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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Child Life in Prose, by Various
+
+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: Child Life in Prose
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: John Greenleaf Whittier
+
+Release Date: December 2, 2010 [EBook #34549]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILD LIFE IN PROSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Christine Aldridge and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_;
+       "    in bold are surrounded by =equals=.
+       "    in bold Gothic font are surrounded by ==double equals==.
+
+2. Illustrations falling within the middle of a paragraph have been
+   relocated to the beginning or end of the paragraph.
+
+3. Footnotes, (two) have been placed immediately below the paragraph
+   containing their anchor marker.
+
+4. A detailed list of corrections and other transcription notes appears
+   at the end of this e-text.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHILD LIFE IN PROSE.
+
+EDITED BY
+JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
+
+==Illustrated.==
+
+[Illustration]
+
+BOSTON:
+HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.
+==The Riverside Press, Cambridge.==
+
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873,
+BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.,
+in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington,
+
+TWENTY THIRD IMPRESSION.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"We behold a child. Who is it? Whose is it? What is it? It is in the
+centre of fantastic light, and only a dim revealed form appears. It is
+God's own child, as all children are. The blood of Adam and Eve,
+through how many soever channels diverging, runs in its veins; and the
+spirit of the Eternal, which blows everywhere, has animated it. It
+opens its eyes upon us, stretches out its hands to us as all children
+do. Can you love it? It may be heir of a throne,--does it interest
+you? Or of a milking-stool,--do not despise it. It is a miracle of the
+All-working; it is endowed by the All-gifted. Smile upon it, it will a
+smile give back again; prick it, it will cry. Where does it belong? In
+what zone or climate? It may have been born on the Thames or the
+Amazon, the Hoang-ho or the Mississippi. It is God's child still, and
+its mother's. It is curiously and wonderfully made. The inspiration of
+the Almighty hath given it understanding. It will look after God by
+how many soever names he may be called; it will seek to know; it will
+long to be loved; it will sin and be miserable; if it has none to care
+for it, it will die."
+
+                                                  JUDD'S _Margaret_.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The unexpectedly favorable reception of the poetical compilation
+entitled "Child Life" has induced its publishers to call for the
+preparation of a companion volume of prose stories and sketches,
+gathered, like the former, from the literature of widely separated
+nationalities and periods. Illness, preoccupation, and the inertia of
+unelastic years would have deterred me from the undertaking, but for
+the assistance which I have had from the lady whose services are
+acknowledged in the preface to "Child Life." I beg my young readers,
+therefore, to understand that I claim little credit for my share in
+the work, since whatever merit it may have is largely due to her taste
+and judgment. It may be well to admit, in the outset, that the book is
+as much for child-lovers, who have not outgrown their child-heartedness
+in becoming mere men and women, as for children themselves; that it is
+as much _about_ childhood, as _for_ it. If not the wisest, it appears to
+me that the happiest people in the world are those who still retain
+something of the child's creative faculty of imagination, which makes
+atmosphere and color, sun and shadow, and boundless horizons, out of
+what seems to prosaic wisdom most inadequate material,--a tuft of grass,
+a mossy rock, the rain-pools of a passing shower, a glimpse of sky and
+cloud, a waft of west-wind, a bird's flutter and song. For the child is
+always something of a poet; if he cannot analyze, like Wordsworth and
+Tennyson, the emotions which expand his being, even as the fulness of
+life bursts open the petals of a flower, he finds with them all Nature
+plastic to his eye and hand. The soul of genius and the heart of
+childhood are one.
+
+Not irreverently has Jean Paul said, "I love God and little children.
+Ye stand nearest to Him, ye little ones." From the Infinite Heart a
+sacred Presence has gone forth and filled the earth with the sweetness
+of immortal infancy. Not once in history alone, but every day and
+always, Christ sets the little child in the midst of us as the truest
+reminder of himself, teaching us the secret of happiness, and leading
+us into the kingdom by the way of humility and tenderness.
+
+In truth, all the sympathies of our nature combine to render childhood
+an object of powerful interest. Its beauty, innocence, dependence, and
+possibilities of destiny, strongly appeal to our sensibilities, not
+only in real life, but in fiction and poetry. How sweetly, amidst the
+questionable personages who give small occasion of respect for manhood
+or womanhood as they waltz and wander through the story of Wilhelm
+Meister, rises the child-figure of Mignon! How we turn from the light
+dames and faithless cavaliers of Boccaccio to contemplate his
+exquisite picture of the little Florentine, Beatrice, that fair girl
+of eight summers, so "pretty in her childish ways, so ladylike and
+pleasing, with her delicate features and fair proportions, of such
+dignity and charm of manner as to be looked upon as a little angel!"
+And of all the creations of her illustrious lover's genius, whether in
+the world of mortals or in the uninviting splendors of his Paradise,
+what is there so beautiful as the glimpse we have of him in his _Vita
+Nuova_, a boy of nine years, amidst the bloom and greenness of the
+Spring Festival of Florence, checking his noisy merry-making in rapt
+admiration of the little Beatrice, who seemed to him "not the daughter
+of mortal man, but of God"? Who does not thank John Brown, of
+Edinburgh, for the story of Marjorie Fleming, the fascinating
+child-woman, laughing beneath the plaid of Walter Scott, and gathering
+at her feet the wit and genius of Scotland? The labored essays from
+which St. Pierre hoped for immortality, his philosophies,
+sentimentalisms, and theories of tides, have all quietly passed into
+the limbo of unreadable things; while a simple story of childhood
+keeps his memory green as the tropic island in which the scene is
+laid, and his lovely creations remain to walk hand in hand beneath the
+palms of Mauritius so long as children shall be born and the hearts
+of youths and maidens cleave to each other. If the after story of the
+poet-king and warrior of Israel sometimes saddens and pains us, who
+does not love to think of him as a shepherd boy, "ruddy and withal of
+a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look upon," singing to his
+flocks on the hill-slopes of Bethlehem?
+
+In the compilation of this volume the chief embarrassment has arisen
+from the very richness and abundance of materials. As a matter of
+course, the limitations prescribed by its publishers have compelled
+the omission of much that, in point of merit, may compare favorably
+with the selections. Dickens's great family of ideal children, Little
+Nell, Tiny Tim, and the Marchioness; Harriet Beecher Stowe's Eva and
+Topsy; George MacDonald's quaint and charming child-dreamers; and
+last, but not least, John Brown's Pet Marjorie,--are only a few of the
+pictures for which no place has been found. The book, of necessity,
+but imperfectly reflects that child-world which fortunately is always
+about us, more beautiful in its living realities than it has ever been
+painted.
+
+It has been my wish to make a readable book of such literary merit as
+not to offend the cultivated taste of parents, while it amused their
+children. I may confess in this connection, that, while aiming at
+simple and not unhealthful amusement, I have been glad to find the
+light tissue of these selections occasionally shot through with
+threads of pious or moral suggestion. At the same time, I have not
+felt it right to sadden my child-readers with gloomy narratives and
+painful reflections upon the life before them. The lessons taught are
+those of Love, rather than Fear. "I can bear," said Richter, "to look
+upon a melancholy man, but I cannot look upon a melancholy child.
+Fancy a butterfly crawling like a caterpillar with his four wings
+pulled off!"
+
+It is possible that the language and thought of some portions of the
+book may be considered beyond the comprehension of the class for which
+it is intended. Admitting that there may be truth in the objection, I
+believe with Coventry Patmore, in his preface to a child's book, that
+the charm of such a volume is increased, rather than lessened, by the
+surmised existence of an unknown amount of power, meaning, and beauty.
+I well remember how, at a very early age, the solemn organ-roll of
+Gray's Elegy and the lyric sweep and pathos of Cowper's Lament for the
+Royal George moved and fascinated me with a sense of mystery and power
+felt, rather than understood. "A spirit passed before my face, but the
+form thereof was not discerned." Freighted with unguessed meanings,
+these poems spake to me, in an unknown tongue indeed, but, like the
+wind in the pines or the waves on the beach, awakening faint echoes
+and responses, and vaguely prophesying of wonders yet to be revealed.
+John Woolman tells us, in his autobiography, that, when a small child,
+he read from that sacred prose poem, the Book of Revelation, which has
+so perplexed critics and commentators, these words, "He showed me a
+river of the waters of life clear as crystal, proceeding out of the
+throne of God and the Lamb," and that his mind was drawn thereby to
+seek after that wonderful purity, and that the place where he sat and
+the sweetness of that child-yearning remained still fresh in his
+memory in after life. The spirit of that mystical anthem which Milton
+speaks of as "a seven-fold chorus of hallelujahs and harping
+symphonies," hidden so often from the wise and prudent students of the
+letter, was felt, if not comprehended, by the simple heart of the
+child.
+
+It will be seen that a considerable portion of the volume is devoted
+to autobiographical sketches of infancy and childhood. It seemed to me
+that it might be interesting to know how the dim gray dawn and golden
+sunrise of life looked to poets and philosophers; and to review with
+them the memories upon which the reflected light of their genius has
+fallen.
+
+I leave the little collection, not without some misgivings, to the
+critical, but I hope not unkindly, regard of its young readers. They
+will, I am sure, believe me when I tell them that if my own paternal
+claims, like those of Elia, are limited to "dream children," I have
+catered for the real ones with cordial sympathy and tender solicitude
+for their well-being and happiness.
+
+                                                            J. G. W.
+
+AMESBURY, 1873.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                         STORIES OF CHILD LIFE.
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+LITTLE ANNIE'S RAMBLE                  _Nathaniel Hawthorne_          13
+
+WHY THE COW TURNED HER HEAD AWAY       _Abby Morton Diaz_             22
+
+THE BABY OF THE REGIMENT               _T. W. Higginson_              27
+
+PRUDY PARLIN                           "_Sophie May_"                 38
+
+MRS. WALKER'S BETSEY                   _Helen B. Bostwick_            43
+
+THE RAINBOW-PILGRIMAGE                 _Grace Greenwood_              54
+
+ON WHITE ISLAND                        _Celia Thaxter_                58
+
+THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN              _T. B. Aldrich_                64
+
+A YOUNG MAHOMETAN                      _Mary Lamb_                    76
+
+THE LITTLE PERSIAN                     _Juvenile Miscellany_          81
+
+THE BOYS' HEAVEN                       _L. Maria Child_               83
+
+BESSIE'S GARDEN                        _Caroline S. Whitmarsh_        87
+
+HOW THE CRICKETS BROUGHT GOOD FORTUNE  _P. J. Stahl_                  97
+
+PAUL AND VIRGINIA                      _Bernardin de Saint Pierre_   101
+
+OEYVIND AND MARIT                      _Bjoernsterne Bjoernsen_        109
+
+BOOTS AT THE HOLLY-TREE INN            _Charles Dickens_             119
+
+AMRIE AND THE GEESE                    _Berthold Auerbach_           131
+
+THE ROBINS                             _John Woolman_                135
+
+THE FISH I DIDN'T CATCH                _John G. Whittier_            137
+
+LITTLE KATE WORDSWORTH                 _Thomas De Quincey_           142
+
+HOW MARGERY WONDERED                   _Lucy Larcom_                 145
+
+THE NETTLE-GATHERER                    _From the Swedish_            149
+
+LITTLE ARTHUR'S PRAYER                 _Thomas Hughes_               156
+
+FAITH AND HER MOTHER                   _Elizabeth Stuart Phelps_     161
+
+THE OPEN DOOR                          _John de Liefde_              165
+
+THE PRINCE'S VISIT                     _Horace Scudder_              167
+
+
+                         FANCIES OF CHILD LIFE.
+
+THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS             _Harriet Beecher Stowe_       175
+
+BLUNDER                                _Louise E. Chollet_           185
+
+STAR-DOLLARS                           _Grimm's Household Tales_     192
+
+THE IMMORTAL FOUNTAIN                  _L. Maria Child_              193
+
+THE BIRD'S-NEST IN THE MOON            _New England Magazine_        201
+
+DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERY               _Charles Lamb_                204
+
+THE UGLY DUCKLING                      _Hans Christian Andersen_     209
+
+THE POET AND HIS LITTLE DAUGHTER       _Mary Howitt_                 220
+
+THE RED FLOWER                         _Madame De Gasparin_          226
+
+THE STORY WITHOUT AN END               _German of Carove_            229
+
+
+                         MEMORIES OF CHILD LIFE.
+
+HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN                                              253
+
+MADAME MICHELET                                                      262
+
+JEAN PAUL RICHTER                                                    271
+
+CHARLES LAMB                                                         276
+
+HUGH MILLER                                                          281
+
+WALTER SCOTT                                                         286
+
+FREDERICK DOUGLASS                                                   290
+
+CHARLES DICKENS                                                      297
+
+
+
+
+STORIES OF CHILD LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+STORIES OF CHILD LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE ANNIE'S RAMBLE.
+
+
+[Illustration: D]
+
+Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
+
+The town-crier has rung his bell at a distant corner, and little Annie
+stands on her father's door-steps, trying to hear what the man with
+the loud voice is talking about. Let me listen too. O, he is telling
+the people that an elephant, and a lion, and a royal tiger, and a
+horse with horns, and other strange beasts from foreign countries,
+have come to town, and will receive all visitors who choose to wait
+upon them! Perhaps little Annie would like to go. Yes; and I can see
+that the pretty child is weary of this wide and pleasant street, with
+the green trees flinging their shade across the quiet sunshine, and
+the pavements and the sidewalks all as clean as if the housemaid had
+just swept them with her broom. She feels that impulse to go strolling
+away--that longing after the mystery of the great world--which many
+children feel, and which I felt in my childhood. Little Annie shall
+take a ramble with me. See! I do but hold out my hand, and, like some
+bright bird in the sunny air, with her blue silk frock fluttering
+upwards from her white pantalets, she comes bounding on tiptoe across
+the street.
+
+Smooth back your brown curls, Annie; and let me tie on your bonnet,
+and we will set forth! What a strange couple to go on their rambles
+together! One walks in black attire, with a measured step, and a heavy
+brow, and his thoughtful eyes bent down, while the gay little girl
+trips lightly along, as if she were forced to keep hold of my hand,
+lest her feet should dance away from the earth. Yet there is sympathy
+between us. If I pride myself on anything, it is because I have a
+smile that children love; and, on the other hand, there are few grown
+ladies that could entice me from the side of little Annie; for I
+delight to let my mind go hand in hand with the mind of a sinless
+child. So come, Annie; but if I moralize as we go, do not listen to
+me; only look about you and be merry!
+
+Now we turn the corner. Here are hacks with two horses, and
+stage-coaches with four, thundering to meet each other, and trucks and
+carts moving at a slower pace, being heavily laden with barrels from
+the wharves; and here are rattling gigs, which perhaps will be smashed
+to pieces before our eyes. Hitherward, also, comes a man trundling a
+wheelbarrow along the pavement. Is not little Annie afraid of such a
+tumult? No: she does not even shrink closer to my side, but passes on
+with fearless confidence,--a happy child amidst a great throng of
+grown people, who pay the same reverence to her infancy that they
+would to extreme old age. Nobody jostles her; all turn aside to make
+way for little Annie; and, what is most singular, she appears
+conscious of her claim to such respect. Now her eyes brighten with
+pleasure! A street musician has seated himself on the steps of yonder
+church, and pours forth his strains to the busy town, a melody that
+has gone astray among the tramp of footsteps, the buzz of voices, and
+the war of passing wheels. Who heeds the poor organ-grinder? None but
+myself and little Annie, whose feet begin to move in unison with the
+lively tune, as if she were loath that music should be wasted without
+a dance. But where would Annie find a partner? Some have the gout in
+their toes, or the rheumatism in their joints; some are stiff with
+age; some feeble with disease; some are so lean that their bones
+would rattle, and others of such ponderous size that their agility
+would crack the flagstones; but many, many have leaden feet, because
+their hearts are far heavier than lead. It is a sad thought that I
+have chanced upon. What a company of dancers should we be? For I, too,
+am a gentleman of sober footsteps, and therefore, little Annie, let us
+walk sedately on.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is a question with me, whether this giddy child or my sage self have
+most pleasure in looking at the shop windows. We love the silks of sunny
+hue, that glow within the darkened premises of the spruce dry-goods'
+men; we are pleasantly dazzled by the burnished silver and the chased
+gold, the rings of wedlock and the costly love-ornaments, glistening at
+the window of the jeweller; but Annie, more than I, seeks for a glimpse
+of her passing figure in the dusty looking-glasses at the hardware
+stores. All that is bright and gay attracts us both.
+
+Here is a shop to which the recollections of my boyhood, as well as
+present partialities, give a peculiar magic. How delightful to let the
+fancy revel on the dainties of a confectioner; those pies, with such
+white and flaky paste, their contents being a mystery whether rich
+mince, with whole plums intermixed, or piquant apple, delicately
+rose-flavored; those cakes, heart-shaped or round, piled in a lofty
+pyramid; those sweet little circlets, sweetly named kisses; those
+dark, majestic masses, fit to be bridal loaves at the wedding of an
+heiress, mountains in size, their summits deeply snow-covered with
+sugar! Then the mighty treasures of sugar-plums, white and crimson and
+yellow, in large glass vases; and candy of all varieties; and those
+little cockles, or whatever they are called, much prized by children
+for their sweetness, and more for the mottoes which they enclose, by
+love-sick maids and bachelors! O, my mouth waters, little Annie, and
+so doth yours; but we will not be tempted, except to an imaginary
+feast; so let us hasten onward, devouring the vision of a plum-cake.
+
+Here are pleasures, as some people would say, of a more exalted kind,
+in the window of a bookseller. Is Annie a literary lady? Yes; she is
+deeply read in Peter Parley's tomes, and has an increasing love for
+fairy-tales, though seldom met with nowadays, and she will subscribe,
+next year, to the Juvenile Miscellany. But, truth to tell, she is apt
+to turn away from the printed page, and keep gazing at the pretty
+pictures, such as the gay-colored ones which make this shop window the
+continual loitering-place of children. What would Annie think if, in
+the book which I mean to send her on New Year's day, she should find
+her sweet little self, bound up in silk or morocco with gilt edges,
+there to remain till she become a woman grown, with children of her
+own to read about their mother's childhood. That would be very queer.
+
+Little Annie is weary of pictures, and pulls me onward by the hand,
+till suddenly we pause at the most wondrous shop in all the town. O my
+stars! Is this a toyshop, or is it fairyland? For here are gilded
+chariots, in which the king and queen of the fairies might ride side
+by side, while their courtiers, on these small horses, should gallop
+in triumphal procession before and behind the royal pair. Here, too,
+are dishes of china-ware, fit to be the dining-set of those same
+princely personages when they make a regal banquet in the stateliest
+hall of their palace, full five feet high, and behold their nobles
+feasting adown the long perspective of the table. Betwixt the king and
+queen should sit my little Annie, the prettiest fairy of them all.
+Here stands a turbaned Turk, threatening us with his sabre, like an
+ugly heathen as he is. And next a Chinese mandarin, who nods his head
+at Annie and myself. Here we may review a whole army of horse and
+foot, in red and blue uniforms, with drums, fifes, trumpets, and all
+kinds of noiseless music; they have halted on the shelf of this
+window, after their weary march from Liliput. But what cares Annie for
+soldiers? No conquering queen is she, neither a Semiramis nor a
+Catharine; her whole heart is set upon that doll, who gazes at us with
+such a fashionable stare. This is the little girl's true plaything.
+Though made of wood, a doll is a visionary and ethereal personage,
+endowed by childish fancy with a peculiar life; the mimic lady is a
+heroine of romance, an actor and a sufferer in a thousand shadowy
+scenes, the chief inhabitant of that wild world with which children
+ape the real one. Little Annie does not understand what I am saying,
+but looks wishfully at the proud lady in the window. We will invite
+her home with us as we return. Meantime, good by, Dame Doll! A toy
+yourself, you look forth from your window upon many ladies that are
+also toys, though they walk and speak, and upon a crowd in pursuit of
+toys, though they wear grave visages. O, with your never-closing eyes,
+had you but an intellect to moralize on all that flits before them,
+what a wise doll would you be! Come, little Annie, we shall find toys
+enough, go where we may.
+
+Now we elbow our way among the throng again. It is curious, in the
+most crowded part of a town, to meet with living creatures that had
+their birthplace in some far solitude, but have acquired a second
+nature in the wilderness of men. Look up, Annie, at that canary-bird,
+hanging out of the window in his cage. Poor little fellow! His golden
+feathers are all tarnished in this smoky sunshine; he would have
+glistened twice as brightly among the summer islands; but still he has
+become a citizen in all his tastes and habits, and would not sing half
+so well without the uproar that drowns his music. What a pity that he
+does not know how miserable he is! There is a parrot, too, calling
+out, "Pretty Poll! Pretty Poll!" as we pass by. Foolish bird, to be
+talking about her prettiness to strangers, especially as she is not a
+pretty Poll, though gaudily dressed in green and yellow. If she had
+said "Pretty Annie," there would have been some sense in it. See that
+gray squirrel, at the door of the fruit-shop, whirling round and round
+so merrily within his wire wheel! Being condemned to the treadmill, he
+makes it an amusement. Admirable philosophy!
+
+Here comes a big, rough dog, a countryman's dog in search of his
+master; smelling at everybody's heels, and touching little Annie's
+hand with his cold nose, but hurrying away, though she would fain have
+patted him. Success to your search, Fidelity! And there sits a great
+yellow cat upon a window-sill, a very corpulent and comfortable cat,
+gazing at this transitory world, with owl's eyes, and making pithy
+comments, doubtless, or what appear such, to the silly beast. O sage
+puss, make room for me beside you, and we will be a pair of
+philosophers!
+
+Here we see something to remind us of the town-crier, and his
+ding-dong bell! Look! look at that great cloth spread out in the air,
+pictured all over with wild beasts, as if they had met together to
+choose a king, according to their custom in the days of AEsop. But they
+are choosing neither a king nor a president, else we should hear a
+most horrible snarling! They have come from the deep woods, and the
+wild mountains, and the desert sands, and the polar snows, only to do
+homage to my little Annie. As we enter among them, the great elephant
+makes us a bow, in the best style of elephantine courtesy, bending
+lowly down his mountain bulk, with trunk abased and leg thrust out
+behind. Annie returns the salute, much to the gratification of the
+elephant, who is certainly the best-bred monster in the caravan. The
+lion and the lioness are busy with two beef-bones. The royal tiger,
+the beautiful, the untamable, keeps pacing his narrow cage with a
+haughty step, unmindful of the spectators, or recalling the fierce
+deeds of his former life, when he was wont to leap forth upon such
+inferior animals, from the jungles of Bengal.
+
+Here we see the very same wolf,--do not go near him, Annie!--the
+self-same wolf that devoured little Red Riding-Hood and her
+grandmother. In the next cage, a hyena from Egypt, who has doubtless
+howled around the pyramids, and a black bear from our own forests, are
+fellow prisoners and most excellent friends. Are there any two living
+creatures who have so few sympathies that they cannot possibly be
+friends? Here sits a great white bear, whom common observers would
+call a very stupid beast, though I perceive him to be only absorbed in
+contemplation; he is thinking of his voyages on an iceberg, and of his
+comfortable home in the vicinity of the north pole, and of the little
+cubs whom he left rolling in the eternal snows. In fact, he is a bear
+of sentiment. But O, those unsentimental monkeys! the ugly, grinning,
+aping, chattering, ill-natured, mischievous, and queer little brutes.
+Annie does not love the monkeys. Their ugliness shocks her pure,
+instinctive delicacy of taste, and makes her mind unquiet, because it
+bears a wild and dark resemblance to humanity. But here is a little
+pony, just big enough for Annie to ride, and round and round he
+gallops in a circle, keeping time with his trampling hoofs to a band
+of music. And here,--with a laced coat and a cocked hat, and a
+riding-whip in his hand,--here comes a little gentleman, small
+enough to be king of the fairies, and ugly enough to be king of the
+gnomes, and takes a flying leap into the saddle. Merrily, merrily
+plays the music, and merrily gallops the pony, and merrily rides the
+little old gentleman. Come, Annie, into the street again; perchance we
+may see monkeys on horseback there!
+
+Mercy on us, what a noisy world we quiet people live in! Did Annie
+ever read the Cries of London City? With what lusty lungs doth yonder
+man proclaim that his wheelbarrow is full of lobsters! Here comes
+another mounted on a cart, and blowing a hoarse and dreadful blast
+from a tin horn, as much as to say "Fresh fish!" And hark! a voice on
+high, like that of a muezzin from the summit of a mosque, announcing
+that some chimney-sweeper has emerged from smoke and soot, and
+darksome caverns, into the upper air. What cares the world for that?
+But, welladay! we hear a shrill voice of affliction, the scream of a
+little child, rising louder with every repetition of that smart,
+sharp, slapping sound, produced by an open hand on tender flesh. Annie
+sympathizes, though without experience of such direful woe. Lo! the
+town-crier again, with some new secret for the public ear. Will he
+tell us of an auction, or of a lost pocket-book, or a show of
+beautiful wax figures, or of some monstrous beast more horrible than
+any in the caravan? I guess the latter. See how he uplifts the bell in
+his right hand, and shakes it slowly at first, then with a hurried
+motion, till the clapper seems to strike both sides at once, and the
+sounds are scattered forth in quick succession, far and near.
+
+Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
+
+Now he raises his clear, loud voice, above all the din of the town; it
+drowns the buzzing talk of many tongues, and draws each man's mind
+from his own business; it rolls up and down the echoing street, and
+ascends to the hushed chamber of the sick, and penetrates downward to
+the cellar-kitchen, where the hot cook turns from the fire to listen.
+Who, of all that address the public ear, whether in church or
+court-house or hall of state, has such an attentive audience as the
+town-crier? What saith the people's orator?
+
+"Strayed from her home, a LITTLE GIRL, of five years old, in a blue
+silk frock and white pantalets, with brown curling hair and hazel
+eyes. Whoever will bring her to her afflicted mother--"
+
+Stop, stop, town-crier! The lost is found. O my pretty Annie, we
+forgot to tell your mother of our ramble, and she is in despair, and
+has sent the town-crier to bellow up and down the streets, affrighting
+old and young, for the loss of a little girl who has not once let go
+my hand! Well, let us hasten homeward; and as we go, forget not to
+thank Heaven, my Annie, that, after wandering a little way into the
+world, you may return at the first summons, with an untainted and
+unwearied heart, and be a happy child again. But I have gone too far
+astray for the town-crier to call me back.
+
+Sweet has been the charm of childhood on my spirit, throughout my
+ramble with little Annie! Say not that it has been a waste of precious
+moments, an idle matter, a babble of childish talk, and a revery of
+childish imaginations, about topics unworthy of a grown man's notice.
+Has it been merely this? Not so; not so. They are not truly wise who
+would affirm it. As the pure breath of children revives the life of
+aged men, so is our moral nature revived by their free and simple
+thoughts, their native feeling, their airy mirth, for little cause or
+none, their grief, soon roused and soon allayed. Their influence on us
+is at least reciprocal with ours on them. When our infancy is almost
+forgotten, and our boyhood long departed, though it seems but as
+yesterday; when life settles darkly down upon us, and we doubt whether
+to call ourselves young any more, then it is good to steal away from
+the society of bearded men, and even of gentler woman, and spend an
+hour or two with children. After drinking from those fountains of
+still fresh existence, we shall return into the crowd, as I do now, to
+struggle onward and do our part in life, perhaps as fervently as ever,
+but, for a time, with a kinder and purer heart, and a spirit more
+lightly wise. All this by thy sweet magic, dear little Annie!
+
+                                              _Nathaniel Hawthorne._
+
+
+
+
+WHY THE COW TURNED HER HEAD AWAY.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+"Moolly Cow, your barn is warm, the wintry winds cannot reach you, nor
+frost nor snow. Why are your eyes so sad? Take this wisp of hay. See,
+I am holding it up? It is very good. Now you turn your head away. Why
+do you look so sorrowful, Moolly Cow, and turn your head away?"
+
+"Little girl, I am thinking of the time when that dry wisp of hay was
+living grass. When those brown, withered flowers were blooming
+clovertops, buttercups, and daisies, and the bees and the butterflies
+came about them. The air was warm then, and gentle winds blew. Every
+morning I went forth to spend the day in sunny pastures. I am thinking
+now of those early summer mornings,--how the birds sang, and the sun
+shone, and the grass glittered with dew! and the boy that opened the
+gates, how merrily he whistled! I stepped quickly along, sniffing the
+fresh morning air, snatching at times a hasty mouthful by the way; it
+was really very pleasant! And when the bars fell, how joyfully I
+leaped over! I knew where the grass grew green and tender, and
+hastened to eat it while the dew was on.
+
+"As the sun rose higher I sought the shade, and at noonday would lie
+under the trees chewing, chewing, chewing, with half-shut eyes, and
+the drowsy insects humming around me; or perhaps I would stand
+motionless upon the river's bank, where one might catch a breath of
+air, or wade deep in to cool myself in the stream. And when noontime
+was passed and the heat grew less, I went back to the grass and
+flowers.
+
+"And thus the long summer day sped on,--sped pleasantly on, for I was
+never lonely. No lack of company in those sunny pasture-lands! The
+grasshoppers and crickets made a great stir, bees buzzed, butterflies
+were coming and going, and birds singing always. I knew where the
+ground-sparrows built, and all about the little field-mice. They were
+very friendly to me, for often, while nibbling the grass, I would
+whisper, 'Keep dark, little mice! Don't fly, sparrows! The boys are
+coming!'
+
+"No lack of company,--O no! When that withered hay was living grass,
+yellow with buttercups, white with daisies, pink with clover, it was
+the home of myriads of little insects,--very, very little insects. O,
+but they made things lively, crawling, hopping, skipping among the
+roots, and up and down the stalks, so happy, so full of life,--never
+still! And now not one left alive! They are gone. That pleasant
+summer-time is gone. O, these long, dismal winter nights! All day I
+stand in my lonely stall, listening, not to the song of birds, or hum
+of bees, or chirp of grasshoppers, or the pleasant rustling of leaves,
+but to the noise of howling winds, hail, sleet, and driving snow!
+
+"Little girl, I pray you don't hold up to me that wisp of hay. In just
+that same way they held before my eyes, one pleasant morning, a bunch
+of sweet clover, to entice me from my pretty calf!
+
+"Poor thing! It was the only one I had! So gay and sprightly! Such a
+playful, frisky, happy young thing! It was a joy to see her caper and
+toss her heels about, without a thought of care or sorrow. It was good
+to feel her nestling close at my side, to look into her bright,
+innocent eyes, to rest my head lovingly upon her neck!
+
+"And already I was looking forward to the time when she would become
+steady and thoughtful like myself; was counting greatly upon her
+company of nights in the dark barn, or in roaming the fields through
+the long summer days. For the butterflies and bees, and all the bits
+of insects, though well enough in their way, and most excellent
+company, were, after all, not akin to me, and there is nothing like
+living with one's own blood relations.
+
+"But I lost my pretty little one! The sweet clover enticed me away.
+When I came back she was gone! I saw through the bars the rope wound
+about her. I saw the cart. I saw the cruel men lift her in. She made a
+mournful noise. I cried out, and thrust my head over the rail,
+calling, in language she well understood, 'Come back! O, come back!'
+
+"She looked up with her round, sorrowful eyes and wished to come, but
+the rope held her fast! The man cracked his whip, the cart rolled
+away; I never saw her more!
+
+"No, little girl, I cannot take your wisp of hay. It reminds me of the
+silliest hour of my life,--of a day when I surely made myself a fool.
+And on that day, too, I was offered by a little girl a bunch of grass
+and flowers.
+
+"It was a still summer's noon. Not a breath of air was stirring. I had
+waded deep into the stream, which was then calm and smooth. Looking
+down I saw my own image in the water. And I perceived that my neck was
+thick and clumsy, that my hair was brick-color, and my head of an ugly
+shape, with two horns sticking out much like the prongs of a
+pitchfork. 'Truly, Mrs. Cow,' I said, 'you are by no means handsome!'
+
+"Just then a horse went trotting along the bank. His hair was glossy
+black, he had a flowing mane, and a tail which grew thick and long.
+His proud neck was arched, his head lifted high. He trotted lightly
+over the ground, bending in his hoofs daintily at every footfall. Said
+I to myself, 'Although not well-looking,--which is a great pity,--it
+is quite possible that I can step beautifully, like the horse; who
+knows?' And I resolved to plod on no longer in sober cow-fashion, but
+to trot off nimbly and briskly and lightly.
+
+"I hastily waded ashore, climbed the bank, held my head high,
+stretched out my neck, and did my best to trot like the horse, bending
+in my hoofs as well as was possible at every step, hoping that all
+would admire me.
+
+"Some children gathering flowers near by burst into shouts of
+laughter, crying out, 'Look! Look!' 'Mary!' 'Tom!' 'What ails the
+cow?' 'She acts like a horse!' 'She is putting on airs!' 'Clumsy
+thing!' 'Her tail is like a pump-handle!' 'O, I guess she's a mad
+cow!' Then they ran, and I sank down under a tree with tears in my
+eyes.
+
+"But one little girl stayed behind the rest, and, seeing that I was
+quiet, she came softly up, step by step, holding out a bunch of grass
+and clover. I kept still as a mouse. She stroked me with her soft
+hand, and said,--
+
+"'O good Moolly Cow, I love you dearly; for my mother has told me very
+nice things about you. Of course, you are not handsome. O no, O no!
+But then you are good-natured, and so we all love you. Every day you
+give us sweet milk, and never keep any for yourself. The boys strike
+you sometimes, and throw stones, and set the dogs on you; but you give
+them your milk just the same. And you are never contrary like the
+horse, stopping when you ought to go, and going when you ought to
+stop. Nobody has to whisper in your ears, to make you gentle, as they
+do to horses; you are gentle of your own accord, dear Moolly Cow. If
+you do walk up to children sometimes, you won't hook; it's only
+playing, and I will stroke you and love you dearly. And if you'd like
+to know, I'll tell you that there's a wonderful lady who puts you into
+her lovely pictures, away over the water.'
+
+"Her words gave me great comfort, and may she never lack for milk to
+crumb her bread in! But O, take away your wisp of hay, little girl;
+for you bring to mind the summer days which are gone, and my pretty
+bossy, that was stolen away, and also--my own folly."
+
+                                                 _Abby Morton Diaz._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE BABY OF THE REGIMENT.
+
+
+We were in our winter camp on Port Royal Island. It was a lovely
+November morning, soft and spring-like; the mocking-birds were
+singing, and the cotton-fields still white with fleecy pods. Morning
+drill was over, the men were cleaning their guns and singing very
+happily; the officers were in their tents, reading still more happily
+their letters just arrived from home. Suddenly I heard a knock at my
+tent-door, and the latch clicked. It was the only latch in camp, and I
+was very proud of it, and the officers always clicked it as loudly as
+possible, in order to gratify my feelings. The door opened, and the
+Quartermaster thrust in the most beaming face I ever saw.
+
+"Colonel," said he, "there are great news for the regiment. My wife
+and baby are coming by the next steamer!"
+
+"Baby!" said I, in amazement. "Q. M., you are beside yourself." (We
+always called the Quartermaster Q. M. for shortness.) "There was a
+pass sent to your wife, but nothing was ever said about a baby. Baby
+indeed!"
+
+"But the baby was included in the pass," replied the triumphant
+father-of-a-family. "You don't suppose my wife would come down here
+without her baby! Besides, the pass itself permits her to bring
+necessary baggage; and is not a baby six months old necessary
+baggage?"
+
+"But, my dear fellow," said I, rather anxiously, "how can you make the
+little thing comfortable in a tent, amidst these rigors of a South
+Carolina winter, when it is uncomfortably hot for drill at noon, and
+ice forms by your bedside at night?"
+
+"Trust me for that," said the delighted papa, and went off whistling.
+I could hear him telling the same news to three others, at least,
+before he got to his own tent.
+
+That day the preparations began, and soon his abode was a wonder of
+comfort. There were posts and rafters, and a raised floor, and a great
+chimney, and a door with hinges,--every luxury except a latch, and
+that he could not have, for mine was the last that could be purchased.
+One of the regimental carpenters was employed to make a cradle, and
+another to make a bedstead high enough for the cradle to go under.
+Then there must be a bit of red carpet beside the bedstead; and thus
+the progress of splendor went on. The wife of one of the colored
+sergeants was engaged to act as nursery-maid. She was a very
+respectable young woman, the only objection to her being that she
+smoked a pipe. But we thought that perhaps Baby might not dislike
+tobacco; and if she did, she would have excellent opportunities to
+break the pipe in pieces.
+
+In due time the steamer arrived, and Baby and her mother were among
+the passengers. The little recruit was soon settled in her new cradle,
+and slept in it as if she had never known any other. The sergeant's
+wife soon had her on exhibition through the neighborhood, and from
+that time forward she was quite a queen among us. She had sweet blue
+eyes and pretty brown hair, with round, dimpled cheeks, and that
+perfect dignity which is so beautiful in a baby. She hardly ever
+cried, and was not at all timid. She would go to anybody, and yet did
+not encourage any romping from any but the most intimate friends. She
+always wore a warm, long-sleeved scarlet cloak with a hood, and in
+this costume was carried, or "toted," as the soldiers said, all about
+the camp. At "guard-mounting" in the morning, when the men who are to
+go on guard duty for the day are drawn up to be inspected, Baby was
+always there, to help to inspect them. She did not say much, but she
+eyed them very closely, and seemed fully to appreciate their bright
+buttons. Then the Officer-of-the-Day, who appears at guard-mounting
+with his sword and sash, and comes afterwards to the Colonel's tent
+for orders, would come and speak to Baby on his way, and receive her
+orders first. When the time came for drill she was usually present to
+watch the troops; and when the drum beat for dinner she liked to see
+the long row of men in each company march up to the cook-house, in
+single file, each with tin cup and plate.
+
+During the day, in pleasant weather, she might be seen in her nurse's
+arms, about the company streets, the centre of an admiring circle, her
+scarlet costume looking very pretty amidst the shining black cheeks
+and neat blue uniforms of the soldiers. At "dress-parade," just before
+sunset, she was always an attendant. As I stood before the regiment, I
+could see the little spot of red, out of the corner of my eye, at one
+end of the long line of men, and I looked with so much interest for
+her small person, that, instead of saying at the proper time,
+"Attention, Battalion! Shoulder arms!" it is a wonder that I did not
+say, "Shoulder babies!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Our little lady was very impartial, and distributed her kind looks to
+everybody. She had not the slightest prejudice against color, and did
+not care in the least whether her particular friends were black or
+white. Her especial favorites, I think, were the drummer-boys, who
+were not my favorites by any means, for they were a roguish set of
+scamps, and gave more trouble than all the grown men in the regiment.
+I think Annie liked them because they were small, and made a noise,
+and had red caps like her hood, and red facings on their jackets, and
+also because they occasionally stood on their heads for her amusement.
+After dress-parade the whole drum-corps would march to the great
+flag-staff, and wait till just sunset-time, when they would beat "the
+retreat," and then the flag would be hauled down,--a great festival
+for Annie. Sometimes the Sergeant-Major would wrap her in the great
+folds of the flag, after it was taken down, and she would peep out
+very prettily from amidst the stars and stripes, like a new-born
+Goddess of Liberty.
+
+About once a month, some inspecting officer was sent to the camp by
+the General in command, to see to the condition of everything in the
+regiment, from bayonets to buttons. It was usually a long and tiresome
+process, and, when everything else was done, I used to tell the
+officer that I had one thing more for him to inspect, which was
+peculiar to our regiment. Then I would send for Baby to be exhibited;
+and I never saw an inspecting officer, old or young, who did not look
+pleased at the sudden appearance of the little, fresh, smiling
+creature,--a flower in the midst of war. And Annie in her turn would
+look at them, with the true baby dignity in her face,--that deep,
+earnest look which babies often have, and which people think so
+wonderful when Raphael paints it, although they might often see just
+the same expression in the faces of their own darlings at home.
+
+Meanwhile Annie seemed to like the camp style of housekeeping very
+much. Her father's tent was double, and he used the front apartment
+for his office, and the inner room for parlor and bedroom, while the
+nurse had a separate tent and wash-room behind all. I remember that,
+the first time I went there in the evening, it was to borrow some
+writing-paper; and while Baby's mother was hunting for it in the front
+tent, I heard a great cooing and murmuring in the inner room. I asked
+if Annie was still awake, and her mother told me to go in and see.
+Pushing aside the canvas door, I entered. No sign of anybody was to be
+seen; but a variety of soft little happy noises seemed to come from
+some unseen corner. Mrs. C. came quietly in, pulled away the
+counterpane of her own bed, and drew out the rough cradle, where lay
+the little damsel, perfectly happy, and wider awake than anything but
+a baby possibly can be. She looked as if the seclusion of a dozen
+family bedsteads would not be enough to discourage her spirits, and I
+saw that camp life was likely to suit her very well.
+
+A tent can be kept very warm, for it is merely a house with a thinner
+wall than usual; and I do not think that Baby felt the cold much more
+than if she had been at home that winter. The great trouble is, that a
+tent-chimney, not being built very high, is apt to smoke when the wind
+is in a certain direction; and when that happens it is hardly possible
+to stay inside. So we used to build the chimneys of some tents on the
+east side, and those of others on the west, and thus some of the tents
+were always comfortable. I have seen Baby's mother running, in a hard
+rain, with little Red-Riding-Hood in her arms, to take refuge with the
+Adjutant's wife, when every other abode was full of smoke; and I must
+admit that there were one or two windy days that season when nobody
+could really keep warm, and Annie had to remain ignominiously in her
+cradle, with as many clothes on as possible, for almost the whole
+time.
+
+The Quartermaster's tent was very attractive to us in the evening. I
+remember that once, on passing near it after nightfall, I heard our
+Major's fine voice singing Methodist hymns within, and Mrs. C.'s sweet
+tones chiming in. So I peeped through the outer door. The fire was
+burning very pleasantly in the inner tent, and the scrap of new red
+carpet made the floor look quite magnificent. The Major sat on a box,
+our surgeon on a stool; "Q. M." and his wife, and the Adjutant's wife,
+and one of the captains, were all sitting on the bed, singing as well
+as they knew how; and the baby was under the bed. Baby had retired for
+the night,--was overshadowed, suppressed, sat upon; the singing went
+on, and she had wandered away into her own land of dreams, nearer to
+heaven, perhaps, than any pitch their voices could attain. I went in
+and joined the party. Presently the music stopped, and another officer
+was sent for, to sing some particular song. At this pause the
+invisible innocent waked a little, and began to cluck and coo.
+
+"It's the kitten," exclaimed somebody.
+
+"It's my baby!" exclaimed Mrs. C. triumphantly, in that tone of
+unfailing personal pride which belongs to young mothers.
+
+The people all got up from the bed for a moment, while Annie was
+pulled from beneath, wide awake, and placid as usual; and she sat in
+one lap or another during the rest of the concert, sometimes winking
+at the candle, but usually listening to the songs, with a calm and
+critical expression, as if she could make as much noise as any of
+them, whenever she saw fit to try. Not a sound did she make, however,
+except one little soft sneeze, which led to an immediate flood-tide of
+red shawl, covering every part of her but the forehead. But I soon
+hinted that the concert had better be ended, because I knew from
+observation that the small damsel had carefully watched a regimental
+inspection and a brigade drill on that day, and that an interval of
+repose was certainly necessary.
+
+Annie did not long remain the only baby in camp. One day, on going out
+to the stables to look at a horse, I heard a sound of baby-talk,
+addressed by some man to a child near by, and, looking round the
+corner of a tent, I saw that one of the hostlers had something black
+and round, lying on the sloping side of a tent, with which he was
+playing very eagerly. It proved to be his baby,--a plump, shiny thing,
+younger than Annie; and I never saw a merrier picture than the happy
+father frolicking with his child, while the mother stood quietly by.
+This was Baby Number Two, and she stayed in camp several weeks, the
+two innocents meeting each other every day in the placid indifference
+that belonged to their years; both were happy little healthy things,
+and it never seemed to cross their minds that there was any difference
+in their complexions. As I said before, Annie was not troubled by any
+prejudice in regard to color, nor do I suppose that the other little
+maiden was.
+
+Annie enjoyed the tent-life very much; but when we were sent out on
+picket soon after, she enjoyed it still more. Our head-quarters were
+at a deserted plantation house, with one large parlor, a dining-room
+and a few bedrooms. Baby's father and mother had a room up stairs,
+with a stove whose pipe went straight out at the window. This was
+quite comfortable, though half the windows were broken, and there was
+no glass and no glazier to mend them. The windows of the large parlor
+were in much the same condition, though we had an immense fireplace,
+where we had a bright fire whenever it was cold, and always in the
+evening. The walls of this room were very dirty, and it took our
+ladies several days to cover all the unsightly places with wreaths and
+hangings of evergreen. In this performance Baby took an active part.
+Her duties consisted in sitting in a great nest of evergreen, pulling
+and fingering the fragrant leaves, and occasionally giving a little
+cry of glee when she had accomplished some piece of decided mischief.
+
+There was less entertainment to be found in the camp itself at this
+time; but the household at head-quarters was larger than Baby had been
+accustomed to. We had a great deal of company, moreover, and she had
+quite a gay life of it. She usually made her appearance in the large
+parlor soon after breakfast; and to dance her for a few moments in our
+arms was one of the first daily duties of each one. Then the morning
+reports began to arrive from the different outposts,--a mounted
+officer or courier coming in from each place, dismounting at the door,
+and clattering in with jingling arms and spurs, each a new excitement
+for Annie. She usually got some attention from any officer who came,
+receiving with her wonted dignity any daring caress. When the
+messengers had ceased to be interesting, there were always the horses
+to look at, held or tethered under the trees beside the sunny piazza.
+After the various couriers had been received, other messengers would
+be despatched to the town, seven miles away, and Baby had all the
+excitement of their mounting and departure. Her father was often one
+of the riders, and would sometimes seize Annie for a good-by kiss,
+place her on the saddle before him, gallop her round the house once or
+twice, and then give her back to her nurse's arms again. She was
+perfectly fearless, and such boisterous attentions never frightened
+her, nor did they ever interfere with her sweet, infantine
+self-possession.
+
+After the riding-parties had gone, there was the piazza still for
+entertainment, with a sentinel pacing up and down before it; but Annie
+did not enjoy the sentinel, though his breastplate and buttons shone
+like gold, so much as the hammock which always hung swinging between
+the pillars. It was a pretty hammock, with great open meshes; and she
+delighted to lie in it, and have the netting closed above her, so that
+she could only be seen through the apertures. I can see her now, the
+fresh little rosy thing, in her blue and scarlet wrappings, with one
+round and dimpled arm thrust forth through the netting, and the other
+grasping an armful of blushing roses and fragrant magnolias. She
+looked like those pretty French bas-reliefs of Cupids imprisoned in
+baskets, and peeping through. That hammock was a very useful
+appendage; it was a couch for us, a cradle for Baby, a nest for the
+kittens; and we had, moreover, a little hen, which tried to roost
+there every night.
+
+When the mornings were colder, and the stove up stairs smoked the
+wrong way, Baby was brought down in a very incomplete state of toilet,
+and finished her dressing by the great fire. We found her bare
+shoulders very becoming, and she was very much interested in her own
+little pink toes. After a very slow dressing, she had a still slower
+breakfast out of a tin cup of warm milk, of which she generally spilt
+a good deal, as she had much to do in watching everybody who came into
+the room, and seeing that there was no mischief done. Then she would
+be placed on the floor, on our only piece of carpet, and the kittens
+would be brought in for her to play with.
+
+We had, at different times, a variety of pets, of whom Annie did not
+take much notice. Sometimes we had young partridges, caught by the
+drummer-boys in trap-cages. The children called them "Bob and Chloe,"
+because the first notes of the male and female sound like those names.
+One day I brought home an opossum, with her blind bare little young
+clinging to the droll pouch where their mothers keep them. Sometimes
+we had pretty green lizards, their color darkening or deepening, like
+that of chameleons, in light or shade. But the only pets that took
+Baby's fancy were the kittens. They perfectly delighted her, from the
+first moment she saw them; they were the only things younger than
+herself that she had ever beheld, and the only things softer than
+themselves that her small hands had grasped. It was astonishing to see
+how much the kittens would endure from her. They could scarcely be
+touched by any one else without mewing; but when Annie seized one by
+the head and the other by the tail, and rubbed them violently
+together, they did not make a sound. I suppose that a baby's grasp is
+really soft, even if it seems ferocious, and so it gives less pain
+than one would think. At any rate, the little animals had the best of
+it very soon; for they entirely outstripped Annie in learning to walk,
+and they could soon scramble away beyond her reach, while she sat in a
+sort of dumb despair, unable to comprehend why anything so much
+smaller than herself should be so much nimbler. Meanwhile, the kittens
+would sit up and look at her with the most provoking indifference,
+just out of arm's length, until some of us would take pity on the
+young lady, and toss her furry playthings back to her again. "Little
+baby," she learned to call them; and these were the very first words
+she spoke.
+
+Baby had evidently a natural turn for war, further cultivated by an
+intimate knowledge of drills and parades. The nearer she came to
+actual conflict the better she seemed to like it, peaceful as her own
+little ways might be. Twice, at least, while she was with us on
+picket, we had alarms from the Rebel troops, who would bring down
+cannon to the opposite side of the Ferry, about two miles beyond us,
+and throw shot and shell over upon our side. Then the officer at the
+Ferry would think that there was to be an attack made, and couriers
+would be sent, riding to and fro, and the men would all be called to
+arms in a hurry, and the ladies at head-quarters would all put on
+their best bonnets, and come down stairs, and the ambulance would be
+made ready to carry them to a place of safety before the expected
+fight. On such occasions Baby was in all her glory. She shouted with
+delight at being suddenly uncribbed and thrust into her little scarlet
+cloak, and brought down stairs, at an utterly unusual and improper
+hour, to a piazza with lights and people and horses and general
+excitement. She crowed and gurgled and made gestures with her little
+fists, and screamed out what seemed to be her advice on the military
+situation, as freely as if she had been a newspaper editor. Except
+that it was rather difficult to understand her precise directions, I
+do not know but the whole Rebel force might have been captured through
+her plans. And, at any rate, I should much rather obey her orders than
+those of some generals whom I have known; for she at least meant no
+harm, and would lead one into no mischief.
+
+However, at last the danger, such as it was, would be all over, and
+the ladies would be induced to go peacefully to bed again; and Annie
+would retreat with them to her ignoble cradle, very much disappointed,
+and looking vainly back at the more martial scene below. The next
+morning she would seem to have forgotten all about it, and would spill
+her bread and milk by the fire as if nothing had happened.
+
+I suppose we hardly knew, at the time, how large a part of the
+sunshine of our daily lives was contributed by dear little Annie. Yet,
+when I now look back on that pleasant Southern home, she seems as
+essential a part of it as the mocking-birds or the magnolias, and I
+cannot convince myself that, in returning to it, I should not find her
+there. But Annie went back, with the spring, to her Northern
+birthplace, and then passed away from this earth before her little
+feet had fairly learned to tread its paths; and when I meet her next
+it must be in some world where there is triumph without armies, and
+where innocence is trained in scenes of peace. I know, however, that
+her little life, short as it seemed, was a blessing to us all, giving
+a perpetual image of serenity and sweetness, recalling the lovely
+atmosphere of far-off homes, and holding us by unsuspected ties to
+whatsoever things were pure.
+
+                                                  _T. W. Higginson._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+PRUDY PARLIN.
+
+
+Prudy Parlin and her sister Susy, three years older, lived in
+Portland, in the State of Maine.
+
+Susy was more than six years old, and Prudy was between three and
+four. Susy could sew quite well for a girl of her age, and had a stint
+every day. Prudy always thought it very fine to do just as Susy did,
+so she teased her mother to let _her_ have some patchwork too, and
+Mrs. Parlin gave her a few calico pieces, just to keep her little
+fingers out of mischief.
+
+But when the squares were basted together, she broke needles, pricked
+her fingers, and made a great fuss; sometimes crying, and wishing
+there were no such thing as patchwork.
+
+One morning she sat in her rocking-chair, doing what she thought was a
+_stint_. She kept running to her mother with every stitch, saying,
+"Will that do?" Her mother was very busy, and said, "My little
+daughter must not come to me." So Prudy sat down near the door, and
+began to sew with all her might; but soon her little baby sister came
+along looking so cunning that Prudy dropped her needle and went to
+hugging her.
+
+"O little sister," cried she, "I wouldn't have a horse come and eat
+you up for anything in the world!"
+
+After this, of course, her mother had to get her another needle, and
+then thread it for her. She went to sewing again till she pricked her
+finger, and the sight of the wee drop of blood made her cry.
+
+"O dear! I wish somebody would pity me!" But her mother was so busy
+frying doughnuts that she could not stop to talk much; and the next
+thing she saw of Prudy she was at the farther end of the room, while
+her patchwork lay on the spice-box.
+
+"Prudy, Prudy, what are you up to now?"
+
+"Up to the table," said Prudy. "O mother, I'm so sorry, but I've broke
+a crack in the pitcher!"
+
+"What will mamma do with you? You haven't finished your stint: what
+made you get out of your chair?"
+
+"O, I thought grandma might want me to get her _speckles_. I thought I
+would go and find Zip too. See, mamma, he's so tickled to see me he
+shakes all over--every bit of him!"
+
+"Where's your patchwork?"
+
+"I don't know. You've got a double name, haven't you, doggie? It's Zip
+Coon; but it isn't a _very_ double name,--is it, mother?"
+
+When Mrs. Parlin had finished her doughnuts, she said, "Pussy, you
+can't keep still two minutes. Now, if you want to sew this patchwork
+for grandma's quilt, I'll tell you what I shall do. There's an empty
+hogshead in the back kitchen, and I'll lift you into that, and you
+can't climb out. I'll lift you out when your stint is done."
