“Well! I will have patience till to-morrow, if I can,” said Frank.
It happened, this same evening, that Frank was present when his brother Edward, and three of his cousins, were dressing, to act a pantomime. They were in a great hurry. They had lost the burnt cork with which they were to blacken their eyebrows. They looked every where that they could think of for it, but all in vain; and a messenger came to tell them that every body was seated, and that they must begin to act the pantomime directly. They looked with still more eagerness for this cork, but it could not be found; and they did not know where to get another.
“I have one! I have one! I have a cork! you shall have it in a minute!” cried the good-natured little Frank. He ran up stairs directly, pulled all the feathers out of his dear shuttlecock, burnt the end of the cork in the candle, and gave it to his friends. They did not know, at this moment, that it was the cork of Frank’s shuttlecock: but, when they afterwards found it out, they were very much obliged to him; and when his father heard this instance of his good nature, he was much pleased. He set Frank upon the table before him, after dinner, when all his friends were present, and said to him, “My dear little son, I am glad to find that you are of such a generous disposition. Believe me, such a disposition is of more value than all the battledoors and shuttlecocks in the world! you are welcome to as many corks and feathers as you please: you, who are so willing to help your friends in their amusements, shall find that we are all ready and eager to assist you in yours.”
Close to the garden, which Frank’s mother had given to him, there was a hut, in which garden tools and watering pots used formerly to be kept; but it had been found to be too small for this purpose, and a larger had been built in another part of the kitchen-garden. Nothing was now kept in that which was near Frank’s garden, but some old flowerpots and pans. Frank used to like to go into this hut, to play with the flower-pots; they were piled up higher than his head; and one day, when he was pulling out from the undermost part of the pile a large pan, the whole pile of flower-pots shook from bottom to top, and one of the uppermost flower-pots fell down. If Frank had not run out of the way in an instant, it would have fallen on his head. As soon as he had a little recovered from his fright, he saw that the flower-pot had been broken by the fall, and he took up the broken pieces, and went into the house, to his mother, to tell her what had happened. He found his father and mother sitting at the table, writing letters; they both looked up when he came in, and said, —
“What is the matter, Frank? you look very pale.”
“Because, mamma, I have broken this flower-pot.” —
“Well, my dear, you do rightly to come and tell us that you broke it. It is an accident. There is no occasion to be frightened about it.”
“No, mamma; it was not that which frightened me so much. But it is well, that I did not break my own head, and all the flowerpots in the garden house.”
Then he told his mother how he had attempted to pull out the undermost pan, and how “the great pile shook from top to bottom.”
“It is well you did not hurt yourself, indeed, Frank!” said his mother.
His father asked if there was a key to the door of the hut.
“Papa, there is an old, rusty lock, but no key.”
“The gardener has the key; I will go for it directly,” said his father, rising from his seat; “and I will lock that door, lest the boy should do the same thing again.”
“No, papa,” said Frank; “I am not so silly as to do again what I know might hurt me.”
“But, my dear, without doing it on purpose, you might, by accident, when you are playing in that house, shake those pots, and pull them down upon yourself. Whenever there is any real danger, you know I always tell you of it, and it is much better to prevent any evil, than to be sorry for it afterwards I will go this minute and look for the key and lock the door,” continued his father.
“Papa,” said Frank, stopping him, “you need not go for the key, nor lock the door; for, if you desire me not to play in the old garden house, I will not play there; I will not go in, I promise you; I will never even open the door.”
“Very well, Frank; I can trust to your promise. Therefore, I want no lock and key. Your word is enough.”
“But only take care you do not forget, and run in by accident, Frank,” said his mother: “as you have such a habit of going in there, you might forget.”
“Mamma, I will not forget my promise,” said Frank.
A few days after this time, Frank’s father and mother were walking in the garden, and they came to the old garden house, and they stopped and looked at the door, which was a little open. This door could not be blown open by the wind, because it stuck against the ground at one corner, and could not be easily moved.
“I assure you, mamma, I did not forget; I did not open it; I did not go in, indeed papa,” said Frank.
His father answered, “We did not suspect you of having opened the door, Frank.” And his father and mother looked at one another, and smiled.
His father called the gardener, and desired that he would not open the door of the old garden house; and he ordered that none of the servants should go in there.
A week passed, and another week passed, and a third week passed, and again Frank’s father and mother were walking in the garden; and his mother said, —
“Let us go and look at the old garden house.”
His father and mother went together, and Frank ran after them, rejoicing that he had kept his promise; he never had gone into that house, though he had been often tempted to do so, because he had left there a little boat, of which he was very fond. When his father and mother had looked at the door of the garden house, they again looked at each other, and smiled, and said, —
“We are glad to see, Frank, that you have kept your word, and that you have not opened this door.”
“I have not opened the door, papa,” answered Frank; “but how do you know that, by only looking at it?”
