Citation
The little mischief-maker

Material Information

Title:
The little mischief-maker and other stories
Series Title:
Uncle Frank's home stories
Creator:
Woodworth, Francis C ( Francis Channing ), 1812-1859
Scribner, Charles, 1821-1871 ( Publisher )
Benedict, Charles W. ( printer )
Place of Publication:
New York
Publisher:
Charles Scribner
Manufacturer:
C.W. Benedict, Stereotyper and Printer
Publication Date:
Copyright Date:
1951
Language:
English
Physical Description:
174 p., <1> leaf of plates : ill. (some col.) ; 15 cm.

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Children's stories ( lcsh )
Children's stories -- 1852 ( lcsh )
Embossed cloth bindings (Binding) -- 1852 ( rbbin )
Bldn -- 1852
Genre:
Children's stories ( lcsh )
Embossed cloth bindings (Binding) ( rbbin )
novel ( marcgt )
Spatial Coverage:
United States -- New York -- New York
Target Audience:
juvenile ( marctarget )

Notes

General Note:
Added title page, engraved.
Funding:
Brittle Books Program
Statement of Responsibility:
by Uncle Frank.

Record Information

Source Institution:
University of Florida
Holding Location:
University of Florida
Rights Management:
This item is presumed to be in the public domain. The University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries respect the intellectual property rights of others and do not claim any copyright interest in this item. Users of this work have responsibility for determining copyright status prior to reusing, publishing or reproducing this item for purposes other than what is allowed by fair use or other copyright exemptions. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions may require permission of the copyright holder. The Smathers Libraries would like to learn more about this item and invite individuals or organizations to contact The Department of Special and Area Studies Collections (special@uflib.ufl.edu) with any additional information they can provide.
Resource Identifier:
027026432 ( ALEPH )
08844026 ( OCLC )
ALJ0551 ( NOTIS )

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L MISCHIEF -MAKING.







THE

LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

AND OTHER STORIES.

With lustrations.

BY UNCLE FRANK,

AUTHOR OF THE “STRAWBERRY GIRL,” ETC, ETC,

NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 145 NASSAU STREET.
1852.







Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 135), by
CHARLES SCRIBNER,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District ot New York.







C. W. BENEDICT,
STEREOTYPER AND Printer,
201 William st., N.Y.



CONTENTS,



Pact

THE LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER, . . . . . 7

MY FIRST BARGAIN, . . e e e ° 54
THE BOY AND THE ROBIN, e . ° e . 7
LEADING AND DRIVING, . . . . . . 76

BEATING FEOPLE DOWN, . . : . . »- 87

AUNT SUSAN AND HER SECRET, . . . e 124
GO AHEAD, . : . . . . . . 141
THE YELLOW BIRD'S COMPLAINT, . . . . 154

THE HAPPY FAMILY, . e . . . . . 159



vi CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

MISCHIEF-MAKING, - .» «© +» Frontispiece
VIGNETTE TITLE-PAGE, . . . . . . 1
TEARING UP THE LETTER, . e e . . 22

THE MISCHIEF-MAKER DISCOVERED, . . . - 47
THE ROBIN, . . . . . . . . 72
BEATING DOWN THE GLAZIER, . ° . . - 111
SPORTS OF VACATION, . . . . . . 136

THE PRISONED BIRD, . . . ° . . 155



THE LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER, ETC.

CHAPTER I.
THE LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

Or all the girls that came to our school,
the most nated for mischief-making was
Clara Redwood. Clara was, in the
main, a good, kind, sweet-tempered girl.
But she was half her time engaged in
some piece of mischief or other. I sup-
pose, that, at heart, she was no worse
than many of her associates -in school.
But however that may be, candor com-



8 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

pels me to say that, if she wasa good —
girl, she sometimes had a very bad way
of showing it.

I used to wonder why she would go
on with her mischievous tricks, day after
day; for she very often got punished for
her misdemeanors. ‘The schoolmasters
and schoolmistresses in our school used
the rod and the ferule a good deal—
much oftener, I think, than these instru-
ments are used now-a-days. And they
had a knack of striking pretty hard, too.
Some people, who have the government
of children, believe in corporal punish-
ment as much as anybody; but when
they come to apply it, they do the thing



AND OTHER STORIES. 9

so softly and delicately, that the child
is sometimes quite at a loss to know
whether the punishment is a serious one,
or whether it is all sham. But our
teachers were not of that sort. When
they used the ferule, or the seasoned
hickory sprout, they left the marks on us,
so that we could carry them home with
us, and show our parents what kind of
scholars we had been that day.

Oh, how many times I have seen
Clara punished in one way and another.
And yet, her punishment did not seem to
make any difference with her. Perhaps
the very next day after she had received
on her hand half a dozen blows from the



- 10 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

ferule, she got into a scrape that called
for some new punishment. Was it be-
caus¢. her memory was so poor? What
was the reason of it? Iam sure I never
could tell. I guess it must -have been
because she loved mischief so well.
But how came she to have such a taste
for mischief? What good did it doany- —
body else ?

_If she had had the faculty which some
young people possess, of getting easily
out of a scrape, one might wonder less
how she came to get into so many. But
she had no such faculty. On the con-
trary, she always got found out, when
she had been in mischief. There was



AND OTHER STORIES. pa

not a particle of deception about her.
She could not have deceived the school-.
master, if she had attempted to do so.
Some boys and girls, who went to our
school, might cut all manner of capers ;
and unless the sharp eye of the school-
master was on them at the time, he could
not conjecture which was the rogue—
they wore such grave and sober faces, as
if nothing had happened. But it was
quite otherwise with Clara. If she had
done anything in the shape of mischief,
and it was found out that the mischief
had been done, it was no matter whether
she had been seen in the att er not.
The schoolmaster had only te. look at



12 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

her face. That told the story. That
said as plainly as anybody could wish,
‘‘Clara Redwood did it.”” Ah, that tell-
tale face! How many whippings it used
to cost her, to say nothing about other
and milder modes of punishment.

I must give you a specimen or two of
her mischief. I want you to see what
a rattle-headed, thoughtless, frolicking,
girl she was, and what she got by her
mischief.

She had a little sister, several years.
younger than she was, named Gertrude.
Clara used to tease her a good deal.
This teasing, young friend—let me say
it now, while I think of it—is, as a gen-



AND OTHER STORIES. 13

eral thing, bad business. I never saw
much good come out of it. But I have
seen a great deal of evil result from it.
It is well enough for brothers and sisters
to have a good time of it, when they are
playing ‘together. Uncle Frank don’t
like to see moping children. He goes
for fun. He don’t like to see children
as grave and sedate as judges on the
bench. He believes that there is time
enough for people to be men and women,
when they are grown up. He thinks
that children’s heads ought to grow on
children’s shoulders, and no other kind
of heads, and children’s hearts ought to
throb in children’s bosoms. Uncle Frank



14 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

don’t care how merry boys and-girls are,
when they are at play. The merrier the
better, to suit him. But it always gives
him pain to see the little folks teasing
each other, he is so much afraid that that
kind of sport will turn out badly in the
end.

T tell you, it is hard work to appear
to be kind, when you are teasing any-
body younger than yourself, especially if
you keep it up for some time. You may
have ever so much kindness in your
heart; but it is difficult to make the one
you are teasing feel that you are kind.
So that, take it altogether, I consider
teasing bad business; and it gives me



AND OTHER STORIES. 18

rather a poor opinion of a boy or girl,
when I see him or her often engaged in
that sort of business.

Clara—I am sorry to be obliged to say
so much to the discredit of the girl—
used to love to tease this sister of hers.
She would get Gertrude’s slate, after the
little girl had drawn pictures—rather
rude, to be sure—of horses, and dogs,
and lambs, and birds, and rub all the pic-
tures out. She would get Gertrude’s
doll, and black its face up with ink.
She would worry Gertrude’s little kitten,
and make it mew; hide Gertrude’s hoop
and top, so that she could not find them ;
and do a hundred things of this kind. It



16 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

is probable she did so just for the sake of
the fun, not because she wanted to hurt
her sister’s feelings. But she did hurt
her sister’s feelings. Many and many a
time, the little girl would cry, as if her
heart would break, when Clara teased
her in this style. There was not a par-
‘ ticle of excuse for Clara; for her sister
never teased her in return.

Clara had a brother, too, by the name
of Andrew. I don’t recollect which was
the older. But there was not much dif-
ference in the ages of the two. Andrew
was a pretty quiet sort of a boy, remark-
ably fond of his books, and seldom dis-
posed to get into mischief. But Clara



AND OTHER STORIES. 17

used -to tease him sometimes, until I am
not sure but he sighed for that

——“lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,”

of which the poet Cowper makes men-
tion. Bridget, Mrs. Redwood’s hired
girl, declared that Clara “teased the life
out of Andrew.” But that was rather
too strong language.

One day, when Mr. Redwood was
away from home, Andrew, who was just
beginning to write, and who, I suppose,
as is common for children at that stage
of their education, was a little proud of
what he could do with his pen, took a



18 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

notion that he would write a letter to his
father. Mrs. Redwood gave him per-
mission to do so, and he went to work at
the letter. He was a long time writing
it. I don’t know how many times, after
he had got a little way down the page,
he stopped, and beganagain. His whole
soul was in that letter. After it was
completed, and ready for exhibition, I _
presume he felt as much interest in it as
Milton felt in the first book of his ‘* Para-
dise Lost,’’ when he had written the last
line in that book, and began to read over
some of the first strains of that wonderful
poem. There is nothing more natural
than for a person to think very highly of



AND OTHER STORIES. 19

anything which has cost him a great deal
of labor. Andrew had worked long and
hard at his letter. He had done the best
he could in writing it. And it was very
well done for him. It was no great
affair, to be sure. No one, who looked
at it, would need to be told that it was
written by a little boy. But, consider-
ing that Andrew had only just begun to
write, it was well enough. Mrs. Red-
wood praised Andrew’s letter a good
deal, and said she would send it to his
father.

Andrew showed it to Clara. He
thought she would praise it, too. But

he was never more mistaken in his life.
2



20 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

‘“‘Oh, what quail-tracks!” said she.
‘“‘T could do a great deal better than that,
Andrew, and not more than half try. it
is not fit to send to papa. Why, whata
goose !”’

And she began to make some com-
ments on what he had said in the letter,
and the ‘quail-tracks,” as she called
them, which Andrew had made on that
sheet of paper.

“TI declare I would not send it to
papa for anything,” said she. ‘He
would laugh the hair off from his*head,
if you should; and I am afraid he would
laugh his teeth out, into the bargain.”

This language, though in jest, of






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LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER., 23

course, was exceedingly out of place.
It sounded unkindly to Andrew. It
would have sounded 80 to you, if you
had been in Andrew’s place. But that
was not the worst of Clara’s conduct in
that affair of the letter. Instead of hand-
ing it back to her brother, after she had
finished reading it, she tore it all to
pieces, and told her brother, in a joking
way, that he had better write another
letter, “‘ because it was a pity that papa
should laugh all the hair off from his
head, and come home as bald as Deacon
Slocum.”

That was too bad, altogether too bad.
It did really look as if the girl was pos-



Q4 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

sessed of an evil spirit. Mrs. Redwood
_ could hardly believe her own eyes. | She
was pretty well acquainted with Clara’s
habit of teasing, and had frequently tried
to break her of it. But she had not
dreamed that her daughter would do
such a rude thing as this, to gratify this
passion of hers. Whether the tearing
of that letter was the result of malice or
mere thoughtlessness and love of sport,
Clara deserved severe punishment—and
she received it, When she saw how that
foolish and thoughtless piece of sport
grieved her brother, she would have
given all she was worth, almost, if she
had not torn up the letter. The punish-



AND OTHER STORIES. 25

ment she received from the hands of her
mother—and you may depend upon it
that good lady did not spare the mis-
chief-maker at all—was not half so hard
to bear as the reflection, which haunted
her for days and nights afterward, that
her rashness had cost her dear, innocent
brother so much pain. -.I wonder she
was not cured entirely of her habit of
mischief-making. But she did not get
cured. She was just as gnischievous as
ever, both at home and at school.

One day, I remember, when Mr. Solo-
mon Stark was our schoolmaster, Clara
took it into her head to set the whole
school in a roar of laughter. Mr. Stark



26 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

was called out into the entry for a few
minutes. Somebody wanted to see him
on private business. I should not won-
der if it was his shoemaker or his laun-
dress.. He did not pay his bills very
punctually, and there used to be ever so
many calls at the school house, which
were understood to have some relation
to these bills.

Don’t understand me as blaming my
old friend, Mr. Stark, for keeping his
creditors waiting, sometimes, until they
got nearly out of patience. I am not
censuring the man at all. I am only
trying to account for his going out of
school so often, and leaving us to govern



AND OTHER STORIES. 27

ourselves. Our schoolmasters had small
salaries; and Mr. Stark’s fault, if he bad
any, in respect to this matter of the bills, .
was not so much that he did not pay
them—for I presume he could not pay
them, any more than he could build a
meeting-house—as it was that ‘he con-
tracted his debts in the first place.

Mr. Solomon Stark, as I said, at the
earnest request of his shoemaker, or his
laundress, or his tailor, or some one else,
was called out for'a few minutes. Clara
was.in a perfect gale that day. As soon
as the inside door was shut, she marched
up to the schoolmaster’s desk, seized his
glasses, which were lying on a copy-book,



28 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

put the glasses on, took the ferule into
her hand, and began to give her orders,
after the fashion of Mr. Stark. She wasa
good mimic, and imitated the pompous
and wordy manner of the schoolmaster
so well, that she made a great deal of
sport.

«There !”’ said some one of the girls,
just as Clara was trying to muster a little
mimic gravity, so as to command the
scholars, with becoming dignity, to stop
laughing, and attend to their books,
‘there, he is coming !”’

It was a false alarm; for the schools
master staid some time after that. But
‘Clara dropped her spectacles in such a



AND OTHER STORIES. 29

hurry, that, without noticing the acci-
dent at the time, she overturned Mr.
Stark’s ink-stand, and ran to her seat.
When the czar of that little empire came
in, he thought by the appearance of the
faces of the boys and girls, that some fun
had been going on; and when he went
up to his desk, and saw what a huge
stream had been made by the upsetting -
of his ink-stand, and how his copy-book
had been blotted all over, he was sure
that they had had a high time of it, and
that some one, in particular, had been.
the principal mischief-maker. |
«Who did that?’ thundered Mg.
Stark, pointing to the copy-book, which



30 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

looked like a map of some country
where the rivers were very abundant
and large.

No answer.

«‘ Who did that ?” he thundered again,
louder.than before, this time stamping
fiercely with his foot.

Nobody answered.

Perhaps some one ought to have told
the schoolmaster who the guilty: one
was. But we all despised a tell-tale.
We were so much afraid of getting a
reputation for acting the part of a tell-
tale, that we might have ef®ed on the
other extreme, and kept silence when
we ought to have spoken out. But



AND OTHER STORIES. 31

however that may be, we said nothing.
We shut up our mouths as tight as if
they had been so many bottles of root
beer with the corks tied in.

Then the schoolmaster tried another
plan. He examined the countenances
of the different boys and girls. Poor
Olara! that plan wasrfatal to her. The
moment he set his eyes on that face, he
saw who had drawn the map with so
many large rivers on it.

‘“‘ Clara, did you do it ?”’ he inquired.

Clara owned that she did it. She
never told: lies. Dishonesty and decep-
tion were no faults of hers. She owned
that she had upset the ink-stand.



32 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

‘¢ But what did you do it for?” the
schoolmaster asked.

It was not so easy to answer that ques-
tion. JI presume Clara would rather
have attempted to go through with the
longest answer in the Westminster Cate-
chism—and that is long enough, as it
was put down in the New England
Primer, from which we used to recite
the catechism at our school every Satur-
day—than to have framed a reply to this
last query of Mr. Stark’s. The best
plan, I think, for any one to adopt,
when he or she has nothing to say, is to
say nothing. That is just exactly the
plan that Clara adopted. She said no-



AND OTHER STORIES. 83

“0

thing at all. There was nothing to be
said. os

Well, the sequel to this story, as you
have conjectured long ago, is that our
little mischief-making friend, Clara, got
badly feruled that day. I guess she
never paid dearer for any little piece of
fun in her life, than she did for playing
the part of the schoolmaster for the space
of a couple of minutes.

