A lady, a friend of hers from a distance, was visiting us, and, knowing that she was sick, requested me to call with her upon the invalid. Hearing that I was in the parlor, she sent for me to come up and sit with her and my friend, after they had seen each other a little while. She was in her easy-chair, able to converse, and was calm and happy.
The door opened suddenly, as we were talking, and in rushed a little boy of about six years, his cap in his hand, a pretty green cloth sack buttoned close about him, his boots pulled over his pants to his knees, and his face glowing with health and from the cold air.
"O, mother!" said he, before he quite saw us,--and then he checked himself; but, being encouraged to proceed, after making his salutations, he said, in a more subdued tone, holding up a great red apple, "See what the man, where we buy our things, sent you, mother. He called me to him, and said, 'Give that to your mother, and tell her it will be first-rate roasted.'"
As the mother smelt of it, and praised it, with her thanks, the boy hung round her chair, and wished to say something.
He spoke loud enough for us to hear, with his eyes glancing occasionally at us, to be sure that we were not too intently looking at him, and, with his arm resting in his mother's lap, he said:
"Do, please, let me go with my sled on the pond. It is real thick, mother. Gustavus says that last evening it was as thick as his big dictionary, and you know how cold it was last night, mother. Please let me go; I won't get in; besides, if I do, it isn't deep--not more than up to there; see here, mother!" putting his little mittened hand, with the palm down, as high as his waist.
His mother looked troubled, and knew not what to say to him, but remarked to us, "O, if I were well, and about the house, I could divert him from his wish; but," said she to him, "if you will ask Gustavus to take care of you, and bring you home when he comes, you may go."
Off he went, making fewer steps than there were stairs, and we heard his merry voice without announcing his liberty.
"Here I am," said she to us, "with those three children, who come home from school twice a day, and there is no mother below to receive them. With the best of help, things sometimes go wrong, and the young woman who sews for me cannot, of course, do for them what a mother could. Nothing has tried my patience, in suffering, more than to hear the door open, and my children come in from school, and to feel that I am separated from them, within hearing, while I cannot reach them."