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Title: Junior Classics, V6

Author: Various
Edited by William Patten

Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6577]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on December 29, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII, with a couple of ISO-8859-1 characters

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUNIOR CLASSICS, V6 ***




Produced by Wendy Crockett, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.





THE JUNIOR CLASSICS

A LIBRARY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

[Illustration: EVERYTHING'S GOT A MORAL IF ONLY YOU CAN FIND IT
_From the painting by Beatrice Stevens_]


THE JUNIOR CLASSICS


SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY

WILLIAM PATTEN--MANAGING EDITOR OF THE HARVARD CLASSICS


INTRODUCTION BY

CHARLES W. ELIOT, L L. D.--PRESIDENT EMERITUS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY


WITH A READING GUIDE BY

WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON, Ph.D.--PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
PRESIDENT SMITH COLLEGE, NORTHAMPTON, MASS., SINCE 1917




VOLUME SIX

OLD-FASHIONED TALES




CONTENTS

The Race for the Silver Skates  _Mary Mapes Dodge_

Nelly's Hospital  _Louisa M. Alcott_

A Fox and a Raven  _Rebecca H. Davis_

The Private Theatricals  _Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney_

A Case of Coincidence  _Rose Terry Cooke_

The Flight of the Dolls  _Lucretia P. Hale_

Solomon John Goes for Apples  _Lucretia P. Hale_

Wild Robin  _Sophie May_

Deacon Thomas Wales' Will   _Mary E. W. Freeman_

Dill  _Mary E. W. Freeman_

Brownie and the Cook  _Mrs. Dinah M. Craik_

Brownie and the Cherry Tree  _Mrs. Dinah M. Craik_

The Ouphe of the Wood  _Jean Ingelow_

The Prince's Dream  _Jean Ingelow_

A Lost Wand  _Jean Ingelow_

Snap-Dragons--A Tale of Christmas Eve  _Juliana H. Ewing_

Uncle Jack's Story  _Mrs. E. M. Field_

Bryda's Dreadful Scrape  _Mrs. E. M. Field_

The Cratchits' Christmas Dinner  _Charles Dickens_

Embellishment  _Jacob Abbott_

The Great Stone Face  _Nathaniel Hawthorne_

The King of the Golden River  _John Ruskin_

The Two Gifts  _Lillian M. Gask_

The Bar of Gold  _Lillian M. Gask_

Uncle David's Nonsensical Story  _Catherine Sinclair_

The Grand Feast  _Catherine Sinclair_

The Story of Fairyfoot  _Frances Browne_

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Down the Rabbit-Hole  _Lewis Carroll_

The Pool of Tears  _Lewis Carroll_

A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale  _Lewis Carroll_

The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill  _Lewis Carroll_

Advice from a Caterpillar  _Lewis Carroll_

Pig and Pepper  _Lewis Carroll_

A Mad Tea-Party  _Lewis Carroll_

The Queen's Croquet Ground  _Lewis Carroll_

The Mock Turtle's Story  _Lewis Carroll_

The Lobster-Quadrille  _Lewis Carroll_

Who Stole the Tarts?  _Lewis Carroll_

Alice's Evidence  _Lewis Carroll_




ILLUSTRATIONS

"EVERYTHING'S GOT A MORAL, IF ONLY YOU CAN FIND IT"
 Alice in Wonderland

_Frontispiece illustration in color from the painting by Beatrice
Stevens_

"IS THERE A PECULIAR FLAVOR IN WHAT YOU SPRINKLE FROM YOUR TORCH?"
ASKED SCROOGE
 The Cratchits' Christmas Dinner

_From the drawing by T. Leech_

GLUCK PUT HIS HEAD OUT TO SEE WHO IT WAS
 The King of the Golden River

_From the drawing by Richard Doyle_

THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS WERE SEATED ON THEIR THRONE
 Alice in Wonderland

_From the drawing by Sir John Tenniel_




THE RACE FOR THE SILVER SKATES

By Mary Mapes Dodge


The 20th of December came at last, bringing with it the perfection
of winter weather. All over the level landscape lay the warm sunlight.
It tried its power on lake, canal, and river; but the ice flashed
defiance, and showed no sign of melting. The very weather-cocks stood
still to enjoy the sight. This gave the windmills a holiday. Nearly
all the past week they had been whirling briskly: now, being rather
out of breath, they rocked lazily in the clear, still air. Catch a
windmill working when the weather-cocks have nothing to do!

There was an end to grinding, crushing, and sawing for that day. It
was a good thing for the millers near Broek. Long before noon, they
concluded to take in their sails, and go to the race. Everybody would
be there. Already the north side of the frozen Y was bordered with
eager spectators: the news of the great skating-match had travelled
far and wide. Men, women, and children, in holiday attire, were
flocking toward the spot. Some wore furs, and wintry cloaks or shawls;
but many, consulting their feelings rather than the almanac, were
dressed as for an October day.

The site selected for the race was a faultless plain of ice near
Amsterdam, on that great _arm_ of the Zuyder-Zee, which Dutchmen,
of course, must call the Eye. The townspeople turned out in large
numbers. Strangers in the city deemed it a fine chance to see what was
to be seen. Many a peasant from the northward had wisely chosen the
20th as the day for the next city-trading. It seemed that everybody,
young and old, who had wheels, skates, or feet at command, had
hastened to the scene.

There were the gentry in their coaches, dressed like Parisians fresh
from the Boulevards; Amsterdam children in charity uniforms; girls
from the Roman-Catholic Orphan-House, in sable gowns and white
headbands; boys from the Burgher Asylum, with their black tights and
short-skirted, harlequin coats. [Footnote: This is not said in
derision. Both the boys and girls of this institution wear garments
quartered in red and black alternately. By making the dress thus
conspicuous, the children are, in a measure, deterred from wrong-doing
while going about the city. The Burgher Orphan-Asylum affords a
comfortable home to several hundred boys and girls. Holland is famous
for its charitable institutions.] There were old-fashioned gentlemen
in cocked hats and velvet knee-breeches; old-fashioned ladies, too, in
stiff, quilted skirts, and bodices of dazzling brocade. These were
accompanied by servants bearing foot-stoves and cloaks. There were the
peasant-folk arrayed in every possible Dutch costume--shy young
rustics in brazen buckles; simple village-maidens concealing their
flaxen hair under fillets of gold; women whose long, narrow aprons
were stiff with embroidery; women with short corkscrew curls hanging
over their foreheads; women with shaved heads and close-fitting caps;
and women in striped skirts and windmill bonnets; men in leather, in
homespun, in velvet and broadcloth; burghers in model European attire,
and burghers in short jackets, wide trousers, and steeple-crowned
hats.

There were beautiful Friesland girls in wooden shoes and coarse
petticoats, with solid gold crescents encircling their heads, finished
at each temple with a golden rosette, and hung with lace a century
old. Some wore necklaces, pendants, and ear-rings of the purest gold.
Many were content with gilt, or even with brass; but it is not an
uncommon thing for a Friesland woman to have all the family treasure
in her head-gear. More than one rustic lass displayed the value of two
thousand guilders upon her head that day.

Scattered throughout the crowd were peasants from the Island of
Marken, with sabots, black stockings, and the widest of breeches; also
women from Marken, with short blue petticoats, and black jackets gayly
figured in front. They wore red sleeves, white aprons, and a cap like
a bishop's mitre over their golden hair.

The children, often, were as quaint and odd-looking as their elders.
In short, one-third of the crowd seemed to have stepped bodily from a
collection of Dutch paintings.

Everywhere could be seen tall women, and stumpy men, lively-faced
girls, and youths whose expression never changed from sunrise to
sunset.

There seemed to be at least one specimen from every known town in
Holland. There were Utrecht water-bearers, Gouda cheese-makers, Delft
pottery-men, Schiedam distillers, Amsterdam diamond-cutters, Rotterdam
merchants, dried-up herring-packers, and two sleepy-eyed shepherds
from Texel. Every man of them had his pipe and tobacco-pouch. Some
carried what might be called the smoker's complete outfit,--a pipe,
tobacco, a pricker with which to clean the tube, a silver net for
protecting the bowl, and a box of the strongest of brimstone-matches.

A true Dutchman, you must remember, is rarely without his pipe on any
possible occasion. He may, for a moment, neglect to breathe; but, when
the pipe is forgotten, he must be dying, indeed. There were no such
sad cases here. Wreaths of smoke were rising from every possible
quarter. The more fantastic the smoke-wreath, the more placid and
solemn the smoker.

