False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve by Unknown
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Unknown >> False Friends, and The Sailor\'s Resolve
The next minute Jonas walked up to the mantle-piece, and exclaiming, in
a tone of vexation, "Run aground again!" took his pipe, snapped it in
two, and flung the pieces into the fire! He then stumped back to his
room, slamming the door behind him.
"The old fury!" muttered the panting Johnny between his clenched teeth,
looking fiercely towards his uncle's room.
"To break his own pipe!" exclaimed Alie. "I never knew him do anything
like that before, however angry he might be!"
Johnny took down his cap from its peg, and, in as ill humour as can
well be imagined, went out to search for his ball. He took what revenge
he could on his formidable uncle, while amusing himself that afternoon
by looking over his "Robinson Crusoe." Johnny was fond of his pencil,
though he had never learned to draw; and the margins of his books were
often adorned with grim heads or odd figures by his hand. There was
a picture in "Robinson Crusoe" representing a party of cannibals,
as hideous as fancy could represent them, dancing around their fire.
Johnny diverted his mind and gratified his malice by doing his best so
to alter the foremost figure as to make him appear with a wooden leg,
while he drew on his head a straw hat, unmistakably like that of the old
sailor, and touched up the features so as to give a dim resemblance to
his face. To prevent a doubt as to the meaning of the sketch, Johnny
scribbled on the side of the picture,--
"In search of fierce savages no one need roam;
The fiercest and ugliest, you'll find him at home!"
He secretly showed the picture to Alie.
"O Johnny! how naughty! What would uncle say if he saw it?"
"We might look out for squalls indeed! but uncle never by any chance
looks at a book of that sort."
"I think that you had better rub out the pencilling as fast as you can,"
said Alie.
"Catch me rubbing it out!" cried Johnny; "it's the best sketch that ever
I drew, and as like the old savage as it can stare!"
Late in the evening their mother returned from Brampton, where she had
been nursing a sick lady. Right glad were Johnny and Alie to see her
sooner than they had ventured to expect. She brought them a few oranges,
to show her remembrance of them. Nor was the old sailor forgotten;
carefully she drew from her bag and presented to him a new pipe.
The children glanced at each other. Jonas took the pipe with a curious
expression on his face, which his sister was at a loss to understand.
"Thank'ee kindly," he said; "I see it'll be a case of--
"'If ye try and don't succeed,
Try, try, try again.'"
What he meant was a riddle to every one else present, although not to
the reader.
The "try" was very successful on that evening and the following day.
Never had Johnny and Alie found their uncle so agreeable. His manner
almost approached to gentleness,--it was a calm after a storm.
"Uncle is so very good and kind," said Alie to her brother, as they
walked home from afternoon service, "that I wonder how you can bear to
have that naughty picture still in your book. He is not in the least
like a cannibal, and it seems quite wrong to laugh at him so."
"I'll rub it all out one of these days," replied Johnny; "but I must
show it first to Peter Crane. He says that I never hit on a likeness: if
he sees that, he'll never say so again!"
The next morning Jonas occupied himself with gathering wild flowers and
herbs in the fields. He carried them into his little room, where Johnny
heard him whistling "Old Tom Bowling," like one at peace with himself
and all the world.
Presently Jonas called to the boy to bring him a knife from the kitchen;
a request made in an unusually courteous tone of voice, and with which,
of course, Johnny immediately complied.
He found Jonas busy drying his plants, by laying them neatly between the
pages of a book, preparatory to pressing them down. What was the terror
of Johnny when he perceived that the book whose pages Jonas was turning
over for this purpose was no other than his "Robinson Crusoe"!
"Oh! if I could only get it out of his hands before he comes to that
horrid picture! Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do?" thought the
bewildered Johnny. "Uncle, I was reading that book," at last he mustered
courage to say aloud.
"You may read it again to-morrow," was the quiet reply of Jonas.
"Perhaps he will not look at that picture," reflected Johnny. "I wish
that I could see exactly which part of the book he is at! He looks too
quiet a great deal for any mischief to have been done yet! Dear! dear!
I would give anything to have that 'Robinson Crusoe' at the bottom of
the sea! I do think that my uncle's face is growing very red!--yes! the
veins on his forehead are swelling! Depend on't he's turned over to
those unlucky cannibals, and will be ready to eat me like one of them!
I'd better make off before the thunder-clap comes!"
"Going to sheer off again, Master Johnny?" said the old sailor, in a
very peculiar tone of voice, looking up from the open book on which his
finger now rested.
"I've a little business," stammered out Johnny.
"Yes, a little business with me, which you'd better square before you
hoist sail. Why, when you made such a good figure of this savage, did
you not clap jacket and boots on this little cannibal beside him, and
make a pair of 'em 'at home'? I suspect you and I are both in the same
boat as far as regards our tempers, my lad!"
Johnny felt it utterly impossible to utter a word in reply.
"I'm afraid," pursued the seaman, closing the book, "that we've both had
a bit too much of the savage about us,--too much of the dancing round
the fire. But mark me, Jack,--we learn even in that book that a savage,
a cannibal _may_ be tamed; and we learn from something far better, that
principle,--the noblest principle which can govern either the young or
the old,--_may_, ay, and _must_, put out the fire of fierce anger in our
hearts, and change us from wild beasts to men! So I've said my say,"
added Jonas with a smile; "and in token of my first victory over my old
foe, come here, my boy, and give us your hand!"
"O uncle, I am so sorry!" exclaimed Johnny, with moistened eyes, as he
felt the kindly grasp of the old man.
"Sorry are you? and what were you on Saturday when I shook you as a cat
shakes a rat?"
"Why, uncle, I own that I was angry."
"Sorry now, and angry then? So it's clear that the mild way has the best
effect, to say nothing of the example." And Jonas fell into a fit of
musing.
All was fair weather and sunshine in the home on that day, and on many
days after. Jonas had, indeed, a hard struggle to subdue his temper, and
often felt fierce anger rising in his heart, and ready to boil over in
words of passion or acts of violence; but Jonas, as he had endeavoured
faithfully to serve his Queen, while he fought under her flag, brought
the same earnest and brave sense of duty to bear on the trials of daily
life. He never again forgot his resolution, and every day that passed
made the restraint which he laid upon himself less painful and irksome
to him.
If the conscience of any of my readers should tell him that, by his
unruly temper, he is marring the peace of his family, oh! let him not
neglect the evil as a small one, but, like the poor old sailor in my
story, resolutely struggle against it. For _an angry man stirreth up
strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression._
There is sin in commencing strife;
Sin in the thoughtless jest
Or angry burst,
Which awakens first
The ire in a brother's breast!
There is sin in stirring up strife,
In fanning the smouldering flame,
By scornful eye,
Or proud reply,
Or anger-stirring name.
There is sin in keeping up strife,
Dark, soul-destroying sin.
Who cherishes hate
May seek heaven's gate,
But never can enter in.
For peace is the Christian's joy,
And love is the Christian's life;
He's bound for a home
Where hate cannot come,
Nor the shadow of sin or strife!