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A Round Dozen

by Susan Coolidge · English · Gutenberg #35186 · 284,905 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Round Dozen

Author: Susan Coolidge

Illustrator: Frank T. Merrill


        
Release date: February 6, 2011 [eBook #35186]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A ROUND DOZEN ***




Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Emmy and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)











A ROUND DOZEN.

[Illustration: TOINETTE AND THE ELVES.

Down on the ground beside her, a tiny figure became visible, so small
that Toinette had to kneel and stoop her head to see it.--PAGE 234.]




A ROUND DOZEN.

BY

SUSAN COOLIDGE,

          AUTHOR OF "THE NEW YEAR'S BARGAIN," "WHAT KATY DID," "WHAT KATY
          DID AT SCHOOL," "MISCHIEF'S THANKSGIVING," "NINE LITTLE
          GOSLINGS," "EYEBRIGHT," "CROSS-PATCH,"
          "A GUERNSEY LILY."

[Illustration: QUI LEGIT REQIT]

          BOSTON:
          ROBERTS BROTHERS.
          1892.




          _Copyright, 1883_,

          BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.

          UNIVERSITY PRESS:
          JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.




                             TO

                    V    V    V    V    V

          _Five little buds grouped round the parent stem,
           Growing in sweet airs, beneath gracious skies,
           Watched tenderly from sunrise to sunrise,
           Lest blight, or chill, or evil menace them._

          _Five small and folded buds, just here and there
           Giving a hint of what the bloom may be,
           When to reward the long close ministry
           The buds shall blossom into roses fair._

          _Soft dews fall on you, dears, soft breezes blow,
           The noons be tempered and the snows be kind,
           And gentle angels watch each stormy wind,
           And turn it from the garden where you grow._




CONTENTS.


                                                      PAGE
          THE LITTLE WHITE DOOR                9
          LITTLE KAREN AND HER BABY           34
          HELEN'S THANKSGIVING                47
          AT FIESOLE                          67
          QUEEN BLOSSOM                       93
          A SMALL BEGINNING                  115
          THE SECRET DOOR                    135
          THE TWO WISHES                     156
          BLUE AND PINK                      183
          A FORTUNATE MISFORTUNE             198
          TOINETTE AND THE ELVES             232
          JEAN'S MONEY, AND WHAT IT BOUGHT   259
          HOW THE STORKS CAME AND WENT       277




THE LITTLE WHITE DOOR.


I SUPPOSE that most boys and girls who go to school and study geography
know, by sight at least, the little patch of pale pink which is marked
on the map as "Switzerland." I suppose, too, that if I asked, "What can
you tell me about Switzerland?" a great many of them would cry out, "It
is a mountainous country, the Alps are there, Mont Blanc is there, the
highest land in Europe." All this is true; but I wonder if all of those
who know even so much have any idea what a beautiful country Switzerland
is? Not only are the mountains very high and very grand, but the valleys
which lie between are as green as emerald, and full of all sorts of wild
flowers; there are lakes of the loveliest blue, rivers which foam and
dash as merrily as rivers do in America, and the prettiest farmhouses in
the world,--_chalets_ the Swiss call them,--with steep roofs and hanging
balconies, and mottoes and quaint ornaments carved all over their
fronts. And the most peculiar and marvellous thing of all is the strange
nearness of the grass and herbage to the snows. High, high up in the
foldings of the great mountains on whose tops winter sits all the year
long, are lovely little valleys hidden away, where goats and sheep feed
by the side of glacier-fed streams; and the air is full of the tinkle of
their bells, and of the sweet smells of the mountain flowers. The water
of these streams has an odd color which no other waters have,--a sort of
milky blue-green, like an opal. Even on the hottest days a chilly air
plays over their surface, the breath, as it were, of the great
ice-fields above, from whose melting snows the streams are fed. And the
higher you climb, still greener grow the pastures and thicker the
blossoms, while the milk in the _chalet_ pans seems half cream, it is so
rich. Delicious milk it is, ice cold, and fragrant as if the animals
which produce it had fed on flowers. Oh, Switzerland is a wonderful land
indeed!

One day as I sat in a thicket of Alp roses in one of those lovely,
lonely upper valleys, I happened to raise my eyes, and noticed, high in
the cliff above, a tall narrow rock as white as snow, which looked
exactly like a door set in the face of the gray precipice. An old
shepherd came by, and I asked him about it. He said it was called "The
Door," and that the valley was called "The Valley of the Door" by some
folks because of it, but that its real name was "_Das Fritzethal_," or
"Fritz's Valley," on account of a boy called Fritz who once lived there.
I wanted to know about the boy, and as the old man had a little time to
spare, he sat down beside me and told this story, which I will now tell
you.

"It was many, many years ago," the shepherd said, "so many that no man
now remembers exactly when it happened. Fritz's mother was a widow, and
he was her only child. They were poor people, and had to work hard for a
living. Fritz was a steady, faithful lad, and did his best. All day long
he dug and toiled, and herded and milked and fed his goats; in the
winter he carved wooden bowls for sale in the lower valley; but, work as
he would, it was not always easy to keep the meal-bin full. What made it
harder, were the strange storms which every few months swept the valley
and damaged the crops. Out of the blue sky, as it were, these storms
would suddenly drop. The sun would be shining one moment; the next,
great torrents of rain would begin to fall and fierce winds to blow,
flooding the crops and carrying drifts of sand and gravel across the
fields. Then, at other times, no rain would fall for months together,
and every green thing would be burned and dried up, while perhaps at
the very same time the lower valleys had plenty of rain. This happened
so often that people gave the Thal the name of "The Unlucky Valley," and
it was accounted a sad thing to have to get a living there. The climate
is very different now--praised be God.

"You can see, madame, that Fritz's lot was not strewn with roses. Still
he was a brave lad, and did not lose heart. He had no play-fellows, but
sometimes in the long summer days when he sat to watch the herd, he
would tell himself stories by way of amusement, and almost always these
stories were about the White Door up there, which was as much a marvel
then as now. At last, by dint of looking and dreaming, it grew to be so
like a real door to him, that he resolved one day to climb up and see it
closer."

"Up there!" I cried with horror.

"Yes, madame. It was very rash. Any ordinary boy would have been dashed
to pieces, but Fritz was wiry, strong, and active as a mountain goat.
There are no such boys left nowadays. One night, while his mother slept,
he stole away, climbed as high as he dared by moonlight, took a wink of
sleep under a shelving rock, and with the first dawn began to make his
way upward, testing every foothold, and moving cautiously; for though he
loved adventure, Fritz was by no means a foolhardy boy, and had no mind
to lose his life if wit and care could keep it safe. But the climb was a
terrible one. He had been on precipices before, but never on such as
this. Only God's goodness saved him again and again. A hundred times he
wished himself back, but to return was worse than to go on. So up and up
he went, and at last, scaling that sheer brown cliff which you see
there, and throwing himself breathless on a narrow ledge, he found
himself close to the object of his desires. There, just before him, was
the Little White Door.

[Illustration: Pretty soon he grew bold, and seizing the knocker he gave
a loud rap.

PAGE 15.]

"The sight restored his energies at once. It was a real door--that he
saw at a glance, for there was a latch and a keyhole and a knocker--all
carved of white stone, and on the door a name in good German characters,
'_Die Wolken_.' I do not know the name in English."

"It is 'Clouds,'" I told him.

"Ah, yes, 'die clouds.' Fritz could hardly believe his eyes, as you may
imagine.

"Pretty soon he grew bold, and seizing the knocker he gave a loud rap.
Nobody answered at first, so he rapped again, louder and louder, until
the sound echoed from the rocks like thunder. At last the door opened
very suddenly, and some one drew Fritz in and shut the door again
quickly. All was dark inside, but he felt a cool touch on his wrist, and
a hand he could not see led him along a rocky passage into the heart of
the cliff.

"After a while a glimmering light appeared, and the passage turned
suddenly into a large hall, which was full of people, Fritz thought at
first; but then he saw that they were not people, but strange rounded
shapes in white or gray, who moved and bounded, and seemed to be playing
a game of some sort. It was like a game of bowls, but the things they
rolled to and fro on the rocky floor were not balls, but shapes like
themselves, only smaller and rounder, and of all beautiful colors, red
and purple and yellow. The creatures liked to roll, it would seem, for
they skipped and jumped as they went along, and laughed with a sort of
crackling laughter, which echoed oddly back from the roof of the cave.
The big shapes laughed too in great booming tones. Altogether they made
a great deal of noise. Still the damp little hand clasped Fritz's wrist,
and looking down he saw that his guide was no other than one of those
same small shapes which were the balls of the game. There was something
so familiar in the pink-cheeked fleecy outline, that in his surprise
Fritz forgot to be afraid, and spoke aloud, crying, 'Why! It's a
cloud!'

"'To be sure. What did you suppose me to be, and why did you come to the
clouds' house if you didn't want to see clouds?' replied the thing.

"'Didn't you see our name on the door? Or perhaps you can't read,
Stupid!' demanded a large white cloud, leaving the group of players and
coming up to Fritz and his companion.

"'Yes, I can read, and I did see the name,' stammered Fritz; 'still I
didn't--'

"'You did and you didn't; how intelligent you seem to be!' said the
white cloud, with a toss and curl; while a big black thunder-cloud,
pitching a little yellow one clear across the cave, shouted in sullen
tones which echoed frightfully from the rocks overhead, 'What's that boy
doing here spoiling our game? Cumulus, it's your roll. Turn that little
beggar out. He has no business here, interfering with the sports of his
betters!'

"Fritz trembled, but his small conductor faced the black cloud
undauntedly.

"'Hold your tongue!' he said. 'This boy is my visitor. I let him in, and
you're not to bully him. I won't permit it.'

"'_You_, indeed!' blustered the thunder-cloud. 'Pray, what can you do
about it, Little Pink? I shall say what I like, and do as I like.'

"'No, you won't,' cried all the small clouds together, rearing
themselves up from the floor. 'We fair-weather clouds are not a bit
afraid of you, as you know. We know very well how to drive you black
ones away, and we will do it now if you are not civil.' Their voices
though bright were threatening, and one little violet bit made a dash
straight at the nose of the thunder-cloud, who shrank into a corner,
muttering wrathfully.

"'Don't be at all afraid,' said Little Pink to Fritz, in a patronizing
tone. 'He shan't do you any harm. That sort of cloud is always afraid to
face us, because we are so many, you see, and can serve him as he
deserves. Well, now, and what brought you up here, pray?'

"'I didn't know who lived here, and I wanted so much to see,' replied
Fritz, shyly.

"'You didn't? Didn't you know that this was our house?' demanded the
little cloud, astonished.

"'No, indeed. I didn't even know that you had a house.'

"'What! Not know that? Pray, where did you suppose we were when you
didn't see us in the sky?' cried Little Pink. 'A house! Of course we
have a house. Everybody has one. You've got a house yourself, haven't
you? Why, we've lived here always, all we clouds. Sometimes we have
great family meetings, when we get together and indulge in all sorts of
fun and frolic, never going out doors for weeks at a time.'

"'Oh, those must be the times when our fields all burn up, and the
streams run dry, and the poor cattle low with thirst!' said Fritz,
suddenly enlightened. 'So you are enjoying yourselves up here all the
time, are you? I call that very unkind, and--' Suddenly recollecting
where he was, he hung his head, abashed at his own daring.

"Little Pink hung his head too, with a grieved face.

"'I never thought of that before,' he said penitently. 'It was pleasant
for us, and the time went fast. I recollect now that the world has
looked rather queer and yellow sometimes when we have come out again
after a long absence, but it grew green presently, and I did not suppose
any one minded--'

"All this while a strange growling sound had been going on in a room
opening from the hall, across whose entrance stout bars were fixed.

"'What _is_ that?' asked Fritz, unable longer to restrain his curiosity.

"'That? That's only the North Wind,' replied Little Pink, in an absent
tone. 'We've shut him up, because he has no business to be abroad in the
summer; and he's such a restless creature, and so violent, that he will
break loose if he can, and do all manner of mischief. Last year, about
this time, he got out and raised a great storm, and made a fearful mess
of it down below.'

"'I recollect. That was the storm that killed three of our sheep, and
ruined the barley crop,' exclaimed Fritz. 'Oh, it was dreadful! We had
to make half a loaf do the work of a whole one all winter long in
consequence. It was hungry times in the valley, I can tell you. Oh, the
evil Wind!'

"'You poor fellow!' cried the little cloud. 'Well, he's safe now, as you
see. He can't get out and plague you this year, at least. But I'm so
sorry you went hungry. It wasn't our fault, really it wasn't; still I
should like to make it up to you somehow, if I could.' He reflected a
moment, then he went forward and gave a call which collected all the
other clouds around him. Fritz watched them consulting together; at last
they moved toward him in a body.

"'Now, Boy,' said Little Pink, who seemed to have elected himself
spokesman, 'because you're a good boy and have had bad luck, and because
you're the first boy who ever came up here and rapped on our door, we're
going to propose a bargain. So long as you live in the valley below and
are steady, and work hard and keep a kind heart in your bosom for people
not so well off as yourself, so long we will look after your farm and
befriend it. Water shall fall on it regularly, flood and tempest shall
spare it, the grass shall never dry, nor the brook fail, nor the herds
lack for food. We shall watch closely, and so long as you keep your word
we will keep ours. Do you agree?'

"'What! never any more droughts, never any floods,' cried Fritz, unable
to believe such good news. 'Oh, how happy mother will be! Indeed, indeed
I will do my best--pray believe that I will.'

"'The proof of the pudding,' began Cumulus, but Little Pink silenced
him with a wave of his hand.

"'Very well, you do your best and we will do ours,' he said in a cheery
tone. 'Now about getting you home. Do you know how late it is?'

"'No,' said Fritz, who had forgotten all about time.

"'It is just noon.'

"'Really? Oh, how frightened the mother will be!' cried Fritz, his heart
sinking as he thought of the terrible cliffs which he must descend.

"'He never can go home as he came,' declared a rainbow, craning its long
curved neck like a giraffe's over the heads of the others.

"'I'll tell you, let us all carry him down on our shoulders,' suggested
Little Pink.

"'So we will,' shouted the clouds in a chorus; and jostling and laughing
they all crowded into the narrow passage, bearing Fritz in their midst.
As the door swung open, in swept fresh visitors, a crowd of tiny
scurrying shapes, and some one behind, whipping them along with a lash
of many-colored air.

"'Why, where are you all going?' demanded the new-comer, in a breezy
voice. 'I've collected these stray lambs from hither and yon, and now
I'm in for the day. What takes you out, pray?'

"'We'll not be gone a minute. We're only going to carry this boy home,'
answered the rest; while Little Pink whispered in Fritz's ear, 'That's
the West Wind. He's a great favorite with us all.'

"'Hallo! A boy! Why, so it is,' cried West Wind. He pounced on Fritz as
he spoke, kissed him, ruffled his hair, boxed his ears softly, all in a
minute. Then, with a gay, whooping laugh he vanished into the passage,
while the clouds, raising Fritz, floated downward like a flock of
white-winged birds. Little Pink lay under his cheek like a pillow.
Softly as thistle-down touches earth they landed on the valley floor,
laid Fritz on a bed of soft grass, and rose again, leaving him there. He
looked up to watch them rise, bright and smiling. Little Pink waved a
rosy hand. Higher and higher sailed the clouds, then they vanished into
the door, and the door was shut."

I am telling the story, as you see, rather in my own words than in those
of the old shepherd, but you won't mind that. The truth is, I cannot
remember the exact language he used, but so long as I keep to the main
points of the history it doesn't much matter, does it?

"In a few minutes Fritz recovered his wits and made haste home, for he
feared his mother might be alarmed at his long absence. She was not,
however, for she supposed that he had risen early, as he sometimes did,
and taking a piece of bread in his hand, had followed the goats up the
valley, breakfasting by the way. She met him, full of wonder at a
strange thing that had happened.

"'Such a queer mist filled the valley just now,' she said, 'I could not
see the sun at all. I feared a storm was coming, but presently it rolled
away all in a minute, and left the day as fine as ever. Did you notice
it? I never saw anything like it before.'

"Fritz let his mother wonder, and held his peace. She would think that
he had fallen asleep and dreamed it all, he was sure; in fact, after a
little he himself began to believe that it was a dream.

"But, dream or no dream, the strange thing was that it came true! From
that time on, the climate of the Unlucky Valley seemed to change. Years
passed by without a single drought or inundation. When the pastures
below were parched with thirst, rain fell on Fritz's fields, keeping
them green as emerald. All his crops succeeded; his goats and sheep gave
double share of milk, and little by little he grew rich.

"'The Lucky Valley,' people now called the once unlucky spot, while to
Fritz they gave the name of 'The Favored of the Saints.' Year after
year his gains went on increasing. Gradually all the land in the valley
became his, except one tiny strip, there at the upper end, which
belonged to a widow, poor as Fritz's mother once had been. This strip
Fritz desired to buy, but the widow refused to sell, though he offered a
large price. She had come there a bride, she declared, with the
myrtle-crown on her head, and there she wished to die and be buried when
her time should come. The memory of his own poor mother, who had died
some time before, should have made Fritz pitiful to this lonely woman,
but his heart had grown hard with continued prosperity, and it angered
him to be opposed. So when after many attempts she persisted in her
resolution, he tried harsher means. The widow had debts. These he bought
up, and when she could not pay he brought the pressure of the law to
bear, and turned her from her home.

"The very night after he had watched her depart, weeping and
broken-hearted, as he lay on his bed, feeling at last that the valley
was all his own, the Little White Door opened on the cliffs far above,
and out came the clouds.

"Not pink and purple now, smiling and full of good will, but black and
wrathful. Like a flock of dark vultures they swooped at the sleeping
valley. Floods of rain fell, fierce winds tore and raved, the river rose
and burst its bounds, carrying all before it; and Fritz, awakened by the
fearful roar, had just time to escape from his bed and gain the nearer
hillside, when the waters struck the _chalet_ and bore it away in ruins
down the valley, as though it were no more than a bubble of foam. The
crops were swept off, the flocks drowned in the fields. Fritz clung to a
tree-trunk through that fearful night, listening to the hiss and rush of
the flood, and the bleatings of the drowning sheep; and ever and anon it
seemed as if shapes, dimly seen through the darkness, swooped at and
buffeted him, while voices cried in his ear, 'Promise-breaker!
Widow-spoiler! Is _this_ the way you keep faith with the clouds?'

"When morning dawned it revealed a scene of ruin. Not a blade of barley
remained in the meadows, not a blade of grass in the fields. The labor
of years had vanished in a single night."

"It served him right," said I.

"Ah, my lady," replied the old shepherd, "God is more merciful to
sinners than we men can be. Fritz was not wicked at heart. He saw his
fault now in the light of his misfortune, and was sorry for it. Gladly
would he have made amends, but he was now poor as the poorest, for the
waters lay over the earth, and did not run off as waters generally do.
The fertile valley was become a lake, into which points of land, fringed
with broken and battered trees, pushed themselves. It was a sad sight.

"News of the disaster reached the lower valleys, and the kindly peasants
flocked to help. But what could they do till the water receded?
Nothing. They could only say comforting words and return to their homes,
leaving Fritz to his fate.

"He waited many days, then he formed a bold resolution. He determined to
climb the cliff once more, knock at the Little White Door, and plead
with the clouds for forgiveness."

"That was bold indeed," I said.

"It was a much harder task than it had been years before, when he was a
boy and his joints were supple," continued the old shepherd. "Only
desperation carried him upward, but at last he did reach the door. He
knocked many times without answer, and when at length the door opened,
it was not a merry little cloud which appeared, but a tall, gloomy white
one, which looked like a sheeted ghost. No game was going on in the
great hall. The clouds, dressed in black, each with his thunder-cap on,
sat side by side, and frowned on Fritz as he stood in the midst and made
his plea.

"'I have sinned,' he said sadly, as he ended, 'I have sinned
grievously, and I am justly punished. I forgot my promise to you, _meine
Herren_, and I cannot complain that you broke yours to me. But give me
one more chance, I implore you. Let me atone for my fault, and if I fail
again, punish me as you will.'

"It seemed to him that the clouds grew a little less gloomy as he spoke,
and their voices were gentle as they replied, 'Very well, we will
consider of it. Now go.' There was no offer to carry him this time.
Exhausted and weary he groped his way down at peril to life and limb,
and more dead than alive crept into the miserable shed which had
replaced his home, with no assured hope as to what the clouds might
elect to do.

"But lo, in the morning the waters had begun to fall. He hardly dared
believe his eyes, but day by day they slowly grew less. By the end of a
fortnight the ground was left bare. Such land! Rough, seamed, gullied by
the flood, covered with slime from the mountain side and with rocks and
gravel,--it seemed a hopeless task to reclaim it again into pasture.

"But Fritz was a strong man and his will was good. Little by little the
rocks were removed, the fields resown, and the valley restored to its
old fruitfulness. The soil seemed richer than ever before, as if the mud
and slime which had lain so long on the surface were possessed of some
fertilizing quality. Another _chalet_ in time arose, in place of the old
one. By the end of fifteen years Fritz again was a rich man, richer than
before. But his hard heart had been drowned in the flood, and the new
heart which he brought back from the Little White Door was soft and
kind. As soon as he could, he sought out the poor widow and restored to
her all she had lost, land and home and goats. Later on he wedded her
niece, a good and honest maiden, and they took the widow to live under
their own roof, and were to her as a son and daughter. So the last years
of Fritz were his best years, and his name, 'The Favored of the
Saints,' stuck to him for the rest of his life. And it is from him that
this valley is named _Das Fritzethal_, my lady."

