The Parent's Assistant; Or, Stories for Children

It was soon after this conversation with the attorney that Mr. Oakly walked with resolute steps towards the plum-tree, saying to himself, 'If it cost me a hundred pounds I will not let this cunning Scotchman get the better of me.'

Arthur interrupted his father's reverie by pointing to a book and some young plants which lay upon the wall. 'I fancy, father,' said he, 'those things are for you, for there is a little note directed to you in Maurice's handwriting. Shall I bring it to you?' 'Yes, let me read it, child, since I must.' It contained these words:

'Dear Mr. Oakly – I don't know why you have quarrelled with us; I am very sorry for it. But though you are angry with me, I am not angry with you. I hope you will not refuse some of my Brobdingnag raspberry-plants, which you asked for a great while ago, when we were all good friends. It was not the right time of the year to plant them, which was the reason they were not sent to you; but it is just the right time to plant them now; and I send you the book, in which you will find the reason why we always put seaweed ashes about their roots; and I have got some seaweed ashes for you. You will find the ashes in the flower-pot upon the wall. I have never spoken to Arthur, nor he to me, since you bid us not. So, wishing your Brobdingnag raspberries may turn out as well as ours, and longing to be all friends again, I am, with love to dear Arthur and self, your affectionate neighbour's son,Maurice Grant.

'P.S. – It is now about four months since the quarrel began, and that is a very long while.'

A great part of the effect of this letter was lost upon Oakly, because he was not very expert in reading writing, and it cost him much trouble to spell it and put it together. However, he seemed affected by it, and said, 'I believe this Maurice loves you well enough, Arthur, and he seems a good sort of boy; but as to the raspberries, I believe all that he says about them is but an excuse; and, at any rate, as I could not get 'em when I asked for them, I'll not have 'em now. Do you hear me, I say, Arthur? What are you reading there?'

Arthur was reading the page that was doubled down in the book which Maurice had left along with the raspberry-plants upon the wall. Arthur read aloud as follows: —

(Monthly Magazine, Dec. '98, p. 421.)

'There is a sort of strawberry cultivated at Jersey which is almost covered with seaweed in the winter, in like manner as many plants in England are with litter from the stable. These strawberries are usually of the largeness of a middle-sized apricot, and the flavour is particularly grateful. In Jersey and Guernsey, situate scarcely one degree farther south than Cornwall, all kinds of fruit, pulse, and vegetables are produced in their seasons a fortnight or three weeks sooner than in England, even on the southern shores; and snow will scarcely remain twenty-four hours on the earth. Although this may be attributed to these islands being surrounded with a salt, and consequently a moist atmosphere, yet the ashes (seaweed ashes) made use of as manure may also have their portion of influence.'[12 - It is necessary to observe that this experiment has never been actually tried upon raspberry-plants.]

'And here,' continued Arthur, 'is something written with a pencil, on a slip of paper, and it is Maurice's writing. I will read it to you.

'When I read in this book what is said about the strawberries growing as large as apricots, after they had been covered over with seaweed, I thought that perhaps seaweed ashes might be good for my father's raspberries; and I asked him if he would give me leave to try them. He gave me leave, and I went directly and gathered together some seaweed that had been cast on shore; and I dried it, and burned it, and then I manured the raspberries with it, and the year afterwards the raspberries grew to the size that you have seen. Now, the reason I tell you this is, first, that you may know how to manage your raspberries, and next, because I remember you looked very grave, as if you were not pleased with my father, Mr. Grant, when he told you that the way by which he came by his Brobdingnag raspberries was a secret. Perhaps this was the thing that has made you so angry with us all; for you never have come to see father since that evening. Now I have told you all I know; and so I hope you will not be angry with us any longer.'

Mr. Oakly was much pleased by this openness, and said, 'Why now, Arthur, this is something like, this is telling one the thing one wants to know, without fine speeches. This is like an Englishman more than a Scotchman. Pray, Arthur, do you know whether your friend Maurice was born in England or in Scotland?'

'No, indeed, sir, I don't know – I never asked – I did not think it signified. All I know is that, wherever he was born, he is very good. Look, papa, my tulip is blowing.' 'Upon my word,' said his father, 'this will be a beautiful tulip!' 'It was given to me by Maurice.' 'And did you give him nothing for it?' was the father's inquiry. 'Nothing in the world; and he gave it to me just at the time when he had good cause to be angry with me, just when I had broken his bell-glass.'

