TAKEN OR LEFT.

BY

MRS. O. F. WALTON

AUTHOR OF

"CHRISTIE'S OLD ORGAN," "A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES," ETC.

NEW YORK:

ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS,

530 BROADWAY.

MRS. WALTON'S STORIES.

I. CHRISTIE'S OLD ORGAN; or, Home, Sweet Home. 18mo, cloth. 40 cents. "One of the sweetest, simplest stories it has been our lot to read for a long time."—Vermont Chronicle. II. SAVED AT SEA. 40 cents. III. LITTLE FAITH; or, The Child of the Toy-Stall. 40 cents. IV. CHRISTIE'S OLD ORGAN, SAVED AT SEA, and LITTLE FAITH. All in one volume, nine engravings. $1.00. V. A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES. 16mo. $1.00. "A very touching and beautiful story, with a sweet and true lesson."—S. S. Times VI. WAS I RIGHT? 16mo. $1.00. "A capital book for the Sunday-school library, and for family or private reading."—Episcopal Methodist. VII. OLIVE'S STORY. 16mo. 75 cents. VIII. NOBODY LOVES ME. 18mo. 50 cents. IX. NOBODY LOVES ME, and OLIVE'S STORY. In one volume. 16mo. $1.00. X. SHADOWS, SCENES AND INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF AN OLD ARM-CHAIR. $1.00. XI. TAKEN OR LEFT. 18mo. 40 cents.

ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS

NEW YORK.

University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. SALOME'S HOME

II. THE LOST MONEY

III. NOT TO BE TRUSTED

IV. A CHILDREN'S SERVICE

V. THE STORM IN THE NIGHT

VI. MY FIRST PLACE

VII. MASTER REGGIE

VIII. THERE IS NO TIME TO LOSE

IX. THE ROBBER'S CAVE

X. THE STORM

XI. A TERRIBLE TIME

XII. SALOME'S RECOVERY

XIII. GREAT SORROW

XIV. AFTER TWENTY YEARS

TAKEN OR LEFT.

CHAPTER I.

SALOME'S HOME.

MY mother had ten boys. It was no wonder that she often looked weary and out of spirits. It was no wonder that we seldom saw her in a cheerful and hopeful state of mind, for she was never strong, and she had to work and to toil as if she were.

I used to wish sometimes that our mother would laugh more and sigh less. I could not understand then what care and anxiety we all were to her. But I can see now that she was too tired to be very merry, and that it was not strange that she found plenty to make her sigh.

I can remember the pile of stockings which she had to mend every Saturday night—heels out, and toes out, and many a hole beside. Poor mother, she would turn them over with a sigh before she began! Then there were the endless patches to be put in trousers and knickerbockers, there was the constant struggle to keep us in clean collars, there was the heavy washing every Tuesday, and the still heavier ironing every Thursday. I can see now that our mother had a very hard life.

But I never, thought of it then. I did not know what it was to be tired; I was strong, and hearty, and happy, and I am afraid I gave my mother as much work to do as any of the rest did.

I was the third boy. John and James were older than I was, and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and Simon, and Jude were younger. My own name was Peter. Father wished us all to be called after the Apostles.

"They had good old-fashioned names," he said.

My mother told me she was very thankful there were only ten of us; she was so much afraid he would call the next one Judas Iscariot, for he said it would be a pity to make a break, when they had kept it up so long.

Father had a large provision shop in the outskirts of the town; he sold groceries, and flour, and bacon, and cheese, and sausages, and butter, and eggs, and meat in tins, and countless other things. He was doing a good business, people said; but he did not grow rich. That was our fault more than his, I suppose. What could a man with ten boys do? Twenty pairs of new boots every year,—ten new suits,—three hundred and sixty-five breakfasts for ten hungry boys,—three hundred and sixty-five dinners for ten boys, still more hungry, at the end of three hours' schooling,—three hundred and sixty-five suppers for ten boys, perfectly ravenous with work, and play, and mischief; it would, indeed, have taken a very full till to have supplied all this, and left enough and to spare, so that our father could have reckoned himself a rich man.