+
+"O, what a funny little house!" said Prudy, when she was inside; and
+as she spoke her voice startled her,--it was so loud and hollow. "I'll
+talk some more," thought she, "it makes such a queer noise. 'Old Mrs.
+Hogshead, I thought I'd come and see you, and bring my work. I like
+your house, ma'am, only I should think you'd want some windows. I
+s'pose you know who I am, Mrs. Hogshead? My name is Prudy. My mother
+didn't put me in here because I was a naughty girl, for I haven't done
+nothing--nor nothing--nor nothing. Do you want to hear some singing?
+
+   "'O, come, come away,
+     From labor now reposin';
+     Let _busy Caro, wife of Barrow_,
+     Come, come away!'"
+
+"Prudy, what's the matter?" said mamma, from the next room.
+
+"Didn't you hear somebody singing?" said Prudy; "well, 't was me."
+
+"O, I was afraid you were crying, my dear!"
+
+"Then I'll stop," said the child. "Now, Mrs. Hogshead, you won't hear
+me singing any more,--it _mortifies_ my mother very much."
+
+So Prudy made her fingers fly, and soon said, "Now, mamma, I've got it
+done, and I'm ready to be _took out_!"
+
+Just then her father came into the house. "Prudy's in the hogshead,"
+said Mrs. Parlin. "Won't you please lift her out, father? I've got
+baby in my arms."
+
+Mr. Parlin peeped into the hogshead. "How in this world did you ever
+get in here, child?" said he. "I think I'll have to take you out with
+a pair of tongs."
+
+Prudy laughed.
+
+"Give me your hands," said papa. "Up she comes! Now, come sit on my
+knee," added he, when they had gone into the parlor, "and tell me how
+you climbed into that hogshead."
+
+"Mother dropped me in, and I'm going to stay there till I make a
+bedquilt,--only I'm coming out to eat, you know."
+
+Mr. Parlin laughed; but just then the dinner-bell rang, and when they
+went to the table, Prudy was soon so busy with her roasted chicken and
+custard pie that she forgot all about the patchwork.
+
+Prudy soon tired of sewing, and her mother said, laughing, "If Grandma
+Read has to wait for somebody's little fingers before she gets a
+bedquilt, poor grandma will sleep very cold indeed."
+
+The calico pieces went into the rag-bag, and that was the last of
+Prudy's patchwork.
+
+One day the children wanted to go and play in the "new house," which
+was not quite done. Mrs. Parlin was almost afraid little Prudy might
+get hurt, for there were a great many loose boards and tools lying
+about, and the carpenters, who were at work on the house, had all gone
+away to see some soldiers. But at last she said they might go if Susy
+would be very careful of her little sister.
+
+Susy meant to watch Prudy with great care, but after a while she got
+to thinking of something else. The little one wanted to play "catch,"
+but Susy saw a great deal more sport in building block houses.
+
+"Now I know ever so much more than you do," said Susy. "I used to wash
+dishes and scour knives when I was four years old, and that was the
+time I learned you to walk, Prudy; so you ought to play with me, and
+be goody."
+
+"Then I will; but them blocks is too big, Susy. If I had _a axe_ I'd
+chop 'em: I'll go get _a axe_." Little Prudy trotted off, and Susy
+never looked up from her play, and did not notice that she was gone a
+long while.
+
+By and by Mrs. Parlin thought she would go and see what the children
+were doing; so she put on her bonnet and went over to the "new house."
+Susy was still busy with her blocks, but she looked up at the sound of
+her mother's footsteps.
+
+"Where is Prudy?" said Mrs. Parlin, glancing around.
+
+"I'm 'most up to heaven," cried a little voice overhead.
+
+They looked, and what did they see? Prudy herself standing on the
+highest beam of the house! She had climbed three ladders to get there.
+Her mother had heard her say the day before that "she didn't want to
+shut up her eyes and die, and be all deaded up,--she meant to have her
+hands and face clean, and go up to heaven on a ladder."
+
+"O," thought the poor mother, "she is surely on the way to heaven, for
+she can never get down alive. My darling, my darling!"
+
+Poor Susy's first thought was to call out to Prudy, but her mother gave
+her one warning glance, and that was enough: Susy neither spoke nor
+stirred.
+
+Mrs. Parlin stood looking up at her,--stood as white and still as if she
+had been frozen! Her trembling lips moved a little, but it was in
+prayer; she knew that only God could save the precious one.
+
+While she was begging him to tell her what to do, a sudden thought
+flashed across her mind. She dared not speak, lest the sound of her
+voice should startle the child; but she had a bunch of keys in her
+pocket, and she jingled the keys, holding them up as high as possible,
+that Prudy might see what they were.
+
+When the little one heard the jingling, she looked down and smiled. "You
+goin' to let me have some cake and 'serves in the china-closet,--me and
+Susy?"
+
+Mrs. Parlin smiled,--such a smile! It was a great deal sadder than
+tears, though Prudy did not know that,--she only knew that it meant
+"yes."
+
+"O, then I'm coming right down, 'cause I like cake and 'serves. I
+won't go up to heaven till _bime-by_!"
+
+Then she walked along the beam, and turned about to come down the
+ladders. Mrs. Parlin held her breath, and shut her eyes. She dared not
+look up, for she knew that if Prudy should take one false step, she
+must fall and be dashed in pieces!
+
+But Prudy was not wise enough to fear anything. O no. She was only
+thinking very eagerly about crimson jellies and fruit-cake. She crept
+down the ladders without a thought of danger,--no more afraid than a
+fly that creeps down the window-pane.
+
+The air was so still that the sound of every step was plainly heard,
+as her little feet went pat,--pat,--on the ladder rounds. God was
+taking care of her,--yes, at length the last round was reached,--she
+had got down,--she was safe!
+
+"Thank God!" cried Mrs. Parlin, as she held little Prudy close to her
+heart; while Susy jumped for joy, exclaiming, "We've got her! we've
+got her! O, ain't you so happy, mamma?"
+
+"O mamma, what you crying for?" said little Prudy, clinging about her
+neck. "Ain't I your little comfort?--there, now, you know what you
+_speaked_ about! You said you'd get some cake and verserves for me and
+Susy."
+
+                                                     "_Sophie May._"
+
+
+
+
+MRS. WALKER'S BETSEY.
+
+
+It is now ten years since I spent a summer in the little village of
+Cliff Spring, as teacher in one of the public schools.
+
+The village itself had no pretensions to beauty, natural or
+architectural; but all its surroundings were romantic and lovely. On
+one side was a winding river, bordered with beautiful willows; and on
+the other a lofty hill, thickly wooded. These woods, in spring and
+summer, were full of flowers and wild vines; and a clear, cold stream,
+that had its birth in a cavernous recess among the ledges, dashed over
+the rocks, and after many windings and plungings found its way to the
+river.
+
+At the foot of the hill wound the railroad track, at some points
+nearly filling the space between the brook and the rocks, in others
+almost overhung by the latter. Some of the most delightful walks I
+ever knew were in this vicinity, and here the whole school would often
+come in the warm weather, for the Saturday's ramble.
+
+It was on one of these summer rambles I first made the acquaintance of
+Mrs. Walker's Betsey. Not that her unenviable reputation had been
+concealed from my knowledge, by any means; but as she was not a member
+of my department, and was a very irregular attendant of any class, she
+had never yet come under my observation. I gathered that her parents
+had but lately come to live in Cliff Spring; that they were both
+ignorant and vicious; and that the girl was a sort of goblin
+sprite,--such a compound of mischief and malice as was never known
+before since the days of witchcraft. Was there an ugly profile drawn
+upon the anteroom wall, a green pumpkin found in the principal's hat,
+or an ink-bottle upset in the water-bucket? Mrs. Walker's Betsey was
+the first and constant object of suspicion. Did a teacher find a pair
+of tongs astride her chair, her shawl extra-bordered with burdocks,
+her gloves filled with some ill-scented weed, or her india-rubbers
+cunningly nailed to the floor? half a hundred juvenile tongues were
+ready to proclaim poor Betsey as the undoubted delinquent; and this in
+spite of the fact that very few of these misdemeanors were actually
+proved against her. But whether proved or not, she accepted their
+sponsorship all the same, and laughed at or defied her accusers, as
+her mood might be.
+
+That the girl was a character in her way, shrewd and sensible, though
+wholly uncultured, I was well satisfied, from all I heard; that she
+was sly, intractable, and revengeful I believed, I am sorry to say,
+upon very insufficient evidence.
+
+One warm afternoon in July, the sun, which at morning had been
+clouded, blazed out fiercely at the hour of dismissal. Shrinking from
+the prospect of an unsheltered walk, I looked around the shelves of
+the anteroom for my sunshade, but it was nowhere to be found. I did
+not recollect having it with me in the morning, and believed it had
+been left at the school-house over night. The girls of my class
+constituted themselves a committee of search and inquiry, but to no
+purpose. The article was not in the house or yard, and then my
+committee resolved themselves into a jury, and, without a dissenting
+voice, pronounced Mrs. Walker's Betsey guilty of cribbing my little,
+old-fashioned, but vastly useful sunshade. She had been seen loitering
+in the anteroom, and afterward running away in great haste. The charge
+seemed reasonable enough, but as I could not learn that Betsey had
+ever been caught in a theft, or convicted of one, I requested the
+girls to keep the matter quiet, for a few days at least: to which they
+unwillingly consented.
+
+"Remember, Miss Burke," said Alice Way, as we parted at her father's
+gate, "you promised us a nice walk after tea, to the place in the wood
+where you found the beautiful phlox yesterday. We want you to guide us
+straight to the spot, please."
+
+"Yes," added Mary Graham, "and we will take our Botanies in our
+baskets, and be prepared to analyze the flowers, you know."
+
+My assent was not reluctantly given; and when the sun was low in the
+west we set forth, walking nearly the whole distance in the shade of
+the hill. We climbed the ridge, rested a few moments, and then started
+in search of the beautiful patch of Lichnidia--white, pink, and
+purple--that I had found the afternoon previous in taking a "short
+cut" over the hill to the house of a friend I was wont to visit.
+
+"Stop, Miss Burke!" came in suppressed tones from half my little
+group, as, emerging from a thicket, we came in sight of a queer object
+perched upon a little mound, among dead stick and leaves. It was a
+diminutive child, who, judging from her face alone, might be ten or
+eleven years of age. A little brown, weird face it was, with keen eyes
+peering out from a stringy mass of hair, that straggled about
+distractedly from the confinement of an old comb.
+
+"_There_," whispered Matty Holmes, "there's Mrs. Walker's Betsey, I do
+declare! She often goes home from school this way, which is shorter;
+and now she is playing truant. She'll get a whipping if her mother
+finds it out."
+
+"Miss Burke, Miss Burke!" cried Alice, "see what she has in her hand!"
+I looked, and there, to be sure, was my lost parasol.
+
+"There, now! Didn't we say so!" "Don't she look guilty?" "Weren't we
+right?" "Impudent thing!" were the whispered ejaculations of my
+vigilance committee; but in truth the girl's appearance was
+unconcerned and innocent enough. She sat there, swaying herself about,
+opening and shutting the wonderful "instrument," holding it between
+her eyes and the light to ascertain the quality of the silk, and
+sticking a pin in the handle to try if it were real ivory or mere
+painted wood.
+
+"Let's dash in upon her and see her scamper," was the next benevolent
+suggestion whispered in my ear.
+
+"No," I said. "I wish to speak to her alone, first. All of you stay
+here, out of sight, and I will return presently." They fell back,
+dissatisfied, and contented themselves with peeping and listening,
+while I advanced toward the forlorn child. She started a little as I
+approached, thrust the parasol behind her, and then pleasantly made
+room for me on the little hillock where she sat.
+
+"Well, this _is_ a nice place for a lounge," said I, dropping down
+beside her; "just large enough for two, and softer than any
+_tete-a-tete_ in Mrs. Graham's parlor. Now I should like to know your
+name?"--for I thought it best to feign ignorance of her antecedents.
+
+"Bets," was the ready reply.
+
+"Betsey what?"
+
+"Bets Walker, mother says, but I say Hamlin. That was father's name.
+'T ain't no difference, though; it's Bets any way."
+
+"Well, Betsey, what do you suppose made this little mound we are
+sitting upon?" I asked, merely to gain time to think how best to
+approach the other topic.
+
+"I don' know," she answered, looking up at me keenly. "Maybe a rock
+got covered up and growed over, ever so far down. Maybe an Injun's
+buried there."
+
+I told her I had seen larger mounds that contained Indian remains, but
+none so small as this.
+
+"It might 'a' ben a baby, though," she returned, digging her brown
+toes among the leaves and winking her eyelids roguishly. "A papoose,
+you know; a real little Injun! I wish it had 'a' ben me, and I'd 'a'
+ben buried here; I'd 'a' liked it first-rate! Only I wouldn't 'a'
+wanted the girls should come and set over me. If I didn't want so bad
+to get to read the books father left, I'd never go to school another
+day." And her brow darkened again with evil passions.
+
+"Did your own father leave you books?"
+
+"Yes, real good ones; only they're old, and tore some. Mother couldn't
+sell 'em for nothin', so she lets me keep 'em. She sold everything
+else." Then suddenly changing her tone, she asked, slyly, "You hain't
+lost anything,--have you?"
+
+"Yes," I answered; "I see you have my sunshade."
+
+She held it up, laughing with boisterous triumph. "You left it hanging
+in that tree yonder," she said, pointing to a low-branching beech at a
+little distance. "It was kind o' careless, I think. S'posing it had
+rained!"
+
+Astonishment kept me silent. How could I have forgotten, what I now so
+clearly recalled, my hanging the shade upon a tree, the previous
+afternoon, while I descended a ravine for flowers? I felt humiliated
+in the presence of the poor little wronged and neglected child.
+
+For many days after this the girl did not come to school, nor did I
+once see her, though I thought of her daily with increasing interest.
+
+During this time the principal of the school planned an excursion by
+railroad to a station ten miles distant, to be succeeded by a picnic
+on the lake shore. Great was the delight of the little ones, grown
+weary of their unvaried routine through the exhausting heats of July.
+Many were the councils called among the boys, many the enthusiastic
+discussions held among the girls, and seldom did they break up without
+leaving one or more subjects of controversy unsettled. But upon one
+point perfect harmony of opinion prevailed, and it was the only one
+against which I felt bound strongly to protest: this was the decision
+that Mrs. Walker's Betsey was quite unnecessary to the party, and
+consequently was to receive no notice.
+
+"Why, Miss Burke! that _looking_ girl!" cried Amy Pease, as I
+remonstrated. "She hasn't a thing fit to wear,--if there were no other
+reason!" I reminded her that Betsey had a very decent basque, given
+her by the minister's wife, and that an old lawn skirt of mine could
+be tucked for her with very little trouble. "But she is such an
+awkward, uncouth creature! She would mortify us to death!" interposed
+Hattie Dale.
+
+"She could carry no biscuits, nor cake, for she has no one to bake
+them for her," said another. "She would eat enormously, and make
+herself sick," objected little Nellie Day, a noted glutton.
+
+In vain I combated these arguments, offering to take crackers and
+lemons enough for her share, and even urging the humanity of allowing
+her to make herself sick upon good things for once in her
+poverty-stricken life. Some other teachers joined me; but when the
+question was put to vote among the scholars, it received a hurried
+negative, as unanimous as it was noisy.
+
+"And now I think of it," added Mattie Price, the principal's daughter,
+"the Walkers are out of the corporation, and so Betsey has no real
+right among us at all." This ended the matter.
+
+All the night previous to the great excursion, I suffered severely
+from headache, which grew no better upon rising, and, as usual,
+increased in violence as the sun mounted higher upon its cloudless
+course. At half past nine, as the long train with its freight of
+smiling and expectant little ones moved from the depot, I was lying in
+a darkened room, with ice-bandages about my forehead, and my feverish
+pillow saturated with camphor and hartshorn.
+
+The disappointment in itself was not much. I needed rest, and the
+utter stillness was very grateful to my overtasked nerves. Besides,
+the slight put upon poor Betsey had destroyed much of the pleasure of
+anticipation. I lay patiently until two o'clock, when, as I expected,
+the pain abated. At five, I was entirely free, and feeling much in
+need of a walk in the fresh air, which a slight shower had cooled and
+purified.
+
+Choosing the shaded route, I walked out upon the hill, ascending by a
+gentle slope, and, book in hand, sat down under a tree, alternately
+reading and gazing upon the sweet rural picture that lay before me.
+Soon a pleasant languor crept over me. Dense wood and craggy hill,
+green valley and gushing brook, faded from sight and hearing, and I
+was asleep!
+
+Probably half an hour elapsed before I opened my eyes and saw sitting
+beside me the same elfish little figure I had once before encountered
+in the wood. The same stringy hair, the same sunburned forehead and
+neck, the same tattered dress, the same wild, weird-looking eyes. In
+one hand she held my parasol, opened in a position to shade my face
+from a slanting sunbeam; with a small bush in the other she was
+protecting me from mosquitoes and other insect dangers.
+
+"Well done, little Genius of the Wood; am I to be always indebted to
+you for finding what I lose!" I said, jumping up and shaking my dress
+free from leaves.
+
+She laughed immoderately. "First you lose your shade in the woods,
+and now you've gone and lost yourself! I guess you'll have to keep me
+always," she giggled, trotting along beside me. "I was mighty scared
+when I see you lying there, and the sun creeping round through the
+trees, like a great red lion, going to spring at you and eat you up. I
+thought you'd gone to the ride."
+
+I explained the cause of my detention, and saw that she looked rather
+pleased; for, as I soon drew from her, she had been bitterly
+disappointed in the affair, and felt her rejection very keenly. She
+had come to this spot now for the sole purpose of peeping from behind
+some rock or tree at the return of the merry company, which would be
+at six o'clock.
+
+"I coaxed old Walker and his wife to let me have some green corn and
+cucumbers, and I put on my best spencer and went to the depot this
+morning, but none of 'em asked me to get in. Hal Price kicked my
+basket over, too! I s'pose I wasn't dressed fine enough. They all wore
+their Sunday things. I wish 't would rain and spile 'em. I do--_so_!"
+
+I tried to console her, but she refused to listen, and went on with a
+fierce tirade, enumerating sundry disastrous events which she "wished
+would happen: she did _so_!" and giving vent to many very unchristian
+but very childlike denunciations.
+
+All on a sudden she stopped, and we simultaneously raised our heads
+and listened. It was a deep, grinding, crashing sound, as of rocks
+sliding over and past each other; then a crackling, as of roots and
+branches twisted and wrenched from their places; then a jar, heavy and
+terrible, that reverberated through the forest, making the earth quake
+beneath our feet, and all the leafy branches tremble above us. We knew
+it instantly; there had been a heavy fall of rock not far from us; and
+with one exclamation, we started in the direction of the sound.
+
+The place was reached in a moment; an enormous mass of rock and earth,
+in which many small trees were growing, had fallen directly upon the
+railroad track, and that too at a point where the stream wound
+nearest, and its bank made a steep descent upon the other side.
+
+Dreadful as the spectacle was to me through apprehension for the
+coming train, I could only notice at that moment the wonderful change
+in Mrs. Walker's Betsey. She leaped about among the rocks, shrieking
+and wringing her hands; she grasped the uprooted trees, tugging wildly
+at them till the veins swelled purple in her forehead, and her flying
+hair looked as if every separate fibre writhed with horror. I had
+imagined before what the aspect of that strange little face might be
+in terror; now I saw it, and knew what a powerful nature lay hidden in
+that cramped, undeveloped form.
+
+This lasted but a moment, however. Then came to both the soberer
+thought, What is to be done? It appeared that we were sole witnesses
+of the accident; and though the crash might have been heard at the
+village, who would think of a land slide? and upon the railroad!
+
+Ten minutes must have elapsed before we could give the alarm, and in
+less time than that the cars were due. In that speechless breathless
+moment, before my duller ear perceived it, Betsey caught the sound of
+the approaching train, deadened as it was by the hill that lay between
+us. It was advancing at great speed; rushing on,--all that freight of
+joyous human life,--rushing on to certain destruction, into the very
+jaws of Death!
+
+I was utterly paralyzed! Not so Mrs. Walker's Betsey.
+
+"I'm agoin' to run and _yell_," she said, and was off upon the
+instant. Screaming at the top of her voice, keeping near the edge of
+the bank, where she could be soonest seen from the approaching train,
+plunging through the underbrush, leaping over rocks, she dashed on to
+meet the cars. "Fire! Fire! Murder! Stop thieves! Hollo the house!
+Thieves! Mad dogs! Get out of the way, Old Dan Tucker!" were only a
+few of the variations of her warning voice.
+
+I followed as I could, seemingly in a sort of nightmare; wondering why
+I did not scream, yet incapable of making a sound; expecting every
+moment to fall upon the rocks, yet taking my steps with a sureness and
+rapidity that astonished me even then.
+
+Betsey's next move was to run back to me and tear my shawl from my
+shoulders,--a light crape of a bright crimson color. Then bending down
+a small sapling by throwing her whole weight upon it, she spread the
+shawl upon its top and allowed it to rebound. She called me to shake
+the tree, which I did vigorously. It stood at an angle of the road,
+upon a bank which commanded a long view, and was a most appropriate
+place to erect a signal. Then leaping upon the track, she bounded on
+like a deer, shouting and gesticulating with redoubled energy now that
+the train appeared in sight.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was soon evident that the engineer was neither blind nor deaf, for
+the brakes were speedily applied, and the engine was reversed. Still
+it dashed on at fearful velocity, and Betsey turned and ran back
+toward the obstructed place in an agony of excitement. Gradually the
+speed lessened, the wheels obeyed their checks, and when at last they
+came to a full stop the cow-catcher was within four feet of the rock.
+
+Many, seeing the danger, had already leaped off; many more, terrified,
+and scarcely conscious of the real nature of the danger, crowded the
+platforms, and pushed off those before them. It was a scene of wildest
+confusion, in the midst of which my heart sent up only the quivering
+cry of joy, "Saved, saved!" Betsey had climbed half-way up the bank,
+and thrown herself exhausted upon the loose gravel, with her apron
+drawn over her head. I picked my way down to the train to assist the
+frightened children. Mr. Price, the principal, was handing out his own
+three children, and teachers and pupils followed in swarms.
+
+"Now, Miss Burke," said the principal, in a voice that grew strangely
+tremulous as he looked at the frightful mass before him, "I want to
+hear who it was that gave the alarm, and saved us from this hideous
+fate. Was it you?" I believe I never felt a glow of truer pleasure
+than then, as I answered quickly: "I had nothing to do with saving
+you, Mr. Price. I take no credit in the matter. The person to whom
+your thanks are due sits on the bank yonder,--Mrs. Walker's Betsey!"
+
+Every eye wandered toward the crouching figure, who, with head closely
+covered, appeared indifferent to everything. Mr. Price opened his
+portemonnaie. "Here are ten dollars," he said, "which I wish you to
+give the girl for myself and children. Tell her that, as a school, she
+will hear from us again."
+
+I went to Betsey's side, put the money in her hand, and tried to make
+her uncover her face. But she resolutely refused to do more than peep
+through one of the rents in her apron, as the whole school slowly and
+singly defiled past her in the narrow space between the train and the
+bank. A more crestfallen multitude I never saw, and the eyes that
+ventured to look upon the prostrate figure as they passed within a few
+feet of her had shame and contrition in their glances. Once only she
+whispered, as a haughty-looking boy went past, "That's the boy that
+kicked over my basket. I wish I'd 'a' let him gone to smash! I
+do--_so_!"
+
+The children climbed over the rocks and went to their homes sadder and
+wiser for their lesson, and in twenty-four hours the track was again
+free from all obstruction.
+
+The principal, though a man but little inclined to look for the angel
+side of such unprepossessing humanity as Mrs. Walker's Betsey, had too
+strong a sense of justice, and too much gratitude for his children's
+spared lives, not to make a very affecting appeal to the assembled
+school on the day following. A vote to consider her a member of the
+school, and entitled to all its privileges, met with no opposition;
+and a card of thanks, drawn up in feeling terms, received the
+signature of every pupil and teacher. A purse was next made up for her
+by voluntary contributions, amounting to twenty dollars; and to this
+were added a new suit, a quantity of books, and a handsome red shawl,
+in which her brunette skin and nicely combed jetty hair appeared to
+great advantage.
+
+Betsey bore her honors meekly, and, no longer feeling that she was
+regarded as an intruder, came regularly to school, learned rapidly,
+and in her neat dress and improved manners gradually became an
+attractive, as she certainly was a most intelligent child.
+
+In less than a year her mother died, and her drunken step-father
+removed to the far West, leaving her as a domestic in a worthy and
+wealthy family in Cliff Spring.
+
+The privileges of school were still granted her, and amid the
+surroundings of comfort and refinement the change from Mrs. Walker's
+Betsey to Lizzie Hamlin became still more apparent. She rapidly rose
+from one class to another, and is now employed in the very school, and
+teaches the youngest brothers and sisters of the very scholars who,
+ten years ago, voted her a "nuisance" and a plague.
+
+There is truth in the old rhyme,--
+
+    "It isn't all in bringing up,
+     Let men say what they will;
+     Neglect may dim a silver cup,--
+     It will be silver still!"
+
+                                                _Helen B. Bostwick._
+
+
+
+
+THE RAINBOW-PILGRIMAGE.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+One summer afternoon, when I was about eight years of age, I was
+standing at an eastern window, looking at a beautiful rainbow that,
+bending from the sky, seemed to be losing itself in a thick, swampy
+wood about a quarter of a mile distant. We had just had a
+thunder-storm; but now the dark heavens had cleared up, a fresh breeze
+was blowing from the south, the rose-bushes by the window were dashing
+rain-drops against the panes, the robins were singing merrily from the
+cherry-trees, and all was brighter and pleasanter than ever. It
+happened that no one was in the room with me, then, but my brother
+Rufus, who was just recovering from a severe illness, and was sitting,
+propped up with pillows, in an easy-chair, looking out, with me, at
+the rainbow.
+
+"See, brother," I said, "it drops right down among the cedars, where
+we go in the spring to find wintergreens!"
+
+"Do you know, Gracie," said my brother, with a very serious face,
+"that, if you should go to the end of the rainbow, you would find
+there purses filled with money, and great pots of gold and silver?"
+
+"Is it truly so?" I asked.
+
+"Truly so," answered my brother, with a smile. Now, I was a
+simple-hearted child who believed everything that was told me,
+although I was again and again imposed upon; so, without another word,
+I darted out of the door and set forth toward the wood. My brother
+called after me as loudly as he was able, but I did not heed him. I
+cared nothing for the wet grass, which was sadly drabbling my clean
+frock; on and on I ran; I was so sure that I knew just where that
+rainbow ended. I remember how glad and proud I was in my thoughts, and
+what fine presents I promised to all my friends out of my great
+riches.
+
+So thinking, and laying delightful plans, almost before I knew it I
+had reached the cedar-grove, and the end of the rainbow was not there!
+But I saw it shining down among the trees a little farther off; so on
+and on I struggled, through the thick bushes and over logs, till I
+came within the sound of a stream which ran through the swamp. Then I
+thought, "What if the rainbow should come down right into the middle
+of that deep, muddy brook!" Ah! but I was frightened for my heavy pots
+of gold and silver, and my purses of money. How should I ever find
+them there? and what a time I should have getting them out! I reached
+the bank of the stream, and "the end was not yet." But I could see it
+a little way off on the other side. I crossed the creek on a fallen
+tree, and still ran on, though my limbs seemed to give way, and my
+side ached with fatigue. The woods grew thicker and darker, the ground
+more wet and swampy, and I found, as many grown people had found
+before me, that there was rather hard travelling in a journey after
+riches. Suddenly I met in my way a large porcupine, who made himself
+still larger when he saw me, as a cross cat raises its back and makes
+tails at a dog. Fearing that he would shoot his sharp quills at me,
+and hit me all over, I ran from him as fast as my tired feet would
+carry me.
+
+In my fright and hurry I forgot to keep my eye on the rainbow, as I
+had done before; and when, at last, I remembered and looked for it, it
+was nowhere in sight! It had quite faded away. When I saw that it was
+indeed gone, I burst into tears; for I had lost all my treasures, and
+had nothing to show for my pilgrimage but muddy feet and a wet and
+torn frock. So I set out for home.
+
+But I soon found that my troubles had only begun; I could not find my
+way; I was lost. I could not tell which was east or west, north or
+south, but wandered about here and there, crying and calling, though I
+knew that no one could hear me.
+
+All at once I heard voices shouting and hallooing; but, instead of
+being rejoiced at this, I was frightened, fearing that the Indians
+were upon me! I crawled under some bushes, by the side of a large log,
+and lay perfectly still. I was wet, cold, scared,--altogether very
+miserable indeed; yet, when the voices came near, I did not start up
+and show myself.
+
+At last I heard my own name called; but I remembered that Indians were
+very cunning, and thought they might have found it out some way; so I
+did not answer. Then came a voice near me, that sounded like that of
+my eldest brother, who lived away from home, and whom I had not seen
+for many months; but I dared not believe the voice was his. Soon some
+one sprang up on to the log by which I lay, and stood there calling. I
+could not see his face; I could only see the tips of his toes, but by
+them I saw that he wore a nice pair of boots, and not moccasins. Yet I
+remembered that some Indians dressed like white folks. I knew a young
+chief who was quite a dandy; who not only
+
+    "Got him a coat and breeches,
+     And looked like a Christian man,"
+
+but actually wore a fine ruffled shirt _outside of all_. So I still
+kept quiet, till I heard shouted over me a pet name, which this
+brother had given me. It was the funniest name in the world.
+
+I knew that no Indian knew of the name, as it was a little family
+secret; so I sprang up, and caught my brother about the ankles. I
+hardly think that an Onondaga could have given a louder yell than he
+gave then; and he jumped so that he fell off the log down by my side.
+But nobody was hurt; and, after kissing me till he had kissed away all
+my tears, he hoisted me on to his shoulder, called my other brothers,
+who were hunting in different directions, and we all set out for
+home.
+
+I had been gone nearly three hours, and had wandered a number of
+miles. My brother Joseph's coming and asking for me had first set them
+to inquiring and searching me out.
+
+When I went into the room where my brother Rufus sat, he said, "Why,
+my poor little sister! I did not mean to send you off on such a
+wild-goose chase to the end of the rainbow. I thought you would know I
+was only quizzing you."
+
+Then my eldest brother took me on his knee, and told me what the
+rainbow really was: that it was only painted air, and did not rest on
+the earth, so nobody could ever find the end; and that God had set it
+in the cloud to remind him and us of his promise never again to drown
+the world with a flood.
+
+"O, I think _God's promise_ would be a beautiful name for the
+rainbow!" I said.
+
+"Yes," replied my mother, "but it tells us something more than that he
+will not send great floods upon the earth,--it tells us of his
+beautiful love always bending over us from the skies. And I trust that
+when my little girl sets forth on a pilgrimage to find God's love, she
+will be led by the rainbow of his promise through all the dark places
+of this world to 'treasures laid up in heaven,' better, far better,
+than silver or gold."
+
+                                                  _Grace Greenwood._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+ON WHITE ISLAND.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+I well remember my first sight of White Island, where we took up our
+abode on leaving the mainland. I was scarcely five years old; but from
+the upper windows of our dwelling in Portsmouth I had been shown the
+clustered masts of ships lying at the wharves along the Piscataqua
+River, faintly outlined against the sky, and, baby as I was, even then
+I was drawn with a vague longing seaward. How delightful was that
+long, first sail to the Isles of Shoals! How pleasant the unaccustomed
+sound of the incessant ripple against the boat-side, the sight of the
+wide water and limitless sky, the warmth of the broad sunshine that
+made us blink like young sandpipers as we sat in triumph, perched
+among the household goods with which the little craft was laden! It
+was at sunset that we were set ashore on that loneliest, lovely rock,
+where the lighthouse looked down on us like some tall, black-capped
+giant, and filled me with awe and wonder. At its base a few goats were
+grouped on the rock, standing out dark against the red sky as I looked
+up at them. The stars were beginning to twinkle; the wind blew cold,
+charged with the sea's sweetness; the sound of many waters half
+bewildered me. Some one began to light the lamps in the tower. Rich
+red and golden, they swung round in mid-air; everything was strange
+and fascinating and new. We entered the quaint little old stone
+cottage that was for six years our home. How curious it seemed, with
+its low, whitewashed ceiling, and deep window-seats, showing the great
+thickness of the walls made to withstand the breakers, with whose
+force we soon grew acquainted! A blissful home the little house became
+to the children who entered it that quiet evening and slept for the
+first time lulled by the murmur of the encircling sea. I do not think
+a happier triad ever existed than we were, living in that profound
+isolation. It takes so little to make a healthy child happy; and we
+never wearied of our few resources. True, the winters seemed as long
+as a whole year to our little minds, but they were pleasant,
+nevertheless. Into the deep window-seats we climbed, and with pennies
+(for which we had no other use) made round holes in the thick frost,
+breathing on them till they were warm, and peeped out at the bright,
+fierce, windy weather, watching the vessels scudding over the
+intensely dark blue sea, all feather-white where the short waves broke
+hissing in the cold, and the sea-fowl soaring aloft or tossing on the
+water; or, in calmer days, we saw how the stealthy Star-Islander
+paddled among the ledges, or lay for hours stretched on the wet
+sea-weed, watching for wild-fowl with his gun. Sometimes the round
+head of a seal moved about among the kelp covered rocks.
+
+In the long, covered walk that bridged the gorge between the
+lighthouse and the house we played in stormy days, and every evening
+it was a fresh excitement to watch the lighting of the lamps, and
+think how far the lighthouse sent its rays, and how many hearts it
+gladdened with assurance of safety. As I grew older, I was allowed to
+kindle the lamps sometimes myself. That was indeed a pleasure. So
+little a creature as I might do that much for the great world! We
+waited for the spring with an eager longing; the advent of the growing
+grass, the birds and flowers and insect life, the soft skies and
+softer winds, the everlasting beauty of the thousand tender tints that
+clothed the world,--these things brought us unspeakable bliss. To the
+heart of Nature one must needs be drawn in such a life; and very soon
+I learned how richly she repays in deep refreshment the reverent love
+of her worshipper. With the first warm days we built our little
+mountains of wet gravel on the beach, and danced after the sandpipers
+at the edge of the foam, shouted to the gossiping kittiwakes that
+fluttered above, or watched the pranks of the burgomaster gull, or
+cried to the crying loons. The gannet's long white wings stretched
+overhead, perhaps, or the dusky shag made a sudden shadow in mid-air,
+or we startled on some lonely ledge the great blue heron that flew
+off, trailing legs and wings, stork-like, against the clouds. Or, in
+the sunshine on the bare rocks, we cut from the broad, brown leaves of
+the slippery, varnished kelps, grotesque shapes of man and bird and
+beast, that withered in the wind and blew away; or we fashioned rude
+boats from bits of driftwood, manned them with a weird crew of
+kelpies, and set them adrift on the great deep, to float we cared not
+whither.
+
+We played with the empty limpet-shells; they were mottled gray and
+brown, like the song-sparrow's breast. We launched fleets of purple
+mussel shells on the still pools in the rocks, left by the
+tide,--pools that were like bits of fallen rainbow with the wealth of
+the sea, with tints of delicate sea-weed, crimson and green and ruddy
+brown and violet; where wandered the pearly eolis with rosy spines and
+fairy horns, and the large round sea-urchins, like a boss upon a
+shield, were fastened here and there on the rock at the bottom,
+putting out from their green, prickly spikes transparent tentacles to
+seek their invisible food. Rosy and lilac star-fish clung to the
+sides; in some dark nook perhaps a holothuria unfolded its perfect
+ferns, a lovely, warm buff color, delicate as frost-work; little
+forests of coralline moss grew up in stillness, gold-colored shells
+crept about, and now and then flashed the silver-darting fins of
+slender minnows. The dimmest recesses were haunts of sea-anemones that
+opened wide their starry flowers to the flowing tide, or drew
+themselves together, and hung in large, half-transparent drops, like
+clusters of some strange, amber-colored fruit, along the crevices as
+the water ebbed away. Sometimes we were cruel enough to capture a
+female lobster hiding in a deep cleft, with her millions of mottled
+eggs; or we laughed to see the hermit-crabs challenge each other, and
+come out and fight a deadly battle till the stronger overcame, and,
+turning the weaker topsy-turvy, possessed himself of his ampler
+cockle-shell, and scuttled off with it triumphant.
+
+I remember in the spring kneeling on the ground to seek the first
+blades of grass that pricked through the soil, and bringing them into
+the house to study and wonder over. Better than a shop full of toys
+they were to me! Whence came their color? How did they draw their
+sweet, refreshing tint from the brown earth, or the limpid air, or the
+white light? Chemistry was not at hand to answer me, and all her
+wisdom would not have dispelled the wonder. Later the little scarlet
+pimpernel charmed me. It seemed more than a flower; it was like a
+human thing. I knew it by its homely name of poor-man's weather-glass.
+It was so much wiser than I, for when the sky was yet without a cloud,
+softly it clasped its little red petals together, folding its golden
+heart in safety from the shower that was sure to come! How could it
+know so much? Here is a question science cannot answer. The pimpernel
+grows everywhere about the islands, in every cleft and cranny where a
+suspicion of sustenance for its slender root can lodge; and it is one
+of the most exquisite of flowers, so rich in color, so quaint and
+dainty in its method of growth. I never knew its silent warning fail.
+I wondered much how every flower knew what to do and to be: why the
+morning-glory didn't forget sometimes, and bear a cluster of
+elder-bloom, or the elder hang out pennons of gold and purple like the
+iris, or the golden-rod suddenly blaze out a scarlet plume, the color
+of the pimpernel, was a mystery to my childish thought. And why did
+the sweet wild primrose wait till after sunset to unclose its pale
+yellow buds; why did it unlock its treasure of rich perfume to the
+night alone?
+
+Few flowers bloomed for me upon the lonesome rock; but I made the most
+of all I had, and neither knew of nor desired more. Ah, how beautiful
+they were! Tiny stars of crimson sorrel threaded on their long brown
+stems; the blackberry blossoms in bridal white; the surprise of the
+blue-eyed grass; the crowfoot flowers, like drops of yellow gold spilt
+about among the short grass and over the moss; the rich, blue-purple
+beach-pea, the sweet, spiked germander, and the homely, delightful
+yarrow that grows thickly on all the islands. Sometimes its broad
+clusters of dull white bloom are stained a lovely reddish-purple, as
+if with the light of sunset. I never saw it colored so elsewhere.
+Dandelions, buttercups, and clover were not denied to us; though we
+had no daisies nor violets nor wild roses, no asters, but gorgeous
+spikes of golden-rod, and wonderful wild morning-glories, whose long,
+pale ivory buds I used to find in the twilight, glimmering among the
+dark leaves, waiting for the touch of dawn to unfold and become each
+an exquisite incarnate blush,--the perfect color of a South Sea shell.
+They ran wild, knotting and twisting about the rocks, and smothering
+the loose boulders in the gorges with lush green leaves and pink
+blossoms.
+
+Many a summer morning have I crept out of the still house before any
+one was awake, and, wrapping myself closely from the chill wind of
+dawn, climbed to the top of the high cliff called the Head to watch
+the sunrise. Pale grew the lighthouse flame before the broadening day
+as, nestled in a crevice at the cliff's edge, I watched the shadows
+draw away and morning break. Facing the east and south, with all the
+Atlantic before me, what happiness was mine as the deepening
+rose-color flushed the delicate cloud-flocks that dappled the sky,
+where the gulls soared, rosy too, while the calm sea blushed beneath.
+Or perhaps it was a cloudless sunrise with a sky of orange-red, and
+the sea-line silver-blue against it, peaceful as heaven. Infinite
+variety of beauty always awaited me, and filled me with an absorbing,
+unreasoning joy such as makes the song-sparrow sing,--a sense of
+perfect bliss. Coming back in the sunshine, the morning-glories would
+lift up their faces, all awake, to my adoring gaze. It seemed as if
+they had gathered the peace of the golden morning in their still
+depths even as my heart had gathered it.
+
+                                                    _Celia Thaxter._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN.
+
+
+Every Rivermouth boy looks upon the sea as being in some way mixed up
+with his destiny. While he is yet a baby lying in his cradle, he hears
+the dull, far-off boom of the breakers; when he is older, he wanders
+by the sandy shore, watching the waves that come plunging up the beach
+like white-maned sea-horses, as Thoreau calls them; his eye follows
+the lessening sail as it fades into the blue horizon, and he burns for
+the time when he shall stand on the quarter-deck of his own ship, and
+go sailing proudly across that mysterious waste of waters.
+
+Then the town itself is full of hints and flavors of the sea. The
+gables and roofs of the houses facing eastward are covered with red
+rust, like the flukes of old anchors; a salty smell pervades the air,
+and dense gray fogs, the very breath of Ocean, periodically creep up
+into the quiet streets and envelop everything. The terrific storms
+that lash the coast; the kelp and spars, and sometimes the bodies of
+drowned men, tossed on shore by the scornful waves; the shipyards, the
+wharves, and the tawny fleet of fishing-smacks yearly fitted out at
+Rivermouth,--these things, and a hundred other, feed the imagination
+and fill the brain of every healthy boy with dreams of adventure. He
+learns to swim almost as soon as he can walk; he draws in with his
+mother's milk the art of handling an oar: he is born a sailor,
+whatever he may turn out to be afterwards.
+
+To own the whole or a portion of a row-boat is his earliest ambition.
+No wonder that I, born to this life, and coming back to it with
+freshest sympathies, should have caught the prevailing infection. No
+wonder I longed to buy a part of the trim little sail-boat Dolphin,
+which chanced just then to be in the market. This was in the latter
+part of May.
+
+Three shares, at five or six dollars each, I forget which, had already
+been taken by Phil Adams, Fred Langdon, and Binny Wallace. The fourth
+and remaining share hung fire. Unless a purchaser could be found for
+this, the bargain was to fall through.
+
+I am afraid I required but slight urging to join in the investment. I
+had four dollars and fifty cents on hand, and the treasurer of the
+Centipedes advanced me the balance, receiving my silver pencil-case as
+ample security. It was a proud moment when I stood on the wharf with
+my partners, inspecting the Dolphin, moored at the foot of a very
+slippery flight of steps. She was painted white with a green stripe
+outside, and on the stern a yellow dolphin, with its scarlet mouth
+wide open, stared with a surprised expression at its own reflection in
+the water. The boat was a great bargain.
+
+I whirled my cap in the air, and ran to the stairs leading down from
+the wharf, when a hand was laid gently on my shoulder. I turned, and
+faced Captain Nutter. I never saw such an old sharp-eye as he was in
+those days.
+
+I knew he wouldn't be angry with me for buying a row-boat; but I also
+knew that the little bowsprit suggesting a jib, and the tapering mast
+ready for its few square yards of canvas, were trifles not likely to
+meet his approval. As far as rowing on the river, among the wharves,
+was concerned, the Captain had long since withdrawn his decided
+objections, having convinced himself, by going out with me several
+times, that I could manage a pair of sculls as well as anybody.
+
+I was right in my surmises. He commanded me, in the most emphatic
+terms, never to go out in the Dolphin without leaving the mast in the
+boat-house. This curtailed my anticipated sport, but the pleasure of
+having a pull whenever I wanted it remained. I never disobeyed the
+Captain's orders touching the sail, though I sometimes extended my row
+beyond the points he had indicated.
+
+The river was dangerous for sail-boats. Squalls, without the slightest
+warning, were of frequent occurrence; scarcely a year passed that six
+or seven persons were not drowned under the very windows of the town,
+and these, oddly enough, were generally sea-captains, who either did
+not understand the river, or lacked the skill to handle a small craft.
+
+A knowledge of such disasters, one of which I witnessed, consoled me
+somewhat when I saw Phil Adams skimming over the water in a spanking
+breeze with every stitch of canvas set. There were few better
+yachtsmen than Phil Adams. He usually went sailing alone, for both
+Fred Langdon and Binny Wallace were under the same restrictions I was.
+
+Not long after the purchase of the boat, we planned an excursion to
+Sandpeep Island, the last of the islands in the harbor. We proposed to
+start early in the morning, and return with the tide in the moonlight.
+Our only difficulty was to obtain a whole day's exemption from school,
+the customary half-holiday not being long enough for our picnic.
+Somehow, we couldn't work it; but fortune arranged it for us. I may
+say here, that, whatever else I did, I never played truant in my life.
+
+One afternoon the four owners of the Dolphin exchanged significant
+glances when Mr. Grimshaw announced from the desk that there would be
+no school the following day, he having just received intelligence of
+the death of his uncle in Boston. I was sincerely attached to Mr.
+Grimshaw, but I am afraid that the death of his uncle did not affect
+me as it ought to have done.
+
+We were up before sunrise the next morning, in order to take advantage
+of the flood tide, which waits for no man. Our preparations for the
+cruise were made the previous evening. In the way of eatables and
+drinkables, we had stored in the stern of the Dolphin a generous bag
+of hardtack (for the chowder), a piece of pork to fry the cunners in,
+three gigantic apple-pies (bought at Pettingil's), half a dozen
+lemons, and a keg of spring-water,--the last-named article we slung
+over the side, to keep it cool, as soon as we got under way. The
+crockery and the bricks for our camp-stove we placed in the bows with
+the groceries, which included sugar, pepper, salt, and a bottle of
+pickles. Phil Adams contributed to the outfit a small tent of
+unbleached cotton cloth, under which we intended to take our nooning.
+
+We unshipped the mast, threw in an extra oar, and were ready to
+embark. I do not believe that Christopher Columbus, when he started on
+his rather successful voyage of discovery, felt half the
+responsibility and importance that weighed upon me as I sat on the
+middle seat of the Dolphin, with my oar resting in the row-lock. I
+wonder if Christopher Columbus quietly slipped out of the house
+without letting his estimable family know what he was up to?
+
+How calm and lovely the river was! Not a ripple stirred on the glassy
+surface, broken only by the sharp cutwater of our tiny craft. The sun,
+as round and red as an August moon, was by this time peering above the
+water-line.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The town had drifted behind us, and we were entering among the group
+of islands. Sometimes we could almost touch with our boat-hook the
+shelving banks on either side. As we neared the mouth of the harbor, a
+little breeze now and then wrinkled the blue water, shook the spangles
+from the foliage, and gently lifted the spiral mist-wreaths that still
+clung alongshore. The measured dip of our oars and the drowsy
+twitterings of the birds seemed to mingle with, rather than break, the
+enchanted silence that reigned about us.
+
+The scent of the new clover comes back to me now, as I recall that
+delicious morning when we floated away in a fairy boat down a river
+like a dream!
+
+The sun was well up when the nose of the Dolphin nestled against the
+snow-white bosom of Sandpeep Island. This island, as I have said
+before, was the last of the cluster, one side of it being washed by
+the sea. We landed on the river side, the sloping sands and quiet
+water affording us a good place to moor the boat.
+
+It took us an hour or two to transport our stores to the spot selected
+for the encampment. Having pitched our tent, using the five oars to
+support the canvas, we got out our lines, and went down the rocks
+seaward to fish. It was early for cunners, but we were lucky enough to
+catch as nice a mess as ever you saw. A cod for the chowder was not so
+easily secured. At last Binny Wallace hauled in a plump little fellow
+crusted all over with flaky silver.
+
+To skin the fish, build our fireplace, and cook the dinner, kept us
+busy the next two hours. The fresh air and the exercise had given us
+the appetites of wolves, and we were about famished by the time the
+savory mixture was ready for our clam-shell saucers.
+
+I shall not insult the rising generation on the seaboard by telling
+them how delectable is a chowder compounded and eaten in this Robinson
+Crusoe fashion. As for the boys who live inland, and know naught of
+such marine feasts, my heart is full of pity for them. What wasted
+lives! Not to know the delights of a clam-bake, not to love chowder,
+to be ignorant of lobscouse!
+
+How happy we were, we four, sitting cross-legged in the crisp salt
+grass, with the invigorating sea-breeze blowing gratefully through our
+hair! What a joyous thing was life, and how far off seemed
+death,--death, that lurks in all pleasant places, and was so near!
+
+The banquet finished, Phil Adams drew forth from his pocket a handful
+of sweetfern cigars; but as none of the party could indulge without
+risk of becoming sick, we all, on one pretext or another, declined,
+and Phil smoked by himself.
+
+The wind had freshened by this, and we found it comfortable to put on
+the jackets which had been thrown aside in the heat of the day. We
+strolled along the beach and gathered large quantities of the
+fairy-woven Iceland moss, which, at certain seasons, is washed to
+these shores; then we played at ducks and drakes, and then, the sun
+being sufficiently low, we went in bathing.
+
+Before our bath was ended a slight change had come over the sky and
+sea; fleecy-white clouds scudded here and there, and a muffled moan
+from the breakers caught our ears from time to time. While we were
+dressing, a few hurried drops of rain came lisping down, and we
+adjourned to the tent to await the passing of the squall.
+
+"We're all right, anyhow," said Phil Adams. "It won't be much of a
+blow, and we'll be as snug as a bug in a rug, here in the tent,
+particularly if we have that lemonade which some of you fellows were
+going to make."
+
+By an oversight, the lemons had been left in the boat. Binny Wallace
+volunteered to go for them.
+
+"Put an extra stone on the painter, Binny," said Adams, calling after
+him; "it would be awkward to have the Dolphin give us the slip and
+return to port minus her passengers."
+
+"That it would," answered Binny, scrambling down the rocks.
+
+Sandpeep Island is diamond-shaped,--one point running out into the
+sea, and the other looking towards the town. Our tent was on the river
+side. Though the Dolphin was also on the same side, it lay out of
+sight by the beach at the farther extremity of the island.
+
+Binny Wallace had been absent five or six minutes, when we heard him
+calling our several names in tones that indicated distress or
+surprise, we could not tell which. Our first thought was, "The boat
+has broken adrift!"
+
+We sprung to our feet and hastened down to the beach. On turning the
+bluff which hid the mooring-place from our view, we found the
+conjecture correct. Not only was the Dolphin afloat, but poor little
+Binny Wallace was standing in the bows with his arms stretched
+helplessly towards us,--_drifting out to sea_!
+
+"Head the boat in shore!" shouted Phil Adams.
+
+Wallace ran to the tiller; but the slight cockle-shell merely swung
+round and drifted broadside on. O, if we had but left a single scull
+in the Dolphin!
+
+"Can you swim it?" cried Adams, desperately, using his hand as a
+speaking-trumpet, for the distance between the boat and the island
+widened momently.
+
+Binny Wallace looked down at the sea, which was covered with white
+caps, and made a despairing gesture. He knew and we knew, that the
+stoutest swimmer could not live forty seconds in those angry waters.
+
+A wild, insane light came into Phil Adams's eyes, as he stood
+knee-deep in boiling surf, and for an instant I think he meditated
+plunging into the ocean after the receding boat.
+
+The sky darkened, and an ugly look stole rapidly over the broken
+surface of the sea.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Binny Wallace half rose from his seat in the stern, and waved his hand
+to us in token of farewell. In spite of the distance, increasing every
+instant, we could see his face plainly. The anxious expression it wore
+at first had passed. It was pale and meek now, and I love to think
+there was a kind of halo about it, like that which painters place
+around the forehead of a saint. So he drifted away.
+
+The sky grew darker and darker. It was only by straining our eyes
+through the unnatural twilight that we could keep the Dolphin in
+sight. The figure of Binny Wallace was no longer visible, for the boat
+itself had dwindled to a mere white dot on the black water. Now we
+lost it, and our hearts stopped throbbing; and now the speck appeared
+again, for an instant, on the crest of a high wave.
+
+Finally it went out like a spark, and we saw it no more. Then we gazed
+at each other, and dared not speak.
+
+Absorbed in following the course of the boat, we had scarcely noticed
+the huddled inky clouds that sagged down all around us. From these
+threatening masses, seamed at intervals with pale lightning, there now
+burst a heavy peal of thunder that shook the ground under our feet. A
+sudden squall struck the sea, ploughing deep white furrows into it,
+and at the same instant a single piercing shriek rose above the
+tempest,--the frightened cry of a gull swooping over the island. How
+it startled us!
+
+It was impossible to keep our footing on the beach any longer. The
+wind and the breakers would have swept us into the ocean if we had not
+clung to each other with the desperation of drowning men. Taking
+advantage of a momentary lull, we crawled up the sands on our hands
+and knees, and, pausing in the lee of the granite ledge to gain
+breath, returned to the camp, where we found that the gale had snapped
+all the fastenings of the tent but one. Held by this, the puffed-out
+canvas swayed in the wind like a balloon. It was a task of some
+difficulty to secure it, which we did by beating down the canvas with
+the oars.
+
+After several trials, we succeeded in setting up the tent on the
+leeward side of the ledge. Blinded by the vivid flashes of lightning,
+and drenched by the rain, which fell in torrents, we crept, half dead
+with fear and anguish, under our flimsy shelter. Neither the anguish
+nor the fear was on our own account, for we were comparatively safe,
+but for poor little Binny Wallace, driven out to sea in the merciless
+gale. We shuddered to think of him in that frail shell, drifting on
+and on to his grave, the sky rent with lightning over his head, and
+the green abysses yawning beneath him. We fell to crying, the three of
+us, and cried I know not how long.
+
+Meanwhile the storm raged with augmented fury. We were obliged to hold
+on to the ropes of the tent to prevent it blowing away. The spray from
+the river leaped several yards up the rocks and clutched at us
+malignantly. The very island trembled with the concussions of the sea
+beating upon it, and at times I fancied that it had broken loose from
+its foundation, and was floating off with us. The breakers, streaked
+with angry phosphorus, were fearful to look at.
+
+The wind rose higher and higher, cutting long slits in the tent,
+through which the rain poured incessantly. To complete the sum of our
+miseries, the night was at hand. It came down suddenly, at last, like
+a curtain, shutting in Sandpeep Island from all the world.