Look at those boys and girls on stilts! That is a good idea. They can
see over the heads of the tallest. It is strange to see those little
bodies high in the air, carried about on mysterious legs. They have
such a resolute look on their round faces, what wonder that nervous
old gentlemen, with tender feet, wince and tremble while the
long-legged little monsters stride past them!

You will read, in certain books, that the Dutch are a quiet people: so
they are generally. But listen! did ever you hear such a din? All made
up of human voices--no, the horses are helping somewhat, and the
fiddles are squeaking pitifully (how it must pain fiddles to be
tuned!); but the mass of the sound comes from the great _vox humana_
that belongs to a crowd.

That queer little dwarf, going about with a heavy basket, winding in
and out among the people, helps not a little. You can hear his shrill
cry above all the other sounds, "Pypen en tabac! Pypen en tabac!"

Another, his big brother, though evidently some years younger, is
selling doughnuts and bon-bons. He is calling on all pretty children,
far and near, to come quickly, or the cakes will be gone.

You know quite a number among the spectators. High up in yonder
pavilion, erected upon the border of the ice, are some persons whom
you have seen very lately. In the centre is Madame van Gleck. It is
her birthday, you remember: she has the post of honor. There is
Mynheer van Gleck, whose meerschaum has not really grown fast to his
lips: it only appears so. There are grandfather and grandmother, whom
you meet at the St. Nicholas _fête_. All the children are with them.
It is so mild, they have brought even the baby. The poor little
creature is swaddled very much after the manner of an Egyptian mummy;
but it can crow with delight, and, when the band is playing, open and
shut its animated mittens in perfect time to the music.

Grandfather, with his pipe and spectacles and fur cap, makes quite a
picture as he holds baby upon his knee. Perched high upon their
canopied platforms, the party can see all that is going on. No wonder
the ladies look complacently at the glassy ice: with a stove for a
footstool, one might sit cosily beside the North Pole.

There is a gentleman with them who somewhat resembles St. Nicholas as
he appeared to the young Van Glecks, on the fifth of December. But the
saint had a flowing white beard; and this face is as smooth as a
pippin. His saintship was larger around the body, too, and (between
ourselves) he had a pair of thimbles in his mouth, which this
gentleman certainly has not. It cannot be St. Nicholas, after all.

Near by, in the next pavilion, sit the Van Holps, with their son and
daughter (the Van Gends) from The Hague. Peter's sister is not one to
forget her promises.

She has brought bouquets of exquisite hot-house flowers for the
winners.

These pavilions, and there are others beside, have all been erected
since daylight. That semicircular one, containing Mynheer Korbes's
family, is very pretty, and proves that the Hollanders are quite
skilled at tent-making; but I like the Van Gleck's best,--the centre
one,--striped red and white, and hung with evergreens.

The one with the blue flags contains the musicians. Those pagoda-like
affairs, decked with sea-shells, and streamers of every possible hue,
are the judges' stands; and those columns and flagstaffs upon the ice
mark the limit of the race-course. The two white columns, twined with
green, connected at the top by that long, floating strip of drapery,
form the starting-point. Those flagstaffs, half a mile off, stand at
each end of the boundary line, cut sufficiently deep to be distinct to
the skaters, though not enough so to trip them when they turn to come
back to the starting-point.

The air is so clear, it seems scarcely possible that the columns and
flagstaffs are so far apart. Of course, the judges' stands are but
little nearer together.

Half a mile on the ice, when the atmosphere is like this, is but a
short distance, after all, especially when fenced with a living chain
of spectators.

The music has commenced. How melody seems to enjoy itself in the open
air! The fiddles have forgotten their agony; and every thing is
harmonious. Until you look at the blue tent, it seems that the music
springs from the sunshine, it is so boundless, so joyous. Only when
you see the staid-faced musicians, you realize the truth.

Where are the racers? All assembled together near the white columns.
It is a beautiful sight,--forty boys and girls in picturesque attire,
darting with electric swiftness in and out among each other, or
sailing in pairs and triplets, beckoning, chatting, whispering, in the
fulness of youthful glee.

A few careful ones are soberly tightening their straps: others,
halting on one leg, with flushed, eager faces, suddenly cross the
suspected skate over their knee, give it an examining shake, and dart
off again. One and all are possessed with the spirit of motion. They
cannot stand still. Their skates are a part of them; and every runner
seems bewitched.

Holland is the place for skaters, after all. Where else can nearly
every boy and girl perform feats on the ice that would attract a
crowd if seen on Central Park? Look at Ben! I did not see him before.
He is really astonishing the natives; no easy thing to do in the
Netherlands. Save your strength, Ben, you will need it soon. Now other
boys are trying! Ben is surpassed already. Such jumping, such poising,
such spinning, such india-rubber exploits generally! That boy with a
red cap is the lion now: his back is a watch-spring, his body is
cork--no, it is iron, or it would snap at that. He is a bird, a top, a
rabbit, a corkscrew, a sprite, a flesh-ball, all in an instant. When
you think he's erect, he is down; and, when you think he is down, he
is up. He drops his glove on the ice, and turns a somerset as he picks
it up. Without stopping, he snatches the cap from Jacob Poot's
astonished head, and claps it back again "hindside before." Lookers-on
hurrah and laugh. Foolish boy! It is arctic weather under your feet,
but more than temperate overhead. Big drops already are rolling down
your forehead. Superb skater, as you are, you may lose the race.

A French traveller, standing with a note-book in his hand, sees our
English friend, Ben, buy a doughnut of the dwarf's brother, and eat
it. Thereupon he writes in his note-book, that the Dutch take enormous
mouthfuls, and universally are fond of potatoes boiled in molasses.

There are some familiar faces near the white columns. Lambert, Ludwig,
Peter, and Carl are all there, cool, and in good skating-order. Hans
is not far off. Evidently he is going to join in the race, for his
skates are on,--the very pair that he sold for seven guilders. He had
soon suspected that his fairy godmother was the mysterious "friend"
who had bought them. This settled, he had boldly charged her with the
deed; and she, knowing well that all her little savings had been spent
in the purchase, had not had the face to deny it. Through the fairy
godmother, too, he had been rendered amply able to buy them back
again. Therefore Hans is to be in the race. Carl is more indignant
than ever about it; but, as three other peasant-boys have entered,
Hans is not alone.

Twenty boys and twenty girls. The latter, by this time, are standing
in front, braced for the start; for they are to have the first "run."
Hilda, Rychie, and Katrinka are among them. Two or three bend hastily
to give a last pull at their skate-straps. It is pretty to see them
stamp to be sure that all is firm. Hilda is speaking pleasantly to a
graceful little creature in a red jacket and a new brown petticoat.
Why, it is Gretel! What a difference those pretty shoes make, and the
skirt, and the new cap! Annie Bouman is there, too. Even Janzoon
Kolp's sister has been admitted; but Janzoon himself has been voted
out by the directors, because he killed the stork, and only last
summer, was caught in the act of robbing a bird's nest,--a legal
offence in Holland.

This Janzoon Kolp, you see, was--There, I cannot tell the story just
now. The race is about to commence.

Twenty girls are formed in a line. The music has ceased.

A man, whom we shall call the crier, stands between the columns and
the first judges' stand. He reads the rules in a loud voice:--

"THE GIRLS AND BOYS ARE TO RACE IN TURN, UNTIL ONE GIRL AND ONE BOY
HAS BEATEN TWICE. THEY ARE TO START IN A LINE FROM THE UNITED COLUMNS,
SKATE TO THE FLAGSTAFF LINE, TURN, AND THEN COME BACK TO THE
STARTING-POINT; THUS MAKING A MILE AT EACH RUN."

A flag is waved from the judges' stand. Madame van Gleck rises in her
pavilion. She leans forward with a white handkerchief in her hand.
When she drops it, a bugler is to give the signal for them to start.

The handkerchief is fluttering to the ground. Hark!

They are off!

No. Back again. Their line was not true in passing the judges' stand.

The signal is repeated.

Off again. No mistake this time. Whew! how fast they go!

The multitude is quiet for an instant, absorbed in eager, breathless
watching.

Cheers spring up along the line of spectators. Huzza! five girls are
ahead. Who comes flying back from the boundary-mark? We cannot tell.
Something red, that is all. There is a blue spot flitting near it, and
a dash of yellow nearer still. Spectators at this end of the line
strain their eyes, and wish they had taken their post nearer the
flagstaff.

