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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pot of Gold, by Mary E. Wilkins
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Pot of Gold
+       And Other Stories
+
+Author: Mary E. Wilkins
+
+Release Date: August 7, 2005 [EBook #16468]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POT OF GOLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Lesley Halamek and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SHORT STORY
+
+
+THE POT OF GOLD
+
+
+AND OTHER STORIES
+
+
+
+BY
+
+MARY E. WILKINS
+
+Author of "A New England Nun," "A Humble Romance," etc.
+
+
+
+_ILLUSTRATED_
+
+BOSTON D LOTHROP COMPANY 1893
+
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY D. LOTHROP COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SHORT STORY
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+THE POT OF GOLD
+THE COW WITH GOLDEN HORNS
+PRINCESS ROSETTA AND THE POP-CORN MAN.
+  I. THE PRINCESS ROSETTA
+  II. THE POP-CORN MAN
+THE CHRISTMAS MONKS
+THE PUMPKIN GIANT
+THE CHRISTMAS MASQUERADE
+DILL
+THE SILVER HEN
+TOBY
+THE PATCHWORK SCHOOL
+THE SQUIRE'S SIXPENCE
+A PLAIN CASE
+A STRANGER IN THE VILLAGE
+THE BOUND GIRL
+DEACON THOMAS WALES'S WILL
+THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+Flax looks into the Pot of Gold      _Frontis._
+The settle and the kettle
+Drusilla and her gold-horned cow
+A Knight of the Golden Bee
+The princess was not in the basket!
+The bee guards patrolled the city
+"You!" cried the baron scornfully
+Both the king and queen were obliged to pop
+Going into the chapel
+The boys read the notice
+The prince and Peter are examined by the monks
+The boys at work in the convent garden
+The prince runs away
+He picked up an enormous young Plantagenet and threw
+  it at him
+They were all over the field
+Then the king knighted him on the spot
+There never was anything like the fun at the mayor's
+  Christmas ball
+Their parents stared in great distress
+"I will go and tend my geese!"
+She sang it beautifully
+A strange sad state of things
+Nan returns with the umbrellas
+Such frantic efforts to get away
+Dame Elizabeth stared with astonishment
+The count thinks himself insulted
+The snow was quite deep
+Two by two
+The snow man's house
+Puss-in-the-corner
+To the rescue
+"I'll put this right in your face and--melt you!"
+Letitia stood before uncle Jack
+School children in Pokonoket
+Pokonoket in stormy weather
+Toby and the crazy loon
+Toby ran till he was out of breath
+The patchwork woman
+The patchwork girl
+Julia was arrested on Christmas Day
+Julia entertains the ambassador through the keyhole
+The grandmothers enjoy the Chinese toys
+"Six"--she began feebly
+"What!" said Squire Bean suddenly
+Little Patience obeys the squire's summons
+Watching for the coach
+"Just look here!" said Willy's sweet voice
+The little stranger
+She almost fainted from cold and exhaustion
+A conveyance is found
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE POT OF GOLD.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+THE POT OF GOLD.
+
+
+The Flower family lived in a little house in a broad grassy meadow,
+which sloped a few rods from their front door down to a gentle,
+silvery river. Right across the river rose a lovely dark green
+mountain, and when there was a rainbow, as there frequently was,
+nothing could have looked more enchanting than it did rising from
+the opposite bank of the stream with the wet, shadowy mountain for a
+background. All the Flower family would invariably run to their front
+windows and their door to see it.
+
+The Flower family numbered nine: Father and Mother Flower and seven
+children. Father Flower was an unappreciated poet, Mother Flower was
+very much like all mothers, and the seven children were very sweet and
+interesting. Their first names all matched beautifully with their last
+name, and with their personal appearance. For instance, the oldest
+girl, who had soft blue eyes and flaxen curls, was called Flax Flower;
+the little boy, who came next, and had very red cheeks and loved to
+sleep late in the morning, was called Poppy Flower, and so on. This
+charming suitableness of their names was owing to Father Flower. He
+had a theory that a great deal of the misery and discord in the world
+comes from things not matching properly as they should; and he thought
+there ought to be a certain correspondence between all things that
+were in juxtaposition to each other, just as there ought to be between
+the last two words of a couplet of poetry. But he found, very often,
+there was no correspondence at all, just as words in poetry do not
+always rhyme when they should. However, he did his best to remedy
+it. He saw that every one of his children's names were suitable
+and accorded with their personal characteristics; and in his
+flower-garden--for he raised flowers for the market--only those of
+complementary colors were allowed to grow in adjoining beds, and, as
+often as possible, they rhymed in their names. But that was a more
+difficult matter to manage, and very few flowers were rhymed, or, if
+they were, none rhymed correctly. He had a bed of box next to one of
+phlox, and a trellis of woodbine grew next to one of eglantine, and a
+thicket of elder-blows was next to one of rose; but he was forced
+to let his violets and honeysuckles and many others go entirely
+unrhymed--this disturbed him considerably, but he reflected that it
+was not his fault, but that of the man who made the language and named
+the different flowers--he should have looked to it that those of
+complementary colors had names to rhyme with each other, then all
+would have been harmonious and as it should have been.
+
+Father Flower had chosen this way of earning his livelihood when he
+realized that he was doomed to be an unappreciated poet, because it
+suited so well with his name; and if the flowers had only rhymed a
+little better he would have been very well contented. As it was, he
+never grumbled. He also saw to it that the furniture in his little
+house and the cooking utensils rhymed as nearly as possible, though
+that too was oftentimes a difficult matter to bring about, and
+required a vast deal of thought and hard study. The table always stood
+under the gable end of the roof, the foot-stool always stood where it
+was cool, and the big rocking-chair in a glare of sunlight; the lamp,
+too, he kept down cellar where it was damp. But all these were rather
+far-fetched, and sometimes quite inconvenient. Occasionally there
+would be an article that he could not rhyme until he had spent years
+of thought over it, and when he did it would disturb the comfort
+of the family greatly. There was the spider. He puzzled over that
+exceedingly, and when he rhymed it at last, Mother Flower or one of
+the little girls had always to take the spider beside her, when she
+sat down, which was of course quite troublesome. The kettle he rhymed
+first with nettle, and hung a bunch of nettle over it, till all the
+children got dreadfully stung. Then he tried settle, and hung the
+kettle over the settle. But that was no place for it; they had to go
+without their tea, and everybody who sat on the settle bumped his head
+against the kettle. At last it occurred to Father Flower that if he
+should make a slight change in the language the kettle could rhyme
+with the skillet, and sit beside it on the stove, as it ought, leaving
+harmony out of the question, to do. Accordingly all the children were
+instructed to call the skillet a skettle, and the kettle stood by its
+side on the stove ever afterward.
+
+[Illustration: The Settle]
+
+The house was a very pretty one, although it was quite rude and very
+simple. It was built of logs and had a thatched roof, which projected
+far out over the walls. But it was all overrun with the loveliest
+flowering vines imaginable, and, inside, nothing could have been more
+exquisitely neat and homelike; although there was only one room and a
+little garret over it. All around the house were the flower-beds and
+the vine-trellises and the blooming shrubs, and they were always in
+the most beautiful order. Now, although all this was very pretty to
+see, and seemingly very simple to bring to pass, yet there was a vast
+deal of labor in it for some one; for flowers do not look so trim and
+thriving without tending, and houses do not look so spotlessly clean
+without constant care. All the Flower family worked hard; even the
+littlest children had their daily tasks set them. The oldest girl,
+especially, little Flax Flower, was kept busy from morning till night
+taking care of her younger brothers and sisters, and weeding flowers.
+But for all that she was a very happy little girl, as indeed were
+the whole family, as they did not mind working, and loved each other
+dearly.
+
+Father Flower, to be sure, felt a little sad sometimes; for, although
+his lot in life was a pleasant one, it was not exactly what he would
+have chosen. Once in a while he had a great longing for something
+different. He confided a great many of his feelings to Flax Flower;
+she was more like him than any of the other children, and could
+understand him even better than his wife, he thought.
+
+One day, when there had been a heavy shower and a beautiful rainbow,
+he and Flax were out in the garden tying up some rose-bushes, which
+the rain had beaten down, and he said to her how he wished he could
+find the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow. Flax, if you will
+believe me, had never heard of it; so he had to tell her all about it,
+and also say a little poem he had made about it to her.
+
+The poem ran something in this way:
+
+  O what is it shineth so golden-clear
+     At the rainbow's foot on the dark green hill?
+  'Tis the Pot of Gold, that for many a year
+     Has shone, and is shining and dazzling still.
+  And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?
+  For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way.
+
+Flax listened with her soft blue eyes very wide open. "I suppose if we
+should find that pot of gold it would make us very rich, wouldn't it,
+father?" said she.
+
+"Yes," replied her father; "we could then have a grand house, and keep
+a gardener, and a maid to take care of the children, and we should no
+longer have to work so hard." He sighed as he spoke, and tears stood
+in his gentle blue eyes, which were very much like Flax's. "However,
+we shall never find it," he added.
+
+"Why couldn't we run ever so fast when we saw the rainbow," inquired
+Flax, "and get the Pot of Gold?"
+
+"Don't be foolish, child!" said her father; "you could not possibly
+reach it before the rainbow was quite faded away!"
+
+"True," said Flax, but she fell to thinking as she tied up the
+dripping roses.
+
+The next rainbow they had she eyed very closely, standing out on the
+front door-step in the rain, and she saw that one end of it seemed
+to touch the ground at the foot of a pine-tree on the side of the
+mountain, which was quite conspicuous amongst its fellows, it was so
+tall. The other end had nothing especial to mark it.
+
+"I will try the end where the tall pine-tree is first," said Flax to
+herself, "because that will be the easiest to find--if the Pot of Gold
+isn't there I will try to find the other end."
+
+A few days after that it was very hot and sultry, and at noon the
+thunder heads were piled high all around the horizon.
+
+"I don't doubt but we shall have showers this afternoon," said Father
+Flower, when he came in from the garden for his dinner.
+
+After the dinner-dishes were washed up, and the baby rocked to sleep,
+Flax came to her mother with a petition.
+
+"Mother," said she, "won't you give me a holiday this afternoon?"
+
+"Why, where do you want to go, Flax?" said her mother.
+
+"I want to go over on the mountain and hunt for wild flowers," replied
+Flax.
+
+"But I think it is going to rain, child, and you will get wet."
+
+"That won't hurt me any, mother," said Flax, laughing.
+
+"Well, I don't know as I care," said her mother, hesitatingly. "You
+have been a very good industrious girl, and deserve a little holiday.
+Only don't go so far that you cannot soon run home if a shower should
+come up."
+
+So Flax curled her flaxen hair and tied it up with a blue ribbon, and
+put on her blue and white checked dress. By the time she was ready to
+go the clouds over in the northwest were piled up very high and black,
+and it was quite late in the afternoon. Very likely her mother would
+not have let her gone if she had been at home, but she had taken the
+baby, who had waked from his nap, and gone to call on her nearest
+neighbor, half a mile away. As for her father, he was busy in the
+garden, and all the other children were with him, and they did not
+notice Flax when she stole out of the front door. She crossed the
+river on a pretty arched stone bridge nearly opposite the house, and
+went directly into the woods on the side of the mountain.
+
+Everything was very still and dark and solemn in the woods. They knew
+about the storm that was coming. Now and then Flax heard the leaves
+talking in queer little rustling voices. She inherited the ability to
+understand what they said from her father. They were talking to each
+other now in the words of her father's song. Very likely he had heard
+them saying it sometime, and that was how he happened to know it,
+
+  "O what is it shineth so golden-clear
+  At the rainbow's foot on the dark green hill?"
+
+Flax heard the maple leaves inquire. And the pine-leaves answered
+back:
+
+  "'Tis the Pot of Gold, that for many a year
+  Has shone, and is shining and dazzling still."
+
+Then the maple-leaves asked:
+
+  "And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?"
+
+And the pine-leaves answered:
+
+  "For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way."
+
+Flax did not exactly understand the sense of the last question and
+answer between maple and pine-leaves. But they kept on saying it
+over and over as she ran along. She was going straight to the tall
+pine-tree. She knew just where it was, for she had often been there.
+Now the rain-drops began to splash through the green boughs, and the
+thunder rolled along the sky. The leaves all tossed about in a strong
+wind and their soft rustles grew into a roar, and the branches and the
+whole tree caught it up and called out so loud as they writhed and
+twisted about that Flax was almost deafened, the words of the song:
+
+  "O what is it shineth so golden-clear?"
+
+Flax sped along through the wind and the rain and the thunder. She was
+very much afraid that she should not reach the tall pine which was
+quite a way distant before the sun shone out, and the rainbow came.
+
+The sun was already breaking through the clouds when she came in sight
+of it, way up above her on a rock. The rain-drops on the trees began
+to shine like diamonds, and the words of the song rushed out from
+their midst, louder and sweeter:
+
+  "O what is it shineth so golden-clear?"
+
+Flax climbed for dear life. Red and green and golden rays were already
+falling thick around her, and at the foot of the pine-tree something
+was shining wonderfully clear and bright.
+
+At last she reached it, and just at that instant the rainbow became a
+perfect one, and there at the foot of the wonderful arch of glory was
+the Pot of Gold. Flax could see it brighter than all the brightness of
+the rainbow. She sank down beside it and put her hand on it, then she
+closed her eyes and sat still, bathed in red and green and violet
+light--that, and the golden light from the Pot, made her blind and
+dizzy. As she sat there with her hand on the Pot of Gold at the foot
+of the rainbow, she could hear the leaves over her singing louder and
+louder, till the tones fairly rushed like a wind through her ears. But
+this time they only sang the last words of the song:
+
+  "And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?
+  For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way."
+
+At last she ventured to open her eyes. The rainbow had faded almost
+entirely away, only a few tender rose and green shades were arching
+over her; but the Pot of Gold under her hand was still there, and
+shining brighter than ever. All the pine needles with which the ground
+around it was thickly spread, were turned to needles of gold, and some
+stray couplets of leaves which were springing up through them were all
+gilded.
+
+Flax bent over it trembling and lifted the lid off the pot. She
+expected, of course, to find it full of gold pieces that would buy the
+grand house and the gardener and the maid that her father had spoken
+about. But to her astonishment, when she had lifted the lid off and
+bent over the Pot to look into it, the first thing she saw was the
+face of her mother looking out of it at her. It was smaller of course,
+but just the same loving, kindly face she had left at home. Then, as
+she looked longer, she saw her father smiling gently up at her, then
+came Poppy and the baby and all the rest of her dear little brothers
+and sisters smiling up at her out of the golden gloom inside the Pot.
+At last she actually saw the garden and her father in it tying up the
+roses, and the pretty little vine-covered house, and, finally, she
+could see right into the dear little room where her mother sat with
+the baby in her lap, and all the others around her.
+
+Flax jumped up. "I will run home," said she, "it is late, and I do
+want to see them all dreadfully."
+
+So she left the Golden Pot shining all alone under the pine-tree, and
+ran home as fast as she could.
+
+When she reached the house it was almost twilight, but her father was
+still in the garden. Every rose and lily had to be tied up after the
+shower, and he was but just finishing. He had the tin milk pan hung
+on him like a shield, because it rhymed with man. It certainly was a
+beautiful rhyme, but it was very inconvenient. Poor Mother Flower
+was at her wits' end to know what to do without it, and it was very
+awkward for Father Flower to work with it fastened to him.
+
+Flax ran breathlessly into the garden, and threw her arms around her
+father's neck and kissed him. She bumped her nose against the milk
+pan, but she did not mind that; she was so glad to see him again.
+Somehow, she never remembered being so glad to see him as she was now
+since she had seen his face in the Pot of Gold.
+
+"Dear father," cried she, "how glad I am to see you! I found the Pot
+of Gold at the end of the rainbow!"
+
+Her father stared at her in amazement.
+
+"Yes, I did, truly, father," said she. "But it was not full of gold,
+after all. You was in it, and mother and the children and the house
+and garden and--everything."
+
+"You were mistaken, dear," said her father, looking at her with his
+gentle, sorrowful eyes. "You could not have found the true end of the
+rainbow, nor the true Pot of Gold--that is surely full of the most
+beautiful gold pieces, with an angel stamped on every one."
+
+"But I did, father," persisted Flax.
+
+"You had better go into your mother, Flax," said her father; "she will
+be anxious to see you. I know better than you about the Pot of Gold at
+the end of the rainbow."
+
+So Flax went sorrowfully into the house. There was the tea-kettle
+singing beside the "skettle," which had some nice smelling soup in it,
+the table was laid for supper, and there sat her mother with the baby
+in her lap and the others all around her--just as they had looked in
+the Pot of Gold.
+
+Flax had never been so glad to see them before--and if she didn't hug
+and kiss them all!
+
+"I found the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow, mother," cried
+she, "and it was not full of gold, at all; but you and father and the
+children looked out of it at me, and I saw the house and garden and
+everything in it."
+
+Her mother looked at her lovingly. "Yes, Flax dear," said she.
+
+"But father said I was mistaken," said Flax, "and did not find it."
+
+"Well, dear," said her mother, "your father is a poet, and very wise;
+we will say no more about it. You can sit down here and hold the baby
+now, while I make the tea."
+
+Flax was perfectly ready to do that; and, as she sat there with her
+darling little baby brother crowing in her lap, and watched her pretty
+little brothers and sisters and her dear mother, she felt so happy
+that she did not care any longer whether she had found the true Pot of
+Gold at the end of the rainbow or not.
+
+But, after all, do you know, I think her father was mistaken, and that
+she had.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE COW WITH GOLDEN HORNS.
+
+
+Once there was a farmer who had a very rare and valuable cow. There
+was not another like her in the whole kingdom. She was as white as
+the whitest lily you ever saw, and her horns, which curved very
+gracefully, were of gold.
+
+She had a charming green meadow, with a silvery pool in the middle, to
+feed in. Almost all the grass was blue-eyed grass, too, and there were
+yellow lilies all over the pool.
+
+The farmer's daughter, who was a milkmaid, used to tend the
+gold-horned cow. She was a very pretty girl. Her name was Drusilla.
+She had long flaxen hair, which hung down to her ankles in two smooth
+braids, tied with blue ribbons. She had blue eyes and pink cheeks, and
+she wore a blue petticoat, with garlands of rose-buds all over it, and
+a white dimity short gown, looped up with bunches of roses. Her hat
+was a straw flat, with a wreath of rose-buds around it, and she always
+carried a green willow branch in her hand to drive the cow with.
+
+She used to sit on a bank near the silvery pool, and watch the
+gold-horned cow, and sing to herself all day from the time the dew was
+sparkling over the meadow in the morning, till it fell again at night.
+Then she would drive the cow gently home, with her green willow stick,
+milk her, and feed her, and put her into her stable, herself, for the
+night.
+
+The farmer was feeble and old, so his daughter had to do all this. The
+gold-horned cow's stable was a sort of a "lean-to," built into the
+side of the cottage where Drusilla and her father lived. Its roof, as
+well as that of the cottage, was thatched and overgrown with moss, out
+of which had grown, in its turn, a little starry white flower, until
+the whole roof looked like a flower-bed. There were roses climbing
+over the walls of the cottage and stable, also, pink and white ones.
+
+Drusilla used to keep the gold-horned cow's stable in exquisite order.
+Her trough to eat out of, was polished as clean as a lady's china
+tea-cup. She always had fresh straw, and her beautiful long tail was
+tied by a blue ribbon to a ring in the ceiling, in order to keep it
+nice.
+
+The gold-horned cow's milk was better than any other's, as one would
+reasonably suppose it to have been. The cream used to be at least an
+inch thick, and so yellow; and the milk itself had a peculiar and
+exquisite flavor--perhaps the best way to describe it, is to say it
+tasted as lilies smell. The gentry all about were eager to buy it,
+and willing to pay a good price for it. Drusilla used to go around to
+supply her customers, nights and mornings, a bright, shining milk-pail
+in each hand, and one on her head. She had learned to carry herself so
+steadily in consequence that she walked like a queen.
+
+[Illustration: DRUSILLA AND HER GOLD-HORNED COW.]
+
+Everybody admired Drusilla, and all the young shepherds and farmers
+made love to her, but she did not seem to care for any of them, but to
+prefer tending her gold-horned cow, and devoting herself to her old
+father--she was a very dutiful daughter.
+
+Everything went prosperously with them for a long time; the cow
+thrived, and gave a great deal of milk, customers were plenty, they
+paid the rent for their cottage regularly, and Drusilla who was a
+beautiful spinner, had her linen chest filled to the brim with the
+finest linen.
+
+At length, however, a great misfortune befell them. One morning--it
+was the day after a holiday--Drusilla, who had been up very late the
+night before dancing on the village green, felt very sleepy, as she
+sat watching the cow in the green meadow. So she just laid her flaxen
+head down amongst the blue-eyed grasses, and soon fell fast asleep.
+
+When she woke up, the dew was all dried off, and the sun almost
+directly overhead. She rubbed her eyes, and looked about for the
+gold-horned cow. To her great alarm, she was nowhere to be seen. She
+jumped up, distractedly, and ran over the meadow, but the gold-horned
+cow was certainly not there. The bars were up, just as she had left
+them, and there was not a gap in the stonewall which extended around
+the meadow. How could she have gotten out? It was very mysterious!
+
+Drusilla, when she found, certainly, that the gold-horned cow was
+gone, lost no time in wonderment and conjecture; she started forth to
+find her. "I will not tell father till I have searched a long time,"
+said she to herself.
+
+So, down the road she went, looking anxiously on either side. "If
+only I could come in sight of her, browsing in the clover, beside the
+wall," sighed she; but she did not.
+
+After a while, she saw a great cloud of dust in the distance. It
+rolled nearer and nearer, and finally she saw the King on horseback,
+with a large party of nobles galloping after him. The King, who was
+quite an old man, had a very long, curling, white beard, and had his
+breast completely covered with orders and decorations. No convenient
+board fence on a circus day was ever more thoroughly covered with
+elephants and horses, and trapeze performers, than the breast of the
+King's black velvet coat with jeweled stars and ribbons. But even
+then, there was not room for all his store, so he had hit upon the
+ingenious expedient of covering a black silk umbrella with the
+remainder. He held it in a stately manner over his head now, and it
+presented a dazzling sight; for it was literally blazing with gems,
+and glittering ribbons fluttered from it on all sides.
+
+When the King saw Drusilla courtesying by the side of the road, he
+drew rein so suddenly, that his horse reared back on its haunches, and
+all his nobles, who always made it a point to do exactly as the King
+did--it was court etiquette--also drew rein suddenly, and all their
+horses reared back on their haunches.
+
+"What will you, pretty maiden?" asked the King graciously.
+
+"Please, your Majesty," said Drusilla courtesying and blushing and
+looking prettier than ever, "have you seen my gold-horned cow?"
+
+"Pardy," said the King, for that was the proper thing for a King to
+say, you know, "I never saw a gold-horned cow in my life!"
+
+Then Drusilla told him about her loss, and the King gazed at her while
+she was talking, and admired her more and more.
+
+You must know that it had always been a great cross to the King and
+his wife, the Queen, that they had never had any daughter. They had
+often thought of adopting one, but had never seen any one who exactly
+suited them. They wanted a full-grown Princess, because they had an
+alliance with the Prince of Egypt in view.
+
+The King looked at Drusilla now, and thought her the most beautiful
+and stately maiden he had ever seen.
+
+"What an appropriate Princess she would make!" thought he.
+
+"Suppose I should find the gold-horned cow for you," said he to
+Drusilla, when she had finished her pitiful story, "would you consent
+to be adopted by the Queen and myself, and be a princess?"
+
+Drusilla hesitated a moment. She thought of her dear old father
+and how desolate he would be without her. But then she thought how
+terribly distressed he would be at the loss of the gold-horned cow,
+and that if he had her back, she would be company for him, even if his
+daughter was away, and she finally gave her consent.
+
+The King always had his Lord Chamberlain lead a white palfrey, with
+rich housings, by the bridle, in case they came across a suitable
+full-grown Princess in any of their journeys; and now he ordered him
+to be brought forward, and commanded a page to assist Drusilla to the
+saddle.
+
+But she began to weep. "I want to go back to my father, until you have
+found the cow, your Majesty," said she.
+
+"You may go and bid your father good-by," replied the King,
+peremptorily, "but then you must go immediately to the boarding
+school, where all the young ladies of the Court are educated. If you
+are going to be a Princess, it is high time you began to prepare. You
+will have to learn feather stitching, and rick-rack and Kensington
+stitch, and tatting, and point lace, and Japanese patchwork,
+and painting on china, and how to play variations on the piano,
+and--everything a Princess ought to know."
+
+"But," said Drusilla timidly, "suppose--your Majesty shouldn't--find
+the cow"--
+
+"Oh! I shall find the cow fast enough," replied the King carelessly.
+"Why, I shall have the whole Kingdom searched. I can't fail to find
+her." So the page assisted the milkmaid to the saddle, kneeling
+gracefully, and presenting his hand for her to place her foot in, and
+they galloped off toward the farmer's cottage.
+
+The old man was greatly astonished to see his daughter come riding
+home in such splendid company, and when she explained matters to him,
+his distress, at first, knew no bounds. To lose both his dear daughter
+and his precious gold-horned cow, at one blow, seemed too much to
+bear. But the King promised to provide liberally for him during his
+daughter's absence, and spoke very confidently of his being able to
+find the cow. He also promised that Drusilla should return to him if
+the cow was not found in one year's time, and after a while the old
+man was pacified.
+
+Drusilla put her arms around her father's neck and kissed him
+tenderly; then the page assisted her gracefully into the saddle, and
+she rode, sobbing, away.
+
+After they had ridden about an hour, they came to a large, white
+building.
+
+"O dear!" said the King, "the seminary is asleep! I was afraid of it!"
+
+Then Drusilla saw that the building was like a great solid mass, with
+not a door or window visible.
+
+"It is asleep," explained the King. "It is not a common house; a great
+professor designed it. It goes to sleep, and you can't see any doors
+or windows, and such work as it is to wake it up! But we may as well
+begin."
+
+Then he gave a signal, and all the nobles shouted as loud as they
+possibly could, but the seminary still remained asleep.
+
+"It's asleep most of the time!" growled the King. "They don't want the
+young ladies disturbed at their feather stitching and rick-rack, by
+anything going on outside. I wish I could shake it."
+
+Then he gave the signal again, and all the nobles shouted together,
+as loud as they could possibly scream. Suddenly, doors and windows
+appeared all over the seminary, like so many opening eyes.
+
+"There," cried the King, "the seminary has woke up, and I am glad of
+it!"
+
+Then he ushered Drusilla in, and introduced her to the lady principal
+and the young ladies, and she was at once set to making daisies in
+Kensington stitch, for the King was very anxious for her education to
+begin at once.
+
+So now, the milkmaid, instead of sitting, singing, in a green meadow,
+watching her beautiful gold-horned cow, had to sit all day in a
+high-backed chair, her feet on a little foot-stool with an embroidered
+pussy cat on it, and do fancy work. The young ladies worked by
+electric light; for the seminary was asleep nearly all the time, and
+no sunlight could get in at the windows, for boards clapped down over
+them like so many eye-lids when the seminary began to doze.
+
+Drusilla had left off her pretty blue petticoat and white short gown
+now, and was dressed in gold-flowered satin, with an immense train,
+which two pages bore for her when she walked. Her pretty hair was
+combed high and powdered, and she wore a comb of gold and pearls in
+it. She looked very lovely, but she also looked very sad. She could
+not help thinking, even in the midst of all this splendor, of her dear
+father, and her own home, and wishing to see them.
+
+She was a very apt pupil. Her tatting collars were the admiration of
+the whole seminary, and she made herself a whole dress of rick-rack.
+She painted a charming umbrella stand for the King, and actually
+worked the gold-horned cow in Kensington stitch, on a blue satin tidy,
+for the Queen. It was so natural that she wept over it, herself, when
+it was finished; but the Queen was delighted, and put it on her best
+stuffed rocking-chair in her parlor, and would run and throw it back
+every time the King sat down there, for fear he would lean his head
+against it and soil it.
+
+Drusilla also worked an elegant banner of old gold satin, with
+hollyhocks, for the King to carry at the head of his troops when he
+went to battle; also a hat-band for the Prince of Egypt. This last was
+sent by a special courier with a large escort, and the Prince sent an
+exquisite shopping-bag of real alligator's skin to Drusilla in return.
+She was the envy of the whole seminary when it came.
+
+The young ladies fared very delicately. Their one article of diet was
+peaches and cream. It was thought to improve their complexions. Once
+in a while, they went out to drive by moonlight; they were afraid
+of sunburn by day, and they wore white gauze veils, even in the
+moonlight, and they all had embroidered afghans of their own
+handiwork.
+
+They used to sit around a large table over which hung a chandelier of
+the electric light, to work, and some young lady either played "Home,
+sweet Home, and variations," or else "The Maiden's Prayer," on the
+piano for their entertainment.
+
+It seemed as if Drusilla ought to have been happy in a place like
+this; but although she was diligent and dutiful, she grieved all the
+time for her father.
+
+Meantime, the King was keeping up an energetic search for the
+gold-horned cow. Every stable and pasture in the Kingdom was searched,
+spies were posted everywhere, but the King could not find her. She had
+disappeared as completely as if she had vanished altogether from the
+face of the earth. It at last began to be whispered about that there
+never had been any gold-horned cow, but that the whole had been a
+clever trick of Drusilla's, that she might become a Princess. An
+envious schoolmate, who had been very desirous of becoming Princess
+and marrying the Prince of Egypt herself, started the report; and it
+soon spread over the whole Kingdom. The King heard it and began to
+believe it; for he could not see why he failed to find the cow. It
+always exasperated the King dreadfully to fail in anything, and he
+never allowed that it was his own fault, if he could possibly help it.
+
+At last the end of the year came, and still no signs of the
+gold-horned cow. Then the King became convinced that Drusilla had
+cheated him, that there never had been any such wonderful cow, and
+that she had used this trick in order to become a Princess. Of course,
+the King felt more comfortable to believe this, for it accounted
+satisfactorily for his own failure to find her, and it is extremely
+mortifying for a King to be unable to do anything he sets out to.
+
+So Drusilla was dismissed from the seminary in disgrace, and sent
+home. Her jewels and fine clothes were all taken away from her, even
+her rick-rack dress, and she put on her blue petticoat and short gown,
+and straw flat again. Still, she was so happy at the prospect of
+seeing her dear old father again, that she did not mind the loss of
+all her fine things much. She did not ride the white palfrey now, but
+went home on foot, in the dewy morning, as fast as she could trip.
+
+When she came in sight of the cottage, there was her father sitting in
+his old place at the window. When he saw his beloved daughter coming,
+he ran out to meet her as fast as he could hobble, and they tenderly
+embraced each other.
+
+The King had provided liberally for the old man while Drusilla was in
+the seminary, but now that he was so angry at her alleged deception,
+his support would probably cease, and, since the gold-horned cow was
+lost, it was a question how they would live. The father and daughter
+sat talking it over after they had entered the cottage. It was a
+puzzling question, and Drusilla was weeping a little, when her father
+gave a joyful cry:
+
+"Look, look, Drusilla!"
+
+Drusilla looked up quickly, and there was the milk-white face and
+golden horns of the cow peering through the vines in the window. She
+was eating some of the pink and white roses.
+
+Drusilla and her father hastened out with joyful exclamations, and
+there was the cow, sure enough. A couple of huge wicker baskets were
+slung across her broad back, and one was filled to the brim with gold
+coins, and the other with jewels, diamonds, pearls and rubies.
+
+When Drusilla and her father saw them, they both threw their arms
+around the gold-horned cow's neck, and cried for joy. She turned her
+head and gazed at them a moment with her calm, gentle eyes; then she
+went on eating roses.
+
+When the King heard of all this, he came with the Queen in a golden
+coach, to see Drusilla and her father. "I am convinced now of your
+truthfulness," he said majestically, when the Court Jeweler had
+examined the cow's horns to see if they were true gold, and not merely
+gilded, and he had seen with his own eyes the two baskets full of
+coins and jewels. "And, if you would like to be Princess, you can be,
+and also marry the Prince of Egypt."
+
+But Drusilla threw her arms around her father's neck. "No; your
+Majesty," she said timidly, "I had rather stay with my father, if you
+please, than be a Princess, and I rather live here and tend my dear
+cow, than marry the Prince of Egypt."
+
+The King sighed, and so did the Queen; they knew they never should
+find another such beautiful Princess. But, then, the King had not kept
+his part of the contract and found the gold-horned cow, and he could
+not compel her to be a Princess without breaking the royal word.
+
+So the cow was again led out to pasture in the little meadow of
+blue-eyed grasses, and Drusilla, though she was very rich now, used to
+find no greater happiness than to sit on the banks of the silvery pool
+where the yellow lilies grew, and watch her.
+
+They had their poor little cottage torn down and a grand castle built
+instead: but the roof of that was thatched and over-grown with moss,
+and pink and white roses clustered thickly around the walls. It was
+just as much like their old home as a castle can be like a cottage.
+The gold-horned cow had, also, a magnificent new stable. Her
+eating-trough was the finest moss rose-bud china, she had dried rose
+leaves instead of hay to eat, and there were real lace curtains at all
+the stable windows, and a lace _porti�re_ over her stall.
+
+The King and Queen used to visit Drusilla often; they gave her back
+her rick-rack dress, and grew very fond of her, though she would not
+be a Princess. Finally, however, they prevailed upon her to be made
+a countess. So she was called "Lady Drusilla," and she had a coat of
+arms, with the gold-horned cow rampant on it, put up over the great
+gate of the castle.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PRINCESS ROSETTA AND THE POP-CORN MAN.
+
+I.
+
+THE PRINCESS ROSETTA.
+
+
+The Bee Festival was held on the sixteenth day of May; all the court
+went. The court-ladies wore green silk scarfs, long green floating
+plumes in their bonnets, and green satin petticoats embroidered with
+apple-blossoms. The court-gentlemen wore green velvet tunics with
+nose-gays in their buttonholes, and green silk hose. Their little
+pointed shoes were adorned with knots of flowers instead of buckles.
+
+As for the King himself, he wore a thick wreath of cherry and
+peach-blossoms instead of his crown, and carried a white thorn-branch
+instead of his scepter. His green velvet robe was trimmed with a
+border of blue and white violets instead of ermine. The Queen wore a
+garland of violets around her golden head, and the hem of her gown was
+thickly sown with primroses.
+
+But the little Princess Rosetta surpassed all the rest. Her little
+gown was completely woven of violets and other fine flowers. There was
+a very skillful seamstress in the court who knew how to do this kind
+of work, although no one except the Princess Rosetta was allowed to
+wear a flower-cloth gown to the Bee Festival. She wore also a little
+white violet cap, and two of her nurses carried her between them in a
+little basket lined with rose and apple-leaves.
+
+All the company, as they danced along, sang, or played on flutes, or
+rang little glass and silver bells. Nobody except the King and Queen
+rode. They rode cream-colored ponies, with silken ropes wound with
+flowers for bridle-reins.
+
+The Bee Festival was held in a beautiful park a mile distant from the
+city. The young grass there was green and velvety, and spangled
+all over with fallen apple and cherry and peach and plum and pear
+blossoms; for the park was set with fruit-trees in even rows. The blue
+sky showed between the pink and white branches, and the air was very
+sweet and loud with the humming of bees. The trees were all full of
+bees. There was something peculiar about the bees of this country;
+none of them had stings.
+
+When the court reached the park, they all tinkled their bells in time,
+whistled on their flutes, and sang a song which they always sang on
+these occasions. Then they played games and enjoyed themselves. They
+played hide-and-seek among the trees, and formed rings and danced. The
+bees flew around them, and seemed to know them. The little Princess,
+lying in her basket, crowed and laughed, and caught at them when they
+came humming over her face. Her nurses stood around her, and waved
+great fans of peacock-feathers, but that did not frighten the bees at
+all.
+
+The court's lunch was spread on a damask-cloth, in an open space
+between the trees. There were biscuits of wheaten flour, plates of
+honey-comb, and cream in tall glass ewers. That was the regulation
+lunch at the Bee Festival. The Bee Festival was nearly as old as the
+kingdom, and there was an ancient legend about it, which the Poet
+Laureate had put into an epic poem. The King had it in his royal
+library, printed in golden letters and bound in old gold plush.
+
+Centuries ago, so the legend ran, in the days of the very first
+monarch of the royal family of which this king was a member, there
+were no bees at all in the kingdom. Not a child in the whole country,
+not even the little princes and princesses in the palace, had ever
+tasted a bit of bread and honey.
+
+But, while there were no bees in this kingdom, one just across the
+river was swarming with them. That kingdom was governed by a king who
+was the tenth cousin of the first, and not very well disposed toward
+him. He had stationed lines of sentinels with ostrich-feather brooms
+on his bank of the river to keep the bees from flying over, and he
+would not export a single bee, nor one ounce of honey, although he had
+been offered immense sums.
+
+However, the inhabitants of this second country were so cruel and
+tormenting in their dispositions, and the children so teased the
+bees, which were stingless and could not defend themselves, that they
+rebelled. They stopped making honey, and one day they swarmed, and
+flew in a body across the river in spite of the frantic waving of the
+ostrich-feather brooms.
+
+The other King was overjoyed. He ordered beautiful hives to be built
+for them, and instituted a national festival in their honor, which
+ever since had been observed regularly on the sixteenth day of May.
+
+Up to this day there were no bees in the kingdom across the river. Not
+one would return to where its ancestors had been so hardly treated;
+here everybody was kind to them, and even paid them honor. The present
+King had established an order of the "Golden Bee." The Knights of the
+Golden Bee wore ribbons studded with golden bees on their breasts, and
+their watchword was a sort of a "buzz-z-z," like the humming of a bee.
+When they were in full regalia they wore also some curious wings made
+of gold wire and lace. The Knights of the Golden Bee comprised the
+finest nobles of the court.
+
+In addition to them were the "Bee Guards." They were the King's own
+body-guards. Their uniform was white with green cuffs and collar and
+facings. On the green were swarms of embroidered bees. They carried a
+banner of green silk worked with bees and roses.
+
+So the bee might fairly have been considered the national emblem of
+Romalia, for that was the name of the country. The first word which
+the children learned to spell in school was "b-e-e, bee," instead of
+"b-o-y, boy." The poorest citizen had a bush of roses and a bee-hive
+in his yard, and the people were very forlorn who could not have a bit
+of honey-comb at least once a day. The court preferred it to any other
+food. Indeed it was this particular Queen who was in the kitchen
+eating bread and honey, in the song.
+
+[Illustration: A KNIGHT OF THE GOLDEN BEE.]
+
+But to return to the Bee Festival, on this especial sixteenth of May.
+At sunset when the bees flew back to their hives for the last time
+with their loads of honey, the court also went home. They danced along
+in a splendid merry procession. The cream-colored ponies the King and
+Queen rode pranced lightly in advance, their slender hoofs keeping
+time to the flutes and the bells; and the gallants, leading the ladies
+by the tips of their dainty fingers, came after them with gay waltzing
+steps. The nurses who carried the Princess Rosetta held their heads
+high, and danced along as bravely as the others, waving their
+peacock-feather fans in their unoccupied hands. They bore the little
+Princess in her basket between them as lightly as a feather. Up and
+down she swung. When they first started she laughed and crowed; then
+she became very quiet. The nurses thought she was asleep. They had
+laid a little satin coverlet over her, and put a soft thick veil over
+her face, that the damp evening-air might not give her the croup. The
+Princess Rosetta was quite apt to have the croup.
+
+The nurses cast a glance down at the veil and satin coverlet which
+were so motionless. "Her Royal Highness is asleep," they whispered to
+each other with nods. The nurses were handsome young women, and they
+wore white lace caps, and beautiful long darned lace aprons. They
+swung the Princess's basket along so easily that finally one of them
+remarked upon it.
+
+"How very light her Royal Highness is," said she.
+
+"She weighs absolutely nothing at all," replied the other nurse who
+was carrying the Princess, "absolutely nothing at all."
+
+"Well, that is apt to be the case with such high-born infants," said
+the first nurse. And they all waved their fans again in time to the
+music.
+
+When they reached the palace, the massive doors were thrown open, and
+the court passed in. The nurses bore the Princess Rosetta's basket up
+the grand marble stair, and carried it into the nursery.
+
+"We will lift her Royal Highness out very carefully, and possibly we
+can put her to bed without waking her," said the Head-nurse.
+
+But her Royal Highness's ladies-of-the-bed-chamber who were in waiting
+set up such screams of horror at her remark, that it was a wonder that
+the Princess did not awake directly.
+
+"O-h!" cried a lady-of-the-bed-chamber, "put her Royal Highness to
+bed, in defiance of all etiquette, before the Prima Donna of the court
+has sung her lullaby! Preposterous! Lift her out without waking her,
+indeed! This nurse should be dismissed from the court!"
+
+"O-h!" cried another lady, tossing her lovely head scornfully, and
+giving her silken train an indignant swish; "the idea of putting her
+Royal Highness to bed without the silver cup of posset, which I have
+here for her!"
+
+"And without taking her rose-water bath!" cried another, who was
+dabbling her lily fingers in a little ivory bath filled with
+rose-water.
+
+"And without being anointed with this Cream of Lilies!" cried one with
+a little ivory jar in her hand.
+
+"And without having every single one of her golden ringlets dressed
+with this pomade scented with violets and almonds!" cried one with a
+round porcelain box.
+
+"Or even having her curls brushed!" cried a lady as if she were
+fainting, and she brandished an ivory hair-brush set with turquoises.
+
+"I suppose," remarked a lady who was very tall and majestic in her
+carriage, "that this nurse would not object to her Royal Highness
+being put to bed without--her nightgown, even!"
+
+And she held out the Princess's little embroidered nightgown, and
+gazed at the Head-nurse with an awful air.
+
+"I beg your pardon humbly, my Ladies," responded the Head-nurse
+meekly. Then she bent over the basket to lift out the Princess.
+
+Every one stood listening for her Royal Highness's pitiful scream
+when she should awake. The lady with the cup of posset held it in
+readiness, and the ladies with the Cream of Lilies, the violet and
+almond pomade and the ivory hair-brush looked anxious to begin their
+duties. The Prima Donna stood with her song in hand, and the first
+court fiddler had his bow raised all ready to play the accompaniment
+for her. Writing a fresh lullaby for the Princess every day, and
+setting it to music, were among the regular duties of the Poet
+Laureate and the first musical composer of the court.
+
+The Head-nurse with her eyes full of tears because of the reproaches
+she had received, reached down her arms and attempted to lift the
+Princess Rosetta--suddenly she turned very white, and tossed aside the
+veil and the satin coverlet. Then she gave a loud scream, and fell
+down in a faint.
+
+The ladies stared at one another.
+
+"What is the matter with the Head-nurse?" they asked. Then the second
+nurse stepped up to the basket and reached down to clasp the Princess
+Rosetta. Then she gave a loud scream, and fell down in a faint.
+
+The third nurse, trembling so she could scarcely stand, came next.
+After she had stooped over the basket, she also gave a loud scream and
+fainted. Then the fourth nurse stepped up, bent over the basket, and
+fainted. So all the Princess Rosetta's nurses lay fainting on the
+floor beside her basket.
+
+It was contrary to the rules of etiquette for any one except the
+nurses to approach nearer than five yards to her Royal Highness before
+she was taken from her basket. So they crowded together at that
+distance and craned their necks.
+
+"What can ail the nurses?" they whispered in terrified tones. They
+could not go near enough to the basket to see what the trouble was,
+and still it seemed very necessary that they should.
+
+"I wish I had a telescope," said the lady with the hair-brush.
+
+But there was none in the room, and it was contrary to the rules of
+etiquette for any person to leave it until the Princess was taken from
+the basket.
+
+There seemed to be no proper way out of the difficulty. Finally the
+first fiddler stood up with an air of resolution, and began unwinding
+the green silk sash from his waist. It was eleven yards long. He
+doubled it, and launched it at the basket, like a lasso.
+
+[Illustration: THE PRINCESS WAS NOT IN THE BASKET!]
+
+"There is nothing in the code of etiquette to prevent the Princess
+approaching us before she is taken from her basket," he said bravely.
+All the ladies applauded.
+
+He threw the lasso very successfully. It went quite around the basket.
+Then he drew it gently over the five yards. They all crowded around,
+and looked into it.
+
+_The Princess was not in the basket!_
+
+
+II.
+
+THE POP-CORN MAN.
+
+
+That night the whole kingdom was in a turmoil. The Bee Guards were
+called out, and patrolled the city, alarm-bells rung, signal fires
+burned, and everybody was out with a lantern. They searched every inch
+of the road to the park where the Bee Festival had been held, for it
+did seem at first as if the Princess had possibly been spilled out of
+the basket, although the nurses were confident that it was not so. So
+they searched carefully, and the nurses were in the meantime placed in
+custody. But nothing was found. The people held their lanterns low,
+and looked under every bush, and even poked aside the grasses, but
+they could not find the Princess on the road to the park.
+
+Then a regular force of detectives was organized, and the search
+continued day after day. Every house in the country was examined in
+every nook and corner. The cupboards even were all ransacked, and the
+bureau drawers. The King had a favorite book of philosophy, and one
+motto which he had learned in his youth recurred to him. It was this:
+
+"When a-seeking, seek in the unlikely places, as well as the likely;
+for no man can tell the road that lost things may prefer."
+
+So he ordered search to be made in unlikely as well as likely places,
+for the Princess; and it was carried so far that the people had all
+to turn their pockets inside out, and shake their shawls and
+table-cloths. But it was all of no use. Six months went by, and
+the Princess Rosetta had not been found. The King and Queen were
+broken-hearted. The Queen wept all day long, and her tears fell into
+her honey, until it was no longer sweet, and she could not eat it. The
+King sat by himself and had no heart for anything.
+
+[Illustration: THE BEE GUARDS PATROLLED THE CITY.]
+
+But the four nurses were in nearly as much distress. Not only had they
+been very fond of the little Princess, and were grieving bitterly for
+her loss, but they had also a punishment to endure. They had been
+released from custody, because there was really no evidence against
+them, but in view of their possible carelessness, and in perpetual
+reminder of the loss of the Princess, a sentence had been passed upon
+them. They had been condemned to wear their bonnets the wrong way
+around, indoors and out, until the Princess should be found. So the
+poor nurses wept into the crowns of their bonnets. They had little
+peep-holes in the straw that they might see to get about, and they
+lifted up the capes in order to eat; but it was very trying. The
+nurses were all pretty young women too, and the Head-nurse who came of
+quite a distinguished family was to have been married soon. But how
+could she be a bride and wear a veil with her face in the crown of her
+bonnet?
+
+The Head-nurse was quite clever, and she thought about the Princess's
+disappearance, until finally her thoughts took shape. One day she put
+on her shawl--her bonnet was always on--and set out to call on the
+Baron Greenleaf. The Baron was an old man who was said to be versed
+in white magic, and lived in a stone tower with his servants and his
+house-keeper.
+
+When the Head-nurse came into the tower-yard, the dog began to bark;
+he was not used to seeing a woman with her face in the crown of her
+bonnet. He thought that her head must be on the wrong way, and that
+she was a monster, and had designs upon his master's property. So he
+barked and growled, and caught hold of her dress, and the Head-nurse
+screamed. The Baron himself came running downstairs, and opened the
+door. "Who is there?" cried he.
+
+But when he saw the woman with her bonnet on wrong he knew at once
+that she must be one of the Princess's nurses. So he ordered off the
+dog, and ushered the nurse into the tower. He led her into his study,
+and asked her to sit down. "Now, madam, what can I do for you?" he
+inquired quite politely.
+
+"Oh, my lord!" cried the Head-nurse in her muffled voice, "help me to
+find the Princess."
+
+The Baron, who was a tall lean old man and wore a very large-figured
+dressing-gown trimmed with fur, frowned, and struck his fist down upon
+the table. "Help you to find the Princess!" he exclaimed; "don't you
+suppose I should find her on my own account if I could? I should
+have found her long before this if the idiots had not broken all my
+bottles, and crystals, and retorts, and mirrors, and spilled all the
+magic fluids, so that I cannot practice any white magic at all. The
+idea of looking for a princess in a bottle--that comes of pinning
+one's faith upon philosophy!"
+
+"Then you cannot find the Princess by white magic?" the Head-nurse
+asked timidly.
+
+The Baron pounded the table again. "Of course I cannot," he replied,
+"with all my magical utensils smashed in the search for her."
+
+The Head-nurse sighed pitifully.
+
+"I suppose that you do not like to go about with your face in the
+crown of your bonnet?" the Baron remarked in a harsh voice.
+
+The Head-nurse replied sadly that she did not.
+
+"It doesn't seem to me that I should mind it much," said the Baron.
+
+The Head-nurse looked at his grim old face through the peep-holes in
+her bonnet-crown, and thought to herself that if she were no prettier
+than he, she should not mind much either, but she said nothing.
+
+Suddenly there was a knock at the tower-door.
+
+"Excuse me a moment," said the Baron; "my housekeeper is deaf, and my
+other servants have gone out." And he ran down the tower-stair, his
+dressing-gown sweeping after him.
+
+Presently he returned, and there was a young man with him. This young
+man was as pretty as a girl, and he looked very young. His blue eyes
+were very sharp and bright, and he had rosy cheeks and fair curly
+hair. He was dressed very poorly, and around his shoulders were
+festooned strings of something that looked like fine white flowers,
+but it was in reality pop-corn. He carried a great basket of pop-corn,
+and bore a corn-popper over his shoulder.
+
+When he entered he bowed low to the Head-nurse; her bonnet did not
+seem to surprise him at all. "Would you like to buy some of my nice
+pop-corn, madam?" he asked.
+
+She curtesied. "Not to-day," she replied.
+
+But in reality she did not know what pop-corn was. She had never seen
+any, and neither had the Baron. That indeed was the reason why he had
+admitted the man--he was curious to see what he was carrying. "Is it
+good to eat?" he inquired.
+
+"Try it, my lord," answered the man. So the Baron put a pop-corn in
+his mouth and chewed it critically. "It is very good indeed," he
+declared.
+
+The man passed the basket to the Head-nurse, and she lifted the
+cape of her bonnet and put a pop-corn in her mouth, and nibbled it
+delicately. She also thought it very good.
+
+"But there is no use in discussing new articles of food when the
+kingdom is under the cloud that it is at present, and my retorts and
+crystals all smashed," said the Baron.
+
+"Why, what is the cloud, my lord?" inquired the Pop-corn man. Then the
+Baron told him the whole story.
+
+"Of course it is necromancy," remarked the Pop-corn man thoughtfully,
+when the Baron had finished.
+
+The Baron pounded on the table until it danced. "Necromancy!" he
+cried, "of course it's necromancy! Who but a necromancer could have
+made a child invisible, and stolen her away in the face and eyes of
+the whole court?"
+
+"Have you any idea where she is?" ask the Pop-corn man.
+
+The Baron stared at him in amazement.
+
+"Idea where she is?" he repeated scornfully. "You are just of a piece
+with the idiots who broke my mirrors to see if the Princess was not
+behind them! How should we have any idea where she is if she is lost,
+pray?"
+
+The Pop-corn man blushed, and looked frightened, but the Head-nurse
+spoke up quite bravely, although her voice was so muffled, and said
+that she really did have some idea of the Princess's whereabouts. She
+propounded her views which were quite plausible. It was her opinion
+that only an enemy of the King would have caused the Princess to be
+stolen, and as the King had only one enemy of whom anybody knew, and
+he was the King across the river, she thought the Princess must be
+there.
+
+"It seems very likely," said the Baron after she had finished, "but if
+she is there it is hopeless. Our King could never conquer the other
+one, who has a much stronger army."
+
+"Do you know," asked the Pop-corn man, "if they have ever had any
+pop-corn on the other side of the river?"
+
+"I don't think they have," replied the Baron.
+
+"Then," said the Pop-corn man, "I think I can free the Princess."
+
+"You!" cried the Baron scornfully.
+
+But the Pop-corn man said nothing more. He bowed low to the Baron and
+the Head-nurse, and left the tower.
+
+"The idea of his talking as he did," said the Baron. But the nurse was
+pinning her shawl, and she hurried out of the tower and overtook the
+Pop-corn man.
+
+"How are you going to manage it?" whispered she, touching his sleeve.
+
+The Pop-corn man started. "Oh, it's you?" he said. "Well, you wait a
+little, and you will see. Do you suppose you could find six little
+boys who would be willing to go over the river with me to-morrow?"
+
+"Would it be quite safe?"
+
+"Quite safe."
+
+"I have six little brothers who would go," said the Head-nurse.
+
+So it was arranged that the six little brothers should go across the
+river with the Pop-corn man; and the next morning they set out. They
+were all decorated with strings of Pop-corn, they carried baskets of
+pop-corn, and bore corn-poppers over their shoulders, and they crossed
+the river in a row boat.
+
+Once over the river they went about peddling pop-corn. The man sent
+the boys all over the city, but he himself went straight to the
+palace.
+
+He knocked at the palace-door, and the maid-servant came. "Is the King
+at home?" asked the Pop-corn man.
+
+The maid said he was, and the Pop-corn man asked to see him. Just then
+a baby cried.
+
+"What baby is that crying?" asked he.
+
+"A baby that was brought here at sunset, several months ago," replied
+the maid; and he knew at once that he had found the Princess.
+
+"Will you find out if I can see the King?" he said.
+
+"I'll see," answered the maid. And she went in to find the King.
+Pretty soon she returned and asked the Pop-corn man to step into the
+parlor, which he did, and soon the King came downstairs.
+
+[Illustration: "YOU!" CRIED THE BARON SCORNFULLY.]
+
+The Pop-corn man displayed his wares, and the King tasted. He had
+never seen any pop-corn before, and he was both an epicure and a man
+of hobbies. "It is the nicest food that ever I tasted," he declared,
+and he bought all the man's stock.
+
+"I can buy corn for you for seed, and I can order poppers enough to
+supply the city," suggested the Pop-corn man.
+
+"So do," cried the King. And he gave orders for seven ships' cargoes
+of seed corn and fifty of poppers. "My people shall eat nothing else,"
+said the King, "and the whole kingdom shall be planted with it. I am
+satisfied that it is the best national food."
+
+That day the court dined on pop-corn, and as it was very light
+and unsatisfying, they had to eat a long time. They were all the
+after-noon dining. Right after dinner the King wrote out his royal
+decree that all the inhabitants should that year plant pop-corn
+instead of any other grain or any vegetable, and that as soon as the
+ships arrived they should make it their only article of food. For the
+King, when he had learned from the Pop-corn man that the corn needed
+to be not only ripe but well dried before it would pop, could not
+wait, but had ordered five hundred cargoes of pop-corn for immediate
+use.
+
+So as soon as the ships arrived the people began at once to pop corn
+and eat it. There was a sound of popping corn all over the city, and
+the people popped all day long. It was necessary that they should,
+because it took such a quantity to satisfy hunger, and when they were
+not popping they had to eat. People shook the poppers until their arms
+were tired, then gave them to others, and sat down to eat. Men, women
+and children popped. It was all that they could do, with the exception
+of planting the seed-corn, and then they were faint with hunger as
+they worked. The stores and schools were closed. In the palace the
+King and Queen themselves were obliged to pop in order to secure
+enough to eat, and the nobles and the court-ladies toiled and ate,
+day and night. But the little stolen Princess and the King's son, the
+little Prince, could not pop corn, for they were only babies.
+
+When the people across the river had been popping corn for about a
+month, the Pop-corn man went to the King of Romalia's palace, and
+sought an audience. He told him how he had discovered his daughter in
+the palace of the King across the river.
+
+The King of Romalia clasped his hands in despair. "I must make war,"
+said he, "but my army is nothing to his."
+
+However, he at once went about making war. He ordered the swords to be
+cleaned with sand-paper until they shone, and new bullets to be cast.
+The Bee Guards were drilled every day, and the people could not sleep
+for the drums and the fifes.
+
+[Illustration: BOTH THE KING AND QUEEN WERE OBLIGED TO POP.]
+
+When everything was ready the King of Romalia and his army crossed
+the river and laid siege to the city. They had expected to have the
+passage of the river opposed, but not a foeman was stationed on the
+opposite bank. All the spears they could see were the waving green
+ones of pop-corn fields. They marched straight up to the city walls
+and laid siege. The inhabitants fought on the walls and in the
+gate-towers, but not very many could fight at a time, because they
+would have to stop and pop corn and eat.
+
+The defenders grew fewer and fewer, some were killed, and all of them
+were growing too tired and weak to fight. They could not eat enough
+pop-corn to give them strength and have any time left to fight. They
+filled their pockets and tried to eat pop-corn as they fought, but
+they could not manage that very well.
+
+On the third day the city surrendered with very little loss of life
+on either side, and the little Princess Rosetta was restored to her
+parents. There was great rejoicing all through Romalia; in the evening
+there was an illumination and a torch-light procession. The nurses
+marched with their bonnets on the right way, and the Knights of the
+Golden Bee were out in full regalia.
+
+The next day the Head-nurse was married, and the King gave her a farm
+and a dozen bee-hives for a wedding present, and the Queen a beautiful
+bridal bonnet trimmed with white plumes and hollyhocks.
+
+All the court, the Baron and the Pop-corn man went to the wedding, and
+wedding-cake and corn-balls were passed around.
+
+After the wedding the Pop-corn man went home. He lived in another
+country on the other side of a mountain. The King pressed him to take
+some reward. "I am puzzled," he said to the Pop-corn man, "to know
+what to offer you. The usual reward in such cases is the hand of the
+Princess in marriage, but Rosetta is not a year old. If there is
+anything else you can think of"--
+
+The Pop-corn man kissed the King's hand and replied that there was
+nothing that he could think of except a little honey-comb. He should
+like to carry some to his mother. So the King gave him a great piece
+of honey-comb in a silver dish, and the Pop-corn man departed.
+
+He never came to Romalia again, but the Poet Laureate celebrated him
+in an epic poem, describing the loss of the Princess and the war
+for her rescue. The Princess was never stolen again--indeed the
+necromancer across the river who had kidnaped her was imprisoned for
+life on a diet of pop-corn which he popped himself.
+
+The King across the river became tired of pop-corn, as it had caused
+his defeat, and forbade his people to eat it. He paid tribute to the
+King of Romalia as long as he lived; but after his death, when his
+son, the young prince, came to reign, affairs were on a very pleasant
+footing between the two kingdoms. The new King was very different from
+his father, being generous and amiable, and beloved by every one.
+Indeed Rosetta, when she had grown to be a beautiful maiden, married
+him and went to live as a Queen where she had been a captive.
+
+And when Rosetta went across the river to live, the King, her father,
+gave her some bee-hives for a wedding present, and the bees thrived
+equally in both countries. All the difference in the honey was this:
+in Romalia the bees fed more on clover, and the honey tasted of
+clover: and in the country across the river on peppermint, and that
+honey tasted of peppermint. They always had both kinds at their Bee
+Festivals.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS MONKS.
+
+
+All children have wondered unceasingly from their very first Christmas
+up to their very last Christmas, where the Christmas presents come
+from. It is very easy to say that Santa Claus brought them. All well
+regulated people know that, of course; but the reindeer, and the
+sledge, and the pack crammed with toys, the chimney, and all the rest
+of it--that is all true, of course, and everybody knows about it; but
+that is not the question which puzzles. What children want to know is,
+where do these Christmas presents come from in the first place? Where
+does Santa Claus get them? Well the answer to that is, _In the garden
+of the Christmas Monks_. This has not been known until very lately;
+that is, it has not been known till very lately except in the
+immediate vicinity of the Christmas Monks. There, of course, it has
+been known for ages. It is rather an out-of-the-way place; and that
+accounts for our never hearing of it before.
+
+The Convent of the Christmas Monks is a most charmingly picturesque
+pile of old buildings; there are towers and turrets, and peaked roofs
+and arches, and everything which could possibly be thought of in the
+architectural line, to make a convent picturesque. It is built of
+graystone; but it is only once in a while that you can see the
+graystone, for the walls are almost completely covered with mistletoe
+and ivy and evergreen. There are the most delicious little arched
+windows with diamond panes peeping out from the mistletoe and
+evergreen, and always at all times of the year, a little Christmas
+wreath of ivy and hollyberries is suspended in the center of every
+window. Over all the doors, which are likewise arched, are Christmas
+garlands, and over the main entrance _Merry Christmas_ in evergreen
+letters.
+
+The Christmas Monks are a jolly brethren; the robes of their order are
+white, gilded with green garlands, and they never are seen out at
+any time of the year without Christmas wreaths on their heads. Every
+morning they file in a long procession into the chapel, to sing a
+Christmas carol; and every evening they ring a Christmas chime on the
+convent bells. They eat roast turkey and plum pudding and mince-pie
+for dinner all the year round; and always carry what is left in
+baskets trimmed with evergreen, to the poor people. There are always
+wax candles lighted and set in every window of the convent at
+nightfall; and when the people in the country about get uncommonly
+blue and down-hearted, they always go for a cure to look at the
+Convent of the Christmas Monks after the candles are lighted and the
+chimes are ringing. It brings to mind things which never fail to cheer
+them.
+
+[Illustration: GOING INTO THE CHAPEL.]
+
+But the principal thing about the Convent of the Christmas Monks is
+the garden; for that is where the Christmas presents grow. This garden
+extends over a large number of acres, and is divided into different
+departments, just as we divide our flower and vegetable gardens; one
+bed for onions, one for cabbages, and one for phlox, and one for
+verbenas, etc.
+
+Every spring the Christmas Monks go out to sow the Christmas-present
+seeds after they have ploughed the ground and made it all ready.
+
+There is one enormous bed devoted to rocking-horses. The rocking-horse
+seed is curious enough; just little bits of rocking-horses so small
+that they can only be seen through a very, very powerful microscope.
+The Monks drop these at quite a distance from each other, so that they
+will not interfere while growing; then they cover them up neatly with
+earth, and put up a sign-post with "Rocking-horses" on it in evergreen
+letters. Just so with the penny-trumpet seed, and the toy-furniture
+seed, the skate-seed, the sled-seed, and all the others.
+
+Perhaps the prettiest and most interesting part of the garden, is that
+devoted to wax dolls. There are other beds for the commoner dolls--for
+the rag dolls, and the china dolls, and the rubber dolls, but of
+course wax dolls would look much handsomer growing. Wax dolls have
+to be planted quite early in the season; for they need a good start
+before the sun is very high. The seeds are the loveliest bits of
+microscopic dolls imaginable. The Monks sow them pretty close
+together, and they begin to come up by the middle of May. There is
+first just a little glimmer of gold, or flaxen, or black, or brown as
+the case may be, above the soil. Then the snowy foreheads appear, and
+the blue eyes, and black eyes, and, later on, all those enchanting
+little heads are out of the ground, and are nodding and winking and
+smiling to each other the whole extent of the field; with their pinky
+cheeks and sparkling eyes and curly hair there is nothing so pretty as
+these little wax doll heads peeping out of the earth. Gradually, more
+and more of them come to light, and finally by Christmas they are all
+ready to gather. There they stand, swaying to and fro, and dancing
+lightly on their slender feet which are connected with the ground,
+each by a tiny green stem; their dresses of pink, or blue, or
+white--for their dresses grow with them--flutter in the air. Just
+about the prettiest sight in the world, is the bed of wax dolls in the
+garden of the Christmas Monks at Christmas time.
+
+Of course ever since this convent and garden were established (and
+that was so long ago that the wisest man can find no books about it)
+their glories have attracted a vast deal of admiration and curiosity
+from the young people in the surrounding country; but as the garden is
+enclosed on all sides by an immensely thick and high hedge, which no
+boy could climb, or peep over, they could only judge of the garden by
+the fruits which were parcelled out to them on Christmas-day.
+
+You can judge, then, of the sensation among the young folks, and older
+ones, for that matter, when one evening there appeared hung upon a
+conspicuous place in the garden-hedge, a broad strip of white cloth
+trimmed with evergreen and printed with the following notice in
+evergreen letters:
+
+    "WANTED:--By the Christmas Monks, two _good_ boys to assist in
+    garden work. Applicants will be examined by Fathers Anselmus and
+    Ambrose, in the convent refectory, on April 10th."
+
+This notice was hung out about five o'clock in the evening, some time
+in the early part of February. By noon, the street was so full of boys
+staring at it with their mouths wide open, so as to see better, that
+the king was obliged to send his bodyguard before him to clear the way
+with brooms, when he wanted to pass on his way from his chamber of
+state to his palace.
+
+There was not a boy in the country but looked upon this position as
+the height of human felicity. To work all the year in that wonderful
+garden, and see those wonderful things growing! and without doubt any
+boy who worked there could have all the toys he wanted, just as a boy
+who works in a candy-shop always has all the candy he wants!
+
+But the great difficulty, of course, was about the degree of goodness
+requisite to pass the examination. The boys in this country were no
+worse than the boys in other countries, but there were not many of
+them that would not have done a little differently if he had only
+known beforehand of the advertisement of the Christmas Monks. However,
+they made the most of the time remaining, and were so good all over
+the kingdom that a very millennium seemed dawning. The school teachers
+used their ferrules for fire wood, and the King ordered all the
+birch-trees cut down and exported, as he thought there would be no
+more call For them in his own realm.
+
+When the time for the examination drew near, there were two boys whom
+every one thought would obtain the situation, although some of the
+other boys had lingering hopes for themselves; if only the Monks would
+examine them on the last six weeks, they thought they might pass.
+Still all the older people had decided in their minds that the Monks
+would choose these two boys. One was the Prince, the King's oldest
+son; and the other was a poor boy named Peter. The Prince was no
+better than the other boys; indeed, to tell the truth, he was not so
+good; in fact, was the biggest rogue in the whole country; but all the
+lords and the ladies, and all the people who admired the lords and
+ladies, said it was their solemn belief that the Prince was the best
+boy in the whole kingdom; and they were prepared to give in their
+testimony, one and all, to that effect to the Christmas Monks.
+
+[Illustration: The Boys Read the Notice]
+
+Peter was really and truly such a good boy that there was no excuse
+for saying he was not. His father and mother were poor people; and
+Peter worked every minute out of school hours, to help them along.
+Then he had a sweet little crippled sister whom he was never tired of
+caring for. Then, too, he contrived to find time to do lots of little
+kindnesses for other people. He always studied his lessons faithfully,
+and never ran away from school. Peter was such a good boy, and so
+modest and unsuspicious that he was good, that everybody loved him. He
+had not the least idea that he could get the place with the Christmas
+Monks, but the Prince was sure of it.
+
+When the examination day came all the boys from far and near, with
+their hair neatly brushed and parted, and dressed in their best
+clothes, flocked into the convent. Many of their relatives and friends
+went with them to witness the examination.
+
+The refectory of the convent where they assembled, was a very large
+hall with a delicious smell of roast turkey and plum pudding in it.
+All the little boys sniffed, and their mouths watered.
+
+The two fathers who were to examine the boys were perched up in a
+high pulpit so profusely trimmed with evergreen that it looked like a
+bird's nest; they were remarkably pleasant-looking men, and their eyes
+twinkled merrily under their Christmas wreaths. Father Anselmus was
+a little the taller of the two, and Father Ambrose was a little the
+broader; and that was about all the difference between them in looks.
+
+The little boys all stood up in a row, their friends stationed
+themselves in good places, and the examination began.
+
+Then if one had been placed beside the entrance to the convent, he
+would have seen one after another, a crestfallen little boy with his
+arm lifted up and crooked, and his face hidden in it, come out and
+walk forlornly away. He had failed to pass.
+
+The two fathers found out that this boy had robbed birds' nests,
+and this one stolen apples. And one after another they walked
+disconsolately away till there were only two boys left: the Prince and
+Peter.
+
+"Now, your Highness," said Father Anselmus, who always took the lead
+in the questions, "are you a good boy?"
+
+"O holy Father!" exclaimed all the people--there were a good many fine
+folks from the court present. "He is such a good boy! such a wonderful
+boy! we never knew him to do a wrong thing."
+
+"I don't suppose he ever robbed a bird's nest?" said Father Ambrose a
+little doubtfully.
+
+[Illustration: The Prince & Peter are examined by the monks.]
+
+
+"No, no!" chorused the people.
+
+"Nor tormented a kitten?"
+
+"No, no, no!" cried they all.
+
+At last everybody being so confident that there could be no reasonable
+fault found with the Prince, he was pronounced competent to enter upon
+the Monks' service. Peter they knew a great deal about before--indeed
+a glance at his face was enough to satisfy any one of his goodness;
+for he did look more like one of the boy angels in the altar-piece
+than anything else. So after a few questions, they accepted him also;
+and the people went home and left the two boys with the Christmas
+Monks.
+
+The next morning Peter was obliged to lay aside his homespun coat,
+and the Prince his velvet tunic, and both were dressed in some little
+white robes with evergreen girdles like the Monks. Then the Prince was
+set to sewing Noah's Ark seed, and Peter picture-book seed. Up and
+down they went scattering the seed. Peter sang a little psalm to
+himself, but the Prince grumbled because they had not given him
+gold-watch or gem seed to plant instead of the toy which he had
+outgrown long ago. By noon Peter had planted all his picture-books,
+and fastened up the card to mark them on the pole; but the Prince had
+dawdled so his work was not half done.
+
+"We are going to have a trial with this boy," said the Monks to each
+other; "we shall have to set him a penance at once, or we cannot
+manage him at all."
+
+So the Prince had to go without his dinner, and kneel on dried peas in
+the chapel all the afternoon. The next day he finished his Noah's Arks
+meekly; but the next day he rebelled again and had to go the whole
+length of the field where they planted jewsharps, on his knees. And so
+it was about every other day for the whole year.
+
+One of the brothers had to be set apart in a meditating cell to invent
+new penances; for they had used up all on their list before the Prince
+had been with them three months.
+
+The Prince became dreadfully tired of his convent life, and if he
+could have brought it about would have run away. Peter, on the
+contrary, had never been so happy in his life. He worked like a bee,
+and the pleasure he took in seeing the lovely things he had planted
+come up, was unbounded, and the Christmas carols and chimes delighted
+his soul. Then, too, he had never fared so well in his life. He could
+never remember the time before when he had been a whole week without
+being hungry. He sent his wages every month to his parents; and he
+never ceased to wonder at the discontent of the Prince.
+
+"They grow so slow," the Prince would say, wrinkling up his handsome
+forehead. "I expected to have a bushelful of new toys every month; and
+not one have I had yet. And these stingy old Monks say I can only have
+my usual Christmas share anyway, nor can I pick them out myself. I
+never saw such a stupid place to stay in in my life. I want to have my
+velvet tunic on and go home to the palace and ride on my white pony
+with the silver tail, and hear them all tell me how charming I am."
+Then the Prince would crook his arm and put his head on it and cry.
+
+Peter pitied him, and tried to comfort him, but it was not of much
+use, for the Prince got angry because he was not discontented as well
+as himself.
+
+Two weeks before Christmas everything in the garden was nearly ready
+to be picked. Some few things needed a little more December sun, but
+everything looked perfect. Some of the Jack-in-the-boxes would not pop
+out quite quick enough, and some of the jumping-Jacks were hardly
+as limber as they might be as yet; that was all. As it was so near
+Christmas the Monks were engaged in their holy exercises in the chapel
+for the greater part of the time, and only went over the garden once a
+day to see if everything was all right.
+
+The Prince and Peter were obliged to be there all the time. There was
+plenty of work for them to do; for once in a while something would
+blow over, and then there were the penny-trumpets to keep in tune; and
+that was a vast sight of work.
+
+One morning the Prince was at one end of the garden straightening up
+some wooden soldiers which had toppled over, and Peter was in the wax
+doll bed dusting the dolls. All of a sudden he heard a sweet little
+voice: "O, Peter!" He thought at first one of the dolls was talking,
+but they could not say anything but papa and mamma; and had the merest
+apologies for voices anyway. "Here I am, Peter!" and there was a
+little pull at his sleeve. There was his little sister. She was not
+any taller than the dolls around her, and looked uncommonly like the
+prettiest, pinkest-cheeked, yellowest-haired ones; so it was no wonder
+that Peter did not see her at first. She stood there poising herself
+on her crutches, poor little thing, and smiling lovingly up at Peter.
+
+"Oh, you darling!" cried Peter, catching her up in his arms. "How did
+you get in here?"
+
+"I stole in behind one of the Monks," said she. "I saw him going up
+the street past our house, and I ran out and kept behind him all the
+way. When he opened the gate I whisked in too, and then I followed him
+into the garden. I've been here with the dollies ever since."
+
+"Well," said poor Peter, "I don't see what I am going to do with you,
+now you are here. I can't let you out again; and I don't know what the
+Monks will say."
+
+"Oh, I know!" cried the little girl gayly. "I'll stay out here in the
+garden. I can sleep in one of those beautiful dolls' cradles over
+there; and you can bring me something to eat."
+
+[Illustration: THE BOYS AT WORK IN THE CONVENT GARDEN.]
+
+"But the Monks come out every morning to look over the garden, and
+they'll be sure to find you," said her brother, anxiously.
+
+"No, I'll hide! O, Peter, here is a place where there isn't any doll!"
+
+"Yes; that doll didn't come up."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do! I'll just stand here in this place
+where the doll didn't come up, and nobody can tell the difference."
+
+"Well, I don't know but you can do that," said Peter, although he was
+still ill at ease. He was so good a boy he was very much afraid of
+doing wrong, and offending his kind friends the Monks; at the same
+time he could not help being glad to see his dear little sister.
+
+He smuggled some food out to her, and she played merrily about him all
+day; and at night he tucked her into one of the dolls' cradles with
+lace pillows and quilt of rose-colored silk.
+
+The next morning when the Monks were going the rounds, the father
+who inspected the wax doll bed, was a bit nearsighted, and he never
+noticed the difference between the dolls and Peter's little sister,
+who swung herself on her crutches, and looked just as much like a wax
+doll as she possibly could. So the two were delighted with the success
+of their plan.
+
+They went on thus for a few days, and Peter could not help being happy
+with his darling little sister, although at the same time he could not
+help worrying for fear he was doing wrong.
+
+Something else happened now, which made him worry still more;
+the Prince ran away. He had been watching for a long time for an
+opportunity to possess himself of a certain long ladder made of
+twisted evergreen ropes, which the Monks kept locked up in the
+toolhouse. Lately, by some oversight, the toolhouse had been left
+unlocked one day, and the Prince got the ladder. It was the latter
+part of the afternoon, and the Christmas Monks were all in the chapel
+practicing Christmas carols. The Prince found a very large hamper, and
+picked as many Christmas presents for himself as he could stuff into
+it; then he put the ladder against the high gate in front of the
+convent, and climbed up, dragging the hamper after him. When he
+reached the top of the gate, which was quite broad, he sat down to
+rest for a moment before pulling the ladder up so as to drop it on the
+other side.
+
+He gave his feet a little triumphant kick as he looked back at his
+prison, and down slid the evergreen ladder! The Prince lost his
+balance, and would inevitably have broken his neck if he had not clung
+desperately to the hamper which hung over on the convent side of the
+fence; and as it was just the same weight as the Prince, it kept him
+suspended on the other.
+
+He screamed with all the force of his royal lungs; was heard by a
+party of noblemen who were galloping up the street; was rescued, and
+carried in state to the palace. But he was obliged to drop the hamper
+of presents, for with it all the ingenuity of the noblemen could not
+rescue him as speedily as it was necessary they should.
+
+When the good Monks discovered the escape of the Prince they were
+greatly grieved, for they had tried their best to do well by him; and
+poor Peter could with difficulty be comforted. He had been very fond
+of the Prince, although the latter had done little except torment him
+for the whole year; but Peter had a way of being fond of folks.
+
+A few days after the Prince ran away, and the day before the one on
+which the Christmas presents were to be gathered, the nearsighted
+father went out into the wax doll field again; but this time he had
+his spectacles on, and could see just as well as any one, and even
+a little better. Peter's little sister was swinging herself on her
+crutches, in the place where the wax doll did not come up, tipping her
+little face up, and smiling just like the dolls around her.
+
+"Why, what is this!" said the father. "_Hoc credam!_ I thought that
+wax doll did not come up. Can my eyes deceive me? _non verum est!_
+There is a doll there--and what a doll! on crutches, and in poor,
+homely gear!"
+
+Then the nearsighted father put out his hand toward Peter's little
+sister. She jumped--she could not help it, and the holy father jumped
+too; the Christmas wreath actually tumbled off his head.
+
+"It is a miracle!" exclaimed he when he could speak: "the little girl
+is alive! _parra puella viva est._ I will pick her and take her to the
+brethren, and we will pay her the honors she is entitled to."
+
+Then the good father put on his Christmas wreath, for he dared not
+venture before his abbot without it, picked up Peter's little sister,
+who was trembling in all her little bones, and carried her into the
+chapel, where the Monks were just assembling to sing another carol.
+He went right up to the Christmas abbot, who was seated in a splendid
+chair, and looked like a king.
+
+"Most holy abbot," said the nearsighted father, holding out Peter's
+little sister, "behold a miracle, _vide miraculum_! Thou wilt remember
+that there was one wax doll planted which did not come up. Behold, in
+her place I have found this doll on crutches, which is--alive!"
+
+"Let me see her!" said the abbot; and all the other Monks crowded
+around, opening their mouths just like the little boys around the
+notice, in order to see better.
+
+"_Verum est_," said the abbot. "It is verily a miracle."
+
+"Rather a lame miracle," said the brother who had charge of the funny
+picture-books and the toy monkeys; they rather threw his mind off
+its level of sobriety, and he was apt to make frivolous speeches
+unbecoming a monk.
+
+[Illustration: THE PRINCE RUNS AWAY.]
+
+The abbot gave him a reproving glance, and the brother, who was the
+leach of the convent, came forward. "Let me look at the miracle, most
+holy abbot," said he. He took up Peter's sister, and looked carefully
+at the small, twisted ankle. "I think I can cure this with my herbs
+and simples," said he.
+
+"But I don't know," said the abbot doubtfully. "I never heard of
+curing a miracle."
+
+"If it is not lawful, my humble power will not suffice to cure it,"
+said the father who was the leach.
+
+"True," said the abbot; "take her, then, and exercise thy healing art
+upon her, and we will go on with our Christmas devotions, for which we
+should now feel all the more zeal." So the father took away Peter's
+little sister, who was still too frightened to speak.
+
+The Christmas Monk was a wonderful doctor, for by Christmas Eve the
+little girl was completely cured of her lameness. This may seem
+incredible, but it was owing in great part to the herbs and simples,
+which are of a species that our doctors have no knowledge of; and also
+to a wonderful lotion which has never been advertised on our fences.
+
+Peter of course heard the talk about the miracle, and knew at once
+what it meant. He was almost heartbroken to think he was deceiving the
+Monks so, but at the same time he did not dare to confess the truth
+for fear they would put a penance upon his sister, and he could not
+bear to think of her having to kneel upon dried peas.
+
+He worked hard picking Christmas presents, and hid his unhappiness as
+best he could. On Christmas Eve he was called into the chapel. The
+Christmas Monks were all assembled there. The walls were covered with
+green garlands and boughs and sprays of hollyberries, and branches
+of wax lights were gleaming brightly amongst them. The altar and the
+picture of the Blessed Child behind it were so bright as to almost
+dazzle one; and right up in the midst of it, in a lovely white dress,
+all wreaths and jewels, in a little chair with a canopy woven of green
+branches over it, sat Peter's little sister.
+
+And there were all the Christmas Monks in their white robes and
+wreaths, going up in a long procession, with their hands full of the
+very showiest Christmas presents to offer them to her!
+
+But when they reached her and held out the lovely presents--the
+first was an enchanting wax doll, the biggest beauty in the whole
+garden--instead of reaching out her hands for them, she just drew
+back, and said in her little sweet, piping voice: "Please, I ain't a
+millacle, I'm only Peter's little sister."
+
+"Peter?" said the abbot; "the Peter who works in our garden?"
+
+"Yes," said the little sister.
+
+Now here was a fine opportunity for a whole convent full of monks to
+look foolish--filing up in procession with their hands full of gifts
+to offer to a miracle, and finding there was no miracle, but only
+Peter's little sister.
+
+But the abbot of the Christmas Monks had always maintained that there
+were two ways of looking at all things; if any object was not what you
+wanted it to be in one light, that there was another light in which it
+would be sure to meet your views.
+
+So now he brought this philosophy to bear.
+
+"This little girl did not come up in the place of the wax doll, and
+she is not a miracle in that light," said he; "but look at her in
+another light and she is a miracle--do you not see?"
+
+They all looked at her, the darling little girl, the very meaning and
+sweetness of all Christmas in her loving, trusting, innocent face.
+
+"Yes," said all the Christmas Monks, "she is a miracle." And they all
+laid their beautiful Christmas presents down before her.
+
+Peter was so delighted he hardly knew himself; and, oh! the joy there
+was when he led his little sister home on Christmas-day, and showed
+all the wonderful presents.
+
+The Christmas Monks always retained Peter in their employ--in fact he
+is in their employ to this day. And his parents, and his little
+sister who was entirely cured of her lameness, have never wanted for
+anything.
+
+As for the Prince, the courtiers were never tired of discussing and
+admiring his wonderful knowledge of physics which led to his adjusting
+the weight of the hamper of Christmas presents to his own so nicely
+that he could not fall. The Prince liked the talk and the admiration
+well enough, but he could not help, also, being a little glum: for he
+got no Christmas presents that year.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PUMPKIN GIANT.
+
+
+A very long time ago, before our grandmother's time, or our
+great-grandmother's, or our grandmothers' with a very long string of
+greats prefixed, there were no pumpkins; people had never eaten a
+pumpkin-pie, or even stewed pumpkin; and that was the time when the
+Pumpkin Giant flourished.
+
+There have been a great many giants who have flourished since the
+world begun, and although a select few of them have been good giants,
+the majority of them have been so bad that their crimes even more than
+their size have gone to make them notorious. But the Pumpkin Giant was
+an uncommonly bad one, and his general appearance and his behavior
+were such as to make one shudder to an extent that you would hardly
+believe possible. The convulsive shivering caused by the mere mention
+of his name, and, in some cases where the people were unusually
+sensitive, by the mere thought of him even, more resembled the blue
+ague than anything else; indeed was known by the name of "the Giant's
+Shakes."
+
+The Pumpkin Giant was very tall; he probably would have overtopped
+most of the giants you have ever heard of. I don't suppose the Giant
+who lived on the Bean-stalk whom Jack visited, was anything to compare
+with him; nor that it would have been a possible thing for the Pumpkin
+Giant, had he received an invitation to spend an afternoon with the
+Bean-stalk Giant, to accept, on account of his inability to enter the
+Bean-stalk Giant's door, no matter how much he stooped.
+
+The Pumpkin Giant had a very large yellow head, which was also smooth
+and shiny. His eyes were big and round, and glowed like coals of fire;
+and you would almost have thought that his head was lit up inside with
+candles. Indeed there was a rumor to that effect amongst the common
+people, but that was all nonsense, of course; no one of the more
+enlightened class credited it for an instant. His mouth, which
+stretched half around his head, was furnished with rows of pointed
+teeth, and he was never known to hold it any other way than wide open.
+
+The Pumpkin Giant lived in a castle, as a matter of course; it is not
+fashionable for a giant to live in any other kind of a dwelling--why,
+nothing would be more tame and uninteresting than a giant in a
+two-story white house with green blinds and a picket fence, or even a
+brown-stone front, if he could get into either of them, which he could
+not.
+
+The Giant's castle was situated on a mountain, as it ought to have
+been, and there was also the usual courtyard before it, and the
+customary moat, which was full of--_bones_! All I have got to say
+about these bones is, they were not mutton bones. A great many details
+of this story must be left to the imagination of the reader; they are
+too harrowing to relate. A much tenderer regard for the feelings of
+the audience will be shown in this than in most giant stories; we will
+even go so far as to state in advance, that the story has a good end,
+thereby enabling readers to peruse it comfortably without unpleasant
+suspense.
+
+The Pumpkin Giant was fonder of little boys and girls than anything
+else in the world; but he was somewhat fonder of little boys, and more
+particularly of _fat_ little boys.
+
+The fear and horror of this Giant extended over the whole country.
+Even the King on his throne was so severely afflicted with the Giant's
+Shakes that he had been obliged to have the throne propped, for fear
+it should topple over in some unusually violent fit. There was good
+reason why the King shook: his only daughter, the Princess Ariadne
+Diana, was probably the fattest princess in the whole world at that
+date. So fat was she that she had never walked a step in the dozen
+years of her life, being totally unable to progress over the earth by
+any method except rolling. And a really beautiful sight it was, too,
+to see the Princess Ariadne Diana, in her cloth-of-gold rolling-suit,
+faced with green velvet and edged with ermine, with her glittering
+crown on her head, trundling along the avenues of the royal gardens,
+which had been furnished with strips of rich carpeting for her express
+accommodation.
+
+But gratifying as it would have been to the King, her sire, under
+other circumstances, to have had such an unusually interesting
+daughter, it now only served to fill his heart with the greatest
+anxiety on her account. The Princess was never allowed to leave the
+palace without a body-guard of fifty knights, the very flower of
+the King's troops, with lances in rest, but in spite of all this
+precaution, the King shook.
+
+Meanwhile amongst the ordinary people who could not procure an escort
+of fifty armed knights for the plump among their children, the ravages
+of the Pumpkin Giant were frightful. It was apprehended at one time
+that there would be very few fat little girls, and no fat little boys
+at all, left in the kingdom. And what made matters worse, at that time
+the Giant commenced taking a tonic to increase his appetite.
+
+Finally the King, in desperation, issued a proclamation that he would
+knight any one, be he noble or common, who should cut off the head of
+the Pumpkin Giant. This was the King's usual method of rewarding
+any noble deed in his kingdom. It was a cheap method, and besides
+everybody liked to be a knight.
+
+When the King issued his proclamation every man in the kingdom who was
+not already a knight, straightway tried to contrive ways and means
+to kill the Pumpkin Giant. But there was one obstacle which seemed
+insurmountable: they were afraid, and all of them had the Giant's
+Shakes so badly, that they could not possibly have held a knife steady
+enough to cut off the Giant's head, even if they had dared to go near
+enough for that purpose.
+
+There was one man who lived not far from the terrible Giant's castle,
+a poor man, his only worldly wealth consisting in a large potato-field
+and a cottage in front of it. But he had a boy of twelve, an only son,
+who rivaled the Princess Ariadne Diana in point of fatness. He was
+unable to have a body-guard for his son; so the amount of terror which
+the inhabitants of that humble cottage suffered day and night was
+heart-rending. The poor mother had been unable to leave her bed for
+two years, on account of the Giant's Shakes; her husband barely got a
+living from the potato-field; half the time he and his wife had hardly
+enough to eat, as it naturally took the larger part of the potatoes to
+satisfy the fat little boy, their son, and their situation was truly
+pitiable.
+
+The fat boy's name was �neas, his father's name was Patroclus, and
+his mother's Daphne. It was all the fashion in those days to have
+classical names. And as that was a fashion as easily adopted by the
+poor as the rich, everybody had them. They were just like Jim and
+Tommy and May in these days. Why, the Princess's name, Ariadne Diana,
+was nothing more nor less than Ann Eliza with us.
+
+One morning Patroclus and �neas were out in the field digging
+potatoes, for new potatoes were just in the market. The Early Rose
+potato had not been discovered in those days; but there was another
+potato, perhaps equally good, which attained to a similar degree of
+celebrity. It was called the Young Plantagenet, and reached a very
+large size indeed, much larger than the Early Rose does in our time.
+
+Well, Patroclus and �neas had just dug perhaps a bushel of Young
+Plantagenet potatoes. It was slow work with them, for Patroclus had
+the Giant's Shakes badly that morning, and of course �neas was not
+very swift. He rolled about among the potato-hills after the manner
+of the Princess Ariadne Diana; but he did not present as imposing an
+appearance as she, in his homespun farmer's frock.
+
+All at once the earth trembled violently. Patroclus and �neas looked
+up and saw the Pumpkin Giant coming with his mouth wide open. "Get
+behind me, O, my darling son!" cried Patroclus.
+
+�neas obeyed, but it was of no use; for you could see his cheeks each
+side his father's waistcoat.
+
+Patroclus was not ordinarily a brave man, but he was brave in an
+emergency; and as that is the only time when there is the slightest
+need of bravery, it was just as well.
+
+The Pumpkin Giant strode along faster and faster, opening his mouth
+wider and wider, until they could fairly hear it crack at the corners.
+
+Then Patroclus picked up an enormous Young Plantagenet and threw it
+plump into the Pumpkin Giant's mouth. The Giant choked and gasped, and
+choked and gasped, and finally tumbled down and died.
+
+[Illustration: HE PICKED UP AN ENORMOUS YOUNG PLANTAGENET AND THREW IT
+AT HIM.]
+
+Patroclus and �neas while the Giant was choking, had run to the house
+and locked themselves in; then they looked out of the kitchen window;
+when they saw the Giant tumble down and lie quite still, they knew he
+must be dead. Then Daphne was immediately cured of the Giant's
+Shakes, and got out of bed for the first time in two years. Patroclus
+sharpened the carving-knife on the kitchen stove, and they all went
+out into the potato-field.
+
+They cautiously approached the prostrate Giant, for fear he might be
+shamming, and might suddenly spring up at them and--�neas. But no, he
+did not move at all; he was quite dead. And, all taking turns, they
+hacked off his head with the carving-knife. Then �neas had it to play
+with, which was quite appropriate, and a good instance of the sarcasm
+of destiny.
+
+The King was notified of the death of the Pumpkin Giant, and was
+greatly rejoiced thereby. His Giant's Shakes ceased, the props were
+removed from the throne, and the Princess Ariadne Diana was allowed to
+go out without her body-guard of fifty knights, much to her delight,
+for she found them a great hindrance to the enjoyment of her daily
+outings.
+
+It was a great cross, not to say an embarrassment, when she was
+gleefully rolling in pursuit of a charming red and gold butterfly, to
+find herself suddenly stopped short by an armed knight with his lance
+in rest.
+
+But the King, though his gratitude for the noble deed knew no bounds,
+omitted to give the promised reward and knight Patroclus.
+
+I hardly know how it happened--I don't think it was anything
+intentional. Patroclus felt rather hurt about it, and Daphne would
+have liked to be a lady, but �neas did not care in the least. He had
+the Giant's head to play with and that was reward enough for him.
+There was not a boy in the neighborhood but envied him his possession
+of such a unique plaything; and when they would stand looking over the
+wall of the potato-field with longing eyes, and he was flying over the
+ground with the head, his happiness knew no bounds; and �neas played
+so much with the Giant's head that finally late in the fall it got
+broken and scattered all over the field.
+
+[Illustration: THEY WERE ALL OVER THE FIELD.]
+
+Next spring all over Patroclus's potato-field grew running vines,
+and in the fall Giant's heads. There they were all over the field,
+hundreds of them! Then there was consternation indeed! The natural
+conclusion to be arrived at when the people saw the yellow Giant's
+heads making their appearance above the ground was, that the rest of
+the Giants were coming.
+
+"There was one Pumpkin Giant before," said they, "now there will be
+a whole army of them. If it was dreadful then what will it be in the
+future? If one Pumpkin Giant gave us the Shakes so badly, what will a
+whole army of them do?"
+
+But when some time had elapsed and nothing more of the Giants appeared
+above the surface of the potato-field, and as moreover the heads had
+not yet displayed any sign of opening their mouths, the people began
+to feel a little easier, and the general excitement subsided somewhat,
+although the King had ordered out Ariadne Diana's body-guard again.
+
+Now �neas had been born with a propensity for putting everything into
+his mouth and tasting it; there was scarcely anything in his vicinity
+which could by any possibility be tasted, which he had not eaten a
+bit of. This propensity was so alarming in his babyhood, that Daphne
+purchased a book of antidotes; and if it had not been for her
+admirable good judgment in doing so, this story would probably never
+have been told; for no human baby could possibly have survived the
+heterogeneous diet which �neas had indulged in. There was scarcely one
+of the antidotes which had not been resorted to from time to time.
+
+�neas had become acquainted with the peculiar flavor of almost
+everything in his immediate vicinity except the Giant's heads; and he
+naturally enough cast longing eyes at them. Night and day he wondered
+what a Giant's head could taste like, till finally one day when
+Patroclus was away he stole out into the potato-field, cut a bit out
+of one of the Giant's heads and ate it. He was almost afraid to,
+but he reflected that his mother could give him an antidote; so he
+ventured. It tasted very sweet and nice; he liked it so much that he
+cut off another piece and ate that, then another and another, until he
+had eaten two thirds of a Giant's head. Then he thought it was about
+time for him to go in and tell his mother and take an antidote, though
+he did not feel ill at all yet.
+
+"Mother," said he, rolling slowly into the cottage, "I have eaten
+two thirds of a Giant's head, and I guess you had better give me an
+antidote."
+
+"O, my precious son!" cried Daphne, "how could you?" She looked in her
+book of antidotes, but could not find one antidote for a Giant's head.
+
+"O �neas, my dear, dear son!" groaned Daphne, "there is no antidote
+for Giant's head! What shall we do?"
+
+Then she sat down and wept, and �neas wept too as loud as he possibly
+could. And he apparently had excellent reason to; for it did not seem
+possible that a boy could eat two thirds of a Giant's head and survive
+it without an antidote. Patroclus came home, and they told him, and he
+sat down and lamented with them. All day they sat weeping and watching
+�neas, expecting every moment to see him die. But he did not die; on
+the contrary he had never felt so well in his life.
+
+Finally at sunset �neas looked up and laughed. "I am not going to
+die," said he; "I never felt so well; you had better stop crying. And
+I am going out to get some more of that Giant's head; I am hungry."
+
+"Don't, don't!" cried his father and mother; but he went; for he
+generally took his own way, very like most only sons. He came back
+with a whole Giant's head in his arms.
+
+"See here, father and mother," cried he; "we'll all have some of this;
+it evidently is not poison, and it is good--a great deal better than
+potatoes!"
+
+Patroclus and Daphne hesitated, but they were hungry too. Since
+the crop of Giant's heads had sprung up in their field instead of
+potatoes, they had been hungry most of the time; so they tasted.
+
+"It is good," said Daphne; "but I think it would be better cooked."
+So she put some in a kettle of water over the fire, and let it boil
+awhile; then she dished it up, and they all ate it. It was delicious.
+It tasted more like stewed pumpkin than anything else; in fact it was
+stewed pumpkin.
+
+Daphne was inventive, and something of a genius; and next day she
+concocted another dish out of the Giant's heads. She boiled them, and
+sifted them, and mixed them with eggs and sugar and milk and spice;
+then she lined some plates with puff paste, filled them with the
+mixture, and set them in the oven to bake.
+
+The result was unparalleled; nothing half so exquisite had ever been
+tasted. They were all in ecstasies, �neas in particular. They gathered
+all the Giant's heads and stored them in the cellar. Daphne baked pies
+of them every day, and nothing could surpass the felicity of the whole
+family.
+
+One morning the King had been out hunting, and happened to ride by the
+cottage of Patroclus with a train of his knights. Daphne was baking
+pies as usual, and the kitchen door and window were both open, for the
+room was so warm; so the delicious odor of the pies perfumed the whole
+air about the cottage.
+
+"What is it smells so utterly lovely?" exclaimed the King, sniffing in
+a rapture.
+
+He sent his page in to see.
+
+"The housewife is baking Giant's head pies," said the page returning.
+
+"What?" thundered the King. "Bring out one to me!"
+
+So the page brought out a pie to him, and after all his knights had
+tasted to be sure it was not poison, and the king had watched them
+sharply for a few moments to be sure they were not killed, he tasted
+too.
+
+[Illustration: THEN THE KING KNIGHTED HIM ON THE SPOT.]
+
+Then he beamed. It was a new sensation, and a new sensation is a great
+boon to a king.
+
+"I never tasted anything so altogether superfine, so utterly
+magnificent in my life," cried the king; "stewed peacocks' tongues
+from the Baltic, are not to be compared with it! Call out the
+housewife immediately!"
+
+So Daphne came out trembling, and Patroclus and �neas also.
+
+"What a charming lad!" exclaimed the King as his glance fell upon
+�neas. "Now tell me about these wonderful pies, and I will reward you
+as becomes a monarch!"
+
+Then Patroclus fell on his knees and related the whole history of the
+Giant's head pies from the beginning.
+
+The King actually blushed. "And I forgot to knight you, oh noble and
+brave man, and to make a lady of your admirable wife!"
+
+Then the King leaned gracefully down from his saddle, and struck
+Patroclus with his jeweled sword and knighted him on the spot.
+
+The whole family went to live at the royal palace. The roses in the
+royal gardens were uprooted, and Giant's heads (or pumpkins, as they
+came to be called) were sown in their stead; all the royal parks also
+were turned into pumpkin-fields.
+
+Patroclus was in constant attendance on the King, and used to
+stand all day in his ante-chamber. Daphne had a position of great
+responsibility, for she superintended the baking of the pumpkin pies,
+and �neas finally married the Princess Ariadne Diana.
+
+They were wedded in great state by fifty archbishops; and all the
+newspapers united in stating that they were the most charming and well
+matched young couple that had ever been united in the kingdom.
+
+The stone entrance of the Pumpkin Giant's Castle was securely
+fastened, and upon it was engraved an inscription composed by the
+first poet in the kingdom, for which the King made him laureate, and
+gave him the liberal pension of fifty pumpkin pies per year.
+
+The following is the inscription in full:
+
+  "Here dwelt the Pumpkin Giant once,
+  He's dead the nation doth rejoice,
+  For, while he was alive, he lived
+  By e----g dear, fat, little boys."
+
+The inscription is said to remain to this day; if you were to go there
+you would probably see it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS MASQUERADE.
+
+
+On Christmas Eve the Mayor's stately mansion presented a beautiful
+appearance. There were rows of different-colored wax candles burning
+in every window, and beyond them one could see the chandeliers of gold
+and crystal blazing with light. The fiddles were squeaking merrily,
+and lovely little forms flew past the windows in time to the music.
+
+There were gorgeous carpets laid from the door to the street, and
+carriages were constantly arriving, and fresh guests tripping over
+them. They were all children. The Mayor was giving a Christmas
+Masquerade to-night, to all the children in the city, the poor as well
+as the rich. The preparation for this ball had been making an immense
+sensation for the last three months. Placards had been up in the most
+conspicuous points in the city, and all the daily newspapers had
+at least a column devoted to it, headed with THE MAYOR'S CHRISTMAS
+MASQUERADE in very large letters.
+
+The Mayor had promised to defray the expenses of all the poor children
+whose parents were unable to do so, and the bills for their costumes
+were directed to be sent in to him.
+
+Of course there was a great deal of excitement among the regular
+costumers of the city, and they all resolved to vie with one another
+in being the most popular, and the best patronized on this gala
+occasion. But the placards and the notices had not been out a week
+before a new Costumer appeared, who cast all the others into the shade
+directly. He set up his shop on the corner of one of the principal
+streets, and hung up his beautiful costumes in the windows. He was a
+little fellow, not much larger than a boy of ten. His cheeks were as
+red as roses, and he had on a long curling wig as white as snow.
+He wore a suit of crimson velvet knee-breeches, and a little
+swallow-tailed coat with beautiful golden buttons. Deep lace ruffles
+fell over his slender white hands, and he wore elegant knee-buckles
+of glittering stones. He sat on a high stool behind his counter and
+served his customers himself; he kept no clerk.
+
+It did not take the children long to discover what beautiful things he
+had, and how superior he was to the other costumers, and they begun to
+flock to his shop immediately, from the Mayor's daughter to the poor
+rag-picker's. The children were to select their own costumes; the
+Mayor had stipulated that. It was to be a children's ball in every
+sense of the word.
+
+So they decided to be fairies, and shepherdesses, and princesses,
+according to their own fancies; and this new costumer had charming
+costumes to suit them.
+
+It was noticeable, that, for the most part, the children of the rich,
+who had always had everything they desired, would choose the parts of
+goose-girls and peasants and such like; and the poor children jumped
+eagerly at the chance of being princesses or fairies for a few hours
+in their miserable lives.
+
+When Christmas Eve came, and the children flocked into the Mayor's
+mansion, whether it was owing to the Costumer's art, or their own
+adaptation to the characters they had chosen, it was wonderful how
+lifelike their representations were. Those little fairies in their
+short skirts of silken gauze, in which golden sparkles appeared as
+they moved, with their little funny gossamer wings, like butterflies,
+looked like real fairies. It did not seem possible, when they floated
+around to the music, half supported on the tips of their dainty toes,
+half by their filmy, purple wings, their delicate bodies swaying in
+time, that they could be anything but fairies. It seemed absurd to
+imagine that they were Johnny Mullens, the washwoman's son, and Polly
+Flinders, the charwoman's little girl, and so on.
+
+The Mayor's daughter, who had chosen the character of a goose-girl,
+looked so like a true one that one could hardly dream she ever was
+anything else. She was, ordinarily, a slender, dainty little lady,
+rather tall for her age. She now looked very short and stubbed and
+brown, just as if she had been accustomed to tend geese in all sorts
+of weather. It was so with all the others--the Red Riding-hoods, the
+princesses, the Bo Peeps, and with every one of the characters who
+came to the Mayor's ball; Red Riding-hood looked round, with big,
+frightened eyes, all ready to spy the wolf, and carried her little
+pat of butter and pot of honey gingerly in her basket; Bo Peep's eyes
+looked red with weeping for the loss of her sheep; and the princesses
+swept about so grandly in their splendid brocaded trains, and held
+their crowned heads so high that people half believed them to be true
+princesses.
+
+But there never was anything like the fun at the Mayor's Christmas
+ball. The fiddlers fiddled and fiddled, and the children danced and
+danced on the beautiful waxed floors. The Mayor, with his family and a
+few grand guests, sat on a dais covered with blue velvet at one end of
+the dancing hall, and watched the sport. They were all delighted. The
+Mayor's eldest daughter sat in front and clapped her little soft white
+hands. She was a tall, beautiful young maiden, and wore a white dress,
+and a little cap woven of blue violets on her yellow hair. Her name
+was Violetta.
+
+[Illustration: THERE NEVER WAS ANYTHING LIKE THE FUN AT THE MAYOR'S
+CHRISTMAS BALL.]
+
+The supper was served at midnight--and such a supper! The mountains
+of pink and white ices, and the cakes with sugar castles and
+flower-gardens on the tops of them, and the charming shapes of gold
+and ruby-colored jellies! There were wonderful bonbons which even the
+Mayor's daughter did not have every day; and all sorts of fruits,
+fresh and candied. They had cowslip wine in green glasses, and
+elderberry wine in red, and they drank each other's health. The
+glasses held a thimbleful each; the Mayor's wife thought that was all
+the wine they ought to have. Under each child's plate there was a
+pretty present; and every one had a basket of bonbons and cake to
+carry home.
+
+At four o'clock the fiddlers put up their fiddles and the children
+went home; fairies and shepherdesses and pages and princesses all
+jabbering gleefully about the splendid time they had had.
+
+But in a short time what consternation there was throughout the city!
+When the proud and fond parents attempted to unbutton their children's
+dresses, in order to prepare them for bed, not a single costume would
+come off. The buttons buttoned again as fast as they were unbuttoned;
+even if they pulled out a pin, in it would slip again in a twinkling;
+and when a string was untied it tied itself up again into a bow-knot.
+The parents were dreadfully frightened. But the children were so tired
+out they finally let them go to bed in their fancy costumes, and
+thought perhaps they would come off better in the morning. So Red
+Riding-hood went to bed in her little red cloak, holding fast to her
+basket full of dainties for her grandmother, and Bo Peep slept with
+her crook in her hand.
+
+The children all went to bed readily enough, they were so very
+tired, even though they had to go in this strange array. All but the
+fairies--they danced and pirouetted and would not be still.
+
+[Illustration: THEIR PARENTS STARED IN GREAT DISTRESS]
+
+"We want to swing on the blades of grass," they kept saying, "and play
+hide-and-seek in the lily-cups, and take a nap between the leaves of
+the roses."
+
+The poor charwomen and coal-heavers, whose children the fairies were
+for the most part, stared at them in great distress. They did not know
+what to do with these radiant, frisky little creatures into which
+their Johnnys and their Pollys and Betseys were so suddenly
+transformed. But the fairies went to bed quietly enough when daylight
+came, and were soon fast asleep.
+
+There was no further trouble till twelve o'clock, when all the
+children woke up. Then a great wave of alarm spread over the city. Not
+one of the costumes would come off then. The buttons buttoned as fast
+as they were unbuttoned; the pins quilted themselves in as fast as
+they were pulled out; and the strings, flew round like lightning and
+twisted themselves into bow-knots as fast as they were untied.
+
+And that was not the worst of it; every one of the children seemed to
+have become, in reality, the character which he or she had assumed.
+
+The Mayor's daughter declared she was going to tend her geese out in
+the pasture, and the shepherdesses sprang out of their little beds of
+down, throwing aside their silken quilts, and cried that they must go
+out and watch their sheep. The princesses jumped up from their straw
+pallets, and wanted to go to court; and all the rest of them likewise.
+Poor little Red Riding-hood sobbed and sobbed because she couldn't go
+and carry her basket to her grandmother, and as she didn't have any
+grandmother she couldn't go, of course, and her parents were very much
+troubled. It was all so mysterious and dreadful. The news spread very
+rapidly over the city, and soon a great crowd gathered around the new
+Costumer's shop, for every one thought he must be responsible for all
+this mischief.
+
+The shop door was locked; but they soon battered it down with stones.
+When they rushed in the Costumer was not there; he had disappeared
+with all his wares. Then they did not know what to do. But it was
+evident that they must do something before long, for the state of
+affairs was growing worse and worse.
+
+The Mayor's little daughter braced her back up against the tapestried
+wall and planted her two feet in their thick shoes firmly. "I will
+go and tend my geese!" she kept crying. "I won't eat my breakfast! I
+won't go out in the park! I won't go to school. I'm going to tend my
+geese--I will, I will, I will!"
+
+And the princesses trailed their rich trains over the rough, unpainted
+floors in their parents' poor little huts, and held their crowned
+heads very high and demanded to be taken to court. The princesses
+were, mostly, geese-girls when they were their proper selves, and
+their geese were suffering, and their poor parents did not know what
+they were going to do, and they wrung their hands and wept as they
+gazed on their gorgeously-appareled children.
+
+Finally, the Mayor called a meeting of the Aldermen, and they all
+assembled in the City Hall. Nearly every one of them had a son or
+a daughter who was a chimney-sweep, or a little watch-girl, or a
+shepherdess. They appointed a chairman and they took a great many
+votes, and contrary votes; but they did not agree on anything, until
+some one proposed that they consult the Wise Woman. Then they all held
+up their hands, and voted to, unanimously.
+
+[Illustration: "I WILL GO AND TEND MY GEESE!"]
+
+So the whole board of Aldermen set out, walking by twos, with the
+Mayor at their head, to consult the Wise Woman. The Aldermen were all
+very fleshy, and carried gold-headed canes which they swung very high
+at every step. They held their heads well back, and their chins stiff,
+and whenever they met common people they sniffed gently. They were
+very imposing.
+
+The Wise Woman lived in a little hut on the out-skirts of the city.
+She kept a Black Cat; except for her, she was all alone. She was very
+old, and had brought up a great many children, and she was considered
+remarkably wise.
+
+But when the Aldermen reached her hut and found her seated by the
+fire, holding her Black Cat, a new difficulty presented itself. She
+had always been quite deaf, and people had been obliged to scream as
+loud as they could in order to make her hear; but, lately, she had
+grown much deafer, and when the Aldermen attempted to lay the case
+before her she could not hear a word. In fact, she was so very deaf
+that she could not distinguish a tone below G-sharp. The Aldermen
+screamed till they were quite red in their faces, but all to no
+purpose; none of them could get up to G-sharp, of course.
+
+So the Aldermen all went back, swinging their gold-headed canes, and
+they had another meeting in the City Hall. Then they decided to send
+the highest Soprano Singer in the church choir to the Wise Woman; she
+could sing up to G-sharp just as easy as not. So the high-Soprano
+Singer set out for the Wise Woman's in the Mayor's coach, and the
+Aldermen marched behind, swinging their gold-headed canes.
+
+The high-Soprano Singer put her head down close to the Wise Woman's
+ear, and sang all about the Christmas Masquerade, and the dreadful
+dilemma everybody was in, in G-sharp--she even went higher,
+sometimes--and the Wise Woman heard every word. She nodded three
+times, and every time she nodded she looked wiser.
+
+"Go home, and give 'em a spoonful of castor-oil, all 'round," she
+piped up; then she took a pinch of snuff, and wouldn't say any more.
+
+So the Aldermen went home, and each one took a district and marched
+through it, with a servant carrying an immense bowl and spoon, and
+every child had to take a dose of castor-oil.
+
+But it didn't do a bit of good. The children cried and struggled when
+they were forced to take the castor-oil; but, two minutes afterward,
+the chimney-sweeps were crying for their brooms, and the princesses
+screaming because they couldn't go to court, and the Mayor's daughter,
+who had been given a double dose, cried louder and more sturdily: "I
+want to go and tend my geese! I will go and tend my geese!"
+
+So the Aldermen took the high-Soprano Singer, and they consulted the
+Wise Woman again. She was taking a nap this time, and the Singer had
+to sing up to B-flat before she could wake her. Then she was very
+cross, and the Black Cat put up his back and spit at the Aldermen.
+
+"Give 'em a spanking all 'round," she snapped out, "and if that don't
+work put 'em to bed without their supper!"
+
+Then the Aldermen marched back to try that; and all the children in
+the city were spanked, and when that didn't do any good they were put
+to bed without any supper. But the next morning when they woke up they
+were worse than ever.
+
+The Mayor and the Aldermen were very indignant, and considered that
+they had been imposed upon and insulted. So they set out for the Wise
+Woman's again, with the high-Soprano Singer.
+
+She sang in G-sharp how the Aldermen and the Mayor considered her an
+imposter, and did not think she was wise at all, and they wished her
+to take her Black Cat and move beyond the limits of the city. She sang
+it beautifully; it sounded like the very finest Italian opera-music.
+
+"Deary me," piped the Wise Woman, when she had finished, "how very
+grand these gentlemen are." Her Black Cat put up his back and spit.
+
+"Five times one Black Cat are five Black Cats," said the Wise Woman.
+And, directly, there were five Black Cats, spitting and miauling.
+
+"Five times five Black Cats are twenty-five Black Cats." And then
+there were twenty-five of the angry little beasts.
+
+"Five times twenty-five Black Cats are one hundred and twenty-five
+Black Cats," added the Wise Woman, with a chuckle.
+
+[Illustration: SHE SANG IT BEAUTIFULLY.]
+
+Then the Mayor and the Aldermen and the high-Soprano Singer fled
+precipitately out the door and back to the city. One hundred and
+twenty-five Black Cats had seemed to fill the Wise Woman's hut full,
+and when they all spit and miauled together it was dreadful. The
+visitors could not wait for her to multiply Black Cats any longer.
+
+As winter wore on, and spring came, the condition of things grew more
+intolerable. Physicians had been consulted, who advised that the
+children should be allowed to follow their own bents, for fear of
+injury to their constitutions. So the rich Aldermen's daughters were
+actually out in the fields herding sheep, and their sons sweeping
+chimneys or carrying newspapers; while the poor charwomen's and
+coal-heavers' children spent their time like princesses and fairies.
+Such a topsy-turvy state of society was shocking. Why, the Mayor's
+little daughter was tending geese out in the meadow like any common
+goose-girl! Her pretty elder sister, Violetta, felt very sad about it,
+and used often to cast about in her mind for some way of relief.
+
+When cherries were ripe in spring, Violetta thought she would ask the
+Cherry-man about it. She thought the Cherry-man quite wise. He was a
+very pretty young fellow, and he brought cherries to sell in
+graceful little straw baskets lined with moss. So she stood in the
+kitchen-door, one morning, and told him all about the great trouble
+that had come upon the city. He listened in great astonishment; he had
+never heard of it before. He lived several miles out in the country.
+
+"How did the Costumer look?" he asked respectfully; he thought
+Violetta the most beautiful lady on earth.
+
+Then Violetta described the Costumer, and told him of the unavailing
+attempts that had been made to find him. There were a great many
+detectives out, constantly at work.
+
+"I know where he is!" said the Cherry-man. "He's up in one of my
+cherry-trees. He's been living there ever since cherries were ripe,
+and he won't come down."
+
+Then Violetta ran and told her father in great excitement, and he at
+once called a meeting of the Aldermen, and in a few hours half the
+city was on the road to the Cherry-man's.
+
+He had a beautiful orchard of cherry-trees, all laden with fruit.
+And, sure enough, in one of the largest, way up amongst the topmost
+branches, sat the Costumer in his red velvet short-clothes and his
+diamond knee-buckles. He looked down between the green boughs.
+"Good-morning, friends," he shouted.
+
+The Aldermen shook their gold-headed canes at him, and the people
+danced round the tree in a rage. Then they began to climb. But they
+soon found that to be impossible. As fast as they touched a hand or
+foot to the tree, back it flew with a jerk exactly as if the tree
+pushed it. They tried a ladder, but the ladder fell back the moment
+it touched the tree, and lay sprawling upon the ground. Finally, they
+brought axes and thought they could chop the tree down, Costumer and
+all; but the wood resisted the axes as if it were iron, and only
+dented them, receiving no impression itself.
+
+Meanwhile, the Costumer sat up in the tree, eating cherries, and
+throwing the stones down. Finally, he stood up on a stout branch and,
+looking down, addressed the people.
+
+"It's of no use, your trying to accomplish anything in this way," said
+he; "you'd better parley. I'm willing to come to terms with you, and
+make everything right, on two conditions."
+
+The people grew quiet then, and the Mayor stepped forward as
+spokesman. "Name your two conditions," said he, rather testily. "You
+own, tacitly, that you are the cause of all this trouble."
+
+"Well," said the Costumer, reaching out for a handful of cherries,
+"this Christmas Masquerade of yours was a beautiful idea; but you
+wouldn't do it every year, and your successors might not do it at all.
+I want those poor children to have a Christmas every year. My first
+condition is, that every poor child in the city hangs its stocking for
+gifts in the City Hall on every Christmas Eve, and gets it filled,
+too. I want the resolution filed and put away in the city archives."
+
+"We agree to the first condition!" cried the people with one voice,
+without waiting for the Mayor and Aldermen.
+
+"The second condition," said the Costumer, "is that this good young
+Cherry-man here, has the Mayor's daughter, Violetta, for his wife. He
+has been kind to me, letting me live in his cherry-tree, and eat his
+cherries, and I want to reward him."
+
+"We consent!" cried all the people; but the Mayor, though he was
+so generous, was a proud man. "I will not consent to the second
+condition," he cried angrily.
+
+"Very well," replied the Costumer, picking some more cherries, "then
+your youngest daughter tends geese the rest of her life, that's all!"
+
+The Mayor was in great distress; but the thought of his youngest
+daughter being a goose-girl all her life was too much for him. He gave
+in at last.
+
+"Now go home, and take the costumes off your children," said the
+Costumer, "and leave me in peace to eat cherries!"
+
+Then the people hastened back to the city and found, to their great
+delight, that the costumes would come off. The pins staid out, the
+buttons staid unbuttoned, and the strings staid untied. The children
+were dressed in their own proper clothes and were their own proper
+selves once more. The shepherdesses and the chimney-sweeps came
+home, and were washed and dressed in silks and velvets, and went to
+embroidering and playing lawn-tennis. And the princesses and the
+fairies put on their own suitable dresses, and went about their useful
+employments. There was great rejoicing in every home. Violetta thought
+she had never been so happy, now that her dear little sister was no
+longer a goose-girl, but her own dainty little lady-self.
+
+The resolution to provide every poor child in the city with a stocking
+full of gifts on Christmas was solemnly filed, and deposited in the
+city archives, and was never broken.
+
+Violetta was married to the Cherry-man, and all the children came to
+the wedding, and strewed flowers in her path till her feet were quite
+hidden in them. The Costumer had mysteriously disappeared from the
+cherry-tree the night before, but he left, at the foot, some beautiful
+wedding presents for the bride--a silver service with a pattern of
+cherries engraved on it, and a set of china with cherries on it, in
+hand-painting, and a white satin robe, embroidered with cherries down
+the front.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DILL.
+
+
+Dame Clementina was in her dairy, churning, and her little daughter
+Nan was out in the flower-garden. The flower-garden was a little plot
+back of the cottage, full of all the sweet, old-fashioned herbs. There
+were sweet marjoram, sage, summersavory, lavender, and ever so many
+others. Up in one corner, there was a little green bed of dill.
+
+Nan was a dainty, slim little maiden, with yellow, flossy hair in
+short curls all over her head. Her eyes were very sweet and round and
+blue, and she wore a quaint little snuff-colored gown. It had a short
+full waist, with low neck and puffed sleeves, and the skirt was
+straight and narrow and down to her little heels.
+
+She danced around the garden, picking a flower here and there. She was
+making a nosegay for her mother. She picked lavender and sweet-william
+and pinks, and bunched them up together. Finally she pulled a little
+sprig of dill, and ran, with that and the nosegay, to her mother in
+the dairy.
+
+"Mother dear," said she, "here is a little nosegay for you; and what
+was it I overheard you telling Dame Elizabeth about dill last night?"
+
+Dame Clementina stopped churning and took the nosegay. "Thank you,
+Sweetheart, it is lovely," said she, "and, as for the dill--it is a
+charmed plant, you know, like four-leaved clover."
+
+"Do you put it over the door?" asked Nan.
+
+"Yes. Nobody who is envious or ill-disposed can enter into the house
+if there is a sprig of dill over the door. Then I know another charm
+which makes it stronger. If one just writes this verse:
+
+  "'Alva, aden, winira mir,
+    Villawissen lingen;
+  Sanchta, wanchta, attazir,
+    Hor de mussen wingen,'
+
+under the sprig of dill, every one envious, or evil-disposed, who
+attempts to enter the house, will have to stop short, just where they
+are, and stand there; they cannot move."
+
+"What does the verse mean?" asked Nan.
+
+"That, I do not know. It is written in a foreign language. But it is a
+powerful charm."
+
+"O, mother! will you write it off for me, if I will bring you a bit of
+paper and a pen?"
+
+"Certainly," replied her mother, and wrote it off when Nan brought pen
+and paper.
+
+"Now," said she, "you must run off and play again, and not hinder me
+any longer, or I shall not get my butter made to-day."
+
+So Nan danced away with the verse, and the sprig of dill, and her
+mother went on churning.
