Little Peter: A Christmas Morality for Children of any Age Read online

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  A CHRISTMAS MORALITY

  Remember my ears are so quick I can hear the grass grow. _Frontispiece._]

 

  LITTLE PETER

  A Christmas Morality for Children of any Age

  By LUCAS MALET AUTHOR OF 'COLONEL ENDERBY'S WIFE' ETC.

 

  WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY PAUL HARDY

  LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1888

  TO CECILY IN TOKEN OF AFFECTION TOWARDS HERSELF, HER MOTHER, AND HER STATELY HOME THIS LITTLE STORY IS DEDICATED BY HER OBEDIENT SERVANT

  LUCAS MALET

  CONTENTS.

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. Which deals with the opinions of a Cat, and the sorrows of a Charcoal-burner 1

  II. Which introduces the Reader to an Admirer of the Ancient Romans 19

  III. Which improves our acquaintance with the Grasshopper-man 36

  IV. Which leaves some at Home, and takes some to Church 50

  V. Which is both Social and Religious 68

  VI. Which attempts to show why the Skies fall 84

  VII. Which describes a pleasant Dinner Party, and an unpleasant Walk 95

  VIII. Which proves that even Philosophic Politicians may have to admit themselves in the wrong 115

  IX. Which is very short because, in some ways, it is rather sad 132

  X. Which ends the Story 143

  _ILLUSTRATIONS._

  'Remember my ears are so quick I can hear the grass grow' _Frontispiece_

  'What will happen? please tell me' _To face p._ 10

  'Go to bed when you are told' " 34

  'You all despise me' " 66

  Going to Church " 72

  Lost " 110

  Waiting " 120

  Found " 138

  The Charcoal-burner visits Little Peter " 150

  Little Peter.]

  CHAPTER I.

  WHICH DEALS WITH THE OPINIONS OF A CAT, AND THE SORROWS OF A CHARCOALBURNER.

  The pine forest is a wonderful place. The pine-trees stand in rankslike the soldiers of some vast army, side by side, mile after mile, incompanies and regiments and battalions, all clothed in a sober uniformof green and grey. But they are unlike soldiers in this, that they areof all ages and sizes; some so small that the rabbits easily jumpover them in their play, and some so tall and stately that the fallof them is like the falling of a high tower. And the pine-trees areput to many different uses. They are made into masts for the gallantships that sail out and away to distant ports across the great ocean.Others are sawn into planks, and used for the building of sheds; forthe rafters and flooring, and clap-boards and woodwork of our houses;for railway-sleepers, and scaffoldings, and hoardings. Others arepolished and fashioned into articles of furniture. Turpentine comesfrom them, which the artist uses with his colours, and the doctor inhis medicines; which is used, too, in the cleaning of stuffs and in ahundred different ways. While the pine-cones, and broken branches andwaste wood, make bright crackling fires by which to warm ourselves on awinter's day.

  But there is something more than just this I should like you to thinkabout in connection with the pine forest; for it, like everything elsethat is fair and noble in nature, has a strange and precious secret ofits own.

  You may learn the many uses of the trees in your school books, whenmen have cut them down or grubbed them up, or poked holes in theirpoor sides to let the turpentine run out. But you can only learn thesecret of the forest itself by listening humbly and reverently for itto speak to you. For Nature is a very great lady, grander and moremagnificent than all the queens who have lived in sumptuous palaces andreigned over famous kingdoms since the world began; and though she willbe very kind and gracious to children who come and ask her questionsmodestly and prettily, and will show them the most lovely sights andtell them the most delicious fairy tales that ever were seen or heard,she makes very short work with conceited and impudent persons. Shecovers their eyes and stops their ears, so that they can never see herwonderful treasures or hear her charming stories, but live, all theirlives long, shut up in the dark fusty cupboard of their own ignorance,and stupid self-love, and self-satisfaction, thinking they know allabout everything as well as if they had made it themselves, when theydo not really know anything at all. And because you and I dislike fustycupboards, and because we want to know anything and everything thatNature is condescending enough to teach us, we will listen, to beginwith, to what the pine forest has to tell.

