Jacob Abbott

“ 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 [Pg 158] 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. ”

“ Boys very often feel a sort of uneasiness of mind,—they do not know exactly how or why,—and they have this feeling mingling sometimes strangely with their very enjoyment, in their hours of gaiety and glee. Now the real reason of this unquiet state of mind, in Caleb's case, was that his conscience had been disturbed by his feelings of vexation and impatience, towards Raymond, for not leaving his work, to come and kindle his fire. ”

“ His little taper fingers rested upon the window-sill, while his grandmother opened her little Bible and began to read. Caleb sat still in her lap, with a serious and attentive expression of countenance.
“Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a pharisee, the other a publican.”
“What is a pharisee and a publican?” asked Caleb.
“You will hear presently. 'And the pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself: God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers.” ”

“ 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 [Pg 159] 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. ”

“ Caleb was a bright-looking, blue-eyed boy, with auburn hair and happy countenance. And yet he was rather pale and slender. He had been sick. His father and mother lived in Boston, but now he was spending the summer at Sandy River country, with his grandmother. His father thought that if he could run about a few months in the open air, and play among the rocks and under the trees, he would grow more strong and healthy, and that his cheeks would not look so pale. ”

“ Mary Anna roguishly shaking her finger at him all the time. He had to hold his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing aloud.
Perhaps some of the readers of this book [Pg 147] may smile at Caleb's idea of his merit in having been a pleasant boy all day, when he felt vexed and unsubmissive in the only case which brought him any trial; but it is so with almost all children, and some grown persons too. A great deal of the goodness upon which we all pride ourselves, is only the quiescence of bad propensities in the absence of temptation and trial. ”

“ Dwight saw his helpless condition, and sighed. After a pause, he said,
“Mother, it seems to me you are discouraging me from trying to be a better boy.”
“No, Dwight; but I don't want you to depend on false hopes that must only end in your disappointment. Your determination will help in not indulging the bad feelings; but I want to have your heart changed so that you could not possibly have such [Pg 83] feelings. I hope mine is. I once shewed the same spirit that you do; but now I don't think it would be possible for me to take any pleasure in teasing Caleb, or you, or David. ”

“ A lie is told with an intention to deceive. To make it a lie it is necessary that the person who says a thing, must know distinctly at the time that he says it, that it is not true; and he must say it with the particular intention to deceive. Now, Caleb did not do this [Pg 56] .”
“Well, mother,” said Dwight, “I am sure you have told us a good many times that we must never say any thing unless we are sure it is true.”
“So I have. I admit that Caleb did wrong in saying so positively that he had hung his whip up, when he did not know certainly that he had. ”

“ So Caleb, when he came and told Mary Anna, what a good boy he had been, meant to have her make such a book as this.
“But sometimes boys are mistaken in thinking they have been good boys. I should want to ask Raymond.” ”

“ The boys always liked to find such hollow trees in the woods, to build fires in; they called it “burning out a chimney.”
“Now,” said Raymond, “all you have got to do is to go to work while your potatoes are roasting, and fill up that old hollow tree at the bottom with sticks and brush, and old pieces of bark. Pack them in close; then, when I come to dinner, I will help you to light it.”
Raymond then went back to the fence, and Caleb began his work as Raymond had directed. ”

“ O, that is very important for boys to know; for they very often ask leading questions, when they ought not to. Now, if you go and say, 'Raymond, haven't I been a good boy to-day?' that way of asking the question shews that you want him to say, 'Yes, you have.' It is called a leading question, because it leads Raymond to answer in a particular way. Now, if I should go and ask him thus, 'Has Caleb been a good boy to-day?' with the emphasis on has, it would be a leading question the other way. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The reason why boys find it so difficult to saw, is because the teeth do not generally spread very much, and so the kerf is narrow. Still, the back of the saw would run in it well enough, without sticking, if they were to saw perfectly straight. But they generally make the saw twist or wind a little, and then the back of the saw rubs upon one side or the other; and sticks. Now, Raymond's plan was to make the teeth set off, each side, so far as to make the kerf very wide, and then he thought that Caleb would be able to make it go, especially as the saw was very narrow. ”

