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Just Sixteen.

by Susan Coolidge · English · Gutenberg #41641 · 355,007 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Just Sixteen.

Author: Susan Coolidge


        
Release date: December 17, 2012 [eBook #41641]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUST SIXTEEN. ***

JUST SIXTEEN.

[Illustration: "We will have luncheon here close to the fire," she said,
"and be as cosey as possible."--_Page 28._]




JUST SIXTEEN.

    BY
    SUSAN COOLIDGE,

    AUTHOR OF "THE NEW YEAR'S BARGAIN," "WHAT KATY DID,"
    "WHAT KATY DID AT SCHOOL," "WHAT KATY DID NEXT,"
    "CLOVER," "A GUERNSEY LILY," ETC.

    [Illustration: QUI LEGIT REGIT.]

    BOSTON:
    ROBERTS BROTHERS.
    1890.


    _Copyright, 1889_,
    BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.

    University Press:
    JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.




CONTENTS.


                                                        PAGE

    A LITTLE KNIGHT OF LABOR (_Two Illustrations_)         7

    SNOWY PETER                                           63

    THE DO SOMETHING SOCIETY                              80

    WHO ATE THE QUEEN'S LUNCHEON? (_Illustration_)        92

    THE SHIPWRECKED COLOGNE-BOTTLE                       110

    UNDER A SYRINGA-BUSH                                 126

    TWO GIRLS--TWO PARTIES                               137

    THE PINK SWEETMEAT                                   154

    ETELKA'S CHOICE (_Illustration_)                     177

    THE FIR CONES                                        204

    A BALSAM PILLOW                                      217

    COLONEL WHEELER                                      229

    NINETY-THREE AND NINETY-FOUR                         238

    THE SORROWS OF FELICIA                               258

    IMPRISONED                                           271

    A CHILD OF THE SEA FOLK                              282




JUST SIXTEEN.

A LITTLE KNIGHT OF LABOR.


The first real snow-storm of the winter had come to Sandyport by the
Sea.

It had been a late and merciful autumn. Till well into November the
leaves still clung to their boughs, honeysuckles made shady coverts on
trellises, and put forth now and then an orange and milk-white blossom
full of frosty sweetness; the grass was still green where the snow
allowed it to be seen. Thick and fast fell the wind-blown flakes on the
lightly frozen ground. The patter and beat of the flying storm was a
joyous sound to children who owned sleds and had been waiting the chance
to use them. Many a boy's face looked out as the dusk fell, to make sure
that the storm continued; and many a bright voice cried, "Hurrah! It's
coming down harder than ever! To-morrow it will be splendid!" Stable-men
were shaking out fur robes and arranging cutters. Already the fitful
sound of sleigh-bells could be heard; and all the world--the world of
Sandyport that is--was preparing to give the in-coming winter a gay
welcome.

But in one house in an old-fashioned but still respectable street no one
seemed inclined to join in the general merry-making. Only two lights
broke its darkness: one shone from the kitchen at the back, where,
beside a kerosene lamp, Bethia Kendrick, the old-time servitor of the
Talcott family, was gloomily darning stockings, and otherwise making
ready for departure on the morrow. The other and fainter glow came from
the front room, where without any lamp Georgie Talcott sat alone beside
her fire.

It was a little fire, and built of rather queer materials. There were
bits of lath and box-covers, fence-pickets split in two, shavings,
pasteboard clippings, and on top of all, half of an old chopping-bowl.
The light material burned out fast, and had to be continually
replenished from the basket which stood on one side the grate.

Georgie, in fact, was burning up the odds and ends of her old life
before leaving it behind forever. She was to quit the house on the
morrow; and there was something significant to her, and very sorrowful,
in this disposal of its shreds and fragments; they meant so little to
other people, and so very much to her. The old chopping-bowl, for
instance,--her thoughts went back from it to the first time she had ever
been permitted to join in the making of the Christmas pies. She saw her
mother, still a young woman then, and pretty with the faded elegance
which had been her characteristic, weighing the sugar and plums, and
slicing the citron, while her own daring little hands plied the chopper
in that very bowl. What joy there was in those vigorous dabs and
cross-way cuts! how she had liked to do it! And now, the pretty mother,
faded and gray, lay under the frozen turf, on which the snow-flakes were
thickly falling. There could be no more Christmases for Georgie in the
old house; it was sold, and to-morrow would close its doors behind her
forever.

She shivered as these thoughts passed through her mind, and rising moved
restlessly toward the window. It was storming faster than ever. The
sight seemed to make the idea of the morrow harder to bear; a big tear
formed in each eye, blurring the white world outside into a dim
grayness. Presently one ran down her nose and fell on her hand. She
looked at it with dismay, wiped it hastily off, and went back to the
fire.

"I won't cry, whatever happens, I'm resolved on that," she said half
aloud, as she put the other half of the chopping-bowl on the waning
blaze. The deep-soaked richness of long-perished meats was in the old
wood still. It flared broadly up the chimney. Georgie again sat down by
the fire and resumed her thinking.

"What am I going to do?" she asked herself for the hundredth time. "When
my visit to Cousin Vi is over, I must decide on something; but what? A
week is such a short time in which to settle such an important thing."

It is hard to be confronted at twenty with the problem of one's own
support. Georgie hitherto had been as happy and care-free as other
girls. Her mother, as the widow of a naval officer, was entitled to a
small pension. This, with a very little more in addition, had paid for
Georgie's schooling, and kept the old house going in a sufficiently
comfortable though very modest fashion. But Mrs. Talcott was not by
nature an exemplary manager. It was hard not to overrun here and there,
especially after Georgie grew up, and "took her place in society," as
the poor lady phrased it,--the place which was rightfully hers as her
father's daughter and the descendant of a long line of Talcotts and
Chaunceys and Wainwrights. She coveted pretty things for her girl, as
all mothers do, and it was too much for her strength always to deny
herself.

So Georgie had "just this" and "just that," and being a fresh attractive
creature, and a favorite, made her little go as far as the other girls'
much, and now and again the tiny capital was encroached upon. And then,
and then,--this is a world of sorry chances, as the weak and helpless
find to their cost,--came the bad year, when the Ranscuttle Mills passed
their dividend and the stock went down to almost nothing; and then Mrs.
Talcott's long illness, and then her death. Sickness and death are
luxuries which the poor will do well to go without. Georgie went over
the calculations afresh as she sat by the fire, and the result came out
just the same, and not a penny better. When she had paid for her
mother's funeral, and all the last bills, she would have exactly a
hundred and seventy-five dollars a year to live upon,--that and no more!

The furniture,--could she get something for that? She glanced round the
room, and shook her head. The articles were neither handsome enough nor
quaint enough to command a good price. She looked affectionately at the
hair-cloth sofa on which her mother had so often lain, at the well-worn
secretary. How could she part with these? How could she sell her
great-grandfather's picture, or who, in fact, except herself, would care
for the rather ill-painted portrait of a rigid old worthy of the last
century, in a wig and ruffled shirt, with a view of Sandyport harbor by
way of a background? Her father's silhouette hung beneath it, with his
sword and a little mezzotint of his ship. These were treasures to her,
but what were they to any one else?

"No," she decided. "Bethia shall take the old kitchen things and her own
bedroom furniture, and have the use of them; but the rest must go into
Miss Sally's attic for the present. They wouldn't fetch anything; and if
they would, I don't think I could bear to sell them. And now that is
settled, I must think again, what _am_ I to do? I must do something."

She turned over all manner of schemes in her mind, but all seemed
fruitless. Sew? The town was full of sempstresses. Georgie knew of half
a dozen who could not get work enough to keep them busy half the time.
Teach? She could not; her education in no one respect had been thorough
enough. Embroider for the Women's Exchanges and Decorative Art
Societies? Perhaps; but it seemed to her that was the very thing to
which all destitute people with pretensions to gentility fled as a
matter of course, and that the market for tidies and "splashers" and
pine-pillows was decidedly overstocked.

"It's no use thinking about it to-night," was the sensible decision to
which she at last arrived. "I am too tired. I'll get a sound night's
sleep if I can, and put off my worries till I am safely at Miss
Sally's."

The sound night's sleep stood Georgie in good stead, for the morrow
taxed all her powers of endurance, both physical and moral. Bethia,
unhappy at losing the home of years, was tearful and fractious to a
degree. Sending off the furniture through the deep snow proved a slow
and troublesome matter. The doors necessarily stood open a great deal,
the rooms grew very cold, everything was comfortless and dispiriting.
And underlying all, put aside but never unfelt, was a deep sense of pain
at the knowledge that this was the last day,--the very, very last of the
home she had always known, and might know no more.

When the final sledge-load creaked away over the hard frozen crust,
Georgie experienced a sense of relief.

    "The sooner 'tis over, the sooner to sleep,"

she sang below her breath. Everything was in order. She had generalled
all ably; nothing was omitted or forgotten. With steady care she raked
out the fire in the kitchen stove, which the new owner of the house had
taken off her hands, and saw to the fastenings of the windows. Then she
tied on her bonnet and black veil, gave the weeping Bethia a good-by
kiss on the door-step, closed and locked the door, and waded wearily
through the half-broken paths to the boarding-house of Miss Sally
Scannell, where Cousin Vi, otherwise Miss Violet Talcott, had lived for
years.

No very enthusiastic reception awaited her. Cousin Vi's invitation had
been given from a sense of duty. She "owed it to the child," she told
herself, as she cleared out a bureau-drawer, and made a place for
Georgie's trunk in the small third-story room which for sixteen years
had represented to her all the home she had known. Of course such a
visit must be a brief one.

"So you're come!" was her greeting as Georgie appeared. "I thought you'd
be here sooner; but I suppose you've had a good deal to do. I should
have offered to help if the day had not been so cold. Come in and take
your things off."

Georgie glanced about her as she smoothed her hair. The room bore the
unmistakable marks of spinsterhood and decayed gentility. It was crammed
with little belongings, some valuable, some perfectly valueless. Two or
three pieces of spindle-legged and claw-footed mahogany made an odd
contrast to the common painted bedroom set. Miniatures by Malbone and
lovely pale-lined mezzotints and line engravings hung on the walls amid
a maze of photographs and Japanese fans and Christmas cards and chromos;
an indescribable confusion of duds encumbered every shelf and table;
and in the midst sat Miss Vi's tall, meager, dissatisfied self, with
thin hair laboriously trained after the prevailing fashion, and a dress
whose antique material seemed oddly unsuited to its modern cut and
loopings. Somehow the pitifulness of the scene struck Georgie afresh.

"Shall I ever be like this?" she reflected.

"Now tell me what has happened since the funeral," said her cousin. "I
had neuralgia all last week and week before, or I should have got down
oftener. Who has called? Have the Hanburys been to see you?"

"Ellen came last week, but I was out," replied Georgie.

"What a pity! And how did it happen that you were out? You ought not to
have been seen in the street so soon, I think. It's not customary."

"How could I help it?" responded Georgie, sadly. "I had all the move to
arrange for. Mr. Custer wanted the house for Saturday. There was no one
to go for me."

"I suppose you couldn't; but it's a pity. It's never well to outrage
conventionalities. Have Mrs. St. John and Mrs. Constant Carrington
called?"

"Mrs. Carrington hasn't, but she wrote me a little note. And dear Mrs.
St. John came twice, and brought flowers, and was ever so kind. She
always has been so very nice to me, you know."

"Naturally! The St. Johns were nobodies till Mr. St. John made all that
money in railroads. She is glad enough to be on good terms with the old
families, of course."

"I don't think it's that," said Georgie, rather wearily. "I think she's
nice because she's naturally so kind-hearted, and she likes me."

The tea-bell put an end to the discussion. Miss Sally's welcome was a
good deal warmer than Cousin Vi's had been.

"You poor dear child," she exclaimed, "you look quite tired out! Here,
take this seat by the fire, Georgie, and I'll pour your tea out first of
all. She needs it, don't she?" to Cousin Vi.

"_Miss Talcott_ is rather tired, I dare say," said that lady, icily.
Cousin Vi had lived for sixteen years in daily intercourse with Miss
Sally, one of the sunniest and most friendly of women, and had never
once relaxed into cordiality in all that time. Her code of manners
included no approximation toward familiarity between a Talcott and a
letter of lodgings.

Georgie took a different view. "Thank you so much, dear Miss Sally," she
said. "How good you are! I _am_ tired."

"I wish you wouldn't call Miss Sally 'dear,'" her cousin remarked after
they had gone upstairs. "That sort of thing is most disagreeable to me.
You have to be on your guard continually in a house like this, or you
get mixed up with all sorts of people."

Georgie let it pass. She was too tired to argue.

"Now, let us talk about your plans," Miss Talcott said next morning.
"Have you made any yet?"

"N--o; only that I must find some work to do at once."

"Don't speak like that to any one but me," her cousin said sharply.
"There _are_ lady-like occupations, of course, in which you
can--can--mingle; but they need not be mentioned, or made known to
people in general."

"What _do_ you mean?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. I've never had occasion to look into the
matter, but I suppose a girl situated as you are could find
something,--embroidery, for instance. You could do that for the
Decorative Art. They give you a number, and nobody knows your real
name."

"I thought of embroidery," said Georgie; "but I never was very good at
it, and so many are doing it nowadays. Besides, it seems to me that
people are getting rather tired of all but the finer sort of work."

"What became of that nephew of Mr. Constant Carrington whom you used to
see so much of two or three years ago?" demanded Miss Vi, irrelevantly.

"Bob Curtis? I don't quite know where he is. His father failed, don't
you remember, and lost all his money, and Bob had to leave Harvard and
go into some sort of business?"

"Oh, did he? He's of no consequence, then. I don't know what made me
think of him. Well, you could read to an invalid, perhaps, or go to
Europe with some lady who wanted a companion."

"Or be second-best wing-maker to an angel," put in Georgie, with a
little glint of humor. "Cousin Vi, all that would be very pleasant, but
I don't think it is likely to happen. I'm dreadfully afraid no one wants
me to go to Europe; and I must have something to do at once, you know.
I must earn my bread."

"Don't use such a phrase. It sounds too coarse for anything."

"I don't think so, Cousin Vi. I don't mind working a bit, if only I can
hit on something that somebody wants, and that I can do well."

"This is exactly what I have been afraid of," said Miss Vi,
despairingly. "I've always had a fear that old Jacob Talcott would break
out in you sooner or later. He has skipped two generations, but he was
bound to show himself some day or other. He had exactly that common sort
of way of looking at things and talking about them,--the only Talcott I
ever knew of that did! Don't you recollect how he insisted on putting
his son into business, and the boy ran away and went to the West Indies
and married some sort of Creole,--all his father's fault?

"Now, I'll tell you," she went on after a pause. "I've been thinking
over this matter, and have made up my mind about it. You're not to do
anything foolish, Georgie. If you do, you'll be sorry for it all your
life, and I shall never forgive you besides. Such a good start as you
have made in society, and all; it will be quite too much if you go and
spoil your chances with those ridiculous notions of yours. Now, listen.
If you'll give up all idea of supporting yourself, unless it is by doing
embroidery or something like that, which no one need know about,
I'll--I'll--well--I'll agree to pay your board here at Miss Sally's, and
give you half this room for a year. As likely as not you'll be married
by the end of that time, or if not, something else will have turned up!
Any way, I'll do it for one year. When the year is over, we can talk
about the next." And Miss Talcott folded her hands with the manner of
one who has offered an ultimatum.

If rather a grudging, this was a really generous offer, as Georgie well
knew. To add the expense of her young cousin's board to her own would
cost Miss Vi no end of self-denials, pinchings here and pinchings there,
the daily frets and calculations that weigh so heavily. Miss Talcott's
slender income at its best barely sufficed for the narrow lodgings, to
fight off the shabbiness which would endanger her place in "society,"
and to pay for an occasional cab and theatre ticket. Not to do, or at
least to seem to be doing and enjoying, what other people did, was real
suffering to Cousin Vi. Yet she was deliberately invoking it by her
proposal.

Had it been really made for her sake, had it been quite disinterested,
Georgie would have been deeply touched and grateful; as it was, she was
sufficiently so to thank her cousin warmly, but without committing
herself to acceptance. She must think it over, she said.

She did think it over till her mind fairly ached with the pressure of
thought, as the body does after too much exercise. She walked past the
Woman's Exchange and studied the articles in the windows. There were the
same towels and tidies that had been there two months before, or what
seemed the same. Georgie recollected similar articles worked by people
whom she knew about, for which she had been asked to buy raffle tickets.
"She can't get any one to buy it," had been said. Depending on such work
for a support seemed a bare outlook. She walked away with a little shake
of her head.

"No," she thought; "embroidery wouldn't pay unless I had a 'gift'; and I
don't seem to have a gift for anything unless it is housework. I always
was good at that; but I suppose I can't exactly take a place as
parlor-maid. Cousin Vi would certainly clap me into an asylum if I
suggested such a thing. How nice it would be to have a real genius for
something! Though now that I think of it, a good many geniuses have died
in attics, of starvation, without being able to help themselves."

When she reached home she took a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote
as follows:--

    _Things Wanted._

     1. Something I can do.

     2. Something that somebody wants me to do.

     3. Something that all the other somebodies in search of work
     are not trying to do.

Round these problems her thoughts revolved, and though nothing came of
them as yet, it seemed to clear her mind to have them set down in black
and white.

Meantime the two days' _tête-à-tête_ with Cousin Vi produced one
distinct result, which was, that let come what come might, Georgie
resolved that nothing should induce her to stay on at Miss Sally's as
proposed, and be idle. Her healthy and vigorous youth recoiled from the
idea.

"It is really good of her to ask me," she thought, "though she only does
it for the honor of the family and the dead-and-gone Talcotts. But what
a life it would be, and for a whole year too! Cousin Vi has stood it for
sixteen, to be sure, poor thing! but how could she? Mother used to say
that she was called a bright girl when she first grew up. Surely she
might have made something of herself if she had tried, and if Aunt
Talcott hadn't considered work one of the seven deadly sins for a lady!
She was handsome, too. Even I can recollect her as very good looking.
And here she is, all alone, and getting shabbier and poorer all the
time. I know she sometimes has not money enough to pay her board, and
has to ask Miss Sally to wait, snubbing her and despising her all the
time, and holding on desperately to her little figment of gentility.
People laugh at her and make fun of her behind her back. They invite her
now and then, but they don't really care for her. What is such a society
worth? I'll take in washing before I'll come to be like Cousin Vi!"

       *       *       *       *       *

How little we guess, as we grope in the mists of our own uncertainties,
just where the light is going to break through! Georgie Talcott,
starting for a walk with her cousin on the third day of her stay at
Miss Sally's, saw the St. John carriage pass them and then pull up
suddenly at the curb-stone; but she had no idea that so simple a
circumstance could affect her fate in any manner. It did, though.

Mrs. St. John was leaning out of the window before they got to the place
where the carriage stood, and two prettily gloved hands were stretched
eagerly forth.

"Georgie! oh Georgie, how glad I am to see you out, dear! I made Henry
stop, because I want you to get in for a little drive and then come home
with me to lunch. Mr. St. John is in New York. I am quite alone, and
I'll give orders that no one shall be admitted, if you will. Don't you
think she might, Miss Talcott? It isn't like going anywhere else, you
know,--just coming to me quietly like that."

"I don't see that there would be any impropriety in it," said Miss
Talcott, doubtfully; "though--with you, however, it _is_ different. But
please don't mention it to any one, Mrs. St. John. It might be
misunderstood and lead to invitations which Georgie could not possibly
accept. Good-morning."

With a stately bend Cousin Vi sailed down the street. Mrs. St. John, I
am sorry to say, made a face after her as she went.

"Absurd old idiot!" she muttered. "Such airs!" Then she drew Georgie in,
and as soon as the carriage was in motion pulled her veil aside and gave
her a warm kiss.

"I am so glad to get hold of you again!" she said.

Mrs. St. John, rich, childless, warm-hearted, and not over-wise, had
adopted Georgie as a special pet on her first appearance in society two
years before. It is always pleasant for a girl to be made much of by an
older woman; and when that woman has a carriage and a nice house, and
can do all sorts of things for the girl's entertainment, it is none the
less agreeable. Georgie was really fond of her friend. People who are
not over-wise are often loved as much as wiser ones; it is one of the
laws of compensation.

"Now tell me all about yourself, and what you have been doing this past
week," said Mrs. St. John, as they drove down to the beach, where the
surf-rollers had swept the sands clean of snow and left a dry, smooth
roadway for the horses' feet. The sea wore its winter color that day,--a
deep purple-blue, broken by flashing foam-caps; the wind was blowing
freshly; a great sense of refreshment came to Georgie, who had been
wearying for a change.

"It has been rather sad and hard," she said. "I have had the house to
clear out and close, and all manner of things to do, and I was pretty
tired when I finished. But I am getting rested now, and by and by I want
to talk over my affairs with you."

"Plans?" asked Mrs. St. John.

"Not exactly. I have no plans as yet; but I must have some soon. Now
tell me what _you_ have been doing."

