CHAPTER I.

THE BIG BOY.

"BROTHER HENRY, I wish you would come out into the garden," said Ethel Dalton to her brother, one morning in the spring, as he sat reading his paper, after breakfast, in the pretty shady breakfast-room of Dr. Ray's house in Ironton.

"What is the matter now?" asked Mrs. Ray, Ethel's sister, smiling. "What have you found in the garden—a spider or a boa-constrictor?"

Ethel coloured, but made no reply. Mr. Dalton laid down his paper, and taking his hat went out with his sister into the garden.

"Well, what is it, my dear?" said he, kindly. "What do you wish me to do or to see?"

"There is a great rough ragged boy leaning over the railings by the hyacinth beds; and I am afraid to go there!" said Ethel.

"What are you afraid of?" asked Mr. Dalton. "What do you think the boy would do to you here on a public street, and in broad daylight?"

Ethel did not know exactly, so she did not answer.

Mr. Dalton walked on till he came in sight of the boy. He was evidently one of the hands from the iron-works at the landing below, and was rather a rough-looking subject certainly, but there was nothing alarming in his appearance. On the contrary, his eyes were bright and clear; and he had a very thoughtful and at the same time bright and good-humoured face.

"Good-morning!" said Mr. Dalton pleasantly as he came near. "Are you fond of flowers that you look at them so earnestly?"

The big boy smiled very pleasantly. "Yes, I'm very fond of them," he answered. "I've got a pretty nice little garden at our place; but I don't have much time to work at it. You see we go to work at seven and knock off at six, and I have a good many chores to do for mother besides, so I don't get much time."

"No, I should think not. You must be fond of a garden to have any time at all."

"Well, I think flowers help to make a little place look bright and cheerful," said the big boy. "Somehow, they seem to do my eyes good after I have been working in the smoke all day. I haven't got any such hyacinths as those, though."

Mr. Dalton whispered to Ethel, "Gather him a bunch of flowers, my dear."

Ethel had begun to feel a little ashamed of her fears by this time. She gathered a fine bunch of choice flowers, and handed them to the boy, who thanked her with all due politeness.

"Mother will be glad to see these," said he. "She loves flowers as well as I do; and I am going right home so she will have them before they are faded. We are all off work to-day because the blast is out of order, so I shall have a good chance to put my garden to rights."

"I suppose you like to have a holiday sometimes?" said Ethel, feeling as though she would like to say something.

The big boy smiled. "Well, yes, miss, it does come rather pleasant on some accounts; but then, you see, if I don't have the work, I don't have the pay, and three idle days makes a good deal of difference in a week, when a fellow has himself and his old mother, and nothing but his wages to live upon."

"Then you support your mother as well as yourself," said Ethel.

"Well, I don't know who has a better right," replied the lad, rather gruffly. "She supported me when I was young, and it is my business to support her now that she is old."

And nodding a good-morning, the big boy walked away.

"Well, Ethel, the great rough ragged boy does not seem to be a very dangerous character," said Mr. Dalton, smiling. "Nothing so very alarming, after all."

"I am sure he seems a very good boy," replied Ethel "but then I could not know that, you know."

"Suppose he had not been a good boy, what hurt do you think he would have done you in broad daylight, and in your brother's garden?"

Ethel hung her head.

"Ethel," said her brother, gravely, "do you know that it is a very sad thing to be such a coward? What do you think you will ever be good for in the world, if you are so afraid of everything and nothing?"

Ethel looked rather offended. "I am sure I cannot help it, brother. It is natural to me."

"It may be natural to you,—I have no doubt that it is so in some degree,—but I am not sure that you cannot help it for all that."

"People cannot help their natural dispositions," said Ethel.

"That is where you make a very serious mistake, little sister. People can help their natural dispositions, if they take the right way to do so; and it is their bounden duty to try. You have no right to indulge any disposition, however natural, which hinders your usefulness or makes you troublesome to others, and cowardice does both. It is, besides, the mother of many other faults,—of falsehood and cruelty among the rest. You can overcome this fault as you can overcome others, and only in the same way,—that is to say, by honest effort, and by prayer for the assistance of the Holy Spirit."

"I don't know what efforts to make," said Ethel, rather sullenly.

"Why, for instance, when you saw the foundry-boy leaning over the rails this morning, you might have observed him a little, instead of running away. Had you done so, you would have seen that he was a good, intelligent-looking lad in spite of his rough foundry-clothes, and that, instead of meditating any great crime, he was only admiring your hyacinths and heart's-ease. Thus you would have escaped the sin of uncharitableness, and you might have had the pleasure of doing a good and kind action of your own free will.

"So in other cases, when you see any such dreadful object as a mouse or a cricket, instead of running and screaming, you might stand still and look at the fearful monster, reasoning with yourself at the same time that the mouse or cricket cannot possibly hurt you, that it is a pretty and curious creature after all, and well worth watching. You were very much interested yesterday in my account of my travels in China and India, and of what our friend Miss Beecher has been doing in Persia. You think there is no harm in being a coward; but if every one had been as much afraid of cockroaches and spiders as you are, the gospel would never have been preached in India and China to this day. Cockroaches alone would have been an effectual barrier to the spread of Christianity!"

Ethel laughed rather uneasily. She was not pleased with the conversation, and was glad when Mr. Dalton looked at his watch, and said it was time for him to go. She gathered up her flowers, and went into the house feeling vexed and uncomfortable.