I recollect another instance, in which
she suffered a good deal for a small
amount of fun. There had been some
sort of a show in our village, and, as is
usual in the country, where such scenes
are witnessed but seldom, nearly all the



34 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

neighborhood—men, women and chil-
dren—turned out to see it. There was
a band of music connected with the
exhibition, and among the instruments
used on the occasion was one quite novel
to us children, and which interested us
largely. It was a tambaurine. Such
instruments are common enough in the
city, now-a-days. Perhaps, indeed, they
were so at the period of which I am
speaking. But they were very rare in
the country, in those days.

A tambourine is a small drum, with
bells attached to it. Instead of having
two heads, however, like other drums, it
has but one, and is played on with the



AKD OTHER STORIES. $5

fingers, instead of regular wooden drum-
sticks. ;

The next day, after the exhibition, all
the boys, and most of the girls, who
went to our school, were amusing them-
selves and each other, by giving imita-
tions of the performance on the tambour-
ine. These imitations consisted, out of
door, in drumming lightly on a shingle,
or a beard, with the fingers. In the
school room—for the performance went
on inside the school house, to some
extent, as well as outside—the process
was necessarily varied a little. The left
hand represented the instrument there.
Tambourine playing was the ruling pas-



36 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

sion that day. ‘I remember it seemed
to me, during the whole forenoon,
especially, one of the hardest tasks I
ever undertook in school time, to keep
the fingers of my right hand from the
drumming process.

Several of the boys were detected by
the schoolmaster, as they were engaged
in these imitations. I hardly think the
boys really meant, at first, to break over
the rules of school, in these perform-
ances. J am sure I did not. The
drumming was mechanical. It went on,
without any bidding or forbidding on the
part of the will. The will had not
much to do with it.



AND OTHER STORIES. 37

You have heard of the boy, I suppose,
who was called up by his schoolmaster
for whistling, and who alledged, in de-
~ fence of the act, fiat he “ didn’t whistle,
but that it whistled itself.’ The case
of that honest, though unfortunate little
urchin, was-very much like. our own.
I declare it did seem to me, when
I caught myself going through with
that performance, sitting on my humble,
backless bench, that it was not I who
drummed, but that it drummed itself.

But the schoolmaster recognized no
such philosophy as this. If he caught
us doing anything, he took it for granted
that the will had a hand in the act, and



-38 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

that we meant to do it, and, on the
whole, I cannot now find it in my heart
to quarrel with the standard of judgment
he went by. It is a tolerably accu-
rate one in the main, it must be
confessed. The boy who was first dis-
covered imitating the playing of the
tambourine, was reprimanded, and told,
significantly, that it would be well for
him to bring his performances to a close
at his earliest convenience.

The drumming stopped in that quarter.
But it soon broke out in another, and a
second reprimand was necessary. After
the third or fourth offence, the school-
master declared that the next boy he



LITTLE MISCHIFF-MAKER, 39

caught drumming, would drum such a
tune, before he got through, as he would
not like. It was some time before
another drummer was discovered. But
George Morehead forgot himself, before
noon, and drummed a very little, or it
drummed itself, one or the ether. He
was discovered.

‘George, walk. up here!’ said the
schoolmaster.

The offender walked up, accordingly,
to the throne of the monarch, who ruled
and feruled over that kingdom of. boys
and girls.

““Now, go to drumming,” said Mr.
Solomon.



40 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

There was no help for the - little
fellow. He had to drum there for the
whole school. And the master. made
him keep it up incessantly. He would
not let him stop for a moment. It was
not long before another boy was dis-
covered drumming at his seat. I don’t
wonder he drummed. If it was hard to
keep from drumming befere, it was
harder still, with a drummer-general
performing so publicly all .the time.
The boys drummed from sympathy, if on
no other account.

‘‘Come up here!’ said the school-
master to the new offender.

And he went up, and stood by the



AND OTHER STORIES. 4i

side of the other boy, and was made to
drum in concert with him. After this,
the public drumming, which had worn an
air somewhat disgraceful, began to look
a little more respectable. Even George,
who had a sort of hang-dog look about
him before he was joined by his school-
fellow, and who had scarcely the courage
to look from the floor, seemed to. be
quite resigned to his. lot. By and bye,
another was caught drumming, called
up, placed in a line with the other
performers, and required to take his part
in the entertainment.

The thing became decidedly respect-
able. Others joined the band. Really,



42 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

those musicians began to be looked upon
as quite a privileged order of scholars.
There was a row of boys, before the
school was dismissed at noon, reaching
nearly across the school house, all drum-
ming as if the fate of a small empire
depended. on the success of their per-
formance.

‘‘Drum away, boys!” shouted the
schoolmaster ; * ’11_ make you drum
until you get sick of it, I guess. Drum
away !”

And they did drum away, and enjoyed
it, too. It took them longer to get sick
of it than Mr. Solomon calculated upon.
He saw that, I think, at last. I°ll tell



AND OTHER STORIES. 43

you what makes me think so. It was
the way he served Clara Redwood.
Clara was caught drumming. -The sport
_ seemed so rich, that she thought she
must have a hand in if by all means.

“ Clara,’’ said Mr. Stark, with more
sternness, than he had shown before, in
calling up the culprits,. «‘ Clara, come
here.” a

Clara went, went cheerfully. She
expected to go, when she commenced
drumming. The invitation was just what
she wanted. But she soon had occasion
to repent of that misdeed. Instead of
being stationed in a line with the rest of
the performers, she was placed in front



44 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

of them, and set to drumming there.
But her position in the musical band was
not the worst of the case. Poor girl!
she was always unfortunate. Her mis-
chief always cost her a great deal more
than it was worth to her. Either
because the schoolmaster had got enough
of the drumming, and meant to put a
stop to it at once, or, which is quite as
likely, because Clara was famous for
mischief, and consequently supposed to |
deserve severer punishment than the
rest, he required the unfortunate girl to
drum on his ferule, instead of her left
hand.

‘«*Drum harder, you little rogue!”



. AND OTHER STORIES. 45

said he, as he observed Clara trying to
favor her knuckles a little.

She did drum harder, a little harder ;
but that didn’t satisfy the schoolmaster.

‘‘ Harder yet !”? said he.

It got to be pretty dear drumming for
Clara. How red her little hand was.

‘‘ Harder yet!’ shouted the school-
master.

It seemed too hard, almost. But poor
Clara had to drum on that ferule for ten
minutes or more; there was no such
thing as taking the slightest comfort
in the performance ; when she tried to
drum more softly, so as not to hurt her
fingers so much, she found herself in a



46 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

condition somewhat like the horse who
takes it into his head to stop to rest,
while he is in a treadmill. She only
made the matter worse; because if she
did not drum the ferule hard enough
with her fingers, the master drummed
her fingers with the ferule.

That performance, I need hardly tell
you, cost Clara a hearty crying spell,
before she got through with it. It
completely broke up the tambourine
mania, too. I believe there was not a
single attack of it after Clara and the
other performers were allowed to take
their seats

Clara was left alone in the parlor, one






mm iin,
TT

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Mn TM HHH

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Bt ye i



THE MISCHIFF-MAKER DISCOVERED. I



LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER. 49

day, for an hour or more. When her
mother and aunt Sophia returned, they
found the whole room in confusion. To
crown all, Clara had made a huge ink-
blot on one of the beautiful books which
was lying on the centre-table.

But that was not half so bad as
another exploit of hers. She went into
her mother’s bed room one night, with a
candle, and thinking there was a chance
to do a very funny thing indeed, she just
set fire to the fringe on one of the tassels
of the window-shade. She thought, I
suppose, that she could put it out
instantly, and that not a particle of harm
would be done, while she would enjoy



50 —sCLETTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

the pleasure of seeing the fringe flash
up, like gunpowder. The silly girl! In
a second after she had touched the
tassel with the blaze of the candle, the
whole window-shade was on fire. Clara
screamed, and her aunt Sophia came
into the room immediately, though not
in season to prevent the fire from .ex-
tending to a pile of linen, which was
lying on the dressing bureau, under the
window, every article of which was
spoiled. It was well that Clara’s aunt
came in as she did. In a very few
moments more, the flames would have
spread to other parts of the room, and,
very likely, nothing would have been left



AND OTHER STORIES. 51

of the whole house the next morning but
a heap of ashes.

My. young friends, I do. ‘not love to
tell steries such as these. It always
gives me pain. JI would a thousand
times rather speak of the good traits in
a person’s cheracter than of the bad
ones. The only reason why I have
given you this sketch of the little
mischief-maker is, that. you may see
what mischief costs, and that you may
keep clear of it yourselves. There is
nothing lovely in mischief-making. I
never could love Clara much, just be-
cause on account of this habit of hers.
A person may be ever so handsome in



52 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

almost all respects; but if she has a
great, ugly scar on her cheek, that spoils
all her beauty. So it is, exactly, with a
person’s mind. ‘Though she may abound
with good qualities, if there is one very
bad feature in her disposition—one very
bad trait. in’ her character—it. casts a
dark shadow over the whole mind, and
renders it unlovely. That was the case
with Clara. There were scores of things
in her character, for which one could
love her, if it were not for this mischief-
making disposition of hers. But that,
of ‘itself, was enough to make people
dislike her. What if they did laugh
sometimes at her fun, when it was inno-



AND OTHER STORIES. 53

cent and harmless? What if they were
pleased to see her light-hearted and
merry, and frolicsome? They did not
laugh at her mischief. Nothing was
more common than to hear folks say,
when they were speaking of her, “« What
a charming girl that Clara’ Redwood
would be, if she were not such a
mischief-maker ; but that completely
spoils her.”



CHAPTER II.
MY FIRST BARGAIN.
A STORY ABOUT A DIPPER,

Wun I was quite a little boy, I used
to be mightily pleased with candy and
sugar plums. I don’t set this fact down
as any evidence that I ‘was an extraordi-
nary lad; for most children show, at
least, this sign of good taste, I believe.
[ mention it rather as a prelude to a
story about the first bargain I ever had a



LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER. 55

hand in—a bargain which I struck for a
whole double handfull of sugar plums, or
comfits.

My father was going to a distant part
of the farm, one fine morning, in early
autumn, to carry salt to his sheep.
These sheep, by the way, were as fond
of salt as I was of sugar plums; and
it was not a little amusing to see the
whole flock, old and young, run up to
him, when he came into the pasture
where they were, with his salt bag, and
when they heard the sound of his well-
known voice. On these expeditions,
which were made some two or three

times a week, as nearly as I can now
4



56 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

recollect, my father generally carried his
gun, in order to be ready for any kind
of game he might meet with. It was
not forgotten on the particular occasion
to which I allude. |

The great pond lay on the route to
the sheep pasture ; and as we passed by
it, we saw a little bird sitting gracefully
on the water, which my father, at the
time, took for a duck. The gun, which
was already loaded, was aimed at the
little fellow, and he wasshot. Of course
he was shot. My father was a good
marksman. His aim was a sure one.
It was not without some difficulty, and
the expense of a thorough ducking—



AND OTHER STORIES. 57

which, perhaps, was. not much, consid-
ering it was a duck that he was after—
that the poor bird was got to the shore.
But we captured him, at last. It proved
to be a bird of the thrush family, called,
in that neighborhood, the dipper. My
brother, a little younger than myself,
shared with me the pleasure and the
glory of carrying the prize to the sheep
pasture, and thence home. First one
carried it a little way, then the other.
It was not a very heavy burden, if the
truth must be told.

‘Well, boys,” said my father, “‘ what
shall we do with the dipper ?”

That was a question of too much



58 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

moment to be decided in a hurry. It
cost us little urchins a great deal of
intense thinking. Various plans for the
disposal of the bird were, in their turn,
suggested, canvassed, and rejected. At
last, we hit upon one against which no
possible objection could be raised; and,
thereupon, I clapped my hands furiously, .
partly on account of the pleasure I had
in anticipation of the time when the
plan would go into effect, and partly, I
surmise, at the idea that it was my little
head, and nobody else’s head, which
started that bright notion.

The plan was this: to sell the dipper
for sugar plums. Yes, that was it.



AND OTHER STORIES. 59

There were no such luxuries as sugar
plums any where near our house. We
knew that fact too well. It was often
talked of among us children, as a thing
to be deplored, that Willow Lane, so far
as raisins, and sugar plums, and things
of that sort, were concerned, was a mere
desert. However, Northville was only
seven or eight miles off, and there were
oceans of sugar plums there. It hap-
pened, very opportunely—or my father
made it happen so, I hardly’ know
which—that a barrel of flour was want-
ing at our house, and it became necessary
to visit that paradise of sweet things, the
next day after the capture of the little



60 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

water fowl. There never was any thing
more fortunate, it seemed to me.

Could we go, too, and sell the dipper ?
It was decided, that, in case we were
particularly good boys, we could go.
Thereat, another clapping of hands en-
sued, for it was very near the pinnacle
of my young ambition to go to North-
ville, where there were ever so many
stores, filled with every thing nice—it
really seemed so to me—that ever was
known on the earth, or above it, or
under it. Such a deep river, such
mighty ships,.such big boxes of raisins,
such lots of playthings, such a variety
of jew’s harps, and tin whistles, and



AND: OTHER STORIES. 61

miniature drums, such a world of nuts,
of every imaginable and unimaginable
kind, such vast multitudes of sugar
plums and candies—I thought were
never brought together in one place
since Adam’s time, as could be seen in
the village of Northville.

And so we were actually to go to
Northville, and sell the dipper for sugar
plums! Heigho! that was almost too
good to believe.

It was true, though. It was no day
dream ; or if it was one, the dream
was realized the next day. Before the
short hand on the old town clock, whose
uncovered face, time out of mind, always



62 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

seemed so sadly in want of a good
washing—before the short hand on that
dingy old clock pointed to the hour of
ten, we were in the village—I am
not sure but we called it the city, then;
we will call it so now, at any rate—
of Northville.

‘‘ There,” said my father, as he reined
up Silvertail to the store where he
intended to do most of his trading,
‘‘there, boys, you may go and sell your
dipper, now.”

«But where shall we go? who wik
buy it ?”

My father, determined to throw us
altogether upon our own power of con-



AND OTHER STORIES. 68

trivance, did not answer these questions,
but told us to try at the first store we
came across, and if we did not find a
customer there, to go into the next store,
and to keep going until we sold the
dipper.

‘* But how many sugar plums shall we
get for the dipper 2”

“Oh, not many. It’s a little thing.
It is not worth many sugar plums.”

We sallied out, my brother and I,
with tolerably good opinions of our-
selves, and almost staggering under the
weight, not of the dipper exactly, but of
the mission we had undertaken. I, as
having the advantage of my brother in



64 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

years, was to act as salesman, and my
brother, so as not to lose his share in
the enterprise, was to turn his jacket
pocket into a magazine for the reception
of the precious merchandise we were to
get for our fowl.

We entered the first store that we
came across, and I offered to sell the
dipper. It was “no go.” I could not
strike a bargain. This kind of goods
was evidently a drug in that market.
The man I offered to trade with only
laughed at me, and shook his head. It
was a bad omen. But I went into
the next store, hoping for better success.

“Do you want to buy a dipper?”



AND OTHER STORIES. 65

I asked of a smooth-faced, curly-headed,
nicely-dressed young man, who stood
behind the counter, with a yard stick in
his hand, and a pen behind his ear,
measuring out lace for some ladies; ‘‘ do
you want to buy a dipper 2?”

«‘ A dipper!’ said the dandy, ‘ what
do you mean by a dipper ?”

I held up the precious bird, proudly
and triumphantly, above the top of the
counter, so that the nice young man
could see it.

Oh, how the fellow did laugh! Do
you call that a dipper ?”’ he inquired, as
soon as he could speak ; for he almost
choked himself with laughter. —



66 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

‘Yes, sir,” I replied, as principal
salesman, not a little anxious to sustain
the dignity of the family to which my
bird belonged, ‘“ my father shot it on
the great pond, close by the sheep
pasture ; and we want tu sell it, and get
some sugar plums.”’

