Joshua Marvel

Dan was allowed to sit up an hour longer than usual that night, and he and Joshua occupied those precious minutes in confidential conversation. First they spoke of Golden Cloud, and then of Joshua's prospects.

"You haven't made up your mind yet what you are going to be, Jo," said Dan.

"I haven't made up my mind," replied Joshua, "but I have an idea. I don't want you to ask me what it is. I will tell you soon-in a few weeks perhaps."

"Where have you been to-day? You were late."

"I went to the waterside."

"To the river?"

"To the river."

"To the river that runs to the sea," said Dan musingly, with a dash of regret in his voice. "What a wonderful sight it must be to see the sea, as we read of it! Would you like to see it, Jo?"

"Dearly, Dan!"

"And to be on it?"

"Dearly, Dan!"

Dan looked at Joshua sadly. There was an eager longing in Joshua's eyes, and an eager longing in the parting of his lips, as he sat with hands clasped upon his knee.

"I can see a great many things that I have never seen," said Dan; "see them with my mind, I mean. I can see gardens and fields and trees, almost as they are. I can fancy myself lying in fields with the grass waving about me. I can fancy myself in a forest with the great trees spreading out their great limbs, and I can see the branches bowing to each other as the wind sweeps by them. I can see a little stream running down a hill, and hiding itself in a valley. I can even see a river-but all rivers must be muddy, I think; not bright, like the streams. But I can't see the sea, Jo. It is too big-too wonderful!"

Rapt in the contemplation of the subject, Dan and Joshua were silent for a little while.

"Ships on the top of water-mountains," resumed Dan presently, "then down in a valley like, with curling waves above them. That is what I have read; but I can't see it. 'Robinson Crusoe' is behind you, Jo."

Joshua opened the book-it was a favorite one with the lads, as with what lads is it not? – and skimmed down the pages as he turned them over.

"'A raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us,'" he said.

"That is the shipwreck," said Dan, looking over Joshua's shoulder. "Then here, farther down: 'I saw the sea come after me as high as a great hill, and as furious as an enemy.' Think of that! Here picture."

The lads looked for the thousandth time at the rough wood-cut, in which Robinson was depicted casting a look of terror over his shoulder at the curling waves, ten times as tall as himself; his arms were extended, and he was supposed to be running away from the waves; although, according to the picture, nothing short of a miracle could save him.

"Look!" said Joshua, turning a few pages back and reading, "'yonder lies a dreadful monster on the side of that hillock, fast asleep.'"

"'I looked where he pointed,'" read Dan-it was a favorite custom with them to read each a few lines at a time-"'and saw a dreadful monster indeed, for it was a terrible great lion that lay on the side of the shore, under the shade of a piece of the hill that hung as it were a little over him. Xury, says I, you shall go on shore, and kill him.'"

"Could you kill a lion, Jo?" asked Dan, breaking off in his reading.

"I don't know," said Joshua, considering and feeling very doubtful of his capability.

Dan resumed the reading: -

"I took our biggest gun, which was almost musket-bore, and loaded it with a good charge of powder and with two slugs, and laid it down; then I loaded another gun with two bullets; and the third (for we had three pieces), I loaded with five smaller bullets.'"

"No, I couldn't kill a lion," said Joshua, in a tone of disappointed conviction; "for I can't fire off a gun. But that occurred nearly two hundred years ago, Dan. I don't suppose there are as many lions now as there used to be."

"And ships are different, too, to what they were then, Jo," said Dan, closing the book. "Stronger and better built. I dare say if it had been a very strong ship that Robinson Crusoe went out in, he wouldn't have been wrecked."

"I am glad he was, though; if he hadn't been, we shouldn't have been able to read about him. It is beautiful, isn't it?"

"Beautiful to read," replied Dan. "But he was dreadfully miserable sometimes; for twenty-four years and more he had no one to speak to. It appears strange to me that he didn't forget how to speak the English language, and that he didn't go mad. Now, Jo, supposing it was you! Do you think, if you had no one to speak to for twenty years, that you would be able to speak as well as you do now? Don't you think you would stammer over a word sometimes, and lose the sense of it?"

Dan asked these questions so earnestly, that Joshua laughed, and said, -

"Upon my word, I don't know, Dan."

