Fanny, the Flower Girl
S >>
Selina Bunbury >> Fanny, the Flower Girl
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 Avinash Kothare, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
FANNY, THE FLOWER-GIRL;
OR, HONESTY REWARDED.
TO WHICH ARE ADDED OTHER TALES.
BY SELINA BUNBURY.
FANNY, THE FLOWER-GIRL
"Come, buy my flowers; flowers fresh and fair. Come, buy my flowers.
Please ma'am, buy a nice bunch of flowers, very pretty ones, ma'am.
Please, sir, to have some flowers; nice, fresh ones, miss; only just
gathered; please look."
Thus spoke, or sometimes sung, a little girl of perhaps eight years
old, holding in her hand a neat small basket, on the top of which lay
a clean white cloth, to shade from the sun the flowers which she
praised so highly, and a little bunch of which she presented to
almost every passer-by, in the hope of finding purchasers; while,
after one had passed rudely on, another had looked at her young face
and smiled, another had said, "What a nice child!" but not one had
taken the flowers, and left the penny or the half-penny that was to
pay for them the little girl, as if accustomed to all this, only
arranged again the pretty nosegays that had been disarranged in the
vain hope of selling them, and commenced anew in her pretty singing
tone, "Come, buy my flowers; flowers fresh and fair."
"Your flowers are sadly withered, my little maid," said a kind,
country-looking gentleman, who was buying some vegetables at a stall
near her.
"Oh, sir! I have fresh ones, here, sir; please look;" and the child
lifted up the cover of her basket, and drew from the very bottom a
bunch of blossoms on which the dew of morning still rested.
"Please to see, sir; a pretty rose, sir, and these pinks and
mignonette, and a bunch of jessamine, sir, and all for one penny."
"Bless thee! pretty dear!" said the old lame vegetable-seller,
"thou'lt make a good market-woman one of these days. Your honor would
do well to buy her flowers, sir, she has got no mother or father, God
help her, and works for a sick grandmother."
"Poor child!" said the old gentleman. "Here, then, little one, give
me three nice nosegays, and there is sixpence for you."
With delight sparkling in every feature of her face, and her color
changed to crimson with joy, the little flower-girl received in one
hand the unusual piece of money; and setting her basket on the
ground, began hastily and tremblingly to pick out nearly half its
contents as the price of the sixpence; but the gentleman stooped
down, and taking up at random three bunches of the flowers, which
were not the freshest, said,
"Here, these will do; keep the rest for a more difficult customer.
Be a good child; pray to God, and serve Him, and you will find He is
the Father of the fatherless."
And so he went away; and the flower-girl, without waiting to put her
basket in order, turned to the old vegetable-seller, and cried,
"Sixpence! a whole sixpence, and all at once. What will grandmother
say now? See!" and opening her hand, she displayed its shining before
her neighbor's eyes.
"Eh!" exclaimed the old man, as he approached his eyes nearer to it.
"Eh! what is this? why thou hast twenty sixpences there; this is a
half-sovereign!"
"Twenty sixpences! why the gentleman said, there is sixpence for
thee," said the child.
"Because he didn't know his mistake," replied the other; "I saw him
take the piece out of his waistcoat-pocket without looking."
"Oh dear! what shall I do?" cried the little girl.
"Why, thou must keep it, to be sure," replied the old man; "give it
to thy grandmother, she will know what to do with it, I warrant thee."
"But I must first try to find the good gentleman, and tell him of
his mistake," said the child. "I know what grandmother would say
else; and he cannot be far off, I think, because he was so fat; he
will go slow, I am sure, this hot morning. Here, Mr. Williams, take
care of my basket, please, till I come back."
And without a word more, the flower-girl put down her little basket
at the foot of the vegetable-stall, and ran away as fast as she could
go.
When she turned out of the market-place, she found, early as it was,
that the street before her was pretty full; but as from the passage
the gentleman had taken to leave the market-place, she knew he could
only have gone in one direction, she had still hopes of finding him;
and she ran on and on, until she actually thought she saw the very
person before her; he had just taken off his hat, and was wiping his
forehead with his handkerchief.
"That is him," said the little flower-girl, "I am certain;" but just
as she spoke, some persons came between her and the gentleman, and
she could not see him. Still she kept running on; now passing off the
foot-path into the street, and then seeing the fat gentleman still
before her; and then again getting on the foot-path, and losing sight
of him, until at last she came up quite close to him, as he was
walking slowly, and wiping the drops of heat from his forehead.
