Bruno
Some children unwilling to learn.
Sometimes a child, when his father and mother wish to teach him to walk, is not willing to learn. He will not try. He sits down at once upon the ground, and will not make any effort, like the dog who does not wish to learn to draw. So far as learning to walk is concerned, this is of no great consequence, for, as his strength increases, he will at last learn to walk himself, without any particular teaching.
There are a great many things, however, which it is very important for children to know, that they never would learn of themselves. These they must be taught, and taught very patiently and carefully. Reading is one of those things, and writing is another. Then there is arithmetic, and all the other studies taught in schools. Some children are sensible enough to see how important it is that they should learn all these things, and are not only willing, but are glad to be taught them. Like Josey, they are pleased, and they try to learn. Others are unwilling to learn. They are sullen and ill-humored about it. They will not make any cordial and earnest efforts. The consequence is, that they learn very little. But then, when they grow up, and find out how much more other people know and can do than they, they bitterly regret their folly.
Some are willing.
Some children, instead of being unwilling to learn what their parents desire to teach them, are so eager to learn, that they ingeniously contrive ways and means to teach themselves. I once knew a boy, whose parents were poor, so that they could not afford to send him to school, and he went as an apprentice to learn the trade of shoemaking. He knew how important it was to study arithmetic, but he had no one to teach him, and, besides that, he had no book, and no slate and pencil. He, however, contrived to borrow an arithmetic book, and then he procured a large shingle6 and a piece of chalk, to serve for slate and pencil. Thus provided, he went to work by himself in the evenings, ciphering in the chimney-corner by the light of the kitchen fire. Of course he met with great difficulties, but he persevered, and by industry and patience, and by such occasional help as he could obtain from the persons around him, he succeeded, and went regularly through the book. That boy afterward, when he grew up, became a senator.
Things difficult to learn.
Some things are very difficult to learn, and children are very often displeased because their parents and teachers insist on teaching them such difficult things. But the reason is, that the things that are most difficult to learn are usually those that are most valuable to know.
The lawyer and the wood-sawyer.
Once I was in the country, and I had occasion to go into a lawyer’s office to get the lawyer to make a writing for me about the sale of a piece of land. It took the lawyer about half an hour to make the writing. When it was finished, and I asked him how much I was to pay, he said one dollar. I expected that it would have been much more than that. It was worth a great deal more than that to me. So I paid him the dollar, and went out.
At the door was a laborer sawing wood. He had been sawing there all the time that I had been in the lawyer’s office. I asked him how long he had to saw wood to earn a dollar.
“All day,” said he. “I get just a dollar a day.”
Difference of pay, and reason for it.
Now some persons might think it strange, that while the lawyer, sitting quietly in his office by a pleasant fire, and doing such easy work as writing, could earn a dollar in half an hour, that the laborer should have to work all day to earn the same sum. But the explanation of it is, that while the lawyer’s work is very easy to do after you have learned how to do it, it is very
difficult to learn. It takes a great many years of long and patient study to become a good lawyer, so as to make writings correctly. On the other hand, it is very easy to learn to saw wood. Any body that has strength enough to saw wood can learn to do it very well in two or three days. Thus the things that are the most difficult to learn are, of course, best paid for when they are learned; and parents wish to provide for their children the means of living easily and comfortably in future life, by teaching them, while they are young, a great many difficult things. The foolish children, however, are often ill-humored and sullen, and will not learn them. They would rather go and play.
It is very excusable in a dog to evince this reluctance to be taught, but it is wholly inexcusable in a child.
PANSITA
This is a true story of a dog named Pansita. They commonly called her Pannie.
Pansita was a prairie-dog. These prairie-dogs are wild. They live in Mexico. They burrow in the ground, and it is extremely difficult to catch them. They are small, but very beautiful.
Pansita belonged to an Indian girl on the western coast of Mexico. An American, who came into that country from Lima, which is a city in Peru, saw Pansita.
“What a pretty dog!” said he. “How I should like her for a present to the American minister’s wife in Lima.”
