Bruno

“John Thomas hunts foxes sometimes with his father,” said Ralph. “There are a great many in the woods back of their farm. I am going to see if I can’t get him to catch you another young one. I shall tell him I will give him half a dollar if he will get one, and that is all the money I have got.”

Hiram did not reply to this suggestion. He did not know exactly what to say. His thought was, that no other fox that could possibly be found would supply the place, in his view, of the one that he had lost. He had taken so much pains to teach that one, and to tame him, that he had become quite attached to him individually, and he was very sure that he should never like any other one so well. He did not, however, like to say this to Ralph, for he perceived that Ralph was very much troubled about what he had done, and was quite anxious to make some reparation, and he thought that it would trouble him still more to learn that all reparation was wholly out of his power.

“And if he catches one for you,” continued Ralph, “then I’ll give you the collar for your own. I would give it to you now, if it would do you any good.”

“I’ll take the chain off, at any rate,” said Hiram, “and carry it in, and keep it, in case I ever should have another fox.”

Foxy found.

So he stooped down, and began to unhook the chain from the stake to which it was fastened. As he did this, his face was brought down pretty near to the hole under the wall, and, looking in there, his attention was attracted to two bright, shining spots there, that looked like the eyes of an animal.

“Run and get the collar.”

“Hi – yi,” said he, suddenly, “I verily believe he is here now. Run and get the collar.”

Ralph took a peep, first, into the hole, and then ran for the collar. When he came back, he found Hiram sitting down on the grass, with the fox in his arms. The truth was, that the fox had been treated so kindly since he had been in Hiram’s keeping, and he had become so accustomed to his hole under the wall, that he did not wish to go away. When he found himself at liberty by the removal of the collar, he had gone off a little in the grass and among the bushes, but, when night came on, he had returned as usual to his hole; and when he heard the voices of the boys at the wall in the morning, he supposed that Hiram had come to give him his breakfast, and he came accordingly out to the mouth of his hole to see if his supposition were correct. He submitted to have his collar put on very readily.

Thus there was a general reconciliation all round, and Bruno, Foxy, Hiram, and Ralph became, all four of them, very excellent friends.

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good

This story reminds me of another one relating to the burning of a small building in the bottom of a garden, called a tool-house. I will here relate that story, and then tell more about Bruno. It will be seen that this tool-house took fire in a very singular way. Precisely how Ralph’s garden-house took fire never was known. It was probably in some way connected with the matches which Ralph left upon the floor. Whether he stepped upon one of them, and thus ignited it, and left it slowly burning – or whether some mouse came by, and set one of them on fire by gnawing upon it – or whether one of the matches got into a crack of the floor, and was then inflamed by getting pinched there by some springing or working of the boards, produced by the gardener’s walking over the floor or wheeling the wheelbarrow in – whether, in fine, the mischief originated in either of these ways, or in some other wholly unknown, could never be ascertained.

At all events, however – and this is the conclusion of the story – the garden-house was soon rebuilt, and Ralph was effectually cured of his resentment and enmity by the noble and magnanimous spirit which Hiram and Bruno exhibited in saving his bird.

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good

Three times I have put this precept in the story, in order that you may be sure to remember it.

THE BURNING OF THE TOOL-HOUSE

When one has committed a fault, to acknowledge it frankly, and to bear the consequences of it one’s self submissively, is magnanimous and noble. On the contrary, to resort to cunning tricks to conceal it, and especially to attempt to throw the blame of it upon others who are innocent, is mean and contemptible.

Description of the tool-house. Thomas, the gardener.

Once there were two boys, named William and John, who had a building for a tool-house and work-shop at the bottom of their father’s garden. It was very similar in its situation to the one described in the last story. The building was at a place where the land descended, so that while it was only one story high on the front side toward the garden, it was two stories high on the other side toward a brook, which ran along near the lower garden fence. The upper part of the building was the tool-room. This room opened out upon one of the alleys of the garden. The lower part was the shop. The door leading into the shop was behind. There was a fire-place in the shop, and the chimney passed up, of course, through the tool-room; but there was no fire-place in the tool-room, for there never was any occasion to make a fire there. The only use of that room was, that Thomas, the old gardener, used to keep his spades, and rakes, and hoes, and other garden tools in it; and sometimes of a summer evening, when his work was done, he used to sit at the door of it and smoke his pipe. The building was very convenient, though it was small, and old, and so not of much value.

