Wreaths of Friendship by T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth

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WREATHS OF FRIENDSHIP:

A Gift for the Young

by

T. S. ARTHUR and F. C. WOODWORTH

New York:
Charles Scribner,
36 Park Row, And 145 Nassau St.
Stereotyped by Baker & Palmer
11 Spruce Street.

1851

[Illustration: Wreaths of Friendship]

[Illustration: TOKENS OF AFFECTION. (See Page 207.)]

Preface.

Young friends--stop a moment. We have set up a sort of turnpike gate
here, as you see, between the title-page and the first story in our
book, in the shape of a preface, or introduction. "What! do you mean to
take toll of us, then?" Why, no--not exactly. But we want to say half a
dozen words to you, as you pass along, and to tell you a little about
these WREATHS which we have been twining for our friends. So you need
not be in quite so great a hurry. Wait a minute.

You have no doubt noticed that it is a very common thing for an author
to take up several of the first pages of his book with apologies to his
readers. First, perhaps, he apologizes for writing at all; and secondly,
for writing so poorly--just as if it was a crime to make a book, for
which crime the author must get down on his knees, and humbly beg the
public's pardon. We think we shall not take this course, on the whole,
for this reason, if for no other--that we do not feel very guilty about
what we have done. But as the plan of our book is somewhat new, we have
been thinking it would be well enough, in introducing it to you, at
least to tell how we came to make it.

We have both of us published a good deal, in one way and another, for
young people; and we got a notion--a very pleasant one, certainly, and
rather natural, withal, whether well founded or not--that among that
class of the public composed of boys and girls, we had a pretty
respectable number of friends. Under this impression, we put our heads
together, one day, and made up our minds to invite these friends of
ours, every one of them, to a kind of festival, and that we would share
equally in the pleasure of giving the entertainment. The book, reader,
which we have named WREATHS OF FRIENDSHIP, as perhaps you have already
guessed, grew out of that plan of ours.

We have not, as you will perceive, indicated the authorship of the tales
and sketches, as they appear; and those readers who have any curiosity
in this matter, are referred to the index.

We hope the volume will please you. More than this: we hope it will
prove to be useful--useful for the future as well as for the present
life; and, indeed, if it had not been for this hope, much as we love to
entertain our young friends, these Wreaths would never have been twined
by our hands.

We have little else to add, except the fondest wishes of our hearts;
and, to tell the truth, it was to express to you these kind wishes--to
give you something like a hearty shake of the hand--rather than because
we had any thing of importance to say in our preface, that we stopped
you at the outset.

THE AUTHORS.

Contents

Authors. Page.

What shall we Build? T.S.A. 13
The Two Cousins F.C.W. 16
A Noble Act T.S.A. 28
The Word of God T.S.A. 35
Harsh Words and Kind Words T.S.A. 36
The Herons and the Herrings F.C.W. 41
Early Spring Flowers F.C.W. 43
Temptation Resisted T.S.A. 51
Evening Prayer T.S.A. 61
Stretching the Truth F.C.W. 63
The City Pigeon T.S.A. 67
A Day in the Woods T.S.A. 72
The Spider and the Honey Bee F.C.W. 81
Emma Lee and her Sixpence T.S.A. 88
Uncle Roderick's Stories F.C.W. 93
Honesty the Best Policy F.C.W. 94
How a Rogue Feels when he is Caught F.C.W. 97
The Weekly Newspaper F.C.W. 100
The Cider Plot F.C.W. 103
My First Hunting Excursion F.C.W. 107
Saturday in Winter T.S.A. 111
Rover and his Little Master T.S.A. 113
Something Wrong T.S.A. 117
The Favorite Child F.C.W. 121
The Mine T.S.A. 129
The Miner T.S.A. 132
Visit to Fairy Land F.C.W. 135
The Hermit T.S.A. 143
A Picture T.S.A. 147
The Boy and the Robin F.C.W. 150
Something about Conscience F.C.W. 152
Old Ned T.S.A. 166
The Freed Butterfly T.S.A. 175
Julia and Her Birds F.C.W. 177
The Song of the Snow Bird T.S.A. 185
How to Avoid a Quarrel T.S.A. 189
Passing for More than One is Worth F.C.W. 197
The Lament of the Invalid F.C.W. 205
The Use of Flowers T.S.A. 207
Sliding Down Hill F.C.W. 211
A Garden Overrun with Weeds T.S.A. 217
Disappointment Sometimes a Blessing F.C.W. 221
The Old Man at the Cottage Door T.S.A. 232
Story of a Stolen Pen F.C.W. 234

WREATHS.
WHAT SHALL WE BUILD?