"And is the story really a true one?" I asked.

"Ah, who knows?" said the old shepherd, shaking his head wisely. "The
world has so many liars in it that no one can be sure." Then he took off
his odd pointed hat, made a bow, called to his goats, and went his way
down the valley, followed by the herd with their many-keyed tinkling
bells.

I looked up. The Little White Door shone out of the face of the cliff
all rosy pink with sunset. It was time for me to go also.

"At least," I thought, "if the story is not all true, if it has changed
and grown a little during the course of the years,--at least it is a
good story, and I am glad I heard it."




LITTLE KAREN AND HER BABY.


THE cottage in which little Karen lived stood high up on the hillside,
close to the edge of a great forest. It was a strange, lonely place for
a young wife, almost a girl, to be so happy in; but Karen was not afraid
of the forest, and never thought her home lonely, not even when the
strong winds blew in winter-time, and brought the far-off baying of
wolves from the mountains beyond. Her husband, her boy, her housewifely
cares, her spinning-wheel, and her needle kept her busy all day long,
and she was as cheerful as busy. The cottage was not large, but it was
strongly built of heavy beams and stones. Its low walls seemed to hug
and clasp the ground, as if for protection in time of storm. The
casement windows, with their very small panes of thick glass, let in
little sun, but all summer long they stood open, and in winter, what
with the crackling fire, the hum of the wheel, and Karen's bright face,
the living-room never looked dark, and, for all its plainness, had an
air of quaint comfort about it. Fritz, Karen's husband, who was skilful
with tools, had ornamented the high-backed chair, the press for clothes,
and the baby's oaken cradle, with beautiful carving, of which little
Karen was exceedingly proud. She loved her cottage, she loved the great
wood close by; her lonely life was delightful to her, and she had not
the least wish to exchange it for the toy-like village in the valley
below.

But Karen was unlike other people, the neighbors said, and the old
gossips were wont to shake their heads, and mutter that there was a
reason for this unlikeness, and that all good Christians ought to pity
and pray for the poor child.

Long, long ago, said these gossips,--so long that nobody now could
remember exactly when it was,--Karen's great-great-great-grandfather,
(or perhaps _his_ grandfather--who could tell?) when hunting in the high
mountains, met a beautiful, tiny maiden, so small and light that a man
could easily carry her in the palm of one hand. This maiden he fell in
love with, and he won her to be his wife. She made a good wife; kept the
house as bright as new tin; and on her wheel spun linen thread so fine
that mortal eye could hardly see it. But a year and a day from the time
of her marriage she went out to walk in the wood, and never came back
any more! The reason of this was, that she was a gnomide,--daughter of
one of the forest gnomes,--and when her own people encountered her thus
alone, they detained her, and would not suffer her to return to her
husband. The baby she left in the cradle grew to be a woman,--bigger
than her gnome mother, it is true, but still very small; and all the
women of the race have been small since that time. Witness little Karen
herself, whose head only came up to the shoulder of her tall Fritz. Then
her passion for woods and solitary places, her beautiful swift spinning,
her hair, of that peculiar pale white-brown shade,--all these were
proofs of the drops of unearthly blood which ran in her veins. Gnomes
always had white hair. This was because they lived in holes and dark
places. Even a potato would throw out white leaves if kept in a
cellar,--everybody knew that,--and the gossips, ending thus, would shake
their heads again, and look very wise.

Karen had heard these stories, and laughed at them. No fairy or gnome
had ever met her eyes in the woods she loved so well; and as for hair,
Rosel Pilaff's, and Gretchen Erl's too, was almost as pale as hers. Fair
hair is common enough in the German mountains. Her little boy--bless
him!--had downy rings which promised to become auburn in time, the
color of his father's beard. She did not believe in the gnome story a
bit.

But there came a time when she almost wished to believe it, for the
gnomes are said to be wise folk, and little Fritz fell ill of a strange
disease, which neither motherly wisdom nor motherly nursing was able to
reach. Each day left him thinner and weaker, till he seemed no more than
half his former size. His very face looked strange as it lay on the
cradle-pillow, and Karen was at her wits' end to know what to do.

"I will go to the village and ask Mother Klaus to come and see the
child," said Fritz. "She may know of a remedy."

"It will be of no use," declared Karen, sadly. "She went to the Berards'
and the baby died, and to Heinrich's and little Marie died. But go, go,
Fritz!--only come back soon, lest our angel take flight while you are
away!"

She almost pushed him from the door, in her impatience to have him
return.

A while after, when the baby had wailed himself to sleep, she went again
to the door to look down the path into the valley. It was too soon to
hope for Fritz, but the movement seemed a relief to her restlessness. It
was dusk, not dark,--a sweet, mild dusk, with light enough left to show
the tree-branches as they met and waved against the dim yellow sky. Deep
shadows lay on the moss-beds and autumn flowers which grew beneath; only
a faint perfume here and there told of their presence, and the night was
very near.

Too unhappy to mind the duskiness, Karen wandered a little way up the
wood-path, and sat down on the root of an old oak, so old that the
rangers had given it the name of "Herr Grandfather." It was only to
clear her brimming eyes that she sat down. She wiped them with her
kerchief, and, with one low sob, was about to rise, when she became
aware that somebody was standing at her side.

This somebody was a tiny old woman, with a pale, shadowy, but sweet
face, framed in flossy white hair. She wore a dark, foreign-looking
robe; a pointed hood, edged with fur, was pulled over her head; and the
hand which she held out as she spoke was as white as the stalk of
celery.

"What is the matter, my child?" she asked, in a thin, rustling voice,
which yet sounded pleasantly, because it was kind.

"My baby is _so_ ill," replied Karen, weeping.

"How ill?" inquired the old woman, anxiously. "Is it cold? Is it fever?
Do its eyes water? My baby once had a cold, and her eyes--" She stopped
abruptly.

"His eyes do not water," said Karen, who felt singularly at home with
the stranger. "But his head is hot, and his hands; he sleeps ill, and
for these ten days has hardly eaten. He grows thinner and whiter every
hour, and wails whenever he is awake. Oh, what am I doing? I must go
back to him." And, as she spoke, she jumped from her seat.

"One minute!" entreated the little old woman. "Has he pain anywhere?"

"He cries when I move his head," said Karen, hurrying on.

The stranger went too, keeping close beside her in a swift, soundless
way.

"Take courage, Liebchen, child to her who was child of my child's
child," she said. "Weep not, my darling. I will send you help. Out of
the wisdom of the earth shall come aid for the little dear one."

"What _do_ you mean?" cried Karen, stopping short in her surprise.

But the old woman did not answer. She had vanished. Had the wind blown
her away?

"How could I wander so far? How could I leave my baby? Wicked mother
that I am!" exclaimed Karen, in sudden terror, as she ran into the
cottage.

But nothing seemed disturbed, and no one had been there. The baby lay
quietly in his cradle, and the room was quite still, save for the hiss
of the boiling pot and the fall of an ember on the hearth. Gradually her
heart ceased its terrified beating; a sense of warmth and calm crept
over her, her eyes drooped, and, seated at the cradle-foot, she fell
asleep in her chair.

Whether it was an hour or a minute that she slept, she never knew.
Slowly and dimly her waking senses crept back to her; but though she
heard and saw and understood, she could neither stir nor speak. Two
forms were bending over the cradle, forms of little men, venerable and
shadowy, with hair like snow, and blanched, pale hands, like her visitor
of the afternoon. They did not look at Karen, but consulted together
above the sleeping child.

"It is _here_, brother, and _here_," said one, laying his finger gently
on the baby's head and heart.

"Does it lie too deep for our reaching?" asked the second, anxiously.

"No. The little herb you know of is powerful."

"And the crystal dust _you_ know of is more powerful still."

Then they took out two minute caskets, and Karen saw them open the
baby's lips, and each drop in a pinch of some unknown substance.

"He is of ours," whispered one, "more of ours than any of them have been
since the first."

"He has the gift of the far sight," said the other, lightly touching the
closed eyes, "the divining glance, and the lucky finger."

"I read in him the apprehension of metals," said the second old man,
"the sense of hidden treasures, the desire to penetrate."

"We will teach him how the waters run, and what the birds say--yes, and
the way in and the way out!"

"Put the charm round his neck, brother."

Then Karen saw the little men tie a bright object round the baby's neck.
She longed to move, but still she sat mute and powerless, while the odd
figures passed round the cradle, slowly at first, then faster and
faster, crooning, as they went, a song which was like wind in branches,
and of which this scrap lodged in her memory:--

          "Eyes to pierce the darkness through,
           Wit to grasp the hidden clew,
           Heart to feel and hand to do,--
           These the gnomes have given to you."

So the song and the circling movement went on, faster and more fast, and
round and round, till Karen's head swam and her senses seemed to spin in
a whirling dance; and she knew no more till roused by the opening of the
door, and Fritz's voice exclaiming: "Come in, Dame Klaus--come in!
Karen! Where are you, wife? Ah, here she is, fast asleep, and the little
man is asleep too."

"I am not asleep," said Karen, finding her voice with an effort. Then,
to her husband's surprise, she began to weep bitterly. But, for all his
urgings, she would not tell the cause, for she was afraid of Dame
Klaus's tongue.

The dame shook her head over the sick baby. He was very bad, she said;
still, she had brought through others as bad as he, and there was no
telling. She asked for a saucepan, and began to brew a tea of herbs,
while Karen, drawing her husband aside, told her wonderful tale in a
whisper.

"Thou wert dreaming, Karen; it is nothing but a dream," declared the
astounded Fritz.

"No, no," protested Karen. "It was not a dream. Baby will be well again,
and great things are to happen! You will see! The little men know!"

"Little men! Oh, Karen! Karen!" exclaimed Fritz.

But he said no more, for Karen, bending over the cradle, lifted the
strange silver coin which was tied round the baby's neck, and held it up
to him with a smile. A silver piece is not a dream, as every one knows;
so Fritz, though incredulous, held his tongue, and neither he nor Karen
said a word of the matter to Mother Klaus.

Baby _was_ better next day. It was all the herb-tea, Mother Klaus
declared, and she gained great credit for the cure.

This happened years ago. Little Fritz grew to be a fine man, sound and
hearty, though never as tall as his father. He was a lucky lad too, the
villagers said, for his early taste for minerals caught the attention of
a rich gentleman, who sent him to the school of mines, where he got
great learning. Often when the mother sat alone at her wheel, a smile
came to her lips, and she hummed low to herself the song of the little
old men:--

          "Eyes to pierce the darkness through,
           Wit to grasp the hidden clew,
           Heart to feel and hand to do,--
           These the gnomes have given to you."




HELEN'S THANKSGIVING.


"MAMMA, would you mind _very_ much if I should learn to make pies?"

This request sounds harmless, but Mrs. Sands quite started in her chair
as she heard it. She and Helen were sitting on either side of a
wood-fire. The blinds had been pulled down to exclude the chill November
darkness, and the room was lit only by the blazing logs, which sent out
quick, bright flashes followed by sudden soft shadows, in that
unexpected way which is one of the charms of wood-fires. It was a pretty
room, in a pretty house, in one of the up-town streets of New York, and
the mother and daughter looked very comfortable as they sat there
together.

"Pies, my dear? What _do_ you mean?"

"I'll tell you, mamma. You're going to Grandmamma Ellis for
Thanksgiving, this year, you know, and papa and I are going up to
Vermont, to Grandmother Sands?"

"Yes."

"Well, I don't remember grandmother much, because it is so long since
she was here, but the one thing I do recollect is how troubled she was
because I didn't know anything about housekeeping. One day you had a
headache, and wanted some tea; and you rang and rang, and Jane was ever
so long in fetching it, and at last grandma said, 'Why don't you run
down and see to it, Helen?' And when I told her that I wasn't allowed to
go into the kitchen, and beside that I didn't know how to make tea, she
looked so distressed, and said, 'Dear me, dear me! Poor little ignorant
girl! What a sad bringing up for you in a country like ours!' I didn't
understand exactly what she meant, but I have never forgotten it, and do
you know, mamma, just that one speech of grandma's has made me want to
do ever so many things. I never told you, but once I made my bed for
more than a week,--till Bridget said I was 'worth my salt as a
chambermaid,' and I used to dust the nursery, and sweep. And the other
day it came into my head suddenly how pleased grandmother would be if I
carried her a pumpkin-pie that I had made myself; so I asked Morrison,
and she said she'd teach me, and welcome, if you didn't mind. Do you
mind, mamma?"

"You know, dear, I don't like to have you about with the servants, and I
never wanted you to become a drudge at home, as so many American girls
are. Then you have your lessons to attend to besides."

"Yes, mamma, I know, but it will only take one morning, and I'll not
begin till school closes, if you'd rather not. I really would like to so
much, mamsie?"

Helen's pet name for her mother was coaxingly spoken, and had its
effect. Mrs. Sands yielded.

"Very well, dear; you may, if you like, only I wish you could wear
gloves."

"O mamma! nobody makes pies in gloves. But I needn't put my hands in at
all, except for rolling the paste, Morrison says so."

Mrs. Sands was not so silly a woman as she sounds. Born and bred in the
West Indies, the constant talk about servants and housekeeping, that met
her ears when she came to New York, a young married woman, so puzzled
and annoyed her that she somewhat rashly decided that her child should
never know anything about such matters. Morrison, the good old cook, had
lived with her since Helen was a baby, and all had gone so smoothly that
there had never seemed occasion for interference from anybody. And Helen
would have grown up in utter ignorance of all practical matters, had not
a chance remark of her thrifty New England grandmother piqued her into
the voluntary wish of learning.

It was with a good deal of excitement, and a little sense of victory as
well, that Helen went downstairs, a few days later, to take the promised
lesson. The kitchen looked very cheerful and neat, and Morrison was all
ready with her spice-box, eggs, pie-dishes, and great yellow bowl full
of strained pumpkin; likewise a big calico apron to tie over Helen's
dress. First they made the crust. It was such good fun pinching the soft
bits of lard into the nice, dry-feeling flour, that Helen would
willingly have prolonged the operation, but Morrison objected. Pastry
didn't like to be fingered, she said; and she made Helen wash her hands,
and then mix in the ice-water with a thin-bladed knife, cutting and
chopping till all was moistened into a rough sort of dough. Next, she
produced the rolling-pin, and showed her how to beat the dough with
dexterous strokes, up and down, and cross-ways, till it became a smooth
paste, which felt as soft as velvet, and then how to roll it into a
smooth sheet, lay on the butter in thin flakes, fold and roll again.

"Now wrap this towel all round it, and I'll set it into the ice-chest
till we want it," she said. "It'll puff the minute it goes into the
oven, never fear; I can always tell. You like it,--don't you,--Miss
Helen dear?"

"Yes, indeed, ever so much. I _hope_ the pies will be good; grandmamma
will be so pleased."

"They'll be good," pronounced Morrison, confidently. "Now sift in plenty
of sugar, miss."

So Helen put in "plenty" of sugar, and then, as directed, grated
lemon-peel, lemon-juice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, melted butter, a
pinch of salt, beaten eggs, a dash of rose-water, and then a little more
sugar, and "just the least taste of cinnamon," till Morrison pronounced
the flavor exactly right, and Helen declared that for all she could see,
pumpkin-pies were made of anything in the world except pumpkins. Last of
all went in a great pour of hot milk; then the pie-dishes were lined,
filled, and set in the oven, after being ornamented with all manner of
zigzags and curly-queues of paste round their edges; and Helen rushed
upstairs to tell her mother that pie-making was "just lovely," and she
would like to be a cook always, she thought. By Morrison's advice she
wrote the whole process down in a book while it was fresh in her mind,
and she was glad afterwards that she had done so, as you will see.

That same afternoon Mrs. Sands went on to Philadelphia, and next morning
early Helen and her father started for their journey to Vermont. It was
gray, blustering weather, but neither of them cared for that. Papa was
in high spirits, and full of fun as a school-boy. Their baggage
comprised, besides two valises, a big hamper full of all sorts of nice
things for grandmother, game and fruit and groceries, and Helen carried
a flat basket in her hand, in which, wrapped in a snowy napkin, reposed
one of the precious pies.

"Bless me, how raw it is! It looks as though it were going to snow,"
said Mr. Sands, as he came in from a walk up and down the platform of
one of the little stations at which the train stopped; and five minutes
later Helen, with a little scream of surprise, cried out, "Why, papa, it
_is_ snowing!" Sure enough it was,--in fine snow-flakes, which before
long thickened into a heavy fall.

"It will only be a squall," Mr. Sands said; but the conductor shook his
head, and remarked that up there so near the mountains there was no
calculating on weather. It might stop in half an hour, or it might go on
all night: no one could pretend to say beforehand which it would do.

By the time they reached Asham, their stopping-place, the ground was
solid white. The wind, too, had risen, and was drifting the snow in all
directions. The tavern-keeper at Asham, to whom Mr. Sands went for "a
team," advised them to stay all night, but this both Helen and her
father agreed was not to be thought of. It was only fourteen miles.
Grandmamma was expecting them, and must not be disappointed. So, well
wrapped in carriage blankets and buffalo robes, they set out in a light
covered rockaway, with a stout horse, their baggage packed in behind
them.

Fourteen miles may seem a very short distance or a very long one,
according to circumstances. Before they had gone half-way both of them
began to think it an extremely long one. The road lay up hill for the
greater part of the way. Night was coming on fast, and every moment the
drift grew thicker and more confusing. Mr. Sands in his secret heart
repented that he had not taken the tavern-keeper's advice, and stayed at
Asham. At last the horse, which had halted several times and been urged
on again, came to a dead stop. Mr. Sands touched him with the whip, but
he would not stir. He jumped up to see what was the matter, and found
the poor animal up to his chest in snow. He had wandered from the road a
little and plunged into a drift. Mr. Sands tried to turn him toward the
road, when, lo, a loud and ominous crack was heard, and Helen gave a
scream. One of the shafts had snapped in two.

Matters now looked serious. Mr. Sands undid the harness as fast as
possible, for he feared the horse might flounder to release himself, and
upset the carriage. Then he climbed into the rockaway again, and stood
up to see if he could anywhere see the light of a house. No; a twinkling
beam was visible farther up the hill, about a quarter of a mile away.

"Helen," he said, "I'll have to ask you to sit here quietly for ten
minutes or so, while I ride on to a house which I see up there, and get
some one to help us. Will you be afraid to be left alone? It's only for
a little while."

"N-o; but O papa! must you go? I'm so afraid the horse will kick, or
you'll tumble off."

"Never fear,"--trying to laugh,--"I really must go, dear; it's our only
chance of getting out of this scrape. Promise me to sit perfectly
still, and on no account to leave the carriage."

It seemed much longer than ten minutes before papa got back, but there
he was at last, with another man carrying a lantern, both of them white
with snow up to their waists.

"All right, Helen," he cried cheerily. "Wrap all the blankets round your
shoulders; I'm going to set you on the horse, and Mr. Simmons and
I--this is Mr. Simmons, my dear--will walk on either side and hold you
on; we'll have you up the hill in a trice."

Helen did not like it at all. The horse felt dreadfully _alive_ under
her, and jerked so, as he plunged up hill through the snow, that she was
constantly afraid of tumbling off. It did not last long, however. In
five minutes her father had lifted and carried her in, and set her down
in a kitchen, where a woman with a candle in her hand stood waiting for
them.

"This is Mrs. Simmons," he said. "She is so kind as to say that she will
keep us till to-morrow morning, when perhaps the snow will have
stopped, and, at all events, we shall have daylight to find our way
with. Mr. Simmons and I are going back now to fetch up the luggage. The
rockaway will have to take care of itself till to-morrow, I fancy."

Left alone, Helen looked curiously about her. The kitchen was a
bare-looking place to her eyes. There was a stove with a fire in it, a
rocking-chair covered with faded "patch," some wooden chairs, a table,
and a sort of dresser with dishes. A large wheel for spinning wool stood
in one of the windows. Everything was clean, but there was an air of
poverty, and to Helen it seemed a most dismal place. She could not
imagine how people could live and be happy there.

Mrs. Simmons herself looked very ill and tired.

"I enjoy such poor health," she explained to Helen, as she took some
plates and bowls down from the dresser. "I got the ague down to Mill
Hollow, where we lived, and we moved up here, hoping to get rid of it.
I am some better, but it took me powerful hard yesterday, and I suppose
I'll have it bad again to-morrow. Mr. Simmons, he's got behindhand
somehow, and it's hard work trying to catch up in these times. What with
one thing and another, both of us have felt clean discouraged this fall.
Glory, fetch the milk."

"Yes, mother." And out of the buttery came a girl of about Helen's age,
with a pan in her hands. She had apparently tumbled out of bed to help
in the entertainment of the strangers, for her hair was flying loose,
and she looked only half dressed; but she had pretty brown eyes and a
bright smile.

"I feel real bad to think I'm out of tea," said Mrs. Simmons. "Father,
he was calculating to get some later on, when he'd finished a job of
lumber-hauling. And the hens have 'most stopped laying, too; I hain't
but four eggs in the house."

"Oh, don't give us the eggs!" cried Helen; "you'll want them yourself
for Thanksgiving, I'm sure."

"Thanksgiving! Dear me, so it is!" said Mrs. Simmons. "I'd forgot all
about that. Not that it'd have made much difference, any way. You can't
make something out of nothin', and that's about what we've come to."

