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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike Marble, by Uncle Frank
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mike Marble
+       His Crotchets and Oddities.
+
+Author: Uncle Frank
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2008 [EBook #24937]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIKE MARBLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeannie Howse, Chuck Greif and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |
+    | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+   [Illustration: MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME.]
+
+
+
+
+UNCLE FRANK'S
+BOY'S & GIRL'S
+LIBRARY,
+BY
+
+FRANCIS C. WOODWORTH,
+
+EDITOR OF WOODWORTH'S YOUTH'S CABINET.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MIKE MARBLE:
+
+HIS CROTCHETS AND ODDITIES.
+
+With Tinted Illustrations.
+
+BY
+
+UNCLE FRANK,
+
+AUTHOR OF "A PEEP AT OUR NEIGHBORS," "THE PEDDLER'S BOY,"
+"THE DIVING BELL," "WILLOW LANE STORIES," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+BOSTON:
+PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & COMPANY,
+PUBLISHERS.
+
+
+
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852,
+By PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
+the District of Massachusetts.
+
+
+
+STEREOTYPED BY
+BILLIN & BROTHERS,
+No. 10 NORTH WILLIAM STREET, N.Y.
+WRIGHT & HASTY,
+Printers, 3 Water Street, Boston.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                        PAGE
+
+CHAPTER I.
+ABOUT CROTCHETS                                            7
+
+CHAPTER II.
+CROTCHETY FOLKS                                           15
+
+CHAPTER III.
+LIGHTS AND SHADOWS                                        27
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+CHIPS FROM BIRCH WOODS                                    35
+
+CHAPTER V.
+A PAIR OF THIEVES                                         54
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+PAYING HIM OFF                                            68
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME                              92
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE BUMBLE-BEES' NEST                                    109
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+HOW A BARN WAS BUILT                                     127
+
+CHAPTER X.
+ANOTHER BLOCK OF MARBLE                                  134
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+MIKE MARBLE'S LAST DAYS                                  150
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME                  (Frontispiece)
+
+VIGNETTE TITLE-PAGE                                        1
+
+THE BOY IN THE WOODS                                      48
+
+OLD IRONSIDES AND THE CHILDREN                            63
+
+A CRYING SPELL                                            77
+
+PAYING FOR MISCHIEF                                      124
+
+MIKE MARBLE AND THE BEGGAR                               135
+
+MIKE MARBLE IN HIS OLD AGE                               147
+
+
+
+
+MIKE MARBLE.
+
+
+CHAP. I.
+
+ABOUT CROTCHETS.
+
+
+Don't be frightened, reader, at what you see on the title-page of this
+book, or at the head which I have given to my first chapter. Don't let
+the idea creep into your head, that I am going to give you a dull and
+sleepy essay on music. It is not the _crotchets_ which you find in
+the singing-book, that I intend to talk about; I leave them to those
+who know more about them than I do. There is a man of my acquaintance,
+whom I could hunt up without much trouble, and who, if you should ever
+choose to give him a chance, would talk you deaf, and write you blind,
+about this sort of crotchets, together with all the members of that
+noisy family--breves, semibreves, minims, and what not! I'll refer you
+to him, for all the mysteries of the _gamut_. Whenever you want to
+learn them, I assure you he would like no better fun than to teach
+them to you. I'll not interfere with his trade.
+
+My business is with another family of crotchets. Webster--Noah
+Webster, the man who made the spelling-book, out of which Uncle Frank
+learned to say, or rather to drawl his letters--gives, in his large
+dictionary, as one of the definitions of the word _crotchet_, this: "a
+peculiar turn of mind, a whim, a fancy." Here you have just that kind
+of crotchet that I am going to deal with. Mr. Webster could not have
+hit my crotchet more exactly, if he had taken aim at it on purpose.
+It is a _peculiar turn of mind_, or, if you prefer it, a _whim_, or a
+_fancy_, that I shall talk about, for an hour or so, perhaps longer.
+Indeed, I am not perfectly sure but I shall find a whole flock of
+whims and fancies, because, you know, "birds of a feather flock
+together," and, in that case, I shall give you a peep at a score or
+two of whims and fancies.
+
+Now, who knows but these crotchets will be worth hearing about? People
+write large, thick volumes, on drier topics than whims and
+fancies--that is, to my way of thinking--and I suppose their books
+are read. Certainly they expect to have them read, or they would not
+make them. Then why may not my book on crotchets find readers?
+
+If I were to write a book on _warts_ and _corns_, don't you think the
+book would get read? I do. I have not the least doubt of it. Suppose,
+now, it were published in the newspapers, that _Messrs. Phillips,
+Sampson & Company_, one of the largest and most respectable publishing
+houses in the Union, are about to issue a volume, entitled _Freaks of
+the Wart Family_, from the pen of Uncle Frank, a man who, first and
+last, has printed a good deal of sense, together with some nonsense,
+and who, in this volume, has succeeded in stringing together some of
+the strangest things that ever saw the light. Suppose that some
+newspaper should give that item of news, don't you think folks would
+get the book, when it was published? and don't you think they would
+read it, or, at all events, skim it over, to see what kind of stuff
+Uncle Frank had been emptying out of his brain? I think so.
+
+Well, warts and corns are to the body what whims and crotchets are to
+the mind. The body has freaks--the mind has freaks. Warts don't
+exactly _belong_ to the body. That is, there could be a very good sort
+of a body, without a single wart on it; and indeed, if you please, a
+man would be a more perfect man, if there were no warts about him,
+from head to foot. So of crotchets. I don't pretend that a person has
+any thing to boast of, because his head is full of crotchets. Perhaps
+he would be better without them. _Perhaps_ he would. But warts and
+crotchets are both found among mankind. Both are freaks of nature, so
+to speak; of course, both are worth examining. One thing at a time,
+though. Let us turn our attention, at present, to _crotchets_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. II.
+
+CROTCHETY FOLKS.
+
+
+A crotchety person, according to this same Noah Webster, whom I have
+quoted before, is one who has whims or crotchets in the brain. Now a
+word about these crotchety folks.
+
+I'll tell you what it is, my friend. The older I grow, the more I feel
+inclined to let every man and woman, every boy and girl, act out
+himself, or herself. "That is a singular fellow," we often hear it
+said. "He's as odd as Dick's hat-band. I don't know what to think of
+him. He seems to be a good sort of a man. But he _is_ odd. His head is
+as full of crotchets as it can hold."
+
+When I hear a person talk in this style, I feel like saying, "Stop a
+moment, my dear sir. He's 'a good sort of a man--_but_,' you say. That
+shows you are not precisely satisfied with his goodness; and pray,
+what is the matter with it? Why don't you like it, sir? What
+particular fault have you to find with it? Come, out with it now."
+
+Press a man, who is talking in this way about a crotchety neighbor,
+right up to the point, and you will generally find that the reason he
+does not like him is because he has a different way of saying and
+doing things from his own.
+
+Now I believe that some folks are odd because they cannot help it.
+True, there are a great many who are odd, just for the sake of being
+odd. They are ambitious to be known as singular people. We will let
+them pass. They certainly work hard to earn the name they love to be
+known by; and perhaps we ought not to try to rob them of it, or to say
+any thing very severe about their taste. We will let them pass.
+
+But there are a multitude of other people who are odd, and whose
+oddities cannot be accounted for in the same way. They are odd,
+because they were born so. They are odd, because they cannot help
+being odd. If they should try, with all their might, to do as most of
+their neighbors do, they would make perfect dunces of themselves; for
+every body, old or young, makes a dunce of himself, and nothing else,
+whenever he undertakes to be what he is not--whenever he undertakes to
+be somebody else. He is not very well acquainted with the race he
+belongs to, who, as he goes through the world, does not get this truth
+hammered into him.
+
+Why, at this very moment, I can think of at least a dozen odd people,
+whom I am in the habit of meeting every day, and who, I verily
+believe, could no more help their oddities and crotchets than some of
+their neighbors could help having warts come out on their hands. The
+crotchets are natural and unavoidable in one case--the warts are
+natural and unavoidable in the other.
+
+These are my notions about crotchety people, in general, and I have
+thrown them out, as one throws out feather beds from the garret
+windows, when the house is on fire--so that the articles that are to
+be thrown afterward may find a good soft spot to alight on, and not
+get damaged by their fall.
+
+The truth is, I am going to introduce to you an old gentleman, who
+had a large head, tolerably well filled with crotchets; and as it is
+such a common thing for people to raise a hue and cry against every
+body who has any oddities about him, I thought I would put you on your
+guard a little, by a word of apology for that entire race of people,
+who are odd because they cannot be any thing else.
+
+This old gentleman, who, by the way, was a great friend of the little
+folks, is _Mike Marble_. I introduce him to you as an _old_ gentleman.
+But, although he was old, when I first saw him, I must not forget
+that he was young once--as young as any of my readers--and that he
+played his part as a boy, as well as his part as a man. There are a
+good many anecdotes afloat about him and his odd way of doing things,
+before he grew up to manhood. My grandfather knew him when he was a
+lad at school. I believe he and Mike were nearly of the same age.
+
+That grandfather of mine, now I think of it, was a great story-teller.
+I have sometimes nearly half made up my mind, while casting about me,
+to find some new mine of stories for my young readers, that I would
+put my thinking cap on, and see if I could not recollect a budget of
+my grandfather's stories, large enough to fill a book. I am not sure
+but I will do so one of these days; and, if I do, I shall print the
+budget, depend upon it.
+
+My grandfather and Mike Marble were as dear to each other as if they
+had been brothers. They lived not far apart, and went to school
+together. For some of Mike's crotchets I am indebted to this old
+friend of his. Others I picked up, here and there, among old people
+that knew him, and others still I got from a personal acquaintance
+with him in his old age.
+
+You will excuse me, if I call him _Mike_ sometimes. He was always so
+called, when he was a boy, I believe. And while you are excusing me
+for calling him _Mike_--you see I take you to be very kind and
+obliging--you will please excuse me, also, if I happen to prefix the
+title of _Uncle_ to that nickname; for he was known, far and near, as
+_Uncle Mike_ in his later days.
+
+It is true that _Michael_ was his name correctly and honestly spelled
+out. But it is equally true that Michael was a name to which he seldom
+had to answer. At school, and among his playmates, it was always
+_Mike_. I really believe, from what I have heard my grandfather say,
+that not half the boys and girls in his neighborhood could have been
+convinced, by any common arguments, that his name was Michael. Indeed,
+I remember having heard that once, when a schoolmate called the fellow
+by the long name, just to see how it would seem, he and the other boy
+both burst right out into a perfect roar of laughter over the sound
+of it. "For pity's sake," said he, when he got over his laughing fit,
+"don't call me by that hard name again, as long as I live;" and, as he
+seemed to be quite in earnest, none of the boys ever addressed him by
+any other name than _Mike_, after that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. III.
+
+LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
+
+
+"But who is _Mike Marble_? where does he live? what sort of a man is
+he? what kind of oddities has he got?"
+
+My little friend, your questions come out so fast, and there is such a
+long string of them, that they make me think of the way a whole pack
+of fire crackers go off, when you touch a coal to one of them, and
+throw the whole into the street. I am going to tell you ever so many
+things about this same Mike Marble. Before I get through with him, you
+will get very well acquainted with him, I think. But Uncle Frank, you
+know, has got some oddities himself. When he has got any thing to do,
+he, too, has his own way of doing it.
+
+Some people, I suppose, if they were treating you to a few chapters in
+the history of this singular man, would weave the threads together in
+a different manner from mine. They would begin, very likely, by
+telling where the chap was born, who were his father and mother, how
+many brothers and sisters he had, what their names were, whether he
+had any uncles and aunts, and if he had, what kind of uncles and aunts
+they were, and all that sort of thing. And they would describe Mike's
+appearance exactly--tell you whether he had black eyes or blue, gray
+eyes or brown, red eyes or green. But I don't see much use in that.
+
+Indeed, I am not sure but I shall keep you ignorant as to how he
+looked, and let you learn what there is worth learning in his
+character--for character is the great thing, after all, you know--by
+the stories I shall tell of him. I might, it is true, take every
+branch, and leaf, and bud, and flower, of his character, and pick it
+all to pieces, and show you, in this way, what he was made of. But you
+would get tired of all that. So I'll take another course. I'll tell
+you what he said and did--what he said and did at different times, at
+different periods in his life, and in different circumstances. Don't
+you think this is the best way to make you acquainted with him? I do;
+for, if you find out what a person says, and does, and thinks, you
+find out what he is.
+
+One or two things, however, I must say about this Mike Marble, by way
+of general introduction.
+
+He was born at a very interesting period--about nine years before the
+breaking out of the American Revolution. He was quite an old man
+before he went to his final rest. Indeed, it is but a few years since
+I saw his weather-beaten face, all lighted up with smiles. Unlike many
+other men, when they get to be old, he never made a practice of
+carping at every thing he saw about him, because it was not exactly in
+the style of 1776. He believed that there was wisdom among our
+grandfathers and grandmothers, but that there is wisdom, also, among
+their grand-children.
+
+I have told you that he had some oddities. I have hinted, too, in a
+sort of whisper, that I do not consider a man an absolute Pagan,
+because he happens to be a little odd. Something more than this I
+could say of Uncle Mike, odd as he was; but I guess you will find out
+what I think of him, before I get through. Suffice it to say, that,
+while I didn't like him _because_ he was odd, I did like him, _in
+spite_ of his oddities. He was a fine old man. As the world goes, he
+was a most excellent man. He had his faults, a plenty of them; though
+I have sometimes thought
+
+    "That e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side."
+
+Some of them did, I know. He had his faults, nevertheless. I confess
+that. He always had them, no doubt. Faults are common things among
+mankind and womankind. But, with your consent, we will trip lightly
+over all that part of our hero's history which is shaded with
+blemishes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. IV.
+
+CHIPS FROM BIRCH WOODS.
+
+
+One of the worst things I ever heard of in the history of Mike,
+according to the best of my recollection, was the way he served Billy
+Birch's dog. You must know something about this Billy Birch. _Burt_
+was his real name. But it was changed into Birch by his neighbors, for
+a reason which I will give you by and bye.
+
+Mr. Burt was a pretty good sort of a man, in his own estimation, but
+not greatly or generally beloved by his neighbors. He was a
+church-going man, and had a knack, somehow or other, of getting along
+decently with the forms--the outside garments, so to speak--of
+religion. It was really astonishing how glibly he would _talk_ about
+religion. But as to the practical part of it, he did not succeed as
+well. That was up-hill work for the old man.
+
+He found it exceedingly difficult to keep himself "unspotted from the
+world." Some of his nearest neighbors thought they could count a great
+many worldly spots upon him. I don't know how that was, as I never was
+acquainted with the man, and ought not to judge him too harshly.
+Indeed, Uncle Frank must endeavor to keep in mind, that with what
+measure we mete it shall be measured to us again. But from all the
+shreds and patches of his history that have come down to the present
+day, Mr. Birch does seem to have been a selfish man, and a great deal
+too fond of money.
+
+My young friend, it is one of the most difficult things in this
+world, to act up to the spirit of the golden rule of our Lord, and do
+to others as we would have them do to us, when we are as full as we
+can hold of selfishness. You may lay that thought up in your memory.
+
+Billy Birch found that truth out. What did he care how many
+newly-planted hills of corn and rows of peas his hens might scratch
+up, provided the corn was not his corn, and the peas were not his
+peas, and provided he did not have to suffer for the scratching? Not a
+mill. He would sit, smoking his pipe--for he was a great smoker--in
+the old, straight-backed oak chair on the stoop, as cool as a
+cucumber, while the biggest rooster on his premises, the lord of the
+whole barn-yard, was leading a regiment of hens and petty roosters in
+a crusade upon Squire Chapman's corn-field across the way; and if the
+Squire or one of his boys came over to inform him what havoc the hens
+were making, and to ask him what to do with the troublesome creatures,
+the old man would perhaps take his pipe out of his mouth, and, after
+slowly puffing out a cloud of smoke, would say, "Why, drive them out,
+to be sure!"
+
+What did he care, if his old mare--who, by the way, was a very nervous
+sort of a mare, and could not stay long in one spot--what did he care,
+if the old creature did jump over the six-rail fence around the good
+parson's field of clover, and eat what she wanted, and trample down,
+in her nervous way of doing things, a good share of the rest of the
+clover? Why, it didn't hurt _him_ any. The old miser! It wasn't _his_
+field of clover that Katy trampled down. And besides, didn't he pay
+his minister's tax? and didn't the minister and his family live in
+better style than he and his family could afford to live in?
+
+Katy loved clover. _He_ wasn't to blame for that, and he didn't know
+that Katy was to blame. It was a very natural taste, that of his old
+mare. And why didn't the parson, he should like to know, build his
+fence higher, if he didn't want his clover eaten up by other people's
+horses?
+
+What was it to Billy Birch, if his dog did kill a neighbor's sheep,
+now and then? What did he care, what should he care? If they were his
+own sheep, that would alter the case. But Cæsar never killed his
+master's sheep. Wasn't that kind in Cæsar? And as to this sheep-biting
+habit of his, why it is the _nature_ of dogs to kill sheep. Cæsar
+_must_ kill somebody's sheep; and if he hadn't picked out a good fat
+one from this flock, it would have been somebody else's flock. What is
+the use in making such a fuss about a sheep or two? The loss of one
+sheep won't break any body. What can't be cured, must be endured.
+People must take care of their sheep, if they don't want them to be
+killed.
+
+That is the way this selfish, narrow-minded farmer reasoned and
+talked. You can see, plainly enough, that he was not the sort of man
+to be very much respected in the neighborhood. He was not respected.
+In fact, there was not, in all the parish, a more generally unpopular
+man than Billy Birch.
+
+The boys, I have heard, bore him a grudge of long standing. It related
+to the huckleberries and hazel nuts in the old man's birch woods.
+There were bushels of huckleberries, and almost as many hazel nuts, in
+those woods. But would you have thought of such a thing? Mr. Birch
+forbade the boys picking any of his huckleberries or hazel nuts. Ever
+so many huckleberries decayed on the bushes every year, or were left
+to be harvested by the birds, because Mr. Birch's family could not
+pick them all themselves, and he was so tight that he would not let
+any body else pick them. He was like the dog in the manger, you see.
+He could not eat the hay himself, and he would not let any body else
+eat it.
+
+But the meanest thing that I ever heard of his doing, was this: In
+these same woods--the woods where the huckleberries and hazel nuts
+grew--there were great multitudes of birch trees, of different species
+and among the rest, some of that species which goes by the name, among
+children, of _black birch_. I need not tell any of my country readers
+about this kind of birch. They know it well enough. They have eaten
+birch bark, many a time; and, for ought I know, some of them have
+felt a tingling sensation in the region of the back and legs, brought
+about by the use of birch twigs in the hands of some schoolmaster.
+
+Well, Moses Ramble was crossing Billy Birch's woods one day in the
+spring of the year. For awhile, he whistled along, as merry-hearted as
+the blue birds that had just returned from their southern tour, and
+who were chirping on the branches over his head, breaking off, now and
+then, a few sprigs of birch, from the trees along his path. By and
+bye, he sat down on the fence, to rest himself, still going on with
+his whistling, at intervals, when his mouth was not too much occupied
+with the birch to interfere with the music.
+
+   [Illustration: THE BOY IN THE WOODS.]
+
+While the merry young fellow was sitting here, feeling at peace with
+all the world, and not dreaming but all the world was at peace with
+him, he heard a slight rustling behind him, and, looking over his
+shoulder, whom should he see but Billy Birch himself, leaning against
+a chestnut tree, and looking as if he were angry enough to bite in two
+a hoe handle.
+
+What on earth the man was doing there, history does not inform us,
+though it used to be more than hinted among the younger citizens in
+that neighborhood, that he was prowling about in those woods as a spy
+on the movements of the boys. They said he was just the man for such
+business.
+
+Moses did not like the appearance of the face that was lowering on
+him; and, although he was innocent of the slightest intention of doing
+any harm on the man's premises, he thought it would be safer for him
+to walk off than it would be to stay there. So he leaped from the
+fence, and began, leisurely, to walk home.
+
+"Stop, you young heathen!" said Billy Birch.
+
+The little fellow did stop, and stood as still as the old chestnut
+tree, against which the lord of those woods was leaning.
+
+"What are you _munching_ there, sir?"
+
+Moses, having no suspicion at all that he had been doing any harm to
+the estate of the old man, replied, frankly and plainly, that he was
+eating birch.
+
+"Aha!" said the farmer, "you are, eh? I'll teach you to eat my birch.
+I'll give you as much birch as you will want for a fortnight!"
+
+And he took the twig which Moses was gnawing out of his hands, and
+whipped him with it, until he made the poor fellow cry out with pain
+and mortification.
+
+"There, you thief!" he said, after flogging him to his heart's
+content, "that will teach you to steal my birch, I guess."
+
+From that day the selfish farmer began to be called _Birch_, in that
+section of the country; and it was not many months before his name was
+almost as effectually changed as if he had applied to the legislature
+of the state to have that body change it for him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. V.
+
+A PAIR OF THIEVES.
+
+
+About that dog of Billy Birch. Have I not promised to tell you
+something about him, and the accident that happened to him, which
+accident Mike Marble might have prevented, if he had made the attempt?
+I have a good mind to tell you about these matters, at any rate,
+whether I have made such a promise or not.
+
+Mind now, reader, that, in telling this story, I don't mean to have it
+understood that I think Mike did right. I'll grant that he did wrong.
+But I mention the fact to show what sort of mischief Mike was up to,
+and what sort of blemishes those were, which I confess he had in his
+character; for, as I think I said before, this trick was about as bad
+a thing as I ever heard of his being guilty of.
+
+Cæsar got to be a great hero in the sheep-killing business--a perfect
+Nimrod of a dog. It sometimes happens, I fancy, that soldiers who
+spend more of their time in war, actually shooting people and cutting
+their throats, after a while, get to liking the trade, and take
+pleasure in slaughtering human beings, just as a carpenter or a
+printer might take pleasure in _his_ trade. Well, it got to be
+somewhat so with Cæsar, it would seem; for it often came to pass that
+two or three sheep would be killed in one night, when, of course, a
+single fat one would supply his appetite bountifully for several days,
+at least. He must have liked the business, or he would have contented
+himself with killing only a sufficient number of sheep to keep him in
+food.
+
+The neighbors who suffered from Cæsar's favorite amusement,
+complained, now and then, to his master. But it did no good. "They
+must keep their sheep out of the way," the selfish man would say.
+"Cæsar is a capital family dog. I don't know what I should do without
+him--he is so faithful." That was as much satisfaction as they could
+ever get. Billy Birch would not shut up his dog at night, and as for
+killing him, that was out of the question. He would rather lose his
+best horse than Cæsar. True, the neighbors might have sued the owner
+of the dog, and have got the value of their lost sheep in that way.
+But they were generally peaceable folks, and had a great dread of
+going to law, especially with one of their own neighbors. The result
+was, that Cæsar's business prospered more and more every day.
+
+It was in the full tide of his success as a sheep-killer, that he
+came, one day, into Mr. Marble's door yard, and took his station near
+the wood pile. Mike saw him, and knew well enough what he came for.
+His father had just been slaughtering an ox, and some of the dainty
+pieces of the animal were lying on the wood pile, the scent of which
+had brought Cæsar to the spot. No doubt, having feasted on mutton so
+long, he had got a little sick of it, and thought he would make a
+dinner on beef. He was a dainty fellow, you perceive.
+
+I don't know what put it into Mike's head to play the trick he did on
+Cæsar. But he had no sooner seen him smelling around among the refuse
+pieces of the ox's carcass, than he determined to punish him, if
+possible, for his notorious crimes. So, without saying a word to any
+body, he gathered up all the choice bits which had tempted the dog to
+the yard, and placed them within a few feet of the heels of Mr.
+Marble's old chaise horse, who was standing there, hitched to a gate
+post, waiting patiently for somebody to come and harness him.
+
+Now this horse, who was called _Old Ironsides_, was as famous for his
+kicking habits as Cæsar was for his sheep-killing. He seemed to take
+up kicking as a sort of amusement, to while away his leisure hours.
+It was a wonder that Mr. Marble kept him; for he had kicked the old
+chaise to pieces several times; and as to his stable, he made nothing
+of kicking off all the boards within reach of his heels, every few
+nights, just for the fun of the thing, and to show what mighty deeds
+he could do with his heels.
+
+It is no more than an act of simple justice to Old Ironsides, however,
+to say, that he was as gentle as a lamb to the children of his master.
+They could do any thing with him. Often, when he was standing at the
+door, or in his stable, they would go close to him, and pat him on his
+neck, and play with him, as if he were one of their own number; and
+the old fellow would take all their fun good-humoredly. Among all his
+sins in the kicking line--and he had a great many, first and last, to
+answer for--he never kicked either of the children. They all loved
+him, in fact; and many is the dainty morsel he received from their
+hands.
+
+Well, to go on with the story of Mike's piece of mischief. The dog,
+as he had expected, trotted along after the pieces of meat, and
+commenced eating, without any suspicions of harm, right under the
+_battery_ of the old horse. There he remained for some moments, as
+Mike says, taking as much comfort eating his dinner, as if he were
+dining on one of his father's sheep.
