Part 5

But Horace Maberly had his head full of a boating frolic, which he meant to tell the boys about after school, and Harry Merton was thinking whether his aunt meant to ask him home to dinner with her, and John Drayton was watching a wasp, and the others had their heads full of nothing but idleness,—all but one. Phil O'Connor listened with all his ears, and they were very large ones, and what was better with all his heart and soul; and when Miss Isabel stopped talking, he ventured to ask a question. It was the first time he had spoken a word in the class, and he was a good deal scared at the sound of his own voice, but he kept on:

"Please, Miss Isabel, suppose you haven't any seed and no place to plant any?"

The other boys stared at Phil, and Horace laughed rather rudely, but Miss Isabel turned to him with a smile. She had been feeling tired and sad, and it was a real pleasure to perceive that one of the class at least had listened.

"I don't think that ever happens, Phil," said she. "God gives every one of us some kind of seed to sow, and some kind of a place to sow it in. It may be a very small, narrow corner that we have to cultivate; but if we work faithfully at that he is sure to give us more. We can all speak kindly to some one, or give some one a little help, or take some hindrance out of their way. A very poor old man once gave a boy poorer than himself a pair of old shoes to wear, that the boy might go to church and Sunday-school. The shoes had holes in them. The old man was fond of his coffee for breakfast, but he went without a whole week that he might have the money to get the shoes mended. The boy went to Sunday-school, where he learned to read and love his Bible, and he afterward became a useful and learned Christian minister. That was a very little bit of seed—a pair of old shoes—and see what a great crop it bore."

"And suppose the boy's mother had sold the shoes for whisky, as the woman did whose girl mother fixed up last winter, what would have become of the seed then?" asked Horace, in rather a sneering tone.

"Sure, 'twould have done the old gentleman himself good, anyhow!" answered Phil, eagerly. "Wouldn't it, Miss?"

"You are right, Phil," said Miss Isabel. "The Lord says that he who gives even a cup of cold water in his name shall in no wise lose his reward, and that we are to do good and lend, hoping for nothing again, and our reward shall be great in heaven."

"A man wouldn't make much money that way, I guess," said Horace Maberly, who was taught at home that the chief good of life was money.

"I don't remember any place in the Bible where we are told that it is our duty to make a great deal of money do you?" asked Miss Isabel. "St. Paul says we are to be diligent and work with our hands, in order that we may be able to give to him that lacks, and also that we may not be burdensome to others, but we are nowhere told that it is our duty to be rich."

Horace looked a good deal vexed. In his home, money was the great thing thought about and talked about. His father had become very rich within a few years, and Horace thought himself a great person in consequence. He could not see how it was that Miss Isabel, whose own father was richer even than Mr. Maberly, should seem to care no more for him than she did for Harry Merton, or even for little Phil O'Connor.

"Well, I don't know what seed I can sow," said Phil, sighing.

"Think about it a little, and maybe you will find some," said Miss Isabel.

Just then the superintendent's bell rang, and the school was closed.

Phil did not stay to church, though he would have liked to do so. He remembered that probably granny was alone, and she might want something. His mother would be sure to be at home in the evening, and he could come down to the prayer meeting. It would be sowing a little bit of good seed, he thought, if he went and waited on granny, instead of leaving her alone all the morning.

Phil had sown another seed of which he never thought. He had cheered up his teacher's heart, and given her new faith and courage. Here was at least one, Miss Isabel said to herself, who listened to what she said, and made an effort to understand it. The others had not seemed to care. She wondered what made the difference. They were all bright boys enough, and gave her very little trouble; but, somehow, they had no interest in the lessons. She could not make them see that the words they learned and recited had any relation to themselves. A very little excuse kept them away from school, and she was rather surprised at seeing so many of them together that rainy day. I think myself that they came to hear about the boating party which was to take place the next day.

Miss Isabel had for some time cast her bread upon the shallow or muddy waters of their minds with rather a heavy heart. She almost thought she would give up the class, and let some one else take it and try what could be done. But as she walked home in the rain that day—for the coachman was sick, and there was nobody at home who could drive—she felt her heart lighter, and she made up her mind to work and pray a while longer.