So he went to the Indian girl, and tried to buy the dog, but the girl would not sell her. She liked her dog better than any money that he could give her.
Pansita bought with gold.
Then the gentleman took some gold pieces out of his pocket, and showed them to the mother of the girl.
“See,” said he; “I will give you all these gold pieces if you will sell me Pansita.”
The Indian woman counted over the gold as the gentleman held it in his hand, and found that it made eighteen dollars. She said that the girl should sell Pansita for that money. So she took the dog out of the girl’s arms, and gave it to the gentleman. The poor girl burst into a loud cry of grief and alarm at the thought of losing her dog. She threw the pieces of gold which her mother had put into her hand down upon the ground, and screamed to the stranger to bring back her dog.
But he would not hear. He put the dog in his pocket, and ran away as fast as he could run, till he got to his boat, and the sailors rowed him away.
She is taken off in a ship. Lima.
He took the dog in a ship, and carried her to Peru. When he landed, he wished to send her up to Lima. So he put her in a box. He had made openings in the box, so that little Pannie might breathe on the way. He gave the box to a friend of his who was going to Lima, and asked him to deliver it to the American minister.
A pretended chronometer.
He was afraid that the gentleman would not take good care of the box if he knew that there was only a dog inside, so he pretended that it was a chronometer, and he marked it, “
This side up, with care.”
A chronometer is a sort of large watch used at sea. It is a very exact and a very costly instrument.
He gave the box to his friend, and said, “Will you be kind enough, sir, to take this chronometer in your lap, and carry it to Lima, and give it to the American minister there?”
The gentleman said that he would, and he took the box in his lap, and carried it with great care.
Before long, however, Pansita, not having quite air enough to breathe inside the box, put her nose out through one of the openings.
“Ah!” said the gentleman, “this is something strange. I never knew a ship’s chronometer to have a nose before.”
Thus he discovered that it was a dog, and not a chronometer that he was carrying.
He, however, continued to carry the box very carefully, and when he arrived at Lima he delivered it safely to the minister, and the minister gave it to his wife.
The beauty of the dog. The lady is much pleased.
The lady was very much pleased to see such a beautiful dog. Its form was graceful, its eyes full of meaning, and its fur was like brown silk, very soft, and smooth, and glossy.
The American flag hoisted.
By-and-by a revolution broke out in Lima, and there was great confusion and violence in the streets. The Americans that were there flocked to the house of the minister for protection. The house was a sort of castle. It had a court, in the centre, and great iron gates across the passage-way that formed the entrance. The minister brought soldiers from the ships to guard his castle, and shut the gates to keep the people that were fighting in the streets from getting in. He hoisted the American flag, too, on the corner of the battlements. The Americans that had fled there for safety were all within the walls, greatly alarmed.7
Danger.
Pansita, wondering what all the noise and confusion in the streets could mean, concluded that she would go out and see. So, watching her opportunity, she slipped through among the soldiers to the passage-way, and thence out between the bars of the great iron gates. The lady, when she found that Pansita had gone out, was greatly alarmed.
“She will be killed!” said she. “She will be killed! What can I do to save her? She will certainly be killed!”
But nothing could be done to save Pansita; for if they had opened the gates to go out and find her, the people that were fighting in the streets would have perhaps rushed in, and then they would all have been killed.
Pansita is recovered.
So they had to wait till the fighting was over, and then they went out to look for Pansita. To their great joy, they found her safe in a house round the corner.
After a time, the minister and his wife returned to America, and they brought Pansita with them. They had a house on the North River, and Pansita lived with them there many years in great splendor and happiness.
Pannie’s bed.
The lady made a bed for Pannie in a basket, with nice and well-made bed-clothes to cover her when she was asleep. Pannie would get into this bed at night, but she would always scratch upon it with her claws before she lay down. This was her instinct.
She was accustomed in her youth, when she was burrowing in the ground in the prairies in Mexico, to make the place soft where she was going to lie down by scratching up the earth with her paws, and she continued the practice now, though, of course, this was not a proper way to beat up a bed of feathers.