+
+   [Illustration: OLD IRONSIDES AND THE CHILDREN.]
+
+Old Ironsides took no notice of the dog. Indeed, he rather appeared
+half asleep. He often shut his eyes, by the way, as he was standing at
+a post, and dosed, and nodded, much after the fashion of some men,
+when they set out to listen to a sermon on Sunday. All the time,
+however, Mike had a crotchet in his head.
+
+"Halloo, old fellow!" he shouted, "what are you about there?"
+
+In an instant Old Ironsides was wide awake, and, seeing at a glance
+what was going on behind, he pricked up his ears, uttered one brief
+snort, and away went his heels like lightning. Poor Cæsar! When he
+touched this planet again--for Old Ironsides had sent him up towards
+the moon, much farther than I should want to go, in that style--he was
+a lost dog. Old Ironsides, who proved to be as great a hero, in his
+way, as Cæsar was, had killed him. The great enemy of sheepdom had
+ceased to breathe.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. VI
+
+"PAYING HIM OFF;"
+
+OR, AN ODD WAY OF SHOWING REVENGE.
+
+
+Jacob Grumley, who was sometimes nicknamed _Grumble_, on account of a
+habit he had of finding fault with every thing and every body, went to
+the same school with Mike Marble. Now Mike was as remarkable for his
+cheerful and amiable disposition, as Jacob was for his ill nature. In
+half of the cases where the latter would get angry, and storm, and
+rage, and fret, and foam, like a hyena, or a Bengal tiger, the other
+would remain as cool as a cucumber, or, perhaps, burst out into a
+hearty laugh.
+
+One day, when several of the schoolboys, including Michael and Jacob,
+were playing ball on the fine lawn in front of the school house, a
+dispute occurred between the young grumbler and another boy, and Mike
+ventured to suggest to Jacob, as kindly as he could, that he was in
+the wrong.
+
+"You little meddlesome dunce!" said Jacob, all in a blaze of anger,
+"I'll teach you to mind your own business, and let other people's
+quarrels alone." And, suiting his action to his words, he struck Mike
+in the face so hard that the blood ran from his nose in a stream.
+
+Well, what do you think Mike did, then? I know what some boys would
+have done, if they had been in his place. They would have struck
+Jacob, at any cost. That is the way they would have taken their
+revenge. That is the way, indeed, that Mike's school-fellows advised
+him to take his revenge. Half a dozen of them, at least, surrounded
+him, and urged him to flog Jacob.
+
+"I'd pay him off for it," said one.
+
+"The rascal!" said another. "I'd make him smart for it."
+
+"And we'll all stand by you," said one, "if you'll flog him."
+
+"Mike wasn't a bit to blame, either," added another. "If I were in his
+place, if I wouldn't make Jake see stars, then--"
+
+The remainder of the speech was lost to every body but the speaker, as
+all the boys, by this time, were talking at once. It is a wonder to
+me that they did not take the matter altogether into their own hands,
+and give Jake the flogging which they thought he so richly deserved;
+for Michael was a great favorite among them, and they could not bear
+to see him abused. But I believe they contented themselves with
+letting off ever so many vials of wrath, in the shape of words; and
+Jake Grumble, finding how matters stood, walked sulkily away.
+
+"Now, Mike, what are you going to do?" asked one of the boys.
+
+"Do about what?" asked the injured boy.
+
+"About the bloody nose that Jake gave you," was the reply.
+
+"I'm going to see if I can't stop its bleeding," said Mike.
+
+"No, I don't mean that," said the other. "I mean what are you going to
+do to Jake?"
+
+"Oh," said Mike, "I guess I'll pay him off, one of these days."
+
+"And why not now?" the boy asked.
+
+"I've got as much on my hands as I can attend to, just now," said
+Mike.
+
+How do you suppose Jake felt, that day, after his cruel treatment of
+one of his playmates? What do you suppose were his feelings, when he
+found out what all the boys thought of his conduct; and when he had
+time to reflect upon the folly and wickedness of what he had done?
+Perhaps you can guess pretty well how he felt. Possibly you have
+yourself wronged some one of your playmates, and recollect how you
+felt about it, when you had a chance to get away somewhere, alone, to
+think over your conduct. If so, you can give a pretty rational guess
+as to the kind of feelings that were at work in Jake's bosom, on his
+way home from school that day.
+
+He did not go home in company with the rest of the boys and girls who
+went in the same direction. He was in the habit of doing so. But he
+felt so much ashamed on account of what he had done, that he could not
+bear to see the faces of any of the children.
+
+Instead of taking the public road that led directly to his father's
+house, he went through the gate that led into Deacon Stark's pasture,
+and followed the cart-path through the woods. It was a great deal
+farther that way. But he went through the woods so as to get clear of
+his playmates. One of the deacon's hired men saw the boy, leaning
+against the fence, just at the edge of the woods. Poor fellow! he was
+crying, as if his heart would break. So the man said. Jake got the
+worst of it, in that affair. Don't you think he did?
+
+But I have not got through with the story yet, and I must go on with
+it.
+
+   [Illustration: A CRYING SPELL.]
+
+Time passed on--days, weeks, and even months, came and went--but
+Mike did not "pay off" the boy who had so unjustly abused him. His
+companions urged him to do it, until they got out of patience, and
+concluded to give the matter up.
+
+As for Jake, it was as much as he could do to look Mike in the face.
+He avoided him, as much as possible, and seemed to be unhappy whenever
+he came near him. But Mike, on his part, treated the boy who had
+injured him just as if nothing had happened.
+
+I have often noticed, that where there has been any difficulty
+between two persons, the one who was at fault is more apt to cherish
+unkind feelings than the one who was innocent. It was so in this case.
+Jacob treated Michael as if it were Michael rather than himself, who
+had been in the wrong. He never spoke to him, when he could help it;
+and when he did say any thing to him, he spoke peevishly, and pressed
+the words between his teeth, as if he had the lockjaw.
+
+One day, during that interesting season of the year when the farmers
+are busy making hay, Jake had occasion to pass through Mr. Marble's
+meadow, with his fishing rod, on his way to the "deep hole," where, as
+every body in the neighborhood knew, multitudes of sun fish and perch
+were always to be found, ready for a nice bit of an angle-worm.
+
+Jake, being a little thirsty--for it was a very warm day--went up to
+the tree under which Mr. Marble kept the refreshments for his hired
+men, and took up the wooden bottle to drink. There was nothing wrong,
+perhaps, in the liberty he took, though I think it would have been
+quite as well, if he had asked Mr. Marble's consent in the first
+place. But we will let that pass. Jake had a different way of doing
+things.
+
+As I said, he took up the bottle to drink. But the moment he did so,
+Ranter, Mr. Marble's old dog, who lay under the tree, where he had
+been stationed to keep watch, thinking his master's property was in
+danger, flew at the boy, and caught him by the arm. Poor Jake! he
+yelled lustily, you may be sure. But it did no good. Ranter held him
+in his jaws, as tight as if he were a woodchuck or a rabbit, instead
+of a school-boy.
+
+Mike was spreading hay, at the time, some twenty yards off, or more
+and hearing the boy crying for help, and looking in the direction from
+which the voice came, he saw Jake fast in the clutches of the dog. In
+an instant he shouted, as loud as he could scream, "Here, Ranter!
+here, Ranter!" and in another instant, Ranter let go of the poor boy,
+and bounded away towards his young master.
+
+Jake, as you may suppose, and as Mike found, when he went to him, was
+very badly bitten. The blood ran from his arm quite as freely as it
+did from Mike's nose, some time before that.
+
+"Did Ranter hurt you much?" asked Mike, kindly.
+
+"Very badly, I'm afraid," said Jake, almost frantic with pain and
+fright.
+
+Mike said he was sorry, and expressed his wonder that Ranter could be
+so cruel. Then he ran and called his father, who was busy in another
+part of the meadow, when the accident happened, and who did not hear
+Jake's call for help. Mr. Marble had the boy taken to his house,
+where his wound was nicely dressed, and where the utmost care was
+taken of him by the whole family, among whom Mike was the foremost. It
+was two or three days before it was thought prudent to remove the
+sufferer to his father's house; and during that time there was no one,
+not even Jacob's own mother, who was more kind and attentive to him
+than Mike Marble.
+
+The time came when the wounded boy was able to go home. An hour or two
+before the wagon was to come for him, he was sitting in an easy
+chair, with the wounded arm lying on a pillow, and Mike, as usual, was
+at his side. There happened to be no one else in the chamber besides
+the two boys.
+
+"Mike," said the other, "I want to say something to you."
+
+"What is it?" asked Mike.
+
+"I don't know how to say it," was the answer.
+
+And there was a pause. Jacob had undertaken a task which was entirely
+new to him, and he did not know how to begin it. At length he tried
+again:
+
+"Mike," said he, "I struck you once--it was a good while ago--do you
+remember it?"
+
+"Yes," Mike said.
+
+"Well, I am sorry I struck you," said Jacob, and burst into tears.
+
+"I knew you were sorry," said Mike, "and I have forgiven you, long
+ago."
+
+"_Do_ you forgive me?" asked Jacob, earnestly.
+
+"I do, from my heart," said Mike.
+
+Then followed another flood of tears. This time it was a good while
+before Jacob could speak, so as to be understood, and when he did
+speak, it was only to say,
+
+"Oh, Mike, you are _so_ kind! You seem like a brother to me."
+
+Jacob's father came into the room just at this moment, and nothing
+more was said by either of the boys on the subject which so deeply
+affected Jacob. But Mike saw, plainly enough, that the heart of the
+boy who had injured him was melted, and he was satisfied.
+
+How warmly Jacob pressed Mike's hand, when he bade him "good bye," and
+started for home.
+
+Not long after that, Mike met one of the boys who had urged him so
+strongly to return the blow that Jacob gave him.
+
+"Well," said Mike, "I've done it."
+
+"Done what?" asked the other boy.
+
+"Paid him off," said Mike.
+
+"What, Jake Grumble?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Good. Tell me all about it."
+
+And Mike did tell him all about it.
+
+"Well, I do say for it, Mike," said the other boy, after listening to
+the whole story, "you are just the queerest fellow that I ever saw or
+heard of."
+
+"But don't you think that was about the best way to pay him off,
+after all?" asked Mike.
+
+"Well," said the other boy, after a moment's pause, "I declare I don't
+know but it was, when I come to think of it."
+
+And don't _you_ think it was the best way to pay him off, reader? I
+do, and I should be glad if every body would learn to pay such debts
+in very much the same way. It may be a very queer mode of taking
+revenge. But it seems to me quite a sensible one; and I am sure it is
+a thousand times better than the mode that people so often choose. If
+I am not greatly mistaken, indeed, it is just the mode that is
+recommended in the word of God, which says, "If thine enemy hunger,
+feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink; for, in so doing, thou
+shalt heap coals of fire on his head."
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. VII.
+
+MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME.
+
+
+You have heard a great deal about the Revolutionary War. You have
+heard what hardships our forefathers went through, while they were
+fighting the battles of liberty. But I doubt if you can form, in your
+own mind, any thing like a true picture of what those brave men
+suffered. Why, many of them had to go barefoot, for whole weeks at a
+time, right in the heart of winter. They could hardly get food to eat;
+and many and many a time, if it had not been for the thought that they
+were engaged in a good cause, and that God was on their side, they
+must have been discouraged, and given up all as lost. But they did not
+give up. They stood firm at their post, until they either fell before
+their enemies, or perished by fatigue and exposure.
+
+When the tidings came to the neighborhood where Mike Marble lived,
+that Washington's noble band were suffering every thing but death at
+Valley Forge, every man and woman, that could boast of any thing in
+the shape of a heart, were moved with pity. And they were not the
+people to let their kind feelings go off in fog and smoke. They were
+not blustering people. They believed in _acting_, as well as in
+_talking_. When they had heard the sad news, the next question was,
+"Can we _do_ any thing?" That question was soon answered. The next
+was, "_What_ can we do?" Well, it was pretty soon found out that all
+could do something--that some could do one thing, and some another;
+but that every family in the parish could do something.
+
+So they went to work. The mothers and daughters went to knitting
+stockings, and making under garments for the soldiers. Every chest of
+drawers, and wardrobe, and closet in the house was ransacked, to find
+bed-quilts and blankets for the army. And the fathers and sons, they
+went to work, with a right good will, to get shoes, and hats, and
+coats, and other articles of wearing apparel, so as to have them ready
+at the time the agent from the commander-in-chief should pass through
+the place.
+
+The younger branches of the families in that neighborhood, too, caught
+the spirit of their fathers and mothers. I must tell you a story about
+the agency of the little folks in furnishing supplies for the army.
+
+Mike Marble asked his father, one day, if he might call a meeting of
+the boys and girls at his house, to talk over war matters. The old man
+laughed, and said he might, if he chose. "But what do you children
+expect to do for the army, Mike?" he added. "What can you do, I
+should like to know?"
+
+"I don't know, father," was the reply, "but I guess we can all do
+something; I'm pretty sure I can, for one."
+
+Well, the meeting was called. The schoolmaster gave out notice, one
+afternoon, that all the boys and girls were invited to Mr. Marcus
+Marble's house, the next Wednesday, at "early candlelight," and, to
+quote the precise language of Mike's invitation--for he had it all
+written out, and the schoolmaster read it word for word--that business
+of importance would be brought before the meeting, which would be
+made known at that time.
+
+When the hour of "early candlelight" arrived, and, indeed, before the
+hour of late daylight had closed, there was a crowd of boys and girls
+assembled in Mr. Marble's kitchen, to talk over matters and things
+about the war. They appointed a chairman, (if chairman he could be
+called, who had numbered less than a dozen summers,) the object of the
+meeting was stated, and they went as orderly to work in their
+deliberations, as if they had been playing statesmen for half a
+century. Only one grown person--Mr. Marble--was admitted into the
+kitchen, and he was there only as a listener. He did not take any part
+in the proceedings.
+
+My grandfather was the chairman of the evening, and the principal
+orator was Mike Marble. His speech at the time was not reported, nor
+have I any notes of it at hand. But my grandfather used to say it was
+one of the most eloquent addresses he ever heard in his life. I can
+easily believe it. One half of what is necessary in an orator is _to
+feel_ what he says. If he feels, it is not so much, matter in what
+shape the words come from his mouth. I am a firm believer in a good
+style. People who speak in public ought to use chaste and elegant
+language. But a good style, and ever so good a delivery, are worth but
+little, unless the speaker has a soul, and unless he can make his
+hearers feel because he feels.
+
+Mike was in earnest. It looked a little like boy's play, to be sure,
+to see that group of children there, talking about great principles.
+But it was something more than play. Mike was in earnest, and his
+words, as he was describing the sufferings of the army at Valley
+Forge, came warm and flowing from his heart. If the character of a
+speech can be judged of from the effect it has, certainly the one from
+Mike Marble deserves a high rank; for he carried all the boys and
+girls along with him. Other speeches were made; but Mike was the
+Webster of the evening.
+
+Well, what do you think that little band of patriots resolved to do? I
+doubt whether you can guess. The first thing they did was to find out
+how much cash each one had laid aside, to be used for spending money
+on such occasions as Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and Training day.
+
+"For my part," said Mike, "I would rather never spend another cent for
+sugar plums in my life, than to have the soldiers go barefoot on the
+snow. I tell you what it is, fellow-countrymen--(Mr. Marble was
+observed by the chairman to bite his lips, to keep in a good round
+laugh, when those words, _fellow-countrymen_, came out)--I tell you
+what it is, the things that are wanted now are boots, and shoes, and
+stockings, and jackets--and not gingerbread, and sugar plums, and
+spruce beer, and gimcracks of that kind."
+
+When the little patriots came to count up their money, they found it
+amounted to more than ten dollars. And it was none of your paltry
+continental stuff. It was all made up of good hard silver and copper.
+
+The next thing they did was to appoint a treasurer, to take charge of
+the money, and to see that it was paid over to Washington's agent, who
+was to be instructed to pay it all out in shoes. And that was not all
+these young statesmen did. They resolved that they would give to the
+army every cent of all the spending money they might get, as long as
+the war lasted. Didn't they do their work pretty well, my little lad?
+I think they did. They did what they could. La Fayette and Washington
+did no more. You will smile when I tell you one thing which was
+proposed that evening. One of the boys thought it would be a good plan
+to turn over to the poor soldiers all the stockings and shoes
+belonging to the assembly. He thought they could get along better
+walking on the snow with their bare feet, than the troops could. But
+some one, with a little more forethought than this generous-hearted
+speaker, suggested that the soldiers at Valley Forge would find it
+difficult to get on such stockings and shoes as the Blue Hill boys had
+to bestow. So that scheme failed. But it shows what stuff those lads
+were made of. It shows what kind, generous, noble, self-denying hearts
+beat in their bosoms.
+
+I declare to you I am more than ever proud of my native land, when I
+think what our ancestors did, in old times, to obtain our freedom for
+us. God grant that we may know how to value our blessings, that we may
+ever be thankful for them, and that we may not abuse the liberty that
+has been given to us. I do not want my young readers to grow up, with
+their hearts full of the spirit of war. I love peace more than war.
+War I know to be a terrible thing. Seldom, very seldom would I go to
+war--never, unless for some great principle, such as that for which
+our forefathers contended. No, I do not wish to have you get your
+heads and hearts full of the war spirit. But I do want you to be
+patriots. I want you to love your country; to be willing to make
+sacrifices for it; to look upon it as the brightest and dearest spot
+on earth. Our liberty cost a great deal--a great deal of money, of
+hardship, of suffering, and, what is more valuable than all, a great
+deal of blood. It cost too much to be lightly valued--too much to be
+trifled with. Take care that you never get into the habit which some,
+who are much older than you, have fallen into, of looking upon the
+union of these states as a matter, after all has been said and done,
+of not much consequence. I tell you the bonds which bind us together
+is a sacred one; and, next to the tie which binds us together in
+families, ought to be, to you and to me, the dearest tie on earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. VIII.
+
+THE BUMBLE-BEES' NEST.
+
+
+All the boys and girls who live in the country, and probably a large
+share of those who live in the city, know the bumble-bee. We had a
+little different name for him in our neighborhood. _Bumble-bee_ was,
+however, the only name the family was known by, in Willow Lane, and I
+think it quite possible that such a corruption, (if it is a
+corruption, and the wise ones tell us it is, though I should like to
+see them beat the notion into the head of any one of the hundred
+children who went to our school,) is very common in New England.
+
+The nests of these insects, you may not be aware, are made in the
+ground. These nests are frequently found in meadows, about the time
+the grass is mowed; and it not unfrequently happens that the mower
+disturbs one of these nests with his scythe, in which case, the first
+information the poor man obtains of the existence of the nest is from
+a score or two of the bumble-bees themselves--(we'll call them
+_bumble-bees_, for the sake of peace, though I must confess I feel a
+great partiality for the name by which I knew the rogues when I used
+to be familiar with their nests)--the bumble-bees themselves, who fly
+into his face, before he has time to retreat, and sting him until they
+get tired of the sport.
+
+In these nests, there is usually more or less honey. Sometimes there
+is half a pint, or more. This honey is very palatable; and it is not
+an uncommon thing for children to brave the danger of being stung by
+the bees, for the sake of capturing a nest and getting possession of
+its treasures. For myself, I never was ambitious of getting renown by
+such means as besieging a bumble-bee's nest.
+
+I'll tell you what I did perform, though, once on a time, which was
+closely connected with the race of insects I am speaking of. It is a
+common tradition among country boys, that white-faced bumble-bees
+never sting, and that you can take them in your hands with perfect
+safety. This tradition may have truth at the bottom of it, or it may
+not. I cannot tell, and I shall not stop to debate the question now.
+It is certain that there is an insect, very much resembling the
+bumble-bee, and of about the same size, who, nevertheless, is a very
+different fellow. This is the chap that bores holes into dry wood, as
+nicely as you can bore with a gimlet, on which account he is sometimes
+called the borer. This insect does not sting. No thanks to him,
+though, for not stinging. He has no instrument to sting with. For
+aught I know, he may have ever so good a _will_ to sting; but he has
+no _power_ to do so, any more than a grasshopper or a butterfly.
+
+Well, I wanted to show some of the boys, one day, how smart I was. I
+had an idea that I could teach them something, and at the same time
+get the credit for a little bit of bravery.
+
+"Do you see that saucy chap there," I asked, "on that clover blossom?"
+
+"Yes," said one of the boys, "it is a bumble-bee." This time I must be
+permitted to say the spelling of the word, because the boys in
+pronouncing it, give the sound of the _b_, and I, as a historian,
+must report their conversation faithfully.
+
+"Well." I said, "what will you give me, if I'll take this fellow in my
+hand."
+
+It was intimated that nothing could be expected from the boys, but
+that the bumble-bee would be likely to give me something which I would
+remember, until "the cows came home." I don't know what period in the
+future that intended to point to, but I know that was a common
+expression among us all--one which we used, I suppose, without
+stopping to think what it meant, or how it got into use.
+
+"I dare do it," I said. I was as bold as a lion.
+
+"You had better not," said the boys.
+
+I did it, though. I caught the bumble-bee, and held him fast in my
+hand. But if ever a poor fellow got handsomely and foolishly stung, I
+was that unfortunate youth; and the worst of it was, that while I was
+dancing about, and wringing my hand, and crying, on account of the
+pain, my companions were doing quite another thing: they were holding
+a laughing concert, at my expense.
+
+It is hardly necessary to add, that my white-faced bumble-bee turned
+out to be an enemy in disguise. After that event, I made a closer
+examination of the faces of this class of insects, and became
+satisfied that there was one tribe of bumble-bees who wore a face of a
+pale yellow color, resembling somewhat the genuine borer, but who, for
+all that, could sting as well as any of their race with black faces.
+
+This feat was as near as I ever got toward the glory of capturing a
+nest of bumble-bees. I have tasted the honey which came from their
+nests, though, many a time, and I have seen other boys capture the
+nests.
+
+Billy Bolton was a great fellow at that kind of sport. Billy lived
+with Uncle Mike. He did _chores_--to use a word common enough in New
+England, though, possibly, not an elegant one--on Mr. Marble's farm;
+that is, he went for the cows and drove them to pasture, fed the pigs
+and poultry, brought water and chips for the "women folks," and ran of
+errands.
+
+It was a favorite sport with Billy, in the summer time, to hunt for
+bumble-bees' nests, and to "take them up," as the process of capturing
+them was called. Uncle Mike did not like to indulge the boy in this
+kind of sport. Perhaps he thought it a cruel and unfeeling kind of
+fun; and I know he had too kind a heart, to see a boy growing up in
+his family with a taste for cruelty to animals of any kind. At any
+rate, the danger connected with the sport was enough to condemn it in
+the mind of Mr. Marble.
+
+He had forbidden Billy and his own children having any thing to do
+with the sport. Still, it seemed Billy found means to amuse himself,
+now and then, in a sly way, by taking up a bumble-bees' nest.
+
+One day, Mr. Marble and his men were engaged in the meadow, raking hay
+and carting it into the barn. Billy was in the meadow, too, at work
+among the hay, raking after the cart, I presume, as that used to be
+the task always allotted to me when I was of his age. In a corner of
+the lot, at some distance from the place where Mr. Marble and his men
+were at work, there was a large bottle containing water--nothing but
+water, reader; there was no rum drank on Mr. Marble's farm. Billy was
+sent after the bottle. He was gone a good while--longer, Mr. Marble
+thought, than was necessary. The matter was examined, when it turned
+out that Billy had got into trouble with a nest of bumble-bees. He had
+discovered a nest of these wretches, it appears; and, the temptation
+to wage war against them being very strong, he had stopped a moment,
+just to take up the nest.
+
+Poor fellow! It proved to be a _taking in_, instead of a _taking up_,
+and the taking in was on the other side. When he saw that the
+bumble-bees had outwitted him, he snatched up the bottle, which he had
+thrown down, and which was lying near, and ran, as fast as his legs
+would let him, towards the place where the men were at work. But the
+bees flew faster than he could run. It was a comic scene enough to see
+the fellow running at the top of his speed, and some fifty bumble-bees
+after him, once in a while giving expression to their feelings, by
+saluting him, in their peculiar way, in the face and on the neck.
+Didn't the poor fellow scream?
+
+   [Illustration: PAYING FOR MISCHIEF.]
+
+But this was not the whole of the joke. Indeed, it was hardly the
+richest part of it. Mr. Marble, who saw what was going on, stood ready
+with his cart whip; and when Billy made his appearance, with a
+regiment of bumble-bees about his ears, he commenced beating him with
+the whip. Away ran the boy, and Mr. Marble chased him some half a
+dozen rods, and gave him about as many blows with the cart whip.
+
+"There, you young rogue!" said Mr. Marble, as he turned to go back to
+his work again, "between me and the bumble-bees, I guess you have
+learned one good lesson thoroughly this afternoon. You will be a wiser
+boy, I think, after this. You will be a _smarter_ one, I'm sure; at
+least, for a while."
