Harper's Young People, January 10, 1882

THE LAMENT OF A LEFT-OVER DOLL

FELIX

It is early morning in a cathedral town of Germany, and a boy is muffling his head in the bedclothes, trying to keep out the sound of bells and the sight of the bright sun-beams. His comrade, however, is doing all he can to arouse him.

"Go away, I say," is all the reply to these well-meant efforts. "What's the use of getting up to be knocked about and scolded? When mother was here, one was sure of a cup of hot milk and a kind word. I'm going to sleep again. Do hush! There, take that!" and he gave his friend a cuff on the ear.

The friend howled, which sent a pang through the boy's heart. He stretched out his hand with a gesture prompted by remorse.

"Come here, come here. I've given you just what I don't like for myself, poor fellow. I beg your pardon."

His face was well washed after that by a dog's warm tongue, which had also the effect of waking the boy very thoroughly. The conversation too went on.

"Turk, old dog, you're the best friend I have in the world, and if you didn't wake me up every day, I'd never be in school. Since mother's death, father is so cross and still and dull! he does nothing but work, work, work. But my rose-tree must be planted to-day, and if I don't do it now, I don't know when I will have the chance."

So saying, he dressed rapidly, tossed open his lattice, and took a small plant from the window-sill, ran down the outside flight of steps leading from the door of his father's shop, paused a moment to snatch up a roll and his bag of books, and then with his dog hurried down the village street.

He was soon past the houses and shops, and nearing the vast towers of the great church, which was but partly finished; and as he looked up at the points and pinnacles of heaven-aspiring height a thought which had long been in his mind burst into bloom.

It was a simple thought, but a religious one, and it so absorbed him that for a while he forgot his errand, and stood gazing up into the pure sky, blue as forget-me-nots. He was startled, however, by the village bells and clocks, and a hurrying group of workmen approaching, so he quickly sought out a lonely grave, took his plant from its pot, and digging a little hole, set the rose-bush in it.

Quick as he was, he was yet too late for school, and received frowning disapprobation from the master as he took his seat.

Unfortunately Felix was often late, often too his lessons were unprepared. But he was so ready to make amends, and was so quick in learning, that he could get on better than the duller pupils who labored more systematically.

But to-day everything went wrong; his head was full of fancies, and with his ready pencil he was sketching when he should have been studying, scrawling scrolls and rose-windows over his Latin, and sending flocks of pigeons up and down the margin of oceans and continents. He stumbled at his lessons, he bothered those who knew them, and perplexed those who did not, until the master's patience was exhausted, and he gave him a sound thrashing.

After that there was silence, sullenness, and an appearance of work, but a sudden roar of laughter from the boys made the master look up. Felix was bending over his book as if he were the only one undisturbed. The master was not, however, easily deceived.

"Come here, Felix."

"Yes, sir;" and the lad slowly obeyed.

"Give me that book."

"I'd rather not, sir."

"Give it to me."

Now Felix had a real liking for his master, and was usually sorry for offending him; but the whipping had not been beneficial, although his conscience told him that it was deserved. He presented the book. On its fly-leaf was a drawing of the master – a very clever caricature – as Cupid drawing his bow at a group of girls, who, with much disdain and derision, were pelting him with sticks and stones.

The master's face flushed at the disrespect; but he quietly laid the book aside, and proceeded with his duties, Felix remaining standing.

The recitations went on, the hum of study, the drawl of the lazy ones, and the quick, eager replies of the ambitious. Felix was forgotten.

The boy began to think he had made a mistake. What had he gained by misconduct? Where were the thoughts of the morning under the cathedral windows? How was he fitting himself to work on the beautiful structure which was to be the medium of praise and prayer for multitudes, in the long ages to come? And yet he knew this had been his mother's hope and wish. Was he making good use of the talents God had given him?

He was looking out the window now, watching the lights and shadows on the carved stone of buttress and gable.

The boys were dismissed. He sat down to the extra tasks assigned him. He was hungry, he was miserable, but he plodded on, and finished his work. The master bade him go, and he went, but not home.

He lingered about the cathedral, watching the workmen. Finally he became fascinated by their employment; and taking up their tools, worked out a leaf pattern on a bit of refuse stone. The men left him there. Tired and faint, he sought his mother's resting-place. The rose was drooping for want of water.