"I've got a pie," cried Helen, with a sudden generous impulse, but
feeling a little pang meanwhile, as she recalled her vision of putting
the pie into grandmamma's own hands. But where was the pie? She
recollected now,--the basket was in her lap when papa lifted her out of
the carriage. It must have fallen out, and probably was now buried deep
in snow.

A great stamping of boots just then announced the entrance of the two
men with the valises and hamper. Mrs. Simmons renewed her apologies
about the tea. Hot milk, a little fried pork, two of the eggs, and a
loaf of saleratus bread were all she had to offer, but it was very
welcome to the hungry travellers. There was some choice tea in
grandmother's hamper, but Mr. Sands very rightly judged it better to say
nothing about it just then, as it might have seemed that he and Helen
were not satisfied with their supper. They ate heartily, and soon after
went to bed in two chilly little lofts upstairs, where all the buffalo
robes and blankets from the carriage could not _quite_ keep them warm.

Helen lay awake a long time, thinking of her own disappointment and
grandmamma's, but more still about the Simmons family. How hard and
melancholy their life seemed, struggling with poverty and ague up here
among the lonely hills, with no doctor near them, and no neighbors! A
great sympathy and pity awoke in her heart. Her first impulse, when she
roused next morning, was to hurry to the window. It was still snowing,
and the drifts seemed deeper than ever! "Oh, dear!" she thought, "we
shall have to stay in this forlorn place another day, I am afraid." A
more generous thought followed: "If it seems so hard to me to have to
spend one day here, what must it be to live here always?" And she made
up her mind that, if they were forced to stay, she would do all she
could to make Thanksgiving a little less forlorn than it seemed likely
to be to Mrs. Simmons and Glory.

It did look forlorn downstairs in the bare little kitchen. Mrs.
Simmons's chill was coming on. She was up and dragging herself about,
but she looked quite unfit to be out of bed. Two little children, a boy
and a girl, whom Helen had not seen the night before, clung close to her
dress, and followed wherever she moved, hiding their shy faces from the
strangers. They got over their shyness gradually as Helen laughed, and
coaxed them, and by the time breakfast was over had grown good friends.

"Now," said Helen, gayly, after a last glance at the window, which
showed the snow-storm still raging, "I am going to propose a plan. You
shall go to bed, Mrs. Simmons,--I'm sure you ought to be there at this
moment,--and Glory and I will wash the dishes, and we will cook the
Thanksgiving dinner."

"Oh, dear! there ain't nothing worth cooking," sighed poor Mrs. Simmons,
but she was too ill to make objections. So Glory, or Glorvina, put the
kitchen to rights with Helen's help, and then the two girls sat down to
consult over dinner.

"Could you roast a turkey, do you think?" asked Helen.

"There ain't no turkey to be roasted," objected Glory.

"Yes, but could you if there were? Because I think there's one in the
hamper, papa, and I know grandmamma would let us have it if she knew."

"Why, of course she would. Use everything in the hamper if you like;
grandma would never think of objecting, and there's plenty more to be
had where those came from," said her father.

So the hamper was unpacked, and the turkey extracted, and a package of
tea and another of lump sugar, and a tumbler of currant jelly; and Helen
filled a big dish with oranges and white grapes, and the preparations
went merrily on. There proved to be half a squash in the cellar, and
Glory, wading out in the snow, fetched in a couple more eggs from the
barn, so pies were possible. Helen produced her recipe-book.

"Now I'm going to show you just how to make pies," she said; "I only
learned myself day before yesterday." And she thought, "How lucky it is
that I did learn, for now I can show Glory, and she'll always know. But
wouldn't Morrison open her eyes if she could see me?"

The spices and lemons came out of the hamper, of course, and the crust
had to be made of salt butter and no lard; but the pies turned out very
good, for all that, and no one was in the least disposed to find fault
with their flavor. Really, the little dinner was a great success.
Glory's potatoes were a little underdone, but that was the only failure.
The children ate as though they could never be satisfied. Mr. Simmons
cheered up and cracked one or two feeble jokes; and even Mrs. Simmons,
propped high in bed to survey the festive scene, called out that it
"looked something like," and she didn't know when there had been so much
laughing going on in their house before.

The clock struck three just as the last nicely washed plate was set away
on the dresser. Helen quite jumped at the sound. How short, after all,
the day had seemed which promised to be so long and dismal! And just
then a bright yellow ray streamed through the window, and, looking out,
she saw blue sky.

"Papa," she screamed, "it has cleared up! I do believe we shall get to
grandmamma's to-night, after all!"

And so they did. Mr. Sands, with Mr. Simmons's assistance, fitted the
rockaway on to a pair of old sledge-runners, and, with many warm
good-byes from the whole family, they drove off. Just at sunset they
reached Morrow Hill, and grandma was so glad to see them, and they so
glad to get there, that it was easy to forget all their disappointment
and delay. In fact, after a little while Helen convinced herself that
the whole thing was rather a piece of good fortune than otherwise.

"For, don't you see, papa," she exclaimed, "we had all Thanksgiving
evening with grandmother, you know, and she had it with us, so we only
lost part of our pleasant time? But if it hadn't been for the snow and
the breakdown, the poor Simmonses wouldn't have had any Thanksgiving at
all--not a bit; so it really was a great deal better, don't you see that
it was, papa?"




AT FIESOLE.


FIESOLE is a quaint old town which perches on a hill-top above the
valley of the Arno and the city of Florence. You must not pronounce it
as it is spelt, but like this--Fee-es-o-lee. From the Florence streets
people catch glimpses of its bell-towers and roofs shining above the
olive orchards and vineyards of the hillside. A white road winds upward
toward it in long, easy zigzags, and seems to say, "Come with me and I
will show you something pretty."

Not long ago there were two girls in Florence to whom, plainly as road
could speak, the white road seemed to utter these very words. Pauline
and Molly Hale were the names of these girls. It was six months since
they had left America with their father and mother, and it seemed much
longer, because so much had happened in the time. First, the sea voyage,
not pleasant, and yet not exactly unpleasant, because papa got better
all the way, and that made mamma happy. Now papa would be quite well at
once, they thought. His people (for papa was a clergyman) had sent him
away for that purpose. They were not a rich people, but each gave a
little, and all together it made enough to carry the pastor and his
family across the sea and keep them there one year, with very prudent
management. The Hales, therefore, did not travel about as most people
do, but went straight to Italy, where they hoped to find that sun and
warm air which are an invalid's best medicines.

"Going straight to Italy" means, however, a great many pleasant things
by the way. Molly was always reminding Maria Matilda, her doll, of the
sights she had seen and the superior advantages she enjoyed over the
dolls at home.

After this mention of a doll, what will you say when I tell you that
Molly was almost thirteen? Most girls of thirteen scorn to play with
dolls, but Molly was not of their number. She was childish for her
years, and possessed a faithful little heart, which clung to Maria
Matilda as to an old friend whom it would be unkind to lay aside.

"First, there was Paris," Molly would say to her. "No, first there was
_Deep_, where the people all talked so queerly that we couldn't
understand a word. That was funny, Matilda, wasn't it? Then, don't you
recollect that beautiful church which we saw when we went past _Ruin_?"
(Molly meant Rouen, but I am sorry to say her pronunciation of French
names was rather queer.) "And Paris too, where I took you to walk in the
gardens, and papa let us both ride in a whirligig. None of the home
dollies have ever ridden in whirligigs, have they? They won't
understand what you mean unless I draw them a picture on my slate. Then
we got into the cars, and went and went till we came to that great dark
tunnel. Weren't we frightened? And you cried, Matilda--I heard you. You
needn't look so ashamed, though, for it _was_ horrid. But we got out of
it at last, though I thought we never should; and here we are at the
padrona's, and it's ever so nice, only I wish papa would come back."

For Florence had proved too cold, and papa had joined a party and gone
off to Egypt, leaving mamma and the children to live quietly and cheaply
at Signora Goldi's boarding-house. It was a dingy house in the old part
of Florence, but for all that it was a very interesting place to live
in. The street in which the house stood was extremely narrow. High
buildings on either side shut out the sun, the cobblestone pavement was
always dirty, but all day long a stream of people poured through it
wearing all sorts of curious clothes, talking all sorts of languages,
and selling all sorts of things. Men with orange-baskets on their heads
strolled along, crying, "Oranges, sweet oranges!" Others, with panniers
of flowers, chanted, "Fiori, belli fiori!" Pedlers displayed their wares
or waved gay stuffs; boys held up candied fruits, wood-carvings, and
toys; women went to and fro bearing trays full of a chocolate-colored
mixture dotted with the white kernels of pine-cones. This looked very
rich and nice, and the poor people bought great slices of it. Pauline
once invested a penny therein, but a single taste proved enough; it was
sour and oily at once, and she gave the rest to a small Italian girl,
who looked delighted, and gobbled it up in huge mouthfuls. Whenever they
went out to walk, there were fresh pleasures. The narrow street led
directly to a shining sunlit river, which streamed through the heart of
the city like a silver ribbon. Beautiful bridges spanned this river,
some reared on graceful arches, some with statues at either end, one set
all along its course by quaint stalls filled with gold and silver
filigree, chains of amber, and turquoises blue as the sky. All over the
city were delightful pictures, churches, and gardens, open and free to
all who chose to come. Every day mamma and the children went somewhere
and saw something, and, in spite of papa's absence, the winter was a
happy one.

Going to and fro in the city, the children had often looked up the
Fiesole hill, which is visible from many parts of Florence, and Pauline
had conceived a strong wish to go there. Molly did not care so much, but
as she always wanted to do what Pauline did, she joined her older sister
in begging to go. Mamma, however, thought it too far for a walk, and
carriage hire cost something; so she said no, and the girls were forced
to content themselves with "making believe" what they would do if ever
they went there,--a sort of play in which they both delighted. None of
the things they imagined proved true when they did go there, as you
shall hear.

It was just as they were expecting papa back, that, coming in one day
from a walk with Signora Goldi, Pauline and Molly found mamma hard at
work packing a travelling-bag. She looked very pale, and had been
crying. No wonder, for the mail had brought a letter to say that papa,
travelling alone from Egypt, had landed at Brindisi very ill with Syrian
fever. The kind strangers who wrote the letter would stay with and take
care of him till mamma could get there, but she must come at once.

"What _shall_ I do?" cried poor Mrs. Hale, appealing in her distress to
Signora Goldi. "I cannot take the children into a fever-room, and even
if that were safe, the journey costs so much that it would be out of the
question. Mr. Hale left me only money enough to last till his return.
After settling with you and buying my ticket, I shall have very little
remaining. Help me, padrona! Advise me what to do."

Signora Goldi's advertisement said, "English spoken," but the English
was of a kind which English people found it hard to understand. Her kind
heart, however, stood her instead of language, and helped her to guess
the meaning of Mrs. Hale's words.

"Such peety!" she said. "Had I know, I not have let rooms for week
after. The signora said 'let' and she sure to go, so I let, else the
_piccoli_ should stay wiss me. Now what?" and she rubbed her nose hard,
and wrinkled her forehead in a puzzled way. "I have!" she cried at last,
her face beaming. "How the _piccolini_ like go to Fiesole for a little?
My brother who dead, he leave Engleis wife. She lady-maid once, speak
Engleis well as me!--better! She have _pensione_--very small, but
good--ah, so good, and it cost little, with air _si buono, si fresco_!"

The signora was drifting into Italian without knowing it, but was
stopped by the joyous exclamations of the two girls.

"Fiesole! Oh, mamma! just what we wanted so much!" cried Pauline. "Do
let us go there!"

"Do, do!" chimed in Molly. "I saw the padrona's sister once, and she's
so nice. Say yes, please, mamma."

The "yes" was not quite a happy one, but what could poor Mrs. Hale do?
No better plan offered, time pressed, she hoped not to be obliged to
stay long away from the children, and, as the signora said, the Fiesole
hill-top must be airy and wholesome. So the arrangement was made, the
terms settled, a carriage was called, and in what seemed to the girls a
single moment, mamma had rattled away, with the signora to buy her
ticket and see her off at the station. They looked at each other
disconsolately, and their faces grew very long.

"We're just like orphans in a book," sobbed Pauline at last, while Molly
watered Matilda's best frock with salt tears. The signora had a
specially nice supper that night, and petted them a great deal, but they
were very homesick for mamma, and cried themselves to sleep.

Matters seemed brighter when they woke up next morning to find a lovely
day, such a day as only Italy knows, with sunshine like gold, sky of
clearest blue, and the river valley shining through soft mists like
finest filtered rainbows. By a happy chance the Fiesole sister-in-law
came to Florence that morning, and drove up to the door in a droll
little cart drawn by a mouse-colored mule, with a green carrot-top stuck
over his left ear and a bell round his neck. She gladly agreed to lodge
the children, and her pleasant old face and English voice made them at
once at home with her. There was just room in the cart for their trunk,
and about five in the afternoon they set out, perched on the narrow
bench in front, one on each side of their new friend, and holding each
other's hands tightly behind her ample back. Signora Bianchi was the
sister-in-law's name, but "padrona" was easier to say, and they called
her so from the beginning.

The hill-road was nowhere steep, but each winding turn took them higher
and higher above Florence. They could see the curvings of the river, the
bridges, the cathedral dome, and the tall, beautiful bell-tower, which
they had been told was the work of the great artist Giotto. Further on,
the road was shut in between stone walls. Over the tops of these hung
rose-vines, full of fresh pink roses, though it was early March. Pauline
and Molly screamed with pleasure, and the padrona, driving her mule
close under the wall, dragged down a branch and let them gather the
flowers for themselves, which was delightful. She would not stop,
however, when, a little later, they came to fields gay with red and
purple anemones, yellow tulips, and oddly colored wild lilies so dark as
to be almost black; there were plenty of such on top of the hill, she
said, and they must not be too late in getting home. The black lilies
were _giglios_,--the emblem or badge of the city of Florence; the
children had not seen them before, but they remembered the form of the
flower in the carved shields over the door of some of the old buildings.

The road ended in a small paved _piazza_, which is the Italian name for
an open square. All about it stood old buildings, houses and churches,
and a very ancient cathedral with a dirty leather curtain hanging before
its door. Passing these, the mule clattered down a narrow side-street,
or rather lane. The streets in Florence had seemed dark and dirty; but
what were they compared with this alley, in which the wheels of the
little cart grazed the walls on either side as it passed along? Rickety
flights of outside stairs led to the upper stories of the buildings;
overhead, lines of linen, hung out to dry, were flapping in the wind. An
ill-smelling stream of water trickled over the rough cobble-stone
pavement. Jolt, jolt, jolt!--then the mule turned suddenly into a dark
place which looked like a shabby stable-yard. It was the ground-floor of
the padrona's house, and this was the place where Pauline and Molly were
to stay! They looked at each other with dismayed faces.

But the padrona called them to follow, and led the way up one stone
staircase after another till they came to the third story. Here things
were pleasanter. It was plain and bare; the floors were of brick, there
were no carpets, and the furniture was scanty and old, but the rooms
were large and airy, and through the open casement bright rays of
sunshine streamed in. Pauline ran to the window, and behold, instead of
the dirty lane, she saw the open piazza, and beyond, a glimpse of the
blue hills and the Florence valley! She called Molly, and, perched on
the broad sill, they watched the sunset and chattered like happy birds,
while the padrona bustled to and fro, preparing supper and spreading
coarse clean linen on the beds of a little chamber which opened from
the sitting-room. The padrona's kitchen was about the size of an
American closet. The stove was a stone shelf with two holes in it, just
big enough to contain a couple of quarts of charcoal. It was like a
doll's kitchen, Molly thought; and Pauline stared when she saw the
padrona produce a palm-leaf fan and begin to fan the fire, as if it were
faint and needed to be revived. But as she gazed, the charcoal was
coaxed into a glow, the little pots and pans bubbled, and hey, presto!
supper was ready, with half the trouble and a quarter the fuel which
would have been needed to set one of our big home ranges going. It was a
queer supper, but very good, the children thought; their long drive had
made them hungry, and the omelette, salad, and _polenta_, or fried mush,
tasted delicious. Everything was nice but the bread, which was dark in
color and had an unpleasant sour taste. The padrona smiled when she saw
them put aside their untasted slices, and said that she too used to
dislike Italian bread, but that now she preferred it to any other.

The padrona was delighted with her young visitors. She had long been a
widow. One of her sons was in the army, and seldom at home; the other
helped her about the house and tilled a little meadow which belonged to
them. She had no daughter to keep her company, and the sweet,
bright-faced American girls pleased her greatly. She helped the sisters
to undress, and tucked them into their beds as kindly as any old nurse,
and they fell asleep with her pleasant voice in their ears: "Good-night
and good dreams, little miss."

The morrow brought another fine day, and the girls improved it for a
ramble about the quaint town. It seemed to them the very _oldest_ place
they had ever seen--and, in fact, Fiesole is older far than Florence, of
which it was first the cradle and afterward the foe. They stood a long
time before the windows of the straw-shop, choosing the things they
would like to buy _if_ they had any money! Pauline fell in love with a
straw parasol, and Molly hankered after a work-basket for mamma. Both of
them felt that it was dreadful to be poor, but there was no help for it.
Then they climbed to an upper terrace and sat a long time looking on the
fine view it commanded, and talking in gestures to some brown little
children who came up to beg from them. After that, they lifted the
curtain over the cathedral door, and stole quietly about the ancient
church. It was dark and shabby and worm-eaten; but as they wandered to
and fro they came upon beautiful things,--tombs of sculptured marble
with figures of saints and madonnas, wreaths of marble flowers, bits of
old carved wood as black as ebony. It was strange to find such treasures
hidden away in the dust and gloom, and to think that there they were,
dusty and gloomy and old, before Columbus discovered the very new
continent which we call America! A queer smell breathed about the place,
a smell of must and age and dried-up incense. Pauline and Molly were
glad to get away from it and feel the fresh air and the sunshine again.
They rambled on to the western slope of the hill, and a little way down,
where the land descends in terraces to the wooded valley below, they
came upon the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre. They had never seen an
amphitheatre before, but they guessed what it was from a picture which
mamma had shown them. On the ledges which once were seats, where
spectators seated in rows had watched the lions and the gladiators
fight, crowds of purple violets now lifted their sweet faces to the sky.

After that, the amphitheatre became their favorite walk, and they went
back every day. The padrona warned them against sitting long on the
ground or staying out till the sunset dews fell, but they heeded what
she said very little; it seemed impossible that so pleasant a spot could
have any harm about it. But at last came a morning when Pauline
recollected the padrona's warnings, with a great frightened heart-jump,
for Molly waked up hot and thirsty, and, when she lifted her head from
the pillow, let it fall back again, and complained of being dizzy. The
padrona made her some tea, and after a while she felt better and got up.
But all that day and the next she looked pale, and dragged one foot
after the other as she went about, and the third day fever came upon her
in good earnest. Tea did no good this time, and she lay still and heavy,
with burning hands and flushed cheeks. The padrona tried various simple
medicines, and Pauline sat all day bathing Molly's head and fanning her,
but neither medicine nor fanning was of use; and as night came on, and
the fever grew higher, Molly began to toss and call for mamma, and to
cry out about her pillow, which was stuffed with wool and very hard.

"I don't like this pillow, Pauline--indeed I don't, it makes my neck
ache so! Why don't you take it away, Pauline, and give me a nice soft
pillow, such as we used to have at home? And I want some ice, and some
good American water to drink. This water is bad. I can't drink it. Make
the ice clink in the tumbler, please--because if I hear it clink I
shan't be thirsty any more. And call mamma. I must see mamma. Mamma!"

And Molly tried to get up, and then tumbled back and fell into a doze,
while poor Pauline sat beside her with a lump in her throat which seemed
to grow worse every moment, and to bid fair to choke her entirely if it
didn't stop. She did not dare to sob aloud, for fear of rousing Molly,
but the tears ran quietly down her cheeks as she thought of home and
mamma. Where was she? How was papa? Why didn't they write? And, oh dear!
what should she, should she do, if Molly were to be very ill in that
lonely place, where there was no doctor or any of the nice things which
people in sickness need so much? No one can imagine how forlorn Pauline
felt--that is, no one who has not tried the experiment of taking care
of a sick friend in a foreign land, where the ways and customs are
strange and uncomfortable, and the necessaries of good nursing cannot be
had.

Nobody in the world could be kinder than was the padrona to her young
invalid guest. Night after night she sat up, all day long she watched
and nursed and cooked and comforted. Pauline clung to this friend in
need as to the only helper left in the wide world. Beppo, the padrona's
son, walked into Florence and brought out a little Italian doctor, who
ordered beef-tea, horrified Pauline by a hint of bleeding, and left,
promising to come again, which promise he didn't keep. Pauline was glad
that he did not; she felt no confidence in the little doctor, and she
knew, besides, that doctors cost money, and the small sum which mamma
left was almost gone. Day after day passed, Molly growing no better, the
padrona more anxious, Pauline more unhappy. It seemed as if years and
years had gone by since mamma left them,--almost as if it were a dream
that they ever had a mamma, or a home, or any of the happy things which
now looked so sadly far away.

Then came the darkest day of all, when Molly lay so white and motionless
that Pauline thought her dead; when the padrona sat for hours, putting a
spoonful of something between the pale lips every little while, but
never speaking, and the moments dragged along as though shod with lead.
Morning grew to noon, noon faded into the dimness of twilight, still the
white face on the pillow did not stir, and still the padrona sat
silently and dropped in her spoonfuls. At last she stopped, laid down
the spoon, bent over Molly, and listened. Was any breath at all coming
from the quiet lips?