  When the rough winds are up and at play, and the pine-trees shout andsing together in a mighty chorus, while the hoarse voice of them islike the roar of the sea upon a rocky coast, then you may learn thesecret of the forest. It sings first of the winged seed; and then ofthe birth of the tiny tree; of sunrise and sunset, and the tranquilwarmth of noon-day, and of the soft, refreshing rain, and the kindly,nourishing earth, and of the white moonlight, and pale, moist garmentsof the mist, all helping the tree to grow up tall and straight, tostrike root deep and spread wide its green branches. It sings, too, ofthe biting frost, and the still, dumb snow, and the hurrying storm,all trying and testing the tree, to prove if it can stand firm andshow a brave face in time of danger and trouble. Then it sings of thehappy spring-time, when the forest is girdled about with a band offlowers; while the birds build and call to each other among the highbranches; and the squirrel helps his wife to make her snug nest for thelittle, brown squirrel-babies that are to be; and the dormice wake upfrom their long winter sleep, and sit in the sunshine and comb theirwhiskers with their dainty, little paws. And then the forest sings ofman--how he comes with axe and saw, and hammer and iron wedges, andlays low the tallest of its children, and binds them with ropes andchains, and hauls them away to be his bond-servants and slaves. And,last of all, it sings slowly and very gently of old age and decay anddeath; of the seed that falls on hard, dry places and never springs up;of the tree that is broken by the tempest or scathed by the lightningflash, and stands bare and barren and unsightly; sings how, in the end,all things shrink and crumble, and how the dust of them returns and ismingled with the fruitful soil from which at first they came.

  This is the song of the pine forest, and from it you may learn thislesson: that the life of the tree and of beast and bird are subject tothe same three great laws as the life of man--the law of growth, ofobedience, and of self-sacrifice. And perhaps, when you are older, ifyou take care to avoid that spirit of conceit and impudence which, aswe have already said, gets people into such trouble with Nature, youmay come to see that these three laws are after all but one, bound forever together by the golden cord of love.

  Once upon a time, just on the edge of the pine forest, there lived alittle boy. He lived in a
big, brown, wooden house, with overhangingeaves and a very deep roof to it, which swept down from the high middlegable like the wings of a hen covering her chickens. The wood-sheds,and hay-barn, and the stable where the brown-eyed, sweet-breathedcows lay at night, and the clean, cool dairy, and the cheese-roomwith its heavy presses were all under this same wide sheltering roof.Before the house a meadow of rich grass stretched down to a stream,that hurried along over rocky limestone ledges, or slipped away overflat sandy places where you might see the little fishes playing athide-and-seek or puss in the corner among the bright pebbles at thebottom. While on the shallow, marshy puddles by the stream side, wherethe forget-me-not and brook-lime and rushes grow, the water-spiderswould dance quadrilles and jigs and reels all day long in the sunshine,and the frogs would croak by hundreds in the still spring evenings,when the sunset was red behind the pine-trees to the west. And in thispleasant place little Peter lived, as I say, once upon a time, with hisfather and mother, and his two brothers, and Eliza the servant-maid,and Gustavus the cowherd.

  He was the youngest of the children by a number of years, and was sucha small fellow that Susan Lepage, his mother, could make him quite asmart blouse and pair of trousers out of Antony's cast-off garments,even when all the patches and thin places had been cut out. He had ablack, curly head, and very round eyes--for many things surprised him,and surprise makes the eyes grow round as everybody knows--and a dear,little, red mouth, that was sweet to kiss, and nice, fat cheeks, whichbegan to look rather cold and blue, by the way, as he stood on thethreshold one evening about Christmas time, with Cincinnatus, the old,tabby tom-cat, under his arm. He was waiting for his brother Antonyto come home from the neighbouring market-town of Nullepart. It wasgrowing dusk, yet the sky was very clear. The sound of the wind in thepine branches and of the chattering stream was strange in the frostyevening air; so that little Peter felt rather creepy, as the saying is,and held on very tight to Cincinnatus for fear of--he didn't quite knowwhat.

  'Come in, little man, come in,' cried his mother, as she moved to andfro in the ruddy firelight, helping Eliza to get ready the supper. 'Youwill be frozen standing there outside; and we shall be frozen, too,sitting here with the door open. Antony will get home none the quickerfor your watching. That which is looked for hardest, they say, comeslast.'