The poor child was then quite out of breath; and when she got up to
him she could not call out to him to stop, nor say one word; so she
caught hold of the skirt of his coat, and gave it a strong pull.
The gentleman started, and clapped one hand on his coat-pocket, and
raised up his cane in the other, for he was quite sure it was a
pickpocket at his coat. But when he turned, he saw the breathless
little flower-girl, and he looked rather sternly at her, and said,
"Well, what do you want; what are you about? eh!"
"Oh, sir!" said the girl; and then she began to cough, for her
breath was quite spent. "See, sir; you said you gave me sixpence, and
Mr. Williams says there are twenty sixpences in this little bit of
money."
"Dear me!" said the gentleman; "is it possible? could I have done
such a thing?" and he began to fumble in his waistcoat pocket.
"Well, really it is true enough," he added, as he drew out a
sixpence. "See what it is to put gold and silver together."
"I wish he would give it to me," thought the little flower-girl;
"how happy it would make poor granny; and perhaps he has got a good
many more of these pretty gold pieces."
But the old gentleman put out his hand, and took it, and turned it
over and over, and seemed to think a little; and then he put his hand
into his pocket again, and took out his purse; and he put the half-
sovereign into the purse, and took out of it another sixpence.
"Well," he said, "there is the sixpence I owe you for the flowers;
you have done right to bring me back this piece of gold; and there is
another sixpence for your race; it is not a reward, mind, for honesty
is only our duty, and you only did what is right; but you are tired,
and have left your employment, and perhaps lost a customer, so I give
you the other sixpence to make you amends."
"Thank you, sir," said the flower-girl, curtseying; and taking the
two sixpences into her hand with a delighted smile, was going to run
back again, when the old gentleman, pulling out a pocket-book, said,
"Stay a moment; you are an orphan, they tell me; what is your name?"
"Fanny, sir."
"Fanny what?"
"Please, I don't know, sir; grandmother is Mrs. Newton, sir; but she
says she is not my grandmother either, sir."
"Well, tell me where Mrs. Newton lives," said the gentleman, after
looking at her a minute or so, as if trying to make out what she meant.
So Fanny told him, and he wrote it down in his pocket-book, and then
read over what he had written to her, and she said it was right.
"Now, then, run away back," said he, "and sell all your flowers, if
you can, before they wither, for they will not last long this warm
day; flowers are like youth and beauty--do you ever think of that?
even the rose withereth afore it groweth up." And this fat gentleman
looked very sad, for he had lost all his children in their youth.
"O yes! sir; I know a verse which says that," replied Fanny. "All
flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of
grass--but good morning, and thank you, sir," and away Fanny ran.
And now, before going on with my story, I must go back to tell who
and what Fanny, the flower-girl, was.
Mrs. Newton, whom she called her grandmother, was now a poor old
woman, confined to her bed by a long and trying illness, that had
nearly deprived her of the use of her limbs. But she had not been
always thus afflicted. Some years before, Mrs. Newton lived in a neat
cottage near the road-side, two or three miles from one of the great
sea-port towns of England. Her husband had good employment, and they
were both comfortable and happy.
Just eight years from this time, it happened that one warm summer's
day, Mrs. Newton went to look out from her cottage door down the
road, and she saw a young woman standing there, leaning against a
tree, and looking very faint and weak.
She was touched with pity and asked the poor traveller to walk into
her house and rest. The young woman thankfully consented, for she
said she was very ill; but she added, that her husband was coming
after her, having been obliged to turn back for a parcel that was
left behind at the house where they had halted some time before, and
therefore she would sit near the door and watch for him.
Before, however, the husband came, the poor woman was taken
dreadfully ill; and when he did arrive, good Mrs. Newton could not
bear to put the poor creature out of the house in such a state; she
became worse and worse. In short, that poor young woman was Fanny's
mother, and when little Fanny was born, that poor sick mother died,
and Fanny never saw a mother's smile.
The day after the young woman's death, kind Mrs. Newton came into
the room where her cold body was laid out on the bed; and there was
her husband, a young, strong-looking man, sitting beside it; his
elbows were on his knees, and his face was hid in his open hands.