"What a fuss brother Henry makes about nothing!" said she to herself: "As if I were to blame for being delicate and nervous. I am sure I don't see how I can help it; and I don't see why I should, either. I don't want to be a regular dragoon!"

By which you may see that Ethel was rather proud of her cowardice than otherwise.

Ethel was very much the youngest of her family; so much so, that her brother and sisters were grown-up, and one of them was married at the time she was born; and that her own mother died. Mrs. Bayard, the elder sister, who had very lately lost an infant, took the little motherless baby home, and cared for it in the kindest manner; and with this sister Ethel lived till she was sixteen years old,—that is, till just before my story commences. At this time, Mr. and Mrs. Bayard had gone to California, where they expected to remain for some years; and Ethel had come to stay with her other sister, Mrs. Dr. Ray, at least till her education should be finished.

Ethel's brother, Mr. Henry Dalton, had never seen his youngest sister till within a week past. He had been a missionary in India for many years, and from thence he had sent Ethel a great many beautiful presents and interesting letters. "Brother Henry" had been a kind of hero of romance in Ethel's eyes, and she was always longing for the happy time when he should come home, and the still happier time when, her education finished so far as school and school-books went, she should return with her brother to India, and help him in his missionary work. The thought of seeing her brother the sooner was one thing which reconciled her to remaining behind when Mr. and Mrs. Bayard removed to California. There was another circumstance which had helped also, but this Ethel did not acknowledge even to herself. She was much afraid of the journey.

Mr. Dalton had arrived in Ironton a week before, and so far all Ethel's anticipations had been realized. Mr. Dalton was even handsomer than his picture; his manners were peculiarly polished and gentle; and when he preached on Sunday, Ethel was entirely satisfied. Everybody had admired the sermon; and old Miss Grimshaw, who was very critical, had offended and pleased Ethel at the same time, by saying that it was a shame for such a man as Mr. Dalton to be wasted on heathens and savages. Anybody was good enough for them, and men of such talents were wanted at home. She was a proud and happy girl as she walked home by her brother's side that day.

Mr. Dalton, on his part, was well satisfied with what he saw of his little sister. Ethel had been well and carefully brought up by Mrs. Bayard; and if she had never known a mother's care, she had never missed it. If Mrs. Bayard had erred at all, it had been on the side of kindness. She had certainly made rather a baby of Ethel, but her indulgence was not of a kind to do her nursling any great harm. Ethel had learned to obey with a word or look before she could speak plainly; she had learned to tell the truth, to be kind and polite to all, and to be specially careful of the feelings of those with whom she lived every day,—a lesson not always learned even by very good people.

"On the whole, she is an uncommonly good girl," said Mrs. Ray that evening, as she was talking with her brother about Ethel. "Juliet is a remarkably good manager with children; and she never made any difference between Ethel and her own, except that I think she indulged Ethel more than she did the boys. That was only natural, I suppose, as she was the only girl in the family after the twins died. Ethel has only one ruinous fault, and that is rather an inconvenient one, both for herself and other people."

"You mean her timidity," said Mr. Dalton.

"Timidity does not express it," replied Mrs. Ray. "She is the greatest coward I ever saw."

"But what is she afraid of?"

"Of every thing. Of mice, and rats, and spiders, and all sorts of insects; of strange cats and dogs; of cows, and horses, and pigs, and peddlers, and beggars. I dread to go out in the street with her, she is so afraid of the crossings; and she is sure to stop short in the most dangerous place of all. If she goes out in the carriage, she is certain the horses are going to run away; and she made Dr. Ray more angry than I ever saw him, by screaming the other day when one of the horses shied a little at a steam-engine. She really did put us in great danger, for the streets were crowded, and if the horses had run away, we should have been badly off. Dr. Ray scolded her well, and told her he would never take her out in the carriage again until he learned to control herself. Ethel thought herself very hardly used, but, really, I could not blame Matthew."

"Nor I," said Mr. Dalton. "These screaming people are dreadful trials in any case of danger. How came Ethel to be such a coward?"

"Why, I suppose it was partly natural, but not altogether. When she was about ten years old, Juliet was obliged to go home to see Mr. Bayard's mother, who was very ill, for several weeks, and she got Miss Carrington to stay in the house and take care of the children. Miss Carrington was afraid of her shadow; and she taught Ethel to think it 'fine' to be very timid and delicate, and to be afraid of everything. Miss Carrington always professed a great horror of strong-minded, masculine women."

"She did not suffer in that way herself, it seems," said Mr. Dalton, dryly. "I wonder Juliet should have selected such a person to take charge of the children."

"My dear brother, have you lived so long in this world without finding out that people have to take not what they want, but what they can get," said Mrs. Ray, laughing. "Juliet was obliged to leave home very suddenly. She knew that Miss Carrington was an excellent teacher and a very good, faithful, energetic housekeeper, and she thought herself fortunate in engaging her. Besides, Juliet is rather timid in the matter of burglars and spiders herself. She did not attach much consequence to Ethel's fears, thinking that she would outgrow them, and that they might be made worse by noticing them: and then, as I said, she was always very tender with Ethel. After all, it is not a very serious fault,—not like lying or mischief making."

"That is true," said Mr. Dalton; "and yet one fault indulged and petted introduces others."