  But Peter only hugged Cincinnatus a little closer--thereby making thatlong-suffering animal kick spasmodically with his hind legs, as arabbit does when you hold it up by the ears--and looked more earnestlythan ever down the forest path into the dimness of the pines.

  Just then John Paqualin, the charcoal-burner, came up to the opendoor, with a couple of empty sacks across his shoulders. Now thecharcoal-burner was a great friend of little Peter's, though he wasa queer figure to look at. For his red hair hung in wild locks downover his shoulders, and his eyes glowed red too--as red as his ownsmouldering charcoal fires--and his back was bent and crooked; whilehis legs were so inordinately long and thin, that all the naughtylittle boys in Nullepart, when he went down there to sell his sacks ofcharcoal, used to run after him up the street, shouting:--

  'Hurrah, hurrah! here's the grasshopper man again! Hey, ho!grasshopper, give us a tune--haven't you brought your fiddle?'

  But when Paqualin got annoyed, as he sometimes did, and turned roundupon them with his glowing eyes, they would all scuttle away as hard astheir legs could carry them. For, like a good many other people, theywere particularly courageous when they could only see the enemy's back.You may be sure our little Peter never called the charcoal-burner byany offensive names, and therefore, having a good conscience, had nocause to be afraid of him.

  'Eh! but what is this?' he cried, in his high cracked voice as he flungdown the sacks, and stood by the little lad in the doorway. 'Remembermy ears are so quick I can hear the grass grow. Just now I heard thebest mother in the world call her little boy to go indoors, and herehe stands still on the threshold. If you do not go in do you know whatwill happen, eh?'

  'No; what will happen? Please tell me,' said Peter.

  'WHAT WILL HAPPEN? PLEASE TELL ME.' _Page 10._]

  The charcoal-burner stretched out one long arm and pointed away intothe forest, and sunk his voice to a whisper:--

  'The old, grey she-wolf will assuredly come pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat overthe moss and the stones, pit-a-pat over the pine-needles and the fallentwigs and branches, pit-a-pat out of the wood, and--snap!--like that,catch your poor Cincinnatus by the tail and carry him off to make intosoup for her little ones. Picture to yourself poor Cincinnatus in thewolf's great, black, steaming soup-pot, and all the wolf-cubs withtheir wicked, little mouths wide open, sitting round, with their woodenspoons in their hands, all ready to begin.'

  Peter retreated hastily into the kitchen, cat and all, and took up hisstand rather close to his mother.

  'Is it true, mother?' he said. 'But where do the wolves buy theirwooden spoons, do you think--in the shop at Nullepart?'

  'Nay, how should I know?' said Susan Lepage, as she stooped downand kissed the child, and then looking up kindly nodded to thecharcoal-burner. 'You must ask the old she-wolf herself if you want toknow where she buys her spoons, and her soup pot too for that matter.She is no friend of mine, little one.'

  After a moment's pause, she added:--

  'You will stay to supper, John Paqualin? My husband and sons will be insoon, and there is plenty for all, thank God. You will be welcome.'

  But Paqualin shook his head, and the light died away in those strangeeyes of his.

  'Welcome?' he said. 'The pretty, false word has little meaning forme. And yet perhaps in your mouth it is honest, Susan Lepage, for youare gentle and merciful as a saint in heaven, and the child, here,takes after you. But, for the rest, who welcomes a mad, mis-shapen,half-finished creature on whom Nature herself has had no mercy? MasterLepage will come in hungry. Will he like to have his stomach turnedby the sight of the hump-backed charcoal-burner? No, no, I go home tomy hut. Good-night, little Peter. I will tell the grey wolf to lookelsewhere for her supper.--Ah! I see wonderful things though sometimes,for all that I live alone and in squalor. The red fire and the whitemoon tell me stories, turn by turn, all the night through.'

  And with that he swung the empty sacks across his back again andshambled away into the growing darkness.

  'A good riddance,' muttered Eliza, as she set the cheese on the table.'It is an absolute indignity to ask a respectable servant to wait attable on a wild animal like that.'

  But Susan Lepage sighed as she turned from the doorway.