There must have been something rather
ludicrous in the thing, I think, for the
clerk laughed again, worse than he did
at first, and the ladies laughed, too.

“‘ No,” said the very nice-looking
young man, “we don’t want any such
dippers as that.” And so we left the
store. It was plain that dippers were
below par in that region.



AND OTHER STORIES. 67

The fowl was offered at some half
a dozen different stores. But nobody
would buy it. I began to be almost
discouraged ; but remembering what my
father said, that we “must go until we
sold it,”? I made another trial.

This time I went into a large store,
which, I recollect, was right on the
corner of a block of buildings, and
seemed all covered with signs. It was
kept by one Captain Cost.

“Do you want to buy a dipper?’ I
asked, as I had invariably asked before.
My question was stereotyped.

I shall never forget the kind and
encouraging look that that merchant



68 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

gave me, as he said, ‘* And how much
do you ask for your dipper, my son ?”’

‘‘Some sugar plums, a few sugar
plums,”’ was the reply.

I do believe the man could scarcely
keep from laughing. But he managed
to conduct the bargain with a becoming
gravity. ‘‘ How many sugar plums do
you want for the dipper ?’”’ he asked.

‘*Not many,” I said. I remembered
what my father had told me about the
value of the bird, and it seemed to me
that the principal thing I had to do, in
turning the bird into sugar plums, was to
take care that the purchaser did not get
cheated. <‘I-must not take many sugar



AND OTHER STORIES. 69

plums,” I added, ‘‘ because the dipper is
small, and is not worth much.”

‘Well, I’ll buy your dipper,” said
the captain, “and pay you in sugar
plums. Hold open your pocket, my
little lad.”

The door of my brother’s magazine
was opened, and as many sugar plums as
both the gentleman’s hands would hold
were put into it. I feared the poor: man
had got wretchedly cheated, and was
about to hint as much to him, when he
called for another pocket, and actually
poured into it a second double handfull
of sugar plums. Was the man crazy ?
It looked as if he was. He shook his



70 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

head to all our expostulations, and, after
filling two pockets with sugar plums,
he made each of us take a large and
splendid sugar horse.

We left Captain Cost’s store, fully
persuaded that that merchant was one of |
the best men in the world, and firmly
resolved to give him all our custom in
future.






—
sii



L THE ROBIN



CHAPTER III.

THE BOY AND THE ROBIN.

I.

So, now, pretty robin, you’ve come to our door.

I wonder you never have ventured before.

You thought, I suppose, we would do you some harm ;
But pray, sir, what cause have you had for alarm ?

IL.

You seem to be timid—I’d like to know why—
Did I ever hurt you? What makes you so shy ?
You shrewd little rogue! I’ve a mind, ere you go,
To tell you a thing it concerns you to know.



74 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

Ill.
You thjnk I have never discovered your nest. —
*Tis hid pretty snugly, it must be confessed.
Ha! ha! how the boughs are entwined all around !
No wonder you thought it would never be found.

Iv.
You're as cunning a robin as ever I knew;
And yet, ha! ha! ha! I’m as cunning as you!
I know all about your nice home on the tree—
*T was nonsense to try to conceal it from me.

v.
I know—for but yesterday I was your guest—
How many young robins there are in your nest ;
And pardon me, sir, if I venture to say,

They ’ve had not a morsel of dinner to-day.

VI.
But you lock very sad, pretty robin, I see,
As you glance o’er the meadow, to yonder green trec.



AND OTHER STORIES. 75

I fear I have thoughtlessly given you pain,
And I'll never prattle so lightly again.

vil.

Go home, where your mate and your little ones dwell.
Though I know where they are, yet I never will tell ;
Nobody shall injure that leaf-covered nest,

No, sacred to me is the place of your rest

VIII.
I am glad, I am glad you have come to our door,
Though I wonder you never have ventured beforé.
But come again, robin, come often, and sing;
For dearly I love you, sweet warbler of spring.



CHAPTER IV.
LEADING AND DRIVING

Have you never found that it is
generally easier to lead than to drive ?
I have. I remember how I first came
to see that one could often accomplish
more by leading than by driving.

Jacob Ford borrowed our oxen one
day. He wanted them to use in the
same team with his own oxen. I hap-



LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER. 77 -

pened to see the man ploughing with
‘this team, and I thought I had never
known our oxen act so badly. Really, I
felt ashamed of them. They were
generally very well behaved oxen. But
that day they acted as if they were cross
and stubborn. They did not work well
at all.

**T wonder what does ail our oxen,’’
I said to my father, after my visit to the
corn field. ‘+ They act as if they were
possessed.”

“©J don’t know, I’m sure,”? was the
answer. “Did Mr. Ford whip them
any 2?” |

“Yes, sir,’ said I; “he whipped



78 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

them half the time; but that did not
seem to make them any better.”

‘* No,” my father replied, ‘I presume
it did not make them any better. It
made them worse. Our oxen are not
used to whipping. I never drive them.
I lead them.”

Sure enough. The whole thing was
explained. I remembered that I had
never seen my father strike one of those
oxen in my life. But on this occasion,
they were cudgeled too much, just as
Mr. Ford treated his own oxen. That
was all that ailed them.

Since that time, I have often had
occasion to remark that I could do a



AND OTHER STORIES. 79

great deal by leading, when I could do
nothing by driving.

Once, I recollect, I was riding our old
mare to mill, with a bag of rye on her
back. When we came to the bridge
that crossed the brook, close by the
grist mill, Silvertail stopped as still as a
post. She would not go over the bridge.
“You shall go,”? I thought, and hit her
a hard blow with the whip. But she
wouldn’t go. I couldn’t drive her at all.

What was to be done? I got off, and
stood holding the bridle in my hand,
wondering whether it was best to hitch
the mare to the fence on that side of the
bridge, and to go and tell the miller my



80 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

trouble, or to give the obstinate beast a
few more doses of the same medicine I
had already tried, with so little success.

While in this state of indecision, a
man came along; and finding out how
matters stood, spoke kindly to the mare,
patted her on the neck, took hold of the
bridle, went before her, and led her
across the bridge in two minutes.

«© Your horse was afraid,’ said he.
‘She needed leading, not driving.”
~ Why did I not think of that before ?
It seemed as plain as the nose on the
man’s face, after he told me of it; and I
remembered the affair about neighbor
Ford and our oxen, and what my father



AND OTHER STORIES. 81

had said about it. I saw that the rule
applied to horses, as well as to oxen.

A colored man, who lived at my
father’s, once undertook to drive the
hogs from the pen, where they were
usually kept, into the woods, about a
hundred rods from the house. It was in
the fall of the year, and it was thought
best to give the hogs a chance to pick up
the acorns that abounded in the woods.
Tom could not drive the hogs. They
would go in every direction but tlie
right one. He scolded them, struck
them with a long whip, threw sticks at
them, stoned them, and set them to
squealing at a great rate. But it was of



82 LITTLE MISCHIRÂ¥-MAKER,

no avail.. They were obstinate, very
obstinate, and bent on having their own
way.

My father, as soon as he saw how
poorly the colored man was getting
along with the hogs, went out into the
lane, where the strife was going on,
with a pail in his hand—the same pail
which was used in carrying food for the
hogs—and sending Tom away, started
off toward the woods, calling the hogs
after him. He found not the slightest
difficulty in leading them to the pasture
where he wanted them to go.

My young friend, this rule of my
father’s works well in multitudes of cases.



AND OfMER STORIES. 83

You will find it accomplishes miracles,
almost. And it works as well among
men, and women, and children, as it
does among beasts, for aught I know.

Two brothers, both very good friends
of mine, were returning from school, the
other day, each with a parcel of books.

- & Here, Bill,’ said one of them, “take
this dictionary ; I’ve got more than my
part.”

‘¢T won’t do any such thing,”’ said the
other.

It was wrong to say so, of course.
Still, Freddy had no business to speak in
that rough way. It appeared as if he
was trying to drive Willy, and Willy |



84 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

had no notion of being driven. He did
not take the dictionary then. Before
the boys had got half way home, how-
ever, Freddy thought he would try
again to persuade his brother to carry
the dictionary. This time he tried the
other plan.

‘1 do wish you would take this book,”’
said he. <‘* Will you, Bill? That’s a
good boy, now. I’ll do as much for
you some other time.”

Willy took it, cheerfully, and carried
it all the way home. He needed leading,
you see. Driving was not the thing.
Freddy could no more have driven him
_ tu carry the dictionary, than Tom could



AND OTHER STORIES. 85

have driven the hogs to the pasture
where the acorns were.

«Lucy, you lazy girl! help me wipe
these dishes, or I’ll tell mamma of you,
as true as I breathe; see if I don’t.%*

I heard a girl using this coarse and
unamiable language to her sister a while
ago. But do you think Lucy minded
her? Do you think she ran, and helped
wipe the dishes? If you do, you are
very much mistaken.

‘s Wipe them yourself,”’ said she, and
went on with her play.

Perhaps you think that Lucy was
an obstinate girl. But she was not
obstinate. She had an obliging and



86 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

kind disposition. She could be led
easily enough. But she could not be
driven. She does not like driving at all.

And Lucy, unless I am greatly mis-
taken, is very much, in this respect, like
most other girls. You can gét along
fifty times as well with them, when you
undertake to lead them, as you can
when you try to drive them. And it is
just so with the boys, too ; for boys and
girls are very much alike, after all.
Nobody likes to be driven. Bear that
in mind, little friend, as you trip along
in the journey of life. It will save you
a world of trouble and vexation.



CHAPTER V
BEATING PEOPLE BOWN ;

OR FATHER SMITH AND THE SKIN-FLINTS.

Ir is a bad practice, this of always
beating people down. Understand me,
if you please. I don’t allude now to
knocking folks down with a club, or
with one’s fist. Among decent people,
I doubt if there is much" difference of
opinion as to the propriety or expediency
of such things. I cannot think that any



88 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

of my readers believe in this way of
knocking anybody down. I don’t allude
to that species of assault and battery.
What I mean, is the too common habit
of always beating a person down in his
prices,‘when one is trading with him.

No matter what prices Mr. A. sets
upon his goods; Mr. B.—one of these _
men who make a business of beating
folks down—says they are altogether too
high, and that he must take less, or
he can’t trade with him.

Let me give you a little bit of conver-
sation, such as not unfrequently takes
place in a dry goods store.

‘¢Mr. Merchant, have you any first



AND OTHER STORIES. 89

rate unbleached sheeting, as low as a
shilling a yard ?”’

«‘ Yes, ma’am, I have a very fine
article which I can sell for ten pence.”

‘« Let me see it, if you please.”

Mr. Merchant produces the piéce of
muslin.

‘© Why, Mr. Merchant! you don’t
pretend to ask ten pence a yard for
this.””

‘* Yes, madam, and we consider it
cheap at that.”

‘“‘ It is very dear, sir—very dear.”

‘*T hardly think youll find a piece of
muslin in the city as good as this, for |
a less price.”



90 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

‘‘Why, Mr. Bobbinet, on the other
side of the street, has the same goods
exactly, and he don’t pretend to ask but
eight pence for them.”

Take care, Mrs. Beatwell. That last
remark of yours is what my good old
uncle Mike would call a whopper ; and I
rather think that Mr. Merchant has some
suspicions that you are fibbing a little.
See, now, what comes of that habit of
yours, of forever beating people down.
While you are beating down the man
who has goods to sell, you are apt to
beat down the truth. It isn’t honest
business. Don’t you see it isn’t? An
honest business don’t require the telling



AND OTHER STORIES. 91

even of white lies; and I am afraid,
that, if you should take the pains to pull
this last remark of yours to pieces, and
to examine it closely, you would find
that it is a white lie, and not so very
white either.

Well, perhaps the lady buys the
muslin, and perhaps she don’t buy it.
If the man who is trying to trade with
her, understands what sort of a customer
he has got, very likely he asks her a
penny or two a yard more than he
expected to get, so that she could have a
chance to beat him down, and he could
have a chance to fall. Some merchants
have a trick of this kind, I understand,



92 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

which they practice upon such patrons as
Mrs. Beatwell, and justify themselves by
saying that it is the only way they can
get along with those folks, as they never
pretend to buy a penny’s worth any-
where, without first going regularly
through with the beating down process.
Perhaps this gentleman is one of that
class. If so; he will, no doubt, suffer
himself to be beaten down, and so Mrs.
Beatwell will trade with him ; but it is
possible that Mr. Merchant has but one
price for his goods, in which case, of
course, he will not fall on the article,
and the lady will go to Mr. Bobbinet’s,
or somewhere else.



AND OTHER STORIES. 93

There used to be a man in our town,
who understood exactly how to manage
such folks as Mrs. Beatwell. He was a
shrewd sort of a man—tolerably honest,
I believe, but a perfect master of all the
arts needed in trading with those cus-
tomers who belong to a race of people
sometimes called skin-flints. We will
allow this man, who was the principal
merchant in our village, to go by the
convenient name of Smith, for the pre-
sent, though I might as well tell you
that his real name was very differently
spelled.

Mr. Smith had a great variety of
articles for sale. So had his neighbor



94 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

across the way, with whom he was on
the best of terms. These two were
the only merchants of which our little
village could boast.

An inventory of Mr. Smith’s goods
would make some of you smile, I guess.
In the city, one man keeps dry goods,
another groceries, another hardware,
another crockery and glassware, another
drugs and medicines, and so on. In the
country, the case is very different, as
you would find by taking a bird’s eye
glance at Mr. Smith’s store. Indeed,
you would find out before you got into
the store, by just reading the sign, that
there was a good deal of variety in the



AND OTHER STORIES. 95

articles he kept for sale. I happen to
have an exact copy of the sign before
me. It reads thus, after giving the name
of the proprietor: ‘‘ Rum, brandy, gin,
wine cordials, tea, sugar, mackerel, her-
ring, corn, rye, oats, shorts, molasses,
dry goods, crockery ware, Lee’s pills,
Hull’s physic, hardware, saleratus, gin-
ger, tobacco, hams, butter, cheese ;
highest prices paid for all kinds of
country produce, sheep and calf skins
with the wool on; Post office.

Pray don’t ask me to stop now, and
give a commentary on this sign. I
didn’t paint the sign, and I didn’t give
the order to have it painted. So you



96 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

can’t reasonably ask me to make any
apology for the character of the articles
sold at that store, or for the way they
were grouped together on the sign. Mr.
Smith sold rum, as you see, and all the
rest of the evil spirits belonging to that
class and order. Aye, and he sold those
articles pretty freely, too. People didn’t
always get them for sickness then and
there, not by a good deal. Everybody—
almost everybody—drank a little in those
days, and many a man, candor compels
me to add, drank like a fish.

Mr. Smith, though a good man—quite
as good, I think, as the average, now-a-
days—had not got his eyes open in ,



AND OTHER STORIES. 97

relation to the matter of liquor-drinking
and liquor-selling. Nor was it strange.
‘Why, the best men in all that part of the
country—the deacons and the parson
himself—used ardent spirits habitually,
in some form or another. If Mr. Smith
was living now, I don’t believe he would
sell Santa Croix rum, or anything of that
sort, and if our good minister was living
now, I hardly think he would drink that
kind of stuff. But Mr. Smith did sell it
then, and the parson did drink it then.
There is no use in mincing the matter.
Still, as I said before, I don’t consider
myself bound, inasmuch as I neither
painted the sign nor ordered the painting



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L MISCHIEF -MAKING.

THE

LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

AND OTHER STORIES.

With lustrations.

BY UNCLE FRANK,

AUTHOR OF THE “STRAWBERRY GIRL,” ETC, ETC,

NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 145 NASSAU STREET.
1852.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 135), by
CHARLES SCRIBNER,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District ot New York.







C. W. BENEDICT,
STEREOTYPER AND Printer,
201 William st., N.Y.
CONTENTS,



Pact

THE LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER, . . . . . 7

MY FIRST BARGAIN, . . e e e ° 54
THE BOY AND THE ROBIN, e . ° e . 7
LEADING AND DRIVING, . . . . . . 76

BEATING FEOPLE DOWN, . . : . . »- 87

AUNT SUSAN AND HER SECRET, . . . e 124
GO AHEAD, . : . . . . . . 141
THE YELLOW BIRD'S COMPLAINT, . . . . 154

THE HAPPY FAMILY, . e . . . . . 159
vi CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

MISCHIEF-MAKING, - .» «© +» Frontispiece
VIGNETTE TITLE-PAGE, . . . . . . 1
TEARING UP THE LETTER, . e e . . 22

THE MISCHIEF-MAKER DISCOVERED, . . . - 47
THE ROBIN, . . . . . . . . 72
BEATING DOWN THE GLAZIER, . ° . . - 111
SPORTS OF VACATION, . . . . . . 136

THE PRISONED BIRD, . . . ° . . 155
THE LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER, ETC.

