Happy Days for Boys and Girls

LAST month a gentleman related an incident in his early life, showing how kindness to the brute creation makes them entirely subservient to our will. Similar experience is familiar to every one of us. This volume would not begin to contain the proofs which come under notice every day of our lives. Your dog or your cat understands your disposition as well as your brother or your sister. Give them a kick as you pass by, pull their ears or tail whenever you get an opportunity, and they will shun you as they would the plague. On the other hand, speak a kind word to them, give them a morsel of food, or fondle them kindly, and they will soon treat you as a friend.

I have a cat who waits for my coming home every night as regularly as the sun. And if, perchance, I do not come at my usual time in the train, she shows her disappointment by mewing. She will roll over as obediently as you ever saw a dog, at the word of command. After supper, when I put on my slippers and take the evening paper, puss takes possession of my lap, and then she seems contented and happy.

Kindness did all this – nothing else. Any cat can be taught to “roll over” in a week’s time. Any cat will be your friend, and love you, if you will treat her well.

It is precisely thus with wild animals. They know who their friends are as well as you know yours. They don’t need to be told. There is no end of stories about the elephant, the horse, the dog; about their docility, and the affection they have for those who treat them kindly. Even the lion, when brought under the dominion of man, becomes strongly attached to those who treat him with kindness. An instance of this is related of one that was kept in the menagerie of the Tower of London. He had been brought from India, and on the passage was given in charge to one of the sailors. Long before the ship arrived at London, the lion and Jack had become excellent friends. When Nero – as the lion was called – was shut up in his cage in the Tower, he became sulky and savage to such an extent that it was dangerous even for his keeper, who was not over kind to him, to approach him.

After Nero had been a prisoner for some weeks, a party of sailors, Jack being among the number, paid a visit to the menagerie. The keeper warned them not to go near the lion, who every now and then turned round to growl defiance to the spectators.

“What! old shipmate!” cried Jack, “don’t you know me? What cheer, old Nero, my lad?”

Instantly the lion left off growling, sprang up to the bars of his cage, and put his nose between them. Jack patted it on the head, and it rubbed his hand with its whiskers like a cat, showing evident signs of pleasure.

“Ah,” said Jack, turning to the keeper and spectators who stood looking on with astonishment, “Nero and I were shipmates, and you see he isn’t like some folks; he don’t forget an old friend.”

But here’s a story of another sort. Some weeks ago a caravan was exhibiting in Illinois. Among the animals was an elephant, to whom a mischievous boy had given an apple with tobacco concealed inside. As soon as the animal discovered the trick, the boy began to laugh at the joke which he had played on the creature. The elephant, however, looked angry, and the keeper, having heard of the affair, told the boy to keep out of his reach, unless he wanted to be hurt.

But, although the lad did not come so near that the elephant could get hold of him, he hung round in the vicinity. Presently a pail of water was brought for the elephant to drink. The insulted creature filled his trunk as full as he could, and seeing a good opportunity, blew the whole of it upon the boy who had given him tobacco, wetting him from head to foot. Verdict of the spectators, and of the readers of this book, “Served him right.”

    Robert Handy.

ALL AMONG THE HAY

ALL among the buttercups,
All among the hay!
Oh that spring would come again,
With its merry May!

Hasten summer’s pleasant days,
Summer’s pleasant hours;
Send us back the butterflies
And the pretty flowers.

Yes, bright days will come again,
Winter soon will go,
And the smiling sun shall melt
All this dreary snow.

Then beside the flowing stream
Merrily we’ll play,
All among the buttercups,
All among the hay.

THE MOUSE AND CANARY

A LADY, having gone rather early into an apartment in which she had a fine canary, whose cage hung on the knob of the window-shutter, was much surprised to find the bird sitting asleep in the bottom of the cage, side by side with a live mouse, also asleep. On raising the window-blind, the mouse squeezed itself through between the wires of the cage and fled. The box of seeds, crumbs, etc., intended for the canary was found to be cleaned out, doubtless devoured by the strange companion. On the following evening, while the lady and her husband were sitting quietly by the fireside, they were still further astonished at seeing a mouse (no doubt the same one) climbing nimbly up the shutter and entering the cage between the wires. Thinking it might do harm to the bird, they tried to catch the mouse, but it made its escape as before. The cage was then suspended from a nail, so that the mouse could not gain access. Strange to say, however, on the following morning the canary was found asleep on the floor of the room (the cage door having been left open), and a piece of potato beside him. Most likely the mouse had spent the whole of the night there.

THE TWO FRIENDS

A STORY FOR BOYS

MANY years ago two youths, whom we will call only by their Christian names, – Walter and Sidney, – were at the same boarding-school, at Mount’s Bay, in Cornwall. They were each the sons of captains in the merchant service; but though they were equals in station, there was a great difference in their circumstances, for Walter inherited considerable property. Sidney’s father had not been a prosperous man, and it was as much as he could do to give his boy a good education.

