The Parent's Assistant; Or, Stories for Children

Talb. Set me down! There's my mother! There's my sister!

Rory. Easy, easy. Set him down! No such ting! give him t'other huzza! There's nothing like a good loud huzza in this world. Yes, there is! for, as my Lord John said just now, out of some book or out of his own head —

One self-approving hour whole years outweighs

Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas.

CURTAIN FALLS

FORGIVE AND FORGET

In the neighbourhood of a seaport town in the west of England there lived a gardener, who had one son, called Maurice, to whom he was very partial. One day his father sent him to the neighbouring town to purchase some garden seeds for him. When Maurice got to the seed-shop, it was full of people, who were all impatient to be served: first a great tall man, and next a great fat woman pushed before him; and he stood quietly beside the counter, waiting till somebody should be at leisure to attend to him. At length, when all the other people who were in the shop had got what they wanted, the shopman turned to Maurice – 'And what do you want, my patient little fellow?' said he.

'I want all these seeds for my father,' said Maurice, putting a list of seeds into the shopman's hand; 'and I have brought money to pay for them all.'

The seedsman looked out all the seeds that Maurice wanted, and packed them up in paper: he was folding up some painted lady-peas, when, from a door at the back of the shop, there came in a square, rough-faced man, who exclaimed, the moment he came in, 'Are the seeds I ordered ready? – The wind's fair – they ought to have been aboard yesterday. And my china jar, is it packed up and directed? where is it?'

'It is up there on the shelf over your head, sir,' answered the seedsman. 'It is very safe, you see; but we have not had time to pack it yet. It shall be done to-day; and we will get the seeds ready for you, sir, immediately.'

'Immediately! then stir about it. The seeds will not pack themselves up. Make haste, pray.' 'Immediately, sir, as soon as I have done up the parcel for this little boy.' 'What signifies the parcel for this little boy? He can wait, and I cannot – wind and tide wait for no man. Here, my good lad, take your parcel and sheer off,' said the impatient man; and, as he spoke, he took up the parcel of seeds from the counter, as the shopman stooped to look for a sheet of thick brown paper and packthread to tie it up.

The parcel was but loosely folded up, and as the impatient man lifted it, the weight of the peas which were withinside of it burst the paper, and all the seeds fell out upon the floor, whilst Maurice in vain held his hands to catch them. The peas rolled to all parts of the shop; the impatient man swore at them, but Maurice, without being out of humour, set about collecting them as fast as possible.

Whilst the boy was busied in this manner, the man got what seeds he wanted; and as he was talking about them, a sailor came into the shop, and said, 'Captain, the wind has changed within these five minutes, and it looks as if we should have ugly weather.'

'Well, I'm glad of it,' replied the rough-faced man, who was the captain of a ship. 'I am glad to have a day longer to stay ashore, and I've business enough on my hands.' The captain pushed forward towards the shop door. Maurice, who was kneeling on the floor, picking up his seeds, saw that the captain's foot was entangled in some packthread which hung down from the shelf on which the china jar stood. Maurice saw that, if the captain took one more step forward, he must pull the string, so that it would throw down the jar, round the bottom of which the packthread was entangled. He immediately caught hold of the captain's leg, and stopped him, 'Stay! Stand still, sir!' said he, 'or you will break your china jar.'

The man stood still, looked, and saw how the packthread had caught in his shoe buckle, and how it was near dragging down his beautiful china jar. 'I am really very much obliged to you, my little fellow,' said he. 'You have saved my jar, which I would not have broken for ten guineas, for it is for my wife, and I've brought it safe from abroad many a league. It would have been a pity if I had broken it just when it was safe landed. I am really much obliged to you, my little fellow, this was returning good for evil. I am sorry I threw down your seeds, as you are such a good-natured, forgiving boy. Be so kind,' continued he, turning to the shopman, 'as to reach down that china jar for me.'