“You may find out how we know it; and we had rather that you should find it out. than that we should tell it to you,” said his father.
Frank guessed, first, that they recollected exactly how far open the door had been left, and that they saw it was now open exactly to the same place. But his father answered, that this was not the way; for that they could not be certain, by this means, that the door had not been opened wider, and then shut again to the same place.
“Papa, you might have seen the mark in the dust, which the door would have made in opening. Was that the way, papa?”
“No; that is a tolerably good way; but the trace of the opening of the door might be effaced, that is, rubbed out, and the ground might have been smoothed again. There is another circumstance, Frank, which, if you observe carefully, you may discover.” Frank took hold of the door, and was going to move it; but his father stopped his hand.
“You must not move the door; look at it without stirring it.”
Frank looked carefully, and then exclaimed, —
“I’ve found it out, papa! I’ve found it out! I see a spider’s web, with all its fine thin rings and spokes, like a wheel, just at the top of the door; and it stretches from the top of the door to this post, against which the door shuts. Now, if the door had been shut or opened wider, this spider’s web would have been crushed or broken; the door could not have been shut or opened without breaking it. May I try, papa?”
“Yes, my dear.”
He tried to open the door, and the spider’s web broke, and that part of it, which had been fastened to the door, fell down, and hung against the post.
“You have found it out now, Frank, you see,” said his father.
His mother was going to ask him if he know how a spider makes his web; but she stopped, and did not then ask him this question, because she saw that he was thinking of his little boat.
“Yes, my dear Frank! you may go into the house now,” said his mother, “and take your little boat.”
Frank ra
n in, and, seizing it, hugged it in his arms. — ...
“My dear little boat, how glad I am to have you again!” cried he; “I wish I might go to the river side this evening, and swim it; and there is a fine wind, and it would sail fast.”
Frank was never allowed to go to the river side, to swim his boat, without his father or mother, or eldest brother, could go with him.
“Mamma, will you” — said he—” can you be so good as to go with me, this evening, to the river side, that I may swim my boat?”
His mother told him that she had intended to walk another way; but that she would willingly do what he asked her, as he had done what she desired. His father said the same, and they went to the river side. His father walked on the banks, looking till he saw a place where he thought it would be safe for Frank to swim his boat. He found a place where the river ran in between two narrow banks of land; such a place, Frank’s father told him, in large rivers, is called a creek.
The water in this creek was very shallow; so shallow that you could see the sand and many colored pebbles at the bottom; yet it was deep enough for Frank’s little boat to float upon it. Frank put his boat into the water — he launched it — and set the sail to the wind; that is, turned it so that the wind blew against it, and drove the boat on.
It sailed swiftly over the smooth water, and Frank was happy looking at it and directing it various ways, by setting or turning the sail in different directions, and then watching which way it would go.
“Mamma,” said he, after his mother had remained a good while, “you are very good-natured to stay with me so long; but I am afraid you will not have time to come again to-morrow; and, if you cannot, I shall not have the pleasure of swimming my boat. Papa, the water is so very shallow here, and all the way along this creek, that, if I was to fall in, I could not drown myself; and the banks are so close, that I could walk to them and get on dry land, directly. I wish, papa, you would let me come here whenever I please, without any body with me; then I should not be obliged to wait till mamma had time, or till my brother Edward had done his lesson; then I could swim my boat so happily, papa, whenever I pleased.”
“But how can I be sure that you will never go to any other part of the river, Frank?”
“You know, papa, I did not open the door, or go into the garden house, after yon had desired me not, and after I had promised that I would not; and, if I promise that I will not go to any other part of the river, you know you can believe me.”
“Yery true, Frank, and therefore I grant your request. I can trust to your doing what I desire you to do; and I can trust to your promise. You may come here whenever you please, and sail your boat in this creek, from the stump of this willow-tree, as far in this way towards the land as you please.”
Frank clapped his hands joyfully, and cried, “Thank yon, papa! thank you. Mama, do you hear that? Papa has given me leave to come to this place whenever I please, to swim my boat; for he trusts to my promise, mamma.”
‘Yes, that is a just reward for you, Frank,” said his mother. “The being believed another time, and the being more and more trusted, is the just reward for having done as you said that you would do, and for having kept, your promise.”
“O, thank you, mamma; thank you, papa, for trusting to my promise!” said Frank.
“You need not thank me, my dear, for believing you,” said his father; “for I cannot help believing you, because you speak truth. Being believed, is not only the reward, but the necessary consequence, of speaking truth.”
Next morning, at breakfast, Frank’s father told him, that, if all the flower-pots were carried out of the old garden house, and if they were removed without being broken, he would give the empty hut to Frank for his own.
