Stuyvesant Part 22

"And do you think he did right or wrong?" said Wallace.

"Why, wrong, I suppose," said Phonny.

"Yes," said Wallace, "decidedly wrong, I think; for in that case there is no doubt that his fun gave his sister a great deal of pain. It is very right for boys to love frolicking and fun, but they should be very careful not to let their fun give other people trouble or pain."

"But now, Phonny," continued Wallace, "you are to be shut up for perhaps a week, and here is an opportunity for you to show some marks of manliness which we always like to see in boys."

"How can I?" asked Phonny.

"Why, in the first place," said Wallace, "by a proper consideration of the case, so as to understand exactly how it is. Sometimes a boy situated as you are, without looking at all the facts in the case, thinks only of his being disabled and helpless, and so he expects every body to wait upon him, and try to amuse him, as if that were his right. He gives his mother a great deal of trouble, by first wanting this and then that, and by uttering a great many expressions of discontent, impatience and ill-humor. Thus his accident is not only the means of producing inconvenience to himself, but it makes the whole family uncomfortable. This is boyishness of a very bad kind.

"To avoid this, you must consider what the true state of the case is.

Whose fault is it that you are laid up here in this way?"

"Why it is mine, I suppose," said Phonny. "Though if Stuyvesant had not advised me to bring the hatchet in, I suppose that I should not have cut myself."

"It was not by bringing the hatchet in, that you cut yourself," said Wallace, "but by stopping to cut with it on the way, contrary to your mother's wishes."

"Yes," said Phonny, "I suppose that was it."

"So that it was your fault. Now when any person commits a fault,"

continued Wallace, "he ought to confine the evil consequences of it to himself, as much as he can. Have the evil consequences of your fault, extended yet to any other people, do you think?"

"Why, yes," said Phonny, "my mother has had some trouble."

"Has she yet had any trouble that you might have spared her?" asked Wallace.

"Why--I don't know," said Phonny, "unless I could have bandaged my foot up myself."

"If you could have bandaged it up yourself," said Wallace, "you ought to have done so, though I suppose you could not. But now it is your duty to save her, as much as possible, from all other trouble. You ought to find amus.e.m.e.nt for yourself as much as you can, instead of calling upon her to amuse you, and you ought to be patient and gentle, and quiet and good-humored.

"Besides," continued Wallace, "I think you ought to contrive something to do to repay her for the trouble that she has already had with this cut. She was not to blame for it at all, and did not deserve to suffer any trouble or pain."

"I don't know what I can do," said Phonny, "to repay her."

"It is hard to find any thing for a boy to do to repay his mother, for what she does for him. But if you even _wish_ to find something, and _try_ to find something, it will make you always submissive and gentle toward her, and that will give her pleasure."

"Perhaps I might read to her sometimes when she is sewing," said Phonny.

"Yes," said Wallace, "that would be a good plan."

When this conversation first commenced, Malleville was standing near to Wallace, and she listened to it for a little time, but she found that she did not understand a great deal of it, and she did not think that what she did understand was very interesting. So she went away.

She went to the piazza and began to gather up the green leaves which she had been playing with when Phonny had called her to go out to see the chickens. She put these leaves in her ap.r.o.n with the design of carrying them to Phonny, thinking that perhaps it would amuse him to see them.

She brought them accordingly to the sofa, and now stood there, holding her ap.r.o.n by the corners, and waiting for Wallace to finish what he was saying.

"What have you got in your ap.r.o.n?" said Wallace.

"Some leaves," said Malleville. "I am going to show them to Phonny."

So she opened her ap.r.o.n and showed Phonny.

"They are nothing but leaves," said Phonny, "are they? Common leaves."

"No," said Malleville, "they are not common leaves. They are very pretty leaves."

Stuyvesant came to look at the leaves. He took up one or two of them.

"That is a maple leaf," said he, "and that is an oak."

There was a small oak-tree in the corner of the yard.

"I am going to press them in a book," said Malleville.

Wallace looked at the leaves a minute, and then he went away.

Stuyvesant seemed more interested in looking at the leaves, than Phonny had been. He proposed that while Phonny was sick, they should employ themselves in making a collection of the leaves of forest-trees.

"We can make a sc.r.a.p-book," said he, "and paste them in, and then, underneath we can write all about the trees that the leaves belong to."

"How can we find out about the trees?" asked Phonny.

"Beechnut will tell us," said Stuyvesant.

"So he will," replied Phonny, "and that will be an excellent plan."

This project was afterward put into execution. Stuyvesant made a sc.r.a.p-book. He made it of a kind of smooth and pretty white wrapping-paper. He put what are called false leaves between all the true leaves, as is usually done in large sc.r.a.p-books. Stuyvesant's sc.r.a.p-book had twenty leaves. He said that he did not think that they could find more than twenty kinds of trees. They pressed the leaves in a book until they were dry, and then pasted them into the sc.r.a.p-book, one on the upper half of each page. Then they wrote on a small piece of white paper, all that they could learn about each tree, and put these inscriptions under the leaves, to which they respectively referred.

The children worked upon the collection of leaves a little while every day. They divided the duty, giving each one a share. Stuyvesant pressed the leaves and gummed them to their places in the book.

Phonny, who was a pretty good composer, composed the descriptions, and afterward Stuyvesant would copy them upon the pieces of paper which were to be pasted into the book. Stuyvesant used to go out to the barn or the yard, to get all the information which Beechnut could give him in respect to the particular tree which happened, for the time being, to be the subject of inquiry. He would then come in and tell Phonny what Beechnut had told him. Phonny would then write the substance of this information down upon a slate, and after reading it over, and carefully correcting it, Stuyvesant would copy it neatly upon the paper.

One day during the time that Phonny was confined to his sofa, Stuyvesant and Malleville had been playing with him for some time. At last Stuyvesant and Malleville concluded to go out into the yard a little while, and they left Phonny with a book to read.

"I am sorry to leave you alone," said Stuyvesant.

"Oh, no matter," said Phonny, "I can read. But there is one thing I should like."

"What is that?" said Stuyvesant.

"I should like to see Frink. I suppose it would not do to bring him in here. Would it, mother?"

Mrs. Henry was sitting at her window at this time sewing.

"Why, I don't know," said Mrs. Henry. "How can you bring him in?" she asked.

"Oh, I can put his house upon a board," said Stuyvesant, "and put him into it, and then bring house and all."

"Well," said Mrs. Henry, "I have no objection. Only get a smooth and clean board."