The wave of cheers is coming back again. Now we can see. Katrinka is
ahead!

She passes the Van Holp pavilion. The next is Madame van Gleck's. That
leaning figure gazing from it is a magnet. Hilda shoots past Katrinka,
waving her hand to her mother as she passes. Two others are close now,
whizzing on like arrows. What is that flash of red and gray? Hurrah,
it is Gretel! She, too, waves her hand, but toward no gay pavilion.
The crowd is cheering; but she hears only her father's voice,--"Well
done, little Gretel!" Soon Katrinka, with a quick, merry laugh, shoots
past Hilda, The girl in yellow is gaining now. She passes them
all,--all except Gretel. The judges lean forward without seeming to
lift their eyes from their watches. Cheer after cheer fills the air:
the very columns seem rocking. Gretel has passed them. She has won.

"GRETEL BRINKER, ONE MILE!" shouts the crier.

The judges nod. They write something upon a tablet which each holds in
his hand.

While the girls are resting,--some crowding eagerly around our
frightened little Gretel, some standing aside in high disdain,--the
boys form in line.

Mynheer van Gleck drops the handkerchief, this time. The buglers give
a vigorous blast.

The boys have started.

Halfway already. Did ever you see the like!

Three hundred legs flashing by in an instant. But there are only
twenty boys. No matter: there were hundreds of legs, I am sure. Where
are they now? There is such a noise, one gets bewildered. What are the
people laughing at? Oh! at that fat boy in the rear. See him go! See
him! He'll be down in an instant: no, he won't. I wonder if he knows
he is all alone: the other boys are nearly at the boundary-line. Yes,
he knows it. He stops. He wipes his hot face. He takes off his cap,
and looks about him. Better to give up with a good grace. He has made
a hundred friends by that hearty, astonished laugh. Good Jacob Poot!

The fine fellow is already among the spectators, gazing as eagerly as
the rest.

A cloud of feathery ice flies from the heels of the skaters as they
"bring to" and turn at the flagstaffs.

Something black is coming now, one of the boys: it is all we know. He
has touched the _vox humana_ stop of the crowd: it fairly roars.
Now they come nearer: we can see the red cap. There's Ben, there's
Peter, there's Hans!

Hans is ahead. Young Madame van Gend almost crushes the flowers in her
hand: she had been quite sure that Peter would be first. Carl Schummel
is next, then Ben, and the youth with the red cap. The others are
pressing close. A tall figure darts from among them. He passes the red
cap, he passes Ben, then Carl. Now it is an even race between him and
Hans. Madame van Gend catches her breath.

It is Peter! He is ahead! Hans shoots past him. Hilda's eyes fill with
tears: Peter _must_ beat. Annie's eyes flash proudly. Gretel
gazes with clasped hands: four strokes more will take her brother to
the columns.

He is there! Yes; but so was young Schummel just a second before. At
the last instant, Carl, gathering his powers, had whizzed between
them, and passed the goal.

"CARL SCHUMMEL, ONE MILE!" shouts the crier.

Soon Madame van Gleck rises again. The falling handkerchief starts the
bugle; and the bugle, using its voice as a bow-string, shoots off
twenty girls like so many arrows.

It is a beautiful sight; but one has not long to look: before we can
fairly distinguish them, they are far in the distance. This time they
are close upon one another. It is hard to say, as they come speeding
back from the flagstaff, which will reach the columns first. There are
new faces among the foremost,--eager, glowing faces, unnoticed before.
Katrinka is there, and Hilda; but Gretel and Rychie are in the rear.
Gretel is wavering, but, when Rychie passes her, she starts forward
afresh. Now they are nearly beside Katrinka. Hilda is still in
advance: she is almost "home." She has not faltered since that
bugle-note sent her flying: like an arrow, still she is speeding
toward the goal. Cheer after cheer rises in the air. Peter is silent;
but his eyes shine like stars. "Huzza! Huzza!"

The crier's voice is heard again.

"HILDA VAN GLECK, ONE MILE!"

A loud murmur of approval runs through the crowd, catching the music
in its course, till all seems one sound, with a glad rhythmic
throbbing in its depths. When the flag waves, all is still.

Once more the bugle blows a terrific blast. It sends off the boys like
chaff before the wind,--dark chaff, I admit, and in big pieces.

It is whisked around at the flagstaff, driven faster yet by the cheers
and shouts along the line. We begin to see what is coming. There are
three boys in advance, this time, and all abreast,--Hans, Peter, and
Lambert. Carl soon breaks the ranks, rushing through with a whiff.
Fly, Hans; fly, Peter: don't let Carl beat again!--Carl the bitter,
Carl the insolent. Van Mounen is flagging; but you are as strong as
ever. Hans and Peter, Peter and Hans: which is foremost? We love them
both. We scarcely care which is the fleeter.

Hilda, Annie, and Gretel, seated upon the long crimson bench, can
remain quiet no longer. They spring to their feet, so different! and
yet one in eagerness. Hilda instantly reseats herself: none shall know
how interested she is; none shall know how anxious, how filled with
one hope. Shut your eyes, then, Hilda, hide your face rippling with
joy. Peter has beaten.

"PETER VAN HOLP, ONE MILE!" calls the crier.

The same buzz of excitement as before, while the judges take notes,
the same throbbing of music through the din; but something is
different. A little crowd presses close about some object near the
column. Carl has fallen. He is not hurt, though somewhat stunned. If
he were less sullen, he would find more sympathy in these warm young
hearts. As it is, they forget him as soon as he is fairly on his feet
again.

The girls are to skate their third mile.

How resolute the little maidens look as they stand in a line! Some are
solemn with a sense of responsibility; some wear a smile half-bashful,
half-provoked: but one air of determination pervades them all.

This third mile may decide the race. Still, if neither Gretel nor
Hilda win, there is yet a chance among the rest for the silver skates.

Each girl feels sure, that, this time, she will accomplish the
distance in one-half the time. How they stamp to try their runners!
How nervously they examine each strap! How erect they stand at last,
every eye upon Madame van Gleck!

The bugle thrills through them again. With quivering eagerness they
spring forward, bending, but in perfect balance. Each flashing stroke
seems longer than the last.

Now they are skimming off in the distance.

Again the eager straining of eyes; again the shouts and cheering;
again the thrill of excitement, as, after a few moments, four or five,
in advance of, the rest, come speeding back, nearer, nearer, to the
white columns.

Who is first? Not Rychie, Katrinka, Annie, nor Hilda, nor the girl in
yellow, but Gretel,--Gretel, the fleetest sprite of a girl that ever
skated. She was but playing in the earlier race: _now_ she is in
earnest, or, rather, something within her has determined to win. That
lithe little form makes no effort; but it cannot stop,--not until the
goal is passed!

In vain the crier lifts his voice: he cannot be heard. He has no news
to tell: it is already ringing through the crowd,--_Gretel has won
the silver skates!_

Like a bird, she has flown over the ice; like a bird, she looks about
her in a timid, startled way. She longs to dart to the sheltered nook
where her father and mother stand. But Hans is beside her: the girls
are crowding round. Hilda's kind, joyous voice breathes in her ear.
From that hour, none will despise her. Goose-girl, or not, Gretel
stands acknowledged Queen of the Skaters.

With natural pride, Hans turns to see if Peter van Holp is witnessing
his sister's triumph. Peter is not looking toward them at all. He is
kneeling, bending his troubled face low, and working hastily at his
skate-strap. Hans is beside him at once.

"Are you in trouble, mynheer?"

"Ah, Hans! that you? Yes, my fun is over. I tried to tighten my strap,
to make a new hole; and this botheration of a knife has cut it nearly
in two."

"Mynheer," said Hans, at the same time pulling off a skate, "you must
use my strap!"

"Not I, indeed, Hans Brinker!" cried Peter, looking up, "though I
thank you warmly. Go to your post, my friend: the bugle will sound in
a minute."

"Mynheer!" pleaded Hans in a husky voice. "You have called me your
friend. Take this strap--quick! There is not an instant to lose. I
shall not skate this time; indeed, I am out of practice. Mynheer, you
_must_ take it;" and Hans, blind and deaf to any remonstrance, slipped
his strap into Peter's skate, and implored him to put it on.

