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• #• 



NUTS 



roR 



BOYS TO CRACK 



BY 



REV. JOHN TODD, D.D. 



PITTSFIELD, MASS. 




LONDON: 

BSMBOSE AND SONS, 21, PATBRNOSTEB BOW, AMD DEUBY ; 

AND B. J. PIKE, NOTTINOEAM. 

MDCCCLXIX. 



2ro. ^- ^/•^- 



CONTENTS. 



PAOl 

The Prairie and the Mountain. • 1 

Ponto and Flirt 8 

Shooting the Shark 18 

The power of Memory .^*.^ 19 

The Persian Traveller , 24 

Air-line Poetboys 80 

The Artichoke 86 

Walking 42 

The little Boy on Crutches 47 

1. Boys — their Mistakes 58 

2. Boys — their Mistakes ^ 61 

The Top of the Hill ^... 71 

An uncommon Mother 76 

The arms of Love ^ 82 

The First Funeral in the new House .« »^ 88 

Talk at the Waterfall ^ ... 94 

Under the Lake 100 

" All for Ten Cents" 1 06 

The Boot on the wrong Foot -. 112 

One night's Spree ^ 117 

A strange Stranger. ^ 128 

The Muskrat in the Canal 129 

Little Tellow-throat. 184 



iv CONTENTS. 

PA.OK 

A flock of Birds ^ 141 

A beautiful Picture _ 126 

The simple Bre?Jcfast l66 

The curious little Workshop 162 

The Water shut oflF. i 167 

A Mystery on the Ocean Bottom 173 

Grandfather's old Desk 179 

Unlike and yet Alike 185 

A tough Customer 191 

Homes of the Poor 197 

Funerals of the Poor v^ ... 202 

Where to leave our Troubles 210 

Beware of the Cricket 215 

Climbing and Falling 221 

The Deformed Child's Dream -^ . . . . 227 

Little NeUie 234 

The Queen's Decision 240 

No Resurrection 247 

Calling the Ferryman 252 

The Wood-thrush 258 



NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 



Mrs. Prairie was one day looking up 
into the clear blue sky, and admiring the 
snowy clouds as they slowly sailed over 
her. She had just come back from a 
long retirement, during which she had 
worn a thick, cold, white robe, under 
which she had had long and quiet 
dreams. But lately waking up, recov- 
ered in health and spirits, she had been 
under the hand of Mrs. Spring, a won- 
derful milliner, who had made her new 
robes, adorning them with vines and 
flowers of the most exquisite form and 
color, and thrown over all a vail of glory 

B 



2 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

that made her truly queenly. A more 
gorgeous dress, woven in the loom of 
Nature, was never seen. But as she 
gazed on the sky, she happened to turn 
her eye northward, where she saw a 
blue object rising up and calmly look- 
ing down upon her, as if admiring the 
proud beauty. 

'^ And who may you be, sir, that has 
the impertinence to gaze so steadily at 
a^ady?'" 

" My name is Mountain, madam." 
^^Well, Mr. Mountain, I wont deny 
that I have heard of you before, stand- 
ing there alone, on one foot — ^for though 
I have heard of the foot of the mountain, 
I have never heard of his feet — and your 
cold, bare, hard head lifted up among 
the clouds, and your brow of stone and 
your sides bristling with trees, and your 
heart nothing less than a huge rock. I 
have heard of your name, Mr. Mountain, 



THE PRAIRIE AND MOUNTAIN. 3 

before this ; but pray, sir, if I may ask 
without giving offence, of what use are 
you to the world? I understand they 
cannot climb your sides nor look to you 
for harvests, or gardens, or even build- 
ing spots. There are a few wolves, it 
may be, that now and then entertain 
you with their music, and a few feeble 
rabbits that hop up and down your sides, 
and perhaps a noisy blue-jay chatters 
music to you ; and then, sir, I 'm told, 
your head is almost always drenched 
with rains and swept- by storms. In- 
deed, sir, I cannot for my life see what 
you are made for." 

*^ Be pleased, madam, to tell me what 
you are made for." 

'' Me ! why, you must be blind not to 
see. Do n't you see I am spread out far 
and wide; that in my wild state the 
deer, the prairie chicken, the beautifiil 
quail, and every animal and bird have 



4 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

their home in my bosom ? Do n't you 
see how, in my wild condition, every 
flower and beautiful thing that can grow 
nestle over me? and that when men 
come, they first admire, then proceed 
into my bosom, and I give them out 
wheat and corn and cotton without 
measure; that enormous granaries are 
built to receive my produce, and ships 
carry it all over the world, and that I 
am the meal-chest of nations ? The rains 
fall upon me, coming from the far-off 
ocean, and the dews cool me nightly, 
and a thousand little streams and springs 
circulate as veins through me, refresh- 
ing, gladdening, fertilizing every part of 
me. They count my contributions by 
the million, and the world bows to me 
as a mighty mistress. Now, Mr. Moun- 
tain, what can you say for yourself? Of 
what possible use are you, I beg to * 
know, and by what right do you lift up 



THE PRAIRIE AND MOUNTAIN. 6 

your head so high, seeming to say, ^I 
do n't think much of Mrs. Prairie down 
yonder.' I don't mean to bo uncivil, 
Mr. Mountain, but you know that wo 
ladies have delicate nerves, and it really 
makes me nervous to look at you — so 
cold, so stem, so solitary, as if you 
had n't a friend in the world, and did n't 
want one." 

*^ Madam," meekly and slowly an- 
swered Mr. Mountain, but with a rough 
kind of voice, ^^madam, I have but little 
to say for myself, and do n't pretend to 
compare myself with you. I have stood 
here alone for ages, and if I have had 
but one foot, it has been a strong one. 
My Maker placed me here with this 
lofty head and stony form that I might 
condense the currents of air as they 
swept over the continent, and form 
clouds and bring rain. Cloud-making, 
madam, is my great business; they 



6 NCJTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

gather around my head and sides, they 
pour their treasures down on me, the 
waters run into every cavern and hol- 
low I have, and then break out into lit- 
tle springs, gather into ponds and lakes 
and rivers, and thus the waters come to 
you and pervade you and cheer you; 
and there is not a blade of grass, nor a 
flower on your bosom, nor a stalk of 
wheat, which is not nourished by the 
waters condensed and stopped by us 
mountains. More than forty ponds look 
to me to keep them filled, and several 
rivers flow fi:om these. I stand here 
alone, Mrs. Prairie, receiving no thanks, 
and no praise ; but 'take me away and 
every stream that comes to you would 
be dry, and you yourself, madam, would 
be a shrivelled-up old lady, with no 
flowers on your broad skirts and no 
bread in your hand, shunned by man, 
and inhabited only by monsters. Your 



THE PRAIRIE AND MOUNTAIN. 7 

fertility and glory come from me ; and 
though you will wear out by tillage and 
become poorer by and by, I have the 
hope that I shall stand here no less use- 
ful, no less necessary, and still honored 
by those who know my mission. If I am 
by such as you scorned and ^ left out in 
the cold,' I shall still have the conscious- 
ness that the streams that I create man- 
ufacture clothing for the same multi- 
tudes that come to you for bread." 

Thus the mountain ministers to the 
prairie, and the prairie to man; and 
thus the North and the South, the East 
and the West of our land, all need each 
other, and none can be spared. ^' Wliat 
God hath joined together^ let not man 
put asunder." 



8 KTITS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 



PoNTO was an old dog and lay on 
the sunny bank just in front of the lau- 
rel bushes, so that he might have all the 
sunshine and none of the cold winds. 
He was very mild and grave in counte- 
nance, and when you went up to him he 
would get up, wink hard at you, and seem 
to say, " Yes, sir, we have met before." 
He seemed to live in the past, so far £is 
he took an interest in any thing ; but 
he was gentle and kind, and everybody 
seemed to be Ponto's friend. 

Little Flirt was a dog of a different 
stamp. He was all run and jump, and 
bark and play. He would often visit 
old Ponto, and then how he would scam- 
per round him, look knowingly in his 
eyes, squat and look, and then jump and 
boimd and bark, as if he would say, 



PONTO AND FLIRT. 9 

'^ Well, Mr. Pbnto, did you ever see any 
thing like that ?" Old Ponto would look 
at him with awful gravity, as much as 
to say, ^^ That's all well enough in a dog 
which has not yet come to years of dis- 
cretion." 

But one day Flirt came out to see 
Ponto on a sober walk. His tail drooped, 
and his face was grave, and he walked 
like one going to a funeral. 

^^ Ponto," says he, ^*I'm going away 
to live." 

"Indeed." 

" Yes. I am determined to stay here 
no longer. / am resolved to run awayP 

" Pray where will you run ?" 

" Oh, I do n't know- I 'U find some- 
where." 

' Well, what 's the matter ? " 

"Matter enough. I'm tired of my 
master. You have always said he was 
one of the kindest of masters. But now 



10 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

I know better. You know old Ovib^ the 
brown horse, don't you ?" 

"I should think I did. I have run 
beside him times enough and miles 
enough to know him." 

"Has he not always been a good, 
faithful old horse?" 

"Not always old^ but always good 
and faithful." 

" Well, he has been sick lately. He 
has grown very poor. He would stand 
all day and bite his crib and gnaw the 
planks, and groan in pain. He has lost 
his appetite, and I thought he must die. 
But yesterday, when our master led him 
out, I thought, ^ Well, now he will kill 
poor old Cub, and put him out of pain, 
or else give him some comforting thing 
that he can eat.' But instead of that — 
Oh dear, how dreadful — ^he took him 
down to the blacksmith's shop, put the 
poor fellow in a frame in which they put 



PONTO AND FLIRT. 11 

oxen when they shoe them, and then 
turned the leather under him so that he 
could not stand on his feet, and then put 
a great stick in his mo]ith and fastened 
it open, and then he took a huge piece 
of flat iron — I believe they call it a file — 
and with that he sawed in between every 
tooth in the poor fellow's mouth. Poor 
Cub groaned, and the blood ran, but no 
matter, rasp, rasp went the file, till there 
was a parting between every tooth. If 
that a'n't cruelty, I would like to know 
what is. I am going to run away. The 
cruel man will be sawing my teeth next. 
Who knows?" 

" Suppose, Flirt, you just run into the 
stable and see what old Cub is now 
doing. " 

Away bounded Flirt, and soon came 
back with a look of amazement. 

" Why, Ponto, as true as you live, old 
Cub is eating hay as he never ate before." 



12 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

" Do n't swear, Flirt, and say ^ as true 
as you live;' but now sit down and 
learn a thing or two, it may do you 
good as long as you live. You must 
know then. Oh wise Flirt, that horses 
were made to eat grass, and to bite it, 
and draw it into the mouth. This natu- 
rally draws their teeth out and spreads 
them. Old Cub has been shut up in the 
stall and fed on cut feed for years. The 
consequence is, his teeth came tight to- 
gether, and they ached, and this made 
him have what they call ^crib-biting,' 
or ^ cribbering.' Now master, by filing 
them apart, has relieved the pain, and 
the old horse can eat as well as ever. 
He put him in the ox-fi-ame and fastened 
his mouth open only as the easiest way 
to do it — easiest for the horse. So you, 
young dog, see that it was not cruelty 
but kindness in our master to file old 
Cub's teeth." 



SHOOTING THE SHARK. 13 

'^ Oh, I see it, I see it all. What a 
fool I was. I will never doubt my mas- 
ter again." 

Oh, my son, you will often meet 
things in divine Providence that seem 
strange to you, and which look as if 
God was not wise or good; but when 
these come to be explained hereafter, 
we shall see that in every thing God is 
wise and good and merciful. We can- 
not always imderstand what he does, 
but ^*just and true are all His ways." 
Remember Flirt when you are tempted 
to doubt His wisdom or His goodness. 



The great ship-of-war lay at easy 
anchor in the beautiful bay, and the 
waters slept around her, smooth as a 



14 NUTS FOR BOTS TO CRACK. 

mill-pond and silvery as glass. The 
sailors were idly moving here and there 
on the ship's deck, for there was noth- 
ing to be done. The old boatswain, a 
favorite with all, was among them, tell- 
ing his long stories, or as they called it, 
^^ spinning his long yams." Among this 
crew was a bright little boy, a son of 
the old boatswain, the idol of his father 
and the pet of all the sailors. He was 
so cheerful and bright and good-na- 
tured, that there was nothing which they 
would not do for "little Jem." The 
morning was warm, and the water just 
of the ri^ht temperature for bathing. 
A group of the sailors leaned over the 
side of the ship, and seemed greatly de- 
lighted with something they saw. It was 
"little Jem," their pet, far out from the 
ship swimming alone. He could whirl 
over, dive, float, or shoot forward like a 
duck. 



SHOOTING THE SHABK 15 

"Boatswain," cried one, "what' a 
swimmer little Jem is." 

" Aye," says the father, "he seems to 
take to the water kind o' natural. I 
never had to teach him." 

"Boatswain, boatswain, a shark I a 
shark! Oh, he will get Jem in one 
minute more." 

The old man leaped up, and a single 
glance took it all in. There was his son 
playing in the water, lying on his back, 
unconscious of any danger, and a huge 
shark making straight towards him, and 
it was plain that in a moment more he 
would be crunching the limbs of the boy. 
The old man remembered that one of the 
cannon was shotted. Quick as a flash, 
and with almost superhuman strength,, 
he wrenched the gun in place, de- 
pressed the muzzle, aimed a few feet 
between the child and the shark — just 
where the fish would be in a single in- 



16 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

stant. The match was applied, the gun 
roared and reeled. The poor father 
sank down beside the gun, too faint to 
look. The smoke of the gun cleared 
away, and up rose a shout from the 
sailors, almost as loud as the roar of tho 
gun. 

'' What is it ?" calls the father. 

^' Oh, Jem is safe. There lies a shark, 
dead and torn in pieces. How could 
you move the gun, and sight her, and 
get her off so quickly and so accu- 
rately ?" 

^^I don't know, but I believe God 
helped me. Wont some of you bring 
Jem to me?" 

The next moment a boat was lowered 
and the oars were bending as she cut 
her way to the boy. He had just begun 
to understand the thing, and was para- 
lyzed with terror. Gently they lifted 
him into the boat, and in a few minutes 



SHOOTING THE SHARK. 1? 

pla<;ed him in the arms of his weeping 
father. The old man seemed to receive 
him as from the dead, and could only 
rock him in his arms and cry like a 
babe. The tars around so far sympa- 
thized with him that they welcomed Jem 
again as if he had come from the dead. 

How wonderful that Providence that 
stepped in, and from a source so uncom- 
mon and unsuspected, sent salvation to 
the life of that child. The only man 
who could have managed the gun so 
quickly and accurately, the only man 
who thought of the thing was the father. 
And when life and death hung on an in- 
stant of time, and on the accuracy of his 
eye and the steadiness of his hand, how 
he had them all in full use as long as 
needed. 

My little reader, there are sharks 
after you, with wide jaws and sharp 
teeth — coming directly towards you. 



18 inJTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

Will any power come in between you 
and them and save you ? Have you a 
Father watching over you who will see 
that you are safe ? 

There is one boy who has several 
sharks after him in the shape of com- 
panions who are profane, imclean in 
conversation, who are trying to make 
him swear and drink and smoke. Will 
they succeed ? Will his heavenly Father 
send in some power that will save him ? 
Perhaps the prayers of his mother, or 
the gentle voice of his sister, or the lov- 
ing heart of some good boy may be the 
instrument. Perhaps his Sabbath-school 
teacher will become that power. Per- 
haps the Holy Spirit will do it. 

There is another boy who has a shark 
coming towards him in the temptation to 
forget the fifth commandment, and not to 
honor his father and his mother. The 
hour that he does this he puts himself 



POWER OF MEMORY. 19 

out beyond tae promise of life, and his 
end may be near. There is a third upon 
whom ^e shark, in the form of doubt 
and imbeKef, has fastened his eye. Will 
he reach him and destroy his faith in his 
mother's prayers, in his father's reUgion, 
in the word of God, and in the name 
and salvation of Jesus ? 

Oh that between every child and his 
great spiritual danger there might come 
a power loud as the cannon^a roar^ quick 
as tiie speed of a bally and sure of the eye 
of a hving father. 



A BEING fair as the dawn, with bright 
hair and a clear eye, came and bent 
over the cradle and kissed the new- 
created infant. Her name was Hope. 
Ju^ then a little sister brought it a 



20 NCJTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

flower, at which the child clapped its 
hands joyfully, when Hope promised 
that it should soon gather £Bdrer flowers 
for itself. 

The infant grew and became a boy. 
At a smnmer's twilight he was amusing 
himself alone, when another being, with 
a sweet| serious face, came and sat 
down by him. Her name was Memory, 
and she said, " Look thee behind thee, 
boy, and teU me what thou seest." 

" I see a beautiful path bordered with 
flowers. Butterflies spread their gay 
wings over it, and birds sing all roimd it. 
It seems as if it was a path that I had 
trodden, for the little foot-prints in it 
look like my own, and the cradle at its 
end — so very near — ^looks like mine." 

^^jWhat art thou holding in thy hand?" 

And he answered, "A. book which my 
own dear mother gave me." 

" Bring it to me and I will turn it 



POWER OP MEMORY. 21 

into honey when thy hair shall be turned 
grey." 

The boy became a youth. Once he 
found Hope and Memory both sitting 
beside him. Hope broke out into a 
song, sweet as that which the lark sings 
as she shakes off the dew of night and 
rises up to greet the morning. " Fol- 
low me," said Hope, " and thy heart 
shall sing like a harp with golden 
strings." 

"Oh Hope," said Memory, "let him 
be mine also, and while he keepeth vir- 
tue in his heart we shall be to him as 
sisters as long as he liveth. Thou wilt 
lead him to accumulate, and I will keep 
for him all that is worth keeping." So 
he gave a hand to each, and both blessed 
him. 

He became a man. H6pe came and 
girded him for duty every morning, and 
every night he supped at the table of 



22 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

Memory, with a delightful guest whose 
name was Knowledge. 

At length Age found the man, and 
Time sprinkled his hoar-fipost on his 
temples. His eye became dim, and the 
chambers of the ear became confused, 
and the warm blood in his veins moved 
cold and slow, and he thought it was the 
earth, and not himself, that had changed. 

Memory came and sat down by the 
chair of the old man, and looked at him 
with loving eyes. And he said, " Mem- 
ory, sister dear, thou dost not keep my 
jewels safely. I fear some of them are 
lost." 

MoumfiiUy and meekly she replied : 

*^ It may be so. The lock of my casket 
is worn ; and sometimes I am weary and 
fall asleep, and then Time comes and 
purloins my key. But of the gems thou 
gavest me when a child and a youth, I 
have lost none. See, they are as bright 



POWER OF MEMORY. 23 

and beautiful as on the day I. received 
them." Memory looked pitifully on him, 
and the old man had learned to forgive. 
Hope began to show him a wing which 
another sister, called Faith, had been 
making, and he smiled- 

The aged man lay down to die. As his 
soul went forth from the body, the angels 
took charge of it. But Memory went 
up by his side, and with him passed 
through the gates of heaven. But poor 
"Rope stopped at the gate and there ex- 
pired, like a dying rose giving its sweet- 
est odours out as it dies. But just as she 
expired she beckoned to a beautiful an- 
gel, whose name was Immortal Happi- 
ness, and committed to her the spirit 
she had so long attended on earth. 
"Beligion," said she, "has planted in 
that soul such seed as will make it thine 
for ever. I shall not be needed more." 

Her dying words were like the music 



24 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

of some breaking harp, mournful, but 
sweet, and the angel replied, "Dear 
earth-bom sister, Hope must die, but 
Memory is as eternal as the books from 
which men are judged. From her tab- 
lets not one deed of earth can ever be 
erased.'' 



The Persian traveller came to our 
country to see " the new world," as ha 
had heard it called. On his arrival, in- 
stead of finding a few huts with thatched 
roofs, as he expected, he found a great 
rich city, the largest he had ever seen. 
The great ships lay at the wharves ; the 
tall masts looked like a forest ; and the 
harbor was full of shipping of all kinds. 
So he landed, and went to the hotels, 
and travelled through the different states; 



THE PEESIAN TRAVELLER 26 

fi^w the farms, the factories, the schools, 
and the benevolent institutions, such as 
hospitals, asylums, and the like. At 
length he reached Washington. Con- 
gress and the Senate were about to ad- 
journ. Among other things he felt very 
anxious to see the President of the 
United States. A friend walked with 
him to the White House, and introduc- 
ed him. 

"Well," said the President after the 
compliments of the introduction, " what 
do you think of our country ?" 

" Sir, I have no words to express my 
wonder." 

" Will you please explain yourself?" 

" Why, sir, on my arrival they carried 
me to a magnificent palace, which they 
call a hotel. We have no palace in Per- 
sia as large. When I came to travel, 
instead of riding a donkey or a hired 
horse, and moving at the rate of twenty 



26 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

miles a day, they put me into a beautiful 
house, and whirled me off three hundred 
miles a day. Then I said, ^ Why, their 
very carayans are better off than our 
richest citizens are at the homes which 
have taken generations to adorn.' Th^Ei, 
sir, they took me to a great palace-look- 
ing building where hundreds of bKnd 
people were gathered together, and 
where they read with their fingers, and 
where they made sweet music, and were 
very happy. ^ Oh,' I said, ^ the very 
blind in this land are better off than 
those who have eyes in my country.' 
Then tliey took me to another such place, 
where those were gathered together who 
coidd not hear or speak; but they could 
read and write any thing, and could talk 
with their fingers by making signs. Ah*, 
those in this country who are bom dumb 
are better off than those in my country 
who can hear with both ears. No ears 



THE PERSIAN TRAVELLBa. 27 

and no eyes are here better than two 
ears and two eyes at home. Then, Mr. 
President, I came to Washington. To 
my amazement I found no army here, 
no body-^ard for the chief mafi^istrate 
„fai,Ut-tion. Ih^artTyoo, 
sir, were up at the capitol last eve^ng 
till after midnight, signing the bills 
which Congress passed, and then in the 
dark you walked quietly home alone, 
without a guard or anybody to defend 
you, I see no army in all the states 
where I have been; and one live gov- 
ernor of a great state I actually found 
out with his hired man planting po- 
tatoes. Sir, to one who has been 
bom and brought up where armies and 
swords are everywhere, this state of 
things has amazed me beyond expres- 
sion,'* 

"Do you like it ?'* 

"Oh Tpore than I can describe to you?* 



28 NUTS FOR BOTS TO CRACK. 

" How do you account for it ?" 
" Sir, there is only one answer to that 
question. Your land is governed hy the 
BibUj mine hy the sword. Your Bible 
has done tenfold more for you in a few 
centuries -than the sword has done for 
us for ages. Here you don't see the 
law ; you do n't hear it. It is a sort of 
thing that seems to dwell in the air, out 
of sight; but it comes down the moment 
it is called. With my country, law ia 
made material ; it is in armies and guna 
and guards. It is like wearing a heavy 
iron mail shirt, instead of the loose cot* 
ton shirt. Your Bible has made schools 
and colleges and institutions of learning; 
our sword never reared a school-house 
in all Persia. Your Bible makes read- 
ers ; and so you have papers arid mag- 
azines and books, and a reading, think- 
ing nation. Our sword makes no read- 
ers, no thinkers, no teachers of good 



THE PERSIAN TRAVELLER. 29 

things. Oh, sir, there is no department 
of life in which we are not centuries be- 
hind you. I find that your people don't 
know what has made this nation what it 
is ; but it is plain to me. And now, sir, 
I beg your pardon for talking so long, 
and telling you what you know ; but 
you were so good as to ask my opinion, 
and I could not give it in fewer words. 
May you, sir, live twelve thousand 
moons, and your country live as long 
as the sun and moon endure. I thank 
you, Mr. President, for the light of your 
face, and that I may go home telling my 
countrymen that great position and high 
office never look so majestic as in their 
naked simplicity." 

The president and the traveller both 
arose, shook hands, smiled, made each a 
low bow, and the traveller went on his 
way. The president was heard to say 
to himself, " The fellow is right." 



30 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 



A FATHER was going to the telegraph- 
office to send a message to a distant city. 
He held the paper containing the words 
in. one hand^ and led his little girl, be- 
tween two and three years old, in the 
other. Just before they reached the of- 
fice they passed the wires of the tele- 
graph on the high poles. 

'^ Now, fether," said the child, " please 
lift me up and let me put the paper on 
the wires." 

