I was now beginning to grow handsome; my coat had grown fine and soft, and was bright black. I had one white foot, and a pretty white star on my forehead. I was thought very handsome. My master would not sell me until I was four years old; he said lads ought not to work like men, and colts ought not to work like horses, until they were grown up.

From “The Last Robin,” by permission.

One day a farmer, named Bernard, having finished his business at the market town, found that he had a few hours at his disposal before returning home. He had often heard people speaking about a certain Mr. Wiseman, a lawyer, whose reputation was so great that even the judges did not like to decide contrary to his opinion. Bernard thought he might spend some of his time in getting an opinion from so learned and clever a lawyer.

When he arrived at Mr. Wiseman’s office, he had to wait a long time, but at last his turn came and he was shown into the room. Mr. Wiseman asked him to sit down, and after taking a good look at him through his spectacles, asked him to state his business.

“Upon my word, Mr. Lawyer,” said the farmer, twisting his hat in his hand, “I can’t say I have any particular business with you; but as I happened to be in town, to-day, I thought I should be losing an opportunity if I did not get an opinion from you.”

“I thank you for your confidence in me,” replied the lawyer. “You have, I suppose, some law-suit going on?”

“A law-suit?” said the farmer; “I should rather think not! There is nothing I hate so much, and I have never had a quarrel with any one in my life.”

“Then, I suppose, you want some family property fairly and justly divided?”

“I beg your pardon, sir; my family lives with me in peace, and we have no need to think of dividing our property.”

“Perhaps, then, you want some agreement drawn up about the sale or purchase of something?”

“Not at all! I am not rich enough to be purchasing property, and not poor enough to wish to sell any.”

“Then what on earth do you want me to do, my friend?” said the astonished lawyer.

“Well, Mr. Wiseman, I thought I had already told you that,” replied Bernard, with a sheepish laugh; “what I want is an opinion. I am ready to pay for it. You see, here I am in town, and it would be a great pity if I were to lose the opportunity.”

The lawyer looked at him and smiled; then taking up his pen, he asked the farmer what his name was. “Peter Bernard,” said he, quite pleased that the lawyer at last understood what he wanted.

“Your age?”

“Forty years, or somewhere about that.”

“Your profession?”

“My profession! Ah, yes! you mean what do I do? I am a farmer.”

The lawyer, still smiling, wrote two lines on a piece of paper, folded it up, and gave it to his strange client.

“Is that all,” cried Bernard; “well, well! so much the better. I daresay you are too busy to write much. Now, how much does that cost, Mr. Lawyer?”

“Half-a-crown.”

Bernard paid the money, made his bow, and went away delighted that he had got an opinion.

When he reached home it was four in the afternoon; he was tired with his journey, and made up his mind to have a good rest. It happened, however, that his hay had been cut for some days, and was now completely dry; and one of his men came to ask if it should be carried in and housed that night.

“This night!” said the farmer’s wife. “Who ever heard of such a thing? Your master is tired, and the hay can just as well be got in to-morrow.” The man said it was no business of his, but the weather might change, and the horses and carts were ready, and the farm hands had nothing to do. To this the angry wife replied that the wind was in a favorable quarter, and that they could not any way get the work done before nightfall.

Bernard, having listened to both sides of the question, hesitated to decide, when suddenly he remembered the paper the lawyer had given him. “Stop a minute!” cried he, “I have an opinion—a famous opinion—an opinion that cost me half-a-crown. That’s the thing to put us straight. You are a grand scholar, my dear; tell us what it says.” His wife took the paper, and with some little difficulty, read out these two lines:—

Peter Bernard: Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.

“There’s the very thing!” cried the farmer. “Quick! out with the men and the carts, and we’ll have the hay in at once!”

His wife still grumbled, but it was of no use. Bernard was obstinate. He declared that he was not going to pay half-a-crown for nothing, and that, as he had an opinion from his lawyer, he would follow it whatever happened. In fact, he set the example himself, and urging his men to the greatest speed, did not return to his home till all the hay was safely housed.

During the night the weather suddenly changed. An unforeseen storm burst over the valley. In the morning a stream flowed through the meadows carrying in its current the newly cut hay of all the neighbors. Bernard alone saved his.

