The Project Gutenberg eBook of Stories and Ballads for Young Folks, by Ellen Tracy Alden.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Stories and ballads for young folks, by Ellen Tracy Alden

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

STORIES AND BALLADS

FOR YOUNG FOLKS.

The north-west wind, driving feathery flakes of snow before it, heaps up gray masses of cloud over the sunny afternoon, and then, as if bent on subduing what cheeriness remains among the shadows it has brought, howls dismally down the chimneys, moans at the casements dismally. The Lieutenant throws himself down on the lounge, and draws a long sigh. Kate slips quietly out of the room, catches up her shawl and hat from the rack in the hall, and her brother, hearing her go down the steps into the street, wonders where she is bound for, and why she didn’t say something about it, and then falls back into his gloomy reverie.

“It may be ‘sweet for one’s country to die’; but to live on, a shattered, helpless wreck”—and, at the thought, he gripes the curving frame of the lounge with his one hand, and his firm-set lips quiver; when, suddenly, without the faintest footfall to indicate the approach of any one, two little arms creep about his neck, and between silvery peals of laughter a shower of kisses falls over forehead and sightless eyes, on[4] either cheek, on nose, mouth and chin. “There!” cries a childish, laughing voice, “I surpized you, didn’t I? Ha, ha, ha!”

“Ha, ha!” echoes the Lieutenant, coming directly from a horizontal to a sitting posture, his arm around the wee mite, “so you did ‘surpize’ me, midget. And where did you come from? Did you drop out of the sky?”

“Out of the sky!” repeats the little maiden, with a great deal of scorn and emphasis. “Why, I comed right from our house! Katy comed after me, and we went round to the back door, so you wouldn’t hear, and then Katy took off my shoes, and I comed up on tiptoe in my stocking-feet. Ha, ha! I surpized you, didn’t I? I’m go’n to ’gin!” and away she rushes across the room and back against him, pell-mell, arms about his neck, and kisses raining all over his face. “There! how do you like it?” and the room rings with her musical laughter—in which the Lieutenant once more joins, with—

“My dear young lady, I must confess that I haven’t the least objection to the proceeding.”

“Young—la-day!” is the slow and scornful rejoinder; “young la-dy! Why, I’m a little girl!”

“A ba-by! (the italics are to mark the emphasis) I’m[5] four-years-old big! I’m no ba-by! Willie’s the baby. He’s got a new tooth! That makes three—six—five! He’s got five teeth!”

“Oh, I beg pardon! an ‘over-skirt,’ is it? So she’s a fashionable doll. What might be her name?”

“Mary Ann, Sacharissa, Sophia, Clarissa, Joan, Melissa, Eloise, Elizabeth, Jane—”

“Victoria, Eugenia, Augusta, Paulina, Virginia, Aurelia, Geraldine, Mollie—”

“Yes! Mollie! that’s what it is; but none of your other old—elephants. There, you’re laughing! You knowed what it was all the time; you was only pertendin’. You’ve seen my dolly before.”

“Very well.” And the Lieutenant, rising, manages to shift little dot up to his shoulder. “There, now, you’re a feather on top of a barn-door.”

“Shall I tell you what you are? You’re my little angel.” And, holding her carefully, he goes down the stairs, feeling his way, now and then, with the remnant of an arm in his dangling right sleeve.

“I’m almost through,” cries Kate, from the kitchen, her face all aglow with the heat. And Edith, from her lofty perch, watches the few yellow kernels that are nearly lost sight of in the bottom of the wire corn-popper, after a shake or two over the hot coals, suddenly—“Snap, snap, snap!” and look! it is full to the brim with something white and savory, which, seasoned with salt and the least bit of butter, she deals out (with great fairness and impartiality) to herself and her “captain boy,” after they have gone up-stairs again. By and by a thought strikes her.

“Why, so she hasn’t. We’ll have to make her one, won’t we?” And a box of ribbons and laces and pieces of silk is produced from somewhere, and the two sit down on the floor near the Lieutenant’s chair, talking all the time and planning out this wonderful apron.

So an apron (with pockets, observe!) is soon manufactured out of a bit of a broad scarlet sash, and braided, too, with white silk braid; and straightway on it goes, in feverish haste (one is anxious to study the effect, you know), over the stylish (but serene) Mademoiselle’s black satin gown. (The effect isn’t bad.)

After due admiration from Edith, some other diversion is in order, and a book of engravings is brought for inspection. As the leaves are turned for her she glances for an instant at one picture after another, giving the word to proceed; but they finally come to something over which she pores a long while—so long that Kate is passing to the next without waiting for the “Go on” from little Miss, when the latter immediately takes the book into her own hands, returns to this picture, and continues to gaze at it. “What does it mean?” at length she asks.

“Had I better tell her?” Kate, in an under-tone, questions of her brother. “It’s Gustave Doré’s ‘The Deluge’—people and wild beasts huddled together upon a rock rising out of the waste of water, and the great, lashing waves reaching up for them greedily, like wide-mouthed monsters. Odd, isn’t it, that she should notice it so, among so many more attractive prints? She wouldn’t be likely to comprehend if I were to explain, would she? Good, there goes the tea-bell!” And Kate closes the book, glad of an excuse to escape telling the story of the flood to this blithesome little being, whom, she has a dim notion, it might give bad dreams.

Seated at the supper-table, and elevated to the common level by aid of three sofa-cushions, Edith for a few moments bestows particular attentions upon a sauce-plate of canned peaches, to the utter disregard of more substantial food. After which she sits back in her chair, and, inclining her head toward her hostess, whispers—

“But you haven’t eaten your bread and butter yet; eat that first, and then you shall have some cake.”

“I want it now,” responds the small person, with much firmness, and is directly supplied with the desired article—a measure which might meet with protest[9] if Edith’s mamma were present. No, it wouldn’t, either, come to think of it, for Edith’s mamma knows what are Kate’s ideas concerning sweetmeats. Has she not, on a similar occasion, heard her express herself after this manner?—

“If unfeeling people will persist in denying dainties to the wee folks, they may just keep the stuff out of sight. Set it right where the poor little things can watch it with wistful eyes, and then pass it around to the favored few, but for them—‘No, you can’t have any. It isn’t healthy for you!’ If grown-up people can’t deny themselves such things, they haven’t any right to expect the children to. To require children to show more strength of character than they have themselves!—oh, it’s a downright shame! And then, leaving open the places where the forbidden fruit is kept, and when the midgets climb up the closet-shelves and take a bite, on the sly, finding fault with them! Leading them into temptation (and isn’t that what responsible people even pray to be delivered from?) and then, when the poor little things fall into the very trap they have set, finding fault with them, and lecturing them, and all that nonsense! Oh, it’s a cruel shame!”

The speaker, you see, is the children’s zealous advocate; and, little people, if ever there is anything you especially covet, or if ever you get into trouble, just go[10] to her. She will plead your cause with burning cheeks, and flashing eyes, and such withering eloquence that the stern household judges will not fail to relent.

But it is after dark, and the snow is falling heavily, and mamma will want her little Edith home. So Kate sets forth with her small charge, well wrapped and protected from the cold—although they have but a few steps to go, as Edith lives in the next house.

“It’s about a child, I believe—but modesty forbids my mentioning the name of the author.”

“Ah, you old rogue, I see what you’re driving at!—you’ve been having a call from the Muse.”

“Rather from some poor vagabond tricked out in her cast-off mantle, you mean.”

Kate goes and stands behind the high-backed arm-chair, and toys with her brother’s jetty locks. (Are they not her pride and consolation—those clustering curls? Not all the flying bullets, and slashing sabres, and ruthless cannon-balls could rob him of those—no, nor the weary, wasting sickness that followed the privations and exposure, and left him—blind.) “Come, now, Wallie, stop joking, and let me have the verses, won’t you?”

“Heigho-ho!” yawned Harry, who had dropped in one evening, and curled himself up in his favorite nook, the chimney-corner. “I wish books had never been invented, or schools either, for that matter. I’ve been digging away at one of Æsop’s fables for the last two hours, and I can’t make any sense out of it at all. It’s a lot of stuff about some doves and hawks that got to fighting; but whether the doves eat up the hawks or not, how’s a fellow going to find out? And I got stuck in my algebra, too, and I sha’n’t have a single decent lesson to-morrow, and then old Williams’ll give me a lecture and a zero, and—well, a fellow gets disgusted with that sort of thing for a steady diet. Oh, I tell you I’ll be glad when once I’m out of school, and the pesky business is done with! What’s the use of it, anyhow? I wish I didn’t have to go another day.”

“But the time would be apt to hang pretty heavily on your hands, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, I’d find plenty to do to fill up the time, never you fear! Now all these splendid days, along back,[14] when I ought to have been down at the rink, skating, and there I had to sit in that stupid old schoolroom, moping over a desk! It makes me mad to think of it. But I came over—I got so tired studying. I thought maybe you’d have some story or other to tell, Lieutenant.”

“A story; what is there you haven’t heard, I wonder? I’m afraid my stock of stories has about run out. Let me see, though,—have you ever heard about Castle Marvel?”

“Well, this was a famous castle that stood upon a high mountain, and that people sometimes went to see. Among the rest, there went from a certain city a company of youths. Now, their route lay across a sunny plain that was like a very fairy-land; flowers covered it with every hue of the rainbow, and over these hovered clouds of golden-winged butterflies; and in the shady groves zephyrs sang and birds caroled as never sang zephyrs or caroled birds anywhere else.

“And, so, many of the youths tarried, saying, ‘It is pleasant here; let us gather roses;’ or, ‘Let us chase butterflies;’ or, ‘Let us lie down under the wide-spreading branches, and listen to the music overhead.’ The others, hastening onward, reached, at length, the[15] foot of the mountain, and began to ascend. But to climb this mountain was by no means an easy task; for, while in some places it was very steep, in others a perpendicular and seemingly impassable wall would confront the weary traveler; and there were chasms, too, which must be crossed; but over most of these bridges had been built; and where the way was steep and slippery steps had been hewn among the rocks; and up the granite walls places had been cut for hands and feet; and all this had been done by travelers who had previously ascended—aye, with untold hardships, and often at the risk of their lives. But now, in climbing, so had the way been opened before them, these youths met with no peril, only with labor and weariness, here and there. And yet, ever, as they toiled upward, would one and another turn back, discouraged, to rejoin the comrades below, declaring that the sight of the castle was not worth so much pains.

“Now to these pleasure-seekers in the flowery meadows after a time returned the venturesome few who had succeeded in gaining the summit, and they were greeted with loud cries of astonishment—for behold, their faces shone wondrously, flooded as if with light, and they seemed like beings from another world.

“‘Tell us, what have you seen, or what have you heard, that your countenances should be thus altered?’ demanded the curious throng.

“‘Ah, friends,’ replied the others, ‘would that we might tell you the half of what we have seen, the half of what we have heard. Truly marvelous is this castle which we have visited, and beyond the power of words to describe. We may, indeed, relate to you how, from its windows, we beheld the fair earth, from pole to pole, spread out before us in new and undreamed-of beauty; how we found secret stairways which led us to the burning heart of this same earth; how, through mysterious passage-ways, we were guided to the silent and strangely-peopled valleys of the sea; how, by tower and turret, we mounted to dizzy heights, from whence we could peer in among the stars, and catch a glimpse of the glory lying beyond; how all the way, from lowest foundation-stone to loftiest pinnacle, they who went up before us had carved inscriptions, revealing in what manner the world has fared—even from its creation; how, passing to and fro, our questions were answered, our doubts were quieted, and we were filled with such delight as is only known to them who go up thither—this much, and more we may relate, and yet but a faint idea will you have of that mighty structure. Oh, friends, so vast it is, so wide, so high,—so deep down extend its massive walls, that, though one should wander a lifetime within its gates, still many portions would be unknown to him; so free and open to all it is, that whoever[17] will may abide there, continually feasted and royally entertained; so magnificent it is, that whether you go up or down, whether you follow corridors that lead on, and ever on, or loiter in spacious treasure-halls, golden is the ceiling, crystal is the pavement, riches and splendor meet you at every turn, and you tread upon diamonds which are yours but for the picking up; and what is most marvelous about the castle is this—the more of these rare jewels that are gathered and carried away, the more remain.’

“Then the idlers, seeing their companions laden with precious gems, sparkling in the sunlight, could not doubt the truthfulness of this report; and they said: ‘Let us go up also, to be enriched, and to see those wonderful sights.’ But when they began to climb they discovered that their strength had departed, and that their eyes were dimmed so that they could not find the path; and they now first became aware of how the years had flown while they had been lingering among the pleasant fields, and that in the feebleness of age they were no longer able to mount upward. And they sat down and wept with regret, and nevermore ceased sighing, because of the years they had wasted below.”

“There’s a Hæc fabula docet to that story, I suspect,” said Harry, good-naturedly, after staring awhile at the fire. “But I’ll forgive you, as it’s the only one of that sort I ever heard you tell.”

It is one of those first bright, pleasant days, so welcome after the rains and clouds that follow the long siege of winter. With the sunbeams so warm, and the air so soft and balmy, who can choose to stay indoors? The Lieutenant draws his chair out to the porch, and is presently joined by Harry, who mounts the railing and proceeds to relate an adventure he had the other night.

“You see we were out on the lake, fishing—a lot of us, and we’d caught about a dozen trout, when up come a storm—a regular gale. Boat capsized; out we went into the water. Rain pouring down in torrents, and so dark you couldn’t see your hand before you. Tell you we had to swim for it. But we got ashore at last, and they took us in at a house close by, and dried our clothes for us, and gave us some supper, and we had a regular jolly time of it, after all.”

“Yes, I heard about that excursion of yours from another source, and about a boy by the name of Harry who saved another boy from drowning.”

“No! did you, though? Well, you see he didn’t know much about swimming, and it was my doings, his going with us, and if anything had happened to him I’d have been to blame. But, I tell you, I thought one time there we were both goners, sure. Hallo, Edith!”

“See my new hat!” she cries, climbing up the steps. “I and mamma bought it down street this very morning. See, it’s all trimmed with blue ribbons!”

“Yes, it’s really pooty. There comes Marie Maross with her instruction book; she’s been taking a music lesson. Say, Marie, come in and sit down, won’t you? You look tired. Professor cross this morning?”

“Yes,” responds Marie, readily accepting the invitation. “He says I don’t half practice my lessons, and it’s no such thing! I practiced a whole half an hour yesterday, and on those wretched scales, too! they’re enough to drive one distracted.”

Harry glares at the gate-post as if it were the professor himself, and he is about to express, in strong terms, his poor opinion of professors of music generally, when—

“Che! cheree! cheree! te-hee, hee, ha, ha, ha!” laughs Robin Redbreast among the budding branches overhead. What is he cocking his shrewd black eye at the two on the steps below for?—looking for all the world as though he had seen them before now—passing[20] notes to each other in that “horrid old school-room,” when “Old Williams” wasn’t watching.

But hush, you, Sir Robin, and hush, every one. Marie lifts her hand to impose silence; for, see, there is a wee gray sparrow prospecting about a moss basket hanging in the porch, evidently in search of a good building site.

But here comes the mail-carrier, who cannot stop for such trifles. As he rapidly approaches Mrs. Sparrow flies away.

Kate, who has been setting out tulip-bulbs in her flower-beds in the back-yard, comes to look over the letters. This one, from a small boy, she reads aloud:

“Them’s my sentiments exactly,” says Harry. “It’s been just so at our house now for a week. Everything’s topsy-turvy, and you can’t find a place to rest the sole of your foot. And cross? my! I thought Ann[21] would take my head off, this morning, when I tumbled against her mop-pail and tipped it over.”

It is bashful little Bessie, on her way home from a ramble in the distant wood, who whispers in Kate’s ear, as she offers a bunch of spring beauties gathered there, and blossoms plucked from a wayside apple-tree. Mr. Walter receives them with a smile of recognition, for who does not love the odor of apple-blossoms?

The blushing Bessie is straightway reassured and gratified by the following fable improvised for the occasion:

But listen—will you?—to this score of lads and lasses, Bessie’s companions (freed from school, for it is Saturday), who, laden with wild flowers and mosses and ferns, have meanwhile established themselves on the steps, and are chattering like a flock of blackbirds:

“Oh, we’ve had lots of fun, and I’m awfully tired. Will you believe it? I ran over a snake! Dear me, how scared I was!” (A girl, of course.)

“Sho! you needn’t have been afraid of such a harmless little snake as that; I’d just as soon take it up in my hand as not!” (A boy, of course.)

“See, Marie, what a pretty toad-stool I found, all scarlet inside; and Fred, he’s got a lot of snail-shells in his pocket.”

“If I’d only had a gun along I could have popped over two or three red squirrels.”

“Oh—h—h! it would be cruel to kill the dear, sweet, cunning little creatures.”

“Oh, the quantities of Bobolinks we saw in the meadows! If you could only have heard them sing—”

Everybody stares at the apparition. He has stolen a march upon them—that little tawny Italian, down there in the street, gazing up at the merry group, with a weary sort of smile, as his slender fingers toy with the strings of his instrument, bringing forth many a plaintive air. Soon the music ceases, and the tattered hat is passed around. But he may not go yet; his audience is clamoring for a song. “An Italian song,” cries Marie. And so, to the accompaniment of his guitar, he sings in his native tongue a little ballad which runs something after this fashion:

And off he goes with his merry song, and his weary smile, and his pockets jingling with pennies; and is succeeded by a fair-haired Norwegian, with a basket on his head, crying, “Oranges, oranges!”

Harry rushes down, and buys him out of the stock in hand, and before any one has time to protest, begins to treat the assembled company. So it was for this feast that the round, golden fruit has been, all these months, basking and ripening and gathering fragrance and sweetness from the rays that gladden a land of perpetual summer.

“What’s this—a picnic?” asks a gentleman in uniform, who has come to call upon the Lieutenant. The youngsters follow with their eyes the blue coat and bright buttons disappearing through the open doorway, then they slowly disperse; and Ponto, the great shaggy Newfoundlander, is left alone, dozing upon the mat. And the wee, gray sparrow returns with a wisp of horse-hair, and commences to build her nest.

Sitting in the porch, in the twilight of a June afternoon, Kate overhears those cruel taunts. “Oh-h-h!” she exclaims in smothered indignation, the hot flush mounting up her forehead.

“Oh, Walter, there are some boys down there in the street, calling names at a little newsboy, and making sport of his poor, patched clothes. And he looks so downhearted and discouraged—poor little fellow! Oh, it’s too bad! I wish you could say something to him to comfort him. Mrs. McAllister was telling me about them the other day. His mother is a widow and does washings, and there are other children—he the eldest; and he is so kind and thoughtful, and does everything he can to help her; goes around town, out of school-hours, running on errands and carrying newspapers. I know what I’ll do”—but her plan for a new suit of clothes is suddenly broken in upon by the boy approaching,[27] and handing her the evening paper, damp, just from the press.

“Well, when you get through, and if you are not otherwise engaged, I’d like to have your company for a walk. You see,” he adds, with a smile, “I haven’t any eyes, myself, to find the way with; and it’s such a fine evening I believe I’d like to go—yes, as far as the Park.”

The boy looks up into the blind man’s face, Kate thinks, as if he would be willing to go to the ends of the earth with him.

In one corner of the Park there is a shady, secluded nook—a clump of trees all overgrown with vines, with rustic seats underneath. As Walter and his companion rest there after their long walk, the moonbeams shining softly down between the leaves, all at once a sob breaks the stillness, followed by another and another, and then they come thick and fast. Now the Lieutenant does not ask, “What’s the matter, little boy?” as a great many thoughtless people would; for he remembers very well that one doesn’t like to be asked such questions[28] when one is crying. Besides, doesn’t he know what the matter is? He can picture to himself the wearisome life the poor child leads—ill-fed, ill-sheltered, ill-clad, half the year pinched with hunger and cold, half the year breathing the close, pent-up air of some wretched tenement—in his brave struggle to help his widowed mother, not always able to find work; knocked about by ruffian newsboys, sneered at by thoughtless schoolmates, little heeded or noticed by anybody; till he looks downhearted, as Kate says, and the very tones of his voice are grown dreary and sorrowful. Thinking of all this, the Lieutenant cannot sit there like a block of stone, and listen to those stifled sobs. So, as there is nothing to be said, he leans over, and with that one arm of his about the slight figure, draws it close to his side.

“Oh, you’re so good!” murmurs the tearful voice, as the lad rests his head against the friendly shoulder. “It’s that that makes such a baby of me. I can’t help it. Other folks ain’t like that. Other folks don’t talk to me pleasant about this and that as you did all the way. Other folks—oh!” and with that the slender form is shaken again with sobs.

“Ah, but those other folks who treat you so, you are going to make them sorry for it, some day.”

