Happy Days for Boys and Girls - Various 8 стр.

Tom laughed. Thank you, Pearson. Well, Ill try; but I do get wishing and bothering of nights.

Ah, that wishings a poor trick, said Pearson; give it up, Tom, and work instead.

People dont often take advice, but this time it was followed. A great deal of rough weather came on; every one had as much as he could do, and Tom worked with the best of them, and to his great joy was noticed by the ships officers as a willing lad.

One bright morning brought all the passengers on deck,  the ship was bound for Rio,  and among them came the tall lady in black, with her little boy in her arms. Toms duties took him near her, and he could not but steal a glance at the little face like Willys; but, O, so pale and pinched now! The child had suffered dreadfully in the rough weather; it was doubtful whether he would see land again, he was so weakened. Tom felt sorry for the little fellow, but his work engrossed him, and he had nearly forgotten the white-faced child, when, to his great surprise, the captain called him. The lady in black was a relative of the captain, and it seemed that while Tom had been glancing at the sick child, the child had been watching him, and had taken a fancy to his clear round face, and active movements.

Let me see what sort of a head-nurse you can make, said the captain to Tom; this little fellow will have you carry him, he says, and teach him to climb the rigging.

Tom smiled, but instantly checked himself, as hardly respectful to the captain.

They dressed Carlo up in a suit of sailor clothes. To be sure they were rather large for him, but then it was such fun to be a real little sailor. Under Toms care his face soon grew round and fat, and his merry laugh rang out on the air. And now he would live to see his father and his birthplace again, for he was born in South America, and had only left his Portuguese father for a few months, to accompany his English mother on a visit to her relatives.

The day before they sighted land, Tom was sent for into the captains cabin, and there a wonderful proposal was made to him that he should give up sea life, and go to Bella Sierra as little Carlos attendant. Carlos parents were rich people; little Carlo had taken a great fancy to him, and he would have good wages.

It sounded very pleasant; but little Willy! he should never see him it would not do. Tom hesitatingly explained this to Carlos mother, drawing the little photograph out of his pocket the while.

Then came the last and best proposition,  that Willy should come out on the Flying Stars next voyage, and live, too, at Bella Sierra. Mrs. Costello the lady in black promised to pay all expenses, and put him in charge of the stewardess. Carlo, her only child, had grown so fond of Tom, that she would do anything to keep him.

Such an active, willing boy, she explained to the captain. I have often watched him at work, and admired the way in which he did it.

Well, lad, said Pearson, when Tom came to tell him the news, wasnt I right when I told you that the best way you could work for Willy was by doing your own duty? If you had gone on in that half-and-half, discontented way, no rich lady would have cared to have you about her house would she?

Tom looked thoughtful. Yes, you were right, Pearson; youve done it all; and now I want you to do one thing more. Please look after Willy a bit when he comes out; hes such a daring little chap, hell always be running away from the stewardess.

Ah, you want me to be nurse now do you? said Pearson; all right, lad, and as the song says, Dont forget me in the land youre going to. And you can still stick to my old motto, that Working is better than Wishing.

KIND TO EVERYTHING

THAT CALF!

LITTLE HELPERS

THE ANIMAL IN ARMOR

THE ANIMAL IN ARMOR

THIS picture of three curious little puppies looking at a tortoise reminds me of a story told of a countryman who saw some land-tortoises for the first time at a fair held in a market-place of his native village. Very much surprised at their queer look, he asked the man who was selling them how much they were.

Eighteenpence a pair, was the answer.

Eighteenpence! said the man; that is a great deal for a thing like a frog. What will you take for one without the box?

Little folks would not make such a stupid mistake as this; they would know that this strange-looking animal between its two shells was a tortoise. There are different sorts some that live on land, and some in water. Those that live in the sea are called turtles, and their shells are not so hard as that of the land-tortoise. It is easy to see why this is: a turtle would not be able to swim with so thick a shell; it would be much as if a man in armor were to try. Their shells are not all in one, but joined together by a sort of gristle, which enables them to move with greater ease and not so stiffly.

Directly any one hears the name of tortoise, he begins to think of tortoise-shell. This ought really to be called turtle-shell, as it is made from the shell of the hawks-bill turtle. Tortoise-shell is made by soaking the plates of the shell in warm water until they are soft; then they are pressed into the shapes wanted in warm iron moulds, and taken out and polished.

Some of the sea-turtles are very fierce; and although they have no teeth, their jaws are so strong that they can bite a walking-stick in half. Land-tortoises are quite harmless; they only attack the insects they feed upon. They go to sleep, like the dormouse, in the winter, but they do not make a burrow; they cover themselves with earth by scraping it up and throwing it over their bodies. In doing this they would find their heads and tails very much in the way if it were not that they are able to draw them in between their shells. No one, of course, knows how they find their way out again in the spring; but it is supposed that they scratch the earth away and throw it underneath them, at the same time pushing their way up.

