This was too great a blow to Davy's dignity, and he fled, and hid himself in a dim passage-way, where his wrath could dissolve into tears, and he take heart to disbelieve his mischance. While the great sobs tore their way up, as if they would bear his little life away with them, some one came along the passage, and laid a gentle hand on Davy. "Crying? What's the matter with my little man?" It was the clergyman, on his semi-weekly visit at the almshouse. "I'm not a man. I never shall be a man," cried Davy, forgetting all his awe of the great man; "he said I should n't. I'm a dwarf, and he can knock me into a cocked-hat-and-cane. O, I hate him, I do!" "I had much rather be a dwarf than hate any one, Davy," Mr. Kirk answered him. "You - you would? Isn't it, then, so bad to be a dwarf?" "But I don't know, sir; what do you mean?" sobbed Davy,-"I shall always be a little boy?" "We all have a soul, you know, as well as a body," began the good clergyman. "O yes, I feel it here!" said Davy, pressing a hand on his breast. "Well, then, did you feel it just now when you hated some one?" "O, I forgot it then; I only thought about—about my body." "Yes; so you see that, when you hate, it dwarfs your soul.; and a dwarfed soul is a much greater misfortune than a dwarfed body." 66 Then my soul will soul? as big as a man's? "Certainly." "I don't see " said Davy; "won't it grow too big for my body?" "In that case you will be given a spiritual body," said Mr. Kirk, feeling that the child could understand him; and then he went on to tell him that this present body was the temple of his soul, that through it all his worship must ascend to God; and, no matter how small or misshapen it might be, one should not despise it, nor grieve about it, if only one preserved it, unsoiled by ill-temper and unholiness, a pure shelter for the wayfaring soul. grow, if I am not wicked? Will it grow to be a man's So at last Davy dried his tears, and forgave the naughty tailor, and tried hard to put up with being a dwarf. But, somehow or other, he could n't enjoy himself as before; all his castles in the air were tumbling down about his ears, and he could n't find heart to build more, nor materials even. It seemed to him every day harder to keep down the angry words when the others provoked him, and he would think, "If I were only as big as they, I think I could do it"; and then he would remember that the victory would be so much the greater as he was smaller, and so he often stopped short in the middle of a cross word, and got the better of himself. He declined to have Aunt Nancy tuck him into bed any longer, fancying that, if he could n't have the stature of a man, he might at least have a man's independence in a measure; but Aunt Nancy brought the argument of tears to bear against his pride, and he relented. He marked off his height with charcoal against the white wall, and every morning ran to see if he had not gained upon himself. In his dreams, like Jack's beanstalk, he grew into the heavens, and on such occasions he could hardly persuade himself, after waking and remeasuring, that he had not overstepped the black mark. Mr. Kirk surprised him, one morning, taking the gauge of his inches. "You are thinking too much about it, Davy," said he; "which of us by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature ?" And Davy neglected to measure himself thereafter. One day a stranger came to see Mr. Screwum, the overseer; and Mr. Screwum, having a great deal of sympathy for the towns-people who were taxed to support the almshouse, and very little for the town's poor, — Mr. Screwum, I say, made Davy over to the stranger for a certain time, to be exhibited wherever the stranger pleased, as the wicked little tailor had said, to "be made a show." -- You may imagine the distress of poor Davy, so sensitive as he was; to be shown off by gaslight, nightly, to a thousand people; standing on the backs of chairs, acting in pantomimes, singing comic songs, dancing hornpipes till his head was lighter than his heels, cracking other people's jokes, and breaking his own heart. It would have been strange indeed, if the old Adam had not risen in him then; and often, when the audience expected something comic of him, he had half a mind to tell them, boldly, that it was probable their eyes and ears had been given them for more Christian uses than to go out of their way to see and hear a dwarf make a fool of himself. But all this was not to last long; he got a fall one day, a fall that injured his spine, the doctors said, and Davy was sent back to the almshouse; and there old Aunt Nancy cared for him in her feeble but affectionate way; there Mr. Kirk came often, and read to him tender Bible lines; and there, last of all, came the little tailor, begging Davy to forgive him "before he went to be an angel." And so, one evening, when the sunset yet smouldered in the west, Davy sent for Mr. Kirk. "Poor Aunt Nancy," said he, "I had promised her such a pretty red gown and a rocking-chair when I grew up; and now, you know, I shall never grow up." "I will see to that," said Mr. Kirk. "But I shall be changed, — you said?" "We shall all be changed, — in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." "And I shall not be a dwarf any longer? I shall be a man, - shall I not? a man like you?" and he caressed the clergyman with his failing fingers. "Dear child," said he, "not like me, but like Him; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body. "In the twinkling of an eye," repeated Davy, smiling back on him from the threshold of eternity; and in a minute more the great gates had closed behind him, and the minister sat alone. Davy had left the almshouse forever. Mary N. Prescott. FR ABOUT ME ON MY TRAVELS. MY BIRTHPLACE. ROM what I hear read and sung, I suppose it is very much the thing to be overcome when one visits his birthplace. I went to mine, and felt very comfortable. I did n't cry for two reasons. Ist. I am happy to say Miss Alice made me without any water-works and wheezing machinery such as men, women, children, dogs, cats, ducks, &c., &c., &c., have to carry about with them, and which are sure to go off with a disagreeable drizzle and bang unless you handle them "just so." 2d. I saw nothing to cry about; I was glad I was born; being born, I was glad to see the place; and, seeing the place, was glad I was born there. But I must just say, in passing, that when I saw the beautiful little dimpled hands which had fashioned me, I wondered for a moment how they could have created me, stitch by