CHAPTER I.
THE LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

Or all the girls that came to our school,
the most nated for mischief-making was
Clara Redwood. Clara was, in the
main, a good, kind, sweet-tempered girl.
But she was half her time engaged in
some piece of mischief or other. I sup-
pose, that, at heart, she was no worse
than many of her associates -in school.
But however that may be, candor com-
8 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

pels me to say that, if she wasa good —
girl, she sometimes had a very bad way
of showing it.

I used to wonder why she would go
on with her mischievous tricks, day after
day; for she very often got punished for
her misdemeanors. ‘The schoolmasters
and schoolmistresses in our school used
the rod and the ferule a good deal—
much oftener, I think, than these instru-
ments are used now-a-days. And they
had a knack of striking pretty hard, too.
Some people, who have the government
of children, believe in corporal punish-
ment as much as anybody; but when
they come to apply it, they do the thing
AND OTHER STORIES. 9

so softly and delicately, that the child
is sometimes quite at a loss to know
whether the punishment is a serious one,
or whether it is all sham. But our
teachers were not of that sort. When
they used the ferule, or the seasoned
hickory sprout, they left the marks on us,
so that we could carry them home with
us, and show our parents what kind of
scholars we had been that day.

Oh, how many times I have seen
Clara punished in one way and another.
And yet, her punishment did not seem to
make any difference with her. Perhaps
the very next day after she had received
on her hand half a dozen blows from the
- 10 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

ferule, she got into a scrape that called
for some new punishment. Was it be-
caus¢. her memory was so poor? What
was the reason of it? Iam sure I never
could tell. I guess it must -have been
because she loved mischief so well.
But how came she to have such a taste
for mischief? What good did it doany- —
body else ?

_If she had had the faculty which some
young people possess, of getting easily
out of a scrape, one might wonder less
how she came to get into so many. But
she had no such faculty. On the con-
trary, she always got found out, when
she had been in mischief. There was
AND OTHER STORIES. pa

not a particle of deception about her.
She could not have deceived the school-.
master, if she had attempted to do so.
Some boys and girls, who went to our
school, might cut all manner of capers ;
and unless the sharp eye of the school-
master was on them at the time, he could
not conjecture which was the rogue—
they wore such grave and sober faces, as
if nothing had happened. But it was
quite otherwise with Clara. If she had
done anything in the shape of mischief,
and it was found out that the mischief
had been done, it was no matter whether
she had been seen in the att er not.
The schoolmaster had only te. look at
12 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

her face. That told the story. That
said as plainly as anybody could wish,
‘‘Clara Redwood did it.”” Ah, that tell-
tale face! How many whippings it used
to cost her, to say nothing about other
and milder modes of punishment.

I must give you a specimen or two of
her mischief. I want you to see what
a rattle-headed, thoughtless, frolicking,
girl she was, and what she got by her
mischief.

She had a little sister, several years.
younger than she was, named Gertrude.
Clara used to tease her a good deal.
This teasing, young friend—let me say
it now, while I think of it—is, as a gen-
AND OTHER STORIES. 13

eral thing, bad business. I never saw
much good come out of it. But I have
seen a great deal of evil result from it.
It is well enough for brothers and sisters
to have a good time of it, when they are
playing ‘together. Uncle Frank don’t
like to see moping children. He goes
for fun. He don’t like to see children
as grave and sedate as judges on the
bench. He believes that there is time
enough for people to be men and women,
when they are grown up. He thinks
that children’s heads ought to grow on
children’s shoulders, and no other kind
of heads, and children’s hearts ought to
throb in children’s bosoms. Uncle Frank
14 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

don’t care how merry boys and-girls are,
when they are at play. The merrier the
better, to suit him. But it always gives
him pain to see the little folks teasing
each other, he is so much afraid that that
kind of sport will turn out badly in the
end.

T tell you, it is hard work to appear
to be kind, when you are teasing any-
body younger than yourself, especially if
you keep it up for some time. You may
have ever so much kindness in your
heart; but it is difficult to make the one
you are teasing feel that you are kind.
So that, take it altogether, I consider
teasing bad business; and it gives me
AND OTHER STORIES. 18

rather a poor opinion of a boy or girl,
when I see him or her often engaged in
that sort of business.

Clara—I am sorry to be obliged to say
so much to the discredit of the girl—
used to love to tease this sister of hers.
She would get Gertrude’s slate, after the
little girl had drawn pictures—rather
rude, to be sure—of horses, and dogs,
and lambs, and birds, and rub all the pic-
tures out. She would get Gertrude’s
doll, and black its face up with ink.
She would worry Gertrude’s little kitten,
and make it mew; hide Gertrude’s hoop
and top, so that she could not find them ;
and do a hundred things of this kind. It
16 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

is probable she did so just for the sake of
the fun, not because she wanted to hurt
her sister’s feelings. But she did hurt
her sister’s feelings. Many and many a
time, the little girl would cry, as if her
heart would break, when Clara teased
her in this style. There was not a par-
‘ ticle of excuse for Clara; for her sister
never teased her in return.

Clara had a brother, too, by the name
of Andrew. I don’t recollect which was
the older. But there was not much dif-
ference in the ages of the two. Andrew
was a pretty quiet sort of a boy, remark-
ably fond of his books, and seldom dis-
posed to get into mischief. But Clara
AND OTHER STORIES. 17

used -to tease him sometimes, until I am
not sure but he sighed for that

——“lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,”

of which the poet Cowper makes men-
tion. Bridget, Mrs. Redwood’s hired
girl, declared that Clara “teased the life
out of Andrew.” But that was rather
too strong language.

One day, when Mr. Redwood was
away from home, Andrew, who was just
beginning to write, and who, I suppose,
as is common for children at that stage
of their education, was a little proud of
what he could do with his pen, took a
18 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

notion that he would write a letter to his
father. Mrs. Redwood gave him per-
mission to do so, and he went to work at
the letter. He was a long time writing
it. I don’t know how many times, after
he had got a little way down the page,
he stopped, and beganagain. His whole
soul was in that letter. After it was
completed, and ready for exhibition, I _
presume he felt as much interest in it as
Milton felt in the first book of his ‘* Para-
dise Lost,’’ when he had written the last
line in that book, and began to read over
some of the first strains of that wonderful
poem. There is nothing more natural
than for a person to think very highly of
AND OTHER STORIES. 19

anything which has cost him a great deal
of labor. Andrew had worked long and
hard at his letter. He had done the best
he could in writing it. And it was very
well done for him. It was no great
affair, to be sure. No one, who looked
at it, would need to be told that it was
written by a little boy. But, consider-
ing that Andrew had only just begun to
write, it was well enough. Mrs. Red-
wood praised Andrew’s letter a good
deal, and said she would send it to his
father.

Andrew showed it to Clara. He
thought she would praise it, too. But

he was never more mistaken in his life.
2
20 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

‘“‘Oh, what quail-tracks!” said she.
‘“‘T could do a great deal better than that,
Andrew, and not more than half try. it
is not fit to send to papa. Why, whata
goose !”’

And she began to make some com-
ments on what he had said in the letter,
and the ‘quail-tracks,” as she called
them, which Andrew had made on that
sheet of paper.

“TI declare I would not send it to
papa for anything,” said she. ‘He
would laugh the hair off from his*head,
if you should; and I am afraid he would
laugh his teeth out, into the bargain.”

This language, though in jest, of
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LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER., 23

course, was exceedingly out of place.
It sounded unkindly to Andrew. It
would have sounded 80 to you, if you
had been in Andrew’s place. But that
was not the worst of Clara’s conduct in
that affair of the letter. Instead of hand-
ing it back to her brother, after she had
finished reading it, she tore it all to
pieces, and told her brother, in a joking
way, that he had better write another
letter, “‘ because it was a pity that papa
should laugh all the hair off from his
head, and come home as bald as Deacon
Slocum.”

That was too bad, altogether too bad.
It did really look as if the girl was pos-
Q4 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

sessed of an evil spirit. Mrs. Redwood
_ could hardly believe her own eyes. | She
was pretty well acquainted with Clara’s
habit of teasing, and had frequently tried
to break her of it. But she had not
dreamed that her daughter would do
such a rude thing as this, to gratify this
passion of hers. Whether the tearing
of that letter was the result of malice or
mere thoughtlessness and love of sport,
Clara deserved severe punishment—and
she received it, When she saw how that
foolish and thoughtless piece of sport
grieved her brother, she would have
given all she was worth, almost, if she
had not torn up the letter. The punish-
AND OTHER STORIES. 25

ment she received from the hands of her
mother—and you may depend upon it
that good lady did not spare the mis-
chief-maker at all—was not half so hard
to bear as the reflection, which haunted
her for days and nights afterward, that
her rashness had cost her dear, innocent
brother so much pain. -.I wonder she
was not cured entirely of her habit of
mischief-making. But she did not get
cured. She was just as gnischievous as
ever, both at home and at school.

One day, I remember, when Mr. Solo-
mon Stark was our schoolmaster, Clara
took it into her head to set the whole
school in a roar of laughter. Mr. Stark
26 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

was called out into the entry for a few
minutes. Somebody wanted to see him
on private business. I should not won-
der if it was his shoemaker or his laun-
dress.. He did not pay his bills very
punctually, and there used to be ever so
many calls at the school house, which
were understood to have some relation
to these bills.

Don’t understand me as blaming my
old friend, Mr. Stark, for keeping his
creditors waiting, sometimes, until they
got nearly out of patience. I am not
censuring the man at all. I am only
trying to account for his going out of
school so often, and leaving us to govern
AND OTHER STORIES. 27

ourselves. Our schoolmasters had small
salaries; and Mr. Stark’s fault, if he bad
any, in respect to this matter of the bills, .
was not so much that he did not pay
them—for I presume he could not pay
them, any more than he could build a
meeting-house—as it was that ‘he con-
tracted his debts in the first place.

Mr. Solomon Stark, as I said, at the
earnest request of his shoemaker, or his
laundress, or his tailor, or some one else,
was called out for'a few minutes. Clara
was.in a perfect gale that day. As soon
as the inside door was shut, she marched
up to the schoolmaster’s desk, seized his
glasses, which were lying on a copy-book,
28 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

put the glasses on, took the ferule into
her hand, and began to give her orders,
after the fashion of Mr. Stark. She wasa
good mimic, and imitated the pompous
and wordy manner of the schoolmaster
so well, that she made a great deal of
sport.

«There !”’ said some one of the girls,
just as Clara was trying to muster a little
mimic gravity, so as to command the
scholars, with becoming dignity, to stop
laughing, and attend to their books,
‘there, he is coming !”’

It was a false alarm; for the schools
master staid some time after that. But
‘Clara dropped her spectacles in such a
AND OTHER STORIES. 29

hurry, that, without noticing the acci-
dent at the time, she overturned Mr.
Stark’s ink-stand, and ran to her seat.
When the czar of that little empire came
in, he thought by the appearance of the
faces of the boys and girls, that some fun
had been going on; and when he went
up to his desk, and saw what a huge
stream had been made by the upsetting -
of his ink-stand, and how his copy-book
had been blotted all over, he was sure
that they had had a high time of it, and
that some one, in particular, had been.
the principal mischief-maker. |
«Who did that?’ thundered Mg.
Stark, pointing to the copy-book, which
30 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

looked like a map of some country
where the rivers were very abundant
and large.

No answer.

«‘ Who did that ?” he thundered again,
louder.than before, this time stamping
fiercely with his foot.

Nobody answered.

Perhaps some one ought to have told
the schoolmaster who the guilty: one
was. But we all despised a tell-tale.
We were so much afraid of getting a
reputation for acting the part of a tell-
tale, that we might have ef®ed on the
other extreme, and kept silence when
we ought to have spoken out. But
AND OTHER STORIES. 31

however that may be, we said nothing.
We shut up our mouths as tight as if
they had been so many bottles of root
beer with the corks tied in.

Then the schoolmaster tried another
plan. He examined the countenances
of the different boys and girls. Poor
Olara! that plan wasrfatal to her. The
moment he set his eyes on that face, he
saw who had drawn the map with so
many large rivers on it.

‘“‘ Clara, did you do it ?”’ he inquired.

Clara owned that she did it. She
never told: lies. Dishonesty and decep-
tion were no faults of hers. She owned
that she had upset the ink-stand.
32 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

‘¢ But what did you do it for?” the
schoolmaster asked.

It was not so easy to answer that ques-
tion. JI presume Clara would rather
have attempted to go through with the
longest answer in the Westminster Cate-
chism—and that is long enough, as it
was put down in the New England
Primer, from which we used to recite
the catechism at our school every Satur-
day—than to have framed a reply to this
last query of Mr. Stark’s. The best
plan, I think, for any one to adopt,
when he or she has nothing to say, is to
say nothing. That is just exactly the
plan that Clara adopted. She said no-
AND OTHER STORIES. 83

“0

thing at all. There was nothing to be
said. os

Well, the sequel to this story, as you
have conjectured long ago, is that our
little mischief-making friend, Clara, got
badly feruled that day. I guess she
never paid dearer for any little piece of
fun in her life, than she did for playing
the part of the schoolmaster for the space
of a couple of minutes.

I recollect another instance, in which
she suffered a good deal for a small
amount of fun. There had been some
sort of a show in our village, and, as is
usual in the country, where such scenes
are witnessed but seldom, nearly all the
34 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

neighborhood—men, women and chil-
dren—turned out to see it. There was
a band of music connected with the
exhibition, and among the instruments
used on the occasion was one quite novel
to us children, and which interested us
largely. It was a tambaurine. Such
instruments are common enough in the
city, now-a-days. Perhaps, indeed, they
were so at the period of which I am
speaking. But they were very rare in
the country, in those days.

A tambourine is a small drum, with
bells attached to it. Instead of having
two heads, however, like other drums, it
has but one, and is played on with the
AKD OTHER STORIES. $5

fingers, instead of regular wooden drum-
sticks. ;

The next day, after the exhibition, all
the boys, and most of the girls, who
went to our school, were amusing them-
selves and each other, by giving imita-
tions of the performance on the tambour-
ine. These imitations consisted, out of
door, in drumming lightly on a shingle,
or a beard, with the fingers. In the
school room—for the performance went
on inside the school house, to some
extent, as well as outside—the process
was necessarily varied a little. The left
hand represented the instrument there.
Tambourine playing was the ruling pas-
36 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

sion that day. ‘I remember it seemed
to me, during the whole forenoon,
especially, one of the hardest tasks I
ever undertook in school time, to keep
the fingers of my right hand from the
drumming process.

Several of the boys were detected by
the schoolmaster, as they were engaged
in these imitations. I hardly think the
boys really meant, at first, to break over
the rules of school, in these perform-
ances. J am sure I did not. The
drumming was mechanical. It went on,
without any bidding or forbidding on the
part of the will. The will had not
much to do with it.
AND OTHER STORIES. 37

You have heard of the boy, I suppose,
who was called up by his schoolmaster
for whistling, and who alledged, in de-
~ fence of the act, fiat he “ didn’t whistle,
but that it whistled itself.’ The case
of that honest, though unfortunate little
urchin, was-very much like. our own.
I declare it did seem to me, when
I caught myself going through with
that performance, sitting on my humble,
backless bench, that it was not I who
drummed, but that it drummed itself.

But the schoolmaster recognized no
such philosophy as this. If he caught
us doing anything, he took it for granted
that the will had a hand in the act, and
-38 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

that we meant to do it, and, on the
whole, I cannot now find it in my heart
to quarrel with the standard of judgment
he went by. It is a tolerably accu-
rate one in the main, it must be
confessed. The boy who was first dis-
covered imitating the playing of the
tambourine, was reprimanded, and told,
significantly, that it would be well for
him to bring his performances to a close
at his earliest convenience.

The drumming stopped in that quarter.
But it soon broke out in another, and a
second reprimand was necessary. After
the third or fourth offence, the school-
master declared that the next boy he
LITTLE MISCHIFF-MAKER, 39

caught drumming, would drum such a
tune, before he got through, as he would
not like. It was some time before
another drummer was discovered. But
George Morehead forgot himself, before
noon, and drummed a very little, or it
drummed itself, one or the ether. He
was discovered.

‘George, walk. up here!’ said the
schoolmaster.

The offender walked up, accordingly,
to the throne of the monarch, who ruled
and feruled over that kingdom of. boys
and girls.

““Now, go to drumming,” said Mr.
Solomon.
40 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

There was no help for the - little
fellow. He had to drum there for the
whole school. And the master. made
him keep it up incessantly. He would
not let him stop for a moment. It was
not long before another boy was dis-
covered drumming at his seat. I don’t
wonder he drummed. If it was hard to
keep from drumming befere, it was
harder still, with a drummer-general
performing so publicly all .the time.
The boys drummed from sympathy, if on
no other account.

‘‘Come up here!’ said the school-
master to the new offender.

And he went up, and stood by the
AND OTHER STORIES. 4i

side of the other boy, and was made to
drum in concert with him. After this,
the public drumming, which had worn an
air somewhat disgraceful, began to look
a little more respectable. Even George,
who had a sort of hang-dog look about
him before he was joined by his school-
fellow, and who had scarcely the courage
to look from the floor, seemed to. be
quite resigned to his. lot. By and bye,
another was caught drumming, called
up, placed in a line with the other
performers, and required to take his part
in the entertainment.

The thing became decidedly respect-
able. Others joined the band. Really,
42 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

those musicians began to be looked upon
as quite a privileged order of scholars.
There was a row of boys, before the
school was dismissed at noon, reaching
nearly across the school house, all drum-
ming as if the fate of a small empire
depended. on the success of their per-
formance.

‘‘Drum away, boys!” shouted the
schoolmaster ; * ’11_ make you drum
until you get sick of it, I guess. Drum
away !”

And they did drum away, and enjoyed
it, too. It took them longer to get sick
of it than Mr. Solomon calculated upon.
He saw that, I think, at last. I°ll tell
AND OTHER STORIES. 43

you what makes me think so. It was
the way he served Clara Redwood.
Clara was caught drumming. -The sport
_ seemed so rich, that she thought she
must have a hand in if by all means.

“ Clara,’’ said Mr. Stark, with more
sternness, than he had shown before, in
calling up the culprits,. «‘ Clara, come
here.” a

Clara went, went cheerfully. She
expected to go, when she commenced
drumming. The invitation was just what
she wanted. But she soon had occasion
to repent of that misdeed. Instead of
being stationed in a line with the rest of
the performers, she was placed in front
44 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

of them, and set to drumming there.
But her position in the musical band was
not the worst of the case. Poor girl!
she was always unfortunate. Her mis-
chief always cost her a great deal more
than it was worth to her. Either
because the schoolmaster had got enough
of the drumming, and meant to put a
stop to it at once, or, which is quite as
likely, because Clara was famous for
mischief, and consequently supposed to |
deserve severer punishment than the
rest, he required the unfortunate girl to
drum on his ferule, instead of her left
hand.

‘«*Drum harder, you little rogue!”
. AND OTHER STORIES. 45

said he, as he observed Clara trying to
favor her knuckles a little.

She did drum harder, a little harder ;
but that didn’t satisfy the schoolmaster.

‘‘ Harder yet !”? said he.

It got to be pretty dear drumming for
Clara. How red her little hand was.

‘‘ Harder yet!’ shouted the school-
master.

It seemed too hard, almost. But poor
Clara had to drum on that ferule for ten
minutes or more; there was no such
thing as taking the slightest comfort
in the performance ; when she tried to
drum more softly, so as not to hurt her
fingers so much, she found herself in a
46 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

condition somewhat like the horse who
takes it into his head to stop to rest,
while he is in a treadmill. She only
made the matter worse; because if she
did not drum the ferule hard enough
with her fingers, the master drummed
her fingers with the ferule.

That performance, I need hardly tell
you, cost Clara a hearty crying spell,
before she got through with it. It
completely broke up the tambourine
mania, too. I believe there was not a
single attack of it after Clara and the
other performers were allowed to take
their seats

Clara was left alone in the parlor, one
mm iin,
TT

1 meta
Mn TM HHH

| al il Ny
Bt ye i



THE MISCHIFF-MAKER DISCOVERED. I
LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER. 49

day, for an hour or more. When her
mother and aunt Sophia returned, they
found the whole room in confusion. To
crown all, Clara had made a huge ink-
blot on one of the beautiful books which
was lying on the centre-table.

But that was not half so bad as
another exploit of hers. She went into
her mother’s bed room one night, with a
candle, and thinking there was a chance
to do a very funny thing indeed, she just
set fire to the fringe on one of the tassels
of the window-shade. She thought, I
suppose, that she could put it out
instantly, and that not a particle of harm
would be done, while she would enjoy
50 —sCLETTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

the pleasure of seeing the fringe flash
up, like gunpowder. The silly girl! In
a second after she had touched the
tassel with the blaze of the candle, the
whole window-shade was on fire. Clara
screamed, and her aunt Sophia came
into the room immediately, though not
in season to prevent the fire from .ex-
tending to a pile of linen, which was
lying on the dressing bureau, under the
window, every article of which was
spoiled. It was well that Clara’s aunt
came in as she did. In a very few
moments more, the flames would have
spread to other parts of the room, and,
very likely, nothing would have been left
AND OTHER STORIES. 51

of the whole house the next morning but
a heap of ashes.

My. young friends, I do. ‘not love to
tell steries such as these. It always
gives me pain. JI would a thousand
times rather speak of the good traits in
a person’s cheracter than of the bad
ones. The only reason why I have
given you this sketch of the little
mischief-maker is, that. you may see
what mischief costs, and that you may
keep clear of it yourselves. There is
nothing lovely in mischief-making. I
never could love Clara much, just be-
cause on account of this habit of hers.
A person may be ever so handsome in
52 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

almost all respects; but if she has a
great, ugly scar on her cheek, that spoils
all her beauty. So it is, exactly, with a
person’s mind. ‘Though she may abound
with good qualities, if there is one very
bad feature in her disposition—one very
bad trait. in’ her character—it. casts a
dark shadow over the whole mind, and
renders it unlovely. That was the case
with Clara. There were scores of things
in her character, for which one could
love her, if it were not for this mischief-
making disposition of hers. But that,
of ‘itself, was enough to make people
dislike her. What if they did laugh
sometimes at her fun, when it was inno-
AND OTHER STORIES. 53

cent and harmless? What if they were
pleased to see her light-hearted and
merry, and frolicsome? They did not
laugh at her mischief. Nothing was
more common than to hear folks say,
when they were speaking of her, “« What
a charming girl that Clara’ Redwood
would be, if she were not such a
mischief-maker ; but that completely
spoils her.”
CHAPTER II.
MY FIRST BARGAIN.
A STORY ABOUT A DIPPER,

Wun I was quite a little boy, I used
to be mightily pleased with candy and
sugar plums. I don’t set this fact down
as any evidence that I ‘was an extraordi-
nary lad; for most children show, at
least, this sign of good taste, I believe.
[ mention it rather as a prelude to a
story about the first bargain I ever had a
LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER. 55

hand in—a bargain which I struck for a
whole double handfull of sugar plums, or
comfits.

My father was going to a distant part
of the farm, one fine morning, in early
autumn, to carry salt to his sheep.
These sheep, by the way, were as fond
of salt as I was of sugar plums; and
it was not a little amusing to see the
whole flock, old and young, run up to
him, when he came into the pasture
where they were, with his salt bag, and
when they heard the sound of his well-
known voice. On these expeditions,
which were made some two or three

times a week, as nearly as I can now
4
56 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

recollect, my father generally carried his
gun, in order to be ready for any kind
of game he might meet with. It was
not forgotten on the particular occasion
to which I allude. |

The great pond lay on the route to
the sheep pasture ; and as we passed by
it, we saw a little bird sitting gracefully
on the water, which my father, at the
time, took for a duck. The gun, which
was already loaded, was aimed at the
little fellow, and he wasshot. Of course
he was shot. My father was a good
marksman. His aim was a sure one.
It was not without some difficulty, and
the expense of a thorough ducking—
AND OTHER STORIES. 57

which, perhaps, was. not much, consid-
ering it was a duck that he was after—
that the poor bird was got to the shore.
But we captured him, at last. It proved
to be a bird of the thrush family, called,
in that neighborhood, the dipper. My
brother, a little younger than myself,
shared with me the pleasure and the
glory of carrying the prize to the sheep
pasture, and thence home. First one
carried it a little way, then the other.
It was not a very heavy burden, if the
truth must be told.

‘Well, boys,” said my father, “‘ what
shall we do with the dipper ?”

That was a question of too much
58 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

moment to be decided in a hurry. It
cost us little urchins a great deal of
intense thinking. Various plans for the
disposal of the bird were, in their turn,
suggested, canvassed, and rejected. At
last, we hit upon one against which no
possible objection could be raised; and,
thereupon, I clapped my hands furiously, .
partly on account of the pleasure I had
in anticipation of the time when the
plan would go into effect, and partly, I
surmise, at the idea that it was my little
head, and nobody else’s head, which
started that bright notion.

The plan was this: to sell the dipper
for sugar plums. Yes, that was it.
AND OTHER STORIES. 59

There were no such luxuries as sugar
plums any where near our house. We
knew that fact too well. It was often
talked of among us children, as a thing
to be deplored, that Willow Lane, so far
as raisins, and sugar plums, and things
of that sort, were concerned, was a mere
desert. However, Northville was only
seven or eight miles off, and there were
oceans of sugar plums there. It hap-
pened, very opportunely—or my father
made it happen so, I hardly’ know
which—that a barrel of flour was want-
ing at our house, and it became necessary
to visit that paradise of sweet things, the
next day after the capture of the little
60 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

water fowl. There never was any thing
more fortunate, it seemed to me.

Could we go, too, and sell the dipper ?
It was decided, that, in case we were
particularly good boys, we could go.
Thereat, another clapping of hands en-
sued, for it was very near the pinnacle
of my young ambition to go to North-
ville, where there were ever so many
stores, filled with every thing nice—it
really seemed so to me—that ever was
known on the earth, or above it, or
under it. Such a deep river, such
mighty ships,.such big boxes of raisins,
such lots of playthings, such a variety
of jew’s harps, and tin whistles, and
AND: OTHER STORIES. 61

miniature drums, such a world of nuts,
of every imaginable and unimaginable
kind, such vast multitudes of sugar
plums and candies—I thought were
never brought together in one place
since Adam’s time, as could be seen in
the village of Northville.

And so we were actually to go to
Northville, and sell the dipper for sugar
plums! Heigho! that was almost too
good to believe.

It was true, though. It was no day
dream ; or if it was one, the dream
was realized the next day. Before the
short hand on the old town clock, whose
uncovered face, time out of mind, always
62 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

seemed so sadly in want of a good
washing—before the short hand on that
dingy old clock pointed to the hour of
ten, we were in the village—I am
not sure but we called it the city, then;
we will call it so now, at any rate—
of Northville.

‘‘ There,” said my father, as he reined
up Silvertail to the store where he
intended to do most of his trading,
‘‘there, boys, you may go and sell your
dipper, now.”

«But where shall we go? who wik
buy it ?”

My father, determined to throw us
altogether upon our own power of con-
AND OTHER STORIES. 68

trivance, did not answer these questions,
but told us to try at the first store we
came across, and if we did not find a
customer there, to go into the next store,
and to keep going until we sold the
dipper.

‘* But how many sugar plums shall we
get for the dipper 2”

“Oh, not many. It’s a little thing.
It is not worth many sugar plums.”

We sallied out, my brother and I,
with tolerably good opinions of our-
selves, and almost staggering under the
weight, not of the dipper exactly, but of
the mission we had undertaken. I, as
having the advantage of my brother in
64 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

years, was to act as salesman, and my
brother, so as not to lose his share in
the enterprise, was to turn his jacket
pocket into a magazine for the reception
of the precious merchandise we were to
get for our fowl.

We entered the first store that we
came across, and I offered to sell the
dipper. It was “no go.” I could not
strike a bargain. This kind of goods
was evidently a drug in that market.
The man I offered to trade with only
laughed at me, and shook his head. It
was a bad omen. But I went into
the next store, hoping for better success.

“Do you want to buy a dipper?”
AND OTHER STORIES. 65

I asked of a smooth-faced, curly-headed,
nicely-dressed young man, who stood
behind the counter, with a yard stick in
his hand, and a pen behind his ear,
measuring out lace for some ladies; ‘‘ do
you want to buy a dipper 2?”

«‘ A dipper!’ said the dandy, ‘ what
do you mean by a dipper ?”

I held up the precious bird, proudly
and triumphantly, above the top of the
counter, so that the nice young man
could see it.

Oh, how the fellow did laugh! Do
you call that a dipper ?”’ he inquired, as
soon as he could speak ; for he almost
choked himself with laughter. —
66 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

‘Yes, sir,” I replied, as principal
salesman, not a little anxious to sustain
the dignity of the family to which my
bird belonged, ‘“ my father shot it on
the great pond, close by the sheep
pasture ; and we want tu sell it, and get
some sugar plums.”’

There must have been something rather
ludicrous in the thing, I think, for the
clerk laughed again, worse than he did
at first, and the ladies laughed, too.

“‘ No,” said the very nice-looking
young man, “we don’t want any such
dippers as that.” And so we left the
store. It was plain that dippers were
below par in that region.
AND OTHER STORIES. 67

The fowl was offered at some half
a dozen different stores. But nobody
would buy it. I began to be almost
discouraged ; but remembering what my
father said, that we “must go until we
sold it,”? I made another trial.

This time I went into a large store,
which, I recollect, was right on the
corner of a block of buildings, and
seemed all covered with signs. It was
kept by one Captain Cost.

“Do you want to buy a dipper?’ I
asked, as I had invariably asked before.
My question was stereotyped.

I shall never forget the kind and
encouraging look that that merchant
68 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

gave me, as he said, ‘* And how much
do you ask for your dipper, my son ?”’

‘‘Some sugar plums, a few sugar
plums,”’ was the reply.

I do believe the man could scarcely
keep from laughing. But he managed
to conduct the bargain with a becoming
gravity. ‘‘ How many sugar plums do
you want for the dipper ?’”’ he asked.

‘*Not many,” I said. I remembered
what my father had told me about the
value of the bird, and it seemed to me
that the principal thing I had to do, in
turning the bird into sugar plums, was to
take care that the purchaser did not get
cheated. <‘I-must not take many sugar
AND OTHER STORIES. 69

plums,” I added, ‘‘ because the dipper is
small, and is not worth much.”

‘Well, I’ll buy your dipper,” said
the captain, “and pay you in sugar
plums. Hold open your pocket, my
little lad.”

The door of my brother’s magazine
was opened, and as many sugar plums as
both the gentleman’s hands would hold
were put into it. I feared the poor: man
had got wretchedly cheated, and was
about to hint as much to him, when he
called for another pocket, and actually
poured into it a second double handfull
of sugar plums. Was the man crazy ?
It looked as if he was. He shook his
70 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

head to all our expostulations, and, after
filling two pockets with sugar plums,
he made each of us take a large and
splendid sugar horse.

We left Captain Cost’s store, fully
persuaded that that merchant was one of |
the best men in the world, and firmly
resolved to give him all our custom in
future.
—
sii



L THE ROBIN
CHAPTER III.

THE BOY AND THE ROBIN.

I.

So, now, pretty robin, you’ve come to our door.

I wonder you never have ventured before.

You thought, I suppose, we would do you some harm ;
But pray, sir, what cause have you had for alarm ?

IL.

You seem to be timid—I’d like to know why—
Did I ever hurt you? What makes you so shy ?
You shrewd little rogue! I’ve a mind, ere you go,
To tell you a thing it concerns you to know.
74 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

Ill.
You thjnk I have never discovered your nest. —
*Tis hid pretty snugly, it must be confessed.
Ha! ha! how the boughs are entwined all around !
No wonder you thought it would never be found.