"Oh, padrona, is she dead?" sobbed Pauline, burying her face in the
bedclothes.

"No, she is asleep," said the padrona. Then she hid her own face and
said a prayer of thankfulness, while Pauline wept for joy, hushing
herself as much as possible, that Molly might not be disturbed.

All that night and far into the morning the blessed sleep continued, and
when Molly awoke the fever was gone. She was very white, and as weak as
a baby; but Pauline and the padrona were happy again, for they knew that
she was going to get well.

So another week crept by, each day bringing a little more strength and
appetite to Molly, and a little more color to her pale face, and then
the padrona thought she might venture to sit up. They propped her up in
a big chair with many pillows ("brickbats" Molly called them), and had
just pulled her across the room to the window, when a carriage rattled
on the stones below, somebody ran upstairs, and into the room burst
mamma! Yes, the little mamma herself, pale as Molly almost, from the
fright she had gone through; but so overjoyed to see them, and so
relieved at finding Molly up and getting well, that there was nothing
for it but a hearty cry, in which all took part, and which did them all
a great deal of good.

Then came explanations. Papa was a great deal better. The doctor thought
the fever would do him good in the end rather than harm. But he was
still weak, and mamma had left him to rest at the hotel in Florence
while she flew up the hill to her children. Why didn't she write? She
_had_ written, again and again, but the letters had gone astray somehow,
and none of the girls' notes had reached her except one from Molly,
written just after they went to Fiesole. I may as well say now that all
these missing letters followed them to America three months later, with
a great deal of postage to be paid on them; but they were not of much
use _then_, as you can imagine!

There was so much to say and to hear that it seemed as though they could
never get through. Pauline held mamma's hand tight, and cried and
laughed by turns.

"It was dreadful!" she said. "It was just exactly as if you and papa and
everybody we knew were dead and we were left all alone. And I thought
Molly would die too, and then what would have become of me? The padrona
has been so kind--you can't think how kind. She sat up nine nights with
Molly, and always said she wasn't tired; but I knew she was. I used to
think it must be the nicest place in the world up here at Fiesole, but I
never want to see it again in all my life."

"Don't say that, for Molly has got well here. And the good padrona too!
You ought to love Fiesole for her sake."

"So I ought. And I do love her. But you'll not ever go away and leave us
_anywhere_ again, will you, mamma?"

"Not if I can help it," replied mamma, speaking over Molly's head, which
was nestled comfortably on her shoulder. There were tears in her eyes as
she spoke. It had not been possible to help it, but the tender mother's
heart felt it a wrong to her children that they should have been without
her in sickness.

It was another week before Molly could be moved. Mamma drove up twice
during that time, bringing oranges and wine and all sorts of nice
things, and the last time a parcel with a present in it for the children
to give to the padrona. It was a pretty silk shawl and a small gold pin
to fasten it. Pauline and Molly were enchanted to make this gift, and
the padrona admired the shawl extremely; but Mrs. Hale sorrowfully
longed to be richer, that she might heap many tokens of gratitude in the
kind hands which had worked so lovingly for her little girls in their
trouble.

"I can't bear to say good-bye," were Molly's last words as she leaned
from the carriage for a parting hug. "Dear padrona, how I wish you would
just come with us to America and live there. We would call you 'aunty'
and love you so, and be so glad, you can't think! Do come!"

But the padrona, smiling and tearful, shook her head and declared that
she could never leave her boys and the hill-top and old neighbors, but
must stay in Fiesole as long as she lived. So with many kisses and
blessings the good-byes were uttered, and out of the narrow street and
across the piazza rattled the carriage, and so down the hill-road to
Florence.

Pauline and Molly are safe in America now. They tell the girls at school
a great deal about what they saw and where they went, but they don't
talk much of the time of Molly's illness; and when Matilda Maria, who
lives in a drawer now, entertains the other dolls with tales of travel,
she skips that. It is still too fresh in their memories, and too sad,
for them to like to speak of it. But sometimes, after they go to bed at
night, they put their heads on the same pillow and whisper to each other
about the old church, the amphitheatre, the padrona, those days of
fever, and all the other things that happened to them when mamma went
away and left them alone at Fiesole.




QUEEN BLOSSOM.


PROMPTLY the bell tinkled for noon recess in the red school-house, and
boys and girls came trooping out into the sunshine, which was warm as
summer that day. Nobody stayed behind except Miss Sparks, the teacher.
She turned the damper in the stove to make it warmer, and put on more
wood; then took a roll of bread and butter and a large pickled cucumber
out of her desk and sat down to lunch, and to read Young's "Night
Thoughts," which somebody had told her was an "improving" book. The heat
soon made her head ache, and "Night Thoughts" and the cucumber aiding,
the children, had they only known it, were in a fair way to pass an
extremely unpleasant afternoon.

Luckily they did not know it, otherwise the pleasure of the recess would
have been spoiled, which would have been a pity, for the recess was very
pleasant. There was the sun for one thing; and real, warm, yellow sun is
a treat in April, not always to be had. There were the woods, beginning
to be beautiful, although not a leaf-bud was yet visible. Spring was
awake, and busy at her silent work, varnishing brown boughs to glossy
brightness, tinting shoots and twigs with pink and yellow and soft red
colors, arranging surprises everywhere. The children could not have put
into words the feeling which made the day so delightful, but all were
aware of it, and each, in his or her way, prepared to enjoy the hour.
One tiny snow-drift remained in a leaf-strewn hollow. The boys found it
out, and fell to snow-balling with the zest of those who do not hope to
see snow again for many a long month. Big girls, with arms about each
other's waists, walked to and fro, whispering together. The smaller
children cuddled into a sunny fence corner, and, like Wordsworth's
village maid,

          "Took their little porringers,
           And ate their dinners there."

A group of girls, not so big as those, nor so little as these, strolled
off into the woods, talking as they went.

"Now you just hush up, Winnie Boker," said one. "It's no use, for we
won't have her. She's been Queen ever so many times, and now it's
somebody else's turn. There are other girls in town besides Blossom, I
guess."

"Oh yes, Marianne; it isn't _that_," broke in Winnie, the words running
out of her eager mouth so fast that they tumbled over each other. "It
isn't that at all. You'd make a first-rate Queen, or so would Arabella
or Eunice. But, don't you see, Blossom always _was_ Queen, and now she's
sick I'm afraid she'd feel badly if we chose somebody else."

"Dear me, what nonsense!" exclaimed Arabella, a tall girl in purple
calico, with sharp black eyes and a Roman nose. "It wasn't fair a bit,
ma says, to have Blossom always. Ma says other people have got rights
too. You needn't be so fiery about that stuck-up Blossom, Winnie."

"Oh, I'm not," began Winnie, peaceably, "but--"

"My father says that Blossom is the prettiest girl in the whole
township," broke in Charlie Starr, excitedly; "and it's real mean of you
to call her stuck-up. Don't you recollect how sweet she looked last year
in her white dress, and what a pretty speech she made when George Thorne
put the crown on her head? _She_ never said unkind things or called
anybody names! She's always been May-Queen, and I say it's a shame to
leave her out just because she's sick."

"You're a goose," responded Arabella. "Who wants a sick Queen of the
May? She'll never be well again, the doctor says; and as for her
beauty, that's gone for good. Ma declares that it's absurd to call her
Blossom any more. It isn't her real name, only her pa named her so when
she was little, because he was so proud of her looks. Her real name's
Sarah Jane, and I'm going to call her Sarah Jane always. So there now,
Charlotte Starr!"

"You bad girl!" cried Charlie, almost in tears. "How can you! Poor dear
Blossom!"

"Stop quarrelling," said Laura Riggs, "and listen to my plan. Blossom
can't be Queen, anyhow, don't you see, because she's too sick to come to
the celebration. So what's the use of fighting about her?"

"I thought we could go to her, and put on the crown and all, and it
would be _such_ a surprise," ventured Winnie, timidly. "She'd be so
pleased."

"I suppose she would," sneered Arabella, "only, you see, we don't mean
to do it."

"I propose that we call all the boys and girls together after school,
and vote who shall be Queen," went on Laura. "Then to-morrow we can go a
flower-hunting, and have the wreath all ready for next day. It's
splendid that May-day comes on Saturday this year."

"I know who I shall vote for,--and I,--and I," cried the children.

Winnie and Charlotte did not join in the cry. They moved a little way
off, and looked sadly at each other. To them, poor Blossom, sick and
neglected, seemed still the rightful Queen of the May.

"I've thought of a plan," whispered Charlie.

"What?"

But the answer was so softly spoken that nobody but Winnie could hear.

Did I say _nobody?_ I was wrong. Certain fine ears which were listening
heard all, question and answer both. These ears belonged to a little
hepatica, who had stolen up very near the surface of the ground to
hearken, and, with a tiny leaf-hand curled behind her lilac ear, had
caught every syllable. Whatever the secret was, it pleased her, for she
clapped both hands and called out,--

"Listen! listen! Hepsy, Patty, Violet,--all of you,--listen!"

"What is it--what?" cried the other flowers, crowding near her.

"Didn't you hear what those two little girls were saying,--Winnie
and--what _is_ her name--Charlie?"

"No, we heard nothing. We were listening to the tiresome ones who
quarrelled. How horrid children are!"

"Go a flower-hunting indeed," tittered a bloodroot. "They are welcome to
hunt, but they will find no flowers."

"Indeed they won't. I'd bite if they tried to pick me," said a dog-tooth
violet.

"Ach! fancy their fingers at your stem," shuddered a pale wind-flower.

"How little they guessed that we were listening to it all," laughed a
white anemone.

          "Ring-a-ling, ring-a-ling,
           We'll be as late as we can this spring,"

sang a columbine.

"We know when to go and when to stay; when to open and when to shut,"
said a twin-flower.

"Where is Mamma Spring?" inquired the dog-tooth violet.

"On the other side the wood," replied the columbine. "But she can't be
interrupted just now. She's very busy cutting out Dutchman's Breeches.
There are five hundred pairs to be finished before night."

"All of the same everlasting old pattern," grumbled a trillium.

"But listen; you don't listen," urged the lilac hepatica. "_All_ the
children didn't quarrel. My two--the two I liked--were gentle and sweet,
and they have a plan--a kind plan--about somebody named Blossom. They
want to give her a surprise with flowers and a wreath, and make her
Queen of the May, because she is ill and lies in bed. Let us help. I
like them; and Blossom is a pretty name."

"Are you quite sure they did not quarrel?" asked the wind-flower,
anxiously. "It made me shiver to hear the others."

"No, they didn't quarrel. When the rest would not listen, they moved
away and made their little plan in a whisper."

"And what was the plan?" inquired the bloodroot.

"Oh, they are wise little things. The others are going to have a
'celebration' on Saturday, with a great deal of pie and cake and fuss. I
shall tell Mamma Spring to order up an east wind and freeze them well,
little monsters! But my two are coming into the woods quietly to-morrow
to search for flowers. I heard Charlie tell Winnie that she knew where
the first May-flowers always come out, and they would look there. We
know too, don't we? In the hollow behind the beech-wood, on the south
bank."

"They're not there yet," said the columbine, yawning.

"No, but they're all packed and ready," said the lilac hepatica. "Do let
us telegraph them to start at once. I somehow feel as if I should like
to please Blossom too."

So the trillium, who was telegraph operator, stooped down and dragged up
a thread-like root, fine as wire.

"What is the message?" he asked.

"Be--in--flower--by--to-morrow--noon--for--Charlie--and--Winnie,"
dictated the hepatica. "Precisely ten words."

"All right," responded the bloodroot, with his fingers on the wire. Tap,
tap, tap, tap, tap; the message was sent, and presently came an
answering vibration.

"All right. We are off." It was the reply of the May-flowers.

"What a fine thing is the telegraph!" sighed a sentimental sand-violet,
while the hepatica rubbed her little lilac palms gleefully, and
exclaimed,--

"I flatter myself that job is as good as done. Hurrah for Queen
Blossom!"

The other girls did not notice Winnie and Charlie particularly next day
as they stole from the rest and crept away almost on tiptoe to the south
bank, where the arbutus _might_ be in bloom. Drifted leaves hid the
bottom of the hollow. At first sight there was no promise of flowers;
but our little maids were too wise to be discouraged. Carefully they
picked their way down, brushed aside the brown leaves, and presently a
shriek from both announced discovery.

"Oh, the darlings!" cried Winnie.

There they were, the prompt, punctual May-flowers, so lately arrived
that only half their leaves were uncurled, and the dust of travel still
lay on their tendrils. For all that, they were not too tired to smile at
the happy faces that bent over them as the little girls lifted the leaf
blankets and gently drew them from their hiding-place. Pale buds winked
and brightened; the fuller flowers opened wide pink eyes; all shook
their ivory incense-bottles at once, and sent out sweet smells, which
mixed deliciously with the fragrance of fresh earth, of moving sap, and
sun-warmed mosses.

"Shouldn't you think they had come out on purpose?" said Winnie, kissing
one of the pinkest clusters.

"We did! we did!" cried the May-flowers in chorus. But the children did
not understand the flower-language, though the flowers knew well what
the children said. Flowers are very clever, you see; much cleverer than
little girls.

Winnie and Charlie hid their treasures in a tin dinner-pail, pouring in
a little water to keep them fresh, and carefully shutting the lid. They
did not want to have their secret found out.

Going home, they met the others, looking somewhat disconsolate.

"Where _have_ you been?" they cried. "We looked everywhere for you."

"Oh, in the woods," said Winnie, while Charlie asked,--

"Did you find any flowers?"

"Not one," cried Arabella, crossly; "the spring is so late; it's a
shame. Carrie Briggs is chosen Queen, and Miriam Gray is going to lend
us some paper flowers for the crown. They will do just as well."

"Paper flowers!" began Charlie, indignantly; but Winnie checked her, and
pretty soon their path turned off from that of the others.

"Come early to-morrow and help us make the throne," called out Marianne.

"We can't: we've got something else to do," called back Charlie.

"What?"

"We're going to see Blossom."

"Oh, pshaw! Do let that everlasting Sarah Jane alone, and come and have
a good time," screamed Arabella after them.

Winnie laughed and shook her head. The others went on.

Blossom lay in bed next morning. She always lay in bed now, and it was
pitiful to see what a pale blossom she had become. Only a year before
her cheeks had been rosier, her limbs more active, than those of any of
the children who daily passed her window on their way to school. One
unlucky slip on the ice had brought all this to an end, and now the
doctor doubted if ever she could get up and be well and strong as she
used to be. The pretty name, given in her days of babyhood, sounded
sadly now to the parents who watched her so anxiously; but no name could
be too sweet, her mother thought, for the dear, patient child, who bore
her pain so brightly and rewarded all care and kindness with such brave
smiles. Blossom she was still, though white and thin, and Blossom she
would always be, although she might never bloom again as once she did,
until set in the Lord's garden, where no frosts come to hurt the
flowers.

"Happy May-day," she said, as her mother came in. "I wonder what the
girls are doing. Winnie didn't come yesterday. I don't even know who is
to be Queen. Have you heard, mamma?"

"I shouldn't think they'd want to have any Queen on such a cold day as
this," replied mamma. "Look how the boughs are blowing in the wind. It
feels like March out doors."

"Oh, they're sure to want a Queen," said Blossom. "May-day is such fun.
I used to like it better than any day in the year."

"Somebody wants to spake to ye, ma'am, if you pl'ase," said Norah,
putting her head in at the door.

"Very well. Blossom, dear, you don't mind being left alone for a
minute?"

"Oh no, indeed. I've such a nice book here." But Blossom did not open
her book after mamma went away, but lay looking out of the window to
where the elm-boughs were rocking in the wind. Her face grew a little
sad.

"How nice it used to be!" she said to herself.

Just then she heard a queer noise in the entry--drumming, and something
else which sounded like music. Next, the door opened, and a procession
of two marched in. Charlie was the head of the procession. She wore a
pink-and-white calico, and tied about her neck with a pink string was
Willie Smith's drum, borrowed for the occasion. Winnie, in her best blue
gingham, brought up the rear, her mouth full of harmonica. Winnie also
carried a flat basket, covered with a white napkin, and the two girls
kept step as they marched across the room to Blossom's bedside, who lay
regarding them with eyes wide open from amazement.

"Happy May-day, Queen Blossom," sang Charlie, flourishing her
drumsticks.

"Happy May-day, Queen Blossom," chimed in Winnie, taking the harmonica
from her mouth.

"Happy May-day," responded Blossom.

"But--how funny--what do you call me Queen Blossom for?"

"Because you _are_ Queen, and we have come to crown you," replied
Charlie. Then she laid down the drumsticks, lifted the white napkin, and
in a solemn tone began to repeat these verses, which she and
Winnie--with a little help from somebody, I guess--had written the
evening before.

          Never mind who the others choose;
            You are the Queen for us;
          They're welcome to their paper flowers
                    And fuss.

          We bring our Queen a wreath of May,
            And put it on her head,
          And crown her sweetest, though she lies
                    In bed.

          These flowers, dear Blossom, bloomed for you,
            The fairest in the land;
          Wear them, and give your subjects leave to kiss
                    Your hand.

Charlie finished the verses with great gravity. Then, drawing the
May-wreath from the basket, she put it on Blossom's head, after which,
instead of kissing the royal hand, according to programme, she clapped
both her own and began to dance about the bed exclaiming,--

"Wasn't that nice? Aren't they pretty? We made them up ourselves--Winnie
and I. Why, Blossom, you're crying."

In fact, Queen Blossom _was_ crying.

It was only a very little cry--just a drop or two, with a rainbow to
follow. In another minute Blossom had winked the tears away, and was
smiling brightly.

"I didn't mean to cry," she exclaimed, "only I was so surprised. I
thought you would all be busy to-day, and nobody would come. I never
dreamed that I should be made Queen of the May again. How kind you are,
dear Charlie and Winnie, and where _did_ you get the flowers--real
May-flowers? Nobody has begun to look for them yet."

"They came out on purpose for you," persisted Charlie; and the May-buds
smiled and nodded approvingly as she said so.

Next, Winnie opened her basket, and behold! a cake, with white icing,
and in the middle a pink thing meant for a crown, but looking more like
a cuttle-fish, because of the icing's having melted a little. Mrs. Boker
had stayed up late the night before to bake and ice this May-day loaf.
She, too, loved Blossom, and it pleased her that Winnie should plan for
the enjoyment of her sick friend.

A knife was brought, and slices cut. Blossom lay on her pillows,
nibbling daintily, as befits a Queen. Her subjects, perched on the bed,
ate with the appetite of commoners. The sun struggled out, and, in spite
of the east wind, sent a broad yellow ray into the window. Blossom's
May-wreath made the air delicious; there could not have been found a
merrier party.

"Please, dear Duchess, take off my crown for a minute," said Blossom,
with a pretty air of command.

The Duchess, otherwise Charlie, obeyed, and laid the wreath on the
coverlet just under the royal nose.

"How lovely, lovely, lovely it is!" said Blossom, with a long sigh of
delight.

"The sun is streaming exactly into your eyes, dear," said her mother.

She opened the window to close the shutter. A sharp, sudden gust of wind
blew in, and mamma pulled the sash down quickly lest Blossom should be
chilled. Nobody noticed that one of the May-flowers, as if watching its
chance, detached itself from the wreath, and flew out of window on the
back of the interloping wind. But it did.

The wind evidently knew what was expected of it, for it bore the
May-flower along to the woods, and laid it on the brown earth in a
certain sunny spot. Then, like a horse released from rider, it pranced
away, while the flower, putting her pink lips to the ground, called in a
tiny voice,--

"Hepatica--Hepsy dear, are you there?"

"Yes; what is it?" came back an answering voice, which sounded very
close. It was the voice of the lilac hepatica. She and her companions
were much nearer the surface than they had been two days before.

"It has all gone off so nicely," went on the May-blossom. "We were there
in time, and I must say I never saw nicer children than that Winnie and
Charlie. They picked us so gently that it scarcely hurt at all. As for
Blossom, she's a little dear. Her eyes loved us, and how tenderly she
handled our stems. I really wanted to stay with her, only I had such a
good chance to go, and I thought you would all want to hear. It was the
nicest May-day party I ever saw."

"More--tell us more," said the underground flowers.

"There is no more to tell," replied the May-flower, faintly. "It is cold
out here, and I am growing sleepy. Good-night."

After that there was silence in the woods.

Winnie and Charlie never knew how the dear little flower-people had
conspired to make their May-day happy. Perhaps Blossom guessed, for when
she laid aside her wreath that night she kissed the soft petals, which
had begun to droop a little, and whispered gently,--

"Thank you, darlings."




A SMALL BEGINNING.


A LITTLE ground-floor room, a little fire in a small stove, burning
dully as fires are apt to do at times when their blaze might be worth
something in the way of cheer; out doors the raw gray of a spring thaw;
on the window-seat two girls crouched together and looking out with
faces as disconsolate as the weather. Such was the picture presented at
No. 13 Farewell Street, three years ago last March.