Mrs. Newton had the baby in her arms, and she spoke to its father as
she came in; he looked up to her; his own face was as pale as death;
and he looked at her without saying a word. She saw he was in too
much grief either to speak or weep. So she went over silently to him,
and put the little baby into his arms, and then said, "May the Lord
look down with pity on you both."
As soon as the unhappy young man heard these compassionate words,
and saw the face of his pretty, peaceful babe, he burst into tears;
they rolled in large drops down on the infant's head.
Then in a short time he was able to speak, and he told Mrs. Newton
his sad little history; how he had no one in the whole world to look
with pity on him, or his motherless child; and how God alone was his
hope in this day of calamity. His father had been displeased with him
because he had married that young woman, whom he dearly loved; and he
had given him some money that was his portion, and would do nothing
else for him. The young man had taken some land and a house, but as
the rent was too high, he could not make enough of the land to pay
it; so he had been obliged to sell all his goods, and he had only as
much money left as would, with great saving, carry him to America,
where he had a brother who advised him to go out there.
"And now," said he, looking over at the pale face of his dear wife,
"What shall I do with the little creature she has left me? how shall
I carry it over the wide ocean without a mother to care for it, and
nurse it?"
"You cannot do so," said Mrs. Newton, wiping her eyes; "leave it
with me; I have no children of my own, my husband would like to have
one; this babe shall lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter. I
will nurse it for you until you are settled in America, and send or
come for it."
The young man wept with gratitude; he wanted to know how he was to
repay Mrs. Newton, but she said for the present she did not want
payment, that it would be a pleasure to her to have the baby; and it
would be time enough to talk about payment when the father was able
to claim it, and take it to a home.
So the next day they buried the poor young woman, and soon after the
young man went away and sailed off to America, and from that day to
this Mrs. Newton had never heard anything of him.
As she had said, that poor little motherless babe lay in her bosom,
and was unto her as a daughter; she loved it; she loved it when it
was a helpless little thing, weak and sickly; she loved it when it
grew a pretty lively baby, and would set its little feet on her
knees, and crow and caper before her face; she loved it when it began
to play around her as she sat at work, to lisp out the word "Ganny,"
for she taught it to call her grandmother; she loved it when it would
follow her into her nice garden, and pick a flower and carry it to
her, as she sat in the little arbor; and she, holding the flower,
would talk to it of God who made the flower, and made the bee that
drew honey from the flower, and made the sun that caused the flower
to grow, and the light that gave the flower its colors, and the rain
that watered it, and the earth that nourished it. And she loved that
child when it came back from the infant school, and climbed up on her
lap, or stood with its hands behind its back, to repeat some pretty
verses about flowers, or about the God who made them. That child was
Fanny, the flower-girl; and ah! how little did good Mrs. Newton think
she would be selling flowers in the streets to help to support her.
But it came to pass, that when Fanny was nearly six years old, Mrs.
Newton's husband fell very ill; it was a very bad, and very expensive
illness, for poor Mrs. Newton was so uneasy, she would sometimes have
two doctors to see him; but all would not do; he died: and Mrs.
Newton was left very poorly off.
In a short time she found she could not keep on her pretty cottage;
she was obliged to leave it; and the church where she had gone every
Sunday for so many years; and the church-yard where her husband was
buried, and little Fanny's mother; and the infant school where Fanny
learned so much; and the dear little garden, and the flowers that
were Fanny's teachers and favorites. Oh! how sorry was poor Mrs.
Newton. But even a little child can give comfort; and so little
Fanny, perhaps without thinking to do so, did; for when Mrs. Newton
for the last time sat out in her garden, and saw the setting sun go
down, and told Fanny she was going to leave that pretty garden, where
she had from infancy been taught to know God's works, the child
looked very sad and thoughtful indeed, for some time; but afterwards
coming up to her, said,
"But, grandmother, we shall not leave God, shall we? for you say God
is everywhere, and He will be in London too."
And oh! how that thought consoled poor Mrs. Newton; she did not
leave God,--God did not leave her.
So she left the abode of her younger years--the scene of her
widowhood; and she went away to hire a poor lodging in the outlets of
London; but her God was with her, and the child she had nursed in her
prosperity was her comfort in adversity.