Father was a very silent man; he never spoke two words where one would answer the same purpose. I think that was one reason why our mother was so careworn and depressed. She could never talk out her anxieties with him, but had to keep them all to herself. The only one in the house to whom my father talked was little Salome. She was the youngest, and the only girl, and everybody loved her. It was a wonder she was not spoiled, mother said; but I do not think any one could have spoiled Salome.

I was ten years old when she was born, and I shall never forget our excitement when father told us we had a little sister.

Father was quite talkative that day, and said to us, "Boys, you must be good to her all your lives; she ought to be well taken care of, with ten brothers to fight her battles."

I do not know what the others thought that day, but I know I made up my mind that nothing on earth should ever hurt my little sister so long as I could be near her to defend her. She was a very pretty child; she had dark brown hair, and dark eyes, with soft long eyelashes, and very rosy cheeks. She was far the best-looking of the family, every one said so. Mother told us she was like our grandmother, who had been quite a beauty, and had had her picture painted by some painter, who was lodging in the village where she lived.

When Salome was a baby, we used at first to quarrel about her a great deal. We all wanted to nurse her, and to play with her, and to carry her out; and she was like a favorite toy, which every one of us wanted at the same time. But after a few months had gone by, and Salome was no longer such a novelty to us, the other boys were not so anxious to take charge of her, and, indeed, sometimes grumbled when mother called them from their games to take care of their little sister. And so it came to pass that Salome and I became such great friends. I was never tired of her; it was never a trouble to me to nurse her and to look after her.

"Where are Peter and Salome?" mother would call out at meal-times, for she knew we were always together.

When I was at school, Salome would go into the shop to father, and stay with him while I was away. Not one of his ten boys had been allowed to go into the shop at a time when customers were expected; we were turned out directly if our heads were seen peeping in at the shop door. But Salome used to sit for hours perched on a sack of flour, looking at her picture-book, or watching the customers coming in and going out, from father's high stool behind the counter. But she was always standing at the shop door watching for me, when she knew that it was the time for me to come home, and she would run to meet me, and throw her arms round my neck with a shout of joy, and then jump on my back to be carried home again.

There was a church at the end of the street in which we lived, and my father went to it every Sunday morning. My mother very seldom went with him; she had got out of the way of going while the children were babies, and once having got out of the way, it was very hard for her to get into it again. But my father took his five eldest boys with him, and my mother got us ready, and brushed our hair, and pinned on our clean collars, and then stood on the doorstep watching us go down the street, with little Salome in her arms.

We had a pew of our own, quite at the end of the large church, and here we sat in a row, always in the same order, first James, then John, then myself, then Andrew, then Philip, then our father at the door of the pew. We sat pretty quietly while service went on; but it always seemed a very long and dull time to me. The old clergyman's voice sounded very far away, and I scarcely heard or cared to hear what he said. I was always glad when the last prayer came, and the blessing was pronounced, and the organ began to play, and we could go home again. I do not remember anything that I heard at church, until one Sunday, of which I shall soon have to write. After that Sunday, church never seemed quite the same place to me as it did in the days which went before.

But I must tell you first of another day, which came before that Sunday, for it is a day which I shall never forget as long as I live.

I think that it is the first day in my life which I can remember as being at all different from the rest. There was not much variety in our life, nor in our poor mother's work. We were always hungry, always noisy, and always wearing out our clothes. There was always some one ill, or some one naughty, or some one in mischief. There was the daily hurrying off to school, and the daily hurrying home again. There was the great getting up every morning, when all ten of us lost everything we wanted; and the great going to bed every night, when our poor mother used to look quite worn out and exhausted, long before we were all of us tucked up in bed.

But through all the weeks and months and years of Salome's babyhood, she was learning to love me more, and I was getting still more fond of her. And the day which I shall never forget, and of which I must now write, was Salome's fourth birthday.

CHAPTER II.

THE LOST MONEY.

YES, it was Salome's birthday, I remember that quite well; it was so strange that it should happen on that day, when we were all so happy and in such good spirits. It was strange that a day which began so brightly should end, at least for me, so sorrowfully.

