Five Minute Stories

That evening, just as the sun was sinking, all golden and glorious beneath the horizon, a boat pushed out from among the reeds that fringed Pleasant Pond. It was a rough little dory of no particular model, painted a dingy green, but its crew was apparently well satisfied with it. One boy sat in the stern and paddled sturdily: another crouched in the bow, scanning the reeds with a critical air, while between them sat a little fair-haired maiden, leaning over the side and singing, as she dipped her hands in the clear, dark water.

“Here’s a fine bunch of cat-tails!” cried Roger. “Shove her in here, Joe!”

Joe obeyed, and Roger’s knife was soon at work cutting the stately reeds, with their sceptre-tips of firm, brown velvet.

“Oh, and here are the lilies!” cried little Annet. “See, Roger! see! all white and gold, the lovely things! Oh, let me pull them!”

In another moment, the boat seemed to be resting on a living carpet of snow and gold. The lilies grew so thick that one could hardly see the water between them. Roger and Annet drew them in by handfuls, laying them in glistening piles in the bottom of the boat, and soon Joe laid down his paddle, and joined in the picking.

“Some pooty, be n’t they?” he said. “What d’ye cal’late ter sell ’em for, Roger?”

“For whatever I can get,” replied Roger, cheerfully. “I’ve never tried it before, but I know that plenty of boys do take them to the city from other ponds and streams. We are a little farther off, but I never saw any lilies so large as ours.”

“Nor so sweet!” cried Annet, burying her rosy face in the golden heart of a snowy cup. “Oh, how I love them!”

How the lilies must have wondered at the adventures that befell them after this! All night they lay in a great tub of water, which was well enough, though there was no mud in it. Then, at daybreak next morning they were taken out and laid on a bed of wet moss and covered with wet burdock leaves. Then came a long period of jolting, when the world went bumping up and down with a noise of creaking and rumbling, broken by the sound of human voices.

Finally, and suddenly, they emerged into the full glare of the sun, and found themselves in a new world altogether, – a street corner in a great city; tall buildings, glittering windows, crowds of men and women hurrying to and fro like ants about an ant-hill. Only the cool, wet moss beneath them, and the sight of their old friends, the cat-tails, standing like sentinels beside them, kept the lilies from fainting away altogether.

Roger looked eagerly about him, scanning the faces of the passers-by. Would this one buy? or that one? that pretty lady, who looked like a lily herself? He held out a bunch timidly, and the lady smiled and stopped.

“How lovely and fresh! Thank you!” and the first piece of silver dropped into Roger’s pocket, and chinked merrily against his jackknife. Then another young lady carried off a huge bunch of cat-tails, and a second piece of silver jingled against the first.

Soon another followed it, and another, and another, and Roger’s eyes danced, and his hopes rose higher and higher.

At this rate, the Physical Geography would be his, beyond a doubt. He saw it already, – the smooth green covers, the delightful maps within, the pictures of tropical countries, of monkeys and cocoanuts, elephants and – THUMP! His dream was rudely broken in upon by a gentleman running against him and nearly knocking him over, – an old gentleman, with fierce, twinkling eyes and a bushy gray beard.

“What! what!” sputtered the old gentleman, pettishly. “Get out of my way, boy! My fault! beg your pardon!” Roger moved aside, bewildered by the sudden shock.

“Will you buy some Physical Geographies, sir?” he asked. “See how fresh they are? They are the loveliest – ”

“This boy is a lunatic!” said the old gentleman, fiercely, “and ought to be shut up. How dare you talk to me about Physical Geography, sir?”

Roger stared at him blankly, and then grew crimson with shame and confusion. “I – I beg your pardon, sir!” he faltered, “I meant to say ‘lilies.’ I was thinking so hard about the geography that it slipped out without my knowing it. I suppose. I – ”

“What! what!” cried the old gentleman, catching him by his arm. “Thinking about Physical Geography, hey? What d’ye mean? This is a remarkable boy. Come here, sir! come here!”

He dragged Roger to one side, and made him sit down beside him on a convenient doorstep. “What d’ye mean?” he repeated, fixing his piercing gray eyes upon the boy in a manner which made him feel very uncomfortable. “What do you know about Physical Geography?”

“Nothing yet, sir,” replied Roger, modestly. “But I am very anxious to study it, and I am selling these lilies and cat-tails to try and get money enough to buy the book.”

“This is a most remarkable boy!” cried the old gentleman. “What geography is it you want, hey? Merton’s, I’ll warrant. Trash, sir! unspeakable trash!”