But the time was to come when the memory of Dan's questions came to Joshua's mind with a deep and solemn significance. "He had his parrot certainly," continued Dan; "but what used he to say to it? 'Robin, Robin, Robin Crusoe! Poor Robin Crusoe! How came you here? Where have you been, Robin?' That wasn't much to say, and to be always saying; and I am sure that if he kept on saying it for so many years, he must have entirely forgotten what the meaning of it was. You try it, – say a word, or two or three words, for a hundred times. You will begin to wonder what it means before you come to the end."

"But he had his Bible; and you know what a comfort that was to him."

"Perhaps that was the reason he didn't go mad. I dare say, too, that some qualities in him were strengthened and came to his aid because he was so strangely situated. What qualities now, Jo?"

"I don't understand you, Dan."

"I do say things sometimes you don't understand at first, don't I, Jo?"

Joshua nodded good-humoredly.

"I am often puzzled myself to know what I mean. Leaving Robinson Crusoe alone, and speaking of qualities, Jo, take me for an instance. I am a cripple, and shall never be able to go about. And do you know, Jo, that my mind is stronger than it would have been if I were not helpless? I can see things."

"Can you see any thing now, Dan?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"I can see something that will separate you and me, Jo."

"Forever, Dan?"

"No, not forever; we shall be together sometimes and then you can tell me all sorts of things that I shall never be able to see myself."

"Don't you think your legs will ever get strong?" asked Joshua.

"Never, Jo; they get worse and worse. And I feel, too, so weak, that I am afraid I shall not have strength to use my crutches much longer. Every thing about me-my limbs, and joints, and every thing-gets weaker and weaker every day. If it wasn't for my body, I should be all right. My mind is right. I can talk and think as well as if my body were strong. Stupid bits of flesh and bone!" he exclaimed, looking at his limbs, and good-humoredly scolding them. "Why don't you fly away and leave me?"

At this point of the conversation Mrs. Taylor called out that it was time for Dan to go to bed, so the lads parted. That night Joshua dreamed that he killed a lion; and Dan dreamed that Golden Cloud came out of the flower-pot, and it wasn't dead, but only pretending.

Dan had good reason for speaking in the way he did of his body, for it distressed him very much. Soon after the death of Golden Cloud, he grew so weak and ill that he was confined to his bed. But his mind scarcely seemed to be affected by his bodily ills, and his cheerfulness never deserted him. He had his dear winged companions brought to his bedroom, and they hopped about his bed as contentedly as could be. And there he played with them and took delight in them; and, as he hearkened to their chirrupings, and looked at their pretty forms, a sweet pleasure was in his eyes, a sweet pleasure was in his heart. And this pleasure was enhanced by the presence of Joshua, who spent a great deal of time with his sick friend.

The tender love that existed between the lads was undefiled by a single selfish act or thought. They were one in sympathy and sentiment. Joshua was Dan's almost only companion during his illness. Dan's mother tended him and gave him his physic, which could not do him any good, the doctor said; but Mrs. Taylor's household duties and responsibilities occupied nearly the whole of her time; she could not afford to keep a servant, and she had all the kitchen-work to do. Ellen-Dan's twin-sister and Joshua's quondam sweetheart-was often in the room; but, young as she was, she was already being employed about the house assisting her mother. She scrubbed the floors and washed the clothes; and, although she was so little that she had to stand on a chair in the tiny yard to hang the clothes on the line, she was as proud of her work, and took as much pleasure in it, as if she were a grown woman, who had been properly brought up. Notwithstanding the onerous nature of her duties, she managed to spend half an hour now and again with Josh and Dan, and would sit quite still listening to the conversation. Her presence in the room was pleasing to the boy-friends, for Ellen was as modest and tidy a little girl as could be met with in a day's walk.