“How? Let me tell you a little story. Years ago a young printer went to New York City to find work. He hadn’t any fine clothes, and scarcely any money, and I doubt if in all that great city there was a single person that he knew. After much searching he found something to do; and in the office where he was employed the other printers delighted in annoying him, playing jokes upon him, and daubing his light-colored hair with ink. I wouldn’t wonder if this sort of treatment made him feel sad and homesick, sometimes, and wish he was back again among the mountains where he came from. However, he paid little attention to it; he worked all day, faithfully, and at night he read and studied a good deal; and when he couldn’t afford to pay for a light to study by, he would take his book out by the street-lamp and study there—sometimes when it was cold, too. Wasn’t he persevering? Well, he worked, and read, and studied, and persevered, till he got to be an editor; yes, in time he became the most famous editor—or journalist, some would call it—the most famous one that ever lived. Last fall he died—this man who was once a penniless, friendless boy—and at the news of his death there was sadness all over the country; and, at his burial, thousands and thousands of people crowded those same streets where he used to read, shivering, by the lamp-light; thousands[30] and thousands went to get a glimpse of his dead face, and wept over it, because he had helped them and they loved him and were sorry he was gone.

“I’ve thought, sometimes,” says the boy, presently, in a hesitating way—“I never told it to anybody before—but I’ve thought I’d like to be great, too, some time, to be a lawyer—and—and go to Congress—and—oh, I never told it to anybody before, because it’s foolish, I know, and they’d laugh at me. I can’t help thinking about it, though. But of course there’s no hope for me.”

“Ah, but there is, though! I doubt if our Vice-President thought there was much hope of his ever going to Congress when, in his youth, he was earning his livelihood in a shoemaker’s shop. But, you see, he kept pegging away; when it wasn’t at boots and shoes it was at books, at gaining knowledge, and making the most of the talents that were given him, working his way up, inch by inch, till he became congressman, surely, till now he presides over the Senate. And our President, at your age, little dreamed that he would ever be called upon to control a great army, to plan campaigns and sieges, to ‘fight it out all summer on this line,’ as you have[31] heard about—persevering, you see—and so to put an end to the bloody war, and be chosen once and again to the highest office in the land—like Washington, long ago. Yes, it’s perseverance that does it. Did you ever hear of Cyrus Field, the man who brought the Old World and the New nearer together by his Atlantic cable? When he first proposed to do it, to send dispatches through two thousand miles of water, that seemed to every one a very absurd idea. But when his cable was finished and ready to be laid, then people began to be interested; indeed, they were really excited over it, and it was quite the fashion to wear attached to one’s watch-chain a bit of that gutta-percha cable, set in gold. But the cable, or telegraph, was a failure, after all; it didn’t ‘work.’ So people disbelieved once more, and lost interest in the enterprise, and took the bits of gutta-percha from their watch-chains, and put them away out of sight and of mind. And it fared with the experimenter just as it fared with those trinkets. But years passed by, and lo! one day, to everybody’s surprise, the President received from Queen Victoria a polite message that had taken but a few moments to cross the wide Atlantic. And now, you know, Europe and America can talk with each other almost as easily as you and I here, sitting side by side. For what had Cyrus Field been doing all that[32] time that nobody took any notice of him? He had been making trial after trial, and failure after failure, and losing fortune, and, very likely, friends, but never losing hope. So he persevered—and succeeded, at last. And who does your history say discovered America?”

“Well, this Christopher Columbus of whom all the histories tell and everybody knows, he was only a sailor boy, once, roving about in the Mediterranean, with small chance of ever becoming noted. As little chance would it seem there was when, years later, he went from court to court, vainly asking aid to carry out his project. People had hardly begun, yet, to credit the notion that the world was round; and this tall, sad-eyed, white-haired, shabbily dressed stranger, with his maps and his charts, and his plans for sailing straight West to India, who was going to listen to him? Kings and queens were unwilling to see him or give him an opportunity to explain, courtiers ridiculed him, children in the street would point to their foreheads, as he passed by, and call out to each other, ‘Look at the crazy Italian!’ But often disappointed, always hoping and persevering, he stuck to his project, and finally, after eighteen long years of waiting and fruitless effort, he got the help he wanted and started on his voyage, and so found—not India, but America.”

And as the Lieutenant and his young guide walk slowly homeward through the silent, moonlit avenues, he speaks of Lincoln, of Herder, of Ferguson, of Beethoven, of Sir William Herschel, and of others who have risen from poverty and obscurity to honor and renown; many of them “self-made,” as it is called, toiling patiently and unaided up that steep hill where the laurels grow.

Kate hears the hopeful ring in the lad’s voice as he says “Good night” to his friend, and through the open window she sees the hopeful expression upon his face as he turns away, glancing down rather proudly at the jacket that is mended with pieces of many shades, and the boots that have been patched and patched again. “What can you have been saying to him, Walter?” she wonders. “Oh, if you could only have seen his face just now! He doesn’t look like the same boy.” And Walter musingly repeats those lines with which every “wide-awake” American boy and girl is familiar. For was it not Longfellow who wrote them?

When, just before breakfast, Kate opens the door to look for the morning paper, what does she find lying there on the threshold beside it? Fresh water-lilies—the like of which are not to be found nearer than the lake—miles away. “He has been all that way and back, this morning! bless his little heart!” she exclaims, in astonishment, as she carries them to her brother, breathing a thousand sweetest “Thank-you’s,” from among their snowy petals. And you may be sure that those patched garments will soon be replaced by others nice and new.

“I’d like to know,” exclaims Marie, “if there weren’t any heroines as well as heroes in the time of the Revolution. Now down there in the Park to-day, while they were having their orations, and Mr. Higby got to talking about the Revolution—”

“Come now,” breaks in Harry, “you don’t mean to pretend you heard a word he said!”

“Indeed I do! I listened first-rate—along at first. Katy, mustn’t he stop interrupting? Well, all I was going to say was, that when he got to talking about the Revolution it was all about the forefathers that he got so eloquent, and never a word about the mothers! As if they weren’t patriotic, too, and of some account! Don’t you suppose they were?”

“Kate,” slyly observes her brother, “here’s another fine opportunity for you to hold forth on the subject of your great-great-grandmother.”

“Oh, my! did you have a great-great-grandmother?”[36] cries the enthusiastic Marie. “Do tell us about her.”

“Yes, do, Miss Katy,” says Harry, seconding the motion as he watches a sky-rocket shooting upward, leaving a gleaming train as it curves through the air. For this is the evening of the “Glorious Fourth,” and the speakers are all out in the porch, where a good view can be had of the display of fireworks down at the corner of the street.

“Well, then, Harry, you know about the battle of Cowpens, in South Carolina?”

“Yes, where the British thought they had won the day, sure, and Morgan brought up his dragoons, and they cut and slashed right and left, and put the Redcoats to flight, and took a lot of prisoners.”

“Mounted troops—cavalry. Oh, but didn’t they pitch into ’em good with their swords! Wish I’d been there.”

“And then you know, Harry, how Cornwallis pursued Morgan, in hopes of recovering the prisoners; and how General Greene had to come to Morgan’s rescue. By the way, Walter, I don’t know exactly why, but somehow all I hear of Sherman in the last war reminds me of that General Greene.”

“Yes, Marie. But you mustn’t think of her as a grandmother at all, with gray hair and cap and spectacles; for she was only a young girl then. There’s a portrait of her painted a few years after. They have it at Uncle Robert’s—little Rob’s father, you know. There she sits, with her arms folded; and she wears a brocade silk, with much lace about the low neck and flowing sleeves; and her hair is combed straight up from the forehead over a roll, and coiled high at the back of the head, very much as the style is now—only I suppose it was all her own, for switches hadn’t yet been thought of.”

“So the story goes. She was an orphan, you see, and lived with her uncle, who was a hot-tempered old Tory, and all his sons and daughters the same. But, perhaps because they weren’t as good to her as they might have been, she took it into her head to believe some other way—sympathized with the rebels, you know. But she took care not to let any one find that out, which no one was likely to, for she was so young, only sixteen—just two years older than you, Marie—people wouldn’t be questioning her about politics. Well, it was just at this time, when Cornwallis was chasing up Morgan, that there came one rainy evening to her uncle’s a small detachment of British troops,[38] with some Americans belonging to Morgan’s force whom they had captured the day previous, and asked for lodgings for the night. Her uncle welcomed them heartily, and gave them a room where they could lock up their prisoners, and ordered Chloe, the black cook, to get up a grand supper for them. Grand? I don’t suppose it was what would be called a grand supper nowadays. I presume it consisted largely of game from the forest, venison, and the like—not much in the way of dessert and nick-nacks, you know. While the British were feasting in the dining-room, Kate—we may as well call her Kate, for I forgot to tell you that I was named after her—slipped into the kitchen, and managed, unseen, to fill a basket with some of that plentiful supper, and creep with it up a back stairway to the store-room or garret at the top of the house. Now the room where the prisoners were locked in was in the second story, and had no window; but in the ceiling there was a trap-door that opened into the garret. Kate raised this door—or rather, it was a mere piece of plank—and let down the basket by a rope. And the prisoners, looking up and catching sight of her friendly face by the light of the candle she held, were gladdened, you may be sure. Ah, poor fellows, and they were hungry, too; hadn’t had a mouthful for two days. (Indeed, they had been out in search of game.[39] That was the way they happened to be caught.) ‘Was there any way under the sun for them to get out of there?’ they asked her. Yes; she told them of a way she had thought of, but they would have to be very still about it, and wait till everybody in the house had gone to sleep. Then she closed the door again, but she was careful to take the basket with her, lest the Red-coats might look in before retiring, and find it there and suspect something was wrong. They did look in, too. There were the prisoners, all secure. Then they locked and bolted the door again, and for further security stationed a guard outside. When Kate found out about the guard she trembled for her plans. But toward midnight she peeped into the hall and saw him nodding sleepily, for he and his comrades, as well as their officers, had been making free with her uncle’s wine. In those days it was the custom to keep quantities of wine even in private houses, and to use it freely at the table.”

“I am sorry to say so, Harry, but I suppose there is; though not so generally the practice, I am sure—at least, not in this country. Well, Kate crept up to the garret again, by the same way as before, and she lowered a ladder—oh, so still!—to those six prisoners, and one by one they climbed up softly through the little[40] trap-door in the ceiling—oh, it was just the least mite of an opening, hardly large enough for a person to crawl through; but then I suppose that one could manage to squeeze through a pretty small space for the sake of regaining one’s liberty—”

“Now, you mustn’t interrupt again!” says Marie; “just when they’re all climbing up, too; and I’m so afraid that sentinel there in the hall outside will hear! But, oh, Katy, when they’re all up in the garret how ever is she going to get them away from there? Won’t somebody wake up and hear while she’s getting them all down that back stairway?”

“No, they didn’t go down that way. You see this garret was used for a store-room for flour and groceries, and the like; for the place was so far from any mill or market, that when they sent to the nearest town they used to purchase all those things in large quantities. So, for convenience in storing away articles, a stairway had been built up against the outside of the house.”

“Oh, and there was an outside door to the garret! What a dear, delicious old house, with stairways and trap-doors, and everything all fixed just right to help those poor prisoners off!”

“Down they went, under the dripping eaves; but when they reached the ground and held a whispered consultation, it came out that they hadn’t the slightest idea in which direction to go to join their commander; for they were all from the north, and perfectly unacquainted with the country. ‘Could the kind young lady give them some directions?’ ‘I will go as guide,’ she said. So they helped themselves to the six chargers of the six British officers sleeping snugly under her uncle’s roof, and she mounted her little sorrel pony, and away they went, through the rain and the darkness—slowly at first, lest the trampling of the horses’ feet should be heard, which likely would have been the case but for the ground being softened by the rain; after that they dashed along swiftly over hills and through forests, for it was a wild, uncultivated region through which their route lay. After riding a few miles they reached a rapid stream, so swollen by the freshets which prevailed just then—it was in January—so deep and rapid that it was almost impossible for the soldiers, even on their stout war-horses, to ford it, for there was no bridge. Kate and her little pony would surely have been swept away. So, as she could go no farther, she told them as clearly as she could how they were to turn to the right at such a cross-road, and to the left at another, and to the right again when they came to a certain[42] old church; and if they kept straight ahead when they came to a certain tall pine tree, standing all alone by itself, they would reach the place where they expected to find Morgan. (As he was on the move all the time they couldn’t be so sure about that.) So, with a ‘God bless you!’ from the leader, which all his companions echoed, they plunged into the roaring torrent, and she turned back through the forest—where there were fierce bears and panthers, mind you; but fortunately the rain kept them in their dens that night.

“When she reached home, all was as dark and silent as when she left; and when she peeped out again from her room, there was the guard nodding as before; but not really asleep. He hadn’t heard a sound. Poor fellow, the British Colonel and the rest were going to have him shot for sleeping at his post, when, next morning, they found the prisoners had gone and the horses too. How furiously angry they were! But, oh, the uncle! his eyes flashed lightnings, and his voice was like the thunder. Kate was wakened by his raging and storming, with all the black people up before him to be cross-questioned, and they declaring that ‘O massa, dey wouldn’ a-helped dem rebel trash away fur nuffin in de hull worl’!’ If they had, their lives wouldn’t have been worth much. Kate knew that, or she might have asked some of them to assist her. She meant to bear all the blame herself.”

“Yes, Harry; but she trembled like a leaf all the time, dressing herself in a hurry, and rushing out to confess before them all, and plead for the sentinel’s life. ‘Oh, he wasn’t a bit to blame! he didn’t go to sleep at all, for she looked to see! We were so still about it that, oh, he couldn’t hear! and oh, don’t kill him, don’t!’ And then she almost fainted away. But the angry old uncle was angrier than ever. He ordered her to her room, and never to show her face again. But just at this point, when all is clamor and confusion, and the poor, pale, frightened girl is being dragged off in disgrace to her chamber, the house is suddenly surrounded by the combined forces of Greene and Morgan (for they met yesterday, and have been nearer by all the time than was supposed), and led by the American Captain whom she released last night, in walks General Greene himself, to thank her for her brave deed; and when she is led to the window, all those soldiers—ragged, weak with hunger, as they are, footsore and weary with continual marching—at the sight of her, just toss up their hats (those of them who have any) and cheer, and cheer, and cheer. And the British Colonel and his men are prisoners themselves in about two seconds—”

“And the mad old Tory uncle’s wine-casks have to be tapped again, while the rebel army there before his eyes drinks to his niece’s health.”

“You might suppose there wasn’t enough to go around; but you must remember that it was not such a very big army. How large should you say, Walter?”

“Probably not a larger number than would be included in two what in our last war were considered good-sized regiments. Hardly that, for I believe Greene left quite a force behind at his post on the Pedee river, when he pushed across country to join Morgan; and his whole command united couldn’t have amounted to more than two thousand.”

“Just think of it! And that wee little army, half-starved and poorly clothed, held in check the thousands of Cornwallis! No wonder the orators grow eloquent over our forefathers, is it, Marie?”

“But about Kate? Did that horrid old Tory of an uncle shut her up in her room after that?”

“Take care, Miss Marie, that ‘horrid old Tory of an uncle’ was a distant relative of ours.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to say anything against your relations, Mr. Walter; but then everybody knows you aren’t a bit like him, if you are a tease!”

“No,” Kate goes on, “they didn’t shut her up in her[45] room, but she was treated very coolly all around the board, and as for her uncle, I believe he never spoke to her again. What made him particularly indignant was, that the British prisoners would insist that he was at the bottom of it all, and had set the trap for them himself. They had reason to be suspicious, for in that section one never could be certain who were Tories and who were not, so many of the people wavered in their opinions, favoring the royal cause one day and the rebels the next. Well, to wind up my story, Kate was so unhappy there, that she went to live with an aunt in Charleston till some two or three years after, when the war was all over, and she married—”

“Oh, wait, let me guess who!—the American Captain, now, didn’t she? How romantic! Then he was your great-great-grandfather!”

“Yes, and they came North, and lived and died right where Uncle Robert lives now—in the same house, only it has been altered several times since.”

The mention of “Uncle Robert” reminds Harry to ask if Kate has had any more letters lately from her little correspondent. Whereupon she produces this one, which she received to-day!

“Plucky little chap, ain’t he!” and Harry giggles too. “Divert his mind! ha, ha! But you don’t know anything about how it burns. I got my hand peppered that way once, and went into the cellar where it was cool, and walked the floor for three hours. I didn’t want any one to find out about it, for fear of a scolding, for I expect I was old enough to know better.”

But Marie, who has been quietly meditating meanwhile, suddenly breaks forth with, “I wish I had lived in the time of the Revolution! Then I would have had a chance to do something brave.”

“You!” laughs Harry. “I’ll warrant it would scare you half to death to hear a mouse nibble in the wall at night.” Which Marie, blushing guiltily, cannot deny.

“Well, anyhow, I’m going over home to find out if I haven’t got a great-great-grandmother, or something.”

It is little Bessie who whispers the question, as she lies in the grass at Kate’s feet, looking up at the glimpses of sky among the branches—glimpses as blue as her eyes.

Kate looks up, too. Feathery-fine are those branches, swaying lazily in the sunlight; lower down they grow darker and heavy with green, till, here where she sits beneath, everything is in shadow. She glances around. Long, leafy avenues lead down the glens into blackness, and up the slopes into blackness, and away, away into blackness—the blackness of massed foliage that shuts out the world beyond. Can the grand old cathedrals they tell of compare with this—nature’s temple? Here are the lofty columns—not hewn by hands, indeed; here are the airy arches, rich with leaf-work tracery—not carved by hands, ’tis true. This velvety turf—can any mosaic pavement surpass it in beauty? Hardly can windows of stained glass let in a light more mellow[48] than this which enters from above. She listens. Here and there a tiny rill tinkles along the ledges; thousands of little birds are flitting to and fro, caroling and calling one another; and, like the sound, when heard far off, of billows surging on the beach, she hears the never-ceasing sough of the wind among the trees. Ah, this wind, how cool it is, how fragrant! stooping to finger her hair. And there is the sultry, breathless August down in the city below.

Are there any places like this in heaven? “Yes,” she answers at last, “I like to think so. Indeed,” she adds, “it seems to me sometimes as though this world might almost be heaven itself, if it weren’t for some of the people in it.”

Just now, as if to give force to the remark, one of those jarring voices that make discord in the music of life, is overheard, saying:

“Look at Bessie Barton, off there with Kate. I do wish that child would learn to hold her head up! If I had the management of her I’d cure her of her bashfulness in short order!”

“Oh, Bessie,” says the other, quickly, lest there is more to come, “I see some cardinal-flowers down there by the brook. Won’t you go bring me some, please?”

And as the child flies away on the errand, Kate joins the companions from whom they have strayed, and confronts the owner of the voice with—

“Oh, I wouldn’t have dared to say a word, Kate, if I had thought you were within earshot. She’s a particular pet of yours, I believe. But how you can find anything interesting in her, I can’t see. She’s plain, and so shy and lackadaisical! I don’t see how she’s ever going to get through the world without a little more vim.”

“Ah, you’ll see. But as to her being plain, now I don’t think so. What rosy cheeks she has! and her eyes—why, they’re lovely. And she’s not what I should call lackadaisical, in the least. Why, she’s the busiest little body alive! always doing something for somebody. And then she has talent—a wonderful eye for figure. I think she’s going to make an artist.”

“Oh, Kate!” laughs Aunt Sophia, “what remarkable people all your friends are, the younger ones especially. There’s that scapegrace of a boy, my nephew Harry; what do you think of him? No doubt you’ll say he’s the pink of propriety. Harry, Harry! come down out of that tree, this minute, and stop tearing about so, or you’ll be all in rags by night!”

“Yes, he’s tanned up beautifully this summer, and so full of health and spirits, with a heart as big as all out-of-doors.”

“Oh, books are well enough (I wouldn’t, for the world, speak slightingly of them); but books are not everything. Of what good is all the learning if one hasn’t the life—the strength to put it to use? Ah, those sinewy fists! they remind me of the old Greeks. Bless him!—the young Hercules!—when the work comes for him to do he is going to be strong and able to do it.”

“Oh, he has a mission to fulfill, then! What may it be, I wonder? Lassoing wild horses on the pampas?”

“Oh, he’s going to do something splendid, by and by, that will make you all proud of him.”

“Well, you are encouraging. And there’s that little popinjay, Marie Maross, with her saucy eyes (by the way, I never could make out which they are, gray or black), and her stringlets—I can’t conscientiously call them ringlets (I suppose they would have been wavelets if she had only known over night she was coming)—and her white dress as limp as if it hadn’t come fresh from the laundry this very morning. Do look[51] at the grass-stains and mud on it, and half the ruffles on one side torn off! (I don’t see how her mother has any kind of patience with her; but then she’s an easy old shoe.) And her sash awry, and her ribbons flying, and her bracelets rattling, and those half-dozen strings of beads around her neck—”

“At any rate, enough to be always jingling wherever she goes, like the old woman in the nursery rhyme:

Well, how are you going to dispose of her? Is she to be a second—a sort of feminine Rubenstein, or a Pauline Lucca—or are you going to send her as missionary to the Feejee Islands?”

“I’m sure the cannibals would not have the heart to eat her up,” Kate answers, laughingly. “The gay little thing! I like to watch her, over there in the garden, fluttering about among the flowers, prattling to her grandfather, keeping him company. I always think of the butterflies—harmless, pretty little creatures, meant, it would seem, only to rollick in the sunbeams and enjoy themselves, and brighten the landscape.”

