Caleb in the Country, Jacob Abbott [guided reading books TXT] 📗

plant with it, and it was in fact an elegant little flower.

"Now, Dwight," said Madam Rachel, as they walked along again, Dwight holding his flower very carefully in his hand, "notice this feeling you have towards Mary Anna, which led you to get the flower. It was not fear of her,--it was not hope of getting any reward from her, I suppose."

"No, indeed, mother," said Dwight.

"It was simply a desire to give her pleasure. When you go in, you will take a pleasure yourself in going to her, and gratifying her with the present. Now, do you suppose that the boys generally have any such feeling as that towards God?"

"No, mother," said David, "I don't think they have."

"Nor do I. They are dead to all such feelings. They take no pleasure in pleasing God. They don't like to think of him, and I don't see that they shew any signs of having any love for him at all."

They walked along, after this, silently. Dwight saw how destitute of love to God his heart had been, and still was; and yet he could not help thinking that he did sometimes feel a little grateful to God for all his kindness and care; and at least some faint desires to please him.

It was nearly dark when they arrived at the house; and Dwight asked his mother to let him run and give Mary Anna her blue-bell. She was very much pleased with it indeed. She arranged it and the leaves that Dwight had brought with it, so as to give the whole group a graceful form, and put it in water, saying she meant to rise early the next morning to paint it. Dwight determined that he would get up too and see her do it.


CHAPTER XIII.

THE JUNK.


A few days after this, when David and Dwight were at work one evening upon their mole, and Caleb was playing near, sometimes helping a little and sometimes looking on, Mary Anna came down to see them. They had nearly finished the stone-work and were trying to contrive some way to fasten up their flag-staff at the end.

"We can't drive the flag-staff down into our mole," said Dwight, looking up with an anxious and perplexed expression to Mary Anna, "for it is all stony."

"Couldn't you drive it down into the bottom of the brook, and then build your mole up all around it?" said Mary Anna.

"No," said Dwight, "the bottom of the brook is stony too."

"It looks sandy," said Mary Anna, looking down through the water to the bottom of the brook.

"No, it is very hard and stony under the sand, and we cannot drive any thing down at all."

"Well," said Mary Anna, "go on with your work, and I will sit down upon the bank and consider what you can do."

After some time, Mary Anna proposed that the boys should go up to the wood-pile and get a short log of wood, which had one end sawed off square, and roll it down to the mole. Then that they should dig out a little hole in the bottom of the brook with a hoe, so deep that when they put in the log, the upper end would be a little above the surface of the mole. Then she said they might put in the log, with the sawed end uppermost, and while one boy held it steady, the other might throw in stones and sand all around it till it was secure in its place. Then they could build the mole a little beyond it; and thus there would be a solid wooden block, firmly fixed in the end of the mole.

"But how shall we fasten our flag-staff to it?" said David.

"Why you must get an augur, and bore a hole down in the middle of it, and make the end of your flag-staff round so that it will just fit in."

The boys thought this an excellent plan, and went off after the log. While they were gone, Mary Anna asked Caleb if he had fed his squirrel that evening, and Caleb said he had not.

"Hadn't you better go now and feed him before it is too dark?"

"Why, no," said Caleb, "I don't want to go now; besides, I am going to let Dwight feed him to-night. I promised Dwight that I would let him feed him sometimes."

The truth was that Caleb wanted to stay and see the boys fix their log. He had had his squirrel now several days, and had lost his interest in him, as boys generally do in any new play-thing, after they have had it a few days. He was really, under this show of generosity and faithful performance of his promise, only gratifying his own selfish desires, but he did not see it himself. The heart is not only selfish and sinful, but it is deceitful; it even deceives itself.

So, presently, when Caleb saw David and Dwight rolling the log down from the house, he ran off to meet them, and said,

"Dwight you may feed my squirrel to-night, and I will help David roll down the log."

Dwight looked up with an air of indifference, and said he did not want to feed the squirrel that night.

Caleb was quite surprised at the answer; and he walked along by the side of Dwight and David towards the mole, as they rolled the log along, scarcely knowing what to do. He did not want to leave the poor squirrel without his supper; and, on the other hand, he did not want to go away from the mole. Mary Anna saw his perplexity, and she understood the reason of it.