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. IX.
+
+HOW A BARN WAS BUILT.
+
+
+Mike Marble, as I think I have said before, was a kind-hearted man.
+But he had his own way of doing every thing, and that way was very
+generally quite unlike most other people's way. No man ever liked
+better to do any body a good turn. But he had his crotchets about an
+act of charity, as well as about every thing else.
+
+A neighbor went to him once, to ask him for some money to aid him in
+building a barn. The old one had burned down, and it was a great loss
+to him, he said. He hardly knew how he should get along, unless his
+neighbor loaned him a little money.
+
+But Uncle Mike refused the neighbor's petition. "Money was scarce,
+very scarce." That was all the answer the unfortunate man could get
+from Mike Marble.
+
+"This is strange enough," he mused in his own mind, as he walked away
+from Mr. Marble's door. "Strange enough! so kind-hearted and generous
+as he always has been, when any body was in distress."
+
+The next day, however, bright and early, Uncle Mike yoked up his oxen,
+(some three pairs, I believe, including the _steers_, which needed
+something more than _moral suasion_ to keep them straight,) fastened
+them to the cart, and posted off, with two or three men, to the saw
+mill. There he and his men loaded the cart with boards and planks.
+Then he drove straight to the house of the unfortunate neighbor,
+opened the great gate, without saying a word to any member of the
+family, went into the door yard with his load, and threw it off within
+a few yards of the spot where the old barn stood.
+
+"What on earth does all that mean?" thought the female portion of the
+family. The farmer and his boys were not at home at the time. Nothing
+was said, however.
+
+Again Uncle Mike drove over to the mill; again he put on a load of
+timber; again he threw it off near the site of the old barn. Three
+loads were discharged there, and then he directed his men to go home
+with the team. He himself went to one of his neighbors, and asked him
+if he had any timber of any kind already sawed at Squire Murdock's
+mill.
+
+"Yes," was the answer, "a little; why?"
+
+"Well, I want some of it, if it's the right kind. What is it?"
+
+"I don't recollect exactly--some white oak joists, I guess, and some
+inch boards."
+
+"Good. Just what I want."
+
+Suffice it to say, that Mike Marble did not leave his neighbor before
+he got a promise from him that he would contribute a load or two of
+his timber to rebuild that barn. Then he went to another neighbor, and
+another, and did something like the same errand, with very much the
+same sort of success. He called on a _boss_ carpenter, too, and
+secured his services in framing the barn; and, on his way home, he
+stopped at Slocum's blacksmith's shop, and got the promise of some
+nails.
+
+Well, it was not long before the neighbors were all called together to
+raise Deacon Metcalf's barn, and it was not long after that before
+the building was ready for use. And how much do you think it cost him?
+Not a cent--not a single cent, the neighbors managed the thing so
+well. Even the good things on the supper table, when they had their
+"raising bee," were sent in by the neighbors.
+
+And the whole scheme, you see, came from the crotchety brain of our
+friend, Mike Marble. That was his way of building a neighbor's barn,
+when any help was needed for that purpose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. X.
+
+ANOTHER BLOCK OF MARBLE.
+
+
+This story about the building of the deacon's barn brings to my mind
+another, pretty closely related to it. Will you hear that, too?
+
+One morning, as Uncle Mike was walking out, he saw a boy sitting down
+on the door steps of one of his neighbors. Upon a closer inspection of
+the lad it appeared that he was a poor boy, without any parents,
+who was wandering about, doing odd jobs, here and there, and getting
+what people had a mind to pay him for his services.
+
+   [Illustration: MIKE MARBLE AND THE BEGGAR.]
+
+He was not a common vagrant, exactly, and yet he came very near being
+one. It was not supposed that he was a vicious boy; still it could not
+be denied that the life he led was tolerably well calculated to make
+him vicious, and most of the neighbors were afraid to have him about
+their houses, without keeping a sharp look out on his movements.
+
+Mr. Marble had heard of the lad, though it so happened that he had
+never met him until this time.
+
+"Hallo, there, my boy!" said Uncle Mike, "what are you so busy about?"
+
+"Eating a cold johnny-cake, sir," was the laconic answer.
+
+"And how do you like it?"
+
+"Pretty well, though I guess a little butter wouldn't hurt it."
+
+"Look here, my lad," said Uncle Mike, "what do you do generally for a
+living?"
+
+"A little of every thing."
+
+"Are you willing to work?"
+
+"Yes, sir, if I can get any thing for it."
+
+"Will you work for me?"
+
+"I wouldn't mind trying it."
+
+"I am a hard-working man. Will you work like a dog, if I'll let you
+try?"
+
+"Please, sir, I'd rather work like a boy."
+
+"Good. You shall go home with me."
+
+And he took the boy home with him. The first thing he set him about
+was weeding the onion bed. It was hard work, as I know from
+experience. Oh, how it makes a poor fellow's back ache, to stoop down
+and weed onions for half a day. You must know that you can't use the
+hoe more than about a quarter of the time. If you could, the work
+would be comparatively easy and pleasant. But you can't do that. You
+must bend right down to the task, as if you really loved the onions,
+and were nursing them, as a fond mother nurses a pet child.
+
+"Well, Fred," said the old gentleman, when the dinner horn blew its
+blast of invitation for the workmen to come in and pay their respects
+to Mrs. Marble's boiled pork and cabbage, "well, Fred, how do you like
+weeding onion beds?"
+
+"Very well, sir," said the boy.
+
+"And would you like to keep at it all the afternoon?"
+
+"I would like to please you, sir. That's what I came here for."
+
+The old man was so much delighted with this answer, that he not only
+laughed at it all the time he was at dinner, but he told it all over
+the neighborhood in less than a week.
+
+"Well, Fred," said he, "I guess you've done enough of that sort of
+work for one day. I want you to do two or three errands after you have
+done your dinner."
+
+And he sent the lad to I don't know how many different places, to do
+all sorts of errands. Among other things he directed him to do, was to
+go to the store with money, to purchase some little articles for his
+wife. You see the old man wanted to try the new comer, and see if he
+was faithful.
+
+Well, every thing was done properly, and Uncle Mike was satisfied.
+
+The next day, Fred had other tasks given to him. His employer
+selected those which were hardest and most unpleasant, as he said, "to
+break the little fellow in." I'll tell you one thing he did. He sent
+him out to catch the old mare. Now the old mare had a knack of kicking
+those who came to catch her, when she was not perfectly satisfied with
+their mode of doing the business; and she did not at all like the sly
+and timid way in which Fred came up to her, with the bridle concealed
+behind his back. She was a great lover of fair and open dealing;
+though, like some others of her race, that I am acquainted with, as
+well as some who belong to quite a different race, and who have the
+name of being a good deal wiser, she did not always practice herself
+the virtues she so highly commended in others.
+
+She waited until the lad had got within a few feet of her, and then
+she whirled round, before the poor fellow, who was half frightened out
+of his wits, could have time to get out of her way, and let her heels
+fly into the air over his head. It was well for the boy that she took
+her aim so high. If it had been a foot or two lower, the _breaking
+in_ would have been an expensive one to Fred--a very expensive one,
+indeed.
+
+In such ways as those I have named, and in a great many other ways,
+which I need not name, Uncle Mike tried the boy, to see what he was
+made of. He found out, before long, what he was made of. He found out
+that there was just such stuff in him as he liked. The more he tried
+him--the more he "broke him in"--the better he was pleased with him.
+
+Well, I'll tell you how that affair with the beggar turned--for I
+must not make too long a story of it--Uncle Mike brought up the lad.
+He taught him all the mysteries of farming, and treated him as if he
+were a member of his own family--one of his own children--until he was
+twenty-one. Then he told him he was free to go where he chose. He gave
+him a hundred dollars in money, a yoke of oxen, a fine colt, and, what
+was of more value than all, his blessing.
+
+   [Illustration: MIKE MARBLE IN HIS OLD AGE.]
+
+And what do you think became of Fred? He turned out to be not only a
+good farmer, but a good neighbor, and a good man, every way. That
+same man, who was once a beggar, and who, but for Uncle Mike's odd way
+of doing a kind act for him, might have remained a beggar, is now one
+of the most highly respected men in his parish, with enough property
+to make him and his family comfortable, as well as some to spare for
+the comfort of others.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. XI.
+
+MIKE MARBLE'S LAST DAYS.
+
+
+I should love to chat about my old friend a good while longer. But
+perhaps I had better stop, for fear you may get tired of the theme. I
+must tell you a little about his old age, then I will leave off.
+
+He was one of the happiest old men I ever knew. He was always
+cheerful. One could never meet him in the street, and look into his
+pleasant face, without catching something of his cheerfulness. Bad
+humor is catching, you know, as much as the small pox, or the canker
+rash, and so is good humor, too. At all events, I remember that once,
+when I felt ever so much "out of sorts," because things did not go
+right, I came across Uncle Mike, on my way to school, and a chat of
+about half a minute completely sweetened my temper.
+
+There was nothing which Uncle Mike liked better, after his hair--the
+little hair that time had spared to him--was whitened with age, than
+to have a group of children about him, coaxing him to tell them
+stories.
+
+Dear old man! my heart blesses him now, as my memory recalls the
+scenes in which he used to take a part. With all his oddities and
+crotchets, he always had a kind and warm heart beating in his bosom. I
+don't believe that he ever had an enemy in the world. Every body, it
+always seemed to me, respected him, and those who knew him most, loved
+him best.
+
+He possessed an art which is worth more than the finest farm in
+America. It was the art of being happy himself, and of making others
+happy. He was never out of humor. Nobody could get him into a passion.
+I never heard of his having wounded the feelings of a single
+individual, during all the time that I was acquainted with him.
+
+Now some people will say, "Oh, it was Mike Marble's way. That was his
+disposition. He could not help being good-natured. It came natural to
+him to make friends. It was as easy for him to scatter happiness all
+around him, as it was to breathe." I don't know about all that. There
+may have been something--probably there was something--in Mike
+Marble's natural disposition, which was pleasant and cheerful. But I
+guess it cost him some effort to live in the sunshine so constantly.
+There is such a thing, reader--and I hope you will mark these words
+well--there is such a thing as keeping the heart fresh, and green, and
+tender, and loving, by one's own effort; and there is such a thing,
+too, as letting the heart, by neglect and want of culture, become old
+before its time, and dry, and tough, and crabbed. You can school your
+affections. Did you know that? I'll tell you how to dry up all the
+love and kindness you may have. Shut up your heart, as an oyster does
+its shell. Shut it up, and be selfish. Do so, and you will soon be
+sick enough of the world, and the world will be sick enough of you.
+But I would not do that, if I were in your place. I would advise you
+to try to keep the heart open, by doing all the kind acts you can. But
+I must end my tale of Mike Marble.
+
+Dear old man! He has gone to his rest. His voice long since ceased to
+be heard on earth. He died as he lived--cheerfully and peacefully. The
+Saviour, in whom he had trusted, was with him in his dying hour, and I
+cannot doubt that that good man went to dwell with the angels.
+
+Reader, may you, like him, live a life of usefulness, and may you take
+your leave of the world as peacefully, as hopefully, as cheerfully, at
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+_Woodworth's Juvenile Works._
+
+PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.
+
+PUBLISH THE FOLLOWING JUVENILE WORKS,
+
+By Francis C. Woodworth,
+
+EDITOR OF "WOODWORTH'S YOUTH'S CABINET,"
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE WILLOW LANE BUDGET," "THE STRAWBERRY GIRL," "THE MILLER
+OF OUR VILLAGE," "THEODORE THINKER'S TALES," ETC. ETC.
+
+
+UNCLE FRANK'S BOYS' AND GIRLS' LIBRARY.
+
+    _A Beautiful Series, comprising six volumes, square 12mo., with
+    eight Tinted Engravings in each volume. The following are their
+    titles respectively_:
+
+I. THE PEDDLER'S BOY; or, I'LL BE SOMEBODY.
+
+II. THE DIVING BELL; or, PEARLS TO BE SOUGHT FOR.
+
+III. THE POOR ORGAN-GRINDER, AND OTHER STORIES.
+
+IV. OUR SUE: HER MOTTO AND ITS USES.
+
+V. MIKE MARBLE: HIS CROTCHETS AND ODDITIES.
+
+VI. THE WONDERFUL LETTER-BAG OF KIT CURIOUS.
+
+
+    "Woodworth is unquestionably and immeasurably the best writer
+    for children that we know of; for he combines a sturdy common
+    sense and varied information with a most childlike and loveful
+    spirit, that finds its way at once to the child's heart. We
+    regard him as one of the truest benefactors of his race; for he
+    is as wise as he is gentle, and never uses his power over the
+    child-heart, to instill into it the poison of false teaching, or
+    to cramp it with unlovely bigotry. The publishers have done
+    their part, as well as the author, to make these volumes
+    attractive. Altogether we regard them as one of the pleasantest
+    series of juvenile books extant, both in their literary
+    character and mechanical execution."--_Syracuse (N.Y.) Daily
+    Standard._
+
+WOODWORTH'S STORIES ABOUT ANIMALS. 12mo., with Illuminated Title, and
+upwards of Fifty Beautiful Engravings; pp. 336.
+
+WOODWORTH'S STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. Uniform with the above. With Sixty
+splendid Engravings; pp. 336.
+
+These two volumes, containing characteristic anecdotes, told in a racy
+and pleasing vein, are among the most entertaining books of the kind
+to be found in the English language.
+
+    "Attractive stories, told in a style of great liveliness and
+    beauty. As a writer for the young, the author is surpassed by
+    very few, if any writers in this country."--_N.Y. Tribune._
+
+    "A _melange_ of most agreeable reading."--_Presbyterian._
+
+    "They cannot fail to be intensely interesting."--_Ch. Register._
+
+    "Charming stories, told with that felicitous simplicity and
+    elegance of diction which characterize all Mr. Woodworth's
+    efforts for the young."--_N.Y. Commercial Advertiser._
+
+    "Nothing can be more interesting than the stories and pictorial
+    illustrations of these works."--_Brattleborough Dem._
+
+    "We never pen a notice with more pleasure than when any work of
+    our friend Mr. Woodworth is the subject. Whatever he does is
+    well done, and in a sweet and gentle spirit."--_Christ.
+    Inquirer._
+
+    "The author is a man of fine abilities and refined taste, and
+    does his work in a spirit of vivacious, but most truthful
+    earnestness."--_Ladies' Repos._
+
+
+UNCLE FRANK'S PEEP AT THE BEASTS. Square 12mo. Profusely Illustrated;
+pp. 160.
+
+UNCLE FRANK'S PEEP AT THE BIRDS. Uniform with the above; pp. 160.
+
+These two volumes are written in the simplest style, and with words,
+for the most part, of two and three syllables. They are exceedingly
+popular among children.
+
+    "Of those who have the gift to write for children, Mr. Woodworth
+    stands among the first; and, what is best of all, with the
+    ability to adapt himself to the wants and comprehension of
+    children, he has that high moral principle which will permit
+    nothing to leave his pen that can do harm."--_Arthur's Home
+    Gaz._
+
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+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike Marble, by Uncle Frank
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike Marble, by Uncle Frank
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mike Marble
+       His Crotchets and Oddities.
+
+Author: Uncle Frank
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2008 [EBook #24937]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIKE MARBLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeannie Howse, Chuck Greif and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<br />
+<p class="noin" style="text-align: left;">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+For a complete list, please see the <span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</span></p>
+<p class="noin">Click on the images to see a larger version.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img">
+<a href="images/cover.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/cover.jpg" width="55%" alt="book cover" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a>
+<a href="images/frontis.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/frontis.jpg" width="85%" alt="Mike's Crotchets in War-time." /></a>
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="title" id="title"></a>
+<a href="images/title.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/title.jpg" width="60%" alt="Uncle Frank's Boy's &amp; Girl's Library" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h1>MIKE MARBLE:</h1>
+
+<h2>HIS CROTCHETS AND ODDITIES.</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>With Tinted Illustrations.</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h3>UNCLE FRANK,</h3>
+<h4>AUTHOR OF "A PEEP AT OUR NEIGHBORS," "THE PEDDLER'S BOY,"<br />
+"THE DIVING BELL," "WILLOW LANE STORIES," ETC.</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5>BOSTON:<br />
+PHILLIPS, SAMPSON &amp; COMPANY,<br />
+PUBLISHERS.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h4>Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852,<br />
+By <span class="sc">Phillips, Sampson &amp; Co.</span>,<br />
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for<br />
+the District of Massachusetts.</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>STEREOTYPED BY<br />
+BILLIN &amp; BROTHERS,<br />
+No. 10 <span class="sc">North William Street, N.Y.</span><br />
+WRIGHT &amp; HASTY,<br />
+Printers, 3 Water Street, Boston.</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CONTENTS.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="60%" summary="Table of Contents">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl" width="80%">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="20%"><span style="font-size: 80%;">Page</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">CHAPTER I.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAP_I">ABOUT CROTCHETS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">7</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">CHAPTER II.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAP_II">CROTCHETY FOLKS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">15</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">CHAPTER III.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAP_III">LIGHTS AND SHADOWS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">27</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">CHAPTER IV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAP_IV">CHIPS FROM BIRCH WOODS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">35</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">CHAPTER V.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAP_V">A PAIR OF THIEVES</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">54</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">CHAPTER VI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAP_VI">PAYING HIM OFF</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">68</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">CHAPTER VII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAP_VII">MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">92</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">CHAPTER VIII.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAP_VIII">THE BUMBLE-BEES' NEST</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">109</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">CHAPTER IX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAP_IX">HOW A BARN WAS BUILT</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">127</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">CHAPTER X.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAP_X">ANOTHER BLOCK OF MARBLE</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">134</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdc">CHAPTER XI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAP_XI">MIKE MARBLE'S LAST DAYS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">150</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toi" id="toi"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="60%" summary="Table of Contents">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl" width="80%"><a href="#frontis">MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="20%">(Frontispiece)</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#title">VIGNETTE TITLE-PAGE</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep048">THE BOY IN THE WOODS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">48</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep063">OLD IRONSIDES AND THE CHILDREN</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">63</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep077">A CRYING SPELL</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">77</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep124">PAYING FOR MISCHIEF</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">124</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep135">MIKE MARBLE AND THE BEGGAR</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">135</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep147">MIKE MARBLE IN HIS OLD AGE</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">147</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAP_I" id="CHAP_I"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span><br />
+
+<h1>MIKE MARBLE.</h1>
+
+<br />
+
+<h3>CHAP. I.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>ABOUT CROTCHETS.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Don't be frightened, reader, at what you see on the title-page of this
+book, or at the head which I have given to my first chapter. Don't let
+the idea creep into your head, that I am going to give you a dull and
+sleepy essay on music. It is not the <i>crotchets</i> which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>you find in
+the singing-book, that I intend to talk about; I leave them to those
+who know more about them than I do. There is a man of my acquaintance,
+whom I could hunt up without much trouble, and who, if you should ever
+choose to give him a chance, would talk you deaf, and write you blind,
+about this sort of crotchets, together with all the members of that
+noisy family&mdash;breves, semibreves, minims, and what not! I'll refer you
+to him, for all the mysteries of the <i>gamut</i>. Whenever you want to
+learn them, I assure you he would like no better fun than <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>to teach
+them to you. I'll not interfere with his trade.</p>
+
+<p>My business is with another family of crotchets. Webster&mdash;Noah
+Webster, the man who made the spelling-book, out of which Uncle Frank
+learned to say, or rather to drawl his letters&mdash;gives, in his large
+dictionary, as one of the definitions of the word <i>crotchet</i>, this: "a
+peculiar turn of mind, a whim, a fancy." Here you have just that kind
+of crotchet that I am going to deal with. Mr. Webster could not have
+hit my crotchet more exactly, if he had taken aim at it on purpose.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>It is a <i>peculiar turn of mind</i>, or, if you prefer it, a <i>whim</i>, or a
+<i>fancy</i>, that I shall talk about, for an hour or so, perhaps longer.
+Indeed, I am not perfectly sure but I shall find a whole flock of
+whims and fancies, because, you know, "birds of a feather flock
+together," and, in that case, I shall give you a peep at a score or
+two of whims and fancies.</p>
+
+<p>Now, who knows but these crotchets will be worth hearing about? People
+write large, thick volumes, on drier topics than whims and
+fancies&mdash;that is, to my way of thinking&mdash;and I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>suppose their books
+are read. Certainly they expect to have them read, or they would not
+make them. Then why may not my book on crotchets find readers?</p>
+
+<p>If I were to write a book on <i>warts</i> and <i>corns</i>, don't you think the
+book would get read? I do. I have not the least doubt of it. Suppose,
+now, it were published in the newspapers, that <i>Messrs. Phillips,
+Sampson &amp; Company</i>, one of the largest and most respectable publishing
+houses in the Union, are about to issue a volume, entitled <i>Freaks of
+the Wart Family</i>, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>from the pen of Uncle Frank, a man who, first and
+last, has printed a good deal of sense, together with some nonsense,
+and who, in this volume, has succeeded in stringing together some of
+the strangest things that ever saw the light. Suppose that some
+newspaper should give that item of news, don't you think folks would
+get the book, when it was published? and don't you think they would
+read it, or, at all events, skim it over, to see what kind of stuff
+Uncle Frank had been emptying out of his brain? I think so.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>Well, warts and corns are to the body what whims and crotchets are to
+the mind. The body has freaks&mdash;the mind has freaks. Warts don't
+exactly <i>belong</i> to the body. That is, there could be a very good sort
+of a body, without a single wart on it; and indeed, if you please, a
+man would be a more perfect man, if there were no warts about him,
+from head to foot. So of crotchets. I don't pretend that a person has
+any thing to boast of, because his head is full of crotchets. Perhaps
+he would be better without them. <i>Perhaps</i> he would. But warts <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>and
+crotchets are both found among mankind. Both are freaks of nature, so
+to speak; of course, both are worth examining. One thing at a time,
+though. Let us turn our attention, at present, to <i>crotchets</i>.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAP_II" id="CHAP_II"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAP. II.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>CROTCHETY FOLKS.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>A crotchety person, according to this same Noah Webster, whom I have
+quoted before, is one who has whims or crotchets in the brain. Now a
+word about these crotchety folks.</p>
+
+<p>I'll tell you what it is, my friend. The older I grow, the more I feel
+inclined to let every man and woman, every boy and girl, act out
+himself, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>or herself. "That is a singular fellow," we often hear it
+said. "He's as odd as Dick's hat-band. I don't know what to think of
+him. He seems to be a good sort of a man. But he <i>is</i> odd. His head is
+as full of crotchets as it can hold."</p>
+
+<p>When I hear a person talk in this style, I feel like saying, "Stop a
+moment, my dear sir. He's 'a good sort of a man&mdash;<i>but</i>,' you say. That
+shows you are not precisely satisfied with his goodness; and pray,
+what is the matter with it? Why don't you like it, sir? What
+particular fault have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>you to find with it? Come, out with it now."</p>
+
+<p>Press a man, who is talking in this way about a crotchety neighbor,
+right up to the point, and you will generally find that the reason he
+does not like him is because he has a different way of saying and
+doing things from his own.</p>
+
+<p>Now I believe that some folks are odd because they cannot help it.
+True, there are a great many who are odd, just for the sake of being
+odd. They are ambitious to be known as singular people. We will let
+them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>pass. They certainly work hard to earn the name they love to be
+known by; and perhaps we ought not to try to rob them of it, or to say
+any thing very severe about their taste. We will let them pass.</p>
+
+<p>But there are a multitude of other people who are odd, and whose
+oddities cannot be accounted for in the same way. They are odd,
+because they were born so. They are odd, because they cannot help
+being odd. If they should try, with all their might, to do as most of
+their neighbors do, they would make perfect dunces of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>themselves; for
+every body, old or young, makes a dunce of himself, and nothing else,
+whenever he undertakes to be what he is not&mdash;whenever he undertakes to
+be somebody else. He is not very well acquainted with the race he
+belongs to, who, as he goes through the world, does not get this truth
+hammered into him.</p>
+
+<p>Why, at this very moment, I can think of at least a dozen odd people,
+whom I am in the habit of meeting every day, and who, I verily
+believe, could no more help their oddities and crotchets than some of
+their neighbors <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>could help having warts come out on their hands. The
+crotchets are natural and unavoidable in one case&mdash;the warts are
+natural and unavoidable in the other.</p>
+
+<p>These are my notions about crotchety people, in general, and I have
+thrown them out, as one throws out feather beds from the garret
+windows, when the house is on fire&mdash;so that the articles that are to
+be thrown afterward may find a good soft spot to alight on, and not
+get damaged by their fall.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, I am going to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>introduce to you an old gentleman, who
+had a large head, tolerably well filled with crotchets; and as it is
+such a common thing for people to raise a hue and cry against every
+body who has any oddities about him, I thought I would put you on your
+guard a little, by a word of apology for that entire race of people,
+who are odd because they cannot be any thing else.</p>
+
+<p>This old gentleman, who, by the way, was a great friend of the little
+folks, is <i>Mike Marble</i>. I introduce him to you as an <i>old</i> gentleman.
