Add files from ibiblio as of 2025-03-08 11:39:15HEADmain

1 files changed, 0 insertions, 6982 deletions

diff --git a/41641-8.txt b/41641-8.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 2346b4a..0000000
--- a/41641-8.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,6982 +0,0 @@
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Just Sixteen., by Susan  Coolidge
-
-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: Just Sixteen.
-
-Author: Susan  Coolidge
-
-Release Date: December 17, 2012 [EBook #41641]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUST SIXTEEN. ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-JUST SIXTEEN.
-
-[Illustration: "We will have luncheon here close to the fire," she said,
-"and be as cosey as possible."--_Page 28._]
-
-
-
-
-JUST SIXTEEN.
-
-    BY
-    SUSAN COOLIDGE,
-
-    AUTHOR OF "THE NEW YEAR'S BARGAIN," "WHAT KATY DID,"
-    "WHAT KATY DID AT SCHOOL," "WHAT KATY DID NEXT,"
-    "CLOVER," "A GUERNSEY LILY," ETC.
-
-    [Illustration: QUI LEGIT REGIT.]
-
-    BOSTON:
-    ROBERTS BROTHERS.
-    1890.
-
-
-    _Copyright, 1889_,
-    BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
-
-    University Press:
-    JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-
-                                                        PAGE
-
-    A LITTLE KNIGHT OF LABOR (_Two Illustrations_)         7
-
-    SNOWY PETER                                           63
-
-    THE DO SOMETHING SOCIETY                              80
-
-    WHO ATE THE QUEEN'S LUNCHEON? (_Illustration_)        92
-
-    THE SHIPWRECKED COLOGNE-BOTTLE                       110
-
-    UNDER A SYRINGA-BUSH                                 126
-
-    TWO GIRLS--TWO PARTIES                               137
-
-    THE PINK SWEETMEAT                                   154
-
-    ETELKA'S CHOICE (_Illustration_)                     177
-
-    THE FIR CONES                                        204
-
-    A BALSAM PILLOW                                      217
-
-    COLONEL WHEELER                                      229
-
-    NINETY-THREE AND NINETY-FOUR                         238
-
-    THE SORROWS OF FELICIA                               258
-
-    IMPRISONED                                           271
-
-    A CHILD OF THE SEA FOLK                              282
-
-
-
-
-JUST SIXTEEN.
-
-A LITTLE KNIGHT OF LABOR.
-
-
-The first real snow-storm of the winter had come to Sandyport by the
-Sea.
-
-It had been a late and merciful autumn. Till well into November the
-leaves still clung to their boughs, honeysuckles made shady coverts on
-trellises, and put forth now and then an orange and milk-white blossom
-full of frosty sweetness; the grass was still green where the snow
-allowed it to be seen. Thick and fast fell the wind-blown flakes on the
-lightly frozen ground. The patter and beat of the flying storm was a
-joyous sound to children who owned sleds and had been waiting the chance
-to use them. Many a boy's face looked out as the dusk fell, to make sure
-that the storm continued; and many a bright voice cried, "Hurrah! It's
-coming down harder than ever! To-morrow it will be splendid!" Stable-men
-were shaking out fur robes and arranging cutters. Already the fitful
-sound of sleigh-bells could be heard; and all the world--the world of
-Sandyport that is--was preparing to give the in-coming winter a gay
-welcome.
-
-But in one house in an old-fashioned but still respectable street no one
-seemed inclined to join in the general merry-making. Only two lights
-broke its darkness: one shone from the kitchen at the back, where,
-beside a kerosene lamp, Bethia Kendrick, the old-time servitor of the
-Talcott family, was gloomily darning stockings, and otherwise making
-ready for departure on the morrow. The other and fainter glow came from
-the front room, where without any lamp Georgie Talcott sat alone beside
-her fire.
-
-It was a little fire, and built of rather queer materials. There were
-bits of lath and box-covers, fence-pickets split in two, shavings,
-pasteboard clippings, and on top of all, half of an old chopping-bowl.
-The light material burned out fast, and had to be continually
-replenished from the basket which stood on one side the grate.
-
-Georgie, in fact, was burning up the odds and ends of her old life
-before leaving it behind forever. She was to quit the house on the
-morrow; and there was something significant to her, and very sorrowful,
-in this disposal of its shreds and fragments; they meant so little to
-other people, and so very much to her. The old chopping-bowl, for
-instance,--her thoughts went back from it to the first time she had ever
-been permitted to join in the making of the Christmas pies. She saw her
-mother, still a young woman then, and pretty with the faded elegance
-which had been her characteristic, weighing the sugar and plums, and
-slicing the citron, while her own daring little hands plied the chopper
-in that very bowl. What joy there was in those vigorous dabs and
-cross-way cuts! how she had liked to do it! And now, the pretty mother,
-faded and gray, lay under the frozen turf, on which the snow-flakes were
-thickly falling. There could be no more Christmases for Georgie in the
-old house; it was sold, and to-morrow would close its doors behind her
-forever.
-
-She shivered as these thoughts passed through her mind, and rising moved
-restlessly toward the window. It was storming faster than ever. The
-sight seemed to make the idea of the morrow harder to bear; a big tear
-formed in each eye, blurring the white world outside into a dim
-grayness. Presently one ran down her nose and fell on her hand. She
-looked at it with dismay, wiped it hastily off, and went back to the
-fire.
-
-"I won't cry, whatever happens, I'm resolved on that," she said half
-aloud, as she put the other half of the chopping-bowl on the waning
-blaze. The deep-soaked richness of long-perished meats was in the old
-wood still. It flared broadly up the chimney. Georgie again sat down by
-the fire and resumed her thinking.
-
-"What am I going to do?" she asked herself for the hundredth time. "When
-my visit to Cousin Vi is over, I must decide on something; but what? A
-week is such a short time in which to settle such an important thing."
-
-It is hard to be confronted at twenty with the problem of one's own
-support. Georgie hitherto had been as happy and care-free as other
-girls. Her mother, as the widow of a naval officer, was entitled to a
-small pension. This, with a very little more in addition, had paid for
-Georgie's schooling, and kept the old house going in a sufficiently
-comfortable though very modest fashion. But Mrs. Talcott was not by
-nature an exemplary manager. It was hard not to overrun here and there,
-especially after Georgie grew up, and "took her place in society," as
-the poor lady phrased it,--the place which was rightfully hers as her
-father's daughter and the descendant of a long line of Talcotts and
-Chaunceys and Wainwrights. She coveted pretty things for her girl, as
-all mothers do, and it was too much for her strength always to deny
-herself.
-
-So Georgie had "just this" and "just that," and being a fresh attractive
-creature, and a favorite, made her little go as far as the other girls'
-much, and now and again the tiny capital was encroached upon. And then,
-and then,--this is a world of sorry chances, as the weak and helpless
-find to their cost,--came the bad year, when the Ranscuttle Mills passed
-their dividend and the stock went down to almost nothing; and then Mrs.
-Talcott's long illness, and then her death. Sickness and death are
-luxuries which the poor will do well to go without. Georgie went over
-the calculations afresh as she sat by the fire, and the result came out
-just the same, and not a penny better. When she had paid for her
-mother's funeral, and all the last bills, she would have exactly a
-hundred and seventy-five dollars a year to live upon,--that and no more!
-
-The furniture,--could she get something for that? She glanced round the
-room, and shook her head. The articles were neither handsome enough nor
-quaint enough to command a good price. She looked affectionately at the
-hair-cloth sofa on which her mother had so often lain, at the well-worn
-secretary. How could she part with these? How could she sell her
-great-grandfather's picture, or who, in fact, except herself, would care
-for the rather ill-painted portrait of a rigid old worthy of the last
-century, in a wig and ruffled shirt, with a view of Sandyport harbor by
-way of a background? Her father's silhouette hung beneath it, with his
-sword and a little mezzotint of his ship. These were treasures to her,
-but what were they to any one else?
-
-"No," she decided. "Bethia shall take the old kitchen things and her own
-bedroom furniture, and have the use of them; but the rest must go into
-Miss Sally's attic for the present. They wouldn't fetch anything; and if
-they would, I don't think I could bear to sell them. And now that is
-settled, I must think again, what _am_ I to do? I must do something."
-
-She turned over all manner of schemes in her mind, but all seemed
-fruitless. Sew? The town was full of sempstresses. Georgie knew of half
-a dozen who could not get work enough to keep them busy half the time.
-Teach? She could not; her education in no one respect had been thorough
-enough. Embroider for the Women's Exchanges and Decorative Art
-Societies? Perhaps; but it seemed to her that was the very thing to
-which all destitute people with pretensions to gentility fled as a
-matter of course, and that the market for tidies and "splashers" and
-pine-pillows was decidedly overstocked.
-
-"It's no use thinking about it to-night," was the sensible decision to
-which she at last arrived. "I am too tired. I'll get a sound night's
-sleep if I can, and put off my worries till I am safely at Miss
-Sally's."
-
-The sound night's sleep stood Georgie in good stead, for the morrow
-taxed all her powers of endurance, both physical and moral. Bethia,
-unhappy at losing the home of years, was tearful and fractious to a
-degree. Sending off the furniture through the deep snow proved a slow
-and troublesome matter. The doors necessarily stood open a great deal,
-the rooms grew very cold, everything was comfortless and dispiriting.
-And underlying all, put aside but never unfelt, was a deep sense of pain
-at the knowledge that this was the last day,--the very, very last of the
-home she had always known, and might know no more.
-
-When the final sledge-load creaked away over the hard frozen crust,
-Georgie experienced a sense of relief.
-
-    "The sooner 'tis over, the sooner to sleep,"
-
-she sang below her breath. Everything was in order. She had generalled
-all ably; nothing was omitted or forgotten. With steady care she raked
-out the fire in the kitchen stove, which the new owner of the house had
-taken off her hands, and saw to the fastenings of the windows. Then she
-tied on her bonnet and black veil, gave the weeping Bethia a good-by
-kiss on the door-step, closed and locked the door, and waded wearily
-through the half-broken paths to the boarding-house of Miss Sally
-Scannell, where Cousin Vi, otherwise Miss Violet Talcott, had lived for
-years.
-
-No very enthusiastic reception awaited her. Cousin Vi's invitation had
-been given from a sense of duty. She "owed it to the child," she told
-herself, as she cleared out a bureau-drawer, and made a place for
-Georgie's trunk in the small third-story room which for sixteen years
-had represented to her all the home she had known. Of course such a
-visit must be a brief one.
-
-"So you're come!" was her greeting as Georgie appeared. "I thought you'd
-be here sooner; but I suppose you've had a good deal to do. I should
-have offered to help if the day had not been so cold. Come in and take
-your things off."
-
-Georgie glanced about her as she smoothed her hair. The room bore the
-unmistakable marks of spinsterhood and decayed gentility. It was crammed
-with little belongings, some valuable, some perfectly valueless. Two or
-three pieces of spindle-legged and claw-footed mahogany made an odd
-contrast to the common painted bedroom set. Miniatures by Malbone and
-lovely pale-lined mezzotints and line engravings hung on the walls amid
-a maze of photographs and Japanese fans and Christmas cards and chromos;
-an indescribable confusion of duds encumbered every shelf and table;
-and in the midst sat Miss Vi's tall, meager, dissatisfied self, with
-thin hair laboriously trained after the prevailing fashion, and a dress
-whose antique material seemed oddly unsuited to its modern cut and
-loopings. Somehow the pitifulness of the scene struck Georgie afresh.
-
-"Shall I ever be like this?" she reflected.
-
-"Now tell me what has happened since the funeral," said her cousin. "I
-had neuralgia all last week and week before, or I should have got down
-oftener. Who has called? Have the Hanburys been to see you?"
-
-"Ellen came last week, but I was out," replied Georgie.
-
-"What a pity! And how did it happen that you were out? You ought not to
-have been seen in the street so soon, I think. It's not customary."
-
-"How could I help it?" responded Georgie, sadly. "I had all the move to
-arrange for. Mr. Custer wanted the house for Saturday. There was no one
-to go for me."
-
-"I suppose you couldn't; but it's a pity. It's never well to outrage
-conventionalities. Have Mrs. St. John and Mrs. Constant Carrington
-called?"
-
-"Mrs. Carrington hasn't, but she wrote me a little note. And dear Mrs.
-St. John came twice, and brought flowers, and was ever so kind. She
-always has been so very nice to me, you know."
-
-"Naturally! The St. Johns were nobodies till Mr. St. John made all that
-money in railroads. She is glad enough to be on good terms with the old
-families, of course."
-
-"I don't think it's that," said Georgie, rather wearily. "I think she's
-nice because she's naturally so kind-hearted, and she likes me."
-
-The tea-bell put an end to the discussion. Miss Sally's welcome was a
-good deal warmer than Cousin Vi's had been.
-
-"You poor dear child," she exclaimed, "you look quite tired out! Here,
-take this seat by the fire, Georgie, and I'll pour your tea out first of
-all. She needs it, don't she?" to Cousin Vi.
-
-"_Miss Talcott_ is rather tired, I dare say," said that lady, icily.
-Cousin Vi had lived for sixteen years in daily intercourse with Miss
-Sally, one of the sunniest and most friendly of women, and had never
-once relaxed into cordiality in all that time. Her code of manners
-included no approximation toward familiarity between a Talcott and a
-letter of lodgings.
-
-Georgie took a different view. "Thank you so much, dear Miss Sally," she
-said. "How good you are! I _am_ tired."
-
-"I wish you wouldn't call Miss Sally 'dear,'" her cousin remarked after
-they had gone upstairs. "That sort of thing is most disagreeable to me.
-You have to be on your guard continually in a house like this, or you
-get mixed up with all sorts of people."
-
-Georgie let it pass. She was too tired to argue.
-
-"Now, let us talk about your plans," Miss Talcott said next morning.
-"Have you made any yet?"
-
-"N--o; only that I must find some work to do at once."
-
-"Don't speak like that to any one but me," her cousin said sharply.
-"There _are_ lady-like occupations, of course, in which you
-can--can--mingle; but they need not be mentioned, or made known to
-people in general."
-
-"What _do_ you mean?"
-
-"I don't know, I'm sure. I've never had occasion to look into the
-matter, but I suppose a girl situated as you are could find
-something,--embroidery, for instance. You could do that for the
-Decorative Art. They give you a number, and nobody knows your real
-name."
-
-"I thought of embroidery," said Georgie; "but I never was very good at
-it, and so many are doing it nowadays. Besides, it seems to me that
-people are getting rather tired of all but the finer sort of work."
-
-"What became of that nephew of Mr. Constant Carrington whom you used to
-see so much of two or three years ago?" demanded Miss Vi, irrelevantly.
-
-"Bob Curtis? I don't quite know where he is. His father failed, don't
-you remember, and lost all his money, and Bob had to leave Harvard and
-go into some sort of business?"
-
-"Oh, did he? He's of no consequence, then. I don't know what made me
-think of him. Well, you could read to an invalid, perhaps, or go to
-Europe with some lady who wanted a companion."
-
-"Or be second-best wing-maker to an angel," put in Georgie, with a
-little glint of humor. "Cousin Vi, all that would be very pleasant, but
-I don't think it is likely to happen. I'm dreadfully afraid no one wants
-me to go to Europe; and I must have something to do at once, you know.
-I must earn my bread."
-
-"Don't use such a phrase. It sounds too coarse for anything."
-
-"I don't think so, Cousin Vi. I don't mind working a bit, if only I can
-hit on something that somebody wants, and that I can do well."
-
-"This is exactly what I have been afraid of," said Miss Vi,
-despairingly. "I've always had a fear that old Jacob Talcott would break
-out in you sooner or later. He has skipped two generations, but he was
-bound to show himself some day or other. He had exactly that common sort
-of way of looking at things and talking about them,--the only Talcott I
-ever knew of that did! Don't you recollect how he insisted on putting
-his son into business, and the boy ran away and went to the West Indies
-and married some sort of Creole,--all his father's fault?
-
-"Now, I'll tell you," she went on after a pause. "I've been thinking
-over this matter, and have made up my mind about it. You're not to do
-anything foolish, Georgie. If you do, you'll be sorry for it all your
-life, and I shall never forgive you besides. Such a good start as you
-have made in society, and all; it will be quite too much if you go and
-spoil your chances with those ridiculous notions of yours. Now, listen.
-If you'll give up all idea of supporting yourself, unless it is by doing
-embroidery or something like that, which no one need know about,
-I'll--I'll--well--I'll agree to pay your board here at Miss Sally's, and
-give you half this room for a year. As likely as not you'll be married
-by the end of that time, or if not, something else will have turned up!
-Any way, I'll do it for one year. When the year is over, we can talk
-about the next." And Miss Talcott folded her hands with the manner of
-one who has offered an ultimatum.
-
-If rather a grudging, this was a really generous offer, as Georgie well
-knew. To add the expense of her young cousin's board to her own would
-cost Miss Vi no end of self-denials, pinchings here and pinchings there,
-the daily frets and calculations that weigh so heavily. Miss Talcott's
-slender income at its best barely sufficed for the narrow lodgings, to
-fight off the shabbiness which would endanger her place in "society,"
-and to pay for an occasional cab and theatre ticket. Not to do, or at
-least to seem to be doing and enjoying, what other people did, was real
-suffering to Cousin Vi. Yet she was deliberately invoking it by her
-proposal.
-
-Had it been really made for her sake, had it been quite disinterested,
-Georgie would have been deeply touched and grateful; as it was, she was
-sufficiently so to thank her cousin warmly, but without committing
-herself to acceptance. She must think it over, she said.
-
-She did think it over till her mind fairly ached with the pressure of
-thought, as the body does after too much exercise. She walked past the
-Woman's Exchange and studied the articles in the windows. There were the
-same towels and tidies that had been there two months before, or what
-seemed the same. Georgie recollected similar articles worked by people
-whom she knew about, for which she had been asked to buy raffle tickets.
-"She can't get any one to buy it," had been said. Depending on such work
-for a support seemed a bare outlook. She walked away with a little shake
-of her head.
-
-"No," she thought; "embroidery wouldn't pay unless I had a 'gift'; and I
-don't seem to have a gift for anything unless it is housework. I always
-was good at that; but I suppose I can't exactly take a place as
-parlor-maid. Cousin Vi would certainly clap me into an asylum if I
-suggested such a thing. How nice it would be to have a real genius for
-something! Though now that I think of it, a good many geniuses have died
-in attics, of starvation, without being able to help themselves."
-
-When she reached home she took a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote
-as follows:--
-
-    _Things Wanted._
-
-     1. Something I can do.
-
-     2. Something that somebody wants me to do.
-
-     3. Something that all the other somebodies in search of work
-     are not trying to do.
-
-Round these problems her thoughts revolved, and though nothing came of
-them as yet, it seemed to clear her mind to have them set down in black
-and white.
-
-Meantime the two days' _tête-à-tête_ with Cousin Vi produced one
-distinct result, which was, that let come what come might, Georgie
-resolved that nothing should induce her to stay on at Miss Sally's as
-proposed, and be idle. Her healthy and vigorous youth recoiled from the
-idea.
-
-"It is really good of her to ask me," she thought, "though she only does
-it for the honor of the family and the dead-and-gone Talcotts. But what
-a life it would be, and for a whole year too! Cousin Vi has stood it for
-sixteen, to be sure, poor thing! but how could she? Mother used to say
-that she was called a bright girl when she first grew up. Surely she
-might have made something of herself if she had tried, and if Aunt
-Talcott hadn't considered work one of the seven deadly sins for a lady!
-She was handsome, too. Even I can recollect her as very good looking.
-And here she is, all alone, and getting shabbier and poorer all the
-time. I know she sometimes has not money enough to pay her board, and
-has to ask Miss Sally to wait, snubbing her and despising her all the
-time, and holding on desperately to her little figment of gentility.
-People laugh at her and make fun of her behind her back. They invite her
-now and then, but they don't really care for her. What is such a society
-worth? I'll take in washing before I'll come to be like Cousin Vi!"
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-How little we guess, as we grope in the mists of our own uncertainties,
-just where the light is going to break through! Georgie Talcott,
-starting for a walk with her cousin on the third day of her stay at
-Miss Sally's, saw the St. John carriage pass them and then pull up
-suddenly at the curb-stone; but she had no idea that so simple a
-circumstance could affect her fate in any manner. It did, though.
-
-Mrs. St. John was leaning out of the window before they got to the place
-where the carriage stood, and two prettily gloved hands were stretched
-eagerly forth.
-
-"Georgie! oh Georgie, how glad I am to see you out, dear! I made Henry
-stop, because I want you to get in for a little drive and then come home
-with me to lunch. Mr. St. John is in New York. I am quite alone, and
-I'll give orders that no one shall be admitted, if you will. Don't you
-think she might, Miss Talcott? It isn't like going anywhere else, you
-know,--just coming to me quietly like that."
-
-"I don't see that there would be any impropriety in it," said Miss
-Talcott, doubtfully; "though--with you, however, it _is_ different. But
-please don't mention it to any one, Mrs. St. John. It might be
-misunderstood and lead to invitations which Georgie could not possibly
-accept. Good-morning."
-
-With a stately bend Cousin Vi sailed down the street. Mrs. St. John, I
-am sorry to say, made a face after her as she went.
-
-"Absurd old idiot!" she muttered. "Such airs!" Then she drew Georgie in,
-and as soon as the carriage was in motion pulled her veil aside and gave
-her a warm kiss.
-
-"I am so glad to get hold of you again!" she said.
-
-Mrs. St. John, rich, childless, warm-hearted, and not over-wise, had
-adopted Georgie as a special pet on her first appearance in society two
-years before. It is always pleasant for a girl to be made much of by an
-older woman; and when that woman has a carriage and a nice house, and
-can do all sorts of things for the girl's entertainment, it is none the
-less agreeable. Georgie was really fond of her friend. People who are
-not over-wise are often loved as much as wiser ones; it is one of the
-laws of compensation.
-
-"Now tell me all about yourself, and what you have been doing this past
-week," said Mrs. St. John, as they drove down to the beach, where the
-surf-rollers had swept the sands clean of snow and left a dry, smooth
-roadway for the horses' feet. The sea wore its winter color that day,--a
-deep purple-blue, broken by flashing foam-caps; the wind was blowing
-freshly; a great sense of refreshment came to Georgie, who had been
-wearying for a change.
-
-"It has been rather sad and hard," she said. "I have had the house to
-clear out and close, and all manner of things to do, and I was pretty
-tired when I finished. But I am getting rested now, and by and by I want
-to talk over my affairs with you."
-
-"Plans?" asked Mrs. St. John.
-
-"Not exactly. I have no plans as yet; but I must have some soon. Now
-tell me what _you_ have been doing."
-
-Mrs. St. John was never averse to talking about herself. She always had
-a mass of experiences and adventures to relate, which though
-insignificant enough when you came to analyze them, were so deeply
-interesting to herself that somehow her auditors got interested in them
-also. Georgie, used to her ways, listened and sympathized without
-effort, keeping her eyes fixed meanwhile on the shining, shifting
-horizon of the sea, and the lovely arch of clear morning sky. How wide
-and free and satisfactory it was; how different from the cramped outlook
-into which she had perforce been gazing for days back!
-
-"If life could all be like that!" she thought.
-
-The St. John house seemed a model of winter comfort, bright,
-flower-scented, and deliciously warm, as they entered it after their
-drive. Mrs. St. John rang for her maid to take off their wraps, and led
-Georgie through the drawing-room and the library to a smaller room
-beyond, which was her favorite sitting-place of a morning.
-
-"We will have luncheon here close to the fire," she said, "and be as
-cosey as possible."
-
-It was a pretty room, not over-large, fitted up by a professional
-decorator in a good scheme of color, and crowded with ornaments of all
-sorts, after the modern fashion. It was many weeks since Georgie had
-seen it, and its profusion and costliness of detail struck her as it
-never had done before. Perhaps she was in the mood to observe closely.
-
-They were still sipping their hot _bouillon_ in great comfort, when a
-sudden crash was heard in the distance.
-
-"There!" said Mrs. St. John, resignedly; "that's the second since
-Monday! What is it _now_, Pierre?"
-
-She pushed back her chair and went hurriedly into the farther room.
-Presently she came back laughing, but looking flushed and annoyed.
-
-"It's really too vexatious," she said. "There seems no use at all in
-buying pretty things, the servants do break them so."
-
-"What was it this time?" asked Georgie.
-
-"It was my favorite bit of Sèvres. Don't you recollect it,--two lovely
-little shepherdesses in blue Watteaus, holding a flower-basket between
-them? Pierre says his feather duster caught in the open-work edge of the
-basket."
-
-"Why do you let him use feather dusters? The feathers are so apt to
-catch."
-
-"My dear, what can I do? Each fresh servant has his or her theory as to
-how things should be cleaned. Whatever the theory is, the china goes all
-the same; and I can't tell them any better. I don't know a thing about
-dusting."
-
-That moment, as if some quick-witted fairy had waved her wand, an idea
-darted like a flash into Georgie's head.
-
-She took five minutes to consider it, while Mrs. St. John went on:--
-
-"People talk of the hardship of not being able to have things; but I
-think it's just as hard to have them and not be allowed to keep them. I
-don't dare to let myself care for a piece of china nowadays, for if I do
-it's the first thing to go. Pierre's a treasure in other respects, but
-he smashes most dreadfully; and the second man is quite as bad; and
-Marie, upstairs, is worse than either. Mr. St. John says I ought to be
-'mistress of myself, though china fall;' but I really can't."
-
-Georgie, who had listened to this without listening, had now made up her
-mind.
-
-"Would you like me to dust your things?" she said quietly.
-
-"My dear, they _are_ dusted. Pierre has got through for this time. He
-won't break anything more till to-morrow."
-
-"Oh, I don't mean only to-day; I mean every day. Yes, I'm in earnest,"
-she went on in answer to her friend's astonished look. "I was meaning to
-talk to you about something of this sort presently, and now this has
-come into my head. You see," smiling bravely, "I find that I have got
-almost nothing to live upon. There is not even enough to pay my board at
-such a place as Miss Sally's. I must do something to earn money; and
-dusting is one of the few things that I can do particularly well."
-
-"But, my dear, I never heard of such a thing," gasped poor Mrs. St.
-John. "Surely your friends and connections will arrange something for
-you."
-
-"They can't; they are all dead," replied Georgie, sadly. "Our family has
-run out. I've one cousin in China whom I never saw, and one great-aunt
-down in Tennessee who is almost as poor as I am, and that's all except
-Cousin Vi."
-
-"She's no good, of course; but she's sure to object to your doing
-anything all the same."
-
-"Oh yes, of course she objects," said Georgie, impatiently. "She would
-like to tie my hands and make me sit quite still for a year and see if
-something won't happen; but I can't and won't do it; and, besides, what
-is there to happen? Nothing. She was kind about it, too--" relenting;
-"she offered to pay my board and share her room with me if I consented;
-but I would so much rather get to work at once and be independent. Do
-let me do your dusting," coaxingly; "I'll come every morning and put
-these four rooms in nice order; and you need never let Pierre or Marie
-or any one touch the china again, unless you like. I can almost promise
-that I won't break anything!"
-
-"My dear, it would be beautiful for me, but perfectly horrid for you! I
-quite agree with your cousin for once. It will never do in the world for
-you to attempt such a thing. People would drop you at once; you would
-lose your position and all your chance, if it was known that you were
-doing that kind of work."
-
-"But don't you see," cried Georgie, kneeling down on the hearth-rug to
-bring her face nearer to her friend's,--"don't you see that I've _got_
-to be dropped any way? Not because I have done anything, not because
-people are unkind, but just from the necessity of things. I have no
-money to buy dresses to go out and enjoy myself with. I have no money to
-stay at home on, in fact,--I _must_ do something. And to live like
-Cousin Vi on the edge of things, just tolerated by people, and mortified
-and snubbed, and then have a little crumb of pleasure tossed to me, as
-one throws the last scrap of cake that one doesn't want to a cat or a
-dog,--_that_ is what I could not possibly bear.
-
-"I like fun and pretty things and luxury as well as other people," she
-continued, after a little pause. "It isn't that I shouldn't _prefer_
-something different. But everybody can't be well off and have things
-their own way; and since I am one of the rank and file, it seems to me
-much wiser to give up the things I _can't_ have, out and out, and not
-try to be two persons at once, a young lady and a working-girl, but put
-my whole heart into the thing I must be, and do it just as well as I
-can. Don't you see that I am right?"
-
-"You poor dear darling!" said Mrs. St. John, with tears in her eyes.
-Then her face cleared.
-
-"Very well," she said briskly, "you _shall_. It will be the greatest
-comfort in the world to have you take charge of the ornaments. _Now_ I
-can buy as many cups and saucers as I like, and with an easy mind. You
-must stay and lunch, always, Georgie. I'll give you a regular salary,
-and when the weather's bad I shall keep you to dinner too, and to spend
-the night. That's settled; and now let us decide what I shall give you.
-Would fifty dollars a month be enough?"
-
-"My dear Mrs. St. John! Fifty! Two dollars a week was what I was
-thinking of."
-
-"Two dollars! oh, you foolish child! You never could live on that! You
-don't know anything at all about expenses, Georgie."
-
-"But I don't mean only to do _your_ dusting. If you are satisfied, I
-depend on your recommending me to your friends. I could take care of
-four sets of rooms just as well as of one. There are so many people in
-Sandyport who have beautiful houses and collections of bric-à-brac, that
-I think there might be as many as that who would care to have me if I
-didn't cost too much. Four places at two dollars each would make eight
-dollars a week. I could live on that nicely."
-
-"I wish you'd count me in as four," said Mrs. St. John. "I should see
-four times as much of you, and it would make me four hundred times
-happier."
-
-But Georgie was firm, and before they parted it was arranged that she
-should begin her new task the next morning, and that her friend should
-do what she could to find her similar work elsewhere.
-
-Her plan once made, Georgie suffered no grass to grow under her feet.
-On the way home she bought some cheese-cloth and a stiff little brush
-with a pointed end for carvings, and before the next day had provided
-herself with a quantity of large soft dusters and two little phials of
-alcohol and oil, and had hunted up a small pair of bellows, which
-experience had shown her were invaluable for blowing the dust out of
-delicate objects. Her first essay was a perfect success. Mrs. St. John,
-quite at a loss how to face the changed situation, gave her a
-half-troubled welcome; but Georgie's business-like methods reassured
-her. She followed her about and watched her handle each fragile treasure
-with skilful, delicate fingers till all was in perfect fresh order, and
-gave a great sigh of admiration and relief when the work was done.
-
-"Now come and sit down," she said. "How tired you must be!"
-
-"Not a bit," declared Georgie; "I like to dust, strange to say, and I'm
-not tired at all; I only wish I had another job just like it to do at
-once. I see it's what I was made for."
-
-By the end of the week Georgie had another regular engagement, and it
-became necessary to break the news of her new occupation to Cousin Vi.
-I regret to say that the disclosure caused an "unpleasantness," between
-them.
-
-"I would not have believed such a thing possible even with you,"
-declared that lady with angry tears. "The very idea marks you out as a
-person of low mind. It's enough to make your Grandmother Talcott rise
-from her grave! In the name of common decency, couldn't you hunt up
-something to do, if do you must, except this?"
-
-"Nothing that I could do so well and so easily, Cousin Vi."
-
-"Don't call me Cousin Vi, I beg! There was no need of doing anything
-whatever. I asked you to stay here,--you cannot deny that I did."
-
-"I don't wish to deny it," said Georgie, gently. "It was ever so kind of
-you, too. Don't be so vexed with me, Cousin Vi. We look at things
-differently, and I don't suppose either of us can help it; but don't let
-us quarrel. You're almost the only relative that I have in the world."
-
-"Quarrel!" cried Miss Talcott with a shrill laugh,--"quarrel with a girl
-that goes out dusting! That isn't in my line, I am happy to say. As for
-being relatives, we are so no longer, and I shall say so to everybody.
-Great Heavens! what will people think?"
-
-After this outburst it was evident to Georgie that it was better that
-she should leave Miss Sally's as soon as possible. But where to go? She
-consulted Miss Sally. That astute person comprehended the situation in
-the twinkling of an eye, and was ready with a happy suggestion.
-
-"There's my brother John's widder in the lower street," she said. "She's
-tolerably well off, and hasn't ever taken boarders; but she's a sort of
-lonesome person, and I shouldn't wonder if I could fix it so she'd feel
-like taking you, and reasonable too. It's mighty handy about that
-furniture of yours, for her upstairs rooms ain't got nothing in them to
-speak of, and of course she wouldn't want to buy. I'll step down after
-dinner and see about it."
-
-Miss Sally was a power in her family circle, and she knew it. Before
-night she had talked Mrs. John Scannell into the belief that to take
-Georgie to board at five dollars a week was the thing of all others that
-she most wanted to do; and before the end of two days all was arranged,
-and Georgie inducted into her new quarters. It was a little low-pitched,
-old-fashioned house, but it had some pleasant features, and was very
-neat. A big corner room with a window to the south and another to the
-sunset was assigned to Georgie for her bedroom. The old furniture that
-she had been used to all her life made it look homelike, and the
-hair-cloth sofa and the secretary and square mahogany table were welcome
-additions to the rather scantily furnished sitting-room below, which she
-shared at will with her hostess. Mrs. Scannell was a gentle, kindly
-woman, the soul of cleanliness and propriety, but subject to low
-spirits; and contact with Georgie's bright, hopeful youth was as
-delightful to her as it was beneficial. She soon became very fond of "my
-young lady," as she called her, and Georgie could not have been better
-placed as to kindness and comfortableness.
-
-A better place than Sandyport for just such an experiment as she was
-making could scarcely have been found. Many city people made it their
-home for the summer; but at all times of the year there was a
-considerable resident population of wealthy people. Luxurious homes were
-rather the rule than the exception, and there was quite a little
-rivalry as to elegance of appointment among them. Mrs. St. John's
-enthusiasm and Mrs. St. John's recommendation bore fruit, and it was not
-long before Georgie had secured her coveted "four places."
-
-Two of her employers were comparative strangers; with the fourth, Mrs.
-Constant Carrington, she had been on terms of some intimacy in the old
-days, but was not much so now. It _is_ rather difficult to keep up
-friendship with your "dusting girl," as her Cousin Vi would have said;
-Mrs. Carrington called her "Georgie" still, when they met, and was
-perfectly civil in her manners, but always there was the business
-relation to stand between them, and Georgie felt it. Mrs. St. John still
-tried to retain the pretty pretext that Georgie's labors were a sort of
-joke, a playing with independence; but there was nothing of this pretext
-with the other three. To them, Georgie was simply a useful adjunct to
-their luxurious lives, as little to be regarded as the florist who
-filled their flower-boxes or the man who tuned their pianos.
-
-These little rubs to self-complacency were not very hard to bear. It was
-not exactly pleasant, certainly, to pass in at the side entrance where
-she had once been welcomed at the front door; to feel that her comings
-and her goings were so insignificant as to be scarcely noticed; now and
-then, perhaps, to be treated with scant courtesy by an ill-mannered
-servant. This rarely chanced, however. Georgie had a little natural
-dignity which impressed servants as well as other people, and from her
-employers she received nothing but the most civil treatment. Fashion is
-not unkindly, and it was still remembered that Miss Talcott was born a
-lady, though she worked for a living. There were stormy days and dull
-days, days when Georgie felt tired and discouraged; or, harder still to
-bear, bright days and gala days, when she saw other girls of her age
-setting forth to enjoy themselves in ways now closed to her. I will not
-deny that she suffered at such moments, and wished with all her heart
-that things could be different. But on the whole she bore herself
-bravely and well, and found some happiness in her work, together with a
-great deal of contentment.
-
-Mrs. St. John added to her difficulties by continual efforts to tempt
-her to do this and that pleasant thing which Georgie felt to be
-inexpedient. She wanted her favorite to play at young ladyhood in her
-odd minutes, and defy the little frosts and chills which Georgie
-instinctively knew would be her portion if she should attempt to enter
-society again on the old terms. If Georgie urged that she had no proper
-dress, the answer was prompt,--"My dear, I am going to give you a
-dress;" or, "My dear, you can wear my blue, we are just the same
-height." But Georgie stood firm, warded off the shower of gifts which
-was ready to descend upon her, and loving her friend the more that she
-was so foolishly kind, would not let herself be persuaded into doing
-what she knew was unwise.
-
-"I can't be two people at once," she persisted. "There's not enough of
-me for that. You remember what I said that first day, and I mean to
-stick to it. You are a perfect darling, and just as kind as you can be;
-but you must just let me go my own way, dear Mrs. St. John, and be
-satisfied to know that it is the comfort of my life to have you love me
-so much, though I won't go to balls with you."
-
-But though Georgie would not go to balls or dinner-parties, there were
-smaller gayeties and pleasures which she did not refuse,--drives and
-sails now and then, tickets to concerts and lectures, or a long quiet
-Sunday with a "spend the night" to follow. These little breaks in her
-busy life were wholesome and refreshing, and she saw no reason for
-denying them to herself. There was nothing morbid in my little Knight of
-Labor, which was one reason why she labored so successfully.
-
-So the summer came and went, and Georgie with it, keeping steadily on at
-her daily task. All that she found to do she did as thoroughly and as
-carefully as she knew how. She was of real use, and she knew it. Her
-work had a value. It was not imaginary work, invented as a pretext for
-giving her help, and the fact supported her self-respect.
-
-We are told in one of our Lord's most subtly beautiful parables, that to
-them who make perfect use of their one talent, other talents shall be
-added also. Many faithful workers have proved the meaning and the truth
-of the parable, and Georgie Talcott found it now among the rest. With
-the coming in of the autumn another sphere of activity was suddenly
-opened to her. It sprang, as good things often do, from a seeming
-disappointment.
-
-She was drawing on her gloves one morning at the close of her labors,
-when a message was brought by the discreet English butler.
-
-"Mrs. Parish says, Miss, will you be so good as to step up to her
-morning-room before you go."
-
-"Certainly, Frederick." And Georgie turned and ran lightly upstairs.
-Mrs. Parish was sitting at her writing-table with rather a preoccupied
-face.