“But her everlasting chatter! If, instead of living opposite, you were right next door to them, as we are, I’m sure you would tire of it sometimes,—especially in[52] summer, when the doors and windows are all open. Oh, I assure you, her tongue is going from morning till night. It fairly drives me wild, sometimes.”

“But with all her prattle one hardly ever hears her say anything really ill-natured.”

“And it’s just as uncommon to hear her say anything with any sense to it!”

“Well, somebody must do the chattering. If none of us ever spoke but to say something sensible, what a fearfully hushed, melancholy sort of world this would be. That little brook purling among the stones, there seems to be no meaning in what it says, yet Mother Nature doesn’t bid it keep quiet; and if all these little birds should stop singing, though we can detect but little sense in their merry songs, how we should miss the music!—There!” Kate pauses, alarmed at her own boldness, for it is like treading on matches to argue with Aunt Sophia! “I didn’t mean to speechify; I beg your pardon.”

“Ah, well, you and I never will agree. And here comes your angelic protégée.” Namely, Bessie, just now approaching with Monsieur Maross, who has been helping her gather the cardinal-flowers.

Did you over see any of those, lads and lasses? There is no color richer or more beautiful than the deep, glowing scarlet of their corollas. It is this which gives them the name.

“Figure to yourselves,” says M. Maross, who is a naturalist and a foreigner, as you perceive, “figure to yourselves some missionary priest of the early days, as he journeys through the wilderness from one Indian village to another. Passing some moist and shady nook he first spies this superb blossom. He admires it. Instantly he is reminded of les chapeaux rouges.[1] Behold, lobelia cardinalis is no longer at loss for a title.” Monsieur also goes on to state that the flower alluded to—“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow”—was of this rich, vivid color. Whereupon the listeners exclaim in surprise. They had supposed it was white.

“Yes, that is the general impression, but erroneous. I have myself seen the flower growing in that country. Had it been of white the concluding words would not have been so peculiarly applicable: ‘Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ Comprenez?”

“Ah, yes; I see. If we only knew more about the East how many of those passages would gain in force and clearness that now one somehow cannot get at the pith of.”

Presently, under some spreading beeches, the friends and neighbors who have come to these woods, as is their wont in sultry weather, for a few hours of recreation, gather together for luncheon—without ceremony of table or table-cloth, for this is “no stiff affair,” as some one complacently remarks, but quite “all in the familee,” as Harry says, bringing forth from its hiding-place an unexpected treat. And now everybody understands why so little has been seen of him to-day. Doesn’t he know these miles of woodland by heart? Is there any tree so tall he hasn’t climbed it, or any stream so small he hasn’t traced it to its source? He can show you all the crows’ nests and all the rabbit burrows, and even hint to you mysteriously that a fox dwells hereabout. He knows the banks where the strawberries reddened in June, and the hill-sides where the chestnuts will burst their burs in October, and it is only he who could surprise the company with this heaping basket of blackberries, so fresh and ripe and luscious, still wet with last night’s dew.

“Hal, you’re a brick!” exclaims a youth of his own age, piling his plate with the proffered fruit.

“Oo is weal dood, Hawy, I lite oo!” lisps the infantile voice of Maggie McAllister, two wee, dimpled fists making a successful dive into the basket.

“You ah the light of me eyes and the joy of me[55] haaht!” murmurs a recent graduate from a boarding-school, languidly inserting a dessert-spoon the while she regards this young man—not yet far advanced in his teens, to be sure—as benignly as if he were about the size of Maggie, there.

“Let ’em help themselves,” he mutters in disgust, setting down the basket directly, and joining Marie where she is seated at the foot of a tree. “I can stand half a day in a swamp and poke amongst blackberry briers till my hands resemble the map of Germany done in red chalk, but I can’t go that sort of thing. Let’s wish.”

Master Harry has not been many seconds in divesting of its edible surroundings that part of the fowl which is known to all as the “wish-bone,” and which the slender fingers of the “popinjay” always manage to break in her favor.

“Say, now, what did you wish? (You have to tell, you know.) That there would be another war or revolution right off, so you could have a chance to show your courage?”

“Now you needn’t make any more fun of my courage. But I don’t care if you do think I’m a coward. I belong to somebody that was brave as a lion. He was a duke, or marquis, or something. For, you see, we didn’t live in this country in the time of the Revolution.”

“No, we lived in France, and belonged to the nobility. I’ve been asking grandpa all about it, and he told me such a splendid story.

“Grandpa” (she has approached the old gentleman in a pause of the debate he is having with the Lieutenant and some others, on the subject of French politics), “Grandpa, won’t you tell us that story you told me one evening, about your great-uncle, who was a duke, or marquis, or something?”

Just now a sunbeam, resting on the little head, turns the long raven “mane” to purple. Purple hair! Strange Aunt Sophia never noticed it before, all these years! She leans forward with a sudden look of interest. Must Marie owe it to the dukes and marquises that she is to grow in favor with that lady?

“Let us not speak of dukes and marquises, my Marie,” her grandfather has answered, “lest our good friends shall conclude that we are of that class of people who, not being of perceptible merit themselves, endeavor to make up for the deficiency by boasting of their ancestors. Whereas,” with a twinkle of the eye, “if we only trace back far enough, we shall find that we all have the honor of descending from the same illustrious tribe—the monkeys.”

“But, no, Mademoiselle, it is even true what I say. At least so we are informed by the celebrated Mr. Darwin.”

“Nor I!” cries Kate. “Nor I!” “Nor I!” “Nor I!” echo several voices. And here, in the midst of an American forest, Darwin and his theories, after a heated discussion, are, by vote of the majority, consigned to oblivion.

But during this discussion, Harry, happening to glance that way, discovers Kate, who has just left the group, kneeling on the brink of a deep ravine a few yards distant, and looking down with a very pale face. Catching his eye, she beckons. He is beside her in an instant. “What is it, Katy?” he questions, wonderingly. She motions to be silent, and to look down. On this side, for a space, the wall of the ravine is almost perpendicular. At its base, fifty feet below, a stream gurgles along over broken ledges of rock. Peering over, he sees bashful Bessie Barton working her way up this wall by aid of the shrubbery rooted in the crevices, which latter serve for foothold; and as she climbs she shifts from one arm to the other the little bundle of innocence which answers to the name of Maggie, the dimpled hands clasped about her neck. In the flash of an eye he comprehends it all. While the grown-up[58] people were disputing, the child must have slipped away, and only Bessie noticing her absence, has come to search. How little three-year-old ever crept down there, cannot be explained. These tiny creatures will worm themselves into the most astonishing places! Harry’s coat is off directly. He is going to the rescue. But “No,” Kate whispers, “she doesn’t see there’s any one looking on. The least sound or motion may startle her, and she will lose her hold, and—and there are the rocks below!”

What agony, to watch some one in peril when you may not lift a finger to save! Harry never knew such torture as at this moment.

Oh, you Aunt Sophias, take care how you deride the bashful people! And did you ever hear what the wag said to the philosopher? “Why don’t you hold your head up, as I do?” And this is what the philosopher said to the wag: “If you will examine the heads of wheat in yonder field you will find that only those which are erect are empty.”

To those watching, the moments seem like hours. Ah, Bessie sees them at last. Wait!—now—quick! Four hands are reached to her, grasp her, lift her with her burden up over the brink. And now that there is[59] no further need of exertion, she sinks back, weak and helpless, in Kate’s arms.

“Why, where have you been, darling?” asks Mrs. McAllister, suddenly remembering her, now that Darwin is disposed of.

What with laving her forehead, and the fanning, and the cool drink, Bessie soon revives. “She had got down a good ways when I saw her first. I had to follow so still, for fear of frightening her.” So she explains. “It was her hat that lay here made me think to look down.”

“What does it mean?” “What has happened?” “Did she faint away?” ask one and another, hurrying up; for all but the two witnesses are still ignorant of that fearful scene.

“You tell them, Harry,” says Kate; “tell it to them all! tell it to them all! We’ll have it put in the morning papers. We’ll trumpet it from the house-tops and the corners of the streets.” And hugging the little girl, “Ah, my sweet, you needn’t blush so! I mean they shall appreciate you.”

And noting the cries of wonder and admiration which follow the boy’s announcements, and the crowd[60] that presses around her shy little friend, and cannot make enough of her, Mademoiselle is overheard saying softly to herself: “Why one can be brave, even in these days.”

“They” are the dozen or more of lads and lasses who, in the pleasant summer twilights, have frequently been seen, as now, gathered before the house where the blind soldier lives. The sparrows soon learn to know that door or window where they are welcome, and where crumbs are scattered for them. They flock about it, fearless, chirping cheerily, and make themselves at home there. Thus these stone steps leading up to the porch have become a favorite resort of the youngsters of the neighborhood; for here they may meet unmolested, and chatter and laugh to their hearts’ content; here crumbs, in the shape of stories, are now and then thrown out for bait; and partly they may be drawn hither by the presence of the amused listener to their random talk; tacitly understanding that to him, who is denied the sight of their bright young faces, the sound of their clear young voices is doubly sweet. But he is not the only one who is entertained. Sometimes one of his older friends will join the merry group—often[62] the venerable Frenchman who resides across the street. It so happens that he approaches just now, as Harry is making that time-worn request—“a story”; and the other says, “I think that is Monsieur, coming? Perhaps he will tell us one.”

“Bien,” and he accepts the proffered arm-chair; “I will tell, then, the story of Gabrielle.

“Without doubt, my dear children, some of you have heard of that event in the history of France which is termed the Revolution? I do not speak of those more recent troubles which have distracted my native land, but of that memorable Revolution which blackened the closing years of the last century—a period at which you gaze as upon a sky filled with the darkness of clouds, and the threatening thunder, and the fierce lightning-flashes.

“Ah, my children, you are happy to be of a nation which has not that wild and horrible dream to remember. And here I will say to you, I, that you are truly fortunate to live in a land most free, where there is less of oppression than in any other; where one can say what he will, do what he will. If but he keep the laws he is secure. He may be of whatever party he chooses. Nobody is going to harm him. He may, if so ill-disposed,[63] say whatever désagréables he please of those who believe not as he. He will not be obliged to fly and to take refuge among strangers, as I myself, long time ago, for that, in company with others, I preferred a king to an emperor, and was not sufficiently secret about it. Deserving, indeed, of gratitude are they who, defending this beautiful country, have preserved to it peace and freedom.

“Alas! if poor France had not been for so long burdened with oppressions, this Revolution could not have occurred. That was the reaction, the recoil. Let me illustrate. I will remove from my pocket-book this band elastic which confines it. I stretch it with my two hands to its full length. With one hand I release it. It flies back. Ugh! it makes me wince. (That is a very homely illustration, is it not?) Now for a long time the nations of Europe had been engaged in wars in which France took a leading part. It requires money to conduct wars. To procure it the people are taxed. Also, there was no court so gay and luxurious as that of France. To support this luxury and splendor required money. Still again taxes. When taxes are great the cost of living is increased. Thus while there was feasting and revelry in palaces, in hovels there was famine and misery. The little ones moaned and sobbed for bread, and there was no bread to give[64] them. The people were full of wrath at this state of affairs. Force was required to keep them in subjection. Now there came to the throne a good and merciful king, who in peaceful times would have been much revered. But, in this situation, great wisdom as well as justice was needful. From his unsteady grasp the reins of government slipped, as you have seen the elastic slip from mine. Behold the recoil—most terrible!—which destroyed the king, the queen, and all who believed in the royalist cause. The people who had so long suffered might now take revenge. They who had yearned for liberty were filled with hope. Their land was to be free, like that one beyond the ocean.

“Alas! the despotism which had been called a monarchy was succeeded by a despotism far worse, which was called a republic. This was truly the Reign of Terror. The guillotine was never idle. ‘Madame Guillotine,’ it was entitled—that deadly machine invented for those days, when victims were so numerous it was necessary that they be dispatched in the swiftest manner possible. This cruel slaughter was chiefly confined to the metropolis, to Paris, until here a province and there a city, disapproving of their deeds, refused submission to the party in power—the Jacobins. Armies were sent to subdue them. The city of Lyons[65] made the resistance most notable. Thousands of royalists, fleeing for their lives, had taken shelter there, and were zealous in the defense. They hoped by this resistance to inspire other towns, and perhaps all France, to arise and check the course of this Revolution—this monster, ever thirsting for blood. Alas! it was impossible. Besieged by the republican troops, all supplies prevented, for lack of food and ammunition the city was at length obliged to surrender, after a brave and desperate struggle. For any who had taken up arms against the republic there was now no safety but in flight. Flight was nearly useless. They were pursued, captured. The country was searched for leagues around. Within the city, paid informers were everywhere seeking whom they might report as guilty. For the head of a priest or noble the price was doubled. The prisons were filled, crowded. Madame Guillotine could not work sufficiently fast. The Reign of Terror had now begun in Lyons also.

“I must not pain you, dear children, with a recital of the horrors of those days.

“Among the unfortunate royalists who had taken shelter in Lyons was the Marquis de Rochemont. In one of the fierce conflicts during the siege he had been seriously wounded, and at the time of the surrender was unable to attempt an escape. Nevertheless, he[66] had taken the precaution to remove from his former quarters, and had established himself in a garret of a lofty but dilapidated tenement facing upon an unfrequented court-yard. There concealed, in a manner which would least betoken his rank, his sole companions his motherless little daughter and a faithful servant, he thought to avoid the vigilance of the spies. Often, from his hiding-place, he would hear the explosions of gunpowder, followed by the crash of falling buildings.

“The residences or the property of Lyonnese, who had engaged in the defense. The Jacobins, in their fury, were reducing the city to ruins.

“One evening, as the attendant was dressing his wounds, the Marquis asked, ‘What is the matter, Antoine? you are pale. Your hands tremble.’

“The other responded; ‘Just now, as I came up the stairs, I saw some person listening and peering at the key-hole. As I approached he glided away. It is enough. I fear we are discovered.’

“After discussing this matter it was decided that Antoine go out, and obtain, if possible, a uniform like that worn by the soldiers of the republic. Disguised in this, the Marquis would depart in the night, and await in a forest not far from the city, there to be joined[67] by the servant with the child, and to proceed thence toward the mountains and the country of the Swiss, where there were relatives and friends who had quitted France upon the fall of the king.

“Scarcely had Antoine set forth upon that errand when two gens d’armes appeared. They had come to arrest the Marquis. To be arrested, that was the cell, the mock trial. After these—the scaffold. Had they come in the name of law and order he would have resigned himself to that fate. They came in the name of disorder and opposition to law. Bien! Disabled as he was, rising, he drew his sword. They supposed to overpower him. Sword met sword. The hunted stag brought to bay is dangerous. One of those intruders was slain. The other, wounded, fled. Soon he would return with assistance; accompanied, perhaps, by the mob. No time was to be lost.

“Seizing his little daughter, who had been a terrified witness of that scene, the Marquis hastened away, along a low passage leading to the stairs. A ray of the moon lighted an apartment as he passed. He saw through the open door heaps of rags. The ragman lay sleeping in their midst. Near by were his tattered coat, his wooden shoes, his greasy cap, his basket. The basket was furnished with a lid. One thinks rapidly on such occasions. The Marquis entered, arrayed himself in[68] the coat, the cap, the shoes, forgetting not to leave some gold coins in their place, as compensation. The basket would contain the child.

“‘Fear not, my little Gabrielle,’ he said, as he concealed her in it, ‘but remain quiet while I carry thee away where those terrible men cannot find us.’

“With this basket upon his head, thus shadowing his face, he descended through the building to an entrance in the rear, which opened upon an alley. There he hurried along. Already he could hear the shouts and cries of people gathering in the court-yard. He quickened his steps. Not far distant was the bridge which spans the Rhone. He arrived there without interruption. To proceed, to attempt to traverse the extensive plains beyond? Already, doubtless, pursuers were upon his track. In no disguise was there security. At the same time the earth seemed to be whirling about. There was a ringing in his ears. He saw some boats upon the bank below. He approached and shoved one of them into the water. He lifted Gabrielle from her concealment and placed her in it. He then rowed out into the midst of the river. There, no need of oars. The current is swift, strong. It rushed with them away from danger and the doomed city. He laid himself down in the bottom of the boat. In the moonbeams Gabrielle saw his face very white. She saw his[69] lips move. His hands reached out to her. She crept to him. Then all was silent. ‘He sleeps,’ she said. Soon she slept also.

“When Gabrielle opened again her eyes the sun was shining; the boat was no longer afloat, but lodged on the sands under willow trees. A rough voice was saying, ‘What’s this?’ and Gabrielle saw a man in rough clothes bending over.

“‘It is my father,’ she said. ‘He is very weary. That is why he sleeps so long. You must not wake him.’

“True. The Marquis had received a sword-thrust in that encounter with the gens d’armes, and had expired from loss of blood.

“The rough man went away to a cluster of cottages near by. Soon he returned with several people, men and women. One of the latter offered sweet-cakes to Gabrielle. She had a pleasant face, too, but there were tears in her eyes. Gabrielle was hungry. When the sweet-cakes were gone she asked for more.

“‘If you will come with me to my house,’ said the good woman, ‘I will give you all you wish.’

“Gabrielle went home with her. After the dame had amused her some hours she desired to return to the boat. Her father was not there.

“The good dame pointed to a mound with the soil fresh upon it. ‘When people sleep a very long time,’ she said, ‘they always are laid to rest in such places. They sleep better there. No one can disturb them. Once I had a little girl who is sleeping thus. I miss her. Will you be my little girl?’

“‘Yes,’ answered Gabrielle, ‘until she wakens and my father wakens. Then I will have mine, I, and you will have your own.’

“After, she learned better to understand those matters. Also, as she grew older, she learned to be very useful. She could drive the cow from the pasture and assist in tending the garden. She could make the soup, the bread. She learned to sew, to knit, and to spin. Sometimes she heard them talk of a wonderful person upon the throne, who was conquering all the world. They called him Napoleon. The Revolution was finished. France was no longer a republic.

“One day, as Gabrielle stood at her spinning-wheel before the door, two travelers rode by. One of them gazed at her attentively. He addressed a few words to the other. They halted and accosted a villager who was passing.

“The villager—it was he with the rough voice—related[71] how the waves had brought her to them, how that he had found her—a sleeping child in the arms of the dead. ‘The man was clad in rags,’ said he, ‘but he was provided with a purse containing much gold, and with a sword.’

“‘It is true,’ said the stranger who had first observed Gabrielle, and who seemed to be the attendant. ‘There was a collector of rags who lodged near us, and who in the crowd, after the escape of my master, complained of the loss of his coat.’

“They requested to see the sword. When it was shown to them, the attendant said, ‘It is the sword of the Marquis. I recognize it by the carving of the hilt.’ Then gazing once more at Gabrielle, he exclaimed, ‘How she is like her mother!’ (She had grown very beautiful.)

“He approached, and seizing her hands, covered them with kisses and with tears. ‘Dost thou not remember me?’ he asked, ‘me, old Antoine?’

“‘And I,’ said the other, embracing her, ‘I am thy father’s brother. It is a long time that we have searched and made inquiry for thee.’

“It was my grandfather. He took her far away to his home. But the good dame was presented with the purse, filled with gold, which she had been keeping for Gabrielle’s dowry.

“And the sword? My dear children, if any of you have intention to some time visit France, I can indicate where you will find an ancient chateau, in which is a gallery—a place of armor—where, among shields, and helmets, and coats of mail, and spears, and tattered banners, and other relics of past centuries, still is to be seen this sword. It was Gabrielle herself who pointed it out to me, many years ago, when I was a young boy like Master Harry, and she was a marchioness, and presided over the same chateau. And she it was who at the same time told me this story.”

“Mr. Walter, where did you find this great, nice, beautiful dog?” asks Marie, who has been having a romp around the room with Ponto.

“Came to you! Oh, now there’s some story about him! And you are going to tell it to me?”

“No, Marie, it’s all about a battle. Girls don’t like to hear about battles.”

“Oh, yes, they do, sometimes. And you know you never will tell us anything about the war;—does he, Katy?”