Matters, however, went no better when she lived with little Fanny in
a poor lodging. She had only one friend in London, and she lived at a
distance from her. Mrs. Newton fell ill; there was no one to nurse
her but Fanny; she could no longer pay for her schooling, and
sometimes she was not able to teach her herself.
All this seemed very hard, and very trying; and one would have been
tempted to think that God was no longer with poor Mrs. Newton; that
when she had left her cottage she had left the God who had been so
good to her.
But this would have been a great mistake. God was with Mrs. Newton;
He saw fit to try and afflict her; but He gave her strength and
patience to bear her trials and afflictions.
One afternoon her friend came to pay her a visit: she was going out
a little way into the country to see a relation who had a very fine
nursery-garden, and she begged Mrs. Newton to let little Fanny go
with her own daughter. Mrs. Newton was very glad to do so for she
thought it would be a nice amusement for Fanny.
The nurseryman was very kind to her; and when she was going away
gave her a fine bunch of flowers. Fanny was in great delight, for she
loved flowers and knew her dear grandmother loved them too. But as
she was coming back, and just as she was entering the streets, she
met a lady and a little boy of about three years old, who directly
held out his hands and began to beg for the flowers. His mamma
stopped, and as Fanny was very poorly dressed, she thought it
probable that she would sell her nosegay, and so she said,
"Will you give that bunch of flowers to my little boy, and I will
pay you for it?"
"Please, ma'am, they are for grandmother," said Fanny blushing, and
thinking she ought to give the flowers directly, and without money to
any one who wished for them.
"But perhaps your grand-mother would rather have this sixpence?"
said the lady. And Mrs. Newton's friend, who had just come up, said,
"Well, my dear, take the lady's sixpence, and let her have the
flowers if she wishes for them."
So Fanny held the flowers to the lady, who took them and put the
sixpence in her hand. Fanny wished much to ask for one rose, but she
thought it would not be right to do so, when the lady had bought them
all: and she looked at them so very longingly that the lady asked if
she were sorry to part with them.
"Oh! no, ma'am," cried her friend, "she is not at all sorry--come
now, don't be a fool, child," she whispered, and led Fanny on.
"That is a good bargain for you," she added as she went on; "that
spoiled little master has his own way, I think; it would be well for
you, and your grandmother too, if you could sell sixpenny worth of
flowers every day."
"Do you think I could, ma'am?" said Fanny, opening her hand and
looking at her sixpence, "this will buy something to do poor granny
good; do you think Mr. Simpson would give me a nosegay every day?"
"If you were to pay him for it, he would," said her friend; "suppose
you were to go every morning about five o'clock, as many others do,
and buy some flowers, and then sell them at the market; you might
earn something, and that would be better than being idle, when poor
Mrs. Newton is not able to do for herself and you."
So when Fanny got back, she gave her dear grandmother the sixpence.
"The Lord be praised!" said Mrs. Newton, "for I scarcely knew how I
was to get a loaf of bread for thee or myself to-morrow."
And then Fanny told her the plan she had formed about the flowers.
Mrs. Newton was very sorry to think her dear child should be obliged
to stand in a market place, or in the public streets, to offer
anything for sale; but she said, "Surely it is Providence has opened
this means of gaining a little bread, while I am laid here unable to
do anything; and shall I not trust that Providence with the care of
my darling child?"
So from this time forth little Fanny set off every morning before
five o'clock, to the nursery garden; and the nursery-man was very
kind to her, and always gave her the nicest flowers; and instead of
sitting down with the great girls, who went there also for flowers or
vegetables, and tying them up in bunches, Fanny put them altogether
in her little basket, and went away to her grandmother's room, and
spread them out on the little table that poor Mrs. Newton might see
them, while the sweet dew was yet sparkling on their bright leaves.
Then she would tell how beautiful the garden looked at that sweet
early hour; and Mrs. Newton would listen with pleasure, for she loved
a garden. She used to say, that God placed man in a garden when he
was happy and holy; and when he was sinful and sorrowful, it was in a
garden that the blessed Saviour wept and prayed for the sin of the
world; and when his death had made atonement for that sin, it was in
a garden his blessed body was laid.
Mrs. Newton taught Fanny many things from flowers; she was not a bad
teacher, in her own simple way, but Jesus Christ, who was the best
teacher the world ever had, instructed his disciples from vines and
lilies, corn and fruit, and birds, and all natural things around them.
