unsuspected and unassisted.”
Mr. Bhaer stopped a minute, and the boys sat like statues in the
moonlight until he went on again, in a subdued, but earnest voice:
“As he lay dying, I said to him, ‘Have no care for Meg and the little
ones; I will see that they never want.’ Then he smiled and pressed
my hand, and answered, in his cheerful way, ‘No need of that; I
have cared for them.’ And so he had, for when we looked among
his papers, all was in order, not a debt remained; and safely put
away was enough to keep Meg comfortable and independent. Then
we knew why he had lived so plainly, denied himself so many
pleasures, except that of charity, and worked so hard that I fear he
shortened his good life. He never asked help for himself, though
often for others, but bore his own burden and worked out his own
task bravely and quietly. No one can say a word of complaint
against him, so just and generous and kind was he; and now, when
he is gone, all find so much to love and praise and honor, that I am
proud to have been his friend, and would rather leave my children
the legacy he leaves his than the largest fortune ever made. Yes!
Simple, generous goodness is the best capital to found the business
of this life upon. It lasts when fame and money fail, and is the only
riches we can take out of this world with us. Remember that, my
boys; and if you want to earn respect and confidence and love
follow in the footsteps of John Brooke.”
When Demi returned to school, after some weeks at home, he
seemed to have recovered from his loss with the blessed elasticity
of childhood, and so he had in a measure; but he did not forget, for
his was a nature into which things sank deeply, to be pondered
over, and absorbed into the soil where the small virtues were
growing fast. He played and studied, worked and sang, just as
before, and few suspected any change; but there was one and Aunt
Jo saw it for she watched over the boy with her whole heart, trying
to fill John’s place in her poor way. He seldom spoke of his loss,
but Aunt Jo often heard a stifled sobbing in the little bed at night;
and when she went to comfort him, all his cry was, “I want my
father! oh, I want my father!” for the tie between the two had been
a very tender one, and the child’s heart bled when it was broken.
But time was kind to him, and slowly he came to feel that father
was not lost, only invisible for a while, and sure to be found again,
well and strong and fond as ever, even though his little son should
see the purple asters blossom on his grave many, many times
before they met. To this belief Demi held fast, and in it found both
help and comfort, because it led him unconsciously through a
tender longing for the father whom he had seen to a childlike trust
in the Father whom he had not seen. Both were in heaven, and he
prayed to both, trying to be good for love of them.
The outward change corresponded to the inward, for in those few
weeks Demi seemed to have grown tall, and began to drop his
childish plays, not as if ashamed of them, as some boys do, but as
if he had outgrown them, and wanted something manlier. He took
to the hated arithmetic, and held on so steadily that his uncle was
charmed, though he could not understand the whim, until Demi
said,
“I am going to be a bookkeeper when I grow up, like papa, and I
must know about figures and things, else I can’t have nice, neat
ledgers like his.”
At another time he came to his aunt with a very serious face, and
said
“What can a small boy do to earn money?”
“Why do you ask, my deary?”
“My father told me to take care of mother and the little girls, and I