Farewell Street was so named because of its being the customary route of
exit from the old cemetery, the point where mourners were supposed to
turn for a last look at the gates which had just shut in the newly
buried friend; and this association, as well as the glimpse of tall
cemetery fence, topped with mournful evergreens which bounded the view,
did not tend to make the sad outlook any the less sad on that dismal
day. For it was only a fortnight since Delia and Hetty Willett, the
girls on the window-seat, had left within those gates the kind old
grandmother who for years had stood to them in the stead of father and
mother both.

"The Willetts," as the neighbors called them, using the collective
phrase always, were twins, and just eighteen years old. Bearing to each
other even a stronger personal likeness than twins customarily possess,
they were in other points curiously unlike. Delia was soft and clinging,
Hetty vigorous and self-reliant. Delia loved to be guided, Hetty to
guide; the former had few independent views and opinions, the latter was
brimful of ideas and fancies, plans and purposes; some crude, some
foolish, but all her own. Yet, oddly enough, it was Delia, very often,
who gave the casting vote in their decisions, for Hetty's love for her
slender twin was a sentiment so deep and intense that she often yielded
against her own better sense and judgment, simply for the pleasure of
yielding to what Delia wished. Delia in return adored her sister, waited
on her, petted, consoled, "exactly as if she were Hetty's wife," Aunt
Polly said, "and the worst was they suited each other so well that no
one else would ever suit either of them, and they were bound to die old
maids in consequence!"

But eighteen can laugh at such auguries, and there was no thought or
question of marriage in the minds of the sisters as they crouched that
afternoon close together on the old window-seat.

A very different question absorbed them, and a perplexing one; how they
were to live, namely, and to keep together while doing so, which meant
pretty much the same thing to them both. Grandmother's death had left
them with so very, very little. Her annuity died with her. There was
the old house, the plain, worn furniture to which they had been
accustomed all their lives, and about a hundred dollars a year! What
could they do with that?

"If one of us only happened to be clever," sighed Delia. "If I could
paint pictures, or you had a talent for writing, how easy it would be!"

"I don't know as to that," responded Hetty. "Seems to me I've heard of
people who did those things, and yet didn't find it so mighty easy to
get along. Somebody's got to buy the pictures after they're painted, you
know, and read the books, and pay for them." She spoke in an absent
tone, and her brow was knitted into the little frown which Delia knew
betokened that her twin was puzzling hard over something.

"Don't scowl, it'll spoil your forehead," she said, smoothing out the
objectionable frown with her fingers.

"Was I scowling? Well, never mind. I'm trying to think, Dely. You can't
paint and I can't write. The question is, What can we do?"

"That _is_ a question," said a voice at the door. It was Aunt Polly's
voice. She managed on most days to drop in and "give a look to them, the
lonely little creeturs," as she would have expressed it.

"You're consultin', I see," she said, taking in the situation at a
glance: the dismal room, the depressive and tearful cheeks of the two
girls, the lack of comfort and cheer. She twitched open the stove door
as she passed, threw in a stick of wood, twirled the damper, and gave a
brisk, rattling shake to the ashes,--all with a turn of her hand as it
were,--attentions to which the stove presently responded with a brisk
roar. "Well, it's time you did. I was planning to have a talk with you
before long, for you ought to settle to something. Pull the blind down,
Dely, and, Hetty, you light the lamp, and come to the fire, both of
you, and let's see what we can make of it. It's a tangled skein enough,
I don't deny it; but most skeins are that, and there's always a right
end somewhere, if the Lord'll give us sense enough to get hold of it and
keep on pulling out and winding up."

Presently the girls were seated close to Aunt Polly's rocking-chair. The
room looked more cheerful now with the lamplight and the yellow glow
from the stove, and both were conscious of a sense of hopefulness.

"Now--what _can_ you do?" demanded Aunt Polly, whirling round in her
chair so as to face them.

"We hadn't got so far as that when you came in," replied Hetty; "I
suppose we must do what other people do in the same circumstances."

"What's that?"

"Teach something, or sew, I suppose."

"Sewing's slow starvation, in my opinion, unless you've got a machine,
which you haven't, and not much better then. What do you know that you
can teach?"

"Not much," replied Hetty, humbly, while Delia added hesitatingly, "We
could teach children their letters, perhaps."

"I presume you could," responded Aunt Polly, dryly. "But, though you
mayn't know it, perhaps, there are about fifty women in this town can do
the same, and who mean to do it, what's more. And most of 'em have got
the start of you in one way or another, so what's your chance worth? No,
girls, sewing and teaching are played out. They are good things in their
way, but every woman who's got her living to earn thinks of them the
very first thing and of nothing else, and the market is always
overstocked. My advice to you is, to _think up something you can do
better than other people_--that's what gives folks a real chance! Now,
what is there?"

"There isn't anything I can do better than other people," cried the
dismayed Delia. "Nor Hetty either--except make gingerbread," she added,
with a faint little laugh. "Hetty beats everybody at that, grandmother
always said."

"Very well; make gingerbread then. That's your thing to do," said Aunt
Polly.

Hetty looked at her with incredulous eyes.

"You're not in earnest, are you?" she said.

"I am. In dead earnest."

"But, Aunt Polly, _gingerbread_! Such a little thing as that! Who ever
heard of a girl's doing such a thing?"

"All the better if they never did. A new trade has a double chance. As
for the 'little,' great things often come from small beginnings.
Fortunes have been made out of gingerbread before now, I'll be bound, or
if not that, out of something no bigger. No, Hetty, depend upon it, if
your gingerbread is _best_, folks will want it. And if your teaching or
sewing is only second best, they won't. It's the law of human nature,
and a very good law, too, though it cuts the wrong way sometimes, like
all laws."

"Aunt Polly, you're a genius!" cried Hetty, warmed into sudden glow by
this vigorous common sense. "I _can_ make good gingerbread, and it's
just as you say, neither of us know enough to teach well, and we are
both poor hands at sewing, and we should have a much better chance if we
tried to do what we can and not what we can't. Why shouldn't I make
gingerbread? Dely'd help me, and if folks liked our things and bought
them, we could live and keep together. We could make a kind of shop of
this room, couldn't we? What do you think?"

"'Tisn't a bad place for such a trade," said Aunt Polly, slowly,
measuring the room with her eyes. "Being on a corner is an advantage,
you see; and there's that double winder on the street gives a first-rate
chance to show what you've got to sell. I never did see no use in that
winder before. My father, he had it cut for a kind of a whim like, and
we all thought it was notional in him; but, as they say, keep a thing
long enough and a use'll turn up. It's a sort of a gain for you, too,
having the house so old-fashioned. Folks has a hankering for such
things, nowadays--the Lord knows why. I hear 'em going on about it when
I'm out tailorin', calling ugly things 'quaint,' and lovely, because
they're old. Hetty,"--with sudden inspiration,--"here's an idea for you,
be 'quaint'! Don't try for a shop, keep the room a room, and make it as
old-fashioned-looking as you can, and I'll bet a cookie that your
gingerbread'll be twice as popular with one set of folks, and if it's
first-rate gingerbread, the other set who don't care for old things will
like it just as well."

What a bracing thing is a word in season! Aunt Polly's little seed of
suggestion grew and spread like Jack's fabled bean-stalk.

"Your light biscuits always turn out well," said Delia.

"And my snaps. Grandmother liked them so much. And you're a good hand at
loaf bread, you know. Aunt Polly--I seem to smell a fortune in the air.
We will begin at once, just as soon as I can get a half-barrel of flour
and put an advertisement in the paper."

Hetty had a ready wit, and Aunt Polly's hint as to "quaintness" was not
lost upon her. The advertisement when it appeared the next day but one
ran thus:--

"After Monday next, the Old-Time Bakery, corner of Farewell and Martin
Streets, will be prepared to furnish, to order, fresh bread, buns,
biscuits, and grandmother's gingerbread, all home-made."

People smiled over the little notice, but the odd wording stuck in their
memories as odd things will, and more than one person went out of his
way during the next week to take a look into the wide, low window,
within which, on a broad, napkin-covered shelf, stood rows of biscuits,
light and white, buns, each glazed with shining umber-brown, and loaves
of gingerbread whose complexion and smell were enough to vouch for
their excellence. Acting on Aunt Polly's suggestion, Hetty had set forth
her wares on plates of the oldest and oddest pattern which could be
found in grandmother's closet. A queer, tall pitcher flanked them on
either side, and round the window-frame she had twined the long,
luxuriant shoots of a potted ivy. Altogether the effect was pretty, and
no one need be told that the pitchers had for years been consecrated to
the reception of yeast and corks, or that the plates had long since been
relegated to kitchen use as too shabby for better occasions.

"Hain't ye no white chany?" inquired their first customer, an old woman,
as she slowly counted out the pennies for half a dozen biscuit. "It
would kind of set your cakes off."

"We used what we had," replied Hetty, diplomatically. "But I hope your
biscuits'll taste just as good as if they came off a white plate."

This old woman, two others, and a little boy were the only customers
that first day.

"'Tisn't a bit a good beginning," declared Delia, pouring the money
received out of an old-fashioned china tea-caddy which Hetty had
unearthed in an up-stairs closet and brought down to serve as a till.
"Two dozen biscuits, that's twenty-four cents, a loaf of gingerbread,
and about half the buns. That's fifty-three cents in all. What did you
say the materials cost?"

"About seventy cents. But then we have our supper and breakfast out of
them, and nearly half the stock to sell at a reduced rate to-morrow. We
shan't lose anything, I reckon, but we shan't gain much either."

"Rome wasn't built all in a minute. You'll do yet," remarked Aunt Polly,
who had dropped in to hear the result of the first day's sales.

But two days--three--a week, went by, and still trade did not materially
improve, and it took all Aunt Polly's wise saws and hopeful auguries to
keep their spirits up. Each day showed the same record, no loss, but
almost no gain. Toward the end of the second week matters mended. Mrs.
Corliss, the wife of a wealthy manufacturer, having an errand in
Farewell Street, happened to pass the little window, and her
bric-a-brac-loving eyes were caught at once by its unusual appearance.
She stopped, studied the whole arrangement from the ivy wreath to the
old pitchers; a recollection of the droll little advertisement over
which she had laughed a few days previously, came over her. "I declare,
this is the very place," she said to herself; and opening the door she
entered, precisely as Hetty came from the kitchen through the opposite
door, a handkerchief tied over her shiny hair, a white apron with a
little ruffled waist protecting her print gown, her cheeks flushed rosy
pink with heat, and in her hands a tray full of crisp, delectably
smelling ginger-snaps.

"A real study--like a Flemish picture," Mrs. Corliss said afterward. She
fell in love at once with the quaint room, the pretty sisters, the old
china, stayed twenty minutes nibbling ginger-snaps and looking about
her, bought a dollar's worth of everything, "on trial," as she said, and
swept out, leaving a wake of rose-colored hope in the air--and Delia and
Hetty executing a wild waltz behind her back, for joy and gratulation.

"Luck has turned--I know, I feel it," declared Hetty.

Luck _had_ turned. Mrs. Corliss raved to everybody she knew about the
room, the twin-sisters, and the excellence of the gingerbread. It became
a fashion to go to Farewell Street for buns and biscuits. Hetty and
Delia had to work early and late to fill their orders, but what was that
"to sewing their fingers off for a bare living"? Hetty said; and toil
was sweetened now by a gradually increasing profit. At the end of the
first six months they had not only "lived and kept together," but had a
little sum laid by, which, as Aunt Polly advised, was treated as
"business capital," part of it being invested in the purchase of an
awning for the window and an extra stove to increase their baking
capacity. Very rarely were there any stale things left now to be sold
next day at half-price, the regular orders and chance custom consuming
all.

"We shall have to hire a boy to carry things round, I actually believe,"
declared Hetty. "Mrs. Malcomb and Mrs. Sayres both said that they would
order our bread regularly if we could send it home."

"I've been expecting that would be the next step," remarked Aunt Polly,
"and I guess I've got just the boy you want, in my eye. It's Widow
McCullen's lad--Sandy, as they call him. He's a good little chap, and
it'll be a real help to his mother to have him earning a trifle."

So Sandy McCullen was regularly engaged as "bread-boy," and business
grew brisker still.

"Aunt Polly, we've got to another notch," said Hetty, at the end of the
first year. "You don't happen to know of a girl, do you, who could help
us in the baking? Delia and I can't keep up with the orders. She gets so
tired every now and then that she can't sleep, and that worries me so
that I lie awake, too."

"That'll never answer; no, I don't know of any girl, but there's a nice
kind of an oldish woman, if she'll do, that I'd like to recommend.
Yes--I mean myself," she went on, chuckling at Hetty's amazed look.
"It's come to me more than once lately that it'd be sort of good and
restful to make a change, and not go on tailorin' forever, all the rest
of my days. I used to be a master hand at bread and pie-crust, too, when
I was your age, and I've a little saved up which can go with the
business if it's needed; and, if you girls say so, we'll just make a
kind of family firm of the thing. How does it strike you?"

"Oh, Aunt Polly, the very thing, only it seems too good to be true. Do
you really mean it? We did so hate the idea of a raw girl to whom we
should have to teach everything, and who would spoil half she made for
the first month, and I've fought it off as long as I could. Why, it will
be like having grandmother come back, to have you living with us.
There's the west room all ready. Dear me! How delightfully things seem
to turn out for us always!"

"That wasn't your view always, it seems to me," rejoined Aunt Polly. "A
year ago you was pretty down in the mouth, if I don't mistake.
Gingerbread is good for something, you see."

"The Old-Time Bakery" still goes on in Farewell Street, but it has grown
far beyond its original proportions. If you were to visit it to-day you
would find a room double the size of the former, and which has been made
by taking down a partition wall between the sitting-room and a spare
bedroom and throwing them into one. There are two windows on the street
now, one full of bread, biscuits, and buns, the other stored with
Hetty's now famous gingerbread, and with delicious-looking pumpkin-pies
and apple-tarts with old-fashioned flaky crust, which are Aunt Polly's
specialty and have added greatly to the reputation of the establishment.
Still it is not a shop. Hetty, with wary good taste, has scrupulously
preserved the "quaint" look which first gave character to the little
enterprise, and by judicious rummaging in neighbors' garrets has
acquired sundry old-time chairs, bottles, jugs, and platters, which help
in the effect. Everything is scrupulously clean and bright, as all
things must be where Aunt Polly supervises; but the brightest things in
the room are the faces of the twin sisters. They have tested and proved
their powers; they know now what they can do, and they taste the
happiness of success.

I tell their little story, in which is nothing remarkable or out of the
way, for the sake of other girls, who, perhaps, are sitting to-day with
folded hands and puzzling and wondering, just as Hetty and Delia did,
over what they are to do and how to set about it. I do not mean at all
that these girls should all make gingerbread--that indeed would be
"overstocking the market," as Aunt Polly would say, but only that they
should hearken to her word of wisdom, "find out what they can do _best_,
and do that," whatever it is, secure that good work, and hearty striving
will win some measure of success soon or late, even if its beginnings
are small and insignificant as a gingerbread loaf or a batch of
biscuit!




THE SECRET DOOR.


KNOWLE, in Kent, is an ancient manor-house. It stands knee-deep in rich
garden and pasture lands, with hay-fields and apple-orchards stretching
beyond, and solemn oak woods which whisper and shake their wise heads
when the wind blows, as though possessed of secrets which must not be
spoken.

Very much as it looks to-day, it looked two hundred and thirty years
ago, when Charles the First was king of England. That was the Charles
who had his head cut off, you may remember. Blue Christmas smokes curled
from the twisted chimneys in 1645, just as they will this year if the
world lasts so long as December. The same dinnery fragrance filled the
air, for good cheer smells pretty much alike in all ages and the world
over. A few changes there may be--thicker trees, beds of gay flowers
which were not known in that day; and where once the moat--a ditch-like
stream of green water covered with weeds and scum--ran round the walls,
is now a trimly cut border of verdant turf. But these changes are
improvements, and in all important respects the house keeps its old
look, undisturbed by modern times and ways.

In the same nursery where modern boys and girls eat, sleep, and learn
their A, B, C to-day, two children lived,--little Ralph Tresham and his
sister Henrietta. Quaint, old-fashioned creatures they would look to us
now; but, in spite of their formal dresses and speech, they were bright
and merry and happy as any children you can find among your
acquaintances. Ralph's name was pronounced "Rafe," and he always called
his sister "Hexie."

Christmas did not come to Knowle in its usual bright shape in 1645.
Gloom and sadness and anxiety overshadowed the house; and though the
little ones did not understand what the cause of the anxiety was, they
felt something wrong, and went about quietly whispering to each other in
corners, instead of whooping and laughing, as had been their wont. They
had eaten their Christmas beef, and toasted the king in a thimbleful of
wine, as usual, but their mother cried when they did so; and Joyce, the
old butler, had carried off the pudding with a face like a funeral. So
after dinner they crept away to the nursery, and there, by the window,
began a long whispering talk. Hexie had something very exciting to tell.

"Nurse thought I was asleep," she said, "but I wasn't quite; and when
they began to talk I woke up. That wasn't wrong, was it, Rafe? I
couldn't sleep when I couldn't, could I?"

"I suppose not; but you needn't have listened," said Rafe, whose notions
about honor were very strict.

"I did pull the pillow over my ear, but the words would get in," went on
Henrietta, piteously. "And it was so interesting. Did you know that
there were such creatures as Bogies, Rafe? Dorothy thinks we have got
one in our house, and that its hole is in the great gallery, because
once when she was there dusting the armor, she heard a queer noise in
the wall, and what else could it be? It eats a great deal, does the
Bogie. That's the reason nurse is sure we have got one. It ate all the
cold sheep's-head yesterday, and the day before half the big pasty. No
victual is safe in the larder, the Bogie has such a big appetite, nurse
says."

"I remember about the sheep's-head," said Rafe, meditatively. "Almost
all of it was left, and I looked to see it come in cold; but when I
asked, Joyce said there was none. Cold sheep's-head is very good. Do you
remember how much Humphrey used to like it?"

"I don't remember exactly, it is so long ago," replied Hexie. "How long
is it, brother?--since Humphrey went away, I mean. Won't he ever come
back?"

"I asked Winifred once, but she only said, 'God knew,' that nothing had
been heard of him since the battle when the king was taken. He might be
dead, or he might be escaped into foreign parts--and then she cried, oh,
so hard, Hexie! Poor Humphrey! I hope he isn't dead. But, about the
Bogie, how curious it must be to meet one! Oh, I say, let us go to the
gallery now, and listen if we can hear any strange noises there. Will
you?"

"Oh, Rafe! I'm afraid. I don't quite like--"

"But you can't be afraid if I'm there," said Rafe, valiantly; "besides,
I'll put on Humphrey's old sword which he left behind. Then if the Bogie
comes--we shall see!"

Rafe spoke like a conquering hero, Hexie thought; so, though she
trembled, she made no further objection, but stood by while he lifted
down the sword, helped to fasten its belt over his shoulder, and
followed along the passage which led to the gallery. The heavy sword
clattered and rattled as it dragged on the floor, and the sound was
echoed in a ghostly way, which renewed Hexie's fears.

"Rafe! Rafe! let us go back," she cried.

"Go back yourself if you are afraid," replied Ralph, stoutly; and as
going back alone through the dim passage seemed just then worse than
staying where she was, Hexie stayed with her valiant brother.

Very softly they unlatched the gallery door, and stole in. It was a
long, lofty apartment, panelled with cedar-wood, to which time had given
a beautiful light brown color. The ceiling, of the same wood, was
carved, here and there, with shields, coats of arms, and other devices.
There was little furniture: one tall cabinet, a few high-backed Dutch
chairs, and some portraits hanging on the walls. The sun, not yet quite
set, poured a stream of red light across the polished floor, leaving the
far corners and the empty spaces formidably dusk. The children had
seldom been in the gallery at this hour, and it looked to them almost
like a strange place, not at all as it did at noonday when they came to
jump up and down the slippery floor, and play hide-and-seek in the
comers which now seemed so dark and dismal.

Even Rafe felt the difference, and shivered in spite of his bold heart
and the big sword by his side. Timidly they went forward, hushing their
footsteps and peering furtively into the shadows. Suddenly Hexie stopped
with a little scream.

[Illustration: Close by the armor, half hidden by a curtain of heavy
tapestry, was an open door.--PAGE 142.]

Close to them stood a huge suit of armor, larger and taller than a man.
The empty eye-holes of the helmet glared out quite like real eyes, and
the whole figure was terrible enough to frighten any little girl. But it
was not at the armor that Hexie screamed; the iron man was an old friend
of the children's. Many a game of hide-and-seek had they played around,
and behind, and even inside him; for Humphrey had contrived a cunning
way by which the figure could be taken to pieces and put together again;
and more than once Rafe had been popped inside, and had lain shaking
with laughter while Hexie vainly searched for him through all the
gallery. This had not happened lately, for Rafe was hardly strong enough
to manage by himself the screws and hinges which opened the armor; but
he knew the iron man too well to scream at him, and so did Hexie. The
object which excited her terror was something different, and so strange
and surprising that it is no wonder she screamed.

Close by the armor, half hidden by a curtain of heavy tapestry, was an
open door, where never door had been known to be. It stood ajar, and
dimly visible inside was a narrow staircase winding upward.

"The hole of the Bogie!" gasped Hexie, clutching at Rafe's arm. He
started, and felt for the sword. It rattled fearfully, and the sound
completed Hexie's terror. She burst away, flew like a scared lapwing
down the gallery, along the passages, and never stopped till she reached
the nursery and her own bed, where, with two pillows and the quilt drawn
over her head, she lay sobbing bitterly at the thought of Ralph left
behind, to be eaten perhaps by the Bogie! Poor little Hexie!

