University of Virginia Library

1. THE POOR RICH MAN,
AND THE
RICH POOR MAN.

1. CHAPTER I.
SCHOOL-DAYS.

Just out of the little village of Essex, in New
England, and just at the entrance of a rustic bridge,
there is a favourite resting-place for loiterers of all
ages. One of a line of logs that have been laid
down to enable passengers at high water to reach
the bridge dry-shod, affords an inviting seat under
the drooping limbs of some tall sycamores. There
the old sit down to rest their weary limbs, and
read with pensive eye the fond histories that memory
has written over the haunts of their secluded
lives. There, too, the young pause in their sports,
and hardly know why their eyes follow with such
delight the silvery little stream that steals away
from them, kissing the jutting points of the green
meadows, and winding and doubling its course as
if, like a pleased child, it would, by any pretext,
lengthen its stay;—nor, certainly, why no island
that water bounds will ever look so beautiful to
them as that little speck of one above the bridge,

with its burden of willows, elders, and clematis; of
a summer evening, their every leaf lit with the
firefly's lamp;—nor why their eye glances from
the white houses of the village street, glimmering
through the trees, and far away over the orchards
and waving grain of the uplands, and past the wavy
line of hills that bound the horizon on one side,
to fix on the bald gray peaks of that mountain wall
whose Indian story the poet has consecrated.
Time will solve to them this why.

Under those sycamores, on a certain afternoon
many years past, sat Charlotte May, a pale, sicklylooking
girl, talking with Harry Aikin; and beside
them Susan May, whose ruddy cheek, laughing eye,
and stocky little person presented an almost painful
contrast to her stricken sister. Charlotte was
examining with a very pleased countenance a new
little Bible, bound in red morocco. “Did Mr.
Reed give you your choice of the prizes, Harry?”
she asked.

“Oh, no; Mr. Reed is too much afraid of exciting
our emulation, or rivalry, as he calls it, for
that. He would not even call the books he gave
us prizes; but he just told us what virtue, or rather
quality, we had been most distinguished for.”

“I guess I know what yours was, Harry,” said
Susan May, looking up from weaving a wreath of
nightshade that grew about them.

“What do you guess, Susy?”

“Why, kindness to everybody!”

“No, not that.”

“Well, then, loving everybody.”

Harry laughed and shook his head. “No, nor
that, Susy;” and, opening to the first unprinted page

of the Bible, he pointed to the following testimony,
in his master's autograph. Charlotte read it
aloud: “It gives me great pleasure to record here
the diligence and success of my esteemed pupil,
Harry Aikin, and still more to testify to his strict
practice of the golden rule of this book, Do unto
others as ye would they should do unto you.”

“There, there! I knew I guessed right. You
know you couldn't do so if you didn't love everybody;
could he, Lottie?”

“You were not very far from right, Susan,” replied
her sister; “for I am sure Harry could not
do so much to make everybody happy if he did not
love almost everybody.”

“No, indeed, I do not; at least, I feel a great
difference. Do you think, for instance, I love
Morris Finley or Paulina Clark as well as I love
you and Susan? No, not by a sea-full. But, then,
it is very true, as mother used to tell me, if you
want to love people, or almost love them, just do
them a kindness, think how you can set about to
make them happier, and the love, or something
that will answer the purpose, will be pretty sure
to come.”

“It will,” said Charlotte, with a faint smile;
“otherwise how could we live up to the rule of
this book; and certainly God never gave us a law
that we could not obey if we would. O, Harry,
I am so glad you got the Bible instead of any of
the other books, for I know you will love it, and
study it, and live after it.”

“I will try, Lottie.”

“But, then, Harry, it seems to me those that
are well, and strong, and at ease, can never value

that book as those do who are always sick, and
suffering pain.”

It was the rarest thing in the world for Charlotte
to allude to her peculiar trials. Harry looked sad,
and little Susan, who had the most marvellous faculty
of seeing a bright side to every thing, said, in
a tender voice, and putting her arm round her sister's
neck,

“Then, Lottie, there is some comfort in being
sick, is not there?”