"Come, it is time you were home," said a familiar voice.

Felix looked up astonished. It was the master.

"You must go with me to your father. I wish to speak to him."

Felix obeyed. The climax had come. His father was stern and hard, and the master, of course, would have a sorry tale to tell.

Fortunately the village people had gone in to their evening meal, and he would be spared the disgrace of being seen conducted like a culprit to his father. He did not speak a word, nor did the master, but shame and remorse were written on every feature. He felt as if he were a criminal about to receive sentence – a sentence, too, which was deserved, and which justice demanded.

"Well, what now, Herr Professor, is the matter?" asked the father, grimly surveying his son.

"Felix is in trouble again, Mr. Zimmerman."

"Hah! idle as usual – good for nothing – won't study?"

"Yes, a little of all, I am sorry to say. But I have a remedy to propose."

"A thrashing, of course."

"No, once a day is enough. We've tried that; it did not answer in this case as well as it does sometimes. May I have the pleasure of Master Felix's company to supper?"

"What, sir, you want the boy to be rewarded for bad behavior?"

"Not at all – not at all. Run away, Felix; get your face washed and your jacket on, and you shall be my guest for this evening."

Felix was almost too much surprised to be able to move, but without daring to question his father, he did as the master told him. While he was gone, a conversation went on between Mr. Zimmerman and the teacher.

It is not necessary to repeat it; but Felix saw a different expression on his father's face when, neatly dressed, he came down the steps and followed the master home.

He was fearfully hungry, and yet almost ashamed to take the good broth and bread which were set before him in the master's quaint and quiet little parlor; they somehow choked him; and as he looked about at the book-covered shelves and old engravings, the detestable caricature he had drawn in the morning danced before his eyes.

At last he could stand it no longer. The teacher seemed to have disappeared, and only this kind, genial host sat opposite him, heaping up his plate and bowl.

"Herr Professor," he stammered, "I beg your pardon – indeed I do."

"I am very glad to hear that, my boy; but don't think any more about it just now," was the response, and filling his pipe, wreaths of smoke began to play about the old man's head.

"It is a great pity that a lad of your talent should waste any time, Felix, and if you are willing, I think your father will let me give you drawing lessons."

Felix could hardly believe his ears.

"To be sure, you will have to apply yourself more diligently, be prompt and industrious, or all the lessons in the world won't make a man of you."

"I'll try," said Felix, though a mist was in his eyes.

"That's right," said the Professor, and then he opened some great volumes full of pictures, and the boy gazed in delighted wonder at a world more beautiful than his dreams. Not an allusion did the Professor make again to anything that had happened during the day.

When evening was over, and he courteously bade him good-night, Felix was dazed, and went home with light steps to his little bed.

As soon as Turk woke him next morning he sprang up with alacrity, and would have been off with the dawn to water his rose-bush, but his father detained him.

"Felix," said he, somewhat sternly, "the master says there's good stuff in you if you'll use it. Come here and eat your breakfast before you go, and let me hear what you have to say for yourself."

"I'll try," was the sum and substance of Felix's talk over his brown bread and milk.

Ten years after this there was a great celebration in the town, for the cathedral was finished. Cannon thundered, bells pealed, and a grand "Te Deum" was chanted to the rolling rhythm of the magnificent organ.

A group of visitors standing near a certain pillar of great beauty were applauding it, while they complimented a young architect and sculptor, whose work it was. His head was modestly bent as he received the commendation, but in a moment he raised it, and turning to a very old man in a professor's gown, whose hair was white with the snows of many winters, he took him by the hand and presented him to the visitors.

"Gentlemen, this is the person you must thank for the pillar. Whatever beauty it possesses, whatever expression it is of truth and religion, is due to my master, whose kindness rescued me from idleness, whose skill directed my youthful efforts."

SLUMBER SONG

A STEAM CHAIR

I don't like Mr. Travers as much as I did. Of course I know he's a very nice man, and he's going to be my brother when he marries Sue, and he used to bring me candy sometimes, but he isn't what he used to be.