This was her idea of sending by the 
telegraph. And had the paper been 
laid on the wires, and then flown off in 
an instant, and anon come back with the 
answer, it would hardly have been more 
wonderful than the way messages axe 
sent. Go into such an office at mid- 
night, the darkest night you ever saw* 



AIR-LIKB POSTBOTa 31 

One little lamp stands by the instru- 
ment* You give your message to the 
operator. He makes a few quick thumps 
or knocks, and in an instant your mes- 
sage is in a distant city, perhaps two 
hundred miles off. In another instant 
the answer comes back. How much like 
magic! What travelling! We should 
think the speed would melt the wires. 
"Electricity — ^it's all done by electric- 
ity," they tell us. But pray, what is 
electricity ? . It is not thought ; for it 
never carries a message till some human 
mind sends it. It is a kind of postboy 
running over the wires as fast as our 
tiiouglits can go, with the message in his 
pocket. I sometimes stop near one of 
the wire-poles, and look at the wire as 
it seems to ache by hard stretching — 
cold and lonely and useless. But as I 
look at it I seem to have a new and Kvely 
interest awakened, and I wonder if the 



32 NUTS FOR BOTS TO CRACK. 

electricity that spins over these wires 
touches every particle of the iron, or 
does it leap aS3 the hound does when 
chasing the deer ? I wonder if it goes 
inside of the wire, or on the outside, or 
does it occupy every part of it ? I won- 
der if it leaves a heat in its fiery path ; 
for it is fire as much as the lightning is 
fire. There now; I see the wire quivers. 
Is it because the wind blows, or because 
the messages are going on it? I can almost 
hear the clinking of the operative's ma- 
chine, and by a kind of indescribable pro- 
cess, I seem to be able to read the mes- 
sages as they fly along, one after another. 
Now then, that message tells the far-off 
friends that they have a new-bom child 
at home, and as it is read, a dozen voices 
all at once shout for joy, and each one is 
contriving what little thing he can send 
to the little stranger, "whom not having 
seen" they "love." So we can love an. 



AIR.LINE POSTBOYS. 33 

hnmortal thing which we have never 
seen* So we can love Jesus Christ, 
though we have not seen him. 

Now then, that message tells of sick- 
ness: ^* Very sick; come immediately," 
The very wires seem sad. What a stir 
that message creates I How they hurry 
oflF to " call father," and help mother to 
pack up ; and how they tremble and si- 
lently drop tears all over the house, but 
try to ^^ hope for the best," and keep 
cheerful, and give courage to the sink- 
ing heart of the mother. She wonders 
if she can get there to see her child alive, 
or whether she is going to his funeral. 

Ah, then there goes one bearing no 
doubtM message. It is to that large, 
beautiful house. It tells them that he, 
the husband and the father, is dead, and 
will be buried on Thursday. What a 
blow! They are stunned; they seem 
crashed. Heavy shadows fall on that 

D 



34 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

dwelling, never again to be lift el up. I 
can almost hear the feet of the strangers 
who will soon possess and occupy that 
beautiful home. The hand that provided 
for all, and that held them all together, 
is useless now, and they must first 
mourn, then feel disappointed, and then 
scatter. 

Here goes a message telling that the 
wanderer over the world has arrived, 
and will be at home shortly ; and they 
go to kill the fatted calf and make ready. 
And here is one telling of the failure of 
a great firm, and scores are bankrupt 
thereby, and hundreds and even thou*- 
sands must suffer by the fraud. So they 
go, carrying — these nimble postboys — 
tidings of births and deaths, marriages 
and greetings, fortunes made and lost, 
broken bones and high fevers, and all 
the joys and sorrows, the surprises and 
the disappointments that make up the 



AIRLINE POSTBOYa 35 

lot of man. This " air-line " road never 
stops, nor tires, nor wears. Day and 
night, summer and winter, its bosom is 
filled with human joys and sorrows, with- 
out any sympathy or suffering itself. 

" Well, what do all these meditations 
lead to ?" says the reader. Why, kind 
friend, they lead me to feel that He, the 
Infinite One, who made this electricity 
to carry human thoughts and feelings 
thus, must have that invisible telegraph 
by which prayer directly reaches his 
ear. I feel too that it would kill me to 
listen to all that passes over these wires 
in a single day ; and yet the joys and 
sorrows of His church and of a world, 
and we know not how many worlds, rise 
up continually before him, and still his 
ear is not heavy, nor his arm shortened, 
because he is an infinite Eedeemer, 
"God over all, blessed for ever." 



36 l^UTS FOB BOTS TO CBACE. 



" I COULD never see," said a gardener 
to himself, " what these artichokes were 
made for. They take up room, are hard 
to grub up, and are of no earthly use. I 
wish I could kill every one of them." 

This he said as he W£is trying to root 
them out, in early spring, from his gar- 
den. Just then he heard a voice, 

^^I say, Coleman, have you such a 
thing as a single artichoke in your gar- 
den ? I very much want one." 

" Why, I had a plenty, but have just 
given them aU to the pigs. Why do you 
want it, Mr. James ?" 

" You know that I have a sick child. 
She is confined to her room, and has lit- 
tle appetite. She was saying to me this 
morning that she thought she should rel- 
ish an artichoke cut up in vinegar. I have 



THE ARTICHOKE. 37 

been almost eveiywhere, and can't find 
any. The river is between you and me, 
or I would ask you to let me come and 
search your garden further," 

" Hold on a minute, sir, and I'll see." 

Coleman slowly and not very cheer- 
fully began to dig again, and to his un- 
expected joy — ^for we all love to feel that 
we have done something to comfort the 
sick — ^he soon found a nice artichoke. 

" Well, here's one ; but how shall I 
get it over the river ?" 

" Throw it, and I will do my best to 
catch it and keep it from being crushed 
on the ground." 

" There ; thank you, thank you much," 
said Mr. James as he went off rubbing 
his hands, which the artichoke hurt as 
he caught it. 

The humble artichoke was carried 
home and nothing said about it till the 
invalid saw the thin, delicate slices in 



3S NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

the little plate at her dinner. How she 
thanked her father, and wondered what 
ailed his bruised hand, I need not tell. 

From that day onward Coleman began 
to take an interest in the invalid, and 
would often send her a bouquet or some 
single beautiful flower. His thoughtful 
remembrance awakened an interest in 
the heart of the sick one also in his be- 
half. 

Some months after the digging of the 
artichoke the invalid called to her father 
and said, 

^^I hear the pretty little cottage on the 
bank of the river is to be sold. Now, 
father, why would not that be just the 
thing for Coleman ? He wants a honie, 
and has, I hear, a few hundred dollars 
saved. It seems to me to be just the 
thing for him." 

" I never thought of it ; but I will in- 
quire." 



THE ARTICHOKE. 39 

Hardly had Mr. James got out of 
doors when he met his friend Coleman 
in a state of evident excitement. He 
had walked fast, and was flushed. 

"Oh, Mr. James — just the man I 
wanted to see." 

"What is it, Coleman?" 

" Why, sir, the Beede place is going 
to be sold, and Susan and I do want it 
so much. But there are two things that 
trouble us: first, we don't know as it 
would be good property to buy ; and sec- 
ondly, we don't know how to pay for it. 
We have saved half enough, but don't 
know what to do for the rest. What do 
yott axivise us, air ?" 

" By all means to buy it. As to its 
being a good bargain, I have just had 
the opinion of one who seldom misjudges 
on that point." 

" Who is that, sir ?" 

" The sick one for whom you dug the 



40 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

artichoke last spring. As to the other 
half of the pay, tell the owner I will be 
responsible if he wants other security 
besides yours." 

Away bounded Coleman with a tear 
in his eye. The cottage was bought, the 
rose-bushes were trimmed, the little gar- 
den was planted, and a prettier, cosier 
place was not to be found. 

Years afterwards, Susan one day, just 
at night, found her husband in the gar« 
den, leaning on his hoe, and great tears 
rolling down his cheeks. She came up 
to him and said gently, " What is the 
matter, John ? " 

" I am crying over my own thoughts, 
Susan. Many years ago I was digging' 
in my garden when Mr. James called tp 
me to find him an artichoke for his sick 
child. Very reluctantly and feeling 
cross, I dug and found one — only one. 
I tried for no more. That artichoke 



THB ARTICHOKB. 41 

made that young lady our friend, and it 
was through her means that we had our 
pleasant little home, and have got it all 
paid for. We have been happy here. 
Mr, James has ever been our warm, 
firm friend. But that dear young lady 
has been in her grave for years. I 
never think it over without also think- 
ing how much grew out of one poor arti- 
choke, and how wrong I was to be so 
unwilling to do that little kindness for 
her. Oh if she were alive I feel that I 
dhiould love to go right up there and ask 
her forgiveness," 

'^ She's done with all that, John ; but 
yjre will never forget her — ^no, nor even 
^e poor artichoke." 



4J SnCS FQft BOTS lO GKJLOL. 



We Aoold pKobaUhr be firightesied if 
we knew how iAea we oome neaur to 
deadi. Almofit erenr one can lecaD tiie 
tone and place wiien lie was within an 
inch of lodng his life. A sing^ fiiU may 
SO strike the head as to paial jae as all 
ibe lest of life. A single stqp on the icy 
path may break a bone that dkall load 
as to onr grares. I onoe knew a physi- 
cian wbo had one stzap of the harness 
break as he was going down a monntain, 
and that frightened the horses, and that 
threw bim ont of the Ganiage, broke his 
bones, and cost his life. A few day9 
siiice, on one of onr terribly cold days, 
a man went off to the woods to chop, 
wood. He had only a little boy with 
him. It was several miles from home. 
In swinging the axe, it struck a very 



WALKING. 43 

small twig or branch of a tree, and yet 
that so turned the axe, that instead of 
striking the log it struck the full blow 
upon the poor fellow's knee. The blood 
flowed, and the man fell. The frightened 
little boy ran for help ; but instead of 
going to the nearest house, his little feet 
went all the way home. The conse- 
quence was that when help reached the 
poor sufferer he had fainted and the 
wound was frozen. It resulted in his 
haying the lock-jaw, and his consequent 
death. And yet how often is the axe 
swung among the brush, and men escape 
death. 

I sometimes stop and watch a bare- 
footed little boy. He runs like a squir- 
rel, and is nearly as lively. He does not 
stop to see where he is to put down his 
foot, or even think of it. On he rushes. 
Should he step into a hole, it might cost 
him a broken limb. Should- he step on 



44 NUTS FOB BOTS TO CBACK. 

a nail, it might cost him the lock-jaw. 
A little nail would first bring a smart, 
then a pain, then a swelling, and at 
length end in death, most likely. Now 
who guides his little feet ? 

Each little child takes from four thou- 
sand to nine thousand such steps every 
day. Why don't more of the little 
creatures step wrong and get hurt? 
How many such steps in a year, and in 
ten years 1 Why, we are never safe a 
moment. If we are on the water, the 
breaking of one single bolt in the ship, 
the breaking of one strand of the cable, 
the mispointing of the compass ever so 
little, might drown all in the great ship. 
Just see what a multitude of men are 
walking in one city, in one army, in our 
country, and over the earth, every day, 
Aiid yet how few step upon any thing 
that hurts them. We should think there 
would be multitudes of sprained ankleSi 



WALKING. 45 

of wrenched feet, and of bruises. In the 
dark night it is stiU more wonderful. 
And how few are afraid to walk in the 
^ight. 

The little sparrow that twitters in the 
rising sun, not knowing where she is to 
find her breakfast, gives herself no anx- 
iety. At the right time and place she 
will find the little worm waiting for hen 
The Httle bee goes pinging away from her 
hive, not knowing where she wfll find 
her sweet honey, but she gives herself 
no anxiety. There has been a hand be- 
fore her to sow the flowers, and to have 
their sweetness all ready at her coming. 
How tired the mother sometimes be- 
comes in watching two or three little 
ones during the day, to see that they do 
not get burnt, or run over, or thrown 
down, or cut with a tool, or hurt other- 
wise. What a work if she had this to 
4o for all the children in the world. Yet 



4G NUTS FOB BOTS TO CRACK. 

God does this every moment for all that 
live — seeing that the child puts down his 
little foot in the right place, seeing that 
the swift horse does not run over him, 
seeing that his food does not poison him, 
and that he shall be safe day and night. 
It gives me a wonderful thought of God's 
greatness, just to see men walk the 
streets, doing it year after year, he 
keeping ^^ their souls from death, their 
feet from falling, and their eyes from 
tears." None are so great that they 
can do without God, and none are so 
small as to be forgotten by him. 

Ask a little boy how many^ fingers he 
has on his right hand, and he will teU 
you ^^five;" and how many on the left 
hand, and he says, " five." Ask him how 
he knows, and he will tell you " it is so 
easy he can't help knowing." Yes, easy 
to Mm ; but could a dog know how many ? 
He says, " No." Very well ; this shows 



.LITTLE BOY ON CROTCHES.' 47 

the boy that he knows more than the 
dogy because he is of a higher nature. 
Just so God knows how many hairs 
there are on every head. The reason is, 
his nature is so great ^^he can't help 
knowing," any more than the boy can 
help knowing how many fingers he has. 
Every thing, even the walking of your 
feet, shows that God is everywhere, and 
that ^^ it is not in man that walketh to 
direct his steps." 



^\lt f ittfc §0g on €xuit\itB. 

The snow was falling fast as we stood 
aver the open grave, just ready to let 
gently down into its silence the beauti- 
ful form of a little child about three 
years old. All must have been struck by 
the pale, the very pale face of the father, 
and have said in their thoughts, " Poor 



48 VUTS FOR BOTS TO CRACK. 

feDow, you will soon follow her." All 
must haye noticed the almost wild look 
of the mother as her child was about to 
be buried in the dark, cold grave. The 
snow lay in the bottom of the grave, and 
it lay white on the coffin. But did. they 
notice a little lame boy, two years older 
than the little sister about to be buried, 
as he leaned on his small crutches oyer 
the comer of the grave, and looked so 
earnestly into it ? He was very small, 
and very pale, and the first look at him 
showed you that he must be a cripple as 
long as he lived. He had lost his little 
sister, his playmate, the other self. No 
voice had been so gentle, and no heart 
so loving to him, as hers. He shed no 
tears. He stood like a marble figure 
upheld by crutches. But his little bosom 
heaved as if it would burst ; and though 
he uttered no sound, I felt sure that he 
was sincerely mourning. The men un- 



LITTLE BOY ON CRUTCHEa 4^* 

consciously pushed him back as they fin- 
ished the burial. Oh, how meekly those 
little crutches took him back out of the 
way. I felt 'that I wanted to take him 
up in my arms and weep over him. No 
one thought of him, save the One who 
took little children in his arms and 
blessed them« 

The femily returned fi-om the burial. 
Each one thought so much of his own 
grief, that the little lame boy was not 
thought of — ^as needing consolation. 

But from that grave the little fellow 
began to droop and wither. It was soon 
noticed that he ate but little, and in the 
night would be heard, as with a low voice 
he repeated them over and over, the lit- 
tfe hymns that he used to repeat with 
his little sister. They thought it the 
grief of a child, and that a new sled, 
and new playthings would banish it. 
But the arrow had gone in too deeply 

E 



60 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

to be thus drawn out. For hours he 
would go and sit in the little nook where 
he and Jessie used to play, with his 
chin in his thin hand, thinking, think- 
ing. Sometimes he would ask if Jessie 
could ^^ remember now," or if she would 
"love him still," or if they supposed 
"she sang the same hymns where she 
was gone " which they used to sing to- 
gether, or if " she would know him if she 
should meet him without any crutches.^^ 
The hymns that spoke of Jesus and his 
love, of heaven and its rest, of the angels 
and the redeemed, seemed to be his de- 
light. Though he seldom mentioned Jes- 
sie's name,, it became after a time well 
understood that he thought only of her. 
He laid aside his playthings as of no 
use, but would bend over her little 
drawer and earnestly gaze at what her 
tiny fingers once handled. 

Slowly and gently his life began to 



LITTLE BOT ON CRUTCHES. 51 

ebb out. He had no sickness^ made no 
mention of pain, had no cough, and medi- 
cine could do nothing for him. When he 
came to take his bed, from sheer weak- 
ness, he begged that he might lie on the 
very bed and on the same spot where 
Jessie died. Sometimes in the night he 
would be heard to utter a suppressed 
moan ; and when his mother hastened to 
him and inquired what he wanted, he 
would only say, ^^ I want Jessie. Do 
you think she has forgotten me ?" " I 
want to go to Jessie ; and she will tell 
me all about it." Once, just before the 
angel of dismission came for him, he 
wa& heard to break out almost in a 
shout. 

^ ^ What is it, my son ?" said his mother. 

'^ Oh, I thought Jessie had come." 

** No. But, my child, you are going 
to Jessie. You will soon see her." 

*^Ah, I know. But I wish I could 



62 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

cany her something. And yet I know 
she has better things there.^' 

The little crutches are now standing 
in the corner of the mother's chamber, 
leaning against the little bureau that 
held Jessie's clothes and things. His 
little hat hangs just over the crutches. 
The pale face is there no more. Side 
by side the two small graves are seen 
under the great hemlock that tenderly 
spreads its shade over them. The cold 
winds of winter whistle over them ; but 
where are the children? Did Jessie 
know him "without crutches?" Is he 
lame and pale and moaning now ? Or 
is the Grood Shepherd leading them to 
still waters, and educating and training 
them up in that pure and bright world ? 
There is no little boy on crutches look- 
ing into the grave of a sister there. 



BOT»-THBIB MISTAES& 63 



I. §058 — ^Igtix Ulistalws. 

Among the many good things written 
and printed to guide ministers and 
rulers, fathers and mothers^ and the 
like, I do not recollect of a good article 
addressed to Boys, or for their special 
benefit. These are not young men, nor 
yet children. They are boys; and I 
look upon them with great interest. 
They are soon to be young men, and 
then men ; and the interests of the 
church and of the nation will be in 
their hands. 

Now, my nervous, restless young 
friend, there is no period of life in 
which you are in danger of making so 
many mistakes as in boyhpod. So sit 
down a few minutes and listen, while I 
point out to you some of the mistakes 
which you are very liable to make. 



54 NUTS FOB BOTS TO CRACK. 

First mistake : that parents and teach- 
ers often thwart you just hecattse they have 
the power. 

You know that parents and teachers 
have often forbid your doing this or 
that, and directed you to do what you 
don't want to do, or what you think 
may just as well be put off, or that might 
be done in some easier way. Then you 
feel that you know all about it as well 
as they do, and better too, and so you 
haye a right to resist and contest the 
thing, and certainly to grumble about it. 
It seems to you that they love to com- 
mand, and make you do the very thing 
that you do n't want to do, and so you 
ask, " What good will it do ?" or, "Why 
can't I do it some other time ?" or you 
go about it muttering and murmuring, 
as if greatly abused. 

Now understand that this is a great 
mistake. The parent who will toil from 



BOTS-THBIR MISTAKES. 55 

early dawn till you are asleep in the 
evening to support you, and who will 
watch over you day and night when 
you are sick, loves you too well to lay 
one command on you which it is not for 
your good to obey. Does that parent 
ever bid you crush your finger in a 
vice, or bruise it with a hammer, or 
make you freeze your feet in the snow ? 
Does the teacher ever rejoice when you 
are in pain, or contrive how he can make 
your head ache ? Why then should it 
give them pleasure to hurt your feel- 
ings, or to cross your will, unless they 
do it for your good ? I do not believe 
that the parent or teacher, in one case 
out of a thousand, ever thwarts a boy 
unless he thinks it is for his good. To 
array yourself against this authority, 
then, is a mistake, but a very common 
one. I do n't believe a boy ever rebels, 
or plays truant, or runs away from his 



66 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

home, without first trying to convince 
himself that he is right and has been 
abused, and that his father or teacher is 
a very hard-hearted creature. 

Perhaps you will say, " I would honor 
my father and my mother if they were 
only rich, so that we could have every 
thing we want, and if they were educated 
and refined — sl real gentleman and a real 
lady ; but how can I honor one who is 
poor and uneducated, and not refined 
and not respected, and who is at times 
impatient and fretful, and sometimes 
even violent and passionate ?" My dear 
boy, Grod knew there would be just such 
parents, and he knew how hard it would 
be to respect and honor such ; and so he 
has provided for it in two ways: firat 
by laying his own command upon us, 
and secondly by promising us a special 
reward : " Thy days shall be long," the 
first and last command with a promise. 



BOTS— THEIB MISTAKES. 57 

Honor thy father and thy mother be- 
cause they are thy parents ; and Hiough 
they may make mistakes sometimes^ they 
mean to seek only your good. 

Second mistake : that any thing vulgar 
or sinful can he manly. 

Boys sometimes, perhaps often, get 
the notion that it is manly for a boy to 
smoke, or to use tobacco, because men, 
and respectable men do it ; that to use 
profane or vulgar or obscene language 
is manly ; that to be irreverent and low 
in speech is manly, because men do so at 
times. A sad mistake, I assure you. If 
such men are allowed in good society, it 
is in spite of these things, and not in con- 
sequence of them. I have never seen a 
father who, as I thought, really wanted 
to have his boy learn to smoke, or to 
be vulgar or profane; and what would 
you think of a father who every morn- 
ing at family worship should pray that 



68 NT7TB FOB BOTH TO GBACK. 

his son might that day learn one more 
vulgar expressicHi^ learn to use one more 
intense oath^ or might learn to blaspheme 
the name of God with new gUbness? 
Now is it right to do any thing for which 
we may not pray ? And what would your 
mother say if in the morning she should 
find her boy kneeling down and praying 
God to help him to be more pro&ne, or 
to use viler language than ever before ? 
And yet you know that many a boy will 
use language and oaths and vile speech 
during the day^ on which he dares not 
think when he meets God alone in the 
dark. Know then, my boy, that if you 
think that any thing that is low or vul- 
gar, or such as you would not want to 
say or. do before your mother or sister, 
is manly, you are mistaken. ^^ Sin is a 
reproach to any people," and to none 
more so than to young people. And as 
to those low, vile men who would teach 



BOTS— THEIR MISTAKEa 69 

you vile things and encourage you to be 
vulgar or profane, shun them as you 
would demons from the bottomless pit. 

Third mistake : that you can break off 
lad habits any time you please. 

You will often meet with boys who 
boast that they are not tied by bad hab- 
its ; that at any time they please they 
can stop doing this or that ; they can 
stop having wicked thoughts whenever 
they please; stop using profane lan- 
guage, and have the imagination and 
words all pure whenever they please; 
but let them try^ and then see. The 
trouble is, they wont " please,^^ and they 
wont try to do it. You might just as 
well dip your hands in tar and keep 
that on them for a month, and then say, 
" Oh I can wash it all off in a moment, 
whenever I please." You might just as 
well swallow poison and say, "I can 
throw it all out of my system any mo- 



60 NUTS FOB BOfS TO CRkCK. 

ment I please." What would you think 
of a boy who should play with a mad 
dog or a rattlesnake under the belief 
that he could expel the poison of its bite 
at any moment ? No. Sin is like pitch, 
it will stick to you. It is like poison, it 
will not go out at your bidding. Many 
a boy drinks this poison through a vile 
book, a vile picture, or a viler compan- 
ion, till his soul is defiled, his imagina- 
tion is polluted, and made a den of 
unclean things and a rendezvous of un- 
clean spirits all the rest of his life. All 
the waters of the Nile could not wash 
such a heart clean. No boy can con- 
ceive what shame, what bondage, what 
remorse and misery he is laying up for 
himself even in this life, by early or 
secret indulgence in sin. These sins are 
like little ropes, but they drag you into 
the bottomless pit. The waters of Jor^ 
dan once cleansed one leper, and that 



BOTS— THEIB MISTAKES. 61 

was a miracle ; but no waters can make 
your soul pure when once polluted. It 
is easy to learn to sin, but to break 
away fipom it when once learned is 
almost superhuman. 

My dear boy, there are five more mis- 
takes which I want you should consider, 
and they will form the subject of another 
article. 



2. §0gs— Cj^dr ^khhn. 

Carrying on the thoughts above sug- 
gested, I remark upon other mistakes 
which boys make. 

Fourth mistake: that study is unhealthy. 

Boys sometimes want to convince 
themselves and others that they need 
^ot go to school, or may neglect to ap- 
ply themselves when at school, because 
study hurts them. Now the Bible — and 
that is Aill of truth and common-sense— 



62 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

says that " much study is a weariness to 
the flesh," but it never says it is un- 
healthy* Why, you have so many 
mornings and nights of play, so many 
half-days and so many vacations, that 
you a^e in no very great danger of hurt- 
ing yourself with study. The little deli- 
cate girl, with her gentle organization, 
may injure herself by study, though 
even she is far more likely to do it by 
reading sickly novels; but you — ^the 
tough, laughing boy — ^you are in no 
danger. 

But I will tell you what will hurt you 
far more than study, and that is reading 
those " dime stories," those vulgar, yel- 
low-covered novels, that kindle your pas- 
sions and set your brain on fire. These 
weaken the mind, scatter the thoughts, 
and bring you into a state which makes 
study become hurtful. It is a fact that 
this kind of reading is doing more 



BOTS— THEIR MISTAEEa 63 

hurt in our public schools than all the 
study in the world. You might just as 
well spend so many hours every day in 
a hot bath and expect to grow strong, as 
to spend your time in this reading and 
not grow weak in mind. It do n^t hurt 
you to stretch the mind and make it 
it tiiink ; but it does hurt it to pour such 

trash into it. The. hard student is more 

«. 

likely to be a long-liyed man than others. 
And for a boy to waste his school -days 
and neglect to prepare his mind for fu- 
ture life under the plea that study will 
hurt his health, is a mistake so great 
that it can never in after life be cor- 
rected. 