+
+It was a dirty night, as the sailors say. The darkness was something
+that could be felt as well as seen,--it pressed down upon one with a
+cold, clammy touch. Gazing into the hollow blackness, all sorts of
+imaginable shapes seemed to start forth from vacancy,--brilliant
+colors, stars, prisms, and dancing lights. What boy, lying awake at
+night, has not amused or terrified himself by peopling the spaces
+round his bed with these phenomena of his own eyes?
+
+"I say," whispered Fred Langdon, at length, clutching my hand, "don't
+you see things--out there--in the dark?"
+
+"Yes, yes,--Binny Wallace's face!"
+
+I added to my own nervousness by making this avowal; though for the
+last ten minutes I had seen little besides that star-pale face with
+its angelic hair and brows. First a slim yellow circle, like the
+nimbus round the moon, took shape and grew sharp against the darkness;
+then this faded gradually, and there was the Face, wearing the same
+sad, sweet look it wore when he waved his hand to us across the awful
+water. This optical illusion kept repeating itself.
+
+"And I, too," said Adams. "I see it every now and then, outside there.
+What wouldn't I give if it really was poor little Wallace looking in
+at us! O boys, how shall we dare to go back to the town without him?
+I've wished a hundred times, since we've been sitting here, that I was
+in his place, alive or dead!"
+
+We dreaded the approach of morning as much as we longed for it. The
+morning would tell us all. Was it possible for the Dolphin to outride
+such a storm? There was a lighthouse on Mackerel Reef, which lay
+directly in the course the boat had taken, when it disappeared. If the
+Dolphin had caught on this reef, perhaps Binny Wallace was safe.
+Perhaps his cries had been heard by the keeper of the light. The man
+owned a life-boat, and had rescued several people. Who could tell?
+
+Such were the questions we asked ourselves again and again, as we lay
+in each other's arms waiting for daybreak. What an endless night it
+was! I have known months that did not seem so long.
+
+Our position was irksome rather than perilous; for the day was certain
+to bring us relief from the town, where our prolonged absence,
+together with the storm, had no doubt excited the liveliest alarm for
+our safety. But the cold, the darkness, and the suspense were hard to
+bear.
+
+Our soaked jackets had chilled us to the bone. To keep warm, we lay
+huddled together so closely that we could hear our hearts beat above
+the tumult of sea and sky.
+
+We used to laugh at Fred Langdon for always carrying in his pocket a
+small vial of essence of peppermint or sassafras, a few drops of
+which, sprinkled on a lump of loaf-sugar, he seemed to consider a
+great luxury. I don't know what would have become of us at this
+crisis, if it hadn't been for that omnipresent bottle of hot stuff. We
+poured the stinging liquid over our sugar, which had kept dry in a
+sardine-box, and warmed ourselves with frequent doses.
+
+After four or five hours the rain ceased, the wind died away to a
+moan, and the sea--no longer raging like a maniac--sobbed and sobbed
+with a piteous human voice all along the coast. And well it might,
+after that night's work. Twelve sail of the Gloucester fishing fleet
+had gone down with every soul on board, just outside of Whale's-back
+Light. Think of the wide grief that follows in the wake of one wreck;
+then think of the despairing women who wrung their hands and wept, the
+next morning, in the streets of Gloucester, Marblehead, and Newcastle!
+
+Though our strength was nearly spent, we were too cold to sleep. Fred
+Langdon was the earliest to discover a filmy, luminous streak in the
+sky, the first glimmering of sunrise.
+
+"Look, it is nearly daybreak!"
+
+While we were following the direction of his finger, a sound of
+distant oars fell on our ears.
+
+We listened breathlessly, and as the dip of the blades became more
+audible, we discerned two foggy lights, like will-o'-the-wisps,
+floating on the river.
+
+Running down to the water's edge, we hailed the boats with all our
+might. The call was heard, for the oars rested a moment in the
+row-locks, and then pulled in towards the island.
+
+It was two boats from the town, in the foremost of which we could now
+make out the figures of Captain Nutter and Binny Wallace's father. We
+shrunk back on seeing _him_.
+
+"Thank God!" cried Mr. Wallace, fervently, as he leaped from the
+wherry without waiting for the bow to touch the beach.
+
+But when he saw only three boys standing on the sands, his eye
+wandered restlessly about in quest of the fourth; then a deadly pallor
+overspread his features.
+
+Our story was soon told. A solemn silence fell upon the crowd of rough
+boatmen gathered round, interrupted only by a stifled sob from one
+poor old man, who stood apart from the rest.
+
+The sea was still running too high for any small boat to venture out;
+so it was arranged that the wherry should take us back to town,
+leaving the yawl, with a picked crew, to hug the island until
+daybreak, and then set forth in search of the Dolphin.
+
+Though it was barely sunrise when we reached town, there were a great
+many people assembled at the landing, eager for intelligence from
+missing boats. Two picnic parties had started down river the day
+before, just previous to the gale, and nothing had been heard of them.
+It turned out that the pleasure-seekers saw their danger in time, and
+ran ashore on one of the least exposed islands, where they passed the
+night. Shortly after our own arrival they appeared off Rivermouth,
+much to the joy of their friends, in two shattered, dismasted boats.
+
+The excitement over, I was in a forlorn state, physically and
+mentally. Captain Nutter put me to bed between hot blankets, and sent
+Kitty Collins for the doctor. I was wandering in my mind, and fancied
+myself still on Sandpeep Island: now I gave orders to Wallace how to
+manage the boat, and now I cried because the rain was pouring in on me
+through the holes in the tent. Towards evening a high fever set in,
+and it was many days before my grandfather deemed it prudent to tell
+me that the Dolphin had been found, floating keel upwards, four miles
+southeast of Mackerel Reef.
+
+Poor little Binny Wallace! How strange it seemed, when I went to
+school again, to see that empty seat in the fifth row! How gloomy the
+play-ground was, lacking the sunshine of his gentle, sensitive face!
+One day a folded sheet slipped from my algebra; it was the last note
+he ever wrote me. I couldn't read it for the tears.
+
+What a pang shot across my heart the afternoon it was whispered
+through the town that a body had been washed ashore at Grave
+Point,--the place where we bathed. We bathed there no more! How well I
+remember the funeral, and what a piteous sight it was afterwards to
+see his familiar name on a small headstone in the Old South
+Burying-Ground!
+
+Poor little Binny Wallace! Always the same to me. The rest of us have
+grown up into hard, worldly men, fighting the fight of life; but you
+are forever young, and gentle, and pure; a part of my own childhood
+that time cannot wither; always a little boy, always poor little Binny
+Wallace!
+
+                                                    _T. B. Aldrich._
+
+
+
+
+A YOUNG MAHOMETAN.
+
+
+The bedrooms in the old house had tapestry hangings, which were full
+of Bible history. The subject of the one which chiefly attracted my
+attention was Hagar and her son Ishmael. I every day admired the
+beauty of the youth, and pitied the forlorn state of his mother and
+himself in the wilderness.
+
+At the end of the gallery into which these tapestry rooms opened was
+one door, which, having often in vain attempted to open, I concluded
+to be locked. Every day I endeavored to turn the lock. Whether by
+constantly trying I loosened it, or whether the door was not locked,
+but only fastened tight by time, I know not; but, to my great joy, as
+I was one day trying it as usual, it gave way, and I found myself in
+this so long-desired room.
+
+It proved to be a very large library. If you never spent whole
+mornings alone in a large library, you cannot conceive the pleasure of
+taking down books in the constant hope of finding an entertaining one
+among them; yet, after many days, meeting with nothing but
+disappointment, it becomes less pleasant. All the books within my
+reach were folios of the gravest cast. I could understand very little
+that I read in them, and the old dark print and the length of the
+lines made my eyes ache.
+
+When I had almost resolved to give up the search as fruitless, I
+perceived a volume lying in an obscure corner of the room. I opened
+it. It was a charming print; the letters were almost as large as the
+type of the family Bible. Upon the first page I looked into I saw the
+name of my favorite Ishmael, whose face I knew so well from the
+tapestry in the antique bedrooms, and whose history I had often read
+in the Bible.
+
+I sat myself down to read this book with the greatest eagerness. I
+shall be quite ashamed to tell you the strange effect it had on me. I
+scarcely ever heard a word addressed to me from morning till night. If
+it were not for the old servants saying, "Good morning to you, Miss
+Margaret," as they passed me in the long passages, I should have been
+the greater part of the day in as perfect a solitude as Robinson
+Crusoe.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Many of the leaves in "Mahometanism Explained" were torn out, but
+enough remained to make me imagine that Ishmael was the true son of
+Abraham. I read here, that the true descendants of Abraham were known
+by a light which streamed from the middle of their foreheads, and that
+Ishmael's father and mother first saw this light streaming from his
+forehead as he was lying asleep in the cradle.
+
+I was very sorry so many of the leaves were gone, for it was as
+entertaining as a fairy tale. I used to read the history of Ishmael,
+and then go and look at him in the tapestry, and then return to his
+history again. When I had almost learned the history of Ishmael by
+heart, I read the rest of the book, and then I came to the history of
+Mahomet, who was there said to be the last descendant of Abraham.
+
+If Ishmael had engaged so much of my thoughts, how much more so must
+Mahomet! His history was full of nothing but wonders from the
+beginning to the end. The book said that those who believed all the
+wonderful stories which were related of Mahomet were called
+Mahometans, and True Believers; I concluded that I must be a
+Mahometan, for I believed every word I read.
+
+At length I met with something which I also believed, though I
+trembled as I read it; this was that, after we are dead, we are to
+pass over a narrow bridge, which crosses a bottomless gulf. The bridge
+was described to be no wider than a silken thread; and all who were
+not Mahometans would slip on one side of this bridge, and drop into
+the tremendous gulf that had no bottom. I considered myself as a
+Mahometan, yet I was perfectly giddy whenever I thought of passing
+over this bridge.
+
+One day, seeing the old lady who lived here totter across the room, a
+sudden terror seized me, for I thought how she would ever be able to
+get over the bridge. Then, too, it was that I first recollected that
+my mother would also be in imminent danger. I imagined she had never
+heard the name of Mahomet, because, as I foolishly conjectured, this
+book had been locked up for ages in the library, and was utterly
+unknown to the rest of the world.
+
+All my desire was now to tell them the discovery I had made; for I
+thought, when they knew of the existence of "Mahometanism Explained,"
+they would read it, and become Mahometans to insure themselves a safe
+passage over the silken bridge. But it wanted more courage than I
+possessed to break the matter to my intended converts. I must
+acknowledge that I had been reading without leave; and the habit of
+never speaking, or being spoken to, considerably increased the
+difficulty.
+
+My anxiety on this subject threw me into a fever. I was so ill that my
+mother thought it necessary to sleep in the same room with me. In the
+middle of the night I could not resist the strong desire I felt to
+tell her what preyed so much on my mind. I awoke her out of a sound
+sleep, and begged she would be so kind as to be a Mahometan. She was
+very much alarmed;--she thought I was delirious, and I believe I was;
+for I tried to explain the reason of my request, but it was in such an
+incoherent manner that she could not at all comprehend what I was
+talking about.
+
+The next day a physician was sent for, and he discovered, by several
+questions that he put to me, that I had read myself into a fever. He
+gave me medicines, and ordered me to be kept very quiet, and said he
+hoped in a few days I should be very well; but as it was a new case to
+him, he never having attended a little Mahometan before, if any
+lowness continued after he had removed the fever, he would, with my
+mother's permission, take me home with him to study this extraordinary
+case at leisure. He added, that he could then hold a consultation with
+his wife, who was often very useful to him in prescribing remedies for
+the maladies of his younger patients.
+
+In a few days he fetched me away. His wife was in the carriage with
+him. Having heard what he said about her prescriptions, I expected,
+between the doctor and his lady, to undergo a severe course of
+medicine, especially as I heard him very formally ask her advice as to
+what was good for a Mahometan fever, the moment after he had handed me
+into his carriage.
+
+She studied a little while, and then she said, a ride to Harlow Fair
+would not be amiss. He said he was entirely of her opinion, because it
+suited him to go there to buy a horse.
+
+During the ride they entered into conversation with me, and in answer
+to their questions, I was relating to them the solitary manner in
+which I had passed my time, how I found out the library, and what I
+had read in that fatal book which had so heated my imagination,--when
+we arrived at the fair; and Ishmael, Mahomet, and the narrow bridge
+vanished out of my head in an instant.
+
+Before I went home the good lady explained to me very seriously the
+error into which I had fallen. I found that, so far from "Mahometanism
+Explained" being a book concealed only in this library, it was well
+known to every person of the least information.
+
+The Turks, she told me, were Mahometans. And she said that, if the
+leaves of my favorite book had not been torn out, I should have read
+that the author of it did not mean to give the fabulous stories here
+related as true, but only wrote it as giving a history of what the
+Turks, who are a very ignorant people, believe concerning Mahomet.
+
+By the good offices of the physician and his lady, I was carried home,
+at the end of a month, perfectly cured of the error into which I had
+fallen, and very much ashamed of having believed so many absurdities.
+
+                                                        _Mary Lamb._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE PERSIAN.
+
+
+Among the Persians there is a sect called the Sooffees, and one of the
+most distinguished saints of this sect was Abdool Kauder.
+
+It is related that, in early childhood, he was smitten with the desire
+of devoting himself to sacred things, and wished to go to Bagdad to
+obtain knowledge. His mother gave her consent; and taking out eighty
+deenars (a denomination of money used in Persia), she told him that,
+as he had a brother, half of that would be all his inheritance.
+
+She made him promise, solemnly, never to tell a lie, and then bade him
+farewell, exclaiming, "Go, my son; I give thee to God. We shall not
+meet again till the day of judgment!"
+
+He went on till he came near to Hamadan, when the company with which
+he was travelling was plundered by sixty horsemen. One of the robbers
+asked him what he had got. "Forty deenars," said Abdool Kauder, "are
+sewed under my garment." The fellow laughed, thinking that he was
+joking him. "What have you got?" said another. He gave the same
+answer.
+
+When they were dividing the spoil, he was called to an eminence where
+their chief stood. "What property have you, my little fellow?" said
+he. "I have told two of your people already," replied the boy. "I have
+forty deenars sewed up carefully in my clothes." The chief desired
+them to be ripped open, and found the money.
+
+"And how came you," said he, with surprise, "to declare so openly what
+has been so carefully hidden?"
+
+"Because," Abdool Kauder replied, "I will not be false to my mother,
+whom I have promised that I will never conceal the truth."
+
+"Child!" said the robber, "hast thou such a sense of duty to thy
+mother, at thy years, and am I insensible, at my age, of the duty I
+owe to my God? Give me thy hand, innocent boy," he continued, "that I
+may swear repentance upon it." He did so; and his followers were all
+alike struck with the scene.
+
+"You have been our leader in guilt," said they to their chief, "be the
+same in the path of virtue!" and they instantly, at his order, made
+restitution of the spoil, and vowed repentance on the hand of the boy.
+
+                                              _Juvenile Miscellany._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE BOYS' HEAVEN.
+
+
+Harry and Frank had a hearty cry when an ill-natured neighbor poisoned
+their dog. They dug a grave for their favorite, but were unwilling to
+put him in it and cover him up with earth.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I wish there was one of the Chinese petrifying streams near our
+house," said Frank. "We could lay Jip down in it; and, after a while,
+he would become a stone image, which we would always keep for a
+likeness of him."
+
+Harry, who had been reading about the ancient Egyptians, remarked that
+it was a great pity the art of embalming was lost.
+
+But Frank declared that a mummy was a hideous thing, and that he would
+rather have the dead dog out of his sight forever, than to make a
+mummy of him.
+
+"It seems very hard never to see him again," said Harry, with a deep
+sigh.
+
+"But perhaps Jip has gone to some dog-heaven; and when we go to the
+boys' heaven, we may happen to see our old pet on the way."
+
+"If he should get sight of us he would follow us," said Frank. "He
+always liked us better than dogs. O yes, he would follow us to the
+boys' heaven, of that you may be sure; and I don't think boys would
+exactly like a heaven without any dogs. Mother, what kind of a place
+_is_ a boys' heaven?"
+
+His mother, who had just entered the room, knew nothing of what they
+had been talking about; and, the question being asked suddenly, she
+hardly knew what to answer.
+
+She smiled, and said, "How can I tell, Frank! You know I never was
+there."
+
+"That makes no difference," said he. "Folks tell about a great many
+things they never saw. Nobody ever goes to heaven till they die; but
+you often read to us about heaven and the angels. Perhaps some people,
+who died and went there, told others about it in their dreams."
+
+"I cannot answer such questions, dear Harry," replied his mother. "I
+only know that God is very wise and good, and that he wills we should
+wait patiently and humbly till our souls grow old enough to understand
+such great mysteries. Just as it is necessary that you should wait to
+be much older before you can calculate when the moon will be eclipsed,
+or when certain stars will go away from our portion of the sky, and
+when they will come back again. Learned men know when the earth, in
+its travels through the air, will cast its long dark shadow over the
+brightness of the moon. They can foretell exactly the hour and the
+minute when a star will go down below the line which we call the
+horizon, where the earth and the sky seem to meet; and they know
+precisely when it will come up again. But if they tried ever so hard,
+they could never make little boys understand about the rising and the
+setting of the stars. The wisest of men are very small boys, compared
+with the angels; therefore the angels know perfectly well many things
+which they cannot possibly explain to a man till his soul grows and
+becomes an angel."
+
+"I understand that," said Harry. "For I can read any book; but though
+Jip was a very bright dog, it was no manner of use to try to teach him
+the letters. He only winked and gaped when I told him that was A. You
+see, mother, I was the same as an angel to Jip."
+
+His mother smiled to see how quickly he had caught her meaning.
+
+After some more talk with them, she said, "You have both heard of
+Martin Luther, a great and good man who lived in Germany a long time
+ago. He was very loving to children; and once, when he was away from
+home, he wrote a letter to his little son. It was dated 1530; so you
+see it is more than three hundred years old. In those days they had
+not begun to print any books for children; therefore, I dare say, the
+boy was doubly delighted to have something in writing that his friends
+could read to him. You asked me, a few minutes ago, what sort of a
+place the boys' heaven is. In answer to your question, I will read
+what Martin Luther wrote to his son Hansigen, which in English means
+Little John. Any boy might be happy to receive such a letter. Listen
+to it now, and see if you don't think so.
+
+   "_To my little son, Hansigen Luther, grace and peace in Christ._
+
+   "MY HEART-DEAR LITTLE SON: I hear that you learn well and pray
+   diligently. Continue to do so, my son. When I come home I will
+   bring you a fine present from the fair. I know of a lovely
+   garden, full of joyful children, who wear little golden coats,
+   and pick up beautiful apples, and pears, and cherries, and plums
+   under the trees. They sing, and jump, and make merry. They have
+   also beautiful little horses with golden saddles and silver
+   bridles. I asked the man that kept the garden who the children
+   were. And he said to me, 'The children are those who love to
+   learn, and to pray, and to be good.' Then said I, 'Dear sir, I
+   have a little son, named Hansigen Luther. May he come into this
+   garden, and have the same beautiful apples and pears to eat, and
+   wonderful little horses to ride upon, and may he play about with
+   these children?' Then said he, 'If he is willing to learn, and to
+   pray, and to be good, he shall come into this garden; and Lippus
+   and Justus too. If they all come together, they shall have pipes,
+   and little drums, and lutes, and music of stringed instruments.
+   And they shall dance, and shoot with little crossbows.' Then he
+   showed me a fine meadow in the garden, all laid out for dancing.
+   There hung golden pipes and kettle-drums and line silver
+   crossbows; but it was too early to see the dancing, for the
+   children had not had their dinner. I said, 'Ah, dear sir, I will
+   instantly go and write to my little son Hansigen, so that he may
+   study, and pray, and be good, and thus come into this garden. And
+   he has a little cousin Lena, whom he must also bring with him.'
+   Then he said to me, 'So shall it be. Go home, and write to him.'
+
+   "Therefore, dear little son Hansigen, be diligent to learn and to
+   pray; and tell Lippus and Justus to do so too, that you may all
+   meet together in that beautiful garden. Give cousin Lena a kiss
+   from me. Herewith I recommend you all to the care of Almighty
+   God."
+
+The brothers both listened very attentively while that old letter was
+read; and when their mother had finished it, Frank exclaimed, "That
+must be a very beautiful place!"
+
+Harry looked thoughtfully in the fire, and at last said, "I wonder who
+told all that to Martin Luther! Do you suppose an angel showed him
+that garden, when he was asleep?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Frank. "But if there were small horses there
+with golden saddles for the boys, why shouldn't Jip be there, too,
+with a golden collar and bells?"
+
+"Now, wouldn't that be grand!" exclaimed Harry. And away they both ran
+to plant flowers on Jip's grave.
+
+                                                   _L. Maria Child._
+
+
+
+
+BESSIE'S GARDEN
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Above all things, Bessie loved flowers, but wild flowers most. It
+seemed so wonderful to her that these frail things could find their
+way up out of the dark ground, and unfold their lovely blossoms, and
+all their little pointed leaves, without any one to teach or help
+them.
+
+Who watched over the dear little wild flowers, all alone in the
+field, and on the hillside, and down by the brook? Ah, Bessie knew
+that her Heavenly Father watched over them; and she loved to think he
+was smiling down upon her at the same time that his strong, gentle
+hand took care of the flowers and of her at once. And she was not
+wrong, for Bessie was a kind of flower, you know.
+
+One day the little girl thought how nice it would be to have a _wild_
+garden; to plant ever so many flowering things in one place, and let
+them run together in their pretty way, until the bright-eyed blossoms
+should gaze out from the whole tangled mass of beautiful green leaves.
+
+So into the house she ran to find Aunt Annie, and ask her leave to
+wander over on a shady hillside where wild flowers grew thickest.
+
+Yes, indeed, she might go, Aunt Annie said; but what had she to carry
+her roots and earth in while making the garden?
+
+O, Bessie said, she could take a shingle, or her apron.
+
+Aunt Annie laughed, and thought a basket would do better; they must
+find one. So they looked in the closets and attics, everywhere; but
+some of the baskets were full, and some were broken, and some had been
+gnawed by mice; not one could they find that was fit for Bessie's
+purpose.
+
+Then dear Aunt Annie poured out the spools and bags from a nice large
+work-basket, and told Bessie she might have that for her own, to fill
+with earth or flowers, or anything she chose.
+
+Pleased enough with her present, our young gardener went dancing along
+through the garden,--Aunt Annie watched her from the balcony,--dancing
+along,--and crept through a gap in the hedge, and out into the field,
+that was starred all over with dandelions, and down the hollow by the
+brook, and up on the hillside, out of sight among the shady trees.
+
+And how she worked that afternoon,--singing all the while to herself
+as she worked! How she heaped together the rich, dark mould, and
+evened it over with her little hands! How she dug up roots of violets,
+and grass, and spring-beauty, and Dutchmen's breeches, travelling
+back and forth, back and forth, never tired, never ceasing her song.
+
+The squirrels ran up out of their holes to look at Bessie; the birds
+alighted over her head and sang.
+
+While Bessie was bending over her garden so earnestly, thump! came
+something all at once, something so cold and heavy! How quickly she
+jumped upon her feet, upsetting her basket, and making it roll down
+the hill, violet-roots and all!
+
+And then how she laughed when she saw a big brown toad that had
+planted himself in the very centre of her garden, and stood there
+winking his silly eyes, and saying, "No offence, I hope!"
+
+The squirrel chattered as if he were laughing too; the bird sang,
+"Never mind, Bessie, never mind; pick up your violets, and don't hurt
+the poor old toad!"
+
+"O no; it's God's toad; I shouldn't dare to hurt him," said Bessie.
+
+Just at that moment she heard a bell ringing loudly from her father's
+house. She knew it was calling her home; but how could she leave her
+basket! She must look for that first; the hillside was steep and
+tangled with bushes, yet she must make her way down and search for the
+lost treasure.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Waiting, waiting, waiting!" suddenly sang the bird, from out of sight
+among the boughs; "waiting, Bessie," sang the bird.
+
+"True enough," said Bessie; "perhaps I'm making my mother or dear Aunt
+Annie wait,--and they are so good! I'd better let the basket wait;
+take care of it, birdie!--and none of your trampling down my flowers,
+Mr. Toad!" And she climbed back again from bush to bush, and skipped
+along among the trunks of the great tall trees, and out by the brook
+through the meadow, hedge, garden,--up the steps, calling, "Mother,
+mother! Aunt Annie! who wants me?"
+
+"I, dear," said her mother's voice; "I am going away for a long visit,
+and if you had not come at once, I couldn't have bidden my little girl
+good by." So Bessie's mother kissed her, and told her to obey her kind
+aunt, and then asked what she would like brought home for a present.
+
+"O, bring yourself, dear mother; come home all well and bright," said
+Bessie, "and I won't ask any more." For Bessie's mother had long been
+sick, and was going now for her health.
+
+Her mother smiled and kissed her. "Yes, I will bring that if I can,
+but there must be something else; how would you like a set of tools
+for this famous garden?"
+
+Bessie's eyes shone with joy. "What! a whole set,--rake, and hoe, and
+trowel, such as the gardener uses?"
+
+"Exactly, only they'll be small enough for your little hands; and
+there'll be a shovel besides, and a wheelbarrow, and a water-pot."
+
+So Bessie did not cry when her mother went away, though she loved her
+as well as any one possibly could. She thought of all the bright
+things, of the pleasant journey and the better health; and then,--then
+of her pretty set of tools, and the handsome garden they would make!
+
+It was too late to go back to the hill that evening; and on the morrow
+Bessie awoke to find it raining fast. She went into her Aunt Annie's
+room with such a mournful face. "O aunty, this old rain!"
+
+"This new, fresh, beautiful rain, Bessie; what are you thinking about?
+How it will make our flowers grow! and what a good time we can have
+together in the house!"
+
+"I know it, Aunt Annie, but you'll think me so careless!"
+
+"To let it rain!"
+
+"No,--don't laugh, aunty,--to leave your nice basket out-of-doors all
+night, and now to be soaked and spoiled in this--this--beautiful
+rain." Bessie's countenance did not look as though the beautiful rain
+made her very happy.
+
+And good Aunt Annie, seeing how much she was troubled, only said, "You
+must be more careful, dear, another time; come and tell me all about
+it. Perhaps my Bessie has some good excuse; I can see it now in her
+eyes."
+
+"Yes, indeed, I have," said Bessie, wiping away her tears. And the
+little girl crept close to her aunty's side, and told her of her
+beautiful time the day before, and of the bird, and squirrel, and
+toad; and how the basket rolled away down hill in the steepest place,
+and then how the bell rang, and she couldn't wait to find it.
+
+"And you did exactly right, dear," said Aunt Annie. "If you had
+lingered, your mother would have had to wait a whole day, or else go
+without seeing you. When I write, I shall tell her how obedient you
+were, and I know it will please her more than anything else I shall
+have to say."
+
+Dear Aunt Annie, she had always a word of excuse and of comfort for
+every one! Bessie was too small to think much about it then. She only
+pressed her little cheek lovingly against her aunty's hand, and
+resolved that, when she grew up to a young lady, she would be just as
+kind and ready to forget herself as Aunt Annie was.
+
+Ah, it was not Bessie's lot to grow up to a woman in this world!
+Before the ground was dry enough for her to venture out in search of
+her basket, she was seized with a fever, and in a few days shut up her
+sweet eyes, as the flowers shut their leaves together, and never
+opened them again.
+
+Then the summer passed, and the grass grew green and faded, and
+snow-flakes began to fall on a little grave; and Aunt Annie quietly
+laid aside the set of garden tools that had come too late for
+Bessie's use, and only made her mother feel sad and lonely when she
+looked upon them now. And all this time, what had become of the
+basket?
+
+As it fell from Bessie's hands that bright spring afternoon, it had
+lodged in a grassy hollow, that was all wound about, like a nest, with
+roots of the tall birch and maple trees; close among the roots grew
+patches of the lovely scented May-flower; and all the rest was long
+fine grass, with a tiny leaf or a violet growing here and there.
+
+The roots in the basket dried away, and died for want of water; but
+the earth that Bessie had dug with them was full of little seeds,
+which had been hiding in the dark for years, awaiting their chance to
+grow.
+
+Broader and darker grew the leaves on the shady boughs above, higher
+and higher grew the grass, and all but hid Bessie's basket. "Coming,
+coming, coming!" the bird sang in the boughs; but Bessie never came.
+
+So the summer passed; and when autumn shook the broad leaves from the
+trees, and some went whirling down the hill, and some sailed away in
+the brook, some lodged in Bessie's basket; a few to-day, and a few the
+next day, till the snow came, and it was almost full to the brim.
+
+Sometimes there would come a hoar-frost, and then it was full of
+sparkling flowers so airy that the first sunbeam melted them, but none
+the less lovely for that; and they melted, and went down among the
+leaves, and seed, and sand, and violet-roots.
+
+In spring the May-flowers perfumed the hollow with their sweet, fresh
+breath; but no one gathered them. The leaves and the grass nestled
+close to Bessie's basket, as if they remembered her; and drops of rain
+dripped into it from the budding boughs, and sparkled as they dropped,
+though they were full of tiny grains of dust and seed; and thus
+another summer passed, and no one knew what had become of Bessie's
+basket.
+
+The bird sang, "Coming, coming!" but she never came.
+
+So the third spring came round; and Aunt Annie was putting her closet
+in order one day, rolling up pieces, and clearing boxes, and smoothing
+drawers, when she came upon a little bundle. It was the bags, and
+work, and spools of thread--all old and yellow now--which she had
+poured out that morning in spring, in order to give the basket to her
+little niece.
+
+"Dear child!" said Aunt Annie, "why have I never looked for the lost
+basket? The poor little garden must be swept away, but it would be
+pleasant to go where her sweet footsteps trod on that happy
+afternoon."
+
+So she went, all by herself, in the same direction which she had
+watched Bessie take; and it seemed as if the little one were skipping
+before her through the garden, the gate,--the gap in the hedge was not
+large enough for Aunt Annie,--across the meadow that shone again with
+starry dandelions, along by the brook, and up the hill, till she was
+lost from sight among the trees.
+
+How sweet and fresh it was in the lonely wood, with the birds, and the
+young leaves, and starry wild flowers, and patches of pretty moss! Did
+Bessie wait here and rest? Did she climb this rock for columbines? Did
+she creep to the edge of this bank, and look over?
+
+So Aunt Annie seated herself to rest among the moss and roots and
+leaves; she picked columbines, climbing by help of the slender
+birch-trees; she went to the edge of the bank, and looked down past
+all the trees, and stones, and flowers, to the little brook below. And
+what do you think she saw?
+
+What do you think made the tears come in Aunt Annie's eyes so quickly,
+though she seemed so glad they must have been tears of joy?
+
+After a while Aunt Annie turned to go home. Why did she put the boughs
+aside so gently, and step so carefully over the soft moss, as if she
+feared making any sound. Can you think?
+
+She found Bessie's mother seated at work with a sad face, and her back
+turned towards the window.
+
+"O," said Aunt Annie, "how dark the room is, with all these heavy
+curtains! and how still and lonesome it seems here! You must come
+this moment and take a walk with me out in the sunshine; it will do
+you good."
+
+Bessie's mother shook her head. "I don't care for sunshine to-day; I
+would rather be lonely."
+
+Then Aunt Annie knelt by her sister, and looked up with those sweet
+eyes none could ever refuse. "Not care for sun, because our dear
+little Bessie has gone to be an angel! O, you must see the field all
+over buttercups and dandelions, like a sky turned upside down,--it
+would have pleased her so! and you must see the brook and woods; and
+then I have such a surprise for you, you'll never be sorry for laying
+aside your work."
+
+"Is it anything about Bessie?" the mother asked, as they went down the
+steps, out into the bright, beautiful sunshine.
+
+"Yes, yes! Everything makes you think of her to-day; I can almost see
+her little footsteps in the grass. A bird somewhere in the wood sung
+her very name,--and so sweetly, as if he loved her,--'Bessie, Bessie,
+Bessie,' as if he were thinking of her all the while!"
+
+They reached the wood soon, for Aunt Annie seemed in haste, and
+hurried Bessie's mother on; though she had grown so happy all at once,
+that she wanted to wait and look at everything,--the little leaves in
+the ground, and the grass-blades, and clover, and bees even, seemed to
+please her.
+
+When you find people sad, there is nothing in all the world so good as
+to take them out in the sun of a summer day. You must remember this;
+it is better than most of the Latin prescriptions doctors write.
+
+When they were fairly within the wood, at the brow of the steep bank,
+Aunt Annie parted the branches with both her hands, and said, "You
+must follow me down a little way; come."
+
+O, as Aunt Annie looked back, it seemed as if she had brought all the
+sunshine in her dear face! "Don't think of being afraid," she said;
+"why, Bessie came down here once! I have found her basket, I've found
+her beautiful garden!"
+
+Yes, that was the secret! You remember the spot into which Bessie's
+basket fell; all intertwined like a bird's-nest with roots of the
+great tall trees; all green and soft with the fine grass that grows in
+the woods. Here it had lain ever since. Here it was.--
+
+But you cannot think how changed! The violet-roots, the leaves, dust,
+rain, frost, seed,--you remember how they filled it, and withered to
+leave room for more, day by day, week by week.
+
+Now these had mingled together, and made rich earth; and the seeds had
+grown, the tiny seeds, and were dear little plants and flowers, that
+hung about the edge, and crept through the open-work sides, with their
+delicate green leaves, and tendrils, and starry blossoms!
+
+Violet, chickweed, anemone, spring-beauty, and dicentra, that children
+call "Dutchman's breeches," with its pearly, drooping flowers,--these
+had tangled into one lovely mass of leaves and blossoms, just such as
+would have made our Bessie sing for joy.
+
+Yet you have not heard the best; Aunt Annie's footsteps on the moss
+would not have disturbed these. Right in the midst of the flowers in
+Bessie's basket a little gray ground-sparrow had built her nest of
+hair and moss, and there she was hatching her eggs! As they drew
+nearer, the little bird looked up at the ladies with his bright brown
+eye, and seemed to say, "Don't hurt me; don't, for Bessie's sake!"
+
+No, they would not hurt Bessie's bird for the whole wide world. They
+went quietly home, and left him there watching for his mate, who had
+flown up towards the sky to stretch her wings a little.
+
+Slowly, hand in hand, the sisters passed once more through the wood.
+They could not bear to leave so sweet a place. And all the while
+Bessie's bird sang to them his strange song, "Coming, coming, coming!"
+They heard it till the wood was out of sight.
+
+"Yes, there are always good things coming as well as going," Aunt
+Annie said, softly, "if we are patient and wait. The dear child's
+basket has grown more useful and lovely because she lost it that
+bright day."
+
+"And our lost darling?" Bessie's mother began to ask, and looked in
+Aunt Annie's eyes.
+
+"Our Bessie's flowers do not fade now; there is no cold winter in
+heaven; she cannot lose her treasures there. And hasn't she grown more
+useful and lovely, living among the angels all this while?"
+
+Then, from afar in the woods, they heard the low, sweet voice, that
+thrilled forth, "Coming, coming!" and Bessie's mother smiled, and
+said, "She cannot come to us, but we soon shall go to her; and O, our
+darling's hand in ours, how gladly shall we walk in the Eternal
+Garden!"
+
+                                            _Caroline S. Whitmarsh._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE CRICKETS BROUGHT GOOD FORTUNE.
+
+
+My friend Jacques went into a baker's shop one day to buy a little
+cake which he had fancied in passing. He intended it for a child whose
+appetite was gone, and who could be coaxed to eat only by amusing him.
+He thought that such a pretty loaf might tempt even the sick. While he
+waited for his change, a little boy six or eight years old, in poor,
+but perfectly clean clothes, entered the baker's shop. "Ma'am," said
+he to the baker's wife, "mother sent me for a loaf of bread." The
+woman climbed upon the counter (this happened in a country town), took
+from the shelf of four-pound loaves the best one she could find, and
+put it into the arms of the little boy.
+
+My friend Jacques then first observed the thin and thoughtful face of
+the little fellow. It contrasted strongly with the round, open
+countenance of the great loaf, of which he was taking the greatest
+care.
+
+"Have you any money?" said the baker's wife.
+
+The little boy's eyes grew sad.
+
+"No, ma'am," said he, hugging the loaf closer to his thin blouse; "but
+mother told me to say that she would come and speak to you about it
+to-morrow."
+
+"Run along," said the good woman; "carry your bread home, child."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," said the poor little fellow.
+
+My friend Jacques came forward for his money. He had put his purchase
+into his pocket, and was about to go, when he found the child with the
+big loaf, whom he had supposed to be half-way home, standing
+stock-still behind him.
+
+"What are you doing there?" said the baker's wife to the child, whom
+she also had thought to be fairly off. "Don't you like the bread?"
+
+"O yes, ma'am!" said the child.
+
+"Well, then, carry it to your mother, my little friend. If you wait
+any longer, she will think you are playing by the way, and you will
+get a scolding."
+
+The child did not seem to hear. Something else absorbed his attention.
+
+The baker's wife went up to him, and gave him a friendly tap on the
+shoulder. "What _are_ you thinking about?" said she.
+
+"Ma'am," said the little boy, "what is it that sings?"
+
+"There is no singing," said she.
+
+"Yes!" cried the little fellow. "Hear it! Queek, queek, queek, queek!"
+
+My friend and the woman both listened, but they could hear nothing,
+unless it was the song of the crickets, frequent guests in bakers'
+houses.
+
+"It is a little bird," said the dear little fellow; "or perhaps the
+bread sings when it bakes, as apples do."
+
+"No, indeed, little goosey!" said the baker's wife; "those are
+crickets. They sing in the bakehouse because we are lighting the oven,
+and they like to see the fire."
+
+"Crickets!" said the child; "are they really crickets?"
+
+"Yes, to be sure," said she, good-humoredly. The child's face lighted
+up.
+
+"Ma'am," said he, blushing at the boldness of his request, "I would
+like it very much if you would give me a cricket."
+
+"A cricket!" said the baker's wife, smiling; "what in the world would
+you do with a cricket, my little friend? I would gladly give you all
+there are in the house, to get rid of them, they run about so."
+
+"O ma'am, give me one, only one, if you please!" said the child,
+clasping his little thin hands under the big loaf. "They say that
+crickets bring good luck into houses; and perhaps if we had one at
+home, mother, who has so much trouble, wouldn't cry any more."
+
+"Why does your poor mamma cry?" said my friend, who could no longer
+help joining in the conversation.
+
+"On account of her bills, sir," said the little fellow. "Father is
+dead, and mother works very hard, but she cannot pay them all."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+My friend took the child, and with him the great loaf, into his arms,
+and I really believe he kissed them both. Meanwhile the baker's wife,
+who did not dare to touch a cricket herself, had gone into the
+bakehouse. She made her husband catch four, and put them into a box
+with holes in the cover, so that they might breathe. She gave the box
+to the child, who went away perfectly happy.
+
+When he had gone, the baker's wife and my friend gave each other a
+good squeeze of the hand. "Poor little fellow!" said they both
+together. Then she took down her account-book, and, finding the page
+where the mother's charges were written, made a great dash all down
+the page, and then wrote at the bottom, "Paid."
+
+Meanwhile my friend, to lose no time, had put up in paper all the
+money in his pockets, where fortunately he had quite a sum that day,
+and had begged the good wife to send it at once to the mother of the
+little cricket-boy, with her bill receipted, and a note, in which he
+told her she had a son who would one day be her joy and pride.
+
+They gave it to a baker's boy with long legs, and told him to make
+haste. The child, with his big loaf, his four crickets, and his little
+short legs, could not run very fast, so that, when he reached home, he
+found his mother, for the first time in many weeks with her eyes
+raised from her work, and a smile of peace and happiness upon her
+lips.
+
+The boy believed that it was the arrival of his four little black
+things which had worked this miracle, and I do not think he was
+mistaken. Without the crickets, and his good little heart, would this
+happy change have taken place in his mother's fortunes?
+
+                                   _From the French of P. J. Stahl._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+PAUL AND VIRGINIA.
+
+
+On the eastern coast of the mountain which rises above Port Louis in
+the Mauritius, upon a piece of land bearing the marks of former
+cultivation, are seen the ruins of two small cottages. Those ruins are
+situated near the centre of a valley, formed by immense rocks, and
+which opens only toward the north. On the left rises the mountain,
+called the Height of Discovery, whence the eye marks the distant sail
+when it first touches the verge of the horizon, and whence the signal
+is given when a vessel approaches the island. At the foot of this
+mountain stands the town of Port Louis. On the right is formed the
+road, which stretches from Port Louis to the Shaddock Grove, where the
+church bearing that name lifts its head, surrounded by its avenues of
+bamboo, in the midst of a spacious plain; and the prospect terminates
+in a forest extending to the farthest bounds of the island. The front
+view presents the bay, denominated the Bay of the Tomb; a little on
+the right is seen the Cape of Misfortune; and beyond rolls the
+expanded ocean, on the surface of which appear a few uninhabited
+islands, and, among others, the Point of Endeavor, which resembles a
+bastion built upon the flood.
+
+At the entrance of the valley which presents those various objects,
+the echoes of the mountain incessantly repeat the hollow murmurs of
+the winds that shake the neighboring forests, and the tumultuous
+dashing of the waves which break at a distance upon the cliffs; but
+near the ruined cottages all is calm and still, and the only objects
+which there meet the eye are rude steep rocks, that rise like a
+surrounding rampart. Large clumps of trees grow at their base, on
+their rifted sides, and even on their majestic tops, where the clouds
+seem to repose. The showers, which their bold points attract, often
+paint the vivid colors of the rainbow on their green and brown
+declivities, and swell the sources of the little river which flows at
+their feet, called the river of Fan-Palms.
+
+Within this enclosure reigns the most profound silence. The waters,
+the air, all the elements, are at peace. Scarcely does the echo repeat
+the whispers of the palm-trees spreading their broad leaves, the long
+points of which are gently agitated by the winds. A soft light
+illumines the bottom of this deep valley, on which the sun shines only
+at noon. But even at break of day the rays of light are thrown on the
+surrounding rocks; and their sharp peaks, rising above the shadows of
+the mountain, appear like tints of gold and purple gleaming upon the
+azure sky.
+
+Here two mothers, widowed by death and desertion, nursed their
+children, with the sight of whom the mutual affection of the parents
+acquired new strength.
+
+Madame de la Tour's child was named Virginia; her friend Margaret's,
+Paul. They loved to put their infants into the same bath, and lay them
+in the same cradle; and sometimes each nursed at her bosom the other's
+babe.
+
+"My friend," said Madame de la Tour, "we shall each of us have two
+children, and each of our children will have two mothers."
+
+Nothing could exceed the attachment which these infants early
+displayed for each other. If Paul complained, his mother pointed to
+Virginia, and at that sight he smiled and was appeased. If any
+accident befell Virginia, the cries of Paul gave notice of the
+disaster, and then the dear child would suppress her complaints when
+she found that Paul was unhappy. When I came hither, I used to see
+them tottering along, holding each other by the hands and under the
+arms, as we represent the constellation of the Twins. At night these
+infants often refused to be separated, and were found lying in the
+same cradle, their cheeks, their bosoms, pressed close together, their
+hands thrown round each other's neck, and sleeping locked in one
+another's arms.
+
+When they began to speak, the first names they learned to give each
+other were those of brother and sister, and childhood knows no softer
+appellation. Their education served to increase their early
+friendship, by directing it to the supply of each other's wants. In a
+short time, all that regarded the household economy, the care of
+preparing the rural repasts, became the task of Virginia, whose labors
+were always crowned with the praises and kisses of her brother. As for
+Paul, always in motion, he dug the garden with Domingo, or followed
+him with a little hatchet into the woods; and if in his rambles he
+espied a beautiful flower, fine fruit, or a nest of birds, even at the
+top of a tree, he would climb up, and bring it home to his sister.
+
+When you met one of these children, you might be sure the other was
+not far off. One day, as I was coming down the mountain, I saw
+Virginia at the end of the garden, running toward the house, with her
+petticoat thrown over her head, in order to screen herself from a
+shower of rain. At a distance, I thought she was alone; but as I
+hastened toward her, in order to help her on, I perceived that she
+held Paul by the arm, almost entirely enveloped in the same canopy,
+and both were laughing heartily at being sheltered together under an
+umbrella of their own invention. Those two charming faces placed
+within the swelling petticoat recalled to my mind the children of Leda
+enclosed within the same shell.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Their sole study was how to please and assist each other; for of all
+other things they were ignorant, and knew neither how to read nor
+write. They were never disturbed by inquiries about past times, nor
+did their curiosity extend beyond the bounds of their mountain. They
+believed the world ended at the shores of their own island, and all
+their ideas and affections were confined within its limits. Their
+mutual tenderness, and that of their mothers, employed all the
+activity of their souls. Their tears had never been called forth by
+tedious application to useless sciences. Their minds had never been
+wearied by lessons of morality, superfluous to bosoms unconscious of
+ill. They had never been taught not to steal, because everything with
+them was in common; or not to be intemperate, because their simple
+food was left to their own discretion; or not to lie, because they had
+no truth to conceal. Their young imaginations had never been terrified
+by the idea that God has punishments in store for ungrateful children,
+since with them filial affection arose naturally from maternal
+fondness.
+
+Thus passed their early childhood, like a beautiful dawn, the prelude
+of a bright day. Already they partook with their mothers the cares of
+the household. As soon as the crow of the cock announced the first
+beam of the morning, Virginia arose, and hastened to draw water from a
+neighboring spring; then, returning to the house, she prepared the
+breakfast. When the rising sun lighted up the points of the rocks
+which overhang this enclosure, Margaret and her child went to the
+dwelling of Madame de la Tour, and offered up together their morning
+prayer. This sacrifice of thanksgiving always preceded their first
+repast, of which they often partook before the door of the cottage,
+seated upon the grass, under a canopy of plantain; and while the
+branches of that delightful tree afforded a grateful shade, its solid
+fruit furnished food ready prepared by Nature; and its long glossy
+leaves, spread upon the table, supplied the want of linen.
+
+Perhaps the most charming spot of this enclosure was that which was
+called Virginia's Resting-place. At the foot of the rock which bore
+the name of the Discovery of Friendship is a nook, from whence issues
+a fountain, forming, near its source, a little spot of marshy soil in
+the midst of a field of rich grass. At the time Margaret brought Paul
+into the world, I made her a present of an Indian cocoa which had been
+given me, and which she planted on the border of this fenny ground, in
+order that the tree might one day serve to mark the epoch of her son's
+birth. Madame de la Tour planted another cocoa, with the same view,
+at the birth of Virginia. These nuts produced two cocoa-trees, which
+formed the only records of the two families: one was called Paul's
+tree; the other, Virginia's tree. They both grew in the same
+proportion as their two owners, a little unequally; but they rose, at
+the end of twelve years, above the cottages. Already their tender
+stalks were interwoven, and their young clusters of cocoas hung over
+the basin of the fountain. Except this little plantation, the nook of
+the rock had been left as it was decorated by Nature. On its brown and
+moist sides large plants of maidenhair glistened with their green and
+dark stars; and tufts of wave-leaved hart's-tongue, suspended like
+long ribbons of purpled green, floated on the winds. Near this grew a
+chain of the Madagascar periwinkle, the flowers of which resemble the
+red gillyflower; and the long-podded capsicum, the seed-vessels of
+which are of the color of blood, and more glowing than coral. Hard by,
+the herb of balm, with its leaves within the heart, and the sweet
+basil, which has the odor of the gillyflower, exhaled the most
+delicious perfumes. From the steep side of the mountain hung the
+graceful lianas, like floating drapery, forming magnificent canopies
+of verdure upon the sides of the rocks. The sea-birds, allured by the
+stillness of those retreats, resorted thither to pass the night. At
+the hour of sunset we could see the curlew and the stint skimming
+along the sea-shore; the black frigate-bird poised high in air; and
+the white bird of the tropic, which abandons, with the star of day,
+the solitudes of the Indian Ocean. Virginia loved to rest upon the
+border of this fountain, decorated with wild and sublime magnificence.
+She often seated herself beneath the shade of the two cocoa-trees, and
+there she sometimes led her goats to graze. While she was making
+cheeses of their milk, she loved to see them browse on the maidenhair
+which grew upon the steep sides of the rock, and hung suspended upon
+one of its cornices, as on a pedestal. Paul, observing that Virginia
+was fond of this spot, brought thither, from the neighboring forest, a
+great variety of bird's-nests. The old birds, following their young,
+established themselves in this new colony. Virginia, at certain
+times, distributed among them grains of rice, millet, and maize. As
+soon as she appeared, the whistling blackbird, the amadavid bird, the
+note of which is so soft, the cardinal, with its plumage the color of
+flame, forsook their bushes; the paroquet, green as an emerald,
+descended from the neighboring fan-palms; the partridge ran along the
+grass; all came running helter-skelter toward her, like a brood of
+chickens, and she and Paul delighted to observe their sports, their
+repasts, and their loves.
+
+Amiable children! thus passed your early days in innocence, and in the
+exercise of benevolence. How many times, on this very spot, have your
+mothers, pressing you in their arms, blessed Heaven for the
+consolations that you were preparing for their declining years, and
+that they could see you begin life under such happy auspices! How many
+times, beneath the shade of those rocks, have I partaken with them of
+your rural repasts, which cost no animal its life! Gourds filled with
+milk, fresh eggs, cakes of rice placed upon plantain leaves, baskets
+loaded with mangoes, oranges, dates, pomegranates, pine-apples,
+furnished at once the most wholesome food, the most beautiful colors,
+and the most delicious juices.
+
+The conversation was gentle and innocent as the repasts. Paul often
+talked of the labors of the day and those of the morrow. He was
+continually planning something useful for their little society. Here
+he discovered that the paths were rough; there that the seats were
+uncomfortable; sometimes the young arbors did not afford sufficient
+shade, and Virginia might be better pleased elsewhere.
+
+In the rainy season the two families met together in the cottage, and
+employed themselves in weaving mats of grass and baskets of bamboo.
+Rakes, spades, and hatchets were ranged along the walls in the most
+perfect order; and near these instruments of agriculture were placed
+its products,--sacks of rice, sheaves of corn, and baskets of
+plantains. Some degree of luxury is usually united with plenty, and
+Virginia was taught by her mother and Margaret to prepare sherbet and
+cordials from the juice of the sugar-cane, the lemon, and the citron.
+
+When night came, they all supped together by the light of a lamp;
+after which Madame de la Tour or Margaret told stories of travellers
+lost during the night in forests of Europe infested by banditti; or of
+some shipwrecked vessel, thrown by the tempest upon the rocks of a
+desert island. To these recitals their children listened with eager
+sensibility, and earnestly begged that Heaven would grant they might
+one day have the joy of showing their hospitality towards such
+unfortunate persons. At length the two families would separate and
+retire to rest, impatient to meet again the next morning. Sometimes
+they were lulled to repose by the beating rains which fell in torrents
+upon the roofs of their cottages, and sometimes by the hollow winds,
+which brought to their ear the distant murmur of the waves breaking
+upon the shore. They blessed God for their own safety, of which their
+feeling became stronger from the idea of remote danger.
+
+                                        _Bernardin de Saint Pierre._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+OEYVIND AND MARIT.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Oeyvind was his name. A low barren cliff overhung the house in which
+he was born; fir and birch looked down on the roof, and wild-cherry
+strewed flowers over it. Upon this roof there walked about a little
+goat, which belonged to Oeyvind. He was kept there that he might not
+go astray; and Oeyvind carried leaves and grass up to him. One fine
+day the goat leaped down, and--away to the cliff; he went straight up,
+and came where he never had been before. Oeyvind did not see him when
+he came out after dinner, and thought immediately of the fox. He grew
+hot all over, looked around about, and called, "Killy-killy-killy-goat!"
+
+"Bay-ay-ay," said the goat, from the brow of the hill, as he cocked
+his head on one side and looked down.
+
+But at the side of the goat there kneeled a little girl.
+
+"Is it yours, this goat?" she asked.
+
+Oeyvind stood with eyes and mouth wide open, thrust both hands into
+the breeches he had on, and asked, "Who are you?"
+
+"I am Marit, mother's little one, father's fiddle, the elf in the
+house, grand-daughter of Ole Nordistuen of the Heide farms, four years
+old in the autumn, two days after the frost nights, I!"
+
+"Are you really?" he said, and drew a long breath, which he had not
+dared to do so long as she was speaking.
+
+"Is it yours, this goat?" asked the girl again.
+
+"Ye-es," he said, and looked up.
+
+"I have taken such a fancy to the goat. You will not give it to me?"
+
+"No, that I won't."
+
+She lay kicking her legs, and looking down at him, and then she said,
+"But if I give you a butter-cake for the goat, can I have him then?"
+
+Oeyvind came of poor people, and had eaten butter-cake only once in
+his life, that was when grandpapa came there, and anything like it he
+had never eaten before nor since. He looked up at the girl. "Let me
+see the butter-cake first," said he.
+
+She was not long about it, took out a large cake, which she held in
+her hand. "Here it is," she said, and threw it down.
+
+"Ow, it went to pieces," said the boy. He gathered up every bit with
+the utmost care; he could not help tasting the very smallest, and that
+was so good, he had to taste another, and, before he knew it himself,
+he had eaten up the whole cake.
+
+"Now the goat is mine," said the girl. The boy stopped with the last
+bit in his mouth, the girl lay and laughed, and the goat stood by her
+side, with white breast and dark brown hair, looking sideways down.
+
+"Could you not wait a little while?" begged the boy; his heart began
+to beat. Then the girl laughed still more, and got up quickly on her
+knees.
+
+"No, the goat is mine," she said, and threw her arms round its neck,
+loosened one of her garters, and fastened it round. Oeyvind looked up.
+She got up, and began pulling at the goat; it would not follow, and
+twisted its neck downwards to where Oeyvind stood. "Bay-ay-ay," it
+said. But she took hold of its hair with one hand, pulled the string
+with the other, and said gently, "Come, goat, and you shall go into
+the room and eat out of mother's dish and my apron." And then she
+sung,--
+
+    "Come, boy's goat,
+     Come, mother's calf,
+     Come, mewing cat
+     In snow-white shoes.