"Come, Peter!" cried Lambert from the line: "we are waiting for you."

"For madame's sake," pleaded Hans, "be quick! She is motioning to you
to join the racers. There, the skate is almost on: quick, mynheer,
fasten it. I could not possibly win. The race lies between Master
Schummel and yourself."

"You are a noble fellow, Hans!" cried Peter, yielding at last. He
sprang to his post just as the white handkerchief fell to the ground.
The bugle sends forth its blast, loud, clear, and ringing.

Off go the boys.

"Mein Gott!" cries a tough old fellow from Delft. "They beat every
thing,--these Amsterdam youngsters. See them!"

See them, indeed! They are winged Mercuries, every one of them. What
mad errand are they on?

Ah, I know: they are hunting Peter van Holp. He is some fleet-footed
runaway from Olympus. Mercury and his troop of winged cousins are in
full chase. They will catch him! Now Carl is the runaway. The pursuit
grows furious. Ben is foremost.

The chase turns in a cloud of mist. It is coming this way. Who is
hunted now? Mercury himself. It is Peter, Peter van Holp! Fly, Peter!
Hans is watching you. He is sending all his fleetness, all his
strength, into your feet. Your mother and sister are pale with
eagerness. Hilda is trembling, and dare not look up. Fly, Peter! The
crowd has not gone deranged: it is only cheering. The pursuers are
close upon you. Touch the white column! It beckons; it is reeling
before you--it--

"Huzza! Huzza! Peter has won the silver skates!"

"PETER VAN HOLP!" shouted the crier. But who heard him? "Peter van
Holp!" shouted a hundred voices; for he was the favorite boy of the
place. "Huzza! Huzza!"

Now the music was resolved to be heard. It struck up a lively air,
then a tremendous march. The spectators, thinking something new was
about to happen, deigned to listen and to look.

The racers formed in single file. Peter, being tallest, stood first.
Gretel, the smallest of all, took her place at the end. Hans, who had
borrowed a strap from the cake-boy, was near the head.

Three gayly-twined arches were placed at intervals upon the river,
facing the Van Gleck pavilion.

Skating slowly, and in perfect time to the music, the boys and girls
moved forward, led on by Peter. It was beautiful to see the bright
procession glide along like a living creature. It curved and doubled,
and drew its graceful length in and out among the arches: whichever
way Peter, the head, went, the body was sure to follow. Sometimes it
steered direct for the centre arch; then, as if seized with a new
impulse, turned away and curled itself about the first one; then
unwound slowly, and bending low, with quick, snake-like curvings,
crossed the river, passing at length through the farthest arch.

When the music was slow, the procession seemed to crawl like a thing
afraid: it grew livelier, and the creature darted forward with a
spring, gliding rapidly among the arches, in and out, curling,
twisting, turning, never losing form, until at the shrill call of the
bugle rising above the music, it suddenly resolved itself into boys
and girls standing in double semicircle before Madame van Gleck's
pavilion.

Peter and Gretel stand in the centre, in advance of the others. Madame
van Gleck rises majestically. Gretel trembles, but feels that she must
look at the beautiful lady. She cannot hear what is said, there is
such a buzzing all around her. She is thinking that she ought to try
and make a courtesy, such as her mother makes to the _meester_, when
suddenly something so dazzling is placed in her hand that she gives a
cry of joy.

Then she ventures to look about her. Peter, too, has something in his
hands. "Oh, Oh! how splendid!" she cries; and "Oh! how splendid!" is
echoed as far as people can see.

Meantime the silver skates flash in the sunshine, throwing dashes of
light upon those two happy faces.

Mevrouw van Gend sends a little messenger with her bouquets,--one for
Hilda, one for Carl, and others for Peter and Gretel.

At sight of the flowers, the Queen of the Skaters becomes
uncontrollable. With a bright stare of gratitude, she gathers skates
and bouquet in her apron, hugs them to her bosom, and darts off to
search for her father and mother in the scattering crowd.




NELLY'S HOSPITAL

By Louisa M. Alcott


Nelly sat beside her mother picking lint; but while her fingers flew,
her eyes often looked wistfully out into the meadow, golden with
buttercups, and bright with sunshine. Presently she said, rather
bashfully, but very earnestly, "Mamma, I want to tell you a little
plan I've made, if you'll please not laugh."

"I think I can safely promise that, my dear," said her mother, putting
down her work that she might listen quite respectfully.

Nelly looked pleased, and went on confidingly.

"Since brother Will came home with his lame foot, and I've helped you
tend him, I've heard a great deal about hospitals, and liked it very
much. To-day I said I wanted to go and be a nurse, like Aunt Mercy;
but Will laughed, and told me I'd better begin by nursing sick birds
and butterflies and pussies before I tried to take care of men. I did
not like to be made fun of, but I've been thinking that it would be
very pleasant to have a little hospital all my own, and be a nurse in
it, because, if I took pains, so many pretty creatures might be made
well, perhaps. Could I, mamma?"

Her mother wanted to smile at the idea, but did not, for Nelly looked
up with her heart and eyes so full of tender compassion, both for the
unknown men for whom her little hands had done their best, and for the
smaller sufferers nearer home, that she stroked the shining head, and
answered readily:

"Yes, Nelly, it will be a proper charity for such a young Samaritan,
and you may learn much if you are in earnest. You must study how to
feed and nurse your little patients, else your pity will do no good,
and your hospital become a prison. I will help you, and Tony shall be
your surgeon."

"O mamma, how good you always are to me! Indeed, I am in truly
earnest; I will learn, I will be kind, and may I go now and begin?"

"You may, but tell me first where will you have your hospital?"

"In my room, mamma; it is so snug and sunny, and I never should forget
it there," said Nelly.

"You must not forget it anywhere. I think that plan will not do. How
would you like to find caterpillars walking in your bed, to hear sick
pussies mewing in the night, to have beetles clinging to your clothes,
or see mice, bugs, and birds tumbling downstairs whenever the door was
open?" said her mother.

Nelly laughed at that thought a minute, then clapped her hands, and
cried: "Let us have the old summer-house! My doves only use the upper
part, and it would be so like Frank in the storybook. Please say yes
again, mamma."

Her mother did say yes, and, snatching up her hat, Nelly ran to find
Tony, the gardener's son, a pleasant lad of twelve, who was Nelly's
favorite playmate. Tony pronounced the plan a "jolly" one, and,
leaving his work, followed his young mistress to the summer-house, for
she could not wait one minute.

"What must we do first?" she asked, as they stood looking in at the
dim, dusty room, full of garden tools, bags of seeds, old flower-pots,
and watering-cans.

"Clear out the rubbish, miss," answered Tony.

"Here it goes, then," and Nelly began bundling everything out in such
haste that she broke two flower-pots, scattered all the squash-seeds,
and brought a pile of rakes and hoes clattering down about her ears.

"Just wait a bit, and let me take the lead, miss. You hand me things,
I'll pile 'em in the barrow and wheel 'em off to the barn; then it
will save time, and be finished up tidy."

Nelly did as he advised, and very soon nothing but dust remained.

"What next?" she asked, not knowing in the least.

"I'll sweep up while you see if Polly can come and scrub the room out.
It ought to be done before you stay here, let alone the patients."

"So it had," said Nelly, looking very wise all of a sudden. "Will says
the wards--that means the rooms, Tony--are scrubbed every day or two,
and kept very clean, and well venti--something--I can't say it; but it
means having a plenty of air come in. I can clean windows while Polly
mops, and then we shall soon be done."

Away she ran, feeling very busy and important. Polly came, and very
soon the room looked like another place. The four latticed windows
were set wide open, so the sunshine came dancing through the vines
that grew outside, and curious roses peeped in to see what frolic was
afoot. The walls shone white again, for not a spider dared to stay;
the wide seat which encircled the room was dustless now,--the floor as
nice as willing hands could make it; and the south wind blew away all
musty odors with its fragrant breath.

"How fine it looks!" cried Nelly, dancing on the doorstep, lest a
foot-print should mar the still damp floor.

"I'd almost like to fall sick for the sake of staying here," said
Tony, admiringly. "Now, what sort of beds are you going to have,
miss?"

"I suppose it won't do to put butterflies and toads and worms into
beds like the real soldiers where Will was?" answered Nelly, looking
anxious.