Fifth mistake: that boyhood is an ex^ 
cuae for sin. 

Sometimes when boys are rude, row- 
dyish, imclean, and profane — outwardly 
vile — ^it is said, " Oh they are only boys; 
they don't think how it seems;" or 



64 NUTS FOlt BOYS TO CEACK. 

" They axe only sowing their wild oats 
now, they will be better by and by.^' 
But where does Grod give you permission 
to give your beautiful boyhood to sin ? 
Where does he teU us we shall outgrow 
sin? Where does he tell us that he 
loves to have us give the dew of our 
youth to the service oif the devil ? Is it 
such a precious privilige to sin, that you 
must claim it while a boy ? Is it some- 
thing so very desirable, that you claim 
the privilege of being wicked because 
you are a boy? Suppose you have lived 
but a few years, is that a reason why 
you should be wicked ? Suppose a new- 
created angel should say, ^^ am an an- 
gel, and therefore I want to spend the 
first part of my life in being profane and 
rude and vile," would God excuse him ? 
Now bear in mind that God will not hold 
any one guiltless when he sins, whether 
he is young or old. Does not a worm- 



BOTS— THEIR MISTAKES. 65 

bite look bad on the red, downy side of 
the peach ? So does sin look on the 
young. Men have great outside tempta- 
tions to be wicked; but when a loy is 
wicked we know it all comes fipom his 
vile heart within. In boyhood too you 
are sowing the seed of what is to grow 
and grow as long as you live. It is the 
seed-time of life, and a terrible harvest 
often grows up from seed sown in early 
life, I have never met a wicked man 
who did not begin to be wicked while 
young. Ask your parents if they have 
not found it so. 

Sixth mistake : that lad company will 
not hurt hoys. 

I was once called to see a person dy- 
ing with the small-pox, and to pray with 
her. I took every precaution to prevent 
bringing the disease into my family. I 
had been vaccinated when a little boy, 
and therefore felt pretty safe ; but after 

F 



66 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

all, for days I had to suffer and to feel 
many of the pains and dangers of the 
disease. But suppose I had not been 
vaccinated, and had not been thoroughly 
prepared, the result would have been 
that I should have taken the disease, and 
most probably have lost my life. Now, 
it is just as impossible for a boy to go 
into bad company without being injured, 
as it would be to be exposed to the 
small-pox without danger. The Bible 
compares such company to pitch. It will 
stick. There are boys in almost every 
street with whom no good, pure boy 
ought ever to associate. They are 
teachers of iniquity. You already know 
their names and faces. " But what shall 
I do?" say you. What would you do 
if you saw a mad dog in the streets ? 
Would you go and play with him ; or 
keep as far from him as possible ? What 
would you do if you saw a hooking ox 



BOYS— THEIR MISTAKES. 67 

making towards you? Run from him, 
would you not ? But what if you are 
one of these wicked corrupting boys — 
then what ? Then be ashamed of your- 
self. Feel what a vile fellow you are 
when every mother and sister in the 
street shudders at your name, and dreads 
you as she would a plague. Humble 
yourself before God, and ask him to 
make you a better boy, and not let you 
become a curse to yourself and a curse 
to all around you. 

Seventh mistake: that it depends on 
others, and not on yourself, what your 
character will be. 

Boys are very apt to think that if they 
only had rich parents, great advantages, 
and distinguished friends to help them, 
they should do well — should study and 
learn, be industrious, and become valu- 
able men; whereas it depends mainly on 
the boy himself what he is, and what he 



68 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

shall become. Almost every boy may 
have any character he pleases. He may 
make a merchant, a physician, a lawyer, 
or a minister of the gospel, if he chooses. 
And there is no boy whom all the money 
and all the friends in the world can help, 
if he is not true to himself. Not all the 
lifting in the world can help a boy to climb 
a treey if he will not take hold and pull him- 
self up. You must wash your own face 
if it is kept clean. It depends much on 
yourself what you shall be in this life 
and the next. 

Eighth mistake: that religion was not 
made for boys. 

This is the greatest mistake any boy 
ever made. He may think that religion 
is suitable for his mother, and perhaps 
his older sister; but for a boy — one who 
feels so lively, and is so unlikely to die, 
who is so manly, and so wise — what can 
he want of religion? I will teU you, the 



BOTS—THEIR MISTAKEN 69 

oldest man you know will tell you, that 
it took all the experience of his life to 
make him humble ; the wisest man you 
know will tell you that he is very far 
from being wise ; and the hoKest man 
will tell you that he feels any thing but 
holy ; and they all tell you that you are 
a child, and need some one to guide you; 
that you have strong passions, and need 
some one to calm you. You have no 
experience, and are liable to make a 
thousand mistakes ; you have a wicked 
heart, and need some one to make you 
good. You want to live, and who but 
God can keep you alive? You want 
health, and who but the great Physician 
can keep you well ? You want to grow 
up a man of whom your parents will be 
proud, whom all will respect, whose in- 
fluence shall be great and good; you 
want to be useful in this world, and you 
want to be happy for ever. Can you 



70 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

tsike one sure step towards either of 
these points without religion ? 

Let a boy make up his mind to begin 
life without God, and very likely God 
will let him have his chosen way. There 
is no class in the whole community who 
would be so much aided by religion as 
boys; none upon whom it rests more 
beautifully, and none whom it can fit for 
so much usefulness. / would rather a 
boy would he a child of God than the son of 
a king. The moment you join yourself 
to God, your whole nature is ennobled ; 
your powers have new strength, and 
your heart new and glorious aims. The 
boy who reads these lines to-day may 
hereafter be a noble man, in some pro- 
fession, in some station in which he can 
be a great blessing while he lives. 

My dear boy, do you want to be re- 
spectable and useful and good? or do 
you want to grow up a curse to your- 



THE TOP OP THE HILL. 71 

self, a woe to your friends, a disgrace to 
your town, a blighted, ruined spirit, lost 
for ever, to sob and wail to eternity ? 
Grod says to you to-day, "My son, if 
thou wilt receive my words in thy heart, 
and hide my commandments with thee, 
discretion shall preserve thee, under- 
standing shall keep thee." " In all thy 
ways acknowledge him, and he shall 
direct thy paths." "The fear of the 
Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Till 
you are a Christian nothing is really 
done for you; when you are, " all things 
are yours." 



^^t C05f d il^t pill 

It seemed as if I never saw the land- 
scape look more beautiful imder the soft 
haze of the Indian summer, with the 
tints of autumn still lingering on the 



72 NUTS FOR BOTS TO CRACK. 

forest-trees as my fiiend asked me to 
go with him to the top of the hill. The 
momitaiiis rose high in the west, while 
here and there, on the hill and in the 
valley, the clump of trees or the solitary 
elm gave variety and beauty. The eye 
took in a wide sweep. A multitude of 
sheep seemed to be the sole tenants of 
the region, except as the squirrel utter- 
ed his little bark from the Stump or the 
heap of stones. 

"You see this beautiful region," said 
my friend. 

"Yes, and I greatly admire it; but I 
am surprised to see no houses near. I 
see here and there a very old, rickety 
bam, and a solitary chinmey where a 
house must have stood ; but not a house 
in sight. ' What does it all mean ?" 

" It means that men and women and 
children have passed away to make 
room for sheep. You notice the im- 



THB TOP OF THE HILL. 73 

mense flocks of sheep around us. To 
raise sheep requires a large range of 
pasture, and so one little farm after 
another has been swallowed up by the 
rich man, till the people have all gone — 
emigrated. On that spot where you see 
that foundation, near the big butternut- 
tree, once stood our little red school- 
house^ with thirty scholars. This was 
once a school district, and families 
enough lived here to make a good dis- 
trict; now there is not one left: they 
are scattered all over the land. Every 
house is pulled down, and few remem- 
ber the people that once nestled in 
these beautiful nooks; but for myself 
I never come here without coming up 
to the top of this hill, and thinking 
over the past and recalling the names 
and faces of my schoolmates. You 
must know that I graduated in that 
college." 



76 NUTS FOB BOTS TO CRACK. 

" Yes, my good friend ; but you have 
not numbered yourself among them, 
when you might have added, * One of 
the most distinguished surgeons of the 
day/ " 

"Well, well — we will drop the sur- 
geon. But you see what a mission this 
school-house has had, and how charac- 
ter may be bom in humble places, and 
the very nobility of our nature may 
come from these lowly places. Oh the 

BOYS OF OUB COUNTEyI LeT THEM BE 
TRUE TO THEMSELVES, AND THEY WILL DO 
GREAT THINGS FOB THEMSELVES AND FOB. 
THEIR GENEEATION." 



^ti Wixttoxtivxon ^oi^tt* 

At the gateway of one of our beauti- 
ful rural cemeteries, a large frmeral was 
just entering, as our attention was called 



AN UNCOMMON MOTHER. 77 

to a very remarkable sight. The bier 
was resting on the shoulders of four tall 
noble-looking men in the prime of life. 
One of these bearers was a judge on the 
bench of the Supreme Court of the na- 
tion. A second was one of the most 
eminent and accomplished lawyers whom 
this country or any other can boast. A 
third was a very distinguished divine 
whose pen is a great power. And the 
fourth was the president of the senate 
of his state. And these remarkable men 
were all brothers. They stood strong 
in life, but were bowed and silent and 
solemn, as if the bier was too heavy for 
their strength. Very slowly and care- 
fully they trod, as if the sleeper should 
not feel the motion. 

And who was on the bier, so careftdly 
and tenderly borne ? It was their own 
mother. Never did I see a grief more 
reverent or respect more profound. It 



78 NUTS FOE BOYS TO CRACK. 

seemed to me that the mother's cold 
heart must also throb in the coffin. A 
nobler sight, or a more beautiful tribute 
of love I never saw. They were all 
doubtless going back in memory to their 
early childhood, and to the loving care 
of this best of aU earthly friends. They 
well knew that they, the sons of a 
village pastor, could never have been 
trained and educated and fitted to occu- 
py their stations without a very extra- 
ordinary mother. They well knew that 
they owed more to her than to all other 
human agencies. No shoulders but theirs 
must bear the precious dust to the grave- 
yard ; no hands but theirs must deposit 
it in its last resting-place. 

That body had been inhabited by one 
of the sweetest, most cheerful and brill- 
iant minds that ever inhabited an earth- 
ly tabernacle. It had long too been the 
temple of the Holy Ghost. What that 



AN X7NC0MM0N MOTHER. 79 

lovely woman had done to make her 
husband's ministry useful and profitable ; 
what she had done in training daughters 
that are ornaments to their sex; what 
she had done to make these distinguish- 
ed men what they are, who can tell? 
What has not a mother accomplished 
who has given such an influence to the 
world ? I never see one of these sons, 
but my thoughts go back to the home of 
their childhood ; and I can hardly keep 
my eyes from filling with tears as 1 
think of that mother. How many men 
start upon the stage of life, and feel they 
are great and are filling great spheres 
of usefulness, who are really dwarfs in 
comparison with such a character. When 
that mother went down to the very brink 
of the grave that she might bring up 
life, as her children were bom, as she 
toiled unseen and unpraised through all 
their training, what an influence was she 



80 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CBACK. 

preparing to leave upon the world after 
she should be numbered with the dead ! 
We may develope ourselves, and think 
we have done well if we can achieve 
any thing in life, when, most likely, if 
any thing valuable in us is developed, 
we owe it chiefly to our patient, meek, 
unnoticed mother. She forms the char- 
acter which we develops And in too 
many cases it is our ignorance of the 
laws of influence, that prevents the moth- 
er from receiving that love and respect 
she deserves. 

Heaven will be just where we are 
not ; and I can find^^no words in which 
to express my appreciation of such a 
friend. Some few who have early lost 
their mother through death or the loss 
of reason, come out useful and respecta* 
ble men ; but they would probably have 
been much more so, had they enjoyed 
her love and care. They may weU, 



AN UKCOMMON MOTHER. 81 

moum the loss all their days. The 
names of the mothers of Moses, of Sam- 
uel, of Timothy, and other eminent men 
are recorded; and so are the names of 
the mothers of the wicked kings gener- 
ally recorded, as if to tie them to the 
disgrace of their sons. 

Oh mother, amid all your anxieties 
and labors, be assured that the time is 
coming when your name and image will 
fill the chambers of the memories of 
your children as no other can. You 
axe garnering up love, respect, and ven- 
eration which will gather around your 
coffin, if not around your dwelling. You 
will grow in the hearts of your children 
as long as they live. 

Oh son of the good mother, remem- 
ber that she hath spared nothing that 
the human heart could yield for thy 
good. Let thy love and gratitude and 
reverence flow back upon her; and if 



82 NUTS FOR BOTB TO CRACK. 

her hair is becoming silvered with age, 
remember that thy opportunities to min- 
ister to her comfort are every day be- 
coming fewer and fewer. Grod help thee 
to cheer her. 



There is something very beautiful in 
the love between a father and a daugh- 
ter — the one throwing the strong arm of 
manhood around the frail little one, and 
she, like an ivy, clinging to him with a 
confidence that never doubts. For many 
weeks I noticed that on such a day and 
hour a poor man would pass my door, 
fenderly bearing in his arms his little 
daughter, about eight or nine years old. 
He carried her from the d^p6t to the 
medical college, near or quite three 
quarters of a milC; and in about an hour 



ABMS OF LOYB. 83 

he canied her back again. So he must 
carry her, I know not how far, to and 
from the cars. How tenderly he em- 
braces her, and how confidingly she 
throws her arms around his neck. Who 
are they ? 

This poor child, some months ago, hurt 
her leg by a fall, as was supposed. Her 
parents were too ignorant of wounds or 
sickness to know what to do, till the leg 
became so bad that they feared she must 
lose it. 

Now in this medical college there is 
a time set apart twice a week, called a 
"Clinique," when the poor and suffer- 
ing may come and receive the best med- 
ical advice free of all expense : and it 
is astonishing how many gladly avail 
themselves of these opportunities. When 
the surgeons came to examine this poor 
child, they found her in a very bad con- 
dition. So they gave her something to 



84 NUTS FOB B0T8 TO CBACE. 

Bmell, which put her into a sleep bo 
sound that she knew nothing of what 
they were doing. While asleep, they 
opened the leg and found the bone dead 
and loose, as if it had been a hard, dry 
stick in the flesh, irritating it and mak- 
ing it sore. So they took out the whole 
of the dead bone, and very carefully did 
up the wound and sent her home. It is 
to hare this leg examined and dressed, 
that her poor father thus carries her 
every week. He is too poor to hire a 
carriage. They do n't talk aa they pass 
along, and I can see that they under- 
stand each other. 

And what is to be the result ? The 
surgeons could take out the old bone, 
but could they put in a new one ? No, 
nothing like it. But there comes to the 
bedside of that child an unseen Phyd- 
cian who works over the limb, and puts 
in, little by little, what is becomiiig a 



ARMS OF LOVB. 85 

new bone. A new bone is actually 
growing where the old one was. And 
in a few months it is thought the child 
will have the leg all mended, and be 
able to run round as she used to do. 
What a wonderful Physician is thatl 
How can he put in, particle by particle, 
atom after atom of soft matter, carried 
there and left in just the right spot, and 
then make it harden and turn into bone? 
What a wonderful Physician ! 

How good is the Lord. Under no 
religion but that of Christ has the sur- 
geon and the physician so much skill. 
It was foretold that ^Hhe lame should 
leap BS a hart," and it comes to pass 
every day. The mind and the skill of 
the surgeon must all come from God. 
It is borrowed from him. How wonder- 
ful too, that the highest skill in the 
world is thus at the command of the 
poor, "without money and without price." 



86 NUTS FOB BOTS TO GBACK. 

The gospel too creates this benevolence. 
None but Christian lands produce such 
charities for the poor. And how good 
is the Lord in implanting such a love in 
the heart of the parent, so that the more 
helpless his child is, the more he loves 
her; and the more she suffers, the more 
he will do for her. He don't feel his 
arms ache as he carries her. He do n't 
think of himself at all. His child fills 
his heart ; he only thinks of having his 
child made whole. 

Ah, yes ; and I know of a Physician 
who can do more than all this. He can 
*^ take away the heart of stone and give 
a heart of flesh." How he does it we 
know not, any more than we know how 
the new bone in this child's leg is to 
grow. Truly he may well be called, 
*Hhe great Physician." Our surgeons 
do their best for the poor child without 
fee or reward. And so does He givQ 



ABM8 OF LOVE. 87 

his skill and services without money or 
reward. There are some cases brought 
to these physicians which they cannot 
core, but none are brought to Him so 
bad that he cannot cure them. This 
" Clinique " is open to the poor only on 
certain days ; but He ever stands at the 
door, and you may knock and he will 
open it. This little one may pass out 
of the surgeon's mind till she comes 
again. But out of the thoughts of the 
great Physician the sick one never is 
absent a moment blessed One I This 
divine Helper takes our infirmities and 
bears our sicknesses, and is never weary 
^ih bearing them, WiU you not car^ 
your wounded spirit to him for Divine 
healing? 



88 NUTS FOR BOTS TO CRACK. 

The new house was built on the spot 
where the old one stood. The old house 
was of wood, nearly a hundred years 
old. It had been the place of births, 
sicknesses, weddings, and funerals. It 
had been the home of large families, all 
now numbered with the dead. The his- 
tory of the joys and the sorrows, the 
mirth and the tears witnessed there, will 
never be written. The new house was 
built of hewn stone, very hard to the 
chisel, and very beautiftd. It is very 
large, and every thing that money could 
procure was used to make it a noble 
though plain building. You cannot sug- 
gest an improvement. It seems as if it 
must stand till the end of the world. Its 
huge, thick doors, and its plate-glass 
windows, seem to be able to shut out 
any foe and defend from any danger. 



TEE FIRST FUNERAL. 89 

When the family moved in, friends 
called to congratulate and admire. The 
&mily was large and very healthy. Hos- 
pitaUty reigned there, and many were 
the friends from far and near who were 
made welcome. It seemed a very per- 
fect earthly home. Nobody ever ac- 
cused the family of being vain of their 
house. 

But suddenly, when the heavens were 
bright and not a cloud was to be seen, 
a dark shadow was thrown over that 
house. There was a messenger sent to 
that home whom no thick doors could 
shut out. He rang no bell, knocked at 
no door, but went straight in to do his 
errand. He uttered no words, showed 
no form to the eye, let no footstep fall 
on the floor, and asked no questions — 
such as, " Are they ready?" " Are they 
willing ?" Straight to the beautiful child 
that lay in his mother's arms he went^ 



90 KUTS ^R BOYS TO GRACE. 

and touched ii The little one rolled its 
eyes, q, shadow passed over its face, like 
the wind over the water, and it gasped 
once or twice, and it was cold as the 
grave, white as marble, and nothing but 
the dead casket of the soul was left to the 
family. The sobs of the father, the wail 
of the mother, and the loud grief of the 
children, fell imheeded on the ear of the 
dead child. And this was the first death 
in that house. And thus was this splen- 
did mansion turned, for the time being, 
into a tomb. We can't look at the 
house as we did. We feel that it is 
marked, and a process has there com- 
menced that is to be repeated again and 
again. Who will be next, or how many 
during the first century, or how many, 
before these walls wiQ crumble down, 
will go from that spot to give an account 
for all the deeds done here in the body, 
who can tell ? But to me there never 



THE FIRST FUNBRAU 91 

can be a funeral so solemn under that 
roof as ihe first. 

Who and what characters are yet to 
come out of that dwelling? Will it send 
fo?*th young hearts beating with love to 
Chrifit— missionaries of the cross, or true 
and faithful ministers ? Will it be the 
school of Christ, where his disciples will 
be trained up for his service and glory ? 
What a history of all the families that 
will ever live in that house will be given 
at the last, great day. 

But wisely all this is concealed from 
us, while we do know that every sorrow 
that shall grow up there, every disap- 
pointment that shall be felt there, and 
every death that shall take pleice there, 
may become a blessing, and fit these suc- 
cessive families for the " house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens," 

I am surprised at times to see how 
obort the time is, that a house can stand 



93 iniTS FOB BOTS TO GRACES 

after being built, before this fearful mes- 
senger shall find it^ and I think my 
reader would also be astonished to be 
told. I wonder if Death, as he passes 
our streets, knows when he is to call on 
this or that family, and can point his 
finger at every house and say, " I know 
when.'^ 

But there is a bright side to this dark 
picture. The first man whom death 
struck down on this earth was a " right- 
eous " man, and undoubtedly was saved 
by his fisdth. The little one who first 
passed from the new house into eter- 
nity, we trust was one who will be a 
jewel in the crown of Christ for ever. 
It went to a more beautiful home, to a 
more perfect education. And who can 
doubt, if that strong dwelling shall stand 
for centuries, that there will be many 
trained up there for the presence of 
Christ ? It is not then, in this lightj a 



THB FIRST FUNERAL. 93 

great tomb, but a beautiful porch at the 
gate of heaven. Perhaps for ages the 
angels will mark this house as the place 
where they come and gamer up the pre- 
cious things of earth which were bought 
with the blood of the Lamb. There were 
*^ churches " in the private houses of the 
early Christians. Will not the time yet 
come again when the loving heart may 
send greetings to " the church which is 
in thy house?" 

The new house is beautiful to me; not 
because its architecture is so costly and 
perfect, nor because its furniture is so 
splendid, nor because it is every way so 
perfect in arrangement, but because I 
have attended the first funeral there, 
and feel sure that one dear, precious 
child has gone from that home to his 
home in the skies. Men as they pass by 
may not know or they may forget that 
there ever was a funeral in that dwell- 



94 KUTS FOB BOYS TO CBACE. 

ing, but I never shall. I look upon it 
as the place where a beautiful little 
jewel was prepared for the diadem of 
the Redeemer, and I earnestly pray that 
every one in the family may be saved in 
consequence of the first fimeral in the 
new house. 



Calh at ih Widtddl 

■J 

We were standing in a deep gorge 
between two very high moimtains. It 
was a very hot day on the plain, but 
when we reached this gorge it was cold 
almost to chilliness. There was quite 
a mountain stream that came roaring 
through the ravine, rushing among the 
rocks, now leaping over huge stones, 
foaming, roaring, whirling, and scatter- 
ing its spray far and near. Just before 
UA the stream seemed to be cooped up^ 



TAL& AT THB WATERFALL. 95 

as if its progress was to be stopped; 
when suddenly it gathered force^ and 
leaped down a precipice, making the 
very earth jar with its faU. 

" Bea. Jd ,.. »id my yo«^, friend, 
" beautiful ; but after all I am wonder- 
ing for what purpose it was made. Only 
one man in six months, it may be, sees 
it, and he may not have taste enough to 
admire it. Dp you suppose it was made 
to foam and roar here only for the eye 
of man ?" 

^^ By no means; but it was made for 
the lungs of men, and of men too who 
never saw it or heard of it." 

*^ Please explain yourself." 

"Well, I'll try. These great huge 
mountains are in part all for the same 
purpose." 

"I don't begin to understand you^ 
sir." 

"Dont you remember what horrid 



96 NUTS FOR BOTS TO CaACK. 

smells we had as we came out of the 
great city ?" 

"Indeed I do. I had to hold my 
nose for a mile." 

" And in the roads and over the 
plains what clouds of dust we had ?" 

" Yes, I was almost choked to death." 

*^ Well, every city, every factory, 
every dead thing, animal or vegetable, 
is constantly sending up what corrupts 
the air we breathe. Every furnace and 
coal-pit, and eyery chimney in the land 
and in the world, adds to the impurity 
of the air. How long could you breathe 
holding your face over the top of a 
chimney or in the thick smoke of a 
coal-pit? Then the decay of animals 
and of all the vegetable world, as you 
know, produces fevers, plague, cholera, 
and other fearful diseases, by corrupting 
the air. What sicknesses we sometimes 
have in the decay of autumn. Now this 



TALK AT THE WATERFALL. 97 

air has to be constantly in a process of 
purification, or it will kill everybody." 

" Well, so far is very plain ; but what 
has that to do with this dark, unknown 
waterfall?" 

" Be patient and you shall know. God 
knew that we must breathe every mo- 
ment, and that we must have pure air ; 
hence it is that he is at work every- 
where to do this. With the spray and 
the waters of the ocean he begins to 
wash it. As the vapors rise up in the 
air, and are gathered in the clouds and 
whirled around everywhere by the wind, 
the air is washed, and every drop of 
rain does its part in this work. Then God 
rolls it over and over again and again, 
tossing and dashing it between heaven 
p,nd earth by every storm. Certain 
parts of its impurities he lets rise up 
in the clouds, and then bums them up 

with lightning. Do n't you know how 

n 



93 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK, 

mucli purer and sweeter the air is after 
a thunder-storm ? He drives this air 
through the great forest, and every tree 
and leaf is a kind of strainer^ which 
takes out some of its impurities. Then 
these mountains and gorges — ^they cause 
the air to traverse up and down their 
sides, to roll down, sucked through 
every gorge, moistened by every spray 
and leap of the brook, whirled along 
by every torrent, beat and pounded hy 
every waterfall, cooled in caves and 
comers where the sunbeams never fall, 
and then sent out over the plains where 
men live, all purified and fitted for their 
lungs. By and by it will come back 
again to be bruised and shaken, to creep 
over the bare heads of these mountains, 
to be pierced by the darts which the 
lightnings send through them, to be 
rolled and tossed like hay in the field, 
all over these mountains and forests. 