+But, although he was old, when I first saw <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>him, I must not forget
+that he was young once&mdash;as young as any of my readers&mdash;and that he
+played his part as a boy, as well as his part as a man. There are a
+good many anecdotes afloat about him and his odd way of doing things,
+before he grew up to manhood. My grandfather knew him when he was a
+lad at school. I believe he and Mike were nearly of the same age.</p>
+
+<p>That grandfather of mine, now I think of it, was a great story-teller.
+I have sometimes nearly half made up my mind, while casting about me,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>to find some new mine of stories for my young readers, that I would
+put my thinking cap on, and see if I could not recollect a budget of
+my grandfather's stories, large enough to fill a book. I am not sure
+but I will do so one of these days; and, if I do, I shall print the
+budget, depend upon it.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather and Mike Marble were as dear to each other as if they
+had been brothers. They lived not far apart, and went to school
+together. For some of Mike's crotchets I am indebted to this old
+friend of his. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>Others I picked up, here and there, among old people
+that knew him, and others still I got from a personal acquaintance
+with him in his old age.</p>
+
+<p>You will excuse me, if I call him <i>Mike</i> sometimes. He was always so
+called, when he was a boy, I believe. And while you are excusing me
+for calling him <i>Mike</i>&mdash;you see I take you to be very kind and
+obliging&mdash;you will please excuse me, also, if I happen to prefix the
+title of <i>Uncle</i> to that nickname; for he was known, far and near, as
+<i>Uncle Mike</i> in his later days.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that <i>Michael</i> was his name <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>correctly and honestly spelled
+out. But it is equally true that Michael was a name to which he seldom
+had to answer. At school, and among his playmates, it was always
+<i>Mike</i>. I really believe, from what I have heard my grandfather say,
+that not half the boys and girls in his neighborhood could have been
+convinced, by any common arguments, that his name was Michael. Indeed,
+I remember having heard that once, when a schoolmate called the fellow
+by the long name, just to see how it would seem, he and the other boy
+both burst right out into a perfect <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>roar of laughter over the sound
+of it. "For pity's sake," said he, when he got over his laughing fit,
+"don't call me by that hard name again, as long as I live;" and, as he
+seemed to be quite in earnest, none of the boys ever addressed him by
+any other name than <i>Mike</i>, after that.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAP_III" id="CHAP_III"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAP. III.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>"But who is <i>Mike Marble</i>? where does he live? what sort of a man is
+he? what kind of oddities has he got?"</p>
+
+<p>My little friend, your questions come out so fast, and there is such a
+long string of them, that they make me think of the way a whole pack
+of fire crackers go off, when you touch a coal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>to one of them, and
+throw the whole into the street. I am going to tell you ever so many
+things about this same Mike Marble. Before I get through with him, you
+will get very well acquainted with him, I think. But Uncle Frank, you
+know, has got some oddities himself. When he has got any thing to do,
+he, too, has his own way of doing it.</p>
+
+<p>Some people, I suppose, if they were treating you to a few chapters in
+the history of this singular man, would weave the threads together in
+a different manner from mine. They would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>begin, very likely, by
+telling where the chap was born, who were his father and mother, how
+many brothers and sisters he had, what their names were, whether he
+had any uncles and aunts, and if he had, what kind of uncles and aunts
+they were, and all that sort of thing. And they would describe Mike's
+appearance exactly&mdash;tell you whether he had black eyes or blue, gray
+eyes or brown, red eyes or green. But I don't see much use in that.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, I am not sure but I shall keep you ignorant as to how he
+looked, and let you learn what there is worth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>learning in his
+character&mdash;for character is the great thing, after all, you know&mdash;by
+the stories I shall tell of him. I might, it is true, take every
+branch, and leaf, and bud, and flower, of his character, and pick it
+all to pieces, and show you, in this way, what he was made of. But you
+would get tired of all that. So I'll take another course. I'll tell
+you what he said and did&mdash;what he said and did at different times, at
+different periods in his life, and in different circumstances. Don't
+you think this is the best way to make you acquainted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>with him? I do;
+for, if you find out what a person says, and does, and thinks, you
+find out what he is.</p>
+
+<p>One or two things, however, I must say about this Mike Marble, by way
+of general introduction.</p>
+
+<p>He was born at a very interesting period&mdash;about nine years before the
+breaking out of the American Revolution. He was quite an old man
+before he went to his final rest. Indeed, it is but a few years since
+I saw his weather-beaten face, all lighted up with smiles. Unlike many
+other men, when they get to be old, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>he never made a practice of
+carping at every thing he saw about him, because it was not exactly in
+the style of 1776. He believed that there was wisdom among our
+grandfathers and grandmothers, but that there is wisdom, also, among
+their grand-children.</p>
+
+<p>I have told you that he had some oddities. I have hinted, too, in a
+sort of whisper, that I do not consider a man an absolute Pagan,
+because he happens to be a little odd. Something more than this I
+could say of Uncle Mike, odd as he was; but I guess you will find out
+what I think <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>of him, before I get through. Suffice it to say, that,
+while I didn't like him <i>because</i> he was odd, I did like him, <i>in
+spite</i> of his oddities. He was a fine old man. As the world goes, he
+was a most excellent man. He had his faults, a plenty of them; though
+I have sometimes thought</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"That e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Some of them did, I know. He had his faults, nevertheless. I confess
+that. He always had them, no doubt. Faults are common things among
+mankind and womankind. But, with your <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>consent, we will trip lightly
+over all that part of our hero's history which is shaded with
+blemishes.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="img">
+<a href="images/imagep034.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep034.jpg" width="45%" alt="The woods" /></a><br />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAP_IV" id="CHAP_IV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAP. IV.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>CHIPS FROM BIRCH WOODS.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>One of the worst things I ever heard of in the history of Mike,
+according to the best of my recollection, was the way he served Billy
+Birch's dog. You must know something about this Billy Birch. <i>Burt</i>
+was his real name. But it was changed into Birch by his neighbors, for
+a reason which I will give you by and bye.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>Mr. Burt was a pretty good sort of a man, in his own estimation, but
+not greatly or generally beloved by his neighbors. He was a
+church-going man, and had a knack, somehow or other, of getting along
+decently with the forms&mdash;the outside garments, so to speak&mdash;of
+religion. It was really astonishing how glibly he would <i>talk</i> about
+religion. But as to the practical part of it, he did not succeed as
+well. That was up-hill work for the old man.</p>
+
+<p>He found it exceedingly difficult to keep himself "unspotted from the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>world." Some of his nearest neighbors thought they could count a great
+many worldly spots upon him. I don't know how that was, as I never was
+acquainted with the man, and ought not to judge him too harshly.
+Indeed, Uncle Frank must endeavor to keep in mind, that with what
+measure we mete it shall be measured to us again. But from all the
+shreds and patches of his history that have come down to the present
+day, Mr. Birch does seem to have been a selfish man, and a great deal
+too fond of money.</p>
+
+<p>My young friend, it is one of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>most difficult things in this
+world, to act up to the spirit of the golden rule of our Lord, and do
+to others as we would have them do to us, when we are as full as we
+can hold of selfishness. You may lay that thought up in your memory.</p>
+
+<p>Billy Birch found that truth out. What did he care how many
+newly-planted hills of corn and rows of peas his hens might scratch
+up, provided the corn was not his corn, and the peas were not his
+peas, and provided he did not have to suffer for the scratching? Not a
+mill. He would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>sit, smoking his pipe&mdash;for he was a great smoker&mdash;in
+the old, straight-backed oak chair on the stoop, as cool as a
+cucumber, while the biggest rooster on his premises, the lord of the
+whole barn-yard, was leading a regiment of hens and petty roosters in
+a crusade upon Squire Chapman's corn-field across the way; and if the
+Squire or one of his boys came over to inform him what havoc the hens
+were making, and to ask him what to do with the troublesome creatures,
+the old man would perhaps take his pipe out of his mouth, and, after
+slowly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>puffing out a cloud of smoke, would say, "Why, drive them out,
+to be sure!"</p>
+
+<p>What did he care, if his old mare&mdash;who, by the way, was a very nervous
+sort of a mare, and could not stay long in one spot&mdash;what did he care,
+if the old creature did jump over the six-rail fence around the good
+parson's field of clover, and eat what she wanted, and trample down,
+in her nervous way of doing things, a good share of the rest of the
+clover? Why, it didn't hurt <i>him</i> any. The old miser! It wasn't <i>his</i>
+field of clover that Katy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>trampled down. And besides, didn't he pay
+his minister's tax? and didn't the minister and his family live in
+better style than he and his family could afford to live in?</p>
+
+<p>Katy loved clover. <i>He</i> wasn't to blame for that, and he didn't know
+that Katy was to blame. It was a very natural taste, that of his old
+mare. And why didn't the parson, he should like to know, build his
+fence higher, if he didn't want his clover eaten up by other people's
+horses?</p>
+
+<p>What was it to Billy Birch, if his dog did kill a neighbor's sheep,
+now <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>and then? What did he care, what should he care? If they were his
+own sheep, that would alter the case. But C&aelig;sar never killed his
+master's sheep. Wasn't that kind in C&aelig;sar? And as to this sheep-biting
+habit of his, why it is the <i>nature</i> of dogs to kill sheep. C&aelig;sar
+<i>must</i> kill somebody's sheep; and if he hadn't picked out a good fat
+one from this flock, it would have been somebody else's flock. What is
+the use in making such a fuss about a sheep or two? The loss of one
+sheep won't break any body. What can't be cured, must be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>endured.
+People must take care of their sheep, if they don't want them to be
+killed.</p>
+
+<p>That is the way this selfish, narrow-minded farmer reasoned and
+talked. You can see, plainly enough, that he was not the sort of man
+to be very much respected in the neighborhood. He was not respected.
+In fact, there was not, in all the parish, a more generally unpopular
+man than Billy Birch.</p>
+
+<p>The boys, I have heard, bore him a grudge of long standing. It related
+to the huckleberries and hazel nuts <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>in the old man's birch woods.
+There were bushels of huckleberries, and almost as many hazel nuts, in
+those woods. But would you have thought of such a thing? Mr. Birch
+forbade the boys picking any of his huckleberries or hazel nuts. Ever
+so many huckleberries decayed on the bushes every year, or were left
+to be harvested by the birds, because Mr. Birch's family could not
+pick them all themselves, and he was so tight that he would not let
+any body else pick them. He was like the dog in the manger, you see.
+He could not eat <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>the hay himself, and he would not let any body else
+eat it.</p>
+
+<p>But the meanest thing that I ever heard of his doing, was this: In
+these same woods&mdash;the woods where the huckleberries and hazel nuts
+grew&mdash;there were great multitudes of birch trees, of different species
+and among the rest, some of that species which goes by the name, among
+children, of <i>black birch</i>. I need not tell any of my country readers
+about this kind of birch. They know it well enough. They have eaten
+birch bark, many a time; and, for ought I know, some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>of them have
+felt a tingling sensation in the region of the back and legs, brought
+about by the use of birch twigs in the hands of some schoolmaster.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Moses Ramble was crossing Billy Birch's woods one day in the
+spring of the year. For awhile, he whistled along, as merry-hearted as
+the blue birds that had just returned from their southern tour, and
+who were chirping on the branches over his head, breaking off, now and
+then, a few sprigs of birch, from the trees along his path. By and
+bye, he sat down on the fence, to rest himself, still going on with
+his whistling, at intervals, when his mouth was not too much occupied
+with the birch to interfere with the music.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span><br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep048" id="imagep048"></a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+<a href="images/imagep048.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep048.jpg" width="85%" alt="The Boy in the Woods." /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">THE BOY IN THE WOODS.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>While the merry young fellow was sitting here, feeling at peace with
+all the world, and not dreaming but all the world was at peace with
+him, he heard a slight rustling behind him, and, looking over his
+shoulder, whom should he see but Billy Birch himself, leaning against
+a chestnut tree, and looking as if he were angry enough to bite in two
+a hoe handle.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>What on earth the man was doing there, history does not inform us,
+though it used to be more than hinted among the younger citizens in
+that neighborhood, that he was prowling about in those woods as a spy
+on the movements of the boys. They said he was just the man for such
+business.</p>
+
+<p>Moses did not like the appearance of the face that was lowering on
+him; and, although he was innocent of the slightest intention of doing
+any harm on the man's premises, he thought it would be safer for him
+to walk off than it would be to stay there. So he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>leaped from the
+fence, and began, leisurely, to walk home.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, you young heathen!" said Billy Birch.</p>
+
+<p>The little fellow did stop, and stood as still as the old chestnut
+tree, against which the lord of those woods was leaning.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you <i>munching</i> there, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Moses, having no suspicion at all that he had been doing any harm to
+the estate of the old man, replied, frankly and plainly, that he was
+eating birch.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>"Aha!" said the farmer, "you are, eh? I'll teach you to eat my birch.
+I'll give you as much birch as you will want for a fortnight!"</p>
+
+<p>And he took the twig which Moses was gnawing out of his hands, and
+whipped him with it, until he made the poor fellow cry out with pain
+and mortification.</p>
+
+<p>"There, you thief!" he said, after flogging him to his heart's
+content, "that will teach you to steal my birch, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>From that day the selfish farmer began to be called <i>Birch</i>, in that
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>section of the country; and it was not many months before his name was
+almost as effectually changed as if he had applied to the legislature
+of the state to have that body change it for him.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAP_V" id="CHAP_V"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAP. V.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>A PAIR OF THIEVES.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>About that dog of Billy Birch. Have I not promised to tell you
+something about him, and the accident that happened to him, which
+accident Mike Marble might have prevented, if he had made the attempt?
+I have a good mind to tell you about these matters, at any rate,
+whether I have made such a promise or not.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>Mind now, reader, that, in telling this story, I don't mean to have it
+understood that I think Mike did right. I'll grant that he did wrong.
+But I mention the fact to show what sort of mischief Mike was up to,
+and what sort of blemishes those were, which I confess he had in his
+character; for, as I think I said before, this trick was about as bad
+a thing as I ever heard of his being guilty of.</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar got to be a great hero in the sheep-killing business&mdash;a perfect
+Nimrod of a dog. It sometimes happens, I fancy, that soldiers who
+spend more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>of their time in war, actually shooting people and cutting
+their throats, after a while, get to liking the trade, and take
+pleasure in slaughtering human beings, just as a carpenter or a
+printer might take pleasure in <i>his</i> trade. Well, it got to be
+somewhat so with C&aelig;sar, it would seem; for it often came to pass that
+two or three sheep would be killed in one night, when, of course, a
+single fat one would supply his appetite bountifully for several days,
+at least. He must have liked the business, or he would have contented
+himself with killing only a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>sufficient number of sheep to keep him in
+food.</p>
+
+<p>The neighbors who suffered from C&aelig;sar's favorite amusement,
+complained, now and then, to his master. But it did no good. "They
+must keep their sheep out of the way," the selfish man would say.
+"C&aelig;sar is a capital family dog. I don't know what I should do without
+him&mdash;he is so faithful." That was as much satisfaction as they could
+ever get. Billy Birch would not shut up his dog at night, and as for
+killing him, that was out of the question. He would rather lose his
+best <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>horse than C&aelig;sar. True, the neighbors might have sued the owner
+of the dog, and have got the value of their lost sheep in that way.
+But they were generally peaceable folks, and had a great dread of
+going to law, especially with one of their own neighbors. The result
+was, that C&aelig;sar's business prospered more and more every day.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the full tide of his success as a sheep-killer, that he
+came, one day, into Mr. Marble's door yard, and took his station near
+the wood pile. Mike saw him, and knew well enough <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>what he came for.
+His father had just been slaughtering an ox, and some of the dainty
+pieces of the animal were lying on the wood pile, the scent of which
+had brought C&aelig;sar to the spot. No doubt, having feasted on mutton so
+long, he had got a little sick of it, and thought he would make a
+dinner on beef. He was a dainty fellow, you perceive.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know what put it into Mike's head to play the trick he did on
+C&aelig;sar. But he had no sooner seen him smelling around among the refuse
+pieces of the ox's carcass, than he determined to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>punish him, if
+possible, for his notorious crimes. So, without saying a word to any
+body, he gathered up all the choice bits which had tempted the dog to
+the yard, and placed them within a few feet of the heels of Mr.
+Marble's old chaise horse, who was standing there, hitched to a gate
+post, waiting patiently for somebody to come and harness him.</p>
+
+<p>Now this horse, who was called <i>Old Ironsides</i>, was as famous for his
+kicking habits as C&aelig;sar was for his sheep-killing. He seemed to take
+up kicking as a sort of amusement, to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>while away his leisure hours.
+It was a wonder that Mr. Marble kept him; for he had kicked the old
+chaise to pieces several times; and as to his stable, he made nothing
+of kicking off all the boards within reach of his heels, every few
+nights, just for the fun of the thing, and to show what mighty deeds
+he could do with his heels.</p>
+
+<p>It is no more than an act of simple justice to Old Ironsides, however,
+to say, that he was as gentle as a lamb to the children of his master.
+They could do any thing with him. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>Often, when he was standing at the
+door, or in his stable, they would go close to him, and pat him on his
+neck, and play with him, as if he were one of their own number; and
+the old fellow would take all their fun good-humoredly. Among all his
+sins in the kicking line&mdash;and he had a great many, first and last, to
+answer for&mdash;he never kicked either of the children. They all loved
+him, in fact; and many is the dainty morsel he received from their
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>Well, to go on with the story of Mike's piece of mischief. The dog,
+as he had expected, trotted along after the pieces of meat, and
+commenced eating, without any suspicions of harm, right under the
+<i>battery</i> of the old horse. There he remained for some moments, as
+Mike says, taking as much comfort eating his dinner, as if he were
+dining on one of his father's sheep.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span><br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep063" id="imagep063"></a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+<a href="images/imagep063.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep063.jpg" width="60%" alt="Old Ironsides and the Children" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">OLD IRONSIDES AND THE CHILDREN.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>Old Ironsides took no notice of the dog. Indeed, he rather appeared
+half asleep. He often shut his eyes, by the way, as he was standing at
+a post, and dosed, and nodded, much after the fashion of some men,
+when they set out to listen to a sermon on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>Sunday. All the time,
+however, Mike had a crotchet in his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Halloo, old fellow!" he shouted, "what are you about there?"</p>
+
+<p>In an instant Old Ironsides was wide awake, and, seeing at a glance
+what was going on behind, he pricked up his ears, uttered one brief
+snort, and away went his heels like lightning. Poor C&aelig;sar! When he
+touched this planet again&mdash;for Old Ironsides had sent him up towards
+the moon, much farther than I should want to go, in that style&mdash;he was
+a lost dog. Old Ironsides, who proved to be as great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>a hero, in his
+way, as C&aelig;sar was, had killed him. The great enemy of sheepdom had
+ceased to breathe.</p>
+
+<div class="img">
+<a href="images/imagep067.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep067.jpg" width="30%" alt="girl reading book" /></a><br />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAP_VI" id="CHAP_VI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAP. VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>"PAYING HIM OFF;"</h4>
+
+<h5>OR, AN ODD WAY OF SHOWING REVENGE.</h5>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>Jacob Grumley, who was sometimes nicknamed <i>Grumble</i>, on account of a
+habit he had of finding fault with every thing and every body, went to
+the same school with Mike Marble. Now Mike was as remarkable for his
+cheerful and amiable disposition, as Jacob was for his ill nature. In
+half <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>of the cases where the latter would get angry, and storm, and
+rage, and fret, and foam, like a hyena, or a Bengal tiger, the other
+would remain as cool as a cucumber, or, perhaps, burst out into a
+hearty laugh.</p>
+
+<p>One day, when several of the schoolboys, including Michael and Jacob,
+were playing ball on the fine lawn in front of the school house, a
+dispute occurred between the young grumbler and another boy, and Mike
+ventured to suggest to Jacob, as kindly as he could, that he was in
+the wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"You little meddlesome dunce!" <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>said Jacob, all in a blaze of anger,
+"I'll teach you to mind your own business, and let other people's
+quarrels alone." And, suiting his action to his words, he struck Mike
+in the face so hard that the blood ran from his nose in a stream.</p>
+
+<p>Well, what do you think Mike did, then? I know what some boys would
+have done, if they had been in his place. They would have struck
+Jacob, at any cost. That is the way they would have taken their
+revenge. That is the way, indeed, that Mike's school-fellows advised
+him to take his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>revenge. Half a dozen of them, at least, surrounded
+him, and urged him to flog Jacob.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd pay him off for it," said one.</p>
+
+<p>"The rascal!" said another. "I'd make him smart for it."</p>
+
+<p>"And we'll all stand by you," said one, "if you'll flog him."</p>
+
+<p>"Mike wasn't a bit to blame, either," added another. "If I were in his
+place, if I wouldn't make Jake see stars, then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the speech was lost to every body but the speaker, as
+all the boys, by this time, were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>talking at once. It is a wonder to
+me that they did not take the matter altogether into their own hands,
+and give Jake the flogging which they thought he so richly deserved;
+for Michael was a great favorite among them, and they could not bear
+to see him abused. But I believe they contented themselves with
+letting off ever so many vials of wrath, in the shape of words; and
+Jake Grumble, finding how matters stood, walked sulkily away.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mike, what are you going to do?" asked one of the boys.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>"Do about what?" asked the injured boy.</p>
+
+<p>"About the bloody nose that Jake gave you," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to see if I can't stop its bleeding," said Mike.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't mean that," said the other. "I mean what are you going to
+do to Jake?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Mike, "I guess I'll pay him off, one of these days."</p>
+
+<p>"And why not now?" the boy asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got as much on my hands as I can attend to, just now," said
+Mike.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>How do you suppose Jake felt, that day, after his cruel treatment of
+one of his playmates? What do you suppose were his feelings, when he
+found out what all the boys thought of his conduct; and when he had
+time to reflect upon the folly and wickedness of what he had done?
+Perhaps you can guess pretty well how he felt. Possibly you have
+yourself wronged some one of your playmates, and recollect how you
+felt about it, when you had a chance to get away somewhere, alone, to
+think over your conduct. If so, you can give a pretty rational guess
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>as to the kind of feelings that were at work in Jake's bosom, on his
+way home from school that day.</p>
+
+<p>He did not go home in company with the rest of the boys and girls who
+went in the same direction. He was in the habit of doing so. But he
+felt so much ashamed on account of what he had done, that he could not
+bear to see the faces of any of the children.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of taking the public road that led directly to his father's
+house, he went through the gate that led into Deacon Stark's pasture,
+and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>followed the cart-path through the woods. It was a great deal
+farther that way. But he went through the woods so as to get clear of
+his playmates. One of the deacon's hired men saw the boy, leaning
+against the fence, just at the edge of the woods. Poor fellow! he was
+crying, as if his heart would break. So the man said. Jake got the
+worst of it, in that affair. Don't you think he did?</p>
+
+<p>But I have not got through with the story yet, and I must go on with
+it.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep077" id="imagep077"></a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+<a href="images/imagep077.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep077.jpg" width="57%" alt="A Crying Spell" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">A CRYING SPELL.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Time passed on&mdash;days, weeks, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>even months, came and went&mdash;but
+Mike did not "pay off" the boy who had so unjustly abused him. His
+companions urged him to do it, until they got out of patience, and
+concluded to give the matter up.</p>
+
+<p>As for Jake, it was as much as he could do to look Mike in the face.
+He avoided him, as much as possible, and seemed to be unhappy whenever
+he came near him. But Mike, on his part, treated the boy who had
+injured him just as if nothing had happened.</p>
+
+<p>I have often noticed, that where there has been any difficulty
+between <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>two persons, the one who was at fault is more apt to cherish
+unkind feelings than the one who was innocent. It was so in this case.
+Jacob treated Michael as if it were Michael rather than himself, who
+had been in the wrong. He never spoke to him, when he could help it;
+and when he did say any thing to him, he spoke peevishly, and pressed
+the words between his teeth, as if he had the lockjaw.</p>
+
+<p>One day, during that interesting season of the year when the farmers
+are busy making hay, Jake had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>occasion to pass through Mr. Marble's
+meadow, with his fishing rod, on his way to the "deep hole," where, as
+every body in the neighborhood knew, multitudes of sun fish and perch
+were always to be found, ready for a nice bit of an angle-worm.</p>
+
+<p>Jake, being a little thirsty&mdash;for it was a very warm day&mdash;went up to
+the tree under which Mr. Marble kept the refreshments for his hired
+men, and took up the wooden bottle to drink. There was nothing wrong,
+perhaps, in the liberty he took, though I think it would have been
+quite as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>well, if he had asked Mr. Marble's consent in the first
+place. But we will let that pass. Jake had a different way of doing
+things.</p>
+
+<p>As I said, he took up the bottle to drink. But the moment he did so,
+Ranter, Mr. Marble's old dog, who lay under the tree, where he had
+been stationed to keep watch, thinking his master's property was in
+danger, flew at the boy, and caught him by the arm. Poor Jake! he
+yelled lustily, you may be sure. But it did no good. Ranter held him
+in his jaws, as tight as if he were a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>woodchuck or a rabbit, instead
+of a school-boy.</p>
+
+<p>Mike was spreading hay, at the time, some twenty yards off, or more
+and hearing the boy crying for help, and looking in the direction from
+which the voice came, he saw Jake fast in the clutches of the dog. In
+an instant he shouted, as loud as he could scream, "Here, Ranter!