“No, sir; Willison’s,” replied the boy, thinking that the old gentleman was certainly crazy.

But on hearing this, his strange companion seized him by the hand, and shook it warmly. “I am Willison!” he exclaimed. “It is my Geography! You are a singularly intelligent boy. I am glad to meet you.”

Roger stared in blank wonderment. “Did – did you write the Physical Geography, sir?” he stammered, finally.

“To be sure I did!” said the old gentleman, “and a good job it was! While that ass Merton, – here! here!” he cried, fumbling in his pockets, “give me the lilies, and take that!” and he thrust a shining silver dollar into Roger’s hand. “And here!” he scribbled something on a card, “take that, and go to Cooper, the publisher, and see what he says to you. You are an astonishing boy! Good-by! God bless you! You have done me good. I was suffering from dyspepsia when I met you, – atrocious tortures! All gone now! Bless you!”

He was gone, and Roger Rayne was sitting alone on the steps, with the dollar in one hand, and the card in the other, as bewildered a boy as any in Boston town.

When he recovered his senses a little, he looked at the card and read, in breezy, straggling letters, “Give to the astonishing boy who brings this, a copy of my Physical Geography. Best binding. William Willison.”

THE METALS

In the earth’s dark bosomLong I slumbered deep,Till the hardy minersWoke me from my sleep.Now I flash and glitter,Now I’m bought and sold,Everyone for me doth run,For my name is Gold.In jewels and moneyI shine, I shine.The great world of richesIs mine, is mine.Yet he who would liveFor my sake alone,Is poorer, more wretchedThan he who has none.I, your sister, Silver,Pure and fair and white,I was made, like you, to givePleasure and delight.Mines in Colorado,And in far Peru,Yield my shining whiteness upTo be a mate for you.The forks and spoons,And the baby’s cup,The plates that are setWhere the Queen doth sup,The coffee and teapots,The cream pitcher, too,The money to buy them,All show my hue.I am Father Iron!I am not a beauty,But when called upon, you’ll findI will do my duty.Melted in the furnace,I am wrought and cast,Making now a tiny tack,Now an engine vast.The horseshoes, the boilers,The stoves, the sinks,The cable that holdsThe good ship with its links,The tongs and the poker,The wire so fine,The pickaxe and shovel,Are mine, are mine.Hail, my Father Iron!I, your son, am Steel.Heating and then coolingMen did me anneal.With the silver’s brightness,With the strength of iron,Here I stand, a metalAll men may rely on.I flash in the sword,In the dagger keen;In rails and in enginesMy glint is seen.The scissors, the needle,The knife and the pen,And many more thingsI have given to men.All together.So, ever and ever, hand in hand,We circle the earth with a four-fold band.The servants of man so leal and true,By day and by night his work we do.

THE HOWLERY GROWLERY ROOM

It doesn’t pay to be cross, —It’s not worth while to try it;For Mammy’s eyes so sharpAre very sure to spy it:A pinch on Billy’s arm,A snarl or a sullen gloom,No longer we stay, but must up and awayTo the Howlery Growlery room.Chorus.– Hi! the Howlery! ho! the Growlery!Ha! the Sniffery, Snarlery, Scowlery!There we may stay,If we choose, all day;But it’s only a smile that can bring us away.If Mammy catches meA-pitching into Billy;If Billy breaks my whip,Or scares my rabbit silly,It’s “Make it up, boys, quick!Or else you know your doom!”We must kiss and be friends, or the squabble endsIn the Howlery Growlery room.Chorus.– Hi! the Howlery! ho! the Growlery!Ha! the Sniffery, Snarlery, Scowlery!There we may stay,If we choose, all day;But it’s only a smile that can bring us away.So it doesn’t pay to be bad, —There’s nothing to be won in it;And when you come to think,There’s really not much fun in it.So, come! the sun is out,The lilacs are all a-bloom;Come out and play, and we’ll keep awayFrom the Howlery Growlery room.Chorus.– Hi! the Howlery! ho! the Growlery!Ha! the Sniffery, Snarlery, Scowlery!There we may stay,If we choose, all day;But it’s only a smile that can bring us away.

THE SPECKLED HEN

There was once a hen with brown speckled wings and a short black tail. She stood in a shop window, on a bit of wood covered with green baize, and kept watch over the eggs with which the window was filled.

“I may be stuffed,” said the hen, “but I hope I know my duty for all that!”

There were many eggs, and some of them were very different from the eggs to which she had been accustomed; but she did not see what she could do about that.