TALK AT THE WATERFALL. 99 

And this is what that foaming water- 
fall and thousands more like it are do- 
ing. They are churning and purifying 
the air that we breathe. The babe in 
the narrow street of the great city, 
and the dweller in the house on the 
great prairie, may both be the better for 
this very gorge and mountain torrent. 
The snows also that gently fall through 
the air axe a great purifier. They wash 
it. Have you never seen the snow almost 
dark with impurities brought down with 
it but of the air ?" 

" I see, I see ; and I wonder I never 
saw all this before. I understand too 
the words of David, and how * fire and 
hail, snow and vapours, stormy wind, 
mountains and all hills, fulfil his word,' 
and aid in the great plans of his mercy; 
and I don't wonder the holy man ex- 
claimed, ^ God, in wisdom hast thou 
made them all.' " 



100 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 



We were at Chicago, where they were 
then making a contrivance by which to 
draw water — ^pure, cold, and nice — ^from 
the bottom of the lake. They formed 
the plan carefully, after many soundings 
and borings in the lake. Then they 
made what I would call a great crib, 
and floated it off two miles, and sank it 
by filling it with stones — I dare not say 
how many tons. The bottom of the 
lake is hard, blue clay; so into and 
through this clay, down, down sixty 
feet, they began to dig. 

There was a huge steam-engine, a 
very strong fellow, who cheerfully lifted 
up any weight they put on him. As the 
engineer was going down to the tunnel, 
by great good luck and his great polite- 



UNDER THE LAKE. 101 

ness, we, two ministers and a friend, got 
an invitation to go down with him. 

The reader must know that as fast 
as they dig the tunnel the clay is trun- 
dled to the opening, and then the 
little cars are lifted up about seventy 
feet, and emptied. The clay is then 
burned into brick, carried back, and 
goes to make the tunnel. 

And now in the dirt and clay you are 
rigged up in old coats and hats, some 
too large and some too small, till you 
laugh at each other with great hearti- 
ness. You then get into the little car, 
crouching and twisting up your legs, 
and occupying the smallest possible 
space. The car holds the engineer, 
two visitors, and one workman.. Two 
little smoking lamps intimate that you 
are going into darkness. Word is now 
given, ^^ Lower away," and you begin 
to descend into thick darkness. *^The 



102 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

saints are going down," cries a rogue at 
the mouth of the hole. You look up, 
and can just see the light above. 

And now your car is down and rest- 
ing on a narrow railroad track. You 
are in the tunnel, which is a round 
arch, or complete circle, five feet and 
two inches in diameter, or fi:om side to 
side straight across. Now move if you 
dare, for the man behind begins to push 
the car. On, on you go, making the air 
to rush past you. Be carefiil, and not 
lift your head an inch, or it will be 
scraped. On the right hand, as you go 
in, you notice the feet are marked on 
the brick — ten, twenty, etc., up to a 
hundred ; and then» it begins again. On, 
on you go, just like dreaming, seeming 
to make no progress. And now you 
begin to feel that you are under the 
lake — fairly under it. They talk about 
the tunnel under the Thames near Lon- 



tJKDER THE LAKE. 103 

don as a mighty work. It is really a 
little over twelve hundred feet long. 
We went over three thousand feet un- 
der the mighty lake, and only three- 
eighths of it is yet dug. At every thou- 
sand feet there is a sort of chamber 
where the cars can stop, and where on 
each side they may leave or £ix their 
tools. 

At the fiirther end you are three quar- 
ters of a mile under the lake. But it is 
bricked and arched up until you get 
within about ten feet of the end, where 
the workmen are digging. That ten feet 
has no support but the clay. You can 
now hear the paddles of the steamboat, 
as she crosses over your head. What 
if that clay should break or give way I 
What if the great lake should come 
rushing down upon you I How long 
would it take to fill the great tunnel ? 
What a tomb would it be ! 



104 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

You now take the pickaxe and dig a 
little, just to feel that you " have had a 
hand in it," and have *^ helped to dig 
the great tunnel" at Chicago. On the 
right as you go in you notice a black- 
looking tin pipe, about the size of a 
common stove-pipe, only flattened so as 
not to take up room. This pipe is open 
at the end where the workmen are, and 
its use is to carry off the bad air which 
fills the tunneL But how do they get 
good air to breathe ? Hark ; do n't you 
hear a whirring, buzzing noise, as if a 
thousand partridges had been scared 
up? That is the bellows which our 
firiend the steam-engine uses with which 
to blow fresh air down the shaft, and 
keep the timnel fiill all the time. So 
you see that while he forces new and 
pure air down and into this dark re- 
gion, he sucks out the bad air through 
the tin pipe already described. 



UNDER THE LAKE. 105 

Two feet a day they advance, work- 
ing day and night, and in a little more 
than a year they expect to have it done ; 
and then the great engine will still force 
the water up high enough to run in pipes 
all over the great city. What a gigan- 
tic work! What an idea it gives one 
of what mind and skill and civilization 
can do. And this huge work, all com- 
pleted and filled with water, tapping the 
lake off full two miles, all complete, lay 
in the mind of the engineer before he 
began to lift a tool ! And just so all 
things, visible and invisible, lay in the 
mind of the great Architect before he 
created a single thing — only he made 
them all from nothing. 

What a singular plan by which to 
supply a great city with unfailing pure 
and cool water. Does it not make one 
think of that more wonderful plan by 
which the waters of life are made to 



106 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

flow to every man's door— cool, pure, 
refreshing, abundant for the wants not 
of a city merely, but of a world ? " Who- 
soever drinketh of this water shall thirst 
again; but whosoever drinketh of the 
water that I shall give him shall never 
thirst" 



'' %ll fat Cm Cjents/ 

"All for ten cents. All for ten 
cents," I heard a voice proclaiming. 
It was at the d^p8t, at the close of a 
cold, rainy, dreary day, and I was just 
taking the cars, expecting to go three 
hundred miles during the night. 

" All for ten cents, sir," repeated the 
same voice. Soon there came along a 
nimble, smart, dapper, whisking little 
fellow, offering to sell the tickets of a 
new kind of insurance company, who 
engage to insure your life for the night, 



"ALL FOR TBN CENTS." 107. 

and for the three hundred miles, to the 
amount of five thousand dollars, and 
" all for ten cents ;" that is, on paying 
ten cents for my ticket I was to have 
five thousand dollars if I was killed. 

Now I knew some things perfectly 
well. I knew the night was to be long 
and very dark ; that we were to go not 
less than twenty-five or thirty miles 
every hour, counting stoppages ; I knew 
I was liable to be killed should a bridge 
break down, should the wind blow down 
a tree on the track, should one of the 
wheels of my car break, should we meet 
another train by mistake on our track, 
should some careless fellow turn a switch 
wrong, should some evil-minded person 
put obstacles on the rails, should some 
thoughtless cow lie down in our path ; 
in short, I could think over a great 
multitude of things that might occur, 
any one of which might cost me my life. 



108 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

I knew too that the five thousand dollars 
would be a very convenient little cir- 
cumstance to my family, in case I should 
get killed that night. And yet, strange 
though it may seem, I did not purchase 
the insurance. And why not? The 
sum certainly was a very small one — 
*^ all for ten cents." 

"Perhaps," say you, "you had no 
confidence in the company offering to 
insure." 

"I did not think of that question. If 
I had known it to be the best company 
in the world, the result would have been 
the same." 

"Perhaps you think the system of 
insurance wrong." 

" By no means. If honestly conduct- 
ed, it is a very valuable aid to civilized 
society." 

" What then was the reason ?" 

To tell the truth, I had such confi- 



"ALL FOR TEN CENTS." 109 

dence in tho care and protection of God, 
that I did not feel that it was worth ten 
cents to be insured. And what an 
amazing result is that to which this 
leads lis. Probably in that long train 
of cars there were not a dozen who 
would pay the ten cents to have their 
lives insured. And that not because 
many of them thought of God and his 
care and protection, but they knew that 
something had so far kept them safe; 
that they had ridden in cars, in steam- 
boats, and in stages, by day and by 
night, scores of times, and had never 
yet come to any harm. What a won- 
derful care and protection of our heav- 
enly Father is it, that we would not any 
day or night be willing to pay ten cents 
to have our life insured ! And who does 
not see that this is not presumption, but 
a proper result of our experience ? So 
that every day and every night God 



no NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

keeps for us that which men, at the 
very lowest estimate, call worth five 
thousand dollars. 

" How can they afford to insure life so 
cheap ?" says one. I reply, that every 
railroad in the land can afford, for ten 
cents on a passenger, to issue a ticket 
obligating itself to pay five thousand 
dollars for every one killed. Take one 
railroad which I have in my mind. They 
run only six trains daily each way, aver- 
aging, I suppose, four hundred at each 
train, which is four thousand eight hun- 
dred passengers daily, which is twenty- 
eight thousand eight hundred weekly, 
counting six days in the week, which is 
nearly one million and a half annual- 
ly, and which, at ten cents each, would 
give the railroad 149,760 dollars. What 
railroad would not jump at the chance 
thus to insure, when often they lose not 
a life in a whole year ? 



" ALL FOR TEN CKNTa" 1 1 1 

But I took my pen, not to contrive 
how to enrich raiboads, but to show 
how wonderfully the providence of God 
protects us, and how we rely upon it, 
even when we make no acknowledgment 
and express no gratitude. How few 
would be wHling to part with that which 
God daily gives them, for twice five 
thousand dollars, who nevertheless are 
not ready to bless him for all this. It 
was not because the passengers esteem- 
ed their lives of so little value, that they 
neglected to be insured, but because 
they had so much confidence in the com- 
mon providence of God that they felt 
that they were safe. Oh how great is the 
. goodness of our heavenly Father ! Can 
you not, and will you not love this kind 
protector, this more than kind friend — 
the very Redeemer of your soul ? 



112 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 



@^^i §00t on tj^je WtortQ ^ooi. 

Jem Hasty had many good traits of 
character. He was generous when he 
happened to have the means, obliging 
and kind upon impulse; but like his 
name, he was hasty. He could not stop 
to see a thing fully, to do a thing thor- 
oughly, or even to speak of a thing 
accurately. But he was always consid- 
ering these little things as too small and 
"of no consequence." The consequence 
of course was, that he was always getting 
into trouble himself and putting others to 
trouble. It was a small affair to be par- 
ticular about buttoning his shirt-collar ; 
and so in the midst of company, or in 
church, his collar must start up and come 
off, and then he would jerk it on again 
with so much strength as to tear off the 
button. He had his garden so planted 



BOOT ON THE WRONG FOOT. 113 

and subdued one year that he began to 
t8ike a pride in it ; but one evening he 
hurried through the gate, aware that he 
had not latched it ; but it was a small 
affair, and *^ of no consequence." The 
result was, that the next morning he 
found some hogs in the garden, and 
they had rooted up every thing, even 
the choicest flowers. If he was going a 
journey, ten to one he would get packed 
and leave out of his carpet-bag the most 
important thing which he would need. 
Many a time the poor horse went sup- 
perless, and the pig stood calling for 
food, just because Jem considered such 
things ^' of no consequence." 

But at last poor Jem received a les- 
son which really did make an impres- 
sion on him. He was to go to the 
great city to enter a large mercantile 
house. But as he would be the youn- 
gest clerk, he knew he must be on his 



114 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

feet all day, and run and do a multitude 
of errands. His trunk was sent down to 
the d^p6t the night before, and he was 
to get up early and walk down and take 
the cars. As he took off his boots he 
set them where he knew he could find 
them even in the dark. But in setting 
them up he noticed that he put the right 
boot where the left ought to be. " No 
matter," thought he, '^ I shall remember 
it in the morning, and can change them 
when I put them on. It's of no conse* 
quence." So he lay and thought how he 
would enjoy himself in the great city, 
where there are omnibuses and carts 
and jams and crowds of men and a 
world of business, and he would one 
day come back a great, rich merchant, 
and bring father and mother and the 
listers such presents as would astonish 
them. 

By the time he got through with these 



BOOT ON THE WBONQ FOOT. 115 

waking dreams, his candle, which he 
ought to have blowed out, was all burned 
down. " No matter," said he, *^ I can 
dress myself just as well in the dark." 
But when the morning came it was cold 
and dark, and the ground was frozen. 
He overslept, and at the call of his father 
had to spring from the bed and hasten 
to the cars, or he would be too late. Up 
he sprang, and dressed himself in almost 
no time. His boots seemed to go on 
hard, but on they went. He started and 
walked and ran over the rough frozen 
ground, and actually reached the plat- 
form barely in season to get into the 
cars. But how he had run and toiled. 

And now he began to feel that his boots 
hurt him. His feet were sore, and they 
ached, and all at once it flashed upon 
him that in consequence of his haste and 
carelessness he had got the wrong boot 
on both legs. But his feet were wedged 



116 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

in, and in the cars without a boot-jack 
he found it impossible to get them off. 
All day long he lived in agony, and when 
he reached the city his feet were blis- 
tered, corns were started, and troubles 
for years to come were laid up for him. 
He had no time to rest and heal his poor 
abused feet, and for a very long time 
he suffered for that which he thought 
*^ of no consequence." But it was a 
good lesson for poor Jem. He began 
to see that little things which sesm " of 
no consequence " at the time, may have 
great results in the future ; and it made 
him a cautious, carefiil man, after long 
years of discipline. 

Now we all have some weakness, 
some spot at which we are very likely 
to fail. It is one thing in one man, and 
another thing in another. What shall we 
do to prevent the consequences of these 
frailties ? I answer^ do three things : i 



ONE NIOHT'S SPRER 117 

1. Set a double watch over the easily 
besetting sin every day and hour. 

2. Strive very hard to recover, if you 
trip. 

3. Ask your heavenly Father to help 
you and to keep you. 

It belongs to the young to attend to 
this; for many a boy feels like Jem 
Hasty, that it is ^^ of no consequence," 
when in fact the results may be terrible 
even for years to come. Many a char- 
acter is ruined and the hopes of friends 
are ci^jished by no greater mistake than 
putting the boot on the wrong leg. 



®ra light's Spm. 

The waters of the river ran rapidly, 
and the young men who took the boat 
rowed down the stream very quick; 
there were four of themj on their way 



118 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

to a sort of low tavern some six or 
seven miles oS. The house was a sort 
of gathering.place, where young men 
often went to have what they called " a 
spree." It stood a little way oflP fix)m 
the river, among the trees, with a heavy 
forest lying back of it ; they might be as 
retired or as noisy or even as intoxi- 
cated as they pleased, and nobody was 
there to see. It was for the interest of 
" old Ben," as they called the landlord, 
to shut his eyes and ears to what was 
going on. 

These four young men were compan- 
ions and friends, and gave great promise 
of becoming useful and respectable men ; 
and three of them would have done so, 
had it not been for Joe Torris, the fourth. 
He \vas beyond being mischievous, he 
was positively corrupt ; and if one de- 
cayed apple can taint a whole barrel of 
apples, much more can one bad young 



ONE KIQHTS SPREE. 119 

man his fellows. Torris proposed that 
they should all steal away just at dusk, 
row down the river, ** have a good time" 
at " old Ben's," and get back again be- 
fore their employers shoidd ever dream 
that they were away. So away they 
pulled. 

Before they were back, the great fac- 
tory in which they worked and the 
boarding-house in which they lodged 
were burned to ashes. Their clothes 
and what money they had were of 
course gone, though this was nothing in 
comparison with what others suffered. 
But they had their "good time," and 
knew nothing of any fire. They had 
their oyster supper and their drinks, 
and they sang songs and told stories 
and smoked cigars and swore much, till 
about midnight, when they concluded to 
go home. 

It was very dark and cloudy. Hardly 



120 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

able to find their boat or get safely in 
it, they at length all took their seats and 
began to row. ^^ Head her round, and 
keep her straight up stream," cried Joe. 
" To be sure ; row away, and I will steer 
her as true as a needle." The stream 
ran fast and they had to pull hard, but 
she was headed right, and seemed to 
be making good progress. After rowing 
about three hours, and when their arms 
had become very tired, they began to 
wonder why they were not at their land- 
ing. ^^ Surely we must be near," says 
one. ^^ The current is very strong, pull 
away," says another. ^ ^ We were all fools 
to come here," says a third. " There is 
no fool but yourself," says Joe in reply. 
So the poor fellows rowed and rowed, 
and looked and wondered, till daylight 
was fully opened on them. Then to their 
dismay, their shame, and their fear, they 
found they had not cast off the rope that 



ONE NIGHrS SPREE. 121 

held the boat; and after all their toil, they 
were tied to " old BerCa " landing-place. 

How they swore, and cursed each 
other, and promised to fight and to shoot 
one another. How they tried to blame 
each other, and to prove that this or 
that one was " the fool" who had drank 
so much that " he did n't know what he 
was about." But now they cast off the 
rope and rowed hard, and in due time 
reached their starting-place only to find 
all a heap of ruins, and a multitude 
of houseless and homeless women and 
children, all burned out, and stripped of 
all that they had. And yet the saddest 
part of the whole was, that the fire 
originated in Joe Torris' room, where, in 
his hurry to get away, and in his cun- 
ning to leave a light to show that he was 
in his room, he had so lefb the candle that 
it fell over and on his bed, set the sheets 
on fire, and hence all the ruin. What 



122 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CfRACK. 

a costly ^^ spree !" And when the youngs 
men came to land, there was not one to 
welcome or greet them otherwise than 
with reproaches. The young men silently 
separated, and went — ^I know not where. 
The factories and the houses, after 
lying in ruins many years, are again re- 
built ; but the property then consumed^ 
and the misery then inflicted, are among 
the things to be brought into judgment 
at the last great day. It was thought 
that if they had been sober enough to 
cast off the rope, they might have got 
home in season to have prevented the 
fire from the candle ; but however that 
may be, it was a sad night's work from 
beginning to end, and the folly of their 
rowing tied up is almost forgotten in the 
great mischief they caused. 



A StRAKQE BT]^tAKGER. 123 



% SitixnQt Stranger* 

Suppose a child or a grown-up man or 
woman could meet himself in the street, 
would he know himself ? I reply. No ; 
not his own face or person. The ex- 
periment has often been tried. * In a 
certain store the new proprietors fitted 
up at the further end a very large mir- 
ror. It reflected the full figure of every 
one in the room. An old gentleman who 
was deaf and who had not heard of the 
great mirror, went into the store. As 
he advanced he noticed another old 
gentleman coming to meet him. Be- 
longing to "the old school" in polite- 
ness, he bows to the stranger, and the 
stranger bows to him. He stretches out 
his hand, as if to shake hands ; and so 
does the stranger. " Sir," said he, "you 
have the advantage of me. You seem to 



124 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

know me ; but I can't recall your name, 
though it seems as if I had seen you be- 
fore. Please to speak louder, sir, for 
my hearing is much impaired." 

By this time the clerks were too full 
to hold in, and broke out in a laugh. 
The whole thing then flashed upon him, 
and he enjoyed the mistake as much as 
any of them. Let any one go into a 
room lighted by the moon only and pass 
by a mirror,- and he will start at seeing 
i unknown form moving in the room^ 
not recognizing his own face. I once 
knew a very polite old gentleman of 
olden time, who was at a large dinner 
party. At the call to the table in a dis- 
tant room, he was naturally expected ta 
take the lead ; but as he was leaving the 
room he saw another old gentleman, wha 
ought, as he thought, to have the pre- 
cedence. Accordingly he paused and 
bowed, and tried hard to get the stran- 



A STRANGE STRANGER 125 

ger to advance first. The company 
were too polite to shout, but they ached 
to shout. The panels of the doors were 
mirrors, and he was bowing to his own 
image. 

It may seem strange that a man who 
has seen his own face in the glass daily 
for half a century should not know it 
when he unexpectedly meets it ; but so 
it is. Men forget their own children in 
a few years. Suppose a man should find 
a great basket by the wayside, carefully 
packed, and on opening it he could find 
it filled with human thoughts — all the 
thoughts that have passed through one 
single brain in one year, or five years — 
what a medley they would make 1 How 
many would be wild and foolish; how 
many weak and contemptible; how 
many mean and vile; how many so 
contradictory and crooked that they 
could hardly lie still in the basket I 



126 NUTS FOB BOYS TO CRACK. 

And suppose he should be told that 
these were all his own thoughts — chilr 
dren of his own brain — how amazed 
would he be ; how little prepared to see 
himself as revealed in those thoughts. 
And how would he want to run away 
and hide, if all the world were to see 
the basket opened and see his thoughts. 
Suppose a messenger from God should 
taka us by the hand and lead us up the 
steps of a great building, and as we en- 
tered the porch it should begin to grow 
dark. Suppose that he should then open 
a door into a very large hall, which he 
called a " picture gallery." As we «i- 
ter it we find it dark as night ; but as 
the angel touches a spring, the light 
flashes in and fills the room. We now 
see that the walls are hung with pic- 
tures — so many and so large that they 
cover all the walls. On these are paint- 
ed all the sins that we have ever comi- 



A STRANGE STBANQEB. • 127 

initted. On one picture are painted all 
the bad words we have ever spoken ; on 
another, all the crimes and jealousies we 
have ever felt ; on another, all the cov- 
etings of our hearts ; on others, all the 
wrong bargains we have ever made, 
all the imkindness to our parents and 
friends of which we have ever been 
guilty, all our prayerless mornings and 
evenings, all our neglect of God's word, 
all our ingratitude towards our heavenly 
Father and our hard feelings towards 
him, all our abuse of the Sabbath and 
the means of grace, all our neglect of 
the Saviour and our grieving away the 
Holy Spirit. What pictures would our 
sins — open sins, secret sins, heart sins, 
end life-long sins — make ! Who would 
dare to look at them ? What a t»rible 
hall would that be ! It would truly be 
a ^^judgmeni-hall." I don't suppose we 
4diould at once recognize all these pic*^ 



128 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CIU.CK. 

ttires to be ours ; but they would make 
us tremble. 

We have to meet ourselves at the 
great day, and see all the thoughts of 
our life, as if laid together in a basket ; 
and we have to meet all our sins, as if 
each one was painted in colors that will 
never fade; and how much, Oh how 
much shall we need the blessed Saviour 
to take these bodies and make them 
over *^ like unto his own glorious body ;" 
and take these thoughts and " cover 
them" up for ever ; and take these sins, 
all painted so clearly, and "blot them 
out" for ever. Oh divine Hand, what a 
work will this blotting out the sins of all 
thy redeemed be ! 



THE MUSKRAT. 129 



Cj^t P;ushrat in 1|^^ (EmuL 

The muskrat had his home in the great 
canal. He might travel a hundred miles 
either way and find the same still waters. 
He lived in a wild place far from any 
liouse or city, and nothing disturbed 
him except the boats that came along, 
day and night, continually. But as he 
came out of his hole only in the night, 
and as the path for the horses that drew 
the boats was on the other side of the 
canal, and as every boat had a light at 
her bow, which he could see afar off, 
the boats did not trouble him much. 
He swam in the canal, or he crept down 
its bank and went to the fields for food, 
and was as well off as any muskrat 
ought to desire; but like many men 
who have a fulness, he began to grow 
lazy. 

K 



130 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

"Now," said he as he sat perched 
upon the bank of the canal one pleasant 
night, "now this canal was evidently 
built for us muskrats ; but what a shame 
to make the banks so high and so steep. 
How I have to tug my grass and clover 
up this high bank ; and how it puts me 
out of breath and makes me pant. Those 
stupid things called men do, to be sure, 
use the canal to move their boats on; 
but it's perfectly plain that it was made 
for us noble and wise muskrats. Now 
I have a thought come into my head, a 
very wise thought. Instead of creeping 
up and down this high bank, I will dig 
a hole through it, down at the bottom, 
and then I can run in and out just when 
I please. Wont that be worth while. 
Who but a muskrat would ever have 
thought of that ?" 

Plunge! and down he goes, and be- 
gins to dig. All night, and all the next 



THE MUSKRAT. 131 

day he toiled, when he opened a little 
hole through the bank. The -water fol- 
lowed him, which in vain he tried to 
kick back with his feet. Dig, dig, a 
little more. There, pop he goes through ; 
and rush, rush comes the water, tearing, 
ripping, and foaming after him. It whirls 
and surges and rushes and sweeps the 
poor muskrat away, and jams him be- 
tween two rails of the fence, where he 
lies dead. Eush, rush ; the bank gives 
way, the water runs all out, and hun- 
dreds of boats are left in the mud at 
the bottom of the canal — all in a few 
hours. 