'I have a great mind to let you play together again,' said Arthur's father. 'Oh, if you would,' cried Arthur, clapping his hands, 'how happy we should be! Do you know, father, I have often sat for an hour at a time up in that crab-tree, looking at Maurice at work in his garden, and wishing that I was at work with him.'

Here Arthur was interrupted by the attorney, who came to ask Mr. Oakly some question about the lawsuit concerning the plum-tree. Oakly showed him Maurice's letter; and to Arthur's extreme astonishment, the attorney had no sooner read it than he exclaimed, 'What an artful little gentleman this is! I never, in the course of all my practice, met with anything better. Why, this is the most cunning letter I ever read.' 'Where's the cunning?' said Oakly, and he put on his spectacles. 'My good sir, don't you see that all this stuff about Brobdingnag raspberries is to ward off your suit about the plum-tree? They know – that is, Mr. Grant, who is sharp enough, knows – that he will be worsted in that suit; that he must, in short, pay you a good round sum for damages, if it goes on – '

'Damages!' said Oakly, staring round him at the plum-tree; 'but I don't know what you mean. I mean nothing but what's honest. I don't mean to ask for any good round sum; for the plum-tree has done me no great harm by coming into my garden; but only I don't choose it should come there without my leave.'

'Well, well,' said the attorney, 'I understand all that; but what I want to make you, Mr. Oakly, understand is, that this Grant and his son only want to make up matters with you, and prevent the thing's coming to a fair trial, by sending you, in this underhand sort of way, a bribe of a few raspberries.'

'A bribe!' exclaimed Oakly, 'I never took a bribe, and I never will'; and, with sudden indignation, he pulled the raspberry plants from the ground in which Arthur was planting them; and he threw them over the wall into Grant's garden.

Maurice had put his tulip, which was beginning to blow, in a flower-pot, on the top of the wall, in hopes that his friend Arthur would see it from day to day. Alas! he knew not in what a dangerous situation he had placed it. One of his own Brobdingnag raspberry-plants, swung by the angry arm of Oakly, struck off the head of his precious tulip! Arthur, who was full of the thought of convincing his father that the attorney was mistaken in his judgment of poor Maurice, did not observe the fall of the tulip.

The next day, when Maurice saw his raspberry-plants scattered upon the ground, and his favourite tulip broken, he was in much astonishment, and, for some moments, angry; but anger, with him, never lasted long. He was convinced that all this must be owing to some accident or mistake. He could not believe that any one could be so malicious as to injure him on purpose – 'And even if they did all this on purpose to vex me,' said he to himself, 'the best thing I can do is not to let it vex me. Forgive and forget.' This temper of mind Maurice was more happy in enjoying than he could have been made, without it, by the possession of all the tulips in Holland.

Tulips were, at this time, things of great consequence in the estimation of the country several miles round where Maurice and Arthur lived. There was a florist's feast to be held at the neighbouring town, at which a prize of a handsome set of gardening tools was to be given to the person who could produce the finest flower of its kind. A tulip was the flower which was thought the finest the preceding year, and consequently numbers of people afterwards endeavoured to procure tulip-roots, in hopes of obtaining the prize this year. Arthur's tulip was beautiful. As he examined it from day to day, and every day thought it improving, he longed to thank his friend Maurice for it; and he often mounted into his crab-tree, to look into Maurice's garden, in hopes of seeing his tulip also in full bloom and beauty. He never could see it.

The day of the florist's feast arrived, and Oakly went with his son and the fine tulip to the place of meeting. It was on a spacious bowling-green. All the flowers of various sorts were ranged upon a terrace at the upper end of the bowling-green; and, amongst all this gay variety, the tulip which Maurice had given to Arthur appeared conspicuously beautiful. To the owner of this tulip the prize was adjudged; and, as the handsome garden-tools were delivered to Arthur, he heard a well-known voice wish him joy. He turned, looked about him, and saw his friend Maurice.

'But, Maurice, where is your own tulip?' said Mr. Oakly; 'I thought, Arthur, you told me that he kept one for himself.' 'So I did,' said Maurice; 'but somebody (I suppose by accident) broke it.' 'Somebody! who?' cried Arthur and Mr. Oakly at once. 'Somebody who threw the raspberry-plants back again over the wall,' replied Maurice. 'That was me – that somebody was me,' said Oakly. 'I scorn to deny it; but I did not intend to break your tulip, Maurice.'