“Their mothers must be people of very vulgar tastes,” she said, “or else fashions have changed sadly. In my day a hen who laid red or blue or green eggs would have been chased out of the barnyard; but the world has gone steadily backward since then, I have reason to think.”

She was silent, and fixed her eyes on a large white egg which had been recently placed in the window.

There was something strange about that egg. She had never seen one like it. No hen that ever lived could lay such a monstrous thing; even a turkey could not produce one of half the size.

Whence could it have come? She remembered stories that she had heard, when a pullet, of huge birds as tall as the hen-house, called ostriches. Could this be an ostrich egg? If it was, she could not possibly be expected to take care of the chick.

“The idea!” she said. “Why, it will be as big as I am!”

At this moment a hand appeared in the window. It was the shopkeeper’s hand, and it set down before the hen an object which filled her with amazement and consternation.

It looked like an egg: that is, it was shaped and coloured like an egg; but from the top, which was broken, protruded a head which certainly was not that of a chicken.

The head wore a black hat; it had a round, rosy face, something like the shopkeeper’s, and what could be seen of the shoulders was clad in a bottle-green coat, with a bright-red cravat tied under the pink chin.

The little black eyes met the hen’s troubled glance with a bright and cheerful look.

“Good-morning!” said the creature. “It’s a fine day!”

“What are you?” asked the hen, rather sternly. “I don’t approve of your appearance at all. Do you call yourself a chicken, pray?”

“Why, no,” said the thing, looking down at itself. “I – I am a man, I think. Eh? I have a hat, you see.”

“No, you are not!” cried the hen, in some excitement. “Men don’t come out of eggs. You ought to be a chicken, but there is some mistake somewhere. Can’t you get back into your shell, and – a – change your clothes, or do something?”

“I’m afraid not,” said the little man (for he was a man). “I don’t seem to be able to move much; and besides, I don’t think I was meant for a chicken. I don’t feel like a chicken.”

“Oh, but look at your shell!” cried the poor hen. “Consider the example you are setting to all these eggs! There’s no knowing what they will hatch into if they see this sort of thing going on. I will lend you some feathers,” she added, coaxingly, “and perhaps I can scratch round and find you a worm, though my legs are pretty stiff. Come, be a good chicken, and get back into your shell!”

“I don’t like worms,” said the little man, decidedly. “And I am not a chicken, I tell you. Did you ever see a chicken with a hat on?”

“N – no,” replied the hen, doubtfully, “I don’t think I ever did.”

“Well, then!” said the little man, triumphantly.

And the hen was silent, for one cannot argue well when one is stuffed.

The little man now looked about him in a leisurely way, and presently his eyes fell on the great white egg.

“Is that your egg?” he asked, politely.

The hen appreciated the compliment, but replied, rather sadly, “No, it is not. I do not even know whose egg it is. I expect to watch over the eggs in a general way, and I hope I know my duty; but I really do not feel as if I could manage a chicken of that size. Besides,” she added, with a glance at the black hat and the bottle-green coat, “how do I know that it will be a chicken? It may hatch out a – a – sea-serpent, for aught I know.”

“Would you like to make sure?” asked the little man, who really had a kind heart, and would have been a chicken if he could. “There seems to be a crack where this ribbon is tied on. Shall I peep through and see what is inside?”

“I shall be truly grateful if you will!” cried the hen. “I assure you it weighs upon my mind.”

The little man leaned over against the great white egg, and took a long look through the crack.

“Compose yourself!” he said, at last, looking at the hen with an anxious expression. “I fear this will be a blow to you. There are five white rabbits inside this egg!”

The speckled hen rolled her glass eyes wildly about and tried to cackle, but in vain.

“This is too much!” she said. “This is more than I can bear. Tell the shopkeeper that he must get some one else to mind his eggs, for a barnyard where the eggs hatch into rabbits is no place for me.”

And with one despairing cluck, the hen fell off the bit of wood and lay at full length on the shelf.

“It is a pity for people to be sensitive,” said the little man to himself, as he surveyed her lifeless body. “Why are not five rabbits as good as one chicken, I should like to know? After all, it is only a man who can understand these matters.”

And he cocked his black hat, and settled his red necktie, and thought very well of himself.

THE MONEY SHOP

Jack Russell was five years old and ten days over; therefore, it is plain that he was now a big boy. He had left off kilts, and his trousers had as many buttons as it is possible for trousers to have, and his boots had a noble squeak in them. What would you have more?

This being the case, of course Jack could go down town with his Mamma when she went shopping, a thing that little boys cannot do, as a rule.

