Little Men: Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys
Daisy was dressmaker to the dilapidated dolls. As fast as the toys were
mended, they were put carefully away in a certain drawer which was
to furnish forth a Christmas-tree for all the poor children of the
neighborhood, that being the way the Plumfield boys celebrated the
birthday of Him who loved the poor and blessed the little ones.
Demi was never tired of reading and explaining his favorite books, and
many a pleasant hour did they spend in the old willow, revelling over
“Robinson Crusoe,” “Arabian Nights,” “Edgeworth's Tales,” and the other
dear immortal stories that will delight children for centuries to come.
This opened a new world to Nat, and his eagerness to see what came next
in the story helped him on till he could read as well as anybody, and
felt so rich and proud with his new accomplishment, that there was
danger of his being as much of a bookworm as Demi.
Another helpful thing happened in a most unexpected and agreeable
manner. Several of the boys were “in business,” as they called it, for
most of them were poor, and knowing that they would have their own way
to make by and by, the Bhaers encouraged any efforts at independence.
Tommy sold his eggs; Jack speculated in live stock; Franz helped in
the teaching, and was paid for it; Ned had a taste for carpentry, and a
turning-lathe was set up for him in which he turned all sorts of useful
or pretty things, and sold them; while Demi constructed water-mills,
whirligigs, and unknown machines of an intricate and useless nature, and
disposed of them to the boys.
“Let him be a mechanic if he likes,” said Mr. Bhaer. “Give a boy a
trade, and he is independent. Work is wholesome, and whatever talent
these lads possess, be it for poetry or ploughing, it shall be
cultivated and made useful to them if possible.”
So, when Nat came running to him one day to ask with an excited face:
“Can I go and fiddle for some people who are to have a picnic in our
woods? They will pay me, and I'd like to earn some money as the other
boys do, and fiddling is the only way I know how to do it.”
Mr. Bhaer answered readily:
“Go, and welcome. It is an easy and a pleasant way to work, and I am
glad it is offered you.”
Nat went, and did so well that when he came home he had two dollars in
his pocket, which he displayed with intense satisfaction, as he told how
much he had enjoyed the afternoon, how kind the young people were, and
how they had praised his dance music, and promised to have him again.
“It is so much nicer than fiddling in the street, for then I got none
of the money, and now I have it all, and a good time besides. I'm in
business now as well as Tommy and Jack, and I like it ever so much,”
said Nat, proudly patting the old pocketbook, and feeling like a
millionaire already.
He was in business truly, for picnics were plenty as summer opened,
and Nat's skill was in great demand. He was always at liberty to go if
lessons were not neglected, and if the picnickers were respectable young
people. For Mr. Bhaer explained to him that a good plain education is
necessary for everyone, and that no amount of money should hire him to
go where he might be tempted to do wrong. Nat quite agreed to this, and
it was a pleasant sight to see the innocent-hearted lad go driving away
in the gay wagons that stopped at the gate for him, or to hear him come
fiddling home tired but happy, with his well-earned money in one pocket,
and some “goodies” from the feast for Daisy or little Ted, whom he never
forgot.
“I'm going to save up till I get enough to buy a violin for myself, and
then I can earn my own living, can't I?” he used to say, as he brought
his dollars to Mr. Bhaer to keep.
“I hope so, Nat; but we must get you strong and hearty first, and put a
little more knowledge into this musical head of yours. Then Mr. Laurie
will find you a place somewhere, and in a few years we will all come to
hear you play in public.”
With much congenial work, encouragement, and hope, Nat found life
getting easier and happier every day, and made such progress in his
music lessons that his teacher forgave his slowness in some other
things, knowing very well that where the heart is the mind works best.
The only punishment the boy ever needed for neglect of more important
lessons was to hang up the fiddle and the bow for a day. The fear of
losing his bosom friend entirely made him go at his books with a will;
and having proved that he could master the lessons, what was the use of
saying “I can't?”
Daisy had a great love of music, and a great reverence for any one who
could make it, and she was often found sitting on the stairs outside
Nat's door while he was practising. This pleased him very much, and he
played his best for that one quiet little listener; for she never would
come in, but preferred to sit sewing her gay patchwork, or tending one
of her many dolls, with an expression of dreamy pleasure on her face
that made Aunt Jo say, with tears in her eyes: “So like my Beth,” and
go softly by, lest even her familiar presence mar the child's sweet
satisfaction.
Nat was very fond of Mrs. Bhaer, but found something even more
attractive in the good professor, who took fatherly care of the shy
feeble boy, who had barely escaped with his life from the rough sea on
which his little boat had been tossing rudderless for twelve years. Some
good angel must have been watching over him, for, though his body had
suffered, his soul seemed to have taken little harm, and came ashore as
innocent as a shipwrecked baby. Perhaps his love of music kept it sweet
in spite of the discord all about him; Mr. Laurie said so, and he ought
to know. However that might be, Father Bhaer took pleasure in fostering
poor Nat's virtues, and in curing his faults, finding his new pupil as
docile and affectionate as a girl. He often called Nat his “daughter”
when speaking of him to Mrs. Jo, and she used to laugh at his fancy, for
Madame liked manly boys, and thought Nat amiable but weak, though you
never would have guessed it, for she petted him as she did Daisy, and he
thought her a very delightful woman.