Among the whole school there were no two lads so closely knit in friendship as Walter and Sidney; they were within a week of the same age (thirteen) at the time our narrative begins. It is always a pleasant sight, and also a good example, when two intelligent, kind-hearted boys become friends. They show to others what a disinterested and noble thing true friendship is. Thus, in their lessons and their sports, these boys were helpful to each other. They shared together every indulgence that the kindness of friends procured them, and if any added study were imposed, Sidney, who learned easily, would, after he had swiftly mastered his own lesson, take upon himself both the office of teacher and companion, and never rest until Walter was as well up in the task as he himself was. Most certainly the punishment of one was ever the punishment of both, for, if they were sharers in each other’s joys, they were not the less so in their troubles. Perhaps the vigilance which each exercised over the other was the reason why they were comparatively seldom in any very serious disgrace, and their characters stood high in the school, both with masters and pupils.

But while in the little world within the walls of the school all went equally well with the youthful friends, in the great world outside, heavy troubles came to Sidney’s father. The vessel he commanded was lost near the mouth of the River Mersey, and though the crew were saved, yet it was judged that some mismanagement caused the disaster, and Sidney’s father lost his certificate, and no owners would again trust him to command a vessel. The poor man took this so much to heart that he fell into a bad state of health, and declined so rapidly, that the week after Sidney received from Liverpool the first intimation of his father’s illness, tidings came that he was dead.

It was in the autumnal quarter, about eight weeks before Christmas, that the sad letter was received which told Sidney he was now an orphan. The only aunt the poor boy had, his father’s sister, wrote the account, and she was obliged to add the painful fact that, with the loss of his father, Sidney would lose the means of further education, and must look forward to some humble means of earning his daily bread, with as little delay as possible.

In his first great grief at hearing of his father’s death, all else seemed trivial. Change of circumstances, hard work, any trouble, would have been as nothing if his father had been spared to him. But after the first shock of his sorrow, Sidney admitted that he must leave school; that it would not be honest, either to his aunt or his schoolmaster, to remain. Strangely enough, the very week in which this trouble came to Sidney, his friend Walter was at home for a few days, joining in the celebration of his father’s fiftieth birthday. He had wanted Sidney to have a holiday also; but the latter, being already aware of his father’s reverses and illness, though having no fear of any greater grief impending over him, had declined his friend’s kind invitation. So it happened that, while a happy jubilee was being celebrated in Walter’s home, Sidney was suddenly made a poor orphan.

Never, during the three years that they had been school-fellows, had the countenances of the two boys showed such a contrast of expression as when they met in the playground a few minutes after Walter had alighted at the gate, on his return from the pleasant sojourn at his home. He was flushed with health and happiness, and ran up, with a boyish shout of mirth, to greet his friend. Poor Sidney, pale and choking with the effort to restrain his tears, could only grasp the proffered hand in silence, and turn away his head, unable to look up, – almost unable to bear the pent-up grief that throbbed at his heart, and tightened his chest with a sense of suffocation.

“Why, Sid, what’s this? Dear old fellow, what’s the matter?” was Walter’s astonished inquiry, when a boy near whispered in his ear the brief words, —

“His father’s dead!”

That explained all; and Walter, twining his arm round his friend, led him away to a quiet spot, where they could weep together. The greater grief so completely absorbed Sidney on his first meeting with Walter, that it was not until the next day that any mention was made between them of how this bereavement would affect the future. Young and prosperous as Walter was, he knew well enough how sad it would be for his friend to lose the advantages of education just at the time when his studies would be needed to fit him for some pursuit in life.

Meanwhile, as Sidney’s aunt had not been able to send the money for the poor lad to go so long a journey as from West Cornwall to Liverpool, to attend his father’s funeral, there was no immediate hurry at the school in preparing for the youth’s departure. Walter, therefore, had time to carry out a plan which his affection suggested. He wrote an urgent letter to his father, filled with praises of Sidney, and accounts of all the help which his cleverness and conduct had afforded to him (Walter), and earnestly pleading that he might have the gratification of paying for a year or more schooling for his orphan friend, adding, as a concluding argument, —

“You know, papa, that I have forty pounds that aunt Margaret put in the savings bank for me, to do as I like with; and how could I spend it better, or so well, as in helping a good clever fellow like Sidney? It would be a real treat to me – the best I could have; and you promised to increase my pocket-money: you needn’t; I can screw myself down famously, if you’ll only give it to help Sid, who’s always been helping me, I can tell you.”

Walter was too earnest, it seemed, to pick and choose his words. He meant to have corrected and rewritten his letter, but there was no time; so he sent it, faults and all. And his father, in reading it, felt the heart-throb that beat in his boy’s generous words; and though a man not at all demonstrative, he was observed to be taken as if with a sudden cold in his head, to judge by the vigorous use of his pocket handkerchief; but all he said was conveyed in a single nautical phrase, – “The youngster is on the right tack.”