Four children were playing on the sea-shore. They had gathered bright
pebbles and beautiful shells, and written their names in the pure, white
sand; but at last, tired of their sport, they were about going home, when
one of them, as they came to a pile of stones, cried out:

"Oh! let us build a fort; and we will call that ship away out there, an
enemy's vessel, and make believe we are firing great cannon balls into
her!"

"Yes, yes! let us build a fort," responded Edward, the other lad.

And the two boys--for two were boys and two girls--ran off to the pile of
stones, and began removing them to a place near the water.

"Come, Anna and Jane," said they, "come and help us."

"Oh, no. Don't let us build a fort," said Jane.

[Illustration: WHAT SHALL WE BUILD?]

"Yes; we will build a fort," returned the boys. "What else can we build?
You wouldn't put a house down here upon the water's edge?"

"No; but I'll tell you what we can build, and it will be a great deal
better than a fort."

"Well; what can we build?"

"A light-house," said the girls; "and that will be just as much in place on
the edge of the sea as a fort. We can call the ship yonder a vessel lost in
the darkness, and we will hang out a light and direct her in the true way.
Won't that be much better than to call her an enemy, and build a fort to
destroy her? See how beautifully she sits upon and glides over the smooth
water! Her sails are like the open wings of a bird, and they bear her
gracefully along. Would it not be cruel to shoot great balls into her
sides, tear her sails to pieces, and kill the men who are on board of her?
Oh! I am sure it would make us all happier to save her when in darkness and
danger. No, no; let us not build a fort, but a light-house; for it is
better to save than to destroy."

The girls spoke with tenderness and enthusiasm, and their words reached the
better feelings of their companions.

"Oh, yes," said they; "we will build a light-house, and not a fort." And
they did so.

Yes, it is much better to save than to destroy. Think of that, children,
and let it go with you through life. Be more earnest to save your friends
than to destroy your enemies. And yet, when a real enemy comes, and seeks
to do evil, be brave to resist him.

THE TWO COUSINS;
OR, HOW TO ACT WHEN "THINGS GO WRONG."

"There, mother, I knew it would be so. Lucy Wallace has just sent over to
tell me she can't walk out in the woods with me. There's no use in my
trying to please any body--there's no use in it. I'm an odd sort of a
creature, it seems. Nobody loves me. It always was so. Oh, dear! I wish I
knew what I had done to make the girls hate me so!"

This not very good-natured speech was made by a little girl, whom I shall
call Angeline Standish. She was some ten or twelve years old, as near as I
can recollect. Perhaps my readers would like to know something about the
occasion which called for this speech; but it is a long story, and hardly
worth telling. The truth is, when little boys and girls get very angry, or
peevish, or fretful, they sometimes blow out a great deal of ill-humor,
something after the manner that an overcharged steam boiler lets off
steam--with this difference, however, that the steam boiler gets cooler by
the operation, while the boy or girl gets more heated. The throat is a poor
safety-valve for ill-humor; and it is bad business, this setting the tongue
agoing at such a rate, whenever the mercury in one's temper begins to rise
toward the boiling point.

As is usual, in such cases, Angeline felt worse after these words had
whistled through the escape pipe of her ill-nature, than she did before;
and, for want of something else to do, she commenced crying. She was not
angry--that is, not altogether so--though the spirit she showed was a
pretty good imitation of anger, it must be confessed. She was peevish.
Matters had not gone right with her that day. She was crossed in this thing
and that thing. Her new hat had not come home from the milliner's, as she
expected; one of her frocks had just got badly torn; she had a hard lesson
to learn; and I cannot repeat the whole catalogue of her miseries. So she
fretted, and stormed, and cried, and felt just as badly as she chose.