I was awake as soon as it was light that morning, and I crept out of bed to look at Salome. She was sleeping in a little cot near me, for Bartholomew and Jude were constantly having attacks of croup, and my mother was obliged to have them in her room, lest they should be taken ill in the night, and she should not be near them. So she let me take care of Salome, and sometimes in the night she would wake, and put her little hand through the bars of her cot, that I might hold it in mine till she fell asleep again.

The bright morning sunshine was streaming through a hole in the shutter, and fell on Salome's face as she lay asleep. It made her look very pretty, I thought, and very much like the picture of a little angel which was on one of our Christmas cards. Beside her bed was my present for her, laid on a chair, that she might find it as soon as she woke. It was a wax doll. I had saved up my money for a long time to buy it, and it seemed as if Salome's birthday would never come, I had been waiting for it so long.

But it had come at last, and it was a bright beautiful day, just as I had so often hoped it might be. I was very impatient for Salome to wake; but I did not like to disturb her. However, after a time, Simon woke, and jumped out of bed, when he caught sight of the doll, and then Salome opened her eyes and saw it too. I shall never forget how pleased she was, nor how she threw her arms round my neck, and called me her own dear Peter.

SHE CALLED ME HER OWN DEAR PETER.

Then the others woke, and every one of them had a present for Salome; even little Jude had a packet of sweets for her, which he had bought with his own money.

It was hard work to leave Salome when school-time came, and we went off very reluctantly. But father would not hear of our having a holiday, and I think mother was rather glad that he would not. Our holidays were no holidays for her. Poor mother, they were her hardest days! So we kissed Salome and set off for school—Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, and Simon, and myself. James helped father in the shop now, for he was sixteen, and thought himself quite a man. John was apprenticed to a bookbinder in the town; but I was still at school.

I was in the first class—the sixth standard it would be called now; but there were no such things as standards in those days. I was old enough to leave school, mother said. A lad of fourteen ought to be earning his own bread, she told my father again and again, and father always nodded his head in assent; but he could not decide what was to be done with me. I sometimes wished he would make up his mind, and wondered why it was such a difficult matter to decide.

But I found out afterwards that our father's mind was never made up in a hurry. Mother told us once that father had taken five years to consider whether he should ask her to be his wife or not. So I need not have been surprised that he could not settle in a hurry what to do with his boys. Only I wondered sometimes, if the third boy's future was so hard to plan out, and took so many months to settle, what he would do, and how many years it would take him to decide what was to be done with his tenth boy, when the time arrived for little Jude to be started in life!

And so it came to pass that I was the eldest boy in the school. We did not go to the school nearest to our house, which would have been far more convenient, but we went to the same school father had attended when he was a boy, and which was about a mile farther into the town. It was a long walk for us, and on wet days we grumbled a good deal at having to go so far; but father knew the master well, and did not like us to leave. He was the son of father's old master, and was a really good teacher, and got us on well.

The lessons seemed very long and tedious that morning, for I was longing to be at home again with Salome. As soon as school was over, I caught up my cape and ran down the street. But I had not gone far, when I heard the master's voice calling me. I ran back to see what he wanted. He was holding a paper in his hand.

"Here, Peter," he said, "you're a trustworthy lad! I want you to do a bit of business for me. Isn't Trafalgar Street somewhere up your way?"

I told him it was only five minutes' walk from our house.

"I thought so," he said; "I want you to pay this bill for me. Do you know Betson's shop in Trafalgar Street? He is a seed merchant."

I knew it quite well.

"My wife owes him five shillings," he said; "here is the money and the bill. Get it receipted, and bring it back to me to-morrow. You need not go till after school this afternoon; you will be pressed for time now, and you must not lose your dinner. Thank you, Peter," he said, as I told him I would be sure to do it; "it will save me a long walk!"

I was very much pleased that he trusted me, and walked along with an important air. I carried the bill in one hand, and the five shillings in the other. I should have put it in my pocket, but I had stuffed it so full of nuts for Salome, which I had bought for her on my way to school, that it would hold nothing more. I thought I would put the money and bill safely away as soon as I got home.

