Old Grumble on Childhood

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 122, 20 April 1889, Page 3

Old Grumble on Childhood

Childhood ! When bowed with weight of ' years, we draw towards the evening of a life spent in buffetting with the cares of the world and in toiling after its so-called treasures, which are ever evading our grasp, or if grasped, fail to produce the happiness we expected by their acquirement, our thoughts turn to that happy period ere thought of self entered into our mental composition, and taught us to trample out the generous impulses of our souls, under the pretext that " it does not pay," and as we think of the guileless pleasures of those days, and compare the hollow joys we have exchanged them for, : how willingly ;- would we give up those blown eggs, those kernelless nuts, we have so • assiduously been accumulating to be able to recall the innocence of that time. -. ■■• What would I not give, Mrs Grumble, to be a child again ? What do you say ? —No necessity to go to any lavish expenditure in order to procure that which is coming upon me fast enough gratuitously. I take that, madam, for an insinuation that I- am • growing childish. " Yes, I do, Grumble ; talking such stuff as wanting to "be a- child again." I alluded, madam, to its-ainselfishness, its thought for the age .1, and its 1 eagerness to heal the afflicted. * f Children don't go - about healing the sick 1" Don't they ? — I once knew some who cured a man of fits ; after three operations he had no more fits. He was a garden laborer ; drunken and dissolute he had been in his time, but he reformed, eschewed drink, took up with all that was purifying, joined fourteen societies having for their end moral, social, or religious advancement, and became a paragon of morality, sobriety, and piety ; but his constitution was shaken, Mrs Grumble ; shaken ! and after he became a total abstainer he had fits. Had them regu--1% ly just as his wife used to bring his dinner, when it was her practice to huddle him into a barrow, depress the handles, prop the wheel up with a piece of wood, and run for the only remedy she knew of: & drop of gin. One day when Billy was lying unconsciously in the barrow, and his wife had gone for the restorative, three children came upon the scene. ' Ministering angels.' Poor Billy is in a fit, let us try and get him out of it, said one — a girl, the oldest. Then they held a consultation in their simple way. " I know," said the girl, who seemed to be the ruling spirit (she grew up to be a genius, Mrs Grumble) ; the thought was parent to the deed sind off she ran, qu:c\ly rs app -.iring ■with v tetiicv nue in her iicinii. Jnujw it was ingrafted in these children's nature io'dogood by stealth, arid if an intruder had come upon them at that moment they would liave looked confused and ran away, but no one came, and they went on quietly with their good work. Attaching uue end of the rope to the pr>p which supported the improvised •couch they we.it to t he o ht-r en.., i.aye a sharp pull ; waited a moment to learn the effect ; and then disappeared ; one merely remarking as they fled, " Didn'r he come down a whopper." As for Billy, he was in a fit ; and out of the barrow in a. moment ; stood rubbing his head disconsolately, and looking am zed. *' What was it," he cogitated, *' that fetched me out of the fit so sharp ? I thought my neck was broke. It wasn'i gw ; gin never arts on me like that." Meanwhile Mrs Batten, who was re laming with the three hap'orth, saw with jij'ful surprise her nusb n I restored to «..nscioUß'iess and muttering sometfiin. which « he took to • 'tis orisons. " Poor soul." mus d .-he, " ne does not nerd ibis now," and as she thought she acted ; she raised the bottle to her lips nnd emptied it of its contents. Billy was doubtful whether he should ever havo another fit ; but he did, and again those innocent children ministered unto him. Biljy now asserted that he was quit • cured. One day. however, when the sun vca* hot and tht^tvater bad, and Bil'y """« faint for want of a drink he had an th -r attack. Fortunately the children wt-re on hand {he declared they watched him — perhaps, they did) and tuej applied the remedy more vigorously than ever. It proved effectual. Billy's last fit was over, and all lingering desire for strong drink at an end. A few Sundays afterwards an unusual occurrence took place at Church, when BHly Batten was seen walking down the , aisle, leaving the church, just after the Minister had delivered his text. On my asking him his reason for such a pro* ceeding he shook his head in a decisive manner as he replied, " I disagree with that" preacher's doctrines." •' How is that ?" I queried. " Because when a man like that says he finds no guile iv little children, I says he knows nothing about it. I says let him 'are 'em, and may be have a fit while they're nith *im," There, madame, are ; wo true pictures. : One of the ianocen<- o' cb.ildb.ocd, the i other pourtraymg li » sincere is the repentance of the average reformed sinner drawn by the pen of Old Geumble.