Iv.
You're as cunning a robin as ever I knew;
And yet, ha! ha! ha! I’m as cunning as you!
I know all about your nice home on the tree—
*T was nonsense to try to conceal it from me.

v.
I know—for but yesterday I was your guest—
How many young robins there are in your nest ;
And pardon me, sir, if I venture to say,

They ’ve had not a morsel of dinner to-day.

VI.
But you lock very sad, pretty robin, I see,
As you glance o’er the meadow, to yonder green trec.
AND OTHER STORIES. 75

I fear I have thoughtlessly given you pain,
And I'll never prattle so lightly again.

vil.

Go home, where your mate and your little ones dwell.
Though I know where they are, yet I never will tell ;
Nobody shall injure that leaf-covered nest,

No, sacred to me is the place of your rest

VIII.
I am glad, I am glad you have come to our door,
Though I wonder you never have ventured beforé.
But come again, robin, come often, and sing;
For dearly I love you, sweet warbler of spring.
CHAPTER IV.
LEADING AND DRIVING

Have you never found that it is
generally easier to lead than to drive ?
I have. I remember how I first came
to see that one could often accomplish
more by leading than by driving.

Jacob Ford borrowed our oxen one
day. He wanted them to use in the
same team with his own oxen. I hap-
LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER. 77 -

pened to see the man ploughing with
‘this team, and I thought I had never
known our oxen act so badly. Really, I
felt ashamed of them. They were
generally very well behaved oxen. But
that day they acted as if they were cross
and stubborn. They did not work well
at all.

**T wonder what does ail our oxen,’’
I said to my father, after my visit to the
corn field. ‘+ They act as if they were
possessed.”

“©J don’t know, I’m sure,”? was the
answer. “Did Mr. Ford whip them
any 2?” |

“Yes, sir,’ said I; “he whipped
78 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

them half the time; but that did not
seem to make them any better.”

‘* No,” my father replied, ‘I presume
it did not make them any better. It
made them worse. Our oxen are not
used to whipping. I never drive them.
I lead them.”

Sure enough. The whole thing was
explained. I remembered that I had
never seen my father strike one of those
oxen in my life. But on this occasion,
they were cudgeled too much, just as
Mr. Ford treated his own oxen. That
was all that ailed them.

Since that time, I have often had
occasion to remark that I could do a
AND OTHER STORIES. 79

great deal by leading, when I could do
nothing by driving.

Once, I recollect, I was riding our old
mare to mill, with a bag of rye on her
back. When we came to the bridge
that crossed the brook, close by the
grist mill, Silvertail stopped as still as a
post. She would not go over the bridge.
“You shall go,”? I thought, and hit her
a hard blow with the whip. But she
wouldn’t go. I couldn’t drive her at all.

What was to be done? I got off, and
stood holding the bridle in my hand,
wondering whether it was best to hitch
the mare to the fence on that side of the
bridge, and to go and tell the miller my
80 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

trouble, or to give the obstinate beast a
few more doses of the same medicine I
had already tried, with so little success.

While in this state of indecision, a
man came along; and finding out how
matters stood, spoke kindly to the mare,
patted her on the neck, took hold of the
bridle, went before her, and led her
across the bridge in two minutes.

«© Your horse was afraid,’ said he.
‘She needed leading, not driving.”
~ Why did I not think of that before ?
It seemed as plain as the nose on the
man’s face, after he told me of it; and I
remembered the affair about neighbor
Ford and our oxen, and what my father
AND OTHER STORIES. 81

had said about it. I saw that the rule
applied to horses, as well as to oxen.

A colored man, who lived at my
father’s, once undertook to drive the
hogs from the pen, where they were
usually kept, into the woods, about a
hundred rods from the house. It was in
the fall of the year, and it was thought
best to give the hogs a chance to pick up
the acorns that abounded in the woods.
Tom could not drive the hogs. They
would go in every direction but tlie
right one. He scolded them, struck
them with a long whip, threw sticks at
them, stoned them, and set them to
squealing at a great rate. But it was of
82 LITTLE MISCHIRÂ¥-MAKER,

no avail.. They were obstinate, very
obstinate, and bent on having their own
way.

My father, as soon as he saw how
poorly the colored man was getting
along with the hogs, went out into the
lane, where the strife was going on,
with a pail in his hand—the same pail
which was used in carrying food for the
hogs—and sending Tom away, started
off toward the woods, calling the hogs
after him. He found not the slightest
difficulty in leading them to the pasture
where he wanted them to go.

My young friend, this rule of my
father’s works well in multitudes of cases.
AND OfMER STORIES. 83

You will find it accomplishes miracles,
almost. And it works as well among
men, and women, and children, as it
does among beasts, for aught I know.

Two brothers, both very good friends
of mine, were returning from school, the
other day, each with a parcel of books.

- & Here, Bill,’ said one of them, “take
this dictionary ; I’ve got more than my
part.”

‘¢T won’t do any such thing,”’ said the
other.

It was wrong to say so, of course.
Still, Freddy had no business to speak in
that rough way. It appeared as if he
was trying to drive Willy, and Willy |
84 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

had no notion of being driven. He did
not take the dictionary then. Before
the boys had got half way home, how-
ever, Freddy thought he would try
again to persuade his brother to carry
the dictionary. This time he tried the
other plan.

‘1 do wish you would take this book,”’
said he. <‘* Will you, Bill? That’s a
good boy, now. I’ll do as much for
you some other time.”

Willy took it, cheerfully, and carried
it all the way home. He needed leading,
you see. Driving was not the thing.
Freddy could no more have driven him
_ tu carry the dictionary, than Tom could
AND OTHER STORIES. 85

have driven the hogs to the pasture
where the acorns were.

«Lucy, you lazy girl! help me wipe
these dishes, or I’ll tell mamma of you,
as true as I breathe; see if I don’t.%*

I heard a girl using this coarse and
unamiable language to her sister a while
ago. But do you think Lucy minded
her? Do you think she ran, and helped
wipe the dishes? If you do, you are
very much mistaken.

‘s Wipe them yourself,”’ said she, and
went on with her play.

Perhaps you think that Lucy was
an obstinate girl. But she was not
obstinate. She had an obliging and
86 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

kind disposition. She could be led
easily enough. But she could not be
driven. She does not like driving at all.

And Lucy, unless I am greatly mis-
taken, is very much, in this respect, like
most other girls. You can gét along
fifty times as well with them, when you
undertake to lead them, as you can
when you try to drive them. And it is
just so with the boys, too ; for boys and
girls are very much alike, after all.
Nobody likes to be driven. Bear that
in mind, little friend, as you trip along
in the journey of life. It will save you
a world of trouble and vexation.
CHAPTER V
BEATING PEOPLE BOWN ;

OR FATHER SMITH AND THE SKIN-FLINTS.

Ir is a bad practice, this of always
beating people down. Understand me,
if you please. I don’t allude now to
knocking folks down with a club, or
with one’s fist. Among decent people,
I doubt if there is much" difference of
opinion as to the propriety or expediency
of such things. I cannot think that any
88 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

of my readers believe in this way of
knocking anybody down. I don’t allude
to that species of assault and battery.
What I mean, is the too common habit
of always beating a person down in his
prices,‘when one is trading with him.

No matter what prices Mr. A. sets
upon his goods; Mr. B.—one of these _
men who make a business of beating
folks down—says they are altogether too
high, and that he must take less, or
he can’t trade with him.

Let me give you a little bit of conver-
sation, such as not unfrequently takes
place in a dry goods store.

‘¢Mr. Merchant, have you any first
AND OTHER STORIES. 89

rate unbleached sheeting, as low as a
shilling a yard ?”’

«‘ Yes, ma’am, I have a very fine
article which I can sell for ten pence.”

‘« Let me see it, if you please.”

Mr. Merchant produces the piéce of
muslin.

‘© Why, Mr. Merchant! you don’t
pretend to ask ten pence a yard for
this.””

‘* Yes, madam, and we consider it
cheap at that.”

‘“‘ It is very dear, sir—very dear.”

‘*T hardly think youll find a piece of
muslin in the city as good as this, for |
a less price.”
90 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

‘‘Why, Mr. Bobbinet, on the other
side of the street, has the same goods
exactly, and he don’t pretend to ask but
eight pence for them.”

Take care, Mrs. Beatwell. That last
remark of yours is what my good old
uncle Mike would call a whopper ; and I
rather think that Mr. Merchant has some
suspicions that you are fibbing a little.
See, now, what comes of that habit of
yours, of forever beating people down.
While you are beating down the man
who has goods to sell, you are apt to
beat down the truth. It isn’t honest
business. Don’t you see it isn’t? An
honest business don’t require the telling
AND OTHER STORIES. 91

even of white lies; and I am afraid,
that, if you should take the pains to pull
this last remark of yours to pieces, and
to examine it closely, you would find
that it is a white lie, and not so very
white either.

Well, perhaps the lady buys the
muslin, and perhaps she don’t buy it.
If the man who is trying to trade with
her, understands what sort of a customer
he has got, very likely he asks her a
penny or two a yard more than he
expected to get, so that she could have a
chance to beat him down, and he could
have a chance to fall. Some merchants
have a trick of this kind, I understand,
92 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

which they practice upon such patrons as
Mrs. Beatwell, and justify themselves by
saying that it is the only way they can
get along with those folks, as they never
pretend to buy a penny’s worth any-
where, without first going regularly
through with the beating down process.
Perhaps this gentleman is one of that
class. If so; he will, no doubt, suffer
himself to be beaten down, and so Mrs.
Beatwell will trade with him ; but it is
possible that Mr. Merchant has but one
price for his goods, in which case, of
course, he will not fall on the article,
and the lady will go to Mr. Bobbinet’s,
or somewhere else.
AND OTHER STORIES. 93

There used to be a man in our town,
who understood exactly how to manage
such folks as Mrs. Beatwell. He was a
shrewd sort of a man—tolerably honest,
I believe, but a perfect master of all the
arts needed in trading with those cus-
tomers who belong to a race of people
sometimes called skin-flints. We will
allow this man, who was the principal
merchant in our village, to go by the
convenient name of Smith, for the pre-
sent, though I might as well tell you
that his real name was very differently
spelled.

Mr. Smith had a great variety of
articles for sale. So had his neighbor
94 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

across the way, with whom he was on
the best of terms. These two were
the only merchants of which our little
village could boast.

An inventory of Mr. Smith’s goods
would make some of you smile, I guess.
In the city, one man keeps dry goods,
another groceries, another hardware,
another crockery and glassware, another
drugs and medicines, and so on. In the
country, the case is very different, as
you would find by taking a bird’s eye
glance at Mr. Smith’s store. Indeed,
you would find out before you got into
the store, by just reading the sign, that
there was a good deal of variety in the
AND OTHER STORIES. 95

articles he kept for sale. I happen to
have an exact copy of the sign before
me. It reads thus, after giving the name
of the proprietor: ‘‘ Rum, brandy, gin,
wine cordials, tea, sugar, mackerel, her-
ring, corn, rye, oats, shorts, molasses,
dry goods, crockery ware, Lee’s pills,
Hull’s physic, hardware, saleratus, gin-
ger, tobacco, hams, butter, cheese ;
highest prices paid for all kinds of
country produce, sheep and calf skins
with the wool on; Post office.

Pray don’t ask me to stop now, and
give a commentary on this sign. I
didn’t paint the sign, and I didn’t give
the order to have it painted. So you
96 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

can’t reasonably ask me to make any
apology for the character of the articles
sold at that store, or for the way they
were grouped together on the sign. Mr.
Smith sold rum, as you see, and all the
rest of the evil spirits belonging to that
class and order. Aye, and he sold those
articles pretty freely, too. People didn’t
always get them for sickness then and
there, not by a good deal. Everybody—
almost everybody—drank a little in those
days, and many a man, candor compels
me to add, drank like a fish.

Mr. Smith, though a good man—quite
as good, I think, as the average, now-a-
days—had not got his eyes open in ,
AND OTHER STORIES. 97

relation to the matter of liquor-drinking
and liquor-selling. Nor was it strange.
‘Why, the best men in all that part of the
country—the deacons and the parson
himself—used ardent spirits habitually,
in some form or another. If Mr. Smith
was living now, I don’t believe he would
sell Santa Croix rum, or anything of that
sort, and if our good minister was living
now, I hardly think he would drink that
kind of stuff. But Mr. Smith did sell it
then, and the parson did drink it then.
There is no use in mincing the matter.
Still, as I said before, I don’t consider
myself bound, inasmuch as I neither
painted the sign nor ordered the painting
98 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

of it, to apologize either for the way
in which it was worded, or for the
manner in which the different articles
were arranged. I give you the language
of the sign, just as it read, for the purpose
merely of letting you see what my old
friend, Mr. Smith, kept in his store, and
how different a country store is from
most of those you meet with in the city.
I can’t dismiss that sign, however, over
which, when I was young and as green
as a gosling, my eyes pored so much and
so inquiringly, without a little farther
notice. We boys, I remember, used
once in a while to indulge in a bit of
literary criticism, after our intellects had
AND OTHER STORIES. 99

budded a little under the genial influ-
ences of the common school we had
in our neighborhood; and we now and
then, for want of a better subject, tried
our learning and our wit on Father
Smith’s sign. It was sagely contended,
by some of us, that the old gentleman’s
outside notice to farmers was calculated
to mislead them, as, according to the
phraseology of the sign, he only wanted
such calf skins as had twool on them ;
and some of our number went so far
as to charge Mr. Smith with advertising
for beets, and potatoes, and squashes, and
pumpkins, and butter, and cheese, all
covered with wool. Our youthful minds
100 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

were hard pushed for criticisms, don’t
you think they were ?

But I must get along with my story
about Mr. Smith and the skin-flints.

The old gentleman was always in
excellent humor. I never heard of his
getting angry but once, and that was
when Captain Murdock, his next door
neighbor, rather crustily refused to shut
up his hens, which had been running all
the spring, to the great annoyance of |
Mr. Smith, who took a deal of pride in
his garden, and who could not bear to
have his peas and beans scratched up the
very day they were planted. And that
affair ended in a joke, now I think of it.
AND OTHER STORIES. 101

Mr. Smith, who never held malice long,
and who was as cool as a cucumber in
ten minutes after his talk with his dis-
obliging neighbor, soon found half a
dozen hens in his garden, as busy as they
could be, scratching up the seeds he had
planted. So he and his hired men made
a sally upon them, and caught several.
The next day, another party of these
thieves appeared, and they, too, were
caught. I think there were some eight
or ten in all. These hens Father Smith
tied together, by their legs. Then he
brought down the well sweep, lashed the
fowls to the end of it, and let it go back
again into the air. There was a mighty
102 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

cackling, and croaking, and squalling
among them, as they hung there. Mr.
Murdock, who happened to be in the
house at the time, eating his breakfast,
didn’t know what to make of that noise,
and he went to the winduw to see about
it. A most ludicrous spectacle presented
itself to his eyes, as you may conjecture.
There, some fifty feet from the ground,
dangled half a dozen of his old hens,
with the biggest and proudest rooster in
his poultry yard. It wastoomuch. He
laughed until he burst off nearly as many
buttons from his vest as there were fowls
on the well sweep. It is hardly neces-
sary to add—what is a matter of history,
AND OTHER STORIES. 103.

I believe—that the hens were shut up
pretty soon after that.

As I said, Mr. Smith was almost always
good-natured. He had a pleasant way
of doing every thing, and rather a queer
one, too, sometimes, as you will see in
the sequel.

Squire Littleman came into his store
one day, to make some purchases. Now
the Squire was one of the best men on
the continent, in most respects, but very
small in his dealings. He was a farmer,
and lived a little distance from the
village, on one of the best farms in all
that part of the country. Mr. Smith
understood him. He had traded with
104 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

him for years, and knew all his weak
points.

‘‘Why, how do you do, Mr. Little-
man ?” said father Smith, as the farmer
came into the store.

‘‘So as to be moving,” said the other,
using an expression very common in that
part of the country, in reply to the usual
inquiry as to one’s health. ‘* Any good
sugar ?”’

