Kitabı oku: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XI.—April, 1851—Vol. II.», sayfa 18

THE FACTORY BOY

BY HARRIET MARTINEAU

In the middle of a dark night, Joel, a boy of nine years old, heard his name called by a voice which, through his sleep, seemed miles away. Joel had been tired enough when he went to bed, and yet he had not gone to sleep for some time; his heart beat so at the idea of his mother being very ill. He well remembered his father's death, and his mother's illness now revived some feelings which he had almost forgotten. His bed was merely some clothes spread on the floor, and covered with a rug; but he did not mind that; and he could have gone to sleep at once but for the fear that had come over him. When he did sleep, his sleep was sound; so that his mother's feeble voice calling him seemed like a call from miles away.

In a minute Joel was up and wide awake.

"Light the candle," he could just hear the voice say.

He lighted the candle, and his beating heart seemed to stop when he saw his mother's face. He seemed hardly to know whether it was his mother or no.

"Shall I call – ?"

"Call nobody, my dear. Come here."

He laid his cheek to hers.

"Mother, you are dying," he murmured.

"Yes, love, I am dying. It is no use calling any one. These little ones, Joel."

"I will take care of them, mother."

"You, my child! How should that be?"

"Why not?" said the boy, raising himself, and standing at his best height. "Look at me, mother. I can work. I promise you – "

His mother could not lift her hand, but she moved a finger in a way which checked him.

"Promise nothing that may be too hard afterward," she said.

"I promise to try then," he said; "that little sister shall live at home, and never go to the workhouse." He spoke cheerfully, though the candle-light glittered in the two streams of tears on his cheeks. "We can go on living here; and we shall be so – "

It would not do. The sense of their coming desolation rushed over him in a way too terrible to be borne. He hid his face beside her, murmuring, "O mother! mother!"

His mother found strength to move her hand now. She stroked his head with a trembling touch, which he seemed to feel as long as he lived. She could not say much more. She told him she had no fear for any of them. They would be taken care of. She advised him not to waken the little ones, who were sound asleep on the other side of her, and begged him to lie down himself till daylight, and try to sleep, when she should be gone.

This was the last thing she said. The candle was very low; but before it went out, she was gone. Joel had always done what his mother wished; but he could not obey her in the last thing she had said. He lighted another candle when the first went out; and sat thinking, till the gray dawn began to show through the window.

When he called the neighbors, they were astonished at his quietness. He had taken up the children, and dressed them, and made the room tidy, and lighted the fire, before he told any body what had happened. And when he opened the door, his little sister was in his arms. She was two years old, and could walk, of course; but she liked being in Joel's arms. Poor Willy was the most confounded. He stood with his pinafore at his mouth, staring at the bed, and wondering that his mother lay so still.

If the neighbors were astonished at Joel that morning, they might be more so at some things they saw afterward; but they were not. Every thing seemed done so naturally; and the boy evidently considered what he had to do so much a matter of course, that less sensation was excited than about many smaller things.

After the funeral was over, Joel tied up all his mother's clothes. He carried the bundle on one arm, and his sister on the other. He would not have liked to take money for what he had seen his mother wear; but he changed them away for new and strong clothes for the child. He did not seem to want any help. He went to the factory the next morning, as usual, after washing and dressing the children, and getting a breakfast of bread and milk with them. There was no fire; and he put every knife, and other dangerous thing on a high shelf, and gave them some trifles to play with, and promised to come and play with them at dinner-time. And he did play. He played heartily with the little one, and as if he enjoyed it, every day at the noon hour. Many a merry laugh the neighbors heard from that room when the three children were together; and the laugh was often Joel's.

How he learned to manage, and especially to cook, nobody knew; and he could himself have told little more than that he wanted to see how people did it, and looked accordingly, at every opportunity. He certainly fed the children well; and himself too. He knew that every thing depended on his strength being kept up. His sister sat on his knee to be fed till she could feed herself. He was sorry to give it up; but he said she must learn to behave. So he smoothed her hair, and washed her face before dinner, and showed her how to fold her hands while he said grace. He took as much pains to train her to good manners at table as if he had been a governess, teaching a little lady. While she remained a "baby," he slept in the middle of the bed, between the two, that she might have room, and not be disturbed; and when she ceased to be a baby, he silently made new arrangements. He denied himself a hat, which he much wanted, in order to buy a considerable quantity of coarse dark calico, which, with his own hands, he made into a curtain, and slung up across a part of the room; thus shutting off about a third of it. Here he contrived to make up a little bed for his sister; and he was not satisfied till she had a basin and jug, and piece of soap of her own. Here nobody but himself was to intrude upon her without leave; and, indeed, he always made her understand that he came only to take care of her. It was not only that Willy was not to see her undressed. A neighbor or two, now and then lifted the latch without knocking. One of these one day, heard something from behind the curtain, which made her call her husband silently to listen; and they always afterward treated Joel as if he were a man, and one whom they looked up to. He was teaching the child her little prayer. The earnest, sweet, devout tones by the boy, and the innocent, cheerful imitation of the little one, were beautiful to hear, the listeners said.