Susan, Dan's unfortunate nursemaid, was a young woman now. But she had a horror of the sick-room. She entertained a secret conviction that she was a murderess, and really had some sort of an idea that if Daniel died she would be taken up and hanged. She was as fascinated as ever with Punch and Judy; but the fascination had something horrible in it. Often when she was standing looking at the show-and she was more welcome to the showman than she used to be, for now she sometimes gave him a penny-she would begin to tremble when the hangman came on the scene with his gallows, and would then fairly run away in a fright. Ever since she had let Daniel slip from her arms out of the window, there had been growing in her mind a fear that something dreadful was following her; and a dozen times a day she would throw a startled look behind her, as if to assure herself that there was nothing horrible there. She had been sufficiently punished for her carelessness. For a good many weeks after it occurred, bad little boys and girls in the neighborhood used to call after her, "Ah-h-h Who killed her little brother? Ah-h-h!" If she ran, they ran after her, and hooted her with the dreadful accusation. It took different forms. Now it was, "Ah-h-h-h! Who killed her little brother? Ah-h-h!" And now it was, "Ah-h-h! Who'll be hung for killing her little brother? Ah-h-h-h!" Such an effect did this cruel punishment have upon her, that she would wake up in terror in the middle of the night with all her fevered pulses quivering to the cry, "Ah-h-h-h! Who'll be hung for killing her little brother? Ah-h-h-h!" But time, which cures all things, relieved her. The bad boys and girls grew tired of saying the same thing over and over again. A new excitement claimed their attention, and poor Susan was allowed to walk unmolested through the streets. But the effect remained in the terror-flashes that would spring in her eyes, and in the agonized looks of fear that she would throw behind her every now and again, without any apparent cause. These feelings had such a powerful effect upon her, that she never entered Dan's room unless she were compelled to do so; and once, when Dan sent for her and asked her to forgive him for being naughty when he was a baby, she was so affected that she did nothing but shed remorseful tears for a week afterwards.

One day, when Dan was playing with the birds, and no other person but he and Joshua was in the room, he said, -

"Do you think the birds know that I am so weak and ill, Jo, dear?"

"Sometimes I think they do, Dan," answered Joshua.

"Dear little things! You haven't any idea how weak I really am. But I am strong enough for something."

"What, Dan?"

"If you don't ask any questions, I sha'n't tell you any stories," replied Dan gayly. "Lend me your penknife."

Joshua gave Dan his penknife, and when he came the next day Dan was cutting strips of wood from one of his crutches.

"O Dan!" exclaimed Joshua, bursting into tears.

Dan looked at Joshua, and smiled.

"O you cry-baby!" he said. But he said it in a voice of exquisite tenderness; and he drew Joshua's head on to the pillow, and he laid his own beside it, and he kissed Joshua's lips.

"I shall not want my crutches any more," he whispered in Joshua's ear as thus they lay; "that is all. It isn't as bad as you think."

"You are not going to die, Dan?" asked Joshua in a trembling voice.

"I don't think I am-yet. It is only because I am almost certain-I feel it, Jo-that I shall be a helpless cripple all my life, and that I shall not be able to move about, even with the help of crutches."

"Poor dear Dan!" said Joshua, checking his sobs with difficulty.

"Poor Dan! Not at all! I can read, I can think, and I can love you, Jo, all the same. I have made up my mind what I am going to do. I shall live in you. You are my friend, and strong as you are, you can't love me more than I love you. And even if I was to die, dear" -

"Don't say that, Dan; I can't bear to think of it."

"Why? It isn't dreadful. If I was to die, we should still be friends-we should still love each other. Don't you love Golden Cloud?"

Joshua whispered "Yes."

"But Golden Cloud is not here. Yet you love him. And so do I, more than I did when pet was alive. I don't quite know how it is with birds, but I do know how it is with us. If you was here, Jo, and I was there, we should meet again."

"Amen, Dan!"

"And it is nice to believe and know-as you and I believe and know-that if we were parted, we should come together again by and by; and that perhaps the dear little birds would be with us there as they are here, and that we should love them as we love them now. They are so pretty and harmless that I think God will let them come. Besides, what would the trees do without them?"

"What do you mean, Dan, by saying that you are going to live in me?"

"It is a curious fancy, Jo, but I have thought of it a good deal, and I want you to think of it too. I want to be with you, although I shall not be able to move. You are going to be a hero, and are going to see strange sights perhaps. I can see farther than you can; and I know the meaning of your going down to the riverside, as you have done a good many times lately. I know what you will make up your mind to be, although I sha'n't say until you tell me yourself. Well, Jo, I want you to fancy, if I don't know what is happening to you-if you are in any strange place, and are seeing wonderful things-I want you to fancy, 'Dan is here with me, although I cannot see him.' Will you do that, Jo, dear?"

"Yes; wherever I am, and whatever I shall see, I will think, 'Dan is here with me, although I cannot see him.'"

"That is friendship. This isn't," said Dan, holding up a finger; "this is only a little bit of flesh. If it is anywhere about us, it is here;" and he took Joshua's fingers, and pressed them to his heart. Then, after a pause of a few moments, he said, "So don't cry any more because I am cutting up my crutches; I am making some new things for the birds."

They had a concert after that; and the blackbird whistled "Polly, put the kettle on," to its heart's content; and the tomtit performed certain difficult acrobatic tricks in token of approval.