Now for some of the results. The 
wise, lazy, and vain rat lost his life, 
which is hardly worth mentioning. Then 
therc^ was a loss of property in conse- 
quence of the delay to repair the breach, 
which is known to be all of fifty tkomand 
dollars. . There were hundreds of barrels 



132 NTJTS FOR BO^S TO CRACK. 

of apples and fruit lost by decay. There 
were ships at the wharves waiting for 
the flour, miUs waiting for the grain, 
carpenters waiting for the lumber, sol- 
diers waiting for the horses and the hay 
and the oats; dealers waiting for the 
pork, the lard, the butter, and the 
cheese ; and hundreds of tradesmen and 
workmen all waiting for the things de- 
tauied in the canal. Men lost oppor- 
tunities of good bargains, lost their 
character for truth and prompt dealing, 
lost by the fall and change in the mar- 
kets, lost by the decay and destruction 
of their cargoes ; and all, all owing to 
that . one mischievous muskrat. The 
property which was destroyed would 
have given ten dollars a year to each of 
five hundred poor Sabbath-schoo]s in 
all future time. And yet the poor 
muskrat was not to blame : he knew no 
better ; he had no thought of the mis- 



THE MUSKRAT. laS 

chief he was doing, or that he could do 
any hurt. 

But what shall we say of those who 
do wrong, knowing that it is wrong ? A 
very small hole may ruin the canal till 
repaired; a single spark of fire may 
burn up a city ; the starting of a single 
bolt may sink a ship. So a single wrong 
deed may draw a great train of evil af- 
ter it ; a single wicked word may poison 
a little child; a single wicked thought 
may be lilce opening the hole in the 
bank, tlirough which a world of sin 
will follow ; a single unholy feeling ad- 
mitted into tlio soul may do untold hurt. 
It is as important what we do not do, as 
what we do. 

Laziness does not belong to muskrats 
more than to human beings. To save 
labor, the little animal may destroy a 
world of property. If we have laziness 
in the heart, out, out with it. We have 



134 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

too much responsibility resting on us to 
permit our being lazy. If we feel that 
we are too small to do good or hurt, re- 
member that even one muskrat may do 
untold hurt, though he himself is a very 
insignificant fellow. 



f title ^dkia'^tad. 

It is said that we have over forty dif- 
ferent species of the warblers that flit 
among the branches of our northern for- 
ests. In a certain garden surrounded 
by trees there was a nest of these song- 
sters. Among the thick leaves of the 
linden-tree the little nest was built, and 
there the tiny eggs were laid, and there 
hatched. The nestlings were very small 
at first, but at length they grew till the 
four little birds, all together, weighed 
just one ounce. No mother could be 



LITTLE YELLOW-THROAT. 1 36 

more anxious and careful than the par- 
ent bird^ or more joyftJ than she, on the 
day when they could leave the nest and 
try their wings. At first they could only 
flutter a little way before falling on the 
ground; but by degrees they gathered 
strength and courage till they could flit 
from tree to tree anywhere in the gar- 
den. Here they had their home, and 
here most of them were very happy. 
The old bird taught them how to sing, 
how to fly, and where to find the best 
food. But the youngest of her family, 
whose name was ^^Yellow-Throat," per- 
haps the fairest and most beautiful of all 
the young brood, seemed to have a dis- 
contented spirit. She was difficult to 
please ; her food was seldom right ; the 
dews of the morning were too cool ; the 
heat of the day was too great; the songs 
of her sisters were not in chord ; or 
something was always wrong. Of course 



136 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

this spirit grew upon her, till her life 
WM unhappy, and her presence made 
others unhappy. At length she gradually 
withdrew from society, and lived more 
and more alone. In vain her friends 
tried to draw her back into society, but 
poor Yellow-Throat had made up her 
mind that she ought to be unhappy, and 
she would be. She now began to fly to 
the tops of the trees and look out over 
the wall to see how the world looked 
beyond the garden. One day as she sat 
thus peering about, she saw, apparently 
not very far distant, a large lake and a 
beautiful-looking island in its centre. 

'^ Oh, what a beautiful lake," cried 
Yellow-Throat; ^^ how delightful it would 
be to fly over that smooth water and see 
one's self reflected from it as from a 
great looking-glass. And how delight- 
ful to be on that island, all alone, there 
to sing a song so sweet that even the 



LITTLE YELLOW-THROAT. 137 

mermaids would come up from the lake 
to listen. How I wish I was there. I 
can be there. I will be there." 

She then laid her plans how she would 
get up early next morning, and without 
stopping to eat, would fly away to that 
sweet island. The morning came, and ^ 
as soon as the sun was well up, little 
Yellow-throat turned her back upon 
mother and home, despising her beauti- 
ful garden, and without a farewell word 
to any one, or even a kind look, she 
lifted herself up on the wing, and in a 
few minutes was on her way to the lake. 
Alas, when she got to it, instead of be- 
ing smooth as a mirror, the waves were 
tossing and dashing, the wind blew hard 
from the island, and it looked a great 
way off. But the poor thing was ashamed 
to go back, for she knew that ere this 
they would all know her folly, and so 
she flew forward. Cold and strong blew 



138 NirrS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

the wind, and on darted little Yellow- 
Throat, till at last, almost dead with 
fatigue, she reached the island, and 
dropped down on it panting for breath. 
But instead of finding the beautifiil spot 
she expected, she found its shores all 
rocks ; nothing on it but clumps of Nor- 
way pines, through which winds sucked 
and whistled. Not a bird nor a happy- 
thing lived on it. Poor Yellow-Throat ; 
how different from what her imagination 
painted. So she nestled down in the 
crevice of a rock, and waited and waited 
till the next morning should return. 

At last it did return, but the wind had 
shifted, and now, to get back to the main- 
land again, she had to go far from the 
place she came from. But she felt that 
she must get there or die here ; and so, 
picking up a few sour ants that were 
creeping over the rocks, for her break- 
fast, she again made for the shore. The 



LITTLE YELLOW-THROAT. 139 

wind helped her now, and she was not 
so much exhausted by the journey. She 
entered a large orchard, where the trees 
were large, and it seemed like going into 
the very land of plenty. But on the first 
tree on which she alighted, she came 
near losing her life ; for on going to sleep 
a few moments to rest her, she barely 
awaked soon enough to escape the spring 
of a monster cat creeping towards her, 
with his great gray eyes wide open. 
" Oh," said the poor bird, " how I wish 
I was again at home, with my dear, dear 
mother, and brothers and sisters. But 
I do n't know which way the garden lies, 
and cannot find it. What a foolish thing 
I was. And now I must die with hunger, 
for I find none of the sweet millet seed 
so abundant in my home." 

At length she noticed a large flock of 
little birds coming and going to and from 
a farmer's granary. They had found a 



140 NUTS FOR BOYS TO GRACK. 

place where they could enter and steal 
as much food as they pleased. Yellow- 
Throat knew it was wrong to steal, but 
thought she might do as others did. So 
in she rushed with the rest, and filled 
her crop ; but alas, just as a great flock 
were coming out, a farmer's boy fired his 
gun loaded with very fine shot, directly 
among thpm. One shot struck poor Yel- 
low-Throat, and she had strength only to 
fly and drop over the fence to die. And 
these were her dying words : 

" Alas, I am dying here, away from 
home and friends, and all for my folly. 
Oh that I could warn every bird and 
every boy and every girl to be con- 
tented with what God has given them, 
and not try to better their condition by 
wishing and longing for change." 



A FLOCK OF BIRDS. Ul 



' A WHOLE flock of birds have found 
their way into my study, and there they 
are, just at my right, in a pretty glass 
case, between thirty and forty in num- 
ber. They have all attitudes ; some with 
wings and tails spread, some -svatching 
for flies, some singing, some scooping the 
air for the insect on the wing, and some 
standing grave, as if waiting for a truant 
child to come home. They are of all 
colors: jet black, brown, olive, bright 
blue, orange, crimson, scarlet^ emerald, 
green, and some with several colors 
mingled and mellowing into each other. 
They are bright as jewels, and one would 
think from their brilliancy that they had 
been born and colored in the rainbow. 
I know nothing of their money value. 
They are not to be estimated by dollars 



142 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

and cents. They are the most beautiful 
blossoms of the air, and have a fragrance 
of the heart about them, for they have 
just been sent to me by the young mm of 
my congregation. To me, who love every 
thing beautiful, and especially what is 
beautifiil in character, they are of value 
not to be estimated. 

In looking at them I seem to read 
human feeling, or rather, they seem to 
represent human character. That large, 
portly, rotund Woodcock, dressed in a 
rich chestnut suit, with brown shorts and 
black boots: does he not look like a 
rich alderman, well-to-do in the world, 
with a good digestion, dignified and 
sober, and yet able to present here and 
there a long hill to his creditors ? 

And there is his cousin Snipe stand- 
ing close by, so quiet and still, yet able 
to send that long bill far down in the 
sand, and bring up the worm and the 



A FLOCK OF BIRDS. U3 

bug that thought they were safe in their 
dark home. Friend Snipe, thou dost not 
look like a glutton, but thou remindest me 
of some men who contrive to get a good 
living where others would starve, and 
who will spend life in the mud and dirt 
for the sake ofi what they get out of it. 

And thou plain, brown, striped Mock- 
ing-bird. How very plain thou art. Did 
the Creator see that if thy plumage had 
been equal to thy voice thy vanity had 
destroyed thee? Oh, unequalled song- 
ster, how often have I sat down silent 
and amazed to hear thy little throat pour 
out the notes of all the feathered tribes 
around thee, and while they too were 
astonished into silence. Be content, thou 
winged music box, to wear thy plain 
colors, and not to attract the eye. One 
such gift as thine is enough for one bird. 
Ah, yes, and I have seen human singers 
wondering why, with their wonderful 



144 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

voices, they could not also have had 
beauty of person. Be content. One 
great gift from our Creator is enough 
for one individual. 

And there is the beautiful goldfinch, 
the orange oriole, the fiery fire-bird of 
the forest, the beautiftJ blue-bird, and 
many a gem of a bird, till we come to 
the little, tiny, bright, green and gold 
humming-bird, Wonderfiil specimen of 
workmanship. How can that little crea- 
ture move those wings so fast, with a 
noise like a mimic factory, darting like a 
lump of solid light, and then balancing 
on the wing as if dancing on an invisible 
floor ? 

All, all so beautiful! Where were 
they bom ? In what groves have they 
sung ? Through what paths in the air 
have they travelled ? Some from the cold 
north, some from the middle latitudes, 
and some from South America; how 



A FLOCK OP BIRDS. U5 

' wonderful that you should all meet here 
and silently" teach a humble minister of 

.the gospel. I am almost sure that Adam 
and Eve must have admired you in 
Eden, as ye flew and sang and darted 
and flashed among the trees of that gar- 
den. And why, beautiful pets, are the 
male birds so brilliant in colors, while 
the female is wood color and very plain ? 
Perhaps because the female must sit on 
her nest and tend her young, and if her 
colors were bright, the hawk and the 
owl and the serpent would see her and 
eat her up. Now &he looks like the 
tree ; while the male, by his very brill- 
iancy, can flash through the trees, and 
thus lead the hawk away from the nest 
and his mate. Perhaps when thus en- 
gaged he forgets his regimentals, and is 
not vain of his beauty. Does he ever 
wish his wife was more beautiful ? 
Oh goodness of the Lord! How it 



146 NUTS FOR BOTS TO CRACK. 

paints the grass and the leaves and the 
flowers of the earth, and then tosses 
flowers through the air, that we may see 
his skill and admire his beautiful crea- 
tions everywhere, and see that earth and 
water, air and sky, are full of his good- 
ness and the wonders of his skill. My 
new treasures shall each be a preacher 
to me, silent but eloquent. 



Pictures are called beautiful, some- 
times for one reason and sometimes for 
another. I have the walls of my study 
adorned with many, the description of 
which would be interesting. They are 
chiefly mementos of friends. Many of 
them are very beautiful ; but only a few 
touch the heart. But I have recently 
received one from a friend at which I 



A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE. U7 

cannot look without emotion. It is a 
small affair, and I do not even know its 
title. It might be called the ^^ Voyage ^ 
of Life/' or the "Family Group," or 
*^ From one Shore to Another." Let 
me describe it. 

There is a plain, strong, every-day 
looking boat on the water. The place 
of her destiny is hidden from sight. 
There are eleven individuals in it. At 
the bow of the boat are three children 
with a basket of flowers near them. 
One careless, good-natured little girl is 
sitting down with her chin on the wale 
of the boat, looking towards you in a 
sort of dreamy state. She has no re- 
sponsibility as to how fast they move, 
or wherjB they are to go, or whether 
there are rocks and dangers before 
them. How careless her little sun bon- 
net sets on her head. She is neither 
hungry, nor dry, nor weary, nor anx- 



148 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

ious, nor even curious. She is the pic- 
ture of contentment. Happy child ! 

Near her, at the bow also, are two 
other children: a little boy and his 
younger sister. .He has evidently seen 
something, or he thinks he has, in the 
distance, and is eagerly pointing it ou|i 
to the sister. She is trying to see it too, 
and they are absorbed. How fresh, 
liow new, how beautiful is life before 
them! How every thing is on a large 
scale: great trees, great water, great 
hills, and great men ! 

Just behind them is the rower of the 
boat, who, I suppose, is Time. He is 
neither old nor young, and is both. He 
is looking with a curious face on the two 
lovers who sit just forward of the middle 
of the boat. The youth is evidently 
telling the fresh emotions of the heart in 
the low tones of love to the maiden who 
sits near him, and who holds a bunch of 



A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE. U9 

flowers just takexi from her lap ; and sho 
lets it dip in the water, as if she were 
too much occupied with that to hear the 
foolish things which he is whispering. 
She gazes down in the water, and sees 
that the flowers are already beginning 
to bo washed from their stems. How 
eager he seems ; how modest she. They 
look neither backward nor forward : they 
are full of the present. They see no- 
body else, and are not aware, appar- 
ently, that there is another person in 
the boat. Beautiful maiden ; she thinks 
that if the waters shall carry off every 
flower-bud in her hand, she has a whole 
lapful left. To them the world contains 
nothing but flowers. 

Just behind them are three figures. 
The man in middle life stands tall, firm, 
self-possessed, and yet evidently not 
without anxiety. He is looking for- 
ward with an eager, sharp gaze towards 



150 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

the spot where the boat is moving. He 
sees not his wife sitting close to him, 
though as he touches the shoulder with 
his left hand, it is plain that he feeh her 
presence. Evidently he realizes that 
all in the boat are committed to him, 
and manfully does he stand up to meet 
the responsibility. He will not disap- 
point expectation. 

At his feet sits his wife. Her beauti- 
ful little boy lays his head on her knee, 
going to sleep, contented and safe and 
happy "to-be where mother is." She 
lays her right hand on him as a living 
shield ; but she sees him not. Her eyes 
are upward, watching her husband's 
face. She knows his anxious look, and 
shows that she feels that her future, and 
that of her children, all depend on him. 
What a confiding, humble, grateful gaze 
she bestows on him. Is he not ^ ^ a strong 
and beautiftd staff;" and is she not se- 



A BEAUTIFUL PICTUKE. 151 

cure so long as he is with her to direct 
the boat and eye the future ? You can 
see the confidence and love of the wife 
expressed in the open, clear eye with 
which she regards him. Peerless gift of 
God to man — the gentle, modest, loving 
wife ! No other friend can ever take 
her place in counsel, in sympathy, in 
self-denial, in forbearance, and in affec- 
tion. ^^ Whoso findeth a wife findeth a 
good thing, and obtaineth favor of the 
Lord." 

At the stern of the boat are two fig- 
ures, and how you sympathize with their 
sadneds. They are an aged couple — 
probably the parents, who have seen 
the spring, the summer, and the autumn 
of life pass by them, while its winter is 
now upon them. They are old, and 
have drank from the cup of life till they 
find its dregs — ^put there to make them 
willing to let it go from them. The 



152 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

aged wife holds her travelling-basket in 
her lap, as if it contained all that they 
will want during the remainder of the 
voyage, h^r hands lightly clasped to- 
gether, and with a sad face she is look- 
ing back upon what they have passed 
over. Does she see the green moundiji 
which covered her little ones long, long 
ago ? Do pictures of the long life and 
its changes come before her? Do the 
graves of friends, neighbors, and a mul- 
titude who began life with her rise to 
view ? Is the past receding so that she 
sees it more and more dimly ? She lives 
in the memories of the past, ayid the 
progress of the boat now makes no im- 
pression on her. She does not, for the 
moment, see her husband, the venerable, 
bending figure sitting near her. How he 
bows that head leaning upon his staff, 
the white locks, " the crown of glory,'' 
resting on his shoulders. You noticei 



A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE. 153 

the dark mourning crape upon his hat : 
he beholds nothing back, nothing for- 
ward, nothing present. He is looking 
down into the boat, thinking, thinking. 
What are the thoughts that are now 
thronging through his heart ? Evidently 
he has done with the past, has nothing 
to do with the future, and nothing with 
the present. What does he see on the 
bottom of the boat ? Is it the picture of 
his own grave; or is he peering only 
into vacancy and musing of the further 
shore where he hopes to meet those for 
whom he wears the crape ? Who can 
help giving their sympathy to this aged 
couple ? 

Our sweetest joys and our deepest 
sorrows grow in the family. " He set- 
teth one thing over against another ;'^ 
and in proportion to the love and confi- 
dence which bind our hearts together, so 
are our sorrows deep when death sepa- 



154 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

rates us. And eagerly does the head of 
the family look forward not only to see 
what lies before the family boat as it 
glides over the waters of time, but also 
to pierce that veil which hangs over the 
land whither they are going. Will that 
old man meet the little ones who perish- 
ed from his arms years ago ; and will he 
know them as the babes that were once 
his ? Will he greet those children who 
died in manhood, and will they come 
aroimd him as their father ? And why 
does he not now wish to go to them ? 
Why had he rather bend over his poor 
staff and toddle along a little further, 
when the joys of life are all gone, than 
to die ? Because God has made us to 
love life, that we may be careful of it, 
and because also it is all an unknown 
land whither we go. We know that they 
live there; for Moses and Samuel and 
Elijah and Paul have been there and 



A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE. 155 

come back to us. But tliey had no 
power, for it is not in human language, 
to describe what that world is. Eye 
hath not seen it, ear hath not heard it, 
the heart hath not conceived it. Oh 
what will it be when the whole family 
shall reach that blessed shore, and there 
be reunited in youth that is immortal, in 
glory unfading, and in blessedness eter- 
nal and infinite ? 

A single hint here to the young, and 
that is, buy now and then a beautiful 
picture and hang it up; it is always 
fresh and beautiful. When you go on 
a journey, take a lunch in your pocket, 
and the saving of a few dinners will 
enable you to carry home a pretty pic- 
ture. Never buy an inferior one, either 
in design or execution. Be sure and 
never hang oil paintings and engravings 
in the same room. In ten years you 
will have many beautiful things in your 



158 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

often wonder how a trout ever lives t^ 
grow as large as the one we are now 
eating." 

" Yes ; and how many j&shmust have 
been created for his food during all these 
years and all this growth. . How much 
do you suppose he eats daily ?'^ 

^^ There's no saying. I have often 
caught them when they had at least half 
a pound of undigested fish in their stom- 
achs ; and then again without any thing. 
They seem to eat enormously when 
they can get enough, and to go without 
when they can't." 

^^ Well, it seems to me, from your ac- 
coimt of the matter, we are to have a 
very costly breakfast ? and I marvel at 
that Providence that has gone before us 
to get it ready for us." 

^^ How costly, sir ?'• 

^' Why, there are five years of watch 
and care to rear our fish down, in the 



THE SIMPLE BREAKFAST. 159 

bottom of thaJb lake, defend him from be- 
ing eaten yp a hundred times, help him 
away from the fisherman's hook, and then 
at the very time when we needed him 
to have him snap at pur hook and be 
taken. Then we needed salt, and there 
it is, made in the West Indies, and 
brought by a hundred hands to this 
j^lace. There too is the pepper, raised 
on the island of Ceylon, and brought 
here for seasoning. There is our butter, 
made from the grass on the hills, which 
have been made into pasture after years 
of toil. Those crackers are from wheat 
that grew in Illinois, ground and baked 
ready for our use. It would be curious 
to- know how many farmers, merchants, 
sailors, teamsters, and laborers, have 
been employed in getting what you call 
our * simple breakfast ' ready ; and then 
consider that if all the people on this 
earth afe fed this day, and should they 



ICO NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

all be seated side by side, each one oc- 
cupying but eighteen inches, their table 
would reach round the earth, twenty- 
four thousand miles. Food to be created, 
prepared, and cooked, so that all these 
can eat three times every day. And 
these are only one kind of the unnuni- 
bered creatures which have to be fed. 
" Thou openest thy hand and satisfiest 
the desire of every living thing." 

^^I see it is so; but I never thought 
of it before." 

" And that forgetfulness of God and 
his constant providence is one of the 
most unaccountable things in the world. 
The fact is, friend Sabattis, men do not 
love to think about God, or acknow- 
ledge him in any thing. I was lately in 
a place suffering for the want of rain — 
the crops withering and the streams 
drying up ; and though the people want- 
ed rain, longed for it, spoke of it, yet I 



THE SIMPLE BKEAKFAST. 161 

doubt if any one prayed for it, or looked 
to God as the one who ^maketh a path 
for the rain.' I heard many profane 
words, but not one of prayer. And it 
sometimes seems to me very strange 
that God endures a race of creatures so 
unthankful as we are ; ^ and it is of the 
Lord's mercies that we are not consum- 
ed.' But this mercy of the Lord is like 
an ocean, without bounds, without bot- 
tom, and fanned by the wings of angels. 
I think that we ought to recognize God 
in every thing ; and when I hear a bless- 
ing asked at the table, I understand it 
to be an acknowledgment that God has 
gone before and provided our food, 
gathered from all parts of the world, 
and prepared for us personally.' 



162 NUTS FOE BOYS TO CRACK. 



Who has not heard of Saratoga, where 
the wonderfdl springs gush up day and 
night, summer and winter, full of health ; 
where the sick once chiefly went, and 
where the rich and the fashionable now 
mostly resort ? 

I am not now to speak of Saratoga ; 
but in that beautiful place is a small 
workshop, not big enough for a robin to 
sing in, and yet, strange as it may seem, 
it has never been filled, and in it all 
kinds of curious and wonderful things 
are formed. In that little shop the re- 
volving turret of our iron-covered moni- 
tors was first made — ^which perhaps, 
under God, has been the salvation of 
our country. There is not a lathe or 
a tool in the shop, and yet wheels and 
springs and cogs are made there, and 



THE CURIOUS WORKSHOP. 163 

a world of macliinery. In it patterns 
and models are drawn, engines set up, 
pumps put in motion, wheels put to 
whirling, and cannon a firing. 

Being at a friend's house lately, I no- 
ticed a curious piece of mechanism stand- 
ing in his parlor. It seemed to be a 
clock, but instead of the usual face of 
the clock you look at a beautiful globe. 
It has all the perfection and beauty of 
the best terrestrial globe that can be 
bought. Over it is the sun pointing 
directly down on the equator. It is a 
clock, and a very beautiful clock too. 
The workmanship is perfect, and as a 
time-piece nothing can be finer. But 
the wonderful thing about it is, that as 
the clock moves the globe revolves in 
perfect time, and you have not only the 
hours and minutes as with other clocks, 
but you see h>w time U made^ where it 
is noon, or how many hours before or 



164 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

after nooB, or where it is midnight, and 
what is the hour in any part of the world. 
Every hour gives fifteen degrees of lon- 
gitude, and you see just how the earth 
turns and moves — over a thousand miles 
every hour. It is a perpetual study, and 
a child brought up with this clock cannot 
fail to understand how the world moves, 
what is the geography of the earth, how 
it is morning, noon, or midnight in any 
one part of the world and not in another. 
No one can help studying it or being 
delighted with it. It should be, and I 
think will be the clock for every school, 
even the district school, in our land; 
and the father who has a family of chil- 
dren to educate, will find this curious 
clock a valuable educator. 

Now let us return to our little work- 
shop. This clock came out of the same 
plaqe that the great monitor turret came 
from. Who would not like to look into 



THE CURIOUS WORKSHOP. 166 

that shop ? And no human eye ever 
peered into it. It is a sealed place. 

" Well," says my reader, " What do 
you mean ?" 