Tony could hardly help shouting at the idea; but, rather than trouble
his little mistress, he said Very soberly: "I'm afraid they wouldn't
lay easy, not being used to it. Tucking up a butterfly would about
kill him; the worms would be apt to get lost among the bed-clothes;
and the toads would tumble out the first thing."

"I shall have to ask mamma about it. What will you do while I'm gone?"
said Nelly, unwilling that a moment should be lost.

"I'll make frames for nettings to the windows, else the doves will
come in and eat up the sick people."

"I think they will know that it is a hospital, and be too kind to hurt
or frighten their neighbors," began Nelly; but as she spoke, a plump
white dove walked in, looked about with its red-winged eyes, and
quietly pecked up a tiny bug that had just ventured out from the crack
where it had taken refuge when the deluge came.

"Yes, we must have the nettings. I'll ask mamma for some lace," said
Nelly, when she saw that; and, taking her pet dove on her shoulder,
told it about her hospital as she went toward the house: for, loving
all little creatures as she did, it grieved her to have any harm
befall even the least or plainest of them. She had a sweet child-fancy
that her playmates understood her language as she did theirs, and that
birds, flowers, animals, and insects felt for her the same affection
which she felt for them. Love always makes friends, and nothing seemed
to fear the gentle child; but welcomed her like a little sun who shone
alike on all, and never suffered an eclipse.

She was gone some time, and when she came back her mind was full of
new plans, one hand full of rushes, the other of books, while over her
head floated the lace, and a bright green ribbon hung across her arm.

"Mamma says that the best beds will be little baskets, boxes, cages,
and any sort of thing that suits the patients; for each will need
different care and food and medicine. I have not baskets enough, so,
as I cannot have pretty white beds, I am going to braid pretty green
nests for my patients, and, while I do it, mamma thought you'd read to
me the pages she has marked, so that we may begin right."

"Yes, miss; I like that. But what is the ribbon for?" asked Tony.

"O, that's for you. Will says that, if you are to be an army surgeon,
you must have a green band on your arm; so I got this to tie on when
we play hospital."

Tony let her decorate the sleeve of his gray jacket, and when the
nettings were done, the welcome books were opened and enjoyed. It was
a happy time, sitting in the sunshine, with leaves pleasantly astir
all about them, doves cooing overhead, and flowers sweetly gossiping
together through the summer afternoon. Nelly wove her smooth, green
rushes, Tony pored over his pages, and both found something better
than fairy legends in the family histories of insects, birds, and
beasts. All manner of wonders appeared, and were explained to them,
till Nelly felt as if a new world had been given her, so full of
beauty, interest, and pleasure that she never could be tired of
studying it. Many of these things were not strange to Tony, because,
born among plants, he had grown up with them as if they were brothers
and sisters, and the sturdy, brown-faced boy had learned many lessons
which no poet or philosopher could have taught him, unless he had
become as childlike as himself, and studied from the same great book.

When the baskets were done, the marked pages all read, and the sun
began to draw his rosy curtains round him before smiling "Good night,"
Nelly ranged the green beds round the room, Tony put in the screens,
and the hospital was ready. The little nurse was so excited that she
could hardly eat her supper, and directly afterwards ran up to tell
Will how well she had succeeded with the first part of her enterprise.
Now brother Will was a brave young officer, who had fought stoutly and
done his duty like a man. But when lying weak and wounded at home, the
cheerful courage which had led him safely through many dangers seemed
to have deserted him, and he was often gloomy, sad, or fretful,
because he longed to be at his post again, and time passed very
slowly. This troubled his mother, and made Nelly wonder why he found
lying in a pleasant room so much harder than fighting battles or
making weary marches. Anything that interested and amused him was very
welcome, and when Nelly, climbing on the arm of his sofa, told her
plans, mishaps, and successes, he laughed out more heartily than he
had done for many a day, and his thin face began to twinkle with fun
as it used to do so long ago. That pleased Nelly, and she chatted like
any affectionate little magpie, till Will was really interested; for
when one is ill, small things amuse.

"Do you expect your patients to come to you, Nelly?" he asked.

"No, I shall go and look for them. I often see poor things suffering
in the garden, and the wood, and always feel as if they ought to be
taken care of, as people are."

"You won't like to carry insane bugs, lame toads, and convulsive
kittens in your hands, and they would not stay on a stretcher if you
had one. You should have an ambulance and be a branch of the Sanitary
Commission," said Will.

Nelly had often heard the words, but did not quite understand what
they meant. So Will told her of that great never-failing charity, to
which thousands owe their lives; and the child listened with lips
apart, eyes often full, and so much love and admiration in her heart
that she could find no words in which to tell it. When her brother
paused, she said earnestly: "Yes, I will be a Sanitary. This little
cart of mine shall be my amb'lance, and I'll never let my
water-barrels go empty, never drive too fast, or be rough with my poor
passengers, like some of the men you tell about. Does this look like
an amb'lance, Will?"

"Not a bit, but it shall, if you and mamma like to help me. I want
four long bits of cane, a square of white cloth, some pieces of thin
wood, and the gum-pot," said Will, sitting up to examine the little
cart, feeling like a boy again as he took out his knife and began to
whittle.

Upstairs and downstairs ran Nelly till all necessary materials were
collected, and almost breathlessly she watched her brother arch the
canes over the cart, cover them with the cloth, and fit an upper shelf
of small compartments, each lined with cotton-wool to serve as beds
for wounded insects, lest they should hurt one another or jostle out.
The lower part was left free for any larger creatures which Nelly
might find. Among her toys she had a tiny cask which only needed a peg
to be water-tight; this was filled and fitted in before, because, as
the small sufferers needed no seats, there was no place for it behind,
and, as Nelly was both horse and driver, it was more convenient in
front.

On each side of it stood a box of stores. In one were minute rollers,
as bandages are called, a few bottles not yet filled, and a wee doll's
jar of cold-cream, because Nelly could not feel that her outfit was
complete without a medicine-chest. The other box was full of crumbs,
bits of sugar, bird-seed, and grains of wheat and corn, lest any
famished stranger should die for want of food before she got it home.
Then mamma painted "U. S. San. Com." in bright letters on the cover,
and Nelly received her charitable plaything with a long sigh of
satisfaction.

"Nine o'clock already. Bless me, what a short evening this has been,"
exclaimed Will, as Nelly came to give him her good-night kiss.

"And such a happy one," she answered. "Thank you very, very much,
dear Will. I only wish my little amb'lance was big enough for you to
go in,--I'd so like to give you the first ride."

"Nothing I should like better, if it were possible, though I've a
prejudice against ambulances in general. But as I cannot ride, I'll
try and hop out to your hospital to-morrow, and see how you get
on,"--which was a great deal for Captain Will to say, because he had
been too listless to leave his sofa for several days.

That promise sent Nelly happily away to bed, only stopping to pop her
head out of the window to see if it was likely to be a fair day
to-morrow, and to tell Tony about the new plan as he passed below.

"Where shall you go to look for your first load of sick folks, miss?"
he asked.

"All round the garden first, then through the grove, and home across
the brook. Do you think I can find any patients so?" said Nelly.

"I know you will. Good night, miss," and Tony walked away with a merry
look on his face, that Nelly would not have understood if she had seen
it.

Up rose the sun bright and early, and up rose Nurse Nelly almost as
early and as bright. Breakfast was taken in a great hurry, and before
the dew was off the grass this branch of the S. C. was all astir.
Papa, mamma, big brother and baby sister, men and maids, all looked
out to see the funny little ambulance depart, and nowhere in all the
summer fields was there a happier child than Nelly, as she went
smiling down the garden path, where tall flowers kissed her as she
passed and every blithe bird seemed singing a "Good speed!"

"How I wonder what I shall find first," she thought, looking sharply
on all sides as she went. Crickets chirped, grasshoppers leaped, ants
worked busily at their subterranean houses, spiders spun shining webs
from twig to twig, bees were coming for their bags of gold, and
butterflies had just begun their holiday. A large white one alighted
on the top of the ambulance, walked over the inscription as if
spelling it letter by letter, then floated away from flower to flower,
like one carrying the good news far and wide.