And while Fanny tied up her bunches of flowers, she would repeat
some verses from the Holy Scriptures, such as this, "O Lord, how
manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth
is full of thy riches." And afterwards she would repeat such pretty
lines as these:--
"Not worlds on worlds, in varied form,
Need we, to tell a God is here;
The daisy, saved from winter's storm,
Speaks of his hand in lines as clear.
"For who but He who formed the skies,
And poured the day-spring's living flood,
Wondrous alike in all He tries,
Could rear the daisy's simple bud!
"Mould its green cup, its wiry stem,
Its fringed border nicely spin;
And cut the gold-embossed gem,
That, shrined in silver, shines within;
"And fling it, unrestrained and free,
O'er hill, and dale, and desert sod,
That man, where'er he walks, may see,
In every step the trace of God."
"And I, too, have had my daisy given to me," poor Mrs. Newton would
say, with tearful eyes, as she gazed on her little flower-girl; "I
too have my daisy, and though it may be little cared for in the
world, or trodden under foot of men, yet will it ever bear, I trust,
the trace of God."
But it happened the very morning that the gentleman had given Fanny
the half-sovereign in mistake, Mrs. Newton's money was quite spent;
and she was much troubled, thinking the child must go the next
morning to the garden without money to pay for her flowers, for she
did not think it likely she would sell enough to buy what they
required, and pay for them also; so she told Fanny she must ask Mr.
Simpson to let her owe him for a day or two until she got a little
money she expected.
Fanny went therefore, and said this to the kind man at the garden;
and he put his hand on her head, and said, "My pretty little girl,
you may owe me as long as you please, for you are a good child, and
God will prosper you."
So Fanny went back in great delight, and told this to Mrs. Newton;
and to cheer her still more, she chose for her morning verse, the
advice that our Lord gave to all those who were careful and troubled
about the things of this life "Consider the lilies of the field, how
they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto
you that Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is,
and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe
you, oh ye of little faith?"
And then she repeated some verses which both she and Mrs. Newton
liked very much.
"Lo! the lilies of the field,
How their leaves instruction yield!
Hark to nature's lesson, given
By the blessed birds of heaven.
"Say with richer crimson glows,
The kingly mantle than the rose;
Say are kings more richly dressed,
Than the lily's glowing vest!
"Grandmother I forget the next verse," said Fanny, interrupting
herself; "I know it is something about lilies not spinning; but then
comes this verse--
"Barns, nor hoarded store have we"--
"It is not the lilies, grandmother, but the blessed birds that are
speaking now--
"Barns, nor hoarded store have we,
Yet we carol joyously;
Mortals, fly from doubt and sorrow,
God provideth for the morrow."
Poor Mrs. Newton clasped her thin hands, and looked up, and prayed
like the disciples, "Lord, increase our faith!"
"Eh!" said she, afterwards, "is it not strange that we can trust our
Lord and Saviour with the care of our souls for eternity, and we
cannot trust Him with that of our bodies for a day."
Well! this was poor Mrs. Newton's state on that day, when the
gentleman gave Fanny the half-sovereign instead of sixpence, for her
flowers.
When the little flower-girl came back from her race with her two
sixpences, she found the old vegetable-seller had got her three or
four pennies more, by merely showing her basket, and telling why it
was left at his stall; and so every one left a penny for the honest
child, and hoped the gentleman would reward her well. The old man at
the stall said it was very shabby of him only to give her sixpence;
but when she went home with three sixpences and told Mrs. Newton this
story, she kissed her little girl very fondly, but said the gentleman
was good to give her sixpence, for he had no right to give her
anything, she had only done her duty.
"But, grandmother," said Fanny, "when I saw that pretty half-
sovereign dropping down to his purse, I could not help wishing he
would give it to me."
"And what commandment did you break then, my child?"
"Not the eighth--if I had kept the half-sovereign I should have
broken it," said Fanny, "for that says, thou shalt not steal--what
commandment did I break, grandmother; for I did not steal?"
"When we desire to have what is not ours Fanny, what do we do? we
covet; do we not?"
"Oh! yes--thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods," cried Fanny,
"that is the tenth commandment; and that half-sovereign was my
neighbor's goods, and that fat gentleman was my neighbor. But,
grandmother, it is very easy to break the tenth commandment."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6