Mrs. St. John was never averse to talking about herself. She always had
a mass of experiences and adventures to relate, which though
insignificant enough when you came to analyze them, were so deeply
interesting to herself that somehow her auditors got interested in them
also. Georgie, used to her ways, listened and sympathized without
effort, keeping her eyes fixed meanwhile on the shining, shifting
horizon of the sea, and the lovely arch of clear morning sky. How wide
and free and satisfactory it was; how different from the cramped outlook
into which she had perforce been gazing for days back!

"If life could all be like that!" she thought.

The St. John house seemed a model of winter comfort, bright,
flower-scented, and deliciously warm, as they entered it after their
drive. Mrs. St. John rang for her maid to take off their wraps, and led
Georgie through the drawing-room and the library to a smaller room
beyond, which was her favorite sitting-place of a morning.

"We will have luncheon here close to the fire," she said, "and be as
cosey as possible."

It was a pretty room, not over-large, fitted up by a professional
decorator in a good scheme of color, and crowded with ornaments of all
sorts, after the modern fashion. It was many weeks since Georgie had
seen it, and its profusion and costliness of detail struck her as it
never had done before. Perhaps she was in the mood to observe closely.

They were still sipping their hot _bouillon_ in great comfort, when a
sudden crash was heard in the distance.

"There!" said Mrs. St. John, resignedly; "that's the second since
Monday! What is it _now_, Pierre?"

She pushed back her chair and went hurriedly into the farther room.
Presently she came back laughing, but looking flushed and annoyed.

"It's really too vexatious," she said. "There seems no use at all in
buying pretty things, the servants do break them so."

"What was it this time?" asked Georgie.

"It was my favorite bit of Sèvres. Don't you recollect it,--two lovely
little shepherdesses in blue Watteaus, holding a flower-basket between
them? Pierre says his feather duster caught in the open-work edge of the
basket."

"Why do you let him use feather dusters? The feathers are so apt to
catch."

"My dear, what can I do? Each fresh servant has his or her theory as to
how things should be cleaned. Whatever the theory is, the china goes all
the same; and I can't tell them any better. I don't know a thing about
dusting."

That moment, as if some quick-witted fairy had waved her wand, an idea
darted like a flash into Georgie's head.

She took five minutes to consider it, while Mrs. St. John went on:--

"People talk of the hardship of not being able to have things; but I
think it's just as hard to have them and not be allowed to keep them. I
don't dare to let myself care for a piece of china nowadays, for if I do
it's the first thing to go. Pierre's a treasure in other respects, but
he smashes most dreadfully; and the second man is quite as bad; and
Marie, upstairs, is worse than either. Mr. St. John says I ought to be
'mistress of myself, though china fall;' but I really can't."

Georgie, who had listened to this without listening, had now made up her
mind.

"Would you like me to dust your things?" she said quietly.

"My dear, they _are_ dusted. Pierre has got through for this time. He
won't break anything more till to-morrow."

"Oh, I don't mean only to-day; I mean every day. Yes, I'm in earnest,"
she went on in answer to her friend's astonished look. "I was meaning to
talk to you about something of this sort presently, and now this has
come into my head. You see," smiling bravely, "I find that I have got
almost nothing to live upon. There is not even enough to pay my board at
such a place as Miss Sally's. I must do something to earn money; and
dusting is one of the few things that I can do particularly well."

"But, my dear, I never heard of such a thing," gasped poor Mrs. St.
John. "Surely your friends and connections will arrange something for
you."

"They can't; they are all dead," replied Georgie, sadly. "Our family has
run out. I've one cousin in China whom I never saw, and one great-aunt
down in Tennessee who is almost as poor as I am, and that's all except
Cousin Vi."

"She's no good, of course; but she's sure to object to your doing
anything all the same."

"Oh yes, of course she objects," said Georgie, impatiently. "She would
like to tie my hands and make me sit quite still for a year and see if
something won't happen; but I can't and won't do it; and, besides, what
is there to happen? Nothing. She was kind about it, too--" relenting;
"she offered to pay my board and share her room with me if I consented;
but I would so much rather get to work at once and be independent. Do
let me do your dusting," coaxingly; "I'll come every morning and put
these four rooms in nice order; and you need never let Pierre or Marie
or any one touch the china again, unless you like. I can almost promise
that I won't break anything!"

"My dear, it would be beautiful for me, but perfectly horrid for you! I
quite agree with your cousin for once. It will never do in the world for
you to attempt such a thing. People would drop you at once; you would
lose your position and all your chance, if it was known that you were
doing that kind of work."

"But don't you see," cried Georgie, kneeling down on the hearth-rug to
bring her face nearer to her friend's,--"don't you see that I've _got_
to be dropped any way? Not because I have done anything, not because
people are unkind, but just from the necessity of things. I have no
money to buy dresses to go out and enjoy myself with. I have no money to
stay at home on, in fact,--I _must_ do something. And to live like
Cousin Vi on the edge of things, just tolerated by people, and mortified
and snubbed, and then have a little crumb of pleasure tossed to me, as
one throws the last scrap of cake that one doesn't want to a cat or a
dog,--_that_ is what I could not possibly bear.

"I like fun and pretty things and luxury as well as other people," she
continued, after a little pause. "It isn't that I shouldn't _prefer_
something different. But everybody can't be well off and have things
their own way; and since I am one of the rank and file, it seems to me
much wiser to give up the things I _can't_ have, out and out, and not
try to be two persons at once, a young lady and a working-girl, but put
my whole heart into the thing I must be, and do it just as well as I
can. Don't you see that I am right?"

"You poor dear darling!" said Mrs. St. John, with tears in her eyes.
Then her face cleared.

"Very well," she said briskly, "you _shall_. It will be the greatest
comfort in the world to have you take charge of the ornaments. _Now_ I
can buy as many cups and saucers as I like, and with an easy mind. You
must stay and lunch, always, Georgie. I'll give you a regular salary,
and when the weather's bad I shall keep you to dinner too, and to spend
the night. That's settled; and now let us decide what I shall give you.
Would fifty dollars a month be enough?"

"My dear Mrs. St. John! Fifty! Two dollars a week was what I was
thinking of."

"Two dollars! oh, you foolish child! You never could live on that! You
don't know anything at all about expenses, Georgie."

"But I don't mean only to do _your_ dusting. If you are satisfied, I
depend on your recommending me to your friends. I could take care of
four sets of rooms just as well as of one. There are so many people in
Sandyport who have beautiful houses and collections of bric-à-brac, that
I think there might be as many as that who would care to have me if I
didn't cost too much. Four places at two dollars each would make eight
dollars a week. I could live on that nicely."

"I wish you'd count me in as four," said Mrs. St. John. "I should see
four times as much of you, and it would make me four hundred times
happier."

But Georgie was firm, and before they parted it was arranged that she
should begin her new task the next morning, and that her friend should
do what she could to find her similar work elsewhere.

Her plan once made, Georgie suffered no grass to grow under her feet.
On the way home she bought some cheese-cloth and a stiff little brush
with a pointed end for carvings, and before the next day had provided
herself with a quantity of large soft dusters and two little phials of
alcohol and oil, and had hunted up a small pair of bellows, which
experience had shown her were invaluable for blowing the dust out of
delicate objects. Her first essay was a perfect success. Mrs. St. John,
quite at a loss how to face the changed situation, gave her a
half-troubled welcome; but Georgie's business-like methods reassured
her. She followed her about and watched her handle each fragile treasure
with skilful, delicate fingers till all was in perfect fresh order, and
gave a great sigh of admiration and relief when the work was done.

"Now come and sit down," she said. "How tired you must be!"

"Not a bit," declared Georgie; "I like to dust, strange to say, and I'm
not tired at all; I only wish I had another job just like it to do at
once. I see it's what I was made for."

By the end of the week Georgie had another regular engagement, and it
became necessary to break the news of her new occupation to Cousin Vi.
I regret to say that the disclosure caused an "unpleasantness," between
them.

"I would not have believed such a thing possible even with you,"
declared that lady with angry tears. "The very idea marks you out as a
person of low mind. It's enough to make your Grandmother Talcott rise
from her grave! In the name of common decency, couldn't you hunt up
something to do, if do you must, except this?"

"Nothing that I could do so well and so easily, Cousin Vi."

"Don't call me Cousin Vi, I beg! There was no need of doing anything
whatever. I asked you to stay here,--you cannot deny that I did."

"I don't wish to deny it," said Georgie, gently. "It was ever so kind of
you, too. Don't be so vexed with me, Cousin Vi. We look at things
differently, and I don't suppose either of us can help it; but don't let
us quarrel. You're almost the only relative that I have in the world."

"Quarrel!" cried Miss Talcott with a shrill laugh,--"quarrel with a girl
that goes out dusting! That isn't in my line, I am happy to say. As for
being relatives, we are so no longer, and I shall say so to everybody.
Great Heavens! what will people think?"

After this outburst it was evident to Georgie that it was better that
she should leave Miss Sally's as soon as possible. But where to go? She
consulted Miss Sally. That astute person comprehended the situation in
the twinkling of an eye, and was ready with a happy suggestion.

"There's my brother John's widder in the lower street," she said. "She's
tolerably well off, and hasn't ever taken boarders; but she's a sort of
lonesome person, and I shouldn't wonder if I could fix it so she'd feel
like taking you, and reasonable too. It's mighty handy about that
furniture of yours, for her upstairs rooms ain't got nothing in them to
speak of, and of course she wouldn't want to buy. I'll step down after
dinner and see about it."

Miss Sally was a power in her family circle, and she knew it. Before
night she had talked Mrs. John Scannell into the belief that to take
Georgie to board at five dollars a week was the thing of all others that
she most wanted to do; and before the end of two days all was arranged,
and Georgie inducted into her new quarters. It was a little low-pitched,
old-fashioned house, but it had some pleasant features, and was very
neat. A big corner room with a window to the south and another to the
sunset was assigned to Georgie for her bedroom. The old furniture that
she had been used to all her life made it look homelike, and the
hair-cloth sofa and the secretary and square mahogany table were welcome
additions to the rather scantily furnished sitting-room below, which she
shared at will with her hostess. Mrs. Scannell was a gentle, kindly
woman, the soul of cleanliness and propriety, but subject to low
spirits; and contact with Georgie's bright, hopeful youth was as
delightful to her as it was beneficial. She soon became very fond of "my
young lady," as she called her, and Georgie could not have been better
placed as to kindness and comfortableness.

A better place than Sandyport for just such an experiment as she was
making could scarcely have been found. Many city people made it their
home for the summer; but at all times of the year there was a
considerable resident population of wealthy people. Luxurious homes were
rather the rule than the exception, and there was quite a little
rivalry as to elegance of appointment among them. Mrs. St. John's
enthusiasm and Mrs. St. John's recommendation bore fruit, and it was not
long before Georgie had secured her coveted "four places."

Two of her employers were comparative strangers; with the fourth, Mrs.
Constant Carrington, she had been on terms of some intimacy in the old
days, but was not much so now. It _is_ rather difficult to keep up
friendship with your "dusting girl," as her Cousin Vi would have said;
Mrs. Carrington called her "Georgie" still, when they met, and was
perfectly civil in her manners, but always there was the business
relation to stand between them, and Georgie felt it. Mrs. St. John still
tried to retain the pretty pretext that Georgie's labors were a sort of
joke, a playing with independence; but there was nothing of this pretext
with the other three. To them, Georgie was simply a useful adjunct to
their luxurious lives, as little to be regarded as the florist who
filled their flower-boxes or the man who tuned their pianos.

These little rubs to self-complacency were not very hard to bear. It was
not exactly pleasant, certainly, to pass in at the side entrance where
she had once been welcomed at the front door; to feel that her comings
and her goings were so insignificant as to be scarcely noticed; now and
then, perhaps, to be treated with scant courtesy by an ill-mannered
servant. This rarely chanced, however. Georgie had a little natural
dignity which impressed servants as well as other people, and from her
employers she received nothing but the most civil treatment. Fashion is
not unkindly, and it was still remembered that Miss Talcott was born a
lady, though she worked for a living. There were stormy days and dull
days, days when Georgie felt tired and discouraged; or, harder still to
bear, bright days and gala days, when she saw other girls of her age
setting forth to enjoy themselves in ways now closed to her. I will not
deny that she suffered at such moments, and wished with all her heart
that things could be different. But on the whole she bore herself
bravely and well, and found some happiness in her work, together with a
great deal of contentment.

Mrs. St. John added to her difficulties by continual efforts to tempt
her to do this and that pleasant thing which Georgie felt to be
inexpedient. She wanted her favorite to play at young ladyhood in her
odd minutes, and defy the little frosts and chills which Georgie
instinctively knew would be her portion if she should attempt to enter
society again on the old terms. If Georgie urged that she had no proper
dress, the answer was prompt,--"My dear, I am going to give you a
dress;" or, "My dear, you can wear my blue, we are just the same
height." But Georgie stood firm, warded off the shower of gifts which
was ready to descend upon her, and loving her friend the more that she
was so foolishly kind, would not let herself be persuaded into doing
what she knew was unwise.

"I can't be two people at once," she persisted. "There's not enough of
me for that. You remember what I said that first day, and I mean to
stick to it. You are a perfect darling, and just as kind as you can be;
but you must just let me go my own way, dear Mrs. St. John, and be
satisfied to know that it is the comfort of my life to have you love me
so much, though I won't go to balls with you."

But though Georgie would not go to balls or dinner-parties, there were
smaller gayeties and pleasures which she did not refuse,--drives and
sails now and then, tickets to concerts and lectures, or a long quiet
Sunday with a "spend the night" to follow. These little breaks in her
busy life were wholesome and refreshing, and she saw no reason for
denying them to herself. There was nothing morbid in my little Knight of
Labor, which was one reason why she labored so successfully.

So the summer came and went, and Georgie with it, keeping steadily on at
her daily task. All that she found to do she did as thoroughly and as
carefully as she knew how. She was of real use, and she knew it. Her
work had a value. It was not imaginary work, invented as a pretext for
giving her help, and the fact supported her self-respect.

We are told in one of our Lord's most subtly beautiful parables, that to
them who make perfect use of their one talent, other talents shall be
added also. Many faithful workers have proved the meaning and the truth
of the parable, and Georgie Talcott found it now among the rest. With
the coming in of the autumn another sphere of activity was suddenly
opened to her. It sprang, as good things often do, from a seeming
disappointment.

She was drawing on her gloves one morning at the close of her labors,
when a message was brought by the discreet English butler.

"Mrs. Parish says, Miss, will you be so good as to step up to her
morning-room before you go."

"Certainly, Frederick." And Georgie turned and ran lightly upstairs.
Mrs. Parish was sitting at her writing-table with rather a preoccupied
face.

"I sent for you, Miss Talcott, because I wanted to mention that we are
going abroad for the winter," she began. "Maud isn't well, the doctors
recommend the Riviera, so we have decided rather suddenly on our plans,
and are to sail on the 'Scythia' the first of November. We shall be gone
a year."

"Dear me," thought Georgie, "there's another of my places lost! It is
quite dreadful!" She was conscious of a sharp pang of inward
disappointment.

"My cousin, Mrs. Ernest Stockton, is to take the place," continued Mrs.
Parish. "Her husband has been in the legation at Paris, you know, for
the last six years, but now they are coming back for good; and when I
telegraphed her of our decision, she at once cabled to secure this
house. They will land the week after we sail, and I suppose will want
to come up at once. Now, of course all sorts of things have got to be
done to make ready for them; but it's out of the question that I should
do them, for what with packing and the children's dressmaking and
appointments at the dentist's and all that, my hands are so full that I
could not possibly undertake anything else. So I was thinking of you.
You have so much head and system, you know, and I could trust you as I
could not any stranger, and you know the house so well; and you could
get plenty of people to help, so that it need not be burdensome. There
will be some things to be packed away, and the whole place to be
cleaned, floors waxed and curtains washed, the Duchesse dressing-tables
taken to pieces and done up and fluted,--all that sort of thing, you
know. Oh! and there would be an inventory to make, too; I forgot that.
Then next year I should want it gone over again in the same way,--the
articles that are packed taken out and put into place, and so on, that
it may look natural when we come home. My idea would be to move the
family down to New York on the 15th, so as to give you a clear
fortnight, and just come up for one day before we sail, for a final
look. Of course I should leave the keys in your charge, and I should
want you to take the whole responsibility. Now, will you do it, and just
tell me what you will ask for it all?"

"May I think it over for one night?" said prudent Georgie. "I will come
to-morrow morning with my answer."

She thought it over carefully, and seemed to see that here was a new
vista of remunerative labor opened to her, of a more permanent character
than mere dusting. So she signified to Mrs. Parish that she would
undertake the job, and having done so, bent her mind to doing it in the
best possible manner. She made careful lists, and personally
superintended each detail. Miss Sally recommended trustworthy
workpeople, and everything was carried out to the full satisfaction of
Mrs. Parish, who could not say enough in praise of Georgie and her
methods.

"It robs going to Europe of half its terrors to have such a person to
turn to," she told her friends. "That little Miss Talcott is really
wonderful,--so clear-headed and exact. It's really extraordinary where
she learned it all, such a girl as she is. If any of you are going
abroad, you'll find her the greatest comfort possible."

These commendations bore fruit. People in Sandyport were always setting
forth for this part of the world or that, and leaving houses behind
them. A second job of the same sort was soon urged upon Georgie,
followed by a third and a fourth. It was profitable work, for she had
fifty dollars in each case (a hundred for her double job at the Algernon
Parishes'); so her year's expenses were assured, and she was not sorry
when another of her "dusting" families went to Florida for the winter.

It became the fashion in Sandyport to employ "little Miss Talcott." Her
capabilities once discovered, people were quick in finding out ways in
which to utilize them. Mrs. Robert Brown had the sudden happy thought of
getting Georgie to arrange the flowers for a ball which she was giving.
Georgie loved flowers, and had that knack of making them look charming
in vases which is the gift of a favored few. The ball decorations were
admired and commented upon; people said it was "so clever of Mrs.
Brown," and "so much better than stiff things from a florist's," and
presently half a dozen other ladies wanted the same thing done for
them. Fashion and sheep always follow any leader who is venturesome
enough to try a new fence.

Later, Mrs. Horace Brown, with her cards out for a great lawn-party, had
the misfortune to sprain her ankle. In this emergency she bethought
herself of Georgie, who thereupon proved so "invaluable" as a _dea ex
machina_ behind the scenes, that thenceforward Mrs. Brown never felt
that she could give any sort of entertainment without her help.
Engagements thickened, and Georgie's hands became so full that she
laughingly threatened to "take a partner."

"That's just what I always wanted you to do," said Mrs. St. John,--"a
real nice one, with heaps of money, who would take you about everywhere,
and give you a good time."

"Oh, that's not at all the sort I want," protested Georgie, laughing and
blushing. "I mean a real business partner, a fellow-sweeperess and
house-arranger and ball-supper-manageress!"

"Wretched girl, how horribly practical you are! I wish I could see you
discontented and sentimental just for once!"

"Heaven forbid! That _would_ be a pretty state of things! Now good-by. I
have about half a ton of roses to arrange for Mrs. Lauriston."

"Oh,--for her dance! Georgie," coaxingly, "why not go for once with me?
Come, just this once. There's that white dress of mine from _Pingat_,
with the _Point de Venie_ sleeves, that would exactly fit you."

"Nonsense!" replied Georgie, briefly. She kissed her friend and hurried
away.

"I declare," soliloquized Mrs. St. John, looking after her, "I could
find it in my heart to _advertise_ for some one to come and rescue
Georgie Talcott from all this hard work! What nice old times those were
when you had only to get up a tournament and blow a trumpet or two, and
have true knights flock in from all points of the compass in aid of
distressed damsels! I wish such things were in fashion now; I would buy
a trumpet this very day, I vow, and have a tournament next week."

Georgie's true knight, as it happened, was to come from a quarter little
suspected by Mrs. St. John. For the spare afternoons of this second
winter Georgie had reserved rather a large piece of work, which had
the advantage that it could be taken up at will and laid down when
convenient. This was the cataloguing of a valuable library belonging to
Mr. Constant Carrington. That gentleman had observed Georgie rather
closely as she went about her various avocations, and had formed so high
an opinion of what he was pleased to term her "executive ability," that
he made a high bid for her services in preference to those of any one
else.

[Illustration: Recognizing an old friend, she jumped up, exclaiming,
"Why Bob--Mr. Curtis--how do you do?"--_Page 49._]

She was sitting in this library one rainy day in January, beside a big
packing-case, with a long row of books on the table, which she was
dusting, classifying, and noting on the list in her lap, when the door
opened and a tall young man came in. Georgie glanced at him vaguely, as
at a stranger; then recognizing an old friend, she jumped up,
exclaiming, "Why Bob--Mr. Curtis,--how do you do? I had no idea that you
were here."

Bob Curtis looked bewildered. He had reached Sandyport only that
morning. No one had chanced to mention Georgie or the change in her
fortunes, and for a moment he failed to recognize in the white-aproned,
dusty-fingered vision before him the girl whom he had known so well five
years previously.