+     Come, yellow ducks,
+     Come out of your hiding-place;
+     Come, little chickens,
+     Who can hardly go;
+     Come, my doves
+     With soft feathers;
+     See, the grass is wet,
+     But the sun does you good;
+     And early, early is it in summer,
+     But call for the autumn, and it will come."
+
+There stood the boy.
+
+He had taken care of the goat since the winter before, when it was
+born, and he had never imagined he could lose it; but now it was done
+in a moment, and he should never see it again.
+
+His mother came up humming from the beach, with wooden pans which she
+had scoured: she saw the boy sitting with his legs crossed under him
+on the grass, crying, and she went up to him.
+
+"What are you crying about?"
+
+"O, the goat, the goat!"
+
+"Yes; where is the goat?" asked his mother, looking up at the roof.
+
+"It will never come back again," said the boy.
+
+"Dear me! how could that happen?"
+
+He would not confess immediately.
+
+"Has the fox taken it?"
+
+"Ah, if it only were the fox!"
+
+"Are you crazy?" said his mother; "what has become of the goat?"
+
+"Oh-h-h--I happened to--to--to sell it for a cake!"
+
+As soon as he had uttered the word, he understood what it was to sell
+the goat for a cake; he had not thought of it before. His mother
+said,--
+
+"What do you suppose the little goat thinks of you, when you could
+sell him for a cake?"
+
+And the boy thought about it, and felt sure that he could never again
+be happy in this world, and not even in heaven, he thought afterwards.
+He felt so sorry, that he promised himself never again to do anything
+wrong, never to cut the thread on the spinning-wheel, nor let the
+goats out, nor go down to the sea alone. He fell asleep where he lay,
+and dreamed about the goat, that it had gone to Heaven; our Lord sat
+there with a great beard as in the catechism, and the goat stood
+eating the leaves off a shining tree; but Oeyvind sat alone on the
+roof, and could not come up.
+
+Suddenly there came something wet close up to his ear, and he started
+up. "Bay-ay-ay!" it said; and it was the goat, who had come back
+again.
+
+"What! have you got back?" He jumped up, took it by the two fore-legs,
+and danced with it as if it were a brother; he pulled its beard, and
+he was just going in to his mother with it, when he heard some one
+behind him, and, looking, saw the girl sitting on the greensward by
+his side. Now he understood it all, and let go the goat.
+
+"Is it you, who have come with it?"
+
+She sat, tearing the grass up with her hands, and said,--
+
+"They would not let me keep it; grandfather is sitting up there,
+waiting."
+
+While the boy stood looking at her, he heard a sharp voice from the
+road above call out, "Now!"
+
+Then she remembered what she was to do; she rose, went over to
+Oeyvind, put one of her muddy hands into his, and, turning her face
+away, said,--
+
+"I beg your pardon!"
+
+But then her courage was all gone; she threw herself over the goat,
+and wept.
+
+"I think you had better keep the goat," said Oeyvind, looking the
+other way.
+
+"Come, make haste!" said grandpapa, up on the hill; and Marit rose,
+and walked with reluctant feet upwards.
+
+"You are forgetting your garter," Oeyvind called after her. She turned
+round, and looked first at the garter and then at him. At last she
+came to a great resolution, and said, in a choked voice,--
+
+"You may keep that."
+
+He went over to her, and, taking her hand, said,--
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"O, nothing to thank for!" she answered, but drew a long sigh, and
+walked on.
+
+He sat down on the grass again. The goat walked about near him, but he
+was no longer so pleased with it as before.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The goat was fastened to the wall; but Oeyvind walked about, looking
+up at the cliff. His mother came out, and sat down by his side; he
+wanted to hear stories about what was far away, for now the goat no
+longer satisfied him. So she told him how once every thing could talk:
+the mountain talked to the stream, and the stream to the river, the
+river to the sea, and the sea to the sky; but then he asked if the sky
+did not talk to any one; and the sky talked to the clouds, the clouds
+to the trees, the trees to the grass, the grass to the flies, the
+flies to the animals, the animals to the children, the children to the
+grown-up people; and so it went on, until it had gone round, and no
+one could tell where it had begun. Oeyvind looked at the mountain, the
+trees, the sky, and had never really seen them before. The cat came
+out at that moment, and lay down on the stone before the door in the
+sunshine.
+
+"What does the cat say?" asked Oeyvind, pointing. His mother sang,--
+
+    "At evening softly shines the sun,
+     The cat lies lazy on the stone.
+     Two small mice,
+     Cream thick and nice,
+     Four bits of fish,
+     I stole behind a dish,
+     And am so lazy and tired,
+     Because so well I have fared,"
+
+says the cat.
+
+But then came the cock, with all the hens. "What does the cock say?"
+asked Oeyvind, clapping his hands together. His mother sang,--
+
+    "The mother-hen her wings doth sink,
+     The cock stands on one leg to think:
+     That gray goose
+     Steers high her course;
+     But sure am I that never she
+     As clever as a cock can be.
+     Run in, you hens, keep under the roof to-day,
+     For the sun has got leave to stay away,"
+
+says the cock.
+
+But the little birds were sitting on the ridge-pole, singing. "What do
+the birds say?" asked Oeyvind, laughing.
+
+    "Dear Lord, how pleasant is life,
+     For those who have neither toil nor strife,"
+
+say the birds.
+
+And she told him what they all said, down to the ant, who crawled in
+the moss, and the worm who worked in the bark.
+
+That same summer, his mother began to teach him to read. He had owned
+books a long time, and often wondered how it would seem when they also
+began to talk. Now the letters turned into animals, birds, and
+everything else; but soon they began to walk together, two and two;
+_a_ stood and rested under a tree, which was called _b_; then came
+_e_, and did the same; but when three or four came together, it seemed
+as if they were angry with each other, for it would not go right. And
+the farther along he came, the more he forgot what they were: he
+remembered longest _a_, which he liked best; it was a little black
+lamb, and was friends with everybody; but soon he forgot _a_ also: the
+book had no more stories, nothing but lessons.
+
+One day his mother came in, and said to him,--
+
+"To-morrow school begins, and then you are going up to the farm with
+me."
+
+Oeyvind had heard that school was a place where many boys played
+together; and he had no objection. Indeed, he was much pleased. He had
+often been at the farm, but never when there was school there; and now
+he was so anxious to get there, he walked faster than his mother up
+over the hills. As they came up to the neighboring house, a tremendous
+buzzing, like that from the water-mill at home, met their ears; and he
+asked his mother what it was.
+
+"That is the children reading," she answered; and he was much pleased,
+for that was the way he used to read, before he knew the letters. When
+he came in, there sat as many children round a table as he had ever
+seen at church; others were sitting on their luncheon-boxes, which
+were ranged round the walls; some stood in small groups round a large
+printed card; the schoolmaster, an old gray-haired man, was sitting on
+a stool by the chimney-corner, filling his pipe. They all looked up as
+Oeyvind and his mother entered, and the mill-hum ceased as if the
+water had suddenly been turned off. All looked at the new-comers; the
+mother bowed to the schoolmaster, who returned her greeting.
+
+"Here I bring a little boy who wants to learn to read," said his
+mother.
+
+"What is the fellow's name?" said the schoolmaster, diving down into
+his pouch after tobacco.
+
+"Oeyvind," said his mother; "he knows his letters, and can put them
+together."
+
+"Is it possible!" said the schoolmaster; "come here, you Whitehead!"
+
+Oeyvind went over to him: the schoolmaster took him on his lap, and
+raised his cap.
+
+"What a nice little boy!" said he, and stroked his hair. Oeyvind
+looked up into his eyes, and laughed.
+
+"Is it at me you are laughing?" asked he, with a frown.
+
+"Yes, it is," answered Oeyvind, and roared with laughter. At that the
+schoolmaster laughed, Oeyvind's mother laughed; the children
+understood that they also were allowed to laugh, and so they all
+laughed together.
+
+So Oeyvind became one of the scholars.
+
+As he was going to find his seat, they all wanted to make room for
+him. He looked round a long time, while they whispered and pointed; he
+turned round on all sides, with his cap in his hand and his book under
+his arm.
+
+"Now, what are you going to do?" asked the schoolmaster, who was busy
+with his pipe again. Just as the boy is going to turn round to the
+schoolmaster, he sees close beside him, sitting down by the
+hearthstone on a little red painted tub, Marit, of the many names; she
+had covered her face with both hands, and sat peeping at him through
+her fingers.
+
+"I shall sit here," said Oeyvind, quickly, taking a tub and seating
+himself at her side. Then she raised a little the arm nearest him, and
+looked at him from under her elbow; immediately he also hid his face
+with both hands, and looked at her from under his elbow. So they sat,
+keeping up the sport, until she laughed, then he laughed too; the
+children had seen it, and laughed with them; at that, there rung out
+in a fearfully strong voice, which, however, grew milder at every
+pause,--
+
+"Silence! you young scoundrels, you rascals, you little
+good-for-nothings! keep still, and be good to me, you sugar-pigs."
+
+That was the schoolmaster, whose custom it was to boil up, but calm
+down again before he had finished. It grew quiet immediately in the
+school, until the water-wheels again began to go; every one read aloud
+from his book, the sharpest trebles piped up, the rougher voices
+drummed louder and louder to get the preponderance; here and there
+one shouted in above the others, and Oeyvind had never had such fun in
+all his life.
+
+"Is it always like this here?" whispered he to Marit.
+
+"Yes, just like this," she said.
+
+Afterwards, they had to go up to the schoolmaster, and read; and then
+a little boy was called to read, so that they were allowed to go and
+sit down quietly again.
+
+"I have got a goat now, too," said she.
+
+"Have you?"
+
+"Yes; but it is not so pretty as yours."
+
+"Why don't you come oftener up on the cliff?"
+
+"Grandpapa is afraid I shall fall over."
+
+"But it is not so very high."
+
+"Grandpapa won't let me, for all that."
+
+"Mother knows so many songs," said he.
+
+"Grandpapa does, too, you can believe."
+
+"Yes; but he does not know what mother does."
+
+"Grandpapa knows one about a dance. Would you like to hear it?"
+
+"Yes, very much."
+
+"Well, then, you must come farther over here, so that the schoolmaster
+may not hear."
+
+He changed his place, and then she recited a little piece of a song
+three or four times over, so that the boy learned it, and that was the
+first he learned at school.
+
+"Up with you, youngsters!" called out the schoolmaster. "This is the
+first day, so you shall be dismissed early; but first we must say a
+prayer, and sing."
+
+Instantly, all was life in the school; they jumped down from the
+benches, sprung over the floor, and talked into each other's mouths.
+
+"Silence! you young torments, you little beggars, you noisy boys! be
+quiet, and walk softly across the floor, little children," said the
+schoolmaster; and now they walked quietly, and took their places;
+after which the schoolmaster went in front of them, and made a short
+prayer. Then they sung. The schoolmaster began in a deep bass; all the
+children stood with folded hands, and joined in. Oeyvind stood
+farthest down by the door with Marit, and looked on; they also folded
+their hands, but they could not sing.
+
+That was the first day at school.
+
+                                                  "_The Happy Boy._"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+BOOTS AT THE HOLLY-TREE INN.
+
+
+Before the days of railways, and in the time of the old Great North
+Road, I was once snowed up at the Holly-Tree Inn. Beguiling the days
+of my imprisonment there by talking at one time or other with the
+whole establishment, I one day talked with the Boots, when he lingered
+in my room.
+
+Where had he been in his time? Boots repeated, when I asked him the
+question. Lord, he had been everywhere! And what had he been? Bless
+you, everything you could mention, a'most.
+
+Seen a good deal? Why, of course he had. I should say so, he could
+assure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of what had come in
+_his_ way. Why, it would be easier for him, he expected, to tell what
+he hadn't seen than what he had. Ah! a deal it would.
+
+What was the curiousest thing he had seen? Well! He didn't know. He
+couldn't momently name what was the curiousest thing he had
+seen,--unless it was a Unicorn,--and he see _him_ once at a Fair. But
+supposing a young gentleman not eight year old was to run away with a
+fine young woman of seven, might I think _that_ a queer start?
+Certainly! Then that was a start as he himself had had his blessed
+eyes on,--and he had cleaned the shoes they run away in,--and they was
+so little that he couldn't get his hand into 'em.
+
+Master Harry Walmers's father, you see, he lived at the Elmses, down
+away by Shooter's Hill there, six or seven miles from Lunnon. He was a
+gentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held his head up when he
+walked, and had what you may call Fire about him. He wrote poetry, and
+he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted,
+and he done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommon proud of Master
+Harry as was his only child; but he didn't spoil him, neither. He was
+a gentleman that had a will of his own, and a eye of his own, and that
+would be minded. Consequently, though he made quite a companion of the
+fine bright boy, and was delighted to see him so fond of reading his
+fairy books, and was never tired of hearing him say my name is Norval,
+or hearing him sing his songs about Young May Moons is beaming love,
+and When he as adores thee has left but the name, and that,--still he
+kept the command over the child, and the child _was_ a child, and it's
+very much to be wished more of 'em was!
+
+How did Boots happen to know all this? Why, sir, through being
+under-gardener. Of course I couldn't be under-gardener, and be always
+about, in the summer time, near the windows on the lawn, a mowing and
+sweeping, and weeding and pruning, and this and that, without getting
+acquainted with the ways of the family. Even supposing Master Harry
+hadn't come to me one morning early, and said, "Cobbs, how should you
+spell Norah, if you was asked?" and when I give him my views, sir,
+respectin' the spelling o' that name, he took out his little knife,
+and he begun a cutting it in print, all over the fence.
+
+And the courage of the boy! Bless your soul, he'd have throwed off his
+little hat, and tucked up his little sleeves, and gone in at a Lion,
+he would. One day he stops, along with her (where I was hoeing weeds
+in the gravel), and says, speaking up, "Cobbs," he says, "I like
+_you_." "Do you, sir? I'm proud to hear it." "Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why do
+I like you, do you think, Cobbs?" "Don't know, Master Harry, I am
+sure." "Because Norah likes you, Cobbs." "Indeed, sir? That's very
+gratifying." "Gratifying, Cobbs? It's better than millions of the
+brightest diamonds, to be liked by Norah." "Certainly, sir." "You're
+going away, ain't you, Cobbs?" "Yes, sir." "Would you like another
+situation, Cobbs?" "Well, sir, I shouldn't object, if it was a good
+'un." "Then, Cobbs," says that mite, "you shall be our Head Gardener
+when we are married." And he tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle,
+under his arm, and walks away.
+
+Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal to a
+play, to see them babies with their long bright curling hair, their
+sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, rambling about the
+garden, deep in love. Boots was of opinion that the birds believed
+they was birds, and kept up with 'em, singing to please 'em. Sometimes
+they would creep under the Tulip-tree, and would sit there with their
+arms round one another's necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a
+reading about the Prince, and the Dragon, and the good and bad
+enchanters, and the king's fair daughter. Sometimes I would hear them
+planning about having a house in a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and
+living entirely on milk and honey. Once I came upon them by the pond,
+and heard Master Harry say, "Adorable Norah, kiss me, and say you love
+me to distraction, or I'll jump in head-foremost." On the whole, sir,
+the contemplation o' them two babies had a tendency to make me feel as
+if I was in love myself,--only I didn't exactly know who with.
+
+"Cobbs," says Master Harry, one evening, when I was watering the
+flowers; "I am going on a visit, this present midsummer, to my
+grandmamma's at York."
+
+"Are you indeed, sir? I hope you'll have a pleasant time. I am going
+into Yorkshire, myself, when I leave here."
+
+"Are you going to your grandmamma's, Cobbs?"
+
+"No, sir. I haven't got such a thing."
+
+"Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+The boy looks on at the watering of the flowers for a little while,
+and then he says, "I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs,--Norah's
+going."
+
+"You'll be all right then, sir, with your beautiful sweetheart by your
+side."
+
+"Cobbs," returns the boy, a flushing, "I never let anybody joke about
+that when I can prevent them."
+
+"It wasn't a joke, sir,--wasn't so meant."
+
+"I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you're
+going to live with us,--Cobbs!"
+
+"Sir."
+
+"What do you think my grandmamma gives me, when I go down there?"
+
+"I couldn't so much as make a guess, sir."
+
+"A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs."
+
+"Whew! That's a spanking sum of money, Master Harry."
+
+"A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that.
+Couldn't a person, Cobbs?"
+
+"I believe you, sir!"
+
+"Cobbs," says that boy, "I'll tell you a secret. At Norah's house they
+have been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being
+engaged. Pretending to make game of it, Cobbs!"
+
+"Such, sir, is the depravity of human natur."
+
+The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes, and
+then departed with, "Good night, Cobbs. I'm going in."
+
+If I was to ask Boots how it happened that I was a going to leave that
+place just at that present time, well, I couldn't rightly answer you,
+sir. I do suppose I might have stayed there till now, if I had been
+anyways inclined. But you see, he was younger then, and he wanted
+change. That's what I wanted,--change. Mr. Walmers, he says to me,
+when I give him notice of my intentions to leave, "Cobbs," he says,
+"have you anything to complain of? I make the inquiry, because if I
+find that any of my people really has anythink to complain of, I wish
+to make it right if I can."
+
+"No, sir; thanking you, sir, I find myself as well sitiwated here as I
+could hope to be anywheres. The truth is, sir, that I'm a going to
+seek my fortun."
+
+"O, indeed, Cobbs?" he says; "I hope you may find it." And Boots could
+assure me--which he did, touching his hair with his bootjack--that he
+hadn't found it yet.
+
+Well, sir! I left the Elmses when my time was up, and Master Harry, he
+went down to the old lady's at York, which old lady were so wrapped up
+in that child as she would have give that child the teeth out of her
+head (if she had had any). What does that Infant do--for Infant you
+may call him, and be within the mark--but cut away from that old
+lady's with his Norah, on a expedition to go to Gretna Green and be
+married!
+
+Sir, I was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left it several
+times since to better myself, but always come back through one thing
+or another), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drives up, and out
+of the coach gets them two children. The Guard says to our Governor,
+"I don't quite make out these little passengers, but the young
+gentleman's words was, that they was to be brought here." The young
+gentleman gets out; hands his lady out; gives the Guard something for
+himself; says to our Governor, "We're to stop here to-night, please.
+Sitting-room and two bedrooms will be required. Mutton chops and
+cherry pudding for two!" and tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle,
+under his arm, and walks into the house much bolder than Brass.
+
+Sir, I leave you to judge what the amazement of that establishment
+was, when those two tiny creatures all alone by themselves was marched
+into the Angel; much more so, when I, who had seen them without their
+seeing me, give the Governor my views of the expedition they was upon.
+
+"Cobbs," says the Governor, "if this is so, I must set off myself to
+York and quiet their friends' minds. In which case you must keep your
+eye upon 'em, and humor 'em, till I come back. But before I take these
+measures, Cobbs, I should wish you to find from themselves whether
+your opinions is correct." "Sir to you," says I, "that shall be done
+directly."
+
+So Boots goes up stairs to the Angel, and there he finds Master Harry
+on a e-normous sofa,--immense at any time, but looking like the Great
+Bed of Ware, compared with him,--a drying the eyes of Miss Norah with
+his pocket-hankecher. Their little legs was entirely off the ground,
+of course; and it really is not possible to express how small them
+children looked.
+
+"It's Cobbs! It's Cobbs!" cries Master Harry, and he comes running to
+me and catching hold of my hand. Miss Norah, she comes running to me
+on t'other side and catching hold of my t'other hand, and they both
+jump for joy.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I see you a getting out, sir," says I. "I thought it was you. I
+thought I couldn't be mistaken in your heighth and figure. What's the
+object of your journey, sir?--Matrimonial?"
+
+"We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green," returns the boy.
+"We have run away on purpose. Norah has been in rather low spirits,
+Cobbs; but she'll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend."
+
+"Thank you sir, and thank _you_, miss, for your good opinion. _Did_
+you bring any luggage with you, sir?"
+
+If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honor upon it,
+the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of
+cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a Doll's hairbrush.
+The gentleman had got about half a dozen yards of string, a knife,
+three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprisingly small, a
+orange, and a Chaney mug with his name on it.
+
+"What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir?" says I.
+
+"To go on," replies the boy,--which the courage of that boy was
+something wonderful!--"in the morning, and be married to-morrow."
+
+"Just so, sir. Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to accompany
+you?"
+
+They both jumped for joy again, and cried out, "O yes, yes, Cobbs!
+Yes!"
+
+"Well, sir, if you will excuse my having the freedom to give an
+opinion, what I should recommend would be this. I'm acquainted with a
+pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton that I could borrow, would take
+you and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, (driving myself if you approved,)
+to the end of your journey in a very short space of time. I am not
+altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty till
+to-morrow, but even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it
+might be worth your while. As to the small account here, sir, in case
+you was to find yourself running at all short, that don't signify;
+because I'm a part proprietor of this inn, and it could stand over."
+
+Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped for
+joy again, and called him, "Good Cobbs!" and "Dear Cobbs!" and bent
+across him to kiss one another in the delight of their confiding
+hearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal, for deceiving 'em, that
+ever was born.
+
+"Is there anything you want just at present, sir?" I says, mortally
+ashamed of myself.
+
+"We should like some cakes after dinner," answers Master Harry, "and
+two apples--and jam. With dinner we should like to have toast and
+water. But Norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant
+wine at dessert. And so have I."
+
+"It shall be ordered at the bar, sir," I says.
+
+Sir, I has the feeling as fresh upon me at this minute of speaking as
+I had then, that I would far rather have had it out in half a dozen
+rounds with the Governor, than have combined with him; and that I
+wished with all my heart there was any impossible place where those
+two babies could make an impossible marriage, and live impossibly
+happy ever afterwards. However, as it couldn't be, I went into the
+Governor's plans, and the Governor set off for York in half an hour.
+
+The way in which the women of that house--without exception--every one
+of 'em--married _and_ single--took to that boy when they heard the
+story, is surprising. It was as much as could be done to keep 'em from
+dashing into the room and kissing him. They climbed up all sorts of
+places, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of
+glass. And they were seven deep at the keyhole.
+
+In the evening, I went into the room to see how the runaway couple was
+getting on. The gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting the lady
+in his arms. She had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired
+and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder.
+
+"Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, fatigued, sir?"
+
+"Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but she is not used to be away from home,
+and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think you could
+bring a biffin, please?"
+
+"I ask your pardon, sir. What was it you--"
+
+"I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fond of
+them."
+
+Well, sir, I withdrew in search of the required restorative, and the
+gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a spoon, and took a
+little himself. The lady being heavy with sleep, and rather cross,
+"What should you think, sir," I says, "of a chamber candlestick?" The
+gentleman approved; the chambermaid went first up the great staircase;
+the lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the
+gentleman; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his
+own apartment, where I locked him up.
+
+Boots couldn't but feel with increased acuteness what a base deceiver
+he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet
+milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, over night) about the
+pony. It really was as much as he could do, he don't mind confessing
+to me, to look them two young things in the face, and think what a
+wicked old father of lies he had grown up to be. Howsomever, sir, I
+went on a lying like a Trojan about the pony. I told 'em that it did
+so unfort'nately happen that the pony was half clipped, you see, and
+that he couldn't be took out in that state, for fear it should strike
+to his inside. But that he'd be finished clipping in the course of the
+day, and that to-morrow morning at eight o'clock the pheayton would be
+ready. Boots's view of the whole case, looking back upon it in my
+room, is, that Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, was beginning to give in.
+She hadn't had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't
+seem quite up to brushing it herself, and its getting in her eyes put
+her out. But nothing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his
+breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own
+father.
+
+In the course of the morning, Master Harry rung the bell,--it was
+surprising how that there boy did carry on,--and said, in a sprightly
+way, "Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighborhood?"
+
+"Yes, sir. There's Love Lane."
+
+"Get out with you, Cobbs!"--that was that there boy's
+expression,--"you're joking."
+
+"Begging your pardon, sir, there really is Love Lane; and a pleasant
+walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it to yourself and Mrs. Harry
+Walmers, Junior."
+
+"Norah, dear," says Master Harry, "this is curious. We really ought to
+see Love Lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go
+there with Cobbs."
+
+Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, when that
+young pair told him, as they all three jogged along together, that
+they had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year
+as head gardener, on account of his being so true a friend to 'em.
+Well, sir, I turned the conversation as well as I could, and I took
+'em down Love Lane to the water-meadows, and there Master Harry would
+have drowned himself in a half a moment more, a getting out a
+water-lily for her,--but nothing daunted that boy. Well, sir, they was
+tired out. All being so new and strange to 'em, they was tired as
+tired could be. And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the
+children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep.
+
+I don't know, sir,--perhaps you do,--why it made a man fit to make a
+fool of himself, to see them two pretty babies a lying there in the
+clear still sunny day, not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep
+as they done when they was awake. But Lord! when you come to think of
+yourself, you know, and what a game you have been up to ever since you
+was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you are, after
+all, that's where it is! Don't you see, sir?
+
+Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty
+clear to me, namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses, Junior's, temper was
+on the move. When Master Harry took her round the waist, she said he
+"teased her so"; and when he says, "Norah, my young May Moon, your
+Harry tease you?" she tells him, "Yes; and I want to go home!"
+
+A billed fowl and baked bread-and-butter pudding brought Mrs. Walmers
+up a little; but I could have wished, I must privately own to you,
+sir, to have seen her more sensible of the voice of love, and less
+abandoning of herself to the currants in the pudding. However, Master
+Harry, he kep' up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. Mrs.
+Walmers turned very sleepy about dusk, and begun to cry. Therefore,
+Mrs. Walmers went off to bed as per yesterday; and Master Harry ditto
+repeated.
+
+About eleven or twelve at night comes back the Governor in a chaise,
+along with Mr. Walmers and a elderly lady. Mr. Walmers says to our
+missis: "We are much indebted to you, ma'am, for your kind care of our
+little children, which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. Pray,
+ma'am, where is my boy?" Our missis says: "Cobbs has the dear child
+in charge, sir. Cobbs, show Forty!" Then Mr. Walmers, he says: "Ah,
+Cobbs! I am glad to see _you_. I understood you was here!" And I says:
+"Yes, sir. Your most obedient, sir."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," I adds, while unlocking the door; "I hope
+you are not angry with Master Harry. For Master Harry is a fine boy,
+sir, and will do you credit and honor." And Boots signifies to me,
+that if the fine boy's father had contradicted him in the state of
+mind in which he then was, he thinks he should have "fetched him a
+crack," and took the consequences.
+
+But Mr. Walmers only says, "No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. Thank you!"
+and, the door being opened, goes in, goes up to the bedside, bends
+gently down, and kisses the little sleeping face. Then he stands
+looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it (they do say
+he ran away with Mrs. Walmers); and then he gently shakes the little
+shoulder.
+
+"Harry, my dear boy! Harry!"
+
+Master Harry starts up and looks at his pa. Looks at me too. Such is
+the honor of that mite, that he looks at me, to see whether he has
+brought me into trouble.
+
+"I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself and come
+home."
+
+"Yes, pa."
+
+Master Harry dresses himself quick.
+
+"Please may I"--the spirit of that little creatur,--"please, dear
+pa,--may I--kiss Norah, before I go?"
+
+"You may, my child."
+
+So he takes Master Harry in his hand, and I leads the way with the
+candle to that other bedroom, where the elderly lady is seated by the
+bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, is fast asleep. There
+the father lifts the boy up to the pillow, and he lays his little face
+down for an instant by the little warm face of poor little Mrs. Harry
+Walmers, Junior, and gently draws it to him,--a sight so touching to
+the chambermaids who are a peeping through the door, that one of them
+calls out, "It's a shame to part 'em!"
+
+Finally, Boots says, that's all about it. Mr. Walmers drove away in
+the chaise, having hold of Master Harry's hand. The elderly lady and
+Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, that was never to be (she married a
+captain, long afterwards, and died in India), went off next day. In
+conclusion, Boots puts it to me whether I hold with him in two
+opinions: firstly, that there are not many couples on their way to be
+married who are half as innocent as them two children; secondly, that
+it would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on their way
+to be married, if they could only be stopped in time and brought back
+separate.
+
+                                                  _Charles Dickens._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+AMRIE AND THE GEESE.
+
+
+Amrie tended the geese upon the Holder Green, as they called the
+pasture-ground upon the little height by Hungerbrook.
+
+It was a pleasant but a troublesome occupation. Especially painful was
+it to Amrie, that she could do nothing to attach her charge to her.
+Indeed, they were scarcely to be distinguished one from another. Was
+it not true what Brown Mariann had said to her as she came out of the
+Moosbrunnenwood?
+
+"Creatures that live in herds are all and every one stupid."
+
+"I think," said Amrie, "that this is what makes geese stupid; they can
+do too many things. They can swim and run and fly, but they can do
+neither well; they are not at home in the water, nor on the ground,
+nor in the air; and therefore they are stupid."
+
+"I will stand by this," said Mariann; "in thee is concealed an old
+hermit."
+
+Amrie was often borne into the kingdom of dreams. Freely rose her
+childish soul upward and cradled itself in unlimited ether. As the
+larks in the air sang and rejoiced without knowing the limits of their
+field, so would she soar away beyond the boundaries of the whole
+country. The soul of the child knew nothing of the limits placed upon
+the narrow life of reality. Whoever is accustomed to wonder will find
+a miracle in every day.
+
+"Listen!" she would say; "the cuckoo calls! It is the living echo of
+the woods calling and answering itself. The bird sits over there in
+the service-tree. Look up, and he will fly away. How loud he cries,
+and how unceasingly! That little bird has a stronger voice than a man.
+Place thyself upon the tree and imitate him; thou wilt not be heard
+so far as this bird, who is no larger than my hand. Listen! Perhaps he
+is an enchanted prince, and he may suddenly begin to speak to thee.
+Yes," she continued, "only tell me thy riddle, and I will soon find
+the meaning of it; and then will I disenchant thee."
+
+While Amrie's thoughts were wandering beyond all bounds, the geese
+also felt themselves at liberty to stray away and enjoy the good
+things of the neighboring clover or barley field. Awaking out of her
+dreams, she had great trouble in bringing the geese back; and when
+these freebooters returned in regiments, they had much to tell of the
+goodly land where they had fed so well. There seemed no end to their
+gossipping and chattering.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Again Amrie soared. "Look! there fly the birds! No bird in the air
+goes astray. Even the swallows, as they pass and repass, are always
+safe, always free! O, could we only fly! How must the world look
+above, where the larks soar! Hurrah! Always higher and higher, farther
+and farther! O, if I could but fly!"
+
+Then she sang herself suddenly away from all the noise and from all
+her thoughts. Her breath, which with the idea of flying had grown
+deeper and quicker, as though she really hovered in the high ether,
+became again calm and measured.
+
+Of the thousand-fold meanings that lived in Amrie's soul, Brown
+Mariann received only at times an intimation. Once, when she came from
+the forest with her load of wood, and with May-bugs and worms for
+Amrie's geese imprisoned in her sack, the latter said to her, "Aunt,
+do you know why the wind blows?"
+
+"No, child. Do you?"
+
+"Yes; I have observed that everything that grows must move about. The
+bird flies, the beetle creeps; the hare, the stag, the horse, and all
+animals must run. The fish swim, and so do the frogs. But there stand
+the trees, the corn, and the grass; they cannot go forth, and yet they
+must grow. Then comes the wind, and says, 'Only stand still, and I
+will do for you what others can do for themselves. See how I turn, and
+shake, and bend you! Be glad that I come! I do thee good, even if I
+make thee weary.'"
+
+Brown Mariann only made her usual speech in reply, "I maintain it; in
+thee is concealed the soul of an old hermit."
+
+The quail began to be heard in the high rye-fields; near Amrie, the
+field larks sang the whole day long. They wandered here and there and
+sang so tenderly, so into the deepest heart, it seemed as though they
+drew their inspiration from the source of life,--from the soul itself.
+The tone was more beautiful than that of the skylark, which soars high
+in the air. Often one of the birds came so near to Amrie that she
+said, "Why cannot I tell thee that I will not hurt thee? Only stay!"
+But the bird was timid, and flew farther off.
+
+At noon, when Brown Mariann came to her, she said, "Could I only know
+what a bird finds to say, singing the whole day long! Even then he has
+not sung it all out!"
+
+Mariann answered, "See here! A bird keeps nothing to himself, to
+ponder over. But within man there is always something speaking on, so
+softly! There are thoughts in us that talk, and weep, and sing so
+quietly we scarcely hear them ourselves. Not so with the bird; when
+his song is done, he only wants to eat or sleep."
+
+As Mariann turned and went forth with her bundle of sticks, Amrie
+looked after her, smiling. "There goes a great singing bird!" she
+thought to herself.
+
+None but the sun saw how long the child continued to smile and to
+think. Silently she sat dreaming, as the wind moved the shadows of
+the branches around her. Then she gazed at the clouds, motionless on
+the horizon, or chasing each other through the sky. As in the wide
+space without, so in the soul of the child, the cloud-pictures arose
+and melted away.
+
+Thus, day after day, Amrie lived.
+
+                                            "_The Little Barefoot._"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE ROBINS.
+
+
+A thing remarkable in my childhood was, that once going to a
+neighbor's house, I saw on the way a robin sitting on her nest, and as
+I went near her she went off, but, having young ones, flew about, and
+with many cries told her concern for them.
+
+I stood and threw stones at her, until, one striking her, she fell
+down dead. At first I was pleased with the exploit, but after a few
+minutes was seized with horror for having in a sportive way killed an
+innocent creature while she was careful of her young. I beheld her
+lying dead, and thought that these young ones, for which she was so
+heedful, must now perish for want of their parent to nourish them; and
+after some painful considerations on the subject, I climbed up the
+tree, took all the young birds and killed them, supposing that to be
+better than to leave them to pine away and die miserably. I believed
+in this case that the Scripture proverb was fulfilled: "The tender
+mercies of the wicked are cruel."
+
+I then went on my errand, but for some hours could think of little
+else than the cruelties I had committed, and was troubled.
+
+He whose tender mercies are over all his works hath placed a principle
+in the human mind which incites to goodness towards every living
+creature; and this being singly attended to, we become tender-hearted
+and sympathizing; but being frequently rejected, the mind becomes shut
+up in a contrary disposition.
+
+I often remember the Fountain of Goodness which gives being to all
+creatures, and whose love extends to the caring for the sparrow; and I
+believe that where the love of God is verily perfected, a tenderness
+toward all creatures made subject to us will be felt, and a care that
+we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which
+their Creator intended for them.
+
+                                                     _John Woolman._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE FISH I DIDN'T CATCH.
+
+
+Our old homestead (the house was very old for a new country, having
+been built about the time that the Prince of Orange drove out James
+the Second) nestled under a long range of hills which stretched off to
+the west. It was surrounded by woods in all directions save to the
+southeast, where a break in the leafy wall revealed a vista of low
+green meadows, picturesque with wooded islands and jutting capes of
+upland. Through these, a small brook, noisy enough as it foamed,
+rippled, and laughed down its rocky falls by our garden-side, wound,
+silently and scarcely visible, to a still larger stream, known as the
+Country Brook. This brook in its turn, after doing duty at two or
+three saw and grist mills, the clack of which we could hear in still
+days across the intervening woodlands, found its way to the great
+river, and the river took it up and bore it down to the great sea.
+
+I have not much reason for speaking well of these meadows, or rather
+bogs, for they were wet most of the year; but in the early days they
+were highly prized by the settlers, as they furnished natural mowing
+before the uplands could be cleared of wood and stones and laid down
+to grass. There is a tradition that the hay-harvesters of two
+adjoining towns quarrelled about a boundary question, and fought a
+hard battle one summer morning in that old time, not altogether
+bloodless, but by no means as fatal as the fight between the rival
+Highland clans, described by Scott in "The Fair Maid of Perth." I used
+to wonder at their folly, when I was stumbling over the rough
+hassocks, and sinking knee-deep in the black mire, raking the sharp
+sickle-edged grass which we used to feed out to the young cattle in
+midwinter when the bitter cold gave them appetite for even such
+fodder. I had an almost Irish hatred of snakes, and these meadows were
+full of them,--striped, green, dingy water-snakes, and now and then
+an ugly spotted adder by no means pleasant to touch with bare feet.
+There were great black snakes, too, in the ledges of the neighboring
+knolls; and on one occasion in early spring I found myself in the
+midst of a score at least of them,--holding their wicked meeting of a
+Sabbath morning on the margin of a deep spring in the meadows. One
+glimpse at their fierce shining heads in the sunshine, as they roused
+themselves at my approach, was sufficient to send me at full speed
+towards the nearest upland. The snakes, equally scared, fled in the
+same direction; and, looking back, I saw the dark monsters following
+close at my heels, terrible as the Black Horse rebel regiment at Bull
+Run. I had, happily, sense enough left to step aside and let the ugly
+troop glide into the bushes.
+
+Nevertheless, the meadows had their redeeming points. In spring
+mornings the blackbirds and bobolinks made them musical with songs;
+and in the evenings great bullfrogs croaked and clamored; and on
+summer nights we loved to watch the white wreaths of fog rising and
+drifting in the moonlight like troops of ghosts, with the fireflies
+throwing up ever and anon signals of their coming. But the Brook was
+far more attractive, for it had sheltered bathing-places, clear and
+white sanded, and weedy stretches, where the shy pickerel loved to
+linger, and deep pools, where the stupid sucker stirred the black mud
+with his fins. I had followed it all the way from its birthplace among
+the pleasant New Hampshire hills, through the sunshine of broad, open
+meadows, and under the shadow of thick woods. It was, for the most
+part, a sober, quiet little river; but at intervals it broke into a
+low, rippling laugh over rocks and trunks of fallen trees. There had,
+so tradition said, once been a witch-meeting on its banks, of six
+little old women in short, sky-blue cloaks; and if a drunken teamster
+could be credited, a ghost was once seen bobbing for eels under
+Country Bridge. It ground our corn and rye for us, at its two
+grist-mills; and we drove our sheep to it for their spring washing, an
+anniversary which was looked forward to with intense delight, for it
+was always rare fun for the youngsters. Macaulay has sung,--
+
+    "That year young lads in Umbro
+     Shall plunge the struggling sheep";
+
+and his picture of the Roman sheep-washing recalled, when we read it,
+similar scenes in the Country Brook. On its banks we could always find
+the earliest and the latest wild flowers, from the pale blue,
+three-lobed hepatica, and small, delicate wood-anemone, to the yellow
+bloom of the witch-hazel burning in the leafless October woods.
+
+Yet, after all, I think the chief attraction of the Brook to my
+brother and myself was the fine fishing it afforded us. Our bachelor
+uncle who lived with us (there has always been one of that unfortunate
+class in every generation of our family) was a quiet, genial man, much
+given to hunting and fishing; and it was one of the great pleasures of
+our young life to accompany him on his expeditions to Great Hill,
+Brandy-brow Woods, the Pond, and, best of all, to the Country Brook.
+We were quite willing to work hard in the cornfield or the haying-lot
+to finish the necessary day's labor in season for an afternoon stroll
+through the woods and along the brookside. I remember my first fishing
+excursion as if it were but yesterday. I have been happy many times in
+my life, but never more intensely so than when I received that first
+fishing-pole from my uncle's hand, and trudged off with him through
+the woods and meadows. It was a still sweet day of early summer; the
+long afternoon shadows of the trees lay cool across our path; the
+leaves seemed greener, the flowers brighter, the birds merrier, than
+ever before. My uncle, who knew by long experience where were the best
+haunts of pickerel, considerately placed me at the most favorable
+point. I threw out my line as I had so often seen others, and waited
+anxiously for a bite, moving the bait in rapid jerks on the surface of
+the water in imitation of the leap of a frog. Nothing came of it. "Try
+again," said my uncle. Suddenly the bait sank out of sight. "Now for
+it," thought I; "here is a fish at last." I made a strong pull, and
+brought up a tangle of weeds. Again and again I cast out my line with
+aching arms, and drew it back empty. I looked to my uncle appealingly.
+"Try once more," he said; "we fishermen must have patience."
+
+Suddenly something tugged at my line and swept off with it into deep
+water. Jerking it up, I saw a fine pickerel wriggling in the sun.
+"Uncle!" I cried, looking back in uncontrollable excitement, "I've got
+a fish!" "Not yet," said my uncle. As he spoke there was a plash in
+the water; I caught the arrowy gleam of a scared fish shooting into
+the middle of the stream; my hook hung empty from the line. I had lost
+my prize.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We are apt to speak of the sorrows of childhood as trifles in
+comparison with those of grown-up people; but we may depend upon it
+the young folks don't agree with us. Our griefs, modified and
+restrained by reason, experience, and self-respect, keep the
+proprieties, and, if possible, avoid a scene; but the sorrow of
+childhood, unreasoning and all-absorbing, is a complete abandonment to
+the passion. The doll's nose is broken, and the world breaks up with
+it; the marble rolls out of sight, and the solid globe rolls off with
+the marble.
+
+So, overcome by my great and bitter disappointment, I sat down on the
+nearest hassock, and for a time refused to be comforted, even by my
+uncle's assurance that there were more fish in the brook. He refitted
+my bait, and, putting the pole again in my hands, told me to try my
+luck once more.
+
+"But remember, boy," he said, with his shrewd smile, "never brag of
+catching a fish until he is on dry ground. I've seen older folks doing
+that in more ways than one, and so making fools of themselves. It's no
+use to boast of anything until it's done, nor then either, for it
+speaks for itself."
+
+How often since I have been reminded of the fish that I did not catch!
+When I hear people boasting of a work as yet undone, and trying to
+anticipate the credit which belongs only to actual achievement, I call
+to mind that scene by the brookside, and the wise caution of my uncle
+in that particular instance takes the form of a proverb of universal
+application: "NEVER BRAG OF YOUR FISH BEFORE YOU CATCH HIM."
+
+                                                 _John G. Whittier._
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE KATE WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+When I first settled in Grasmere, Catherine Wordsworth was in her
+infancy, but even at that age she noticed me more than any other
+person, excepting, of course, her mother. She was not above three
+years old when she died, so that there could not have been much room
+for the expansion of her understanding, or the unfolding of her real
+character. But there was room in her short life, and too much, for
+love the most intense to settle upon her.
+
+The whole of Grasmere is not large enough to allow of any great
+distance between house and house; and as it happened that little Kate
+Wordsworth returned my love, she in a manner lived with me at my
+solitary cottage. As often as I could entice her from home, she walked
+with me, slept with me, and was my sole companion.
+
+That I was not singular in ascribing some witchery to the nature and
+manners of this innocent child may be gathered from the following
+beautiful lines by her father. They are from the poem entitled
+"Characteristics of a Child Three Years Old," dated, at the foot,
+1811, which must be an oversight, as she was not so old until the
+following year.
+
+    "Loving she is, and tractable, though wild;
+     And Innocence hath privilege in her
+     To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes,
+     And feats of cunning, and the pretty round
+     Of trespasses, affected to provoke
+     Mock chastisement, and partnership in play.
+     And as a fagot sparkles on the hearth
+     Not less if unattended and alone
+     Than when both young and old sit gathered round,
+     And take delight in its activity,--
+     Even so this happy creature of herself
+     Was all-sufficient. Solitude to her
+     Was blithe society, who filled the air
+     With gladness and involuntary songs."
+
+It was this radiant spirit of joyousness, making solitude, for her,
+blithe society, and filling from morning to night the air with
+gladness and involuntary songs,--this it was which so fascinated my
+heart that I became blindly devoted to this one affection.
+
+In the spring of 1812 I went up to London; and early in June I learned
+by a letter from Miss Wordsworth, her aunt, that she had died
+suddenly. She had gone to bed in good health about sunset on June 4,
+was found speechless a little before midnight, and died in the early
+dawn, just as the first gleams of morning began to appear above Seat
+Sandel and Fairfield, the mightiest of the Grasmere barriers,--about
+an hour, perhaps, before sunrise.
+
+Over and above my love for her, I had always viewed her as an
+impersonation of the dawn, and of the spirit of infancy; and this,
+with the connection which, even in her parting hours, she assumed with
+the summer sun, timing her death with the rising of that fountain of
+life,--these impressions recoiled into such a contrast to the image of
+death, that each exalted and brightened the other.
+
+I returned hastily to Grasmere, stretched myself every night on her
+grave, in fact often passed the whole night there, in mere intensity
+of sick yearning after neighborhood with the darling of my heart.
+
+In Sir Walter Scott's "Demonology," and in Dr. Abercrombie's
+"Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers," there are some
+remarkable illustrations of the creative faculties awakened in the eye
+or other organs by peculiar states of passion; and it is worthy of a
+place among cases of that nature, that in many solitary fields, at a
+considerable elevation above the level of the valleys,--fields which,
+in the local dialect, are called "intacks,"--my eye was haunted, at
+times, in broad noonday (oftener, however, in the afternoon), with a
+facility, but at times also with a necessity, for weaving, out of a
+few simple elements, a perfect picture of little Kate in her attitude
+and onward motion of walking.
+
+I resorted constantly to these "intacks," as places where I was little
+liable to disturbance; and usually I saw her at the opposite side of
+the field, which sometimes might be at the distance of a quarter of a
+mile, generally not so much. Almost always she carried a basket on her
+head; and usually the first hint upon which the figure arose commenced
+in wild plants, such as tall ferns, or the purple flowers of the
+foxglove. But whatever these might be, uniformly the same little
+full-formed figure arose, uniformly dressed in the little blue
+bed-gown and black skirt of Westmoreland, and uniformly with the air
+of advancing motion.
+
+                                                _Thomas De Quincey._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+HOW MARGERY WONDERED.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+One bright morning, late in March, little Margery put on her hood and
+her Highland plaid shawl, and went trudging across the beach. It was
+the first time she had been trusted out alone, for Margery was a
+little girl; nothing about her was large, except her round gray eyes,
+which had yet scarcely opened upon half a dozen springs and summers.
+
+There was a pale mist on the far-off sea and sky, and up around the
+sun were white clouds edged with the hues of pinks and violets. The
+sunshine and the mild air made Margery's very heart feel warm, and she
+let the soft wind blow aside her Highland shawl, as she looked across
+the waters at the sun, and wondered!
+
+For, somehow, the sun had never looked before as it did to-day;--it
+seemed like a great golden flower bursting out of its pearl-lined
+calyx,--a flower without a stem! Or was there a strong stem away
+behind it in the sky, that reached down below the sea, to a root,
+nobody could guess where?
+
+Margery did not stop to puzzle herself about the answer to her
+question, for now the tide was coming in, and the waves, little at
+first, but growing larger every moment, were crowding up, along the
+sand and pebbles, laughing, winking, and whispering, as they tumbled
+over each other, like thousands of children hurrying home from
+somewhere, each with its own precious little secret to tell. Where did
+the waves come from? Who was down there under the blue wall of the
+horizon, with the hoarse, hollow voice, urging and pushing them across
+the beach to her feet? And what secret was it they were lisping to
+each other with their pleasant voices? O, what was there beneath the
+sea, and beyond the sea, so deep, so broad, and so dim too, away off
+where the white ships, that looked smaller than sea-birds, were
+gliding out and in?
+
+But while Margery stood still for a moment on a dry rock and wondered,
+there came a low, rippling warble to her ear from a cedar-tree on the
+cliff above her. It had been a long winter, and Margery had forgotten
+that there were birds, and that birds could sing. So she wondered
+again what the music was. And when she saw the bird perched on a
+yellow-brown bough, she wondered yet more. It was only a bluebird, but
+then it was the first bluebird Margery had ever seen. He fluttered
+among the prickly twigs, and looked as if he had grown out of them, as
+the cedar-berries had, which were dusty-blue, the color of his coat.
+But how did the music get into his throat? And after it was in his
+throat, how could it untangle itself, and wind itself off so evenly?
+And where had the bluebird flown from, across the snow-banks, down to
+the shore of the blue sea? The waves sang a welcome to him, and he
+sang a welcome to the waves; they seemed to know each other well; and
+the ripple and the warble sounded so much alike, the bird and the wave
+must both have learned their music of the same teacher. And Margery
+kept on wondering as she stepped between the song of the bluebird and
+the echo of the sea, and climbed a sloping bank, just turning faintly
+green in the spring sunshine.
+
+The grass was surely beginning to grow! There were fresh, juicy shoots
+running up among the withered blades of last year, as if in hopes of
+bringing them back to life; and closer down she saw the sharp points
+of new spears peeping from their sheaths. And scattered here and there
+were small dark green leaves folded around buds shut up so tight that
+only those who had watched them many seasons could tell what flowers
+were to be let out of their safe prisons by and by. So no one could
+blame Margery for not knowing that they were only common
+things,--mouse-ear, dandelions, and cinquefoil; nor for stooping over
+the tiny buds, and wondering.
+
+What made the grass come up so green out of the black earth? And how
+did the buds know when it was time to take off their little green
+hoods, and see what there was in the world around them? And how came
+they to be buds at all? Did they bloom in another world before they
+sprung up here?--and did they know, themselves, what kind of flowers
+they should blossom into? Had flowers souls, like little girls, that
+would live in another world when their forms had faded away from this?
+
+Margery thought she should like to sit down on the bank and wait
+beside the buds until they opened; perhaps they would tell her their
+secret if the very first thing they saw was her eyes watching them.
+One bud was beginning to unfold; it was streaked with yellow in little
+stripes that she could imagine became wider every minute. But she
+would not touch it, for it seemed almost as much alive as herself. She
+only wondered, and wondered!
+
+But the dash of the waves grew louder, and the bluebird had not
+stopped singing yet, and the sweet sounds drew Margery's feet down to
+the beach again, where she played with the shining pebbles, and sifted
+the sand through her plump fingers, stopping now and then to wonder a
+little about everything, until she heard her mother's voice calling
+her, from the cottage on the cliff.
+
+Then Margery trudged home across the shells and pebbles with a
+pleasant smile dimpling her cheeks, for she felt very much at home in
+this large, wonderful world, and was happy to be alive, although she
+neither could have told, nor cared to know, the reason why. But when
+her mother unpinned the little girl's Highland shawl, and took off
+her hood, she said, "O mother, do let me live on the door-step! I
+don't like houses to stay in. What makes everything so pretty and so
+glad? Don't you like to wonder?"
+
+Margery's mother was a good woman. But then there was all the
+housework to do, and if she had thoughts, she did not often let them
+wander outside the kitchen door. And just now she was baking some
+gingerbread, which was in danger of getting burned in the oven. So she
+pinned the shawl around the child's neck again, and left her on the
+door-step, saying to herself, as she returned to her work, "Queer
+child! I wonder what kind of a woman she will be!"
+
+But Margery sat on the door-step, and wondered, as the sea sounded
+louder, and the sunshine grew warmer around her. It was all so
+strange, and grand, and beautiful! Her heart danced with joy to the
+music that went echoing through the wide world from the roots of the
+sprouting grass to the great golden blossom of the sun.
+
+And when the round, gray eyes closed that night, at the first peep of
+the stars, the angels looked down and wondered over Margery. For the
+wisdom of the wisest being God has made ends in wonder; and there is
+nothing on earth so wonderful as the budding soul of a little child.
+
+                                                      _Lucy Larcom._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE NETTLE-GATHERER.
+
+
+Very early in the spring, when the fresh grass was just appearing,
+before the trees had got their foliage, or the beds of white campanula
+and blue anemone were open, a poor little girl with a basket on her
+arm went out to search for nettles.
+
+Near the stone wall of the churchyard was a bright green spot, where
+grew a large bunch of nettles. The largest stung little Karine's
+fingers. "Thank you for nothing!" said she; "but, whether you like it
+or not, you must all be put into my basket."
+
+Little Karine blew on her smarting finger, and the wind followed suit.
+The sun shone out warm, and the larks began to sing. As Karine was
+standing there listening to the song of the birds, and warming herself
+in the sun, she perceived a beautiful butterfly.
+
+"O, the first I have seen this year! What sort of summer shall I have?
+Let me see your colors. Black and bright red. Sorrow and joy in turn.
+It is very likely I may go supperless to bed, but then there is the
+pleasure of gathering flowers, making hay, and playing tricks."
+Remembrance and expectation made her laugh.
+
+The butterfly stretched out its dazzling wings, and, after it had
+settled on a nettle, waved itself backwards and forwards in the
+sunshine. There was also something else upon the nettle, which looked
+like a shrivelled-up light brown leaf. The sun was just then shining
+down with great force upon the spot, and while she looked the brown
+object moved, and two little leaves rose gently up which by and by
+became two beautiful little wings; and behold, it was a butterfly just
+come out of the chrysalis! Fresh life was infused into it by the warm
+rays of the sun, and how happy it was!
+
+The two butterflies must have been friends whom some unlucky chance
+had separated. They flew about, played at hide-and-seek, waltzed with
+each other, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves in the
+bright sunshine. One flew away three times into a neighboring orchard.
+The other seated itself on a nettle to rest. Karine went gently
+towards it, put her hands quickly over it, and got possession both of
+the butterfly and the nettle. She then put them into the basket, which
+she covered with a red cotton handkerchief, and went home happy.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The nettles were bought by an old countess, who lived in a grand
+apartment, and had a weakness for nettle soup. Karine received a
+silver piece for them. With this in her hand, the butterfly in her
+basket, and also two large gingercakes which had been given to her by
+the kind countess, the happy girl went into the room where her mother
+and little brother awaited her. There were great rejoicings over the
+piece of silver, the gingercakes, and the butterfly.
+
+But the butterfly did not appear as happy with the children as the
+children were with the butterfly. It would not eat any of the
+gingerbread, or anything else which the children offered, but was
+always fluttering against the window-pane, and when it rested on the
+ledge it put out a long proboscis, drew it in again, and appeared to
+be sucking something; however, it found nothing to suit its taste, so
+it flew about again, and beat its wings with such force against the
+window-pane, that Karine began to fear it would come to grief. Two
+days passed in this way. The butterfly would not be happy.