Not long after the crying spell was over, and there was a little blue sky
in sight, Jeannette Forrest, a cousin of Angeline's, came running into the
room, her face all lighted up with smiles, and threw her arms around her
cousin's neck, and kissed her. This was no uncommon thing with Jeannette.
She had a very happy and a very affectionate disposition. Every body loved
her, and she loved every body.

One not acquainted with Angeline, might very naturally suppose that she
would return her cousin's embrace. But she did no such thing. Her manner
was quite cool and distant. Human nature is a strange compound, is it not?

"Why, cousin," said the light-hearted Jeannette, "what is the matter? You
are not well, are you?"

"Yes, well enough," the other replied, rather crustily. Take care,
Angeline, there's a cloud coming over your cousin's face. Speak a kind word
or two, now. Then the sun will beam out again, brightly as ever. Jeannette
was silent for a moment, for she was astonished, and did not know what to
make of her cousin's manner. It would have appeared uncivil and rude to
most little girls. But the sweet spirit of Jeannette--loving, hoping,
trusting--was differently affected. She saw only the brighter side of the
picture. So the bee, as she flies merrily from flower to flower, finds a
store of honey where others would find only poison.

"Dear Angeline," said her cousin, at length, "I'm sure something is the
matter. Tell me what it is, won't you? Oh, I should love to make you happy,
if I only knew how!"

Angeline seemed scarcely to hear these words of love. That is strange
enough, I hear you say. So it is, perhaps, and it may be stranger still,
that she read not the language of love and sympathy that was written so
plainly in her cousin's countenance. It is true, though, for all that. She
did not say much of any thing to this inquiry--she simply muttered, between
her teeth,

"I don't believe any body loves me."

Jeannette was no philosopher. She could not read essays nor preach sermons.
Her argument to convince her cousin that there was, at least, one who loved
her, was drawn from the heart, rather than from the head. It was very
brief, and very much to the point. She burst into tears, and sobbed,

"Don't say so, dear."

Jeannette could not stay long. Her mother had sent her on an errand, and
told her she must make haste back. Perhaps it was as well that she could
not stay--and perhaps not. Human nature is a strange sort of compound, as I
said before; and it may be that the ice which had covered over the streams
leading from Angeline's heart would not have melted under the influence
even of the warm sun that, for a moment or two, beamed upon them so kindly.
For one, however, I should like to know what would have come out of that
conversation, if it had been allowed to go on. Jeannette went home, and
Angeline was again left to her own reflections, which were any thing but
pleasant. It was Saturday afternoon; and, there being no school, she had
hoped to be able to ramble in the woods with some of her little companions.
But here she was disappointed, too, and this increased her peevishness;
though the reason why she could not go was, because she did not learn her
lesson in season, and that was her own fault. Toward night, when Mrs
Standish had leisure to sit down to her sewing, she called Angeline, and
reminded her of the ill-natured spirit she had shown in the early part of
the afternoon. The child was rather ashamed of what she had said, it is
true; but she tried to excuse her conduct.

"Every thing went wrong to-day, mother," she said; "I couldn't help feeling
so. Oh, dear! I don't see how any body can be good, when things go in this
way--I mean any body but Jeannette. I wish I was like her. It is easy for
her to be good."

"Your cousin has, no doubt, a very different disposition from yours," said
the mother. "But it is much easier for you to be always good-natured and
happy than you suppose, Angeline."

"I wish I knew how, mother."

"Well, you say things went wrong with you this afternoon. I think I know
what some of these things were. They were not so pleasant as they might
have been, certainly. They were troublesome. But don't you think the
greatest trouble of all was in your own heart?"

"No, ma'am. I was well enough until the things began to go wrong; and then
I felt bad, and I couldn't help it."