"It is?--why it _is_," he exclaimed. "Miss Georgie, how delighted I am
to see you! I was coming down to call as soon as I could find out where
you were. My aunt said nothing about your being in the house."

"Very likely she did not know. I am in and out so often here that I do
not always see Mrs. Carrington."

"Indeed!" Bob looked more puzzled than ever. He had not remembered that
there was any such close intimacy in the old days between the two
families.

"I can't shake hands, I am too dusty," went on Georgie. "But I am very
glad indeed to see you again."

She too was taking mental notes, and observing that her former friend
had lost somewhat of the gloss and brilliance of his boyish days; that
his coat was not of the last cut; and that his expression was
spiritless, not to say discontented. "Poor fellow!" she thought.

"What on earth does it all mean?" meditated Bob on his part.

"These books only came yesterday," said Georgie, indicating the big box
with a wave of the hand.

"I have had to dust them all; and I find that Italian dust sticks just
as the American variety does, and makes the fingers just as black." A
little laugh.

"What _are_ you doing, if I may be so bold as to ask?"

"Cataloguing your uncle's library. He has been buying quantities of
books for the last two years, as perhaps you know. He has a man in
Germany and another in Paris and another in London, who purchase for
him, and the boxes are coming over almost every week now. A great case
full of the English ones arrived last Saturday,--such beauties! Look at
that Ruskin behind you. It is the first edition, with all the plates,
worth its weight in gold."

"It's awfully good of you to take so much trouble, I'm sure," remarked
Mr. Curtis politely, still with the same mystified look.

"Not at all," replied Georgie, coolly. "It's all in my line of business,
you know. Mr. Carrington is to give me a hundred dollars for the job;
which is excellent pay, because I can take my own time for doing it, and
work at odd moments."

Her interlocutor looked more perplexed than ever. A distinct
embarrassment became visible in his manner at the words "job" and "pay."

"Certainly," he said. Then coloring a little he frankly went on, "I
don't understand a bit. Would you mind telling me what it all means?"

"Oh, you haven't happened to hear of my 'befalments,' as Miss Sally
Scannell would call them."

"I did hear of your mother's death," said Bob, gently, "and I was truly
sorry. She was so kind to me always in the old days."

"She was kind to everybody. I am glad you were sorry," said Georgie,
bright tears in the eyes which she turned with a grateful look on Bob.
"Well, that was the beginning of it all."

There was another pause, during which Bob pulled his moustache
nervously! Then he drew a chair to the table and sat down.

"Can you talk while you're working?" he asked. "And mayn't I help? It
seems as though I might at least lift those books out for you. Now, if
you don't mind, if it isn't painful, won't you tell me what has happened
to you, for I see that something _has_ happened."

"A great deal has happened, but it isn't painful to tell about it.
Things _were_ puzzling at first, but they have turned out wonderfully;
and I'm rather proud of the way they have gone."

So, little by little, with occasional interruptions for lifting out
books and jotting down titles, she told her story, won from point to
point by the eager interest which her companion showed in the narrative.
When she had finished, he brought his hand down heavily on the table.

"I'll tell you what," he exclaimed with vigorous emphasis, "it's most
extraordinary that a girl should do as you have done. You're an absolute
little _brick_,--if you'll excuse the phrase. But it makes a fellow--it
makes _me_ more ashamed of myself than I've often been in my life
before."

"But why,--why should you be ashamed?"

"Oh, I've been having hard times too," explained Bob, gloomily. "But I
haven't been so plucky as you. I've minded them more."

Georgie knew vaguely something of these "hard times." In the "old days,"
five years before, when she was seventeen and he a Harvard Junior of
twenty, spending a long vacation with his uncle, and when they had
rowed and danced and played tennis together so constantly as to set
people to wondering if anything "serious" was likely to arise from the
intimacy, the world with all its opportunities and pleasures seemed open
to the heir of the Curtis family. Bob's father was rich, the family
influential, there seemed nothing that he might not command at will.

Then all was changed suddenly; a great financial panic swept away the
family fortunes in a few weeks. Mr. Curtis died insolvent, and Robert
was called on to give up many half-formed wishes and ambitions, and face
the stern realities. What little could be saved from the wreck made a
scanty subsistence for his mother and sisters; he must support himself.
For more than two years he had been filling a subordinate position in a
large manufacturing business. His friends considered him in luck to
secure such a place; and he was fain to agree with them, but the
acknowledgment did not make him exactly happy in it, notwithstanding.

Discipline can hardly be agreeable. Bob Curtis had been a little spoiled
by prosperity; and though he did his work fairly well, there was always
a bitterness at heart, and a certain tinge of false shame at having it
to do at all. He worked because he must, he told himself, not because he
liked or ever should like it. All the family traditions were opposed to
work. Then he had the natural confidence of a very young man in his own
powers, and it was not pleasant to be made to feel at every turn that he
was raw, inexperienced, not particularly valuable to anybody, and that
no one especially looked up to or admired him. He scorned himself for
minding such things; but all the same he did mind them, and the frank,
kindly young fellow was in danger of becoming soured and cynical in his
lonely and uncongenial surroundings.

It was just at this point that good fortune brought him into contact
with Georgie Talcott, and it was like the lifting of a veil from before
his eyes. He recollected her such a pretty, care-free creature, petted
and adored by her mother, every day filled with pleasant things, not a
worry or cloud allowed to shadow the bright succession of her
amusements; and here she sat telling him of a fight with necessity
compared with which his seemed like child's play, and out of which she
had come victorious. He was struck, too, with the total absence of
embarrassment and false shame in the telling. Work, in Georgie's mind,
was evidently a thing to be proud of and thankful over, not something to
be practised shyly, and alluded to with bated breath. The contrast
between his and her way of looking at the thing struck him sharply.

It did not take long for Georgie to arrive at the facts in Bob's case.
Confidence begets confidence; and in another day or two, won by her
bright sympathy, he gradually made a clean breast of his troubles.
Somehow they did not seem so great after they were told. Georgie's
sympathy was not of a weakening sort, and her questions and comments
seemed to clear things to his mind, and set them in right relations to
each other.

"I don't think that I pity you much," she told him one day. "Your mother
and the girls, yes, because they are women and not used to it, and it
always _is_ harder for girls--"

"See here, you're a girl yourself," put in Bob.

"No--I'm a business person. Don't interrupt. What I was going to say
was, that I think it's _lovely_ for a young man to have to work! We are
all lazy by nature; we need to be shaken up and compelled to do our
best. You will be ten times as much of a person in the end as if you had
always had your own way."

"Do you really think that? But what's the use of talking? I may stick
where I am for years, and never do more than just make a living."

"I wouldn't!" said Georgie, throwing back her pretty head with an air of
decision. "I should scorn to 'stick' if I were a man! And I don't
believe you will either. If you once go into it heartily and put your
will into it, you're sure to succeed. I always considered you clever,
you know. You'll go up--up--as sure as, as sure as _dust_,--that's the
thing of all the world that's most certain to rise, I think."

"'Overmastered with a clod of valiant marl,'" muttered Robert below his
breath; then aloud, "Well, if that's the view you take of it, I'll do my
best to prove you right. It's worth a good deal to know that there is
somebody who expects something of me."

"I expect everything of you," said Georgie confidently. And Bob went
back to his post at the end of the fortnight infinitely cheered and
heartened.

"Bless her brave little heart!" he said to himself. "I won't disappoint
her if I can help it; or, if I must, I'll know the reason why."

It is curious, and perhaps a little humiliating, to realize how much our
lives are affected by what may be called accident. A touch here or
there, a little pull up or down to set us going, often determines the
direction in which we go, and direction means all. Robert Curtis in
after times always dated the beginning of his fortunes from the day when
he walked into his uncle's library and found Georgie Talcott cataloguing
books.

"It set me to making a man of myself," he used to say.

Georgie did not see him for more than a year after his departure, but he
wrote twice to say that he had taken her advice and it had "worked," and
he had "got a rise." The truth was that the boy had an undeveloped
capacity for affairs, inherited from the able old grandfather, who laid
the foundations of the fortune which Bob's father muddled away. When
once will and energy were roused and brought into play, this hereditary
bent asserted itself. Bob became valuable to his employers, and like
Georgie's "dust," began to go up in the business scale.

Georgie had just successfully re-established the Algernon Parishes, who
arrived five months later than was expected, in their home, when Bob
came up for a second visit to his uncle. This time he had three weeks'
leave, and it was just before he went back that he proposed the
formation of what he was pleased to call "A Labor Union."

"You see I'm a working man now just as you are a working woman," he
explained. "It's our plain duty to co-operate. You shall be Grand
Master--or rather Mistress--and I'll be some sort of a subordinate,--a
Walking Delegate, perhaps."

"Indeed, you shall be nothing of the sort. Walking Delegates are
particularly idle people, I've always heard. They just go about ordering
other folks to stop work and do nothing."

"Then I won't be one. I'll be Grand Master's Mate."

"There's no such office in Labor Unions. If we have one at all, you must
have the first place in it."

"What is that position? Please describe it in full. Whatever happens, I
won't strike."

"Oh," said Georgie, with the prettiest blush in the world, "the position
is too intricate for explanation; we won't describe it."

"But will you join the Union?"

"I thought we had joined already,--both of us."

"Now, Georgie, dearest, I'm in earnest. Thanks to you, I know what work
means and how good it is. And now I want my reward, which is to work
beside you always as long as I live. Don't turn away your head, but tell
me that I may."

I cannot tell you exactly what was Georgie's answer, for this
conversation took place on the beach, and just then they sat down on the
edge of a boat and began to talk in such low tones that no one could
overhear; but as they sat a long time and she went home leaning
contentedly on Bob's arm, I presume she answered as he wished. He went
back to his work soon afterward, and has made his way up very fast
since. Next spring the firm with which he is connected propose to send
him to Chicago to start a new branch of their business there. He is to
have a good salary and a share of the profits, and it is understood that
Georgie will go with him. She has kept on steadily at her various
avocations, has made herself so increasingly useful that all Sandyport
wonders what it shall do without her when she goes away, and has laid up
what Miss Sally calls "a tidy bit of money" toward the furnishing of the
home which she and Bob hope to have before long. Mrs. St. John has many
plans in mind for the wedding; and though Georgie laughingly protests
that she means to be married in a white apron, with a wreath of "dusty
miller" round her head, I dare say she will give in when the time comes,
and consent to let her little occasion be made pretty. Even a girl who
works likes to have her marriage day a bright one.

Cousin Vi, for her part, is dimly reaching out toward a reconciliation.
For, be it known, work which brings success, and is proved to have a
solid money value of its own, loses in the estimation of the fastidious
its degrading qualities, and is spoken of by the more euphonious title
of "good fortune." It is only work which doesn't succeed, which remains
forever disrespectable. I think I may venture to predict that the time
will come when Cousin Vi will condone all Georgie's wrong-doings, and
extend, not the olive-branch only, but both hands, to "the Curtises,"
that is if they turn out as prosperous as their friends predict and
expect them to be.

But whatever Fate may have in store for my dear little Georgie and her
chosen co-worker, of one thing I am sure,--that, fare as they may with
worldly fortune, they will never be content, having tasted of the salt
of work, to feed again on the honey-bread of idleness, or become drones
in the working-hive, but will persevere to the end in the principles and
practices of what in the best sense of the word may be called their
Labor Union.




SNOWY PETER.


The weather was very cold, though it was not Christmas yet, and to the
great delight of the Kane children, December had brought an early and
heavy fall of snow. Older people were sorry. They grieved for the swift
vanishing of the lovely Indian summer, for the blighting of the last
flowers, chrysanthemums, snow-berries, bitter-sweet, and for the red
leaves, so pretty but a few days since, which were now blown about and
battered by the strong wind. But the children wasted no sympathy on
either leaves or berries. A snow-storm seemed to them just then better
than anything that ever grew on bush or tree, and they revelled in it
all the long afternoon without a thought of what it had cost the world.

It was a deep snow. It lay over the lawn six inches on a level; in the
hollow by the fence the drifts were at least two feet deep. There was
no lack of building material therefore when Reggie proposed that they
should all go to work and make a fort.

Such a wonderful fort as it turned out to be! It had walls and bastions
and holes for cannon. It had cannon too, all made of snow. It had a
gateway, just like a real fort, and a flag-staff and a flag. The staff
was a tall slender column of snow, and they poured water over it, and it
froze and became a long pole of glittering ice. The flag had a
swallow-tail and was icy too. Reggie had been in New London and Newport
the last summer, he had seen real fortifications and knew how they
should look. Under his direction the little ones built a _glacis_. Some
of you will know what that is,--the steep slippery grass slope which
lies beneath the fort walls and is so hard to climb. This _glacis_ was
harder yet--snow is better than grass for defensive purposes--if only it
would last.

"Now let's make the soldiers," shouted little Paul as the last
shovel-full of snow was spread on the _glacis_ and smoothed down.

"Oh, Paul, we can't, there won't be time," said Elma, the biggest girl,
glancing apprehensively at the sun, which was nearing the edge of the
sky. "It must be five o'clock, and nurse will call us almost right
away."

"Oh, bother! I wish the days weren't so short," said Paul
discontentedly. "Let's make one man, any way; just for a sentry, you
know. There ought to be a sentry to take care of the fort. Can't we,
Elma?"

"Yes--only we must hurry."

The small crew precipitated itself on the drift. None of them were cold,
for exercise had warmed their blood. The little ones gathered great
snowballs and rolled them up to the fort, while the big ones shaped and
moulded. In a wonderfully short time the "man" was completed,--eyes,
nose, and all, and the gun in his hand. A pipe was put into his mouth, a
cocked-hat on his head. Elma curled his hair a little. Susan Sunflower,
as the round-faced younger girl was called for fun, patted and smoothed
his cheeks and forehead with her warm little hands. They made boots for
him, and a coat with buttons on the tail-pocket; he was a beautiful man
indeed! Just as the last touch was given, a window opened and nurse's
head appeared,--the very thing the children had been dreading.

"Come, children, come in to supper," she called out across the snow.
"It's nearly half-past five. You ought to have come in half an hour ago.
Miss Susan, stop working in that snow, nasty cold stuff; you'll catch
your death. Master Reggie, make the little boys hurry, please."

There was never any appeal from Nurse Freeman's decisions, least of all
now when papa and mamma were both away, and she ruled the house as its
undisputed autocrat. Even Reggie, on the verge of twelve, dare not
disobey her. She was English and a martinet, and had been in charge of
the children all their lives; but she was kind as well as strict, and
they loved her. Reluctantly the little troop prepared to go. They picked
up the shovels and baskets, for Nurse Freeman was very particular about
fetching things in and putting them in their places. They took a last
regretful look at their fort. Paul climbed the wall for one more jump
down. Little Harry indulged in a final slide across the _glacis_. Susan
Sunflower stroked the Sentinel's hand. "Good-night, Snowy Peter!" they
cried in chorus, for that was the name they had agreed upon for their
soldier. Then they ran across the lawn in a long skurrying line like a
covey of birds, there was a scraping of feet on the porch, the side-door
closed with a bang, and they were gone.

Left to himself, Snowy Peter stood still in his place beside the gateway
of the fortification. Snowmen usually do stand still, at least till the
time comes for them to melt and run away, so there was nothing strange
in that. What _was_ singular was that about an hour after the children
had left him, when dusk had closed in over the house and the leafless
trees, and "Fort Kane" had grown a vague dim shape, he slowly turned his
head! It was as though the fingers of little Susan had communicated
something of their warmth and fulness of life to the poor senseless
figure while working over it, and this influence was beginning to take
effect. He turned his head and looked in the direction of the house. All
was dark except for the hall lamp below, which shone through the glass
panes above the door, and for two windows in the second story out of
which streamed a strong yellow light. These were the windows of the
nursery, where, at that moment, the children were eating their supper.

Snowy Peter remained for a time in motionless silence looking at the
window. Then his body slowly began to turn, following the movement of
its head. He lifted one stiff ill-shaped foot and moved a step forward.
Then he lifted the other and took another step. His left arm dangled
uselessly; the right hand held out the gun which Paul had made, and
which was of the most curious shape. The tracks which he left in the
snow as he crossed the lawn resembled the odd, waddling tracks of a
flat-footed elephant as much as anything else.

It took him a long, long time to cross the space over which the light
feet of the children had run in two minutes. Each step seemed to cost
him a mighty effort. The right leg would quiver for a moment, then wave
wildly to and fro, then with a sort of galvanic jerk project itself, and
the whole body, with a pitch and a lurch, would plunge forward heavily,
till brought up again in an upright position by the advanced leg. After
that the left leg would take its turn, and the process be repeated.
There was no spring, no supple play to the joints; in fact, Snowy Peter
had no joints. His young creators had left them out while constructing
him.

At last he reached the wall of the house, and stood beneath the windows
where the yellow light was burning. This had been the goal of his
desires; but, alas, now that he had attained the coveted position he
could not look in at the windows--he was far too short. Desperation lent
him energy. A stout lattice was nailed against the house, up which in
summer a flowering clematis twined and clustered. Seizing this, Snowy
Peter began to climb!

Up one bar after another he slowly and painfully went, lifting his heavy
feet and clinging tightly with his poor, stiff hands. His gun-stock
snapped in the middle, his cocked-hat sustained many contusions, even
his nose had more than one hard knock. But he had the heart of a hero,
whom neither danger, nor difficulty, nor personal inconvenience can
deter, and at last his head was on a level with the nursery window-sill.

It was a pleasant sight that met his eyes. No one had slept in the
nursery since Paul had grown big enough for a bed of his own; and though
it kept its own name, it was in reality only a big, cheerful upstairs
sitting-room, where lessons could be studied, meals taken, and Nurse
Freeman sit and do her mending and be on hand always for any one who
wanted her. Now that Mr. and Mrs. Kane were absent, the downstairs rooms
looked vacant and dreary, and the children spent all their evenings in
the nursery from preference. A large fire burned briskly in the ample
grate. A kettle hissed and bubbled on the hob; on the round table where
the lamp stood, was a row of bright little tin basins just emptied of
the smoking-hot bread-and-milk which was the usual nursery supper. Nurse
was cutting slices from a big brown loaf and buttering them with nice
yellow butter. There was also some gingerbread, and by way of special
and particular treat, a pot of strawberry-jam, to which Paul at that
moment was paying attention.

He had scooped out such an enormous spoonful as to attract the notice of
the whole party; and just as Snowy Peter raised his white staring eyes
above the sill, Reggie called out, "Hullo! I say! leave a little of that
for somebody else, will you?"

"Piggy-wiggy," remarked Harry, indignantly; "and it's your second help
too!"

"Master Paul, I'm surprised at you," observed Nurse Freeman severely,
taking the big spoonful away from him. "There, that's quite enough,"
and she put half the quantity on the edge of his plate and gave the
other half to Susan.

"That's not fair," remonstrated Paul, "when I've been working so hard,
and it's so cold, and when I like jam so, and when it's so awfully good
beside."

"Jam! what is jam?" thought Snowy Peter. He pressed his cold nose closer
to the glass.

"We all worked hard, Paul," said Elma, "and we all like jam as much as
you do. May I have some more, Nursey?"

"I wonder how poor Snowy Peter feels all alone out there in the garden,"
said Susan Sunflower. "He must be very cold, poor fellow!"

"Ho, he don't mind it!" declared Paul with his mouth full of
bread-and-jam.

"Oh, yes, I do--I mind it very much," murmured Snowy Peter to himself;
but he had no voice with which to make an outward noise.

"Won't you come out and see him to-morrow, Nursey?" went on Susan. "He's
the best man we ever made. He's quite beautiful. He's got a pipe and a
hat and curly hair and buttons on his coat--I'm sure you'll like him."

Snowy Peter reared himself straighter on the lattice. He was proud to
hear himself thus commended.

"If he could only talk and walk, he'd be just as good as a live person,
really he would, Nursey," said Elma. "Wouldn't it be fun if he could!
We'd bring him in to tea and he'd sit by the fire and warm his hands,
and it would be such fun."

"He'd melt fast enough in this warm room," observed Reggie, while Nurse
Freeman added: "That's nonsense, Miss Elma. How could a man like that
walk? And I don't want no nasty snow images in _my_ nursery, melting and
slopping up the carpet."

Snowy Peter listened to this conversation with a painful feeling at his
heart. He felt lonely and forlorn. No one really liked him. To the
children he was only a thing to be played with and joked about. Nurse
Freeman called him a "nasty snow image." But though he was hurt and
troubled in his spirit, the warm bright nursery, the sound of laughter
and human voices, even the fire, that foe most fatal of all to things
made of snow, had an irresistible attraction for him. He could not bear
the idea of returning to his cold post of duty beside the lonely Fort,
and under the wintry midnight sky. So he still clung to the lattice and
looked in at the window with his unwinking eyes; and a great longing to
be inside, and to sit down by the cheerful fire and be treated with
kindness, took possession of him. But what is the use of such ambitions
to a snow-man?