Though so well taken care of, she was not to be pampered; there would have been no kindness in that. Very early, indeed, she was taught, in a merry sort of way, to put things in their places, and to sweep the floor, and to wash up the crockery. She was a handy little thing, well trained and docile. One reward that Joel had for his management was, that she was early fit to go to chapel. This was a great point; as he, choosing to send Willy regularly, could not go till he could take the little girl with him. She was never known to be restless; and Joel was quite proud of her.

Willy was not neglected for the little girl's sake. In those days, children went earlier to the factory, and worked longer than they do now, and, by the time the sister was five years old, Willy became a factory boy; and his pay put the little girl to school. When she, at seven, went to the factory, too, Joel's life was altogether an easier one. He always had maintained them all, from the day of his mother's death. The times must have been good – work constant, and wages steady – or he could not have done it. Now, when all three were earning, he put his sister to a sewing-school for two evenings in the week, and the Saturday afternoons; and he and Willy attended an evening-school, as they found they could afford it. He always escorted the little girl wherever she had to go: into the factory, and home again – to the school door, and home again – and to the Sunday-school; yet he was himself remarkably punctual at work and at worship. He was a humble, earnest, docile pupil himself, at the Sunday-school – quite unconscious that he was more advanced than other boys in the sublime science and practice of duty. He felt that every body was very kind to him; but he was unaware that others felt it an honor to be kind to him.

I linger on these years, when he was a fine growing lad, in a state of high content. I linger, unwilling to proceed. But the end must come; and it is soon told. He was sixteen, I think, when he was asked to become a teacher in the Sunday-school, while not wholly ceasing to be a scholar. He tried, and made a capital teacher, and he won the hearts of the children while trying to open their minds. By this he became more widely known than before.

One day in the next year a tremendous clatter and crash was heard in the factory where Joel worked. A dead silence succeeded, and then several called out that it was only an iron bar that had fallen down. This was true: but the iron bar had fallen on Joel's head, and he was taken up dead!

Such a funeral as his is rarely seen. There is something that strikes on all hearts in the spectacle of a soldier's funeral – the drum, the march of comrades, and the belt and cap laid on the coffin. But there was something more solemn and more moving than all such observances in the funeral of this young soldier, who had so bravely filled his place in the conflict of life. There was the tread of comrades here, for the longest street was filled from end to end. For relics, there were his brother and sister; and for a solemn dirge, the uncontrollable groans of a heart-stricken multitude.

FIDGETY PEOPLE

There are people whom one occasionally meets with in the world, who are in a state of perpetual fidget and pucker. Every thing goes wrong with them. They are always in trouble. Now, it is the weather, which is too hot; or at another time, too cold. The dust blows into their eyes, or there is "that horrid rain," or "that broiling sun," or "that Scotch mist." They are as ill to please about the weather as a farmer; it is never to their liking, and never will be. They "never saw such a summer," "not a day's fine weather," and they go back to antiquity for comfort – "it was not so in our younger days."

Fidgety people are rarely well. They have generally "a headache," or "spasms," or "nerves," or something of that sort; they can not be comfortable in their way, without trouble. Most of their friends are ill; this one has the gout "so bad;" another has the rheumatics; a third is threatened with consumption; and there is scarcely a family of their acquaintance whose children have not got measles, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, or some other of the thousand ills which infantine flesh is heir to. They are curiously solicitous about the health of every body; this one is exhorted "not to drink too much cold water," another "not to sit in the draught," a third is advised to "wear flannels;" and they have great doctors at their fingers' ends whom they can quote in their support. They have read Buchan and Culpepper, and fed their fidgets upon their descriptions of diseases of all sorts. They offer to furnish recipes for pills, draughts, and liniments; and if you would believe them, your life depends on taking their advice gratis forthwith.