Pannie was a great favorite with all who knew her. She was affectionate in her disposition, and mild and gentle in her demeanor; and, as is usually the case with those who possess such a character, she made a great many friends and no enemies.
Mistakes.
By-and-by Pannie grew old and infirm. She became deaf and blind, and sometimes, when the time came for her to go to bed at night, she would make a mistake, and get into the wrong basket – a basket that belonged to another dog. This would make Looly, the dog that the basket belonged to, very angry. Looly would run about the basket, and whine and moan until Pansita was taken out and put into her own place.
Pannie’s death and burial.
At last Pansita died. They put her body in a little leaden coffin, and buried it in a very pleasant place between two trees.
This is a true story.
THE DOG’S PETITION
Letter-day.
One day, about the middle of the quarter, in a certain school, what the boys called Letter-day came. Letter-day was a day in which all the boys in the school were employed in writing letters.
Each boy, on these occasions, selected some absent friend or acquaintance, and wrote a letter to him. The letters were written first on a slate, and then, after being carefully corrected, were copied neatly on sheets of paper and sent. The writing of these letters was thus made a regular exercise of the school. It was, in fact, an exercise in composition.
Erskine’s conversation with his teacher.
A boy named Erskine, after taking out his slate, and writing the date upon the top of it, asked the teacher whom he thought it would be best for him to write to.
“How would you like to write to your aunt?” asked the teacher.
“Why, pretty well,” said Erskine, rather doubtfully.
“I think it would be doing good to write to her,” said the teacher. “It will please her very much to have a letter from you.”
“Then I will,” said Erskine. “On the whole, I should like to write to her very much.”
So Erskine wrote the letter, and, when it had been corrected and copied, it was sent.
This is the letter. It gives an account of a petition offered by a dog to his master, begging to be allowed to accompany the boys of the school on an excursion:
Erskine’s letter.
August 2, 1853.Dear Aunt, – I hope you have been well since I have heard from you.
We took an excursion up to Orange Pond, and stayed all day. In the morning it was very misty, but in about an hour it cleared up, and the sun came out. Charles and Stephen went over to Mr. Wingate’s to get a stage, and a lumber-wagon, and a carriage. There were two horses in the stage, and an old gray one in the lumber-wagon. Wright and I went down to get William Harmer, a new scholar, to come up here before we started. At last we all were ready, Crusoe and all. The teacher bought a little dog in the vacation, and named him Crusoe. One of the boys wrote a letter, and tied it about Crusoe’s neck, and this was it:
The dog’s petition.
My very dear Master, – Can I go with the boys to-day on the excursion? I will be very good, and not bark or bite. I wish to go very much indeed, and I hope you will let me.
From your affectionate dog,Bow-wow-wow.Account of an excursion. Diving off the row-boats. The hot rock. Coming home.
Soon we started. It was very cool when we left home, but when we got out on the hills it was very hot. The teacher let us get out once and get some berries. After a ride of about nine miles, we got out, and found it a very cool place. The public house was very near to the pond, and we ran down there as soon as we got our fishing-poles. Some of the boys got into an old boat, and got a fish as soon as they cast their poles out. The man said some of us should go out on an old rock that was there, and the rest of us in a boat. We had a fine time fishing, and caught about thirty small fish. Mr. Wingate went out in another boat, and caught a very large perch and pickerel, and a few other fish. After we had caught a few more fish, we became tired, and wanted to go to the shore; so the teacher took two or three of us at a time, and we went to the shore. After we had played around a little, we had a nice dinner, and then we went in swimming. The man said we might dive off the small row-boats. We had fine fun pulling the boats along while we were wading in the water, for it was nice and sandy on the bottom. We found we could wade out to the rock before named. We all waded out on it; but no sooner had we got on the top, than we jumped off in all directions, for it was so hot that one could roast an egg on it. We all ran back to the shore as fast as we could go, laughing heartily. As soon as we got up and were dressed, we went up to the house. Mr. Wingate harnessed up the horses, and we were soon trotting home. We went around by a different way from the one we came by, through some woods, and had a fine ride home. That is the end of our excursion to Orange Pond.