In the winter, the boys were accustomed occasionally to have a fire in the work-shop below, when they were at work there. There was not much danger in this, for the floor of the room was of stone.

Sealing the packages.

In the summer, of course, they never required a fire, except when they wished to use the glue. Then they were accustomed to make a small fire to dissolve the glue. One summer morning, however, they wanted a candle. They had been collecting garden seeds, and they wished to seal them up in small packages with sealing-wax. It would have been better, perhaps, to have tied the parcels up with twine; but the boys took a fancy to using sealing-wax, for the sake of the interest and pleasure which they expected to find in the work of sealing. So, just before noon, when they had got their seeds all ready, William went up to the house, and his mother gave him a long candle.

When William came into the shop, John accosted him, saying,

The boys have no candlestick.

“Why, William, you have not brought any candlestick. What shall we do for a candlestick?”

“I forgot that,” said William.

“Never mind,” said John; “we can make one with a block and three nails.”

There is a way of making a candlestick in a shop, which consists of driving three nails into a small block of wood, at such a distance apart as to leave just space for the end of the candle between them. If the nails are driven into the block in a proper manner, and if the heads of the nails are not too large, this contrivance makes quite a good candlestick.

Another way is to take a similar block of wood, and bore a hole in the top of it just large enough to receive the end of the candle, and just deep enough to hold it firmly.

William proposed that they should make the candlestick by boring a hole, but John thought it was best to do it by means of nails.

The two candlesticks.

So they concluded to make two. John was to make one with nails, and William one with the borer. So they both began to look about among the shavings under the bench for blocks, and when they found two that seemed to answer their purpose, William went to a drawer, and selected a borer of the proper size, while John began to choose nails with small heads out of a nail-box which was upon the bench for his operation.

In due time the candlesticks were both finished. The one which William had made was really the best; but John insisted that the one which he had made was the best, and so William, who was a very good-natured boy, gave up the point. The candle was put into John’s candlestick, and William put his away upon a shelf, to be used, perhaps, on some future occasion. The boys then lighted the candle by means of a match, and put it on the end of the work-bench where they were going to do the work of putting up their seeds.

The boys leave the candle burning.

It was now, however, about noon, which was the hour for the boys to go home to dinner. They arranged their seeds a little upon the bench, but did not have time to begin to seal them up before they heard the dinner-bell ring. They then left their work, and went up to the house. Unfortunately, they left the candle burning. As it was bright daylight, and especially as the sun shone in near where the candle stood, the flame was very faint to the view; in fact, it was almost entirely invisible, and the boys, when they looked around the shop just before they left it, did not observe it at all.

After dinner, the boys concluded that they would go a fishing that afternoon, and not finish putting up their seeds until the following day.

The matting. The pipe.

While they were gone, the candle was burning all the time, the flame gradually descending as the combustion went on, until, about tea-time, it reached the block of wood. It did not set the wood on fire, but the wick fell over, when the flame reached the wood, and communicated the fire to a roll of matting which lay upon the bench behind it. The matting had been used to wrap up plants in, and was damp; so it burned very slowly. About this time, Thomas, the old gardener, came and sat down in the doorway of the tool-house above, smoking his pipe. He did not know, however, what mischief was brewing in the room below; and so, when it began to grow dark, he knocked the ashes out of his pipe upon the ground of the garden, shut the tool-room door, and went home.

Fire! fire!

That night, about midnight, the boys were suddenly awakened and dreadfully terrified by a cry of fire, and, on opening their eyes, they perceived a strong light gleaming into the windows of their bed-room. They sprang up, and saw that the tool-house was all on fire. The people of the house dressed themselves as quick as possible, and hastened to the spot, and some of the neighbors came too. It was, however, too late to extinguish the fire. The building and all the tools which it contained, both in the tool-room and in the shop, and all the seeds that the boys had collected were entirely consumed.

Nobody could imagine how the building took fire. Some said it must have been set on fire by malicious persons. Others thought that old Thomas must have been unconsciously the author of the mischief, with his pipe. Nothing certain, however, could be ascertained at that time, and so the company separated, determining to have the matter more fully investigated the following morning.

William and John, who had dressed themselves when the alarm was first given, and had gone to the fire, now went back to their room, and went to bed again.

What was the origin of the fire? A conversation.

After they had been in bed some time, and each thought that the other must be asleep, William said to John,

“John!”

“What?” said John.

“Are you asleep?” asked William.

“No,” said John.

“I will tell you how I think the tool-house got on fire,” said William.

“How?” asked John.