-
-"I sent for you, Miss Talcott, because I wanted to mention that we are
-going abroad for the winter," she began. "Maud isn't well, the doctors
-recommend the Riviera, so we have decided rather suddenly on our plans,
-and are to sail on the 'Scythia' the first of November. We shall be gone
-a year."
-
-"Dear me," thought Georgie, "there's another of my places lost! It is
-quite dreadful!" She was conscious of a sharp pang of inward
-disappointment.
-
-"My cousin, Mrs. Ernest Stockton, is to take the place," continued Mrs.
-Parish. "Her husband has been in the legation at Paris, you know, for
-the last six years, but now they are coming back for good; and when I
-telegraphed her of our decision, she at once cabled to secure this
-house. They will land the week after we sail, and I suppose will want
-to come up at once. Now, of course all sorts of things have got to be
-done to make ready for them; but it's out of the question that I should
-do them, for what with packing and the children's dressmaking and
-appointments at the dentist's and all that, my hands are so full that I
-could not possibly undertake anything else. So I was thinking of you.
-You have so much head and system, you know, and I could trust you as I
-could not any stranger, and you know the house so well; and you could
-get plenty of people to help, so that it need not be burdensome. There
-will be some things to be packed away, and the whole place to be
-cleaned, floors waxed and curtains washed, the Duchesse dressing-tables
-taken to pieces and done up and fluted,--all that sort of thing, you
-know. Oh! and there would be an inventory to make, too; I forgot that.
-Then next year I should want it gone over again in the same way,--the
-articles that are packed taken out and put into place, and so on, that
-it may look natural when we come home. My idea would be to move the
-family down to New York on the 15th, so as to give you a clear
-fortnight, and just come up for one day before we sail, for a final
-look. Of course I should leave the keys in your charge, and I should
-want you to take the whole responsibility. Now, will you do it, and just
-tell me what you will ask for it all?"
-
-"May I think it over for one night?" said prudent Georgie. "I will come
-to-morrow morning with my answer."
-
-She thought it over carefully, and seemed to see that here was a new
-vista of remunerative labor opened to her, of a more permanent character
-than mere dusting. So she signified to Mrs. Parish that she would
-undertake the job, and having done so, bent her mind to doing it in the
-best possible manner. She made careful lists, and personally
-superintended each detail. Miss Sally recommended trustworthy
-workpeople, and everything was carried out to the full satisfaction of
-Mrs. Parish, who could not say enough in praise of Georgie and her
-methods.
-
-"It robs going to Europe of half its terrors to have such a person to
-turn to," she told her friends. "That little Miss Talcott is really
-wonderful,--so clear-headed and exact. It's really extraordinary where
-she learned it all, such a girl as she is. If any of you are going
-abroad, you'll find her the greatest comfort possible."
-
-These commendations bore fruit. People in Sandyport were always setting
-forth for this part of the world or that, and leaving houses behind
-them. A second job of the same sort was soon urged upon Georgie,
-followed by a third and a fourth. It was profitable work, for she had
-fifty dollars in each case (a hundred for her double job at the Algernon
-Parishes'); so her year's expenses were assured, and she was not sorry
-when another of her "dusting" families went to Florida for the winter.
-
-It became the fashion in Sandyport to employ "little Miss Talcott." Her
-capabilities once discovered, people were quick in finding out ways in
-which to utilize them. Mrs. Robert Brown had the sudden happy thought of
-getting Georgie to arrange the flowers for a ball which she was giving.
-Georgie loved flowers, and had that knack of making them look charming
-in vases which is the gift of a favored few. The ball decorations were
-admired and commented upon; people said it was "so clever of Mrs.
-Brown," and "so much better than stiff things from a florist's," and
-presently half a dozen other ladies wanted the same thing done for
-them. Fashion and sheep always follow any leader who is venturesome
-enough to try a new fence.
-
-Later, Mrs. Horace Brown, with her cards out for a great lawn-party, had
-the misfortune to sprain her ankle. In this emergency she bethought
-herself of Georgie, who thereupon proved so "invaluable" as a _dea ex
-machina_ behind the scenes, that thenceforward Mrs. Brown never felt
-that she could give any sort of entertainment without her help.
-Engagements thickened, and Georgie's hands became so full that she
-laughingly threatened to "take a partner."
-
-"That's just what I always wanted you to do," said Mrs. St. John,--"a
-real nice one, with heaps of money, who would take you about everywhere,
-and give you a good time."
-
-"Oh, that's not at all the sort I want," protested Georgie, laughing and
-blushing. "I mean a real business partner, a fellow-sweeperess and
-house-arranger and ball-supper-manageress!"
-
-"Wretched girl, how horribly practical you are! I wish I could see you
-discontented and sentimental just for once!"
-
-"Heaven forbid! That _would_ be a pretty state of things! Now good-by. I
-have about half a ton of roses to arrange for Mrs. Lauriston."
-
-"Oh,--for her dance! Georgie," coaxingly, "why not go for once with me?
-Come, just this once. There's that white dress of mine from _Pingat_,
-with the _Point de Venie_ sleeves, that would exactly fit you."
-
-"Nonsense!" replied Georgie, briefly. She kissed her friend and hurried
-away.
-
-"I declare," soliloquized Mrs. St. John, looking after her, "I could
-find it in my heart to _advertise_ for some one to come and rescue
-Georgie Talcott from all this hard work! What nice old times those were
-when you had only to get up a tournament and blow a trumpet or two, and
-have true knights flock in from all points of the compass in aid of
-distressed damsels! I wish such things were in fashion now; I would buy
-a trumpet this very day, I vow, and have a tournament next week."
-
-Georgie's true knight, as it happened, was to come from a quarter little
-suspected by Mrs. St. John. For the spare afternoons of this second
-winter Georgie had reserved rather a large piece of work, which had
-the advantage that it could be taken up at will and laid down when
-convenient. This was the cataloguing of a valuable library belonging to
-Mr. Constant Carrington. That gentleman had observed Georgie rather
-closely as she went about her various avocations, and had formed so high
-an opinion of what he was pleased to term her "executive ability," that
-he made a high bid for her services in preference to those of any one
-else.
-
-[Illustration: Recognizing an old friend, she jumped up, exclaiming,
-"Why Bob--Mr. Curtis--how do you do?"--_Page 49._]
-
-She was sitting in this library one rainy day in January, beside a big
-packing-case, with a long row of books on the table, which she was
-dusting, classifying, and noting on the list in her lap, when the door
-opened and a tall young man came in. Georgie glanced at him vaguely, as
-at a stranger; then recognizing an old friend, she jumped up,
-exclaiming, "Why Bob--Mr. Curtis,--how do you do? I had no idea that you
-were here."
-
-Bob Curtis looked bewildered. He had reached Sandyport only that
-morning. No one had chanced to mention Georgie or the change in her
-fortunes, and for a moment he failed to recognize in the white-aproned,
-dusty-fingered vision before him the girl whom he had known so well five
-years previously.
-
-"It is?--why it _is_," he exclaimed. "Miss Georgie, how delighted I am
-to see you! I was coming down to call as soon as I could find out where
-you were. My aunt said nothing about your being in the house."
-
-"Very likely she did not know. I am in and out so often here that I do
-not always see Mrs. Carrington."
-
-"Indeed!" Bob looked more puzzled than ever. He had not remembered that
-there was any such close intimacy in the old days between the two
-families.
-
-"I can't shake hands, I am too dusty," went on Georgie. "But I am very
-glad indeed to see you again."
-
-She too was taking mental notes, and observing that her former friend
-had lost somewhat of the gloss and brilliance of his boyish days; that
-his coat was not of the last cut; and that his expression was
-spiritless, not to say discontented. "Poor fellow!" she thought.
-
-"What on earth does it all mean?" meditated Bob on his part.
-
-"These books only came yesterday," said Georgie, indicating the big box
-with a wave of the hand.
-
-"I have had to dust them all; and I find that Italian dust sticks just
-as the American variety does, and makes the fingers just as black." A
-little laugh.
-
-"What _are_ you doing, if I may be so bold as to ask?"
-
-"Cataloguing your uncle's library. He has been buying quantities of
-books for the last two years, as perhaps you know. He has a man in
-Germany and another in Paris and another in London, who purchase for
-him, and the boxes are coming over almost every week now. A great case
-full of the English ones arrived last Saturday,--such beauties! Look at
-that Ruskin behind you. It is the first edition, with all the plates,
-worth its weight in gold."
-
-"It's awfully good of you to take so much trouble, I'm sure," remarked
-Mr. Curtis politely, still with the same mystified look.
-
-"Not at all," replied Georgie, coolly. "It's all in my line of business,
-you know. Mr. Carrington is to give me a hundred dollars for the job;
-which is excellent pay, because I can take my own time for doing it, and
-work at odd moments."
-
-Her interlocutor looked more perplexed than ever. A distinct
-embarrassment became visible in his manner at the words "job" and "pay."
-
-"Certainly," he said. Then coloring a little he frankly went on, "I
-don't understand a bit. Would you mind telling me what it all means?"
-
-"Oh, you haven't happened to hear of my 'befalments,' as Miss Sally
-Scannell would call them."
-
-"I did hear of your mother's death," said Bob, gently, "and I was truly
-sorry. She was so kind to me always in the old days."
-
-"She was kind to everybody. I am glad you were sorry," said Georgie,
-bright tears in the eyes which she turned with a grateful look on Bob.
-"Well, that was the beginning of it all."
-
-There was another pause, during which Bob pulled his moustache
-nervously! Then he drew a chair to the table and sat down.
-
-"Can you talk while you're working?" he asked. "And mayn't I help? It
-seems as though I might at least lift those books out for you. Now, if
-you don't mind, if it isn't painful, won't you tell me what has happened
-to you, for I see that something _has_ happened."
-
-"A great deal has happened, but it isn't painful to tell about it.
-Things _were_ puzzling at first, but they have turned out wonderfully;
-and I'm rather proud of the way they have gone."
-
-So, little by little, with occasional interruptions for lifting out
-books and jotting down titles, she told her story, won from point to
-point by the eager interest which her companion showed in the narrative.
-When she had finished, he brought his hand down heavily on the table.
-
-"I'll tell you what," he exclaimed with vigorous emphasis, "it's most
-extraordinary that a girl should do as you have done. You're an absolute
-little _brick_,--if you'll excuse the phrase. But it makes a fellow--it
-makes _me_ more ashamed of myself than I've often been in my life
-before."
-
-"But why,--why should you be ashamed?"
-
-"Oh, I've been having hard times too," explained Bob, gloomily. "But I
-haven't been so plucky as you. I've minded them more."
-
-Georgie knew vaguely something of these "hard times." In the "old days,"
-five years before, when she was seventeen and he a Harvard Junior of
-twenty, spending a long vacation with his uncle, and when they had
-rowed and danced and played tennis together so constantly as to set
-people to wondering if anything "serious" was likely to arise from the
-intimacy, the world with all its opportunities and pleasures seemed open
-to the heir of the Curtis family. Bob's father was rich, the family
-influential, there seemed nothing that he might not command at will.
-
-Then all was changed suddenly; a great financial panic swept away the
-family fortunes in a few weeks. Mr. Curtis died insolvent, and Robert
-was called on to give up many half-formed wishes and ambitions, and face
-the stern realities. What little could be saved from the wreck made a
-scanty subsistence for his mother and sisters; he must support himself.
-For more than two years he had been filling a subordinate position in a
-large manufacturing business. His friends considered him in luck to
-secure such a place; and he was fain to agree with them, but the
-acknowledgment did not make him exactly happy in it, notwithstanding.
-
-Discipline can hardly be agreeable. Bob Curtis had been a little spoiled
-by prosperity; and though he did his work fairly well, there was always
-a bitterness at heart, and a certain tinge of false shame at having it
-to do at all. He worked because he must, he told himself, not because he
-liked or ever should like it. All the family traditions were opposed to
-work. Then he had the natural confidence of a very young man in his own
-powers, and it was not pleasant to be made to feel at every turn that he
-was raw, inexperienced, not particularly valuable to anybody, and that
-no one especially looked up to or admired him. He scorned himself for
-minding such things; but all the same he did mind them, and the frank,
-kindly young fellow was in danger of becoming soured and cynical in his
-lonely and uncongenial surroundings.
-
-It was just at this point that good fortune brought him into contact
-with Georgie Talcott, and it was like the lifting of a veil from before
-his eyes. He recollected her such a pretty, care-free creature, petted
-and adored by her mother, every day filled with pleasant things, not a
-worry or cloud allowed to shadow the bright succession of her
-amusements; and here she sat telling him of a fight with necessity
-compared with which his seemed like child's play, and out of which she
-had come victorious. He was struck, too, with the total absence of
-embarrassment and false shame in the telling. Work, in Georgie's mind,
-was evidently a thing to be proud of and thankful over, not something to
-be practised shyly, and alluded to with bated breath. The contrast
-between his and her way of looking at the thing struck him sharply.
-
-It did not take long for Georgie to arrive at the facts in Bob's case.
-Confidence begets confidence; and in another day or two, won by her
-bright sympathy, he gradually made a clean breast of his troubles.
-Somehow they did not seem so great after they were told. Georgie's
-sympathy was not of a weakening sort, and her questions and comments
-seemed to clear things to his mind, and set them in right relations to
-each other.
-
-"I don't think that I pity you much," she told him one day. "Your mother
-and the girls, yes, because they are women and not used to it, and it
-always _is_ harder for girls--"
-
-"See here, you're a girl yourself," put in Bob.
-
-"No--I'm a business person. Don't interrupt. What I was going to say
-was, that I think it's _lovely_ for a young man to have to work! We are
-all lazy by nature; we need to be shaken up and compelled to do our
-best. You will be ten times as much of a person in the end as if you had
-always had your own way."
-
-"Do you really think that? But what's the use of talking? I may stick
-where I am for years, and never do more than just make a living."
-
-"I wouldn't!" said Georgie, throwing back her pretty head with an air of
-decision. "I should scorn to 'stick' if I were a man! And I don't
-believe you will either. If you once go into it heartily and put your
-will into it, you're sure to succeed. I always considered you clever,
-you know. You'll go up--up--as sure as, as sure as _dust_,--that's the
-thing of all the world that's most certain to rise, I think."
-
-"'Overmastered with a clod of valiant marl,'" muttered Robert below his
-breath; then aloud, "Well, if that's the view you take of it, I'll do my
-best to prove you right. It's worth a good deal to know that there is
-somebody who expects something of me."
-
-"I expect everything of you," said Georgie confidently. And Bob went
-back to his post at the end of the fortnight infinitely cheered and
-heartened.
-
-"Bless her brave little heart!" he said to himself. "I won't disappoint
-her if I can help it; or, if I must, I'll know the reason why."
-
-It is curious, and perhaps a little humiliating, to realize how much our
-lives are affected by what may be called accident. A touch here or
-there, a little pull up or down to set us going, often determines the
-direction in which we go, and direction means all. Robert Curtis in
-after times always dated the beginning of his fortunes from the day when
-he walked into his uncle's library and found Georgie Talcott cataloguing
-books.
-
-"It set me to making a man of myself," he used to say.
-
-Georgie did not see him for more than a year after his departure, but he
-wrote twice to say that he had taken her advice and it had "worked," and
-he had "got a rise." The truth was that the boy had an undeveloped
-capacity for affairs, inherited from the able old grandfather, who laid
-the foundations of the fortune which Bob's father muddled away. When
-once will and energy were roused and brought into play, this hereditary
-bent asserted itself. Bob became valuable to his employers, and like
-Georgie's "dust," began to go up in the business scale.
-
-Georgie had just successfully re-established the Algernon Parishes, who
-arrived five months later than was expected, in their home, when Bob
-came up for a second visit to his uncle. This time he had three weeks'
-leave, and it was just before he went back that he proposed the
-formation of what he was pleased to call "A Labor Union."
-
-"You see I'm a working man now just as you are a working woman," he
-explained. "It's our plain duty to co-operate. You shall be Grand
-Master--or rather Mistress--and I'll be some sort of a subordinate,--a
-Walking Delegate, perhaps."
-
-"Indeed, you shall be nothing of the sort. Walking Delegates are
-particularly idle people, I've always heard. They just go about ordering
-other folks to stop work and do nothing."
-
-"Then I won't be one. I'll be Grand Master's Mate."
-
-"There's no such office in Labor Unions. If we have one at all, you must
-have the first place in it."
-
-"What is that position? Please describe it in full. Whatever happens, I
-won't strike."
-
-"Oh," said Georgie, with the prettiest blush in the world, "the position
-is too intricate for explanation; we won't describe it."
-
-"But will you join the Union?"
-
-"I thought we had joined already,--both of us."
-
-"Now, Georgie, dearest, I'm in earnest. Thanks to you, I know what work
-means and how good it is. And now I want my reward, which is to work
-beside you always as long as I live. Don't turn away your head, but tell
-me that I may."
-
-I cannot tell you exactly what was Georgie's answer, for this
-conversation took place on the beach, and just then they sat down on the
-edge of a boat and began to talk in such low tones that no one could
-overhear; but as they sat a long time and she went home leaning
-contentedly on Bob's arm, I presume she answered as he wished. He went
-back to his work soon afterward, and has made his way up very fast
-since. Next spring the firm with which he is connected propose to send
-him to Chicago to start a new branch of their business there. He is to
-have a good salary and a share of the profits, and it is understood that
-Georgie will go with him. She has kept on steadily at her various
-avocations, has made herself so increasingly useful that all Sandyport
-wonders what it shall do without her when she goes away, and has laid up
-what Miss Sally calls "a tidy bit of money" toward the furnishing of the
-home which she and Bob hope to have before long. Mrs. St. John has many
-plans in mind for the wedding; and though Georgie laughingly protests
-that she means to be married in a white apron, with a wreath of "dusty
-miller" round her head, I dare say she will give in when the time comes,
-and consent to let her little occasion be made pretty. Even a girl who
-works likes to have her marriage day a bright one.
-
-Cousin Vi, for her part, is dimly reaching out toward a reconciliation.
-For, be it known, work which brings success, and is proved to have a
-solid money value of its own, loses in the estimation of the fastidious
-its degrading qualities, and is spoken of by the more euphonious title
-of "good fortune." It is only work which doesn't succeed, which remains
-forever disrespectable. I think I may venture to predict that the time
-will come when Cousin Vi will condone all Georgie's wrong-doings, and
-extend, not the olive-branch only, but both hands, to "the Curtises,"
-that is if they turn out as prosperous as their friends predict and
-expect them to be.
-
-But whatever Fate may have in store for my dear little Georgie and her
-chosen co-worker, of one thing I am sure,--that, fare as they may with
-worldly fortune, they will never be content, having tasted of the salt
-of work, to feed again on the honey-bread of idleness, or become drones
-in the working-hive, but will persevere to the end in the principles and
-practices of what in the best sense of the word may be called their
-Labor Union.
-
-
-
-
-SNOWY PETER.
-
-
-The weather was very cold, though it was not Christmas yet, and to the
-great delight of the Kane children, December had brought an early and
-heavy fall of snow. Older people were sorry. They grieved for the swift
-vanishing of the lovely Indian summer, for the blighting of the last
-flowers, chrysanthemums, snow-berries, bitter-sweet, and for the red
-leaves, so pretty but a few days since, which were now blown about and
-battered by the strong wind. But the children wasted no sympathy on
-either leaves or berries. A snow-storm seemed to them just then better
-than anything that ever grew on bush or tree, and they revelled in it
-all the long afternoon without a thought of what it had cost the world.
-
-It was a deep snow. It lay over the lawn six inches on a level; in the
-hollow by the fence the drifts were at least two feet deep. There was
-no lack of building material therefore when Reggie proposed that they
-should all go to work and make a fort.
-
-Such a wonderful fort as it turned out to be! It had walls and bastions
-and holes for cannon. It had cannon too, all made of snow. It had a
-gateway, just like a real fort, and a flag-staff and a flag. The staff
-was a tall slender column of snow, and they poured water over it, and it
-froze and became a long pole of glittering ice. The flag had a
-swallow-tail and was icy too. Reggie had been in New London and Newport
-the last summer, he had seen real fortifications and knew how they
-should look. Under his direction the little ones built a _glacis_. Some
-of you will know what that is,--the steep slippery grass slope which
-lies beneath the fort walls and is so hard to climb. This _glacis_ was
-harder yet--snow is better than grass for defensive purposes--if only it
-would last.
-
-"Now let's make the soldiers," shouted little Paul as the last
-shovel-full of snow was spread on the _glacis_ and smoothed down.
-
-"Oh, Paul, we can't, there won't be time," said Elma, the biggest girl,
-glancing apprehensively at the sun, which was nearing the edge of the
-sky. "It must be five o'clock, and nurse will call us almost right
-away."
-
-"Oh, bother! I wish the days weren't so short," said Paul
-discontentedly. "Let's make one man, any way; just for a sentry, you
-know. There ought to be a sentry to take care of the fort. Can't we,
-Elma?"
-
-"Yes--only we must hurry."
-
-The small crew precipitated itself on the drift. None of them were cold,
-for exercise had warmed their blood. The little ones gathered great
-snowballs and rolled them up to the fort, while the big ones shaped and
-moulded. In a wonderfully short time the "man" was completed,--eyes,
-nose, and all, and the gun in his hand. A pipe was put into his mouth, a
-cocked-hat on his head. Elma curled his hair a little. Susan Sunflower,
-as the round-faced younger girl was called for fun, patted and smoothed
-his cheeks and forehead with her warm little hands. They made boots for
-him, and a coat with buttons on the tail-pocket; he was a beautiful man
-indeed! Just as the last touch was given, a window opened and nurse's
-head appeared,--the very thing the children had been dreading.
-
-"Come, children, come in to supper," she called out across the snow.
-"It's nearly half-past five. You ought to have come in half an hour ago.
-Miss Susan, stop working in that snow, nasty cold stuff; you'll catch
-your death. Master Reggie, make the little boys hurry, please."
-
-There was never any appeal from Nurse Freeman's decisions, least of all
-now when papa and mamma were both away, and she ruled the house as its
-undisputed autocrat. Even Reggie, on the verge of twelve, dare not
-disobey her. She was English and a martinet, and had been in charge of
-the children all their lives; but she was kind as well as strict, and
-they loved her. Reluctantly the little troop prepared to go. They picked
-up the shovels and baskets, for Nurse Freeman was very particular about
-fetching things in and putting them in their places. They took a last
-regretful look at their fort. Paul climbed the wall for one more jump
-down. Little Harry indulged in a final slide across the _glacis_. Susan
-Sunflower stroked the Sentinel's hand. "Good-night, Snowy Peter!" they
-cried in chorus, for that was the name they had agreed upon for their
-soldier. Then they ran across the lawn in a long skurrying line like a
-covey of birds, there was a scraping of feet on the porch, the side-door
-closed with a bang, and they were gone.
-
-Left to himself, Snowy Peter stood still in his place beside the gateway
-of the fortification. Snowmen usually do stand still, at least till the
-time comes for them to melt and run away, so there was nothing strange
-in that. What _was_ singular was that about an hour after the children
-had left him, when dusk had closed in over the house and the leafless
-trees, and "Fort Kane" had grown a vague dim shape, he slowly turned his
-head! It was as though the fingers of little Susan had communicated
-something of their warmth and fulness of life to the poor senseless
-figure while working over it, and this influence was beginning to take
-effect. He turned his head and looked in the direction of the house. All
-was dark except for the hall lamp below, which shone through the glass
-panes above the door, and for two windows in the second story out of
-which streamed a strong yellow light. These were the windows of the
-nursery, where, at that moment, the children were eating their supper.
-
-Snowy Peter remained for a time in motionless silence looking at the
-window. Then his body slowly began to turn, following the movement of
-its head. He lifted one stiff ill-shaped foot and moved a step forward.
-Then he lifted the other and took another step. His left arm dangled
-uselessly; the right hand held out the gun which Paul had made, and
-which was of the most curious shape. The tracks which he left in the
-snow as he crossed the lawn resembled the odd, waddling tracks of a
-flat-footed elephant as much as anything else.
-
-It took him a long, long time to cross the space over which the light
-feet of the children had run in two minutes. Each step seemed to cost
-him a mighty effort. The right leg would quiver for a moment, then wave
-wildly to and fro, then with a sort of galvanic jerk project itself, and
-the whole body, with a pitch and a lurch, would plunge forward heavily,
-till brought up again in an upright position by the advanced leg. After
-that the left leg would take its turn, and the process be repeated.
-There was no spring, no supple play to the joints; in fact, Snowy Peter
-had no joints. His young creators had left them out while constructing
-him.
-
-At last he reached the wall of the house, and stood beneath the windows
-where the yellow light was burning. This had been the goal of his
-desires; but, alas, now that he had attained the coveted position he
-could not look in at the windows--he was far too short. Desperation lent
-him energy. A stout lattice was nailed against the house, up which in
-summer a flowering clematis twined and clustered. Seizing this, Snowy
-Peter began to climb!
-
-Up one bar after another he slowly and painfully went, lifting his heavy
-feet and clinging tightly with his poor, stiff hands. His gun-stock
-snapped in the middle, his cocked-hat sustained many contusions, even
-his nose had more than one hard knock. But he had the heart of a hero,
-whom neither danger, nor difficulty, nor personal inconvenience can
-deter, and at last his head was on a level with the nursery window-sill.
-
-It was a pleasant sight that met his eyes. No one had slept in the
-nursery since Paul had grown big enough for a bed of his own; and though
-it kept its own name, it was in reality only a big, cheerful upstairs
-sitting-room, where lessons could be studied, meals taken, and Nurse
-Freeman sit and do her mending and be on hand always for any one who
-wanted her. Now that Mr. and Mrs. Kane were absent, the downstairs rooms
-looked vacant and dreary, and the children spent all their evenings in
-the nursery from preference. A large fire burned briskly in the ample
-grate. A kettle hissed and bubbled on the hob; on the round table where
-the lamp stood, was a row of bright little tin basins just emptied of
-the smoking-hot bread-and-milk which was the usual nursery supper. Nurse
-was cutting slices from a big brown loaf and buttering them with nice
-yellow butter. There was also some gingerbread, and by way of special
-and particular treat, a pot of strawberry-jam, to which Paul at that
-moment was paying attention.
-
-He had scooped out such an enormous spoonful as to attract the notice of
-the whole party; and just as Snowy Peter raised his white staring eyes
-above the sill, Reggie called out, "Hullo! I say! leave a little of that
-for somebody else, will you?"
-
-"Piggy-wiggy," remarked Harry, indignantly; "and it's your second help
-too!"
-
-"Master Paul, I'm surprised at you," observed Nurse Freeman severely,
-taking the big spoonful away from him. "There, that's quite enough,"
-and she put half the quantity on the edge of his plate and gave the
-other half to Susan.
-
-"That's not fair," remonstrated Paul, "when I've been working so hard,
-and it's so cold, and when I like jam so, and when it's so awfully good
-beside."
-
-"Jam! what is jam?" thought Snowy Peter. He pressed his cold nose closer
-to the glass.
-
-"We all worked hard, Paul," said Elma, "and we all like jam as much as
-you do. May I have some more, Nursey?"
-
-"I wonder how poor Snowy Peter feels all alone out there in the garden,"
-said Susan Sunflower. "He must be very cold, poor fellow!"
-
-"Ho, he don't mind it!" declared Paul with his mouth full of
-bread-and-jam.
-
-"Oh, yes, I do--I mind it very much," murmured Snowy Peter to himself;
-but he had no voice with which to make an outward noise.
-
-"Won't you come out and see him to-morrow, Nursey?" went on Susan. "He's
-the best man we ever made. He's quite beautiful. He's got a pipe and a
-hat and curly hair and buttons on his coat--I'm sure you'll like him."
-
-Snowy Peter reared himself straighter on the lattice. He was proud to
-hear himself thus commended.
-
-"If he could only talk and walk, he'd be just as good as a live person,
-really he would, Nursey," said Elma. "Wouldn't it be fun if he could!
-We'd bring him in to tea and he'd sit by the fire and warm his hands,
-and it would be such fun."
-
-"He'd melt fast enough in this warm room," observed Reggie, while Nurse
-Freeman added: "That's nonsense, Miss Elma. How could a man like that
-walk? And I don't want no nasty snow images in _my_ nursery, melting and
-slopping up the carpet."
-
-Snowy Peter listened to this conversation with a painful feeling at his
-heart. He felt lonely and forlorn. No one really liked him. To the
-children he was only a thing to be played with and joked about. Nurse
-Freeman called him a "nasty snow image." But though he was hurt and
-troubled in his spirit, the warm bright nursery, the sound of laughter
-and human voices, even the fire, that foe most fatal of all to things
-made of snow, had an irresistible attraction for him. He could not bear
-the idea of returning to his cold post of duty beside the lonely Fort,
-and under the wintry midnight sky. So he still clung to the lattice and
-looked in at the window with his unwinking eyes; and a great longing to
-be inside, and to sit down by the cheerful fire and be treated with
-kindness, took possession of him. But what is the use of such ambitions
-to a snow-man?
-
-Long, long he clung to the lattice and lingered and looked in. He saw
-the two little ones when first the sand-man began to drop his grains
-into their eyes, and noticed how they struggled against the sleepy
-influence, and tried to keep awake. He saw Nurse Freeman carry them off,
-and presently fetch them back in their flannel nightgowns to say their
-prayers beside the fire. Snowy Peter did not know what it meant as they
-knelt with their heads in Nursey's lap, and their pink toes curled up in
-the glow of the heat, but it was a pretty sight to see, and he liked it.
-
-After they were taken away for the second time, he watched Elma as she
-studied her geography lesson for the morrow, while Reggie did sums on
-his slate, and Paul played at checkers with Susan Sunflower. Snowy Peter
-thought he should like to do sums, and he was sure it would be nice to
-play checkers, and jump squares and chuckle and finally beat, as Paul
-did. Alas, checkers are not for snow-men! Paul went to bed when the game
-was ended, and Susan, and a little later the other two followed. Then
-Nurse Freeman raked out the fire and put ashes on top, and blew the
-lights out and went away herself, leaving the nursery dark and silent
-except for a dim glow from the ash-smothered grate and the low ticking
-of the clock.
-
-Some time after she departed, when the lights in the other windows had
-all been extinguished and the house was as dark inside as the night was
-outside, Snowy Peter raised his hand and pushed gently at the sash. It
-was not fastened, and it opened easily and without much noise. Then a
-heavy leg was thrown over the sill, and stiffly and painfully the snow
-soldier climbed into the room. He wanted to feel what it was like to sit
-in a chair beside a table as human beings sit, and he was extremely
-curious about the fire.
-
-Alas, he could not sit! He was made to stand but not to bend. When he
-tried to seat himself his body lay in a long inclined plane, with the
-shoulder-blades resting on the back of the chair, and the legs sticking
-out straight before him,--an attitude which was not at all comfortable.
-The chair creaked beneath him and tipped dangerously. It was with
-difficulty that he got again into his natural position, and he trembled
-with fear in every limb. It had been a narrow escape. "A fine thing it
-would have been if I had fallen over and not been able to get on my feet
-again," he thought. "How that terrible old woman would have swept me up
-in the morning!" Then, cautiously and timidly, he put his finger into
-the nearly empty jam-pot, rubbed it round till a little of the sweet,
-sticky juice adhered to it, and raised it to his lips. It had no taste
-to him. Jam was a human joy in which he could not share, and he heaved a
-deep sigh.
-
-Drops began to stand on his forehead. Though there was so little fire
-left, the room was much warmer than the outer air, and Snowy Peter had
-begun to melt. A great and sudden fear took possession of him. As fast
-as his heavy limbs would allow, he hastened to the window. It was a
-great deal harder to go down the lattice than to climb up it, and twice
-he almost lost his footing. But at last he stood safely on the ground.
-The window he left open; he had no strength left for extra exertion.
-
-With increasing difficulty he stumbled across the lawn to his old
-position beside the gateway of the fort. A sense of duty had sustained
-him thus far, for a sentry must be found at his post; but now that he
-was there, all power seemed to desert his limbs. Little Susan's warm
-fingers had perhaps put just so much life into him, and no more, as
-would enable him to do what he had done, as a clock can run but its
-appointed course of hours and must then stop. His head turned no longer
-in the direction of the house. His eyes looked immovably forward. The
-straight stiff hand held out the broken gun. Two o'clock sounded from
-the church steeple, three, four. The earliest dawn crept slowly into the
-sky. It broadened to a soft pink flush, a sudden wind rose and stirred,
-and as if quickened by its impulse up came the yellow sun. Smoke began
-to curl from the house chimneys, doors opened, voices sounded, but still
-Snowy Peter did not move.
-
-"Why, what is this?" cried Nurse Freeman, hurrying into the nursery from
-her bedroom, which was near. "How comes this window to be open? I left
-the fire covered up a purpose, that my dears might have a warm room to
-breakfast in. It's as cold as a barn. It must be that careless Maria.
-She's no head and no thoughtfulness, that girl."
-
-Maria denied the accusation, but Nurse was not convinced. "Windows did
-not open without hands," she justly observed. But what hands opened this
-particular window Nurse Freeman never, never knew!
-
-Presently another phenomenon claimed her attention. There on the carpet,
-close to the table where the jam-pot stood, was a large slop of water.
-It marked the spot where the snow-man had begun to melt the night
-before.
-
-"It's the snow the children brought in on their boots," suggested Maria.
-
-"Boots!" cried Nurse Freeman incredulously. "Boots! when I changed them
-myself and put on their warm slippers!" She shook her head portentously
-as she wiped up the slop. "There's something _on_accountable in it all,"
-she said. So there was, but it was a great deal more unaccountable than
-Nurse Freeman suspected.
-
-When the children ran out, after lessons, to play in their fort, their
-time for wonderment came. How oddly Snowy Peter looked,--not at all as
-he did the day before. His figure had somehow grown rubbed and shabby.
-The buttons were gone from his coat-tails. The gun they had taken such
-pains with was broken in two. _Where was the other half?_"
-
-"What's that on his finger?" demanded Elma. "It looks as if it were
-bleeding."
-
-It was the juice of the strawberry-jam! Paul first tasted delicately
-with the tip of his tongue, then he boldly bit the finger off and
-swallowed it.
-
-"Why, what made you do that?" asked the others.
-
-"Jam!" was the succinct reply.
-
-"Jam! Impossible. How could our snow-man get at any jam? It couldn't be
-that."
-
-"Tastes like it, any way," remarked Paul.
-
-"I can't think what has happened to spoil him so," said Elma,
-plaintively. "Do you think a loose horse can have got into the yard
-during the night? See how the snow is trampled down!"
-
-"Hallo, look here!" shouted Reggie. "This is the queerest thing yet.
-There's the other half the gun sticking out half-way up the clematis
-frame!"
-
-"It must have been a horse," said Elma, who having once settled on the
-idea found it hard to give it up. "It couldn't be anything else."
-
-"Oh, yes, it could. It was no horse. It was me," said Snowy Peter in the
-depths of his being, where a little warmth still lingered.
-
-"He's very ugly now, I think; see how he's melted all along his
-shoulder, and his hair has got out of curl, and his nose is awful,"
-pronounced Susan Sunflower. "Let's pull him to pieces and make a nicer
-man."
-
-"Oh, oh!" groaned Snowy Peter, with a final effort of consciousness. His
-inward sufferings did not affect his features in the least, and no one
-suspected that he was feeling anything. Paul knocked the pipe out of his
-mouth with a snow-ball. Harry, with a great push, rolled him over. The
-crisp snow parted and flew, the children hurrahed; in three minutes he
-was a shapeless mass, and nobody ever knew or guessed how for a few
-brief hours he had lived the life of a human being, been agitated by
-hope and moved by desire. So ended Snowy Peter; and his sole mourner was
-little Susan, who remarked, "After all, he _was_ nice before he got
-spoiled, and I wish Nursey had seen him."
-
-
-
-
-THE DO SOMETHING SOCIETY.
-
-
-Clatter, clatter, went a sewing-machine in an upstairs room, as the busy
-mamma of the Newcombe children bent over it, guiding the long breadths
-beneath the clicking needle, her eyes fixed on its glancing point, but
-her thoughts very far away, after the fashion of mammas who work on
-sewing-machines. The slam of a door, and the sound of quick feet in the
-entry below, arrested her attention.
-
-"That is Catherine, of course," she said to herself. "None of the other
-children bang the door in just that particular way."
-
-The top of a rapidly ascending red hat, with a pigtail of fair hair
-hanging beneath it, became visible, as Mrs. Newcombe glanced across to
-the staircase. It _was_ Catherine. Another moment, and she burst into
-the room.
-
-"Mamma, mamma, where are you? Oh, mamma, we girls have invented a
-society, and we are all going to belong to it."
-
-"Who is 'all,' and what sort of a society is it?" demanded Mrs.
-Newcombe, by no means suspending her machine work.
-
-"All--we six, I mean--Frances and the Vaughns, and the 'Tittering
-Twins,' and me. We haven't any name for the society yet, but we want to
-do something."
-
-"What sort of a something?"
-
-"Oh, I don't know. All sorts of somethings; but, first of all--you know
-how sick Minnie Banister is, don't you, mamma?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"Well, the society is really gotten up for her. We want to go every
-Saturday, and take her presents. Surprises, you know, so that she can be
-sort of expecting us all the week and looking forward. Don't you think
-that is a good plan, mamma?"
-
-"Very good; but what kind of presents were you thinking of?"
-
-"I don't know exactly; we haven't thought about that yet. Something
-pretty. You'll give us some money to buy them with, won't you, mamma?"
-
-"No, dear, I can't do that."
-
-"But, mamma!"
-
-"Listen, Catherine, and don't pucker your forehead so. It's a bad habit
-which you have taken up lately, and I want you to break yourself of it.
-I cannot give you money to buy presents; not that I do not love Minnie,
-or am not sorry for her, but I cannot afford it. Papa has his own boys
-and girls to feed and clothe and educate. He cannot spare money for
-things that are not necessary, even when they are kind pleasant things
-like this plan of yours."