Phil's father was dead, and his mother and he lived with his grandmother in "Irishtown." Irishtown was not pretty like the rest of Rockside and Brookvale, though it was built on the side of a rocky hill where there were evergreen trees, and a pretty little brook, and such beautiful views as many a rich man would give thousands of dollars for. The houses were rickety and dirty, with broken windows which were stuffed sometimes with rags or old hats. There were no gardens about them, and many of the people threw their slops and refuse out on the top of the ground to rot in the sun and poison the air, and breed showers of flies to torment the children and sick people. There were plenty of sheltered spots and hollows among the rocks where the sun shone, and the soil was fertile, and these refuse things might have been dug into the ground where they would have helped to raise vegetables and flowers; but nobody thought as far as that.

Granny O'Connor could not be called poor, like many of her neighbors. She owned the land on which her house was built, instead of being a mere squatter on some other person's ground. She owned a cow, too, and a pig, and some chickens. She was too old and infirm to work herself, but her daughter-in-law, Phil's mother, went out washing five days in the week, and was well paid. Fanny, Phil's sister, had lately gone to a good place where she was to have a dollar a week, and more after a while if she made herself useful.

Phil was the youngest of the family, and had never been set to any harder work than watching the cow as she fed in the lanes and by the roadsides, and feeding the pig. Sometimes he went to the places where his mother washed, and carried away the slops from the kitchens for the pig and cow; but his chief business was to wait on the cow and on granny, who was growing very feeble and helpless.

As Phil had expected, he found granny alone, his mother having gone to gossip with some of her neighbors after being at mass in the morning. That was the way she kept Sunday. Granny had fallen asleep in her chair; the fire was nearly out; the ashes were scattered over the stove, hearth, and on the floor, and the room looked and felt forlorn and dismal. A few months before, Phil would not have minded these things, but he was learning how other people lived. When he went into the kitchens where his mother washed, and saw how neat and pleasant they were, he wished they could have things like that at home.

"It looks enough to break one's heart," said Phil to himself. "I might as well have stayed, after all."

And then he bethought himself that here was a chance for putting in practice of the things he had heard that morning. He found a broom, and swept up the floor and the hearth; made up the fire, and put on some water. When it was hot, he washed and put away the dirty dishes, which his mother had left standing, and would have left for a week if she had not happened to want them again, wiped off the table and the hearth—both with the same cloth—and put the room in the best order he could.

He then filled the tea-kettle, and set it on the stove, and began washing and paring some potatoes. Presently he saw that the old woman was awake and watching him. Granny was far more neat and economical than her daughter-in-law, and fretted not a little over the dirt and disorder she was too feeble to help, and therefore had to endure.

"Sure you're as handy as any girl, and better than most," said she. "You've made the place look as fine as a pin. But why didn't you stay to church, dear?"

"I thought you might be alone and want me, granny."

"It's your granny's own boy you are!" said the old woman, fondly. "And did you have a good time at your school?"

"Yes, granny, and Miss Isabel gave me a nice book to read. Just look at the pictures."

"Miss Isabel? Sure, she's a good young lady entirely, and like the rale old gentry I used to work for at home. 'Tis a fine thing for you to have her for a teacher."

"I wish I could go to school week days again," said Phil, as he popped his potatoes into the pot. "I'm afraid I'll forget all that I learned."

"I'm thinking about that same myself," said granny.

"I don't see how I can, though," pursued Phil, still busy about his cooking. "What would we do about the cow?"

"Well, well, we'll see. Don't you fret. It'll all come round right. Sure, you're my own boy and all my comfort in life. It's myself and your father, that's in glory this minute, you take after, and not your mother's folks at all, at all. Them Mehans were always a shiftless set, not that I'm faulting your mother, dear. Considerin' her bringing up, she does wonderful; and she's kind to the old woman, too. But come now, sit down and read to me a bit out of the Bible. Them old ancient histories is wonderful entertaining."

As Phil saw how pleased his granny was with his care for her, he felt as if one of his seeds had come up already. He was not quite sure that her way of looking at Scripture was the right one, but he was glad to get her to hear it at all. He turned to the history of Joseph, and read several chapters before his mother came home to dinner.

CHAPTER SECOND.

SEEDS BY THE WAYSIDE.

THE next morning when Phil waked, he heard what seemed to be a lively discussion going on down in the kitchen, which was also the parlor and dining-room.