"Now every one will know about the hospital and be glad to see me
coming," thought Nelly. And indeed it seemed so, for just then a
blackbird, sitting on the garden wall, burst out with a song full of
musical joy, Nelly's kitten came running after to stare at the wagon
and rub her soft side against it, a bright-eyed toad looked out from
his cool bower among the lily-leaves, and at that minute Nelly found
her first patient. In one of the dewy cobwebs hanging from a shrub
near by sat a fat black and yellow spider, watching a fly whose
delicate wings were just caught in the net. The poor fly buzzed
pitifully, and struggled so hard that the whole web shook; but the
more he struggled, the more he entangled himself, and the fierce
spider was preparing to descend that it might weave a shroud about its
prey, when a little finger broke the threads and lifted the fly safely
into the palm of a hand, where he lay faintly humming his thanks.

Nelly had heard much about contrabands, knew who they were, and was
very much interested in them; so, when she freed the poor black fly,
she played he was her contraband, and felt glad that her first patient
was one that needed help so much. Carefully brushing away as much of
the web as she could, she left small Pompey, as she named him, to free
his own legs, lest her clumsy fingers should hurt him; then she laid
him in one of the soft beds with a grain or two of sugar if he needed
refreshment, and bade him rest and recover from his fright,
remembering that he was at liberty to fly away whenever he liked,
because she had no wish to make a slave of him.

Feeling very happy over this new friend, Nelly went on singing softly
as she walked, and presently she found a pretty caterpillar dressed in
brown fur, although the day was warm. He lay so still she thought him
dead, till he rolled himself into a ball as she touched him.

"I think you are either faint from the heat of this thick coat of
yours, or that you are going to make a cocoon of yourself, Mr. Fuzz,"
said Nelly. "Now I want to see you turn into a butterfly, so I shall
take you, and if you get lively again I will let you go. I shall play
that you have given out on a march, as the soldiers sometimes do, and
been left behind for the Sanitary people to see to."

In went sulky Mr. Fuzz, and on trundled the ambulance till a golden
green rose-beetle was discovered, lying on his back kicking as if in a
fit.

"Dear me, what shall I do for him?" thought Nelly. "He acts as baby
did when she was so ill, and mamma put her in a warm bath. I haven't
got my little tub here, or any hot water, and I'm afraid the beetle
would not like it if I had. Perhaps he has pain in his stomach; I'll
turn him over, and pat his back, as nurse does baby's when she cries
for pain like that."

She set the beetle on his legs, and did her best to comfort him; but
he was evidently in great distress, for he could not walk, and instead
of lifting his emerald overcoat, and spreading the wings that lay
underneath, he turned over again, and kicked more violently than
before. Not knowing what to do, Nelly put him into one of her soft
nests for Tony to cure if possible. She found no more patients in the
garden except a dead bee, which she wrapped in a leaf, and took home
to bury. When she came to the grove, it was so green and cool she
longed to sit and listen to the whisper of the pines, and watch the
larch-tassels wave in the wind. But, recollecting her charitable
errand, she went rustling along the pleasant path till she came to
another patient, over which she stood considering several minutes
before she could decide whether it was best to take it to her
hospital, because it was a little gray snake, with a bruised tail. She
knew it would not hurt her, yet she was afraid of it; she thought it
pretty, yet could not like it; she pitied its pain, yet shrunk from
helping it, for it had a fiery eye, and a keen quivering tongue, that
looked as if longing to bite.

"He is a rebel, I wonder if I ought to be good to him," thought Nelly,
watching the reptile writhe with pain. "Will said there were sick
rebels in his hospital, and one was very kind to him. It says, too, in
my little book, 'Love your enemies.' I think snakes are mine, but I
guess I'll try and love him because God made him. Some boy will kill
him if I leave him here, and then perhaps his mother will be very sad
about it. Come, poor worm, I wish to help you, so be patient, and
don't frighten me."

Then Nelly laid her little handkerchief on the ground, and with a
stick gently lifted the wounded snake upon it, and, folding it
together, laid it in the ambulance. She was thoughtful after that, and
so busy puzzling her young head about the duty of loving those who
hate us, and being kind to those who are disagreeable or unkind, that
she went through the rest of the wood quite forgetful of her work. A
soft "Queek, queek!" made her look up and listen. The sound came from
the long meadow-grass, and, bending it carefully back, she found a
half-fledged bird, with one wing trailing on the ground, and its eyes
dim with pain or hunger.

"You darling thing, did you fall out of your nest and hurt your wing?"
cried Nelly, looking up into the single tree that stood near by. No
nest was to be seen, no parent birds hovered overhead, and little
Robin could only tell its troubles in that mournful "Queek, queek,
queek!"

Nelly ran to get both her chests, and, sitting down beside the bird,
tried to feed it. To her great joy it ate crumb after crumb, as if it
were half starved, and soon fluttered nearer with a confiding
fearlessness that made her very proud. Soon baby Robin seemed quite
comfortable, his eye brightened, he "queeked" no more, and but for the
drooping wing would have been himself again. With one of her bandages
Nelly bound both wings closely to his sides for fear he should hurt
himself by trying to fly; and though he seemed amazed at her
proceedings, he behaved very well, only staring at her, and ruffling
up his few feathers in a funny way that made her laugh. Then she had
to discover some way of accommodating her two larger patients so that
neither should hurt nor alarm the other. A bright thought came to her
after much pondering. Carefully lifting the handkerchief, she pinned
the two ends to the roof of the cart, and there swung little
Forked-tongue, while Rob lay easily below.

By this time Nelly began to wonder how it happened that she found so
many more injured things than ever before. But it never entered her
innocent head that Tony had searched the wood and meadow before she
was up, and laid most of these creatures ready to her hands, that she
might not be disappointed. She had not yet lost her faith in fairies,
so she fancied they too belonged to her small sisterhood, and
presently it did really seem impossible to doubt that the good folk
had been at work.

Coming to the bridge that crossed the brook, she stopped a moment to
watch the water ripple over the bright pebbles, the ferns bend down to
drink, and the funny tadpoles frolic in quieter nooks, where the sun
shone, and the dragon-flies swung among the rushes. When Nelly turned
to go on, her blue eyes opened wide, and the handle of the ambulance
dropped with a noise that caused a stout frog to skip into the water
heels over head.

Directly in the middle of the bridge was a pretty green tent, made of
two tall burdock leaves. The stems were stuck into cracks between the
boards, the tips were pinned together with a thorn, and one great
buttercup nodded in the doorway like a sleepy sentinel. Nelly stared
and smiled, listened, and looked about on every side. Nothing was seen
but the quiet meadow and the shady grove, nothing was heard but the
babble of the brook and the cheery music of the bobolinks.

"Yes," said Nelly softly to herself, "that is a fairy tent, and in it
I may find a baby elf sick with whooping-cough or scarlet-fever. How
splendid it would be! only I could never nurse such a dainty thing."

Stooping eagerly, she peeped over the buttercup's drowsy head, and saw
what seemed a tiny cock of hay. She had no time to feel disappointed,
for the haycock began to stir, and, looking nearer, she beheld two
silvery gray mites, who wagged wee tails, and stretched themselves as
if they had just waked up. Nelly knew that they were young field-mice,
and rejoiced over them, feeling rather relieved that no fairy had
appeared, though she still believed them to have had a hand in the
matter.

"I shall call the mice my Babes in the Wood, because they are lost and
covered up with leaves," said Nelly, as she laid them in her snuggest
bed, where they nestled close together, and fell fast asleep again.

Being very anxious to get home, that she might tell her adventures,
and show how great was the need of a sanitary commission in that
region, Nelly marched proudly up the avenue, and, having displayed her
load, hurried to the hospital, where another applicant was waiting for
her. On the step of the door lay a large turtle, with one claw gone,
and on his back was pasted a bit of paper, with his name,--"Commodore
Waddle, U. S. N." Nelly knew this was a joke of Will's, but welcomed
the ancient mariner, and called Tony to help her get him in.

All that morning they were very busy settling the new-comer, for both
people and books had to be consulted before they could decide what
diet and treatment was best for each. The winged contraband had taken
Nelly at her word, and flown away on the journey home. Little Rob was
put in a large cage, where he could use his legs, yet not injure his
lame wing. Forked-tongue lay under a wire cover, on sprigs of fennel,
for the gardener said that snakes were fond of it. The Babes in the
Wood were put to bed in one of the rush baskets, under a cotton-wool
coverlet. Greenback, the beetle, found ease for his unknown aches in
the warm heart of a rose, where he sunned himself all day. The
Commodore was made happy in a tub of water, grass, and stones, and Mr.
Fuzz was put in a well-ventilated glass box to decide whether he would
be a cocoon or not.