To sit at meals with such people is enough to give one the dyspepsia. The chimney has been smoking, and the soot has got into the soup; the fish is over-done, and the mutton is underdone; the potatoes have had the disease, the sauce is not of the right sort, the jelly is candied, the pastry is fusty, the grapes are sour. Every thing is wrong. The cook must be disposed of; Betty stands talking too long at the back-gate. The poultry-woman must be changed, the potato-man discarded. There will be a clean sweep. But things are never otherwise. The fidgety person remains unchanged, and goes fidgeting along to the end of the chapter; changing servants, and spoiling them by unnecessary complainings and contradictions, until they become quite reckless of ever giving satisfaction.

The fidgety person has been reading the newspaper, and is in a ferment about "that murder!" Every body is treated to its details. Or somebody's house has been broken into, and a constant fidget is kept up for a time about "thieves!" If a cat's whisper is heard in the night, "there is a thief in the house;" if an umbrella is missing, "a thief has been in the lobby;" if a towel can not be found, "a thief must have stolen it off the hedge." You are counseled to be careful of your pockets when you stir abroad. The outer doors are furnished with latches, new bolts and bars are provided for outhouses, bells are hung behind the shutters, and all other possible expedients are devised to keep out the imaginary "thief."

"Oh! there is a smell of fire!" Forthwith the house is traversed, down-stairs and up-stairs, and a voice at length comes from the kitchen, "It's only Bobby been burning a stick." You are told forthwith of a thousand accidents, deaths, and burnings, that have come from burning sticks! Bobby is petrified and horror-stricken, and is haunted by the terror of conflagrations. If Bobby gets a penny from a visitor, he is counseled "not to buy gunpowder" with it, though he has a secret longing for crackers. Maids are cautioned to "be careful about the clothes-horse," and their ears are often startled with a cry from above-stairs of "Betty, there is surely something singeing!"

The fidgety person "can not bear" the wind whistling through the key-hole, nor the smell of washing, nor the sweep's cry of "svee-eep, svee-eep," nor the beating of carpets, nor thick ink, nor a mewing cat, nor new boots, nor a cold in the head, nor callers for rates and subscriptions. All these little things are magnified into miseries, and if you like to listen, you may sit for hours and hear the fidgety person wax eloquent about them, drawing a melancholy pleasure from the recital.

The fidgety person sits upon thorns, and loves to perch his or her auditor on the same raw material. Not only so, but you are dragged over thorns, until you feel thoroughly unskinned. Your ears are bored, and your teeth are set on edge. Your head aches, and your withers are wrung. You are made to shake hands with misery, and almost long for some real sorrow as a relief.

The fidgety person makes a point of getting out of humor upon any occasion, whether about private or public affairs. If subjects for misery do not offer within doors, they abound without. Something that has been done in the next street excites their ire, or something done a thousand miles off, or even something that was done a thousand years ago. Time and place matter nothing to the fidgety. They overleap all obstacles in getting at their subject. They must be in hot water. If one question is set at rest, they start another; and they wear themselves to the bone in settling the affairs of every body, which are never settled; they

"Are made desperate by a too quick sense

Of constant infelicity."

Their feverish existence refuses rest, and they fret themselves to death about matters with which they have often no earthly concern. They are spendthrifts in sympathy, which in them has degenerated into an exquisite tendency to pain. They are launched on a sea of trouble, the shores of which are perpetually extending. They are self-stretched on a rack, the wheels of which are ever going round.

The fundamental maxim of the fidgety is – whatever is, is wrong. They will not allow themselves to be happy, nor any body else. They always assume themselves to be the most aggrieved persons extant. Their grumbling is incessant, and they operate as a social poison wherever they go. Their vanity and self-conceit are usually accompanied by selfishness in a very aggravated form, which only seems to make their fidgets the more intolerable. You will generally observe that they are idle persons; indeed, as a general rule, it may be said, that the fidgety class want healthy occupations. In nine cases out of ten, employment in some active pursuit, in which they could not have time to think about themselves, would operate as a cure.

But, we must make an allowance. Fidgets are often caused by the state of the stomach, and a fit of bad temper may not unfrequently be traced to an attack of indigestion. One of the most fidgety members of the House of Commons is a martyr to dyspepsia, and it is understood that some of his most petulant and bitter diatribes have been uttered while laboring under more than usually severe attacks of this disease. He has "pitched into" some "honorable gentleman" when he should have taken blue pill. And so it is with many a man, in domestic and social life, whom we blame for his snappish and disagreeable temper, but whose stomach is the real organ at fault. Indeed, the stomach is the moral no less than the physical barometer of most men; and we can very often judge of tempers, conditions, and sympathies, pretty accurately, according to its state. Let us, therefore, be charitable to the fidgety, whose stomachs, rather than their hearts, may be at fault; and let us counsel them to mend them, by healthy and temperate modes of living, and by plenty of wholesome occupation and exercise.

