Читать книгу Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXIII.—April, 1852.—Vol. IV. - Various - Страница 4

One pleasant morning in the month of June, during the next summer after the great storm, Rodolphus was drawing his sister Annie about the yard in a little green cart which her sister Ellen kept for her. There was a great elm-tree in the middle of the yard, with a path leading all around it. Rodolphus was going round and round this tree. Annie was playing that Rodolphus was her horse, and she had reins to drive him by. She also had a little whip to whip him with when he did not go fast enough.

Presently Ellen came to the door. She had a small hammer in one hand, and a box containing some small nails and tags of leather in the other. She was going to train up a climbing rose, which had been planted by the side of the door.

Ellen told Rodolphus that she thought it was time for him to get ready to go to school.

"Oh, no," said Rodolphus, "it is not time yet;" so he went prancing and galloping on around the great tree.

A moment afterward his mother came to the door.

"Rodolphus," said she, "it is time for you to go to school."

"Oh no, mother, not yet," said Rodolphus.

"Yes," said his mother, "it is quite time. Come in directly."

"Well, mother," said Rodolphus, "I will."

Mrs. Linn stopped a moment to look at Ellen's rose-tree, and to say "How pretty it looks climbing up here by the door;" and then she went in. Rodolphus continued to run round the yard. Presently he came prancing up to the door, and stopped to see what Ellen was doing.

"Rodolphus," said Ellen, "you ought to obey mother. She said that you must go to school."

"Oh, pretty soon," said Rodolphus. "She is not in any hurry."

"Yes, Rodolphus," said Annie, in a very positive manner. "You ought to obey my mother. You must go to school."

So saying, Annie began to move as if she were going to get out of the cart, but Rodolphus perceiving this, immediately began to draw the cart along, and thus prevented her. She could not get out while the cart was going.

Rodolphus continued to run about for some time longer. Annie begged of him to stop and let her get out, but he would not. At length his mother came to the door again, and renewed her commands. She said that unless he stopped playing with the cart, and went to school immediately, she should certainly punish him.

"Why, mother," said Rodolphus, "it is not late. Besides, I am going to draw Annie to school in the cart, and so we shall go very quick."

"No," said his mother, "you must not take the cart to school. If you do, it will come to some damage."

"Oh, no," said Rodolphus. "Go and get me Annie's books, and I will start off directly."

His mother went into the house and brought out a spelling-book, and put it down on the step of the door. She called out at the same time to Rodolphus, who was at that time near the great tree, telling him that there was the book, and that he must leave the cart, and take Annie and the book, and go directly.

The reason why Mrs. Linn was so solicitous for the safety of the cart, was because it was Ellen's cart, and she knew that Ellen prized it very highly. The way that Ellen came to have such a cart was this:

One day she was walking alone near the back fence of the garden, at a place where the fence was very high and close, when she heard the voices of some children on the other side, in a little green lane, where children often used to play. Ellen thought she heard Rodolphus's voice among the others, and there appeared to be some difficulty, as in fact there usually was, where Rodolphus's voice could be heard. So Ellen climbed upon a sort of trellis, which had been made there against the fence, in order that she might look over and see what was the matter.

She found that there were two girls there with a small cart, and that Rodolphus had got into the cart, and was insisting that the girls should draw him along. The girls looked troubled and distressed, and were not trying to draw.

"Pull," said Rodolphus. "Pull away, hearty."

"No," said the girls – "we can't pull. It is too heavy – besides, you will break down our cart."

"Rodolphus!" said Ellen.

Rodolphus turned his head, and saw his sister looking down upon him from the top of the fence.

"Ellen," said he, "is that you?"

"Yes," said Ellen, "I would not trouble those poor girls. Let them have their cart."

"Why, they could pull me just as well as not," said Rodolphus, "if they would only try. Come, girls," he added, "give one good pull, and then I will get out."

The girls hesitated a moment, being obviously afraid that the cart would be broken. They looked up to Ellen, as if they hoped that in some way or other she could help them, but Ellen knew not what to do. So they concluded to submit to Rodolphus's terms. They made a desperate effort to draw the cart along a few steps, but the result which they had feared was realized. The cart went on, staggering, as it were, under its heavy burden, for a short space, and then a crack was heard, and one side of it sank suddenly down to the ground. The axletree had broken, close to the wheel.