Long, long he clung to the lattice and lingered and looked in. He saw
the two little ones when first the sand-man began to drop his grains
into their eyes, and noticed how they struggled against the sleepy
influence, and tried to keep awake. He saw Nurse Freeman carry them off,
and presently fetch them back in their flannel nightgowns to say their
prayers beside the fire. Snowy Peter did not know what it meant as they
knelt with their heads in Nursey's lap, and their pink toes curled up in
the glow of the heat, but it was a pretty sight to see, and he liked it.

After they were taken away for the second time, he watched Elma as she
studied her geography lesson for the morrow, while Reggie did sums on
his slate, and Paul played at checkers with Susan Sunflower. Snowy Peter
thought he should like to do sums, and he was sure it would be nice to
play checkers, and jump squares and chuckle and finally beat, as Paul
did. Alas, checkers are not for snow-men! Paul went to bed when the game
was ended, and Susan, and a little later the other two followed. Then
Nurse Freeman raked out the fire and put ashes on top, and blew the
lights out and went away herself, leaving the nursery dark and silent
except for a dim glow from the ash-smothered grate and the low ticking
of the clock.

Some time after she departed, when the lights in the other windows had
all been extinguished and the house was as dark inside as the night was
outside, Snowy Peter raised his hand and pushed gently at the sash. It
was not fastened, and it opened easily and without much noise. Then a
heavy leg was thrown over the sill, and stiffly and painfully the snow
soldier climbed into the room. He wanted to feel what it was like to sit
in a chair beside a table as human beings sit, and he was extremely
curious about the fire.

Alas, he could not sit! He was made to stand but not to bend. When he
tried to seat himself his body lay in a long inclined plane, with the
shoulder-blades resting on the back of the chair, and the legs sticking
out straight before him,--an attitude which was not at all comfortable.
The chair creaked beneath him and tipped dangerously. It was with
difficulty that he got again into his natural position, and he trembled
with fear in every limb. It had been a narrow escape. "A fine thing it
would have been if I had fallen over and not been able to get on my feet
again," he thought. "How that terrible old woman would have swept me up
in the morning!" Then, cautiously and timidly, he put his finger into
the nearly empty jam-pot, rubbed it round till a little of the sweet,
sticky juice adhered to it, and raised it to his lips. It had no taste
to him. Jam was a human joy in which he could not share, and he heaved a
deep sigh.

Drops began to stand on his forehead. Though there was so little fire
left, the room was much warmer than the outer air, and Snowy Peter had
begun to melt. A great and sudden fear took possession of him. As fast
as his heavy limbs would allow, he hastened to the window. It was a
great deal harder to go down the lattice than to climb up it, and twice
he almost lost his footing. But at last he stood safely on the ground.
The window he left open; he had no strength left for extra exertion.

With increasing difficulty he stumbled across the lawn to his old
position beside the gateway of the fort. A sense of duty had sustained
him thus far, for a sentry must be found at his post; but now that he
was there, all power seemed to desert his limbs. Little Susan's warm
fingers had perhaps put just so much life into him, and no more, as
would enable him to do what he had done, as a clock can run but its
appointed course of hours and must then stop. His head turned no longer
in the direction of the house. His eyes looked immovably forward. The
straight stiff hand held out the broken gun. Two o'clock sounded from
the church steeple, three, four. The earliest dawn crept slowly into the
sky. It broadened to a soft pink flush, a sudden wind rose and stirred,
and as if quickened by its impulse up came the yellow sun. Smoke began
to curl from the house chimneys, doors opened, voices sounded, but still
Snowy Peter did not move.

"Why, what is this?" cried Nurse Freeman, hurrying into the nursery from
her bedroom, which was near. "How comes this window to be open? I left
the fire covered up a purpose, that my dears might have a warm room to
breakfast in. It's as cold as a barn. It must be that careless Maria.
She's no head and no thoughtfulness, that girl."

Maria denied the accusation, but Nurse was not convinced. "Windows did
not open without hands," she justly observed. But what hands opened this
particular window Nurse Freeman never, never knew!

Presently another phenomenon claimed her attention. There on the carpet,
close to the table where the jam-pot stood, was a large slop of water.
It marked the spot where the snow-man had begun to melt the night
before.

"It's the snow the children brought in on their boots," suggested Maria.

"Boots!" cried Nurse Freeman incredulously. "Boots! when I changed them
myself and put on their warm slippers!" She shook her head portentously
as she wiped up the slop. "There's something _on_accountable in it all,"
she said. So there was, but it was a great deal more unaccountable than
Nurse Freeman suspected.

When the children ran out, after lessons, to play in their fort, their
time for wonderment came. How oddly Snowy Peter looked,--not at all as
he did the day before. His figure had somehow grown rubbed and shabby.
The buttons were gone from his coat-tails. The gun they had taken such
pains with was broken in two. _Where was the other half?_"

"What's that on his finger?" demanded Elma. "It looks as if it were
bleeding."

It was the juice of the strawberry-jam! Paul first tasted delicately
with the tip of his tongue, then he boldly bit the finger off and
swallowed it.

"Why, what made you do that?" asked the others.

"Jam!" was the succinct reply.

"Jam! Impossible. How could our snow-man get at any jam? It couldn't be
that."

"Tastes like it, any way," remarked Paul.

"I can't think what has happened to spoil him so," said Elma,
plaintively. "Do you think a loose horse can have got into the yard
during the night? See how the snow is trampled down!"

"Hallo, look here!" shouted Reggie. "This is the queerest thing yet.
There's the other half the gun sticking out half-way up the clematis
frame!"

"It must have been a horse," said Elma, who having once settled on the
idea found it hard to give it up. "It couldn't be anything else."

"Oh, yes, it could. It was no horse. It was me," said Snowy Peter in the
depths of his being, where a little warmth still lingered.

"He's very ugly now, I think; see how he's melted all along his
shoulder, and his hair has got out of curl, and his nose is awful,"
pronounced Susan Sunflower. "Let's pull him to pieces and make a nicer
man."

"Oh, oh!" groaned Snowy Peter, with a final effort of consciousness. His
inward sufferings did not affect his features in the least, and no one
suspected that he was feeling anything. Paul knocked the pipe out of his
mouth with a snow-ball. Harry, with a great push, rolled him over. The
crisp snow parted and flew, the children hurrahed; in three minutes he
was a shapeless mass, and nobody ever knew or guessed how for a few
brief hours he had lived the life of a human being, been agitated by
hope and moved by desire. So ended Snowy Peter; and his sole mourner was
little Susan, who remarked, "After all, he _was_ nice before he got
spoiled, and I wish Nursey had seen him."




THE DO SOMETHING SOCIETY.


Clatter, clatter, went a sewing-machine in an upstairs room, as the busy
mamma of the Newcombe children bent over it, guiding the long breadths
beneath the clicking needle, her eyes fixed on its glancing point, but
her thoughts very far away, after the fashion of mammas who work on
sewing-machines. The slam of a door, and the sound of quick feet in the
entry below, arrested her attention.

"That is Catherine, of course," she said to herself. "None of the other
children bang the door in just that particular way."

The top of a rapidly ascending red hat, with a pigtail of fair hair
hanging beneath it, became visible, as Mrs. Newcombe glanced across to
the staircase. It _was_ Catherine. Another moment, and she burst into
the room.

"Mamma, mamma, where are you? Oh, mamma, we girls have invented a
society, and we are all going to belong to it."

"Who is 'all,' and what sort of a society is it?" demanded Mrs.
Newcombe, by no means suspending her machine work.

"All--we six, I mean--Frances and the Vaughns, and the 'Tittering
Twins,' and me. We haven't any name for the society yet, but we want to
do something."

"What sort of a something?"

"Oh, I don't know. All sorts of somethings; but, first of all--you know
how sick Minnie Banister is, don't you, mamma?"

"Yes."

"Well, the society is really gotten up for her. We want to go every
Saturday, and take her presents. Surprises, you know, so that she can be
sort of expecting us all the week and looking forward. Don't you think
that is a good plan, mamma?"

"Very good; but what kind of presents were you thinking of?"

"I don't know exactly; we haven't thought about that yet. Something
pretty. You'll give us some money to buy them with, won't you, mamma?"

"No, dear, I can't do that."

"But, mamma!"

"Listen, Catherine, and don't pucker your forehead so. It's a bad habit
which you have taken up lately, and I want you to break yourself of it.
I cannot give you money to buy presents; not that I do not love Minnie,
or am not sorry for her, but I cannot afford it. Papa has his own boys
and girls to feed and clothe and educate. He cannot spare money for
things that are not necessary, even when they are kind pleasant things
like this plan of yours."

"But, mamma--little bits of things! It wouldn't take much!"

"You naturally feel that there is no bottom to papa's pocket, Catherine;
that he has only to put his hand in and take out what he likes; but, my
dear, that isn't true. Papa cannot do it any more than you can."

"Then we can't have our society," cried Catherine.

Her lip trembled, and her face flushed pink with the sense of
disappointment.

"I didn't say that," said her mother, smiling. "Have the society by all
means, and carry out your plans. That can be done without money."

"But, mamma, how can it? What do you mean?"

"The how I must leave to you. Set your wits to work, and you will find
out. There are plenty of ways in which to please sick people besides
buying them things. Notice carefully when you are there; ask Mrs.
Banister; use your eyes. Things will suggest themselves. What sick
people enjoy most are little surprises to vary their dull days, and the
sense that some one is loving and thinking about them. Small unexpected
pleasures count for more than their worth with them. Now, dear, run
away. Consult with the others, and when you decide what you want to do,
come to me, and I will do what I can to help you in ways that do not
cost money."

Catherine looked more hopeful, though not altogether convinced.

"I'll see what they say," she remarked thoughtfully. Then, after
lingering a moment, as if in hopes of something more, she ran downstairs
again.

She found the members of the future society looking rather crestfallen.
They had all rushed home to propound their plan, and each of their
mothers in turn had raised pretty much the same objections to it which
Mrs. Newcombe had raised, and had not tempered their denials with any
fresh suggestions. Catherine's report had, therefore, rather the effect
of raising their spirits.

"I'm--not--sure," said Frances Brooks, "but it would be more fun to do
it that way than the other. Don't you know how much nicer it always is
to make Christmas presents than to buy them? And I thought of something
while you were talking that might do for the first Saturday surprise."

"Have you really? What?"

"It came into my head because the other day when Mary and I were there,
Minnie lost her handkerchief. It had slipped under the mattress or
somewhere, and she worried about not finding it, and Mrs. Banister was a
good while in getting another, and I was wondering if it wouldn't be
nice to make some sort of a little case, which could lie on the bed
beside her, and hold it."

"Out of birch bark," suggested Mary Vaughn.

"Splendid! We could work little blue forget-me-nots on it in crewels,"
suggested Sue Hooper.

"Yes, and I have a bit of blue silk that would be just the thing for the
lining," put in Ethel Hooper, the second "Tittering Twin," Sue being the
first. "Sister had it left over from a sofa-pillow, so she gave it to
me. It is quite light, and will match the forget-me-nots."

"Now, isn't that delightful!" cried Catherine. "Here's our first
surprise all settled without any trouble at all. I know where we can get
the bark,--from one of those big birches in Mr. Swayne's woods, and
mother'll give us some orris-root for a _sachet_, I know. She has some
that's particularly nice. It came from Philadelphia."

Under these promising auspices the "Do Something Society," for that was
the name resolved upon, came into existence. Many hands made light work
of the little handkerchief-case. All the members went together to get
the birch bark, which in itself was good fun. Mary Vaughn cut out the
case. Amy, who had taken a set of lessons in Kensington stitch, worked
the starry zigzag pattern, which did duty for forget-me-nots, upon it.
Susy Hooper, who was the best needlewoman of them all, lined it.
Catherine made the _sachet_. Ethel, as youngest, was allowed to fasten
it into the case with a tiny blue bow, and they took turns in carrying
it, as they walked toward Minnie's house Saturday morning.

Minnie had been looking forward to Saturday all the week. It was the
only day when these special friends had time to come for a good long
stay with her. On other days they "ran in;" but what with schools and
music-lessons, and daily walks and short winter afternoons, they always
had to run out again long before she was ready to have them go. She had
been watching the clock ever since she woke, in hopes that they would
come early; nor was she disappointed, for by half-past ten the bell
rang, and steps and voices were heard coming upstairs. Minnie raised
herself, and held out her hands.

"O girls, how lovely! You've all come together," she said. "I've been
wondering all the week if you would."

"You darling, how nice it is to see you! Are you any better to-day?"
asked Catherine.

Then, after they had all kissed her, Amy laid on the counterpane the
handkerchief-case pinned up in thin white paper.

"There's something for you," cried the society, as with one voice.

It took a good while for Minnie to open the parcel, for her fingers were
weak, but she would not let any one help her. When the pretty birch-bark
case was revealed, she was even more pleased than her friends had hoped
she would be.

"How dear you were to make it for me!" she kept repeating. "I shall
never lose my handkerchiefs now. And I shall look at it when you are not
here, and it will give me the feeling that you are making me a visit."

Then they explained the new society to her and asked her to join, with
the understanding that she was not to be an "active member" till she was
quite well again, and Minnie agreed, and became on the spot number seven
of the Do Somethings. What they did not explain was their plan for the
Saturdays, because Mrs. Newcombe had dropped this word of wisdom into
their counsels, that sick people enjoy a little pleasure which comes
unexpectedly, much more than a larger one which they lie and think about
till they are tired of the idea of it. Catherine had to bite her nimble
tongue more than once to hold the secret in, but the eyes of the others
held her in check, and she remembered in time. And while they chattered
and laughed, Mary Vaughn kept her eyes open as Mrs. Newcombe had
advised, and with such good effect that, as the society trooped out on
to the sidewalk, she was ready to say, "Girls, I have thought of
something for next time."

"And so have I," added Frances.

"Not really! What fun! Tell us what yours is."

"A wall-basket full of dried leaves and things to fill up that bare
space of wall opposite Minnie's bed. It needn't cost anything, for I
have got one of those big Japanese cuffs made of straw which will do for
the basket, and there are thousands of leaves to be had for the
picking."

"What a good idea that is!" said Amy Vaughn. "We will make it lovely,
and it will be something bright for Minnie to look at. We'll do it. But
what was your idea, Mary?"

"Mine was a sand-bag. Didn't you hear Minnie say, 'Mamma, the sheet is
quite wet just where my foot comes;' and Mrs. Banister came in a hurry
and took away the hot-water bag, and said there was something wrong with
the screw, and it was always leaking? My aunt, who is an invalid, uses
a bag of sand instead. It is made very hot in the oven and slipped into
a little cover, and it keeps warm longer than hot water does, she says.
Don't you think we might make one for Minnie?"

"It's the best idea yet," said Catherine. "And we will have it for next
Saturday because it's something useful that she really wants, and that
will give us plenty of time to dry the leaves for the Saturday after."

The sand-bag, with its little slip cover of red canton flannel, proved a
remarkable success. It was the comfort of her life, Minnie declared; but
the joy of her life was the wall-basket which followed on the next
Saturday, and which made a beautiful spot of brightness on the bare
wall. Ethel Hooper, who had a natural instinct for color and effect,
arranged it. It held branches of deep red and vivid yellow leaves, with
sprays of orange and green sumach, deep russet oak and trails of flaming
blackberry-vine, amid which rose a few velvet-brown cat-tails and fluffy
milk-weed pods, supporting in their midst a tiny bird's nest poised in a
leafless twig. Minnie was never tired of looking at it. She said it was
as good as taking a walk in the woods to see it. The gay color
refreshed her eyes, and cheered many a dull moment when she was alone
and did not feel like reading; and, altogether, the wall-basket proved
one of the most successful of the achievements of the Do Something
Society that winter.

I have not time to tell you of all the many other things they did. One
Saturday the gift was a home-made sponge-cake. Another time it was some
particularly nice molasses candy, pulled very white, and braided and
twirled into M's and B's. A pillow stuffed with balsam-fir was another
of the presents. On Christmas Eve they carried her the tiniest little
fir-tree ever seen, a mere baby of a fir, planted in a flower-pot, hung
with six mandarin oranges, and lighted with wax matches which burned
just long enough to be admired and no longer. Later there was a comical
valentine, and on Minnie's birthday a pretty card, designed by
Catherine, who had a taste for drawing.

One melancholy Saturday, when Minnie was too ill to see them, the
members all left their cards in a little basket. Another time it was the
cards of all their pet cats. And while they thus labored to make the
hard months less hard for their friend, their own souls were growing,
keeping pace with their growing bodies, as souls do which are properly
exercised in deeds of kindliness and unselfish love. So that when spring
came, bringing roses back to Minnie's pale cheeks, and strength to her
feeble limbs, and she was able to take her place among the rest and be a
"Do Something" too, all of them were eager to keep on, and to continue
the work begun for one, by service for the many who needed cheering as
much as Minnie had done.

And the best part of the lesson which all of them had learned was, so
Mrs. Newcombe thought, the great lesson that money, though a useful, is
not an essential, part of true helpfulness, and that time given, and
thought, and observation, and ingenuity, and loving hearts, can
accomplish without it all the best and sweetest part of giving.




WHO ATE THE QUEEN'S LUNCHEON?


You can imagine the state of excitement into which Otillie Le Breton was
thrown, when, one day in June, her father, the Seigneur of Sark, came
home and told her that the Queen, who was cruising about the Channel in
the royal yacht, had notified him of her intention of landing at Sark
the next Thursday and of lunching at the Seigneurie.

It sounds such a fine thing to be the daughter of the Seigneur of Sark,
that perhaps you will imagine that Otillie was used to kings and queens
and fine company of all sorts, and wonder that she should feel so much
excited on this occasion. Not at all! The Seigneur of Sark is only a
quiet, invalid clergyman who owns his little island just as other
English gentlemen do their estates, letting out the land to farmers and
collecting his rents and paying his taxes like other people; and Otillie
was a simply brought-up girl of fourteen, who knew much less of the
world than most girls of her age in Boston or New York, had never been
off the Channel Islands, and never set eyes on a "crowned head" in her
life, and she felt exactly as any of us would if we were suddenly told
that a queen was coming to take a meal in our father's house.

Queens are not common apparitions in any of the Channel Islands, and
least of all in little Sark. It is a difficult place to get to even for
common people. The island, which is only three miles long, is walled by
a line of splendid cliffs over three hundred feet high. Its only harbor
is a strip of beach, defended by a tiny breakwater, from which a steep
road is tunnelled up through the rocks to the interior of the island. In
rough weather, when the wind blows and the sea runs high, which is the
case five days out of seven in summer, and six-and-a-half days out of
seven in winter, boats dare not make for this difficult landing, which
is called by the natives "The Creux"--or hole. It is reported that some
years since when the Lords of the Admiralty were on a tour of inspection
they sailed all round Sark and sailed away again, reporting that no
place could be discovered where it was possible to land, which seemed
to the Sarkites a very good joke indeed.

There are four principal islands in the Channel group: Alderney and
Jersey, from which come the cows all of us know about; Guernsey, whose
cattle, though not so celebrated on this side of the sea, are held by
the islanders as superior to all others; and Sark, the smallest and by
far the most beautiful of the four. It is a real story-book island. The
soft, sea-climate and the drifting mists of the Gulf Stream nourish in
its green valleys all manner of growing things. Flowers flourish there
as nowhere else. Heliotropes grow into great clumps, and red and pink
geraniums into bushes. Fuchsias and white-starred jessamines climb to
the very roofs of the mossy old farm-houses, which stand knee-deep, as
it were, in vines and flowers. Long links of rose-colored bindweed lie
in tangles along the dusty roadside; you tread on them as you walk
through the shady lanes, between hedge-rows of ivy and sweet-brier and
briony, from whose leaves shine out little glittering beetles, in mail
coats of flashing, iridescent green, like those which the Cuban ladies
wear on their lace dresses as a decoration. There is only one wagon
kept for hire on the island, and all is primitive and peaceful and full
of rest and repose.

But there are wonderful things too, as well as beautiful ones,--strange
spouting-holes in the middle of green fields, where the sea has worn its
way far inland, and, with a roar, sends sudden shocks of surf up through
its chimney-like vent. Caves too, full of dim green light, in whose
pools marvellous marine creatures flourish--

    "The fruitage and bloom of the Ocean,"

or strange spines of rock path linking one end of the island with the
other by a road not over five feet wide, from whose undefended edges the
sheer precipice goes down on either side for hundreds of feet into the
ocean. There are natural arches in the rocks also through which the
wonderful blue-green sea glances and leaps. All about the island the
water is of this remarkable color, like the plumage of a peacock or a
dragonfly's glancing wings, and out of it rise strange rock-shapes,
pyramids and obelisks and domes, over which white surf breaks
constantly.

Some of the most remarkable of these rocks are beneath the Seigneurie,
whose shaven lawns and walled gardens stretch to the cliff top and
command a wide sea-view. It is a fine old house, with terraces and stone
balustrades over which vines cluster thickly, and peacocks sit,
spreading their many-eyed tails to the sun, as if trying to outdo the
strange, flashing, iridescent sea.