Ralph, meanwhile, stood his ground. His heart beat very fast, but he
would not run away,--that was for girls. It must be owned, however, that
when a moment later the sound of muffled voices became audible down the
stairs, he trembled extremely, and was guilty of the unmanlike act of
hiding behind the curtain. He was only ten years old, which must plead
his excuse with bigger boys who are confident that they could never,
under any circumstances, hide themselves or be afraid.

The voices drew nearer, steps sounded, and two figures came out of the
narrow doorway. Could there be two Bogies? No wonder they ate so much.
But in another minute all thought of Bogies vanished from Ralph's mind,
for in one of the figures he recognized his own sister Winifred.

Her companion was a man. There was something familiar in his form. It
moved forward, and Ralph jumped so that the big sword rattled again.
Bogie number two was his brother Humphrey, mourned as dead ever since
the summer before, when so many brave gentlemen gave up their lives for
King Charles at the battle of Naseby.

"What noise was that?" whispered Winifred, fearfully.

"Some sound from below," replied Humphrey, after listening a moment.
"Must you go, Winnie?"

"I must, dear Humphrey. I dare not absent myself longer lest I be missed
and suspected. Oh, if to-morrow were but over, and you safe on the
French lugger and over the sea! I cannot breathe while this hiding and
danger go on."

"I suppose I ought to be glad also," said Humphrey, ruefully; "but to me
that French lugger means exile, and loneliness, and poverty, for the
rest of my life, perhaps. Better have laid down my life with the rest at
Naseby, in striking one last blow for the king."

"Don't, don't speak so!" protested Winifred, tearfully. "You are alive,
thank God; and once these wars are over we may rejoin you, and have a
happy home somewhere, if not in the land of our fathers. Now, dear
Humphrey, have you all you need for the night?"

"Christmas cheer," said Humphrey, in a would-be cheerful voice. "Beef
and ale,--what better fare could be? You are a gallant provider, my
Winnie, and there is need, for since I have lain in that hole with
nothing else to do, my appetite has raged like a wolf. That sheep's-head
was wondrous savory. I say though, Winnie, what do the servants think of
the famine I create in the larder?"

"Oh, the stupid things fancy that a Bogie has taken up his residence
here. A very hungry Bogie, Joyce calls the creature!"

The brother and sister laughed; then they kissed each other.

"Good-night, dearest Winifred."

"Good-night, brother." And Humphrey vanished up the stairs. Winifred
lingered a moment; then, as if remembering something, opened the door
again and ran after him. Ralph marked that she laid her hand on a
particular boss in the carved wainscot, and pressed it in hard, whereon
the door sprang open. He stole out, laid his hand on the same boss, and
felt the spring give way under his touch. Some undefined idea of
stealing in later, to make Humphrey a visit, was in his head; but he
heard Winifred returning, and hurried out of the gallery. Putting back
the sword in its place, he entered the nursery. No Hexie was visible,
but a sobbing sound drew his attention to a tumbled heap on the bed.

"Is that you, Hexie? Why, what are you crying about?" pulling away the
pillow, which she held tight.

"Oh, Rafe! Then the Bogie didn't eat you, after all!" And Hexie buried
her tear-stained face in his shoulder.

"Bogie! Nonsense! There are no such things as Bogies!"

"What was it, then, that lived up that dreadful stairs?"

"I can't tell you; only it was nothing at all dreadful. And, Hexie,
don't say a word about that door to any one, will you? It might make
great trouble if you did."

"I did tell Deborah, when she fetched the candle and asked why I cried,
that I saw a strange door in the gallery," faltered Hexie, truthful,
though penitent.

"Oh! Hexie, how could you? I don't like Deborah, and her father is a
crop-eared knave. Humphrey said so one day. How could you talk to her
about the door, Hexie?"

"I--don't know. I was frightened, and she asked me," sobbed Hexie.
"Will it do any harm, Rafe?"

"It may," said Rafe, gloomily. "But don't cry, Hexie. You meant no harm,
at all events."

"Oh, don't speak so gravely and so like Joyce," said Hexie, much
troubled. She cried herself to sleep that night. Deborah, who undressed
her, asked many questions about the gallery and the door.

"It was very dark, and perhaps I mistook,"--that was all Hexie could be
made to say. Ralph was disturbed and wakeful, and slept later than usual
next morning. He jumped up in a hurry and made what haste he could with
dressing and breakfast, but it seemed as though they never took so much
time before; and all the while he ate he was conscious of a stir and
bustle in the house, which excited his curiosity very much.
Knocking--the sound of feet--something unusual was going on.

As soon as possible he slipped away from nurse and ran to the gallery.
The door was half open. He looked in, and stood still with terror. Men
in brown uniforms and steel caps were there sounding the walls and
tapping the floor-boards with staves. The gallery seemed full of them,
though when Rafe counted there were but five.

"This man of iron was, in all likelihood, a Malignant also," he heard
one of them say, striking the armor with his fist.

"He is somewhat old for that. Methinks that is armor of the time of that
man of blood, Harry the Eighth. Move it aside, Jotham, that we may
search the farther panel."

So the heavy figure was thrust into a corner, and the men went on
tapping with their wands. Rafe groaned within himself when he heard them
declare that the wall sounded hollow, and saw them searching for a
spring. Twenty times it seemed as though they must have lighted on the
right place. Twenty times they just missed it.

"We were ill advised to come without tools," declared the man who seemed
leader of the party. "Come thou to my shop, Peter Kettle, and thou,
Bartimeus and Zerubbabel, and we will fetch such things as are needful.
Jotham, stay thou here, to see that no man escapeth from the concealment
behind the wall."

So four of the men went away, leaving Jotham striding up and down as on
guard. Presently came a shout from beneath the window,--

"Jotham! our leader hath dropped his pouch in which are the keys of the
smithy. Hasten and bring it to the outer door."

"Aye, aye!" answered Jotham, and, pouch in hand, he ran down the stairs.
Now was Rafe's opportunity. Like a flash he was across the gallery, his
hand on the boss. The door flew open, and he fell into the arms of
Humphrey, who, sword in hand and teeth set, stood on the lower step of
the staircase, prepared to sell his liberty as dearly as possible.

"Rafe! little Rafe!" he exclaimed.

"Hush! The man will come back," panted Rafe. "Come away--hide--oh,
where?" Then with a sudden inspiration he dragged his brother toward the
iron man. "Get inside," he cried. "They will never think of searching
there! Oh, Humphrey--make haste! Get inside!"

There was no time to be lost. With the speed of desperation, Humphrey
unscrewed, lifted, stepped inside the armor. Rafe slipped the fastenings
together, whispered "Shut your eyes," and flew back to his hiding-place.
Just in time, for Jotham's step was on the stair, and next moment he
entered the gallery, and resumed his march up and down, little dreaming
that the man sought for was peeping through the helmet holes at him, not
three feet away.

Presently the other soldiers came back with hammers and wrenches, and in
a short time the beautiful wainscot, split into pieces, lay on the
floor. Suddenly there was a shout. The secret door had flown open, and
the staircase stood revealed. Four of the men, with pikes and pistols,
prepared to ascend, while the fifth guarded the opening below.

At that moment Winifred entered the gallery from the farther end. She
turned deadly pale when she saw the open door and the men.

"Oh! Heaven have mercy!" she cried, and dropped half fainting into a
chair.

Rafe darted across the floor and seized her hand.

"Hush," he whispered. "Don't say a word, sister. _He_ is safe."

"He? Who?" cried the amazed Winifred.

But now voices sounded from above. The men were coming down. Winifred
rallied her courage, rose, and went forward. She was very white still,
but she spoke in a steady voice. Her two brothers, Humphrey in his
hiding-place and little Rafe by her side, both admired her greatly.

"What is the meaning of this, Jotham Green?" she demanded. "By what
warrant do you enter and spoil our house?"

"By the warrant which all true men have to search for traitors," said
Jotham.

"You will find none such here," responded Winifred, firmly.

"We find the lurking-place in which one such has doubtless lain," said
Zerubbabel. "Where holes exist, look out for vermin."

"You are less than civil, neighbor. An old house like this has many
strange nooks and corners of which the inhabitants may have neither use
nor knowledge. If your search is done, I will beg you to make good the
damage you have caused as best you may, and with as little noise as
possible, that my mother be not alarmed. Jotham Green, you are a good
workman, I know. I recollect how deftly you once repaired that cabinet
for us."

All the men knew Winifred, and her calm and decided manner made its
impression. Jotham slowly picked up the fragments of the panelling and
began to fit them together. The rest consulted, and at last rather
sheepishly, and with a muttered half apology about "wrong information,"
went away, taking with them the injured woodwork, which Jotham undertook
to repair. Rafe's first words after they disappeared were,--

"Winifred, you must dismiss Deborah. It is she that has betrayed us."

"How do you know that, Rafe?"

Then it all came out. Winifred listened to the tale with streaming
tears.

"Oh, Rafe, my darling, how brave you were! You played the man for us
to-day, and have saved--I trust you have saved--our Humphrey. The men
will not return to-day, and to-night the lugger sails."

And Humphrey was saved. Before morning, well disguised, he had made his
way across country to a little fishing-port, embarked, and reached
France without further accident.

So that strange Christmas adventure ended happily. It was all long, long
ago. Humphrey and Winifred and Rafe lived their lives out, and lay down
to rest a century and a half since under the daisy-sprinkled English
sod. Little Hexie died an aged woman, before any of us was born. But
still the beautiful old manor-house stands amid its gardens and pasture
lands, with the silvery look of time on its gray walls. Still the armed
figure keeps guard beside the secret staircase, the tapestry hangs in
the old heavy folds, evening reddens the cedar walls and the polished
floor, and everything occupies the same place and wears the same look
that it did when little Rafe played the man in that gallery, and saved
his brother Humphrey, more than two hundred years ago.




THE TWO WISHES.


PIEROT and Pierotte were a small brother and sister who were always
wishing to be something that they were not, or to have something which
they had not. They were not unhappy or discontented children,--far from
it. Their home, though poor, was comfortable; their parents, though
strict, were kind: they were used to both, and desired nothing better.
Wishing with them was a habit, an idle game which they were forever
playing. It meant little, but it sounded ill; and a stranger, listening,
would have judged them less well-off and cheerful than they really were.

"I wish I needn't wake up, but might lie still all day," was Pierotte's
first thought every morning; while Pierot's was, "I wish Pierotte
wasn't such a sleepy-head, for then we could get out before sunrise, and
gather every mushroom in the meadow while the Blaize children are still
snoring in their beds." Then later, at breakfast, Pierotte would say, "I
wish I were the Princess, to have coffee and white bread for my
_dejeuner_, instead of tiresome porridge. I am tired of porridge. White
bread and coffee must be better,--much better!" But all the time she
spoke, Pierotte's spoon, travelling between her bowl and mouth, conveyed
the "tiresome" porridge down her throat as rapidly as though it were the
finest Mocha; and Pierotte enjoyed it as much, though she fancied that
she did not.

"I wish I were the young Comte Jules," Pierot would next begin in his
turn. "No fagots to bind, no cow to fodder, no sheep to tend. Ah! a fine
life he leads! Beautiful clothes, nothing to do. Six meals a day, two of
them dinners, a horse to ride,--everything! I wish--"

"And a nice yellow skin and eyes like boiled gooseberries," chimed in
his mother. "Better wish for these while you are about it. Much you know
of noblemen and their ways! Didst ever have an indigestion? Tell me
that. When thou hast tried one, wish for it again, if thou canst."

Then Pierot would laugh sheepishly, shoulder his hatchet, and go off
after wood, the inseparable Pierotte trotting by his side. As they went,
it would be,--

"I wish I were a bird," or "I wish we could jump like that grasshopper;"
or, "Pierotte, I wish our godfather had left us his money. We should be
rich then."

For the children had the same godfather. Pierotte first, and then Pierot
having been named after their father's cousin, a well-to-do peasant, who
it was expected would remember his little relatives in his will. This
hope had been disappointed, and the children's regrets were natural and
excusable, since even the wise dame, their mother, did not conceal her
opinion of Cousin Pierre's conduct, which she considered irregular and
dishonest. Children soon learn to join in chorus with older voices, and
Pierot and Pierotte, in this case, found it particularly easy, as it
chimed with the habit of their lives.

One warm July morning their mother roused them for an early breakfast,
and sent them into the forest after wood.

"My last fagot is in," she said. "You must bind and tie smartly to-day.
And, Pierotte, help thy brother all that thou canst, for the father
cannot spare him to go again this week, and on Saturday is the
sennight's baking."

So they set forth. The sun was not fairly risen, but his light went
before his coming, and even in the dim forest-paths it was easy to
distinguish leaf from flower. Shadows fell across the way from the
trees, which stood so motionless that they seemed still asleep. Heavy
dew hung on the branches; the air was full of a rare perfume, made up
of many different fragrances, mixed and blended by the cunning fingers
of the night. A little later, and the light broadened. Rays of sun
filtered through the boughs, a wind stirred, and the trees roused
themselves, each with a little shake and quiver. Somehow, the forest
looked unfamiliar, and like a new place to the children that morning.
They were not often there at so early an hour, it is true, but this did
not quite account for the strange aspect of the woods. Neither of them
knew, or, if they knew, they had forgotten, that it was Midsummer's Day,
the fairies' special festival. Nothing met their eyes, no whir of wings
or sparkle of bright faces from under the fern-branches, but a sense of
something unusual was in the air, and the little brother and sister
walked along in silence, peering curiously this way and that, with an
instinctive expectation of unseen wonders.

"Isn't it lovely?" whispered Pierotte, at last. "It never looked so
pretty here as it does to-day. See that wild-rose,--how many flowers it
has! Oh! what was that? It waved at me!"

"What waved?"

"The rose. It waved a white arm at me!"

"Nonsense! It was the wind," replied Pierot, sturdily, leading the way
into a side-path which led off from the rose-bush.

"Is it much farther where we get the wood?" asked Pierotte, for the
children had been walking a considerable time.

"Father said we were to go to the hazel copse," answered Pierot. "We
must be almost there."

So for half an hour longer they went on and on, but still no sign of
fallen trees or wood-choppers appeared, and Pierot was forced to confess
that he must have mistaken the road.

"It is queer, too," he said. "There was that big red toadstool where the
paths joined. I noticed it the other day when I came with the father.
What's the matter?" for Pierotte had given a sudden jump.

"Some one laughed," said Pierotte, in an awe-struck tone.

"It was a cricket or tree-toad. Who is here to laugh?"

Pierotte tried hard to believe him, but she did not feel comfortable,
and held Pierot's sleeve tight as they went. He felt the trembling of
the little hand.

"Pierotte, thou art a goose!" he said; but all the same he put his arm
round her shoulders, which comforted her so that she walked less
timorously.

One path after another they tried, but none of them led to the cleared
spot where the fallen trees lay. The sun rose high, and the day grew
warmer, but in the forest a soft breeze blew, and kept them cool. Hour
after hour passed; the children had walked till they were tired. They
rested awhile, ate half their dinner of curds and black bread, then they
went on again, turned, twisted, tried paths to right and paths to left,
but still the dense woods closed them in, and they had no idea where
they were or how they should go.

Suddenly the track they were following led to a little clearing, in
which stood a tiny hut, with a fenced garden full of cherry-trees and
roses. It was such a surprise to find this fertile and blooming spot in
the heart of the wild wood, that the children stood still with their
mouths open, to stare at it.

"How strange!" gasped Pierot, when at last he found his voice. "The
father always said that ours was the only hut till you got to the other
side the forest."

"Perhaps this _is_ the other side," suggested Pierotte.

An odd chuckling laugh followed this remark, and they became aware of an
old woman sitting at the window of the cottage,--a comical old woman,
with a stiff square cap on her head, sharp twinkling eyes, and a long
hooked nose. As the children looked, she laughed again, and, extending
her finger, beckoned them to come nearer.

Timidly they obeyed, setting down their big wood-basket at the gate. The
old woman leaned over the window to await them, her hand on a square
glass jar full of yellow liquid, in which floated what seemed to be a
pickled serpent with his tail in three coils, and the tip in his mouth.
Pierotte shuddered at the serpent, but Pierot was bolder.

"Did you want us, good madam?" he asked.

"Want you? No," replied the "good madam." "How should I want you? I saw
you staring at my house as if your eyes would pop out of your heads, and
I thought, perhaps, you wanted me."

"It was only--we were only--surprised," stammered Pierot. "Because we
didn't know that there was a house here."

"There was none last night, and there won't be any to-morrow morning--at
least--none for children to stare at," replied the old woman, coolly.

"What _do_ you mean?" cried Pierot, astonished beyond measure. "How can
a house be built in one night? And why won't it be here to-morrow?"

"Because to-morrow won't be Midsummer's Day--and to-day is," replied the
old woman; "and a fairy-house is visible to mortal eyes at that time,
and no other."

"Fairy-house!" faltered Pierot; while Pierotte, jumping more rapidly to
a conclusion, fairly screamed: "Oh, Pierot! Madam, then, is a fairy! A
real fairy! Pierot, think of it, only think of it!"

"Very much at your service," said the old woman, with a malicious smile.
"Do you like fairies, then? Do you admire my pickled snake? Would you
wish to pull some flowers?"

Something in the smile made Pierotte draw back; but Pierot said
politely,--

"One rose, perhaps--since Madam is so good."

The fairy leaned out and plucked a rose from the vine which grew on the
wall close by.

"Now listen," she said. "Each of my roses encloses a wish. You are great
wishers, I know;" and her eyes twinkled queerly. "This time the wish
will come true, so take care what you are about. There will be no coming
to get me to undo the wish, for I shan't be visible again till this time
next year on Midsummer's Day,--you know."

"Oh, Pierot! what shall we wish for?" cried Pierotte, much excited; but
the old woman only repeated, "Take care!" drew her head in at the
window, and all in a minute--how, they could not explain--the cottage
had vanished, the garden, the gate,--they were in the wood again, with
nothing but trees and bushes about them; and all would have seemed like
a dream, except for the red and fragrant rose which Pierot held in his
hand.

"What shall we wish for?" repeated Pierotte, as they seated themselves
under a tree to talk over this marvellous adventure.

"We must be very careful, and ask for something nice," replied Pierot.

"It would be better to wait and think for a long time first," suggested
Pierotte.

"Thou art right. We will. Art thou not hungry?"

"Oh, so hungry! Let us eat the rest of our bread now. I can't wait any
longer."

So Pierot produced the big lump of bread, and divided it into two equal
portions.

"Look, look!" cried Pierotte, as her teeth met in the first mouthful. "A
cherry-tree, brother,--a real cherry-tree here in the woods! And with
ripe cherries on it! How good some would be with our bread!"

"First-rate!" cried Pierot; and, putting their bread carefully on the
grass, both ran to the tree. Alas! the boughs grew high, and the
cherries hung far beyond their reach. Pierot tried to climb the tree,
but the stem was both slight and slippery. Then they found a forked
stick, but vainly attempted to hook and draw down a branch.

"Oh, dear! I wish we were both grown up," cried Pierot, panting with
exertion.

"So do I. If we were as old as father and mother, we could reach the
boughs without even getting on tiptoe," chimed in Pierotte.

Luckless words! As Pierot spoke, the rose, which he had stuck in his
cap, shrivelled and faded, while a queer sensation as if he were being
carried up into the air swept over him. He clutched at something to hold
himself down. That something was the cherry-tree bough! He could reach
it now, and as his eyes turned with dismay toward Pierotte, there she
stood, also holding a twig of the tree, only two or three inches lower
than his own. Her pretty round cheeks and childish curls were gone, and
instead of them he beheld a middle-aged countenance with dull hair, a
red nose, and a mouth fallen in for lack of teeth. She, on her part,
unconscious of the change, was staring at him with a horrified
expression.

"Why, Pierot!" she cried at last, in a voice which sounded as old as
her face, "how queer you look! You've got a beard, and your forehead is
all criss-cross and wrinkly, and your chin rough. Dear me, how ugly you
are! I never thought you could be so ugly."

"Ugly, eh! Perhaps you would like to see your own face," said Pierot,
enraged at this flattering criticism. "Just wait till we get home, and I
show you the old looking-glass. But stay, we needn't wait;" and he
dragged Pierotte to the side of a little pool of still water, which had
caught his eye among the bushes. "Here's a looking-glass ready made," he
went on. "Look, Pierotte, and see what a beauty you have become."

Poor Pierotte! She took one look, gave a scream, and covered her face
with her hands.

"That me?" she cried. "Oh! I never, never will think it! What is the
matter with us, Pierot? Was it that horrid fairy, do you think? Did she
bewitch us?"

"The wish!" faltered Pierot, who at that moment caught sight of the
faded rose in his cap. "I wished that we were both grown up, don't you
remember? Oh, what a fool I was!"

"You horrid boy! You have gone and wished me into an ugly old woman!
I'll never forgive you!" sobbed Pierotte.

"It was your wish too. You said you would like to be as old as father
and mother. So you needn't call me horrid!" answered Pierot, angrily.

Silence followed, broken only by Pierotte's sobs. The two old children
sat with their backs to each other, under different trees. By and by
Pierot's heart began to smite him.

"It was more my fault than hers," he thought; and, turning round a
little way, he said coaxingly, "Pierotte."

No answer. Pierotte only stuck out her shoulder a little and remained
silent.