'Dear Maurice,' said Arthur – 'you know I may call him dear Maurice – now you are by, papa; here are all the garden-tools; take them, and welcome.' 'Not one of them,' said Maurice, drawing back. 'Offer them to the father – offer them to Mr. Grant,' whispered Oakly; 'he'll take them, I'll answer for it.'

Mr. Oakly was mistaken: the father would not accept of the tools. Mr. Oakly stood surprised – 'Certainly,' said he to himself, 'this cannot be such a miser as I took him for'; and he walked immediately up to Grant, and bluntly said to him, 'Mr. Grant, your son has behaved very handsomely to my son, and you seem to be glad of it.' 'To be sure I am,' said Grant. 'Which,' continued Oakly, 'gives me a better opinion of you than ever I had before – I mean, than ever I had since the day you sent me the shabby answer about those foolish, what d'ye call 'em, cursed raspberries.'

'What shabby answer?' said Grant, with surprise; and Oakly repeated exactly the message which he received; and Grant declared that he never sent any such message. He repeated exactly the answer which he really sent, and Oakly immediately stretched out his hand to him, saying, 'I believe you; no more need be said. I'm only sorry I did not ask you about this four months ago; and so I should have done if you had not been a Scotchman. Till now, I never rightly liked a Scotchman. We may thank this good little fellow,' continued he, turning to Maurice, 'for our coming at last to a right understanding. There was no holding out against his good nature. I'm sure, from the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry I broke his tulip. Shake hands, boys; I'm glad to see you, Arthur, look so happy again, and hope Mr. Grant will forgive – ' 'Oh, forgive and forget,' said Grant and his son at the same moment. And from this time forward the two families lived in friendship with each other.

Oakly laughed at his own folly, in having been persuaded to go to law about the plum-tree; and he, in process of time, so completely conquered his early prejudice against Scotchmen, that he and Grant became partners in business. Mr. Grant's book-larning and knowledge of arithmetic he found highly useful to him; and he, on his side, possessed a great many active, good qualities, which became serviceable to his partner.

The two boys rejoiced in this family union; and Arthur often declared that they owed all their happiness to Maurice's favourite maxim, 'Forgive and Forget.'

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT;

OR,

TWO STRINGS TO YOUR BOW

Mr. Gresham, a Bristol merchant, who had, by honourable industry and economy, accumulated a considerable fortune, retired from business to a new house which he had built upon the Downs, near Clifton. Mr. Gresham, however, did not imagine that a new house alone could make him happy. He did not propose to live in idleness and extravagance; for such a life would have been equally incompatible with his habits and his principles. He was fond of children; and as he had no sons, he determined to adopt one of his relations. He had two nephews, and he invited both of them to his house, that he might have an opportunity of judging of their dispositions, and of the habits which they had acquired.

Hal and Benjamin, Mr. Gresham's nephews, were about ten years old. They had been educated very differently. Hal was the son of the elder branch of the family. His father was a gentleman, who spent rather more than he could afford; and Hal, from the example of the servants in his father's family, with whom he had passed the first years of his childhood, learned to waste more of everything than he used. He had been told that 'gentlemen should be above being careful and saving'; and he had unfortunately imbibed a notion that extravagance was the sign of a generous disposition, and economy of an avaricious one.

Benjamin, on the contrary, had been taught habits of care and foresight. His father had but a very small fortune, and was anxious that his son should early learn that economy ensures independence, and sometimes puts it in the power of those who are not very rich to be very generous.

The morning after these two boys arrived at their uncle's they were eager to see all the rooms in the house. Mr. Gresham accompanied them, and attended to their remarks and exclamations.

'Oh! what an excellent motto!' exclaimed Ben, when he read the following words, which were written in large characters over the chimneypiece in his uncle's spacious kitchen —

'WASTE NOT, WANT NOT.'

'"Waste not, want not!"' repeated his cousin Hal, in rather a contemptuous tone; 'I think it looks stingy to servants; and no gentleman's servants, cooks especially, would like to have such a mean motto always staring them in the face.' Ben, who was not so conversant as his cousin in the ways of cooks and gentlemen's servants, made no reply to these observations.