Otillie herself always fed these peacocks, which were old family
friends. There were six of them, Bluet and Cramoisie,--the parents of
the flock, who had been named by Mrs. Le Breton, who was a
Frenchwoman,--Peri and Fee de Fees, and Lorenzo the Magnificent and the
Great Panjandrum, these last christened by Otillie herself on account of
their size and stately demeanor. The beautiful creatures were quite
tame. They would take food from her hand, and if she failed to present
herself at the accustomed time with her bowl of millet and bread, they
would put their heads in at the terrace windows and scream, till she
recollected her duty and came to them.

I am afraid that the peacocks were rather neglected for the few days
preceding the Queen's visit, for everybody at the Seigneurie was very
busy. Mr. Le Breton, as a general thing, lived simply enough. His wife
had died when Otillie was only six years old. Miss Niffin the governess,
Marie the cook, two housemaids, and an old butler who had served the
family for a quarter of a century made up the establishment indoors.
Otillie had her basin of porridge and cream and her slice of bread at
eight o'clock every morning, and bread and milk and "kettle-tea" for
supper, with now and then a taste of jam by way of a treat. The servants
lived chiefly on "Jersey soup," a thick broth of oatmeal, vegetables,
and fish, with a trifle of bacon or salt-beef to give it a relish. Mr.
Le Breton had his morning coffee in his study, and the early dinner,
which he shared with Otillie and Miss Niffin, was not an elaborate one.

These being the customs of the Seigneurie, it can easily be imagined
that it taxed every resource of the establishment to provide suitably
for the Queen's entertainment. All the island knew of the important
event and longed to advise and help. The farmers sent their thickest
cream and freshest strawberries and lettuces, desirous to prove their
loyalty not to their sovereign only, but also to their landlord. Marie,
the cook, spent the days in reading over her most difficult recipes,
and could not sleep at night. A friend of hers, once second cook to the
Earl of Dunraven, but now retired on her laurels into private life,
offered to come for a few days to assist, and to fabricate a certain
famous game pasty, of which it was asserted the English aristocracy are
inordinately fond. Peter the butler crossed over to Guernsey twice
during the week with a long list of indispensables to be filled up at
the shops there, hampers of wine came from London, and hot-house grapes
and nectarines from friends in Jersey; the whole house was in a bustle,
and nothing was spoken of but the Queen and the Queen's visit, what she
would wear and say and do, whom she would bring with her, and what sort
of weather she would have for her coming.

This last point was the one on which Otillie was most solicitous. A true
child of Sark, she knew all about its tides and currents, the dangers of
the island channels, and the differences which a little more or less
wind and sea made in the navigation of them. She could recollect one
stormy winter, when a Guernsey doctor who had come over to set a broken
arm was detained for three weeks on the island, in plain sight all the
time of his own home in St. Peterport, but as unable to get to it as if
it had been a thousand miles away!

"It would be dreadful if the Queen came and then could not get away
again for three weeks!" she said to herself. "It would be awfully
interesting to have her here, of course--but I don't quite know what we
should do--or what she would do!" She tried to make a picture of it in
her mind, but soon gave up the attempt. Provisions are scarce sometimes
on Sark when the wind blows and the boats cannot get in. There would
always be milk and vegetables and fruit if it were summer, and perhaps
chickens enough could be collected to hold out; but there was something
terrible in the idea of a queen without butcher's meat! Otillie's
imagination refused to compass it!

Her very first thought when the important day dawned was the weather.

She waked with the first sunbeam and ran at once to the window. When she
saw a clear sky and the sun rising out of a still sea, she gave a scream
of delight.

"What is the matter?" asked Miss Niffin sleepily from the next room.

"It's good weather," replied Otillie. "We've got the most beautiful day
for the Queen to come in."

Miss Niffin's only answer was a little groan. She was a small, shy
person, and the idea of confronting royalty made her dreadfully nervous.
"Oh, if the day were only over!" she said to herself; and she longed to
plead a headache and stay in bed, but she dared not. Besides, she felt
that it would be cowardly to desert her post on such an important
occasion and leave Otillie alone; so she braced her mind to face the
awful necessity and began to dress.

Mr. Le Breton, awakening about the same time, gave a groan a good deal
like Miss Niffin's. He was a loyal subject, and felt the honor that was
done him by the Queen's inviting herself to luncheon; but, all the same,
invalids do not like to be put out of their way, and he, too, wished the
day well done.

"Ten to one I shall be laid up for the next month to pay for it," he
reflected. Then he too braced himself to the necessity and rang for hot
water, determined to do his duty as a man and a Seigneur.

Otillie was perhaps the only person in the house who was really glad to
have the day come. The servants were tired and fretted with a sense of
responsibility. Marie had passed a dreadful night, full of dreams of
failure and spoiled dishes.

"Now just as sure as guns my rolls will have failed to rise this day of
all the days of the year," was her first waking thought. But no, the
rolls were light as a feather, and the sponge and almond cakes came out
of the oven delicately browned and quite perfect in taste and
appearance. Nothing went wrong; and when Mr. Le Breton, just before
starting for the Creux harbor to meet the royal party, took a look into
the dining-room to make sure that all was right, he said to himself that
he had never seen a prettier or more complete little "spread."

The table was ornamented with hot-house fruit and flowers, beautifully
arranged by Miss Niffin and Otillie. All the fine old Le Breton plate
had been brought out and polished, the napery shone like iced snow,
there were some quaint pieces of old Venetian glass, jugs, dishes, and
flagons, and a profusion of pretty confections, jellies, blanc-manges,
crystallized fruits, and bonbons, to give sparkle and color. The light
streamed in at the windows which opened on the terrace, from under the
vines the flash of the waves could be seen, the curtains waved in the
wind, which was blowing inland. Nothing could be prettier; the only
discord was the noisy scream of the peacocks on the lawn, who seemed as
much upset and disturbed by the great event as the rest of the
household.

"Can't something be done to stop those creatures?" said Mr. Le Breton.
"Tie them up somewhere, can't you, Otillie, or send a boy to drive them
down to the farm."

"It's only because they are hungry," replied Otillie rather absently. "I
haven't given them their breakfast yet."

She was sticking long stems of fronded Osmundas into a jar as a
decoration for the fireplace, and scarcely noticed what her father said.
It was some minutes after the carriage drove away before she finished;
then, with a sigh of relief, she brushed up the leaves she had scattered
on the carpet, and ran upstairs to change her dress. It would never do
to be caught by the Queen in a holland frock, with her hair blown about
her eyes, and green finger-tips!

The clock struck one as she fastened her white dress and patted smooth
the bows of her wide pink sash. One was the hour fixed for the Queen to
land, so there was no time to lose. Otillie only waited for a glance in
at the door of the spare room, where the Queen, if so minded, was to
take off her things. She glanced at the bed with a sort of awe as the
possible repository of a royal bonnet, altered the position of a bowl of
roses on the mantelpiece, and then hurried down to join Miss Niffin,
who, attired in her best black silk and a pair of lace mitts, was seated
decorously in the hall doing nothing. Otillie sat down beside her. It
was rather a nervous waiting, and a long one; for half an hour passed,
three quarters, and finally the clock struck two, before wheels were
heard on the gravel, and during all that time the two watchers spoke
scarcely a word. Only once Otillie cried as a gust of wind blew the
curtains straight out into the room, "O dear! I hope it isn't rough. O
dear! wouldn't it be dreadful if the Queen were to be sick? She would
never like Sark again!"

"I think her Majesty must be used to the sea, she sails so much,"
replied Miss Niffin. The gust died away and did not blow the curtains
any more, and again they sat in silence, waiting and listening.

"At last!" cried Otillie as the distinct roll of wheels was heard on
the drive. Her heart beat fast, but she got up bravely, straightened her
slender little figure as became a Le Breton, and walked out on to the
porch. Her eyes seemed strangely dazzled by the sun--for she could see
no one in the carriage but her father.

It rolled up to the door, and Otillie felt a great throb of
disappointment rise like a wave in her heart, and spread and swell! Mr.
Le Breton had come back alone!

"Papa," she cried, as soon as she could speak, "what _has_ happened?
Where is the Queen?"

"I hope nothing has gone amiss with her Gracious Majesty," put in Miss
Niffin from behind.

Mr. Le Breton got out of the carriage before he replied. He looked tired
and annoyed.

"You can drive to the stable, Thomas," he said; "the carriage will not
be wanted." Then he turned to Miss Niffin.

"Her Gracious Majesty has decided not to land," he went on. "The wind
has sprung up and made rather a sea outside the breakwater; nothing to
signify by the Sark standard, but enough to deter inexperienced persons.
I waited at the Creux for nearly an hour, and every man, woman, and
child on the island waited with me, with the exception of you and
Otillie and the servants, and then the captain of the royal yacht
signalled that he could not risk putting the Queen ashore in a small
boat in such rough water. So the thing is given up."

There was a certain latent relief in Mr. Le Breton's tone.

"Oh!" cried Otillie, stamping her foot. "How hateful of the wind to
spring up! It could have waited as well as not! It has all the rest of
the time to blow in, and now all the nice preparations are thrown away,
and all our pleasant time spoiled, and just as likely as not the Queen
will never come to Sark at all." Her voice died away into a storm of
sobs.

"I wish I could be assured of that," remarked her father in a tone of
weary resignation. "What I am afraid of is that she will come, or try to
come, another day, and then there will be all this to do over again."

He indicated by a gesture the door of the dining-room, from which queer
muffled sounds were heard just then.

"Peter seems as much afflicted by this disappointment as you are,
Otillie," he added. "Come, my child, don't cry over the matter. It can't
be helped. Wind and waves oblige nobody, not even kings and queens."

"There are compensations for all our troubles," said Miss Niffin in her
primmest tone. "We must bear up, and try to feel that all is for the
best." Miss Niffin seemed to find it quite easy to be morally consoled
for her share of loss in the giving up of the Queen's visit.

"How can you talk in that way!" cried Otillie, who was not in the least
in awe of Miss Niffin. "If I had broken my comb, you would have said
exactly the same, I know you would! There isn't any compensation at all
for this trouble, and it's no use my trying to feel that it's for the
best,--it isn't."

"We never know," replied Miss Niffin piously.

"Come," said Mr. Le Breton, desiring to put an end to the altercation,
"I don't know why we should go hungry because her Majesty won't come and
eat our luncheon. Take my arm, Miss Niffin, and let us have something to
eat. Marie will break her heart if all her trouble and pains are not
appreciated by somebody."

[Illustration: The peacocks, tired of waiting for their morning meal,
and finding the windows open, had entered and helped themselves.--_Page
107._]

He gave his arm to Miss Niffin as he spoke, and moved forward to the
dining-room. Otillie followed, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief,
and feeling that the dainties would stick in her throat if she tried to
swallow them, she was so very, very, dreadfully disappointed.

But when Mr. Le Breton reached the dining-room door he stopped suddenly
as if shot, and gave a sort of shout! No one could speak for a moment.
There was the feast, so prettily and tastefully arranged only an hour
before, a mass of ruins! The flowers were upset, the fruit, tumbled and
mashed, stained the cloth and the floor. Wine and lemonade dripped from
the table's edge. The pink and yellow jellies, the forms of Charlotte
Russe and blanc-mange and the frosted cakes and tarts were reduced to
smears and crumbs. Where the gigantic pasty had stood remained only an
empty dish, and above the remains, rearing, pecking, clawing, gobbling,
appeared six long blue-green necks, which dipped and rose and dipped
again!

The peacocks, tired of waiting for their morning meal, and finding the
windows open, had entered and helped themselves! There was Lorenzo the
Magnificent with a sponge-cake in his beak, and Peri gobbling down a
lump of blanc-mange, and the Grand Panjandrum with both claws embedded
in a pyramid of macaroons. Their splendid tails were draggled with cream
and crumbs, and sticky with jelly; altogether they presented a most
greedy and disreputable appearance! The strangest part of the whole was
that while they stuffed themselves they preserved a dead silence, and
did not express their enjoyment by one of their usual noisy screams. It
was evident that they felt that the one great opportunity of their lives
was going on, and that they must make the most of it.

At the sound of Mr. Le Breton's shout the peacocks started guiltily.
Then they gathered up their tails as best they might, and, half flying,
half running, scuttled out of the windows and far across the lawn,
screaming triumphantly as they went, while Otillie tumbled into a chair
and laughed till she cried.

"Oh! didn't they look funny?" she gasped, holding her sides.

"Rather expensive fun," replied the Seigneur ruefully. "But it is one
comfort that we have it to ourselves." Then the humor of the situation
seized on him also, and he sat down and laughed almost as hard as
Otillie.

"Dear me! what a mercy that her Majesty didn't come!" remarked Miss
Niffin in an awe-struck tone.

"Good gracious," cried Otillie with sudden horror at the thought,
"suppose she had! Suppose we had all walked in at that door and found
the peacocks here! And of course we should! Of course they would have
done it just the same if there had been fifty queens to see them! How
dreadful it would have been! Oh, there are compensations, Miss Niffin; I
see it now."

So Otillie was reconciled to her great disappointment, though the Queen
never has tried to land at Sark again, and perhaps never will. For, as
Otillie sensibly says, "It is a great deal better that we should be
disappointed than that the Queen should be; for if she had been very
hungry, and most likely she would have been after sailing and all, she
would not have thought the Grand Panjandrum with his feet in the
macaroons half so funny as we did, and would have been truly and really
vexed."

So it was all for the best, as Miss Niffin said.




THE SHIPWRECKED COLOGNE-BOTTLE.


It seemed the middle of the night, though it was really only three
o'clock in the morning, when little Davy Crocker was wakened by a sudden
stamping of feet on the stoop below his window, and by a voice calling
out that a ship was ashore off the Point, and that Captain Si, Davy's
uncle, must turn out and help with the life-boat.

Davy was a "landlubber," as his cousin Sam Coffin was wont to assert
whenever he wanted to tease him. He had lived all his short life at
Townsend Harbor, up among the New Hampshire hills, and until this visit
to his aunt at Nantucket, had never seen the sea. All the more the sea
had for him a great interest and fascination, as it has for everybody to
whom it has not from long familiarity become a matter of course.

Conversation in Nantucket is apt to possess a nautical and, so to speak,
salty flavor. Davy, since his arrival, had heard so much about ships
which had foundered, or gone to pieces on rocks, or burned up, or sprung
leaks and had to be pumped out, that his mind was full of images of
disaster, and he quite longed to realize some of them. To see a
shipwreck had become his great ambition. He was not particular as to
whether the ship should burn or founder or go ashore, any of these would
do, only he wanted all the sailors to be saved.

Once he had gone with his cousins to the South Shore on the little
puffing railroad which connects Nantucket town with Siasconsett, and of
which all the people of the island are so justly proud; and there on the
beach, amid the surf-rollers which look so soft and white and are so
cruelly strong, he had seen a great piece of a ship. Nearly the whole of
the bow end it appeared to be. It was much higher than Davy's head, and
seemed to him immense and formidable; yet this enormous thing the sea
had taken into its grasp and tossed to and fro like a plaything and at
last flung upon the sand as if it were a toy of which it had grown
weary. It gave Davy an idea of the great power of the water, and it was
after seeing this that he began to long to witness a shipwreck. And now
there was one, and the very sound of the word was enough to make him rub
open his sleepy eyes and jump out of bed in a hurry!

But when he had groped his way to the window and pulled up the rattling
paper shade, behold! there was nothing to be seen! The morning was
intensely dark. A wild wind was blowing great dashes of rain on the
glass, and the house shook and trembled as the blasts struck it.

Davy heard his uncle on the stairs, and hurried to the door. "Mayn't I
go to the shipwreck with you, Uncle Si?" he called out.

"Go to what? Go back to bed, my boy, that's the place for you. There'll
be shipwreck enough in the morning to satisfy all of us, I reckon."

Davy dared not disobey. He stumbled back to bed, making up his mind to
lie awake and listen to the wind till it was light, and then go to see
the shipwreck "anyhow." But it is hard to keep such resolutions when you
are only ten years old. The next thing he knew he was rousing in
amazement to find the room full of brilliant sunlight. The rain was
over, though the wind still thundered furiously, and through the noise
it made, the sea could be heard thundering louder still.

Davy jumped out of bed, dressed as fast as he could, and hurried
downstairs. The house seemed strangely empty; Aunt Patty was not in the
kitchen, nor was cousin Myra in the pantry skimming milk, as was usual
at this hour of the day. Davy searched for them in woodshed, garden, and
barn. At last he spied them on the "walk" at the top of the house, and
ran upstairs to join them.

Do any of you know what a "walk" is? I suppose not, unless you have
happened to live in a whaling-town. Many houses in Nantucket have them.
They are railed platforms, built on the peak of the roof between the
chimneys, and are used as observatories from which to watch what is
going on at sea. There the wives and sweethearts of the whalers used to
go in the old days, and stand and sweep the ocean with spy-glasses, in
hopes of seeing the ships coming in from their long cruises each with
the signals set which told if the voyage had been lucky or no, and how
many barrels of oil and blubber she was bringing home. Then they used to
watch the "camels," great hulls used as floats to lighten the vessels,
go out and help the heavy-laden ship over the bar. And when that was
done and every rope and spar conned and studied by the experienced eyes
on the roofs, it was time to hurry down, hang on the welcoming pot, trim
the fire and don the best gown, so as to make a bright home-coming for
the long-absent husband or son.

Aunt Patty had a spy-glass at her eyes when Davy gained the roof. She
was looking at the wrecked ship, which was plainly in view, beyond the
little sandy down which separated the house from the sea. There she lay,
a poor broken thing, stuck fast on one of the long reaches of sandy
shoal which stretch about the island and make the navigation of its
narrow and uncertain channels so difficult and sometimes so dangerous.
The heavy seas dashed over the half-sunken vessel every minute; between
her and the shore two lifeboats were coming in under closely-reefed
sails.

"Oh, do let me look through the glass!" urged Davy. When he was
permitted to do so he uttered an exclamation of surprise, so wonderfully
near did it make everything seem to be.

"Why, I can see their faces!" he cried. "There's Uncle Si! There's Sam!
And there's a very wet man! I guess he's one of the shipwrecked sailors!
Hurrah!" and Davy capered up and down.

"You unfeeling boy!" cried Myra, "give me the glass--you'll let it fall.
He's right, mother, father and Sam are coming ashore as fast as they can
sail, and they'll be wanting their breakfasts, of course. I'd better go
down and mix the corn bread." She took one more look through the glass,
announced that the other boat had some more of the shipwrecked men on
board, she guessed, and that Abner Folger was steering; then she ran
down the ladder, followed by her mother, and Davy was left to watch the
boats in.

When he too went down, the kitchen was full of good smells of boiling
coffee and frying eggs, and his uncle and Sam and the "very wet man"
were just entering the door together. The wet man, it appeared, was the
captain of the wrecked vessel; the rest of the crew had been taken home
by other people.

The captain was a long, brown, sinewy Maine man. He was soaked with
sea-water and looked haggard and worn, as a man well might who had just
spent such a terrible night; but he had kind, melancholy eyes, and a
nice face, Davy thought. The first thing to be done was to get him into
dry clothes, and Uncle Si carried him up to Davy's room for this
purpose. Davy followed them. He felt as if he could never see enough of
this, his first shipwrecked sailor.

When the captain had been made comfortable in Uncle Silas's flannel
shirt and spare pea-jacket and a pair of Sam's trousers, he hung his own
clothes up to dry, and they all went down to breakfast. Aunt Patty had
done her best. She was very sorry for the poor man who had lost his
ship, and she even brought out a tumbler of her best grape jelly by way
of a further treat; but the captain, though he ate ravenously, as was
natural to a man who had fasted so long, did not seem to notice what he
was eating, and thus disappointed kind Aunt Patty. She comforted herself
by thinking what she could get for dinner which he would like. Uncle Si
and Sam were almost as hungry as the Maine captain, so not much was said
till breakfast was over, and then they all jumped up and hurried out,
for there was a deal to be done.

Davy felt very dull after they had gone. He had never heard of such a
thing as "reaction," but that was what he was suffering from. The
excitement of the morning had died out like a fire which has no more
fuel to feed it, and he could not think of anything that he wanted to
do. He hung listlessly round, watching Aunt Patty's brisk operations
about the kitchen, and at last he thought he would go upstairs and see
if the captain's clothes were beginning to dry. Wet as they were, they
seemed on the whole the most interesting things in the house.

The clothes were not nearly dry, but on the floor, just below where the
rough pea-jacket hung, lay a little shining object. It attracted Davy's
attention, and he stooped and picked it up.

It was a tiny bottle full of some sort of perfume, and set in a socket
of plated filagree shaped like a caster, with a filagree handle. The
bottle had a piece of white kid tied over its cork with a bit of blue
ribbon. It was not a thing to tempt a boy's fancy, but Davy saw that it
was pretty, and the idea came into his head that he should like to carry
it home, to his little sister Bella. Bella was fond of perfumes, and
the bottle had cologne in it, as Davy could smell without taking out the
cork. He was sure that Bella would like it.