ANECDOTES OF SERPENTS

We need not go to the Valley of Diamonds with Sinbad to find enormous serpents. The companions of other sailors have been swallowed up by those monstrous reptiles, as was too-clearly proved to the crew of the Malay proa, who anchored for the night close to the island of Celebes. One of the party went on shore to look for betel-nut, and, on returning from his search, stretched his wearied limbs to rest on the beach, where he fell asleep, as his companions believed. They were roused in the middle of the night by his screams, and hurried on shore to his assistance; but they came too late. A monstrous snake had crushed him to death. All they could do was to wreak their vengeance on his destroyer, whose head they cut off, and bore it with the body of their ship-mate to their vessel. The marks of the teeth of the serpent, which was about thirty feet in length, were impressed on the dead man's right wrist, and the disfigured corpse showed that it had been crushed by constriction round the head, neck, breast, and thigh. When the snake's jaws were extended, they admitted a body the size of a man's head.

But to see the true boas in their native forests we must cross the Atlantic; and those who are not familiar with the story may have no objection to learn how Captain Stedman fared in an encounter with one twenty-two feet and some inches in length, during his residence in Surinam.

Captain Stedman was lying in his hammock, as his vessel floated down the river, when the sentinel told him that he had seen and challenged something black, moving in the brushwood on the beach, which gave no answer. Up rose the captain, manned the canoe that accompanied his vessel, and rowed to the shore to ascertain what it was. One of his slaves cried out that it was no negro, but a great snake that the captain might shoot if he pleased. The captain, having no such inclination, ordered all hands to return on board. The slave, David, who had first challenged the snake, then begged leave to step forward and shoot it. This seems to have roused the captain, for he determined to kill it himself, and loaded with ball cartridge.

The master and slave then proceeded. David cut a path with a bill-hook, and behind him came a marine with three more loaded guns. They had not gone above twenty yards through mud and water, the negro looking every way with uncommon vivacity, when he suddenly called out, "Me see snakee!" and, sure enough there the reptile lay, coiled up under the fallen leaves and rubbish of the trees. So well covered was it, that some time elapsed before the captain could perceive its head, not above sixteen feet from him, moving its forked tongue, while its vividly-bright eyes appeared to emit sparks of fire. The captain now rested his piece upon a branch to secure a surer aim, and fired. The ball missed the head, but went through the body, when the snake struck round with such astonishing force as to cut away all the underwood around it with the facility of a scythe mowing grass, and, flouncing with its tail, made the mud and dirt fly over their heads to a considerable distance. This commotion seems to have sent the party to the right about; for they took to their heels, and crawled into the canoe. David, however, entreated the captain to renew the charge, assuring him that the snake would be quiet in a few minutes, and that it was neither able nor inclined to pursue them, supporting his opinion by walking before the captain till the latter should be ready to fire.

They now found the snake a little removed from its former station, very quiet, with its head as before, lying out among the fallen leaves, rotten bark, and old moss. Stedman fired at it immediately, but with no better success than at first; and the enraged animal, being but slightly wounded by the second shot, sent up such a cloud of dust and dirt as the captain had never seen, except in a whirlwind; and away they all again retreated to their canoe. Tired of the exploit, Stedman gave orders to row toward the barge; but the persevering David still entreating that he might be permitted to kill the reptile, the captain determined to make a third and last attempt in his company; and they this time directed their fire with such effect that the snake was shot by one of them through the head.