+
+"It wants to get out," thought Karine; "it wants to find a home and
+something to eat." So she opened the window.
+
+Ah, how joyfully the butterfly flew out into the open air! it seemed
+to be quite happy. Karine ran after it to see which way it took. It
+flew over the churchyard, which was near Karine's dwelling. There
+little yellow star-like flowers of every description were in bud;
+among them the spring campanula, otherwise called the morning-star.
+Into the calyxes of these little flowers it thrust its proboscis, and
+sucked a sweet juice therefrom; for at the bottom of the calyx of
+almost every flower there is a drop of sweet juice which God has
+provided for the nourishment of insects,--bees, drones, butterflies,
+and many other little creatures.
+
+The butterfly then flew to the bunch of nettles on the hill. The large
+nettle which had stung Karine's finger now bore three white
+bell-shaped flowers, which looked like a crown on the top of the
+stalk, and many others were nearly out. The butterfly drew honey from
+the white nettle-blossoms and embraced the plant with its wings, as
+children do a tender mother.
+
+"It has now returned to its home," thought Karine, and she felt very
+glad to have given the butterfly its liberty.
+
+Summer came. The child enjoyed herself under the lime-trees in the
+churchyard, and in the meadows where she got the beautiful yellow
+catkins, which were as soft as the down of the goslings, and which she
+was so fond of playing with, also the young twigs which she liked
+cutting into pipes or whistles. Fir-trees and pines blossomed and bore
+fir-cones; the sheep and calves were growing, and drank the dew, which
+is called the "Blessed Virgin's hand," out of the trumpet moss, which
+with its small white and purple cup grew on the steep shady banks.
+
+Karine now gathered flowers to sell. The nettles had long ago become
+too old and rank, but the nettle butterflies still flew merrily about
+among them.
+
+One day Karine saw her old friend sit on a leaf, as if tired and worn
+out, and when it flew away the child found a little gray egg lying on
+the very spot where it had rested, whereupon she made a mark on the
+nettle and the leaf.
+
+She forgot the nettles for a long time, and it seemed as if the
+butterfly had also forgotten them, for it was there no more. Larger
+and more beautiful butterflies were flying about there, higher up in
+the air. There was the magnificent Apollo-bird, with large white wings
+and scarlet eyes; also the Antiopa, with its beautiful blue and white
+velvet band on the edge of its dark velvet dress; and farther on the
+dear little blue glittering Zefprinner, and many others.
+
+Karine gathered flowers, and then went into the hay-field to work;
+still, it often happened that she and her little brother went
+supperless to bed. But then their father played on the violin, and
+made them forget that they were hungry, and its tones lulled them to
+sleep.
+
+One day, when Karine was passing by the nettles, she stopped, rejoiced
+to see them again. She saw that the nettles were a little bent down,
+and, upon examination, found a number of small green caterpillars,
+resembling those which we call cabbage-grubs, and they seemed to enjoy
+eating the nettle leaves as much as the old countess did her nettle
+soup. She saw that they covered the exact spot where she had made a
+mark, and that the leaf was nearly eaten up by the caterpillars, and
+Karine immediately thought that they must be the butterfly's children.
+And so they were, for they had come from its eggs.
+
+"Ah!" thought Karine, "if my little brother and I, who sometimes can
+eat more than our father and mother can give us, could become
+butterflies, and find something to eat as easily as these do, would it
+not be pleasant?" She broke off the nettle on which the butterfly had
+laid its eggs,--but this time she carefully wound her handkerchief
+round her hand,--and carried it home.
+
+On her arrival there, she found all the little grubs had crawled away,
+with the exception of one, which was still eating and enjoying
+itself. Karine put the nettle into a glass of water, and every day a
+fresh leaf appeared. The caterpillar quickly increased in size, and
+seemed to thrive wonderfully well. The child took great pleasure in
+it, and wondered within herself how large it would be at last, and
+when its wings would come.
+
+But one morning it appeared very quiet and sleepy, and would not eat,
+and became every moment more weary, and seemed ill. "O," said Karine,
+"it is certainly going to die, and there will be no butterfly from it;
+what a pity!"
+
+It was evening, and the next morning Karine found with astonishment
+that the caterpillar had spun round itself a sort of web, in which it
+lay, no longer a living green grub, but a stiff brown chrysalis. She
+took it out of the cocoon; it was as if enclosed in a shell. "It is
+dead," said the child, "and is now lying in its coffin! But I will
+still keep it, for it has been so long with us, and at any rate it
+will be something belonging to my old favorite." Karine then laid it
+on the earth in a little flower-pot which stood in the window, in
+which there was a balsam growing.
+
+The long winter came, and much, very much snow. Karine and her little
+brother had to run barefooted through it all. The boy got a cough. He
+became paler and paler, would not eat anything, and lay tired and
+weary, just like the grub of the caterpillar shortly before it became
+a chrysalis.
+
+The snow melted, the April sun reappeared, but the little boy played
+out of doors no more. His sister went out again to gather nettles and
+blue anemones, but no longer with a merry heart. When she came home,
+she would place the anemones on her little brother's sick-bed. And as
+time went on, one day he lay there stiff and cold, with eyes fast
+closed. In a word, he was dead. They placed him in a coffin, took him
+to the churchyard, and laid him in the ground, and the priest threw
+three handfuls of earth over the coffin. Karine's heart was so heavy
+that she did not heed the blessed words which were spoken of the
+resurrection unto everlasting life.
+
+Karine only knew that her brother was dead, that she had no longer
+any little brother whom she could play with, and love, and be loved by
+in return. She wept bitterly when she thought how gentle and good he
+was. She went crying into the meadows, gathered all the flowers and
+young leaves she could find, and strewed them on her brother's grave,
+and sat there weeping for many hours.
+
+One day she took the pot with the balsam in it, and also the
+chrysalis, and said, "I will plant the balsam on the grave, and bury
+the butterfly's grub with my dear little brother." Again she wept
+bitterly while she thought to herself: "Mother said that my brother
+lives, and is happy with God; but I saw him lying in the coffin, and
+put into the grave, and how can he then come back again? No, no; he is
+dead, and I shall never see either of them again."
+
+Poor little Karine sobbed, and dried her tears with the hand that was
+free. In the other lay the chrysalis, and the sun shone upon it. There
+was a low crackling in the shell, and a violent motion within, and,
+behold! she saw a living insect crawl out, which threw off its shell
+as a man would his cloak, and sat on Karine's hand, breathing, and at
+liberty. In a short time wings began to appear from its back. Karine
+looked on with a beating heart. She saw its wings increase in size,
+and become colored in the brightness of the spring sun. Presently the
+new-born butterfly moved its proboscis, and tried to raise its young
+wings, and she recognized her nettle butterfly. And when, after an
+hour, he fluttered his wings to prepare for flight, and flew around
+the child's head and among the flowers, an unspeakably joyful feeling
+came over Karine, and she said, "The shell of the chrysalis has burst,
+and the caterpillar within has got wings; in like manner is my little
+brother freed from his mortal body, and has become an angel in the
+presence of God."
+
+In the night she dreamed that her brother and herself, with
+butterfly's wings, and joy beaming in their eyes, were soaring far,
+far away, above their earthly home, towards the millions of bright
+shining stars; and the stars became flowers, whose nectar they drank;
+and over them was a wondrous bright light, and they heard sounds of
+music,--so grand and beautiful! Karine recognized the tones she had
+heard on earth, when their father played for her and her little
+brother in their poor cottage, when they were hungry. But this was so
+much more grand! Yet it was so beautiful, so exceedingly beautiful,
+that Karine awoke. A rosy light filled the room, the morning dawn was
+breaking, and the sun was looking in love upon the earth, reviving
+everything with his gentleness and strength.
+
+Karine wept no more. She felt great inward joy. When she again went to
+visit the nettles, and saw the little caterpillars crawling on the
+leaves, she said in a low voice, "You only crawl now, you little
+things! By and by you will have wings as well as I, and you know not
+how glorious it will be at the last."
+
+                                                 _From the Swedish._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE ARTHUR'S PRAYER.
+
+
+The little school-boys went quietly to their own beds, and began
+undressing and talking to one another in whispers; while the elder,
+amongst whom was Tom, sat chatting about on one another's beds, with
+their jackets and waistcoats off. Poor little Arthur was overwhelmed
+with the novelty of his position. The idea of sleeping in the room
+with strange boys had clearly never crossed his mind before, and was
+as painful as it was strange to him. He could hardly bear to take his
+jacket off; however, presently, with an effort, off it came, and then
+he paused and looked at Tom, who was sitting at the bottom of his bed,
+talking and laughing.
+
+"Please, Brown," he whispered, "may I wash my face and hands?"
+
+"Of course, if you like," said Tom, staring; "that's your
+washhand-stand under the window, second from your bed. You'll have to
+go down for more water in the morning if you use it all." And on he
+went with his talk, while Arthur stole timidly from between the beds
+out to his washhand-stand, and began his ablutions, thereby drawing
+for a moment on himself the attention of the room.
+
+On went the talk and laughter. Arthur finished his washing and
+undressing, and put on his night-gown. He then looked round more
+nervously than ever. Two or three of the little boys were already in
+bed, sitting up with their chins on their knees. The light burned
+clear, the noise went on. It was a trying moment for the poor little
+lonely boy; however, this time he did not ask Tom what he might or
+might not do, but dropped on his knees by his bedside, as he had done
+every day from his childhood, to open his heart to Him who heareth the
+cry and beareth the sorrows of the tender child, and the strong man in
+agony.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlacing his boots, so that
+his back was towards Arthur, and he did not see what had happened,
+and looked up in wonder at the sudden silence. Then two or three boys
+laughed and sneered, and a big brutal fellow who was standing in the
+middle of the room picked up a slipper, and shied it at the kneeling
+boy, calling him a snivelling young shaver. Then Tom saw the whole,
+and the next moment the boot he had just pulled off flew straight at
+the head of the bully, who had just time to throw up his arm and catch
+it on his elbow.
+
+"Confound you, Brown; what's that for?" roared he, stamping with pain.
+
+"Never mind what I mean," said Tom, stepping on to the floor, every
+drop of blood in his body tingling; "if any fellow wants the other
+boot, he knows how to get it."
+
+What would have been the result is doubtful, for at this moment the
+sixth-form boy came in, and not another word could be said. Tom and
+the rest rushed into bed and finished their unrobing there, and the
+old verger, as punctual as the clock, had put out the candle in
+another minute, and toddled on to the next room, shutting their door
+with his usual "Good night, genl'm'n."
+
+There were many boys in the room by whom that little scene was taken
+to heart before they slept. But sleep seemed to have deserted the
+pillow of poor Tom. For some time his excitement, and the flood of
+memories which chased one another through his brain, kept him from
+thinking or resolving. His head throbbed, his heart leapt, and he
+could hardly keep himself from springing out of bed and rushing about
+the room. Then the thought of his own mother came across him, and the
+promise he had made at her knee, years ago, never to forget to kneel
+by his bedside, and give himself up to his Father, before he laid his
+head on the pillow, from which it might never rise; and he lay down
+gently, and cried as if his heart would break. He was only fourteen
+years old.
+
+It was no light act of courage in those days for a little fellow to
+say his prayers publicly, even at Rugby. A few years later, when
+Arnold's manly piety had begun to leaven the school, the tables
+turned; before he died, in the schoolhouse at least, and I believe in
+the other houses, the rule was the other way. But poor Tom had come to
+school in other times. The first few nights after he came he did not
+kneel down because of the noise, but sat up in bed till the candle was
+out, and then stole out and said his prayers, in fear lest some one
+should find him out. So did many another poor little fellow. Then he
+began to think that he might just as well say his prayers in bed, and
+then that it did not matter whether he was kneeling, or sitting, or
+lying down. And so it had come to pass with Tom, as with all who will
+not confess their Lord before men; and for the last year he had
+probably not said his prayers in earnest a dozen times.
+
+Poor Tom! the first and bitterest feeling which was like to break his
+heart was the sense of his own cowardice. The vice of all others which
+he loathed was brought in and burned in on his own soul. He had lied
+to his mother, to his conscience, to his God. How could he bear it?
+And then the poor little weak boy, whom he had pitied and almost
+scorned for his weakness, had done that which he, braggart as he was,
+dared not do. The first dawn of comfort came to him in vowing to
+himself that he would stand by that boy through thick and thin, and
+cheer him, and help him, and bear his burdens, for the good deed done
+that night. Then he resolved to write home next day and tell his
+mother all, and what a coward her son had been. And then peace came to
+him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his testimony next morning. The
+morning would be harder than the night to begin with, but he felt that
+he could not afford to let one chance slip. Several times he faltered,
+for the Devil showed him first, all his old friends calling him
+"Saint," and "Squaretoes," and a dozen hard names, and whispered to
+him that his motives would be misunderstood, and he would only be left
+alone with the new boy; whereas it was his duty to keep all means of
+influence, that he might do good to the largest number. And then came
+the more subtle temptation, "Shall I not be showing myself braver than
+others by doing this? Have I any right to begin it now? Ought I not
+rather to pray in my own study, letting other boys know that I do so,
+and trying to lead them to it, while in public at least I should go on
+as I have done?" However, his good angel was too strong that night,
+and he turned on his side and slept, tired of trying to reason, but
+resolved to follow the impulse which had been so strong, and in which
+he had found peace.
+
+Next morning he was up and washed and dressed, all but his jacket and
+waistcoat, just as the ten minutes' bell began to ring, and then in
+the face of the whole room he knelt down to pray. Not five words could
+he say,--the bell mocked him; he was listening for every whisper in
+the room,--what were they all thinking of him? He was ashamed to go on
+kneeling, ashamed to rise from his knees. At last, as it were from his
+inmost heart, a still small voice seemed to breathe forth the words of
+the publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" He repeated them over
+and over, clinging to them as for his life, and rose from his knees
+comforted and humbled, and ready to face the whole world. It was not
+needed; two other boys besides Arthur had already followed his
+example, and he went down to the great school with a glimmering of
+another lesson in his heart,--the lesson that he who has conquered his
+own coward spirit has conquered the whole outward world; and that
+other one which the old prophet learned in the cave at Mount Horeb,
+when he hid his face, and the still small voice asked, "What doest
+thou here, Elijah?" that however we may fancy ourselves alone on the
+side of good, the King and Lord of men is nowhere without his
+witnesses; for in every society, however seemingly corrupt and
+godless, there are those who have not bowed the knee to Baal.
+
+He found, too, how greatly he had exaggerated the effect to be
+produced by his act. For a few nights there was a sneer or a laugh
+when he knelt down, but this passed off soon, and one by one all the
+other boys but three or four followed the lead.
+
+                                           "_School-Days at Rugby._"
+
+
+
+
+FAITH AND HER MOTHER.
+
+
+Aunt Winifred went again to Worcester to-day. She said that she had to
+buy trimming for Faith's sack.
+
+She went alone, as usual, and Faith and I kept each other company
+through the afternoon,--she on the floor with her doll, I in the
+easy-chair with Macaulay. As the light began to fall level on the
+floor, I threw the book aside,--being at the end of a volume,--and,
+Mary Ann having exhausted her attractions, I surrendered
+unconditionally to the little maiden.
+
+She took me up garret, and down cellar, on top of the wood-pile, and
+into the apple-trees; I fathomed the mysteries of Old Man's Castle and
+Still Palm; I was her grandmother; I was her baby; I was a rabbit; I
+was a chestnut horse; I was a watch-dog; I was a mild-tempered giant;
+I was a bear, "warranted not to eat little girls"; I was a roaring
+hippopotamus and a canary-bird; I was Jeff Davis, and I was Moses in
+the bulrushes; and of what I was, the time faileth me to tell.
+
+It comes over me with a curious, mingled sense of the ludicrous and
+the horrible, that I should have spent the afternoon like a baby and
+almost as happily, laughing out with the child, past and future
+forgotten, the tremendous risks of "I spy" absorbing all my present,
+while what was happening was happening, and what was to come was
+coming. Not an echo in the air, not a prophecy in the sunshine, not a
+note of warning in the song of the robins that watched me from the
+apple-boughs.
+
+As the long, golden afternoon slid away, we came out by the front gate
+to watch for the child's mother. I was tired, and, lying back on the
+grass, gave Faith some pink and purple larkspurs, that she might amuse
+herself in making a chain of them. The picture that she made sitting
+there on the short dying grass--the light which broke all about her
+and over her at the first, creeping slowly down and away to the west,
+her little fingers linking the rich, bright flowers, tube into tube,
+the dimple on her cheek and the love in her eyes--has photographed
+itself into my thinking.
+
+How her voice rang out, when the wheels sounded at last, and the
+carriage, somewhat slowly driven, stopped!
+
+"Mamma, mamma! see what I've got for you, mamma!"
+
+Auntie tried to step from the carriage, and called me: "Mary, can you
+help me a little? I am--tired."
+
+I went to her, and she leaned heavily on my arm, and we came up the
+path.
+
+"Such a pretty little chain, all for you, mamma," began Faith, and
+stopped, struck by her mother's look.
+
+"It has been a long ride, and I am in pain. I believe I will lie right
+down on the parlor sofa. Mary, would you be kind enough to give Faith
+her supper and put her to bed?"
+
+Faith's lip grieved.
+
+"Cousin Mary isn't _you_, mamma. I want to be kissed. You haven't
+kissed me."
+
+Her mother hesitated for a moment; then kissed her once, twice; put
+both arms about her neck, and turned her face to the wall without a
+word.
+
+"Mamma is tired, dear," I said; "come away."
+
+She was lying quite still when I had done what was to be done for the
+child, and had come back. The room was nearly dark. I sat down on my
+cricket by her sofa.
+
+"Did you find the sack-trimming?" I ventured, after a pause.
+
+"I believe so,--yes."
+
+She drew a little package from her pocket, held it a moment, then let
+it roll to the floor forgotten. When I picked it up, the soft,
+tissue-paper wrapper was wet and hot with tears.
+
+"Mary?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I never thought of the little trimming till the last minute. I had
+another errand."
+
+I waited.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I thought at first I would not tell you just yet. But I suppose the
+time has come; it will be no more easy to put it off. I have been to
+Worcester all these times to see a doctor."
+
+I bent my head in the dark, and listened for the rest.
+
+"He has his reputation; they said he could help me if anybody could.
+He thought at first he could. But to-day--"
+
+The leaves rustled out of doors. Faith, up stairs, was singing herself
+to sleep with a droning sound.
+
+"I suppose," she said at length, "I must give up and be sick now; I am
+feeling the reaction from having kept up so long. He thinks I shall
+not suffer a very great deal. He thinks he can relieve me, and that it
+may be soon over."
+
+"There is no chance?"
+
+"No chance."
+
+I took both of her hands, and cried out, "Auntie, Auntie, Auntie!" and
+tried to think what I was doing, but only cried out the more.
+
+"Why, Mary!" she said; "why, Mary!" and again, as before, she passed
+her soft hand to and fro across my hair, till by and by I began to
+think, as I had thought before, that I could bear anything which God,
+who loved us all,--who _surely_ loved us all,--should send.
+
+So then, after I had grown still, she began to tell me about it in her
+quiet voice; and the leaves rustled, and Faith had sung herself to
+sleep, and I listened wondering. For there was no pain in the quiet
+voice,--no pain, nor tone of fear. Indeed, it seemed to me that I
+detected, through its subdued sadness, a secret, suppressed buoyancy
+of satisfaction, with which something struggled.
+
+"And you?" I asked, turning quickly upon her.
+
+"I should thank God with all my heart, Mary, if it were not for Faith
+and you. But it _is_ for Faith and you. That's all."
+
+When I had locked the front door, and was creeping up here to my room,
+my foot crushed something, and a faint, wounded perfume came up. It
+was the little pink and purple chain.
+
+                                                 "_The Gates Ajar._"
+
+
+
+
+THE OPEN DOOR.
+
+
+Poor Mrs. Van Loon was a widow. She had four little children. The
+eldest was Dirk, a boy of eight years.
+
+One evening she had no bread, and her children were hungry. She folded
+her hands, and prayed to God; for she served the Lord, and she
+believed that he loved and could help her.
+
+When she had finished her prayer, Dirk said to her, "Mother, don't we
+read in the Bible that God sent ravens to a pious man to bring him
+bread?"
+
+"Yes," answered the mother, "but that's long, long ago, my dear."
+
+"Well," said Dirk, "then the Lord may send ravens now. I'll go and
+open the door, else they can't fly in."
+
+In a trice Dirk jumped to the door, which he left wide open, so that
+the light of the lamp fell on the pavement of the street.
+
+Shortly after, the burgomaster passed by. The burgomaster is the first
+magistrate of a Dutch town or village. Seeing the open door, he
+stopped.
+
+Looking into the room, he was pleased with its clean, tidy appearance,
+and with the nice little children who were grouped around their
+mother. He could not help stepping in, and approaching Mrs. Van Loon
+he said, "Eh, my good woman, why is your door open so late as this?"
+
+Mrs. Van Loon was a little confused when she saw such a well-dressed
+gentleman in her poor room. She quickly rose and dropped a courtesy to
+the gentleman; then taking Dirk's cap from his head, and smoothing his
+hair, she answered, with a smile, "My little Dirk has done it, sir,
+that the ravens may fly in to bring us bread."
+
+Now, the burgomaster was dressed in a black coat and black trousers,
+and he wore a black hat. He was quite black all over, except his
+collar and shirt-front.
+
+"Ah! indeed!" he exclaimed cheerfully. "Dirk is right. Here is a
+raven, you see, and a large one too. Come along, Dirk, and I'll show
+you where the bread is."
+
+The burgomaster took Dirk to his house, and ordered his servant to put
+two loaves and a small pot of butter into a basket. This he gave to
+Dirk, who carried it home as quickly as he could. When the other
+little children saw the bread, they began dancing and clapping their
+hands. The mother gave to each of them a thick slice of bread and
+butter, which they ate with the greatest relish.
+
+When they had finished their meal, Dirk went to the open door, and,
+taking his cap from his head, looked up to the sky, and said, "Many
+thanks, good Lord!" And after having said this, he shut the door.
+
+                                                   _John de Liefde._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINCE'S VISIT.
+
+
+It was a holiday in the city, for the Prince was to arrive. As soon as
+the cannon should sound, the people might know that the Prince had
+landed from the steamer; and when they should hear the bells ring,
+that was much the same as being told that the Mayor and Aldermen and
+City Councillors had welcomed the Prince, by making speeches, and
+shaking hands, and bowing, and drinking wine; and that now the Prince,
+dressed in splendid clothes, and wearing a feather in his cap, was
+actually on his way up the main street of the city, seated in a
+carriage drawn by four coal-black horses, preceded by soldiers and
+music, and followed by soldiers, citizens in carriages, and people on
+foot. Now it was the first time that a Prince had ever visited the
+city, and it might be the only chance that the people ever would get
+to see a real son of a king; and so it was universally agreed to have
+a holiday, and long before the bells rang, or even the cannon sounded,
+the people were flocking into the main street, well dressed, as indeed
+they ought to be, when they were to be seen by a Prince.
+
+It was holiday in the stores and in the workshops, although the
+holiday did not begin at the same hour everywhere. In the great
+laundry it was to commence when the cannon sounded; and "weak Job," as
+his comrades called him, who did nothing all day long but turn the
+crank that worked a great washing-machine, and which was quite as
+much, they said, as he had wits to do, listened eagerly for the sound
+of the cannon; and when he heard it, he dropped the crank, and,
+getting a nod from the head man, shuffled out of the building and made
+his way home.
+
+Since he had heard of the Prince's coming, Job had thought and dreamed
+of nothing else; and when he found that they were to have a holiday on
+his arrival, he was almost beside himself. He bought a picture of the
+Prince, and pinned it up on the wall over his bed; and when he came
+home at night, tired and hungry, he would sit down by his mother, who
+mended rents in the clothes brought to the laundry, and talk about the
+Prince until he could not keep his eyes open longer; then his mother
+would kiss him and send him to bed, where he knelt down and prayed the
+Lord to keep the Prince, and then slept and dreamed of him, dressing
+him in all the gorgeous colors that his poor imagination could devise,
+while his mother worked late in her solitary room, thinking of her
+only boy; and when she knelt down at night, she prayed the Lord to
+keep him, and then slept, dreaming also, but with various fancies; for
+sometimes she seemed to see Job like his dead father,--strong and
+handsome and brave and quick-witted,--and now she would see him
+playing with the children, or shuffling down the court with his head
+leaning on his shoulder.
+
+To-day he hurried so fast that he was panting for want of breath when
+he reached the shed-like house where they lived. His mother was
+watching for him, and he came in nodding his head and rubbing his warm
+face.
+
+"The cannon has gone off, mother," said he, in great excitement. "The
+Prince has come!"
+
+"Everything is ready, Job," said his mother. "You will find all your
+things in a row on the bed." And Job tumbled into his room to dress
+himself for the holiday. Everything was there as his mother had said;
+all the old things renewed, and all the new things pieced together
+that she had worked on so long, and every stitch of which Job had
+overlooked and almost directed. If there had but been time to spare,
+how Job would have liked to turn round and round before his scrap of
+looking-glass; but there was no time to spare, and so in a very few
+minutes he was out again, and showing himself to his mother.
+
+"Isn't it splendid!" said he, surveying himself from top to toe, and
+looking with special admiration on a white satin scarf that shone
+round his throat in dazzling contrast to the dingy coat, and which had
+in it an old brooch which Job treasured as the apple of his eye.
+Job's mother, too, looked at them both; and though she smiled and did
+not speak, it was only--brave woman!--because she was choking, as she
+thought how the satin was the last remnant of her wedding-dress, and
+the brooch the last trinket left of all given to her years back.
+
+"If you would only have let me wear the feather, mother!" said Job,
+sorrowfully, in regretful remembrance of one he had long hoarded, and
+which he had begged hard to wear in his hat.
+
+"You look splendidly, Job, and don't need it," said she, cheerfully;
+"and, besides, the Prince wears one, and what would he think if he saw
+you with one, too?"
+
+"Sure enough," said Job, who had not thought of that before; and then
+he kissed her and started off, while she stood at the door looking
+anxiously after him. "I don't believe," said he, aloud, as he went up
+the court, "that the Prince would mind my wearing a feather; but
+mother didn't want me too. Hark! there are the bells! Yes, he has
+started!" And Job, forgetting all else, pushed eagerly on. It was a
+long way from the laundry to his home, and it was a long way, too,
+from his home to the main street; and so Job had no time to spare if
+he would get to the crowd in season to see the grand procession, for
+he wanted to see it all,--from the policemen, who cleared the way, to
+the noisy omnibuses and carts that led business once more up the
+holiday streets.
+
+On he shambled, knocking against the flag-stones, and nearly
+precipitating himself down areas and unguarded passage-ways. He was
+now in a cross street, which would bring him before long into the main
+street, and he even thought he heard the distant music and the cheers
+of the crowd. His heart beat high, and his face was lighted up until
+it really looked, in its eagerness, as intelligent as that of other
+people quicker witted than poor Job. And now he had come in sight of
+the great thoroughfare; it was yet a good way off, but he could see
+the black swarms of people that lined its edges. The street he was in
+was quiet, so were all the cross streets, for they had been drained of
+life to feed the great artery of the main street. There, indeed, was
+life! upon the sidewalks; packed densely, flowing out in eddies into
+the alleys and cross streets, rising tier above tier in the
+shop-fronts, filling all the upper windows, and fringing even the
+roofs. Flags hung from house to house, and sentences of welcome were
+written upon strips of canvas. And if one at this moment, when weak
+Job was hurrying up the cross street, could have looked from some
+house-top down the main street, he would have seen the Prince's
+pageant coming nearer and nearer, and would have heard the growing
+tumult of brazen music, and the waves of cheers that broke along the
+lines.
+
+It was a glimpse of this sight, and a note of this sound, that weak
+Job caught in the still street, and with new ardor, although hot and
+dusty, he pressed on, almost weeping at thought of the joy he was to
+have. "The Prince is coming," he said, aloud, in his excitement. But
+at the next step, Job, recklessly tumbling along, despite his weak and
+troublesome legs, struck something with his feet, and fell forward
+upon the walk. He could not stop to see what it was that so suddenly
+and vexatiously tripped him up, and was just moving on with a limp,
+when he heard behind him a groan and a cry of pain. He turned and saw
+what his unlucky feet had stumbled over. A poor negro boy, without
+home or friends, black and unsightly enough, and clad in ragged
+clothing, had sat down upon the sidewalk, leaning against a tree, and,
+without strength enough to move, had been the unwilling
+stumbling-block to poor Job's progress. As Job turned, the poor boy
+looked at him beseechingly, and stretched out his hands. But even that
+was an exertion, and his arms dropped by his side again. His lips
+moved, but no word came forth; and his eyes even closed, as if he
+could not longer raise the lids.
+
+"He is sick!" said Job, and looked uneasily about. There was no one
+near. "Hilloa!" cried Job in distress; but no one heard except the
+black, who raised his eyes again to him, and essayed to move. Job
+started toward him.
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah!" sounded in the distant street. The roar of the
+cheering beat against the houses, and at intervals came gusts of
+music. Poor Job trembled.
+
+"The Prince is coming," said he; and he turned as if to run. But the
+poor black would not away from his eyes. "He might die while I was
+gone," said he, and he turned again to lift him up. "He is sick!" he
+said again. "I will take him home to mother!"
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah! there he is! the Prince! the Prince!" And the dull
+roar of the cheering, which had been growing louder and louder, now
+broke into sharp ringing huzzas as the grand procession passed the
+head of the cross street. In the carriage drawn by four coal-black
+horses rode the Prince; and he was dressed in splendid clothes and
+wore a feather in his cap. The music flowed forth clearly and sweetly.
+"God save the king!" it sang, and from street and window and house-top
+the people shouted and waved flags. Hurrah! hurrah!
+
+Weak Job, wiping the tears from his eyes, heard the sound from afar,
+but he saw no sight save the poor black whom he lifted from the
+ground. No sight? Yes, at that moment he did. In that quiet street,
+standing by the black boy, poor Job--weak Job, whom people pitied--saw
+a grander sight than all the crowd in the brilliant main street.
+
+Well mightst thou stand in dumb awe, holding by the hand the helpless
+black, poor Job! for in that instant thou didst see with undimmed eyes
+a pageant such as poor mortals may but whisper,--even the Prince of
+Life with his attendant angels moving before thee; yes, and on thee
+did the Prince look with love, and in thy ears did the heavenly choir
+and the multitudinous voices of gathered saints sing, for of old were
+the words written, and now thou didst hear them spoken to thyself,--
+
+"_Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my
+brethren, ye have done it unto me._
+
+"_For whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name,
+receiveth me._"
+
+Weak Job, too, had seen the Prince pass.
+
+                                                   _Horace Scudder._
+
+
+
+
+FANCIES OF CHILD LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+FANCIES OF CHILD LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS.
+
+
+Once there was a nice young hen that we will call Mrs. Feathertop. She
+was a hen of most excellent family, being a direct descendant of the
+Bolton Grays, and as pretty a young fowl as you should wish to see of
+a summer's day. She was, moreover, as fortunately situated in life as
+it was possible for a hen to be. She was bought by young Master Fred
+Little John, with four or five family connections of hers, and a
+lively young cock, who was held to be as brisk a scratcher and as
+capable a head of a family as any half-dozen sensible hens could
+desire.
+
+I can't say that at first Mrs. Feathertop was a very sensible hen. She
+was very pretty and lively, to be sure, and a great favorite with
+Master Bolton Gray Cock, on account of her bright eyes, her finely
+shaded feathers, and certain saucy dashing ways that she had, which
+seemed greatly to take his fancy. But old Mrs. Scratchard, living in
+the neighboring yard, assured all the neighborhood that Gray Cock was
+a fool for thinking so much of that flighty young thing,--that she had
+not the smallest notion how to get on in life, and thought of nothing
+in the world but her own pretty feathers. "Wait till she comes to have
+chickens," said Mrs. Scratchard. "Then you will see. I have brought up
+ten broods myself,--as likely and respectable chickens as ever were a
+blessing to society,--and I think I ought to know a good hatcher and
+brooder when I see her; and I know _that_ fine piece of trumpery, with
+her white feathers tipped with gray, never will come down to family
+life. _She_ scratch for chickens! Bless me, she never did anything in
+all her days but run round and eat the worms which somebody else
+scratched up for her!"
+
+When Master Bolton Gray heard this he crowed very loudly, like a cock
+of spirit, and declared that old Mrs. Scratchard was envious because
+she had lost all her own tail-feathers, and looked more like a
+worn-out old feather-duster than a respectable hen, and that therefore
+she was filled with sheer envy of anybody that was young and pretty.
+So young Mrs. Feathertop cackled gay defiance at her busy rubbishy
+neighbor, as she sunned herself under the bushes on fine June
+afternoons.
+
+Now Master Fred Little John had been allowed to have these hens by his
+mamma on the condition that he would build their house himself, and
+take all the care of it; and, to do Master Fred justice, he executed
+the job in a small way quite creditably. He chose a sunny sloping bank
+covered with a thick growth of bushes, and erected there a nice little
+hen-house, with two glass windows, a little door, and a good pole for
+his family to roost on. He made, moreover, a row of nice little boxes
+with hay in them for nests, and he bought three or four little smooth
+white china eggs to put in them, so that, when his hens _did_ lay, he
+might carry off their eggs without their being missed. The hen-house
+stood in a little grove that sloped down to a wide river, just where
+there was a little cove which reached almost to the hen-house.
+
+This situation inspired one of Master Fred's boy advisers with a new
+scheme in relation to his poultry enterprise. "Hullo! I say, Fred,"
+said Tom Seymour, "you ought to raise ducks,--you've got a capital
+place for ducks there."
+
+"Yes,--but I've bought _hens_, you see," said Freddy; "so it's no use
+trying."
+
+"No use! Of course there is! Just as if your hens couldn't hatch
+ducks' eggs. Now you just wait till one of your hens wants to set, and
+you put ducks' eggs under her, and you'll have a family of ducks in a
+twinkling. You can buy ducks' eggs, a plenty, of old Sam under the
+hill; he always has hens hatch his ducks."
+
+So Freddy thought it would be a good experiment, and informed his
+mother the next morning that he intended to furnish the ducks for the
+next Christmas dinner; and when she wondered how he was to come by
+them, he said, mysteriously, "O, I will show you how!" but did not
+further explain himself. The next day he went with Tom Seymour, and
+made a trade with old Sam, and gave him a middle-aged jack-knife for
+eight of his ducks' eggs. Sam, by the by, was a woolly-headed old
+negro man, who lived by the pond hard by, and who had long cast
+envying eyes on Fred's jack-knife, because it was of extra-fine steel,
+having been a Christmas present the year before. But Fred knew very
+well there were any number more of jack-knives where that came from,
+and that, in order to get a new one, he must dispose of the old; so he
+made the trade and came home rejoicing.
+
+Now about this time Mrs. Feathertop, having laid her eggs daily with
+great credit to herself, notwithstanding Mrs. Scratchard's
+predictions, began to find herself suddenly attacked with nervous
+symptoms. She lost her gay spirits, grew dumpish and morose, stuck up
+her feathers in a bristling way, and pecked at her neighbors if they
+did so much as look at her. Master Gray Cock was greatly concerned,
+and went to old Doctor Peppercorn, who looked solemn, and recommended
+an infusion of angle-worms, and said he would look in on the patient
+twice a day till she was better.
+
+"Gracious me, Gray Cock!" said old Goody Kertarkut, who had been
+lolling at the corner as he passed, "a'n't you a fool?--cocks always
+are fools. Don't you know what's the matter with your wife? She wants
+to set,--that's all; and you just let her set! A fiddlestick for
+Doctor Peppercorn! Why, any good old hen that has brought up a family
+knows more than a doctor about such things. You just go home and tell
+her to set, if she wants to, and behave herself."
+
+When Gray Cock came home, he found that Master Freddy had been before
+him, and established Mrs. Feathertop upon eight nice eggs, where she
+was sitting in gloomy grandeur. He tried to make a little affable
+conversation with her, and to relate his interview with the Doctor
+and Goody Kertarkut, but she was morose and sullen, and only pecked at
+him now and then in a very sharp, unpleasant way; so, after a few more
+efforts to make himself agreeable, he left her, and went out
+promenading with the captivating Mrs. Red Comb, a charming young
+Spanish widow, who had just been imported into the neighboring yard.
+
+"Bless my soul!" said he, "you've no idea how cross my wife is."
+
+"O you horrid creature!" said Mrs. Red Comb; "how little you feel for
+the weaknesses of us poor hens!"
+
+"On my word, ma'am," said Gray Cock, "you do me injustice. But when a
+hen gives way to temper, ma'am, and no longer meets her husband with a
+smile,--when she even pecks at him whom she is bound to honor and
+obey--"
+
+"Horrid monster! talking of obedience! I should say, sir, you came
+straight from Turkey!" And Mrs. Red Comb tossed her head with a most
+bewitching air, and pretended to run away, and old Mrs. Scratchard
+looked out of her coop and called to Goody Kertarkut,--
+
+"Look how Mr. Gray Cock is flirting with that widow. I always knew she
+was a baggage."
+
+"And his poor wife left at home alone," said Goody Kertarkut. "It's
+the way with 'em all!"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Dame Scratchard, "she'll know what real life is now,
+and she won't go about holding her head so high, and looking down on
+her practical neighbors that have raised families."
+
+"Poor thing, what'll she do with a family?" said Goody Kertarkut.
+
+"Well, what business have such young flirts to get married," said Dame
+Scratchard. "I don't expect she'll raise a single chick; and there's
+Gray Cock flirting about fine as ever. Folks didn't do so when I was
+young. I'm sure my husband knew what treatment a setting hen ought to
+have,--poor old Long Spur,--he never minded a peck or so now and then.
+I must say these modern fowls a'n't what fowls used to be."
+
+Meanwhile the sun rose and set, and Master Fred was almost the only
+friend and associate of poor little Mrs. Feathertop, whom he fed daily
+with meal and water, and only interrupted her sad reflections by
+pulling her up occasionally to see how the eggs were coming on.
+
+At last "Peep, peep, peep!" began to be heard in the nest, and one
+little downy head after another poked forth from under the feathers,
+surveying the world with round, bright, winking eyes; and gradually
+the brood was hatched, and Mrs. Feathertop arose, a proud and happy
+mother, with all the bustling, scratching, care-taking instincts of
+family life warm within her breast. She clucked and scratched, and
+cuddled the little downy bits of things as handily and discreetly as a
+seven-year-old hen could have done, exciting thereby the wonder of the
+community.
+
+Master Gray Cock came home in high spirits and complimented her; told
+her she was looking charmingly once more, and said, "Very well, very
+nice!" as he surveyed the young brood. So that Mrs. Feathertop began
+to feel the world going well with her,--when suddenly in came Dame
+Scratchard and Goody Kertarkut to make a morning call.
+
+"Let's see the chicks," said Dame Scratchard.
+
+"Goodness me," said Goody Kertarkut, "what a likeness to their dear
+papa!"
+
+"Well, but bless me, what's the matter with their bills?" said Dame
+Scratchard. "Why, my dear, these chicks are deformed! I'm sorry for
+you, my dear, but it's all the result of your inexperience; you ought
+to have eaten pebble-stones with your meal when you were setting.
+Don't you see, Dame Kertarkut, what bills they have? That'll increase,
+and they'll be frightful!"
+
+"What shall I do?" said Mrs. Feathertop, now greatly alarmed.
+
+"Nothing as I know of," said Dame Scratchard, "since you didn't come
+to me before you set. I could have told you all about it. Maybe it
+won't kill 'em, but they'll always be deformed."
+
+And so the gossips departed, leaving a sting under the pinfeathers of
+the poor little hen mamma, who began to see that her darlings had
+curious little spoon-bills different from her own, and to worry and
+fret about it.
+
+"My dear," she said to her spouse, "do get Doctor Peppercorn to to
+come in and look at their bills, and see if anything can be done."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Doctor Peppercorn came in, and put on a monstrous pair of spectacles,
+and said, "Hum! Ha! Extraordinary case,--very singular!"
+
+"Did you ever see anything like it, Doctor?" said both parents, in a
+breath.
+
+"I've read of such cases. It's a calcareous enlargement of the
+vascular bony tissue, threatening ossification," said the Doctor.
+
+"O, dreadful!--can it be possible?" shrieked both parents. "Can
+anything be done?"
+
+"Well, I should recommend a daily lotion made of mosquitoes' horns and
+bicarbonate of frogs' toes, together with a powder, to be taken
+morning and night, of muriate of fleas. One thing you must be careful
+about: they must never wet their feet, nor drink any water."
+
+"Dear me, Doctor, I don't know what I _shall_ do, for they seem to
+have a particular fancy for getting into water."
+
+"Yes, a morbid tendency often found in these cases of bony
+tumification of the vascular tissue of the mouth; but you must resist
+it, ma'am, as their life depends upon it." And with that Doctor
+Peppercorn glared gloomily on the young ducks, who were stealthily
+poking the objectionable little spoon-bills out from under their
+mother's feathers.
+
+After this poor Mrs. Feathertop led a weary life of it; for the young
+fry were as healthy and enterprising a brood of young ducks as ever
+carried saucepans on the end of their noses, and they most utterly set
+themselves against the doctor's prescriptions, murmured at the muriate
+of fleas and the bicarbonate of frogs' toes, and took every
+opportunity to waddle their little ways down to the mud and water
+which was in their near vicinity. So their bills grew larger and
+larger, as did the rest of their bodies, and family government grew
+weaker and weaker.
+
+"You'll wear me out, children, you certainly will," said poor Mrs.
+Feathertop.
+
+"You'll go to destruction,--do ye hear?" said Master Gray Cock.
+
+"Did you ever see such frights as poor Mrs. Feathertop has got?" said
+Dame Scratchard. "I knew what would come of _her_ family,--all
+deformed, and with a dreadful sort of madness, which makes them love
+to shovel mud with those shocking spoon-bills of theirs."
+
+"It's a kind of idiocy," said Goody Kertarkut. "Poor things! they
+can't be kept from the water, nor made to take powders, and so they
+get worse and worse."
+
+"I understand it's affecting their feet so that they can't walk, and a
+dreadful sort of net is growing between their toes; what a shocking
+visitation!"
+
+"She brought it on herself," said Dame Scratchard. "Why didn't she
+come to me before she set? She was always an upstart, self-conceited
+thing, but I'm sure I pity her."
+
+Meanwhile the young ducks throve apace. Their necks grew glossy like
+changeable green and gold satin, and though they would not take the
+doctor's medicine, and would waddle in the mud and water,--for which
+they always felt themselves to be very naughty ducks,--yet they grew
+quite vigorous and hearty. At last one day the whole little tribe
+waddled off down to the bank of the river. It was a beautiful day, and
+the river was dancing and dimpling and winking as the little breezes
+shook the trees that hung over it.
+
+"Well," said the biggest of the little ducks, "in spite of Doctor
+Peppercorn, I can't help longing for the water. I don't believe it is
+going to hurt me,--at any rate, here goes." And in he plumped, and in
+went every duck after him, and they threw out their great brown feet
+as cleverly as if they had taken rowing lessons all their lives, and
+sailed off on the river, away, away, among the ferns, under the pink
+azalias, through reeds and rushes, and arrow-heads and pickerel-weed,
+the happiest ducks that ever were born; and soon they were quite out
+of sight.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Feathertop, this is a dispensation," said Mrs. Scratchard.
+"Your children are all drowned at last, just as I knew they'd be. The
+old music-teacher, Master Bullfrog, that lives down in Water-Dock
+Lane, saw 'em all plump madly into the water together this morning;
+that's what comes of not knowing how to bring up a family."
+
+Mrs. Feathertop gave only one shriek and fainted dead away, and was
+carried home on a cabbage-leaf, and Mr. Gray Cock was sent for, where
+he was waiting on Mrs. Red Comb through the squash-vines.
+
+"It's a serious time in your family, sir," said Goody Kertarkut, "and
+you ought to be at home supporting your wife. Send for Doctor
+Peppercorn without delay."
+
+Now as the case was a very dreadful one, Doctor Peppercorn called a
+council from the barn-yard of the Squire, two miles off, and a brisk
+young Doctor Partlett appeared, in a fine suit of brown and gold, with
+tail-feathers like meteors. A fine young fellow he was, lately from
+Paris, with all the modern scientific improvements fresh in his head.
+
+When he had listened to the whole story, he clapped his spur into the
+ground, and, leaning back, laughed so loud that all the cocks in the
+neighborhood crowed.
+
+Mrs. Feathertop rose up out of her swoon, and Mr. Gray Cock was
+greatly enraged.
+
+"What do you mean, sir, by such behavior in the house of mourning?"
+
+"My dear sir, pardon me,--but there is no occasion for mourning. My
+dear madam, let me congratulate you. There is no harm done. The simple
+matter is, dear madam, you have been under a hallucination all along.
+The neighborhood and my learned friend the doctor have all made a
+mistake in thinking that these children of yours were hens at all.
+They are ducks, ma'am, evidently ducks, and very finely formed ducks,
+I dare say."
+
+At this moment a quack was heard, and at a distance the whole tribe
+were seen coming waddling home, their feathers gleaming in green and
+gold, and they themselves in high good spirits.
+
+"Such a splendid day as we have had!" they all cried in a breath. "And
+we know now how to get our own living; we can take care of ourselves
+in future, so you need have no further trouble with us."
+
+"Madam," said the Doctor, making a bow with an air which displayed his
+tail-feathers to advantage, "let me congratulate you on the charming
+family you have raised. A finer brood of young healthy ducks I never
+saw. Give claw, my dear friend," he said, addressing the elder son.
+"In our barn-yard no family is more respected than that of the ducks."
+
+And so Madam Feathertop came off glorious at last; and when after this
+the ducks used to go swimming up and down the river like so many
+nabobs among the admiring hens, Doctor Peppercorn used to look after
+them and say, "Ah! I had the care of their infancy!" and Mr. Gray Cock
+and his wife used to say, "It was our system of education did that!"
+
+                                            _Harriet Beecher Stowe._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+BLUNDER.
+
+
+Blunder was going to the Wishing-Gate, to wish for a pair of Shetland
+ponies, and a little coach, like Tom Thumb's. And of course you can
+have your wish, if you once get there. But the thing is, to find it;
+for it is not, as you imagine, a great gate, with a tall marble pillar
+on each side, and a sign over the top, like this, WISHING-GATE,--but
+just an old stile, made of three sticks. Put up two fingers, cross
+them on the top with another finger, and you have it exactly,--the way
+it looks, I mean,--a worm-eaten stile, in a meadow; and as there are
+plenty of old stiles in meadows, how are you to know which is the one?
+
+Blunder's fairy godmother knew, but then she could not tell him, for
+that was not according to fairy rules and regulations. She could only
+direct him to follow the road, and ask the way of the first owl he
+met; and over and over she charged him, for Blunder was a very
+careless little boy, and seldom found anything, "Be sure you don't
+miss him,--be sure you don't pass him by." And so far Blunder had come
+on very well, for the road was straight; but at the turn it forked.
+Should he go through the wood, or turn to the right? There was an owl
+nodding in a tall oak-tree, the first owl Blunder had seen; but he was
+a little afraid to wake him up, for Blunder's fairy godmother had told
+him that this was a great philosopher, who sat up all night to study
+the habits of frogs and mice, and knew everything but what went on in
+the daylight, under his nose; and he could think of nothing better to
+say to this great philosopher than "Good Mr. Owl, will you please show
+me the way to the Wishing-Gate?"
+
+"Eh! what's that?" cried the owl, starting out of his nap. "Have you
+brought me a frog?"
+
+"No," said Blunder, "I did not know that you would like one. Can you
+tell me the way to the Wishing-Gate?"
+
+"Wishing-Gate! Wishing-Gate!" hooted the owl, very angry. "Winks and
+naps! how dare you disturb me for such a thing as that? Do you take me
+for a mile-stone! Follow your nose, sir, follow your nose!"--and,
+ruffling up his feathers, the owl was asleep again in a moment.
+
+But how could Blunder follow his nose? His nose would turn to the
+right, or take him through the woods, whichever way his legs went, and
+"what was the use of asking the owl," thought Blunder, "if this was
+all?" While he hesitated, a chipmunk came skurrying down the path,
+and, seeing Blunder, stopped short with a little squeak.
+
+"Good Mrs. Chipmunk," said Blunder, "can you tell me the way to the
+Wishing-Gate?"
+
+"I can't, indeed," answered the chipmunk, politely. "What with getting
+in nuts, and the care of a young family, I have so little time to
+visit anything! But if you will follow the brook, you will find an old
+water-sprite under a slanting stone, over which the water pours all
+day with a noise like wabble! wabble! who, I have no doubt, can tell
+you all about it. You will know him, for he does nothing but grumble
+about the good old times when a brook would have dried up before it
+would have turned a mill-wheel."
+
+So Blunder went on up the brook, and, seeing nothing of the
+water-sprite, or the slanting stone, was just saying to himself, "I am
+sure I don't know where he is,--I can't find it," when he spied a frog
+sitting on a wet stone.
+
+"Mr. Frog," asked Blunder, "can you tell me the way to the
+Wishing-Gate?"
+
+"I cannot," said the frog. "I am very sorry, but the fact is, I am an
+artist. Young as I am, my voice is already remarked at our concerts,
+and I devote myself so entirely to my profession of music, that I have
+no time to acquire general information. But in a pine-tree beyond, you
+will find an old crow, who, I am quite sure, can show you the way, as
+he is a traveller, and a bird of an inquiring turn of mind."
+
+"I don't know where the pine is,--I am sure I can never find him,"
+answered Blunder, discontentedly; but still he went on up the brook,
+till, hot and tired, and out of patience at seeing neither crow nor
+pine, he sat down under a great tree to rest. There he heard tiny
+voices squabbling.
+
+"Get out! Go away, I tell you! It has been knock! knock! knock! at my
+door all day, till I am tired out. First a wasp, and then a bee, and
+then another wasp, and then another bee, and now _you_. Go away! I
+won't let another one in to-day."
+
+"But I want my honey."
+
+"And I want my nap."
+
+"I will come in."
+
+"You shall not."
+
+"You are a miserly old elf."
+
+"And you are a brute of a bee."
+
+And looking about him, Blunder spied a bee, quarrelling with a
+morning-glory elf, who was shutting up the morning-glory in his face.
+
+"Elf, do you know which is the way to the Wishing-Gate?" asked
+Blunder.
+
+"No," said the elf, "I don't know anything about geography. I was
+always too delicate to study. But if you will keep on in this path,
+you will meet the Dream-man, coming down from fairyland, with his bags
+of dreams on his shoulder; and if anybody can tell you about the
+Wishing-Gate, he can."
+
+"But how can I find him?" asked Blunder, more and more impatient.
+
+"I don't know, I am sure," answered the elf, "unless you should look
+for him."
+
+So there was no help for it but to go on; and presently Blunder passed
+the Dream-man, asleep under a witch-hazel, with his bags of good and
+bad dreams laid over him to keep him from fluttering away. But Blunder
+had a habit of not using his eyes; for at home, when told to find
+anything, he always said, "I don't know where it is," or, "I can't
+find it," and then his mother or sister went straight and found it for
+him. So he passed the Dream-man without seeing him, and went on till
+he stumbled on Jack-o'-Lantern.
+
+"Can you show me the way to the Wishing-Gate?" said Blunder.
+
+"Certainly, with pleasure," answered Jack, and, catching up his
+lantern, set out at once.
+
+Blunder followed close, but, in watching the lantern, he forgot to
+look to his feet, and fell into a hole filled with black mud.
+
+"I say! the Wishing-Gate is not down there," called out Jack, whisking
+off among the tree-tops.
+
+"But I can't come up there," whimpered Blunder.
+
+"That is not my fault, then," answered Jack, merrily, dancing out of
+sight.
+
+O, a very angry little boy was Blunder, when he clambered out of the
+hole. "I don't know where it is," he said, crying; "I can't find it,
+and I'll go straight home."
+
+Just then he stepped on an old, moss-grown, rotten stump; and it
+happening, unluckily, that this rotten stump was a wood-goblin's
+chimney, Blunder fell through, headlong, in among the pots and pans,
+in which the goblin's cook was cooking the goblin's supper. The old
+goblin, who was asleep up stairs, started up in a fright at the
+tremendous clash and clatter, and, finding that his house was not
+tumbling about his ears, as he thought at first, stumped down to the
+kitchen to see what was the matter. The cook heard him coming, and
+looked about her in a fright to hide Blunder.
+
+"Quick!" cried she. "If my master catches you, he will have you in a
+pie. In the next room stands a pair of shoes. Jump into them, and they
+will take you up the chimney."
+
+Off flew Blunder, burst open the door, and tore frantically about the
+room, in one corner of which stood the shoes; but of course he could
+not see them, because he was not in the habit of using his eyes. "I
+can't find them! O, I can't find them!" sobbed poor little Blunder,
+running back to the cook.
+
+"Run into the closet," said the cook.
+
+Blunder made a dash at the window, but--"I don't know where it is," he
+called out.
+
+Clump! clump! That was the goblin, half-way down the stairs.
+
+"Goodness gracious mercy me!" exclaimed cook. "He is coming. The boy
+will be eaten in spite of me. Jump into the meal-chest."
+
+"I don't see it," squeaked Blunder, rushing towards the fireplace.
+"Where is it?"
+
+Clump! clump! That was the goblin at the foot of the stairs, and
+coming towards the kitchen door.
+
+"There is an invisible cloak hanging on that peg. Get into that,"
+cried cook, quite beside herself.
+
+But Blunder could no more see the cloak than he could see the shoes,
+the closet, and the meal-chest; and no doubt the goblin, whose hand
+was on the latch, would have found him prancing around the kitchen,
+and crying out, "I can't find it," but, fortunately for himself,
+Blunder caught his foot in the invisible cloak, and tumbled down,
+pulling the cloak over him. There he lay, hardly daring to breathe.
+
+"What was all that noise about?" asked the goblin, gruffly, coming
+into the kitchen.
+
+"Only my pans, master," answered the cook; and as he could see nothing
+amiss, the old goblin went grumbling up stairs again, while the shoes
+took Blunder up chimney, and landed him in a meadow, safe enough, but
+so miserable! He was cross, he was disappointed, he was hungry. It was
+dark, he did not know the way home, and, seeing an old stile, he
+climbed up, and sat down on the top of it, for he was too tired to
+stir. Just then came along the South Wind, with his pockets crammed
+full of showers, and, as he happened to be going Blunder's way, he
+took Blunder home; of which the boy was glad enough, only he would
+have liked it better if the Wind would not have laughed all the way.
+For what would you think, if you were walking along a road with a fat
+old gentleman, who went chuckling to himself, and slapping his knees,
+and poking himself, till he was purple in the face, when he would
+burst out in a great windy roar of laughter every other minute?
+
+"What _are_ you laughing at?" asked Blunder, at last.
+
+"At two things that I saw in my travels," answered the Wind;--"a hen,
+that died of starvation, sitting on an empty peck-measure that stood
+in front of a bushel of grain; and a little boy who sat on the top of
+the Wishing-Gate, and came home because he could not find it."
+
+"What? what's that?" cried Blunder; but just then he found himself at
+home. There sat his fairy godmother by the fire, her mouse-skin cloak
+hung up on a peg, and toeing off a spider's-silk stocking an eighth of
+an inch long; and though everybody else cried, "What luck?" and,
+"Where is the Wishing-Gate?" she sat mum.
+
+"I don't know where it is," answered Blunder. "I couldn't find
+it";--and thereon told the story of his troubles.
+
+"Poor boy!" said his mother, kissing him, while his sister ran to
+bring him some bread and milk.
+
+"Yes, that is all very fine," cried his godmother, pulling out her
+needles, and rolling up her ball of silk; "but now hear my story.
+There was once a little boy who must needs go to the Wishing-Gate, and
+his fairy godmother showed him the road as far as the turn, and told
+him to ask the first owl he met what to do then; but this little boy
+seldom used his eyes, so he passed the first owl, and waked up the
+wrong owl; so he passed the water-sprite, and found only a frog; so he
+sat down under the pine-tree, and never saw the crow; so he passed the
+Dream-man, and ran after Jack-o'-Lantern; so he tumbled down the
+goblin's chimney, and couldn't find the shoes and the closet and the
+chest and the cloak; and so he sat on the top of the Wishing-Gate till
+the South Wind brought him home, and never knew it. Ugh! Bah!" And
+away went the fairy godmother up the chimney, in such deep disgust
+that she did not even stop for her mouse-skin cloak.
+
+                                                _Louise E. Chollet._
+
+
+
+
+STAR-DOLLARS.
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a little girl whose father and mother were
+dead; and she became so poor that she had no roof to shelter herself
+under, and no bed to sleep in; and at last she had nothing left but
+the clothes on her back, and a loaf of bread in her hand, which a
+compassionate person had given to her.
+
+But she was a good and pious little girl, and when she found herself
+forsaken by all the world, she went out into the fields, trusting in
+God.
+
+Soon she met a poor man, who said to her, "Give me something to eat,
+for I am so hungry!" She handed him the whole loaf, and with a "God
+bless you!" walked on farther.
+
+Next she met a little girl crying very much, who said to her, "Pray
+give me something to cover my head with, for it is so cold!" So she
+took off her own bonnet, and gave it away.
+
+And in a little while she met another child who had no cloak, and to
+her she gave her own cloak! Then she met another who had no dress on,
+and to this one she gave her own frock.
+
+By that time it was growing dark, and our little girl entered a
+forest; and presently she met a fourth maiden, who begged something,
+and to her she gave her petticoat. "For," thought our heroine, "it is
+growing dark, and nobody will see me; I can give away this."
+
+And now she had scarcely anything left to cover herself. But just then
+some of the stars fell down in the form of silver dollars, and among
+them she found a petticoat of the finest linen! And in that she
+collected the star-money, which made her rich all the rest of her
+lifetime.
+
+                                          _Grimm's Household Tales._
+
+
+
+
+THE IMMORTAL FOUNTAIN.
+
+
+In ancient times two little princesses lived in Scotland, one of whom
+was extremely beautiful, and the other dwarfish, dark colored, and
+deformed. One was named Rose, and the other Marion. The sisters did
+not live happily together. Marion hated Rose because she was handsome
+and everybody praised her. She scowled, and her face absolutely grew
+black, when anybody asked her how her pretty little sister Rose did;
+and once she was so wicked as to cut off all her glossy golden hair,
+and throw it in the fire. Poor Rose cried bitterly about it, but she
+did not scold, or strike her sister; for she was an amiable, gentle
+little being as ever lived. No wonder all the family and all the
+neighbors disliked Marion, and no wonder her face grew uglier and
+uglier every day. The Scotch used to be a very superstitious people;
+and they believed the infant Rose had been blessed by the Fairies, to
+whom she owed her extraordinary beauty and exceeding goodness.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Not far from the castle where the princesses resided was a deep
+grotto, said to lead to the Palace of Beauty, where the queen of the
+Fairies held her court. Some said Rose had fallen asleep there one
+day, when she had grown tired of chasing a butterfly, and that the
+queen had dipped her in an immortal fountain, from which she had risen
+with the beauty of an angel.[A] Marion often asked questions about
+this story; but Rose always replied that she had been forbidden to
+speak of it. When she saw any uncommonly brilliant bird or butterfly,
+she would sometimes exclaim, "O, how much that looks like Fairy Land!"
+But when asked what she knew about Fairy Land she blushed, and would
+not answer.
+
+      [A] There was a superstition that whoever slept on fairy
+          ground was carried away by the fairies.
+
+Marion thought a great deal about this. "Why cannot I go to the Palace
+of Beauty?" thought she; "and why may not I bathe in the Immortal
+Fountain?"
+
+One summer's noon, when all was still save the faint twittering of the
+birds and the lazy hum of the insects, Marion entered the deep grotto.
+She sat down on a bank of moss; the air around her was as fragrant as
+if it came from a bed of violets; and with the sound of far-off music
+dying on her ear, she fell into a gentle slumber. When she awoke, it
+was evening; and she found herself in a small hall, where opal pillars
+supported a rainbow roof, the bright reflection of which rested on
+crystal walls, and a golden floor inlaid with pearls. All around,
+between the opal pillars, stood the tiniest vases of pure alabaster,
+in which grew a multitude of brilliant and fragrant flowers; some of
+them, twining around the pillars, were lost in the floating rainbow
+above. The whole of this scene of beauty was lighted by millions of
+fire-flies, glittering about like wandering stars. While Marion was
+wondering at all this, a little figure of rare loveliness stood before
+her. Her robe was of green and gold; her flowing gossamer mantle was
+caught upon one shoulder with a pearl, and in her hair was a solitary
+star, composed of five diamonds, each no bigger than a pin's point,
+and thus she sung:--
+
+      The Fairy Queen
+      Hath rarely seen
+    Creature of earthly mould
+      Within her door,
+      On pearly floor,
+    Inlaid with shining gold.
+      Mortal, all thou seest is fair;
+      Quick thy purposes declare!
+
+As she concluded, the song was taken up, and thrice repeated by a
+multitude of soft voices in the distance. It seemed as if birds and
+insects joined in the chorus,--the clear voice of the thrush was
+distinctly heard; the cricket kept time with his tiny cymbal; and ever
+and anon, between the pauses, the sound of a distant cascade was
+heard, whose waters fell in music.
+
+All these delightful sounds died away, and the Queen of the Fairies
+stood patiently awaiting Marion's answer. Courtesying low, and with a
+trembling voice, the little maiden said,--
+
+"Will it please your Majesty to make me as handsome as my sister
+Rose."
+
+The queen smiled. "I will grant your request," said she, "if you will
+promise to fulfil all the conditions I propose."
+
+Marion eagerly promised that she would.
+
+"The Immortal Fountain," replied the queen, "is on the top of a high,
+steep hill; at four different places Fairies are stationed around it,
+who guard it with their wands. None can pass them except those who
+obey my orders. Go home now: for one week speak no ungentle word to
+your sister; at the end of that time come again to the grotto."
+
+Marion went home light of heart. Rose was in the garden, watering the
+flowers; and the first thing Marion observed was that her sister's
+sunny hair had suddenly grown as long and beautiful as it had ever
+been. The sight made her angry; and she was just about to snatch the
+water-pot from her hand with an angry expression, when she remembered
+the Fairy, and passed into the castle in silence.
+
+The end of the week arrived, and Marion had faithfully kept her
+promise. Again she went to the grotto. The queen was feasting when she
+entered the hall. The bees brought honeycomb and deposited it on the
+small rose-colored shells which adorned the crystal table; gaudy
+butterflies floated about the head of the queen, and fanned her with
+their wings; the cucullo, and the lantern-fly stood at her side to
+afford her light; a large diamond beetle formed her splendid
+footstool, and when she had supped, a dew-drop, on the petal of a
+violet, was brought for her royal fingers.
+
+When Marion entered, the diamond sparkles on the wings of the Fairies
+faded, as they always did in the presence of anything not perfectly
+good; and in a few moments all the queen's attendants vanished,
+singing as they went:--
+
+      The Fairy Queen
+      Hath rarely seen
+    Creature of earthly mould
+      Within her door,
+      On pearly floor,
+    Inlaid with shining gold.
+
+"Mortal, hast thou fulfilled thy promise?" asked the queen.
+
+"I have," replied the maiden.
+
+"Then follow me."
+
+Marion did as she was directed, and away they went over beds of
+violets and mignonette. The birds warbled above their heads,
+butterflies cooled the air, and the gurgling of many fountains came
+with a refreshing sound. Presently they came to the hill, on the top
+of which was the Immortal Fountain. Its foot was surrounded by a band
+of Fairies, clothed in green gossamer, with their ivory wands crossed,
+to bar the ascent. The queen waved her wand over them, and
+immediately they stretched their thin wings and flew away. The hill
+was steep, and far, far up they went; and the air became more and more
+fragrant, and more and more distinctly they heard the sound of waters
+falling in music. At length they were stopped by a band of Fairies
+clothed in blue, with their silver wands crossed.
+
+"Here," said the queen, "our journey must end. You can go no farther
+until you have fulfilled the orders I shall give you. Go home now; for
+one month do by your sister in all respects as you would wish her to
+do by you, were you Rose and she Marion."
+
+Marion promised, and departed. She found the task harder than the
+first had been. She could not help speaking; but when Rose asked her
+for any of her playthings, she found it difficult to give them gently
+and affectionately, instead of pushing them along. When Rose talked to
+her, she wanted to go away in silence; and when a pocket-mirror was
+found in her sister's room, broken into a thousand pieces, she felt
+sorely tempted to conceal that she did the mischief. But she was so
+anxious to be made beautiful, that she did as she would be done by.
+
+All the household remarked how Marion had changed. "I love her
+dearly," said Rose, "she is so good and amiable."
+
+"So do I," said a dozen voices.
+
+Marion blushed deeply, and her eyes sparkled with pleasure. "How
+pleasant it is to be loved!" thought she.
+
+At the end of the month, she went to the grotto. The Fairies in blue
+lowered their silver wands and flew away. They travelled on; the path
+grew steeper and steeper; but the fragrance of the atmosphere was
+redoubled, and more distinctly came the sound of the waters falling in
+music. Their course was stayed by a troop of Fairies in rainbow robes,
+and silver wands tipped with gold. In face and form they were far more
+beautiful than anything Marion had yet seen.
+
+"Here we must pause," said the queen; "this boundary you cannot yet
+pass."
+
+"Why not?" asked the impatient Marion.
+
+"Because those must be very pure who pass the rainbow Fairies,"
+replied the queen.
+
+"Am I not very pure?" said the maiden; "all the folks in the castle
+tell me how good I have grown."
+
+"Mortal eyes see only the outside," answered the queen, "but those who
+pass the rainbow Fairies must be pure in thought, as well as in
+action. Return home; for three months never indulge an envious or
+wicked thought. You shall then have a sight of the Immortal Fountain."
+Marion was sad at heart; for she knew how many envious thoughts and
+wrong wishes she had suffered to gain power over her.
+
+At the end of three months, she again visited the Palace of Beauty.
+The queen did not smile when she saw her; but in silence led the way
+to the Immortal Fountain. The green Fairies and the blue Fairies flew
+away as they approached; but the rainbow Fairies bowed low to the
+queen, and kept their gold-tipped wands firmly crossed. Marion saw
+that the silver specks on their wings grew dim; and she burst into
+tears. "I knew," said the queen, "that you could not pass this
+boundary. Envy has been in your heart, and you have not driven it
+away. Your sister has been ill, and in your heart you wished that she
+might die, or rise from the bed of sickness deprived of her beauty. Be
+not discouraged; you have been several years indulging in wrong
+feelings, and you must not wonder that it takes many months to drive
+them away."
+
+Marion was very sad as she wended her way homeward. When Rose asked
+her what was the matter, she told her she wanted to be very good, but
+she could not. "When I want to be good, I read my Bible and pray,"
+said Rose; "and I find God helps me to be good." Then Marion prayed
+that God would help her to be pure in thought; and when wicked
+feelings rose in her heart, she read her Bible, and they went away.
+
+When she again visited the Palace of Beauty, the queen smiled, and
+touched her playfully with the wand, then led her away to the Immortal
+Fountain. The silver specks on the wings of the rainbow Fairies shone
+bright as she approached them, and they lowered their wands, and sung,
+as they flew away:--
+
+    Mortal, pass on,
+    Till the goal is won,--
+    For such, I ween,
+    Is the will of the queen,--
+    Pass on! pass on!
+
+And now every footstep was on flowers, that yielded beneath their
+feet, as if their pathway had been upon a cloud. The delicious
+fragrance could almost be felt, yet it did not oppress the senses with
+its heaviness; and loud, clear, and liquid came the sound of the
+waters as they fell in music. And now the cascade is seen leaping and
+sparkling over crystal rocks; a rainbow arch rests above it, like a
+perpetual halo; the spray falls in pearls, and forms fantastic foliage
+about the margin of the Fountain. It has touched the webs woven among
+the grass, and they have become pearl-embroidered cloaks for the Fairy
+queen. Deep and silent, below the foam, is the Immortal Fountain! Its
+amber-colored waves flow over a golden bed; and as the Fairies bathe
+in it, the diamonds on their hair glance like sunbeams on the waters.
+
+"O, let me bathe in the fountain!" cried Marion, clasping her hands in
+delight. "Not yet," said the queen. "Behold the purple Fairies with
+golden wands that guard its brink!" Marion looked, and saw beings
+lovelier than any her eye had ever rested on. "You cannot pass them
+yet," said the queen. "Go home; for one year drive away all evil
+feelings, not for the sake of bathing in this Fountain, but because
+goodness is lovely and desirable for its own sake. Purify the inward
+motive, and your work is done."
+
+This was the hardest task of all. For she had been willing to be good,
+not because it was right to be good, but because she wished to be
+beautiful. Three times she sought the grotto, and three times she left
+in tears; for the golden specks grew dim at her approach, and the
+golden wands were still crossed, to shut her from the Immortal
+Fountain. The fourth time she prevailed. The purple Fairies lowered
+their wands, singing,--
+
+    Thou hast scaled the mountain,
+    Go, bathe in the Fountain;
+    Rise fair to the sight
+    As an angel of light;
+    Go, bathe in the Fountain!
+
+Marion was about to plunge in, but the queen touched her, saying,
+"Look in the mirror of the waters. Art thou not already as beautiful
+as heart can wish?"
+
+Marion looked at herself, and saw that her eye sparkled with new
+lustre, that a bright color shone through her cheeks, and dimples
+played sweetly about her mouth. "I have not touched the Immortal
+Fountain," said she, turning in surprise to the queen. "True," replied
+the queen, "but its waters have been within your soul. Know that a
+pure heart and a clear conscience are the only immortal fountains of
+beauty."
+
+When Marion returned, Rose clasped her to her bosom, and kissed her
+fervently. "I know all," said she, "though I have not asked you a
+question. I have been in Fairy Land, disguised as a bird, and I have
+watched all your steps. When you first went to the grotto, I begged
+the queen to grant your wish."
+
+Ever after that the sisters lived lovingly together. It was the remark
+of every one, "How handsome Marion has grown! The ugly scowl has
+departed from her face; and the light of her eye is so mild and
+pleasant, and her mouth looks so smiling and good-natured, that to my
+taste, I declare, she is as handsome as Rose."
+
+                                                   _L. Maria Child._
+
+
+
+
+THE BIRD'S-NEST IN THE MOON.
+
+
+I love to go to the Moon. I never shake off sublunary cares and
+sorrows so completely as when I am fairly landed on that beautiful
+island.[A] A man in the Moon may see Castle Island, the city of
+Boston, the ships in the harbor, the silver waters of our little
+archipelago, all lying, as it were, at his feet. There you may be at
+once social and solitary,--social, because you see the busy world
+before you; and solitary because there is not a single creature on the
+island, except a few feeding cows, to disturb your repose.
+
+      [A] Moon Island, in Boston harbor.
+
+I was there last summer, and was surveying the scene with my usual
+emotions, when my attention was attracted by the whirring wings of a
+little sparrow, that, in walking, I had frightened from her nest.
+
+This bird, as is well known, always builds its nest on the ground. I
+have seen one, often, in the middle of a cornhill, curiously placed in
+the centre of the five green stalks, so that it was difficult, at
+hoeing time, to dress the hill without burying the nest.
+
+This sparrow had built hers beneath a little tuft of grass more rich
+and thickset than the rest of the herbage around it. I cast a careless
+glance at the nest, saw the soft down that lined it, the four little
+speckled eggs which enclosed the parents' hope. I marked the multitude
+of cows that were feeding around it, one tread of whose cloven feet
+would crush both bird and progeny into ruin.
+
+I could not but reflect on the dangerous condition to which the
+creature had committed her most tender hopes. A cow is seeking a bite
+of grass; she steps aside to gratify that appetite; she treads on the
+nest, and destroys the offspring of the defenceless bird.
+
+As I came away from the island, I reflected that this bird's
+situation, in her humble, defenceless nest, might be no unapt emblem
+of man in this precarious world. What are diseases, in their countless
+forms, accidents by flood and fire, the seductions of temptation, and
+even some human beings themselves, but so many huge cows feeding
+around our nest, and ready, every moment, to crush our dearest hopes,
+with the most careless indifference, beneath their brutal tread?
+
+Sometimes, as we sit at home, we can see the calamity coming at a
+distance. We hear the breathing of the monster; we mark its great
+wavering path, now looking towards us in a direct line, now
+capriciously turning for a moment aside. We see the swing of its
+dreadful horns, the savage rapacity of its brutal appetite; we behold
+it approaching nearer and nearer, and it passes within a hairbreadth
+of our ruin, leaving us to the sad reflection that another and another
+are still behind.
+
+Poor bird! Our situations are exactly alike.
+
+The other evening I walked into the chamber where my children were
+sleeping. There was Willie, with the clothes half kicked down, his
+hands thrown carelessly over his head, tired with play, now resting in
+repose; there was Jamie with his balmy breath and rosy cheeks,
+sleeping and looking like innocence itself. There was Bessie, who has
+just begun to prattle, and runs daily with tottering steps and lisping
+voice to ask her father to toss her into the air.
+
+As I looked upon these sleeping innocents, I could not but regard them
+as so many little birds which I must fold under my wing, and protect,
+if possible, in security in my nest.
+
+But when I thought of the huge cows that were feeding around them, the
+ugly hoofs that might crush them into ruin, in short, when I
+remembered _the bird's-nest in the Moon_, I trembled and wept.
+
+But why weep? Is there not a special providence in the fall of a
+sparrow?
+
+It is very possible that the nest which I saw was not in so dangerous
+a situation as it appeared to be. Perhaps some providential instinct
+led the bird to build her fragile house in the ranker grass, which the
+kine never bite, and, of course, on which they would not be likely to
+tread. Perhaps some kind impulse may guide that species so as not to
+tread even on a bird's-nest.
+
+There is a merciful God, whose care and protection extend over all his
+works, who takes care of the sparrow's children and of mine. _The very
+hairs of our head are all numbered._
+
+                                             _New England Magazine._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERY.
+
+
+Children love to listen to stories about their elders when _they_ were
+children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a
+traditionary great-uncle or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in
+this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to
+hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house
+in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa
+lived) which had been the scene--so, at least, it was generally
+believed in that part of the country--of the tragic incidents which
+they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children
+in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and
+their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the
+chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin
+Redbreasts! till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a
+marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon
+it.--Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to
+be called upbraiding.
+
+Then I went on to say how religious and how good their
+great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody,
+though she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had
+only the charge of it (and yet, in some respects, she might be said to
+be the mistress of it too), committed to her by the owner, who
+preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had
+purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it
+in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the
+great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay,
+and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and
+carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and
+looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they
+had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry
+gilt drawing-room.
+
+Here John smiled, as much as to say, "That would be foolish indeed."
+And then I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was attended by
+a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry, too, of the
+neighborhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her
+memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good,
+indeed, that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part
+of the Testament besides.--Here little Alice spread her hands.
+
+Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their
+great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was
+esteemed the best dancer,--here Alice's little right foot played an
+involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted,--the
+best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called
+a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend
+her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright,
+because she was so good and religious.
+
+Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of
+the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two
+infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great
+staircase near where she slept, but she said "those innocents would do
+her no harm"; and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I
+had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or
+religious as she,--and yet I never saw the infants.--Here John
+expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous.
+
+Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to
+the great house in the holidays, where I in particular used to spend
+many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve
+Caesars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads
+would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how
+I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its
+vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry,
+and carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed
+out,--sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had
+almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening man
+would cross me,--and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the
+walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were
+forbidden fruit, unless now and then,--and because I had more pleasure
+in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew-trees, or the
+firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir-apples, which were
+good for nothing but to look at,--or in lying about upon the fresh
+grass with all the fine garden smells around me,--or basking in the
+orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too, along with
+the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth,--or in watching the
+dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the
+garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the
+water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings;
+I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the
+sweet flavors of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such-like common
+baits of children.--Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a
+bunch of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated
+dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the
+present as irrelevant.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then, in a somewhat more heightened tone, I told how, though their
+great-grandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an
+especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L----,
+because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the
+rest of us; and instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some
+of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but
+an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the
+county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out; and
+yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much
+spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries; and how their
+uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the
+admiration of everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field most
+especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back, when I was a
+lame-footed boy,--for he was a good bit older than me,--many a mile,
+when I could not walk for pain; and how in after life he became
+lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough
+for him when he was impatient and in pain, nor remember sufficiently
+how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed; and how when
+he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had
+died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and
+death; and how I bore his death, as I thought, pretty well at first,
+but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or
+take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I
+had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how
+much I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his
+crossness, and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with
+him (for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and
+was as uneasy without him as he their poor uncle must have been when
+the doctor took off his limb.
+
+Here the children fell a-crying, and asked if their little mourning
+which they had on was not for their Uncle John; and they looked up,
+and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some
+stories about their pretty dead mother.
+
+Then I told how, for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in
+despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W----n; and, as
+much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness,
+and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens,--when suddenly, turning
+to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such
+a reality of representment that I became in doubt which of them stood
+there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood
+gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding,
+and still receding, till nothing at last but two mournful features
+were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely
+impressed upon me the effects of speech: "We are not of Alice, nor of
+thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum
+father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only
+what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe
+millions of ages before we have existence and a name";--and
+immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor
+arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget
+unchanged by my side,--but John L---- (or James Elia) was gone forever.
+
+                                                     _Charles Lamb._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE UGLY DUCKLING.
+
+
+It was beautiful in the country; it was summer-time; the wheat was
+yellow; the oats were green, the hay was stacked up in the green
+meadows, and the stork paraded about on his long red legs, discoursing
+in Egyptian, which language he had learned from his mother. The fields
+and meadows were skirted by thick woods, and a deep lake lay in the
+midst of the woods. Yes, it was indeed beautiful in the country! The
+sunshine fell warmly on an old mansion, surrounded by deep canals, and
+from the walls down to the water's edge there grew large
+burdock-leaves, so high that children could stand upright among them
+without being perceived. This place was as wild and unfrequented as
+the thickest part of the wood, and on that account a duck had chosen
+to make her nest there. She was sitting on her eggs; but the pleasure
+she had felt at first was now almost gone, because she had been there
+so long, and had so few visitors, for the other ducks preferred
+swimming on the canals to sitting among the burdock-leaves gossiping
+with her.
+
+At last the eggs cracked, one after another, "Tchick! tchick!" All the
+eggs were alive, and one little head after another peered forth.
+"Quack, quack!" said the Duck, and all got up as well as they could;
+they peeped about from under the green leaves; and as green is good
+for the eyes, the mother let them look as long as they pleased.
+
+"How large the world is!" said the little ones, for they found their
+present situation very different from their former confined one, while
+yet in the egg-shells.
+
+"Do you imagine this to be the whole of the world?" said the mother;
+"it extends far beyond the other side of the garden to the pastor's
+field; but I have never been there. Are you all here?" And then she
+got up. "No, not all, but the largest egg is still here. How long will
+this last? I am so weary of it!" And then she sat down again.
+
+"Well, and how are you getting on?" asked an old Duck, who had come to
+pay her a visit.
+
+"This one egg keeps me so long!" said the mother, "it will not break.
+But you should see the others! they are the prettiest little ducklings
+I have seen in all my days; they are all like their father,--the
+good-for-nothing fellow, he has not been to visit me once!"
+
+"Let me see the egg that will not break!" said the old Duck; "depend
+upon it, it is a turkey's egg. I was cheated in the same way once
+myself, and I had such trouble with the young ones; for they were
+afraid of the water, and I could not get them there. I called and
+scolded, but it was all of no use. But let me see the egg. Ah, yes! to
+be sure, that is a turkey's egg. Leave it, and teach the other little
+ones to swim."
+
+"I will sit on it a little longer," said the Duck. "I have been
+sitting so long that I may as well spend the harvest here."
+
+"It is no business of mine," said the old Duck, and away she waddled.
+
+The great egg burst at last. "Tchick! tchick!" said the little one,
+and out it tumbled; but O, how large and ugly it was! The Duck looked
+at it. "That is a great, strong creature," said she; "none of the
+others are at all like it. Can it be a young turkey-cock? Well, we
+shall soon find out; it must go into the water, though I push it in
+myself."
+
+The next day there was delightful weather, and the sun shone warmly
+upon the green leaves when Mother Duck with all her family went down
+to the canal; plump she went into the water. "Quack, quack!" cried
+she, and one duckling after another jumped in. The water closed over
+their heads, but all came up again, and swam together in the
+pleasantest manner; their legs moved without effort. All were there,
+even the ugly, gray one.
+
+"No! it is not a turkey," said the old Duck; "only see how prettily it
+moves its legs! how upright it hold itself! it is my own child: it is
+also really very pretty, when one looks more closely at it. Quack!
+quack! now come with me, I will take you into the world, introduce you
+in the duck-yard; but keep close to me, or some one may tread on you;
+and beware of the cat."
+
+So they came into the duck-yard. There was a horrid noise; two
+families were quarrelling about the remains of an eel, which in the
+end was secured by the cat.
+
+"See, my children, such is the way of the world," said the Mother
+Duck, wiping her beak, for she, too, was fond of eels. "Now use your
+legs," said she; "keep together, and bow to the old duck you see
+yonder. She is the most distinguished of all the fowls present, and is
+of Spanish blood, which accounts for her dignified appearance and
+manners. And look, she has a red rag on her leg! that is considered
+extremely handsome, and is the greatest distinction a duck can have.
+Don't turn your feet inwards; a well-educated duckling always keeps
+his legs far apart, like his father and mother, just so,--look! now
+bow your necks, and say, 'quack.'"
+
+And they did as they were told. But the other ducks who were in the
+yard looked at them, and said aloud, "Only see! now we have another
+brood,--as if there were not enough of us already; and fie! how ugly
+that one is! we will not endure it." And immediately one of the ducks
+flew at him, and bit him in the neck.
+
+"Leave him alone," said the mother; "he is doing no one any harm."
+
+"Yes, but he is so large, and so strange-looking, and therefore he
+shall be teased."
+
+"These are fine children that our good mother has," said the old Duck
+with the red rag on her leg. "All are pretty except one, and that has
+not turned out well; I almost wish it could be hatched over again."
+
+"That cannot be, please your highness," said the mother. "Certainly he
+is not handsome, but he is a very good child, and swims as well as the
+others, indeed rather better. I think he will grow like the others all
+in good time, and perhaps will look smaller. He stayed so long in the
+egg-shell, that is the cause of the difference"; and she scratched the
+Duckling's neck, and stroked his whole body. "Besides," added she, "he
+is a drake; I think he will be very strong, therefore it does not
+matter, so much; he will fight his way through."
+
+"The other ducks are very pretty," said the old Duck. "Pray make
+yourselves at home, and if you find an eel's head you can bring it to
+me."
+
+And accordingly they made themselves at home.
+
+But the poor little Duckling who had come last out of its egg-shell,
+and who was so ugly, was bitten, pecked, and teased by both Ducks and
+Hens. "It is so large!" said they all. And the Turkey-cock, who had
+come into the world with spurs on, and therefore fancied he was an
+emperor, puffed himself up like a ship in full sail, and marched up to
+the Duckling quite red with passion. The poor little thing scarcely
+knew what to do; he was quite distressed because he was so ugly, and
+because he was the jest of the poultry-yard.
+
+So passed the first day, and afterwards matters grew worse and worse;
+the poor Duckling was scorned by all. Even his brothers and sisters
+behaved unkindly, and were constantly saying, "The cat fetch thee,
+thou nasty creature!" The mother said, "Ah, if thou wert only far
+away!" The Ducks bit him, the Hens pecked him, and the girl who fed
+the poultry kicked him. He ran over the hedge; the little birds in the
+bushes were terrified. "That is because I am so ugly," thought the
+Duckling, shutting his eyes, but he ran on. At last he came to a wide
+moor, where lived some Wild Ducks; here he lay the whole night, so
+tired and so comfortless. In the morning the Wild Ducks flew up, and
+perceived their new companion. "Pray, who are you?" asked they; and
+our little Duckling turned himself in all directions, and greeted them
+as politely as possible.
+
+"You are really uncommonly ugly!" said the Wild Ducks; "however, that
+does not matter to us, provided you do not marry into our families."
+Poor thing! he had never thought of marrying; he only begged
+permission to lie among the reeds and drink the water of the moor.
+
+There he lay for two whole days; on the third day there came two Wild
+Geese, or rather Ganders, who had not been long out of their
+egg-shells, which accounts for their impertinence.
+
+"Hark ye!" said they, "you are so ugly that we like you infinitely
+well; will you come with us, and be a bird of passage? On another
+moor, not far from this, are some dear, sweet Wild Geese, as lovely
+creatures as have ever said 'hiss, hiss.' You are truly in the way to
+make your fortune, ugly as you are."
+
+Bang! a gun went off all at once, and both Wild Geese were stretched
+dead among the reeds; the water became red with blood; bang! a gun
+went off again; whole flocks of wild geese flew up from among the
+reeds, and another report followed.
+
+There was a grand hunting party; the hunters lay in ambush all around;
+some were even sitting in the trees, whose huge branches stretched far
+over the moor. The blue smoke rose through the thick trees like a
+mist, and was dispersed as it fell over the water; the hounds splashed
+about in the mud, the reeds and rushes bent in all directions; how
+frightened the poor little Duck was! he turned his head, thinking to
+hide it under his wings, and in a moment a most formidable-looking dog
+stood close to him, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, his eyes
+sparkling fearfully. He opened wide his jaws at the sight of our
+Duckling, showed him his sharp white teeth, and splash, splash! he was
+gone,--gone without hurting him.
+
+"Well! let me be thankful," sighed he; "I am so ugly that even the dog
+will not eat me."
+
+And now he lay still, though the shooting continued among the reeds,
+shot following shot.
+
+The noise did not cease till late in the day, and even then the poor
+little thing dared not stir; he waited several hours before he looked
+around him, and then hastened away from the moor as fast as he could;
+he ran over fields and meadows, though the wind was so high that he
+had some difficulty in proceeding.
+
+Towards evening he reached a wretched little hut, so wretched that it
+knew not on which side to fall, and therefore remained standing. The
+wind blew violently, so that our poor little Duckling was obliged to
+support himself on his tail, in order to stand against it; but it
+became worse and worse. He then remarked that the door had lost one of
+its hinges, and hung so much awry that he could creep through the
+crevice into the room, which he did.
+
+In this room lived an old woman, with her Tom-cat and her Hen; and the
+Cat, whom she called her little son, knew how to set up his back and
+purr; indeed, he could even emit sparks when stroked the wrong way.
+The Hen had very short legs, and was therefore called "Cuckoo
+Short-legs"; she laid very good eggs, and the old woman loved her as
+her own child.
+
+The next morning the new guest was perceived. The Cat began to mew and
+the Hen to cackle.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked the old woman, looking round; however, her
+eyes were not good, so she took the young Duckling to be a fat Duck
+who had lost her way. "This is a capital catch," said she; "I shall
+now have ducks' eggs, if it be not a drake: we must try."
+
+And so the Duckling was put to the proof for three weeks, but no eggs
+made their appearance.
+
+Now the Cat was the master of the house, and the Hen was the mistress,
+and they used always to say, "We and the world," for they imagined
+themselves to be not only the half of the world, but also by far the
+better half. The Duckling thought it was possible to be of a different
+opinion, but that the Hen would not allow.
+
+"Can you lay eggs?" asked she.
+
+"No."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Well, then, hold your tongue."
+
+And the Cat said, "Can you set up your back? can you purr?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, then, you should have no opinion when reasonable persons are
+speaking."
+
+So the Duckling sat alone in a corner, and was in a very bad humor;
+however, he happened to think of the fresh air and bright sunshine,
+and these thoughts gave him such a strong desire to swim again, that
+he could not help telling it to the Hen.
+
+"What ails you?" said the Hen. "You have nothing to do, and therefore
+brood over these fancies; either lay eggs or purr, then you will
+forget them."
+
+"But it is so delicious to swim!" said the Duckling; "so delicious
+when the waters close over your head, and you plunge to the bottom!"
+
+"Well, that is a queer sort of pleasure," said the Hen; "I think you
+must be crazy. Not to speak of myself, ask the Cat--he is the most
+sensible animal I know--whether he would like to swim, or to plunge to
+the bottom of the water. Ask our mistress, the old woman,--there is no
+one in the world wiser than she; do you think she would take pleasure
+in swimming, and in the waters closing over her head?"
+
+"You do not understand me," said the Duckling.
+
+"What, we do not understand you! So you think yourself wiser than the
+Cat and the old woman, not to speak of myself. Do not fancy any such
+thing, child, but be thankful for all the kindness that has been shown
+you. Are you not lodged in a warm room, and have you not the advantage
+of society from which you can learn something? But you are a
+simpleton, and it is wearisome to have anything to do with you.
+Believe me, I wish you well. I tell you unpleasant truths, but it is
+thus that real friendship is shown. Come, for once give yourself the
+trouble to learn to purr, or to lay eggs."
+
+"I think I will go out into the wide world again," said the Duckling.
+
+"Well, go," answered the Hen.
+
+So the Duckling went. He swam on the surface of the water, he plunged
+beneath, but all animals passed him by on account of his ugliness.
+And the autumn came, the leaves turned yellow and brown, the wind
+caught them and danced them about, the air was very cold, the clouds
+were heavy with hail or snow, and the raven sat on the hedge and
+croaked, the poor Duckling was certainly not very comfortable!
+
+One evening, just as the sun was setting with unusual brilliancy, a
+flock of large, beautiful birds rose from out the brushwood; the
+Duckling had never seen anything so beautiful before; their plumage
+was of a dazzling white, and they had long slender necks. They were
+swans; they uttered a singular cry, spread out their long, splendid
+wings, and flew away from these cold regions to warmer countries,
+across the open sea. They flew so high, so very high! and the little
+Ugly Duckling's feelings were so strange; he turned round and round in
+the water like a mill-wheel, strained his neck to look after them, and
+sent forth such a loud and strange cry that it almost frightened
+himself. Ah! he could not forget them, those noble birds! those happy
+birds! When he could see them no longer, he plunged to the bottom of
+the water, and when he rose again was almost beside himself. The
+Duckling knew not what the birds were called, knew not whither they
+were flying, yet he loved them as he had never before loved anything;
+he envied them not, it would never have occurred to him to wish such
+beauty for himself; he would have been quite contented if the ducks in
+the duck-yard had but endured his company,--the poor, ugly animal!
+
+And the winter was so cold, so cold! The Duckling was obliged to swim
+round and round in the water, to keep it from freezing; but every
+night the opening in which he swam became smaller and smaller; it
+froze so that the crust of ice crackled; the Duckling was obliged to
+make good use of his legs to prevent the water from freezing entirely;
+at last, wearied out, he lay stiff and cold in the ice.
+
+Early in the morning there passed by a peasant, who saw him, broke the
+ice in pieces with his wooden shoe, and brought him home to his wife.
+
+He now revived; the children would have played with him, but our
+Duckling thought they wished to tease him, and in his terror jumped
+into the milk-pail, so that the milk was spilled about the room; the
+good woman screamed and clapped her hands; he flew thence into the pan
+where the butter was kept, and thence into the meal-barrel, and out
+again, and then how strange he looked!
+
+The woman screamed, and struck at him with the tongs, the children ran
+races with each other trying to catch him, and laughed and screamed
+likewise. It was well for him that the door stood open; he jumped out
+among the bushes into the new-fallen snow,--he lay there as in a
+dream.
+
+But it would be too melancholy to relate all the trouble and misery
+that he was obliged to suffer during the severity of the winter. He
+was lying on a moor among the reeds, when the sun began to shine
+warmly again, the larks sang, and beautiful spring had returned.
+
+And once more he shook his wings. They were stronger than formerly,
+and bore him forwards quickly, and, before he was well aware of it, he
+was in a large garden where the apple-trees stood in full bloom, where
+the syringas sent forth their fragrance, and hung their long green
+branches down into the winding canal. O, everything was so lovely, so
+full of the freshness of spring! And out of the thicket came three
+beautiful white Swans. They displayed their feathers so proudly, and
+swam so lightly, so lightly! The Duckling knew the glorious creatures,
+and was seized with a strange melancholy.
+
+"I will fly to them, those kingly birds!" said he. "They will kill me,
+because I, ugly as I am, have presumed to approach them. But it
+matters not; better to be killed by them than to be bitten by the
+ducks, pecked by the hens, kicked by the girl who feeds the poultry,
+and to have so much to suffer during the winter!" He flew into the
+water, and swam towards the beautiful creatures; they saw him and shot
+forward to meet him. "Only kill me," said the poor animal, and he
+bowed his head low, expecting death; but what did he see in the
+water? He saw beneath him his own form, no longer that of a plump,
+ugly, gray bird,--it was that of a Swan.
+
+It matters not to have been born in a duck-yard, if one has been
+hatched from a Swan's egg.
+
+The good creature felt himself really elevated by all the troubles and
+adversities he had experienced. He could now rightly estimate his own
+happiness, and the larger Swans swam around him, and stroked him with
+their beaks.
+
+Some little children were running about in the garden; they threw
+grain and bread into the water, and the youngest exclaimed, "There is
+a new one!" the others also cried out, "Yes, there is a new Swan
+come!" and they clapped their hands, and danced around. They ran to
+their father and mother, bread and cake were thrown into the water,
+and every one said, "The new one is the best, so young and so
+beautiful!" and the old Swans bowed before him. The young Swan felt
+quite ashamed, and hid his head under his wings; he scarcely knew what
+to do, he was all too happy, but still not proud, for a good heart is
+never proud.
+
+He remembered how he had been persecuted and derided, and he now heard
+every one say he was the most beautiful of all beautiful birds. The
+syringas bent down their branches towards him low into the water, and
+the sun shone so warmly and brightly,--he shook his feathers,
+stretched his slender neck, and in the joy of his heart said, "How
+little did I dream of so much happiness when I was the ugly, despised
+Duckling!"
+
+                                          _Hans Christian Andersen._
+
+
+
+
+THE POET AND HIS LITTLE DAUGHTER.
+
+
+It was a June morning. Roses and yellow jasmine covered the old wall
+in the Poet's garden. The little brown mason bees flew in and out of
+their holds beneath the pink and white and yellow flowers.
+Peacock-butterflies, with large blue eyes on their crimson velvet
+wings, fluttered about and settled on the orange-brown wall-flowers.
+Aloft, in the broad-leaved sycamore-tree, the blackbird was singing as
+if he were out of his senses for joy; his song was as loud as any
+nightingale, and his heart was glad, because his young brood was
+hatched, and he knew that they now sat with their little yellow beaks
+poking out of the nest, and thinking what a famous bird their father
+was. All the robins and tomtits and linnets and redstarts that sat in
+the trees of the garden den shouted vivas and bravuras, and encored
+him delightfully.
+
+The Poet himself sat under the double-flowering hawthorn, which was
+then all in blossom. He sat on a rustic seat, and his best friend sat
+beside him. Beneath the lower branches of the tree was hung the
+canary-bird's cage, which the children had brought out because the day
+was so fine, and the little canary loved fresh air and the smell of
+flowers. It never troubled him that other birds flew about from one
+end of the garden to the other, or sat and sung on the leafy branches,
+for he loved his cage; and when the old blackbird poured forth his
+grand melodies, the little canary sat like a prince in a stage-box,
+and nodded his head, and sang an accompaniment.
+
+One of the Poet's children, his little daughter, sat in her own little
+garden, which was full of flowers, while bees and butterflies flitted
+about in the sunshine. The child, however, was not noticing them; she
+was thinking only of one thing, and that was the large daisy-root
+which was all in flower; it was the largest daisy-root in the whole
+garden, and two-and-fifty double pink-and-white daisies were crowded
+upon it. They were, however, no longer daisies to the child's eyes,
+but two-and-fifty little charity children in green stuff gowns, and
+white tippets, and white linen caps, that had a holiday given them.
+She saw them all, with their pink cheeks and bright eyes, running in a
+group and talking as they went; the hum of the bees around seeming to
+be the pleasant sound of their voices. The child was happy to think
+that two-and-fifty charity children were let loose from school to run
+about in the sunshine. Her heart went with them, and she was so full
+of joy that she started up to tell her father, who was sitting with
+his best friend under the hawthorn-tree.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Sad and bitter thoughts, however, just then oppressed the Poet's
+heart. He had been disappointed where he had hoped for good; his soul
+was under a cloud; and as the child ran up to tell him about the
+little charity children in whose joy she thought he would sympathize,
+she heard him say to his friend, "I have no longer any hope of human
+nature now. It is a poor miserable thing, and is not worth working
+for. My best endeavors have been spent in its service,--my youth and
+my manhood's strength, my very life,--and this is my reward! I will
+no longer strive to do good. I will write for money alone, as others
+do, and not for the good of mankind!"
+
+The Poet's words were bitter, and tears came into the eyes of his best
+friend. Never had the child heard such words from her father before,
+for he had always been to her as a great and good angel.
+
+"I will write," said he, "henceforth for money, as others do, and not
+for the good of mankind."
+
+"My father, if you do," said the child, in a tone of mournful
+indignation, "I will never read what you write! I will trample your
+writings under my feet!"
+
+Large tears rolled down her cheeks, and her eyes were fixed on her
+father's face.
+
+The Poet took the child in his arms and kissed her. An angel touched
+his heart, and he now felt that he could forgive his bitterest
+enemies.
+
+"I will tell you a story, my child," he said, in his usually mild
+voice.
+
+The child leaned her head against his breast, and listened.
+
+"Once upon a time," he began, "there was a man who dwelt in a great,
+wide wilderness. He was a poor man, and worked very hard for his
+bread. He lived in a cave of a rock, and because the sun shone burning
+hot into the cave, he twined roses and jessamines and honeysuckles all
+around it; and in front of it, and on the ledges of the rock, he
+planted ferns and sweet shrubs, and made it very pleasant. Water ran
+gurgling from a fissure in the rock into a little basin, whence it
+poured in gentle streams through the garden, in which grew all kinds
+of delicious fruits. Birds sang in the tall trees which Nature herself
+had planted; and little squirrels, and lovely green lizards, with
+bright, intelligent eyes, lived in the branches and among the flowers.
+
+"All would have gone well with the man, had not evil spirits taken
+possession of his cave. They troubled him night and day. They dropped
+canker-blight upon his roses, nipped off his jasmine and
+honeysuckle-flowers, and, in the form of caterpillars and blight, ate
+his beautiful fruits.
+
+"It made the man angry and bitter in his feelings. The flowers were no
+longer beautiful to him, and when he looked on them he thought only of
+the canker and the caterpillar.
+
+"'I can no longer take pleasure in them,' he said; 'I will leave the
+cave, and go elsewhere.'
+
+"He did so; and travelled on and on, a long way. But it was a vast
+wilderness in which he dwelt, and thus it was many and many a weary
+day before he came to a place of rest; nor did he know that all this
+time the evil spirits who had plagued him so in his own cave were
+still going with him.
+
+"But so they were. And they made every place he came to seem worse
+than the last. Their very breath cast a blight upon everything.
+
+"He was footsore and weary, and very miserable. A feeling like despair
+was in his heart, and he said that he might as well die as live. He
+lay down in the wilderness, so unhappy was he, and scarcely had he
+done so, when he heard behind him the pleasantest sound in the
+world,--a little child singing like a bird, because her heart was
+innocent and full of joy; and the next moment she was at his side.
+
+"The evil spirits that were about him drew back a little when they saw
+her coming, because she brought with her a beautiful company of angels
+and bright spirits,--little cherubs with round, rosy cheeks, golden
+hair, and laughing eyes between two dove's wings as white as snow. The
+child had not the least idea that these beautiful spirits were always
+about her; all she knew was that she was full of joy, and that she
+loved above all things to do good. When she saw the poor man lying
+there, she went up to him, and talked to him so pityingly, and yet so
+cheerfully, that he felt as if her words would cure him. She told him
+that she lived just by, and that he should go with her, and rest and
+get well in her cave.
+
+"He went with her, and found that her cave was just such a one as his
+own, only much smaller. Roses and honeysuckles and jasmine grew all
+around it; and birds were singing, and goldfish were sporting about
+in the water; and there were beds of strawberries, all red and
+luscious, that filled the air with fragrance.
+
+"It was a beautiful place. There seemed to be no canker nor blight on
+anything. And yet the man saw how spiders had woven webs like the most
+beautiful lace from one vine-branch to another; and butterflies that
+once had been devouring caterpillars were flitting about. Just as in
+his own garden, yellow frogs were squatted under the cool green
+strawberry leaves. But the child loved both the frogs and the green
+lizards, and said that they did her no harm, and that there were
+plenty of strawberries both for them and for her.
+
+"The evil spirits that had troubled the man, and followed him, could
+not get into the child's garden. It was impossible, because all those
+rosy-cheeked cherubs and white-robed angels lived there; and that
+which is good, be it ever so small, is a great deal stronger than that
+which is evil, be it ever so large. They therefore sat outside and bit
+their nails for vexation; and as the man stayed a long time with the
+child, they got so tired of waiting that a good number of them flew
+away forever.
+
+"At length the man kissed the child and went back to his own place;
+and when he got there he had the pleasure of finding that, owing to
+the evil spirits having been so long away, the flowers and fruits had,
+in great measure, recovered themselves. There was hardly any canker or
+blight left. And as the child came now very often to see him,--for,
+after all, they did not live so very far apart, only that the man had
+wandered a long way round in the wilderness,--and brought with her all
+the bright company that dwelt with her, the place was freed, at least
+while she stayed, from the evil ones.
+
+"This is a true story, a perfectly true story," added the Poet, when
+he had brought his little narrative to an end; "and there are many men
+who live like him in a wilderness, and who go a long way round about
+before they can find a resting-place. And happy is it for such when
+they can have a child for their neighbor; for our Divine Master has
+himself told us that blessed are little children, and that of such is
+the kingdom of heaven!"
+
+The Poet was silent. His little daughter kissed him, and then, without
+saying a word about the little charity children, ran off to sit down
+beside them again, and perhaps to tell them the story which her father
+had just related to her.
+
+                                                      _Mary Howitt._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE RED FLOWER.
+
+
+What it was, where it grew, I should find it difficult to tell you. I
+had seen it once, when a little child, in a stony road, among the
+thorns of a hedge; and I had gathered it. Ah! that was certain! It
+waved at the end of a long stalk; its petals were of a flame-like red;
+its form was unlike anything known, resembling somewhat a censer, from
+which issued golden stamens.
+
+Since those earliest days, I had often sought it, often asked for it.
+When I mentioned it, people laughed at me. I spoke of the flower no
+more, but I sought for it still.
+
+"Impossible!" Experience writes the word in the dictionary of the man.
+In the child's vocabulary, it has no existence. The marvellous to him
+is perfectly natural. Things which he sees to be beautiful arrange
+themselves along his path; why should he have a doubt of this or of
+that? By and by, exact bounds will limit his domain. A faint line,
+then a barrier, then a wall: erelong the wall will rise and surround
+the man,--a dungeon from which he must have wings to escape.
+
+Around the child are neither walls nor boundary lines, but a limitless
+expanse, everywhere glowing with beautiful colors. In the far-off
+depths, reality mingles with revery. It is like an ocean whose blue
+waves glimmer and sparkle on the horizon, where they kiss the shores
+of enchanted isles.
+
+I sought the red flower. Have you never searched for it too?
+
+This morning, in the spring atmosphere, its memory came back to my
+heart. It seemed to me that I should find it; and I walked on at
+random.
+
+I went through solitary footpaths. The laborers had gone to their
+noonday repose. The meadows were all in bloom. Weeds, growing in spite
+of wind and tide spread a golden carpet beside the rose-colored
+meadow-grass. In the wet places were tangles of pale blue
+forget-me-nots; beyond them, tufts of the azure veronica, and over the
+stream hung the straw-colored lotus. Under the grain, yet green,
+corn-poppies were waving. With every breeze a scarlet wave arose,
+swelled, and vanished.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Blue butterflies danced before me, mingling and dispersing like
+floating flower-petals in the air. Under the umbelled plants was a
+pavement of beetles, of black and purple mosaic. On the tufts of the
+verbena gathered insects with shells blazoned like the escutcheons of
+the knights of the Middle Ages. The quail was calling in the thickets;
+three notes here, and three there. I found myself on the skirt of a
+pine forest, and I seated myself on the grass.
+
+The red flower! I thought of it no longer. The butterflies had carried
+it away. I thought how beautiful life is on a spring morning; what
+happiness it is to open the lips and inhale the fresh air; what joy to
+open the eyes and behold the earth in her bridal robes; what delight
+to open the hands and gather the sweet-smelling blossoms. Then I
+thought of the God of the heavens, that, arching above me, spoke of
+his power. I thought of the Lord of the little ones,--of the insects
+that, flitting about me, spoke of his goodness. All these accents
+awoke a chord in harmony with that which burst forth from the
+blossoming meadows.
+
+I arose, and came to a recess in the shadowy edge of the forest.
+
+As I walked, something glowed in the grass; something dazzled me;
+something made my heart throb. It was the red flower!
+
+I seized it. I held it tightly in my hand. It was the flower; yes, it
+was the same, but with a strange, new splendor. I possessed it, yet I
+dared not look upon it.
+
+Suddenly I felt the blossom tremble in my fingers. They loosened their
+grasp. The flower dilated. It expanded its carnation petals, slightly
+tinged with green; it spread out a purple calyx; two stamens, two
+antennae, vibrated a moment. The blossom quivered; some breath had made
+it shudder; its wings unfolded. As I gazed, it fluttered a little,
+then rose in a golden sunbeam; its colors played in the different
+strata of the air, the roseate, the azure, the ether; it disappeared.
+
+O my flower! I know whither thou goest and whence thou comest! I know
+the hidden sources of thine eternal bloom. I know the Word that
+created thee; I know the Eden where thou growest!
+
+Winged flower! he who falters in his search for thee will never find
+thee. He who seeks thee on earth may grasp thee, but will surely lose
+thee again. Flower of Paradise, thou belongest only to him who
+searches for thee where thou hast been planted by the hand of the
+Lord.
+
+                                               _Madame De Gasparin._
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE STORY WITHOUT AN END.
+
+
+I.
+
+There was once a child who lived in a little hut, and in the hut there
+was nothing but a little bed, and a looking-glass which hung in a dark
+corner. Now the child cared nothing at all about the looking-glass,
+but as soon as the first sunbeam glided softly through the casement
+and kissed his sweet eyelids, and the finch and the linnet waked him
+merrily with their morning songs, he arose and went out into the green
+meadow. And he begged flour of the primrose, and sugar of the violet,
+and butter of the buttercup; he shook dew-drops from the cowslip into
+the cup of a harebell; spread out a large lime-leaf, set his little
+breakfast upon it, and feasted daintily. Sometimes he invited a
+humming-bee, oftener a gay butterfly, to partake of his feast; but his
+favorite guest was the blue dragon-fly. The bee murmured a good deal,
+in a solemn tone, about his riches; but the child thought that if _he_
+were a bee, heaps of treasure would not make him gay and happy; and
+that it must be much more delightful and glorious to float about in
+the free and fresh breezes of spring, and to hum joyously in the web
+of the sunbeams, than, with heavy feet and heavy heart, to stow the
+silver wax and the golden honey into cells.
