The Caxtons | Page 9

buy her another. That is some months to wait. And we can wait, Master Sisty. For truth, that blooms all the year round, is better than a poor geranium; and a word that is never broken, is better than a piece of delf."
My head, which had drooped before, rose again; but the rush of joy at my heart almost stifled me.
"I have called to pay your little bill," said my father, entering the shop of one of those fancy stationers common in country towns, and who sell all kinds of pretty toys and knick-knacks. "And by the way," he added, as the smiling shopman looked over his books for the entry, "I think my little boy here can show you a much handsomer specimen of French workmanship than that work-box which you enticed Mrs. Caxton into raffling for, last winter. Show your domino-box, my dear."
I produced my treasure, and the shopman was liberal in his commendations. "It is always well, my boy, to know what a thing is worth, in case one wishes to part with it. If my young gentleman gets tired of his plaything, what will you give him for it?"
"Why, sir," said the shopman, "I fear we could not afford to give more than eighteen shillings for it, unless the young gentleman took some of these pretty things in exchange."
"Eighteen shillings!" said my father; "you would give that sum! Well, my boy, whenever you do grow tired of your box, you have my leave to sell it."
My father paid his bill and went out. I lingered behind a few moments, and joined him at the end of the street.
"Papa, papa," I cried, clapping my hands, "we can buy the geranium; we can buy the flower-pot." And I pulled a handful of silver from my pockets.
"Did I not say right?" said my father, passing his handkerchief over his eyes. "You have found the two fairies!"
Oh! how proud, how overjoyed I was when, after placing vase and flower on the window-sill, I plucked my mother by the gown and made her follow me to the spot.
"It is his doing and his money!" said my father; "good actions have mended the bad."
"What!" cried my mother, when she had learned all; "and your poor domino-box that you were so fond of! We will go back to-morrow and buy it back, if it costs us double."
"Shall we buy it back, Pisistratus?" asked my father.
"Oh, no--no--no! It would spoil all," I cried, burying my face on my father's breast.
"My wife," said my father, solemnly, "this is my first lesson to our child,--the sanctity and the happiness of self-sacrifice; undo not what it should teach to his dying day."

CHAPTER V.
When I was between my seventh and my eighth year, a change came over me, which may perhaps be familiar to the notice of those parents who boast the anxious blessing of an only child. The ordinary vivacity of childhood forsook me; I became quiet, sedate, and thoughtful. The absence of play-fellows of my own age, the companionship of mature minds, alternated only by complete solitude, gave something precocious, whether to my imagination or my reason. The wild fables muttered to me by the old nurse in the summer twilight or over the winter's hearth,-- the effort made by my struggling intellect to comprehend the grave, sweet wisdom of my father's suggested lessons,--tended to feed a passion for revery, in which all my faculties strained and struggled, as in the dreams that come when sleep is nearest waking. I had learned to read with ease, and to write with some fluency, and I already began to imitate, to reproduce. Strange tales akin to those I had gleaned from fairy-land, rude songs modelled from such verse-books as fell into my hands, began to mar the contents of marble-covered pages designed for the less ambitious purposes of round text and multiplication. My mind was yet more disturbed by the intensity of my home affections. My love for both my parents had in it something morbid and painful. I often wept to think how little I could do for those I loved so well. My fondest fancies built up imaginary difficulties for them, which my arm was to smooth. These feelings, thus cherished, made my nerves over- susceptible and acute. Nature began to affect me powerfully; and, from that affection rose a restless curiosity to analyze the charms that so mysteriously moved me to joy or awe, to smiles or tears. I got my father to explain to me the elements of astronomy; I extracted from Squills, who was an ardent botanist, some of the mysteries in the life of flowers. But music became my darling passion. My mother (though the daughter of a great scholar,--a scholar at whose name my father raised his hat if it happened