—rambling among the trees, climbing up to the topmost branches, and leaping from limb to limb; and it was painful to her to think of his being shut up in a cage. And yet she did not like to let him go, for then she knew that in all probability he would run off to the woods, and she would see him no more.
It happened that one limb of the great elm before the house was hollow for a considerable distance up from the trunk of the tree, and there was a hole leading into this hollow limb at the crotch, where the limb grew out from the tree. She thought that this would make a fine house for the squirrel, if he could only be induced to think so himself, and live there. It occurred to her that she might put him in, and fasten up the hole with wires for a time, like a cage; and she thought that if she kept him shut up there, and fed him there with plenty of nuts and corn, for a week or two, he would gradually forget his old home in the woods, and get wonted to his new one.
After thinking of several ways of fastening up the mouth of the hole, she concluded finally on the following plan. She got some small nails, and drove them in pretty near together on each side of the hole, and then she took a long piece of fine wire, and passed it across from one to the other, in such a manner as to cover the mouth of the hole with a sort of net-work of wire. She then got Raymond to put the squirrel in through a place which she left open for that purpose, and then she closed this place up like the rest, with wires. The squirrel ran up into the limb, and disappeared.
When the boys came and saw the ingenious cage which Mary Anna had contrived, they thought it was an excellent plan; and they asked her if she was not afraid that when she opened the cage door, he would run off into the woods again. She said she was very much afraid that he would, but that still there was a possibility that he might stay; and if he should, she should often see him from her window, running about the tree, and she should take so much more pleasure in that than in seeing him shut up in a cage, that she thought she should prefer to take the risk. She made the boys promise not to go to the hole, for fear they might frighten him, and she said she meant to feed him herself every day, with nuts and corn, and try to get him tame before she took away the wires.
The children felt a good deal of curiosity to see whether the squirrel would stay in the tree or run away, when Mary Anna should open his cage door; and after a few days, they were eager to have her try the experiment. But she said, no. She wished to let him have full time to become well accustomed to his new home.
Mary Anna generally went early in the morning to feed the squirrel,—before the boys were up. Then she fed him again after they had gone to school, and also just before they came home at night. She knew that if she fed him when they were at home, they would want to go with her; and it would frighten the squirrel to see so many strange faces,—even if the boys should try to be as still as possible.
One morning, Mary Anna and the boys were down near the mole, and were talking about the squirrel. David and Dwight were sailing their boats, and Mary Anna was sitting with Caleb upon a bench which David had made for his mother, close to the shore. Caleb's junk was upon the ground by his side. Caleb asked Mary Anna when she was going to let her squirrel out.
“O, I don't know,” said she, “perhaps in a week more.”
“A week!” said Dwight, pushing his boat off from the shore, “I wouldn't wait so long as that.”
“Why, when I first had him, you wanted to have me keep him in a cage all the time.”
“I know it,” said Dwight; “but now I want to see whether he will run away.”
“I would not try yet,” said David—“but you'd better have a name for him, Marianne.”
“I have got a name for him,” said she.
“What is it?” said Dwight, eagerly.
“Mungo.”
“Mungo!” repeated Dwight; “I don't think that is a very good name. What made you think of that name?”
“O, I heard of a traveller once, named Mungo. The whole of his name was Mungo Park; but I thought Mungo was enough for my squirrel.”
“He has not been much of a traveller,” said Dwight.
“O, yes,” replied Mary Anna, “I think it probable he has travelled about the woods a great deal.”
“Did Mungo Park travel in the woods?”
“Yes, in Africa. I think Mungo knows his name too,” said Mary Anna.
“Do you,” said Dwight. “Why?”
“Why, whenever I go to feed him,” said Mary Anna, “I call Mungo! Mungo! and drop my nuts and corn down through the wires into the hole. And now he begins to come down when he hears my voice, and the little rogue catches up a nut and runs off with it.”