+
+She had a beautiful tall stone churn, with the sides all carved with
+figures in relief. There were milkmaids and cows as natural as life
+all around the churn. The dairy was charming, too. The shelves were
+carved stone; and the floor had a little silvery rill running right
+through the middle of it, with green ferns at the sides. All along the
+stone shelves were set pans full of yellow cream, and the pans were
+all of solid silver, with a chasing of buttercups and daisies around
+the brims.
+
+It was not a common dairy, and Dame Clementina was not a common
+dairy-woman. She was very tall and stately, and wore her silver-white
+hair braided around her head like a crown, with a high silver comb
+at the top. She walked like a queen; indeed she was a noble count's
+daughter. In her early youth, she had married a pretty young dairyman,
+against her father's wishes; so she had been disinherited. The
+dairyman had been so very poor and low down in the world, that the
+count felt it his duty to cast off his daughter, lest she should do
+discredit to his noble line. There was a much pleasanter, easier way
+out of the difficulty, which the count did not see. Indeed, it was a
+peculiarity of all his family, that they never could see a way out of
+a difficulty, high and noble as they were. The count only needed to
+have given the poor young dairyman a few acres of his own land, and a
+few bags of his own gold, and begged the king, with whom he had great
+influence, to knight him, and all the obstacles would have been
+removed; the dairyman would have been quite rich and noble enough for
+his son-in-law. But he never thought of that, and his daughter was
+disinherited. However, he made all the amends to her that he could,
+and fitted her out royally for her humble station in life. He caused
+this beautiful dairy to be built for her, and gave her the silver
+milk-pans, and the carved stone churn.
+
+"My daughter shall not churn in a common wooden churn, or skim the
+cream from wooden pans," he had said.
+
+The dairyman had been dead a good many years now, and Dame Clementina
+managed the dairy alone. She never saw anything of her father,
+although he lived in his castle not far off, on a neighboring height.
+When the sky was clear, she could see its stone towers against it. She
+had four beautiful white cows, and Nan drove them to pasture; they
+were very gentle.
+
+When Dame Clementina had finished churning, she went into the cottage.
+As she stepped through the little door with clumps of sweet peas on
+each side, she looked up. There was the sprig of dill, and the magic
+verse she had written under it.
+
+Nan was sitting at the window inside, knitting her stent on a blue
+stocking. "Ah, Sweetheart," said her mother, laughing, "you have
+little cause to pin the dill and the verse over our door. None is
+likely to envy us, or to be ill-disposed toward us."
+
+"O, mother!" said Nan, "I know it, but I thought it would be so nice
+to feel sure. Oh, there is Dame Golding coming after some milk. Do you
+suppose she will have to stop?"
+
+"What nonsense!" said her mother. They both of them watched Dame
+Golding coming. All of a sudden, she stopped short, just outside. She
+could go no further. She tried to lift her feet, but could not.
+
+"O, mother!" cried Nan, "she has stopped!"
+
+The poor woman began to scream. She was frightened almost to death.
+Nan and her mother were not much less frightened, but they did not
+know what to do. They ran out, and tried to comfort her, and gave her
+some cream to drink; but it did not amount to much. Dame Golding had
+secretly envied Dame Clementina for her silver milk-pans. Nan and her
+mother knew why their visitor was so suddenly rooted to the spot, of
+course, but she did not. She thought her feet were paralyzed, and she
+kept begging them to send for her husband.
+
+"Perhaps he can pull her away," said Nan, crying. How she wished she
+had never pinned the dill and the verse over the door! So she set off
+for Dame Golding's husband. He came running in a great hurry; but when
+he had nearly reached his wife, and had his arms reached out to grasp
+her, he, too, stopped short. He had envied Dame Clementina for her
+beautiful white cows, and there he was fast, also.
+
+He began to groan and scream too. Nan and her mother ran into the
+house and shut the door. They could not bear it. "What shall we do,
+if any one else comes?" sobbed Nan. "O, mother! there is Dame Dorothy
+coming. And--yes--Oh! she has stopped too." Poor Dame Dorothy had
+envied Dame Clementina a little for her flower-garden, which was finer
+than hers, so she had to join Dame Golding and her husband.
+
+Pretty soon another woman came, who had looked with envious eyes at
+Dame Clementina, because she was a count's daughter; and another, who
+had grudged her a fine damask petticoat, which she had had before she
+was disinherited, and still wore on holidays; and they both had to
+stop.
+
+Then came three rough-looking men in velvet jackets and slouched hats,
+who brought up short at the gate with a great jerk that nearly took
+their breath away. They were robbers who were prowling about with a
+view to stealing Dame Clementina's silver milk-pans some dark night.
+
+[Illustration: A STRANGE SAD STATE OF THINGS.]
+
+All through the day the people kept coming and stopping. It was
+wonderful how many things poor Dame Clementina had to be envied
+by men and women, and even children. They envied Nan for her yellow
+curls or her blue eyes, or her pretty snuff-colored gown. When the
+sun set, the yard in front of Dame Clementina's cottage was full of
+people. Lastly, just before dark, the count himself came ambling up
+on a coal-black horse. The count was a majestic old man dressed in
+velvet, with stars on his breast. His white hair fell in long curls
+on his shoulders, and he had a pointed beard. As he came to the gate,
+he caught a glimpse of Nan in the door.
+
+"How I wish that little maiden was my child," said he. And,
+straightway, he stopped. His horse pawed and trembled when he lashed
+him with a jeweled whip to make him go on; but he could not stir
+forward one step. Neither could the count dismount from his saddle; he
+sat there fuming with rage.
+
+Meanwhile, poor Dame Clementina and little Nan were overcome with
+distress. The sight of their yard full of all these weeping people
+was dreadful. Neither of them had any idea how to do away with the
+trouble, because of their family inability to see their way out of a
+difficulty.
+
+When supper time came, Nan went for the cows, and her mother milked
+them into her silver milk-pails, and strained off the milk into her
+silver pans. Then they kindled up a fire and cooked some beautiful
+milk porridge for the poor people in the yard.
+
+It was a beautiful warm moonlight night, and all the winds were sweet
+with roses and pinks; so the people could not suffer out of doors; but
+the next morning it rained.
+
+"O, mother!" said Nan, "it is raining, and what will the poor people
+do?"
+
+Dame Clementina would never have seen her way out of this difficulty,
+had not Dame Golding cried out that her bonnet was getting wet, and
+she wanted an umbrella.
+
+"Why, you must go around to their houses, of course, and get their
+umbrellas for them," said Dame Clementina; "but first, give ours to
+that old man on horseback." She did not know her father, so many years
+had passed since she had seen him, and he had altered so.
+
+So Nan carried out their great yellow umbrella to the count, and went
+around to the others' houses for their own umbrellas. It was pitiful
+enough to see them standing all alone behind the doors. She could not
+find three extra ones for the three robbers, and she felt badly about
+that.
+
+Somebody suggested, however, that milk-pans turned over their heads
+would keep the rain off their slouched hats, at least; so she got
+a silver milk-pan for an umbrella for each. They made such frantic
+efforts to get away then, that they looked like jumping-jacks; but it
+was of no use.
+
+[Illustration: NAN RETURNS WITH THE UMBRELLAS.]
+
+Poor Dame Clementina and Nan after they had given the milk porridge to
+the people, and done all they could for their comfort, stood staring
+disconsolately out of the window at them under their dripping
+umbrellas. The yard was fairly green and black and blue and yellow
+with umbrellas. They wept at the sight, but they could not think
+of any way out of the difficulty. The people themselves might have
+suggested one, had they known the real cause; but they did not dare to
+tell them how they were responsible for all the trouble; they seemed
+so angry.
+
+About noon Nan spied their most particular friend, Dame Elizabeth,
+coming. She lived a little way out of the village. Nan saw her
+approaching the gate through the rain and mist, with her great blue
+umbrella and her long blue double cape and her poke bonnet; and she
+cried out in the greatest dismay: "O, mother, mother! there is our
+dear Dame Elizabeth coming; she will have to stop too!"
+
+Then they watched her with beating hearts. Dame Elizabeth stared with
+astonishment at the people, and stopped to ask them questions. But she
+passed quite through their midst, and entered the cottage under the
+sprig of dill, and the verse. She did not envy Dame Clementina or Nan,
+anything.
+
+"Tell me what this means," said she. "Why are all these people
+standing in your yard in the rain with umbrellas?"
+
+[Illustration: SUCH FRANTIC EFFORTS TO GET AWAY.]
+
+Then Dame Clementina and Nan told her. "And oh! what shall we do?"
+said they. "Will these people have to stand in our yard forever and
+ever?"
+
+Dame Elizabeth stared at them. The way out of the difficulty was so
+plain to her, that she could not credit its not being plain to them.
+
+"Why," said she, "don't you take down the sprig of dill and the
+verse?"
+
+"Why, sure enough!" said they in amazement. "Why didn't we think of
+that before?"
+
+So Dame Clementina ran out quickly, and pulled down the sprig of dill
+and the verse.
+
+Then the way the people hurried out of the yard! They fairly danced
+and flourished their heels, old folks and all. They were so delighted
+to be able to move, and they wanted to be sure they could move. The
+robbers tried to get away unseen with their silver milk-pans, but some
+of the people stopped them, and set the pans safely inside the dairy.
+All the people, except the count, were so eager to get away, that they
+did not stop to inquire into the cause of the trouble then.
+
+Afterward, when they did, they were too much ashamed to say anything
+about it.
+
+It was a good lesson to them; they were not quite so envious after
+that. Always, on entering any cottage, they would glance at the door,
+to see if, perchance, there might be a sprig of dill over it. And if
+there was not, they were reminded to put away any envious feeling they
+might have toward the inmates out of their hearts.
+
+[Illustration: DAME ELIZABETH STARED WITH ASTONISHMENT.]
+
+As for the count, he had not been so much alarmed as the others, since
+he had been to the wars and was braver. Moreover, he felt that his
+dignity as a noble had been insulted. So he at once dismounted and
+fastened his horse to the gate, and strode up to the door with his
+sword clanking and the plumes on his hat nodding.
+
+"What," he begun; then he stopped short. He had recognized his
+daughter in Dame Clementina. She recognized him at the same moment.
+"O, my dear daughter!" said he. "O, my dear father!" said she.
+
+"And this is my little grandchild?" said the count; and he took Nan
+upon his knee, and covered her with caresses.
+
+Then the story of the dill and the verse was told. "Yes," said the
+count, "I truly was envious of you, Clementina, when I saw Nan."
+
+After a little, he looked at his daughter sorrowfully. "I should
+dearly love to take you up to the castle with me, Clementina," said
+he, "and let you live there always, and make you and the little child
+my heirs. But how can I? You are disinherited, you know."
+
+"I don't see any way," assented Dame Clementina, sadly.
+
+Dame Elizabeth was still there, and she spoke up to the count with a
+curtesy.
+
+"Noble sir," said she, "why don't you make another will?"
+
+"Why, sure enough," cried the count with great delight, "why don't I?
+I'll have my lawyer up to the castle to-morrow."
+
+[Illustration: THE COUNT THINKS HIMSELF INSULTED.]
+
+He did immediately alter his will, and his daughter was no longer
+disinherited. She and Nan went to live at the castle, and were
+very rich and happy. Nan learned to play on the harp, and wore
+snuff-colored satin gowns. She was called Lady Nan, and she lived a
+long time, and everybody loved her. But never, so long as she lived,
+did she pin the sprig of dill and the verse over the door again. She
+kept them at the very bottom of a little satin-wood box--the faded
+sprig of dill wrapped round with the bit of paper on which was written
+the charm-verse:
+
+  "Alva, aden, winira mir,
+    Villawissen lingen;
+  Sanchta, wanchta, attazir,
+    Hor de mussen wingen."
+
+[Illustration: THEY FAIRLY DANCED AND FLOURISHED THEIR HEELS.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SILVER HEN.
+
+
+Dame Dorothea Penny kept a private school. It was quite a small
+school, on account of the small size of her house. She had only twelve
+scholars and they filled it quite full; indeed one very little boy had
+to sit in the brick oven. On this account Dame Penny was obliged to do
+all her cooking on a Saturday when school did not keep; on that day
+she baked bread, and cakes, and pies enough to last a week. The oven
+was a very large one.
+
+It was on a Saturday that Dame Penny first missed her silver hen. She
+owned a wonderful silver hen, whose feathers looked exactly as if they
+had been dipped in liquid silver. When she was scratching for worms
+out in the yard, and the sun shone on her, she was absolutely
+dazzling, and sent little bright reflections into the neighbors'
+windows, as if she were really solid silver.
+
+Dame Penny had a sunny little coop with a padlocked door for her, and
+she always locked it very carefully every night. So it was doubly
+perplexing when the hen disappeared. Dame Penny remembered distinctly
+locking the coop-door; several circumstances had served to fix it on
+her mind. She had started out without her overshoes, then had returned
+for them because the snow was quite deep and she was liable to
+rheumatism. Then Dame Louisa who lived next door had rapped on her
+window, and she had run in there for a few moments with the hen-coop
+key dangling on its blue ribbon from her wrist, and Dame Louisa had
+remarked that she would lose that key if she were not more careful.
+Then when she returned home across the yard a doubt had seized her,
+and she had tried the coop-door to be sure that she had really
+fastened it.
+
+[Illustration: THE SNOW WAS QUITE DEEP.]
+
+The next morning when she fitted the key into the padlock and threw
+open the door, and no silver hen came clucking out, it was very
+mysterious. Dame Louisa came running to the fence which divided her
+yard from Dame Penny's, and stood leaning on it with her apron over
+her head.
+
+"Are you sure that hen was in the coop when you locked the door?" said
+she.
+
+"Of course she was in the coop," replied Dame Penny with dignity. "She
+has never failed to go in there at sundown for all the twenty-five
+years that I've had her."
+
+Dame Penny carefully searched everywhere about the premises. When the
+scholars assembled she called the school to order, and told them of
+her terrible loss. All the scholars crooked their arms over their
+faces and wept, for they were very fond of Dame Penny, and also of the
+silver hen. Every one of them wore one of her silver tail-feathers
+in the best bonnet, or hat, as the case might be. The silver hen had
+dropped them about the yard, and Dame Penny had presented them from
+time to time as rewards for good behavior.
+
+After Dame Penny had told the school, she tried to proceed with the
+usual exercises. But in vain. She whipped one little boy because he
+said that four and three made seven, and she stood a little girl in
+the corner because she spelled hen with one _n_.
+
+Finally she dismissed the scholars, and gave them permission to search
+for the silver hen. She offered the successful one the most beautiful
+Christmas present he had ever seen. It was about three weeks before
+Christmas.
+
+The children all put on their things, and went home and told their
+parents what they were going to do; then they started upon the search
+for the silver hen. They searched with no success till the day before
+Christmas. Then they thought they would ask Dame Louisa, who had the
+reputation of being quite a wise woman, if she knew of any more likely
+places in which they could hunt.
+
+The twelve scholars walked two by two up to Dame Louisa's front door,
+and knocked. They were very quiet and spoke only in whispers because
+they knew Dame Louisa was nervous, and did not like children very
+well. Indeed it was a great cross to her that she lived so near the
+school, for the scholars when out in their own yard never thought
+about her nervousness, and made a deal of noise. Then too she could
+hear every time they spelled or said the multiplication-table, or
+bounded the countries of Africa, and it was very trying. To-day in
+spite of their efforts to be quiet they awoke her from a nap, and she
+came to the door, with her front-piece and cap on one side, and her
+spectacles over her eyebrows, very much out of humor.
+
+[Illustration: TWO BY TWO.]
+
+"I don't know where you'll find the hen," said she peevishly, "unless
+you go to the White Woods for it."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," said the children with curtesies, and they all
+turned and went down the path between the dead Christmas-trees.
+
+Dame Louisa had no idea that they would go to the White Woods. She had
+said it quite at random, although she was so vexed in being disturbed
+in her nap that she wished for a moment that they would. She stood in
+her front door and looked at her dead Christmas-trees, and that
+always made her feel crosser, and she had not at any time a pleasant
+disposition. Indeed, it was rumored among the towns-people that that
+had blasted her Christmas-trees, that Dame Louisa's scolding, fretting
+voice had floated out to them, and smote their delicate twigs like a
+bitter frost and made them turn yellow; for the real Christmas-tree is
+not very hardy.
+
+No one else in the village, probably no one else in the county, owned
+any such tree, alive or dead. Dame Louisa's husband, who had been
+a sea-captain, had brought them from foreign parts. They were mere
+little twigs when they planted them on the first day of January, but
+they were full-grown and loaded with fruit by the next Christmas-day.
+Every Christmas they were cut down and sold, but they always grew
+again to their full height, in a year's time. They were not, it is
+true, the regulation Christmas-tree. That is they were not loaded with
+different and suitable gifts for every one in a family, as they stood
+there in Dame Louisa's yard. People always tied on those, after they
+had bought them, and had set them up in their own parlors. But these
+trees bore regular fruit like apple, or peach, or plum-trees, only
+there was a considerable variety in it. These trees when in full
+fruitage were festooned with strings of pop-corn, and weighed down
+with apples and oranges and figs and bags of candy, and it was really
+an amazing sight to see them out there in Dame Louisa's front yard.
+But now they were all yellow and dead, and not so much as one pop-corn
+whitened the upper branches, neither was there one candle shining
+out in the night. For the trees in their prime had borne also little
+twinkling lights like wax candles.
+
+Dame Louisa looked out at her dead Christmas-trees, and scowled. She
+could see the children out in the road, and they were trudging along
+in the direction of the White Woods. "Let 'em go," she snapped to
+herself. "I guess they won't go far. I'll be rid of their noise, any
+way."
+
+She could hear poor Dame Penny's distressed voice out in her yard,
+calling "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy;" and she scowled more fiercely than
+ever. "I'm glad she's lost her old silver hen," she muttered to
+herself. She had always suspected the silver hen of pecking at the
+roots of the Christmas-trees and so causing them to blast; then, too,
+the silver hen had used to stand on the fence and crow; for, unlike
+other hens, she could crow very beautifully, and that had disturbed
+her.
+
+Dame Louisa had a very wise book, which she had consulted to find the
+reason for the death of her Christmas-trees, but all she could find in
+it was one short item, which did not satisfy her at all. The book was
+on the plan of an encyclopedia, and she, having turned to the "ch's,"
+found:
+
+    "Christmas-trees--very delicate when transplanted, especially
+    sensitive, and liable to blast at any change in the moral
+    atmosphere. Remedy: discover and confess the cause."
+
+After reading this, Dame Louisa was always positive that Dame Penny's
+silver hen was at the root of the mischief, for she knew that she
+herself had never done anything to hurt the trees.
+
+Dame Penny was so occupied in calling "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy," and
+shaking a little pan of corn, that she never noticed the children
+taking the road toward the White Woods. If she had done so she would
+have stopped them, for the White Woods was considered a very dangerous
+place. It was called white because it was always white even in
+midsummer. The trees and bushes, and all the undergrowth, every flower
+and blade of grass, were white with snow and frost all the year round,
+and all the learned men of the country had studied into the reason
+of it, and had come to the conclusion that the Woods lay in a direct
+draught from the North Pole and that produced the phenomenon.
+Nobody had penetrated very far into the White Woods, although many
+expeditions had been organized for that purpose. The cold was so
+terrible that it drove them back.
+
+The children had heard all about the terrors of the White Woods. When
+they drew near it they took hold of one another's hands and snuggled
+as closely together as possible.
+
+When they struck into the path at the entrance the intense cold turned
+their cheeks and noses blue in a moment, but they kept on, calling
+"Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" in their shrill sweet trebles. Every twig on
+the trees was glittering white with hoar-frost, and all the dead
+blackberry-vines wore white wreaths, the bushes brushed the ground,
+they were so heavy with ice, and the air was full of fine white
+sparkles. The children's eyes were dazzled, but they kept on,
+stumbling through the icy vines and bushes, and calling "_Biddy,
+Biddy, Biddy_!"
+
+It was quite late in the afternoon when they started, and pretty soon
+the sun went down and the moon arose, and that made it seem colder. It
+was like traveling through a forest of solid silver then, and every
+once in a while a little frozen clump of flowers would shine so that
+they would think it was the silver hen and dart forward, to find it
+was not.
+
+About two hours after the moon arose, as they were creeping along,
+calling "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" more and more faintly, a singular,
+hoarse voice replied suddenly. "We don't keep any hens," said the
+voice, and all the children jumped and screamed, and looked about for
+the owner of it. He loomed up among some bushes at their right. He was
+so dazzling white himself, and had such an indistinctness of outline,
+that they had taken him for an oak-tree. But it was the real Snow Man.
+They knew him in a moment, he looked so much like his effigies that
+they used to make in their yards.
+
+"We don't keep any hens," repeated the Snow Man. "What are you calling
+hens for in this forest?"
+
+The children huddled together as close as they could, and the oldest
+boy explained. When he broke down the oldest girl piped up and helped
+him.
+
+"Well," said the Snow Man, "I haven't seen the silver hen. I never did
+see any hens in these woods, but she may be around here for all that.
+You had better go home with me and spend the night. My wife will be
+delighted to see you. We have never had any company in our lives, and
+she is always scolding about it."
+
+The children looked at each other and shook harder than they had done
+with cold.
+
+"I'm--afraid our mothers--wouldn't--like to have us," stammered the
+oldest boy.
+
+"Nonsense," cried the Snow Man. "Here I have been visiting you, time
+and time again, and stood whole days out in your front yards, and
+you've never been to see me. I think it is about time that I had some
+return. Come along." With that the Snow Man seized the right ear of
+the oldest boy between a finger and thumb, and danced him along, and
+all the rest, trembling, and whimpering under their breaths, followed.
+
+It was not long before they reached the Snow Man's house, which was
+really quite magnificent: a castle built of blocks of ice fitted
+together like bricks, and with two splendid snow-lions keeping guard
+at the entrance. The Snow Man's wife stood in the door, and the Snow
+Children stood behind her and peeped around her skirts; they were
+smiling from ear to ear. They had never seen any company before, and
+they were so delighted that they did not know what to do.
+
+[Illustration: THE SNOW MAN'S HOUSE.]
+
+"We have some company, wife," shouted the Snow Man.
+
+"Bring them right in," said his wife with a beaming face. She was very
+handsome, with beautiful pink cheeks and blue eyes, and she wore a
+trailing white robe, like a queen. She kissed the children all around,
+and shivers crept down their backs, for it was like being kissed by an
+icicle. "Kiss your company, my dears," she said to the Snow Children,
+and they came bashfully forward and kissed Dame Penny's scholars with
+these same chilly kisses.
+
+"Now," said the Snow Man's wife, "come right in and sit down where it
+is cool--you look very hot."
+
+"Hot," when the poor scholars were quite stiff with cold! They looked
+at one another in dismay, but did not dare say anything. They followed
+the Snow Man's wife into her grand parlor.
+
+"Come right over here by the north window where it is cooler," said
+she, "and the children shall bring you some fans."
+
+The Snow Children floated up with fans--all the Snow Man's family
+had a lovely floating gait--and the scholars took them with feeble
+curtesies, and began fanning. A stiff north wind blew in at the
+windows. The forest was all creaking and snapping with the cold. The
+poor children, fanning themselves, on an ice divan, would certainly
+have frozen if the Snow Man's wife had not suggested that they all
+have a little game of "puss-in-the-corner," to while away the time
+before dinner. That warmed them up a little, for they had to run very
+fast indeed to play with the Snow Children who seemed to fairly blow
+in the north wind from corner to corner.
+
+But the Snow Man's wife stopped the play a little before dinner was
+announced; she said the guests looked so warm that she was alarmed,
+and was afraid they might melt.
+
+[Illustration: PUSS-IN-THE-CORNER.]
+
+A whistle, that sounded just like the whistle of the north wind in
+the chimney, blew for dinner, and Dame Penny's scholars thought with
+delight that now they would have something warm. But every dish on the
+Snow Man's table was cold and frozen, and the Snow Man's wife kept
+urging them to eat this and that, because it was so nice and cooling,
+and they looked so warm.
+
+After dinner they were colder than ever, even. Another game of
+"puss-in-the-corner" did not warm them much; they were glad when the
+Snow Man's wife suggested that they go to bed, for they had visions
+of warm blankets and comfortables. But when they were shown into the
+great north chamber, that was more like a hall than a chamber, with
+its walls of solid ice, its ice floor and its ice beds, their hearts
+sank. Not a blanket nor comfortable was to be seen; there were great
+silk bags stuffed with snow flakes instead of feathers on the beds,
+and that was all.
+
+"If you are too warm in the night, and feel as if you were going to
+melt," said the Snow Man's wife, "you can open the south window and
+that will make a draught--there are none but the north windows open
+now."
+
+The scholars curtesied and bade her good-night, and she kissed them
+and hoped they would sleep well. Then she trailed her splendid robe,
+which was decorated with real frost embroidery, down the ice stairs
+and left her guests to themselves. They were frantic with cold and
+terror, and the little ones began to cry. They talked over the
+situation and agreed that they had better wait until the house was
+quiet and then run away. So they waited until they thought everybody
+must be asleep, and then cautiously stole toward the door. It was
+locked fast on the outside. The Snow Man's wife had slipped an icicle
+through the latch. Then they were in despair. It seemed as if they
+must freeze to death before morning. But it occurred to some of the
+older ones that they had heard their parents say that snow was really
+warm, and people had been kept warm and alive by burrowing under
+snow-drifts. And as there were enough snow-flake beds to use for
+coverlids also, they crept under them, having first shut the north
+windows, and were soon quite comfortable.
+
+In the meantime there was a great panic in the village; the children's
+parents were nearly wild. They came running to Dame Penny, but she was
+calling "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" out in the moonlight, and knew nothing
+about them. Then they called outside Dame Louisa's window, but she
+pretended to be asleep, although she was really awake, and in a
+terrible panic.
+
+She did not tell the parents how the children had gone to the White
+Woods, because she knew that they could not extricate them from the
+difficulty as well as she could herself. She knew all about the Snow
+Man and his wife, and how very anxious they were to have company.
+
+So just as soon as the parents were gone and she heard their voices in
+the distance, she dressed herself, harnessed her old white horse into
+the great box-sleigh, got out all the tubs and pails that she had in
+the house, and went over to Dame Penny, who was still standing out in
+her front yard calling the silver hen and the children by turns.
+
+"Come, Dame Penny," said Dame Louisa, "I want you to go with me to the
+White Woods and rescue the children. Bring out all the tubs and pails
+you have in the house, and we will pump them full of water."
+
+[Illustration: TO THE RESCUE.]
+
+"The pails--full of water--what for?" gasped Dame Penny.
+
+"To thaw them out," replied Dame Louisa; "they will very likely be
+wholly or partly frozen, and I have always heard that cold water was
+the only remedy to use."
+
+Dame Penny said no more. She brought out all her tubs and pails, and
+they pumped them and Dame Louisa's full of water, and packed them into
+the sleigh--there were twelve of them. Then they climbed into the
+seat, slapped the reins over the back of the old white horse, and
+started off for the White Woods.
+
+On the way Dame Louisa wept, and confessed what she had done to Dame
+Penny. "I have been a cross, selfish old woman," said she, "and I
+think that is the reason why my Christmas-trees were blasted. I don't
+believe your silver hen touched them."
+
+She and Dame Penny called "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" and the names of the
+children, all the way. Dame Louisa drove straight to the Snow Man's
+house.
+
+"They are more likely to be there than anywhere else, the Snow Man and
+his wife are so crazy to have company," said she.
+
+When they arrived at the house, Dame Louisa left Dame Penny to hold
+the horse, and went in. The outer door was not locked and she wandered
+quite at her will, through the great ice saloons, and wind-swept
+corridors. When she came to the door with the icicle through the
+latch, she knew at once that the children were in that room, so she
+drew out the icicle and entered. The children were asleep, but she
+aroused them, and bade them be very quiet and follow her. They got out
+of the house without disturbing any of the family; but, once out, a
+new difficulty beset them. The children had been so nearly warm under
+their snow-flake beds that they began to freeze the minute the icy air
+struck them.
+
+But Dame Louisa promptly seized them, while Dame Penny held the horse,
+and put them into the tubs and pails of water. Then she took hold of
+the horse's head, and backed him and turned around carefully, and they
+started off at full speed.
+
+But it was not long before they discovered that they were pursued.
+They heard the hoarse voice of the Snow Man behind them calling to
+them to stop.
+
+"What are you taking away my company for?" shouted the Snow Man.
+"Stop, stop!"
+
+The wind was at the back of the Snow Man, and he came with tremendous
+velocity. It was evident that he would soon overtake the old white
+horse who was stiff and somewhat lame. Dame Louisa whipped him up, but
+the Snow Man gained on them. The icy breath of the Snow Man blew over
+them. "Oh!" shrieked Dame Penny, "what shall we do, what shall we do?"
+
+"Be quiet," said Dame Louisa with dignity. She untied her large
+poke-bonnet which was made of straw--she was unable to have a velvet
+one for winter, now her Christmas-trees were dead--and she hung it on
+the whip. Then she drew a match from her pocket, and set fire to the
+bonnet. The light fabric blazed up directly, and the Snow Man stopped
+short. "If you come any nearer," shrieked Dame Louisa, "I'll put this
+right in your face and--melt you!"
+
+"Give me back my company," shouted the Snow Man in a doubtful voice.
+
+"You can't have your company," said Dame Louisa, shaking the blazing
+bonnet defiantly at him.
+
+"To think of the days I've spent in their yards, slowly melting and
+suffering everything, and my not having one visit back," grumbled the
+Snow Man. But he stood still; he never took a step forward after Dame
+Louisa had set her bonnet on fire.
+
+It was lucky Dame Louisa had worn a worsted scarf tied over her
+bonnet, and could now use it for a bonnet.
+
+The cold was intense, and had it not been that Dame Penny and Dame
+Louisa both wore their Bay State shawls over their beaver sacques, and
+their stone-marten tippets and muffs, and blue worsted stockings
+drawn over their shoes, they would certainly have frozen. As for the
+children, they would never have reached home alive if it had not been
+for the pails and tubs of water.
+
+"Do you feel as if you were thawing?" Dame Louisa asked the children
+after they had left the Snow Man behind.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said they.
+
+Dame Louisa drove as fast as she could, with thankful tears running
+down her cheeks. "I've been a wicked, cross old woman," said she again
+and again, "and that is what blasted my Christmas-trees."
+
+It was the dawn of Christmas-day when they came in sight of Dame
+Louisa's house.
+
+"Oh! what is that twinkling out in the yard?" cried the children.
+
+They could all see little fairy-like lights twinkling out in Dame
+Louisa's yard.
+
+"It looks just as the Christmas-trees used to," said Dame Penny.
+
+[ILLUSTRATION: "I'LL PUT THIS RIGHT IN YOUR FACE AND--MELT YOU!"]
+
+"Oh! I can't believe it," cried Dame Louisa, her heart beating wildly.
+
+But when they came opposite the yard, they saw that it was true. Dame
+Louisa's Christmas-trees stood there all twinkling with lights, and
+covered with trailing garlands of pop-corn, oranges, apples,
+and candy-bags; their yellow branches had turned green and the
+Christmas-trees were in full glory.
+
+"Oh! what is that shining so out in Dame Penny's yard?" cried the
+children, who were entirely thawed, and only needed to get home to
+their parents and have some warm breakfast, and Christmas-presents, to
+be quite themselves. "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" cried Dame Penny, and Dame
+Louisa and the children chimed in, calling, "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!"
+
+It was indeed the silver hen, and following her were twelve little
+silver chickens. She had stolen a nest in Dame Louisa's barn and
+nobody had known it until she appeared on Christmas morning with her
+brood of silver chickens.
+
+"Every scholar shall have one of the silver chickens for a Christmas
+present," said Dame Penny.
+
+"And each shall have one of my Christmas-trees," said Dame Louisa.
+
+Then all the scholars cried out with delight, the Christmas-bells in
+the village began to ring, the silver hen flew up on the fence and
+crowed, the sun shone broadly out, and it was a merry Christmas-day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TOBY.
+
+
+Aunt Malvina was sitting at the window watching for a horse-car which
+she wanted to take. Uncle Jack was near the register in a comfortable
+easy chair, his feet on an embroidered foot-rest, and Letitia, just as
+close to him as she could get her little rocking-chair, was sewing her
+square of patchwork "over and over." Letitia had to sew a square of
+patchwork "over and over" every day.
+
+Aunt Malvina, who was not uncle Jack's wife, as one might suspect, but
+his elder sister, was a very small, frisky little lady, with a thin,
+rosy face, and a little bobbing bunch of gray curls on each side
+of it. She talked very fast, and she talked all the time, so she
+accomplished a vast deal of talking in the course of a day, and the
+people she happened to be with did a vast deal of listening.
+
+She was talking now, and uncle Jack was listening, with his head
+leaning comfortably against a pretty tidy all over daisies in
+Kensington work, and so was Letitia, taking cautious little stitches
+in her patchwork.
+
+"Mrs. Welcome," aunt Malvina had just remarked, "has got a little
+colored boy as black as Toby to wait on table."
+
+Letitia opened her sober, light gray eyes very wide, and stared
+reflectively at aunt Malvina.
+
+"It was dark as Pokonoket when we came out of church last night," said
+aunt Malvina after a time, in the course of conversation.
+
+Letitia stared reflectively at her again.
+
+"There's my car coming around the corner!" cried aunt Malvina, and ran
+friskily out of the room. Just outside the door she turned and thrust
+her face, with the little gray curls dancing around it, in again for a
+last word. "O, Jack!" cried she, "I hear that Edward Simonds' eldest
+son is as crazy as a loon!"
+
+"Is?"
+
+"Yes; isn't it dreadful? Good-by!" Aunt Malvina frisked airily
+downstairs, and out on the street, barely in time to secure her car.
+
+When Letitia heard the front door close after her, she quilted her
+needle carefully into her square, then she folded the patchwork up
+neatly, rose, and laid it together with her thimble, scissors, and
+cotton, in her little rocking-chair. Then she went and stood still
+before uncle Jack, with her arms folded. It was a way she had when she
+wanted information. People rather smiled to see Letitia sometimes, but
+uncle Jack had always encouraged her in it; he said it was quaint.
+Letitia's face was very sober, and very innocent, and very round, and
+her hair was very long and light, and hung in two smooth braids, with
+a neat blue bow on the end of each, down her back.
+
+[Illustration: LETITIA STOOD BEFORE UNCLE JACK.]
+
+Uncle Jack gazed inquiringly at her through his half-closed eyes.
+"What is it, Letitia?"
+
+"Aunt Malvina said 'as black as Toby,'" said Letitia with a look half
+of inquiry, half of anxious abstraction. What Letitia could find out
+herself she never asked other people.
+
+"Yes; I know she did," replied uncle Jack.
+
+"Then she said, 'Dark as Pokonoket.'"
+
+"Yes; she said that too."
+
+"And then she said, 'Crazy as a loon.'"
+
+"Yes; she did."
+
+"Uncle Jack, what is Toby, and what is Pokonoket, and what is a loon?"
+
+"Toby," said uncle Jack slowly and impressively, "lives in Pokonoket,
+and keeps a loon."
+
+"Oh!" said Letitia, in a tone which implied that she was both relieved
+and amazed at her own stupidity.
+
+"Yes; perhaps you would like to hear something more particular about
+Toby--how he got married, for instance?"
+
+"I should, very much indeed," replied Letitia gravely and promptly.
+
+"Well, you had better sit down; it will take a few minutes to tell
+it."
+
+Letitia carefully took her patchwork, her thimble, her spool of
+cotton, and her scissors out of her little rocking-chair and laid them
+on the table; then she sat down, and crossed her hands in her lap.
+
+"Now, if you are ready," said uncle Jack, laughing a little to himself
+as he looked down at her. Then he related as follows: "Toby is a
+little black fellow, not much taller than you are, and he lives in
+Pokonoket, and keeps a loon. Toby's hair is very short and kinky, and
+his mouth is wide, and always curves up a little at the corners, as
+if he were laughing; his eyes are astonishingly bright; but all the
+people's eyes are bright in Pokonoket.
+
+"Pokonoket is a very dark country. It always was dark. The most
+ancient historians make no mention of its ever being light in
+Pokonoket.
+
+"The cause of the darkness has never been exactly understood.
+Philosophers and men of science have worked very hard over it, but all
+the conclusion they have been able to arrive at is, it must be due to
+fog, or smoke, or atmospheric phenomena. The most celebrated of them
+are in favor of atmospheric phenomena, and they are probably correct.
+
+"The houses are always furnished with lamps, of course, and everybody
+carries a lantern. No one dreams of stirring out in Pokonoket without
+a lantern. The men go to their work with lanterns, the ladies take
+theirs when they go out shopping, and all the children have their
+little lanterns to carry to school.
+
+[Illustration: SCHOOL CHILDREN IN POKONOKET.]
+
+"On account of the darkness, there are some very curious customs in
+Pokonoket. One is, all the inhabitants are required by law to wear
+squeaky shoes. Whenever anybody's shoes don't squeak according to the
+prescribed standard he is fined, and sometimes even imprisoned, if he
+persists in his offense. A great many sad accidents are prevented by
+this custom. People hear each other's shoes squeaking in the darkness
+at quite a distance, and don't run into each other. Pokonoket
+shoemakers make a specialty of squeaky shoes, and the squeakier they
+are, the higher prices they bring; they can even put in new squeaks
+when the old ones are worn out. It is a very common thing to see a
+Pokonoket man with his little boy's shoes under his arm, carrying them
+to a shoemaker to get them re-squeaked.
+
+"Another funny custom is the wearing of phosphorescent buttons.
+Everybody, men, women and children, are required to wear
+phosphorescent buttons on their outside garments. They are quite
+large--about the size of an old-fashioned cent--and there are,
+generally, two rows of them down the front of a garment. It is rather
+a frightful sight to see a person with phosphorescent buttons on his
+coat advancing toward one in the dark, till you are accustomed to it;
+he looks as if he had two rows of enormous eyes.
+
+"Then, when the weather is stormy, everybody has to carry an umbrella
+with his name on it in phosphorescent letters. In this way, nobody's
+eyes are put out, and no umbrellas are lost. Otherwise, umbrellas
+would get so hopelessly mixed up in a dark country like Pokonoket that
+it would require a special sitting of Parliament to sort them out
+again.
+
+"It may seem rather odd that they should, but the inhabitants of
+Pokonoket are, as a general thing, very much attached to their
+country, and could not be hired to leave it for any other. It is a
+very peaceful place. There are no jails, and no criminals are executed
+in its bounds. If occasionally a person commits a crime that would
+merit such extreme punishment, he puts out his lantern, and rips off
+his phosphorescent buttons, and nobody can find him to punish.
+
+"But commonly, folks in Pokonoket do not commit great crimes, and are
+a very peaceful, industrious and happy people.
+
+"They have never had any wars amongst themselves, and their country
+has never been invaded by a foreign foe; all that they ever have had
+to seriously threaten their peace and safety was the Ogress.
+
+"A terrible ogress once lived in Pokonoket, and devoured everybody she
+could catch. Nobody knew when his life was safe, and the worst of it
+was, they did not know where she lived, or they would have gone in
+a body and disposed of her. She had a habitation somewhere in the
+darkness, but nobody knew where--it might be right in their midst.
+There are a great many inconveniences about a dark country.
+
+[Illustration: POKONOKET IN STORMY WEATHER.]
+
+"Well, Toby who kept the loon, lived in a little hut on one of
+the principal streets. He was a widower, and lived with his six
+grandchildren who were all quite small and went to school. They were
+his daughter's children. She had died a few years before of a disease
+quite common in Pokonoket, and almost always fatal. It had a long name
+which the doctors had given it, which really meant, 'wanting light.'
+
+"Toby was rather feeble and rheumatic, and it was about all he could
+do to knit stockings for his grandchildren, and make soup for their
+dinner. Almost all day, except when he was stirring the soup, which
+he made in a great kettle set into a brick oven, he was sitting on a
+little stool in his doorway, knitting, and the loon sat on a perch at
+his right hand. The loon who was a very large bird, was crazy, and
+thought he was a bobolink. _Link, link, bobolink!_' he sang all day
+long, instead of crying in the way a loon usually does. His voice was
+not anywhere near the right pitch for a bobolink's song, but that made
+no difference. _Link, link, bobolink!_ he kept on singing from morning
+till night.
+
+"Toby did not mind knitting, but he did not like to make the soup. It
+had never seemed to him to be a man's work, and besides, it hurt his
+old, rheumatic back to bend over the soup-kettle. That was what put
+it into his head to get married again. He thought if he could find a
+pleasant, tidy woman, who would stir the soup while he sat in the
+door beside the loon, and knit the stockings, he could live much more
+comfortably than he did.
+
+"Now Toby thought he knew of just the one he wanted. She was a widow
+who lived a few squares from him. She was as sweet-tempered as a dove,
+and nobody could find a speck of dirt in her house if he was to search
+all day with a lantern.
+
+[Illustration: TOBY AND THE CRAZY LOON.]
+
+"Toby thought about it for a long time. He did not wish to take any
+rash step, but his back got lamer and stiffer, and when one day the
+soup burned on to the kettle, and he dropped some stitches in his
+stocking running to lift it off, he made up his mind.
+
+"The very next morning after his six grandchildren had gone to school,
+he put on his coat with phosphorescent buttons, lit his lantern, and
+started out. _Link, link, bobolink_! cried the crazy loon as he went
+out the door.
+
+"'Yes; I am going to bring home a pleasant and neat mistress for you,
+and maybe you will recover your reason,' said Toby.
+
+"_Link, link, bobolink_! cried the crazy loon.
+
+"Toby limped away through the darkness. The wind was blowing hard that
+morning, and as he turned the corner, puff! came a gust and blew out
+his lantern.
+
+"He felt in every pocket, but he had not a match in one of them. He
+hesitated whether to go back for one or not. Finally, he thought he
+knew the way pretty well and would risk it. His back was worse than
+ever that morning, and he did not want to take any unnecessary steps.
+So he fumbled along until he came to the street where the widow's home
+was; there were five more just like hers, and they stood in a row
+together.
+
+"Much to Toby's dismay, there was not a light in either.
+
+"'Well,' he reflected, 'she is prudent, and is saving her oil, I dare
+say, and I can inquire.'
+
+"So he felt his way along to the first house in the row--he could just
+see them looming up in the darkness. He poked his head inside the
+door. 'Mrs. Clover-leaf!' cried he, 'are you in there? My lantern has
+gone out, and I cannot tell which is your house.'
+
+"There came a little grunt in reply.
+
+"'Mrs. Clover-leaf!' cried Toby again.
+
+"'I am here; what do you want?' answered a voice in the darkness.
+
+"It was so sharp that Toby felt for a moment as if his ears were being
+sawed off, and he clapped his hands on them involuntarily. 'Bless me!
+I had forgotten that Mrs. Clover-leaf had such a voice,' thought he.
+
+"'What do you want?' said the voice again.
+
+"It did not sound quite so sharp this time. He had become a little
+used to it, and, after all, a sharp voice would not prevent her being
+neat and pleasant and stirring the soup carefully.
+
+"So he said, as sweetly and coaxingly as he was able, 'I have come to
+see if you would like to marry me, Mrs. Clover-leaf.'
+
+"'I don't know,' said the sharp voice, 'I had not thought of changing
+my condition.'
+
+"'All you would have to do,' said Toby pleadingly, 'would be to stir
+the soup for my grandchildren's dinner, while I knit the stockings.'
+
+"There came a sound like the smacking of lips out of the darkness
+within the house. 'Oh! you have grandchildren; I forgot,' said the
+voice; 'how many?'
+
+"'Six,' replied Toby.
+
+"'I shall be pleased to marry you,' cried the voice; and Toby heard
+the squeaking of shoes, as if the widow were coming.
+
+"'When shall we be married?' said the sharp voice right in Toby's ear.
+
+"He jumped so that he could not answer for a minute. 'Well,' said he
+finally--'I don't want to hurry you, Mrs. Clover-leaf, but the soup is
+to be made for dinner, and if I don't finish the pair of stockings I
+am on to-day, my eldest grandchild will have to go barefoot. A pair of
+stockings only lasts one a week.' And Toby sighed so pitifully that it
+ought to have touched any widow's heart.
+
+"The widow laughed. Toby felt rather hurt that she should. He did not
+know of any joke. It was a curious kind of a laugh, too; as bad in its
+way as her voice. But what she said the next minute set matters right.
+
+"'Let us go and get married, then,' said she, 'and I will go right
+home and make the soup, and you can finish the stocking.'
+
+"Toby was delighted. 'Thank you, my dear Mrs. Clover-leaf!' he cried,
+and offered her his arm gallantly, and they set off together to the
+minister's.
+
+"The widow took such enormous strides that Toby had to run to keep up
+with her. She was much taller than he, and her bonnet was very large,
+and almost hid her face. Toby could hardly have seen her, if he had
+had his lantern; still he could not help wishing that one of them had
+one, but the widow said her oil was out, so there was no help for it.
+
+"Once or twice when she turned her head toward him, Toby thought her
+eyes looked about twice as large and bright as phosphorescent buttons,
+and he felt a little startled, but he told himself that it was only
+his imagination, of course.
+
+"When they reached the minister's, there was no light in his house,
+either, and it occurred to Toby that it was Fast Day. Once a week,
+Pokonoket ministers sit in total darkness all day, and eat nothing.
+
+"When Toby called, the minister poked his head out of the study
+window, and asked what he wanted.
+
+"Toby told him, and he and the widow stood in front of the study
+window, and were married in the dark, and Toby gave a phosphorescent
+button for the fee.
+
+"The widow took longer steps than ever on the way home, and Toby ran
+till he was all out of breath; she fairly lifted him off his feet
+sometimes, and carried him along on her arm.
+
+"_Link, link, bobolink_! sang the crazy loon when Toby and his bride
+entered the house.
+
+"'Now let's have a light,' cried Toby's wife, and her voice was
+sharper than ever. It frightened the crazy loon so that he left the
+link off the end of his song, and merely said bobo--
+
+"'Yes,' answered Toby, bustling about cheerfully after the matches,
+'and then you will make the soup.'
+
+[Illustration: TOBY RAN TILL HE WAS OUT OF BREATH.]
+
+"'I will make the soup,' laughed his wife.
+
+"Toby felt frightened, he hardly knew why, but he found the matches,
+and lit the lamp. Then he turned to look at his new wife, and saw--the
+Ogress! He had married the Ogress! Horrors!
+
+"Toby sank down on his knees and shook with fear, his little kinky
+curls bristling up all over his head.
+
+"'Pshaw!' said the Ogress contemptuously. 'You needn't shake! Do
+you suppose I would eat such a little tough, bony fellow as you for
+supper? No! When do your grandchildren come home from school?'
+
+"'Oh,' groaned Toby, 'take me, dear Mrs. Ogress, and spare my
+grandchildren!'
+
+"'I should smile,' said the Ogress. That was all the reply she made.
+She talked popular slang along with her other bad habits.
+
+"Toby wept, and groaned, and pleaded, but he could not get another
+word out of her. She filled the great soup-kettle with water, set it
+over the fire (Toby shuddered to see her), then she sat down to wait
+for the grandchildren to come home from school. She was uncommonly
+homely, even for an ogress, and she wore a brown calico dress that was
+very unbecoming.
+
+"Poor Toby gazed at her in fear and disgust. He looked out of the
+door, expecting every moment to see his grandchildren coming, one
+behind the other, swinging their little lanterns. School children
+always walked one behind the other in Pokonoket. It was against the
+law to walk two abreast.
+
+"Finally, when the Ogress was leaning over the soup-kettle, putting
+her fingers in, to see if it was hot enough, Toby slipped out of the
+door, and ran straight to the minister's.
+
+"He stood outside the study window and groaned.
+
+"'What is the trouble?' asked the minister, poking his head out.
+
+"'Oh,' cried Toby, 'you married me to the--Ogress!'
+
+"'You don't say so!' cried the minister.
+
+"'Yes, I do! What shall I do? She is waiting for my grandchildren, and
+the soup-kettle is on!'
+
+"'Wait a minute,' said the minister. 'In a matter of life and death,
+it is permitted to light a lamp on a Fast Day. This is a matter of
+life and death; so I will light a lamp and look in my Encyclop�dia of
+Useful Knowledge.'
+
+"So the minister lit his lamp, and took his Encyclop�dia of Useful
+Knowledge from the study shelf.
+
+"He turned over the leaves till he came to Ogre; then he found Ogress,
+and read all there was under that head.
+
+"'H'm!' he said; 'h'm, h'm! An Ogress is an inconceivably hideous
+creature, yet, like all females, she is inordinately vain, and is
+extremely susceptible to any insinuations against her personal
+appearance! H'm!' said the minister; 'h'm, h'm! I know what I will
+do.'
+
+"Now it was one of the laws in Pokonoket that nobody should have
+a looking-glass but the minister. Once a year the ladies of his
+congregation were allowed to look at themselves in it; that was all. I
+do not know the reason for this law, but it existed.
+
+"The minister took his looking-glass under his arm, and came out of
+his house. 'Now, Toby,' said he, 'take me home with you.'
+
+"'But I am afraid she will eat you, sir,' said Toby doubtfully. 'You
+are not as thin as I am.'
+
+"'I am not in the least afraid,' replied the minister cheerfully.
+
+"So Toby took heart a little, and hastened home with the minister.
+
+"_Link, link, bobolink_! cried the crazy loon as they went in the
+door.
+
+"The minister walked straight up to the Ogress, who was standing
+beside the soup-kettle, and held the looking-glass before her.
+
+"When she saw her face in all its hideous ugliness, the shock was so
+great, for she had always thought herself very handsome, that she gave
+one shriek and fell down quite dead."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Letitia gave a sigh of relief, and uncle Jack yawned. "Well, Letitia,
+that's all," said he, "only Toby married the real widow, Mrs.
+Clover-leaf, the next day, and she made the soup to perfection, and he
+had nothing to do all the rest of his life, but to sit in the doorway
+beside the crazy loon, and knit stockings for his grandchildren."
+
+"Thank you, uncle Jack," said Letitia gravely. Then she got her square
+of patchwork off the table and sat down and finished sewing it over
+and over.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PATCHWORK SCHOOL.
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a city which possessed a very celebrated
+institution for the reformation of unruly children. It was, strictly
+speaking, a Reform School, but of a very peculiar kind.
+
+It had been established years before by a benevolent lady, who had a
+great deal of money, and wished to do good with it. After thinking a
+long time, she had hit upon this plan of founding a school for the
+improvement of children who tried their parents and all their friends
+by their ill behavior. More especially was it designed for ungrateful
+and discontented children; indeed it was mainly composed of this last
+class.
+
+There was a special set of police in the city, whose whole duty was to
+keep a sharp lookout for ill-natured fretting children, who complained
+of their parents' treatment, and thought other boys and girls were
+much better off than they, and to march them away to the school. These
+police all wore white top boots, tall peaked hats, and carried sticks
+with blue ribbon bows on them, and were very readily distinguished.
+Many a little boy on his way to school has dodged round a corner to
+avoid one, because he had just been telling his mother that another
+little boy's mother gave him twice as much pie for dinner as he had.
+He wouldn't breathe easy till he had left the white top boots out of
+sight; and he would tremble all day at every knock on the door.
+
+There was not a child in the city but had a great horror of this
+school, though it may seem rather strange that they should; for the
+punishment, at first thought, did not seem so very terrible. Ever
+since it was established, the school had been in charge of a very
+singular little old woman. Nobody had ever known where she came from.
+The benevolent lady who founded the institution, had brought her to
+the door one morning in her coach, and the neighbors had seen the
+little brown, wizened creature, with a most extraordinary gown on,
+alight and enter. This was all any one had ever known about her. In
+fact, the benevolent lady had come upon her in the course of her
+travels in a little German town, sitting in a garret window, behind a
+little box-garden of violets, sewing patchwork. After that, she became
+acquainted with her, and finally hired her to superintend her school.
+You see, the benevolent lady had a very tender heart, and though she
+wanted to reform the naughty children of her native city, and have
+them grow up to be good men and women, she did not want them to be
+shaken, nor have their ears cuffed; so the ideas advanced by the
+strange little old woman just suited her.
+
+"Set 'em to sewing patchwork," said this little old woman, sewing
+patchwork vigorously herself as she spoke. She was dressed in a
+gown of bright-colored patchwork, with a patchwork shawl over her
+shoulders. Her cap was made of tiny squares of patchwork, too. "If
+they are sewing patchwork," went on the little old woman, "they can't
+be in mischief. Just make 'em sit in little chairs and sew patchwork,
+boys and girls alike. Make 'em sit and sew patchwork, when the bees
+are flying over the clover, out in the bright sunlight, and the great
+bluewinged butterflies stop with the roses just outside the windows,
+and the robins are singing in the cherry-trees, and they'll turn over
+a new leaf, you'll see!" sewing away with a will.
+
+[Illustration: THE PATCHWORK WOMAN.]
+
+So the school was founded, the strange little old woman placed over
+it, and it really worked admirably. It was the pride of the city.
+Strangers who visited it were always taken to visit the Patchwork
+School, for that was the name it went by. There sat the children, in
+their little chairs, sewing patchwork. They were dressed in little
+patchwork uniforms; the girls wore blue and white patchwork frocks
+and pink and white patchwork pinafores, and the boys blue and white
+patchwork trousers, with pinafores like the girls. Their cheeks were
+round and rosy, for they had plenty to eat--bread and milk three times
+a day--but they looked sad, and tears were standing in the corners
+of a good many eyes. How could they help it? It did seem as if the
+loveliest roses in the whole country were blossoming in the garden of
+the Patchwork School, and there were swarms of humming-birds flying
+over them, and great red and blue-winged butterflies. And there were
+tall cherry-trees a little way from the window, and they used to be
+perfectly crimson with fruit; and the way the robins would sing in
+them! Later in the season there were apple and peach-trees, too, the
+apples and great rosy peaches fairly dragging the branches to the
+ground, and all in sight from the window of the schoolroom.
+
+No wonder the poor little culprits cooped up indoors sewing red and
+blue and green pieces of calico together, looked sad. Every day bales
+of calico were left at the door of the Patchwork School, and it all
+had to be cut up in little bits and sewed together again. When the
+children heard the heavy tread of the porters bringing in the bales
+of new calico, the tears would leave the corners of their eyes
+and trickle down their poor little cheeks, at the prospect of the
+additional work they would have to do. All the patchwork had to be
+sewed over and over, and every crooked or too long stitch had to be
+picked out; for the Patchwork Woman was very particular. They had to
+make all their own clothes of patchwork, and after those were done,
+patchwork bed quilts, which were given to the city poor; so the
+benevolent lady killed two birds with one stone, as you might say.
+
+[Illustration: THE PATCHWORK GIRL.]
+
+Of course, children staid in the Patchwork School different lengths of
+time, according to their different offenses. But there were very few
+children in the city who had not sat in a little chair and sewed
+patchwork, at one time or another, for a greater or less period.
+Sooner or later, the best children were sure to think they were
+ill-treated by their parents, and had to go to bed earlier than they
+ought, or did not have as much candy as other children; and the police
+would hear them grumbling, and drag them off to the Patchwork School.
+The Mayor's son, especially, who might be supposed to fare as well
+as any little boy in the city, had been in the school any number of
+times.
+
+There was one little boy in the city, however, whom the white-booted
+police had not yet found any occasion to arrest, though one might have
+thought he had more reason than a good many others to complain of his
+lot in life. In the first place, he had a girl's name, and any one
+knows that would be a great cross to a boy. His name was Julia; his
+parents had called him so on account of his having a maiden aunt who
+had promised to leave her money to him if he was named for her.
+
+So there was no help for it, but it was a great trial to him, for
+the other boys plagued him unmercifully, and called him "missy," and
+"sissy," and said "she" instead of "he" when they were speaking of
+him. Still he never complained to his parents, and told them he wished
+they had called him some other name. His parents were very poor,
+hard-working people, and Julia had much coarser clothes than the other
+boys, and plainer food, but he was always cheerful about it, and never
+seemed to think it at all hard that he could not have a velvet coat
+like the Mayor's son, or carry cakes for lunch to school like the
+lawyer's little boy.
+
+But perhaps the greatest cross which Julia had to bear, and the
+one from which he stood in the greatest danger of getting into the
+Patchwork School, was his Grandmothers. I don't mean to say that
+grandmothers are to be considered usually as crosses. A dear old lady
+seated with her knitting beside the fire, is a pleasant person to
+have in the house. But Julia had four, and he had to hunt for their
+spectacles, and pick up their balls of yarn so much that he got very
+little time to play. It was an unusual thing, but the families on both
+sides were very long-lived, and there actually were four grandmothers;
+two great ones, and two common ones; two on each side of the
+fireplace, with their knitting work, in Julia's home. They were
+nice old ladies, and Julia loved them dearly, but they lost their
+spectacles all the time, and were always dropping their balls of yarn,
+and it did make a deal of work for one boy to do. He could have hunted
+up spectacles for one Grandmother, but when it came to four, and one
+was always losing hers while he was finding another's, and one ball of
+yarn would drop and roll off, while he was picking up another--well,
+it was really bewildering at times. Then he had to hold the skeins of
+yarn for them to wind, and his arms used to ache, and he could hear
+the boys shouting at a game of ball outdoors, maybe. But he never
+refused to do anything his Grandmothers asked him to, and did it
+pleasantly, too; and it was not on that account he got into the
+Patchwork School.
+
+[Illustration: JULIA WAS ARRESTED ON CHRISTMAS DAY.]
+
+It was on Christmas day that Julia was arrested and led away to the
+Patchwork School. It happened in this way: As I said before, Julia's
+parents were poor, and it was all they could do to procure the bare
+comforts of life for their family; there was very little to spend for
+knickknacks. But I don't think Julia would have complained at that; he
+would have liked useful articles just as well for Christmas presents,
+and would not have been unhappy because he did not find some useless
+toy in his stocking, instead of some article of clothing, which he
+needed to make him comfortable. But he had had the same things over
+and over, over and over, Christmas after Christmas. Every year each of
+his Grandmothers knit him two pairs of blue woollen yarn stockings,
+and hung them for him on Christmas Eve, for a Christmas present. There
+they would hang--eight pairs of stockings with nothing in them, in a
+row on the mantel shelf, every Christmas morning.
+
+Every year Julia thought about it for weeks before Christmas, and
+hoped and hoped he would have something different this time, but there
+they always hung, and he had to go and kiss his Grandmothers, and
+pretend he liked the stockings the best of anything he could have had;
+for he would not have hurt their feelings for the world.
+
+His parents might have bettered matters a little, but they did not
+wish to cross the old ladies either, and they had to buy so much yarn
+they could not afford to get anything else.
+
+The worst of it was, the stockings were knit so well, and of such
+stout material, that they never wore out, so Julia never really
+needed the new ones; if he had, that might have reconciled him to the
+sameness of his Christmas presents, for he was a very sensible boy.
+But his bureau drawers were full of the blue stockings rolled up in
+neat little hard balls--all the balls he ever had; the tears used to
+spring up in his eyes every time he looked at them. But he never said
+a word till the Christmas when he was twelve years old. Somehow that
+time he was unusually cast down at the sight of the eight pairs of
+stockings hanging in a row under the mantel shelf; but he kissed and
+thanked his Grandmothers just as he always had.
+
+When he was out on the street a little later, however, he sat down in
+a doorway and cried. He could not help it. Some of the other boys had
+such lovely presents, and he had nothing but these same blue woollen
+stockings.
+
+"What's the matter, little boy?" asked a voice.
+
+Without looking up, Julia sobbed out his troubles; but what was his
+horror when he felt himself seized by the arm and lifted up, and
+found that he was in the grasp of a policeman in white top boots. The
+policeman did not mind Julia's tears and entreaties in the least, but
+led him away to the Patchwork School, waving his stick with its blue
+ribbon bow as majestically as a drum major.
+
+So Julia had to sit down in a little chair, and sew patchwork with the
+rest. He did not mind the close work as much as some of the others,
+for he was used to being kept indoors, attending to his Grandmothers'
+wants; but he disliked to sew. His term of punishment was a long one.
+The Patchwork Woman, who fixed it, thought it looked very badly for a
+little boy to be complaining because his kind grandparents had given
+him some warm stockings instead of foolish toys.
+
+The first thing the children had to do when they entered the school,
+was to make their patchwork clothes, as I have said. Julia had got his
+finished and was busily sewing on a red and green patchwork quilt,
+in a tea-chest pattern, when, one day, the Mayor came to visit the
+school. Just then his son did not happen to be serving a term there;
+the Mayor never visited it with visitors of distinction when he was.
+
+To-day he had a Chinese Ambassador with him. The Patchwork Woman sat
+behind her desk on the platform and sewed patchwork, the Mayor in his
+fine broadcloth sat one side of her, and the Chinese Ambassador, in
+his yellow satin gown, on the other.
+
+The Ambassador's name was To-Chum. The children could not help
+stealing glances occasionally at his high eyebrows and braided queue,
+but they cast their eyes on their sewing again directly.
+
+The Mayor and the Ambassador staid about an hour; then after they had
+both made some remarks--the Ambassador made his in Chinese; he could
+speak English, but his remarks in Chinese were wiser--they rose to go.
+
+Now, the door of the Patchwork School was of a very peculiar
+structure. It was made of iron of a great thickness, and opened like
+any safe door, only it had more magic about it than any safe door ever
+had. At a certain hour in the afternoon, it shut of its own accord,
+and opened at a certain hour in the morning, when the Patchwork Woman
+repeated a formula before it. The formula did no good whatever at any
+other time; the door was so constructed that not even its inventor
+could open it after it shut at the certain hour of the afternoon,
+before the certain hour the next morning.
+
+Now the Mayor and the Chinese Ambassador had staid rather longer than
+they should have. They had been so interested in the school that they
+had not noticed how the time was going, and the Patchwork Woman had
+been so taken up with a very intricate new pattern that she failed to
+remind them, as was her custom.
+
+So it happened that while the Mayor got through the iron door safely,
+just as the Chinese Ambassador was following it suddenly swung to, and
+shut in his braided queue at a very high point.
+
+[Illustration: JULIA ENTERTAINS THE AMBASSADOR THROUGH THE KEYHOLE.]
+
+Then there was the Ambassador on one side of the door, and his queue
+on the other, and the door could not possibly be opened before
+morning. Here was a terrible dilemma! What was to be done? There stood
+the children, their patchwork in their hands, staring, open-mouthed,
+at the queue dangling through the door, and the Patchwork Woman pale
+with dismay, in their midst, on one side of the door, and on the other
+side was the terror-stricken Mayor, and the poor Chinese Ambassador.
+
+"Can't anything be done?" shouted the Mayor through the keyhole--there
+was a very large keyhole.
+
+"No," the Patchwork Woman said. "The door won't open till six o'clock
+to-morrow morning."
+
+"Oh, try!" groaned the Mayor. "Say the formula."
+
+She said the formula, to satisfy them, but the door staid firmly shut.
+Evidently the Chinese Ambassador would have to stay where he was until
+morning, unless he had the Mayor snip his queue off, which was not to
+be thought of.
+
+So the Mayor, who was something of a philosopher, set about
+accommodating himself, or rather his friend, to the situation.
+
+"It is inevitable," said he to the Ambassador. "I am very sorry, but
+everybody has to conform to the customs of the institutions of the
+countries which they visit. I will go and get you some dinner, and an
+extra coat. I will keep you company through the night, and morning
+will come before you know it."
+
+"Well," sighed the Chinese Ambassador, standing on tiptoe so his queue
+should not pull so hard. He was a patient man, but after he had eaten
+his dinner the time seemed terrible long.
+
+"Why don't you talk?" said he to the Mayor, who was dozing beside him
+in an easy-chair. "Can't you tell me a story?"
+
+"I never did such a thing in my life," replied the Mayor, rousing
+himself; "but I am very sorry for you, dear sir; perhaps the Patchwork
+Woman can."
+
+So he asked the Patchwork Woman through the keyhole.
+
+"I never told a story in my life," said she; "but there's a boy here
+that I heard telling a beautiful one the other day. Here, Julia,"
+called she, "come and tell a story to the Chinese Ambassador."
+
+Julia really knew a great many stories which his Grandmothers had
+taught him, and he sat on a little stool and told them through the
+keyhole all night to the Chinese Ambassador.
+
+He and the Mayor were so interested that morning came and the door
+swung open before they knew it. The poor Ambassador drew a long
+breath, and put his hand around to his queue to see if it was safe.
+Then he wanted to thank and reward the boy who had made the long night
+hours pass so pleasantly.
+
+"What is he in here for?" asked the Mayor, patting Julia, who could
+hardly keep his eyes open.
+
+[Illustration: THE GRANDMOTHERS ENJOY THE CHINESE TOYS.]
+
+"He grumbled about his Christmas presents," replied the Patchwork
+Woman.
+
+"What did you have?" inquired the Mayor.
+
+"Eight pairs of blue yarn stockings," answered Julia, rubbing his
+eyes.
+
+"And the year before?"
+
+"Eight pairs of blue yarn stockings."
+
+"And the year before that?"
+
+"Eight pairs of blue yarn stockings."
+
+"Didn't you ever have anything for Christmas presents but blue yarn
+stockings?" asked the astonished Mayor.
+
+"No, sir," said Julia meekly.
+
+Then the whole story came out. Julia, by dint of questioning, told
+some, and the other children told the rest; and finally, in the
+afternoon, orders came to dress him in his own clothes, and send him
+home. But when he got there, the Mayor and Chinese Ambassador had
+been there before him, and there hung the eight pairs of blue yarn
+stockings under the mantel-shelf, crammed full of the most beautiful
+things--knives, balls, candy--everything he had ever wanted, and the
+mantel-shelf piled high also.
+
+A great many of the presents were of Chinese manufacture; for the
+Ambassador considered them, of course, superior, and he wished to
+express his gratitude to Julia as forcibly as he could. There was one
+stocking entirely filled with curious Chinese tops. A little round
+head, so much like the Ambassador's that it actually startled Julia,
+peeped out of the stocking. But it was only a top in the shape of
+a little man in a yellow silk gown, who could spin around very
+successfully on one foot, for an astonishing length of time. There was
+a Chinese lady-top too, who fanned herself coquettishly as she spun;
+and a mandarin who nodded wisely. The tops were enough to turn a boy's
+head.
+
+There were equally curious things in the other stockings. Some of them
+Julia had no use for, such as silk for dresses, China crape shawls and
+fans, but they were just the things for his Grandmothers, who, after
+this, sat beside the fireplace, very prim and fine, in stiff silk
+gowns, with China crape shawls over their shoulders, and Chinese fans
+in their hands, and queer shoes on their feet. Julia liked their
+presents just as well as he did his own, and probably the Ambassador
+knew that he would.
+
+The Mayor had filled one stocking himself with bonbons, and Julia
+picked out all the peppermints amongst them for his Grandmothers. They
+were very fond of peppermints. Then he went to work to find their
+spectacles, which had been lost ever since he had been away.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SQUIRE'S SIXPENCE.
+
+
+Patience Mather was saying the seven-multiplication table, when she
+heard a heavy step in the entry.
+
+"That is Squire Bean," whispered her friend, Martha Joy, who stood at
+her elbow.
+
+Patience stopped short in horror. Her especial bugbear in mathematics
+was eight-times-seven; she was coming toward it fast--could she
+remember it, with old Squire Bean looking at her?
+
+"Go on," said the teacher severely. She was quite young, and also
+stood in some awe of Squire Bean, but she did not wish her pupils to
+discover it, so she pretended to ignore that step in the entry. Squire
+Bean walked with a heavy gilt-headed cane which always went clump,
+clump, at every step; beside he shuffled--one could always tell who
+was coming.
+
+"Seven times seven," begun Patience trembling--then the door
+opened--there stood Squire Bean.
+
+The teacher rose promptly. She tried to be very easy and natural, but
+her pretty round cheeks turned red and white by turns.
+
+"Good-morning, Squire Bean," said she. Then she placed a chair on the
+platform for him.
+
+"_Good_-morning," said he, and seated himself in a lumbering way--he
+was rather stiff with rheumatism. He was a large old man in a green
+camlet cloak with brass buttons.
+
+"You may go on with the exercises," said he to the teacher, after he
+had adjusted himself and wiped his face solemnly with a great red
+handkerchief.
+
+"Go on, Patience," said the teacher.
+
+So Patience piped up in her little weak soprano: "Seven times seven
+are forty-nine. Eight times seven are"--She stopped short. Then she
+begun over again--"Eight times seven"--
+
+The class with toes on the crack all swayed forward to look at
+her, the pupils at the foot stepped off till they swung it into a
+half-circle. Hands came up and gyrated wildly.
+
+"Back on the line!" said the teacher sternly. Then they stepped back,
+but the hands indicative of superior knowledge still waved, the coarse
+jacket-sleeves and the gingham apron-sleeves slipping back from the
+thin childish wrists.
+
+"Eight times seven are eighty-nine," declared Patience desperately.
+The hands shook frantically, some of the owners stepped off the line
+again in their eagerness.
+
+Patience's cheeks were red as poppies, her eyes were full of tears.
+
+"You may try once more, Patience," said the teacher, who was
+distressed herself. She feared lest Squire Bean might think that it
+was her fault, and that she was not a competent teacher, because
+Patience Mather did not know eight-times-seven.
+
+So Patience started again--"Eight times seven"--She paused for a
+mighty mental effort--she must get it right this time. "Six"--she
+began feebly.
+
+"What!" said Squire Bean suddenly, in a deep voice which sounded like
+a growl.
+
+Then all at once poor little Patience heard a whisper sweet as an
+angel's in her ear: "Fifty-six."
+
+"Eight times seven are fifty-six," said she convulsively.
+
+[Illustration: "SIX"--SHE BEGAN FEEBLY.]
+
+"Right," said the teacher with a relieved look. The hands went down.
+Patience stood with her neat little shoes toeing out on the crack. It
+was over. She had not failed before Squire Bean. For a few minutes,
+she could think of nothing but that.
+
+The rest of the class had their weak points, moreover their strong
+points, overlooked in the presence of the company. The first thing
+Patience knew, ever so many had missed in the nine-table, and she had
+gone up to the head.
+
+Standing there, all at once a terrible misgiving seized her. "I
+wouldn't have gone to the head if I hadn't been told," she thought
+to herself. Martha was next below her; she knew that question in the
+nines, her hand had been up, so had John Allen's and Phoebe Adams'.
+
+This was the last class before recess. Patience went soberly out in
+the yard with the other girls. There was a little restraint over all
+the scholars. They looked with awe at the Squire's horse and chaise.
+The horse was tied after a novel fashion, an invention of the Squire's
+own. He had driven a gimlet into the schoolhouse wall, and tied his
+horse to it with a stout rope. Whenever the Squire drove he carried
+with him his gimlet, in case there should be no hitching-post.
+Occasionally house-owners rebelled, but it made no difference; the
+next time the Squire had occasion to stop at their premises there was
+another gimlet-hole in the wall. Few people could make their way good
+against Squire Bean's.
+
+There were a great many holes in the schoolhouse walls, for the Squire
+made frequent visits; he was one of the committee and considered
+himself very necessary for the well-being of the school. Indeed if he
+had frankly spoken his mind, he would probably have admitted that in
+his estimation the school could not be properly kept one day without
+his assistance.
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT!" SAID SQUIRE BEAN SUDDENLY.]
+
+Patience stood with her back against the school fence, and watched
+the others soberly. The girls wanted her to play "Little Sally Waters
+sitting in the sun," but she said no, she didn't want to play.
+
+Martha took hold of her arm and tried to pull her into the ring, but
+she held back.
+
+"What is the matter?" said Martha.
+
+"Nothing," Patience said, but her face was full of trouble. There was
+a little wrinkle between her reflective brown eyes, and she drew in
+her under lip after a way she had when disturbed.
+
+When the bell rang, the scholars filed in with the greatest order and
+decorum. Even the most frisky boys did no more than roll their eyes
+respectfully in the Squire's direction as they passed him, and they
+tiptoed on their bare feet in the most cautious manner.
+
+The Squire sat through the remaining exercises, until it was time to
+close the school.
+
+"You may put up your books," said the teacher. There was a rustle and
+clatter, then a solemn hush. They all sat with their arms folded,
+looking expectantly at Squire Bean. The teacher turned to him. Her
+cheeks were very red, and she was very dignified, but her voice shook
+a little.
+
+"Won't you make some remarks to the pupils?" said she.
+
+Then the Squire rose and cleared his throat. The scholars did not pay
+much attention to what he said, although they sat still, with their
+eyes riveted on his face. But when, toward the close of his remarks,
+he put his hand in his pocket, and a faint jingling was heard, a
+thrill ran over the school.
+
+The Squire pulled out two silver sixpences, and held them up
+impressively before the children. Through a hole in each of them
+dangled a palm-leaf strand; and the Squire's own initial was stamped
+on both.
+
+"Thomas Arnold may step this way," said the Squire.
+
+Thomas Arnold had acquitted himself well in geography, and to him the
+Squire duly presented one of the sixpences.
+
+Thomas bobbed, and pattered back to his seat with all his mates
+staring and grinning at him.
+
+Then Patience Mather's heart jumped--Squire Bean was bidding her step
+that way, on account of her going to the head of the arithmetic class.
+She sat still. There was a roaring in her ears. Squire Bean spoke
+again. Then the teacher interposed. "Patience," said she, "did you not
+hear what Squire Bean said? Step this way."
+
+Then Patience rose and dragged slowly down the aisle. She hung her
+head, she dimly heard Squire Bean speaking; then the sixpence touched
+her hand. Suddenly Patience looked up. There was a vein of heroism in
+the little girl. Not far back, some of her kin had been brave fighters
+in the Revolution. Now their little descendant went marching up to her
+own enemy in her own way. She spoke right up before Squire Bean.
+
+"I'd rather you'd give it to some one else," said she with a curtesy.
+"It doesn't belong to me. I wouldn't have gone to the head if I hadn't
+cheated."
+
+Patience's cheeks were white, but her eyes flashed. Squire Bean
+gasped, and turned it into a cough. Then he began asking her
+questions. Patience answered unflinchingly. She kept holding the
+sixpence toward him.
+
+Finally he reached out and gave it a little push back.
+
+"Keep it," said he; "keep it, keep it. I don't give it to you for
+going to the head, but because you are an honest and truthful child."
+
+Patience blushed pink to her little neck. She curtesied deeply and
+returned to her seat, the silver sixpence dangling from her agitated
+little hand. She put her head down on her desk, and cried, now it was
+all over, and did not look up till school was dismissed, and Martha
+Joy came and put her arm around her and comforted her.
+
+The two little girls were very close friends, and were together all
+the time which they could snatch out of school hours. Not long after
+the presentation of the sixpence, one night after school, Patience's
+mother wanted her to go on an errand to Nancy Gookin's hut.
+
+Nancy Gookin was an Indian woman, who did a good many odd jobs for the
+neighbors. Mrs. Mather was expecting company, and she wanted her to
+come the next day and assist her about some cleaning.
+
+Patience was usually willing enough, but to-night she demurred. In
+fact, she was a little afraid of the Indian woman, who lived all alone
+in a little hut on the edge of some woods. Her mother knew it, but it
+was a foolish fear, and she did not encourage her in it.
+
+"There is no sense in your being afraid of Nancy," she said with some
+severity. "She's a good woman, if she is an Injun, and she is always
+to be seen in the meeting-house of a Sabbath day."
+
+As her mother spoke, Patience could see Nancy's dark harsh old face
+peering over the pew, where she and some of her nation sat together,
+Sabbath days, and the image made her shudder in spite of its
+environments. However, she finally put on her little sunbonnet and set
+forth. It was a lovely summer twilight; she had only about a quarter
+of a mile to go, but her courage failed her more and more at every
+step. Martha Joy lived on the way. When she reached her house, she
+stopped and begged her to go with her. Martha was obliging; under
+ordinary circumstances she would have gone with alacrity, but to-night
+she had a hard toothache. She came to the door with her face all tied
+up in a hop-poultice. "I'm 'fraid I can't go," she said dolefully.
+
+But Patience begged and begged. "I'll spend my sixpence that uncle
+Joseph gave me, and I'll buy you a whole card of peppermints," said
+she finally, by way of inducement.
+
+That won the day. Martha got few sweets, and if there was anything
+she craved, it was the peppermints, which came, in those days, in big
+beautiful cards, to be broken off at will. And to have a whole card!
+
+So poor Martha tied her little napping sunbonnet over her swollen
+cheeks, and went with Patience to see Nancy Gookin, who received the
+message thankfully, and did not do them the least harm in the world.
+
+Martha had really a very hard toothache. She did not sleep much that
+night for all the hop-poultice, and she went to school the next day
+feeling tired and cross. She was a nervous little girl, and never bore
+illness very well. But to-day she had one pleasant anticipation. She
+thought often of that card of peppermints. It had cheered her somewhat
+in her uneasy night. She thought that Patience would surely bring them
+to school. She came early herself and watched for her. She entered
+quite late, just before the bell rang. Martha ran up to her. "I
+haven't got the peppermints," said Patience. She had been crying.
+
+Martha straightened up: "Why not?"
+
+The tears welled out of Patience's eyes. "I can't find that sixpence
+anywhere."
+
+The tears came into Martha's eyes too. She looked as dignified as her
+poulticed face would allow. "I never knew you told fibs, Patience
+Mather," said she. "I don't believe my mother will want me to go with
+you any more."
+
+Just then the bell rang. Martha went crying to her seat, and the
+others thought it was on account of her toothache. Patience kept back
+her tears. She was forming a desperate resolution. When recess came,
+she got permission to go to the store which was quite near, and she
+bought a card of peppermints with the Squire's sixpence. She had
+pulled out the palm-leaf strand on her way, thrusting it into her
+pocket guiltily. She felt as if she were committing sacrilege. These
+sixpences, which Squire Bean bestowed upon worthy scholars from time
+to time, were ostensibly for the purpose of book-marks. That was the
+reason for the palm-leaf strand. The Squire took the sixpences to the
+blacksmith who stamped them with B's, and then, with his own hands, he
+adjusted the palm-leaf.
+
+The man who kept the store looked at the sixpence curiously, when
+Patience offered it.
+
+"One of the Squire's sixpences!" said he.
+
+"Yes; it's mine." That was the argument which Patience had set forth
+to her own conscience. It was certainly her own sixpence; the Squire
+had given it to her--had she not a right to do as she chose with it?
+
+The man laughed; his name was Ezra Tomkins, and he enjoyed a joke. He
+was privately resolving to give that sixpence in change to the
+old Squire and see what he would say. If Patience had guessed his
+thoughts--
+
+But she took the card of peppermints, and carried them to the appeased
+and repentant and curious Martha, and waited further developments in
+trepidation. She had a presentiment deep within her childish soul that
+some day she would have a reckoning with Squire Bean concerning his
+sixpence.
+
+If by chance she had to pass his house, she would hurry by at her
+utmost speed lest she be intercepted. She got out of his way as fast
+as she could if she spied his old horse and chaise in the distance.
+Still she knew the day would come; and it did.
+
+It was one Saturday afternoon; school did not keep, and she was all
+alone in the house with Martha. Her mother had gone visiting. The two
+little girls were playing "Holly Gull, Passed how many," with beans in
+the kitchen, when the door opened, and in walked Susan Elder. She
+was a woman who lived at Squire Bean's and helped his wife with the
+housework.
+
+The minute Patience saw her, she knew what her errand was. She gave a
+great start. Then she looked at Susan Elder with her big frightened
+eyes.
+
+Susan Elder was a stout old woman. She sat down on the settle, and
+wheezed before she spoke. "Squire Bean wants you to come up to his
+house right away," said she at last.
+
+Patience trembled all over. "My mother is gone away. I don't know as
+she would want me to go," she ventured despairingly.
+
+"He wants you to come right away," said Susan.
+
+"I don't believe mother'd want me to leave the house alone."
+
+"I'll stay an' rest till you git back; I'd jest as soon. I'm all
+tuckered out comin' up the hill."
+
+Patience was very pale. She cast an agonized glance at Martha. "I
+spent the Squire's sixpence for those peppermints," she whispered. She
+had not told her before.
+
+Martha looked at her in horror--then she begun to cry. "Oh! I made you
+do it," she sobbed.
+
+"Won't you go with me?" groaned Patience.
+
+"One little gal is enough," spoke up Susan Elder. "He won't like it if
+two goes."
+
+That settled it. Poor little Patience Mather crept meekly out of
+the house and down the hill to Squire Bean's, without even Martha's
+foreboding sympathy for consolation.
+
+She looked ahead wistfully all the way. If she could only see her
+mother coming--but she did not, and there was Squire Bean's house,
+square and white and massive, with great sprawling clumps of white
+peonies in the front yard.
+
+She went around to the back door, and raised a feeble clatter with the
+knocker. Mrs. Squire Bean, who was tall and thin and mild-looking,
+answered her knock. "The--Squire--sent--for--me"--choked Patience.
+
+"Oh!" said the old lady, "you air the little Mather-gal, I guess."
+
+Patience shook so she could hardly reply.
+
+"You'd better go right into his room," said Mrs. Squire Bean, and
+Patience followed her. She gave her a little pat when she opened a
+door on the right. "Don't you be afeard," said she; "he won't say
+nothin' to you. I'll give you a piece of sweet-cake when you come
+out."
+
+Thus admonished, Patience entered. "Here's the little Mather-gal,"
+Mrs. Bean remarked; then the door closed again on her mild old face.
+
+[Illustration: LITTLE PATIENCE OBEYS THE SQUIRE'S SUMMONS.]
+
+When Patience first looked at that room, she had a wild impulse to
+turn and run. A conviction flashed through her mind that she could
+outrun Squire Bean and his wife easily. In fact, the queer aspect
+of the room was not calculated to dispel her nervous terror. Squire
+Bean's peculiarities showed forth in the arrangement of his room, as
+well as in other ways. His floor was painted drab, and in the center
+were the sun and solar system depicted in yellow. But that six-rayed
+yellow sun, the size of a large dinner plate, with its group of lesser
+six-rayed orbs as large as saucers, did not startle Patience as
+much as the rug beside the Squire's bed. That was made of a brindle
+cow-skin with--the horns on. The little girl's fascinated gaze rested
+on these bristling horns and could not tear itself away. Across the
+foot of the Squire's bed lay a great iron bar; that was a housewifely
+scheme of his own to keep the clothes well down at the foot. But
+Patience's fertile imagination construed it into a dire weapon of
+punishment.
+
+The Squire was sitting at his old cherry desk. He turned around and
+looked at Patience sharply from under his shaggy, overhanging brows.
+
+Then he fumbled in his pocket and brought something out--it was the
+sixpence. Then he began talking. Patience could not have told what he
+said. Her mind was entirely full of what she had to say. Somehow
+she stammered out the story: how she had been afraid to go to Nancy
+Gookin's, and how she had lost the sixpence her uncle had given her,
+and how Martha had said she told a fib. Patience trembled and gasped
+out the words, and curtesied, once in a while, when the Squire said
+something.
+
+"Come here," said he, when he had sat for a minute or two, taking in
+the facts of the case.
+
+To Patience's utter astonishment, Squire Bean was laughing, and
+holding out the sixpence.
+
+"Have you got the palm-leaf string?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Patience, curtesying.
+
+"Well, you may take this home, and put in the palm-leaf string, and
+use it for a marker in your book--but don't you spend it again."
+
+"No, sir." Patience curtesied again.
+
+"You did very wrong to spend it, very wrong. Those sixpences are not
+given to you to spend. But I will overlook it this once."
+
+The Squire extended the sixpence. Patience took it, with another dip
+of her little skirt. Then he turned around to his desk.
+
+Patience waited a few minutes. She did not know whether she was
+dismissed or not. Finally the Squire begun to add aloud: "Five and
+five are ten," he said, "ought, and carry the one."
+
+He was adding a bill. Then Patience stole out softly. Mrs. Squire Bean
+was waiting in the kitchen. She gave her a great piece of plum-cake
+and kissed her.
+
+"He didn't hurt you any, did he?" said she.
+
+"No, ma'am," said Patience, looking with a bewildered smile at the
+sixpence.
+
+That night she tied in the palm-leaf strand again, and she put the
+sixpence in her Geography-book, and she kept it so safely all her life
+that her great-grandchildren have seen it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A PLAIN CASE.
+
+
+Willy had his own little bag packed--indeed it had been packed for
+three whole days--and now he stood gripping it tightly in one hand,
+and a small yellow cane which was the pride of his heart in the other.
+Willy had a little harmless, childish dandyism about him which his
+mother rather encouraged. "I'd rather he'd be this way than the
+other," she said when people were inclined to smile at his little
+fussy habits. "It won't hurt him any to be nice and particular, if he
+doesn't get conceited."
+
+Willy looked very dainty and sweet and gentle as he stood in the door
+this morning. His straight fair hair was brushed very smooth, his
+white straw hat with its blue ribbon was set on exactly, there was not
+a speck on his best blue suit.
+
+"Willy looks as if he had just come out of the band-box," Grandma had
+said. But she did not have time to admire him long; she was not nearly
+ready herself. Grandma was always in a hurry at the last moment. Now
+she had to pack her big valise, brush Grandpa's hair, put on his
+"dicky" and cravat, and adjust her own bonnet and shawl.
+
+Willy was privately afraid she would not be ready when the village
+coach came, and so they would miss the train, but he said nothing.
+He stood patiently in the door and looked down the street whence the
+coach would come, and listened to the bustle in Grandma's room. There
+was not an impatient line in his face although he had really a good
+deal at stake. He was going to Exeter with his Grandpa and Grandma, to
+visit his aunt Annie, and his new uncle Frank. Grandpa and Grandma had
+come from Maine to visit their daughter Ellen who was Willy's mother,
+and now they were going to see Annie. When Willy found out that he was
+going too, he was delighted. He had always been very fond of his aunt
+Annie, and had not seen her for a long time. He had never seen his new
+uncle Frank who had been married to Annie six months before, and he
+looked forward to that. Uncles and aunts seemed a very desirable
+acquisition to this little Willy, who had always been a great pet
+among his relatives.
+
+"He won't make you a bit of trouble, if you don't mind taking him. He
+never teases nor frets, and he won't be homesick," his mother had told
+his grandmother.
+
+"I know all about that," Grandma Stockton had replied. "I'd just as
+soon take him as a doll-baby."
+
+[Illustration: WATCHING FOR THE COACH.]
+
+Willy Norton really was a very sweet boy. He proved it this morning
+by standing there so patiently and never singing out, "Ain't you most
+ready, Grandma?" although it did seem to him she never would be.
+
+His mother was helping her pack too; he could hear them talking. "I
+guess I sha'n't put in father's best coat," Grandma Stockton remarked,
+among other things. "He won't be in Exeter over Sunday, and won't want
+it to go to meetin', and it musses it up so to put it in a valise."
+
+"Well, I don't know as I would as long as you're coming back here,"
+said his mother.
+
+After a while she remarked further, "If father should want that coat,
+you can send for it, and I can put in Willy's other shoes with it."
+
+Willy noticed that, because he himself had rather regretted not taking
+his other shoes. He had only his best ones, and he thought he might
+want to go berrying in Exeter and would spoil them tramping through
+the bushes and briers, and he did not like to wear shabby shoes.
+
+"Well, I can; but I guess he won't want it," said Grandma.
+
+At last the coach came in sight, and Grandma was all ready excepting
+her bonnet and gloves, and Grandpa had only to brush his hat very
+carefully and put it on; so they did not miss the train.
+
+Willy's mother hugged him tight and kissed him. There were tears in
+her eyes. This was the first time he had ever been away from home
+without her. "Be a good boy," said she.
+
+"There isn't any need of tellin' him that," chuckled Grandpa, getting
+into the coach. He thought Willy was the most wonderful child in the
+world.
+
+It was quite a long ride to Exeter. They did not get there until
+tea-time, but that made it seem all the pleasanter. Willy never forgot
+how peaceful and beautiful that little, elm-shaded village looked with
+the red light of the setting sun over it. There was aunt Annie, too,
+in the prettiest blue-sprigged, white cambric, standing in her door
+watching for them; and she was so surprised and delighted to see
+Willy, and they had tea right away, and there were berries and cream,
+and cream-tartar biscuits and frosted cake.
+
+Uncle Frank, Willy thought, was going to be the nicest uncle he had.
+There was something about the tall, curly-headed, pleasant-eyed young
+man which won his boyish heart at once.
+
+"Glad to see you, sir," uncle Frank said in his loud, merry voice;
+then he gave Willy's little slim hand a big shake, as if it were a
+man's.
+
+He was further prepossessed in his favor when, after tea, he begged to
+take him over to the store and show him around before he went to
+bed. Grandma had suggested his going directly to bed, as he must
+be fatigued with the journey, but uncle Frank pleaded for fifteen
+minutes' grace, so Willy went to view the store.
+
+It was almost directly opposite uncle Frank's house, and uncle Frank
+and his father kept it. It was in a large old building, half of which
+was a dwelling-house where uncle Frank's parents lived, and where he
+had lived himself before he was married. The store was a large country
+one, and there was a post-office and an express office connected with
+it. Uncle Frank and his father were store-keepers and postmasters and
+express-agents.
+
+The jolly new uncle gave Willy some sticks of peppermint and
+winter-green candy out of the glass jars, in the store-window, and
+showed him all around. He introduced him to his father, and took him
+into the house to see his mother. They made much of him, as strangers
+always did.
+
+"They said I must call them Grandpa and Grandma Perry," he told his
+own grandmother when he got home.
+
+He told her, furthermore, privately, when she came upstairs after he
+was in bed to see if everything was all right, that he thought Annie
+had shown very good taste in marrying uncle Frank. She told of it,
+downstairs, and there was a great laugh. "I don't know when I have
+taken such a fancy to a boy," uncle Frank said warmly. "He is so good,
+and yet he's smart enough, too."
+
+"Everybody takes to him," his grandmother said proudly.
+
+In a day or two Willy wrote a letter to his mother, and told her he
+was having the best time that he ever had in his life.
+
+Willy was only seven years old and had never written many letters, but
+this was a very good one. His mother away down in Ashbury thought so.
+She shed a few tears over it. "It does seem as if I couldn't get along
+another day without seeing him," she told Willy's father; "but I'm
+glad if it is doing the dear child good, and he is enjoying it."
+
+One reason why Willy had been taken upon the trip was his health. He
+had always been considered rather delicate. It did seem as if he had
+every chance to grow stronger in Exeter. The air was cool and bracing
+from the mountains; aunt Annie had the best things in the world to
+eat, and as he had said, he was really having a splendid time. He
+rode about with uncle Frank in the grocery wagon, he tended store,
+he fished, and went berrying. There were only two drawbacks to his
+perfect comfort. One came from his shoes. Grandpa Perry had found an
+old pair in the store, and he wore them on his fishing and berrying
+jaunts; but they were much too large and they slipped and hurt his
+heels. However he said nothing; he stumped along in them manfully, and
+tried to ignore such a minor grievance. Willy had really a stanch vein
+in him, in spite of his gentleness and mildness. The other drawback
+lay in the fact that the visit was to be of such short duration. It
+began Monday and was expected to end Saturday. Willy counted the
+hours; every night before he went to sleep he heaved a regretful sigh
+over the day which had just gone. It had been decided before leaving
+home that they were to return on Saturday, and he had had no
+intimation of any change of plan.
+
+Friday morning he awoke with the thought, "this is the last day."
+However, Willy was a child, and, in the morning, a day still looked
+interminable to him, especially when there were good times looming up
+in it. To-day he expected to take a very long ride with uncle Frank,
+who was going to Keene to buy a new horse.
+
+"I want Willy to go with me, to help pick him out," he told Grandma
+Stockton, and Willy took it in serious earnest. They were going to
+carry lunch and be gone all day. This promised pleasure looked so big
+to the boy, as he became wider awake, that he could see nothing at all
+beyond it, not even the sad departure and end of this delightful visit
+on the morrow. So he went down to breakfast as happy as ever.
+
+"That boy certainly looks better," Grandpa Stockton remarked, as the
+coffee was being poured.
+
+"We must have him weighed before he goes home," Grandma said, beaming
+at him.
+
+"That's one thing I thought of, 'bout stayin' a week longer," Grandpa
+went on. "It seems to be doin' Sonny, here, so much good." Grandpa had
+a very slow, deliberate way of speaking.
+
+Willy laid down his spoon and stared at him, but he said nothing.
+
+"I don't see what you were thinking of not to plan to stay longer in
+the first place," said aunt Annie. "I don't like it much." She made
+believe to pout her pretty lips.
+
+"Well," said uncle Frank, "I'll send for that coat right away this
+morning, so you'll be sure to get it to-morrow night."
+
+"Yes," said Grandpa, "I'd like to hev it to wear to meetin'. Mother
+thinks my old one ain't just fit."
+
+"No, it ain't," spoke up Grandma. "It does well enough when you're at
+home, where folks know you, but it's different among strangers. An'
+you've got to have it next week, anyhow."
+
+Willy looked up at his grandmother. "Grandma," said he tremblingly,
+"ain't we going home to-morrow?"
+
+"Why, bless the child!" said she. "I forgot he didn't know. We talked
+about it last night after he'd gone to bed."
+
+Then she explained. They were going to stay another week. Next week
+Wednesday, Grandpa and Grandma Perry had been married twenty-five
+years, and they were going to have a silver wedding. So they were
+going to remain and be present at it, and Grandpa was going to send
+for his best coat to wear.
+
+Willy looked so radiant that they all laughed, and uncle Frank said he
+was going to keep him always, and let him help him in the store.
+
+Before they started off to buy the horse, uncle Frank telegraphed to
+Ashbury about the coat; he also mentioned Willy's shoes.
+
+The two had a beautiful ride, and bought a handsome black horse. Uncle
+Frank consulted Willy a great deal about the purchase, and expatiated
+on his good judgment in the matter after they got home. One of Willy's
+chief charms was that he stood so much flattery of this kind, without
+being disagreeably elated by it. His frank, childish delight was
+always pretty to see.
+
+The next afternoon he went berrying with a little boy who lived next
+door. At five o'clock aunt Annie ran over to the store to see if the
+coat had come.
+
+"It has," she told her mother when she returned; "it came at one
+o'clock, and Mother Perry gave it to Willy to bring home."
+
+"To Willy? Why, what did the child do with it?" Grandma said
+wonderingly. "He didn't bring it home."
+
+"Maybe he carried it over to Josie Allen's and left it there." Josie
+Allen was the boy with whom Willy had gone berrying. His house stood
+very near uncle Frank's, and both were nearly across the road from the
+store.
+
+"Well, maybe he did, he was in such a hurry to go berrying," said
+Grandma assentingly.
+
+About six o'clock, when the family were all at the tea-table, Willy
+came clumping painfully in his big shoes into the yard. There were
+blisters on his small, delicate heels, but nobody knew it. His little
+fair face was red and tired, but radiant. His pail was heaped and
+rounded up with the most magnificent berries of the season.
+
+"Just look here," said he, with his sweet voice all quivering with
+delight.
+
+He stood outside on the piazza, and lifted the pail on to the
+window-sill. He could not wait until he came in to show these berries.
+He would have to walk way around through the kitchen in those
+irritating shoes.
+
+They all exclaimed and admired them as much as he could wish, then
+Grandma said suddenly: "But what did you do with the coat, Willy?"
+
+"The coat?" repeated Willy in a bewildered way.
+
+"Yes; the coat. Did you take it over to Josie's an' leave it? If you
+did, you must go right back and get it. Did you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why, what did you do with it?"
+
+"I didn't do anything with it."
+
+"William Dexter Norton! what do you mean?"
+
+[Illustration: "JUST LOOK HERE!" SAID WILLY'S SWEET VOICE.]
+
+Everybody had stopped eating, and was staring out at Willy, who was
+staring in. His happy little red face had suddenly turned sober.
+
+"Come in, Sonny, an' we'll see what all the trouble's about, an'
+straighten it out in a jiffy," spoke up Grandpa. The contrast between
+Grandpa's slow tones and the "jiffy" was very funny.
+
+Willy crept slowly down the long piazza, through the big kitchen into
+the dining-room.
+
+"Now, Sonny, come right here," said his grandfather, "an' we'll have
+it all fixed up nice."
+
+The boy kept looking from one face to another in a wondering
+frightened way. He went hesitatingly up to his grandfather, and stood
+still, his poor little smarting feet toeing in, after a fashion they
+had, when tired, the pail full of berries dangling heavily on his
+slight arm.
+
+"Now, Sonny, look up here, an' tell us all about it. What did you do
+with Grandpa's coat, boy?"
+
+"I--didn't do anything with it."
+
+"William," began his grandmother, but Grandpa interrupted her. "Just
+wait a minute, mother," said he. "Sonny an' I air goin' to settle
+this. Now, Sonny, don't you get scared. You jest think a minute.
+Think real hard, don't hurry--now, can't you tell what you did with
+Grandpa's coat?"
+
+"I--didn't--do anything with it," said Willy.
+
+"My sakes!" said his grandmother. "What has come to the child?" She
+was very pale. Aunt Annie and uncle Frank looked as if they did not
+know what to think. Grandpa himself settled back in his chair, and
+stared helplessly at Willy.
+
+Finally aunt Annie tried her hand. "See here, Willy dear," said she,
+"you are tired and hungry and want your supper; just tell us what you
+did with the coat after Grandma Perry gave it to you"--
+
+"She didn't," said Willy.
+
+That was dreadful. They all looked aghast at one another. Was Willy
+lying--Willy!
+
+"Didn't--give--it--to you--Sonny!" said Grandpa, feebly, and more
+slowly than ever.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Grandma Stockton had been called quick-tempered when she was a girl,
+and she gave proof of it sometimes, even now in her gentle old age.
+She spoke very sternly and quickly: "Willy, we have had all of this
+nonsense that we want. Now you just speak right up an' tell the truth.
+What did you do with your grandfather's coat?"
+
+"I didn't do anything with it," faltered Willy again. His lip was
+quivering.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I--didn't"--began the child again, then his sobs checked him. He
+crooked his little free arm, hid his face in the welcome curve, and
+cried in good earnest.
+
+"Stop crying and tell me the truth," said Grandma pitilessly.
+
+Willy again gasped out his one reply; he shook so that he could
+scarcely hold his berry pail. Aunt Annie took it out of his hand and
+set it on the table. Uncle Frank rose with a jerk. "I'll run over and
+get mother," said he, with an air that implied, "I'll soon settle this
+matter."
+
+But the matter was very far from settled by Mrs. Perry's testimony.
+She only repeated what she had already told her daughter-in-law.
+
+"The bundle came on the noon express," said she, "and I told Mr. Perry
+to set it down in the kitchen, and I would see that it got over to
+you. He didn't know how to stop just then. It laid there on one of the
+kitchen-chairs while I was clearing away the dinner-dishes. Then about
+two o'clock I was changing my dress, when I heard Willy whistling out
+in the yard, and I ran into the kitchen and got the bundle, and called
+him to take it. I opened the south door and gave it to him, and told
+him to take it right home to his grandpa. He said he guessed he'd open
+it and see if his shoes had come, and I told him 'no,' he must go
+straight home with it."
+
+That was Mrs. Perry's testimony. Willy heard in the presence of all
+the family; then when the question as to the whereabouts of the coat
+was put to him, he made the same answer. He also repeated that Grandma
+Perry had not given it to him.
+
+"Don't you let me hear you tell that wicked lie again," said his
+Grandma Stockton. She was nearly as much agitated as the boy. She did
+not know what to do, and nobody else did.
+
+Grandpa Perry came over with three sticks of twisted red and white
+peppermint candy, and three of barley. He caught hold of Willy and
+swung him on to his knee. He was a fleshy, jolly man.
+
+"Now, sir," said he, "let's strike a bargain--I'll give you these six
+whole sticks of candy for your supper, and you tell me what you did
+with Grandpa's coat."
+
+"I--didn't do--any"--Willy commenced between his painful sobs, but his
+grandmother interrupted--"Hush! don't you ever say that again," said
+she. "You did do something with it."
+
+"I'll throw in a handful of raisins," said Mr. Perry. But it was of no
+use.
+
+"Well, if the little chap was mine," said Mrs. Perry finally, "I
+should give him his supper and put him to bed, and see how he would
+look at it in the morning."
+
+"I think that would be the best way," chimed in aunt Annie eagerly.
+"He's all tired out and hungry, and doesn't know what he does know--do
+you, dear?"
+
+So she poured out some milk, and cut off a big slice of cake, but
+Willy did not want any supper. It was hard work to induce him to
+swallow a little milk before he went upstairs. His grandmother heaved
+a desperate sigh after he was gone.
+
+"If it was in the days of the Salem witches," said she, "I'd know just
+what to think; as 'tis, I don't."
+
+"That boy was never known to tell a lie before in his whole life--his
+mother said so. He never pestered her the way some children do, lyin';
+an' as for stealin'--why, I'd trusted him with every cent I've got in
+the world." That was Grandpa Stockton.
+
+During the next two or three days every inducement was brought to bear
+upon Willy. He was scolded and coaxed, he was promised a reward if he
+would tell the truth, he was assured that he should not be punished.
+Monday he was kept in his room all day, and was given nothing but
+bread and milk to eat. Severer measures were hinted at, but Grandpa
+Stockton put his foot down peremptorily. "That boy has never been
+whipped in his whole life," said he, "an' his own folks have got to
+begin it, if anybody does."
+
+All the premises were searched for the missing coat, but no trace of
+it was found. The mystery thickened and deepened. How could a boy lose
+a coat going across a road in broad daylight? Why would he not confess
+that he had lost it?
+
+Finally it was decided to take him home. He was becoming all worn out
+with excitement and distress. He was too delicate a child to long
+endure such a strain. They thought that once at home his mother might
+be able to do what none of the rest had.
+
+All the others were getting worn out also. A good many tears had been
+shed by the older members of the company. Poor Mrs. Perry took much
+blame to herself for giving the coat to the boy, and so opening the
+way for the difficulty.
+
+"Mr. Perry says he thinks I ought not to have given the coat to him,
+he's nothing but a child, any way," she said tearfully once.
+
+It was Monday afternoon when Willy was shut up in his room, and all
+the others were talking the matter over downstairs.
+
+Tears stood in aunt Annie's blue eyes. "He's nothing but a baby,"
+said she, "and if I had my way I'd call him downstairs and give him a
+cookie and never speak of the old coat again."
+
+"You talk very silly, Annie," said Grandmother Stockton. "I hope you
+don't want to have the child to grow up a wicked, deceitful man."
+
+Willy's grandparents gave up going to the silver wedding. Grandpa had
+no good coat to wear, and indeed neither of them had any heart to go.
+
+So the morning of the wedding-day they started sadly to return to
+Ashbury. Willy's face looked thin and tear-stained. Somebody had
+packed his little bag for him, but he forgot his little cane.
+
+When he was seated in the cars beside his grandmother, he began to
+cry. She looked at him a moment, then she put her arm around him, and
+drew his head down on her black cashmere shoulder.
+
+"Tell Grandma, can't you," she whispered, "what you did with
+Grandpa's coat?"
+
+"I didn't--do--any"--
+
+"Hush," said she, "don't you say that again, Willy!" But she kept her
+arm around him.
+
+Willy's mother came running to the door to meet them when they
+arrived. She had heard nothing of the trouble. She had only had a
+hurried message that they were coming to-day.
+
+She threw her arms around Willy, then she held him back and looked at
+him. "Why, what is the matter with my precious boy!" she cried.
+
+"O, mamma, mamma, I didn't, I didn't do anything with it!" he sobbed,
+and clung to her so frantically that she was alarmed.
+
+"What does he mean, mother?" she asked.
+
+Her mother motioned her to be quiet. "Oh! it isn't anything," said
+she. "You'd better give him his supper, and get him to bed; he's all
+tired out. I'll tell you by and by," she motioned with her lips.
+
+So Willy's mother soothed him all she could. "Of course you didn't,
+dear," said she. "Mamma knows you didn't. Don't you worry any more
+about it."
+
+It was early, but she got some supper for him, and put him to bed, and
+sat beside him until he went to sleep. She told him over and over that
+she knew he "didn't," in reply to his piteous assertions, and all the
+time she had not the least idea what it was all about.
+
+After he had fallen asleep she went downstairs, and Grandma Stockton
+told her. Willy's father had come, and he also heard the story.
+
+"There's some mistake about it," said he. "I'll make Willy tell me
+about it, to-morrow. Nothing is going to make me believe that he is
+persisting in a deliberate lie in this way."
+
+Willy's mother was crying herself, now. "He never--told me a lie in
+his whole dear little life," she sobbed, "and I don't believe he has
+now. Nothing will ever--make me believe so."
+
+"Don't cry, Ellen," said her husband. "There's something about this
+that we don't understand."
+
+It was all talked over and over that night, but they were no nearer
+understanding the case.
+
+"I'll see what I can do with Willy in the morning," his father said
+again, when the discussion was ended for the night.
+
+Willy was not awake at the breakfast hour next morning, so the family
+sat down without him. They were not half through the meal when there
+were some quick steps on the path outside; the door was jerked open,
+and there was aunt Annie and uncle Frank.
+
+She had Willy's little yellow cane in her hand, and she looked as if
+she did not know whether to laugh or cry.
+
+"It's found!" she cried out, "it's found! Oh! where is he? He left his
+cane, poor little boy!"
+
+Then she really sank into a chair and began to cry. There were
+exclamations and questions and finally they arrived at the solution of
+the mystery.
+
+Poor little Willy had not done anything with Grandpa's coat. Mrs.
+Perry had not given it to him. She had--given it to another boy.
+
+"Last night about seven o'clock," said uncle Frank. "Mr. Gilbert
+Hammond brought it into the store. It seems he sent his boy, who is
+just about Willy's age, and really looks some like him, for a bundle
+he expected to come by express. The boy was to have some shoes in it.
+
+"I suppose mother caught a glimpse of him, and very likely she didn't
+have on her glasses, and can't see very well without them, and she
+thought he was Willy. She was changing her dress, too, and I dare
+say only opened the door a little way. Then the Hammond boy's got a
+grandfather, and the shoes and the whole thing hung together.
+
+"Mr. Hammond said he meant to have brought the bundle back before, but
+they had company come the next day, and it was overlooked.
+
+"Father and mother both came running over the minute they heard of
+it, and nothing would suit Annie but we should start right off on the
+night train, and come down here and explain. And, to tell the truth,
+I wanted to come myself--I felt as if we owed it to the poor little
+chappie."
+
+Uncle Frank's own voice sounded husky. The thought of all the
+suffering that poor little innocent boy had borne was not a pleasant
+one.
+
+Everything that could be done to atone to Willy was done. He was loved
+and praised and petted, as he had never been before; in a little while
+he seemed as well and happy as ever.
+
+The next Christmas Grandpa Perry sent a beautiful little gold watch to
+him, and he was so delighted with it that his father said, "He doesn't
+worry a bit now about the trouble he had in Exeter. That watch doesn't
+seem to bring it to mind at all. How quickly children get over things.
+He has forgotten all about it."
+
+But Willy Norton had not forgotten all about it. He was just as happy
+as ever. He had entirely forgiven Grandma Perry for her mistake. Next
+summer he was going to Exeter again and have a beautiful time; but a
+good many years would pass, and whenever he looked at that little gold
+watch, he would see double. It would have for him a background of his
+grandfather's best coat.
+
+Innocence and truth can feel the shadow of unjust suspicion when
+others can no longer see it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STRANGER IN THE VILLAGE.
+
+
+"Margary," said her mother, "take the pitcher now, and fetch me some
+fresh, cool water from the well, and I will cook the porridge for
+supper."
+
+"Yes, mother," said Margary. Then she put on her little white dimity
+hood, and got the pitcher, which was charmingly shaped, from the
+cupboard shelf. The cupboard was a three-cornered one beside the
+chimney. The cottage which Margary and her mother lived in, was very
+humble, to be sure, but it was very pretty. Vines grew all over it,
+and flowering bushes crowded close to the diamond-paned windows. There
+was a little garden at one side, with beds of pinks and violets in it,
+and a straw-covered beehive, and some raspberry bushes all yellow with
+fruit.
+
+Inside the cottage, the floor was sanded with the whitest sand; lovely
+old straight-backed chairs stood about; there was an oaken table,
+and a spinning-wheel. A wicker cage, with a lark in it, hung in the
+window.
+
+Margary with her pitcher, tripped along to the village well. On the
+way she met two of her little mates--Rosamond and Barbara. They were
+flying along, their cheeks very rosy and their eyes shining.
+
+"O, Margary," they cried, "come up to the tavern, quick, and see! The
+most beautiful coach-and-four is drawn up there. There are lackeys in
+green and gold, with cocked hats, and the coach hath a crest on the
+side--O, Margary!"
+
+Margary's eyes grew large too, and she turned about with her empty
+pitcher and followed her friends. They had almost reached the tavern,
+and were in full sight of the coach-and-four, when some one coming
+toward them caused them to draw up on one side of the way and stare
+with new wonder. It was a most beautiful little boy. His golden curls
+hung to his shoulders, his sweet face had an expression at once gentle
+and noble, and his dress was of the richest material. He led a little
+flossy white dog by a ribbon.
+
+After he had passed by, the three little girls looked at each other.
+
+"Oh!" cried Rosamond, "did you see his hat and feather?"
+
+"And his lace Vandyke, and the fluffy white dog!" cried Barbara. But
+Margary said nothing. In her heart, she thought she had never seen any
+one so lovely.
+
+Then she went on to the well with her pitcher, and Rosamond and
+Barbara went home, telling every one they met about the beautiful
+little stranger.
+
+[Illustration: THE LITTLE STRANGER.]
+
+Margary, after she had filled her pitcher, went home also; and was
+beginning to talk about the stranger to her mother, when a shadow fell
+across the floor from the doorway. Margary looked up. "There he is
+now!" cried she in a joyful whisper.
+
+The pretty boy stood there indeed, looking in modestly and wishfully.
+Margary's mother arose at once from her spinning-wheel, and came
+forward; she was a very courteous woman. "Wilt thou enter, and rest
+thyself," said she, "and have a cup of our porridge, and a slice of
+our wheaten bread, and a bit of honeycomb?"
+
+The little boy sniffed hungrily at the porridge which was just
+beginning to boil; he hesitated a moment, but finally thanked the good
+woman very softly and sweetly and entered.
+
+Then Margary and her mother set a bottle of cowslip wine on the table,
+slices of wheaten bread, and a plate of honeycomb, a bowl of ripe
+raspberries, and a little jug of yellow cream, and another little bowl
+with a garland of roses around the rim, for the porridge. Just as soon
+as that was cooked, the stranger sat down, and ate a supper fit for a
+prince. Margary and her mother half supposed he was one; he had such a
+courtly, yet modest air.
+
+When he had eaten his fill, and his little dog had been fed too, he
+offered his entertainers some gold out of a little silk purse, but
+they would not take it.
+
+So he took hold of his dog's ribbon, and went away with many thanks.
+"We shall never see him again," said Margary sorrowfully.
+
+"The memory of a stranger one has fed, is a pleasant one," said her
+mother.
+
+"I am glad the lark sang so beautifully all the while he was eating,"
+said Margary.
+
+While they were eating their own supper, the oldest woman in the
+village came in. She was one hundred and twenty years old, and, by
+reason of her great age, was considered very wise.
+
+"Have you seen the stranger?" asked she in her piping voice, seating
+herself stiffly.
+
+"Yes," replied Margary's mother. "He hath supped with us."
+
+The oldest woman twinkled her eyes behind her iron-bowed spectacles.
+"Lawks!" said she. But she did not wish to appear surprised, so she
+went on to say she had met him on the way, and knew who he was.
+
+"He's a Lindsay," said the oldest woman, with a nod of her
+white-capped head. "I tried him wi' a buttercup. I held it under his
+chin, and he loves butter. So he's a Lindsay; all the Lindsays love
+butter. I know, for I was nurse in the family a hundred years ago."
+
+This, of course, was conclusive evidence. Margary and her mother
+had faith in the oldest woman's opinion; and so did all the other
+villagers. She told a good many people how the little stranger was
+a Lindsay, before she went to bed that night. And he really was a
+Lindsay, too; though it was singular how the oldest woman divined it
+with a buttercup.
+
+The pretty child had straightway driven off in his coach-and-four as
+soon as he had left Margary's mother's cottage; he had only stopped
+to have some defect in the wheels remedied. But there had been time
+enough for a great excitement to be stirred up in the village.
+
+All any one talked about the next day, was the stranger. Every one who
+had seen him, had some new and more marvelous item; till charming as
+the child really was, he became, in the popular estimation, a real
+fairy prince.
+
+When Margary and the other children went to school, with their
+horn-books hanging at their sides, they found the schoolmaster greatly
+excited over it. He was a verse-maker, and though he had not seen the
+stranger himself, his imagination more than made amends for that.
+So the scholars were not under a very strict rule that day, for the
+master was busy composing a poem about the stranger. Every now and
+then a line of the poem got mixed in with the lessons.
+
+The schoolmaster told in beautiful meters about the stranger's rich
+attire, and his flowing locks of real gold wire, his lips like rubies,
+and his eyes like diamonds. He furnished the little dog with hair of
+real floss silk, and called his ribbon a silver chain. Then the coach,
+as it rolled along, presented such a dazzling appearance, that several
+persons who inadvertently looked at it had been blinded. It was the
+schoolmaster's opinion, set forth in his poem, that this really was a
+prince. One could scarcely doubt it, on reading the poem. It is a pity
+it has not been preserved, but it was destroyed--how, will transpire
+further on.
+
+Well, two days after this dainty stranger with his coach-and-four
+came to the village, a little wretched beggar-boy, leading by a dirty
+string a forlorn muddy little dog, appeared on the street. He went to
+the tavern first, but the host pushed him out of the door, throwing a
+pewter porringer after him, which hit the poor little dog and made it
+yelp. Then he spoke pitifully to the people he met, and knocked at the
+cottage doors; but every one drove him away. He met the oldest woman,
+but she gathered her skirts closely around her and hobbled by, her
+pointed nose up in the air, and her cap-strings flying straight out
+behind.
+
+"I prithee, granny," he called after her, "try me with the buttercup
+again, and see if I be not a Lindsay."
+
+"Thou a Lindsay," quoth the oldest woman contemptuously; but she was
+very curious, so she turned around and held a buttercup underneath the
+boy's dirty chin.
+
+"Bah," said the oldest woman, "a Lindsay indeed! Butter hath no charm
+for thee, and the Lindsays, all loved it. I know, for I was nurse in
+the family a hundred year ago."
+
+Then she hobbled away faster than ever, and the poor boy kept on. Then
+he met the schoolmaster, who had his new poem in a great roll in his
+hand. "What little vagabond is this?" muttered he, gazing at him with
+disgust. "He hath driven a fine metaphor out of my head."
+
+When the boy reached the cottage where Margary and her mother lived,
+the dame was sitting in the door spinning, and the little girl was
+picking roses from a bush under the window, to fill a tall china mug
+which they kept on a shelf.
+
+When Margary heard the gate click, and turning, saw the boy, she
+started so that she let her pinafore full of roses slip, and the
+flowers all fell out on the ground. Then she dropped an humble
+curtesy; and her mother rose and curtesied also, though she had not
+recognized her guest as soon as Margary.
+
+The poor little stranger fairly wept for joy. "Ah, you remember me,"
+he said betwixt smiles and tears.
+
+Then he entered the cottage, and while Margary and her mother got some
+refreshment ready for him, he told his pitiful story.
+
+His father was a Lindsay, and a very rich and noble gentleman. Some
+little time before, he and his little son had journeyed to London,
+with their coach-and-four. Business having detained him longer than he
+had anticipated, and fearing his lady might be uneasy, he had sent his
+son home in advance, in the coach, with his lackeys and attendants.
+Everything had gone safely till after leaving this village. Some miles
+beyond, they had been attacked by highwaymen and robbed. The servants
+had either been taken prisoners or fled. The thieves had driven off
+with the coach-and-four, and the poor little boy had crawled back to
+the village.
+
+Margary and her mother did all they could to comfort him. They
+prepared some hot broth for him, and opened a bottle of cowslip wine.
+Margary's mother gave him some clean clothes, which had belonged to
+her son who had died. The little gentleman looked funny in the little
+rustic's blue smock, but he was very comfortable. They fed the forlorn
+little dog too, and washed him till his white hair looked fluffy and
+silky again.
+
+When the London mail stopped in the village, the next day, they sent a
+message to Lord Lindsay, and in a week's time, he came after his son.
+He was a very grand gentleman; his dress was all velvet and satin, and
+blazing with jewels. How the villagers stared. They had flatly refused
+to believe that this last little stranger was the first one, and had
+made great fun of Margary and her mother for being so credulous.
+But they had not minded. They had given their guest a little pallet
+stuffed with down, and a pillow stuffed with rose-leaves to sleep on,
+and fed him with the best they had. His father, in his gratitude,
+offered Margary's mother rich rewards; but she would take nothing. The
+little boy cried on parting with his kind friends, and Margary cried
+too.
+
+"I prithee, pretty Margary, do not forget me," said he.
+
+And she promised she never would, and gave him a sprig of rosemary out
+of her garden to wear for a breastknot.
+
+The villagers were greatly mortified when they discovered the mistake
+they had made. However, the oldest woman always maintained that her
+not having her spectacles on, when she met the stranger the second
+time, was the reason of her not seeing that he loved butter; and the
+schoolmaster gave his poetical abstraction for an excuse. Mine host
+of the "Boar's Head" fairly tore his hair, and flung the pewter
+porringer, which he had thrown after the stranger and his dog, into
+the well. After that he was very careful how he turned away strangers
+because of their appearance. Generally he sent for the oldest woman to
+put her spectacles on, and try the buttercup test. Then, if she
+said they loved butter and were Lindsays, they were taken in and
+entertained royally. She generally did say they loved butter--she
+was so afraid of making a mistake the second time, herself; so the
+village-inn got to be a regular refuge for beggars, and they called it
+amongst themselves the "Beggars' Rest," instead of the "Boar's Head."
+
+As for Margary, she grew up to be the pride of the village; and in
+time, Lord Lindsay's son, who had always kept the sprig of rosemary,
+came and married her. They had a beautiful wedding; all of the
+villagers were invited; the bridegroom did not cherish any resentment.
+They danced on the green, and the Lindsay pipers played for them. The
+bride wore a white damask petticoat worked with pink roses, her pink
+satin shortgown was looped up with garlands of them, and she wore a
+wreath of roses on her head.
+
+The oldest woman came to the wedding, and hobbled up to the bridegroom
+with a buttercup. "Thou beest a Lindsay," said she. "Thou lovest
+butter, and the Lindsays all did. I know, for I was nurse in the
+family a hundred year ago."