“There is, Susan; there is comfort when you
cannot eat, nor sleep, nor walk abroad in the pure
air, nor look out upon this beautiful world; when
neither doctors' skill nor friends' love can lessen
one pang, it is then comfort—it is life to the dead,
Susan, to read in this blessed book of God's goodness
and compassions; to sit, as it were, at the
feet of Jesus, and learn from him who brought life
and immortality to light; that there is a world
where there is no more sickness nor pain—where
all tears are wiped away.”

There was a pause, first broken by Susan asking
if those that were well and happy did not love
to read the Bible too.

“Oh, yes, indeed,” replied Harry; “I remember
mother used to say she read the Bible for every
thing—to make her wiser, and better, and happier.
I believe seeing mother so happy over it has
made me like it more.”

“I should think so,” said Susan; “I am sure I
should not love to read any thing that did not make
me happy—but here comes Morris; what book
did you get, Morris?”

“Bewick's History of Birds.”

“Oh, full of pictures—how lovely!” exclaimed
Susan, running over the leaves; “did Paulina
Clark get a book, Morris?”

“Yes, and she has changed it at Hutchinson's
store for a pink silk handkerchief.”

“How could she? I am sorry!” said Charlotte.

“It's just like her!” said Susan; and then, returning
Morris's book, she added, “after all, I had
rather have Harry's Bible.”

“The more goose you, then—my book cost
twice as much as his Bible.”

“Did it?” Susan was rather crestfallen.

“To be sure it did, and, what is more, I can
sell it for twice as much.”

“Ah, then I've caught you, sir; Harry would
not sell his Bible for any sum, so by your own
rule Harry's is worth the most!”

Morris was somewhat disconcerted. He resumed,
in a lowered tone, “Maybe I should not
sell it just for the dollar and a half; but, then, when
one knows the value of money, one does not like
to have so much lying idle. Money should work,
as father says. If you could reckon interest and
compound interest as well as I can, Miss Susan,
I guess you would not like to have your money
lying idle on a book-shelf!”

“I don't know what kind of interest compound
interest is, Morris; but I know the interest I take
in a pleasant book is better than a handful of
money, and if I only had the dollar and a half I
would give it to you in a minute for that book.”

“`Only had!' Ah, there's the rub! you people
that despise money never get it, and that is what
father always says.”

“`Despise it!”' repeated Susan, sighing as she
knelt on the log between Harry and her sister, and
bound over Charlotte's pale forehead the wreath
of ominous nightshade. “`Despise money,' Morris,
I would do any thing in the world to get enough
to take Lottie down to that wonderful New-York
doctor; but there's one comfort, Lottie,” she added,
brightening, “he might not cure you, and then we
should feel worse than ever.”

“What doctor is Sue speaking of?” asked
Harry, looking up eagerly from his Bible.

Charlotte explained that a cousin living in New-York
had written to her of a physician in the
city, who had been particularly successful in
treating diseases of the spine. Her cousin had
urged Charlotte's coming to the city, and had
kindly offered to receive the poor invalid at her
house. “Father,” she said, “talks of our going,
but I do not think we can make it out, so I don't
allow myself to think of it much; and when murmuring
thoughts rise, I remember how many rich
people there are who travel the world over, and
consult all the doctors, and are nothing bettered;
and so I put a little patience-salve on the aching
place, and that, as Susy would say, is a great comfort
when you can't get any thing else.”

“Yes—when you can't,” replied Harry, fixing
his eyes compassionately on Charlotte's face,
where, though the cheek was pale, and the eye
sunken, the health of the soul was apparent. “But
can't there be some way contrived?”

“We are trying our best at contrivance, Harry.
Father, you know, never has any thing ahead; but
he offered himself to let out old Jock by the day, and

save all he earns towards the journey; that will be
something. I have three dollars left of the last I ever
earned, and dear little Susy has given me five dollars,
which aunt Mary sent to buy her a cloak.”

“And how much will the journey cost, Charlotte?”

“Father says his last journey down to Barnstable
cost him but ten dollars besides the provision
and fodder he carried in the wagon. New-York
is not as far as Barnstable; but horse-keeping there
is terrible, and I dare not think what the doctor's
bill may be.”