Dan recovered so far from his sickness as to be able to leave his bed. But it almost appeared as if he was right in saying that he should not want his crutches. He had not sufficient strength in his shoulders to use them. He had to be lifted in and out of bed, and sometimes could not even wash and dress himself. Ellen Taylor was his nurse, and a dear good nurse she proved herself to be. A cross word never passed her lips. She devoted herself to the service of her helpless brother with a very perfect love; and her nature was so beautiful in its gentleness and tenderness that those qualities found expression in her face, and made that beautiful also. Dan had yielded to Joshua's entreaties not to destroy his crutches. "You might be able to use them some day," Joshua would say. To which Dan would reply by asking gayly if Joshua had ever heard of a miracle in Stepney. However, he kept his crutches, and Joshua was satisfied. In course of time Joshua began to train a few birds at his own house, and now and then Dan's parents would allow Dan to be carried to Joshua's house, and to stop there for a few days. When that occurred, Dan and Joshua slept together, and would tell stories to each other long after the candle had been blown out-stories of which Joshua was almost always the hero. Joshua had one great difficulty to overcome when he first introduced the birds into his house; that difficulty was the yellow-haired cat, of which mention has already been made. With the usual amiability of her species, the domestic tigress, directly she set eyes upon the birds, determined to make a meal of them, and it required all Joshua's vigilance to prevent the slaughter of the innocents. But he was patient, and firm, and kind, and he so conquered the tigerish propensities of the cat towards the birds, that in a few weeks she began to tolerate them, and in a few weeks more to play with them and to allow them to play with her, and gradually grew so cordial with them that it might have been supposed she had kittened them by mistake.

CHAPTER IV

IN WHICH DAN GETS WILD NOTIONS INTO HIS HEAD, AND MAKES SOME VERY BOYISH EXPERIMENTS

If every farthing of the allowance of pocket-money which Joshua and Dan received from their respective parents had been carefully saved up, it would not have amounted to a very large sum in the course of the year. Insignificant, however, as was the allowance, it sufficed for their small wants, and was made to yield good interest in the way of social enjoyment. The lads did not keep separate accounts. What was Joshua's was Dan's, and what was Dan's was Joshua's. As there were no secret clasps in their minds concealing something, which the other was not to share and enjoy, so there was no secret clasp in their money-box which debarred either from spending that which, strictly speaking, belonged to his friend. Dan was the treasurer; the treasury was the money-box which was to have been Golden Cloud's coffin. Dan's allowance was two pence a week, which was often in arrears in consequence of his father being too fond of public-houses; Joshua's allowance was four pence a week, which he received very regularly. But each of their allowances was supplemented by contributions from independent sources. The motives which prompted these contributions were of a very different nature; as the following will explain: -

"Something more for the money-box, Dan," said Joshua, producing a four-penny piece, and dropping it into the box.

"From the same party, Jo?" asked Dan.

"From the same jolly old party, Dan. From the Old Sailor."

"Is he nice?"

"The Old Sailor? You should see him, that's all."

"You have been down to the waterside again, then?"

"Yes. Tuck-tuck-joey!" This latter to the linnet, who came out to have a peep at Joshua, and who, directly it heard the greeting, responded with the sweetest peal of music that mortal ever listened to. When the linnet had finished its song the obtrusive and greedy blackbird, determined not to be outdone, and quite ignoring the fact that it had had a very good supper, ordered Polly to put the kettle on, in its most piercing notes.

"Did you go on the river, Jo?" asked Dan.

"Yes. In a boat. Rowing. The Old Sailor says I am getting along famously."

"I should like to see the Old Sailor."

"I wish you could; but he is such a strange old fellow! He doesn't care for the land. When I tell mother what I am making up my mind to be-what I shall have made up mind then to be-I will coax him to come to our house. I want him to talk to mother about the sea, for she is sure to cry and fret, and although the Old Sailor doesn't think that women are as good as men, he thinks mothers are better."

Dan laughed a pleasant little laugh.

"That is queer," he said.

"He knows all about you, and he asks me every day, 'How is Dan?'"

"I am glad of that-very glad."

"So am I. I have told him all about the birds, and how, they love you. You would never guess what he said to-day about you."

"Something very bad, I dare say," said Dan, knowing very well, all the time, that it was something good, or Joshua would not tell him.

"Something very bad. He said, 'He must be a fine little chap'-meaning you, Dan-'or the birds wouldn't love him.'"

"Has he been all over the world, Jo?"