But I had not gone much farther when Tom Walsh, who was in the same class I was, came softly up behind me, and, thinking he would give me a start, jumped suddenly on my back. I did not hear him coming, and the jerk he gave me sent the money out of my hand, and it rolled along the pavement. Tom ran away, laughing, and left me to pick it up, which I thought was very rude and unkind. The shillings rolled in all directions. I ran after than as quickly as I could, and picked them up but to my horror and dismay I discovered, when I came to count them, that I had only found four of them.

Where could the other shilling be? What had become of it? I hunted for it all over. I looked on the pavement, in the gutter, on the road, everywhere; but it was nowhere to be seen. There was an iron grating over the drain, close by; it must have rolled in there. If so, it was gone forever, and it was of no use hunting any more. I turned away from the place in despair.

"What shall I do?" I said to myself.

I had not a penny in the world. We did not get much pocket-money, and all my little hoard of savings had been spent on Salome's birthday present.

I knew what I ought to do. I ought to tell my father of my loss, and ask him to give me another shilling. But I felt very much afraid to do this, for the thing which made him most angry was any kind of carelessness. If we broke anything, or tore anything, or lost anything, he always punished us very severely. And yet I could not bear the thought of the disgrace and humiliation of having to go back to school, and confess my loss to my master. He would never trust me again, and I should be filled with shame and confusion if I had to acknowledge my carelessness before my companions.

What was to be done? My conscience told me that I ought to tell my mother about it when I got in; but I did not want to spoil Salome's birthday, and there she was at the shop door looking out for me.

I wrapped up the four remaining shillings in the bill, gave her the nuts out of my pocket, and put the bill and money in their place.

Salome was so merry and happy, I could not bear to make her cry on her birthday, and I knew she would cry if father was angry with me. So I resolved to say nothing about my loss to any one at least, not until the evening.

CHAPTER III.

NOT TO BE TRUSTED.

I WENT to school as usual that afternoon, and I felt very uncomfortable each time the master came to look at my sum or at my copy. I was afraid he might ask me some question about the bill; but he never mentioned it, and at length the weary school-time was done, and I was free again.

I went home very slowly, saying over and over to myself, "What shall I do?"

But I saw no way out of my trouble. There were only two ways, it seemed to me, which it was possible for me to take, either to tell father or my master; and I could not make up my mind to do either.

I resolved at last not to spoil Salome's birthday, but to forget my loss as far as I could till the next day. It would be time enough then to decide which was least hard, to tell my father or to tell my master. Meanwhile I would enjoy myself, and be as merry as a lark.

Mother had made a large cake for tea, and she let Salome cut the first slice. We all talked very loudly, and laughed a great deal; but though I joined with the others in their fun, I was thinking all the time of the lost shilling. It had been easy to say I would be merry; it was not so easy to carry it out.

After tea we helped mother to clear away the tea-things, and then she moved the table out of the way, and we played at blindman's buff. I can remember now what a noise there was, and how much Salome seemed to enjoy it. But it was a close, hot night, and when we had been playing for a long time she turned very tired, and was glad to jump on father's knee when he came in from shutting up the shop, and sit still for a little time, till mother was ready to put her to bed.

Father put his hand in his pocket, and took out a handful of money for Salome to spin on the table. He had just cleared the till, and had brought the money in with him, that he might put it in his cashbox upstairs when he went to bed. Salome laughed very much at the spinning half-crowns and shillings and pence; and she and father tried how many they could keep going at the same time. Sometimes two or three of them spun over on the floor, and then we had a great hunt for them; and once Jude, while hunting for a penny, knocked against the table, and sent at least a dozen pieces on the floor.

When mother came back for Salome, father gathered up his money, and put it in his pocket again.

"Are you sure you have got it all, John?" she said. "Hadn't you better count it?"

"I don't know how much there was," father said. "I never count it till I go upstairs; it's just what I've taken to-day; but if we've left any on the floor, it will turn up to-morrow when you are sweeping."

Mother said no more, but took Salome upstairs, and put her to bed. She was asleep when I went to bed, and so was Simon. I had time now to think of my trouble, and of what I should do. I could not now forget it. I must settle what was to be done, for the bill must be paid before school-time the next morning. I was very unhappy; I could not bear to think that the master would call me untrustworthy and careless, and I made up my mind at last to tell my father in the morning, and to beg him to give me a shilling to make up the amount.