“Oh,” thought Harry, “if I were only rich! if
I were only worth fifty dollars!” Money he had
none, but he ran over in his mind all his convertible
property. “There's Bounce (his dog); Squire
Allen offered me three dollars for Bounce—I
thought I would not sell him for a hundred, but he
shall have him—and I have been offered two dollars
for Sprite and Jumper (two black squirrels he
had tamed with infinite pains); and what else have
I?” He ran over his little possessions, his wearing
apparel, article by article; he had no superfluity—sundry
little keepsakes, but they were out of the
class of money-value articles—his Bible, it was
new and pretty, and would certainly bring a dollar.
He looked at it lovingly, and was obliged again to
look at Charlotte before he mentally added it to
the list. He resolved on his benevolent traffic,
and was just saying, “To-morrow, Charlotte, I think
I shall have something to add to your store,” when
Morris, who had taken a seat at some distance, and
seemed much absorbed, started up, exclaiming,

“Yes, in five years, at compound interest, I

shall have two dollars and a fraction—won't that
be a nest-egg, Harry Aikin?”

A tear in Charlotte's eye had already replied to
Harry, but any reply to Morris was cut off by the
appearance of Charlotte's father, Philip May, coming
down the road. Philip was a most inoffensive,
kind-hearted creature; and, though rather an
unproductive labourer in worldly matters, he had,
by dint of harming no one, and serving every one
rather better than himself, kept bright the links of
human brotherhood, and made them felt, too, for his
general appellation was “Uncle Phil.” As “Uncle
Phil” approached, it was apparent that the calm
current of his feelings had been ruffled. Little
Susan, her father's pet, with the unerring eye of a
loving child, was the first to perceive this. “What's
the matter, father?” she asked.

“Oh, dreadful bad news! I don't know how
you'll stand it, Charlotte”—the girls were breathless—“poor,
Jock is gone!”

“Gone, sir! how gone? what do you mean?”

“Clean gone!—drownded!”

“Drowned! oh, dear, how sorry I am!” and
“poor Jock!” was exclaimed and reiterated, while
Uncle Phil turned away to hide certain convulsive
twitches of his muscles.

“But it's some comfort, any how,” said Susan,
the first to recover herself, “that he was so old he
must have died of his own accord before long.”

“And that comfort you would have had if it had
been me instead of Jock, Susan.”

“Oh, father!”

“I did not mean nothing, child; I'm sure I
think it is kind of providential to have a lively disposition,

that's always rising over the top of every
trouble. But then it's so inconvenient to lose
Jock just now, when he's arning money for us;
and how in natur am I ever to get Charlotte to
New-York without him?”

“Don't think of that now, father; how did the
accident happen?”

“Ah, that's the onluckiest of all; it beats all
that Sam should be so careless. You know I let
Jock out to Sam Glover to plough his meadow—
you said, Charlotte, Jock looked too low in flesh for
hard work; I wish I had taken your warning! Well,
you see, when Sam went to dinner, he tied Jock close
by the river, and somehow the poor critter backed
down the bank into the river, and fell on his back,
and he was tied in such a fashion he could not
move one way or the other, and the water running
into his nostrils, and ears, and mouth—and when
Sam came back from dinner it was all over with
him.”

“Then,” said Morris, “it was wholly owing to
Sam Glover's carelessness?”

“To be sure, there was no need on't; if it had
been me, I should have calculated to tie the horse
so that if he did back into the river he could have
helped himself out.”

“Better have tied him where there was no danger
of such an accident, Uncle Phil.” Uncle Phil
was right in his calculations. What were accidents
to other men, made up the current of events
to him. “But,” proceeded Morris, “you can certainly
make Sam pay for the horse?” Uncle Phil
made no reply. “You mean to get it out of him,
don't you, Uncle Phil?”

“I kind o' hate to—Sam ain't rich.”

“No—but he is not poor. I heard him say to
father, when he was talking of buying the mountain
farm, that he had two hundred dollars clear of the
world.”

“He did not, did he?”

“He certainly did, and I don't see why you
should make him a present of your horse.”

“Nor do I see, father, why you should not be
just to yourself,” said Charlotte.

“Well, well, I calculate to do what's fair, all
round—but Sam felt bad, I tell you! and I did not
want to bear down on him; but when I've got the
mind of the street, I'll do something about speaking
to him.”

Charlotte mentally determined to keep her
father up to this resolution, the most energetic that
could be expected from him; and all lamenting the
fate of poor Jock, the parties separated and proceeded
homeward.