The Pedler of Dust Sticks.
by Eliza Lee Follen.
THE PEDLER OF DUST STICKS.
One day I went to visit a friend, a lady, who came from Hamburg, in Germany. I was much pleased with a portrait which was hanging up in her room, and I was particularly struck by the ornamental drawings with which the picture was surrounded. They consisted of whip handles, canes, piano keys, mouth-pieces for wind instruments, all sorts of umbrellas, and many more things, of every sort, made of cane and whalebone. The arrangement was so ingenious, the designs so fanciful, and the execution so good, that nothing could be prettier.
But what of course was of the most importance, was the face and head that they were meant to ornament. "What a benevolent, what a beautiful face!" I said. "Who is it?"
"My father," the lady replied; "and he is more beautiful than the picture, and he is still more kind than he looks there."
"What is the meaning of all these bits of bamboo and these little canes, so fancifully arranged around the picture?" I asked.
"These little sticks," she replied, "tell the story of my father"s success, and of the beginning of his greatness. He began his n.o.ble and honorable life as a little Pedler of Dust Sticks."
"Pedler of Dust Sticks?"
"Yes," she said; "if you would like to hear his history, I will relate it."
I replied that nothing could please me better; that I considered the life of a good, great man the most beautiful of all stories.
"I will tell it to you just as it was; and you may, if you please, repeat it for the benefit of any one."
When I had returned home I wrote the story down, just as I remembered it, as she had given me leave to do.
The Christian name of our hero was Henry, and so we will call him.
His parents lived in Hamburg, in Germany. They were very poor. His father was a cabinet maker, with a very small business. Henry was the second of eight children. As soon as he was eight years old, his father, in order to raise a few more shillings to support his family, sent him into the streets to sell little pieces of ratan, which the people there use to beat the dust out of their clothes.
Henry got about a cent and a half apiece for the sticks. If he sold a great number of these little sticks, he was allowed, as a reward, to go to an evening school, where he could learn to read. This was a great pleasure to him; but he wanted also to learn to write. For this, however, something extra was to be paid, and Henry was very anxious to earn more, that he might have this advantage.
There is a fine public walk in Hamburg, where the fashionable people go, in good weather, to see and be seen; and where the young men go to wait upon and see the ladies. These gentlemen were fond of having little canes in their hands, to play with, to switch their boots with, and to show the young ladies how gracefully they could move their arms; and sometimes to write names in the sand. So little Henry thought of making some very pretty canes, and selling them to these young beaux.
He soaked his canes for a long time in warm water, and bent the tops round for a handle, and then ornamented them with his penknife, and made them really very pretty. Then he went to the public walk, and when he saw a young man walking alone, he went up to him, and with a sweet and pleasant voice, he would say, "Will you buy a pretty cane, sir? Six cents apiece."
Almost every gentleman took one of the canes.
With the money he got for his canes he was able to pay for lessons in writing. This made him very happy, for it was the reward of his own industry and ingenuity.
As soon as Henry was old enough, his father employed him to carry home the work to customers. The boy had such a beautiful countenance, was so intelligent, and had such a pleasant manner, that many of the customers wanted to have him come and live with them, and promised to take good care of him; but Henry always said, "No, I prefer staying with my father, and helping him."
Every day the little fellow would take his bundle of dust sticks and little canes in a box he had for the purpose, and walk up and down the streets, offering them to every one who he thought would buy them. And happy enough was he when he sold them all and brought home the money to his poor father, who found it so hard to support a large family.
All the evenings when Henry was not so happy as to go to school, he worked as long as he could keep his eyes open.
He was very skilful, and made his canes so pretty, and he was such a good boy, that he made many friends, and almost always found a good market for his sticks.
The poor fellow was very anxious to get money. Often his father"s customers gave him a few pence. Once he came near risking his life to obtain a small sum. He was very strong and active, and excelled in all the common exercises of boys; such as running, jumping, &c.
One day he got up on the top of a very high baggage wagon, and called to the boys below, and asked them how many pence they would give him if he would jump off of it to the ground. Some one offered two.
"Two are too few to risk my life for," he replied.
They then promised to double the number; and he was upon the point of jumping, when he felt a smart slap on his back.
"That"s what you shall have for risking your life for a few pence,"
said his father, who, un.o.bserved by Henry, had heard what had pa.s.sed, and climbed up the wagon just in time to save Henry from perhaps breaking his neck, or at least some of his limbs.