The children seemed greatly distressed at this accident. Rodolphus got out of the cart, and looked at the fracture – appearing perplexed in his turn, and not knowing what to say. The oldest girl took up the wheel, and began to examine the fracture with a very sorrowful countenance, while the youngest looked on, the picture of grief and despair.

"Now, Mary," said the youngest child, in a very desponding tone, "I don't believe we can sell our cart at all."

"Do you wish to sell it?" asked Ellen.

"Yes," said Mary. "Father said that we might sell it, if we could find any body that would buy it; but now it is broken, I don't suppose that any body will."

"How much do you ask for it?" said Ellen.

"A quarter of a dollar," said Mary.

"Well," replied Ellen, "perhaps I will buy it. If you will bring it round to our house this evening after tea, I will get Antonio to look at it and see if it is worth a quarter of a dollar; or, rather, if it was worth a quarter of a dollar before it was broken – for that will make no difference; and if he says it was, perhaps I may buy it."

"Well," said Mary, "we will."

"Is Beechnut coming to our house this evening?" asked Rodolphus.

"Yes," said Ellen.

The girls seemed much relieved of their distress at hearing this. Mary took up the broken wheel and put it into the cart, saying at the same time,

"Come, Ally, let us carry it home."

Mary stooped down to take hold of one side of the cart, while her sister took hold of the other, and so they lifted it up.

"Rodolphus," said Ellen, "I think you had better help them carry the cart home."

"Yes," said Rodolphus, "I will."

So Rodolphus took the wheel out of the cart and gave it to Mary to carry, and then lifting up the cart bodily, he put it upside down upon his head, as if it were a cap, and then began to run after the girls with it. They fled, filling the air with shouts of laughter, and thus the three went off together, all in high glee.

The end of it was, that Ellen bought the cart, and Antonio made a new axletree for it, and put it, in all respects, in complete repair. He also painted it beautifully inside and out, making it look better than when it was new. Ellen's motive in getting the cart was chiefly to promote Annie's amusement, but still she valued it herself, very highly.

She used often to lend it to Rodolphus when he was playing with Annie in the yard, and Rodolphus would draw his sister about in it. Ellen always gave him many cautions not to go too fast, and was very careful never to allow him to put any thing inside that would bruise or soil it. There was a little seat inside for Annie to sit upon, with a box beneath it where a small basket of provisions could be stored, in case of an excursion. Beechnut had promised, too, to make Annie a whip, and Ellen was going to make her a pair of reins, so that when Rodolphus was drawing her she might play drive.

But to return to the story.

Rodolphus drew the cart up to the door, and taking up the book, he put it upon Annie's lap and then began to move away again.

"Stop," said Annie; "stop, and let me get out."

"No," said Rodolphus, "I am going to draw you to school."

"No," said Annie, "my mother said that you must not take my cart to school."

"Oh, she won't care," said Rodolphus, still going.

"But she said that you must ot," persisted Annie.

"That was because she thought the cart would come to some damage," said Rodolphus. "But it will not come to any damage. I shall bring it home all safe at noon, and then she won't care."

By this time Rodolphus had got out into the road. Annie looked anxious and distressed, but as Rodolphus walked rapidly on, she was entirely helpless, and could do nothing but sit still, though she urged Rodolphus to stop, again and again, until at last, finding that it did no good, she gave up in despair, and resigned herself to her fate.

They proceeded in this way until they had got pretty near the village, when, as they were going along the road, which at this place led near the margin of the river, just below the bridge and mill, Rodolphus saw two boys getting into a boat. He asked them where they were going; they said that they were going a-fishing.

"I mean to go too," said Rodolphus, looking toward Annie.

"No," said Annie, "you must not go, for then what shall I do with my cart?"

"Oh, you can draw your cart along to school yourself, very well," said Rodolphus, and so saying, he lifted Annie hastily and roughly out of the cart, calling out at the same time to the boys to wait a minute for him. He put the handle, which was at the end of the tongue of the cart, into Annie's hand, and then ran down to the water; and thus, almost before Annie had time to recover from her astonishment, she found herself left alone in the road, while the boat, with Rodolphus and the other boys in it, began slowly to recede from the shore.

Annie began to cry. Rodolphus called out to her in a rough voice to go along to school. So she began to walk slowly along, drawing the cart wearily after her.