stitch, without rounding me into something of their own dainty grace. But Queenie loves me! I dare not say as much about this pleasant household as I would, did not the YOUNG FOLKS go there every month. Indeed, the young housepapa says he thinks he might as well take no other periodical than this, for it just suits his fancy, and is the only magazine which he always reads from beginning to end! My birthplace was a cosey country-house on Long Island Sound. It has an orchard dappled with daisies on one side, grandpapa's house and grounds on the other, a croquet-lawn in front for pleasant days, and a broad hall and verandas for rainy days, and an Alderney cow for always. Then there are the children! but I must be careful of my adjectives here, lest I harm the darlings. Wise little Kittie had just set up a canarybird in a cage. "She's a female bird, papa says, and so she can't sing much, but then she looks pretty, just the same," was Kittie's introduction to this idol of hers. "She," being "a female bird" and not singing "much," was appropriately named MAJOR; and as to her "looking pretty, just the same," it's a matter of taste, I suppose; and perhaps Major was as bright and glossy, and had as many tail-feathers, as could be expected of her, seeing she was never left to herself five minutes at a time during Kittie's waking hours. "For everywhere that Kittie went That cage was lugged about from parlor to bedroom, from playhouse to lawn, from grandpapa's to the bath-house; and, whenever the little maiden rested, it was sure to be close to the miserable Major's cage, with her straight little nose perked between the bars, so that Major could not even get a chance to take a bath, and might as well have been an empress for all the comfort and retirement she had. Kittie's sorest trial was that it was n't thought best to allow Major the range of the dinner-table, or the undivided half of her own bed in the nursery. As for Alice the less, she was a jolly little mortal, who had a way of prancing about in very loose costume those hot July days. Having been neatly dressed by her nurse, and duly inspected by mamma or grandmamma or Aunt Alice, and pronounced all right, the next thing one would see would be a round little figure, becomingly dressed in drawers only, racing across the croquet-ground; or a little witch with nothing on but a dress, and that somebody's else, and wrong side before at that, running down the sidewalk just as the people were pouring out of the church opposite ! Cally was Queenie's favorite, I must say; and he tried hard to be her true knight, but there were difficulties. Aunt Alice found the little fellow growling to himself in a corner, his black eyes snapping. "Why, Cally! what is the matter?" "She's real mean, - she is!" shaking his head indignantly at our baby, who sat chattering away over a house she had built for me with Cal's blocks, which she called hers. "O Cally! she is your company, and you must not talk about her in that impolite way." "I tell ye, she's real mean! She may have 'em coz I've got to be polite to my company, but she must n't call 'em hers. She's real mean, she is." And Cally isn't the only one who likes to have his sacrifices appreciated to the full. It was fun to watch this little knight and lady, who could n't bear to be apart, but the moment they approached each other the sparks began to fly. But I was proud of them when they set off on their rides together, for my fascinating birthplace had two rocking-horses! One was short and low, and serviceable for even very little legs, and was called Old Kate; but the other was as grand as anybody's horse, with real soft hair, and flashing eyes, and streaming mane, and floating tail, and was named for the very best governor in all these United States, who had given him to the little boy. Queenie was wild with delight over "Goveney Buckeney." When Cal was out of the way, she would put her own little hat and sack upon the beautiful horse, and wrap his stately head in her shawl, and, after patting him, to make him rock faster, would kiss him so lovingly that it was enough to make any Governor fly. But he was quite too tall and fiery for her to ride safely alone, so she had to be content with loving and patting and feeding and making a "clothes-horse" of him; and, when she wished to ride, she was mounted on "Old Kates " (as she called it), while little Cal dashed off on the "Governor "; and a splendid pair they made. But the sharpest dispute the babies had was over this peaceable namesake of the noble governor. Black-eyes threw down the challenge with a snap and a comical smile, as they were breathing their horses after a race. "Your Old Kate has n't got any tail! See what a great long tail my horse has got!" Blue-eyes, who was busy trying to tie my legs in a bow-knot around Old Kate's thick neck, waited till she was sure it could n't be done, and then said mincingly, "He tail is n't velly long!" This drove little Cal almost frantic, and quite back to first principles (if you know what that means). "God does n't love children that say big horses' tails ain't very long!" "Yes, he do!" "No, he don't, coz it's quarrelling"; whereupon both disputants set up a melancholy howl, and had to be carried off the field, "yes-he-do "-ing and "no-he-don't "ing long after they were out of sight and hearing of each other. As for ME, I was quite a hero in this visit. If somebody else would be kind enough to say it, I would be much obliged; but, as nobody offers, I will just mention that I was even considered a beauty that is, in comparison with a great-uncle of mine, whom the children had been making much of (from Kittie down) for four or five years. They had made so much of him, indeed, what with "washing and starching, and laying him out to dry" (as it says in the Frog fairy story), that, when their papa marked on the post the height of each child, their Jack, who of course had to be measured too, was found to be nearly as tall as little Cal! I can't say as much of his breadth; the truth is he was rather slim and stringy; but the children loved him dearly, so what did a few inches more or less matter? But I confess the future looked somewhat dark to me, as I gazed at it through the at-ten-u-ated figure of my great-uncle, and imagined Queenie's ability to tie bow-knots, &c., &c. increased till it equalled her present disposition so to do! It was as hot as July could make it during our visit; but Queenie persisted in wearing most of the time a large blanket-shawl pinned around her neck, |