-
-"But, mamma--little bits of things! It wouldn't take much!"
-
-"You naturally feel that there is no bottom to papa's pocket, Catherine;
-that he has only to put his hand in and take out what he likes; but, my
-dear, that isn't true. Papa cannot do it any more than you can."
-
-"Then we can't have our society," cried Catherine.
-
-Her lip trembled, and her face flushed pink with the sense of
-disappointment.
-
-"I didn't say that," said her mother, smiling. "Have the society by all
-means, and carry out your plans. That can be done without money."
-
-"But, mamma, how can it? What do you mean?"
-
-"The how I must leave to you. Set your wits to work, and you will find
-out. There are plenty of ways in which to please sick people besides
-buying them things. Notice carefully when you are there; ask Mrs.
-Banister; use your eyes. Things will suggest themselves. What sick
-people enjoy most are little surprises to vary their dull days, and the
-sense that some one is loving and thinking about them. Small unexpected
-pleasures count for more than their worth with them. Now, dear, run
-away. Consult with the others, and when you decide what you want to do,
-come to me, and I will do what I can to help you in ways that do not
-cost money."
-
-Catherine looked more hopeful, though not altogether convinced.
-
-"I'll see what they say," she remarked thoughtfully. Then, after
-lingering a moment, as if in hopes of something more, she ran downstairs
-again.
-
-She found the members of the future society looking rather crestfallen.
-They had all rushed home to propound their plan, and each of their
-mothers in turn had raised pretty much the same objections to it which
-Mrs. Newcombe had raised, and had not tempered their denials with any
-fresh suggestions. Catherine's report had, therefore, rather the effect
-of raising their spirits.
-
-"I'm--not--sure," said Frances Brooks, "but it would be more fun to do
-it that way than the other. Don't you know how much nicer it always is
-to make Christmas presents than to buy them? And I thought of something
-while you were talking that might do for the first Saturday surprise."
-
-"Have you really? What?"
-
-"It came into my head because the other day when Mary and I were there,
-Minnie lost her handkerchief. It had slipped under the mattress or
-somewhere, and she worried about not finding it, and Mrs. Banister was a
-good while in getting another, and I was wondering if it wouldn't be
-nice to make some sort of a little case, which could lie on the bed
-beside her, and hold it."
-
-"Out of birch bark," suggested Mary Vaughn.
-
-"Splendid! We could work little blue forget-me-nots on it in crewels,"
-suggested Sue Hooper.
-
-"Yes, and I have a bit of blue silk that would be just the thing for the
-lining," put in Ethel Hooper, the second "Tittering Twin," Sue being the
-first. "Sister had it left over from a sofa-pillow, so she gave it to
-me. It is quite light, and will match the forget-me-nots."
-
-"Now, isn't that delightful!" cried Catherine. "Here's our first
-surprise all settled without any trouble at all. I know where we can get
-the bark,--from one of those big birches in Mr. Swayne's woods, and
-mother'll give us some orris-root for a _sachet_, I know. She has some
-that's particularly nice. It came from Philadelphia."
-
-Under these promising auspices the "Do Something Society," for that was
-the name resolved upon, came into existence. Many hands made light work
-of the little handkerchief-case. All the members went together to get
-the birch bark, which in itself was good fun. Mary Vaughn cut out the
-case. Amy, who had taken a set of lessons in Kensington stitch, worked
-the starry zigzag pattern, which did duty for forget-me-nots, upon it.
-Susy Hooper, who was the best needlewoman of them all, lined it.
-Catherine made the _sachet_. Ethel, as youngest, was allowed to fasten
-it into the case with a tiny blue bow, and they took turns in carrying
-it, as they walked toward Minnie's house Saturday morning.
-
-Minnie had been looking forward to Saturday all the week. It was the
-only day when these special friends had time to come for a good long
-stay with her. On other days they "ran in;" but what with schools and
-music-lessons, and daily walks and short winter afternoons, they always
-had to run out again long before she was ready to have them go. She had
-been watching the clock ever since she woke, in hopes that they would
-come early; nor was she disappointed, for by half-past ten the bell
-rang, and steps and voices were heard coming upstairs. Minnie raised
-herself, and held out her hands.
-
-"O girls, how lovely! You've all come together," she said. "I've been
-wondering all the week if you would."
-
-"You darling, how nice it is to see you! Are you any better to-day?"
-asked Catherine.
-
-Then, after they had all kissed her, Amy laid on the counterpane the
-handkerchief-case pinned up in thin white paper.
-
-"There's something for you," cried the society, as with one voice.
-
-It took a good while for Minnie to open the parcel, for her fingers were
-weak, but she would not let any one help her. When the pretty birch-bark
-case was revealed, she was even more pleased than her friends had hoped
-she would be.
-
-"How dear you were to make it for me!" she kept repeating. "I shall
-never lose my handkerchiefs now. And I shall look at it when you are not
-here, and it will give me the feeling that you are making me a visit."
-
-Then they explained the new society to her and asked her to join, with
-the understanding that she was not to be an "active member" till she was
-quite well again, and Minnie agreed, and became on the spot number seven
-of the Do Somethings. What they did not explain was their plan for the
-Saturdays, because Mrs. Newcombe had dropped this word of wisdom into
-their counsels, that sick people enjoy a little pleasure which comes
-unexpectedly, much more than a larger one which they lie and think about
-till they are tired of the idea of it. Catherine had to bite her nimble
-tongue more than once to hold the secret in, but the eyes of the others
-held her in check, and she remembered in time. And while they chattered
-and laughed, Mary Vaughn kept her eyes open as Mrs. Newcombe had
-advised, and with such good effect that, as the society trooped out on
-to the sidewalk, she was ready to say, "Girls, I have thought of
-something for next time."
-
-"And so have I," added Frances.
-
-"Not really! What fun! Tell us what yours is."
-
-"A wall-basket full of dried leaves and things to fill up that bare
-space of wall opposite Minnie's bed. It needn't cost anything, for I
-have got one of those big Japanese cuffs made of straw which will do for
-the basket, and there are thousands of leaves to be had for the
-picking."
-
-"What a good idea that is!" said Amy Vaughn. "We will make it lovely,
-and it will be something bright for Minnie to look at. We'll do it. But
-what was your idea, Mary?"
-
-"Mine was a sand-bag. Didn't you hear Minnie say, 'Mamma, the sheet is
-quite wet just where my foot comes;' and Mrs. Banister came in a hurry
-and took away the hot-water bag, and said there was something wrong with
-the screw, and it was always leaking? My aunt, who is an invalid, uses
-a bag of sand instead. It is made very hot in the oven and slipped into
-a little cover, and it keeps warm longer than hot water does, she says.
-Don't you think we might make one for Minnie?"
-
-"It's the best idea yet," said Catherine. "And we will have it for next
-Saturday because it's something useful that she really wants, and that
-will give us plenty of time to dry the leaves for the Saturday after."
-
-The sand-bag, with its little slip cover of red canton flannel, proved a
-remarkable success. It was the comfort of her life, Minnie declared; but
-the joy of her life was the wall-basket which followed on the next
-Saturday, and which made a beautiful spot of brightness on the bare
-wall. Ethel Hooper, who had a natural instinct for color and effect,
-arranged it. It held branches of deep red and vivid yellow leaves, with
-sprays of orange and green sumach, deep russet oak and trails of flaming
-blackberry-vine, amid which rose a few velvet-brown cat-tails and fluffy
-milk-weed pods, supporting in their midst a tiny bird's nest poised in a
-leafless twig. Minnie was never tired of looking at it. She said it was
-as good as taking a walk in the woods to see it. The gay color
-refreshed her eyes, and cheered many a dull moment when she was alone
-and did not feel like reading; and, altogether, the wall-basket proved
-one of the most successful of the achievements of the Do Something
-Society that winter.
-
-I have not time to tell you of all the many other things they did. One
-Saturday the gift was a home-made sponge-cake. Another time it was some
-particularly nice molasses candy, pulled very white, and braided and
-twirled into M's and B's. A pillow stuffed with balsam-fir was another
-of the presents. On Christmas Eve they carried her the tiniest little
-fir-tree ever seen, a mere baby of a fir, planted in a flower-pot, hung
-with six mandarin oranges, and lighted with wax matches which burned
-just long enough to be admired and no longer. Later there was a comical
-valentine, and on Minnie's birthday a pretty card, designed by
-Catherine, who had a taste for drawing.
-
-One melancholy Saturday, when Minnie was too ill to see them, the
-members all left their cards in a little basket. Another time it was the
-cards of all their pet cats. And while they thus labored to make the
-hard months less hard for their friend, their own souls were growing,
-keeping pace with their growing bodies, as souls do which are properly
-exercised in deeds of kindliness and unselfish love. So that when spring
-came, bringing roses back to Minnie's pale cheeks, and strength to her
-feeble limbs, and she was able to take her place among the rest and be a
-"Do Something" too, all of them were eager to keep on, and to continue
-the work begun for one, by service for the many who needed cheering as
-much as Minnie had done.
-
-And the best part of the lesson which all of them had learned was, so
-Mrs. Newcombe thought, the great lesson that money, though a useful, is
-not an essential, part of true helpfulness, and that time given, and
-thought, and observation, and ingenuity, and loving hearts, can
-accomplish without it all the best and sweetest part of giving.
-
-
-
-
-WHO ATE THE QUEEN'S LUNCHEON?
-
-
-You can imagine the state of excitement into which Otillie Le Breton was
-thrown, when, one day in June, her father, the Seigneur of Sark, came
-home and told her that the Queen, who was cruising about the Channel in
-the royal yacht, had notified him of her intention of landing at Sark
-the next Thursday and of lunching at the Seigneurie.
-
-It sounds such a fine thing to be the daughter of the Seigneur of Sark,
-that perhaps you will imagine that Otillie was used to kings and queens
-and fine company of all sorts, and wonder that she should feel so much
-excited on this occasion. Not at all! The Seigneur of Sark is only a
-quiet, invalid clergyman who owns his little island just as other
-English gentlemen do their estates, letting out the land to farmers and
-collecting his rents and paying his taxes like other people; and Otillie
-was a simply brought-up girl of fourteen, who knew much less of the
-world than most girls of her age in Boston or New York, had never been
-off the Channel Islands, and never set eyes on a "crowned head" in her
-life, and she felt exactly as any of us would if we were suddenly told
-that a queen was coming to take a meal in our father's house.
-
-Queens are not common apparitions in any of the Channel Islands, and
-least of all in little Sark. It is a difficult place to get to even for
-common people. The island, which is only three miles long, is walled by
-a line of splendid cliffs over three hundred feet high. Its only harbor
-is a strip of beach, defended by a tiny breakwater, from which a steep
-road is tunnelled up through the rocks to the interior of the island. In
-rough weather, when the wind blows and the sea runs high, which is the
-case five days out of seven in summer, and six-and-a-half days out of
-seven in winter, boats dare not make for this difficult landing, which
-is called by the natives "The Creux"--or hole. It is reported that some
-years since when the Lords of the Admiralty were on a tour of inspection
-they sailed all round Sark and sailed away again, reporting that no
-place could be discovered where it was possible to land, which seemed
-to the Sarkites a very good joke indeed.
-
-There are four principal islands in the Channel group: Alderney and
-Jersey, from which come the cows all of us know about; Guernsey, whose
-cattle, though not so celebrated on this side of the sea, are held by
-the islanders as superior to all others; and Sark, the smallest and by
-far the most beautiful of the four. It is a real story-book island. The
-soft, sea-climate and the drifting mists of the Gulf Stream nourish in
-its green valleys all manner of growing things. Flowers flourish there
-as nowhere else. Heliotropes grow into great clumps, and red and pink
-geraniums into bushes. Fuchsias and white-starred jessamines climb to
-the very roofs of the mossy old farm-houses, which stand knee-deep, as
-it were, in vines and flowers. Long links of rose-colored bindweed lie
-in tangles along the dusty roadside; you tread on them as you walk
-through the shady lanes, between hedge-rows of ivy and sweet-brier and
-briony, from whose leaves shine out little glittering beetles, in mail
-coats of flashing, iridescent green, like those which the Cuban ladies
-wear on their lace dresses as a decoration. There is only one wagon
-kept for hire on the island, and all is primitive and peaceful and full
-of rest and repose.
-
-But there are wonderful things too, as well as beautiful ones,--strange
-spouting-holes in the middle of green fields, where the sea has worn its
-way far inland, and, with a roar, sends sudden shocks of surf up through
-its chimney-like vent. Caves too, full of dim green light, in whose
-pools marvellous marine creatures flourish--
-
-    "The fruitage and bloom of the Ocean,"
-
-or strange spines of rock path linking one end of the island with the
-other by a road not over five feet wide, from whose undefended edges the
-sheer precipice goes down on either side for hundreds of feet into the
-ocean. There are natural arches in the rocks also through which the
-wonderful blue-green sea glances and leaps. All about the island the
-water is of this remarkable color, like the plumage of a peacock or a
-dragonfly's glancing wings, and out of it rise strange rock-shapes,
-pyramids and obelisks and domes, over which white surf breaks
-constantly.
-
-Some of the most remarkable of these rocks are beneath the Seigneurie,
-whose shaven lawns and walled gardens stretch to the cliff top and
-command a wide sea-view. It is a fine old house, with terraces and stone
-balustrades over which vines cluster thickly, and peacocks sit,
-spreading their many-eyed tails to the sun, as if trying to outdo the
-strange, flashing, iridescent sea.
-
-Otillie herself always fed these peacocks, which were old family
-friends. There were six of them, Bluet and Cramoisie,--the parents of
-the flock, who had been named by Mrs. Le Breton, who was a
-Frenchwoman,--Peri and Fee de Fees, and Lorenzo the Magnificent and the
-Great Panjandrum, these last christened by Otillie herself on account of
-their size and stately demeanor. The beautiful creatures were quite
-tame. They would take food from her hand, and if she failed to present
-herself at the accustomed time with her bowl of millet and bread, they
-would put their heads in at the terrace windows and scream, till she
-recollected her duty and came to them.
-
-I am afraid that the peacocks were rather neglected for the few days
-preceding the Queen's visit, for everybody at the Seigneurie was very
-busy. Mr. Le Breton, as a general thing, lived simply enough. His wife
-had died when Otillie was only six years old. Miss Niffin the governess,
-Marie the cook, two housemaids, and an old butler who had served the
-family for a quarter of a century made up the establishment indoors.
-Otillie had her basin of porridge and cream and her slice of bread at
-eight o'clock every morning, and bread and milk and "kettle-tea" for
-supper, with now and then a taste of jam by way of a treat. The servants
-lived chiefly on "Jersey soup," a thick broth of oatmeal, vegetables,
-and fish, with a trifle of bacon or salt-beef to give it a relish. Mr.
-Le Breton had his morning coffee in his study, and the early dinner,
-which he shared with Otillie and Miss Niffin, was not an elaborate one.
-
-These being the customs of the Seigneurie, it can easily be imagined
-that it taxed every resource of the establishment to provide suitably
-for the Queen's entertainment. All the island knew of the important
-event and longed to advise and help. The farmers sent their thickest
-cream and freshest strawberries and lettuces, desirous to prove their
-loyalty not to their sovereign only, but also to their landlord. Marie,
-the cook, spent the days in reading over her most difficult recipes,
-and could not sleep at night. A friend of hers, once second cook to the
-Earl of Dunraven, but now retired on her laurels into private life,
-offered to come for a few days to assist, and to fabricate a certain
-famous game pasty, of which it was asserted the English aristocracy are
-inordinately fond. Peter the butler crossed over to Guernsey twice
-during the week with a long list of indispensables to be filled up at
-the shops there, hampers of wine came from London, and hot-house grapes
-and nectarines from friends in Jersey; the whole house was in a bustle,
-and nothing was spoken of but the Queen and the Queen's visit, what she
-would wear and say and do, whom she would bring with her, and what sort
-of weather she would have for her coming.
-
-This last point was the one on which Otillie was most solicitous. A true
-child of Sark, she knew all about its tides and currents, the dangers of
-the island channels, and the differences which a little more or less
-wind and sea made in the navigation of them. She could recollect one
-stormy winter, when a Guernsey doctor who had come over to set a broken
-arm was detained for three weeks on the island, in plain sight all the
-time of his own home in St. Peterport, but as unable to get to it as if
-it had been a thousand miles away!
-
-"It would be dreadful if the Queen came and then could not get away
-again for three weeks!" she said to herself. "It would be awfully
-interesting to have her here, of course--but I don't quite know what we
-should do--or what she would do!" She tried to make a picture of it in
-her mind, but soon gave up the attempt. Provisions are scarce sometimes
-on Sark when the wind blows and the boats cannot get in. There would
-always be milk and vegetables and fruit if it were summer, and perhaps
-chickens enough could be collected to hold out; but there was something
-terrible in the idea of a queen without butcher's meat! Otillie's
-imagination refused to compass it!
-
-Her very first thought when the important day dawned was the weather.
-
-She waked with the first sunbeam and ran at once to the window. When she
-saw a clear sky and the sun rising out of a still sea, she gave a scream
-of delight.
-
-"What is the matter?" asked Miss Niffin sleepily from the next room.
-
-"It's good weather," replied Otillie. "We've got the most beautiful day
-for the Queen to come in."
-
-Miss Niffin's only answer was a little groan. She was a small, shy
-person, and the idea of confronting royalty made her dreadfully nervous.
-"Oh, if the day were only over!" she said to herself; and she longed to
-plead a headache and stay in bed, but she dared not. Besides, she felt
-that it would be cowardly to desert her post on such an important
-occasion and leave Otillie alone; so she braced her mind to face the
-awful necessity and began to dress.
-
-Mr. Le Breton, awakening about the same time, gave a groan a good deal
-like Miss Niffin's. He was a loyal subject, and felt the honor that was
-done him by the Queen's inviting herself to luncheon; but, all the same,
-invalids do not like to be put out of their way, and he, too, wished the
-day well done.
-
-"Ten to one I shall be laid up for the next month to pay for it," he
-reflected. Then he too braced himself to the necessity and rang for hot
-water, determined to do his duty as a man and a Seigneur.
-
-Otillie was perhaps the only person in the house who was really glad to
-have the day come. The servants were tired and fretted with a sense of
-responsibility. Marie had passed a dreadful night, full of dreams of
-failure and spoiled dishes.
-
-"Now just as sure as guns my rolls will have failed to rise this day of
-all the days of the year," was her first waking thought. But no, the
-rolls were light as a feather, and the sponge and almond cakes came out
-of the oven delicately browned and quite perfect in taste and
-appearance. Nothing went wrong; and when Mr. Le Breton, just before
-starting for the Creux harbor to meet the royal party, took a look into
-the dining-room to make sure that all was right, he said to himself that
-he had never seen a prettier or more complete little "spread."
-
-The table was ornamented with hot-house fruit and flowers, beautifully
-arranged by Miss Niffin and Otillie. All the fine old Le Breton plate
-had been brought out and polished, the napery shone like iced snow,
-there were some quaint pieces of old Venetian glass, jugs, dishes, and
-flagons, and a profusion of pretty confections, jellies, blanc-manges,
-crystallized fruits, and bonbons, to give sparkle and color. The light
-streamed in at the windows which opened on the terrace, from under the
-vines the flash of the waves could be seen, the curtains waved in the
-wind, which was blowing inland. Nothing could be prettier; the only
-discord was the noisy scream of the peacocks on the lawn, who seemed as
-much upset and disturbed by the great event as the rest of the
-household.
-
-"Can't something be done to stop those creatures?" said Mr. Le Breton.
-"Tie them up somewhere, can't you, Otillie, or send a boy to drive them
-down to the farm."
-
-"It's only because they are hungry," replied Otillie rather absently. "I
-haven't given them their breakfast yet."
-
-She was sticking long stems of fronded Osmundas into a jar as a
-decoration for the fireplace, and scarcely noticed what her father said.
-It was some minutes after the carriage drove away before she finished;
-then, with a sigh of relief, she brushed up the leaves she had scattered
-on the carpet, and ran upstairs to change her dress. It would never do
-to be caught by the Queen in a holland frock, with her hair blown about
-her eyes, and green finger-tips!
-
-The clock struck one as she fastened her white dress and patted smooth
-the bows of her wide pink sash. One was the hour fixed for the Queen to
-land, so there was no time to lose. Otillie only waited for a glance in
-at the door of the spare room, where the Queen, if so minded, was to
-take off her things. She glanced at the bed with a sort of awe as the
-possible repository of a royal bonnet, altered the position of a bowl of
-roses on the mantelpiece, and then hurried down to join Miss Niffin,
-who, attired in her best black silk and a pair of lace mitts, was seated
-decorously in the hall doing nothing. Otillie sat down beside her. It
-was rather a nervous waiting, and a long one; for half an hour passed,
-three quarters, and finally the clock struck two, before wheels were
-heard on the gravel, and during all that time the two watchers spoke
-scarcely a word. Only once Otillie cried as a gust of wind blew the
-curtains straight out into the room, "O dear! I hope it isn't rough. O
-dear! wouldn't it be dreadful if the Queen were to be sick? She would
-never like Sark again!"
-
-"I think her Majesty must be used to the sea, she sails so much,"
-replied Miss Niffin. The gust died away and did not blow the curtains
-any more, and again they sat in silence, waiting and listening.
-
-"At last!" cried Otillie as the distinct roll of wheels was heard on
-the drive. Her heart beat fast, but she got up bravely, straightened her
-slender little figure as became a Le Breton, and walked out on to the
-porch. Her eyes seemed strangely dazzled by the sun--for she could see
-no one in the carriage but her father.
-
-It rolled up to the door, and Otillie felt a great throb of
-disappointment rise like a wave in her heart, and spread and swell! Mr.
-Le Breton had come back alone!
-
-"Papa," she cried, as soon as she could speak, "what _has_ happened?
-Where is the Queen?"
-
-"I hope nothing has gone amiss with her Gracious Majesty," put in Miss
-Niffin from behind.
-
-Mr. Le Breton got out of the carriage before he replied. He looked tired
-and annoyed.
-
-"You can drive to the stable, Thomas," he said; "the carriage will not
-be wanted." Then he turned to Miss Niffin.
-
-"Her Gracious Majesty has decided not to land," he went on. "The wind
-has sprung up and made rather a sea outside the breakwater; nothing to
-signify by the Sark standard, but enough to deter inexperienced persons.
-I waited at the Creux for nearly an hour, and every man, woman, and
-child on the island waited with me, with the exception of you and
-Otillie and the servants, and then the captain of the royal yacht
-signalled that he could not risk putting the Queen ashore in a small
-boat in such rough water. So the thing is given up."
-
-There was a certain latent relief in Mr. Le Breton's tone.
-
-"Oh!" cried Otillie, stamping her foot. "How hateful of the wind to
-spring up! It could have waited as well as not! It has all the rest of
-the time to blow in, and now all the nice preparations are thrown away,
-and all our pleasant time spoiled, and just as likely as not the Queen
-will never come to Sark at all." Her voice died away into a storm of
-sobs.
-
-"I wish I could be assured of that," remarked her father in a tone of
-weary resignation. "What I am afraid of is that she will come, or try to
-come, another day, and then there will be all this to do over again."
-
-He indicated by a gesture the door of the dining-room, from which queer
-muffled sounds were heard just then.
-
-"Peter seems as much afflicted by this disappointment as you are,
-Otillie," he added. "Come, my child, don't cry over the matter. It can't
-be helped. Wind and waves oblige nobody, not even kings and queens."
-
-"There are compensations for all our troubles," said Miss Niffin in her
-primmest tone. "We must bear up, and try to feel that all is for the
-best." Miss Niffin seemed to find it quite easy to be morally consoled
-for her share of loss in the giving up of the Queen's visit.
-
-"How can you talk in that way!" cried Otillie, who was not in the least
-in awe of Miss Niffin. "If I had broken my comb, you would have said
-exactly the same, I know you would! There isn't any compensation at all
-for this trouble, and it's no use my trying to feel that it's for the
-best,--it isn't."
-
-"We never know," replied Miss Niffin piously.
-
-"Come," said Mr. Le Breton, desiring to put an end to the altercation,
-"I don't know why we should go hungry because her Majesty won't come and
-eat our luncheon. Take my arm, Miss Niffin, and let us have something to
-eat. Marie will break her heart if all her trouble and pains are not
-appreciated by somebody."
-
-[Illustration: The peacocks, tired of waiting for their morning meal,
-and finding the windows open, had entered and helped themselves.--_Page
-107._]
-
-He gave his arm to Miss Niffin as he spoke, and moved forward to the
-dining-room. Otillie followed, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief,
-and feeling that the dainties would stick in her throat if she tried to
-swallow them, she was so very, very, dreadfully disappointed.
-
-But when Mr. Le Breton reached the dining-room door he stopped suddenly
-as if shot, and gave a sort of shout! No one could speak for a moment.
-There was the feast, so prettily and tastefully arranged only an hour
-before, a mass of ruins! The flowers were upset, the fruit, tumbled and
-mashed, stained the cloth and the floor. Wine and lemonade dripped from
-the table's edge. The pink and yellow jellies, the forms of Charlotte
-Russe and blanc-mange and the frosted cakes and tarts were reduced to
-smears and crumbs. Where the gigantic pasty had stood remained only an
-empty dish, and above the remains, rearing, pecking, clawing, gobbling,
-appeared six long blue-green necks, which dipped and rose and dipped
-again!
-
-The peacocks, tired of waiting for their morning meal, and finding the
-windows open, had entered and helped themselves! There was Lorenzo the
-Magnificent with a sponge-cake in his beak, and Peri gobbling down a
-lump of blanc-mange, and the Grand Panjandrum with both claws embedded
-in a pyramid of macaroons. Their splendid tails were draggled with cream
-and crumbs, and sticky with jelly; altogether they presented a most
-greedy and disreputable appearance! The strangest part of the whole was
-that while they stuffed themselves they preserved a dead silence, and
-did not express their enjoyment by one of their usual noisy screams. It
-was evident that they felt that the one great opportunity of their lives
-was going on, and that they must make the most of it.
-
-At the sound of Mr. Le Breton's shout the peacocks started guiltily.
-Then they gathered up their tails as best they might, and, half flying,
-half running, scuttled out of the windows and far across the lawn,
-screaming triumphantly as they went, while Otillie tumbled into a chair
-and laughed till she cried.
-
-"Oh! didn't they look funny?" she gasped, holding her sides.
-
-"Rather expensive fun," replied the Seigneur ruefully. "But it is one
-comfort that we have it to ourselves." Then the humor of the situation
-seized on him also, and he sat down and laughed almost as hard as
-Otillie.
-
-"Dear me! what a mercy that her Majesty didn't come!" remarked Miss
-Niffin in an awe-struck tone.
-
-"Good gracious," cried Otillie with sudden horror at the thought,
-"suppose she had! Suppose we had all walked in at that door and found
-the peacocks here! And of course we should! Of course they would have
-done it just the same if there had been fifty queens to see them! How
-dreadful it would have been! Oh, there are compensations, Miss Niffin; I
-see it now."
-
-So Otillie was reconciled to her great disappointment, though the Queen
-never has tried to land at Sark again, and perhaps never will. For, as
-Otillie sensibly says, "It is a great deal better that we should be
-disappointed than that the Queen should be; for if she had been very
-hungry, and most likely she would have been after sailing and all, she
-would not have thought the Grand Panjandrum with his feet in the
-macaroons half so funny as we did, and would have been truly and really
-vexed."
-
-So it was all for the best, as Miss Niffin said.
-
-
-
-
-THE SHIPWRECKED COLOGNE-BOTTLE.
-
-
-It seemed the middle of the night, though it was really only three
-o'clock in the morning, when little Davy Crocker was wakened by a sudden
-stamping of feet on the stoop below his window, and by a voice calling
-out that a ship was ashore off the Point, and that Captain Si, Davy's
-uncle, must turn out and help with the life-boat.
-
-Davy was a "landlubber," as his cousin Sam Coffin was wont to assert
-whenever he wanted to tease him. He had lived all his short life at
-Townsend Harbor, up among the New Hampshire hills, and until this visit
-to his aunt at Nantucket, had never seen the sea. All the more the sea
-had for him a great interest and fascination, as it has for everybody to
-whom it has not from long familiarity become a matter of course.
-
-Conversation in Nantucket is apt to possess a nautical and, so to speak,
-salty flavor. Davy, since his arrival, had heard so much about ships
-which had foundered, or gone to pieces on rocks, or burned up, or sprung
-leaks and had to be pumped out, that his mind was full of images of
-disaster, and he quite longed to realize some of them. To see a
-shipwreck had become his great ambition. He was not particular as to
-whether the ship should burn or founder or go ashore, any of these would
-do, only he wanted all the sailors to be saved.
-
-Once he had gone with his cousins to the South Shore on the little
-puffing railroad which connects Nantucket town with Siasconsett, and of
-which all the people of the island are so justly proud; and there on the
-beach, amid the surf-rollers which look so soft and white and are so
-cruelly strong, he had seen a great piece of a ship. Nearly the whole of
-the bow end it appeared to be. It was much higher than Davy's head, and
-seemed to him immense and formidable; yet this enormous thing the sea
-had taken into its grasp and tossed to and fro like a plaything and at
-last flung upon the sand as if it were a toy of which it had grown
-weary. It gave Davy an idea of the great power of the water, and it was
-after seeing this that he began to long to witness a shipwreck. And now
-there was one, and the very sound of the word was enough to make him rub
-open his sleepy eyes and jump out of bed in a hurry!
-
-But when he had groped his way to the window and pulled up the rattling
-paper shade, behold! there was nothing to be seen! The morning was
-intensely dark. A wild wind was blowing great dashes of rain on the
-glass, and the house shook and trembled as the blasts struck it.
-
-Davy heard his uncle on the stairs, and hurried to the door. "Mayn't I
-go to the shipwreck with you, Uncle Si?" he called out.
-
-"Go to what? Go back to bed, my boy, that's the place for you. There'll
-be shipwreck enough in the morning to satisfy all of us, I reckon."
-
-Davy dared not disobey. He stumbled back to bed, making up his mind to
-lie awake and listen to the wind till it was light, and then go to see
-the shipwreck "anyhow." But it is hard to keep such resolutions when you
-are only ten years old. The next thing he knew he was rousing in
-amazement to find the room full of brilliant sunlight. The rain was
-over, though the wind still thundered furiously, and through the noise
-it made, the sea could be heard thundering louder still.
-
-Davy jumped out of bed, dressed as fast as he could, and hurried
-downstairs. The house seemed strangely empty; Aunt Patty was not in the
-kitchen, nor was cousin Myra in the pantry skimming milk, as was usual
-at this hour of the day. Davy searched for them in woodshed, garden, and
-barn. At last he spied them on the "walk" at the top of the house, and
-ran upstairs to join them.
-
-Do any of you know what a "walk" is? I suppose not, unless you have
-happened to live in a whaling-town. Many houses in Nantucket have them.
-They are railed platforms, built on the peak of the roof between the
-chimneys, and are used as observatories from which to watch what is
-going on at sea. There the wives and sweethearts of the whalers used to
-go in the old days, and stand and sweep the ocean with spy-glasses, in
-hopes of seeing the ships coming in from their long cruises each with
-the signals set which told if the voyage had been lucky or no, and how
-many barrels of oil and blubber she was bringing home. Then they used to
-watch the "camels," great hulls used as floats to lighten the vessels,
-go out and help the heavy-laden ship over the bar. And when that was
-done and every rope and spar conned and studied by the experienced eyes
-on the roofs, it was time to hurry down, hang on the welcoming pot, trim
-the fire and don the best gown, so as to make a bright home-coming for
-the long-absent husband or son.
-
-Aunt Patty had a spy-glass at her eyes when Davy gained the roof. She
-was looking at the wrecked ship, which was plainly in view, beyond the
-little sandy down which separated the house from the sea. There she lay,
-a poor broken thing, stuck fast on one of the long reaches of sandy
-shoal which stretch about the island and make the navigation of its
-narrow and uncertain channels so difficult and sometimes so dangerous.
-The heavy seas dashed over the half-sunken vessel every minute; between
-her and the shore two lifeboats were coming in under closely-reefed
-sails.
-
-"Oh, do let me look through the glass!" urged Davy. When he was
-permitted to do so he uttered an exclamation of surprise, so wonderfully
-near did it make everything seem to be.
-
-"Why, I can see their faces!" he cried. "There's Uncle Si! There's Sam!
-And there's a very wet man! I guess he's one of the shipwrecked sailors!
-Hurrah!" and Davy capered up and down.
-
-"You unfeeling boy!" cried Myra, "give me the glass--you'll let it fall.
-He's right, mother, father and Sam are coming ashore as fast as they can
-sail, and they'll be wanting their breakfasts, of course. I'd better go
-down and mix the corn bread." She took one more look through the glass,
-announced that the other boat had some more of the shipwrecked men on
-board, she guessed, and that Abner Folger was steering; then she ran
-down the ladder, followed by her mother, and Davy was left to watch the
-boats in.
-
-When he too went down, the kitchen was full of good smells of boiling
-coffee and frying eggs, and his uncle and Sam and the "very wet man"
-were just entering the door together. The wet man, it appeared, was the
-captain of the wrecked vessel; the rest of the crew had been taken home
-by other people.
-
-The captain was a long, brown, sinewy Maine man. He was soaked with
-sea-water and looked haggard and worn, as a man well might who had just
-spent such a terrible night; but he had kind, melancholy eyes, and a
-nice face, Davy thought. The first thing to be done was to get him into
-dry clothes, and Uncle Si carried him up to Davy's room for this
-purpose. Davy followed them. He felt as if he could never see enough of
-this, his first shipwrecked sailor.
-
-When the captain had been made comfortable in Uncle Silas's flannel
-shirt and spare pea-jacket and a pair of Sam's trousers, he hung his own
-clothes up to dry, and they all went down to breakfast. Aunt Patty had
-done her best. She was very sorry for the poor man who had lost his
-ship, and she even brought out a tumbler of her best grape jelly by way
-of a further treat; but the captain, though he ate ravenously, as was
-natural to a man who had fasted so long, did not seem to notice what he
-was eating, and thus disappointed kind Aunt Patty. She comforted herself
-by thinking what she could get for dinner which he would like. Uncle Si
-and Sam were almost as hungry as the Maine captain, so not much was said
-till breakfast was over, and then they all jumped up and hurried out,
-for there was a deal to be done.
-
-Davy felt very dull after they had gone. He had never heard of such a
-thing as "reaction," but that was what he was suffering from. The
-excitement of the morning had died out like a fire which has no more
-fuel to feed it, and he could not think of anything that he wanted to
-do. He hung listlessly round, watching Aunt Patty's brisk operations
-about the kitchen, and at last he thought he would go upstairs and see
-if the captain's clothes were beginning to dry. Wet as they were, they
-seemed on the whole the most interesting things in the house.
-
-The clothes were not nearly dry, but on the floor, just below where the
-rough pea-jacket hung, lay a little shining object. It attracted Davy's
-attention, and he stooped and picked it up.
-
-It was a tiny bottle full of some sort of perfume, and set in a socket
-of plated filagree shaped like a caster, with a filagree handle. The
-bottle had a piece of white kid tied over its cork with a bit of blue
-ribbon. It was not a thing to tempt a boy's fancy, but Davy saw that it
-was pretty, and the idea came into his head that he should like to carry
-it home, to his little sister Bella. Bella was fond of perfumes, and
-the bottle had cologne in it, as Davy could smell without taking out the
-cork. He was sure that Bella would like it.
-
-Davy had been brought up to be honest. I am sure that he did not mean to
-steal the cologne-bottle. The idea of stealing never entered his mind,
-and it would have shocked him had it done so. He was an imaginative
-little fellow, and the tiny waif seemed to him like a shell or a pebble,
-something coming out of the sea, which any one was at liberty to pick up
-and keep. He did not say to himself that it probably belonged to the
-captain, who might have a value for it, he did not think about the
-captain at all, he only thought of Bella. So after looking at the pretty
-toy for a while, he put it carefully away in the drawer where he kept
-his things, pushing it far back, and drawing a pair of stockings in
-front of it, so that it might be hidden. He did not want anybody to
-meddle with the bottle; it was his now, or rather it was Bella's. Then
-he went up to the walk once more, and was so interested in watching the
-wreck and the boats, which, as the wind moderated, came and went between
-her and the shore, picking up the barrels and casks which were floated
-out of her hold, that he soon forgot all about the matter.
-
-It was nearly dark before the two captains and Sam came back to eat the
-meal which had been ready for them since the middle of the afternoon.
-Aunt Patty had taken off her pots and saucepans more than once and put
-them on again, to suit the long delay; but nothing was spoiled and
-everything tasted good, which showed how cleverly she had managed. The
-Maine captain--whose name it appeared was Joy--seemed more cheerful than
-in the morning, and more inclined to talk. But after supper, when he had
-gone upstairs and put on his own clothes, which Aunt Patty had kept
-before the fire nearly all day and had pressed with hot irons so that
-they looked almost as good as ever, his melancholy seemed to come on
-again. He sat and puffed at his pipe till Aunt Patty began to ask
-questions about the wreck. Captain Joy, it appeared, was part owner of
-the ship, whose name was the "Sarah Jane."
-
-"She was called after my wife's sister," he told them, "and my little
-girl to home has the same name, 'Sarah Jane.' She is about the age of
-that boy there, or a mite older maybe,"--nodding toward Davy. "She
-wanted to come with me this vy'age, but her mother wouldn't hear of it,
-and I'm mighty thankful she wouldn't, as things have turned out. No
-child could have stood the exposure of such a night as we had and come
-out alive; and Sarah Jane, though she's as spry as a cricket and always
-on the go, isn't over strong."
-
-The captain took a long pull at his pipe and looked dreamily into the
-fire.
-
-"I asked her, just as I was coming off, what I should bring her," he
-went on, "and she had a wish all fixed and ready. I never knew such a
-child for knowing her own mind. She's always sure what she wants, Sarah
-Jane is. The thing she wanted was a cologne-bottle, she said, and it
-must be just so, shaped like one of them pepper and vinegar what d' you
-call em's, that they put on hotel tables. She was very pertikeler about
-the kind. She drew me a picter of it on her slate, so 's to have no
-mistake, and I promised her if New York could furnish it she should have
-that identical article, and she was mighty pleased."