+here, Ranter!" and in another instant, Ranter let go of the poor boy,
+and bounded away towards his young master.</p>
+
+<p>Jake, as you may suppose, and as Mike found, when he went to him, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>was
+very badly bitten. The blood ran from his arm quite as freely as it
+did from Mike's nose, some time before that.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Ranter hurt you much?" asked Mike, kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"Very badly, I'm afraid," said Jake, almost frantic with pain and
+fright.</p>
+
+<p>Mike said he was sorry, and expressed his wonder that Ranter could be
+so cruel. Then he ran and called his father, who was busy in another
+part of the meadow, when the accident happened, and who did not hear
+Jake's call for help. Mr. Marble had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>the boy taken to his house,
+where his wound was nicely dressed, and where the utmost care was
+taken of him by the whole family, among whom Mike was the foremost. It
+was two or three days before it was thought prudent to remove the
+sufferer to his father's house; and during that time there was no one,
+not even Jacob's own mother, who was more kind and attentive to him
+than Mike Marble.</p>
+
+<p>The time came when the wounded boy was able to go home. An hour or two
+before the wagon was to come for him, he was sitting in an easy
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>chair, with the wounded arm lying on a pillow, and Mike, as usual, was
+at his side. There happened to be no one else in the chamber besides
+the two boys.</p>
+
+<p>"Mike," said the other, "I want to say something to you."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Mike.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how to say it," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>And there was a pause. Jacob had undertaken a task which was entirely
+new to him, and he did not know how to begin it. At length he tried
+again:</p>
+
+<p>"Mike," said he, "I struck you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>once&mdash;it was a good while ago&mdash;do you
+remember it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Mike said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am sorry I struck you," said Jacob, and burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you were sorry," said Mike, "and I have forgiven you, long
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Do</i> you forgive me?" asked Jacob, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"I do, from my heart," said Mike.</p>
+
+<p>Then followed another flood of tears. This time it was a good while
+before Jacob could speak, so as to be understood, and when he did
+speak, it was only to say,</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>"Oh, Mike, you are <i>so</i> kind! You seem like a brother to me."</p>
+
+<p>Jacob's father came into the room just at this moment, and nothing
+more was said by either of the boys on the subject which so deeply
+affected Jacob. But Mike saw, plainly enough, that the heart of the
+boy who had injured him was melted, and he was satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>How warmly Jacob pressed Mike's hand, when he bade him "good bye," and
+started for home.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after that, Mike met one of the boys who had urged him so
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>strongly to return the blow that Jacob gave him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Mike, "I've done it."</p>
+
+<p>"Done what?" asked the other boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Paid him off," said Mike.</p>
+
+<p>"What, Jake Grumble?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Good. Tell me all about it."</p>
+
+<p>And Mike did tell him all about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I do say for it, Mike," said the other boy, after listening to
+the whole story, "you are just the queerest fellow that I ever saw or
+heard of."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you think that was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>about the best way to pay him off,
+after all?" asked Mike.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the other boy, after a moment's pause, "I declare I don't
+know but it was, when I come to think of it."</p>
+
+<p>And don't <i>you</i> think it was the best way to pay him off, reader? I
+do, and I should be glad if every body would learn to pay such debts
+in very much the same way. It may be a very queer mode of taking
+revenge. But it seems to me quite a sensible one; and I am sure it is
+a thousand times better than the mode that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>people so often choose. If
+I am not greatly mistaken, indeed, it is just the mode that is
+recommended in the word of God, which says, "If thine enemy hunger,
+feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink; for, in so doing, thou
+shalt heap coals of fire on his head."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAP_VII" id="CHAP_VII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAP. VII.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>You have heard a great deal about the Revolutionary War. You have
+heard what hardships our forefathers went through, while they were
+fighting the battles of liberty. But I doubt if you can form, in your
+own mind, any thing like a true picture of what those brave men
+suffered. Why, many of them had to go barefoot, for whole <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>weeks at a
+time, right in the heart of winter. They could hardly get food to eat;
+and many and many a time, if it had not been for the thought that they
+were engaged in a good cause, and that God was on their side, they
+must have been discouraged, and given up all as lost. But they did not
+give up. They stood firm at their post, until they either fell before
+their enemies, or perished by fatigue and exposure.</p>
+
+<p>When the tidings came to the neighborhood where Mike Marble lived,
+that Washington's noble band were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>suffering every thing but death at
+Valley Forge, every man and woman, that could boast of any thing in
+the shape of a heart, were moved with pity. And they were not the
+people to let their kind feelings go off in fog and smoke. They were
+not blustering people. They believed in <i>acting</i>, as well as in
+<i>talking</i>. When they had heard the sad news, the next question was,
+"Can we <i>do</i> any thing?" That question was soon answered. The next
+was, "<i>What</i> can we do?" Well, it was pretty soon found out that all
+could do something&mdash;that some could do one thing, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>and some another;
+but that every family in the parish could do something.</p>
+
+<p>So they went to work. The mothers and daughters went to knitting
+stockings, and making under garments for the soldiers. Every chest of
+drawers, and wardrobe, and closet in the house was ransacked, to find
+bed-quilts and blankets for the army. And the fathers and sons, they
+went to work, with a right good will, to get shoes, and hats, and
+coats, and other articles of wearing apparel, so as to have them ready
+at the time the agent from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>the commander-in-chief should pass through
+the place.</p>
+
+<p>The younger branches of the families in that neighborhood, too, caught
+the spirit of their fathers and mothers. I must tell you a story about
+the agency of the little folks in furnishing supplies for the army.</p>
+
+<p>Mike Marble asked his father, one day, if he might call a meeting of
+the boys and girls at his house, to talk over war matters. The old man
+laughed, and said he might, if he chose. "But what do you children
+expect to do for the army, Mike?" he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>added. "What can you do, I
+should like to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, father," was the reply, "but I guess we can all do
+something; I'm pretty sure I can, for one."</p>
+
+<p>Well, the meeting was called. The schoolmaster gave out notice, one
+afternoon, that all the boys and girls were invited to Mr. Marcus
+Marble's house, the next Wednesday, at "early candlelight," and, to
+quote the precise language of Mike's invitation&mdash;for he had it all
+written out, and the schoolmaster read it word for word&mdash;that business
+of importance would be brought before <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>the meeting, which would be
+made known at that time.</p>
+
+<p>When the hour of "early candlelight" arrived, and, indeed, before the
+hour of late daylight had closed, there was a crowd of boys and girls
+assembled in Mr. Marble's kitchen, to talk over matters and things
+about the war. They appointed a chairman, (if chairman he could be
+called, who had numbered less than a dozen summers,) the object of the
+meeting was stated, and they went as orderly to work in their
+deliberations, as if they had been playing statesmen for half a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>century. Only one grown person&mdash;Mr. Marble&mdash;was admitted into the
+kitchen, and he was there only as a listener. He did not take any part
+in the proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather was the chairman of the evening, and the principal
+orator was Mike Marble. His speech at the time was not reported, nor
+have I any notes of it at hand. But my grandfather used to say it was
+one of the most eloquent addresses he ever heard in his life. I can
+easily believe it. One half of what is necessary in an orator is <i>to
+feel</i> what he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>says. If he feels, it is not so much, matter in what
+shape the words come from his mouth. I am a firm believer in a good
+style. People who speak in public ought to use chaste and elegant
+language. But a good style, and ever so good a delivery, are worth but
+little, unless the speaker has a soul, and unless he can make his
+hearers feel because he feels.</p>
+
+<p>Mike was in earnest. It looked a little like boy's play, to be sure,
+to see that group of children there, talking about great principles.
+But it was something more than play. Mike was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>in earnest, and his
+words, as he was describing the sufferings of the army at Valley
+Forge, came warm and flowing from his heart. If the character of a
+speech can be judged of from the effect it has, certainly the one from
+Mike Marble deserves a high rank; for he carried all the boys and
+girls along with him. Other speeches were made; but Mike was the
+Webster of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Well, what do you think that little band of patriots resolved to do? I
+doubt whether you can guess. The first thing they did was to find out
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>how much cash each one had laid aside, to be used for spending money
+on such occasions as Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and Training day.</p>
+
+<p>"For my part," said Mike, "I would rather never spend another cent for
+sugar plums in my life, than to have the soldiers go barefoot on the
+snow. I tell you what it is, fellow-countrymen&mdash;(Mr. Marble was
+observed by the chairman to bite his lips, to keep in a good round
+laugh, when those words, <i>fellow-countrymen</i>, came out)&mdash;I tell you
+what it is, the things that are wanted now are boots, and shoes, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>and
+stockings, and jackets&mdash;and not gingerbread, and sugar plums, and
+spruce beer, and gimcracks of that kind."</p>
+
+<p>When the little patriots came to count up their money, they found it
+amounted to more than ten dollars. And it was none of your paltry
+continental stuff. It was all made up of good hard silver and copper.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing they did was to appoint a treasurer, to take charge of
+the money, and to see that it was paid over to Washington's agent, who
+was to be instructed to pay it all out in shoes. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>And that was not all
+these young statesmen did. They resolved that they would give to the
+army every cent of all the spending money they might get, as long as
+the war lasted. Didn't they do their work pretty well, my little lad?
+I think they did. They did what they could. La Fayette and Washington
+did no more. You will smile when I tell you one thing which was
+proposed that evening. One of the boys thought it would be a good plan
+to turn over to the poor soldiers all the stockings and shoes
+belonging to the assembly. He thought they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>could get along better
+walking on the snow with their bare feet, than the troops could. But
+some one, with a little more forethought than this generous-hearted
+speaker, suggested that the soldiers at Valley Forge would find it
+difficult to get on such stockings and shoes as the Blue Hill boys had
+to bestow. So that scheme failed. But it shows what stuff those lads
+were made of. It shows what kind, generous, noble, self-denying hearts
+beat in their bosoms.</p>
+
+<p>I declare to you I am more than ever proud of my native land, when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>I
+think what our ancestors did, in old times, to obtain our freedom for
+us. God grant that we may know how to value our blessings, that we may
+ever be thankful for them, and that we may not abuse the liberty that
+has been given to us. I do not want my young readers to grow up, with
+their hearts full of the spirit of war. I love peace more than war.
+War I know to be a terrible thing. Seldom, very seldom would I go to
+war&mdash;never, unless for some great principle, such as that for which
+our forefathers contended. No, I do not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>wish to have you get your
+heads and hearts full of the war spirit. But I do want you to be
+patriots. I want you to love your country; to be willing to make
+sacrifices for it; to look upon it as the brightest and dearest spot
+on earth. Our liberty cost a great deal&mdash;a great deal of money, of
+hardship, of suffering, and, what is more valuable than all, a great
+deal of blood. It cost too much to be lightly valued&mdash;too much to be
+trifled with. Take care that you never get into the habit which some,
+who are much older than you, have fallen into, of looking <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>upon the
+union of these states as a matter, after all has been said and done,
+of not much consequence. I tell you the bonds which bind us together
+is a sacred one; and, next to the tie which binds us together in
+families, ought to be, to you and to me, the dearest tie on earth.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAP_VIII" id="CHAP_VIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAP. VIII.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>THE BUMBLE-BEES' NEST.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>All the boys and girls who live in the country, and probably a large
+share of those who live in the city, know the bumble-bee. We had a
+little different name for him in our neighborhood. <i>Bumble-bee</i> was,
+however, the only name the family was known by, in Willow Lane, and I
+think it quite possible that such a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>corruption, (if it is a
+corruption, and the wise ones tell us it is, though I should like to
+see them beat the notion into the head of any one of the hundred
+children who went to our school,) is very common in New England.</p>
+
+<p>The nests of these insects, you may not be aware, are made in the
+ground. These nests are frequently found in meadows, about the time
+the grass is mowed; and it not unfrequently happens that the mower
+disturbs one of these nests with his scythe, in which case, the first
+information the poor man <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>obtains of the existence of the nest is from
+a score or two of the bumble-bees themselves&mdash;(we'll call them
+<i>bumble-bees</i>, for the sake of peace, though I must confess I feel a
+great partiality for the name by which I knew the rogues when I used
+to be familiar with their nests)&mdash;the bumble-bees themselves, who fly
+into his face, before he has time to retreat, and sting him until they
+get tired of the sport.</p>
+
+<p>In these nests, there is usually more or less honey. Sometimes there
+is half a pint, or more. This honey is very palatable; and it is not
+an uncommon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>thing for children to brave the danger of being stung by
+the bees, for the sake of capturing a nest and getting possession of
+its treasures. For myself, I never was ambitious of getting renown by
+such means as besieging a bumble-bee's nest.</p>
+
+<p>I'll tell you what I did perform, though, once on a time, which was
+closely connected with the race of insects I am speaking of. It is a
+common tradition among country boys, that white-faced bumble-bees
+never sting, and that you can take them in your hands with perfect
+safety. This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>tradition may have truth at the bottom of it, or it may
+not. I cannot tell, and I shall not stop to debate the question now.
+It is certain that there is an insect, very much resembling the
+bumble-bee, and of about the same size, who, nevertheless, is a very
+different fellow. This is the chap that bores holes into dry wood, as
+nicely as you can bore with a gimlet, on which account he is sometimes
+called the borer. This insect does not sting. No thanks to him,
+though, for not stinging. He has no instrument to sting with. For
+aught I know, he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>may have ever so good a <i>will</i> to sting; but he has
+no <i>power</i> to do so, any more than a grasshopper or a butterfly.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I wanted to show some of the boys, one day, how smart I was. I
+had an idea that I could teach them something, and at the same time
+get the credit for a little bit of bravery.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see that saucy chap there," I asked, "on that clover blossom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said one of the boys, "it is a bumble-bee." This time I must be
+permitted to say the spelling of the word, because the boys in
+pronouncing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>it, give the sound of the <i>b</i>, and I, as a historian,
+must report their conversation faithfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well." I said, "what will you give me, if I'll take this fellow in my
+hand."</p>
+
+<p>It was intimated that nothing could be expected from the boys, but
+that the bumble-bee would be likely to give me something which I would
+remember, until "the cows came home." I don't know what period in the
+future that intended to point to, but I know that was a common
+expression among us all&mdash;one which we used, I suppose, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>without
+stopping to think what it meant, or how it got into use.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare do it," I said. I was as bold as a lion.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better not," said the boys.</p>
+
+<p>I did it, though. I caught the bumble-bee, and held him fast in my
+hand. But if ever a poor fellow got handsomely and foolishly stung, I
+was that unfortunate youth; and the worst of it was, that while I was
+dancing about, and wringing my hand, and crying, on account of the
+pain, my companions were doing quite another thing: <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>they were holding
+a laughing concert, at my expense.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary to add, that my white-faced bumble-bee turned
+out to be an enemy in disguise. After that event, I made a closer
+examination of the faces of this class of insects, and became
+satisfied that there was one tribe of bumble-bees who wore a face of a
+pale yellow color, resembling somewhat the genuine borer, but who, for
+all that, could sting as well as any of their race with black faces.</p>
+
+<p>This feat was as near as I ever got <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>toward the glory of capturing a
+nest of bumble-bees. I have tasted the honey which came from their
+nests, though, many a time, and I have seen other boys capture the
+nests.</p>
+
+<p>Billy Bolton was a great fellow at that kind of sport. Billy lived
+with Uncle Mike. He did <i>chores</i>&mdash;to use a word common enough in New
+England, though, possibly, not an elegant one&mdash;on Mr. Marble's farm;
+that is, he went for the cows and drove them to pasture, fed the pigs
+and poultry, brought water and chips for the "women folks," and ran of
+errands.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>It was a favorite sport with Billy, in the summer time, to hunt for
+bumble-bees' nests, and to "take them up," as the process of capturing
+them was called. Uncle Mike did not like to indulge the boy in this
+kind of sport. Perhaps he thought it a cruel and unfeeling kind of
+fun; and I know he had too kind a heart, to see a boy growing up in
+his family with a taste for cruelty to animals of any kind. At any
+rate, the danger connected with the sport was enough to condemn it in
+the mind of Mr. Marble.</p>
+
+<p>He had forbidden Billy and his own <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>children having any thing to do
+with the sport. Still, it seemed Billy found means to amuse himself,
+now and then, in a sly way, by taking up a bumble-bees' nest.</p>
+
+<p>One day, Mr. Marble and his men were engaged in the meadow, raking hay
+and carting it into the barn. Billy was in the meadow, too, at work
+among the hay, raking after the cart, I presume, as that used to be
+the task always allotted to me when I was of his age. In a corner of
+the lot, at some distance from the place where Mr. Marble and his men
+were at work, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>there was a large bottle containing water&mdash;nothing but
+water, reader; there was no rum drank on Mr. Marble's farm. Billy was
+sent after the bottle. He was gone a good while&mdash;longer, Mr. Marble
+thought, than was necessary. The matter was examined, when it turned
+out that Billy had got into trouble with a nest of bumble-bees. He had
+discovered a nest of these wretches, it appears; and, the temptation
+to wage war against them being very strong, he had stopped a moment,
+just to take up the nest.</p>
+
+<p>Poor fellow! It proved to be a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span><i>taking in</i>, instead of a <i>taking up</i>,
+and the taking in was on the other side. When he saw that the
+bumble-bees had outwitted him, he snatched up the bottle, which he had
+thrown down, and which was lying near, and ran, as fast as his legs
+would let him, towards the place where the men were at work. But the
+bees flew faster than he could run. It was a comic scene enough to see
+the fellow running at the top of his speed, and some fifty bumble-bees
+after him, once in a while giving expression to their feelings, by
+saluting him, in their peculiar way, in the face and on the neck.
+Didn't the poor fellow scream?</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span><br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep124" id="imagep124"></a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+<a href="images/imagep124.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep124.jpg" width="85%" alt="Paying For Mischief" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">PAYING FOR MISCHIEF.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>But this was not the whole of the joke. Indeed, it was hardly the
+richest part of it. Mr. Marble, who saw what was going on, stood ready
+with his cart whip; and when Billy made his appearance, with a
+regiment of bumble-bees about his ears, he commenced beating him with
+the whip. Away ran the boy, and Mr. Marble chased him some half a
+dozen rods, and gave him about as many blows with the cart whip.</p>
+
+<p>"There, you young rogue!" said <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>Mr. Marble, as he turned to go back to
+his work again, "between me and the bumble-bees, I guess you have
+learned one good lesson thoroughly this afternoon. You will be a wiser
+boy, I think, after this. You will be a <i>smarter</i> one, I'm sure; at
+least, for a while."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAP_IX" id="CHAP_IX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAP. IX.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>HOW A BARN WAS BUILT.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Mike Marble, as I think I have said before, was a kind-hearted man.
+But he had his own way of doing every thing, and that way was very
+generally quite unlike most other people's way. No man ever liked
+better to do any body a good turn. But he had his crotchets about an
+act of charity, as well as about every thing else.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>A neighbor went to him once, to ask him for some money to aid him in
+building a barn. The old one had burned down, and it was a great loss
+to him, he said. He hardly knew how he should get along, unless his
+neighbor loaned him a little money.</p>
+
+<p>But Uncle Mike refused the neighbor's petition. "Money was scarce,
+very scarce." That was all the answer the unfortunate man could get
+from Mike Marble.</p>
+
+<p>"This is strange enough," he mused in his own mind, as he walked away
+from Mr. Marble's door. "Strange <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>enough! so kind-hearted and generous
+as he always has been, when any body was in distress."</p>
+
+<p>The next day, however, bright and early, Uncle Mike yoked up his oxen,
+(some three pairs, I believe, including the <i>steers</i>, which needed
+something more than <i>moral suasion</i> to keep them straight,) fastened
+them to the cart, and posted off, with two or three men, to the saw
+mill. There he and his men loaded the cart with boards and planks.
+Then he drove straight to the house of the unfortunate neighbor,
+opened the great gate, without <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>saying a word to any member of the
+family, went into the door yard with his load, and threw it off within
+a few yards of the spot where the old barn stood.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth does all that mean?" thought the female portion of the
+family. The farmer and his boys were not at home at the time. Nothing
+was said, however.</p>
+
+<p>Again Uncle Mike drove over to the mill; again he put on a load of
+timber; again he threw it off near the site of the old barn. Three
+loads were discharged there, and then he directed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>his men to go home
+with the team. He himself went to one of his neighbors, and asked him
+if he had any timber of any kind already sawed at Squire Murdock's
+mill.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," was the answer, "a little; why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I want some of it, if it's the right kind. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't recollect exactly&mdash;some white oak joists, I guess, and some
+inch boards."</p>
+
+<p>"Good. Just what I want."</p>
+
+<p>Suffice it to say, that Mike Marble did not leave his neighbor before
+he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>got a promise from him that he would contribute a load or two of
+his timber to rebuild that barn. Then he went to another neighbor, and
+another, and did something like the same errand, with very much the
+same sort of success. He called on a <i>boss</i> carpenter, too, and
+secured his services in framing the barn; and, on his way home, he
+stopped at Slocum's blacksmith's shop, and got the promise of some
+nails.</p>
+
+<p>Well, it was not long before the neighbors were all called together to
+raise Deacon Metcalf's barn, and it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>was not long after that before
+the building was ready for use. And how much do you think it cost him?
+Not a cent&mdash;not a single cent, the neighbors managed the thing so
+well. Even the good things on the supper table, when they had their
+"raising bee," were sent in by the neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>And the whole scheme, you see, came from the crotchety brain of our
+friend, Mike Marble. That was his way of building a neighbor's barn,
+when any help was needed for that purpose.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAP_X" id="CHAP_X"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAP. X.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>ANOTHER BLOCK OF MARBLE.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>This story about the building of the deacon's barn brings to my mind
+another, pretty closely related to it. Will you hear that, too?</p>
+
+<p>One morning, as Uncle Mike was walking out, he saw a boy sitting down
+on the door steps of one of his neighbors. Upon a closer inspection of
+the lad it appeared that he was a poor boy, without any parents,
+who was wandering about, doing odd jobs, here and there, and getting
+what people had a mind to pay him for his services.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span><br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep135" id="imagep135"></a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+<a href="images/imagep135.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep135.jpg" width="60%" alt="Mike Marble and the Beggar" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">MIKE MARBLE AND THE BEGGAR.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>He was not a common vagrant, exactly, and yet he came very near being
+one. It was not supposed that he was a vicious boy; still it could not
+be denied that the life he led was tolerably well calculated to make
+him vicious, and most of the neighbors were afraid to have him about
+their houses, without keeping a sharp look out on his movements.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>Mr. Marble had heard of the lad, though it so happened that he had
+never met him until this time.</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo, there, my boy!" said Uncle Mike, "what are you so busy about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eating a cold johnny-cake, sir," was the laconic answer.</p>
+
+<p>"And how do you like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty well, though I guess a little butter wouldn't hurt it."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, my lad," said Uncle Mike, "what do you do generally for a
+living?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little of every thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you willing to work?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>"Yes, sir, if I can get any thing for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you work for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't mind trying it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am a hard-working man. Will you work like a dog, if I'll let you
+try?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, sir, I'd rather work like a boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Good. You shall go home with me."</p>
+
+<p>And he took the boy home with him. The first thing he set him about
+was weeding the onion bed. It was hard work, as I know from
+experience. Oh, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>how it makes a poor fellow's back ache, to stoop down
+and weed onions for half a day. You must know that you can't use the
+hoe more than about a quarter of the time. If you could, the work
+would be comparatively easy and pleasant. But you can't do that. You
+must bend right down to the task, as if you really loved the onions,
+and were nursing them, as a fond mother nurses a pet child.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Fred," said the old gentleman, when the dinner horn blew its
+blast of invitation for the workmen to come in and pay their respects
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>to Mrs. Marble's boiled pork and cabbage, "well, Fred, how do you like
+weeding onion beds?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir," said the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"And would you like to keep at it all the afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would like to please you, sir. That's what I came here for."</p>
+
+<p>The old man was so much delighted with this answer, that he not only
+laughed at it all the time he was at dinner, but he told it all over
+the neighborhood in less than a week.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Fred," said he, "I guess you've done enough of that sort of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>work for one day. I want you to do two or three errands after you have
+done your dinner."</p>
+
+<p>And he sent the lad to I don't know how many different places, to do
+all sorts of errands. Among other things he directed him to do, was to
+go to the store with money, to purchase some little articles for his
+wife. You see the old man wanted to try the new comer, and see if he
+was faithful.</p>
+
+<p>Well, every thing was done properly, and Uncle Mike was satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, Fred had other tasks <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>given to him. His employer
+selected those which were hardest and most unpleasant, as he said, "to
+break the little fellow in." I'll tell you one thing he did. He sent
+him out to catch the old mare. Now the old mare had a knack of kicking
+those who came to catch her, when she was not perfectly satisfied with
+their mode of doing the business; and she did not at all like the sly
+and timid way in which Fred came up to her, with the bridle concealed
+behind his back. She was a great lover of fair and open dealing;
+though, like some others of her race, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>that I am acquainted with, as
+well as some who belong to quite a different race, and who have the
+name of being a good deal wiser, she did not always practice herself
+the virtues she so highly commended in others.</p>
+
+<p>She waited until the lad had got within a few feet of her, and then
+she whirled round, before the poor fellow, who was half frightened out
+of his wits, could have time to get out of her way, and let her heels
+fly into the air over his head. It was well for the boy that she took
+her aim so high. If it had been a foot or two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>lower, the <i>breaking
+in</i> would have been an expensive one to Fred&mdash;a very expensive one,
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>In such ways as those I have named, and in a great many other ways,
+which I need not name, Uncle Mike tried the boy, to see what he was
+made of. He found out, before long, what he was made of. He found out
+that there was just such stuff in him as he liked. The more he tried
+him&mdash;the more he "broke him in"&mdash;the better he was pleased with him.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I'll tell you how that affair with the beggar turned&mdash;for I
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>must not make too long a story of it&mdash;Uncle Mike brought up the lad.
