Book: Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know

V >> Various >> Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know




"Sumptuous!" said the old man, appearing to glow with the warmth of
the room and the prospect of a good dinner. "But won't it cost you too
much?"

"Too much? No, _sir_!" laughed Bert. "Chicken soup, fifteen cents;
pie--they give tremendous pieces here; thick, I tell you--ten cents.
That's twenty-five cents; half a dollar for two. Of course, I don't do
this way every day in the year. But mother's glad to have me, once in
a while. Here, waiter!" And Bert gave his princely order as if it were
no very great thing for a liberal young fellow like him, after all.

"Where is your mother? Why don't you dine with her?" the little man
asked.

Bert's face grew sober in a moment.

"That's the question: why don't I? I'll tell you why I don't. I've got
the best mother in the world. What I'm trying to do is to make a home
for her, so we can live together and eat our Thanksgiving dinners
together some time. Some boys want one thing, some another. There's
one goes in for good times; another's in such a hurry to get rich he
don't care much how he does it; but what I want most of anything is to
be with my mother and my two sisters again, and I ain't ashamed to say
so."

Bert's eyes grew very tender, and he went on, while his companion
across the table watched him with a very gentle, searching look.

"I haven't been with her now for two years, hardly at all since father
died. When his business was settled up--he kept a little grocery store
on Hanover Street--it was found he hadn't left us anything. We had
lived pretty well up to that time, and I and my two sisters had been
to school; but then mother had to do something, and her friends got
her places to go out nursing, and she's a nurse now. Everybody likes
her, and she has enough to do. We couldn't be with her, of course. She
got us boarded at a good place, but I saw how hard it was going to be
for her to support us, so I said, 'I'm a boy; _I_ can do something for
_myself_. You just pay their board, and keep 'em to school, and I'll
go to work, and maybe help you a little, besides taking care of
myself.'"

"What could _you_ do?" said the little old man.

"That's it. I was only 'leven years old, and what could I? What I
should have liked would have been some nice place where I could do
light work, and stand a chance of learning a good business. But
beggars mustn't be choosers. I couldn't find such a place; and I
wasn't going to be loafing about the streets, so I went to selling
newspapers. I've sold newspapers ever since, and I shall be twelve
years old next month."

"You like it?" said the old man.

"I like to get my own living," replied Bert, proudly, "but what I want
is to learn some trade, or regular business, and settle down, and make
a home for--But there's no use talking about that. Make the best of
things, that's my motto. Don't this soup smell good? And don't it
taste good, too? They haven't put so much chicken in yours as they
have in mine. If you don't mind my having tasted it, we'll change."

The old man declined this liberal offer, took Bert's advice to help
himself freely to bread, which "didn't cost anything," and ate his
soup with prodigious relish, as it seemed to Bert, who grew more and
more hospitable and patronizing as the repast proceeded.

"Come, now, won't you have something between the soup and the pie?
Don't be afraid: I'll pay for it. Thanksgiving don't come but once a
year. You won't? A cup of tea, then, to go with your pie?"

"I think I _will_ have a cup of tea; you are _so_ kind," said the old
man.

"All right! Here, waiter! Two pieces of your fattest and biggest
squash pie; and a cup of tea, strong, for this gentleman."

"I've told you about myself," added Bert; "suppose, now, _you_ tell
_me_ something."

"About myself?"

"Yes. I think that would go pretty well with the pie."

But the man shook his head. "I could go back and tell about my plans
and hopes when I was a lad of your age, but it would be too much like
your own story over again. Life isn't what we think it will be when we
are young. You'll find that out soon enough. I am all alone in the
world now, and I am sixty-seven years old."

"Have some cheese with your pie, won't you? It must be so lonely at
your age! What do you do for a living?"

"I have a little place in Devonshire Street. My name is Crooker.
You'll find me up two flights of stairs, back room, at the right. Come
and see me, and I'll tell you all about my business, and perhaps help
you to such a place as you want, for I know several business men. Now
don't fail."

And Mr. Crooker wrote his address with a little stub of a pencil on a
corner of the newspaper which had led to their acquaintance, tore it
off carefully, and gave it to Bert.

Thereupon the latter took a card from his pocket, not a very clean
one, I must say (I am speaking of the card, though the remark will
apply equally well to the pocket) and handed it across the table to
his new friend.