The shopman lifted down the jar very carefully, and the captain took off the cover, and pulled out some tulip-roots. 'You seem, by the quantity of seeds you have got, to belong to a gardener. Are you fond of gardening?' said he to Maurice.

'Yes, sir,' replied Maurice, 'very fond of it; for my father is a gardener, and he lets me help him at his work, and he has given me a little garden of my own.'

'Then here are a couple of tulip-roots for you; and if you take care of them, I'll promise you that you will have the finest tulips in England in your little garden. These tulips were given to me by a Dutch merchant, who told me that they were some of the rarest and finest in Holland. They will prosper with you, I'm sure, wind and weather permitting.'

Maurice thanked the gentleman, and returned home, eager to show his precious tulip-roots to his father, and to a companion of his, the son of a nurseryman, who lived near him. Arthur was the name of the nurseryman's son.

The first thing Maurice did, after showing his tulip-roots to his father, was to run to Arthur's garden in search of him. Their gardens were separated only by a low wall of loose stones: – 'Arthur! Arthur! where are you? Are you in your garden? I want you.' But Arthur made no answer, and did not, as usual, come running to meet his friend. 'I know where you are,' continued Maurice, 'and I'm coming to you as fast as the raspberry-bushes will let me. I have good news for you – something you'll be delighted to see, Arthur! – Ha! – but here is something that I am not delighted to see, I am sure,' said poor Maurice, who, when he had got through the raspberry-bushes, and had come in sight of his own garden, beheld his bell-glass – his beloved bell-glass, under which his cucumbers were grown so finely – his only bell-glass, broken to pieces!

'I am sorry for it,' said Arthur, who stood leaning upon his spade in his own garden; 'I am afraid you will be very angry with me.' 'Why, was it you, Arthur, broke my bell-glass? Oh, how could you do so?' 'I was throwing weeds and rubbish over the wall, and by accident a great lump of couch-grass, with stones hanging to the roots, fell upon your bell-glass, and broke it, as you see.'

Maurice lifted up the lump of couch-grass, which had fallen through the broken glass upon his cucumbers, and he looked at his cucumbers for a moment in silence – 'Oh, my poor cucumbers! you must all die now. I shall see all your yellow flowers withered to-morrow; but it is done, and it cannot be helped; so, Arthur, let us say no more about it.'

'You are very good; I thought you would have been angry. I am sure I should have been exceedingly angry if you had broken the glass, if it had been mine.'

'Oh, forgive and forget, as my father always says; that's the best way. Look what I have got for you.' Then he told Arthur the story of the captain of the ship, and the china jar; the seeds having been thrown down, and of the fine tulip-roots which had been given to him; and Maurice concluded by offering one of the precious roots to Arthur, who thanked him with great joy, and repeatedly said, 'How good you were not to be angry with me for breaking your bell-glass! I am much more sorry for it than if you had been in a passion with me!'

Arthur now went to plant his tulip-root; and Maurice looked at the beds which his companion had been digging, and at all the things which were coming up in his garden.

'I don't know how it is,' said Arthur, 'but you always seem as glad to see the things in my garden coming up, and doing well, as if they were all your own. I am much happier since my father came to live here, and since you and I have been allowed to work and to play together, than I ever was before; for you must know, before we came to live here, I had a cousin in the house with me, who used to plague me. He was not nearly so good-natured as you are. He never took pleasure in looking at my garden, or at anything that I did that was well done; and he never gave me a share of anything that he had; and so I did not like him; how could I? But, I believe that hating people makes us unhappy; for I know I never was happy when I was quarrelling with him; and I am always happy with you, Maurice. You know we never quarrel.'

It would be well for all the world if they could be convinced, like Arthur, that to live in friendship is better than to quarrel. It would be well for all the world if they followed Maurice's maxim of 'Forgive and Forget,' when they receive, or when they imagine that they receive, an injury.