+
+To this the butterfly assented; and he told how, once on a time, he
+too had been greedy and sordid; how he had thought of nothing but
+eating, and had never once turned his eyes upwards to the blue
+heavens. At length, however, a complete change had come over him; and
+instead of crawling spiritless about the dirty earth, half dreaming,
+he all at once awaked as out of a deep sleep. And now he could rise
+into the air; and it was his greatest joy sometimes to play with the
+light, and to reflect the heavens in the bright eyes of his wings;
+sometimes to listen to the soft language of the flowers, and catch
+their secrets. Such talk delighted the child, and his breakfast was
+the sweeter to him, and the sunshine on leaf and flower seemed to him
+more bright and cheering.
+
+But when the bee had flown off to beg from flower to flower, and the
+butterfly had fluttered away to his playfellows, the dragon-fly still
+remained poised on a blade of grass. Her slender and burnished body,
+more brightly and deeply blue than the deep blue sky, glistened in the
+sunbeam; and her net-like wings laughed at the flowers because _they_
+could not fly, but must stand still and abide the wind and the rain.
+The dragon-fly sipped a little of the child's clear dew-drops and
+blue-violet honey, and then whispered her winged words. And the child
+made an end of his repast, closed his dark blue eyes, bent down his
+beautiful head, and listened to the sweet prattle.
+
+Then the dragon-fly told much of the merry life in the green
+wood,--how sometimes she played hide-and-seek with her playfellows
+under the broad leaves of the oak and the beech trees; or
+hunt-the-hare along the surface of the still waters; sometimes quietly
+watched the sunbeams, as they flew busily from moss to flower and from
+flower to bush, and shed life and warmth over all. But at night, she
+said, the moonbeams glided softly around the wood, and dropped dew
+into the mouths of all the thirsty plants; and when the dawn pelted
+the slumberers with the soft roses of heaven, some of the half-drunken
+flowers looked up and smiled, but most of them could not so much as
+raise their heads for a long, long time.
+
+Such stories did the dragon-fly tell; and as the child sat motionless,
+with his eyes shut, and his head rested on his little hand, she
+thought he had fallen asleep; so she poised her double wings and flew
+into the rustling wood.
+
+
+II.
+
+But the child was only sunk into a dream of delight, and was wishing
+_he_ were a sunbeam or a moonbeam; and he would have been glad to hear
+more and more, and forever. But at last, as all was still, he opened
+his eyes and looked around for his dear guest, but she was flown far
+away; so he could not bear to sit there any longer alone, and he rose
+and went to the gurgling brook. It gushed and rolled so merrily, and
+tumbled so wildly along as it hurried to throw itself head-over-heels
+into the river, just as if the great massy rock out of which it sprang
+were close behind it, and could only be escaped by a break-neck leap.
+
+Then the child began to talk to the little waves, and asked them
+whence they came. They would not stay to give him an answer, but
+danced away, one over another, till at last, that the sweet child
+might not be grieved, a drop of water stopped behind a piece of rock.
+From her the child heard strange histories; but he could not
+understand them all, for she told him about her former life, and about
+the depths of the mountain.
+
+"A long while ago," said the drop of water, "I lived with my countless
+sisters in the great ocean, in peace and unity. We had all sorts of
+pastimes; sometimes we mounted up high into the air, and peeped at the
+stars; then we sank plump down deep below, and looked how the
+coral-builders work till they are tired, that they may reach the light
+of day at last. But I was conceited, and thought myself much better
+than my sisters. And so one day, when the sun rose out of the sea, I
+clung fast to one of his hot beams, and thought that now I should
+reach the stars, and become one of them. But I had not ascended far,
+when the sunbeam shook me off, and, in spite of all I could say or do,
+let me fall into a dark cloud. And soon a flash of fire darted through
+the cloud, and now I thought I must surely die; but the whole cloud
+laid itself down softly upon the top of a mountain, and so I escaped
+with my fright and a black eye. Now I thought I should remain hidden,
+when all on a sudden, I slipped over a round pebble, fell from one
+stone to another, down into the depths of the mountain, till at last
+it was pitch dark, and I could neither see nor hear anything. Then I
+found, indeed, that 'pride goeth before a fall,' resigned myself to my
+fate, and, as I had already laid aside all my unhappy pride in the
+cloud, my portion was now the salt of humility; and after undergoing
+many purifications from the hidden virtues of metals and minerals, I
+was at length permitted to come up once more into the free cheerful
+air; and now will I run back to my sisters, and there wait patiently
+till I am called to something better."
+
+But hardly had she done when the root of a forget-me-not caught the
+drop of water by her hair, and sucked her in, that she might become a
+floweret, and twinkle brightly as a blue star on the green firmament
+of earth.
+
+
+III.
+
+The child did not very well know what to think of all this; he went
+thoughtfully home, and laid himself on his little bed; and all night
+long he was wandering about on the ocean, and among the stars, and
+over the dark mountain. But the moon loved to look on the slumbering
+child, as he lay with his little head softly pillowed on his right
+arm. She lingered a long time before his little window, and went
+slowly away to lighten the dark chamber of some sick person. As the
+moon's soft light lay on the child's eyelids, he fancied he sat in a
+golden boat, on a great, great water; countless stars swam glittering
+on the dark mirror. He stretched out his hand to catch the nearest
+star, but it vanished, and the water sprayed up against him. Then he
+saw clearly that these were not the real stars; he looked up to
+heaven, and wished he could fly thither. But in the mean time the moon
+had wandered on her way; and now the child was led in his dream into
+the clouds, and he thought he was sitting on a white sheep, and he saw
+many lambs grazing around him. He tried to catch a little lamb to play
+with, but it was all mist and vapor; and the child was sorrowful, and
+wished himself down again in his own meadow, where his own lamb was
+sporting gayly about.
+
+Meanwhile the moon was gone to sleep behind the mountains, and all
+around was dark. Then the child dreamed that he fell down into the
+dark, gloomy caverns of the mountain; and at that he was so frightened
+that he suddenly awoke, just as Morning opened her clear eye over the
+nearest hill.
+
+
+IV.
+
+The child started up, and, to recover himself from his fright, went
+into the little flower-garden behind his cottage, where the beds were
+surrounded by ancient palm-trees, and where he knew that all the
+flowers would nod kindly at him. But, behold, the tulip turned up her
+nose, and the ranunculus held her head as stiffly as possible, that
+she might not bow good-morrow to him. The rose, with her fair round
+cheeks, smiled, and greeted the child lovingly; so he went up to her
+and kissed her fragrant mouth. And then the rose tenderly complained
+that he so seldom came into the garden, and that she gave out her
+bloom and her fragrance the livelong day in vain; for the other
+flowers could not see her because they were too low, or did not care
+to look at her because they themselves were so rich in bloom and
+fragrance. But she was most delighted when she glowed in the blooming
+head of a child, and could pour all her heart's secrets to him in
+sweet odors.
+
+Among other things, the rose whispered in his ear that she was the
+fulness of beauty.
+
+And in truth the child, while looking at her beauty, seemed to have
+quite forgotten to go on, till the blue larkspur called to him, and
+asked whether he cared nothing more about his faithful friend; she
+said that she was unchanged, and that even in death she should look
+upon him with eyes of unfading blue.
+
+The child thanked her for her true-heartedness, and passed on to the
+hyacinth, who stood near the puffy, full-cheeked, gaudy tulips. Even
+from a distance the hyacinth sent forth kisses to him, for she knew
+not how to express her love. Although she was not remarkable for her
+beauty, yet the child felt himself wondrously attracted by her, for he
+thought no flower loved him so well. But the hyacinth poured out her
+full heart and wept bitterly, because she stood so lonely; the tulips
+indeed were her countrymen, but they were so cold and unfeeling that
+she was ashamed of them. The child encouraged her, and told her he did
+not think things were so bad as she fancied. The tulips spoke their
+love in bright looks, while she uttered hers in fragrant words; that
+these, indeed, were lovelier and more intelligible, but that the
+others were not to be despised.
+
+Then the hyacinth was comforted, and said she would be content; and
+the child went on to the powdered auricula, who, in her bashfulness,
+looked kindly up to him, and would gladly have given him more than
+kind looks had she had more to give. But the child was satisfied with
+her modest greeting; he felt that he was poor too, and he saw the
+deep, thoughtful colors that lay beneath her golden dust. But the
+humble flower, of her own accord, sent him to her neighbor, the lily,
+whom she willingly acknowledged as her queen. And when the child came
+to the lily, the slender flower waved to and fro, and bowed her pale
+head with gentle pride and stately modesty, and sent forth a fragrant
+greeting to him. The child knew not what had come to him; it reached
+his inmost heart, so that his eyes filled with soft tears. Then he
+marked how the lily gazed with a clear and steadfast eye upon the
+sun, and how the sun looked down again into her pure chalice, and how,
+amid this interchange of looks, the three golden threads united in the
+centre. And the child heard how one scarlet lady-bird at the bottom of
+the cup said to another, "Knowest thou not that we dwell in the flower
+of heaven?" and the other replied, "Yes, and now will the mystery be
+fulfilled."
+
+And as the child saw and heard all this, the dim image of his unknown
+parents, as it were veiled in a holy light, floated before his eyes;
+he strove to grasp it, but the light was gone, and the child slipped,
+and would have fallen, had not the branch of a currant-bush caught and
+held him; he took some of the bright berries for his morning's meal,
+and went back to his hut and stripped the little branches.
+
+
+V.
+
+In the hut he stayed not long, all was so gloomy, close, and silent
+within; and abroad everything seemed to smile, and to exult in the
+clear and unbounded space. Therefore the child went out into the green
+wood, of which the dragon-fly had told him such pleasant stories. But
+he found everything far more beautiful and lovely even than she had
+described it; for all about, wherever he went, the tender moss pressed
+his little feet, and the delicate grass embraced his knees, and the
+flowers kissed his hands, and even the branches stroked his cheeks
+with a kind and refreshing touch, and the high trees threw their
+fragrant shade around him.
+
+There was no end to his delight. The little birds warbled, and sang,
+and fluttered, and hopped about, and the delicate wood-flowers gave
+out their beauty and their odors; and every sweet sound took a sweet
+odor by the hand, and thus walked through the open door of the child's
+heart, and held a joyous nuptial dance therein. But the nightingale
+and the lily of the valley led the dance; for the nightingale sang of
+naught but love, and the lily breathed of naught but innocence, and he
+was the bridegroom and she was the bride. And the nightingale was
+never weary of repeating the same thing a hundred times over, for the
+spring of love which gushed from his heart was ever new; and the lily
+bowed her head bashfully, that no one might see her glowing heart. And
+yet the one lived so solely and entirely in the other, that no one
+could see whether the notes of the nightingale were floating lilies,
+or the lilies visible notes, falling like dew-drops from the
+nightingale's throat.
+
+The child's heart was full of joy even to the brim. He set himself
+down, and he almost thought he should like to take root there, and
+live forever among the sweet plants and flowers, and so become a true
+sharer in all their gentle pleasures. For he felt a deep delight in
+the still, secluded twilight existence of the mosses and small herbs,
+which felt not the storm, nor the frost, nor the scorching sunbeam,
+but dwelt quietly among their many friends and neighbors, feasting in
+peace and good-fellowship on the dew and cool shadows which the mighty
+trees shed upon them. To them it was a high festival when a sunbeam
+chanced to visit their lowly home; whilst the tops of the lofty trees
+could find joy and beauty only in the purple rays of morning or
+evening.
+
+
+VI.
+
+And as the child sat there, a little mouse rustled from among the dry
+leaves of the former year, and a lizard half glided from a crevice in
+the rock, and when they saw that he designed them no evil, they took
+courage and came nearer to him.
+
+"I should like to live with you," said the child to the two little
+creatures, in a soft, subdued voice, that he might not frighten them.
+"Your chambers are so snug, so warm, and yet so shaded, and the
+flowers grow in at your windows, and the birds sing you their morning
+song, and call you to table and to bed with their clear warblings."
+
+"Yes," said the mouse, "it would be all very well if all the plants
+bore nuts and mast, instead of those silly flowers; and if I were not
+obliged to grub under ground in the spring, and gnaw the bitter roots,
+whilst they are dressing themselves in their fine flowers, and
+flaunting it to the world, as if they had endless stores of honey in
+their cellars."
+
+"Hold your tongue!" interrupted the lizard, pertly; "do you think,
+because you are gray, that other people must throw away their handsome
+clothes, or let them lie in the dark wardrobe under ground, and wear
+nothing but gray too? I am not so envious. The flowers may dress
+themselves as they like for all me; they pay for it out of their own
+pockets, and they feed bees and beetles from their cups; but what I
+want to know is, of what use are birds in the world? Such a fluttering
+and chattering, truly, from morning early to evening late, that one is
+worried and stunned to death, and there is never a day's peace for
+them. And they do nothing, only snap up the flies and the spiders out
+of the mouths of such as I. For my part, I should be perfectly
+satisfied, provided all the birds in the world were flies and
+beetles."
+
+The child changed color, and his heart was sick and saddened when he
+heard their evil tongues. He could not imagine how anybody could speak
+ill of the beautiful flowers, or scoff at his beloved birds. He was
+waked out of a sweet dream, and the wood seemed to him a lonely
+desert, and he was ill at ease. He started up hastily, so that the
+mouse and the lizard shrank back alarmed, and did not look around them
+till they thought themselves safe out of the reach of the stranger
+with the large severe eyes.
+
+
+VII.
+
+But the child went away from the place; and as he hung down his head
+thoughtfully, he did not observe that he took the wrong path, nor see
+how the flowers on either side bowed their heads to welcome him, nor
+hear how the old birds from the boughs and the young from the nests
+cried aloud to him, "God bless thee, our dear little prince!" And he
+went on and on, farther and farther into the deep wood; and he thought
+over the foolish and heartless talk of the two selfish chatterers,
+and could not understand it. He would fain have forgotten it, but he
+could not. And the more he pondered, the more it seemed to him as if a
+malicious spider had spun her web around him, and as if his eyes were
+weary with trying to look through it.
+
+And suddenly he came to a still water, above which young beeches
+lovingly intwined their arms. He looked in the water, and his eyes
+were riveted to it as if by enchantment. He could not move, but stood
+and gazed in the soft, placid mirror, from the bosom of which the
+tender green foliage, with the deep blue heavens between, gleamed so
+wondrously upon him. His sorrow was all forgotten, and even the echo
+of the discord in his little heart was hushed. That heart was once
+more in his eyes; and fain would he have drunk in the soft beauty of
+the colors that lay beneath him, or have plunged into the lovely deep.
+
+Then the breeze began to sigh among the tree-tops. The child raised
+his eyes and saw overhead the quivering green, and the deep blue
+behind it, and he knew not whether he were awake or dreaming; which
+were the real leaves and the real heavens,--those in the heights
+above, or in the depths beneath? Long did the child waver, and his
+thoughts floated in a delicious dreaminess from one to the other, till
+the dragon-fly flew to him in affectionate haste, and with rustling
+wings greeted her kind host. The child returned her greeting, and was
+glad to meet an acquaintance with whom he could share the rich feast
+of his joy. But first he asked the dragon-fly if she could decide for
+him between the upper and the nether,--the height and the depth. The
+dragon-fly flew above, and beneath, and around; but the water spake:
+"The foliage and the sky above are not the true ones; the leaves
+wither and fall; the sky is often overcast, and sometimes quite dark."
+Then the leaves and the sky said, "The water only apes us; it must
+change its pictures at our pleasure, and can retain none." Then the
+dragon-fly remarked that the height and the depth existed only in the
+eyes of the child, and that the leaves and the sky were true and real
+only in his thoughts; because in the mind alone the picture was
+permanent and enduring, and could be carried with him whithersoever he
+went.
+
+This she said to the child; but she immediately warned him to return,
+for the leaves were already beating the tattoo in the evening breeze,
+and the lights were disappearing one by one in every corner.
+
+Then the child confessed to her with alarm that he knew not how he
+should find the way back, and that he feared the dark night would
+overtake him if he attempted to go home alone; so the dragon-fly flew
+on before him, and showed him a cave in the rock where he might pass
+the night. And the child was well content; for he had often wished to
+try if he could sleep out of his accustomed bed.
+
+
+VIII.
+
+But the dragon-fly was fleet, and gratitude strengthened her wings to
+pay her host the honor she owed him. And truly, in the dim twilight,
+good counsel and guidance were scarce. She flitted hither and thither
+without knowing rightly what was to be done; when, by the last
+vanishing sunbeam, she saw hanging on the edge of the cave some
+strawberries who had drunk so deep of the evening red that their heads
+were quite heavy. Then she flew up to a harebell who stood near, and
+whispered in her ear that the lord and king of all the flowers was in
+the wood, and ought to be received and welcomed as beseemed his
+dignity. Aglaia did not need that this should be repeated. She began
+to ring her sweet bells with all her might, and when her neighbor
+heard the sound, she rang hers also; and soon all the harebells, great
+and small, were in motion, and rang as if it had been for the nuptials
+of their mother earth herself with the prince of the sun. The tone of
+the bluebells was deep and rich, and that of the white, high and
+clear, and all blended together in a delicious harmony.
+
+But the birds were fast asleep in their high nests, and the ears of
+the other animals were not delicate enough, or were too much
+overgrown with hair, to hear them. The fire-flies alone heard the
+joyous peal, for they were akin to the flowers, through their common
+ancestor, light. They inquired of their nearest relation, the lily of
+the valley, and from her they heard that a large flower had just
+passed along the footpath more blooming than the loveliest rose, and
+with two stars more brilliant than those of the brightest fire-fly,
+and that it must needs be their king. Then all the fire-flies flew up
+and down the footpath, and sought everywhere till at length they came,
+as the dragon-fly had hoped they would, to the cave.
+
+And now, as they looked at the child, and every one of them saw itself
+reflected in his clear eyes, they rejoiced exceedingly, and called all
+their fellows together, and alighted on the bushes all around; and
+soon it was so light in the cave that herb and grass began to grow as
+if it had been broad day. Now, indeed, was the joy and triumph of the
+dragon-fly complete. The child was delighted with the merry and
+silvery tones of the bells, and with the many little bright-eyed
+companions around him, and with the deep red strawberries which bowed
+down their heads to his touch.
+
+
+IX.
+
+And when he had eaten his fill, he sat down on the soft moss, crossed
+one little leg over the other, and began to gossip with the
+fire-flies. And as he so often thought on his unknown parents, he
+asked them who were their parents. Then the one nearest to him gave
+him answer; and he told how that they were formerly flowers, but none
+of those who thrust their rooty hands greedily into the ground and
+draw nourishment from the dingy earth only to make themselves fat and
+large withal; but that the light was dearer to them than anything,
+even at night; and while the other flowers slept, they gazed unwearied
+on the light, and drank it in with eager adoration,--sun, and moon,
+and starlight. And the light had so thoroughly purified them, that
+they had not sucked in poisonous juices like the yellow flowers of the
+earth, but sweet odors for sick and fainting hearts, and oil of
+potent ethereal virtue for the weak and the wounded; and at length,
+when their autumn came, they did not, like the others, wither and sink
+down, leaf and flower, to be swallowed up by the darksome earth, but
+shook off their earthly garment, and mounted aloft into the clear air.
+But there it was so wondrously bright that, sight failed them; and
+when they came to themselves again, they were fire-flies, each sitting
+on a withered flower-stalk.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And now the child liked the bright-eyed flies better than ever; and he
+talked a little longer with them, and inquired why they showed
+themselves so much more in spring. They did it, they said, in the hope
+that their gold-green radiance might allure their cousins, the
+flowers, to the pure love of light.
+
+
+X.
+
+During this conversation, the dragon-fly had been preparing a bed for
+her host. The moss upon which the child sat had grown a foot high
+behind his back, out of pure joy; but the dragon-fly and her sisters
+had so revelled upon it, that it was laid at its length along the
+cave. The dragon-fly had awakened every spider in the neighborhood
+out of her sleep, and when they saw the brilliant light they had set
+to work spinning so industriously that their web hung down like a
+curtain before the mouth of the cave. But as the child saw the ant
+peeping up at him, he entreated the fire-flies not to deprive
+themselves any longer of their merry games in the wood on his account.
+And the dragon-fly and her sisters raised the curtain till the child
+had lain him down to rest, and then let it fall again, that the
+mischievous gnats might not get in to disturb his slumbers.
+
+The child laid himself down to sleep, for he was very tired; but he
+could not sleep, for his couch of moss was quite another thing than
+his little bed, and the cave was all strange to him. He turned himself
+on one side and then on the other, and, as nothing would do, he raised
+himself and sat upright, to wait till sleep might choose to come. But
+sleep would not come at all; and the only wakeful eyes in the whole
+wood were the child's. For the harebells had rung themselves weary,
+and the fire-flies had flown about till they were tired, and even the
+dragon-fly, who would fain have kept watch in front of the cave, had
+dropped sound asleep.
+
+The wood grew stiller and stiller, here and there fell a dry leaf
+which had been driven from its old dwelling-place by a fresh one, here
+and there a young bird gave a soft chirp when its mother squeezed it
+in the nest; and from time to time a gnat hummed for a minute or two
+in the curtain, till a spider crept on tiptoe along its web, and gave
+him such a gripe in the windpipe as soon spoiled his trumpeting. And
+the deeper the silence became, the more intently did the child listen,
+and at last the slightest sound thrilled him from head to foot. At
+length, all was still as death in the wood; and the world seemed as if
+it never would wake again. The child bent forward to see whether it
+were as dark abroad as in the cave, but he saw nothing save the pitch
+dark night, who had wrapped everything in her thick veil. Yet as he
+looked upwards his eyes met the friendly glance of two or three stars;
+and this was a most joyful surprise to him, for he felt himself no
+longer so entirely alone. The stars were indeed far, far away, but yet
+he knew them, and they knew him; for they looked into his eyes.
+
+The child's whole soul was fixed in his gaze; and it seemed to him as
+if he must needs fly out of the darksome cave thither, where the stars
+were beaming with such pure and serene light; and he felt how poor and
+lowly he was when he thought of their brilliancy; and how cramped and
+fettered, when he thought of their free unbounded course along the
+heavens.
+
+
+XI.
+
+But the stars went on their course, and left their glittering picture
+only a little while before the child's eyes. Even this faded, and then
+vanished quite away. And he was beginning to feel tired, and to wish
+to lay himself down again, when a flickering will-o'-the-wisp appeared
+from behind a bush,--so that the child thought, at first, one of the
+stars had wandered out of its way and had come to visit him, and to
+take him with it. And the child breathed quick with joy and surprise,
+and then the will-o'-the-wisp came nearer, and set himself down on a
+damp mossy stone in front of the cave, and another fluttered quickly
+after him, and sat down over against him, and sighed deeply, "Thank
+God, then, that I can rest at last!" "Yes," said the other, "for that
+you may thank the innocent child who sleeps there within; it was his
+pure breath that freed us." "Are you, then," said the child,
+hesitatingly, "not of yon stars which wander so brightly there above?"
+"O, if we were stars," replied the first, "we should pursue our
+tranquil path through the pure element, and should leave this wood and
+the whole darksome earth to itself." "And not," said the other, "sit
+brooding on the face of the shallow pool."
+
+The child was curious to know who these could be who shone so
+beautifully and yet seemed so discontented. Then the first began to
+relate how he had been a child too, and how, as he grew up, it had
+always been his greatest delight to deceive people and play them
+tricks, to show his wit and cleverness. He had always, he said, poured
+such a stream of smooth words over people, and encompassed himself
+with such a shining mist, that men had been attracted by it to their
+own hurt.
+
+But once on a time there appeared a plain man who only spoke two or
+three simple words, and suddenly the bright mist vanished, and left
+him naked and deformed, to the scorn and mockery of the whole world.
+But the man had turned away his face from him in pity, while he was
+almost dead with shame and anger. And when he came to himself again,
+he knew not what had befallen him, till at length he found that it was
+his fate to hover, without rest or change, over the surface of the bog
+as a will-o'-the-wisp.
+
+"With me it fell out quite otherwise," said the first; "instead of
+giving light without warmth, as I now do, I burned without shining.
+When I was only a child, people gave way to me in everything, so that
+I was intoxicated with self-love. If I saw any one shine, I longed to
+put out his light; and the more intensely I wished this, the more did
+my own small glimmering turn back upon myself, and inwardly burn
+fiercely while all without was darker than ever. But if any one who
+shone more brightly would have kindly given me of his light, then did
+my inward flame burst forth to destroy him. But the flame passed
+through the light and harmed it not: it shone only the more brightly,
+while I was withered and exhausted. And once upon a time I met a
+little smiling child, who played with a cross of palm branches, and
+wore a beaming coronet around his golden locks. He took me kindly by
+the hand, and said, 'My friend, you are now very gloomy and sad, but
+if you will become a child again, even as I am, you will have a bright
+circlet such as I have.' When I heard that, I was so angry with myself
+and with the child that I was scorched by my inward fire. Now would I
+fain fly up to the sun to fetch rays from him, but the rays drove me
+back with these words: 'Return thither whence thou camest, thou dark
+fire of envy, for the sun lightens only in love; the greedy earth,
+indeed, sometimes turns his mild light into scorching fire. Fly back,
+then, for with thy like alone must thou dwell!' I fell, and when I
+recovered myself I was glimmering coldly above the stagnant waters."
+
+While they were talking, the child had fallen asleep; for he knew
+nothing of the world, nor of men, and he could make nothing of their
+stories. Weariness had spoken a more intelligible language to him;
+_that_ he understood, and had fallen asleep.
+
+
+XII.
+
+Softly and soundly he slept till the rosy morning clouds stood upon
+the mountain, and announced the coming of their lord the sun. But as
+soon as the tidings spread over field and wood, the thousand-voiced
+echo awoke, and sleep was no more to be thought of. And soon did the
+royal sun himself arise; at first his dazzling diadem alone appeared
+above the mountains; at length he stood upon their summit in the full
+majesty of his beauty, in all the charms of eternal youth, bright and
+glorious, his kindly glance embracing every creature of earth, from
+the stately oak to the blade of grass bending under the foot of the
+wayfaring man.
+
+Then arose from every breast, from every throat, the joyous song of
+praise; and it was as if the whole plain and wood were become a
+temple, whose roof was the heaven, whose altar the mountain, whose
+congregation all creatures, whose priest the sun.
+
+But the child walked forth and was glad; for the birds sang sweetly,
+and it seemed to him as if everything sported and danced out of mere
+joy to be alive. Here flew two finches through the thicket, and,
+twittering, pursued each other; there the young buds burst asunder,
+and the tender leaves peeped out, and expanded themselves in the warm
+sun, as if they would abide in his glance forever; here a dew-drop
+trembled, sparkling and twinkling on a blade of grass, and knew not
+that beneath him stood a little moss who was thirsting after him;
+there troops of flies flew aloft, as if they would soar far over the
+wood; and so all was life and motion, and the child's heart joyed to
+see it.
+
+He sat down on a little smooth plot of turf, shaded by the branches of
+a nut-bush, and thought he should now sip the cup of his delight drop
+by drop. And first he plucked down some brambles which threatened him
+with their prickles; then he bent aside some branches which concealed
+the view; then he removed the stones, so that he might stretch out his
+feet at full length on the soft turf; and when he had done all this,
+he bethought himself what was yet to do; and as he found nothing he
+stood up to look for his acquaintance, the dragon-fly, and to beg her
+to guide him once more out of the wood into the open field. About
+midway he met her, and she began to excuse herself for having fallen
+asleep in the night. The child thought not of the past, were it even
+but a minute ago, so earnestly did he now wish to get out from among
+the thick and close trees; for his heart beat high, and he felt as if
+he should breathe freer in the open ground. The dragon-fly flew on
+before, and showed him the way as far as the outermost verge of the
+wood, whence the child could espy his own little hut, and then flew
+away to her playfellows.
+
+
+XIII.
+
+The child walked forth alone upon the fresh dewy cornfield. A thousand
+little suns glittered in his eyes, and a lark soared, warbling, above
+his head. And the lark proclaimed the joys of the coming year, and
+awakened endless hopes, while she soared circling higher and higher,
+till at length her song was like the soft whisper of an angel holding
+converse with the spring under the blue arch of heaven.
+
+The child had seen the earth-colored little bird rise up before him,
+and it seemed to him as if the earth had sent her forth from her bosom
+as a messenger to carry her joy and her thanks up to the sun, because
+he had turned his beaming countenance again upon her in love and
+bounty. And the lark hung poised above the hope-giving field, and
+warbled her clear and joyous song.
+
+She sang of the loveliness of the rosy dawn, and the fresh brilliancy
+of the earliest sunbeams; of the gladsome springing of the young
+flowers, and the vigorous shooting of the corn; and her song pleased
+the child beyond measure. But the lark wheeled in higher and higher
+circles, and her song sounded softer and sweeter.
+
+And now she sang of the first delights of early love, of wanderings
+together on the sunny fresh hill-tops, and of the sweet pictures and
+visions that arise out of the blue and misty distance. The child
+understood not rightly what he heard, and fain would he have
+understood, for he thought that even in such visions must be wondrous
+delight. He gazed aloft after the unwearied bird, but she had
+disappeared in the morning mist.
+
+Then the child leaned his head on one shoulder to listen if he could
+no longer hear the little messenger of spring; and he could just catch
+the distant and quivering notes in which she sang of the fervent
+longing after the clear element of freedom; after the pure all-present
+light; and of the blessed foretaste of this desired enfranchisement,
+of this blending in the sea of celestial happiness.
+
+Yet longer did he listen, for the tones of her song carried him there,
+where, as yet, his thoughts had never reached, and he felt himself
+happier in this short and imperfect flight than ever he had felt
+before. But the lark now dropped suddenly to the earth, for her little
+body was too heavy for the ambient ether, and her wings were not large
+nor strong enough for the pure element.
+
+Then the red corn-poppies laughed at the homely-looking bird, and
+cried to one another and to the surrounding blades of corn in a shrill
+voice, "Now, indeed, you may see what comes of flying so high, and
+striving and straining after mere air; people only lose their time,
+and bring back nothing but weary wings and an empty stomach. That
+vulgar-looking, ill-dressed little creature would fain raise herself
+above us all, and has kept up a mighty noise. And now, there she lies
+on the ground, and can hardly breathe, while we have stood still where
+we are, sure of a good meal, and have stayed like people of sense
+where there is something substantial to be had; and in the time she
+has been fluttering and singing, we have grown a good deal taller and
+fatter."
+
+The other little red-caps chattered and screamed their assent so loud
+that the child's ears tingled, and he wished he could chastise them
+for their spiteful jeers; when a cyane said, in a soft voice, to her
+younger playmates, "Dear friends, be not led astray by outward show,
+nor by discourse which regards only outward show. The lark is indeed
+weary, and the space into which she has soared is void; but the void
+is not what the lark sought, nor is the seeker returned empty home.
+She strove after light and freedom, and light and freedom has she
+proclaimed. She left the earth and its enjoyments, but she has drunk
+of the pure air of heaven, and has seen that it is not the earth, but
+the sun, that is steadfast. And if earth has called her back, it can
+keep nothing of her but what is its own. Her sweet voice and her
+soaring wings belong to the sun, and will enter into light and freedom
+long after the foolish prater shall have sunk and been buried in the
+dark prison of the earth."
+
+And the lark heard her wise and friendly discourse, and, with renewed
+strength, she sprang once more into the clear and beautiful blue.
+
+Then the child clapped his little hands for joy that the sweet bird
+had flown up again, and that the red-caps must hold their tongues for
+shame.
+
+
+XIV.
+
+And the child was become happy and joyful, and breathed freely again,
+and thought no more of returning to his hut; for he saw that nothing
+returned inwards, but rather that all strove outwards into the free
+air,--the rosy apple-blossoms from their narrow buds, and the gurgling
+notes from the narrow breast of the lark. The germs burst open the
+folding doors of the seeds, and broke through the heavy pressure of
+the earth in order to get at the light; the grasses tore asunder their
+bands and their slender blades sprang upward. Even the rocks were
+become gentle, and allowed little mosses to peep out from their sides,
+as a sign that they would not remain impenetrably closed forever. And
+the flowers sent out color and fragrance into the whole world, for
+they kept not their best for themselves, but would imitate the sun and
+the stars, which poured their warmth and radiance over the spring. And
+many a little gnat and beetle burst the narrow cell in which it was
+inclosed, and crept out slowly, and, half asleep, unfolded and shook
+its tender wings, and soon gained strength, and flew off to untried
+delights. And as the butterflies came forth from their chrysalids in
+all their gayety and splendor, so did every humbled and suppressed
+aspiration and hope free itself, and boldly launch into the open and
+flowing sea of spring.
+
+                                                 _German of Carove._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MEMORIES OF CHILD LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+MEMORIES OF CHILD LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN,
+
+POET AND NOVELIST OF DENMARK.
+
+
+My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident. If, when I was
+a boy, and went forth into the world poor and friendless, a good fairy
+had met me and said, "Choose now thy own course through life, and the
+object for which thou wilt strive, and then, according to the
+development of thy mind, and as reason requires, I will guide and
+defend thee to its attainment," my fate could not, even then, have
+been directed more happily, more prudently, or better. The history of
+my life will say to the world what it says to me,--There is a loving
+God, who directs all things for the best.
+
+In the year 1805 there lived at Odense, in a small mean room, a young
+married couple, who were extremely attached to each other; he was a
+shoemaker, scarcely twenty-two years old, a man of a richly gifted and
+truly poetical mind. His wife, a few years older than himself, was
+ignorant of life and of the world, but possessed a heart full of love.
+The young man had himself made his shoemaking bench, and the bedstead
+with which he began housekeeping; this bedstead he had made out of the
+wooden frame which had borne only a short time before the coffin of
+the deceased Count Trampe, as he lay in state, and the remnants of the
+black cloth on the wood-work kept the fact still in remembrance.
+
+Instead of a noble corpse, surrounded by crape and waxlights, here
+lay, on the 2d of April, 1805, a living and weeping child,--that was
+myself, Hans Christian Andersen. During the first day of my existence
+my father is said to have sat by the bed and read aloud in Holberg,
+but I cried all the time. "Wilt thou go to sleep, or listen quietly?"
+it is reported that my father asked in joke; but I still cried on; and
+even in the church, when I was taken to be baptized, I cried so loudly
+that the preacher, who was a passionate man, said, "The young one
+screams like a cat!" which words my mother never forgot. A poor
+emigrant, Gomar, who stood as godfather, consoled her in the mean time
+by saying that, the louder I cried as a child, all the more
+beautifully should I sing when I grew older.
+
+Our little room, which was almost filled with the shoemaker's bench,
+the bed, and my crib, was the abode of my childhood; the walls,
+however, were covered with pictures, and over the workbench was a
+cupboard containing books and songs; the little kitchen was full of
+shining plates and metal pans, and by means of a ladder it was
+possible to go out on the roof, where, in the gutters between it and
+the neighbor's house, there stood a great chest filled with soil, my
+mother's sole garden, and where she grew her vegetables. In my story
+of the "Snow Queen" that garden still blooms.
+
+I was the only child, and was extremely spoiled; but I continually
+heard from my mother how very much happier I was than she had been,
+and that I was brought up like a nobleman's child. She, as a child,
+had been driven out by her parents to beg; and once, when she was not
+able to do it, she had sat for a whole day under a bridge and wept.
+
+My father gratified me in all my wishes. I possessed his whole heart;
+he lived for me. On Sundays he made me perspective-glasses, theatres,
+and pictures which could be changed; he read to me from Holberg's
+plays and the "Arabian Tales"; it was only in such moments as these
+that I can remember to have seen him really cheerful, for he never
+felt himself happy in his life and as a handicraftsman. His parents
+had been country people in good circumstances, but upon whom many
+misfortunes had fallen,--the cattle had died; the farm-house had been
+burned down; and, lastly, the husband had lost his reason. On this the
+wife had removed with him to Odense, and there put her son, whose mind
+was full of intelligence, apprentice to a shoemaker; it could not be
+otherwise, although it was his ardent wish to attend the grammar
+school, where he might learn Latin. A few well-to-do citizens had at
+one time spoken of this, of clubbing together to raise a sufficient
+sum to pay for his board and education, and thus giving him a start in
+life; but it never went beyond words. My poor father saw his dearest
+wish unfulfilled; and he never lost the remembrance of it. I recollect
+that once, as a child, I saw tears in his eyes, and it was when a
+youth from the grammar school came to our house to be measured for a
+new pair of boots, and showed us his books and told us what he
+learned.
+
+"That was the path upon which I ought to have gone!" said my father,
+kissed me passionately, and was silent the whole evening.
+
+He very seldom associated with his equals. He went out into the woods
+on Sundays, when he took me with him; he did not talk much when he was
+out, but would sit silently, sunk in deep thought, whilst I ran about
+and strung strawberries on a bent, or bound garlands. Only twice in
+the year, and that in the month of May, when the woods were arrayed in
+their earliest green, did my mother go with us; and then she wore a
+cotton gown, which she put on only on these occasions and when she
+partook of the Lord's Supper, and which, as long as I can remember,
+was her holiday gown. She always took home with her from the wood a
+great many fresh beech boughs, which were then planted behind the
+polished stone. Later in the year sprigs of St. John's wort were stuck
+into the chinks of the beams, and we considered their growth as omens
+whether our lives would be long or short. Green branches and pictures
+ornamented our little room, which my mother always kept neat and
+clean; she took great pride in always having the bed linen and the
+curtains very white.
+
+One of my first recollections, although very slight in itself, had
+for me a good deal of importance, from the power by which the fancy of
+a child impressed it upon my soul; it was a family festival, and can
+you guess where? In that very place in Odense, in that house which I
+had always looked on with fear and trembling, just as boys in Paris
+may have looked at the Bastile,--in the Odense house of correction.
+
+My parents were acquainted with the jailer, who invited them to a
+family dinner, and I was to go with them. I was at that time still so
+small that I was carried when we returned home.
+
+The House of Correction was for me a great storehouse of stories about
+robbers and thieves; often I had stood, but always at a safe distance,
+and listened to the singing of the men within and of the women
+spinning at their wheels.
+
+I went with my parents to the jailer's; the heavy iron-bolted gate was
+opened and again locked with the key from the rattling bunch; we
+mounted a steep staircase,--we ate and drank, and two of the prisoners
+waited at the table; they could not induce me to taste of anything,
+the sweetest things I pushed away; my mother told them I was sick, and
+I was laid on a bed, where I heard the spinning-wheels humming near by
+and merry singing, whether in my own fancy or in reality I cannot
+tell; but I know that I was afraid, and was kept on the stretch all
+the time; and yet I was in a pleasant humor, making up stories of how
+I had entered a castle full of robbers. Late in the night my parents
+went home, carrying me; the rain, for it was rough weather, dashing
+against my face.
+
+Odense was in my childhood quite another town from what it is now,
+when it has shot ahead of Copenhagen, with its water carried through
+the town, and I know not what else! Then it was a hundred years behind
+the times; many customs and manners prevailed which long since
+disappeared from the capital. When the guilds removed their signs,
+they went in procession with flying banners and with lemons dressed in
+ribbons stuck on their swords. A harlequin with bells and a wooden
+sword ran at the head; one of them, an old fellow, Hans Struh, made a
+great hit by his merry chatter and his face, which was painted black,
+except the nose, that kept its genuine red color. My mother was so
+pleased with him that she tried to find out if he was in any way
+related to us; but I remember very well that I, with all the pride of
+an aristocrat, protested against any relationship with the "fool."
+
+In my sixth year came the great comet of 1811; and my mother told me
+that it would destroy the earth, or that other horrible things
+threatened us. I listened to all these stories and fully believed
+them. With my mother and some of the neighboring women I stood in St.
+Canut's Churchyard and looked at the frightful and mighty fire-ball
+with its large shining tail.
+
+All talked about the signs of evil and the day of doom. My father
+joined us, but he was not of the others' opinion at all, and gave them
+a correct and sound explanation; then my mother sighed, the women
+shook their heads, my father laughed and went away. I caught the idea
+that my father was not of our faith, and that threw me into a great
+fright. In the evening my mother and my old grandmother talked
+together, and I do not know how she explained it; but I sat in her
+lap, looked into her mild eyes, and expected every moment that the
+comet would rush down, and the day of judgment come.
+
+The mother of my father came daily to our house, were it only for a
+moment, in order to see her little grandson. I was her joy and her
+delight. She was a quiet and most amiable old woman, with mild blue
+eyes and a fine figure, which life had severely tried. From having
+been the wife of a countryman in easy circumstances she had now fallen
+into great poverty, and dwelt with her feeble-minded husband in a
+little house, which was the last poor remains of their property. I
+never saw her shed a tear; but it made all the deeper impression upon
+me when she quietly sighed, and told me about her own mother's
+mother,--how she had been a rich, noble lady, in the city of Cassel,
+and that she had married a "comedy-player,"--that was as she expressed
+it,--and run away from parents and home, for all of which her
+posterity had now to do penance. I never can recollect that I heard
+her mention the family name of her grandmother; but her own maiden
+name was Nommesen. She was employed to take care of the garden
+belonging to a lunatic asylum; and every Sunday evening she brought us
+some flowers, which they gave her permission to take home with her.
+These flowers adorned my mother's cupboard; but still they were mine,
+and to me it was allowed to put them in the glass of water. How great
+was this pleasure! She brought them all to me; she loved me with her
+whole soul. I knew it, and I understood it.
+
+She burned, twice in the year, the green rubbish of the garden; on
+such occasions she took me with her to the asylum, and I lay upon the
+great heaps of green leaves and pea-straw; I had many flowers to play
+with, and--which was a circumstance upon which I set great
+importance--I had here better food to eat than I could expect at home.
+
+All such patients as were harmless were permitted to go freely about
+the court; they often came to us in the garden, and with curiosity and
+terror I listened to them and followed them about; nay, I even
+ventured so far as to go with the attendants to those who were raving
+mad. A long passage led to their cells. On one occasion, when the
+attendants were out of the way, I lay down upon the floor, and peeped
+through the crack of the door into one of these cells. I saw within a
+lady almost naked, lying on her straw bed; her hair hung down over her
+shoulders, and she sang with a very beautiful voice. All at once she
+sprang up, and threw herself against the door where I lay; the little
+valve through which she received her food burst open; she stared down
+upon me, and stretched out her long arm toward me. I screamed for
+terror,--I felt the tips of her fingers touching my clothes,--I was
+half dead when the attendant came; and even in later years that sight
+and that feeling remained within my soul.
+
+I was very much afraid of my weak-minded grandfather. Only once had he
+ever spoken to me, and then he had made use of the formal pronoun,
+"you." He employed himself in cutting out of wood strange
+figures,--men with beasts' heads and beasts with wings; these he
+packed in a basket and carried them out into the country, where he
+was everywhere well received by the peasant-women, because he gave to
+them and their children these strange toys. One day, when he was
+returning to Odense, I heard the boys in the street shouting after
+him; I hid myself behind a flight of steps in terror, for I knew that
+I was of his flesh and blood.
+
+I very seldom played with other boys; even at school I took little
+interest in their games, but remained sitting within doors. At home I
+had playthings enough, which my father made for me. My greatest
+delight was in making clothes for dolls, or in stretching out one of
+my mother's aprons between the wall and two sticks before a
+currant-bush which I had planted in the yard, and thus to gaze in
+between the sun-illumined leaves. I was a singularly dreamy child, and
+so constantly went about with my eyes shut, as at last to give the
+impression of having weak sight, although the sense of sight was
+especially cultivated by me.
+
+An old woman-teacher, who had an A B C school, taught me the letters,
+to spell, and "to read right," as it was called. She used to have her
+seat in a high-backed arm-chair near the clock, from which at every
+full stroke some little automata came out. She made use of a big rod,
+which she always carried with her. The school consisted mostly of
+girls. It was the custom of the school for all to spell loudly and in
+as high a key as possible. The mistress dared not beat me, as my
+mother had made it a condition of my going that I should not be
+touched. One day having got a hit of the rod, I rose immediately, took
+my book, and without further ceremony went home to my mother, asked
+that I might go to another school, and that was granted me. My mother
+sent me to Carsten's school for boys; there was also one girl there, a
+little one somewhat older than I; we became very good friends; she
+used to speak of the advantage it was to be to her in going into
+service, and that she went to school especially to learn arithmetic,
+for, as her mother told her, she could then become dairy-maid in some
+great manor.
+
+"That you can become in my castle when I am a nobleman!" said I; and
+she laughed at me, and told me that I was only a poor boy. One day I
+had drawn something which I called my castle, and I told her that I
+was a changed child of high birth, and that the angels of God came
+down and spoke to me. I wanted to make her stare as I did with the old
+women in the hospital, but she would not be caught. She looked queerly
+at me, and said to one of the other boys standing near, "He is a fool,
+like his grandpapa," and I shivered at the words. I had said it to
+give me an air of importance in their eyes; but I failed, and only
+made them think that I was insane like my grandfather.
+
+I never spoke to her again about these things, but we were no longer
+the same playmates as before. I was the smallest in the school, and my
+teacher, Mr. Carsten, always took me by the hand while the other boys
+played, that I might not be run over; he loved me much, gave me cakes
+and flowers, and tapped me on the cheeks. One of the older boys did
+not know his lesson, and was punished by being placed, book in hand,
+upon the school-table, around which we were seated; but seeing me
+quite inconsolable at this punishment, he pardoned the culprit.
+
+The poor old teacher became, later in life, telegraph-director at
+Thorseng, where he still lived until a few years since. It is said
+that the old man, when showing the visitors around, told them with a
+pleasant smile, "Well, well, you will perhaps not believe that such a
+poor old man as I was the first teacher of one of our most renowned
+poets!"
+
+Sometimes, during the harvest, my mother went into the field to glean.
+I accompanied her, and we went, like Ruth in the Bible, to glean in
+the rich fields of Boaz. One day we went to a place the bailiff of
+which was well known for being a man of a rude and savage disposition.
+We saw him coming with a huge whip in his hand, and my mother and all
+the others ran away. I had wooden shoes on my bare feet, and in my
+haste I lost these, and then the thorns pricked me so that I could not
+run, and thus I was left behind and alone. The man came up and lifted
+his whip to strike me, when I looked him in the face and involuntarily
+exclaimed, "How dare you strike me, when God can see it?"
+
+The strong, stern man looked at me, and at once became mild; he patted
+me on my cheeks, asked me my name, and gave me money.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+When I brought this to my mother and showed it her, she said to the
+others, "He is a strange child, my Hans Christian; everybody is kind
+to him. This bad fellow even has given him money."
+
+
+
+
+MADAME MICHELET,
+
+FRENCH AUTHOR, WIFE OF THE WELL-KNOWN WRITER, MICHELET.
+
+
+Among my earliest recollections, dating (if my memory deceive me not)
+from the time when I was between the ages of four and five, is that of
+being seated beside a grave, industrious person, who seemed to be
+constantly watching me. Her beautiful but stern countenance impressed
+one chiefly by the peculiar expression of the light blue eyes, so rare
+in Southern Europe. Their gaze was like that which has looked in youth
+across vast plains, wide horizons, and great rivers. This lady was my
+mother, born in Louisiana, of English parentage.
+
+I had constant toil before me, strangely unbroken for so young a
+child. At six years of age, I knit my own stockings, by and by my
+brothers' also, walking up and down the shady path. I did not care to
+go farther; I was uneasy if, when I turned, I could not see the green
+blind at my mother's window.
+
+Our lowly house had an easterly aspect. At its northeast corner, my
+mother sat at work, with her little people around her; my father had
+his study at the opposite end, towards the south. I began to pick up
+my alphabet with him; for I had double tasks. I studied my books in
+the intervals of sewing or knitting. My brothers ran away to play
+after lessons; but I returned to my mother's work-room. I liked very
+well, however, to trace on my slate the great bars which are called
+"jambages." It seemed to me as if I drew something, from within
+myself, which came to the pencil's point. When my bars began to look
+regular, I paused often to admire what I had done; then, if my dear
+papa would lean towards me, and say, "Very well, little princess," I
+drew myself up with pride.
+
+My father had a sweet and penetrating voice; his dark complexion
+showed his Southern origin, which also betrayed itself in the
+passionate fire of his eyes, dark, with black lashes, which softened
+their glance. With all their electric fire, they were not wanting in
+an indefinable expression of tenderness and sweetness. At sixty years
+of age, after a life of strange, and even tragic, incidents, his heart
+remained ever young and light, benevolent to all, disposed to confide
+in human nature,--sometimes too easily.
+
+I had none of the enjoyments of city-bred children, and less still of
+that childish wit which is sure to win maternal admiration for every
+word which falls from the lips of the little deities. Mother Nature
+alone gave me a welcome, and yet my early days were not sad; all the
+country-side looked so lovely to me.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Just beyond the farm lay the cornfields which belonged to us; they
+were of no great extent, but to me they seemed infinite. When
+Marianne, proud of her master's possessions, would say, "Look, miss,
+there, there, and farther on,--all is yours," I was really frightened;
+for I saw the moving grain, undulating like the ocean, and stretching
+far away. I liked better to believe that the world ended at our
+meadow. Sometimes my father went across the fields to see what the
+reapers were doing, and then I hid my face in Marianne's apron, and
+cried, "Not so far, not so far! papa will be lost!"
+
+I was then five years old. That cry was the childish expression of a
+sentiment, the shadow of which gained on me year by year,--the fear
+that I might lose my father. I desired to please, to be praised, and
+to be loved. I felt so drawn towards my mother, that I sometimes
+jumped from my seat to give her a kiss; but when I met her look, and
+saw her eyes, pale and clear as a silvery lake, I recoiled, and sat
+down quietly. Years have passed, and yet I still regret those joys of
+childhood which I never knew,--a mother's caresses. My education might
+have been so easy; my mother might have understood my heart,--a kiss
+is sometimes eloquent; and in a daily embrace she would perhaps have
+guessed the thoughts I was too young to utter, and would have learned
+how faithfully I loved her.
+
+No such freedom was allowed us. The morning kiss and familiar speech
+with one's parents are permitted at the North, but are less frequent
+in the South of France. Authority overshadows family affection. My
+father, who was an easy man and loved to talk, might have disregarded
+such regulations; but my mother kept us at a distance. It made one
+thoughtful and reserved to watch her going out and coming in, with her
+noble air, severe and silent. We felt we must be careful not to give
+cause for blame.
+
+My mother could spin like a fairy. All winter she sat at her wheel;
+and perhaps her wandering thoughts were soothed by the gentle
+monotonous music of its humming. My father, seeing her so beautiful at
+her work, secretly ordered a light, slender spinning-wheel to be
+carved for her use, which she found one morning at the foot of her
+bed. Her cheek flushed with pleasure; she scarcely dared to touch it,
+it looked so fragile. "Do not be afraid," said my father; "it looks
+fragile, but it can well stand use. It is made of boxwood from our own
+garden. It grew slowly, as all things do that last. Neither your
+little hand nor foot can injure it." My mother took her finest
+Flanders flax, of silvery tresses knotted with a cherry-colored
+ribbon. The children made a circle round the wheel, which turned for
+the first time under my mother's hands. My father was watching,
+between smiles and tears, to see how dexterously she handled the
+distaff. The thread was invisible, but the bobbin grew bigger. My
+mother would have been contented if the days had been prolonged to
+four-and-twenty hours, while she was sitting by her beautiful wheel.
+
+When we rose in the morning, we said a prayer. We knelt together; my
+father standing, bareheaded, in the midst. After that, what delight it
+was to run to the hill-top, to meet the first rays of the sun, and to
+hear our birds singing little songs about the welcome daylight! From
+the garden, the orchard, the oaks, and from the open fields, their
+voices were heard; and yet, in my heart, I hid more songs than all the
+birds in the world would have known how to sing. I was not sad by
+nature. I had the instincts of the lark, and longed to be as happy.
+Since I had no wings to carry me up to the clouds, I would have liked
+to hide myself like him among the tall grain and the flax.
+
+One of my great enjoyments was to meet the strong south-winds that
+came to us from the ocean. I loved to struggle with the buffets of the
+blast. It was terrible, but sweet, to feel it tossing and twisting my
+curls, and flinging them backward. After these morning races on the
+hills, I went to visit the wild flowers,--weeds that no one else
+cherished; but I loved them better than all other plants. Near the
+water, in little pools hollowed by the rains in stormy weather, on the
+border of the wood, sprang up, flourished, and died, forests of dwarf
+proportions; white, transparent stars; bells full of sweet odors. All
+were mysterious and ephemeral; so much the more did I prize and regret
+them.
+
+If I indeed had the merry disposition of the lark, I had also his
+sensitive timidity, that brings him sometimes to hide between the
+furrows in the earth. A look, a word, a shadow, was enough to
+discourage me. My smiles died away, I shrunk into myself, and did not
+dare to move.
+
+"Why did my mother choose three boys, rather than three girls, after I
+was born?" This problem was often in my mind. Boys only tear blouses,
+which they don't know how to mend. If she had only thought how happy I
+would be with a sister, a dear little sister! How I should have loved
+her,--scolded her sometimes, but kissed her very often! We should have
+had our work and play together, thoroughly independent of all those
+gentlemen,--our brothers.
+
+My eldest sister was too far from my age. There seemed to be centuries
+between us. I had one friend,--my cat, Zizi; but she was a wild,
+restless creature, and no companion, for I could scarcely hold her an
+instant. She preferred the roof of the house to my lap.
+
+I became very thoughtful, and said to myself, "How shall I get a
+companion? and how do people make dolls?" It did not occur to me, who
+had never seen a toy-shop, that they could be purchased ready-made. My
+chin resting on my hand, I sat in meditation, wondering how I could
+create what I desired. My passionate desire overruled my fears, and I
+decided to work from my own inspiration.
+
+I rejected wood, as too hard to afford the proper material for my
+dolly. Clay, so moist and cold, chilled the warmth of my invention. I
+took some soft, white linen, and some clean bran, and with them formed
+the body. I was like the savages, who desire a little god to worship.
+It must have a head with eyes, and with ears to listen; and it must
+have a breast, to hold its heart. All the rest is less important, and
+remains undefined.