"All over the world; and O Dan, he has seen such places!"

"I tell you what we will do," said Dan. "To-morrow you shall buy a couple of young bullfinches, and you shall find out some tune the Old Sailor is fond of; and I will teach the bullfinches to whistle it. Then you shall give the birds to the Old Sailor, and say they are a present from me and you."

"That will be prime! He will be so pleased!"

"Have you ever heard him sing, Jo?"

"Yes," answered Joshua, laughing; "I have heard him sing, -

'Which is the properest day to drink,Saturday, Sunday, Monday?Each is the properest day, I think-Why should I name but one day?Tell me but yours, I'll mention my day,Let us but fix on some day-Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,Saturday, Sunday, or Monday.'"

"I don't think that would do," said Dan, echoing Joshua's laugh.

"Here's another," said Joshua, and he played a prelude to "Poor Tom Bowling," and sang the first verse, -

'Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling,The darling of our crew;No more he'll hear the tempest howling,For death has broached him too.His form was of the manliest beauty,His heart was kind and soft,Faithful below Tom did his duty,But now he's gone aloft,But now he's gone aloft.'"

Joshua sang the words with much tender feeling, but Dan shook his head.

"The birds would never be able to get the spirit of the song into them," he said, "and the tune is nothing without that. Never mind-we'll teach them something, and then the Old Sailor shall have them."

"And I shall tell him they are a present from you alone."

"No," said Dan energetically; "that would spoil it all. They are from you and me together. Can't you guess the reason why?"

"I believe I can," replied Joshua, after a little consideration. "The Old Sailor likes me, and you want him to like you because of me, not because of yourself alone; you want him to like me more because of you-as I am sure he will when he knows you."

"That's it. I want him to know that we love each other, and that we shall always love each other, whether we are together or separated. I want everybody who likes you, Jo, to like me."

Joshua laid his hand upon Dan's, which rested on the table, and Dan placed his other hand upon Joshua's playfully. Their hands were growing to be very unlike. Dan's hand, as it grew, became more delicate, while Joshua's grew stronger and more muscular. Dan laughed another pleasant laugh as he remarked the difference between them. "That is a proper kind of hand for a hero," he said. And then, in a more serious voice, "Joshua, do you know I think we can see each other's thoughts." And so, indeed, it appeared as if they could.

The next day the bullfinches were bought, and Dan began to train them. They were a pair of very young birds, not a dozen days old, and the air Dan fixed upon to teach them first was "Rule, Britannia."

So much for Joshua's supplemental contributions to the general fund. Now for Dan's.

"Another sixpence in a piece of paper, Jo!"

"That makes eighteen pence this month, Dan. Poor Susan!"

"Poor Susan!" echoed Dan.

Susan was very much to be pitied. Looking upon herself as her brother's destroyer, she endeavored, by offerings of sixpences as often as she could afford them, to atone for the crime-for so she now regarded it-by which she had made him a helpless cripple. These sixpences were not given openly; they were laid, as it were, upon the sacrificial altar in secret. Sometimes the altar was one of Ellen's shoes, and Ellen, when she dressed herself, would feel something sticking in her heel, and discover it to be a sixpence tightly screwed up in a piece of paper, with the words, "For Dan; from Susan," written on it; sometimes the altar was one of Dan's pocket-handkerchiefs, and the sixpence was tied up in a knot; sometimes it was a bag of bird-seed; sometimes Dan's cap. She was so imbued with a sense of guilt, that she trembled when she met Dan's eye. He was as kind and gentle to her, when he had the opportunity, as he was to all around him; and divining her secret remorse, he tried by every means in his power to lessen it. But the feeling, that, if Dan died, she was a murderess, was too deeply implanted in her to be ever removed. She lived in constant fear. She was afraid of the dark, and could not sleep without a rush-light near her bedside. Often in the night, on occasions when Dan was weaker than usual, she would creep down stairs, and listen at his bedroom-door to catch the sound of his breathing. If she did not hear it at first, the ghostly echo of the old terrible cry, "Ah-h-h-h! who killed her little brother? Ah-h-h-h!" filled the staircase and the passage with dreadful shadows; shadows that seemed to thicken and gather about her as if possessed with a desire to stifle her-and she would press her hands tightly upon her eyes so that she should not see them. Then perhaps she would open Dan's door quietly, and hearing him breathe, ever so softly, would creep up stairs again, a little more composed; always closing her door quickly, to prevent the shadows on the stairs from coming into her room.