From your affectionate friend,Erskine.Erskine’s aunt was very much gratified at receiving this letter. She read it with great interest, and answered it very soon.
THE STORM ON THE LAKE
The philosophy of mountains, springs, brooks, and lakes.
Mountains make storms, storms make rain fall, and the rain that falls makes springs, brooks, and lakes; thus mountains, storms, brooks, and lakes go together.
Mountains make storms, and cause the rain to fall by chilling the air around their summits, and condensing the vapor into rain and into snow. Around the lower parts of the mountains, where it is pretty warm, the vapor falls in rain. Around the higher parts, where it is cold, it falls in snow.
Formation of rivers.
Part of the water from the rain soaks into the ground, on the declivities of the mountains, and comes out again, lower down, in springs. Another portion flows down the ravines in brooks and torrents, and these, uniting together, form larger and larger streams, until, at length, they become great rivers, that flow across wide continents. If you were to follow up almost any river in the world, you would come to mountains at last.
It does not always rain among the mountains, but the springs and streams always flow. The reason of this is, that before the water which falls in one storm or shower has had time to drain out from the ground and flow away, another storm comes and renews the supply. If it were to cease to rain altogether among the mountains, the water that is now in them would soon be all drained off, and the springs and streams would all be dry.
But how is it in regard to lakes? How are the lakes formed?
How lakes are formed.
This is the way.
When the water, in flowing down in the brooks and streams, comes to a valley from which it can not run out, it continues to run in and fill up the valley, until it reaches the level of some place where it can run out. As soon as it reaches that level, the surplus water runs out at the opening as fast as it comes in from the springs and streams, and then the lake never rises any higher.
A lake, then, is nothing but a valley full of water.
Of course, there are more valleys among mountains than any where else, and there, too, there are more streams and springs to fill them. Thus, among mountains, we generally find a great many lakes.
Outlets; feeders.
Since lakes are formed in this way, you would expect, in going around one, that you would find some streams flowing into it, and one stream flowing out. This is the case with almost all lakes. The place where the water flows out of the lake is called the outlet. The streams which flow into the lake are sometimes called the feeders. They feed the lake, as it were, with water.
Ponds without outlets.
Sometimes a lake or pond has no outlet. This is the case when there are so few streams running into it that all the water that comes can dry up from the surface of the lake, or soak away into the ground.
Sometimes you will find, among hilly pastures, a small pond, lying in a hollow, which has not any outlet, or any feeders either. Such a pond as this is fed either by secret springs beneath the ground, or else by the water which falls on the slopes around it when it is actually raining.
If you were to take an umbrella, and go to visit such a pond in the midst of a shower, and were to look down among the grass, you would see a great many little streams of water flowing down into the pond.
The way to note the rise and fall of water in a lake.
Then if, after the shower was over, you were to put up a measure in the water, and leave it there a few days, or a week, and then visit it again, you would find that the surface of the water would have subsided – that is, gone down. As soon as the rain ceases, so that all fresh supplies of water are cut off, the water already in the pond begins at once to soak away slowly into the ground, and to evaporate into the air. Once I knew a boy who was of an inquiring turn of mind, and who concluded to ascertain precisely what the changes were which took place in the level of a small pond, which lay in a hollow behind his father’s garden. So he measured off the inches on a smooth stick, and marked them, and then he set up the stick in the water of the pond. Thus he could note exactly how the water should rise or fall. There came a great shower very soon after he set up his measure, and it caused the water in the pond to rise three inches. After that it was dry weather for a long time, and the level of the pond fell four inches lower than it was when he first put up the measure.
Lakes among the mountains are often very large, and the waves which rise upon them in sudden tempests of wind and rain sometimes run very high.
The storm on the Lake of Gennesaret. Jesus in the ship.