-
-Nobody noticed that at the mention of the cologne-bottle, Davy gave a
-guilty jump, and shrank back into the shadow of Uncle Si's broad
-shoulders. Oh, if he could only put it back into the pocket of the
-pea-jacket! But how could he when the captain had the jacket on?
-
-"I was kind of fearful that there wouldn't be any bottles of that
-pertikeler shape that Sarah Jane had in her mind," continued Captain
-Joy, "but the town seemed to be chock-full of 'em. The very first shop I
-come to, there they stood in the window, rows of 'em, and I just went in
-and bought one for Sarah Jane before I did anything else, and when I'd
-got it safely stowed away in the locker, I felt kind of easy in my mind.
-We come down with a load of coal, but I hadn't more 'n a quarter cargo
-to take back, mostly groceries for the stores up to Bucksport and
-Ellsworth,--and it's lucky it was no more, as things have happened. The
-schooner was pretty old and being so light in ballast, I jedged it
-safest, when the blow come on so hard from the nor'-east, to run it
-under the lee of Cape Cod and ride it out there if we could. But we
-hadn't been anchored more 'n three hours--just about nine o'clock it
-was--when the men came to tell me that we was taking in water terrible
-fast. I suppose the ship had kind of strained her seams open in the
-gale. It want no use trying to pump her out in such a storm, and if we
-didn't want to go down at our anchorage, there wasn't anything for it
-but to cut her loose and drive across the Haven in hopes of going
-aground on the sand before she sank. I can tell you if ever a man
-prayed, I prayed then, when I thought every minute she'd founder in deep
-water before we struck the shoal. And just as she was settling I heard
-the sand grate under the keel, and you may believe I was thankful,
-though it meant the loss of pretty much all I've got in the world. I
-shouted to the men to get to the rigging in the mainmast, for I knew
-she'd go to pieces pretty soon, and there wasn't no way of signalling
-for help till daylight, and I gave one dive for the cabin, got the
-papers out of the locker, and Sarah Jane's cologne-bottle, buttoned them
-up inside my pea-coat, and just got back again in time to see the
-foremast go over the side and the sea make a clean sweep of the decks.
-The mainmast stayed, and we lashed ourselves, and managed to hold on
-till sunrise, when we see you a-coming out to us, and glad we were.
-
-"Every now and then in the night, when the water was washing over us, I
-put my fingers inside my coat and made sure that Sarah Jane's bottle was
-there, and wasn't broken. I didn't want the child to be disappointed,
-you see. It was safe when we come ashore, I'm certain of that, but--"
-The captain paused.
-
-"Now don't say it got broken after all!" cried Myra sympathetically.
-
-"No, it wasn't broken, but it's just as bad," said Captain Joy. "Either
-I dropped it getting out of the boat and trod it down in the sand, or
-else some one has took it. It's gone, any way, and do you know, it's a
-foolish thing to say, but I feel nigh as bad about that there little dud
-as wasn't worth more 'n fifty cents, as I do about the loss of the hull
-cargo, on account of Sarah Jane."
-
-There was a pause as he ceased. Aunt Patty and Myra were too sorry for
-the captain to feel like speaking at once. Suddenly into the silence
-there fell the sound of a sob. Everybody started, and Uncle Si caught
-Davy's arm and pulled him into the firelight where his face could be
-seen.
-
-"Why, what are you crying for, little 'un?" asked Uncle Si.
-
-"I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was the captain's," said Davy, in a
-tear-choked voice.
-
-"Didn't know what was the captain's? Now, Davy Crocker, 'twasn't ever
-you who took that bottle?" cried Aunt Patty.
-
-"I found it on the floor," sobbed Davy. "I thought it was washed ashore
-from the shipwreck. I didn't suppose it belonged to anybody, and I
-wanted it for Bella. Oh, I'm so sorry."
-
-"Why, then it ain't lost after all," cried Captain Joy, brightening up.
-"Well, how pleased Sarah Jane _will_ be! Don't cry any more, my lad. I
-can see how it was, and that you didn't think it was stealing to take
-anything that had been in the sea."
-
-Aunt Patty and Myra, however, still were deeply shocked, and could not
-look as lightly at Davy's offence as did the captain. Davy crept
-upstairs, brought down the cologne-bottle and slid it into Captain Joy's
-hand; then he crept away and sat in a dark corner behind the rest, but
-his conscience followed him, and Myra's reproachful look.
-
-"Oh, Davy!" she whispered, "I never thought you'd be so mean as to take
-anything from a shipwrecked sailor!"
-
-This was Davy's punishment, and rankled in his mind long after everybody
-else had forgotten the matter, after the sands had swallowed up all that
-was left of the "Sarah Jane," and after the captain had returned to
-Bucksport and made the real Sarah Jane happy by the gift of the bottle
-she had wished for so much. It rankles occasionally to this day, though
-he is now a stout lad of fifteen. That he, he of all boys, should have
-done such a thing to a man just saved from the sea! He consoles himself
-by resolving to be particularly kind to shipwrecked sailors all the rest
-of his life; but unluckily, the "Sarah Jane" is, so far, his sole
-experience of a wreck, and the only sailor he has as yet had any chance
-to do anything for is Captain Joy, and what he did for him we all know.
-One does not always have the opportunity to make up for a blunder or a
-fault, and I am afraid Davy may live his life out and never again have
-the good luck to show his good intentions by _not_ picking up and hiding
-a Shipwrecked Cologne-Bottle!
-
-
-
-
-UNDER A SYRINGA-BUSH.
-
-
-The old syringa at the foot of the Wade's lawn was rather a tree than a
-bush. Many years of growth had gone to the thickening of its interlaced
-boughs, which grew close to the ground, and made an impervious covert,
-except on the west side, where a hollow recess existed, into which a
-small person, boy or girl, might squeeze and be quite hidden.
-
-Sundry other small persons with wings and feathers had discovered the
-advantages of the syringa. All manner of unsuspected housekeepings went
-on within its fastnesses, from the lark's nest, in a tuft of grass at
-the foot of the main stem, to the robin's home on the topmost bough.
-Solicitous little mothers brooded unseen over minute families, while the
-highly decorative bird papa sat on a neighboring hedge, carrying out his
-mission, which seemed to be to distract attention from the secreted
-family by the sweetness of his song and the beauty of his plumage. In
-the dusk of the evening, soft thrills and twitters sounded from the
-bush, like whispered conversation; and very entertaining it must have
-been, no doubt, to any one who understood the language. So, altogether,
-the old syringa-bush was an interesting little world of itself.
-
-Elly Wade found it so, as she sat in the green hiding-place on the west
-side, crying as if her heart would break. The syringa recess had been
-her favorite "secret" ever since she discovered it, nearly two years
-before. No one else knew about it. There she went when she felt unhappy
-or was having a mood. Once the boughs had closed in behind her, no one
-could suspect that she was there,--a fact which gave her infinite
-pleasure, for she was a child who loved privacies and mysteries.
-
-What are moods? Does any one exactly understand them? Some people
-attribute them to original sin, others to nerves or indigestion; but I
-am not sure that either explanation is right. They sweep across the
-gladness of our lives as clouds across the sun, and seem to take the
-color out of everything. Grown people learn to conceal, if not to
-conquer, their moods; but children cannot do this, Elly Wade least of
-all.
-
-As I said, this was by no means her first visit to the syringa-bush. It
-has witnessed some stormy moments in her life, when she sat there hot
-and grieved, and in her heart believing everybody cruel or unjust. Ralph
-had teased her; or Cora, who was older than she, had put on airs; or
-little Kitty had been troublesome, or some schoolmate "hateful." She
-even accused her mother of unkindness at these times, though she loved
-her dearly all the while.
-
-"She thinks the rest are always right, and I wrong," she would say to
-herself. "Oh, well! she'll be sorry some day." What was to make Mrs.
-Wade sorry Elly did not specify; but I think it was to be when she,
-herself, was found dead, somewhere on the premises, of a broken heart!
-Elly was very fond of depicting this broken heart and tragical
-ending,--imaginative children often are. All the same, if she felt ill,
-or cut her finger, she ran to mamma for help, and was as much frightened
-as if she had not been thinking these deadly thoughts only a little
-while before.
-
-To-day Elly had fled to the syringa-bush with no idea of ever coming out
-again. A great wrong had been done her. Cora was going with a
-yachting-party, and she was not. Mamma had said she was too young to be
-trusted, and must wait till she was older and steadier.
-
-"It is cruel!" she said with a fresh burst of sobs, as she recalled the
-bitter moment when she heard the verdict. "It was just as unkind as
-could be for her to say that. Cora is only four years the oldest, and I
-can do lots of things that she can't. She doesn't know a bit about
-crocheting. She just knits. And she never made sponge-cake, and I have;
-and when she rows, she pulls the hardest with her left hand, and makes
-the boat wabble. I've a much better stroke than she has. Papa said so.
-And I can swim just as well as she can!
-
-"Nobody loves me," was her next reflection,--"nobody at all. They all
-hate me. I don't suppose anybody would care a bit if I _did_ die."
-
-But this thought was too hard to be borne.
-
-"Yes, they would," she went on. "They'd feel remorse if I died, and they
-ought to. Then they would recollect all the mean things they've done to
-me, and they would groan, and say, 'Too late--too late!' like the bad
-people in story-books."
-
-Comforted by this idea, she resolved on a plan of action.
-
-"I'll just stay here forever, and not come out at all. Of course, I
-shall starve to death. Then, all summer long they'll be hunting, and
-wondering and wondering what has become of me; and when the autumn
-comes, and the leaves fall off, they'll know, and they'll say, 'Poor
-Elly! how we wish we'd treated her better!'"
-
-She settled herself into a more comfortable position,--it isn't
-necessary to have cramps, you know, even if you _are_ starving to
-death,--and went on with her reflections. So still was she that the
-birds forgot her presence, and continued their twittering gossip and
-their small domestic arrangements undisturbed. The lark talked to her
-young ones with no fear of being overheard; the robins flew in and out
-with worms; the thrush, who occupied what might be called the second
-story of the syringa, disciplined a refractory fledgling, and papa
-thrush joined in with a series of musical expostulations. Elly found
-their affairs so interesting that for a moment she forgot her
-own,--which was good for her.
-
-A big bumble-bee came sailing through the air like a wind-blown drum,
-and stopped for a minute to sip at a syringa blossom. Next a soft whir
-drew Elly's attention, and a shape in green and gold and ruby-red
-glanced across her vision like a flying jewel. It was a
-humming-bird,--the first of the season. Elly had never been so near one
-before, nor had so long a chance to look, and she watched with delight
-as the pretty creature darted to and fro, dipping its needle-like bill
-into one flower-cup after another, in search of the honey-drop which
-each contained. She held her breath, not to startle it; but its fine
-senses seemed to perceive her presence in some mysterious fashion, and
-presently it flew away.
-
-Elly's mind, no longer diverted, went back to its unhappiness.
-
-"I wonder how long it is since I came here," she thought. "It seems like
-a great while. I guess it must be as much as three hours. They're all
-through dinner now, and beginning to wonder where I am. But they won't
-find me, I can tell them!"
-
-She set her lips firmly, and again shifted her position. At the slight
-rustle every bird in the bush became silent.
-
-"They needn't," she said to herself. "I wouldn't hurt them. I'm not like
-Ralph. He's real bad to birds sometimes. Once he took some eggs out of a
-dear, cunning, little song-sparrow's nest, and blew the yolks. I'd never
-do such a mean thing as that."
-
-But though she tried to lash herself up to her old sharpness of feeling,
-the interruption of wrathful thoughts had somewhat soothed her mood.
-Still, she held firmly to her purpose, while an increasing drowsiness
-crept over her.
-
-"I shall stay here all night," she thought, "and all to-morrow, and
-to-morrow night. And then"--a yawn--"pretty soon I shall be dead, I
-suppose, and they'll be--sorry"--another yawn--"and--"
-
-Elly was asleep.
-
-When she woke, the bright noon sunshine had given place to a dusky
-light, which made the syringa recess very dark. The robins had
-discovered her whereabouts, and, hopping nearer and nearer, had perched
-upon a branch close to her feet, and were talking about her. She was
-dimly conscious of their voices, but had no idea what they were saying.
-
-"Why did it come here, any way?" asked Mrs. Robin. "A great heavy thing
-like that in _our_ bush!"
-
-"I don't know, I'm sure," replied Mr. Robin. "It makes a strange noise,
-but it keeps its eyes shut while it makes it."
-
-"These great creatures are so queer!" pursued Mrs. Robin. "There,--it's
-beginning to move! I wish it would go away. I don't like its being so
-near the children. They might see it and be frightened."
-
-The two birds flitted hastily off as Elly stretched herself and rubbed
-her eyes.
-
-A very uncomfortable gnawing sensation began to make itself evident. It
-wasn't exactly pain, but Elly felt that it might easily become so. She
-remembered now that she fled away from the table, leaving her breakfast
-only half finished, yesterday morning,--was it yesterday, or was it the
-day before that? It felt like a long while ago.
-
-The sensation increased.
-
-"Dear me!" thought Elly, "the story-books never said that starving to
-death felt so. I don't like it a bit!"
-
-Bravely she fought against the discomfort, but it gained upon her.
-
-She began to meditate whether her family had perhaps not been
-sufficiently punished.
-
-"I've been away a whole day," she reflected, "and a whole night, and I
-guess they've felt badly enough. Very likely they've all sat up waiting
-for me to come back. They'll be sorry they acted so, and, any way, I'm
-so dreadfully hungry that I must have something to eat! And I want to
-see mamma too. Perhaps she'll have repented, and will say, 'Poor Elly!
-She _may_ go.'"
-
-In short, Elly was seized with a sudden desire for home, and, always
-rapid in decision, she lost no time in wriggling herself out of the
-bush.
-
-"There, it's gone!" chirped the female robin. "I'm glad of it. I hope it
-will never come back."
-
-Very cautiously Elly crept through the shrubbery on to the lawn. It
-still seemed dark, but she now perceived that the gloom came from a
-great thunder-cloud which was gathering overhead. She could not see the
-sun, and, confused with her long sleep, was not able to make out what
-part of the day it was; but, somehow, she felt that it was not the early
-morning as in the bush she had supposed.
-
-Across the lawn she stole, and upon the piazza. No one was visible. The
-open window showed the dining-table set for something,--was it tea?
-Upstairs she crept, and, looking in at the door as she went by, she saw
-her mother in her room taking off her bonnet.
-
-"My poor child, where did you think we had gone?" she called out. "Papa
-was kept in town till the second train, and that was late, so we have
-only just got back. You must be half starved, waiting so long for your
-dinner. I hope nurse gave you some bread and milk."
-
-"Why,--what day is it?" stammered the amazed Elly.
-
-"Day? Why, Elly, have you been asleep? It's to-day, of
-course,--Thursday. What did you think it was?"
-
-Elly rubbed her eyes, bewildered. Had the time which seemed to her so
-long really been so short? Had no one missed her? It was her first
-lesson in the comparative unimportance of the individual! A sense of
-her own foolishness seized her. Mamma looked so sweet and kind! Why had
-she imagined her cruel?
-
-"Did you go to sleep, dear?" repeated Mrs. Wade.
-
-"Yes, mamma," replied Elly, humbly; "I did. But I'm waked up now."
-
-
-
-
-TWO GIRLS--TWO PARTIES.
-
-
-A great bustle and confusion had reigned the whole week long in the old
-house at the top of the hilly street, known to the neighborhood as "the
-Squire's." All the slip-covers had been taken from the furniture in the
-best parlor. All the company china had been lifted off its top shelf and
-washed. All the spare lamps had been filled, all the rooms swept and
-dusted, all the drawers in the bureaus freshly arranged, for--as Milly
-said to herself--"who knew but some one might take a fancy to peep in?"
-
-Milly Grace, the Squire's daughter, had sat for hours in a cold woodshed
-tying up wreaths of ground-pine and hemlock with fingers which grew more
-chilly every hour. These wreaths now ornamented the parlor, festooning
-curtains, chimney-piece, and door-frames, and making green edges to the
-family portraits, which were two in number, neither of them by Copley
-or Stuart, as was plain to the most casual observation.
-
-One of these portraits represented the Squire's father in a
-short-waisted, square-tailed blue coat, and a canary-colored waistcoat.
-His forefinger was inserted in a calf-bound volume of Blackstone, and
-his eyes were fixed with a fine judicial directness upon the cupola of
-the court-house seen through a window in the background. The other was
-his wife, in a sad-colored gown and muslin tucker, with a countenance
-which suggested nothing except saleratus and the renunciation of all
-human joys.
-
-The Squire did not care much for this picture. It made him feel badly,
-he said, just the feeling he used to have when he was a boy and was sent
-every Sunday by this orthodox parent to study the longer answers of the
-Shorter Catechism on the third step of the garret-stairs, with orders
-not to stir from that position till he had them perfectly committed to
-memory. It was this strict bringing-up, perhaps, which made him so
-indulgent to Milly,--a great deal too indulgent her step-mother thought.
-
-In the buttery stood a goodly row of cakes little and big, loaves whose
-icings shone like snow-crust on a sunny day, little cakes with plums
-and little cakes without plums; all sorts of cakes. On the swinging
-shelf of the cellar were moulds of jelly clear and firm. In the
-woodhouse stood three freezers of ice-cream, "packed" and ready to turn
-out. Elsewhere were dishes of scalloped oysters ready for the oven, each
-with its little edging of crimped crackers, platters of chicken-salad,
-forms of blanc-mange, bowls of yellow custard topped with
-raspberry-and-egg like sunset-tinted avalanches, all that goes to the
-delectation of a country party: for a party there was to be, as after
-this enumeration I need hardly state. It was Milly's party, and all
-these elaborate preparations were her own work,--the work of a girl of
-nineteen, with no larger allowance of hands, feet, and spinal-vertebræ
-than all girls have, and no larger allowance of hours to her day; but
-with a much greater share of zeal, energy, and what the Squire called
-"go" than most young women of her age can boast of.
-
-She it was who had pounded away at the tough sacks full of ice and salt
-till they were ready for the freezers. She it was who had beaten the
-innumerable eggs for the sponge cakes, pound cakes, fruit cakes, "one,
-two, three, four," jelly, nut and other cakes, who had swept the rooms,
-washed the china, rearranged, changed, brightened everything. Like most
-other families on Croydon Hill, the Graces kept but one "help," a stout
-woman, who could wash, iron, and scrub with the best, and grapple
-successfully enough with the simple daily _menu_, but who for finer
-purposes was as "unhandy" as a gorilla. All the embellishments, all the
-delicate cookeries, fell to the share of the ladies of the household,
-which meant Milly as a general thing, and in this case particularly, for
-the party was hers, and she felt bound to take the burden of it on her
-own shoulders as far as possible, especially as her step-mother did not
-quite approve, and considered that the Squire had done a foolish thing
-in giving consent. "Milly should have her way for once," the Squire had
-announced.
-
-So Milly had her way, and had borne herself bravely and brightly through
-the fatigues of preparation. But somehow when things were almost ready,
-when the table was set, lacking only the last touches, and the fire
-lighted, a heavy sense of discouragement fell upon her. It was the
-natural reaction after long overwork, but she was too inexperienced to
-understand it. She only knew that suddenly the thing she had wished for
-seemed undesirable and worth nothing, and that she felt perfectly
-miserable, and "didn't care what became of her." She laid her tired head
-on the little table by which she was sitting, and, without in the least
-intending it, began to cry.
-
-Mrs. Grace was lying down, the Squire was out; there was no one to note
-her distress or sympathize with it excepting Teakettle, the black cat.
-He was sorry for Milly after his cat-fashion, rubbed his velvet head
-against her dress for a little while as if wishing to console her, but
-when she took no notice, he walked away and sat down in front of the
-door, waiting till some one should open it and let him through. Cats
-soon weary of the role of comforter, and escape to pleasanter
-things,--sunshine, bird-shadows on the grass, light-hearted people who
-will play with them and make no appeal to their sympathies.
-
-Milly's tears did her no good. She was too physically worn out to find
-relief in them. They only deepened her sense of discouragement. The
-clock struck six; she roused herself wearily and went upstairs to
-dress. There were still the lamps to light and last things to do.
-
-"And no one to do them but me," thought poor Milly. "Oh dear, how
-dreadfully my feet ache! How glad I shall be when they all go away and I
-can go to bed!"
-
-This was indeed a sad state of mind to be in on the eve of a
-long-anticipated pleasure!
-
-Everything looked bright and orderly and attractive when the guests
-arrived a little after half-past seven. The fire snapped and the candles
-shone; a feeling of hospitable warmth was in the air. Milly's
-arrangements, except so far as they regarded her own well-being, had
-been judicious and happy. The pretty girls in their short-sleeved blue
-and crimson merinos, with roses and geranium-leaves in their hair (I
-need not say that this was at a far-back and old-fashioned date), looked
-every whit as charming as the girls of to-day in their more elaborate
-costumes.
-
-Cousin Mary Kendal, who, for all her grown-up sons and daughters liked
-fun as much as any girl among them, had volunteered to play for the
-dancing, and the spirit with which she dashed at once into "The Caspian
-Waltz" and "Corn Rigs are Bonny" was enough to set a church steeple to
-capering.
-
-Everybody seemed in a fair way to have a delightful evening except one
-person. That one was poor Milly, usually the merriest in every party,
-but now dull, spiritless, and inert. She did not even look pretty! Color
-and sparkle, the chief elements of beauty in her face, were, for the
-moment, completely quenched. She was wan and jaded, there were dark
-rings under her eyes, and an utter absence of spring to her movements,
-usually so quick and buoyant. She sat down whenever she had the chance,
-she was silent unless she must speak; half-unconsciously she kept a
-watch of the clock and was saying to herself, "Only two hours more and I
-can go to bed." Her fatigued looks and lack of pleasure were a constant
-damper to the animation of the rest. Every one noticed, and wondered
-what could be the matter; but only Janet Norcross dared to ask.
-
-"Have you got a headache?" she whispered; but the "No" which she
-received by way of answer sounded so cross that she did not venture on
-further inquiries.
-
-"Why won't you dance with me?" urged Will Benham; "you said you would
-when we were talking about the party after the Lecture--don't you
-remember?"
-
-"I'd rather the others had the chance--it's my party, you know," replied
-Milly.
-
-"But they _are_ having a chance. Everybody is dancing but you. Come,
-Milly."
-
-"Oh, Will, don't tease," cried Milly irritably. "I never saw such an
-evening. Do please to leave me alone and go and ask some of the others."
-
-Weariness sharpened her voice. Till the words were out of her lips she
-had no idea that she was going to speak so petulantly to Will. It
-sounded dreadfully even to herself.
-
-"Oh, certainly," said Will with freezing dignity. He crossed the room,
-and presently Milly saw him take Helen Jones out to the set of Lancers
-just forming. He did not look at Milly again, or come near her, and the
-sense of his displeasure was just the one drop too much. Milly felt
-herself choke, a hot rush of tears blinded her eyes, she turned, and
-being fortunately near the door, got out of it and upstairs without
-suffering her face to be seen.
-
-Janet found her half an hour later lying prone across the bed, and
-sobbing as if her heart would break.
-
-"What _is_ the matter?" she cried in alarm. "Are you ill, dear Milly?
-has anything dreadful happened? I came up to look for you. Will Benham
-got worried because you were away so long, and came to me to ask what
-had become of you. I told him I guessed you were taking out the
-ice-creams, but Katy said you hadn't been in the kitchen at all, so I
-came up here. What is the matter--do tell me?"
-
-"Oh, nothing is the matter at all, except that I am a perfect idiot, and
-so tired that I wish I were dead," said Milly. "It was awfully good of
-Will to care, for I spoke so crossly to him. You can't think. It was
-horrid of me, but somehow I felt so dreadfully tired that the words
-seemed to jump out of my mouth against my will. Dear Janet--and I was
-cross to you, too," added Milly penitently. "Everything has gone wrong
-with me to-night. Oh, and there is that horrible ice-cream! I must go
-and get it out of the freezers. But my back aches so, Janet, and the
-soles of my feet burn like fire."
-
-"You poor thing, you are just tired out," said her friend. "No wonder.
-You must have worked like a horse to make everything so nice and pretty
-as it is. Don't worry about the ice-cream. Just tell me what dishes to
-put it in, and I'll see to it. It won't take five minutes. But do rouse
-yourself now, and keep up a little while longer. The others will wonder
-so if you don't go down. You _must_ go down, you know. Here is a wet
-towel for your eyes, and I'll smooth your hair."
-
-Even so small a lift as having the ice-cream taken out for her was a
-relief, and Janet's kindness, and the sense that Will was not hopelessly
-alienated by her misconduct, helped Milly to recover her equilibrium.
-Soothed and comforted she went downstairs, and got through the rest of
-the evening tolerably well.
-
-But when the last good-night had been said, and the last sleigh-bell had
-jingled away from the door, she found herself too tired to rest. All
-night long she tossed restlessly on her hot pillows, while visions of
-pounding ice and stirring cake, of Will's anger, and Janet's surprise
-when she found her in tears, whirled through her thoughts. When morning
-came she was so "poorly" that the doctor was sent for.
-
-"Too much party, no doubt," was his inward commentary when he received
-the summons; and his first words to Milly were, "Well, Missy, so you are
-down with fruit cake and mottoes, are you?"
-
-"Oh, Doctor, no, I never ate a mouthful of the cake. I only made it,"
-was poor Milly's disclaimer.
-
-"That sounds serious," said the doctor. But when he had felt her pulse
-he looked graver.
-
-"You've done a good deal too much of something, that is evident," he
-said. "I shall have to keep you in bed awhile to pay you for it."
-
-Milly was forced to submit. She stayed in bed for a whole week and the
-greater part of another, missing thereby two candy-pulls on which her
-heart was set, and the best sleighing frolic of the season. Everybody
-was kind about coming to see her, and sending her flowers and nice
-things, and Janet, in particular, spent whole hours with her every day.
-
-"The whole thing seems such a dreadful pity," Milly said one day. She
-was really better now, able to sit up, and equal to a calm discussion of
-her woes. "I had looked forward so much to my party, and I wanted to
-have it as nice as could be, and I worked so hard; and then, when the
-time came, I didn't enjoy it a bit. If I could only have it over again
-now when I am all rested and fresh, I should have as good a time as
-anybody. Doesn't it seem a pity, Janet?"
-
-"Yes, it does," replied Janet, after which she fell into a little
-musing-fit.
-
-"One can't have company without taking some trouble," she said at last.
-"But I wonder if one need take so much?"
-
-"I don't see what else I could have done," said Milly. "You must give
-people nice things when they come to see you, and somebody has got to
-make them. And besides that, there is so much to see to about the
-house,--dusting, and washing china, and making the rooms nice."
-
-"I know," went on Janet reflectively. "Mrs. Beers half killed herself, I
-remember, when she had that quilting two years ago, in giving the whole
-house a thorough house-cleaning beforehand. She said as like as not
-somebody would want to run up into the garret-chamber after something,
-and she should have a fit if it wasn't in order. And after all, not a
-soul went anywhere except to the parlor and dining-room, and into Mrs.
-Beers's bedroom to take off their things; so the fuss was all thrown
-away, and Mrs. Beers had inflammation of the lungs afterward, and almost
-died."
-
-"I recollect. But then they might have gone to the attic--she couldn't
-tell. It was natural that Mrs. Beers should think of it."
-
-"Well, and suppose they had, and that there had been a trifle of dust on
-the top of some old trunk, what difference would it have made? People
-who are busy enjoying themselves don't stop to notice every little
-thing. I am going to think the thing over, Milly. It's all wrong
-somehow."
-
-Janet herself was meditating a party. Her father had given permission,
-and Aunt Esther, who managed the housekeeping, was only too glad to fall
-in with any plan which pleased Janet. Judge Norcross was the richest man
-on the Hill. There was no reason why Janet's entertainment should not
-out-shine Milly's. In fact, she had felt a little ambitious to have it
-do so, and had made certain plans in her private mind all of which
-involved labor and trouble; but now she hesitated.
-
-"If I'm going to be as tired out as Milly was, and not enjoy it, what's
-the use of having a party at all?" she said to herself. "I'd _like_ to
-have it as nice as hers; but whatever I have, I have got to do it all
-myself. I'm not as strong as Milly, I know, and it has half killed
-_her_; perhaps it would quite kill me. A party isn't worth that!"
-
-She discussed the matter within herself, reasonably. She _could_ wind
-herself up and make eight kinds of cake if she liked. There were the
-recipes and the materials and she knew how; moreover, Aunt Esther would
-help her. She could have as much jelly and syllabub and blanc-mange as
-Milly, she could turn the house upside down if she desired, and trim and
-beautify and adorn. It was a temptation. No girl likes to be outdone,
-least of all by her intimate friend. "But is it worth while?" Janet
-queried. And I think she proved herself possessed of a very "level head"
-when, at last, she decided that it was not.
-
-"I'll be sensible for once," she told herself. "A party is not a duty,
-it is a pleasure. If I get so tired that I spoil my own pleasure, I
-spoil my company's too, for they will be sure to find it out just as
-they did at Milly's. I couldn't half enjoy anything that night, because
-she looked so miserable; and I won't run the risk of having the same
-thing happen at our house. I'll just do what is necessary, and leave off
-the extras."
-
-The "necessary," when Janet came to analyze it, proved to be quite as
-much as she was able to undertake; for, as she had admitted to herself,
-she was not nearly so strong as Milly Grace. It meant an ample supply of
-two sorts of cake, freshly made and delicate, with plenty of ice-cream,
-salad, scalloped oysters, and rolls. There was extra china to wash, the
-table to set, and the rooms to dust and arrange, and Janet was quite
-tired enough before it was done. She sent to Boston for some preserved
-ginger to take the place of the jelly which she didn't make, she made no
-attempt at evergreen wreaths, and she wisely concluded that rooms in
-their usual state of cleanliness would pass muster with young people
-intent on dancing and amusement, that no one would find time to peep
-into holes and corners, and that the house could wait to have its
-"thorough cleaning" administered gradually after the occasion was over.
-
-There was really a great deal of steady good sense in holding to this
-view of the matter, and Janet found her reward in the end. The
-preparations, even thus simplified, taxed her strength; the extra
-touches which she had omitted would have been just the "straw too much."
-She gave herself a good margin for rest on the afternoon preceding the
-party, and when she came downstairs in her pretty dress of pale blue
-cashmere and swan's-down, ready to meet her guests, her cheeks and eyes
-were as bright as usual, and her spirits were ready for the exhilaration
-of excitement.
-
-The tone of any gathering depends in great measure on its hostess. If
-she is depressed or under the weather, her visitors are pretty sure to
-catch her mood and be affected by it. Janet's sunny looks and gay laughs
-set the key-note of her party. Nobody missed the wine jelly or the six
-absent sorts of cake, no one wasted a thought on the evergreen wreaths.
-All was fun and merriment, and nothing seemed wanting to the occasion.
-
-"What a good time we _have_ had!" said Helen Jones to Alice Ware as they
-stood at the door of the dressing-room waiting for their escorts. "It's
-been ever so much jollier than it was at Milly's, and I can't think
-why. That was a beautiful party, but somehow people seemed to feel
-dull." Helen had no idea of being overheard, but as it happened Milly
-was nearer to her than she thought.
-
-"I'll tell you why it was, Helen," she said, coming forward frankly.
-"Don't look so shocked. I know you didn't mean me to hear, but indeed I
-don't mind a bit. And it's quite true besides. Janet's party has been a
-great deal nicer, and it's because I was such a goose about mine. I did
-a great deal too much and got dreadfully tired, so tired that I couldn't
-enjoy it, and you all found it out of course, so you couldn't enjoy it
-either. I'm sure I don't wonder, but it was all my own fault. Janet took
-warning by my experience and made her party easier, and you see how nice
-it has been. We have all had a beautiful time, and so has she.
-Well--I've learned a lesson by it. Next time I give a party I shall just
-do what I can to make it pleasant for you all, and not what I can't, and
-I hope it will turn out better for everybody concerned."
-
-
-
-
-THE PINK SWEETMEAT.
-
-
-Only three pairs of stockings were left in the shop. It was a very
-little shop indeed, scarcely larger than a stall. Job Tuke, to whom it
-belonged, was not rich enough to indulge in the buying of any
-superfluous wares. Every spring he laid in a dozen dozen of thin
-stockings, a bale of cheap handkerchiefs, a gross of black buttons, a
-gross of white, a little stationery, and a few other small commodities.
-In the autumn he added a dozen dozen of thick stockings, and a box full
-of mittens and knitted comforters. Besides these he sold penny papers,
-and home-made yeast made by Mrs. Tuke. If the stock of wearables grew
-scant toward midwinter, Job rejoiced in his heart, but by no means made
-haste to replenish it. He just laid aside the money needed for the
-spring outfit, and lived on what remained. Thus it went year after year.
-Trade was sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse, but
-whichever way it was, Job grew no richer. He and his old wife lived
-along somehow without coming on the parish for support, and with this
-very moderate amount of prosperity they were content.
-
-This year of which I write, the supply of winter stockings had given out
-earlier than usual. The weather had been uncommonly cold since October,
-which may have been the reason. Certain it is, that here at Michaelmas,
-with December not yet come in, only three pairs of stockings were left
-in the little shop. Job Tuke had told his wife only the week before that
-he almost thought he should be forced to lay in a few dozen more, folks
-seemed so eager to get 'em. But since he said that, no one had asked for
-stockings, as it happened, and Job, thinking that trade was, after all,
-pretty well over for the season, had given up the idea of replenishing
-his stock.
-
-One of the three pairs of stockings was a big pair of dark mixed gray.
-One pair, a little smaller, was white, and the third, smaller still and
-dark blue in color, was about the size for a child of seven or eight
-years old.
-
-Job Tuke had put up the shutters for the night and had gone to bed. The
-stockings were talking together in the quiet darkness, as stockings will
-when left alone. One pair had been hung in the window. It had got down
-from its nail, and was now straddling carelessly with one leg on either
-side of the edge of the box in which the others lay, as a boy might on
-the top of a stile. This was the big gray pair.
-
-"Our chances seem to be getting slim," he said gloomily.
-
-"That is more than you seem," replied the White Stockings, in a tart
-voice. "Your ankles are as thick as ever, and your mesh looks to me
-coarser than usual to-night."
-
-"There are worse things in the world than thickness," retorted the Gray
-Stockings angrily. "I'm useful, at any rate, I am, while you have no
-wear in you. I should say that you would come to darning about the
-second wash, if not sooner."
-
-"Is that my fault?" said the White Pair, beginning to cry.
-
-"No; it's your misfortune. But people as unfortunate as you are should
-mind their P's and Q's, and not say disagreeable things to those who
-are better off."
-
-"Pray don't quarrel," put in the Little Blues, who were always
-peacemakers. "Think of our situation, the last survivors of twelve
-dozen! we ought to be friends. But, as you say, matters _are_ getting
-serious with us. Of course we are all thinking about the same thing."
-
-"Yes; about the Christmas, and the chimney corner," sighed the White
-Pair. "What a dreadful thing it would be if we went to the rag-bag never
-having held a Christmas gift. I could not get over such a disgrace. My
-father, my grandfather--all my relations had their chance--some of them
-were even hung a second time!"
-
-"Yes; Christmas is woven into our very substance," said the Gray
-Stockings. "The old skeins and the ravellings tell the story to the new
-wool,--the story of the Christmas time. The very sheep in the fields
-know it. For my part," he added proudly, "I should blush to lie in the
-same ash-heap even with an odd stocking who had died under the disgrace
-of never being hung up for Christmas, and I will never believe that my
-life-long dream is to be disappointed!"
-
-"Why will you use such inflated language?" snapped the White Pair. "You
-were only woven last July. As late as May you were running round the
-meadow on a sheep's back."
-
-"Very well; I don't dispute it. I may not be as old as Methuselah, but
-long or short, my life is my life, and my dream is my dream, and you
-have no call to criticise my expressions, Miss!" thundered the Big Pair.
-
-"There you are again," said the Little Blues. "I _do_ wish you wouldn't
-dispute. Now let us talk about our chances. What day of the month is
-it?"
-
-"The twenty-seventh of November," said the Gray Stockings, who, because
-they hung over the penny papers in the window, always knew the exact
-date.
-
-"Little more than four weeks to the holidays," said the White Pair
-dolorously. "How I wish some one would come along and put us out of
-suspense."
-
-"Being bought mightn't do that," suggested the Little Blues. "You might
-be taken by a person who had two pairs of stockings, and the others
-might be chosen to be hung up. Such things do happen."
-
-"Oh, they wouldn't happen to me, I think," said the White Pair
-vaingloriously.
-
-As it happened, the three pairs of stockings were all sold the very day
-after this conversation, and all to one and the same person. This was
-Mrs. Wendte, an Englishwoman married to a Dutch shipwright. She had
-lived in Holland for some years after her marriage, but now she and her
-husband lived in London. They had three children.
-
-The stockings were very much pleased to be bought. When Job Tuke rolled
-them up in paper and tied a stout packthread round them, they nestled
-close, and squeezed each other with satisfaction. Besides, the joy of
-being sold was the joy of keeping together and knowing about each
-other's adventures.
-
-The first of these adventures was not very exciting. It consisted in
-being laid away in the back part of a bureau-drawer, and carefully
-locked in.
-
-"Now, what is this for?" questioned the White Stockings. "Are we to stay
-here always?"
-
-"Yes; that is just what I should like to know," grumbled the Big Grays.
-
-"Why, of course not! Who ever heard of stockings being put away for
-always?" said the wise Little Blues. "Wait patiently and we shall see. I
-think it is some sort of a surprise."
-
-But day after day passed and nothing happened, surprising or otherwise,
-till even the philosophical Little Blue Stockings began to lose heart
-and hope. At last, one evening they heard the key click in the lock of
-the drawer, a stream of light flashed into their darkness, and they were
-seized and drawn forth.