+He taught him all the mysteries of farming, and treated him as if he
+were a member of his own family&mdash;one of his own children&mdash;until he was
+twenty-one. Then he told him he was free to go where he chose. He gave
+him a hundred dollars in money, a yoke of oxen, a fine colt, and, what
+was of more value than all, his blessing.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep147" id="imagep147"></a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+<a href="images/imagep147.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep147.jpg" width="58%" alt="Mike Marble in His Old Age" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">MIKE MARBLE IN HIS OLD AGE.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>And what do you think became of Fred? He turned out to be not only a
+good farmer, but a good neighbor, and a good man, every way. That
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>same man, who was once a beggar, and who, but for Uncle Mike's odd way
+of doing a kind act for him, might have remained a beggar, is now one
+of the most highly respected men in his parish, with enough property
+to make him and his family comfortable, as well as some to spare for
+the comfort of others.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAP_XI" id="CHAP_XI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAP. XI.<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4>MIKE MARBLE'S LAST DAYS.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>I should love to chat about my old friend a good while longer. But
+perhaps I had better stop, for fear you may get tired of the theme. I
+must tell you a little about his old age, then I will leave off.</p>
+
+<p>He was one of the happiest old men I ever knew. He was always
+cheerful. One could never meet him in the street, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>and look into his
+pleasant face, without catching something of his cheerfulness. Bad
+humor is catching, you know, as much as the small pox, or the canker
+rash, and so is good humor, too. At all events, I remember that once,
+when I felt ever so much "out of sorts," because things did not go
+right, I came across Uncle Mike, on my way to school, and a chat of
+about half a minute completely sweetened my temper.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing which Uncle Mike liked better, after his hair&mdash;the
+little hair that time had spared to him&mdash;was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>whitened with age, than
+to have a group of children about him, coaxing him to tell them
+stories.</p>
+
+<p>Dear old man! my heart blesses him now, as my memory recalls the
+scenes in which he used to take a part. With all his oddities and
+crotchets, he always had a kind and warm heart beating in his bosom. I
+don't believe that he ever had an enemy in the world. Every body, it
+always seemed to me, respected him, and those who knew him most, loved
+him best.</p>
+
+<p>He possessed an art which is worth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>more than the finest farm in
+America. It was the art of being happy himself, and of making others
+happy. He was never out of humor. Nobody could get him into a passion.
+I never heard of his having wounded the feelings of a single
+individual, during all the time that I was acquainted with him.</p>
+
+<p>Now some people will say, "Oh, it was Mike Marble's way. That was his
+disposition. He could not help being good-natured. It came natural to
+him to make friends. It was as easy for him to scatter happiness all
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>around him, as it was to breathe." I don't know about all that. There
+may have been something&mdash;probably there was something&mdash;in Mike
+Marble's natural disposition, which was pleasant and cheerful. But I
+guess it cost him some effort to live in the sunshine so constantly.
+There is such a thing, reader&mdash;and I hope you will mark these words
+well&mdash;there is such a thing as keeping the heart fresh, and green, and
+tender, and loving, by one's own effort; and there is such a thing,
+too, as letting the heart, by neglect and want of culture, become <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>old
+before its time, and dry, and tough, and crabbed. You can school your
+affections. Did you know that? I'll tell you how to dry up all the
+love and kindness you may have. Shut up your heart, as an oyster does
+its shell. Shut it up, and be selfish. Do so, and you will soon be
+sick enough of the world, and the world will be sick enough of you.
+But I would not do that, if I were in your place. I would advise you
+to try to keep the heart open, by doing all the kind acts you can. But
+I must end my tale of Mike Marble.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>Dear old man! He has gone to his rest. His voice long since ceased to
+be heard on earth. He died as he lived&mdash;cheerfully and peacefully. The
+Saviour, in whom he had trusted, was with him in his dying hour, and I
+cannot doubt that that good man went to dwell with the angels.</p>
+
+<p>Reader, may you, like him, live a life of usefulness, and may you take
+your leave of the world as peacefully, as hopefully, as cheerfully, at</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>THE END.</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4><i>Woodworth's Juvenile Works.</i></h4>
+
+<h2>PHILLIPS, SAMPSON &amp; CO.</h2>
+
+<h3>PUBLISH THE FOLLOWING JUVENILE WORKS,</h3>
+
+<h4>By Francis C. Woodworth,</h4>
+
+<h5>EDITOR OF "WOODWORTH'S YOUTH'S CABINET,"</h5>
+
+<h5>AUTHOR OF "THE WILLOW LANE BUDGET," "THE STRAWBERRY GIRL,"<br /> "THE MILLER
+OF OUR VILLAGE," "THEODORE THINKER'S TALES," ETC. ETC.</h5>
+
+<br />
+
+<h3>UNCLE FRANK'S BOYS' AND GIRLS' LIBRARY.</h3>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang"><i>A Beautiful Series, comprising six volumes, square 12mo., with
+eight Tinted Engravings in each volume. The following are their
+titles respectively</i>:</p></div>
+
+<div class="block">
+<p class="noin">I. THE PEDDLER'S BOY; or, <span class="sc">I'll be Somebody</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noin">II. THE DIVING BELL; or, <span class="sc">Pearls to be Sought for</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noin">III. THE POOR ORGAN-GRINDER, <span class="sc">and other Stories</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noin">IV. OUR SUE: <span class="sc">Her Motto and its Uses</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noin">V. MIKE MARBLE: <span class="sc">His Crotchets and Oddities</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="noin">VI. THE WONDERFUL LETTER-BAG OF KIT CURIOUS.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="block2" style="font-size: 90%;"><p>"Woodworth is unquestionably and immeasurably the best writer
+for children that we know of; for he combines a sturdy common
+sense and varied information with a most childlike and loveful
+spirit, that finds its way at once to the child's heart. We
+regard him as one of the truest benefactors of his race; for he
+is as wise as he is gentle, and never uses his power over the
+child-heart, to instill into it the poison of false teaching, or
+to cramp it with unlovely bigotry. The publishers have done
+their part, as well as the author, to make these volumes
+attractive. Altogether we regard them as one of the pleasantest
+series of juvenile books extant, both in their literary
+character and mechanical execution."&mdash;<i>Syracuse (N.Y.) Daily
+Standard.</i></p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang">WOODWORTH'S STORIES ABOUT ANIMALS. 12mo., with Illuminated Title, and
+upwards of Fifty Beautiful Engravings; pp. 336.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">WOODWORTH'S STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. Uniform with the above. With Sixty
+splendid Engravings; pp. 336.</p>
+
+<p>These two volumes, containing characteristic anecdotes, told in a racy
+and pleasing vein, are among the most entertaining books of the kind
+to be found in the English language.</p>
+
+<p style="font-size: 90%;">"Attractive stories, told in a style of great liveliness and
+beauty. As a writer for the young, the author is surpassed by
+very few, if any writers in this country."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Tribune.</i></p>
+
+<p style="font-size: 90%;">"A <i>melange</i> of most agreeable reading."&mdash;<i>Presbyterian.</i></p>
+
+<p style="font-size: 90%;">"They cannot fail to be intensely interesting."&mdash;<i>Ch. Register.</i></p>
+
+<p style="font-size: 90%;">"Charming stories, told with that felicitous simplicity and
+elegance of diction which characterize all Mr. Woodworth's
+efforts for the young."&mdash;<i>N.Y. Commercial Advertiser.</i></p>
+
+<p style="font-size: 90%;">"Nothing can be more interesting than the stories and pictorial
+illustrations of these works."&mdash;<i>Brattleborough Dem.</i></p>
+
+<p style="font-size: 90%;">"We never pen a notice with more pleasure than when any work of
+our friend Mr. Woodworth is the subject. Whatever he does is
+well done, and in a sweet and gentle spirit."&mdash;<i>Christ.
+Inquirer.</i></p>
+
+<p style="font-size: 90%;">"The author is a man of fine abilities and refined taste, and
+does his work in a spirit of vivacious, but most truthful
+earnestness."&mdash;<i>Ladies' Repos.</i></p></div>
+
+<br />
+<hr style="width: 5%;" />
+<br />
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="hang">UNCLE FRANK'S PEEP AT THE BEASTS. Square 12mo. Profusely Illustrated;
+pp. 160.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">UNCLE FRANK'S PEEP AT THE BIRDS. Uniform with the above; pp. 160.</p>
+
+<p>These two volumes are written in the simplest style, and with words,
+for the most part, of two and three syllables. They are exceedingly
+popular among children.</p>
+
+<p style="font-size: 90%;">"Of those who have the gift to write for children, Mr. Woodworth
+stands among the first; and, what is best of all, with the
+ability to adapt himself to the wants and comprehension of
+children, he has that high moral principle which will permit
+nothing to leave his pen that can do harm."&mdash;<i>Arthur's Home
+Gaz.</i></p></div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p>
+<br />
+Page  94: &nbsp;queston replaced with question<br />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike Marble, by Uncle Frank
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike Marble, by Uncle Frank
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mike Marble
+       His Crotchets and Oddities.
+
+Author: Uncle Frank
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2008 [EBook #24937]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIKE MARBLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeannie Howse, Chuck Greif and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |
+    | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+   [Illustration: MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME.]
+
+
+
+
+UNCLE FRANK'S
+BOY'S & GIRL'S
+LIBRARY,
+BY
+
+FRANCIS C. WOODWORTH,
+
+EDITOR OF WOODWORTH'S YOUTH'S CABINET.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MIKE MARBLE:
+
+HIS CROTCHETS AND ODDITIES.
+
+With Tinted Illustrations.
+
+BY
+
+UNCLE FRANK,
+
+AUTHOR OF "A PEEP AT OUR NEIGHBORS," "THE PEDDLER'S BOY,"
+"THE DIVING BELL," "WILLOW LANE STORIES," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+BOSTON:
+PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & COMPANY,
+PUBLISHERS.
+
+
+
+
+Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852,
+By PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
+the District of Massachusetts.
+
+
+
+STEREOTYPED BY
+BILLIN & BROTHERS,
+No. 10 NORTH WILLIAM STREET, N.Y.
+WRIGHT & HASTY,
+Printers, 3 Water Street, Boston.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                        PAGE
+
+CHAPTER I.
+ABOUT CROTCHETS                                            7
+
+CHAPTER II.
+CROTCHETY FOLKS                                           15
+
+CHAPTER III.
+LIGHTS AND SHADOWS                                        27
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+CHIPS FROM BIRCH WOODS                                    35
+
+CHAPTER V.
+A PAIR OF THIEVES                                         54
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+PAYING HIM OFF                                            68
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME                              92
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE BUMBLE-BEES' NEST                                    109
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+HOW A BARN WAS BUILT                                     127
+
+CHAPTER X.
+ANOTHER BLOCK OF MARBLE                                  134
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+MIKE MARBLE'S LAST DAYS                                  150
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME                  (Frontispiece)
+
+VIGNETTE TITLE-PAGE                                        1
+
+THE BOY IN THE WOODS                                      48
+
+OLD IRONSIDES AND THE CHILDREN                            63
+
+A CRYING SPELL                                            77
+
+PAYING FOR MISCHIEF                                      124
+
+MIKE MARBLE AND THE BEGGAR                               135
+
+MIKE MARBLE IN HIS OLD AGE                               147
+
+
+
+
+MIKE MARBLE.
+
+
+CHAP. I.
+
+ABOUT CROTCHETS.
+
+
+Don't be frightened, reader, at what you see on the title-page of this
+book, or at the head which I have given to my first chapter. Don't let
+the idea creep into your head, that I am going to give you a dull and
+sleepy essay on music. It is not the _crotchets_ which you find in
+the singing-book, that I intend to talk about; I leave them to those
+who know more about them than I do. There is a man of my acquaintance,
+whom I could hunt up without much trouble, and who, if you should ever
+choose to give him a chance, would talk you deaf, and write you blind,
+about this sort of crotchets, together with all the members of that
+noisy family--breves, semibreves, minims, and what not! I'll refer you
+to him, for all the mysteries of the _gamut_. Whenever you want to
+learn them, I assure you he would like no better fun than to teach
+them to you. I'll not interfere with his trade.
+
+My business is with another family of crotchets. Webster--Noah
+Webster, the man who made the spelling-book, out of which Uncle Frank
+learned to say, or rather to drawl his letters--gives, in his large
+dictionary, as one of the definitions of the word _crotchet_, this: "a
+peculiar turn of mind, a whim, a fancy." Here you have just that kind
+of crotchet that I am going to deal with. Mr. Webster could not have
+hit my crotchet more exactly, if he had taken aim at it on purpose.
+It is a _peculiar turn of mind_, or, if you prefer it, a _whim_, or a
+_fancy_, that I shall talk about, for an hour or so, perhaps longer.
+Indeed, I am not perfectly sure but I shall find a whole flock of
+whims and fancies, because, you know, "birds of a feather flock
+together," and, in that case, I shall give you a peep at a score or
+two of whims and fancies.
+
+Now, who knows but these crotchets will be worth hearing about? People
+write large, thick volumes, on drier topics than whims and
+fancies--that is, to my way of thinking--and I suppose their books
+are read. Certainly they expect to have them read, or they would not
+make them. Then why may not my book on crotchets find readers?
+
+If I were to write a book on _warts_ and _corns_, don't you think the
+book would get read? I do. I have not the least doubt of it. Suppose,
+now, it were published in the newspapers, that _Messrs. Phillips,
+Sampson & Company_, one of the largest and most respectable publishing
+houses in the Union, are about to issue a volume, entitled _Freaks of
+the Wart Family_, from the pen of Uncle Frank, a man who, first and
+last, has printed a good deal of sense, together with some nonsense,
+and who, in this volume, has succeeded in stringing together some of
+the strangest things that ever saw the light. Suppose that some
+newspaper should give that item of news, don't you think folks would
+get the book, when it was published? and don't you think they would
+read it, or, at all events, skim it over, to see what kind of stuff
+Uncle Frank had been emptying out of his brain? I think so.
+
+Well, warts and corns are to the body what whims and crotchets are to
+the mind. The body has freaks--the mind has freaks. Warts don't
+exactly _belong_ to the body. That is, there could be a very good sort
+of a body, without a single wart on it; and indeed, if you please, a
+man would be a more perfect man, if there were no warts about him,
+from head to foot. So of crotchets. I don't pretend that a person has
+any thing to boast of, because his head is full of crotchets. Perhaps
+he would be better without them. _Perhaps_ he would. But warts and
+crotchets are both found among mankind. Both are freaks of nature, so
+to speak; of course, both are worth examining. One thing at a time,
+though. Let us turn our attention, at present, to _crotchets_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. II.
+
+CROTCHETY FOLKS.
+
+
+A crotchety person, according to this same Noah Webster, whom I have
+quoted before, is one who has whims or crotchets in the brain. Now a
+word about these crotchety folks.
+
+I'll tell you what it is, my friend. The older I grow, the more I feel
+inclined to let every man and woman, every boy and girl, act out
+himself, or herself. "That is a singular fellow," we often hear it
+said. "He's as odd as Dick's hat-band. I don't know what to think of
+him. He seems to be a good sort of a man. But he _is_ odd. His head is
+as full of crotchets as it can hold."
+
+When I hear a person talk in this style, I feel like saying, "Stop a
+moment, my dear sir. He's 'a good sort of a man--_but_,' you say. That
+shows you are not precisely satisfied with his goodness; and pray,
+what is the matter with it? Why don't you like it, sir? What
+particular fault have you to find with it? Come, out with it now."
+
+Press a man, who is talking in this way about a crotchety neighbor,
+right up to the point, and you will generally find that the reason he
+does not like him is because he has a different way of saying and
+doing things from his own.
+
+Now I believe that some folks are odd because they cannot help it.
+True, there are a great many who are odd, just for the sake of being
+odd. They are ambitious to be known as singular people. We will let
+them pass. They certainly work hard to earn the name they love to be
+known by; and perhaps we ought not to try to rob them of it, or to say
+any thing very severe about their taste. We will let them pass.
+
+But there are a multitude of other people who are odd, and whose
+oddities cannot be accounted for in the same way. They are odd,
+because they were born so. They are odd, because they cannot help
+being odd. If they should try, with all their might, to do as most of
+their neighbors do, they would make perfect dunces of themselves; for
+every body, old or young, makes a dunce of himself, and nothing else,
+whenever he undertakes to be what he is not--whenever he undertakes to
+be somebody else. He is not very well acquainted with the race he
+belongs to, who, as he goes through the world, does not get this truth
+hammered into him.
+
+Why, at this very moment, I can think of at least a dozen odd people,
+whom I am in the habit of meeting every day, and who, I verily
+believe, could no more help their oddities and crotchets than some of
+their neighbors could help having warts come out on their hands. The
+crotchets are natural and unavoidable in one case--the warts are
+natural and unavoidable in the other.
+
+These are my notions about crotchety people, in general, and I have
+thrown them out, as one throws out feather beds from the garret
+windows, when the house is on fire--so that the articles that are to
+be thrown afterward may find a good soft spot to alight on, and not
+get damaged by their fall.
+
+The truth is, I am going to introduce to you an old gentleman, who
+had a large head, tolerably well filled with crotchets; and as it is
+such a common thing for people to raise a hue and cry against every
+body who has any oddities about him, I thought I would put you on your
+guard a little, by a word of apology for that entire race of people,
+who are odd because they cannot be any thing else.
+
+This old gentleman, who, by the way, was a great friend of the little
+folks, is _Mike Marble_. I introduce him to you as an _old_ gentleman.
+But, although he was old, when I first saw him, I must not forget
+that he was young once--as young as any of my readers--and that he
+played his part as a boy, as well as his part as a man. There are a
+good many anecdotes afloat about him and his odd way of doing things,
+before he grew up to manhood. My grandfather knew him when he was a
+lad at school. I believe he and Mike were nearly of the same age.
+
+That grandfather of mine, now I think of it, was a great story-teller.
+I have sometimes nearly half made up my mind, while casting about me,
+to find some new mine of stories for my young readers, that I would
+put my thinking cap on, and see if I could not recollect a budget of
+my grandfather's stories, large enough to fill a book. I am not sure
+but I will do so one of these days; and, if I do, I shall print the
+budget, depend upon it.
+
+My grandfather and Mike Marble were as dear to each other as if they
+had been brothers. They lived not far apart, and went to school
+together. For some of Mike's crotchets I am indebted to this old
+friend of his. Others I picked up, here and there, among old people
+that knew him, and others still I got from a personal acquaintance
+with him in his old age.
+
+You will excuse me, if I call him _Mike_ sometimes. He was always so
+called, when he was a boy, I believe. And while you are excusing me
+for calling him _Mike_--you see I take you to be very kind and
+obliging--you will please excuse me, also, if I happen to prefix the
+title of _Uncle_ to that nickname; for he was known, far and near, as
+_Uncle Mike_ in his later days.
+
+It is true that _Michael_ was his name correctly and honestly spelled
+out. But it is equally true that Michael was a name to which he seldom
+had to answer. At school, and among his playmates, it was always
+_Mike_. I really believe, from what I have heard my grandfather say,
+that not half the boys and girls in his neighborhood could have been
+convinced, by any common arguments, that his name was Michael. Indeed,
+I remember having heard that once, when a schoolmate called the fellow
+by the long name, just to see how it would seem, he and the other boy
+both burst right out into a perfect roar of laughter over the sound
+of it. "For pity's sake," said he, when he got over his laughing fit,
+"don't call me by that hard name again, as long as I live;" and, as he
+seemed to be quite in earnest, none of the boys ever addressed him by
+any other name than _Mike_, after that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. III.
+
+LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
+
+
+"But who is _Mike Marble_? where does he live? what sort of a man is
+he? what kind of oddities has he got?"
+
+My little friend, your questions come out so fast, and there is such a
+long string of them, that they make me think of the way a whole pack
+of fire crackers go off, when you touch a coal to one of them, and
+throw the whole into the street. I am going to tell you ever so many
+things about this same Mike Marble. Before I get through with him, you
+will get very well acquainted with him, I think. But Uncle Frank, you
+know, has got some oddities himself. When he has got any thing to do,
+he, too, has his own way of doing it.
+
+Some people, I suppose, if they were treating you to a few chapters in
+the history of this singular man, would weave the threads together in
+a different manner from mine. They would begin, very likely, by
+telling where the chap was born, who were his father and mother, how
+many brothers and sisters he had, what their names were, whether he
+had any uncles and aunts, and if he had, what kind of uncles and aunts
+they were, and all that sort of thing. And they would describe Mike's
+appearance exactly--tell you whether he had black eyes or blue, gray
+eyes or brown, red eyes or green. But I don't see much use in that.
+
+Indeed, I am not sure but I shall keep you ignorant as to how he
+looked, and let you learn what there is worth learning in his
+character--for character is the great thing, after all, you know--by
+the stories I shall tell of him. I might, it is true, take every
+branch, and leaf, and bud, and flower, of his character, and pick it
+all to pieces, and show you, in this way, what he was made of. But you
+would get tired of all that. So I'll take another course. I'll tell
+you what he said and did--what he said and did at different times, at
+different periods in his life, and in different circumstances. Don't
+you think this is the best way to make you acquainted with him? I do;
+for, if you find out what a person says, and does, and thinks, you
+find out what he is.
+
+One or two things, however, I must say about this Mike Marble, by way
+of general introduction.
+
+He was born at a very interesting period--about nine years before the
+breaking out of the American Revolution. He was quite an old man
+before he went to his final rest. Indeed, it is but a few years since
+I saw his weather-beaten face, all lighted up with smiles. Unlike many
+other men, when they get to be old, he never made a practice of
+carping at every thing he saw about him, because it was not exactly in
+the style of 1776. He believed that there was wisdom among our
+grandfathers and grandmothers, but that there is wisdom, also, among
+their grand-children.
+
+I have told you that he had some oddities. I have hinted, too, in a
+sort of whisper, that I do not consider a man an absolute Pagan,
+because he happens to be a little odd. Something more than this I
+could say of Uncle Mike, odd as he was; but I guess you will find out
+what I think of him, before I get through. Suffice it to say, that,
+while I didn't like him _because_ he was odd, I did like him, _in
+spite_ of his oddities. He was a fine old man. As the world goes, he
+was a most excellent man. He had his faults, a plenty of them; though
+I have sometimes thought
+
+    "That e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side."
+
+Some of them did, I know. He had his faults, nevertheless. I confess
+that. He always had them, no doubt. Faults are common things among
+mankind and womankind. But, with your consent, we will trip lightly
+over all that part of our hero's history which is shaded with
+blemishes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. IV.
+
+CHIPS FROM BIRCH WOODS.
+
+
+One of the worst things I ever heard of in the history of Mike,
+according to the best of my recollection, was the way he served Billy
+Birch's dog. You must know something about this Billy Birch. _Burt_
+was his real name. But it was changed into Birch by his neighbors, for
+a reason which I will give you by and bye.
+
+Mr. Burt was a pretty good sort of a man, in his own estimation, but
+not greatly or generally beloved by his neighbors. He was a
+church-going man, and had a knack, somehow or other, of getting along
+decently with the forms--the outside garments, so to speak--of
+religion. It was really astonishing how glibly he would _talk_ about
+religion. But as to the practical part of it, he did not succeed as
+well. That was up-hill work for the old man.
+
+He found it exceedingly difficult to keep himself "unspotted from the
+world." Some of his nearest neighbors thought they could count a great
+many worldly spots upon him. I don't know how that was, as I never was
+acquainted with the man, and ought not to judge him too harshly.
+Indeed, Uncle Frank must endeavor to keep in mind, that with what
+measure we mete it shall be measured to us again. But from all the
+shreds and patches of his history that have come down to the present
+day, Mr. Birch does seem to have been a selfish man, and a great deal
+too fond of money.
+
+My young friend, it is one of the most difficult things in this
+world, to act up to the spirit of the golden rule of our Lord, and do
+to others as we would have them do to us, when we are as full as we
+can hold of selfishness. You may lay that thought up in your memory.
