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

said was true.

"And yet, perhaps, you think it is a very little thing after all," she continued, "just moo-ing at Caleb a little. The pain it gave him was soon over. Just sending him down cellar to get apples, made him forget it in a moment; so that you see it is not the mischief that is done, in this case, but the spirit of mind in you, that it shews. It is a little thing, I know; but then it is a little symptom of a very bad disease. It is very hard to cure."

"Well, mother," said Dwight, looking up, and speaking very positively, "I am determined not to trouble Caleb any more."

"Yes, but I am afraid your determinations won't reach the difficulty. As long as the spirit of mind remains, so that you are capable of taking pleasure in the sufferings of another, your determinations not to indulge the bad spirit, will not do much good. You will forget them all, when the temptation comes. Don't you remember how often I have talked with you about this, and how often you have promised not to do it, before?"

"Why, yes, mother," said Dwight, despondingly.

"So, you see determinations will not do much good. As long as your heart is malicious, the malice will come out in spite of all your determinations."

Just at this moment Caleb came in, bringing his plate of apples, with an air of great importance and satisfaction. He had nearly forgotten his troubles. Soon after this, dinner was brought in, and Madam Rachel said no more to the boys about malice. After dinner, they went out again to play.


CHAPTER III.

BUILDING THE MOLE.


Caleb sat down upon the step of the door, eating a piece of bread, while Dwight and David returned to their work of building the mole. They got the wheelbarrow, and loaded it with stones.

Caleb sat a few minutes more at the door, and then he went into the house, and got his little rocking chair, and brought it out under the elm, and sat down there, looking towards the boys, who were at work near the water. At last, David spied him sitting there, and said,

"There is Caleb, sitting under the great tree."

Dwight looked around, and then, throwing down the stone that he had in his hands, he said,

"I mean to go and get him to come here."

So he ran towards him, and said,

"Come, Caleb, come down here, and help us make our mole."

"No," said Caleb, shaking his head, and, turning away a little; "I don't want to go."

"O, do come, Caleb," said Dwight; "I won't trouble you any more."

"No," said Caleb: "I am tired, and I had rather stay here in my little chair."

"But I will carry your chair down to the brook; and there is a beautiful place there to sit and see us tumble in the stones."

So Caleb got up, and Dwight took his chair, and they walked together down to the shore of the brook. Dwight found a little spot so smooth and level, that the rocking-chair would stand very even upon it, though it would not rock very well, for the ground was not hard, like a floor. Caleb rested his elbow upon the arm of his chair, and his pale cheek in his little slender hand, and watched the stones, as, one after another, they fell into the brook.

The brook at this place, was very wide and shallow, and the current was not very rapid, so that they got along pretty fast; and thus the mole advanced steadily out into the stream.

"Well, Caleb," said Dwight, as he stopped, after they had tossed out all the stones from the wheelbarrow, "and how do you like our mole?"

"O, not very well," said Caleb.

"Why not?" said Dwight, surprised.

"It is so stony."

"Stony?" said Dwight.

"Yes," said Caleb, "I don't think I could walk on it very well."

"O," said Dwight, "we are going to make the top very smooth, when we get it done."

"How?" said Caleb.

"Why, we are going to haul gravel on it, and smooth it all down."

"Why can't we do it now?" said David, "as we go along: and then we can wheel our wheelbarrow out upon it, and tip our stones in at the end."

"Agreed," said Dwight; and they accordingly leveled the stones off on the top, and put small stones in at all the interstices, that is, the little spaces between the large stones, so as to prevent the gravel from running down through. Then they went and got a load of gravel out of a bank pretty near, and spread it down over the top, and it made a good, smooth road; only, it was not trodden down hard at first, and so it was not very easy wheeling over it.

They found one difficulty, however, and that was that the gravel rolled over each side of the mole, and went into the water. To prevent this, they arranged the largest stones on each side, in a row, for the edge, and then filled in with gravel up to the edge, and thus they gradually advanced towards the middle of the stream, finishing the mole completely as they went on. Caleb then said he liked it very much, and wanted to walk on it. So the boys let him. He went out to the end, and stood there a minute, and then said that he wished he had his whip there, to whip in a stick which was sailing down a little way off.

"Where is your whip?" said David.