Mrs Standish laughed, as she said, "So, then, as soon as the things begin
to go wrong, you take the liberty to go wrong too. Every thing works well
inside, until it is disturbed by something outside?"

"That is it, mother."

"And when the things inside go smoothly, because every thing is smooth
outside, you have a very good and happy disposition?"

"Pretty good, I think."

"And so, when there is a hurricane inside, because the wind blows rather
more than usual outside, you are cross, and unhappy, and bad enough to make
up for being so good before?"

"Yes, ma'am, I am afraid I am, sometimes."

"No, my child, you are wrong, all wrong. If all was right inside, the other
things you speak of would not disturb you so, if they should happen to go
wrong."

"Why, mother, wouldn't they disturb me at all?"

"They might, occasionally, but not near as much. Do you remember that our
clock went wrong last winter?"

"Yes, ma'am; we couldn't tell what time it was, and it used to strike all
sorts of ways."

"What do you suppose made the clock act so, Angeline? It goes well enough
now, you know."

"I believe Mr Mercer said one of the wheels was out of order."

"That was all. It was not the weather--not because we forgot to wind it
up--not because things did not go right in the room. Now, your mind is
something like a clock. If it is kept in order, it will run pretty well, I
guess--no matter whether it rains or shines--whether it is winter or
summer. Milton says, very beautifully, in his poem called the 'Paradise
Lost,'

"'The mind is its own place, and of itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.'

"He means by this, that our happiness or unhappiness depends more upon what
is within us than it does upon what is without. And he is right. Do you
understand, my child?"

"I understand what you mean, but it is not so easy to see how I am to go to
work and be good all the time, like cousin Jeannette. I'm not like her,
mother, and I never can be like her, I know."

"True, you will always be very unlike your cousin. But I don't know of any
thing to hinder your being as good and amiable as she is, for all that."

"Oh, mother! I'd give every thing in the world, if I only knew how!"

"I think you can learn, my child, with much less expense; though, to be
sure, you will have to give up some things that perhaps you will find it
hard to part with. You will be obliged to give up some of your bad habits."

"That would be easy enough."

"Not so easy as you think, it may be. It is a good deal easier to let a bad
habit come in, than it is to turn one out. But 'where there's a will,
there's a way,' you know."

"Well, mother, what shall I do? I should like to begin pretty soon, for
scarcely any body loves me now,"

"Before you learn much, it might be well to unlearn a little. When any
thing goes wrong, as you say, you must, at least, not make it go worse. You
must not make every body around you unhappy, if you do feel a little cross
and peevish."

"Oh, mother, I can't speak pleasantly when I don't feel so."

"Then, in most cases, you had better not speak at all."

"I never thought of that. I can stop talking, if I try."

"So you can, and you can do more. You can get into the habit of finding
'the south or sunny side of things,' as Jean Paul says, and if you do, you
will not be likely to have a snow-storm in your heart very often. Besides,
you ought to remember, that all these disappointments and crosses are a
part of your education for heaven, and you should endeavor to improve them
as such, so that their good effect will not be lost. And another thing, my
child: you ought to ask God to assist you in this self-government--to make
you his child--to give you a new heart--to teach you to love Christ, and to
be like him. Then you will seldom feel cross and fretful, because things go
wrong. You will be cheerful and good-natured. You will make others
happy--and you will very soon forget the old story, that nobody loves you."

Now, many little boys and girls--possibly some who read this story--would
have thought this task too hard. They would have regarded it as a pretty
severe penance. Perhaps they would have concluded, after having put all
these difficult things into one scale, and the thing to be gained by them
into the other, that the reward was not worth so great a sacrifice. So
thought not Angeline, however. She began the work in earnest, that very
day. She went over to her uncle's, with an unusual amount of sunshine in
her countenance, and made it all right with Jeannette. In the evening, she
told her little brother James what she intended to do, and invited him to
help her; and before they retired to rest that night, they knelt down
together and offered up a prayer, that God, for Christ's sake, would help
them in governing themselves.

One day--perhaps some six weeks after this--Mrs Standish said, smilingly,
to her daughter,

"Well, my dear, does Lucy Wallace love you any better?"

