The Basket of Plumbs[1]
A poor girl, whose face was pale and sickly, and who led a little raggedchild by the hand, came up one day to the door of a large house, and,seeing a boy standing there, said to him, 'Do, pray, sir, ask your mammato buy these plumbs. There are four dozen in my basket.' George Lofttook the basket to his mother, who counted the plumbs, and finding themright in number and that they were sound, good fruit, sent out to knowthe price. The girl asking more than Mrs. Loft thought they were worth,she put the plumbs again into the basket, and told George to carry themback, and say it did not suit her to buy them.
Now these plumbs were fresh picked from the tree; they had a fine bloomon them, and were very tempting to the eye. George loved plumbs aboveall other fruit, and he walked very slowly from the parlour with hiseyes fixed on the basket. The longer he looked, the more he wished totaste them. One plumb, he thought, would not be missed; and as he puthis hand in to take that one, two others lay close under his fingers. Itwas as easy to take three as one, and the three plumbs were taken andput into his pocket. When he reached the hall door and gave the basketback to the girl, his face was as red as a flame of fire, but she didnot notice it, nor thought of counting her plumbs; for how could shesuppose any one in _that_ house would be so mean as to take from _her_little store!
It chanced that as the girl turned from the door, Mrs. Loft came to theparlour window, and, seeing the girl look so ill, she felt sorry she hadnot bought the plumbs. Therefore, throwing up the sash, she asked thecause of her sickly looks. The girl then told a sad story of distress:she had been ill of a fever; her parents had caught the disease of her,and were now very bad and not able to work for the support of theirchildren. In the little garden of their cottage a plumb-tree grew, andshe had picked the ripe plumbs and had come out to sell them that shemight buy physic for her parents and food for herself and her hungrylittle sister. Mrs. Loft paid the girl the full price for her plumbs,gave her wine to carry to her sick parents and food for herself and thechild, and bade her return the next day for more.
Soon after the grateful girl had left the house, Mrs. Loft, placing thefruit in her dessert-baskets, found that, instead of forty-eight, therewere only forty-five plumbs; and, far from thinking her son had beenguilty of the theft, she laid the blame on the girl, who she now thoughthad tried to impose on her. It was not the loss of three plumbs thatMrs. Loft cared for, but the want of an honest mind that gave heroffence. She had meant to be a friend to the poor girl, but now shebegan to doubt the truth of her story; for Mrs. Loft thought if shecould impose in one thing she might also in others. Deeming the girltherefore no longer worthy of her kindness, she gave orders for her tobe sent away when she came on the morrow.
George had heard the whole: first, the tale of distress, and then hismother's censure of the blameless girl. He had not only taken from apoor, wretched creature a part of her little all, but had been the meansof bringing a foul reproach upon her, while her parents, who might havebeen saved from greater distress by his mother's bounty, would now beleft helpless, in sickness and in sorrow. All this cruel mischief he haddone for the sake of eating three plumbs--he, too, who had never wantedfood, clothes, nor anything a child need desire to possess. He felt thebitter pangs of guilt, and the fruit, whose shape and bloom had lookedso tempting, was now as hateful as poison to the sight of George.
There was still a way left to make some amends: namely, to confess hisfault to his mother. It did require some courage to do this; and when aboy throws away his sense of honour, no wonder his courage shouldforsake him. George could not resolve to disclose a crime to his mother,which he thought she never would find out. The first day in each week hehad sixpence given him for pocket-money, and he laid a plan to save thatmoney, and to bestow it for a month to come on the girl. This, hethought, was doing even more than justice: for as her three plumbs wereonly worth one penny, he should by this means give her two shillingsfor them, and save his own credit with his mamma. He wished with all hisheart he had never touched the plumbs; but as he had done it, it seemedto him less painful to leave the poor girl to suffer the blame, than toaccuse himself.
With this plan of further deceit in his mind, George went to dinner; butbefore the cloth was taken from the table he had reason enough to repentof his double error. Mrs. Loft, in paying for the plumbs, had given anumber of half-pence, among which, unseen by her, a shilling hadslipped. When the poor girl reached the cottage she found the shilling,and lost not a moment in coming back to restore it to its right owner.Mrs. Loft well knew that she who could be thus just in one instance musthave an honest mind. Her doubts of the poor girl were at an end, but nosooner did she cast her eyes on George, than she read, in the deep blushthat spread over his face, in his downcast look, and the trembling ofhis limbs, who was the guilty person.
Guilt not only fixes the stings of remorse within the bosom, butimprints its hateful mark upon the outward form.
[1] The spelling is Mrs. Fenwick's.