Davy had been brought up to be honest. I am sure that he did not mean to
steal the cologne-bottle. The idea of stealing never entered his mind,
and it would have shocked him had it done so. He was an imaginative
little fellow, and the tiny waif seemed to him like a shell or a pebble,
something coming out of the sea, which any one was at liberty to pick up
and keep. He did not say to himself that it probably belonged to the
captain, who might have a value for it, he did not think about the
captain at all, he only thought of Bella. So after looking at the pretty
toy for a while, he put it carefully away in the drawer where he kept
his things, pushing it far back, and drawing a pair of stockings in
front of it, so that it might be hidden. He did not want anybody to
meddle with the bottle; it was his now, or rather it was Bella's. Then
he went up to the walk once more, and was so interested in watching the
wreck and the boats, which, as the wind moderated, came and went between
her and the shore, picking up the barrels and casks which were floated
out of her hold, that he soon forgot all about the matter.

It was nearly dark before the two captains and Sam came back to eat the
meal which had been ready for them since the middle of the afternoon.
Aunt Patty had taken off her pots and saucepans more than once and put
them on again, to suit the long delay; but nothing was spoiled and
everything tasted good, which showed how cleverly she had managed. The
Maine captain--whose name it appeared was Joy--seemed more cheerful than
in the morning, and more inclined to talk. But after supper, when he had
gone upstairs and put on his own clothes, which Aunt Patty had kept
before the fire nearly all day and had pressed with hot irons so that
they looked almost as good as ever, his melancholy seemed to come on
again. He sat and puffed at his pipe till Aunt Patty began to ask
questions about the wreck. Captain Joy, it appeared, was part owner of
the ship, whose name was the "Sarah Jane."

"She was called after my wife's sister," he told them, "and my little
girl to home has the same name, 'Sarah Jane.' She is about the age of
that boy there, or a mite older maybe,"--nodding toward Davy. "She
wanted to come with me this vy'age, but her mother wouldn't hear of it,
and I'm mighty thankful she wouldn't, as things have turned out. No
child could have stood the exposure of such a night as we had and come
out alive; and Sarah Jane, though she's as spry as a cricket and always
on the go, isn't over strong."

The captain took a long pull at his pipe and looked dreamily into the
fire.

"I asked her, just as I was coming off, what I should bring her," he
went on, "and she had a wish all fixed and ready. I never knew such a
child for knowing her own mind. She's always sure what she wants, Sarah
Jane is. The thing she wanted was a cologne-bottle, she said, and it
must be just so, shaped like one of them pepper and vinegar what d' you
call em's, that they put on hotel tables. She was very pertikeler about
the kind. She drew me a picter of it on her slate, so 's to have no
mistake, and I promised her if New York could furnish it she should have
that identical article, and she was mighty pleased."

Nobody noticed that at the mention of the cologne-bottle, Davy gave a
guilty jump, and shrank back into the shadow of Uncle Si's broad
shoulders. Oh, if he could only put it back into the pocket of the
pea-jacket! But how could he when the captain had the jacket on?

"I was kind of fearful that there wouldn't be any bottles of that
pertikeler shape that Sarah Jane had in her mind," continued Captain
Joy, "but the town seemed to be chock-full of 'em. The very first shop I
come to, there they stood in the window, rows of 'em, and I just went in
and bought one for Sarah Jane before I did anything else, and when I'd
got it safely stowed away in the locker, I felt kind of easy in my mind.
We come down with a load of coal, but I hadn't more 'n a quarter cargo
to take back, mostly groceries for the stores up to Bucksport and
Ellsworth,--and it's lucky it was no more, as things have happened. The
schooner was pretty old and being so light in ballast, I jedged it
safest, when the blow come on so hard from the nor'-east, to run it
under the lee of Cape Cod and ride it out there if we could. But we
hadn't been anchored more 'n three hours--just about nine o'clock it
was--when the men came to tell me that we was taking in water terrible
fast. I suppose the ship had kind of strained her seams open in the
gale. It want no use trying to pump her out in such a storm, and if we
didn't want to go down at our anchorage, there wasn't anything for it
but to cut her loose and drive across the Haven in hopes of going
aground on the sand before she sank. I can tell you if ever a man
prayed, I prayed then, when I thought every minute she'd founder in deep
water before we struck the shoal. And just as she was settling I heard
the sand grate under the keel, and you may believe I was thankful,
though it meant the loss of pretty much all I've got in the world. I
shouted to the men to get to the rigging in the mainmast, for I knew
she'd go to pieces pretty soon, and there wasn't no way of signalling
for help till daylight, and I gave one dive for the cabin, got the
papers out of the locker, and Sarah Jane's cologne-bottle, buttoned them
up inside my pea-coat, and just got back again in time to see the
foremast go over the side and the sea make a clean sweep of the decks.
The mainmast stayed, and we lashed ourselves, and managed to hold on
till sunrise, when we see you a-coming out to us, and glad we were.

"Every now and then in the night, when the water was washing over us, I
put my fingers inside my coat and made sure that Sarah Jane's bottle was
there, and wasn't broken. I didn't want the child to be disappointed,
you see. It was safe when we come ashore, I'm certain of that, but--"
The captain paused.

"Now don't say it got broken after all!" cried Myra sympathetically.

"No, it wasn't broken, but it's just as bad," said Captain Joy. "Either
I dropped it getting out of the boat and trod it down in the sand, or
else some one has took it. It's gone, any way, and do you know, it's a
foolish thing to say, but I feel nigh as bad about that there little dud
as wasn't worth more 'n fifty cents, as I do about the loss of the hull
cargo, on account of Sarah Jane."

There was a pause as he ceased. Aunt Patty and Myra were too sorry for
the captain to feel like speaking at once. Suddenly into the silence
there fell the sound of a sob. Everybody started, and Uncle Si caught
Davy's arm and pulled him into the firelight where his face could be
seen.

"Why, what are you crying for, little 'un?" asked Uncle Si.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was the captain's," said Davy, in a
tear-choked voice.

"Didn't know what was the captain's? Now, Davy Crocker, 'twasn't ever
you who took that bottle?" cried Aunt Patty.

"I found it on the floor," sobbed Davy. "I thought it was washed ashore
from the shipwreck. I didn't suppose it belonged to anybody, and I
wanted it for Bella. Oh, I'm so sorry."

"Why, then it ain't lost after all," cried Captain Joy, brightening up.
"Well, how pleased Sarah Jane _will_ be! Don't cry any more, my lad. I
can see how it was, and that you didn't think it was stealing to take
anything that had been in the sea."

Aunt Patty and Myra, however, still were deeply shocked, and could not
look as lightly at Davy's offence as did the captain. Davy crept
upstairs, brought down the cologne-bottle and slid it into Captain Joy's
hand; then he crept away and sat in a dark corner behind the rest, but
his conscience followed him, and Myra's reproachful look.

"Oh, Davy!" she whispered, "I never thought you'd be so mean as to take
anything from a shipwrecked sailor!"

This was Davy's punishment, and rankled in his mind long after everybody
else had forgotten the matter, after the sands had swallowed up all that
was left of the "Sarah Jane," and after the captain had returned to
Bucksport and made the real Sarah Jane happy by the gift of the bottle
she had wished for so much. It rankles occasionally to this day, though
he is now a stout lad of fifteen. That he, he of all boys, should have
done such a thing to a man just saved from the sea! He consoles himself
by resolving to be particularly kind to shipwrecked sailors all the rest
of his life; but unluckily, the "Sarah Jane" is, so far, his sole
experience of a wreck, and the only sailor he has as yet had any chance
to do anything for is Captain Joy, and what he did for him we all know.
One does not always have the opportunity to make up for a blunder or a
fault, and I am afraid Davy may live his life out and never again have
the good luck to show his good intentions by _not_ picking up and hiding
a Shipwrecked Cologne-Bottle!




UNDER A SYRINGA-BUSH.


The old syringa at the foot of the Wade's lawn was rather a tree than a
bush. Many years of growth had gone to the thickening of its interlaced
boughs, which grew close to the ground, and made an impervious covert,
except on the west side, where a hollow recess existed, into which a
small person, boy or girl, might squeeze and be quite hidden.

Sundry other small persons with wings and feathers had discovered the
advantages of the syringa. All manner of unsuspected housekeepings went
on within its fastnesses, from the lark's nest, in a tuft of grass at
the foot of the main stem, to the robin's home on the topmost bough.
Solicitous little mothers brooded unseen over minute families, while the
highly decorative bird papa sat on a neighboring hedge, carrying out his
mission, which seemed to be to distract attention from the secreted
family by the sweetness of his song and the beauty of his plumage. In
the dusk of the evening, soft thrills and twitters sounded from the
bush, like whispered conversation; and very entertaining it must have
been, no doubt, to any one who understood the language. So, altogether,
the old syringa-bush was an interesting little world of itself.

Elly Wade found it so, as she sat in the green hiding-place on the west
side, crying as if her heart would break. The syringa recess had been
her favorite "secret" ever since she discovered it, nearly two years
before. No one else knew about it. There she went when she felt unhappy
or was having a mood. Once the boughs had closed in behind her, no one
could suspect that she was there,--a fact which gave her infinite
pleasure, for she was a child who loved privacies and mysteries.

What are moods? Does any one exactly understand them? Some people
attribute them to original sin, others to nerves or indigestion; but I
am not sure that either explanation is right. They sweep across the
gladness of our lives as clouds across the sun, and seem to take the
color out of everything. Grown people learn to conceal, if not to
conquer, their moods; but children cannot do this, Elly Wade least of
all.

As I said, this was by no means her first visit to the syringa-bush. It
has witnessed some stormy moments in her life, when she sat there hot
and grieved, and in her heart believing everybody cruel or unjust. Ralph
had teased her; or Cora, who was older than she, had put on airs; or
little Kitty had been troublesome, or some schoolmate "hateful." She
even accused her mother of unkindness at these times, though she loved
her dearly all the while.

"She thinks the rest are always right, and I wrong," she would say to
herself. "Oh, well! she'll be sorry some day." What was to make Mrs.
Wade sorry Elly did not specify; but I think it was to be when she,
herself, was found dead, somewhere on the premises, of a broken heart!
Elly was very fond of depicting this broken heart and tragical
ending,--imaginative children often are. All the same, if she felt ill,
or cut her finger, she ran to mamma for help, and was as much frightened
as if she had not been thinking these deadly thoughts only a little
while before.

To-day Elly had fled to the syringa-bush with no idea of ever coming out
again. A great wrong had been done her. Cora was going with a
yachting-party, and she was not. Mamma had said she was too young to be
trusted, and must wait till she was older and steadier.

"It is cruel!" she said with a fresh burst of sobs, as she recalled the
bitter moment when she heard the verdict. "It was just as unkind as
could be for her to say that. Cora is only four years the oldest, and I
can do lots of things that she can't. She doesn't know a bit about
crocheting. She just knits. And she never made sponge-cake, and I have;
and when she rows, she pulls the hardest with her left hand, and makes
the boat wabble. I've a much better stroke than she has. Papa said so.
And I can swim just as well as she can!

"Nobody loves me," was her next reflection,--"nobody at all. They all
hate me. I don't suppose anybody would care a bit if I _did_ die."

But this thought was too hard to be borne.

"Yes, they would," she went on. "They'd feel remorse if I died, and they
ought to. Then they would recollect all the mean things they've done to
me, and they would groan, and say, 'Too late--too late!' like the bad
people in story-books."

Comforted by this idea, she resolved on a plan of action.

"I'll just stay here forever, and not come out at all. Of course, I
shall starve to death. Then, all summer long they'll be hunting, and
wondering and wondering what has become of me; and when the autumn
comes, and the leaves fall off, they'll know, and they'll say, 'Poor
Elly! how we wish we'd treated her better!'"

She settled herself into a more comfortable position,--it isn't
necessary to have cramps, you know, even if you _are_ starving to
death,--and went on with her reflections. So still was she that the
birds forgot her presence, and continued their twittering gossip and
their small domestic arrangements undisturbed. The lark talked to her
young ones with no fear of being overheard; the robins flew in and out
with worms; the thrush, who occupied what might be called the second
story of the syringa, disciplined a refractory fledgling, and papa
thrush joined in with a series of musical expostulations. Elly found
their affairs so interesting that for a moment she forgot her
own,--which was good for her.

A big bumble-bee came sailing through the air like a wind-blown drum,
and stopped for a minute to sip at a syringa blossom. Next a soft whir
drew Elly's attention, and a shape in green and gold and ruby-red
glanced across her vision like a flying jewel. It was a
humming-bird,--the first of the season. Elly had never been so near one
before, nor had so long a chance to look, and she watched with delight
as the pretty creature darted to and fro, dipping its needle-like bill
into one flower-cup after another, in search of the honey-drop which
each contained. She held her breath, not to startle it; but its fine
senses seemed to perceive her presence in some mysterious fashion, and
presently it flew away.

Elly's mind, no longer diverted, went back to its unhappiness.

"I wonder how long it is since I came here," she thought. "It seems like
a great while. I guess it must be as much as three hours. They're all
through dinner now, and beginning to wonder where I am. But they won't
find me, I can tell them!"

She set her lips firmly, and again shifted her position. At the slight
rustle every bird in the bush became silent.

"They needn't," she said to herself. "I wouldn't hurt them. I'm not like
Ralph. He's real bad to birds sometimes. Once he took some eggs out of a
dear, cunning, little song-sparrow's nest, and blew the yolks. I'd never
do such a mean thing as that."

But though she tried to lash herself up to her old sharpness of feeling,
the interruption of wrathful thoughts had somewhat soothed her mood.
Still, she held firmly to her purpose, while an increasing drowsiness
crept over her.

"I shall stay here all night," she thought, "and all to-morrow, and
to-morrow night. And then"--a yawn--"pretty soon I shall be dead, I
suppose, and they'll be--sorry"--another yawn--"and--"

Elly was asleep.

When she woke, the bright noon sunshine had given place to a dusky
light, which made the syringa recess very dark. The robins had
discovered her whereabouts, and, hopping nearer and nearer, had perched
upon a branch close to her feet, and were talking about her. She was
dimly conscious of their voices, but had no idea what they were saying.

"Why did it come here, any way?" asked Mrs. Robin. "A great heavy thing
like that in _our_ bush!"

"I don't know, I'm sure," replied Mr. Robin. "It makes a strange noise,
but it keeps its eyes shut while it makes it."

"These great creatures are so queer!" pursued Mrs. Robin. "There,--it's
beginning to move! I wish it would go away. I don't like its being so
near the children. They might see it and be frightened."

The two birds flitted hastily off as Elly stretched herself and rubbed
her eyes.

A very uncomfortable gnawing sensation began to make itself evident. It
wasn't exactly pain, but Elly felt that it might easily become so. She
remembered now that she fled away from the table, leaving her breakfast
only half finished, yesterday morning,--was it yesterday, or was it the
day before that? It felt like a long while ago.

The sensation increased.

"Dear me!" thought Elly, "the story-books never said that starving to
death felt so. I don't like it a bit!"

Bravely she fought against the discomfort, but it gained upon her.

She began to meditate whether her family had perhaps not been
sufficiently punished.

"I've been away a whole day," she reflected, "and a whole night, and I
guess they've felt badly enough. Very likely they've all sat up waiting
for me to come back. They'll be sorry they acted so, and, any way, I'm
so dreadfully hungry that I must have something to eat! And I want to
see mamma too. Perhaps she'll have repented, and will say, 'Poor Elly!
She _may_ go.'"

In short, Elly was seized with a sudden desire for home, and, always
rapid in decision, she lost no time in wriggling herself out of the
bush.

"There, it's gone!" chirped the female robin. "I'm glad of it. I hope it
will never come back."

Very cautiously Elly crept through the shrubbery on to the lawn. It
still seemed dark, but she now perceived that the gloom came from a
great thunder-cloud which was gathering overhead. She could not see the
sun, and, confused with her long sleep, was not able to make out what
part of the day it was; but, somehow, she felt that it was not the early
morning as in the bush she had supposed.

Across the lawn she stole, and upon the piazza. No one was visible. The
open window showed the dining-table set for something,--was it tea?
Upstairs she crept, and, looking in at the door as she went by, she saw
her mother in her room taking off her bonnet.

"My poor child, where did you think we had gone?" she called out. "Papa
was kept in town till the second train, and that was late, so we have
only just got back. You must be half starved, waiting so long for your
dinner. I hope nurse gave you some bread and milk."

"Why,--what day is it?" stammered the amazed Elly.

"Day? Why, Elly, have you been asleep? It's to-day, of
course,--Thursday. What did you think it was?"

Elly rubbed her eyes, bewildered. Had the time which seemed to her so
long really been so short? Had no one missed her? It was her first
lesson in the comparative unimportance of the individual! A sense of
her own foolishness seized her. Mamma looked so sweet and kind! Why had
she imagined her cruel?

"Did you go to sleep, dear?" repeated Mrs. Wade.

"Yes, mamma," replied Elly, humbly; "I did. But I'm waked up now."




TWO GIRLS--TWO PARTIES.


A great bustle and confusion had reigned the whole week long in the old
house at the top of the hilly street, known to the neighborhood as "the
Squire's." All the slip-covers had been taken from the furniture in the
best parlor. All the company china had been lifted off its top shelf and
washed. All the spare lamps had been filled, all the rooms swept and
dusted, all the drawers in the bureaus freshly arranged, for--as Milly
said to herself--"who knew but some one might take a fancy to peep in?"

Milly Grace, the Squire's daughter, had sat for hours in a cold woodshed
tying up wreaths of ground-pine and hemlock with fingers which grew more
chilly every hour. These wreaths now ornamented the parlor, festooning
curtains, chimney-piece, and door-frames, and making green edges to the
family portraits, which were two in number, neither of them by Copley
or Stuart, as was plain to the most casual observation.

One of these portraits represented the Squire's father in a
short-waisted, square-tailed blue coat, and a canary-colored waistcoat.
His forefinger was inserted in a calf-bound volume of Blackstone, and
his eyes were fixed with a fine judicial directness upon the cupola of
the court-house seen through a window in the background. The other was
his wife, in a sad-colored gown and muslin tucker, with a countenance
which suggested nothing except saleratus and the renunciation of all
human joys.

The Squire did not care much for this picture. It made him feel badly,
he said, just the feeling he used to have when he was a boy and was sent
every Sunday by this orthodox parent to study the longer answers of the
Shorter Catechism on the third step of the garret-stairs, with orders
not to stir from that position till he had them perfectly committed to
memory. It was this strict bringing-up, perhaps, which made him so
indulgent to Milly,--a great deal too indulgent her step-mother thought.

In the buttery stood a goodly row of cakes little and big, loaves whose
icings shone like snow-crust on a sunny day, little cakes with plums
and little cakes without plums; all sorts of cakes. On the swinging
shelf of the cellar were moulds of jelly clear and firm. In the
woodhouse stood three freezers of ice-cream, "packed" and ready to turn
out. Elsewhere were dishes of scalloped oysters ready for the oven, each
with its little edging of crimped crackers, platters of chicken-salad,
forms of blanc-mange, bowls of yellow custard topped with
raspberry-and-egg like sunset-tinted avalanches, all that goes to the
delectation of a country party: for a party there was to be, as after
this enumeration I need hardly state. It was Milly's party, and all
these elaborate preparations were her own work,--the work of a girl of
nineteen, with no larger allowance of hands, feet, and spinal-vertebræ
than all girls have, and no larger allowance of hours to her day; but
with a much greater share of zeal, energy, and what the Squire called
"go" than most young women of her age can boast of.

She it was who had pounded away at the tough sacks full of ice and salt
till they were ready for the freezers. She it was who had beaten the
innumerable eggs for the sponge cakes, pound cakes, fruit cakes, "one,
two, three, four," jelly, nut and other cakes, who had swept the rooms,
washed the china, rearranged, changed, brightened everything. Like most
other families on Croydon Hill, the Graces kept but one "help," a stout
woman, who could wash, iron, and scrub with the best, and grapple
successfully enough with the simple daily _menu_, but who for finer
purposes was as "unhandy" as a gorilla. All the embellishments, all the
delicate cookeries, fell to the share of the ladies of the household,
which meant Milly as a general thing, and in this case particularly, for
the party was hers, and she felt bound to take the burden of it on her
own shoulders as far as possible, especially as her step-mother did not
quite approve, and considered that the Squire had done a foolish thing
in giving consent. "Milly should have her way for once," the Squire had
announced.

So Milly had her way, and had borne herself bravely and brightly through
the fatigues of preparation. But somehow when things were almost ready,
when the table was set, lacking only the last touches, and the fire
lighted, a heavy sense of discouragement fell upon her. It was the
natural reaction after long overwork, but she was too inexperienced to
understand it. She only knew that suddenly the thing she had wished for
seemed undesirable and worth nothing, and that she felt perfectly
miserable, and "didn't care what became of her." She laid her tired head
on the little table by which she was sitting, and, without in the least
intending it, began to cry.

Mrs. Grace was lying down, the Squire was out; there was no one to note
her distress or sympathize with it excepting Teakettle, the black cat.
He was sorry for Milly after his cat-fashion, rubbed his velvet head
against her dress for a little while as if wishing to console her, but
when she took no notice, he walked away and sat down in front of the
door, waiting till some one should open it and let him through. Cats
soon weary of the role of comforter, and escape to pleasanter
things,--sunshine, bird-shadows on the grass, light-hearted people who
will play with them and make no appeal to their sympathies.