Now, it happened that Mary Anna had been forming a very curious plan about the squirrel, from the very day when he was brought home; though she had not said any thing to the boys about it. To carry her plan into execution, it was necessary that the squirrel should be hers; and she resolved from the beginning, that as soon as a convenient opportunity should offer, she would try to buy him. She determined, therefore, to wait quietly until she saw some signs of Caleb's being tired of his squirrel, and then she determined to buy him.

She did not suppose that Caleb would have got tired of the care of his squirrel quite so soon as this; but when she found that he had, she thought that the time had arrived for her to attempt to make the purchase. So when Caleb came back to the mole, she said,

"Caleb, I have a great mind to go and feed your squirrel for you, if you want to stay here and help the boys to make the mole. In fact, I should like to buy him of you, if you would like to sell him."

"Well," said Caleb, "what will you give me for him?"

"Let me see--what can I make you." And Mary Anna tried to think what she could make Caleb that he would like as well as the squirrel. She proposed first a new picture-book, and then a flag, and next her monthly rose; and, finally, she said she would make him something or other, and let him see it, and then he could tell whether he would give his squirrel for it or not.

"I shall, I know," said Caleb, "for I can see him just as well if he is yours as I can if he is mine."

"But perhaps I shall let him go," said Mary Anna.

"O no," said Caleb, "you must not let him go."

"If I buy him of you," replied Mary Anna, "he will be mine entirely, and I must do whatever I please with him."

"O, but I shall make you promise not to let him go," said Caleb, "or else I shall not want to sell him to you."

"Very well," said Mary Anna; "though you can tell better when you see what I am going to make you."

Mary Anna then went up to the house, and fed the squirrel, and as it began to grow dark pretty soon after that, the boys themselves soon came up. She asked David if he would make her a mast, and also a small block of wood for a step.

"A step!" said David; "a step for what?"

"A step for the mast," said Mary Anna.

"What is a step for a mast?"

"It is a block, with a hole in it for the lower end of the mast to fit into," said Mary Anna.

"Do they call it a step?" said David.

"Yes," said Mary Anna; "I read about it in a book where I learned about rigging. Any little block will do."

David's curiosity was very much excited, and he begged Mary Anna to tell him what she was going to make.

"Well," said Mary Anna, "if you will keep the secret."

"Yes," said David, "I will."

"A Chinese junk!" said Mary Anna.

"A Chinese junk!" said David, with surprise and delight.

"Yes, now run along to mother."

So David went, and Mary Anna began to think of her work. She happened to have recollected that there was in the garret an old bread-tray, of japanned ware, which had been worn out and thrown aside, and was now good for nothing; and yet it was whole, and Mary Anna thought it would make a good boat. As, however, it was not shaped like a boat, she thought she would call it a Chinese junk, which is a clumsy kind of vessel, built by the Chinese. Accordingly after the boys had gone to bed, she got all her materials together; the old bread-tray for the hull of the junk, some fine twine for the rigging, David's mast and step, and a piece of birch bark, which she thought would represent very well the mats of which the Chinese make their sails. She carried all those things to her room, so as to have them all ready for her to go to work upon the vessel very early the next morning.

And early the next morning she did get to work. On the whole, the craft, when finished, if it was not built exactly after the model of a real Chinese junk, would sail about as well, and was as gay. She got it all done before breakfast, and carried it down, and hid it under some bushes near the mole.

Then, after breakfast, she took the boys all down, and told Caleb that she was ready to make him an offer for his squirrel. She then went to the bushes, and taking out the junk, she went to the mole, and carrying it out to the end, she gently set it down into the water. The boys looked on in great delight, as the junk wheeled slowly around in the great circles of the whirlpool.

Caleb hesitated a good deal before he finally decided to give Mary Anna his squirrel, and he tried to stipulate with her, that is, make her agree, that she would not let him go; but Mary Anna would not make any such agreement. She said that if she had the little fellow at all, she must have him for her own, without any condition whatever; and Caleb, at length, finding the elegance of the Chinese junk irresistible, decided to make the trade.

And now for Marianna's plan. She liked to see the squirrel very much; she admired his graceful movements,