“For my own!” cried Frank, leaping from his chair with delight—” For my own, papa! And do you mean that I may new roof it, and thatch it?” —
1 “If you can,” said his father, smiling. “You may do what you please with it, as soon as the flower-pots are removed, but not till then; they must all be carried to the house at the other end of the garden, before give you the hut. How will you get this done, Frank? for you are not tall enough to reach to the uppermost part of the pile yourself: if you begin at the bottom, you will pull them all down, and hurt yourself, and you will break them, and I should not give you the house.”
“Papa, perhaps the gardener—”
“No, the gardener is busy.”
Frank looked round the breakfast-table at his brother Edward, and at his three cousins, William, Charles, and Frederick; they all smiled, and immediately said that they would undertake to carry the flower-pots for him.
The moment they had eaten their breakfast, which they made haste to finish, they all ran out to the old garden house. Edward took a wooden stool, mounted upon it, and handed down carefully the uppermost of the garden pots to his cousins, who stood below, and they carried them into the new garden house.
As all these boys helped one another, and worked with good will, and in good order, the great pile was soon carried away; so soon, that Frank was quite surprised to see that it was gone. Not one flower-pot was broken. Frank ran to tell his father this; and his father went out and saw that the garden pots had been safely removed; and then he gave the house to Frank, and put the key of it into his hand.
Frank turned to his brother Edward and his cousins, and said, “Edward, how good you and my cousins were to help me!”
“You deserved that we should do this for you,” said Edward. “We do not forget how good-natured you were to us about the cork of your shuttlecock. When we were in distress, you helped us; so it was fair that we should help yon, when you wanted it.”
“Yes,” said his father; “those, who are ready to help others, generally find others ready to help them. This is the natural and just reward of good-nature.”
“Reward! papa,” said Frank; “that word you used several times yesterday, and again to-day, and it always puts me in mind of the time when you gave me my Bewick on Quadrupeds. You gave it to me, do you remember? as a reward for having, as you wrote in the book, cured myself of a foolish habit. I recollect, that was the first time I ever exactly understood the meaning of the word reward.”
“And what do you understand, Frank, by the word reward?” said his father.
“O papa! I know very well; for mamma then told me, a reward is something we like, something we wish to have, something — papa, I thought I could explain it better; I cannot explain it in words; but I know what it is. Will you explain it to me again, papa?”
“Do you try first, if you understand what it means; and if you will stand still, and have a little patience, you will perhaps be able to find words to express your thoughts. Try, and do not look back at the dear hut; the hut is there, and will not run away; you will have time enough, all the morning and all the evening, to play in it, and to do what you please with the roof of it. So now stand still, and show me that you can command your attention for a few minutes. —— —
What is a reward?”
Frank, after he had considered for a few moments, answered, —
“A reward is something that is given to us for having done right; no, it is not always a thing, for though the first reward that was given to me was a thing, — a book, — yet I have had rewards that were of a different sort. That was a reward to me yesterday about the boat; and when you, papa, or when mamma praises me, that is a sort of reward.”
“It is,” said his father.
“Papa, I believe,” continued Frank, “that a reward is any sort of pleasure, which is given to us for doing right. Is it, papa?”
“It is, my dear. Now answer me one or two more questions, and then I will reward your patience, by letting you go to your hut.”
“I am not thinking of that now, papa; I will stay and answer as many questions as you please.” — .
“Then, what do you think,” said his father, “is the use of rewards?”
“To make me — to make all peo
ple do right, I believe.”
“True; and how do rewards make you, or make other people, do right?”
“Why,—” Frank paused, and considered a little while.
“Papa, you know I like, and all other people like, to have rewards, because they are always pleasures; and, when I know I am to have a reward, or when I hope, even, that I shall be rewarded for doing any right thing, I wish, and try, to do it; and, if I have been rewarded once, I think I shall be rewarded again for doing the same sort of thing again; and, therefore, I wish to do it.
— “And even, if I have not had the reward myself, if I have seen another person rewarded for doing something well, I think and hope that, perhaps, I may have the same if I do the same, and that makes me wish to do it. When you gave John, the gardener’s boy, a little watering pot, because he had made a net for the cherry-trees, I remember I wished to make a net too, because I hoped that you would give me a watering pot; and when mamma praised my brother Edward, and gave him a table, with a drawer in it, as a reward for keeping his room in order. I began to try to keep my room in better order; and you know, Edward, I have kept it in order, in better order, ever since, papa; that is all I can think of, about the use of rewards I cannot explain it better.”
“You have explained it as well as I expected that you could, Frank. Now run off to your hut, or your house, whichever you please to call it.”
Frank found that there were holes in the thatch of his house, and that, when it rained, the rain came through these holes and wetted him, and spoiled the things which he kept in his house; therefore, he wished to mend the thatch. He went to his father, and asked him if he would be so good as to give him some straw.
His father said that he would, if Frank would do something for him which he wanted to have done.
“I will do any thing I can for you, papa,” said Frank. “What is it?”
“Look at these laburnums, Frank,” said his father. “Do you see a number of blackish, dry pods hanging from the branches?”
Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Page 592