The vanquished monster was then secured by a running-noose passed over its head, not without some difficulty, however; for, though it was mortally wounded, it continued to writhe and twist about so as to render a near approach dangerous. The serpent was dragged to the shore, and made fast to the canoe, in order that it might be towed to the vessel, and continued swimming like an eel till the party arrived on board, where it was finally determined that the snake should be again taken on shore, and there skinned for the sake of its oil. This was accordingly done; and David having climbed a tree with the end of a rope in his hand, let it down over a strong-forked bough, the other negroes hoisted away, and the serpent was suspended from the tree. Then, David quitting the tree, with a sharp knife between his teeth, clung fast upon the suspended snake, still twisting and twining, and proceeded to perform the same operation that Marsyas underwent, only that David commenced his work by ripping the subject up: he then stripped down the skin as he descended. Stedman acknowledges, that though he perceived that the snake was no longer able to do the operator any harm, he could not, without emotion, see a naked man, black and bloody, clinging with arms and legs round the slimy and yet living monster. The skin and above four gallons of clarified fat, or rather oil, were the spoils secured on this occasion; full as many gallons more seem to have been wasted. The negroes cut the flesh into pieces, intending to feast on it; but the captain would not permit them to eat what he regarded as disgusting food, though they declared that it was exceedingly good and wholesome. The negroes were right, and the captain was wrong: the flesh of most serpents is very good and nourishing, to say nothing of the restorative qualities attributed to it.

One of the most curious accounts of the benefit derived by man from the serpent race, is related by Kircher (see Mus. Worm.), where it is stated that near the village of Sassa, about eight miles from the city of Bracciano, in Italy, there is a hole, or cavern, called la Grotto, delli Serpi, which is large enough to contain two men, and is all perforated with small holes like a sieve. From these holes, in the beginning of spring, issue a prodigious number of small, different-colored serpents, of which every year produces a new brood, but which seem to have no poisonous quality. Such persons as are afflicted with scurvy, leprosy, palsy, gout, and other ills to which flesh is heir, were laid down naked in the cavern, and their bodies being subjected to a copious sweat from the heat of the subterraneous vapors, the young serpents were said to fasten themselves on every part, and extract by sucking every diseased or vitiated humor; so that after some repetitions of this treatment, the patients were restored to perfect health. Kircher, who visited this cave, found it warm, and answering, in every way, the description he had of it. He saw the holes, heard a murmuring, hissing noise in them, and, though he owns that he missed seeing the serpents, it not being the season of their creeping out, yet he saw great numbers of their exuviæ, or sloughs, and an elm growing hard by laden with them. The discovery of this air Schlangenbad, was said to have been made by a leper going from Rome to some baths near this place, who, fortunately, losing his way, and being benighted, turned into this cave. Finding it very warm, and being very weary, he pulled off his clothes, and fell into such a deep sleep that he did not feel the serpents about him till they had wrought his cure.

Such instances of good-will toward man, combined with the periodical renovation of youthful appearance, by a change of the whole external skin, and the character of the serpent for wisdom, contributed, doubtless, to raise the form to a place among the deities.

Their aptitude for tameness was another quality which aided their elevation. The little girl mentioned by Maria Edgeworth, of blessed memory, took out her little porringer daily to share her breakfast with a friendly snake that came from its hiding-place to her call; and when the guest intruded beyond the due limits, she would give it a tap on the head with her spoon, and the admonition, "Eat on your own side, I say."

A lad whom I knew kept a common snake in London, which he had rendered so tame that it was quite at ease with him, and very fond of its master. When taken out of its box, it would creep up his sleeve, come out at the top, wind itself caressingly about his neck and face, and when tired retire to sleep in his bosom.

Carver, in his travels, relates an instance of docility, which, if true, surpasses any story of the kind I ever heard.

"An Indian belonging to the Menomonie, having taken a rattlesnake, found means to tame it; and when he had done this treated it as a deity, calling it his great father, and carrying it with him in a box wherever he went. This he had done for several summers, when Mons. Pinnisance accidentally met with him at this carrying place, just as he was setting off for a winter's hunt. The French gentleman was surprised one day to see the Indian place the box which contained his god on the ground, and opening the door, give him his liberty; telling him, while he did it, to be sure and return by the time he himself should come back, which was to be in the month of May following. As this was but October, Monsieur told the Indian, whose simplicity astonished him, that he fancied he might wait long enough, when May arrived, for the arrival of his great father. The Indian was so confident of his creature's obedience, that he offered to lay the Frenchman a wager of two gallons of rum, that at the time appointed he would come and crawl into his box. This was agreed on, and the second week in May following fixed for the determination of the wager. At that period they both met there again, when the Indian set down his box, and called for his great father. The snake heard him not; and the time being now expired, he acknowledged that he had lost. However, without seeming to be discouraged, he offered to double the bet if his father came not within two days more. This was further agreed on; when, behold, on the second day, about one o'clock the snake arrived, and of his own accord crawled into the box, which was placed ready for him. The French gentleman vouched for the truth of this story, and from the accounts I have often received of the docility of those creatures, I see no reason to doubt its veracity."