+
+As for the schoolmaster, he was distressed. His wife had taken his
+poem on the stranger for papers to curl her hair on for the wedding,
+and he had just discovered it. He had calculated on making a present
+of it to the young couple.
+
+However, he wrote another on the wedding, of which one verse is still
+extant, and we will give it:
+
+  "When Lindsay wedded Margary,
+  Merrily piped the pipers all.
+  The bride, the village-pride was she,
+  The groom, a gay gallant was he.
+  Merrily piped the pipers all.
+  When Lindsay wedded Margary."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BOUND GIRL.
+
+
+    This Indenture Wittnesseth, That I Margaret Burjust of Boston, in
+    the County of Suffolk and Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New
+    England. Have placed, and by these presents do place and bind out
+    my only Daughter whose name is Ann Ginnins to be an Apprentice
+    unto Samuel Wales and his wife of Braintree in the County
+    afores:^d, Blacksmith. To them and their Heirs and with them the
+    s:^d Samuel Wales, his wife and their Heirs, after the manner of
+    an apprentice to dwell and Serve from the day of the date hereof
+    for and during the full and Just Term of Sixteen years, three
+    months and twenty-three day's next ensueing and fully to be
+    Compleat, during all which term the s:^d apprentice her s:^d
+    Master and Mistress faithfully Shall Serve, Their Secrets keep
+    close, and Lawful and reasonable Command everywhere gladly do and
+    perform.
+
+    Damage to her s:^d Master and Mistress she shall not willingly
+    do. Her s:^d Master's goods she shall not waste, Embezel,
+    purloin or lend unto Others nor suffer the same to be wasted or
+    purloined. But to her power Shall discover the Same to her s:^d
+    Master. Taverns or Ailhouss she Shall not frequent, at any
+    unlawful game She Shall not play, Matrimony she Shall not Contract
+    with any persons during s:^d Term. From her master's Service She
+    Shall not at any time unlawfully absent herself. But in all things
+    as a good honest and faithful Servant and apprentice Shall bear
+    and behave herself, During the full term afores:^d Commencing
+    from the third day of November Anno Dom: One Thousand, Seven
+    Hundred fifty and three. And the s:^d Master for himself, wife,
+    and Heir's, Doth Covenant Promise Grant and Agree unto and with
+    the s:^d apprentice and the s:^d Margaret Burjust, in manner
+    and form following. That is to say, That they will teach the
+    s:^d apprentice or Cause her to be taught in the Art of good
+    housewifery, and also to read and write well. And will find and
+    provide for and give unto s:^d apprentice good and sufficient
+    Meat Drink washing and lodging both in Sickness and in health, and
+    at the Expiration of said term to Dismiss s:^d apprentice with
+    two Good Suits of Apparrel both of woolen and linnin for all parts
+    of her body (viz) One for Lord-days and one for working days
+    Suitable to her Quality. In Testimony whereof I Samuel Wales and
+    Margaret Burjust Have Interchangably Sett their hands and Seals
+    this Third day November Anno Dom: 1753, and in the twenty-Seventh
+    year of the Reign of our Soveraig'n Lord George the Second of
+    great Britain the King.
+
+      Signed Sealed & Delivered.
+        In presence of
+        SAM VAUGHAN                Margaret Burgis
+        MARY VAUGHAN               her X mark.
+
+
+This quaint document was carefully locked up, with some old deeds and
+other valuable papers, in his desk, by the "s:^d Samuel Wales," one
+hundred and thirty years ago. The desk was a rude, unpainted pine
+affair, and it reared itself on its four stilt-like legs in a corner
+of his kitchen, in his house in the South Precinct of Braintree. The
+sharp eyes of the little "s:^d apprentice" had noted it oftener and
+more enviously than any other article of furniture in the house. On
+the night of her arrival, after her journey of fourteen miles from
+Boston, over a rough bridle-road, on a jolting horse, clinging
+tremblingly to her new "Master," she peered through her little red
+fingers at the desk swallowing up those precious papers which Samuel
+Wales drew from his pocket with an important air. She was hardly five
+years old, but she was an acute child; and she watched her master draw
+forth the papers, show them to his wife, Polly, and lock them up in
+the desk, with the full understanding that they had something to do
+with her coming to this strange place; and, already, a shadowy purpose
+began to form itself in her mind.
+
+She sat on a cunning little wooden stool, close to the fireplace,
+and kept her small chapped hands persistently over her face; she was
+scared, and grieved, and, withal, a trifle sulky. Mrs. Polly Wales
+cooked some Indian meal mush for supper in an iron pot swinging from
+its trammel over the blazing logs, and cast scrutinizing glances at
+the little stranger. She had welcomed her kindly, taken off her outer
+garments, and established her on the little stool in the warmest
+corner, but the child had given a very ungracious response. She would
+not answer a word to Mrs. Wales' coaxing questions, but twitched
+herself away with all her small might, and kept her hands tightly over
+her eyes, only peering between her fingers when she thought no one was
+noticing.
+
+She had behaved after the same fashion all the way from Boston, as Mr.
+Wales told his wife in a whisper. The two were a little dismayed at
+the whole appearance of the small apprentice; to tell the truth, she
+was not in the least what they had expected. They had been revolving
+this scheme of taking "a bound girl" for some time in their minds; and
+Samuel Wales' gossip in Boston, Sam Vaughan, had been requested to
+keep a lookout for a suitable person.
+
+So, when word came that one had been found, Mr. Wales had started at
+once for the city. When he saw the child, he was dismayed. He had
+expected to see a girl of ten; this one was hardly five, and she
+had anything but the demure and decorous air which his Puritan mind
+esteemed becoming and appropriate in a little maiden. Her hair was
+black and curled tightly, instead of being brown and straight parted
+in the middle, and combed smoothly over her ears as his taste
+regulated; her eyes were black and flashing, instead of being blue,
+and downcast. The minute he saw the child, he felt a disapproval of
+her rise in his heart, and also something akin to terror. He dreaded
+to take this odd-looking child home to his wife Polly; he foresaw
+contention and mischief in their quiet household. But he felt as if
+his word was rather pledged to his gossip, and there was the mother,
+waiting and expectant. She was a red-cheeked English girl, who had
+been in Sam Vaughan's employ; she had recently married one Burjust,
+and he was unwilling to support the first husband's child, so this
+chance to bind her out and secure a good home for her had been eagerly
+caught at.
+
+The small Ann seemed rather at Samuel Wales' mercy, and he had not
+the courage to disappoint his friend or her mother; so the necessary
+papers were made out, Sam Vaughan's and wife's signatures affixed, and
+Margaret Burjust's mark, and he set out on his homeward journey with
+the child.
+
+The mother was coarse and illiterate, but she had some natural
+affection; she "took on" sadly when the little girl was about to leave
+her, and Ann clung to her frantically. It was a pitiful scene, and
+Samuel Wales, who was a very tender-hearted man, was glad when it was
+over, and he jogging along the bridle-path.
+
+But he had had other troubles to encounter. All at once, as he rode
+through Boston streets, with his little charge behind him, after
+leaving his friend's house, he felt a vicious little twitch at his
+hair, which he wore in a queue tied with a black ribbon after the
+fashion of the period. Twitch, twitch, twitch! The water came into
+Samuel Wales' eyes, and the blood to his cheeks, while the passers-by
+began to hoot and laugh. His horse became alarmed at the hubbub, and
+started up. For a few minutes the poor man could do nothing to free
+himself. It was wonderful what strength the little creature had: she
+clinched her tiny fingers in the braid, and pulled, and pulled.
+Then, all at once, her grasp slackened, and off flew her master's
+steeple-crowned hat into the dust, and the neat black ribbon on the
+end of the queue followed it. Samuel Wales reined up his horse with a
+jerk then, and turned round, and administered a sounding box on each
+of his apprentice's ears. Then he dismounted, amid shouts of laughter
+from the spectators, and got a man to hold the horse while he went
+back and picked up his hat and ribbon.
+
+He had no further trouble. The boxes seemed to have subdued Ann
+effectually. But he pondered uneasily all the way home on the small
+vessel of wrath which was perched up behind him, and there was a
+tingling sensation at the roots of his queue. He wondered what Polly
+would say. The first glance at her face, when he lifted Ann off the
+horse at his own door, confirmed his fears. She expressed her mind,
+in a womanly way, by whispering in his ear at the first opportunity,
+"She's as black as an Injun."
+
+After Ann had eaten her supper, and had been tucked away between some
+tow sheets and homespun blankets in a trundle-bed, she heard the whole
+story, and lifted up her hands with horror. Then the good couple read
+a chapter, and prayed, solemnly vowing to do their duty by this
+child which they had taken under their roof, and imploring Divine
+assistance.
+
+As time wore on, it became evident that they stood in sore need of it.
+They had never had any children of their own, and Ann Ginnins was the
+first child who had ever lived with them. But she seemed to have the
+freaks of a dozen or more in herself, and they bade fair to have the
+experience of bringing up a whole troop with this one. They tried
+faithfully to do their duty by her, but they were not used to
+children, and she was a very hard child to manage. A whole legion of
+mischievous spirits seemed to dwell in her at times, and she became
+in a small and comparatively innocent way, the scandal of the staid
+Puritan neighborhood in which she lived. Yet, withal, she was so
+affectionate, and seemed to be actuated by so little real malice in
+any of her pranks, that people could not help having a sort of liking
+for the child, in spite of them.
+
+She was quick to learn, and smart to work, too, when she chose.
+Sometimes she flew about with such alacrity that it seemed as if
+her little limbs were hung on wires, and no little girl in the
+neighborhood could do her daily tasks in the time she could, and they
+were no inconsiderable tasks, either.
+
+Very soon after her arrival she was set to "winding quills," so many
+every day. Seated at Mrs. Polly's side, in her little homespun gown,
+winding quills through sunny forenoons--how she hated it. She liked
+feeding the hens and pigs better, and when she got promoted to driving
+the cows, a couple of years later, she was in her element. There were
+charming possibilities of nuts and checkerberries and sassafras and
+sweet flag all the way between the house and the pasture, and the
+chance to loiter, and have a romp.
+
+She rarely showed any unwillingness to go for the cows; but once, when
+there was a quilting at her mistress's house, she demurred. It was
+right in the midst of the festivities; they were just preparing for
+supper, in fact. Ann knew all about the good things in the pantry, she
+was wild with delight at the unwonted stir, and anxious not to lose
+a minute of it. She thought some one else might go for the cows that
+night. She cried and sulked, but there was no help for it. Go she had
+to. So she tucked up her gown--it was her best Sunday one--took her
+stick, and trudged along. When she came to the pasture, there were her
+master's cows waiting at the bars. So were Neighbor Belcher's cows
+also, in the adjoining pasture. Ann had her hand on the topmost of her
+own bars, when she happened to glance over at Neighbor Belcher's, and
+a thought struck her. She burst into a peal of laughter, and took a
+step towards the other bars. Then she went back to her own. Finally,
+she let down the Belcher bars, and the Belcher cows crowded out, to
+the great astonishment of the Wales cows, who stared over their high
+rails and mooed uneasily.
+
+Ann drove the Belcher cows home and ushered them into Samuel Wales'
+barnyard with speed. Then she went demurely into the house. The table
+looked beautiful. Ann was beginning to quake inwardly, though she
+still was hugging herself, so to speak, in secret enjoyment of her
+own mischief. She had one hope--that supper would be eaten before her
+master milked. But the hope was vain. When she saw Mr. Wales come in,
+glance her way, and then call his wife out, she knew at once what had
+happened, and begun to tremble--she knew perfectly what Mr. Wales was
+saying out there. It was this: "That little limb has driven home all
+Neighbor Belcher's cows instead of ours; what's going to be done with
+her?"
+
+She knew what the answer would be, too. Mrs. Polly was a peremptory
+woman.
+
+Back Ann had to go with the Belcher cows, fasten them safely in their
+pasture again, and drive her master's home. She was hustled off to
+bed, then, without any of that beautiful supper. But she had just
+crept into her bed in the small unfinished room upstairs where she
+slept, and was lying there sobbing, when she heard a slow, fumbling
+step on the stairs. Then the door opened, and Mrs. Deacon Thomas
+Wales, Samuel Wales' mother, came in. She was a good old lady, and had
+always taken a great fancy to her son's bound girl; and Ann, on her
+part, minded her better than any one else. She hid her face in the tow
+sheet, when she saw grandma. The old lady had on a long black silk
+apron. She held something concealed under it, when she came in.
+Presently she displayed it.
+
+"There--child," said she, "here's a piece of sweet cake and a couple
+of simballs, that I managed to save out for you. Jest set right up and
+eat 'em, and don't ever be so dretful naughty again, or I don't know
+what will become of you."
+
+This reproof, tempered with sweetness, had a salutary effect on Ann.
+She sat up, and ate her sweet cake and simballs, and sobbed out her
+contrition to grandma, and there was a marked improvement in her
+conduct for some days.
+
+Mrs. Polly was a born driver. She worked hard herself, and she
+expected everybody about her to. The tasks which Ann had set her did
+not seem as much out of proportion, then, as they would now. Still,
+her mistress, even then, allowed her less time for play than was
+usual, though it was all done in good faith, and not from any
+intentional severity. As time went on, she grew really quite fond of
+the child, and she was honestly desirous of doing her whole duty by
+her. If she had had a daughter of her own, it is doubtful if her
+treatment of her would have been much different.
+
+Still, Ann was too young to understand all this, and, sometimes,
+though she was strong and healthy, and not naturally averse to work,
+she would rebel, when her mistress set her stints so long, and kept
+her at work when other children were playing.
+
+Once in a while she would confide in grandma, when Mrs. Polly sent her
+over there on an errand and she had felt unusually aggrieved because
+she had had to wind quills, or hetchel, instead of going berrying, or
+some like pleasant amusement.
+
+"Poor little cosset," grandma would say, pityingly.
+
+Then she would give her a simball, and tell her she must "be a good
+girl, and not mind if she couldn't play jest like the others, for
+she'd got to airn her own livin', when she grew up, and she must learn
+to work."
+
+Ann would go away comforted, but grandma would be privately indignant.
+She was, as is apt to be the case, rather critical with her sons'
+wives, and she thought "Sam'l's kept that poor little gal too stiddy
+at work," and wished and wished she could shelter her under her own
+grandmotherly wing, and feed her with simballs to her heart's content.
+She was too wise to say anything to influence the child against her
+mistress, however. She was always cautious about that, even while
+pitying her. Once in a while she would speak her mind to her son, but
+he was easy enough--Ann would not have found him a hard task-master.
+
+Still, Ann did not have to work hard enough to hurt her. The worst
+consequences were that such a rigid rein on such a frisky little colt
+perhaps had more to do with her "cutting up," as her mistress phrased
+it, than she dreamed of. Moreover the thought of the indentures,
+securely locked up in Mr. Wales' tall wooden desk, was forever in
+Ann's mind. Half by dint of questioning various people, half by her
+own natural logic she had settled it within herself, that at any time
+the possession of these papers would set her free, and she could
+go back to her own mother, whom she dimly remembered as being
+loud-voiced, but merry, and very indulgent. However, Ann never
+meditated in earnest, taking the indentures; indeed, the desk was
+always locked--it held other documents more valuable than hers--and
+Samuel Wales carried the key in his waistcoat-pocket.
+
+She went to a dame's school three months every year. Samuel Wales
+carted half a cord of wood to pay for her schooling, and she learned
+to write and read in the New England Primer. Next to her, on the split
+log bench, sat a little girl named Hannah French. The two became fast
+friends. Hannah was an only child, pretty and delicate, and very much
+petted by her parents. No long hard tasks were set those soft little
+fingers, even in those old days when children worked as well as their
+elders. Ann admired and loved Hannah, because she had what she,
+herself, had not; and Hannah loved and pitied Ann because she had not
+what she had. It was a sweet little friendship, and would not have
+been, if Ann had not been free from envy and Hannah humble and
+pitying.
+
+When Ann told her what a long stint she had to do before school,
+Hannah would shed sympathizing tears.
+
+Ann, after a solemn promise of secrecy, told her about the indentures
+one day. Hannah listened with round, serious eyes; her brown hair was
+combed smoothly down over her ears. She was a veritable little Puritan
+damsel herself.
+
+"If I could only get the papers, I wouldn't have to mind her, and work
+so hard," said Ann.
+
+Hannah's eyes grew rounder. "Why, it would be sinful to take them!"
+said she.
+
+Ann's cheeks blazed under her wondering gaze, and she said no more.
+
+When she was about eleven years old, one icy January day, Hannah
+wanted her to go out and play on the ice after school. They had no
+skates, but it was rare fun to slide. Ann went home and asked Mrs.
+Polly's permission with a beating heart; she promised to do a double
+stint next day, if she would let her go. But her mistress was
+inexorable--work before play, she said, always; and Ann must not
+forget that she was to be brought up to work; it was different with
+her from what it was with Hannah French. Even this she meant kindly
+enough, but Ann saw Hannah go away, and sat down to her spinning with
+more fierce defiance in her heart than had ever been there before. She
+had been unusually good, too, lately. She always was, during the three
+months' schooling, with sober, gentle little Hannah French.
+
+She had been spinning sulkily a while, and it was almost dark, when
+a messenger came for her master and mistress to go to Deacon Thomas
+Wales', who had been suddenly taken very ill.
+
+Ann would have felt sorry if she had not been so angry. Deacon Wales
+was almost as much of a favorite of hers as his wife. As it was, the
+principal thing she thought of, after Mr. Wales and his wife had gone,
+was that the key was in the desk. However it had happened, there it
+was. She hesitated a moment. She was all alone in the kitchen, and her
+heart was in a tumult of anger, but she had learned her lessons from
+the Bible and the New England Primer, and she was afraid of the sin.
+But at last she opened the desk, found the indentures, and hid them
+in the little pocket which she wore tied about her waist, under her
+petticoat.
+
+Then Ann threw her blanket over her head, and got her poppet out of
+the chest. The poppet was a little doll manufactured from a corn-cob,
+dressed in an indigo-colored gown. Grandma had made it for her, and
+it was her chief treasure. She clasped it tight to her bosom, and ran
+across lots to Hannah French's.
+
+Hannah saw her coming, and met her at the door.
+
+"I've brought you my poppet," whispered Ann, all breathless, "and you
+must keep her always, and not let her work too hard. I'm going away!"
+
+Hannah's eyes looked like two solemn moons. "Where are you going,
+Ann?"
+
+"I'm going to Boston to find my own mother." She said nothing about
+the indentures to Hannah--somehow she could not.
+
+Hannah could not say much, she was so astonished, but as soon as Ann
+had gone, scudding across the fields, she went in with the poppet and
+told her mother.
+
+Deacon Thomas Wales was very sick. Mr. and Mrs. Samuel remained at
+his house all night, but Ann was not left alone, for Mr. Wales had an
+apprentice who slept in the house.
+
+Ann did not sleep any that night. She got up very early, before any
+one was stirring, and dressed herself in her Sunday clothes. Then she
+tied up her working clothes in a bundle, crept softly downstairs, and
+out doors.
+
+It was bright moonlight and quite cold. She ran along as fast as she
+could on the Boston road. Deacon Thomas Wales's house was on the way.
+The windows were lit up. She thought of grandma and poor grandpa, with
+a sob in her heart, but she sped along. Past the schoolhouse, and
+meeting-house, too, she had to go, with big qualms of grief and
+remorse. But she kept on. She was a fast traveler.
+
+She had reached the North Precinct of Braintree by daylight. So far,
+she had not encountered a single person. Now she heard horse's hoofs
+behind her. She began to run faster, but it was of no use. Soon
+Captain Abraham French loomed up on his big gray horse, a few paces
+from her. He was Hannah's father, but he was a tithing-man, and looked
+quite stern, and Ann had always stood in great fear of him.
+
+She ran on as fast as her little heels could fly, with a thumping
+heart. But it was not long before she felt herself seized by a strong
+arm and swung up behind Captain French on the gray horse. She was in a
+panic of terror, and would have cried and begged for mercy if she
+had not been in so much awe of her captor. She thought with awful
+apprehension of these stolen indentures in her little pocket. What if
+he should find that out!
+
+Captain French whipped up his horse, however, and hastened along
+without saying a word. His silence, if anything, caused more dread in
+Ann than words would have. But his mind was occupied. Deacon Thomas
+Wales was dead; he was one of his most beloved and honored friends,
+and it was a great shock to him. Hannah had told him about Ann's
+premeditated escape, and he had set out on her track as soon as he had
+found that she was really gone, that morning. But the news which he
+had heard on his way, had driven all thoughts of reprimand which he
+might have entertained, out of his head. He only cared to get the
+child safely back.
+
+So not a word spoke Captain French, but rode on in grim and sorrowful
+silence, with Ann clinging to him, till he reached her master's door.
+Then he set her down with a stern and solemn injunction never to
+transgress again, and rode away.
+
+Ann went into the kitchen with a quaking heart. It was empty and
+still. Its very emptiness and stillness seemed to reproach her. There
+stood the desk--she ran across to it, pulled the indentures from her
+pocket, put them in their old place, and shut the lid down. There they
+staid till the full and just time of her servitude had expired. She
+never disturbed them again.
+
+On account of the grief and confusion incident on Deacon Wales's
+death, she escaped with very little censure. She never made an attempt
+to run away again. Indeed, she had no wish to, for after Deacon
+Wales's death, grandma was lonely and wanted her, and she lived most
+of the time with her. And, whether she was in reality treated any more
+kindly or not, she was certainly happier.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEACON THOMAS WALES'S WILL.
+
+
+    In the Name of God Amen! the Thirteenth Day of September One
+    Thousand Seven Hundred Fifty & eight, I, Thomas Wales of
+    Braintree, in the County of Suffolk & Province of the
+    Massachusetts Bay in New England, Gent--being in good health of
+    Body and of Sound Disproving mind and Memory, Thanks be given to
+    God--Calling to mind my mortality, Do therefore in my health make
+    and ordain this my Last Will and Testament. And First I Recommend
+    my Soul into the hand of God who gave it--Hoping through grace to
+    obtain Salvation thro' the merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ my
+    only Lord and Dear Redeemer, and my body to be Decently inter^d,
+    at the Discretion of my Executor, believing at the General
+    Resurection to receive the Same again by the mighty Power
+    of God--And such worldly estate as God in his goodness hath
+    graciously given me after Debts, funeral Expenses &c, are Paid I
+    give & Dispose of the Same as Followeth--
+
+    _Imprimis_--I Give to my beloved Wife Sarah a good Sute of
+    mourning apparrel Such as she may Choose--also if she acquit my
+    estate of Dower and third-therin (as we have agreed) Then that
+    my Executor return all of Household movables she bought at our
+    marriage & since that are remaining, also to Pay to her or Her
+    Heirs That Note of Forty Pound I gave to her, when she acquited my
+    estate and I hers. Before Division to be made as herein exprest,
+    also the Southwest fire-Room in my House, a right in my Cellar,
+    Halfe the Garden, also the Privilege of water at the well & yard
+    room and to bake in the oven what she hath need of to improve her
+    Life-time by her.
+
+After this, followed a division of his property amongst his children,
+five sons and two daughters.
+
+
+The "Homeplace" was given to his sons Ephraim and Atherton. Ephraim
+had a good house of his own, so he took his share of the property in
+land, and Atherton went to live in the old homestead. His quarters had
+been poor enough; he had not been so successful as his brothers, and
+had been unable to live as well. It had been a great cross to his
+wife, Dorcas, who was very high-spirited. She had compared, bitterly,
+the poverty of her household arrangements, with the abundant comfort
+of her sisters-in-law.
+
+Now, she seized eagerly at the opportunity of improving her style of
+living. The old Wales house was quite a pretentious edifice for those
+times. All the drawback to her delight was, that Grandma should
+have the southwest fire-room. She wanted to set up her high-posted
+bedstead, with its enormous feather-bed in that, and have it for her
+fore-room. Properly, it was the fore-room, being right across the
+entry from the family sitting-room. There was a tall chest of drawers
+that would fit in so nicely between the windows, too. Take it
+altogether, she was chagrined at having to give up the southwest room;
+but there was no help for it--there it was in Deacon Wales's will.
+
+Mrs. Dorcas was the youngest of all the sons' wives, as her husband
+was the latest born. She was quite a girl to some of them. Grandma
+had never more than half approved of her. Dorcas was high-strung and
+flighty, she said. She had her doubts about living happily with her.
+But Atherton was anxious for this division of the property, and he was
+her youngest darling, so she gave in. She felt lonely, and out of
+her element, when everything was arranged, she established in the
+southwest fire-room, and Atherton's family keeping house in the
+others, though things started pleasantly and peaceably enough.
+
+It occurred to her that her son Samuel might have her own "help," a
+stout woman, who had worked in her kitchen for many years, and she
+take in exchange his little bound girl, Ann Ginnins. She had always
+taken a great fancy to the child. There was a large closet out of the
+southwest room, where she could sleep, and she could be made very
+useful, taking steps, and running "arrants" for her.
+
+Mr. Samuel and his wife hesitated a little when this plan was
+proposed. In spite of the trouble she gave them, they were attached
+to Ann, and did not like to part with her, and Mrs. Polly was just
+getting her "larnt" her own ways, as she put it. Privately, she feared
+Grandma would undo all the good she had done, in teaching Ann to be
+smart and capable. Finally they gave in, with the understanding that
+it was not to be considered necessarily a permanent arrangement, and
+Ann went to live with the old lady.
+
+Mrs. Dorcas did not relish this any more than she did the
+appropriation of the southwest fire-room. She had never liked Ann very
+well. Besides she had two little girls of her own, and she fancied
+Ann rivaled them in Grandma's affection. So, soon after the girl was
+established in the house, she began to show out in various little
+ways.
+
+Thirsey, her youngest child, was a mere baby, a round fat dumpling of
+a thing. She was sweet, and good-natured, and the pet of the whole
+family. Ann was very fond of playing with her, and tending her, and
+Mrs. Dorcas began to take advantage of it. The minute Ann was at
+liberty she was called upon to take care of Thirsey. The constant
+carrying about such a heavy child soon began to make her shoulders
+stoop and ache. Then Grandma took up the cudgels. She was smart and
+high-spirited, but she was a very peaceable old lady on her own
+account, and fully resolved "to put up with everything from Dorcas,
+rather than have strife in the family." She was not going to see this
+helpless little girl imposed on, however. "The little gal ain't
+goin' to get bent all over, tendin' that heavy baby, Dorcas," she
+proclaimed. "You can jist make up your mind to it. She didn't come
+here to do sech work."
+
+So Dorcas had to make up her mind to it.
+
+Ann's principal duties were "scouring the brasses" in Grandma's room,
+taking steps for her, and spinning her stint every day. Grandma set
+smaller stints than Mrs. Polly. As time went on, she helped about the
+cooking. She and Grandma cooked their own victuals, and ate from a
+little separate table in the common kitchen. It was a very large room,
+and might have accommodated several families, if they could have
+agreed. There was a big oven and a roomy fire-place. Good Deacon Wales
+had probably seen no reason at all why his "beloved wife" should not
+have her right therein with the greatest peace and concord.
+
+But it soon came to pass that Mrs. Dorcas's pots and kettles were all
+prepared to hang on the trammels when Grandma's were, and an army of
+cakes and pies marshaled to go in the oven when Grandma had proposed
+to do some baking. Grandma bore it patiently for a long time; but Ann
+was with difficulty restrained from freeing her small mind, and her
+black eyes snapped more dangerously at every new offense.
+
+One morning, Grandma had two loaves of "riz bread," and some election
+cakes, rising, and was intending to bake them in about an hour, when
+they should be sufficiently light. What should Mrs. Dorcas do, but mix
+up sour milk bread, and some pies with the greatest speed, and fill up
+the oven, before Grandma's cookery was ready!
+
+Grandma sent Ann out into the kitchen to put the loaves-in the oven
+and lo and behold! the oven was full. Ann stood staring for a minute,
+with a loaf of election cake in her hands; that and the bread would be
+ruined if they were not baked immediately, as they were raised enough.
+Mrs. Dorcas had taken Thirsey and stepped out somewhere, and there was
+no one in the kitchen. Ann set the election cake back on the table.
+Then, with the aid of the tongs, she reached into the brick oven and
+took out every one of Mrs. Dorcas's pies and loaves. Then she arranged
+them deliberately in a pitiful semicircle on the hearth, and put
+Grandma's cookery in the oven.
+
+She went back to the southwest room then, and sat quietly down to her
+spinning. Grandma asked if she had put the things in, and she said
+"Yes, ma'am," meekly. There was a bright red spot on each of her dark
+cheeks.
+
+When Mrs. Dorcas entered the kitchen, carrying Thirsey wrapped up in
+an old homespun blanket, she nearly dropped as her gaze fell on the
+fire-place and the hearth. There sat her bread and pies, in the most
+lamentable half-baked, sticky, doughy condition imaginable. She opened
+the oven, and peered in. There were Grandma's loaves, all a lovely
+brown. Out they came, with a twitch. Luckily, they were done. Her own
+went in, but they were irretrievable failures.
+
+Of course, quite a commotion came from this. Dorcas raised her shrill
+voice pretty high, and Grandma, though she had been innocent of the
+whole transaction, was so blamed that she gave Dorcas a piece of her
+mind at last. Ann surveyed the nice brown loaves, and listened to the
+talk in secret satisfaction; but she had to suffer for it afterward.
+Grandma punished her for the first time, and she discovered that that
+kind old hand was pretty firm and strong. "No matter what you think or
+whether you air in the rights on't, or not, a little gal mustn't ever
+sass her elders," said Grandma.
+
+But if Ann's interference was blamable, it was productive of one good
+result--the matter came to Mr. Atherton's ears, and he had a stern
+sense of justice when roused, and a great veneration for his mother.
+His father's will should be carried out to the letter, he declared;
+and it was. Grandma baked and boiled in peace, outwardly, at least,
+after that.
+
+Ann was a great comfort to her; she was outgrowing her wild,
+mischievous ways, and she was so bright and quick. She promised to
+be pretty, too. Grandma compared her favorably with her own
+grandchildren, especially Mrs. Dorcas's eldest daughter Martha, who
+was nearly Ann's age. "Marthy's a pretty little gal enough," she used
+to say, "but she ain't got the snap to her that Ann has, though I
+wouldn't tell Atherton's wife so, for the world."
+
+She promised Ann her gold beads, when she should be done with them,
+under strict injunctions not to say anything about it till the time
+came; for the others might feel hard as she wasn't her own flesh and
+blood. The gold beads were Ann's ideals of beauty and richness, though
+she did not like to hear Grandma talk about being "done with them."
+Grandma always wore them around her fair, plump old neck; she had
+never seen her without her string of beads.
+
+As before said, Ann was now very seldom mischievous enough to
+make herself serious trouble; but, once in a while, her natural
+propensities would crop out. When they did, Mrs. Dorcas was
+exceedingly bitter. Indeed, her dislike of Ann was, at all times,
+smouldering, and needed only a slight fanning to break out.
+
+One stormy winter day Mrs. Dorcas had been working till dark, making
+candle-wicks. When she came to get tea, she tied the white fleecy
+rolls together, a great bundle of them, and hung them up in the
+cellar-way, over the stair, to be out of the way. They were extra fine
+wicks, being made of flax for the company candles. "I've got a good
+job done," said Mrs. Dorcas, surveying them complacently. Her husband
+had gone to Boston, and was not coming home till the next day, so she
+had had a nice chance to work at them, without as much interruption as
+usual.
+
+Ann, going down the cellar stairs, with a lighted candle, after some
+butter for tea, spied the beautiful rolls swinging overhead. What
+possessed her to, she could not herself have told--she certainly had
+no wish to injure Mrs. Dorcas's wicks--but she pinched up a little end
+of the fluffy flax and touched her candle to it. She thought she would
+see how that little bit would burn off. She soon found out. The flame
+caught, and ran like lightning through the whole bundle. There was a
+great puff of fire and smoke, and poor Mrs. Dorcas's fine candle-wicks
+were gone. Ann screamed, and sprang downstairs. She barely escaped the
+whole blaze coming in her face.
+
+"What's that!" shrieked Mrs. Dorcas, rushing to the cellar door. Words
+cannot describe her feeling when she saw that her nice candle-wicks,
+the fruit of her day's toil, were burnt up.
+
+If ever there was a wretched culprit that night, Ann was. She had not
+meant to do wrong, but that, may be, made it worse for her in one way.
+She had not even gratified malice to sustain her. Grandma blamed her,
+almost as severely as Mrs. Dorcas. She said she didn't know what would
+"become of a little gal, that was so keerless," and decreed that she
+must stay at home from school and work on candle-wicks till Mrs.
+Dorcas's loss was made good to her. Ann listened ruefully. She was
+scared and sorry, but that did not seem to help matters any. She did
+not want any supper, and she went to bed early and cried herself to
+sleep.
+
+Somewhere about midnight, a strange sound woke her up. She called out
+to Grandma in alarm. The same sound had awakened her. "Get up, an'
+light a candle, child," said she; "I'm afeard the baby's sick."
+
+Ann scarcely had the candle lighted, before the door opened, and Mrs.
+Dorcas appeared in her nightdress. She was very pale, and trembling
+all over. "Oh!" she gasped, "it's the baby. Thirsey's got the croup,
+an' Atherton's away, and there ain't anybody to go for the doctor. Oh,
+what shall I do, what shall I do!" She fairly wrung her hands.
+
+"Hev you tried the skunk's oil?" asked Grandma eagerly, preparing to
+get up.
+
+"Yes, I have, I have! It's a good hour since she woke up, an' I've
+tried everything. It hasn't done any good. I thought I wouldn't
+call you, if I could help it, but she's worse--only hear her! An'
+Atherton's away! Oh! what shall I do, what shall I do?"
+
+"Don't take on so, Dorcas," said Grandma, tremulously, but cheeringly.
+"I'll come right along, an'--why, child, what air you goin' to do?"
+
+Ann had finished dressing herself, and now she was pinning a heavy
+homespun blanket over her head, as if she were preparing to go out
+doors.
+
+"I'm going after the doctor for Thirsey," said Ann, her black eyes
+flashing with determination.
+
+"Oh, will you, will you!" cried Mrs. Dorcas, catching at this new
+help.
+
+"Hush, Dorcas," said Grandma, sternly. "It's an awful storm out--jist
+hear the wind blow! It ain't fit fur her to go. Her life's jist as
+precious as Thirsey's."
+
+Ann said nothing more, but she went into her own little room with the
+same determined look in her eyes. There was a door leading from this
+room into the kitchen. Ann slipped through it hastily, lit a lantern
+which was hanging beside the kitchen chimney, and was out doors in a
+minute.
+
+The storm was one of sharp, driving sleet, which struck her face like
+so many needles. The first blast, as she stepped outside the door,
+seemed to almost force her back, but her heart did not fail her. The
+snow was not so very deep, but it was hard walking. There was no
+pretense of a path. The doctor lived half a mile away, and there
+was not a house in the whole distance, save the meeting house and
+schoolhouse. It was very dark. Lucky it was that she had taken the
+lantern; she could not have found her way without it.
+
+On kept the little slender, erect figure, with the fierce
+determination in its heart, through the snow and sleet, holding the
+blanket close over its head, and swinging the feeble lantern bravely.
+
+When she reached the doctor's house, he was gone. He had started for
+the North Precinct early in the evening, his good wife said; he was
+called down to Captain Isaac Lovejoy's, the house next the North
+Precinct Meeting House. She'd been sitting up waiting for him, it was
+such an awful storm, and such a lonely road. She was worried, but she
+didn't think he'd start for home that night; she guessed he'd stay at
+Captain Lovejoy's till morning.
+
+[Illustration: SHE ALMOST FAINTED FROM COLD AND EXHAUSTION.]
+
+The doctor's wife, holding her door open, as best she could, in
+the violent wind, had hardly given this information to the little
+snow-bedraggled object standing out there in the inky darkness,
+through which the lantern made a faint circle of light, before she had
+disappeared.
+
+"She went like a speerit," said the good woman, staring out into the
+blackness in amazement. She never dreamed of such a thing as Ann's
+going to the North Precinct after the doctor, but that was what the
+daring girl had determined to do. She had listened to the doctor's
+wife in dismay, but with never one doubt as to her own course of
+proceeding.
+
+Straight along the road to the North Precinct she kept. It would
+have been an awful journey that night for a strong man. It seemed
+incredible that a little girl could have the strength or courage to
+accomplish it. There were four miles to traverse in a black, howling
+storm, over a pathless road, through forests, with hardly a house by
+the way.
+
+When she reached Captain Isaac Lovejoy's house, next to the meeting
+house in the North Precinct of Braintree, stumbling blindly into the
+warm, lighted kitchen, the captain and the doctor could hardly believe
+their senses. She told the doctor about Thirsey; then she almost
+fainted from cold and exhaustion.
+
+Good-wife Lovejoy laid her on the settee, and brewed her some hot herb
+tea. She almost forgot her own sick little girl, for a few minutes,
+in trying to restore this brave child who had come from the South
+Precinct in this dreadful storm to save little Thirsey Wales's life.
+
+When Ann came to herself a little, her first question was, if the
+doctor were ready to go.
+
+"He's gone," said Mrs. Lovejoy, cheeringly.
+
+Ann felt disappointed. She had thought she was going back with him.
+But that would have been impossible. She could not have stood the
+journey for the second time that night, even on horseback behind the
+doctor, as she had planned.
+
+She drank a second bowlful of herb tea, and went to bed with a hot
+stone at her feet, and a great many blankets and coverlids over her.
+
+The next morning, Captain Lovejoy carried her home. He had a rough
+wood sled, and she rode on that, on an old quilt; it was easier than
+horseback, and she was pretty lame and tired.
+
+Mrs. Dorcas saw her coming and opened the door. When Ann came up on
+the stoop, she just threw her arms around her and kissed her.
+
+"You needn't make the candle-wicks," said she. "It's no matter about
+them at all. Thirsey's better this morning, an' I guess you saved her
+life."
+
+Grandma was fairly bursting with pride and delight in her little gal's
+brave feat, now that she saw her safe. She untied the gold beads on
+her neck, and fastened them around Ann's. "There," said she, "you may
+wear them to school to-day, if you'll be keerful."
+
+That day, with the gold beads by way of celebration, began a new era
+in Ann's life. There was no more secret animosity between her and
+Mrs. Dorcas. The doctor had come that night in the very nick of time.
+Thirsey was almost dying. Her mother was fully convinced that Ann had
+saved her life, and she never forgot it. She was a woman of strong
+feelings, who never did things by halves, and she not only treated Ann
+with kindness, but she seemed to smother her grudge against Grandma
+for robbing her of the southwest fire-room.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER
+
+
+The Inventory of the Estate of Samuel Wales Late of Braintree, Taken
+by the Subscribers, March the 14th, 1761.
+
+His Purse in Cash                                   �11-15-01
+His apparrel                                         10-11-00
+His watch                                            2-13-04
+The Best Bed with two Coverlids, three sheets,
+  two underbeds, two Bolsters, two pillows,
+  Bedstead rope                                     �6
+One mill Blanket, two Phlanel sheets, 12 toe Sheets �3-4-8
+Eleven Towels & table Cloth                          0-15-0
+a pair of mittens & pr. of Gloves                    0-2-0
+a neck Handkerchief & neckband                       0-4-0
+an ovel Tabel--Two other Tabels                      1-12-0
+A Chist with Draws                                   2-8-0
+Another Low Chist with Draws & three other Chists    1-10-0
+Six best Chears and a great chear                    1-6-0
+a warming pan--Two Brass Kittles                     1-5-0
+a Small Looking Glass, five Pewter Basons            0-7-8
+fifteen other Chears                                 0-15-0
+fire arms, Sword & bayonet                           1-4-0
+Six Porringers, four platters, Two Pewter Pots      �1-0-4
+auger Chisel, Gimlet, a Bible & other Books          0-15-4
+A chese press, great spinning-wheel, & spindle       0-9-0
+a smith's anvil                                     �3-12-0
+the Pillion                                          0-8-0
+a Bleu Jacket                                        0-0-3
+
+  AARON WHITCOMB.
+  SILAS WHITE.
+
+The foregoing is only a small portion of the original inventory of
+Samuel Wales's estate. He was an exceedingly well-to-do man for these
+times. He had a good many acres of rich pasture and woodland, and
+considerable live stock. Then his home was larger and more comfortable
+than was usual then; and his stock of household utensils plentiful.
+
+He died three years after Ann Ginnins went to live with Grandma, when
+she was about thirteen years old. Grandma spared her to Mrs. Polly for
+a few weeks after the funeral; there was a great deal to be done, and
+she needed some extra help. And, after all, Ann was legally bound to
+her, and her lawful servant.
+
+So the day after good Samuel Wales was laid away in the little
+Braintree burying-ground, Ann returned to her old quarters for a
+little while. She did not really want to go; but she did not object
+to the plan at all. She was sincerely sorry for poor Mrs. Polly,
+and wanted to help her, if she could. She mourned, herself, for Mr.
+Samuel. He had always been very kind to her.
+
+Mrs. Polly had for company, besides Ann, Nabby Porter, Grandma's old
+hired woman whom she had made over to her, and a young man who had
+been serving as apprentice to Mr. Samuel. His name was Phineas Adams.
+He was very shy and silent, but a good workman.
+
+Samuel Wales left a will bequeathing everything to his widow; that was
+solemnly read in the fore-room one afternoon; then the inventory had
+to be taken. That, on account of the amount of property, was quite an
+undertaking; but it was carried out with the greatest formality and
+precision.
+
+For several days, Mr. Aaron Whitcomb and Mr. Silas White were stalking
+majestically about the premises, with note-books and pens. Aaron
+Whitcomb was a grave, portly old man, with a large head of white hair.
+Silas White was little and wiry and fussy. He monopolized the greater
+part of the business, although he was not half as well fitted for it
+as his companion.
+
+They pried into everything with religious exactitude. Mrs. Polly
+watched them with beseeming awe and deference, but it was a great
+trial to her, and she grew very nervous over it. It seemed dreadful to
+have all her husband's little personal effects, down to his neckband
+and mittens, handled over, and their worth in shillings and pence
+calculated. She had a price fixed on them already in higher currency.
+
+Ann found her crying one afternoon sitting on the kitchen settle, with
+her apron over her head. When she saw the little girl's pitying look,
+she poured out her trouble to her.
+
+"They've just been valuing his mittens and gloves," said she, sobbing,
+"at two-and-sixpence. I shall be thankful when they are through."
+
+"Are there any more of his things?" asked Ann, her black eyes
+flashing, with the tears in them.
+
+"I think they've seen about all. There's his blue jacket he used to
+milk in, a-hanging behind the shed door--I guess they haven't valued
+that yet."
+
+"I think it's a shame!" quoth Ann. "I don't believe there's any need
+of so much law."
+
+"Hush, child! You mustn't set yourself up against the judgment of your
+elders. Such things have to be done."
+
+Ann said no more, but the indignant sparkle did not fade out of her
+eyes at all. She watched her opportunity, and took down Mr. Wales's
+old blue jacket from its peg behind the shed door, ran with it
+upstairs, and hid it in her own room behind the bed. "There," said
+she, "Mrs. Wales sha'n't cry over that!"
+
+That night, at tea time, the work of taking the inventory was
+complete. Mr. Whitcomb and Mr. White walked away with their long
+lists, satisfied that they had done their duty according to the law.
+Every article of Samuel Wales's property, from a warming-pan to a
+chest of drawers, was set down, with the sole exception of that old
+blue jacket, which Ann had hidden.
+
+She felt complacent over it at first; then she began to be uneasy.
+
+"Nabby," said she confidentially to the old servant woman, when they
+were washing the pewter plates together after supper, "what would they
+do if anybody shouldn't let them set down all the things--if they hid
+some of 'em away, I mean?"
+
+"They'd make a dretful time on't," said Nabby impressively. She was
+a large, stern-looking old woman. "They air dretful perticklar 'bout
+these things. They hev to be."
+
+Ann was scared when she heard that. When the dishes were done, she sat
+down on the settle and thought it over, and made up her mind what to
+do.
+
+The next morning, in the frosty dawning, before the rest of the family
+were up, a slim, erect little figure could have been seen speeding
+across lots toward Mr. Silas White's. She had the old blue jacket
+tucked under her arm. When she reached the house, she spied Mr. White
+just coming out of the back door with a milking pail. He carried a
+lantern, too, for it was hardly light.
+
+He stopped and stared when Ann ran up to him.
+
+"Mr. White," said she, all breathless, "here's--something--I guess yer
+didn't see yesterday."
+
+Mr. White set down the milk pail, took the blue jacket which she
+handed him, and scrutinized it sharply by the light of the lantern.
+
+"I guess we didn't see it," said he finally. "I will put it down--it's
+worth about three pence, I judge. Where"--
+
+"Silas, Silas!" called a shrill voice from the house. Silas White
+dropped the jacket and trotted briskly in, his lantern bobbing
+agitatedly. He never delayed a moment when his wife called; important
+and tyrannical as the little man was abroad, he had his own tyrant at
+home.
+
+Ann did not wait for him to return; she snatched up the blue jacket
+and fled home, leaping like a little deer over the hoary fields. She
+hung up the precious old jacket behind the shed door again, and no one
+ever knew the whole story of its entrance in the inventory. If she had
+been questioned, she would have told the truth boldly, though. But
+Samuel Wales's Inventory had for its last item that blue jacket,
+spelled after Silas White's own individual method, as was many another
+word in the long list. Silas White consulted his own taste with
+respect to capital letters too.
+
+After a few weeks, Grandma said she must have Ann again; and back she
+went. Grandma was very feeble lately, and everybody humored her. Mrs.
+Polly was sorry to have the little girl leave her. She said it was
+wonderful how much she had improved. But she would not have admitted
+that the improvement was owing to the different influence she had been
+under; she said Ann had outgrown her mischievous ways.
+
+Grandma did not live very long after this, however. Mrs. Polly had
+her bound girl at her own disposal in a year's time. Poor Ann was
+sorrowful enough for a long while after Grandma's death. She wore the
+beloved gold beads round her neck, and a sad ache in her heart. The
+dear old woman had taken the beads off her neck with her own hands
+and given them to Ann before she died, that there might be no mistake
+about it.
+
+Mrs. Polly said she was glad Ann had them. "You might jist as well
+have 'em as Dorcas's girl," said she; "she set enough sight more by
+you."
+
+Ann could not help growing cheerful again, after a while. Affairs in
+Mrs. Polly's house were much brighter for her, in some ways, than they
+had ever been before.
+
+Either the hot iron of affliction had smoothed some of the puckers out
+of her mistress's disposition, or she was growing, naturally, less
+sharp and dictatorial. Any way, she was becoming as gentle and loving
+with Ann as it was in her nature to be, and Ann, following her
+impulsive temper, returned all the affection with vigor, and never
+bestowed a thought on past unpleasantness.
+
+For the next two years, Ann's position in the family grew to be more
+and more that of a daughter. If it had not been for the indentures,
+lying serenely in that tall wooden desk, she would almost have
+forgotten, herself, that she was a bound girl.
+
+One spring afternoon, when Ann was about sixteen years old, her
+mistress called her solemnly into the fore-room. "Ann," said she,
+"come here, I want to speak to you."
+
+Nabby stared wonderingly; and Ann, as she obeyed, felt awed. There was
+something unusual in her mistress's tone.
+
+Standing there in the fore-room, in the august company of the best
+bed, with its high posts and flowered-chintz curtains, the best chest
+of drawers, and the best chairs, Ann listened to what Mrs. Polly had
+to tell her. It was a plan which almost took her breath away; for it
+was this: Mrs. Polly proposed to adopt her, and change her name to
+Wales. She would be no longer Ann Ginnins, and a bound girl: but Ann
+Wales, and a daughter in her mother's home.
+
+Ann dropped into one of the best chairs, and sat there, her little
+dark face very pale. "Should I have the--papers?" she gasped at
+length.
+
+"Your papers? Yes, child, you can have them."
+
+"I don't want them," cried Ann, "never! I want them to stay just where
+they are, till my time is out. If I am adopted, I don't want the
+papers!"
+
+Mrs. Polly stared. She had never known how Ann had taken the
+indentures with her on her run-away trip years ago; but now Ann
+told her the whole story. In her gratitude to her mistress, and her
+contrition, she had to.
+
+It was so long ago in Ann's childhood, it did not seem so very
+dreadful to Mrs. Polly, probably. But Ann insisted on the indentures
+remaining in the desk, even after the papers of adoption were made
+out, and she had become "Ann Wales." It seemed to go a little way
+toward satisfying her conscience. This adoption meant a good deal to
+Ann; for besides a legal home, and a mother, it secured to her a
+right in a comfortable property in the future. Mrs. Polly Wales was
+considered very well off. She was a smart business-woman, and knew how
+to take care of her property too. She still hired Phineas Adams to
+carry on the blacksmith's business, and kept her farm-work running
+just as her husband had. Neither she nor Ann were afraid of work, and
+Ann Wales used to milk the cows, and escort them to and from pasture,
+as faithfully as Ann Ginnins.
+
+It was along in springtime when Ann was adopted, and Mrs. Polly
+fulfilled her part of the contract in the indentures by getting the
+Sunday suit therein spoken of.
+
+They often rode on horseback to meeting, but they usually walked on
+the fine Sundays in spring. Ann had probably never been so happy in
+her life as she was walking by Mrs. Polly's side to meeting that first
+Sunday after her adoption. Most of the way was through the woods;
+the tender light green boughs met over their heads; the violets and
+anemones were springing beside their path. There were green buds and
+white blossoms all around; the sky showed blue between the waving
+branches, and the birds were singing.
+
+Ann in her pretty petticoat of rose-colored stuff, stepping daintily
+over the young grass and the flowers, looked and felt like a part of
+it all. Her dark cheeks had a beautiful red glow on them; her black
+eyes shone. She was as straight and graceful and stately as an Indian.
+
+"She's as handsome as a picture," thought Mrs. Polly in her secret
+heart. A good many people said that Ann resembled Mrs. Polly in her
+youth, and that may have added force to her admiration.
+
+Her new gown was very fine for those days; but fine as she was, and
+adopted daughter though she was, Ann did not omit her thrifty ways for
+once. This identical morning Mrs. Polly and she carried their best
+shoes under their arms, and wore their old ones, till within a short
+distance from the meeting-house. Then the old shoes were tucked away
+under a stone wall for safety, and the best ones put on. Stone walls,
+very likely, sheltered a good many well-worn little shoes, of a
+Puritan Sabbath, that their prudent owners might appear in the House
+of God trimly shod. Ah! these beautiful, new, peaked-toed, high-heeled
+shoes of Ann's--what would she have said to walking in them all the
+way to meeting!
+
+If that Sunday was an eventful one to Ann Wales, so was the week
+following. The next Tuesday, right after dinner, she was up in a
+little unfinished chamber over the kitchen, where they did such work
+when the weather permitted, carding wool. All at once, she heard
+voices down below. They had a strange inflection, which gave her
+warning at once. She dropped her work and listened. "What is the
+matter?" thought she.
+
+Then there was a heavy tramp on the stairs, and Captain Abraham French
+stood in the door, his stern weather-beaten face white and set. Mrs.
+Polly followed him, looking very pale and excited.
+
+"When did you see anything of our Hannah?" asked Captain French,
+controlling as best he could the tremor in his resolute voice.
+
+Ann rose, gathering up her big blue apron, cards, wool and all. "Oh,"
+she cried, "not since last Sabbath, at meeting! What is it?"
+
+"She's lost," answered Captain French. "She started to go up to her
+Aunt Sarah's Monday forenoon; and Enos has just been down, and they
+haven't seen anything of her." Poor Captain French gave a deep groan.
+
+Then they all went down into the kitchen together, talking and
+lamenting. And then, Captain French was galloping away on his gray
+horse to call assistance, and Ann was flying away over the fields,
+blue apron, cards, wool and all.
+
+"O, Ann!" Mrs. Polly cried after, "where are you going?"
+
+"I'm going--to find--Hannah!" Ann shouted back, in a shrill, desperate
+voice, and kept on.
+
+She had no definite notion as to where she was going; she had only one
+thought--Hannah French, her darling, tender, little Hannah French, her
+friend whom she loved better than a sister, was lost.
+
+A good three miles from the Wales home was a large tract of rough
+land, half-swamp, known as "Bear Swamp." There was an opinion, more or
+less correct, that bears might be found there. Some had been shot in
+that vicinity. Why Ann turned her footsteps in that direction,
+she could not have told herself. Possibly the vague impression of
+conversations she and Hannah had had, lingering in her mind, had
+something to do with it. Many a time the two little girls had remarked
+to each other with a shudder, "How awful it would be to get lost in
+Bear Swamp."
+
+Any way, Ann went straight there, through pasture and woodland, over
+ditches and stone walls. She knew every step of the way for a long
+distance. When she gradually got into the unfamiliar wilderness of the
+swamp, a thought struck her--suppose she got lost too! It would
+be easy enough--the unbroken forest stretched for miles in some
+directions. She would not find a living thing but Indians, and, maybe,
+wild beasts, the whole distance.
+
+If she should get lost she would not find Hannah, and the people would
+have to hunt for her too. But Ann had quick wits for an emergency. She
+had actually carried those cards, with a big wad of wool between them
+all the time, in her gathered-up apron. Now she began picking off
+little bits of wool and marking her way with them, sticking them on
+the trees and bushes. Every few feet a fluffy scrap of wool showed the
+road Ann had gone.
+
+But poor Ann went on, farther and farther--and no sign of Hannah. She
+kept calling her from time to time, hallooing at the top of her shrill
+sweet voice: "Hannah! Hannah! Hannah Fre-nch!"
+
+But never a response got the dauntless little girl, slipping almost up
+to her knees sometimes, in black swamp-mud; and sometimes stumbling
+painfully over tree-stumps, and through tangled undergrowth.
+
+"I'll go till my wool gives out," said Ann Wales; then she used it
+more sparingly.
+
+But it was almost gone before she thought she heard in the distance a
+faint little cry in response to her call: "Hannah! Hannah Fre-nch!"
+She called again and listened. Yes; she certainly did hear a little
+cry off toward the west. Calling from time to time, she went as nearly
+as she could in that direction. The pitiful answering cry grew louder
+and nearer; finally Ann could distinguish Hannah's voice.
+
+Wild with joy, she came, at last, upon her sitting on a fallen
+hemlock-tree, her pretty face pale, and her sweet blue eyes strained
+with terror.
+
+"O, Hannah!" "O, Ann!"
+
+"How did you ever get here, Hannah?"
+
+"I--started for aunt Sarah's--that morning," explained Hannah, between
+sobs. "And--I got frightened in the woods, about a mile from father's.
+I saw something ahead I thought was a bear. A great black thing! Then
+I ran--and, somehow, the first thing I knew, I was lost. I walked and
+walked, and it seems to me I kept coming right back to the same place.
+Finally I sat down here, and staid; I thought it was all the way for
+me to be found."
+
+"O, Hannah! what did you do last night?"
+
+"I staid somewhere, under some pine-trees," replied Hannah, with a
+shudder; "and I kept hearing things--O, Ann!"
+
+Ann hugged her sympathizingly. "I guess I wouldn't have slept much if
+I had known," said she. "O, Hannah, you haven't had anything to eat!
+ain't you starved?"
+
+Hannah laughed faintly. "I ate up two whole pumpkin pies I was
+carrying to aunt Sarah," said she. "Oh! how lucky it was you had
+them." "Yes; mother called me back to get them, after I started. They
+were some new ones, made with cream, and she thought aunt Sarah would
+like them."
+
+Pretty soon they started. It was hard work, for the way was very
+rough, and poor Hannah weak. But Ann had a good deal of strength in
+her lithe young frame, and she half-carried Hannah over the worst
+places. Still both of the girls were pretty well spent when they came
+to the last of the bits of wool on the border of Bear Swamp. However,
+they kept on a little farther; then they had to stop and rest. "I know
+where I am now," said Hannah, with a sigh of delight; "but I don't
+think I can walk another step." She was, in fact, almost exhausted.
+
+Ann looked at her thoughtfully. She hardly knew what to do. She could
+not carry Hannah herself--indeed, her own strength began to fail; and
+she did not want to leave her to go for assistance.
+
+All of a sudden, she jumped up. "You stay just where you are a few
+minutes, Hannah," said she. "I'm going somewhere. I'll be back soon."
+Ann was laughing.
+
+Hannah looked up at her pitifully: "O Ann, don't go!"
+
+"I'm coming right back, and it is the only way. You must get home.
+Only think how your father and mother are worrying!"
+
+Hannah said no more after that mention of her parents, and Ann
+started.
+
+[Illustration: "A CONVEYANCE IS FOUND."]
+
+She was not gone long. When she came in sight she was laughing, and
+Hannah, weak as she was, laughed, too. Ann had torn her blue apron
+into strips, and tied it together for a rope, and by it she was
+leading a red cow.
+
+Hannah knew the cow, and knew at once what the plan was. "O, Ann! you
+mean for me to ride Betty?"
+
+"Of course I do. I just happened to think our cows were in the
+pasture, down below here. And we've ridden Betty, lots of times, when
+we were children, and she's just as gentle now. Whoa, Betty, good
+cow."
+
+It was very hard work to get Hannah on to the broad back of her novel
+steed, but it was finally accomplished. Betty had been a perfect pet
+from a calf, and was exceedingly gentle. She started off soberly
+across the fields, with Hannah sitting on her back, and Ann leading
+her by her blue rope.
+
+It was a funny cavalcade for Captain Abraham French and a score of
+anxious men to meet, when they were nearly in sight of home; but they
+were too overjoyed to see much fun in it.
+
+Hannah rode the rest of the way with her father, on his gray horse;
+and Ann walked joyfully by her side, leading the cow.
+
+Captain French and his friends had, in fact, just started to search
+Bear Swamp, well armed with lanterns, for night was coming on.
+
+It was dark when they got home. Mrs. French was not much more
+delighted to see her beloved daughter Hannah safe again, than Mrs.
+Polly was to see Ann.
+
+She listened admiringly to the story Ann told.
+
+"Nobody but you would have thought of the wool or of the cow," said
+she.
+
+"I do declare," cried Ann, at the mention of the wool, "I have lost
+the cards!"
+
+"Never mind the cards!" said Mrs. Polly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pot of Gold, by Mary E. Wilkins
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pot of Gold, by Mary E. Wilkins
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Pot of Gold
+       And Other Stories
+
+Author: Mary E. Wilkins
+
+Release Date: August 7, 2005 [EBook #16468]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POT OF GOLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Lesley Halamek and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+	<p class="center1">
+	<span class="page"><a name="plate1" id="plate1"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;frontispiece</i></a></span>
+<img src="images/01-frontispiece.jpg" width="314" height="470" alt="Flax Looks into the Pot of Gold" border="0" /><br /><br />
+	FLAX LOOKS INTO THE POT OF GOLD.</p>
+	<br /><br /><br />
+
+<h3>SHORT STORY</h3><br /><br />
+<h1>THE POT OF GOLD</h1>
+<br /><br /><br />
+<h3>AND OTHER STORIES</h3>
+
+<br /><br /><br />
+<h4>BY</h4>
+<br /><br /><br />
+
+
+
+<h2>MARY E. WILKINS</h2>
+<br /><br />
+<h4>Author of<br />
+"A New England Nun," "A Humble Romance," etc.</h4>
+<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+
+
+
+
+<h4><i>ILLUSTRATED</i></h4>
+<br /><br /><br />
+
+
+
+
+<h5>BOSTON<br />
+D LOTHROP COMPANY<br />
+1893</h5>
+<br /><br />
+<h5>COPYRIGHT, 1892,<br />
+BY<br />
+D. LOTHROP COMPANY.</h5>
+
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br />
+<h1>SHORT STORY</h1>
+<br /><br /><br />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table width="85%" align="center" border="0" summary="contents">
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top">Page<br /><br /></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#gold">THE POT OF GOLD</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page11">11</a></td>
+
+	</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#horns">THE COW WITH GOLDEN HORNS</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page25">25</a></td>
+
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#rosetta">PRINCESS ROSETTA AND THE POP-CORN MAN.</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page41">41</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+  <tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I. <a class="contents" href="#rosetta">THE PRINCESS ROSETTA</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page41">41</a></td>
+
+	</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;II. <a class="contents" href="#pop-corn">THE POP-CORN MAN</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page51">51</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#monks">THE CHRISTMAS MONKS</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page69">69</a></td>
+
+	</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#pumpkin">THE PUMPKIN GIANT</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page98">98</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#masquerade">THE CHRISTMAS MASQUERADE</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page115">115</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#dill">DILL</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page135">135</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#hen">THE SILVER HEN</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page154">154</a></td>
+
+	</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#toby">TOBY</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page176">176</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#patchwork">THE PATCHWORK SCHOOL</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page198">198</a></td>
+	</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#squire">THE SQUIRE'S SIXPENCE</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page219">219</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#case">A PLAIN CASE</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page237">237</a></td>
+
+	</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#stranger">A STRANGER IN THE VILLAGE</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page261">261</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#girl">THE BOUND GIRL</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page273">273</a></td>
+
+	</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#will">DEACON THOMAS WALES'S WILL</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page290">290</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#daughter">THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page306">306</a></td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+ <br /><hr /><br /><br /><br />
+
+
+
+
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+
+<table width="85%" align="center" border="0" summary="illustrations">
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate1">Flax looks into the Pot of Gold</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#plate1"><i>Frontis.</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate2">The settle and the kettle</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page14">14</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate3">Drusilla and her gold-horned cow</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page27">27</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate4">A Knight of the Golden Bee</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page45">45</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate5">The princess was not in the basket!</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page51">51</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate6">The bee guards patrolled the city</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page53">53</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate7">"You!" cried the baron scornfully</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page61">61</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate8">Both the king and queen were obliged to pop</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page64">64</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate9">Going into the chapel</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page71">71</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate10">The boys read the notice</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page77">77</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate11">The prince and Peter are examined by the monks</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page81">81</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+	<a class="contents" href="#plate12">The boys at work in the convent garden</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page87">87</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+	<a class="contents" href="#plate13">The prince runs away</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page93">93</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate14">He picked up an enormous young Plantagenet and threw it at him</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page104">104</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate15">They were all over the field</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page106">106</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate16">Then the king knighted him on the spot</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page111">111</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate17">There never was anything like the fun at the mayor's Christmas ball</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page119">119</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate18">Their parents stared in great distress</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page122">122</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate19">"I will go and tend my geese!"</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page125">125</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate20">She sang it beautifully</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page129">129</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate21">A strange sad state of things</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page141">141</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate22">Nan returns with the umbrellas</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page145">145</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate23">Such frantic efforts to get away</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page148">148</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate24">Dame Elizabeth stared with astonishment</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page150">150</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+ <a class="contents" href="#plate25">The count thinks himself insulted</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page152">152</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate26">They fairly danced and flourished their heels.</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page153">153</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate27">The snow was quite deep</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page155">155</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+ <a class="contents" href="#plate28">Two by two</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page157">157</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate29">The snow man's house</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page163">163</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate30">Puss-in-the-corner</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page164">164</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate31">To the rescue</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page169">169</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+ <a class="contents" href="#plate32">"I'll put this right in your face and&mdash;melt you!"</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page173">173</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate33">Letitia stood before uncle Jack</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page178">178</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate34">School children in Pokonoket</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page181">181</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate35">Pokonoket in stormy weather</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page185">185</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate36">Toby and the crazy loon</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page188">188</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate37">Toby ran till he was out of breath</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page193">193</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate38">The patchwork woman</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page200">200</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+ <a class="contents" href="#plate39">The patchwork girl</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page202">202</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate40">Julia was arrested on Christmas Day</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page205">205</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate41">Julia entertains the ambassador through the keyhole</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page211">211</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate42">The grandmothers enjoy the Chinese toys</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page215">215</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate43">"Six"&mdash;she began feebly</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page221">221</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate44">"What!" said Squire Bean suddenly</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page223">223</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate45">Little Patience obeys the squire's summons</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page233">233</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate46">Watching for the coach</a></td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page239">239</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate47">"Just look here!" said Willy's sweet voice</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page249">249</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate48">The little stranger</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page263">263</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+<a class="contents" href="#plate49">She almost fainted from cold and exhaustion</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page301">301</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+       <td class="left" width="80%" valign="top">
+	<a class="contents" href="#plate50">A conveyance is found</a>
+</td>
+       <td class="right" valign="top"><a href="#page321">321</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+
+</table>
+
+
+
+    <br /><hr /><br /><br /><br />
+
+<span class="page"><a name="page11" id="page11">[Page&nbsp;11]</a></span>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>THE POT OF <a name="gold" id="gold">GOLD</a>.</h1>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+
+
+
+<h2>THE POT OF GOLD.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The Flower family lived in a little house in a
+broad grassy meadow, which sloped a few rods from
+their front door down to a gentle, silvery river. Right
+across the river rose a lovely dark green mountain,
+and when there was a rainbow, as there frequently
+was, nothing could have looked more enchanting than
+it did rising from the opposite bank of the stream with
+the wet, shadowy mountain for a background. All
+the Flower family would invariably run to their front
+windows and their door to see it.</p>
+<p>
+The Flower family numbered nine: Father and
+Mother Flower and seven children. Father Flower
+was an unappreciated poet, Mother Flower was very
+much like all mothers, and the seven children were
+very sweet and interesting. Their first names all
+matched beautifully with their last name, and with
+their personal appearance. For instance, the oldest
+girl, who had soft blue eyes and flaxen curls, was called
+Flax Flower; the little boy, who came next, and had<span class="page"><a name="page12" id="page12">[Page&nbsp;12]</a></span>
+very red cheeks and loved to sleep late in the morning,
+was called Poppy Flower, and so on. This charming
+suitableness of their names was owing to Father
+Flower. He had a theory that a great deal of the
+misery and discord in the world comes from things not
+matching properly as they should; and he thought
+there ought to be a certain correspondence between all
+things that were in juxtaposition to each other, just as
+there ought to be between the last two words of a couplet
+of poetry. But he found, very often, there was no
+correspondence at all, just as words in poetry do not
+always rhyme when they should. However, he did his
+best to remedy it. He saw that every one of his
+children's names were suitable and accorded with
+their personal characteristics; and in his flower-garden&mdash;for
+he raised flowers for the market&mdash;only
+those of complementary colors were allowed to grow in
+adjoining beds, and, as often as possible, they rhymed
+in their names. But that was a more difficult matter
+to manage, and very few flowers were rhymed, or, if
+they were, none rhymed correctly. He had a bed of
+box next to one of phlox, and a trellis of woodbine
+grew next to one of eglantine, and a thicket of elder-blows
+was next to one of rose; but he was forced to
+let his violets and honeysuckles and many others go
+entirely unrhymed&mdash;this disturbed him considerably,
+but he reflected that it was not his fault, but that of
+the man who made the language and named the different<span class="page"><a name="page13" id="page13">[Page&nbsp;13]</a></span>
+flowers&mdash;he should have looked to it that those of
+complementary colors had names to rhyme with each
+other, then all would have been harmonious and as it
+should have been.</p>
+<p>
+Father Flower had chosen this way of earning his
+livelihood when he realized that he was doomed to be
+an unappreciated poet, because it suited so well with
+his name; and if the flowers had only rhymed a little
+better he would have been very well contented. As it
+was, he never grumbled. He also saw to it that the
+furniture in his little house and the cooking utensils
+rhymed as nearly as possible, though that too was
+oftentimes a difficult matter to bring about, and required
+a vast deal of thought and hard study. The
+table always stood under the gable end of the roof, the
+foot-stool always stood where it was cool, and the big
+rocking-chair in a glare of sunlight; the lamp, too, he
+kept down cellar where it was damp. But all these
+were rather far-fetched, and sometimes quite inconvenient.
+Occasionally there would be an article that
+he could not rhyme until he had spent years of thought
+over it, and when he did it would disturb the comfort
+of the family greatly. There was the spider. He
+puzzled over that exceedingly, and when he rhymed it
+at last, Mother Flower or one of the little girls had
+always to take the spider beside her, when she sat
+<span class="page"><a name="page14" id="page14">[Page&nbsp;14]</a></span>
+down, which was of course quite troublesome.<br /><br />
+
+<span class="page"><a name="plate2" id="plate2">[plate 2]</a></span>
+<img src="images/02-settle.jpg" width="289" height="470" alt="The Settle" border="0" hspace="15" style="float: left" />
+
+The kettle he rhymed first with nettle, and hung a bunch
+of nettle over it, till all the children got dreadfully
+stung. Then he tried settle, and hung the kettle over
+the settle. But that was no place for it; they had to
+go without their tea, and everybody who sat on the settle bumped
+his head against the kettle. At last it occurred to Father Flower
+that if he should make a slight change in the language the kettle
+could rhyme with the skillet, and sit beside it on the stove, as it ought,
+leaving harmony out of the question, to do. Accordingly all the
+children were instructed to call the skillet a skettle,
+and the kettle stood by its side on the stove ever
+afterward.</p>
+
+
+<p>
+The house was a very pretty one, although it was
+quite rude and very simple. It was built of logs and<span class="page"><a name="page15" id="page15">[Page&nbsp;15]</a></span>
+had a thatched roof, which projected far out over the
+walls. But it was all overrun with the loveliest flowering
+vines imaginable, and, inside, nothing could have
+been more exquisitely neat and homelike; although
+there was only one room and a little garret over it.
+All around the house were the flower-beds and the vine-trellises
+and the blooming shrubs, and they were
+always in the most beautiful order. Now, although all
+this was very pretty to see, and seemingly very simple
+to bring to pass, yet there was a vast deal of labor in
+it for some one; for flowers do not look so trim and
+thriving without tending, and houses do not look so
+spotlessly clean without constant care. All the Flower
+family worked hard; even the littlest children had
+their daily tasks set them. The oldest girl, especially,
+little Flax Flower, was kept busy from morning till
+night taking care of her younger brothers and sisters,
+and weeding flowers. But for all that she was a very
+happy little girl, as indeed were the whole family, as
+they did not mind working, and loved each other
+dearly.</p>
+<p>
+Father Flower, to be sure, felt a little sad sometimes;
+for, although his lot in life was a pleasant one,
+it was not exactly what he would have chosen. Once
+in a while he had a great longing for something different.
+He confided a great many of his feelings to Flax
+Flower; she was more like him than any of the other
+children, and could understand him even better than<span class="page"><a name="page16" id="page16">[Page&nbsp;16]</a></span>
+his wife, he thought.</p>
+<p>
+One day, when there had been a heavy shower and
+a beautiful rainbow, he and Flax were out in the garden
+tying up some rose-bushes, which the rain had
+beaten down, and he said to her how he wished he
+could find the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow.
+Flax, if you will believe me, had never heard of it; so
+he had to tell her all about it, and also say a little
+poem he had made about it to her.</p>
+<p>
+The poem ran something in this way:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+O what is it shineth so golden-clear<br />
+   &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;At the rainbow's foot on the dark green hill?<br />
+'Tis the Pot of Gold, that for many a year<br />
+   &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Has shone, and is shining and dazzling still.<br />
+And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?<br />
+For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way.</p><br />
+
+<p>
+Flax listened with her soft blue eyes very wide open.
+"I suppose if we should find that pot of gold it would
+make us very rich, wouldn't it, father?" said she.</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," replied her father; "we could then have a
+grand house, and keep a gardener, and a maid to take
+care of the children, and we should no longer have to
+work so hard." He sighed as he spoke, and tears stood
+in his gentle blue eyes, which were very much like
+Flax's. "However, we shall never find it," he added.</p>
+<p>
+"Why couldn't we run ever so fast when we saw<span class="page"><a name="page17" id="page17">[Page&nbsp;17]</a></span>
+the rainbow," inquired Flax, "and get the Pot of
+Gold?"</p>
+<p>
+"Don't be foolish, child!" said her father; "you
+could not possibly reach it before the rainbow was
+quite faded away!"</p>
+<p>
+"True," said Flax, but she fell to thinking as she
+tied up the dripping roses.</p>
+<p>
+The next rainbow they had she eyed very closely,
+standing out on the front door-step in the rain, and
+she saw that one end of it seemed to touch the ground
+at the foot of a pine-tree on the side of the mountain,
+which was quite conspicuous amongst its fellows,
+it was so tall. The other end had nothing especial
+to mark it.</p>
+<p>
+"I will try the end where the tall pine-tree is first,"
+said Flax to herself, "because that will be the easiest
+to find&mdash;if the Pot of Gold isn't there I will try to find
+the other end."</p>
+<p>
+A few days after that it was very hot and sultry,
+and at noon the thunder heads were piled high all
+around the horizon.</p>
+<p>
+"I don't doubt but we shall have showers this
+afternoon," said Father Flower, when he came in from
+the garden for his dinner.</p>
+<p>
+After the dinner-dishes were washed up, and the
+baby rocked to sleep, Flax came to her mother with a
+petition.</p>
+<p>
+"Mother," said she, "won't you give me a holiday<span class="page"><a name="page18" id="page18">[Page&nbsp;18]</a></span>
+this afternoon?"</p>
+<p>
+"Why, where do you want to go, Flax?" said her
+mother.</p>
+<p>
+"I want to go over on the mountain and hunt for
+wild flowers," replied Flax.</p>
+<p>
+"But I think it is going to rain, child, and you
+will get wet."</p>
+<p>
+"That won't hurt me any, mother," said Flax,
+laughing.</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I don't know as I care," said her mother,
+hesitatingly. "You have been a very good industrious
+girl, and deserve a little holiday. Only don't go so
+far that you cannot soon run home if a shower should
+come up."</p>
+<p>
+So Flax curled her flaxen hair and tied it up with
+a blue ribbon, and put on her blue and white checked
+dress. By the time she was ready to go the clouds
+over in the northwest were piled up very high and
+black, and it was quite late in the afternoon. Very
+likely her mother would not have let her gone if she
+had been at home, but she had taken the baby, who
+had waked from his nap, and gone to call on her nearest
+neighbor, half a mile away. As for her father, he
+was busy in the garden, and all the other children were
+with him, and they did not notice Flax when she stole
+out of the front door. She crossed the river on a
+pretty arched stone bridge nearly opposite the house,
+and went directly into the woods on the side of the<span class="page"><a name="page19" id="page19">[Page&nbsp;19]</a></span>
+mountain.</p>
+<p>
+Everything was very still and dark and solemn in
+the woods. They knew about the storm that was coming.
+Now and then Flax heard the leaves talking
+in queer little rustling voices. She inherited the
+ability to understand what they said from her father.
+They were talking to each other now in the words
+of her father's song. Very likely he had heard them
+saying it sometime, and that was how he happened
+to know i t,</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"O what is it shineth so golden-clear<br />
+At the rainbow's foot on the dark green hill?"</p>
+
+<p>
+Flax heard the maple leaves inquire. And the pine-leaves
+answered back:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"'Tis the Pot of Gold, that for many a year<br />
+Has shone, and is shining and dazzling still."</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the maple-leaves asked:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?"</p>
+
+<p>
+And the pine-leaves answered:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way."</p>
+
+<p>
+Flax did not exactly understand the sense of the
+last question and answer between maple and pine-leaves.
+But they kept on saying it over and over
+as she ran along. She was going straight to the tall
+pine-tree. She knew just where it was, for she had <span class="page"><a name="page20" id="page20">[Page&nbsp;20]</a></span>
+often been there. Now the rain-drops began to splash
+through the green boughs, and the thunder rolled
+along the sky. The leaves all tossed about in a strong
+wind and their soft rustles grew into a roar, and the
+branches and the whole tree caught it up and called
+out so loud as they writhed and twisted about that Flax
+was almost deafened, the words of the song:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"O what is it shineth so golden-clear?"</p>
+
+<p>
+Flax sped along through the wind and the rain and
+the thunder. She was very much afraid that she
+should not reach the tall pine which was quite a way
+distant before the sun shone out, and the rainbow
+came.</p>
+<p>
+The sun was already breaking through the clouds
+when she came in sight of it, way up above her on a
+rock. The rain-drops on the trees began to shine like
+diamonds, and the words of the song rushed out from
+their midst, louder and sweeter:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"O what is it shineth so golden-clear?"</p>
+
+<p>
+Flax climbed for dear life. Red and green and
+golden rays were already falling thick around her, and
+at the foot of the pine-tree something was shining wonderfully
+clear and bright.</p>
+<p>
+At last she reached it, and just at that instant the
+rainbow became a perfect one, and there at the foot of
+the wonderful arch of glory was the Pot of Gold.<span class="page"><a name="page21" id="page21">[Page&nbsp;21]</a></span>
+Flax could see it brighter than all the brightness of the
+rainbow. She sank down beside it and put her hand
+on it, then she closed her eyes and sat still, bathed in
+red and green and violet light&mdash;that, and the golden
+light from the Pot, made her blind and dizzy. As she
+sat there with her hand on the Pot of Gold at the foot
+of the rainbow, she could hear the leaves over her singing
+louder and louder, till the tones fairly rushed like
+a wind through her ears. But this time they only sang
+the last words of the song:</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?<br />
+For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way."</p>
+
+<p>
+At last she ventured to open her eyes. The rainbow
+had faded almost entirely away, only a few tender rose
+and green shades were arching over her; but the Pot
+of Gold under her hand was still there, and shining
+brighter than ever. All the pine needles with which
+the ground around it was thickly spread, were turned
+to needles of gold, and some stray couplets of leaves
+which were springing up through them were all
+gilded.</p>
+<p>
+Flax bent over it trembling and lifted the lid off the
+pot. She expected, of course, to find it full of gold
+pieces that would buy the grand house and the gardener
+and the maid that her father had spoken about.
+But to her astonishment, when she had lifted the lid
+off and bent over the Pot to look into it, the first thing<span class="page"><a name="page22" id="page22">[Page&nbsp;22]</a></span>
+she saw was the face of her mother looking out of it
+at her. It was smaller of course, but just the same
+loving, kindly face she had left at home. Then, as
+she looked longer, she saw her father smiling gently up
+at her, then came Poppy and the baby and all the rest
+of her dear little brothers and sisters smiling up at her
+out of the golden gloom inside the Pot. At last she
+actually saw the garden and her father in it tying up
+the roses, and the pretty little vine-covered house, and,
+finally, she could see right into the dear little room
+where her mother sat with the baby in her lap, and all
+the others around her.</p>
+<p>
+Flax jumped up. "I will run home," said she, "it
+is late, and I do want to see them all dreadfully."</p>
+<p>
+So she left the Golden Pot shining all alone under
+the pine-tree, and ran home as fast as she could.</p>
+<p>
+When she reached the house it was almost twilight,
+but her father was still in the garden. Every rose and
+lily had to be tied up after the shower, and he was but
+just finishing. He had the tin milk pan hung on him
+like a shield, because it rhymed with man. It certainly
+was a beautiful rhyme, but it was very inconvenient.
+Poor Mother Flower was at her wits' end to know
+what to do without it, and it was very awkward for
+Father Flower to work with it fastened to him.</p>
+<p>
+Flax ran breathlessly into the garden, and threw her
+arms around her father's neck and kissed him. She
+bumped her nose against the milk pan, but she did not<span class="page"><a name="page23" id="page23">[Page&nbsp;23]</a></span>
+mind that; she was so glad to see him again. Somehow,
+she never remembered being so glad to see him
+as she was now since she had seen his face in the Pot
+of Gold.</p>
+<p>
+"Dear father," cried she, "how glad I am to see
+you! I found the Pot of Gold at the end of the
+rainbow!"</p>
+<p>
+Her father stared at her in amazement.</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I did, truly, father," said she. "But it was
+not full of gold, after all. You was in it, and mother
+and the children and the house and garden and&mdash;everything."</p>
+<p>
+"You were mistaken, dear," said her father, looking
+at her with his gentle, sorrowful eyes. "You could
+not have found the true end of the rainbow, nor the
+true Pot of Gold&mdash;that is surely full of the most
+beautiful gold pieces, with an angel stamped on every
+one."</p>
+<p>
+"But I did, father," persisted Flax.</p>
+<p>
+"You had better go into your mother, Flax," said
+her father; "she will be anxious to see you. I know
+better than you about the Pot of Gold at the end of
+the rainbow."</p>
+<p>
+So Flax went sorrowfully into the house. There
+was the tea-kettle singing beside the "skettle," which
+had some nice smelling soup in it, the table was laid
+for supper, and there sat her mother with the baby in
+her lap and the others all around her&mdash;just as they<span class="page"><a name="page24" id="page24">[Page&nbsp;24]</a></span>
+had looked in the Pot of Gold.</p>
+<p>
+Flax had never been so glad to see them before&mdash;and
+if she didn't hug and kiss them all!</p>
+<p>
+"I found the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow,
+mother," cried she, "and it was not full of gold,
+at all; but you and father and the children looked out
+of it at me, and I saw the house and garden and
+everything in it."</p>
+<p>
+Her mother looked at her lovingly. "Yes, Flax
+dear," said she.</p>
+<p>
+"But father said I was mistaken," said Flax, "and
+did not find it."</p>
+<p>
+"Well, dear," said her mother, "your father is a
+poet, and very wise; we will say no more about it.
+You can sit down here and hold the baby now, while
+I make the tea."</p>
+<p>
+Flax was perfectly ready to do that; and, as she
+sat there with her darling little baby brother crowing
+in her lap, and watched her pretty little brothers and
+sisters and her dear mother, she felt so happy that she
+did not care any longer whether she had found the
+true Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow or not.</p>
+<p>
+But, after all, do you know, I think her father was
+mistaken, and that she had.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page25" id="page25">[Page&nbsp;25]</a></span>
+
+<h2>THE COW WITH GOLDEN <a name="horns" id="horns">HORNS</a>.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Once there was a farmer who had a very rare and
+valuable cow. There was not another like her in the
+whole kingdom. She was as white as the whitest lily
+you ever saw, and her horns, which curved very gracefully,
+were of gold.</p>
+<p>
+She had a charming green meadow, with a silvery
+pool in the middle, to feed in. Almost all the grass
+was blue-eyed grass, too, and there were yellow lilies
+all over the pool.</p>
+<p>
+The farmer's daughter, who was a milkmaid, used
+to tend the gold-horned cow. She was a very pretty
+girl. Her name was Drusilla. She had long flaxen
+hair, which hung down to her ankles in two smooth
+braids, tied with blue ribbons. She had blue eyes and
+pink cheeks, and she wore a blue petticoat, with garlands
+of rose-buds all over it, and a white dimity short
+gown, looped up with bunches of roses. Her hat was
+a straw flat, with a wreath of rose-buds around it, and
+she always carried a green willow branch in her hand
+to drive the cow with.</p>
+<p>
+She used to sit on a bank near the silvery pool, and
+watch the gold-horned cow, and sing to herself all day
+from the time the dew was sparkling over the meadow<span class="page"><a name="page26" id="page26">[Page&nbsp;26]</a></span>
+in the morning, till it fell again at night. Then she
+would drive the cow gently home, with her green willow
+stick, milk her, and feed her, and put her into her
+stable, herself, for the night.</p>
+<p>
+The farmer was feeble and old, so his daughter had
+to do all this. The gold-horned cow's stable was a sort
+of a "lean-to," built into the side of the cottage where
+Drusilla and her father lived. Its roof, as well as
+that of the cottage, was thatched and overgrown with
+moss, out of which had grown, in its turn, a little
+starry white flower, until the whole roof looked like a
+flower-bed. There were roses climbing over the walls
+of the cottage and stable, also, pink and white ones.</p>
+<p>
+Drusilla used to keep the gold-horned cow's stable
+in exquisite order. Her trough to eat out of, was
+polished as clean as a lady's china tea-cup. She always
+had fresh straw, and her beautiful long tail was tied
+by a blue ribbon to a ring in the ceiling, in order to
+keep it nice.</p>
+
+<span class="page"><a name="page27" id="page27">[Page&nbsp;27]</a></span>
+<p class="center1"><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="plate3" id="plate3">[plate 3]</a></span>
+<img src="images/03-drusilla.jpg" width="505" height="300" alt="Drusilla and her gold-horned cow." border="0" /><br /><br />
+DRUSILLA AND HER GOLD-HORNED COW.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+The gold-horned cow's milk was better than any
+other's, as one would reasonably suppose it to have
+been. The cream used to be at least an inch thick,
+and so yellow; and the milk itself had a peculiar and
+exquisite flavor&mdash;perhaps the best way to describe it,
+is to say it tasted as lilies smell. The gentry all about
+were eager to buy it, and willing to pay a good price
+for it. Drusilla used to go around to supply her customers,
+nights and mornings, a bright, shining milk-pail<span class="page"><a name="page29" id="page29">[Page&nbsp;29]</a></span>
+in each hand, and one on her head. She had
+learned to carry herself so steadily in consequence that
+she walked like a queen.</p>
+<p>
+Everybody admired Drusilla, and all the young
+shepherds and farmers made love to her, but she did
+not seem to care for any of them, but to prefer tending
+her gold-horned cow, and devoting herself to her
+old father&mdash;she was a very dutiful daughter.</p>
+<p>
+Everything went prosperously with them for a long
+time; the cow thrived, and gave a great deal of milk,
+customers were plenty, they paid the rent for their
+cottage regularly, and Drusilla who was a beautiful
+spinner, had her linen chest filled to the brim with the
+finest linen.</p>
+<p>
+At length, however, a great misfortune befell them.
+One morning&mdash;it was the day after a holiday&mdash;Drusilla,
+who had been up very late the night before dancing
+on the village green, felt very sleepy, as she sat
+watching the cow in the green meadow. So she just
+laid her flaxen head down amongst the blue-eyed grasses,
+and soon fell fast asleep.</p>
+<p>
+When she woke up, the dew was all dried off, and
+the sun almost directly overhead. She rubbed her
+eyes, and looked about for the gold-horned cow. To
+her great alarm, she was nowhere to be seen. She
+jumped up, distractedly, and ran over the meadow, but
+the gold-horned cow was certainly not there. The bars
+were up, just as she had left them, and there was not<span class="page"><a name="page30" id="page30">[Page&nbsp;30]</a></span>
+a gap in the stonewall which extended around the
+meadow. How could she have gotten out? It was
+very mysterious!</p>
+<p>
+Drusilla, when she found, certainly, that the gold-horned
+cow was gone, lost no time in wonderment and
+conjecture; she started forth to find her. "I will not
+tell father till I have searched a long time," said she
+to herself.</p>
+<p>
+So, down the road she went, looking anxiously on
+either side. "If only I could come in sight of her,
+browsing in the clover, beside the wall," sighed she;
+but she did not.</p>
+<p>
+After a while, she saw a great cloud of dust in the
+distance. It rolled nearer and nearer, and finally she
+saw the King on horseback, with a large party of
+nobles galloping after him. The King, who was quite
+an old man, had a very long, curling, white beard, and
+had his breast completely covered with orders and decorations.
+No convenient board fence on a circus day
+was ever more thoroughly covered with elephants and
+horses, and trapeze performers, than the breast of the
+King's black velvet coat with jeweled stars and ribbons.
+But even then, there was not room for all his
+store, so he had hit upon the ingenious expedient of
+covering a black silk umbrella with the remainder.
+He held it in a stately manner over his head now, and
+it presented a dazzling sight; for it was literally blazing
+with gems, and glittering ribbons fluttered from it <span class="page"><a name="page31" id="page31">[Page&nbsp;31]</a></span>
+on all sides.</p>
+<p>
+When the King saw Drusilla courtesying by the side
+of the road, he drew rein so suddenly, that his horse
+reared back on its haunches, and all his nobles, who
+always made it a point to do exactly as the King did&mdash;it
+was court etiquette&mdash;also drew rein suddenly,
+and all their horses reared back on their haunches.</p>
+<p>
+"What will you, pretty maiden?" asked the King
+graciously.</p>
+<p>
+"Please, your Majesty," said Drusilla courtesying
+and blushing and looking prettier than ever, "have
+you seen my gold-horned cow?"</p>
+<p>
+"Pardy," said the King, for that was the proper
+thing for a King to say, you know, "I never saw a
+gold-horned cow in my life!"</p>
+<p>
+Then Drusilla told him about her loss, and the King
+gazed at her while she was talking, and admired her
+more and more.</p>
+<p>
+You must know that it had always been a great
+cross to the King and his wife, the Queen, that they
+had never had any daughter. They had often thought
+of adopting one, but had never seen any one who
+exactly suited them. They wanted a full-grown Princess,
+because they had an alliance with the Prince of
+Egypt in view.</p>
+<p>
+The King looked at Drusilla now, and thought her
+the most beautiful and stately maiden he had ever seen.</p>
+<p>
+"What an appropriate Princess she would make!"<span class="page"><a name="page32" id="page32">[Page&nbsp;32]</a></span>
+thought he.</p>
+<p>
+"Suppose I should find the gold-horned cow for
+you," said he to Drusilla, when she had finished her
+pitiful story, "would you consent to be adopted by the
+Queen and myself, and be a princess?"</p>
+<p>
+Drusilla hesitated a moment. She thought of her
+dear old father and how desolate he would be without
+her. But then she thought how terribly distressed he
+would be at the loss of the gold-horned cow, and that
+if he had her back, she would be company for him,
+even if his daughter was away, and she finally gave
+her consent.</p>
+<p>
+The King always had his Lord Chamberlain lead a
+white palfrey, with rich housings, by the bridle, in case
+they came across a suitable full-grown Princess in any
+of their journeys; and now he ordered him to be
+brought forward, and commanded a page to assist
+Drusilla to the saddle.</p>
+<p>
+But she began to weep. "I want to go back to my
+father, until you have found the cow, your Majesty,"
+said she.</p>
+<p>
+"You may go and bid your father good-by," replied
+the King, peremptorily, "but then you must go immediately
+to the boarding school, where all the young
+ladies of the Court are educated. If you are going to
+be a Princess, it is high time you began to prepare.
+You will have to learn feather stitching, and rick-rack
+and Kensington stitch, and tatting, and point lace, and<span class="page"><a name="page33" id="page33">[Page&nbsp;33]</a></span>
+Japanese patchwork, and painting on china, and how
+to play variations on the piano, and&mdash;everything a
+Princess ought to know."</p>
+<p>
+"But," said Drusilla timidly, "suppose&mdash;your Majesty
+shouldn't&mdash;find the cow"&mdash;</p>
+<p>
+"Oh! I shall find the cow fast enough," replied the
+King carelessly. "Why, I shall have the whole Kingdom
+searched. I can't fail to find her." So the page
+assisted the milkmaid to the saddle, kneeling gracefully,
+and presenting his hand for her to place her foot
+in, and they galloped off toward the farmer's cottage.</p>
+<p>
+The old man was greatly astonished to see his
+daughter come riding home in such splendid company,
+and when she explained matters to him, his distress, at
+first, knew no bounds. To lose both his dear daughter
+and his precious gold-horned cow, at one blow, seemed
+too much to bear. But the King promised to provide
+liberally for him during his daughter's absence, and
+spoke very confidently of his being able to find the
+cow. He also promised that Drusilla should return
+to him if the cow was not found in one year's time,
+and after a while the old man was pacified.</p>
+<p>
+Drusilla put her arms around her father's neck and
+kissed him tenderly; then the page assisted her gracefully
+into the saddle, and she rode, sobbing, away.</p>
+<p>
+After they had ridden about an hour, they came to
+a large, white building.</p>
+<p>
+"O dear!" said the King, "the seminary is asleep!<span class="page"><a name="page34" id="page34">[Page&nbsp;34]</a></span>
+I was afraid of it!"</p>
+<p>
+Then Drusilla saw that the building was like a great
+solid mass, with not a door or window visible.</p>
+<p>
+"It is asleep," explained the King. "It is not a
+common house; a great professor designed it. It
+goes to sleep, and you can't see any doors or windows,
+and such work as it is to wake it up! But we may as
+well begin."</p>
+<p>
+Then he gave a signal, and all the nobles shouted
+as loud as they possibly could, but the seminary still
+remained asleep.</p>
+<p>
+"It's asleep most of the time!" growled the King.
+"They don't want the young ladies disturbed at their
+feather stitching and rick-rack, by anything going on
+outside. I wish I could shake it."</p>
+<p>
+Then he gave the signal again, and all the nobles
+shouted together, as loud as they could possibly scream.
+Suddenly, doors and windows appeared all over the
+seminary, like so many opening eyes.</p>
+<p>
+"There," cried the King, "the seminary has woke
+up, and I am glad of it!"</p>
+<p>
+Then he ushered Drusilla in, and introduced her to
+the lady principal and the young ladies, and she was
+at once set to making daisies in Kensington stitch, for
+the King was very anxious for her education to begin
+at once.</p>
+<p>
+So now, the milkmaid, instead of sitting, singing, in
+a green meadow, watching her beautiful gold-horned<span class="page"><a name="page35" id="page35">[Page&nbsp;35]</a></span>
+cow, had to sit all day in a high-backed chair, her feet
+on a little foot-stool with an embroidered pussy cat on
+it, and do fancy work. The young ladies worked by
+electric light; for the seminary was asleep nearly all
+the time, and no sunlight could get in at the windows,
+for boards clapped down over them like so many eye-lids
+when the seminary began to doze.</p>
+<p>
+Drusilla had left off her pretty blue petticoat and
+white short gown now, and was dressed in gold-flowered
+satin, with an immense train, which two pages bore
+for her when she walked. Her pretty hair was combed
+high and powdered, and she wore a comb of gold and
+pearls in it. She looked very lovely, but she also
+looked very sad. She could not help thinking, even in
+the midst of all this splendor, of her dear father,
+and her own home, and wishing to see them.</p>
+<p>
+She was a very apt pupil. Her tatting collars were
+the admiration of the whole seminary, and she made
+herself a whole dress of rick-rack. She painted a
+charming umbrella stand for the King, and actually
+worked the gold-horned cow in Kensington stitch, on a
+blue satin tidy, for the Queen. It was so natural that
+she wept over it, herself, when it was finished; but
+the Queen was delighted, and put it on her best stuffed
+rocking-chair in her parlor, and would run and throw
+it back every time the King sat down there, for fear
+he would lean his head against it and soil it.</p>
+<p>
+Drusilla also worked an elegant banner of old gold<span class="page"><a name="page36" id="page36">[Page&nbsp;36]</a></span>
+satin, with hollyhocks, for the King to carry at the
+head of his troops when he went to battle; also a hat-band
+for the Prince of Egypt. This last was sent by
+a special courier with a large escort, and the Prince
+sent an exquisite shopping-bag of real alligator's skin
+to Drusilla in return. She was the envy of the whole
+seminary when it came.</p>
+<p>
+The young ladies fared very delicately. Their one
+article of diet was peaches and cream. It was thought
+to improve their complexions. Once in a while, they
+went out to drive by moonlight; they were afraid of
+sunburn by day, and they wore white gauze veils, even
+in the moonlight, and they all had embroidered afghans
+of their own handiwork.</p>
+<p>
+They used to sit around a large table over which
+hung a chandelier of the electric light, to work, and
+some young lady either played "Home, sweet Home,
+and variations," or else "The Maiden's Prayer," on
+the piano for their entertainment.</p>
+<p>
+It seemed as if Drusilla ought to have been happy
+in a place like this; but although she was diligent and
+dutiful, she grieved all the time for her father.</p>
+<p>
+Meantime, the King was keeping up an energetic
+search for the gold-horned cow. Every stable and
+pasture in the Kingdom was searched, spies were
+posted everywhere, but the King could not find her.
+She had disappeared as completely as if she had vanished
+altogether from the face of the earth. It at last <span class="page"><a name="page37" id="page37">[Page&nbsp;37]</a></span>
+began to be whispered about that there never had been
+any gold-horned cow, but that the whole had been a
+clever trick of Drusilla's, that she might become a
+Princess. An envious schoolmate, who had been very
+desirous of becoming Princess and marrying the Prince
+of Egypt herself, started the report; and it soon
+spread over the whole Kingdom. The King heard it
+and began to believe it; for he could not see why he
+failed to find the cow. It always exasperated the
+King dreadfully to fail in anything, and he never
+allowed that it was his own fault, if he could possibly
+help it.</p>
+<p>
+At last the end of the year came, and still no signs
+of the gold-horned cow. Then the King became convinced
+that Drusilla had cheated him, that there never
+had been any such wonderful cow, and that she had
+used this trick in order to become a Princess. Of
+course, the King felt more comfortable to believe this,
+for it accounted satisfactorily for his own failure to
+find her, and it is extremely mortifying for a King to
+be unable to do anything he sets out to.</p>
+<p>
+So Drusilla was dismissed from the seminary in disgrace,
+and sent home. Her jewels and fine clothes
+were all taken away from her, even her rick-rack dress,
+and she put on her blue petticoat and short gown, and
+straw flat again. Still, she was so happy at the prospect
+of seeing her dear old father again, that she did
+not mind the loss of all her fine things much. She<span class="page"><a name="page38" id="page38">[Page&nbsp;38]</a></span>
+did not ride the white palfrey now, but went home on
+foot, in the dewy morning, as fast as she could trip.</p>
+<p>
+When she came in sight of the cottage, there was
+her father sitting in his old place at the window.
+When he saw his beloved daughter coming, he ran out
+to meet her as fast as he could hobble, and they tenderly
+embraced each other.</p>
+<p>
+The King had provided liberally for the old man
+while Drusilla was in the seminary, but now that he
+was so angry at her alleged deception, his support
+would probably cease, and, since the gold-horned cow
+was lost, it was a question how they would live. The
+father and daughter sat talking it over after they had
+entered the cottage. It was a puzzling question, and
+Drusilla was weeping a little, when her father gave a
+joyful cry:</p>
+<p>
+"Look, look, Drusilla!"</p>
+<p>
+Drusilla looked up quickly, and there was the milk-white
+face and golden horns of the cow peering through
+the vines in the window. She was eating some of the
+pink and white roses.</p>
+<p>
+Drusilla and her father hastened out with joyful
+exclamations, and there was the cow, sure enough. A
+couple of huge wicker baskets were slung across her
+broad back, and one was filled to the brim with gold
+coins, and the other with jewels, diamonds, pearls and
+rubies.</p>
+<p>
+When Drusilla and her father saw them, they both<span class="page"><a name="page39" id="page39">[Page&nbsp;39]</a></span>
+threw their arms around the gold-horned cow's neck,
+and cried for joy. She turned her head and gazed at
+them a moment with her calm, gentle eyes; then she
+went on eating roses.</p>
+<p>
+When the King heard of all this, he came with the
+Queen in a golden coach, to see Drusilla and her father.
+"I am convinced now of your truthfulness," he said
+majestically, when the Court Jeweler had examined
+the cow's horns to see if they were true gold, and not
+merely gilded, and he had seen with his own eyes the
+two baskets full of coins and jewels. "And, if you
+would like to be Princess, you can be, and also marry
+the Prince of Egypt."</p>
+<p>
+But Drusilla threw her arms around her father's
+neck. "No; your Majesty," she said timidly, "I had
+rather stay with my father, if you please, than be a
+Princess, and I rather live here and tend my dear cow,
+than marry the Prince of Egypt."</p>
+<p>
+The King sighed, and so did the Queen; they knew
+they never should find another such beautiful Princess.
+But, then, the King had not kept his part of the contract
+and found the gold-horned cow, and he could not
+compel her to be a Princess without breaking the royal
+word.</p>
+<p>
+So the cow was again led out to pasture in the little
+meadow of blue-eyed grasses, and Drusilla, though she
+was very rich now, used to find no greater happiness
+than to sit on the banks of the silvery pool where the<span class="page"><a name="page40" id="page40">[Page&nbsp;40]</a></span>
+yellow lilies grew, and watch her.</p>
+<p>
+They had their poor little cottage torn down and a
+grand castle built instead: but the roof of that was
+thatched and over-grown with moss, and pink and
+white roses clustered thickly around the walls. It was
+just as much like their old home as a castle can be like
+a cottage. The gold-horned cow had, also, a magnificent
+new stable. Her eating-trough was the finest
+moss rose-bud china, she had dried rose leaves instead
+of hay to eat, and there were real lace curtains at all
+the stable windows, and a lace <i>porti�re</i> over her stall.</p>
+<p>
+The King and Queen used to visit Drusilla often;
+they gave her back her rick-rack dress, and grew very
+fond of her, though she would not be a Princess.
+Finally, however, they prevailed upon her to be made
+a countess. So she was called "Lady Drusilla," and
+she had a coat of arms, with the gold-horned cow
+rampant on it, put up over the great gate of the
+castle.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+
+<span class="page"><a name="page41" id="page41">[Page&nbsp;41]</a></span>
+<h2>PRINCESS ROSETTA AND THE POP-CORN MAN.</h2>
+
+<h3>I.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE PRINCESS <a name="rosetta" id="rosetta">ROSETTA</a>.</h3>
+
+<p>
+The Bee Festival was held on the sixteenth day of
+May; all the court went. The court-ladies wore green
+silk scarfs, long green floating plumes in their bonnets,
+and green satin petticoats embroidered with apple-blossoms.
+The court-gentlemen wore green velvet
+tunics with nose-gays in their buttonholes, and green
+silk hose. Their little pointed shoes were adorned
+with knots of flowers instead of buckles.</p>
+<p>
+As for the King himself, he wore a thick wreath of
+cherry and peach-blossoms instead of his crown, and
+carried a white thorn-branch instead of his scepter.
+His green velvet robe was trimmed with a border of
+blue and white violets instead of ermine. The Queen
+wore a garland of violets around her golden head, and
+the hem of her gown was thickly sown with primroses.</p>
+<p>
+But the little Princess Rosetta surpassed all the
+rest. Her little gown was completely woven of violets
+and other fine flowers.  There was a very skillful
+seamstress in the court who knew how to do this kind<span class="page"><a name="page42" id="page42">[Page&nbsp;42]</a></span>
+of work, although no one except the Princess Rosetta
+was allowed to wear a flower-cloth gown to the Bee
+Festival. She wore also a little white violet cap, and
+two of her nurses carried her between them in a little
+basket lined with rose and apple-leaves.</p>
+<p>
+All the company, as they danced along, sang, or
+played on flutes, or rang little glass and silver bells.
+Nobody except the King and Queen rode. They rode
+cream-colored ponies, with silken ropes wound with
+flowers for bridle-reins.</p>
+<p>
+The Bee Festival was held in a beautiful park a
+mile distant from the city. The young grass there
+was green and velvety, and spangled all over with
+fallen apple and cherry and peach and plum and pear blossoms;
+for the park was set with fruit-trees in even
+rows. The blue sky showed between the pink and
+white branches, and the air was very sweet and loud
+with the humming of bees. The trees were all full of
+bees. There was something peculiar about the bees
+of this country; none of them had stings.</p>
+<p>
+When the court reached the park, they all tinkled
+their bells in time, whistled on their flutes, and sang
+a song which they always sang on these occasions.
+Then they played games and enjoyed themselves.
+They played hide-and-seek among the trees, and
+formed rings and danced. The bees flew around them,
+and seemed to know them. The little Princess, lying
+in her basket, crowed and laughed, and caught at them<span class="page"><a name="page43" id="page43">[Page&nbsp;43]</a></span>
+when they came humming over her face. Her nurses
+stood around her, and waved great fans of peacock-feathers,
+but that did not frighten the bees at all.</p>
+<p>
+The court's lunch was spread on a damask-cloth, in
+an open space between the trees. There were biscuits
+of wheaten flour, plates of honey-comb, and cream in
+tall glass ewers. That was the regulation lunch at the
+Bee Festival. The Bee Festival was nearly as old as
+the kingdom, and there was an ancient legend about
+it, which the Poet Laureate had put into an epic poem.
+The King had it in his royal library, printed in golden
+letters and bound in old gold plush.</p>
+<p>
+Centuries ago, so the legend ran, in the days of the
+very first monarch of the royal family of which this
+king was a member, there were no bees at all in the
+kingdom. Not a child in the whole country, not even
+the little princes and princesses in the palace, had ever
+tasted a bit of bread and honey.</p>
+<p>
+But, while there were no bees in this kingdom, one
+just across the river was swarming with them. That
+kingdom was governed by a king who was the tenth
+cousin of the first, and not very well disposed toward
+him. He had stationed lines of sentinels with ostrich-feather
+brooms on his bank of the river to keep the
+bees from flying over, and he would not export a single
+bee, nor one ounce of honey, although he had been
+offered immense sums.</p>
+<p>
+However, the inhabitants of this second country<span class="page"><a name="page44" id="page44">[Page&nbsp;44]</a></span>
+were so cruel and tormenting in their dispositions, and
+the children so teased the bees, which were stingless
+and could not defend themselves, that they rebelled.
+They stopped making honey, and one day they
+swarmed, and flew in a body across the river in spite
+of the frantic waving of the ostrich-feather brooms.</p>
+<p>
+The other King was overjoyed. He ordered beautiful
+hives to be built for them, and instituted a national
+festival in their honor, which ever since had been observed
+regularly on the sixteenth day of May.</p>
+<p>
+Up to this day there were no bees in the kingdom
+across the river. Not one would return to where its
+ancestors had been so hardly treated; here everybody
+was kind to them, and even paid them honor. The
+present King had established an order of the "Golden
+Bee." The Knights of the Golden Bee wore ribbons
+studded with golden bees on their breasts, and their
+watchword was a sort of a "buzz-z-z," like the humming
+of a bee. When they were in full regalia they
+wore also some curious wings made of gold wire and
+lace. The Knights of the Golden Bee comprised the
+finest nobles of the court.</p>
+<p>
+In addition to them were the "Bee Guards." They
+were the King's own body-guards. Their uniform was
+white with green cuffs and collar and facings. On the
+green were swarms of embroidered bees. They carried
+a banner of green silk worked with bees and roses.</p>
+<p>
+So the bee might fairly have been considered the<span class="page"><a name="page45" id="page45">[Page&nbsp;45]</a></span>
+national emblem of Romalia, for that was the name of
+the country. The first word which the children
+<span class="page"><a name="plate4" id="plate4">[plate 4]</a></span>
+<img src="images/04-bee-knight.jpg" width="215" height="430" alt="A knight of the golden bee." border="0" hspace="10" vspace="10" style="float: right" />
+
+learned to spell in school was "b-e-e, bee," instead of
+"b-o-y, boy." The poorest citizen had a bush of roses
+and a bee-hive in his yard, and the people were very forlorn
+who could not have a bit of honey-comb at least once a day.
+The court preferred it to any other food. Indeed it was this
+particular Queen who was in the kitchen eating bread and honey,
+in the song.</p>
+<p>
+But to return to the Bee
+Festival, on this especial sixteenth
+of May. At sunset
+when the bees flew back to
+their hives for the last time
+with their loads of honey,
+the court also went home.
+They danced along in a
+splendid merry procession. The cream-colored ponies
+the King and Queen rode pranced lightly in advance,
+their slender hoofs keeping time to the flutes and
+the bells; and the gallants, leading the ladies by the
+tips of their dainty fingers, came after them with gay
+waltzing steps. The nurses who carried the Princess<span class="page"><a name="page46" id="page46">[Page&nbsp;46]</a></span>
+Rosetta held their heads high, and danced along as
+bravely as the others, waving their peacock-feather
+fans in their unoccupied hands. They bore the little
+Princess in her basket between them as lightly as a
+feather. Up and down she swung. When they first
+started she laughed and crowed; then she became
+very quiet. The nurses thought she was asleep. They
+had laid a little satin coverlet over her, and put a soft
+thick veil over her face, that the damp evening-air
+might not give her the croup. The Princess Rosetta
+was quite apt to have the croup.</p>
+<p>
+The nurses cast a glance down at the veil and satin
+coverlet which were so motionless. "Her Royal
+Highness is asleep," they whispered to each other with
+nods. The nurses were handsome young women, and
+they wore white lace caps, and beautiful long darned
+lace aprons. They swung the Princess's basket along
+so easily that finally one of them remarked upon it.</p>
+<p>
+"How very light her Royal Highness is," said she.</p>
+<p>
+"She weighs absolutely nothing at all," replied the
+other nurse who was carrying the Princess, "absolutely
+nothing at all."</p>
+<p>
+"Well, that is apt to be the case with such high-born
+infants," said the first nurse. And they all
+waved their fans again in time to the music.</p>
+<p>
+When they reached the palace, the massive doors
+were thrown open, and the court passed in.  The
+nurses bore the Princess Rosetta's basket up the grand<span class="page"><a name="page47" id="page47">[Page&nbsp;47]</a></span>
+marble stair, and carried it into the nursery.</p>
+<p>
+"We will lift her Royal Highness out very carefully,
+and possibly we can put her to bed without waking
+her," said the Head-nurse.</p>
+<p>
+But her Royal Highness's ladies-of-the-bed-chamber
+who were in waiting set up such screams of horror
+at her remark, that it was a wonder that the Princess
+did not awake directly.</p>
+<p>
+"O-h!" cried a lady-of-the-bed-chamber, "put her
+Royal Highness to bed, in defiance of all etiquette, before
+the Prima Donna of the court has sung her
+lullaby! Preposterous! Lift her out without waking
+her, indeed! This nurse should be dismissed from
+the court!"</p>
+<p>
+"O-h!" cried another lady, tossing her lovely head
+scornfully, and giving her silken train an indignant
+swish; "the idea of putting her Royal Highness to
+bed without the silver cup of posset, which I have here
+for her!"</p>
+<p>
+"And without taking her rose-water bath!" cried
+another, who was dabbling her lily fingers in a little
+ivory bath filled with rose-water.</p>
+<p>
+"And without being anointed with this Cream of
+Lilies!" cried one with a little ivory jar in her hand.</p>
+<p>
+"And without having every single one of her golden
+ringlets dressed with this pomade scented with violets
+and almonds!" cried one with a round porcelain box.</p>
+<p>
+"Or even having her curls brushed!" cried a lady<span class="page"><a name="page48" id="page48">[Page&nbsp;48]</a></span>
+as if she were fainting, and she brandished an ivory
+hair-brush set with turquoises.</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose," remarked a lady who was very tall
+and majestic in her carriage, "that this nurse would
+not object to her Royal Highness being put to bed
+without&mdash;her nightgown, even!"</p>
+<p>
+And she held out the Princess's little embroidered
+nightgown, and gazed at the Head-nurse with an awful
+air.</p>
+<p>
+"I beg your pardon humbly, my Ladies," responded
+the Head-nurse meekly. Then she bent over the basket
+to lift out the Princess.</p>
+<p>
+Every one stood listening for her Royal Highness's
+pitiful scream when she should awake. The lady with
+the cup of posset held it in readiness, and the ladies
+with the Cream of Lilies, the violet and almond pomade
+and the ivory hair-brush looked anxious to begin
+their duties. The Prima Donna stood with her song
+in hand, and the first court fiddler had his bow raised
+all ready to play the accompaniment for her. Writing
+a fresh lullaby for the Princess every day, and setting
+it to music, were among the regular duties of the
+Poet Laureate and the first musical composer of the
+court.</p>
+<p>
+The Head-nurse with her eyes full of tears because
+of the reproaches she had received, reached down her
+arms and attempted to lift the Princess Rosetta&mdash;suddenly
+she turned very white, and tossed aside the <span class="page"><a name="page49" id="page49">[Page&nbsp;49]</a></span>
+veil and the satin coverlet. Then she gave a loud
+scream, and fell down in a faint.</p>
+<p>
+The ladies stared at one another.</p>
+<p>
+"What is the matter with the Head-nurse?" they
+asked. Then the second nurse stepped up to the basket
+and reached down to clasp the Princess Rosetta.
+Then she gave a loud scream, and fell down in a faint.</p>
+<p>
+The third nurse, trembling so she could scarcely
+stand, came next. After she had stooped over the
+basket, she also gave a loud scream and fainted. Then
+the fourth nurse stepped up, bent over the basket, and
+fainted. So all the Princess Rosetta's nurses lay fainting
+on the floor beside her basket. </p>
+<p>
+It was contrary to the rules of etiquette for any one
+except the nurses to approach nearer than five yards
+to her Royal Highness before she was taken from her
+basket. So they crowded together at that distance
+and craned their necks.</p>
+<p>
+"What can ail the nurses?" they whispered in terrified
+tones. They could not go near enough to the
+basket to see what the trouble was, and still it seemed
+very necessary that they should.</p>
+<p>
+"I wish I had a telescope," said the lady with the
+hair-brush.</p>
+<p>
+But there was none in the room, and it was contrary
+to the rules of etiquette for any person to leave it
+until the Princess was taken from the basket.</p>
+<p>
+There seemed to be no proper way out of the difficulty.<span class="page"><a name="page50" id="page50">[Page&nbsp;50]</a></span>
+Finally the first fiddler stood up with an air
+of resolution, and began unwinding the green silk sash
+from his waist. It was eleven yards long. He doubled
+it, and launched it at the basket, like a lasso.</p>
+
+
+<p>
+"There is nothing in the code of etiquette to prevent
+the Princess approaching us before she is taken
+from her basket," he said bravely. All the ladies
+applauded.</p>
+<p>
+He threw the lasso very successfully. It went quite
+around the basket. Then he drew it gently over
+the five yards. They all crowded around, and looked<span class="page"><a name="page51" id="page51">[Page&nbsp;51]</a></span>
+into it.</p>
+<p>
+<i>The Princess was not in the basket!</i></p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate5" id="plate5">[plate 5]</a></span>
+<img src="images/05-noprincess.jpg" width="542" height="470" alt="The princess was not in the basket!" border="0" /><br /><br />
+THE PRINCESS WAS NOT IN THE BASKET.</p><br /><br /><br />
+
+<h3>II.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE <a name="pop-corn" id="pop-corn">POP-CORN</a> MAN.</h3>
+
+<p>
+That night the whole kingdom was in a turmoil.
+The Bee Guards were called out, and patrolled the
+city, alarm-bells rung, signal fires burned, and everybody
+was out with a lantern. They searched every
+inch of the road to the park where the Bee Festival
+had been held, for it did seem at first as if the Princess
+had possibly been spilled out of the basket, although
+the nurses were confident that it was not so.
+So they searched carefully, and the nurses were in the
+meantime placed in custody. But nothing was found.
+The people held their lanterns low, and looked under
+every bush, and even poked aside the grasses, but they
+could not find the Princess on the road to the park.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="page53" id="page53">[Page&nbsp;53]</a></span><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="plate6" id="plate6">[plate 6]</a></span>
+<img src="images/06-beepatrol.jpg" width="570" height="350" alt="The bee guards patrolled the city." border="0" />
+</p><br /><br />
+
+<p>
+Then a regular force of detectives was organized,
+and the search continued day after day. Every house
+in the country was examined in every nook and corner.
+The cupboards even were all ransacked, and the
+bureau drawers. The King had a favorite book of
+philosophy, and one motto which he had learned in his
+youth recurred to him. It was this:</p>
+<p>
+"When a-seeking, seek in the unlikely places, as<span class="page"><a name="page52" id="page52">[Page&nbsp;52]</a></span>
+well as the likely; for no man can tell the road that
+lost things may prefer."</p>
+<p>
+So he ordered search to be made in unlikely as well
+as likely places, for the Princess; and it was carried
+so far that the people had all to turn their pockets inside
+out, and shake their shawls and table-cloths. But
+it was all of no use. Six months went by, and the
+Princess Rosetta had not been found. The King and
+Queen were broken-hearted. The Queen wept all day
+long, and her tears fell into her honey, until it was no
+longer sweet, and she could not eat it. The King sat
+by himself and had no heart for anything.</p>
+<p>
+But the four nurses were in nearly as much distress.
+Not only had they been very fond of the little
+Princess, and were grieving bitterly for her loss, but
+they had also a punishment to endure. They had been
+released from custody, because there was really no
+evidence against them, but in view of their possible
+carelessness, and in perpetual reminder of the loss of
+the Princess, a sentence had been passed upon them.
+They had been condemned to wear their bonnets the
+wrong way around, indoors and out, until the Princess
+should be found. So the poor nurses wept into the
+crowns of their bonnets. They had little peep-holes
+in the straw that they might see to get about, and they
+lifted up the capes in order to eat; but it was very
+trying. The nurses were all pretty young women too,
+and the Head-nurse who came of quite a distinguished <span class="page"><a name="page55" id="page55">[Page&nbsp;55]</a></span>
+family was to have been married soon. But how
+could she be a bride and wear a veil with her face in
+the crown of her bonnet?</p>
+<p>
+The Head-nurse was quite clever, and she thought
+about the Princess's disappearance, until finally her
+thoughts took shape.  One day she put on her shawl&mdash;her
+bonnet was always on&mdash;and set out to call on
+the Baron Greenleaf. The Baron was an old man
+who was said to be versed in white magic, and lived in
+a stone tower with his servants and his house-keeper.</p>
+<p>
+When the Head-nurse came into the tower-yard, the
+dog began to bark; he was not used to seeing a woman
+with her face in the crown of her bonnet. He thought
+that her head must be on the wrong way, and that she
+was a monster, and had designs upon his master's
+property. So he barked and growled, and caught
+hold of her dress, and the Head-nurse screamed. The
+Baron himself came running downstairs, and opened
+the door.  "Who is there?" cried he.</p>
+<p>
+But when he saw the woman with her bonnet on
+wrong he knew at once that she must be one of the
+Princess's nurses. So he ordered off the dog, and
+ushered the nurse into the tower. He led her into his
+study, and asked her to sit down. "Now, madam,
+what can I do for you?" he inquired quite politely.</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, my lord!" cried the Head-nurse in her
+muffled voice, "help me to find the Princess."</p>
+<p>
+The Baron, who was a tall lean old man and wore<span class="page"><a name="page56" id="page56">[Page&nbsp;56]</a></span>
+a very large-figured dressing-gown trimmed with fur,
+frowned, and struck his fist down upon the table.
+"Help you to find the Princess!" he exclaimed;
+"don't you suppose I should find her on my own account
+if I could? I should have found her long before
+this if the idiots had not broken all my bottles,
+and crystals, and retorts, and mirrors, and spilled all
+the magic fluids, so that I cannot practice any white
+magic at all. The idea of looking for a princess in
+a bottle&mdash;that comes of pinning one's faith upon
+philosophy!"</p>
+<p>
+"Then you cannot find the Princess by white
+magic?" the Head-nurse asked timidly.</p>
+<p>
+The Baron pounded the table again. "Of course I
+cannot," he replied, "with all my magical utensils
+smashed in the search for her."</p>
+<p>
+The Head-nurse sighed pitifully.</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose that you do not like to go about with
+your face in the crown of your bonnet?" the Baron
+remarked in a harsh voice.</p>
+<p>
+The Head-nurse replied sadly that she did not.</p>
+<p>
+"It doesn't seem to me that I should mind it much,"
+said the Baron.</p>
+<p>
+The Head-nurse looked at his grim old face through
+the peep-holes in her bonnet-crown, and thought to
+herself that if she were no prettier than he, she should
+not mind much either, but she said nothing.</p>
+<p>
+Suddenly there was a knock at the tower-door.</p><span class="page"><a name="page57" id="page57">[Page&nbsp;57]</a></span>
+<p>
+"Excuse me a moment," said the Baron; "my
+housekeeper is deaf, and my other servants have gone
+out." And he ran down the tower-stair, his dressing-gown
+sweeping after him.</p>
+<p>
+Presently he returned, and there was a young man
+with him. This young man was as pretty as a girl, and
+he looked very young. His blue eyes were very sharp
+and bright, and he had rosy cheeks and fair curly hair.
+He was dressed very poorly, and around his shoulders
+were festooned strings of something that looked like
+fine white flowers, but it was in reality pop-corn. He
+carried a great basket of pop-corn, and bore a corn-popper
+over his shoulder.</p>
+<p>
+When he entered he bowed low to the Head-nurse;
+her bonnet did not seem to surprise him at all.
+"Would you like to buy some of my nice pop-corn,
+madam?" he asked.</p>
+<p>
+She curtesied.  "Not to-day," she replied.</p>
+<p>
+But in reality she did not know what pop-corn was.
+She had never seen any, and neither had the Baron.
+That indeed was the reason why he had admitted the
+man&mdash;he was curious to see what he was carrying.
+"Is it good to eat?" he inquired.</p>
+<p>
+"Try it, my lord," answered the man. So the
+Baron put a pop-corn in his mouth and chewed it
+critically.  "It is very good indeed," he declared.</p>
+<p>
+The man passed the basket to the Head-nurse, and
+she lifted the cape of her bonnet and put a pop-corn in<span class="page"><a name="page58" id="page58">[Page&nbsp;58]</a></span>
+her mouth, and nibbled it delicately. She also thought
+it very good.</p>
+<p>
+"But there is no use in discussing new articles of
+food when the kingdom is under the cloud that it is at
+present, and my retorts and crystals all smashed," said
+the Baron.</p>
+<p>
+"Why, what is the cloud, my lord?" inquired the
+Pop-corn man. Then the Baron told him the whole
+story.</p>
+<p>
+"Of course it is necromancy," remarked the Pop-corn
+man thoughtfully, when the Baron had finished.</p>
+<p>
+The Baron pounded on the table until it danced.
+"Necromancy!" he cried, "of course it's necromancy!
+Who but a necromancer could have made a child invisible,
+and stolen her away in the face and eyes of the
+whole court?"</p>
+<p>
+"Have you any idea where she is?" ask the Pop-corn
+man.</p>
+<p>
+The Baron stared at him in amazement.</p>
+<p>
+"Idea where she is?" he repeated scornfully.
+"You are just of a piece with the idiots who broke
+my mirrors to see if the Princess was not behind
+them! How should we have any idea where she is if
+she is lost, pray?"</p>
+<p>
+The Pop-corn man blushed, and looked frightened,
+but the Head-nurse spoke up quite bravely, although
+her voice was so muffled, and said that she really did
+have some idea of the Princess's whereabouts. She<span class="page"><a name="page59" id="page59">[Page&nbsp;59]</a></span>
+propounded her views which were quite plausible. It
+was her opinion that only an enemy of the King would
+have caused the Princess to be stolen, and as the King
+had only one enemy of whom anybody knew, and he
+was the King across the river, she thought the Princess
+must be there.</p>
+<p>
+"It seems very likely," said the Baron after she had
+finished, "but if she is there it is hopeless. Our King
+could never conquer the other one, who has a much
+stronger army."</p>
+<p>
+"Do you know," asked the Pop-corn man, "if they
+have ever had any pop-corn on the other side of the
+river?"</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think they have," replied the Baron.</p>
+<p>
+"Then," said the Pop-corn man, "I think I can
+free the Princess."</p>
+<p>
+"You!" cried the Baron scornfully.</p>
+
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="page61" id="page61">[Page&nbsp;61]</a></span><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="plate7" id="plate7">[plate 7]</a></span>
+<img src="images/07-popcornman.jpg" width="560" height="300" alt="'You!' cried the baron scornfully." border="0" /><br /><br />
+'YOU!' CRIED THE BARON SCORNFULLY.</p><br /><br />
+
+<p>
+But the Pop-corn man said nothing more. He
+bowed low to the Baron and the Head-nurse, and left
+the tower.</p>
+<p>
+"The idea of his talking as he did," said the Baron.
+But the nurse was pinning her shawl, and she hurried
+out of the tower and overtook the Pop-corn man.</p>
+<p>
+"How are you going to manage it?" whispered
+she, touching his sleeve.</p>
+<p>
+The Pop-corn man started. "Oh, it's you?" he
+said. "Well, you wait a little, and you will see. Do
+you suppose you could find six little boys who would<span class="page"><a name="page60" id="page60">[Page&nbsp;60]</a></span>
+be willing to go over the river with me to-morrow?"</p>
+<p>
+"Would it be quite safe?"</p>
+<p>
+"Quite safe."</p>
+<p>
+"I have six little brothers who would go," said the
+Head-nurse.</p>
+<p>
+So it was arranged that the six little brothers should
+go across the river with the Pop-corn man; and the
+next morning they set out. They were all decorated
+with strings of Pop-corn, they carried baskets of pop-corn,
+and bore corn-poppers over their shoulders, and
+they crossed the river in a row boat.</p>
+<p>
+Once over the river they went about peddling pop-corn.
+The man sent the boys all over the city, but he
+himself went straight to the palace.</p>
+<p>
+He knocked at the palace-door, and the maid-servant
+came. "Is the King at home?" asked the Pop-corn
+man.</p>
+<p>
+The maid said he was, and the Pop-corn man
+asked to see him. Just then a baby cried.</p>
+<p>
+"What baby is that crying?" asked he.</p>
+<p>
+"A baby that was brought here at sunset, several
+months ago," replied the maid; and he knew at once
+that he had found the Princess.</p>
+<p>
+"Will you find out if I can see the King?" he
+said.</p>
+<p>
+"I'll see," answered the maid. And she went in to
+find the King. Pretty soon she returned and asked
+the Pop-corn man to step into the parlor, which he<span class="page"><a name="page63" id="page63">[Page&nbsp;63]</a></span>
+did, and soon the King came downstairs.</p>
+<p>
+The Pop-corn man displayed his wares, and the
+King tasted. He had never seen any pop-corn before,
+and he was both an epicure and a man of hobbies.
+"It is the nicest food that ever I tasted," he declared,
+and he bought all the man's stock.</p>
+<p>
+"I can buy corn for you for seed, and I can order
+poppers enough to supply the city," suggested the
+Pop-corn man.</p>
+<p>
+"So do," cried the King. And he gave orders for
+seven ships' cargoes of seed corn and fifty of poppers.
+"My people shall eat nothing else," said the King,
+"and the whole kingdom shall be planted with it. I
+am satisfied that it is the best national food."</p>
+<p>
+That day the court dined on pop-corn, and as it
+was very light and unsatisfying, they had to eat a long
+time. They were all the after-noon dining. Right
+after dinner the King wrote out his royal decree that
+all the inhabitants should that year plant pop-corn instead
+of any other grain or any vegetable, and that
+as soon as the ships arrived they should make it their
+only article of food. For the King, when he had
+learned from the Pop-corn man that the corn needed
+to be not only ripe but well dried before it would pop,
+could not wait, but had ordered five hundred cargoes
+of pop-corn for immediate use.</p>
+<p>
+So as soon as the ships arrived the people began
+at once to pop corn and eat it. There was a sound<span class="page"><a name="page64" id="page64">[Page&nbsp;64]</a></span>
+of popping corn all over the city, and the people
+popped all day long. It was necessary that they
+should, because it took such a quantity to satisfy hunger,
+and when they were not popping they had to eat.
+People shook the poppers until their arms were tired,
+then gave them to others, and sat down to eat. Men,
+women and children popped. It was all that they
+could do, with the exception of planting the seed-corn,
+and then they were faint with hunger as they
+worked. The stores and schools were closed. In the
+palace the King and Queen themselves were obliged
+to pop in order to secure enough to eat, and the nobles
+and the court-ladies toiled and ate, day and night.
+But the little stolen Princess and the King's son, the
+little Prince, could not pop corn, for they were only
+babies.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate8" id="plate8">[plate 8]</a></span>
+<img src="images/08-kingqueen.jpg" width="506" height="470" alt="Both the king and queen were obliged to pop." border="0" /><br /><br />
+BOTH THE KING AND QUEEN WERE OBLIGED TO POP.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+When the people across the river had been popping
+corn for about a month, the Pop-corn man went
+to the King of Romalia's palace, and sought an audience.
+He told him how he had discovered his daughter
+in the palace of the King across the river.</p>
+<p>
+The King of Romalia clasped his hands in despair.
+"I must make war," said he, "but my army is nothing
+to his."</p>
+<p>
+However, he at once went about making war. He
+ordered the swords to be cleaned with sand-paper
+until they shone, and new bullets to be cast. The
+Bee Guards were drilled every day, and the people<span class="page"><a name="page65" id="page65">[Page&nbsp;65]</a></span>
+could not sleep for the drums and the fifes.</p>
+<p>
+When everything was ready the King of Romalia
+and his army crossed the river and laid siege to the city.
+They had expected to have the passage of the river opposed,
+but not a foeman was stationed on the opposite
+bank. All the spears they could see were the waving
+green ones of pop-corn fields. They marched straight
+up to the city walls and laid siege. The inhabitants
+fought on the walls and in the gate-towers, but not very
+many could fight at a time, because they would have to
+stop and pop corn and eat.</p>
+<p>
+The defenders grew fewer and fewer, some were<span class="page"><a name="page66" id="page66">[Page&nbsp;66]</a></span>
+killed, and all of them were growing too tired and
+weak to fight. They could not eat enough pop-corn to
+give them strength and have any time left to fight.
+They filled their pockets and tried to eat pop-corn as
+they fought, but they could not manage that very
+well.</p>
+<p>
+On the third day the city surrendered with very
+little loss of life on either side, and the little Princess
+Rosetta was restored to her parents. There was great
+rejoicing all through Romalia; in the evening there
+was an illumination and a torch-light procession. The
+nurses marched with their bonnets on the right way,
+and the Knights of the Golden Bee were out in full
+regalia.</p>
+<p>
+The next day the Head-nurse was married, and the
+King gave her a farm and a dozen bee-hives for a
+wedding present, and the Queen a beautiful bridal
+bonnet trimmed with white plumes and hollyhocks.</p>
+<p>
+All the court, the Baron and the Pop-corn man
+went to the wedding, and wedding-cake and corn-balls
+were passed around.</p>
+<p>
+After the wedding the Pop-corn man went home.
+He lived in another country on the other side of a
+mountain. The King pressed him to take some reward.
+"I am puzzled," he said to the Pop-corn man,
+"to know what to offer you. The usual reward in
+such cases is the hand of the Princess in marriage, but
+Rosetta is not a year old. If there is anything else<span class="page"><a name="page67" id="page67">[Page&nbsp;67]</a></span>
+you can think of"&mdash;</p>
+<p>
+The Pop-corn man kissed the King's hand and replied
+that there was nothing that he could think of
+except a little honey-comb. He should like to carry
+some to his mother. So the King gave him a great
+piece of honey-comb in a silver dish, and the Pop-corn
+man departed.</p>
+<p>
+He never came to Romalia again, but the Poet
+Laureate celebrated him in an epic poem, describing
+the loss of the Princess and the war for her rescue.
+The Princess was never stolen again&mdash;indeed the
+necromancer across the river who had kidnaped her
+was imprisoned for life on a diet of pop-corn which he
+popped himself.</p>
+<p>
+The King across the river became tired of pop-corn,
+as it had caused his defeat, and forbade his people to
+eat it. He paid tribute to the King of Romalia as
+long as he lived; but after his death, when his son, the
+young prince, came to reign, affairs were on a very
+pleasant footing between the two kingdoms. The new
+King was very different from his father, being generous
+and amiable, and beloved by every one. Indeed
+Rosetta, when she had grown to be a beautiful maiden,
+married him and went to live as a Queen where she
+had been a captive.</p>
+<p>
+And when Rosetta went across the river to live, the
+King, her father, gave her some bee-hives for a wedding
+present, and the bees thrived equally in both<span class="page"><a name="page68" id="page68">[Page&nbsp;68]</a></span>
+countries. All the difference in the honey was this:
+in Romalia the bees fed more on clover, and the honey
+tasted of clover: and in the country across the river
+on peppermint, and that honey tasted of peppermint.
+They always had both kinds at their Bee Festivals.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+
+<span class="page"><a name="page69" id="page69">[Page&nbsp;69]</a></span>
+<h2>THE CHRISTMAS <a name="monks" id="monks">MONKS</a>.</h2>
+
+<p>
+All children have wondered unceasingly from their
+very first Christmas up to their very last Christmas,
+where the Christmas presents come from. It is very
+easy to say that Santa Claus brought them. All well
+regulated people know that, of course; but the reindeer,
+and the sledge, and the pack crammed with toys,
+the chimney, and all the rest of it&mdash;that is all true,
+of course, and everybody knows about it; but that is
+not the question which puzzles. What children want
+to know is, where do these Christmas presents come
+from in the first place? Where does Santa Claus get
+them? Well the answer to that is, <i>In the garden of
+the Christmas Monks</i>. This has not been known
+until very lately; that is, it has not been known till
+very lately except in the immediate vicinity of the
+Christmas Monks. There, of course, it has been
+known for ages. It is rather an out-of-the-way place;
+and that accounts for our never hearing of it before.</p>
+<p>
+The Convent of the Christmas Monks is a most
+charmingly picturesque pile of old buildings; there
+are towers and turrets, and peaked roofs and arches,
+and everything which could possibly be thought of in
+the architectural line, to make a convent picturesque.<span class="page"><a name="page70" id="page70">[Page&nbsp;70]</a></span>
+It is built of graystone; but it is only once in a while
+that you can see the graystone, for the walls are almost
+completely covered with mistletoe and ivy and evergreen.
+There are the most delicious little arched
+windows with diamond panes peeping out from the
+mistletoe and evergreen, and always at all times of
+the year, a little Christmas wreath of ivy and hollyberries
+is suspended in the center of every window.
+Over all the doors, which are likewise arched, are
+Christmas garlands, and over the main entrance <i>Merry
+Christmas</i> in evergreen letters.</p>
+<p>
+The Christmas Monks are a jolly brethren; the
+robes of their order are white, gilded with green garlands,
+and they never are seen out at any time of
+the year without Christmas wreaths on their heads.
+Every morning they file in a long procession into the
+chapel, to sing a Christmas carol; and every evening
+they ring a Christmas chime on the convent bells.</p>
+
+<span class="page"><a name="page71" id="page71">[Page&nbsp;71]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate9" id="plate9">[plate 9]</a></span>
+<img src="images/09-monks.jpg" width="600" height="245" alt="Going into the chapel." border="0" /><br /><br />
+GOING INTO THE CHAPEL.</p>
+<br /><br />
+<p>
+They eat roast turkey and plum pudding and mince-pie
+for dinner all the year round; and always carry
+what is left in baskets trimmed with evergreen, to the
+poor people. There are always wax candles lighted
+and set in every window of the convent at nightfall;
+and when the people in the country about get uncommonly
+blue and down-hearted, they always go for a
+cure to look at the Convent of the Christmas Monks
+after the candles are lighted and the chimes are ringing.
+It brings to mind things which never fail to<span class="page"><a name="page73" id="page73">[Page&nbsp;73]</a></span>
+cheer them.</p>
+<p>
+But the principal thing about the Convent of the
+Christmas Monks is the garden; for that is where the
+Christmas presents grow. This garden extends over a
+large number of acres, and is divided into different
+departments, just as we divide our flower and vegetable
+gardens; one bed for onions, one for cabbages, and
+one for phlox, and one for verbenas, etc.</p>
+<p>
+Every spring the Christmas Monks go out to sow
+the Christmas-present seeds after they have ploughed
+the ground and made it all ready.</p>
+<p>
+There is one enormous bed devoted to rocking-horses.
+The rocking-horse seed is curious enough; just little
+bits of rocking-horses so small that they can only be
+seen through a very, very powerful microscope. The
+Monks drop these at quite a distance from each other,
+so that they will not interfere while growing; then
+they cover them up neatly with earth, and put up a
+sign-post with "Rocking-horses" on it in evergreen
+letters. Just so with the penny-trumpet seed, and the
+toy-furniture seed, the skate-seed, the sled-seed, and all
+the others.</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps the prettiest and most interesting part of
+the garden, is that devoted to wax dolls. There are
+other beds for the commoner dolls&mdash;for the rag dolls,
+and the china dolls, and the rubber dolls, but of course
+wax dolls would look much handsomer growing. Wax
+dolls have to be planted quite early in the season; for<span class="page"><a name="page74" id="page74">[Page&nbsp;74]</a></span>
+they need a good start before the sun is very high.
+The seeds are the loveliest bits of microscopic dolls imaginable.
+The Monks sow them pretty close together,
+and they begin to come up by the middle of May.
+There is first just a little glimmer of gold, or flaxen, or
+black, or brown as the case may be, above the soil.
+Then the snowy foreheads appear, and the blue eyes,
+and black eyes, and, later on, all those enchanting little
+heads are out of the ground, and are nodding and
+winking and smiling to each other the whole extent of
+the field; with their pinky cheeks and sparkling eyes
+and curly hair there is nothing so pretty as these little
+wax doll heads peeping out of the earth. Gradually,
+more and more of them come to light, and finally by
+Christmas they are all ready to gather. There they
+stand, swaying to and fro, and dancing lightly on their
+slender feet which are connected with the ground, each
+by a tiny green stem; their dresses of pink, or blue,
+or white&mdash;for their dresses grow with them&mdash;flutter
+in the air. Just about the prettiest sight in the world,
+is the bed of wax dolls in the garden of the Christmas
+Monks at Christmas time.</p>
+<p>
+Of course ever since this convent and garden were
+established (and that was so long ago that the wisest
+man can find no books about it) their glories have
+attracted a vast deal of admiration and curiosity from
+the young people in the surrounding country; but as
+the garden is enclosed on all sides by an immensely<span class="page"><a name="page75" id="page75">[Page&nbsp;75]</a></span>
+thick and high hedge, which no boy could climb,
+or peep over, they could only judge of the garden
+by the fruits which were parcelled out to them on
+Christmas-day.</p>
+<p>
+You can judge, then, of the sensation among the
+young folks, and older ones, for that matter, when one
+evening there appeared hung upon a conspicuous place
+in the garden-hedge, a broad strip of white cloth
+trimmed with evergreen and printed with the following
+notice in evergreen letters:</p>
+
+<p class="notice">
+"WANTED:&mdash;By the Christmas Monks, two <i>good</i> boys to
+assist in garden work. Applicants will be examined by Fathers
+Anselmus and Ambrose, in the convent refectory, on April 10th."</p>
+
+<p>
+This notice was hung out about five o'clock in the
+evening, some time in the early part of February.
+By noon, the street was so full of boys staring at it
+with their mouths wide open, so as to see better, that
+the king was obliged to send his bodyguard before
+him to clear the way with brooms, when he wanted to
+pass on his way from his chamber of state to his
+palace.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="page77" id="page77">[Page&nbsp;77]</a></span><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="plate10" id="plate10">[plate 10]</a></span>
+<img src="images/10-notice.jpg" width="565" height="375" alt="The boys read the notice" border="0" /></p>
+<br /><br />
+<p>
+There was not a boy in the country but looked upon
+this position as the height of human felicity. To work
+all the year in that wonderful garden, and see those
+wonderful things growing! and without doubt any boy
+who worked there could have all the toys he wanted,
+just as a boy who works in a candy-shop always has<span class="page"><a name="page76" id="page76">[Page&nbsp;76]</a></span>
+all the candy he wants!</p>
+<p>
+But the great difficulty, of course, was about the
+degree of goodness requisite to pass the examination.
+The boys in this country were no worse than the boys
+in other countries, but there were not many of them
+that would not have done a little differently if he had
+only known beforehand of the advertisement of the
+Christmas Monks. However, they made the most of
+the time remaining, and were so good all over the
+kingdom that a very millennium seemed dawning.
+The school teachers used their ferrules for fire wood,
+and the King ordered all the birch-trees cut down and
+exported, as he thought there would be no more call
+For them in his own realm.</p>
+<p>
+When the time for the examination drew near,
+there were two boys whom every one thought would
+obtain the situation, although some of the other boys
+had lingering hopes for themselves; if only the Monks
+would examine them on the last six weeks, they
+thought they might pass. Still all the older people
+had decided in their minds that the Monks would
+choose these two boys. One was the Prince, the
+King's oldest son; and the other was a poor boy
+named Peter. The Prince was no better than the
+other boys; indeed, to tell the truth, he was not so
+good; in fact, was the biggest rogue in the whole
+country; but all the lords and the ladies, and all the
+people who admired the lords and ladies, said it was<span class="page"><a name="page79" id="page79">[Page&nbsp;79]</a></span>
+their solemn belief that the Prince was the best boy
+in the whole kingdom; and they were prepared to give
+in their testimony, one and all, to that effect to the
+Christmas Monks.</p>
+<p>
+Peter was really and truly such a good boy that
+there was no excuse for saying he was not. His
+father and mother were poor people; and Peter
+worked every minute out of school hours, to help them
+along. Then he had a sweet little crippled sister
+whom he was never tired of caring for. Then, too,
+he contrived to find time to do lots of little kindnesses
+for other people. He always studied his lessons faithfully,
+and never ran away from school. Peter was
+such a good boy, and so modest and unsuspicious that
+he was good, that everybody loved him. He had not
+the least idea that he could get the place with the
+Christmas Monks, but the Prince was sure of it.</p>
+<p>
+When the examination day came all the boys from
+far and near, with their hair neatly brushed and
+parted, and dressed in their best clothes, flocked into
+the convent. Many of their relatives and friends went
+with them to witness the examination.</p>
+<p>
+The refectory of the convent where they assembled,
+was a very large hall with a delicious smell of roast
+turkey and plum pudding in it. All the little boys
+sniffed, and their mouths watered.</p>
+<p>
+The two fathers who were to examine the boys were
+perched up in a high pulpit so profusely trimmed with<span class="page"><a name="page80" id="page80">[Page&nbsp;80]</a></span>
+evergreen that it looked like a bird's nest; they were
+remarkably pleasant-looking men, and their eyes
+twinkled merrily under their Christmas wreaths.
+Father Anselmus was a little the taller of the two, and
+Father Ambrose was a little the broader; and that
+was about all the difference between them in looks.</p>
+<p>
+The little boys all stood up in a row, their friends
+stationed themselves in good places, and the examination
+began.</p>
+<p>
+Then if one had been placed beside the entrance to
+the convent, he would have seen one after another, a
+crestfallen little boy with his arm lifted up and
+crooked, and his face hidden in it, come out and walk
+forlornly away. He had failed to pass.</p>
+<p>
+The two fathers found out that this boy had robbed
+birds' nests, and this one stolen apples. And one
+after another they walked disconsolately away till there
+were only two boys left: the Prince and Peter.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="page81" id="page81">[Page&nbsp;81]</a></span><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="plate11" id="plate11">[plate 11]</a></span>
+<img src="images/11-exam.jpg" width="560" height="440" alt="The Prince &amp; Peter are examined by the monks." border="0" />
+</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+"Now, your Highness," said Father Anselmus, who
+always took the lead in the questions, "are you a good
+boy?"</p>
+<p>
+"O holy Father!" exclaimed all the people&mdash;there
+were a good many fine folks from the court
+present. "He is such a good boy! such a wonderful
+boy! we never knew him to do a wrong thing."</p>
+<p>
+"I don't suppose he ever robbed a bird's nest?"
+said Father Ambrose a little doubtfully.</p>
+<p>
+"No, no!" chorused the people.</p><span class="page"><a name="page83" id="page83">[Page&nbsp;83]</a></span>
+<p>
+"Nor tormented a kitten?"</p>
+<p>
+"No, no, no!" cried they all.</p>
+<p>
+At last everybody being so confident that there
+could be no reasonable fault found with the Prince, he
+was pronounced competent to enter upon the Monks'
+service. Peter they knew a great deal about before&mdash;indeed
+a glance at his face was enough to satisfy any
+one of his goodness; for he did look more like one of
+the boy angels in the altar-piece than anything else.
+So after a few questions, they accepted him also; and
+the people went home and left the two boys with the
+Christmas Monks.</p>
+<p>
+The next morning Peter was obliged to lay aside his
+homespun coat, and the Prince his velvet tunic, and
+both were dressed in some little white robes with evergreen
+girdles like the Monks. Then the Prince was
+set to sewing Noah's Ark seed, and Peter picture-book
+seed. Up and down they went scattering the seed.
+Peter sang a little psalm to himself, but the Prince
+grumbled because they had not given him gold-watch
+or gem seed to plant instead of the toy which he
+had outgrown long ago. By noon Peter had planted
+all his picture-books, and fastened up the card to mark
+them on the pole; but the Prince had dawdled so his
+work was not half done.</p>
+<p>
+"We are going to have a trial with this boy," said
+the Monks to each other; "we shall have to set
+him a penance at once, or we cannot manage him<span class="page"><a name="page84" id="page84">[Page&nbsp;84]</a></span>
+at all."</p>
+<p>
+So the Prince had to go without his dinner, and
+kneel on dried peas in the chapel all the afternoon.
+The next day he finished his Noah's Arks meekly; but
+the next day he rebelled again and had to go the whole
+length of the field where they planted jewsharps, on
+his knees. And so it was about every other day for
+the whole year.</p>
+<p>
+One of the brothers had to be set apart in a meditating
+cell to invent new penances; for they had used
+up all on their list before the Prince had been with
+them three months.</p>
+<p>
+The Prince became dreadfully tired of his convent
+life, and if he could have brought it about would have
+run away. Peter, on the contrary, had never been so
+happy in his life. He worked like a bee, and the
+pleasure he took in seeing the lovely things he had
+planted come up, was unbounded, and the Christmas
+carols and chimes delighted his soul. Then, too, he
+had never fared so well in his life. He could never
+remember the time before when he had been a whole
+week without being hungry. He sent his wages every
+month to his parents; and he never ceased to wonder
+at the discontent of the Prince.</p>
+<p>
+"They grow so slow," the Prince would say, wrinkling
+up his handsome forehead. "I expected to have
+a bushelful of new toys every month; and not one
+have I had yet. And these stingy old Monks say I<span class="page"><a name="page85" id="page85">[Page&nbsp;85]</a></span>
+can only have my usual Christmas share anyway, nor
+can I pick them out myself. I never saw such a
+stupid place to stay in in my life. I want to have my
+velvet tunic on and go home to the palace and ride on
+my white pony with the silver tail, and hear them all
+tell me how charming I am." Then the Prince would
+crook his arm and put his head on it and cry.</p>
+<p>
+Peter pitied him, and tried to comfort him, but it
+was not of much use, for the Prince got angry because
+he was not discontented as well as himself.</p>
+<p>
+Two weeks before Christmas everything in the garden
+was nearly ready to be picked. Some few things
+needed a little more December sun, but everything
+looked perfect. Some of the Jack-in-the-boxes would
+not pop out quite quick enough, and some of the jumping-Jacks
+were hardly as limber as they might be as
+yet; that was all. As it was so near Christmas the
+Monks were engaged in their holy exercises in the
+chapel for the greater part of the time, and only went
+over the garden once a day to see if everything was
+all right.</p>
+<p>
+The Prince and Peter were obliged to be there all
+the time. There was plenty of work for them to do;
+for once in a while something would blow over, and
+then there were the penny-trumpets to keep in tune;
+and that was a vast sight of work.</p>
+
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="page87" id="page87">[Page&nbsp;87]</a></span><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="plate12" id="plate12">[plate 12]</a></span>
+<img src="images/12-boysatwork.jpg" width="319" height="470" alt="The boys at work in the convent garden." border="0" /><br /><br />
+THE BOYS AT WORK IN THE CONVENT GARDEN.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+One morning the Prince was at one end of the
+garden straightening up some wooden soldiers which<span class="page"><a name="page86" id="page86">[Page&nbsp;86]</a></span>
+had toppled over, and Peter was in the wax doll bed
+dusting the dolls. All of a sudden he heard a sweet
+little voice: "O, Peter!" He thought at first one of
+the dolls was talking, but they could not say anything
+but papa and mamma; and had the merest apologies
+for voices anyway. "Here I am, Peter!" and there
+was a little pull at his sleeve. There was his little
+sister. She was not any taller than the dolls around
+her, and looked uncommonly like the prettiest, pinkest-cheeked,
+yellowest-haired ones; so it was no wonder
+that Peter did not see her at first. She stood there
+poising herself on her crutches, poor little thing, and
+smiling lovingly up at Peter.</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, you darling!" cried Peter, catching her up
+in his arms. "How did you get in here?"</p>
+<p>
+"I stole in behind one of the Monks," said she.
+"I saw him going up the street past our house, and I
+ran out and kept behind him all the way. When he
+opened the gate I whisked in too, and then I followed
+him into the garden. I've been here with the dollies
+ever since."</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said poor Peter, "I don't see what I am
+going to do with you, now you are here. I can't let
+you out again; and I don't know what the Monks will
+say."</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I know!" cried the little girl gayly. "I'll
+stay out here in the garden. I can sleep in one of
+those beautiful dolls' cradles over there; and you can<span class="page"><a name="page89" id="page89">[Page&nbsp;89]</a></span>
+bring me something to eat."</p>
+<p>
+"But the Monks come out every morning to look
+over the garden, and they'll be sure to find you," said
+her brother, anxiously.</p>
+<p>
+"No, I'll hide! O, Peter, here is a place where
+there isn't any doll!"</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; that doll didn't come up."</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do! I'll just stand
+here in this place where the doll didn't come up, and
+nobody can tell the difference."</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I don't know but you can do that," said
+Peter, although he was still ill at ease. He was so
+good a boy he was very much afraid of doing wrong,
+and offending his kind friends the Monks; at the
+same time he could not help being glad to see his dear
+little sister.</p>
+<p>
+He smuggled some food out to her, and she played
+merrily about him all day; and at night he tucked
+her into one of the dolls' cradles with lace pillows and
+quilt of rose-colored silk.</p>
+<p>
+The next morning when the Monks were going the
+rounds, the father who inspected the wax doll bed,
+was a bit nearsighted, and he never noticed the difference
+between the dolls and Peter's little sister, who
+swung herself on her crutches, and looked just as
+much like a wax doll as she possibly could. So the
+two were delighted with the success of their plan.</p>
+<p>
+They went on thus for a few days, and Peter could<span class="page"><a name="page90" id="page90">[Page&nbsp;90]</a></span>
+not help being happy with his darling little sister, although
+at the same time he could not help worrying
+for fear he was doing wrong.</p>
+<p>
+Something else happened now, which made him
+worry still more; the Prince ran away. He had been
+watching for a long time for an opportunity to possess
+himself of a certain long ladder made of twisted evergreen
+ropes, which the Monks kept locked up in the
+toolhouse. Lately, by some oversight, the toolhouse
+had been left unlocked one day, and the Prince got
+the ladder. It was the latter part of the afternoon,
+and the Christmas Monks were all in the chapel
+practicing Christmas carols. The Prince found a very
+large hamper, and picked as many Christmas presents
+for himself as he could stuff into it; then he put the
+ladder against the high gate in front of the convent,
+and climbed up, dragging the hamper after him.
+When he reached the top of the gate, which was quite
+broad, he sat down to rest for a moment before pulling
+the ladder up so as to drop it on the other side.</p>
+<p>
+He gave his feet a little triumphant kick as he
+looked back at his prison, and down slid the evergreen
+ladder! The Prince lost his balance, and would
+inevitably have broken his neck if he had not clung
+desperately to the hamper which hung over on the
+convent side of the fence; and as it was just the same
+weight as the Prince, it kept him suspended on the other.</p>
+<p>
+He screamed with all the force of his royal lungs;<span class="page"><a name="page91" id="page91">[Page&nbsp;91]</a></span>
+was heard by a party of noblemen who were galloping
+up the street; was rescued, and carried in state to
+the palace. But he was obliged to drop the hamper
+of presents, for with it all the ingenuity of the noblemen
+could not rescue him as speedily as it was necessary
+they should.</p>
+<p>
+When the good Monks discovered the escape of the
+Prince they were greatly grieved, for they had tried
+their best to do well by him; and poor Peter could
+with difficulty be comforted. He had been very fond
+of the Prince, although the latter had done little except
+torment him for the whole year; but Peter had
+a way of being fond of folks.</p>
+<p>
+A few days after the Prince ran away, and the day
+before the one on which the Christmas presents were
+to be gathered, the nearsighted father went out into
+the wax doll field again; but this time he had his
+spectacles on, and could see just as well as any one,
+and even a little better. Peter's little sister was
+swinging herself on her crutches, in the place where
+the wax doll did not come up, tipping her little face
+up, and smiling just like the dolls around her.</p>
+<p>
+"Why, what is this!" said the father. "<i>Hoc
+credam!</i> I thought that wax doll did not come up.
+Can my eyes deceive me? <i>non verum est!</i> There is a
+doll there&mdash;and what a doll! on crutches, and in
+poor, homely gear!"</p>
+<p>
+Then the nearsighted father put out his hand<span class="page"><a name="page92" id="page92">[Page&nbsp;92]</a></span>
+toward Peter's little sister. She jumped&mdash;she could
+not help it, and the holy father jumped too; the
+Christmas wreath actually tumbled off his head.</p>
+<p>
+"It is a miracle!" exclaimed he when he could
+speak: "the little girl is alive! <i>parra puella viva est.</i>
+I will pick her and take her to the brethren, and we
+will pay her the honors she is entitled to."</p>
+<p>
+Then the good father put on his Christmas wreath,
+for he dared not venture before his abbot without it,
+picked up Peter's little sister, who was trembling in
+all her little bones, and carried her into the chapel,
+where the Monks were just assembling to sing another
+carol. He went right up to the Christmas abbot, who
+was seated in a splendid chair, and looked like a king.</p>
+<p>
+"Most holy abbot," said the nearsighted father,
+holding out Peter's little sister, "behold a miracle,
+<i>vide miraculum</i>! Thou wilt remember that there was
+one wax doll planted which did not come up.  Behold,
+in her place I have found this doll on crutches, which
+is&mdash;alive!"</p>
+<p>
+"Let me see her!" said the abbot; and all the
+other Monks crowded around, opening their mouths
+just like the little boys around the notice, in order to
+see better.</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Verum est</i>," said the abbot. "It is verily a
+miracle."</p>
+<p>
+"Rather a lame miracle," said the brother who
+had charge of the funny picture-books and the toy<span class="page"><a name="page93" id="page93">[Page&nbsp;93]</a></span>
+monkeys; they rather threw his mind off its level of
+sobriety, and he was apt to make frivolous speeches
+unbecoming a monk.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate13" id="plate13">[plate 13]</a></span>
+<img src="images/13-princeruns.jpg" width="382" height="470" alt="The prince runs away." border="0" /><br /><br />
+THE PRINCE RUNS AWAY.</p><br /><br />
+
+<p>
+The abbot gave him a reproving glance, and the
+brother, who was the leach of the convent, came forward.
+"Let me look at the miracle, most holy abbot,"
+said he. He took up Peter's sister, and looked carefully<span class="page"><a name="page94" id="page94">[Page&nbsp;94]</a></span>
+at the small, twisted ankle. "I think I can cure
+this with my herbs and simples," said he.</p>
+<p>
+"But I don't know," said the abbot doubtfully.
+"I never heard of curing a miracle."</p>
+<p>
+"If it is not lawful, my humble power will not
+suffice to cure it," said the father who was the leach.</p>
+<p>
+"True," said the abbot; "take her, then, and exercise
+thy healing art upon her, and we will go on with
+our Christmas devotions, for which we should now
+feel all the more zeal." So the father took away
+Peter's little sister, who was still too frightened to speak.</p>
+<p>
+The Christmas Monk was a wonderful doctor, for
+by Christmas Eve the little girl was completely cured
+of her lameness. This may seem incredible, but it
+was owing in great part to the herbs and simples,
+which are of a species that our doctors have no knowledge
+of; and also to a wonderful lotion which has
+never been advertised on our fences.</p>
+<p>
+Peter of course heard the talk about the miracle,
+and knew at once what it meant. He was almost
+heartbroken to think he was deceiving the Monks so,
+but at the same time he did not dare to confess the
+truth for fear they would put a penance upon his
+sister, and he could not bear to think of her having
+to kneel upon dried peas.</p>
+<p>
+He worked hard picking Christmas presents, and
+hid his unhappiness as best he could. On Christmas
+Eve he was called into the chapel. The Christmas<span class="page"><a name="page95" id="page95">[Page&nbsp;95]</a></span>
+Monks were all assembled there. The walls were
+covered with green garlands and boughs and sprays of
+hollyberries, and branches of wax lights were gleaming
+brightly amongst them. The altar and the picture
+of the Blessed Child behind it were so bright as to
+almost dazzle one; and right up in the midst of it, in a
+lovely white dress, all wreaths and jewels, in a little
+chair with a canopy woven of green branches over it,
+sat Peter's little sister.</p>
+<p>
+And there were all the Christmas Monks in their
+white robes and wreaths, going up in a long procession,
+with their hands full of the very showiest Christmas
+presents to offer them to her!</p>
+<p>
+But when they reached her and held out the lovely
+presents&mdash;the first was an enchanting wax doll, the
+biggest beauty in the whole garden&mdash;instead of reaching
+out her hands for them, she just drew back, and
+said in her little sweet, piping voice: "Please, I ain't
+a millacle, I'm only Peter's little sister."</p>
+<p>
+"Peter?" said the abbot; "the Peter who works
+in our garden?"</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said the little sister.</p>
+<p>
+Now here was a fine opportunity for a whole convent
+full of monks to look foolish&mdash;filing up in
+procession with their hands full of gifts to offer to a
+miracle, and finding there was no miracle, but only
+Peter's little sister.</p>
+<p>
+But the abbot of the Christmas Monks had always<span class="page"><a name="page96" id="page96">[Page&nbsp;96]</a></span>
+maintained that there were two ways of looking at all
+things; if any object was not what you wanted it to
+be in one light, that there was another light in which
+it would be sure to meet your views.</p>
+<p>
+So now he brought this philosophy to bear.</p>
+<p>
+"This little girl did not come up in the place of
+the wax doll, and she is not a miracle in that light,"
+said he; "but look at her in another light and she is
+a miracle&mdash;do you not see?"</p>
+<p>
+They all looked at her, the darling little girl, the
+very meaning and sweetness of all Christmas in her
+loving, trusting, innocent face.</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said all the Christmas Monks, "she is a
+miracle." And they all laid their beautiful Christmas
+presents down before her.</p>
+<p>
+Peter was so delighted he hardly knew himself;
+and, oh! the joy there was when he led his little sister
+home on Christmas-day, and showed all the
+wonderful presents.</p>
+<p>
+The Christmas Monks always retained Peter in
+their employ&mdash;in fact he is in their employ to this
+day. And his parents, and his little sister who was
+entirely cured of her lameness, have never wanted for
+anything.</p>
+<p>
+As for the Prince, the courtiers were never tired of
+discussing and admiring his wonderful knowledge of
+physics which led to his adjusting the weight of the
+hamper of Christmas presents to his own so nicely<span class="page"><a name="page97" id="page97">[Page&nbsp;97]</a></span>
+that he could not fall. The Prince liked the talk and
+the admiration well enough, but he could not help,
+also, being a little glum: for he got no Christmas
+presents that year.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+
+<span class="page"><a name="page98" id="page98">[Page&nbsp;98]</a></span>
+
+<h2>THE <a name="pumpkin" id="pumpkin">PUMPKIN</a> GIANT.</h2>
+
+<p>
+A very long time ago, before our grandmother's
+time, or our great-grandmother's, or our grandmothers'
+with a very long string of greats prefixed, there were
+no pumpkins; people had never eaten a pumpkin-pie,
+or even stewed pumpkin; and that was the time when
+the Pumpkin Giant flourished.</p>
+<p>
+There have been a great many giants who have
+flourished since the world begun, and although a select
+few of them have been good giants, the majority of
+them have been so bad that their crimes even more
+than their size have gone to make them notorious.
+But the Pumpkin Giant was an uncommonly bad one,
+and his general appearance and his behavior were such
+as to make one shudder to an extent that you would
+hardly believe possible. The convulsive shivering
+caused by the mere mention of his name, and, in some
+cases where the people were unusually sensitive, by
+the mere thought of him even, more resembled the
+blue ague than anything else; indeed was known by
+the name of "the Giant's Shakes."</p>
+<p>
+The Pumpkin Giant was very tall; he probably
+would have overtopped most of the giants you have
+ever heard of. I don't suppose the Giant who lived<span class="page"><a name="page99" id="page99">[Page&nbsp;99]</a></span>
+on the Bean-stalk whom Jack visited, was anything
+to compare with him; nor that it would have been a
+possible thing for the Pumpkin Giant, had he received
+an invitation to spend an afternoon with the Bean-stalk
+Giant, to accept, on account of his inability to
+enter the Bean-stalk Giant's door, no matter how
+much he stooped.</p>
+<p>
+The Pumpkin Giant had a very large yellow head,
+which was also smooth and shiny. His eyes were big
+and round, and glowed like coals of fire; and you
+would almost have thought that his head was lit up
+inside with candles. Indeed there was a rumor to
+that effect amongst the common people, but that was
+all nonsense, of course; no one of the more enlightened
+class credited it for an instant. His mouth,
+which stretched half around his head, was furnished
+with rows of pointed teeth, and he was never known to
+hold it any other way than wide open.</p>
+<p>
+The Pumpkin Giant lived in a castle, as a matter
+of course; it is not fashionable for a giant to live in
+any other kind of a dwelling&mdash;why, nothing would
+be more tame and uninteresting than a giant in a two-story
+white house with green blinds and a picket fence,
+or even a brown-stone front, if he could get into either
+of them, which he could not.</p>
+<p>
+The Giant's castle was situated on a mountain, as
+it ought to have been, and there was also the usual
+courtyard before it, and the customary moat, which<span class="page"><a name="page100" id="page100">[Page&nbsp;100]</a></span>
+was full of&mdash;<i>bones</i>! All I have got to say about
+these bones is, they were not mutton bones. A great
+many details of this story must be left to the imagination
+of the reader; they are too harrowing to relate.
+A much tenderer regard for the feelings of the audience
+will be shown in this than in most giant stories;
+we will even go so far as to state in advance, that the
+story has a good end, thereby enabling readers to
+peruse it comfortably without unpleasant suspense.</p>
+<p>
+The Pumpkin Giant was fonder of little boys and
+girls than anything else in the world; but he was
+somewhat fonder of little boys, and more particularly
+of <i>fat</i> little boys.</p>
+<p>
+The fear and horror of this Giant extended over
+the whole country. Even the King on his throne was
+so severely afflicted with the Giant's Shakes that he
+had been obliged to have the throne propped, for fear
+it should topple over in some unusually violent fit.
+There was good reason why the King shook: his only
+daughter, the Princess Ariadne Diana, was probably
+the fattest princess in the whole world at that date.
+So fat was she that she had never walked a step in
+the dozen years of her life, being totally unable to
+progress over the earth by any method except rolling.
+And a really beautiful sight it was, too, to see the
+Princess Ariadne Diana, in her cloth-of-gold rolling-suit,
+faced with green velvet and edged with ermine,
+with her glittering crown on her head, trundling along<span class="page"><a name="page101" id="page101">[Page&nbsp;101]</a></span>
+the avenues of the royal gardens, which had been furnished
+with strips of rich carpeting for her express
+accommodation.</p>
+<p>
+But gratifying as it would have been to the King,
+her sire, under other circumstances, to have had such
+an unusually interesting daughter, it now only served
+to fill his heart with the greatest anxiety on her account.
+The Princess was never allowed to leave the
+palace without a body-guard of fifty knights, the very
+flower of the King's troops, with lances in rest, but in
+spite of all this precaution, the King shook.</p>
+<p>
+Meanwhile amongst the ordinary people who could
+not procure an escort of fifty armed knights for the
+plump among their children, the ravages of the Pumpkin
+Giant were frightful. It was apprehended at one
+time that there would be very few fat little girls, and
+no fat little boys at all, left in the kingdom. And
+what made matters worse, at that time the Giant commenced
+taking a tonic to increase his appetite.</p>
+<p>
+Finally the King, in desperation, issued a proclamation
+that he would knight any one, be he noble or
+common, who should cut off the head of the Pumpkin
+Giant. This was the King's usual method of rewarding
+any noble deed in his kingdom. It was a cheap
+method, and besides everybody liked to be a knight.</p>
+<p>
+When the King issued his proclamation every man
+in the kingdom who was not already a knight, straightway
+tried to contrive ways and means to kill the<span class="page"><a name="page102" id="page102">[Page&nbsp;102]</a></span>
+Pumpkin Giant. But there was one obstacle which
+seemed insurmountable: they were afraid, and all of
+them had the Giant's Shakes so badly, that they could
+not possibly have held a knife steady enough to cut
+off the Giant's head, even if they had dared to go near
+enough for that purpose.</p>
+<p>
+There was one man who lived not far from the
+terrible Giant's castle, a poor man, his only worldly
+wealth consisting in a large potato-field and a cottage
+in front of it. But he had a boy of twelve, an only
+son, who rivaled the Princess Ariadne Diana in point
+of fatness. He was unable to have a body-guard for
+his son; so the amount of terror which the inhabitants
+of that humble cottage suffered day and night was
+heart-rending. The poor mother had been unable to
+leave her bed for two years, on account of the Giant's
+Shakes; her husband barely got a living from the
+potato-field; half the time he and his wife had hardly
+enough to eat, as it naturally took the larger part of
+the potatoes to satisfy the fat little boy, their son, and
+their situation was truly pitiable.</p>
+<p>
+The fat boy's name was &AElig;neas, his father's name
+was Patroclus, and his mother's Daphne. It was all
+the fashion in those days to have classical names.
+And as that was a fashion as easily adopted by the
+poor as the rich, everybody had them. They were
+just like Jim and Tommy and May in these days.
+Why, the Princess's name, Ariadne Diana, was nothing <span class="page"><a name="page103" id="page103">[Page&nbsp;103]</a></span>
+more nor less than Ann Eliza with us.</p>
+<p>
+One morning Patroclus and &AElig;neas were out in the
+field digging potatoes, for new potatoes were just in
+the market. The Early Rose potato had not been discovered
+in those days; but there was another potato,
+perhaps equally good, which attained to a similar
+degree of celebrity. It was called the Young Plantagenet,
+and reached a very large size indeed, much
+larger than the Early Rose does in our time.</p>
+<p>
+Well, Patroclus and &AElig;neas had just dug perhaps
+a bushel of Young Plantagenet potatoes. It was slow
+work with them, for Patroclus had the Giant's Shakes
+badly that morning, and of course &AElig;neas was not
+very swift. He rolled about among the potato-hills
+after the manner of the Princess Ariadne Diana; but
+he did not present as imposing an appearance as she,
+in his homespun farmer's frock.</p>
+<p>
+All at once the earth trembled violently. Patroclus
+and &AElig;neas looked up and saw the Pumpkin Giant
+coming with his mouth wide open. "Get behind me,
+O, my darling son!" cried Patroclus.</p>
+<p>
+&AElig;neas obeyed, but it was of no use; for you could
+see his cheeks each side his father's waistcoat.</p>
+<p>
+Patroclus was not ordinarily a brave man, but he
+was brave in an emergency; and as that is the only
+time when there is the slightest need of bravery, it
+was just as well.</p>
+<p>
+The Pumpkin Giant strode along faster and faster,<span class="page"><a name="page104" id="page104">[Page&nbsp;104]</a></span>
+opening his mouth wider and wider, until they could
+fairly hear it crack at the corners.</p>
+<p>
+Then Patroclus picked up an enormous Young
+Plantagenet and threw it plump into the Pumpkin
+Giant's mouth. The Giant choked and gasped, and
+choked and gasped, and finally tumbled down and died.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate14" id="plate14">[plate 14]</a></span>
+<img src="images/14-pumpkingiant.jpg" width="548" height="330" alt="He picked up an enormous young plantagenet and threw it at him." border="0" /><br /><br />
+HE PICKED UP AN ENORMOUS YOUNG PLANTAGENET AND THREW IT AT HIM.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+Patroclus and &AElig;neas while the Giant was choking,
+had run to the house and locked themselves in; then
+they looked out of the kitchen window; when they saw
+the Giant tumble down and lie quite still, they knew
+he must be dead. Then Daphne was immediately
+cured of the Giant's Shakes, and got out of bed for
+the first time in two years. Patroclus sharpened the
+carving-knife on the kitchen stove, and they all went<span class="page"><a name="page105" id="page105">[Page&nbsp;105]</a></span>
+out into the potato-field.</p>
+<p>
+They cautiously approached the prostrate Giant, for
+fear he might be shamming, and might suddenly spring
+up at them and&mdash;&AElig;neas. But no, he did not move
+at all; he was quite dead. And, all taking turns,
+they hacked off his head with the carving-knife.
+Then &AElig;neas had it to play with, which was quite appropriate,
+and a good instance of the sarcasm of
+destiny.</p>
+<p>
+The King was notified of the death of the Pumpkin
+Giant, and was greatly rejoiced thereby. His Giant's
+Shakes ceased, the props were removed from the
+throne, and the Princess Ariadne Diana was allowed
+to go out without her body-guard of fifty knights,
+much to her delight, for she found them a great hindrance
+to the enjoyment of her daily outings.</p>
+<p>
+It was a great cross, not to say an embarrassment,
+when she was gleefully rolling in pursuit of a charming
+red and gold butterfly, to find herself suddenly
+stopped short by an armed knight with his lance in
+rest.</p>
+<p>
+But the King, though his gratitude for the noble
+deed knew no bounds, omitted to give the promised
+reward and knight Patroclus.</p>
+<p>
+I hardly know how it happened&mdash;I don't think it
+was anything intentional. Patroclus felt rather hurt
+about it, and Daphne would have liked to be a lady,
+but &AElig;neas did not care in the least. He had the<span class="page"><a name="page106" id="page106">[Page&nbsp;106]</a></span>
+Giant's head to play with and that was reward enough
+for him. There was not a boy in the neighborhood
+but envied him his possession of such a unique plaything;
+and when they would stand looking over the
+wall of the potato-field with longing eyes, and he was
+flying over the ground with the head,
+his happiness knew no bounds; and
+&AElig;neas played so much with the Giant's
+head that finally late in the
+fall it got broken and scattered all over the field.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate15" id="plate15">[plate 15]</a></span>
+<img src="images/15-pumpkins.jpg" width="552" height="440" alt="They were  all over the field." border="0" />
+</p><br /><br />
+
+<p>
+Next spring all over Patroclus's potato-field grew
+running vines, and in the fall Giant's heads. There
+they were all over the field, hundreds of them! Then
+there was consternation indeed! The natural conclusion
+to be arrived at when the people saw the
+yellow Giant's heads making their appearance above<span class="page"><a name="page107" id="page107">[Page&nbsp;107]</a></span>
+the ground was, that the rest of the Giants were
+coming.</p>
+<p>
+"There was one Pumpkin Giant before," said they,
+"now there will be a whole army of them. If it was
+dreadful then what will it be in the future? If one
+Pumpkin Giant gave us the Shakes so badly, what
+will a whole army of them do?"</p>
+<p>
+But when some time had elapsed and nothing more
+of the Giants appeared above the surface of the
+potato-field, and as moreover the heads had not yet
+displayed any sign of opening their mouths, the people
+began to feel a little easier, and the general excitement
+subsided somewhat, although the King had ordered
+out Ariadne Diana's body-guard again.</p>
+<p>
+Now &AElig;neas had been born with a propensity for
+putting everything into his mouth and tasting it;
+there was scarcely anything in his vicinity which could
+by any possibility be tasted, which he had not eaten
+a bit of. This propensity was so alarming in his
+babyhood, that Daphne purchased a book of antidotes;
+and if it had not been for her admirable good judgment
+in doing so, this story would probably never
+have been told; for no human baby could possibly
+have survived the heterogeneous diet which &AElig;neas
+had indulged in. There was scarcely one of the antidotes
+which had not been resorted to from time to
+time.</p>
+<p>
+&AElig;neas had become acquainted with the peculiar <span class="page"><a name="page108" id="page108">[Page&nbsp;108]</a></span>
+flavor of almost everything in his immediate vicinity
+except the Giant's heads; and he naturally enough
+cast longing eyes at them. Night and day he wondered
+what a Giant's head could taste like, till finally
+one day when Patroclus was away he stole out into the
+potato-field, cut a bit out of one of the Giant's heads
+and ate it. He was almost afraid to, but he reflected
+that his mother could give him an antidote; so he
+ventured. It tasted very sweet and nice; he liked it
+so much that he cut off another piece and ate that,
+then another and another, until he had eaten two
+thirds of a Giant's head. Then he thought it was
+about time for him to go in and tell his mother and
+take an antidote, though he did not feel ill at all yet.</p>
+<p>
+"Mother," said he, rolling slowly into the cottage,
+"I have eaten two thirds of a Giant's head, and I
+guess you had better give me an antidote."</p>
+<p>
+"O, my precious son!" cried Daphne, "how could
+you?" She looked in her book of antidotes, but
+could not find one antidote for a Giant's head.</p>
+<p>
+"O &AElig;neas, my dear, dear son!" groaned Daphne,
+"there is no antidote for Giant's head! What shall
+we do?"</p>
+<p>
+Then she sat down and wept, and &AElig;neas wept too
+as loud as he possibly could. And he apparently had
+excellent reason to; for it did not seem possible that
+a boy could eat two thirds of a Giant's head and survive
+it without an antidote. Patroclus came home,<span class="page"><a name="page109" id="page109">[Page&nbsp;109]</a></span>
+and they told him, and he sat down and lamented
+with them. All day they sat weeping and watching
+&AElig;neas, expecting every moment to see him die. But
+he did not die; on the contrary he had never felt so
+well in his life.</p>
+<p>
+Finally at sunset &AElig;neas looked up and laughed.
+"I am not going to die," said he; "I never felt so
+well; you had better stop crying. And I am going
+out to get some more of that Giant's head; I am
+hungry."</p>
+<p>
+"Don't, don't!" cried his father and mother; but
+he went; for he generally took his own way, very
+like most only sons. He came back with a whole
+Giant's head in his arms.</p>
+<p>
+"See here, father and mother," cried he; "we'll
+all have some of this; it evidently is not poison, and
+it is good&mdash;a great deal better than potatoes!"</p>
+<p>
+Patroclus and Daphne hesitated, but they were
+hungry too. Since the crop of Giant's heads had
+sprung up in their field instead of potatoes, they had
+been hungry most of the time; so they tasted.</p>
+<p>
+"It is good," said Daphne; "but I think it would
+be better cooked." So she put some in a kettle of
+water over the fire, and let it boil awhile; then she
+dished it up, and they all ate it. It was delicious.
+It tasted more like stewed pumpkin than anything
+else; in fact it was stewed pumpkin.</p>
+<p>
+Daphne was inventive, and something of a genius;<span class="page"><a name="page110" id="page110">[Page&nbsp;110]</a></span>
+and next day she concocted another dish out of the
+Giant's heads. She boiled them, and sifted them,
+and mixed them with eggs and sugar and milk and
+spice; then she lined some plates with puff paste,
+filled them with the mixture, and set them in the oven
+to bake.</p>
+<p>
+The result was unparalleled; nothing half so exquisite
+had ever been tasted. They were all in
+ecstasies, &AElig;neas in particular. They gathered all the
+Giant's heads and stored them in the cellar. Daphne
+baked pies of them every day, and nothing could surpass
+the felicity of the whole family.</p>
+<p>
+One morning the King had been out hunting, and
+happened to ride by the cottage of Patroclus with a
+train of his knights. Daphne was baking pies as
+usual, and the kitchen door and window were both
+open, for the room was so warm; so the delicious
+odor of the pies perfumed the whole air about the
+cottage.</p>
+<p>
+"What is it smells so utterly lovely?" exclaimed
+the King, sniffing in a rapture.</p>
+<p>
+He sent his page in to see.</p>
+<p>
+"The housewife is baking Giant's head pies," said
+the page returning.</p>
+<p>
+"What?" thundered the King. "Bring out one
+to me!"</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate16" id="plate16">[plate 16]</a></span>
+<img src="images/16-knighted.jpg" width="600" height="292" alt="Then the king knighted him on the spot." border="0" /><br /><br />
+THEN THE KING KNIGHTED HIM ON THE SPOT.</p><br /><br />
+
+
+<span class="page"><a name="page111" id="page111">[Page&nbsp;111]</a></span>
+
+<p>
+So the page brought out a pie to him, and after all
+his knights had tasted to be sure it was not poison,<span class="page"><a name="page113" id="page113">[Page&nbsp;113]</a></span>
+and the king had watched them sharply for a few
+moments to be sure they were not killed, he tasted
+too.</p>
+<p>
+Then he beamed. It was a new sensation, and a
+new sensation is a great boon to a king.</p>
+<p>
+"I never tasted anything so altogether superfine,
+so utterly magnificent in my life," cried the king;
+"stewed peacocks' tongues from the Baltic, are not
+to be compared with it! Call out the housewife
+immediately!"</p>
+<p>
+So Daphne came out trembling, and Patroclus and
+&AElig;neas also.</p>
+<p>
+"What a charming lad!" exclaimed the King as
+his glance fell upon &AElig;neas. "Now tell me about
+these wonderful pies, and I will reward you as becomes
+a monarch!"</p>
+<p>
+Then Patroclus fell on his knees and related the
+whole history of the Giant's head pies from the
+beginning.</p>
+<p>
+The King actually blushed. "And I forgot to
+knight you, oh noble and brave man, and to make a
+lady of your admirable wife!"</p>
+<p>
+Then the King leaned gracefully down from his
+saddle, and struck Patroclus with his jeweled sword
+and knighted him on the spot.</p>
+<p>
+The whole family went to live at the royal palace.
+The roses in the royal gardens were uprooted, and
+Giant's heads (or pumpkins, as they came to be<span class="page"><a name="page114" id="page114">[Page&nbsp;114]</a></span>
+called) were sown in their stead; all the royal parks
+also were turned into pumpkin-fields.</p>
+<p>
+Patroclus was in constant attendance on the King,
+and used to stand all day in his ante-chamber. Daphne
+had a position of great responsibility, for she superintended
+the baking of the pumpkin pies, and &AElig;neas
+finally married the Princess Ariadne Diana.</p>
+<p>
+They were wedded in great state by fifty archbishops;
+and all the newspapers united in stating that
+they were the most charming and well matched young
+couple that had ever been united in the kingdom.</p>
+<p>
+The stone entrance of the Pumpkin Giant's Castle
+was securely fastened, and upon it was engraved an
+inscription composed by the first poet in the kingdom,
+for which the King made him laureate, and gave him
+the liberal pension of fifty pumpkin pies per year.</p>
+<p>
+The following is the inscription in full:</p>
+
+<p class="indent2">
+"Here dwelt the Pumpkin Giant once,<br />
+He's dead the nation doth rejoice,<br />
+For, while he was alive, he lived<br />
+By e&mdash;&mdash;g dear, fat, little boys."</p><br />
+
+<p>
+The inscription is said to remain to this day; if you
+were to go there you would probably see it.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page115" id="page115">[Page&nbsp;115]</a></span>
+
+<h2>THE CHRISTMAS <a name="masquerade" id="masquerade">MASQUERADE</a>.</h2>
+
+<p>
+On Christmas Eve the Mayor's stately mansion presented
+a beautiful appearance. There were rows of
+different-colored wax candles burning in every window,
+and beyond them one could see the chandeliers of gold
+and crystal blazing with light. The fiddles were
+squeaking merrily, and lovely little forms flew past
+the windows in time to the music.</p>
+<p>
+There were gorgeous carpets laid from the door to
+the street, and carriages were constantly arriving, and
+fresh guests tripping over them. They were all children.
+The Mayor was giving a Christmas Masquerade
+to-night, to all the children in the city, the poor as
+well as the rich. The preparation for this ball had
+been making an immense sensation for the last three
+months. Placards had been up in the most conspicuous
+points in the city, and all the daily newspapers had
+at least a column devoted to it, headed with </p>
+<p class="center">
+<span class="notice">THE MAYOR'S CHRISTMAS MASQUERADE</span>
+<span style="float: right">in very large letters.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>
+</p><br />
+<p>
+The Mayor had promised to defray the expenses of
+all the poor children whose parents were unable to do
+so, and the bills for their costumes were directed to be
+sent in to him.</p>
+<p>
+Of course there was a great deal of excitement<span class="page"><a name="page116" id="page116">[Page&nbsp;116]</a></span>
+among the regular costumers of the city, and they all
+resolved to vie with one another in being the most
+popular, and the best patronized on this gala occasion.
+But the placards and the notices had not been out a
+week before a new Costumer appeared, who cast all
+the others into the shade directly. He set up his shop
+on the corner of one of the principal streets, and hung
+up his beautiful costumes in the windows. He was a
+little fellow, not much larger than a boy of ten. His
+cheeks were as red as roses, and he had on a long curling
+wig as white as snow. He wore a suit of crimson
+velvet knee-breeches, and a little swallow-tailed coat
+with beautiful golden buttons. Deep lace ruffles fell
+over his slender white hands, and he wore elegant
+knee-buckles of glittering stones. He sat on a high
+stool behind his counter and served his customers himself;
+he kept no clerk.</p>
+<p>
+It did not take the children long to discover what
+beautiful things he had, and how superior he was to
+the other costumers, and they begun to flock to his
+shop immediately, from the Mayor's daughter to the
+poor rag-picker's. The children were to select their
+own costumes; the Mayor had stipulated that. It
+was to be a children's ball in every sense of the word.</p>
+<p>
+So they decided to be fairies, and shepherdesses,
+and princesses, according to their own fancies; and
+this new costumer had charming costumes to suit them.</p>
+<p>
+It was noticeable, that, for the most part, the children<span class="page"><a name="page117" id="page117">[Page&nbsp;117]</a></span>
+of the rich, who had always had everything they
+desired, would choose the parts of goose-girls and peasants
+and such like; and the poor children jumped
+eagerly at the chance of being princesses or fairies for
+a few hours in their miserable lives.</p>
+<p>
+When Christmas Eve came, and the children flocked
+into the Mayor's mansion, whether it was owing to the
+Costumer's art, or their own adaptation to the characters
+they had chosen, it was wonderful how lifelike their
+representations were. Those little fairies in their
+short skirts of silken gauze, in which golden sparkles
+appeared as they moved, with their little funny gossamer
+wings, like butterflies, looked like real fairies. It
+did not seem possible, when they floated around to the
+music, half supported on the tips of their dainty toes,
+half by their filmy, purple wings, their delicate bodies
+swaying in time, that they could be anything but
+fairies. It seemed absurd to imagine that they were
+Johnny Mullens, the washwoman's son, and Polly
+Flinders, the charwoman's little girl, and so on.</p>
+<p>
+The Mayor's daughter, who had chosen the character
+of a goose-girl, looked so like a true one that
+one could hardly dream she ever was anything else.
+She was, ordinarily, a slender, dainty little lady, rather
+tall for her age. She now looked very short and
+stubbed and brown, just as if she had been accustomed
+to tend geese in all sorts of weather. It was so with
+all the others&mdash;the Red Riding-hoods, the princesses,<span class="page"><a name="page118" id="page118">[Page&nbsp;118]</a></span>
+the Bo Peeps, and with every one of the characters
+who came to the Mayor's ball; Red Riding-hood
+looked round, with big, frightened eyes, all ready to
+spy the wolf, and carried her little pat of butter and
+pot of honey gingerly in her basket; Bo Peep's eyes
+looked red with weeping for the loss of her sheep;
+and the princesses swept about so grandly in their
+splendid brocaded trains, and held their crowned
+heads so high that people half believed them to be
+true princesses.</p>
+<p>
+But there never was anything like the fun at the
+Mayor's Christmas ball. The fiddlers fiddled and
+fiddled, and the children danced and danced on the
+beautiful waxed floors. The Mayor, with his family
+and a few grand guests, sat on a dais covered with
+blue velvet at one end of the dancing hall, and
+watched the sport. They were all delighted. The
+Mayor's eldest daughter sat in front and clapped her
+little soft white hands. She was a tall, beautiful
+young maiden, and wore a white dress, and a little
+cap woven of blue violets on her yellow hair. Her
+name was Violetta.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page119" id="page119">[Page&nbsp;119]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate17" id="plate17">[plate 17]</a></span>
+<img src="images/17-mayoralball.jpg" width="535" height="350" alt="There never was anything like the fun at the mayor's christmas ball." border="0" /><br /><br />
+THERE NEVER WAS ANYTHING LIKE THE FUN AT THE MAYOR'S CHRISTMAS BALL.</p><br /><br />
+
+<p>
+The supper was served at midnight&mdash;and such a
+supper! The mountains of pink and white ices, and
+the cakes with sugar castles and flower-gardens on the
+tops of them, and the charming shapes of gold and
+ruby-colored jellies! There were wonderful bonbons
+which even the Mayor's daughter did not have every<span class="page"><a name="page121" id="page121">[Page&nbsp;121]</a></span>
+day; and all sorts of fruits, fresh and candied. They
+had cowslip wine in green glasses, and elderberry wine
+in red, and they drank each other's health. The glasses
+held a thimbleful each; the Mayor's wife thought that
+was all the wine they ought to have. Under each
+child's plate there was a pretty present; and every
+one had a basket of bonbons and cake to carry home.</p>
+<p>
+At four o'clock the fiddlers put up their fiddles and
+the children went home; fairies and shepherdesses and
+pages and princesses all jabbering gleefully about the
+splendid time they had had.</p>
+<p>
+But in a short time what consternation there was
+throughout the city! When the proud and fond
+parents attempted to unbutton their children's dresses,
+in order to prepare them for bed, not a single costume
+would come off. The buttons buttoned again as fast
+as they were unbuttoned; even if they pulled out a
+pin, in it would slip again in a twinkling; and when a
+string was untied it tied itself up again into a bow-knot.
+The parents were dreadfully frightened. But the
+children were so tired out they finally let them go to
+bed in their fancy costumes, and thought perhaps they
+would come off better in the morning. So Red Riding-hood
+went to bed in her little red cloak, holding fast
+to her basket full of dainties for her grandmother,
+and Bo Peep slept with her crook in her hand.</p>
+<p>
+The children all went to bed readily enough, they
+were so very tired, even though they had to go in this<span class="page"><a name="page122" id="page122">[Page&nbsp;122]</a></span>
+strange array. All but the fairies&mdash;they danced and
+pirouetted and would not be still.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate18" id="plate18">[plate 18]</a></span>
+<img src="images/18-fairy.jpg" width="450" height="468" alt="Their parents stared in great distress." border="0" /><br /><br />
+THEIR PARENTS STARED IN GREAT DISTRESS.</p><br /><br />
+
+<p>
+"We want to swing on the blades of grass," they
+kept saying, "and play hide-and-seek in the lily-cups,
+and take a nap between the leaves of the roses."</p>
+<p>
+The poor charwomen and coal-heavers, whose children
+the fairies were for the most part, stared at them in
+great distress. They did not know what to do with<span class="page"><a name="page123" id="page123">[Page&nbsp;123]</a></span>
+these radiant, frisky little creatures into which their
+Johnnys and their Pollys and Betseys were so suddenly
+transformed. But the fairies went to bed quietly
+enough when daylight came, and were soon fast asleep.</p>
+<p>
+There was no further trouble till twelve o'clock, when
+all the children woke up. Then a great wave of alarm
+spread over the city. Not one of the costumes would
+come off then. The buttons buttoned as fast as they
+were unbuttoned; the pins quilted themselves in as
+fast as they were pulled out; and the strings flew
+round like lightning and twisted themselves into bow-knots
+as fast as they were untied.</p>
+<p>
+And that was not the worst of it; every one of the
+children seemed to have become, in reality, the character
+which he or she had assumed.</p>
+<p>
+The Mayor's daughter declared she was going to
+tend her geese out in the pasture, and the shepherdesses
+sprang out of their little beds of down, throwing aside
+their silken quilts, and cried that they must go out and
+watch their sheep. The princesses jumped up from
+their straw pallets, and wanted to go to court; and all
+the rest of them likewise. Poor little Red Riding-hood
+sobbed and sobbed because she couldn't go and
+carry her basket to her grandmother, and as she didn't
+have any grandmother she couldn't go, of course, and
+her parents were very much troubled. It was all so
+mysterious and dreadful.  The news spread very
+rapidly over the city, and soon a great crowd gathered<span class="page"><a name="page124" id="page124">[Page&nbsp;124]</a></span>
+around the new Costumer's shop, for every one thought
+he must be responsible for all this mischief.</p>
+<p>
+The shop door was locked; but they soon battered
+it down with stones. When they rushed in the Costumer
+was not there; he had disappeared with all his
+wares. Then they did not know what to do. But it
+was evident that they must do something before long,
+for the state of affairs was growing worse and
+worse.</p>
+<p>
+The Mayor's little daughter braced her back up
+against the tapestried wall and planted her two feet
+in their thick shoes firmly. "I will go and tend my
+geese!" she kept crying. "I won't eat my breakfast!
+I won't go out in the park! I won't go to school. I'm
+going to tend my geese&mdash;I will, I will, I will!"</p>
+<p>
+And the princesses trailed their rich trains over the
+rough, unpainted floors in their parents' poor little huts,
+and held their crowned heads very high and demanded
+to be taken to court. The princesses were, mostly,
+geese-girls when they were their proper selves, and
+their geese were suffering, and their poor parents did
+not know what they were going to do, and they wrung
+their hands and wept as they gazed on their gorgeously-appareled
+children.</p>
+<p>
+Finally, the Mayor called a meeting of the Aldermen,
+and they all assembled in the City Hall. Nearly
+every one of them had a son or a daughter who was a
+chimney-sweep, or a little watch-girl, or a shepherdess.<span class="page"><a name="page125" id="page125">[Page&nbsp;125]</a></span>
+They appointed a chairman and they took a great many
+votes, and contrary votes; but they did not agree on
+anything, until some one proposed that they consult
+the Wise Woman. Then they all held up their hands,
+and voted to, unanimously.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate19" id="plate19">[plate 19]</a></span>
+<img src="images/19-goosegirl.jpg" width="364" height="470" alt="I will go and tend my geese!" border="0" /><br /><br />
+I WILL GO AND TEND MY GEESE!</p><br /><br />
+
+<p>
+So the whole board of Aldermen set out, walking by<span class="page"><a name="page126" id="page126">[Page&nbsp;126]</a></span>
+twos, with the Mayor at their head, to consult the
+Wise Woman. The Aldermen were all very fleshy,
+and carried gold-headed canes which they swung very
+high at every step. They held their heads well back,
+and their chins stiff, and whenever they met common
+people they sniffed gently.  They were very imposing.</p>
+<p>
+The Wise Woman lived in a little hut on the out-skirts
+of the city. She kept a Black Cat; except for
+her, she was all alone. She was very old, and had
+brought up a great many children, and she was
+considered remarkably wise.</p>
+<p>
+But when the Aldermen reached her hut and found
+her seated by the fire, holding her Black Cat, a new
+difficulty presented itself. She had always been quite
+deaf, and people had been obliged to scream as loud
+as they could in order to make her hear; but, lately,
+she had grown much deafer, and when the Aldermen
+attempted to lay the case before her she could not hear
+a word. In fact, she was so very deaf that she could
+not distinguish a tone below G-sharp. The Aldermen
+screamed till they were quite red in their faces, but all
+to no purpose; none of them could get up to G-sharp,
+of course.</p>
+<p>
+So the Aldermen all went back, swinging their gold-headed
+canes, and they had another meeting in the
+City Hall. Then they decided to send the highest
+Soprano Singer in the church choir to the Wise
+Woman; she could sing up to G-sharp just as easy as<span class="page"><a name="page127" id="page127">[Page&nbsp;127]</a></span>
+not. So the high-Soprano Singer set out for the Wise
+Woman's in the Mayor's coach, and the Aldermen
+marched behind, swinging their gold-headed canes.</p>
+<p>
+The high-Soprano Singer put her head down close
+to the Wise Woman's ear, and sang all about the
+Christmas Masquerade, and the dreadful dilemma
+everybody was in, in G-sharp&mdash;she even went higher,
+sometimes&mdash;and the Wise Woman heard every word.
+She nodded three times, and every time she nodded
+she looked wiser.</p>
+<p>
+"Go home, and give 'em a spoonful of castor-oil, all
+'round," she piped up; then she took a pinch of snuff,
+and wouldn't say any more.</p>
+<p>
+So the Aldermen went home, and each one took a
+district and marched through it, with a servant carrying
+an immense bowl and spoon, and every child had to
+take a dose of castor-oil.</p>
+<p>
+But it didn't do a bit of good. The children cried
+and struggled when they were forced to take the castor-oil;
+but, two minutes afterward, the chimney-sweeps
+were crying for their brooms, and the princesses
+screaming because they couldn't go to court, and the
+Mayor's daughter, who had been given a double dose,
+cried louder and more sturdily: "I want to go and
+tend my geese! I will go and tend my geese!"</p>
+<p>
+So the Aldermen took the high-Soprano Singer, and
+they consulted the Wise Woman again.  She was
+taking a nap this time, and the Singer had to sing up<span class="page"><a name="page128" id="page128">[Page&nbsp;128]</a></span>
+to B-flat before she could wake her. Then she was
+very cross, and the Black Cat put up his back and spit
+at the Aldermen.</p>
+<p>
+"Give 'em a spanking all 'round," she snapped out,
+"and if that don't work put 'em to bed without their
+supper!"</p>
+<p>
+Then the Aldermen marched back to try that; and
+all the children in the city were spanked, and when that
+didn't do any good they were put to bed without any
+supper. But the next morning when they woke up they
+were worse than ever.</p>
+<p>
+The Mayor and the Aldermen were very indignant,
+and considered that they had been imposed upon and
+insulted. So they set out for the Wise Woman's again,
+with the high-Soprano Singer.</p>
+<p>
+She sang in G-sharp how the Aldermen and the
+Mayor considered her an imposter, and did not think
+she was wise at all, and they wished her to take her
+Black Cat and move beyond the limits of the city.
+She sang it beautifully; it sounded like the very finest
+Italian opera-music.</p>
+<p>
+"Deary me," piped the Wise Woman, when she had
+finished, "how very grand these gentlemen are." Her
+Black Cat put up his back and spit.</p>
+<p>
+"Five times one Black Cat are five Black Cats,"
+said the Wise Woman. And, directly, there were five
+Black Cats, spitting and miauling.</p>
+<p>
+"Five times five Black Cats are twenty-five Black<span class="page"><a name="page129" id="page129">[Page&nbsp;129]</a></span>
+Cats." And then there were twenty-five of the angry
+little beasts.</p>
+<p>
+"Five times twenty-five Black Cats are one hundred
+and twenty-five Black Cats," added the Wise
+Woman, with a chuckle.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate20" id="plate20">[plate 20]</a></span>
+<img src="images/20-soprano.jpg" width="420" height="457" alt="She sang it beautifully." border="0" /><br /><br />
+SHE SANG IT BEAUTIFULLY.</p><br /><br />
+
+<p>
+Then the Mayor and the Aldermen and the high-Soprano
+Singer fled precipitately out the door and back
+to the city. One hundred and twenty-five Black Cats
+had seemed to fill the Wise Woman's hut full, and<span class="page"><a name="page130" id="page130">[Page&nbsp;130]</a></span>
+when they all spit and miauled together it was dreadful.
+The visitors could not wait for her to multiply Black
+Cats any longer.</p>
+<p>
+As winter wore on, and spring came, the condition
+of things grew more intolerable. Physicians had been
+consulted, who advised that the children should be
+allowed to follow their own bents, for fear of injury to
+their constitutions. So the rich Aldermen's daughters
+were actually out in the fields herding sheep, and their
+sons sweeping chimneys or carrying newspapers; while
+the poor charwomen's and coal-heavers' children spent
+their time like princesses and fairies. Such a topsy-turvy
+state of society was shocking. Why, the Mayor's
+little daughter was tending geese out in the meadow
+like any common goose-girl! Her pretty elder sister,
+Violetta, felt very sad about it, and used often to cast
+about in her mind for some way of relief.</p>
+<p>
+When cherries were ripe in spring, Violetta thought
+she would ask the Cherry-man about it. She thought
+the Cherry-man quite wise. He was a very pretty
+young fellow, and he brought cherries to sell in graceful
+little straw baskets lined with moss. So she stood
+in the kitchen-door, one morning, and told him all
+about the great trouble that had come upon the city.
+He listened in great astonishment; he had never
+heard of it before. He lived several miles out in the
+country.</p>
+<p>
+"How did the Costumer look?" he asked respectfully;<span class="page"><a name="page131" id="page131">[Page&nbsp;131]</a></span>
+he thought Violetta the most beautiful lady on
+earth.</p>
+<p>
+Then Violetta described the Costumer, and told him
+of the unavailing attempts that had been made to find
+him. There were a great many detectives out, constantly
+at work.</p>
+<p>
+"I know where he is!" said the Cherry-man. "He's
+up in one of my cherry-trees. He's been living
+there ever since cherries were ripe, and he won't come
+down."</p>
+<p>
+Then Violetta ran and told her father in great excitement,
+and he at once called a meeting of the Aldermen,
+and in a few hours half the city was on the road to
+the Cherry-man's.</p>
+<p>
+He had a beautiful orchard of cherry-trees, all laden
+with fruit. And, sure enough, in one of the largest,
+way up amongst the topmost branches, sat the Costumer
+in his red velvet short-clothes and his diamond
+knee-buckles. He looked down between the green
+boughs. "Good-morning, friends," he shouted.</p>
+<p>
+The Aldermen shook their gold-headed canes at him,
+and the people danced round the tree in a rage. Then
+they began to climb. But they soon found that to be
+impossible. As fast as they touched a hand or foot
+to the tree, back it flew with a jerk exactly as if the
+tree pushed it. They tried a ladder, but the ladder
+fell back the moment it touched the tree, and lay
+sprawling upon the ground. Finally, they brought <span class="page"><a name="page132" id="page132">[Page&nbsp;132]</a></span>
+axes and thought they could chop the tree down, Costumer
+and all; but the wood resisted the axes as if it
+were iron, and only dented them, receiving no impression
+itself.</p>
+<p>
+Meanwhile, the Costumer sat up in the tree, eating
+cherries, and throwing the stones down. Finally, he
+stood up on a stout branch and, looking down, addressed
+the people.</p>
+<p>
+"It's of no use, your trying to accomplish anything
+in this way," said he; "you'd better parley. I'm willing
+to come to terms with you, and make everything
+right, on two conditions."</p>
+<p>
+The people grew quiet then, and the Mayor stepped
+forward as spokesman. "Name your two conditions,"
+said he, rather testily. "You own, tacitly, that you are
+the cause of all this trouble."</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said the Costumer, reaching out for a handful
+of cherries, "this Christmas Masquerade of yours
+was a beautiful idea; but you wouldn't do it every
+year, and your successors might not do it at all. I
+want those poor children to have a Christmas every
+year. My first condition is, that every poor child in
+the city hangs its stocking for gifts in the City Hall
+on every Christmas Eve, and gets it filled, too. I
+want the resolution filed and put away in the city
+archives."</p>
+<p>
+"We agree to the first condition!" cried the people
+with one voice, without waiting for the Mayor and<span class="page"><a name="page133" id="page133">[Page&nbsp;133]</a></span>
+Aldermen.</p>
+<p>
+"The second condition," said the Costumer, "is
+that this good young Cherry-man here, has the Mayor's
+daughter, Violetta, for his wife. He has been kind to
+me, letting me live in his cherry-tree, and eat his
+cherries, and I want to reward him."</p>
+<p>
+"We consent!" cried all the people; but the Mayor,
+though he was so generous, was a proud man. "I
+will not consent to the second condition," he cried
+angrily.</p>
+<p>
+"Very well," replied the Costumer, picking some
+more cherries, "then your youngest daughter tends
+geese the rest of her life, that's all!"</p>
+<p>
+The Mayor was in great distress; but the thought of
+his youngest daughter being a goose-girl all her life was
+too much for him. He gave in at last.</p>
+<p>
+"Now go home, and take the costumes off your children,"
+said the Costumer, "and leave me in peace to
+eat cherries!"</p>
+<p>
+Then the people hastened back to the city and found,
+to their great delight, that the costumes would come
+off. The pins staid out, the buttons staid unbuttoned,
+and the strings staid untied. The children were
+dressed in their own proper clothes and were their own
+proper selves once more. The shepherdesses and the
+chimney-sweeps came home, and were washed and
+dressed in silks and velvets, and went to embroidering
+and playing lawn-tennis. And the princesses and <span class="page"><a name="page134" id="page134">[Page&nbsp;134]</a></span>
+the fairies put on their own suitable dresses, and went
+about their useful employments. There was great
+rejoicing in every home. Violetta thought she had
+never been so happy, now that her dear little sister was
+no longer a goose-girl, but her own dainty little
+lady-self.</p>
+<p>
+The resolution to provide every poor child in the
+city with a stocking full of gifts on Christmas was
+solemnly filed, and deposited in the city archives, and
+was never broken.</p>
+<p>
+Violetta was married to the Cherry-man, and all the
+children came to the wedding, and strewed flowers in
+her path till her feet were quite hidden in them. The
+Costumer had mysteriously disappeared from the cherry-tree
+the night before, but he left, at the foot, some
+beautiful wedding presents for the bride&mdash;a silver
+service with a pattern of cherries engraved on it, and
+a set of china with cherries on it, in hand-painting, and
+a white satin robe, embroidered with cherries down
+the front.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page135" id="page135">[Page&nbsp;135]</a></span>
+
+<h2><a name="dill" id="dill">DILL</a>.</h2>
+<p>
+Dame Clementina was in her dairy, churning, and
+her little daughter Nan was out in the flower-garden.
+The flower-garden was a little plot back of the cottage,
+full of all the sweet, old-fashioned herbs. There were
+sweet marjoram, sage, summersavory, lavender, and
+ever so many others. Up in one corner, there was a
+little green bed of dill.</p>
+<p>
+Nan was a dainty, slim little maiden, with yellow,
+flossy hair in short curls all over her head. Her eyes
+were very sweet and round and blue, and she wore a
+quaint little snuff-colored gown. It had a short full
+waist, with low neck and puffed sleeves, and the skirt
+was straight and narrow and down to her little heels.</p>
+<p>
+She danced around the garden, picking a flower
+here and there. She was making a nosegay for her
+mother. She picked lavender and sweet-william and
+pinks, and bunched them up together. Finally she
+pulled a little sprig of dill, and ran, with that and the
+nosegay, to her mother in the dairy.</p>
+<p>
+"Mother dear," said she, "here is a little nosegay
+for you; and what was it I overheard you telling Dame
+Elizabeth about dill last night?"</p>
+<p>
+Dame Clementina stopped churning and took the<span class="page"><a name="page136" id="page136">[Page&nbsp;136]</a></span>
+nosegay. "Thank you, Sweetheart, it is lovely," said
+she, "and, as for the dill&mdash;it is a charmed plant, you
+know, like four-leaved clover."</p>
+<p>
+"Do you put it over the door?" asked Nan.</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. Nobody who is envious or ill-disposed can
+enter into the house if there is a sprig of dill over the
+door. Then I know another charm which makes it
+stronger.  If one just writes this verse:</p>
+
+<p class="indent3">
+  'Alva, aden, winira mir,<br/>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Villawissen lingen;<br/>
+  Sanchta, wanchta, attazir,<br/>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hor de mussen wingen,'</p><br/>
+
+<p>
+under the sprig of dill, every one envious, or evil-disposed,
+who attempts to enter the house, will have
+to stop short, just where they are, and stand there;
+they cannot move."</p>
+<p>
+"What does the verse mean?" asked Nan.</p>
+<p>
+"That, I do not know. It is written in a foreign
+language. But it is a powerful charm."</p>
+<p>
+"O, mother! will you write it off for me, if I will
+bring you a bit of paper and a pen?"</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly," replied her mother, and wrote it off
+when Nan brought pen and paper.</p>
+<p>
+"Now," said she, "you must run off and play again,
+and not hinder me any longer, or I shall not get my
+butter made to-day."</p>
+<p>
+So Nan danced away with the verse, and the sprig <span class="page"><a name="page137" id="page137">[Page&nbsp;137]</a></span>
+of dill, and her mother went on churning.</p>
+<p>
+She had a beautiful tall stone churn, with the sides
+all carved with figures in relief. There were milkmaids
+and cows as natural as life all around the churn. The
+dairy was charming, too. The shelves were carved
+stone; and the floor had a little silvery rill running
+right through the middle of it, with green ferns at the
+sides. All along the stone shelves were set pans full
+of yellow cream, and the pans were all of solid silver,
+with a chasing of buttercups and daisies around the
+brims.</p>
+<p>
+It was not a common dairy, and Dame Clementina
+was not a common dairy-woman. She was very tall
+and stately, and wore her silver-white hair braided
+around her head like a crown, with a high silver comb
+at the top. She walked like a queen; indeed she was
+a noble count's daughter. In her early youth, she had
+married a pretty young dairyman, against her father's
+wishes; so she had been disinherited. The dairyman
+had been so very poor and low down in the world, that
+the count felt it his duty to cast off his daughter, lest
+she should do discredit to his noble line. There was a
+much pleasanter, easier way out of the difficulty, which
+the count did not see. Indeed, it was a peculiarity of
+all his family, that they never could see a way out of
+a difficulty, high and noble as they were. The count
+only needed to have given the poor young dairyman a
+few acres of his own land, and a few bags of his own<span class="page"><a name="page138" id="page138">[Page&nbsp;138]</a></span>
+gold, and begged the king, with whom he had great
+influence, to knight him, and all the obstacles would
+have been removed; the dairyman would have been
+quite rich and noble enough for his son-in-law. But
+he never thought of that, and his daughter was disinherited.
+However, he made all the amends to her that
+he could, and fitted her out royally for her humble
+station in life. He caused this beautiful dairy to be
+built for her, and gave her the silver milk-pans, and
+the carved stone churn.</p>
+<p>
+"My daughter shall not churn in a common wooden
+churn, or skim the cream from wooden pans," he had
+said.</p>
+<p>
+The dairyman had been dead a good many years
+now, and Dame Clementina managed the dairy alone.
+She never saw anything of her father, although he
+lived in his castle not far off, on a neighboring height.
+When the sky was clear, she could see its stone
+towers against it. She had four beautiful white cows,
+and Nan drove them to pasture; they were very
+gentle.</p>
+<p>
+When Dame Clementina had finished churning, she
+went into the cottage. As she stepped through the
+little door with clumps of sweet peas on each side, she
+looked up. There was the sprig of dill, and the magic
+verse she had written under it.</p>
+<p>
+Nan was sitting at the window inside, knitting her
+stent on a blue stocking. "Ah, Sweetheart," said her<span class="page"><a name="page139" id="page139">[Page&nbsp;139]</a></span>
+mother, laughing, "you have little cause to pin the dill
+and the verse over our door. None is likely to envy
+us, or to be ill-disposed toward us."</p>
+<p>
+"O, mother!" said Nan, "I know it, but I thought
+it would be so nice to feel sure. Oh, there is Dame
+Golding coming after some milk. Do you suppose she
+will have to stop?"</p>
+<p>
+"What nonsense!" said her mother. They both
+of them watched Dame Golding coming. All of a
+sudden, she stopped short, just outside. She could
+go no further. She tried to lift her feet, but could
+not.</p>
+<p>
+"O, mother!" cried Nan, "she has stopped!"</p>
+<p>
+The poor woman began to scream. She was frightened
+almost to death. Nan and her mother were not
+much less frightened, but they did not know what to
+do. They ran out, and tried to comfort her, and gave
+her some cream to drink; but it did not amount to
+much. Dame Golding had secretly envied Dame
+Clementina for her silver milk-pans. Nan and her
+mother knew why their visitor was so suddenly rooted
+to the spot, of course, but she did not. She thought
+her feet were paralyzed, and she kept begging them to
+send for her husband.</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps he can pull her away," said Nan, crying.
+How she wished she had never pinned the dill and
+the verse over the door! So she set off for Dame
+Golding's husband. He came running in a great<span class="page"><a name="page140" id="page140">[Page&nbsp;140]</a></span>
+hurry; but when he had nearly reached his wife, and
+had his arms reached out to grasp her, he, too, stopped
+short. He had envied Dame Clementina for her
+beautiful white cows, and there he was fast, also.</p>
+<p>
+He began to groan and scream too. Nan and her
+mother ran into the house and shut the door. They
+could not bear it. "What shall we do, if any one else
+comes?" sobbed Nan. "O, mother! there is Dame
+Dorothy coming. And&mdash;yes&mdash;Oh! she has stopped
+too." Poor Dame Dorothy had envied Dame Clementina
+a little for her flower-garden, which was finer
+than hers, so she had to join Dame Golding and her
+husband.</p>
+<p>
+Pretty soon another woman came, who had looked
+with envious eyes at Dame Clementina, because she
+was a count's daughter; and another, who had grudged
+her a fine damask petticoat, which she had had before
+she was disinherited, and still wore on holidays; and
+they both had to stop. </p>
+<p>
+Then came three rough-looking men in velvet jackets
+and slouched hats, who brought up short at the
+gate with a great jerk that nearly took their breath away.
+They were robbers who were prowling about with a
+view to stealing Dame Clementina's silver milk-pans
+some dark night.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page141" id="page141">[Page&nbsp;141]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate21" id="plate21">[plate 21]</a></span>
+<img src="images/21-strangestate.jpg" width="560" height="348" alt="A strange sad state of things." border="0" /><br /><br />
+A STRANGE SAD STATE OF THINGS.</p><br /><br />
+
+<p>
+All through the day the people kept coming and
+stopping. It was wonderful how many things poor
+Dame Clementina had to be envied by men and<span class="page"><a name="page143" id="page143">[Page&nbsp;143]</a></span>
+women, and even children. They envied Nan for her
+yellow curls or her blue eyes, or her pretty snuff-colored
+gown. When the sun set, the yard in front
+of Dame Clementina's cottage was full of people.
+Lastly, just before dark, the count himself came ambling
+up on a coal-black horse. The count was a
+majestic old man dressed in velvet, with stars on his
+breast. His white hair fell in long curls on his
+shoulders, and he had a pointed beard. As he came
+to the gate, he caught a glimpse of Nan in the door.</p>
+<p>
+"How I wish that little maiden was my child," said
+he. And, straightway, he stopped. His horse pawed
+and trembled when he lashed him with a jeweled whip
+to make him go on; but he could not stir forward one
+step. Neither could the count dismount from his saddle;
+he sat there fuming with rage.</p>
+<p>
+Meanwhile, poor Dame Clementina and little Nan
+were overcome with distress. The sight of their yard
+full of all these weeping people was dreadful. Neither
+of them had any idea how to do away with the trouble,
+because of their family inability to see their way out of
+a difficulty.</p>
+<p>
+When supper time came, Nan went for the cows, and
+her mother milked them into her silver milk-pails,
+and strained off the milk into her silver pans. Then
+they kindled up a fire and cooked some beautiful milk
+porridge for the poor people in the yard.</p>
+<p>
+It was a beautiful warm moonlight night, and all<span class="page"><a name="page144" id="page144">[Page&nbsp;144]</a></span>
+the winds were sweet with roses and pinks; so the
+people could not suffer out of doors; but the next
+morning it rained.</p>
+<p>
+"O, mother!" said Nan, "it is raining, and what
+will the poor people do?"</p>
+<p>
+Dame Clementina would never have seen her way
+out of this difficulty, had not Dame Golding cried out
+that her bonnet was getting wet, and she wanted an
+umbrella.</p>
+<p>
+"Why, you must go around to their houses, of
+course, and get their umbrellas for them," said Dame
+Clementina; "but first, give ours to that old man on
+horseback." She did not know her father, so many
+years had passed since she had seen him, and he had
+altered so.</p>
+<p>
+So Nan carried out their great yellow umbrella to
+the count, and went around to the others' houses for
+their own umbrellas. It was pitiful enough to see them
+standing all alone behind the doors. She could not
+find three extra ones for the three robbers, and she
+felt badly about that.</p>
+<p>
+Somebody suggested, however, that milk-pans turned
+over their heads would keep the rain off their slouched
+hats, at least; so she got a silver milk-pan for an umbrella
+for each. They made such frantic efforts to get
+away then, that they looked like jumping-jacks; but it
+was of no use.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page145" id="page145">[Page&nbsp;145]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate22" id="plate22">[plate 22]</a></span>
+<img src="images/22-Nan.jpg" width="304" height="470" alt="Nan returns with the umbrellas." border="0" /><br /><br />
+NAN RETURNS WITH THE UMBRELLAS.</p>
+<p>
+Poor Dame Clementina and Nan after they had<span class="page"><a name="page147" id="page147">[Page&nbsp;147]</a></span>
+given the milk porridge to the people, and done all
+they could for their comfort, stood staring disconsolately
+out of the window at them under their dripping
+umbrellas. The yard was fairly green and black and
+blue and yellow with umbrellas. They wept at the
+sight, but they could not think of any way out of the
+difficulty. The people themselves might have suggested
+one, had they known the real cause; but they did not
+dare to tell them how they were responsible for all the
+trouble; they seemed so angry.</p>
+<p>
+About noon Nan spied their most particular friend,
+Dame Elizabeth, coming. She lived a little way out of
+the village. Nan saw her approaching the gate through
+the rain and mist, with her great blue umbrella
+and her long blue double cape and her poke bonnet;
+and she cried out in the greatest dismay: "O, mother,
+mother! there is our dear Dame Elizabeth coming; she
+will have to stop too!"</p>
+<p>
+Then they watched her with beating hearts. Dame
+Elizabeth stared with astonishment at the people, and
+stopped to ask them questions. But she passed quite
+through their midst, and entered the cottage under the
+sprig of dill, and the verse. She did not envy Dame
+Clementina or Nan, anything.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate23" id="plate23">[plate 23]</a></span><br/>
+<img src="images/23-frantic.jpg" width="419" height="470" alt="Such frantic efforts to get away." border="0" /><br /><br />
+SUCH FRANTIC EFFORTS TO GET AWAY.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+"Tell me what this means," said she. "Why are
+all these people standing in your yard in the rain with
+umbrellas?"</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page148" id="page148">[Page&nbsp;148]</a></span>
+<p>
+Then Dame Clementina and Nan told her. "And
+oh! what shall we do?" said they. "Will these people
+have to stand in our yard forever and ever?"</p>
+<p>
+Dame Elizabeth stared at them. The way out of
+the difficulty was so plain to her, that she could not<span class="page"><a name="page149" id="page149">[Page&nbsp;149]</a></span>
+credit its not being plain to them.</p>
+<p>
+"Why," said she, "don't you take down the sprig
+of dill and the verse?"</p>
+<p>
+"Why, sure enough!" said they in amazement.
+"Why didn't we think of that before?"</p>
+<p>
+So Dame Clementina ran out quickly, and pulled
+down the sprig of dill and the verse.</p>
+<p>
+Then the way the people hurried out of the yard!
+They fairly danced and flourished their heels, old folks
+and all. They were so delighted to be able to move,
+and they wanted to be sure they could move. The
+robbers tried to get away unseen with their silver milk-pans,
+but some of the people stopped them, and set
+the pans safely inside the dairy. All the people, except
+the count, were so eager to get away, that they
+did not stop to inquire into the cause of the trouble
+then.</p>
+<p>
+Afterward, when they did, they were too much
+ashamed to say anything about it.</p>
+<p>
+It was a good lesson to them; they were not quite
+so envious after that. Always, on entering any cottage,
+they would glance at the door, to see if, perchance,
+there might be a sprig of dill over it. And if
+there was not, they were reminded to put away any
+envious feeling they might have toward the inmates
+out of their hearts.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page150" id="page150">[Page&nbsp;150]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate24" id="plate24">[plate 24]</a></span>
+<img src="images/24-dameelizabeth.jpg" width="314" height="470" alt="dame Elizabeth stared with astonishment." border="0" /><br /><br />
+DAME ELIZABETH STARED WITH ASTONISHMENT.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+As for the count, he had not been so much alarmed
+as the others, since he had been to the wars and was
+braver. Moreover, he felt that his dignity as a noble
+had been insulted. So he at once dismounted and
+fastened his horse to the gate, and strode up to the
+door with his sword clanking and the plumes on his<span class="page"><a name="page151" id="page151">[Page&nbsp;151]</a></span>
+hat nodding.</p>
+<p>
+"What," he begun; then he stopped short. He
+had recognized his daughter in Dame Clementina.
+She recognized him at the same moment. "O, my
+dear daughter!" said he. "O, my dear father!"
+said she.</p>
+<p>
+"And this is my little grandchild?" said the count;
+and he took Nan upon his knee, and covered her with
+caresses.</p>
+<p>
+Then the story of the dill and the verse was told.
+"Yes," said the count, "I truly was envious of you,
+Clementina, when I saw Nan."</p>
+<p>
+After a little, he looked at his daughter sorrowfully.
+"I should dearly love to take you up to the castle with
+me, Clementina," said he, "and let you live there
+always, and make you and the little child my heirs.
+But how can I?  You are disinherited, you know."</p>
+<p>
+"I don't see any way," assented Dame Clementina,
+sadly.</p>
+<p>
+Dame Elizabeth was still there, and she spoke up to
+the count with a curtesy.</p>
+<p>
+"Noble sir," said she, "why don't you make another
+will?"</p>
+<p>
+"Why, sure enough," cried the count with great delight,
+"why don't I? I'll have my lawyer up to the
+castle to-morrow."</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page152" id="page152">[Page&nbsp;152]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate25" id="plate25">[plate 25]</a></span>
+<img src="images/25-countinsulted.jpg" width="317" height="470" alt="The count thinks himself insulted." border="0" /><br /><br />
+THE COUNT THINKS HIMSELF INSULTED.</p>
+<p>
+He did immediately alter his will, and his daughter
+was no longer disinherited. She and Nan went to live
+at the castle, and were very rich and happy. Nan
+learned to play on the harp, and wore snuff-colored
+satin gowns. She was called Lady Nan, and she lived
+a long time, and everybody loved her. But never, so
+long as she lived, did she pin the sprig of dill and the
+verse over the door again. She kept them at the very<span class="page"><a name="page153" id="page153">[Page&nbsp;153]</a></span>
+bottom of a little satin-wood box&mdash;the faded sprig of
+dill wrapped round with the bit of paper on which was
+written the charm-verse:</p>
+
+<p class="indent3">
+  "Alva, aden, winira mir,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Villawissen lingen;<br />
+  Sanchta, wanchta, attazir,<br />
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hor de mussen wingen."</p><br />
+
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate26" id="plate26">[plate 26]</a></span>
+<img src="images/26-danced.jpg" width="600" height="120" alt="They fairly danced and flourished their heels." border="0" /><br /><br />
+THEY FAIRLY DANCED AND FLOURISHED THEIR HEELS.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page154" id="page154">[Page&nbsp;154]</a></span>
+
+<h2>THE SILVER <a name="hen" id="hen">HEN</a>.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Dame Dorothea Penny kept a private school.
+It was quite a small school, on account of the small
+size of her house. She had only twelve scholars and
+they filled it quite full; indeed one very little boy had
+to sit in the brick oven. On this account Dame Penny
+was obliged to do all her cooking on a Saturday when
+school did not keep; on that day she baked bread, and
+cakes, and pies enough to last a week. The oven was
+a very large one.</p>
+<p>
+It was on a Saturday that Dame Penny first missed
+her silver hen. She owned a wonderful silver hen,
+whose feathers looked exactly as if they had been
+dipped in liquid silver. When she was scratching for
+worms out in the yard, and the sun shone on her, she
+was absolutely dazzling, and sent little bright reflections
+into the neighbors' windows, as if she were really
+solid silver.</p>
+<p>
+Dame Penny had a sunny little coop with a padlocked
+door for her, and she always locked it very
+carefully every night. So it was doubly perplexing
+when the hen disappeared. Dame Penny remembered
+distinctly locking the coop-door; several circumstances
+had served to fix it on her mind. She had started out<span class="page"><a name="page155" id="page155">[Page&nbsp;155]</a></span>
+without her overshoes, then had returned for them because
+the snow was quite deep and she was liable to
+rheumatism. Then Dame Louisa who lived next door
+had rapped on her window, and she had run in there for
+a few moments with the hen-coop key dangling on its
+<span class="page"><a name="plate27" id="plate27">[plate 27]</a></span>
+<img src="images/27-deepsnow.jpg" width="265" height="188" alt="The snow was quite deep." border="0"  hspace="15" style="float: right" />
+
+blue ribbon from her wrist,
+and Dame Louisa had remarked
+that she would lose
+that key if she were not more
+careful.  Then when she returned
+home across the yard
+a doubt had seized her, and she had tried the coop-door
+to be sure that she had really fastened it.</p>
+
+<p>
+The next morning when she fitted the key into the
+padlock and threw open the door, and no silver hen
+came clucking out, it was very mysterious. Dame
+Louisa came running to the fence which divided her
+yard from Dame Penny's, and stood leaning on it with
+her apron over her head.</p>
+<p>
+"Are you sure that hen was in the coop when you
+locked the door?" said she.</p>
+<p>
+"Of course she was in the coop," replied Dame
+Penny with dignity. "She has never failed to go in
+there at sundown for all the twenty-five years that I've
+had her."</p>
+<p>
+Dame Penny carefully searched everywhere about
+the premises. When the scholars assembled she called
+the school to order, and told them of her terrible loss.<span class="page"><a name="page156" id="page156">[Page&nbsp;156]</a></span>
+All the scholars crooked their arms over their faces
+and wept, for they were very fond of Dame Penny,
+and also of the silver hen. Every one of them wore
+one of her silver tail-feathers in the best bonnet, or
+hat, as the case might be. The silver hen had dropped
+them about the yard, and Dame Penny had presented
+them from time to time as rewards for good behavior.</p>
+<p>
+After Dame Penny had told the school, she tried to
+proceed with the usual exercises. But in vain. She
+whipped one little boy because he said that four and
+three made seven, and she stood a little girl in the
+corner because she spelled hen with one <i>n</i>.</p>
+<p>
+Finally she dismissed the scholars, and gave them
+permission to search for the silver hen. She offered
+the successful one the most beautiful Christmas present
+he had ever seen. It was about three weeks before
+Christmas.</p>
+<p>
+The children all put on their things, and went home
+and told their parents what they were going to do;
+then they started upon the search for the silver hen.
+They searched with no success till the day before
+Christmas. Then they thought they would ask Dame
+Louisa, who had the reputation of being quite a wise
+woman, if she knew of any more likely places in which
+they could hunt.</p>
+<p>
+The twelve scholars walked two by two up to Dame
+Louisa's front door, and knocked. They were very
+quiet and spoke only in whispers because they knew<span class="page"><a name="page157" id="page157">[Page&nbsp;157]</a></span>
+Dame Louisa was nervous, and did not like children
+very well. Indeed it was a great cross to her that she
+lived so near the school, for the scholars when out in
+their own yard never thought about her nervousness,
+and made a deal of noise. Then too she could hear
+every time they spelled or said the multiplication-table,
+or bounded the countries of Africa, and it was
+very trying.  To-day in spite of their efforts to be
+quiet they awoke her from a nap, and she came to the
+door, with her front-piece and cap on one side, and her
+spectacles over her eyebrows, very much out of humor.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate28" id="plate28">[plate 28]</a></span>
+<img src="images/28-twobytwo.jpg" width="550" height="220" alt="Two by two." border="0" /><br /><br />
+TWO BY TWO.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+"I don't know where you'll find the hen," said she
+peevishly, "unless you go to the White Woods for it."</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you, ma'am," said the children with curtesies,
+and they all turned and went down the path between
+the dead Christmas-trees.</p>
+<p>
+Dame Louisa had no idea that they would go to the
+White Woods. She had said it quite at random,<span class="page"><a name="page158" id="page158">[Page&nbsp;158]</a></span>
+although she was so vexed in being disturbed in her
+nap that she wished for a moment that they would.
+She stood in her front door and looked at her dead
+Christmas-trees, and that always made her feel crosser,
+and she had not at any time a pleasant disposition.
+Indeed, it was rumored among the towns-people that
+that had blasted her Christmas-trees, that Dame
+Louisa's scolding, fretting voice had floated out to
+them, and smote their delicate twigs like a bitter frost
+and made them turn yellow; for the real Christmas-tree
+is not very hardy.</p>
+<p>
+No one else in the village, probably no one else in
+the county, owned any such tree, alive or dead. Dame
+Louisa's husband, who had been a sea-captain, had
+brought them from foreign parts. They were mere
+little twigs when they planted them on the first day of
+January, but they were full-grown and loaded with
+fruit by the next Christmas-day. Every Christmas
+they were cut down and sold, but they always grew
+again to their full height, in a year's time. They were
+not, it is true, the regulation Christmas-tree. That is
+they were not loaded with different and suitable gifts
+for every one in a family, as they stood there in Dame
+Louisa's yard. People always tied on those, after they
+had bought them, and had set them up in their own
+parlors. But these trees bore regular fruit like apple,
+or peach, or plum-trees, only there was a considerable
+variety in it. These trees when in full fruitage were<span class="page"><a name="page159" id="page159">[Page&nbsp;159]</a></span>
+festooned with strings of pop-corn, and weighed down
+with apples and oranges and figs and bags of candy,
+and it was really an amazing sight to see them out
+there in Dame Louisa's front yard. But now they
+were all yellow and dead, and not so much as one pop-corn
+whitened the upper branches, neither was there
+one candle shining out in the night. For the trees in
+their prime had borne also little twinkling lights like
+wax candles.</p>
+<p>
+Dame Louisa looked out at her dead Christmas-trees,
+and scowled. She could see the children out in
+the road, and they were trudging along in the direction
+of the White Woods. "Let 'em go," she snapped
+to herself. "I guess they won't go far. I'll be rid of
+their noise, any way."</p>
+<p>
+She could hear poor Dame Penny's distressed voice
+out in her yard, calling "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy;" and
+she scowled more fiercely than ever. "I'm glad she's
+lost her old silver hen," she muttered to herself. She
+had always suspected the silver hen of pecking at the
+roots of the Christmas-trees and so causing them to
+blast; then, too, the silver hen had used to stand on
+the fence and crow; for, unlike other hens, she could
+crow very beautifully, and that had disturbed her.</p>
+<p>
+Dame Louisa had a very wise book, which she had
+consulted to find the reason for the death of her
+Christmas-trees, but all she could find in it was one
+short item, which did not satisfy her at all. The book<span class="page"><a name="page160" id="page160">[Page&nbsp;160]</a></span>
+was on the plan of an encyclopedia, and she, having
+turned to the "ch's," found:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+"Christmas-trees&mdash;very delicate when transplanted, especially
+sensitive, and liable to blast at any change in the moral
+atmosphere. Remedy: discover and confess the cause."</blockquote>
+
+<p>
+After reading this, Dame Louisa was always positive
+that Dame Penny's silver hen was at the root of
+the mischief, for she knew that she herself had never
+done anything to hurt the trees.</p>
+<p>
+Dame Penny was so occupied in calling "Biddy,
+Biddy, Biddy," and shaking a little pan of corn,
+that she never noticed the children taking the road
+toward the White Woods. If she had done so she
+would have stopped them, for the White Woods was
+considered a very dangerous place. It was called
+white because it was always white even in midsummer.
+The trees and bushes, and all the undergrowth, every
+flower and blade of grass, were white with snow and
+frost all the year round, and all the learned men of
+the country had studied into the reason of it, and had
+come to the conclusion that the Woods lay in a direct
+draught from the North Pole and that produced the
+phenomenon. Nobody had penetrated very far into
+the White Woods, although many expeditions had been
+organized for that purpose. The cold was so terrible
+that it drove them back.</p>
+<p>
+The children had heard all about the terrors of the<span class="page"><a name="page161" id="page161">[Page&nbsp;161]</a></span>
+White Woods. When they drew near it they took
+hold of one another's hands and snuggled as closely
+together as possible.</p>
+<p>
+When they struck into the path at the entrance the
+intense cold turned their cheeks and noses blue in a
+moment, but they kept on, calling "Biddy, Biddy,
+Biddy!" in their shrill sweet trebles. Every twig on
+the trees was glittering white with hoar-frost, and all
+the dead blackberry-vines wore white wreaths, the
+bushes brushed the ground, they were so heavy with
+ice, and the air was full of fine white sparkles. The
+children's eyes were dazzled, but they kept on, stumbling
+through the icy vines and bushes, and calling
+"<i>Biddy, Biddy, Biddy</i>!"</p>
+<p>
+It was quite late in the afternoon when they started,
+and pretty soon the sun went down and the moon arose,
+and that made it seem colder. It was like traveling
+through a forest of solid silver then, and every once in
+a while a little frozen clump of flowers would shine so
+that they would think it was the silver hen and dart
+forward, to find it was not.</p>
+<p>
+About two hours after the moon arose, as they were
+creeping along, calling "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" more
+and more faintly, a singular, hoarse voice replied suddenly.
+"We don't keep any hens," said the voice, and
+all the children jumped and screamed, and looked
+about for the owner of it. He loomed up among some
+bushes at their right. He was so dazzling white himself,<span class="page"><a name="page162" id="page162">[Page&nbsp;162]</a></span>
+and had such an indistinctness of outline, that
+they had taken him for an oak-tree. But it was the
+real Snow Man. They knew him in a moment, he
+looked so much like his effigies that they used to make
+in their yards.</p>
+<p>
+"We don't keep any hens," repeated the Snow
+Man. "What are you calling hens for in this
+forest?"</p>
+<p>
+The children huddled together as close as they could,
+and the oldest boy explained. When he broke down
+the oldest girl piped up and helped him.</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said the Snow Man, "I haven't seen the
+silver hen. I never did see any hens in these woods,
+but she may be around here for all that. You had
+better go home with me and spend the night. My
+wife will be delighted to see you. We have never
+had any company in our lives, and she is always scolding
+about it."</p>
+<p>
+The children looked at each other and shook harder
+than they had done with cold.</p>
+<p>
+"I'm&mdash;afraid our mothers&mdash;wouldn't&mdash;like to
+have us," stammered the oldest boy.</p>
+<p>
+"Nonsense," cried the Snow Man. "Here I have
+been visiting you, time and time again, and stood whole
+days out in your front yards, and you've never been
+to see me. I think it is about time that I had some
+return. Come along." With that the Snow Man
+seized the right ear of the oldest boy between a <span class="page"><a name="page163" id="page163">[Page&nbsp;163]</a></span>
+finger and thumb, and danced him along, and all the
+rest, trembling, and whimpering under their breaths,
+followed.</p>
+<p>
+It was not long before they reached the Snow Man's
+house, which was really quite magnificent: a castle
+built of blocks of ice fitted together like bricks, and
+with two splendid snow-lions keeping guard at the
+entrance. The Snow Man's wife stood in the door,
+and the Snow Children stood behind her and peeped
+<span class="page"><a name="plate29" id="plate29">[plate 29]</a></span>
+<img src="images/29-snowhouse.jpg" width="300" height="181" alt=" The snow man's house." border="0"  hspace="15" style="float: right" />
+
+around her skirts; they were
+smiling from ear to ear. They
+had never seen any company
+before, and they were so delighted
+that they did not know
+what to do.</p>
+<p>
+"We have some company, wife," shouted the Snow
+Man.</p>
+<p>
+"Bring them right in," said his wife with a beaming
+face. She was very handsome, with beautiful
+pink cheeks and blue eyes, and she wore a trailing
+white robe, like a queen. She kissed the children all
+around, and shivers crept down their backs, for it was
+like being kissed by an icicle. "Kiss your company,
+my dears," she said to the Snow Children, and they
+came bashfully forward and kissed Dame Penny's
+scholars with these same chilly kisses.</p>
+<p>
+"Now," said the Snow Man's wife, "come right
+in and sit down where it is cool&mdash;you look very<span class="page"><a name="page164" id="page164">[Page&nbsp;164]</a></span>
+hot."</p>
+<p>
+"Hot," when the poor scholars were quite stiff with
+cold! They looked at one another in dismay, but did
+not dare say anything. They followed the Snow
+Man's wife into her grand parlor.</p>
+<p>
+"Come right over here by the north window where
+it is cooler," said she, "and the children shall bring
+you some fans."</p>
+<p>
+The Snow Children floated up with fans&mdash;all the
+Snow Man's family had a lovely floating gait&mdash;and
+the scholars took them with feeble curtesies, and began
+fanning. A stiff north wind blew in at the windows.
+The forest was all creaking and snapping with the cold.
+The poor children, fanning themselves, on an ice divan,
+would certainly have frozen if the Snow Man's wife
+had not suggested that they all have a little game of
+"puss-in-the-corner," to while away the time before
+dinner. That warmed them up a little, for they had
+to run very fast indeed to play with the Snow Children
+who seemed to fairly blow in the north wind from corner
+to corner.</p>
+<p>
+But the Snow Man's wife stopped the play a little
+before dinner was announced; she said the guests
+looked so warm that she was alarmed, and was afraid
+they might melt.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate30" id="plate30">[plate 30]</a></span>
+<img src="images/30-pusscorner.jpg" width="292" height="470" alt="Puss-in-the-corner." border="0" /><br /><br />
+PUSS-IN-THE-CORNER.</p><br /><br />
+
+<p>
+A whistle, that sounded just like the whistle of the
+north wind in the chimney, blew for dinner, and Dame
+Penny's scholars thought with delight that now they <span class="page"><a name="page165" id="page165">[Page&nbsp;165]</a></span>
+would have something warm. But every dish on the
+Snow Man's table was cold and frozen, and the Snow
+Man's wife kept urging them to eat this and that,
+because it was so nice and cooling, and they looked so
+warm.</p>
+<p>
+After dinner they were colder than ever, even.
+Another game of "puss-in-the-corner" did not warm
+them much; they were glad when the Snow Man's
+wife suggested that they go to bed, for they had visions
+of warm blankets and comfortables. But when they
+were shown into the great north chamber, that was
+more like a hall than a chamber, with its walls of
+solid ice, its ice floor and its ice beds, their hearts
+sank. Not a blanket nor comfortable was to be seen;
+there were great silk bags stuffed with snow flakes
+instead of feathers on the beds, and that was all.</p>
+<p>
+"If you are too warm in the night, and feel as if
+you were going to melt," said the Snow Man's wife,
+"you can open the south window and that will make
+a draught&mdash;there are none but the north windows
+open now."</p>
+<p>
+The scholars curtesied and bade her good-night, and
+she kissed them and hoped they would sleep well.
+Then she trailed her splendid robe, which was decorated
+with real frost embroidery, down the ice stairs
+and left her guests to themselves. They were frantic
+with cold and terror, and the little ones began to cry.
+They talked over the situation and agreed that they<span class="page"><a name="page168" id="page168">[Page&nbsp;168]</a></span>
+had better wait until the house was quiet and then run
+away. So they waited until they thought everybody
+must be asleep, and then cautiously stole toward the
+door. It was locked fast on the outside. The Snow
+Man's wife had slipped an icicle through the latch.
+Then they were in despair. It seemed as if they
+must freeze to death before morning. But it occurred
+to some of the older ones that they had heard their
+parents say that snow was really warm, and people had
+been kept warm and alive by burrowing under snow-drifts.
+And as there were enough snow-flake beds to
+use for coverlids also, they crept under them, having
+first shut the north windows, and were soon quite
+comfortable.</p>
+<p>
+In the meantime there was a great panic in the
+village; the children's parents were nearly wild. They
+came running to Dame Penny, but she was calling
+"Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" out in the moonlight, and
+knew nothing about them. Then they called outside
+Dame Louisa's window, but she pretended to be asleep,
+although she was really awake, and in a terrible panic.</p>
+<p>
+She did not tell the parents how the children had
+gone to the White Woods, because she knew that
+they could not extricate them from the difficulty as
+well as she could herself. She knew all about the
+Snow Man and his wife, and how very anxious they
+were to have company.</p>
+<p>
+So just as soon as the parents were gone and she<span class="page"><a name="page169" id="page169">[Page&nbsp;169]</a></span>
+heard their voices in the distance, she dressed herself,
+harnessed her old white horse into the great box-sleigh,
+got out all the tubs and pails that she had in
+the house, and went over to Dame Penny, who was still
+standing out in her front yard calling the silver hen
+and the children by turns.</p>
+<p>
+"Come, Dame Penny," said Dame Louisa, "I want
+you to go with me to the White Woods and rescue
+<span class="page"><a name="plate31" id="plate31">[plate 31]</a></span>
+<img src="images/31-rescue.jpg" width="300" height="157" alt="To the rescue." border="0" hspace="15" style="float: right" />
+
+the children. Bring out all the
+tubs and pails you have in the
+house, and we will pump them
+full of water."</p>
+<p>
+"The pails&mdash;full of water&mdash;what for?" gasped
+Dame Penny.</p>
+<p>
+"To thaw them out," replied Dame Louisa; "they
+will very likely be wholly or partly frozen, and I have
+always heard that cold water was the only remedy to
+use."</p>
+<p>
+Dame Penny said no more. She brought out all
+her tubs and pails, and they pumped them and Dame
+Louisa's full of water, and packed them into the sleigh&mdash;there
+were twelve of them. Then they climbed
+into the seat, slapped the reins over the back of the
+old white horse, and started off for the White Woods.</p>
+<p>
+On the way Dame Louisa wept, and confessed what
+she had done to Dame Penny. "I have been a cross,
+selfish old woman," said she, "and I think that is the
+reason why my Christmas-trees were blasted. I don't<span class="page"><a name="page170" id="page170">[Page&nbsp;170]</a></span>
+believe your silver hen touched them."</p>
+<p>
+She and Dame Penny called "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!"
+and the names of the children, all the way. Dame
+Louisa drove straight to the Snow Man's house.</p>
+<p>
+"They are more likely to be there than anywhere
+else, the Snow Man and his wife are so crazy to have
+company," said she.</p>
+<p>
+When they arrived at the house, Dame Louisa left
+Dame Penny to hold the horse, and went in. The
+outer door was not locked and she wandered quite at
+her will, through the great ice saloons, and wind-swept
+corridors. When she came to the door with the icicle
+through the latch, she knew at once that the children
+were in that room, so she drew out the icicle and entered.