-
-"Well, mother, let us see thy purchase. Truly fine hosen they are," said
-Jacob Wendte, whose English was rather foreign.
-
-"Yes," replied his wife. "Good, handsome stockings they are, and the
-children will be glad, for their old ones are about worn out. The big
-pair is for Wilhelm, as thou knowest. Those must hang to the right of
-the stove."
-
-The Big Gray Pair cast a triumphant glance at his companions as he found
-himself suspended on a stout nail. This _was_ something like life!
-
-"The white are for Greta, and these small ones for little Jan. Ah, they
-are nice gifts indeed!" said Mrs. Wendte, rubbing her hands. "A fine
-Christmas they will be for the children."
-
-The stockings glowed with pleasure. Not only were they hung up to
-contain presents, but they themselves were Christmas gifts! This was
-promotion indeed.
-
-"Hast thou naught else?" demanded Jacob Wendte of his wife.
-
-"No great things; a kerchief for Greta, this comforter for Wilhelm, for
-the little one, mittens. That is all."
-
-But it was not quite all, for after her husband had gone to bed, Mrs.
-Wendte, a tender look on her motherly face, sought out a small,
-screwed-up paper, and with the air of one who is a little ashamed of
-what she is doing, dropped into each stocking a something made of sugar.
-They were not sugar almonds, they were not Salem Gibraltars,--which
-delightful confections are unfamiliar to London shops,--but irregular
-lumps of a nondescript character, which were crumbly and sweet, and
-would be sure to please those who did not often get a taste of candy. It
-was of little Jan that his mother had thought when she bought the
-sweetmeats, and for his sake she had yielded to the temptation, though
-she looked upon it as an extravagance. There were three of the
-sweetmeats--two white, one pink--and the pink one went into Jan's
-stockings. Mrs. Wendte had not said anything about them to her husband.
-
-"Well, this is satisfactory," said the Gray Pair, when Mrs. Wendte had
-left the room, and he was sure of not being overheard. "Here we are all
-hanging together on Christmas Eve. My dream is accomplished."
-
-"Mine isn't," said the White Pair plaintively. "I always hoped that I
-should hold something valuable, like a watch or a pair of earrings. It
-is rather a come-down to have nothing but a bit of candy inside, and a
-pocket handkerchief pinned to my leg. I don't half like it. It gives me
-an uncomfortable pricking sensation, like a stitch in the side."
-
-"It's just as well for you to get used to it," put in the Gray. "It
-doesn't prick as much as a darning-needle, I fancy, and you'll have to
-get accustomed to that before long, as I've remarked before."
-
-"I'm the only one who has a pink sweetmeat," said the Little Blues, who
-couldn't help being pleased. "And I'm for a real child. Wilhelm and
-Greta are more than half grown up."
-
-"Real children are very hard on their stockings, I've always heard,"
-retorted the White Pair, who never could resist the temptation to say a
-disagreeable thing.
-
-"That may be, but it is all in the future. This one night is my own, and
-I mean to enjoy it," replied the contented Little Blues.
-
-So the night went, and now it was the dawn of Christmas. With the first
-light the door opened softly and a little boy crept into the room. This
-was Jan. When he saw the three pairs of stockings hanging by the stove,
-he clapped his hands together, but softly, lest the noise should wake
-the others. Then he crossed the room on tiptoe and looked hard at the
-stockings. He soon made sure which pair was for himself, but he did not
-take them down immediately, only stood with his hands behind his back
-and gazed at them with two large, pleased eyes.
-
-At last he put his hand up and gently touched the three, felt the little
-blue pair, gave it a pat, and finally unhooked it from its nail. Then he
-sat down on the floor, and began to put them on. His toe encountering an
-obstacle, he pulled the stocking off again, put his hand in, and
-extracted the pink sweetmeat, with which he was so pleased that he
-laughed aloud. That woke up the others, who presently came in.
-
-"Ah, little rogue that thou art! Always the first to waken," said his
-mother, pleased at his pleasure.
-
-"See, mother! see what I found!" he cried. "It is good--sweet! I have
-tasted a crumb already. Take some of it, mother."
-
-But Mrs. Wendte shook her head.
-
-"No," she said. "I do not care for sugar. That is for little folks like
-thee. Eat it thyself, Jan."
-
-It was her saying this, perhaps, which prevented Wilhelm and Greta from
-making the same offer,--at least, I hope so. Certain it is that neither
-of them made it. Greta ate hers up on the spot, with the frank
-greediness of a girl of twelve who does not often get candy. Wilhelm
-buttoned his up in his trousers pocket. All three made haste to put on
-the new stockings. The three pairs had only time to hastily whisper as
-they were separated,--
-
-"To-night perhaps we may meet again."
-
-The pink sweetmeat went into the pocket of Jan's jacket, and he carried
-it about with him all the morning. He did not eat it, because once eaten
-it would be gone, and it was a greater pleasure to have it to look
-forward to, than to enjoy it at the moment. Jan was a thrifty little
-boy, as you perceive.
-
-Being Christmas, it was of course an idle day. Jacob Wendte never knew
-what to do with such. There was his pipe, and there was beer to be had,
-so in default of other occupation, he amused himself with these. Mrs.
-Wendte had her hands full with the dinner, and was frying sausages and
-mixing Yorkshire pudding all the morning. Only Greta went to church. She
-belonged to a parish-school where they gave Christmas prizes, and by no
-means intended to lose her chance; but, apart from that, she really
-loved church-going, for she spoke English and understood it better than
-either of the other children. Wilhelm went off on errands of his own.
-Little Jan spent the morning in admiring his stockings, and in wrapping
-and unwrapping his precious sweetmeat, and taking it out of his pocket
-and putting it in again.
-
-"Why dost thou not eat it, dear?" asked his mother, as she lifted the
-frying-pan from the stove.
-
-But he answered: "Oh! not yet. When once it is eaten, it is over. I will
-wait."
-
-"How long wilt thou wait?" she asked.
-
-Jan said bashfully, "I don't know."
-
-In truth, he had not made up his mind about the sweetmeat, only he felt
-instinctively that he did not want to hurry, and shorten his pleasure.
-
-Dinner over, he went out for a walk. Every now and then, as he marched
-along, his hand would steal into his pocket to finger his precious candy
-and make sure that it was safe.
-
-It was a gray afternoon, but not snowing or raining. Hyde Park was not
-too far away for a walk, and Jan went there. The Serpentine was skimmed
-over with ice just strong enough to bear boys, and quite a little crowd
-was sliding or skating upon it. Jan could skate very well. He had
-learned in Holland, but he made no attempt to join the crowd. He was
-rather shy of English boys, for they sometimes laughed at his Hollander
-clothes or his Dutch accent, and he did not like to be laughed at.
-
-So he strolled away, past the Serpentine and the skaters, and watched
-the riders in the Row for a while. There were not a great many, for
-people who ride are apt to be out of London at the Christmas time; but
-there were some pretty horses, and one fair little girl on a pony who
-took Jan's fancy very much. He stood for a long time watching her trot
-up and down, and the idea occurred to him that he would like to give her
-his sweetmeat. He even put his hand into his pocket and half pulled it
-out; but the little girl did not look his way, and presently her father,
-with whom she was riding, spoke to her, and she turned her horse's head
-and trotted off through the marble arch. Jan dropped the sugarplum again
-into his pocket, and felt as if his sudden fancy had been absurd; and
-indeed I think the little girl would have been surprised and puzzled
-what to do had he carried out the intention.
-
-After the pony and his little mistress had departed, Jan lost his
-interest in the riders, and walked away across the park. Once he stopped
-to look at a dear little dog with a blue collar, who seemed to have lost
-his master, for he was wandering about by himself, and smelling
-everybody and everything he met, as if to recover a lost trail. Jan
-called him. He came up in a very friendly way and allowed himself to be
-patted; and once more the sweetmeat was in danger, for Jan had taken it
-out with the intention of dividing it with this new friend, when a
-whistle was heard which the little dog evidently recognized, and he
-darted off at once to join his master. So again the pink sweetmeat was
-put back into Jan's pocket, and he walked on.
-
-He had gone quite a distance when he saw a number of people collected
-round the foot of a tree. A ladder was set against one of the lower
-branches, and a man had climbed up nearly to the top of the tree. Jan,
-like a true boy, lost no time in joining the crowd, but at first he
-could not make out what was going on. The boughs were thick. All that he
-could see was the man's back high up overhead, and what he was doing he
-could not guess.
-
-A benevolent-looking old gentleman stood near, and Jan heard him exclaim
-with great excitement:
-
-"There, he's got him! No, he's not; but it was a close shave!"
-
-"Got what, sir?" he ventured to ask.
-
-"Why, the rook, to be sure."
-
-Then, seeing that Jan still looked puzzled, he took the trouble to
-explain.
-
-"You see that rook up there, my lad, don't you?" Jan had not seen any
-rook at all! "Well it is caught in some way, how, I can't tell you, but
-it can't get away from the tree. It has been there three days, they
-say, and all that time the other rooks have brought food to it, and kept
-it from starving. Now some one has gone up to see what is the
-difficulty, and, if possible, to set the poor thing free."
-
-"Thank you, sir," said Jan.
-
-And the old gentleman looked at him kindly, and said to himself:--
-
-"A very civil, tidy little lad! I like his face."
-
-Jan had now become deeply interested in what was going on. He stood on
-tiptoe, and stretched his neck; but all he could see was the man's back
-and one of his feet, and now and then the movement of a stick with which
-the man seemed to be trying to hit something. At last there was a great
-plunge and a rustling of branches, and people began to hurrah. Jan
-hurrahed too, though he still saw nothing very clearly; but it is easier
-to shout when other boys shout, if you happen to be a boy, than it is to
-keep still.
-
-Slowly the man in the tree began to come down. He had only one hand to
-help himself with now, for the other held the heavy rook. We in America
-do not know what rooks are like, but in England they are common enough.
-They are large black birds, something like our crows, but they look
-wiser, and are a good deal bigger.
-
-As the man neared the ground, every one in the crowd could see what had
-been the matter with the rook. A kite-string, caught among the tree
-branches, had tangled his legs and held him fast. He had pulled so hard
-in his efforts to escape that the string had cut into one of his legs
-and half broken it. It was stiff and bleeding, and the rook could
-neither fly nor hop. People searched in their pockets, and one little
-girl, who had a half biscuit, began to feed the rook, who, for all the
-kindly efforts of his friends, seemed to be half-famished. The poor
-thing was too weak to struggle or be frightened, and took the crumbs
-eagerly from the girl's hand.
-
-Jan thought of his sweetmeat, and took it out for the third time.
-Everybody was crowding round the man who held the rook, and he could not
-get near. A very tall policeman stood in front of him. Jan pulled his
-arm, and when he turned, handed him the sweetmeat, and said in his soft
-foreign English:--
-
-"For the bird, sir."
-
-"Thank you, my dear," said the policeman.
-
-He had not understood what Jan said, and in an abstracted way, with his
-eyes still fixed on the rook, he bit the pink sweetmeat in two, and
-swallowed half of it at a mouthful. Fortunately Jan did not see this,
-for the policeman's back was turned to him; but observing that the man
-made no attempt to go forward, he pulled his sleeve for the second time,
-and again said:--
-
-"For the bird, I said, sir."
-
-This time the policeman heard, and taking one step forward, he held the
-remaining half of the sweetmeat out to the rook, who, having by this
-time grown used to being fed, took the offered dainty greedily. Jan saw
-the last pink crumb vanish into the long beak, but he felt no regret.
-His heart had been touched by the suffering of the poor bird, and he was
-glad to give what he could to make it forget those painful days in the
-tree.
-
-So that was the end of the pink sweetmeat, or not quite the end. The
-kind old gentleman to whom Jan had spoken, had noticed the little
-transaction with the policeman. He was shrewd as well as kind. He
-guessed by Jan's clothes that he was a working-man's son, to whom sweets
-were not an every-day affair, and the generous act pleased him. So he
-put his hand into _his_ pocket, pulled out a half-crown, and watching
-his opportunity, dropped it into Jan's pocket, quite empty now that the
-sweetmeat was gone. Then, with a little chuckle, he walked away, and Jan
-had no suspicion of what had been done to him.
-
-Gradually the crowd dispersed, Jan among the rest walking briskly, for
-he wanted to get home and tell his mother the story. It was not till
-after supper that he discovered the half-crown, and then it seemed to
-him like a sort of dream, as if fairies had been at work, and turned the
-pink sweetmeat into a bit of silver.
-
-That night the three pairs of stockings had another chance for
-conversation. The blue ones and the gray ones lay close together on the
-floor of the room where Jan slept with his brother, and the white ones,
-which Greta had carelessly dropped as she jumped into bed, were near
-enough the half-opened door to talk across the sill.
-
-"It has been an exciting day," said the White Pair. "My girl got a
-Keble's 'Christian Year' at her school. It was the second-best prize. It
-is a good thing to belong to respectable people who take prizes. Only
-one thing was painful to me: she wriggled her toes so with pleasure that
-I feel as if I were coming to an end in one of my points."
-
-"You probably are," remarked the Big Gray. "Yes, now that I examine, I
-can see the place. One stitch has parted already, and there is quite a
-thin spot. You know I always predicted that you would be in the rag-bag
-before you knew it."
-
-"Oh, don't say such dreadful things," pleaded the Little Blues. "Mrs.
-Wendte will mend her, I am sure, and make her last. What did your girl
-do with her sweetmeat?"
-
-"Ate it up directly, of course. What else should one do with a
-sweetmeat?" snapped the White Pair crossly. "Oh, dear! my toe feels
-dreadfully ever since you said that; quite neuralgic!"
-
-"My boy was not so foolish as to eat his sweetmeat," said the Big Gray
-stockings. "Only girls act in that way, without regard to anything but
-their greedy appetites. He traded his with another boy, and he got a
-pocket-knife for it, three screws, and a harmonica. There!"
-
-"Was the knife new?" asked the Blue.
-
-"Could the harmonica play any music?" demanded the White.
-
-"No; the harmonica is out of order inside somehow, but perhaps my boy
-can mend it. And the knife isn't new--quite old, in fact--and its blade
-is broken at the end; still, it's a knife, and Wilhelm thinks he can
-trade it off for something else. And now for your adventures. What did
-_your_ boy do with his sweetmeat, Little Blues? Did he eat it, or trade
-it?"
-
-"It is eaten," replied the Blue Stockings cautiously.
-
-"Eaten! Then of course he ate it. Why don't you speak out? If he ate it,
-say so. If he didn't, who did?"
-
-"Well, nobody ate the whole of it, and my boy didn't eat any. It was
-divided between two persons--or rather, between one person and--and--a
-thing that is not a person."
-
-"Bless me! What are you talking about? I never heard anything so absurd
-in my life. Persons, and things that are not persons," said the White
-Pair; "what do you mean?"
-
-"Yes; what _do_ you mean? What is the use of beating about the bush in
-this way?" remonstrated the Big Gray Pair. "Who did eat the sweetmeat?
-Say plainly."
-
-"Half of it was eaten by a policeman, and the other half by a rook,"
-replied the Little Blues, in a meek voice.
-
-"Ho, ho!" roared the Gray Stockings, while the White Pair joined in with
-a shrill giggle. "That beats all! Half by a policeman, and half by a
-rook! A fine way to dispose of a Christmas sweetmeat! Your boy must be a
-fool, Little Blues."
-
-"Not a fool at all," said the Blue Pair indignantly. "Now just listen to
-me. Your girl ate hers up at once, and forgot it. Your boy traded his
-away; and what has he got? A broken knife, and a harmonica that can't
-play music. I don't call those worth having. My boy enjoyed his
-sweetmeat all day. He had more pleasure in giving it away than if he had
-eaten it ten times over! Besides, he got half a crown for it. An old
-gentleman slipped it into his pocket because he was pleased with his
-kind heart. I saw him do it."
-
-"Half a crown!" ejaculated the White Pair, with amazement.
-
-"That _is_ something like," admitted the Big Gray Stockings. "Your boy
-did the best of the three, I admit."
-
-The Little Blues said no more.
-
-Presently the others fell asleep, but she lay and watched Jan as he
-rested peacefully beside his brother, with his wonderful treasure--the
-silver coin--clasped tight in his hand. He smiled in his sleep as though
-his dreams were pleasant.
-
-"Even if he had no half-crown, still he would have done the best," she
-whispered to herself at last.
-
-Then the clock struck twelve, and the day after Christmas was begun.
-
-
-
-
-ETELKA'S CHOICE.
-
-
-Etelka lived on the very borders of the Fairy Country.
-
-It may be that some of you do not believe that there are any such beings
-as fairies. In fact, it is not easy to hold to one's faith in them when
-one lives in such a country as this of ours. Fairies are the shyest of
-creatures; shyer than the wood-dove, shyer than the glancing dragon-fly.
-They love silence, seclusion, places where they can sport unseen with no
-intruding voice or step to startle them: when man comes they go. And I
-put it to you whether it is likely that they can enjoy themselves in the
-United States, where every forest with any trees in it worth cutting
-down is liable at any moment to be attacked by an army of wood-choppers;
-where streams are looked upon as "water power," lakes as "water supply,"
-and ponds as suitable places for the breeding of fish; where distance
-is brought near by railroads, and solitudes only mean a chance for a
-settler; where people are always poking about the hills and mountains in
-search of coal mines or silver mines, and prodding the valleys in hopes
-of oil wells, and where silence generally means an invitation to a
-steam-whistle of one kind or another?
-
-But where Etelka lived no one doubted the reality of fairies any more
-than they did that of human beings. Her home was in Bohemia, in the
-outskirts of the _Boehmer-wald_, a vast, unpeopled tract of mountainous
-country thickly wooded, full of game, and seldom visited except by
-hunting-parties in pursuit of stags or wild boars. Etelka's people were
-of mixed Sclavonic and gypsy origin. They cultivated a patch of land
-under the stewardship of a lord who never came near his estate, but this
-was only their ostensible occupation; for poaching or smuggling goods
-across the frontier brought in a great deal more money to them than did
-farming. There were three sons, Marc, Jocko, and Hanserl; Etelka was the
-only girl. They were lithe, sinewy young fellows, with the swarthy skins
-and glittering black eyes which belonged to their gypsy blood, and
-something furtive and threatening in their looks, but she was different.
-Her hair and eyes were of a warm brown, her features were delicate, and
-their expression was wistful and sweet. All summer long she ran about
-with her slender feet and ankles bare. A thin little cotton gown and a
-bead necklace composed her wardrobe for the warmer months. In winter she
-wore woollen stockings and wooden shoes, a stuff petticoat and a little
-shawl. She was always shabby, often ragged, and on cold days scarcely
-ever warm enough to be comfortable; but she somehow looked pretty in her
-poor garments, for beauty is the gift of Heaven, and quite as often sent
-to huts as to palaces. No one had ever told Etelka that she was pretty,
-except indeed young Sepperl of the Mill, whom she had seen now and again
-on her semi-annual visits to the neighboring village to dispose of her
-yarn, and he had said more with his eyes than with his tongue!
-
-To her family it made no difference whatever whether she was pretty or
-not. They preferred to have her useful, and they took care that she
-should be so. She spun and sewed, she cleaned the pots and pans, cooked
-the rye porridge and the cabbage soup, and rarely got a word of thanks
-for her pains. Her brothers flung her their jackets to mend or their
-game to dress, without a word of ceremony; if she had refused or delayed
-to attend to their wants she would have got a rough word, a curse, or
-perhaps a blow. But Etelka never refused; she was a willing little
-creature, kindly and cheerful, and had no lazy blood in her veins. So
-early and late she worked for them all, and her chief, almost her only
-pleasure was when, her tasks despatched, she could escape from the hut
-with its atmosphere of smoke and toil, and get away into the forest by
-herself.
-
-When once the green and fragrant hush of the high-arched thickets closed
-her in, she would give a sigh of relief, and a sense of being at home
-took possession of her. She did not feel it in the hut, though she
-called that home, and it was the only one she had ever known.
-
-Did Etelka believe in fairies? Indeed she did! She had a whole volume of
-stories about them at her tongue's end. Her great-grandmother had seen
-them often; so had her great-aunt. The mother of Dame Gretel, the wise
-woman of the village, who herself passed for a witch, had been on
-intimate terms for a long time with a hoary little kobold who had
-taught her all manner of marvellous things. The same fortunate woman had
-once seen Rubesal, the mountain demon, and had left an account of him
-and his looks, which were exactly those of a charcoal-burner. Etelka
-knew the very hollow where Dame Gretel's mother used to sit and listen
-to the teachings of the kobold, and could point out the ring where a
-number of the "good people" had once been seen moving a mystic dance,
-their wings glancing in the darkness like fire-flies. She, herself, had
-never seen a fairy or a kobold, it is true; everybody was not thus
-fortunate, but she might some day, who knew? And meantime she had often
-heard them whispering and sighing in their odd little voices close
-beside her. You may be sure that Etelka believed in fairies. It was one
-reason why she liked so well to go to the great forest, which was their
-well-known abiding-place.
-
-One day the desire to escape from home was unusually strong upon her.
-Her mother was out of sorts for some reason and had been particularly
-harsh. Her father, who sometimes stood her friend, had gone to the
-village with a bundle of hare-skins which he hoped to trade for oil and
-brandy. Her brothers, who had some private expedition on foot, had kept
-her running since early morning. She had grown tired and a little cross
-at their many exactions, and when, finally, all was made ready, and they
-set out with their guns and snares and a knapsack full of food, and her
-mother, sitting with her pipe beside the fire, had fallen into a doze,
-Etelka gladly closed the door behind her and stole away. The soup was
-simmering in its pot, the bowls were ready set on the table. She would
-not be missed. For an hour or two she might feel that she belonged to
-herself.
-
-The forest felt deliciously cool and still as she walked fast up the
-little glade which led to the Fairy Spring. This was a small pool of
-clear water, bubbling strongly up from a sandy bottom, and curiously
-walled round with smooth stones, which seemed fitted and joined by the
-labor of man, though in reality they were a freak of nature.
-
-Etelka sat herself down on this stony rim, dipped her hands in the water
-and sprinkled a little on her hot forehead. A tall spear of feathery
-grass grew just by. Presently it began to bend and sway as if
-wind-blown, and dance lightly up and down before her face. She took no
-notice at first; then it occurred to her, as no wind was blowing
-anywhere else, it was odd that this particular grass-blade should be in
-such active motion.
-
-"How queer," she said, looking hard at the grass-blade; "it seems to be
-alive!"
-
-A shrill, small laugh echoed her words, and suddenly, as if her eyes had
-been magically opened to see, she became aware that a tiny shape in
-green, with a pointed cap on its head, was sitting upon the blade of
-grass and moving it to and fro with hand and foot. The little
-countenance under the cap was full of mischief and malice, and the
-bright eyes regarded her with a strange glee. Etelka knew instantly that
-her wish had come true, and that at last she was face to face with a
-veritable fairy.
-
-"Oh!" was all she could say in her amazement.
-
-"Well, stupid, do you know who I am?" asked the creature in a voice as
-shrill as its laugh.
-
-"Yes, mein Herr," faltered Etelka.
-
-"Here you have gone about all your days wishing you could see a fairy,"
-continued the small creature, "and there we were close by all the time,
-and you never opened your eyes to look. How do you like me now you do
-see me?"
-
-"Very much, Herr Fairy," replied Etelka, gaining courage. "I think you
-are beautiful."
-
-The fairy seemed pleased at this compliment, which was evidently
-sincere.
-
-"Thou art a good maiden enough, as maidens go," he said, accosting her
-more familiarly. "I have long had my eye on thee, Etelklein. I have sat
-up in the roof-thatch and heard Jocko and Hanserl scold and hector, and
-the mother order thee about, and I have noted that thou wast almost
-always kind and humble, and seldom answered them back again. Thou art
-neat-handed, too, and that we fairies think much of. Many a drink of
-good new milk have I had, which I should have missed hadst thou
-forgotten to scour the pail. So now in return I will do something for
-thee. Listen.
-
-"Thou must know that each fairy of the _Boehmer-wald_ has the privilege
-once every hundred years of granting one wish to a mortal. All do not
-exercise it. Some crabbed ones do not like the human folk enough to be
-willing to do them a good turn, others again are too lazy or too
-pleasure-loving to go out of their way for the purpose. I am neither of
-these. Now, hearken. I will give thee the power that every time thou
-dancest a piece of gold shall lie under thy foot--or, instead of the
-gold, a flower shall spring up out of the ground; which wilt thou have?"
-
-"Yes; which wilt thou have?" cried another sharp voice, and a second
-fairy appeared, out of the air as it were, and seated himself on the
-very tip of the grass-blade. "Don't be in a hurry. Think a bit before
-you choose, Etelka. Why, child, what are you looking so scared about?"
-
-For Etelka had grown pale, and had not been able to repress a little
-scream at this sudden apparition. She rallied her courage and tried to
-look brave, but her heart misgave her. Was the wood full of these unseen
-creatures?
-
-"It is only my gossip," explained fairy number one. "Thimblerig is his
-name. Mine is Pertzal. He usually comes after me wherever I go. You
-needn't be afraid of _him_. Now, gold-piece or flower--decide."
-
-Etelka was in a whirl of confusion. It was dreadful to have to make up
-her mind all in a moment about such an important thing. Her thoughts
-flew to Sepperl of the Mill. He was fond of flowers, she knew; the mill
-garden was always full of blue flax, poppies, and lavender, and Sepperl
-spent all his spare hours in working over it. Suppose--suppose--the
-thing over which she had sometimes shyly glowed and blushed were to
-happen, how pleasant it would be to dance flowers all day long for
-Sepperl!
-
-Then her mind reverted to the hut, to her mother and the boys, who were
-always craving after the luxuries of life which they could not have, and
-fiercely envying those who were better off than themselves. Would they
-not be happier and better and kinder for the gold which she had it in
-her power to give them? They would not forgive her if she lost such a
-chance, that she knew. And even so far as Sepperl went, gold never came
-amiss to a poor man's door. So many things could be bought with it.
-
-"One cannot eat flowers," said Etelka to herself with a sigh; yet still
-she hesitated, and her heart felt heavy within her.
-
-"Choose," repeated the two fairies, each echoing the other.
-
-"I choose the gold-piece," said Etelka. The fairy faces clouded over as
-she spoke, and she knew she had chosen wrong.
-
-"Very well," said Pertzal, "have thy wish." He vanished as he spoke.
-Etelka sat alone by the bubbling spring, and she rubbed her eyes and
-asked herself if it were not all a dream.
-
-"I will put it to the test," she thought; and jumping up she began to
-dance beneath the trees, slowly and doubtfully at first, and then with
-swift and joyful bounds and steps, for as she danced, ever and anon upon
-the ground beneath her feet appeared a glittering coin. She danced so
-long that when at last she ceased she sank down exhausted. The beautiful
-yellow pieces lay thickly around her, some larger, some smaller, as if
-their size depended upon the vigor of her movements. She had never
-dreamed of such wealth before, and she gathered them up and tied them in
-the corner of her shawl, half-fearing they might turn to brass or
-pebbles; but when she neared home and looked at them again they were
-still gold.
-
-Her mother was standing at the door with a black look on her face.
-
-"Where hast thou been, thou idle baggage?" she demanded. "I drop asleep
-for one moment, and when I wake the fire is well-nigh out."
-
-Etelka glanced at the setting sun. In her excitement she had not marked
-the flight of time. It was much later than she had supposed.
-
-"I am sorry," she faltered. Then, to appease her mother's anger, she
-untied the corner of her shawl and showed the fairy money.
-
-"See what I have brought," she said; "they are all for thee."
-
-The old woman fairly gasped in her surprise.
-
-"Gold!" she cried, clutching the coins which Etelka held out. "Real
-gold! More than I ever saw before. Where didst get it, girl? Who gave it
-thee?"
-
-"The fairies!" exclaimed Etelka joyfully. "And they taught me how to get
-more when we are again in need."
-
-"Do you dare to make a mock of me?" screamed her mother, aiming a blow
-at her with the staff which she held in her hand. "Fairies indeed! A
-fine story! Tell the truth, hussy. Didst thou meet some count in the
-forest--or the landgrave himself?"
-
-"I met nobody," persisted Etelka, "no one at all except the fairy and
-the other fairy, and it was they who gave me the gift."
-
-Her mother's staff descended with a whack on her shoulder.
-
-"Get thee in," she said harshly. "Thou are lying." But she held fast to
-the gold all the same, and when Etelka's back was turned she hid it
-secretly away.
-
-So the first fruit of the fairy gift was a blow!
-
-Later, when the father came back from the village, there was another
-scene of severity and suspicion. Neither of Etelka's parents believed
-her story. They treated her like a culprit who will not confess his
-guilt. It was worse yet when her brothers returned the following day. In
-vain she wept and protested, in vain she implored them to believe her.
-
-"It's easy enough to talk," Jocko declared at last, "but to prove thy
-words is not so easy. If thou hast the power to dance gold-pieces into
-existence, why, face to work and dance! Then we shall know whether or
-not to believe thee."
-
-Strange to say, this method of proving her veracity had not occurred to
-Etelka's mind. After her troubled sleep and unhappy day she had begun
-to feel that the interview with the fairies was no more than a dream,
-and she scarcely ventured on the test, dreading that the strange gift
-bestowed upon her might have been withdrawn.
-
-Slowly and fearfully she began to dance, while her family watched every
-movement with eyes of scornful incredulity. Suddenly Marc, uttering a
-great oath, stooped and picked up something from the hard-trodden
-earthen floor. It was a gold-piece!
-
-"By Heavens!" he exclaimed, "the girl spoke true! or"--with a return of
-suspicion--"is it one of those she gave thee which thou hast dropped?"
-turning to his mother.
-
-But as Etelka, with heart suddenly grown lighter, went on bounding and
-twirling, one shining coin after another shone out on the floor beneath
-her feet, and with howls and screams of joy her relatives precipitated
-themselves upon them. It seemed as if they could never have enough. If
-Etelka paused to rest they urged her on.
-
-"Dance thou!" they cried. "Dance, Etelklein, liebchen, susschen,
-darling of our hearts, do not stop! Keep on till we are all rich."
-
-One hour, two, passed, and still Etelka obeyed their eager behest and
-danced on. The boys' pockets, her father's pouch, her mother's lap were
-full, and yet they demanded more.
-
-At last, quite worn out, she sank in a heap on the ground.
-
-"I cannot take another step," she sighed.
-
-"Oh, well," Jocko reluctantly admitted, "that may do for to-night.
-To-morrrow we will have some more of it."
-
-From that day all was changed for the family in the forest hut. Every
-one, except Etelka, fell to work straightway to squander the fairy gold.
-The sons made expeditions to the distant town, and came back laden with
-goods of the most incongruous kinds,--silks, velvets, tobacco,
-gold-embroidered caps, bonbons, carved pipes, gayly painted china, gilt
-clocks, toys of all descriptions; anything and everything which had
-pleased their untutored fancy. The father and mother smoked all day
-long, till the air of the hut was dense and stifling. Brandy and
-_kirsch-wasser_ flowed in streams. Etelka alone profited nothing from
-the fairy gift. To be sure she had her share of the dainties which the
-others devoured, and her brothers now and then tossed her a ribbon or a
-brightly colored handkerchief; but for these she did not much care, and
-her liberty, for which she did care, was greatly abridged. No longer was
-she suffered to wander at will in the forest. She had become too
-precious for that. Something might happen to her, they all declared, a
-bear or a wolf might come along and attack her, or she might slip and
-sprain her ankle, which, so far as they were concerned, would be just as
-bad! No, Etelka must run no risks; she must stay at home, and be ready
-to dance for them whenever they needed her.
-
-The slender limbs grew very weary, and the heart which gave them life
-was often heavy, as time went on, and more and more gold was needed to
-satisfy the exactions of her family. Money easily won is still more
-easily spent. The fairy gold melted fast in the rapacious fingers which
-clutched it. Soon--for appetite grows by what it feeds upon--the little
-hut no longer sufficed the growing ambition of Etelka's brothers. It was
-too poor, too lonely, too everything, they declared; they must all
-remove to Budweis or Linz; the city was the only fit place for people to
-live in who had money to spend.
-
-Etelka was not consulted. She was ordered to pack this and that, and to
-leave the other behind, that was all, and was made to dance a few extra
-hours to pay the travelling expenses. All the homely old furniture was
-left in the hut, as not smart enough for the grand city home they were
-going to. They took only the things they had bought since their good
-luck began; but these filled a great cart, on the top of which Etelka
-and her mother were perched. She cast one last look toward her beloved
-forest, to which she had not been allowed a farewell visit. Jocko
-cracked his long whip, the oxen slowly moved forward. "Good-by to
-everything," said Etelka in her heart, but she dared not say it aloud.
-
-A quick pang shot through her as they passed the mill garden, gay with
-flowers, where Sepperl, hoe in hand, was standing. His eyes met hers
-with deep and silent reproach, then were averted. She did not
-understand, but it made her very sad. No one had told her that a few
-weeks before, Sepperl had asked her in marriage of her father, and had
-been roughly refused. Such an offer would have been looked upon as
-unheard-of good fortune six months previously; now it was regarded
-almost as an insult! Marry Etelka! Take their gold-earner away from
-them! It was out of the question. What was the fool thinking of? But
-Etelka heard nothing of all this.
-
-Haunted by the recollection of Sepperl's wistful glance, she went her
-way with the others. Little heart had she for the new home which seemed
-to them so fine. It was high up in an old building, overlooking a
-crowded street. The rooms seemed very large and empty after the forest
-hut, and the first care of the family was to furnish them. With reckless
-disregard of good taste as well as of expense, Marc and Jocko and
-Hanserl rushed away to the market and the shops, and presently the
-stairs began to fill with porters bringing up all manner of
-things,--beds and chairs and tables, gaudy carpets for the floors,
-ill-painted pictures in showy frames for the walls, a piano on which
-none of them knew how to play, a music-box of extraordinary size which
-could play without assistance, looking-glasses, lamps, wonderful china
-figures, a parrot in a gilded cage, with a dreadful command of profane
-language. The rooms were filled and more than filled in no time, and
-for the payment of all these things Etelka must dance!
-
-And dance she did, but with a heavy heart and no spring in her feet.
-Accustomed to the quiet of the forest neighborhood, the sounds and
-smells of the city oppressed her greatly. The crowd and bustle
-frightened her, the roar of noise kept her awake at night, she felt as
-if she could not breathe. Things grew worse rather than better. Their
-extravagance provoked notice, and the fame of their riches and their
-ignorance soon brought about them a crew of tempters and needy
-adventurers. Men with evil eyes and sly greedy faces began to appear at
-all hours, to smoke and drink with Marc and Jocko, to gamble with them
-and win their money. Much money did they win, and all that was lost
-Etelka must make good. With her will or without it, she must
-dance,--dance always to content her rapacious kindred. They could hardly
-endure to spare her for the most needful rest. Time and again when she
-had sunk exhausted on her bed to sleep, while dice rattled and glasses
-clinked in the next room, Hanserl or Jocko had rushed in to awaken her
-roughly and demand that she should get up at once and dance. Stumbling
-and half blind with drowsiness the poor girl would do her best, but her
-movements being less brisk and buoyant, the coins would be of smaller
-value, and she would be sworn at for her pains, and threatened with dire
-penalties if she did not do better next time.
-
-No wonder that under this treatment she grew pale and thin. The pretty
-cheeks lost their roundness, the pink faded from them, her eyes were
-dull and lustreless. A great homesickness took possession of her. Night
-and day she pined for the forest hut. So wan and unhappy was she, that
-even the hard hearts of those who profited by her should have been
-touched by it; but no one noticed her looks or cared that she was
-unhappy, so long as she would keep on dancing and coin gold for them.
-
-At last came a day when she could not rise from her bed. Marc came and
-threatened her, he even pulled her on to her feet, but it was in vain;
-she fell down with weakness and could not stand. Alarmed at last, Jocko
-hastened after a doctor. He came, felt Etelka's pulse, shook his head.
-
-"What has she been doing?" he asked.
-
-Nothing, they told him, nothing at all! Then he shook his head still
-more portentously.
-
-"Ah, well, in that case it is all of no use," he said. "She is all given
-out. She must die."
-
-And now indeed those who had let Etelka tire herself to death for them
-were thoroughly frightened. With her would perish all their hopes, for
-the gold she had earned for them had been spent as fast as made; nothing
-had been laid up. They took wonderfully good care of her now. There was
-nothing she fancied that they would not willingly have brought her; but
-all the poor child asked for was to be left alone and suffered to lie
-still, not to be forced to keep on with that weary dancing!
-
-Gradually the spent flame of life flickered feebly upward within her,
-and as she gained a little in strength, a longing after the forest took
-possession of her. The wish seemed utterly foolish to her family, but
-they would not refuse it, for their one desire was to have her get well
-and able to earn gold for them again. So the big wagon and the oxen were
-hired, Etelka on her bed was laid carefully in it, Marc took the goad,
-and slowly, slowly, the sick girl was carried back to her old home.
-
-All was unchanged there. Dust lay thickly on the rude furniture which
-had been left behind, on the pots and pans which hung upon the wall, but
-no one had meddled with them or lifted the latch of the door since the
-family went away. The cool hush and stillness of the place was like a
-balm to Etelka's overstrained nerves. She slept that night as she had
-not slept for weeks, and on the morrow was visibly stronger. Marc did
-not stay with her long. The quiet of the hut disgusted him, and after
-enduring it for a day or two he went back to the others in the city,
-leaving Etelka alone with her father and mother. He gave strict orders
-that he was to be sent for the moment that Etelka was able to use her
-feet again. Then, indeed, she must fall to work and dance to make up for
-all this wasted time.
-
-Poor Etelka rejoiced to see him go. She had learned to fear her brothers
-and almost to dislike them.
-
-The day after he went, she begged her father to carry her in his arms to
-the edge of the forest and lay her under a tree. She wanted to feel the
-wind in her face again, she said. He consented at last, though grumbling
-a little at the trouble. Etelka was comfortably placed on a bear-skin
-under the shade of a spreading fir, and after a while, as her eyes were
-closed and she seemed to be asleep, her father stole away and left her.