"I suppose it is hanging up on its nail," said Caleb, "I mean to go and get it."

So Caleb walked off the mole, and went slowly up towards the house, singing by the way, while David and Dwight went after another load of gravel. While they were putting down this load, and spreading it on, Caleb came back, looking disappointed and sorrowful, and saying that he could not find his whip.

"Where did you put it when you had it last?" asked David.

"I put it on the nail," said Caleb, "I always put it on the nail."

"O, no, Caleb," said Dwight; "you must have left it about somewhere."

"No," said Caleb, shaking his head with a positive air, "I am sure I put it on my nail."

"When did you have it last?"

"Why,--let me see," said Caleb, thinking. "I had it yesterday, playing horses on the wood-pile: and then I had it this morning,--I believe,--when I went up the brook to meet Raymond."

"Then you left it up there, I know," said Dwight.

"No," said Caleb, "I am sure I put it on my nail."

"You did not have it, Caleb," said David, mildly, "when we met you on the bridge."

"Didn't I?" said Caleb, standing still and trying to think.

"No," replied Dwight, decidedly.

"I wish you would go up there with me, and help me find it."

"Why, we want to finish our mole," said David.

"I'll go," said Dwight, "while you, David, get another load of gravel. Come, Caleb," said he, "go and shew me where it was."

So Dwight and Caleb walked on. They went down to the bridge, crossed the stream upon it, then turned up, on the opposite bank, and walked on until they came to the cotton landing. Caleb then pointed to the place where he had fallen in; and they looked all about there, upon the bank, and in the water, but in vain. No whip was to be found.

Before they returned, they stopped a moment at the cotton landing, and Caleb shewed Dwight that the cotton was all made of little bubbles. They got some of it to the shore and examined it, and then, just as they were going away. Dwight exclaimed, suddenly,

"There is your whip, now, Caleb."

Caleb looked round, and saw that Dwight was pointing towards the little fall or rather great ripple of water, and there, just in the fall, was the whip-handle floating, and kept from drifting away by the lash, which had got caught in the rocks. There the handle lay, or rather hung, bobbing up and down, and struggling as if it was trying to get free.

After various attempts to liberate it, by throwing sticks and stones at it, Dwight took off his shoes, turned up his pantaloons to his knees, and waded in to the place, and after carefully extricating the whip, brought it safely to the shore.

"I am very glad I have got my whip again," said Caleb, while Dwight was putting on his shoes.

"I am glad too," said Dwight. "But you told a lie about it, Caleb."

"A lie!" said Caleb.

"Yes: you said you certainly hung it up upon the nail," said Dwight, as they began to walk along.

"Well, I thought I did," said Caleb.

"That makes no difference. You did not say you thought you hung it up, but that you were sure you did."

"Well, I certainly thought I did," said Caleb; "and I am sure it wasn't a lie."

Dwight insisted that it was, and Caleb determined to ask his grandmother.

They returned to the mole.

It was not long after this, that David, on looking towards the house, called out that his mother was coming. It was true. She put on her bonnet, and was coming slowly down to the brook, to see how the boys got on with their work. They were rejoiced to see her coming. They took Caleb's chair, and laid it down upon its side, and then put one of the side-pieces of the wheelbarrow upon it with the clean side up; and this made quite a comfortable seat for her, though it was a little unsteady. She sat down upon it, and made a good many enquiries about their plan and the progress of the work.

"Well, boys," said she, "that is a capital plan, and you will have a great eddy above your mole."

"An eddy!" said Dwight, "what is that?"

"Why, the water coming down, will strike upon the outer end of your mole, and be turned in towards the shore, and then will go round, and will come into the stream again. There, you can see it is beginning to run so already."

So the boys looked above the mole, and they saw the little bubbles that were floating in the water, sailing round and round slowly, in a small circle, between the upper side of the mole and the shore.

"When you get it built away out," said Madam Rachel, "there will be quite a whirlpool; you might call it the Maelstrom. There, you see, Caleb can have a little harbour up there on the shore, and one of you can go out to the end of the mole, and put a little ship into the water, and the eddy will carry it round to him. Then he can take out the cargo, and put in a new one, and then set the ship in the water, and the current will carry it back again, round on the other side of the whirlpool."

The boys were very much delighted at this prospect, and they determined to build out the mole very far, so as