"Don't look so cross," went on Pierot. "You can't think how horrid it
makes you--a woman of your age!"

"I'm not a woman of my age. Oh, how can you say such things?" sobbed
Pierotte. "I don't want to be grown-up. I want to be a little girl
again."

"You used to be always wishing you were big," remarked her now big
brother.

"Y--es, so I was; but I never meant all at once. I wanted to be big
enough to spin--and the--mother--was--going--to teach me," went on poor
Pierotte, crying bitterly, "and I wanted to be as big as Laura
Blaize--and--pretty--and some day have a sweetheart, as she
had--and--but what's the use--I've lost it all, and I'm grown up, and
old and ugly already, and the mother won't know me, and the father will
say, 'My little Pierotte--Coeur de St. Martin--impossible! get out, you
witch!'" Overcome by this dreadful picture, Pierotte hid her face and
cried louder than ever.

"I'll tell you what," said Pierot, after a pause, "don't let us go home
at all. We will just hide here in the woods for a year, and when
Midsummer's Day comes round, we'll hunt till we find the fairy house
again, and beg the fairy, on our knees, for another wish, and if she
says 'yes,' we'll wish at once to be little just as we were this
morning, and _then_ we'll go home directly."

"Poor mother; she will think we are dead!" sighed Pierotte.

"That's no worse than if she saw us like this. I'd be conscripted most
likely and sent off to fight, and me only twelve years old! And you'd
have a horrid time of it with the Blaize boys. Robert Blaize said you
were the prettiest girl in Balne aux Bois. I wonder what he'd say now!"

"Oh, yes, let us stay here," shuddered Pierotte. "I couldn't bear to see
the Blaize boys now. But then--it will be dark soon--shan't you be
frightened to stay in the woods all night?"

"Oh! a man like me isn't easily frightened," said Pierot, stoutly, but
his teeth chattered a little.

"It's so queer to hear you call yourself 'a man,'" remarked Pierotte.

"And it's just as queer to hear you call yourself a little girl,"
answered Pierot, with a glance at the antiquated face beside him.

"Dear, how my legs shake, and how stiff my knees are!" sighed Pierotte.
"Do grown-up people feel like that always?"

"I don't know," said Pierot, whose own legs lacked their old
springiness. "Would you like some cherries now, Pierotte? I can reach
them easily."

"Cherries! Those sour things? No, thank you. They would be sure to
disagree with me," returned Pierotte, pettishly.

"Times are changed," muttered Pierot; but he dared not speak aloud.

"Where shall we sleep?" asked Pierotte.

"Under the trees, so long as the summer lasts."

"Gracious! We shall both die of rheumatism."

"Rheumatism? What an idea for a child like you!"

"I wish I _were_ a child," said Pierotte, with a groan. "Here's a tree
with grass below it, and I'm getting tired and sleepy."

When the brother and sister woke it was broad sunlight again.

"One day gone of our year," said Pierot, trying to be cheerful.

It was hard work as time went on, and with all their constant walking
and wandering they never seemed to find their way out of the forest, or
of that particular part of it where their luckless adventure had
befallen them. Turn which way they would, the paths always appeared to
lead them round to the same spot; it was like bewitchment; they could
make nothing out of it. The dulness of their lives was varied only by an
occasional quarrel. Pierot would essay to climb a tree, and Pierotte,
grown sage and proper, would upbraid him for behaving so
foolishly,--"just like a boy,"--or he would catch her using the pool as
a mirror, and would tease her for caring so much for a plain old face
when there was nobody but himself to look. How the time went they had no
idea. It seemed always daylight, and yet weeks, if not months, must have
passed, they thought, and Pierot at last began to suspect the fairy of
having changed the regular course of the sun so as to cheat them out of
the proper time for finding her at home.

"It's just like her," he said. "She is making the days seem all alike,
so that we may not know when Midsummer comes. Pierotte, I'll tell you
what, we must be on the lookout, and search for the little house every
day, for if we forget just once, that will be the very time, depend upon
it."

So every day, and all day long, the two old children wandered to and fro
in search of the fairy cot. For a long time their quest was in vain;
but at last, one bright afternoon, just before sunset, as they were
about giving up the hunt for that day, the woods opened in the same
sudden way and revealed the garden, the hut, and--yes--at the window the
pointed cap, the sharp black eyes. It was the fairy herself; they had
found her at last.

For a moment they were too much bewildered to move; then side by side
they hurried into the garden without waiting for invitation.

"Well, my old gaffer, what can I do for you, or for you, dame?" asked
the fairy, benevolently.

"Oh, please, I am not a dame, he is not a gaffer," cried Pierotte,
imploringly. "I am little Pierotte"--and she bobbed a courtesy. "And
this is Pierot, my brother."

"Pierot and Pierotte! Wonderful!" said the fairy. "But, my dear
children, what has caused this change in your appearance? You have aged
remarkably since I saw you last."

"Indeed, we have," replied Pierot, with a grimace.

"Well, age is a very respectable thing. Some persons are always wishing
to be old," remarked the fairy, maliciously. "You find it much
pleasanter than being young, I dare say."

"Indeed, we don't," said Pierotte, wiping her eyes on her apron.

"No? Well, that is sad, but I _have_ heard people say the same before
you."

"Oh, please, please," cried Pierot and Pierotte, falling on their knees
before the window, "please, dear, kind fairy, forgive us. We don't like
to be grown-up at all. We want to be little and young again. Please,
dear fairy, turn us into children as we were before."

"What would be the use?" said the old woman. "You'd begin wanting to be
somebody else at once if you were turned back to what you were before."

"We won't, indeed we won't," pleaded the children, very humbly.

The fairy leaned out and gathered a rose.

"Very well," she said. "Here's another wish for you. See that it is a
wise one this time, for if you fail, it will be of no use to come to
me."

With these words, she shut the blinds suddenly, and lo! in one second,
house, garden, and all had vanished, and Pierot and Pierotte were in the
forest again.

There was no deliberation this time as to what the wish should be.

"I wish I was a little boy," shouted Pierot, holding the rose over his
head with a sort of ecstasy.

"And I wish I was a little girl, the same little girl exactly that I
used to be," chorused Pierotte.

The rose seemed to melt in air, so quickly did it wither and collapse.
And the brother and sister embraced and danced with joy, for each in the
other's face saw the fulfilment of their double wish.

"Oh, how young you look! Oh, how pretty you are! Oh, what happiness it
is not to be old any longer! The dear fairy! The kind fairy!" These were
the exclamations which the squirrels and the birds heard for the next
ten minutes, and the birds and the squirrels seemed to be amused, for
certain queer and unexplained little noises like laughs sounded from
under the leaves and behind the bushes.

"Let us go home at once to mother," cried Pierotte.

There was no difficulty about the paths now. After walking awhile,
Pierot began to recognize this turn and that. There was the huntsman's
oak and the Dropping Well; and there--yes, he was sure--lay the hazel
copse where the father had bidden them go for wood.

"I say," cried Pierotte, with a sudden bright thought, "we will wait and
bind one fagot for the mother's oven--the poor mother! Who has fetched
her wood all this time, do you suppose?"

Plenty of sticks lay on the ground ready for binding. The wood-choppers
had just left off their work, it would seem. Pierotte's basket was
filled, a fagot tied and lifted on to Pierot's shoulders, and through
the gathering twilight they hurried homeward. They were out of the wood
soon. There was the hut, with a curl of smoke rising from the chimney;
there was the mother standing at the door and looking toward the forest.
What _would_ she say when she saw them?

What she said astonished them very much.

"How long you have been!" were the words, but the tone was not one of
surprise.

"O mother, mother!" cried Pierotte, clinging to her arm, while Pierot
said, "We were afraid to come home because we looked so old, and we
feared you would not know us, but now we are young again."

"Old! young!" said the mother. "What does the lad mean! One does not age
so fast between sunrise and sunset as to be afraid to come home. Are you
dreaming, Pierot?"

"But we have been away a year," said Pierot, passing his hand before his
eyes as if trying to clear his ideas.

"A year! Prithee! And the sheets which I hung out at noon not fairly dry
yet. A year! And the goats thou drovest to pasture before breakfast not
in the shed yet! A year! Thou wouldst better not let the father hear
thee prate thus! What, crying, Pierotte! Here's a pretty to-do because,
forsooth, you are come in an hour late!"

An hour late! The children looked at each other in speechless amazement.
To this day the amazement continues. The mother still persists that they
were absent but a few hours. Where, then, were the weeks spent in the
wood, the gray hair, the wrinkles, the wanderings in search of the old
woman and her hut? Was all and each but a bit of enchantment, a trick of
the mirth-loving fairies? They could not tell, and neither can I.
Fairies are unaccountable folk, and their doings surpass our guessing,
who are but mortal, and stupid at that! One thing I know, that the two
children since that day have dropped their foolish habit of wishing, and
are well content to remain little Pierot and Pierotte till the time
comes for them to grow older, as it will only too soon.




BLUE AND PINK.


TWO valentines lay together in the pillar post-box. One was pink and one
was blue. Pink lay a-top, and they crackled to each other softly in the
paper-language, invented long since by Papyrus, the father of
Manuscript, and used by all written and printed sheets unto this day.
Listen hard, next time you visit the reading-room at the Public Library,
and you will hear the newspapers exchanging remarks across the table in
this language.

Said the pink valentine: "I am prettier than you, much prettier, Miss
Blue."

Blue was modester. "That may be true, my dear Miss Pink; still, some
folks like blue best, I think," she replied.

"I wonder they should," went on Pink, talking in prose now, for
valentines can speak in prose and in rhyme equally well. "You are such a
chilly color. Now _I_ warm people. They smile when they see me. I like
that. It is sweet to give pleasure."

"I like to give pleasure, too," said Blue, modestly. "And I hope I may,
for something beautiful is written inside me."

"What? oh! what?" cried Pink.

"I cannot say," sighed Blue. "How can one tell what is inside one? But I
know it is something sweet, because

          She who sent me here
          Is so very fair and dear."

Blue was running into rhyme again, as valentines will.

"I don't believe a word of it," said Pink, digging her sharp elbow into
Blue's smooth side. "Nothing is written inside me, and I'm glad of it. I
am too beautiful to be written on. In the middle of my page is a
picture, Cupid, with roses and doves. Oh, so fine! There is a border
too, wreaths of flowers, flowers of all colors, and a motto, 'Be mine.'
Be mine! What can be better than that? Have you got flowers and 'Be
mine' inside, you conceited thing? If not, say so, and be ashamed, as
you deserve to be."

Again the pink elbow dented Blue's smooth envelope.

But Blue only shook her head softly, and made no answer. Pink grew angry
at this. She caught Blue with her little teeth of mucilage and shook her
viciously.

"Speak," she said. "I hate your stuck-up, shut-up people. Speak!"

But Blue only smiled, and again shook her head.

Just then the pillar-post opened with a click. The postman had come. He
scooped up Pink, Blue, and all the other letters, and threw them into
his wallet. A fat yellow envelope of law-papers separated the two
valentines, and they had no further talk.

Half an hour later, Pink was left at the door of a grand house, almost
the finest in the town. Charles, the waiter, carried her into the
parlor, and Pink said to herself: "What a thing it is to have a mission.
My mission is to give pleasure!"

"A letter for you, Miss Eva," said Charles. He did not smile.
Well-behaved waiters never smile; besides, Charles did not like Eva.

"Where is your tray?" demanded Eva, crossly. "You are always forgetting
what mamma told you. Go and get it." But when she saw Pink in her
beautiful envelope, unmistakably a valentine, she decided not to wait.

"Never mind, this time," she said; "but don't let it happen again."

"Who's your letter from, Evy?" asked grandmamma.

"I haven't opened it yet, and I wish you wouldn't call me Evy; it sounds
so backwoodsy," replied Eva, who, for some mysterious reason, had waked
that morning very much out of temper.

"Eva!" said her father, sternly.

Eva had forgotten that papa was there. To hide her confusion, she opened
the pink envelope so hastily as to tear it all across.

"Oh dear!" she complained. "Everything goes wrong."

Then she unfolded the valentine. Pink, who had felt as if a sword were
thrust through her heart when her envelope was torn, brightened up.

"Now," she thought, "when she sees the flowers, Cupid, and doves, she
_will_ be pleased."

But it was not pleasure which shone on Eva's countenance.

"What's the matter?" asked papa, seeing her face swell and angry tears
filling her eyes.

"That horrid Jim Slack!" cried Eva. "He said he'd send me a valentine
just like Pauline's, and he hasn't. Hers was all birds and butterflies,
and had verses--"

"Yours seems pretty enough," said papa, consolingly.

"It's not pretty enough," responded Eva, passionately. "It's a stupid,
ugly thing. I hate it. I won't have it."

And, horrible to state, she flung Pink, actually flung her, into the
middle of the fire. There was time for but one crackling gasp; then the
yellow flame seized and devoured all--Cupid, doves, flowers! Another
second, they were gone. A black scroll edged with fiery sparkles reared
itself up in the midst of the glow; then an air-current seized it, it
rose, and the soul of Pink flew up the chimney.

Blue, meantime, was lying on the lap of a little girl of twelve, a mile
or more from this scene of tragedy. Two plump hands caressed her softly.

"Sister, may I read it to you just once more?" begged a coaxing voice.

"Yes, Pet, once more. That'll make five times, and they say there is
luck in odd numbers," said another voice, kind and gay.

So Pet read:--

          "My dear is like a dewy rose
             All in the early morn;
           But never on her stem there grows
             A single wounding thorn.

          "My dear is like a violet shy,
             Who hides her in the grass,
           And holds a fragrant bud on high
             To bless all men who pass.

          "My dear is like a merry bird,
             My dear is like a rill,
           Like all sweet things or seen or heard,
             Only she's sweeter still.

          "And while she blooms beside my door,
             Or sings beneath my sky,
           My heart with happiness runs o'er,
             Content and glad am I.

          "So, sweetheart, read me as I run,
             Smile on this simple rhyme,
           And choose me out to be your one
             And only                VALENTINE."

"Isn't it lovely?" said Pet, her blue eyes dancing as she looked up.

"Yes, it's very nice," replied sister.

"I wish everybody in the world had such a nice valentine," went on Pet.
"How pleased they'd be! Do you suppose anybody has sent Lotty one? Only
that about the bird wouldn't be true, because Lotty's so sick, you know,
and always stays in bed."

"But Lotty sings," said sister. "She's always singing and cheerful, so
she's like a bird in that."

          "Birdies with broken wings
             Hide from each other;
           But babies in trouble
             Can run home to mother,"

hummed Pet, who knew the "St. Nicholas" jingles by heart. "But poor
Lotty hasn't any mamma to run to," she added softly.

"No; and that's a reason why it would be so specially nice to give her
the pleasure of a valentine like yours."

"I wish somebody had sent her one," said Pet, thoughtfully.

"I don't suppose there is another in the world just like yours," said
sister, smiling at Pet.

"Then she _can't_ have one. What a pity!"

"She might have this of yours," suggested sister.

"But--then--I shouldn't have any," cried Pet.

"Oh yes, you would, and I'll tell you how," said sister. "You've had all
the pleasure of getting it, and opening and reading it, already.
_That's_ yours to keep. Now, if I copy the verses for you on plain white
paper, you can read them over as often as you like, till by and by you
learn them by heart. When you have done that they will be yours for
always; and, meanwhile, Lotty will have the pleasure of getting the
valentine, opening, reading, learning, just as you have done--so you
will get a double pleasure instead of one. Don't you see?"

"That will be splendid," cried Pet, joyously. "Poor Lotty, how glad she
will be! And I shall have two pleasures instead of one, shan't I?"

"How nice," thought Blue, "to have given two pleasures already!"

Sister copied the verses, a fresh envelope was found, and Blue was sent
on her way. When she was carried upstairs to Lotty's room, she thought
it the pleasantest place she had ever seen. Sunshine was there--on the
wall, on the plants in the window, most of all in Lotty's face, as she
sat up in bed, knitting with red worsted and big needles. When Blue was
put into her hands, she laughed with astonishment.

"For me!" she cried. "Who could have sent it? How pretty it is--how
pretty! A great deal too pretty for me. Oh, what a kind, dear somebody
there is in the world!"

Everybody in the house was glad because Lotty was glad. Grandmamma came
in to hear the valentine; so did papa, and Jack, Lotty's big brother,
and Fred, her little one. Even the cook made up an excuse about the
pudding, and stole upstairs to hear the "fine verses which somebody had
sint to Miss Lotty. It's swate as roses she is, any day," said cook;
"and good luck to him for sinding it, whoiver he is."

By and by Lotty's tender heart began to busy itself with a new plan.

"Grandma," she said, "I'm thinking about little Mary Riley. She works so
hard, and she hardly ever has anything nice happen to her. Don't you
think I might send her my valentine--in a different envelope, you know,
with her name on it and all? She'd be so pleased."

"But I thought you liked it so much yourself, dear," replied grandmamma,
unwilling to have her darling spare one bit of brightness out of her
sick-room life.

"Oh, I do; that's the reason I want to give it away," said Lotty,
simply, and stroking Blue, who, had she known how, would gladly have
purred under the soft touch. "But I shall go on liking it all the same
if Mary has it, and she'll like it too. Don't you see, grandmamma? I've
copied the verses in my book, so that I can keep them."

Grandmamma consented. The new envelope was found, Mary's address was
written upon it, and away went happy Blue to give pleasure to a fresh
friend.

"This is best of all," she said to herself, as Mary laid aside her weary
sewing to read over and over again the wonderful verses, which seemed to
have dropped out of fairy-land. She almost cried with pleasure that they
should be sent to _her_.

"I wish I could buy a frame for 'em--a beautiful gold frame," she
whispered to herself.

Pink would have been vain had she heard this; but Blue glowed with a
purer feeling--the happiness of giving happiness.

Mary read the verses over a dozen times at least before putting them
aside; but she did put them aside, for she had work to finish, and
daylight was precious. The work was a birthday frock. When the last
stitch was set, she folded it carefully, put on cloak and bonnet, and
prepared to carry the frock home. Last of all, she dropped Blue into her
pocket. She did not like to leave it behind. Something might happen,
she thought.

It was quite a grand house to which the birthday frock went. In fact; it
was next door but one to the house in which Pink met with her melancholy
fate. The little girl who was to wear the frock was very glad to see
Mary, and her mamma came upstairs to pay for the work.

"Have you any change?" she said. "Come nearer to the fire. It is cold
to-night."

Mary was confused by this kindness. Her fingers trembled as she searched
for her porte-monnaie, which was at the bottom of her pocket, underneath
her handkerchief. She twitched out the handkerchief hastily, and with
it, alas! came Blue. They were close to the grate, and Blue was flung
into the fire. Mary gave a scream and made a snatch. It was too late!
Already the flames had seized it; her beloved valentine was gone,
vanished into ashes!

"Was it anything valuable?" asked the lady, as Mary gave a little sob.

"Oh, n-o--yes, ma'am; that is, it was verses. I never had any before.
And they were s-o beautiful!" replied poor Mary, half crying.

The lady gave her an extra dollar for the sewing, but this did not
console Mary.

Meantime the ghost of Blue flew up the chimney. Upon the roof hovered a
dim gray shade. It was the ghost of Pink, wind-blown for a little space.

"How sad life is!" sighed Pink's ghost--

          "I was young, I was fair,
           And now I'm in the air,
           As ugly gray ashes as ever were."

"How sweet life is!" murmured the ghost of Blue--

          "I've only lived a little while,
           But I have made three people smile."

A chickadee who heard the two ghosts discoursing now flew down from the
roof-peak. He gathered Blue's ashes up into his beak, flew down into
the garden, and strewed them about the root of a rose-tree.

"In the spring you'll be a rose," he said.

Then he flew back, took up Pink's ashes, bore them into another garden,
and laid them in the midst of a bed of chickweed.

"Make that chickweed crop a little richer, if you can," he chirped. "All
the better for the dicky-birds if you do; and a good thing for you too,
to be of use for once in your life."

Then the chickadee flew away. Ghosts have to get accustomed to plain
speaking.

This was the end of Blue and Pink.




A FORTUNATE MISFORTUNE.


EMMY GALE was far from anticipating misfortunes or suspecting that she
was going to have any as she packed her trunk for the much-talked-of
visit to Elliott's Mills. The very putting of the things into the trays
was a pleasure, for it meant the satisfaction of a long-deferred wish.
To go to Elliott's Mills had been the desire of her heart ever since she
was a little girl of eight, and she was now fourteen; and she folded her
dresses and patted each collar and pair of stockings into place with a
glad feeling at her heart.

I must tell you about Elliott's Mills, or you will not understand why
Emmy was so pleased to go there. It was a very small village in the
western part of New York. To reach it you had to take, first a whole
day's journey by rail, and then a two-mile drive over a rather rough
road. When arrived there you found yourself in an ugly, unattractive
little wooden hamlet, set down among low hills and tracts of woodland.
This does not sound over-delightful, does it? But what made Elliott's
Mills so charming was that Aunt Emma lived there during the summer, and
the life that she and her family led had an inexpressible fascination
for all the young people in the connection.