-She was in full sight of the hut, so there seemed no danger in leaving
-her alone.
-
-But Etelka was not asleep. She was thinking with all her might, thinking
-of the fairy, wishing she could see him again and ask him to undo the
-fatal gift which had brought such misery into her life.
-
-Suddenly, as she lay thinking these thoughts, her cheek was tickled
-sharply. She opened her eyes. There stood the same odd little figure in
-green which she had seen before; as then a grass-blade was in his hand,
-and leaning over his shoulder was his gossip Thimblerig. Etelka almost
-screamed in her joy.
-
-"Thou seemest pleased to see us," remarked Pertzal with a mocking smile.
-
-"Oh, I am glad, indeed I am," cried poor Etelka. "Dear kind Herr Fairy,
-have pity! Don't let me dance gold any more!"
-
-"What! Tired already? What queer creatures mortals be!" began Pertzal
-teasingly; but the kinder Thimblerig interposed.
-
-"Tired of her gift, of course she is! You knew she would be when you
-gave it, Gossip! Don't plague the poor child. Look how thin she has
-grown. But, Etelka, I must tell thee that when once a fairy has granted
-to a mortal his wish, he has no power to take it back again."
-
-"What!" cried Etelka in despair, "must I then go on dancing forever till
-I die?"
-
-"He cannot take it back," repeated Thimblerig. "But do not cry so; there
-is another way. A second fairy can grant a wish which will contradict
-the first, and so all may be made right. Now, Etelka, I have a kindness
-for thee as well as Pertzal here, and like him I have the right to grant
-a favor to a mortal. Now, listen. Dance thee never so well or dance thee
-never so long, from henceforward shall never gold-piece lie under foot
-of thine for all thy dancing! And, furthermore, if ever thou art married
-to a man whom thou lovest, I endow thee with this gift, that when thou
-dancest with will and because thy heart is light, violets and daisies
-and all sweet blossoms shall spring at thy tread, till all about thee is
-as a garden."
-
-"Now I will add this piece of advice," said Pertzal, grinning
-maliciously. "If ever this does happen, hold thy tongue about thy gift
-to thy husband. The best of men can hardly resist the temptation of
-making money out of their womenkind,--safety lies in silence."
-
-"Oh, how can I thank you?" sighed Etelka.
-
-"Thank us by being happy," said Thimblerig. Then the fairies faded from
-sight, and Etelka was alone.
-
-I have not time to tell of the wrath of Etelka's father and mother and
-brothers, when, as she grew strong enough to dance again for their
-bidding, it was found that no gold-pieces followed her light steps, and
-that the fairy gift had been withdrawn. Their ill-humor and discontent
-made the life of the hut worse than ever it had been before. Etelka sank
-into her former insignificance. Very willingly and faithfully she worked
-for them all, but she could not win them to content. One after another
-the boys departed from home. Marc enlisted as a soldier, Jocko joined a
-party of smugglers and disappeared over the Italian frontier, Hanserl
-took service with the charcoal-burners high up on the mountains. When
-Sepperl of the Mill asked again for Etelka's hand in marriage the
-following year, there was no question as to what answer should be given
-him. Her father was only too glad to say yes. Etelka was made happy at
-last.
-
-She had been a wife several months before she made trial of her second
-fairy gift. It was one evening when she and Sepperl were in their
-garden, and he was telling her his plans with regard to a bit of waste
-land which he had lately fenced in.
-
-"It will take many roots and seeds to make it like the rest," he
-remarked, "but little by little we can do it without feeling the cost,
-and in the end it will be the best of all."
-
-Then, with a sudden flash in her eyes, Etelka left her husband and began
-to dance. To and fro over the bare earth she sped with quick graceful
-steps, now advancing, now retreating, now describing circles, with her
-arm poised above her head like wings and her laughing eyes fixed on
-Sepperl. He was puzzled by this freak on the part of his pretty wife,
-but stood watching her with great admiration, her cheeks were so
-flushed, and her movements so light and dainty.
-
-She stopped at last, came to him, and laid her hand on his arm.
-
-[Illustration: Then with a sudden flash in her eyes, Etelka left her
-husband and began to dance.--_Page 202_.]
-
-"Now look," she said.
-
-And lo! where had been bare, brown earth a half-hour before, was now a
-green sward enamelled all over with buttercups, violets, pink-and-white
-Michaelmas daisies, and pansies of every shade of gold and purple.
-
-Sepperl stood transfixed. "Hast thou commerce with the elves?" he asked.
-
-But Etelka did not reply. The words of Pertzal recurred to her memory,
-"Silence is safety," and they were like a wise hand laid on her lips.
-She only laughed like a silver bell, shook her head, and left on
-Sepperl's cheek a happy kiss!
-
-
-
-
-THE FIR CONES.
-
-AN IDYL OF CHRISTMAS EVE.
-
-
-"Well, the old tree has gone at last," said the farmer, as he latched
-the heavy door and began to stamp the snow from his boots.
-
-"What tree?" cried a girl's voice, as the whir of the busy wheel
-suddenly slackened. "Oh, father, not the Lovers' Tree,--the old fir?
-Surely thou canst not mean _that_?"
-
-"No other, Hilda; the Lovers' Tree, under which thy mother and I
-exchanged our troth-plight more than twenty years back. Hey, dame?" And
-he turned with a smile to where his wife sat in the sunset light,
-humming a low tune to the accompaniment of her clicking needles. She
-smiled back in answer.
-
-"Yes, Paul, and my mother as well; and thine too, I'll be bound, for she
-also was a Brelau girl. All Brelau knows the fir,--a hundred years old
-it was, they say."
-
-"More than that," said the farmer. "My grandfather courted his lass
-under its shade, and his father did the same. Add a hundred and fifty to
-your hundred, and it won't be so far amiss, wife. But it has fallen at
-last. There'll be no more maidens wooed and won under the Lovers' Tree.
-Thou hast lost thy chance, Hilda." And he turned fondly to his girl.
-
-"That was indeed a terrible wind last night," went on the dame. "It
-rocked the bed till it waked me from my sleep. Did it rouse thee also,
-Liebchen?"
-
-But Hilda responded neither to word nor look. She had left her wheel,
-had crossed the room, and now stood gazing from the window to where
-across the valley the green obelisk of the old fir had risen. Men were
-moving about the spot where once it stood, and the ring of axes on the
-frosty air told that already the frugal peasantry were at work; and the
-pride of the village, confidant of many secrets, was in process of
-reduction to the level of vulgar fire-wood.
-
-In rushed two children. "Hast thou heard the news?" they cried. "The
-Lovers' Tree is blown down! All the people are up there chopping. May we
-go too, and see them chop? We will bring home all the cones to build the
-Christmas fire. Ah, do let us go, mother; fir cones blaze so
-magnificently."
-
-"You are such little ones, you will get in the way of the axes and be
-hurt," replied their mother, fondling them.
-
-But the farmer said,--
-
-"Yes, let them go; we will all go. Get thy cloak, Ursula, and thy
-woollen hood. We will see the old tree once more before it is carried
-away. Wilt thou come too, Hilda?"
-
-But Hilda shook her head, and did not turn or answer. The children
-rioted about, searching for baskets and fagot strings; but she neither
-moved nor spoke. Then the door closed, and all was quiet in the cottage.
-But still Hilda stood in the window, looking with dreamy, unseeing eyes
-across the valley to the opposite hillside.
-
-She was looking upon a picture,--a picture which nobody would ever see
-again; upon the venerable tree, beloved of all Brelau, which for more
-years than men could count, had stood there watching the tide of human
-life ebb and flow, as some majestic old man might stand with children
-playing about his kindly knees. Whole generations of lovers had held
-tryst under its shade. Kisses had been interchanged, vows murmured,--the
-old, old story of human love, of human joy, of hope, of longing, of
-trust, had been repeated and repeated there, age after age, and still
-the old tree guarded its secrets well, as in days of greenest youth, and
-still bent to listen like a half-human friend. White arms clasped its
-trunk, soft cheeks were laid there, as if the rough bark could feel
-responsive thrill. Two centuries of loving and listening had mellowed
-its heart. The boughs seemed to whisper meanings to those who sought
-their shade,--gay songs to the young, counsels to the burdened,
-benedictions to those who, bowed down with trouble, came, black-clad and
-sorrowful, to look across the valley where once the purple lights of
-hope had met their eyes. "Wait," the rustling murmur seemed to say to
-such; "only wait--wait, as I have waited, and you shall be made
-exceedingly glad. Behold, the day dawns and the shadows fly away!" And
-though the heavy heart might not comprehend the whispered words,
-something seemed lifted from the weight of sadness, and the mourners
-departed comforted, knowing not why.
-
-But not upon a vague picture only did Hilda look. German girls can keep
-their own counsel as well as girls of other nations, and for all her
-father's joking she had not "lost her chance" under the Lovers' Tree.
-Often had she sat there--sat there not alone--and now in thought she was
-there again. She heard a voice--she leaned to meet a kiss. "Wilhelm,"
-she faltered, and then the vision dissolved in a mist of hot and rushing
-tears. In the old fir she seemed to lose a friend, an intercessor. Oh,
-why had this unhappy quarrel arisen? Why had she and Wilhelm loved at
-all, if only to be so unhappy in the end?
-
-But, in truth, it is very easy for lovers to quarrel. Like particles of
-electric matter, the two natures near, attract, repel. The fire that
-leaps from either soul, responsive to kindred fire, fuses or destroys. A
-hint, a suspicion, jealousy, mistrust, the thousand and one small
-chances of life, come between, and all is over. Only--
-
-    "The little pitted speck in garnered fruit"
-
-is needful. A trifle, or what seemed a trifle, had been the beginning of
-mischief between Hilda and Wilhelm, but the breach had slowly widened
-till now; when for weeks they had neither met nor spoken, and the idyl
-begun under summer boughs was withering in time of frost like summer
-flowers.
-
-To the old tree, and to him alone, did the girl confide her
-wretchedness. In his dumb ear she owned herself in the wrong. "Why do
-you not say so?" the responsive murmur seemed to breathe. "Wilhelm is
-true! Wilhelm is kind! only a word, and all will be well." But pride
-laid his finger on her lips. She neglected the kindly monitor, the word
-came not, and now the dear old fir was gone; and thinking of all these
-things, Hilda's heart was very sad.
-
-Meantime upon the hillside a great crowd of people were assembled about
-the fallen trunk. Old men and women, with wistful eyes, stood there;
-comely middle-aged pairs, surrounded by children; young girls and their
-bachelors; boys with fresh rosy faces and wondering eyes,--all alike had
-come to see once more the face of the village friend. Merrily rang the
-axes upon the wood. Some looked sad, some merry, as the work went on.
-There was much interchange of "Do you remembers," much laughing and
-joking, a few tears. The children with their baskets ran about picking
-up the bright cones which once hung like a coronet upon the forehead of
-the fir. Here and there a woman stooped for a chip or a small twig to
-carry away as relic. And then it began to grow dark. The people
-recollected themselves, as people will after doing a sentimental thing,
-and saw that it was time to go home. So in contented crowds they
-descended the hill to their suppers, and threw billets of the old fir on
-the fire, and beside the blaze partook of sausage and cheese, and
-laughed and gossiped no less merrily than usual, and the funeral of the
-old tree was over.
-
-"We will keep all our cones, and the big fagot which Fritz tied up,
-until day after to-morrow," said little Gretchen; "because, you know,
-day after to-morrow comes Christmas eve, and the Christ-child must be
-sure to find a good fire."
-
-No one gainsaid this, so the fagot was laid aside.
-
-All next day, and the next, did Hilda labor busily, throwing herself
-with feverish energy into the Christmas preparations. There was a plenty
-to do. The furniture must shine its brightest, veal and puddings must be
-made ready for spit and oven, green boughs be hung everywhere, and,
-above all, the tree must be prepared. Hard and continually she worked,
-and as the sun set on the blessed eve all was in order. A vast fire
-crackled on the hearth of the "big room," thrown open in honor of the
-festival. Its bright blaze was reflected back from the polished panels
-of the tall corner clock, and danced on the rosy apples and glossy
-filberts of the still unlighted tree, which stood, green and
-magnificent, beyond. Little fruit of value did this wonderful tree bear.
-Jackets, stockings, leather shoes, loaded the lower boughs; above was a
-flowering of warm hoods and gay neck-cloths, there was a wooden cow for
-Gretchen, a trumpet of red tin for little Paul; but the useful and the
-necessary predominated. Tender hands had arranged all, had hung the
-many-colored tapers, crowned the whole with bright-berried stems, and,
-in the moss at the foot, laid reverently a tiny straw cradle, with waxen
-occupant, in memory of that resting-place in the Bethlehem manger where
-once a "young child lay." And now, pale and tired, Hilda stood gazing
-upon her finished work.
-
-"Sister, sister!" clamored eager voices through the closed door, "hasn't
-the Christ-child come yet?"
-
-"No, dears, not yet. Go away and play quietly in the kitchen. I'll call
-you when he comes."
-
-The little footsteps retreated, and Hilda seated herself before the fire
-with a weary sigh. It would be an hour or more before her father would
-return, and the lighting of the tree begin; so, leaning back in the high
-carved chair, she gave herself up to rest of body, leaving her mind to
-rove listlessly as it would.
-
-The basket of cones stood beside the hearth. Half mechanically she
-stooped for a handful, and threw them on the blaze. Then a certain
-drowsy peace came over her, broken only by the flickering noise of the
-burning cones. They did not burn like other cones, she thought, and even
-as the idea floated through her brain, a strange, phantasmal change
-passed over them. Moving and blending, they began to build a picture in
-the heart of the fire,--the picture of a tree, drawn in flaming lines.
-Hilda knew the tree. It was the old fir of Brelau, complete in limb and
-trunk. And, as she gazed, figures formed themselves beneath the
-boughs,--figures as of people sitting there, which moved and
-scintillated, and, swaying toward each other, seemed to clasp and kiss.
-She uttered a low cry of pain. At the sound the scene shifted, the tree
-dissolved as in fiery rain, and the cones, raising themselves and
-climbing upward, stood ranged in a group on the topmost log, like a
-choir of musicians about to play. Strange notes seemed to come from the
-blaze, low and humming, like a whispered prelude, then voices began to
-speak, or to sing--which was it?--in tones which sounded oddly near, and
-yet infinitely far away. It was like a chorus of elves sung to the
-accompaniment of rustling leaves. And all the time it went on, certain
-brightly flaming cones, which took precedence, emphasized the music with
-a succession of quick, glancing sparks, darting out like tiny
-finger-points, as if to attract attention.
-
-"Look at us! look at us!" were the words of the strange _staccato_ chant
-which sounded from the fire. "We are all light and glorious as your love
-used to be,--used to be. It isn't so any longer." Then other cones, half
-burned and crusted over with white ashes, pushed forward and took up the
-strain in sad recitative: "Look at us! look at us, Hilda! We are as your
-love is now,--is now. Ah, there will be worse to come ere long!" And all
-the time they sang, glowing strongly from within, they fixed what
-seemed eyes, red and winking, on Hilda's face. Then the ashes from
-below, drifting upward in an odd, aimless way, formed themselves into a
-shadowy shape, and began to sing in low, muffled tones, full of sadness.
-"We are dead, Hilda," was their song; "all dead! dead as your love will
-be--will be--before long." And at the close of the strain all the cones
-closed together, and emitted a sigh so profound and so melancholy that
-Hilda started from her chair. Tears stood upon her cheeks. She stared at
-the fire with strange excitement. It was burning quietly now, and
-without noise. She was certainly awake. Had she been dreaming?
-
-Just at that moment the latch of the door clicked slightly, and somebody
-entered, slowly, hesitatingly, propelled from behind by a childish
-figure. "Hilda," said Gretchen's voice, "here's Wilhelm wanting to see
-the father. I told him to come in, because _perhaps_ the father was
-here, or else the mother." And Gretchen's eyes explored the room in
-search of the Christ-child, for a glimpse of whom she had resorted to
-this transparent device. Then, alarmed by Hilda's stony silence, she
-suddenly hung her head, and, rushing out, clapped the door behind her,
-and left the two alone.
-
-Hilda gave a gasp of bewilderment. She could not move. Was this part of
-the vision? Wilhelm stole one furtive glance at her face, then dropped
-his eyes. For a moment perfect stillness prevailed, then, shifting
-uneasily from one leg to the other in his embarrassment, the young man
-muttered something undistinguishable, and turned. His hand was on the
-door,--a moment more and he would be gone. Hilda started forward.
-
-"Wilhelm!" she exclaimed, with the hoarse utterance of one who seeks to
-escape from some frightful dream.
-
-Wilhelm turned. He saw the pale, agitated face, the eyes brimmed with
-tears, the imploring, out-stretched hands. Another second and he held
-her in his arms. The familiar touch melted the ice of Hilda's heart, her
-head sank upon his breast, and in a few broken words all was spoken and
-explained.
-
-So brief an interval and all life changed! The same intense feeling
-which drove them asunder drew them as inevitably together now that once
-the returning tides had chance to flow. Clasped in close embrace, with
-tears and smiles and loving self-reproachings, they stood before the
-fire; and as they bent for their first reconciled kiss, the fir cones,
-flashing once more into life and activity, rose upon the topmost log.
-Even the burned and blackened ones glowed with fresh fire. Hand in hand,
-as it were, they climbed into position, and leaped and capered side by
-side as if merrily dancing, while little jubilant cracks and clicks and
-sounds, as of small hands clapped for joy, accompanied the movement.
-Then suddenly the splendor faded, and sinking with one consent into
-ashes, the cones sifted through the logs and vanished forever, their
-mission accomplished, their work done.
-
-With eyes of amazement the lovers gazed upon the spectacle to its close.
-As the last spark faded, Hilda laid her head again on Wilhelm's breast.
-
-"Ah!" she said, tenderly sighing, "the dear old fir! He loved us well,
-Wilhelm, and that was his 'good-by.'"
-
-Perhaps it was!
-
-
-
-
-A BALSAM PILLOW.
-
-
-Now that fir-needles and hemlock-needles have become recognized articles
-of commerce, and every other shop boasts its row of fragrant cushions,
-with their inevitable motto, "Give Me of Thy Balm, O Fir-tree," I am
-reminded of the first pillow of the sort that I ever saw, and of what it
-meant to the girl who made it. I should like to tell you the little
-story, simple as it is. It belongs to the time, eight or nine years
-since, before pine pillows became popular. Perhaps Chateaubriand Dorset
-may be said, for once in her life, to have set a fashion.
-
-Yes, that was really her name! Her mother met with it in a newspaper,
-and, without the least idea as to whether it appertained to man or
-woman, adopted it for her baby. The many syllables fascinated her, I
-suppose, and there was, besides, that odd joy in a piece of extravagance
-that costs nothing, which appeals to the thrifty New England nature,
-and is one of its wholesome outlets and indulgences.
-
-So the Methodist elder baptized the child "Chateaubriand Aramintha,"
-making very queer work of the unfamiliar accents; and then, so far as
-practical purposes are concerned, the name ceased to be. How can a busy
-household, with milk to set, and milk to skim, and pans to scald, and
-butter to make, and pigs to feed, find time for a name like that?
-"Baby," the little girl was called till she was well settled on her feet
-and in the use of her little tongue. Then she became "Brie," and Brie
-Dorset she remained to the end. Few people recollected that she
-possessed any other name, unless the marriage, birth, and death pages of
-the family Bible happened to be under discussion.
-
-The Dorsets' was one of those picturesque, lonely, outlying farms, past
-which people drive in the summer, saying, "How retired! how peaceful!"
-but past which almost no one drives in the winter. It stood, with its
-environment of red barns and apple-orchards, at the foot of a low
-granite cliff whose top was crowned with a fir wood; and two enormous
-elm-trees met over its roof and made a checker-work of light and shade
-on its closely blinded front. No sign of life appeared to the city
-people who drew their horses in to admire the situation, except,
-perhaps, a hen scratching in the vegetable-beds, or a lazy cat basking
-on the doorstep; and they would drive on, unconscious that behind the
-slats of the green blinds above a pair of eyes watched them go, and a
-hungry young heart contrasted their lot with its own.
-
-Hungry! There never was anything like the starvation which goes on
-sometimes in those shut-up farmhouses. Boys and girls feel it alike; but
-the boys are less to be pitied, for they can usually devise means to get
-away.
-
-How could Brie get away? She was the only child. Her parents had not
-married young. When she was nineteen, they seemed almost elderly people,
-so badly does life on a bleak New England farm deal with human beings.
-Her mother, a frail little woman, grew year by year less fit for hard
-labor. The farm was not productive. Poverty, pinch, the inevitable
-recurrence of the same things to be done day after day, month after
-month, the same needs followed by the same fatigues,--all these Brie had
-to bear; and all the while the child had that love and longing for the
-beautiful which is part of the artist's equipment, and the deprivation
-of which is keen suffering. Sweet sights, sounds, smells,--all these she
-craved, and could get only in such measure as her daily work enabled her
-to get them from that world of nature which is the satisfaction of eager
-hearts to whom all other pleasures are denied.
-
-The fir wood on the upper hill was the temple where she worshipped.
-There she went with her Bible on Sunday afternoons, with her patching
-and stocking-mending on other days. There she dreamed her dreams and
-prayed her prayers, and while there she was content. But all too soon
-would come the sound of the horn blown from below, or a call from the
-house, "Brie, Brie, the men are coming to supper; make haste!" and she
-would be forced to hurry back to the workaday world.
-
-Harder times followed. When she was just twenty, her father fell from
-his loaded hay-wagon, and fractured his thigh. There was no cure for the
-hurt, and after six months of hopeless tendance, he died. Brie and her
-mother were left together on the lonely farm, with the added burden of a
-large bill for doctoring and medicines, which pressed like a heavy
-weight on their honorable hearts.
-
-The hired man, Reuben Hall, was well disposed and honest, but before Mr.
-Dorset's death he had begun to talk of going to the West, and Brie
-foreboded that he might not be willing to stay with them. Mrs. Dorset,
-broken down by nursing and sorrow, had become an invalid, unable to
-assist save in the lightest ways. The burden was sore for one pair of
-young shoulders to bear. Brie kept up a brave face by day, but at night,
-horrors of helplessness and apprehension seized her. The heavens seemed
-as brass, against which her feeble prayers beat in vain; the future was
-barred, as it were, with an impassable gate.
-
-What could they do? Sell the farm? That would take time; for no one in
-particular wanted to buy it. If Reuben would stand by them, they might
-be able to fight it out for another year, and, what with butter and eggs
-and the corn-crop, make enough for his wages and a bare living. But
-would Reuben stay?
-
-Our virtues sometimes treat us as investments do, and return a dividend
-when we least expect it. It was at this hard crisis that certain good
-deeds of Brie's in the past stood her friend. She had always been good
-to Reuben, and her sweet ways and consideration for his comfort had
-gradually won a passage into his rather stolid affections. Now, seeing
-the emergency she was in, and the courage with which she met it, he
-could not quite find the heart to "leave the little gal to make out by
-herself." Fully purposing to go, he stayed, putting off the idea of
-departure from month to month; and though, true to his idea of proper
-caution, he kept his good intentions to himself, so that the relief of
-having him there was constantly tempered by the dread lest he might go
-at any time, still it _was_ relief.
-
-So April passed, and May and June. The crops were planted, the
-vegetables in. Brie strained every nerve. She petted her hens, and
-coaxed every possible egg out of them, she studied the tastes of the two
-cows, she maintained a brave show of cheer for her ailing mother, but
-all the time she was sick at heart. Everything seemed closing in. How
-long could she keep it up?
-
-The balsam firs of the hill grove could have told tales in those days.
-They were Brie's sole confidants. The consolation they gave, the counsel
-they communicated, were mute, indeed, but none the less real to the
-anxious girl who sat beneath them, or laid her cheek on their rough
-stems. June passed, and with early July came the answer to Brie's many
-prayers. It came, as answers to prayer often do, in a shape of which she
-had never dreamed.
-
-Miss Mary Morgan, teacher in grammar school No. 3, Ward Nineteen, of the
-good city of Boston, came, tired out from her winter's work, to spend a
-few days with Farmer Allen's wife, her second cousin, stopped one day at
-the Dorset's door, while driving, to ask for a drink of water, took a
-fancy to the old house and to Brie, and next day came over to propose
-herself as a boarder for three months.
-
-"I can only afford to pay seven dollars a week," she said; "but, on the
-other hand, I will try not to make much trouble, if you will take me."
-
-"Seven dollars a week; only think!" cried Brie, gleefully, to her mother
-after the bargain was completed, and Miss Morgan gone. "Doesn't it seem
-like a fortune? It'll pay Reuben's wages, and leave ever so much over!
-And she doesn't eat much meat, she says, and she likes baked potatoes
-and cream and sweet baked apples better than anything. And there's the
-keeping-room chamber all cleaned and ready. Doesn't it seem as if she
-was sent to us, mother?"
-
-"Your poor father never felt like keepin' boarders," said Mrs. Dorset.
-"I used to kind of fancy the idea of it, but he wasn't willin'. I
-thought it would be company to have one in the house, if they was nice
-folks. It does seem as if this was the Lord's will for us; her coming in
-so unexpected, and all."
-
-Two days later Miss Morgan, with a hammock and a folding canvas chair
-and a trunk full of light reading, arrived, and took possession of her
-new quarters. For the first week or two she did little but rest,
-sleeping for hours at a time in the hammock swung beneath the shadowing
-elms. Then, as the color came back to her thin face and the light to her
-eyes, she began to walk a little, to sit with Brie in the fir grove, or
-read aloud to her on the doorstep while she mended, shelled peas, or
-picked over berries; and all life seemed to grow easier and pleasanter
-for the dwellers in the solitary farmhouse. The guest gave little
-trouble, she paid her weekly due punctually, and the steady income,
-small as it was, made all the difference in the world to Brie.
-
-As the summer went by, and she grew at home with her new friend, she
-found much relief in confiding to her the perplexities of her position.
-
-"I see," Miss Morgan said; "it is the winter that is the puzzle. I will
-engage to come back next summer as I have this, and that will help
-along; but the time between now and then is the difficulty."
-
-"Yes," replied Brie; "the winter is the puzzle, and Reuben's money. We
-have plenty of potatoes and corn and vegetables to take us through, and
-there's the pig to kill, and the chickens will lay some; if only there
-were any way in which I could make enough for Reuben's wages, we could
-manage."
-
-"I must think it over," said Miss Morgan.
-
-She pulled a long branch of the balsam fir nearer as she spoke, and
-buried her nose in it. It was the first week of September, and she and
-Brie were sitting in the hill grove.
-
-"I love this smell so," she said. "It is delicious. It makes me dream."
-
-Brie broke off a bough.
-
-"I shall hang it over your bed," she said, "and you will smell it all
-night."
-
-So the fir bough hung upon the wall till it gradually yellowed, and the
-needles began to drop.
-
-"Why, they are as sweet as ever,--sweeter," declared Brie, smelling a
-handful which she had swept from the floor. Then an idea came into her
-head.
-
-She gathered a great fagot of the branches, and laid them to dry in the
-sun on the floor of a little-used piazza. When partly dried, she
-stripped off the needles, stuffed with them a square cotton bag, and
-made for that a cover of soft sage-green silk, with an odd shot pattern
-over it. It was a piece of what had been her great-grandmother's wedding
-gown.
-
-_Voilà!_ Do you realize the situation, reader? Brie had made the first
-of all the many balsam pillows. It was meant for a good-by gift to Miss
-Morgan.
-
-"Your cushion is the joy of my life," wrote that lady to her a month
-after she went home. "Every one who sees it, falls in love with it. Half
-a dozen people have asked me how they could get one like it. And, Brie,
-this has given me an idea. Why should you not make them for sale? I will
-send you up some pretty silk for the covers, and you might cross-stitch
-a little motto if you liked. I copy some for you. Two people have given
-me an order already. They will pay four dollars apiece if you like to
-try."
-
-This suggestion was the small wedge of the new industry. Brie lost no
-time in making the two pillows, grandmother's gown fortunately holding
-out for their covers. Then came some pretty red silk from Miss Morgan,
-with yellow _filoselle_ for the mottoes, and more orders. Brie worked
-busily that winter, for her balsam pillows had to be made in spare
-moments when other work permitted. The grove on the hill was her
-unfailing treasury of supply. The thick-set twigs bent them to her will;
-the upper branches seemed to her to rustle as with satisfaction at the
-aid they were giving. In the spring the old trees renewed their foliage
-with vigorous purpose, as if resolved not to balk her in her purpose.
-
-The fir grove paid Reuben's wages that winter. Miss Morgan came back the
-following June, and by that time balsam pillows were established as
-articles of commerce, and Brie had a munificent offer from a recently
-established Decorative Art Society for a supply of the needles, at
-three dollars the pound. It was hard, dirty work to prepare such a
-quantity, but she did not mind that.
-
-As I said, this was some years since. Brie no longer lives in her old
-home. Her mother died the third year after Miss Morgan came to them, the
-farm is sold, and Brie married. She lives now on a ranch in Colorado,
-but she has never forgotten the fir-grove, and the memory of it is a
-help often in the desponding moments that come at times to all lives.
-
-"I could not be worse off than I was then," she says to herself. "There
-seemed no help or hope anywhere. I felt as if God didn't care and didn't
-hear my prayers; and yet, all the time, there was dear Miss Morgan
-coming to help us, and there were the trees, great beautiful things,
-nodding their heads, and trying to show me what could be made out of
-them. No, I never will be faithless again, nor let myself doubt, however
-dark things may look, but remember my balsam pillows, and trust in
-God."
-
-
-
-
-COLONEL WHEELER.
-
-
-Colonel Wheeler, as any one might see at a glance, had been a gallant
-officer in his day. It was true that he no longer had anything to do
-with military movements, but his very face suggested a martial past. So
-did his figure, which, though thin to an almost incredible degree, was
-unmistakably that of a military man, and also his dress, for the colonel
-invariably appeared in full uniform, with a scarlet, gold-laced coat,
-epaulettes, and a cocked hat and feathers, seldom removed even at
-meal-times. His moustache waved fiercely half-way across his cheeks, his
-eyes were piercing, and his eyebrows black and frowning; in short, it
-would be difficult to imagine a more warlike appearance than he
-presented on the most peaceful occasions.
-
-Like all truly brave men, Colonel Wheeler was as gentle as he was
-valiant, and nothing pleased him better in the piping times of peace
-than to be detailed on escort duty, and made of use to the ladies of his
-acquaintance. So it came to pass that again and again he was asked to
-take charge of large family parties on long journeys. You might see him
-starting off with a wife or two, half a dozen sisters-in-law, and from
-eight to fourteen children, all of them belonging to somebody else; not
-one of them being kith or kin to the gallant colonel. They made really a
-formidable assemblage when collected, and it took the longest legal
-envelope which Liz--
-
-There! I have let out the secret. Colonel Wheeler was a paper doll, and
-these ladies and children who travelled about with him were paper dolls
-also. They belonged to Lizzie Bruce and her cousin Ernestine, who
-between them owned several whole families of such. These families were
-all large. None of the mamma dolls had less than twelve children, and
-some of them had as many as twenty. Lizzie and Ernestine despised people
-not made of paper, who had only two or three little boys and girls. In
-fact, Lizzie was once heard to say of some neighbors with eleven
-children, "They are the only really satisfactory people I ever
-knew,--just as good as paper dolls;" and this was meant as the highest
-possible compliment.
-
-Lizzie lived in Annapolis, Md., and Ernestine in Hingham, Mass., so, as
-you will see, there was a long distance between their homes. It took a
-day and a half to make the journey, and the little cousins did not visit
-each other more than once or twice a year. But the dolls went much
-oftener. _They_ travelled by mail, in one of those long yellow envelopes
-which lawyers use to put papers in, and Colonel Wheeler always went in
-the same envelope to take care of them. When they came back from these
-trips, Lizzie or Ernestine, whichever it chanced to be, would unpack
-them, and exclaim delightedly, "How well the dear things look! So much
-better for the change! See, mamma, how round and pink their faces have
-grown!"
-
-"I wouldn't advise you to depend so much on Colonel Wheeler," Lizzie's
-mother would sometimes say. "These military men are rather uncertain
-characters. I wouldn't send off all the dolls at once with him, if I
-were you. And really, Lizzie, such constant journeys are very expensive.
-There is never a stamp in my desk when I want one in a hurry."
-
-"But, mamma, the children really _had_ to have a change," Lizzie would
-protest, with tears in her eyes. "And as for the colonel, he is such a
-good man, truly, mamma! He would never steal anybody else's family! He
-takes beau-tiful care of the dolls, always."
-
-"Very well, we shall see," answered mamma, with a teazing smile. But she
-saw that Lizzie was in earnest, so she did not say anything more to
-trouble her, and the very next day contributed seven postage-stamps to
-pay for the transportation of a large party which Lizzie wanted to send
-on to Hingham for a Christmas visit.
-
-This party included, besides Colonel Wheeler, who as usual acted as
-escort, Mrs. Allen, the wife of Captain Allen, her fourteen children,
-her sister-in-law Miss Allen, her own sister Pauline Gray,--so called
-because her only dress happened to be made of gray and blue
-tissue-paper,--and Mrs. Adipose and her little girl. Mrs. Adipose, whose
-name had been suggested by papa, was the fattest of all the dolls. Her
-daughter was fat, too, and Ernestine had increased this effect by making
-her a jacket so much too large for her that it could only be kept on
-with a dab of glue. Captain Allen was a creature who had no real
-existence. Lizzie meant to make a doll to represent him some day.
-Meanwhile, he was kept persistently "at the front," wherever that might
-be, and Mrs. Allen travelled about as freely as if she had no husband at
-all. This Lizzie and Ernestine considered an admirable arrangement; for,
-as Captain Allen never came home and never wrote, he was as little of an
-inconvenience to his family as any gentleman can ever hope to be.
-
-Well, this large and mixed company started off gayly in the mail-bag,
-and in due time Lizzie heard of their safe arrival, that they were all
-well, and that the baby "already looked better for the change." About
-three weeks later another letter came, and she opened it without the
-least qualm of anxiety, or any suspicion of the dreadful news it was to
-bring. It ran thus:--
-
-    DEAR LIZ,--Mrs. Adipose grew a little home-sick. She began to
-    worry about Mr. Adipose. She was afraid he would have trouble
-    with the servants, or else try to clean house while she was
-    away, and make an awful mess all over everything. You never
-    could tell what men would do when they were left alone, she
-    said. So, as I saw she wasn't enjoying herself any more, and as
-    the baby and little Ellen seemed to have got as much good out of
-    the visit as they were likely to get, I sent them back last week
-    Friday, and hope you got them safely.
-
-Lizzie dropped the letter with a scream of dismay. This was Saturday.
-Last week Friday was more than a week ago. Where, oh, where were the
-precious dolls?
-
-She flew with her tragic tale to mamma, who, for all she was very sorry,
-could not help laughing.
-
-"You know I warned you against trusting too much to Colonel Wheeler,"
-she said.
-
-"Oh, mamma, it isn't his fault, I am sure it isn't," pleaded Lizzie. "I
-have perfect confidence in him. Think how often he has gone to Hingham,
-and never once didn't come back! He _would_ have fetched them safely if
-he hadn't been interfered with, I know he would! No, something dreadful
-has happened,--it's that horrid post-office!" and she wrung her hands.
-
-Mamma was very sorry for Lizzie. Papa wrote to the postmaster, and
-Ernestine's papa inquired at the Hingham post-office, and there was
-quite a stir over the lost travellers.
-
-Time went on. A month, six weeks, two months passed, and no tidings
-came, and Mr. Adipose still sat in the lonely baby-house, watching the
-cook brandishing a paper saucepan--always the same saucepan--over the
-toy stove, and Bridget, the "housemaid," forever dusting the same
-table-top, and never getting any farther on with her work. Mamma
-proposed that Lizzie should make some new dolls to take the place of the
-lost ones, and offered help and the use of her mucilage bottle; but
-Lizzie shook her head sorrowfully.
-
-"I can't help feeling as if the Allens may come back some day," she
-said. "Colonel Wheeler is such a good traveller; and what would they
-think if there was a strange family in their rooms? Besides, it's almost
-as much fun to play without them, because there is Mr. Adipose, a
-widower, you know, which is very interesting, and the two pairs of
-twins, which Mrs. Allen forgot to take. Besides, I can always make
-believe that they are coming to-morrow."
-
-The very next morning after this conversation, as mamma sat writing in
-her room upstairs, she heard a wild shriek at the front door. The
-postman had rapped a moment before, and Lizzie had rushed down to meet
-him, as she had each day since the dolls were lost. The shriek was so
-loud and sudden that Mrs. Bruce jumped up; but before she could get to
-the door in flew Lizzie, holding in her hand a wild huddle of battered
-blue envelopes with "Dead Letter Office" stamped on their corners, and a
-mass of pink and gray and green gowns and funny tumbled capes and hats.
-It was the doll party, returned at last!
-
-"Mamma, mamma," she cried, "what did I tell you? Colonel Wheeler didn't
-run away with them; he has brought them all home."
-
-There they were indeed; Mrs. Adipose as fat as ever, Mrs. Allen, and all
-her children, the sister, the sister-in-law, and Colonel Wheeler, erect
-and dignified as usual, in spite of a green crease across both his legs,
-and a morsel of postage-stamp in his eye, and wearing an air of
-conscious merit, which the occasion fully warranted. As Lizzie
-rapturously embraced him, she cried: "Dear old Colonel, nobody believed
-in you but me, not even mamma! I knew you hadn't run away with nineteen
-people. Mamma laughed at me, but she doesn't know you as well as I do.
-Nobody shall ever laugh at you again."