‘** Just the finest,” said the old man,
‘*that you ever set your eyes on, and as
cheap as dirt, neighbor Littleman.”’

The farmer, having been shown a
sample of the sugar, and learned how
many pounds of it were given for a
AND OTHER STORIES. 105

dollar, commenced beating the merchant
down. Mr. Smith, meanwhile, whis-
pered a word or two in the ear of his
clerk, who put on his hat, and whipped
out into the street. It would seem that
the subject matter of the errand on
which he went had been all cut and
dried beforehand ; for in a very brief
space of time, the clerk returned, with
the sheriff of the county.

‘‘T am very sorry to interrupt you,
Mr. Littleman,” said the sheriff, walking
up to the farmer, with a paper in his
hand, ‘but I have a little business with
you, and should like to see you alone.”

“ Well, that’s odd, I do say for it,”
106 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

replied the Squire. ‘‘ Business with me,
and private business, too !”

«6 Yes, sir.”

“© Well, out with it.”

«¢ But shall we not retire, sir ?”’

‘«*No, no. I’ve done nothing to be
ashamed of. J don’t know what your
business is, I’m sure; but whatever it
may be, I would as lief all the world
should know it as not.” .

By this time, there were a dozen
people in the store, including the mer-
chant across the way. Did they all
happen in there, I wonder? I never
knew, certainly ; but I rather more than
surmise that father Smith despatched a
AND OTHER STORIES. § 107

secret messenger after some of them,
at least.

The sheriff unfolded the paper, and
proceeded to read: ‘To the sheriff of
the county of N. , or either of his
deputies, greeting. By authority of the
State of C » you are hereby com-
manded to attach the body of Peter
Littleman, and him commit in the jail
of said county,” and so on.

**Good gracious!’’ said the Squire,
with the air of a cat, who suddenly dis-
covers that she is in a strange garret-—
a very strange garret, indeed—‘* What
does all this mean? What have I done ?
What am I to be arrested for? There




108 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

must be some mistake.” And he stamped
‘his foot, and stormed a good deal, as if
he was somewhat nettled.

He found out, as the officer proceeded
with the document, what offence he was
charged with. It was assault and battery.

«« Assault and battery !’’ exclaimed the
indignant Squire, ‘it’s a lie! I never
struck a man in all my born days.”

The sheriff went on reading the
warrant. If the Squire’s eyes were not
as large as a couple of his purple-top
turnips—a couple of the smallest, at
least—when he learned that he stood
charged with an assault upon the veri-
table father Smith, then the historians
AND OTHER STORIES. 109

of that day have done him great in-
justice.

It was not until the bewildered man
had exhausted all the epithets of wonder
and surprise to be found in Webster’s
dictionary, and not until he had ap-
pealed, imploringly, to father Smith
himself, to enlighten him as to the
precise nature of the charge, that the cat
was let out of the bag. As you no
doubt have guessed by this time, the
Squire was indicted for beating down
Mr. Smith, in the purchase of goods.
from his store. When he found out how
the land lay, he hemmed, and hawed,
and coughed, and stammered, at a great
110 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

rate. He said all sorts of silly things,
as almost any man might, if he was as
much embarrassed as Mr. Littleman was.
I, for one, have no doubt but he blushed.
But his face was so burned by the sun,
that, I believe, no one noticed it.

That expedient completely cured the
Squire of his beating down habit, for a
long time. Neither Mr. Smith nor his
neighbor across the way had cause, for
months after that sham warrant was read,
to complain of the way in which the
farmer made his purchases.

Still, the Squire, according to tradition,
was not utterly broken of his habit. It
was less than a year after the occurrence


BEATING DOWN THE GRAZIER:

L
AND OTHER STORIES. Ill

of the warrant I have just related, that
the Squire had occasion to employ a
glazier about a new house he was having
built. As usual, the glazier must be beat
down. You may think the Squire got
hold of a very small flint to skin this
time. So he did. But it never made
any difference with him how small the
flint was. He spent as much time in
beating a man down a fourpence half-
penny in a day’s work, as he did in
a matter of a hundred dollars. That
is the way with these skin-flints. Some-
times, while they are beating a man
down two or three cents, they could earn
half a dollar, if they were engaged in
114 LITTLE MISCHIFF-MAKER,

some kind of respectable business or
other.

The glazier, a young fellow who was
something of a wag, had heard the story
about the Squire’s adventure with the
sheriff. Everybody, for miles around,
had heard it at that time. He obsti-
nately refused to be beat down a single
cent. The Squire kept on higgling,
though.

“TI tell you what it is,” said the
glazier, at last, «if you don’t stop this,
Squire, Ill go for the sheriff, see if I
don’t.”

That allusion to the memorable war-
rant had the effect which the glazier
AND OTHER STORIES. 115

desired. The Squire smiled, took a very
large pinch of snuff—a thing which he
always did when he saw that instead of
beating down a person, he had got
beaten down himself—and told the man,
good-naturedly, that the quicker he went
to work the better.

Another farmer, who was something
of a skin-flint in his way, though not
precisely belonging to Squire Jones’
class, came into Mr. Smith’s store one
day in haying time, and inquired for
‘* cheap salt for hay.”

This cheap salt, you must know, was
salt which had accidentally become dirty,
and on this account was unfit for any
116 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

other purpose but the one to which this
farmer intended to apply it. It so hap-
pened, at this particular time, that father
Smith had no dirty salt. But as this was
one of his regular customers, he offered
to sell him clean salt at the same price
he charged for the dirty article. But
the farmer shook his head. He wanted
the cheap article—just the kind he
. bought there last.

‘¢ Stop a moment,” said the old man ;
‘©we must try to oblige you. Tom, see
if you can’t scrape up three or four
bushels of that cheap salt.”

Tom, who understood the joke, went
down cellar, and mixed half a bushel of
AND OTHER STORIES. \17

dirt from the back yard with about
five times the quantity of good, pure
salt. And so the farmer was suited with
his “‘ cheap salt for hay.”

-At another time, Mr. Smith’s store
was visited by no less a man than the
Judge of the Court of Probate—a great
personage for that part of the world,
though very much given to beating folks
down, when he had occasion to buy
anything. The judge wanted to buy a
barrel of flour.

‘sExcuse me a moment,’ ‘said Mr.
Smith, just as the judge was coming into
the door, ‘‘I must run out a moment.
My clerk will wait upon you; or, if
118 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

youll sit a minute or two, I shall be
back.”

The shrewd old merchant ran over the
way, to speak a word to his neighbor in
the same line of business. After that
word was spoken, he went back. to
his store ; and, as he supposed it would
turn out, the judge was waiting for him,
preferring to deal with the principal
rather than the clerk.

‘‘ Well, about that flour,’’ said the
judge. ‘* What do you ask, now ?”

‘‘ Eight dollars,” was the reply.

‘¢ Eight dollars a barrel !’’ exclaimed
the judge, “I thought it wasn’t but six
now.”
AND OTHER STORIES. _ 119

« Yes,” said father Smith, ‘ that’s
the market price to-day. Flour is going
up, judge.”

«Well, I should think it was up.. I
can’t think of paying over seven for
the best brand.”

Mr. Smith was not to be beaten down,
though. He stuck to his price, and the
judge left without buying. Of course he
went right over to the other store, with
the inquiry, ‘‘ What do you ask for your
best flour ?°”

‘* Right and a half,” was the reply.”

Now the market price of flour was
just eight dollars at that time. Father
Smith had not gone over to the other
120: LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

store for nothing, you see. He had
set a trap for the judge, with the assist-
ance of his brother storekeeper; and the
judge was now nibbling at the bait.

«¢ Pooh !”’ said the nibbler, «I can get
it at the other store for eight, and I am
not sure but the old man would take
seven and a half.”

‘*] think you must be mistaken, sir,”
said the merchant. I hardly think
you'll get it at the other store short
of nine dollars, and I’m not sure that you
could for that.”

The judge assured him that eight
dollars was all they pretended to ask
at the other store, and haggled some
AND OTHER STORIES. 121

time, though of course to no purpose, to
get a barrel for eight, which, he said,
was all he was willing to pay, and more
than it ought to cost him.

‘© No, sir,”

was the reply, ‘not a
cent less than eight and a half. Flour is
rising, judge.”

So the judge thought, as he whipped.
over the way, and told Mr. Smith that
he didn’t care if he took a barrel, on the
whole.

‘* But flour has risen,” said the old
man, ‘since you was here. It has gone
up a dollar.”

The judge thought the merchant was

joking. But it turned out that he was
122 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

serious. He could not get the flour
short of nine dollars a barrel.

Of course he went back to the other
store. ‘* Well, [I don’t know that I
shall do much better,” said he. “You
may send me over a barrel of that best
brand, if you please.”

But flour had risen in that quarter,
too, and the merchant couldn’t be coaxed
to take a mill less than nine dollars and
a half a barrel, which sum the judge
actually had to pay.

It was some weeks after that before
the judge learned what sort of a trap had
been set to catch him. The story was
all over the neighborhood, then. It was
AND OTHER STORIES. 123

the town talk ; and- to this very day, for
aught I know, ‘ Flour is going up,”
is a well understood proverb in that
section of the country. |



10
CHAPTER VI.
AUNT SUSAN AND HER SECRET.

Litt te friends, I have a secret to tell
you. I got it from a lad about ten
years old, who said it came from a good
aunt of his. Would you like to hear it?

‘*That depends upon whether it is
worth hearing or not.”

Well, it is worth hearing, I assure you.
It may be that I place rather too high a
value upon it. People who have acci-
LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER. 125

dentally got hold of a secret, are apt ta
turn it over in their mind, and fondle it,
and nurse it, as a little child does her
doll, until they think there never was
such a secret before, and probably never
will be another afterward. I may think
too much of mine, possibly. But, I
guess not. I am almost sure that it is
worth as much as a small farm.

Did you ever hear of the philosopher’s
stone? It used to.be thought that there
was a certain stone in the world, if you
could only find it, which would change
any of the cheap metals, like copper,
and zine, and iron, into gold. Learned
men have spent days and days, trying to
126 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

find this philosopher’s stone, as it was
called.

Now I never heard of anybody who
had found the precious stone, and I never
expect to hear of such a man. It would
be worth a mint of money, if it could be
found. The man who could get the
stone would have no need to go to
California after gold. He could make
his own gold, lots of it, at home.

But I do think, honestly, that the
secret I have got to tell you is worth
more, or, at least, that you can make it
worth more to you than the philosopher’s
stone would be, if you had it, and could
make it work its miracles for you. Most
AND OTHER STORIES. 127

valuable secrets cost something. Many
cost a good deal of money. But I shall
not charge you a penny for mine. You
are welcome to it.

‘* Pray, Uncle Frank, what is it ?”’

“It is a recipe for being happy.
What I propose to do. is to ‘give you
a sort of patent righ¢to my secret,’’

‘*Can anybody use it 2”

‘“‘ Yes, anybody who learns the recipe. ”

‘* Please give us the secret, then,:as
quick as you can.”

Well, it is a simple thing, like a great
many other excellent inventions. It is
just this: Keep a good conscience ;
never chase after pleasure ; make the
128 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

most of the good things you have
already.

I tell you what it is, if you practice
according to this rule, you can’t help
being happy. You may have, now and.
then, some spells when the sky is a little
overcast ; but there will be bright sun-
shine in your soul, the most of the
time. Don’t be uneasy and fidgety now.
I don’t mean to preach you a sermon, or
to do anything of the kind. That is not
my way, you know, when I want to say
anything to my little friends. But I
must explain what J mean.

Hundreds and thousands of people go
abroad after pleasure, when ‘there is
AND OTHER STORIES. 129

already more than they know what to
do with at home, if they will only make
use of it. They throw away the bless-
ings God has so kindly showered upon
them, and long, and wish, and sigh for
something a great distance off, just as
many admirers of flowers neglect and
spurn the sweet, modest faces, that smile
upon them in their summer walks, and
send to China and Japan after rarer
though Yy, less lovely exotics. Such
persons a.é hardly ever happy. No
matter what kind of a place they are
put in. To them happiness is not there.
They have not quite reached it. Itisa
little beyond. They are not happy yet,
130 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

though they are expecting to be happy,
when they get a little further on in their
journey.

Children, as well as grown people,
often make a great mistake here. I
have seen a little girl, with as handsome
a doll as anybody. need wish, throw it
aside, and tease her mother for a new
one. I have seen a little boy, with a
kite such as Doctor Franklin himself
might be proud of, whiningthike a dog
with a sore nose, because it was not
large enough, and had too short a tail.
Now that is not the way to enjoy life.
You might live till you was a hundred
years old, in this style, and have all that
AND OTHER STORIES. 131

heart could wish—or all that any heart
ought to wish—all the time, and be
perfectly wretched, besides making others
almost as wretched as yourself.

My friend, Joe Loveplay, went to
school, steady, for three months or more,
all the time seeming to feel and act as if
he thought he was shut up in a dismal
dungeon. He had the promise that, if
he was a good scholar, he might go and
spend the vacation with his aunt Susan,
who lived in the country. Well, almost
every single day, all the time he was
going to school, he thought, and talked,
and dreamed about the vacation, and the
thousand sports he should enjoy when he
132 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

got, at last, to aunt Susan’s. Going
to school, you see, was a sort of penance.
He did not think of such a thing as
enjoying the present. His enjoyment
was in the future. Now that was all
very foolish. Why didn’t he just make
up his mind to be happy as he went
along? ‘Oh, dear!” he was heard
to say, sometimes, ‘‘ it does seem as if
the vacation would never come.”

It did come, though; and off my little
friend and his sweet sister Ruth started
for the country, early in the month of
July. Everything was pleasant, sure
enough, about aunt Susan’s house. Aunt
Susan was delighted to see her young
AND OTHER STORIES. 183

nephew and niece, and did everything to
make them happy during the two months
they remained with her. She used to
walk out with them, and enter into
all their little sports, as if she were
herself a child. Close by her house,
there was a fine stream of water, which
turned the grist-mill. In this stream,
Joe used to fish for little shiners, once in
a while ; and although, I believe, he did
not succeed in thinning the ranks of
these cunning fellows much, he had some
fine nibbles, and got a chance to bait his
hook pretty often. He and his sister
ransacked every nook and corner of aunt
Susan’s premises, after hen’s eggs. They
134 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

rambled off after raspberries and black-
berries, and sweet flag, and wild flowers,
and everything else worth hunting after.
They rode old Lion, aunt Susan’s great
Newfoundland dog, until the poor fellow
was tired out. They stood and looked
at the great wheel of the grist-mill,
as the water fell upon it, and turned
it round and round. They went inside
of the mill, and watched the mill-stones,
which whirled so fast that they did
not seem to move at all, and then they
gazed with wonder at the flour as it came
out of the mill.

Things went on this way until vacation
was nearly half over. One would sup-
om \
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AND OTHER STORIES. 137

pose that if there was any such thing as
a boy’s enjoying himself, he might have
been happy at Roseville, where aunt
Susan resided. But Joe, according to
his own account, strange as it may
seem, was far enough from being happy.

One day, he had been out with his
sister and his aunt, sailing the little
vessel which his uncle had just made and
rigged out for him, and he was sitting
down in the house, watching a beautiful
yellow bird, who was perched on a limb
of an apple tree near the door, and was
singing one of his merriest songs, when
he covered his face with his hands,
and burst into tears.
138 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

‘«¢ What is the matter, my dear ?”’ asked
his aunt,

«‘Q, aunt Susan,”’ said he, ‘*I am tired
of the country. I want to go back to
New York.

‘¢Why, Josey,” said she, ‘‘ how strange!
I should think you would be as happy
running about the country here, as ever
a boy was in his life.”

“But I’ve got sick of it.”

‘¢ Sick of what, dear ?”’

‘‘Of everything. I wish the vacation
was over. I wish I was at home.”

«But, Josey, your mother wrote me
that you spent weeks and months, longing
and longing for the vacation to come,
AND OTHER ‘STORIES. 139

you was going to be so happy at aunt
Susan’s.”’

‘“T know it. But I didn’t think it
was going to be so dull here. I haven’t
any boys to play with. Nobody ever
comes to Roseville. It seems to be
Sunday here all the time. I haven’t had
a speck of fun since I have been here.”