Aunt Emma's home had always been in New York City until her husband, who
was a lawyer, came into possession some years before of an enormous
tract of land, some thousands of acres in extent, in the western part of
the State. It became necessary for him to spend some months there every
year to look after it. First he built a small law office and a couple of
bedrooms for use on these occasions. Then Aunt Emma wanted to go with
him, and another room or two was added for her; and so it went on till
the little law office had grown into a big, rambling country house of
the most irregular shape, with small chambers opening out of large ones,
doors, cupboards, entries, and staircases where you least expected them,
little flights of steps leading up into rooms and down into rooms--just
the sort of house, in short, which boys and girls delight in. Aunt Emma,
who was a woman of admirable sense, made no attempt to introduce the
elegances of the city into the woods, not even when it grew to be her
home for the greater part of the year. Air, space, and freedom to do as
you liked were the luxuries of the place. All the bedrooms were
furnished with the same small-patterned blue ingrain carpet and little
sets of oak-painted furniture precisely alike. The big parlor and
dining-room had wicker chairs and willow tables, roomy sofas and couches
covered with well-washed chintz, and skins and rugs on the matted
floors. Deer's antlers in the hall held hats, whips, and coats. There
was a garden of sweet common flowers to supply the summer vases,
crackling wood-fires for cool evenings, and a bookcase of light reading
for rainy days. The table was deliciously supplied with game and trout,
wild fruits and country cream, and you might sit on the floor and tell
ghost-stories till midnight if you cared to do so. In the big stables a
little troop of Indian ponies, broken to saddle or harness, were kept.
Most of them had Indian names, in honor of the half-civilized tribe
which lived close by on their reservation. There was Chief Blacksnake
and Lady Blacksnake and Young Blacksnake, Uncas and Pottomet and
"Xantego," commonly pronounced "Want-to-go," and riding and driving went
on the summer through among the visitors who filled the ample,
hospitable house. There seemed to be a pony for everybody, and everybody
liked to have a pony, and the ponies themselves enjoyed it.

Emmy Gale was her aunt Emma's namesake, but, as it happened, she had
never been at Elliott's Mills, though her elder sisters, Bess and Jean,
had made many visits there. This was partly accidental, for twice it had
been arranged that she should go, and twice illness had prevented. Once,
her cousin Lena had measles, and the other time Emmy herself had scarlet
fever. Nobody was in fault either time, still it rankled in Emmy's mind
that she should never have seen the place about which Bess and Jean were
forever raving. And now her time was come; she was actually packing her
trunk. No wonder she was pleased.

I must just say one word about Emmy before I start her on her journey.
She was very tall of her age, thin, and rather awkward, as overgrown
girls are apt to be. A passionate desire to be liked was one of the
ruling motives of her nature, but she was very apt to fancy that people
did not like her, and to worry and grieve over it in a morbid manner.
When quite at her ease, she was an attractive girl, loving and bright
and funny, but poor Emmy was seldom quite at ease. She could only be
that when she forgot herself, and that was not often; for what with
wondering if people would approve of her, and vexing herself with the
idea that they did not, and fidgeting as to _why_ they did not, she
contrived to be the subject of her own thoughts for a considerable part
of the time.

Her escort was an old gentleman, a friend of her father's. He did not
say much to Emmy, but he was very polite as old gentlemen go, and in the
course of the long day's journey bought for her three illustrated
papers, half a dozen beautiful red apples, and a "prize package of
pop-corn," which, had it chosen to live up to its label, _might_ have
had a gold bracelet in it, but in reality contained nothing better than
a brass ring. Emmy liked the apples, and did not at all resent her
escort's lack of conversation. In fact, she scarcely noticed it, so busy
was she in thinking of the joys to come. With her eyes fixed on the long
reaches of soft red and yellow woods which seemed to be running past
the train as the train ran by them, she made pictures to herself of what
was going to happen. Lena would come down at the carriage to meet her,
she was quite sure. And perhaps Bess or Jean, who had been at Elliott's
Mills for the past month, would come too. It would be about half-past
five when the train was due, so they could reach the house just before
supper, which is always a pleasant time to arrive anywhere. It all
seemed most promising as she thought it over.

The first bit of ill luck which befell Emmy was that the train proved to
be behind time. There were tiresome stops and unaccountable delays. At
noon the conductor owned to being two hours late, so they kept on losing
time. Railroads are like a dissected puzzle--if one piece gets out of
its place it makes the other pieces wrong. They had to wait for all the
other trains, and telegraph and stand still. Tired and vexed, Emmy sat
with her nose pressed against the window, looking out into the
deepening dusk as the engine puffed and snorted and ran the train slowly
back and forward, on to sidings and off them. Her impatience grew and
grew, till it seemed as if she _must_ jump out and push something, the
locomotive or the conductor--she didn't care which--anything to make
them go on; and when eight o'clock came and nine, with the Mills station
still far ahead, she felt so worn out and discouraged that she could
easily have cried, except that girls of fourteen do not like to cry in
public. The only thing that diverted her from her woes was watching two
girls of her own age who sat in front of her, and were "capping verses"
to pass away the time. The train made a great deal of noise, so that
they had to scream to make themselves heard; then the roar and rumble
ceased suddenly in that queer way which is common to all railroads, and
a very high-pitched voice was heard to shriek out the following
extraordinary question,--

"Pray how was the Devil dressed? D--" Everybody jumped, and Emmy's old
gentleman put on his spectacles and gazed long and solemnly at the young
ladies who seemed to be conversing on such extraordinary topics, while
they hid their faces and giggled violently for two miles.

It was exactly ten when they finally reached the Mills station. The old
gentleman helped Emmy out, the train rushed on, and she found herself
standing alone on a wet platform beside her trunk. Her aunt's man
William came to meet her, swinging a lantern.

"Didn't any one come down to meet me?" she asked.

"No, miss. Mr. Tom drove down for the two o'clock express, and sent back
word that your train would be late, and I must be sure to fetch a big
lantern, for the road is all washed away by the freshet. Is that your
box, miss? We'd better start at once, for it's going to take us two
hours and a half to get over to the village."

"Two hours and a half!" gasped Emmy.

"Yes, miss, because of the roads. They're almost dangerous. We'll have
to walk nearly the whole way, for it's so dark that we can't see where
we're going."

It was quite two hours and a half before they reached the house. Emmy
had fallen asleep half a dozen times, and waked up to be conscious that
she was stiff, chilled, and aching in every bone, and that William was
walking at the horses' heads, holding the lantern up high to make sure
of the road. At last they turned in at a gate and he came to the window
to say encouragingly, "Just there, miss."

"What time is it?" asked Emmy.

"Nigh on to one, miss."

"Oh dear, and they will all be in bed!" thought Emmy; but she was really
too tired to care much about it. A sleepy-looking maid was sitting up to
receive her. Mrs. Elliott had left her love, she said, and the young
lady must take some hot soup and get to bed as fast as possible. It was
not at all the reception which Emmy had dreamed of, but she was so worn
out with fatigue that bed seemed the only thing in the world worth
thinking of just then, and there, with the assistance of the maid, she
soon found herself.

When she woke, the room was bright with sun, which streamed into the
window with such an "up a long time ago" expression, that Emmy knew she
must have slept late. She was still tired, and lay quietly looking about
her and recognizing all the little conveniences and devices of which she
had heard from her sisters, till a little tap sounded, the door softly
opened, and Aunt Emma's kind, handsome face looked in.

"Good morning, my dear; I hope you are rested," she said, with a kiss.
"I would not let any one wake you, for you must have been tired out. Now
you must have some breakfast." And in another moment, with the ease
which seemed to characterize all arrangements in which Aunt Emma had a
share, in came a napkin-covered tray borne by a neat little maid, with
_such_ a nice breakfast! A big pink-and-white cup full of hot cocoa,
broiled chicken, delicious potato stewed with cream, two white rolls,
and a baked pear in a saucer. Nothing could have been more tempting to
hungry Emmy, but even as she sipped the first spoonful of cocoa, the
question at her heart found its way to her lips: "Aunty, where are the
girls?"

"The girls," said aunty in her pleasant, decided voice, "are gone to
Niagara for two or three days. A party was made up for some friends of
your cousin May's who are staying with us, and Bess and Jean and Lena
went too. They will be back day after to-morrow, and meanwhile you will
have a chance to get thoroughly rested."

"Gone to Niagara!" exclaimed Emmy. "Oh, why didn't they wait till I
came!"

"That would not have been possible, my dear," said her aunt. "The
Jarvises, for whom the party was made, only stay with us till next
Thursday, and May expects other guests early in the week, so she could
not be away later." Then some one called her, and Aunt Emma went away,
just saying kindly as she walked off, "Make a good breakfast, dear!"

Poor Emmy! she was too hungry not to eat, but the meal was literally
mingled with tears. She sobbed with each mouthful, and more than one
salt drop hopped down her nose to flavor the baked pear. It was foolish
of her, I admit, but disappointments are hard to bear when one is only
fourteen years old and very tired into the bargain, and this was a
really great disappointment. Three whole days all alone with aunty, and
the others away enjoying themselves at Niagara without her! She was
rather afraid of her aunt, and, though very desirous to win her good
opinion, this hidden fear made Emmy so shy and awkward that she never
appeared at her best when in her company.

Sadly and languidly she got up and began to dress, feeling as if the
heart was taken out of everything. Raising the lid of the soap-dish,
there on the nice little pink cake of soap lay a note with "Emmy"
written on it. Much wondering, she opened. It was from her sister Bess,
and it read:--

          "DEAR EMMY,--Don't be poky because you find us
          gone. It's only for a day or two, and we shall be
          back almost before you miss us." ("Not much chance
          of that!" reflected Emmy, dolorously.) "Be a good
          girl, laugh and talk with aunty, pet Uncle Tom,
          _don't poke_, and be glad to see us on Saturday
          night.

                                        "Your loving
                                                    "BESS."

"How can I help poking, and what does she mean anyway?" thought Emmy.
However, this proof that she had been remembered cheered her a little,
and she went on with her dressing in better spirits. A long folded slip
of paper was pinned round the handle of the water-jug. Another note!
from Jean this time.

          "DEAR LITTLE EMMY," (Emmy was half a head taller
          than Jean!)--"We hate to go away and leave you,
          and we wouldn't if it were not so perfectly
          splendid to see Niagara. It won't be long before
          we come back, and you mustn't be lonely. Aunty is
          so nice, and, dear, if only you wouldn't be afraid
          of her! She doesn't like shy people, so don't be
          shy. There's a lovely story-book in the bookcase
          in the dining-room: 'The Dove in the Eagle's
          Nest.' It's on the third shelf from the top. Do
          read it while we are away! You will like it, I am
          sure.

                                  "Your affectionate
                                                  "JEAN."

Jean was the kindest little soul in the world, but this hint about Aunt
Emma's not liking shy people was a mistake. It made Emmy more frightened
and ill at ease than ever.

Washing over, she went to the dressing-table to braid her hair. Behold!
another billet on the pincushion. This was in rhyme:--

          "O Emmy tall, O Emmy fair,
           Don't forget to brush your hair.
           Pin your ruffle neat and straight,
           Be down to breakfast at half-past eight;
           Don't crook your shoulders when you sit down,
           Don't rip the gathers of your gown,
           Don't set up to be lonesome, pray,
           Because we girls are gone away,
           But cheer up auntie and Uncle Tom,
           And we'll be back anon, anon!"
                                        "ANON-Y-MOUS."

This made Emmy smile, and she did her hair quite cheerfully. When she
opened the top drawer to put away her comb and brush, she spied a small
parcel directed to herself, and laid there to catch her eye. She gave a
little laugh. How nice in the girls to do this for her!

The parcel was from Lena. It contained a very pretty velvet pincushion,
mounted on a fluted shell, and a note.

          "DEAR EMMY,--We are _so_ sorry not to be here when
          you come, but we shall only be gone a little
          while. Marian Jarvis is such a nice girl! She
          wants to see you _dreadfully_. I do hope you will
          like her. You must do everything pleasant that you
          can think of till we come back.

                                      "Your loving
                                                "LENA."

One more surprise awaited Emmy. She was just leaving the room when she
spied a large piece of brown paper pinned to the wall. On it was the
following mysterious inscription,--

"N. E. corner of room, under edge of carpet. Search rewarded."

It took her some time to make out which was the northeast corner; when
at last she identified it, all that appeared from under the carpet was a
similar bit of paper with another mysterious inscription,--

"S. W. corner of room, under edge of carpet. Search rewarded."

The reward of search in this instance was a long narrow parcel
containing two brand-new hair-pins and a single line of writing,--

"Behind looking-glass on bureau."

Highly diverted, Emmy hastened to tip the glass, and there, stored away
behind it, she beheld a small white jam-pot. A label tucked in between
lid and jar said succinctly,--

"Plum jam at bedtime eaten with a hair-pin is _goloptious_! Try it!"

All these jokes and surprises raised Emmy's spirits so that she ran
down-stairs quite gleefully. But there things went wrong again. Aunt
Emma was deep in household accounts. She nodded kindly to Emmy and said
a few pleasant words; then she became absorbed in her reckonings and
forgot her for the moment. Emmy was by no means one of those children
who can be trusted to entertain themselves _in the room where any one
else is sitting_. She was too self-conscious, too apt to imagine that
people were criticising what she did or said. She wanted to ramble about
the house and identify the things and places she had heard described,
and if she had done this simply and naturally as Jean would, or Bess, no
one would have been disturbed, least of all Aunt Emma. But a sense of
shy awkwardness prevented, and what she did was to wait till her aunt
was in the very middle of a long column of figures, and then say
timidly,--

"Aunt Emma, may I--may I--go into the dining-room?"

Mrs. Elliott stopped, lost her count, and after trying in vain to
recover it, said with a little natural impatience,--

"My dear, never interrupt any one who is adding up a sum, if you can
help it. You have lost me all my last ten minutes' work. What did you
say? go into the dining-room? why, of course, go just where you like."
Then she began to cipher again.

This was quite enough to make Emmy miserable. She had done wrong. She
had put Aunt Emma out. Aunt Emma did not love her. She never would love
her as she loved the other girls! These reflections passed through her
mind as she sat before the glass door of the bookcase, not even trying
to look up the story which Jean had recommended. Uncle Tom coming into
the room noticed her melancholy attitude, and said in his hearty voice,
"Well, my little maid, you look dumpy. All your contemporaries gone,
heh! Never mind; they will all be back soon, and meanwhile you must
cheer up the old folks." Jean or Bess would have dimpled and giggled at
such an address, and perhaps run across the room and given Uncle Tom a
kiss; but Emmy only shrank a little and said nothing; so that her uncle,
as he drank his glass of Apollinaris water, said to himself, "A sulky
child, I'm afraid." So easy it is to be misjudged in this world.

At dinner, Emmy's evil angel took possession of her again. She answered
in monosyllables when her uncle and aunt spoke to her, and poked her
food into her mouth with a nervous haste which brought on a fit of
choking. This mortified her deeply, for she imagined that Aunt Emma was
thinking, "What an ill-mannered girl she is!" whereas Aunt Emma was
really thinking, "Poor thing! what can I do to make her feel more
comfortable?" It would be a convenience, sometimes, if we might have
glass panes in our hearts, so that people could look in and see what we
are really feeling.

The evening seemed dreadfully long. Emmy pretended to read "The Dove in
the Eagle's Nest," but a sort of spell of stiff misery was over her all
the while. She was conscious of her knees and elbows, her upper lip kept
twitching, she neither acted nor spoke naturally. Mrs. Elliott pitied
her, but she could not help saying to herself, "What a self-conscious
child she is; how different from Jean and Bess!" And what was worse,
Emmy suspected that aunty was thinking exactly that, and suffered
accordingly.

Tom came home next day. He was an immensely tall, handsome, good-natured
young man. Bess and Jean adored him, and were always telling stories
about the things he said and did, but to Emmy he seemed a formidable
person. He was fond of teasing and of banter, and it was another of his
peculiarities to be particularly observant about a lady's dress. He
noticed at once that the braid was ripped off the edge of Emmy's skirt
so as to form a dangerous little loop, and told her of it. She went away
at once, and sewed it fast, but she felt disgraced somehow, and marked
out as a slattern, and could not help shedding a few tears as she
worked. Then Tom, who saw everything, observed the red marks under her
eyes, and the melancholy droop of her mouth, and he too set her down as
sulky, and, supposing that she had taken offence at some of his harmless
pleasantries, forbore to joke with her thenceforward. This made her sure
that Tom did not like her either, which was another affliction, for
Emmy was most anxious to be taken into the circle of his pets and
favorites.

In the afternoon she had another mishap. Aunt Emma sent her to get a
paper out of her writing-desk, and Emmy somehow managed to hamper the
lock so that the key could not be turned. Nobody scolded her, but Mrs.
Elliott looked sorry and perplexed, as well she might, with the nearest
locksmith twenty miles distant, and Emmy felt that her cup of misfortune
was full. That night she cried herself to sleep.

On the third day the party from Niagara came back, and the house all in
a moment seemed to fill with bright life and gayety. Cousin May's
friends, the Jarvises, were handsome, well-bred girls, with a great deal
of air and style about all their appointments. Cousin May herself was a
belle and beauty, and had always been the object of Emmy's wildest
admiration. Several gentlemen were of the party, and there were Jean and
Bess running about with the rest, on the friendliest terms with
everybody, and as much at home as Lena. It made Emmy feel left out and
lonely, for her shyness was by no means lessened by the arrival of all
these strangers, and she had the painful sensation of being separated
from the others by a sort of invisible wall, which she could not, and
they would not, pass over. Jean and Bess did what they could to cheer
her, but a great deal was going on in the large gay household, and they
had not much time to spare for the little sister who could not explain
even to herself why she felt so forlorn.

Lady Blacksnake was supposed to be Lena's own particular pony. Lena had
a little wagon of her own too; and on Monday she took Emmy out with her.
This went delightfully till, as they were coming home late in the
afternoon, Emmy coaxed Lena to let her drive. What she did to Lady
Blacksnake no one ever knew, but all in one minute that excellent animal
put her head down and ran away.

"Oh," screamed Emmy, "shall we jump out?"

"No," said Lena, perfectly calm, though her face was very white. "Saw
her mouth."

So she took one rein, and Emmy the other, and they sawed Lady
Blacksnake's mouth with hard, regular pulls, till the wild pace
slackened first to a gallop and then to a trot, and they were going
along at their old rate, only Lady Blacksnake's heaving flanks and their
own frightened countenances telling the tale of their late danger. It
was real danger, for once during the run the hind wheel absolutely
grazed the edge of a sharp bank, and had they met another carriage they
could scarcely have escaped a collision; but they both agreed to make as
light of the incident as they could when they got home, lest they should
be forbidden to go out again by themselves. Their account of the
accident therefore was given with a levity which quite angered Uncle
Tom.

"Upon my word, young ladies," he said severely, "you seem to think it a
fine thing to have been in danger of your lives. If you had really
broken all your bones it would have been funnier still, I suppose. What
on earth _are_ you laughing at?" for somehow this address tickled the
girls' half-hysterical mood into paroxysms of giggling which continued
till they cried, and the more Uncle Tom frowned the more they giggled.
Aunt Emma saw how it was, and ordered them off to bed, and next morning
the reaction had come, and they were pale and nervous and depressed
enough to please the most exacting friend who might be anxious to make
them "sensible of their escape."

Wednesday, the day before the Jarvises were to leave, had been set aside
for a picnic. Emmy had looked forward eagerly to this; so you can
imagine her feelings when on Tuesday a hard toothache set in which kept
her awake all night, and left her next morning still in such pain and
with such a swollen face that it was manifestly impossible for her to
leave the house. Kind little Jean offered to give up the picnic and stay
at home with her; but neither Emmy nor Aunt Emma would hear of this,
and it ended in everybody's going and leaving her in the care of old
Eliza, aunty's housekeeper, who had been nurse to all the children in
turn, from Tom to Lena, and liked nothing better than a chance to cuddle
and cosset any one who was ill.

Her warm fomentations and roasted raisins and pettings and pattings were
so effectual that by afternoon Emmy felt quite comfortable again. She
grew very fond of kind old Eliza, and her heart being opened by the
situation, she ended by telling her how miserable and "unlucky" she had
been all the week.

"And indeed I can't see any reason for it, though I'm sorry enough it is
so, Miss Emmy," declared Eliza when she had listened to the tale. "Never
any young person came here before who didn't look upon this house as a
kind of a paradise."

"I know. That's just the way Jean and Bess feel. But then they are
different from me. Everybody likes them," said Emmy.

"And pray why shouldn't they like yourself, miss, I'd like to ask?"

"I--don't--know," slowly. "I'm always getting into scrapes and making
mistakes, and things don't happen nicely with me as they do with them.
Just think of all the misfortunes I've had this week since I came! My
train was late, and I was all tired out, and the girls went to Niagara
without me, and I broke Aunt Emma's lock, and the horse ran away, and
now this toothache! I am _very_ unfortunate."

"Well, I _have_ heard of other people's trains being late afore now,"
replied Eliza, dryly. "And though I'm sorry you didn't have the trip
with the rest, miss, it wasn't nobody's fault that you didn't come in
time. It was a pity about the lock, to be sure--the Madam hasn't got it
open yet, I know--but so far as the horse goes, it's no more than I'm
always expecting, letting Miss Lena drive out by herself with them
vicious little rats of ponies. And God sent your toothache, miss, I
suppose you know that."

"Well, God made me shy, too, I suppose, and that's my worst misfortune
of all," declared Emmy.

"I'm not so sure about that, either," remarked the shrewd old Eliza. "In
my opinion, what folks call shyness is very often just another name for
selfishness. If you thought about yourself less and about other people
more, Miss Emmy, you wouldn't be so shy, as you call it. You'll get
better of it as soon as yo

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