Milly's tears did her no good. She was too physically worn out to find
relief in them. They only deepened her sense of discouragement. The
clock struck six; she roused herself wearily and went upstairs to
dress. There were still the lamps to light and last things to do.

"And no one to do them but me," thought poor Milly. "Oh dear, how
dreadfully my feet ache! How glad I shall be when they all go away and I
can go to bed!"

This was indeed a sad state of mind to be in on the eve of a
long-anticipated pleasure!

Everything looked bright and orderly and attractive when the guests
arrived a little after half-past seven. The fire snapped and the candles
shone; a feeling of hospitable warmth was in the air. Milly's
arrangements, except so far as they regarded her own well-being, had
been judicious and happy. The pretty girls in their short-sleeved blue
and crimson merinos, with roses and geranium-leaves in their hair (I
need not say that this was at a far-back and old-fashioned date), looked
every whit as charming as the girls of to-day in their more elaborate
costumes.

Cousin Mary Kendal, who, for all her grown-up sons and daughters liked
fun as much as any girl among them, had volunteered to play for the
dancing, and the spirit with which she dashed at once into "The Caspian
Waltz" and "Corn Rigs are Bonny" was enough to set a church steeple to
capering.

Everybody seemed in a fair way to have a delightful evening except one
person. That one was poor Milly, usually the merriest in every party,
but now dull, spiritless, and inert. She did not even look pretty! Color
and sparkle, the chief elements of beauty in her face, were, for the
moment, completely quenched. She was wan and jaded, there were dark
rings under her eyes, and an utter absence of spring to her movements,
usually so quick and buoyant. She sat down whenever she had the chance,
she was silent unless she must speak; half-unconsciously she kept a
watch of the clock and was saying to herself, "Only two hours more and I
can go to bed." Her fatigued looks and lack of pleasure were a constant
damper to the animation of the rest. Every one noticed, and wondered
what could be the matter; but only Janet Norcross dared to ask.

"Have you got a headache?" she whispered; but the "No" which she
received by way of answer sounded so cross that she did not venture on
further inquiries.

"Why won't you dance with me?" urged Will Benham; "you said you would
when we were talking about the party after the Lecture--don't you
remember?"

"I'd rather the others had the chance--it's my party, you know," replied
Milly.

"But they _are_ having a chance. Everybody is dancing but you. Come,
Milly."

"Oh, Will, don't tease," cried Milly irritably. "I never saw such an
evening. Do please to leave me alone and go and ask some of the others."

Weariness sharpened her voice. Till the words were out of her lips she
had no idea that she was going to speak so petulantly to Will. It
sounded dreadfully even to herself.

"Oh, certainly," said Will with freezing dignity. He crossed the room,
and presently Milly saw him take Helen Jones out to the set of Lancers
just forming. He did not look at Milly again, or come near her, and the
sense of his displeasure was just the one drop too much. Milly felt
herself choke, a hot rush of tears blinded her eyes, she turned, and
being fortunately near the door, got out of it and upstairs without
suffering her face to be seen.

Janet found her half an hour later lying prone across the bed, and
sobbing as if her heart would break.

"What _is_ the matter?" she cried in alarm. "Are you ill, dear Milly?
has anything dreadful happened? I came up to look for you. Will Benham
got worried because you were away so long, and came to me to ask what
had become of you. I told him I guessed you were taking out the
ice-creams, but Katy said you hadn't been in the kitchen at all, so I
came up here. What is the matter--do tell me?"

"Oh, nothing is the matter at all, except that I am a perfect idiot, and
so tired that I wish I were dead," said Milly. "It was awfully good of
Will to care, for I spoke so crossly to him. You can't think. It was
horrid of me, but somehow I felt so dreadfully tired that the words
seemed to jump out of my mouth against my will. Dear Janet--and I was
cross to you, too," added Milly penitently. "Everything has gone wrong
with me to-night. Oh, and there is that horrible ice-cream! I must go
and get it out of the freezers. But my back aches so, Janet, and the
soles of my feet burn like fire."

"You poor thing, you are just tired out," said her friend. "No wonder.
You must have worked like a horse to make everything so nice and pretty
as it is. Don't worry about the ice-cream. Just tell me what dishes to
put it in, and I'll see to it. It won't take five minutes. But do rouse
yourself now, and keep up a little while longer. The others will wonder
so if you don't go down. You _must_ go down, you know. Here is a wet
towel for your eyes, and I'll smooth your hair."

Even so small a lift as having the ice-cream taken out for her was a
relief, and Janet's kindness, and the sense that Will was not hopelessly
alienated by her misconduct, helped Milly to recover her equilibrium.
Soothed and comforted she went downstairs, and got through the rest of
the evening tolerably well.

But when the last good-night had been said, and the last sleigh-bell had
jingled away from the door, she found herself too tired to rest. All
night long she tossed restlessly on her hot pillows, while visions of
pounding ice and stirring cake, of Will's anger, and Janet's surprise
when she found her in tears, whirled through her thoughts. When morning
came she was so "poorly" that the doctor was sent for.

"Too much party, no doubt," was his inward commentary when he received
the summons; and his first words to Milly were, "Well, Missy, so you are
down with fruit cake and mottoes, are you?"

"Oh, Doctor, no, I never ate a mouthful of the cake. I only made it,"
was poor Milly's disclaimer.

"That sounds serious," said the doctor. But when he had felt her pulse
he looked graver.

"You've done a good deal too much of something, that is evident," he
said. "I shall have to keep you in bed awhile to pay you for it."

Milly was forced to submit. She stayed in bed for a whole week and the
greater part of another, missing thereby two candy-pulls on which her
heart was set, and the best sleighing frolic of the season. Everybody
was kind about coming to see her, and sending her flowers and nice
things, and Janet, in particular, spent whole hours with her every day.

"The whole thing seems such a dreadful pity," Milly said one day. She
was really better now, able to sit up, and equal to a calm discussion of
her woes. "I had looked forward so much to my party, and I wanted to
have it as nice as could be, and I worked so hard; and then, when the
time came, I didn't enjoy it a bit. If I could only have it over again
now when I am all rested and fresh, I should have as good a time as
anybody. Doesn't it seem a pity, Janet?"

"Yes, it does," replied Janet, after which she fell into a little
musing-fit.

"One can't have company without taking some trouble," she said at last.
"But I wonder if one need take so much?"

"I don't see what else I could have done," said Milly. "You must give
people nice things when they come to see you, and somebody has got to
make them. And besides that, there is so much to see to about the
house,--dusting, and washing china, and making the rooms nice."

"I know," went on Janet reflectively. "Mrs. Beers half killed herself, I
remember, when she had that quilting two years ago, in giving the whole
house a thorough house-cleaning beforehand. She said as like as not
somebody would want to run up into the garret-chamber after something,
and she should have a fit if it wasn't in order. And after all, not a
soul went anywhere except to the parlor and dining-room, and into Mrs.
Beers's bedroom to take off their things; so the fuss was all thrown
away, and Mrs. Beers had inflammation of the lungs afterward, and almost
died."

"I recollect. But then they might have gone to the attic--she couldn't
tell. It was natural that Mrs. Beers should think of it."

"Well, and suppose they had, and that there had been a trifle of dust on
the top of some old trunk, what difference would it have made? People
who are busy enjoying themselves don't stop to notice every little
thing. I am going to think the thing over, Milly. It's all wrong
somehow."

Janet herself was meditating a party. Her father had given permission,
and Aunt Esther, who managed the housekeeping, was only too glad to fall
in with any plan which pleased Janet. Judge Norcross was the richest man
on the Hill. There was no reason why Janet's entertainment should not
out-shine Milly's. In fact, she had felt a little ambitious to have it
do so, and had made certain plans in her private mind all of which
involved labor and trouble; but now she hesitated.

"If I'm going to be as tired out as Milly was, and not enjoy it, what's
the use of having a party at all?" she said to herself. "I'd _like_ to
have it as nice as hers; but whatever I have, I have got to do it all
myself. I'm not as strong as Milly, I know, and it has half killed
_her_; perhaps it would quite kill me. A party isn't worth that!"

She discussed the matter within herself, reasonably. She _could_ wind
herself up and make eight kinds of cake if she liked. There were the
recipes and the materials and she knew how; moreover, Aunt Esther would
help her. She could have as much jelly and syllabub and blanc-mange as
Milly, she could turn the house upside down if she desired, and trim and
beautify and adorn. It was a temptation. No girl likes to be outdone,
least of all by her intimate friend. "But is it worth while?" Janet
queried. And I think she proved herself possessed of a very "level head"
when, at last, she decided that it was not.

"I'll be sensible for once," she told herself. "A party is not a duty,
it is a pleasure. If I get so tired that I spoil my own pleasure, I
spoil my company's too, for they will be sure to find it out just as
they did at Milly's. I couldn't half enjoy anything that night, because
she looked so miserable; and I won't run the risk of having the same
thing happen at our house. I'll just do what is necessary, and leave off
the extras."

The "necessary," when Janet came to analyze it, proved to be quite as
much as she was able to undertake; for, as she had admitted to herself,
she was not nearly so strong as Milly Grace. It meant an ample supply of
two sorts of cake, freshly made and delicate, with plenty of ice-cream,
salad, scalloped oysters, and rolls. There was extra china to wash, the
table to set, and the rooms to dust and arrange, and Janet was quite
tired enough before it was done. She sent to Boston for some preserved
ginger to take the place of the jelly which she didn't make, she made no
attempt at evergreen wreaths, and she wisely concluded that rooms in
their usual state of cleanliness would pass muster with young people
intent on dancing and amusement, that no one would find time to peep
into holes and corners, and that the house could wait to have its
"thorough cleaning" administered gradually after the occasion was over.

There was really a great deal of steady good sense in holding to this
view of the matter, and Janet found her reward in the end. The
preparations, even thus simplified, taxed her strength; the extra
touches which she had omitted would have been just the "straw too much."
She gave herself a good margin for rest on the afternoon preceding the
party, and when she came downstairs in her pretty dress of pale blue
cashmere and swan's-down, ready to meet her guests, her cheeks and eyes
were as bright as usual, and her spirits were ready for the exhilaration
of excitement.

The tone of any gathering depends in great measure on its hostess. If
she is depressed or under the weather, her visitors are pretty sure to
catch her mood and be affected by it. Janet's sunny looks and gay laughs
set the key-note of her party. Nobody missed the wine jelly or the six
absent sorts of cake, no one wasted a thought on the evergreen wreaths.
All was fun and merriment, and nothing seemed wanting to the occasion.

"What a good time we _have_ had!" said Helen Jones to Alice Ware as they
stood at the door of the dressing-room waiting for their escorts. "It's
been ever so much jollier than it was at Milly's, and I can't think
why. That was a beautiful party, but somehow people seemed to feel
dull." Helen had no idea of being overheard, but as it happened Milly
was nearer to her than she thought.

"I'll tell you why it was, Helen," she said, coming forward frankly.
"Don't look so shocked. I know you didn't mean me to hear, but indeed I
don't mind a bit. And it's quite true besides. Janet's party has been a
great deal nicer, and it's because I was such a goose about mine. I did
a great deal too much and got dreadfully tired, so tired that I couldn't
enjoy it, and you all found it out of course, so you couldn't enjoy it
either. I'm sure I don't wonder, but it was all my own fault. Janet took
warning by my experience and made her party easier, and you see how nice
it has been. We have all had a beautiful time, and so has she.
Well--I've learned a lesson by it. Next time I give a party I shall just
do what I can to make it pleasant for you all, and not what I can't, and
I hope it will turn out better for everybody concerned."




THE PINK SWEETMEAT.


Only three pairs of stockings were left in the shop. It was a very
little shop indeed, scarcely larger than a stall. Job Tuke, to whom it
belonged, was not rich enough to indulge in the buying of any
superfluous wares. Every spring he laid in a dozen dozen of thin
stockings, a bale of cheap handkerchiefs, a gross of black buttons, a
gross of white, a little stationery, and a few other small commodities.
In the autumn he added a dozen dozen of thick stockings, and a box full
of mittens and knitted comforters. Besides these he sold penny papers,
and home-made yeast made by Mrs. Tuke. If the stock of wearables grew
scant toward midwinter, Job rejoiced in his heart, but by no means made
haste to replenish it. He just laid aside the money needed for the
spring outfit, and lived on what remained. Thus it went year after year.
Trade was sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse, but
whichever way it was, Job grew no richer. He and his old wife lived
along somehow without coming on the parish for support, and with this
very moderate amount of prosperity they were content.

This year of which I write, the supply of winter stockings had given out
earlier than usual. The weather had been uncommonly cold since October,
which may have been the reason. Certain it is, that here at Michaelmas,
with December not yet come in, only three pairs of stockings were left
in the little shop. Job Tuke had told his wife only the week before that
he almost thought he should be forced to lay in a few dozen more, folks
seemed so eager to get 'em. But since he said that, no one had asked for
stockings, as it happened, and Job, thinking that trade was, after all,
pretty well over for the season, had given up the idea of replenishing
his stock.

One of the three pairs of stockings was a big pair of dark mixed gray.
One pair, a little smaller, was white, and the third, smaller still and
dark blue in color, was about the size for a child of seven or eight
years old.

Job Tuke had put up the shutters for the night and had gone to bed. The
stockings were talking together in the quiet darkness, as stockings will
when left alone. One pair had been hung in the window. It had got down
from its nail, and was now straddling carelessly with one leg on either
side of the edge of the box in which the others lay, as a boy might on
the top of a stile. This was the big gray pair.

"Our chances seem to be getting slim," he said gloomily.

"That is more than you seem," replied the White Stockings, in a tart
voice. "Your ankles are as thick as ever, and your mesh looks to me
coarser than usual to-night."

"There are worse things in the world than thickness," retorted the Gray
Stockings angrily. "I'm useful, at any rate, I am, while you have no
wear in you. I should say that you would come to darning about the
second wash, if not sooner."

"Is that my fault?" said the White Pair, beginning to cry.

"No; it's your misfortune. But people as unfortunate as you are should
mind their P's and Q's, and not say disagreeable things to those who
are better off."

"Pray don't quarrel," put in the Little Blues, who were always
peacemakers. "Think of our situation, the last survivors of twelve
dozen! we ought to be friends. But, as you say, matters _are_ getting
serious with us. Of course we are all thinking about the same thing."

"Yes; about the Christmas, and the chimney corner," sighed the White
Pair. "What a dreadful thing it would be if we went to the rag-bag never
having held a Christmas gift. I could not get over such a disgrace. My
father, my grandfather--all my relations had their chance--some of them
were even hung a second time!"

"Yes; Christmas is woven into our very substance," said the Gray
Stockings. "The old skeins and the ravellings tell the story to the new
wool,--the story of the Christmas time. The very sheep in the fields
know it. For my part," he added proudly, "I should blush to lie in the
same ash-heap even with an odd stocking who had died under the disgrace
of never being hung up for Christmas, and I will never believe that my
life-long dream is to be disappointed!"

"Why will you use such inflated language?" snapped the White Pair. "You
were only woven last July. As late as May you were running round the
meadow on a sheep's back."

"Very well; I don't dispute it. I may not be as old as Methuselah, but
long or short, my life is my life, and my dream is my dream, and you
have no call to criticise my expressions, Miss!" thundered the Big Pair.

"There you are again," said the Little Blues. "I _do_ wish you wouldn't
dispute. Now let us talk about our chances. What day of the month is
it?"

"The twenty-seventh of November," said the Gray Stockings, who, because
they hung over the penny papers in the window, always knew the exact
date.

"Little more than four weeks to the holidays," said the White Pair
dolorously. "How I wish some one would come along and put us out of
suspense."

"Being bought mightn't do that," suggested the Little Blues. "You might
be taken by a person who had two pairs of stockings, and the others
might be chosen to be hung up. Such things do happen."

"Oh, they wouldn't happen to me, I think," said the White Pair
vaingloriously.

As it happened, the three pairs of stockings were all sold the very day
after this conversation, and all to one and the same person. This was
Mrs. Wendte, an Englishwoman married to a Dutch shipwright. She had
lived in Holland for some years after her marriage, but now she and her
husband lived in London. They had three children.

The stockings were very much pleased to be bought. When Job Tuke rolled
them up in paper and tied a stout packthread round them, they nestled
close, and squeezed each other with satisfaction. Besides, the joy of
being sold was the joy of keeping together and knowing about each
other's adventures.

The first of these adventures was not very exciting. It consisted in
being laid away in the back part of a bureau-drawer, and carefully
locked in.

"Now, what is this for?" questioned the White Stockings. "Are we to stay
here always?"

"Yes; that is just what I should like to know," grumbled the Big Grays.

"Why, of course not! Who ever heard of stockings being put away for
always?" said the wise Little Blues. "Wait patiently and we shall see. I
think it is some sort of a surprise."

But day after day passed and nothing happened, surprising or otherwise,
till even the philosophical Little Blue Stockings began to lose heart
and hope. At last, one evening they heard the key click in the lock of
the drawer, a stream of light flashed into their darkness, and they were
seized and drawn forth.

"Well, mother, let us see thy purchase. Truly fine hosen they are," said
Jacob Wendte, whose English was rather foreign.

"Yes," replied his wife. "Good, handsome stockings they are, and the
children will be glad, for their old ones are about worn out. The big
pair is for Wilhelm, as thou knowest. Those must hang to the right of
the stove."

The Big Gray Pair cast a triumphant glance at his companions as he found
himself suspended on a stout nail. This _was_ something like life!

"The white are for Greta, and these small ones for little Jan. Ah, they
are nice gifts indeed!" said Mrs. Wendte, rubbing her hands. "A fine
Christmas they will be for the children."

The stockings glowed with pleasure. Not only were they hung up to
contain presents, but they themselves were Christmas gifts! This was
promotion indeed.

"Hast thou naught else?" demanded Jacob Wendte of his wife.

"No great things; a kerchief for Greta, this comforter for Wilhelm, for
the little one, mittens. That is all."

But it was not quite all, for after her husband had gone to bed, Mrs.
Wendte, a tender look on her motherly face, sought out a small,
screwed-up paper, and with the air of one who is a little ashamed of
what she is doing, dropped into each stocking a something made of sugar.
They were not sugar almonds, they were not Salem Gibraltars,--which
delightful confections are unfamiliar to London shops,--but irregular
lumps of a nondescript character, which were crumbly and sweet, and
would be sure to please those who did not often get a taste of candy. It
was of little Jan that his mother had thought when she bought the
sweetmeats, and for his sake she had yielded to the temptation, though
she looked upon it as an extravagance. There were three of the
sweetmeats--two white, one pink--and the pink one went into Jan's
stockings. Mrs. Wendte had not said anything about them to her husband.

"Well, this is satisfactory," said the Gray Pair, when Mrs. Wendte had
left the room, and he was sure of not being overheard. "Here we are all
hanging together on Christmas Eve. My dream is accomplished."

"Mine isn't," said the White Pair plaintively. "I always hoped that I
should hold something valuable, like a watch or a pair of earrings. It
is rather a come-down to have nothing but a bit of candy inside, and a
pocket handkerchief pinned to my leg. I don't half like it. It gives me
an uncomfortable pricking sensation, like a stitch in the side."

"It's just as well for you to get used to it," put in the Gray. "It
doesn't prick as much as a darning-needle, I fancy, and you'll have to
get accustomed to that before long, as I've remarked before."

"I'm the only one who has a pink sweetmeat," said the Little Blues, who
couldn't help being pleased. "And I'm for a real child. Wilhelm and
Greta are more than half grown up."

"Real children are very hard on their stockings, I've always heard,"
retorted the White Pair, who never could resist the temptation to say a
disagreeable thing.

"That may be, but it is all in the future. This one night is my own, and
I mean to enjoy it," replied the contented Little Blues.

So the night went, and now it was the dawn of Christmas. With the first
light the door opened softly and a little boy crept into the room. This
was Jan. When he saw the three pairs of stockings hanging by the stove,
he clapped his hands together, but softly, lest the noise should wake
the others. Then he crossed the room on tiptoe and looked hard at the
stockings. He soon made sure which pair was for himself, but he did not
take them down immediately, only stood with his hands behind his back
and gazed at them with two large, pleased eyes.

At last he put his hand up and gently touched the three, felt the little
blue pair, gave it a pat, and finally unhooked it from its nail. Then he
sat down on the floor, and began to put them on. His toe encountering an
obstacle, he pulled the stocking off again, put his hand in, and
extracted the pink sweetmeat, with which he was so pleased that he
laughed aloud. That woke up the others, who presently came in.

"Ah, little rogue that thou art! Always the first to waken," said his
mother, pleased at his pleasure.

"See, mother! see what I found!" he cried. "It is good--sweet! I have
tasted a crumb already. Take some of it, mother."

But Mrs. Wendte shook her head.

"No," she said. "I do not care for sugar. That is for little folks like
thee. Eat it thyself, Jan."