-
-And nobody did. Colonel Wheeler had earned public confidence, and from
-that day to this no one has dared to say a word against him in Lizzie's
-hearing. He has made several journeys to Hingham without the least
-misadventure, and papa says he would trust him to escort Lizzie herself
-if it were necessary. He is the hero of the dolls' home, and poor old
-Mr. Adipose, who never stirs from home, is made miserable by having him
-held up as a perpetual model for imitation. But unlike the generality of
-heroes, Colonel Wheeler lives up to his reputation, and is not less
-modest, useful, and agreeable in the domestic circle because of being so
-exceptionally meritorious!
-
-
-
-
-NINETY-THREE AND NINETY-FOUR.
-
-
-Ninety-three and Ninety-four were two houses standing side by side in
-the outskirts of a country town, and to all outward appearance as like
-each other as two peas. They were the pioneer buildings of a small brick
-block; but as yet the rest of the block had not been built, which was
-all the better for Ninety-three and Ninety-four, and gave them more
-space and outlook. Both had French roofs with dormer windows; both front
-doors "grained" to represent oak, the graining falling into a pattern of
-regular stripes like a watered silk; and across the front of each, on
-the ground floor, ran the same little sham balcony of varnished
-iron,--balconies on which nothing heavier than a cat could venture
-without risk of bringing the frail structures down into the street.
-
-Inside, the houses differed in trifling respects, as houses must which
-are under the control of differing minds; but in one point they were
-precisely alike within,--which was, that the back room of the third
-story of each was occupied by a girl of seventeen.
-
-It is of these two rooms that I want to tell the story. So much has been
-said and written of late years about home decoration and the methods of
-producing it, that I think some other girls of seventeen with rooms to
-make pretty may like to hear of how Eleanor Pyne and May Blodgett
-managed theirs.
-
-Eleanor was the girl at Ninety-three. She and May were intimate friends,
-or considered themselves such. Intimacy is a word very freely used among
-young people who have not learned what a sacred word it is and how very
-much it means. They had grown up together, had gone to the same schools,
-shared most of their pleasures as well as their lessons, sent each other
-Christmas presents and birthday cards every year, and consulted in
-advance over their clothes, spring bonnets, and fancy work, which, taken
-all together, may be said to make an intimacy according to the general
-use of the term. So it was natural that, when May, stirred by the sense
-of young-ladyhood just at hand and by the modern impulse for house
-decoration, desired to "do over" and beautify her room, Eleanor should
-desire it also.
-
-Making a room pretty nowadays would seem easy enough where there is
-plenty of money for the purpose. There is only the embarrassment of
-choice, though that is so embarrassing at times as to lead one to envy
-those grandmothers of ours, who, with only three or four patterns of
-everything to choose from, and those all ugly, had but the simple task
-of selecting the least ugly! But in the case of my two girls there was
-this further complication, that very little money could be used for
-adornment of the bedrooms. Mrs. Blodgett and Mrs. Pyne had consulted
-over the matter, and the decision was that Eleanor and May might each
-spend twenty dollars, and no more.
-
-What can be done with twenty dollars? It will buy one pretty article of
-furniture. It will pay for a "Kensington Art Square," with perhaps
-enough left for cheese-cloth curtains. It will paper a room, or paint
-it. You can easily dispose of the whole of it, if you will, in a single
-portière. And here were two rooms which needed renovation from floor to
-ceiling!
-
-The rooms were of the same size. Both had two windows looking north and
-an ample closet. The most important difference lay in the fact that the
-builder of the houses, for some reason known only to himself, had put a
-small fireplace across the corner of Eleanor's room, and had put none in
-May's. _Per contra_ May's room was papered, which she considered a
-counterbalancing advantage; but as the paper was not very pretty,
-Eleanor did not agree with her.
-
-Many were the consultations held between the two girls. And just here,
-before they had actually begun operations, a piece of good luck befell
-both of them. Eleanor's grandmother presented her with an easy-chair, an
-old one, very shabby as to cover, but a good chair still, and very
-comfortable. And almost simultaneously a happily timed accident occurred
-to Mrs. Blodgett's spare-room carpet, which made the buying of a new one
-necessary, and the old one was given to May. It was a still respectable
-Brussels, with rather a large medallion figure on a green ground. It did
-not comport very well with the blue and drab paper on the walls, and the
-medallions looked very big on the smaller floor; but May cared nothing
-for that, and she accepted her windfall gleefully.
-
-"It will save ever and ever so much," she said, joyously. "Carpets do
-cost so. Poor Eleanor, you will have to get one for yourself, unless you
-can persuade your cook to upset an oil lamp on one of your mother's."
-
-"Oh, Annie is too careful; she could never be persuaded to do such a
-thing as that," laughed Eleanor. "Besides, I don't want her to. I don't
-like any of mother's carpets very much."
-
-"Well, I don't care what sort of a carpet it is so long as I don't have
-to buy it," said May.
-
-"I do," replied Eleanor.
-
-She did. There was this great point of difference between the friends.
-Eleanor possessed by nature that eye for color and sense of effects
-which belongs to what people call the "artistic" temperament. May had
-none of this, and did not even understand what it meant. To her all reds
-and olives and yellows were alike; differences of tone, inflections of
-tint, were lost on her untrained and unappreciative vision. She was
-unconscious of this deficiency, so it did not annoy her, and as Eleanor
-had a quiet and pleasant way of differing with her, they never
-quarrelled. But none the less did each hold to her own point of view and
-her own opinion.
-
-So, while May read eagerly all the articles in the secular and religious
-papers which show how girls and women have made plain homes cheaply
-charming by painting sunflowers and Black-Eyed Susans on ink-bottles and
-molasses-jugs, converting pork-barrels into arm-chairs with the aid of
-"excelsior" and burlaps, and "lighting up" dark corners with six-cent
-fans, and was fired with an ambition to do the same, Eleanor silently
-dissented from her enthusiasms. She was ready to help, however, even
-when she did not agree; and May, glad of the help, did not notice much
-the lack of sympathy. It is often so in friendships. One does the
-talking and one the listening. One kisses while the other holds out the
-cheek, as the French proverb puts it; one lays down the law and the
-other differs without disputing it, so both are satisfied.
-
-It was so in this case. Eleanor was doing a great deal of quiet thinking
-and planning while May chattered by the hour over her projects.
-
-"What I want my room to be," she told her friend, "is gay and dressy. I
-hate dull-looking rooms, and having no carpet or paper to buy I can get
-lots of chintz. There's a lovely pattern on the bargain counter at
-Shell's for fourteen cents, all over roses. I am going to have a whole
-piece of it, and just cover up all that awful old yellow furniture of
-mine entirely. The bureau is to have little rods across the front and
-curtains to hide the drawers, like that picture in the 'Pomologist,' and
-I shall make a soapbox footstool and a barrel chair, and have
-lambrequins and a drapery over my bed, and a coverlet and valances. The
-washstand I have decided to do in burlaps with cat-tails embroidered on
-the front, and a splasher with a pattern of swans and, 'Wash and be
-clean.' Won't it be lovely?
-
-"You know those black-walnut book-shelves of mine," she went on, after a
-pause; "well, I am going to cover them in white muslin with little
-pleated ruffles on the edges and pink satin bows at the corners. Sarah
-Stanton has promised to paint me a stone bottle with roses to put on
-top, and Bell Short is working me a wall banner. It's going to be the
-gayest little place you ever saw."
-
-"Won't the white muslin soil soon, and won't so much chintz get very
-dusty?" objected Eleanor.
-
-"Oh, they can be washed," replied May, easily.
-
-So the big roll of chintz was ordered home, and for a fortnight she and
-Eleanor spent all their spare time in hemming ruffles, tacking pleatings
-on to wooden shelves, and putting up frills and curtains. When all was
-done the room looked truly very fresh and gay. The old yellow "cottage
-furniture" had vanished under its raiment of chintz and was quite
-hidden. Even the foot-board of the bed had its slip-cover and flounce.
-The books were ranged in rows on the muslin shelves with crisp little
-ruffles above and below. Flowers and bright-colored zig-zags of crewels
-adorned everything. Wherever it was possible, a Japanese fan was stuck
-on the wall, or a bow of ribbon, or a little embroidered something, or a
-Christmas card. Scarfs of one sort or another were looped across the
-corners of the pictures, tidies innumerable adorned the chair-backs and
-table-tops. There was a general look of fulness and of an irresistible
-tendency in things to be of no particular use except to make spots of
-meaningless color and keep the eye roving restlessly to and fro.
-
-"Isn't it just lovely?" said May, as she stood in the doorway to take in
-the effect. "Now, Eleanor Pyne, do say it's lovely."
-
-"It's as bright as can be," answered Eleanor, cordially. "Only I can't
-bear to think of all these pretty things getting dusty. They're so nice
-and fresh now."
-
-"Oh, they can easily be dusted," said May. "You are a perfect crank
-about dust, Elly. Now, here is my account. I think I have managed pretty
-well, don't you?"
-
-The account ran thus:--
-
-    Sixty yards of chintz at 14 cents a yard     $8.40
-    Burlaps, cheese-cloth, white muslin           3.25
-    Fans, ribbons, crewels                        1.60
-    Stamping a tidy                                .30
-    One wicker-work chair                         5.00
-    Hanging-basket                                1.25
-                                                ------
-    Total                                       $19.80
-
-"There's twenty cents left over," explained May, as she finished reading
-the items. "That will just get a yellow ribbon to tie round the handle
-of my clothes-brush. Eleanor, you've been ever so good to help me so
-much. When are you going to begin your room? You must let me help you
-now."
-
-"I began this morning."
-
-"Have you really begun? What did you get?"
-
-"Oh, I didn't get anything. This first thing isn't to cost anything at
-all."
-
-"Why, what is it?"
-
-"You know that ugly fire-board in front of my fireplace? I have taken it
-upstairs to the attic, and mother has lent me some cunning little
-andirons and a shovel and tongs which grandmamma gave her, and I am
-going to have an open fire."
-
-"But you don't need one. The room is warm enough, with your register."
-
-"Oh, I know that. And I didn't mean that I was going to _light_ the
-fire, only have it all ready for lighting. I rubbed the brass knobs
-myself with Puit's Pomade, and they shine _beautifully_, and I painted
-the bricks with red-ochre and water, and arranged the wood and
-kindlings, and it has such a cosy, homelike look, you can't think!"
-
-"Well, I confess I don't see the cosiness of a fire that you're never
-going to light."
-
-"Oh, mamma says if I ever am sick in bed, or there is any particular
-reason for it, I may light it. And even if it doesn't happen often, I
-shall have the comfort of knowing that it's all ready."
-
-"I call it cold comfort. What a queer girl you are! Well, what are you
-going to do next, Elly?"
-
-"You will laugh when I tell you. I'm going to paper my room myself."
-
-"Not really! Why, you can't. Papering is very difficult; I have always
-heard so. People have to get men to do it, always."
-
-"I don't believe it's so very difficult. There was a piece about it once
-in the 'Family Friend' which I cut out and saved. It told how to make
-the paste and everything, and it didn't seem hard at all. Mother thinks
-I can. I'm going to begin to-morrow. In fact, I began yesterday, for old
-Joyce came and mended the crack in the ceiling and kalsomined it, and
-oh, May, I did such a _thrifty_ thing! He had a nice big brush and a
-roller to smooth out the paper with, and don't you think, I made a
-bargain with him to hire them out to me for three cents an hour, so I
-sha'n't have to buy any."
-
-"Didn't he laugh?"
-
-"Yes, he laughed, and Ned laughed too; but I don't care. 'Let those
-laugh who win,'" concluded Eleanor, with a bright, confident smile.
-
-"Come in to-morrow afternoon and see how I get on," she called out from
-the door of Ninety-three.
-
-May went at the appointed time. The papering was done, and for a
-beginner very well done, though an expert might easily have found faulty
-places here and there. The paper Eleanor had chosen was of a soft, warm
-yellow like pale sunshine, which seemed to neutralize the cold light of
-the north windows. It looked plain when seen in shadow, but where the
-light struck it revealed a pattern of graceful interlaced disks. And the
-ceiling was tinted with a much lighter shade of the same yellow. A
-chestnut picture-rod separated wall and ceiling.
-
-"Putting the paper on myself saved _lots_," announced Eleanor,
-gleefully. "It only cost fifteen cents a roll, so the whole room came to
-exactly a dollar eighty. Then I am to pay Joyce eighteen cents for six
-hours' use of his brush and roller, and mother isn't going to charge
-anything for the flour for the paste, because I boiled it myself. I had
-to get the picture-moulding, though, and that was rather dear,--nearly
-two dollars. Ned nailed it up for me."
-
-"Why didn't you have a paper border; it would not have cost nearly as
-much?"
-
-"No, but I should have had to drive nails and tacks in every time I
-wanted to hang up anything, and that would have spoiled the paper. And I
-want that to last a long, long time."
-
-"What are you going to do with your furniture?" asked May, casting an
-eye of disfavor at the articles in question, a so-called "cottage" set,
-enamelled, of a faded, shabby blue.
-
-"I am going to paint them," replied Eleanor, daringly.
-
-"Eleanor Pyne! you can't!"
-
-But Eleanor could and did. Painting is by no means the recondite art
-which some of its professors would have us suppose. Eleanor avoided one
-of the main difficulties of the craft, by buying her paint ready mixed
-and qualified with "dryers." She chose a pretty tint of olive brown. Ned
-took her bedstead apart for her, and one by one she carried the
-different articles to a little-used attic, where, equipped in a
-long-sleeved apron and a pair of old cotton gloves to save her fingers,
-she gradually coated each smoothly with the new paint. It took some
-days to finish, for she did not work continuously, but when done she
-felt rewarded for her pains; for the furniture not only looked new, but
-was prettier than it had ever been before during the memory of man. Her
-brother Ned was so pleased with her success, that he volunteered, if she
-would pay for the "stuff," to make a broad pine shelf to nail over the
-narrow shelf of her chimney-piece, and some smaller ones above, cut
-after a pretty design which he had seen in an agricultural magazine.
-This handsome offer Eleanor gladly accepted, and when the shelves were
-done, she covered them with two coats of the same useful olive-brown
-paint.
-
-There was still some paint left; and grown bold with practice and no
-longer afraid of her big brush, Eleanor essayed a bolder flight. She
-first painted her doors and her window-frames, then she attacked her
-floor, and, leaving an ample square space in the middle, executed a
-border two feet and a half wide all round it, in a pattern of long
-diamonds done in two shades of olive, the darker being obtained by
-mixing a little black with the original tint.
-
-"You see I have to buy my own carpet," she explained to the astonished
-and somewhat scandalized May; "and with this border a little square one
-will answer, instead of my having to get a great big thing for the whole
-floor."
-
-"But sha'n't you hate to put your feet on bare boards?"
-
-"That's just what I sha'n't do. Don't you see that the bureau and
-washstand and the bedstead and towel-frame and all the rest fill up
-nearly all the space I have left for a border. What's the use of buying
-carpet for _them_ to stand on?"
-
-May shook her head. She was not capable of such original reasoning. In
-her code the thing that generally had been always should be.
-
-"Well, it seems rather queer to me--and not very comfortable," she said.
-"And I can't think why you painted those shelves over the mantel instead
-of covering them with something,--chintz, now. They would have looked
-awfully pretty with pinked ruffles, you know, and long curtains to draw
-across the front like that picture you saw in 'Home made Happy.'"
-
-"Oh, I shouldn't have liked that at all. I should hate the idea of
-calico curtains to a mantel-piece. It would always seem as if they were
-going to catch fire."
-
-"But they _couldn't_. You don't have any fire," persisted May.
-
-"No, but they would seem so. And I want my fire to look as if it could
-be lighted at any minute."
-
-Eleanor's instinct was based on an "underlying principle." It is a
-charming point in any fireplace to look as if it were constantly ready
-for use. Inflammable draperies, however pretty, militate against this
-look, and so are a mistake in taste, especially in our changeful New
-England climate, where, even in midsummer, a little blaze may at any
-moment be desirable to cheer a dull day or warm a chilly evening.
-
-But May herself was forced to admit that the room looked "comfortable"
-when the square of pretty ingrain carpeting of a warm golden brown was
-tacked into its place, and the furniture brought back from the attic and
-arranged. Things at once fell into harmonious relation with each other,
-as in a well-thought-out room they should do. The creamy, bright paper
-made a pleasant background; there was an air of cheerfulness even on
-cloudy days. May could not understand the reason of this, or why on such
-days her reds and pinks and drabs and greens and blues never seemed to
-warm her out of dulness.
-
-"I am sure my colors are a great deal brighter than yours," she would
-say; "I cannot imagine why they don't light up better."
-
-Eleanor did not try for many evanescent prettinesses. In fact, she could
-not, even had she wished to do so, for her money was all spent; so, as
-she told her mother, she contented herself with having secured things
-that would wear, and a pretty color. She put short curtains of "scrim"
-at her windows, and plain serviceable towels which could be often washed
-on her bureau and table-tops. The bureau was enlivened by a large,
-square scarlet pincushion, the only bit of finery in which Eleanor
-indulged. Amid the subdued tone of its surroundings it looked absolutely
-brilliant, like the famous red wafer which the great Turner stuck in the
-foreground of his dim-tinted landscape, and which immediately seemed to
-take the color out of the bright pictures on either side.
-
-Later, when Eleanor had learned to do the pretty Mexican work, now in
-fashion, she decorated some special towels for her table and bureau,
-with lace-like ends, and a pair of pillow-covers. Meanwhile, she bore
-very well the knowledge that May and most of the other girls of their
-set considered her room rather "plain and bare." It suited her own
-fancy, and that satisfied her.
-
-"I do like room to turn about in and not too many things, and not to
-smell of dust," she told her mother.
-
-Here is Eleanor's budget of expenses, to set against May's:--
-
-    Wall-paper, twelve rolls                                      $1.80
-    Use of brush and roller                                         .18
-    Kalsomining ceiling                                            1.75
-    Picture-moulding                                               2.00
-    Two gallons of mixed paint, at $1.80 per gallon                3.60
-    Brush                                                           .30
-    Nine yards of ingrain carpeting at sixty-five cents a yard     5.85
-    Carpet thread and tacks                                         .20
-    Pine shelving                                                  1.00
-    Chintz for chair-cover put on by Eleanor herself               1.75
-    Satin and ribbon for cushion                                   1.12
-                                                                 ------
-    Total                                                        $19.86
-
-This was two years ago. If you could take a peep at the rival rooms in
-Ninety-three and Ninety-four to-day, you would find Eleanor's looking
-quite as pretty as when new, or prettier; for she has used it
-carefully, and each year has added something to its equipments, as years
-will. When a girl has once secured a good foundation for her room, her
-friends are apt to make their gifts work in toward its further
-beautification.
-
-With May it is different. Her room has lost the freshness which was its
-one good point. The chintz has become creased and a little faded, the
-muslin and scrim from repeated washings are no longer crisp, and look
-limp and threadbare; all the ribbons and scarfs are shabby and tumbled;
-while the green carpet and the blue wall "swear" as vigorously at each
-other as they did at first. May sighs over it frequently, and wishes she
-had tried for a more permanent effect. Next time she will do better, she
-avers; but next times are slow in coming where the family exchequer has
-not the recuperative powers of Fortunatus's purse.
-
-The Moral of this simple tale may be divided into three heads. I object
-to morals myself as a wind-up for stories, and I dare say most of you
-who read this are no fonder of them than I am; still, a three-headed
-moral is such a novelty that it may be urged as an excuse. The three
-heads are these:--
-
-1. When you have only a small sum to spend on renovations, choose those
-that will last.
-
-2. Ingenuity and energy count for more than mere money can.
-
-3. Once make sure in a room of convenience, cheerfulness, and a good
-color, and you can afford to wait for gimcracks--or "Jamescracks"--or
-any of the thousand and one little duds which so many people consider
-indispensable features of pleasantness. Rooms have their anatomy as well
-as human beings. There must be a good substructure of bones rightly
-placed to underlie the bloom and sparkle in the one; and in like manner
-for the other the laws of taste, which are immutable, should underlie
-and support the evanescent and passing fancies and fashions of every
-day.
-
-
-
-
-THE SORROWS OF FELICIA.
-
-
-It was a pretty chamber, full of evidences of taste and loving care.
-White curtains draped the windows and the looking-glass. There was a
-nice writing-table, set where the light fell upon it exactly as it
-should for convenience to the writer. There was a book-shelf full of
-gayly bound books, a pretty blue carpet, photographs on the faintly
-tinted blue wall,--somebody had evidently taken pains to make the room
-charming, and just as evidently to make it charming for the use of a
-girl. And there lay the girl on the sofa,--Felicia, or, in schoolroom
-parlance, Felie Bliss. Was she basking in the comfort and tastefulness
-of her room? Not at all! A volume of "In Memoriam" was in her hand. Her
-face was profoundly long and dismal. She murmured mournful lines over to
-herself, only pausing now and then to reach out her hand and fill a
-tumbler from a big jug of lemonade which stood on a little table beside
-her. Felie always provided herself with lemonade when she retired to her
-bedroom to enjoy the pleasures of woe for a season.
-
-From the door, which was locked, sounded a chorus of knocks and
-irreverent voices.
-
-"Sister, are you in there?" demanded one.
-
-"Are you thinking about Life, sister?" asked another.
-
-"Have you got your sharp-pointed scissors with you?" cried the first
-voice. "Oh, Felie, Felie, stay your rash hand."
-
-"We like lemonade just as much as you," chimed in Dimple, the youngest
-of the four.
-
-"Let us in. We are very thirsty, and we long to comfort you," said voice
-the second, with a stifled giggle.
-
-Felicia paid no attention whatever to these observations, only murmured
-to herself,--
-
-    "But what to her shall be the end?
-       And what to me remains of good?
-       To her perpetual maidenhood--"
-
-"Who is 'her'?" demanded that bad Jenny through the door. "If you mean
-Mrs. Carrington, you are all wrong. May Curtis says her engagement is
-announced to Mr. Collins."
-
-"Oh, children, do go away!" cried Felie in a despairing tone.
-
-    "Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
-       Confessions of a wasted youth;
-       Forgive them where they fail in truth,
-     And in Thy wisdom make me wise."
-
-"Hear her!" said Betty outside. "She's having it very badly to-day. I
-wish I knew Tennyson. I should like to tell him what I think of his
-writing a horrid, melancholy, caterwauling book, and making the Bliss
-family miserable. Felie, if you've drunk up all your lemonade, you might
-at least lend us the pitcher."
-
-It was no use. Felicia either did not, or would not, hear. So, with a
-last thump on the panels of the long-suffering door, the trio departed
-in search of another pitcher.
-
-If anybody had told Felie Bliss, at seventeen, that she really had not
-a grief in the world worthy of the name, she would have resented it
-deeply. She was a tall girl, whose bones and frame were meant for the
-use of a large woman, when their owner should have arrived at all that
-nature meant her to be, but who at this period of her life was almost
-startlingly long and thin. She had "outgrown her strength," as people
-say, which was Felie's only excuse for the almost tragic enjoyment
-which she took in mournful things. She was in fair health, and had
-an excellent appetite, and a real school-girl love for raisins,
-stick-cinnamon, sugar-plums, and soda-water; tastes which were
-highly at variance with the rôle which she wished to play,--that of a
-sweetly-resigned and long-suffering being, whose hopes had faded from
-earth, into the distant heaven toward which she was hastening. Felie's
-sweet-tooth was quite a trial to her; but she struggled with it, and
-resisted enjoyment as far as was possible with her naturally cheerful
-disposition.
-
-She was an interesting perplexity to her family, who were contented,
-reasonable folk, of the sort which, happily for the world, is called
-commonplace. To her younger sisters, especially, Felicia was a
-never-failing and exciting conundrum, the answer to which they were
-always guessing, but never could find out. For days together she would
-be as cheerful as possible, full of fun and contrivance, and the life of
-the house; then, all of a sudden, gloom would envelop her like a soft
-fog, and she would retire to her room with "In Memoriam," or some other
-introspective volume, and the fat jug of lemonade, lock the door, and
-just "drink and weep for hours together," as her sister Jenny expressed
-it. It was really unaccountable.
-
-All her books were deeply scored with lines against the woful passages,
-and such pencilled remarks as "Alas!" and "All too true!" She sat in
-church with a carefully arranged sad smile on her face; but this, as
-unsuitable to her natural expression, was not always a success. Felie
-was much aggrieved one day at being told, by an indiscriminating friend,
-that her face "seemed made to laugh,--no one could imagine it anything
-but bright." This, for a girl who was posing for "Patience on a monument
-smiling at grief," was rather a trial; but then the friend had never
-seen her reading "King John," and murmuring,--
-
-    "Here I and sorrow sit--"
-
-with a long brown stick of cinnamon, in process of crunch, occupying the
-other corner of her mouth. But perhaps the friend might have found even
-this funny,--there are such unfeeling people in the world!
-
-Felie's letters were rather dull reading, because she told so little of
-what she had said or done, and hinted so liberally at her own aching
-heart and thwarted hopes. But her correspondents, who were mostly jolly
-school-girls, knew her pretty well, and dismissed these jeremiads as,
-"Just Felie's way. She does love to be miserable, you know, but nobody
-is better fun than she when she doesn't think it her duty to be
-unhappy."
-
-Felie didn't come down to tea on the evening of the day on which our
-story opens. An afternoon of lemonade had dampened her appetite, but at
-bedtime she stole out in her dressing-gown and slippers, helped herself
-to a handful of freshly baked cookies and a large green cucumber pickle,
-and, by the aid of these refreshments, contrived to stave off the pangs
-of hunger till next morning, when she appeared at breakfast cheerful and
-smiling, with no sign upon her spirits of the eclipse of the day before.
-Her family made no allusion to that melancholy episode,--they were used
-to such,--only Mr. Bliss asked, between two mouthfuls of toast, "Where
-were you gadding to last night, child? I didn't hear you come home."
-
-"I was not out. I didn't feel very--very bright, and went to bed early."
-
-"Oh!"--Mr. Bliss understood.
-
-"He who makes truth unlovely commits high treason against virtue," says
-an old writer; but he who simulates grief, and makes it ridiculous,
-commits an almost equal crime against true feeling. Felie had been
-playing at sorrow where no sorrow was. That very day a real sorrow came,
-and she woke up to find her world all changed into a reality of pain and
-puzzle and bewilderment, which was very different from the fictitious
-loss and the sham suffering which she had found so much to her mind.
-
-She had no idea, as she watched her father and mother drive off that
-afternoon, that anything terrible was about to happen. Only the "seers"
-of the Scotch legends could see the shroud drawn up over the breast of
-those who are "appointed to die" suddenly; the rest of us see nothing.
-The horse which Mr. Bliss drove was badly broken, but he had often gone
-out before and come back safely. It was only on this particular day that
-the combination of circumstances occurred which made the risky horse
-dangerous,--the shriek of the railroad-whistle, the sharp turn in the
-road, the heap of stones. There was a runaway, an overset, and two hours
-from the time when the youthful sisters, unexpectant of misfortune, had
-watched their parents off, they were brought back, Mr. Bliss dead, Mrs.
-Bliss with a broken arm, and injuries to the spine so severe that there
-was little chance of her ever being able to leave her bed again. So much
-can be done in one fatal moment.
-
-It is at such dark, dark times that real character shows itself. Felie's
-little affectations, her morbid musings and fancies, fell from her like
-some light, fantastic drapery, which is shrivelled in sudden heat. Her
-real self--hopeful, self-reliant, optimistic--rose into action as soon
-as the first paralyzing shock of pain was past, and she had taken in the
-reality of this new and strange thing. All the cares of the house, the
-management of affairs, the daily wear and tear of life, which has to be
-borne by _some one_, fell upon her inexperienced hands. Her mother was
-too shaken and ill to be consulted, the younger girls instinctively
-leaned on what they felt to be a strength superior to their own. It was
-a heavy load for young shoulders, and Felie was not yet eighteen!
-
-She made mistakes of course,--mistakes repented of with bitter crying
-and urgent resolutions. She was often tried, often discouraged; things
-did not smooth themselves easily, or the world go much out of its usual
-course, because Felie Bliss was perplexed and in trouble. There were no
-mornings to spare for tragedy, or Tennyson. Felie's eyeballs often
-longed for the relief of a good fit of tears; that troublesome little
-lump would come into her throat which is the price of tears resolutely
-held back, but there was too much to do to allow of such a weakening
-self-indulgence. Mother must be cared for, the house must be looked
-after, people on business must be seen, the "children," as she called
-her sisters, must not be suffered to be too sad. And then, again, "In
-Memoriam," beautiful as it is, and full of sweet and true and tender
-feeling, did not satisfy Felie now as it had done when she was forced to
-cultivate an artificial emotion outside of herself.
-
-"If I had time and knew how to write poetry, I could say a great many
-things that Tennyson never thought of," she told Jenny, one day. It is
-so with all who suffer. No poet ever voiced the full and complete
-expression of our own personal pain. There is always something
-beyond,--an individual pang recognized and understood only by ourselves.
-
-So the years went on, as years do even when their wheels seem weighted
-with lead. The first sharpness of their loss abated. They became used to
-the sight of their father's empty chair, of his closed desk; they ceased
-to listen for the sound of his step on the porch, his key in the door.
-Mrs. Bliss gradually regained a more comfortable measure of health, but
-she remained an invalid, the chief variation in her life being when she
-was lifted from bed to sofa, and back again from sofa to bed. Felie was
-twenty-four, and the younger ones were no longer children, though she
-still called them so. Even Dimple wore long dresses, and had set up
-something very like a lover, though Felie sternly refused to have him
-called so till Dimple was older. Felie was equally severe with Dr.
-Ernest Allen, on her own account. "She was a great deal too busy to
-think of such a thing," she declared; but Dr. Allen, who had faith in
-time, simply declared that he "didn't mind waiting," and continued to
-hang his hat on the hat-tree in the Bliss's entry three times a week.
-
-Indeed, looking at Felicia Bliss, now that she had rounded physically
-and mentally into what she was meant to become, you would not wonder
-that any man should be willing to wait a while in hope of winning such a
-prize. A certain bright cheer and helpfulness was her charm. "The room
-grew pleasanter as soon as she came into it," Dimple declared. Certainly
-Dr. Allen thought so; and as a man may willingly put off building a
-house till he can afford to have one which fronts the sun, so he
-considered it worth while to delay, for a few years, even, if need be,
-and secure for life a daily shining which should make all life
-pleasanter. He had never known Felie in her morbid days, and she could
-never make him quite believe her when she tried to tell of that past
-phase of her girlhood.
-
-"It is simply impossible. You must exaggerate, if you have not dreamed
-it," he said.
-
-"Not a bit. Ask Dimple,--ask any of them."
-
-"I prefer to ask my own eyes, my own convictions," declared the lover.
-"You are the most 'wholesome' woman, through and through, that I ever
-knew. A doctor argues from present indications to past conditions. I am
-sure you are mistaken about yourself. If I can detect with the
-stethoscope the spot in your lungs where five years back pneumonia left
-a trace, surely I ought to be able to make out a similar spot in your
-nervous temperament. The idea is opposed to all that you are."
-
-"But not to all that I was. Really and truly, Dr. Allen, I used to be
-the most absurd girl in the world. If you could have seen me!"
-
-"But what cured you in this radical and surprising manner?"
-
-"Well," said Felie, demurely, "I suppose the remedy was what you would
-call homeopathic. I had revelled in a sort of imaginary sorrowfulness,
-but when that dreadful time came, and I tasted real sorrow, I found that
-it took all my strength to meet it, and I was glad enough of everything
-bright and cheering that I could get at to help me through.
-
-"I wonder if there are many girls in the world who are nursing imaginary
-miseries as I used to do," she went on. "If there are, I should like to
-tell them how foolish it is, and how bad for them. But, dear me, there
-are so many girls and one can't get at them! I suppose each must learn
-the lesson for herself and fight her fight out somehow, and I hope they
-will all get through safely, and learn, as I have, that happiness is the
-most precious thing in the world, and that it is so, _so_ foolish not to
-enjoy and make the most of it while we have it. Because, you know,
-_some_ day trouble must come to everybody. And it is such a pity to have
-to look back and know that you have wasted a chance."
-
-
-
-
-IMPRISONED.
-
-
-The big house stood in the middle of a big open space, with wide lawns
-about it shaded by cherry-trees and lilac-bushes, toward the south an
-old-fashioned garden, and back of that the apple-orchard.
-
-The little house was on the edge of the grounds, and had its front
-entrance on the road. Its doors were locked and its windows shuttered
-now, for no one had lived in it for several years.
-
-Three little girls lived in the big house. Lois, who was eight years
-old, and Emmy, who was seven, were sisters. Kitty, their cousin, also
-seven, had lived with them so long that she seemed like another sister.
-There was, besides, Marianne, the cook's baby; but as she was not quite
-three, she did not count for much with the older ones, though they
-sometimes condescended to play with her.
-
-It was a place of endless pleasure to these happy country children, and
-they needed no wider world than it afforded them. All summer long they
-played in the open air. They built bowers in the feathery asparagus;
-they knew every bird's-nest in the syringa-bushes and the thick
-guelder-roses, and were so busy all the time that they rarely found a
-moment in which to quarrel.
-
-One day in July their mother and father had occasion to leave home for a
-long afternoon and evening.
-
-"You can stay outdoors till half-past six," Mrs. Spenser said to her
-little girls; "then you must come in to tea, and at half-past seven you
-must go to bed as usual. You may play where you like in the grounds, but
-you must not go outside the gate." She kissed them for good-by.
-"Remember to be good," she said. Then she got into the carriage and
-drove away.
-
-The children were very good for several hours. They played that little
-Marianne was their baby, and was carried off by a gypsy. Lois was the
-gypsy, and the chase and recapture of the stolen child made an exciting
-game.
-
-At last they got tired of this, and the question arose: "What shall we
-do next?"
-
-"I wish mother would let us play down the road," said Emmy. "The Noyse
-children's mother lets them."
-
-"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Lois, struck by a sudden bright
-idea. "Let's go down to the shut-up house. That isn't outside the gate."
-
-"O Lois! yes, it is. You can't go to the front door without walking on
-the road."
-
-"Well, who said anything about the front door? I'm going to look in at
-the back windows. Mother never said we mustn't do that."
-
-Still, it was with a sense of guilt that the three stole across the
-lawn; and they kept in the shadow of the hedge, as if afraid some one
-would see and call them back. Little Marianne, with her rag doll in her
-arms, began to run after them.
-
-"There's that little plague tagging us," said Kitty.
-
-"Go back, Marianne; we don't want you." Then, when Marianne would not go
-back, they all ran away, and left her crying.
-
-The shut-up house looked dull and ghostly enough. The front was in deep
-shadow from the tall row of elms that bordered the road, but at the
-back the sun shone hotly. It glowed through the low, dusty window of a
-cellar, and danced and gleamed on something bright which lay on the
-floor within.
-
-"What do you suppose it is?" said Emmy, as they all stooped to look. "It
-looks like real gold. Perhaps some pirates hid it there, and no one has
-come since but us."
-
-"Or perhaps it's a mine," cried Lois,--"a mine of jewels. See, it's all
-purple, like the stones in mother's breastpin. Wouldn't it be fun if it
-was? We wouldn't tell anybody, and we could buy such splendid things."
-
-"We must get in and find out," added Kitty.
-
-Just then a wail sounded close at hand, and a very woful, tear-stained
-little figure appeared. It was Marianne. The poor baby had trotted all
-the long distance in the sun after her unkind playfellows.
-
-"Oh, dear! You little nuisance! What made you come?" demanded Emmy.
-
-"I 'ant to," was all Marianne's explanation.
-
-"Well, don't cry. Now you've come, you can play," remarked Lois; and
-Marianne was consoled.
-
-They began to try the windows in turn, and at last found one in a
-wood-shed which was unfastened. Kitty scrambled in, and admitted the
-others, first into the wood-shed and then into a very dusty kitchen. The
-cellar stairs opened from this. They all ran down, but--oh,
-disappointment!--the jewel-mine proved to be only the half of a broken
-teacup with a pattern on it in gold and lilac. This was a terrible
-come-down from a pirate treasure.
-
-"Pshaw!" said Kitty. "Only an old piece of crockery. I don't think it's
-fair to cheat like that."
-
-Little Marianne had been afraid to venture down into the cellar, and now
-stayed at the top waiting for them.
-
-"Let's run away from her," suggested Kitty, who was cross after her
-disappointment.
-
-So they all hopped over Marianne, and, deaf to her cries, ran upstairs
-to the second story as fast as they could go. There were four bare,
-dusty chambers, all unfurnished.
-
-"There she comes," cried Kitty, as Marianne was heard climbing the
-stairs. "Where shall we hide from her? Oh, here's a place!"
-
-She had spied a closet door, fastened with a large old-fashioned iron
-latch. She flew across the room. It was a narrow closet, with a shelf
-across the top of it.
-
-"Hurry, hurry!" called Kitty. The others made haste. They squeezed
-themselves into the closet, and banged the door to behind them. Not till
-it was firmly fastened did they notice that there was no latch inside,
-or handle of any sort, and that they had shut themselves in, and had no
-possible way of getting out again.
-
-Their desire to escape from Marianne changed at once into dismay. They
-kicked and pounded, but the stout old-fashioned door did not yield.
-Marianne could be heard crying without. There was a round hole in the
-door just above the latch. Putting her eye to this, Lois could see the
-poor little thing, doll in arms, standing in the middle of the floor,
-uncertain what to do.
-
-"Marianne!" she called, "here we are, in the closet. Come and let us
-out, that's a good baby. Put your little hand up and push the latch. You
-can, if you will only try."
-
-"I'll show you how," added Kitty, taking her turn at the peep-hole.
-"See, come close to the door, and Kitty will tell you what to do."
-
-But these mysterious voices speaking out of the unseen frightened
-Marianne too much to allow of her doing anything helpful.
-
-"I tan't! I tan't!" she wailed, not venturing near the door.
-
-"Oh, do try, please do!" pleaded Lois. "I'll give you my china doll if
-you will, Marianne."
-
-"And I'll give you my doll's bedstead," added Emmy. "You'd like that, I
-know. Dear little Marianne, do try to let us out. Please do. We're so
-tired of this old closet."
-
-But still Marianne repeated, "Tan't, tan't." And at last she sat down on
-the floor and wept. The imprisoned children wept with her.