Tortoises live to a very great age. One was given to the Zoological Gardens in 1833 which had already lived seventy years in Port Louis, in the island of Mauritius. Its shell, from the head to the tail, measured four feet four inches and a half, and it weighed two hundred and eighty-five pounds.

THE IRON RING

CHANG WANG was a Chinaman, and was reputed to be one of the shrewdest dealers in the Flowery Land. If making money fast be the test of cleverness, there was not a merchant in the province of Kwang Tung who had earned a better right to be called clever. Who owned so many fields of the tea-plant, who shipped so many bales of its leaves to the little island in the west, as did Chang Wang? It was whispered, indeed, that many of the bales contained green tea made by chopping up spoiled black tea leaves, and coloring them with copper a process likely to turn them into a mild kind of poison; but if the unwholesome trash found purchasers, Chang Wang never troubled himself with the thought whether any one might suffer in health from drinking his tea. So long as the dealer made money, he was content; and plenty of money he made.

But knowing how to make money is quite a different thing from knowing how to enjoy it. With all his ill-gotten gains, Chang Wang was a miserable man; for he had no heart to spend his silver pieces, even on his own comfort. The rich dealer lived in a hut which one of his own laborers might have despised; he dressed as a poor Tartar shepherd might have dressed when driving his flock. Chang Wang grudged himself even a hat to keep off the rays of the sun. Men laughed, and said that he would have cut off his own pigtail of plaited hair, if he could have sold it for the price of a dinner!

Chang Wang was, in fact, a miser, and was rather proud than ashamed of the hateful vice of avarice.

Chang Wang had to make a journey to Macao, down the great River Yang-se-kiang, for purposes of trade. The question with the Chinaman now was, in what way he should travel.

Shall I hire a palanquin? thought Chang Wang, stroking his thin mustaches; no, a palanquin would cost too much money. Shall I take my passage in a trading vessel?

The rich trader shook his head, and the pigtail behind it such a passage would have to be paid for.

I know what Ill do, said the miser to himself; Ill ask my uncle Fing Fang to take me in his fishing-boat down the great river. It is true that it will make my journey a long one; but then I shall make it for nothing. Ill go to the fisherman Fing Fang, and settle the matter at once.

The business was soon arranged, for Fing Fang would not refuse his rich nephew a seat in his boat. But he, like every one else, was disgusted at Chang Wangs meanness; and as soon as the dealer had left his hovel, thus spoke Fing Fang to his sons, Ko and Jung:

Heres a fellow who has scraped up money enough to build a second Porcelain Tower, and he comes here to beg a free passage in a fishing-boat from an uncle whom he has never so much as asked to share a dish of his birds-nests soup!

Birds-nests soup, indeed! exclaimed Ko; why, Chang Wang never indulges in luxuries such as that. If dogs flesh were not so cheap, hed grudge himself the paw of a roasted puppy!

And what will Chang Wang make of all his money at last? said Fing Fang, more gravely; he cannot carry it away with him when he dies.

O, hes gathering it up for some one who will know how to spend it! laughed Jung. Chang Wang is merely fishing for others; what he gathers, they will enjoy.

It was a bright, pleasant day when Chang Wang stepped into the boat of his uncle, to drop slowly down the great Yang-se-kiang. Many a civil word he said to Fing Fang and his sons, for civil words cost nothing. Chang Wang sat in the boat, twisting the ends of his long mustaches, and thinking how much money each row of plants in his tea-fields might bring him. Presently, having finished his calculations, the miser turned to watch his relations, who were pursuing their fishing occupation in the way peculiar to China. Instead of rods, lines, or nets, the Fing Fang family was provided with trained cormorants, which are a kind of bird with a long neck, large appetite, and a particular fancy for fish.

It was curious to watch a bird diving down in the sunny water, and then suddenly come up again with a struggling fish in his bill. The fish was, however, always taken away from the cormorant, and thrown by one of the Fing Fangs into a well at the bottom of the boat.

Cousin Ko, said the miser, leaning forward to speak, how is it that your clever cormorants never devour the fish they catch?

Cousin Chang Wang, replied the young man, dost thou not see that each bird has an iron ring round his neck, so that he cannot swallow? He only fishes for others.

Methinks the cormorant has a hard life of it, observed the miser, smiling. He must wish his iron ring at the bottom of the Yang-se-kiang.

Fing Fang, who had just let loose two young cormorants from the boat, turned round, and from his narrow slits of Chinese eyes looked keenly upon his nephew.

Didst thou ever hear of a creature, said he, that puts an iron ring around his own neck?

There is no such creature in all the land that the Great Wall borders, replied Chang Wang.

Fing Fang solemnly shook the pigtail which hung down his back. Like many of the Chinese, he had read a great deal, and was a kind of philosopher in his way.