+
+Billy Birch found that truth out. What did he care how many
+newly-planted hills of corn and rows of peas his hens might scratch
+up, provided the corn was not his corn, and the peas were not his
+peas, and provided he did not have to suffer for the scratching? Not a
+mill. He would sit, smoking his pipe--for he was a great smoker--in
+the old, straight-backed oak chair on the stoop, as cool as a
+cucumber, while the biggest rooster on his premises, the lord of the
+whole barn-yard, was leading a regiment of hens and petty roosters in
+a crusade upon Squire Chapman's corn-field across the way; and if the
+Squire or one of his boys came over to inform him what havoc the hens
+were making, and to ask him what to do with the troublesome creatures,
+the old man would perhaps take his pipe out of his mouth, and, after
+slowly puffing out a cloud of smoke, would say, "Why, drive them out,
+to be sure!"
+
+What did he care, if his old mare--who, by the way, was a very nervous
+sort of a mare, and could not stay long in one spot--what did he care,
+if the old creature did jump over the six-rail fence around the good
+parson's field of clover, and eat what she wanted, and trample down,
+in her nervous way of doing things, a good share of the rest of the
+clover? Why, it didn't hurt _him_ any. The old miser! It wasn't _his_
+field of clover that Katy trampled down. And besides, didn't he pay
+his minister's tax? and didn't the minister and his family live in
+better style than he and his family could afford to live in?
+
+Katy loved clover. _He_ wasn't to blame for that, and he didn't know
+that Katy was to blame. It was a very natural taste, that of his old
+mare. And why didn't the parson, he should like to know, build his
+fence higher, if he didn't want his clover eaten up by other people's
+horses?
+
+What was it to Billy Birch, if his dog did kill a neighbor's sheep,
+now and then? What did he care, what should he care? If they were his
+own sheep, that would alter the case. But Caesar never killed his
+master's sheep. Wasn't that kind in Caesar? And as to this sheep-biting
+habit of his, why it is the _nature_ of dogs to kill sheep. Caesar
+_must_ kill somebody's sheep; and if he hadn't picked out a good fat
+one from this flock, it would have been somebody else's flock. What is
+the use in making such a fuss about a sheep or two? The loss of one
+sheep won't break any body. What can't be cured, must be endured.
+People must take care of their sheep, if they don't want them to be
+killed.
+
+That is the way this selfish, narrow-minded farmer reasoned and
+talked. You can see, plainly enough, that he was not the sort of man
+to be very much respected in the neighborhood. He was not respected.
+In fact, there was not, in all the parish, a more generally unpopular
+man than Billy Birch.
+
+The boys, I have heard, bore him a grudge of long standing. It related
+to the huckleberries and hazel nuts in the old man's birch woods.
+There were bushels of huckleberries, and almost as many hazel nuts, in
+those woods. But would you have thought of such a thing? Mr. Birch
+forbade the boys picking any of his huckleberries or hazel nuts. Ever
+so many huckleberries decayed on the bushes every year, or were left
+to be harvested by the birds, because Mr. Birch's family could not
+pick them all themselves, and he was so tight that he would not let
+any body else pick them. He was like the dog in the manger, you see.
+He could not eat the hay himself, and he would not let any body else
+eat it.
+
+But the meanest thing that I ever heard of his doing, was this: In
+these same woods--the woods where the huckleberries and hazel nuts
+grew--there were great multitudes of birch trees, of different species
+and among the rest, some of that species which goes by the name, among
+children, of _black birch_. I need not tell any of my country readers
+about this kind of birch. They know it well enough. They have eaten
+birch bark, many a time; and, for ought I know, some of them have
+felt a tingling sensation in the region of the back and legs, brought
+about by the use of birch twigs in the hands of some schoolmaster.
+
+Well, Moses Ramble was crossing Billy Birch's woods one day in the
+spring of the year. For awhile, he whistled along, as merry-hearted as
+the blue birds that had just returned from their southern tour, and
+who were chirping on the branches over his head, breaking off, now and
+then, a few sprigs of birch, from the trees along his path. By and
+bye, he sat down on the fence, to rest himself, still going on with
+his whistling, at intervals, when his mouth was not too much occupied
+with the birch to interfere with the music.
+
+   [Illustration: THE BOY IN THE WOODS.]
+
+While the merry young fellow was sitting here, feeling at peace with
+all the world, and not dreaming but all the world was at peace with
+him, he heard a slight rustling behind him, and, looking over his
+shoulder, whom should he see but Billy Birch himself, leaning against
+a chestnut tree, and looking as if he were angry enough to bite in two
+a hoe handle.
+
+What on earth the man was doing there, history does not inform us,
+though it used to be more than hinted among the younger citizens in
+that neighborhood, that he was prowling about in those woods as a spy
+on the movements of the boys. They said he was just the man for such
+business.
+
+Moses did not like the appearance of the face that was lowering on
+him; and, although he was innocent of the slightest intention of doing
+any harm on the man's premises, he thought it would be safer for him
+to walk off than it would be to stay there. So he leaped from the
+fence, and began, leisurely, to walk home.
+
+"Stop, you young heathen!" said Billy Birch.
+
+The little fellow did stop, and stood as still as the old chestnut
+tree, against which the lord of those woods was leaning.
+
+"What are you _munching_ there, sir?"
+
+Moses, having no suspicion at all that he had been doing any harm to
+the estate of the old man, replied, frankly and plainly, that he was
+eating birch.
+
+"Aha!" said the farmer, "you are, eh? I'll teach you to eat my birch.
+I'll give you as much birch as you will want for a fortnight!"
+
+And he took the twig which Moses was gnawing out of his hands, and
+whipped him with it, until he made the poor fellow cry out with pain
+and mortification.
+
+"There, you thief!" he said, after flogging him to his heart's
+content, "that will teach you to steal my birch, I guess."
+
+From that day the selfish farmer began to be called _Birch_, in that
+section of the country; and it was not many months before his name was
+almost as effectually changed as if he had applied to the legislature
+of the state to have that body change it for him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. V.
+
+A PAIR OF THIEVES.
+
+
+About that dog of Billy Birch. Have I not promised to tell you
+something about him, and the accident that happened to him, which
+accident Mike Marble might have prevented, if he had made the attempt?
+I have a good mind to tell you about these matters, at any rate,
+whether I have made such a promise or not.
+
+Mind now, reader, that, in telling this story, I don't mean to have it
+understood that I think Mike did right. I'll grant that he did wrong.
+But I mention the fact to show what sort of mischief Mike was up to,
+and what sort of blemishes those were, which I confess he had in his
+character; for, as I think I said before, this trick was about as bad
+a thing as I ever heard of his being guilty of.
+
+Caesar got to be a great hero in the sheep-killing business--a perfect
+Nimrod of a dog. It sometimes happens, I fancy, that soldiers who
+spend more of their time in war, actually shooting people and cutting
+their throats, after a while, get to liking the trade, and take
+pleasure in slaughtering human beings, just as a carpenter or a
+printer might take pleasure in _his_ trade. Well, it got to be
+somewhat so with Caesar, it would seem; for it often came to pass that
+two or three sheep would be killed in one night, when, of course, a
+single fat one would supply his appetite bountifully for several days,
+at least. He must have liked the business, or he would have contented
+himself with killing only a sufficient number of sheep to keep him in
+food.
+
+The neighbors who suffered from Caesar's favorite amusement,
+complained, now and then, to his master. But it did no good. "They
+must keep their sheep out of the way," the selfish man would say.
+"Caesar is a capital family dog. I don't know what I should do without
+him--he is so faithful." That was as much satisfaction as they could
+ever get. Billy Birch would not shut up his dog at night, and as for
+killing him, that was out of the question. He would rather lose his
+best horse than Caesar. True, the neighbors might have sued the owner
+of the dog, and have got the value of their lost sheep in that way.
+But they were generally peaceable folks, and had a great dread of
+going to law, especially with one of their own neighbors. The result
+was, that Caesar's business prospered more and more every day.
+
+It was in the full tide of his success as a sheep-killer, that he
+came, one day, into Mr. Marble's door yard, and took his station near
+the wood pile. Mike saw him, and knew well enough what he came for.
+His father had just been slaughtering an ox, and some of the dainty
+pieces of the animal were lying on the wood pile, the scent of which
+had brought Caesar to the spot. No doubt, having feasted on mutton so
+long, he had got a little sick of it, and thought he would make a
+dinner on beef. He was a dainty fellow, you perceive.
+
+I don't know what put it into Mike's head to play the trick he did on
+Caesar. But he had no sooner seen him smelling around among the refuse
+pieces of the ox's carcass, than he determined to punish him, if
+possible, for his notorious crimes. So, without saying a word to any
+body, he gathered up all the choice bits which had tempted the dog to
+the yard, and placed them within a few feet of the heels of Mr.
+Marble's old chaise horse, who was standing there, hitched to a gate
+post, waiting patiently for somebody to come and harness him.
+
+Now this horse, who was called _Old Ironsides_, was as famous for his
+kicking habits as Caesar was for his sheep-killing. He seemed to take
+up kicking as a sort of amusement, to while away his leisure hours.
+It was a wonder that Mr. Marble kept him; for he had kicked the old
+chaise to pieces several times; and as to his stable, he made nothing
+of kicking off all the boards within reach of his heels, every few
+nights, just for the fun of the thing, and to show what mighty deeds
+he could do with his heels.
+
+It is no more than an act of simple justice to Old Ironsides, however,
+to say, that he was as gentle as a lamb to the children of his master.
+They could do any thing with him. Often, when he was standing at the
+door, or in his stable, they would go close to him, and pat him on his
+neck, and play with him, as if he were one of their own number; and
+the old fellow would take all their fun good-humoredly. Among all his
+sins in the kicking line--and he had a great many, first and last, to
+answer for--he never kicked either of the children. They all loved
+him, in fact; and many is the dainty morsel he received from their
+hands.
+
+Well, to go on with the story of Mike's piece of mischief. The dog,
+as he had expected, trotted along after the pieces of meat, and
+commenced eating, without any suspicions of harm, right under the
+_battery_ of the old horse. There he remained for some moments, as
+Mike says, taking as much comfort eating his dinner, as if he were
+dining on one of his father's sheep.
+
+   [Illustration: OLD IRONSIDES AND THE CHILDREN.]
+
+Old Ironsides took no notice of the dog. Indeed, he rather appeared
+half asleep. He often shut his eyes, by the way, as he was standing at
+a post, and dosed, and nodded, much after the fashion of some men,
+when they set out to listen to a sermon on Sunday. All the time,
+however, Mike had a crotchet in his head.
+
+"Halloo, old fellow!" he shouted, "what are you about there?"
+
+In an instant Old Ironsides was wide awake, and, seeing at a glance
+what was going on behind, he pricked up his ears, uttered one brief
+snort, and away went his heels like lightning. Poor Caesar! When he
+touched this planet again--for Old Ironsides had sent him up towards
+the moon, much farther than I should want to go, in that style--he was
+a lost dog. Old Ironsides, who proved to be as great a hero, in his
+way, as Caesar was, had killed him. The great enemy of sheepdom had
+ceased to breathe.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. VI
+
+"PAYING HIM OFF;"
+
+OR, AN ODD WAY OF SHOWING REVENGE.
+
+
+Jacob Grumley, who was sometimes nicknamed _Grumble_, on account of a
+habit he had of finding fault with every thing and every body, went to
+the same school with Mike Marble. Now Mike was as remarkable for his
+cheerful and amiable disposition, as Jacob was for his ill nature. In
+half of the cases where the latter would get angry, and storm, and
+rage, and fret, and foam, like a hyena, or a Bengal tiger, the other
+would remain as cool as a cucumber, or, perhaps, burst out into a
+hearty laugh.
+
+One day, when several of the schoolboys, including Michael and Jacob,
+were playing ball on the fine lawn in front of the school house, a
+dispute occurred between the young grumbler and another boy, and Mike
+ventured to suggest to Jacob, as kindly as he could, that he was in
+the wrong.
+
+"You little meddlesome dunce!" said Jacob, all in a blaze of anger,
+"I'll teach you to mind your own business, and let other people's
+quarrels alone." And, suiting his action to his words, he struck Mike
+in the face so hard that the blood ran from his nose in a stream.
+
+Well, what do you think Mike did, then? I know what some boys would
+have done, if they had been in his place. They would have struck
+Jacob, at any cost. That is the way they would have taken their
+revenge. That is the way, indeed, that Mike's school-fellows advised
+him to take his revenge. Half a dozen of them, at least, surrounded
+him, and urged him to flog Jacob.
+
+"I'd pay him off for it," said one.
+
+"The rascal!" said another. "I'd make him smart for it."
+
+"And we'll all stand by you," said one, "if you'll flog him."
+
+"Mike wasn't a bit to blame, either," added another. "If I were in his
+place, if I wouldn't make Jake see stars, then--"
+
+The remainder of the speech was lost to every body but the speaker, as
+all the boys, by this time, were talking at once. It is a wonder to
+me that they did not take the matter altogether into their own hands,
+and give Jake the flogging which they thought he so richly deserved;
+for Michael was a great favorite among them, and they could not bear
+to see him abused. But I believe they contented themselves with
+letting off ever so many vials of wrath, in the shape of words; and
+Jake Grumble, finding how matters stood, walked sulkily away.
+
+"Now, Mike, what are you going to do?" asked one of the boys.
+
+"Do about what?" asked the injured boy.
+
+"About the bloody nose that Jake gave you," was the reply.
+
+"I'm going to see if I can't stop its bleeding," said Mike.
+
+"No, I don't mean that," said the other. "I mean what are you going to
+do to Jake?"
+
+"Oh," said Mike, "I guess I'll pay him off, one of these days."
+
+"And why not now?" the boy asked.
+
+"I've got as much on my hands as I can attend to, just now," said
+Mike.
+
+How do you suppose Jake felt, that day, after his cruel treatment of
+one of his playmates? What do you suppose were his feelings, when he
+found out what all the boys thought of his conduct; and when he had
+time to reflect upon the folly and wickedness of what he had done?
+Perhaps you can guess pretty well how he felt. Possibly you have
+yourself wronged some one of your playmates, and recollect how you
+felt about it, when you had a chance to get away somewhere, alone, to
+think over your conduct. If so, you can give a pretty rational guess
+as to the kind of feelings that were at work in Jake's bosom, on his
+way home from school that day.
+
+He did not go home in company with the rest of the boys and girls who
+went in the same direction. He was in the habit of doing so. But he
+felt so much ashamed on account of what he had done, that he could not
+bear to see the faces of any of the children.
+
+Instead of taking the public road that led directly to his father's
+house, he went through the gate that led into Deacon Stark's pasture,
+and followed the cart-path through the woods. It was a great deal
+farther that way. But he went through the woods so as to get clear of
+his playmates. One of the deacon's hired men saw the boy, leaning
+against the fence, just at the edge of the woods. Poor fellow! he was
+crying, as if his heart would break. So the man said. Jake got the
+worst of it, in that affair. Don't you think he did?
+
+But I have not got through with the story yet, and I must go on with
+it.
+
+   [Illustration: A CRYING SPELL.]
+
+Time passed on--days, weeks, and even months, came and went--but
+Mike did not "pay off" the boy who had so unjustly abused him. His
+companions urged him to do it, until they got out of patience, and
+concluded to give the matter up.
+
+As for Jake, it was as much as he could do to look Mike in the face.
+He avoided him, as much as possible, and seemed to be unhappy whenever
+he came near him. But Mike, on his part, treated the boy who had
+injured him just as if nothing had happened.
+
+I have often noticed, that where there has been any difficulty
+between two persons, the one who was at fault is more apt to cherish
+unkind feelings than the one who was innocent. It was so in this case.
+Jacob treated Michael as if it were Michael rather than himself, who
+had been in the wrong. He never spoke to him, when he could help it;
+and when he did say any thing to him, he spoke peevishly, and pressed
+the words between his teeth, as if he had the lockjaw.
+
+One day, during that interesting season of the year when the farmers
+are busy making hay, Jake had occasion to pass through Mr. Marble's
+meadow, with his fishing rod, on his way to the "deep hole," where, as
+every body in the neighborhood knew, multitudes of sun fish and perch
+were always to be found, ready for a nice bit of an angle-worm.
+
+Jake, being a little thirsty--for it was a very warm day--went up to
+the tree under which Mr. Marble kept the refreshments for his hired
+men, and took up the wooden bottle to drink. There was nothing wrong,
+perhaps, in the liberty he took, though I think it would have been
+quite as well, if he had asked Mr. Marble's consent in the first
+place. But we will let that pass. Jake had a different way of doing
+things.
+
+As I said, he took up the bottle to drink. But the moment he did so,
+Ranter, Mr. Marble's old dog, who lay under the tree, where he had
+been stationed to keep watch, thinking his master's property was in
+danger, flew at the boy, and caught him by the arm. Poor Jake! he
+yelled lustily, you may be sure. But it did no good. Ranter held him
+in his jaws, as tight as if he were a woodchuck or a rabbit, instead
+of a school-boy.
+
+Mike was spreading hay, at the time, some twenty yards off, or more
+and hearing the boy crying for help, and looking in the direction from
+which the voice came, he saw Jake fast in the clutches of the dog. In
+an instant he shouted, as loud as he could scream, "Here, Ranter!
+here, Ranter!" and in another instant, Ranter let go of the poor boy,
+and bounded away towards his young master.
+
+Jake, as you may suppose, and as Mike found, when he went to him, was
+very badly bitten. The blood ran from his arm quite as freely as it
+did from Mike's nose, some time before that.
+
+"Did Ranter hurt you much?" asked Mike, kindly.
+
+"Very badly, I'm afraid," said Jake, almost frantic with pain and
+fright.
+
+Mike said he was sorry, and expressed his wonder that Ranter could be
+so cruel. Then he ran and called his father, who was busy in another
+part of the meadow, when the accident happened, and who did not hear
+Jake's call for help. Mr. Marble had the boy taken to his house,
+where his wound was nicely dressed, and where the utmost care was
+taken of him by the whole family, among whom Mike was the foremost. It
+was two or three days before it was thought prudent to remove the
+sufferer to his father's house; and during that time there was no one,
+not even Jacob's own mother, who was more kind and attentive to him
+than Mike Marble.
+
+The time came when the wounded boy was able to go home. An hour or two
+before the wagon was to come for him, he was sitting in an easy
+chair, with the wounded arm lying on a pillow, and Mike, as usual, was
+at his side. There happened to be no one else in the chamber besides
+the two boys.
+
+"Mike," said the other, "I want to say something to you."
+
+"What is it?" asked Mike.
+
+"I don't know how to say it," was the answer.
+
+And there was a pause. Jacob had undertaken a task which was entirely
+new to him, and he did not know how to begin it. At length he tried
+again:
+
+"Mike," said he, "I struck you once--it was a good while ago--do you
+remember it?"
+
+"Yes," Mike said.
+
+"Well, I am sorry I struck you," said Jacob, and burst into tears.
+
+"I knew you were sorry," said Mike, "and I have forgiven you, long
+ago."
+
+"_Do_ you forgive me?" asked Jacob, earnestly.
+
+"I do, from my heart," said Mike.
+
+Then followed another flood of tears. This time it was a good while
+before Jacob could speak, so as to be understood, and when he did
+speak, it was only to say,
+
+"Oh, Mike, you are _so_ kind! You seem like a brother to me."
+
+Jacob's father came into the room just at this moment, and nothing
+more was said by either of the boys on the subject which so deeply
+affected Jacob. But Mike saw, plainly enough, that the heart of the
+boy who had injured him was melted, and he was satisfied.
+
+How warmly Jacob pressed Mike's hand, when he bade him "good bye," and
+started for home.
+
+Not long after that, Mike met one of the boys who had urged him so
+strongly to return the blow that Jacob gave him.
+
+"Well," said Mike, "I've done it."
+
+"Done what?" asked the other boy.
+
+"Paid him off," said Mike.
+
+"What, Jake Grumble?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Good. Tell me all about it."
+
+And Mike did tell him all about it.
+
+"Well, I do say for it, Mike," said the other boy, after listening to
+the whole story, "you are just the queerest fellow that I ever saw or
+heard of."
+
+"But don't you think that was about the best way to pay him off,
+after all?" asked Mike.
+
+"Well," said the other boy, after a moment's pause, "I declare I don't
+know but it was, when I come to think of it."
+
+And don't _you_ think it was the best way to pay him off, reader? I
+do, and I should be glad if every body would learn to pay such debts
+in very much the same way. It may be a very queer mode of taking
+revenge. But it seems to me quite a sensible one; and I am sure it is
+a thousand times better than the mode that people so often choose. If
+I am not greatly mistaken, indeed, it is just the mode that is
+recommended in the word of God, which says, "If thine enemy hunger,
+feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink; for, in so doing, thou
+shalt heap coals of fire on his head."
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. VII.
+
+MIKE'S CROTCHETS IN WAR-TIME.
+
+
+You have heard a great deal about the Revolutionary War. You have
+heard what hardships our forefathers went through, while they were
+fighting the battles of liberty. But I doubt if you can form, in your
+own mind, any thing like a true picture of what those brave men
+suffered. Why, many of them had to go barefoot, for whole weeks at a
+time, right in the heart of winter. They could hardly get food to eat;
+and many and many a time, if it had not been for the thought that they
+were engaged in a good cause, and that God was on their side, they
+must have been discouraged, and given up all as lost. But they did not
+give up. They stood firm at their post, until they either fell before
+their enemies, or perished by fatigue and exposure.
+
+When the tidings came to the neighborhood where Mike Marble lived,
+that Washington's noble band were suffering every thing but death at
+Valley Forge, every man and woman, that could boast of any thing in
+the shape of a heart, were moved with pity. And they were not the
+people to let their kind feelings go off in fog and smoke. They were
+not blustering people. They believed in _acting_, as well as in
+_talking_. When they had heard the sad news, the next question was,
+"Can we _do_ any thing?" That question was soon answered. The next
+was, "_What_ can we do?" Well, it was pretty soon found out that all
+could do something--that some could do one thing, and some another;
+but that every family in the parish could do something.
+
+So they went to work. The mothers and daughters went to knitting
+stockings, and making under garments for the soldiers. Every chest of
+drawers, and wardrobe, and closet in the house was ransacked, to find
+bed-quilts and blankets for the army. And the fathers and sons, they
+went to work, with a right good will, to get shoes, and hats, and
+coats, and other articles of wearing apparel, so as to have them ready
+at the time the agent from the commander-in-chief should pass through
+the place.
+
+The younger branches of the families in that neighborhood, too, caught
+the spirit of their fathers and mothers. I must tell you a story about
+the agency of the little folks in furnishing supplies for the army.
+
+Mike Marble asked his father, one day, if he might call a meeting of
+the boys and girls at his house, to talk over war matters. The old man
+laughed, and said he might, if he chose. "But what do you children
+expect to do for the army, Mike?" he added. "What can you do, I
+should like to know?"
+
+"I don't know, father," was the reply, "but I guess we can all do
+something; I'm pretty sure I can, for one."
+
+Well, the meeting was called. The schoolmaster gave out notice, one
+afternoon, that all the boys and girls were invited to Mr. Marcus
+Marble's house, the next Wednesday, at "early candlelight," and, to
+quote the precise language of Mike's invitation--for he had it all
+written out, and the schoolmaster read it word for word--that business
+of importance would be brought before the meeting, which would be
+made known at that time.
+
+When the hour of "early candlelight" arrived, and, indeed, before the
+hour of late daylight had closed, there was a crowd of boys and girls
+assembled in Mr. Marble's kitchen, to talk over matters and things
+about the war. They appointed a chairman, (if chairman he could be
+called, who had numbered less than a dozen summers,) the object of the
+meeting was stated, and they went as orderly to work in their
+deliberations, as if they had been playing statesmen for half a
+century. Only one grown person--Mr. Marble--was admitted into the
+kitchen, and he was there only as a listener. He did not take any part
+in the proceedings.
+
+My grandfather was the chairman of the evening, and the principal
+orator was Mike Marble. His speech at the time was not reported, nor
+have I any notes of it at hand. But my grandfather used to say it was
+one of the most eloquent addresses he ever heard in his life. I can
+easily believe it. One half of what is necessary in an orator is _to
+feel_ what he says. If he feels, it is not so much, matter in what
+shape the words come from his mouth. I am a firm believer in a good
+style. People who speak in public ought to use chaste and elegant
+language. But a good style, and ever so good a delivery, are worth but
+little, unless the speaker has a soul, and unless he can make his
+hearers feel because he feels.
+
+Mike was in earnest. It looked a little like boy's play, to be sure,
+to see that group of children there, talking about great principles.
+But it was something more than play. Mike was in earnest, and his
+words, as he was describing the sufferings of the army at Valley
+Forge, came warm and flowing from his heart. If the character of a
+speech can be judged of from the effect it has, certainly the one from
+Mike Marble deserves a high rank; for he carried all the boys and
+girls along with him. Other speeches were made; but Mike was the
+Webster of the evening.