One fault of Nat's gave the Bhaers much anxiety, although they saw how
it had been strengthened by fear and ignorance. I regret to say that
Nat sometimes told lies. Not very black ones, seldom getting deeper than
gray, and often the mildest of white fibs; but that did not matter, a
lie is a lie, and though we all tell many polite untruths in this queer
world of ours, it is not right, and everybody knows it.
“You cannot be too careful; watch your tongue, and eyes, and hands, for
it is easy to tell, and look, and act untruth,” said Mr. Bhaer, in one
of the talks he had with Nat about his chief temptation.
“I know it, and I don't mean to, but it's so much easier to get along
if you ain't very fussy about being exactly true. I used to tell 'em
because I was afraid of father and Nicolo, and now I do sometimes
because the boys laugh at me. I know it's bad, but I forget,” and Nat
looked much depressed by his sins.
“When I was a little lad I used to tell lies! Ach! what fibs they were,
and my old grandmother cured me of it how, do you think? My parents had
talked, and cried, and punished, but still did I forget as you. Then
said the dear old grandmother, 'I shall help you to remember, and put a
check on this unruly part,' with that she drew out my tongue and snipped
the end with her scissors till the blood ran. That was terrible, you
may believe, but it did me much good, because it was sore for days, and
every word I said came so slowly that I had time to think. After that I
was more careful, and got on better, for I feared the big scissors. Yet
the dear grandmother was most kind to me in all things, and when she lay
dying far away in Nuremberg, she prayed that little Fritz might love God
and tell the truth.”
“I never had any grandmothers, but if you think it will cure me, I'll
let you snip my tongue,” said Nat, heroically, for he dreaded pain, yet
did wish to stop fibbing.
Mr. Bhaer smiled, but shook his head.
“I have a better way than that, I tried it once before and it worked
well. See now, when you tell a lie I will not punish you, but you shall
punish me.”
“How?” asked Nat, startled at the idea.
“You shall ferule me in the good old-fashioned way; I seldom do it
myself, but it may make you remember better to give me pain than to feel
it yourself.”
“Strike you? Oh, I couldn't!” cried Nat.
“Then mind that tripping tongue of thine. I have no wish to be hurt, but
I would gladly bear much pain to cure this fault.”
This suggestion made such an impression on Nat, that for a long time he
set a watch upon his lips, and was desperately accurate, for Mr. Bhaer
judged rightly, that love of him would be more powerful with Nat that
fear for himself. But alas! one sad day Nat was off his guard, and when
peppery Emil threatened to thrash him, if it was he who had run over his
garden and broken down his best hills of corn, Nat declared he didn't,
and then was ashamed to own up that he did do it, when Jack was chasing
him the night before.
He thought no one would find it out, but Tommy happened to see him, and
when Emil spoke of it a day or two later, Tommy gave his evidence, and
Mr. Bhaer heard it. School was over, and they were all standing about in
the hall, and Mr. Bhaer had just set down on the straw settee to enjoy
his frolic with Teddy; but when he heard Tommy and saw Nat turn scarlet,
and look at him with a frightened face, he put the little boy down,
saying, “Go to thy mother, bubchen, I will come soon,” and taking Nat by
the hand led him into the school and shut the door.
The boys looked at one another in silence for a minute, then Tommy
slipped out and peeping in at the half-closed blinds, beheld a sight
that quite bewildered him. Mr. Bhaer had just taken down the long rule
that hung over his desk, so seldom used that it was covered with dust.
“My eye! He's going to come down heavy on Nat this time. Wish I hadn't
told,” thought good-natured Tommy, for to be feruled was the deepest
disgrace at this school.
“You remember what I told you last time?” said Mr. Bhaer, sorrowfully,
not angrily.
“Yes; but please don't make me, I can't bear it,” cried Nat, backing
up against the door with both hands behind him, and a face full of
distress.
“Why don't he up and take it like a man? I would,” thought Tommy, though
his heart beat fast at the sight.
“I shall keep my word, and you must remember to tell the truth. Obey me,
Nat, take this and give me six good strokes.”
Tommy was so staggered by this last speech that he nearly tumbled down
the bank, but saved himself, and hung onto the window ledge, staring in
with eyes as round as the stuffed owl's on the chimney-piece.
Nat took the rule, for when Mr. Bhaer spoke in that tone everyone obeyed
him, and, looking as scared and guilty as if about to stab his master,
he gave two feeble blows on the broad hand held out to him. Then
he stopped and looked up half-blind with tears, but Mr. Bhaer said
steadily:
“Go on, and strike harder.”
As if seeing that it must be done, and eager to have the hard task soon
over, Nat drew his sleeve across his eyes and gave two more quick hard
strokes that reddened the hand, yet hurt the giver more.
“Isn't that enough?” he asked in a breathless sort of tone.
“Two more,” was all the answer, and he gave them, hardly seeing where
they fell, then threw the rule all across the room, and hugging the kind
hand in both his own, laid his face down on it sobbing out in a passion
of love, and shame, and penitence:
“I will remember! Oh! I will!”
Then Mr. Bhaer put an arm about him, and said in a tone as compassionate
as it had just now been firm: