XIII
LITTLE ACTS OF KINDNESS; LITTLE DEEDS OF LOVE
Aunt May’s invitation to come every day and play with Maggie and Bessie was never once lost sight of by Belle, who was only too glad to accept it, and be with her beloved little playmates as much as possible.
It was surprising to see how much Belle had improved during these months she had been so much with Maggie and Bessie: no, not surprising either to any one who knew how much a good example can do; at least when it shines before eyes which are willing and ready to profit by its light.
And this was so with dear little Belle. She was not naturally an obstinate or selfish child; and her faults had come chiefly from the over-indulgence of her father and Daphne, who seldom or never contradicted her, but allowed her to think that she must always have her own way. She had never been taught the duty and pleasure of yielding to others, until she was thrown so constantly with our little girls; and then the lesson came to her almost without words. She could not have better teaching than she found in the grave surprise in Bessie’s sweet eyes when she worried her father, and fretted herself for some forbidden pleasure, or when she was wilful and imperious with her devoted old nurse; or in her gentle, “You wouldn’t tease your father when you’re his little comfort: would you, Belle?” She could not but learn ready obedience, generosity, and thoughtfulness for others, when she saw them put in daily practice even by Maggie, who had so much natural heedlessness to struggle with; and, almost without knowing it, she strove to copy her little friends, and to put away the old self-will and impatience.
“Why! how obedient and good my little daughter is growing,” said her father, one day, surprised at her ready submission when he was obliged to refuse her some pleasure she had begged for.
“’Cause Bessie says mamma and Jesus will be glad when I’m good,” Belle answered, laying her cheek against her father’s; “and she said that was the best way to make you happy too, papa. She says when we love um we try to please um. Isn’t that true, papa?”
“Very true, my darling. Bessie is a dear little girl, and I am glad that you remember when she tells you what is right.”
“She does it more than she tells it, papa: that’s why I ’member so much. It makes me feel ’shamed when Maggie and Bessie see I am naughty.”
“I won’t go to Aunt May’s this morning, papa,” she said another day when her father told her to go and be made ready.
“What! stay away from your dear Maggie and Bessie?” said Mr. Powers. “How is that?”
“Daphne is sick, papa: she has such a hegget” – Belle meant headache – “she could hardly dress me this morning, and had to lie right down. If she has to get up again, I’m afraid she will be more worse, so I will stay home to-day.”
But Belle’s voice shook as she proposed this, for it was a great sacrifice for her. Six months since she would not have thought of denying herself any thing for the sake of her old nurse, and her father was both pleased and touched.
“Then papa’s unaccustomed fingers will see what they can do,” he said, unwilling that his little girl should lose her day’s pleasure; and, if Belle were not quite as neatly dressed as usual, no fault was found, and “Aunt Margaret” soon remedied all that was wrong.
But another bit of self-denial came in Belle’s way that day, and that she carried out.
Coming in with two or three bunches of fine hot-house grapes, – the first of the season, – in his hand, Colonel Rush found the children on the piazza, playing “party” with their dolls’ teacups and saucers. Two other little girls, the children of a neighbor, were playing with them. He stopped and gave Maggie a bunch to divide amongst them. They were greatly pleased with this little treat; but Maggie and Bessie were rather surprised to see Belle put hers aside on one of the doll’s plates, as if she did not intend to eat, or even play with them.
“Are you not going to play with yours?” asked Maggie, rather reproachfully.
Belle colored a little, and said with some hesitation, —
“I wanted to save them.”
Belle was not like some children who would rather enjoy a nice thing by themselves, and the others were surprised.
Now Belle would have been ready enough to tell Maggie and Bessie why she wanted to keep the grapes, but she did not care to do so before the young visitors; lest as she afterwards said, they should think she was “proud of herself for doing it.”
“She thinks we’ll give her some of ours, and then she’ll eat up her own afterwards,” said Minnie Barlow, one of the little guests.
“I don’t either,” said Belle, flushing angrily: “I wouldn’t eat one of your old grapes, not if you begged and begged me to.”
“No,” said Bessie, putting her arm about Belle’s neck: “Belle never does greedy things. I know she has a very excellent reason if she don’t eat them. Are you sick, Belle?”
“No,” said Belle; and then she whispered in Bessie’s ear, “but poor Daphne is sick, and I am going to keep my grapes for her. She likes them very much.”
“And I’ll give you mine for her too,” said Bessie, “yours make only a few for her when she is sick.” Then she said aloud: “I’m going to keep my grapes too; and Maggie, I think you’d keep yours, if you knew the circumstance.”
“Then I will,” said Maggie; and turning to the little strangers she added, “Bessie knows what’s inside of my mind most as well as I do myself; so if she tells me I would do a thing, I just know I would.”
So Maggie, too, put by her share of the grapes, till the company had gone, and Belle felt free to tell what she wanted to do with them; when she agreed that Bessie was right, and she was quite ready to save her grapes for such a “circumstance.” It was but a small act of self-denial for these little girls to make out of their abundance; but who can tell the pleasure the gift gave to old Daphne. And verily Belle had her reward.
“Now Heaven bress my child,” said the old woman, when Belle offered the grapes, and told that she and her young friends had kept them from their play: “if she ain’t growin’ jes like her dear mamma, who was allus thinkin’ for oders.”
Nothing could have pleased Belle more than to be told she was like her dear mother; but she said, —
“I didn’t used to think for ofers much, Daphne; not till I saw Bessie do it, and Maggie too. They taught me.”
“Never min’ who taught ye, so long as you’re willin’ to learn,” said Daphne. “But I say Heaven bress them dear little girls too, as I knows it will.”
Pleased as Daphne was, she would have been better satisfied if her little mistress had taken back her gift for her own use; but Belle insisted that she should eat the grapes herself, and indeed climbed on her lap and stuffed them one after the other into her mouth, refusing to taste one herself.
“What is that, Uncle Horace?” asked Maggie, one afternoon when she and Bessie were out driving on the Avenue with Colonel Rush, Aunt Bessie, and the boys.
The object of her interest was certainly of a nature to excite curiosity. It was a round building of stone, supported by eight pillars, with open arches between. In the wall, above the pillars, were three narrow loop-holes or openings. It could scarcely have been told, however, that it was built of stone; for pillars and round walls were alike covered with beautiful green vines, just now in all their summer glory. It stood in the centre of a small park or common, where children and nurses were playing and wandering about.
“That,” said Colonel Rush, “is the old stone mill.”
“I don’t think it looks much like a mill,” said Bessie: “it don’t have any things to go round.”
“Probably it had things to go round, as you call them, once upon a time,” said the Colonel.
“I thought it was a tower built by the early settlers to defend themselves from the Indians,” said Harry. “Willie Thorn told me so.”
“Many people think so,” said the Colonel, “and some still believe that it was built by the Danes, hundreds of years ago.”
“Oh!” said Fred, “this is the tower Longfellow wrote about in his ‘Skeleton in Armor,’ isn’t it, sir?”
“The very same,” said the Colonel; “but, I believe, Fred, that it has been pretty well proved, from old papers, that it had no such romantic beginning, but was really and truly a windmill.”
“Tell me about the skeleton, Fred,” said Maggie.
So Fred told how a skeleton in armor, having been found in a place called Fall River, some miles from Newport, the poet, Longfellow, had written a ballad about it; telling how a viking, or Norwegian sailor of the olden time, had fallen in love with the daughter of a prince, who refused to give his child to the roving sailor; but they had run away together, and crossing the sea had come to this spot, where the viking had built this tower for his wife to live in.
“Here for my lady’s bower
Built I the lofty tower,
Which to this very hour
Stands looking seaward,”
chanted Fred, stretching out his hand with a magnificent air towards the old tower.
“That’s nice,” said Maggie, with a satisfied nod of her curly head. “I shall just believe that. It’s a great deal nicer than to think it was just a common old windmill for grinding up corn.”
“I shan’t,” said matter-of-fact Bessie, “not when Uncle Horace says it’s not true.”
“I don’t see that any one can be very sure what it was,” said Maggie, determined to have faith in the most romantic story, “and I shall make up my mind it was the lady’s bower. But what about the skeleton, Fred?”
“Oh! Mr. Longfellow goes on to say how the lady died, and her husband could not bear to live without her; so he went out into the woods and killed himself, and the skeleton in armor which was really found is supposed to be his.”
“He oughtn’t to kill hisse’f. He ought to wait till Dod killed him,” said Frankie, who had been listening with great interest to the story. “He could play with all these nice chillen, if he’d ’haved hisself.”
“Yes,” said Bessie, who had received the story with as much displeasure as she had done that of the “Chief’s Head,” last summer, at Chalecoo, “if God chooses people to stay here, they ought to do it, even if they are having very hard times.”
“So they ought, Bess,” said Fred; “but I guess those old vikings did not care much about playing with children. They were very brave, daring fellows.”
“People can be brave and like children,” said Bessie, slipping her little hand into that of her own hero. “Uncle Horace likes children and plays with them, and no one could be braver than he is. And besides, Fred, if people have very good courage, I should think they would be brave to bear the trouble God sends them, and not go kill themselves out of it.”
“Well reasoned, little one,” said the Colonel, bending his tall head to kiss her; “that man is certainly a coward who cannot bear what God sends to him, but takes the life his Maker has given.”
“And I shall think it is a windmill,” said Bessie, quite as resolved to stick to facts as Maggie was to believe the poet’s story.
“And I shall think it the viking’s tower, and write a story-book about it when I’m grown up,” said Maggie. “I’ll put it down for a subject.”
If Maggie lives to write a book on each “subject” she has put down for that purpose, she will be very old indeed.
Bessie said no more; for if she and Maggie differed on something which was not important, she never argued about it, and this was probably one reason why they never quarrelled; for each was content to let the other be of her own way of thinking, so long as it did no harm. If we could all learn that lesson it would save many hard words and thoughts, and the trouble which arises from such.
They all now went back to the carriage, which they had left for a closer view of the old mill, and drove on to what is called the Point, and around the north-western side of the island, from which road they gained a beautiful view of the harbor and bay.
“What is that over there, Uncle Horace?” asked Fred, “it looks like an old fort.”
“Just what it is, my boy,” replied Colonel Rush. “That point is called the ‘Dumpling Rocks,’ and that ruin is old Fort Lewis, or Fort Dumpling.”
“What a funny name,” said Maggie.
They now crossed the long stone causeway which leads to Coaster’s Harbor Island; and, as they went over this, the children were all greatly delighted with the number of pretty little birds which went whirling round them on every side, darting almost under the horses’ feet, and in their very faces; passing round and round, above and beneath the carriage. They were sand-martins, the Colonel said, and being disturbed by the rolling of the wheels, were probably trying to draw attention from their nests, which were built in the crevices of the stones that formed the causeway.
On this island stood the poor-house which they had come to visit; and here another carriage, containing several of the elders of the party, had arrived before them. Papa was there and took the little girls out of the carriage when it stopped.
“What a nice place for the poor people to be in, when they don’t have any house of their own!” said Bessie: “I s’pose they’re very grateful for it.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Maggie. “I find poor people in this world are not always grateful when they ought to be. Don’t you remember Mrs. Bent, Bessie?”
“Yes, I do,” said Bessie, in a tone which told that Mrs. Bent’s ingratitude, as she and Maggie thought it, was not to be easily forgotten. Indeed, the way in which Mrs. Bent had received the gift of the hospital-bed for her lame boy, had left a very disagreeable impression on the minds of our two little girls.
“But I s’pose rich people are not always so grateful as they ought to be, either,” added Bessie.
“No,” said Maggie, thoughtfully: “maybe some are not, but I think we are, generally. I think I feel my blessings, Bessie, – I think I do, ’specially being in Newport.”
“There can be no doubt about that,” said Uncle Ruthven, who had overheard this short conversation, to his wife: “if ever there was a grateful, contented, little heart it is that of our sunny Maggie.”
Certainly a more comfortable home, or one more beautifully situated, could scarcely have been found for those who could furnish none for themselves. The grown people, as well as the children, were greatly pleased with the order, neatness, and quiet of the whole place. This visit having been planned, the ladies had come provided with little parcels of tea, fruit, and other small delicacies, as a treat for some of the sick and old people. There were a few toys and books also for such of the children as had behaved well, and these things Maggie and Bessie were allowed to present.
“I b’lieve I’ll change my mind about poor people being grateful,” said Maggie, when she had witnessed the pleasure these trifles gave; “and I’m glad I can, for an ungrateful person is ‘sharper than a serpent’s tooth,’ ’specially if it’s an old woman.”
Bessie looked at her sister in great admiration, as she always did when Maggie made any of these fine speeches; but Harry turned away lest she should see him laughing. For as Maggie was so careful of other people’s feelings, Harry felt bound not to trouble her in that way when he could avoid it.
“The band plays at Fort Adams to-morrow afternoon,” said the Colonel, as they drove homeward: “who will be for a drive over there?”
There was no want of assenting voices; and, the next afternoon, the whole family went over to the fort, – some driving, some on horseback, Mr. Powers and Belle being of the party this time.
Maggie and Bessie had never in their lives been inside of a fort, so that this was quite an event to them. Harry and Fred had visited several; but they were all much smaller than Fort Adams, which indeed is the second in size in the country, only Fortress Monroe being larger. Passing around the road, which runs between the water and the immense earthworks which rise above it, they entered the fort beneath a stone arch, and over a stone pavement on which the horses’ feet rang with a loud clatter. Just without this gateway, was the guard-house, a low stone building, with grated door and loop-holes, where drunken soldiers, and those who have broken the rules, are confined. Two or three sullen-looking men were peeping through the iron bars of the door, for whom Bessie’s tender little heart was much moved; but Maggie was afraid of them, and turned her face away, though they could not possibly have hurt her, and probably had no will to do so.
Within the fort, the children were much astonished at the number of enormous cannon, and at the great black balls and shells piled together in pyramids upon the green in the centre, and beneath the casemates. The side of the fort next the water was entirely taken up with these warlike-looking arrangements; while on the inner side were the officers’ quarters, or little houses where they lived, and the soldiers’ barracks and mess-rooms. All was neat, clean, and orderly; and, in spite of the purpose for which it was intended, the whole place had a bright, cheerful look. The band were playing delightful music on the green, and the drive was filled with gay equipages. The handsome carriages, fine horses, and beautifully dressed ladies and children, made it a pretty and lively scene, and it was all so new to the children, that each moment some exclamation of pleasure or wonder escaped them. Some of the officers were sauntering about, talking to their acquaintances; and the general who commanded the fort, being a friend of Colonel Rush, came and asked the ladies and children to alight from the carriages, and he would show them over the works. They were glad to accept his invitation, and the general took them over the fort, and explained all that was interesting.
But in spite of the many new and curious things she saw, in spite of the lovely music, and the merry crowd, Bessie’s mind was full of the “poor, naughty soldiers in the prison;” and when her older friends were resting in the general’s quarters, while she with the other children stayed without and watched the gay scene, she went quietly to Belle and said, —
“Belle, dear, don’t you feel rather bad about those soldiers shut up in that prison place?”
“Not when I don’t see ’em,” answered Belle. “I guess they were pretty naughty to be put in there.”
“May be so,” said Bessie; “but wouldn’t you like to be kind to them?”
“No,” said Belle. “I b’lieve not. One of them looked so cross.”
“Maybe it makes him cross to be shut up there when the music is playing, and every thing is so nice out here,” said Bessie. “Let’s go and ask them if they will promise to be good if they are let out.”
“We can’t let them out,” said Belle.
“No; but we’ll tell some one they have repented and ask for them to be let out. You know that soldier with a gun, that was walking up and down there? well, I guess he’s a kind of soldier-policeman and we’ll ask him. The prison is just outside of that gate-hole,” said Bessie, pointing to the archway by which the fort was entered; “and we will be back in a moment.”
“Shall we ask Maggie to go?” said Belle.
“No, Maggie was so frightened at them. She is over there with Harry, looking at those ugly black balls; so we won’t ’sturb her, but just go by ourselves.”
So, hand in hand, the two little things ran out under the archway, and over to the guard-house beyond. Not unnoticed, however; for though they were not seen by their own friends, they were by some acquaintances, who were driving past at the moment, and who, fearing that they might be run over by the constantly passing carriages, or fall into some other mischief, told Colonel Rush’s servants to see after the children. One of the men called his master, and the Colonel speedily followed the little runaways.
They made for the grated door, with what purpose Bessie hardly knew herself, save that there was kindness in her heart for the poor prisoners; but, as they reached it, the guard or “soldier-policeman,” as Bessie called him, stopped them by crossing his musket in their way.
Belle was frightened, – partly by this, partly by the two or three astonished faces that peeped at them through the bars, – and would have drawn back, but Bessie stood her ground, and, looking up at the guard with her innocent, serious eyes, said, —
“We only want to speak to the poor shut-up soldiers.”
The man shook his head.
“It’s against the rules, miss,” he said.
“But I’m not in rules,” said Bessie. “I don’t live here you know, and I think I might do it. If you were in prison you would like some one to coax you to be good: wouldn’t you?”
The soldier looked at her in astonished silence; but his gun still barred the way.
“You’ll let them out, won’t you?” she went on with pleading voice and eyes: “you’ll let them out so they can come in there where there is such sweet music, and it is all nice and bright? I think they are sorry now.”
“Yes,” said Belle: “see that poor fellow sitting on the floor with his head down. I’m sure he is sorry, and will be good, and the ofers will too.”
While the little girls were speaking, two more soldiers had come round from the other side of the guard-house. One of them was the corporal; and, hearing what the children said, he answered for the sentry.
“He can’t let them out, little ladies,” he said: “if he did he’d be put there himself.”
As he finished speaking, Colonel Rush stood behind the children. The corporal and the soldiers, even the men behind the grating, saluted the brave English officer, whom they knew by sight, and whom they greatly admired; for the story of his daring and courage were known to the garrison. But the third man, who was hardly more than a lad, still sat with his arms folded, and his head sunk upon his breast.
“My dear children,” said the Colonel, “this is no place for you. What brought you here?”
“Oh! Uncle Horace,” said Bessie, seizing upon his hand; “won’t you ask these policemen-soldiers to let out those poor prisoners? We feel so badly about them.”
“My darling,” answered the Colonel, “they cannot let out these men. They are under arrest, and shut up here because they have done wrong, and the guard are here to keep them from getting out.”
“But see that poor soldier sitting down there,” said Bessie: “he looks so sorry. Maybe, he’s thinking of somebody of his, far away, who will hear he has been in prison, and feel badly about it.”
In her earnestness, she was using every argument she could think of; but she had innocently touched almost the only soft spot in the man’s heart. If he was not at the moment thinking of “somebody of his” who was far away, her words brought the thought of that one to his mind, – that “somebody,” his poor young sister, who would be grieved at his disgrace, hurt at his obstinate wrong-doing, if it ever came to her ears.
He raised his head, and gave a quick glance at the innocent little pleader; and a softened look came over the hard, sullen face.
“He’s not sorry, but just sullen, little lady,” said the corporal: “that fellow has been in the guard-house four times in the last week, for insubordination, and they’ll have to try some harder measures to take it out of him, I’m thinking. Your pity is only wasted.”
“Oh, no!” said Bessie; “for you know Jesus said we must be sorry with people when they are in trouble, and happy with them when they are glad. I’m very sorry for him and the other men too. Who can let them out, Uncle Horace?”
“Only their officers, Bessie; and I fear they must stay here now till their time is up: but we will hope they will do better in future, and not deserve punishment again. Come away now: your mother will be anxious.”
Bessie obeyed; but both she and Belle cast backward pitying looks at the poor prisoners. The man they had noticed most, still sat silent; but the other two, as well as the soldiers without, talked with pleasure and amusement of their pretty ways and innocent simplicity.
But the man who had seemed to pay little or no regard to their words was the one who remembered them the longest, and to whom they brought the most good. He had been hard, obstinate, and disobedient, and, as the corporal said, had been punished four times during the last week. Punishment and persuasion had alike proved useless in bringing him to do better; but he was softened now. He could not resist that sweet little face, the pitying eyes and gentle tones that asked for his release. He thought of them, and of that “somebody of his,” all that night as he lay upon the hard floor of the guard-house; and, when he was set free in the morning, went to his commanding officer whom he had disobeyed and insulted; asked forgiveness, and promised that he would try not to offend again. And he kept his word, striving hard with himself for he always felt, from this time, as if there were two “somebodies” who would be grieved to hear of his bad behavior and disgrace.
“Who could let them out, Uncle Horace?” repeated Bessie as the Colonel led her and Belle away.
“Only the officer who ordered them to be shut up, dear,” said the Colonel.
“And couldn’t we ask him?” said Bessie.
“Not very well, dear: the rules in the army must be strictly kept; and if these men were let out without good reason, it would be a bad example for the other soldiers, who might think they would not be punished if they were disobedient.”
“But what had that man on the floor been doing?” asked Belle.
“I do not know, dear. Misbehaving in some way which deserved punishment.”
“The soldier-policeman said he had been shut up four times for – for – in – su – such a long word I can’t remember it, Uncle Horace, and I didn’t know what it meant,” said Bessie.
“Insubordination?” said the Colonel.
“Yes, sir: what does it mean?”
“Disobeying orders, or being impertinent, and so forth,” said the Colonel.
“And we’d better not ask the General to let them come out of that dark house?” said Belle.
“No, I think not,” said the Colonel. “They would not have been shut up if it had not been necessary, and we had better let the matter rest. We can do no good by interfering.”
So thought the Colonel, believing and knowing that discipline must be sternly kept up; knowing nothing the while of the good which had already been done, – of the tiny seed unconsciously dropped upon the hard and stony ground of an obstinate heart, but which had brought “forth fruit meet for repentance.”
This was by no means Bessie’s last visit to Fort Adams; but she never saw the prisoner soldiers again, at least she did not recognize them; but they saw and knew her, the innocent little fairy, so she seemed to these rough men, who had stood outside the prison bars, pleading so pityingly for their release.