Read Ebook: Little Prudy's Captain Horace by May Sophie

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Ebook has 736 lines and 27956 words, and 15 pages

Horace looked at the acorn on the lid of the coffee-urn, but said nothing. It cost his little heart a pang even to think of parting from his beloved father; but then wouldn't it be a glorious thing to hear him called General Clifford? And if he should really go away, wasn't it likely that the oldest boy, Horace, would take his place at the head of the table?

Yes, they should miss papa terribly; but he would only stay away till he "got a general;" and for that little while it would be pleasant for Horace to sit in the arm-chair and help the others to the butter, the toast, and the meat.

"Horace," said Mr. Clifford, smiling, "it will be some years before you can be a soldier: why do you begin now to eat dry bread?"

"I want to get used to it, sir."

"That indeed!" said Mr. Clifford, with a good-natured laugh, which made Horace wince a little. "But the eating of dry bread is only a small part of the soldier's tough times, my boy. Soldiers have to sleep on the hard ground, with knapsacks for pillows; they have to march, through wet and dry, with heavy muskets, which make their arms ache."

"Look here, Barby," said Horace, that evening; "I want a knapsack, to learn to be a soldier with. If I have 'tough times' now, I'll get used to it. Can't you find me a carpet-bag, Barby?"

"Carpet-bag? And what for a thing is that?" said Barbara, rousing from a nap, and beginning to click her knitting-needles. "Here I was asleep again. Now, if I did keep working in the kitchen, I could sit up just what time I wants to; but when I sits down, I goes to sleep right off."

And Barbara went on knitting, putting the yarn over the needle with her left hand, after the German fashion.

"But the carpet-bag, Barby: there's a black one 'some place,' in the trunk-closet or up-attic. Now, Barby, you know I helped pick those quails yesterday."

"Yes, yes, dear, when I gets my eyes open."

"I would sleep out doors, but ma says I'd get cold; so I'll lie on the floor in the bathing-room. O, Barby, I'll sleep like a trooper!"

But Horace was a little mistaken. A hard, unyielding floor makes a poor bed; and when, at the same time, one's neck is almost put out of joint by a carpet-bag stuffed with newspaper, it is not easy to go to sleep.

In a short time the little boy began to feel tired of "camping out;" and I am sorry to say that he employed some of the moonlight hours in studying the workmanship of his mother's watch, which had been left, by accident, hanging on a nail in the bathing-room.

Next morning he did not awake as early as usual, and, to his great dismay, came very near being late to breakfast.

"Good-morning, little buzzard-lark," said his sister, coming into his room just as he was thrusting his arms into his jacket.

"Ho, Gracie! why didn't you wake me up?"

"I spoke to you seven times, Horace."

"Well, why didn't you pinch me, or shake me awake, or something?"

"Why, Horace, then you'd have been cross, and said, 'Gracie Clifford, let me alone!' You know you would, Horace."

The little boy stood by the looking-glass finishing his toilet, and made no reply.

"Don't you mean to behave?" said he, talking to his hair. "There, now, you've parted in the middle! Do you s'pose I'm going to look like a girl? Part the way you ought to, and lie down smooth! We'll see which will beat!"

"Why, what in the world is this?" exclaimed Grace, as something heavy dropped at her feet.

It was her mother's watch, which had fallen out of Horace's pocket.

"Where did you get this watch?"

No answer.

"Why, Horace, it doesn't tick: have you been playing with it?"

Still no answer.

"Now, that's just like you, Horace, to shut your mouth right up tight, and not speak a word when you're spoken to. I never saw such a boy! I'm going downstairs, this very minute, to tell my mother you've been hurting her beautiful gold watch!"

"Stop!" cried the boy, suddenly finding his voice; "I reckon I can fix it! I was meaning to tell ma! I only wanted to see that little thing inside that ticks. I'll bet I'll fix it. I didn't go to hurt it, Grace!"

"O, yes, you feel like you could mend watches, and fire guns, and be soldiers and generals," said Grace, shaking her ringlets; "but I'm going right down to tell ma!"

Horace's lips curled with scorn.

"But, Horace, I ought to tell," said Grace, meekly; "it's my duty! Isn't there a little voice at your heart, and don't it say, you've done wicked?"

"There's a voice there," replied the boy, pertly; "but it don't say what you think it does. It says, 'If your pa finds out about the watch, won't you catch it?'"

To do Horace justice, he did mean to tell his mother. He had been taught to speak the truth, and the whole truth, cost what it might. He knew that his parents could forgive almost anything sooner than a falsehood, or a cowardly concealment. Words cannot tell how Mr. Clifford hated deceit.

Horace ate dry toast again this morning, but no one seemed to notice it. If he had dared look up, he could have seen that his father and mother wore sorrowful faces.

After breakfast, Mr. Clifford called him into the library. In the first place, he took to pieces the mangled watch, and showed him how it had been injured.

"Have you any right to meddle with things which belong to other people, my son?" he said soberly.

Horace's chin snuggled down into the hollow place in his neck, and he made no reply.

"Answer me, Horace."

"No, sir."

"It will cost several dollars to pay for repairing this watch: don't you think the little boy who did the mischief should give part of the money?"

Horace looked distressed; his face began to twist itself out of shape.

"This very boy has a good many pieces of silver which were given him to buy fire-crackers. So you see, if he is truly sorry for his fault, he knows the way to atone for it."

Horace's conscience told him, by a twinge, that it would be no more than just for him to pay what he could for mending the watch.

"Have you nothing to say to me, my child?"

For, instead of speaking, the boy was working his features into as many shapes as if they had been made of gutta percha. This was a bad habit of his, though when he was doing it, he had no idea of "making up faces."

His father told him he would let him have the whole day to decide whether he ought to give up any of his money. A tear trembled in each of Horace's eyes, but, before they could fall, he caught them on his thumb and forefinger.

"Now," continued Mr. Clifford, "I have something to tell you. I decided last night to enter the army."

"O, pa," cried Horace, springing up, eagerly; "mayn't I go, too?"

"You, my little son?"

"Yes, pa," replied Horace, clinging to his father's knee. "Boys go to wait on the generals and things! I can wait on you. I can comb your hair, and bring your slippers. If I could be a waiter, I'd go a flying."

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