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Page 22
There was no alternative. I went home, of course, and delivered the message
to my mother. I told her, however, that I thought my head was better,
hoping to avoid taking the nauseous medicine. But it was of no use. It was
too late. She understood my case as well as my father did. She knew well
enough my disease was laziness. So she prepared the rhubarb--an unusually
generous dose, I always thought--and I had to swallow every morsel of it.
Dear me! how bitter it was! It makes me sick to think of a dose of rhubarb,
let me be ever so well. I am sure I would have rode horse all day--and all
night, too, for that matter--rather than to have been doctored after that
sort. But it cured my laziness pretty effectually, and it was a long time
before I told another lie, too.
"Honesty is the best policy," children, depend upon it, though there is
another and a better reason, as you very well know, why you should always
speak the truth.
STORY SECOND.
HOW A ROGUE FEELS WHEN HE IS CAUGHT.
When I was a little boy, as near as I can recollect, about nine years of
age, I went with my brother one bright Saturday afternoon, when there was
no school, to visit at the house of Captain Perry. The captain was esteemed
one of the kindest and best-natured neighbors in Willow Lane, where my
father lived; and Julian, the captain's eldest son, very near my own age,
was, among all the boys at school, my favorite play-fellow. Captain Perry
had two bee-hives in his garden, where we were all three at play; and as I
watched the busy little fellows at work bringing in honey from the fields,
all at once I thought it would be a very fine thing to thrust a stick into
a hole which I saw in one of the hives, and bring out some of the honey. My
brother and Julian did not quite agree with me in this matter. They
thought, as nearly as I can recollect, that there were three good reasons
against this mode of obtaining honey: first, I should be likely to get
pretty badly stung; secondly, the act would be a very mean and cowardly
piece of mischief; and, thirdly, I should be found out.
Still, I was bent on the chivalrous undertaking. I procured a stick of the
right size, and marched up to the hive to make the attack. While I was
deliberating, with the stick already a little way in the hole, whether I
had better thrust it in suddenly, and then scamper away as fast as my legs
could carry me, or proceed so deliberately that the bees would not suspect
what was the matter, Captain Perry happened to come into the garden; and I
was so busy with my mischief, that I did not notice him until he advanced
within a rod or two of the bee-hives. He mistrusted what I was about.
"Roderick," said he. I looked around. I am sure I would have given all I
was worth in the world, not excepting my little pony, which I regarded as a
fortune, if, by some magic or other, I could have got out of this scrape.
But it was too late. I hung my head down, as may be imagined, while the
captain went on with his speech: "Roderick, if I were in your place (I
heartily wished he was in my place, but I did not say so; I said nothing,
in fact), if I were in your place, I would not disturb those poor, harmless
bees, in that way. If you should put that stick into the hive, as you were
thinking of doing, it would take the bees a whole week to mend up their
cells. That is not the way we get honey. I don't wonder you are fond of
honey, though. Children generally are fond of it; and if you will go into
the house, Mrs Perry will give you as much as you wish, I am sure."
This was twenty years ago--perhaps more. I have met Captain Perry a
hundred times since; yet even now I cannot look upon his frank, honest
countenance, but I distinctly call to mind the Quixotic adventure with the
bees, and I feel almost as much ashamed as I did when I was detected.
STORY THIRD.
THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER.
I never shall forget what a sensation it used to produce in our family,
years ago, when the newspaper came. We children--there were three of us,
one brother and two sisters--used to watch for the post, on the
all-important day, as anxiously as a cat ever watched for a mouse. Peter
Packer, the bearer of these weekly dispatches, deserves a little notice. He
was a queer man, at least he had that reputation in our neighborhood. As
long as I can remember, he went his rounds; and, for aught I know, he is
going to this day.
Peter's old mare--she must be mentioned, for the two are almost
inseparable--was as odd as he was. I should think she belonged to the same
general class and order with Don Quixote's renowned Rosinante; but she had
one peculiarity which is not put down in the description of Rosinante, to
wit, the faculty of diagonal or oblique locomotion. This mare of Peter's
went forward something after the manner of a crab, and a little like a ship
with the wind abeam, as the sailors say. It was a standing topic of dispute
among us boys, whether the animal went head foremost or not. But that did
not matter much, so that she made her circuit--and she always did,
punctually; that is, she always came some time or another. Sometimes she
was a day or two later than usual; but this never occurred except in the
summer season, and it was in this wise: she had a most passionate love for
the practical study of botany; and not being allowed, when at home, to
pursue her favorite science as often as she wished, owing partly to a want
of specimens, and partly to her master's desire to educate her in the more
solid branches, she frequently took the liberty to divest herself of her
bridle, when standing at the door of her master's customers, and to gallop
away in search of flowers. She was a great lover of botany, so much so,
that, as I said before, her desire to obtain specimens sometimes interfered
a little with her other literary engagements; and I am sure I can forgive
her--
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