Arthur's father, Mr. Oakly, the nurseryman, was apt to take offence at trifles; and when he thought that any of his neighbours disobliged him, he was too proud to ask them to explain their conduct; therefore he was often mistaken in his judgment of them. He thought that it showed spirit, to remember and to resent an injury; and, therefore, though he was not an ill-natured man, he was sometimes led, by this mistaken idea of spirit, to do ill-natured things: 'A warm friend and a bitter enemy,' was one of his maxims, and he had many more enemies than friends. He was not very rich, but he was proud; and his favourite proverb was, 'Better live in spite than in pity.'

When first he settled near Mr. Grant, the gardener, he felt inclined to dislike him, because he was told that Mr. Grant was a Scotchman, and he had a prejudice against Scotchmen; all of whom he believed to be cunning and avaricious, because he had once been overreached by a Scotch peddler. Grant's friendly manners in some degree conquered this prepossession; but still he secretly suspected that this civility, as he said, 'was all show, and that he was not, nor could not, being a Scotchman, be such a hearty friend as a true-born Englishman.'

Grant had some remarkably fine raspberries. The fruit was so large as to be quite a curiosity. When it was in season, many strangers came from the neighbouring town, which was a sea-bathing place, to look at these raspberries, which obtained the name of Brobdingnag raspberries.

'How came you, pray, neighbour Grant, if a man may ask, by these wonderful fine raspberries?' said Mr. Oakly, one evening, to the gardener. 'That's a secret,' replied Grant, with an arch smile.

'Oh, in case it's a secret, I've no more to say; for I never meddle with any man's secrets that he does not choose to trust me with. But I wish, neighbour Grant, you would put down that book. You are always poring over some book or another when a man comes to see you, which is not, according to my notions (being a plain, unlarned Englishman bred and born), so civil and neighbourly as might be.'

Mr. Grant hastily shut his book, but remarked, with a shrewd glance at his son, that it was in that book he found his Brobdingnag raspberries.

'You are pleased to be pleasant upon them that have not the luck to be as book-larned as yourself, Mr. Grant; but I take it, being only a plain-spoken Englishman, as I observed afore, that one is to the full as like to find a raspberry in one's garden as in one's book, Mr. Grant.'

Grant, observing that his neighbour spoke rather in a surly tone, did not contradict him; being well versed in the Bible, he knew that 'A soft word turneth away wrath,' and he answered, in a good-humoured voice, 'I hear, neighbour Oakly, you are likely to make a great deal of money of your nursery this year. Here's to the health of you and yours, not forgetting the seedling larches, which I see are coming on finely.'

'Thank ye, neighbour, kindly; the larches are coming on tolerably well, that's certain; and here's to your good health, Mr. Grant – you and yours, not forgetting your, what d'ye call 'em raspberries' – (drinks) – and, after a pause, resumes, 'I'm not apt to be a beggar, neighbour, but if you could give me – '

Here Mr. Oakly was interrupted by the entrance of some strangers, and he did not finish making his request – Mr. Oakly was not, as he said of himself, apt to ask favours, and nothing but Grant's cordiality could have conquered his prejudices so far as to tempt him to ask a favour from a Scotchman. He was going to have asked for some of the Brobdingnag raspberry-plants. The next day the thought of the raspberry-plants recurred to his memory, but, being a bashful man, he did not like to go himself on purpose to make his request, and he desired his wife, who was just setting out to market, to call at Grant's gate, and, if he was at work in his garden, to ask him for a few plants of his raspberries.

The answer which Oakly's wife brought to him was that Mr. Grant had not a raspberry-plant in the world to give him, and that if he had ever so many, he would not give one away, except to his own son.

Oakly flew into a passion when he received such a message, declared it was just such a mean, shabby trick as might have been expected from a Scotchman – called himself a booby, a dupe, and a blockhead, for ever having trusted to the civil speeches of a Scotchman – swore that he would die in the parish workhouse before he would ever ask another favour, be it ever so small, from a Scotchman; related to his wife, for the hundredth time, the way in which he had been taken in by the Scotch peddler ten years ago, and concluded by forswearing all further intercourse with Mr. Grant, and all belonging to him.