On her way home from school that day, when she came to the place in the road where Rodolphus had left her in the morning, she found him waiting there for her. She was coming without the cart. Rodolphus asked her what she had done with it. She said that she had left it at school. The teacher had told her that it was too heavy for her to draw, and had put it in a corner, to wait till Rodolphus came. Rodolphus then told Annie to sit down upon a stone by the side of the road till he came back, and then began to run toward the school-house. In a short time he came back bringing the cart. He put Annie into it and went toward home.

Annie asked him where he had been all the day – but he did not answer. He seemed discontented and uneasy, and preserved a moody silence all the way home, except that once he turned and charged Annie not to tell his mother or Ellen that he had not been at school that day. When he reached home, he left the cart at the door, and stepping into the entry he began to call out aloud,

"Mother! Mother!"

Ellen came to the door and said in a gentle voice,

"Mother can't come now, Rolfy; she is busy."

"But I want to see her a minute," said he. "Mother! Mother!"

A moment afterward his mother appeared at her bedroom window.

"What do you want, Rolfy?" said she.

Rodolphus said nothing, but stood still, pointing to the cart, with a triumphant air.

"What?" said his mother.

"See!" said Rodolphus.

"What is it?" said she.

"The cart," said Rodolphus, "all safe."

"Well," said his mother, "what then?"

"Why, you said," replied Rodolphus, "that if I took it to school, it would come to some damage."

"Well, it might have come to some damage," said she, "you know. And you ought not to have taken it."

So saying his mother went away from the window.

Rodolphus was, in fact, a source of continual trial and trouble to his mother, though she did not know one half of his evil deeds. He concealed them from her very easily, for she never made a careful inquiry into his conduct when he was out of her sight. He played truant continually, going off to play with idle boys. He fell into bad company, and formed many evil habits. He was continually getting into mischief among the neighbors. They complained of him sometimes, to his mother, but this did no good. Generally, she would not believe any thing that they said against him, and whenever any of his evil deeds were fully proved to her, she made so many excuses for him, and looked upon his misconduct with so indulgent a view, that she exercised no restraint upon him whatever.

He wanted more money than his mother could furnish him with, and he gradually fell into dishonest means of obtaining it. His sister Ellen had some poultry, and once a-week she used to commission him to carry the eggs into the village for sale. Ellen used to go out every morning to get the eggs from her nests, but Rodolphus would often go out before her, and take a part of the eggs and hide them. These he would consider his own, and so when he carried her supply to market, he would secretly add to them those he had thus purloined, so as to get more money for the eggs than he returned to her. He used to get the apples, too, from the neighbors' orchards, and once when he was in a store in a village, and saw a little money upon the counter, which a girl had laid down there to pay for some thread, and which the store-keeper had forgotten to put away, Rodolphus, watching his opportunity, slipped it into his pocket and went away with it. He felt very guilty after he had done this, for several days; but still he kept the money.

Ellen was the only person who had any influence over Rodolphus, and she had not a great deal. She was, however, herself a great help and a great source of comfort to her mother. As soon as she came home, she began in a very modest and unassuming manner, to introduce the system and order which had prevailed in her aunt's household, into that of her mother. She began with Annie's and Rodolphus' playthings, which, when she first came home, were scattered all over the house in disorder and confusion. She collected these playthings all together, repaired the books which were damaged, mended the broken toys, and arranged them all neatly upon a shelf which her mother allowed her to use for the purpose. Then she gradually put the rooms in the house in order, one after another. She drove up nails in convenient places, to hang implements and utensils upon. She induced Rodolphus to put the yard and the grounds about the house in order. Every useless thing that would burn, was put upon the wood-pile, and all other rubbish cleared away. She planted the seeds of climbing plants about the gateways, and near the windows of the house, and in one corner she made a very pretty trellis, by tying poles together with a kind of very flexible wire called binding wire. Antonio showed her how to do it. In fact, by means of what Ellen did, the house was in a very few months entirely transformed, and became one of the neatest and pleasantest cottages in all the town; and she and her mother and Annie would have lived together very happily in it, had it not been for the anxiety and trouble which Rodolphus gave them.

One day Antonio, who often came to Mrs. Linn's to see if there was any thing he could do for the family, and who had often talked with Rodolphus about the evil of his ways, drove up to the gate in a wagon, and proposed to Rodolphus to go and take a ride with him.