Tony had not been idle while his mistress was away, and he showed her
the hospital garden he had made close by, in which were cabbage,
nettle, and mignonette plants for the butterflies, flowering herbs for
the bees, chick-weed and hemp for the birds, catnip for the pussies,
and plenty of room left for whatever other patients might need. In the
afternoon, while Nelly did her task at lint-picking, talking busily to
Will as she worked, and interesting him in her affairs, Tony cleared a
pretty spot in the grove for the burying-ground, and made ready some
small bits of slate on which to write the names of those who died. He
did not have it ready an hour too soon, for at sunset two little
graves were needed, and Nurse Nelly shed tender tears for her first
losses as she laid the motherless mice in one smooth hollow, and the
gray-coated rebel in the other. She had learned to care for him
already, and when she found him dead, was very glad she had been kind
to him, hoping that he knew it, and died happier in her hospital than
all alone in the shadowy wood.

The rest of Nelly's patients prospered, and of the many added
afterward few died, because of Tony's skilful treatment and her own
faithful care. Every morning when the day proved fair the little
ambulance went out upon its charitable errand; every afternoon Nelly
worked for the human sufferers whom she loved; and every evening
brother Will read aloud to her from useful books, showed her wonders
with his microscope, or prescribed remedies for the patients, whom he
soon knew by name and took much interest in. It was Nelly's holiday;
but, though she studied no lessons, she learned much, and
unconsciously made her pretty play both an example and a rebuke for
others.

At first it seemed a childish pastime, and people laughed. But there
was something in the familiar words "sanitary," "hospital," and
"ambulance" that made them pleasant sounds to many ears. As reports of
Nelly's work went through the neighborhood, other children came to see
and copy her design. Rough lads looked ashamed when in her wards they
found harmless creatures hurt by them, and going out they said among
themselves, "We won't stone birds, chase butterflies, and drown the
girls' little cats any more, though we won't tell them so." And most
of the lads kept their word so well that people said there never had
been so many birds before as all that summer haunted wood and field.
Tender-hearted playmates brought their pets to be cured; even busy
farmers had a friendly word for the small charity, which reminded them
so sweetly of the great one which should never be forgotten; lonely
mothers sometimes looked out with wet eyes as the little ambulance
went by, recalling thoughts of absent sons who might be journeying
painfully to some far-off hospital, where brave women waited to tend
them with hands as willing, hearts as tender, as those the gentle
child gave to her self-appointed task.

At home the charm worked also. No more idle days for Nelly, or fretful
ones for Will, because the little sister would not neglect the
helpless creatures so dependent upon her, and the big brother was
ashamed to complain after watching the patience of these lesser
sufferers, and merrily said he would try to bear his own wound as
quietly and bravely as the "Commodore" bore his. Nelly never knew how
much good she had done Captain Will till he went away again in the
early autumn. Then he thanked her for it, and though she cried for joy
and sorrow she never forgot it, because he left something behind him
which always pleasantly reminded her of the double success her little
hospital had won.

When Will was gone and she had prayed softly in her heart that God
would keep him safe and bring him home again, she dried her tears and
went away to find comfort in the place where he had spent so many
happy hours with her. She had not been there before that day, and when
she reached the door she stood quite still and wanted very much to cry
again, for something beautiful had happened. She had often asked Will
for a motto for her hospital, and he had promised to find her one. She
thought he had forgotten it; but even in the hurry of that busy day he
had found time to do more than keep his word, while Nelly sat indoors,
lovingly brightening the tarnished buttons on the blue coat that had
seen so many battles.

Above the roof, where the doves cooed in the sun, now rustled a white
flag with the golden "S. C." shining on it as the wind tossed it to
and fro. Below, on the smooth panel of the door, a skilful pencil had
drawn two arching ferns, in whose soft shadow, poised upon a mushroom,
stood a little figure of Nurse Nelly, and underneath it another of Dr.
Tony bottling medicine, with spectacles upon his nose. Both hands of
the miniature Nelly were outstretched, as if beckoning to a train of
insects, birds and beasts, which was so long that it not only circled
round the lower rim of this fine sketch, but dwindled in the distance
to mere dots and lines. Such merry conceits as one found there! A
mouse bringing the tail it had lost in some cruel trap, a dor-bug with
a shade over its eyes, an invalid butterfly carried in a tiny litter
by long-legged spiders, a fat frog with gouty feet hopping upon
crutches, Jenny Wren sobbing in a nice handkerchief, as she brought
dear dead Cock Robin to be restored to life. Rabbits, lambs, cats,
calves, and turtles, all came trooping up to be healed by the
benevolent little maid who welcomed them so heartily.

Nelly laughed at these comical mites till the tears ran down her
cheeks, and thought she never could be tired of looking at them. But
presently she saw four lines clearly printed underneath her picture,
and her childish face grew sweetly serious as she read the words of a
great poet, which Will had made both compliment and motto:--

  "He prayeth best who loveth best
     All things, both great and small;
  For the dear God who loveth us,
     He made and loveth all"




A FOX AND A RAVEN

By Rebecca Harding Davis


[_A raven, sitting high up on a limb, had a fine piece of cheese. He
was just going to enjoy it, when along came Mr. Fox. Now the fox
wanted the cheese, and he knew he could not catch the raven. So he
began to flatter the raven's croaking voice, and to beg the raven for
one of his "sweet songs." At last the poor raven, silly with flattery,
opened his mouth to sing--when lo! the cheese dropped to the ground,
and off ran the wily fox with the stolen treasure in his mouth. The
raven flew away, and never was heard of again._]

Donee was a king's daughter. She had heard her father talk of the
battles into which he had led his mighty warriors, and of how all the
world that she knew had once been his, from the hills behind which the
sun rose to the broad rushing river where it set. Now all of this
account was strictly true.

But the king, as he talked, wore no clothes but a muddy pair of cotton
trousers, and sat on a log in the sun, a pig rooting about his bare
feet. Black Joe, going by, called him a lazy old red-skin; and that
was true, too. But these differing accounts naturally confused Donee's
mind. When the old chief was dead, however, there was an end of all
talk of his warriors or battles. A large part of the land was left,
though; a long stretch of river bottom and forests, with but very
little swamp. Donee's brother, Oostogah, when he was in a good humor,
planted and hoed a field of corn (as he had no wife to do it for him),
and with a little fish and game, they managed to find enough to eat.
Oostogah and the little girl lived in a hut built of logs and mud,
and, as the floor of it never had been scrubbed, the grass actually
began to grow out of the dirt in the corners. There was a log
smouldering on the hearth, where Donee baked cakes of pounded corn and
beans in the ashes, and on the other side of the dark room was the
heap of straw where she slept. Besides this, there were two hacked
stumps of trees which served for chairs, and an iron pot out of which
they ate; and there you have the royal plenishing of _that_ palace.

All the other Indians had long ago gone West. Donee had nothing and
nobody to play with. She was as easily scared as a rabbit; yet
sometimes, when Oostogah was gone for days together, she was so lonely
that she would venture down through the swamp to peep out at the
water-mill and the two or three houses which the white people had
built. The miller, of all the white people, was the one that she liked
best to watch, he was so big and round, and jolly; and one day, when
he had met her in the path, he did not call her "Injun," or "red
nigger," as the others did, but had said: "Where's your brother, my
dear?" just as if she were white. She saw, sometimes, his two little
girls and boy playing about the mill-door, and they were round and
fat, and jolly, just like their father.

At last, one day Oostogah went down to the mill, and Donee plucked up
her courage and followed him. When she was there hiding close behind
the trough in which the horses were watered, so that nobody could see
her, she heard the miller say to her brother: "You ought to go to work
to clear your land, my lad. In two years there will be hundreds of
people moving in here, and you own the best part of the valley."

Oostogah nodded. "The whole country once belonged to my people."

"That's neither here nor there," said the miller. "Dead chickens don't
count for hatching. You go to work now and clear your land, and you
can sell it for enough to give you and this little girl behind the
trough an education. Enough to give you both a chance equal to any
white children."

Oostogah nodded again, but said nothing. He was shrewd enough, and
could work, too, when he was in the humor. "Come, Donee," he said.

But the miller's little Thad. and Jenny had found Donee behind the
trough, and the three were making a nettle basket together, and were
very well acquainted already.

"Let the child stay till you come back from fishing, Oostogah," said
the miller.