One day in Christmas week, when all the shops were full of pretty things, Jack and his Mamma found themselves in the gay street, with crowds of people hurrying to and fro, all carrying parcels of every imaginable shape.

The air was crisp and tingling, the sleigh-bells made a merry din, and everybody looked cheerful and smiling, as if they knew that Christmas was only five days off.

Almost everybody, for as Jack stopped to look in at a shop window, he saw some one who did not look cheerful. It was a poor woman, thinly and miserably clad, and holding a little boy by the hand.

The boy was little, because he wore petticoats (oh, such poor, ragged petticoats)! but he was taller than Jack. He was looking longingly at the toys in the window.

“Oh, mother!” he cried, “see that little horse! Oh, I wish I had a little horse!”

“My dear,” said the poor woman, sighing, “if I can give you an apple to eat with your bread on Christmas Day, you must be thankful, for I can do no more. Poor people can’t have pretty things like those.”

“Come, Jack!” said Mrs. Russell, drawing him on hastily. “What are you stopping for, child?”

“Mamma,” asked Jack, trudging along stoutly, but looking grave and perplexed, “why can’t poor people have nice things?”

“Why? Oh!” said Mrs. Russell, who had not noticed the poor woman and her boy, “because they have no money to buy them. Pretty things cost money, you know.”

Jack thought this over a little in his own way; then, “But, Mamma,” he said, “why don’t they buy some money at the money shop?”

Mrs. Russell only laughed at this, and patted Jack’s head and called him a “little goose,” and then they went into a large shop and bought a beautiful wax doll for Sissy.

But Jack’s mind was still at work, and while they were waiting for the flaxen-haired beauty to be wrapped in white tissue paper and put in a box, he pursued his inquiries.

“Where do you get your money, Mamma dear?”

“Why, your dear Papa gives me my money, Jacky boy. Didn’t you see him give me all those nice crisp bills this morning?”

“And where does my Papa get his money?”

“Oh, child, how you do ask questions! He gets it at the bank.”

“Then is the bank the money shop, Mamma?”

Mrs. Russell laughed absent-mindedly, for, in truth, her thoughts were on other things, and she was only half-listening to the child, which was a pity. “Yes, dear,” she said, “it is the only money shop I know of. Now you must not ask me any more questions, Jack. You distract me!”

But Jack had no more questions to ask.

The next day, as the cashier at the National Bank was busily adding up an endless column of figures, he was startled by hearing a voice which apparently came from nowhere.

No face appeared at the little window in the gilded grating, and yet a sweet, silvery voice was certainly saying, with great distinctness, “If you please, I should like to buy some money.”

He looked through the window and saw a small boy, carrying a bundle almost as big as himself.

“What can I do for you, my little man?” asked the cashier kindly.

“I should like to buy some money, please,” repeated Jack, very politely.

“Oh, indeed!” said the cashier, with a twinkle in his eye. “And how much money would you like, sir?”

“About a fousand dollars, I fink,” said Jack, promptly. (It does sometimes happen that big boys cannot pronounce “th” distinctly, but they are none the less big for that.)

“A thousand dollars!” repeated the cashier. “That’s a good deal of money, young gentleman!”

“I know it,” said Jack. “I wants a good deal. I have brought some fings to pay for it,” he added, confidentially; and opening the big bundle with great pride, he displayed to the astonished official a hobby-horse, a drum (nearly new), a set of building blocks and a paint-box.

“It’s a very good hobby-horse,” he said, proudly. “It has real hair, and he will go just as fast as – as you can make him go.”

Here the cashier turned red in the face, coughed and disappeared. “Perhaps he is having a fit, like the yellow kitten,” said Jack to himself, calmly; and he waited with cheerful patience till he should get his money.

In a few moments the cashier returned, and taking him by the hand, led him kindly into a back room, where three gentlemen were sitting.

They all had gray hair, and two of them wore gold-bowed spectacles; but they looked kind, and one of them beckoned Jack to come to him.

“What is all this, my little lad?” he asked. “Did any one send you here to get money?”

Jack shook his head stoutly. “No,” he said, “I comed myself; but I am not little. I stopped being little when I had trousers.”

“I see!” said the gentleman. “Of course. But what made you think you could get money here?”

The blue eyes opened wide.

“Mamma said that Papa got his money here; and I asked her if this was a money shop, and she said it was the only money shop she knowed of. So I comed.”

“Just so,” said the kind gentleman, stroking the curly head before him. “And you brought these things to pay for the money?”

“Yes,” said Jack, cheerfully. “’Cause you buy fings with money, you see, so I s’pose you buy money with fings.”