"Shure, the child's got learning enough for the likes of him already!" he heard his mother say. "Wasn't yourself saying yesterday he could read like a priest?"

"But he can't write, Mary—not to speak of. I'd like him to have a real good education, and you know, dear, it costs nothing with the free schools they have."

"Oh, well! Just as you like, granny dear," said easy-going Mary. "He's your own boy, and you can bring him up to suit yourself. It's a good boy he is, anyhow. But I must be start-in' out, or I'll be late at Mrs. Maberly's."

Phil hurried down stairs, but his mother had already gone. She took her breakfast where she washed, but she had got ready some tea, milk, and potatoes for her mother-in-law and Phil, whom she loved, as she would have said, "with all the veins of her heart."

With all the dirt and carelessness and waste of the household, there was more real love and comfort within its walls than in many a fine house kept in the best manner. But then, Mary might have been just as good-natured without leaving the potato parings in a heap on the floor by the stove, and her Sunday gown in another heap on a chair for the cat and kittens to make a bed of, spoiling it more than a year's careful wear and putting away would have done.

Phil, however, was used to his mother's heaps, and did not mind them. Granny did mind, but she could not help herself, and did not let her daughter-in-law's ways make her unhappy for more than a few minutes at a time. Phil hung up the gown, picked up the potato skins and gave them to the cow, and then sat down to breakfast. Looking at his grandmother as he gave her her cup of tea, he saw that she had been crying.

"Has anything happened, granny?" he asked.

"No, dear; just nothing at all. I was thinking of old times, that's all. An old woman will have her thoughts."

"You are sure it isn't anything else? Have your pains come on again? Shall I go to the doctor for some medicine?"

"Well, you might just take the bottle down if you like. It's well to have it on hand; and as you go step into Mrs. Barnard's, and tell Mr. Regan I'd like to speak to him if he can spare the time to come round."

Phil made haste to finish his breakfast. He washed up the dishes, put the house to rights, and set within reach of granny's chair everything she was likely to want, that she might be spared the pain of moving. Then he washed his own face and hands, and "made himself decent" to go to the town.

He liked any business which took him down to Rockside, and he still better liked calling at Mrs. Barnard's. He was sure to meet the lady herself in her flower garden, and to have a kind word from her. He liked to walk down through the grounds, and peep through the windows of the green-house to see the strange and lovely flowers that grew there. All this was very pleasant.

Phil did not think of being envious or unhappy because none of these fine things belonged to him. It seemed to him quite natural that some people should have fine houses and gardens, and others should live in tumble-down houses, as at Irishtown, and have no gardens at all. He did his errand at the doctor's first, to make sure of finding him at home.

"Do you think granny will ever be well, sir?" he asked, when he had told the doctor just how granny was, and received directions to get the same medicine as before.

"Why, no, not well exactly," said the doctor, kindly. "You see granny is an old woman, and we can't make a mill to grind old people young again. But I presume that as the warm weather comes on, she will be much better, and be able to get about the house and out of doors once more."

Cheered by these words, Phil turned toward home. As he drew near a pretty little cottage on the street where the doctor lived, he saw a young lady come to the gate and empty a quantity of little folded papers from the pocket of her linen gardening apron into the road.

As she went back into the house, Phil stopped and picked up some of the papers to see what they were. They turned out to be little bags which had once held flower seeds. The young lady had planted most of the seeds, but as Phil felt the papers, he found that almost every one had three or four seeds left in it, and one, marked on the outside "Viola tricolor," was quite full, though it had been opened like the others.

"I wonder why did she throw that away?" said Phil to himself, as he stuffed the papers into his pocket and went on his way. "Maybe they wasn't a good kind. Anyhow, I mean to plant them and see what they turn out. There's the corner back of the cow-shed at the foot of the rock, where the wild flowers come out so early. There's a bit of a fence now, and I could mend it up with poles and things. Enough of those are lying round the place to fence an acre. I don't see why I shouldn't have a garden as well as any of them."

Phil's head was so full of his garden that he came near passing Mrs. Barnard's place without going in, but he recollected himself and hurried in at the gate. As he expected, Mrs. Barnard was at work among her flowers.

"Is that you, Phil?" she asked, pleasantly. "How is your granny?"

Phil answered the question, and then asked for Mr. Regan.

