The Caxtons | Page 9

a
blue- and-white flower-pot?"
"My dear," said my father, leaning his hand on my shoulder,
"everybody who is in earnest to be good, carries two fairies about with
him,--one here," and he touched my heart, "and one here," and he
touched my forehead.

"I don't understand, papa."
"I can wait till you do, Pisistratus. What a name!"
My father stopped at a nursery gardener's, and after looking over the
flowers, paused before a large double geranium. "Ah! this is finer than
that which your mamma was so fond of. What is the cost, sir?"
"Only 7s. 6d.," said the gardener.
My father buttoned up his pocket. "I can't afford it to-day," said he,
gently, and we walked out.
On entering the town, we stopped again at a china warehouse. "Have
you a flower-pot like that I bought some months ago? Ah! here is one,
marked 3s. 6d. Yes, that is the price. Well; when your mamma's
birthday comes again, we must 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