Taken or left

SALOME'S HOME.

MY mother had ten boys. It was no wonder that she often looked weary and out of spirits. It was no wonder that we seldom saw her in a cheerful and hopeful state of mind, for she was never strong, and she had to work and to toil as if she were.

I used to wish sometimes that our mother would laugh more and sigh less. I could not understand then what care and anxiety we all were to her. But I can see now that she was too tired to be very merry, and that it was not strange that she found plenty to make her sigh.

I can remember the pile of stockings which she had to mend every Saturday night—heels out, and toes out, and many a hole beside. Poor mother, she would turn them over with a sigh before she began! Then there were the endless patches to be put in trousers and knickerbockers, there was the constant struggle to keep us in clean collars, there was the heavy washing every Tuesday, and the still heavier ironing every Thursday. I can see now that our mother had a very hard life.

But I never, thought of it then. I did not know what it was to be tired; I was strong, and hearty, and happy, and I am afraid I gave my mother as much work to do as any of the rest did.

I was the third boy. John and James were older than I was, and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and Simon, and Jude were younger. My own name was Peter. Father wished us all to be called after the Apostles.

"They had good old-fashioned names," he said.

My mother told me she was very thankful there were only ten of us; she was so much afraid he would call the next one Judas Iscariot, for he said it would be a pity to make a break, when they had kept it up so long.

Father had a large provision shop in the outskirts of the town; he sold groceries, and flour, and bacon, and cheese, and sausages, and butter, and eggs, and meat in tins, and countless other things. He was doing a good business, people said; but he did not grow rich. That was our fault more than his, I suppose. What could a man with ten boys do? Twenty pairs of new boots every year,—ten new suits,—three hundred and sixty-five breakfasts for ten hungry boys,—three hundred and sixty-five dinners for ten boys, still more hungry, at the end of three hours' schooling,—three hundred and sixty-five suppers for ten boys, perfectly ravenous with work, and play, and mischief; it would, indeed, have taken a very full till to have supplied all this, and left enough and to spare, so that our father could have reckoned himself a rich man.

Father was a very silent man; he never spoke two words where one would answer the same purpose. I think that was one reason why our mother was so careworn and depressed. She could never talk out her anxieties with him, but had to keep them all to herself. The only one in the house to whom my father talked was little Salome. She was the youngest, and the only girl, and everybody loved her. It was a wonder she was not spoiled, mother said; but I do not think any one could have spoiled Salome.

I was ten years old when she was born, and I shall never forget our excitement when father told us we had a little sister.

Father was quite talkative that day, and said to us, "Boys, you must be good to her all your lives; she ought to be well taken care of, with ten brothers to fight her battles."

I do not know what the others thought that day, but I know I made up my mind that nothing on earth should ever hurt my little sister so long as I could be near her to defend her. She was a very pretty child; she had dark brown hair, and dark eyes, with soft long eyelashes, and very rosy cheeks. She was far the best-looking of the family, every one said so. Mother told us she was like our grandmother, who had been quite a beauty, and had had her picture painted by some painter, who was lodging in the village where she lived.

When Salome was a baby, we used at first to quarrel about her a great deal. We all wanted to nurse her, and to play with her, and to carry her out; and she was like a favorite toy, which every one of us wanted at the same time. But after a few months had gone by, and Salome was no longer such a novelty to us, the other boys were not so anxious to take charge of her, and, indeed, sometimes grumbled when mother called them from their games to take care of their little sister. And so it came to pass that Salome and I became such great friends. I was never tired of her; it was never a trouble to me to nurse her and to look after her.

"Where are Peter and Salome?" mother would call out at meal-times, for she knew we were always together.

When I was at school, Salome would go into the shop to father, and stay with him while I was away. Not one of his ten boys had been allowed to go into the shop at a time when customers were expected; we were turned out directly if our heads were seen peeping in at the shop door. But Salome used to sit for hours perched on a sack of flour, looking at her picture-book, or watching the customers coming in and going out, from father's high stool behind the counter. But she was always standing at the shop door watching for me, when she knew that it was the time for me to come home, and she would run to meet me, and throw her arms round my neck with a shout of joy, and then jump on my back to be carried home again.

There was a church at the end of the street in which we lived, and my father went to it every Sunday morning. My mother very seldom went with him; she had got out of the way of going while the children were babies, and once having got out of the way, it was very hard for her to get into it again. But my father took his five eldest boys with him, and my mother got us ready, and brushed our hair, and pinned on our clean collars, and then stood on the doorstep watching us go down the street, with little Salome in her arms.

We had a pew of our own, quite at the end of the large church, and here we sat in a row, always in the same order, first James, then John, then myself, then Andrew, then Philip, then our father at the door of the pew. We sat pretty quietly while service went on; but it always seemed a very long and dull time to me. The old clergyman's voice sounded very far away, and I scarcely heard or cared to hear what he said. I was always glad when the last prayer came, and the blessing was pronounced, and the organ began to play, and we could go home again. I do not remember anything that I heard at church, until one Sunday, of which I shall soon have to write. After that Sunday, church never seemed quite the same place to me as it did in the days which went before.

But I must tell you first of another day, which came before that Sunday, for it is a day which I shall never forget as long as I live.

I think that it is the first day in my life which I can remember as being at all different from the rest. There was not much variety in our life, nor in our poor mother's work. We were always hungry, always noisy, and always wearing out our clothes. There was always some one ill, or some one naughty, or some one in mischief. There was the daily hurrying off to school, and the daily hurrying home again. There was the great getting up every morning, when all ten of us lost everything we wanted; and the great going to bed every night, when our poor mother used to look quite worn out and exhausted, long before we were all of us tucked up in bed.

But through all the weeks and months and years of Salome's babyhood, she was learning to love me more, and I was getting still more fond of her. And the day which I shall never forget, and of which I must now write, was Salome's fourth birthday.