Harry Pemberton’s Text
By Elizabeth Armstrong
“He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.”
Harry Pemberton went down the street whistling a merry tune. It was one I like very much, and you all know it, for it has been played by street bands and organs, and heard on every street corner for as many years as you boys have been living on the earth. “Wait till the clouds roll by, Jenny, wait till the clouds roll by.” The lads I am writing this story for are between ten and fourteen years old, and they know that the clouds do once in a while roll around a person’s path, and block the way, because fogs and mists can block the way just as well as a big black stone wall.
At the corner of the street a red-headed, blue-eyed lad, a head taller than Harry, joined the latter. He put his hand on Harry’s shoulder and walked beside him.
“Well,” said this last comer, whose name was Frank Fletcher, “will your mother let you go, Harry, boy? I hope she doesn’t object.”
“But she does,” said Harry, quickly “Mother doesn’t think it right for us to start on such an expedition and she says all parents will say the same.”
“Of all things, where can the harm be? Only none of the rest of us have to ask leave, as you do.”
“Mother,” said Harry, disregarding this speech, “is of the opinion that to enter a man’s garden by the back gate, when the family are all away, is breaking into his premises and going where you haven’t a right, and is burglary, and if you take flowers or anything, then it’s stealing. Mere vulgar stealing, she says.”
“Why, Harry Pemberton, how dare you say stealing to me?” And Frank’s red hair stood up like a fiery flame.
“I’m only quoting mother. Don’t get mad, Frank.”
“Does your mother know it’s to decorate the soldiers’ graves that we want the flowers, and that Squire Eliot won’t be home till next year, and there are hundreds ’n hundreds of flowers fading and wasting and dying on his lawn and garden, and furthermore that he’d like the fellows to decorate the cemetery with his flowers? Does she know that, I say?” and the blue-eyed lad gesticulated fiercely.
“All is,” replied Harry, firmly, “that you boys can go ahead if you like, but mother won’t let me, and you must count me out.”
“All is,” said Frank, mimicking Harry’s tone, “you’re a mother-boy, and we fellows won’t have anything more to do with you.” So they sent him to Coventry, which means that they let him alone severely. They had begun to do it already, which was why he whistled so merrily to show he did not mind.
I never for my part could see that there was any disgrace in being a mother-boy. But I suppose a boy thinks he is called babyish, if the name is fastened on him. As Harry went on his errand, he no longer whistled, at least he didn’t whistle much. And as he went to school next day, and next day, and next day, and found himself left out in the cold, he would have been more than the usual twelve-year-old laddie if he had not felt his courage fail. But he had his motto text to bolster him up.
“Clean hands, Harry, and a pure heart,” said Mrs. Pemberton, cheerfully. “It cannot be right to steal flowers or anything else even to decorate the graves of our brave soldiers.”
And so the time passed—kite time, top time, hoop time, marble time.
It was the evening before Memorial Day, at last.
There was a good deal of stirring in the village. It was splendid moonlight. You could see to read large print. A whole crowd of boys met at the store and took their way across lots to the beautiful old Eliot place. The big house, with its broad porch and white columns, stood out in the glory of the moon. The gardens were sweet in the dew. Violets, lilies, roses, lilacs, snow-drops, whole beds of them.
Every boy, and there were ten of them, had a basket and a pair of shears. They meant to get all the flowers they could carry and despoil the Eliot place, if necessary, to make the cemetery a grand looking spot to-morrow, when the veterans and the militia should be out with bands of music and flying flags, and the Governor, no less, coming in person to review the troops and make a speech in the very place where his own father was buried.
In went the boys. Over the stile, up the paths, clear on toward the front portico. They separated into little groups and began to cut their flowers, the Eliots’ flowers, all the Eliots in Europe, and not a soul on hand to save their property.
Suddenly the boys were arrested and paralyzed with fright.
An immense form leaped from behind the house and a deep-throated, baying bark resounded in a threatening roar. Juno, Squire Eliot’s famous mastiff, the one that had taken a prize at the dog show, bounded out toward the marauders. They turned to fly, when a stern voice bade them stop.
“You young rapscallions! You trespassers! You rascals! Stop this instant or I’ll thrash every one of you! Humph!” said Squire Eliot, brandishing his cane, as the boys stopped and tremblingly came forward. “This is how my neighbors’ sons treat my property when I’m away. Line up there against the fence, every one of you. Charge, Juno! Charge, good dog!”
Squire Eliot looked keenly at the boys, every one of whom he knew.
“Solomon’s methods are out of fashion,” he said, “and if I send you boys home the chances are that your fathers won’t whip you as you deserve to be whipped, so I’ll do the job myself. Fortunate thing I happened to change my plans and come home for the summer, instead of going away as I expected. I heard there was a plan of this sort on foot, but I didn’t believe it till I overheard the whole thing talked of in the village this afternoon. Well, boys, I’ll settle with you once for all, and then I’ll forgive you, but you’ve got to pay the penalty first. Frank, hold out your hand.”
But just then there was an interruption. Lights appeared in the windows and a dainty little lady came upon the scene. The boys knew Grandmother Eliot, who wore her seventy years with right queenly grace, and never failed to have a kind word for man, woman and child in the old home.
“Eugene,” she called to the Squire, imperatively, “I can’t allow this, my son. The boys have been punished enough. Their fault was in not seeing that you cannot do evil that good may come. Let every one of these young gentlemen come here to me. I want to talk with them.”
Now it is probable that most of the boys would have preferred a sharp blow or two from the Squire’s cane to a reproof from his gentle old mother, whose creed led her to heap coals of fire on the heads of those who did wrong. But they had no choice. There was no help for it. They had to go up, shears, baskets and all, and let old Lady Eliot talk to them; and then, as they were going away, who should come out but a white-capped maid, with cake and lemonade, to treat the young depredators to refreshments.
“There’s only one fellow in our class who deserves cake and lemonade,” exclaimed Frank, “and he isn’t here. We’ve all treated him meaner than dirt. We’ve been horrid to him, because he wouldn’t join us in this. Now he’s out of this scrape and we’re in.”
“Harry Pemberton,” said Squire Eliot, who had locked up his cane, and was quite calm, “Harry Pemberton, that’s Lida Scott’s boy, mother. Lida would bring him up well, I’m sure. Well, he shall have a lot of roses to-morrow to lay on Colonel Pemberton’s grave. Isn’t that fair, boys?”
“Yes, yes,” assented they all, with eagerness.
“And as you have by your own admission treated Harry rather badly, suppose you make it up to him by coming here in the morning, carrying the roses to his house, and owning that you regret your behavior.”
It was rather a bitter pill, but the boys swallowed it bravely.
Next day, as Harry and his mother, laden with dog-wood boughs and branches of lilac, set out for the little spot most sacred to them on earth, they met a procession which was headed by Frank Fletcher. The procession had a drum and a flag, and it had roses galore.
“Honest roses, Harry,” said Frank. “The Squire is at home and he gave them to us for you. Let me tell you about it.”
The story was told from beginning to end. Then Mrs. Pemberton said, “Now, boys, take for your everlasting motto from this time forth, ‘Clean hands and a pure heart.’”