“ Now, boys are not very naturally inclined to obey their parents. They have to be taught with great pains and care. They must be punished for disobedience, in some way or other, a good many times. But neglected children, that is, those that are left to themselves, are almost always very disobedient and unsubmissive. Caleb, now, was not a neglected child. He had been taught to submit and obey, when he was very young, and his grandmother could trust him now. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And then we can make one,” said David.
“Perhaps I could make one in Boston,” said Caleb.
“Ho!” said Dwight, with a tone of [Pg 185] contempt, “you couldn't make a snow-house.”
“But there are enough other boys in Boston to help me,” said Caleb.
“There is not any good place,” said Mary Anna, in a mild and pleasant tone. “There is only a very small yard, and that is full of wood piles.”
“I can make it on the common,” said Caleb. “The common is large enough I can tell you.” ”

“ Now, do you [Pg 164] 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 ”

“ Raymond,” said Caleb, talking to himself, as he went on winding his twine round and round the whip-handle; “for once in your life, you have been careless. You have left your bars down. Now we shall have the cattle all let out, unless I go and stop the mischief.”
Caleb thought he would go and put the bars up again, as soon as he had tied the ends of his twine; but before he got quite ready, he heard a noise, as of something coming in the lane. He could not see down the lane far, from the place where he sat, for the barn was in the way. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Before Caleb got over his surprise at the entire indifference which old Lion seemed to feel towards him and his whip, he heard the bars rattling again, and looking there, he saw Star, Lion's mate, following on.
“O dear me,” said Caleb, “what shall I do? All our oxen are getting away. I'll run and call Raymond.”
So he began to shout out “Raymond,” as loud as he could call; and immediately afterwards, he heard Raymond's voice an [Pg 93] swering just down the lane and, looking that way, he saw him coming over the bars himself, as if he had been following the oxen along up the lane. ”

“ But if you have it Y-shaped, there will be a little sort of harbour in the crotch, where your vessels can lie quietly, while the current flows along by, out beyond the forks.”
“That will be excellent,” said Dwight, clapping his hands.
“And besides,” said she, “the upper part of the Y will run out obliquely into the stream, and so turn more of the current into your eddy, and make the whirlpool larger.”
“Well, and we will make it so,” said David; “and then it will be an excellent mole.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 [Pg 156] 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 ”

“ Then, as soon as the ends which are in the fire have got burnt through, take up two of them by the ends that were out of the fire and lay them down at the foot of the hollow tree, close to the wood you have got together there. Then come back and get two more brands, and lay them down in the same way, and be careful to have the burnt ends all together. So you must keep going back and forth, until you find that the brands are beginning to burn up freely in the new place.”
Caleb took the maple pole and went back to his fire. ”

“ And so, when God leads us in a difficult way, Caleb, [Pg 66] that we don't understand at the time, we often see the reason of it afterwards.”
Caleb did not answer, and Madam Rachel went on with her story.
“By and by, his father came within the sound of the brook again, and stopped a minute or two, and then he told Samuel that he should have to leave him a short time, and that he might sit down upon a log, and wait until he came back. 'But, father,' said Samuel, 'I don't want to be left alone here in the woods, in the dark.' 'It is not dark,' said his father. ”

“ 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 ”

“ It is very hard to cure.”
“Well, mother,” said Dwight, looking [Pg 42] up, and speaking very positively, “I am determined not to trouble Caleb any more.”
“Yes, but I am afraid your determinations won't reach the difficulty. As long as the spirit of mind remains, so that you are capable of taking pleasure in the sufferings of another, your determinations not to indulge the bad spirit, will not do much good. You will forget them all, when the temptation comes. ”

“ Then he began to fall back to the side of the road, towards the brook. At this instant Raymond appeared coming out of the bushes, and, seeing Caleb, called out to him to stand still.
“Stand still, Caleb, till she goes by: she will not hurt you.” But Caleb could not control his fears. His little heart beat quick, and his pale cheek grew paler. He could not control his fears, though he knew very well that what Raymond said must be [Pg 28] true. He kept retreating backwards nearer and nearer to the brook, as the cow came on, whipping the air, towards her to keep her off. ”