"Yes," said Rodolphus, "I will go."

"Go and ask your mother first," said Antonio.

"Oh, she will let me go, I know," said Rodolphus, coming at the same time toward the wagon.

"Go and ask her," said Antonio.

So Rodolphus went and asked his mother, and she gave him leave. He then ran back to the wagon, climbed up into it, and took his seat by the side of Antonio.

In the course of this ride, Antonio had a long and plain conversation with Rodolphus about his evil course of life, and the sorrows and sufferings to which it would lead him, and in which it would involve his mother and sister, if he went on as he had begun. He told him, however, that if on the other hand he would make a change, if he would obey his mother, and go regularly to school, and keep away from bad company, and become industrious and honest, he would grow up to be a useful and respectable man, and would make himself and all around him happy.

Rodolphus heard what Antonio said, patiently and attentively through to the end, and then said,

"Yes, Beechnut, my sister Ellen told me that very same thing, and I have tried to be a better boy, very hard indeed, but I can't."

However, notwithstanding this, Rodolphus promised Antonio that he would try once more, and for several days after this conversation he was a much better boy. He went to school regularly and was more willing to help his mother and Ellen about the house. This lasted for about a week.

At the end of that time he was one evening working with Ellen in the garden, about sunset, when he heard a sound near him by a wall. There was an old stone wall on that side of the garden, with bushes which grew upon the outside rising above it. Rodolphus looked up when he heard the noise, and saw a boy's head just over the wall at an opening among the bushes. The boy held his finger to his lips in token of silence and secrecy, pointing very quickly to Ellen, whose face at that instant was turned the other way, so that she did not see him; he then dropped down behind the wall out of sight again.

Rodolphus knew that the boy wished to speak to him, and that he was prevented from doing so because Ellen was there.

Accordingly a moment afterward, Rodolphus told Ellen that she had better go in, and that he would finish the rest of the work and come in presently with the tools. Ellen thanked Rodolphus for what she supposed was his disinterested kindness, and went in.

As soon as Rodolphus was alone, the boy's head appeared above the wall again.

"She's gone at last," said he. "I thought she never would go." The boy then seemed to rise higher, as if he were stepping up upon a stone outside the wall. He held out his hand toward Rodolphus, saying, "See there!"

Rodolphus looked, and saw that he had three half dollars in his hand.

"Where did you get that money?" said Rodolphus.

"Ah!" said the boy, winking, and looking very mysterious, "don't you wish you knew! You'd like to find the nest that has such eggs as those in it, wouldn't you? Well, I'll tell you all about it to-night. Come out here after nine o'clock. I will be here to meet you. We have got plenty of money and we're going to have a good time."

Soon after this Rodolphus carried his tools to the shed, and went in to his supper. About eight o'clock it became dark, and at half-past eight, Rodolphus said that he felt rather tired and he believed that he would go to bed. Feeling guilty and self-condemned as he did, he appeared absent-minded and dejected, and Ellen was anxious about him. She was afraid that he was going to be sick. She lighted the lamp for him, and went up with him to his room and did all that she could to make him comfortable. At length she bade him good-night and went away.

The place where Rodolphus slept was in a little corner of an attic by a great chimney. The place had been partitioned off, and there was a door leading into it. This door had a hasp on the inside. There was also a small window which opened out upon the roof of a shed. It was a pretty long step from the window down to the roof of the shed, but yet Rodolphus had often got down there, although his mother had repeatedly forbidden him ever to do so.

As soon as Ellen was gone, Rodolphus fastened the door and then waited a little while till all was still. Then he opened the window very gently and crept out. He put out his light the last thing before he got out of the window, and crept down upon the roof of the shed. He stopped here to listen. All was still. He walked softly, with his shoes in his hand, down to the lower edge of the roof, and there he got down to the ground by means of a fence which joined the shed at one corner there.

Rodolphus found the boys waiting for him beyond the garden wall. He went away with them and spent the night in carousals and wickedness, under a barn in a solitary place. About one o'clock he came back to the house. He climbed up the fence and got upon the shed. He crept along the shed softly, with his shoes in his hand as before, and got into his window. When in, he shut down the window, undressed himself, and went to bed.

And this was the end of all Rodolphus's resolutions to reform.