One time – that was last summer – he was always dreadfully anxious to hear from the Post-office, and whenever he came to see Sue, and he and she and I would be sitting on the front piazza, he would say, "Jimmy, I think there must be a letter for me; I'll give you ten cents if you'll go down to the Post-office"; and then Sue would say, "Don't run, Jimmy; you'll get heart-disease if you do"; and I'd walk 'way down to the Post-office, which is pretty near half a mile from our house. But now he doesn't seem to care anything about his letters; and he and Sue sit in the back parlor, and mother says I mustn't go in and disturb them; and I don't get any more ten cents.

I've learned that it won't do to fix your affections on human beings, for even the best of men won't keep on giving you ten cents forever. And it wasn't fair for Mr. Travers to get angry with me the other night, when it was all an accident – at least 'most all of it; and I don't think it's manly for a man to stand by and see a sister shake a fellow that isn't half her size, and especially when he never supposed that anything was going to happen to her even if it did break.

When Aunt Eliza came to our house the last time, she brought a steam chair; that's what she called it, though there wasn't any steam about it. She brought it from Europe with her, and it was the queerest sort of chair, that would all fold up, and had a kind of footstool to it, so that you put your legs out and just lie down in it. Well, one day it got broken. The back of the seat fell down, and shut Aunt Eliza up in the chair so she couldn't get out, and didn't she just howl till somebody came and helped her! She was so angry that she said she never wanted to see that chair again, "And you may have it if you want it Jimmy for you are a good boy sometimes when you want to be."

So I took the chair and mended it. The folks laughed at me, and said I couldn't mend it to save my life; but I got some nails and some mucilage, and mended it elegantly. Then mother let me get some varnish, and I varnished the chair, and when it was done it looked so nice that Sue said we'd keep it in the back parlor. Now I'm never allowed to sit in the back parlor, so what good would my chair do me? But Sue said, "Stuff and nonsense that boy's indulged now till he can't rest." So they put my chair in the back parlor, just as if I'd been mending it on purpose for Mr. Travers. I didn't say anything more about it; but after it was in the back parlor I took out one or two screws that I thought were not needed to hold it together, and used them for a boat that I was making.

That night Mr. Travers came as usual, and after he had talked to mother awhile about the weather, and he and father had agreed that it was a shame that other folks hadn't given more money to the Michigan sufferers, and that they weren't quite sure that the sufferers were a worthy object, and that a good deal of harm was done by giving away money to all sorts of people, Sue said:

"Perhaps we had better go into the back parlor; it is cooler there, and we won't disturb father, who wants to think about something."

So she and Mr. Travers went into the back parlor, and shut the door, and talked very loud at first about a whole lot of things, and then quieted down, as they always did.

I was in the front parlor, reading Robinson Crusoe, and wishing I could go and do likewise – like Crusoe, I mean; for I wouldn't go and sit quietly in a back parlor with a girl, like Mr. Travers, not if you were to pay me for it. I can't see what some fellows see in Sue. I'm sure if Mr. Martin or Mr. Travers had her pull their hair once the way she pulls mine sometimes, they wouldn't trust themselves alone with her very soon.

All at once we heard a dreadful crash in the back parlor, and Mr. Travers said Good something very loud, and Sue shrieked as if she had a needle run into her. Father and mother and I and the cook and the chambermaid all rushed to see what was the matter.

The chair that I had mended, and that Sue had taken away from me, had broken down while Mr. Travers was sitting in it, and it had shut up like a jackknife, and caught him so he couldn't get out. It had caught Sue too, who must have run to help him, or she never would have been in that fix, with Mr. Travers holding her by the wrist, and her arm wedged in so she couldn't pull it away.

Father managed to get them loose, and then Sue caught me and shook me till I could hear my teeth rattle, and then she ran up stairs and locked herself up; and Mr. Travers never offered to help me, but only said, "I'll settle with you some day, young man," and then he went home. But father sat down on the sofa and laughed, and said to mother:

"I guess Sue would have done better if she'd have let the boy keep his chair."

I'm very sorry, of course, that an accident happened to the chair, but I've got it up in my room now, and I've mended it again, and it's the best chair you ever sat in.

"TOO MANY COOKS SPOIL THE BROTH."

I am eight years of age. I can write, but not plain enough for "tired eyes." I can set up type, and print in a small printing-press, so I will print this letter. I have no pets, as we stay in one place but a short time. I had a pretty kitty when we were at home. One day mamma put some paper shoes on her feet, and it was too funny to see how she acted. She shook one foot and then another, until she got them off.