Henry was very fond of skating, but he had no skates. One day, when the weather and ice were fine, he went to see the skaters. He had only a few pence in his pocket, and he offered them for the use of a pair of skates for a little while; but the person who had skates to let could get more for them, and so he refused poor Henry. There was near by, at the time, a man whose profession was gambling; and he said to Henry, "I will show you a way by which you can double and triple your money, if you will come with me."
Henry followed him to a little booth, in which was a table and some chairs; and there the man taught him a gambling game, by which, in a few minutes, he won a dollar.
Henry was going away with his money, thinking with delight of the pleasure he should have in skating, and also of the money that would be left to carry home to his poor father, when the gambler said to him, "You foolish boy, why won"t you play longer, and double your dollar? You may as well have two or three dollars as one."
Henry played again, and lost not only what he had won, but the few pence he had when he came upon the ice.
Henry was fortunate enough that day, after this occurrence, to sell a few pretty canes, and so had some money to carry to his father; but still he went home with a heavy heart, for he knew that he had done a very foolish thing.
He had learned, by this most fortunate ill luck, what gambling was; and he made a resolution then, which he faithfully kept through his whole after life, never to allow any poverty, any temptation whatever, to induce him to gamble.
Henry continually improved in his manufacture of canes, and he often succeeded in getting money enough to pay for his writing lessons.
There were Jews in the city, who sold canes as he did, and he would often make an exchange with them; even if they insisted upon having two or three of his for one of theirs; he would consent to the bargain, when he could get from them a pretty cane; and then he would carry it home, and imitate it, so that his canes were much admired; and the little fellow gained customers and friends too every day.
The bad boys in the city he would have nothing to do with; he treated them civilly, but he did not play with them, nor have them for his friends. He could not take pleasure in their society.
Henry was a great lover of nature. He spent much of his life out in the open air, under the blue skies; and he did not fail to notice what a grand and beautiful roof there was over his head. The clouds by day, the stars by night, were a continued delight to him. The warm sunshine in winter, and the cool shade of the trees in summer, he enjoyed more than many a rich boy does the splendid furniture and pictures in his father"s house.
One beautiful summer afternoon he was going, with his canes on his shoulder, through the public promenade on the banks of the little bay around which was the public walk. The waves looked so blue, and the air was so delicious, that he was resolved he would treat himself to a row upon the sparkling waters; so he hired a little boat, and then got some long branches from the trees on the sh.o.r.e, and stuck them all around the edges of his boat, and tied them together by their tops, so as to make an arbor in the boat, and got in and rowed himself about, whistling all the tunes he knew for his music, to his heart"s content. He went alone, for he had no companion that he liked; and he would have none other.
At last what should he see but his father, walking on the bank.
Henry knew that his father would be very angry with him, for he was a severe man; but he determined to bear his punishment, let it be what it would, patiently; for he knew, when he went, that his father would not like it; and yet he said, in telling this story to a friend, "I was so happy, and this pleasure was so innocent, that I could not feel as sorry as I ought to feel."
Henry bore his punishment like a brave boy.
It was too bad for the poor fellow to have no pleasures; nothing but work all the time. This was especially hard for him, for no one loved amus.e.m.e.nt better than he.
He relished a piece of fun exceedingly. In the city of Hamburg there was a place where young girls were always to be seen with flowers in their hands to sell. He had observed that the Jews, of whom he bought the pretty canes, were often rude to them, and he determined to punish some of them. There was one who wore a wig, with a long queue to it. The girls had their long hair braided and left hanging down behind.
One day this man was sitting in this flower market, with his back to one of these girls, and Henry took the opportunity, and before either knew what he did, he tied the two queues together; the young girl happened not to like her seat very well, and got up rather suddenly to change it, and off she went with the Jew"s wig dangling behind her, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the spectators, and especially of Henry, who saw and enjoyed it all highly, though pretending to be very busy selling a cane to a gentleman, who joined in the general laugh.
Lucky it was for Henry that the Jew did not discover who it was that had played this roguish trick.
Henry saw how difficult it was for his father to support the family, and was very earnest to get money in any honest way. One day the managers of a theatre hired him to take part in a play, where they wanted to make a crowd. He was pleased at the thought of making some money to carry home; but when he went behind the scenes, and saw all that the actors did, he ran away and left them, caring not for the money, so he could but get away from such disgusting things.
Thus did Henry live, working from early morning till night, going to school with a little of the money he had earned, when his father would allow him to take it; keeping himself unstained by the wickedness that he often saw and heard in his walks through the city; observing every thing worth noticing, and making friends every where by his honesty, purity, and kind-heartedness.
At this time the French were in Hamburg, provisions were dearer than ever, and Henry"s father, with all the help he received from his son, could not support his family in the city.