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diff --git a/41641-0.txt b/41641-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f87127a --- /dev/null +++ b/41641-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6590 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41641 *** + +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 THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41641 *** |