“Well, Marie, once I woke up after a battle, and something, I couldn’t see what, was tugging at my coat. There was a sun in the sky the last I could remember. Now it was night, and a very dark night. I reached out to feel what sort of creature this was. Then I first discovered that my right hand was gone. But with the other I could feel the head and long silken ears of a dog. He seemed pleased to have me[74] notice him, licked my face, and gamboled about, then commenced to tug at my clothes again. He seemed to want something of me. I finally got up and tried to follow him—tried, I say, because it is no easy matter to walk about the field of battle the night after it has taken place. One is apt to find obstacles in his way. As I groped along, and my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I could just distinguish from the surrounding shadows the figure of this strange guide of mine. It was a monster of a dog—a black, moving mass. I had known of one other like him. An idea occurred to me. Perhaps this and that dog were the same. That dog’s name was Ponto. So I called—‘Ponto?’ to try him. Back he came bounding, directly, leaping upon me, and seemed quite delighted. I was pretty certain this was the dog I knew. As I went along talking to him, some one spoke from among the shadows—‘Is that you, Walt?’ There was only one person who had been wont to address me after that fashion. He had recognized my voice. Now I recognized his. And it would have been strange, surely, if we had not known each other’s voice. We were together at college for four years, and great friends—‘most intimate,’ that is the expression, I believe. I sometimes went home and spent vacation with him. (He lived in Virginia, among the mountains.) And sometimes he came home[75] with me. You would hardly remember him; yet, when a very small carriage, containing a very small child, used to stop at our door, he was always on hand to lift out that little Mademoiselle and bring her in—only a dainty bundle of embroideries, apparently, till two bright eyes peeped forth, and pretty soon two little pink fists that would get at his hair and pull it, and that used to tickle him immensely. Yes, as I said, we were the best of friends. Then suddenly there was a great gulf between us; and we saw, and heard, and knew no more of each other. It appears that, though we were not aware of it, we had been fighting against each other that very day. But now Ponto had brought us together again, and we were glad enough to meet. So glad we could forget, at last, that he belonged to the army of the South, and I to the army of the Union. We had a great many matters to talk over, not having seen each other in some time. Ah, but we couldn’t see, as you know. So we had to be content with saying our farewells in the dark. For that was the way our talk ended, Marie. He passed away, there in the night, I supporting him as best I could. Ponto was his dying gift. Come here, old fellow.” And the Lieutenant hides his face against the dog’s shaggy shoulder.

Marie steals softly from the house and toward home. And when, a moment after, Kate comes down the hall[76] stairs and into the room, Ponto lifts to her great, gentle, human, sympathizing eyes. Perhaps he guesses she, too, has a share in those remembrances. For who shall deny that he has thoughts?

“Why, you, Harry? I didn’t know you had come home!” Kate, glancing up from the book from which she had been reading aloud, has only at this moment noticed the boy’s entrance.

“I haven’t been home yet. I wanted to consult you first. You see I’m expelled.” (Harry, you must know, has been away at school since early in September.) “Thought I’d tell you on the start, so you wouldn’t feel imposed upon. Why, you take it all as a matter of course! You don’t look a bit surprised!’

“To tell the truth, we’re not very. And how do you do, you blessed boy? You don’t know how we’ve missed you!” And Kate seizes his two hands with a heartiness that proves her faith in him is still unshaken.

“Miss Katy! if you’ve got a particle of respect left for me, won’t you give me some supper? I’m hungry as a bear. Just got in on the train. Haven’t had a mouthful to eat since noon!”

“The poor child! So he should have some supper. I’ll go directly and see about it.”

“This was the way it happened,” Harry explains, over the waffles and coffee. “You see, when I first went there the boys were a solemncholy lot, oh, I tell you! studious as owls, got to improve each shining hour, and all that. Well, I thought if that sort of thing was going to last I shouldn’t survive long. So I went to work and got ’em stirred up after awhile, and things got to be kind of lively. But Tabby—that’s the Principal—the way he hangs his eye out’s a caution. Oh, no, Miss Katy; that’s only a nickname we gave him; he’s got such a cattish way of prowling around nights to see if there’s any doings going on. Anything but a sneak! Well, I thought I’d be even with ’im; so last night I laid torpedoes all along the hall; oh, Miss Katy, nothing but those little paper wads that never hurt anybody in the world. Well, the last bell rung and we put out the lights, and lay still and listened. By’n by—pop! pop! pop! Tabby was coming to see if everything was all right. Ha, ha! guess his moccasins must ’ave run against every identical one. You’d ’ave thought he was having a Fourth of July celebration out there all by himself. But wasn’t he hoppin’ mad, though! Called me into the study this morning right after breakfast.”

“Well, he gave me a long lecture, said he didn’t like my influence in the school, that he’d had more trouble during the few weeks I’d been there than in any five years before. Well, the long an’ short of it was I’d got to leave. That was just what I wanted. So off I come, and here I am, with a letter for father in my pocket that gives me an awful setting out, I expect.” (Harry’s countenance grows suddenly grave.) “I wouldn’t care if it was only father I’d got to chalk up to; but Aunt Sophi’!” (No use trying to describe the tone in which that name is uttered.) “I thought, Katy—I thought, maybe you’d be willing to go over there, and—well, kind of talk her around, you know—why, kind of smooth matters, that is, so she won’t be quite so hard on a fellow. Won’t you, now? If you will I’ll go back there to old Williams, and I’ll study like anything! I will, now, and behave myself; oh, you shall see! if you’ll only go this once.”

Kate doesn’t like to get up a reputation for being meddlesome; but she recalls how kind and attentive this boy has been to her brother, and it is not in her heart to refuse. So she leaves the two chatting by the fireside and crosses the street to spend an evening with Aunt Sophia.

“I don’t know what possesses me, sometimes,” says Harry, at length, waxing confidential as usually when alone with the Lieutenant. “I believe it’s the Old Nick! I was always getting into scrapes ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Now, some fellows find it smooth sailing all along, never get into trouble. I wonder why?”

“The river flowing through our town is a mischievous river, sometimes, especially in spring, when the snow is melting, and, overfed by the streams from the hills, it comes rushing along, sweeping away dams and bridges, and tearing about generally, in a very unreasonable fashion. Yet farther on, at Factoryville, where it plunges over the rocks, it keeps the mills going all the year round. In fact, there would be no mills there if it were not for our brave little river ‘putting its shoulder to the wheel.’ Besides, we must admit, it is quite an important feature in the landscape, winding among the woods and fields, flashing and shimmering in the sunlight. And how often you and I have stopped to listen to the plash and ripple of its waters as we walked along the banks. I remember what company that music was to me, one dark night, a good while ago,[81] when I was returning from a long tramp up the valley. Just so, since the loss of my eyesight has made for me continual night, you scarcely would believe, Harry, how many times I have been cheered by your merry flow of spirits. As sister says, we have missed you. It is no small thing to be missed by one’s friends when he is away from them. Nor is such a good-for-nothing, stove-up piece of humanity as myself the only one you can find to cheer, if you will look about you. Life is full of shadows. It is a sorrowful sort of night to multitudes of people. Such natures as yours were meant to make the darkness less dreary, and when you come to the mill-wheels to turn them.”

“Well, for instance, the weather is growing cold; winter is not far off. We sit here by a fire and find it very comfortable. There are a good many to-night who haven’t any fire. We have had our supper. There are a good many who must go without. If you will notice in the streets to-morrow, you will see little feet shoeless, stockingless. People who go without food, and fire, and sufficient clothing, get sick, have fevers, diphtheria, what not? But, unfortunately, the fevers, and so forth, won’t stay shut up in alleys and tumble-down tenements; they creep out, out into the broad streets,[82] into the fine mansions of brick and stone, and all over the city, hunting for the cunning little Ediths, the pretty Maries.”

“People who haven’t food, and fire, and warm clothing, often attempt to steal them, or the wherewithal to pay for them. People who steal, if they are caught at it, go to prison. When they come out again nobody will trust them or employ them. Since they cannot find work, and have got to live somehow, what must they do? Steal. So it comes about that a great many people steal for a living. And where did all this crime commence? Like the fevers, with the lack of food, and fire, and clothing. As Tennyson’s ‘Northern Farmer’ says:—

“Why, you see, one night last winter I thought I heard somebody in the dining-room. So down I went. There ’e was at the sideboard. He’d got it open, and was taking the silver out. Well, I pitched at ’im—you know I’m some on the muscle—and got hold of his revolver,[83] and there I had ’im. But my! he looked so starved, and kind of forlorn, and hollow-eyed, I opened the front door for ’im and let ’im go. Expect I ought to ’ave handed ’im over to the police. Guess I never told of it before. It might scare the women-folks, you know. But wouldn’t it give Aunt Sophi the fidgets? After that I used to sleep with one ear open. She didn’t know she was sending away her watch-dog when she hustled me off to school in such a hurry.”

The Lieutenant reflects. Here is a boy who does not hesitate to cope with a burglar, who has been known to risk his own life to rescue a drowning companion, and yet is loth to enter his home from dread of an Aunt Sophia’s tongue.

“Then turning the mill-wheels,” Harry resumes, “that means helping the poor?”

“But where’s a body to begin? There’s poverty enough, I suppose; but some are so proud you can’t get at ’em, and some, but they’ve got the cheek! dogging you and sticking their paws out for a penny every turn you take. I always think they’re sham.”

“It might be a good way to exercise one’s ingenuity finding out. As for the pride, you’ve read in the story-books of the needfuls that found their way mysteriously[84] to empty cupboards. It sounds rather fanciful; yet there are people who take great delight in putting romance into real life, and a generous deed is none the worse for being delicately done.”

“But that would be jolly, now! Jinks! I’d go at it to-morrow if I only knew where to begin.”

“Sister could give you more information on that subject than I can. You two will have to put your heads together and talk it over. Ah, yes! and I have in mind a little newsboy to whom you can be of service. I really believe our rollicking Harry would be better satisfied with himself for using some of his extra energy and pocket-money in these ways. Come, let him give the Tabbies, and Old Williamses, as he calls them, a rest. There’s something better for him to do than worrying them. As I heard said once: ‘There is so much to be done in this world! There are so few to do it.’ You are going to be one of those few, surely. A rich man’s son has it in his power to set a great many wheels in motion. You see the Lieutenant is quite a sermonizer when he gets fairly started. But I have taken this opportunity to be earnest, for once, and before it is too late.”

Before it is too late! Harry, who has been wondering, the while, at this serious language, so uncommon from his genial friend, wonders still more at that expression. What does he mean? He asks, finally.

“I’m half sorry I let the words escape me; but now that I have aroused your curiosity, and since you trust me with your secrets, well, yes, I will tell you. You know one mustn’t expect to engage in battles and come out whole and sound. One day a small, round piece of lead discharged from a rifle took lodgings in my shoulder, and has since been slowly working its way down towards my heart. So it seems that a bullet is to be the death of me after all.”

Harry stares at the Lieutenant in mute amazement. Death! He suddenly becomes aware how strong are the cords of love which bind him to the blind man. To lose him, his best friend! No more confidential talks, him no more to come to in trouble, and doubt, and perplexity, and lay open all one’s thoughts! he who first discovered good in the wayward nature—a little, tender plant, so covered by the dust that others could not see, and helped it to grow and thrive in spite of the trampling that else would have destroyed it.

“Nobody knows? Katy doesn’t know?” the boy asks, at length, in a husky, tremulous voice.

“The surgeon and Lem have known of it only. It was on sister’s account that I wished the matter to be[86] kept quiet. I wanted to spare her the sadness as long as possible. But I must tell her very soon. It will not do for it to come upon her too suddenly. Ah, my Katy!” and another voice is low and tremulous.

From the chimney corner where he has been lounging Harry gazes once more at the patient face, pallid from silent, secret suffering, at the empty sleeve, at the eyes which cannot see; then he throws himself flat upon the carpet in a fit of weeping—he who so rarely sheds a tear—and his surprise, and grief, and anger, take expression in one passionate outcry against the war which caused all this—that brothers’ war!

But as he lies there sobbing, listening to some calm and soothing words, there comes to him—even to Harry—a remembrance of a face he has somewhere seen pictured. That, too, was a pallid face and patient. It drooped from a cross; and the brow was encircled by thorns; and underneath was written:

You may have noticed those high walls which some build about their houses and grounds, so high you can get but a glimpse of the tree-tops above them; the shady walks, and gushing fountains, and green grass-plats, and bright flowers are entirely hidden from view.

A certain great man died, and the tidings was carried swiftly and far, for his name was known to many nations. All over the land there were public demonstrations of mourning, and numberless and eloquent were the eulogies pronounced. Thus he who, living, had been laden with honors and distinctions, went in pomp and honor to his burial. Yet somehow we do not hear that any one was really very sorry because of his death, much less that any little children wept because of it. Had his greatness been like a high wall, concealing whatever was sunny and winsome in his nature? On the same hillside where that great man was laid to rest there is a new-made grave beneath the cedars, and not very many people know anything about[88] it; but among those who do there is a void, as when the fire goes out upon the hearth-stone, and all is cold and desolate. “It is no small thing to be missed by one’s friends when he is away from them.” Little did he consider, who spoke thus, how truly those words would soon apply to himself. And here one might pause to ponder. Which is preferable—to be so great and renowned that when one dies the news will be told abroad in the world, or to be so genial and lovable that even a little child will weep at the sight of his vacant chair?

A wee bird made its nest out in the porch last May, and lived there the summer long. But the summer is gone, and the winter is come again, and the bird has flown away, and the nest is empty, and the snow is on it and on the ground, and the clouds are gray and threatening, and again the wind wails at the casements, moans down the chimney. Lem, coming in to replenish the fire, sees the form shivering over it in spite of the warmth, sees the wide, tearless eyes, with the new, strange look in them, sees the carpet strewn with remnants of a rare and fragrant bouquet, Harry’s gift, torn to bits by nervous fingers.

“Miss Katy,” and he lays his hand gently on her head, “try to think of something else; jess try. Think of all the poor folks you an’ Mr. Harry’s got on the dockit, an’ what’ll become of ’em if you don’t pick up sperrits an’ help ’im look after ’em a little. Come, they’s no time to be settin’ here idle!” You would hardly guess his voice was choking, and that tears were streaming down his black face.

“Oh, Lem,” she answers drearily, “I’m tired; I’m tired of living. I can’t care for anything any more.”

“But you must care, honey. What’ll become of poor old ’Liza an’ me if Katy goes off an’ leaves us too?”

But she only hovers more closely over the fire, staring at it vacantly. And the wind moans and wails down the chimney.

Lem returns to the kitchen to consult with his wife, Eliza, as to what shall be done for her in whose welfare they have felt such a tender interest since, years ago, she and her brother were left orphans. Not all the heartfelt sympathy of young and old, and the loving little attentions of the children, seem to be of any avail. Eliza advises to go for Edith. “She used to ’muse Master Wallie.”

But once in the room, her toys about her, Edith soon ceases to play. There is a change. Somebody is gone who used to be here. She may somewhat have forgotten[90] all that has been passing of late, scarcely can have understood what has been told her; but whether she thinks about it or not, or remembers, even, she feels a want. “It’s lonesome without him!” Ah, that is it; and she begins to sob, creeping close to Kate. But what new thing is this? Katy doesn’t notice her! Those queer, staring eyes, that do not turn and smile upon her, they are not Katy’s eyes. That white, stony face, that is not like Katy, either. And all the while the wind is moaning and wailing, and the gloomy clouds grow gloomier, making the day dreary and the room dreary. Everything is dreary and lonesome, and not as it used to be. She flies into the hall, crying and calling to Lem, below.

“Oh, come back, Edie!” calls Kate, arousing at that pitiful little cry and holding out her hands to the child. “Don’t go away and leave Katy all alone! She’ll be good now. She’s sorry she scared Edie; she didn’t mean to.”

“Are you all alone?” Edith has stopped crying suddenly. There is a peculiar earnestness in her look as she questions.

“Then it’s there—there, behind the book—the paper that he did write on. I must give it to you when you was all alone, he said—my captain. He said, would I ’member? Ha, ha! I did ’member, didn’t I?”

Kate opens the book-case, and finds, as the child said, a folded paper behind one of the encyclopædias. It contains some lines written with pencil, so running together, lines and words, as to be almost unreadable. As she recognizes that handwriting and slowly deciphers it, the tears come at last like rain. Edith, no longer afraid, wipes them away with her little white apron, murmuring, the while, all sorts of baby talk.

About two hundred years ago there lived a blind man who was the author of what many think to be the greatest of poems. But wherever that wonderful work is read and admired, there, too, it is told how his daughters, with one exception, were unkind to him and undutiful, refusing even the task of committing to paper those immortal verses. However, it may be he was a trifle to blame, himself. (For we have seen, as in that other case, how greatness does sometimes build for itself a barrier, a high, impassable wall.) Suppose day after day little eyes looked up wistfully, and he did not see—gazing far off into other worlds and other ages; little voices whispered timidly, and he did not hear—listening to the converse of angels; little hands clung[92] caressingly, but unheeded. Ah, that was asking for bread and getting a stone. Suppose it made some little hearts ache, some little people were “afraid,” finally, like Edith, awhile since. So when they grew up and he grew old and sightless, what came of it all? Paradise Lost, to be marveled at as long as the English language is known and studied, and there in shadowy background, the mighty genius, poor and blind, with his unloving daughters.

And now, girl readers, here is that writing which to her, so sorrowful, is like a consoling message from the Beyond.

Daylight slowly fades from the wintry sky, the firelight flickers up and down the wall, and, as night descends, little Edith falls to sleep in Kate’s arms. But are these two alone? For though there is seen no shape among the shadows, nor is heard the sound of any voice, what is that something that like a radiance suddenly overspreads the bowed face? “The peace which passeth all understanding.”

She must have come aboard unnoticed, hours ago, at the French port where the vessel had been lying for repairs. Had she wandered away from her home, and innocently lain down here to rest? In that home there would be grief, and anxiety, and long waiting, or ever she would return; for the ship was now many leagues out at sea, and the child had just been discovered.

The sound of voices talking the matter over wakened the little girl, and she shrank timidly from all the eyes fixed inquiringly upon her. So the captain sent every one away, and sat down by her, and in her own language questioned:

“Is not this, then, the ship which goes to America? There was a man in the street who told me it should go to America. Is it, then, a mistake?”

“But what put it into your head, little—what shall I call you? What is your name?”

“Well, then, my little Julie, how is it that you happen to be going to America? America is a long way off, do you know it?”

“But no! is it, then? It cannot be far away where Julien is. Is it farther than Paris?”

“No home, no friend!” repeated the captain, stroking the dark hair, pityingly. “Did the father fall in battle?”

“Since they took my dear mamma away to the burial,” answered the child, her eyes brimming with tears.

“In what part, monsieur? Is it then so great a city? But, without doubt, there will be one who can tell me where he lives. In our village one knew everybody.”

“Or I will stand at the corner of the street until he passes by. I shall know him, without doubt, he is so handsome. Oh, monsieur, I would know him anywhere. I knew him instantly the last time I saw him, although he wore the clothes of Jacques, the mason.”

“I awoke in the night. It was the dear mamma who stood by my bed with a candle in the hand, and one with her like Jacques until I meet his beautiful eyes. Then I laugh gaily and cry, ‘Ah, behold thee, my brother, covered with plaster! and thy coat too large for thee! Didst thou think to fool me?’ But our mother[97] lays the finger upon her lip, and her face is very pale; and Julien kisses and embraces me without ceasing, and with tears, and I know not what to make of it. Soon they go out and I fall again to sleep. Oh, monsieur, he came that same night to America! It was not an hour after, while I slept—mamma has told me it—that the wicked gendarmes came and searched the house for him!”

“Because—mamma said—he had written something in the journals which meant that the Emperor was not a good Emperor; and for that the wicked gendarmes would have put my poor brother in prison.”

“Go on, my pretty one,” said the captain, smiling, “thou knowest how to talk. Thou art more entertaining than a book. How old art thou?”

“Bravo!” applauded the captain when she had finished. Then he went up on deck.

Julie recollected something as he passed out. She carefully drew a small package from the folds of her dress and ran after him. The rolling of the ship made her dizzy. She reeled and would have fallen, had not a sailor caught her hand.

“And what can I do for mademoiselle?” he asked as she approached, smiling at sight of his bronzed and furrowed face—already that of an old friend among this crowd of seamen—strangers, from a country where “mercy!” is a frequent exclamation.

“Good monsieur, are you the man who takes the moneys? Because this, mamma said, must pay for my voyage.” She gave to him the little parcel.

The captain opened it, and found therein a beautiful cross of solid gold, curiously wrought and thickly studded with precious stones.

“Will it not do, monsieur? There was nothing else. No money. The woman demanded so much for the room and all! Poor mamma was so long sick! Oh, monsieur, monsieur, but for that—if she had not been sick, she also would have come to America—to Julien! ‘Take it,’ she said—all so slow—she whispered it all so slow—‘Take it and go to Julien. It will pay the passage.’ And she whispered still a little more. I could not hear. But I thought she went to sleep. When the morning came, and I could see her face—so pale! so cold! so still—”

“Here, my little Julie,” interrupted the captain, pressing his hand an instant over his eyes, “take thy cross. Keep it. Thou shalt have it to remember her by. And I—I am very well pleased to have a little passenger.”

“Oh, mon oncle! how good you are!” and the child covered his great brown hand with kisses.

He had no reason to be surprised; for wherever he went, the wide world over, did not all children call him “Uncle?”

II.

“When was it your brother went away, Julie?—how long ago? can you remember?” the captain asked one day as the little girl paced the deck at his side, her slender hand in his.

“It is a very long time, monsieur mon oncle,” she answered; and after thinking, “it is a year.”

“Now try to remember, if you can, something about the place where he lives. Did he never tell you about it?—did he write no letters?”

“Oh, yes, mon oncle; often to our mother, and for me, one time, a little letter—all in an envelope by itself. Always I carry it with me. Behold it!” she said, drawing it from her pocket.

“Ah! a letter!” cried the captain, greatly relieved, “that will help us.”

It was dated six months before, and postmarked “Philadelphia.” Within, too, was given the name of the street, and even the number of the residence.

