Old Wonder-Eyes, and Other Stories for Children

Minnie was a sweet, gentle little girl, who loved everybody, and every creature that God had made--and everybody and every creature she met loved her. Rough people were gentle to her, and cross people were kindly; she could go straight up to vicious horses, and fierce dogs, and spiteful cats, and they would become quiet and mild directly. I don't think that anything could resist her loving ways, unless it were a mad bull or a setting-hen.

One night, as Minnie lay awake in her bed, in the nursery, listening to a summer rain, she heard a strange fluttering and scratching in the chimney, and she called to her nurse, and said,

"Biddy! what is that funny noise up there?"

Minnie tried to go to sleep, like a good girl; but after awhile she heard that sound again, and presently something came fluttering and scratching right down into the grate, and out into the room! Minnie called again to Biddy; but Biddy was tired and sleepy, and wouldn't wake up. It was so dark that Minnie could see nothing, and she felt a little strange; but she was no coward, and as the bird seemed very quiet, she went to sleep again after awhile, and dreamed that great flocks of rooks were flying over her, slowly, slowly, and making the darkness with their jet black wings.

She woke very early in the morning, and the first thing she saw was a great gray owl, perched on the bed-post at her feet, staring at her with his big, round eyes. He did not fly off when she started up in bed, but only ruffled up his feathers, and said--

"Who!"

Minnie had never seen an owl before; but she was not afraid, and she answered merrily,

"You'd better say 'Who!' Why who are you, yourself, you queer old Wonder-Eyes?"

Then she woke Biddy, who was dreadfully frightened, and called up the butler, who caught the owl, and put him in a cage.

This strange bird was always rather ill-natured and gruff, to everybody but Minnie--he seemed to take kindly to her, from the first. So he was called "Minnie's pet," and nobody disputed her right to him. He would take food from her little hand and never peck her; he would perch on her shoulder and let her take him on an airing round the garden; and sometimes he would sit and watch her studying her lessons, and look as wise and solemn as a learned professor, till he would fall to winking and blinking, and go off into a sound sleep.

Minnie grew really fond of this pet, grave and unsocial as he was; but she always called him by the funny name she had given him first--"_Old Wonder-Eyes!_"

In the winter time little Minnie was taken ill, and she grew worse and worse, till her friends all knew that she was going to leave them very soon. Darling little Minnie was not sorry to die. As she had loved everybody and every creature that God had made, she could not help loving God, and she was not afraid to go to Him when He called her.

The day before she died, she gave all her pets to her brothers and sisters, but she said to her mother--"_You_ take good care of poor old Wonder-Eyes--for he'll have nobody to love him when I am gone."

The owl missed Minnie very much; whenever he heard any one coming, he would cry "Who!" and when he found it wasn't his friend, he would ruffle up his feathers, and look as though he felt himself insulted. He grew crosser and crosser every day, till there would have been no bearing with him, if it had not been for the memory of Minnie.

A deep, broad, lazy-flowing river! It is one of the loveliest things in nature. When I was a little boy I lived near one, and among my very pleasantest memories are those of the days when I fished, and swam, and dived in its clear deeps, or sailed my tiny boats and played "dick, duck, drake" over its sleepy surface.

About half-way up the hill-slope which made the western bank of this river, stood our house. It was a large, dark old building--somewhat gloomy-looking on the outside, may-be, to a stranger; but inside, even in the most out-of-the-way corners of those great rooms, there was no gloom--the sunshine of peace and love made light everywhere. The dear old home!

Among my father's servants there was an old negro, who, as occasion required, was, by turns, coachman, gardener, carpenter, and house-servant. His name was Horace; he had no other name, I believe--at least, I never knew of any. Horace was one of the blackest negroes I ever saw, and as large-hearted as he was black. He was very fond of children, and very good-natured usually, though not always, as you will see, by-and-by.

Horace could make the nicest little wagons and sleds, and the clearest, sweetest-toned willow whistles in the world, I used to think. He could tell to a day, almost, and without trying them, when the May-duke cherries had reached their luscious prime; he could remember, from year to year, exactly in which row, and how far from the end, the early-ripe apple tree stood; he knew too, the very moment, I thought, when the frost had opened the chestnut burrs and ripened the persimmons, so that they would not pucker up our mouths, as they did sometimes, when we were so foolish as to think we knew better than he; he could pick out the luckiest places for our rabbit-traps, and could always find worms for bait, no matter how dry the weather, when we wanted to go a-fishing. In short, Horace knew everything, it seemed to me then.