+
+I worked after this fashion, and rounded my doll's head by tying it
+firmly. There was a clearly perceptible neck,--a little stiff,
+perhaps; a well-developed chest; and then came vague drapery, which
+dispensed with limbs. There were rudiments of arms,--not very
+graceful, but movable; indeed, they moved of themselves. I was filled
+with admiration. Why might not the body move? I had read how God
+breathed upon Adam and Eve the breath of life; with my whole heart and
+my six years' strength I breathed on the creature I had made. I
+looked; she did not stir. Never mind. I was her mother, and she loved
+me; that was enough. The dangers that menaced our mutual affection
+only served to increase it. She gave me anxiety from the moment of her
+birth. How and where could I keep her in safety? Surrounded by
+mischievous boys, sworn enemies to their sisters' dolls, I was
+obliged to hide mine in a dark corner of a shed, where the wagons and
+carriages were kept. After being punished, I could conceive no
+consolation equal to taking my child to bed with me. To warm her, I
+tucked her into my little bed, with the friendly pussy who was keeping
+it warm for me. At bedtime, I laid her on my heart, still heaving with
+sobs; and she seemed to sigh too. If I missed her in the night, I
+became wide awake; I hunted for her, full of apprehension. Often she
+was quite at the bottom of the bed. I brought her out, folded her in
+my arms, and fell asleep happy.
+
+I liked, in my extreme loneliness, to believe that she had a living
+soul. Her grandparents were not aware of her existence. Would she have
+been so thoroughly my own, if other people had known her? I loved
+better to hide her from all eyes.
+
+One thing was wanting to my satisfaction. My doll had a head, but no
+face. I desired to look into her eyes, to see a smile on her
+countenance that should resemble mine. Sunday was the great holiday,
+when everybody did what they liked. Drawing and painting were the
+favorite occupations. Around the fire, in winter time, the little ones
+made soldiers; while my elder brother, who was a true artist, and
+worked with the best colors, painted dresses and costumes of various
+sorts. We watched his performances, dazzled by the marvels which he
+had at his finger-ends.
+
+It was during this time of general preoccupation that my daughter,
+carefully hidden under my apron, arrived among her uncles. No one
+noticed me; and I tried, successfully, to possess myself of a brush,
+with some colors. But I could do nothing well; my hand trembled, and
+all my lines were crooked. Then I made an heroic resolution,--to ask
+my brother's assistance boldly. The temptation was strong, indeed,
+which led me to brave the malice of so many imps. I stepped forward,
+and, with a voice which I vainly endeavored to steady, I said, "Would
+you be so kind as to make a face for my doll?" My eldest brother
+seemed not at all surprised, but took the doll in his hands with great
+gravity, and examined it; then, with apparent care, chose a brush.
+Suddenly he drew across her countenance two broad stripes of red and
+black, something like a cross; and gave me back my poor little doll,
+with a burst of laughter. The soft linen absorbed the colors, which
+ran together in a great blot. It was very dreadful. Great cries
+followed; everybody crowded round to see this wonderful work. Then a
+cousin of ours, who was passing Sunday with us, seized my treasure,
+and tossed it up to the ceiling. It fell flat on the floor. I picked
+it up; and, if the bad boy had not taken flight, he would have
+suffered, very likely, from my resentment.
+
+Sad days were in store for us. My child and I were watched in all our
+interviews. Often was she dragged from her hiding-places among the
+bushes and in the high grass. Everybody made war upon her,--even Zizi,
+the cat, who shared her nightly couch. My brothers sometimes gave the
+doll to Zizi as a plaything; and, in my absence, even she was not
+sorry to claw it, and roll it about on the garden walks. When I next
+found it, it was a shapeless bunch of dusty rags. With the constancy
+of a great affection, I remade again and again the beloved being
+predestined to destruction; and each time I pondered how to create
+something more beautiful. This aiming at perfection seemed to calm my
+grief. I made a better form, and produced symmetrical legs (once, to
+my surprise, the rudiment of a foot appeared); but the better my work
+was, the more bitter the ridicule, and I began to be discouraged.
+
+My doll, beyond a doubt, was in mortal peril. My brothers whispered
+together; and their sidelong glances foreboded me no good. I felt that
+I was watched. In order to elude their vigilance, I constantly
+transferred my treasure from one hiding-place to another; and many
+nights it lay under the open sky. What jeers, what laughter, had it
+been found!
+
+To put an end to my torments, I threw my child into a very dark
+corner, and feigned to forget her. I confess to a shocking resolution;
+for an evil temptation assailed me. But, if self-love began to triumph
+over my affection for her, it was but as a momentary flash, a troubled
+dream. Without the dear little being, I should have had nothing to
+live for. It was, in fact, my second self. After much searching, my
+unlucky doll was discovered. Its limbs were torn off without mercy;
+and the body, being tossed up into an acacia-tree, was stuck on the
+thorns. It was impossible to bring it down. The victim hung, abandoned
+to the autumnal gales, to the wintry tempests, to the westerly rains,
+and to the northern snows. I watched her faithfully, believing that
+the time would come when she would revisit this earth.
+
+In the spring, the gardener came to prune the trees. With tears in my
+eyes, I said, "Bring me back my doll from those branches." He found
+only a fragment of her poor little dress, torn and faded. The sight
+almost broke my heart.
+
+All hope being gone, I became more sensitive to the rough treatment of
+my brothers; and I fell into a sort of despair. After my life with
+_her_ whom I had lost; after my emotions, my secret joys and fears,--I
+felt all the desolation of my bereavement. I longed for wings to fly
+away. When my sister excluded me from her sports with her companions,
+I climbed into the swing, and said to the gardener, "Jean, swing me
+high,--higher yet: I wish to fly away." But I was soon frightened
+enough to beg for mercy.
+
+Then I tried to lose myself. Behind the grove which closed in our
+horizon stretched a long slope, undulating towards a deep cut below.
+With infinite pains, I surmounted all obstacles, and gained the road.
+How far, far away from home I felt! My heart was beating violently.
+What sorrow this would give to my dear father! Where should I sleep? I
+should never dare to ask shelter at a farm-house, much less lie down
+among the bushes, where the screech-owls made a noise all night. So,
+without further reflection, I returned home.
+
+Animals are happier. I wished to be little Lauret, the gold-colored
+ox, who labors so patiently, and comes and goes all day long. Or I'd
+like to be Grisette or Brunette, the pretty asses who are mother's
+pets.
+
+After all, who would not like to be a flower? However, a flower lives
+but a very little while: you are cut down as soon as born. A tree
+lasts much longer. Yet what a bore it must be to stay always in one
+place! To stand with one's foot buried in the ground,--it is too
+dreadful; the thought worried me when I was in bed, thinking things
+over.
+
+I would have been a bird, if a good fairy had taken pity on me. Birds
+are so free, so happy, they sing all day long. If I were a bird, I
+would come and fly about our woods, and would perch on the roof of our
+house. I would come to see my empty chair, my place at table, and my
+mother looking sad; then, at my father's hour for reading, alone in
+the garden, I would fly, and perch on his shoulder, and my father
+would know me at once.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+JEAN PAUL RICHTER,
+
+ONE OF THE GREAT AUTHORS OF GERMANY.
+
+
+It was in the year 1763 that I came into the world, in the same month
+that the golden and gray wagtail, the robin-redbreast, the crane, and
+the red-hammer came also; and, in case anybody wished to strew flowers
+on the cradle of the new-born, the spoonwort and the aspen hung out
+their tender blossoms,--on the 20th of March, in the early morning. I
+was born in Wunsiedel, in the highlands of the Fitchtelbirge. Ah! I am
+glad to have been born in thee, little city of the mountains, whose
+tops look down upon us like the heads of eagles, and where we can
+glance over villages and mountain meadows, and drink health at all thy
+fountains!
+
+To my great joy I can call up from my twelfth or, at farthest, my
+fourteenth month of age one pale little remembrance, like an early and
+frail snow-drop, from the fresh soil of my childhood. I recollect
+that a scholar loved me much, and carried me about in his arms, and
+took me to a great dark room and gave me milk to drink.
+
+In 1765 my father was appointed minister to Joditz, where I was
+carried in a girl's cap and petticoat. The little Saale River, born
+like myself in the Fitchtelbirge, ran with me to Joditz, as it
+afterwards ran after me to Hof when I removed there. A small brook
+traverses the little town, that is crossed on a plank as I remember.
+The old castle and the pastor's house were the two principal
+buildings. There was a school-house right opposite the parsonage, into
+which I was admitted, when big enough to wear breeches and a green
+taffety cap. The schoolmaster was sickly and lean, but I loved him,
+and watched anxiously with him as he lay hid behind his birdcage
+placed in the open window to catch goldfinches, or when he spread a
+net in the snow and caught a yellow-hammer.
+
+My life in Joditz was very pleasant, all the four seasons were full of
+happiness. I hardly know which to tell of first, for each is a
+heavenly introduction to the next; but I will begin with winter. In
+the cold morning my father came down stairs and learned his Sunday
+sermon by the window, and I and my brother carried the full cup of
+coffee to him,--and still more gladly carried it back empty, for we
+could pick out the unmelted sugar from the bottom. Out of doors, the
+sky covered all things with silence,--the brook with ice, the village
+roofs with snow; but in our room there was warm life,--under the stove
+was a pigeon-house, on the windows goldfinch-cages; on the floor was
+the bull-dog and a pretty little poodle close by. Farther off, at the
+other end of the house, was the stable, with cows and pigs and hens.
+The threshers we could hear in the court-yard beating out the grain.
+
+In the long twilight our father walked back and forth, and we trotted
+after him, creeping under his nightgown, and holding on to his hands
+if we could reach them. At the sound of the vesper-bell we stood in a
+circle and chanted the old hymn,
+
+    "Dis finstre Nacht bricht stark herein."
+      "The gloomy night is gathering in."
+
+The evening chime in our village was indeed the swan-song of the day,
+the muffle of the over-loud heart, calling from toil and noise to
+silence and dreams. Then the room was lit up, and the window-shutters
+bolted, and we children felt all safe behind them when the wind
+growled and grumbled outside, like the _Knecht Ruprecht_, or
+hobgoblin. Then we could undress and skip up and down in our long
+trailing nightgowns. My father sat at the long table studying or
+composing music. Our noise did not disturb the inward melody to which
+he listened as we sat on the table or played under it.
+
+Once a week the old errand-woman came from Hof with fruit and meats
+and pastry-cakes. Sometimes the housemaid brought her distaff into the
+common room of an evening, and told us stories by the light of a
+pine-torch. At nine o'clock in the evening I was sent to the bed which
+I shared with my father. He sat up until eleven, and I lay wide awake,
+trembling for fear of ghosts, until he joined me. For I had heard my
+father tell of spiritual appearances, which he firmly believed he had
+himself seen, and my imagination filled the dark space with them.
+
+When the spring came, and the snows melted, we who had been shut up in
+the parsonage court were set free to roam the fields and meadows. The
+sweet mornings sparkled with undried dews. I carried my father's
+coffee to him in his summer-house in the garden. In the evening we had
+currants and raspberries from the garden at our supper before dark.
+Then my father sat and smoked his pipe in the open air, and we played
+about him in our nightgowns, on the grass, as the swallows did in the
+air overhead.
+
+The most beautiful of all summer birds, meanwhile, was a tender, blue
+butterfly, which, in this beautiful season, fluttered about me, and
+was my first love. This was a blue-eyed peasant-girl of my own age,
+with a slender form and an oval face somewhat marked with the
+small-pox, but with the thousand traits that, like the magic circles
+of the enchanter's wand, take the heart a prisoner. Augustina dwelt
+with her brother Romer, a delicate youth, who was known as a good
+accountant, and as a good singer in the choir. I played my little
+romance in a lively manner, from a distance, as I sat in the pastor's
+pew in the church, and she in the seat appropriated to women,
+apparently near enough to look at each other without being satisfied.
+And yet this was only the beginning; for when, at evening, she drove
+her cow home from the meadow pasture, I instantly knew the
+well-remembered sound of the cow-bell, and flew to the court wall to
+see her pass, and give her a nod as she went by; then ran again down
+to the gateway to speak to her, she the nun without, and I the monk
+within, to thrust my hand through the bars (more I durst not do, on
+account of the children without), in which there was some little
+dainty sugared almonds, or something still more costly, that I had
+brought for her from the city. Alas! I did not arrive in many summers
+three times to such happiness as this. But I was obliged to devour all
+the pleasures, and almost all the sorrows, within my own heart. My
+almonds, indeed, did not all fall upon stony ground, for there grew
+out of them a whole hanging-garden in my imagination, blooming and
+full of sweetness, and I used to walk in it for weeks together. The
+sound of this cow-bell remained with me for a long time, and even now
+the blood in my old heart stirs when this sound hovers in the air.
+
+In the summer, I remember the frequent errands that I, with a little
+sack on my back, made to my grandparents in the city of Hof, to bring
+meat and coffee and things that could not be had in the village. The
+two hours' walk led through a wood where a brook babbled over the
+stones. At last the city with its two church-towers was seen, with the
+Saale shining along the level plain. I remember, on my return one
+summer afternoon, watching the sunny splendor of the mountain-side,
+traversed by flying shadows of clouds, and how a new and strange
+longing came over me, of mingled pain and pleasure,--a longing which
+knew not the name of its object,--the awakening and thirsting of my
+whole nature for the heavenly gifts of life.
+
+After the first autumn threshing I used to follow the traces of the
+crows in the woods, and the birds going southward in long procession,
+with strange delight. I loved the screams of the wild geese flying
+over me in long flocks. In the autumn evenings the father went with me
+and Adam to a potato-field lying on the other side of the Saale. One
+boy carried a hoe upon his shoulder, the other a hand-basket; and
+while the father dug as many new potatoes as were necessary for
+supper, and I gathered them from the ground and threw them into the
+basket, Adam gathered the best nuts from the hazel-bushes. It was not
+long before Adam fell back into the potato-beds, and I in my turn
+climbed the nut-tree. Then we returned home, satisfied with our nuts
+and potatoes, and enlivened by running for an hour in the free,
+invigorating air; every one may imagine the delight of returning home
+by the light of the harvest festivals.
+
+Wonderfully fresh and green are two other harvest flowers, preserved
+in the chambers of my memory, and both are indeed trees. One was a
+full-branched muscatel pear-tree in the pastor's court-yard, the fall
+of whose splendid hanging fruit the children sought through the whole
+autumn to hasten; but at last, upon one of the most important days of
+the season, the father himself reached the forbidden fruit by means of
+a ladder, and brought the sweet paradise down, as well for the palates
+of the whole family as for the cooking-stove.
+
+The other, always green, and yet more splendidly blooming, was a
+smaller tree, taken on St. Andrew's evening from the old wood, and
+brought into the house, where it was planted in water and soil in a
+large pot, so that on Christmas night it might have its leaves green
+when it was hung over with gifts like fruits and flowers.
+
+In my thirteenth year my father was appointed pastor of Swarzenbach,
+also on the Saale River, a large market town, and I had to leave
+Joditz, dear even to this day to my heart. Two little sisters lie in
+its graveyard. My father found there his fairest Sundays, and there I
+first saw the Saale shining with the morning glow of my life.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES LAMB,
+
+GENIAL ENGLISH ESSAYIST.
+
+
+From my childhood I was extremely inquisitive about witches and
+witch-stories. My maid, and legendary aunt, supplied me with good
+store. But I shall mention the accident which directed my curiosity
+originally into this channel. In my father's book-closet, the "History
+of the Bible," by Stackhouse, occupied a distinguished station. The
+pictures with which it abounds--one of the ark, in particular, and
+another of Solomon's Temple, delineated with all the fidelity of
+ocular admeasurement, as if the artist had been upon the
+spot--attracted my childish attention. There was a picture, too, of
+the Witch raising up Samuel, which I wish that I had never seen.
+Turning over the picture of the ark with too much haste, I unhappily
+made a breach in its ingenious fabric, driving my inconsiderate
+fingers right through the two larger quadrupeds,--the elephant and the
+camel,--that stare (as well they might) out of the last two windows
+next the steerage in that unique piece of naval architecture. The book
+was henceforth locked up, and became an interdicted treasure. With the
+book, the _objections_ and _solutions_ gradually cleared out of my
+head, and have seldom returned since in any force to trouble me.
+
+But there was one impression which I had imbibed from Stackhouse,
+which no lock or bar could shut out, and which was destined to try my
+childish nerves rather more seriously. That detestable picture!
+
+I was dreadfully alive to nervous terrors,--the night-time, solitude,
+and the dark. I never laid my head on my pillow, I suppose, from the
+fourth to the seventh or eighth year of my life,--so far as memory
+serves in things so long ago,--without an assurance, which realized
+its own prophecy, of seeing some frightful spectre. Be old Stackhouse
+then acquitted in part, if I say that, to his picture of the Witch
+raising up Samuel, (O that old man covered with a mantle!) I owe, not
+my midnight terrors, the horror of my infancy, but the shape and
+manner of their visitation. It was he who dressed up for me a hag that
+nightly sat upon my pillow,--a sure bedfellow, when my aunt or my maid
+was far from me. All day long, while the book was permitted me, I
+dreamed waking over his delineation, and at night (if I may use so
+bold an expression) awoke into sleep, and found the vision true. I
+durst not, even in the daylight, once enter the chamber where I slept,
+without my face turned to the window, aversely from the bed, where my
+witch-ridden pillow was. Parents do not know what they do when they
+leave tender babes alone to go to sleep in the dark. The feeling about
+for a friendly arm, the hoping for a familiar voice when they awake
+screaming, and find none to soothe them,--what a terrible shaking it
+is to their poor nerves! The keeping them up till midnight, through
+candlelight and the unwholesome hours, as they are called, would, I am
+satisfied, in a medical point of view, prove the better caution. That
+detestable picture, as I have said, gave the fashion to my dreams,--if
+dreams they were,--for the scene of them was invariably the room in
+which I lay.
+
+The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End, or Mackarel End, as it is
+spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire, a
+farm-house, delightfully situated within a gentle walk from
+Wheathampstead. I can just remember having been there, on a visit to a
+great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care of my sister, who, as I
+have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could
+throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might
+share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was at
+that time in the occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married
+my grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. More than forty years
+had elapsed since the visit I speak of; and, for the greater portion
+of that period, we had lost sight of the other two branches also. Who
+or what sort of persons inherited Mackery End,--kindred or strange
+folk,--we were afraid almost to conjecture, but determined some day to
+explore.
+
+We made an excursion to this place a few summers ago. By a somewhat
+circuitous route, taking the noble park at Luton in our way from Saint
+Alban's, we arrived at the spot of our anxious curiosity about noon.
+The sight of the old farm-house, though every trace of it was effaced
+from my recollection, affected me with a pleasure which I had not
+experienced for many a year. For though _I_ had forgotten it, _we_ had
+never forgotten being there together, and we had been talking about
+Mackery End all our lives, till memory on my part became mocked with a
+phantom of itself, and I thought I knew the aspect of a place, which,
+when present, O how unlike it was to _that_ which I had conjured up so
+many times instead of it!
+
+Still the air breathed balmily about it; the season was in the "heart
+of June," and I could say with the poet,--
+
+    But thou, that didst appear so fair
+      To fond imagination,
+    Dost rival in the light of day
+      Her delicate creation!
+
+Journeying northward lately, I could not resist going some few miles
+out of my road to look upon the remains of an old great house with
+which I had been impressed in infancy. I was apprised that the owner
+of it had lately pulled it down; still I had a vague notion that it
+could not all have perished, that so much solidity with magnificence
+could not have been crushed all at once into the mere dust and rubbish
+which I found it.
+
+The work of ruin had proceeded with a swift hand, indeed, and the
+demolition of a few weeks had reduced it to--an antiquity.
+
+I was astonished at the indistinction of everything. Where had stood
+the great gates? What bounded the court-yard? Whereabout did the
+outhouses begin? A few bricks only lay as representatives of that
+which was so stately and so spacious.
+
+Had I seen these brick-and-mortar knaves at their process of
+destruction, I should have cried out to them to spare a plank at least
+out of the cheerful storeroom, in whose hot window-seat I used to sit
+and read Cowley, with the grass-plot before, and the hum and flappings
+of that one solitary wasp that ever haunted it about me,--it is in
+mine ears now, as oft as summer returns; or a panel of the
+yellow-room.
+
+Why, every plank and panel of that house for me had magic in it! The
+tapestried bedrooms,--tapestry so much better than painting,--not
+adorning merely, but peopling, the wainscots, at which childhood ever
+and anon would steal a look, shifting its coverlid (replaced as
+quickly) to exercise its tender courage in a momentary eye-encounter
+with those stern bright visages, staring back in return.
+
+Then, that haunted room in which old Mrs. Brattle died, whereinto I
+have crept, but always in the daytime, with a passion of fear; and a
+sneaking curiosity, terror-tainted, to hold communication with the
+past. _How shall they build it up again?_
+
+It was an old deserted place, yet not so long deserted but that traces
+of the splendor of past inmates were everywhere apparent. Its
+furniture was still standing, even to the tarnished gilt leather
+battledores and crumbling feathers of shuttlecocks in the nursery,
+which told that children had once played there. But I was a lonely
+child, and had the range at will of every apartment, knew every nook
+and corner, wondered and worshipped everywhere.
+
+The solitude of childhood is not so much the mother of thought, as it
+is the feeder of love, and silence, and admiration. So strange a
+passion for the place possessed me in those years, that though there
+lay--I shame to say how few roods distant from the mansion,--half hid
+by trees, what I judged some romantic lake, such was the spell which
+bound me to the house, and such my carefulness not to pass its strict
+and proper precincts, that the idle waters lay unexplored for me; and
+not till late in life, curiosity prevailing over elder devotion, I
+found, to my astonishment, a pretty brawling brook had been the
+unknown lake of my infancy. Variegated views, extensive
+prospects,--and those at no great distance from the house,--I was
+told of such,--what were they to me, being out of the boundaries of my
+Eden? So far from a wish to roam, I would have drawn, methought, still
+closer the fences of my chosen prison, and have been hemmed in by a
+yet securer cincture of those excluding garden walls. I could have
+exclaimed with that garden-loving poet,--
+
+    "Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines;
+     Curl me about, ye gadding vines;
+     And O, so close your circles lace,
+     That I may never leave this place!
+     But, lest your fetters prove too weak,
+     Ere I your silken bondage break,
+     Do you, O brambles! chain me too,
+     And, courteous briers, nail me through."
+
+I was here as in a lonely temple. Snug firesides,--the low-built
+roof,--parlors ten feet by ten,--frugal boards, and all the homeliness
+of home,--these were the condition of my birth, the wholesome soil
+which I was planted in. Yet, without impeachment to their tenderest
+lessons, I am not sorry to have had glances of something beyond; and
+to have taken, if but a peep, in childhood, at the contrasting
+accidents of a great fortune.
+
+
+
+
+HUGH MILLER,
+
+SCOTTISH GEOLOGIST AND AUTHOR.
+
+
+I was born on the tenth day of October, 1802, in the low, long house
+built by my great-grandfather.
+
+My memory awoke early. I have recollections which date several months
+before the completion of my third year; but, like those of the golden
+age of the world, they are chiefly of a mythologic character.
+
+I retain a vivid recollection of the joy which used to light up the
+household on my fathers arrival; and how I learned to distinguish for
+myself his sloop when in the offing, by the two slim stripes of white
+that ran along her sides and her two square topsails.
+
+I have my golden memories, too, of splendid toys that he used to bring
+home with him,--among the rest, of a magnificent four-wheeled wagon of
+painted tin, drawn by four wooden horses and a string; and of getting
+it into a quiet corner, immediately on its being delivered over to me,
+and there breaking up every wheel and horse, and the vehicle itself,
+into their original bits, until not two of the pieces were left
+sticking together. Further, I still remember my disappointment at not
+finding something curious within at least the horses and the wheels;
+and as unquestionably the main enjoyment derivable from such things is
+to be had in the breaking of them, I sometimes wonder that our
+ingenious toymen do not fall upon the way of at once extending their
+trade, and adding to its philosophy, by putting some of their most
+brilliant things where nature puts the nut-kernel,--inside.
+
+Then followed a dreary season, on which I still look back in memory as
+on a prospect which, sunshiny and sparkling for a time, has become
+suddenly enveloped in cloud and storm. I remember my mother's long
+fits of weeping, and the general gloom of the widowed household; and
+how, after she had sent my two little sisters to bed, and her hands
+were set free for the evening, she used to sit up late at night,
+engaged as a seamstress, in making pieces of dress for such of the
+neighbors as chose to employ her.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I remember I used to wander disconsolately about the harbor at this
+season, to examine the vessels which had come in during the night; and
+that I oftener than once set my mother a-crying by asking her why the
+shipmates who, when my father was alive, used to stroke my head, and
+slip halfpence into my pockets, never now took any notice of me, or
+gave me anything. She well knew that the shipmasters--not an
+ungenerous class of men--had simply failed to recognize their old
+comrade's child; but the question was only too suggestive,
+notwithstanding, of both her own loss and mine. I used, too, to climb,
+day after day, a grassy knoll immediately behind my mother's house,
+that commands a wide reach of the Moray Frith, and look wistfully out,
+long after every one else had ceased to hope, for the sloop with the
+two stripes of white and the two square topsails. But months and years
+passed by, and the white stripes and the square topsails I never saw.
+
+I had been sent, previous to my father's death, to a dame's school.
+During my sixth year I spelled my way, under the dame, through the
+Shorter Catechism, the Proverbs, and the New Testament, and then
+entered upon her highest form, as a member of the Bible class; but all
+the while the process of acquiring learning had been a dark one, which
+I slowly mastered, with humble confidence in the awful wisdom of the
+schoolmistress, not knowing whither it tended, when at once my mind
+awoke to the meaning of the most delightful of all narratives,--the
+story of Joseph. Was there ever such a discovery made before? I
+actually found out for myself, that the art of reading is the art of
+finding stories in books; and from that moment reading became one of
+the most delightful of my amusements.
+
+I began by getting into a corner on the dismissal of the school, and
+there conning over to myself the new-found story of Joseph nor did one
+perusal serve; the other Scripture stories followed,--in especial, the
+story of Samson and the Philistines, of David and Goliah, of the
+prophets Elijah and Elisha; and after these came the New Testament
+stories and parables.
+
+Assisted by my uncles, too, I began to collect a library in a box of
+birch-bark about nine inches square, which I found quite large enough
+to contain a great many immortal works,--"Jack the Giant-Killer," and
+"Jack and the Bean-Stalk," and the "Yellow Dwarf," and "Bluebeard,"
+and "Sinbad the Sailor," and "Beauty and the Beast," and "Aladdin and
+the Wonderful Lamp," with several others of resembling character.
+
+Old Homer wrote admirably for little folks, especially in the Odyssey;
+a copy of which, in the only true translation extant,--for, judging
+from its surpassing interest and the wrath of critics, such I hold
+that of Pope to be,--I found in the house of a neighbor. Next came the
+Iliad; not, however, in a complete copy, but represented by four of
+the six volumes of Bernard Lintot. With what power, and at how early
+an age, true genius impresses! I saw, even at this immature period,
+that no other writer could cast a javelin with half the force of
+Homer. The missiles went whizzing athwart his pages; and I could see
+the momentary gleam of the steel ere it buried itself deep in brass
+and bull-hide.
+
+I next succeeded in discovering for myself a child's book, of not less
+interest than even the Iliad, which might, I was told, be read on
+Sabbaths, in a magnificent old edition of the "Pilgrim's Progress,"
+printed on coarse whity-brown paper, and charged with numerous
+woodcuts, each of which occupied an entire page, that, on principles
+of economy, bore letter-press on the other side. And such delightful
+prints as they are! It must have been some such volume that sat for
+its portrait to Wordsworth, and which he so exquisitely describes as
+
+    "Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts,
+     Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire,
+     Sharp-knee'd, sharp-elbow'd, and lean-ankled too,
+     With long and ghastly shanks,--forms which, once seen,
+     Could never be forgotten."
+
+I quitted the dame's school at the end of the first twelvemonth, after
+mastering that grand acquirement of my life,--the art of holding
+converse with books; and was transferred to the grammar school of the
+parish, at which there attended at the time about a hundred and twenty
+boys, with a class of about thirty individuals more, much looked down
+upon by the others, and not deemed greatly worth the counting, seeing
+that it consisted only of _lassies_.
+
+One morning, having the master's English rendering of the day's task
+well fixed in my memory, and no book of amusement to read, I began
+gossiping with my nearest class-fellow, a very tall boy, who
+ultimately shot up into a lad of six feet four, and who on most
+occasions sat beside me, as lowest in the form save one. I told him
+about the tall Wallace and his exploits; and so effectually succeeded
+in awakening his curiosity, that I had to communicate to him, from
+beginning to end, every adventure recorded by the blind minstrel.
+
+My story-telling vocation once fairly ascertained, there was, I
+found, no stopping in my course. I had to tell all the stories I had
+ever heard or read. The demand on the part of my class-fellows was
+great and urgent; and, setting myself to try my ability of original
+production, I began to dole out to them long extempore biographies,
+which proved wonderfully popular and successful. My heroes were
+usually warriors like Wallace, and voyagers like Gulliver, and
+dwellers in desolate islands like Robinson Crusoe; and they had not
+unfrequently to seek shelter in huge deserted castles, abounding in
+trap-doors and secret passages, like that of Udolpho. And finally,
+after much destruction of giants and wild beasts, and frightful
+encounters with magicians and savages, they almost invariably
+succeeded in disentombing hidden treasures to an enormous amount, or
+in laying open gold mines, and then passed a luxurious old age, like
+that of Sinbad the Sailor, at peace with all mankind, in the midst of
+confectionery and fruits.
+
+With all my carelessness, I continued to be a sort of favorite with
+the master; and when at the general English lesson, he used to address
+to me little quiet speeches, vouchsafed to no other pupil, indicative
+of a certain literary ground common to us, on which the others had not
+entered. "That, sir," he has said, after the class had just perused,
+in the school collection, a "Tatler" or "Spectator,"--"that, sir, is a
+good paper; it's an Addison"; or, "That's one of Steele's, sir"; and
+on finding in my copy-book, on one occasion, a page filled with
+rhymes, which I had headed "Poem on Peace," he brought it to his desk,
+and, after reading it carefully over, called me up, and with his
+closed penknife, which served as a pointer, in one hand, and the
+copy-book brought down to the level of my eyes in the other, began his
+criticism. "That's bad grammar, sir," he said, resting the
+knife-handle on one of the lines; "and here's an ill-spelled word; and
+there's another; and you have not at all attended to the punctuation;
+but the general sense of the piece is good,--very good, indeed, sir."
+And then he added, with a grim smile, "_Care_, sir, is, I dare say, as
+you remark, a very bad thing; but you may safely bestow a little more
+of it on your spelling and your grammar."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WALTER SCOTT,
+
+POET, HISTORIAN, AND NOVELIST OF SCOTLAND.
+
+
+It was at Sandy Knowe, at the home of my father's father, that I had
+the first knowledge of life; and I recollected distinctly that my
+situation and appearance were a little whimsical. I was lame, and
+among the old remedies for lameness some one had recommended that, as
+often as a sheep was killed for the use of the family, I should be
+stripped and wrapped up in the warm skin as it was taken from the
+carcass of the animal. In this Tartar-like dress I well remember lying
+upon the floor of the little parlor of the farm-house, while my
+grandfather, an old man with snowy hair, tried to make me crawl. And I
+remember a relation of ours, Colonel MacDougal, joining with him to
+excite and amuse me. I recollect his old military dress, his small
+cocked hat, deeply laced, embroidered scarlet waistcoat, light-colored
+coat, and milk-white locks, as he knelt on the ground before me, and
+dragged his watch along the carpet to make me follow it. This must
+have happened about my third year, for both the old men died soon
+after. My grandmother continued for some years to take charge of the
+farm, assisted by my uncle Thomas Scott. This was during the American
+war, and I remember being as anxious on my uncle's weekly visits (for
+we had no news at another time) to hear of the defeat of Washington,
+as if I had some personal cause for hating him. I got a strange
+prejudice in favor of the Stuart family from the songs and tales I
+heard about them. One or two of my own relations had been put to death
+after the battle of Culloden, and the husband of one of my aunts used
+to tell me that he was present at their execution. My grandmother used
+to tell me many a tale of Border chiefs, like Watt of Harden, Wight
+Willie of Aikwood, Jamie Telfer of the fair Dodhead. My kind aunt,
+Miss Janet Scott, whose memory will always be dear to me, used to read
+to me with great patience until I could repeat long passages by heart.
+I learned the old ballad of Hardyknute, to the great annoyance of our
+almost only visitor, Dr. Duncan, the worthy clergyman of the parish,
+who had no patience to have his sober chat disturbed by my shouting
+for this ditty. Methinks I see now his tall, emaciated figure, legs
+cased in clasped gambadoes, and his very long face, and hear him
+exclaim, "One might as well speak in the mouth of a cannon as where
+that child is!"
+
+I was in my fourth year when my father was told that the waters of
+Bath might be of some advantage to my lameness. My kind aunt, though
+so retiring in habits as to make such a journey anything but pleasure
+or amusement, undertook to go with me to the wells, as readily as if
+she expected all the delight the prospect of a watering-place held out
+to its most impatient visitors. My health was by this time a good
+deal better from the country air at my grandmother's. When the day was
+fine, I was carried out and laid beside the old shepherd among the
+crags and rocks, around which he fed his sheep. Childish impatience
+inclined me to struggle with my lameness, and I began by degrees to
+stand, walk, and even run.
+
+I lived at Bath a year without much advantage to my lameness. The
+beauties of the Parade, with the river Avon winding around it, and the
+lowing of the cattle from the opposite hills, are warm in my
+recollection, and are only exceeded by the splendors of a toy-shop
+near the orange grove. I was afraid of the statues in the old abbey
+church, and looked with horror upon the image of Jacob's ladder with
+its angels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My mother joined to a light and happy temper of mind a strong turn for
+poetry and works of imagination. She was sincerely devout, but her
+religion, as became her sex, was of a cast less severe than my
+father's. My hours of leisure from school study were spent in reading
+with her Pope's translation of Homer, which, with a few ballads and
+the songs of Allan Ramsay, was the first poetry I possessed. My
+acquaintance with English literature gradually extended itself. In the
+intervals of my school-hours I read with avidity such books of history
+or poetry or voyages and travels as chance presented, not forgetting
+fairy-tales and Eastern stories and romances. I found in my mother's
+dressing-room (where I slept at one time) some odd volumes of
+Shakespeare, nor can I forget the rapture with which I sat up in my
+shirt reading them by the firelight.
+
+In my thirteenth year I first became acquainted with Bishop Percy's
+"Reliques of Ancient Poetry." As I had been from infancy devoted to
+legendary lore of this nature, and only reluctantly withdrew my
+attention, from the scarcity of materials and the rudeness of those
+which I possessed, it may be imagined, but cannot be described, with
+what delight I saw pieces of the same kind which had amused my
+childhood, and still continued in secret the Delilahs of my
+imagination, considered as the subject of sober research, grave
+commentary, and apt illustration, by an editor who showed his poetical
+genius was capable of emulating the best qualities of what his pious
+labor preserved. I remember well the spot where I read these volumes
+for the first time. It was beneath a huge platanus-tree, in the ruins
+of what had been intended for an old-fashioned arbor in the garden
+adjoining the house. The summer day sped onward so fast that,
+notwithstanding the sharp appetite of thirteen, I forgot the hour of
+dinner, was sought for with anxiety, and was found still entranced in
+my intellectual banquet. To read and to remember was in this instance
+the same thing, and henceforth I overwhelmed my schoolfellows, and all
+who would hearken to me, with tragical recitations from the ballads of
+Bishop Percy. The first time, too, I could scrape a few shillings
+together, which were not common occurrences with me, I bought unto
+myself a copy of these beloved volumes; nor do I believe I ever read a
+book half so frequently or with half the enthusiasm.
+
+To this period also I can trace distinctly the awaking of that
+delightful feeling for the beauties of natural objects which has never
+since deserted me. The neighborhood of Kelso, the most beautiful, if
+not the most romantic, village in Scotland, is eminently calculated to
+awaken these ideas. It presents objects, not only grand in themselves,
+but venerable from their association. The meeting of two superb
+rivers, the Tweed and the Teviot, both renowned in song; the ruins of
+an ancient abbey; the more distant vestiges of Roxburgh Castle; the
+modern mansion of Fleurs, which is so situated as to combine the ideas
+of ancient baronial grandeur with those of modern taste,--are in
+themselves objects of the first class; yet are so mixed, united, and
+melted among a thousand other beauties of a less prominent
+description, that they harmonize into one general picture, and please
+rather by unison than by concord.
+
+
+
+
+FREDERIC DOUGLASS,
+
+THE SLAVE-BOY OF MARYLAND, NOW ONE OF THE ABLEST CITIZENS AND MOST
+ELOQUENT ORATORS OF THE UNITED STATES.
+
+
+I was born in what is called Tuckahoe, on the eastern shore of
+Maryland, a worn-out, desolate, sandy region. Decay and ruin are
+everywhere visible, and the thin population of the place would have
+quitted it long ago, but for the Choptauk River, which runs through,
+from which they take abundance of shad and herring, and plenty of
+fever and ague. My first experience of life began in the family of my
+grandparents. The house was built of logs, clay, and straw. A few
+rough fence-rails thrown loosely over the rafters answered the purpose
+of floors, ceilings, and bedsteads. It was a long time before I
+learned that this house was not my grandparents', but belonged to a
+mysterious personage who was spoken of as "Old Master"; nay, that my
+grandmother and her children and grandchildren, myself among them, all
+belonged to this dreadful personage, who would only suffer me to live
+a few years with my grandmother, and when I was big enough would carry
+me off to work on his plantation.
+
+The absolute power of this distant Old Master had touched my young
+spirit with but the point of its cold cruel iron, yet it left me
+something to brood over. The thought of being separated from my
+grandmother, seldom or never to see her again, haunted me. I dreaded
+the idea of going to live with that strange Old Master whose name I
+never heard mentioned with affection, but always with fear. My
+grandmother! my grandmother! and the little hut and the joyous circle
+under her care, but especially _she_, who made us sorry when she left
+us but for an hour, and glad on her return,--how could we leave her
+and the good old home!
+
+But the sorrows of childhood, like the pleasures of after-life, are
+transient. The first seven or eight years of the slave-boy's life are
+as full of content as those of the most favored white children of the
+slaveholder. The slave-boy escapes many troubles which vex his white
+brother. He is never lectured for improprieties of behavior. He is
+never chided for handling his little knife and fork improperly or
+awkwardly, for he uses none. He is never scolded for soiling the
+table-cloth, for he takes his meals on the clay floor. He never has
+the misfortune, in his games or sports, of soiling or tearing his
+clothes, for he has almost none to soil or tear. He is never expected
+to act like a nice little gentleman, for he is only a rude little
+slave.
+
+Thus, freed from all restraint, the slave-boy can be, in his life and
+conduct, a genuine boy, doing whatever his boyish nature suggests;
+enacting, by turns, all the strange antics and freaks of horses, dogs,
+pigs, and barn-door fowls, without in any manner compromising his
+dignity or incurring reproach of any sort. He literally runs wild; has
+no pretty little verses to learn in the nursery; no nice little
+speeches to make for aunts, uncles, or cousins, to show how smart he
+is; and, if he can only manage to keep out of the way of the heavy
+feet and fists of the older slave-boys, he may trot on, in his joyous
+and roguish tricks, as happy as any little heathen under the
+palm-trees of Africa.
+
+To be sure, he is occasionally reminded, when he stumbles in the way
+of his master,--and this he early learns to avoid,--that he is eating
+his _white bread_, and that he will be made to _see sights_ by and by.
+The threat is soon forgotten, the shadow soon passes, and our sable
+boy continues to roll in the dust, or play in the mud, as best suits
+him, and in the veriest freedom. If he feels uncomfortable, from mud
+or from dust, the coast is clear; he can plunge into the river or the
+pond, without the ceremony of undressing or the fear of wetting his
+clothes; his little tow-linen shirt--for that is all he has on--is
+easily dried; and it needed washing as much as did his skin. His food
+is of the coarsest kind, consisting for the most part of corn-meal
+mush, which often finds its way from the wooden tray to his mouth in
+an oyster-shell. His days, when the weather is warm, are spent in the
+pure, open air and in the bright sunshine. He eats no candies; gets no
+lumps of loaf-sugar; always relishes his food; cries but little, for
+nobody cares for his crying; learns to esteem his bruises but slight,
+because others so think them.
+
+In a word, he is, for the most part of the first eight years of his
+life, a spirited, joyous, uproarious, and happy boy, upon whom
+troubles fall only like water on a duck's back. And such a boy, so far
+as I can now remember, was the boy whose life in slavery I am now
+telling.
+
+I gradually learned that the plantation of Old Master was on the river
+Wye, twelve miles from Tuckahoe. About this place and about that queer
+Old Master, who must be something more than man and something worse
+than an angel, I was eager to know all that could be known. Unhappily,
+all that I found out only increased my dread of being carried thither.
+The fact is, such was my dread of leaving the little cabin, that I
+wished to remain little forever; for I knew, the taller I grew, the
+shorter my stay. The old cabin, with its rail floor and rail bedsteads
+up stairs, and its clay floor down stairs, and its dirt chimney and
+windowless sides, and that most curious piece of workmanship of all
+the rest, the ladder stairway, and the hole curiously dug in front of
+the fireplace, beneath which grandmammy placed the sweet potatoes to
+keep them from the frost, was MY HOME,--the only home I ever had; and
+I loved it, and all connected with it. The old fences around it, and
+the stumps in the edge of the woods near it, and the squirrels that
+ran, skipped, and played upon them, were objects of interest and
+affection. There, too, right at the side of the hut, stood the old
+well, with its stately and skyward-pointing beam, so aptly placed
+between the limbs of what had once been a tree, and so nicely
+balanced, that I could move it up and down with only one hand, and
+could get a drink myself without calling for help. Where else in the
+world could such a well be found, and where could such another home be
+met with? Down in a little valley, not far from grandmamma's cabin,
+stood a mill, where the people came often, in large numbers, to get
+their corn ground. It was a water-mill; and I never shall be able to
+tell the many things thought and felt while I sat on the bank and
+watched that mill, and the turning of its ponderous wheel. The
+mill-pond, too, had its charms; and with my pin-hook and thread line I
+could get _nibbles_, if I could catch no fish. But, in all my sports
+and plays, and in spite of them, there would, occasionally, come the
+painful foreboding that I was not long to remain there, and that I
+must soon be called away to the home of Old Master.
+
+I was A SLAVE,--born a slave; and though the fact was strange to me,
+it conveyed to my mind a sense of my entire dependence on the will of
+_somebody_ I had never seen; and, from some cause or other, I had been
+made to fear this Somebody above all else on earth. Born for another's
+benefit, as the _firstling_ of the cabin flock I was soon to be
+selected as a meet offering to the fearful and inexorable Old Master,
+whose huge image on so many occasions haunted my childhood's
+imagination. When the time of my departure was decided upon, my
+grandmother, knowing my fears, and in pity for them, kindly kept me
+ignorant of the dreaded event about to happen. Up to the morning (a
+beautiful summer morning) when we were to start, and, indeed, during
+the whole journey,--a journey which, child as I was, I remember as
+well as if it were yesterday,--she kept the sad fact hidden from me.
+This reserve was necessary, for, could I have known all, I should have
+given grandmother some trouble in getting me started. As it was, I was
+helpless, and she--dear woman!--led me along by the hand, resisting,
+with the reserve and solemnity of a priestess, all my inquiring looks
+to the last.
+
+The distance from Tuckahoe to Wye River, where Old Master lived, was
+full twelve miles, and the walk was quite a severe test of the endurance
+of my young legs. The journey would have proved too hard for me, but
+that my dear old grandmother--blessings on her memory!--afforded
+occasional relief by "toting" me on her shoulder. My grandmother,
+though old in years,--as was evident from more than one gray hair, which
+peeped from between the ample and graceful folds of her newly-ironed
+bandanna turban,--was marvellously straight in figure, elastic, and
+muscular. I seemed hardly to be a burden to her. She would have "toted"
+me farther, but that I felt myself too much of a man to allow it, and
+insisted on walking. Releasing dear grandmamma from carrying me did not
+make me altogether independent of her, when we happened to pass through
+portions of the sombre woods which lay between Tuckahoe and Wye River.
+She often found me increasing the energy of my grip, and holding her
+clothing, lest something should come out of the woods and eat me up.
+Several old logs and stumps imposed upon me, and got themselves taken
+for wild beasts. I could see their legs, eyes, and ears till I got close
+enough to them to know that the eyes were knots, washed white with rain,
+and the legs were broken boughs, and the ears only fungous growths on
+the bark.
+
+As the day went on the heat grew; and it was not until the afternoon
+that we reached the much-dreaded end of the journey. I found myself in
+the midst of a group of children of many colors,--black, brown,
+copper-colored, and nearly white. I had not seen so many children
+before. Great houses loomed up in different directions, and a great
+many men and women were at work in the fields. All this hurry, noise,
+and singing was very different from the stillness of Tuckahoe. As a
+new-comer, I was an object of special interest; and, after laughing
+and yelling around me, and playing all sorts of wild tricks, the
+children asked me to go out and play with them. This I refused to do,
+preferring to stay with grandmamma. I could not help feeling that our
+being there boded no good to me. Grandmamma looked sad. She was soon
+to lose another object of affection, as she had lost many before. I
+knew she was unhappy, and the shadow fell on me, though I knew not the
+cause.
+
+All suspense, however, must have an end, and the end of mine was at
+hand. Affectionately patting me on the head, and telling me to be a
+good boy, grandmamma bade me to go and play with the little children.
+"They are kin to you," said she; "go and play with them." Among a
+number of cousins were Phil, Tom, Steve, and Jerry, Nance and Betty.
+
+Grandmother pointed out my brother and sisters who stood in the group.
+I had never seen brother nor sisters before; and though I had
+sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really
+did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were
+brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to
+me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters we were by blood, but _slavery_
+had made us strangers. I heard the words "brother" and "sisters," and
+knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of
+their true meaning. The experience through which I was passing, they
+had passed through before. They had already learned the mysteries of
+Old Master's home, and they seemed to look upon me with a certain
+degree of compassion; but my heart clave to my grandmother. Think it
+not strange that so little sympathy of feeling existed between us. The
+conditions of brotherly and sisterly feeling were wanting; we had
+never nestled and played together. My poor mother, like many other
+slave-women, had many children, but NO FAMILY! The domestic hearth,
+with its holy lessons and precious endearments, is abolished in the
+case of a slave-mother and her children. "Little children, love one
+another," are words seldom heard in a slave-cabin.
+
+I really wanted to play with my brother and sisters, but they were
+strangers to me, and I was full of fear that grandmother might leave
+without taking me with her. Entreated to do so, however, and that,
+too, by my dear grandmother, I went to the back part of the house, to
+play with them and the other children. _Play_, however, I did not, but
+stood with my back against the wall, witnessing the mirth of the
+others. At last, while standing there, one of the children, who had
+been in the kitchen, ran up to me, in a sort of roguish glee,
+exclaiming, "Fed, Fed! grandmammy gone! grandmammy gone!" I could not
+believe it; yet, fearing the worst, I ran into the kitchen, to see
+for myself, and found it even so. Grandmamma had indeed gone, and was
+now far away, clean out of sight. I need not tell all that happened
+now. Almost heartbroken at the discovery, I fell upon the ground, and
+wept a boy's bitter tears, refusing to be comforted.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS,
+
+FIRST NOVELIST OF THE PERIOD.
+
+
+I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children
+assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas tree.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Being now at home again, and alone, the only person in the house
+awake, my thoughts are drawn back, by a fascination which I do not
+care to resist, to my own childhood. Straight in the middle of the
+room, cramped in the freedom of its growth by no encircling walls or
+soon-reached ceiling, a shadowy tree arises; and, looking up into the
+dreamy brightness of its top,--for I observe in this tree the singular
+property that it appears to grow downward towards the earth,--I look
+into my youngest Christmas recollections.
+
+All toys at first, I find. But upon the branches of the tree, lower
+down, how thick the books begin to hang! Thin books, in themselves, at
+first, but many of them, with deliciously smooth covers of bright red
+or green. What fat black letters to begin with!
+
+"A was an archer, and shot at a frog." Of course he was. He was an
+apple-pie also, and there he is! He was a good many things in his
+time, was A, and so were most of his friends, except X, who had so
+little versatility that I never knew him to get beyond Xerxes or
+Xantippe: like Y, who was always confined to a yacht or a yew-tree;
+and Z, condemned forever to be a zebra or a zany.
+
+But now the very tree itself changes, and becomes a bean-stalk,--the
+marvellous bean-stalk by which Jack climbed up to the giant's house.
+Jack,--how noble, with his sword of sharpness and his shoes of
+swiftness!
+
+Good for Christmas-time is the ruddy color of the cloak in which, the
+tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through with her
+basket, Little Red-Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas eve, to give
+me information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling wolf
+who ate her grandmother, without making any impression on his
+appetite, and then ate her, after making that ferocious joke about his
+teeth. She was my first love. I felt that if I could have married
+Little Red-Riding-Hood, I should have known perfect bliss. But it was
+not to be, and there was nothing for it but to look out the wolf in
+the Noah's Ark there, and put him late in the procession on the table,
+as a monster who was to be degraded.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+O the wonderful Noah's Ark! It was not found seaworthy when put in a
+washing-tub, and the animals were crammed in at the roof, and needed
+to have their legs well shaken down before they could be got in even
+there; and then ten to one but they began to tumble out at the door,
+which was but imperfectly fastened with a wire latch; but what was
+that against it?
+
+Consider the noble fly, a size or two smaller than the elephant; the
+lady-bird, the butterfly,--all triumphs of art! Consider the goose,
+whose feet were so small, and whose balance was so indifferent that he
+usually tumbled forward and knocked down all the animal creation!
+consider Noah and his family, like idiotic tobacco-stoppers; and how
+the leopard stuck to warm little fingers; and how the tails of the
+larger animals used gradually to resolve themselves into frayed bits
+of string.
+
+Hush! Again a forest, and somebody up in a tree,--not Robin Hood, not
+Valentine, not the Yellow Dwarf,--I have passed him and all Mother
+Bunch's wonders without mention,--but an Eastern king with a
+glittering scymitar and turban. It is the setting-in of the bright
+Arabian Nights.
+
+O, now all common things become uncommon and enchanted to me! All
+lamps are wonderful! all rings are talismans! Common flower-pots are
+full of treasure, with a little earth scattered on the top; trees are
+for Ali Baba to hide in; beefsteaks are to throw down into the Valley
+of Diamonds, that the precious stones may stick to them, and be
+carried by the eagles to their nests, whence the traders, with loud
+cries, will scare them. All the dates imported come from the same tree
+as that unlucky one, with whose shell the merchant knocked out the eye
+of the genii's invisible son. All olives are of the same stock of that
+fresh fruit concerning which the Commander of the Faithful overheard
+the boy conduct the fictitious trial of the fraudulent olive-merchant.
+Yes, on every object that I recognize among those upper branches of my
+Christmas tree I see this fairy light!
+
+But hark! the Waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep!
+What images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set
+forth on the Christmas tree! Known before all the others, keeping far
+apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. An angel,
+speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some travellers, with
+eyes uplifted, following a star; a baby in a manger; a child in a
+spacious temple, talking with grave men; a solemn figure with a mild
+and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a
+city gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to life; a
+crowd of people looking through the opened roof of a chamber where he
+sits, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes; the same,
+in a tempest, walking on the waters in a ship; again, on a sea-shore,
+teaching a great multitude; again, with a child upon his knee, and
+other children around; again, restoring sight to the blind, speech to
+the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the
+lame, knowledge to the ignorant; again, dying upon a cross, watched by
+armed soldiers, a darkness coming on, the earth beginning to shake,
+and only one voice heard, "Forgive them, for they know not what they
+do!"
+
+Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas time, still let the
+benignant figure of my childhood stand unchanged! In every cheerful
+image and suggestion that the season brings, may the bright star that
+rested above the poor roof be the star of all the Christian world!
+
+A moment's pause, O vanishing tree, of which the lower boughs are dark
+to me yet, and let me look once more. I know there are blank spaces on
+thy branches, where eyes that I have loved have shone and smiled, from
+which they are departed. But, far above, I see the Raiser of the dead
+girl and the widow's son,--and God is good!
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+5. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without comment and
+   include missing or end of sentence comma and period errors and missing
+   or misplaced quotation marks.
+
+
+6. Spelling Corrections:
+
+   p. 120, "wery" to "very"  (and it's very much to be)
+   p. 128, "arter" to "after" (after all, that's where)
+   p. 128, "biled" to "billed" (A billed fowl and)
+   p. 128, "woice" to "voice" (the voice of love)
+   p. 168, "Joe" to "Job" (29) (And Job tumbled into his)
+   p. 275, "pototo" to "potato" (4) (a potato-field)
+   p. 277, "familar" to "familiar" (3) (a familiar voice)
+
+
+7. Suspected mispellings retained as possible alternate spellings of the
+   time:
+
+   "amadavid bird" (amadavat bird)
+   "azalias" (azaleas)
+   "gayety" (gaiety)
+   "Mackarel" (Mackerel)
+   "plash" (splash)
+   "scymitar" (scimitar)
+   "skurrying" (scurrying)
+
+
+8. Printer Error corrections:
+
+   p. 109, removed duplicate "carried" (Oeyvind carried leaves)
+
+
+9. Word variations retained in the text which vary by author:
+
+   "fireflies" and "fire-flies"
+   "flagstones" and "flag-stones"
+   "nightgown" and "night-gown"
+   "Red Riding-Hood" and "Red-Riding-Hood"
+   "schoolhouse" and "school-house"
+   "toyshop" and "toy-shop"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Child Life in Prose, by Various
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