'Son Arthur,' said he, addressing himself to the boy, who just then came in from work – 'Son Arthur, do you hear me? let me never again see you with Grant's son.' 'With Maurice, father?' 'With Maurice Grant, I say; I forbid you from this day and hour forward to have anything to do with him.' 'Oh, why, dear father?' 'Ask me no questions, but do as I bid you.'

Arthur burst out a-crying, and only said, 'Yes, father, I'll do as you bid me, to be sure.'

'Why now, what does the boy cry for? Is there no other boy, simpleton, think you, to play with, but this Scotchman's son? I'll find out another playfellow for ye, child, if that be all.' 'That's not all, father,' said Arthur, trying to stop himself from sobbing; 'but the thing is, I shall never have such another playfellow, – I shall never have such another friend as Maurice Grant.'

'Like father like son – you may think yourself well off to have done with him.' 'Done with him! Oh, father, and shall I never go again to work in his garden, and may not he come to mine?' 'No,' replied Oakly sturdily; 'his father has used me uncivil, and no man shall use me uncivil twice. I say no. Wife, sweep up this hearth. Boy, don't take on like a fool; but eat thy bacon and greens, and let's hear no more of Maurice Grant.'

Arthur promised to obey his father. He only begged that he might once more speak to Maurice, and tell him that it was by his father's orders he acted. This request was granted; but when Arthur further begged to know what reason he might give for this separation, his father refused to tell his reasons. The two friends took leave of one another very sorrowfully.

Mr. Grant, when he heard of all this, endeavoured to discover what could have offended his neighbour; but all explanation was prevented by the obstinate silence of Oakly.

Now, the message which Grant really sent about the Brobdingnag raspberries was somewhat different from that which Mr. Oakly received. The message was, that the raspberries were not Mr. Grant's; that therefore he had no right to give them away; that they belonged to his son Maurice, and that this was not the right time of year for planting them. This message had been unluckily misunderstood. Grant gave his answer to his wife; she to a Welsh servant-girl, who did not perfectly comprehend her mistress's broad Scotch; and she in her turn could not make herself intelligible to Mrs. Oakly, who hated the Welsh accent, and whose attention, when the servant-girl delivered the message, was principally engrossed by the management of her own horse. The horse on which Mrs. Oakly rode this day, being ill-broken, would not stand still quietly at the gate, and she was extremely impatient to receive her answer, and to ride on to market.

Oakly, when he had once resolved to dislike his neighbour Grant, could not long remain without finding out fresh causes of complaint. There was in Grant's garden a plum-tree, which was planted close to the loose stone wall that divided the garden from the nursery. The soil in which the plum-tree was planted happened not to be quite so good as that which was on the opposite side of the wall, and the plum-tree had forced its way through the wall, and gradually had taken possession of the ground which it liked best.

Oakly thought the plum-tree, as it belonged to Mr. Grant, had no right to make its appearance on his ground: an attorney told him that he might oblige Grant to cut it down; but Mr. Grant refused to cut down his plum-tree at the attorney's desire, and the attorney persuaded Oakly to go to law about the business, and the lawsuit went on for some months.

The attorney, at the end of this time, came to Oakly with a demand for money to carry on his suit, assuring him that, in a short time, it would be determined in his favour. Oakly paid his attorney ten golden guineas, remarked that it was a great sum for him to pay, and that nothing but the love of justice could make him persevere in this lawsuit about a bit of ground, 'which, after all,' said he, 'is not worth twopence. The plum-tree does me little or no damage, but I don't like to be imposed upon by a Scotchman.'

The attorney saw and took advantage of Oakly's prejudice against the natives of Scotland; and he persuaded him, that to show the spirit of a true-born Englishman it was necessary, whatever it might cost him, to persist in this lawsuit.