His Big Opportunity Part 4

"Old Principle, do you think we ought to make opportunities?" questioned Dudley, presently; "Roy thinks we ought, and I did make one the other day, but it didn't turn out well."

"Ay, Master Roy is always for making," said the old man with a smile; "he will try and cram his life with what will come fast enough naturally, if he only waits."

"But will it?" questioned Roy, flus.h.i.+ng up with eagerness; "do you think it will? I'm longing to do something big and grand and good; I mayn't live to grow up you know, and I'm sure we're meant to do something when we're boys."

"We're trying to do good to all men as we have opportunity," said Dudley, gravely.

"Ay, stick to that, boys, and you'll succeed. There's none too small to be true philanthropists."

"What is a philanthropist?" asked Roy.

"A man who benefits his fellow creatures. 'Tis a good principle to keep in mind."

"But it's difficult for boys to do grown-up people good. They always do boys good."

"Now look here, Master Roy. I've lived and learned where you haven't, and I try and pa.s.s my principles on to you. That's how I do you good.

You come to me and take what I give you and seeing you act out the advice I offers you does me good. You do me good too, every time you comes to see me; it's cheery to hear and see you."

"But that's very tame for us," said Roy, a little scornfully.

"Oh, well, if your own likes must come into the question, it's a different story! I didn't know it mattered about our feelings as long as the good is done! 'Tis a bad principle to try to please others only when it pleases ourselves."

Roy looked a little ashamed of himself. He said no more on the subject, and shortly after he and Dudley ran home to tea.

They were very disappointed when their aunt refused to let them go out again that evening.

"It is too damp a night for Jonathan to be wandering through wet gra.s.s and bog. You can go, David, if you like, but he must wait for another opportunity."

"I shan't go without Roy," said Dudley, st.u.r.dily.

"We'll come and make a cave in the attic," suggested Roy, trying to be cheerful.

And for the rest of that evening they were absorbed in making a great dust and racket amongst lumber boxes far away from their grandmother's hearing.

IV

AN AWKWARD VISIT

"And how do you know a river has been here?"

"By the soil and by the relics I have found. Look at this fossil. Do you see the outline of the fish? Fish don't live on dry ground."

"There might have been a fishman pa.s.sing by who dropped one out of his cart."

Old Principle laughed at Dudley's sceptical notion, and went on shovelling out earth with great alacrity. It was Sat.u.r.day afternoon: old Principle had shut up his shop and taken the boys up to the hills surrounding the little village, where in a ravine between two precipitous crags, in the midst of a green bower of ferns and moss, he was hard at work excavating an old cave that had been buried for many years out of sight.

Dudley and Roy were eagerly helping and chattering as only boys know how.

"This little ravine has been formed by a mountain stream rus.h.i.+ng down,"

continued the old man, resting on his spade for a minute; "'tis a good principle, Master Dudley, to trust grown-up folks' knowledge better than your own."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Old Principle laughed at Dudley's notion."]

"I wish," said Roy, reflectively, "that this cave was nearer home; it would be so lovely to come out whenever we wanted to, wouldn't it, Dudley?

Perhaps some king has hidden away in it, or soldier when he was pursued by his enemies!"

"Hulloo," said Dudley, looking up the hill; "here is such a funny looking woman coming down with a donkey, her skirt is nearly up to her knees, and she has a man's boots on."

Old Principle paused in his work, and in a minute or two greeted the newcomer.

"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Cullen, how's your husband to-day?"

"Badly, very badly, but I's forced to leave he. I lock the door and put the key in me pocket, for I's bin up the hill yonner cuttin' peat sin seven o'clock this mornin'. He do get awfu' lonesome, he say, an' if me niece hadn't a married and gone to 'Merica, I should have kept she to tend him."

"Who is she?" asked Roy, as after a few more words the woman moved on.

"She lives at the bottom of the hill over there. Her husband has been ill of consumption these last two years, and she works to support them both. She's a hard-working woman, is Martha Cullen; she works in the fields harvesting just now; if I could feel I'd be welcome I would go to sit with her husband sometimes, but she's very queer, she won't let a neighbor come near him, I have tried more than once. It seems hard on him to be bedridden there day after day without a soul to speak to; or any one to give him a drink!"

Roy gazed thoughtfully after the retreating figure of the woman, and then turned his attention again to the cave.

When an hour later he and Dudley were walking home footsore, and rather dirty, but with little bundles of treasures from the cave in their grubby hands, he startled his cousin by saying--

"To-morrow we'll go and see Martha Cullen's husband. It's an opportunity for us."

"How shall we get in?" queried Dudley.

"Climb in at the window. She told old Principle she would be out all day at Farmer Stubbs. We'll go and do him good."

"How?"

"We'll wash his face, and make him a cup of tea, and sweep his room, and give him his medicine," responded Roy, readily; "that's what nurse does when she goes to visit any of Aunt Judy's sick people."

Dudley did not look as if he relished the prospect before him.

"That's girls' and women's work," he said; "boys needn't do that kind of thing."

Roy flushed up angrily.

"All right, if you don't want to come, stay at home. It is a week since we started to do good when the opportunity came, and we haven't done any good to any one. I'm not going to waste any more time."

Then after a pause he added, "Besides I think it will be rather fun breaking into a strange cottage; we may have to get down the chimney."

At this Dudley's face cleared.

"I'll come," he said; "we'll go directly after dinner."