"Regan is in the green-house," was the answer; "you can go in and speak to him if you wish."

This was a pleasure Phil did not expect, though he had often longed to find himself within those curious glass walls. It was with great delight that he breathed the warm, damp, spicy smell of the green-house, filled with geraniums, roses, and all sorts of plants, some of which, Phil thought, must have come straight from Fairy-land.

"I'll step round this evening," said Regan, when Phil had delivered his message. "Did she say what she wanted of me?"

"No, sir, only that she wanted to spake to you. What a beautiful place! Shure, I'd like to be a gardener like yourself, Mr. Regan!"

"It's the sweetest trade and the wholesomest trade in the world, besides being the oldest," said Regan. "Adam was a gardener, you know."

"Adam got into lots of trouble, though," said Phil.

"Yes, through keeping bad company, and not minding his work. You can stay and help me a bit if you like; I'm full of business this morning."

Phil knew he could be spared for an hour longer at least, and the time passed very happily in handing Mr. Regan the large pots he wanted to use, and piling away the small ones.

"You're a handy boy," said the gardener. "Here, you may have this fine red geranium to carry home if you like. Take care of it, and you'll have flowers all summer."

Phil was delighted not only with the present but with the kindness, for Mr. Regan was a great man in his eyes. He ventured to ask a favor.

"Please, sir, would you tell me what kind of flowers these make?"

"Viola tricolor—Pansy," read Mr. Regan from the parcel Phil gave him. "Well, some of them are like this, and this," pointing out some plants growing in the cold frame outside the door. "There's a great many kinds of them. Where did you get them?"

"I found them in the street along with these others," said Phil, producing the rest of the parcels. "They've all got a few seeds in them, and I thought I'd try to plant them."

"Dig up your ground well and put in plenty of manure, not too new, and you're sure to have them grow, only be careful to make your soil fine enough. You get it ready and I'll take a look at it when I come round to-night, and show you how to plant the seeds."

"Granny," said Phil, when he had given his messages and the bottle of medicine, and told his grandmother how he had been employed, "can't I have a garden of my own? There's that warm bit behind the cowhouse, where the violets come so early. Why can't I dig it up and make a little garden?"

"There's nothing in life to hinder, if you want to do the work," answered granny. "Your father used to have a garden bit in that very spot, and raise radishes and what not. You'll find all his tools up in the garret if you want them. But the fence is all down, isn't it?"

"Not so but I can mend it up again," said Phil. "I didn't mean a real garden though—only a bed for flowers and maybe some radishes or the like. I can dig up the ground and mend the fence and plant my seeds before it's time to take the cow out, and then they'll be growing while we're sleeping. Mr. Regan said he'd show me how to plant the seed. I'd like to be a gardener when I'm grown-up, granny. I think it is so nice all among the trees and plants; better than working in the dusty, woolly carpet factory, or in the hat factory among the dyestuffs and smells."

"Thrue for you, dear; I'd like it better for ye. Them factories isn't very healthy, they say."

"And it's a good trade too," continued Phil. "Mr. Regan gets large wages I know, and Mrs. Barnard thinks everything of him."

"And well she may. There, go and dig in your garden if you like."

"Granny's got something on her mind," thought Phil as he climbed to the garret where he slept, and turned over a great heap of mostly useless lumber to find the tools he wanted. "I wonder what it is. Here's the things at last—spade, rake, and hoe—good luck to me. I'll want the hatchet too, so I'd best take it along."

Phil would have liked to go at once to digging, but his own common sense told him that there would be no use in making a garden for the neighbors' pigs to run over, so he set to work on the fence first. It was hard, tiresome work for one not very large boy, and more than once he was tempted to give it up. But the thought of his flower seeds and of what Mr. Regan would say gave him courage. He only stopped long enough to cook his own and granny's dinner, and by night he had made a pretty good fence and dug up part of his ground. It was the hardest day's labor of his life, but he felt rewarded when Mr. Regan looked over his work and declared that he had made a very good beginning.

"I'll give you a bit of a vine to run up on the rock here, and some morning-glories and scarlet beans. Oh! You'll have a fine garden if you take pains. But then you must remember that a garden is a thing that can't be just made and left. You've got to work at it every day, and pull up the weeds just as fast es they show themselves, or else they'll get ahead of you.