-
-"I've thought of a plan," said Emmy at last. "If you'll break one of the
-teeth out of your shell comb, Lois, I think I can push it through the
-hole and raise the latch up."
-
-Alas! the hole was above the latch, not below it. Half the teeth were
-broken out of Lois's comb in their attempt, and with no result except
-that they fell through the hole to the floor outside. At intervals they
-renewed their banging and pounding on the door, but it only tired them
-out, and did no good.
-
-It was a very warm afternoon, and, as time went on, the closet became
-unendurably hot. Emmy sank down exhausted on the floor, and she and
-Kitty began to sob wildly. Lois alone kept her calmness. Little Marianne
-had grown wonderfully quiet. Peeping through the hole, Lois saw that she
-had gone to sleep on the floor.
-
-"Don't cry so, Kitty," she said. "It's no use. We were naughty to come
-here. I suppose we've got to die in this closet, and it is my fault. We
-shall starve to death pretty soon, and no one will know what has become
-of us till somebody takes the house; and when they come to clean it and
-they open the closet door, they will find our bones."
-
-Kitty screamed louder than ever at this terrible picture.
-
-"Oh, hush!" said her cousin. "The only thing we can do now is to pray.
-God is the only person that can help us. Mamma says he is close to every
-person who prays. He can hear us if we are in the closet."
-
-Then Lois made this little prayer:--
-
-"Our Father who art in heaven. We have been naughty, and came down here
-when mamma didn't give us leave to come; but please forgive us. We won't
-disobey again, if only Thou wilt. We make a promise. Help us. Show us
-the way to get out of this closet. Don't let us die here, with no one to
-know where we are. We ask it for Jesus Christ's sake. Forever and
-forever. Amen."
-
-It was a droll little prayer, but Lois put all her heart into it. A
-human listener might have smiled at the odd turn of the phrases; but God
-knew what she meant, and he never turns away from real prayer. He
-answered Lois.
-
-How did he answer her? Did he send a strong angel to lift up the latch
-of the door? He might have done that, you know, as he did for Peter in
-prison. But that was not the way he chose in this instance. What he did
-was to put a thought into Lois's mind.
-
-She stood silent for a while after she had finished praying.
-
-"Children," she said, "I have thought of something. Kitty, you are the
-lightest. Do you think Emmy and I could push you up on to the shelf?"
-
-It was not an easy thing to do, for the place was narrow; but at last,
-with Lois and Emmy "boosting," and Kitty scrambling, it was
-accomplished.
-
-"Now, Kitty, put your back against the wall," said Lois, "and when I say
-'One, two, three,' push the door with your feet as hard as you can,
-while we push below."
-
-Kitty braced herself, and at the word "three," they all exerted their
-utmost strength. One second more, and--oh, joy!--the latch gave way, and
-the door flew open. Kitty tumbled from the shelf, the others fell
-forward on the floor,--they were out! Lois had bumped her head, and
-Emmy's shoulder was bruised; but what was that? They were free.
-
-"Let us run, run!" cried Lois, catching Marianne up in her arms. "I
-never want to see this horrible house again."
-
-So they ran downstairs, and out through the wood-shed into the open air.
-Oh, how sweet the sunshine looked, and the wind felt, after their fear
-and danger!
-
-Their mother taught them a little verse next morning, after they had
-told her all about their adventure and made confession of their fault;
-and Lois said it to herself every day all her life afterward. This is
-it:--
-
-    "God is never far away;
-     God is listening all the day.
-     When we tremble, when we fear,
-     The dear Lord is quick to hear,--
-     Quick to hear, and quick to save,
-       Quick to grant each prayer we make,
-     For the precious Gift he gave,
-       For his Son our Saviour's sake."
-
-"I love that hymn," Lois used to say; "and I know it's true, because God
-heard us just as well in that little bit of a closet as if we had been
-in church!"
-
-
-
-
-A CHILD OF THE SEA FOLK.
-
-
-The great storm of 1430 had done its worst. For days the tempest had
-raged on land and sea, and when at last the sun struggled through the
-clouds, broken now and flying in angry masses before the strong sea
-wind, his beams revealed a scene of desolation.
-
-All along the coast of Friesland the dikes were down, and the salt water
-washing over what but a few days before had been vegetable-gardens and
-fertile fields. The farm-houses on the higher ground stood each on its
-own little island as it were, with shallow waves breaking against the
-walls of barns and stoned sheepfolds lower down on the slopes. Already
-busy hands were at work repairing the dykes. Men in boats were wading up
-to their knees in mud and water, men, swimming their horses across the
-deeper pools, were carrying materials and urging on the work, but many
-days must pass before the damage could be made good; and meanwhile, how
-were people to manage for food and firing, with the peat-stacks under
-water, and the cabbages and potatoes spoiled by the wet?
-
-"There is just this one thing," said Metje Huyt to her sister
-Jacqueline. "Little Karen shall have her cup of warm milk to-night if
-everybody else goes without supper; on that I am determined."
-
-"That will be good, but how canst thou manage it?" asked Jacqueline, a
-gentle, placid girl of sixteen, with a rosy face and a plait of thick,
-fair hair hanging down to her waist. Metje was a year younger, but she
-ruled her elder sister with a rod of iron by virtue of her superior
-activity and vivacity of mind.
-
-"I shall manage it in this way,--I shall milk the Electoral Princess."
-
-"But she is drowned," objected Jacqueline, opening wide a pair of
-surprised blue eyes.
-
-"Drowned? Not at all. She is on that little hump of land over there
-which looks like an island, but is really Neighbor Livard's high
-clover-patch. I mean to row out and milk her, and thou shalt go with
-me."
-
-"Art thou sure that it is the Electoral Princess, and not any other
-cow?" asked Jacqueline.
-
-"Sure? Have I not a pair of eyes in my head? Sure? Don't I know the
-twist of our own cow's horns? Oh, Jacque, Jacque,--what were thy blue
-saucers given thee for? Thee never seemest to use them to purpose.
-However, come along. Karen must not want for her milk any longer. The
-mother was making some gruel-water for her when I came away, and Karen
-did not like it, and was crying."
-
-Some wading was necessary to reach the row-boat, which fortunately had
-been dragged up to the great barn for repairs before the storm began,
-and so had escaped the fate which had befallen most of the other boats
-in the neighborhood,--of being swept out to sea in the reflux of the
-first furious tide. The barn was surrounded by water now, but it was
-nowhere more than two or three inches deep. And pulling off their wooden
-shoes, the sisters splashed through it with merry laughter. Like most
-Friesland maidens, they were expert with the oar, and, though the waves
-were still rough, they made their way without trouble to the wet green
-slope where the Electoral Princess was grazing, raising her head from
-time to time to utter a long melancholy moo of protest at the long delay
-of her milkers. Very glad was she to see the girls, and she rubbed her
-head contentedly against Jacqueline's shoulder while Metje, with gentle,
-skilful fingers, filled the pail with foaming milk.
-
-"Now stay quietly and go on eating Friend Livard's clover, since no
-better may be," she said, patting the cow's red side. "The water is
-going down, the dikes are rebuilding, presently we will come and take
-thee back to the home field. Meanwhile each day Jacque and I will row
-out and milk thee; so be a good cow and stay contentedly where thou
-art."
-
-"What can that be?" Jacqueline asked after the sisters had proceeded a
-short distance on their homeward way.
-
-"What?"
-
-"That thing over there;" and she pointed toward a distant pool some
-quarter of a mile from them and still nearer to the sea. "It looks
-like--like--oh! Metje, do you think it can be some one who has been
-drowned?"
-
-"No,--for it moves,--it lifts its arm," said Metje, shading her eyes
-from the level rays of the sun, and looking steadily seaward.
-
-"It is a girl! She is caught by the tide in the pool. Row, Jacqueline,
-row! the tide turns in half an hour, and then she will be drowned
-indeed. The water was very deep out there last night when the flood was
-full; I heard Voorst say so."
-
-The heavy boat flew forward, for the sisters bent to the oars with all
-their strength. Jacqueline turned her head from time to time, to judge
-of their direction and the distance.
-
-"It's no neighbor," she answered as they drew nearer. "It's no one I
-ever saw before. Metje, it is the strangest-looking maiden you ever saw.
-Her hair is long,--so long, and her face is wild to look upon. I am
-afraid."
-
-"Never mind her hair. We must save her, however long it is," gasped
-Metje, breathless from the energy of her exertions. "Steady, now,
-Jacque, here we are; hold the boat by the reeds. Girl! I say, girl, do
-you hear me? We are come to help you."
-
-The girl, for a girl it was who half-sat, half-floated in the pool,
-raised herself out of the water as one alive, and stared at the sisters
-without speaking. She was indeed a wild and strange-looking creature,
-quite different from any one that they had ever seen before.
-
-"Well, are you not going to get into the boat?" cried Metje; "are you
-deaf, maiden, that you do not answer me? You'll be drowned presently,
-though you swam like forty fishes, for the tide will be coming in like
-fury through yon breach in the dike. Here, let me help you; give me your
-hand."
-
-The strange girl did not reply, but she seemed to understand a part, at
-least, of what was said to her. She moaned, her face contracted as if
-with pain, and, raising herself still farther from the water with an
-effort, she indicated by signs that she was caught in the mud at the
-bottom of the pool and could not set herself free.
-
-This was a serious situation, for, as Metje well knew, the mud was deep
-and adhesive. She sat a moment in thought; then she took her oar, forced
-the boat still nearer, and, directing Jacqueline to throw her weight on
-the farther edge to avoid an upset, she grasped the cold hands which the
-stranger held out, and, exerting her full strength, drew her from the
-mud and over the side of the boat. It rocked fearfully under her
-weight, the milk splashed from the pail, but the danger was over in half
-a minute, and the rescued girl, exhausted and half-dead, lay safely on
-the bottom.
-
-"Dear me, she will freeze," cried Jacqueline hastily; for the poor thing
-they had saved was without clothing, save for the long hair which hung
-about her like a mantle. "Here, Metje, I can spare my cloak to wrap
-round her limbs, and she must put on thy jacket. We will row the harder
-to keep ourselves warm."
-
-Rowing hard was indeed needful, for, summer as it was, the wind, as the
-sun sank, blew in icy gusts from the Zetland Zee, whirling the sailless
-windmills rapidly round, and sending showers of salt spray over the
-walls of the sheepfolds and other outlying enclosures. The sisters were
-thoroughly chilled before they had pulled the boat up to a place of
-safety and helped the half-drowned stranger across the wet slope of
-grass to the house door.
-
-Their mother was looking out for them.
-
-"Where hast thou been, children?" she asked. "Ach!" with a look of
-satisfaction as Metje slipped the handle of the milk-pail between her
-fingers. "That is well! Little Karen was wearying for her supper. But
-who hast thou here?" looking curiously at the odd figure whom her
-daughters were supporting.
-
-"Oh, mother, it is a poor thing that we saved from drowning in that pool
-over there," explained Metje, pointing seaward. "She is a stranger, from
-far away it must be, for she understands not our speech, and answers
-nothing when we ask her questions."
-
-"Dear me! what should bring a stranger here at this stormy time? But
-whoever she is, she must needs be warmed and fed." And the good Vrow
-hurried them all indoors, where a carefully economized fire of peats was
-burning. The main stock of peats was under water still, and it behooved
-them to be careful of what remained, the father had said.
-
-"We shall have to lend her some clothes," said Metje in an embarrassed
-tone. "Hers must have been lost in the water somehow."
-
-"Perhaps she went in to bathe, and the tide carried them away,"
-suggested Jacqueline.
-
-"Bathe! In a tempest such as there has not been in my time! Bathe! Thou
-art crazed, child! It is singular, most singular. I don't like it!"
-muttered the puzzled mother. "Well, what needs be must be. Go and fetch
-thy old stuff petticoat, Metje, and one of my homespun shifts, and
-there's that old red jacket of Jacqueline's, she must have that, I
-suppose. Make haste, before the father comes in."
-
-It was easier to fetch the clothes than to persuade the strange girl to
-put them on. She moaned, she resisted, she was as awkward and ill at
-ease as though she had never worn anything of the sort before. Now that
-they scanned her more closely there seemed something very unusual about
-her make. Her arms hung down,--like flippers, Metje whispered to her
-sister. She stumbled when she tried to walk alone; it seemed as though
-her feet, which looked only half developed, could scarcely support her
-weight.
-
-For all that, when she was dressed, with her long hair dried, braided,
-and bound with a scarlet ribbon, there was something appealing and
-attractive in the poor child's face. She seemed to like the fire, and
-cowered close to it. When milk was offered her, she drank with avidity;
-but she would not touch the slice of black bread which Metje brought,
-and instead caught up a raw shell-fish from a pail full which Voorst
-had scooped out of the pool of sea-water which covered what had been the
-cabbage-bed, and ate it greedily. The mother looked grave as she watched
-her, and was troubled in her mind.
-
-"She seems scarce human," she whispered to Metje, drawing her to a
-distant corner; though indeed they might have spoken aloud with no fear
-of being understood by the stranger, who evidently knew no Dutch. "She
-is like no maiden that ever I saw."
-
-"Perhaps she is English," suggested Metje, who had never seen any one
-from England, but had vaguely heard that it was an odd country quite
-different from Friesland.
-
-The mother shook her head: "She is not English. I have seen one English
-that time that thy father and I went to Haarlem about thy grand-uncle's
-inheritance. It was a woman, and she was not at all like this girl.
-Metje, but that thou wouldst laugh, and Father Pettrie might reprove me
-for vain imaginations, I should guess her to be one of those mermaidens
-of whom our forefathers have told us. There are such creatures,--my
-mother's great-aunt saw one with her own eyes, and wrote it down, and
-my mother kept the paper. Often have I read it over. It was off the
-Texel."
-
-"Could she really be that? Why, it would be better--more interesting, I
-mean--than to have her an Englishwoman," cried Metje. "We would teach
-her to spin, to knit. She should go with us to church and learn the Ave.
-Would it not be a good and holy work, mother, to save the soul of a poor
-wild thing from the waves where they know not how to pray?"
-
-"Perhaps," replied the Vrow, doubtfully. She could not quite accustom
-herself to her own suggestion, yet could not quite dismiss it from her
-mind.
-
-The father and Voorst now came in, and supper, delayed till after its
-usual time by the pressing needs of the stranger, must be got ready in
-haste.
-
-Metje fell to slicing the black loaf, Jacqueline stirred the porridge,
-while the mother herself presided over the pot of cabbage-soup which had
-been stewing over the fire since early morning. Voorst, meanwhile,
-having nothing to do but to wait, sat and looked furtively at the
-strange girl. She did not seem to notice him, but remained motionless in
-the chimney-corner, only now and then giving a startled sudden glance
-about the room, like some wild creature caught in a trap. Voorst thought
-he had never seen anything so plaintive as her large, frightened eyes,
-or so wonderful as the thick plait of hair which, as she sat, lay on the
-ground, and was of the strangest pale color, like flax on which a
-greenish reflection is accidentally thrown. It was no more like Metje's
-ruddy locks, or the warm fairness of Jacqueline's braids, than moonlight
-is like dairy butter, he said to himself.
-
-Supper ready, Metje took the girl's hand and led her to the table. She
-submitted to be placed on a wooden stool, and looked curiously at the
-bowl of steaming broth which was set before her; but she made no attempt
-to eat it, and seemed not to know the use of her spoon. Metje tried to
-show her how to hold it, but she only moaned restlessly, and, as soon as
-the family moved after the father had pronounced the Latin grace which
-Father Pettrie taught all his flock to employ, she slipped from her seat
-and stumbled awkwardly across the floor toward the fire, which seemed to
-have a fascination for her.
-
-"Poor thing! she seems unlearnt in Christian ways," said Goodman Huyt;
-but later, when his wife confided to him her notion as to the
-stranger's uncanny origin, he looked perplexed, crossed himself, and
-said he would speak to the priest in the morning. It was no time for
-fetching heathen folk into homes, he remarked, still less those who were
-more fish than folk; as for mermaids, if such things there might be,
-they were no better in his opinion than dolphins or mackerel, and he did
-not care to countenance them.
-
-Father Pettrie was duly consulted. He scouted the mermaid theory, and,
-as the Vrow had foreboded, gave her a reprimand for putting such ideas
-into the mind of her family.
-
-The girl was evidently a foreigner from some far distant country, he
-said, a Turk it might be, or a daughter of that people, descended from
-Ishmael, who held rule in the land of the Holy Sepulchre. All the more
-it became a duty to teach her Christian ways and bring her into the true
-fold; and he bade Goodman Huyt to keep her till such time as her friends
-should be found, to treat her kindly, and make sure that she was brought
-regularly to church and taught religion and her duty.
-
-There was no need of this admonition as to kindness. Vrow Huyt could
-hardly have used a stray dog less than tenderly. And for Jacqueline and
-Metje, they looked upon the girl as their own special property, and were
-only in danger of spoiling her with over-indulgence. "Ebba," they called
-her, as they knew no name by which to address her, and in course of time
-she learned to recognize it as hers and to answer to it,--answer by
-looks and signs, that is, for she never learned to speak, or to make
-other sound than inarticulate moans and murmurs, except a wild sort of
-laughter, and now and then, when pleased and contented, a low humming
-noise like an undeveloped song. From these the family could guess at her
-mood, from her expressive looks and gestures they made shift to
-understand her wishes, and she, in turn, comprehended their meaning half
-by observation, half by instinct; but closer communication was not
-possible, and the lack of a common speech was a barrier between them
-which neither she nor they could overcome.
-
-Gradually "Dumb Ebba," as the neighbors called her, was taught some of
-the thrifty household arts in which Dame Huyt excelled. She learned to
-spin, and though less expertly, to knit, and could be trusted to stir
-whatever was set upon the fire to cook, and not let it burn or boil
-over. When the family went to mass, she went too, limping along with
-painful slowness on her badly-formed feet, and she bowed her head and
-knelt with the rest, but how much or how little she understood they
-could not tell. Except on Sundays she never left the house. Her first
-attempts at doing so were checked by Metje, who could not dismiss from
-her memory what her mother had said, and was afraid to let her charge so
-much as look toward the tempting blue waves which shone in the distance;
-and after a while Ebba seemed to realize that she was, so to speak, a
-kindly treated captive, and resigned herself to captivity. Little Karen
-was the only creature whom she played with; sometimes when busied with
-the child she was noticed to smile, but for every one else her face
-remained pitifully sad, and she never lost the look of a wild,
-imprisoned thing.
-
-So two years passed, and still Dumb Ebba remained, unclaimed by friends
-or kindred, one of the friendly Huyt household. The dikes were long
-since rebuilt, the Electoral Princess had come back to her own
-pasture-ground and fed there contentedly in company with two of her own
-calves, but the poor sea-stray whom Metje had pulled into the boat that
-stormy night remained speechless, inscrutable, a mystery and a
-perplexity to her adopted family.
-
-But now a fresh interest arose to rival Ebba's claims on their
-attention. A wooer came for pretty Jacqueline. It was young Hans Polder,
-son of a thrifty miller in the neighborhood, and himself owner of one of
-the best windmills in that part of Friesland. Jacqueline was not hard to
-win, the wedding-day was set, and she, Metje, and the mother were busy
-from morning till night in making ready the store of household linen
-which was the marriage portion of all well-to-do brides. Ebba's services
-with the wheel were also put into requisition; and part of her spinning,
-woven into towels, which, after a fancy of Metje's, had a pattern of
-little fish all over them, were known for generations as "the Mermaid's
-towels." But this is running far in advance of my story.
-
-Amid this press of occupation Ebba was necessarily left to herself more
-than formerly, and some dormant sense of loneliness, perhaps, made her
-turn to Voorst as a friend. He had taken a fancy to her at the
-first,--the sort of fancy which a manly youth sometimes takes to a
-helpless child,--and had always treated her kindly. Now she grew to
-feel for him a degree of attachment which she showed for no one else. In
-the evening, when tired after the day's fishing he sat half asleep by
-the fire, she would crouch on the floor beside him, watching his every
-movement, and perfectly content if, on waking, he threw her a word or
-patted her hair carelessly. She sometimes neglected to fill the father's
-glass or fetch his pipe, but never Voorst's; and she heard his footsteps
-coming up from the dike long before any one else in the house could
-catch the slightest footfall.
-
-The strict watch which the family had at first kept over their singular
-inmate had gradually relaxed, and Ebba was suffered to go in and out at
-her will. She rarely ventured beyond the house enclosure, however, but
-was fond of sitting on the low wall of the sheep-fold and looking off at
-the sea, which, now that the flood had subsided, was at a long distance
-from the house. And at such moments her eyes looked larger, wilder, and
-more wistful than ever.
-
-As the time for the wedding drew near, Voorst fell into the way of
-absenting himself a good deal from home. There were errands to be done,
-he said, but as these "errands" always took him over to the little
-island of Urk, where lived a certain pretty Olla Tronk, who was
-Jacqueline's great friend and her chosen bridesmaiden, the sisters
-naturally teased him a good deal about them. Ebba did not, of course,
-understand these jokings, but she seemed to feel instinctively that
-something was in the air. She grew restless, the old unhappy moan came
-back to her lips; only when Voorst was at home did she seem more
-contented.
-
-Three days before the marriage, Olla arrived to help in the last
-preparations. She was one of the handsomest girls in the neighborhood,
-and besides her beauty was an heiress; for her father, whose only child
-she was, owned large tracts of pasture on the mainland, as well as the
-greater part of the island of Urk, where he had a valuable dairy. The
-family crowded to the door to welcome Olla. She came in with Voorst, who
-had rowed over to Urk for her,--tall, blooming, with flaxen tresses
-hanging below her waist, and a pair of dancing hazel eyes fringed with
-long lashes. Voorst was almost as good looking in his way,--they made a
-very handsome couple.
-
-"And this must be the stranger maiden of whom Voorst has so often told
-me," said Olla after the first greetings had been exchanged. She smiled
-at Ebba, and tried to take her hand, but the elfish creature frowned,
-retreated, and, when Olla persisted, snatched her hand away with an
-angry gesture and put it behind her back.
-
-"Why does she dislike me so?" asked Olla, discomfited and grieved, for
-she had meant to be kind.
-
-"Oh, she doesn't dislike thee, she couldn't!" cried peace-loving
-Jacqueline.
-
-But Ebba did dislike Olla, though no one understood why. She would
-neither go near nor look at her if she could help it, and when, in the
-evening, she and Voorst sat on the doorstep talking together in low
-tones, Ebba hastened out, placed herself between them, and tried to push
-Olla away, uttering pitiful little wailing cries.
-
-"What does ail her?" asked Jacqueline. Metje made no answer, but she
-looked troubled. She felt that there was sorrow ahead for Ebba or for
-Voorst, and she loved them both.
-
-The wedding-day dawned clear and cloudless, as a marriage-day should.
-Jacqueline in her bravery of stiff gilded head-dress with its long
-scarf-like veil, her snowy bodice, and necklace of many-colored beads,
-was a dazzling figure. Olla was scarcely less so, and she blushed and
-dimpled as Voorst led her along in the bridal procession. Ebba walked
-behind them. She, too, had been made fine in a scarlet bodice and a
-grand cap with wings like that which Metje wore, but she did not seem to
-care that she was so well dressed. Her sad eyes followed the forms of
-Olla and Voorst, and as she limped painfully along after them, she
-moaned continually to herself, a low, inarticulate, wordless murmur like
-the sound of the sea.
-
-Following the marriage-mass came the marriage-feast. Goodman Huyt sat at
-the head of the table, the mother at the foot, and, side by side, the
-newly-wedded pair. Opposite them sat Voorst and Olla. His expression of
-triumphant satisfaction, and her blushes and demurely-contented glances,
-had not been unobserved by the guests; so no one was very much surprised
-when, in the midst of the festivity, the father rose, and knocked with
-his tankard on the table to insure silence.
-
-"Neighbors and kinsfolk, one marriage maketh another, saith the old
-proverb, and we are like to prove it a true one. I hereby announce that,
-with consent of parents on both sides, my son Voorst is troth-plight
-with Olla the daughter of my old friend Tronk who sits here,"--slapping
-Tronk on the shoulder,--"and I would now ask you to drink with me a
-high-health to the young couple." Suiting the action to the word, he
-filled the glass with Hollands, raised it, pronounced the toast, "A
-High-Health to Voorst Huyt and to his bride Olla Tronk," and swallowed
-the spirits at a draught.
-
-Ebba, who against her will had been made to sit at the board among the
-other guests, had listened to this speech with no understanding of its
-meaning. But as she listened to the laughter and applause which followed
-it, and saw people slapping Voorst on the back with loud congratulations
-and shaking hands with Olla, she raised her head with a flash of
-interest. She watched Voorst rise in his place with Olla by his side,
-while the rest reseated themselves; she heard him utter a few sentences.
-What they meant she knew not; but he looked at Olla, and when, after
-draining his glass, he turned, put his arm round Olla's neck, drew her
-head close to his own, and their lips met in a kiss, some meaning of the
-ceremony seemed to burst upon her. She started from her seat, for one
-moment she stood motionless with dilated eyes and parted lips, then she
-gave a long wild cry and fled from the house.
-
-"What is the matter? Who screamed?" asked old Huyt, who had observed
-nothing.
-
-"It is nothing. The poor dumb child over there," answered his wife.
-
-Metje looked anxiously at the door. The duties of hospitality held her
-to her place. "She will come in presently and I will comfort her," she
-thought to herself.
-
-But Ebba never "came in" again. When Metje was set free to search, all
-trace of her had vanished. As suddenly and mysteriously as she had come
-into their lives she had passed out of them again. No one had seen her
-go forth from the door, no trace could be found of her on land or sea.
-Only an old fisherman, who was drawing his nets that day at a little
-distance from the shore, averred that just after high noon he had
-noticed a shape wearing a fluttering garment like that of a woman pass
-slowly over the ridge of the dike just where it made a sudden curve to
-the left. He had had the curiosity to row that way after his net was
-safely pulled in, for he wanted to see if there was a boat lying there,
-or what could take any one to so unlikely a spot; but neither boat nor
-woman could be found, and he half fancied that he must have fallen
-asleep in broad daylight and dreamed for a moment.
-
-However that might be, Ebba was gone; nor was anything ever known of her
-again. Metje mourned her loss, all the more that Jacqueline's departure
-left her with no mate of her own age in the household. Little Karen
-cried for "Ebbe" for a night or two, the Vrow missed her aid in the
-spinning, but Voorst, absorbed in his happiness, scarcely noted her
-absence, and Olla was glad.
-
-Gradually she grew to be a tradition of the neighborhood, handed down
-from one generation to another even to this day, and nobody ever knew
-whence she came or where she went, or whether it was a mortal maiden or
-one of the children of the strange, solemn sea folk who was cast so
-curiously upon the hands of the kindly Friesland family and dwelt in
-their midst for two speechless years.
-
-    NOTE.--The tradition on which this story is founded, and which
-    is still held as true in some parts of Friesland, is referred to
-    by Parival in his book, "Les Delices de Hollande."
-
-
-
-
-SUSAN COOLIDGE'S POPULAR BOOKS.
-
-
-[Illustration: NANNY'S SUBSTITUTE. Nanny at the Fair, taking orders and
-carrying trays.--PAGE 171.]
-
-MISCHIEF'S THANKSGIVING, _AND OTHER STORIES_.
-
-WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ADDIE LEDYARD.
-
-_One handsome square 16mo volume, bound in cloth, black and gilt
-lettered. Price $1.25._
-
-
-[Illustration: "Now, Katy, do,--ah, do, do."--PAGE 108.]
-
-WHAT KATY DID AT SCHOOL.
-
-WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARY A. HALLOCK.
-
-_One handsome square 16mo volume, bound in cloth, black and gilt
-lettered. Price, $1.25._
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-_CLOVER_. A Sequel to the Katy Books. By SUSAN COOLIDGE. With
-illustrations by Jessie McDermott. Square 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.25.
-
-All the children will want to know more about "What Katy Did."
-
-
-[Illustration: These girls were Clover and Elsie Carr.--PAGE 7.]
-
-WHAT KATY DID NEXT.
-
-WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JESSIE MCDERMOTT.
-
-One handsome square 16mo volume, bound in cloth, black and gilt
-lettered. Price $1.25.
-
-
-[Illustration: THE CLIFFS.]
-
-A LITTLE COUNTRY GIRL.
-
-With Illustrations.
-
-One volume. Square 16mo. Cloth, black and gold. Price $1.25.
-
-
-[Illustration: Eyebright, who had grown as dear as a daughter to the old
-lady, was playing croquet with Charley.--Page 246]
-
-=EYEBRIGHT.= With Illustrations. One handsome, square, 16mo volume, bound
-in cloth. Black and gilt lettered. Price, $1.25.
-
-ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON.
-
-
-
-
-LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON'S STORIES.
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-    BED-TIME STORIES.
-        MORE BED-TIME STORIES.
-            NEW BED-TIME STORIES.
-                FIRELIGHT STORIES.
-    STORIES TOLD AT TWILIGHT.
-
-With pretty Illustrations. Five volumes in a box. Price, $6.25.
-
-ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON, MASS.
-
-
-
-
-SUSAN COOLIDGE'S POPULAR BOOKS.
-
-
-[Illustration: "As there was nobody to see, he just sat down and cried
-as hard as Dotty herself."]
-
-THE NEW-YEAR'S BARGAIN.
-
-WITH TWENTY-SEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY ADDIE LEDYARD.
-
-_One handsome, square 16mo volume, bound in cloth, black and gilt
-lettered. Price, $1.25._
-
-ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, _Boston_.
-
-
-
-
-LOUISA M. ALCOTT'S FAMOUS BOOKS.
-
-
-[Illustration: JO IN A VORTEX.--Every few weeks she would shut herself
-up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and "fall into a vortex," as
-she expressed it.]
-
-LITTLE WOMEN; OR, MEG, JO, BETH, AND AMY.
-
-One volume, complete. Price, $1.50.
-
-
-[Illustration: AN OLD-FASHIONED GIRL.]
-
-PRICE, $1.50.
-
-
-[Illustration: 'Sing, Tessa; sing!' cried Tommo, twanging away with all
-his might.--PAGE 47.]
-
-AUNT JO'S SCRAP-BAG: Containing "My Boys," "Shawl-Straps," "Cupid and
-Chow-Chow," "My Girls," "Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore," "An
-Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving." 6 vols. Price of each, $1.00.
-
-
-[Illustration: Grandma's Story FROM "SPINNING-WHEEL STORIES."]
-
-THE SPINNING-WHEEL SERIES:
-
-SILVER PITCHERS, and Other Stories.
-
-PROVERB STORIES.
-
-SPINNING-WHEEL STORIES.
-
-A GARLAND FOR GIRLS, and Other Stories.
-
-4 volumes. Cloth. Price, $1.25 each.
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-JACK AND JILL: A VILLAGE STORY. With Illustrations. 16mo.
-Price, $1.50.
-
-
-ROSE IN BLOOM.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-A Sequel to
-
-"EIGHT COUSINS."
-
-Price $1.50.
-
-ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, _Boston_.
-
-
-
-
-LOUISA M. ALCOTT'S WRITINGS.
-
-
-_Miss Alcott is really a benefactor of households._--H. H.
-
-_Miss Alcott has a faculty of entering into the lives and feelings of
-children that is conspicuously wanting in most writers who address them;
-and to this cause, to the consciousness among her readers that they are
-hearing about people like themselves, instead of abstract qualities
-labelled with names, the popularity of her books is due._--MRS. SARAH J.
-HALE.
-
-_Dear Aunt Jo! You are embalmed in the thoughts and loves of thousands
-of little men and women._--EXCHANGE.
-
-
-    =Little Women=; or =Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy=. With
-    illustrations. 16mo                                      $1.50
-
-     =Hospital Sketches, and Camp and Fireside Stories.=
-     With illustrations. 16mo                                 1.50
-
-     =An Old-Fashioned Girl.= With illustrations. 16mo        1.50
-
-     =Little Men=: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys. With
-     illustrations. 16mo                                      1.50
-
-     =Jo's Boys and How they Turned Out.= A sequel to
-     "Little Men." With portrait of "Aunt Jo." 16mo           1.50
-
-     =Eight Cousins=; or, The Aunt-Hill. With illustrations.
-     16mo                                                     1.50
-
-     =Rose in Bloom.= A sequel to "Eight Cousins." 16mo       1.50
-
-     =Under the Lilacs.= With illustrations. 16mo             1.50
-
-     =Jack and Jill.= A Village Story. With illustrations.
-     16mo                                                     1.50
-
-     =Work=: A Story of Experience. With character
-     illustrations by Sol Eytinge. 16mo                       1.50
-
-     =Moods.= A Novel. New edition, revised and enlarged.
-     16mo                                                     1.50
-
-     =A Modern Mephistopheles, and A Whisper in the Dark.=
-     16mo.                                                    1.50
-
-     =Silver Pitchers, and Independence.= A Centennial Love
-     Story. 16mo                                              1.25
-
-     =Proverb Stories.= New edition, revised and enlarged.
-     16mo.                                                    1.25
-
-     =Spinning-Wheel Stories.= With illustrations. 16mo       1.25
-
-     =A Garland for Girls, and Other Stories.= With
-     illustrations. 16mo                                      1.25
-
-     =My Boys, &c.= First volume of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag.
-     16mo                                                     1.00
-
-     =Shawl-Straps.= Second volume of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag.
-     16mo                                                     1.00
-
-     =Cupid and Chow-Chow, &c.= Third volume of Aunt Jo's
-     Scrap-Bag. 16mo                                          1.00
-
-     =My Girls, &c.= Fourth volume of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag.
-     16mo                                                     1.00
-
-     =Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, &c.= Fifth volume of
-     Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag. 16mo                                1.00
-
-     =An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, &c.= Sixth volume of
-     Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag. 16mo                                1.00
-
-     =Little Women.= Illustrated. Embellished with nearly
-     200 characteristic illustrations from original designs
-     drawn expressly for this edition of this noted American
-     Classic. One small quarto, bound in cloth, with
-     emblematic designs                                       2.50
-
-     =Little Women Series.= Comprising Little Women; Little
-     Men; Eight Cousins; Under the Lilacs; An Old-Fashioned
-     Girl; Jo's Boys; Rose in Bloom; Jack and Jill. 8 large
-     16mo volumes in a handsome box                          12.00
-
-     Miss Alcott's novels in uniform binding in sets. Moods;
-     Work; Hospital Sketches; A Modern Mephistopheles, and A
-     Whisper in the Dark. 4 volumes. 16mo                     6.00
-
-     =Lulu's Library. Vols. I., II., III.= A collection of
-     New Stories. 16mo                                        1.00
-
-_These books are for sale at all bookstores, or will be mailed,
-post-paid, on receipt of price, to any address._
-
-ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, _Boston, Mass._
-
-
-
-
-LOUISA M. ALCOTT'S FAMOUS BOOKS.
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-EIGHT COUSINS; or, The Aunt-Hill. With Illustrations by SOL EYTINGE.
-Price, $1.50.
-
-ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON.
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Note:
-
-    Punctuation has been standardised. Hyphenation has been retained as
-    in the original publication. Changes have been made as follows:
-
-    Page 39
-    friendship with you, "dusting girl," _changed to_
-    friendship with your "dusting girl,"
-
-    Page 89
-    aunt, who is an invalid, used _changed to_
-    aunt, who is an invalid, uses
-
-    Page 190
-    Dance, Etelklein, leibchen _changed to_
-    Dance, Etelklein, liebchen
-
-    Page 250
-    choose a pretty tint of _changed to_
-    chose a pretty tint of
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Just Sixteen., by Susan  Coolidge
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUST SIXTEEN. ***
-
-***** This file should be named 41641-8.txt or 41641-8.zip *****
-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
-        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/1/6/4/41641/
-
-Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
-will be renamed.
-
-Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
-one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
-(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
-permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
-set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
-copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
-protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
-Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
-charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
-do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
-rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
-such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
-research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
-practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
-subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
-redistribution.
-
-
-
-*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
-
-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
-
-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
-  www.gutenberg.org/license.
-
-
-Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works
-
-1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
-all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
-If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
-terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
-entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
-
-1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
-paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
-and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
-
-1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
-or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
-collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
-individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
-located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
-copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
-works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
-are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
-Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
-freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
-this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
-the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
-keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
-
-1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
-a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
-the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
-before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
-creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
-Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
-the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
-States.
-
-1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-
-1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
-access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
-whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
-phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
-copied or distributed:
-
-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
-
-1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
-from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
-posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
-and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
-or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
-with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
-work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
-through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
-Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
-1.E.9.
-
-1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
-terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
-to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
-permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
-
-1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
-
-1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm License.
-
-1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
-word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
-distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
-"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
-posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
-you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
-copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
-request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
-form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-
-1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
-that
-
-- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
-     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
-     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
-     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
-     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
-     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
-     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
-     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
-     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
-     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
-     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
-     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
-
-- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
-     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
-     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-     License.  You must require such a user to return or
-     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
-     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
-     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
-     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
-     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
-     of receipt of the work.
-
-- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
-     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
-forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
-both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
-Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
-Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
-
-1.F.
-
-1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
-collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
-"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
-corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
-property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
-computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
-your equipment.
-
-1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-
-1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
-your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
-the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
-refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
-providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
-receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
-is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
-opportunities to fix the problem.
-
-1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
-WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
-WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-
-1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
-If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
-law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
-interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
-the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
-provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
-
-1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
-with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
-promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
-harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
-that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
-or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
-work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
-Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
-
-
-Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
-including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
-because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
-people in all walks of life.
-
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
-To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
-and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
-and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
-Foundation
-
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
-permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
-
-The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
-Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
-throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
-North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
-contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
-Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
-
-For additional contact information:
-     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
-     Chief Executive and Director
-     gbnewby@pglaf.org
-
-Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
-SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
-particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
-
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-
-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
-To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
-
-
-Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.
-
-Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
-concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
-with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
-Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
-unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
-keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
-
-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
-
-     www.gutenberg.org
-
-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
-