As soon as the vessel arrived in port, he addressed some lines to Julie’s brother. But as the days passed and he received no answer, he went himself to Philadelphia,[101] and to the street and number given in the letter. No. 210 proved to be a boarding-house, where, indeed, the person inquired for had stopped a short time. He had, however, gone away long ago, whither, no one could tell. The captain then inserted in the newspapers a card asking information concerning his whereabouts. While waiting a reply, there came orders to sail with a cargo for the West Indies. (The captain’s was a trading vessel, carrying merchandise from one country to another.)

What was to be done with little Julie? that was the question. The captain went finally to a lawyer, told him her story, charged him to make inquiries for her brother. Then they talked awhile together, and the lawyer did some writing.

After that the captain took Julie in the cars to a town where lived a friend of his. Now, his friend, his wife, and their five children were delighted to see the captain. They always were when he came home from his voyages. Perhaps it was because he never failed to bring such costly presents; this time a beautiful gilt harness for the father—or rather for a pair of fine bays—elegant French silks for the mother, and no end of toys for the small folks. And when he asked Mrs. Lane if she would, as a favor, take Julie into her home and care for her until his return (he did not expect to[102] be gone long, he said), she appeared to be very willing to do so.

But when it came to bidding “good-bye,” and the child clung to him, trembling and sobbing, “Oh, mon oncle! mon oncle!” he looked troubled. He just held her close for a moment, gave her three great sailor kisses that echoed from cellar to garret, and ran out of the house without a word.

No sooner had the captain’s ship set sail than Mrs. Lane took Julie to an orphan asylum.

“Send her off somewhere,” she said to the matron. “A home in the West! that would be the very place for her. Ah, the West! what a glorious place for little homeless wanderers!”

“The idea of his bringing that little vagabond for me to look after! I don’t care if he did offer to pay her board (of course it wouldn’t have done to accept). I don’t intend to make my house a harbor for every little straggler that happens along! and right there with the children, too! What do I know about her? What does he? Maybe her story is true, and maybe it isn’t. Those French, they can lie! And then she’d be forever harassing me about that brother of hers. Ha! she’ll never see him again! those French!... And then he’s taken such a fancy to her!—why, she[103] calls him ‘Uncle’ already! Just like him to go and spend upon her the half he owns—educate her, and all that! I won’t have it!... There may be some trouble over my sending her off?... Well, well, I’ll have some pretty excuse ready. Time enough to invent it before he gets back.”

(It was thought that the captain would make the little Lanes his heirs, for they were great favorites with “Uncle Jack.”)

III.

At the asylum, little orphans had a roof to shelter them from the storms, a place to lay their tired selves at night, food to eat when they were hungry, clothes to protect them from the cold. But there was no mamma there, no Julien, no oncle le capitaine. The great clean rooms, with their whitewashed walls, were so bare. No pretty mats on the floors, no carved tables, no silken chairs and sofas, no crimson curtains, no beautiful paintings and statuettes, as in that pleasant village home from which Julie and her mother fled when the terrible armies came marching on, with beat of drum and thundering of cannon. It was dreary and lonesome here. Julie could not understand a word that was spoken, neither could any one understand her. So she could not play with the other children, but sat alone by herself watching them all day—watching in a[104] dream, the roar of the briny billows still ringing in her ears. Now and then she cried a little for very homesickness; and always she wondered why she was in this place and why Julien did not come.

One day a lady was shown into the school-room, where the children sang for her. Looking about upon their faces she asked:

“Who is that delicate little creature in the corner, with the dark hair and eyes?”

The matron told the story she had heard from Mrs. Lane. It was, she said, a little orphan girl who had recently come over in an emigrant ship from France. Her father was killed in the battle of Sedan. Did the lady know of any one who would like to adopt the child?

“Why, I’ve a great mind to take her myself. She could play with Charlie and Lizzie, you know,” turning to her companion, “and in that way they could learn to speak French, couldn’t they?”

So, when this person—she was visiting some cousins in town—when she returned home Julie went with her; why, she did not know, but she supposed it must be the way to find her brother. To be sure, madame let her hold Lizzie a good deal, and holding Lizzie made one’s arms ache. What matter? Julien would be there, where they were going!

But when the long journey was ended, and they left[105] the noisy train, and monsieur met them, all smiles at the sight of wife and baby, and they drove through the streets to monsieur’s house, Julien was not there! The child was ready to cry from disappointment. She sat down by the window and watched the passers-by. Perhaps one would be Julien. Now, a little boy of five or six years, after being fondled and caressed by mamma, and having given baby a dutiful but hasty kiss, came and planted himself in front of her. When he had stared at her to his satisfaction, he demanded:

“Bonny Jew!—what’s the rest of it? Bonny Jew! Bonny Jew! Ha, ha! What a funny name!”

“There’s a girl in there. Her name’s Bonny Jew. She’s deef, I guess, fur I couldn’t make ’er hear till I hollered loud enough to take ’er head off.”

At night, madame led Julie down to the kitchen, saying, “Katrine, you may let her sleep with you,” and left her there.

Katrine’s face flushed scarlet, and her mild eyes flashed as they never flashed before. Was not France at that very hour making war upon her countrymen? Were not all French, then, her enemies? She took up the lamp and strode toward her chamber. Julie, afraid to be left in the dark, followed after. The door was locked in her face.

Madame coming into the basement for a glass of water, late in the evening, stumbled over the child lying asleep on the hall floor, just outside of Katrine’s room. She tried the door, and finding it fastened, called through the keyhole: “Katrine! Katrine!”

Katrine either did not hear or pretended not to. She was snoring right loyally between two immense feather beds which had kept her company all the way from Vaterland. The lounge in the back parlor, with some shawls and cushions, would serve for Julie’s couch this time.

“Katrine,” asked madame, “what did you mean by locking Julie out of your room last night?”

But madame couldn’t afford to lose Katrine. Katrine was a treasure. Katrine could cook, and wash, and iron, and do all kinds of work to perfection. She was tidy, and she was industrious, and always good-tempered till now. So, instead of her finding “anodder blace,” a bed was made for Julie in the attic—the low, wide, windowless attic, where not a breath of air moved in summer, where the winds whistled and moaned in winter, where the rats and mice held revels all the year round—the great, gloomy attic, with its mysterious chests and closets, where curious shadows dwelt; strewn with mysterious hats, and boots and shoes, that took strange shapes after the sun went down; hung about with mysterious outcasts—old gowns, and crinolines, and coats, that weirdly swayed and swung on boisterous autumn nights; the dreadful attic, where, hour after hour, when she ought to have been enjoying sweet, blessed sleep, little tired Julie lay wide-eyed, staring at—she knew not what, listening to—she knew not what, trembling, shivering, the sweat upon her brow.

The weeks passed by. Julien did not come. Would he ever come? The question was often put to madame.[108] But she didn’t understand. Julie began to grow discouraged. Baby was so heavy! and she was cutting teeth, too, and worried and fretted. Some new plaything must be invented every five minutes to amuse and keep her quiet. She must be sung to, rocked, carried backward and forward, to and fro, drawn in her carriage up and down the sidewalk, wearily, wearily, up and down. As for Charley, he learned to speak less good French of Julie than he hurled bad English at her. During his mother’s visit East, he had improved the chance for making acquaintance with all the boys on the street, and thus had considerably increased the list of words at his command. One day, Lizzie’s dimpled fingers found the ribbon about Julie’s neck. Out in full sight flew the precious cross. Julie hastened to hide it, but a pair of keen eyes had caught the glitter.

“What’s that? What’s that shiny thing you’ve got there, Julie? I want to see it!” cried the tormentor, darting toward her.

She thrust out her hand to keep him off. He flung it aside and clutched at the ribbon.

At that he became furious, kicking and biting, and pulling her hair. Julie, dropping the baby, shrieked with pain. Baby began to cry lustily. The uproar reached the drawing-room, where there were callers.[109] Madame came rushing in to still the noise. Charley, who had succeeded in tearing it away, now, triumphant, held up the cross.

Madame hadn’t time to inquire into the matter. She took the cross away from Charley, though he stoutly resisted, locked it in a drawer of her writing-desk, put the key in her pocket and then went back to her guests.

“You plagued old thing!” he muttered, shaking his fist and scowling at Julie, “if you hadn’t a’ raised such a rumpus she’d never a’ knowed, and I’d a’ traded it off fur Tommy Tough’s pearl-handled penknife—plague take you!”

But “by and by,” madame had forgotten. She did[110] not remember, indeed, until she opened the drawer to get her portemonnaie before going out shopping.

“Some cheap gew-gaw, possibly,” she thought, taking up the cross. “I don’t know, though! Can this be glass? Wonder how she came by it? Can it possibly be of any value?... I’ve a great mind to take it down to Forsyth’s and see what he says. He’ll know the moment he lays eyes on it.”

“Mr. Forsyth,” she said, handing it across the counter, “here is a little trinket that has accidentally come into my possession lately. I’d like your opinion as to its worth.”

The jeweler’s eyes sparkled like the precious gems, as he held them to the light.

“Why, Mrs. ——, you have here a treasure! Those stones!—genuine article!” and examining more closely: “It’s very old. Just observe the chasing. You know nothing of its history?”

“Of value? I would give five hundred dollars any day, Mrs. ——, to become possessor of that cross.” He added eagerly, “Could you not be induced to part with it?”

Five hundred dollars! Madame’s glance fell upon a silver tea-service which she had long coveted.

Such a lovely blue moire in one of the shop windows—five dollars a yard. It made one’s mouth water to look at it. Such a lovely Brussels in another!—the parlors needed carpeting anew. Such lovely, lovely things in all the windows! that one really ought to have. As for the child, of what earthly use could that costly trinket ever be to her? Like as not she stole it, as Charley said.

When madame reached home her purse was even better filled than when she started out, and the silver tea-set would be sent up from Forsyth’s to-morrow. Meantime a curious piece of workmanship in the jeweler’s show-case was attracting much attention.

What a queer way to find the brother is this—tending Lizzie and being knocked about by Charley, and robbed of mamma’s last gift! Julie fears she will never get it, for when she asked madame for it again, madame blushed and did not reply. What strange people these Americans are! They make little children take care of little children! And she is afraid of Charley. She trembles now to think of him. And who is that creature peering out of the closet over there?

“Why dost thou not waken, my mother? Behold, the sun is high. Why dost thou sleep so long? Why art thou so cold and pale? Mamma! Mamma!”

The silken lashes are not lifted from the marble cheek; the white lips make no answer.

The morning creeps away, the noon, and the afternoon, and now the evening comes.

The night goes by, and a day, and another night, and the morning dawns once more. And again the woman comes peering through the door.

They thrust her back with rough hands. They will not let her follow. The woman locks her in. She is left alone, alone.

The day goes by, the noon, and the afternoon. The shadows reach out after her like claws. She crouches in the chimney-corner, staring at them through the long, dark hours.

At midnight the woman glides stealthily in, glides stealthily about, peering, peering with wicked eyes. She fumbles among the bedding, opens the trunk, takes out its contents carefully.

“What have you there, little wretch?” demands the woman, trying to wrest it from her.

Julie will not give it up. With a sudden bound she escapes, runs out of the room, out of the house, down the path, away, away, through the fields. On, and on, she hurries, not daring to look back. Daylight comes, and still she walks on. After awhile she grows faint. She sits down by the roadside to rest. A peasant girl passes by with a basket on her arm.

When Julie is rested, she rises and walks on. Still on and on. The way is long. At last the houses are thick together. Beyond is the blue sea. There are the ships, many, with white sails.

While she looks, the great flag comes fluttering, fluttering down—fluttering, floating before her, floating about her, wrapping her in its folds; then back it flies, whizzing through the air, up, up, up, among the tall masts, so high above the water! Julie is dizzy, and tries to catch at the ropes. Lo! her hands are pinioned. She cannot move them. A huge serpent is coiled about her—a huge serpent striped its whole length with red and white. The coils are tightening, tightening. She cannot breathe. She struggles to be free. A flaming head swoops suddenly down. Two terrible eyes glare at her—two eyes—two glittering stars.

[2] Good-morning (or good-day), my friend.

[3] I am afraid.

[4] Oh, give it to me! give it to me.

IV.

“Katrine,” said madame, “go and call Julie. Why, here it’s seven o’clock, and she not up yet! I never knew her to lie abed like this before. Tell her she must come down right away and dress the baby.”

“I calls von, dwo, dree dimes. She vill not hear. Den I goes oop der shtep und calls von more dime. She vill not ondershtand. She shtare mit de eyes vide—und see notting! Den she schream like murter.”

“Why, mercy on us, Dolf!” exclaimed madame, glancing across the breakfast-table at her husband, “what if the child’s sick! some fever or other!—something catching!—and these children!—she ought to be got out of the house immediately!... St. Mary’s Hospital! Yes, that’s the place. She’s Catholic, I believe. Katrine!—no, wait! perhaps it isn’t anything serious, after all. We must find out first. Dolf, what if you leave word for Dr. Smith to call round as you go down street? No, stay!” in an undertone, “don’t send him. Get some one that doesn’t go in our set—some stranger. Being up in the attic so, it might get out that we didn’t treat her well. You know how absurdly people will talk, sometimes. Can’t you think of some one else we can call in?”

“Well, I d-o-n’-t know. Let me see. Why, yes, there’s that young fellow who has stuck up his shingle a few doors off from the office. Foreigner, I believe. Hasn’t any too much custom, should judge. Might get him.”

In half an hour the young physician rang the door-bell. He was shown up to the attic by Katrine. As he mounted the stairs, a pitiful little wail came floating down:

“Oh, Julien, Julien, tu es bien longtemps à venir. Helas! ne te reverrai-je plus?”[5]

Madame, waiting below, wondered if the stranger wasn’t “some exiled nobleman, he looks so distinguished. Rather seedy, though.”

When he came down at last, his eyes burned like hot coals, and he had for her questions never a word of answer. He walked swiftly away, and returned with a carriage before she had recovered from her amazement. Still speechless, he again made his way to the attic, and when he descended this time he bore something in his arms very tenderly.

“You are behaving very strangely, sir! What are you doing? Where are you taking her?”

“What do you mean, sir?” cried madame, following down the steps. “Do you dare insinuate that she wouldn’t be cared for here? I want to know what right you have to be meddling with that child?”

“The best right in the world, madame—a brother’s right.” To the coachman: “Drive on!” and the carriage rolled away.

A passing glimpse of a tiny, fever-flushed face, wild, unconscious, restless eyes, and lips that moved continually, was the last madame saw of the “delicate little creature” she had “adopted” for a nurse-girl.

When she had recovered breath and collected her scattered wits, she put on her shawl and bonnet, and went down town to the office.

“It’s out there on his door, or somewhere, isn’t it? Just step out and see, please.”

“Leblanc—Leblanc ... yes, and that’s the child’s name, now I recall it. Do you know, he’s her brother!”

The next place madame visited was the jeweler’s. She was very glad she had not purchased the watered silk or the Brussels carpet, and that the silver service had not yet been sent up to the house.

“Mr. Forsyth,” she said, laying a roll of bank-notes on the counter, “I regret our little transaction yesterday. I prefer to keep the cross myself.”

“Oh, don’t talk to me about ‘bargains’! we’re old acquaintances. I want that cross. I must have it.”

The jeweler colored, and coughed, and objected. But madame was obstinate. Finally, as they were “old acquaintances,” and as madame’s husband was a lawyer, and as he hadn’t told her anywhere near the full value of the cross, he yielded—on one condition—that it should remain a few days longer in his show-case. It added greatly to the display there, especially since a card had been attached to it, reading thus:

ANTIQUE CROSS,
Formerly owned by the
EMPRESS EUGENIE,
Sold by her in her flight from Paris, to defray the expenses of the journey.

“If Doctor Leblanc cares anything for his sister he won’t be gaping at jewelers’ windows for some time to come. (Doubtful if she recovers. It’s some fever or other she must have caught on board that emigrant ship. And the children! bless me, I must go the very next thing to Doctor Smith and see if he thinks there’s[119] any danger.) And then if he shouldn’t happen to ask for it, or make any fuss about it, why, I can wear it myself, and everybody in town will suppose it has once been worn by Eugenie!”

A week from that morning little Julie came back from her wanderings, looked up into the face bending over her, and knew it for the first time.

“C’est lui!”[6] she whispered, smiling faintly, closed her weary eyes and fell into a sweet slumber.

[5] Thou art very long in coming. Alas! shall I never see thee more?

[6] It is he!

“What art thou writing, my brother?” asked Julie from among her pillows one day; “something for the journals?”

“Oh, dear Julien, take care! do not say that the Emperor of America is not a good Emperor!”

“Fear not, mon enfant: we are in a free country where one says what one pleases.”

“Wilt thou not have of it also, brother? Let us dine together. I never see thee eat.”

“Ah, but thou art not strong! I remember when thy cheeks were like the rose. Now thou art so pale and thin! and I saw thy hand tremble while thou wast writing. Oh, my brother, if thou shouldst be sick, I fear I could not be to thee the good angel thou art to me. Come, take of this a little: it is excellent.”

No, truly it was not. It was of stale bread, as wee a morsel as ever kept body and soul together. But the little one must never know.

“Oh, that is the monsieur charming who gave me a ride in his ship. He promised to find thee for me. But who hast thou heard to speak of him?”

“Yes, Julien, was he not good? He would not take the cross—thou rememberest?—our poor mamma’s beautiful cross. It was yesterday, was it not, that I[121] was telling thee how she gave it to me? Madame locked it in the drawer. I wonder if she would not let thee have it if thou wert to ask her? for thou art a man, and thou canst speak English, and she will comprehend. Oh, dear Julien, what is the matter? what have I said? art thou angry with me?”

“No, not with thee, my poor dear little angel! but with those people there—the brutes!”

“Comment! what dost thou say? I am she! But how could I tell thee, since thou wilt scarcely allow me to speak a single word, dear monsieur le docteur?”

“My poor little Julie has had bad dreams and talked in her sleep. There, now, thou art weary. Close thy pretty eyes and rest thee. Already, I fear, I have let thee talk too long.”

“But it is so good to be with one who comprehends, and can speak with me our own beautiful language!”

“Poor little sister! when thou art stronger, we will do nothing but talk for a whole day.”

While the child lay sleeping, there came a rap at the outer door. Julien hoped he was going to have a patient.[122] But no, a tall, stout gentleman strode into the office. His face was ruddy, his eyes twinkled merrily. He didn’t look as if he were in any need of medicine.

“I came to ask after the little Julie,” he said. “She came over in my ship,” he explained. “Possibly she has made mention of—”

“Then let me thank you for your kindness to my little sister!” cried the young man, grasping his hand. “I know not how to express my gratitude.”

“In the next room. She sleeps. She is just recovering from a fever—of the brain.”

“Indeed! Strange that woman should not have spoken of it! Has she been very sick?”

“Ah-h-h, those Lanes! the rascals! Why, sir, I left the child in charge of people I thought I could trust—people I had befriended. Why, that man, Lane, was head and ears in debt! but for me, he and his would be in want and misery to-day! What do they do, the moment I am out of sight, but send her to an orphan asylum! Sent her off! off West! that was all they could tell me at the asylum. Gone West! Nothing definite. No record, no trace. I’ve had a search, I can[123] tell you. Hunted, advertised, from place to place. Yesterday I came here. It was by this cross I found her. I saw it in a shop window and identified it at once with one little Julie had shown me on shipboard. You recognize it?”

“I do, indeed. It is an heir-loom. It has been handed down through I know not how many generations.”

“I made inquiries in the shop, and was directed to a lady who they said was its owner. She proved to be the person who took the child from the asylum. She seemed strangely embarrassed and disinclined to speak about the matter.”

“With good reason! mon Dieu! my blood boils as I think of it. It was the cruelty and overtask that caused my little one’s illness.”

“I suspected something of the kind. Listen to the condition upon which that person acquainted me with your whereabouts—that I ‘shouldn’t mention the matter to any one in town!’ And there’s something wrong about this cross. She said she was afraid the child might lose it, and so had put it under lock and key for safe keeping, and had afterwards lent it to the jeweler as a curiosity. But he was wonderfully inquisitive, and undertook to pump me when I went back after it. What do you think he had labeled it? As one of the jewels of your ex-Empress!”

“C’en est trop![7] these Yankees!” exclaimed Julien; then coloring to the roots of his hair he stammered:

“No offense,” said the captain, smiling. “I am, then, so genuine a Yankee?”

“Oui, mon frere. Tell me who is with thee? But I know it—I! It is oncle le capitaine! I heard him laugh!”

“Bonjour, bonjour, mademoiselle l’Empress! how is your Majesty’s health to-day?” cried a voice over Julien’s shoulder. “See, little pale one, I come to bring thee thy cross.”

“Oh, the cross of mamma! the cross of mamma!” exclaimed Julie, seizing it and covering it with kisses, while silent tears crept down her wan cheeks.

Julien turned away to the window, and the captain sat down by the couch and shaded his eyes with his hand.

