The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book Part 15

As the fair happened on the following day, I had intentions of going myself; but my wife persuaded me that I had got a cold, and nothing could prevail upon her to permit me from home.

"No, my dear," said she, "our son Moses is a discreet boy and can buy and sell to very good advantage; you know all our great bargains are of his purchasing. He always stands out and higgles, and actually tires them till he gets a bargain."

As I had some opinion of my son's prudence, I was willing enough to intrust him with this commission; and the next morning I perceived his sisters mighty busy in fitting out Moses for the fair--tr.i.m.m.i.n.g his hair, brushing his buckles, and c.o.c.king his hat with pins.

The business of the toilet being over, we had at last the satisfaction of seeing him mounted upon the colt, with a deal box before him to bring home groceries in. He had on a coat made of that cloth they call thunder and lightning, which, though grown too short, was much too good to be thrown away. His waistcoat was of gosling green, and his sisters had tied his hair with a broad black ribbon. We all followed him several paces from the door, bawling after him: "Good luck, good luck!" till we could see him no longer.

As night came on, I began to wonder what could keep our son so long at the fair.

"Never mind our son," cried my wife, "depend upon it, he knows what he is about. I'll warrant we'll never see him sell his hen of a rainy day.

I have seen him buy such bargains as would amaze one. I'll tell you a good story about that, that will make you split your sides with laughing. But, as I live, yonder comes Moses, without a horse, and the box at his back."

As she spoke, Moses came slowly on foot, and sweating under the deal box, which he had strapped round his shoulders like a pedlar.

"Welcome, welcome, Moses; well, my boy, what have you brought us from the fair?"

"I have brought you myself," cried Moses, with a sly look, and resting the box on the dresser.

"Ah, Moses," cried my wife, "that we know, but where is the horse?"

"I have sold him," cried Moses, "for three pounds, five shillings, and twopence."

"Well done, my good boy," returned she, "I knew you would touch them off. Between ourselves, three pounds, five shillings, and twopence is no bad day's work. Come, let us have it then."

"I have brought back no money," cried Moses again. "I have laid it all out in a bargain, and here it is," pulling out a bundle from his breast: "here they are, a gross of green spectacles, with silver rims and s.h.a.green cases."

"A gross of green spectacles!" repeated my wife, in a faint voice. "And you have parted with the colt and brought us back nothing but a gross of green paltry spectacles!"

"Dear mother," cried the boy, "why won't you listen to reason? I had them a dead bargain, or I should not have bought them. The silver rims will sell for double the money."

"A fig for the silver rims!" cried my wife, in a pa.s.sion. "I dare swear they won't sell for above half the money at the rate of broken silver, five shillings an ounce."

"You need be under no uneasiness," cried I, "about selling the rims; for they are not worth sixpence, for I perceive they are only copper varnished over."

"What," cried my wife, "not silver, the rims not silver!"

"No," cried I, "no more silver than your sauce-pan."

"And so," returned she, "we have parted with the colt, and have only got a gross of green spectacles, with copper rims and s.h.a.green cases! A murrain take such trumpery! The blockhead has been imposed upon, and should have known his company better."

"There, my dear," cried I, "you are wrong; he should not have known them at all."

"Marry, hang the idiot," returned she, "to bring me such stuff; if I had them, I would throw them into the fire."

"There again you are wrong, my dear," cried I; "for though they be copper, we will keep them by us, as copper spectacles, you know, are better than nothing."

By this time the unfortunate Moses was undeceived. He now saw that he had been imposed upon by a prowling sharper, who, observing his figure, had marked him for an easy prey. I therefore asked the circ.u.mstances of his deception. He sold the horse, it seems, and walked the fair in search of another. A reverend-looking man brought him to a tent, under pretence of having one to sell.

"Here," continued Moses, "we met another man, very well dressed, who desired to borrow twenty pounds upon these, saying that he wanted money and would dispose of them for a third of the value. The first gentleman, who pretended to be my friend, whispered me to buy them, and cautioned me not to let so good an offer pa.s.s. I sent for Mr. Flamborough, and they talked him up as finely as they did me, and so at last we were persuaded to buy the two gross between us."

Goldsmith: "The Vicar of Wakefield."

THE MAPLE

Oh, tenderly deepen the woodland glooms, And merrily sway the beeches; Breathe delicately the willow blooms, And the pines rehea.r.s.e new speeches; The elms toss high till they reach the sky, Pale catkins the yellow birch launches, But the tree I love all the greenwood above Is the maple of sunny branches.

Let who will sing of the hawthorn in spring, Or the late-leaved linden in summer; There's a word may be for the locust tree, That delicate, strange new-comer; But the maple it glows with the tint of the rose When pale are the spring-time regions, And its towers of flame from afar proclaim The advance of Winter's legions.

And a greener shade there never was made Than its summer canopy sifted, And many a day, as beneath it I lay, Has my memory backward drifted To a pleasant lane I may walk not again, Leading over a fresh, green hill, Where a maple stood just clear of the wood-- And oh! to be near it still!

Charles G. D. Roberts

THE GREENWOOD TREE

Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And tune his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun And loves to live i' the sun; Seeking the food he eats, And pleased with what he gets, Come hither, come hither, come hither; Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather.

Shakespeare

Believe me, thrift of time will repay you in after life with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and the waste of it will make you dwindle, alike in intellectual and moral stature, beyond your darkest reckonings.

Gladstone

LAKE SUPERIOR

Before turning our steps westward from this inland ocean, Lake Superior, it will be well to pause a moment on its sh.o.r.e and look out over its bosom. It is worth looking at, for the world possesses not its equal.

Four hundred English miles in length, one hundred and fifty miles in breadth, six hundred feet above Atlantic level, nine hundred feet in depth; one vast spring of purest crystal water, so cold that during summer months its waters are like ice itself, and so clear that hundreds of feet below the surface the rocks stand out as distinctly as though seen through plate-gla.s.s. Follow in fancy the outpourings of this wonderful basin; seek its future course in Huron, Erie, and Ontario--in that wild leap from the rocky ledge which makes Niagara famous through the world. Seek it farther still--in the quiet loveliness of the Thousand Isles, in the whirl and sweep of the Cedar Rapids, in the silent rush of the great current under the rocks at the foot of Quebec.

Ay, and even farther away still--down where the lone Laurentian Hills come forth to look again upon that water whose earliest beginnings they cradled along the sh.o.r.es of Lake Superior. There, close to the sounding billows of the Atlantic, two thousand miles from Superior, these hills--the only ones that ever last--guard the great gate by which the St. Lawrence seeks the sea.

There are rivers whose currents, running red with the silt and mud of their soft alluvial sh.o.r.es, carry far into the ocean the record of their muddy progress; but this glorious river system, through its many lakes and various names, is ever the same crystal current, flowing pure from the fountain-head of Lake Superior. Great cities stud its sh.o.r.es; but they are powerless to dim the transparency of its waters. Steam-ships cover the broad bosom of its lakes and estuaries; but they change not the beauty of the water, no more than the fleets of the world mark the waves of the ocean. Any person looking at a map of the region bounding the great lakes of North America will be struck by the absence of rivers flowing into Lakes Superior, Michigan, or Huron, from the south--in fact, the drainage of the States bordering these lakes on the south is altogether carried off by the valley of the Mississippi. It follows that this valley of the Mississippi is at a much lower level than the surface of the lakes. These lakes, containing an area of some seventy-three thousand square miles, are therefore an immense reservoir held high over the level of the great Mississippi valley, from which they are separated by a barrier of slight elevation and extent.

Major W. F. Butler: "The Great Lone Land."