+The children were asleep, but she aroused
+them, and bade them be very quiet and follow her.
+They got out of the house without disturbing any of
+the family; but, once out, a new difficulty beset them.
+The children had been so nearly warm under their
+snow-flake beds that they began to freeze the minute
+the icy air struck them.</p>
+<p>
+But Dame Louisa promptly seized them, while Dame
+Penny held the horse, and put them into the tubs and
+pails of water. Then she took hold of the horse's
+head, and backed him and turned around carefully,
+and they started off at full speed.</p>
+<p>
+But it was not long before they discovered that they
+were pursued.  They heard the hoarse voice of the<span class="page"><a name="page171" id="page171">[Page&nbsp;171]</a></span>
+Snow Man behind them calling to them to stop.</p>
+<p>
+"What are you taking away my company for?"
+shouted the Snow Man. "Stop, stop!"</p>
+<p>
+The wind was at the back of the Snow Man, and he
+came with tremendous velocity. It was evident that
+he would soon overtake the old white horse who was
+stiff and somewhat lame. Dame Louisa whipped him
+up, but the Snow Man gained on them. The icy
+breath of the Snow Man blew over them. "Oh!"
+shrieked Dame Penny, "what shall we do, what shall
+we do?"</p>
+<p>
+"Be quiet," said Dame Louisa with dignity. She
+untied her large poke-bonnet which was made of straw&mdash;she
+was unable to have a velvet one for winter,
+now her Christmas-trees were dead&mdash;and she hung it
+on the whip. Then she drew a match from her pocket,
+and set fire to the bonnet. The light fabric blazed up
+directly, and the Snow Man stopped short. "If you
+come any nearer," shrieked Dame Louisa, "I'll put
+this right in your face and&mdash;melt you!"</p>
+<p>
+"Give me back my company," shouted the Snow
+Man in a doubtful voice.</p>
+<p>
+"You can't have your company," said Dame Louisa,
+shaking the blazing bonnet defiantly at him.</p>
+<p>
+"To think of the days I've spent in their yards,
+slowly melting and suffering everything, and my not
+having one visit back," grumbled the Snow Man.
+But he stood still; he never took a step forward after<span class="page"><a name="page172" id="page172">[Page&nbsp;172]</a></span>
+Dame Louisa had set her bonnet on fire.</p>
+<p>
+It was lucky Dame Louisa had worn a worsted scarf
+tied over her bonnet, and could now use it for a bonnet.</p>
+<p>
+The cold was intense, and had it not been that Dame
+Penny and Dame Louisa both wore their Bay State
+shawls over their beaver sacques, and their stone-marten
+tippets and muffs, and blue worsted stockings
+drawn over their shoes, they would certainly have frozen.
+As for the children, they would never have
+reached home alive if it had not been for the pails and
+tubs of water.</p>
+<p>
+"Do you feel as if you were thawing?" Dame
+Louisa asked the children after they had left the Snow
+Man behind.</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, ma'am," said they.</p>
+<p>
+Dame Louisa drove as fast as she could, with thankful
+tears running down her cheeks. "I've been a
+wicked, cross old woman," said she again and again,
+"and that is what blasted my Christmas-trees."</p>
+<p>
+It was the dawn of Christmas-day when they came
+in sight of Dame Louisa's house.</p>
+<p>
+"Oh! what is that twinkling out in the yard?"
+cried the children.</p>
+<p>
+They could all see little fairy-like lights twinkling
+out in Dame Louisa's yard.</p>
+<p>
+"It looks just as the Christmas-trees used to," said
+Dame Penny.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page173" id="page173">[Page&nbsp;173]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate32" id="plate32">[plate 32]</a></span>
+<img src="images/32-meltyou.jpg" width="550" height="275" alt="I'll put this right in your face and melt you!" border="0" /><br /><br />
+</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+"Oh! I can't believe it," cried Dame Louisa, her<span class="page"><a name="page175" id="page175">[Page&nbsp;175]</a></span>
+heart beating wildly.</p>
+<p>
+But when they came opposite the yard, they saw
+that it was true. Dame Louisa's Christmas-trees stood
+there all twinkling with lights, and covered with trailing
+garlands of pop-corn, oranges, apples, and candy-bags;
+their yellow branches had turned green and the
+Christmas-trees were in full glory.</p>
+<p>
+"Oh! what is that shining so out in Dame Penny's
+yard?" cried the children, who were entirely thawed,
+and only needed to get home to their parents and have
+some warm breakfast, and Christmas-presents, to be
+quite themselves. "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" cried
+Dame Penny, and Dame Louisa and the children
+chimed in, calling, "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!"</p>
+<p>
+It was indeed the silver hen, and following her were
+twelve little silver chickens. She had stolen a nest in
+Dame Louisa's barn and nobody had known it until
+she appeared on Christmas morning with her brood of
+silver chickens.</p>
+<p>
+"Every scholar shall have one of the silver chickens
+for a Christmas present," said Dame Penny.</p>
+<p>
+"And each shall have one of my Christmas-trees,"
+said Dame Louisa.</p>
+<p>
+Then all the scholars cried out with delight, the
+Christmas-bells in the village began to ring, the silver
+hen flew up on the fence and crowed, the sun shone
+broadly out, and it was a merry Christmas-day.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page176" id="page176">[Page&nbsp;176]</a></span>
+
+<h2><a name="toby" id="toby">TOBY</a>.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Aunt Malvina was sitting at the window watching
+for a horse-car which she wanted to take. Uncle Jack
+was near the register in a comfortable easy chair, his
+feet on an embroidered foot-rest, and Letitia, just as
+close to him as she could get her little rocking-chair,
+was sewing her square of patchwork "over and over."
+Letitia had to sew a square of patchwork "over and
+over" every day.</p>
+<p>
+Aunt Malvina, who was not uncle Jack's wife, as
+one might suspect, but his elder sister, was a very small,
+frisky little lady, with a thin, rosy face, and a little
+bobbing bunch of gray curls on each side of it. She
+talked very fast, and she talked all the time, so she
+accomplished a vast deal of talking in the course of a
+day, and the people she happened to be with did a vast
+deal of listening.</p>
+<p>
+She was talking now, and uncle Jack was listening,
+with his head leaning comfortably against a pretty tidy
+all over daisies in Kensington work, and so was
+Letitia, taking cautious little stitches in her patchwork.</p>
+<p>
+"Mrs. Welcome," aunt Malvina had just remarked,
+"has got a little colored boy as black as Toby to wait<span class="page"><a name="page177" id="page177">[Page&nbsp;177]</a></span>
+on table."</p>
+<p>
+Letitia opened her sober, light gray eyes very wide,
+and stared reflectively at aunt Malvina.</p>
+<p>
+"It was dark as Pokonoket when we came out of
+church last night," said aunt Malvina after a time, in
+the course of conversation.</p>
+<p>
+Letitia stared reflectively at her again.</p>
+<p>
+"There's my car coming around the corner!" cried
+aunt Malvina, and ran friskily out of the room. Just
+outside the door she turned and thrust her face, with
+the little gray curls dancing around it, in again for
+a last word. "O, Jack!" cried she, "I hear that
+Edward Simonds' eldest son is as crazy as a loon!"</p>
+<p>
+"Is?"</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; isn't it dreadful? Good-by!" Aunt Malvina
+frisked airily downstairs, and out on the street,
+barely in time to secure her car.</p>
+<p>
+When Letitia heard the front door close after her,
+she quilted her needle carefully into her square, then
+she folded the patchwork up neatly, rose, and laid it
+together with her thimble, scissors, and cotton, in her
+little rocking-chair. Then she went and stood still
+before uncle Jack, with her arms folded. It was a
+way she had when she wanted information. People
+rather smiled to see Letitia sometimes, but uncle
+Jack had always encouraged her in it; he said it
+was quaint. Letitia's face was very sober, and very
+innocent, and very round, and her hair was very long<span class="page"><a name="page178" id="page178">[Page&nbsp;178]</a></span>
+and light, and hung in two smooth braids, with a neat
+blue bow on the end of each, down her back.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate33" id="plate33">[plate 33]</a></span>
+<img src="images/33-unclejack.jpg" width="425" height="470" alt="Letitia stood before uncle jack." border="0" /><br /><br />
+LETITIA STOOD BEFORE UNCLE JACK.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+Uncle Jack gazed inquiringly at her through his
+half-closed eyes. "What is it, Letitia?"</p>
+<p>
+"Aunt Malvina said 'as black as Toby,'" said
+Letitia with a look half of inquiry, half of anxious<span class="page"><a name="page179" id="page179">[Page&nbsp;179]</a></span>
+abstraction. What Letitia could find out herself she
+never asked other people.</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; I know she did," replied uncle Jack.</p>
+<p>
+"Then she said, 'Dark as Pokonoket.'"</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; she said that too."</p>
+<p>
+"And then she said, 'Crazy as a loon.'"</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; she did."</p>
+<p>
+"Uncle Jack, what is Toby, and what is Pokonoket,
+and what is a loon?"</p>
+<p>
+"Toby," said uncle Jack slowly and impressively,
+"lives in Pokonoket, and keeps a loon."</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!" said Letitia, in a tone which implied that
+she was both relieved and amazed at her own stupidity.</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; perhaps you would like to hear something
+more particular about Toby&mdash;how he got married,
+for instance?"</p>
+<p>
+"I should, very much indeed," replied Letitia
+gravely and promptly.</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you had better sit down; it will take a few
+minutes to tell it."</p>
+<p>
+Letitia carefully took her patchwork, her thimble,
+her spool of cotton, and her scissors out of her little
+rocking-chair and laid them on the table; then she sat
+down, and crossed her hands in her lap.</p>
+<p>
+"Now, if you are ready," said uncle Jack, laughing
+a little to himself as he looked down at her. Then
+he related as follows: "Toby is a little black fellow,
+not much taller than you are, and he lives in Pokonoket,<span class="page"><a name="page180" id="page180">[Page&nbsp;180]</a></span>
+and keeps a loon. Toby's hair is very short and
+kinky, and his mouth is wide, and always curves up a
+little at the corners, as if he were laughing; his eyes
+are astonishingly bright; but all the people's eyes are
+bright in Pokonoket.</p>
+<p>
+"Pokonoket is a very dark country. It always was
+dark. The most ancient historians make no mention
+of its ever being light in Pokonoket.</p>
+<p>
+"The cause of the darkness has never been exactly
+understood. Philosophers and men of science have
+worked very hard over it, but all the conclusion they
+have been able to arrive at is, it must be due to fog,
+or smoke, or atmospheric phenomena. The most celebrated
+of them are in favor of atmospheric phenomena,
+and they are probably correct.</p>
+<p>
+"The houses are always furnished with lamps, of
+course, and everybody carries a lantern. No one
+dreams of stirring out in Pokonoket without a lantern.
+The men go to their work with lanterns, the ladies
+take theirs when they go out shopping, and all the
+children have their little lanterns to carry to school.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page181" id="page181">[Page&nbsp;181]</a></span><br/>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate34" id="plate34">[plate 34]</a></span>
+<img src="images/34-dark.jpg" width="519" height="350" alt="School children in pokonoket." border="0" /><br /><br />
+SCHOOL CHILDREN IN POKONOKET.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+"On account of the darkness, there are some very
+curious customs in Pokonoket. One is, all the inhabitants
+are required by law to wear squeaky shoes.
+Whenever anybody's shoes don't squeak according to
+the prescribed standard he is fined, and sometimes
+even imprisoned, if he persists in his offense. A great
+many sad accidents are prevented by this custom.<span class="page"><a name="page183" id="page183">[Page&nbsp;183]</a></span>
+People hear each other's shoes squeaking in the darkness
+at quite a distance, and don't run into each other.
+Pokonoket shoemakers make a specialty of squeaky
+shoes, and the squeakier they are, the higher prices
+they bring; they can even put in new squeaks when
+the old ones are worn out. It is a very common thing
+to see a Pokonoket man with his little boy's shoes
+under his arm, carrying them to a shoemaker to get
+them re-squeaked.</p>
+<p>
+"Another funny custom is the wearing of phosphorescent
+buttons. Everybody, men, women and children,
+are required to wear phosphorescent buttons on
+their outside garments. They are quite large&mdash;about
+the size of an old-fashioned cent&mdash;and there are,
+generally, two rows of them down the front of a garment.
+It is rather a frightful sight to see a person
+with phosphorescent buttons on his coat advancing
+toward one in the dark, till you are accustomed to it;
+he looks as if he had two rows of enormous eyes.</p>
+<p>
+"Then, when the weather is stormy, everybody has
+to carry an umbrella with his name on it in phosphorescent
+letters. In this way, nobody's eyes are put
+out, and no umbrellas are lost. Otherwise, umbrellas
+would get so hopelessly mixed up in a dark country
+like Pokonoket that it would require a special sitting
+of Parliament to sort them out again.</p>
+<p>
+"It may seem rather odd that they should, but the
+inhabitants of Pokonoket are, as a general thing, very<span class="page"><a name="page184" id="page184">[Page&nbsp;184]</a></span>
+much attached to their country, and could not be
+hired to leave it for any other. It is a very peaceful
+place. There are no jails, and no criminals are executed
+in its bounds. If occasionally a person commits
+a crime that would merit such extreme punishment, he
+puts out his lantern, and rips off his phosphorescent
+buttons, and nobody can find him to punish.</p>
+<p>
+"But commonly, folks in Pokonoket do not commit
+great crimes, and are a very peaceful, industrious and
+happy people.</p>
+<p>
+"They have never had any wars amongst themselves,
+and their country has never been invaded by a foreign
+foe; all that they ever have had to seriously threaten
+their peace and safety was the Ogress.</p>
+<p>
+"A terrible ogress once lived in Pokonoket, and
+devoured everybody she could catch. Nobody knew
+when his life was safe, and the worst of it was, they
+did not know where she lived, or they would have
+gone in a body and disposed of her. She had a
+habitation somewhere in the darkness, but nobody
+knew where&mdash;it might be right in their midst. There
+are a great many inconveniences about a dark country.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page185" id="page185">[Page&nbsp;185]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate35" id="plate35">[plate 35]</a></span>
+<img src="images/35-stormy.jpg" width="257" height="470" alt="Pokonoket in stormy weather." border="0" /><br /><br />
+POKONOKET IN STORMY WEATHER.</p><br /><br />
+
+
+
+<p>
+"Well, Toby who kept the loon, lived in a little hut
+on one of the principal streets. He was a widower,
+and lived with his six grandchildren who were all
+quite small and went to school. They were his daughter's
+children. She had died a few years before of a
+disease quite common in Pokonoket, and almost always<span class="page"><a name="page187" id="page187">[Page&nbsp;187]</a></span>
+fatal. It had a long name which the doctors had
+given it, which really meant, 'wanting light.'</p>
+<p>
+"Toby was rather feeble and rheumatic, and it was
+about all he could do to knit stockings for his grandchildren,
+and make soup for their dinner. Almost all
+day, except when he was stirring the soup, which he
+made in a great kettle set into a brick oven, he was
+sitting on a little stool in his doorway, knitting, and
+the loon sat on a perch at his right hand. The loon
+who was a very large bird, was crazy, and thought he
+was a bobolink. <i>Link, link, bobolink!</i>' he sang all
+day long, instead of crying in the way a loon usually
+does. His voice was not anywhere near the right
+pitch for a bobolink's song, but that made no difference.
+<i>Link, link, bobolink!</i> he kept on singing
+from morning till night.</p>
+<p>
+"Toby did not mind knitting, but he did not like to
+make the soup. It had never seemed to him to be a
+man's work, and besides, it hurt his old, rheumatic
+back to bend over the soup-kettle. That was what
+put it into his head to get married again. He thought
+if he could find a pleasant, tidy woman, who would
+stir the soup while he sat in the door beside the loon,
+and knit the stockings, he could live much more
+comfortably than he did.</p>
+<p>
+"Now Toby thought he knew of just the one he
+wanted. She was a widow who lived a few squares
+from him. She was as sweet-tempered as a dove, and<span class="page"><a name="page188" id="page188">[Page&nbsp;188]</a></span>
+nobody could find a speck of dirt in her house if he
+was to search all day with a lantern.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate36" id="plate36">[plate 36]</a></span>
+<img src="images/36-loon.jpg" width="371" height="470" alt="Toby and the crazy loon." border="0" /><br /><br />
+TOBY AND THE CRAZY LOON.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+"Toby thought about it for a long time. He did
+not wish to take any rash step, but his back got lamer
+and stiffer, and when one day the soup burned on to<span class="page"><a name="page189" id="page189">[Page&nbsp;189]</a></span>
+the kettle, and he dropped some stitches in his stocking
+running to lift it off, he made up his mind.</p>
+<p>
+"The very next morning after his six grandchildren
+had gone to school, he put on his coat with phosphorescent
+buttons, lit his lantern, and started out. <i>Link,
+link, bobolink</i>! cried the crazy loon as he went out
+the door.</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes; I am going to bring home a pleasant and
+neat mistress for you, and maybe you will recover
+your reason,' said Toby.</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Link, link, bobolink</i>! cried the crazy loon.</p>
+<p>
+"Toby limped away through the darkness. The
+wind was blowing hard that morning, and as he turned
+the corner, puff! came a gust and blew out his lantern.</p>
+<p>
+"He felt in every pocket, but he had not a match
+in one of them. He hesitated whether to go back for
+one or not. Finally, he thought he knew the way
+pretty well and would risk it. His back was worse
+than ever that morning, and he did not want to take
+any unnecessary steps. So he fumbled along until
+he came to the street where the widow's home was;
+there were five more just like hers, and they stood in
+a row together.</p>
+<p>
+"Much to Toby's dismay, there was not a light in
+either.</p>
+<p>
+"'Well,' he reflected, 'she is prudent, and is saving
+her oil, I dare say, and I can inquire.'</p>
+<p>
+"So he felt his way along to the first house in the<span class="page"><a name="page190" id="page190">[Page&nbsp;190]</a></span>
+row&mdash;he could just see them looming up in the darkness.
+He poked his head inside the door. 'Mrs.
+Clover-leaf!' cried he, 'are you in there? My lantern
+has gone out, and I cannot tell which is your
+house.'</p>
+<p>
+"There came a little grunt in reply.</p>
+<p>
+"'Mrs. Clover-leaf!' cried Toby again.</p>
+<p>
+"'I am here; what do you want?' answered a
+voice in the darkness.</p>
+<p>
+"It was so sharp that Toby felt for a moment as if
+his ears were being sawed off, and he clapped his hands
+on them involuntarily. 'Bless me! I had forgotten
+that Mrs. Clover-leaf had such a voice,' thought he.</p>
+<p>
+"'What do you want?' said the voice again.</p>
+<p>
+"It did not sound quite so sharp this time. He had
+become a little used to it, and, after all, a sharp voice
+would not prevent her being neat and pleasant and
+stirring the soup carefully.</p>
+<p>
+"So he said, as sweetly and coaxingly as he was
+able, 'I have come to see if you would like to marry
+me, Mrs. Clover-leaf.'</p>
+<p>
+"'I don't know,' said the sharp voice, 'I had not
+thought of changing my condition.'</p>
+<p>
+"'All you would have to do,' said Toby pleadingly,
+'would be to stir the soup for my grandchildren's dinner,
+while I knit the stockings.'</p>
+<p>
+"There came a sound like the smacking of lips out
+of the darkness within the house. 'Oh! you have<span class="page"><a name="page191" id="page191">[Page&nbsp;191]</a></span>
+grandchildren; I forgot,' said the voice; 'how many?'</p>
+<p>
+"'Six,' replied Toby.</p>
+<p>
+"'I shall be pleased to marry you,' cried the voice;
+and Toby heard the squeaking of shoes, as if the widow
+were coming.</p>
+<p>
+"'When shall we be married?' said the sharp
+voice right in Toby's ear.</p>
+<p>
+"He jumped so that he could not answer for a
+minute. 'Well,' said he finally&mdash;'I don't want to
+hurry you, Mrs. Clover-leaf, but the soup is to be made
+for dinner, and if I don't finish the pair of stockings I
+am on to-day, my eldest grandchild will have to go
+barefoot. A pair of stockings only lasts one a week.'
+And Toby sighed so pitifully that it ought to have
+touched any widow's heart.</p>
+<p>
+"The widow laughed. Toby felt rather hurt that
+she should. He did not know of any joke. It was a
+curious kind of a laugh, too; as bad in its way as her
+voice. But what she said the next minute set matters
+right.</p>
+<p>
+"'Let us go and get married, then,' said she, 'and
+I will go right home and make the soup, and you can
+finish the stocking.'</p>
+<p>
+"Toby was delighted. 'Thank you, my dear Mrs.
+Clover-leaf!' he cried, and offered her his arm gallantly,
+and they set off together to the minister's.</p>
+<p>
+"The widow took such enormous strides that Toby
+had to run to keep up with her. She was much taller<span class="page"><a name="page192" id="page192">[Page&nbsp;192]</a></span>
+than he, and her bonnet was very large, and almost
+hid her face. Toby could hardly have seen her, if he
+had had his lantern; still he could not help wishing
+that one of them had one, but the widow said her oil
+was out, so there was no help for it.</p>
+<p>
+"Once or twice when she turned her head toward
+him, Toby thought her eyes looked about twice as large
+and bright as phosphorescent buttons, and he felt a
+little startled, but he told himself that it was only his
+imagination, of course.</p>
+<p>
+"When they reached the minister's, there was no
+light in his house, either, and it occurred to Toby that
+it was Fast Day. Once a week, Pokonoket ministers
+sit in total darkness all day, and eat nothing.</p>
+<p>
+"When Toby called, the minister poked his head
+out of the study window, and asked what he wanted.</p>
+<p>
+"Toby told him, and he and the widow stood in front
+of the study window, and were married in the dark,
+and Toby gave a phosphorescent button for the fee.</p>
+<p>
+"The widow took longer steps than ever on the way
+home, and Toby ran till he was all out of breath; she
+fairly lifted him off his feet sometimes, and carried
+him along on her arm.</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Link, link, bobolink</i>! sang the crazy loon when
+Toby and his bride entered the house.</p>
+<p>
+"'Now let's have a light,' cried Toby's wife, and
+her voice was sharper than ever. It frightened the
+crazy loon so that he left the link off the end of his<span class="page"><a name="page193" id="page193">[Page&nbsp;193]</a></span>
+song, and merely said bobo&mdash;</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes,' answered Toby, bustling about cheerfully
+after the matches, 'and then you will make the soup.'</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate37" id="plate37">[plate 37]</a></span>
+<img src="images/37-ogress.jpg" width="363" height="470" alt="Toby ran till he was out of breath." border="0" /><br /><br />
+TOBY RAN TILL HE WAS OUT OF BREATH.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+"'I will make the soup,' laughed his wife.</p>
+<p>
+"Toby felt frightened, he hardly knew why, but he
+found the matches, and lit the lamp. Then he turned<span class="page"><a name="page194" id="page194">[Page&nbsp;194]</a></span>
+to look at his new wife, and saw&mdash;the Ogress! He
+had married the Ogress! Horrors!</p>
+<p>
+"Toby sank down on his knees and shook with fear,
+his little kinky curls bristling up all over his head.</p>
+<p>
+"'Pshaw!' said the Ogress contemptuously. 'You
+needn't shake! Do you suppose I would eat such a
+little tough, bony fellow as you for supper? No!
+When do your grandchildren come home from school?'</p>
+<p>
+"'Oh,' groaned Toby, 'take me, dear Mrs. Ogress,
+and spare my grandchildren!'</p>
+<p>
+"'I should smile,' said the Ogress. That was all
+the reply she made. She talked popular slang along
+with her other bad habits.</p>
+<p>
+"Toby wept, and groaned, and pleaded, but he
+could not get another word out of her. She filled the
+great soup-kettle with water, set it over the fire (Toby
+shuddered to see her), then she sat down to wait for
+the grandchildren to come home from school. She
+was uncommonly homely, even for an ogress, and she
+wore a brown calico dress that was very unbecoming.</p>
+<p>
+"Poor Toby gazed at her in fear and disgust. He
+looked out of the door, expecting every moment to see
+his grandchildren coming, one behind the other, swinging
+their little lanterns. School children always walked
+one behind the other in Pokonoket. It was against
+the law to walk two abreast.</p>
+<p>
+"Finally, when the Ogress was leaning over the
+soup-kettle, putting her fingers in, to see if it was hot<span class="page"><a name="page195" id="page195">[Page&nbsp;195]</a></span>
+enough, Toby slipped out of the door, and ran straight
+to the minister's.</p>
+<p>
+"He stood outside the study window and groaned.</p>
+<p>
+"'What is the trouble?' asked the minister, poking
+his head out.</p>
+<p>
+"'Oh,' cried Toby, 'you married me to the&mdash;Ogress!'</p>
+<p>
+"'You don't say so!' cried the minister.</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes, I do! What shall I do? She is waiting
+for my grandchildren, and the soup-kettle is on!'</p>
+<p>
+"'Wait a minute,' said the minister. 'In a matter
+of life and death, it is permitted to light a lamp on a
+Fast Day. This is a matter of life and death; so I
+will light a lamp and look in my Encyclop�dia of Useful
+Knowledge.'</p>
+<p>
+"So the minister lit his lamp, and took his Encyclop�dia
+of Useful Knowledge from the study shelf.</p>
+<p>
+"He turned over the leaves till he came to Ogre;
+then he found Ogress, and read all there was under
+that head.</p>
+<p>
+"'H'm!' he said; 'h'm, h'm! An Ogress is an
+inconceivably hideous creature, yet, like all females,
+she is inordinately vain, and is extremely susceptible
+to any insinuations against her personal appearance!
+H'm!' said the minister; 'h'm, h'm! I know what I
+will do.'</p>
+<p>
+"Now it was one of the laws in Pokonoket that
+nobody should have a looking-glass but the minister.<span class="page"><a name="page196" id="page196">[Page&nbsp;196]</a></span>
+Once a year the ladies of his congregation were allowed
+to look at themselves in it; that was all. I do not
+know the reason for this law, but it existed.</p>
+<p>
+"The minister took his looking-glass under his arm,
+and came out of his house. 'Now, Toby,' said he, 'take
+me home with you.'</p>
+<p>
+"'But I am afraid she will eat you, sir,' said Toby
+doubtfully. 'You are not as thin as I am.'</p>
+<p>
+"'I am not in the least afraid,' replied the minister
+cheerfully.</p>
+<p>
+"So Toby took heart a little, and hastened home
+with the minister.</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Link, link, bobolink</i>! cried the crazy loon as
+they went in the door.</p>
+<p>
+"The minister walked straight up to the Ogress,
+who was standing beside the soup-kettle, and held the
+looking-glass before her.</p>
+<p>
+"When she saw her face in all its hideous ugliness,
+the shock was so great, for she had always thought
+herself very handsome, that she gave one shriek and
+fell down quite dead."</p>
+
+       <hr class="short" />
+<p>
+Letitia gave a sigh of relief, and uncle Jack yawned.
+"Well, Letitia, that's all," said he, "only Toby married
+the real widow, Mrs. Clover-leaf, the next day, and she
+made the soup to perfection, and he had nothing to
+do all the rest of his life, but to sit in the doorway
+beside the crazy loon, and knit stockings for his<span class="page"><a name="page197" id="page197">[Page&nbsp;197]</a></span>
+grandchildren."</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you, uncle Jack," said Letitia gravely.
+Then she got her square of patchwork off the table and
+sat down and finished sewing it over and over.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page198" id="page198">[Page&nbsp;198]</a></span>
+
+<h2>THE <a name="patchwork" id="patchwork">PATCHWORK</a> SCHOOL.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Once upon a time there was a city which possessed
+a very celebrated institution for the reformation of unruly
+children. It was, strictly speaking, a Reform
+School, but of a very peculiar kind.</p>
+<p>
+It had been established years before by a benevolent
+lady, who had a great deal of money, and wished to
+do good with it. After thinking a long time, she had
+hit upon this plan of founding a school for the improvement
+of children who tried their parents and all
+their friends by their ill behavior. More especially
+was it designed for ungrateful and discontented children;
+indeed it was mainly composed of this last class.</p>
+<p>
+There was a special set of police in the city, whose
+whole duty was to keep a sharp lookout for ill-natured
+fretting children, who complained of their parents' treatment,
+and thought other boys and girls were much better
+off than they, and to march them away to the school.
+These police all wore white top boots, tall peaked hats,
+and carried sticks with blue ribbon bows on them, and
+were very readily distinguished. Many a little boy
+on his way to school has dodged round a corner to
+avoid one, because he had just been telling his mother
+that another little boy's mother gave him twice as<span class="page"><a name="page199" id="page199">[Page&nbsp;199]</a></span>
+much pie for dinner as he had. He wouldn't breathe
+easy till he had left the white top boots out of sight;
+and he would tremble all day at every knock on the
+door.</p>
+<p>
+There was not a child in the city but had a great
+horror of this school, though it may seem rather strange
+that they should; for the punishment, at first thought,
+did not seem so very terrible. Ever since it was
+established, the school had been in charge of a very
+singular little old woman. Nobody had ever known
+where she came from. The benevolent lady who
+founded the institution, had brought her to the door
+one morning in her coach, and the neighbors had seen
+the little brown, wizened creature, with a most extraordinary
+gown on, alight and enter. This was all any
+one had ever known about her. In fact, the benevolent
+lady had come upon her in the course of her
+travels in a little German town, sitting in a garret
+window, behind a little box-garden of violets, sewing
+patchwork. After that, she became acquainted with
+her, and finally hired her to superintend her school.
+You see, the benevolent lady had a very tender heart,
+and though she wanted to reform the naughty children
+of her native city, and have them grow up to be good
+men and women, she did not want them to be shaken,
+nor have their ears cuffed; so the ideas advanced by
+the strange little old woman just suited her.</p>
+<p>
+"Set 'em to sewing patchwork," said this little old<span class="page"><a name="page200" id="page200">[Page&nbsp;200]</a></span>
+woman, sewing patchwork vigorously herself as she
+spoke. She was dressed in a gown of bright-colored
+patchwork, with a patchwork shawl over her shoulders.
+Her cap was made of tiny squares of patchwork, too.
+"If they are sewing patchwork," went on the little
+<span class="page"><a name="plate38" id="plate38">[plate 38]</a></span>
+<img src="images/38-patchwoman.jpg" width="288" height="470" alt="The patchwork woman." border="0" hspace="15" vspace="10" style="float: left" />
+
+old woman, "they can't
+be in mischief. Just
+make 'em sit in little
+chairs and sew patchwork,
+boys and girls
+alike. Make 'em sit
+and sew patchwork,
+when the bees are flying
+over the clover, out
+in the bright sunlight,
+and the great bluewinged
+butterflies stop
+with the roses just outside
+the windows, and
+the robins are singing
+in the cherry-trees, and
+they'll turn over a new
+leaf, you'll see!" sewing away with a will.</p>
+<p>
+So the school was founded, the strange little old
+woman placed over it, and it really worked admirably.
+It was the pride of the city. Strangers who visited
+it were always taken to visit the Patchwork School,
+for that was the name it went by. There sat the<span class="page"><a name="page201" id="page201">[Page&nbsp;201]</a></span>
+children, in their little chairs, sewing patchwork. They
+were dressed in little patchwork uniforms; the girls
+wore blue and white patchwork frocks and pink and
+white patchwork pinafores, and the boys blue and
+white patchwork trousers, with pinafores like the girls.
+Their cheeks were round and rosy, for they had plenty
+to eat&mdash;bread and milk three times a day&mdash;but they
+looked sad, and tears were standing in the corners of a
+good many eyes. How could they help it? It did
+seem as if the loveliest roses in the whole country were
+blossoming in the garden of the Patchwork School, and
+there were swarms of humming-birds flying over them,
+and great red and blue-winged butterflies. And there
+were tall cherry-trees a little way from the window, and
+they used to be perfectly crimson with fruit; and the
+way the robins would sing in them! Later in the
+season there were apple and peach-trees, too, the apples
+and great rosy peaches fairly dragging the branches
+to the ground, and all in sight from the window of the
+schoolroom.</p>
+<p>
+No wonder the poor little culprits cooped up indoors
+sewing red and blue and green pieces of calico together,
+looked sad. Every day bales of calico were left at
+the door of the Patchwork School, and it all had to be
+cut up in little bits and sewed together again. When
+the children heard the heavy tread of the porters
+bringing in the bales of new calico, the tears would
+leave the corners of their eyes and trickle down their<span class="page"><a name="page202" id="page202">[Page&nbsp;202]</a></span>
+poor little cheeks, at the prospect of the additional
+work they would have to do. All the patchwork
+had to be sewed over and over, and every crooked or
+<span class="page"><a name="plate39" id="plate39">[plate 39]</a></span>
+<img src="images/39-patchgirl.jpg" width="280" height="386" alt="The patchwork girl." border="0" hspace="15" vspace="5" style="float: left" />
+
+too long stitch had to be
+picked out; for the Patchwork
+Woman was very particular.
+They had to make
+all their own clothes of patchwork,
+and after those were
+done, patchwork bed quilts,
+which were given to the city
+poor; so the benevolent lady
+killed two birds with one stone,
+as you might say.</p>
+
+<p>
+Of course, children staid in
+the Patchwork School different
+lengths of time, according to their different offenses.
+But there were very few children in the
+city who had not sat in a little chair and sewed patchwork,
+at one time or another, for a greater or less
+period. Sooner or later, the best children were sure
+to think they were ill-treated by their parents, and had
+to go to bed earlier than they ought, or did not have
+as much candy as other children; and the police would
+hear them grumbling, and drag them off to the Patchwork
+School. The Mayor's son, especially, who
+might be supposed to fare as well as any little boy
+in the city, had been in the school any number of<span class="page"><a name="page203" id="page203">[Page&nbsp;203]</a></span>
+times.</p>
+<p>
+There was one little boy in the city, however, whom
+the white-booted police had not yet found any occasion
+to arrest, though one might have thought he had more
+reason than a good many others to complain of his lot
+in life. In the first place, he had a girl's name, and
+any one knows that would be a great cross to a boy.
+His name was Julia; his parents had called him so
+on account of his having a maiden aunt who had
+promised to leave her money to him if he was named
+for her.</p>
+<p>
+So there was no help for it, but it was a great trial
+to him, for the other boys plagued him unmercifully,
+and called him "missy," and "sissy," and said "she"
+instead of "he" when they were speaking of him.
+Still he never complained to his parents, and told them
+he wished they had called him some other name. His
+parents were very poor, hard-working people, and Julia
+had much coarser clothes than the other boys, and
+plainer food, but he was always cheerful about it, and
+never seemed to think it at all hard that he could not
+have a velvet coat like the Mayor's son, or carry cakes
+for lunch to school like the lawyer's little boy.</p>
+<p>
+But perhaps the greatest cross which Julia had to bear,
+and the one from which he stood in the greatest danger of
+getting into the Patchwork School, was his Grandmothers.
+I don't mean to say that grandmothers are
+to be considered usually as crosses. A dear old lady <span class="page"><a name="page204" id="page204">[Page&nbsp;204]</a></span>
+seated with her knitting beside the fire, is a pleasant
+person to have in the house. But Julia had four, and
+he had to hunt for their spectacles, and pick up their
+balls of yarn so much that he got very little time to
+play. It was an unusual thing, but the families on
+both sides were very long-lived, and there actually
+were four grandmothers; two great ones, and two common
+ones; two on each side of the fireplace, with their
+knitting work, in Julia's home. They were nice old
+ladies, and Julia loved them dearly, but they lost their
+spectacles all the time, and were always dropping their
+balls of yarn, and it did make a deal of work for
+one boy to do. He could have hunted up spectacles
+for one Grandmother, but when it came to four, and
+one was always losing hers while he was finding
+another's, and one ball of yarn would drop and roll
+off, while he was picking up another&mdash;well, it was
+really bewildering at times. Then he had to hold the
+skeins of yarn for them to wind, and his arms used to
+ache, and he could hear the boys shouting at a game
+of ball outdoors, maybe. But he never refused to do
+anything his Grandmothers asked him to, and did it
+pleasantly, too; and it was not on that account he got
+into the Patchwork School.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page205" id="page205">[Page&nbsp;205]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate40" id="plate40">[plate 40]</a></span>
+<img src="images/40-arrest.jpg" width="316" height="470" alt="Julia was arrested on christmas day." border="0" /><br /><br />
+JULIA WAS ARRESTED ON CHRISTMAS DAY.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+It was on Christmas day that Julia was arrested and
+led away to the Patchwork School. It happened in
+this way: As I said before, Julia's parents were poor,
+and it was all they could do to procure the bare comforts<span class="page"><a name="page207" id="page207">[Page&nbsp;207]</a></span>
+of life for their family; there was very little to
+spend for knickknacks. But I don't think Julia would
+have complained at that; he would have liked useful
+articles just as well for Christmas presents, and would
+not have been unhappy because he did not find some
+useless toy in his stocking, instead of some article
+of clothing, which he needed to make him comfortable.
+But he had had the same things over and over, over
+and over, Christmas after Christmas. Every year
+each of his Grandmothers knit him two pairs of blue
+woollen yarn stockings, and hung them for him on
+Christmas Eve, for a Christmas present. There they
+would hang&mdash;eight pairs of stockings with nothing in
+them, in a row on the mantel shelf, every Christmas
+morning.</p>
+<p>
+Every year Julia thought about it for weeks before
+Christmas, and hoped and hoped he would have something
+different this time, but there they always hung,
+and he had to go and kiss his Grandmothers, and pretend
+he liked the stockings the best of anything he could
+have had; for he would not have hurt their feelings for
+the world.</p>
+<p>
+His parents might have bettered matters a little, but
+they did not wish to cross the old ladies either, and
+they had to buy so much yarn they could not afford to
+get anything else.</p>
+<p>
+The worst of it was, the stockings were knit so well,
+and of such stout material, that they never wore out,<span class="page"><a name="page208" id="page208">[Page&nbsp;208]</a></span>
+so Julia never really needed the new ones; if he had,
+that might have reconciled him to the sameness of his
+Christmas presents, for he was a very sensible boy.
+But his bureau drawers were full of the blue stockings
+rolled up in neat little hard balls&mdash;all the balls he ever
+had; the tears used to spring up in his eyes every time
+he looked at them. But he never said a word till the
+Christmas when he was twelve years old. Somehow
+that time he was unusually cast down at the sight of
+the eight pairs of stockings hanging in a row under the
+mantel shelf; but he kissed and thanked his Grandmothers
+just as he always had.</p>
+<p>
+When he was out on the street a little later, however,
+he sat down in a doorway and cried. He could
+not help it. Some of the other boys had such lovely
+presents, and he had nothing but these same blue
+woollen stockings.</p>
+<p>
+"What's the matter, little boy?" asked a voice.</p>
+<p>
+Without looking up, Julia sobbed out his troubles;
+but what was his horror when he felt himself seized by
+the arm and lifted up, and found that he was in the
+grasp of a policeman in white top boots. The policeman
+did not mind Julia's tears and entreaties in the
+least, but led him away to the Patchwork School, waving
+his stick with its blue ribbon bow as majestically
+as a drum major.</p>
+<p>
+So Julia had to sit down in a little chair, and sew
+patchwork with the rest. He did not mind the close<span class="page"><a name="page209" id="page209">[Page&nbsp;209]</a></span>
+work as much as some of the others, for he was used
+to being kept indoors, attending to his Grandmothers'
+wants; but he disliked to sew. His term of punishment
+was a long one. The Patchwork Woman, who
+fixed it, thought it looked very badly for a little boy
+to be complaining because his kind grandparents had
+given him some warm stockings instead of foolish
+toys.</p>
+<p>
+The first thing the children had to do when they
+entered the school, was to make their patchwork
+clothes, as I have said. Julia had got his finished
+and was busily sewing on a red and green patchwork
+quilt, in a tea-chest pattern, when, one day, the Mayor
+came to visit the school. Just then his son did not
+happen to be serving a term there; the Mayor never
+visited it with visitors of distinction when he was.</p>
+<p>
+To-day he had a Chinese Ambassador with him.
+The Patchwork Woman sat behind her desk on the
+platform and sewed patchwork, the Mayor in his fine
+broadcloth sat one side of her, and the Chinese Ambassador,
+in his yellow satin gown, on the other.</p>
+<p>
+The Ambassador's name was To-Chum. The children
+could not help stealing glances occasionally at his
+high eyebrows and braided queue, but they cast their
+eyes on their sewing again directly.</p>
+<p>
+The Mayor and the Ambassador staid about an
+hour; then after they had both made some remarks&mdash;the
+Ambassador made his in Chinese; he could speak<span class="page"><a name="page210" id="page210">[Page&nbsp;210]</a></span>
+English, but his remarks in Chinese were wiser&mdash;they
+rose to go.</p>
+<p>
+Now, the door of the Patchwork School was of a
+very peculiar structure. It was made of iron of a
+great thickness, and opened like any safe door, only it
+had more magic about it than any safe door ever had.
+At a certain hour in the afternoon, it shut of its own
+accord, and opened at a certain hour in the morning,
+when the Patchwork Woman repeated a formula before
+it. The formula did no good whatever at any
+other time; the door was so constructed that not even
+its inventor could open it after it shut at the certain
+hour of the afternoon, before the certain hour the next
+morning.</p>
+<p>
+Now the Mayor and the Chinese Ambassador had
+staid rather longer than they should have. They had
+been so interested in the school that they had not
+noticed how the time was going, and the Patchwork
+Woman had been so taken up with a very intricate
+new pattern that she failed to remind them, as was
+her custom.</p>
+<p>
+So it happened that while the Mayor got through
+the iron door safely, just as the Chinese Ambassador
+was following it suddenly swung to, and shut in his
+braided queue at a very high point.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page211" id="page211">[Page&nbsp;211]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate41" id="plate41">[plate 41]</a></span>
+<img src="images/41-ambassador.jpg" width="319" height="470" alt="Julia entertains the ambassador through the keyhole." border="0" /><br /><br />
+JULIA ENTERTAINS THE AMBASSADOR THROUGH THE KEYHOLE.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+Then there was the Ambassador on one side of the
+door, and his queue on the other, and the door could
+not possibly be opened before morning. Here was a <span class="page"><a name="page213" id="page213">[Page&nbsp;213]</a></span>
+terrible dilemma! What was to be done? There
+stood the children, their patchwork in their hands,
+staring, open-mouthed, at the queue dangling through
+the door, and the Patchwork Woman pale with dismay,
+in their midst, on one side of the door, and on the
+other side was the terror-stricken Mayor, and the poor
+Chinese Ambassador.</p>
+<p>
+"Can't anything be done?" shouted the Mayor
+through the keyhole&mdash;there was a very large keyhole.</p>
+<p>
+"No," the Patchwork Woman said. "The door
+won't open till six o'clock to-morrow morning."</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, try!" groaned the Mayor. "Say the
+formula."</p>
+<p>
+She said the formula, to satisfy them, but the door
+staid firmly shut. Evidently the Chinese Ambassador
+would have to stay where he was until morning, unless
+he had the Mayor snip his queue off, which was not to
+be thought of.</p>
+<p>
+So the Mayor, who was something of a philosopher,
+set about accommodating himself, or rather his friend,
+to the situation.</p>
+<p>
+"It is inevitable," said he to the Ambassador. "I
+am very sorry, but everybody has to conform to the
+customs of the institutions of the countries which they
+visit. I will go and get you some dinner, and an
+extra coat. I will keep you company through the
+night, and morning will come before you know it."</p>
+<p>
+"Well," sighed the Chinese Ambassador, standing <span class="page"><a name="page214" id="page214">[Page&nbsp;214]</a></span>
+on tiptoe so his queue should not pull so hard. He
+was a patient man, but after he had eaten his dinner
+the time seemed terrible long.</p>
+<p>
+"Why don't you talk?" said he to the Mayor, who
+was dozing beside him in an easy-chair. "Can't you
+tell me a story?"</p>
+<p>
+"I never did such a thing in my life," replied the
+Mayor, rousing himself; "but I am very sorry for
+you, dear sir; perhaps the Patchwork Woman can."</p>
+<p>
+So he asked the Patchwork Woman through the
+keyhole.</p>
+<p>
+"I never told a story in my life," said she; "but
+there's a boy here that I heard telling a beautiful one
+the other day. Here, Julia," called she, "come and
+tell a story to the Chinese Ambassador."</p>
+<p>
+Julia really knew a great many stories which his
+Grandmothers had taught him, and he sat on a little
+stool and told them through the keyhole all night to
+the Chinese Ambassador.</p>
+<p>
+He and the Mayor were so interested that morning
+came and the door swung open before they knew it.
+The poor Ambassador drew a long breath, and put his
+hand around to his queue to see if it was safe. Then
+he wanted to thank and reward the boy who had made
+the long night hours pass so pleasantly.</p>
+<p>
+"What is he in here for?" asked the Mayor, patting
+Julia, who could hardly keep his eyes open.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page215" id="page215">[Page&nbsp;215]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate42" id="plate42">[plate 42]</a></span>
+<img src="images/42-grandmothers.jpg" width="546" height="330" alt="The grandmothers enjoy the chinese toys." border="0" /><br /><br />
+THE GRANDMOTHERS ENJOY THE CHINESE TOYS.</p>
+<p>
+"He grumbled about his Christmas presents,"<span class="page"><a name="page217" id="page217">[Page&nbsp;217]</a></span>
+replied the Patchwork Woman.</p>
+<p>
+"What did you have?" inquired the Mayor.</p>
+<p>
+"Eight pairs of blue yarn stockings," answered
+Julia, rubbing his eyes.</p>
+<p>
+"And the year before?"</p>
+<p>
+"Eight pairs of blue yarn stockings."</p>
+<p>
+"And the year before that?"</p>
+<p>
+"Eight pairs of blue yarn stockings."</p>
+<p>
+"Didn't you ever have anything for Christmas presents
+but blue yarn stockings?" asked the astonished
+Mayor.</p>
+<p>
+"No, sir," said Julia meekly.</p>
+<p>
+Then the whole story came out. Julia, by dint of
+questioning, told some, and the other children told the
+rest; and finally, in the afternoon, orders came to
+dress him in his own clothes, and send him home.
+But when he got there, the Mayor and Chinese Ambassador
+had been there before him, and there hung
+the eight pairs of blue yarn stockings under the mantel-shelf,
+crammed full of the most beautiful things&mdash;knives,
+balls, candy&mdash;everything he had ever wanted,
+and the mantel-shelf piled high also.</p>
+<p>
+A great many of the presents were of Chinese
+manufacture; for the Ambassador considered them, of
+course, superior, and he wished to express his gratitude
+to Julia as forcibly as he could. There was one stocking
+entirely filled with curious Chinese tops. A little
+round head, so much like the Ambassador's that it<span class="page"><a name="page218" id="page218">[Page&nbsp;218]</a></span>
+actually startled Julia, peeped out of the stocking.
+But it was only a top in the shape of a little man in
+a yellow silk gown, who could spin around very successfully
+on one foot, for an astonishing length of time.
+There was a Chinese lady-top too, who fanned herself
+coquettishly as she spun; and a mandarin who nodded
+wisely. The tops were enough to turn a boy's head.</p>
+<p>
+There were equally curious things in the other stockings.
+Some of them Julia had no use for, such as
+silk for dresses, China crape shawls and fans, but they
+were just the things for his Grandmothers, who, after
+this, sat beside the fireplace, very prim and fine, in
+stiff silk gowns, with China crape shawls over their
+shoulders, and Chinese fans in their hands, and queer
+shoes on their feet. Julia liked their presents just as
+well as he did his own, and probably the Ambassador
+knew that he would.</p>
+<p>
+The Mayor had filled one stocking himself with
+bonbons, and Julia picked out all the peppermints
+amongst them for his Grandmothers. They were very
+fond of peppermints. Then he went to work to find
+their spectacles, which had been lost ever since he had
+been away.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page219" id="page219">[Page&nbsp;219]</a></span>
+
+<h2>THE <a name="squire" id="squire">SQUIRE</a>'S SIXPENCE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Patience Mather was saying the seven-multiplication
+table, when she heard a heavy step in the entry.</p>
+<p>
+"That is Squire Bean," whispered her friend,
+Martha Joy, who stood at her elbow.</p>
+<p>
+Patience stopped short in horror. Her especial
+bugbear in mathematics was eight-times-seven; she
+was coming toward it fast&mdash;could she remember it,
+with old Squire Bean looking at her?</p>
+<p>
+"Go on," said the teacher severely. She was quite
+young, and also stood in some awe of Squire Bean,
+but she did not wish her pupils to discover it, so she
+pretended to ignore that step in the entry. Squire
+Bean walked with a heavy gilt-headed cane which
+always went clump, clump, at every step; beside he
+shuffled&mdash;one could always tell who was coming.</p>
+<p>
+"Seven times seven," begun Patience trembling&mdash;then
+the door opened&mdash;there stood Squire Bean.</p>
+<p>
+The teacher rose promptly. She tried to be very
+easy and natural, but her pretty round cheeks turned
+red and white by turns.</p>
+<p>
+"Good-morning, Squire Bean," said she. Then
+she placed a chair on the platform for him.</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Good</i>-morning," said he, and seated himself in a<span class="page"><a name="page220" id="page220">[Page&nbsp;220]</a></span>
+lumbering way&mdash;he was rather stiff with rheumatism.
+He was a large old man in a green camlet cloak with
+brass buttons.</p>
+<p>
+"You may go on with the exercises," said he to the
+teacher, after he had adjusted himself and wiped his
+face solemnly with a great red handkerchief.</p>
+<p>
+"Go on, Patience," said the teacher.</p>
+<p>
+So Patience piped up in her little weak soprano:
+"Seven times seven are forty-nine. Eight times seven
+are"&mdash;She stopped short. Then she begun over
+again&mdash;"Eight times seven"&mdash;</p>
+<p>
+The class with toes on the crack all swayed forward
+to look at her, the pupils at the foot stepped off till
+they swung it into a half-circle. Hands came up and
+gyrated wildly.</p>
+<p>
+"Back on the line!" said the teacher sternly.
+Then they stepped back, but the hands indicative of
+superior knowledge still waved, the coarse jacket-sleeves
+and the gingham apron-sleeves slipping back
+from the thin childish wrists.</p>
+<p>
+"Eight times seven are eighty-nine," declared
+Patience desperately. The hands shook frantically,
+some of the owners stepped off the line again in their
+eagerness.</p>
+<p>
+Patience's cheeks were red as poppies, her eyes were
+full of tears.</p>
+<p>
+"You may try once more, Patience," said the
+teacher, who was distressed herself. She feared lest<span class="page"><a name="page221" id="page221">[Page&nbsp;221]</a></span>
+Squire Bean might think that it was her fault, and
+that she was not a competent teacher, because Patience
+Mather did not know eight-times-seven.</p>
+<p>
+So Patience started again&mdash;"Eight times seven"&mdash;She
+<span class="page"><a name="plate43" id="plate43">[plate 43]</a></span>
+<img src="images/43-patience.jpg" width="224" height="470" alt="'Six' - she began feebly." border="0" hspace="15" vspace="5" style="float: right" />
+
+paused for a mighty
+mental effort&mdash;she must get
+it right this time. "Six"&mdash;she
+began feebly.</p>
+<p>
+"What!" said Squire
+Bean suddenly, in a deep
+voice which sounded like a
+growl.</p>
+<p>
+Then all at once poor little
+Patience heard a whisper
+sweet as an angel's in her
+ear: "Fifty-six."</p>
+<p>
+"Eight times seven are
+fifty-six," said she convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>
+"Right," said the teacher
+with a relieved look. The
+hands went down. Patience
+stood with her neat little
+shoes toeing out on the crack. It was over. She had
+not failed before Squire Bean. For a few minutes,
+she could think of nothing but that.</p>
+<p>
+The rest of the class had their weak points, moreover
+their strong points, overlooked in the presence<span class="page"><a name="page222" id="page222">[Page&nbsp;222]</a></span>
+of the company. The first thing Patience knew, ever
+so many had missed in the nine-table, and she had
+gone up to the head.</p>
+<p>
+Standing there, all at once a terrible misgiving
+seized her. "I wouldn't have gone to the head if I
+hadn't been told," she thought to herself. Martha
+was next below her; she knew that question in the
+nines, her hand had been up, so had John Allen's and
+Ph&oelig;be Adams'.</p>
+<p>
+This was the last class before recess. Patience
+went soberly out in the yard with the other girls. There
+was a little restraint over all the scholars. They
+looked with awe at the Squire's horse and chaise. The
+horse was tied after a novel fashion, an invention of
+the Squire's own. He had driven a gimlet into the
+schoolhouse wall, and tied his horse to it with a stout
+rope. Whenever the Squire drove he carried with
+him his gimlet, in case there should be no hitching-post.
+Occasionally house-owners rebelled, but it made
+no difference; the next time the Squire had occasion
+to stop at their premises there was another gimlet-hole
+in the wall. Few people could make their way good
+against Squire Bean's.</p>
+<p>
+There were a great many holes in the schoolhouse
+walls, for the Squire made frequent visits; he was one
+of the committee and considered himself very necessary
+for the well-being of the school. Indeed if he had
+frankly spoken his mind, he would probably have admitted <span class="page"><a name="page223" id="page223">[Page&nbsp;223]</a></span>
+that in his estimation the school could not be
+properly kept one day without his assistance.</p>
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate44" id="plate44">[plate 44]</a></span>
+<img src="images/44-squire.jpg" width="365" height="470" alt="'What!' said Squire Bean suddenly." border="0" /><br /><br />
+'WHAT!' SAID SQUIRE BEAN SUDDENLY.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+Patience stood with her back against the school
+fence, and watched the others soberly. The girls
+wanted her to play "Little Sally Waters sitting in the
+sun," but she said no, she didn't want to play.</p>
+<p>
+Martha took hold of her arm and tried to pull her<span class="page"><a name="page224" id="page224">[Page&nbsp;224]</a></span>
+into the ring, but she held back.</p>
+<p>
+"What is the matter?" said Martha.</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing," Patience said, but her face was full of
+trouble. There was a little wrinkle between her reflective
+brown eyes, and she drew in her under lip after
+a way she had when disturbed.</p>
+<p>
+When the bell rang, the scholars filed in with the
+greatest order and decorum. Even the most frisky
+boys did no more than roll their eyes respectfully in
+the Squire's direction as they passed him, and they
+tiptoed on their bare feet in the most cautious manner.</p>
+<p>
+The Squire sat through the remaining exercises, until
+it was time to close the school.</p>
+<p>
+"You may put up your books," said the teacher.
+There was a rustle and clatter, then a solemn hush.
+They all sat with their arms folded, looking expectantly
+at Squire Bean. The teacher turned to him. Her
+cheeks were very red, and she was very dignified, but
+her voice shook a little.</p>
+<p>
+"Won't you make some remarks to the pupils?"
+said she.</p>
+<p>
+Then the Squire rose and cleared his throat. The
+scholars did not pay much attention to what he said,
+although they sat still, with their eyes riveted on his
+face. But when, toward the close of his remarks, he
+put his hand in his pocket, and a faint jingling was
+heard, a thrill ran over the school.</p>
+<p>
+The Squire pulled out two silver sixpences, and held <span class="page"><a name="page225" id="page225">[Page&nbsp;225]</a></span>
+them up impressively before the children. Through a
+hole in each of them dangled a palm-leaf strand;
+and the Squire's own initial was stamped on both.</p>
+<p>
+"Thomas Arnold may step this way," said the
+Squire.</p>
+<p>
+Thomas Arnold had acquitted himself well in geography,
+and to him the Squire duly presented one of
+the sixpences.</p>
+<p>
+Thomas bobbed, and pattered back to his seat with
+all his mates staring and grinning at him.</p>
+<p>
+Then Patience Mather's heart jumped&mdash;Squire
+Bean was bidding her step that way, on account of
+her going to the head of the arithmetic class. She sat
+still. There was a roaring in her ears. Squire Bean
+spoke again. Then the teacher interposed. "Patience,"
+said she, "did you not hear what Squire Bean said?
+Step this way."</p>
+<p>
+Then Patience rose and dragged slowly down the
+aisle. She hung her head, she dimly heard Squire
+Bean speaking; then the sixpence touched her hand.
+Suddenly Patience looked up. There was a vein of
+heroism in the little girl. Not far back, some of her
+kin had been brave fighters in the Revolution. Now
+their little descendant went marching up to her own
+enemy in her own way. She spoke right up before
+Squire Bean.</p>
+<p>
+"I'd rather you'd give it to some one else," said she
+with a curtesy. "It doesn't belong to me. I wouldn't<span class="page"><a name="page226" id="page226">[Page&nbsp;226]</a></span>
+have gone to the head if I hadn't cheated."</p>
+<p>
+Patience's cheeks were white, but her eyes flashed.
+Squire Bean gasped, and turned it into a cough. Then
+he began asking her questions. Patience answered
+unflinchingly. She kept holding the sixpence toward
+him.</p>
+<p>
+Finally he reached out and gave it a little push
+back.</p>
+<p>
+"Keep it," said he; "keep it, keep it. I don't give
+it to you for going to the head, but because you are an
+honest and truthful child."</p>
+<p>
+Patience blushed pink to her little neck. She curtesied
+deeply and returned to her seat, the silver sixpence
+dangling from her agitated little hand. She
+put her head down on her desk, and cried, now it was
+all over, and did not look up till school was dismissed,
+and Martha Joy came and put her arm around her and
+comforted her.</p>
+<p>
+The two little girls were very close friends, and were
+together all the time which they could snatch out of
+school hours. Not long after the presentation of the
+sixpence, one night after school, Patience's mother
+wanted her to go on an errand to Nancy Gookin's hut.</p>
+<p>
+Nancy Gookin was an Indian woman, who did a
+good many odd jobs for the neighbors. Mrs. Mather
+was expecting company, and she wanted her to come
+the next day and assist her about some cleaning.</p>
+<p>
+Patience was usually willing enough, but to-night she<span class="page"><a name="page227" id="page227">[Page&nbsp;227]</a></span>
+demurred. In fact, she was a little afraid of the Indian
+woman, who lived all alone in a little hut on the edge
+of some woods. Her mother knew it, but it was a
+foolish fear, and she did not encourage her in it.</p>
+<p>
+"There is no sense in your being afraid of Nancy,"
+she said with some severity. "She's a good woman,
+if she is an Injun, and she is always to be seen in the
+meeting-house of a Sabbath day."</p>
+<p>
+As her mother spoke, Patience could see Nancy's
+dark harsh old face peering over the pew, where she
+and some of her nation sat together, Sabbath days, and
+the image made her shudder in spite of its environments.
+However, she finally put on her little sunbonnet
+and set forth. It was a lovely summer twilight;
+she had only about a quarter of a mile to go, but her
+courage failed her more and more at every step.
+Martha Joy lived on the way. When she reached her
+house, she stopped and begged her to go with her.
+Martha was obliging; under ordinary circumstances
+she would have gone with alacrity, but to-night she
+had a hard toothache. She came to the door with her
+face all tied up in a hop-poultice. "I'm 'fraid I can't
+go," she said dolefully.</p>
+<p>
+But Patience begged and begged. "I'll spend my
+sixpence that uncle Joseph gave me, and I'll buy you
+a whole card of peppermints," said she finally, by way
+of inducement.</p>
+<p>
+That won the day. Martha got few sweets, and if<span class="page"><a name="page228" id="page228">[Page&nbsp;228]</a></span>
+there was anything she craved, it was the peppermints,
+which came, in those days, in big beautiful cards, to
+be broken off at will. And to have a whole card!</p>
+<p>
+So poor Martha tied her little napping sunbonnet
+over her swollen cheeks, and went with Patience to see
+Nancy Gookin, who received the message thankfully,
+and did not do them the least harm in the world.</p>
+<p>
+Martha had really a very hard toothache. She did
+not sleep much that night for all the hop-poultice, and
+she went to school the next day feeling tired and cross.
+She was a nervous little girl, and never bore illness
+very well. But to-day she had one pleasant
+anticipation. She thought often of that card of peppermints.
+It had cheered her somewhat in her uneasy
+night. She thought that Patience would surely bring
+them to school. She came early herself and watched
+for her. She entered quite late, just before the bell
+rang. Martha ran up to her. "I haven't got the
+peppermints," said Patience. She had been crying.</p>
+<p>
+Martha straightened up: "Why not?"</p>
+<p>
+The tears welled out of Patience's eyes. "I can't
+find that sixpence anywhere."</p>
+<p>
+The tears came into Martha's eyes too. She looked
+as dignified as her poulticed face would allow. "I
+never knew you told fibs, Patience Mather," said she.
+"I don't believe my mother will want me to go with
+you any more."</p>
+<p>
+Just then the bell rang. Martha went crying to her<span class="page"><a name="page229" id="page229">[Page&nbsp;229]</a></span>
+seat, and the others thought it was on account of her
+toothache. Patience kept back her tears. She was
+forming a desperate resolution. When recess came,
+she got permission to go to the store which was quite
+near, and she bought a card of peppermints with the
+Squire's sixpence. She had pulled out the palm-leaf
+strand on her way, thrusting it into her pocket guiltily.
+She felt as if she were committing sacrilege. These
+sixpences, which Squire Bean bestowed upon worthy
+scholars from time to time, were ostensibly for the purpose
+of book-marks. That was the reason for the
+palm-leaf strand. The Squire took the sixpences to
+the blacksmith who stamped them with B's, and then,
+with his own hands, he adjusted the palm-leaf.</p>
+<p>
+The man who kept the store looked at the sixpence
+curiously, when Patience offered it.</p>
+<p>
+"One of the Squire's sixpences!" said he.</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; it's mine." That was the argument which
+Patience had set forth to her own conscience. It was
+certainly her own sixpence; the Squire had given it
+to her&mdash;had she not a right to do as she chose with
+it?</p>
+<p>
+The man laughed; his name was Ezra Tomkins, and
+he enjoyed a joke. He was privately resolving to
+give that sixpence in change to the old Squire and see
+what he would say. If Patience had guessed his
+thoughts&mdash;</p>
+<p>
+But she took the card of peppermints, and carried <span class="page"><a name="page230" id="page230">[Page&nbsp;230]</a></span>
+them to the appeased and repentant and curious Martha,
+and waited further developments in trepidation. She
+had a presentiment deep within her childish soul that
+some day she would have a reckoning with Squire
+Bean concerning his sixpence.</p>
+<p>
+If by chance she had to pass his house, she would
+hurry by at her utmost speed lest she be intercepted.
+She got out of his way as fast as she could if she spied
+his old horse and chaise in the distance. Still she
+knew the day would come; and it did.</p>
+<p>
+It was one Saturday afternoon; school did not keep,
+and she was all alone in the house with Martha. Her
+mother had gone visiting. The two little girls were
+playing "Holly Gull, Passed how many," with beans
+in the kitchen, when the door opened, and in walked
+Susan Elder. She was a woman who lived at Squire
+Bean's and helped his wife with the housework.</p>
+<p>
+The minute Patience saw her, she knew what her
+errand was. She gave a great start. Then she looked
+at Susan Elder with her big frightened eyes.</p>
+<p>
+Susan Elder was a stout old woman. She sat down
+on the settle, and wheezed before she spoke. "Squire
+Bean wants you to come up to his house right away,"
+said she at last.</p>
+<p>
+Patience trembled all over. "My mother is gone
+away. I don't know as she would want me to go," she
+ventured despairingly.</p>
+<p>
+"He wants you to come right away," said Susan.<span class="page"><a name="page231" id="page231">[Page&nbsp;231]</a></span></p>
+<p>
+"I don't believe mother'd want me to leave the
+house alone."</p>
+<p>
+"I'll stay an' rest till you git back; I'd jest as soon.
+I'm all tuckered out comin' up the hill."</p>
+<p>
+Patience was very pale. She cast an agonized
+glance at Martha. "I spent the Squire's sixpence for
+those peppermints," she whispered. She had not told
+her before.</p>
+<p>
+Martha looked at her in horror&mdash;then she begun to
+cry. "Oh! I made you do it," she sobbed.</p>
+<p>
+"Won't you go with me?" groaned Patience.</p>
+<p>
+"One little gal is enough," spoke up Susan Elder.
+"He won't like it if two goes."</p>
+<p>
+That settled it. Poor little Patience Mather crept
+meekly out of the house and down the hill to Squire
+Bean's, without even Martha's foreboding sympathy
+for consolation.</p>
+<p>
+She looked ahead wistfully all the way. If she
+could only see her mother coming&mdash;but she did not,
+and there was Squire Bean's house, square and white
+and massive, with great sprawling clumps of white
+peonies in the front yard.</p>
+<p>
+She went around to the back door, and raised a feeble
+clatter with the knocker. Mrs. Squire Bean, who
+was tall and thin and mild-looking, answered her
+knock. "The&mdash;Squire&mdash;sent&mdash;for&mdash;me"&mdash;choked
+Patience.</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!" said the old lady, "you air the little Mather-gal,<span class="page"><a name="page232" id="page232">[Page&nbsp;232]</a></span>
+I guess."</p>
+<p>
+Patience shook so she could hardly reply.</p>
+<p>
+"You'd better go right into his room," said Mrs.
+Squire Bean, and Patience followed her. She gave
+her a little pat when she opened a door on the right.
+"Don't you be afeard," said she; "he won't say
+nothin' to you. I'll give you a piece of sweet-cake
+when you come out."</p>
+<p>
+Thus admonished, Patience entered. "Here's the
+little Mather-gal," Mrs. Bean remarked; then the
+door closed again on her mild old face.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page233" id="page233">[Page&nbsp;233]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate45" id="plate45">[plate 45]</a></span>
+<img src="images/45-summons.jpg" width="550" height="384" alt="Little Patience obeys the Squire's summons." border="0" /><br  /><br />
+LITTLE PATIENCE OBEYS THE SQUIRE'S SUMMONS.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+When Patience first looked at that room, she had a
+wild impulse to turn and run. A conviction flashed
+through her mind that she could outrun Squire Bean
+and his wife easily. In fact, the queer aspect of the
+room was not calculated to dispel her nervous terror.
+Squire Bean's peculiarities showed forth in the arrangement
+of his room, as well as in other ways. His floor
+was painted drab, and in the center were the sun and
+solar system depicted in yellow. But that six-rayed
+yellow sun, the size of a large dinner plate, with its
+group of lesser six-rayed orbs as large as saucers, did
+not startle Patience as much as the rug beside the
+Squire's bed. That was made of a brindle cow-skin
+with&mdash;the horns on. The little girl's fascinated gaze
+rested on these bristling horns and could not tear itself
+away. Across the foot of the Squire's bed lay a great
+iron bar; that was a housewifely scheme of his own to<span class="page"><a name="page235" id="page235">[Page&nbsp;235]</a></span>
+keep the clothes well down at the foot. But Patience's
+fertile imagination construed it into a dire weapon of
+punishment.</p>
+<p>
+The Squire was sitting at his old cherry desk. He
+turned around and looked at Patience sharply from
+under his shaggy, overhanging brows.</p>
+<p>
+Then he fumbled in his pocket and brought something
+out&mdash;it was the sixpence. Then he began talking.
+Patience could not have told what he said. Her
+mind was entirely full of what she had to say. Somehow
+she stammered out the story: how she had been
+afraid to go to Nancy Gookin's, and how she had lost
+the sixpence her uncle had given her, and how Martha
+had said she told a fib. Patience trembled and gasped
+out the words, and curtesied, once in a while, when
+the Squire said something.</p>
+<p>
+"Come here," said he, when he had sat for a minute
+or two, taking in the facts of the case.</p>
+<p>
+To Patience's utter astonishment, Squire Bean was
+laughing, and holding out the sixpence.</p>
+<p>
+"Have you got the palm-leaf string?"</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir," replied Patience, curtesying.</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you may take this home, and put in the
+palm-leaf string, and use it for a marker in your
+book&mdash;but don't you spend it again."</p>
+<p>
+"No, sir." Patience curtesied again.</p>
+<p>
+"You did very wrong to spend it, very wrong.
+Those sixpences are not given to you to spend. But<span class="page"><a name="page236" id="page236">[Page&nbsp;236]</a></span>
+I will overlook it this once."</p>
+<p>
+The Squire extended the sixpence. Patience took
+it, with another dip of her little skirt. Then he turned
+around to his desk.</p>
+<p>
+Patience waited a few minutes. She did not know
+whether she was dismissed or not. Finally the Squire
+begun to add aloud: "Five and five are ten," he said,
+"ought, and carry the one."</p>
+<p>
+He was adding a bill. Then Patience stole out
+softly. Mrs. Squire Bean was waiting in the kitchen.
+She gave her a great piece of plum-cake and kissed
+her.</p>
+<p>
+"He didn't hurt you any, did he?" said she.</p>
+<p>
+"No, ma'am," said Patience, looking with a bewildered
+smile at the sixpence.</p>
+<p>
+That night she tied in the palm-leaf strand again,
+and she put the sixpence in her Geography-book, and
+she kept it so safely all her life that her great-grandchildren
+have seen it.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page237" id="page237">[Page&nbsp;237]</a></span>
+
+<h2>A PLAIN <a name="case" id="case">CASE</a>.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Willy had his own little bag packed&mdash;indeed it
+had been packed for three whole days&mdash;and now he
+stood gripping it tightly in one hand, and a small
+yellow cane which was the pride of his heart in the
+other. Willy had a little harmless, childish dandyism
+about him which his mother rather encouraged. "I'd
+rather he'd be this way than the other," she said when
+people were inclined to smile at his little fussy habits.
+"It won't hurt him any to be nice and particular, if
+he doesn't get conceited."</p>
+<p>
+Willy looked very dainty and sweet and gentle as
+he stood in the door this morning. His straight fair
+hair was brushed very smooth, his white straw hat
+with its blue ribbon was set on exactly, there was not
+a speck on his best blue suit.</p>
+<p>
+"Willy looks as if he had just come out of the band-box,"
+Grandma had said. But she did not have time
+to admire him long; she was not nearly ready herself.
+Grandma was always in a hurry at the last moment.
+Now she had to pack her big valise, brush Grandpa's
+hair, put on his "dicky" and cravat, and adjust her
+own bonnet and shawl.</p>
+<p>
+Willy was privately afraid she would not be ready<span class="page"><a name="page238" id="page238">[Page&nbsp;238]</a></span>
+when the village coach came, and so they would miss
+the train, but he said nothing. He stood patiently in
+the door and looked down the street whence the coach
+would come, and listened to the bustle in Grandma's
+room. There was not an impatient line in his face although
+he had really a good deal at stake. He was
+going to Exeter with his Grandpa and Grandma, to
+visit his aunt Annie, and his new uncle Frank.
+Grandpa and Grandma had come from Maine to visit
+their daughter Ellen who was Willy's mother, and now
+they were going to see Annie. When Willy found
+out that he was going too, he was delighted. He had
+always been very fond of his aunt Annie, and had not
+seen her for a long time. He had never seen his new
+uncle Frank who had been married to Annie six
+months before, and he looked forward to that. Uncles
+and aunts seemed a very desirable acquisition to this
+little Willy, who had always been a great pet among
+his relatives.</p>
+<p>
+"He won't make you a bit of trouble, if you don't
+mind taking him. He never teases nor frets, and he
+won't be homesick," his mother had told his grandmother.</p>
+<p>
+"I know all about that," Grandma Stockton had
+replied. "I'd just as soon take him as a doll-baby."</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page239" id="page239">[Page&nbsp;239]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate46" id="plate46">[plate 46]</a></span>
+<img src="images/46-watrching.jpg" width="257" height="470" alt="Watching for the coach." border="0" /><br /><br />
+WATCHING FOR THE COACH.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+Willy Norton really was a very sweet boy. He
+proved it this morning by standing there so patiently
+and never singing out, "Ain't you most ready, <span class="page"><a name="page241" id="page241">[Page&nbsp;241]</a></span>
+Grandma?" although it did seem to him she never
+would be.</p>
+<p>
+His mother was helping her pack too; he could
+hear them talking. "I guess I sha'n't put in father's
+best coat," Grandma Stockton remarked, among other
+things. "He won't be in Exeter over Sunday, and
+won't want it to go to meetin', and it musses it up so
+to put it in a valise."</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I don't know as I would as long as you're
+coming back here," said his mother.</p>
+<p>
+After a while she remarked further, "If father
+should want that coat, you can send for it, and I can
+put in Willy's other shoes with it."</p>
+<p>
+Willy noticed that, because he himself had rather regretted
+not taking his other shoes. He had only his
+best ones, and he thought he might want to go berrying
+in Exeter and would spoil them tramping through
+the bushes and briers, and he did not like to wear
+shabby shoes.</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I can; but I guess he won't want it," said
+Grandma.</p>
+<p>
+At last the coach came in sight, and Grandma was
+all ready excepting her bonnet and gloves, and Grandpa
+had only to brush his hat very carefully and put it on;
+so they did not miss the train.</p>
+<p>
+Willy's mother hugged him tight and kissed him.
+There were tears in her eyes. This was the first time
+he had ever been away from home without her. "Be <span class="page"><a name="page242" id="page242">[Page&nbsp;242]</a></span>
+a good boy," said she.</p>
+<p>
+"There isn't any need of tellin' him that," chuckled
+Grandpa, getting into the coach. He thought Willy
+was the most wonderful child in the world.</p>
+<p>
+It was quite a long ride to Exeter. They did not
+get there until tea-time, but that made it seem all the
+pleasanter. Willy never forgot how peaceful and
+beautiful that little, elm-shaded village looked with
+the red light of the setting sun over it. There was
+aunt Annie, too, in the prettiest blue-sprigged, white
+cambric, standing in her door watching for them; and
+she was so surprised and delighted to see Willy, and
+they had tea right away, and there were berries
+and cream, and cream-tartar biscuits and frosted cake.</p>
+<p>
+Uncle Frank, Willy thought, was going to be the
+nicest uncle he had. There was something about
+the tall, curly-headed, pleasant-eyed young man which
+won his boyish heart at once.</p>
+<p>
+"Glad to see you, sir," uncle Frank said in his
+loud, merry voice; then he gave Willy's little slim
+hand a big shake, as if it were a man's.</p>
+<p>
+He was further prepossessed in his favor when, after
+tea, he begged to take him over to the store and show
+him around before he went to bed. Grandma had
+suggested his going directly to bed, as he must be
+fatigued with the journey, but uncle Frank pleaded for
+fifteen minutes' grace, so Willy went to view the store.</p>
+<p>
+It was almost directly opposite uncle Frank's house,<span class="page"><a name="page243" id="page243">[Page&nbsp;243]</a></span>
+and uncle Frank and his father kept it. It was in a
+large old building, half of which was a dwelling-house
+where uncle Frank's parents lived, and where he had
+lived himself before he was married. The store was
+a large country one, and there was a post-office and
+an express office connected with it. Uncle Frank
+and his father were store-keepers and postmasters and
+express-agents.</p>
+<p>
+The jolly new uncle gave Willy some sticks of
+peppermint and winter-green candy out of the glass
+jars, in the store-window, and showed him all around.
+He introduced him to his father, and took him into
+the house to see his mother. They made much of
+him, as strangers always did.</p>
+<p>
+"They said I must call them Grandpa and Grandma
+Perry," he told his own grandmother when he got
+home.</p>
+<p>
+He told her, furthermore, privately, when she came
+upstairs after he was in bed to see if everything was
+all right, that he thought Annie had shown very good
+taste in marrying uncle Frank. She told of it, downstairs,
+and there was a great laugh. "I don't know
+when I have taken such a fancy to a boy," uncle
+Frank said warmly. "He is so good, and yet he's
+smart enough, too."</p>
+<p>
+"Everybody takes to him," his grandmother said
+proudly.</p>
+<p>
+In a day or two Willy wrote a letter to his mother,<span class="page"><a name="page244" id="page244">[Page&nbsp;244]</a></span>
+and told her he was having the best time that he ever
+had in his life.</p>
+<p>
+Willy was only seven years old and had never
+written many letters, but this was a very good one.
+His mother away down in Ashbury thought so. She
+shed a few tears over it. "It does seem as if I
+couldn't get along another day without seeing him,"
+she told Willy's father; "but I'm glad if it is doing
+the dear child good, and he is enjoying it."</p>
+<p>
+One reason why Willy had been taken upon the
+trip was his health. He had always been considered
+rather delicate. It did seem as if he had every chance
+to grow stronger in Exeter. The air was cool and
+bracing from the mountains; aunt Annie had the
+best things in the world to eat, and as he had said, he
+was really having a splendid time. He rode about
+with uncle Frank in the grocery wagon, he tended
+store, he fished, and went berrying. There were only
+two drawbacks to his perfect comfort. One came from
+his shoes. Grandpa Perry had found an old pair in
+the store, and he wore them on his fishing and berrying
+jaunts; but they were much too large and they
+slipped and hurt his heels. However he said nothing;
+he stumped along in them manfully, and tried to ignore
+such a minor grievance. Willy had really a stanch
+vein in him, in spite of his gentleness and mildness.
+The other drawback lay in the fact that the visit was
+to be of such short duration. It began Monday and<span class="page"><a name="page245" id="page245">[Page&nbsp;245]</a></span>
+was expected to end Saturday. Willy counted the
+hours; every night before he went to sleep he heaved
+a regretful sigh over the day which had just gone. It
+had been decided before leaving home that they were
+to return on Saturday, and he had had no intimation
+of any change of plan.</p>
+<p>
+Friday morning he awoke with the thought, "this
+is the last day." However, Willy was a child, and, in
+the morning, a day still looked interminable to him,
+especially when there were good times looming up in
+it. To-day he expected to take a very long ride with
+uncle Frank, who was going to Keene to buy a new
+horse.</p>
+<p>
+"I want Willy to go with me, to help pick him out,"
+he told Grandma Stockton, and Willy took it in serious
+earnest. They were going to carry lunch and be
+gone all day. This promised pleasure looked so big
+to the boy, as he became wider awake, that he could
+see nothing at all beyond it, not even the sad departure
+and end of this delightful visit on the morrow. So he
+went down to breakfast as happy as ever.</p>
+<p>
+"That boy certainly looks better," Grandpa Stockton
+remarked, as the coffee was being poured.</p>
+<p>
+"We must have him weighed before he goes home,"
+Grandma said, beaming at him.</p>
+<p>
+"That's one thing I thought of, 'bout stayin' a week
+longer," Grandpa went on. "It seems to be doin'
+Sonny, here, so much good." Grandpa had a very<span class="page"><a name="page246" id="page246">[Page&nbsp;246]</a></span>
+slow, deliberate way of speaking.</p>
+<p>
+Willy laid down his spoon and stared at him, but
+he said nothing.</p>
+<p>
+"I don't see what you were thinking of not to plan
+to stay longer in the first place," said aunt Annie.
+"I don't like it much." She made believe to pout
+her pretty lips.</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said uncle Frank, "I'll send for that coat
+right away this morning, so you'll be sure to get it
+to-morrow night."</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said Grandpa, "I'd like to hev it to wear
+to meetin'. Mother thinks my old one ain't just fit."</p>
+<p>
+"No, it ain't," spoke up Grandma. "It does well
+enough when you're at home, where folks know you,
+but it's different among strangers. An' you've got to
+have it next week, anyhow."</p>
+<p>
+Willy looked up at his grandmother. "Grandma,"
+said he tremblingly, "ain't we going home to-morrow?"</p>
+<p>
+"Why, bless the child!" said she. "I forgot he
+didn't know. We talked about it last night after he'd
+gone to bed."</p>
+<p>
+Then she explained. They were going to stay
+another week. Next week Wednesday, Grandpa and
+Grandma Perry had been married twenty-five years,
+and they were going to have a silver wedding. So
+they were going to remain and be present at it, and
+Grandpa was going to send for his best coat to wear.</p>
+<p>
+Willy looked so radiant that they all laughed, and<span class="page"><a name="page247" id="page247">[Page&nbsp;247]</a></span>
+uncle Frank said he was going to keep him always,
+and let him help him in the store.</p>
+<p>
+Before they started off to buy the horse, uncle
+Frank telegraphed to Ashbury about the coat; he also
+mentioned Willy's shoes.</p>
+<p>
+The two had a beautiful ride, and bought a handsome
+black horse. Uncle Frank consulted Willy a
+great deal about the purchase, and expatiated on his
+good judgment in the matter after they got home.
+One of Willy's chief charms was that he stood so
+much flattery of this kind, without being disagreeably
+elated by it. His frank, childish delight was always
+pretty to see.</p>
+<p>
+The next afternoon he went berrying with a little
+boy who lived next door. At five o'clock aunt Annie
+ran over to the store to see if the coat had come.</p>
+<p>
+"It has," she told her mother when she returned;
+"it came at one o'clock, and Mother Perry gave it to
+Willy to bring home."</p>
+<p>
+"To Willy? Why, what did the child do with
+it?" Grandma said wonderingly. "He didn't bring
+it home."</p>
+<p>
+"Maybe he carried it over to Josie Allen's and left
+it there." Josie Allen was the boy with whom Willy
+had gone berrying. His house stood very near uncle
+Frank's, and both were nearly across the road from
+the store.</p>
+<p>
+"Well, maybe he did, he was in such a hurry to go<span class="page"><a name="page248" id="page248">[Page&nbsp;248]</a></span>
+berrying," said Grandma assentingly.</p>
+<p>
+About six o'clock, when the family were all at the
+tea-table, Willy came clumping painfully in his big
+shoes into the yard. There were blisters on his small,
+delicate heels, but nobody knew it. His little fair
+face was red and tired, but radiant. His pail was
+heaped and rounded up with the most magnificent
+berries of the season.</p>
+<p>
+"Just look here," said he, with his sweet voice all
+quivering with delight.</p>
+<p>
+He stood outside on the piazza, and lifted the pail
+on to the window-sill. He could not wait until he
+came in to show these berries. He would have to walk
+way around through the kitchen in those irritating
+shoes.</p>
+<p>
+They all exclaimed and admired them as much as
+he could wish, then Grandma said suddenly: "But
+what did you do with the coat, Willy?"</p>
+<p>
+"The coat?" repeated Willy in a bewildered way.</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; the coat. Did you take it over to Josie's
+an' leave it? If you did, you must go right back and
+get it. Did you?"</p>
+<p>
+"No."</p>
+<p>
+"Why, what did you do with it?"</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't do anything with it."</p>
+<p>
+"William Dexter Norton! what do you mean?"</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page249" id="page249">[Page&nbsp;249]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate47" id="plate47">[plate 47]</a></span>
+<img src="images/47-willy.jpg" width="550" height="348" alt="'Just look here!' said Willy's sweet voice." border="0" /><br /><br />
+'JUST LOOK HERE!' SAID WILLY'S SWEET VOICE.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+Everybody had stopped eating, and was staring out
+at Willy, who was staring in. His happy little red<span class="page"><a name="page251" id="page251">[Page&nbsp;251]</a></span>
+face had suddenly turned sober.</p>
+<p>
+"Come in, Sonny, an' we'll see what all the
+trouble's about, an' straighten it out in a jiffy," spoke
+up Grandpa. The contrast between Grandpa's slow
+tones and the "jiffy" was very funny.</p>
+<p>
+Willy crept slowly down the long piazza, through
+the big kitchen into the dining-room.</p>
+<p>
+"Now, Sonny, come right here," said his grandfather,
+"an' we'll have it all fixed up nice."</p>
+<p>
+The boy kept looking from one face to another in a
+wondering frightened way. He went hesitatingly up
+to his grandfather, and stood still, his poor little
+smarting feet toeing in, after a fashion they had, when
+tired, the pail full of berries dangling heavily on his
+slight arm.</p>
+<p>
+"Now, Sonny, look up here, an' tell us all about it.
+What did you do with Grandpa's coat, boy?"</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;didn't do anything with it."</p>
+<p>
+"William," began his grandmother, but Grandpa
+interrupted her. "Just wait a minute, mother," said
+he. "Sonny an' I air goin' to settle this. Now,
+Sonny, don't you get scared. You jest think a
+minute. Think real hard, don't hurry&mdash;now, can't
+you tell what you did with Grandpa's coat?"</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;didn't&mdash;do anything with it," said Willy.</p>
+<p>
+"My sakes!" said his grandmother. "What has
+come to the child?" She was very pale. Aunt
+Annie and uncle Frank looked as if they did not<span class="page"><a name="page252" id="page252">[Page&nbsp;252]</a></span>
+know what to think. Grandpa himself settled back
+in his chair, and stared helplessly at Willy.</p>
+<p>
+Finally aunt Annie tried her hand. "See here,
+Willy dear," said she, "you are tired and hungry and
+want your supper; just tell us what you did with the
+coat after Grandma Perry gave it to you"&mdash;</p>
+<p>
+"She didn't," said Willy.</p>
+<p>
+That was dreadful. They all looked aghast at one
+another. Was Willy lying&mdash;Willy!</p>
+<p>
+"Didn't&mdash;give&mdash;it&mdash;to you&mdash;Sonny!" said
+Grandpa, feebly, and more slowly than ever.</p>
+<p>
+"No, sir."</p>
+<p>
+Grandma Stockton had been called quick-tempered
+when she was a girl, and she gave proof of it sometimes,
+even now in her gentle old age. She spoke
+very sternly and quickly: "Willy, we have had all of
+this nonsense that we want. Now you just speak
+right up an' tell the truth. What did you do with
+your grandfather's coat?"</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't do anything with it," faltered Willy again.
+His lip was quivering.</p>
+<p>
+"What?"</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;didn't"&mdash;began the child again, then his sobs
+checked him. He crooked his little free arm, hid his
+face in the welcome curve, and cried in good earnest.</p>
+<p>
+"Stop crying and tell me the truth," said Grandma
+pitilessly.</p>
+<p>
+Willy again gasped out his one reply; he shook so<span class="page"><a name="page253" id="page253">[Page&nbsp;253]</a></span>
+that he could scarcely hold his berry pail. Aunt Annie
+took it out of his hand and set it on the table. Uncle
+Frank rose with a jerk. "I'll run over and get mother,"
+said he, with an air that implied, "I'll soon settle this
+matter."</p>
+<p>
+But the matter was very far from settled by Mrs.
+Perry's testimony. She only repeated what she had
+already told her daughter-in-law.</p>
+<p>
+"The bundle came on the noon express," said she,
+"and I told Mr. Perry to set it down in the kitchen,
+and I would see that it got over to you. He didn't
+know how to stop just then. It laid there on one of
+the kitchen-chairs while I was clearing away the
+dinner-dishes. Then about two o'clock I was changing
+my dress, when I heard Willy whistling out in the
+yard, and I ran into the kitchen and got the bundle,
+and called him to take it. I opened the south door
+and gave it to him, and told him to take it right home
+to his grandpa. He said he guessed he'd open it and
+see if his shoes had come, and I told him 'no,' he must
+go straight home with it."</p>
+<p>
+That was Mrs. Perry's testimony. Willy heard in
+the presence of all the family; then when the question
+as to the whereabouts of the coat was put to him, he
+made the same answer. He also repeated that
+Grandma Perry had not given it to him.</p>
+<p>
+"Don't you let me hear you tell that wicked lie
+again," said his Grandma Stockton. She was nearly<span class="page"><a name="page254" id="page254">[Page&nbsp;254]</a></span>
+as much agitated as the boy. She did not know what
+to do, and nobody else did.</p>
+<p>
+Grandpa Perry came over with three sticks of twisted
+red and white peppermint candy, and three of barley.
+He caught hold of Willy and swung him on to his
+knee. He was a fleshy, jolly man.</p>
+<p>
+"Now, sir," said he, "let's strike a bargain&mdash;I'll
+give you these six whole sticks of candy for your
+supper, and you tell me what you did with Grandpa's
+coat."</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;didn't do&mdash;any"&mdash;Willy commenced between
+his painful sobs, but his grandmother interrupted&mdash;"Hush!
+don't you ever say that again," said she.
+"You did do something with it."</p>
+<p>
+"I'll throw in a handful of raisins," said Mr. Perry.
+But it was of no use.</p>
+<p>
+"Well, if the little chap was mine," said Mrs. Perry
+finally, "I should give him his supper and put him to
+bed, and see how he would look at it in the morning."</p>
+<p>
+"I think that would be the best way," chimed in
+aunt Annie eagerly. "He's all tired out and hungry,
+and doesn't know what he does know&mdash;do you, dear?"</p>
+<p>
+So she poured out some milk, and cut off a big slice
+of cake, but Willy did not want any supper. It was
+hard work to induce him to swallow a little milk before
+he went upstairs. His grandmother heaved a desperate
+sigh after he was gone.</p>
+<p>
+"If it was in the days of the Salem witches," said<span class="page"><a name="page255" id="page255">[Page&nbsp;255]</a></span>
+she, "I'd know just what to think; as 'tis, I don't."</p>
+<p>
+"That boy was never known to tell a lie before in
+his whole life&mdash;his mother said so. He never pestered
+her the way some children do, lyin'; an' as for stealin'&mdash;why,
+I'd trusted him with every cent I've got in
+the world." That was Grandpa Stockton.</p>
+<p>
+During the next two or three days every inducement
+was brought to bear upon Willy. He was scolded and
+coaxed, he was promised a reward if he would tell the
+truth, he was assured that he should not be punished.
+Monday he was kept in his room all day, and was
+given nothing but bread and milk to eat. Severer
+measures were hinted at, but Grandpa Stockton put
+his foot down peremptorily. "That boy has never
+been whipped in his whole life," said he, "an' his own
+folks have got to begin it, if anybody does."</p>
+<p>
+All the premises were searched for the missing coat,
+but no trace of it was found. The mystery thickened
+and deepened. How could a boy lose a coat going
+across a road in broad daylight? Why would he not
+confess that he had lost it?</p>
+<p>
+Finally it was decided to take him home. He was
+becoming all worn out with excitement and distress.
+He was too delicate a child to long endure such a
+strain. They thought that once at home his mother
+might be able to do what none of the rest had.</p>
+<p>
+All the others were getting worn out also. A good
+many tears had been shed by the older members of the <span class="page"><a name="page256" id="page256">[Page&nbsp;256]</a></span>
+company. Poor Mrs. Perry took much blame to herself
+for giving the coat to the boy, and so opening
+the way for the difficulty.</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Perry says he thinks I ought not to have
+given the coat to him, he's nothing but a child, any
+way," she said tearfully once.</p>
+<p>
+It was Monday afternoon when Willy was shut up
+in his room, and all the others were talking the matter
+over downstairs.</p>
+<p>
+Tears stood in aunt Annie's blue eyes. "He's nothing
+but a baby," said she, "and if I had my way I'd
+call him downstairs and give him a cookie and never
+speak of the old coat again."</p>
+<p>
+"You talk very silly, Annie," said Grandmother
+Stockton. "I hope you don't want to have the child
+to grow up a wicked, deceitful man."</p>
+<p>
+Willy's grandparents gave up going to the silver
+wedding. Grandpa had no good coat to wear, and
+indeed neither of them had any heart to go.</p>
+<p>
+So the morning of the wedding-day they started
+sadly to return to Ashbury. Willy's face looked thin
+and tear-stained. Somebody had packed his little bag
+for him, but he forgot his little cane.</p>
+<p>
+When he was seated in the cars beside his grandmother,
+he began to cry. She looked at him a moment,
+then she put her arm around him, and drew his head
+down on her black cashmere shoulder.</p>
+<p>
+"Tell Grandma, can't you," she whispered, "what<span class="page"><a name="page257" id="page257">[Page&nbsp;257]</a></span>
+you did with Grandpa's coat?"</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't&mdash;do&mdash;any"&mdash;</p>
+<p>
+"Hush," said she, "don't you say that again,
+Willy!" But she kept her arm around him.</p>
+<p>
+Willy's mother came running to the door to meet
+them when they arrived. She had heard nothing of
+the trouble. She had only had a hurried message
+that they were coming to-day.</p>
+<p>
+She threw her arms around Willy, then she held
+him back and looked at him. "Why, what is the
+matter with my precious boy!" she cried.</p>
+<p>
+"O, mamma, mamma, I didn't, I didn't do anything
+with it!" he sobbed, and clung to her so frantically
+that she was alarmed.</p>
+<p>
+"What does he mean, mother?" she asked.</p>
+<p>
+Her mother motioned her to be quiet. "Oh! it
+isn't anything," said she. "You'd better give him his
+supper, and get him to bed; he's all tired out. I'll
+tell you by and by," she motioned with her lips.</p>
+<p>
+So Willy's mother soothed him all she could. "Of
+course you didn't, dear," said she. "Mamma knows
+you didn't.  Don't you worry any more about it."</p>
+<p>
+It was early, but she got some supper for him, and
+put him to bed, and sat beside him until he went to
+sleep. She told him over and over that she knew he
+"didn't," in reply to his piteous assertions, and all the
+time she had not the least idea what it was all about.</p>
+<p>
+After he had fallen asleep she went downstairs, and <span class="page"><a name="page258" id="page258">[Page&nbsp;258]</a></span>
+Grandma Stockton told her. Willy's father had come,
+and he also heard the story.</p>
+<p>
+"There's some mistake about it," said he. "I'll
+make Willy tell me about it, to-morrow. Nothing is
+going to make me believe that he is persisting in a
+deliberate lie in this way."</p>
+<p>
+Willy's mother was crying herself, now. "He
+never&mdash;told me a lie in his whole dear little life," she
+sobbed, "and I don't believe he has now. Nothing
+will ever&mdash;make me believe so."</p>
+<p>
+"Don't cry, Ellen," said her husband. "There's
+something about this that we don't understand."</p>
+<p>
+It was all talked over and over that night, but they
+were no nearer understanding the case.</p>
+<p>
+"I'll see what I can do with Willy in the morning,"
+his father said again, when the discussion was ended
+for the night.</p>
+<p>
+Willy was not awake at the breakfast hour next
+morning, so the family sat down without him. They
+were not half through the meal when there were some
+quick steps on the path outside; the door was jerked
+open, and there was aunt Annie and uncle Frank.</p>
+<p>
+She had Willy's little yellow cane in her hand, and
+she looked as if she did not know whether to laugh or
+cry.</p>
+<p>
+"It's found!" she cried out, "it's found! Oh!
+where is he? He left his cane, poor little boy!"</p>
+<p>
+Then she really sank into a chair and began to cry.<span class="page"><a name="page259" id="page259">[Page&nbsp;259]</a></span>
+There were exclamations and questions and finally
+they arrived at the solution of the mystery.</p>
+<p>
+Poor little Willy had not done anything with Grandpa's
+coat. Mrs. Perry had not given it to him. She
+had&mdash;given it to another boy.</p>
+<p>
+"Last night about seven o'clock," said uncle Frank.
+"Mr. Gilbert Hammond brought it into the store. It
+seems he sent his boy, who is just about Willy's age,
+and really looks some like him, for a bundle he expected
+to come by express. The boy was to have
+some shoes in it.</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose mother caught a glimpse of him, and
+very likely she didn't have on her glasses, and can't
+see very well without them, and she thought he was
+Willy. She was changing her dress, too, and I dare
+say only opened the door a little way. Then the
+Hammond boy's got a grandfather, and the shoes and
+the whole thing hung together.</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Hammond said he meant to have brought the
+bundle back before, but they had company come the
+next day, and it was overlooked.</p>
+<p>
+"Father and mother both came running over the
+minute they heard of it, and nothing would suit Annie
+but we should start right off on the night train, and
+come down here and explain. And, to tell the truth,
+I wanted to come myself&mdash;I felt as if we owed it to
+the poor little chappie."</p>
+<p>
+Uncle Frank's own voice sounded husky. The<span class="page"><a name="page260" id="page260">[Page&nbsp;260]</a></span>
+thought of all the suffering that poor little innocent
+boy had borne was not a pleasant one.</p>
+<p>
+Everything that could be done to atone to Willy was
+done. He was loved and praised and petted, as he
+had never been before; in a little while he seemed as
+well and happy as ever.</p>
+<p>
+The next Christmas Grandpa Perry sent a beautiful
+little gold watch to him, and he was so delighted with
+it that his father said, "He doesn't worry a bit now
+about the trouble he had in Exeter. That watch
+doesn't seem to bring it to mind at all. How quickly
+children get over things. He has forgotten all about
+it."</p>
+<p>
+But Willy Norton had not forgotten all about it.
+He was just as happy as ever. He had entirely forgiven
+Grandma Perry for her mistake. Next summer
+he was going to Exeter again and have a beautiful
+time; but a good many years would pass, and whenever
+he looked at that little gold watch, he would see
+double. It would have for him a background of his
+grandfather's best coat.</p>
+<p>
+Innocence and truth can feel the shadow of unjust
+suspicion when others can no longer see it.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page261" id="page261">[Page&nbsp;261]</a></span>
+
+<h2>THE <a name="stranger" id="stranger">STRANGER</a> IN THE VILLAGE.</h2>
+
+<p>
+"Margary," said her mother, "take the pitcher
+now, and fetch me some fresh, cool water from the
+well, and I will cook the porridge for supper."</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, mother," said Margary. Then she put on
+her little white dimity hood, and got the pitcher, which
+was charmingly shaped, from the cupboard shelf. The
+cupboard was a three-cornered one beside the chimney.
+The cottage which Margary and her mother lived in,
+was very humble, to be sure, but it was very pretty.
+Vines grew all over it, and flowering bushes crowded
+close to the diamond-paned windows. There was a
+little garden at one side, with beds of pinks and violets
+in it, and a straw-covered beehive, and some raspberry
+bushes all yellow with fruit.</p>
+<p>
+Inside the cottage, the floor was sanded with the
+whitest sand; lovely old straight-backed chairs stood
+about; there was an oaken table, and a spinning-wheel.
+A wicker cage, with a lark in it, hung in the window.</p>
+<p>
+Margary with her pitcher, tripped along to the village
+well. On the way she met two of her little mates&mdash;Rosamond
+and Barbara. They were flying along,
+their cheeks very rosy and their eyes shining.</p>
+<p>
+"O, Margary," they cried, "come up to the tavern,<span class="page"><a name="page262" id="page262">[Page&nbsp;262]</a></span>
+quick, and see! The most beautiful coach-and-four is
+drawn up there. There are lackeys in green and gold,
+with cocked hats, and the coach hath a crest on the
+side&mdash;O, Margary!"</p>
+<p>
+Margary's eyes grew large too, and she turned about
+with her empty pitcher and followed her friends. They
+had almost reached the tavern, and were in full sight
+of the coach-and-four, when some one coming toward
+them caused them to draw up on one side of the way
+and stare with new wonder. It was a most beautiful
+little boy. His golden curls hung to his shoulders, his
+sweet face had an expression at once gentle and noble,
+and his dress was of the richest material. He led a
+little flossy white dog by a ribbon.</p>
+<p>
+After he had passed by, the three little girls looked
+at each other.</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!" cried Rosamond, "did you see his hat and
+feather?"</p>
+<p>
+"And his lace Vandyke, and the fluffy white dog!"
+cried Barbara. But Margary said nothing. In her
+heart, she thought she had never seen any one so
+lovely.</p>
+<p>
+Then she went on to the well with her pitcher, and
+Rosamond and Barbara went home, telling every one
+they met about the beautiful little stranger.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page263" id="page263">[Page&nbsp;263]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate48" id="plate48">[plate 48]</a></span>
+<img src="images/48-littlestranger.jpg" width="520" height="379" alt="The little stranger." border="0" /><br /><br />
+THE LITTLE STRANGER.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+Margary, after she had filled her pitcher, went home
+also; and was beginning to talk about the stranger to
+her mother, when a shadow fell across the floor from<span class="page"><a name="page265" id="page265">[Page&nbsp;265]</a></span>
+the doorway. Margary looked up. "There he is
+now!" cried she in a joyful whisper.</p>
+<p>
+The pretty boy stood there indeed, looking in modestly
+and wishfully. Margary's mother arose at once
+from her spinning-wheel, and came forward; she was a
+very courteous woman. "Wilt thou enter, and rest thyself,"
+said she, "and have a cup of our porridge, and a
+slice of our wheaten bread, and a bit of honeycomb?"</p>
+<p>
+The little boy sniffed hungrily at the porridge which
+was just beginning to boil; he hesitated a moment,
+but finally thanked the good woman very softly and
+sweetly and entered.</p>
+<p>
+Then Margary and her mother set a bottle of cowslip
+wine on the table, slices of wheaten bread, and a
+plate of honeycomb, a bowl of ripe raspberries, and a
+little jug of yellow cream, and another little bowl with
+a garland of roses around the rim, for the porridge.
+Just as soon as that was cooked, the stranger sat down,
+and ate a supper fit for a prince. Margary and her
+mother half supposed he was one; he had such a
+courtly, yet modest air.</p>
+<p>
+When he had eaten his fill, and his little dog had
+been fed too, he offered his entertainers some gold out
+of a little silk purse, but they would not take it.</p>
+<p>
+So he took hold of his dog's ribbon, and went away
+with many thanks. "We shall never see him again,"
+said Margary sorrowfully.</p>
+<p>
+"The memory of a stranger one has fed, is a pleasant<span class="page"><a name="page266" id="page266">[Page&nbsp;266]</a></span>
+one," said her mother.</p>
+<p>
+"I am glad the lark sang so beautifully all the
+while he was eating," said Margary.</p>
+<p>
+While they were eating their own supper, the oldest
+woman in the village came in. She was one hundred
+and twenty years old, and, by reason of her great age,
+was considered very wise.</p>
+<p>
+"Have you seen the stranger?" asked she in her
+piping voice, seating herself stiffly.</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," replied Margary's mother. "He hath supped
+with us."</p>
+<p>
+The oldest woman twinkled her eyes behind her
+iron-bowed spectacles. "Lawks!" said she. But she
+did not wish to appear surprised, so she went on to
+say she had met him on the way, and knew who he
+was.</p>
+<p>
+"He's a Lindsay," said the oldest woman, with a
+nod of her white-capped head. "I tried him wi' a
+buttercup. I held it under his chin, and he loves
+butter. So he's a Lindsay; all the Lindsays love
+butter. I know, for I was nurse in the family a hundred
+years ago."</p>
+<p>
+This, of course, was conclusive evidence. Margary
+and her mother had faith in the oldest woman's opinion;
+and so did all the other villagers. She told a good
+many people how the little stranger was a Lindsay,
+before she went to bed that night. And he really was
+a Lindsay, too; though it was singular how the oldest<span class="page"><a name="page267" id="page267">[Page&nbsp;267]</a></span>
+woman divined it with a buttercup.</p>
+<p>
+The pretty child had straightway driven off in his
+coach-and-four as soon as he had left Margary's
+mother's cottage; he had only stopped to have some
+defect in the wheels remedied. But there had been
+time enough for a great excitement to be stirred up in
+the village.</p>
+<p>
+All any one talked about the next day, was the
+stranger. Every one who had seen him, had some
+new and more marvelous item; till charming as the
+child really was, he became, in the popular estimation,
+a real fairy prince.</p>
+<p>
+When Margary and the other children went to
+school, with their horn-books hanging at their sides,
+they found the schoolmaster greatly excited over it.
+He was a verse-maker, and though he had not seen
+the stranger himself, his imagination more than made
+amends for that. So the scholars were not under a
+very strict rule that day, for the master was busy composing
+a poem about the stranger. Every now and
+then a line of the poem got mixed in with the lessons.</p>
+<p>
+The schoolmaster told in beautiful meters about the
+stranger's rich attire, and his flowing locks of real gold
+wire, his lips like rubies, and his eyes like diamonds.
+He furnished the little dog with hair of real floss silk,
+and called his ribbon a silver chain. Then the coach,
+as it rolled along, presented such a dazzling appearance,
+that several persons who inadvertently looked <span class="page"><a name="page268" id="page268">[Page&nbsp;268]</a></span>
+at it had been blinded. It was the schoolmaster's
+opinion, set forth in his poem, that this really was a
+prince. One could scarcely doubt it, on reading the
+poem. It is a pity it has not been preserved, but it
+was destroyed&mdash;how, will transpire further on.</p>
+<p>
+Well, two days after this dainty stranger with his
+coach-and-four came to the village, a little wretched
+beggar-boy, leading by a dirty string a forlorn muddy
+little dog, appeared on the street. He went to the
+tavern first, but the host pushed him out of the door,
+throwing a pewter porringer after him, which hit the
+poor little dog and made it yelp. Then he spoke pitifully
+to the people he met, and knocked at the cottage
+doors; but every one drove him away. He met the
+oldest woman, but she gathered her skirts closely
+around her and hobbled by, her pointed nose up in
+the air, and her cap-strings flying straight out behind.</p>
+<p>
+"I prithee, granny," he called after her, "try me
+with the buttercup again, and see if I be not a Lindsay."</p>
+<p>
+"Thou a Lindsay," quoth the oldest woman contemptuously;
+but she was very curious, so she turned
+around and held a buttercup underneath the boy's
+dirty chin.</p>
+<p>
+"Bah," said the oldest woman, "a Lindsay indeed!
+Butter hath no charm for thee, and the Lindsays, all
+loved it. I know, for I was nurse in the family a
+hundred year ago."</p>
+<p>
+Then she hobbled away faster than ever, and the<span class="page"><a name="page269" id="page269">[Page&nbsp;269]</a></span>
+poor boy kept on. Then he met the schoolmaster,
+who had his new poem in a great roll in his hand.
+"What little vagabond is this?" muttered he, gazing
+at him with disgust. "He hath driven a fine metaphor
+out of my head."</p>
+<p>
+When the boy reached the cottage where Margary
+and her mother lived, the dame was sitting in the door
+spinning, and the little girl was picking roses from a
+bush under the window, to fill a tall china mug which
+they kept on a shelf.</p>
+<p>
+When Margary heard the gate click, and turning,
+saw the boy, she started so that she let her pinafore
+full of roses slip, and the flowers all fell out on the
+ground. Then she dropped an humble curtesy; and
+her mother rose and curtesied also, though she had
+not recognized her guest as soon as Margary.</p>
+<p>
+The poor little stranger fairly wept for joy. "Ah,
+you remember me," he said betwixt smiles and tears.</p>
+<p>
+Then he entered the cottage, and while Margary and
+her mother got some refreshment ready for him, he
+told his pitiful story.</p>
+<p>
+His father was a Lindsay, and a very rich and noble
+gentleman. Some little time before, he and his little
+son had journeyed to London, with their coach-and-four.
+Business having detained him longer than he had
+anticipated, and fearing his lady might be uneasy, he
+had sent his son home in advance, in the coach, with
+his lackeys and attendants. Everything had gone <span class="page"><a name="page270" id="page270">[Page&nbsp;270]</a></span>
+safely till after leaving this village. Some miles beyond,
+they had been attacked by highwaymen and
+robbed. The servants had either been taken prisoners
+or fled. The thieves had driven off with the coach-and-four,
+and the poor little boy had crawled back to
+the village.</p>
+<p>
+Margary and her mother did all they could to comfort
+him. They prepared some hot broth for him, and
+opened a bottle of cowslip wine. Margary's mother
+gave him some clean clothes, which had belonged to
+her son who had died. The little gentleman looked
+funny in the little rustic's blue smock, but he was very
+comfortable. They fed the forlorn little dog too, and
+washed him till his white hair looked fluffy and silky
+again.</p>
+<p>
+When the London mail stopped in the village, the
+next day, they sent a message to Lord Lindsay, and
+in a week's time, he came after his son. He was a very
+grand gentleman; his dress was all velvet and satin,
+and blazing with jewels. How the villagers stared.
+They had flatly refused to believe that this last little
+stranger was the first one, and had made great fun of
+Margary and her mother for being so credulous. But
+they had not minded. They had given their guest a
+little pallet stuffed with down, and a pillow stuffed with
+rose-leaves to sleep on, and fed him with the best they
+had. His father, in his gratitude, offered Margary's
+mother rich rewards; but she would take nothing. The<span class="page"><a name="page271" id="page271">[Page&nbsp;271]</a></span>
+little boy cried on parting with his kind friends, and
+Margary cried too.</p>
+<p>
+"I prithee, pretty Margary, do not forget me," said
+he.</p>
+<p>
+And she promised she never would, and gave him a
+sprig of rosemary out of her garden to wear for a
+breastknot.</p>
+<p>
+The villagers were greatly mortified when they discovered
+the mistake they had made. However, the
+oldest woman always maintained that her not having
+her spectacles on, when she met the stranger the second
+time, was the reason of her not seeing that he loved
+butter; and the schoolmaster gave his poetical abstraction
+for an excuse. Mine host of the "Boar's
+Head" fairly tore his hair, and flung the pewter porringer,
+which he had thrown after the stranger and his
+dog, into the well. After that he was very careful
+how he turned away strangers because of their appearance.
+Generally he sent for the oldest woman to put
+her spectacles on, and try the buttercup test. Then,
+if she said they loved butter and were Lindsays, they
+were taken in and entertained royally. She generally
+did say they loved butter&mdash;she was so afraid of making
+a mistake the second time, herself; so the village-inn
+got to be a regular refuge for beggars, and they
+called it amongst themselves the "Beggars' Rest," instead
+of the "Boar's Head."</p>
+<p>
+As for Margary, she grew up to be the pride of the<span class="page"><a name="page272" id="page272">[Page&nbsp;272]</a></span>
+village; and in time, Lord Lindsay's son, who had always
+kept the sprig of rosemary, came and married
+her. They had a beautiful wedding; all of the villagers
+were invited; the bridegroom did not cherish
+any resentment. They danced on the green, and the
+Lindsay pipers played for them. The bride wore a
+white damask petticoat worked with pink roses, her
+pink satin shortgown was looped up with garlands of
+them, and she wore a wreath of roses on her head.</p>
+<p>
+The oldest woman came to the wedding, and hobbled
+up to the bridegroom with a buttercup. "Thou beest
+a Lindsay," said she. "Thou lovest butter, and the
+Lindsays all did. I know, for I was nurse in the
+family a hundred year ago."</p>
+<p>
+As for the schoolmaster, he was distressed. His wife
+had taken his poem on the stranger for papers to curl
+her hair on for the wedding, and he had just discovered
+it. He had calculated on making a present of it to the
+young couple.</p>
+<p>
+However, he wrote another on the wedding, of which
+one verse is still extant, and we will give it:</p>
+
+<p class="indent2">
+"When Lindsay wedded Margary,<br />
+Merrily piped the pipers all.<br />
+The bride, the village-pride was she,<br />
+The groom, a gay gallant was he.<br />
+Merrily piped the pipers all.<br />
+When Lindsay wedded Margary."</p><br />
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page273" id="page273">[Page&nbsp;273]</a></span>
+
+<h2>THE BOUND <a name="girl" id="girl">GIRL</a>.</h2>
+
+<p class="indentq">
+This Indenture Wittnesseth, That I Margaret Burjust of
+Boston, in the County of Suffolk and Province of the Massachusetts
+Bay in New England. Have placed, and by these presents
+do place and bind out my only Daughter whose name is
+Ann Ginnins to be an Apprentice unto Samuel Wales and his wife
+of Braintree in the County afores:<sup>d</sup>, Blacksmith. To them and
+their Heirs and with them the s:<sup>d</sup> Samuel Wales, his wife and
+their Heirs, after the manner of an apprentice to dwell and Serve
+from the day of the date hereof for and during the full and Just
+Term of Sixteen years, three months and twenty-three day's
+next ensueing and fully to be Compleat, during all which term
+the s:<sup>d</sup> apprentice her s:<sup>d</sup> Master and Mistress faithfully Shall
+Serve, Their Secrets keep close, and Lawful and reasonable Command
+everywhere gladly do and perform.</p>
+<p class="indentq">
+Damage to her s:<sup>d</sup> Master and Mistress she shall not willingly
+do. Her s:<sup>d</sup> Master's goods she shall not waste, Embezel,
+purloin or lend unto Others nor suffer the same to be wasted or
+purloined. But to her power Shall discover the Same to her
+s:<sup>d</sup> Master. Taverns or Ailhouss she Shall not frequent, at
+any unlawful game She Shall not play, Matrimony she Shall not
+Contract with any persons during s:<sup>d</sup> Term. From her master's
+Service She Shall not at any time unlawfully absent herself. But
+in all things as a good honest and faithful Servant and apprentice
+Shall bear and behave herself, During the full term afores:<sup>d</sup>
+Commencing from the third day of November Anno Dom: One
+Thousand, Seven Hundred fifty and three. And the s:<sup>d</sup> Master
+for himself, wife, and Heir's, Doth Covenant Promise Grant and
+Agree unto and with the s:<sup>d</sup> apprentice and the s:<sup>d</sup> Margaret
+Burjust, in manner and form following. That is to say, That
+they will teach the s:<sup>d</sup> apprentice or Cause her to be taught in<span class="page"><a name="page274" id="page274">[Page&nbsp;274]</a></span>
+the Art of good housewifery, and also to read and write well.
+And will find and provide for and give unto s:<sup>d</sup> apprentice good
+and sufficient Meat Drink washing and lodging both in Sickness
+and in health, and at the Expiration of said term to Dismiss s:<sup>d</sup>
+apprentice with two Good Suits of Apparrel both of woolen and
+linnin for all parts of her body (viz) One for Lord-days and one
+for working days Suitable to her Quality. In Testimony whereof
+I Samuel Wales and Margaret Burjust Have Interchangably
+Sett their hands and Seals this Third day November Anno Dom:
+1753, and in the twenty-Seventh year of the Reign of our Soveraig'n
+Lord George the Second of great Britain the King.</p>
+
+
+<p class="indentw">
+Signed Sealed &amp; Delivered.<br />
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In presence of<br /><br />
+   <span class="right">Margaret Burgis</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="lc">S</span><span class="sc">AM</span> <span class="lc">V</span><span class="sc">AUGHAN</span><br />
+  <span class="right">her X mark.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="lc">M</span><span class="sc">ARY</span> <span class="lc">V</span><span class="sc">AUGHAN</span>
+</p>
+<br /><br /><br />
+<p>
+This quaint document was carefully locked up, with
+some old deeds and other valuable papers, in his desk,
+by the "s:<sup>d</sup> Samuel Wales," one hundred and thirty
+years ago. The desk was a rude, unpainted pine affair,
+and it reared itself on its four stilt-like legs in a corner
+of his kitchen, in his house in the South Precinct of
+Braintree. The sharp eyes of the little "s:<sup>d</sup> apprentice"
+had noted it oftener and more enviously than any
+other article of furniture in the house. On the night
+of her arrival, after her journey of fourteen miles from
+Boston, over a rough bridle-road, on a jolting horse,
+clinging tremblingly to her new "Master," she peered
+through her little red fingers at the desk swallowing up
+those precious papers which Samuel Wales drew from
+his pocket with an important air. She was hardly five
+years old, but she was an acute child; and she watched<span class="page"><a name="page275" id="page275">[Page&nbsp;275]</a></span>
+her master draw forth the papers, show them to his
+wife, Polly, and lock them up in the desk, with the full
+understanding that they had something to do with her
+coming to this strange place; and, already, a shadowy
+purpose began to form itself in her mind.</p>
+<p>
+She sat on a cunning little wooden stool, close to the
+fireplace, and kept her small chapped hands persistently
+over her face; she was scared, and grieved, and,
+withal, a trifle sulky. Mrs. Polly Wales cooked some
+Indian meal mush for supper in an iron pot swinging
+from its trammel over the blazing logs, and cast scrutinizing
+glances at the little stranger. She had welcomed
+her kindly, taken off her outer garments, and
+established her on the little stool in the warmest corner,
+but the child had given a very ungracious response.
+She would not answer a word to Mrs. Wales' coaxing
+questions, but twitched herself away with all her small
+might, and kept her hands tightly over her eyes, only
+peering between her fingers when she thought no one
+was noticing.</p>
+<p>
+She had behaved after the same fashion all the way
+from Boston, as Mr. Wales told his wife in a whisper.
+The two were a little dismayed at the whole appearance
+of the small apprentice; to tell the truth, she was
+not in the least what they had expected. They had
+been revolving this scheme of taking "a bound girl"
+for some time in their minds; and Samuel Wales'
+gossip in Boston, Sam Vaughan, had been requested to<span class="page"><a name="page276" id="page276">[Page&nbsp;276]</a></span>
+keep a lookout for a suitable person.</p>
+<p>
+So, when word came that one had been found, Mr.
+Wales had started at once for the city. When he
+saw the child, he was dismayed. He had expected to
+see a girl of ten; this one was hardly five, and she
+had anything but the demure and decorous air which
+his Puritan mind esteemed becoming and appropriate
+in a little maiden. Her hair was black and curled
+tightly, instead of being brown and straight parted in
+the middle, and combed smoothly over her ears as his
+taste regulated; her eyes were black and flashing, instead
+of being blue, and downcast. The minute he
+saw the child, he felt a disapproval of her rise in his
+heart, and also something akin to terror. He dreaded
+to take this odd-looking child home to his wife Polly;
+he foresaw contention and mischief in their quiet household.
+But he felt as if his word was rather pledged
+to his gossip, and there was the mother, waiting and
+expectant. She was a red-cheeked English girl, who
+had been in Sam Vaughan's employ; she had recently
+married one Burjust, and he was unwilling to support
+the first husband's child, so this chance to bind her
+out and secure a good home for her had been eagerly
+caught at.</p>
+<p>
+The small Ann seemed rather at Samuel Wales'
+mercy, and he had not the courage to disappoint his
+friend or her mother; so the necessary papers were
+made out, Sam Vaughan's and wife's signatures<span class="page"><a name="page277" id="page277">[Page&nbsp;277]</a></span>
+affixed, and Margaret Burjust's mark, and he set out
+on his homeward journey with the child.</p>
+<p>
+The mother was coarse and illiterate, but she had
+some natural affection; she "took on" sadly when
+the little girl was about to leave her, and Ann clung
+to her frantically. It was a pitiful scene, and Samuel
+Wales, who was a very tender-hearted man, was glad
+when it was over, and he jogging along the bridle-path.</p>
+<p>
+But he had had other troubles to encounter. All
+at once, as he rode through Boston streets, with his
+little charge behind him, after leaving his friend's
+house, he felt a vicious little twitch at his hair, which
+he wore in a queue tied with a black ribbon after the
+fashion of the period. Twitch, twitch, twitch! The
+water came into Samuel Wales' eyes, and the blood to
+his cheeks, while the passers-by began to hoot and
+laugh. His horse became alarmed at the hubbub, and
+started up. For a few minutes the poor man could
+do nothing to free himself. It was wonderful what
+strength the little creature had: she clinched her tiny
+fingers in the braid, and pulled, and pulled. Then,
+all at once, her grasp slackened, and off flew her
+master's steeple-crowned hat into the dust, and the
+neat black ribbon on the end of the queue followed it.