From that day forward he followed the lawyer’s advice, and in course of time became one of the richest farmers in the district. Nor did he forget that he owed his success to the lawyer, to whom he carried every year a couple of fat fowls.—Selected.

Anger and haste hinder good counsel.

It was on the day before a great review of soldiers at the nearest town that Hugh John Smith first became a soldier and a general. His father’s house was connected by a short driveway with a great main road along which king and beggar had for more than a thousand years gone to and from the town.

Hugh John loved the wide road, and every day he ran down the driveway and looked through the bars of the gate to see who was passing. It was a large white gate of strong wood, lovely to swing on, if by chance it was left unfastened. It would shut of itself, and you had only to push it open, jump on, and ride all the way back, while the gate swung into place.

On the great day when Hugh John became a soldier, he had been digging all the morning in the sand hole. He had on his red coat, which was his pride, and he was taking a fort protected by high walls of sand. He shouted “Boom!” when he fired off his cannon, and “Bang, whack!” when he knocked down the walls that he had so carefully patted into shape.

Suddenly there came a sound which always made the heart of Hugh John beat fast. It was the sound of the drum. He had only time to make a dash for his soldier’s cap, gird on his sword with the gold hilt, and fly. As he ran down the driveway, the sound of the fifes grew louder and louder. It was at this point that Hugh John had a great struggle with himself. His brother and sister were playing under an elm tree on the front lawn. He could not bear that they should miss the soldiers. But then, if he went back, the troops might be past before he reached the gate.

“I must see the soldiers. I must—I must!” he cried.

But in his heart a little voice kept saying, “It is mean to go off without telling your brother and sister.”

“I can’t be mean! I won’t be mean!” thought Hugh John. And so he ran back with all his might, and with a warning cry called the younger children to follow. Then with legs that passed each other so quickly that they could hardly be seen, Hugh John fairly flung himself towards the white gate. The gate was open, and with a wild cry he sprang through and stood on the roadside just as the troops came into view.

The first who passed were soldiers in a dark uniform. No one cast a glance at Hugh John. He stood with his drawn sword, giving the salute as each company went by. Then came red coats and brass bands. Hugh John saluted them all. No one paid the least attention to him. He did not, indeed, expect any one to notice him. He was only a small dusty boy with a sword too big for him, standing under the shadow of the elms. But he saluted every one of them as they swung past, dust-choked and thirsty.

At last came the Scottish bagpipes. Hugh John crossed the road, and then he was nearer to the soldiers. Swinging step, waving plumes, all in review order, came on the famous regiment. They passed by, and the sound of the pipes soon grew faint in the distance. Then came more companies of soldiers and more and more. And ever the sword of Hugh John flashed to the salute, and his small arm grew weary as it rose and fell.

Then happened the most astonishing thing in the world. It was the greatest event in Hugh John’s life. There came to his ear a new sound, the clatter of horses’ hoofs. A bugle rang out, and Hugh John’s eyes watched the noble grey horses come tramping along as if proud of their riders. He stood more erect than ever.

On they came, a fine young officer at their head. He sat erect on a noble horse, leading one of the finest troops of horsemen in the world. He saw the small dusty boy in his red coat standing by the roadside, and he marked his pale face and his erect bearing. Hugh John had seen soldiers before, but never any so fine as these. He could hardly lift his sword, but his hand was steady and he went through the beautiful movements of the military salute with order and precision.

The young officer smiled and raised his own sword in response, as if Hugh John had been one of his own troopers. The boy’s heart stood still. Could this thing be? A real soldier had saluted him. But there was something more wonderful yet to come. The officer turned in his saddle.

“Attention, men. Draw swords!” he cried, and his voice rang like a trumpet.

There came a glitter of steel as the swords flashed into line. The horses tossed their heads at the stirring sound. “Eyes right! Carry swords!” came again the sharp command. And every blade made a circle of glittering light as it rose to the salute. Tears welled up in Hugh John’s eyes as he stood there in the pride of the honor done to him. He had been treated as a real soldier by the greatest soldier there. He was no longer a little dusty boy. Now he was a soldier indeed.