"Oh, mother," said Angeline, as a tear of joy stood in her eye, "every body
loves me now!"

A NOBLE ACT.

"What have you there, boys?" asked Captain Bland.

"A ship," replied one of the lads who were passing the captain's neat
cottage.

"A ship! Let me see;" and the captain took the little vessel, and examined
it with as much fondness as a child does a pretty toy. "Very fair, indeed;
who made it?"

"I did," replied one of the boys.

"You, indeed! Do you mean to be a sailor, Harry?"

"I don't know. I want father to get me into the navy."

"As a midshipman?"

"Yes, sir."

Captain Bland shook his head.

"Better be a farmer, a physician, or a merchant."

"Why so, captain?" asked Harry;

"All these are engaged in the doing of things directly useful to society."

"But I am sure, captain, that those who defend us against our enemies, and
protect all who are engaged in commerce from wicked pirates, are doing what
is useful to society."

"Their use, my lad," replied Captain Bland, "is certainly a most important
one; but we may call it rather negative than positive. The civilian is
engaged in building up and sustaining society in doing good, through his
active employment, to his fellow-man. But military and naval officers do
not produce any thing; they only protect and defend."

"But if they did not protect and defend, captain, evil men would destroy
society. It would be of no use for the civilian to endeavor to build up, if
there were none to fight against the enemies of the state."

"Very true, my lad. The brave defender of his country cannot be dispensed
with, and we give him all honor. Still, the use of defence and protection
is not so high as the use of building up and sustaining. The thorn that
wounds the hand stretched forth to pluck the flower, is not so much
esteemed, nor of so much worth, as the blossom it was meant to guard.
Still, the thorn performs a great use. Precisely a similar use does the
soldier or naval officer perform to society; and it will be for you, my
lad, to decide as to which position you would rather fill."

"I never thought of that, captain," said one of the lads. "But I can see
clearly how it is. And yet I think those men who risk their lives for us in
war, deserve great honor. They leave their homes, and remain away,
sometimes for years, deprived of all the comforts and blessings that
civilians enjoy, suffering frequently great hardships, and risking their
lives to defend their country from her enemies."

"It is all as you say," replied Captain Bland; "and they do, indeed,
deserve great honor. Their calling is one that exposes them to imminent
peril, and requires them to make many sacrifices; and they encounter not
this peril and sacrifice for their own good, but for the good of others.
Their lives do not pass so evenly as do the lives of men who spend their
days in the peaceful pursuits of business, art, or literature; and we could
hardly wonder if they lost some of the gentler attributes of the human
heart. In some cases, this is so; but in very many cases the reverse is
true. We find the man who goes fearlessly into battle, and there, in
defence of his country, deals death and destruction unsparingly upon her
enemies, acting, when occasion offers, from the most humane sentiments, and
jeopardizing his life to save the life of a single individual. Let me
relate to you a true story in illustration of what I say.

"When the unhappy war that has been waged by our troops in Mexico broke
out, a lieutenant in the navy, who had a quiet berth at Washington, felt it
to be his duty to go to the scene of strife, and therefore asked to be
ordered to the Gulf of Mexico. His request was complied with, and he
received orders to go on board the steamer Mississippi, Commodore Perry,
then about to sail from Norfolk to Vera Cruz.

"Soon after the Mississippi arrived out, and before the city and castle
were taken, a terrible 'norther' sprung up, and destroyed much shipping in
the harbor. One vessel, on which were a number of passengers, was thrown
high upon a reef, and when morning broke, the heavy sea was making a clear
breach through her. She lay about a mile from the Mississippi, and it soon
became known on board the steamer, that a mother and her infant were in the
wreck, and that unless succor came speedily, they would perish. The
lieutenant of whom I speak, immediately ordered out a boat's crew, and
although the sea was rolling tremendously, and the 'norther' still blowing
a hurricane, started to the rescue. Right in the teeth of the wind were the
men compelled to pull their boat, and so slowly did they progress, that it
took over two hours to gain the wreck.

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