/ mean the hrain of Mr. Timby^ where 
all these wonders are performed, where 
plans are laid by which the warfare of 
the world is altered, by which a small 
ship can sink a whole navy of common 
ships, and where things are invented 
that move the world forward immensely. 
This single invention of the clock may 
yet be worth more to the world than 
the endowment of twenty colleges. The 
power of the world and of the uni- 
verse is in mind. When you see such a 
quiet, silent man, not money- wise, mov- 
ing noiselessly among men, you see a 
mighty power ; and whether he spends 
his thoughts on implements of death or 
in perfecting a timepiece, he moves the 
world. What a wonderful thing is mind I 



166 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

sometliing cooped up within the bones of 
the skull, never seen, and yet creating 
new and wonderfiil things for the good of 
humanity. And what an idea does it give 
us of God — ^that great mind which con- 
trived every thing, even such minds a^ 
Mr. Timby's, and put all these thoughts 
in motion. Aye, and these minds if they 
can do so much here in a few years, 
what may they not do if sanctified and 
fitted to act usefully and wisely to all 
eternity ? They may not need clocks 
there, but I doubt not there wiU be 
enough for them to do, and which wiU 
be far more useful than any thing they 
can do here. They say that inventors 
are not rewarded for what they do. No, 
not in money. God knows that money 
is too poor pay, and so he rewards 
them by giving them to see the good 
they do, and the respect they will have, 
and the gratitude which must eventually 



WATER SHUT OFF. 157 

be theirs. No silver or gold can reward 
Mr. Timby as will the thousands of chil- 
dren who study his clock, and as long as 
they Uve thank him for what he has 
taught them. 



^t Mater S&ut M. 

The family had water brought in 
pipes all through the house, in the cel- 
lar, the kitchen, the chambers, the bam, 
and almost everywhere else. It came 
from a lake on the mountains, seven 
miles off; but it came with a rush and a 
power that sent it up into garrets or into 
jets and fountains, and wherever it was 
wanted. The garden rejoiced in it. The 
horse and the cow had running water 
always before them. Sometimes when 
the heavy frosts came and burst the 
pipes, or when the family were awak- 



168 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

ened in the night by the dropping, 
dropping of some unlucky pipe that had 
broken loose — ^sometimes when the faw- 
cet gave out and let the water go hissing 
and spluttering all over the room — some- 
times when the stop-cock was forgotten, 
and the first they knew the water came 
pouring down through the floor and plas- 
ter — sometimes when the heavy water- 
rent bill came in, they wished the water 
"all to Guinea," or "where it came 
from," or anywhere, if it were only out 
of the house. 

But one dry, hot, burning day, the 
great pipe from the mountain burst, and 
they were told that water would be shut 
off for twenty-four hours. Heyday, what 
now was to pay. The cook in the kitchen 
had her potatoes ready to wash, her pots 
ready to receive the vegetables for din- 
ner, the dish-kettle ready to be filled, the 
small tub ready for the hot water, when 



WATER SHUT OFF. 169 

she found there was no water. She had 
used barrels a day, and never knew or 
thought about it. The mistress called the 
children into her room to wash them for 
school, and lo, there was no water. The 
weary father came in from the fields with 
sweaty brow and dirty hands, and was 
just rejoicing over a good wash, when he 
found there was no water. The keeper 
of the flowers in the conservatory was 
just preparing to make all his charge 
glad and green by the great syringe, 
when he found all dry — no water. The 
old horse, Tom, turned to his trough, 
and to his amazement found it dry. The 
cow. Dairy, put her nose in for a large 
morning draught, but found no water. 
The cat in the cellar, the dog in his 
house, and the very bees in the yard, 
were all wondering over their want of 
water. The little pipe that came into 
the house bringing all this blessing, 



170 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

never seemed so precious before. Night 
came, and all went to bed — ^to dream 
about water. Every thing, from the 
strong man to the flowers, seemed to 
droop. A solitary, unused well in the 
neighborhood became the centre of great 
interest. Down went pails and tin-pails 
and almost anything that could bring up 
water. It might be impure ; it might be 
very hard ; no matter, it was water, and 
water they must all have. Every old 
forgotten cistern was examined to see if 
it had any contents, and if so, would 
they do for any mortal use ? So they 
got through the first day and the sec- 
ond; but when it came to the third, 
and the water was still " cut oflF," there 
was real distress, and almost agony. 
It seemed as if they could never get 
through another day thus. But at the 
close of the third day the water began 
to gurgle through the pipes, to flow at the 



WATER SHUT OFF. 171 

stop-cocks, and to spit and hiss wherever 
• it could. How joyfully it was received. 
Every face lighted up. One ran to the 
wash-stand and washed and washed, as 
if to make up for lost time. The kitchen- 
maid drew and drew till she could fill 
up all the boilers and pots ; the flowers 
freshened up and wept and smiled for 
joy ; the garden felt cheered, and prom- 
ised great things in consequence; and 
the stable and the henery all shared in 
the general joy. 

And yet this water was gone but three 
days. Nobody there had thought before 
how much we are dependent on water 
for our comfort. 

And all these cool, flowing, abundant 
waters are only emblems of those wa- 
ters of ^^ the river of life" which Christ 
has provided for the soul. Let him 
shut off these waters, and what a poor 
place the house of God would be. What 



172 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK 

a dead place the family altar would be. 
What a lonely place the closet would 
be. Let them be shut off from this world 
only for three days, and what mourning 
would there be. Every hymn of praise 
and every note of thanksgiving would 
be hushed, and the hearts of aU the 
good would die within them. No, no, 
these waters never dry up, are never 
cut off, but from under the altar of God 
they flow " in summer and in winter." 
Oh child, when Christ gives you to 
drink of the fountain of life, it is that 
you may drink and never thirst again. 
Does my dear young reader understand 
me ; and understand too that if all the 
waters of earth should dry up, it would 
not be such a sorrow as to have the 
" waters of life" taken from us ? 



A MYSTEBY. 173 



% SP^ffstoff on i]jt #aan ^oiiom. 

Fae down in the deep waters of the 
ocean there are mountains and rocks 
and valleys and caves, just as there are 
up in our world. Sometimes the sailor 
drops the lead attached to a cord, and 
it sinks down not far ; and then again at 
a little distance, it will sink down, down 
very far. In the first place it fell upon 
a mountain, and then in a valley. Were 
the great ocean dried up, we should see 
wonders there. 

At the foot of one of these mountains 
in the ocean there was a kind of tea- 
party met, consisting of Mrs. Eel, Mrs. 
Lobster, Mrs. Cod, Mrs. Shrimp, Mrs. 
Flounder, and Mrs. Nautilus. The fact 
was, a curious event had happened, and 
they were met to discuss it. A long, 
small thing had come creeping down the 



174 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

mountain and across the valley, and 
along it went on the ocean's bottom, so 
long that they could see no end to it 
either way. Gently it came down and 
lay still on the bottom of the ocean. 

"Mrs. Eel," says Mrs. Lobster, '^is 
not this some relation of yours? It 
looks more like one of the Eel femily 
than any thing else." 

"I would have you to know," said 
Mrs. Eel, squirming and twisting herself 
every way, " that an eel has a head and 
a tail and fins ; and don't you see this 
has none ? An eel keeps moving ; and 
don't you see this don't move at all? 
How could you think it was an eel ?" 

" I thought it was a worm," said Mrs. 
Cod, " and I tried to bite it. Whew ! it 
almost broke my teeth out. It's nothing 
that I can eat ; though you know, Mrs. 
Lobster, I can eat a whole family of 
lobsters, if they are not too old." 



A MYSTERY. 175 

"I tell you what /think," said little 
Mrs. Shrimp. ^^It's a thing for us 
shrimps to creep on and cling to, and 
under which to lay our eggs and raise 
our young." 

^^ It's very plain," said Mrs. Flounder, 
"it is a scratcher,.just for us flounders 
to swim over and scrape our breasts 
on." 

" You are all wrong," said Mrs. Nau- 
tilus. " It is a thinking machined 

" A what ?" exclaimed all together. 

"A thinking machine, I tell you. 
There are creatures that live up out of 
the waters who ihinh a great deal. They 
send messages, instead of going to carry 
them. They are curious creatures, and 
sometimes when I have been up on the 
top of the water I have seen them. 
They sail about in great vessels of 
wood, and when at home, have crea- 
tures to draw them round." 



176 NUTS FOB BOYS TO CRACK. 

"Why, what fables you are telling 
us. Do you expect that we shall be- 
lieve that creatures can live out of the 
water ?" 

" Yes, they do. And instead of fins 
and tails they have two legs with which 
they walk." 

"A very likely story," said Mrs. 
Lobster. "When even I, skilful as I 
am, can't walk on less than a dozen legs, 
how can they walk on two ? What kind 
of fins have they ? 

"They don't have fins; they have 
arms and hands instead. They seem to 
be full of tliought Now this machine, 
so long that you, Mrs. Lobster, could 
not creep to the other end of it in a life- 
time, is one of their contrivances. They 
will stand at one end of it, and send 
thoughts or messages through to the 
other end in a moment ; and thus they 
talk to each other hundreds and thou- 



A MYSTERY. 177 

sands of miles apart. Even now, while 
we are looking at it, they are sending 
their thoughts through it." 

"That I don't believe," says Mrs. 
Cod. 

" Neither do I," says Mrs. Eel. 

"Why not?" 

"Because we can't see any thought 
passing through it." 

" No ; nor hear it." 

" No ; nor smell it." 

"No; nor feel it. Now you don't 
think we are such fools as to believe a 
thing which we can't see, nor hear, nor 
smell, nor feel, do you ? You do'nt ex- 
pect us to believe there are creatures 
who can live out of water, and move 
without fins, and think all along the bot- 
tom of the ocean. Oh, Mrs. Nautilus, we 
are proud to know we are above being 
deceived by such stories. We do n't be- 
lieve there is any world but our ocean 

N 



178 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

world. Pray what kind of Kght do they 
have up there?" 

"Oh, it is stronger and purer and 
more beautiful than ours. Compared with 
ours it is consolidated light. It 's a more 
glorious state than ours^ and the crea- 
tures who live there and think so much, 
are far higher in their nature than we," 

"Well, Mrs. Nautilus, that will do for 
one day. We may as well break up our 
party. We can't associate with one who 
tries to make us believe what we can't 
understand. We know too much for 
such deception." 

At that Mrs. Lobster opened her 
great claw as if she would crush poor 
Mrs. Nautilus, and Mrs. Cod rolled her 
eyes and snapped her great jaws. Mrs. 
Eel twisted and darted here and there, 
and Mrs. Shrimp swelled, and Mrs- 
Flounder turned her eyes and looked 
sideways* 



GRANDFATHER'S OLD DESK. 179 

Alas, poor creatures ! just as wise as 
the Sadducees and such like people, who 
say " There is neither angel nor spirit," 
nor a higher state than this, because they 
cannot comprehend it. 



There it stood, in the darkest comer 
of the room, and there it had stood ever 
since we children could remember — 
^^ grandfather's desk." It was very dark 
colored, had four long drawers, and a 
lean-to leaf — ^neither its front nor its 
top. This had a lock on it, and when 
opened and resting on two little slides, 
it was a writing- leaf. What mysteries 
in that old desk ! We knew it had been 
in the family over a century ; and how 
much longer, who could tell ? For aught 
we knew, it came over before the May- 



180 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

flower ever saw old Plymouth. Within 
that great leaf were little drawers and 
pigeon-holes, and, as we understood, a 
mysterious secret drawer, that shut with 
a kind of wooden snap, and so wonder- 
ful that the most skilfiil thief living 
could never be able to find it out unless 
grandfather was there to show him. 
This we had no doubt he would will- 
ingly do, if the poor thief was too much 
puzzled. 

But the contents of that secret draw- 
er! Why, we would not have been 
surprised to learn that sometime or 
other grandfather had as much as ten 
dollars in that drawer — ^the highest sum 
we could imagine any mortal man to 
have at once, unless it was Robert 
Kidd the pirate, who, as we under- 
stood, buried his money on every isl- 
and in the big sea. I remember how 
we lay sleepless one night, as long as 



QRANDFATHEB'S OLD DESK. 181 

we could keep awake, out of sympathy 
with Mr. Hamilton, who owed "the 
store," as the little trading-room, the 
only one in our region, was called, the 
enormous sum of eighteen dollars! How 
the man could ever raise this awfiil sum 
we could not imagine, and had we learn- 
ed the next day that the man had com- 
mitted suicide, we should not have been 
surprised. And how cruel we used to 
think old Mr. South was, who came reg- 
ularly once in six months and took all 
the money there was in the old desk, 
though we knew it was interest on the 
little place which grandfather had been 
trying to buy for over thirty years — ^be- 
fore our mother was bom, as he told us. 
We never heard him complain, and if 
he was fingal and carefiil, and put every 
dime he could get carefully away in the 
old desk, we knew it was only that he 
might be ready to face Mr. South. We 



182 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

had no doubt that any thing put into 
grandfather's desk was more safe than 
in any bank in the land. But alas, all 
our notions are sometimes upset in a 
minute. One day our grandmother 
went into the room, and what a scream ! ' 
We all ran in calling, and telling grand- 
father we believed the study was fiill of 
thieves and murderers. In he rushed ; 
and sure enough, there was the old desk 
with the leaf open, the drawers spKnter- 
ed and scattered, the quarters and dimes 
and change lying about here and there, 
and every thing betokening violence, 
To our eyes it was the most abominable 
sacrilege ever committed since the days 
of Nimrod. After wondering and exam- 
ining for a long time, the mystery all 
cleared up. It seemed that Sam Keel- 
ing had bought a huge rifle, which he 
was trying in all directions; and not 
having the fear of man before it, the 



QRAyDFATH£R*S OLD DESK. 183 

ball had come through the clapboards, 
plaster, etc., and then smashed through 
the thin back of the desk, making sad 
havoc among the drawers. What a 
monster we thought Sam! And Sam 
thought so too ; but the number of apol- 
o^es and "so sorrys"that he oflfered 
and the promises to be " awful careful " 
in the future put all to rights. There 
really was no great harm done ; but to 
lis children it was an era. We dated 
firom the time of the great "breaking 
in " upon grandfather's desk. 

That ancient piece of furniture was 
associated with the venerable, good, and 
holy man who owned it. To him it was 
an old desk of his father's, very conveni- 
ent to keep his little matters of worldly 
concern in. To us it suggested all that 
was venerable among the dead and the 
living. We could hardly believe that 
grandfather was ever young, much less 



184 NUTS FOB BOYS TO CBACK. 

that he was ever a boy — ^a real, nin- 
ning, roystering boy. The thing was 
inconceivable. He was an old man to 
us ; and he really was old when called 
away. The good old desk is now owned 
by a grandchild, and when her little frol- 
icsome boy now goes banging round the 
house, he is careful not to hit ^^ grandfa- 
ther's desk," that once belonged to his 
great grandfather's grandfather. Good 
men here ; glorious spirits there. How 
small an affair would they now con- 
sider that old desk ; and yet the dumb 
thing speaks to us, and recalls the image 
of good men, and makes us think every 
time we see it that we have friends in 
heaven. It is thus now, and will be 
hereafter a constant preacher; many 
generations in turn may claim it, and may 
every one feel and say, " None but a pi- 
ous, godly man ever owned that desk.'' 



UNLIKE AND TET ALIKK 185 



Unlike anlr get %lxh. 

" You talk about true religion," said 
Mr. Dunbar to his friend, old Mr. James 
Hamilton. ^^ Now is n't true religion the 
same thing, created by the same Spirit, 
the world over ?" 

^* Certainly it is*" 

" So I believe ; or so I should believe, 
if I believed at all. But instead of see- 
ing all have the same religion, there's 
hardly two that think alike. You talk 
about the ^ revival' now going on in our 
city : will it make them all alike ? or 
rather, is it not so, that men who 
thought and felt alike before becoming 
rehgious, begin to differ and separate 
more and more immediately after ?" 

" Ah well, we will not argue the ques- 
tion ; but will you go with me this even- 
ing ?" 



186 NUTS FOR BOYS TO GBACK. 

'' With all my heart." 

So Mr. Hamilton meekly led his friend 
first into a Presbyterian prayer-meeting. 
It was very full and still and solemn. 
The prayers were short and full of awe. 
The minister read the word of Gk>d. 
and they sang hymns in long metre, 
slowly, strongly, and solemnly. At 
length a young man arose and said that 
he began to indulge a trembling hope 
that he had been bom of the Spirit ; but 
that his sins seemed so many, his life so 
guilty, that he abhorred himself; that 
he knew he deserved hell, and that 
nothing but the mercy of Christ kept 
him out of it. He spoke with diffidence, 
with awe, and almost with terror, as if 
ready to sink under his own sins. The 
great impression which he conveyed 
was the guilt of his soul. It seemed as if 
the Spirit had ^^ convinced him of sin, of 
righteousness, and of judgment to come." 



UNLIKE AND YET ALIKE. 187 

Next they went to a meeting of Bap- 
tist Christians. They seemed to speak 
and pray readily, and just as each one 
felt like doing. Both sexes participated. 
A young convert arose to tell his " ex- 
perience." He had been led to see that 
he needed religion, and he had made up 
his mind that he must have it. He was 
ready to take up the cross and " go down 
into Jordan," and be baptized ; nay, ,he 
longed for the day to come when he 
could be immersed. It was a most joy- 
ful anticipation. 

Then they went into a Methodist meet- 
ing. There they sang and shouted and 
prayed and clapped their hands. A 
young convert broke out in shouts ; he 
had found the Saviour I Ho had set his 
face towards Zion ; nothing would turn 
him back—" Glory to God !" " hallelu- 
jah !" He only wanted wings to fly. 
He had no fears, no terrors, no doubts. 



188 NUTS FOK BOYS TO CRACK. 

It was all clear and delightful to him. 
He could not shout and sing loud 
enough. 

They then went into an Episcopalian 
meeting, and there too was a young con- 
vert, and devoutly was he reading his 
prayer-book. It never seemed so beau- 
tiful or so precious before. Those pray- 
ers were just what suited his case — so 
reverential, so unexceptionable, so ma- 
jestic. How he admired the " excellen- 
cy of our liturgy," and felt that the lines 
had fallen to him in pleasant places and 
he had a goodly heritage. He felt sure 
that under no other form of worship 
could he grow in grace so fast. 

Next they went to a small, plain brick 
Quaker meeting-house. There too they 
found a young convert. He did not 
shout, did not read prayers, did not ask 
for baptism, did not acknowledge his 
guilt ; but he sat down alone aud pon- 



UNLIKE AND YET ALIKE. 189 

dered and thought, and had "great 
thoughts of heart.'' He thought of his 
own heart and life, of his need of a 
Saviour, and of the character and worth 
of Christ. He did not weep or smile ; 
but he pondered and meditated. 

" There now ; how unlike," said Mr. 
Dunbar, "Is it not just as I said — ^no 
two alike." 

" Nay ; you are there greatly mista- 
ken, sir. If you could see theii* hearts, 
you would find that all this difference is 
merely outside. Get into the heart, and 
you will find that they feel alike as to 
their sins, as to their need of mercy, 
and as to the fitness of Christ to be their 
Redeemer. Put them in heaven, and 
they would all go together and cast 
their crowns at the Saviour's feet." 

" What makes them so different then 
here ? " 

"You must remember that all these 



190 NUTS FOB BOYS TO CRACK. 

have different miuds and modes of think- 
ing ; they were not educated alike, not 
instructed in the Bible alike, and have 
moved in different spheres. And the 
Holy Spirit has kindly adapted himself 
to their peculiar character. ^Diversi- 
ties of operations, but the same Spirit.' 
You and I would try to make men and 
Christians all in one mould; but God 
does not so make men. And instead of 
its being an argument against the real- 
ity of religion, this diversity of showing 
its workings in the heart is- a strong ar- 
gument in its favour. Beneath this ap- 
parent diversity there is unity. I have 
just been to see a sick child: he was 
near death, and singing in a low voice, 
^ I want to be an angel ' And ' I have 
this very afternoon been to see a young 
maiden near her end, and she was sing- 
ing, ^Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to 
thee ; and also a poor sufferer under the 



A TOUGH CUSTOMER. 191 

most awAil pains^ and she said, ^ Thou 
baldest mine eyes waking. I am so 
troubled that I cannot speak ; but I call 
to remembrance my song in the night ; I 
commune with my own heart. The Lord 
will not cast me off for ever. His mercy 
is not clean gone for ever. His promise 
will not; &il ^^^ evermore. Though he 
slay me, yet will I trust him.' " 

"Diversities of operations, but the 
same Spirit." 



There is a certain fellow who travels 
about, but who is so shy that we hardly 
ever catch more than a glimpse of him. 
I have several times met him, but he 
always contrived so to muffle up his face 
that I found it difficult to see how he 
looks. But one day I met him, fairly 



192 NUTS FOR BOYS TO GRACE. 

met him face to face. He had a very 
old look, a sharp, hatchet face, eyes that 
seemed to shoot out fire as he peered 
aromid. His skin was bronzed . and 
greatly wrinkled. He was evidently a 
great traveller ; and his feet seemed to 
be made of flint, and his hands of iron. 
He had a great load of tools, for he was 
evidently a hard worker. His pockets 
were filled with parchments and papers. 
In his hand he held large, rusty keys, 
a long, sharp sword, heavy chains, some 
hot pinchers, and several fire-brands. 
He strode along, looking as innocent as 
possible, and yet so fiercely did he 
move that I was afi:aid he would run 
over me, and stamp me with his heels 
of flint ; so I hailed him. 

^* Hallo there ; do n't run over me. 
Pray who are you ?" 

" An old traveller, sir, moving about 
among men, making war upon hypocrites 



A TOUGH CUSTOMER 193 

and the superstitious; always ready to 
do a good turn, and never idle." 

"Why, sir, you don't look right to 
me, Is it possible you are a holy re- 
former, and go about doing good?" 

^^ That's it, I assure you. I have 
done a great deal of good in my day." 

" Pray how will you prove that ?" 

"Don't you admire the Psalms of 
David, especially those in which he cries 
out so loud against his enemies ?" 

" To be sure I do." 

" Well, I helped him to write all those 
psalms. I wrung them out of him. Do n't 
you like the story of Daniel ?" 

" Certainly I do." 

"Well again, I pushed those three 
men into the fiimace of fire; and I 
thrust Daniel in among the lions; and 
though things didn't work as I expect- 
ed, yet that was not my fault. You like 
the epistles of Paul, do n't you ?" 





194 NUT3 FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

" Yes, very much. The Bible would 
be very incomplete without them. But 
you do n't pretend that you wrote ikem^ 
do you?" 

*^Not exactly. But you notice that 
they are mostly dated in a prison. Well, 
sir, I put him in those prisons. A cap- 
ital place in which to write letters. I 
confess I did not think he would do 
that : I only wanted to stop his preach 
ing; but he was a long-headed fellow, 
and I am not certain but I should have 
done better to have let him go on preach- 
ing. The fieict is, I got caught so once 
since. There was a warm*hearted tin- 
ker, who went round preaching and 
scaring people out of their wits. I got 
him shut up in a jail ; but what did the 
creature do but go to writing a dream, 
which has had more effect upon the 
world than a hundred such preachers. 
Things will work so sometimes*" 



,A TOUGH CUSTOMEB. 195 

"Pray what have you in that great 
bag thrown over your right shoulder ? '^ 

"Dresses, sir; nothing but dresses. 
I sometimes want to come out in a hea- 
then costume, sometimes in a Mahom- 
medan, and sometimes in a papal. I 
can work in one dress and costume as 
well as in another." 

" I see. But what's in that bag under 
you'r left arm which you hug so closely ?' 

" They are little nettles, sir, with 
which I fill the air, and make the faces 
of people smart. They are commonly 
known by the name ot sneers J^ 

" What do you do with that long pole 
in your hand ?" 

" Oh, I stir up mischief, and rouse up 
neighbors ; and by a few pokes can set 
the drunkard to shouting, and the gen- 
teel to scoflSng, and the wicked to blas- 
pheming. But I am in a hurry, and 
can't stop to talk all day." 



196 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK 

* * Where are you going in such haste ?" 

" Why, sir, I am going to the next 
town. I hear there is some trouble 
there with the minister ; and I am going 
to put in my pole, and feel sure I can 
drive him out of town." 

",Yes; but why do you want to do 
that ?" 

"What a simple question! Don't 
you see I am an enemy to all humbugs, 
and all priestcraft, and all that supersti- 
tion which men call religion ?" 

" I see, I see. But what may I call 
your name if I should ever meet you 
again ?" 

"Persecution, sir; old Biabolus Per- 
secutioHy at your service. Don't you 
want me to do something for you ?" 



