The Ontario Readers | Page 9

way, and you will get a
scolding."
The child did not seem to hear. Something else absorbed his attention.
The baker's wife went up to him and gave him a friendly tap on the
shoulder. "What are you thinking about?" said she.

"Ma'am," said the little boy, "what is that that sings?"
"There is no singing," said she.
"Yes!" cried the little fellow. "Hear it! Queek, queek, queek, queek!"
My friend and the woman both listened, but they could hear nothing,
unless it was the song of the crickets, frequent guests in bakers houses.
"It is a little bird," said the dear little fellow; "or perhaps the bread
sings when it bakes, as apples do?"
"No, indeed, little goosey!" said the baker's wife; "those are crickets.
They sing in the bake-house because we are lighting the oven, and they
like to see the fire."
"Crickets!" said the child; "are they really crickets?"
"Yes, to be sure," said she, good-humouredly. The child's face lighted
up.
"Ma'am," said he, blushing at the boldness of his request, "I would like
it very much if you would give me a cricket."
"A cricket," said the baker's wife, smiling; "what in the world would
you do with a cricket, my little friend? I would gladly give you all there
are in the house, to get rid of them, they run about so."
"O, ma'am, give me one, only one, if you please!" said the child,
clasping his little thin hands under the big loaf. "They say that crickets
bring good luck into houses; and perhaps if we had one at home,
mother, who has so much trouble, wouldn't cry any more."
"Why does your poor mamma cry?" said my friend, who could no
longer help joining in the conversation.
"On account of her bills, sir," said the little fellow. "Father is dead, and
mother works very hard, but she cannot pay them all."

My friend took the child, and with him the large loaf, into his arms, and
I really believe he kissed them both. Meanwhile the baker's wife, who
did not dare to touch a cricket herself, had gone into the bake-house.
She made her husband catch four, and put them into a box with holes in
the cover, so that they might breathe. She gave the box to the child,
who went away perfectly happy.
When he had gone, the baker's wife and my friend gave each other a
good squeeze of the hand. "Poor little fellow!" said they both together.
Then she took down her account-book, and, finding the page where the
mother's charges were written, made a great dash all down the page,
and then wrote at the bottom, "Paid."
Meanwhile my friend, to lose no time, had put up in paper all the
money in his pockets, where fortunately he had quite a sum that day,
and had begged the good wife to send it at once to the mother of the
little cricket-boy, with her bill receipted, and a note, in which he told
her that she had a son who would one day be her pride and joy.
They gave it to a baker's boy with long legs, and told him to make haste.
The child, with his big loaf, his four crickets, and his little short legs,
could not run very fast, so that when he reached home, he found his
mother, for the first time in many weeks, with her eyes raised from her
work, and a smile of peace and happiness upon her lips.
The boy believed that it was the arrival of his four little black things
which had worked this miracle, and I do not think he was mistaken.
Without the crickets, and his good little heart, would this happy change
have taken place in his mother's fortunes?
P. J. STAHL

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM
It was a summer evening, Old Kaspar's work was done, And he before
his cottage door Was sitting in the sun, And by him sported on the
green His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin Roll something large and round, Which
he beside the rivulet In playing there had found: He came to ask what
he had found, That was so large, and smooth, and round.
Old Kaspar took it from the boy, Who stood expectant by: And then the
old man shook his head, And, with a natural sigh, "'Tis some poor
fellow's skull," said he, "Who fell in the great victory.
"I find them in the garden, For there's many here about; And often
when I go to plough, The ploughshare turns them out! For many
thousand men," said he, "Were slain in that great victory."
"Now tell me what 'twas all about," Young Peterkin, he cries; And little
Wilhelmine looks up With wonder-waiting eyes; "Now