BY B. L. FARJEON. LONDON'S HEART. Illustrated. Now in course of publication in Harper's Bazar. (Commenced in the No. for GRIF: a Story of Australian Life. 8vo, Paper, 40 cents. JOSHUA MARVEL. 8vo, Paper, 40 cents. BLADE-O'-GRASS. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. Either of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United CONCERNING CERTAIN FAMILY CONVER- way; and, happy and satisfied with each SATIONS AND THEIR RESULT. IN the parish of Stepney, in the county of Middlesex, there lived, amidst the hundreds of thousands of human bees who throng that overcrowded locality, a family composed of four persons- mother, father, and two children, boy and girl who owned the surprising name of Marvel. They had lived in their hive for goodness knows how many years. The father's father had lived there and died there; the father had been married from there; and the children had been born there. The bees in the locality, who elbowed each other and trod upon each other's toes, were poor and common bees, and did not make much honey. Some of them made just enough to live upon; and a good many of them, now and then, ran a little short. The consequence was, that they could not store any honey for a rainy day, and were compelled to labor and toil right through the year, in cold weather and in warm weather, in sunshine and in rain. In which respect they were worse, off than other bees we know of that work in the summer and make themselves cosey in the winter. The bees in the neighborhood being common and poor, it was natural that the neighborhood itself should partake of the character of its inhabitants. But, common and poor as it was, it was not too common nor too poor for love to dwell in it. Love did reside there; not only in the hive of the Marvels, but in hundreds of other hives, tenanted by the humblest of humble bees. George Marvel had married for love; and, lest the reader should suppose that the contract was one-sided, it may be as well to mention that George Marvel's wife had also other, they did not mar their enjoyment of the then present by thinking of the sharp stones which, from the very circumstances of their position, were pretty sure to dot the road of their future lives. There are many such simple couples in the world who believe that the future is carpeted with velvet grass, with the sun always shining upon it, and who find themselves all too soon stumbling over a dark and rocky thoroughfare. It was not long before the Marvels came to the end of their little bit of carpet sunshine; yet, when they got upon the sharp stones, they contrived by industry and management to keep their feet. George Marvel was a wood-turner by trade, and earned on an average about thirty-two shillings a week. What with a little new furniture now and then, and a little harmless enjoyment now and then, and a few articles of necessary clothing now and then, and the usual breakfasts, dinners, and teas, with a little bit of supper now and then, the thirty-two shillings a week were pretty well and pretty fully employed. So well and so fully were those weekly shillings employed, that it was often a very puzzling matter to solve that problem which millions of human atoms are studying at this present moment, and which consists in endeavoring to make both ends meet. That they did contrive, however, to make both ends meet (not, of course, without the tugging and stretching always employed in the process), was satisfactorily demonstrated by the fact that the family were respected and esteemed by their neighbors, and that they owed no man a shilling. Not even the baker; for they sent for their loaves, and paid for them across the counter. By that 5 they almost always received an extra piece | first day I used the lathe I dreamed that I to make up weight; and such extra pieces had cut my thumb off; and I woke up with are of importance in a family. Not even a curious sensation in my jaw which has the butcher; for Mrs. Marvel did her own haunted me ever since like a ghost. That marketing, and found it far cheaper to se- was before I knew you, mother. And now lect her own joints, which you may be sure it is to-day, and I'm wood-turning still; never had too much bone in them. Not and How many white hairs did you even the cat's-meat man; for the farthing pull out of my head last night, Sarah ?” a day laid out with that tradesman was Fourteen," replied Sarah; "and you faithfully paid in presence of the carroty- owe me a farthing." haired cat (who ever heard of a cat with auburn hair?) who sat the while with eager appetite, looking with hungry eyes at the skewer upon which hung her modicum of the flesh of horse. 66 66 Fourteen," said Mr. Marvel, quietly repudiating the liability, which arose from an existing arrangement that Sarah should have a farthing for every dozen white hairs she pulled out of his head; " and next week it will be forty, perhaps; and the week after four hundred." "White hairs will come, father," said Mrs. Marvel; "we must all get 'em when we're old enough.' "I'm not old enough," grumbled Mr. Marvel. "And I don't see, father," continued Mrs. Marvel, "what the fourteen white hairs Sarah pulled out of your head has to do with Joshua." "Of course you don't see, mother," said Mr. Marvel, who had a contempt for a woman's argument; "you're not supposed to see, being a woman; but I do see; and what I say is, wood-turning brings on white hairs quicker than any thing else." 66 Mrs. Marvel was a pale but not sad woman, who had no ambition in life worthy of being called one, save the ambition of making both ends meet, and of being able, although Stepney was not liable to floods, to keep the heads of her family above water. But, because Mrs. Marvel had no ambition, that was no reason why Mr. Marvel should not have any. Not that he could have defined precisely what it was if he had been asked; but that the constant difficulties which cropped up in the constant attempt to solve the problem (which has something perpetual in its nature) of making both ends meet, made him fretful. This fretfulness had found vent in speech day after day for many years; so that Joshua Marvel, the wood-turner's heir, had from his infancy upwards been in the habit of hearing what a miserable thing it was to be poor, and what a miserable thing it was to be cooped up, as George Marvel expressed it, and what a miserable thing it was to live until one's hair turned gray without ever having had a start in the world. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that Joshua Marvel had gathered slowly in his mind the determination not to be a wood-turner all his life, but to start From this it will be seen that the voice in the world for himself, and try to be some- maternal was weak and impotent when opthing better; never for one moment think-posed to the voice paternal. But Mrs. ing there was the most remote possibility Marvel, although by no means a strongof his ever being any thing worse. When, minded woman, had a will of her own, and in the course of certain family discussions a quiet unobtrusive way of working which and conversations, this determination be- often achieved a victory without inflicting came known, it did not receive discourage- humiliation. She did not like the idea of ment from the head of the family, although the tender-hearted mother cried by the hour together, and could not for the life of her see why Joshua should not be satisfied to do as his father had done before him. "And what is that, mother?" Mr. Marvel would ask. "What have I done before him? I've been wood-turning all my life before him that's what I've been doing; and I shall go on wood-turning, I suppose, till my dying day, when I can't wood-turn any more. Why, it might be yesterday that I started as a boy to learn wood-turning. The "Grandfather was a wood-turner," remarked Mrs. Marvel," and he didn't have white hairs until he was quite old." Well, he was lucky - that's all I can say; but, for all that, Josh isn't going to be a wood-turner, unless he's set his mind upon it." "I won't be a wood-turner, father," said Joshua. "All right, Josh," said Mr. Marvel; “you sha'n't." her boy leading an idle life; she had an intuitive conviction that Joshua would come to no good if he had nothing to do. She argued the matter with her good man, and never introduced the subject at an improper time. The consequence was, that her first moves were crowned with success. "If Joshua won't be a wood-turner, father"-she said. "Which he won't," asserted her husband. "Which he won't, as you say," Mrs. Marvel replied, like a sensible woman. "If he won't be a wood-turner, he must be some thing. Now he must be something, father mustn't he?" This being spoken in the form of a question, left the decision with Mr. Marvel; and he said, as if the remark originated with himself, 66 Yes; he must be something." And with that admission Mrs. Marvel rested content for a little while; but not for long. She soon returned to the attack; and asked her husband what Joshua should be. Now this puzzled Mr. Marvel; and he could not see any way out of the difficulty, except by remarking that the boy would make up his mind one of these fine days. But "these fine days"-in which people, especially boys, make up their minds- are remarkably like angels' visits; and the calendar of our lives often comes to an end without one of them being marked upon the record. To all outward appearance, this was likely to be the case with Joshua; and the task of making up his mind seemed to be so tardy in its accomplishment, that George Marvel himself began to grow perplexed as to the future groove of his son and heir; for Joshua kept himself mentally very much to himself. Vague wishes and desires he had; but they had not yet shaped themselves in his mind- which was most likely the reason why they had not found expression. Meanwhile Mrs. Marvel was not idle. She saw her husband's perplexity, and rejoiced at it. Her great desire was to see Joshua settled down to a trade, whether it were wood-turning or any other. Woodturning she would have preferred; but, failing that, some other trade which would fix him at home; for with that keen perception which mothers only possess with regard to their children a perception which springs from the maternal intellect alone, and which is born of a mother's watchful anxious love she felt that her son's desires, unknown even to himself, might possibly lead him to be a wanderer from her world, the parish of Stepney, in which she was content to live and die. In that beehive she had been born; in that beehive she had experienced calm happiness and wholesome trouble; and in that beehive she wished to close her eyes; and to see her children's faces smiling upon her, when her time came to say good-by to the world of which she knew so little. With all a woman's cunning, with all a woman's love, she devoted herself to the task of weaning the mind of her favorite child from the restless aspirations which might drive him from her side. "Until Joshua makes up his mind what he is going to be, father," she said one night at candle-time, "it's a pity he should remain idle. Idleness isn't a good thing for a boy.' "Idleness isn't a good thing for boy or man," said Mr. Marvel, converting his wife's remark into an original expression of opinion by the addition of the last two words. "But I don't see what we are to do, mother." "Suppose I get him a situation as an errand-boy, perhaps—until he makes up his mind." "I'm agreeable," said Mr. Marvel, "if Josh is." But Josh was not agreeable. Many a fruitless journey did Mrs. Marvel make, trudging here and trudging there; and many an application did she answer in person to written announcements in shop-windows of "Errand-boy wanted." Joshua would not accept any of the situations she obtained for him. She got him one at a watchmaker's; no, he would not go to a watchmaker's: at a saddler's; no, he would not go to a saddler's: at a bootmaker's, at a tailor's; no, nor that, nor that. Still she persevered, appearing to gain fresh courage from every rebuff. As for Joshua, he was beginning to grow wearied of her assiduity. He was resolved not to go to any trade, but being of a very affectionate nature he desired to please his mother, and at the same time to convince her that it was of no use for her to worry him any longer. So he set her, what he considered to be an impossible task; he told her that he was determined not to go anywhere except to a printingoffice. He felt assured that she would never be able to get him within the sacred precincts of such an establishment. And even if she did, there was something more noble, something more distinguished and grander, in printing than in bootmaking, or tailoring, or watchmaking, or wood-turning. There was a fascinating mystery about it; he had seen watchmakers, and tailors, and cobblers working, but he had never seen the inside of a printing-office. Neither had any of his boy-friends. He had been told, too, that there was an act of parliament which allowed printers to wear swords in the streets. That was a fine thing. How all the neighbors would stare when they saw him walking through the narrow streets of Stepney with a sword at his side! Joshua had some sense of humor; and he chuckled to himself at the impossible task he had set his mother. He was therefore considerably astonished one day, when Mrs. Marvel told him she had obtained a situation for him as errandboy in a newspaper-office. Did ever a woman fail, except from physical or mental prostration, in the accomplishment of a certain thing upon which she has set her mind? |