It was her saying this, perhaps, which prevented Wilhelm and Greta from
making the same offer,--at least, I hope so. Certain it is that neither
of them made it. Greta ate hers up on the spot, with the frank
greediness of a girl of twelve who does not often get candy. Wilhelm
buttoned his up in his trousers pocket. All three made haste to put on
the new stockings. The three pairs had only time to hastily whisper as
they were separated,--

"To-night perhaps we may meet again."

The pink sweetmeat went into the pocket of Jan's jacket, and he carried
it about with him all the morning. He did not eat it, because once eaten
it would be gone, and it was a greater pleasure to have it to look
forward to, than to enjoy it at the moment. Jan was a thrifty little
boy, as you perceive.

Being Christmas, it was of course an idle day. Jacob Wendte never knew
what to do with such. There was his pipe, and there was beer to be had,
so in default of other occupation, he amused himself with these. Mrs.
Wendte had her hands full with the dinner, and was frying sausages and
mixing Yorkshire pudding all the morning. Only Greta went to church. She
belonged to a parish-school where they gave Christmas prizes, and by no
means intended to lose her chance; but, apart from that, she really
loved church-going, for she spoke English and understood it better than
either of the other children. Wilhelm went off on errands of his own.
Little Jan spent the morning in admiring his stockings, and in wrapping
and unwrapping his precious sweetmeat, and taking it out of his pocket
and putting it in again.

"Why dost thou not eat it, dear?" asked his mother, as she lifted the
frying-pan from the stove.

But he answered: "Oh! not yet. When once it is eaten, it is over. I will
wait."

"How long wilt thou wait?" she asked.

Jan said bashfully, "I don't know."

In truth, he had not made up his mind about the sweetmeat, only he felt
instinctively that he did not want to hurry, and shorten his pleasure.

Dinner over, he went out for a walk. Every now and then, as he marched
along, his hand would steal into his pocket to finger his precious candy
and make sure that it was safe.

It was a gray afternoon, but not snowing or raining. Hyde Park was not
too far away for a walk, and Jan went there. The Serpentine was skimmed
over with ice just strong enough to bear boys, and quite a little crowd
was sliding or skating upon it. Jan could skate very well. He had
learned in Holland, but he made no attempt to join the crowd. He was
rather shy of English boys, for they sometimes laughed at his Hollander
clothes or his Dutch accent, and he did not like to be laughed at.

So he strolled away, past the Serpentine and the skaters, and watched
the riders in the Row for a while. There were not a great many, for
people who ride are apt to be out of London at the Christmas time; but
there were some pretty horses, and one fair little girl on a pony who
took Jan's fancy very much. He stood for a long time watching her trot
up and down, and the idea occurred to him that he would like to give her
his sweetmeat. He even put his hand into his pocket and half pulled it
out; but the little girl did not look his way, and presently her father,
with whom she was riding, spoke to her, and she turned her horse's head
and trotted off through the marble arch. Jan dropped the sugarplum again
into his pocket, and felt as if his sudden fancy had been absurd; and
indeed I think the little girl would have been surprised and puzzled
what to do had he carried out the intention.

After the pony and his little mistress had departed, Jan lost his
interest in the riders, and walked away across the park. Once he stopped
to look at a dear little dog with a blue collar, who seemed to have lost
his master, for he was wandering about by himself, and smelling
everybody and everything he met, as if to recover a lost trail. Jan
called him. He came up in a very friendly way and allowed himself to be
patted; and once more the sweetmeat was in danger, for Jan had taken it
out with the intention of dividing it with this new friend, when a
whistle was heard which the little dog evidently recognized, and he
darted off at once to join his master. So again the pink sweetmeat was
put back into Jan's pocket, and he walked on.

He had gone quite a distance when he saw a number of people collected
round the foot of a tree. A ladder was set against one of the lower
branches, and a man had climbed up nearly to the top of the tree. Jan,
like a true boy, lost no time in joining the crowd, but at first he
could not make out what was going on. The boughs were thick. All that he
could see was the man's back high up overhead, and what he was doing he
could not guess.

A benevolent-looking old gentleman stood near, and Jan heard him exclaim
with great excitement:

"There, he's got him! No, he's not; but it was a close shave!"

"Got what, sir?" he ventured to ask.

"Why, the rook, to be sure."

Then, seeing that Jan still looked puzzled, he took the trouble to
explain.

"You see that rook up there, my lad, don't you?" Jan had not seen any
rook at all! "Well it is caught in some way, how, I can't tell you, but
it can't get away from the tree. It has been there three days, they
say, and all that time the other rooks have brought food to it, and kept
it from starving. Now some one has gone up to see what is the
difficulty, and, if possible, to set the poor thing free."

"Thank you, sir," said Jan.

And the old gentleman looked at him kindly, and said to himself:--

"A very civil, tidy little lad! I like his face."

Jan had now become deeply interested in what was going on. He stood on
tiptoe, and stretched his neck; but all he could see was the man's back
and one of his feet, and now and then the movement of a stick with which
the man seemed to be trying to hit something. At last there was a great
plunge and a rustling of branches, and people began to hurrah. Jan
hurrahed too, though he still saw nothing very clearly; but it is easier
to shout when other boys shout, if you happen to be a boy, than it is to
keep still.

Slowly the man in the tree began to come down. He had only one hand to
help himself with now, for the other held the heavy rook. We in America
do not know what rooks are like, but in England they are common enough.
They are large black birds, something like our crows, but they look
wiser, and are a good deal bigger.

As the man neared the ground, every one in the crowd could see what had
been the matter with the rook. A kite-string, caught among the tree
branches, had tangled his legs and held him fast. He had pulled so hard
in his efforts to escape that the string had cut into one of his legs
and half broken it. It was stiff and bleeding, and the rook could
neither fly nor hop. People searched in their pockets, and one little
girl, who had a half biscuit, began to feed the rook, who, for all the
kindly efforts of his friends, seemed to be half-famished. The poor
thing was too weak to struggle or be frightened, and took the crumbs
eagerly from the girl's hand.

Jan thought of his sweetmeat, and took it out for the third time.
Everybody was crowding round the man who held the rook, and he could not
get near. A very tall policeman stood in front of him. Jan pulled his
arm, and when he turned, handed him the sweetmeat, and said in his soft
foreign English:--

"For the bird, sir."

"Thank you, my dear," said the policeman.

He had not understood what Jan said, and in an abstracted way, with his
eyes still fixed on the rook, he bit the pink sweetmeat in two, and
swallowed half of it at a mouthful. Fortunately Jan did not see this,
for the policeman's back was turned to him; but observing that the man
made no attempt to go forward, he pulled his sleeve for the second time,
and again said:--

"For the bird, I said, sir."

This time the policeman heard, and taking one step forward, he held the
remaining half of the sweetmeat out to the rook, who, having by this
time grown used to being fed, took the offered dainty greedily. Jan saw
the last pink crumb vanish into the long beak, but he felt no regret.
His heart had been touched by the suffering of the poor bird, and he was
glad to give what he could to make it forget those painful days in the
tree.

So that was the end of the pink sweetmeat, or not quite the end. The
kind old gentleman to whom Jan had spoken, had noticed the little
transaction with the policeman. He was shrewd as well as kind. He
guessed by Jan's clothes that he was a working-man's son, to whom sweets
were not an every-day affair, and the generous act pleased him. So he
put his hand into _his_ pocket, pulled out a half-crown, and watching
his opportunity, dropped it into Jan's pocket, quite empty now that the
sweetmeat was gone. Then, with a little chuckle, he walked away, and Jan
had no suspicion of what had been done to him.

Gradually the crowd dispersed, Jan among the rest walking briskly, for
he wanted to get home and tell his mother the story. It was not till
after supper that he discovered the half-crown, and then it seemed to
him like a sort of dream, as if fairies had been at work, and turned the
pink sweetmeat into a bit of silver.

That night the three pairs of stockings had another chance for
conversation. The blue ones and the gray ones lay close together on the
floor of the room where Jan slept with his brother, and the white ones,
which Greta had carelessly dropped as she jumped into bed, were near
enough the half-opened door to talk across the sill.

"It has been an exciting day," said the White Pair. "My girl got a
Keble's 'Christian Year' at her school. It was the second-best prize. It
is a good thing to belong to respectable people who take prizes. Only
one thing was painful to me: she wriggled her toes so with pleasure that
I feel as if I were coming to an end in one of my points."

"You probably are," remarked the Big Gray. "Yes, now that I examine, I
can see the place. One stitch has parted already, and there is quite a
thin spot. You know I always predicted that you would be in the rag-bag
before you knew it."

"Oh, don't say such dreadful things," pleaded the Little Blues. "Mrs.
Wendte will mend her, I am sure, and make her last. What did your girl
do with her sweetmeat?"

"Ate it up directly, of course. What else should one do with a
sweetmeat?" snapped the White Pair crossly. "Oh, dear! my toe feels
dreadfully ever since you said that; quite neuralgic!"

"My boy was not so foolish as to eat his sweetmeat," said the Big Gray
stockings. "Only girls act in that way, without regard to anything but
their greedy appetites. He traded his with another boy, and he got a
pocket-knife for it, three screws, and a harmonica. There!"

"Was the knife new?" asked the Blue.

"Could the harmonica play any music?" demanded the White.

"No; the harmonica is out of order inside somehow, but perhaps my boy
can mend it. And the knife isn't new--quite old, in fact--and its blade
is broken at the end; still, it's a knife, and Wilhelm thinks he can
trade it off for something else. And now for your adventures. What did
_your_ boy do with his sweetmeat, Little Blues? Did he eat it, or trade
it?"

"It is eaten," replied the Blue Stockings cautiously.

"Eaten! Then of course he ate it. Why don't you speak out? If he ate it,
say so. If he didn't, who did?"

"Well, nobody ate the whole of it, and my boy didn't eat any. It was
divided between two persons--or rather, between one person and--and--a
thing that is not a person."

"Bless me! What are you talking about? I never heard anything so absurd
in my life. Persons, and things that are not persons," said the White
Pair; "what do you mean?"

"Yes; what _do_ you mean? What is the use of beating about the bush in
this way?" remonstrated the Big Gray Pair. "Who did eat the sweetmeat?
Say plainly."

"Half of it was eaten by a policeman, and the other half by a rook,"
replied the Little Blues, in a meek voice.

"Ho, ho!" roared the Gray Stockings, while the White Pair joined in with
a shrill giggle. "That beats all! Half by a policeman, and half by a
rook! A fine way to dispose of a Christmas sweetmeat! Your boy must be a
fool, Little Blues."

"Not a fool at all," said the Blue Pair indignantly. "Now just listen to
me. Your girl ate hers up at once, and forgot it. Your boy traded his
away; and what has he got? A broken knife, and a harmonica that can't
play music. I don't call those worth having. My boy enjoyed his
sweetmeat all day. He had more pleasure in giving it away than if he had
eaten it ten times over! Besides, he got half a crown for it. An old
gentleman slipped it into his pocket because he was pleased with his
kind heart. I saw him do it."

"Half a crown!" ejaculated the White Pair, with amazement.

"That _is_ something like," admitted the Big Gray Stockings. "Your boy
did the best of the three, I admit."

The Little Blues said no more.

Presently the others fell asleep, but she lay and watched Jan as he
rested peacefully beside his brother, with his wonderful treasure--the
silver coin--clasped tight in his hand. He smiled in his sleep as though
his dreams were pleasant.

"Even if he had no half-crown, still he would have done the best," she
whispered to herself at last.

Then the clock struck twelve, and the day after Christmas was begun.




ETELKA'S CHOICE.


Etelka lived on the very borders of the Fairy Country.

It may be that some of you do not believe that there are any such beings
as fairies. In fact, it is not easy to hold to one's faith in them when
one lives in such a country as this of ours. Fairies are the shyest of
creatures; shyer than the wood-dove, shyer than the glancing dragon-fly.
They love silence, seclusion, places where they can sport unseen with no
intruding voice or step to startle them: when man comes they go. And I
put it to you whether it is likely that they can enjoy themselves in the
United States, where every forest with any trees in it worth cutting
down is liable at any moment to be attacked by an army of wood-choppers;
where streams are looked upon as "water power," lakes as "water supply,"
and ponds as suitable places for the breeding of fish; where distance
is brought near by railroads, and solitudes only mean a chance for a
settler; where people are always poking about the hills and mountains in
search of coal mines or silver mines, and prodding the valleys in hopes
of oil wells, and where silence generally means an invitation to a
steam-whistle of one kind or another?

But where Etelka lived no one doubted the reality of fairies any more
than they did that of human beings. Her home was in Bohemia, in the
outskirts of the _Boehmer-wald_, a vast, unpeopled tract of mountainous
country thickly wooded, full of game, and seldom visited except by
hunting-parties in pursuit of stags or wild boars. Etelka's people were
of mixed Sclavonic and gypsy origin. They cultivated a patch of land
under the stewardship of a lord who never came near his estate, but this
was only their ostensible occupation; for poaching or smuggling goods
across the frontier brought in a great deal more money to them than did
farming. There were three sons, Marc, Jocko, and Hanserl; Etelka was the
only girl. They were lithe, sinewy young fellows, with the swarthy skins
and glittering black eyes which belonged to their gypsy blood, and
something furtive and threatening in their looks, but she was different.
Her hair and eyes were of a warm brown, her features were delicate, and
their expression was wistful and sweet. All summer long she ran about
with her slender feet and ankles bare. A thin little cotton gown and a
bead necklace composed her wardrobe for the warmer months. In winter she
wore woollen stockings and wooden shoes, a stuff petticoat and a little
shawl. She was always shabby, often ragged, and on cold days scarcely
ever warm enough to be comfortable; but she somehow looked pretty in her
poor garments, for beauty is the gift of Heaven, and quite as often sent
to huts as to palaces. No one had ever told Etelka that she was pretty,
except indeed young Sepperl of the Mill, whom she had seen now and again
on her semi-annual visits to the neighboring village to dispose of her
yarn, and he had said more with his eyes than with his tongue!

To her family it made no difference whatever whether she was pretty or
not. They preferred to have her useful, and they took care that she
should be so. She spun and sewed, she cleaned the pots and pans, cooked
the rye porridge and the cabbage soup, and rarely got a word of thanks
for her pains. Her brothers flung her their jackets to mend or their
game to dress, without a word of ceremony; if she had refused or delayed
to attend to their wants she would have got a rough word, a curse, or
perhaps a blow. But Etelka never refused; she was a willing little
creature, kindly and cheerful, and had no lazy blood in her veins. So
early and late she worked for them all, and her chief, almost her only
pleasure was when, her tasks despatched, she could escape from the hut
with its atmosphere of smoke and toil, and get away into the forest by
herself.

When once the green and fragrant hush of the high-arched thickets closed
her in, she would give a sigh of relief, and a sense of being at home
took possession of her. She did not feel it in the hut, though she
called that home, and it was the only one she had ever known.

Did Etelka believe in fairies? Indeed she did! She had a whole volume of
stories about them at her tongue's end. Her great-grandmother had seen
them often; so had her great-aunt. The mother of Dame Gretel, the wise
woman of the village, who herself passed for a witch, had been on
intimate terms for a long time with a hoary little kobold who had
taught her all manner of marvellous things. The same fortunate woman had
once seen Rubesal, the mountain demon, and had left an account of him
and his looks, which were exactly those of a charcoal-burner. Etelka
knew the very hollow where Dame Gretel's mother used to sit and listen
to the teachings of the kobold, and could point out the ring where a
number of the "good people" had once been seen moving a mystic dance,
their wings glancing in the darkness like fire-flies. She, herself, had
never seen a fairy or a kobold, it is true; everybody was not thus
fortunate, but she might some day, who knew? And meantime she had often
heard them whispering and sighing in their odd little voices close
beside her. You may be sure that Etelka believed in fairies. It was one
reason why she liked so well to go to the great forest, which was their
well-known abiding-place.

One day the desire to escape from home was unusually strong upon her.
Her mother was out of sorts for some reason and had been particularly
harsh. Her father, who sometimes stood her friend, had gone to the
village with a bundle of hare-skins which he hoped to trade for oil and
brandy. Her brothers, who had some private expedition on foot, had kept
her running since early morning. She had grown tired and a little cross
at their many exactions, and when, finally, all was made ready, and they
set out with their guns and snares and a knapsack full of food, and her
mother, sitting with her pipe beside the fire, had fallen into a doze,
Etelka gladly closed the door behind her and stole away. The soup was
simmering in its pot, the bowls were ready set on the table. She would
not be missed. For an hour or two she might feel that she belonged to
herself.

The forest felt deliciously cool and still as she walked fast up the
little glade which led to the Fairy Spring. This was a small pool of
clear water, bubbling strongly up from a sandy bottom, and curiously
walled round with smooth stones, which seemed fitted and joined by the
labor of man, though in reality they were a freak of nature.

Etelka sat herself down on this stony rim, dipped her hands in the water
and sprinkled a little on her hot forehead. A tall spear of feathery
grass grew just by. Presently it began to bend and sway as if
wind-blown, and dance lightly up and down before her face. She took no
notice at first; then it occurred to her, as no wind was blowing
anywhere else, it was odd that this particular grass-blade should be in
such active motion.

"How queer," she said, looking hard at the grass-blade; "it seems to be
alive!"

A shrill, small laugh echoed her words, and suddenly, as if her eyes had
been magically opened to see, she became aware that a tiny shape in
green, with a pointed cap on its head, was sitting upon the blade of
grass and moving it to and fro with hand and foot. The little
countenance under the cap was full of mischief and malice, and the
bright eyes regarded her with a strange glee. Etelka knew instantly that
her wish had come true, and that at last she was face to face with a
veritable fairy.

"Oh!" was all she could say in her amazement.

"Well, stupid, do you know who I am?" asked the creature in a voice as
shrill as its laugh.

"Yes, mein Herr," faltered Etelka.

"Here you have gone about all your days wishing you could see a fairy,"
continued the small creature, "and there we were close by all the time,
and you never opened your eyes to look. How do you like me now you do
see me?"

"Very much, Herr Fairy," replied Etelka, gaining courage. "I think you
are beautiful."

The fairy seemed pleased at this compliment, which was evidently
sincere.

"Thou art a good maiden enough, as maidens go," he said, accosting her
more familiarly. "I have long had my eye on thee, Etelklein. I have sat
up in the roof-thatch and heard Jocko and Hanserl scold and hector, and
the mother order thee about, and I have noted that thou wast almost
always kind and humble, and seldom answered them back again. Thou art
neat-handed, too, and that we fairies think much of. Many a drink of
good new milk have I had, which I should have missed hadst thou
forgotten to scour the pail. So now in return I will do something for
thee. Listen.

"Thou must know that each fairy of the _Boehmer-wald_ has the privilege
once every hundred years of granting one wish to a mortal. All do not
exercise it. Some crabbed ones do not like the human folk enough to be
willing to do them a good turn, others again are too lazy or too
pleasure-loving to go out of their way for the purpose. I am neither of
these. Now, hearken. I will give thee the power that every time thou
dancest a piece of gold shall lie under thy foot--or, instead of the
gold, a flower shall spring up out of the ground; which wilt thou have?"

"Yes; which wilt thou have?" cried another sharp voice, and a second
fairy appeared, out of the air as it were, and seated himself on the
very tip of the grass-blade. "Don't be in a hurry. Think a bit before
you choose, Etelka. Why, child, what are you looking so scared about?"

For Etelka had grown pale, and had not been able to repress a little
scream at this sudden apparition. She rallied her courage and tried to
look brave, but her heart misgave her. Was the wood full of these unseen
creatures?

"It is only my gossip," explained fairy number one. "Thimblerig is his
name. Mine is Pertzal. He usually comes after me wherever I go. You
needn't be afraid of _him_. Now, gold-piece or flower--decide."

Etelka was in a whirl of confusion. It was dreadful to have to make up
her mind all in a moment about such an important thing. Her thoughts
flew to Sepperl of the Mill. He was fond of flowers, she knew; the mill
garden was always full of blue flax, poppies, and lavender, and Sepperl
spent all his spare hours in working over it. Suppose--suppose--the
thing over which she had sometimes shyly glowed and blushed were to
happen, how pleasant it would be to dance flowers all day long for
Sepperl!

Then her mind reverted to the hut, to her mother and the boys, who were
always craving after the luxuries of life which they could not have, and
fiercely envying those who were better off than themselves. Would they
not be happier and better and kinder for the gold which she had it in
her power to give them? They would not forgive her if she lost such a
chance, that she knew. And even so far as Sepperl went, gold never came
amiss to a poor man's door. So many things could be bought with it.

"One cannot eat flowers," said Etelka to herself with a sigh; yet still
she hesitated, and her heart felt heavy within her.

"Choose," repeated the two fairies, each echoing the other.

"I choose the gold-piece," said Etelka. The fairy faces clouded over as
she spoke, and she knew she had chosen wrong.

"Very well," said Pertzal, "have thy wish." He vanished as he spoke.
Etelka sat alone by the bubbling spring, and she rubbed her eyes and
asked herself if it were not all a dream.

"

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