+Samuel Wales reined up his horse with a jerk then,
+and turned round, and administered a sounding box on
+each of his apprentice's ears. Then he dismounted,<span class="page"><a name="page278" id="page278">[Page&nbsp;278]</a></span>
+amid shouts of laughter from the spectators, and got a
+man to hold the horse while he went back and picked
+up his hat and ribbon.</p>
+<p>
+He had no further trouble. The boxes seemed to
+have subdued Ann effectually. But he pondered uneasily
+all the way home on the small vessel of wrath
+which was perched up behind him, and there was a
+tingling sensation at the roots of his queue. He wondered
+what Polly would say. The first glance at her
+face, when he lifted Ann off the horse at his own door,
+confirmed his fears. She expressed her mind, in a
+womanly way, by whispering in his ear at the first opportunity,
+"She's as black as an Injun."</p>
+<p>
+After Ann had eaten her supper, and had been
+tucked away between some tow sheets and homespun
+blankets in a trundle-bed, she heard the whole story,
+and lifted up her hands with horror. Then the good
+couple read a chapter, and prayed, solemnly vowing
+to do their duty by this child which they had taken
+under their roof, and imploring Divine assistance.</p>
+<p>
+As time wore on, it became evident that they stood
+in sore need of it. They had never had any children
+of their own, and Ann Ginnins was the first child who
+had ever lived with them. But she seemed to have
+the freaks of a dozen or more in herself, and they
+bade fair to have the experience of bringing up a
+whole troop with this one. They tried faithfully to
+do their duty by her, but they were not used to children,<span class="page"><a name="page279" id="page279">[Page&nbsp;279]</a></span>
+and she was a very hard child to manage. A
+whole legion of mischievous spirits seemed to dwell in
+her at times, and she became in a small and comparatively
+innocent way, the scandal of the staid Puritan
+neighborhood in which she lived. Yet, withal, she
+was so affectionate, and seemed to be actuated by so
+little real malice in any of her pranks, that people
+could not help having a sort of liking for the child, in
+spite of them.</p>
+<p>
+She was quick to learn, and smart to work, too,
+when she chose. Sometimes she flew about with such
+alacrity that it seemed as if her little limbs were hung
+on wires, and no little girl in the neighborhood could
+do her daily tasks in the time she could, and they were
+no inconsiderable tasks, either.</p>
+<p>
+Very soon after her arrival she was set to "winding
+quills," so many every day. Seated at Mrs. Polly's
+side, in her little homespun gown, winding quills
+through sunny forenoons&mdash;how she hated it. She
+liked feeding the hens and pigs better, and when she
+got promoted to driving the cows, a couple of years
+later, she was in her element. There were charming
+possibilities of nuts and checkerberries and sassafras
+and sweet flag all the way between the house and the
+pasture, and the chance to loiter, and have a romp.</p>
+<p>
+She rarely showed any unwillingness to go for the
+cows; but once, when there was a quilting at her mistress's
+house, she demurred. It was right in the midst <span class="page"><a name="page280" id="page280">[Page&nbsp;280]</a></span>
+of the festivities; they were just preparing for supper,
+in fact. Ann knew all about the good things in the
+pantry, she was wild with delight at the unwonted stir,
+and anxious not to lose a minute of it. She thought
+some one else might go for the cows that night. She
+cried and sulked, but there was no help for it. Go
+she had to. So she tucked up her gown&mdash;it was her
+best Sunday one&mdash;took her stick, and trudged along.
+When she came to the pasture, there were her master's
+cows waiting at the bars. So were Neighbor Belcher's
+cows also, in the adjoining pasture. Ann had her
+hand on the topmost of her own bars, when she happened
+to glance over at Neighbor Belcher's, and a
+thought struck her. She burst into a peal of laughter,
+and took a step towards the other bars. Then she
+went back to her own. Finally, she let down the
+Belcher bars, and the Belcher cows crowded out, to the
+great astonishment of the Wales cows, who stared over
+their high rails and mooed uneasily.</p>
+<p>
+Ann drove the Belcher cows home and ushered them
+into Samuel Wales' barnyard with speed. Then she
+went demurely into the house. The table looked beautiful.
+Ann was beginning to quake inwardly, though
+she still was hugging herself, so to speak, in secret
+enjoyment of her own mischief. She had one hope&mdash;that
+supper would be eaten before her master milked.
+But the hope was vain. When she saw Mr. Wales
+come in, glance her way, and then call his wife out,<span class="page"><a name="page281" id="page281">[Page&nbsp;281]</a></span>
+she knew at once what had happened, and begun to
+tremble&mdash;she knew perfectly what Mr. Wales was
+saying out there. It was this: "That little limb has
+driven home all Neighbor Belcher's cows instead of
+ours; what's going to be done with her?"</p>
+<p>
+She knew what the answer would be, too. Mrs.
+Polly was a peremptory woman.</p>
+<p>
+Back Ann had to go with the Belcher cows, fasten
+them safely in their pasture again, and drive her master's
+home. She was hustled off to bed, then, without
+any of that beautiful supper. But she had just crept
+into her bed in the small unfinished room upstairs
+where she slept, and was lying there sobbing, when she
+heard a slow, fumbling step on the stairs. Then the
+door opened, and Mrs. Deacon Thomas Wales, Samuel
+Wales' mother, came in. She was a good old lady, and
+had always taken a great fancy to her son's bound girl;
+and Ann, on her part, minded her better than any one
+else. She hid her face in the tow sheet, when she saw
+grandma. The old lady had on a long black silk
+apron. She held something concealed under it, when
+she came in. Presently she displayed it.</p>
+<p>
+"There&mdash;child," said she, "here's a piece of sweet
+cake and a couple of simballs, that I managed to save
+out for you. Jest set right up and eat 'em, and don't
+ever be so dretful naughty again, or I don't know what
+will become of you."</p>
+<p>
+This reproof, tempered with sweetness, had a salutary<span class="page"><a name="page282" id="page282">[Page&nbsp;282]</a></span>
+effect on Ann. She sat up, and ate her sweet cake
+and simballs, and sobbed out her contrition to grandma,
+and there was a marked improvement in her conduct
+for some days.</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Polly was a born driver. She worked hard
+herself, and she expected everybody about her to.
+The tasks which Ann had set her did not seem as
+much out of proportion, then, as they would now.
+Still, her mistress, even then, allowed her less time
+for play than was usual, though it was all done in
+good faith, and not from any intentional severity. As
+time went on, she grew really quite fond of the child,
+and she was honestly desirous of doing her whole
+duty by her. If she had had a daughter of her own,
+it is doubtful if her treatment of her would have been
+much different.</p>
+<p>
+Still, Ann was too young to understand all this,
+and, sometimes, though she was strong and healthy,
+and not naturally averse to work, she would rebel,
+when her mistress set her stints so long, and kept her
+at work when other children were playing.</p>
+<p>
+Once in a while she would confide in grandma,
+when Mrs. Polly sent her over there on an errand and
+she had felt unusually aggrieved because she had had
+to wind quills, or hetchel, instead of going berrying, or
+some like pleasant amusement.</p>
+<p>
+"Poor little cosset," grandma would say, pityingly.</p>
+<p>
+Then she would give her a simball, and tell her she<span class="page"><a name="page283" id="page283">[Page&nbsp;283]</a></span>
+must "be a good girl, and not mind if she couldn't
+play jest like the others, for she'd got to airn her own
+livin', when she grew up, and she must learn to work."</p>
+<p>
+Ann would go away comforted, but grandma would
+be privately indignant. She was, as is apt to be the
+case, rather critical with her sons' wives, and she
+thought "Sam'l's kept that poor little gal too stiddy
+at work," and wished and wished she could shelter her
+under her own grandmotherly wing, and feed her with
+simballs to her heart's content. She was too wise to
+say anything to influence the child against her mistress,
+however. She was always cautious about that, even
+while pitying her. Once in a while she would speak
+her mind to her son, but he was easy enough&mdash;Ann
+would not have found him a hard task-master.</p>
+<p>
+Still, Ann did not have to work hard enough to hurt
+her. The worst consequences were that such a rigid
+rein on such a frisky little colt perhaps had more to do
+with her "cutting up," as her mistress phrased it,
+than she dreamed of. Moreover the thought of the
+indentures, securely locked up in Mr. Wales' tall
+wooden desk, was forever in Ann's mind. Half by
+dint of questioning various people, half by her own
+natural logic she had settled it within herself, that at
+any time the possession of these papers would set her
+free, and she could go back to her own mother, whom
+she dimly remembered as being loud-voiced, but merry,
+and very indulgent. However, Ann never meditated<span class="page"><a name="page284" id="page284">[Page&nbsp;284]</a></span>
+in earnest, taking the indentures; indeed, the desk
+was always locked&mdash;it held other documents more
+valuable than hers&mdash;and Samuel Wales carried the
+key in his waistcoat-pocket.</p>
+<p>
+She went to a dame's school three months every
+year. Samuel Wales carted half a cord of wood to
+pay for her schooling, and she learned to write and
+read in the New England Primer. Next to her, on
+the split log bench, sat a little girl named Hannah
+French. The two became fast friends. Hannah was
+an only child, pretty and delicate, and very much
+petted by her parents. No long hard tasks were set
+those soft little fingers, even in those old days when
+children worked as well as their elders. Ann admired
+and loved Hannah, because she had what she, herself,
+had not; and Hannah loved and pitied Ann because
+she had not what she had. It was a sweet little friendship,
+and would not have been, if Ann had not been
+free from envy and Hannah humble and pitying.</p>
+<p>
+When Ann told her what a long stint she had to
+do before school, Hannah would shed sympathizing
+tears.</p>
+<p>
+Ann, after a solemn promise of secrecy, told her
+about the indentures one day. Hannah listened with
+round, serious eyes; her brown hair was combed
+smoothly down over her ears. She was a veritable
+little Puritan damsel herself.</p>
+<p>
+"If I could only get the papers, I wouldn't have to<span class="page"><a name="page285" id="page285">[Page&nbsp;285]</a></span>
+mind her, and work so hard," said Ann.</p>
+<p>
+Hannah's eyes grew rounder. "Why, it would be
+sinful to take them!" said she.</p>
+<p>
+Ann's cheeks blazed under her wondering gaze, and
+she said no more.</p>
+<p>
+When she was about eleven years old, one icy January
+day, Hannah wanted her to go out and play on
+the ice after school. They had no skates, but it was
+rare fun to slide. Ann went home and asked Mrs.
+Polly's permission with a beating heart; she promised
+to do a double stint next day, if she would let her go.
+But her mistress was inexorable&mdash;work before play,
+she said, always; and Ann must not forget that she
+was to be brought up to work; it was different with
+her from what it was with Hannah French. Even
+this she meant kindly enough, but Ann saw Hannah
+go away, and sat down to her spinning with more fierce
+defiance in her heart than had ever been there before.
+She had been unusually good, too, lately. She always
+was, during the three months' schooling, with sober,
+gentle little Hannah French.</p>
+<p>
+She had been spinning sulkily a while, and it was
+almost dark, when a messenger came for her master
+and mistress to go to Deacon Thomas Wales', who had
+been suddenly taken very ill.</p>
+<p>
+Ann would have felt sorry if she had not been so
+angry. Deacon Wales was almost as much of a favorite
+of hers as his wife. As it was, the principal<span class="page"><a name="page286" id="page286">[Page&nbsp;286]</a></span>
+thing she thought of, after Mr. Wales and his wife
+had gone, was that the key was in the desk. However
+it had happened, there it was. She hesitated a moment.
+She was all alone in the kitchen, and her heart
+was in a tumult of anger, but she had learned her
+lessons from the Bible and the New England Primer,
+and she was afraid of the sin. But at last she opened
+the desk, found the indentures, and hid them in the
+little pocket which she wore tied about her waist, under
+her petticoat.</p>
+<p>
+Then Ann threw her blanket over her head, and
+got her poppet out of the chest. The poppet was a
+little doll manufactured from a corn-cob, dressed in
+an indigo-colored gown. Grandma had made it for
+her, and it was her chief treasure. She clasped it
+tight to her bosom, and ran across lots to Hannah
+French's.</p>
+<p>
+Hannah saw her coming, and met her at the door.</p>
+<p>
+"I've brought you my poppet," whispered Ann, all
+breathless, "and you must keep her always, and not
+let her work too hard. I'm going away!"</p>
+<p>
+Hannah's eyes looked like two solemn moons.
+"Where are you going, Ann?"</p>
+<p>
+"I'm going to Boston to find my own mother."
+She said nothing about the indentures to Hannah&mdash;somehow
+she could not.</p>
+<p>
+Hannah could not say much, she was so astonished,
+but as soon as Ann had gone, scudding across the<span class="page"><a name="page287" id="page287">[Page&nbsp;287]</a></span>
+fields, she went in with the poppet and told her mother.</p>
+<p>
+Deacon Thomas Wales was very sick. Mr. and Mrs.
+Samuel remained at his house all night, but Ann was
+not left alone, for Mr. Wales had an apprentice who
+slept in the house.</p>
+<p>
+Ann did not sleep any that night. She got up very
+early, before any one was stirring, and dressed herself
+in her Sunday clothes. Then she tied up her working
+clothes in a bundle, crept softly downstairs, and out
+doors.</p>
+<p>
+It was bright moonlight and quite cold. She ran
+along as fast as she could on the Boston road. Deacon
+Thomas Wales's house was on the way. The windows
+were lit up. She thought of grandma and poor grandpa,
+with a sob in her heart, but she sped along. Past
+the schoolhouse, and meeting-house, too, she had to go,
+with big qualms of grief and remorse. But she kept
+on. She was a fast traveler.</p>
+<p>
+She had reached the North Precinct of Braintree by
+daylight. So far, she had not encountered a single
+person. Now she heard horse's hoofs behind her.
+She began to run faster, but it was of no use. Soon
+Captain Abraham French loomed up on his big gray
+horse, a few paces from her. He was Hannah's father,
+but he was a tithing-man, and looked quite stern, and
+Ann had always stood in great fear of him.</p>
+<p>
+She ran on as fast as her little heels could fly, with
+a thumping heart. But it was not long before she<span class="page"><a name="page288" id="page288">[Page&nbsp;288]</a></span>
+felt herself seized by a strong arm and swung up behind
+Captain French on the gray horse. She was in a panic
+of terror, and would have cried and begged for mercy
+if she had not been in so much awe of her captor.
+She thought with awful apprehension of these stolen
+indentures in her little pocket. What if he should find
+that out!</p>
+<p>
+Captain French whipped up his horse, however, and
+hastened along without saying a word. His silence, if
+anything, caused more dread in Ann than words would
+have. But his mind was occupied. Deacon Thomas
+Wales was dead; he was one of his most beloved and
+honored friends, and it was a great shock to him.
+Hannah had told him about Ann's premeditated escape,
+and he had set out on her track as soon as he had
+found that she was really gone, that morning. But
+the news which he had heard on his way, had driven
+all thoughts of reprimand which he might have entertained,
+out of his head. He only cared to get the child
+safely back.</p>
+<p>
+So not a word spoke Captain French, but rode on
+in grim and sorrowful silence, with Ann clinging to
+him, till he reached her master's door. Then he set
+her down with a stern and solemn injunction never to
+transgress again, and rode away.</p>
+<p>
+Ann went into the kitchen with a quaking heart.
+It was empty and still. Its very emptiness and stillness
+seemed to reproach her. There stood the desk&mdash;she<span class="page"><a name="page289" id="page289">[Page&nbsp;289]</a></span>
+ran across to it, pulled the indentures from her
+pocket, put them in their old place, and shut the lid
+down. There they staid till the full and just time of
+her servitude had expired. She never disturbed them
+again.</p>
+<p>
+On account of the grief and confusion incident on
+Deacon Wales's death, she escaped with very little censure.
+She never made an attempt to run away again.
+Indeed, she had no wish to, for after Deacon Wales's
+death, grandma was lonely and wanted her, and she
+lived most of the time with her. And, whether she
+was in reality treated any more kindly or not, she was
+certainly happier.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page290" id="page290">[Page&nbsp;290]</a></span>
+
+<h2>DEACON THOMAS WALES'S <a name="will" id="will">WILL</a>.</h2>
+
+<p class="indentq">
+In the Name of God Amen! the Thirteenth Day of September
+One Thousand Seven Hundred Fifty &amp; eight, I, Thomas Wales
+of Braintree, in the County of Suffolk &amp; Province of the Massachusetts
+Bay in New England, Gent&mdash;being in good health of
+Body and of Sound Disproving mind and Memory, Thanks be
+given to God&mdash;Calling to mind my mortality, Do therefore in
+my health make and ordain this my Last Will and Testament.
+And First I Recommend my Soul into the hand of God who gave
+it&mdash;Hoping through grace to obtain Salvation thro' the merits
+and Mediation of Jesus Christ my only Lord and Dear Redeemer,
+and my body to be Decently inter<sup>d</sup>, at the Discretion of
+my Executor, believing at the General Resurection to receive
+the Same again by the mighty Power of God&mdash;And such worldly
+estate as God in his goodness hath graciously given me after
+Debts, funeral Expenses &amp;c, are Paid I give &amp; Dispose of the
+Same as Followeth&mdash;</p>
+<p class="indentq">
+<i>Imprimis</i>&mdash;I Give to my beloved Wife Sarah a good Sute of
+mourning apparrel Such as she may Choose&mdash;also if she acquit
+my estate of Dower and third-therin (as we have agreed) Then
+that my Executor return all of Household movables she bought
+at our marriage &amp; since that are remaining, also to Pay to her
+or Her Heirs That Note of Forty Pound I gave to her, when she
+acquited my estate and I hers. Before Division to be made as
+herein exprest, also the Southwest fire-Room in my House, a
+right in my Cellar, Halfe the Garden, also the Privilege of water
+at the well &amp; yard room and to bake in the oven what she hath
+need of to improve her Life-time by her.</p>
+
+<p>
+After this, followed a division of his property
+amongst his children, five sons and two daughters.</p>
+
+<p>
+The "Homeplace" was given to his sons Ephraim and <span class="page"><a name="page291" id="page291">[Page&nbsp;291]</a></span>
+Atherton. Ephraim had a good house of his own, so
+he took his share of the property in land, and Atherton
+went to live in the old homestead. His quarters had
+been poor enough; he had not been so successful as
+his brothers, and had been unable to live as well. It
+had been a great cross to his wife, Dorcas, who was
+very high-spirited. She had compared, bitterly, the
+poverty of her household arrangements, with the abundant
+comfort of her sisters-in-law.</p>
+<p>
+Now, she seized eagerly at the opportunity of improving
+her style of living. The old Wales house was
+quite a pretentious edifice for those times. All the
+drawback to her delight was, that Grandma should
+have the southwest fire-room. She wanted to set up
+her high-posted bedstead, with its enormous feather-bed
+in that, and have it for her fore-room. Properly,
+it was the fore-room, being right across the entry from
+the family sitting-room. There was a tall chest of
+drawers that would fit in so nicely between the windows,
+too. Take it altogether, she was chagrined at
+having to give up the southwest room; but there
+was no help for it&mdash;there it was in Deacon Wales's
+will.</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Dorcas was the youngest of all the sons' wives,
+as her husband was the latest born. She was quite a
+girl to some of them. Grandma had never more than
+half approved of her.  Dorcas was high-strung and
+flighty, she said. She had her doubts about living<span class="page"><a name="page292" id="page292">[Page&nbsp;292]</a></span>
+happily with her. But Atherton was anxious for this
+division of the property, and he was her youngest darling,
+so she gave in. She felt lonely, and out of her
+element, when everything was arranged, she established
+in the southwest fire-room, and Atherton's family
+keeping house in the others, though things started
+pleasantly and peaceably enough.</p>
+<p>
+It occurred to her that her son Samuel might have
+her own "help," a stout woman, who had worked in
+her kitchen for many years, and she take in exchange
+his little bound girl, Ann Ginnins. She had always
+taken a great fancy to the child. There was a large
+closet out of the southwest room, where she could
+sleep, and she could be made very useful, taking steps,
+and running "arrants" for her.</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Samuel and his wife hesitated a little when
+this plan was proposed. In spite of the trouble she
+gave them, they were attached to Ann, and did not
+like to part with her, and Mrs. Polly was just getting
+her "larnt" her own ways, as she put it. Privately,
+she feared Grandma would undo all the good she had
+done, in teaching Ann to be smart and capable. Finally
+they gave in, with the understanding that it was
+not to be considered necessarily a permanent arrangement,
+and Ann went to live with the old lady.</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Dorcas did not relish this any more than she
+did the appropriation of the southwest fire-room. She
+had never liked Ann very well. Besides she had two<span class="page"><a name="page293" id="page293">[Page&nbsp;293]</a></span>
+little girls of her own, and she fancied Ann rivaled
+them in Grandma's affection. So, soon after the girl
+was established in the house, she began to show out in
+various little ways.</p>
+<p>
+Thirsey, her youngest child, was a mere baby, a
+round fat dumpling of a thing. She was sweet, and
+good-natured, and the pet of the whole family. Ann
+was very fond of playing with her, and tending her,
+and Mrs. Dorcas began to take advantage of it. The
+minute Ann was at liberty she was called upon to take
+care of Thirsey. The constant carrying about such a
+heavy child soon began to make her shoulders stoop
+and ache. Then Grandma took up the cudgels. She
+was smart and high-spirited, but she was a very peaceable
+old lady on her own account, and fully resolved
+"to put up with everything from Dorcas, rather than
+have strife in the family." She was not going to see
+this helpless little girl imposed on, however. "The
+little gal ain't goin' to get bent all over, tendin' that
+heavy baby, Dorcas," she proclaimed. "You can jist
+make up your mind to it. She didn't come here to
+do sech work."</p>
+<p>
+So Dorcas had to make up her mind to it.</p>
+<p>
+Ann's principal duties were "scouring the brasses"
+in Grandma's room, taking steps for her, and spinning
+her stint every day. Grandma set smaller stints than
+Mrs. Polly.  As time went on, she helped about the
+cooking. She and Grandma cooked their own victuals,<span class="page"><a name="page294" id="page294">[Page&nbsp;294]</a></span>
+and ate from a little separate table in the common
+kitchen. It was a very large room, and might have
+accommodated several families, if they could have
+agreed. There was a big oven and a roomy fire-place.
+Good Deacon Wales had probably seen no reason at
+all why his "beloved wife" should not have her right
+therein with the greatest peace and concord.</p>
+<p>
+But it soon came to pass that Mrs. Dorcas's pots and
+kettles were all prepared to hang on the trammels
+when Grandma's were, and an army of cakes and pies
+marshaled to go in the oven when Grandma had proposed
+to do some baking. Grandma bore it patiently
+for a long time; but Ann was with difficulty restrained
+from freeing her small mind, and her black eyes
+snapped more dangerously at every new offense.</p>
+<p>
+One morning, Grandma had two loaves of "riz
+bread," and some election cakes, rising, and was intending
+to bake them in about an hour, when they should
+be sufficiently light. What should Mrs. Dorcas do,
+but mix up sour milk bread, and some pies with the
+greatest speed, and fill up the oven, before Grandma's
+cookery was ready!</p>
+<p>
+Grandma sent Ann out into the kitchen to put the
+loaves-in the oven and lo and behold! the oven was
+full. Ann stood staring for a minute, with a loaf of
+election cake in her hands; that and the bread would
+be ruined if they were not baked immediately, as they
+were raised enough. Mrs. Dorcas had taken Thirsey<span class="page"><a name="page295" id="page295">[Page&nbsp;295]</a></span>
+and stepped out somewhere, and there was no one in
+the kitchen. Ann set the election cake back on the
+table. Then, with the aid of the tongs, she reached
+into the brick oven and took out every one of Mrs.
+Dorcas's pies and loaves. Then she arranged them
+deliberately in a pitiful semicircle on the hearth, and
+put Grandma's cookery in the oven.</p>
+<p>
+She went back to the southwest room then, and sat
+quietly down to her spinning. Grandma asked if she
+had put the things in, and she said "Yes, ma'am,"
+meekly. There was a bright red spot on each of her
+dark cheeks.</p>
+<p>
+When Mrs. Dorcas entered the kitchen, carrying
+Thirsey wrapped up in an old homespun blanket, she
+nearly dropped as her gaze fell on the fire-place and
+the hearth. There sat her bread and pies, in the most
+lamentable half-baked, sticky, doughy condition imaginable.
+She opened the oven, and peered in. There
+were Grandma's loaves, all a lovely brown. Out they
+came, with a twitch. Luckily, they were done. Her
+own went in, but they were irretrievable failures.</p>
+<p>
+Of course, quite a commotion came from this. Dorcas
+raised her shrill voice pretty high, and Grandma,
+though she had been innocent of the whole transaction,
+was so blamed that she gave Dorcas a piece of her mind
+at last. Ann surveyed the nice brown loaves, and listened
+to the talk in secret satisfaction; but she had to
+suffer for it afterward. Grandma punished her for<span class="page"><a name="page296" id="page296">[Page&nbsp;296]</a></span>
+the first time, and she discovered that that kind old
+hand was pretty firm and strong. "No matter what
+you think or whether you air in the rights on't, or
+not, a little gal mustn't ever sass her elders," said
+Grandma.</p>
+<p>
+But if Ann's interference was blamable, it was productive
+of one good result&mdash;the matter came to Mr.
+Atherton's ears, and he had a stern sense of justice
+when roused, and a great veneration for his mother.
+His father's will should be carried out to the letter, he
+declared; and it was. Grandma baked and boiled in
+peace, outwardly, at least, after that.</p>
+<p>
+Ann was a great comfort to her; she was outgrowing
+her wild, mischievous ways, and she was so bright
+and quick. She promised to be pretty, too. Grandma
+compared her favorably with her own grandchildren,
+especially Mrs. Dorcas's eldest daughter Martha, who
+was nearly Ann's age. "Marthy's a pretty little gal
+enough," she used to say, "but she ain't got the snap
+to her that Ann has, though I wouldn't tell Atherton's
+wife so, for the world."</p>
+<p>
+She promised Ann her gold beads, when she should
+be done with them, under strict injunctions not to say
+anything about it till the time came; for the others
+might feel hard as she wasn't her own flesh and blood.
+The gold beads were Ann's ideals of beauty and richness,
+though she did not like to hear Grandma talk
+about being "done with them." Grandma always<span class="page"><a name="page297" id="page297">[Page&nbsp;297]</a></span>
+wore them around her fair, plump old neck; she had
+never seen her without her string of beads.</p>
+<p>
+As before said, Ann was now very seldom mischievous
+enough to make herself serious trouble; but, once
+in a while, her natural propensities would crop out.
+When they did, Mrs. Dorcas was exceedingly bitter.
+Indeed, her dislike of Ann was, at all times, smouldering,
+and needed only a slight fanning to break out.</p>
+<p>
+One stormy winter day Mrs. Dorcas had been working
+till dark, making candle-wicks. When she came
+to get tea, she tied the white fleecy rolls together, a
+great bundle of them, and hung them up in the cellar-way,
+over the stair, to be out of the way. They were
+extra fine wicks, being made of flax for the company
+candles. "I've got a good job done," said Mrs. Dorcas,
+surveying them complacently. Her husband had
+gone to Boston, and was not coming home till the next
+day, so she had had a nice chance to work at them,
+without as much interruption as usual.</p>
+<p>
+Ann, going down the cellar stairs, with a lighted
+candle, after some butter for tea, spied the beautiful
+rolls swinging overhead. What possessed her to, she
+could not herself have told&mdash;she certainly had no
+wish to injure Mrs. Dorcas's wicks&mdash;but she pinched
+up a little end of the fluffy flax and touched her candle
+to it. She thought she would see how that little bit
+would burn off. She soon found out. The flame
+caught, and ran like lightning through the whole<span class="page"><a name="page298" id="page298">[Page&nbsp;298]</a></span>
+bundle. There was a great puff of fire and smoke,
+and poor Mrs. Dorcas's fine candle-wicks were gone.
+Ann screamed, and sprang downstairs. She barely
+escaped the whole blaze coming in her face.</p>
+<p>
+"What's that!" shrieked Mrs. Dorcas, rushing to
+the cellar door. Words cannot describe her feeling
+when she saw that her nice candle-wicks, the fruit of
+her day's toil, were burnt up.</p>
+<p>
+If ever there was a wretched culprit that night, Ann
+was. She had not meant to do wrong, but that, may
+be, made it worse for her in one way. She had not
+even gratified malice to sustain her. Grandma blamed
+her, almost as severely as Mrs. Dorcas. She said she
+didn't know what would "become of a little gal, that
+was so keerless," and decreed that she must stay at
+home from school and work on candle-wicks till Mrs.
+Dorcas's loss was made good to her. Ann listened
+ruefully. She was scared and sorry, but that did not
+seem to help matters any. She did not want any supper,
+and she went to bed early and cried herself to
+sleep.</p>
+<p>
+Somewhere about midnight, a strange sound woke
+her up. She called out to Grandma in alarm. The
+same sound had awakened her. "Get up, an' light a
+candle, child," said she; "I'm afeard the baby's sick."</p>
+<p>
+Ann scarcely had the candle lighted, before the door
+opened, and Mrs. Dorcas appeared in her nightdress.
+She was very pale, and trembling all over. "Oh!"<span class="page"><a name="page299" id="page299">[Page&nbsp;299]</a></span>
+she gasped, "it's the baby. Thirsey's got the croup,
+an' Atherton's away, and there ain't anybody to go for
+the doctor. Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do!"
+She fairly wrung her hands.</p>
+<p>
+"Hev you tried the skunk's oil?" asked Grandma
+eagerly, preparing to get up.</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I have, I have! It's a good hour since she
+woke up, an' I've tried everything. It hasn't done
+any good. I thought I wouldn't call you, if I could
+help it, but she's worse&mdash;only hear her! An' Atherton's
+away! Oh! what shall I do, what shall I
+do?"</p>
+<p>
+"Don't take on so, Dorcas," said Grandma, tremulously,
+but cheeringly. "I'll come right along, an'&mdash;why,
+child, what air you goin' to do?"</p>
+<p>
+Ann had finished dressing herself, and now she was
+pinning a heavy homespun blanket over her head, as if
+she were preparing to go out doors.</p>
+<p>
+"I'm going after the doctor for Thirsey," said Ann,
+her black eyes flashing with determination.</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, will you, will you!" cried Mrs. Dorcas, catching
+at this new help.</p>
+<p>
+"Hush, Dorcas," said Grandma, sternly. "It's an
+awful storm out&mdash;jist hear the wind blow! It ain't
+fit fur her to go. Her life's jist as precious as
+Thirsey's."</p>
+<p>
+Ann said nothing more, but she went into her own
+little room with the same determined look in her eyes.<span class="page"><a name="page300" id="page300">[Page&nbsp;300]</a></span>
+There was a door leading from this room into the
+kitchen. Ann slipped through it hastily, lit a lantern
+which was hanging beside the kitchen chimney, and
+was out doors in a minute.</p>
+<p>
+The storm was one of sharp, driving sleet, which
+struck her face like so many needles. The first blast,
+as she stepped outside the door, seemed to almost force
+her back, but her heart did not fail her. The snow
+was not so very deep, but it was hard walking. There
+was no pretense of a path. The doctor lived half a
+mile away, and there was not a house in the whole distance,
+save the meeting house and schoolhouse. It was
+very dark. Lucky it was that she had taken the lantern;
+she could not have found her way without it.</p>
+<p>
+On kept the little slender, erect figure, with the fierce
+determination in its heart, through the snow and sleet,
+holding the blanket close over its head, and swinging
+the feeble lantern bravely.</p>
+<p>
+When she reached the doctor's house, he was gone.
+He had started for the North Precinct early in the
+evening, his good wife said; he was called down to
+Captain Isaac Lovejoy's, the house next the North
+Precinct Meeting House. She'd been sitting up waiting
+for him, it was such an awful storm, and such a
+lonely road. She was worried, but she didn't think
+he'd start for home that night; she guessed he'd stay
+at Captain Lovejoy's till morning.</p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page301" id="page301">[Page&nbsp;301]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate49" id="plate49">[plate 49]</a></span>
+<img src="images/49-exhaustion.jpg" width="520" height="340" alt="She almost fainted from cold and exhaustion." border="0" /><br /><br />
+SHE ALMOST FAINTED FROM COLD AND EXHAUSTION.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+The doctor's wife, holding her door open, as best she<span class="page"><a name="page303" id="page303">[Page&nbsp;303]</a></span>
+could, in the violent wind, had hardly given this information
+to the little snow-bedraggled object standing
+out there in the inky darkness, through which the
+lantern made a faint circle of light, before she had
+disappeared.</p>
+<p>
+"She went like a speerit," said the good woman,
+staring out into the blackness in amazement. She
+never dreamed of such a thing as Ann's going to the
+North Precinct after the doctor, but that was what the
+daring girl had determined to do. She had listened
+to the doctor's wife in dismay, but with never one
+doubt as to her own course of proceeding.</p>
+<p>
+Straight along the road to the North Precinct she
+kept. It would have been an awful journey that night
+for a strong man. It seemed incredible that a little
+girl could have the strength or courage to accomplish
+it. There were four miles to traverse in a black, howling
+storm, over a pathless road, through forests, with
+hardly a house by the way.</p>
+<p>
+When she reached Captain Isaac Lovejoy's house,
+next to the meeting house in the North Precinct of
+Braintree, stumbling blindly into the warm, lighted
+kitchen, the captain and the doctor could hardly believe
+their senses. She told the doctor about Thirsey;
+then she almost fainted from cold and exhaustion.</p>
+<p>
+Good-wife Lovejoy laid her on the settee, and brewed
+her some hot herb tea. She almost forgot her own
+sick little girl, for a few minutes, in trying to restore<span class="page"><a name="page304" id="page304">[Page&nbsp;304]</a></span>
+this brave child who had come from the South Precinct
+in this dreadful storm to save little Thirsey Wales's
+life.</p>
+<p>
+When Ann came to herself a little, her first question
+was, if the doctor were ready to go.</p>
+<p>
+"He's gone," said Mrs. Lovejoy, cheeringly.</p>
+<p>
+Ann felt disappointed. She had thought she was
+going back with him. But that would have been impossible.
+She could not have stood the journey for
+the second time that night, even on horseback behind
+the doctor, as she had planned.</p>
+<p>
+She drank a second bowlful of herb tea, and went
+to bed with a hot stone at her feet, and a great many
+blankets and coverlids over her.</p>
+<p>
+The next morning, Captain Lovejoy carried her
+home. He had a rough wood sled, and she rode on
+that, on an old quilt; it was easier than horseback,
+and she was pretty lame and tired.</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Dorcas saw her coming and opened the door.
+When Ann came up on the stoop, she just threw her
+arms around her and kissed her.</p>
+<p>
+"You needn't make the candle-wicks," said she.
+"It's no matter about them at all. Thirsey's better
+this morning, an' I guess you saved her life."</p>
+<p>
+Grandma was fairly bursting with pride and delight
+in her little gal's brave feat, now that she saw her
+safe. She untied the gold beads on her neck, and
+fastened them around Ann's. "There," said she,<span class="page"><a name="page305" id="page305">[Page&nbsp;305]</a></span>
+"you may wear them to school to-day, if you'll be
+keerful."</p>
+<p>
+That day, with the gold beads by way of celebration,
+began a new era in Ann's life. There was no more
+secret animosity between her and Mrs. Dorcas. The
+doctor had come that night in the very nick of time.
+Thirsey was almost dying. Her mother was fully convinced
+that Ann had saved her life, and she never
+forgot it. She was a woman of strong feelings, who
+never did things by halves, and she not only treated
+Ann with kindness, but she seemed to smother her
+grudge against Grandma for robbing her of the southwest
+fire-room.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="page"><a name="page306" id="page306">[Page&nbsp;306]</a></span>
+
+<h2>THE ADOPTED <a name="daughter" id="daughter">DAUGHTER</a>.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="indentq">
+The Inventory of the Estate of Samuel Wales Late
+of Braintree, Taken by the Subscribers, March the
+14th, 1761.</p>
+
+<table width="85%" cellpadding="10" align="center"border="0" summary="inventory">
+<tr>
+       <td class="list" width="80%" valign="top">
+His Purse in Cash<br />
+His apparrel<br />
+His watch<br />
+The Best Bed with two Coverlids, three, <br />
+  two underbeds, two Bolsters, two pillows,<br />
+  Bedstead rope <br />
+One mill Blanket, two Phlanel sheets, 12 toe Sheets <br />
+Eleven Towels &amp; table Cloth<br />
+a pair of mittens &amp; pr. of Gloves<br />
+a neck Handkerchief &amp; neckband<br />
+an ovel Tabel&mdash;Two other Tabels<br />
+A Chist with Draws<br />
+Another Low Chist with Draws &amp; three other Chists <br />
+Six best Chears and a great chear<br />
+a warming pan&mdash;Two Brass Kittles<br />
+a Small Looking Glass, five Pewter Basons<br />
+fifteen other Chears<br />
+fire arms, Sword &amp; bayonet<br />
+Six Porringers, four platters, Two Pewter Pots<br />
+auger Chisel, Gimlet, a Bible &amp; other Books<br />
+A chese press, great spinning-wheel, &amp; spindle<br />
+a smith's anvil<span class="page"><a name="page307" id="page307">[Page&nbsp;307]</a></span><br />
+the Pillion<br />
+a Bleu Jacket<br /><br />
+
+<span class="lc2">A</span><span class="sc2">ARON</span> <span class="lc2">W</span><span class="sc2">HITCOMB.</span><br />
+  <span class="lc2">S</span><span class="sc2">ILAS</span> <span class="lc2">W</span><span class="sc2">HITE.</span>
+</td>
+<td class="list1" width="20%" valign="top">
+ �11-15-01<br />
+ 10-11-00<br />
+ 2-13-04<br />
+ <br />
+ <br />
+ �&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />
+ �&nbsp;3-&nbsp;&nbsp;4-&nbsp;&nbsp;8<br />
+ 0-15-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ 0-&nbsp;&nbsp;2-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ 0-&nbsp;&nbsp;4-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ 1-12-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ 2-&nbsp;&nbsp;8-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ 1-10-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ 1-&nbsp;&nbsp;6-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ 1-&nbsp;&nbsp;5-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ 0-&nbsp;&nbsp;7-&nbsp;&nbsp;8<br />
+ 0-15-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ 1-&nbsp;&nbsp;4-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ �&nbsp;1-&nbsp;&nbsp;0-&nbsp;&nbsp;4<br />
+ 0-15-&nbsp;&nbsp;4<br />
+ 0-&nbsp;&nbsp;9-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ �&nbsp;3-12-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ 0-&nbsp;&nbsp;8-&nbsp;&nbsp;0<br />
+ 0-&nbsp;&nbsp;0-&nbsp;&nbsp;3<br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>
+The foregoing is only a small portion of the original
+inventory of Samuel Wales's estate. He was an exceedingly
+well-to-do man for these times. He had a good
+many acres of rich pasture and woodland, and considerable
+live stock. Then his home was larger and more
+comfortable than was usual then; and his stock of
+household utensils plentiful.</p>
+<p>
+He died three years after Ann Ginnins went to live
+with Grandma, when she was about thirteen years old.
+Grandma spared her to Mrs. Polly for a few weeks
+after the funeral; there was a great deal to be done,
+and she needed some extra help. And, after all, Ann
+was legally bound to her, and her lawful servant.</p>
+<p>
+So the day after good Samuel Wales was laid away
+in the little Braintree burying-ground, Ann returned
+to her old quarters for a little while. She did not
+really want to go; but she did not object to the plan
+at all. She was sincerely sorry for poor Mrs. Polly,
+and wanted to help her, if she could. She mourned,
+herself, for Mr. Samuel. He had always been very
+kind to her.</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Polly had for company, besides Ann, Nabby
+Porter, Grandma's old hired woman whom she had
+made over to her, and a young man who had been<span class="page"><a name="page308" id="page308">[Page&nbsp;308]</a></span>
+serving as apprentice to Mr. Samuel. His name was
+Phineas Adams. He was very shy and silent, but a
+good workman.</p>
+<p>
+Samuel Wales left a will bequeathing everything to
+his widow; that was solemnly read in the fore-room
+one afternoon; then the inventory had to be taken.
+That, on account of the amount of property, was quite
+an undertaking; but it was carried out with the greatest
+formality and precision.</p>
+<p>
+For several days, Mr. Aaron Whitcomb and Mr.
+Silas White were stalking majestically about the
+premises, with note-books and pens. Aaron Whitcomb
+was a grave, portly old man, with a large head of white
+hair. Silas White was little and wiry and fussy. He
+monopolized the greater part of the business, although
+he was not half as well fitted for it as his companion.</p>
+<p>
+They pried into everything with religious exactitude.
+Mrs. Polly watched them with beseeming awe and deference,
+but it was a great trial to her, and she grew
+very nervous over it. It seemed dreadful to have all
+her husband's little personal effects, down to his neckband
+and mittens, handled over, and their worth in
+shillings and pence calculated. She had a price fixed
+on them already in higher currency.</p>
+<p>
+Ann found her crying one afternoon sitting on the
+kitchen settle, with her apron over her head. When
+she saw the little girl's pitying look, she poured out<span class="page"><a name="page309" id="page309">[Page&nbsp;309]</a></span>
+her trouble to her.</p>
+<p>
+"They've just been valuing his mittens and gloves,"
+said she, sobbing, "at two-and-sixpence. I shall be
+thankful when they are through."</p>
+<p>
+"Are there any more of his things?" asked Ann,
+her black eyes flashing, with the tears in them.</p>
+<p>
+"I think they've seen about all. There's his blue
+jacket he used to milk in, a-hanging behind the shed
+door&mdash;I guess they haven't valued that yet."</p>
+<p>
+"I think it's a shame!" quoth Ann. "I don't
+believe there's any need of so much law."</p>
+<p>
+"Hush, child! You mustn't set yourself up against
+the judgment of your elders. Such things have to be
+done."</p>
+<p>
+Ann said no more, but the indignant sparkle did
+not fade out of her eyes at all. She watched her
+opportunity, and took down Mr. Wales's old blue
+jacket from its peg behind the shed door, ran with it
+upstairs, and hid it in her own room behind the bed.
+"There," said she, "Mrs. Wales sha'n't cry over
+that!"</p>
+<p>
+That night, at tea time, the work of taking the inventory
+was complete. Mr. Whitcomb and Mr. White
+walked away with their long lists, satisfied that they
+had done their duty according to the law. Every
+article of Samuel Wales's property, from a warming-pan
+to a chest of drawers, was set down, with the sole
+exception of that old blue jacket, which Ann had<span class="page"><a name="page310" id="page310">[Page&nbsp;310]</a></span>
+hidden.</p>
+<p>
+She felt complacent over it at first; then she began
+to be uneasy.</p>
+<p>
+"Nabby," said she confidentially to the old servant
+woman, when they were washing the pewter plates
+together after supper, "what would they do if anybody
+shouldn't let them set down all the things&mdash;if they hid
+some of 'em away, I mean?"</p>
+<p>
+"They'd make a dretful time on't," said Nabby impressively.
+She was a large, stern-looking old woman.
+"They air dretful perticklar 'bout these things. They
+hev to be."</p>
+<p>
+Ann was scared when she heard that. When the
+dishes were done, she sat down on the settle and thought
+it over, and made up her mind what to do.</p>
+<p>
+The next morning, in the frosty dawning, before the
+rest of the family were up, a slim, erect little figure
+could have been seen speeding across lots toward Mr.
+Silas White's. She had the old blue jacket tucked
+under her arm. When she reached the house, she
+spied Mr. White just coming out of the back door with
+a milking pail. He carried a lantern, too, for it was
+hardly light.</p>
+<p>
+He stopped and stared when Ann ran up to him.</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. White," said she, all breathless, "here's&mdash;something&mdash;I
+guess yer didn't see yesterday."</p>
+<p>
+Mr. White set down the milk pail, took the blue
+jacket which she handed him, and scrutinized it sharply<span class="page"><a name="page311" id="page311">[Page&nbsp;311]</a></span>
+by the light of the lantern.</p>
+<p>
+"I guess we didn't see it," said he finally. "I will
+put it down&mdash;it's worth about three pence, I judge.
+Where"&mdash;</p>
+<p>
+"Silas, Silas!" called a shrill voice from the house.
+Silas White dropped the jacket and trotted briskly in,
+his lantern bobbing agitatedly. He never delayed a
+moment when his wife called; important and tyrannical
+as the little man was abroad, he had his own tyrant
+at home.</p>
+<p>
+Ann did not wait for him to return; she snatched
+up the blue jacket and fled home, leaping like a little
+deer over the hoary fields. She hung up the precious
+old jacket behind the shed door again, and no one ever
+knew the whole story of its entrance in the inventory.
+If she had been questioned, she would have told the
+truth boldly, though. But Samuel Wales's Inventory
+had for its last item that blue jacket, spelled after Silas
+White's own individual method, as was many another
+word in the long list. Silas White consulted his own
+taste with respect to capital letters too.</p>
+<p>
+After a few weeks, Grandma said she must have Ann
+again; and back she went. Grandma was very feeble
+lately, and everybody humored her. Mrs. Polly was
+sorry to have the little girl leave her. She said it was
+wonderful how much she had improved. But she
+would not have admitted that the improvement was
+owing to the different influence she had been under;<span class="page"><a name="page312" id="page312">[Page&nbsp;312]</a></span>
+she said Ann had outgrown her mischievous ways.</p>
+<p>
+Grandma did not live very long after this, however.
+Mrs. Polly had her bound girl at her own disposal in
+a year's time. Poor Ann was sorrowful enough for a
+long while after Grandma's death. She wore the beloved
+gold beads round her neck, and a sad ache in her
+heart. The dear old woman had taken the beads off
+her neck with her own hands and given them to Ann
+before she died, that there might be no mistake
+about it.</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Polly said she was glad Ann had them. "You
+might jist as well have 'em as Dorcas's girl," said she;
+"she set enough sight more by you."</p>
+<p>
+Ann could not help growing cheerful again, after
+a while. Affairs in Mrs. Polly's house were much
+brighter for her, in some ways, than they had ever been
+before.</p>
+<p>
+Either the hot iron of affliction had smoothed some of
+the puckers out of her mistress's disposition, or she was
+growing, naturally, less sharp and dictatorial. Any
+way, she was becoming as gentle and loving with Ann
+as it was in her nature to be, and Ann, following her
+impulsive temper, returned all the affection with vigor,
+and never bestowed a thought on past unpleasantness.</p>
+<p>
+For the next two years, Ann's position in the family
+grew to be more and more that of a daughter. If it
+had not been for the indentures, lying serenely in that
+tall wooden desk, she would almost have forgotten, herself,<span class="page"><a name="page313" id="page313">[Page&nbsp;313]</a></span>
+that she was a bound girl.</p>
+<p>
+One spring afternoon, when Ann was about sixteen
+years old, her mistress called her solemnly into the
+fore-room. "Ann," said she, "come here, I want to
+speak to you."</p>
+<p>
+Nabby stared wonderingly; and Ann, as she obeyed,
+felt awed. There was something unusual in her mistress's
+tone.</p>
+<p>
+Standing there in the fore-room, in the august company
+of the best bed, with its high posts and flowered-chintz
+curtains, the best chest of drawers, and the best
+chairs, Ann listened to what Mrs. Polly had to tell her.
+It was a plan which almost took her breath away; for
+it was this: Mrs. Polly proposed to adopt her, and
+change her name to Wales. She would be no longer
+Ann Ginnins, and a bound girl: but Ann Wales, and
+a daughter in her mother's home.</p>
+<p>
+Ann dropped into one of the best chairs, and sat
+there, her little dark face very pale. "Should I have
+the&mdash;papers? "she gasped at length.</p>
+<p>
+"Your papers? Yes, child, you can have them."</p>
+<p>
+"I don't want them,"cried Ann, "never! I want
+them to stay just where they are, till my time is out.
+If I am adopted, I don't want the papers!"</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Polly stared. She had never known how Ann
+had taken the indentures with her on her run-away trip
+years ago; but now Ann told her the whole story. In
+her gratitude to her mistress, and her contrition, she<span class="page"><a name="page314" id="page314">[Page&nbsp;314]</a></span>
+had to.</p>
+<p>
+It was so long ago in Ann's childhood, it did not
+seem so very dreadful to Mrs. Polly, probably. But
+Ann insisted on the indentures remaining in the desk,
+even after the papers of adoption were made out, and
+she had become "Ann Wales." It seemed to go a
+little way toward satisfying her conscience. This adoption
+meant a good deal to Ann; for besides a legal
+home, and a mother, it secured to her a right in a comfortable
+property in the future. Mrs. Polly Wales
+was considered very well off. She was a smart business-woman,
+and knew how to take care of her property
+too. She still hired Phineas Adams to carry on the
+blacksmith's business, and kept her farm-work running
+just as her husband had. Neither she nor Ann were
+afraid of work, and Ann Wales used to milk the cows,
+and escort them to and from pasture, as faithfully as
+Ann Ginnins.</p>
+<p>
+It was along in springtime when Ann was adopted,
+and Mrs. Polly fulfilled her part of the contract in
+the indentures by getting the Sunday suit therein
+spoken of.</p>
+<p>
+They often rode on horseback to meeting, but they
+usually walked on the fine Sundays in spring. Ann
+had probably never been so happy in her life as she
+was walking by Mrs. Polly's side to meeting that first
+Sunday after her adoption. Most of the way was
+through the woods; the tender light green boughs met<span class="page"><a name="page315" id="page315">[Page&nbsp;315]</a></span>
+over their heads; the violets and anemones were
+springing beside their path. There were green buds
+and white blossoms all around; the sky showed blue
+between the waving branches, and the birds were
+singing.</p>
+<p>
+Ann in her pretty petticoat of rose-colored stuff,
+stepping daintily over the young grass and the flowers,
+looked and felt like a part of it all. Her dark cheeks
+had a beautiful red glow on them; her black eyes shone.
+She was as straight and graceful and stately as an
+Indian.</p>
+<p>
+"She's as handsome as a picture," thought Mrs.
+Polly in her secret heart. A good many people said
+that Ann resembled Mrs. Polly in her youth, and that
+may have added force to her admiration.</p>
+<p>
+Her new gown was very fine for those days; but
+fine as she was, and adopted daughter though she was,
+Ann did not omit her thrifty ways for once. This
+identical morning Mrs. Polly and she carried their best
+shoes under their arms, and wore their old ones, till
+within a short distance from the meeting-house. Then
+the old shoes were tucked away under a stone wall for
+safety, and the best ones put on. Stone walls, very
+likely, sheltered a good many well-worn little shoes, of
+a Puritan Sabbath, that their prudent owners might
+appear in the House of God trimly shod. Ah! these
+beautiful, new, peaked-toed, high-heeled shoes of Ann's
+&mdash;what would she have said to walking in them all<span class="page"><a name="page316" id="page316">[Page&nbsp;316]</a></span>
+the way to meeting!</p>
+<p>
+If that Sunday was an eventful one to Ann Wales,
+so was the week following. The next Tuesday, right
+after dinner, she was up in a little unfinished chamber
+over the kitchen, where they did such work when the
+weather permitted, carding wool. All at once, she
+heard voices down below. They had a strange inflection,
+which gave her warning at once. She dropped
+her work and listened. "What is the matter?"
+thought she.</p>
+<p>
+Then there was a heavy tramp on the stairs, and
+Captain Abraham French stood in the door, his stern
+weather-beaten face white and set. Mrs. Polly followed
+him, looking very pale and excited.</p>
+<p>
+"When did you see anything of our Hannah?"
+asked Captain French, controlling as best he could the
+tremor in his resolute voice.</p>
+<p>
+Ann rose, gathering up her big blue apron, cards,
+wool and all. "Oh," she cried, "not since last Sabbath,
+at meeting! What is it?"</p>
+<p>
+"She's lost," answered Captain French. "She
+started to go up to her Aunt Sarah's Monday forenoon;
+and Enos has just been down, and they haven't seen
+anything of her." Poor Captain French gave a deep
+groan.</p>
+<p>
+Then they all went down into the kitchen together,
+talking and lamenting. And then, Captain French
+was galloping away on his gray horse to call assistance,<span class="page"><a name="page317" id="page317">[Page&nbsp;317]</a></span>
+and Ann was flying away over the fields, blue apron,
+cards, wool and all.</p>
+<p>
+"O, Ann!" Mrs. Polly cried after, "where are you
+going?"</p>
+<p>
+"I'm going&mdash;to find&mdash;Hannah!" Ann shouted
+back, in a shrill, desperate voice, and kept on.</p>
+<p>
+She had no definite notion as to where she was
+going; she had only one thought&mdash;Hannah French,
+her darling, tender, little Hannah French, her friend
+whom she loved better than a sister, was lost.</p>
+<p>
+A good three miles from the Wales home was a
+large tract of rough land, half-swamp, known as
+"Bear Swamp." There was an opinion, more or less
+correct, that bears might be found there. Some had
+been shot in that vicinity. Why Ann turned her footsteps
+in that direction, she could not have told herself.
+Possibly the vague impression of conversations she and
+Hannah had had, lingering in her mind, had something
+to do with it. Many a time the two little girls
+had remarked to each other with a shudder, "How awful
+it would be to get lost in Bear Swamp."</p>
+<p>
+Any way, Ann went straight there, through pasture
+and woodland, over ditches and stone walls. She
+knew every step of the way for a long distance. When
+she gradually got into the unfamiliar wilderness of the
+swamp, a thought struck her&mdash;suppose she got lost
+too! It would be easy enough&mdash;the unbroken forest
+stretched for miles in some directions. She would not<span class="page"><a name="page318" id="page318">[Page&nbsp;318]</a></span>
+find a living thing but Indians, and, maybe, wild
+beasts, the whole distance.</p>
+<p>
+If she should get lost she would not find Hannah,
+and the people would have to hunt for her too. But
+Ann had quick wits for an emergency. She had actually
+carried those cards, with a big wad of wool between
+them all the time, in her gathered-up apron. Now she
+began picking off little bits of wool and marking her
+way with them, sticking them on the trees and bushes.
+Every few feet a fluffy scrap of wool showed the road
+Ann had gone.</p>
+<p>
+But poor Ann went on, farther and farther&mdash;and
+no sign of Hannah. She kept calling her from time
+to time, hallooing at the top of her shrill sweet voice:
+"Hannah! Hannah! Hannah Fre-nch!"</p>
+<p>
+But never a response got the dauntless little girl,
+slipping almost up to her knees sometimes, in black
+swamp-mud; and sometimes stumbling painfully over
+tree-stumps, and through tangled undergrowth.</p>
+<p>
+"I'll go till my wool gives out," said Ann Wales;
+then she used it more sparingly.</p>
+<p>
+But it was almost gone before she thought she heard
+in the distance a faint little cry in response to her call:
+"Hannah! Hannah Fre-nch!" She called again and
+listened. Yes; she certainly did hear a little cry off
+toward the west. Calling from time to time, she went
+as nearly as she could in that direction. The pitiful
+answering cry grew louder and nearer; finally Ann <span class="page"><a name="page319" id="page319">[Page&nbsp;319]</a></span>
+could distinguish Hannah's voice.</p>
+<p>
+Wild with joy, she came, at last, upon her sitting
+on a fallen hemlock-tree, her pretty face pale, and her
+sweet blue eyes strained with terror.</p>
+<p>
+"O, Hannah!" "O, Ann!"</p>
+<p>
+"How did you ever get here, Hannah?"</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;started for aunt Sarah's&mdash;that morning,"
+explained Hannah, between sobs.  "And&mdash;I got
+frightened in the woods, about a mile from father's.
+I saw something ahead I thought was a bear. A great
+black thing! Then I ran&mdash;and, somehow, the first
+thing I knew, I was lost. I walked and walked, and
+it seems to me I kept coming right back to the same
+place. Finally I sat down here, and staid; I thought
+it was all the way for me to be found."</p>
+<p>
+"O, Hannah! what did you do last night?"</p>
+<p>
+"I staid somewhere, under some pine-trees," replied
+Hannah, with a shudder; "and I kept hearing things&mdash;O, Ann!"</p>
+<p>
+Ann hugged her sympathizingly.  "I guess I
+wouldn't have slept much if I had known," said she.
+"O, Hannah, you haven't had anything to eat! ain't
+you starved?"</p>
+<p>
+Hannah laughed faintly.  "I ate up two whole
+pumpkin pies I was carrying to aunt Sarah," said she.
+"Oh! how lucky it was you had them."
+"Yes; mother called me back to get them, after I
+started. They were some new ones, made with cream,<span class="page"><a name="page320" id="page320">[Page&nbsp;320]</a></span>
+and she thought aunt Sarah would like them."</p>
+<p>
+Pretty soon they started. It was hard work, for
+the way was very rough, and poor Hannah weak. But
+Ann had a good deal of strength in her lithe young
+frame, and she half-carried Hannah over the worst
+places. Still both of the girls were pretty well spent
+when they came to the last of the bits of wool on the
+border of Bear Swamp. However, they kept on a
+little farther; then they had to stop and rest. "I
+know where I am now," said Hannah, with a sigh of
+delight; "but I don't think I can walk another step."
+She was, in fact, almost exhausted.</p>
+<p>
+Ann looked at her thoughtfully. She hardly knew
+what to do. She could not carry Hannah herself&mdash;indeed,
+her own strength began to fail; and she did
+not want to leave her to go for assistance.</p>
+<p>
+All of a sudden, she jumped up. "You stay just
+where you are a few minutes, Hannah," said she.
+"I'm going somewhere. I'll be back soon." Ann
+was laughing.</p>
+<p>
+Hannah looked up at her pitifully: "O Ann, don't
+go!"</p>
+<p>
+"I'm coming right back, and it is the only way.
+You must get home. Only think how your father and
+mother are worrying!"</p>
+<p>
+Hannah said no more after that mention of her
+parents, and Ann started. </p>
+<span class="page"><a name="page321" id="page321">[Page&nbsp;321]</a></span><br />
+<p class="center1">
+<span class="page"><a name="plate50" id="plate50">[plate 50]</a></span>
+<img src="images/50-conveyance.jpg" width="520" height="334" alt="A conveyance is found." border="0" /><br /><br />
+A CONVEYANCE IS FOUND.</p><br /><br />
+<p>
+She was not gone long. When she came in sight<span class="page"><a name="page323" id="page323">[Page&nbsp;323]</a></span>
+she was laughing, and Hannah, weak as she was,
+laughed, too. Ann had torn her blue apron into
+strips, and tied it together for a rope, and by it she
+was leading a red cow.</p>
+<p>
+Hannah knew the cow, and knew at once what the
+plan was. "O, Ann! you mean for me to ride Betty?"</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I do. I just happened to think our
+cows were in the pasture, down below here. And
+we've ridden Betty, lots of times, when we were children,
+and she's just as gentle now. Whoa, Betty,
+good cow."</p>
+<p>
+It was very hard work to get Hannah on to the
+broad back of her novel steed, but it was finally accomplished.
+Betty had been a perfect pet from a
+calf, and was exceedingly gentle. She started off
+soberly across the fields, with Hannah sitting on her
+back, and Ann leading her by her blue rope.</p>
+<p>
+It was a funny cavalcade for Captain Abraham
+French and a score of anxious men to meet, when they
+were nearly in sight of home; but they were too overjoyed
+to see much fun in it.</p>
+<p>
+Hannah rode the rest of the way with her father, on
+his gray horse; and Ann walked joyfully by her side,
+leading the cow.</p>
+<p>
+Captain French and his friends had, in fact, just
+started to search Bear Swamp, well armed with lanterns,
+for night was coming on.</p>
+<p>
+It was dark when they got home. Mrs. French<span class="page"><a name="page324" id="page324">[Page&nbsp;324]</a></span>
+was not much more delighted to see her beloved
+daughter Hannah safe again, than Mrs. Polly was to
+see Ann.</p>
+<p>
+She listened admiringly to the story Ann told.</p>
+<p>
+"Nobody but you would have thought of the wool
+or of the cow," said she.</p>
+<p>
+"I do declare," cried Ann, at the mention of the
+wool, "I have lost the cards!"</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind the cards!" said Mrs. Polly.</p>
+
+<br /><br /><hr /><br /><br /><br /><br />
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pot of Gold, by Mary E. Wilkins
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,7306 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pot of Gold, by Mary E. Wilkins
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Pot of Gold
+       And Other Stories
+
+Author: Mary E. Wilkins
+
+Release Date: August 7, 2005 [EBook #16468]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POT OF GOLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Lesley Halamek and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SHORT STORY
+
+
+THE POT OF GOLD
+
+
+AND OTHER STORIES
+
+
+
+BY
+
+MARY E. WILKINS
+
+Author of "A New England Nun," "A Humble Romance," etc.
+
+
+
+_ILLUSTRATED_
+
+BOSTON D LOTHROP COMPANY 1893
+
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY D. LOTHROP COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SHORT STORY
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+THE POT OF GOLD
+THE COW WITH GOLDEN HORNS
+PRINCESS ROSETTA AND THE POP-CORN MAN.
+  I. THE PRINCESS ROSETTA
+  II. THE POP-CORN MAN
+THE CHRISTMAS MONKS
+THE PUMPKIN GIANT
+THE CHRISTMAS MASQUERADE
+DILL
+THE SILVER HEN
+TOBY
+THE PATCHWORK SCHOOL
+THE SQUIRE'S SIXPENCE
+A PLAIN CASE
+A STRANGER IN THE VILLAGE
+THE BOUND GIRL
+DEACON THOMAS WALES'S WILL
+THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+Flax looks into the Pot of Gold      _Frontis._
+The settle and the kettle
+Drusilla and her gold-horned cow
+A Knight of the Golden Bee
+The princess was not in the basket!
+The bee guards patrolled the city
+"You!" cried the baron scornfully
+Both the king and queen were obliged to pop
+Going into the chapel
+The boys read the notice
+The prince and Peter are examined by the monks
+The boys at work in the convent garden
+The prince runs away
+He picked up an enormous young Plantagenet and threw
+  it at him
+They were all over the field
+Then the king knighted him on the spot
+There never was anything like the fun at the mayor's
+  Christmas ball
+Their parents stared in great distress
+"I will go and tend my geese!"
+She sang it beautifully
+A strange sad state of things
+Nan returns with the umbrellas
+Such frantic efforts to get away
+Dame Elizabeth stared with astonishment
+The count thinks himself insulted
+The snow was quite deep
+Two by two
+The snow man's house
+Puss-in-the-corner
+To the rescue
+"I'll put this right in your face and--melt you!"
+Letitia stood before uncle Jack
+School children in Pokonoket
+Pokonoket in stormy weather
+Toby and the crazy loon
+Toby ran till he was out of breath
+The patchwork woman
+The patchwork girl
+Julia was arrested on Christmas Day
+Julia entertains the ambassador through the keyhole
+The grandmothers enjoy the Chinese toys
+"Six"--she began feebly
+"What!" said Squire Bean suddenly
+Little Patience obeys the squire's summons
+Watching for the coach
+"Just look here!" said Willy's sweet voice
+The little stranger
+She almost fainted from cold and exhaustion
+A conveyance is found
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE POT OF GOLD.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+THE POT OF GOLD.
+
+
+The Flower family lived in a little house in a broad grassy meadow,
+which sloped a few rods from their front door down to a gentle,
+silvery river. Right across the river rose a lovely dark green
+mountain, and when there was a rainbow, as there frequently was,
+nothing could have looked more enchanting than it did rising from
+the opposite bank of the stream with the wet, shadowy mountain for a
+background. All the Flower family would invariably run to their front
+windows and their door to see it.
+
+The Flower family numbered nine: Father and Mother Flower and seven
+children. Father Flower was an unappreciated poet, Mother Flower was
+very much like all mothers, and the seven children were very sweet and
+interesting. Their first names all matched beautifully with their last
+name, and with their personal appearance. For instance, the oldest
+girl, who had soft blue eyes and flaxen curls, was called Flax Flower;
+the little boy, who came next, and had very red cheeks and loved to
+sleep late in the morning, was called Poppy Flower, and so on. This
+charming suitableness of their names was owing to Father Flower. He
+had a theory that a great deal of the misery and discord in the world
+comes from things not matching properly as they should; and he thought
+there ought to be a certain correspondence between all things that
+were in juxtaposition to each other, just as there ought to be between
+the last two words of a couplet of poetry. But he found, very often,
+there was no correspondence at all, just as words in poetry do not
+always rhyme when they should. However, he did his best to remedy
+it. He saw that every one of his children's names were suitable
+and accorded with their personal characteristics; and in his
+flower-garden--for he raised flowers for the market--only those of
+complementary colors were allowed to grow in adjoining beds, and, as
+often as possible, they rhymed in their names. But that was a more
+difficult matter to manage, and very few flowers were rhymed, or, if
+they were, none rhymed correctly. He had a bed of box next to one of
+phlox, and a trellis of woodbine grew next to one of eglantine, and a
+thicket of elder-blows was next to one of rose; but he was forced
+to let his violets and honeysuckles and many others go entirely
+unrhymed--this disturbed him considerably, but he reflected that it
+was not his fault, but that of the man who made the language and named
+the different flowers--he should have looked to it that those of
+complementary colors had names to rhyme with each other, then all
+would have been harmonious and as it should have been.
+
+Father Flower had chosen this way of earning his livelihood when he
+realized that he was doomed to be an unappreciated poet, because it
+suited so well with his name; and if the flowers had only rhymed a
+little better he would have been very well contented. As it was, he
+never grumbled. He also saw to it that the furniture in his little
+house and the cooking utensils rhymed as nearly as possible, though
+that too was oftentimes a difficult matter to bring about, and
+required a vast deal of thought and hard study. The table always stood
+under the gable end of the roof, the foot-stool always stood where it
+was cool, and the big rocking-chair in a glare of sunlight; the lamp,
+too, he kept down cellar where it was damp. But all these were rather
+far-fetched, and sometimes quite inconvenient. Occasionally there
+would be an article that he could not rhyme until he had spent years
+of thought over it, and when he did it would disturb the comfort
+of the family greatly. There was the spider. He puzzled over that
+exceedingly, and when he rhymed it at last, Mother Flower or one of
+the little girls had always to take the spider beside her, when she
+sat down, which was of course quite troublesome. The kettle he rhymed
+first with nettle, and hung a bunch of nettle over it, till all the
+children got dreadfully stung. Then he tried settle, and hung the
+kettle over the settle. But that was no place for it; they had to go
+without their tea, and everybody who sat on the settle bumped his head
+against the kettle. At last it occurred to Father Flower that if he
+should make a slight change in the language the kettle could rhyme
+with the skillet, and sit beside it on the stove, as it ought, leaving
+harmony out of the question, to do. Accordingly all the children were
+instructed to call the skillet a skettle, and the kettle stood by its
+side on the stove ever afterward.
+
+[Illustration: The Settle]
+
+The house was a very pretty one, although it was quite rude and very
+simple. It was built of logs and had a thatched roof, which projected
+far out over the walls. But it was all overrun with the loveliest
+flowering vines imaginable, and, inside, nothing could have been more
+exquisitely neat and homelike; although there was only one room and a
+little garret over it. All around the house were the flower-beds and
+the vine-trellises and the blooming shrubs, and they were always in
+the most beautiful order. Now, although all this was very pretty to
+see, and seemingly very simple to bring to pass, yet there was a vast
+deal of labor in it for some one; for flowers do not look so trim and
+thriving without tending, and houses do not look so spotlessly clean
+without constant care. All the Flower family worked hard; even the
+littlest children had their daily tasks set them. The oldest girl,
+especially, little Flax Flower, was kept busy from morning till night
+taking care of her younger brothers and sisters, and weeding flowers.
+But for all that she was a very happy little girl, as indeed were
+the whole family, as they did not mind working, and loved each other
+dearly.
+
+Father Flower, to be sure, felt a little sad sometimes; for, although
+his lot in life was a pleasant one, it was not exactly what he would
+have chosen. Once in a while he had a great longing for something
+different. He confided a great many of his feelings to Flax Flower;
+she was more like him than any of the other children, and could
+understand him even better than his wife, he thought.
+
+One day, when there had been a heavy shower and a beautiful rainbow,
+he and Flax were out in the garden tying up some rose-bushes, which
+the rain had beaten down, and he said to her how he wished he could
+find the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow. Flax, if you will
+believe me, had never heard of it; so he had to tell her all about it,
+and also say a little poem he had made about it to her.
+
+The poem ran something in this way:
+
+  O what is it shineth so golden-clear
+     At the rainbow's foot on the dark green hill?
+  'Tis the Pot of Gold, that for many a year
+     Has shone, and is shining and dazzling still.
+  And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?
+  For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way.
+
+Flax listened with her soft blue eyes very wide open. "I suppose if we
+should find that pot of gold it would make us very rich, wouldn't it,
+father?" said she.
+
+"Yes," replied her father; "we could then have a grand house, and keep
+a gardener, and a maid to take care of the children, and we should no
+longer have to work so hard." He sighed as he spoke, and tears stood
+in his gentle blue eyes, which were very much like Flax's. "However,
+we shall never find it," he added.
+
+"Why couldn't we run ever so fast when we saw the rainbow," inquired
+Flax, "and get the Pot of Gold?"
+
+"Don't be foolish, child!" said her father; "you could not possibly
+reach it before the rainbow was quite faded away!"
+
+"True," said Flax, but she fell to thinking as she tied up the
+dripping roses.
+
+The next rainbow they had she eyed very closely, standing out on the
+front door-step in the rain, and she saw that one end of it seemed
+to touch the ground at the foot of a pine-tree on the side of the
+mountain, which was quite conspicuous amongst its fellows, it was so
+tall. The other end had nothing especial to mark it.
+
+"I will try the end where the tall pine-tree is first," said Flax to
+herself, "because that will be the easiest to find--if the Pot of Gold
+isn't there I will try to find the other end."
+
+A few days after that it was very hot and sultry, and at noon the
+thunder heads were piled high all around the horizon.
+
+"I don't doubt but we shall have showers this afternoon," said Father
+Flower, when he came in from the garden for his dinner.
+
+After the dinner-dishes were washed up, and the baby rocked to sleep,
+Flax came to her mother with a petition.
+
+"Mother," said she, "won't you give me a holiday this afternoon?"
+
+"Why, where do you want to go, Flax?" said her mother.
+
+"I want to go over on the mountain and hunt for wild flowers," replied
+Flax.
+
+"But I think it is going to rain, child, and you will get wet."
+
+"That won't hurt me any, mother," said Flax, laughing.
+
+"Well, I don't know as I care," said her mother, hesitatingly. "You
+have been a very good industrious girl, and deserve a little holiday.
+Only don't go so far that you cannot soon run home if a shower should
+come up."
+
+So Flax curled her flaxen hair and tied it up with a blue ribbon, and
+put on her blue and white checked dress. By the time she was ready to
+go the clouds over in the northwest were piled up very high and black,
+and it was quite late in the afternoon. Very likely her mother would
+not have let her gone if she had been at home, but she had taken the
+baby, who had waked from his nap, and gone to call on her nearest
+neighbor, half a mile away. As for her father, he was busy in the
+garden, and all the other children were with him, and they did not
+notice Flax when she stole out of the front door. She crossed the
+river on a pretty arched stone bridge nearly opposite the house, and
+went directly into the woods on the side of the mountain.
+
+Everything was very still and dark and solemn in the woods. They knew
+about the storm that was coming. Now and then Flax heard the leaves
+talking in queer little rustling voices. She inherited the ability to
+understand what they said from her father. They were talking to each
+other now in the words of her father's song. Very likely he had heard
+them saying it sometime, and that was how he happened to know it,
+
+  "O what is it shineth so golden-clear
+  At the rainbow's foot on the dark green hill?"
+
+Flax heard the maple leaves inquire. And the pine-leaves answered
+back:
+
+  "'Tis the Pot of Gold, that for many a year
+  Has shone, and is shining and dazzling still."
+
+Then the maple-leaves asked:
+
+  "And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?"
+
+And the pine-leaves answered:
+
+  "For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way."
+
+Flax did not exactly understand the sense of the last question and
+answer between maple and pine-leaves. But they kept on saying it
+over and over as she ran along. She was going straight to the tall
+pine-tree. She knew just where it was, for she had often been there.
+Now the rain-drops began to splash through the green boughs, and the
+thunder rolled along the sky. The leaves all tossed about in a strong
+wind and their soft rustles grew into a roar, and the branches and the
+whole tree caught it up and called out so loud as they writhed and
+twisted about that Flax was almost deafened, the words of the song:
+
+  "O what is it shineth so golden-clear?"
+
+Flax sped along through the wind and the rain and the thunder. She was
+very much afraid that she should not reach the tall pine which was
+quite a way distant before the sun shone out, and the rainbow came.
+
+The sun was already breaking through the clouds when she came in sight
+of it, way up above her on a rock. The rain-drops on the trees began
+to shine like diamonds, and the words of the song rushed out from
+their midst, louder and sweeter:
+
+  "O what is it shineth so golden-clear?"
+
+Flax climbed for dear life. Red and green and golden rays were already
+falling thick around her, and at the foot of the pine-tree something
+was shining wonderfully clear and bright.
+
+At last she reached it, and just at that instant the rainbow became a
+perfect one, and there at the foot of the wonderful arch of glory was
+the Pot of Gold. Flax could see it brighter than all the brightness of
+the rainbow. She sank down beside it and put her hand on it, then she
+closed her eyes and sat still, bathed in red and green and violet
+light--that, and the golden light from the Pot, made her blind and
+dizzy. As she sat there with her hand on the Pot of Gold at the foot
+of the rainbow, she could hear the leaves over her singing louder and
+louder, till the tones fairly rushed like a wind through her ears. But
+this time they only sang the last words of the song:
+
+  "And whom is it for, O Pilgrim, pray?
+  For thee, Sweetheart, should'st thou go that way."
+
+At last she ventured to open her eyes. The rainbow had faded almost
+entirely away, only a few tender rose and green shades were arching
+over her; but the Pot of Gold under her hand was still there, and
+shining brighter than ever. All the pine needles with which the ground
+around it was thickly spread, were turned to needles of gold, and some
+stray couplets of leaves which were springing up through them were all
+gilded.
+
+Flax bent over it trembling and lifted the lid off the pot. She
+expected, of course, to find it full of gold pieces that would buy the
+grand house and the gardener and the maid that her father had spoken
+about. But to her astonishment, when she had lifted the lid off and
+bent over the Pot to look into it, the first thing she saw was the
+face of her mother looking out of it at her. It was smaller of course,
+but just the same loving, kindly face she had left at home. Then, as
+she looked longer, she saw her father smiling gently up at her, then
+came Poppy and the baby and all the rest of her dear little brothers
+and sisters smiling up at her out of the golden gloom inside the Pot.
+At last she actually saw the garden and her father in it tying up the
+roses, and the pretty little vine-covered house, and, finally, she
+could see right into the dear little room where her mother sat with
+the baby in her lap, and all the others around her.
+
+Flax jumped up. "I will run home," said she, "it is late, and I do
+want to see them all dreadfully."
+
+So she left the Golden Pot shining all alone under the pine-tree, and
+ran home as fast as she could.
+
+When she reached the house it was almost twilight, but her father was
+still in the garden. Every rose and lily had to be tied up after the
+shower, and he was but just finishing. He had the tin milk pan hung
+on him like a shield, because it rhymed with man. It certainly was a
+beautiful rhyme, but it was very inconvenient. Poor Mother Flower
+was at her wits' end to know what to do without it, and it was very
+awkward for Father Flower to work with it fastened to him.
+
+Flax ran breathlessly into the garden, and threw her arms around her
+father's neck and kissed him. She bumped her nose against the milk
+pan, but she did not mind that; she was so glad to see him again.
+Somehow, she never remembered being so glad to see him as she was now
+since she had seen his face in the Pot of Gold.
+
+"Dear father," cried she, "how glad I am to see you! I found the Pot
+of Gold at the end of the rainbow!"
+
+Her father stared at her in amazement.
+
+"Yes, I did, truly, father," said she. "But it was not full of gold,
+after all. You was in it, and mother and the children and the house
+and garden and--everything."
+
+"You were mistaken, dear," said her father, looking at her with his
+gentle, sorrowful eyes. "You could not have found the true end of the
+rainbow, nor the true Pot of Gold--that is surely full of the most
+beautiful gold pieces, with an angel stamped on every one."
+
+"But I did, father," persisted Flax.
+
+"You had better go into your mother, Flax," said her father; "she will
+be anxious to see you. I know better than you about the Pot of Gold at
+the end of the rainbow."
+
+So Flax went sorrowfully into the house. There was the tea-kettle
+singing beside the "skettle," which had some nice smelling soup in it,
+the table was laid for supper, and there sat her mother with the baby
+in her lap and the others all around her--just as they had looked in
+the Pot of Gold.
+
+Flax had never been so glad to see them before--and if she didn't hug
+and kiss them all!
+
+"I found the Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow, mother," cried
+she, "and it was not full of gold, at all; but you and father and the
+children looked out of it at me, and I saw the house and garden and
+everything in it."
+
+Her mother looked at her lovingly. "Yes, Flax dear," said she.
+
+"But father said I was mistaken," said Flax, "and did not find it."
+
+"Well, dear," said her mother, "your father is a poet, and very wise;
+we will say no more about it. You can sit down here and hold the baby
+now, while I make the tea."
+
+Flax was perfectly ready to do that; and, as she sat there with her
+darling little baby brother crowing in her lap, and watched her pretty
+little brothers and sisters and her dear mother, she felt so happy
+that she did not care any longer whether she had found the true Pot of
+Gold at the end of the rainbow or not.
+
+But, after all, do you know, I think her father was mistaken, and that
+she had.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE COW WITH GOLDEN HORNS.
+
+
+Once there was a farmer who had a very rare and valuable cow. There
+was not another like her in the whole kingdom. She was as white as
+the whitest lily you ever saw, and her horns, which curved very
+gracefully, were of gold.
+
+She had a charming green meadow, with a silvery pool in the middle, to
+feed in. Almost all the grass was blue-eyed grass, too, and there were
+yellow lilies all over the pool.
+
+The farmer's daughter, who was a milkmaid, used to tend the
+gold-horned cow. She was a very pretty girl. Her name was Drusilla.
+She had long flaxen hair, which hung down to her ankles in two smooth
+braids, tied with blue ribbons. She had blue eyes and pink cheeks, and
+she wore a blue petticoat, with garlands of rose-buds all over it, and
+a white dimity short gown, looped up with bunches of roses. Her hat
+was a straw flat, with a wreath of rose-buds around it, and she always
+carried a green willow branch in her hand to drive the cow with.
+
+She used to sit on a bank near the silvery pool, and watch the
+gold-horned cow, and sing to herself all day from the time the dew was
+sparkling over the meadow in the morning, till it fell again at night.
+Then she would drive the cow gently home, with her green willow stick,
+milk her, and feed her, and put her into her stable, herself, for the
+night.
+
+The farmer was feeble and old, so his daughter had to do all this. The
+gold-horned cow's stable was a sort of a "lean-to," built into the
+side of the cottage where Drusilla and her father lived. Its roof, as
+well as that of the cottage, was thatched and overgrown with moss, out
+of which had grown, in its turn, a little starry white flower, until
+the whole roof looked like a flower-bed. There were roses climbing
+over the walls of the cottage and stable, also, pink and white ones.
+
+Drusilla used to keep the gold-horned cow's stable in exquisite order.
+Her trough to eat out of, was polished as clean as a lady's china
+tea-cup. She always had fresh straw, and her beautiful long tail was
+tied by a blue ribbon to a ring in the ceiling, in order to keep it
+nice.
+
+The gold-horned cow's milk was better than any other's, as one would
+reasonably suppose it to have been. The cream used to be at least an
+inch thick, and so yellow; and the milk itself had a peculiar and
+exquisite flavor--perhaps the best way to describe it, is to say it
+tasted as lilies smell. The gentry all about were eager to buy it,
+and willing to pay a good price for it. Drusilla used to go around to
+supply her customers, nights and mornings, a bright, shining milk-pail
+in each hand, and one on her head. She had learned to carry herself so
+steadily in consequence that she walked like a queen.
+
+[Illustration: DRUSILLA AND HER GOLD-HORNED COW.]
+
+Everybody admired Drusilla, and all the young shepherds and farmers
+made love to her, but she did not seem to care for any of them, but to
+prefer tending her gold-horned cow, and devoting herself to her old
+father--she was a very dutiful daughter.
+
+Everything went prosperously with them for a long time; the cow
+thrived, and gave a great deal of milk, customers were plenty, they
+paid the rent for their cottage regularly, and Drusilla who was a
+beautiful spinner, had her linen chest filled to the brim with the
+finest linen.
+
+At length, however, a great misfortune befell them. One morning--it
+was the day after a holiday--Drusilla, who had been up very late the
+night before dancing on the village green, felt very sleepy, as she
+sat watching the cow in the green meadow. So she just laid her flaxen
+head down amongst the blue-eyed grasses, and soon fell fast asleep.
+
+When she woke up, the dew was all dried off, and the sun almost
+directly overhead. She rubbed her eyes, and looked about for the
+gold-horned cow. To her great alarm, she was nowhere to be seen. She
+jumped up, distractedly, and ran over the meadow, but the gold-horned
+cow was certainly not there. The bars were up, just as she had left
+them, and there was not a gap in the stonewall which extended around
+the meadow. How could she have gotten out? It was very mysterious!
+
+Drusilla, when she found, certainly, that the gold-horned cow was
+gone, lost no time in wonderment and conjecture; she started forth to
+find her. "I will not tell father till I have searched a long time,"
+said she to herself.
+
+So, down the road she went, looking anxiously on either side. "If
+only I could come in sight of her, browsing in the clover, beside the
+wall," sighed she; but she did not.
+
+After a while, she saw a great cloud of dust in the distance. It
+rolled nearer and nearer, and finally she saw the King on horseback,
+with a large party of nobles galloping after him. The King, who was
+quite an old man, had a very long, curling, white beard, and had his
+breast completely covered with orders and decorations. No convenient
+board fence on a circus day was ever more thoroughly covered with
+elephants and horses, and trapeze performers, than the breast of the
+King's black velvet coat with jeweled stars and ribbons. But even
+then, there was not room for all his store, so he had hit upon the
+ingenious expedient of covering a black silk umbrella with the
+remainder. He held it in a stately manner over his head now, and it
+presented a dazzling sight; for it was literally blazing with gems,
+and glittering ribbons fluttered from it on all sides.
+
+When the King saw Drusilla courtesying by the side of the road, he
+drew rein so suddenly, that his horse reared back on its haunches, and
+all his nobles, who always made it a point to do exactly as the King
+did--it was court etiquette--also drew rein suddenly, and all their
+horses reared back on their haunches.
+
+"What will you, pretty maiden?" asked the King graciously.
+
+"Please, your Majesty," said Drusilla courtesying and blushing and
+looking prettier than ever, "have you seen my gold-horned cow?"
+
+"Pardy," said the King, for that was the proper thing for a King to
+say, you know, "I never saw a gold-horned cow in my life!"
+
+Then Drusilla told him about her loss, and the King gazed at her while
+she was talking, and admired her more and more.
+
+You must know that it had always been a great cross to the King and
+his wife, the Queen, that they had never had any daughter. They had
+often thought of adopting one, but had never seen any one who exactly
+suited them. They wanted a full-grown Princess, because they had an
+alliance with the Prince of Egypt in view.
+
+The King looked at Drusilla now, and thought her the most beautiful
+and stately maiden he had ever seen.
+
+"What an appropriate Princess she would make!" thought he.
+
+"Suppose I should find the gold-horned cow for you," said he to
+Drusilla, when she had finished her pitiful story, "would you consent
+to be adopted by the Queen and myself, and be a princess?"
+
+Drusilla hesitated a moment. She thought of her dear old father
+and how desolate he would be without her. But then she thought how
+terribly distressed he would be at the loss of the gold-horned cow,
+and that if he had her back, she would be company for him, even if his
+daughter was away, and she finally gave her consent.
+
+The King always had his Lord Chamberlain lead a white palfrey, with
+rich housings, by the bridle, in case they came across a suitable
+full-grown Princess in any of their journeys; and now he ordered him
+to be brought forward, and commanded a page to assist Drusilla to the
+saddle.
+
+But she began to weep. "I want to go back to my father, until you have
+found the cow, your Majesty," said she.
+
+"You may go and bid your father good-by," replied the King,
+peremptorily, "but then you must go immediately to the boarding
+school, where all the young ladies of the Court are educated. If you
+are going to be a Princess, it is high time you began to prepare. You
+will have to learn feather stitching, and rick-rack and Kensington
+stitch, and tatting, and point lace, and Japanese patchwork,
+and painting on china, and how to play variations on the piano,
+and--everything a Princess ought to know."
+
+"But," said Drusilla timidly, "suppose--your Majesty shouldn't--find
+the cow"--
+
+"Oh! I shall find the cow fast enough," replied the King carelessly.
+"Why, I shall have the whole Kingdom searched. I can't fail to find
+her." So the page assisted the milkmaid to the saddle, kneeling
+gracefully, and presenting his hand for her to place her foot in, and
+they galloped off toward the farmer's cottage.
+
+The old man was greatly astonished to see his daughter come riding
+home in such splendid company, and when she explained matters to him,
+his distress, at first, knew no bounds. To lose both his dear daughter
+and his precious gold-horned cow, at one blow, seemed too much to
+bear. But the King promised to provide liberally for him during his
+daughter's absence, and spoke very confidently of his being able to
+find the cow. He also promised that Drusilla should return to him if
+the cow was not found in one year's time, and after a while the old
+man was pacified.
+
+Drusilla put her arms around her father's neck and kissed him
+tenderly; then the page assisted her gracefully into the saddle, and
+she rode, sobbing, away.
+
+After they had ridden about an hour, they came to a large, white
+building.
+
+"O dear!" said the King, "the seminary is asleep! I was afraid of it!"
+
+Then Drusilla saw that the building was like a great solid mass, with
+not a door or window visible.
+
+"It is asleep," explained the King. "It is not a common house; a great
+professor designed it. It goes to sleep, and you can't see any doors
+or windows, and such work as it is to wake it up! But we may as well
+begin."
+
+Then he gave a signal, and all the nobles shouted as loud as they
+possibly could, but the seminary still remained asleep.
+
+"It's asleep most of the time!" growled the King. "They don't want the
+young ladies disturbed at their feather stitching and rick-rack, by
+anything going on outside. I wish I could shake it."
+
+Then he gave the signal again, and all the nobles shouted together,
+as loud as they could possibly scream. Suddenly, doors and windows
+appeared all over the seminary, like so many opening eyes.
+
+"There," cried the King, "the seminary has woke up, and I am glad of
+it!"
+
+Then he ushered Drusilla in, and introduced her to the lady principal
+and the young ladies, and she was at once set to making daisies in
+Kensington stitch, for the King was very anxious for her education to
+begin at once.
+
+So now, the milkmaid, instead of sitting, singing, in a green meadow,
+watching her beautiful gold-horned cow, had to sit all day in a
+high-backed chair, her feet on a little foot-stool with an embroidered
+pussy cat on it, and do fancy work. The young ladies worked by
+electric light; for the seminary was asleep nearly all the time, and
+no sunlight could get in at the windows, for boards clapped down over
+them like so many eye-lids when the seminary began to doze.
+
+Drusilla had left off her pretty blue petticoat and white short gown
+now, and was dressed in gold-flowered satin, with an immense train,
+which two pages bore for her when she walked. Her pretty hair was
+combed high and powdered, and she wore a comb of gold and pearls in
+it. She looked very lovely, but she also looked very sad. She could
+not help thinking, even in the midst of all this splendor, of her dear
+father, and her own home, and wishing to see them.
+
+She was a very apt pupil. Her tatting collars were the admiration of
+the whole seminary, and she made herself a whole dress of rick-rack.
+She painted a charming umbrella stand for the King, and actually
+worked the gold-horned cow in Kensington stitch, on a blue satin tidy,
+for the Queen. It was so natural that she wept over it, herself, when
+it was finished; but the Queen was delighted, and put it on her best
+stuffed rocking-chair in her parlor, and would run and throw it back
+every time the King sat down there, for fear he would lean his head
+against it and soil it.
+
+Drusilla also worked an elegant banner of old gold satin, with
+hollyhocks, for the King to carry at the head of his troops when he
+went to battle; also a hat-band for the Prince of Egypt. This last was
+sent by a special courier with a large escort, and the Prince sent an
+exquisite shopping-bag of real alligator's skin to Drusilla in return.
+She was the envy of the whole seminary when it came.
+
+The young ladies fared very delicately. Their one article of diet was
+peaches and cream. It was thought to improve their complexions. Once
+in a while, they went out to drive by moonlight; they were afraid
+of sunburn by day, and they wore white gauze veils, even in the
+moonlight, and they all had embroidered afghans of their own
+handiwork.
+
+They used to sit around a large table over which hung a chandelier of
+the electric light, to work, and some young lady either played "Home,
+sweet Home, and variations," or else "The Maiden's Prayer," on the
+piano for their entertainment.
+
+It seemed as if Drusilla ought to have been happy in a place like
+this; but although she was diligent and dutiful, she grieved all the
+time for her father.
+
+Meantime, the King was keeping up an energetic search for the
+gold-horned cow. Every stable and pasture in the Kingdom was searched,
+spies were posted everywhere, but the King could not find her. She had
+disappeared as completely as if she had vanished altogether from the
+face of the earth. It at last began to be whispered about that there
+never had been any gold-horned cow, but that the whole had been a
+clever trick of Drusilla's, that she might become a Princess. An
+envious schoolmate, who had been very desirous of becoming Princess
+and marrying the Prince of Egypt herself, started the report; and it
+soon spread over the whole Kingdom. The King heard it and began to
+believe it; for he could not see why he failed to find the cow. It
+always exasperated the King dreadfully to fail in anything, and he
+never allowed that it was his own fault, if he could possibly help it.
+
+At last the end of the year came, and still no signs of the
+gold-horned cow. Then the King became convinced that Drusilla had
+cheated him, that there never had been any such wonderful cow, and
+that she had used this trick in order to become a Princess. Of course,
+the King felt more comfortable to believe this, for it accounted
+satisfactorily for his own failure to find her, and it is extremely
+mortifying for a King to be unable to do anything he sets out to.
+
+So Drusilla was dismissed from the seminary in disgrace, and sent
+home. Her jewels and fine clothes were all taken away from her, even
+her rick-rack dress, and she put on her blue petticoat and short gown,
+and straw flat again. Still, she was so happy at the prospect of
+seeing her dear old father again, that she did not mind the loss of
+all her fine things much. She did not ride the white palfrey now, but
+went home on foot, in the dewy morning, as fast as she could trip.
+
+When she came in sight of the cottage, there was her father sitting in
+his old place at the window. When he saw his beloved daughter coming,
+he ran out to meet her as fast as he could hobble, and they tenderly
+embraced each other.
+
+The King had provided liberally for the old man while Drusilla was in
+the seminary, but now that he was so angry at her alleged deception,
+his support would probably cease, and, since the gold-horned cow was
+lost, it was a question how they would live. The father and daughter
+sat talking it over after they had entered the cottage. It was a
+puzzling question, and Drusilla was weeping a little, when her father
+gave a joyful cry:
+
+"Look, look, Drusilla!"
+
+Drusilla looked up quickly, and there was the milk-white face and
+golden horns of the cow peering through the vines in the window. She
+was eating some of the pink and white roses.
+
+Drusilla and her father hastened out with joyful exclamations, and
+there was the cow, sure enough. A couple of huge wicker baskets were
+slung across her broad back, and one was filled to the brim with gold
+coins, and the other with jewels, diamonds, pearls and rubies.
+
+When Drusilla and her father saw them, they both threw their arms
+around the gold-horned cow's neck, and cried for joy. She turned her
+head and gazed at them a moment with her calm, gentle eyes; then she
+went on eating roses.
+
+When the King heard of all this, he came with the Queen in a golden
+coach, to see Drusilla and her father. "I am convinced now of your
+truthfulness," he said majestically, when the Court Jeweler had
+examined the cow's horns to see if they were true gold, and not merely
+gilded, and he had seen with his own eyes the two baskets full of
+coins and jewels. "And, if you would like to be Princess, you can be,
+and also marry the Prince of Egypt."
+
+But Drusilla threw her arms around her father's neck. "No; your
+Majesty," she said timidly, "I had rather stay with my father, if you
+please, than be a Princess, and I rather live here and tend my dear
+cow, than marry the Prince of Egypt."
+
+The King sighed, and so did the Queen; they knew they never should
+find another such beautiful Princess. But, then, the King had not kept
+his part of the contract and found the gold-horned cow, and he could
+not compel her to be a Princess without breaking the royal word.
+
+So the cow was again led out to pasture in the little meadow of
+blue-eyed grasses, and Drusilla, though she was very rich now, used to
+find no greater happiness than to sit on the banks of the silvery pool
+where the yellow lilies grew, and watch her.
+
+They had their poor little cottage torn down and a grand castle built
+instead: but the roof of that was thatched and over-grown with moss,
+and pink and white roses clustered thickly around the walls. It was
+just as much like their old home as a castle can be like a cottage.
+The gold-horned cow had, also, a magnificent new stable. Her
+eating-trough was the finest moss rose-bud china, she had dried rose
+leaves instead of hay to eat, and there were real lace curtains at all
+the stable windows, and a lace _portiere_ over her stall.
+
+The King and Queen used to visit Drusilla often; they gave her back
+her rick-rack dress, and grew very fond of her, though she would not
+be a Princess. Finally, however, they prevailed upon her to be made
+a countess. So she was called "Lady Drusilla," and she had a coat of
+arms, with the gold-horned cow rampant on it, put up over the great
+gate of the castle.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PRINCESS ROSETTA AND THE POP-CORN MAN.
+
+I.
+
+THE PRINCESS ROSETTA.
+
+
+The Bee Festival was held on the sixteenth day of May; all the court
+went. The court-ladies wore green silk scarfs, long green floating
+plumes in their bonnets, and green satin petticoats embroidered with
+apple-blossoms. The court-gentlemen wore green velvet tunics with
+nose-gays in their buttonholes, and green silk hose. Their little
+pointed shoes were adorned with knots of flowers instead of buckles.
+
+As for the King himself, he wore a thick wreath of cherry and
+peach-blossoms instead of his crown, and carried a white thorn-branch
+instead of his scepter. His green velvet robe was trimmed with a
+border of blue and white violets instead of ermine. The Queen wore a
+garland of violets around her golden head, and the hem of her gown was
+thickly sown with primroses.
+
+But the little Princess Rosetta surpassed all the rest. Her little
+gown was completely woven of violets and other fine flowers. There was
+a very skillful seamstress in the court who knew how to do this kind
+of work, although no one except the Princess Rosetta was allowed to
+wear a flower-cloth gown to the Bee Festival. She wore also a little
+white violet cap, and two of her nurses carried her between them in a
+little basket lined with rose and apple-leaves.
+
+All the company, as they danced along, sang, or played on flutes, or
+rang little glass and silver bells. Nobody except the King and Queen
+rode. They rode cream-colored ponies, with silken ropes wound with
+flowers for bridle-reins.
+
+The Bee Festival was held in a beautiful park a mile distant from the
+city. The young grass there was green and velvety, and spangled
+all over with fallen apple and cherry and peach and plum and pear
+blossoms; for the park was set with fruit-trees in even rows. The blue
+sky showed between the pink and white branches, and the air was very
+sweet and loud with the humming of bees. The trees were all full of
+bees. There was something peculiar about the bees of this country;
+none of them had stings.
+
+When the court reached the park, they all tinkled their bells in time,
+whistled on their flutes, and sang a song which they always sang on
+these occasions. Then they played games and enjoyed themselves. They
+played hide-and-seek among the trees, and formed rings and danced. The
+bees flew around them, and seemed to know them. The little Princess,
+lying in her basket, crowed and laughed, and caught at them when they
+came humming over her face. Her nurses stood around her, and waved
+great fans of peacock-feathers, but that did not frighten the bees at
+all.
+
+The court's lunch was spread on a damask-cloth, in an open space
+between the trees. There were biscuits of wheaten flour, plates of
+honey-comb, and cream in tall glass ewers. That was the regulation
+lunch at the Bee Festival. The Bee Festival was nearly as old as the
+kingdom, and there was an ancient legend about it, which the Poet
+Laureate had put into an epic poem. The King had it in his royal
+library, printed in golden letters and bound in old gold plush.
+
+Centuries ago, so the legend ran, in the days of the very first
+monarch of the royal family of which this king was a member, there
+were no bees at all in the kingdom. Not a child in the whole country,
+not even the little princes and princesses in the palace, had ever
+tasted a bit of bread and honey.
+
+But, while there were no bees in this kingdom, one just across the
+river was swarming with them. That kingdom was governed by a king who
+was the tenth cousin of the first, and not very well disposed toward
+him. He had stationed lines of sentinels with ostrich-feather brooms
+on his bank of the river to keep the bees from flying over, and he
+would not export a single bee, nor one ounce of honey, although he had
+been offered immense sums.
+
+However, the inhabitants of this second country were so cruel and
+tormenting in their dispositions, and the children so teased the
+bees, which were stingless and could not defend themselves, that they
+rebelled. They stopped making honey, and one day they swarmed, and
+flew in a body across the river in spite of the frantic waving of the
+ostrich-feather brooms.
+
+The other King was overjoyed. He ordered beautiful hives to be built
+for them, and instituted a national festival in their honor, which
+ever since had been observed regularly on the sixteenth day of May.
+
+Up to this day there were no bees in the kingdom across the river. Not
+one would return to where its ancestors had been so hardly treated;
+here everybody was kind to them, and even paid them honor. The present
+King had established an order of the "Golden Bee." The Knights of the
+Golden Bee wore ribbons studded with golden bees on their breasts, and
+their watchword was a sort of a "buzz-z-z," like the humming of a bee.
+When they were in full regalia they wore also some curious wings made
+of gold wire and lace. The Knights of the Golden Bee comprised the
+finest nobles of the court.
+
+In addition to them were the "Bee Guards." They were the King's own
+body-guards. Their uniform was white with green cuffs and collar and
+facings. On the green were swarms of embroidered bees. They carried a
+banner of green silk worked with bees and roses.
+
+So the bee might fairly have been considered the national emblem of
+Romalia, for that was the name of the country. The first word which
+the children learned to spell in school was "b-e-e, bee," instead of
+"b-o-y, boy." The poorest citizen had a bush of roses and a bee-hive
+in his yard, and the people were very forlorn who could not have a bit
+of honey-comb at least once a day. The court preferred it to any other
+food. Indeed it was this particular Queen who was in the kitchen
+eating bread and honey, in the song.
+
+[Illustration: A KNIGHT OF THE GOLDEN BEE.]
+
+But to return to the Bee Festival, on this especial sixteenth of May.
+At sunset when the bees flew back to their hives for the last time
+with their loads of honey, the court also went home. They danced along
+in a splendid merry procession. The cream-colored ponies the King and
+Queen rode pranced lightly in advance, their slender hoofs keeping
+time to the flutes and the bells; and the gallants, leading the ladies
+by the tips of their dainty fingers, came after them with gay waltzing
+steps. The nurses who carried the Princess Rosetta held their heads
+high, and danced along as bravely as the others, waving their
+peacock-feather fans in their unoccupied hands. They bore the little
+Princess in her basket between them as lightly as a feather. Up and
+down she swung. When they first started she laughed and crowed; then
+she became very quiet. The nurses thought she was asleep. They had
+laid a little satin coverlet over her, and put a soft thick veil over
+her face, that the damp evening-air might not give her the croup. The
+Princess Rosetta was quite apt to have the croup.
+
+The nurses cast a glance down at the veil and satin coverlet which
+were so motionless. "Her Royal Highness is asleep," they whispered to
+each other with nods. The nurses were handsome young women, and they
+wore white lace caps, and beautiful long darned lace aprons. They
+swung the Princess's basket along so easily that finally one of them
+remarked upon it.
+
+"How very light her Royal Highness is," said she.
+
+"She weighs absolutely nothing at all," replied the other nurse who
+was carrying the Princess, "absolutely nothing at all."
+
+"Well, that is apt to be the case with such high-born infants," said
+the first nurse. And they all waved their fans again in time to the
+music.
+
+When they reached the palace, the massive doors were thrown open, and
+the court passed in. The nurses bore the Princess Rosetta's basket up
+the grand marble stair, and carried it into the nursery.
+
+"We will lift her Royal Highness out very carefully, and possibly we
+can put her to bed without waking her," said the Head-nurse.
+
+But her Royal Highness's ladies-of-the-bed-chamber who were in waiting
+set up such screams of horror at her remark, that it was a wonder that
+the Princess did not awake directly.
+
+"O-h!" cried a lady-of-the-bed-chamber, "put her Royal Highness to
+bed, in defiance of all etiquette, before the Prima Donna of the court
+has sung her lullaby! Preposterous! Lift her out without waking her,
+indeed! This nurse should be dismissed from the court!"
+
+"O-h!" cried another lady, tossing her lovely head scornfully, and
+giving her silken train an indignant swish; "the idea of putting her
+Royal Highness to bed without the silver cup of posset, which I have
+here for her!"
+
+"And without taking her rose-water bath!" cried another, who was
+dabbling her lily fingers in a little ivory bath filled with
+rose-water.
+
+"And without being anointed with this Cream of Lilies!" cried one with
+a little ivory jar in her hand.
+
+"And without having every single one of her golden ringlets dressed
+with this pomade scented with violets and almonds!" cried one with a
+round porcelain box.
+
+"Or even having her curls brushed!" cried a lady as if she were
+fainting, and she brandished an ivory hair-brush set with turquoises.
+
+"I suppose," remarked a lady who was very tall and majestic in her
+carriage, "that this nurse would not object to her Royal Highness
+being put to bed without--her nightgown, even!"
+
+And she held out the Princess's little embroidered nightgown, and
+gazed at the Head-nurse with an awful air.
+
+"I beg your pardon humbly, my Ladies," responded the Head-nurse
+meekly. Then she bent over the basket to lift out the Princess.
+
+Every one stood listening for her Royal Highness's pitiful scream
+when she should awake. The lady with the cup of posset held it in
+readiness, and the ladies with the Cream of Lilies, the violet and
+almond pomade and the ivory hair-brush looked anxious to begin their
+duties. The Prima Donna stood with her song in hand, and the first
+court fiddler had his bow raised all ready to play the accompaniment
+for her. Writing a fresh lullaby for the Princess every day, and
+setting it to music, were among the regular duties of the Poet
+Laureate and the first musical composer of the court.
+
+The Head-nurse with her eyes full of tears because of the reproaches
+she had received, reached down her arms and attempted to lift the
+Princess Rosetta--suddenly she turned very white, and tossed aside the
+veil and the satin coverlet. Then she gave a loud scream, and fell
+down in a faint.
+
+The ladies stared at one another.
+
+"What is the matter with the Head-nurse?" they asked. Then the second
+nurse stepped up to the basket and reached down to clasp the Princess
+Rosetta. Then she gave a loud scream, and fell down in a faint.
+
+The third nurse, trembling so she could scarcely stand, came next.
+After she had stooped over the basket, she also gave a loud scream and
+fainted. Then the fourth nurse stepped up, bent over the basket, and
+fainted. So all the Princess Rosetta's nurses lay fainting on the
+floor beside her basket.
+
+It was contrary to the rules of etiquette for any one except the
+nurses to approach nearer than five yards to her Royal Highness before
+she was taken from her basket. So they crowded together at that
+distance and craned their necks.
+
+"What can ail the nurses?" they whispered in terrified tones. They
+could not go near enough to the basket to see what the trouble was,
+and still it seemed very necessary that they should.
+
+"I wish I had a telescope," said the lady with the hair-brush.
+
+But there was none in the room, and it was contrary to the rules of
+etiquette for any person to leave it until the Princess was taken from
+the basket.
+
+There seemed to be no proper way out of the difficulty. Finally the
+first fiddler stood up with an air of resolution, and began unwinding
+the green silk sash from his waist. It was eleven yards long. He
+doubled it, and launched it at the basket, like a lasso.
+
+[Illustration: THE PRINCESS WAS NOT IN THE BASKET!]
+
+"There is nothing in the code of etiquette to prevent the Princess
+approaching us before she is taken from her basket," he said bravely.
+All the ladies applauded.
+
+He threw the lasso very successfully. It went quite around the basket.
+Then he drew it gently over the five yards. They all crowded around,
+and looked into it.
+
+_The Princess was not in the basket!_
+
+
+II.
+
+THE POP-CORN MAN.
+
+
+That night the whole kingdom was in a turmoil. The Bee Guards were
+called out, and patrolled the city, alarm-bells rung, signal fires
+burned, and everybody was out with a lantern. They searched every inch
+of the road to the park where the Bee Festival had been held, for it
+did seem at first as if the Princess had possibly been spilled out of
+the basket, although the nurses were confident that it was not so. So
+they searched carefully, and the nurses were in the meantime placed in
+custody. But nothing was found. The people held their lanterns low,
+and looked under every bush, and even poked aside the grasses, but
+they could not find the Princess on the road to the park.
+
+Then a regular force of detectives was organized, and the search
+continued day after day. Every house in the country was examined in
+every nook and corner. The cupboards even were all ransacked, and the
+bureau drawers. The King had a favorite book of philosophy, and one
+motto which he had learned in his youth recurred to him. It was this:
+
+"When a-seeking, seek in the unlikely places, as well as the likely;
+for no man can tell the road that lost things may prefer."
+
+So he ordered search to be made in unlikely as well as likely places,
+for the Princess; and it was carried so far that the people had all
+to turn their pockets inside out, and shake their shawls and
+table-cloths. But it was all of no use. Six months went by, and
+the Princess Rosetta had not been found. The King and Queen were
+broken-hearted. The Queen wept all day long, and her tears fell into
+her honey, until it was no longer sweet, and she could not eat it. The
+King sat by himself and had no heart for anything.
+
+[Illustration: THE BEE GUARDS PATROLLED THE CITY.]
+
+But the four nurses were in nearly as much distress. Not only had they
+been very fond of the little Princess, and were grieving bitterly for
+her loss, but they had also a punishment to endure. They had been
+released from custody, because there was really no evidence against
+them, but in view of their possible carelessness, and in perpetual
+reminder of the loss of the Princess, a sentence had been passed upon
+them. They had been condemned to wear their bonnets the wrong way
+around, indoors and out, until the Princess should be found. So the
+poor nurses wept into the crowns of their bonnets. They had little
+peep-holes in the straw that they might see to get about, and they
+lifted up the capes in order to eat; but it was very trying. The
+nurses were all pretty young women too, and the Head-nurse who came of
+quite a distinguished family was to have been married soon. But how
+could she be a bride and wear a veil with her face in the crown of her
+bonnet?
+
+The Head-nurse was quite clever, and she thought about the Princess's
+disappearance, until finally her thoughts took shape. One day she put
+on her shawl--her bonnet was always on--and set out to call on the
+Baron Greenleaf. The Baron was an old man who was said to be versed
+in white magic, and lived in a stone tower with his servants and his
+house-keeper.
+
+When the Head-nurse came into the tower-yard, the dog began to bark;
+he was not used to seeing a woman with her face in the crown of her
+bonnet. He thought that her head must be on the wrong way, and that
+she was a monster, and had designs upon his master's property. So he
+barked and growled, and caught hold of her dress, and the Head-nurse
+screamed. The Baron himself came running downstairs, and opened the
+door. "Who is there?" cried he.
+
+But when he saw the woman with her bonnet on wrong he knew at once
+that she must be one of the Princess's nurses. So he ordered off the
+dog, and ushered the nurse into the tower. He led her into his study,
+and asked her to sit down. "Now, madam, what can I do for you?" he
+inquired quite politely.
+
+"Oh, my lord!" cried the Head-nurse in her muffled voice, "help me to
+find the Princess."
+
+The Baron, who was a tall lean old man and wore a very large-figured
+dressing-gown trimmed with fur, frowned, and struck his fist down upon
+the table. "Help you to find the Princess!" he exclaimed; "don't you
+suppose I should find her on my own account if I could? I should
+have found her long before this if the idiots had not broken all my
+bottles, and crystals, and retorts, and mirrors, and spilled all the
+magic fluids, so that I cannot practice any white magic at all. The
+idea of looking for a princess in a bottle--that comes of pinning
+one's faith upon philosophy!"
+
+"Then you cannot find the Princess by white magic?" the Head-nurse
+asked timidly.
+
+The Baron pounded the table again. "Of course I cannot," he replied,
+"with all my magical utensils smashed in the search for her."
+
+The Head-nurse sighed pitifully.
+
+"I suppose that you do not like to go about with your face in the
+crown of your bonnet?" the Baron remarked in a harsh voice.
+
+The Head-nurse replied sadly that she did not.
+
+"It doesn't seem to me that I should mind it much," said the Baron.
+
+The Head-nurse looked at his grim old face through the peep-holes in
+her bonnet-crown, and thought to herself that if she were no prettier
+than he, she should not mind much either, but she said nothing.
+
+Suddenly there was a knock at the tower-door.
+
+"Excuse me a moment," said the Baron; "my housekeeper is deaf, and my
+other servants have gone out." And he ran down the tower-stair, his
+dressing-gown sweeping after him.
+
+Presently he returned, and there was a young man with him. This young
+man was as pretty as a girl, and he looked very young. His blue eyes
+were very sharp and bright, and he had rosy cheeks and fair curly
+hair. He was dressed very poorly, and around his shoulders were
+festooned strings of something that looked like fine white flowers,
+but it was in reality pop-corn. He carried a great basket of pop-corn,
+and bore a corn-popper over his shoulder.
+
+When he entered he bowed low to the Head-nurse; her bonnet did not
+seem to surprise him at all. "Would you like to buy some of my nice
+pop-corn, madam?" he asked.
+
+She curtesied. "Not to-day," she replied.
+
+But in reality she did not know what pop-corn was. She had never seen
+any, and neither had the Baron. That indeed was the reason why he had
+admitted the man--he was curious to see what he was carrying. "Is it
+good to eat?" he inquired.
+
+"Try it, my lord," answered the man. So the Baron put a pop-corn in
+his mouth and chewed it critically. "It is very good indeed," he
+declared.
+
+The man passed the basket to the Head-nurse, and she lifted the
+cape of her bonnet and put a pop-corn in her mouth, and nibbled it
+delicately. She also thought it very good.
+
+"But there is no use in discussing new articles of food when the
+kingdom is under the cloud that it is at present, and my retorts and
+crystals all smashed," said the Baron.
+
+"Why, what is the cloud, my lord?" inquired the Pop-corn man. Then the
+Baron told him the whole story.
+
+"Of course it is necromancy," remarked the Pop-corn man thoughtfully,
+when the Baron had finished.
+
+The Baron pounded on the table until it danced. "Necromancy!" he
+cried, "of course it's necromancy! Who but a necromancer could have
+made a child invisible, and stolen her away in the face and eyes of
+the whole court?"
+
+"Have you any idea where she is?" ask the Pop-corn man.
+
+The Baron stared at him in amazement.
+
+"Idea where she is?" he repeated scornfully. "You are just of a piece
+with the idiots who broke my mirrors to see if the Princess was not
+behind them! How should we have any idea where she is if she is lost,
+pray?"
+
+The Pop-corn man blushed, and looked frightened, but the Head-nurse
+spoke up quite bravely, although her voice was so muffled, and said
+that she really did have some idea of the Princess's whereabouts. She
+propounded her views which were quite plausible. It was her opinion
+that only an enemy of the King would have caused the Princess to be
+stolen, and as the King had only one enemy of whom anybody knew, and
+he was the King across the river, she thought the Princess must be
+there.
+
+"It seems very likely," said the Baron after she had finished, "but if
+she is there it is hopeless. Our King could never conquer the other
+one, who has a much stronger army."
+
+"Do you know," asked the Pop-corn man, "if they have ever had any
+pop-corn on the other side of the river?"
+
+"I don't think they have," replied the Baron.
+
+"Then," said the Pop-corn man, "I think I can free the Princess."
+
+"You!" cried the Baron scornfully.
+
+But the Pop-corn man said nothing more. He bowed low to the Baron and
+the Head-nurse, and left the tower.
+
+"The idea of his talking as he did," said the Baron. But the nurse was
+pinning her shawl, and she hurried out of the tower and overtook the
+Pop-corn man.
+
+"How are you going to manage it?" whispered she, touching his sleeve.
+
+The Pop-corn man started. "Oh, it's you?" he said. "Well, you wait a
+little, and you will see. Do you suppose you could find six little
+boys who would be willing to go over the river with me to-morrow?"
+
+"Would it be quite safe?"
+
+"Quite safe."
+
+"I have six little brothers who would go," said the Head-nurse.
+
+So it was arranged that the six little brothers should go across the
+river with the Pop-corn man; and the next morning they set out. They
+were all decorated with strings of Pop-corn, they carried baskets of
+pop-corn, and bore corn-poppers over their shoulders, and they crossed
+the river in a row boat.
+
+Once over the river they went about peddling pop-corn. The man sent
+the boys all over the city, but he himself went straight to the
+palace.
+
+He knocked at the palace-door, and the maid-servant came. "Is the King
+at home?" asked the Pop-corn man.
+
+The maid said he was, and the Pop-corn man asked to see him. Just then
+a baby cried.
+
+"What baby is that crying?" asked he.
+
+"A baby that was brought here at sunset, several months ago," replied
+the maid; and he knew at once that he had found the Princess.
+
+"Will you find out if I can see the King?" he said.
+
+"I'll see," answered the maid. And she went in to find the King.
+Pretty soon she returned and asked the Pop-corn man to step into the
+parlor, which he did, and soon the King came downstairs.
+
+[Illustration: "YOU!" CRIED THE BARON SCORNFULLY.]
+
+The Pop-corn man displayed his wares, and the King tasted. He had
+never seen any pop-corn before, and he was both an epicure and a man
+of hobbies. "It is the nicest food that ever I tasted," he declared,
+and he bought all the man's stock.
+
+"I can buy corn for you for seed, and I can order poppers enough to
+supply the city," suggested the Pop-corn man.
+
+"So do," cried the King. And he gave orders for seven ships' cargoes
+of seed corn and fifty of poppers. "My people shall eat nothing else,"
+said the King, "and the whole kingdom shall be planted with it. I am
+satisfied that it is the best national food."
+
+That day the court dined on pop-corn, and as it was very light
+and unsatisfying, they had to eat a long time. They were all the
+after-noon dining. Right after dinner the King wrote out his royal
+decree that all the inhabitants should that year plant pop-corn
+instead of any other grain or any vegetable, and that as soon as the
+ships arrived they should make it their only article of food. For the
+King, when he had learned from the Pop-corn man that the corn needed
+to be not only ripe but well dried before it would pop, could not
+wait, but had ordered five hundred cargoes of pop-corn for immediate
+use.
+
+So as soon as the ships arrived the people began at once to pop corn
+and eat it. There was a sound of popping corn all over the city, and
+the people popped all day long. It was necessary that they should,
+because it took such a quantity to satisfy hunger, and when they were
+not popping they had to eat. People shook the poppers until their arms
+were tired, then gave them to others, and sat down to eat. Men, women
+and children popped. It was all that they could do, with the exception
+of planting the seed-corn, and then they were faint with hunger as
+they worked. The stores and schools were closed. In the palace the
+King and Queen themselves were obliged to pop in order to secure
+enough to eat, and the nobles and the court-ladies toiled and ate,
+day and night. But the little stolen Princess and the King's son, the
+little Prince, could not pop corn, for they were only babies.
+
+When the people across the river had been popping corn for about a
+month, the Pop-corn man went to the King of Romalia's palace, and
+sought an audience. He told him how he had discovered his daughter in
+the palace of the King across the river.
+
+The King of Romalia clasped his hands in despair. "I must make war,"
+said he, "but my army is nothing to his."
+
+However, he at once went about making war. He ordered the swords to be
+cleaned with sand-paper until they shone, and new bullets to be cast.
+The Bee Guards were drilled every day, and the people could not sleep
+for the drums and the fifes.
+
+[Illustration: BOTH THE KING AND QUEEN WERE OBLIGED TO POP.]
+
+When everything was ready the King of Romalia and his army crossed
+the river and laid siege to the city. They had expected to have the
+passage of the river opposed, but not a foeman was stationed on the
+opposite bank. All the spears they could see were the waving green
+ones of pop-corn fields. They marched straight up to the city walls
+and laid siege. The inhabitants fought on the walls and in the
+gate-towers, but not very many could fight at a time, because they
+would have to stop and pop corn and eat.
+
+The defenders grew fewer and fewer, some were killed, and all of them
+were growing too tired and weak to fight. They could not eat enough
+pop-corn to give them strength and have any time left to fight. They
+filled their pockets and tried to eat pop-corn as they fought, but
+they could not manage that very well.
+
+On the third day the city surrendered with very little loss of life
+on either side, and the little Princess Rosetta was restored to her
+parents. There was great rejoicing all through Romalia; in the evening
+there was an illumination and a torch-light procession. The nurses
+marched with their bonnets on the right way, and the Knights of the
+Golden Bee were out in full regalia.
+
+The next day the Head-nurse was married, and the King gave her a farm
+and a dozen bee-hives for a wedding present, and the Queen a beautiful
+bridal bonnet trimmed with white plumes and hollyhocks.
+
+All the court, the Baron and the Pop-corn man went to the wedding, and
+wedding-cake and corn-balls were passed around.
+
+After the wedding the Pop-corn man went home. He lived in another
+country on the other side of a mountain. The King pressed him to take
+some reward. "I am puzzled," he said to the Pop-corn man, "to know
+what to offer you. The usual reward in such cases is the hand of the
+Princess in marriage, but Rosetta is not a year old. If there is
+anything else you can think of"--
+
+The Pop-corn man kissed the King's hand and replied that there was
+nothing that he could think of except a little honey-comb. He should
+like to carry some to his mother. So the King gave him a great piece
+of honey-comb in a silver dish, and the Pop-corn man departed.
+
+He never came to Romalia again, but the Poet Laureate celebrated him
+in an epic poem, describing the loss of the Princess and the war
+for her rescue. The Princess was never stolen again--indeed the
+necromancer across the river who had kidnaped her was imprisoned for
+life on a diet of pop-corn which he popped himself.
+
+The King across the river became tired of pop-corn, as it had caused
+his defeat, and forbade his people to eat it. He paid tribute to the
+King of Romalia as long as he lived; but after his death, when his
+son, the young prince, came to reign, affairs were on a very pleasant
+footing between the two kingdoms. The new King was very different from
+his father, being generous and amiable, and beloved by every one.
+Indeed Rosetta, when she had grown to be a beautiful maiden, married
+him and went to live as a Queen where she had been a captive.