Mr. Gresham was called away whilst his nephews were looking at the other rooms in the house. Some time afterwards, he heard their voices in the hall.

'Boys,' said he, 'what are you doing there?' 'Nothing, sir,' said Hal; 'you were called away from us and we did not know which way to go.' 'And have you nothing to do?' said Mr. Gresham. 'No, sir, nothing,' answered Hal, in a careless tone, like one who was well content with the state of habitual idleness. 'No, sir, nothing!' replied Ben, in a voice of lamentation. 'Come,' said Mr. Gresham, 'if you have nothing to do, lads, will you unpack those two parcels for me?'

The two parcels were exactly alike, both of them well tied up with good whipcord. Ben took his parcel to a table, and, after breaking off the sealing-wax, began carefully to examine the knot, and then to untie it. Hal stood still, exactly in the spot where the parcel was put into his hands, and tried, first at one corner and then at another, to pull the string off by force. 'I wish these people wouldn't tie up their parcels so tight, as if they were never to be undone,' cried he, as he tugged at the cord; and he pulled the knot closer instead of loosening it.

'Ben! why, how did you get yours undone, man? what's in your parcel? – I wonder what is in mine! I wish I could get this string off – I must cut it.'

'Oh no,' said Ben, who now had undone the last knot of his parcel, and who drew out the length of string with exultation, 'don't cut it, Hal, – look what a nice cord this is, and yours is the same; it's a pity to cut it; "Waste not, want not!" you know.'

'Pooh!' said Hal, 'what signifies a bit of packthread?' 'It is whipcord,' said Ben. 'Well, whipcord! what signifies a bit of whipcord! you can get a bit of whipcord twice as long as that for twopence; and who cares for twopence? Not I, for one! so here it goes,' cried Hal, drawing out his knife; and he cut the cord, precipitately, in sundry places.

'Lads, have you undone the parcels for me?' said Mr. Gresham, opening the parlour door as he spoke. 'Yes, sir,' cried Hal; and he dragged off his half-cut, half-entangled string – 'here's the parcel.' 'And here's my parcel, uncle; and here's the string,' said Ben. 'You may keep the string for your pains,' said Mr. Gresham. 'Thank you, sir,' said Ben; 'what an excellent whipcord it is!' 'And you, Hal,' continued Mr. Gresham, 'you may keep your string too, if it will be of any use to you.' 'It will be of no use to me, thank you, sir,' said Hal. 'No, I am afraid not, if this be it,' said his uncle, taking up the jagged knotted remains of Hal's cord.

A few days after this, Mr. Gresham gave to each of his nephews a new top.

'But how's this?' said Hal; 'these tops have no strings; what shall we do for strings?' 'I have a string that will do very well for mine,' said Ben; and he pulled out of his pocket the fine, long, smooth string which had tied up the parcel. With this he soon set up his top, which spun admirably well.

'Oh, how I wish I had but a string,' said Hal. 'What shall I do for a string? I'll tell you what, I can use the string that goes round my hat!' 'But then,' said Ben, 'what will you do for a hat-band?' 'I'll manage to do without one,' said Hal, and he took the string off his hat for his top. It soon was worn through; and he split his top by driving the peg too tightly into it. His cousin Ben let him set up his the next day; but Hal was not more fortunate or more careful when he meddled with other people's things than when he managed his own. He had scarcely played half an hour before he split it, by driving the peg too violently.

Ben bore this misfortune with good humour. 'Come,' said he, 'it can't be helped; but give me the string, because that may still be of use for something else.'

It happened some time afterwards that a lady, who had been intimately acquainted with Hal's mother at Bath – that is to say, who had frequently met her at the card-table during the winter – now arrived at Clifton. She was informed by his mother that Hal was at Mr. Gresham's, and her sons, who were friends of his, came to see him, and invited him to spend the next day with them.

Hal joyfully accepted the invitation. He was always glad to go out to dine, because it gave him something to do, something to think of, or at least something to say. Besides this, he had been educated to think it was a fine thing to visit fine people; and Lady Diana Sweepstakes (for that was the name of his mother's acquaintance) was a very fine lady, and her two sons intended to be very great gentlemen. He was in a prodigious hurry when these young gentlemen knocked at his uncle's door the next day; but just as he got to the hall door, little Patty called to him from the top of the stairs, and told him that he had dropped his pocket-handkerchief.