“And what did you mean to do with a thousand dollars?” asked the gentleman. “Buy candy, eh?”

Then Jack looked up into the gentle gray eyes and told his little story about the poor woman whom he had seen the day before. “She was so poor,” he said, “her little boy could not have any Christmas at all, only an apple and some bread, and I’m sure that isn’t Christmas. And she hadn’t any money, not any at all. So I fought I would buy her some, and then she could get everything she wanted.”

By this time the two other gentlemen had their hands in their pockets; but the first one motioned them to wait, and taking the little boy on his knee, he told him in a few simple words what a bank really was, and why one could not buy money there.

“But you see, dear,” he added, seeing the disappointment in the child’s face, “you have here in your hands the very things that poor woman would like to buy for her little boy. Give her the fine hobby-horse and the drum and the paint-box, too, if you like, and she can give him the finest Christmas that ever a poor boy had.”

Jack’s face lighted up again, and a smile flashed through the tears that stood in his sweet blue eyes. “I never fought of that!” he cried, joyfully.

“And,” continued the old gentleman, drawing a gold piece from his pocket and putting it in the little chubby hand, “you may give that to the poor woman to buy a turkey with.”

“And that,” cried the second old gentleman, putting another gold piece on top of it, “to buy mince-pies with.”

“And that,” cried the third old gentleman, while a third gold piece clinked on the other two, “to buy a plum-pudding with.”

“And God bless you, my dear little boy!” said the first gentleman, “and may you always keep your loving heart, and never want a piece of money to make Christmas for the poor.”

Little Jack looked from one to the other with radiant eyes. “You are very good shopkeepers,” he said. “I love you all very much. I should like to kiss you all, please.”

And none of those three old gentlemen had ever had so sweet a kiss in his life.

A LONG AFTERNOON

“What shall I do all this long afternoon?” cried Will, yawning and stretching himself. “What – shall – I – do? A whole long afternoon, and the rain pouring and nothing to do. It will seem like a whole week till supper time. I know it will. Oh —dear– me!”

“It is too bad!” said Aunt Harriet, sympathetically. “Poor lad! What will you do, indeed? While you are waiting, suppose you just hold this yarn for me.”

Will held six skeins of yarn, one after another; and Aunt Harriet told him six stories, one after the other, each better than the last.

He was sorry when the yarn was all wound, and he began to wonder again what he should do all the long, long afternoon.

“Will,” said his mother, calling him over the balusters, “I wish you would stay with baby just a few minutes while I run down to the kitchen to see about something.”

Will ran up, and his mother ran down. She was gone an hour, but he did not think it was more than ten minutes, for he and baby were having a great time, playing that the big woolly ball was a tiger, and that they were elephants chasing it through the jungle.

Will blew a horn, because it spoke in the “Swiss Family Robinson” of the elephants’ trumpeting; and baby blew a tin whistle, which was a rattle, too; and the tiger blew nothing at all, because tigers do not trumpet.

It was a glorious game; but when Mamma came back, Will’s face fell, and he stopped trumpeting, because he knew it would tire Mamma’s head.

“Dear Mamma!” he said, “what shall I do this long, long afternoon, with the rain pouring and nothing to do?”

His mother took him by the shoulders, gave him a shake and then a kiss, and turned him round toward the window.

“Look there, goosey!” she cried, laughing. “It stopped raining half an hour ago, and now the sun is setting bright and clear. It is nearly six o’clock, and you have just precisely time enough to run and post this letter before tea-time.”

THE JACKET

“Tailor, tailor, tell me true,Where did you get my jacket of blue?”“I bought the cloth, little Master mine,From the merchant who sells it, coarse and fine.I cut it out with my shears so bright,And with needle and thread I sewed it tight.”“Merchant, merchant, tell me true,Where did you get the cloth so blue?”“The cloth was made, little Master mine,Of woollen threads so soft and fine.The weaver wove them together for me;With loom and shuttle his trade plies he.”“Weaver, weaver, speak me, sooth,Where got you the threads so soft and smooth?”“From wool they’re spun, little Master mine.The spinner carded the wool so fine.She spun it in threads, and brought it to me,Where my sounding loom whirrs cheerily.”“Spinner, spinner, tell me true,Where got you the wool such things to do?”“From the old sheep’s back, little Master dear!The farmer he cut it and washed it clear;The dyer dyed it so bright and blue,And brought it to me to spin for you.”“Now tailor and merchant, and weaver, too,And spinner and farmer, my thanks to you!But the best of my thanks I still will keepFor you, my good old woolly-backed sheep.”