"_Herbert Hampton, Dealer in Newspapers_," the old man read, with his
sharp gray eyes, which glanced up funnily at Bert, seeming to say,
"Isn't this rather aristocratic for a twelve-year-old newsboy?"

Bert blushed, and explained: "Got up for me by a printer's boy I know.
I'd done some favours for him, so he made me a few cards. Handy to
have sometimes, you know."

"Well, Herbert," said the little old man, "I'm glad to have made your
acquaintance. The pie was excellent--not any more, thank you--and I
hope you'll come and see me. You'll find me in very humble quarters;
but you are not aristocratic, you say. Now won't you let me pay for my
dinner? I believe I have money enough. Let me see."

Bert would not hear of such a thing, but walked up to the desk and
settled the bill with the air of a person who did not regard a
trifling expense.

When he looked around again the little old man was gone.

"Never mind, I'll go and see him the first chance I have," said Bert,
as he looked at the pencilled strip of newspaper margin again before
putting it into his pocket.

He then went round to his miserable quarters, in the top of a cheap
lodging-house, where he made himself ready, by means of soap and water
and a broken comb, to walk five miles into the suburbs and get a
sight, if only for five minutes, of his mother.

On the following Monday Bert, having a leisure hour, went to call on
his new acquaintance in Devonshire Street.

Having climbed the two flights, he found the door of the back room at
the right ajar, and looking in, saw Mr. Crooker at a desk, in the act
of receiving a roll of money from a well-dressed visitor.

Bert entered unnoticed and waited till the money was counted and a
receipt signed. Then, as the visitor departed, old Mr. Crooker looked
round and saw Bert. He offered him a chair, then turned to lock up the
money in a safe.

"So this is your place of business?" said Bert, glancing about the
plain office room. "What do you do here?"

"I buy real estate sometimes--sell--rent--and so forth."

"Who for?" asked Bert.

"For myself," said little old Mr. Crooker, with a smile.

Bert stared, perfectly aghast at the situation. This, then, was the
man whom he had invited to dinner, and treated so patronizingly the
preceding Thursday!

"I--I thought--you was a poor man."

"I _am_ a poor man," said Mr. Crooker, locking his safe. "Money
doesn't make a man rich. I've money enough. I own houses in the city.
They give me something to think of, and so keep me alive. I had truer
riches once, but I lost them long ago."

From the way the old man's voice trembled and eyes glistened, Bert
thought he must have meant by these riches friends he had lost--wife
and children, perhaps.

"To think of _me_ inviting _you_ to dinner!" the boy cried, abashed
and ashamed.

"It _was_ odd." And Mr. Crooker showed his white front teeth with a
smile. "But it may turn out to have been a lucky circumstance for both
of us. I like you; I believe in you; and I've an offer to make to you:
I want a trusty, bright boy in this office, somebody I can bring up to
my business, and leave it with, as I get too old to attend to it
myself. What do you say?"

What _could_ Bert say?

Again that afternoon he walked--or rather, ran--to his mother, and
after consulting with her, joyfully accepted Mr. Crooker's offer.

Interviews between his mother and his employer soon followed,
resulting in something for which at first the boy had not dared to
hope. The lonely, childless old man, who owned so many houses, wanted
a home; and one of these houses he offered to Mrs. Hampton, with ample
support for herself and her children, if she would also make it a home
for him.

Of course this proposition was accepted; and Bert soon had the
satisfaction of seeing the great ambition of his youth accomplished.
He had employment which promised to become a profitable business (as
indeed it did in a few years, he and the old man proved so useful to
each other); and, more than that, he was united once more with his
mother and sisters in a happy home where he has since had a good many
Thanksgiving dinners.




A THANKSGIVING STORY[15]

BY MISS L. B. PINGREE.

A three-minute story for the littlest boys and girls.


It was nearly time for Thanksgiving Day. The rosy apples and golden
pumpkins were ripe, and the farmers were bringing them into the
markets.

[Footnote 15: From "Boston Collection of Kindergarten Stories," J. L.
Hammett Company.]