At the time of which I write, I was eight years old, the younger of two brothers, and Horace's favorite. He used to say that my rosy, chubby face, black, saucy eyes, and laughing, rollicking, topsy-turvy ways, were "better comp'ny" for him than the more thoughtful, quiet, sober bearing of my brother Walter.

Walter went to school in the village, which was about a mile from our house, over the hill; but I said my little lessons to my mother, at home, an hour every morning and afternoon.

When it was not lesson-time, Horace and I were nearly always together; no matter what he might be at work on, he could usually contrive to find something to please me and keep me near him.

One morning, while I was saying my lesson, my father had given Horace a severe scolding for his forgetfulness, which was the only fault he had, I believe, but it was a most grievous one, and often led to serious trouble. After I had finished my lesson, without knowing anything about the scolding he had had, I went out into the garden, where Horace was working, and asked him to fasten a wheel on my little wagon, and help me to gear up my dog, Branch, to it.

"No! go 'long--I'se busy!" said he, without looking at me, and puffing out his great lips. Then he added, in a muttering way, to himself, "Nebber did see sich a bother as dese yer boys is!"

I was rather a passionate boy, and this roused me at once. I said something saucy back to him; then he said something else; then I said something in return, ending by calling him "an old nigger," and went back to the house.

Nothing could have offended Horace more than that "old nigger," which had slipped off my tongue in the heat of my passion, and for which I was heartily sorry a moment after--for, like a great many other negroes I have known, although he frequently called himself so, he would suffer no one else to.

All day long he did not speak to me, nor look at me, though I made a pretence of having several errands to the garden and went right by him--and at night I went to bed quite unhappy about it.

The next morning, I moped about the house, and tried to amuse myself with my humming-top, but it would not spin to suit me, and I threw it aside pettishly and went down to the kitchen, to ask old Wangie, the cook, to tell me a story, while she washed the breakfast things.

I found Wangie and Horace, with the other servants, still at their breakfast; so, without saying anything, I went up to the window and began to blow my breath against the glass, and make figures on it with my fingers. Once I turned my head, and found Horace looking at me with an earnest, wistful look that seemed to say, "I am ready to make up;" but I was proud, and could not bring myself to say anything--though a little soundless voice down in my heart kept urging me to, and though I knew I had been most in fault--until just as Horace was getting up from the table, when the little voice overcame my pride, and, tilting one of the loose flag-stones of the floor up and down with my foot, I said, without looking at him,

"Horace, I ain't mad at you, if you ain't mad at me." When I had got thus far I felt so much better that I looked up frankly into his face, and added, "And I am sorry I called you what I did."

"Lor' bress de chile!" said he; "Ise sorry too. I know'd de boy couldn't stay mad at ole Horace long, and ole Horace couldn't at him, sartin. But ye see, Mass' L----, when you com'd to me I was busy; and den Mass' B---- had jis been talking sharp to de ole nigger, 'cause he forgit to take de gray pony to be shod. I tells ye what, Mass' L----, it make ole Horace feel 'siderably bunkshus[A] for a leetle bit; but Missus says we must forgib and forgit. De Lor' knows I kin do de forgittin' part so well, 'tain't no use to say nothin' 'bout t'other. De ole nigger all right now, though, and he got de purtiest sight to show de boy he ebber see in all he born days."

[Footnote A: This is one of Horace's own words, and I never heard any translation of it.]

With that he picked up his hat, took me by the hand, and off we started, the best of friends again.

How well I remember that day! It was in the middle of May, and the sunshine was so warm and bright, the sky so clear and blue, and the grass, as we passed through the orchard, looked so beautiful, with here and there a snowy drift of apple-blossoms, into whose honeyed hearts the little pilfering bees were diving--and the birds sang so joyously, and such fragrant prophecies of the golden summer-time came floating to us upon every breath of the wind, that I said to Horace, I thought it must be a Sunday that had slipped out of Heaven, by mistake.