HOMES OF THE POOB. 197 



The cars stopped in front of the great 
factory just at night, as all the workmen 
were coming out — a great multitude. 
When you look at a great multitude at 
once, you feel very little interest in 
them; but the moment you select one 
or two and look at their faces, you be- 
gin to feel an interest in them. Among 
those who came out I noticed two — one 
a tall, straight, fine looking man. Over 
his shoulder hung a large salt codfish, 
done up in brown paper. He looked 
happy. Doubtless, his day's work being 
done, he was now on his way home to 
wife and children, carrying them food, 
and expecting to see their smiles and to 
hear their greetings. Happy man. I 
could see contentment and health bound 
up in the paper of fish. What a won- 



198 NUTS FOB BOYS TO CBACE. 

derfiil mark of the wisdom of God, that 
such a strong man, instead of being 
idle and Ticions, instead of being a 
thief or a robber, instead of being a 
curse to the world, is now willing and 
happy to spend his life in toiling early 
and late to make his home comfortable, 
his wife and children happy. He can't 
leave and go away, he can't stop work- 
ing, he can't waste his money, and y^t 
among all that multitude who surroimd 
him not one calls him a fool or laughs at 
his drudgery. They all know he is hap- 
pier than men who have no families. 
And is it not. curious that a man will 
thus spend his life, barely having cloth- 
ing and food himself, that he may provide 
for his family ? There is an unseen cord 
that binds him to his home, and all this 
toil and labor are no burden to him, and 
this cord, called love, is the whole secret. 
There was another on whom the eye 



HOMES OF THE POOR. 19^ 

rested; it was a thin-faced, pale little 
girl, about twelve years old. She was 
barefooted, with nothing on her head, 
and looked tired and jaded. She had 
finished her day's work, and was now on 
her way home. Did I pity the poor 
child? Certainly; but then I thought, 
" Now probably this little child has a 
poor home, and she has to work hard, 
but more likely by so doing she carries 
her wages to her poor mother, and she 
and her little brothers and sisters have 
better food and better clothing, and have 
many comforts which they could not have 
without her labor. She too, instead of 
being brought up in idleness and filth, 
has learned to be industrious, and hsis 
found that industry will procure wages 
and comforts. She has learned how she 
can support herself and be independent. 
She has taught her mother to value and 
love the little being whose toil helps het 



200 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

to bear the burdens of life. No, I need 
not pity her as much as if no such bless- 
ing came out of all this. Very likely 
that little girl has in her the elements 
of a noble character ; at any rate she is 
taking great lessons in life ; and though 
the burden falls upon her while a mere 
child, yet what a blessing for her to feel 
every day that shie is so useful." 

So my thoughts ran, till soon I noticed 
a neat but pale woman, with a baby in 
her arms, came to meet the little factory 
girl, to take her hand, and so speak to 
her that the smile of childhood, which I 
feared had been worn off for ever, re- 
turned in all its beauty. It was plain 
that she was bringing a loving heart to 
me6t her child, and a tender care for 
her. She could not wait, but must meet 
her child, and carry the baby too, and 
lead her home. May God bless that 
home. It is not likely I shall ever sea 



HOMES OF THE POOR. 201 

that little girl or her mother again. I 
can do nothing for them. They may 
sicken and die and I shall not 'know it. 
But if the glance of a stranger's eye 
upon them can awaken so much interest 
in his heart, what may we not hope from 
the loving care and tender protection of 
our heavenly Father ? His eye follows 
them to their humble home, and he 
knows every anxiety of their hearts. 
That little sparrow that sits so uncon- 
cernedly on yonder bush, not knowing 
where and how she will find the next 
morsel of food, or where she will sleep 
to-night, is imder his care and love ; and 
that little thistle-down, floating away in 
the air, will settle in the very place 
where he directs. How rich is every 
one who has a Father who owns the 
world. How lovingly and how confi- 
dently that babe rested in the arms of 
its mother, not fearing; that she would 



202 NUTS FOB BOTS TO GBACC 

let it fall, or that her strength would 
give out, or that her love would be ex- 
hausted, or that she could not provide 
for it. Oh that we might so feel towards 
our heavenly Father, whose knowledge 
numbers the very hairs of our heads, 
and whose cares and tender mercies are 
over all his works. Oh, little child, who 
knowest not when thy foot will slip, or 
when pain and sickness will overtake 
thee, or what thy life may be, I know 
thee not ; but how blessed the privilege 
of cpmmending thee to the everlasting 
Eedeemer who doeth all things welL 



I HAVE a special pity for the little 
children of the very rich and the very 
poor : for the former, because their 
natural mothers turn them off to free 



FUNERALS OF THE POOR. 203 

themselves from trouble ; and for the 
latter, because they are unable to take 
care of them. My heart often aches in 
sympathy with a poor family, especially 
when I go to bury their dead. I have just 
returned from such a scene. In the Kttle 
semi-red house near the bank of the river 
they live j* the river is their well, though 
at least half a score of factories defile 
its waters with dyes and soourings before 
they reach the house. You go down a 
very steep bank to reach the door, the 
only door; there is no sink in the house, 
and of course all the dirty waters are 
brought to this door. Not a blade of 
grass nor a flower anywhere near. The 
husband and father is a hard-working, 
illiterate operative in the factory; the 
mother has seven or eight little children 
around her. They are all to be fed and 
clothed by the wages of ^e father, and 
all to be taken care of by the mother. 



204 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

She is thin, looks old, careworn, weary, 
and hopeless. They married young. 
For years they toiled and struggled and 
rowed to weather the cape which lies 
between poverty and thrift. But as 
children increased, sickness, expenses 
of every kind increased. They found 
they never could weather the cape, and 
gave it up, satisfied if they had bread 
enough for to-day, and if they could 
snatch a little enjoyment of any kind as 
the present went by them. 

But I took my pen to say something 
about "little Benny," the little boy just 
buried. "Little Benny" was about three 
years old, naturally a bright, beautiful 
child, and many a rich man would gladly 
have given half of his great fortune for 
such a son. But when Benny was born, 
the father and mother felt that they 
had already as much laid on them as 
they could carry. How could they feed 



FUNERALS OF THE POOR. 206 

and clothe another ? They almost hoped 
he would die as soon as bom. Instead 
of having drawers crowded with rich and 
beautiful gifts, embroidered and wrought 
by loving and skilful hands, instead of 
having a great crowd of friends standing 
ready to greet him and clap their hands 
for joy, there was no preparation, save 
to gather a few little cast-off garments 
of older ones, and no friends ready to 
welcome " little Benny." His first cry 
awoke pity in the heart of his mother, 
but it was almost stifled by the anxious 
inquiry, " How can I take care of an- 
other ?" 

The poor little fellow stayed in this 
cold world about three years. Thank 
God, he never knew that he was not as 

I 

well off as anybody. But these years 
were years of neglect, of hunger, of suf- 
fering for clothing, suffering from want 
of care, and from want of judgment in 



206 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

his parents. A piece of coarse, heavy, 
black bread, or a cold potato, furnished 
him many a meal. Perhaps he never 
tasted butter, and rarely sugar. Can- 
dies, playthings, toys, and the lite — ^he 
never dreamed of such things. He was 
thin, scrawny, and feeble for want of 
nourishment that was proper and prop- 
erly prepared. And now the time came 
when the little oil in the lamp of life was 
burned out. I found the little fellow 
rolling and moaning on his coarse bed, 
near the hot stove, in the only rocnn in 
the house, and burning with fever. He 
seemed to expect nothing, and therefore 
wanted nothing, save now and then a 
little water from the tin cup. If a neigh- 
bor came in to see him, or to relieve his 
mother, she was too ignorant of sickness 
to know what to do, except to guess how 
long he " would ^tand it." They knew 
notiiing how to let in fresh air, to bathe 



FimERALS OF THE FOOB. 207 

the hot Kmbs mth tepid water and vin- 
egar; nothing about symptoms, or the 
necessities of the sick. And so ^^ little 
Benny " moaned until the soft hand of 
Mercy closed his eyes in the sleep of 
death, and his spirit passed away from 
this world of sorrow and pain, in which 
he had found so little sunshine. Poor 
little one. 

And then we buried him. At the 
funeral a few poor neighbors came in. 
There was no crape on a silver bell- 
handle, no sweet flowers in his coffin, 
no plaintive singing by cultivated voices, 
no rosewood coffin covered with came-" 
lias and tea-roses, no carriages waiting 
at the door ; but in the cheapest box, 
shaped like a coffin, with a scanty piece 
of a sheet for a shroud, borne in a rude 
carriage to the grave, he was buried* 
The poor mother wailed aloud. She had 
a piece of old, faded crape over her bon- 



208 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

net by way of mourning. But what could 
she do ? She had no means to procure 
better. " Little Benny I" he will have 
no costly stone with his name carved on 
it. When his mother recalls him, she 
will not think of him as a plump, well- 
fed, joyous child, as the little boy so 
neat in person, so beautiftdly clothed, so 
much the admiration of all ; but she will 
remember him as a poor, diriy, ragged 
child, for whom she knew not how to 
provide, and for whom she cannot mourn 
as a mother's heart wants to mourn. 

Perhaps the very next day I go to 
bury another child of about the same 
age. At the door hang the white and 
black ribbons ; there stands a long row 
of carriages ; in the beautiful coffin, so 
exquisitely made and trimmed, lies the 
fair, sweet child, her long lashes drawn 
over the eyes, her marble hand holding 
the choicest flowers; the finely en- 



FUNERALS OF THE POOR. 209 

graved plate on the coffin, the bearers, 
with their white gloves, the numerous 
friends and acquaintances present, the 
sweet hymns sung, and every thing beau- 
tifully completed. Every memory of the 
child brings up the image qf one joyous, 
full of life and happiness. There are no 
associations but such as are pleasant. 

What a contrast ! God pity the poor. 
I never feel for them as I do when I 
bury their dead. If their eyes do not 
weep as other eyes would, it is be- 
cause want has dried up their tears. I 
know not how many like poor ^^ little 
Benny" I have aided to bury, and my 
experience leads me to say that the 
world little knows what real sorrows 
grow directly out of poverty ; and that 
we often blame the poor for not feeling 
for their children, when the fact is, all 
theit associations with life and death are 
unpleasant even to memory. 



210 NUTS FOE BOYS TO CRACK. 



As the angel of mercy flew over the 
earth at midnight, he saw so many forms 
of sorrow, heard so many groans of pain, 
listened to so many sighs of distress, that 
his heart was moved and saddened. He 
went and laid his sadness at the feet of 
Jesus on the throne. 

" Go back," said the sweet Voice ; "go 
back and visit each one of those suffer- 
ers, and see if they need suffer as they 
do." 

Down again to the earth the swift an- 
gel flew, and entered a small, humble 
dwelling. He paused and stood in the 
chamber door. On the bed lay a dying 
father. He was pale and breathed with 
difficulty. On his breast lay a ^ great 
bufidle. It was evident it was very 
heavy and very oppressive. He could 



WHERE TO LEAVE OUB TROUBLES. 211 

not get it oflf. Presently the angel saw 
a Hand close by the bed holding a large 
sack in the shape of the human heart, 
and on it was written, ^^Cast in all thy 
cares, for he careth for thee." The 
writing was in letters of light, large and 
plain. The poor man put his trembling 
hand into the bundle, and took out a 
handful marked, " Anxieties for my poor 
wife." Slowly and trembling he cast 
it in. Then he took another, marked, 
" Distress for my orphan children." He 
threw that also in; and his load was 
lighter. Once more he took up another 
parcel, marked, " Oh my aged father 
and mother." Slowly he dropped it 
into the sack. Then he seemed to be 
frightened at what he had done, and 
tried to reach down and take back these 
several burdens. But no; the Hand 
withdrew the sack, and he could not 
take them back. Then his breathing 



212 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

became soft and easy, his face lit up 
with smiles, his heart beat with hope, 
and he died in peace and joy, casting 
all his cares on Him who cared for him. 
Next the angel of mercy entered a 
magnificent dwelling. Softly they were 
treading upon the rich Turkey carpet : 
with velvet step and low breathing they 
were gathering around the couch of a 
beautiful, dying child. Near the little 
sufferer stood the mother, pale, tearless, 
wringing her hands in agony. Her child 
she knew, must die — ^was dying. Slowly 
and gently the Hand held up the heart- 
sack, and she read, '^ Cast all your cares 
upon Him, for he careth for you." In 
a moment she threw in her sorrows, her 
griefs, and her agonies ; but before she 
could feel relief she suddenly stooped 
down and snatched them up again, and 
laid them on her own heart. A tender 
Voice seemed to say, " Cast in, cast in, 



WHBRB TO LEAVE OUR TROUBLES. 213 

and thou shalt be comforted." But she 
would not. She said she had cast in all 
her cares, and wondered why she was 
not comforted. Poor weeper ; she for- 
got that we must leave our cares with 
him as well as cast them upon him. 

Again, the angel stood in the study of 
a minister of Christ. It was Sabbath 
evening, and the wearied man was 
thinking over the results of another 
day's sowing, and was crying to his 
Master, ^^Lord, who hath believed our 
report, and to whom hath the arm of 
the Lord been revealed? When will 
the harvest-day come?" The Voice 
spoke to him, ^^ Be not weary in well- 
doing;" *^ in due season you shall reap, 
if you faint not." 

And then he met the physician just 
entering his home, after having seen 
nearly forty patients since he last slept. 
He was worn down. There was an epi- 



314 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

demic, and the community was filled 
with terror. What could he do ? He 
had exhausted all his skill. Gently the 
Hand held up the sack, and he saw 
written, ^* If any of you lack wisdom, let 
him ask of God, who giveth to all men 
liberally, and upbraideth not; and it 
shall be given him." "Cast all your 
cares upon him." 

Then the angel met a little child in 
the street, sobbing and in tears. 

" What is the matter, little one ?" 

" Oh I can't understand my lesson, 
and n>y teacher i, no. patient ^th n>e. 
I try hard; but I can't get it." 

In a moment the Hand drew the sack 
up to the little one, and the Voice bade 
him throw in his sobs and his tears. 

And the angel saw that in every in- 
stance when they cast in their cares and 
did not take them up agaiuj they all were 
comforted and cheered. They could dry 



_j 



BEWARE OP THE CRICKET. 215 

up their tears, and the smile followed 
the tear ; but when they refused to cast 
them in, or were unwiUing to let them 
remain after they had cast them in, there 
was no comfort — the Hand withdrew the 
sack and left the poor sufferer to his sor- 
rows. And as the angel went back to 
the throne, he brought a loud thanks- 
giving that there is one place large 
enough to hold all the sorrows of earth, 
if the poor sufferers would only cast 
them in and let them remain there. 

"Earth hath no sorrows which heaven 
cannot cure," 



It was once a matter of great surprise 
that a man who had passed through the 
temptations of youth and early manhood 
should then fall^ become a knave, and 



216 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

ruin his character ; but we have a great 
many such in our penitentiaries now, 
and probably many more who ought to 
be there. When we consider how great 
is the hunger and thirst for money at 
the present day, how varied and mul- 
tiplied are the temptations to dishones- 
ty, perhaps we ought not to wonder at 
the number of those who cannot resist 
the temptation. Now and then a grey- 
headed man will yield, and throw away 
all the character which his life has earn- 
ed. The great tempter is a skilful fish- 
erman, who waits long and tries different 
kinds of bait before he hooks such. 

The taking of such makes me think of 
a good illustration of what I mean, and 
which I lately saw. 

As I was sauntering along by the side 
of a small stream I came to a high dam, 
over which the waters came tumbling 
and foaming and roaring as if suddenly 



BEWAEE OF THE CRICKET. 217 

awakened out of a pleasant sleep, and 
plunged headlong over the falls. At 
the foot of the falls was foam, and the 
waters twisted and eddied here and 
there, as if frightened at their late 
plunge; but their surface was smooth, 
as if they were trying again to become 
quiet. Just as I reached this place I 
saw Jem White, a keen old fisherman, 
creeping along up, and stopping just 
under the falls. Carefully he fixed his 
rod and put on his beautiful June-fly, 
and with a jerk, such as none but an old 
fly-fisherman understands, he threw it 
spinning over the water, and carefully 
made it swim on the top of the water. 
Scarcely had he done this when a mag- 
nificent trout — I had no conception there 
could be such a fish in the pool — came 
up and looked at the fly without touching 
it. 

^^ Aha," he seemed to say, " you don't 



218 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

catch me so ; I am a little too old to be 
caught in that way. I don't fancy that 
fly, sir." 

Again the fisherman put on another 
fly and threw it over the pool ; but no, 
the old trout was not to be caught thus. 
TTien he tried one fly after another till 
he had used more than a dozen kinds ; 
but nothing would tempt the old trout. 
Not a fish nor a sign of a fish could he 
raise. Carefully laying his rod on the 
rock, he climbed up the bank, and going 
off into the lot, he turned up a flat stone, 
and under it he found two large crickets- 
One of these he succeeded in capturing. 
With a peculiar twinkle in his eye, he 
returned and fixed his cricket on the 
hook in such a way as not to kill it. 
CarefiiUy now he threw his line, so gen- 
tly that the poor cricket seemed to have 
jumped into the water, and to be swim- 
ming for dear life. This was too much. 



BEWARE OF THE CRICKET. 219 

Pop ! up came the old trout and snap- 
ped the poor cricket, and in an instant 
he was hooked, and Jem's eyes twinkled • 
more still as he let him swim here and 
there, just keeping the line taut, without 
breaking the delicate thread. Long time 
he plagued the poor fellow till he was 
tired out, and then he gently drew him 
near the shore and caught him in his 
landing-net, just as the officer catches a 
rogue after hooking him and letting him 
have the line a while. He was a very 
large, old trout, who had resisted the 
temptation of all sorts of flies and baits 
and hooks till he saw the live cricket, 
and the temptation was too great to re- 
sist. Poor foolish fish, the fisherman 
was too much for thee ; he knew how to 
find the very bait that would take thee. 
And does not the greater tempter thus 
fit his bait to every one, and find the 
very cricket that is irresistible ? 



220 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

When I see a man who was accounted 
honest till he reached a position where 
he could defraud a bank and become a 
defaulter for a great sum, I say to my- 
self, ''That fellow could not resist the 
cricket." 

And when another seems honest, and 
like our fish, he has never bit at small 
things, yet when he becomes a railroad 
manager, and speculates and steals by 
the hundred thousand dollars, I feel sure 
that the cricket must have looked large 
in his eyes. 

How often do we see the boy who 
means to be noble and manly resisting 
many temptations, till the cricket is 
thrown before him in the shape of ci- 
gars, or cards, or drinking, or bad com- 
pany, and then the fish is caught. 

How often do we see the little girl 
amiable, kind, and sweet-tempered till 
her young companion has received a 



BEWABE OF THE CRICKET. 221 

prize that she hoped to obtain, or out- 
shone her in a new dress, and then ihe 
fish is caught by the cricket. 

Oh, ye new bonnets and new dresses, 
ye lighted cigars, ye places of drink, ye 
piles of money, what baits ye are in the 
hand of the great destroyer, with which 
he catches his fish ! Alas, we know not 
how strong or how weak we are till the 
bait is thrown before us, and then it is 
often too late. Pray, pray earnestly to 
God that he will give you grace to stand 
and resist for to-day, and when to-mor- 
row comes offer the same earnest prayer. 
Beware of the cricket bait. 



Climhing anb idling. 

On the banks of a beautiful river 
stood a large, wide-spreading, and yet 
lofty tree. The waters that flowed past 



222 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

it were so pure, and the stream always 
so fiill, that the tree was always green, 
£ull of leaves, and abounding in fruit. 
At all times it had fragrant blossoms, 
whose sweetness filled the air, and at the 
same time was loaded with fruit that 
delighted the eye. 

At the foot of this tree there lived 
many nimble, active, and intelligent ants. 
They were told that the fruit oxi this 
tree was most delicious for food, most 
satisfying to the appetite, and most nour- 
ishing to the eater. All around the tree 
looked poor in comparison with that 
golden fruit. They knew too that by 
climbing up into the tree they could 
have just as much of the fruit as they 
wanted. Many ants had gone up and 
reached it, and sent word back for their 
friends and neighbors to hasten up. By 
looking upward they could see the golden 
sunbeams dancing among the green foli- 



CLIMBING AND FALLING. 223 

age, and the fair fruit hanging on every 
bough. At last they determined that 
they would leave their old home, and go 
and live up among this beautiful fruit. 
So they began to climb up, some going 
straight upward, and some in a zig-zag 
course. But it was soon found that they 
kept' slipping and falling down again. 
Some hardly got started ; some up a few 
feet, and some a little higher ; but the 
result was the same. So I set myself to 
watch them, and see what the reason 
could be that they so soon fell back to 
the place of starting. The first one which 
I noticed was an old ant, whose joints 
seemed somewhat stifiened by age, and 
who came tumbling and rolling down 
in a hurry. 

" What's the matter with you, friend?" 
" Matter enough. I can't get up, and 
there's no use trying. Every time I 
have tried I have fallen." 



224 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRICK. 

" Well, why do you try to tug up that 
bit of straw ? That's what tumbles you 
down. It's too heavy." 

" Straw! Sir, do you call that straw ? 
Why, it's the property I have been all my 
life earning. There is not another ant 
under the tree who owns such a prop- 
erty. I must Q^TTj that, at all events." 

The next ant had got up a little 
higher, when a light puff of wind blew 
him off, and he came whirling down. 

"Why, my good fellow, do you try to 
carry that bit of red feather in your 
mouth ? Don't you see the wind strikes 
it and upsets you, and tumbles you 
off." 

"Red feather, you call it? No, sir, 
that is not its name. It is called fash- 
ion^ sir, among us ants, and the longer 
the feather the more fashionable is the 
owner, and I assure you there is no one 
who can show such a feather as that. 



CLIMBINQ JlSD FALLING. 225 

Oh, sir, I can't think of going up and 
leaving my red feather behind." 

The next one that came rolling down 
fell so hard and kicked so feebly that 
I really thought he was killed ; but he 
soon picked himself up, and what do 
you think he had as his load ? It was a 
grain of haxd, yellow saad. 

" Well, Mr. Ant, you are here, and I 
see what kept you from going up ? but I 
can't see the use of that grain of sand." 

"Sand, sir, sand! No, that is pure 
gold. There is not another such lump 
in all antdom. And would you have me 
go up if I can't carry my gold ? I had 
rather never taste the fruit on this tree." 

Down came another, and as he fell 
I heard a sort of ringing sound. And 
would you believe it, the fellow had a 
fiddle in one of his claws. 

" Oh dear, I fear I shall never get up. 
How many times I have fallen. But I 

Q 



226 I^UTS FOB BOTS TO CRACK. 

can't go and leave my fiddle. I must 
have my amusements or I can't live; 
and if I can't carry them with me there 
is no use in my going." 

Then I saw another trying to carry 
up a little demijohn of brandy — just to 
give him strength and to enable him to 
climb the faster. But he hardly began 
to ascend before he fell to the ground. 

Among them was a curious, sly fel- 
low, who seemed to have nothing to hin- 
der him, and yet he could not get up. 
But on close examination I noticed that 
he had a small secret vial, in which was 
a drop of something very black. He 
tried to hide it, but I caught a glimpse 
of it, and saw it labelled "secret sin." 
he toiled and tugged hard, but the vial 
was too much — ^he could not get up. 

Dear reader, this tree is the Tree of 
life ; this river is the River of Life ; this 
fruit is communion with God and the 



THE CHILD'S DREAM. 227 

faith that lifts us to heaven. You see 
the things that keep us jfrom going up 
and taking of the fruits. We try to 
carry too heavy burdens. We are not 
willing to leave the follies and the things 
of this world behind us. Poor little ants ; 
poor human beings. How much alike* 



The longer we live the more we love, 
or ought to love, little children. Their 
joys and sorrows come and go very 
quickly, but every one leaves some im- 
pression which goes into character, and 
perhaps writes its history on the mem- 
ory. A cruelty, an unjust accusation, or 
a severe judgment which the little one 
cannot argue or even resent, may put 
a small thorn in the memory, which no 
afi;er years can extract. I sometimes 



228 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

see these little creatures blind, or deaf, 
or deformed, and my heart goes out tow- 
ards them with a sympathy not to be 
described. 

At the door of a small cottage just 
imder the shadow of the great mountain, 
on a bright morning, sat a poor Uttle 
deformed child. The children were all 
gathering towards the small school-house 
near by, and as they came, with their 
shouts and ringing laughs, swinging their 
little dinner-baskets, happy as birds, run- 
ning and leaping, the poor child turned 
her mild) large eyes towards them, and 
covered her face with her apron, and 
sobbed and wept. She knew that she 
could never run with them, never go to 
school, never be one among them. Her 
journey through life, longer or shorter, 
must be alone. If the children ever 
stopped to speak to her, not unlikely 
before they left they would say some- 



THE CHILD'S DREAM. 229 

thing to remind her of her deformity, 
and to show that she was not one of 
them. She had often felt her lowly lot, 
but never as this morning did it so weigh 
down her heart. Her widowed mother 
heard her sobs, and guessed too well 
what was the cause, and shed new tears 
for the thousandth time over her only 
and dear suffering child. She made no 
attempt to comfort her, she knew she 
could not. ^ 

How long the child sobbed I know not : 
but some time after, 'her mother went to 
her and found her Ijdng on her side, her 
arm imder her head, her kitten asleep 
near her, and herself sound asleep, with 
a sweet smile playing on her face. 
"Poor thing," said the mother to her- 
self, "she has forgotten her sorrows, and 
it may be she di'eams that she is well 
and running about with other children. 
But it is only in dreams that my' dear 



230 NUTS FOR BOYS TO GRACE. 

one will ever run. When she has no 
mother to lift and cany her, what will 
she do ? Oh Father in heaven, why was 
this poor sufferer bom ?" 