“But, mon oncle,” said Julie after awhile, “tell me, did you have a good voyage? Did the great waves come and tip the ship right over on its side and almost[125] spill you out? You were gone so long I feared you were drowned. Oh, mon oncle, do not go away again upon the terrible sea; but stay with us, my brother and me.”

“Ah, my little Julie, thy poor old uncle is, upon land, like a fish out of water.”

Julie must not yet hear, the captain thought, the story of that great gale off the coast of the Carolinas, in which his good ship had nearly been wrecked. It would better suit the little convalescent to be told of those islands where he had been; those sunny islands where it is always summer, where oranges and bananas and the rarest and most beautiful flowers grow wild.

“With monsieur’s permission. An article for the Morning Post. It must be ready within the next two hours.”

“My friend, take the advice of your sister’s venerable uncle; let that poor wretch alone. He’s about played out. At all events, you are out of his reach. Stick to your profession. Writing is fool’s business. ‘A jack at all trades is good at none.’”

“Monsieur, I have set up shop in three cities, and in each have waited three months for a patient.”

“Why be in haste to tell of it, monsieur? It is nothing to boast of, surely!”

“Why? Because I can help you. I am going to help you. I intended to when I came here, if I found you were in need of it.”

“I have not said I was in need. I ask no one for help. What I ask for is—work!”

“Young man, you are altogether too proud! You should take lessons of Young America! Young America isn’t afraid of the jingling of coin. Young America doesn’t spurn a good offer. Young America would jump at the chance. But as for work, why, work will come to you if you only wait for it long enough. ‘Patient waiters are no losers.’”

“Yes, we must think of her! Come, my dear fellow, you’ve had a hard row to hoe. No use denying!”

“I will confess, monsieur, that I have seen times when I have wished myself well back in France. There, at least, one could fight for one’s country.”

“Is it worth fighting for? Poor France!—a republic, a kingdom, an empire, a bedlam, by fits! ruled yesterday by an idiot, to-day by a lynx, to-morrow by a pack of bloodhounds! Better off where you are, young man; better off where you are.”

“Still again, I am he. At your age I grew weary of the cloister. Disguised as a sailor I escaped to the United States; and disguised as a sailor I have knocked about the world ever since. My own country is the one I avoid most of all. I suppose I never should have known aught of Marguerite’s children if the little Julie had not come to me just as she did. Indeed, although she told me her name, I never suspected who she might be until she showed me her poor mother’s cross. In the cloister one is buried from the[128] world. I did not know whom my sister married. He, too, is dead, the child told me. I mean your father.”

“General Leblanc, of the Italian campaign—you have never heard of him? It was there that he lost his life.”

“Poor Marguerite! She was coming to you, it seems, and fell ill upon the way.”

“I first learned it from Julie. I had received no tidings for months. Our home was in the region which has fallen into the enemy’s clutches. Mails, of course, were stopped. What other reason for the silence? Mon Dieu! the agony of suspense! I should have returned immediately when the republic was declared, if I could have seen my way—”

“And you two might have sought each other till your locks were gray—and probably would never have met.”

“Mon oncle, please tell to me also those strange, sad things you have been telling my brother now for a long time in that dreadful English, till suddenly, at this moment, he looks frightened.”

“Thy uncle, sister—dear angel!—has been telling me that he is also my uncle.”

“Come now, my children,” said Dame Nature once, in the morning of the world, “let me hear your voices, that I may judge which of all is the most musical.”

Up from the dewy grass sprang a meadow-lark with a burst of melody that thrilled the listening air; then loud, and sweet, and clear, was heard the warbling of a nightingale; the mountain brook, swinging its censer among the rocks, began to chant—in lower, deeper tones; meanwhile, that wanderer, the wind, passing, with nimble fingers touched the keys of the forest-organ, and the towering pines and sturdy oaks and yews quivered and throbbed as he played accompaniment; then caroled in chorus countless millions of birds—even the tiny insects took to humming as they rioted among the golden rays, and the wild beasts and every living creature, encouraged, lifted their voices in trial; from the cloud-mass, above the far-off horizon, came the thunder’s rumble; the river, leaping the cliff, roared in rivalry; quick followed the heavy voices of the great billows as they came surging upon the beach. Oh, grand[130] and mighty music did they all make together in that glad morning of the world. The sunlit heavens leaned over, breathless, to hear it, the purple valleys, lifting, fondled it as they climbed, the speechless hills caught it up, and in envy hurled it back again, note by note, till the whole earth was wild with sound and deafening reverberation, and “Cease, cease, my children!” Dame Nature cried aloud, “lest I render you voiceless, every one, and there be no more music forever.”

But failing to make herself heard, she unrolled the great cloud that lay coiled above the horizon, and drew it like a veil across the sky. Immediately there was silence—silence unbroken for a moment’s space, when “Ha, ha, ha!” giggled the mountain brook, unable to restrain its mirth; “Ha, ha, ha!” repeated a bright-winged forest bird; “Ha, ha, ha!” flew swiftly back from the hills.

“Hush, irreverent ones!” spake Dame Nature in anger; “listen, while I pass sentence upon you! Thou, mountain brook, who hast dared to break silence by thine ill-timed laughter, laugh on, forever and forever: thy song is taken from thee, and thou shalt have thy fill of merriment! From thee, too, bird of the brilliant plumage, is taken the power of song: henceforth thou shalt find voice only to mimic the folly of others. And you, ye hills, will I fetter and bind, that ye no more astonish the world with your envious wrath.

“As for you, my obedient children, ye are all musical, each in his own way; and now will I assign to you places in my choir. Thou, wandering wind, shalt be my organist; and ye larks and nightingales, who are my pride and joy, and all ye merry little birds, the melody is yours; and ye surging billows, and muttering clouds, and roaring cataracts, to you the base belongs.

“Sing on, now, my children; sing on, and practice well, that ye may know your parts when, by and by, I call upon you for a grand and glorious anthem that shall fill the world with wonder.”

And alway since then they have been diligently practicing, till now, when Dame Nature calls for Te Deum at the day-dawn, or for a vesper hymn at eventide, marvelous is the melody of gleesome and gay-hearted little birds; marvelous is the skill of the musician wind, as he sweeps the forest-organ’s answering keys; marvelous are the voices of cloud and cataract, and marvelous the voices of the sea.

But there are birds of rainbow-tinted plumage, wonderful to behold, whose harsh, discordant tones serve only to mock and mimic; the mountain brook wearies ofttimes of laughter, querulous, complains to the rocks, grieving for its lost song; and faint and rare are the echoes heard among the speechless hills.

Moonshine crept down, one clear, unclouded night, to look about the world and see what was going on. In her hand she carried a silver lamp, by whose white rays all objects could be seen as plainly as at noontide; and wherever she went, the shadows, ashamed of their blackness, stole guiltily away and tried to hide themselves. Her path led through a forest and down a mountain side, where wild beasts roamed for prey; but now the timid deer browsed securely among the underbrush, and the hungry bear trudged supperless off to his den, the stealthy panther kept useless watch from the branches overhead, the rattlesnake slid back into its hole and left the tree-toads chirping cheerily, the sly fox found the rabbits too wide awake for him; for was not Moonshine abroad with her silver lamp, proclaiming to all harmless creatures: Here is your enemy, and there is your enemy?

On she passed till she came to a pioneer’s log cabin, standing alone in the wide wilderness. Listening, she heard the sound of a voice singing:

“Ah,” said Moonshine, “the mother and her babe are alone and unguarded in that rude dwelling. Even as she sings her voice trembles with fear. I will set my lamp in the window and pause awhile to keep her company.”

Instantly a soft radiance flooded the room within, and the mother, looking up, beheld the gentle face peeping through the window. “Oh, Moonshine,” she cried, with tears of joy, “how glad am I that you have come! Stay with me a little, for I am lonesome; and tell me, pray, if there be any savages lurking about.”

Not far off a band of red men, their faces bedaubed with paint, and their hair decked out with plumes, were gliding noiselessly through the dense woods, thinking[134] to steal upon the cabin unawares and destroy it and its inmates. But as soon as they saw the silver lamp upon the window-sill, they turned away, saying: “Moonshine is there! She would give warning of our approach.”

Moonshine, seeing that the dreaded enemy had turned aside, passed on and left the mother and her child sleeping peacefully. As swift she glided through valley and over hill, and across river and lake and village-dotted plain, the rays of her glittering lamp reached far and wide through the darkness, making the trees and gardens and rippling corn-fields glad, pointing the shortest route to a weary boatman, revealing to a belated traveler the robbers who stealthily pursued, looking in upon three rosy children who slumbered cosily in one couch together—stooping to kiss their shining curls and happy faces, and to whisper something pleasant in their ears. Nor did she pause when she came to the great sea, but glided on over the foaming billows. A white-sailed ship the winds were driving towards an unknown reef. Quickly she set her silver lamp upon the perilous rock. Far over the angry waters shone the beacon light, and the mariners, seeing danger ahead, shifted their sails and changed the vessel’s course.

The wanderer reached, at length, a distant coast, and,[135] holding her lamp aloft, passed on from town to town. A student sat at midnight, wakeful among his books. Moonshine glanced over his shoulder at the closely-printed page, and the light of her silver lamp so put to shame his miserable taper that he extinguished it, and began to write some verses in her praise.

At last, Moonshine peered down into a deep, dark dungeon, and saw a hapless human creature bound with chains. Pale and wan he was, from long years of imprisonment. For hours she remained to speak to him comforting words.

In the morning the pioneer came to his home on the mountain side, and told how he had been rescued by Moonshine from highwaymen who pursued him as he journeyed. “Ah, bless her,” said the wife; “for she also watched over us, and guarded us while we slept.” The three rosy children awakened smiling, and told one another their dreams; they had all dreamed of fairy-land. The storm-tossed ship sailed into port, and the grateful mariners declared that, but for Moonshine, they would have gone to the bottom of the sea. The student went about with such a beaming countenance that people questioned, Was he moonstruck? A jailer, descending into a deep, dark dungeon, found the fettered captive lying silent, with closed eyes; and the sad soul that had gazed out of those eyes—who had set it free? Moonshine?

The little old woman lifts her wrinkled face from the lace-work over which she is bending, and looks where the slender hand just pointed. How did it come there, that sunbeam? So the two question; for never, in all the time they have occupied the low, dim room, with its one window, has a sunbeam shone into it, warm and cheery, like that. Possibly some recent alteration in the high buildings without has made way for the welcome visitor, now that the sun has moved farther around to the north. However it came there, there it is, the mellow ray, deepening in color as the sun sinks lower down, changing from yellow to orange, from orange to rose. The couch must be moved nearer, so that the thin hand may press the wall and feel the warm light as it rests there; then a smile wreathes the wan, weary young face, and its owner goes off dreaming—dreaming with eyes wide open.

Somebody knocks at the door. “Coom,” calls Jeannette. A lad of twelve lifts the latch and enters.

“Well, they sent a lot in this bundle. They said they wanted it done right away, if you could. It’s a curtain. The kitten tore it, I guess. He’s always scampering up the curtains.”

“Yes.” (Yes is one of the few English words Jeannette is quite sure about, so she seldom adds to it in her replies, when she can avoid doing so.)

“Maunday—next—week,” Jeannette slowly answers, and takes the package the lad has brought.

His errand is done; why does he linger? Have the brown eyes, in a rapid glance or two, taken in more than they would if they were not so big and generous? The low ceiling with the laths bared of plaster here and there, the scant furniture, the tumble-down stove, the uneven, uncarpeted floor, the plants in the window—sickly for lack of light—the withered little lace-mender shivering in her shawl for lack of fire, the boy on the couch yonder, clutching at a sunbeam, gazing dreamily into space; he has seen all; he has heard the hollow cough, he winks hard to keep from taking the decided shape of tears something that for an instant dims his bonny eyes.

Ernest comes out of his dream. The great dark, sorrowful eyes meet the great bright, generous ones. In a twinkling young America, with lusty health and blooming cheeks, is at the bedside of—young France, shall we say?

“Belle,” he cries, as he bursts into the parlor, “you know where you sent me this afternoon—to that French woman’s? Well, they’re poor as can be. And he’s sick, too. And no doctor, no medicine, no nothing! Wish I was as rich as Crœsus!”

“Why, Ernest. His father was an artist, you see; and they came to this country, and his pictures wouldn’t sell, and he couldn’t get work, and he got discouraged and drowned himself. Then, after awhile, his mother died, and Jeannette—she’s a servant who came with them—she stays with him and takes care of him. He’s got the consumption and coughs awfully. I know what’s done it! Starving! and freezing! Guess what he was doing! Warming his hands in the sunshine!”

Where shall one go for sympathy and help? There[139] is no mother. The father is a hundred miles away, engaged as counsel in the settlement of a disputed estate (if anybody knows what all that means). The live-long night Ned lies awake, thinking the matter over something after this fashion:

“There’s that house—corner of South and High Street. Rooms to let—noticed the advertisement to-day. Nice rooms. Plenty of light. Just the place!... Wish I was rich as Crœsus!... What did I want to go and throw away my last allowance that way for? Haven’t got a red cent left! Don’t know where it’s all gone to, now! Got a lot of trinkets that aren’t of much use to me, anyhow. Cut my thumb half off with my jack-knife first time I used it; broke all the strings to my violin before I’d had it a week; and made myself about sick trying to smoke cigars.... Wish I was rich as Crœsus!”

When, next morning, Ned meets on the street his elderly friend, the physician, who helped him comfortably through with the measles, mumps and whooping cough, and is greeted with, “Why, young man, there’s a cloud on your face—what’s the trouble?” he answers, “Come and see,” and leads to a dismal quarter of the town, and from one story to another of a dismal tenement, till they reach the chamber where Ernest lies. When they are down in the street again, Ned takes up the old refrain—

“Wish I was rich as Crœsus. We’d get him out of there and cure him up, wouldn’t we?”

“Ah, my boy, if we had the wealth of twenty Crœsuses it’s too late to help him now. The best we can do is to make him as comfortable as possible where he is. Come round to the office with me, and I’ll give you something to ease the cough a little.”

“There wasn’t any fire there, Doctor. I’ve used up all my last allowance, and father’s away from home. What’s to be done?”

“There. You go to these gentlemen, state the case, and we’ll see what they’ll do for you.... I might give you a recommend.... But no. We’ll try without, first. I fancy that honest face of yours will open the pocket-books quicker than any note from me.”

And Ned sets out on his first begging expedition, which proves so successful that in a few hours the tumble-down stove retires ignominiously to make place for a shining new one, in which the fire need not go out while cold weather lasts; and the evening shadows, creeping back to their favorite haunt, the attic, are amazed and panic-stricken to find it occupied by a rosy[141] troop of hilarious elfs, dancing up and down the wall, with whom they must battle for possession.

Moreover, Ned has enlisted the sympathies of another of his particular friends, Bridget, the cook, who fails not to prepare, daily, delicacies for him to carry to the sick boy—glad of an errand thither, for this new acquaintance is extremely interesting, not in the least like any one Ned has ever met before, so young and yet so accomplished. Why, he can give a hundred hints about playing on that precious violin, he can show sheets of music of his own composing, a portfolio full of sketches, his own work, in pencil and crayon and oil; and, oh! to hear him talk of wonderful Paris, and of famous people whom he has seen and whom his father has known.

Perhaps a month has passed, when, upon an afternoon, Ned, bounding in all aglow from the frosty air without, stops short, seeing the pallid face is not lifted in eager greeting from among the cushions.

By and by as the lad turns slowly away, she places in his hands the portfolio, saying;

Belle, noticing her brother as he enters the house and hurries through the hall on his way to his room, exclaims:

“Who is Ernest?” inquires the father, lately returned, glancing up from his newspaper.

When he has heard Ned’s story he asks to see the sketches. While he is examining them, Belle comes and looks over his shoulder. Suddenly she utters a little scream.

They have found, among the rest, a picture which Ned has not seen before. It brings tears to his eyes again, to Belle’s, too; the grim old lawyer’s lips twitch for a moment, and he goes off and has the painting framed in most costly style, and hangs it above the mantel in his study. Perhaps it may serve as reminder of a bit of a sentence, spoken centuries ago, which fortune-favored people, snuggling about the ingleside on boisterous winter nights, are very apt to forget: “The poor ye have always with you.”

You may imagine the faithful Jeannette is not neglected. The sunniest spot in the cemetery is where a marble cross tells you that Ernest is sleeping below.[143] And the picture, what is it? It is a glimpse, in brown and amber tints, of a wretched attic chamber with dilapidated ceiling, and scant, worn-out furniture, and bare, uneven floor. And the only light there comes from the face peeping in through a door which stands ajar—a boyish face, round and merry, with ruddy cheeks, and big, heartful eyes, and brown bits of curls clustering about the broad forehead—a frank, open, cheery, winsome face. Now, away from the light which streams from this face and into the sombre shadows, frightened demons are turning to flee. And one of the demons whose gloomy features are partly visible, and whose hand grasps a dagger, you may guess was meant for Despair. This picture has a name. Ernest painted it underneath, in large letters of scarlet and gold. This is the name—Sunshine.

“Dear Rudolph, art thou not well?” asks his mother, in that native language which she loves. “For some time past thou hast been so very quiet, and—” there she pauses, not wanting to remind him of how fretful and ill-natured he has been of late.

“Feel well enough!” he answers gruffly, and then is sorry, and wishes he had gone to rest ten minutes ago, as he thought of doing.

A tiny cloud of displeasure flits across the sweet, gentle face, and little Karl, leaning against his mother’s chair, twines an arm about her neck, and smooths her sunny hair, as if to make amends. As for Rudolph’s father, stern words spring to his lips; but suspecting what is the trouble, he withholds them, only glancing up from his book with eyes so full of unutterable sadness that the boy creeps guiltily out of the room, and off to his chamber above.

This is the trouble with Rudolph—he is haunted; haunted by a demon whose name is Discontent. It first appeared to him one evening in a certain elegant mansion[145] on a certain fashionable avenue, whither he had been sent with a message; for his father was to do some repairing there. In the spacious, high-ceiled, oak-paneled library, where he waited to see the master of the house, this little demon stole up to him and whispered:

“Look at it—at all this splendor! these tall mirrors, and huge chandeliers, and rich paintings, and carved cases of books! You never saw the like, did you?”

It followed him through the great hall with its marble floor and high, arched entrance, followed him down the wide steps and out into the street, whispering all the while, pointing back at the smooth front of stone and the plate-glass windows; then, when they reached Rudolph’s home, pointing scornfully at the humble cottage, and the entrance that is neither high nor arched. It followed him in, this demon, into the single apartment that is hall and library and kitchen combined. It sat down beside him in the corner. “Bah!” it muttered in disdain, “this lounge can’t compare with that sofa where you rested just now. But wasn’t it soft, though!” It called his attention to all the objects around, sneering at the curtains because they are not of damask, at the floor because it is uncarpeted, at the wall-paper because it is cheap. It noticed Rudolph’s mother laying the table, and asked,[146] “Do you imagine that ladies who live in fine houses ever get supper themselves? Bah! don’t you believe it!” It noticed Rudolph’s father leaning back in his arm-chair with closed eyes, weary after the day’s labor, and queried, “Do you suppose that gentleman you saw to-night ever gets tired, ever works? No, of course he doesn’t. He never wears work-clothes, shabby and worn like that! He always goes dressed in broadcloth, and his purse is always full, and he carries himself like a prince, and asks no odds of anybody. And did you mind how he looked down at you, as if you were nothing but a worm?—because your father’s only a carpenter! Wonder if he’ll treat him so? Bah! isn’t it wretched to be poor and to have to work!” And when Rudolph took his place at the table, it was—“Bah! do you think gentlemen ever eat anything so common as this?” and he pushed from him the simple food, untasted, and went back to his corner; and there he sat the whole evening, and there he has spent every evening since, his face buried in his hands, the demon whispering in his ear. For it has never left him; no, not for a moment. It has followed him everywhere. In school, day after day it kept up a continual buzzing, hindering him from getting his lessons—he, the one who had always known them so well. It would compare his own garments with those of one and another better clad than[147] he. “And there’s Jesse James—see, he carries a gold watch!” “And isn’t it mean for ’em to call you a ‘Dutchman!’ just because your father and mother came from Germany—though you never lived there in your life—and because you’re poor and only a carpenter’s son. Pity your father couldn’t have been a count, or a baron, or something like that! How everybody would have stared when he rode along in his glittering carriage, and how everybody would have wanted to be friends, and would have asked him to dinner, and all that! And how polite everybody would have been to you! You wouldn’t have been a ‘Dutchman’ then; oh, not at all! And if he had been a grand-duke, oh, think of it! How everybody would have gone down to the depot to meet him, and how people would have crowded around to shake hands with him, and what a fuss they would have made over him—as they did one winter when Alexis was here, you know, and you climbed up a lamp-post to get a glimpse of him. Wasn’t he splendid, though! How grand it must be to be the son of a Czar!”