One day when two little children, named John and Minnie, were going to
school, they saw the turkeys and chickens and pumpkins in the window
of a market, and they exclaimed, "Oh, Thanksgiving Day! Oh,
Thanksgiving Day!" After school was over, they ran home to their
mother, and asked her when Thanksgiving Day would be. She told them in
about two weeks; then they began to talk about what they wanted for
dinner, and asked their mother a great many questions. She told them
she hoped they would have turkey and even the pumpkin pie they wanted
so much, but that Thanksgiving Day was not given us so that we might
have a good dinner, but that God had been a great many days and weeks
preparing for Thanksgiving. He had sent the sunshine and the rain and
caused the grains and fruits and vegetables to grow. And Thanksgiving
Day was for glad and happy thoughts about God, as well as for good
things to eat.

Not long after, when John and Minnie were playing, John said to
Minnie, "I wish I could do something to tell God how glad I am about
Thanksgiving." "I wish so, too," said Minnie. Just then some little
birds came flying down to the ground, and Minnie said: "Oh, I know."
Then she told John, but they agreed to keep it a secret till the day
came. Now what do you think they did? Well, I will tell you.

They saved their pennies, and bought some corn, and early Thanksgiving
Day, before they had their dinner, they went out into the street near
their home, and scattered corn in a great many places. What for? Why,
for the birds. While they were doing it, John said, "I know, Minnie,
why you thought of the birds: because they do not have any papas and
mammas after they are grown up to get a dinner for them on
Thanksgiving Day." "Yes, that is why," said Minnie.

By and by the birds came and found such a feast, and perhaps they knew
something about Thanksgiving Day and must have sung and chirped
happily all day.




JOHN INGLEFIELD'S THANKSGIVING

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

A sad Thanksgiving story is a rarity indeed. But the one
which follows reminds us that the Puritans, although they
originated our Thanksgiving festival, were after all a
sombre people, seldom free from a realizing sense of the
imminence of sin. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a genuine product of
Puritanism, inherited a full share of his forefathers'
constitutional melancholy and preoccupation with the darker
aspects of life--as this story bears witness.


On the evening of Thanksgiving Day, John Inglefield, the blacksmith,
sat in his elbow-chair among those who had been keeping festival at
his board. Being the central figure of the domestic circle, the fire
threw its strongest light on his massive and sturdy frame, reddening
his rough visage so that it looked like the head of an iron statue,
all aglow, from his own forge, and with its features rudely fashioned
on his own anvil. At John Inglefield's right hand was an empty chair.
The other places round the hearth were filled by the members of the
family, who all sat quietly, while, with a semblance of fantastic
merriment, their shadows danced on the wall behind them. One of the
group was John Inglefield's son, who had been bred at college, and was
now a student of theology at Andover. There was also a daughter of
sixteen, whom nobody could look at without thinking of a rosebud
almost blossomed. The only other person at the fireside was Robert
Moore, formerly an apprentice of the blacksmith, but now his
journeyman, and who seemed more like an own son of John Inglefield
than did the pale and slender student.

Only these four had kept New England's festival beneath that roof. The
vacant chair at John Inglefield's right hand was in memory of his
wife, whom death had snatched from him since the previous
Thanksgiving. With a feeling that few would have looked for in his
rough nature, the bereaved husband had himself set the chair in its
place next his own; and often did his eye glance hitherward, as if he
deemed it possible that the cold grave might send back its tenant to
the cheerful fireside, at least for that one evening. Thus did he
cherish the grief that was dear to him. But there was another grief
which he would fain have torn from his heart; or, since that could
never be, have buried it too deep for others to behold, or for his own
remembrance. Within the past year another member of his household had
gone from him, but not to the grave. Yet they kept no vacant chair for
her.

While John Inglefield and his family were sitting round the hearth
with the shadows dancing behind them on the wall, the outer door was
opened, and a light footstep came along the passage. The latch of the
inner door was lifted by some familiar hand, and a young girl came in,
wearing a cloak and hood, which she took off and laid on the table
beneath the looking-glass. Then, after gazing a moment at the fireside
circle, she approached, and took the seat at John Inglefield's right
hand, as if it had been reserved on purpose for her.

"Here I am, at last, father," said she. "You ate your Thanksgiving
dinner without me, but I have come back to spend the evening with
you."