A little after, the child awoke and 
called to her mother. With a step never 
slow when that voice was heard, the 
mother hastened to her. 

" Oh, mother, I have had such a beau- 
tiful dream! It makes me happy to 
think of it." 

" What was it, my child ?" 

" I thought I was in a great garden 
full of roses and tulips and all kinds of 
splendid flowers. The humming-birds 
flew among them, the honey-bees sang 
from flower to flower, and the birds sang 
in all the trees around the garden. There 
were fountains of water playing, beauti- 
ful paths to walk in, benches and chairs 
to sit in, and a great multitude of people 
walking about and admiring the flowers. 



THE CHILD'S DREIM. 231 

Presently the owner of the garden came 
in, and seeing me, came to me and took 
me by the hand, and somehow or other 
I seemed to be able to walk by his side 
and move as he moved. He showed me 
the flowers, told me their names, pointed 
out their beauties and their nature. At 
length we came to a plant that stood out 
by itself, near the hedge. It was a green, 
leafless, shapeless, ugly-looking thing. I 
wanted to crush it. It was a real deform- 
ity, and seemed as if made just to show 
how ugly it could look. Just as I was 
going to kick it, the owner held me 
back. * Stop,' said he ; ^ I value that 
flower above any other one. Watch it.' 
And as I watched it, I saw its buds 
grow red, then swell, then open, till 
out burst the most beautiful flower I 
ever saw. It was large, red and purple, 
with long, white petals, as if feeling for 
the light, and the inside of the flower 



232 NUTS FOB BOYS TO CBACK. 

looked as if sunset had spread her satin 
robe there, and had forgotten to take it 
away. I clapped my hands for delight, 
and wondered how so mnch beauty coutd 
grow out oi such deformity. 

" ^Oh, sir, what a flower. I never saw 
80 beautiful a thing. What is its name ?' 

** ^It's called the cactus speciosissimtiSj 
mj child. There is no flower like it for 
beauty, or for growing out of such a stalk. 
Oh, child, do n 't you see how Grod can 
make beauty to grow out of deformity ? 
And do n't you see how, out of your 
poor body, he can train and bring a 
character and a soul beautiful as an an- 
gel ? There is no flower in my garden 
that I think of and admire as much as 
this ; and depend upon it, there is no 
child He thinks of more than you. If 
you will bow to His wisdom, love and 
obey his Son Jesus Christ, he will bring 
out of you a character most beautiftd.' 



LITTLE NELLIE. 233 

Oh, mother, he left me, and I looked 
again at the cactus, and it was turned 
into a little girl, and I looked again and 
saw it was myself. Oh, what a dream I 
And Oh, dear mother, I will love Jesus, 
and never mourn again that I am a poor 
feeble, deformed child." 



Sooner or later in the experience of 
life, we all feel alike. The poor family 
in the cottage as they bury their dead, 
and the rich family in the old mansion 
when death enters there, have the same 
emotions created. Their tears and their 
sorrows are the same, coming from the 
same human heart. And thus the broth- 
erhood of the human family is maintain- 
ed more by our afflictions than by any 
thing else. Few can sympathize with 



234 NUT8 FOR BOYS TO CRACK. ' 

David, the king of a great nation ; but 
Low many can sympathize with him, the 
father, weeping over his lost Absalom. 
Few can know how the king felt in his 
glory ; but when he comes to die — ^not 
the king, nor the great warrior, nor the 
immortal poet even, but " David, the 
son of Jesse " — all can love him then. 

I am thinking of a beautiful home 
which I knew many years ago, in which 
was so much to make life beautiful. It 
stood on the bank and overlooked the 
wide waters, where all forms of ship- 
ping, from the huge steamer to the little 
tow-boat were constantly moving. The 
sea-gulls flew thick and screamed loud 
just before the storm, and the sunbeams 
flashed and twinkled on the silver sur- 
face in the calm. 

The house was large, handsome, con- 
venient, and had every thing about it to 
make it pleasant. It stood in the mid- 



LITTLE NflLLIB. 235 

die of a gentle sloping lawn, with just 
enough of ancient trees in clumps to 
make it a perfect landscape. The walks 
so tastefully curving and winding through 
the grounds, the shrubbery seemingly 
thrown here and there, though accord- 
ing to the highest art, the flowers 
of all forms and hues; indeed every 
thing was so complete and perfect that 
nothing seemed superfluous and nothing 
wanting. 

The family who occupied this beauti- 
ful home were educated, wealthy, refin- 
ed, and most respectable; they were 
well-bred, generous, and kind ; but they 
had a fulness of every thing, and it 
seemed as if there could be no tie of 
sympathy between them and the rest of 
the world, save the very few who were 
in like circumstances. 

But there was one tie, one chord of 
sympathy between them and the poor- 



236 NUTS FOB BOTS TO CBACK. 

est &mily in the whole neighborhood, 
and that tie was " little Nellie." 

"Little Nellie" was their youngest 
child ; and a sweeter, lovelier specimen 
of humanity was seldom seen. But 
*^ little Nellie" was blind — stone blind, 
born blind. Not one ray of light ever 
reached her eyes, and she never knew 
how the beautiM light or any thing else 
looked. How tenderly the mother hung 
over her, watched her, did for her, and 
loved her with a depth of love which 
no language can express. ^ She was the 
centre of all plans and thoughts, and the 
whole family gathered around " little 
Nellie" with a tenderness impossible to 
describe. She was with them six years 
only, when she opened her eyes in a 
world where aU is light, and no darkness 
at all. 

Down near the water's edge was a 
fisherman's small, humble home. In 



LITTLE NELLIE. 237 

that was a little blind boy just about 
Nellie's age. These little ones were 
early brought together, and it was found 
that there was a mysterious sympathy 
between them, with which no one could 
intermeddle. They loved to be together, 
talk and play together, and neither seem- 
ed to know that the one home was any 
better than the other. A few m onths be- 
fore "little Nellie" was called away, 
they were overheard talking together: 

" Tommy, do you know any thing what 
it is to aee^ as my mother does ?" 

"No, I only feel. I can't see any 
thing." 

" But do n't you wish you could see ?" 

"Why, I do n't know. I should not 
know how to see, I think." 

" Oh, I wish I could see ; once, only 
once. Tommy, and that for a little while." 

" What do you want to see so much?" 

" Why, my own mother's fece." 



240 ^UTS FOB BOYS TO CRACK. 

bestowed upon them taught them to be- 
come such blessings to others as the life 
and death of this dear child. It was 
^^ Kttle Nellie's " mission 



Once upon a time long ago, the 
queen of language sent forth a proc- 
lamation that on such a day there woidd 
be a convention of all classes of people, 
who might take her trusty servants, the 
alphabet, consisting of twenty-six let- 
ters, and the one who should form the 
sweetest word should be seated next to 
the queen, and receive a crown of golH. 

Far and wide the proclamation went, 
and multitudes began to study what 
word they would form; but lest some- 
body else should select his chosen word, 
every one kept silent and only looked 



THE QUEBN^S DECISIOT. 241 

wise, as much as to say, ^^ I know some- 
thing, if I only chose to tell." 

At length the day arrived ; and there 
was the queen, and there the crown and 
the alphabet and all the multitude. The 
question now was, who should first spell 
what he considered the most beautiful 
word in the world. So the queen told 
them all carefully to write their word 
and fold it up and cast it into a box 
which she had prepared. She would 
then draw them out by lot^ read the 
word aloud, call upon the writer to 
stand up, and she would then decide 
upon each. So she drew all the multi- 
tude close around her: and all were 
hushed and silent when she put in her 
hand and drew out a paper. Upon 
opening it, she read aloud, " Money." 
" Whose is this ?" asked the queen • 
^^ It is mine," said an old, hard-faced 
miser. 



242 NUTS FOR BOTS TO CRACK. 

" And why do you think this the 
sweetest word in human langua^?' 
said she. 

" Because, madam, money is what all 
want, all toil for, and all rejoice over. 
It will buy any thing, do anything, and 
as the good book says, * Money answer- 
eth all things.' It is the sweetest word 
ever spoken.'* 

^* I beg leave to differ from you, sir. 
You pervert the meaning of the good 
book : you say money will do any thing, 
and procure any thing; is that so? 
Will it raise the sick man from a bed of 
pain ? Will it cheer or save the dying 
man? Will it heal a wounded con- 
science ? Will it restore the dead babe 
to its mother's arms ? Will it open tiie 
door of heaven to the soul, or make im- 
mortality blessed ? No ; it is a slippery 
servant to minister to the wants of the 
body, or to raise the pride, or to pam- 



THE QUEEN'S DECISION. 243 

per the appetites ; or a hard master to 
grind the poor. It is any thing but the 
sweetest word.'' 

She then put her hand again into the 
box and drew out a paper on which was 
written the word ^' Honor." 

".Who claims this?" 

" I do," said a fine-looking young man, 
dressed in splendid military garments. 

" And what is your plea for your fa- 
vorite word ?" said the queen. 

" Why, madam, it seems to me too 
plain for argument. The child at school, 
the boy on the play-ground, the parent 
in planning for his child, the scholar 
in wasting life over his books, the sailor 
irisking his life on the stormy ocean, the 
politician in wrestling for position, and 
the soldier rushing up to the cannon's 
mouth — all are witnesses that honor is 
the word, above all others, that is the 
sweetest to the human ear." 



244 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

"You plead well," said the queen; 
" but I cannot agree with you. Honor 
is a powerfiil instrument with which to 
move men to effort and action ; but you 
will notice that it appeals to and cul- 
tivates supreme selfishness in the heart, 
shuts out domestic affections, tramples 
on the most sacred rights of others, 
seeks its place through fields of blood, 
and often fills nations with wailing. I 
cannot allow you the premium, sir." 

Again the fair hand of the queen drew 
from the box, and on it was written the 
word " Love." 

"Whose may this be?" asked the 
queen in a softened voice. 

" Mine, madam," said a young man 
whose face was glowing with excite- 
ment, while a thousand youths around 
him, and as many bright-eyed maidens, 
seemed ready to shout. 

" And your reasons, sir ?" 



THE QUEEN'S DECISION. 245 

" It is not a matter of reason, madam, 
but it is the verdict of the mother over 
her babe, of that babe as soon as he can 
return her smile, of the child longing for 
homei of the widow in her desolation, of 
youth seeking the dearest friend the 
earth knows, of age leaning upon the 
child for support. It is sung in the 
'songs of the birds, echoed in the notes 
of the mourning dove, and it thrills in 
the language of every living thing. We 
have reason to believe that it reaches 
the angels of heaven." 

"A strong plea, certainly," said the 
queen ; " but I must have time to think 
further upon it before I decide." 

Once more she drew from the box, 
and the word was read amid great 
silence, "Jesus." 

" Whose is this ?" said the queen in a 
low, soft tone. 

" I wrote it," said a sweet little girl. 



24G NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

almost sinking under the eyes that were 
turned upon her. 

" And can you, my child, tell me the 
reason why you think Jesus the sweet- 
est word in the world ?" 

*^ No ; I only feel so." 

" Truly, little one, you feel right. 
There is n*o attribute of humanity, no 
beauty of character, no greatness in our 
idea, nothing exalted, refined, gentle, 
loving or good which is not found in 
him. There is no language on earth 
into which Jesus cannot be introduced 
untranslated. The Jew, the Greek, the 
Hottentot, and the refined nations of 
the earth all sing the same name. It is 
the sweetest word on earth, and proba- 
bly the sweetest in heaven. Come, lit- 
tle child, and sit by my side and receive 
this golden crown, faint emblem of the 
crown which Jesus will one day place 
upon thy head." 



KO RESUBBECnOK. 247 



|i;0 ^Itsurmtbn. 

Perhaps my young reader does not 
know, as he sees the plain, ooarse, sor- 
rel-colored caterpillar creeping on the 
ground, that this caterpillar has a but- 
terfly within him. And higl body is little 
else than a creeping cradle. And yet it 
is just so. Those men who are so skilful 
in dissecting men and animals tell us 
that in cutting a caterpillar in pieces 
they can clearly see the form and shapo 
of the butterfly. Perhaps the child does 
not know that in the fall of the year this 
little caterpillar creeps up on a small 
bush, and there weaves around him a sort 
of shroud, in which he coils up and dies. 
There he hangs through all the cold 
snows and storms of winter. The winds 
rock him, but there is no life apparent. 
Freezing don't hurt it. Inside of that 



248 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

little shroud there is nothing but a thick 
fluid. But when the winter goes past 
and the warm spring returns, the sun 
falls upon this apparently dead tiling, 
the shroud bursts open, and out comes, 
not the caterpillar, but a beautiful but- 
terfly. 

There is a still more curious thing 
connected with our caterpillar. Every 
thing in the world seems to have some 
enemy, some destroyer, so that, as the 
Bible says, " the whole creation groan- 
eth." There is a peculiar kind of fly 
found wherever the caterpillar lives. 
She has a long tail, and in that tail a 
little lance or sting, with which she bores 
a hole. When she sees a caterpillar 
creeping on the ground, what does she 
do but pop down and sting the poor fel- 
low in his back. But that is not all ; for 
in doing this she thrusts a little egg into 
the body of the caterpillar. Perhaps 



NO RESURRECTION. 249 

near him is another of his race whom the 
fly did not see. Now the sting pierced 
the poor fellow, but did not kill him. 
He creeps along and lives through the 
summer, and forgets all about the sting. 
He winds up in the fall and nestles in 
his shroud just as any caterpillar would. 
But now look out; that little egg that 
seemed to be too small to do any hurt, 
hatches out in the caterpillar, and goes 
to work and eats up the butterfly. So 
that, when the warm sun of the spring 
comes, and the grass springs up and the 
leaves burst out of the trees and the 
flowers open, and when the butterfly 
ouffht to burst out into life, there is no 
resurrection for him. He has been de- 
stroyed by the sting. Perhaps on a bush 
close by another hangs, and out of that 
the beautiful butterfly emerges. Poor 
fellow. There is however no great harm 
done. We have a miserable looking fly 



250 NXrrS FOB BOYS TO CBACK. 

instead of the beautiful creature which 
we should have had. The buttetrfly 
seems like an angel beside him. 

And may not every child learn a great 
lesson from this? The Bible tells us that 
" the hour cometh when they that are 
in their graves shall hear the voice of 
the Son of man, and shall come forth-— to 
the resurrection of life, or to the resur- 
rection of damnation." By the resur- 
rection of the spring we see that it is 
easy for God to raise the dead grass, the 
dead leaves, and the dead worm. So it 
will be easy for him to raise men from 
the sleep of the grave. But we see that 
instead of rising a beautiful creation, we 
may come forth like the fly, hideous and 
undesired. We have all been stung by 
sin, and that soul which is within us is 
destroyed. It is not killed, but so in* 
jured that, unless cured of the sting, it 
will rise to shame and everlasting con- 



NO RESUBRECTIOK 251 

tempt. And this is what the blessed 
Redeemer has done: He has provided 
a cure, so that if we go to him for heal- 
ing, we shall not come forth out of our 
graves covered with shame and con- 
tempt. The difference between us and 
the poor caterpillar is this: that while 
only here and there one is stung, we are 
all stung and poisoned by sin. *^ The 
sting of death is sin." While there is no 
cure for him, there is one for us, and an 
angel form may come out of our coffin. 
While he has lost only one short life, wo 
shall lose life everlasting. Whenever I 
see a caterpillar moving along on the 
ground, I wonder if he is already stung, 
and the butterfly will have no resurrec- 
tion. And whenever I see an immortal 
man I know he has felt the sting of sin, 
and wonder if he has been to the great 
Physician for cure, so that he will awake 
in the likeness of Christ and live in 



252 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

God's glory for ever. My dear jovr\g 
reader, how is it with you? Has the 
divine hand of the Son of God taken 
away the sting, so that you will have 
part with him in the first resurrection ? 
" Blessed are they who have part in the 
first resurrection." 



Calling i\it ^txnTimmt. 

They reached the river, the father 
and his little daughter, late in the even- 
ing. The woods through which they had 
passed reached to the very brink ; and 
as the night was cloudy and very dark, 
the woods seemed to render the gloom 
profoundly deep. Far away on the oppo- 
site shore was here and there a twink- 
ling light in the small, scattered houses; 
while farther off still were the bright 
lamps of the great city whither they 



CALLING THE FERRYMAN. 253 

were going. The little child was weary 
and sleepy, and chilled by the evening 
air* Nothing but urgency would have 
induced the father to be out with her 
thus. As they came to the ferry, they 
found the boat over the other side, where 
the ferryman lived. So the father shout- 
ed and called, but no voice answered ; 
then he would walk to and fro, and speak 
to his child, and try to comfort her ; then 
he would call again and again. At length 
they saw a little light move, and heard 
the moving of the boat, l^earer and 
nearer the noise came ; but it was too 
dark to see the boat. But it came across, 
and the travellers entered it. 

'' Father." 

'^Well, my child ?'^ 

" It's very dark, and I can't see the 
shore where we are going." 

" No, little one ; but the ferryman 
knows the way and we shall soon be 



254 NUTS FOB BOYS TO CBACK. 

over, and then soon home in the city, 
where will be light and a good fire-" 
" Oh, I wish we were there, father." 
Slowly and gently the boat swung off 
in the stream ; and though it was dark, 
and the river seemed to run fast, they 
were carried safely over, and the child 
soon forgot her great fear. In a short 
time after they landed she reached her 
home, where loving arms received her ; 
where the room was warm with fire and 
was flooded with light. On the bosom 
of love she rested, and her chills and 
terrors passed away* 

Some months after this the same little 
child had come to another river, darjier, 
deeper, and more fearful still. It was 
the River of Death* When she first 
came near it the air seemed cold, and 
darkness covered it, and all seemed like 
night. The same loving father stood near 
her, distressed that his child must cross 



CALLING THE FERRYMAX. 256 

this river and he not be able to go with 
her. For days and nights he bad been, 
with her mother, watching over her, and 
leaving her bedside only long enough to 
take his meals and pray for the life of 
his precious child. 

For hours she had been slumbering 
very quietly, and it seemed as if her 
spirit was to pass away without her 
waking again ; but just before the mom*' 
ing-wotch she suddenly awoke, with the 
eye bright, the reason unclouded, and 
every faculty alive. A sweet smile was 
playing on the face. 

"Father, I have come again to the 
river-sidC) and am again waiting for the 
ferryman to come and carry me over." 

" Does it seem dark and cold as it did 
when we crossed the river ?'^ 

'^ Oh no. There are no dark, gloomy 
trees here. The river is not *black, but 
covered with floating silver* Tlie boat 



256 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

coming towards me seems to be made of 
solid light; and though the ferryman 
looks dark, I am not afraid of him." 

" Can my child see across the river ?" 

" Oh yes ; but instead of the little 
twinkling light here and there, as before, 
I can see a great, beautiful city, flooded 
with light and glory. I see no sun and 
no lamp, no moon or stars ; but it's full 
of light. Ah, I hear music too coming 
softly over the river, sweet as the angels 
could make." 

" Can you see any one on the other 
bank of the river ?" 

"Why, why, yes. I see One, the 
most beautiful form I ever saw; and 
what a face ! what a smile ! And now 
he beckons me to come. Oh ferryman, 
make haste. I know who it is. It is 
Jesus — my own blessed Jesus. I shall 
be received into his arms; I shall rest 
in his bosom," 



CALLIKG THE FERRYMAN. 257 

*' Is my little daughter afraid ?" 
" Afraid, dear mother ? Not a bit. I 
think of my Psalm : * Though I walk 
through the valley of the shadow of 
death, I will fear no evil ; for thou art 
with me ; thy rod and thy staff they 
comfort me/ " 

And thus she crossed the dark river, 
made like a silver stream by the pres- 
ence of the blessed Redeemer. The 
father and mother wept, but joy and 
sorrow mingled in their tears. They 
could almost see the golden gates open 
to receive their loved one ; and they then 
understood the words of the prophet, 
^^ The child shall die a hundred years 
old." 



s 



258 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 



The visitor of our great American 
forests is often surprised at the new, 
curious, and often startling noises around 
Hm. In the evening is a long-drawn, 
lonely cry of the loon, so different from 
his wild slniek when on the wing ; then 
when all is still, and every leaf is hang- 
ing motionless, the owl will often break 
out close to you with a loud, hoarse 
voice, sometimes hooting, and sometimes 
laughing. Just after sunset the blue 
heron swings his ungainly body with his 
immusical notes, on his way to his dry 
tree for the night ; and from the top of 
the rocks in the water the white gulls 
will scream, as if trying to wake up a 
storm. The very hoarse raven stands 
on the pine-tree top, and utters his call ; 
and the pump-puddler sucks his water, 



THE WOOD-THRUSH. 269 

seems to strangle and choke, and pump 
with loud agony. The wolf in the forest 
howls in tones so varied that each one 
seems to be at least a dozen. The pan- 
ther utters his peculiar scream, making 
the deer in his hearing to scamper with 
all speed. Then there is the sharp whis- 
tle of the fish-hawk sailing round his 
huge nest on the top of the broken-off 
tree, the long, cat-like scream of our 
great eagle, and the roar of a thousand 
bull-firogs, the squeal of the musk-rat, 
and the horse-like whinnoy of the otter. 
All these voices are wild, coarse, and 
designed for calls and warnings of dan- 
ger. There is not one of them that is 
not harsh and immusical. 

But among all the^e varied and curi- 
ous voices there is one little dweller in 
the forest, wild, solitary, seldom seen, 
who is a most extraordinary exception : 
I mean the wood-thrush. There are 



260 NUTS FOB BOYS TO CRACK. 

more than forty little warblers, or whis- 
tlers in our forests, such as the tib- 
tib " sitting on the very summit of the 
fir-balsam and uttering his own name, 
and the yellow-throat, the black-breast, 
and the hermit-thrush, who has often 
had his name applied to the wood-thrush. 
His notes are of the sorrowful kind. But 
all these are forgotten when you hear 
the wood-thrush. Sit down just as the 
sun sets, and as the twilight settles over 
the green forest, turning every thing into 
darkness, fi-om the thickest shades his 
song bursts upon your ear — sweet be- 
yond all expression. Grenerally there 
are about three who get within hear- 
ing distance, and when one has fin- 
ished his song the second takes it up, 
and so the third. No three are equally 
sweet, but among them there is always 
one that is inimitably sweet. I can com- 
pare it to nothing unless it be silver 



THE WOOD-THRUSH. 261 

balls poured into cups of gold, clear, 
ringing, tender, and sweet. I know not 
why, but on hearing the dear little fel- 
low, I always feel sad — ^the song is so 
unearthly, so unlike any other forest- 
notes, so suggestive of the wonderful 
pipes perfect within him the day he 
was created. How a little thrush so 
small could be made so imlike all the 
dweUers around him, is a deep mystery. 
I can remember no other songster that 
begins to utter notes so sweet. They 
break upon the ear from the deep re- 
cesses of the forest like the notes we 
might suppose we should hear if an angel 
were tuning his harp, and we were hear- 
ing the vibrations of the strings. I think 
of him as something hardly belongiDg to 
this world. 

And for whose ear were those solemn, 
weird notes created ? Not one in ten 
thousand of them ever falls on a human 



2G2 NUTS FOR BOYS TO CRACK. 

ear. And of those who do listen to them^ 
yeiy few seem to appreciate them. Like 
the wild flowers that grow far up in the 
clefts of the mountains or in the depths 
of the wilderness, they seem created for 
somebody besides us. And when we read 
that "the Lord rejoiceth over his works," 
may we not understand that the same 
beautiful things that please our eyes, 
and the same sweet notes that captivate 
our ears, please him ? It is almost an 
instinct of our nature to place flowers 
on the altars of the Lord, as if they were 
pleasing to him ; and when I have been 
listening to the evening song of the 
wood-thrush, I have felt a kind of awe, 
as if those wonderful notes were not 
made for me, but that this was the even- 
ing hymn which the little bird was pour- 
ing out for the ear of God. And I have 
felt too that if I and the rest of us should 
do as much as he, in proportion to our 



THE WOOD THRUSH. 263 

intelligence and accountability, we should 
do much to show forth his praises. There 
is no beauty in the form or the color or 
the flight of our thrush. All his glory 
is concentrated in his throat, and con- 
densed in this one talent of song. Oh, 
lovely bird, thou never inquirest whether 
mortal ears are near to hear thy notes 
or praise thy song, but when the hour of 
praise returns thou art ready to offer 
thine incense of praise ; and I will learn . 
of thee that there is ever an ear open to 
hear the lowliest praise, and an eye to 
see the most retired of his creatures, 
and I hear thee say, Behold the fowls 
of the air, and learn of them. 



BEMllObX AKD B0N8, PAINTERS, LOSDOK AN1> DEKBY. 



