Grandmother to William Henry
My dear Boy,—
Your father and all of us were very glad to see that photograph, for it seemed next thing to seeing you, you dear child. We couldn’t bear to send it away so soon. I kept it on the mantel-piece, with my spectacles close by, so that when I went past it I could take a look. We sent word in to your aunt Phebe and in a few minutes little Tommy came running across and said his “muzzer said he must bwing Billy’s Pokerdaff in, wight off.” But I told him to tell his muzzer that Billy’s Pokerdaff must be sent back very soon, and wasn’t going out of my sight a minute while it stayed, and they must come in. And they did. We all think ’t is a very natural picture, only too sober. You ought to try to look smiling at such times. I wish you’d had somebody to pull down your jacket, and see to your collar’s being even. But Aunt Phebe says ’t is a wonder you look as well as you do, with no woman to fix you. I should know Dorry’s picture anywhere. Uncle Jacob wants to know what you were both so cross about? Says you look as if you’d go to fighting the minute you got up.
Little Tommy is tickled enough with that sled, and keeps looking up in the sky to see when snow is coming down, and drags it about on the bare ground, if we don’t watch him.
I had almost a good mind to keep the skates at home. Boys are so venturesome. They always think there’s no danger. I said to your father, “Now if anything should happen to Billy I should wish we’d never sent them.” But he’s always afraid I shall make a Miss Nancy of you. Now I don’t want to do that. But there’s reason in all things. And a boy needn’t drown himself to keep from being a Miss Nancy. He thinks you’ve got sense enough not to skate on thin ice, and says the teachers won’t allow you to skate if the pond isn’t safe. But I don’t have faith in any pond being safe. My dear boy, there’s danger even if the thermometer is below zero. There may be spring-holes. Never was a boy got drowned yet skating, but what thought there was no danger. Do be careful. I know you would if you only knew how I keep awake nights worrying about you.
Anybody would think that your uncle Jacob had more money than he knew how to spend. He went to the city last week, and brought Georgiana home a pair of light blue French kid boots. He won’t tell the price. They are high-heeled, very narrow-soled, and come up high. He saw them in the window of one of the grand stores, and thought he’d just step in and buy them for Georgie. Never thought of their coming so high. I’m speaking of the price. Now Georgie doesn’t go to parties, and where the child can wear them, going through thick and thin, is a puzzler. She might to meeting, if she could be lifted out of the wagon and set down in the broad aisle, but Lucy Maria says that won’t do, because her meeting dress is cherry-color. Next summer I shall get her a light blue barege dress to match ’em, for the sake of pleasing her uncle Jacob. When he heard us talking about her not going anywhere to wear such fancy boots, he said then she should wear them over to his house. So twice he has sent a billet in the morning, inviting her to come and take tea, and at the bottom he writes, ☞“Company expected to appear in blue boots.” So I dress her up in her red dress, and the boots, and draw my plush moccasins over them, and pack her off. Uncle Jacob takes her things, and waits upon her to the table, and they have great fun out of it.
My dear Billy, I have been thinking about that boy that wears cinnamon-colored clothes. I do really hope you won’t be so cruel as to laugh at a boy on account of his clothes. What a boy is, don’t depend upon what he wears on his back, but upon what he has inside of his head and his heart. When I was a little girl and went to school in the old school-house, the Committee used to come, sometimes, to visit the school. One of the Committee was the minister. He was a very fine old gentleman, and a great deal thought of by the whole town. He used to wear a ruffled shirt, and a watch with a bunch of seals, and carry a gold-headed cane. He had white hair, and a mild blue eye, and a pleasant smile, that I haven’t forgotten yet, though ’t was a great many years ago. After we’d read and spelt, and the writing-books and ciphering-books had been passed round, the teacher always asked him to address the school. And there was one thing he used to say, almost every time. And he said it in such a smiling, pleasant way, that I’ve remembered it ever since. He used to begin in this way.
“I love little children. I love to come where they are. I love to hear them laugh, and shout. I love to watch them while they are at play. And because I love them so well, I don’t want there should be anything bad about them. Just as when I watch a rosebud blooming;—I should be very sorry not to have it bloom out into a beautiful, perfect rose. And now, children, there are three words I want you all to remember. Only three. You can remember three words, can’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” we would say.
“Well, now, how long can you remember them?” he would ask,—“a week?”
“Yes sir.”
“Two weeks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A month?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A year?”
“Guess so.”
“All your lives?”
Then some would say, “Yes, sir,” and some would say they guessed not, and some didn’t believe they could, and some knew they couldn’t.
“Well, children,” he would say at last, “now I will tell you what the three words are: Treat—everybody—well. Now what I want you to be surest to remember is ‘everybody.’ Everybody is a word that takes in a great many people, and a great many kinds of people,—takes in the washer-women and the old man that saws wood, and the colored folks that come round selling baskets, and the people that wear second-hand clothes, and the help in the kitchen,—takes in those we don’t like and even the ones that have done us harm. ‘Treat—everybody—well.’ For you can afford to. A pleasant word don’t cost anything to give, and is a very pleasant thing to take.”
The old gentleman used to look so smiling while he talked. And he followed out his own rule. For he was just as polite to the poor woman that came to clean their paint as he was to any fine lady. He wanted to make us feel ashamed of being impolite to people who couldn’t wear good clothes. Children and grown people too, he said, were apt to treat the ones best that wore the best clothes. He’d seen children, and grown folks too, who would be all smiles and politeness to the company, and then be ugly and snappish to poor people they’d hired to work for them. A real lady or gentleman,—he used to end off with this,—“A real lady, and a real gentleman will—treat—everybody—well.” And I will end off with this too. And don’t you ever forget it. For that you may be, my dear boy, a true gentleman is the wish of
Your loving Grandmother.
P. S. Do be careful when you go a skating. If the ice is ever so thick, there may be spring-holes. Your father wants you to have a copy of that picture taken for us to keep, and sends this money to pay for it. I forgot to say that of course it is mean for a boy not to pay his part. And for a boy not to pay his debts is mean, and next kin to stealing. And the smaller the debts are the meaner it is. We are all waiting for your Report.
I did not think it at all strange that Uncle Jacob should buy the blue boots. It is just what I would like to do myself. I never go past one of those wonderful shoe-store windows, and look at the bright array of blue, yellow, and red, without wishing I had six little girls, with six little pairs of feet. For then I should have half a dozen excuses to go in and buy, and now I haven’t one.
Georgie’s boots looked pretty, with the nice white stockings her grandmother knit. And I couldn’t see any harm in her wearing a red dress with them. The red, white, and blue are the best colors in the world for me, and I’ll never turn against them!
“Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue!”