‘Ah, Josey,” said his aunt, “I see
how it is. You don’t: know how to be
happy. You was not happy at home.
You are not happy here. You will not
be happy when you go back. You never
will be happy as long as you live, unless
you turn over a new leaf. You might
ransack every nook and corner of the
140 LITTLE MISCHIFF-MAKER.

wide world, and you never would be
happy, if you looked at things as you do
now. It is an art to be happy, and you
have never learned it yet. Wouldn’t
you like to learn it ?”

Josey, making an effort to stop crying,
but still sobbing as if his heart were
either already broken, or was about to
break, said he would like to learn it.
And then aunt Susan told him the secret
which he told me, and which I have just
told you. It made quite another boy of
him. May it prove as valuable to you
as it was to him.
CHAPTER VII.
GO AHEAD.

Tuar is good advice, though some-
times, to be sure, it is hardly safe to
follow it. .

If a boy was running toward a rail
road when a train of cars was coming
along, at the rate of twenty miles an
hour, I should think he had better not
go ahead. .

If a girl was walking out in the
142 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

woods after flowers, and there should
happen to be a hornet’s nest as big as
her bonnet right in her path, nobody
would think it wise or prudent to go
ahead.

There are a great many cases that
I could think of, in which one had much
better go back than to go ahead.

If a child had begun to be wicked,
how much better it would be if he or
she should turn square around and go
straight back, and try to do right.

But there are also a great many cases
in which the advice to “go ahead” is
the very best that can be given.

I know some little folks who are in
AND OTHER STORIES. 143

the habit of stopping a long time to
think about doing anything. Why it
would take them as many years as
Methusaleh lived, to do as much as some
others would get along with in a very
short life-time.

«ll think about it,” is what they
always say, when they are asked to do
anything. And they do think about it,
sure enough. They think about it, and
talk about it. They sleep over it and
dream over it. And then, very likely,
they cannot make up their minds.

O, how I dislike to see a person who
never knows how to make up his mind.
It is well enough to be careful, especially
144 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

about important matters; but there is
such a thing as being too careful. There
is such a thing as making a dunce of
one’s self by waiting and waiting, and
thinking and thinking.

Du you see that fine house yonder so
prettily nestled down among the trees,
with oceans of flowers in the garden and
front door yard? A rich man lives
there. He is worth a good deal of
money. His farm is one of the largest
and best in the whole neighborhood.
He is not by any means an old man yet.
He is right in the prime of life. When
he became of age, he was not worth a
copper. His father was poor, and all
AND OTHER STORIES. 145

the setting out he gave him was some
capital advice.

Well, how do you think the man made
his money? By the simplest possible
means. He went ahead. If he found
any work to do, he did it. He did not
go off fishing, or hunting; or frolicking
with his lazy neighbors, because he could
not get just exactly the kind of job he
wanted to do, or because he could not get
quite as much money as he thought he
ought to have for doing it. He went
ahead. He thought it was better to do
something and get a trifle, than to do
nothing and get nothing. That is the
way he made his money.
146 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

I tell you what, little friends, it isn’t
_ so much matter what kind of business
you follow for a living—provided it is
honest and harmless—as how you fol-
low it. You must drive your business,
whatever it is—whether it is digging
potatoes or digging gold, selling matches
in the streets or muslins and silks in the
store; shaving people’s faces or promis-
sory notes; setting the types of a book
or spinning it out of your brains; sweep-
ing chimneys or building them. Go at
your business, let it be what it may, with
a hearty good will, and go ahead in it.
That is the main thing. That is every-
thing, almost.
AND OTHER STORIES. 147

I know a man whose hair is getting
white with age-now, and who has turned
his hand, first and last, to a multitude of
different kinds of business. But he has
never succeeded with any of them. He
is a poor man now. He always hae
been poor. He always will be poor.
And the only reason in the world for his
poverty is, that he never learned to go
ahead. He will take hold of a thing,
and tug away lustily at it for a while.
But before it is time for him to expect
much advantage from this kind of busi-
ness, he gets tired of-it, or discouraged
about it; and he turns right around, and
goes back, and takes hold of something
148 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

else. The silly man! why don’t he go
ahead, and not keep “backing and fill-
ing,”’ as the sailors would say, in that
kind of style? Why don’t he go ahead ?
Why don’t he drive something? I don’t
know, I’m sure. But J know that he will
never be worth anything either to him-
self or to his family, as long as he goes
on so. That is certaid.

I know another man, too, not much
older than the one I have just spoken of,
who began the world as poor as a church
mouse, but’ who is now worth a million
of dollars, at least. That man’s motto,

from the commencement of his career in
the world to the present moment, has
AND OTHER STORIES. 149

been ‘*go ahead.” And he has gone
ahead. He has-beeh driving all the
time, and driving at one branch of busi-
hess, too,

T hope you will not misunderstand me.
I don’t mean, when I speak of these dif-
ferent men, and sketch a particular trait
in the character of each one, to have
you understand that I think wealth is of
the greatest importance in this world. I
don’t think so. I don’t want you to
think so. I have brought up the cases
of these two men to show you what can
be accomplished by going ahead, and to
let you see how little a person is worth
to himself or to anybody else, who spends
150 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

his time waiting, and hesitating, and
going in this direction and in that direc-
tion, and every place but straight for-
ward. a

I meet with people sometimes, with
four times as many brains as I could ever
muster in my head, who wear a face
as long as a yard stick—a short yard
stick—and sigh, and moan, and say they
don’t know what is going to become of
them; that they can’t get anything to
do, and that they shall starve before long,
for aught they know. They are waiting
for ‘*something to turn up.” But what
is the use in their waiting for something
to turn up? Why don’t they turn some-
AND OTHER STORIES. 181

thing up? Why don’t they get a spade,
if they can’t do anything better, and
turn up the sod? Such people, who
never make up their minds to do any-
thing, because nothing comes along, re-
mind me of oysters in the mud. Why
don’t they do something? I ask again.
What are they waiting for? What is
the use in dreaming there? Why don’t
they go ahead ?

If you ever should come across one
of these people—people who spend most
of their time in waiting, and hoping for
a good day coming, and wondering what
it is best to do until it comes, just read
to them this old fable, will you not? I
152 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

should think it would start them ahead,
if anything can.

THE COUNTRY LAD AND THE RIVER.

A country lad, with honest air,
Stood by the river side ;

He put his basket calmly down,
And gazed upon the tide.

Across the river’s rapid fiood,
He saw the village, well,

*T'was there he meant to see his aunt,
And there his turnips sell.

The stream was full with recent rains,
And flowed so swiftly by,

He thought he would with patience wait,
And it would soon be dry.
AND OTHER STORIES. . 153

For many hours he waited there,
But still the stream flowed on:

And when he sadly turned away,
The summer day was gone.

His turnips might have gone to seed,
His aunt have pined away ;

For still the stream kept flowing on,
Nor has it stopped to-day.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE YELLOW BIRD'S COMPLAINT.

I.

A Yet.ow Bird complained one day
That he was not contented—

That, though he sang a cheerful lay,
His fate he oft lamented.

M.
His loving mistress, Mary Jane,
Was at the time so near him,
That she could hear the Bird complain. —
He meant that she should hear him.
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LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER. 157

II.
“Why, Frank,” she gaid, “tis strange indeed !
You are my dearest treasure ;
I give you everything you need,
T always do, with pleasure.

Iv.

“You have a splendid palace here ;
You're rich as Julius Cassar.—

This whining, then, ’tis very clear,
Is quite unkind to me, sir.

v.
“ What is it that disturbs you so ?
Why sing you thus so sadly ?
What canI do? Pray let me know ;
I'd do it for you gladly.”

vi.
In tender tones, the Bird replied,
“Those words, dear lady, grieve me ;
158

LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER.

I never once your love denied ;
I feel it all, believe me.

VIL.
“T thank you for your tenderness,
And for this lordly dwelling ;
Yet blame me not that keen distress
Within my breast is swelling.

Vill.
“One thing alone, my mistress dear—
Since you demand a reason—
Robs me of all my pleasure here—

My palace is my prison.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE HAPPY FAMILY.

I saw an exhibition, the other day, at
the American Museum in the city of
New York, which amused and delighted
me not a little. And what do you think
it was? You can’t guess. SoI might
as well tell you first as last. It was an
exhibition of the happy family.

“But,” you inquire, or look just as
if you wanted to inquire, “are happy
160 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

families so scarce, that when any are
found, Mr. Barnum gets them, and puts
‘them into his museum for a show ?”

Ha! ha! There were no men, or
women, or children, in the family I saw.
It was very differently composed. There
were upwards of a hundred different
birds and quadrupeds in it. Very likely
you see nothing so very wonderful in
the fact that so large a number of ani-
mals could live together in peace; and
that is not the wonderful part of the
story. You will perceive what inter-
ested me so much, when I tell you that
many of these animals are, by nature,
enemies of each other; but they have
AND OTHER STORIES. 16]

been so trained that they have laid
aside their natural prejudices, and live
together in as perfect harmony as if they
all belonged to the same species.

These animals were living in a large
wire cage. I should think the cage
might be some twenty feet long, six or
eight wide, and twelve ar fifteen high.
In this cage, stretching from one side to
the other, were several perches, and in
the centre a sort of miniature tree. The
bottom of the cage was covered with
clean straw.

As I entered the room where this
happy family reside, I heard the rather
unmusical voice of the great horned
162 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

owl; and as I drew nearer the cage,
sure enough, on one of the upper
perches sat that grave and conceited
old gentleman, quite up to his ears in
business. He and one of the monkeys
seemed to be making sport for the whole
family. Without meaning to slander so
respectable a person as my friend the
owl, I can scarcely refrain from saying
that the fun of the monkey was more
popular, both inside and outside of the
cage, than the music of the bird.

On closer inspection of the inhabi«
tants of this cage, I saw there quite a
number of little birds—the sparrow, the
jackdaw, the blackbird, the starling, the
AND OTHER STORIES. — 163

thrush, and so forth; and, on the same
perch, perhaps, or.in the same part of
the cage, there were sitting, without
showing the least signs of their natural
ravenous disposition, such birds of prey
as the hawk, the falcon, the owl, the
eagle.

I noticed two large cats and a dog in
the cage. The families of the dog and
the cat, you know, are not ordinarily on
the best of terms. There is, in most
cases, a good deal of quarrelling between
the members of the one and the mem-
bers of the other. But in this case the
dog and the cats' were on the best of
terms, and sometimes took it into their
164 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

heads to have a little frolic together.
That is not so very remarkable, however ;
as dogs and cats are often known to get
used to each other, so as to live together
in harmony. But why did not the dog
catch some of his favorite game; and
why did not the cats pounce upon some
of the little creatures that they are so
fond of? How in the world a cat’s
natural disposition to seize upon a good
plump rat can be overcome, I am sure I
cannot see. It is strange enough.

‘But were there rats in the cage ?”’
you ask.

Yes, a plenty of them; and Guinea
pigs, and squirrels, and rabbits. One of
AND OTHER STORIES. 165

the rats, so far from being afraid of the
cats, seemed to have taken quite a liking
to one of them, and followed her all
around the cage, and nestled down at
her side, when she was disposed to enjoy
a quiet doze in one corner.

‘‘ But pray, sir,” I asked of the keeper,
‘‘who is that black, ugly-looking chap
lying down and yawning there, in the
other end of the cage?”

The keeper thrust his long stick
through the bars of the cage, and hit
the black fellow two or three quick taps
on the nose, so as to rouse him. “It is
a bear,’”’ said he, ‘‘a great pet of mine.”’

As true as my name is Uncle Frank,
166 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

it was a bear, to all intents and pur-
poses—the very animal about whom I
used to hear so many frightful stories
when I was a little simpleton of a boy.
It was not, to be sure, the fellow that
figured in Webster’s Spelling Book,
smelling of a man who was lying on the
ground, feigning to be dead. That
beast, so far as I know, has never been
discovered out of the precincts of the
blue covered spelling book ; and it may
reasonably be questioned whether the
original of that picture did ever actually
flourish on this planet. At any rate, no
record of any trace of such an animal,
according to the best of my knowledge
AND OTHER STORIES, 167

and belief, has survived the general
wreck of the deluge that took place in
Noah’s time; and I am very much in-
clined to the opinion that in the entire
collection of wild beasts under the care
of that patriarch in the ark, the bear,
whose portrait adorned the pages of my
spelling book, could not have been
found. No doubt father Noah had bears
there; but I do not believe they bore
much resemblance to that famous oneex-
hibited by his namesake in the venerable
spelling book, which bear was less a bear
than a bugbear.

No, the bare mention of the notion
that father Noah’s bear and Noah Web-
168 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

ster’s bear were at all alike in their gen-
eral appearance, seems to me unpardon-
able slander on Bruin’s family. I can-
not bear the thought of it for an in-
stant. Nor could I bear to have you
think that the bear in Mr. Barnum’s
Museum was like that of Webster’s.
He was, in almost every respect, a
very different animal, I assure you.
But I forbear any farther comment on
the bears of former times.

The bear belonging to the happy
family was, as I have before remarked,
areal, genuine, out-and-out bear. But
how tame the fellow had become. His
demeangr toward the innocent animals
AND OTHER STORIES. 169

associated with him, so far from being
harsh and cruel, was kind and even
affectionate. He played with the dog,
whenever the latter gave him a chance
to do so. While I was looking into
the cage, I saw this savage-lodking fel-
low caressing one of the. rabbits, in
a most loving way, as if they were
on the best possible terms with each
other.

Another member of this family was
the long-tailed baboon. He, theugh as
full of fun and drollery as he could hold,
was perfectly civil and well-behaved,
and never offered, except in sport, to
molest his weaker companions. There
170 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

was an ant-eater in the cage, too, and
several other animals, whose names do
not now occur to me.

To a question which I asked of the
gentleman having this family in charge,
how he managed to reconcile these dif-
ferent ‘animals, and to keep them so
good-natured toward each other, the
reply was, ‘“ It’s a knack of mine.”
- That was about as definite an answer as
I could draw out of him. It seems that
each one of the animals is prepared,
by previous training, before it is placed
in the cage with the rest, to live on
terms of friendship and kindness, in
the community; but the precise man-
AND OTHER STORIES. 171

ner in which the training is conducted,
so far as I know, remains a secret.
‘One day, when I called at the Museum,
to have a peep at this singular family, I
saw a sight which surprised me exceed-
ingly. One of the rats in the cage—
the one who has formed such ati attach-
ment to the great matronly cat—was
vety busy about something, when I en
tered the room. <‘* What can the fellow
be at?” I thought to myself. He was
collecting small straws, and bits of paper,
and loose feathers that had fallen frott
the birds, and arranging them nicely in
one corner of the cage. Upon watching
more closely, I perceived that he was
172 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

making what appeared to be a nest.
But was he making it for himself? That,
certainly, was rather a natural conclu-
sion. §T’ll keep watching him,’ I
thought. Ididso. He was making the
nest or bed a great deal larger, it soon
appeared, than was necessary for his
ratship. ‘Why does he make it so
large ?”’ I wondered. So did the rest
of the spectators. The rat—it was a
white one, a very cunning looking
fellow—went on making his bed for
fifteen or twenty minutes after I came
into the room. At last, it was finished ;
_ and Tabby, the cat to which little Whitey
was so much attached, took possession
AND OTHER STORIES. 178

of it, evidently by the mvijtation of
Whitey ‘himself. I learned ‘afterward
that it was quite a common‘thing for the
rat to do what I hgd, with so syeh
interest, seen him do that afternoon. -

A gentleman who, like myself, was in.
the frequent habit of visiting this happy
family, informed me that he had more
than once seen a pair of jackdaws
picking a piece of meat to pieces, and
carrying the morsels to the great sparrow
hawk who generally occupies one of the
higher perches.

I could not help thinking to myself, as
I stood watching these animals, and saw
how kind and well-behaved they all
174 LITTLE MISCHIEF-MAKER,

were to each other, though they have no
reason to govern them, ‘“ What a shame
it must be for boys and girls, who are
members of the same family, and who
ought to love each other dearly, and
treat each ether kindly and tenderly—
. what a shame it must be for them to
quarrel and try to injure each other.”

THE END.


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