Yes, it was Prudence Inglefield. She wore the same neat and maidenly
attire which she had been accustomed to put on when the household work
was over for the day, and her hair was parted from her brow in the
simple and modest fashion that became her best of all. If her cheek
might otherwise have been pale, yet the glow of the fire suffused it
with a healthful bloom. If she had spent the many months of her
absence in guilt and infamy, yet they seemed to have left no traces on
her gentle aspect. She could not have looked less altered had she
merely stepped away from her father's fireside for half an hour, and
returned while the blaze was quivering upward from the same brands
that were burning at her departure. And to John Inglefield she was the
very image of his buried wife, such as he remembered on the first
Thanksgiving which they had passed under their own roof. Therefore,
though naturally a stern and rugged man, he could not speak unkindly
to his sinful child, nor yet could he take her to his bosom.

"You are welcome home, Prudence," said he, glancing sideways at her,
and his voice faltered. "Your mother would have rejoiced to see you,
but she has been gone from us these four months."

"I know, father, I know it," replied Prudence quickly. "And yet, when
I first came in, my eyes were so dazzled by the firelight that she
seemed to be sitting in this very chair!"

By this time, the other members of the family had begun to recover
from their surprise, and became sensible that it was no ghost from the
grave, nor vision of their vivid recollections, but Prudence, her own
self. Her brother was the next that greeted her. He advanced and held
out his hand affectionately, as a brother should; yet not entirely
like a brother, for, with all his kindness, he was still a clergyman
and speaking to a child of sin.

"Sister Prudence," said he, earnestly, "I rejoice that a merciful
Providence hath turned your steps homeward in time for me to bid you a
last farewell. In a few weeks, sister, I am to sail as a missionary to
the far islands of the Pacific. There is not one of these beloved
faces that I shall ever hope to behold again on this earth. Oh, may I
see all of them--yours and all--beyond the grave!"

A shadow flitted across the girl's countenance.

"The grave is very dark, brother," answered she, withdrawing her hand
somewhat hastily from his grasp. "You must look your last at me by the
light of this fire."

While this was passing, the twin girl--the rosebud that had grown on
the same stem with the castaway--stood gazing at her sister, longing
to fling herself upon her bosom, so that the tendrils of their hearts
might intertwine again. At first she was restrained by mingled grief
and shame, and by a dread that Prudence was too much changed to
respond to her affection, or that her own purity would be felt as a
reproach by the lost one. But, as she listened to the familiar voice,
while the face grew more and more familiar, she forgot everything save
that Prudence had come back. Springing forward she would have clasped
her in a close embrace. At that very instant, however, Prudence
started from her chair and held out both her hands with a warning
gesture.

"No, Mary, no, my sister," cried she, "do not you touch me! Your bosom
must not be pressed to mine!"

Mary shuddered and stood still, for she felt that something darker
than the grave was between Prudence and herself, though they seemed so
near each other in the light of their father's hearth, where they had
grown up together. Meanwhile Prudence threw her eyes around the room
in search of one who had not yet bidden her welcome. He had withdrawn
from his seat by the fireside and was standing near the door, with his
face averted so that his features could be discerned only by the
flickering shadow of the profile upon the wall. But Prudence called to
him in a cheerful and kindly tone:

"Come, Robert," said she, "won't you shake hands with your old
friend?"

Robert Moore held back for a moment, but affection struggled
powerfully and overcame his pride and resentment; he rushed toward
Prudence, seized her hand, and pressed it to his bosom.

"There, there, Robert," said she, smiling sadly, as she withdrew her
hand, "you must not give me too warm a welcome."

And now, having exchanged greetings with each member of the family,
Prudence again seated herself in the chair at John Inglefield's right
hand. She was naturally a girl of quick and tender sensibilities,
gladsome in her general mood, but with a bewitching pathos interfused
among her merriest words and deeds. It was remarked of her, too, that
she had a faculty, even from childhood, of throwing her own feelings
like a spell over her companions. Such as she had been in her days of
innocence, so did she appear this evening. Her friends, in the
surprise and bewilderment of her return, almost forgot that she had
ever left them, or that she had forfeited any of her claims to their
affection. In the morning, perhaps, they might have looked at her with
altered eyes, but by the Thanksgiving fireside they felt only that
their own Prudence had come back to them, and were thankful. John
Inglefield's rough visage brightened with the glow of his heart, as it
grew warm and merry within him; once or twice, even, he laughed till
the room rang again, yet seemed startled by the echo of his own mirth.
The brave young minister became as frolicsome as a schoolboy. Mary,
too, the rosebud, forgot that her twin-blossom had ever been torn from
the stem and trampled in the dust. And as for Robert Moore, he gazed
at Prudence with the bashful earnestness of love new-born, while she,
with sweet maiden coquetry, half smiled upon and half discouraged him.