+
+And when Rosetta went across the river to live, the King, her father,
+gave her some bee-hives for a wedding present, and the bees thrived
+equally in both countries. All the difference in the honey was this:
+in Romalia the bees fed more on clover, and the honey tasted of
+clover: and in the country across the river on peppermint, and that
+honey tasted of peppermint. They always had both kinds at their Bee
+Festivals.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS MONKS.
+
+
+All children have wondered unceasingly from their very first Christmas
+up to their very last Christmas, where the Christmas presents come
+from. It is very easy to say that Santa Claus brought them. All well
+regulated people know that, of course; but the reindeer, and the
+sledge, and the pack crammed with toys, the chimney, and all the rest
+of it--that is all true, of course, and everybody knows about it; but
+that is not the question which puzzles. What children want to know is,
+where do these Christmas presents come from in the first place? Where
+does Santa Claus get them? Well the answer to that is, _In the garden
+of the Christmas Monks_. This has not been known until very lately;
+that is, it has not been known till very lately except in the
+immediate vicinity of the Christmas Monks. There, of course, it has
+been known for ages. It is rather an out-of-the-way place; and that
+accounts for our never hearing of it before.
+
+The Convent of the Christmas Monks is a most charmingly picturesque
+pile of old buildings; there are towers and turrets, and peaked roofs
+and arches, and everything which could possibly be thought of in the
+architectural line, to make a convent picturesque. It is built of
+graystone; but it is only once in a while that you can see the
+graystone, for the walls are almost completely covered with mistletoe
+and ivy and evergreen. There are the most delicious little arched
+windows with diamond panes peeping out from the mistletoe and
+evergreen, and always at all times of the year, a little Christmas
+wreath of ivy and hollyberries is suspended in the center of every
+window. Over all the doors, which are likewise arched, are Christmas
+garlands, and over the main entrance _Merry Christmas_ in evergreen
+letters.
+
+The Christmas Monks are a jolly brethren; the robes of their order are
+white, gilded with green garlands, and they never are seen out at
+any time of the year without Christmas wreaths on their heads. Every
+morning they file in a long procession into the chapel, to sing a
+Christmas carol; and every evening they ring a Christmas chime on the
+convent bells. They eat roast turkey and plum pudding and mince-pie
+for dinner all the year round; and always carry what is left in
+baskets trimmed with evergreen, to the poor people. There are always
+wax candles lighted and set in every window of the convent at
+nightfall; and when the people in the country about get uncommonly
+blue and down-hearted, they always go for a cure to look at the
+Convent of the Christmas Monks after the candles are lighted and the
+chimes are ringing. It brings to mind things which never fail to cheer
+them.
+
+[Illustration: GOING INTO THE CHAPEL.]
+
+But the principal thing about the Convent of the Christmas Monks is
+the garden; for that is where the Christmas presents grow. This garden
+extends over a large number of acres, and is divided into different
+departments, just as we divide our flower and vegetable gardens; one
+bed for onions, one for cabbages, and one for phlox, and one for
+verbenas, etc.
+
+Every spring the Christmas Monks go out to sow the Christmas-present
+seeds after they have ploughed the ground and made it all ready.
+
+There is one enormous bed devoted to rocking-horses. The rocking-horse
+seed is curious enough; just little bits of rocking-horses so small
+that they can only be seen through a very, very powerful microscope.
+The Monks drop these at quite a distance from each other, so that they
+will not interfere while growing; then they cover them up neatly with
+earth, and put up a sign-post with "Rocking-horses" on it in evergreen
+letters. Just so with the penny-trumpet seed, and the toy-furniture
+seed, the skate-seed, the sled-seed, and all the others.
+
+Perhaps the prettiest and most interesting part of the garden, is that
+devoted to wax dolls. There are other beds for the commoner dolls--for
+the rag dolls, and the china dolls, and the rubber dolls, but of
+course wax dolls would look much handsomer growing. Wax dolls have
+to be planted quite early in the season; for they need a good start
+before the sun is very high. The seeds are the loveliest bits of
+microscopic dolls imaginable. The Monks sow them pretty close
+together, and they begin to come up by the middle of May. There is
+first just a little glimmer of gold, or flaxen, or black, or brown as
+the case may be, above the soil. Then the snowy foreheads appear, and
+the blue eyes, and black eyes, and, later on, all those enchanting
+little heads are out of the ground, and are nodding and winking and
+smiling to each other the whole extent of the field; with their pinky
+cheeks and sparkling eyes and curly hair there is nothing so pretty as
+these little wax doll heads peeping out of the earth. Gradually, more
+and more of them come to light, and finally by Christmas they are all
+ready to gather. There they stand, swaying to and fro, and dancing
+lightly on their slender feet which are connected with the ground,
+each by a tiny green stem; their dresses of pink, or blue, or
+white--for their dresses grow with them--flutter in the air. Just
+about the prettiest sight in the world, is the bed of wax dolls in the
+garden of the Christmas Monks at Christmas time.
+
+Of course ever since this convent and garden were established (and
+that was so long ago that the wisest man can find no books about it)
+their glories have attracted a vast deal of admiration and curiosity
+from the young people in the surrounding country; but as the garden is
+enclosed on all sides by an immensely thick and high hedge, which no
+boy could climb, or peep over, they could only judge of the garden by
+the fruits which were parcelled out to them on Christmas-day.
+
+You can judge, then, of the sensation among the young folks, and older
+ones, for that matter, when one evening there appeared hung upon a
+conspicuous place in the garden-hedge, a broad strip of white cloth
+trimmed with evergreen and printed with the following notice in
+evergreen letters:
+
+    "WANTED:--By the Christmas Monks, two _good_ boys to assist in
+    garden work. Applicants will be examined by Fathers Anselmus and
+    Ambrose, in the convent refectory, on April 10th."
+
+This notice was hung out about five o'clock in the evening, some time
+in the early part of February. By noon, the street was so full of boys
+staring at it with their mouths wide open, so as to see better, that
+the king was obliged to send his bodyguard before him to clear the way
+with brooms, when he wanted to pass on his way from his chamber of
+state to his palace.
+
+There was not a boy in the country but looked upon this position as
+the height of human felicity. To work all the year in that wonderful
+garden, and see those wonderful things growing! and without doubt any
+boy who worked there could have all the toys he wanted, just as a boy
+who works in a candy-shop always has all the candy he wants!
+
+But the great difficulty, of course, was about the degree of goodness
+requisite to pass the examination. The boys in this country were no
+worse than the boys in other countries, but there were not many of
+them that would not have done a little differently if he had only
+known beforehand of the advertisement of the Christmas Monks. However,
+they made the most of the time remaining, and were so good all over
+the kingdom that a very millennium seemed dawning. The school teachers
+used their ferrules for fire wood, and the King ordered all the
+birch-trees cut down and exported, as he thought there would be no
+more call For them in his own realm.
+
+When the time for the examination drew near, there were two boys whom
+every one thought would obtain the situation, although some of the
+other boys had lingering hopes for themselves; if only the Monks would
+examine them on the last six weeks, they thought they might pass.
+Still all the older people had decided in their minds that the Monks
+would choose these two boys. One was the Prince, the King's oldest
+son; and the other was a poor boy named Peter. The Prince was no
+better than the other boys; indeed, to tell the truth, he was not so
+good; in fact, was the biggest rogue in the whole country; but all the
+lords and the ladies, and all the people who admired the lords and
+ladies, said it was their solemn belief that the Prince was the best
+boy in the whole kingdom; and they were prepared to give in their
+testimony, one and all, to that effect to the Christmas Monks.
+
+[Illustration: The Boys Read the Notice]
+
+Peter was really and truly such a good boy that there was no excuse
+for saying he was not. His father and mother were poor people; and
+Peter worked every minute out of school hours, to help them along.
+Then he had a sweet little crippled sister whom he was never tired of
+caring for. Then, too, he contrived to find time to do lots of little
+kindnesses for other people. He always studied his lessons faithfully,
+and never ran away from school. Peter was such a good boy, and so
+modest and unsuspicious that he was good, that everybody loved him. He
+had not the least idea that he could get the place with the Christmas
+Monks, but the Prince was sure of it.
+
+When the examination day came all the boys from far and near, with
+their hair neatly brushed and parted, and dressed in their best
+clothes, flocked into the convent. Many of their relatives and friends
+went with them to witness the examination.
+
+The refectory of the convent where they assembled, was a very large
+hall with a delicious smell of roast turkey and plum pudding in it.
+All the little boys sniffed, and their mouths watered.
+
+The two fathers who were to examine the boys were perched up in a
+high pulpit so profusely trimmed with evergreen that it looked like a
+bird's nest; they were remarkably pleasant-looking men, and their eyes
+twinkled merrily under their Christmas wreaths. Father Anselmus was
+a little the taller of the two, and Father Ambrose was a little the
+broader; and that was about all the difference between them in looks.
+
+The little boys all stood up in a row, their friends stationed
+themselves in good places, and the examination began.
+
+Then if one had been placed beside the entrance to the convent, he
+would have seen one after another, a crestfallen little boy with his
+arm lifted up and crooked, and his face hidden in it, come out and
+walk forlornly away. He had failed to pass.
+
+The two fathers found out that this boy had robbed birds' nests,
+and this one stolen apples. And one after another they walked
+disconsolately away till there were only two boys left: the Prince and
+Peter.
+
+"Now, your Highness," said Father Anselmus, who always took the lead
+in the questions, "are you a good boy?"
+
+"O holy Father!" exclaimed all the people--there were a good many fine
+folks from the court present. "He is such a good boy! such a wonderful
+boy! we never knew him to do a wrong thing."
+
+"I don't suppose he ever robbed a bird's nest?" said Father Ambrose a
+little doubtfully.
+
+[Illustration: The Prince & Peter are examined by the monks.]
+
+
+"No, no!" chorused the people.
+
+"Nor tormented a kitten?"
+
+"No, no, no!" cried they all.
+
+At last everybody being so confident that there could be no reasonable
+fault found with the Prince, he was pronounced competent to enter upon
+the Monks' service. Peter they knew a great deal about before--indeed
+a glance at his face was enough to satisfy any one of his goodness;
+for he did look more like one of the boy angels in the altar-piece
+than anything else. So after a few questions, they accepted him also;
+and the people went home and left the two boys with the Christmas
+Monks.
+
+The next morning Peter was obliged to lay aside his homespun coat,
+and the Prince his velvet tunic, and both were dressed in some little
+white robes with evergreen girdles like the Monks. Then the Prince was
+set to sewing Noah's Ark seed, and Peter picture-book seed. Up and
+down they went scattering the seed. Peter sang a little psalm to
+himself, but the Prince grumbled because they had not given him
+gold-watch or gem seed to plant instead of the toy which he had
+outgrown long ago. By noon Peter had planted all his picture-books,
+and fastened up the card to mark them on the pole; but the Prince had
+dawdled so his work was not half done.
+
+"We are going to have a trial with this boy," said the Monks to each
+other; "we shall have to set him a penance at once, or we cannot
+manage him at all."
+
+So the Prince had to go without his dinner, and kneel on dried peas in
+the chapel all the afternoon. The next day he finished his Noah's Arks
+meekly; but the next day he rebelled again and had to go the whole
+length of the field where they planted jewsharps, on his knees. And so
+it was about every other day for the whole year.
+
+One of the brothers had to be set apart in a meditating cell to invent
+new penances; for they had used up all on their list before the Prince
+had been with them three months.
+
+The Prince became dreadfully tired of his convent life, and if he
+could have brought it about would have run away. Peter, on the
+contrary, had never been so happy in his life. He worked like a bee,
+and the pleasure he took in seeing the lovely things he had planted
+come up, was unbounded, and the Christmas carols and chimes delighted
+his soul. Then, too, he had never fared so well in his life. He could
+never remember the time before when he had been a whole week without
+being hungry. He sent his wages every month to his parents; and he
+never ceased to wonder at the discontent of the Prince.
+
+"They grow so slow," the Prince would say, wrinkling up his handsome
+forehead. "I expected to have a bushelful of new toys every month; and
+not one have I had yet. And these stingy old Monks say I can only have
+my usual Christmas share anyway, nor can I pick them out myself. I
+never saw such a stupid place to stay in in my life. I want to have my
+velvet tunic on and go home to the palace and ride on my white pony
+with the silver tail, and hear them all tell me how charming I am."
+Then the Prince would crook his arm and put his head on it and cry.
+
+Peter pitied him, and tried to comfort him, but it was not of much
+use, for the Prince got angry because he was not discontented as well
+as himself.
+
+Two weeks before Christmas everything in the garden was nearly ready
+to be picked. Some few things needed a little more December sun, but
+everything looked perfect. Some of the Jack-in-the-boxes would not pop
+out quite quick enough, and some of the jumping-Jacks were hardly
+as limber as they might be as yet; that was all. As it was so near
+Christmas the Monks were engaged in their holy exercises in the chapel
+for the greater part of the time, and only went over the garden once a
+day to see if everything was all right.
+
+The Prince and Peter were obliged to be there all the time. There was
+plenty of work for them to do; for once in a while something would
+blow over, and then there were the penny-trumpets to keep in tune; and
+that was a vast sight of work.
+
+One morning the Prince was at one end of the garden straightening up
+some wooden soldiers which had toppled over, and Peter was in the wax
+doll bed dusting the dolls. All of a sudden he heard a sweet little
+voice: "O, Peter!" He thought at first one of the dolls was talking,
+but they could not say anything but papa and mamma; and had the merest
+apologies for voices anyway. "Here I am, Peter!" and there was a
+little pull at his sleeve. There was his little sister. She was not
+any taller than the dolls around her, and looked uncommonly like the
+prettiest, pinkest-cheeked, yellowest-haired ones; so it was no wonder
+that Peter did not see her at first. She stood there poising herself
+on her crutches, poor little thing, and smiling lovingly up at Peter.
+
+"Oh, you darling!" cried Peter, catching her up in his arms. "How did
+you get in here?"
+
+"I stole in behind one of the Monks," said she. "I saw him going up
+the street past our house, and I ran out and kept behind him all the
+way. When he opened the gate I whisked in too, and then I followed him
+into the garden. I've been here with the dollies ever since."
+
+"Well," said poor Peter, "I don't see what I am going to do with you,
+now you are here. I can't let you out again; and I don't know what the
+Monks will say."
+
+"Oh, I know!" cried the little girl gayly. "I'll stay out here in the
+garden. I can sleep in one of those beautiful dolls' cradles over
+there; and you can bring me something to eat."
+
+[Illustration: THE BOYS AT WORK IN THE CONVENT GARDEN.]
+
+"But the Monks come out every morning to look over the garden, and
+they'll be sure to find you," said her brother, anxiously.
+
+"No, I'll hide! O, Peter, here is a place where there isn't any doll!"
+
+"Yes; that doll didn't come up."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do! I'll just stand here in this place
+where the doll didn't come up, and nobody can tell the difference."
+
+"Well, I don't know but you can do that," said Peter, although he was
+still ill at ease. He was so good a boy he was very much afraid of
+doing wrong, and offending his kind friends the Monks; at the same
+time he could not help being glad to see his dear little sister.
+
+He smuggled some food out to her, and she played merrily about him all
+day; and at night he tucked her into one of the dolls' cradles with
+lace pillows and quilt of rose-colored silk.
+
+The next morning when the Monks were going the rounds, the father
+who inspected the wax doll bed, was a bit nearsighted, and he never
+noticed the difference between the dolls and Peter's little sister,
+who swung herself on her crutches, and looked just as much like a wax
+doll as she possibly could. So the two were delighted with the success
+of their plan.
+
+They went on thus for a few days, and Peter could not help being happy
+with his darling little sister, although at the same time he could not
+help worrying for fear he was doing wrong.
+
+Something else happened now, which made him worry still more;
+the Prince ran away. He had been watching for a long time for an
+opportunity to possess himself of a certain long ladder made of
+twisted evergreen ropes, which the Monks kept locked up in the
+toolhouse. Lately, by some oversight, the toolhouse had been left
+unlocked one day, and the Prince got the ladder. It was the latter
+part of the afternoon, and the Christmas Monks were all in the chapel
+practicing Christmas carols. The Prince found a very large hamper, and
+picked as many Christmas presents for himself as he could stuff into
+it; then he put the ladder against the high gate in front of the
+convent, and climbed up, dragging the hamper after him. When he
+reached the top of the gate, which was quite broad, he sat down to
+rest for a moment before pulling the ladder up so as to drop it on the
+other side.
+
+He gave his feet a little triumphant kick as he looked back at his
+prison, and down slid the evergreen ladder! The Prince lost his
+balance, and would inevitably have broken his neck if he had not clung
+desperately to the hamper which hung over on the convent side of the
+fence; and as it was just the same weight as the Prince, it kept him
+suspended on the other.
+
+He screamed with all the force of his royal lungs; was heard by a
+party of noblemen who were galloping up the street; was rescued, and
+carried in state to the palace. But he was obliged to drop the hamper
+of presents, for with it all the ingenuity of the noblemen could not
+rescue him as speedily as it was necessary they should.
+
+When the good Monks discovered the escape of the Prince they were
+greatly grieved, for they had tried their best to do well by him; and
+poor Peter could with difficulty be comforted. He had been very fond
+of the Prince, although the latter had done little except torment him
+for the whole year; but Peter had a way of being fond of folks.
+
+A few days after the Prince ran away, and the day before the one on
+which the Christmas presents were to be gathered, the nearsighted
+father went out into the wax doll field again; but this time he had
+his spectacles on, and could see just as well as any one, and even
+a little better. Peter's little sister was swinging herself on her
+crutches, in the place where the wax doll did not come up, tipping her
+little face up, and smiling just like the dolls around her.
+
+"Why, what is this!" said the father. "_Hoc credam!_ I thought that
+wax doll did not come up. Can my eyes deceive me? _non verum est!_
+There is a doll there--and what a doll! on crutches, and in poor,
+homely gear!"
+
+Then the nearsighted father put out his hand toward Peter's little
+sister. She jumped--she could not help it, and the holy father jumped
+too; the Christmas wreath actually tumbled off his head.
+
+"It is a miracle!" exclaimed he when he could speak: "the little girl
+is alive! _parra puella viva est._ I will pick her and take her to the
+brethren, and we will pay her the honors she is entitled to."
+
+Then the good father put on his Christmas wreath, for he dared not
+venture before his abbot without it, picked up Peter's little sister,
+who was trembling in all her little bones, and carried her into the
+chapel, where the Monks were just assembling to sing another carol.
+He went right up to the Christmas abbot, who was seated in a splendid
+chair, and looked like a king.
+
+"Most holy abbot," said the nearsighted father, holding out Peter's
+little sister, "behold a miracle, _vide miraculum_! Thou wilt remember
+that there was one wax doll planted which did not come up. Behold, in
+her place I have found this doll on crutches, which is--alive!"
+
+"Let me see her!" said the abbot; and all the other Monks crowded
+around, opening their mouths just like the little boys around the
+notice, in order to see better.
+
+"_Verum est_," said the abbot. "It is verily a miracle."
+
+"Rather a lame miracle," said the brother who had charge of the funny
+picture-books and the toy monkeys; they rather threw his mind off
+its level of sobriety, and he was apt to make frivolous speeches
+unbecoming a monk.
+
+[Illustration: THE PRINCE RUNS AWAY.]
+
+The abbot gave him a reproving glance, and the brother, who was the
+leach of the convent, came forward. "Let me look at the miracle, most
+holy abbot," said he. He took up Peter's sister, and looked carefully
+at the small, twisted ankle. "I think I can cure this with my herbs
+and simples," said he.
+
+"But I don't know," said the abbot doubtfully. "I never heard of
+curing a miracle."
+
+"If it is not lawful, my humble power will not suffice to cure it,"
+said the father who was the leach.
+
+"True," said the abbot; "take her, then, and exercise thy healing art
+upon her, and we will go on with our Christmas devotions, for which we
+should now feel all the more zeal." So the father took away Peter's
+little sister, who was still too frightened to speak.
+
+The Christmas Monk was a wonderful doctor, for by Christmas Eve the
+little girl was completely cured of her lameness. This may seem
+incredible, but it was owing in great part to the herbs and simples,
+which are of a species that our doctors have no knowledge of; and also
+to a wonderful lotion which has never been advertised on our fences.
+
+Peter of course heard the talk about the miracle, and knew at once
+what it meant. He was almost heartbroken to think he was deceiving the
+Monks so, but at the same time he did not dare to confess the truth
+for fear they would put a penance upon his sister, and he could not
+bear to think of her having to kneel upon dried peas.
+
+He worked hard picking Christmas presents, and hid his unhappiness as
+best he could. On Christmas Eve he was called into the chapel. The
+Christmas Monks were all assembled there. The walls were covered with
+green garlands and boughs and sprays of hollyberries, and branches
+of wax lights were gleaming brightly amongst them. The altar and the
+picture of the Blessed Child behind it were so bright as to almost
+dazzle one; and right up in the midst of it, in a lovely white dress,
+all wreaths and jewels, in a little chair with a canopy woven of green
+branches over it, sat Peter's little sister.
+
+And there were all the Christmas Monks in their white robes and
+wreaths, going up in a long procession, with their hands full of the
+very showiest Christmas presents to offer them to her!
+
+But when they reached her and held out the lovely presents--the
+first was an enchanting wax doll, the biggest beauty in the whole
+garden--instead of reaching out her hands for them, she just drew
+back, and said in her little sweet, piping voice: "Please, I ain't a
+millacle, I'm only Peter's little sister."
+
+"Peter?" said the abbot; "the Peter who works in our garden?"
+
+"Yes," said the little sister.
+
+Now here was a fine opportunity for a whole convent full of monks to
+look foolish--filing up in procession with their hands full of gifts
+to offer to a miracle, and finding there was no miracle, but only
+Peter's little sister.
+
+But the abbot of the Christmas Monks had always maintained that there
+were two ways of looking at all things; if any object was not what you
+wanted it to be in one light, that there was another light in which it
+would be sure to meet your views.
+
+So now he brought this philosophy to bear.
+
+"This little girl did not come up in the place of the wax doll, and
+she is not a miracle in that light," said he; "but look at her in
+another light and she is a miracle--do you not see?"
+
+They all looked at her, the darling little girl, the very meaning and
+sweetness of all Christmas in her loving, trusting, innocent face.
+
+"Yes," said all the Christmas Monks, "she is a miracle." And they all
+laid their beautiful Christmas presents down before her.
+
+Peter was so delighted he hardly knew himself; and, oh! the joy there
+was when he led his little sister home on Christmas-day, and showed
+all the wonderful presents.
+
+The Christmas Monks always retained Peter in their employ--in fact he
+is in their employ to this day. And his parents, and his little
+sister who was entirely cured of her lameness, have never wanted for
+anything.
+
+As for the Prince, the courtiers were never tired of discussing and
+admiring his wonderful knowledge of physics which led to his adjusting
+the weight of the hamper of Christmas presents to his own so nicely
+that he could not fall. The Prince liked the talk and the admiration
+well enough, but he could not help, also, being a little glum: for he
+got no Christmas presents that year.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PUMPKIN GIANT.
+
+
+A very long time ago, before our grandmother's time, or our
+great-grandmother's, or our grandmothers' with a very long string of
+greats prefixed, there were no pumpkins; people had never eaten a
+pumpkin-pie, or even stewed pumpkin; and that was the time when the
+Pumpkin Giant flourished.
+
+There have been a great many giants who have flourished since the
+world begun, and although a select few of them have been good giants,
+the majority of them have been so bad that their crimes even more than
+their size have gone to make them notorious. But the Pumpkin Giant was
+an uncommonly bad one, and his general appearance and his behavior
+were such as to make one shudder to an extent that you would hardly
+believe possible. The convulsive shivering caused by the mere mention
+of his name, and, in some cases where the people were unusually
+sensitive, by the mere thought of him even, more resembled the blue
+ague than anything else; indeed was known by the name of "the Giant's
+Shakes."
+
+The Pumpkin Giant was very tall; he probably would have overtopped
+most of the giants you have ever heard of. I don't suppose the Giant
+who lived on the Bean-stalk whom Jack visited, was anything to compare
+with him; nor that it would have been a possible thing for the Pumpkin
+Giant, had he received an invitation to spend an afternoon with the
+Bean-stalk Giant, to accept, on account of his inability to enter the
+Bean-stalk Giant's door, no matter how much he stooped.
+
+The Pumpkin Giant had a very large yellow head, which was also smooth
+and shiny. His eyes were big and round, and glowed like coals of fire;
+and you would almost have thought that his head was lit up inside with
+candles. Indeed there was a rumor to that effect amongst the common
+people, but that was all nonsense, of course; no one of the more
+enlightened class credited it for an instant. His mouth, which
+stretched half around his head, was furnished with rows of pointed
+teeth, and he was never known to hold it any other way than wide open.
+
+The Pumpkin Giant lived in a castle, as a matter of course; it is not
+fashionable for a giant to live in any other kind of a dwelling--why,
+nothing would be more tame and uninteresting than a giant in a
+two-story white house with green blinds and a picket fence, or even a
+brown-stone front, if he could get into either of them, which he could
+not.
+
+The Giant's castle was situated on a mountain, as it ought to have
+been, and there was also the usual courtyard before it, and the
+customary moat, which was full of--_bones_! All I have got to say
+about these bones is, they were not mutton bones. A great many details
+of this story must be left to the imagination of the reader; they are
+too harrowing to relate. A much tenderer regard for the feelings of
+the audience will be shown in this than in most giant stories; we will
+even go so far as to state in advance, that the story has a good end,
+thereby enabling readers to peruse it comfortably without unpleasant
+suspense.
+
+The Pumpkin Giant was fonder of little boys and girls than anything
+else in the world; but he was somewhat fonder of little boys, and more
+particularly of _fat_ little boys.
+
+The fear and horror of this Giant extended over the whole country.
+Even the King on his throne was so severely afflicted with the Giant's
+Shakes that he had been obliged to have the throne propped, for fear
+it should topple over in some unusually violent fit. There was good
+reason why the King shook: his only daughter, the Princess Ariadne
+Diana, was probably the fattest princess in the whole world at that
+date. So fat was she that she had never walked a step in the dozen
+years of her life, being totally unable to progress over the earth by
+any method except rolling. And a really beautiful sight it was, too,
+to see the Princess Ariadne Diana, in her cloth-of-gold rolling-suit,
+faced with green velvet and edged with ermine, with her glittering
+crown on her head, trundling along the avenues of the royal gardens,
+which had been furnished with strips of rich carpeting for her express
+accommodation.
+
+But gratifying as it would have been to the King, her sire, under
+other circumstances, to have had such an unusually interesting
+daughter, it now only served to fill his heart with the greatest
+anxiety on her account. The Princess was never allowed to leave the
+palace without a body-guard of fifty knights, the very flower of
+the King's troops, with lances in rest, but in spite of all this
+precaution, the King shook.
+
+Meanwhile amongst the ordinary people who could not procure an escort
+of fifty armed knights for the plump among their children, the ravages
+of the Pumpkin Giant were frightful. It was apprehended at one time
+that there would be very few fat little girls, and no fat little boys
+at all, left in the kingdom. And what made matters worse, at that time
+the Giant commenced taking a tonic to increase his appetite.
+
+Finally the King, in desperation, issued a proclamation that he would
+knight any one, be he noble or common, who should cut off the head of
+the Pumpkin Giant. This was the King's usual method of rewarding
+any noble deed in his kingdom. It was a cheap method, and besides
+everybody liked to be a knight.
+
+When the King issued his proclamation every man in the kingdom who was
+not already a knight, straightway tried to contrive ways and means
+to kill the Pumpkin Giant. But there was one obstacle which seemed
+insurmountable: they were afraid, and all of them had the Giant's
+Shakes so badly, that they could not possibly have held a knife steady
+enough to cut off the Giant's head, even if they had dared to go near
+enough for that purpose.
+
+There was one man who lived not far from the terrible Giant's castle,
+a poor man, his only worldly wealth consisting in a large potato-field
+and a cottage in front of it. But he had a boy of twelve, an only son,
+who rivaled the Princess Ariadne Diana in point of fatness. He was
+unable to have a body-guard for his son; so the amount of terror which
+the inhabitants of that humble cottage suffered day and night was
+heart-rending. The poor mother had been unable to leave her bed for
+two years, on account of the Giant's Shakes; her husband barely got a
+living from the potato-field; half the time he and his wife had hardly
+enough to eat, as it naturally took the larger part of the potatoes to
+satisfy the fat little boy, their son, and their situation was truly
+pitiable.
+
+The fat boy's name was AEneas, his father's name was Patroclus, and
+his mother's Daphne. It was all the fashion in those days to have
+classical names. And as that was a fashion as easily adopted by the
+poor as the rich, everybody had them. They were just like Jim and
+Tommy and May in these days. Why, the Princess's name, Ariadne Diana,
+was nothing more nor less than Ann Eliza with us.
+
+One morning Patroclus and AEneas were out in the field digging
+potatoes, for new potatoes were just in the market. The Early Rose
+potato had not been discovered in those days; but there was another
+potato, perhaps equally good, which attained to a similar degree of
+celebrity. It was called the Young Plantagenet, and reached a very
+large size indeed, much larger than the Early Rose does in our time.
+
+Well, Patroclus and AEneas had just dug perhaps a bushel of Young
+Plantagenet potatoes. It was slow work with them, for Patroclus had
+the Giant's Shakes badly that morning, and of course AEneas was not
+very swift. He rolled about among the potato-hills after the manner
+of the Princess Ariadne Diana; but he did not present as imposing an
+appearance as she, in his homespun farmer's frock.
+
+All at once the earth trembled violently. Patroclus and AEneas looked
+up and saw the Pumpkin Giant coming with his mouth wide open. "Get
+behind me, O, my darling son!" cried Patroclus.
+
+AEneas obeyed, but it was of no use; for you could see his cheeks each
+side his father's waistcoat.
+
+Patroclus was not ordinarily a brave man, but he was brave in an
+emergency; and as that is the only time when there is the slightest
+need of bravery, it was just as well.
+
+The Pumpkin Giant strode along faster and faster, opening his mouth
+wider and wider, until they could fairly hear it crack at the corners.
+
+Then Patroclus picked up an enormous Young Plantagenet and threw it
+plump into the Pumpkin Giant's mouth. The Giant choked and gasped, and
+choked and gasped, and finally tumbled down and died.
+
+[Illustration: HE PICKED UP AN ENORMOUS YOUNG PLANTAGENET AND THREW IT
+AT HIM.]
+
+Patroclus and AEneas while the Giant was choking, had run to the house
+and locked themselves in; then they looked out of the kitchen window;
+when they saw the Giant tumble down and lie quite still, they knew he
+must be dead. Then Daphne was immediately cured of the Giant's
+Shakes, and got out of bed for the first time in two years. Patroclus
+sharpened the carving-knife on the kitchen stove, and they all went
+out into the potato-field.
+
+They cautiously approached the prostrate Giant, for fear he might be
+shamming, and might suddenly spring up at them and--AEneas. But no, he
+did not move at all; he was quite dead. And, all taking turns, they
+hacked off his head with the carving-knife. Then AEneas had it to play
+with, which was quite appropriate, and a good instance of the sarcasm
+of destiny.
+
+The King was notified of the death of the Pumpkin Giant, and was
+greatly rejoiced thereby. His Giant's Shakes ceased, the props were
+removed from the throne, and the Princess Ariadne Diana was allowed to
+go out without her body-guard of fifty knights, much to her delight,
+for she found them a great hindrance to the enjoyment of her daily
+outings.
+
+It was a great cross, not to say an embarrassment, when she was
+gleefully rolling in pursuit of a charming red and gold butterfly, to
+find herself suddenly stopped short by an armed knight with his lance
+in rest.
+
+But the King, though his gratitude for the noble deed knew no bounds,
+omitted to give the promised reward and knight Patroclus.
+
+I hardly know how it happened--I don't think it was anything
+intentional. Patroclus felt rather hurt about it, and Daphne would
+have liked to be a lady, but AEneas did not care in the least. He had
+the Giant's head to play with and that was reward enough for him.
+There was not a boy in the neighborhood but envied him his possession
+of such a unique plaything; and when they would stand looking over the
+wall of the potato-field with longing eyes, and he was flying over the
+ground with the head, his happiness knew no bounds; and AEneas played
+so much with the Giant's head that finally late in the fall it got
+broken and scattered all over the field.
+
+[Illustration: THEY WERE ALL OVER THE FIELD.]
+
+Next spring all over Patroclus's potato-field grew running vines,
+and in the fall Giant's heads. There they were all over the field,
+hundreds of them! Then there was consternation indeed! The natural
+conclusion to be arrived at when the people saw the yellow Giant's
+heads making their appearance above the ground was, that the rest of
+the Giants were coming.
+
+"There was one Pumpkin Giant before," said they, "now there will be
+a whole army of them. If it was dreadful then what will it be in the
+future? If one Pumpkin Giant gave us the Shakes so badly, what will a
+whole army of them do?"
+
+But when some time had elapsed and nothing more of the Giants appeared
+above the surface of the potato-field, and as moreover the heads had
+not yet displayed any sign of opening their mouths, the people began
+to feel a little easier, and the general excitement subsided somewhat,
+although the King had ordered out Ariadne Diana's body-guard again.
+
+Now AEneas had been born with a propensity for putting everything into
+his mouth and tasting it; there was scarcely anything in his vicinity
+which could by any possibility be tasted, which he had not eaten a
+bit of. This propensity was so alarming in his babyhood, that Daphne
+purchased a book of antidotes; and if it had not been for her
+admirable good judgment in doing so, this story would probably never
+have been told; for no human baby could possibly have survived the
+heterogeneous diet which AEneas had indulged in. There was scarcely one
+of the antidotes which had not been resorted to from time to time.
+
+AEneas had become acquainted with the peculiar flavor of almost
+everything in his immediate vicinity except the Giant's heads; and he
+naturally enough cast longing eyes at them. Night and day he wondered
+what a Giant's head could taste like, till finally one day when
+Patroclus was away he stole out into the potato-field, cut a bit out
+of one of the Giant's heads and ate it. He was almost afraid to,
+but he reflected that his mother could give him an antidote; so he
+ventured. It tasted very sweet and nice; he liked it so much that he
+cut off another piece and ate that, then another and another, until he
+had eaten two thirds of a Giant's head. Then he thought it was about
+time for him to go in and tell his mother and take an antidote, though
+he did not feel ill at all yet.
+
+"Mother," said he, rolling slowly into the cottage, "I have eaten
+two thirds of a Giant's head, and I guess you had better give me an
+antidote."
+
+"O, my precious son!" cried Daphne, "how could you?" She looked in her
+book of antidotes, but could not find one antidote for a Giant's head.
+
+"O AEneas, my dear, dear son!" groaned Daphne, "there is no antidote
+for Giant's head! What shall we do?"
+
+Then she sat down and wept, and AEneas wept too as loud as he possibly
+could. And he apparently had excellent reason to; for it did not seem
+possible that a boy could eat two thirds of a Giant's head and survive
+it without an antidote. Patroclus came home, and they told him, and he
+sat down and lamented with them. All day they sat weeping and watching
+AEneas, expecting every moment to see him die. But he did not die; on
+the contrary he had never felt so well in his life.
+
+Finally at sunset AEneas looked up and laughed. "I am not going to
+die," said he; "I never felt so well; you had better stop crying. And
+I am going out to get some more of that Giant's head; I am hungry."
+
+"Don't, don't!" cried his father and mother; but he went; for he
+generally took his own way, very like most only sons. He came back
+with a whole Giant's head in his arms.
+
+"See here, father and mother," cried he; "we'll all have some of this;
+it evidently is not poison, and it is good--a great deal better than
+potatoes!"
+
+Patroclus and Daphne hesitated, but they were hungry too. Since
+the crop of Giant's heads had sprung up in their field instead of
+potatoes, they had been hungry most of the time; so they tasted.
+
+"It is good," said Daphne; "but I think it would be better cooked."
+So she put some in a kettle of water over the fire, and let it boil
+awhile; then she dished it up, and they all ate it. It was delicious.
+It tasted more like stewed pumpkin than anything else; in fact it was
+stewed pumpkin.
+
+Daphne was inventive, and something of a genius; and next day she
+concocted another dish out of the Giant's heads. She boiled them, and
+sifted them, and mixed them with eggs and sugar and milk and spice;
+then she lined some plates with puff paste, filled them with the
+mixture, and set them in the oven to bake.
+
+The result was unparalleled; nothing half so exquisite had ever been
+tasted. They were all in ecstasies, AEneas in particular. They gathered
+all the Giant's heads and stored them in the cellar. Daphne baked pies
+of them every day, and nothing could surpass the felicity of the whole
+family.
+
+One morning the King had been out hunting, and happened to ride by the
+cottage of Patroclus with a train of his knights. Daphne was baking
+pies as usual, and the kitchen door and window were both open, for the
+room was so warm; so the delicious odor of the pies perfumed the whole
+air about the cottage.
+
+"What is it smells so utterly lovely?" exclaimed the King, sniffing in
+a rapture.
+
+He sent his page in to see.
+
+"The housewife is baking Giant's head pies," said the page returning.
+
+"What?" thundered the King. "Bring out one to me!"
+
+So the page brought out a pie to him, and after all his knights had
+tasted to be sure it was not poison, and the king had watched them
+sharply for a few moments to be sure they were not killed, he tasted
+too.
+
+[Illustration: THEN THE KING KNIGHTED HIM ON THE SPOT.]
+
+Then he beamed. It was a new sensation, and a new sensation is a great
+boon to a king.
+
+"I never tasted anything so altogether superfine, so utterly
+magnificent in my life," cried the king; "stewed peacocks' tongues
+from the Baltic, are not to be compared with it! Call out the
+housewife immediately!"
+
+So Daphne came out trembling, and Patroclus and AEneas also.
+
+"What a charming lad!" exclaimed the King as his glance fell upon
+AEneas. "Now tell me about these wonderful pies, and I will reward you
+as becomes a monarch!"
+
+Then Patroclus fell on his knees and related the whole history of the
+Giant's head pies from the beginning.
+
+The King actually blushed. "And I forgot to knight you, oh noble and
+brave man, and to make a lady of your admirable wife!"
+
+Then the King leaned gracefully down from his saddle, and struck
+Patroclus with his jeweled sword and knighted him on the spot.
+
+The whole family went to live at the royal palace. The roses in the
+royal gardens were uprooted, and Giant's heads (or pumpkins, as they
+came to be called) were sown in their stead; all the royal parks also
+were turned into pumpkin-fields.
+
+Patroclus was in constant attendance on the King, and used to
+stand all day in his ante-chamber. Daphne had a position of great
+responsibility, for she superintended the baking of the pumpkin pies,
+and AEneas finally married the Princess Ariadne Diana.
+
+They were wedded in great state by fifty archbishops; and all the
+newspapers united in stating that they were the most charming and well
+matched young couple that had ever been united in the kingdom.
+
+The stone entrance of the Pumpkin Giant's Castle was securely
+fastened, and upon it was engraved an inscription composed by the
+first poet in the kingdom, for which the King made him laureate, and
+gave him the liberal pension of fifty pumpkin pies per year.
+
+The following is the inscription in full:
+
+  "Here dwelt the Pumpkin Giant once,
+  He's dead the nation doth rejoice,
+  For, while he was alive, he lived
+  By e----g dear, fat, little boys."
+
+The inscription is said to remain to this day; if you were to go there
+you would probably see it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS MASQUERADE.
+
+
+On Christmas Eve the Mayor's stately mansion presented a beautiful
+appearance. There were rows of different-colored wax candles burning
+in every window, and beyond them one could see the chandeliers of gold
+and crystal blazing with light. The fiddles were squeaking merrily,
+and lovely little forms flew past the windows in time to the music.
+
+There were gorgeous carpets laid from the door to the street, and
+carriages were constantly arriving, and fresh guests tripping over
+them. They were all children. The Mayor was giving a Christmas
+Masquerade to-night, to all the children in the city, the poor as well
+as the rich. The preparation for this ball had been making an immense
+sensation for the last three months. Placards had been up in the most
+conspicuous points in the city, and all the daily newspapers had
+at least a column devoted to it, headed with THE MAYOR'S CHRISTMAS
+MASQUERADE in very large letters.
+
+The Mayor had promised to defray the expenses of all the poor children
+whose parents were unable to do so, and the bills for their costumes
+were directed to be sent in to him.
+
+Of course there was a great deal of excitement among the regular
+costumers of the city, and they all resolved to vie with one another
+in being the most popular, and the best patronized on this gala
+occasion. But the placards and the notices had not been out a week
+before a new Costumer appeared, who cast all the others into the shade
+directly. He set up his shop on the corner of one of the principal
+streets, and hung up his beautiful costumes in the windows. He was a
+little fellow, not much larger than a boy of ten. His cheeks were as
+red as roses, and he had on a long curling wig as white as snow.
+He wore a suit of crimson velvet knee-breeches, and a little
+swallow-tailed coat with beautiful golden buttons. Deep lace ruffles
+fell over his slender white hands, and he wore elegant knee-buckles
+of glittering stones. He sat on a high stool behind his counter and
+served his customers himself; he kept no clerk.
+
+It did not take the children long to discover what beautiful things he
+had, and how superior he was to the other costumers, and they begun to
+flock to his shop immediately, from the Mayor's daughter to the poor
+rag-picker's. The children were to select their own costumes; the
+Mayor had stipulated that. It was to be a children's ball in every
+sense of the word.
+
+So they decided to be fairies, and shepherdesses, and princesses,
+according to their own fancies; and this new costumer had charming
+costumes to suit them.
+
+It was noticeable, that, for the most part, the children of the rich,
+who had always had everything they desired, would choose the parts of
+goose-girls and peasants and such like; and the poor children jumped
+eagerly at the chance of being princesses or fairies for a few hours
+in their miserable lives.
+
+When Christmas Eve came, and the children flocked into the Mayor's
+mansion, whether it was owing to the Costumer's art, or their own
+adaptation to the characters they had chosen, it was wonderful how
+lifelike their representations were. Those little fairies in their
+short skirts of silken gauze, in which golden sparkles appeared as
+they moved, with their little funny gossamer wings, like butterflies,
+looked like real fairies. It did not seem possible, when they floated
+around to the music, half supported on the tips of their dainty toes,
+half by their filmy, purple wings, their delicate bodies swaying in
+time, that they could be anything but fairies. It seemed absurd to
+imagine that they were Johnny Mullens, the washwoman's son, and Polly
+Flinders, the charwoman's little girl, and so on.
+
+The Mayor's daughter, who had chosen the character of a goose-girl,
+looked so like a true one that one could hardly dream she ever was
+anything else. She was, ordinarily, a slender, dainty little lady,
+rather tall for her age. She now looked very short and stubbed and
+brown, just as if she had been accustomed to tend geese in all sorts
+of weather. It was so with all the others--the Red Riding-hoods, the
+princesses, the Bo Peeps, and with every one of the characters who
+came to the Mayor's ball; Red Riding-hood looked round, with big,
+frightened eyes, all ready to spy the wolf, and carried her little
+pat of butter and pot of honey gingerly in her basket; Bo Peep's eyes
+looked red with weeping for the loss of her sheep; and the princesses
+swept about so grandly in their splendid brocaded trains, and held
+their crowned heads so high that people half believed them to be true
+princesses.
+
+But there never was anything like the fun at the Mayor's Christmas
+ball. The fiddlers fiddled and fiddled, and the children danced and
+danced on the beautiful waxed floors. The Mayor, with his family and a
+few grand guests, sat on a dais covered with blue velvet at one end of
+the dancing hall, and watched the sport. They were all delighted. The
+Mayor's eldest daughter sat in front and clapped her little soft white
+hands. She was a tall, beautiful young maiden, and wore a white dress,
+and a little cap woven of blue violets on her yellow hair. Her name
+was Violetta.
+
+[Illustration: THERE NEVER WAS ANYTHING LIKE THE FUN AT THE MAYOR'S
+CHRISTMAS BALL.]
+
+The supper was served at midnight--and such a supper! The mountains
+of pink and white ices, and the cakes with sugar castles and
+flower-gardens on the tops of them, and the charming shapes of gold
+and ruby-colored jellies! There were wonderful bonbons which even the
+Mayor's daughter did not have every day; and all sorts of fruits,
+fresh and candied. They had cowslip wine in green glasses, and
+elderberry wine in red, and they drank each other's health. The
+glasses held a thimbleful each; the Mayor's wife thought that was all
+the wine they ought to have. Under each child's plate there was a
+pretty present; and every one had a basket of bonbons and cake to
+carry home.
+
+At four o'clock the fiddlers put up their fiddles and the children
+went home; fairies and shepherdesses and pages and princesses all
+jabbering gleefully about the splendid time they had had.
+
+But in a short time what consternation there was throughout the city!
+When the proud and fond parents attempted to unbutton their children's
+dresses, in order to prepare them for bed, not a single costume would
+come off. The buttons buttoned again as fast as they were unbuttoned;
+even if they pulled out a pin, in it would slip again in a twinkling;
+and when a string was untied it tied itself up again into a bow-knot.
+The parents were dreadfully frightened. But the children were so tired
+out they finally let them go to bed in their fancy costumes, and
+thought perhaps they would come off better in the morning. So Red
+Riding-hood went to bed in her little red cloak, holding fast to her
+basket full of dainties for her grandmother, and Bo Peep slept with
+her crook in her hand.
+
+The children all went to bed readily enough, they were so very
+tired, even though they had to go in this strange array. All but the
+fairies--they danced and pirouetted and would not be still.
+
+[Illustration: THEIR PARENTS STARED IN GREAT DISTRESS]
+
+"We want to swing on the blades of grass," they kept saying, "and play
+hide-and-seek in the lily-cups, and take a nap between the leaves of
+the roses."
+
+The poor charwomen and coal-heavers, whose children the fairies were
+for the most part, stared at them in great distress. They did not know
+what to do with these radiant, frisky little creatures into which
+their Johnnys and their Pollys and Betseys were so suddenly
+transformed. But the fairies went to bed quietly enough when daylight
+came, and were soon fast asleep.
+
+There was no further trouble till twelve o'clock, when all the
+children woke up. Then a great wave of alarm spread over the city. Not
+one of the costumes would come off then. The buttons buttoned as fast
+as they were unbuttoned; the pins quilted themselves in as fast as
+they were pulled out; and the strings, flew round like lightning and
+twisted themselves into bow-knots as fast as they were untied.
+
+And that was not the worst of it; every one of the children seemed to
+have become, in reality, the character which he or she had assumed.
+
+The Mayor's daughter declared she was going to tend her geese out in
+the pasture, and the shepherdesses sprang out of their little beds of
+down, throwing aside their silken quilts, and cried that they must go
+out and watch their sheep. The princesses jumped up from their straw
+pallets, and wanted to go to court; and all the rest of them likewise.
+Poor little Red Riding-hood sobbed and sobbed because she couldn't go
+and carry her basket to her grandmother, and as she didn't have any
+grandmother she couldn't go, of course, and her parents were very much
+troubled. It was all so mysterious and dreadful. The news spread very
+rapidly over the city, and soon a great crowd gathered around the new
+Costumer's shop, for every one thought he must be responsible for all
+this mischief.
+
+The shop door was locked; but they soon battered it down with stones.
+When they rushed in the Costumer was not there; he had disappeared
+with all his wares. Then they did not know what to do. But it was
+evident that they must do something before long, for the state of
+affairs was growing worse and worse.
+
+The Mayor's little daughter braced her back up against the tapestried
+wall and planted her two feet in their thick shoes firmly. "I will
+go and tend my geese!" she kept crying. "I won't eat my breakfast! I
+won't go out in the park! I won't go to school. I'm going to tend my
+geese--I will, I will, I will!"
+
+And the princesses trailed their rich trains over the rough, unpainted
+floors in their parents' poor little huts, and held their crowned
+heads very high and demanded to be taken to court. The princesses
+were, mostly, geese-girls when they were their proper selves, and
+their geese were suffering, and their poor parents did not know what
+they were going to do, and they wrung their hands and wept as they
+gazed on their gorgeously-appareled children.
+
+Finally, the Mayor called a meeting of the Aldermen, and they all
+assembled in the City Hall. Nearly every one of them had a son or
+a daughter who was a chimney-sweep, or a little watch-girl, or a
+shepherdess. They appointed a chairman and they took a great many
+votes, and contrary votes; but they did not agree on anything, until
+some one proposed that they consult the Wise Woman. Then they all held
+up their hands, and voted to, unanimously.
+
+[Illustration: "I WILL GO AND TEND MY GEESE!"]
+
+So the whole board of Aldermen set out, walking by twos, with the
+Mayor at their head, to consult the Wise Woman. The Aldermen were all
+very fleshy, and carried gold-headed canes which they swung very high
+at every step. They held their heads well back, and their chins stiff,
+and whenever they met common people they sniffed gently. They were
+very imposing.
+
+The Wise Woman lived in a little hut on the out-skirts of the city.
+She kept a Black Cat; except for her, she was all alone. She was very
+old, and had brought up a great many children, and she was considered
+remarkably wise.
+
+But when the Aldermen reached her hut and found her seated by the
+fire, holding her Black Cat, a new difficulty presented itself. She
+had always been quite deaf, and people had been obliged to scream as
+loud as they could in order to make her hear; but, lately, she had
+grown much deafer, and when the Aldermen attempted to lay the case
+before her she could not hear a word. In fact, she was so very deaf
+that she could not distinguish a tone below G-sharp. The Aldermen
+screamed till they were quite red in their faces, but all to no
+purpose; none of them could get up to G-sharp, of course.
+
+So the Aldermen all went back, swinging their gold-headed canes, and
+they had another meeting in the City Hall. Then they decided to send
+the highest Soprano Singer in the church choir to the Wise Woman; she
+could sing up to G-sharp just as easy as not. So the high-Soprano
+Singer set out for the Wise Woman's in the Mayor's coach, and the
+Aldermen marched behind, swinging their gold-headed canes.
+
+The high-Soprano Singer put her head down close to the Wise Woman's
+ear, and sang all about the Christmas Masquerade, and the dreadful
+dilemma everybody was in, in G-sharp--she even went higher,
+sometimes--and the Wise Woman heard every word. She nodded three
+times, and every time she nodded she looked wiser.
+
+"Go home, and give 'em a spoonful of castor-oil, all 'round," she
+piped up; then she took a pinch of snuff, and wouldn't say any more.
+
+So the Aldermen went home, and each one took a district and marched
+through it, with a servant carrying an immense bowl and spoon, and
+every child had to take a dose of castor-oil.
+
+But it didn't do a bit of good. The children cried and struggled when
+they were forced to take the castor-oil; but, two minutes afterward,
+the chimney-sweeps were crying for their brooms, and the princesses
+screaming because they couldn't go to court, and the Mayor's daughter,
+who had been given a double dose, cried louder and more sturdily: "I
+want to go and tend my geese! I will go and tend my geese!"
+
+So the Aldermen took the high-Soprano Singer, and they consulted the
+Wise Woman again. She was taking a nap this time, and the Singer had
+to sing up to B-flat before she could wake her. Then she was very
+cross, and the Black Cat put up his back and spit at the Aldermen.
+
+"Give 'em a spanking all 'round," she snapped out, "and if that don't
+work put 'em to bed without their supper!"
+
+Then the Aldermen marched back to try that; and all the children in
+the city were spanked, and when that didn't do any good they were put
+to bed without any supper. But the next morning when they woke up they
+were worse than ever.
+
+The Mayor and the Aldermen were very indignant, and considered that
+they had been imposed upon and insulted. So they set out for the Wise
+Woman's again, with the high-Soprano Singer.
+
+She sang in G-sharp how the Aldermen and the Mayor considered her an
+imposter, and did not think she was wise at all, and they wished her
+to take her Black Cat and move beyond the limits of the city. She sang
+it beautifully; it sounded like the very finest Italian opera-music.
+
+"Deary me," piped the Wise Woman, when she had finished, "how very
+grand these gentlemen are." Her Black Cat put up his back and spit.
+
+"Five times one Black Cat are five Black Cats," said the Wise Woman.
+And, directly, there were five Black Cats, spitting and miauling.
+
+"Five times five Black Cats are twenty-five Black Cats." And then
+there were twenty-five of the angry little beasts.
+
+"Five times twenty-five Black Cats are one hundred and twenty-five
+Black Cats," added the Wise Woman, with a chuckle.
+
+[Illustration: SHE SANG IT BEAUTIFULLY.]
+
+Then the Mayor and the Aldermen and the high-Soprano Singer fled
+precipitately out the door and back to the city. One hundred and
+twenty-five Black Cats had seemed to fill the Wise Woman's hut full,
+and when they all spit and miauled together it was dreadful. The
+visitors could not wait for her to multiply Black Cats any longer.
+
+As winter wore on, and spring came, the condition of things grew more
+intolerable. Physicians had been consulted, who advised that the
+children should be allowed to follow their own bents, for fear of
+injury to their constitutions. So the rich Aldermen's daughters were
+actually out in the fields herding sheep, and their sons sweeping
+chimneys or carrying newspapers; while the poor charwomen's and
+coal-heavers' children spent their time like princesses and fairies.
+Such a topsy-turvy state of society was shocking. Why, the Mayor's
+little daughter was tending geese out in the meadow like any common
+goose-girl! Her pretty elder sister, Violetta, felt very sad about it,
+and used often to cast about in her mind for some way of relief.
+
+When cherries were ripe in spring, Violetta thought she would ask the
+Cherry-man about it. She thought the Cherry-man quite wise. He was a
+very pretty young fellow, and he brought cherries to sell in
+graceful little straw baskets lined with moss. So she stood in the
+kitchen-door, one morning, and told him all about the great trouble
+that had come upon the city. He listened in great astonishment; he had
+never heard of it before. He lived several miles out in the country.
+
+"How did the Costumer look?" he asked respectfully; he thought
+Violetta the most beautiful lady on earth.
+
+Then Violetta described the Costumer, and told him of the unavailing
+attempts that had been made to find him. There were a great many
+detectives out, constantly at work.
+
+"I know where he is!" said the Cherry-man. "He's up in one of my
+cherry-trees. He's been living there ever since cherries were ripe,
+and he won't come down."
+
+Then Violetta ran and told her father in great excitement, and he at
+once called a meeting of the Aldermen, and in a few hours half the
+city was on the road to the Cherry-man's.
+
+He had a beautiful orchard of cherry-trees, all laden with fruit.
+And, sure enough, in one of the largest, way up amongst the topmost
+branches, sat the Costumer in his red velvet short-clothes and his
+diamond knee-buckles. He looked down between the green boughs.
+"Good-morning, friends," he shouted.
+
+The Aldermen shook their gold-headed canes at him, and the people
+danced round the tree in a rage. Then they began to climb. But they
+soon found that to be impossible. As fast as they touched a hand or
+foot to the tree, back it flew with a jerk exactly as if the tree
+pushed it. They tried a ladder, but the ladder fell back the moment
+it touched the tree, and lay sprawling upon the ground. Finally, they
+brought axes and thought they could chop the tree down, Costumer and
+all; but the wood resisted the axes as if it were iron, and only
+dented them, receiving no impression itself.
+
+Meanwhile, the Costumer sat up in the tree, eating cherries, and
+throwing the stones down. Finally, he stood up on a stout branch and,
+looking down, addressed the people.
+
+"It's of no use, your trying to accomplish anything in this way," said
+he; "you'd better parley. I'm willing to come to terms with you, and
+make everything right, on two conditions."
+
+The people grew quiet then, and the Mayor stepped forward as
+spokesman. "Name your two conditions," said he, rather testily. "You
+own, tacitly, that you are the cause of all this trouble."
+
+"Well," said the Costumer, reaching out for a handful of cherries,
+"this Christmas Masquerade of yours was a beautiful idea; but you
+wouldn't do it every year, and your successors might not do it at all.
+I want those poor children to have a Christmas every year. My first
+condition is, that every poor child in the city hangs its stocking for
+gifts in the City Hall on every Christmas Eve, and gets it filled,
+too. I want the resolution filed and put away in the city archives."
+
+"We agree to the first condition!" cried the people with one voice,
+without waiting for the Mayor and Aldermen.
+
+"The second condition," said the Costumer, "is that this good young
+Cherry-man here, has the Mayor's daughter, Violetta, for his wife. He
+has been kind to me, letting me live in his cherry-tree, and eat his
+cherries, and I want to reward him."
+
+"We consent!" cried all the people; but the Mayor, though he was
+so generous, was a proud man. "I will not consent to the second
+condition," he cried angrily.
+
+"Very well," replied the Costumer, picking some more cherries, "then
+your youngest daughter tends geese the rest of her life, that's all!"
+
+The Mayor was in great distress; but the thought of his youngest
+daughter being a goose-girl all her life was too much for him. He gave
+in at last.
+
+"Now go home, and take the costumes off your children," said the
+Costumer, "and leave me in peace to eat cherries!"
+
+Then the people hastened back to the city and found, to their great
+delight, that the costumes would come off. The pins staid out, the
+buttons staid unbuttoned, and the strings staid untied. The children
+were dressed in their own proper clothes and were their own proper
+selves once more. The shepherdesses and the chimney-sweeps came
+home, and were washed and dressed in silks and velvets, and went to
+embroidering and playing lawn-tennis. And the princesses and the
+fairies put on their own suitable dresses, and went about their useful
+employments. There was great rejoicing in every home. Violetta thought
+she had never been so happy, now that her dear little sister was no
+longer a goose-girl, but her own dainty little lady-self.
+
+The resolution to provide every poor child in the city with a stocking
+full of gifts on Christmas was solemnly filed, and deposited in the
+city archives, and was never broken.
+
+Violetta was married to the Cherry-man, and all the children came to
+the wedding, and strewed flowers in her path till her feet were quite
+hidden in them. The Costumer had mysteriously disappeared from the
+cherry-tree the night before, but he left, at the foot, some beautiful
+wedding presents for the bride--a silver service with a pattern of
+cherries engraved on it, and a set of china with cherries on it, in
+hand-painting, and a white satin robe, embroidered with cherries down
+the front.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DILL.
+
+
+Dame Clementina was in her dairy, churning, and her little daughter
+Nan was out in the flower-garden. The flower-garden was a little plot
+back of the cottage, full of all the sweet, old-fashioned herbs. There
+were sweet marjoram, sage, summersavory, lavender, and ever so many
+others. Up in one corner, there was a little green bed of dill.
+
+Nan was a dainty, slim little maiden, with yellow, flossy hair in
+short curls all over her head. Her eyes were very sweet and round and
+blue, and she wore a quaint little snuff-colored gown. It had a short
+full waist, with low neck and puffed sleeves, and the skirt was
+straight and narrow and down to her little heels.
+
+She danced around the garden, picking a flower here and there. She was
+making a nosegay for her mother. She picked lavender and sweet-william
+and pinks, and bunched them up together. Finally she pulled a little
+sprig of dill, and ran, with that and the nosegay, to her mother in
+the dairy.
+
+"Mother dear," said she, "here is a little nosegay for you; and what
+was it I overheard you telling Dame Elizabeth about dill last night?"
+
+Dame Clementina stopped churning and took the nosegay. "Thank you,
+Sweetheart, it is lovely," said she, "and, as for the dill--it is a
+charmed plant, you know, like four-leaved clover."
+
+"Do you put it over the door?" asked Nan.
+
+"Yes. Nobody who is envious or ill-disposed can enter into the house
+if there is a sprig of dill over the door. Then I know another charm
+which makes it stronger. If one just writes this verse:
+
+  "'Alva, aden, winira mir,
+    Villawissen lingen;
+  Sanchta, wanchta, attazir,
+    Hor de mussen wingen,'
+
+under the sprig of dill, every one envious, or evil-disposed, who
+attempts to enter the house, will have to stop short, just where they
+are, and stand there; they cannot move."
+
+"What does the verse mean?" asked Nan.
+
+"That, I do not know. It is written in a foreign language. But it is a
+powerful charm."
+
+"O, mother! will you write it off for me, if I will bring you a bit of
+paper and a pen?"
+
+"Certainly," replied her mother, and wrote it off when Nan brought pen
+and paper.
+
+"Now," said she, "you must run off and play again, and not hinder me
+any longer, or I shall not get my butter made to-day."
+
+So Nan danced away with the verse, and the sprig of dill, and her
+mother went on churning.
+
+She had a beautiful tall stone churn, with the sides all carved with
+figures in relief. There were milkmaids and cows as natural as life
+all around the churn. The dairy was charming, too. The shelves were
+carved stone; and the floor had a little silvery rill running right
+through the middle of it, with green ferns at the sides. All along the
+stone shelves were set pans full of yellow cream, and the pans were
+all of solid silver, with a chasing of buttercups and daisies around
+the brims.
+
+It was not a common dairy, and Dame Clementina was not a common
+dairy-woman. She was very tall and stately, and wore her silver-white
+hair braided around her head like a crown, with a high silver comb
+at the top. She walked like a queen; indeed she was a noble count's
+daughter. In her early youth, she had married a pretty young dairyman,
+against her father's wishes; so she had been disinherited. The
+dairyman had been so very poor and low down in the world, that the
+count felt it his duty to cast off his daughter, lest she should do
+discredit to his noble line. There was a much pleasanter, easier way
+out of the difficulty, which the count did not see. Indeed, it was a
+peculiarity of all his family, that they never could see a way out of
+a difficulty, high and noble as they were. The count only needed to
+have given the poor young dairyman a few acres of his own land, and a
+few bags of his own gold, and begged the king, with whom he had great
+influence, to knight him, and all the obstacles would have been
+removed; the dairyman would have been quite rich and noble enough for
+his son-in-law. But he never thought of that, and his daughter was
+disinherited. However, he made all the amends to her that he could,
+and fitted her out royally for her humble station in life. He caused
+this beautiful dairy to be built for her, and gave her the silver
+milk-pans, and the carved stone churn.
+
+"My daughter shall not churn in a common wooden churn, or skim the
+cream from wooden pans," he had said.
+
+The dairyman had been dead a good many years now, and Dame Clementina
+managed the dairy alone. She never saw anything of her father,
+although he lived in his castle not far off, on a neighboring height.
+When the sky was clear, she could see its stone towers against it. She
+had four beautiful white cows, and Nan drove them to pasture; they
+were very gentle.
+
+When Dame Clementina had finished churning, she went into the cottage.
+As she stepped through the little door with clumps of sweet peas on
+each side, she looked up. There was the sprig of dill, and the magic
+verse she had written under it.
+
+Nan was sitting at the window inside, knitting her stent on a blue
+stocking. "Ah, Sweetheart," said her mother, laughing, "you have
+little cause to pin the dill and the verse over our door. None is
+likely to envy us, or to be ill-disposed toward us."
+
+"O, mother!" said Nan, "I know it, but I thought it would be so nice
+to feel sure. Oh, there is Dame Golding coming after some milk. Do you
+suppose she will have to stop?"
+
+"What nonsense!" said her mother. They both of them watched Dame
+Golding coming. All of a sudden, she stopped short, just outside. She
+could go no further. She tried to lift her feet, but could not.
+
+"O, mother!" cried Nan, "she has stopped!"
+
+The poor woman began to scream. She was frightened almost to death.
+Nan and her mother were not much less frightened, but they did not
+know what to do. They ran out, and tried to comfort her, and gave her
+some cream to drink; but it did not amount to much. Dame Golding had
+secretly envied Dame Clementina for her silver milk-pans. Nan and her
+mother knew why their visitor was so suddenly rooted to the spot, of
+course, but she did not. She thought her feet were paralyzed, and she
+kept begging them to send for her husband.
+
+"Perhaps he can pull her away," said Nan, crying. How she wished she
+had never pinned the dill and the verse over the door! So she set off
+for Dame Golding's husband. He came running in a great hurry; but when
+he had nearly reached his wife, and had his arms reached out to grasp
+her, he, too, stopped short. He had envied Dame Clementina for her
+beautiful white cows, and there he was fast, also.
+
+He began to groan and scream too. Nan and her mother ran into the
+house and shut the door. They could not bear it. "What shall we do,
+if any one else comes?" sobbed Nan. "O, mother! there is Dame Dorothy
+coming. And--yes--Oh! she has stopped too." Poor Dame Dorothy had
+envied Dame Clementina a little for her flower-garden, which was finer
+than hers, so she had to join Dame Golding and her husband.
+
+Pretty soon another woman came, who had looked with envious eyes at
+Dame Clementina, because she was a count's daughter; and another, who
+had grudged her a fine damask petticoat, which she had had before she
+was disinherited, and still wore on holidays; and they both had to
+stop.
+
+Then came three rough-looking men in velvet jackets and slouched hats,
+who brought up short at the gate with a great jerk that nearly took
+their breath away. They were robbers who were prowling about with a
+view to stealing Dame Clementina's silver milk-pans some dark night.
+
+[Illustration: A STRANGE SAD STATE OF THINGS.]
+
+All through the day the people kept coming and stopping. It was
+wonderful how many things poor Dame Clementina had to be envied
+by men and women, and even children. They envied Nan for her yellow
+curls or her blue eyes, or her pretty snuff-colored gown. When the
+sun set, the yard in front of Dame Clementina's cottage was full of
+people. Lastly, just before dark, the count himself came ambling up
+on a coal-black horse. The count was a majestic old man dressed in
+velvet, with stars on his breast. His white hair fell in long curls
+on his shoulders, and he had a pointed beard. As he came to the gate,
+he caught a glimpse of Nan in the door.
+
+"How I wish that little maiden was my child," said he. And,
+straightway, he stopped. His horse pawed and trembled when he lashed
+him with a jeweled whip to make him go on; but he could not stir
+forward one step. Neither could the count dismount from his saddle; he
+sat there fuming with rage.
+
+Meanwhile, poor Dame Clementina and little Nan were overcome with
+distress. The sight of their yard full of all these weeping people
+was dreadful. Neither of them had any idea how to do away with the
+trouble, because of their family inability to see their way out of a
+difficulty.
+
+When supper time came, Nan went for the cows, and her mother milked
+them into her silver milk-pails, and strained off the milk into her
+silver pans. Then they kindled up a fire and cooked some beautiful
+milk porridge for the poor people in the yard.
+
+It was a beautiful warm moonlight night, and all the winds were sweet
+with roses and pinks; so the people could not suffer out of doors; but
+the next morning it rained.
+
+"O, mother!" said Nan, "it is raining, and what will the poor people
+do?"
+
+Dame Clementina would never have seen her way out of this difficulty,
+had not Dame Golding cried out that her bonnet was getting wet, and
+she wanted an umbrella.
+
+"Why, you must go around to their houses, of course, and get their
+umbrellas for them," said Dame Clementina; "but first, give ours to
+that old man on horseback." She did not know her father, so many years
+had passed since she had seen him, and he had altered so.
+
+So Nan carried out their great yellow umbrella to the count, and went
+around to the others' houses for their own umbrellas. It was pitiful
+enough to see them standing all alone behind the doors. She could not
+find three extra ones for the three robbers, and she felt badly about
+that.
+
+Somebody suggested, however, that milk-pans turned over their heads
+would keep the rain off their slouched hats, at least; so she got
+a silver milk-pan for an umbrella for each. They made such frantic
+efforts to get away then, that they looked like jumping-jacks; but it
+was of no use.
+
+[Illustration: NAN RETURNS WITH THE UMBRELLAS.]
+
+Poor Dame Clementina and Nan after they had given the milk porridge to
+the people, and done all they could for their comfort, stood staring
+disconsolately out of the window at them under their dripping
+umbrellas. The yard was fairly green and black and blue and yellow
+with umbrellas. They wept at the sight, but they could not think
+of any way out of the difficulty. The people themselves might have
+suggested one, had they known the real cause; but they did not dare to
+tell them how they were responsible for all the trouble; they seemed
+so angry.
+
+About noon Nan spied their most particular friend, Dame Elizabeth,
+coming. She lived a little way out of the village. Nan saw her
+approaching the gate through the rain and mist, with her great blue
+umbrella and her long blue double cape and her poke bonnet; and she
+cried out in the greatest dismay: "O, mother, mother! there is our
+dear Dame Elizabeth coming; she will have to stop too!"
+
+Then they watched her with beating hearts. Dame Elizabeth stared with
+astonishment at the people, and stopped to ask them questions. But she
+passed quite through their midst, and entered the cottage under the
+sprig of dill, and the verse. She did not envy Dame Clementina or Nan,
+anything.
+
+"Tell me what this means," said she. "Why are all these people
+standing in your yard in the rain with umbrellas?"
+
+[Illustration: SUCH FRANTIC EFFORTS TO GET AWAY.]
+
+Then Dame Clementina and Nan told her. "And oh! what shall we do?"
+said they. "Will these people have to stand in our yard forever and
+ever?"
+
+Dame Elizabeth stared at them. The way out of the difficulty was so
+plain to her, that she could not credit its not being plain to them.
+
+"Why," said she, "don't you take down the sprig of dill and the
+verse?"
+
+"Why, sure enough!" said they in amazement. "Why didn't we think of
+that before?"
+
+So Dame Clementina ran out quickly, and pulled down the sprig of dill
+and the verse.
+
+Then the way the people hurried out of the yard! They fairly danced
+and flourished their heels, old folks and all. They were so delighted
+to be able to move, and they wanted to be sure they could move. The
+robbers tried to get away unseen with their silver milk-pans, but some
+of the people stopped them, and set the pans safely inside the dairy.
+All the people, except the count, were so eager to get away, that they
+did not stop to inquire into the cause of the trouble then.
+
+Afterward, when they did, they were too much ashamed to say anything
+about it.
+
+It was a good lesson to them; they were not quite so envious after
+that. Always, on entering any cottage, they would glance at the door,
+to see if, perchance, there might be a sprig of dill over it. And if
+there was not, they were reminded to put away any envious feeling they
+might have toward the inmates out of their hearts.
+
+[Illustration: DAME ELIZABETH STARED WITH ASTONISHMENT.]
+
+As for the count, he had not been so much alarmed as the others, since
+he had been to the wars and was braver. Moreover, he felt that his
+dignity as a noble had been insulted. So he at once dismounted and
+fastened his horse to the gate, and strode up to the door with his
+sword clanking and the plumes on his hat nodding.
+
+"What," he begun; then he stopped short. He had recognized his
+daughter in Dame Clementina. She recognized him at the same moment.
+"O, my dear daughter!" said he. "O, my dear father!" said she.
+
+"And this is my little grandchild?" said the count; and he took Nan
+upon his knee, and covered her with caresses.
+
+Then the story of the dill and the verse was told. "Yes," said the
+count, "I truly was envious of you, Clementina, when I saw Nan."
+
+After a little, he looked at his daughter sorrowfully. "I should
+dearly love to take you up to the castle with me, Clementina," said
+he, "and let you live there always, and make you and the little child
+my heirs. But how can I? You are disinherited, you know."
+
+"I don't see any way," assented Dame Clementina, sadly.
+
+Dame Elizabeth was still there, and she spoke up to the count with a
+curtesy.
+
+"Noble sir," said she, "why don't you make another will?"
+
+"Why, sure enough," cried the count with great delight, "why don't I?
+I'll have my lawyer up to the castle to-morrow."
+
+[Illustration: THE COUNT THINKS HIMSELF INSULTED.]
+
+He did immediately alter his will, and his daughter was no longer
+disinherited. She and Nan went to live at the castle, and were
+very rich and happy. Nan learned to play on the harp, and wore
+snuff-colored satin gowns. She was called Lady Nan, and she lived a
+long time, and everybody loved her. But never, so long as she lived,
+did she pin the sprig of dill and the verse over the door again. She
+kept them at the very bottom of a little satin-wood box--the faded
+sprig of dill wrapped round with the bit of paper on which was written
+the charm-verse:
+
+  "Alva, aden, winira mir,
+    Villawissen lingen;
+  Sanchta, wanchta, attazir,
+    Hor de mussen wingen."
+
+[Illustration: THEY FAIRLY DANCED AND FLOURISHED THEIR HEELS.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SILVER HEN.
+
+
+Dame Dorothea Penny kept a private school. It was quite a small
+school, on account of the small size of her house. She had only twelve
+scholars and they filled it quite full; indeed one very little boy had
+to sit in the brick oven. On this account Dame Penny was obliged to do
+all her cooking on a Saturday when school did not keep; on that day
+she baked bread, and cakes, and pies enough to last a week. The oven
+was a very large one.
+
+It was on a Saturday that Dame Penny first missed her silver hen. She
+owned a wonderful silver hen, whose feathers looked exactly as if they
+had been dipped in liquid silver. When she was scratching for worms
+out in the yard, and the sun shone on her, she was absolutely
+dazzling, and sent little bright reflections into the neighbors'
+windows, as if she were really solid silver.
+
+Dame Penny had a sunny little coop with a padlocked door for her, and
+she always locked it very carefully every night. So it was doubly
+perplexing when the hen disappeared. Dame Penny remembered distinctly
+locking the coop-door; several circumstances had served to fix it on
+her mind. She had started out without her overshoes, then had returned
+for them because the snow was quite deep and she was liable to
+rheumatism. Then Dame Louisa who lived next door had rapped on her
+window, and she had run in there for a few moments with the hen-coop
+key dangling on its blue ribbon from her wrist, and Dame Louisa had
+remarked that she would lose that key if she were not more careful.
+Then when she returned home across the yard a doubt had seized her,
+and she had tried the coop-door to be sure that she had really
+fastened it.
+
+[Illustration: THE SNOW WAS QUITE DEEP.]
+
+The next morning when she fitted the key into the padlock and threw
+open the door, and no silver hen came clucking out, it was very
+mysterious. Dame Louisa came running to the fence which divided her
+yard from Dame Penny's, and stood leaning on it with her apron over
+her head.
+
+"Are you sure that hen was in the coop when you locked the door?" said
+she.
+
+"Of course she was in the coop," replied Dame Penny with dignity. "She
+has never failed to go in there at sundown for all the twenty-five
+years that I've had her."
+
+Dame Penny carefully searched everywhere about the premises. When the
+scholars assembled she called the school to order, and told them of
+her terrible loss. All the scholars crooked their arms over their
+faces and wept, for they were very fond of Dame Penny, and also of the
+silver hen. Every one of them wore one of her silver tail-feathers
+in the best bonnet, or hat, as the case might be. The silver hen had
+dropped them about the yard, and Dame Penny had presented them from
+time to time as rewards for good behavior.
+
+After Dame Penny had told the school, she tried to proceed with the
+usual exercises. But in vain. She whipped one little boy because he
+said that four and three made seven, and she stood a little girl in
+the corner because she spelled hen with one _n_.
+
+Finally she dismissed the scholars, and gave them permission to search
+for the silver hen. She offered the successful one the most beautiful
+Christmas present he had ever seen. It was about three weeks before
+Christmas.
+
+The children all put on their things, and went home and told their
+parents what they were going to do; then they started upon the search
+for the silver hen. They searched with no success till the day before
+Christmas. Then they thought they would ask Dame Louisa, who had the
+reputation of being quite a wise woman, if she knew of any more likely
+places in which they could hunt.
+
+The twelve scholars walked two by two up to Dame Louisa's front door,
+and knocked. They were very quiet and spoke only in whispers because
+they knew Dame Louisa was nervous, and did not like children very
+well. Indeed it was a great cross to her that she lived so near the
+school, for the scholars when out in their own yard never thought
+about her nervousness, and made a deal of noise. Then too she could
+hear every time they spelled or said the multiplication-table, or
+bounded the countries of Africa, and it was very trying. To-day in
+spite of their efforts to be quiet they awoke her from a nap, and she
+came to the door, with her front-piece and cap on one side, and her
+spectacles over her eyebrows, very much out of humor.
+
+[Illustration: TWO BY TWO.]
+
+"I don't know where you'll find the hen," said she peevishly, "unless
+you go to the White Woods for it."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," said the children with curtesies, and they all
+turned and went down the path between the dead Christmas-trees.
+
+Dame Louisa had no idea that they would go to the White Woods. She had
+said it quite at random, although she was so vexed in being disturbed
+in her nap that she wished for a moment that they would. She stood in
+her front door and looked at her dead Christmas-trees, and that
+always made her feel crosser, and she had not at any time a pleasant
+disposition. Indeed, it was rumored among the towns-people that that
+had blasted her Christmas-trees, that Dame Louisa's scolding, fretting
+voice had floated out to them, and smote their delicate twigs like a
+bitter frost and made them turn yellow; for the real Christmas-tree is
+not very hardy.
+
+No one else in the village, probably no one else in the county, owned
+any such tree, alive or dead. Dame Louisa's husband, who had been
+a sea-captain, had brought them from foreign parts. They were mere
+little twigs when they planted them on the first day of January, but
+they were full-grown and loaded with fruit by the next Christmas-day.
+Every Christmas they were cut down and sold, but they always grew
+again to their full height, in a year's time. They were not, it is
+true, the regulation Christmas-tree. That is they were not loaded with
+different and suitable gifts for every one in a family, as they stood
+there in Dame Louisa's yard. People always tied on those, after they
+had bought them, and had set them up in their own parlors. But these
+trees bore regular fruit like apple, or peach, or plum-trees, only
+there was a considerable variety in it. These trees when in full
+fruitage were festooned with strings of pop-corn, and weighed down
+with apples and oranges and figs and bags of candy, and it was really
+an amazing sight to see them out there in Dame Louisa's front yard.
+But now they were all yellow and dead, and not so much as one pop-corn
+whitened the upper branches, neither was there one candle shining
+out in the night. For the trees in their prime had borne also little
+twinkling lights like wax candles.
+
+Dame Louisa looked out at her dead Christmas-trees, and scowled. She
+could see the children out in the road, and they were trudging along
+in the direction of the White Woods. "Let 'em go," she snapped to
+herself. "I guess they won't go far. I'll be rid of their noise, any
+way."
+
+She could hear poor Dame Penny's distressed voice out in her yard,
+calling "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy;" and she scowled more fiercely than
+ever. "I'm glad she's lost her old silver hen," she muttered to
+herself. She had always suspected the silver hen of pecking at the
+roots of the Christmas-trees and so causing them to blast; then, too,
+the silver hen had used to stand on the fence and crow; for, unlike
+other hens, she could crow very beautifully, and that had disturbed
+her.
+
+Dame Louisa had a very wise book, which she had consulted to find the
+reason for the death of her Christmas-trees, but all she could find in
+it was one short item, which did not satisfy her at all. The book was
+on the plan of an encyclopedia, and she, having turned to the "ch's,"
+found:
+
+    "Christmas-trees--very delicate when transplanted, especially
+    sensitive, and liable to blast at any change in the moral
+    atmosphere. Remedy: discover and confess the cause."
+
+After reading this, Dame Louisa was always positive that Dame Penny's
+silver hen was at the root of the mischief, for she knew that she
+herself had never done anything to hurt the trees.
+
+Dame Penny was so occupied in calling "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy," and
+shaking a little pan of corn, that she never noticed the children
+taking the road toward the White Woods. If she had done so she would
+have stopped them, for the White Woods was considered a very dangerous
+place. It was called white because it was always white even in
+midsummer. The trees and bushes, and all the undergrowth, every flower
+and blade of grass, were white with snow and frost all the year round,
+and all the learned men of the country had studied into the reason
+of it, and had come to the conclusion that the Woods lay in a direct
+draught from the North Pole and that produced the phenomenon.
+Nobody had penetrated very far into the White Woods, although many
+expeditions had been organized for that purpose. The cold was so
+terrible that it drove them back.
+
+The children had heard all about the terrors of the White Woods. When
+they drew near it they took hold of one another's hands and snuggled
+as closely together as possible.
+
+When they struck into the path at the entrance the intense cold turned
+their cheeks and noses blue in a moment, but they kept on, calling
+"Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" in their shrill sweet trebles. Every twig on
+the trees was glittering white with hoar-frost, and all the dead
+blackberry-vines wore white wreaths, the bushes brushed the ground,
+they were so heavy with ice, and the air was full of fine white
+sparkles. The children's eyes were dazzled, but they kept on,
+stumbling through the icy vines and bushes, and calling "_Biddy,
+Biddy, Biddy_!"
+
+It was quite late in the afternoon when they started, and pretty soon
+the sun went down and the moon arose, and that made it seem colder. It
+was like traveling through a forest of solid silver then, and every
+once in a while a little frozen clump of flowers would shine so that
+they would think it was the silver hen and dart forward, to find it
+was not.
+
+About two hours after the moon arose, as they were creeping along,
+calling "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" more and more faintly, a singular,
+hoarse voice replied suddenly. "We don't keep any hens," said the
+voice, and all the children jumped and screamed, and looked about for
+the owner of it. He loomed up among some bushes at their right. He was
+so dazzling white himself, and had such an indistinctness of outline,
+that they had taken him for an oak-tree. But it was the real Snow Man.
+They knew him in a moment, he looked so much like his effigies that
+they used to make in their yards.
+
+"We don't keep any hens," repeated the Snow Man. "What are you calling
+hens for in this forest?"
+
+The children huddled together as close as they could, and the oldest
+boy explained. When he broke down the oldest girl piped up and helped
+him.
+
+"Well," said the Snow Man, "I haven't seen the silver hen. I never did
+see any hens in these woods, but she may be around here for all that.
+You had better go home with me and spend the night. My wife will be
+delighted to see you. We have never had any company in our lives, and
+she is always scolding about it."
+
+The children looked at each other and shook harder than they had done
+with cold.
+
+"I'm--afraid our mothers--wouldn't--like to have us," stammered the
+oldest boy.
+
+"Nonsense," cried the Snow Man. "Here I have been visiting you, time
+and time again, and stood whole days out in your front yards, and
+you've never been to see me. I think it is about time that I had some
+return. Come along." With that the Snow Man seized the right ear of
+the oldest boy between a finger and thumb, and danced him along, and
+all the rest, trembling, and whimpering under their breaths, followed.
+
+It was not long before they reached the Snow Man's house, which was
+really quite magnificent: a castle built of blocks of ice fitted
+together like bricks, and with two splendid snow-lions keeping guard
+at the entrance. The Snow Man's wife stood in the door, and the Snow
+Children stood behind her and peeped around her skirts; they were
+smiling from ear to ear. They had never seen any company before, and
+they were so delighted that they did not know what to do.
+
+[Illustration: THE SNOW MAN'S HOUSE.]
+
+"We have some company, wife," shouted the Snow Man.
+
+"Bring them right in," said his wife with a beaming face. She was very
+handsome, with beautiful pink cheeks and blue eyes, and she wore a
+trailing white robe, like a queen. She kissed the children all around,
+and shivers crept down their backs, for it was like being kissed by an
+icicle. "Kiss your company, my dears," she said to the Snow Children,
+and they came bashfully forward and kissed Dame Penny's scholars with
+these same chilly kisses.
+
+"Now," said the Snow Man's wife, "come right in and sit down where it
+is cool--you look very hot."
+
+"Hot," when the poor scholars were quite stiff with cold! They looked
+at one another in dismay, but did not dare say anything. They followed
+the Snow Man's wife into her grand parlor.
+
+"Come right over here by the north window where it is cooler," said
+she, "and the children shall bring you some fans."
+
+The Snow Children floated up with fans--all the Snow Man's family
+had a lovely floating gait--and the scholars took them with feeble
+curtesies, and began fanning. A stiff north wind blew in at the
+windows. The forest was all creaking and snapping with the cold. The
+poor children, fanning themselves, on an ice divan, would certainly
+have frozen if the Snow Man's wife had not suggested that they all
+have a little game of "puss-in-the-corner," to while away the time
+before dinner. That warmed them up a little, for they had to run very
+fast indeed to play with the Snow Children who seemed to fairly blow
+in the north wind from corner to corner.
+
+But the Snow Man's wife stopped the play a little before dinner was
+announced; she said the guests looked so warm that she was alarmed,
+and was afraid they might melt.
+
+[Illustration: PUSS-IN-THE-CORNER.]
+
+A whistle, that sounded just like the whistle of the north wind in
+the chimney, blew for dinner, and Dame Penny's scholars thought with
+delight that now they would have something warm. But every dish on the
+Snow Man's table was cold and frozen, and the Snow Man's wife kept
+urging them to eat this and that, because it was so nice and cooling,
+and they looked so warm.
+
+After dinner they were colder than ever, even. Another game of
+"puss-in-the-corner" did not warm them much; they were glad when the
+Snow Man's wife suggested that they go to bed, for they had visions
+of warm blankets and comfortables. But when they were shown into the
+great north chamber, that was more like a hall than a chamber, with
+its walls of solid ice, its ice floor and its ice beds, their hearts
+sank. Not a blanket nor comfortable was to be seen; there were great
+silk bags stuffed with snow flakes instead of feathers on the beds,
+and that was all.
+
+"If you are too warm in the night, and feel as if you were going to
+melt," said the Snow Man's wife, "you can open the south window and
+that will make a draught--there are none but the north windows open
+now."
+
+The scholars curtesied and bade her good-night, and she kissed them
+and hoped they would sleep well. Then she trailed her splendid robe,
+which was decorated with real frost embroidery, down the ice stairs
+and left her guests to themselves. They were frantic with cold and
+terror, and the little ones began to cry. They talked over the
+situation and agreed that they had better wait until the house was
+quiet and then run away. So they waited until they thought everybody
+must be asleep, and then cautiously stole toward the door. It was
+locked fast on the outside. The Snow Man's wife had slipped an icicle
+through the latch. Then they were in despair. It seemed as if they
+must freeze to death before morning. But it occurred to some of the
+older ones that they had heard their parents say that snow was really
+warm, and people had been kept warm and alive by burrowing under
+snow-drifts. And as there were enough snow-flake beds to use for
+coverlids also, they crept under them, having first shut the north
+windows, and were soon quite comfortable.
+
+In the meantime there was a great panic in the village; the children's
+parents were nearly wild. They came running to Dame Penny, but she was
+calling "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" out in the moonlight, and knew nothing
+about them. Then they called outside Dame Louisa's window, but she
+pretended to be asleep, although she was really awake, and in a
+terrible panic.
+
+She did not tell the parents how the children had gone to the White
+Woods, because she knew that they could not extricate them from the
+difficulty as well as she could herself. She knew all about the Snow
+Man and his wife, and how very anxious they were to have company.
+
+So just as soon as the parents were gone and she heard their voices in
+the distance, she dressed herself, harnessed her old white horse into
+the great box-sleigh, got out all the tubs and pails that she had in
+the house, and went over to Dame Penny, who was still standing out in
+her front yard calling the silver hen and the children by turns.
+
+"Come, Dame Penny," said Dame Louisa, "I want you to go with me to the
+White Woods and rescue the children. Bring out all the tubs and pails
+you have in the house, and we will pump them full of water."
+
+[Illustration: TO THE RESCUE.]
+
+"The pails--full of water--what for?" gasped Dame Penny.
+
+"To thaw them out," replied Dame Louisa; "they will very likely be
+wholly or partly frozen, and I have always heard that cold water was
+the only remedy to use."
+
+Dame Penny said no more. She brought out all her tubs and pails, and
+they pumped them and Dame Louisa's full of water, and packed them into
+the sleigh--there were twelve of them. Then they climbed into the
+seat, slapped the reins over the back of the old white horse, and
+started off for the White Woods.
+
+On the way Dame Louisa wept, and confessed what she had done to Dame
+Penny. "I have been a cross, selfish old woman," said she, "and I
+think that is the reason why my Christmas-trees were blasted. I don't
+believe your silver hen touched them."
+
+She and Dame Penny called "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" and the names of the
+children, all the way. Dame Louisa drove straight to the Snow Man's
+house.
+
+"They are more likely to be there than anywhere else, the Snow Man and
+his wife are so crazy to have company," said she.
+
+When they arrived at the house, Dame Louisa left Dame Penny to hold
+the horse, and went in. The outer door was not locked and she wandered
+quite at her will, through the great ice saloons, and wind-swept
+corridors. When she came to the door with the icicle through the
+latch, she knew at once that the children were in that room, so she
+drew out the icicle and entered. The children were asleep, but she
+aroused them, and bade them be very quiet and follow her. They got out
+of the house without disturbing any of the family; but, once out, a
+new difficulty beset them. The children had been so nearly warm under
+their snow-flake beds that they began to freeze the minute the icy air
+struck them.
+
+But Dame Louisa promptly seized them, while Dame Penny held the horse,
+and put them into the tubs and pails of water. Then she took hold of
+the horse's head, and backed him and turned around carefully, and they
+started off at full speed.
+
+But it was not long before they discovered that they were pursued.
+They heard the hoarse voice of the Snow Man behind them calling to
+them to stop.
+
+"What are you taking away my company for?" shouted the Snow Man.
+"Stop, stop!"
+
+The wind was at the back of the Snow Man, and he came with tremendous
+velocity. It was evident that he would soon overtake the old white
+horse who was stiff and somewhat lame. Dame Louisa whipped him up, but
+the Snow Man gained on them. The icy breath of the Snow Man blew over
+them. "Oh!" shrieked Dame Penny, "what shall we do, what shall we do?"
+
+"Be quiet," said Dame Louisa with dignity. She untied her large
+poke-bonnet which was made of straw--she was unable to have a velvet
+one for winter, now her Christmas-trees were dead--and she hung it on
+the whip. Then she drew a match from her pocket, and set fire to the
+bonnet. The light fabric blazed up directly, and the Snow Man stopped
+short. "If you come any nearer," shrieked Dame Louisa, "I'll put this
+right in your face and--melt you!"
+
+"Give me back my company," shouted the Snow Man in a doubtful voice.
+
+"You can't have your company," said Dame Louisa, shaking the blazing
+bonnet defiantly at him.
+
+"To think of the days I've spent in their yards, slowly melting and
+suffering everything, and my not having one visit back," grumbled the
+Snow Man. But he stood still; he never took a step forward after Dame
+Louisa had set her bonnet on fire.
+
+It was lucky Dame Louisa had worn a worsted scarf tied over her
+bonnet, and could now use it for a bonnet.
+
+The cold was intense, and had it not been that Dame Penny and Dame
+Louisa both wore their Bay State shawls over their beaver sacques, and
+their stone-marten tippets and muffs, and blue worsted stockings
+drawn over their shoes, they would certainly have frozen. As for the
+children, they would never have reached home alive if it had not been
+for the pails and tubs of water.
+
+"Do you feel as if you were thawing?" Dame Louisa asked the children
+after they had left the Snow Man behind.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said they.
+
+Dame Louisa drove as fast as she could, with thankful tears running
+down her cheeks. "I've been a wicked, cross old woman," said she again
+and again, "and that is what blasted my Christmas-trees."
+
+It was the dawn of Christmas-day when they came in sight of Dame
+Louisa's house.
+
+"Oh! what is that twinkling out in the yard?" cried the children.
+
+They could all see little fairy-like lights twinkling out in Dame
+Louisa's yard.
+
+"It looks just as the Christmas-trees used to," said Dame Penny.
+
+[ILLUSTRATION: "I'LL PUT THIS RIGHT IN YOUR FACE AND--MELT YOU!"]
+
+"Oh! I can't believe it," cried Dame Louisa, her heart beating wildly.
+
+But when they came opposite the yard, they saw that it was true. Dame
+Louisa's Christmas-trees stood there all twinkling with lights, and
+covered with trailing garlands of pop-corn, oranges, apples,
+and candy-bags; their yellow branches had turned green and the
+Christmas-trees were in full glory.
+
+"Oh! what is that shining so out in Dame Penny's yard?" cried the
+children, who were entirely thawed, and only needed to get home to
+their parents and have some warm breakfast, and Christmas-presents, to
+be quite themselves. "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!" cried Dame Penny, and Dame
+Louisa and the children chimed in, calling, "Biddy, Biddy, Biddy!"
+
+It was indeed the silver hen, and following her were twelve little
+silver chickens. She had stolen a nest in Dame Louisa's barn and
+nobody had known it until she appeared on Christmas morning with her
+brood of silver chickens.
+
+"Every scholar shall have one of the silver chickens for a Christmas
+present," said Dame Penny.
+
+"And each shall have one of my Christmas-trees," said Dame Louisa.
+
+Then all the scholars cried out with delight, the Christmas-bells in
+the village began to ring, the silver hen flew up on the fence and
+crowed, the sun shone broadly out, and it was a merry Christmas-day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TOBY.
+
+
+Aunt Malvina was sitting at the window watching for a horse-car which
+she wanted to take. Uncle Jack was near the register in a comfortable
+easy chair, his feet on an embroidered foot-rest, and Letitia, just as
+close to him as she could get her little rocking-chair, was sewing her
+square of patchwork "over and over." Letitia had to sew a square of
+patchwork "over and over" every day.
+
+Aunt Malvina, who was not uncle Jack's wife, as one might suspect, but
+his elder sister, was a very small, frisky little lady, with a thin,
+rosy face, and a little bobbing bunch of gray curls on each side
+of it. She talked very fast, and she talked all the time, so she
+accomplished a vast deal of talking in the course of a day, and the
+people she happened to be with did a vast deal of listening.
+
+She was talking now, and uncle Jack was listening, with his head
+leaning comfortably against a pretty tidy all over daisies in
+Kensington work, and so was Letitia, taking cautious little stitches
+in her patchwork.
+
+"Mrs. Welcome," aunt Malvina had just remarked, "has got a little
+colored boy as black as Toby to wait on table."
+
+Letitia opened her sober, light gray eyes very wide, and stared
+reflectively at aunt Malvina.
+
+"It was dark as Pokonoket when we came out of church last night," said
+aunt Malvina after a time, in the course of conversation.
+
+Letitia stared reflectively at her again.
+
+"There's my car coming around the corner!" cried aunt Malvina, and ran
+friskily out of the room. Just outside the door she turned and thrust
+her face, with the little gray curls dancing around it, in again for a
+last word. "O, Jack!" cried she, "I hear that Edward Simonds' eldest
+son is as crazy as a loon!"
+
+"Is?"
+
+"Yes; isn't it dreadful? Good-by!" Aunt Malvina frisked airily
+downstairs, and out on the street, barely in time to secure her car.
+
+When Letitia heard the front door close after her, she quilted her
+needle carefully into her square, then she folded the patchwork up
+neatly, rose, and laid it together with her thimble, scissors, and
+cotton, in her little rocking-chair. Then she went and stood still
+before uncle Jack, with her arms folded. It was a way she had when she
+wanted information. People rather smiled to see Letitia sometimes, but
+uncle Jack had always encouraged her in it; he said it was quaint.
+Letitia's face was very sober, and very innocent, and very round, and
+her hair was very long and light, and hung in two smooth braids, with
+a neat blue bow on the end of each, down her back.
+
+[Illustration: LETITIA STOOD BEFORE UNCLE JACK.]
+
+Uncle Jack gazed inquiringly at her through his half-closed eyes.
+"What is it, Letitia?"
+
+"Aunt Malvina said 'as black as Toby,'" said Letitia with a look half
+of inquiry, half of anxious abstraction. What Letitia could find out
+herself she never asked other people.
+
+"Yes; I know she did," replied uncle Jack.
+
+"Then she said, 'Dark as Pokonoket.'"
+
+"Yes; she said that too."
+
+"And then she said, 'Crazy as a loon.'"
+
+"Yes; she did."
+
+"Uncle Jack, what is Toby, and what is Pokonoket, and what is a loon?"
+
+"Toby," said uncle Jack slowly and impressively, "lives in Pokonoket,
+and keeps a loon."
+
+"Oh!" said Letitia, in a tone which implied that she was both relieved
+and amazed at her own stupidity.
+
+"Yes; perhaps you would like to hear something more particular about
+Toby--how he got married, for instance?"
+
+"I should, very much indeed," replied Letitia gravely and promptly.
+
+"Well, you had better sit down; it will take a few minutes to tell
+it."
+
+Letitia carefully took her patchwork, her thimble, her spool of
+cotton, and her scissors out of her little rocking-chair and laid them
+on the table; then she sat down, and crossed her hands in her lap.
+
+"Now, if you are ready," said uncle Jack, laughing a little to himself
+as he looked down at her. Then he related as follows: "Toby is a
+little black fellow, not much taller than you are, and he lives in
+Pokonoket, and keeps a loon. Toby's hair is very short and kinky, and
+his mouth is wide, and always curves up a little at the corners, as
+if he were laughing; his eyes are astonishingly bright; but all the
+people's eyes are bright in Pokonoket.
+
+"Pokonoket is a very dark country. It always was dark. The most
+ancient historians make no mention of its ever being light in
+Pokonoket.
+
+"The cause of the darkness has never been exactly understood.
+Philosophers and men of science have worked very hard over it, but all
+the conclusion they have been able to arrive at is, it must be due to
+fog, or smoke, or atmospheric phenomena. The most celebrated of them
+are in favor of atmospheric phenomena, and they are probably correct.
+
+"The houses are always furnished with lamps, of course, and everybody
+carries a lantern. No one dreams of stirring out in Pokonoket without
+a lantern. The men go to their work with lanterns, the ladies take
+theirs when they go out shopping, and all the children have their
+little lanterns to carry to school.
+
+[Illustration: SCHOOL CHILDREN IN POKONOKET.]
+
+"On account of the darkness, there are some very curious customs in
+Pokonoket. One is, all the inhabitants are required by law to wear
+squeaky shoes. Whenever anybody's shoes don't squeak according to the
+prescribed standard he is fined, and sometimes even imprisoned, if he
+persists in his offense. A great many sad accidents are prevented by
+this custom. People hear each other's shoes squeaking in the darkness
+at quite a distance, and don't run into each other. Pokonoket
+shoemakers make a specialty of squeaky shoes, and the squeakier they
+are, the higher prices they bring; they can even put in new squeaks
+when the old ones are worn out. It is a very common thing to see a
+Pokonoket man with his little boy's shoes under his arm, carrying them
+to a shoemaker to get them re-squeaked.
+
+"Another funny custom is the wearing of phosphorescent buttons.
+Everybody, men, women and children, are required to wear
+phosphorescent buttons on their outside garments. They are quite
+large--about the size of an old-fashioned cent--and there are,
+generally, two rows of them down the front of a garment. It is rather
+a frightful sight to see a person with phosphorescent buttons on his
+coat advancing toward one in the dark, till you are accustomed to it;
+he looks as if he had two rows of enormous eyes.
+
+"Then, when the weather is stormy, everybody has to carry an umbrella
+with his name on it in phosphorescent letters. In this way, nobody's
+eyes are put out, and no umbrellas are lost. Otherwise, umbrellas
+would get so hopelessly mixed up in a dark country like Pokonoket that
+it would require a special sitting of Parliament to sort them out
+again.
+
+"It may seem rather odd that they should, but the inhabitants of
+Pokonoket are, as a general thing, very much attached to their
+country, and could not be hired to leave it for any other. It is a
+very peaceful place. There are no jails, and no criminals are executed
+in its bounds. If occasionally a person commits a crime that would
+merit such extreme punishment, he puts out his lantern, and rips off
+his phosphorescent buttons, and nobody can find him to punish.
+
+"But commonly, folks in Pokonoket do not commit great crimes, and are
+a very peaceful, industrious and happy people.
+
+"They have never had any wars amongst themselves, and their country
+has never been invaded by a foreign foe; all that they ever have had
+to seriously threaten their peace and safety was the Ogress.
+
+"A terrible ogress once lived in Pokonoket, and devoured everybody she
+could catch. Nobody knew when his life was safe, and the worst of it
+was, they did not know where she lived, or they would have gone in
+a body and disposed of her. She had a habitation somewhere in the
+darkness, but nobody knew where--it might be right in their midst.
+There are a great many inconveniences about a dark country.
+
+[Illustration: POKONOKET IN STORMY WEATHER.]
+
+"Well, Toby who kept the loon, lived in a little hut on one of
+the principal streets. He was a widower, and lived with his six
+grandchildren who were all quite small and went to school. They were
+his daughter's children. She had died a few years before of a disease
+quite common in Pokonoket, and almost always fatal. It had a long name
+which the doctors had given it, which really meant, 'wanting light.'
+
+"Toby was rather feeble and rheumatic, and it was about all he could
+do to knit stockings for his grandchildren, and make soup for their
+dinner. Almost all day, except when he was stirring the soup, which
+he made in a great kettle set into a brick oven, he was sitting on a
+little stool in his doorway, knitting, and the loon sat on a perch at
+his right hand. The loon who was a very large bird, was crazy, and
+thought he was a bobolink. _Link, link, bobolink!_' he sang all day
+long, instead of crying in the way a loon usually does. His voice was
+not anywhere near the right pitch for a bobolink's song, but that made
+no difference. _Link, link, bobolink!_ he kept on singing from morning
+till night.
+
+"Toby did not mind knitting, but he did not like to make the soup. It
+had never seemed to him to be a man's work, and besides, it hurt his
+old, rheumatic back to bend over the soup-kettle. That was what put
+it into his head to get married again. He thought if he could find a
+pleasant, tidy woman, who would stir the soup while he sat in the
+door beside the loon, and knit the stockings, he could live much more
+comfortably than he did.
+
+"Now Toby thought he knew of just the one he wanted. She was a widow
+who lived a few squares from him. She was as sweet-tempered as a dove,
+and nobody could find a speck of dirt in her house if he was to search
+all day with a lantern.
+
+[Illustration: TOBY AND THE CRAZY LOON.]
+
+"Toby thought about it for a long time. He did not wish to take any
+rash step, but his back got lamer and stiffer, and when one day the
+soup burned on to the kettle, and he dropped some stitches in his
+stocking running to lift it off, he made up his mind.
+
+"The very next morning after his six grandchildren had gone to school,
+he put on his coat with phosphorescent buttons, lit his lantern, and
+started out. _Link, link, bobolink_! cried the crazy loon as he went
+out the door.
+
+"'Yes; I am going to bring home a pleasant and neat mistress for you,
+and maybe you will recover your reason,' said Toby.
+
+"_Link, link, bobolink_! cried the crazy loon.
+
+"Toby limped away through the darkness. The wind was blowing hard that
+morning, and as he turned the corner, puff! came a gust and blew out
+his lantern.
+
+"He felt in every pocket, but he had not a match in one of them. He
+hesitated whether to go back for one or not. Finally, he thought he
+knew the way pretty well and would risk it. His back was worse than
+ever that morning, and he did not want to take any unnecessary steps.
+So he fumbled along until he came to the street where the widow's home
+was; there were five more just like hers, and they stood in a row
+together.
+
+"Much to Toby's dismay, there was not a light in either.
+
+"'Well,' he reflected, 'she is prudent, and is saving her oil, I dare
+say, and I can inquire.'
+
+"So he felt his way along to the first house in the row--he could just
+see them looming up in the darkness. He poked his head inside the
+door. 'Mrs. Clover-leaf!' cried he, 'are you in there? My lantern has
+gone out, and I cannot tell which is your house.'
+
+"There came a little grunt in reply.
+
+"'Mrs. Clover-leaf!' cried Toby again.
+
+"'I am here; what do you want?' answered a voice in the darkness.
+
+"It was so sharp that Toby felt for a moment as if his ears were being
+sawed off, and he clapped his hands on them involuntarily. 'Bless me!
+I had forgotten that Mrs. Clover-leaf had such a voice,' thought he.
+
+"'What do you want?' said the voice again.
+
+"It did not sound quite so sharp this time. He had become a little
+used to it, and, after all, a sharp voice would not prevent her being
+neat and pleasant and stirring the soup carefully.
+
+"So he said, as sweetly and coaxingly as he was able, 'I have come to
+see if you would like to marry me, Mrs. Clover-leaf.'
+
+"'I don't know,' said the sharp voice, 'I had not thought of changing
+my condition.'
+
+"'All you would have to do,' said Toby pleadingly, 'would be to stir
+the soup for my grandchildren's dinner, while I knit the stockings.'
+
+"There came a sound like the smacking of lips out of the darkness
+within the house. 'Oh! you have grandchildren; I forgot,' said the
+voice; 'how many?'
+
+"'Six,' replied Toby.
+
+"'I shall be pleased to marry you,' cried the voice; and Toby heard
+the squeaking of shoes, as if the widow were coming.
+
+"'When shall we be married?' said the sharp voice right in Toby's ear.
+
+"He jumped so that he could not answer for a minute. 'Well,' said he
+finally--'I don't want to hurry you, Mrs. Clover-leaf, but the soup is
+to be made for dinner, and if I don't finish the pair of stockings I
+am on to-day, my eldest grandchild will have to go barefoot. A pair of
+stockings only lasts one a week.' And Toby sighed so pitifully that it
+ought to have touched any widow's heart.
+
+"The widow laughed. Toby felt rather hurt that she should. He did not
+know of any joke. It was a curious kind of a laugh, too; as bad in its
+way as her voice. But what she said the next minute set matters right.
+
+"'Let us go and get married, then,' said she, 'and I will go right
+home and make the soup, and you can finish the stocking.'
+
+"Toby was delighted. 'Thank you, my dear Mrs. Clover-leaf!' he cried,
+and offered her his arm gallantly, and they set off together to the
+minister's.
+
+"The widow took such enormous strides that Toby had to run to keep up
+with her. She was much taller than he, and her bonnet was very large,
+and almost hid her face. Toby could hardly have seen her, if he had
+had his lantern; still he could not help wishing that one of them had
+one, but the widow said her oil was out, so there was no help for it.
+
+"Once or twice when she turned her head toward him, Toby thought her
+eyes looked about twice as large and bright as phosphorescent buttons,
+and he felt a little startled, but he told himself that it was only
+his imagination, of course.
+
+"When they reached the minister's, there was no light in his house,
+either, and it occurred to Toby that it was Fast Day. Once a week,
+Pokonoket ministers sit in total darkness all day, and eat nothing.
+
+"When Toby called, the minister poked his head out of the study
+window, and asked what he wanted.
+
+"Toby told him, and he and the widow stood in front of the study
+window, and were married in the dark, and Toby gave a phosphorescent
+button for the fee.
+
+"The widow took longer steps than ever on the way home, and Toby ran
+till he was all out of breath; she fairly lifted him off his feet
+sometimes, and carried him along on her arm.
+
+"_Link, link, bobolink_! sang the crazy loon when Toby and his bride
+entered the house.
+
+"'Now let's have a light,' cried Toby's wife, and her voice was
+sharper than ever. It frightened the crazy loon so that he left the
+link off the end of his song, and merely said bobo--
+
+"'Yes,' answered Toby, bustling about cheerfully after the matches,
+'and then you will make the soup.'
+
+[Illustration: TOBY RAN TILL HE WAS OUT OF BREATH.]
+
+"'I will make the soup,' laughed his wife.
+
+"Toby felt frightened, he hardly knew why, but he found the matches,
+and lit the lamp. Then he turned to look at his new wife, and saw--the
+Ogress! He had married the Ogress! Horrors!
+
+"Toby sank down on his knees and shook with fear, his little kinky
+curls bristling up all over his head.
+
+"'Pshaw!' said the Ogress contemptuously. 'You needn't shake! Do
+you suppose I would eat such a little tough, bony fellow as you for
+supper? No! When do your grandchildren come home from school?'
+
+"'Oh,' groaned Toby, 'take me, dear Mrs. Ogress, and spare my
+grandchildren!'
+
+"'I should smile,' said the Ogress. That was all the reply she made.
+She talked popular slang along with her other bad habits.
+
+"Toby wept, and groaned, and pleaded, but he could not get another
+word out of her. She filled the great soup-kettle with water, set it
+over the fire (Toby shuddered to see her), then she sat down to wait
+for the grandchildren to come home from school. She was uncommonly
+homely, even for an ogress, and she wore a brown calico dress that was
+very unbecoming.
+
+"Poor Toby gazed at her in fear and disgust. He looked out of the
+door, expecting every moment to see his grandchildren coming, one
+behind the other, swinging their little lanterns. School children
+always walked one behind the other in Pokonoket. It was against the
+law to walk two abreast.
+
+"Finally, when the Ogress was leaning over the soup-kettle, putting
+her fingers in, to see if it was hot enough, Toby slipped out of the
+door, and ran straight to the minister's.
+
+"He stood outside the study window and groaned.
+
+"'What is the trouble?' asked the minister, poking his head out.
+
+"'Oh,' cried Toby, 'you married me to the--Ogress!'
+
+"'You don't say so!' cried the minister.
+
+"'Yes, I do! What shall I do? She is waiting for my grandchildren, and
+the soup-kettle is on!'
+
+"'Wait a minute,' said the minister. 'In a matter of life and death,
+it is permitted to light a lamp on a Fast Day. This is a matter of
+life and death; so I will light a lamp and look in my Encyclopaedia of
+Useful Knowledge.'
+
+"So the minister lit his lamp, and took his Encyclopaedia of Useful
+Knowledge from the study shelf.
+
+"He turned over the leaves till he came to Ogre; then he found Ogress,
+and read all there was under that head.
+
+"'H'm!' he said; 'h'm, h'm! An Ogress is an inconceivably hideous
+creature, yet, like all females, she is inordinately vain, and is
+extremely susceptible to any insinuations against her personal
+appearance! H'm!' said the minister; 'h'm, h'm! I know what I will
+do.'
+
+"Now it was one of the laws in Pokonoket that nobody should have
+a looking-glass but the minister. Once a year the ladies of his
+congregation were allowed to look at themselves in it; that was all. I
+do not know the reason for this law, but it existed.
+
+"The minister took his looking-glass under his arm, and came out of
+his house. 'Now, Toby,' said he, 'take me home with you.'
+
+"'But I am afraid she will eat you, sir,' said Toby doubtfully. 'You
+are not as thin as I am.'
+
+"'I am not in the least afraid,' replied the minister cheerfully.
+
+"So Toby took heart a little, and hastened home with the minister.
+
+"_Link, link, bobolink_! cried the crazy loon as they went in the
+door.
+
+"The minister walked straight up to the Ogress, who was standing
+beside the soup-kettle, and held the looking-glass before her.
+
+"When she saw her face in all its hideous ugliness, the shock was so
+great, for she had always thought herself very handsome, that she gave
+one shriek and fell down quite dead."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Letitia gave a sigh of relief, and uncle Jack yawned. "Well, Letitia,
+that's all," said he, "only Toby married the real widow, Mrs.
+Clover-leaf, the next day, and she made the soup to perfection, and he
+had nothing to do all the rest of his life, but to sit in the doorway
+beside the crazy loon, and knit stockings for his grandchildren."
+
+"Thank you, uncle Jack," said Letitia gravely. Then she got her square
+of patchwork off the table and sat down and finished sewing it over
+and over.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PATCHWORK SCHOOL.
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a city which possessed a very celebrated
+institution for the reformation of unruly children. It was, strictly
+speaking, a Reform School, but of a very peculiar kind.
+
+It had been established years before by a benevolent lady, who had a
+great deal of money, and wished to do good with it. After thinking a
+long time, she had hit upon this plan of founding a school for the
+improvement of children who tried their parents and all their friends
+by their ill behavior. More especially was it designed for ungrateful
+and discontented children; indeed it was mainly composed of this last
+class.
+
+There was a special set of police in the city, whose whole duty was to
+keep a sharp lookout for ill-natured fretting children, who complained
+of their parents' treatment, and thought other boys and girls were
+much better off than they, and to march them away to the school. These
+police all wore white top boots, tall peaked hats, and carried sticks
+with blue ribbon bows on them, and were very readily distinguished.
+Many a little boy on his way to school has dodged round a corner to
+avoid one, because he had just been telling his mother that another
+little boy's mother gave him twice as much pie for dinner as he had.
+He wouldn't breathe easy till he had left the white top boots out of
+sight; and he would tremble all day at every knock on the door.
+
+There was not a child in the city but had a great horror of this
+school, though it may seem rather strange that they should; for the
+punishment, at first thought, did not seem so very terrible. Ever
+since it was established, the school had been in charge of a very
+singular little old woman. Nobody had ever known where she came from.
+The benevolent lady who founded the institution, had brought her to
+the door one morning in her coach, and the neighbors had seen the
+little brown, wizened creature, with a most extraordinary gown on,
+alight and enter. This was all any one had ever known about her. In
+fact, the benevolent lady had come upon her in the course of her
+travels in a little German town, sitting in a garret window, behind a
+little box-garden of violets, sewing patchwork. After that, she became
+acquainted with her, and finally hired her to superintend her school.
+You see, the benevolent lady had a very tender heart, and though she
+wanted to reform the naughty children of her native city, and have
+them grow up to be good men and women, she did not want them to be
+shaken, nor have their ears cuffed; so the ideas advanced by the
+strange little old woman just suited her.
+
+"Set 'em to sewing patchwork," said this little old woman, sewing
+patchwork vigorously herself as she spoke. She was dressed in a
+gown of bright-colored patchwork, with a patchwork shawl over her
+shoulders. Her cap was made of tiny squares of patchwork, too. "If
+they are sewing patchwork," went on the little old woman, "they can't
+be in mischief. Just make 'em sit in little chairs and sew patchwork,
+boys and girls alike. Make 'em sit and sew patchwork, when the bees
+are flying over the clover, out in the bright sunlight, and the great
+bluewinged butterflies stop with the roses just outside the windows,
+and the robins are singing in the cherry-trees, and they'll turn over
+a new leaf, you'll see!" sewing away with a will.
+
+[Illustration: THE PATCHWORK WOMAN.]
+
+So the school was founded, the strange little old woman placed over
+it, and it really worked admirably. It was the pride of the city.
+Strangers who visited it were always taken to visit the Patchwork
+School, for that was the name it went by. There sat the children, in
+their little chairs, sewing patchwork. They were dressed in little
+patchwork uniforms; the girls wore blue and white patchwork frocks
+and pink and white patchwork pinafores, and the boys blue and white
+patchwork trousers, with pinafores like the girls. Their cheeks were
+round and rosy, for they had plenty to eat--bread and milk three times
+a day--but they looked sad, and tears were standing in the corners
+of a good many eyes. How could they help it? It did seem as if the
+loveliest roses in the whole country were blossoming in the garden of
+the Patchwork School, and there were swarms of humming-birds flying
+over them, and great red and blue-winged butterflies. And there were
+tall cherry-trees a little way from the window, and they used to be
+perfectly crimson with fruit; and the way the robins would sing in
+them! Later in the season there were apple and peach-trees, too, the
+apples and great rosy peaches fairly dragging the branches to the
+ground, and all in sight from the window of the schoolroom.
+
+No wonder the poor little culprits cooped up indoors sewing red and
+blue and green pieces of calico together, looked sad. Every day bales
+of calico were left at the door of the Patchwork School, and it all
+had to be cut up in little bits and sewed together again. When the
+children heard the heavy tread of the porters bringing in the bales
+of new calico, the tears would leave the corners of their eyes
+and trickle down their poor little cheeks, at the prospect of the
+additional work they would have to do. All the patchwork had to be
+sewed over and over, and every crooked or too long stitch had to be
+picked out; for the Patchwork Woman was very particular. They had to
+make all their own clothes of patchwork, and after those were done,
+patchwork bed quilts, which were given to the city poor; so the
+benevolent lady killed two birds with one stone, as you might say.
+
+[Illustration: THE PATCHWORK GIRL.]
+
+Of course, children staid in the Patchwork School different lengths of
+time, according to their different offenses. But there were very few
+children in the city who had not sat in a little chair and sewed
+patchwork, at one time or another, for a greater or less period.
+Sooner or later, the best children were sure to think they were
+ill-treated by their parents, and had to go to bed earlier than they
+ought, or did not have as much candy as other children; and the police
+would hear them grumbling, and drag them off to the Patchwork School.
+The Mayor's son, especially, who might be supposed to fare as well
+as any little boy in the city, had been in the school any number of
+times.
+
+There was one little boy in the city, however, whom the white-booted
+police had not yet found any occasion to arrest, though one might have
+thought he had more reason than a good many others to complain of his
+lot in life. In the first place, he had a girl's name, and any one
+knows that would be a great cross to a boy. His name was Julia; his
+parents had called him so on account of his having a maiden aunt who
+had promised to leave her money to him if he was named for her.
+
+So there was no help for it, but it was a great trial to him, for
+the other boys plagued him unmercifully, and called him "missy," and
+"sissy," and said "she" instead of "he" when they were speaking of
+him. Still he never complained to his parents, and told them he wished
+they had called him some other name. His parents were very poor,
+hard-working people, and Julia had much coarser clothes than the other
+boys, and plainer food, but he was always cheerful about it, and never
+seemed to think it at all hard that he could not have a velvet coat
+like the Mayor's son, or carry cakes for lunch to school like the
+lawyer's little boy.
+
+But perhaps the greatest cross which Julia had to bear, and the
+one from which he stood in the greatest danger of getting into the
+Patchwork School, was his Grandmothers. I don't mean to say that
+grandmothers are to be considered usually as crosses. A dear old lady
+seated with her knitting beside the fire, is a pleasant person to
+have in the house. But Julia had four, and he had to hunt for their
+spectacles, and pick up their balls of yarn so much that he got very
+little time to play. It was an unusual thing, but the families on both
+sides were very long-lived, and there actually were four grandmothers;
+two great ones, and two common ones; two on each side of the
+fireplace, with their knitting work, in Julia's home. They were
+nice old ladies, and Julia loved them dearly, but they lost their
+spectacles all the time, and were always dropping their balls of yarn,
+and it did make a deal of work for one boy to do. He could have hunted
+up spectacles for one Grandmother, but when it came to four, and one
+was always losing hers while he was finding another's, and one ball of
+yarn would drop and roll off, while he was picking up another--well,
+it was really bewildering at times. Then he had to hold the skeins of
+yarn for them to wind, and his arms used to ache, and he could hear
+the boys shouting at a game of ball outdoors, maybe. But he never
+refused to do anything his Grandmothers asked him to, and did it
+pleasantly, too; and it was not on that account he got into the
+Patchwork School.
+
+[Illustration: JULIA WAS ARRESTED ON CHRISTMAS DAY.]
+
+It was on Christmas day that Julia was arrested and led away to the
+Patchwork School. It happened in this way: As I said before, Julia's
+parents were poor, and it was all they could do to procure the bare
+comforts of life for their family; there was very little to spend for
+knickknacks. But I don't think Julia would have complained at that; he
+would have liked useful articles just as well for Christmas presents,
+and would not have been unhappy because he did not find some useless
+toy in his stocking, instead of some article of clothing, which he
+needed to make him comfortable. But he had had the same things over
+and over, over and over, Christmas after Christmas. Every year each of
+his Grandmothers knit him two pairs of blue woollen yarn stockings,
+and hung them for him on Christmas Eve, for a Christmas present. There
+they would hang--eight pairs of stockings with nothing in them, in a
+row on the mantel shelf, every Christmas morning.
+
+Every year Julia thought about it for weeks before Christmas, and
+hoped and hoped he would have something different this time, but there
+they always hung, and he had to go and kiss his Grandmothers, and
+pretend he liked the stockings the best of anything he could have had;
+for he would not have hurt their feelings for the world.