The Lake of Gennesaret, so often mentioned in the New Testament, was such a lake, and violent storms of wind and rain rose sometimes very suddenly upon it. One evening, Jesus and his disciples undertook to cross this lake in a small vessel. It was very pleasant when they commenced the voyage, but in the night a sudden storm came on, and the waves rose so high that they beat into the ship. This was the time that the disciples came and awoke Jesus, who was asleep in the stern of the ship when the storm came on, and called upon him to save them. He arose immediately, and came forward, and rebuked the winds and the sea, and immediately they became calm.
The adjoining engraving represents the scene. Jesus has come forward to the prow, and stands there looking out upon the waves, which seem ready to overwhelm the vessel. The disciples are greatly terrified. One of them is kneeling near the place where Jesus stands, and is praying to God for mercy. The others are behind. They are equally afraid. The sails have been torn by the wind, and are flying away. Jesus extends his hand, and says to the winds and waves, “Peace! be still!”
The anchor of the ship is seen in the engraving hanging over the bow. But the anchor, in such a case as this, is useless. The water is too deep in the middle of the lake for it to reach the bottom; and, besides, if it were possible to anchor the vessel in such a place, it would do more harm than good, for any confining of the ship, in such a sea, would only help the waves to fill it the sooner.
Navigation of mountain lakes.
The people who live on the borders of the lakes that lie among the mountains often go out upon them in boats. Sometimes they go to fish, sometimes to make passages to and fro along the lake, when there is no convenient road by land, and sometimes they go to bring loads of hay or sheaves of grain home from some field which lies at a distance from the house, and is near the margin of the water.
Tempests and storms.
When a storm arises on the lake after the boat has gone out, the people who remain at home are often very anxious, fearing that the boats may have been overwhelmed by the waves. Over the leaf there is a picture of people watching for the return of a man and boy who have gone out on the lake. They went out in the middle of the day, and, though it is now night, they have not returned. The family are anxious about their safety, for in the middle of the afternoon there was a violent storm of thunder and lightning, with dreadful gusts of wind and pouring rain. The storm has now entirely passed away, and the moon, which has just risen, shines serenely in the sky. Still the boat does not return. The family fear that it may have foundered in the storm.
Conversation in Marie’s cottage.
The family live in a cottage on the margin of the lake. Marie, the wife of the man and the mother of the boy that went away in the boat, is very anxious and unhappy.
“Do you think that they are lost?” she said to Orlando.
Orlando was her oldest son.
“Oh no,” replied Orlando. “When the black clouds began to come up in the sky, and they heard the thunder, they would go to the shore, and draw up their boat there till the storm was over. And now that the water is smooth again, and the air calm, I presume they are somewhere coming home.”
“But how can they find their way home in the darkness of the night?” said Marie.
“There is a moon to-night,” said Marie’s father. He was an old man, and he was sitting at this time in the chimney-corner.
“Yes, there is a moon,” replied Marie, “but it is half hidden by the broken clouds that are still floating in the sky.”
“I will light the lantern,” said Orlando, “and go out, and hold it up on a high part of the shore. They will then see the light of it, and it will guide them in.”
Orlando and Bruno.
Bruno was lying before the fire while this conversation was going on. He was listening to it very attentively, though he could not understand it all. He knew some words, and he learned from the words which he heard that they were talking about the boat and the water, and Pierre, the man who was gone. So, when Orlando rose, and went to get the lantern, Bruno started up too, and followed him. He did not know whether there would be any thing that he could do, but he wished to be ready at a moment’s notice, in case there should be any thing.
Anna and the baby.
He stood by Orlando’s side, and looked up very eagerly into his face while he was taking down the lantern, and then went with him out to the door. The old man went out too. He went down as near as he could get to the shore of the pond, in order to look off over the water. Orlando remained nearer the door of the cottage, where the land was higher, and where he thought the lantern could be better seen. Marie, with her baby in her arms, and her little daughter, Anna, by her side, came out to the steps of the door. Bruno took his place by Orlando’s side, ready to be called upon at any time, if there should be any thing that he could do, and looking eagerly over the water to see whether he could not himself make some discoveries.