In short, it was one of those intervals when sorrow vanishes in its
own depth of shadow, and joy starts forth in transitory brightness.
When the clock struck eight, Prudence poured out her father's
customary draught of herb tea, which had been steeping by the fireside
ever since twilight.

"God bless you, child," said John Inglefield, as he took the cup from
her hand; "you have made your old father happy again. But we miss your
mother sadly, Prudence, sadly. It seems as if she ought to be here
now."

"Now, father, or never," replied Prudence.

It was now the hour for domestic worship. But while the family were
making preparations for this duty, they suddenly perceived that
Prudence had put on her cloak and hood, and was lifting the latch of
the door.

"Prudence, Prudence! where are you going?" cried they all with one
voice.

As Prudence passed out of the door, she turned toward them and flung
back her hand with a gesture of farewell. But her face was so changed
that they hardly recognized it. Sin and evil passions glowed through
its comeliness, and wrought a horrible deformity; a smile gleamed in
her eyes, as of triumphant mockery, at their surprise and grief.

"Daughter," cried John Inglefield, between wrath and sorrow, "stay and
be your father's blessing, or take his curse with you!"

For an instant Prudence lingered and looked back into the fire-lighted
room, while her countenance wore almost the expression as if she were
struggling with a fiend who had power to seize his victim even within
the hallowed precincts of her father's hearth. The fiend prevailed,
and Prudence vanished into the outer darkness. When the family rushed
to the door, they could see nothing, but heard the sound of wheels
rattling over the frozen ground.

That same night, among the painted beauties at the theatre of a
neighbouring city, there was one whose dissolute mirth seemed
inconsistent with any sympathy for pure affections, and for the joys
and griefs which are hallowed by them. Yet this was Prudence
Inglefield. Her visit to the Thanksgiving fireside was the realization
of one of those waking dreams in which the guilty soul will sometimes
stray back to its innocence. But Sin, alas! is careful of her
bondslaves; they hear her voice, perhaps, at the holiest moment, and
are constrained to go whither she summons them. The same dark power
that drew Prudence Inglefield from her father's hearth--the same in
its nature, though heightened then to a dread necessity--would snatch
a guilty soul from the gate of heaven, and make its sin and its
punishment alike eternal.




HOW OBADIAH BROUGHT ABOUT A THANKSGIVING[16]

BY EMILY HEWITT LELAND.

The Waddle family had very bad luck on their farm in the
West. And they certainly were homesick! But Obadiah and his
uncle, between them, found means to mend matters.


That an innocent and helpless baby should be named Obadiah Waddle was
an outrage which the infant unceasingly resented from the time he got
old enough to realize the awful gulf that lay between his name and
those of his more fortunate mates. The experiences of his first day at
school were branded into his soul; and although he made friends by his
bright face and kind and honest nature, scarcely a day passed during
his six years of village schooling without his absurd name flying out
at him from some unsuspected ambush and making him wince.

[Footnote 16: From the _Youth's Companion_, November 26, 1903.]

It was bad enough when the guying came from a boy, but when a girl
took to punning, jeering, or giggling at him it seemed as if his
burden was greater than he could bear. Then he would go home through
the woods and fields to avoid human beings, so hurt and unhappy that
nothing but his mother's greeting and the smell of a good supper could
cheer him.

At home he had no trouble. His mother and his baby sister called him
Obie, and sweet was his name on their lips. His father, who had
objected to "Obadiah" from the first, called him Bub or Bubby; but one
can bear almost any name when it comes with a loving smile or a pat on
the shoulder, which was Mr. Waddle's way of addressing his only son.

Very early in life it had been explained to Obadiah that he was named
for his mother's favourite brother, who went to California to live,
after hanging a silver dollar on a black silk cord round the neck of
his little namesake.

Obadiah often looked at this dollar, which was kept in a little box
with a broken earring, a hair chain, a glass breastpin, and an ancient
"copper"; and sometimes on circus days or on the Fourth of July he
wished there was no hole in it that he might expend it on side-shows
and lemonade or on monstrous firecrackers.

But he knew that his mother valued it highly because Uncle Obie gave
it to him and because there were little dents in it made by his
vigorous first teeth; so he always returned it to the box with a sigh
of resignation, and made the most of the twenty-five cents given him
by his father on the great days of the year.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.