The day after, the principal of the Mount’s Bay School received an intimation that Sidney was to continue his studies there as long as he proved diligent; but the name of his patron was not to be told him. So, to the lad’s great satisfaction, he was informed that a friend who had known his father would, for the present, help him. Walter knew the truth, but though he felt the intense joy that a good action always yields to the doer even more than to the receiver, he was careful to obey his father, and keep the secret.

If Sidney was studious before, he redoubled his diligence now, and in the year made such great progress, that a Dutch gentleman, who visited the school, offered him a situation in his office at Rotterdam; and as Sidney knew that a residence abroad would be a great improvement to him, and also was eager to enter upon some mode of earning his own living, he wished earnestly to take the offer. At no time during their now four years of mutual school-life and friendship would Walter have heard with patience of Sidney leaving. But a parting now came.

Walter’s father had become an invalid, and was ordered to a warmer climate. The family removed to Florence, in Italy, and, of course, Walter went with them; his greatest grief being that Sidney could not accompany them.

With the keenest pangs of youthful sorrow, the two friends parted, promising to write often, looking forward to meet at no distant future, for the world did not seem too wide for them, accustomed as they were, by association, to maritime people and travellers.

It was three months after Walter had left, when Sidney took leave of his kind master, and the school which had been a home to him, and went, in cold spring weather, to the Venice of the north – Rotterdam. When he left he made one request, which his tutor thought it not wrong to grant. He desired to know the name of the benefactor who had so munificently helped him; and though he was not very much surprised when he heard the source from whence the aid had come, and was indeed glad that his gratitude was due where his friendship had so long been given, yet it naturally moved him very deeply when he found how Walter had been the means of effecting this. He also remembered vividly some acts of self-denial that added to the delicacy of his friend’s silence, and made the action truly noble.

“I can never repay you, dear Walter, nor your kind father; I shall ever be your grateful debtor,” he wrote; “but I will try to employ the talents you have cultivated, so as not, at all events, to disgrace your friendship.”

Though railways made the continent open to travellers, and the desire to see his friend Walter never languished, yet years went by and it was not realized. Some tidings there were of reverse of fortune through a lawsuit, and of journeyings to different places. The last that Sidney heard of his friend was in a letter from Madeira, where his father was lingering on in too weak a state to bear removal.

The desultory, unsettled life that the family had led seemed to have prevented Walter from making much progress as a sculptor, – a profession he had thought of while in Italy, – and his letters were somewhat vague and unsatisfactory as to his future plans.

Then came a long interval with no tidings, and afterwards a returned letter with the one word Dead, written under the name of Walter’s father on the superscription.

So, like a pleasant morning that ends in clouds and gloom, the friendship seemed to end which had so gladdened the youth of Sidney, and even blended with all the fondest memories of his boyhood. Many were the prayers he breathed, that one who had been as a brother might not be entirely lost to him.

As years went on great changes occurred in the firm that Sidney served. He had risen in the confidence of his employers. They had a business in Australia, under the care of a partner, who was also a relative. He died, and as there was a sudden increase of business facilities at Melbourne, Sidney was sent out, and a share in the concern was given him. His surname did not appear. He was announced, as many a junior partner is, by the little word “Co.” appended to the principal name of the firm.

Sidney had been in the colony some three years, and was now a stalwart young man of twenty-seven, when one day, riding on horseback towards a suburb of the rapidly growing city of Melbourne, called Brighton, he noticed a gang of young men working on the road. He knew that many respectable emigrants had come over during the first excitement of the gold discoveries. Clerks used only to the pen, students, unsuccessful professional men, all in the first delirium fever-fit of the gold fever, had come in the expectation that hands unused to hard toil could use the pickaxe of the gold-digger, or wash the rubble for the precious ore. Ah, it was a wild, a fatal delusion! Many a gentleman and scholar pined to death with hardships and disappointments, while some, after weeks of sickness, rose to earn their bread by the humblest manual labor. Working on the roads, for which government pay was given, was often the resource of those who had been worsted in every other effort. Unable to help among such numbers of claimants on sympathy, Sidney had contented himself with joining in the subscriptions raised for the relief of the sick and destitute: but now, as he passed along, he felt a desire to speak to the workers in this gang. As his eye scanned them he saw only a group of thin, toil-worn, weather-beaten men, with rough beards half hiding their wasted features. Nothing was more acceptable, as a recreation to the emigrants, than books, and Sidney had commenced a lending library of books and publications; so, after a cheerful salutation, he now reined up his horse, and began to tell them of his plan, and to add, “I have opened a room, friends, two nights a week, – it is but a rough shed, but I hope to make it better soon, – as a meeting-place, where a comfortable, pleasant, and profitable evening may be spent.”