+
+His parents might have bettered matters a little, but they did not
+wish to cross the old ladies either, and they had to buy so much yarn
+they could not afford to get anything else.
+
+The worst of it was, the stockings were knit so well, and of such
+stout material, that they never wore out, so Julia never really
+needed the new ones; if he had, that might have reconciled him to the
+sameness of his Christmas presents, for he was a very sensible boy.
+But his bureau drawers were full of the blue stockings rolled up in
+neat little hard balls--all the balls he ever had; the tears used to
+spring up in his eyes every time he looked at them. But he never said
+a word till the Christmas when he was twelve years old. Somehow that
+time he was unusually cast down at the sight of the eight pairs of
+stockings hanging in a row under the mantel shelf; but he kissed and
+thanked his Grandmothers just as he always had.
+
+When he was out on the street a little later, however, he sat down in
+a doorway and cried. He could not help it. Some of the other boys had
+such lovely presents, and he had nothing but these same blue woollen
+stockings.
+
+"What's the matter, little boy?" asked a voice.
+
+Without looking up, Julia sobbed out his troubles; but what was his
+horror when he felt himself seized by the arm and lifted up, and
+found that he was in the grasp of a policeman in white top boots. The
+policeman did not mind Julia's tears and entreaties in the least, but
+led him away to the Patchwork School, waving his stick with its blue
+ribbon bow as majestically as a drum major.
+
+So Julia had to sit down in a little chair, and sew patchwork with the
+rest. He did not mind the close work as much as some of the others,
+for he was used to being kept indoors, attending to his Grandmothers'
+wants; but he disliked to sew. His term of punishment was a long one.
+The Patchwork Woman, who fixed it, thought it looked very badly for a
+little boy to be complaining because his kind grandparents had given
+him some warm stockings instead of foolish toys.
+
+The first thing the children had to do when they entered the school,
+was to make their patchwork clothes, as I have said. Julia had got his
+finished and was busily sewing on a red and green patchwork quilt,
+in a tea-chest pattern, when, one day, the Mayor came to visit the
+school. Just then his son did not happen to be serving a term there;
+the Mayor never visited it with visitors of distinction when he was.
+
+To-day he had a Chinese Ambassador with him. The Patchwork Woman sat
+behind her desk on the platform and sewed patchwork, the Mayor in his
+fine broadcloth sat one side of her, and the Chinese Ambassador, in
+his yellow satin gown, on the other.
+
+The Ambassador's name was To-Chum. The children could not help
+stealing glances occasionally at his high eyebrows and braided queue,
+but they cast their eyes on their sewing again directly.
+
+The Mayor and the Ambassador staid about an hour; then after they had
+both made some remarks--the Ambassador made his in Chinese; he could
+speak English, but his remarks in Chinese were wiser--they rose to go.
+
+Now, the door of the Patchwork School was of a very peculiar
+structure. It was made of iron of a great thickness, and opened like
+any safe door, only it had more magic about it than any safe door ever
+had. At a certain hour in the afternoon, it shut of its own accord,
+and opened at a certain hour in the morning, when the Patchwork Woman
+repeated a formula before it. The formula did no good whatever at any
+other time; the door was so constructed that not even its inventor
+could open it after it shut at the certain hour of the afternoon,
+before the certain hour the next morning.
+
+Now the Mayor and the Chinese Ambassador had staid rather longer than
+they should have. They had been so interested in the school that they
+had not noticed how the time was going, and the Patchwork Woman had
+been so taken up with a very intricate new pattern that she failed to
+remind them, as was her custom.
+
+So it happened that while the Mayor got through the iron door safely,
+just as the Chinese Ambassador was following it suddenly swung to, and
+shut in his braided queue at a very high point.
+
+[Illustration: JULIA ENTERTAINS THE AMBASSADOR THROUGH THE KEYHOLE.]
+
+Then there was the Ambassador on one side of the door, and his queue
+on the other, and the door could not possibly be opened before
+morning. Here was a terrible dilemma! What was to be done? There stood
+the children, their patchwork in their hands, staring, open-mouthed,
+at the queue dangling through the door, and the Patchwork Woman pale
+with dismay, in their midst, on one side of the door, and on the other
+side was the terror-stricken Mayor, and the poor Chinese Ambassador.
+
+"Can't anything be done?" shouted the Mayor through the keyhole--there
+was a very large keyhole.
+
+"No," the Patchwork Woman said. "The door won't open till six o'clock
+to-morrow morning."
+
+"Oh, try!" groaned the Mayor. "Say the formula."
+
+She said the formula, to satisfy them, but the door staid firmly shut.
+Evidently the Chinese Ambassador would have to stay where he was until
+morning, unless he had the Mayor snip his queue off, which was not to
+be thought of.
+
+So the Mayor, who was something of a philosopher, set about
+accommodating himself, or rather his friend, to the situation.
+
+"It is inevitable," said he to the Ambassador. "I am very sorry, but
+everybody has to conform to the customs of the institutions of the
+countries which they visit. I will go and get you some dinner, and an
+extra coat. I will keep you company through the night, and morning
+will come before you know it."
+
+"Well," sighed the Chinese Ambassador, standing on tiptoe so his queue
+should not pull so hard. He was a patient man, but after he had eaten
+his dinner the time seemed terrible long.
+
+"Why don't you talk?" said he to the Mayor, who was dozing beside him
+in an easy-chair. "Can't you tell me a story?"
+
+"I never did such a thing in my life," replied the Mayor, rousing
+himself; "but I am very sorry for you, dear sir; perhaps the Patchwork
+Woman can."
+
+So he asked the Patchwork Woman through the keyhole.
+
+"I never told a story in my life," said she; "but there's a boy here
+that I heard telling a beautiful one the other day. Here, Julia,"
+called she, "come and tell a story to the Chinese Ambassador."
+
+Julia really knew a great many stories which his Grandmothers had
+taught him, and he sat on a little stool and told them through the
+keyhole all night to the Chinese Ambassador.
+
+He and the Mayor were so interested that morning came and the door
+swung open before they knew it. The poor Ambassador drew a long
+breath, and put his hand around to his queue to see if it was safe.
+Then he wanted to thank and reward the boy who had made the long night
+hours pass so pleasantly.
+
+"What is he in here for?" asked the Mayor, patting Julia, who could
+hardly keep his eyes open.
+
+[Illustration: THE GRANDMOTHERS ENJOY THE CHINESE TOYS.]
+
+"He grumbled about his Christmas presents," replied the Patchwork
+Woman.
+
+"What did you have?" inquired the Mayor.
+
+"Eight pairs of blue yarn stockings," answered Julia, rubbing his
+eyes.
+
+"And the year before?"
+
+"Eight pairs of blue yarn stockings."
+
+"And the year before that?"
+
+"Eight pairs of blue yarn stockings."
+
+"Didn't you ever have anything for Christmas presents but blue yarn
+stockings?" asked the astonished Mayor.
+
+"No, sir," said Julia meekly.
+
+Then the whole story came out. Julia, by dint of questioning, told
+some, and the other children told the rest; and finally, in the
+afternoon, orders came to dress him in his own clothes, and send him
+home. But when he got there, the Mayor and Chinese Ambassador had
+been there before him, and there hung the eight pairs of blue yarn
+stockings under the mantel-shelf, crammed full of the most beautiful
+things--knives, balls, candy--everything he had ever wanted, and the
+mantel-shelf piled high also.
+
+A great many of the presents were of Chinese manufacture; for the
+Ambassador considered them, of course, superior, and he wished to
+express his gratitude to Julia as forcibly as he could. There was one
+stocking entirely filled with curious Chinese tops. A little round
+head, so much like the Ambassador's that it actually startled Julia,
+peeped out of the stocking. But it was only a top in the shape of
+a little man in a yellow silk gown, who could spin around very
+successfully on one foot, for an astonishing length of time. There was
+a Chinese lady-top too, who fanned herself coquettishly as she spun;
+and a mandarin who nodded wisely. The tops were enough to turn a boy's
+head.
+
+There were equally curious things in the other stockings. Some of them
+Julia had no use for, such as silk for dresses, China crape shawls and
+fans, but they were just the things for his Grandmothers, who, after
+this, sat beside the fireplace, very prim and fine, in stiff silk
+gowns, with China crape shawls over their shoulders, and Chinese fans
+in their hands, and queer shoes on their feet. Julia liked their
+presents just as well as he did his own, and probably the Ambassador
+knew that he would.
+
+The Mayor had filled one stocking himself with bonbons, and Julia
+picked out all the peppermints amongst them for his Grandmothers. They
+were very fond of peppermints. Then he went to work to find their
+spectacles, which had been lost ever since he had been away.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SQUIRE'S SIXPENCE.
+
+
+Patience Mather was saying the seven-multiplication table, when she
+heard a heavy step in the entry.
+
+"That is Squire Bean," whispered her friend, Martha Joy, who stood at
+her elbow.
+
+Patience stopped short in horror. Her especial bugbear in mathematics
+was eight-times-seven; she was coming toward it fast--could she
+remember it, with old Squire Bean looking at her?
+
+"Go on," said the teacher severely. She was quite young, and also
+stood in some awe of Squire Bean, but she did not wish her pupils to
+discover it, so she pretended to ignore that step in the entry. Squire
+Bean walked with a heavy gilt-headed cane which always went clump,
+clump, at every step; beside he shuffled--one could always tell who
+was coming.
+
+"Seven times seven," begun Patience trembling--then the door
+opened--there stood Squire Bean.
+
+The teacher rose promptly. She tried to be very easy and natural, but
+her pretty round cheeks turned red and white by turns.
+
+"Good-morning, Squire Bean," said she. Then she placed a chair on the
+platform for him.
+
+"_Good_-morning," said he, and seated himself in a lumbering way--he
+was rather stiff with rheumatism. He was a large old man in a green
+camlet cloak with brass buttons.
+
+"You may go on with the exercises," said he to the teacher, after he
+had adjusted himself and wiped his face solemnly with a great red
+handkerchief.
+
+"Go on, Patience," said the teacher.
+
+So Patience piped up in her little weak soprano: "Seven times seven
+are forty-nine. Eight times seven are"--She stopped short. Then she
+begun over again--"Eight times seven"--
+
+The class with toes on the crack all swayed forward to look at
+her, the pupils at the foot stepped off till they swung it into a
+half-circle. Hands came up and gyrated wildly.
+
+"Back on the line!" said the teacher sternly. Then they stepped back,
+but the hands indicative of superior knowledge still waved, the coarse
+jacket-sleeves and the gingham apron-sleeves slipping back from the
+thin childish wrists.
+
+"Eight times seven are eighty-nine," declared Patience desperately.
+The hands shook frantically, some of the owners stepped off the line
+again in their eagerness.
+
+Patience's cheeks were red as poppies, her eyes were full of tears.
+
+"You may try once more, Patience," said the teacher, who was
+distressed herself. She feared lest Squire Bean might think that it
+was her fault, and that she was not a competent teacher, because
+Patience Mather did not know eight-times-seven.
+
+So Patience started again--"Eight times seven"--She paused for a
+mighty mental effort--she must get it right this time. "Six"--she
+began feebly.
+
+"What!" said Squire Bean suddenly, in a deep voice which sounded like
+a growl.
+
+Then all at once poor little Patience heard a whisper sweet as an
+angel's in her ear: "Fifty-six."
+
+"Eight times seven are fifty-six," said she convulsively.
+
+[Illustration: "SIX"--SHE BEGAN FEEBLY.]
+
+"Right," said the teacher with a relieved look. The hands went down.
+Patience stood with her neat little shoes toeing out on the crack. It
+was over. She had not failed before Squire Bean. For a few minutes,
+she could think of nothing but that.
+
+The rest of the class had their weak points, moreover their strong
+points, overlooked in the presence of the company. The first thing
+Patience knew, ever so many had missed in the nine-table, and she had
+gone up to the head.
+
+Standing there, all at once a terrible misgiving seized her. "I
+wouldn't have gone to the head if I hadn't been told," she thought
+to herself. Martha was next below her; she knew that question in the
+nines, her hand had been up, so had John Allen's and Phoebe Adams'.
+
+This was the last class before recess. Patience went soberly out in
+the yard with the other girls. There was a little restraint over all
+the scholars. They looked with awe at the Squire's horse and chaise.
+The horse was tied after a novel fashion, an invention of the Squire's
+own. He had driven a gimlet into the schoolhouse wall, and tied his
+horse to it with a stout rope. Whenever the Squire drove he carried
+with him his gimlet, in case there should be no hitching-post.
+Occasionally house-owners rebelled, but it made no difference; the
+next time the Squire had occasion to stop at their premises there was
+another gimlet-hole in the wall. Few people could make their way good
+against Squire Bean's.
+
+There were a great many holes in the schoolhouse walls, for the Squire
+made frequent visits; he was one of the committee and considered
+himself very necessary for the well-being of the school. Indeed if he
+had frankly spoken his mind, he would probably have admitted that in
+his estimation the school could not be properly kept one day without
+his assistance.
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT!" SAID SQUIRE BEAN SUDDENLY.]
+
+Patience stood with her back against the school fence, and watched
+the others soberly. The girls wanted her to play "Little Sally Waters
+sitting in the sun," but she said no, she didn't want to play.
+
+Martha took hold of her arm and tried to pull her into the ring, but
+she held back.
+
+"What is the matter?" said Martha.
+
+"Nothing," Patience said, but her face was full of trouble. There was
+a little wrinkle between her reflective brown eyes, and she drew in
+her under lip after a way she had when disturbed.
+
+When the bell rang, the scholars filed in with the greatest order and
+decorum. Even the most frisky boys did no more than roll their eyes
+respectfully in the Squire's direction as they passed him, and they
+tiptoed on their bare feet in the most cautious manner.
+
+The Squire sat through the remaining exercises, until it was time to
+close the school.
+
+"You may put up your books," said the teacher. There was a rustle and
+clatter, then a solemn hush. They all sat with their arms folded,
+looking expectantly at Squire Bean. The teacher turned to him. Her
+cheeks were very red, and she was very dignified, but her voice shook
+a little.
+
+"Won't you make some remarks to the pupils?" said she.
+
+Then the Squire rose and cleared his throat. The scholars did not pay
+much attention to what he said, although they sat still, with their
+eyes riveted on his face. But when, toward the close of his remarks,
+he put his hand in his pocket, and a faint jingling was heard, a
+thrill ran over the school.
+
+The Squire pulled out two silver sixpences, and held them up
+impressively before the children. Through a hole in each of them
+dangled a palm-leaf strand; and the Squire's own initial was stamped
+on both.
+
+"Thomas Arnold may step this way," said the Squire.
+
+Thomas Arnold had acquitted himself well in geography, and to him the
+Squire duly presented one of the sixpences.
+
+Thomas bobbed, and pattered back to his seat with all his mates
+staring and grinning at him.
+
+Then Patience Mather's heart jumped--Squire Bean was bidding her step
+that way, on account of her going to the head of the arithmetic class.
+She sat still. There was a roaring in her ears. Squire Bean spoke
+again. Then the teacher interposed. "Patience," said she, "did you not
+hear what Squire Bean said? Step this way."
+
+Then Patience rose and dragged slowly down the aisle. She hung her
+head, she dimly heard Squire Bean speaking; then the sixpence touched
+her hand. Suddenly Patience looked up. There was a vein of heroism in
+the little girl. Not far back, some of her kin had been brave fighters
+in the Revolution. Now their little descendant went marching up to her
+own enemy in her own way. She spoke right up before Squire Bean.
+
+"I'd rather you'd give it to some one else," said she with a curtesy.
+"It doesn't belong to me. I wouldn't have gone to the head if I hadn't
+cheated."
+
+Patience's cheeks were white, but her eyes flashed. Squire Bean
+gasped, and turned it into a cough. Then he began asking her
+questions. Patience answered unflinchingly. She kept holding the
+sixpence toward him.
+
+Finally he reached out and gave it a little push back.
+
+"Keep it," said he; "keep it, keep it. I don't give it to you for
+going to the head, but because you are an honest and truthful child."
+
+Patience blushed pink to her little neck. She curtesied deeply and
+returned to her seat, the silver sixpence dangling from her agitated
+little hand. She put her head down on her desk, and cried, now it was
+all over, and did not look up till school was dismissed, and Martha
+Joy came and put her arm around her and comforted her.
+
+The two little girls were very close friends, and were together all
+the time which they could snatch out of school hours. Not long after
+the presentation of the sixpence, one night after school, Patience's
+mother wanted her to go on an errand to Nancy Gookin's hut.
+
+Nancy Gookin was an Indian woman, who did a good many odd jobs for the
+neighbors. Mrs. Mather was expecting company, and she wanted her to
+come the next day and assist her about some cleaning.
+
+Patience was usually willing enough, but to-night she demurred. In
+fact, she was a little afraid of the Indian woman, who lived all alone
+in a little hut on the edge of some woods. Her mother knew it, but it
+was a foolish fear, and she did not encourage her in it.
+
+"There is no sense in your being afraid of Nancy," she said with some
+severity. "She's a good woman, if she is an Injun, and she is always
+to be seen in the meeting-house of a Sabbath day."
+
+As her mother spoke, Patience could see Nancy's dark harsh old face
+peering over the pew, where she and some of her nation sat together,
+Sabbath days, and the image made her shudder in spite of its
+environments. However, she finally put on her little sunbonnet and set
+forth. It was a lovely summer twilight; she had only about a quarter
+of a mile to go, but her courage failed her more and more at every
+step. Martha Joy lived on the way. When she reached her house, she
+stopped and begged her to go with her. Martha was obliging; under
+ordinary circumstances she would have gone with alacrity, but to-night
+she had a hard toothache. She came to the door with her face all tied
+up in a hop-poultice. "I'm 'fraid I can't go," she said dolefully.
+
+But Patience begged and begged. "I'll spend my sixpence that uncle
+Joseph gave me, and I'll buy you a whole card of peppermints," said
+she finally, by way of inducement.
+
+That won the day. Martha got few sweets, and if there was anything
+she craved, it was the peppermints, which came, in those days, in big
+beautiful cards, to be broken off at will. And to have a whole card!
+
+So poor Martha tied her little napping sunbonnet over her swollen
+cheeks, and went with Patience to see Nancy Gookin, who received the
+message thankfully, and did not do them the least harm in the world.
+
+Martha had really a very hard toothache. She did not sleep much that
+night for all the hop-poultice, and she went to school the next day
+feeling tired and cross. She was a nervous little girl, and never bore
+illness very well. But to-day she had one pleasant anticipation. She
+thought often of that card of peppermints. It had cheered her somewhat
+in her uneasy night. She thought that Patience would surely bring them
+to school. She came early herself and watched for her. She entered
+quite late, just before the bell rang. Martha ran up to her. "I
+haven't got the peppermints," said Patience. She had been crying.
+
+Martha straightened up: "Why not?"
+
+The tears welled out of Patience's eyes. "I can't find that sixpence
+anywhere."
+
+The tears came into Martha's eyes too. She looked as dignified as her
+poulticed face would allow. "I never knew you told fibs, Patience
+Mather," said she. "I don't believe my mother will want me to go with
+you any more."
+
+Just then the bell rang. Martha went crying to her seat, and the
+others thought it was on account of her toothache. Patience kept back
+her tears. She was forming a desperate resolution. When recess came,
+she got permission to go to the store which was quite near, and she
+bought a card of peppermints with the Squire's sixpence. She had
+pulled out the palm-leaf strand on her way, thrusting it into her
+pocket guiltily. She felt as if she were committing sacrilege. These
+sixpences, which Squire Bean bestowed upon worthy scholars from time
+to time, were ostensibly for the purpose of book-marks. That was the
+reason for the palm-leaf strand. The Squire took the sixpences to the
+blacksmith who stamped them with B's, and then, with his own hands, he
+adjusted the palm-leaf.
+
+The man who kept the store looked at the sixpence curiously, when
+Patience offered it.
+
+"One of the Squire's sixpences!" said he.
+
+"Yes; it's mine." That was the argument which Patience had set forth
+to her own conscience. It was certainly her own sixpence; the Squire
+had given it to her--had she not a right to do as she chose with it?
+
+The man laughed; his name was Ezra Tomkins, and he enjoyed a joke. He
+was privately resolving to give that sixpence in change to the
+old Squire and see what he would say. If Patience had guessed his
+thoughts--
+
+But she took the card of peppermints, and carried them to the appeased
+and repentant and curious Martha, and waited further developments in
+trepidation. She had a presentiment deep within her childish soul that
+some day she would have a reckoning with Squire Bean concerning his
+sixpence.
+
+If by chance she had to pass his house, she would hurry by at her
+utmost speed lest she be intercepted. She got out of his way as fast
+as she could if she spied his old horse and chaise in the distance.
+Still she knew the day would come; and it did.
+
+It was one Saturday afternoon; school did not keep, and she was all
+alone in the house with Martha. Her mother had gone visiting. The two
+little girls were playing "Holly Gull, Passed how many," with beans in
+the kitchen, when the door opened, and in walked Susan Elder. She
+was a woman who lived at Squire Bean's and helped his wife with the
+housework.
+
+The minute Patience saw her, she knew what her errand was. She gave a
+great start. Then she looked at Susan Elder with her big frightened
+eyes.
+
+Susan Elder was a stout old woman. She sat down on the settle, and
+wheezed before she spoke. "Squire Bean wants you to come up to his
+house right away," said she at last.
+
+Patience trembled all over. "My mother is gone away. I don't know as
+she would want me to go," she ventured despairingly.
+
+"He wants you to come right away," said Susan.
+
+"I don't believe mother'd want me to leave the house alone."
+
+"I'll stay an' rest till you git back; I'd jest as soon. I'm all
+tuckered out comin' up the hill."
+
+Patience was very pale. She cast an agonized glance at Martha. "I
+spent the Squire's sixpence for those peppermints," she whispered. She
+had not told her before.
+
+Martha looked at her in horror--then she begun to cry. "Oh! I made you
+do it," she sobbed.
+
+"Won't you go with me?" groaned Patience.
+
+"One little gal is enough," spoke up Susan Elder. "He won't like it if
+two goes."
+
+That settled it. Poor little Patience Mather crept meekly out of
+the house and down the hill to Squire Bean's, without even Martha's
+foreboding sympathy for consolation.
+
+She looked ahead wistfully all the way. If she could only see her
+mother coming--but she did not, and there was Squire Bean's house,
+square and white and massive, with great sprawling clumps of white
+peonies in the front yard.
+
+She went around to the back door, and raised a feeble clatter with the
+knocker. Mrs. Squire Bean, who was tall and thin and mild-looking,
+answered her knock. "The--Squire--sent--for--me"--choked Patience.
+
+"Oh!" said the old lady, "you air the little Mather-gal, I guess."
+
+Patience shook so she could hardly reply.
+
+"You'd better go right into his room," said Mrs. Squire Bean, and
+Patience followed her. She gave her a little pat when she opened a
+door on the right. "Don't you be afeard," said she; "he won't say
+nothin' to you. I'll give you a piece of sweet-cake when you come
+out."
+
+Thus admonished, Patience entered. "Here's the little Mather-gal,"
+Mrs. Bean remarked; then the door closed again on her mild old face.
+
+[Illustration: LITTLE PATIENCE OBEYS THE SQUIRE'S SUMMONS.]
+
+When Patience first looked at that room, she had a wild impulse to
+turn and run. A conviction flashed through her mind that she could
+outrun Squire Bean and his wife easily. In fact, the queer aspect
+of the room was not calculated to dispel her nervous terror. Squire
+Bean's peculiarities showed forth in the arrangement of his room, as
+well as in other ways. His floor was painted drab, and in the center
+were the sun and solar system depicted in yellow. But that six-rayed
+yellow sun, the size of a large dinner plate, with its group of lesser
+six-rayed orbs as large as saucers, did not startle Patience as
+much as the rug beside the Squire's bed. That was made of a brindle
+cow-skin with--the horns on. The little girl's fascinated gaze rested
+on these bristling horns and could not tear itself away. Across the
+foot of the Squire's bed lay a great iron bar; that was a housewifely
+scheme of his own to keep the clothes well down at the foot. But
+Patience's fertile imagination construed it into a dire weapon of
+punishment.
+
+The Squire was sitting at his old cherry desk. He turned around and
+looked at Patience sharply from under his shaggy, overhanging brows.
+
+Then he fumbled in his pocket and brought something out--it was the
+sixpence. Then he began talking. Patience could not have told what he
+said. Her mind was entirely full of what she had to say. Somehow
+she stammered out the story: how she had been afraid to go to Nancy
+Gookin's, and how she had lost the sixpence her uncle had given her,
+and how Martha had said she told a fib. Patience trembled and gasped
+out the words, and curtesied, once in a while, when the Squire said
+something.
+
+"Come here," said he, when he had sat for a minute or two, taking in
+the facts of the case.
+
+To Patience's utter astonishment, Squire Bean was laughing, and
+holding out the sixpence.
+
+"Have you got the palm-leaf string?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Patience, curtesying.
+
+"Well, you may take this home, and put in the palm-leaf string, and
+use it for a marker in your book--but don't you spend it again."
+
+"No, sir." Patience curtesied again.
+
+"You did very wrong to spend it, very wrong. Those sixpences are not
+given to you to spend. But I will overlook it this once."
+
+The Squire extended the sixpence. Patience took it, with another dip
+of her little skirt. Then he turned around to his desk.
+
+Patience waited a few minutes. She did not know whether she was
+dismissed or not. Finally the Squire begun to add aloud: "Five and
+five are ten," he said, "ought, and carry the one."
+
+He was adding a bill. Then Patience stole out softly. Mrs. Squire Bean
+was waiting in the kitchen. She gave her a great piece of plum-cake
+and kissed her.
+
+"He didn't hurt you any, did he?" said she.
+
+"No, ma'am," said Patience, looking with a bewildered smile at the
+sixpence.
+
+That night she tied in the palm-leaf strand again, and she put the
+sixpence in her Geography-book, and she kept it so safely all her life
+that her great-grandchildren have seen it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A PLAIN CASE.
+
+
+Willy had his own little bag packed--indeed it had been packed for
+three whole days--and now he stood gripping it tightly in one hand,
+and a small yellow cane which was the pride of his heart in the other.
+Willy had a little harmless, childish dandyism about him which his
+mother rather encouraged. "I'd rather he'd be this way than the
+other," she said when people were inclined to smile at his little
+fussy habits. "It won't hurt him any to be nice and particular, if he
+doesn't get conceited."
+
+Willy looked very dainty and sweet and gentle as he stood in the door
+this morning. His straight fair hair was brushed very smooth, his
+white straw hat with its blue ribbon was set on exactly, there was not
+a speck on his best blue suit.
+
+"Willy looks as if he had just come out of the band-box," Grandma had
+said. But she did not have time to admire him long; she was not nearly
+ready herself. Grandma was always in a hurry at the last moment. Now
+she had to pack her big valise, brush Grandpa's hair, put on his
+"dicky" and cravat, and adjust her own bonnet and shawl.
+
+Willy was privately afraid she would not be ready when the village
+coach came, and so they would miss the train, but he said nothing.
+He stood patiently in the door and looked down the street whence the
+coach would come, and listened to the bustle in Grandma's room. There
+was not an impatient line in his face although he had really a good
+deal at stake. He was going to Exeter with his Grandpa and Grandma, to
+visit his aunt Annie, and his new uncle Frank. Grandpa and Grandma had
+come from Maine to visit their daughter Ellen who was Willy's mother,
+and now they were going to see Annie. When Willy found out that he was
+going too, he was delighted. He had always been very fond of his aunt
+Annie, and had not seen her for a long time. He had never seen his new
+uncle Frank who had been married to Annie six months before, and he
+looked forward to that. Uncles and aunts seemed a very desirable
+acquisition to this little Willy, who had always been a great pet
+among his relatives.
+
+"He won't make you a bit of trouble, if you don't mind taking him. He
+never teases nor frets, and he won't be homesick," his mother had told
+his grandmother.
+
+"I know all about that," Grandma Stockton had replied. "I'd just as
+soon take him as a doll-baby."
+
+[Illustration: WATCHING FOR THE COACH.]
+
+Willy Norton really was a very sweet boy. He proved it this morning
+by standing there so patiently and never singing out, "Ain't you most
+ready, Grandma?" although it did seem to him she never would be.
+
+His mother was helping her pack too; he could hear them talking. "I
+guess I sha'n't put in father's best coat," Grandma Stockton remarked,
+among other things. "He won't be in Exeter over Sunday, and won't want
+it to go to meetin', and it musses it up so to put it in a valise."
+
+"Well, I don't know as I would as long as you're coming back here,"
+said his mother.
+
+After a while she remarked further, "If father should want that coat,
+you can send for it, and I can put in Willy's other shoes with it."
+
+Willy noticed that, because he himself had rather regretted not taking
+his other shoes. He had only his best ones, and he thought he might
+want to go berrying in Exeter and would spoil them tramping through
+the bushes and briers, and he did not like to wear shabby shoes.
+
+"Well, I can; but I guess he won't want it," said Grandma.
+
+At last the coach came in sight, and Grandma was all ready excepting
+her bonnet and gloves, and Grandpa had only to brush his hat very
+carefully and put it on; so they did not miss the train.
+
+Willy's mother hugged him tight and kissed him. There were tears in
+her eyes. This was the first time he had ever been away from home
+without her. "Be a good boy," said she.
+
+"There isn't any need of tellin' him that," chuckled Grandpa, getting
+into the coach. He thought Willy was the most wonderful child in the
+world.
+
+It was quite a long ride to Exeter. They did not get there until
+tea-time, but that made it seem all the pleasanter. Willy never forgot
+how peaceful and beautiful that little, elm-shaded village looked with
+the red light of the setting sun over it. There was aunt Annie, too,
+in the prettiest blue-sprigged, white cambric, standing in her door
+watching for them; and she was so surprised and delighted to see
+Willy, and they had tea right away, and there were berries and cream,
+and cream-tartar biscuits and frosted cake.
+
+Uncle Frank, Willy thought, was going to be the nicest uncle he had.
+There was something about the tall, curly-headed, pleasant-eyed young
+man which won his boyish heart at once.
+
+"Glad to see you, sir," uncle Frank said in his loud, merry voice;
+then he gave Willy's little slim hand a big shake, as if it were a
+man's.
+
+He was further prepossessed in his favor when, after tea, he begged to
+take him over to the store and show him around before he went to
+bed. Grandma had suggested his going directly to bed, as he must
+be fatigued with the journey, but uncle Frank pleaded for fifteen
+minutes' grace, so Willy went to view the store.
+
+It was almost directly opposite uncle Frank's house, and uncle Frank
+and his father kept it. It was in a large old building, half of which
+was a dwelling-house where uncle Frank's parents lived, and where he
+had lived himself before he was married. The store was a large country
+one, and there was a post-office and an express office connected with
+it. Uncle Frank and his father were store-keepers and postmasters and
+express-agents.
+
+The jolly new uncle gave Willy some sticks of peppermint and
+winter-green candy out of the glass jars, in the store-window, and
+showed him all around. He introduced him to his father, and took him
+into the house to see his mother. They made much of him, as strangers
+always did.
+
+"They said I must call them Grandpa and Grandma Perry," he told his
+own grandmother when he got home.
+
+He told her, furthermore, privately, when she came upstairs after he
+was in bed to see if everything was all right, that he thought Annie
+had shown very good taste in marrying uncle Frank. She told of it,
+downstairs, and there was a great laugh. "I don't know when I have
+taken such a fancy to a boy," uncle Frank said warmly. "He is so good,
+and yet he's smart enough, too."
+
+"Everybody takes to him," his grandmother said proudly.
+
+In a day or two Willy wrote a letter to his mother, and told her he
+was having the best time that he ever had in his life.
+
+Willy was only seven years old and had never written many letters, but
+this was a very good one. His mother away down in Ashbury thought so.
+She shed a few tears over it. "It does seem as if I couldn't get along
+another day without seeing him," she told Willy's father; "but I'm
+glad if it is doing the dear child good, and he is enjoying it."
+
+One reason why Willy had been taken upon the trip was his health. He
+had always been considered rather delicate. It did seem as if he had
+every chance to grow stronger in Exeter. The air was cool and bracing
+from the mountains; aunt Annie had the best things in the world to
+eat, and as he had said, he was really having a splendid time. He
+rode about with uncle Frank in the grocery wagon, he tended store,
+he fished, and went berrying. There were only two drawbacks to his
+perfect comfort. One came from his shoes. Grandpa Perry had found an
+old pair in the store, and he wore them on his fishing and berrying
+jaunts; but they were much too large and they slipped and hurt his
+heels. However he said nothing; he stumped along in them manfully, and
+tried to ignore such a minor grievance. Willy had really a stanch vein
+in him, in spite of his gentleness and mildness. The other drawback
+lay in the fact that the visit was to be of such short duration. It
+began Monday and was expected to end Saturday. Willy counted the
+hours; every night before he went to sleep he heaved a regretful sigh
+over the day which had just gone. It had been decided before leaving
+home that they were to return on Saturday, and he had had no
+intimation of any change of plan.
+
+Friday morning he awoke with the thought, "this is the last day."
+However, Willy was a child, and, in the morning, a day still looked
+interminable to him, especially when there were good times looming up
+in it. To-day he expected to take a very long ride with uncle Frank,
+who was going to Keene to buy a new horse.
+
+"I want Willy to go with me, to help pick him out," he told Grandma
+Stockton, and Willy took it in serious earnest. They were going to
+carry lunch and be gone all day. This promised pleasure looked so big
+to the boy, as he became wider awake, that he could see nothing at all
+beyond it, not even the sad departure and end of this delightful visit
+on the morrow. So he went down to breakfast as happy as ever.
+
+"That boy certainly looks better," Grandpa Stockton remarked, as the
+coffee was being poured.
+
+"We must have him weighed before he goes home," Grandma said, beaming
+at him.
+
+"That's one thing I thought of, 'bout stayin' a week longer," Grandpa
+went on. "It seems to be doin' Sonny, here, so much good." Grandpa had
+a very slow, deliberate way of speaking.
+
+Willy laid down his spoon and stared at him, but he said nothing.
+
+"I don't see what you were thinking of not to plan to stay longer in
+the first place," said aunt Annie. "I don't like it much." She made
+believe to pout her pretty lips.
+
+"Well," said uncle Frank, "I'll send for that coat right away this
+morning, so you'll be sure to get it to-morrow night."
+
+"Yes," said Grandpa, "I'd like to hev it to wear to meetin'. Mother
+thinks my old one ain't just fit."
+
+"No, it ain't," spoke up Grandma. "It does well enough when you're at
+home, where folks know you, but it's different among strangers. An'
+you've got to have it next week, anyhow."
+
+Willy looked up at his grandmother. "Grandma," said he tremblingly,
+"ain't we going home to-morrow?"
+
+"Why, bless the child!" said she. "I forgot he didn't know. We talked
+about it last night after he'd gone to bed."
+
+Then she explained. They were going to stay another week. Next week
+Wednesday, Grandpa and Grandma Perry had been married twenty-five
+years, and they were going to have a silver wedding. So they were
+going to remain and be present at it, and Grandpa was going to send
+for his best coat to wear.
+
+Willy looked so radiant that they all laughed, and uncle Frank said he
+was going to keep him always, and let him help him in the store.
+
+Before they started off to buy the horse, uncle Frank telegraphed to
+Ashbury about the coat; he also mentioned Willy's shoes.
+
+The two had a beautiful ride, and bought a handsome black horse. Uncle
+Frank consulted Willy a great deal about the purchase, and expatiated
+on his good judgment in the matter after they got home. One of Willy's
+chief charms was that he stood so much flattery of this kind, without
+being disagreeably elated by it. His frank, childish delight was
+always pretty to see.
+
+The next afternoon he went berrying with a little boy who lived next
+door. At five o'clock aunt Annie ran over to the store to see if the
+coat had come.
+
+"It has," she told her mother when she returned; "it came at one
+o'clock, and Mother Perry gave it to Willy to bring home."
+
+"To Willy? Why, what did the child do with it?" Grandma said
+wonderingly. "He didn't bring it home."
+
+"Maybe he carried it over to Josie Allen's and left it there." Josie
+Allen was the boy with whom Willy had gone berrying. His house stood
+very near uncle Frank's, and both were nearly across the road from the
+store.
+
+"Well, maybe he did, he was in such a hurry to go berrying," said
+Grandma assentingly.
+
+About six o'clock, when the family were all at the tea-table, Willy
+came clumping painfully in his big shoes into the yard. There were
+blisters on his small, delicate heels, but nobody knew it. His little
+fair face was red and tired, but radiant. His pail was heaped and
+rounded up with the most magnificent berries of the season.
+
+"Just look here," said he, with his sweet voice all quivering with
+delight.
+
+He stood outside on the piazza, and lifted the pail on to the
+window-sill. He could not wait until he came in to show these berries.
+He would have to walk way around through the kitchen in those
+irritating shoes.
+
+They all exclaimed and admired them as much as he could wish, then
+Grandma said suddenly: "But what did you do with the coat, Willy?"
+
+"The coat?" repeated Willy in a bewildered way.
+
+"Yes; the coat. Did you take it over to Josie's an' leave it? If you
+did, you must go right back and get it. Did you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why, what did you do with it?"
+
+"I didn't do anything with it."
+
+"William Dexter Norton! what do you mean?"
+
+[Illustration: "JUST LOOK HERE!" SAID WILLY'S SWEET VOICE.]
+
+Everybody had stopped eating, and was staring out at Willy, who was
+staring in. His happy little red face had suddenly turned sober.
+
+"Come in, Sonny, an' we'll see what all the trouble's about, an'
+straighten it out in a jiffy," spoke up Grandpa. The contrast between
+Grandpa's slow tones and the "jiffy" was very funny.
+
+Willy crept slowly down the long piazza, through the big kitchen into
+the dining-room.
+
+"Now, Sonny, come right here," said his grandfather, "an' we'll have
+it all fixed up nice."
+
+The boy kept looking from one face to another in a wondering
+frightened way. He went hesitatingly up to his grandfather, and stood
+still, his poor little smarting feet toeing in, after a fashion they
+had, when tired, the pail full of berries dangling heavily on his
+slight arm.
+
+"Now, Sonny, look up here, an' tell us all about it. What did you do
+with Grandpa's coat, boy?"
+
+"I--didn't do anything with it."
+
+"William," began his grandmother, but Grandpa interrupted her. "Just
+wait a minute, mother," said he. "Sonny an' I air goin' to settle
+this. Now, Sonny, don't you get scared. You jest think a minute.
+Think real hard, don't hurry--now, can't you tell what you did with
+Grandpa's coat?"
+
+"I--didn't--do anything with it," said Willy.
+
+"My sakes!" said his grandmother. "What has come to the child?" She
+was very pale. Aunt Annie and uncle Frank looked as if they did not
+know what to think. Grandpa himself settled back in his chair, and
+stared helplessly at Willy.
+
+Finally aunt Annie tried her hand. "See here, Willy dear," said she,
+"you are tired and hungry and want your supper; just tell us what you
+did with the coat after Grandma Perry gave it to you"--
+
+"She didn't," said Willy.
+
+That was dreadful. They all looked aghast at one another. Was Willy
+lying--Willy!
+
+"Didn't--give--it--to you--Sonny!" said Grandpa, feebly, and more
+slowly than ever.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Grandma Stockton had been called quick-tempered when she was a girl,
+and she gave proof of it sometimes, even now in her gentle old age.
+She spoke very sternly and quickly: "Willy, we have had all of this
+nonsense that we want. Now you just speak right up an' tell the truth.
+What did you do with your grandfather's coat?"
+
+"I didn't do anything with it," faltered Willy again. His lip was
+quivering.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I--didn't"--began the child again, then his sobs checked him. He
+crooked his little free arm, hid his face in the welcome curve, and
+cried in good earnest.
+
+"Stop crying and tell me the truth," said Grandma pitilessly.
+
+Willy again gasped out his one reply; he shook so that he could
+scarcely hold his berry pail. Aunt Annie took it out of his hand and
+set it on the table. Uncle Frank rose with a jerk. "I'll run over and
+get mother," said he, with an air that implied, "I'll soon settle this
+matter."
+
+But the matter was very far from settled by Mrs. Perry's testimony.
+She only repeated what she had already told her daughter-in-law.
+
+"The bundle came on the noon express," said she, "and I told Mr. Perry
+to set it down in the kitchen, and I would see that it got over to
+you. He didn't know how to stop just then. It laid there on one of the
+kitchen-chairs while I was clearing away the dinner-dishes. Then about
+two o'clock I was changing my dress, when I heard Willy whistling out
+in the yard, and I ran into the kitchen and got the bundle, and called
+him to take it. I opened the south door and gave it to him, and told
+him to take it right home to his grandpa. He said he guessed he'd open
+it and see if his shoes had come, and I told him 'no,' he must go
+straight home with it."
+
+That was Mrs. Perry's testimony. Willy heard in the presence of all
+the family; then when the question as to the whereabouts of the coat
+was put to him, he made the same answer. He also repeated that Grandma
+Perry had not given it to him.
+
+"Don't you let me hear you tell that wicked lie again," said his
+Grandma Stockton. She was nearly as much agitated as the boy. She did
+not know what to do, and nobody else did.
+
+Grandpa Perry came over with three sticks of twisted red and white
+peppermint candy, and three of barley. He caught hold of Willy and
+swung him on to his knee. He was a fleshy, jolly man.
+
+"Now, sir," said he, "let's strike a bargain--I'll give you these six
+whole sticks of candy for your supper, and you tell me what you did
+with Grandpa's coat."
+
+"I--didn't do--any"--Willy commenced between his painful sobs, but his
+grandmother interrupted--"Hush! don't you ever say that again," said
+she. "You did do something with it."
+
+"I'll throw in a handful of raisins," said Mr. Perry. But it was of no
+use.
+
+"Well, if the little chap was mine," said Mrs. Perry finally, "I
+should give him his supper and put him to bed, and see how he would
+look at it in the morning."
+
+"I think that would be the best way," chimed in aunt Annie eagerly.
+"He's all tired out and hungry, and doesn't know what he does know--do
+you, dear?"
+
+So she poured out some milk, and cut off a big slice of cake, but
+Willy did not want any supper. It was hard work to induce him to
+swallow a little milk before he went upstairs. His grandmother heaved
+a desperate sigh after he was gone.
+
+"If it was in the days of the Salem witches," said she, "I'd know just
+what to think; as 'tis, I don't."
+
+"That boy was never known to tell a lie before in his whole life--his
+mother said so. He never pestered her the way some children do, lyin';
+an' as for stealin'--why, I'd trusted him with every cent I've got in
+the world." That was Grandpa Stockton.
+
+During the next two or three days every inducement was brought to bear
+upon Willy. He was scolded and coaxed, he was promised a reward if he
+would tell the truth, he was assured that he should not be punished.
+Monday he was kept in his room all day, and was given nothing but
+bread and milk to eat. Severer measures were hinted at, but Grandpa
+Stockton put his foot down peremptorily. "That boy has never been
+whipped in his whole life," said he, "an' his own folks have got to
+begin it, if anybody does."
+
+All the premises were searched for the missing coat, but no trace of
+it was found. The mystery thickened and deepened. How could a boy lose
+a coat going across a road in broad daylight? Why would he not confess
+that he had lost it?
+
+Finally it was decided to take him home. He was becoming all worn out
+with excitement and distress. He was too delicate a child to long
+endure such a strain. They thought that once at home his mother might
+be able to do what none of the rest had.
+
+All the others were getting worn out also. A good many tears had been
+shed by the older members of the company. Poor Mrs. Perry took much
+blame to herself for giving the coat to the boy, and so opening the
+way for the difficulty.
+
+"Mr. Perry says he thinks I ought not to have given the coat to him,
+he's nothing but a child, any way," she said tearfully once.
+
+It was Monday afternoon when Willy was shut up in his room, and all
+the others were talking the matter over downstairs.
+
+Tears stood in aunt Annie's blue eyes. "He's nothing but a baby,"
+said she, "and if I had my way I'd call him downstairs and give him a
+cookie and never speak of the old coat again."
+
+"You talk very silly, Annie," said Grandmother Stockton. "I hope you
+don't want to have the child to grow up a wicked, deceitful man."
+
+Willy's grandparents gave up going to the silver wedding. Grandpa had
+no good coat to wear, and indeed neither of them had any heart to go.
+
+So the morning of the wedding-day they started sadly to return to
+Ashbury. Willy's face looked thin and tear-stained. Somebody had
+packed his little bag for him, but he forgot his little cane.
+
+When he was seated in the cars beside his grandmother, he began to
+cry. She looked at him a moment, then she put her arm around him, and
+drew his head down on her black cashmere shoulder.
+
+"Tell Grandma, can't you," she whispered, "what you did with
+Grandpa's coat?"
+
+"I didn't--do--any"--
+
+"Hush," said she, "don't you say that again, Willy!" But she kept her
+arm around him.
+
+Willy's mother came running to the door to meet them when they
+arrived. She had heard nothing of the trouble. She had only had a
+hurried message that they were coming to-day.
+
+She threw her arms around Willy, then she held him back and looked at
+him. "Why, what is the matter with my precious boy!" she cried.
+
+"O, mamma, mamma, I didn't, I didn't do anything with it!" he sobbed,
+and clung to her so frantically that she was alarmed.
+
+"What does he mean, mother?" she asked.
+
+Her mother motioned her to be quiet. "Oh! it isn't anything," said
+she. "You'd better give him his supper, and get him to bed; he's all
+tired out. I'll tell you by and by," she motioned with her lips.
+
+So Willy's mother soothed him all she could. "Of course you didn't,
+dear," said she. "Mamma knows you didn't. Don't you worry any more
+about it."
+
+It was early, but she got some supper for him, and put him to bed, and
+sat beside him until he went to sleep. She told him over and over that
+she knew he "didn't," in reply to his piteous assertions, and all the
+time she had not the least idea what it was all about.
+
+After he had fallen asleep she went downstairs, and Grandma Stockton
+told her. Willy's father had come, and he also heard the story.
+
+"There's some mistake about it," said he. "I'll make Willy tell me
+about it, to-morrow. Nothing is going to make me believe that he is
+persisting in a deliberate lie in this way."
+
+Willy's mother was crying herself, now. "He never--told me a lie in
+his whole dear little life," she sobbed, "and I don't believe he has
+now. Nothing will ever--make me believe so."
+
+"Don't cry, Ellen," said her husband. "There's something about this
+that we don't understand."
+
+It was all talked over and over that night, but they were no nearer
+understanding the case.
+
+"I'll see what I can do with Willy in the morning," his father said
+again, when the discussion was ended for the night.
+
+Willy was not awake at the breakfast hour next morning, so the family
+sat down without him. They were not half through the meal when there
+were some quick steps on the path outside; the door was jerked open,
+and there was aunt Annie and uncle Frank.
+
+She had Willy's little yellow cane in her hand, and she looked as if
+she did not know whether to laugh or cry.
+
+"It's found!" she cried out, "it's found! Oh! where is he? He left his
+cane, poor little boy!"
+
+Then she really sank into a chair and began to cry. There were
+exclamations and questions and finally they arrived at the solution of
+the mystery.
+
+Poor little Willy had not done anything with Grandpa's coat. Mrs.
+Perry had not given it to him. She had--given it to another boy.
+
+"Last night about seven o'clock," said uncle Frank. "Mr. Gilbert
+Hammond brought it into the store. It seems he sent his boy, who is
+just about Willy's age, and really looks some like him, for a bundle
+he expected to come by express. The boy was to have some shoes in it.
+
+"I suppose mother caught a glimpse of him, and very likely she didn't
+have on her glasses, and can't see very well without them, and she
+thought he was Willy. She was changing her dress, too, and I dare
+say only opened the door a little way. Then the Hammond boy's got a
+grandfather, and the shoes and the whole thing hung together.
+
+"Mr. Hammond said he meant to have brought the bundle back before, but
+they had company come the next day, and it was overlooked.
+
+"Father and mother both came running over the minute they heard of
+it, and nothing would suit Annie but we should start right off on the
+night train, and come down here and explain. And, to tell the truth,
+I wanted to come myself--I felt as if we owed it to the poor little
+chappie."
+
+Uncle Frank's own voice sounded husky. The thought of all the
+suffering that poor little innocent boy had borne was not a pleasant
+one.
+
+Everything that could be done to atone to Willy was done. He was loved
+and praised and petted, as he had never been before; in a little while
+he seemed as well and happy as ever.
+
+The next Christmas Grandpa Perry sent a beautiful little gold watch to
+him, and he was so delighted with it that his father said, "He doesn't
+worry a bit now about the trouble he had in Exeter. That watch doesn't
+seem to bring it to mind at all. How quickly children get over things.
+He has forgotten all about it."
+
+But Willy Norton had not forgotten all about it. He was just as happy
+as ever. He had entirely forgiven Grandma Perry for her mistake. Next
+summer he was going to Exeter again and have a beautiful time; but a
+good many years would pass, and whenever he looked at that little gold
+watch, he would see double. It would have for him a background of his
+grandfather's best coat.
+
+Innocence and truth can feel the shadow of unjust suspicion when
+others can no longer see it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE STRANGER IN THE VILLAGE.
+
+
+"Margary," said her mother, "take the pitcher now, and fetch me some
+fresh, cool water from the well, and I will cook the porridge for
+supper."
+
+"Yes, mother," said Margary. Then she put on her little white dimity
+hood, and got the pitcher, which was charmingly shaped, from the
+cupboard shelf. The cupboard was a three-cornered one beside the
+chimney. The cottage which Margary and her mother lived in, was very
+humble, to be sure, but it was very pretty. Vines grew all over it,
+and flowering bushes crowded close to the diamond-paned windows. There
+was a little garden at one side, with beds of pinks and violets in it,
+and a straw-covered beehive, and some raspberry bushes all yellow with
+fruit.
+
+Inside the cottage, the floor was sanded with the whitest sand; lovely
+old straight-backed chairs stood about; there was an oaken table,
+and a spinning-wheel. A wicker cage, with a lark in it, hung in the
+window.
+
+Margary with her pitcher, tripped along to the village well. On the
+way she met two of her little mates--Rosamond and Barbara. They were
+flying along, their cheeks very rosy and their eyes shining.
+
+"O, Margary," they cried, "come up to the tavern, quick, and see! The
+most beautiful coach-and-four is drawn up there. There are lackeys in
+green and gold, with cocked hats, and the coach hath a crest on the
+side--O, Margary!"
+
+Margary's eyes grew large too, and she turned about with her empty
+pitcher and followed her friends. They had almost reached the tavern,
+and were in full sight of the coach-and-four, when some one coming
+toward them caused them to draw up on one side of the way and stare
+with new wonder. It was a most beautiful little boy. His golden curls
+hung to his shoulders, his sweet face had an expression at once gentle
+and noble, and his dress was of the richest material. He led a little
+flossy white dog by a ribbon.
+
+After he had passed by, the three little girls looked at each other.
+
+"Oh!" cried Rosamond, "did you see his hat and feather?"
+
+"And his lace Vandyke, and the fluffy white dog!" cried Barbara. But
+Margary said nothing. In her heart, she thought she had never seen any
+one so lovely.
+
+Then she went on to the well with her pitcher, and Rosamond and
+Barbara went home, telling every one they met about the beautiful
+little stranger.
+
+[Illustration: THE LITTLE STRANGER.]
+
+Margary, after she had filled her pitcher, went home also; and was
+beginning to talk about the stranger to her mother, when a shadow fell
+across the floor from the doorway. Margary looked up. "There he is
+now!" cried she in a joyful whisper.
+
+The pretty boy stood there indeed, looking in modestly and wishfully.
+Margary's mother arose at once from her spinning-wheel, and came
+forward; she was a very courteous woman. "Wilt thou enter, and rest
+thyself," said she, "and have a cup of our porridge, and a slice of
+our wheaten bread, and a bit of honeycomb?"
+
+The little boy sniffed hungrily at the porridge which was just
+beginning to boil; he hesitated a moment, but finally thanked the good
+woman very softly and sweetly and entered.
+
+Then Margary and her mother set a bottle of cowslip wine on the table,
+slices of wheaten bread, and a plate of honeycomb, a bowl of ripe
+raspberries, and a little jug of yellow cream, and another little bowl
+with a garland of roses around the rim, for the porridge. Just as soon
+as that was cooked, the stranger sat down, and ate a supper fit for a
+prince. Margary and her mother half supposed he was one; he had such a
+courtly, yet modest air.
+
+When he had eaten his fill, and his little dog had been fed too, he
+offered his entertainers some gold out of a little silk purse, but
+they would not take it.
+
+So he took hold of his dog's ribbon, and went away with many thanks.
+"We shall never see him again," said Margary sorrowfully.
+
+"The memory of a stranger one has fed, is a pleasant one," said her
+mother.
+
+"I am glad the lark sang so beautifully all the while he was eating,"
+said Margary.
+
+While they were eating their own supper, the oldest woman in the
+village came in. She was one hundred and twenty years old, and, by
+reason of her great age, was considered very wise.
+
+"Have you seen the stranger?" asked she in her piping voice, seating
+herself stiffly.
+
+"Yes," replied Margary's mother. "He hath supped with us."
+
+The oldest woman twinkled her eyes behind her iron-bowed spectacles.
+"Lawks!" said she. But she did not wish to appear surprised, so she
+went on to say she had met him on the way, and knew who he was.
+
+"He's a Lindsay," said the oldest woman, with a nod of her
+white-capped head. "I tried him wi' a buttercup. I held it under his
+chin, and he loves butter. So he's a Lindsay; all the Lindsays love
+butter. I know, for I was nurse in the family a hundred years ago."
+
+This, of course, was conclusive evidence. Margary and her mother
+had faith in the oldest woman's opinion; and so did all the other
+villagers. She told a good many people how the little stranger was
+a Lindsay, before she went to bed that night. And he really was a
+Lindsay, too; though it was singular how the oldest woman divined it
+with a buttercup.
+
+The pretty child had straightway driven off in his coach-and-four as
+soon as he had left Margary's mother's cottage; he had only stopped
+to have some defect in the wheels remedied. But there had been time
+enough for a great excitement to be stirred up in the village.
+
+All any one talked about the next day, was the stranger. Every one who
+had seen him, had some new and more marvelous item; till charming as
+the child really was, he became, in the popular estimation, a real
+fairy prince.
+
+When Margary and the other children went to school, with their
+horn-books hanging at their sides, they found the schoolmaster greatly
+excited over it. He was a verse-maker, and though he had not seen the
+stranger himself, his imagination more than made amends for that.
+So the scholars were not under a very strict rule that day, for the
+master was busy composing a poem about the stranger. Every now and
+then a line of the poem got mixed in with the lessons.
+
+The schoolmaster told in beautiful meters about the stranger's rich
+attire, and his flowing locks of real gold wire, his lips like rubies,
+and his eyes like diamonds. He furnished the little dog with hair of
+real floss silk, and called his ribbon a silver chain. Then the coach,
+as it rolled along, presented such a dazzling appearance, that several
+persons who inadvertently looked at it had been blinded. It was the
+schoolmaster's opinion, set forth in his poem, that this really was a
+prince. One could scarcely doubt it, on reading the poem. It is a pity
+it has not been preserved, but it was destroyed--how, will transpire
+further on.
+
+Well, two days after this dainty stranger with his coach-and-four
+came to the village, a little wretched beggar-boy, leading by a dirty
+string a forlorn muddy little dog, appeared on the street. He went to
+the tavern first, but the host pushed him out of the door, throwing a
+pewter porringer after him, which hit the poor little dog and made it
+yelp. Then he spoke pitifully to the people he met, and knocked at the
+cottage doors; but every one drove him away. He met the oldest woman,
+but she gathered her skirts closely around her and hobbled by, her
+pointed nose up in the air, and her cap-strings flying straight out
+behind.
+
+"I prithee, granny," he called after her, "try me with the buttercup
+again, and see if I be not a Lindsay."
+
+"Thou a Lindsay," quoth the oldest woman contemptuously; but she was
+very curious, so she turned around and held a buttercup underneath the
+boy's dirty chin.
+
+"Bah," said the oldest woman, "a Lindsay indeed! Butter hath no charm
+for thee, and the Lindsays, all loved it. I know, for I was nurse in
+the family a hundred year ago."
+
+Then she hobbled away faster than ever, and the poor boy kept on. Then
+he met the schoolmaster, who had his new poem in a great roll in his
+hand. "What little vagabond is this?" muttered he, gazing at him with
+disgust. "He hath driven a fine metaphor out of my head."
+
+When the boy reached the cottage where Margary and her mother lived,
+the dame was sitting in the door spinning, and the little girl was
+picking roses from a bush under the window, to fill a tall china mug
+which they kept on a shelf.
+
+When Margary heard the gate click, and turning, saw the boy, she
+started so that she let her pinafore full of roses slip, and the
+flowers all fell out on the ground. Then she dropped an humble
+curtesy; and her mother rose and curtesied also, though she had not
+recognized her guest as soon as Margary.
+
+The poor little stranger fairly wept for joy. "Ah, you remember me,"
+he said betwixt smiles and tears.
+
+Then he entered the cottage, and while Margary and her mother got some
+refreshment ready for him, he told his pitiful story.
+
+His father was a Lindsay, and a very rich and noble gentleman. Some
+little time before, he and his little son had journeyed to London,
+with their coach-and-four. Business having detained him longer than he
+had anticipated, and fearing his lady might be uneasy, he had sent his
+son home in advance, in the coach, with his lackeys and attendants.
+Everything had gone safely till after leaving this village. Some miles
+beyond, they had been attacked by highwaymen and robbed. The servants
+had either been taken prisoners or fled. The thieves had driven off
+with the coach-and-four, and the poor little boy had crawled back to
+the village.
+
+Margary and her mother did all they could to comfort him. They
+prepared some hot broth for him, and opened a bottle of cowslip wine.
+Margary's mother gave him some clean clothes, which had belonged to
+her son who had died. The little gentleman looked funny in the little
+rustic's blue smock, but he was very comfortable. They fed the forlorn
+little dog too, and washed him till his white hair looked fluffy and
+silky again.
+
+When the London mail stopped in the village, the next day, they sent a
+message to Lord Lindsay, and in a week's time, he came after his son.
+He was a very grand gentleman; his dress was all velvet and satin, and
+blazing with jewels. How the villagers stared. They had flatly refused
+to believe that this last little stranger was the first one, and had
+made great fun of Margary and her mother for being so credulous.
+But they had not minded. They had given their guest a little pallet
+stuffed with down, and a pillow stuffed with rose-leaves to sleep on,
+and fed him with the best they had. His father, in his gratitude,
+offered Margary's mother rich rewards; but she would take nothing. The
+little boy cried on parting with his kind friends, and Margary cried
+too.
+
+"I prithee, pretty Margary, do not forget me," said he.
+
+And she promised she never would, and gave him a sprig of rosemary out
+of her garden to wear for a breastknot.
+
+The villagers were greatly mortified when they discovered the mistake
+they had made. However, the oldest woman always maintained that her
+not having her spectacles on, when she met the stranger the second
+time, was the reason of her not seeing that he loved butter; and the
+schoolmaster gave his poetical abstraction for an excuse. Mine host
+of the "Boar's Head" fairly tore his hair, and flung the pewter
+porringer, which he had thrown after the stranger and his dog, into
+the well. After that he was very careful how he turned away strangers
+because of their appearance. Generally he sent for the oldest woman to
+put her spectacles on, and try the buttercup test. Then, if she
+said they loved butter and were Lindsays, they were taken in and
+entertained royally. She generally did say they loved butter--she
+was so afraid of making a mistake the second time, herself; so the
+village-inn got to be a regular refuge for beggars, and they called it
+amongst themselves the "Beggars' Rest," instead of the "Boar's Head."
+
+As for Margary, she grew up to be the pride of the village; and in
+time, Lord Lindsay's son, who had always kept the sprig of rosemary,
+came and married her. They had a beautiful wedding; all of the
+villagers were invited; the bridegroom did not cherish any resentment.
+They danced on the green, and the Lindsay pipers played for them. The
+bride wore a white damask petticoat worked with pink roses, her pink
+satin shortgown was looped up with garlands of them, and she wore a
+wreath of roses on her head.
+
+The oldest woman came to the wedding, and hobbled up to the bridegroom
+with a buttercup. "Thou beest a Lindsay," said she. "Thou lovest
+butter, and the Lindsays all did. I know, for I was nurse in the
+family a hundred year ago."
+
+As for the schoolmaster, he was distressed. His wife had taken his
+poem on the stranger for papers to curl her hair on for the wedding,
+and he had just discovered it. He had calculated on making a present
+of it to the young couple.
+
+However, he wrote another on the wedding, of which one verse is still
+extant, and we will give it:
+
+  "When Lindsay wedded Margary,
+  Merrily piped the pipers all.
+  The bride, the village-pride was she,
+  The groom, a gay gallant was he.
+  Merrily piped the pipers all.
+  When Lindsay wedded Margary."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BOUND GIRL.
+
+
+    This Indenture Wittnesseth, That I Margaret Burjust of Boston, in
+    the County of Suffolk and Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New
+    England. Have placed, and by these presents do place and bind out
+    my only Daughter whose name is Ann Ginnins to be an Apprentice
+    unto Samuel Wales and his wife of Braintree in the County
+    afores:^d, Blacksmith. To them and their Heirs and with them the
+    s:^d Samuel Wales, his wife and their Heirs, after the manner of
+    an apprentice to dwell and Serve from the day of the date hereof
+    for and during the full and Just Term of Sixteen years, three
+    months and twenty-three day's next ensueing and fully to be
+    Compleat, during all which term the s:^d apprentice her s:^d
+    Master and Mistress faithfully Shall Serve, Their Secrets keep
+    close, and Lawful and reasonable Command everywhere gladly do and
+    perform.
+
+    Damage to her s:^d Master and Mistress she shall not willingly
+    do. Her s:^d Master's goods she shall not waste, Embezel,
+    purloin or lend unto Others nor suffer the same to be wasted or
+    purloined. But to her power Shall discover the Same to her s:^d
+    Master. Taverns or Ailhouss she Shall not frequent, at any
+    unlawful game She Shall not play, Matrimony she Shall not Contract
+    with any persons during s:^d Term. From her master's Service She
+    Shall not at any time unlawfully absent herself. But in all things
+    as a good honest and faithful Servant and apprentice Shall bear
+    and behave herself, During the full term afores:^d Commencing
+    from the third day of November Anno Dom: One Thousand, Seven
+    Hundred fifty and three. And the s:^d Master for himself, wife,
+    and Heir's, Doth Covenant Promise Grant and Agree unto and with
+    the s:^d apprentice and the s:^d Margaret Burjust, in manner
+    and form following. That is to say, That they will teach the
+    s:^d apprentice or Cause her to be taught in the Art of good
+    housewifery, and also to read and write well. And will find and
+    provide for and give unto s:^d apprentice good and sufficient
+    Meat Drink washing and lodging both in Sickness and in health, and
+    at the Expiration of said term to Dismiss s:^d apprentice with
+    two Good Suits of Apparrel both of woolen and linnin for all parts
+    of her body (viz) One for Lord-days and one for working days
+    Suitable to her Quality. In Testimony whereof I Samuel Wales and
+    Margaret Burjust Have Interchangably Sett their hands and Seals
+    this Third day November Anno Dom: 1753, and in the twenty-Seventh
+    year of the Reign of our Soveraig'n Lord George the Second of
+    great Britain the King.
+
+      Signed Sealed & Delivered.
+        In presence of
+        SAM VAUGHAN                Margaret Burgis
+        MARY VAUGHAN               her X mark.
+
+
+This quaint document was carefully locked up, with some old deeds and
+other valuable papers, in his desk, by the "s:^d Samuel Wales," one
+hundred and thirty years ago. The desk was a rude, unpainted pine
+affair, and it reared itself on its four stilt-like legs in a corner
+of his kitchen, in his house in the South Precinct of Braintree. The
+sharp eyes of the little "s:^d apprentice" had noted it oftener and
+more enviously than any other article of furniture in the house. On
+the night of her arrival, after her journey of fourteen miles from
+Boston, over a rough bridle-road, on a jolting horse, clinging
+tremblingly to her new "Master," she peered through her little red
+fingers at the desk swallowing up those precious papers which Samuel
+Wales drew from his pocket with an important air. She was hardly five
+years old, but she was an acute child; and she watched her master draw
+forth the papers, show them to his wife, Polly, and lock them up in
+the desk, with the full understanding that they had something to do
+with her coming to this strange place; and, already, a shadowy purpose
+began to form itself in her mind.
+
+She sat on a cunning little wooden stool, close to the fireplace,
+and kept her small chapped hands persistently over her face; she was
+scared, and grieved, and, withal, a trifle sulky. Mrs. Polly Wales
+cooked some Indian meal mush for supper in an iron pot swinging from
+its trammel over the blazing logs, and cast scrutinizing glances at
+the little stranger. She had welcomed her kindly, taken off her outer
+garments, and established her on the little stool in the warmest
+corner, but the child had given a very ungracious response. She would
+not answer a word to Mrs. Wales' coaxing questions, but twitched
+herself away with all her small might, and kept her hands tightly over
+her eyes, only peering between her fingers when she thought no one was
+noticing.
+
+She had behaved after the same fashion all the way from Boston, as Mr.
+Wales told his wife in a whisper. The two were a little dismayed at
+the whole appearance of the small apprentice; to tell the truth, she
+was not in the least what they had expected. They had been revolving
+this scheme of taking "a bound girl" for some time in their minds; and
+Samuel Wales' gossip in Boston, Sam Vaughan, had been requested to
+keep a lookout for a suitable person.
+
+So, when word came that one had been found, Mr. Wales had started at
+once for the city. When he saw the child, he was dismayed. He had
+expected to see a girl of ten; this one was hardly five, and she
+had anything but the demure and decorous air which his Puritan mind
+esteemed becoming and appropriate in a little maiden. Her hair was
+black and curled tightly, instead of being brown and straight parted
+in the middle, and combed smoothly over her ears as his taste
+regulated; her eyes were black and flashing, instead of being blue,
+and downcast. The minute he saw the child, he felt a disapproval of
+her rise in his heart, and also something akin to terror. He dreaded
+to take this odd-looking child home to his wife Polly; he foresaw
+contention and mischief in their quiet household. But he felt as if
+his word was rather pledged to his gossip, and there was the mother,
+waiting and expectant. She was a red-cheeked English girl, who had
+been in Sam Vaughan's employ; she had recently married one Burjust,
+and he was unwilling to support the first husband's child, so this
+chance to bind her out and secure a good home for her had been eagerly
+caught at.
+
+The small Ann seemed rather at Samuel Wales' mercy, and he had not
+the courage to disappoint his friend or her mother; so the necessary
+papers were made out, Sam Vaughan's and wife's signatures affixed, and
+Margaret Burjust's mark, and he set out on his homeward journey with
+the child.
+
+The mother was coarse and illiterate, but she had some natural
+affection; she "took on" sadly when the little girl was about to leave
+her, and Ann clung to her frantically. It was a pitiful scene, and
+Samuel Wales, who was a very tender-hearted man, was glad when it was
+over, and he jogging along the bridle-path.
+
+But he had had other troubles to encounter. All at once, as he rode
+through Boston streets, with his little charge behind him, after
+leaving his friend's house, he felt a vicious little twitch at his
+hair, which he wore in a queue tied with a black ribbon after the
+fashion of the period. Twitch, twitch, twitch! The water came into
+Samuel Wales' eyes, and the blood to his cheeks, while the passers-by
+began to hoot and laugh. His horse became alarmed at the hubbub, and
+started up. For a few minutes the poor man could do nothing to free
+himself. It was wonderful what strength the little creature had: she
+clinched her tiny fingers in the braid, and pulled, and pulled.
+Then, all at once, her grasp slackened, and off flew her master's
+steeple-crowned hat into the dust, and the neat black ribbon on the
+end of the queue followed it. Samuel Wales reined up his horse with a
+jerk then, and turned round, and administered a sounding box on each
+of his apprentice's ears. Then he dismounted, amid shouts of laughter
+from the spectators, and got a man to hold the horse while he went
+back and picked up his hat and ribbon.
+
+He had no further trouble. The boxes seemed to have subdued Ann
+effectually. But he pondered uneasily all the way home on the small
+vessel of wrath which was perched up behind him, and there was a
+tingling sensation at the roots of his queue. He wondered what Polly
+would say. The first glance at her face, when he lifted Ann off the
+horse at his own door, confirmed his fears. She expressed her mind,
+in a womanly way, by whispering in his ear at the first opportunity,
+"She's as black as an Injun."
+
+After Ann had eaten her supper, and had been tucked away between some
+tow sheets and homespun blankets in a trundle-bed, she heard the whole
+story, and lifted up her hands with horror. Then the good couple read
+a chapter, and prayed, solemnly vowing to do their duty by this
+child which they had taken under their roof, and imploring Divine
+assistance.
+
+As time wore on, it became evident that they stood in sore need of it.
+They had never had any children of their own, and Ann Ginnins was the
+first child who had ever lived with them. But she seemed to have the
+freaks of a dozen or more in herself, and they bade fair to have the
+experience of bringing up a whole troop with this one. They tried
+faithfully to do their duty by her, but they were not used to
+children, and she was a very hard child to manage. A whole legion of
+mischievous spirits seemed to dwell in her at times, and she became
+in a small and comparatively innocent way, the scandal of the staid
+Puritan neighborhood in which she lived. Yet, withal, she was so
+affectionate, and seemed to be actuated by so little real malice in
+any of her pranks, that people could not help having a sort of liking
+for the child, in spite of them.
+
+She was quick to learn, and smart to work, too, when she chose.
+Sometimes she flew about with such alacrity that it seemed as if
+her little limbs were hung on wires, and no little girl in the
+neighborhood could do her daily tasks in the time she could, and they
+were no inconsiderable tasks, either.
+
+Very soon after her arrival she was set to "winding quills," so many
+every day. Seated at Mrs. Polly's side, in her little homespun gown,
+winding quills through sunny forenoons--how she hated it. She liked
+feeding the hens and pigs better, and when she got promoted to driving
+the cows, a couple of years later, she was in her element. There were
+charming possibilities of nuts and checkerberries and sassafras and
+sweet flag all the way between the house and the pasture, and the
+chance to loiter, and have a romp.
+
+She rarely showed any unwillingness to go for the cows; but once, when
+there was a quilting at her mistress's house, she demurred. It was
+right in the midst of the festivities; they were just preparing for
+supper, in fact. Ann knew all about the good things in the pantry, she
+was wild with delight at the unwonted stir, and anxious not to lose
+a minute of it. She thought some one else might go for the cows that
+night. She cried and sulked, but there was no help for it. Go she had
+to. So she tucked up her gown--it was her best Sunday one--took her
+stick, and trudged along. When she came to the pasture, there were her
+master's cows waiting at the bars. So were Neighbor Belcher's cows
+also, in the adjoining pasture. Ann had her hand on the topmost of her
+own bars, when she happened to glance over at Neighbor Belcher's, and
+a thought struck her. She burst into a peal of laughter, and took a
+step towards the other bars. Then she went back to her own. Finally,
+she let down the Belcher bars, and the Belcher cows crowded out, to
+the great astonishment of the Wales cows, who stared over their high
+rails and mooed uneasily.
+
+Ann drove the Belcher cows home and ushered them into Samuel Wales'
+barnyard with speed. Then she went demurely into the house. The table
+looked beautiful. Ann was beginning to quake inwardly, though she
+still was hugging herself, so to speak, in secret enjoyment of her
+own mischief. She had one hope--that supper would be eaten before her
+master milked. But the hope was vain. When she saw Mr. Wales come in,
+glance her way, and then call his wife out, she knew at once what had
+happened, and begun to tremble--she knew perfectly what Mr. Wales was
+saying out there. It was this: "That little limb has driven home all
+Neighbor Belcher's cows instead of ours; what's going to be done with
+her?"
+
+She knew what the answer would be, too. Mrs. Polly was a peremptory
+woman.
+
+Back Ann had to go with the Belcher cows, fasten them safely in their
+pasture again, and drive her master's home. She was hustled off to
+bed, then, without any of that beautiful supper. But she had just
+crept into her bed in the small unfinished room upstairs where she
+slept, and was lying there sobbing, when she heard a slow, fumbling
+step on the stairs. Then the door opened, and Mrs. Deacon Thomas
+Wales, Samuel Wales' mother, came in. She was a good old lady, and had
+always taken a great fancy to her son's bound girl; and Ann, on her
+part, minded her better than any one else. She hid her face in the tow
+sheet, when she saw grandma. The old lady had on a long black silk
+apron. She held something concealed under it, when she came in.
+Presently she displayed it.
+
+"There--child," said she, "here's a piece of sweet cake and a couple
+of simballs, that I managed to save out for you. Jest set right up and
+eat 'em, and don't ever be so dretful naughty again, or I don't know
+what will become of you."
+
+This reproof, tempered with sweetness, had a salutary effect on Ann.
+She sat up, and ate her sweet cake and simballs, and sobbed out her
+contrition to grandma, and there was a marked improvement in her
+conduct for some days.
+
+Mrs. Polly was a born driver. She worked hard herself, and she
+expected everybody about her to. The tasks which Ann had set her did
+not seem as much out of proportion, then, as they would now. Still,
+her mistress, even then, allowed her less time for play than was
+usual, though it was all done in good faith, and not from any
+intentional severity. As time went on, she grew really quite fond of
+the child, and she was honestly desirous of doing her whole duty by
+her. If she had had a daughter of her own, it is doubtful if her
+treatment of her would have been much different.
+
+Still, Ann was too young to understand all this, and, sometimes,
+though she was strong and healthy, and not naturally averse to work,
+she would rebel, when her mistress set her stints so long, and kept
+her at work when other children were playing.
+
+Once in a while she would confide in grandma, when Mrs. Polly sent her
+over there on an errand and she had felt unusually aggrieved because
+she had had to wind quills, or hetchel, instead of going berrying, or
+some like pleasant amusement.
+
+"Poor little cosset," grandma would say, pityingly.
+
+Then she would give her a simball, and tell her she must "be a good
+girl, and not mind if she couldn't play jest like the others, for
+she'd got to airn her own livin', when she grew up, and she must learn
+to work."
+
+Ann would go away comforted, but grandma would be privately indignant.
+She was, as is apt to be the case, rather critical with her sons'
+wives, and she thought "Sam'l's kept that poor little gal too stiddy
+at work," and wished and wished she could shelter her under her own
+grandmotherly wing, and feed her with simballs to her heart's content.
+She was too wise to say anything to influence the child against her
+mistress, however. She was always cautious about that, even while
+pitying her. Once in a while she would speak her mind to her son, but
+he was easy enough--Ann would not have found him a hard task-master.
+
+Still, Ann did not have to work hard enough to hurt her. The worst
+consequences were that such a rigid rein on such a frisky little colt
+perhaps had more to do with her "cutting up," as her mistress phrased
+it, than she dreamed of. Moreover the thought of the indentures,
+securely locked up in Mr. Wales' tall wooden desk, was forever in
+Ann's mind. Half by dint of questioning various people, half by her
+own natural logic she had settled it within herself, that at any time
+the possession of these papers would set her free, and she could
+go back to her own mother, whom she dimly remembered as being
+loud-voiced, but merry, and very indulgent. However, Ann never
+meditated in earnest, taking the indentures; indeed, the desk was
+always locked--it held other documents more valuable than hers--and
+Samuel Wales carried the key in his waistcoat-pocket.
+
+She went to a dame's school three months every year. Samuel Wales
+carted half a cord of wood to pay for her schooling, and she learned
+to write and read in the New England Primer. Next to her, on the split
+log bench, sat a little girl named Hannah French. The two became fast
+friends. Hannah was an only child, pretty and delicate, and very much
+petted by her parents. No long hard tasks were set those soft little
+fingers, even in those old days when children worked as well as their
+elders. Ann admired and loved Hannah, because she had what she,
+herself, had not; and Hannah loved and pitied Ann because she had not
+what she had. It was a sweet little friendship, and would not have
+been, if Ann had not been free from envy and Hannah humble and
+pitying.
+
+When Ann told her what a long stint she had to do before school,
+Hannah would shed sympathizing tears.
+
+Ann, after a solemn promise of secrecy, told her about the indentures
+one day. Hannah listened with round, serious eyes; her brown hair was
+combed smoothly down over her ears. She was a veritable little Puritan
+damsel herself.
+
+"If I could only get the papers, I wouldn't have to mind her, and work
+so hard," said Ann.
+
+Hannah's eyes grew rounder. "Why, it would be sinful to take them!"
+said she.
+
+Ann's cheeks blazed under her wondering gaze, and she said no more.
+
+When she was about eleven years old, one icy January day, Hannah
+wanted her to go out and play on the ice after school. They had no
+skates, but it was rare fun to slide. Ann went home and asked Mrs.
+Polly's permission with a beating heart; she promised to do a double
+stint next day, if she would let her go. But her mistress was
+inexorable--work before play, she said, always; and Ann must not
+forget that she was to be brought up to work; it was different with
+her from what it was with Hannah French. Even this she meant kindly
+enough, but Ann saw Hannah go away, and sat down to her spinning with
+more fierce defiance in her heart than had ever been there before. She
+had been unusually good, too, lately. She always was, during the three
+months' schooling, with sober, gentle little Hannah French.
+
+She had been spinning sulkily a while, and it was almost dark, when
+a messenger came for her master and mistress to go to Deacon Thomas
+Wales', who had been suddenly taken very ill.
+
+Ann would have felt sorry if she had not been so angry. Deacon Wales
+was almost as much of a favorite of hers as his wife. As it was, the
+principal thing she thought of, after Mr. Wales and his wife had gone,
+was that the key was in the desk. However it had happened, there it
+was. She hesitated a moment. She was all alone in the kitchen, and her
+heart was in a tumult of anger, but she had learned her lessons from
+the Bible and the New England Primer, and she was afraid of the sin.
+But at last she opened the desk, found the indentures, and hid them
+in the little pocket which she wore tied about her waist, under her
+petticoat.
+
+Then Ann threw her blanket over her head, and got her poppet out of
+the chest. The poppet was a little doll manufactured from a corn-cob,
+dressed in an indigo-colored gown. Grandma had made it for her, and
+it was her chief treasure. She clasped it tight to her bosom, and ran
+across lots to Hannah French's.
+
+Hannah saw her coming, and met her at the door.
+
+"I've brought you my poppet," whispered Ann, all breathless, "and you
+must keep her always, and not let her work too hard. I'm going away!"
+
+Hannah's eyes looked like two solemn moons. "Where are you going,
+Ann?"
+
+"I'm going to Boston to find my own mother." She said nothing about
+the indentures to Hannah--somehow she could not.
+
+Hannah could not say much, she was so astonished, but as soon as Ann
+had gone, scudding across the fields, she went in with the poppet and
+told her mother.
+
+Deacon Thomas Wales was very sick. Mr. and Mrs. Samuel remained at
+his house all night, but Ann was not left alone, for Mr. Wales had an
+apprentice who slept in the house.
+
+Ann did not sleep any that night. She got up very early, before any
+one was stirring, and dressed herself in her Sunday clothes. Then she
+tied up her working clothes in a bundle, crept softly downstairs, and
+out doors.
+
+It was bright moonlight and quite cold. She ran along as fast as she
+could on the Boston road. Deacon Thomas Wales's house was on the way.
+The windows were lit up. She thought of grandma and poor grandpa, with
+a sob in her heart, but she sped along. Past the schoolhouse, and
+meeting-house, too, she had to go, with big qualms of grief and
+remorse. But she kept on. She was a fast traveler.
+
+She had reached the North Precinct of Braintree by daylight. So far,
+she had not encountered a single person. Now she heard horse's hoofs
+behind her. She began to run faster, but it was of no use. Soon
+Captain Abraham French loomed up on his big gray horse, a few paces
+from her. He was Hannah's father, but he was a tithing-man, and looked
+quite stern, and Ann had always stood in great fear of him.
+
+She ran on as fast as her little heels could fly, with a thumping
+heart. But it was not long before she felt herself seized by a strong
+arm and swung up behind Captain French on the gray horse. She was in a
+panic of terror, and would have cried and begged for mercy if she
+had not been in so much awe of her captor. She thought with awful
+apprehension of these stolen indentures in her little pocket. What if
+he should find that out!
+
+Captain French whipped up his horse, however, and hastened along
+without saying a word. His silence, if anything, caused more dread in
+Ann than words would have. But his mind was occupied. Deacon Thomas
+Wales was dead; he was one of his most beloved and honored friends,
+and it was a great shock to him. Hannah had told him about Ann's
+premeditated escape, and he had set out on her track as soon as he had
+found that she was really gone, that morning. But the news which he
+had heard on his way, had driven all thoughts of reprimand which he
+might have entertained, out of his head. He only cared to get the
+child safely back.
+
+So not a word spoke Captain French, but rode on in grim and sorrowful
+silence, with Ann clinging to him, till he reached her master's door.
+Then he set her down with a stern and solemn injunction never to
+transgress again, and rode away.
+
+Ann went into the kitchen with a quaking heart. It was empty and
+still. Its very emptiness and stillness seemed to reproach her. There
+stood the desk--she ran across to it, pulled the indentures from her
+pocket, put them in their old place, and shut the lid down. There they
+staid till the full and just time of her servitude had expired. She
+never disturbed them again.
+
+On account of the grief and confusion incident on Deacon Wales's
+death, she escaped with very little censure. She never made an attempt
+to run away again. Indeed, she had no wish to, for after Deacon
+Wales's death, grandma was lonely and wanted her, and she lived most
+of the time with her. And, whether she was in reality treated any more
+kindly or not, she was certainly happier.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEACON THOMAS WALES'S WILL.
+
+
+    In the Name of God Amen! the Thirteenth Day of September One
+    Thousand Seven Hundred Fifty & eight, I, Thomas Wales of
+    Braintree, in the County of Suffolk & Province of the
+    Massachusetts Bay in New England, Gent--being in good health of
+    Body and of Sound Disproving mind and Memory, Thanks be given to
+    God--Calling to mind my mortality, Do therefore in my health make
+    and ordain this my Last Will and Testament. And First I Recommend
+    my Soul into the hand of God who gave it--Hoping through grace to
+    obtain Salvation thro' the merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ my
+    only Lord and Dear Redeemer, and my body to be Decently inter^d,
+    at the Discretion of my Executor, believing at the General
+    Resurection to receive the Same again by the mighty Power
+    of God--And such worldly estate as God in his goodness hath
+    graciously given me after Debts, funeral Expenses &c, are Paid I
+    give & Dispose of the Same as Followeth--
+
+    _Imprimis_--I Give to my beloved Wife Sarah a good Sute of
+    mourning apparrel Such as she may Choose--also if she acquit my
+    estate of Dower and third-therin (as we have agreed) Then that
+    my Executor return all of Household movables she bought at our
+    marriage & since that are remaining, also to Pay to her or Her
+    Heirs That Note of Forty Pound I gave to her, when she acquited my
+    estate and I hers. Before Division to be made as herein exprest,
+    also the Southwest fire-Room in my House, a right in my Cellar,
+    Halfe the Garden, also the Privilege of water at the well & yard
+    room and to bake in the oven what she hath need of to improve her
+    Life-time by her.
+
+After this, followed a division of his property amongst his children,
+five sons and two daughters.
+
+
+The "Homeplace" was given to his sons Ephraim and Atherton. Ephraim
+had a good house of his own, so he took his share of the property in
+land, and Atherton went to live in the old homestead. His quarters had
+been poor enough; he had not been so successful as his brothers, and
+had been unable to live as well. It had been a great cross to his
+wife, Dorcas, who was very high-spirited. She had compared, bitterly,
+the poverty of her household arrangements, with the abundant comfort
+of her sisters-in-law.
+
+Now, she seized eagerly at the opportunity of improving her style of
+living. The old Wales house was quite a pretentious edifice for those
+times. All the drawback to her delight was, that Grandma should
+have the southwest fire-room. She wanted to set up her high-posted
+bedstead, with its enormous feather-bed in that, and have it for her
+fore-room. Properly, it was the fore-room, being right across the
+entry from the family sitting-room. There was a tall chest of drawers
+that would fit in so nicely between the windows, too. Take it
+altogether, she was chagrined at having to give up the southwest room;
+but there was no help for it--there it was in Deacon Wales's will.
+
+Mrs. Dorcas was the youngest of all the sons' wives, as her husband
+was the latest born. She was quite a girl to some of them. Grandma
+had never more than half approved of her. Dorcas was high-strung and
+flighty, she said. She had her doubts about living happily with her.
+But Atherton was anxious for this division of the property, and he was
+her youngest darling, so she gave in. She felt lonely, and out of
+her element, when everything was arranged, she established in the
+southwest fire-room, and Atherton's family keeping house in the
+others, though things started pleasantly and peaceably enough.
+
+It occurred to her that her son Samuel might have her own "help," a
+stout woman, who had worked in her kitchen for many years, and she
+take in exchange his little bound girl, Ann Ginnins. She had always
+taken a great fancy to the child. There was a large closet out of the
+southwest room, where she could sleep, and she could be made very
+useful, taking steps, and running "arrants" for her.
+
+Mr. Samuel and his wife hesitated a little when this plan was
+proposed. In spite of the trouble she gave them, they were attached
+to Ann, and did not like to part with her, and Mrs. Polly was just
+getting her "larnt" her own ways, as she put it. Privately, she feared
+Grandma would undo all the good she had done, in teaching Ann to be
+smart and capable. Finally they gave in, with the understanding that
+it was not to be considered necessarily a permanent arrangement, and
+Ann went to live with the old lady.
+
+Mrs. Dorcas did not relish this any more than she did the
+appropriation of the southwest fire-room. She had never liked Ann very
+well. Besides she had two little girls of her own, and she fancied
+Ann rivaled them in Grandma's affection. So, soon after the girl was
+established in the house, she began to show out in various little
+ways.
+
+Thirsey, her youngest child, was a mere baby, a round fat dumpling of
+a thing. She was sweet, and good-natured, and the pet of the whole
+family. Ann was very fond of playing with her, and tending her, and
+Mrs. Dorcas began to take advantage of it. The minute Ann was at
+liberty she was called upon to take care of Thirsey. The constant
+carrying about such a heavy child soon began to make her shoulders
+stoop and ache. Then Grandma took up the cudgels. She was smart and
+high-spirited, but she was a very peaceable old lady on her own
+account, and fully resolved "to put up with everything from Dorcas,
+rather than have strife in the family." She was not going to see this
+helpless little girl imposed on, however. "The little gal ain't
+goin' to get bent all over, tendin' that heavy baby, Dorcas," she
+proclaimed. "You can jist make up your mind to it. She didn't come
+here to do sech work."
+
+So Dorcas had to make up her mind to it.
+
+Ann's principal duties were "scouring the brasses" in Grandma's room,
+taking steps for her, and spinning her stint every day. Grandma set
+smaller stints than Mrs. Polly. As time went on, she helped about the
+cooking. She and Grandma cooked their own victuals, and ate from a
+little separate table in the common kitchen. It was a very large room,
+and might have accommodated several families, if they could have
+agreed. There was a big oven and a roomy fire-place. Good Deacon Wales
+had probably seen no reason at all why his "beloved wife" should not
+have her right therein with the greatest peace and concord.
+
+But it soon came to pass that Mrs. Dorcas's pots and kettles were all
+prepared to hang on the trammels when Grandma's were, and an army of
+cakes and pies marshaled to go in the oven when Grandma had proposed
+to do some baking. Grandma bore it patiently for a long time; but Ann
+was with difficulty restrained from freeing her small mind, and her
+black eyes snapped more dangerously at every new offense.
+
+One morning, Grandma had two loaves of "riz bread," and some election
+cakes, rising, and was intending to bake them in about an hour, when
+they should be sufficiently light. What should Mrs. Dorcas do, but mix
+up sour milk bread, and some pies with the greatest speed, and fill up
+the oven, before Grandma's cookery was ready!
+
+Grandma sent Ann out into the kitchen to put the loaves-in the oven
+and lo and behold! the oven was full. Ann stood staring for a minute,
+with a loaf of election cake in her hands; that and the bread would be
+ruined if they were not baked immediately, as they were raised enough.
+Mrs. Dorcas had taken Thirsey and stepped out somewhere, and there was
+no one in the kitchen. Ann set the election cake back on the table.
+Then, with the aid of the tongs, she reached into the brick oven and
+took out every one of Mrs. Dorcas's pies and loaves. Then she arranged
+them deliberately in a pitiful semicircle on the hearth, and put
+Grandma's cookery in the oven.
+
+She went back to the southwest room then, and sat quietly down to her
+spinning. Grandma asked if she had put the things in, and she said
+"Yes, ma'am," meekly. There was a bright red spot on each of her dark
+cheeks.
+
+When Mrs. Dorcas entered the kitchen, carrying Thirsey wrapped up in
+an old homespun blanket, she nearly dropped as her gaze fell on the
+fire-place and the hearth. There sat her bread and pies, in the most
+lamentable half-baked, sticky, doughy condition imaginable. She opened
+the oven, and peered in. There were Grandma's loaves, all a lovely
+brown. Out they came, with a twitch. Luckily, they were done. Her own
+went in, but they were irretrievable failures.
+
+Of course, quite a commotion came from this. Dorcas raised her shrill
+voice pretty high, and Grandma, though she had been innocent of the
+whole transaction, was so blamed that she gave Dorcas a piece of her
+mind at last. Ann surveyed the nice brown loaves, and listened to the
+talk in secret satisfaction; but she had to suffer for it afterward.
+Grandma punished her for the first time, and she discovered that that
+kind old hand was pretty firm and strong. "No matter what you think or
+whether you air in the rights on't, or not, a little gal mustn't ever
+sass her elders," said Grandma.
+
+But if Ann's interference was blamable, it was productive of one good
+result--the matter came to Mr. Atherton's ears, and he had a stern
+sense of justice when roused, and a great veneration for his mother.
+His father's will should be carried out to the letter, he declared;
+and it was. Grandma baked and boiled in peace, outwardly, at least,
+after that.
+
+Ann was a great comfort to her; she was outgrowing her wild,
+mischievous ways, and she was so bright and quick. She promised to
+be pretty, too. Grandma compared her favorably with her own
+grandchildren, especially Mrs. Dorcas's eldest daughter Martha, who
+was nearly Ann's age. "Marthy's a pretty little gal enough," she used
+to say, "but she ain't got the snap to her that Ann has, though I
+wouldn't tell Atherton's wife so, for the world."
+
+She promised Ann her gold beads, when she should be done with them,
+under strict injunctions not to say anything about it till the time
+came; for the others might feel hard as she wasn't her own flesh and
+blood. The gold beads were Ann's ideals of beauty and richness, though
+she did not like to hear Grandma talk about being "done with them."
+Grandma always wore them around her fair, plump old neck; she had
+never seen her without her string of beads.
+
+As before said, Ann was now very seldom mischievous enough to
+make herself serious trouble; but, once in a while, her natural
+propensities would crop out. When they did, Mrs. Dorcas was
+exceedingly bitter. Indeed, her dislike of Ann was, at all times,
+smouldering, and needed only a slight fanning to break out.
+
+One stormy winter day Mrs. Dorcas had been working till dark, making
+candle-wicks. When she came to get tea, she tied the white fleecy
+rolls together, a great bundle of them, and hung them up in the
+cellar-way, over the stair, to be out of the way. They were extra fine
+wicks, being made of flax for the company candles. "I've got a good
+job done," said Mrs. Dorcas, surveying them complacently. Her husband
+had gone to Boston, and was not coming home till the next day, so she
+had had a nice chance to work at them, without as much interruption as
+usual.
+
+Ann, going down the cellar stairs, with a lighted candle, after some
+butter for tea, spied the beautiful rolls swinging overhead. What
+possessed her to, she could not herself have told--she certainly had
+no wish to injure Mrs. Dorcas's wicks--but she pinched up a little end
+of the fluffy flax and touched her candle to it. She thought she would
+see how that little bit would burn off. She soon found out. The flame
+caught, and ran like lightning through the whole bundle. There was a
+great puff of fire and smoke, and poor Mrs. Dorcas's fine candle-wicks
+were gone. Ann screamed, and sprang downstairs. She barely escaped the
+whole blaze coming in her face.
+
+"What's that!" shrieked Mrs. Dorcas, rushing to the cellar door. Words
+cannot describe her feeling when she saw that her nice candle-wicks,
+the fruit of her day's toil, were burnt up.
+
+If ever there was a wretched culprit that night, Ann was. She had not
+meant to do wrong, but that, may be, made it worse for her in one way.
+She had not even gratified malice to sustain her. Grandma blamed her,
+almost as severely as Mrs. Dorcas. She said she didn't know what would
+"become of a little gal, that was so keerless," and decreed that she
+must stay at home from school and work on candle-wicks till Mrs.
+Dorcas's loss was made good to her. Ann listened ruefully. She was
+scared and sorry, but that did not seem to help matters any. She did
+not want any supper, and she went to bed early and cried herself to
+sleep.
+
+Somewhere about midnight, a strange sound woke her up. She called out
+to Grandma in alarm. The same sound had awakened her. "Get up, an'
+light a candle, child," said she; "I'm afeard the baby's sick."
+
+Ann scarcely had the candle lighted, before the door opened, and Mrs.
+Dorcas appeared in her nightdress. She was very pale, and trembling
+all over. "Oh!" she gasped, "it's the baby. Thirsey's got the croup,
+an' Atherton's away, and there ain't anybody to go for the doctor. Oh,
+what shall I do, what shall I do!" She fairly wrung her hands.
+
+"Hev you tried the skunk's oil?" asked Grandma eagerly, preparing to
+get up.
+
+"Yes, I have, I have! It's a good hour since she woke up, an' I've
+tried everything. It hasn't done any good. I thought I wouldn't
+call you, if I could help it, but she's worse--only hear her! An'
+Atherton's away! Oh! what shall I do, what shall I do?"
+
+"Don't take on so, Dorcas," said Grandma, tremulously, but cheeringly.
+"I'll come right along, an'--why, child, what air you goin' to do?"
+
+Ann had finished dressing herself, and now she was pinning a heavy
+homespun blanket over her head, as if she were preparing to go out
+doors.
+
+"I'm going after the doctor for Thirsey," said Ann, her black eyes
+flashing with determination.
+
+"Oh, will you, will you!" cried Mrs. Dorcas, catching at this new
+help.
+
+"Hush, Dorcas," said Grandma, sternly. "It's an awful storm out--jist
+hear the wind blow! It ain't fit fur her to go. Her life's jist as
+precious as Thirsey's."
+
+Ann said nothing more, but she went into her own little room with the
+same determined look in her eyes. There was a door leading from this
+room into the kitchen. Ann slipped through it hastily, lit a lantern
+which was hanging beside the kitchen chimney, and was out doors in a
+minute.
+
+The storm was one of sharp, driving sleet, which struck her face like
+so many needles. The first blast, as she stepped outside the door,
+seemed to almost force her back, but her heart did not fail her. The
+snow was not so very deep, but it was hard walking. There was no
+pretense of a path. The doctor lived half a mile away, and there
+was not a house in the whole distance, save the meeting house and
+schoolhouse. It was very dark. Lucky it was that she had taken the
+lantern; she could not have found her way without it.
+
+On kept the little slender, erect figure, with the fierce
+determination in its heart, through the snow and sleet, holding the
+blanket close over its head, and swinging the feeble lantern bravely.
+
+When she reached the doctor's house, he was gone. He had started for
+the North Precinct early in the evening, his good wife said; he was
+called down to Captain Isaac Lovejoy's, the house next the North
+Precinct Meeting House. She'd been sitting up waiting for him, it was
+such an awful storm, and such a lonely road. She was worried, but she
+didn't think he'd start for home that night; she guessed he'd stay at
+Captain Lovejoy's till morning.
+
+[Illustration: SHE ALMOST FAINTED FROM COLD AND EXHAUSTION.]
+
+The doctor's wife, holding her door open, as best she could, in
+the violent wind, had hardly given this information to the little
+snow-bedraggled object standing out there in the inky darkness,
+through which the lantern made a faint circle of light, before she had
+disappeared.
+
+"She went like a speerit," said the good woman, staring out into the
+blackness in amazement. She never dreamed of such a thing as Ann's
+going to the North Precinct after the doctor, but that was what the
+daring girl had determined to do. She had listened to the doctor's
+wife in dismay, but with never one doubt as to her own course of
+proceeding.
+
+Straight along the road to the North Precinct she kept. It would
+have been an awful journey that night for a strong man. It seemed
+incredible that a little girl could have the strength or courage to
+accomplish it. There were four miles to traverse in a black, howling
+storm, over a pathless road, through forests, with hardly a house by
+the way.
+
+When she reached Captain Isaac Lovejoy's house, next to the meeting
+house in the North Precinct of Braintree, stumbling blindly into the
+warm, lighted kitchen, the captain and the doctor could hardly believe
+their senses. She told the doctor about Thirsey; then she almost
+fainted from cold and exhaustion.
+
+Good-wife Lovejoy laid her on the settee, and brewed her some hot herb
+tea. She almost forgot her own sick little girl, for a few minutes,
+in trying to restore this brave child who had come from the South
+Precinct in this dreadful storm to save little Thirsey Wales's life.
+
+When Ann came to herself a little, her first question was, if the
+doctor were ready to go.
+
+"He's gone," said Mrs. Lovejoy, cheeringly.
+
+Ann felt disappointed. She had thought she was going back with him.
+But that would have been impossible. She could not have stood the
+journey for the second time that night, even on horseback behind the
+doctor, as she had planned.
+
+She drank a second bowlful of herb tea, and went to bed with a hot
+stone at her feet, and a great many blankets and coverlids over her.
+
+The next morning, Captain Lovejoy carried her home. He had a rough
+wood sled, and she rode on that, on an old quilt; it was easier than
+horseback, and she was pretty lame and tired.
+
+Mrs. Dorcas saw her coming and opened the door. When Ann came up on
+the stoop, she just threw her arms around her and kissed her.
+
+"You needn't make the candle-wicks," said she. "It's no matter about
+them at all. Thirsey's better this morning, an' I guess you saved her
+life."
+
+Grandma was fairly bursting with pride and delight in her little gal's
+brave feat, now that she saw her safe. She untied the gold beads on
+her neck, and fastened them around Ann's. "There," said she, "you may
+wear them to school to-day, if you'll be keerful."
+
+That day, with the gold beads by way of celebration, began a new era
+in Ann's life. There was no more secret animosity between her and
+Mrs. Dorcas. The doctor had come that night in the very nick of time.
+Thirsey was almost dying. Her mother was fully convinced that Ann had
+saved her life, and she never forgot it. She was a woman of strong
+feelings, who never did things by halves, and she not only treated Ann
+with kindness, but she seemed to smother her grudge against Grandma
+for robbing her of the southwest fire-room.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER
+
+
+The Inventory of the Estate of Samuel Wales Late of Braintree, Taken
+by the Subscribers, March the 14th, 1761.
+
+His Purse in Cash                                   L11-15-01
+His apparrel                                         10-11-00
+His watch                                            2-13-04
+The Best Bed with two Coverlids, three sheets,
+  two underbeds, two Bolsters, two pillows,
+  Bedstead rope                                     L6
+One mill Blanket, two Phlanel sheets, 12 toe Sheets L3-4-8
+Eleven Towels & table Cloth                          0-15-0
+a pair of mittens & pr. of Gloves                    0-2-0
+a neck Handkerchief & neckband                       0-4-0
+an ovel Tabel--Two other Tabels                      1-12-0
+A Chist with Draws                                   2-8-0
+Another Low Chist with Draws & three other Chists    1-10-0
+Six best Chears and a great chear                    1-6-0
+a warming pan--Two Brass Kittles                     1-5-0
+a Small Looking Glass, five Pewter Basons            0-7-8
+fifteen other Chears                                 0-15-0
+fire arms, Sword & bayonet                           1-4-0
+Six Porringers, four platters, Two Pewter Pots      L1-0-4
+auger Chisel, Gimlet, a Bible & other Books          0-15-4
+A chese press, great spinning-wheel, & spindle       0-9-0
+a smith's anvil                                     L3-12-0
+the Pillion                                          0-8-0
+a Bleu Jacket                                        0-0-3
+
+  AARON WHITCOMB.
+  SILAS WHITE.
+
+The foregoing is only a small portion of the original inventory of
+Samuel Wales's estate. He was an exceedingly well-to-do man for these
+times. He had a good many acres of rich pasture and woodland, and
+considerable live stock. Then his home was larger and more comfortable
+than was usual then; and his stock of household utensils plentiful.
+
+He died three years after Ann Ginnins went to live with Grandma, when
+she was about thirteen years old. Grandma spared her to Mrs. Polly for
+a few weeks after the funeral; there was a great deal to be done, and
+she needed some extra help. And, after all, Ann was legally bound to
+her, and her lawful servant.
+
+So the day after good Samuel Wales was laid away in the little
+Braintree burying-ground, Ann returned to her old quarters for a
+little while. She did not really want to go; but she did not object
+to the plan at all. She was sincerely sorry for poor Mrs. Polly,
+and wanted to help her, if she could. She mourned, herself, for Mr.
+Samuel. He had always been very kind to her.
+
+Mrs. Polly had for company, besides Ann, Nabby Porter, Grandma's old
+hired woman whom she had made over to her, and a young man who had
+been serving as apprentice to Mr. Samuel. His name was Phineas Adams.
+He was very shy and silent, but a good workman.
+
+Samuel Wales left a will bequeathing everything to his widow; that was
+solemnly read in the fore-room one afternoon; then the inventory had
+to be taken. That, on account of the amount of property, was quite an
+undertaking; but it was carried out with the greatest formality and
+precision.
+
+For several days, Mr. Aaron Whitcomb and Mr. Silas White were stalking
+majestically about the premises, with note-books and pens. Aaron
+Whitcomb was a grave, portly old man, with a large head of white hair.
+Silas White was little and wiry and fussy. He monopolized the greater
+part of the business, although he was not half as well fitted for it
+as his companion.
+
+They pried into everything with religious exactitude. Mrs. Polly
+watched them with beseeming awe and deference, but it was a great
+trial to her, and she grew very nervous over it. It seemed dreadful to
+have all her husband's little personal effects, down to his neckband
+and mittens, handled over, and their worth in shillings and pence
+calculated. She had a price fixed on them already in higher currency.
+
+Ann found her crying one afternoon sitting on the kitchen settle, with
+her apron over her head. When she saw the little girl's pitying look,
+she poured out her trouble to her.
+
+"They've just been valuing his mittens and gloves," said she, sobbing,
+"at two-and-sixpence. I shall be thankful when they are through."
+
+"Are there any more of his things?" asked Ann, her black eyes
+flashing, with the tears in them.
+
+"I think they've seen about all. There's his blue jacket he used to
+milk in, a-hanging behind the shed door--I guess they haven't valued
+that yet."
+
+"I think it's a shame!" quoth Ann. "I don't believe there's any need
+of so much law."
+
+"Hush, child! You mustn't set yourself up against the judgment of your
+elders. Such things have to be done."
+
+Ann said no more, but the indignant sparkle did not fade out of her
+eyes at all. She watched her opportunity, and took down Mr. Wales's
+old blue jacket from its peg behind the shed door, ran with it
+upstairs, and hid it in her own room behind the bed. "There," said
+she, "Mrs. Wales sha'n't cry over that!"
+
+That night, at tea time, the work of taking the inventory was
+complete. Mr. Whitcomb and Mr. White walked away with their long
+lists, satisfied that they had done their duty according to the law.
+Every article of Samuel Wales's property, from a warming-pan to a
+chest of drawers, was set down, with the sole exception of that old
+blue jacket, which Ann had hidden.
+
+She felt complacent over it at first; then she began to be uneasy.
+
+"Nabby," said she confidentially to the old servant woman, when they
+were washing the pewter plates together after supper, "what would they
+do if anybody shouldn't let them set down all the things--if they hid
+some of 'em away, I mean?"
+
+"They'd make a dretful time on't," said Nabby impressively. She was
+a large, stern-looking old woman. "They air dretful perticklar 'bout
+these things. They hev to be."
+
+Ann was scared when she heard that. When the dishes were done, she sat
+down on the settle and thought it over, and made up her mind what to
+do.
+
+The next morning, in the frosty dawning, before the rest of the family
+were up, a slim, erect little figure could have been seen speeding
+across lots toward Mr. Silas White's. She had the old blue jacket
+tucked under her arm. When she reached the house, she spied Mr. White
+just coming out of the back door with a milking pail. He carried a
+lantern, too, for it was hardly light.
+
+He stopped and stared when Ann ran up to him.
+
+"Mr. White," said she, all breathless, "here's--something--I guess yer
+didn't see yesterday."
+
+Mr. White set down the milk pail, took the blue jacket which she
+handed him, and scrutinized it sharply by the light of the lantern.
+
+"I guess we didn't see it," said he finally. "I will put it down--it's
+worth about three pence, I judge. Where"--
+
+"Silas, Silas!" called a shrill voice from the house. Silas White
+dropped the jacket and trotted briskly in, his lantern bobbing
+agitatedly. He never delayed a moment when his wife called; important
+and tyrannical as the little man was abroad, he had his own tyrant at
+home.
+
+Ann did not wait for him to return; she snatched up the blue jacket
+and fled home, leaping like a little deer over the hoary fields. She
+hung up the precious old jacket behind the shed door again, and no one
+ever knew the whole story of its entrance in the inventory. If she had
+been questioned, she would have told the truth boldly, though. But
+Samuel Wales's Inventory had for its last item that blue jacket,
+spelled after Silas White's own individual method, as was many another
+word in the long list. Silas White consulted his own taste with
+respect to capital letters too.
+
+After a few weeks, Grandma said she must have Ann again; and back she
+went. Grandma was very feeble lately, and everybody humored her. Mrs.
+Polly was sorry to have the little girl leave her. She said it was
+wonderful how much she had improved. But she would not have admitted
+that the improvement was owing to the different influence she had been
+under; she said Ann had outgrown her mischievous ways.
+
+Grandma did not live very long after this, however. Mrs. Polly had
+her bound girl at her own disposal in a year's time. Poor Ann was
+sorrowful enough for a long while after Grandma's death. She wore the
+beloved gold beads round her neck, and a sad ache in her heart. The
+dear old woman had taken the beads off her neck with her own hands
+and given them to Ann before she died, that there might be no mistake
+about it.
+
+Mrs. Polly said she was glad Ann had them. "You might jist as well
+have 'em as Dorcas's girl," said she; "she set enough sight more by
+you."
+
+Ann could not help growing cheerful again, after a while. Affairs in
+Mrs. Polly's house were much brighter for her, in some ways, than they
+had ever been before.
+
+Either the hot iron of affliction had smoothed some of the puckers out
+of her mistress's disposition, or she was growing, naturally, less
+sharp and dictatorial. Any way, she was becoming as gentle and loving
+with Ann as it was in her nature to be, and Ann, following her
+impulsive temper, returned all the affection with vigor, and never
+bestowed a thought on past unpleasantness.
+
+For the next two years, Ann's position in the family grew to be more
+and more that of a daughter. If it had not been for the indentures,
+lying serenely in that tall wooden desk, she would almost have
+forgotten, herself, that she was a bound girl.
+
+One spring afternoon, when Ann was about sixteen years old, her
+mistress called her solemnly into the fore-room. "Ann," said she,
+"come here, I want to speak to you."
+
+Nabby stared wonderingly; and Ann, as she obeyed, felt awed. There was
+something unusual in her mistress's tone.
+
+Standing there in the fore-room, in the august company of the best
+bed, with its high posts and flowered-chintz curtains, the best chest
+of drawers, and the best chairs, Ann listened to what Mrs. Polly had
+to tell her. It was a plan which almost took her breath away; for it
+was this: Mrs. Polly proposed to adopt her, and change her name to
+Wales. She would be no longer Ann Ginnins, and a bound girl: but Ann
+Wales, and a daughter in her mother's home.
+
+Ann dropped into one of the best chairs, and sat there, her little
+dark face very pale. "Should I have the--papers?" she gasped at
+length.
+
+"Your papers? Yes, child, you can have them."
+
+"I don't want them," cried Ann, "never! I want them to stay just where
+they are, till my time is out. If I am adopted, I don't want the
+papers!"
+
+Mrs. Polly stared. She had never known how Ann had taken the
+indentures with her on her run-away trip years ago; but now Ann
+told her the whole story. In her gratitude to her mistress, and her
+contrition, she had to.
+
+It was so long ago in Ann's childhood, it did not seem so very
+dreadful to Mrs. Polly, probably. But Ann insisted on the indentures
+remaining in the desk, even after the papers of adoption were made
+out, and she had become "Ann Wales." It seemed to go a little way
+toward satisfying her conscience. This adoption meant a good deal to
+Ann; for besides a legal home, and a mother, it secured to her a
+right in a comfortable property in the future. Mrs. Polly Wales was
+considered very well off. She was a smart business-woman, and knew how
+to take care of her property too. She still hired Phineas Adams to
+carry on the blacksmith's business, and kept her farm-work running
+just as her husband had. Neither she nor Ann were afraid of work, and
+Ann Wales used to milk the cows, and escort them to and from pasture,
+as faithfully as Ann Ginnins.
+
+It was along in springtime when Ann was adopted, and Mrs. Polly
+fulfilled her part of the contract in the indentures by getting the
+Sunday suit therein spoken of.
+
+They often rode on horseback to meeting, but they usually walked on
+the fine Sundays in spring. Ann had probably never been so happy in
+her life as she was walking by Mrs. Polly's side to meeting that first
+Sunday after her adoption. Most of the way was through the woods;
+the tender light green boughs met over their heads; the violets and
+anemones were springing beside their path. There were green buds and
+white blossoms all around; the sky showed blue between the waving
+branches, and the birds were singing.
+
+Ann in her pretty petticoat of rose-colored stuff, stepping daintily
+over the young grass and the flowers, looked and felt like a part of
+it all. Her dark cheeks had a beautiful red glow on them; her black
+eyes shone. She was as straight and graceful and stately as an Indian.
+
+"She's as handsome as a picture," thought Mrs. Polly in her secret
+heart. A good many people said that Ann resembled Mrs. Polly in her
+youth, and that may have added force to her admiration.
+
+Her new gown was very fine for those days; but fine as she was, and
+adopted daughter though she was, Ann did not omit her thrifty ways for
+once. This identical morning Mrs. Polly and she carried their best
+shoes under their arms, and wore their old ones, till within a short
+distance from the meeting-house. Then the old shoes were tucked away
+under a stone wall for safety, and the best ones put on. Stone walls,
+very likely, sheltered a good many well-worn little shoes, of a
+Puritan Sabbath, that their prudent owners might appear in the House
+of God trimly shod. Ah! these beautiful, new, peaked-toed, high-heeled
+shoes of Ann's--what would she have said to walking in them all the
+way to meeting!
+
+If that Sunday was an eventful one to Ann Wales, so was the week
+following. The next Tuesday, right after dinner, she was up in a
+little unfinished chamber over the kitchen, where they did such work
+when the weather permitted, carding wool. All at once, she heard
+voices down below. They had a strange inflection, which gave her
+warning at once. She dropped her work and listened. "What is the
+matter?" thought she.
+
+Then there was a heavy tramp on the stairs, and Captain Abraham French
+stood in the door, his stern weather-beaten face white and set. Mrs.
+Polly followed him, looking very pale and excited.
+
+"When did you see anything of our Hannah?" asked Captain French,
+controlling as best he could the tremor in his resolute voice.
+
+Ann rose, gathering up her big blue apron, cards, wool and all. "Oh,"
+she cried, "not since last Sabbath, at meeting! What is it?"
+
+"She's lost," answered Captain French. "She started to go up to her
+Aunt Sarah's Monday forenoon; and Enos has just been down, and they
+haven't seen anything of her." Poor Captain French gave a deep groan.
+
+Then they all went down into the kitchen together, talking and
+lamenting. And then, Captain French was galloping away on his gray
+horse to call assistance, and Ann was flying away over the fields,
+blue apron, cards, wool and all.
+
+"O, Ann!" Mrs. Polly cried after, "where are you going?"
+
+"I'm going--to find--Hannah!" Ann shouted back, in a shrill, desperate
+voice, and kept on.
+
+She had no definite notion as to where she was going; she had only one
+thought--Hannah French, her darling, tender, little Hannah French, her
+friend whom she loved better than a sister, was lost.
+
+A good three miles from the Wales home was a large tract of rough
+land, half-swamp, known as "Bear Swamp." There was an opinion, more or
+less correct, that bears might be found there. Some had been shot in
+that vicinity. Why Ann turned her footsteps in that direction,
+she could not have told herself. Possibly the vague impression of
+conversations she and Hannah had had, lingering in her mind, had
+something to do with it. Many a time the two little girls had remarked
+to each other with a shudder, "How awful it would be to get lost in
+Bear Swamp."
+
+Any way, Ann went straight there, through pasture and woodland, over
+ditches and stone walls. She knew every step of the way for a long
+distance. When she gradually got into the unfamiliar wilderness of the
+swamp, a thought struck her--suppose she got lost too! It would
+be easy enough--the unbroken forest stretched for miles in some
+directions. She would not find a living thing but Indians, and, maybe,
+wild beasts, the whole distance.
+
+If she should get lost she would not find Hannah, and the people would
+have to hunt for her too. But Ann had quick wits for an emergency. She
+had actually carried those cards, with a big wad of wool between them
+all the time, in her gathered-up apron. Now she began picking off
+little bits of wool and marking her way with them, sticking them on
+the trees and bushes. Every few feet a fluffy scrap of wool showed the
+road Ann had gone.
+
+But poor Ann went on, farther and farther--and no sign of Hannah. She
+kept calling her from time to time, hallooing at the top of her shrill
+sweet voice: "Hannah! Hannah! Hannah Fre-nch!"
+
+But never a response got the dauntless little girl, slipping almost up
+to her knees sometimes, in black swamp-mud; and sometimes stumbling
+painfully over tree-stumps, and through tangled undergrowth.
+
+"I'll go till my wool gives out," said Ann Wales; then she used it
+more sparingly.
+
+But it was almost gone before she thought she heard in the distance a
+faint little cry in response to her call: "Hannah! Hannah Fre-nch!"
+She called again and listened. Yes; she certainly did hear a little
+cry off toward the west. Calling from time to time, she went as nearly
+as she could in that direction. The pitiful answering cry grew louder
+and nearer; finally Ann could distinguish Hannah's voice.
+
+Wild with joy, she came, at last, upon her sitting on a fallen
+hemlock-tree, her pretty face pale, and her sweet blue eyes strained
+with terror.
+
+"O, Hannah!" "O, Ann!"
+
+"How did you ever get here, Hannah?"
+
+"I--started for aunt Sarah's--that morning," explained Hannah, between
+sobs. "And--I got frightened in the woods, about a mile from father's.
+I saw something ahead I thought was a bear. A great black thing! Then
+I ran--and, somehow, the first thing I knew, I was lost. I walked and
+walked, and it seems to me I kept coming right back to the same place.
+Finally I sat down here, and staid; I thought it was all the way for
+me to be found."
+
+"O, Hannah! what did you do last night?"
+
+"I staid somewhere, under some pine-trees," replied Hannah, with a
+shudder; "and I kept hearing things--O, Ann!"
+
+Ann hugged her sympathizingly. "I guess I wouldn't have slept much if
+I had known," said she. "O, Hannah, you haven't had anything to eat!
+ain't you starved?"
+
+Hannah laughed faintly. "I ate up two whole pumpkin pies I was
+carrying to aunt Sarah," said she. "Oh! how lucky it was you had
+them." "Yes; mother called me back to get them, after I started. They
+were some new ones, made with cream, and she thought aunt Sarah would
+like them."
+
+Pretty soon they started. It was hard work, for the way was very
+rough, and poor Hannah weak. But Ann had a good deal of strength in
+her lithe young frame, and she half-carried Hannah over the worst
+places. Still both of the girls were pretty well spent when they came
+to the last of the bits of wool on the border of Bear Swamp. However,
+they kept on a little farther; then they had to stop and rest. "I know
+where I am now," said Hannah, with a sigh of delight; "but I don't
+think I can walk another step." She was, in fact, almost exhausted.
+
+Ann looked at her thoughtfully. She hardly knew what to do. She could
+not carry Hannah herself--indeed, her own strength began to fail; and
+she did not want to leave her to go for assistance.
+
+All of a sudden, she jumped up. "You stay just where you are a few
+minutes, Hannah," said she. "I'm going somewhere. I'll be back soon."
+Ann was laughing.
+
+Hannah looked up at her pitifully: "O Ann, don't go!"
+
+"I'm coming right back, and it is the only way. You must get home.
+Only think how your father and mother are worrying!"
+
+Hannah said no more after that mention of her parents, and Ann
+started.
+
+[Illustration: "A CONVEYANCE IS FOUND."]
+
+She was not gone long. When she came in sight she was laughing, and
+Hannah, weak as she was, laughed, too. Ann had torn her blue apron
+into strips, and tied it together for a rope, and by it she was
+leading a red cow.
+
+Hannah knew the cow, and knew at once what the plan was. "O, Ann! you
+mean for me to ride Betty?"
+
+"Of course I do. I just happened to think our cows were in the
+pasture, down below here. And we've ridden Betty, lots of times, when
+we were children, and she's just as gentle now. Whoa, Betty, good
+cow."
+
+It was very hard work to get Hannah on to the broad back of her novel
+steed, but it was finally accomplished. Betty had been a perfect pet
+from a calf, and was exceedingly gentle. She started off soberly
+across the fields, with Hannah sitting on her back, and Ann leading
+her by her blue rope.
+
+It was a funny cavalcade for Captain Abraham French and a score of
+anxious men to meet, when they were nearly in sight of home; but they
+were too overjoyed to see much fun in it.
+
+Hannah rode the rest of the way with her father, on his gray horse;
+and Ann walked joyfully by her side, leading the cow.
+
+Captain French and his friends had, in fact, just started to search
+Bear Swamp, well armed with lanterns, for night was coming on.
+
+It was dark when they got home. Mrs. French was not much more
+delighted to see her beloved daughter Hannah safe again, than Mrs.
+Polly was to see Ann.
+
+She listened admiringly to the story Ann told.
+
+"Nobody but you would have thought of the wool or of the cow," said
+she.
+
+"I do declare," cried Ann, at the mention of the wool, "I have lost
+the cards!"
+
+"Never mind the cards!" said Mrs. Polly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pot of Gold, by Mary E. Wilkins
+
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:48:56 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:48:56 -0700
commit	b0b1a3ae9ac593be755b53d00b665b4964c9ccdf (patch)
tree	0c610405cc68582051b68be88f402b0868407676