But during the Christmas holidays, now almost over, there has been no school, and Rudolph has had nothing to do but the marketing, and keeping the walk before the house clear of snow, and running here and there about the city on errands for his father—who[148] never has any vacation, the year round. And all these days, oh, how that demon has tantalized him! It would lead him through the market to where lay great heaps of turkeys and geese and ducks, so plump and tempting, ready for the oven. “But you can’t buy any, they cost too much!” It would draw him close up to the bakery windows. “Wouldn’t Karl like one of those delicious cakes, though! But you can’t buy it, it costs too much. Isn’t it too bad to have to count the pennies so?” All the way down the street, of pleasant afternoons, it would keep tormenting, pointing now at the richly-dressed ladies out shopping: “Pity your mother can’t have velvets, and feathers, and furs, like that, and be fashionable!” now exclaiming: “Look! there goes Jesse James. He’s taking his sister out for a sleigh-ride. Aren’t those horses just splendid! and that robe, look at it! it’s a real tiger’s skin! and the bells, oh, how they jingle! By the way, did you hear him telling one of the schoolboys, last week, about the Christmas present he was going to give his cousin Florence?—a set of diamonds! think of it! Here are some, right here in this shop-window. Look at them! see how they shine!... Pity you can’t make somebody a Christmas present!—your cousin Mina, for instance. Pity you can’t take somebody out sleigh-riding. Never had a sleigh-ride yourself, for that matter. Never had a[149] ride any way, except in a street-car. Never had a single chance to drive a horse, even.... What’s the reason some can have everything they want, and others—oh! don’t it make you mad the way things go on in this world?”

Yes, it does make him “mad.” He goes about glum and scowling. (He used to be pleasant enough.) The ripple of his laughter is no longer heard, and he frolics no more with little Karl, who hardly dares approach him, he is so cross. And thus it is that his mother is led to question if he is not well, and thus it is that his father comes to suspect what is the trouble, and to guess the name of the demon that has crept in to disturb their peaceful home, and to vex the bright, ambitious boy he is so proud of. The book he is reading has lost its interest, for hours he scarcely turns a page; and it is a great relief to lay it aside when the consoling little Karl, feeling that something is amiss, climbs sleepily into his arms and lays a velvety cheek against his own.

Meanwhile, there is that wicked demon up-stairs upon the pillow, never ceasing its poisonous whispering, till Rudolph, unable to shake off the tormentor, at last gives way to sobs and tears, thankful that he is alone and in the dark, for he wouldn’t have so much as a ray of daylight catch him crying.

Oh, Rudolph, is there no one to come to you here and drive away that demon, by telling you of all the mighty ones who have risen from humbler stations than yours—aye, climbed, round by round, up the ladder of fortune till they reached the top, admired and applauded by the crowds below—will no one comfort you by telling you of these?

Wait; here comes some one into the room, comes close to the bedside—a stranger. Perhaps he has come for that.... But no; listen to what he says:

The lad stares in amazement at the speaker—a tall, gaunt personage, wrapped in a black mantle that almost touches the floor, and so conceals the head and face with its ample folds that only the eyes are visible. What black, piercing eyes!—blacker than the mantle. Rudolph stares, and then arises, obedient.

The two travelers are not long in reaching their destination, and Rudolph soon finds himself in the imperial palace, in a great saloon, magnificent beyond comparison with that oak-paneled library he saw some time ago. There is dancing here, and the glittering dresses of the dancers dazzle him, and the music is so delightful it drives him nearly wild. When finally he lifts his dizzy eyes from the whirling throng, he sees, sitting[151] in state at the farther end of the apartment, one who he concludes is the Czar; for all who approach him bow low and speak to him reverently.

They wait behind a heavy curtain till the music ceases, and the dancers are gone, and the lights are extinguished, and the long saloon is dark and empty. Then the muffled stranger leads through a maze of galleries and corridors, unlocks, at length, a door, bids Rudolph enter, and Rudolph obeys. This apartment, also, is magnificent, but not so large as the other. At one side is a downy couch with golden-fringed drapery, and there the great Czar reposes. Upon the wall, near, hangs a sword.

“Raise it,” is the second command, as they stand over the sleeping Czar; and Rudolph raises on high the gleaming sword.

“Now return it to its place and follow me.” And Rudolph returns the weapon, dripping, to its place[152] upon the wall, and follows back through the long galleries and corridors, and down the marble stairs, and out and away from the palace, and out and away from the city—away to a cave in the mountains. And the personage in black again commands, “Stay here and bide your time.”

Day after day there come to them, in their hiding-place, rumors, now of the murder of the Czar, now of strife and difference among his subjects over who shall be successor, and, finally, of an invasion by the neighboring monarchs, who, seeing the people at war among themselves, would profit by this opportunity to gain possession of the Empire.

“Now is your time!” says the personage in black to Rudolph, and he leads him into the midst of the battles, and teaches him so well the art of warfare, that from the ranks he soon rises to be Field-Marshal. Then, the personage in black always secretly counseling, Rudolph (always blindly obedient, he knows not why), following closely his instructions, defeats the invading armies in every battle, drives them out of the Empire, pursues them into their own provinces, and returns triumphant; and the people greet him with loud rejoicing, and lead him to the great throne-room, and robe him in the ermine-lined robe, and crown him with the jeweled crown, and shout till the echoes[153] ring—“Hail, Rudolph, the Czar!” and, “Long live Rudolph, the Czar!”

And again there are music and dancing; and it is Rudolph, now, who is seated in state above the glittering throng, and all who approach him bow low and address him reverently—excepting one—a tall, gaunt personage, with muffled face, and piercing eyes, and long, black mantle, who steals up behind him and whispers, “Does Rudolph enjoy being Czar?” And Rudolph, remembering all, neither clasps his hands nor smiles.

At midnight, as Rudolph lies upon the downy couch with its silken folds and golden-fringed drapery, suddenly waking from slumber, he sees one standing over him with lifted sword; and he springs upon the assassin, and seizes his sword, and calls to the attendants, and has him put in irons; and this man makes confession, and reveals to the Czar a plot among the nobles against his life; then Rudolph causes some of those conspirators to be thrown into prison, and some to be beheaded; and, for further safety, the guard in the palace is increased. But not long after, again suddenly waking in the middle of the night, he sees another standing over him with lifted sword; and he springs upon this one also, and seizes his sword, and calls to the attendants, and has him bound with irons;[154] and behold, when the lights are brought, this man is found to be one of the palace guard; and he, too, makes confession, and reveals to the Czar that all in the army are his foes and ready to take his life; then Rudolph sends out and causes some of the Generals and chief conspirators of the army to be imprisoned, and others to be beheaded; and, for further safety, he places his most faithful and trusty servant to watch in his chamber while he sleeps. But a third time, suddenly waking at midnight, he sees this servant standing over him with lifted sword; and him, too, he overpowers, and seizes the murderous weapon; and this man, also, confesses; and from him the Czar learns that all in the palace hate him and have plotted to take his life.

So it comes to pass that Rudolph, the Czar, dares not close his eyes day or night, for there is no one whom he can trust to protect him while he slumbers. And as the weeks and months wear away, he grows so haggard with watching, so weary for lack of sleep, that one morning, ere the sun has risen, and while all is hushed and silent, he casts aside the robe of ermine, and the golden crown and sceptre, and steals away from the palace, and out through the palace garden, and off to the fields beyond; and there, feeling secure, he lies down and closes his eyes, and is just falling into a[155] delicious slumber, when the sound of stealthy footsteps arouses him, and looking up, behold one standing over him with lifted sword; and he springs up to defend himself, but the other turns and flees. Then he goes on till he reaches a wide forest, and thinking, “Surely no one will molest me here,” he lies down with a sigh of relief, and is just losing himself in sleep, when the howling of wolves disturbs him, and he is obliged to hurry onward, to escape being torn in pieces by those ferocious beasts.

When he reaches the plain at the other side of the forest, he perceives, at some distance, a group of huts, and saying, “Surely no one will know me there,” he approaches them and asks for lodging, and is shown to a rude chamber, where, just as he is about to lie down, he spies some object crouching among the shadows, and moving toward it, behold, a peasant armed with a glittering sword. And the wretched Czar departs in haste, saying, “My enemies are my own subjects;” and he pauses not till he is far beyond the boundaries of his own realm. Now at last in a country ruled by another, thinking, “I am surely safe,” he throws himself down by the wayside, faint and footsore; but just as sweet sleep is stealing over him, listen—a rustling, and look—a highwayman standing near with lifted sword; and he wearily moans, and, rising, hastens away.

At length he comes to a great city, and saying, “Surely none will know me or wish to harm me here,” he finds lodgings for the night, and lays himself down to rest, when lo! one approaches softly with lifted sword, and Rudolph, the Czar, recognizes the face of him he saw in the field beyond the palace garden. “Alas, he has followed me hither!” he cries, and hurriedly leaves the city.

And so, wherever he goes, he dares not sleep, either from fear of assassins, or of highwaymen, or of wild beasts. And so he wanders, and ever wanders on. And one day as he drags himself along, seeking a place to rest, he stops to drink from a fountain beside the path, and as he kneels over the smooth, mirror-like waters, he discovers that his locks are very white, and that his garments are thread-bare and torn. Still onward and onward he journeys, sleep the one thing that he longs for.

At last, as he emerges from the shadows of a dark defile between high mountains, he lifts his heavy, drooping eyelids, and beholds, spread out beyond, a valley far lovelier than any he has seen in all his journeyings. Slowly and gently it climbs up and into the purpling distance, with other valleys stepping down between the hills to meet it, and little hamlets nestling at the feet of those hills. And he says,[157] “Surely in so peaceful a valley nothing can disturb me. I will get me to one of those villages and inquire for an inn, and there I will rest—there I will sleep, sleep, sleep.”

But just where the defile opens into the valley he encounters an armed sentinel, who steps forward and asks for his pass.

“Whatever or whoever thou art, thou hast no pass; therefore our King knows thee not; I may not let thee enter. Answer me no more.”

And Rudolph, the Czar, complaining bitterly, crawls a little way off and casts himself down among the rocks. While he lies there, peering wistfully into the beautiful valley, wondering at the blueness of the heavens and the softness of the light, listening to the gurgling of waters, and catching glimpses of cataracts flashing down the distant hills, under overhanging branches—while he lies there, one, haughty, and bearing himself like a prince, draws near, and Rudolph remembers[158] to have met him in a spacious, oak-paneled library, long ago, when he, the Czar, was a boy.

No sooner does this one reach the entrance to the valley, than the sentinel appears as before, and demands his pass. The other hands him a paper, which he examines, and pronounces to be worthless. “It bears not our King’s signature, but that of his worst enemy. Begone, impostor!”

“But I am a millionaire! I own ships upon the sea, laden with merchandise, and mines in the earth rich with ore, and acres of land more than I can count!”

Presently appears another, in workman’s garb, which proves to be only a disguise, for, as he nears the entrance to the valley, on a sudden behold him a warrior clad in armor! And this armor is like nothing that Rudolph, the Czar, has seen. The various pieces of which it is composed are of different hues; the helmet white as snow, and so dazzling that he turns his eyes from it as he would turn them from the burning sun of noonday; the breastplate like gold, only brighter; the sword red like flame; the shield is as if it were of adamant, and the device upon it is an anchor. As the warrior gives his pass to the sentinel, the Czar, unseen, recognizes his own father!

But the sentinel does not look at the pass. “I know thee by thine armor!” he cries, with a smile of welcome, and immediately blows a bugle which he carries, and the sound rings through the valley—sweetly, sweetly! winding among the hills, sending back a thousand echoes on its way. Then the people pour out of the hamlets, and come down in myriads to meet the warrior, strewing the way with flowers and greeting him with music—oh, so marvelous! oh, so thrilling! that the very light moves to and fro in little waves, as if keeping time, and the flashing, gurgling waters join the chorus, and the overhanging branches swing a slow accompaniment.

Among the people who surround the warrior, just one glimpse has Rudolph, the Czar, of her who was once his mother, arrayed in garments the beauty of which is only surpassed by the beauty of her face, and her face surpasses in loveliness all that he ever imagined could be; just one glimpse, too, of another face he has known; then the people close about them and they are lost sight of; and while he reaches out his hands, crying, “Oh, my mother! Oh, my brother! Oh, my father!” the radiant throng moves backward up the valley and into one of those other valleys, and disappears, and the music grows fainter and fainter. As he lies weeping and listening to that faint, far melody,[160] one from the valley, mantled in white and mounted upon a snowy steed, rides into the dark defile, and as he passes by where Rudolph, the Czar, lies, the latter questions:

“They are leading him to the royal city, to receive from our King’s own hands the unfading crown of laurels which is given to the victors.”

“But I was once well acquainted with this one, and I never knew that he was a warrior, nor did I guess that he wore armor.”

“There are many who wear armor unsuspected, and fight their battles unseen.”

“Hast thou not heard how our King sends forth spies into all lands to search for those who will make good, loyal subjects, ever willing to obey and carry out his commands? To all such are given passes, signed by the King himself, that when they come hither they may be allowed to enter. All others are excluded, lest, entering, they annoy the peaceful citizens, and stir up strife and discord.”

“But this warrior’s armor was unlike anything I have ever seen. Of what metal is it composed?”

“It is made of several different metals; the helmet[161] of a mixture of two metals, called Truth and Honesty; the breastplate is also of two metals, Patience and Constancy; the sword, of the Hatred of all that is base and evil; and the shield, of the Hope of admission to our land; for this—to gain entrance here—is considered the highest privilege that can be granted to any mortal. But I ride on an errand for the King, and must not delay.”

“One moment more, O bright one! Is there no secret path by which I can gain entrance to this peaceful kingdom? Is this the only way?”

“O bright one, return, I pray thee, to the King, and entreat him in my behalf that he will permit me to enter! for I am weary, oh! I am so weary, and I can find no place where I may rest; and there, too, are all who love or care for me, and all I love or care for.”

But the messenger answers sorrowfully, “Thou hast no pass!” and rides away, and the snow-white mantle and the snow-white steed flit along through the brooding shadows till, in the distance, they are lost from view. And Rudolph, the Czar, straining his eyes to follow them, is suddenly startled by a loud, mocking laugh that rings weirdly up and down the dark defile; and, turning, he sees standing behind him the tall, gaunt personage in black; and the sight of that muffled[162] figure so fills him with terror, that he rises and hastens away as fast as his feeble limbs can carry him.

And now there comes to him remembrance of a place where, when he was a boy, he rested well and slept undisturbed; and onward he journeys by land and sea, pausing not till he reaches his native town and has found the humble cottage where he used to dwell. He creeps softly to the window and peers in. It is all there, just as it used to be—the cupboard in this corner; the chintz-covered lounge in that; the simple brown paper on the wall; the window-curtains of muslin; the clock on the mantel; the clean, white floor; the polished stove; the vapor curling from the spout of the shining tea-kettle—all there, so comfortable, so cosy, so homelike! But the people are strangers. That is not little Karl playing on the floor; that is not the mother knitting in the rocking-chair. And Rudolph, the Czar, weeps again, remembering how the last words he had for them were harsh words, and that he is never to see them more.

“I am a feeble old man, in agony of weariness for lack of sleep; for I have traveled far and searched long, but have found no place where I might rest in peace. And I finally bethought me of a low room under[163] a sloping roof, where, in my childhood, I rested well and undisturbed. The roof above is that same sloping roof, and beneath it is that chamber. And I will give to thee, good sir, all the gold in my purse—and there is much gold in it—if I may lodge there for one night only, and sleep once more as I slept when I was a lad.”

And the good man of the house bids him enter and welcome, but refuses the proffered gold. And Rudolph, the Czar, climbs up the narrow stairs to the low room under the sloping roof, and he lies down there, forgetting to look for the lifted sword, and he closes his weary eyes, and a delicious drowsiness steals over him, and there is no fear in his heart, and nothing molests him, and at last he sleeps, sleeps, sleeps.

What sound is that? A ringing of bells. It wakens Rudolph. He gazes about the room. On a stand in the corner a lamp is dimly burning. Some one is sitting here beside the bed. “Oh, go away, good sir, and leave me in peace!” he moans piteously. “Did I not offer thee all the gold in my purse? Why, then, dost thou trouble me? Do no murder, I beseech thee, for I am old and feeble, and I have not slept before in a hundred years.”

“Thou, my father!” and he seizes the two toil-hardened hands, covering them with kisses and with tears. “How camest thou here? I feared I should never behold thy face again! And where are my mother and my brother?”

“The dear mother and our little Karl will see thee in the morning to wish thee a ‘Happy New Year.’”

A Happy New Year! Rudolph puts his hand to his forehead, as if to smooth out some knot there underneath. “Truly, I do not know,” he murmurs, “it all seemed so real. Have I been dreaming, dear father?”

And then the father explains how he heard wailing and shrieking in the night, and came to learn the cause, but, fearing a fever, staid to watch awhile.

“It is hard, dear father, that after thou hast been working all the day thou must needs watch all the night.”

“I would do much more than that for Rudolph, although he is ‘only the son of a carpenter.’”

Hark, the bells! once more they clang together—all the bells in the town. So it is, so it is the New Year! They are ringing in the New Year. And these New-Year days—standing like mile-stones all along the highway of Time—who gave them to the world for holidays? Was it not “the carpenter’s son”? Rudolph,[165] trying to smooth out the kink in his brain, finds that thought entangled with it, somehow. After awhile he exclaims, with face aglow:

“It is good that this is the first day of the year! That is the grand time to turn over a new leaf—no, to put on a new suit of armor! For I have learned something from my dream, father; it is this—thou art a Hero. And I mean to be another, just like thee!”

And the father looks down into Rudolph’s eyes, and sees that the demon has departed.

“Green, green are the meadows,

And blue, blue is the sky,

And glad, glad is the morning,

And happy and gay am I.

Tirra-la-la, la, la, la!

And happy and gay am I.

“White, white are the daisies

Blossoming everywhere,

And red, red are the roses,

And sweet, sweet is the air!

“And sweet is the burnie’s music,

And the music of bee and bird—

Ha, ha! the sweetest music

That ever and ever you heard!

“Gold, golden the sunbeams,

And bright, bright is the day,

And the bees, and the birds, and Mabel,

Little of care have they!

“Oh! and over the meadows,

Oh! and under the sky,

And all in the dewy morning,

Happy and gay am I!

[167]

Tirra-la-la, la, la, la!

Happy and gay am I!”

The queen passed by in her carriage,

And little Mabel’s song,

By a roving zephyr wafted,

She heard as she rode along.

“Ah, child!” she sighed as she listened,

A shadow upon her brow—

“With the birds, and the bees, and the blossoms

How happy and gay art thou!”

Standing knee-deep in clover,

Mabel looked up and saw

The glitter and royal splendor,

And her voice was hushed with awe;

And the light from her sweet eyes faded,

And the song died out of her heart;

“O queen!” she sighed in her envy,

“How happy and grand thou art!”

And the glee was gone from the morning,

The gladness gone from the day,

As through the tangle of clover

She wearily took her way.

“What a wretched place to live in!”

She paused at a cottage door.

“How lowly and plain and humble!

I never noticed before!”

And over her work she muttered,

“Little the queen of the land

[168]

With the soot and grime of the kitchen

Needs ever to soil her hand!”

And over her simple sewing,

As the afternoon went by,

Often she fell to musing,

Often she breathed a sigh;

And often she thus would murmur—

“I doubt if ever the queen

Would deign, with her jeweled fingers,

To sew an inch of a seam.”

And wearily on her pillow

At even she laid her head;

“I never shall be a queen,” she sobbed,

“And I wish that I were dead!”

But presently came a message,

Reading—oh, was it true?—

“Arise and come to me, Mabel;

I, the queen, have sent for you.”

Then quick to the royal palace

She rode in the carriage grand,

And they led her through halls of marble

To the queen of all the land;

And the queen arose, and laying

Her crown at Mabel’s feet,

“I go to be free and happy,

And play in the meadows sweet,”

She said, and to all her people—

“Farewell!” and “farewell!” she said;

And the people took up the golden crown

[169]

And put it on Mabel’s head.

And oh! it was heavy, heavy!

Heavy, heavy as lead!

To a gilded throne they brought her,

In purple and ermine clad.

“Hail to thee, fair queen Mabel!”

They shouted with voices glad;

And “Hail to thee, fair queen Mabel!”

Rang in her ears all day,

Till, weary, herself she questioned,

“Is it right, is it right to stay?

To drive the cows from the pasture

Is Mabel’s task alone;

And my father at work since morning,

He will soon be coming home.

“He will miss his little Mabel,

For there is no one but me

To toast the bread for his supper

And make him a cup of tea.

But no! am I not a lady?

It is no care of mine

To worry about the supper

And the milking of the kine!”

So she dwelt in the marble palace,

And dined from a golden plate,

And slept in a silken chamber,

And sat in the chair of state.

And whenever she went riding

[170]

The people with cheers would greet,

And maidens and little children

With blossoms would strew the street.

And royally thus lived Mabel,

Her only task—to command;

Servants, unnumbered, ready

To move at the wave of her hand;

And alway about her lingered

Gay courtiers, a dazzling throng;

And the blithe hours swiftly flitted

With story, and dance, and song.

But often herself she questioned,

As she sat on the gilded throne,

“How is it with them, I wonder—

How is it with them at home?”