  'Poor, unhappy one,' she said. 'God gave thee thy fair soul, but whogave thee thy ungainly body?'

  Then she reproved Eliza for her conduct in various matters which hadnothing in the world to do with her remarks upon the charcoal-burner.Even the best of women are not always quite logical.

  Meanwhile little Peter had sat down on his stool by the fire. For alittle while he sat very still, for he was thinking over the visit ofhis friend John Paqualin. He felt rather unhappy about him, he couldnot quite have said why. But when we are children it is not easy tothink of any one person or one thing for long together. There are suchlots of things to think about, that one chases another out of ourheads very quickly. And so Peter soon gave up puzzling himself aboutthe charcoal-burner, and began counting the sparks as they flew out ofthe blazing, crackling, pine logs up the wide chimney. Unfortunately,however, he was not a great arithmetician; and though he began overand over again at plain one, two, three, he always got wrong among thefifteens and sixteens; and never succeeded in counting up to twentyat all. Nothing is more tedious than making frequent mistakes. So hegot off his stool, and began hopping from one stone quarry in thekitchen floor to the next. Suddenly he became entangled in Eliza's fullpetticoats--she was whirling them about a good deal, it is true, beingin rather a bad temper--and nearly tumbled down on his poor, littlenose.

  'Bless the child, what possesses him?' cried Eliza.

  Peter retired to his stool again, in a hurry; and after thi
nking for aminute pulled a long bit of string, with a cross-bar of stick at theend of it, out of the bulging side pocket of his short trousers, anddrew it backwards and forwards, and bobbed it up and down just in frontof Cincinnatus' nose. But Cincinnatus would not play.

  Cincinnatus sat up very stiff and straight, with all his four pawsin a row and his tail curled very tight over them, blinking hisyellow eyes at the fire. For Cincinnatus was offended! Even cats havefeelings. And on thinking it over, he came to the conclusion that hehad not been treated with sufficient respect.

  'Soup-pots and wooden spoons--fiddledee-dee,' he said to himself in thecat-language. 'Why pervert a child's mind with such inane fictions?'

  For you see Cincinnatus was not a common cat; being first cousin onceremoved, indeed, to the Sacristan's cat at Nullepart--who knew all thefeast and fast days in the church calendar as well as the Sacristanhimself, and had not eaten a mouse on a Friday for I cannot say howlong. When you have a scholar in the family it obliges you to bedignified.

  And so poor little Peter, as nothing and nobody would help to amuse himand pass away the time, pressed his two fat, little hands together in asort of despair, and gave a terrible sigh.

  'Bless the child, what possesses him?' cried Eliza again. 'Ah, myheart! How you made me jump!'

  'What is the matter, Peter?' asked his mother.

  'Oh! I don't believe Antony will ever come home,' said the boy, whilethe great tears began to run down over his chubby cheeks. 'And I am sotired of waiting. And I want so badly to know whether they have dressedthe stable in the big church at Nullepart; and whether we shall reallygo there on Sunday, to see the dear baby Jesus, and the blessed Virgin,and good St. Joseph, and the donkeys and cows, you told me about. Ihave never seen them yet. And I want so dreadfully to go.'

  Then his mother took up Peter in her arms, and sat down in the woodenchair in the chimney-corner, and held him gently on her lap.

  'There, there,' she said, as she stroked his pretty hair, 'what causehave you to fret? The stable will be dressed all in good time; and thedonkeys and cows certainly won't run away before Sunday. And St. Josephand the blessed Virgin will be glad that a little lad like you shouldcome and burn a candle before them--never fear. If the day is fair wewill certainly all go to church on Sunday. What is to be will be, andAntony's coming late or early can make no difference. Patience is agreat virtue, dear, little one--you cannot learn that too soon.'

  But Cincinnatus sat up very stiff, though he was growing slightlysleepy; and still winked his yellow eyes at the fire. He was not at allsure that it was not incumbent upon him to spit at the charcoal-burnernext time he saw him. It was an extreme measure certainly, andbefore adopting it he would have been glad to take his cousin theSacristan's cat's opinion on the matter. Social position brings itsresponsibilities. Yet all the same, it is a fine thing to have ascholar in the family.