CARLYLE’S MONEY BOX

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 22 September 1934, Page 14

CARLYLE’S MONEY BOX

QNE day a small boy called Reginald Blunt went marching along the streets of Chelsea feeling very important.

He was taking a present of mulberries to Mrs Carlyle. In Chelsea rectory garden grew lilies-of-the-valley, a grand old mulberry tree, and other pleasant things. Often Mrs Blunt of the rectory sent presents to Mrs Carlyle of 5 Oheyne Bow, says the “ Children’s Newspaper.” On this occasion Carlyle came down from his study to thank the small messenger and to reward him with a little earthenware pig which had a slit in the back. It was a money-box. But what good was a money-box you could not open? asked Master Reginald' when he got home. Then his father told him a story of Carlyle’s childhood, related by the great writer himself when the two men were once talking about early memories. Carlyle tad snch a money-box once; “A small earthen thrift pot,” he called it. He saved.' up all his pennies in it

Story of the Writer’s Boyhood

and kept it on the high shelf over the fireplace. One cold snowy night his parents had gone to the market town to buy provisions and Thomas was' left alone. A knock came at the door. There stood a poor, half-starved, ragged beggar. The child’s heart was touched by the sight of such misery. He clambered up to the shelf, got down the thrift pot, and 1 broke it open to give all the pennies to the beggar. “And,” he said, “I never knew before what the joy of heaven must be like.”

It is a story we shall always like to remember concerning the stern old man, and everyone must be grateful that the little boy from the rectory did not forget it. He is now honorary secretary of the Chelsea Society, besides being a distinguished writer himself, and he told the story during the society’s summer meeting, held in the rectory garden just a hundred years after the coming of the Carlyles to Chelsea.