As the palace with mirth and music

Echoed and rang, one night,

The people peered through the windows,

Watching the festive sight:

And a beggar in rags and tatters,

Listening, shook his fist;

“What right have they to be merry

When my little ones starve?” he hissed.

And the people his words repeated:

“What right, to be sure?” they said,

“Flaunting in silks and diamonds

While our little ones cry for bread.”

And ever, as thus they murmured,

Louder their voices grew,

[171]

Till, all in a red-hot anger,

To the palace doors they flew.

And the sentinels, at each entrance,

Quickly they put to flight,

And hurried with cries and clamor

Into the halls so bright—

Into the halls of marble,

With clubs and with axes armed,

Till the sound of their shouts and curses

The courtiers hearing, alarmed,

Fled in their silks and diamonds,

Leaving the queen alone.

On rushed the riotous rabble,

Making its way to the throne,

And they who had “Hail Queen Mabel!”

Shouted with loyal will,

Now aloft their cruel weapons

Brandished, intent to kill.

Then she shrieked for help in her terror,

Never a friend came nigh.

So, as the crowd drew nearer,

Sudden she turned to fly;

And casting aside the purple robe

And the heavy golden crown,

Away and away she hastened,

To the meadows she wandered down;

Down to the meadows wandered,

Hastened away and away,

Till the birds and the dewy blossoms

Were roused by the dawning day.

[172]

But the world it was sad and silent,

Clouded and gray the morn,

As wearily on she wandered,

Wearily and forlorn.

The burnie it went complaining,

Fretting its way along,

Making no pleasant music,

Singing no pleasant song;

And ever as in the hedges

She came to a sweet wild rose,

At the touch of her queenly fingers

The petals would sadly close.

Once did she call, “Sing, birdies!”

But the little birds were dumb:

“Come to me as you used to!”

But they, fearing, would not come.

“What a cosy place to live in!”

She paused at a cottage door.

“Not a palace half so lovely

Is there the country o’er!”

Within sat a woman knitting—

A woman aged and blind;

And ever she dropped the stitches,

Trying in vain to find.

“Grandmother, let me help thee,”

Mabel held out her hand.

“Nay,” said the gray-haired woman,

“Thou art the queen of the land!”

Just at that moment entered

A workingman—quick she cried

[173]

“Father, oh, dost thou know me?”

Sorrowfully he sighed,

“Oh, queen and gracious lady,

Tell me if thou dost know

Aught of our little Mabel,

Who was lost long years ago?

On a sunny summer morning

She strayed from the meadows green.

Tell me if thou hast seen her—

Tell me, oh, gracious queen!”

“Alas, they, too, have forgotten!”

Bowing her head, she wept—

And the weeping queen awakened,

And found she had only slept.

Safe in her low-ceiled chamber,

Flooded with rosy light,

Only the little Mabel,

The Mabel of yesternight!

Then aloud rejoicing sang she

The song of the day gone by

“Glad, glad is the morning,

And happy and gay am I!”

II.

III.

O Giant Jungenthor,

What a mighty one was he!

He was so big, he was so strong,

Whenever he walked the world along

The people would turn in terror,

The people would turn and flee—

Oh, oh, Jungenthor,

Such a mighty one was he!

Oh, Giant Jungenthor,

What a terrible one was he!

Whenever he went to take a ride,

The bald old oaks would step aside,

The pines would bend the knee:

And at the sound of his heavy tread

The hills would tremble and quake with dread,

The islands would rise to see—

Oh, oh, Jungenthor,

Such a terrible one was he!

Oh, Giant Jungenthor,

What a dreadful one was he!

Whenever he happened to say a word,

[189]

For miles and for miles his voice was heard,

Like the thunder’s roar and rumble;

The stones would rock and the timbers shake,

The glass in the windows all would break,

The chairs and tables tumble;

The kettles and pans would play and prance,

About the shelves would the dishes dance,

The clock would stop and the doors swing wide,

The cats would scamper, the dogs would hide,

The pigs would squeal and grumble;

The cocks would crow and the geese would fly,

The women would scream, the children cry,

The men look pale and humble;

And that is the way it would be—

Oh, oh, Jungenthor,

Such a dreadful one was he!

Where dwelt Jungenthor,

Where in the world dwelt he?

Not on the mountains clad with snow,

Not in the valleys deep below,

Not by the surging sea;

Not in the desert white with sand,

Not in the icy Northern land,

Not in the South Countrie.

Oh, oh, Jungenthor,

Where in the world dwelt he?

Under the mountains clad with snow,

Under the valleys deep below,

[190]

Under the surging sea;

Under the desert white with sand,

Under the icy Northern land,

Under the South Countrie;

Down, down, under them all—

They but the floor, and roof, and wall—

There in a cavern high and wide

(For the round earth was but a shell;

Who and whoever knew so well

As Jungenthor what was inside?)

There, there, there did he dwell,

There, and oh there dwelt he.

What do you guess was there inside

That earth-bound cavern, high and wide?

Oh, there were millions of chambers roomy,

Oh, there were galleries long and gloomy,

Oh, there were wondrous sights!

Here the ceilings were golden-beamed,

There the pavement with jewels gleamed,

With marbles and malachites;

Diamonds were set in the roof for stars,

The rafters were made of silver bars,

The columns of crystal clear.

Oh, in that cavern, high and wide,

Had ever a daring mortal tried

To travel alone and without a guide,

He had lost his way

And gone astray

And wandered many a year;

[191]

And if he had met the giant,

He surely had died of fear.

But there was a fairy who knew the way:

Often by night and often by day

To a dense forest she would go,

And there, in a cave all dark and low,

A rock as heavy as iron,

And as bright and as black as coal,

Swift, when her wand she lifted,

Away and away would roll;

And down would she clamber, clamber,

Through hundreds of miles of gloom,

On the rounds of a golden ladder

That led to a wonderful room—

Oh, a wonderful, wonderful chamber,

Flooded with amber light;

For there, at the centre of the earth,

A mighty fire on a mighty hearth

Burned ruddy, and warm, and bright;

Burned ruddy and bright forever,

With billows of orange flame,

And the giant’s occupation

Was—never to let it wane.

And there would the fairy find him

Stirring the coals red hot:

“Good-morrow to you, Jungenthor!”

So would the fairy say;

“And what and what does Winnikin want,

And what does she want to-day?”

[192]

So would the giant grumble;

But Winnikin feared him not.

And, now, “O Giant Jungenthor!”

Did her tale of wrong begin,

“There are two wicked cities—

A trouble to Winnikin,

The rich they are proud and cruel,

The poor they will lie and steal,

And trouble is always brewing

That Winnikin cannot heal;

And the friendly care and watching

Of the fairies they are not worth;

O Jungenthor, those cities

Are blots on the face of the earth!”

As soon as he guessed her errand,

The giant poked the fire

Till it roared, and hissed, and crackled,

Till the flames curled high and higher,

And billows of smoke and cinders

From the chimney-top rolled out,

And darkened the sky at noonday,

And shadowed the land about.

Then he filled ten billion barrels

With the soot that trickled down,

And up through the chimney hurled them,

Up through the chimney brown;

And lo! when the morning’s sunlight

Shone through the clouds of smoke,

[193]

In those two wicked cities

Neither prince nor beggar woke;

For the soot from the giant’s chimney

Had deluged the country wide;

And over those wicked cities

It rolled in a turbid tide.

All in the night

They were buried from sight.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Giant Jungenthor,

“Is Winnikin satisfied?”

And this was the fairy’s errand

When she came another time:

“O Jungenthor, a monarch

Has builded a palace fine;

Aided by dwarf and elfin

He has builded it tall and grand.

With marble white from the quarry,

Not hewn by mortal hand;

For night by night

In the pale moonlight

Did we hammer and delve away,

To get the great stones ready

For the workmen of the day.

O Jungenthor, we labored,

Behold, for a thankless King!

For he has cut down the forest

Where oft, in a merry ring,

Did the fairies dance and frolic,

Or among the branches swing.

[194]

After all our toil and trouble

He has destroyed our trees,

And the sight of his gorgeous palace

Winnikin does not please.”

As soon as her story ended

Did the angry giant frown;

He lifted his voice of thunder,

And the palace toppled down.

Oh! he roared so loud

That the frightened crowd

Fled from the tumbling town,

And the thankless monarch stumbled,

And fell, and broke his crown.

And forth from his firelit cavern

Did the giant peep and grin,

Then growled at the fay beside him—

“Does that please Winnikin?”

And such were the fairy’s errands,

As from time to time she came

To Jungenthor the giant,

Feeding the flood of flame;

And such were the tales she told him

Of trouble, and wrong, and grief,

And thus and so

Would the giant go

To Winnikin’s relief.

Once came the fairy, weeping,

“O Jungenthor!” said she,

[195]

“O mighty giant, listen

To the news I bring to thee.

“All up among the mountains,

Amid the forests dim,

There stands a ruined castle,

A castle old and grim:

And in its shade at evening

The elves are wont to meet,

To dance upon the mosses

And sway with lilies sweet.

Well, yestere’en, it happened,

Just at the midnight hour,

While we were making merry,

Forth from the vine-wreathed tower

There came a plaintive moaning,

And I alone who heard

Flew up the twining ivy,

As lightly as a bird,

And found on high a dungeon

Beneath the shattered roof,

And there a pale young captive

From mortal aid aloof,

By heavy, clanking irons

Chained to the wall of stone.

O Jungenthor, good reason

Has he to weep and moan!

And this is what he told me,

And this is what he told;

Now hear, O mighty giant,

What fiends the earth doth hold:

[196]

“‘All up a mountain pathway,

That winds through forests green,

There rode three gallant horsemen

And nevermore were seen.

Three other gallant horsemen

Rode up in search of them,

Rode up the narrow pathway—

And came not back again.

And after went three others

The mountain searching o’er—

It fared with those three others

As with them that went before.

And all the people marveled,

And all were filled with fear,

And no one dared to venture

The mountain pathway near.

“‘Now, one of those nine horsemen

Was a knight of our good King;

And so a prize he offered

To any who should bring

A true report and trusty

Of all those hapless men

Who ventured up the mountain

And ne’er came down again.

Whoso should dare the pathway

And bring a true report,

Thus he should be rewarded—

Oh, he should dwell at court,

And all should do him honor,

[197]

And the King should make him knight,

And give to him a war-horse

And a suit of armor bright!

“‘Now, we are seven brothers,

So hale, and strong, and tall,

Save me, who am the seventh,

The youngest of them all;

And for my lowly stature,

Fair face, and yellow curls,

The rest they loved to taunt me

And tease the livelong day,

The while we watched the cattle

Or turned the new-mown hay.

“Go hence, go hence, fair lily,

And haste thee,” they would say;

“Lest thou shouldst tan or freckle

Beneath the burning sun,

Go get thyself a bonnet

To shield thee, gentle one!

Go gossip with old women!

Go spin and sew with girls!”

“‘Aweary of their mocking

And jests at last I grew,

And much I thought and pondered

What brave deed I might do,

Their cruel scorn to silence;

And when I heard the news,

A chance such prize of winning

[198]

How could I well refuse?

So, thro’ the brooding midnight,

The while the others slept,

Across the fields and pastures

All silently I crept;

And when mine eyes I lifted

At breaking of the day,

I saw afar the mountain,

Toward which I took my way.

And on, and on I journeyed,

Till, just as night came down,

I passed into the forest

Among the shadows brown.

Then up the winding pathway

I hurried on, in fear,

’Till, through the darkness shining

Forth from a ruin near,

A light I spied, and thither

I turned, in hope I might

Find food—for I was hungry—

And shelter for the night.

I reached the door, and ent’ring

(I thought the place an inn,

For there were sounds of feasting

And merriment within),

Fierce men, with cruel weapons,

A table gathered ’round,

Sprang up and seized me, helpless,

And with these fetters bound.

“What brings thee here, thou stripling?”

[199]

In anger questioned they.

“O sirs,” I answered, trembling,

“I’ve journeyed all the day;

For food, and rest, and shelter

I chanced to turn this way,

But since I am not welcome,

Let me pass on, I pray.”

“Ha, not so fast, young villain!

We know that is a lie.

What errand brings thee hither?

Confess thou art a spy!”

“It is a peaceful errand,

O sirs,” I answered then;

“I seek nine gallant horsemen.

And have ye heard of them?

They rode this way, nor ever

Returned, and I would bring

Some tidings of the missing

To our good lord, the King.”

At that, with peals of laughter

The dreary place did ring.

“Thou’lt see thy gallant horsemen

Ere thou shalt see the King!”

They said, and roughly dragged me

Along the banquet-hall,

And up into this lonesome tower,

And chained me to the wall.

“Lie there, lie there and rest thee!”

They cried in mocking tones;

[200]

“Thou’rt welcome to thy lodging—

And the lichens on the stones!”

“‘O fairy, now for many days

Have I thus helpless lain;

No food but these gray mosses,

No drink but pearls of rain

That through the sunken ceiling

Drop to me where I lie,

When the blessed clouds in pity

Creep downward from the sky.

O fairy, I beseech thee,

Release me ere I die!

For they who keep this castle

Are robbers fierce and bold,

I’ve learned from bloody stories

By one and other told,

As night by night, grown merry

With wine, their voices rise,

And come to me with secrets

Through the long galleries.

They gather here at midnight

From all the country o’er,

To hide their plundered treasure

Beneath the stone-paved floor,

To talk of their adventures

And feast till break of day,

When quick they mount their horses,

And swiftly ride away

To seek the mountain-passes

[201]

And lie in wait for prey.

The very steeds that bear them

Were stolen, and they tell

Of three who once rode hither,

On whom they, waiting, fell

And slew, and of three others

Who up the mountain came,

And yet again three others;

And all did fare the same.

And now—for who could doubt it?—

Those were the missing nine!

Oh! I would bear the tidings,

The prize it should be mine,

But that thus bound with irons

And helpless here I lie.

Good fairy, I beseech thee,

Release me ere I die!’

“Such was the tale he told me.

O Jungenthor, I plead

That thou wilt lift thy mighty arm

And help him in his need.”

When the fairy had finished speaking,

The giant stood up and knocked

Again and again on the ceiling,

Till the ruined castle rocked,

And the roof fell in

With a deafening din,

And the stones fell out

[202]

And tumbled about;

And the thieves who merrily feasted,

Or ever they could take flight,

The earth gaped wide and swallowed,

Then closed and covered from sight.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Giant Jungenthor,

“Haven’t I served them right?”

But there was one part of the castle—

The tow’r where the young lad lay—

Left standing (and who denieth

That it stands there to this day?)

The door it had flown wide open

At the knocking of Jungenthor,

The iron chain

It had snapped in twain,

And the captive was free once more.

And still in his clanking fetters,

Wasted, and weak, and wan,

He crawled away to the forest,

He wandered and wandered on.

Bewildered and faint, all slowly

Here and there did he stray,

Till he saw a snow-white charger,

With saddle and trappings gay,

Feeding among the herbage,

And him did he mount straightway,

Saying, “Good steed,

O speed, O speed!

[203]

And carry me, carry me, carry me

Safe to the King this day!”

Then the beautiful snow-white charger,

As tho’ he had understood,

Galloped adown the mountain,

Down and on through the wood;

And, eager, as one long absent

Seeking his home again,

The road to the royal city

He took when he reached the plain;

And the folk in the fields at labor,

And the passers to and fro,

Lifted their eyes in wonder,

Seeing him speeding so—

For ever the farther he traveled

The faster he seemed to go.

The King from the palace window

Looked forth at set of sun,

And along the dusty highway

Saw a horse and rider come;

And he watched till the snow-white charger

Paused at the palace gate,

Then he turned to the courtiers round him,

Saying in wonder great,

“Look, ye! it is the war horse

Of my brave knight, Harald, he

Who rode on the fated mission.

Bring the rider to me!”

[204]

And into the royal presence,

Trembling, the young lad came,

Wasted, and wan, and pallid,

Feebly dragging his chain.

“Who art thou?” the King demanded,

Marveling at the sight;

“Whence dost thou come, and wherefore,

And why in this woeful plight?”

Then the youth made timid answer—

“O my gracious lord the King,

I am a humble peasant,

And tidings I come to bring

Of the fate of the missing horsemen.”

Bidding the lad come near,

Eager the King did question,

And the courtiers all,

Both great and small,

Crowded about to hear.

When the boy had told his story

The King laid hand on his head;—

“If thou wert but ten years older

I would make thee a knight,” he said.

“Alas!” sighed the boy, recalling

The scorn and the cruel jeers

Of his brothers, “I am not worthy,

Because of my youthful years!”

And wasted, and weak, and pallid,

He sank with a weary moan,

[205]

His fetters clanking around him,

There at the foot of the throne.

Then the King’s fair little daughter,

Who had listened with tearful eyes,

Spake softly, “Have pity, my father!

Hath he not won the prize?”

“Arise!” said the good King, smiling,

“Forsooth I will keep my word,”

(And, saying, the young lad’s shoulder

Lightly he touched with his sword);

“Forsooth I will keep my promise,

Since the little one pleads thy claim!

Henceforth shall they know thee only

As the Knight of the Golden Mane.

The steed that hath borne thee hither

Henceforward thine own shall be,

And when thou art grown to fit it

Mine armor I’ll give to thee.”

Then to the servitors turning—

“Unbind him without delay,

Tho’ these chains were a badge of honor

And clanked in his praise to-day.”

And the youthful knight thereafter

At the court of the King abode,

Like a prince did he go appareled,

And the snow-white steed he rode.

And the King’s own suit of armor

He wore when a man he grew—

[206]

Helmet, and shield, and coat of mail,

And the good King’s broad-sword, too.

And so valiant was he in warfare,

And so wise alway, that his fame

Afar did ring,

And the foes of the King

Trembled to hear his name.

Now, once to the royal city

The people by thousands came

(For that day did he wed the princess,

She who pleaded his claim);

And there were six stalwart brothers

In the gay and festive throng,

And low did they make obeisance

As grandly he rode along;

But sudden, amazed and awe-struck

Were they when the warrior bold—

In his bright and dazzling armor,

With his flowing locks of gold—

Halted to give them greeting;

Sudden they blanched with shame,

For, behold, their long-lost brother

Was the Knight of the Golden Mane!

And none of all this had happened,

And the castle, so grim and gray,

Might have been the home of robbers

Unto this very day;

And the poor young lad imprisoned,

[207]

Bound by the iron chain,

Had clambered the lonely mountain

And tried for the prize in vain,

But for the giant’s knocking.

And from this and from that you see,

When the fairy asked help of Jungenthor,

Just the way it would be—

Oh, oh, Jungenthor,

Such a mighty one was he!

[8] God send you a ship; i. e., May you prosper.

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	PAGE.
Neighbor Edith	4
Castle Marvel	13
A May Morning	18
Patches and Perseverance	26
Kate’s Great-great-Grandmother	34
In the Woods	47
The Old Monsieur’s Story	61
Butternut and Blue	73
A Secret	77
Consolation	87
Julie, Julien and Oncle le Capitaine	94
The Voices	129
Moonshine	132
Sunshine	136
Czar and Carpenter	144
Queen Mabel	166
Princess Gerda	174
Jungenthor, the Giant	188
Little Florence	208[ii]
A Centennial Tea-pot	214
In Lilac Time	218
Blue Eyes	221
The Apple-Gathering	222
Good-by, Little Bird	223
He Will Come Back	224
Katy	226
Marie	228
The Banjo	231
Winsome Maggie	233
A Happy Pair	235
Sigs Veegs Ofer	238
The Child on the Battle-Field	239
Pinkety-Winkety-Wee	242
Puss in a Quandary	243
Lena Laughed	244
’Tis the Apples	245
Fooled	246
A New Toy	247
Charley on Horseback	248
Cruel!	249
Cluck, Cluck!	250
Bobbie and the Bee	250

STORIES AND BALLADS FOR YOUNG FOLKS.

CONTENTS.

NEIGHBOR EDITH.

CASTLE MARVEL.

A MAY MORNING.

PATCHES AND PERSEVERANCE.

KATE’S GREAT-GREAT-GRANDMOTHER.

IN THE WOODS.

THE OLD MONSIEUR’S STORY.

BUTTERNUT AND BLUE.

A SECRET.

CONSOLATION.

JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

THE VOICES.

MOONSHINE.

SUNSHINE.

CZAR AND CARPENTER.

QUEEN MABEL.

PRINCESS GERDA.

I.

II.

III.

JUNGENTHOR, THE GIANT.

LITTLE FLORENCE.

A CENTENNIAL TEA-POT.

IN LILAC TIME.

BLUE EYES.

THE APPLE-GATHERING.

GOOD-BY, LITTLE BIRD.

HE WILL COME BACK.

KATY.

MARIE.

“THE BANJO.”

WINSOME MAGGIE.

A HAPPY PAIR.

SIGS VEEGS OFER.

THE CHILD ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.

PINKETY-WINKETY-WEE.

PUSS IN A QUANDARY.

LENA LAUGHED.

’TIS THE APPLES.

FOOLED.

A NEW TOY.

CHARLEY ON HORSEBACK.

CRUEL!

CLUCK, CLUCK!

BOBBIE AND THE BEE.

STORIES AND BALLADS

FOR YOUNG FOLKS.