+
+Well, what do you think that little band of patriots resolved to do? I
+doubt whether you can guess. The first thing they did was to find out
+how much cash each one had laid aside, to be used for spending money
+on such occasions as Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and Training day.
+
+"For my part," said Mike, "I would rather never spend another cent for
+sugar plums in my life, than to have the soldiers go barefoot on the
+snow. I tell you what it is, fellow-countrymen--(Mr. Marble was
+observed by the chairman to bite his lips, to keep in a good round
+laugh, when those words, _fellow-countrymen_, came out)--I tell you
+what it is, the things that are wanted now are boots, and shoes, and
+stockings, and jackets--and not gingerbread, and sugar plums, and
+spruce beer, and gimcracks of that kind."
+
+When the little patriots came to count up their money, they found it
+amounted to more than ten dollars. And it was none of your paltry
+continental stuff. It was all made up of good hard silver and copper.
+
+The next thing they did was to appoint a treasurer, to take charge of
+the money, and to see that it was paid over to Washington's agent, who
+was to be instructed to pay it all out in shoes. And that was not all
+these young statesmen did. They resolved that they would give to the
+army every cent of all the spending money they might get, as long as
+the war lasted. Didn't they do their work pretty well, my little lad?
+I think they did. They did what they could. La Fayette and Washington
+did no more. You will smile when I tell you one thing which was
+proposed that evening. One of the boys thought it would be a good plan
+to turn over to the poor soldiers all the stockings and shoes
+belonging to the assembly. He thought they could get along better
+walking on the snow with their bare feet, than the troops could. But
+some one, with a little more forethought than this generous-hearted
+speaker, suggested that the soldiers at Valley Forge would find it
+difficult to get on such stockings and shoes as the Blue Hill boys had
+to bestow. So that scheme failed. But it shows what stuff those lads
+were made of. It shows what kind, generous, noble, self-denying hearts
+beat in their bosoms.
+
+I declare to you I am more than ever proud of my native land, when I
+think what our ancestors did, in old times, to obtain our freedom for
+us. God grant that we may know how to value our blessings, that we may
+ever be thankful for them, and that we may not abuse the liberty that
+has been given to us. I do not want my young readers to grow up, with
+their hearts full of the spirit of war. I love peace more than war.
+War I know to be a terrible thing. Seldom, very seldom would I go to
+war--never, unless for some great principle, such as that for which
+our forefathers contended. No, I do not wish to have you get your
+heads and hearts full of the war spirit. But I do want you to be
+patriots. I want you to love your country; to be willing to make
+sacrifices for it; to look upon it as the brightest and dearest spot
+on earth. Our liberty cost a great deal--a great deal of money, of
+hardship, of suffering, and, what is more valuable than all, a great
+deal of blood. It cost too much to be lightly valued--too much to be
+trifled with. Take care that you never get into the habit which some,
+who are much older than you, have fallen into, of looking upon the
+union of these states as a matter, after all has been said and done,
+of not much consequence. I tell you the bonds which bind us together
+is a sacred one; and, next to the tie which binds us together in
+families, ought to be, to you and to me, the dearest tie on earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. VIII.
+
+THE BUMBLE-BEES' NEST.
+
+
+All the boys and girls who live in the country, and probably a large
+share of those who live in the city, know the bumble-bee. We had a
+little different name for him in our neighborhood. _Bumble-bee_ was,
+however, the only name the family was known by, in Willow Lane, and I
+think it quite possible that such a corruption, (if it is a
+corruption, and the wise ones tell us it is, though I should like to
+see them beat the notion into the head of any one of the hundred
+children who went to our school,) is very common in New England.
+
+The nests of these insects, you may not be aware, are made in the
+ground. These nests are frequently found in meadows, about the time
+the grass is mowed; and it not unfrequently happens that the mower
+disturbs one of these nests with his scythe, in which case, the first
+information the poor man obtains of the existence of the nest is from
+a score or two of the bumble-bees themselves--(we'll call them
+_bumble-bees_, for the sake of peace, though I must confess I feel a
+great partiality for the name by which I knew the rogues when I used
+to be familiar with their nests)--the bumble-bees themselves, who fly
+into his face, before he has time to retreat, and sting him until they
+get tired of the sport.
+
+In these nests, there is usually more or less honey. Sometimes there
+is half a pint, or more. This honey is very palatable; and it is not
+an uncommon thing for children to brave the danger of being stung by
+the bees, for the sake of capturing a nest and getting possession of
+its treasures. For myself, I never was ambitious of getting renown by
+such means as besieging a bumble-bee's nest.
+
+I'll tell you what I did perform, though, once on a time, which was
+closely connected with the race of insects I am speaking of. It is a
+common tradition among country boys, that white-faced bumble-bees
+never sting, and that you can take them in your hands with perfect
+safety. This tradition may have truth at the bottom of it, or it may
+not. I cannot tell, and I shall not stop to debate the question now.
+It is certain that there is an insect, very much resembling the
+bumble-bee, and of about the same size, who, nevertheless, is a very
+different fellow. This is the chap that bores holes into dry wood, as
+nicely as you can bore with a gimlet, on which account he is sometimes
+called the borer. This insect does not sting. No thanks to him,
+though, for not stinging. He has no instrument to sting with. For
+aught I know, he may have ever so good a _will_ to sting; but he has
+no _power_ to do so, any more than a grasshopper or a butterfly.
+
+Well, I wanted to show some of the boys, one day, how smart I was. I
+had an idea that I could teach them something, and at the same time
+get the credit for a little bit of bravery.
+
+"Do you see that saucy chap there," I asked, "on that clover blossom?"
+
+"Yes," said one of the boys, "it is a bumble-bee." This time I must be
+permitted to say the spelling of the word, because the boys in
+pronouncing it, give the sound of the _b_, and I, as a historian,
+must report their conversation faithfully.
+
+"Well." I said, "what will you give me, if I'll take this fellow in my
+hand."
+
+It was intimated that nothing could be expected from the boys, but
+that the bumble-bee would be likely to give me something which I would
+remember, until "the cows came home." I don't know what period in the
+future that intended to point to, but I know that was a common
+expression among us all--one which we used, I suppose, without
+stopping to think what it meant, or how it got into use.
+
+"I dare do it," I said. I was as bold as a lion.
+
+"You had better not," said the boys.
+
+I did it, though. I caught the bumble-bee, and held him fast in my
+hand. But if ever a poor fellow got handsomely and foolishly stung, I
+was that unfortunate youth; and the worst of it was, that while I was
+dancing about, and wringing my hand, and crying, on account of the
+pain, my companions were doing quite another thing: they were holding
+a laughing concert, at my expense.
+
+It is hardly necessary to add, that my white-faced bumble-bee turned
+out to be an enemy in disguise. After that event, I made a closer
+examination of the faces of this class of insects, and became
+satisfied that there was one tribe of bumble-bees who wore a face of a
+pale yellow color, resembling somewhat the genuine borer, but who, for
+all that, could sting as well as any of their race with black faces.
+
+This feat was as near as I ever got toward the glory of capturing a
+nest of bumble-bees. I have tasted the honey which came from their
+nests, though, many a time, and I have seen other boys capture the
+nests.
+
+Billy Bolton was a great fellow at that kind of sport. Billy lived
+with Uncle Mike. He did _chores_--to use a word common enough in New
+England, though, possibly, not an elegant one--on Mr. Marble's farm;
+that is, he went for the cows and drove them to pasture, fed the pigs
+and poultry, brought water and chips for the "women folks," and ran of
+errands.
+
+It was a favorite sport with Billy, in the summer time, to hunt for
+bumble-bees' nests, and to "take them up," as the process of capturing
+them was called. Uncle Mike did not like to indulge the boy in this
+kind of sport. Perhaps he thought it a cruel and unfeeling kind of
+fun; and I know he had too kind a heart, to see a boy growing up in
+his family with a taste for cruelty to animals of any kind. At any
+rate, the danger connected with the sport was enough to condemn it in
+the mind of Mr. Marble.
+
+He had forbidden Billy and his own children having any thing to do
+with the sport. Still, it seemed Billy found means to amuse himself,
+now and then, in a sly way, by taking up a bumble-bees' nest.
+
+One day, Mr. Marble and his men were engaged in the meadow, raking hay
+and carting it into the barn. Billy was in the meadow, too, at work
+among the hay, raking after the cart, I presume, as that used to be
+the task always allotted to me when I was of his age. In a corner of
+the lot, at some distance from the place where Mr. Marble and his men
+were at work, there was a large bottle containing water--nothing but
+water, reader; there was no rum drank on Mr. Marble's farm. Billy was
+sent after the bottle. He was gone a good while--longer, Mr. Marble
+thought, than was necessary. The matter was examined, when it turned
+out that Billy had got into trouble with a nest of bumble-bees. He had
+discovered a nest of these wretches, it appears; and, the temptation
+to wage war against them being very strong, he had stopped a moment,
+just to take up the nest.
+
+Poor fellow! It proved to be a _taking in_, instead of a _taking up_,
+and the taking in was on the other side. When he saw that the
+bumble-bees had outwitted him, he snatched up the bottle, which he had
+thrown down, and which was lying near, and ran, as fast as his legs
+would let him, towards the place where the men were at work. But the
+bees flew faster than he could run. It was a comic scene enough to see
+the fellow running at the top of his speed, and some fifty bumble-bees
+after him, once in a while giving expression to their feelings, by
+saluting him, in their peculiar way, in the face and on the neck.
+Didn't the poor fellow scream?
+
+   [Illustration: PAYING FOR MISCHIEF.]
+
+But this was not the whole of the joke. Indeed, it was hardly the
+richest part of it. Mr. Marble, who saw what was going on, stood ready
+with his cart whip; and when Billy made his appearance, with a
+regiment of bumble-bees about his ears, he commenced beating him with
+the whip. Away ran the boy, and Mr. Marble chased him some half a
+dozen rods, and gave him about as many blows with the cart whip.
+
+"There, you young rogue!" said Mr. Marble, as he turned to go back to
+his work again, "between me and the bumble-bees, I guess you have
+learned one good lesson thoroughly this afternoon. You will be a wiser
+boy, I think, after this. You will be a _smarter_ one, I'm sure; at
+least, for a while."
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. IX.
+
+HOW A BARN WAS BUILT.
+
+
+Mike Marble, as I think I have said before, was a kind-hearted man.
+But he had his own way of doing every thing, and that way was very
+generally quite unlike most other people's way. No man ever liked
+better to do any body a good turn. But he had his crotchets about an
+act of charity, as well as about every thing else.
+
+A neighbor went to him once, to ask him for some money to aid him in
+building a barn. The old one had burned down, and it was a great loss
+to him, he said. He hardly knew how he should get along, unless his
+neighbor loaned him a little money.
+
+But Uncle Mike refused the neighbor's petition. "Money was scarce,
+very scarce." That was all the answer the unfortunate man could get
+from Mike Marble.
+
+"This is strange enough," he mused in his own mind, as he walked away
+from Mr. Marble's door. "Strange enough! so kind-hearted and generous
+as he always has been, when any body was in distress."
+
+The next day, however, bright and early, Uncle Mike yoked up his oxen,
+(some three pairs, I believe, including the _steers_, which needed
+something more than _moral suasion_ to keep them straight,) fastened
+them to the cart, and posted off, with two or three men, to the saw
+mill. There he and his men loaded the cart with boards and planks.
+Then he drove straight to the house of the unfortunate neighbor,
+opened the great gate, without saying a word to any member of the
+family, went into the door yard with his load, and threw it off within
+a few yards of the spot where the old barn stood.
+
+"What on earth does all that mean?" thought the female portion of the
+family. The farmer and his boys were not at home at the time. Nothing
+was said, however.
+
+Again Uncle Mike drove over to the mill; again he put on a load of
+timber; again he threw it off near the site of the old barn. Three
+loads were discharged there, and then he directed his men to go home
+with the team. He himself went to one of his neighbors, and asked him
+if he had any timber of any kind already sawed at Squire Murdock's
+mill.
+
+"Yes," was the answer, "a little; why?"
+
+"Well, I want some of it, if it's the right kind. What is it?"
+
+"I don't recollect exactly--some white oak joists, I guess, and some
+inch boards."
+
+"Good. Just what I want."
+
+Suffice it to say, that Mike Marble did not leave his neighbor before
+he got a promise from him that he would contribute a load or two of
+his timber to rebuild that barn. Then he went to another neighbor, and
+another, and did something like the same errand, with very much the
+same sort of success. He called on a _boss_ carpenter, too, and
+secured his services in framing the barn; and, on his way home, he
+stopped at Slocum's blacksmith's shop, and got the promise of some
+nails.
+
+Well, it was not long before the neighbors were all called together to
+raise Deacon Metcalf's barn, and it was not long after that before
+the building was ready for use. And how much do you think it cost him?
+Not a cent--not a single cent, the neighbors managed the thing so
+well. Even the good things on the supper table, when they had their
+"raising bee," were sent in by the neighbors.
+
+And the whole scheme, you see, came from the crotchety brain of our
+friend, Mike Marble. That was his way of building a neighbor's barn,
+when any help was needed for that purpose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. X.
+
+ANOTHER BLOCK OF MARBLE.
+
+
+This story about the building of the deacon's barn brings to my mind
+another, pretty closely related to it. Will you hear that, too?
+
+One morning, as Uncle Mike was walking out, he saw a boy sitting down
+on the door steps of one of his neighbors. Upon a closer inspection of
+the lad it appeared that he was a poor boy, without any parents,
+who was wandering about, doing odd jobs, here and there, and getting
+what people had a mind to pay him for his services.
+
+   [Illustration: MIKE MARBLE AND THE BEGGAR.]
+
+He was not a common vagrant, exactly, and yet he came very near being
+one. It was not supposed that he was a vicious boy; still it could not
+be denied that the life he led was tolerably well calculated to make
+him vicious, and most of the neighbors were afraid to have him about
+their houses, without keeping a sharp look out on his movements.
+
+Mr. Marble had heard of the lad, though it so happened that he had
+never met him until this time.
+
+"Hallo, there, my boy!" said Uncle Mike, "what are you so busy about?"
+
+"Eating a cold johnny-cake, sir," was the laconic answer.
+
+"And how do you like it?"
+
+"Pretty well, though I guess a little butter wouldn't hurt it."
+
+"Look here, my lad," said Uncle Mike, "what do you do generally for a
+living?"
+
+"A little of every thing."
+
+"Are you willing to work?"
+
+"Yes, sir, if I can get any thing for it."
+
+"Will you work for me?"
+
+"I wouldn't mind trying it."
+
+"I am a hard-working man. Will you work like a dog, if I'll let you
+try?"
+
+"Please, sir, I'd rather work like a boy."
+
+"Good. You shall go home with me."
+
+And he took the boy home with him. The first thing he set him about
+was weeding the onion bed. It was hard work, as I know from
+experience. Oh, how it makes a poor fellow's back ache, to stoop down
+and weed onions for half a day. You must know that you can't use the
+hoe more than about a quarter of the time. If you could, the work
+would be comparatively easy and pleasant. But you can't do that. You
+must bend right down to the task, as if you really loved the onions,
+and were nursing them, as a fond mother nurses a pet child.
+
+"Well, Fred," said the old gentleman, when the dinner horn blew its
+blast of invitation for the workmen to come in and pay their respects
+to Mrs. Marble's boiled pork and cabbage, "well, Fred, how do you like
+weeding onion beds?"
+
+"Very well, sir," said the boy.
+
+"And would you like to keep at it all the afternoon?"
+
+"I would like to please you, sir. That's what I came here for."
+
+The old man was so much delighted with this answer, that he not only
+laughed at it all the time he was at dinner, but he told it all over
+the neighborhood in less than a week.
+
+"Well, Fred," said he, "I guess you've done enough of that sort of
+work for one day. I want you to do two or three errands after you have
+done your dinner."
+
+And he sent the lad to I don't know how many different places, to do
+all sorts of errands. Among other things he directed him to do, was to
+go to the store with money, to purchase some little articles for his
+wife. You see the old man wanted to try the new comer, and see if he
+was faithful.
+
+Well, every thing was done properly, and Uncle Mike was satisfied.
+
+The next day, Fred had other tasks given to him. His employer
+selected those which were hardest and most unpleasant, as he said, "to
+break the little fellow in." I'll tell you one thing he did. He sent
+him out to catch the old mare. Now the old mare had a knack of kicking
+those who came to catch her, when she was not perfectly satisfied with
+their mode of doing the business; and she did not at all like the sly
+and timid way in which Fred came up to her, with the bridle concealed
+behind his back. She was a great lover of fair and open dealing;
+though, like some others of her race, that I am acquainted with, as
+well as some who belong to quite a different race, and who have the
+name of being a good deal wiser, she did not always practice herself
+the virtues she so highly commended in others.
+
+She waited until the lad had got within a few feet of her, and then
+she whirled round, before the poor fellow, who was half frightened out
+of his wits, could have time to get out of her way, and let her heels
+fly into the air over his head. It was well for the boy that she took
+her aim so high. If it had been a foot or two lower, the _breaking
+in_ would have been an expensive one to Fred--a very expensive one,
+indeed.
+
+In such ways as those I have named, and in a great many other ways,
+which I need not name, Uncle Mike tried the boy, to see what he was
+made of. He found out, before long, what he was made of. He found out
+that there was just such stuff in him as he liked. The more he tried
+him--the more he "broke him in"--the better he was pleased with him.
+
+Well, I'll tell you how that affair with the beggar turned--for I
+must not make too long a story of it--Uncle Mike brought up the lad.
+He taught him all the mysteries of farming, and treated him as if he
+were a member of his own family--one of his own children--until he was
+twenty-one. Then he told him he was free to go where he chose. He gave
+him a hundred dollars in money, a yoke of oxen, a fine colt, and, what
+was of more value than all, his blessing.
+
+   [Illustration: MIKE MARBLE IN HIS OLD AGE.]
+
+And what do you think became of Fred? He turned out to be not only a
+good farmer, but a good neighbor, and a good man, every way. That
+same man, who was once a beggar, and who, but for Uncle Mike's odd way
+of doing a kind act for him, might have remained a beggar, is now one
+of the most highly respected men in his parish, with enough property
+to make him and his family comfortable, as well as some to spare for
+the comfort of others.
+
+
+
+
+CHAP. XI.
+
+MIKE MARBLE'S LAST DAYS.
+
+
+I should love to chat about my old friend a good while longer. But
+perhaps I had better stop, for fear you may get tired of the theme. I
+must tell you a little about his old age, then I will leave off.
+
+He was one of the happiest old men I ever knew. He was always
+cheerful. One could never meet him in the street, and look into his
+pleasant face, without catching something of his cheerfulness. Bad
+humor is catching, you know, as much as the small pox, or the canker
+rash, and so is good humor, too. At all events, I remember that once,
+when I felt ever so much "out of sorts," because things did not go
+right, I came across Uncle Mike, on my way to school, and a chat of
+about half a minute completely sweetened my temper.
+
+There was nothing which Uncle Mike liked better, after his hair--the
+little hair that time had spared to him--was whitened with age, than
+to have a group of children about him, coaxing him to tell them
+stories.
+
+Dear old man! my heart blesses him now, as my memory recalls the
+scenes in which he used to take a part. With all his oddities and
+crotchets, he always had a kind and warm heart beating in his bosom. I
+don't believe that he ever had an enemy in the world. Every body, it
+always seemed to me, respected him, and those who knew him most, loved
+him best.
+
+He possessed an art which is worth more than the finest farm in
+America. It was the art of being happy himself, and of making others
+happy. He was never out of humor. Nobody could get him into a passion.
+I never heard of his having wounded the feelings of a single
+individual, during all the time that I was acquainted with him.
+
+Now some people will say, "Oh, it was Mike Marble's way. That was his
+disposition. He could not help being good-natured. It came natural to
+him to make friends. It was as easy for him to scatter happiness all
+around him, as it was to breathe." I don't know about all that. There
+may have been something--probably there was something--in Mike
+Marble's natural disposition, which was pleasant and cheerful. But I
+guess it cost him some effort to live in the sunshine so constantly.
+There is such a thing, reader--and I hope you will mark these words
+well--there is such a thing as keeping the heart fresh, and green, and
+tender, and loving, by one's own effort; and there is such a thing,
+too, as letting the heart, by neglect and want of culture, become old
+before its time, and dry, and tough, and crabbed. You can school your
+affections. Did you know that? I'll tell you how to dry up all the
+love and kindness you may have. Shut up your heart, as an oyster does
+its shell. Shut it up, and be selfish. Do so, and you will soon be
+sick enough of the world, and the world will be sick enough of you.
+But I would not do that, if I were in your place. I would advise you
+to try to keep the heart open, by doing all the kind acts you can. But
+I must end my tale of Mike Marble.
+
+Dear old man! He has gone to his rest. His voice long since ceased to
+be heard on earth. He died as he lived--cheerfully and peacefully. The
+Saviour, in whom he had trusted, was with him in his dying hour, and I
+cannot doubt that that good man went to dwell with the angels.
+
+Reader, may you, like him, live a life of usefulness, and may you take
+your leave of the world as peacefully, as hopefully, as cheerfully, at
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+_Woodworth's Juvenile Works._
+
+PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.
+
+PUBLISH THE FOLLOWING JUVENILE WORKS,
+
+By Francis C. Woodworth,
+
+EDITOR OF "WOODWORTH'S YOUTH'S CABINET,"
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE WILLOW LANE BUDGET," "THE STRAWBERRY GIRL," "THE MILLER
+OF OUR VILLAGE," "THEODORE THINKER'S TALES," ETC. ETC.
+
+
+UNCLE FRANK'S BOYS' AND GIRLS' LIBRARY.
+
+    _A Beautiful Series, comprising six volumes, square 12mo., with
+    eight Tinted Engravings in each volume. The following are their
+    titles respectively_:
+
+I. THE PEDDLER'S BOY; or, I'LL BE SOMEBODY.
+
+II. THE DIVING BELL; or, PEARLS TO BE SOUGHT FOR.
+
+III. THE POOR ORGAN-GRINDER, AND OTHER STORIES.
+
+IV. OUR SUE: HER MOTTO AND ITS USES.
+
+V. MIKE MARBLE: HIS CROTCHETS AND ODDITIES.
+
+VI. THE WONDERFUL LETTER-BAG OF KIT CURIOUS.
+
+
+    "Woodworth is unquestionably and immeasurably the best writer
+    for children that we know of; for he combines a sturdy common
+    sense and varied information with a most childlike and loveful
+    spirit, that finds its way at once to the child's heart. We
+    regard him as one of the truest benefactors of his race; for he
+    is as wise as he is gentle, and never uses his power over the
+    child-heart, to instill into it the poison of false teaching, or
+    to cramp it with unlovely bigotry. The publishers have done
+    their part, as well as the author, to make these volumes
+    attractive. Altogether we regard them as one of the pleasantest
+    series of juvenile books extant, both in their literary
+    character and mechanical execution."--_Syracuse (N.Y.) Daily
+    Standard._
+
+WOODWORTH'S STORIES ABOUT ANIMALS. 12mo., with Illuminated Title, and
+upwards of Fifty Beautiful Engravings; pp. 336.
+
+WOODWORTH'S STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. Uniform with the above. With Sixty
+splendid Engravings; pp. 336.
+
+These two volumes, containing characteristic anecdotes, told in a racy
+and pleasing vein, are among the most entertaining books of the kind
+to be found in the English language.
+
+    "Attractive stories, told in a style of great liveliness and
+    beauty. As a writer for the young, the author is surpassed by
+    very few, if any writers in this country."--_N.Y. Tribune._
+
+    "A _melange_ of most agreeable reading."--_Presbyterian._
+
+    "They cannot fail to be intensely interesting."--_Ch. Register._
+
+    "Charming stories, told with that felicitous simplicity and
+    elegance of diction which characterize all Mr. Woodworth's
+    efforts for the young."--_N.Y. Commercial Advertiser._
+
+    "Nothing can be more interesting than the stories and pictorial
+    illustrations of these works."--_Brattleborough Dem._
+
+    "We never pen a notice with more pleasure than when any work of
+    our friend Mr. Woodworth is the subject. Whatever he does is
+    well done, and in a sweet and gentle spirit."--_Christ.
+    Inquirer._
+
+    "The author is a man of fine abilities and refined taste, and
+    does his work in a spirit of vivacious, but most truthful
+    earnestness."--_Ladies' Repos._
+
+
+UNCLE FRANK'S PEEP AT THE BEASTS. Square 12mo. Profusely Illustrated;
+pp. 160.
+
+UNCLE FRANK'S PEEP AT THE BIRDS. Uniform with the above; pp. 160.
+
+These two volumes are written in the simplest style, and with words,
+for the most part, of two and three syllables. They are exceedingly
+popular among children.
+
+    "Of those who have the gift to write for children, Mr. Woodworth
+    stands among the first; and, what is best of all, with the
+    ability to adapt himself to the wants and comprehension of
+    children, he has that high moral principle which will permit
+    nothing to leave his pen that can do harm."--_Arthur's Home
+    Gaz._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page  94: queston replaced with question                  |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike Marble, by Uncle Frank
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