“Eyes front! Slope swords!” rang the words once more. The regiment passed by, and only the far drum beats came back as Hugh John stood silent under the elm tree. When his father rode up on his way home, he asked the boy what he was doing there.

Hugh John wanted to laugh, but the tears ran down his cheeks. “I’m not hurt, father,” he said, “I’m not crying. It was only that the Scots Greys saluted me. But I’m not crying, I’m not indeed!” Then the stern man gathered the great soldier up and set him across his saddle. He was alone, for the other children had gone to their play. And thus rode our hero home—Hugh John Smith no more, General Napoleon he called himself now.

Late that night Hugh John stole down the hushed driveway, his bare feet pattering through the dust which the dew was making cool. He stood again by the roadside where he had seen the troops march by. Then clasping his hands he made a solemn vow.

“The Scots Greys saluted me. Never, never, so long as I live, will I be mean again!”—Samuel R. Crockett.

From “Sir Toady Lion,” by special permission of the Author.

There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God, who made the lovely world.

They used to say to one another sometimes, “Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry?” They believed they would be sorry. “For,” said they, “the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hillsides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks, playing at hide-and-seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would always be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more.”

There was one clear-shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand-in-hand at a window. Whoever saw it first cried out, “I see the star!” And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such friends with it, that before lying down on their beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it good-night; and when they were turning round to sleep they used to say, “God bless the star!”

But while she was still very young,—oh, very, very young,—the sister drooped, and came to be so weak, that she could no longer stand at the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient, pale face on the bed, “I see the star!” and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little, weak voice used to say, “God bless my brother and the star!”

And so the time came, all too soon! when the child looked out alone, and when there was no face on the bed; and when there was a little grave among the graves, not there before; and when the star made long rays down towards him, as he saw it through his tears.

Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining way from earth to heaven, that when the child went to his solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling road by angels. And the star, opening, showed him a great world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive him.

All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon the people who were carried up into the star; and some came out from the long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people’s necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light, and were so happy in their company, that, lying in his bed, he wept for joy.

But there were many angels who did not go with them, and among them one he knew. The patient face that once had lain upon the bed was glorified and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the host. His sister’s angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to the leader among those who had brought the people thither, “Is my brother come?” And he said, “No.” She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms, and cried, “O sister, I am here! Take me!” And then she turned her beaming eyes upon him, and it was night; and the star was shining into the room, making long rays down towards him, as he saw it through his tears. From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the Home he was to go to when his time should come; and he thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, because of his sister’s angel gone before. There was a baby born to be a brother to the child; and whilst he was so little that he never yet had spoken a word, he stretched his tiny form out on the bed, and died.

Again the child dreamed of the open star, and of the company of angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels, with their beaming eyes all turned upon those people’s faces. Said his sister’s angel to the leader, “Is my brother come?” And he said, “Not that one, but another.” As the child beheld his brother’s angel in her arms, he cried, “O sister, I am here! Take me!” And she turned and smiled upon him, and the star was shining.

He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books, when an old servant came to him, and said, “Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing on her darling son!” Again at night he saw the star, and all the former company. Said his sister’s angel to the leader, “Is my brother come?” And he said, “Thy mother!” A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because the mother was reunited to her two children. And he cried, “O mother, sister, and brother, I am here! Take me!” And they answered him, “Not yet,” and the star was shining.

He grew to be a man whose hair was turning gray, and he was sitting in his chair by the fireside, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again. Said his sister’s angel to the leader, “Is my brother come?” And he said, “Nay, but his maiden daughter.” And the man who had been the child saw his daughter newly lost to him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said, “My daughter’s head is on my sister’s bosom, and her arm is round my mother’s neck, and at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from her—God be praised!” And the star was shining.

Thus the child came to be an old man, and his face was wrinkled, and his steps were slow, and his back was bent. One night, as he lay upon his bed, his children standing around, he cried, as he had cried so long ago, “I see the star!” They whispered to one another, “He is dying.” And he said, “I am. My age is falling from me like a garment, and I move towards the star as a child. And, O my Father, now I thank Thee that it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who await me!” And the star was shining; and it shines upon his grave.

—Charles Dickens.