So Donee staid all the afternoon. Jenny and Betty rolled and shouted,
and could not talk fast enough with delight because they had this new
little girl to play with, and Thad. climbed all the trees, as Jenny
said, to "show off," and Betty tumbled into the trough head over heels
and was taken out dripping.

Donee was very quiet, but it was to her as if the end of the world had
come, all this was so happy and wonderful. She never had had anybody
to play with before.

Then, when Betty was carried in to be dried and dressed, there was,
too, the bright, cheerful room, with a lovely blue carpet on the
floor, and a white spread on the bed with fringe, and red dahlias that
shone in the sun, putting their heads in at the window. Betty's mother
did not scold when she took her wet clothes off, but said some funny
things which made them laugh. She looked at Donee now and then,
standing with her little hands clasped behind her back.

"Does your mother _never_ wash or dress you, Donee?" said Betty.

"She is dead," said Donee.

Betty's mother did not say any more funny things after that. When
she had finished dressing Betty, to the tying of her shoes, she called
the little Indian girl up to her.

"What can you do?" she said. "Sew? Make moccasins?"

She had the pleasantest voice. Donee was not at all afraid. "I can
sew. I can make baskets," she said. "I am going to make a basket for
every one of you."

"Very well. You can have a tea-party, Jenny, out of doors." Then she
opened a cupboard. "Here are the dishes," taking out a little box.
"And bread, jam, milk, sugar, and candy."

"Candy!" cried Betty, rushing out to tell Thad.

"Candy? Hooray!" shouted Thad.

For there are no shops out in that wild country where a boy can run
for a stick of lemon or gumdrops every time he gets a penny. It was
very seldom that Thad. or Betty could have a taste of those red and
white "bull's eyes" which their mother now took out of the jar in the
locked cupboard. They knew she brought it out to please the little
Indian girl, whose own mother was dead.

Jenny set the table for the tea-party under a big oak. There was a
flat place on one of the round roots that rose out of the moss, which
was the very thing for a table. So there she spread the little white
and gold plates and cups and saucers, with the meat dish (every bit as
large as your hand), in the middle, full of candy. The milk, of
course, was put in the pot for coffee, and set on three dead leaves to
boil; and Jenny allowed Donee to fill the jam dishes herself, with her
own hands. Donee could hardly get her breath as she did it.

When they were all ready they sat down. The sun shone, and the wind
was blowing, and the water of the mill-race flashed and gurgled as it
went by, and a song-sparrow perched himself on the fence close to them
and sang, and sang, just as if he knew what was going on.

"He wants to come to the party!" said Betty, and then they all
laughed. Donee laughed too.

The shining plates just fitted into the moss, and there was a little
pitcher, the round-bellied part of which was covered with sand, while
the handle and top were, Jenny said, of solid gold; that was put in
the middle of all.

Donee did not think it was like fairy-land or heaven, because she had
never in her life heard of fairy-land or heaven. She had never seen
anything but her own filthy hut, with its iron pot and wooden spoons.

When it was all over, the children's mother (Donee felt as if she was
her mother too) called her in, and took out of that same cupboard a
roll of the loveliest red calico.

"Now, Donee," she said, "if you can make yourself a dress of this I
will give you this box," and she opened a box, just like Jenny's.
Inside, packed in thin slips of paper, was a set of dishes; pure
white, with the tiniest rose-bud in the middle of each; cups, saucers,
meat-dish, coffee-pot, and all; and, below all, a pitcher, with sand
on the brown bottom, but the top and handle of solid gold!

Donee went back to the hut, trotting along beside Oostogah, her roll
of calico under her arm. The next day she cut it out into a slip and
began to sew.

Oostogah was at work all day cutting down dead trees. When he came in
at night, Donee said: "If you sold the land for much money, could we
have a home like the miller's?"

Oostogah was as much astonished as if a chicken had asked him a
question, but he said, "Yes."

"Would I be like Jenny and Betty?"

"You're a chief's daughter," grunted Oostogah.

One day in the next week she went down to the river far in the woods,
and took a bath, combing her long straight black hair down her
shoulders. Then she put on her new dress, and went down to the
miller's house. It was all very quiet, for the children were not
there, but their mother came to the door. She laughed out loud with
pleasure when she saw Donee. The red dress was just the right color
for her to wear with her dark skin and black hair. Her eyes were soft
and shy, and her bare feet and arms (like most Indian women's) pretty
enough to be copied in marble.

"You are a good child--you're a very good child! Here are the dishes.
I wish the children were at home. Sit right down on the step now and
eat a piece of pie."

But Donee could not eat the pie, her heart was so full.

"Hillo!" called the miller, when he saw her. "Why, what a nice girl
you are to-day, Dony! Your brother's hard at work, eh? It will all
come right, then."

Donee stood around for a long time, afraid to say what she wanted.

"What is it?" asked the miller's wife.

Donee managed to whisper, if she were to have a party the next day,
could the children come to it? and their mother said: "Certainly, in
the evening."

When the little girl ran down the hill, the miller said: "Seems as
if't would be easy to make Christians out of them two."

"I'm going to do what I can for Donee," said the miller's wife.

It was not so easy for the little red-skinned girl to have a party,
for she had neither jam nor bread, nor butter, not to mention candy.
But she was up very early the next morning, and made tiny little cakes
of corn, no bigger than your thumbnail, and she went to a hollow tree
she knew of and got a cupful of honey, and brought some red haws, and
heaps of nuts, hickory and chestnuts. When Oostogah had gone, she set
out her little dishes under a big oak, and dressed herself in her
lovely frock, though she knew the party could not begin for hours and
hours. The brown cakes and honey, and scarlet haws, were in the white
dishes, and the gold pitcher, with a big purple flower, was in the
middle. Donee sat down and looked at it all. In a year or two Oostogah
would build a house like the miller's, and she should have a blue
carpet on the floor, and a white bed, and wear red frocks every day,
like Betty.

Just then she heard voices talking. Oostogah had come back; he sat
upon a log; and the trader, who came around once a year, stood beside
him, a pack open at his feet. It was this peddler, Hawk, who was
talking.

"I tell you, Oostogy, the miller's a fool. There's no new settlers
coming here, and nobody wants your land. There's hundreds and
thousands of acres beyond better than this. You'd better take my
offer. Look at that suit!"

He held up short trousers of blue cloth worked with colored porcupine
quills, and a scarlet mantle glittering with beads and gold fringe.

"I don't want it," grunted Oostogah. "Sell my land for big pile
money."

"Oh, very well. I don't want to buy your land. There's thousands of
acres to be had for the asking, but there's not such a dress as that
in the United States. I had that dress made on purpose for you,
Oostogy. I said: 'Make me a dress for the son of a great chief. The
handsomest man'" (eying the lad from head to foot) "'that lives this
side of the great water.'"

Oostogah grunted, but his eyes began to sparkle.

"Here now, Oostogy, just try it on to please me. I'd like to see you
dressed like a chief for once."

Oostogah, nothing loth, dropped his dirty blanket, and was soon rigged
in the glittering finery, while Hawk nodded in rapt admiration.

"There's not a man in the country, red-skin or pale-face, but would
know you for the son of the great Denomah. Go look down in the creek,
Oostogy."

Oostogah went, and came back, walking more slowly. He began to take
off his mantle.

"There's a deputation from these Northern tribes going this winter to
see the Great Father at Washington. If Oostogy had a proper dress he
could go. But shall the son of Denomah come before the Great Father in
a torn horse-blanket?"

"Your words are too many," said Oostogah. "I have made up my mind. I
will sell you the land for the clothes."

Donee came up then, and stood directly before him, looking up at him.
But she said nothing. It is not the habit of Indian women and children
to speak concerning matters of importance.

Oostogah pushed her out of the way, and, with the trader, went into
the hut to finish their bargain.

In an hour or two her brother came to Donee. He had his new clothes in
a pack on his back. "Come," he said, pointing beyond the great river
to the dark woods.

"We will come back here again, Oostogah?"

"No; we will never come back."

Donee went to the tree and looked down at the party she had made; at
the little dishes with the rose on each. But she did not lift one of
them up. She took off her pretty dress and laid it beside them, and,
going to the hut, put on her old rags again. Then she came out and
followed her brother, whose face was turned toward the great dark
woods in the west.

When the miller's children came to the party that afternoon, a pig was
lying on Donee's red dress, and the dishes were scattered and broken.
But the hut was empty.

       *       *       *       *       *

A year afterward, the miller came back from a long journey. After he
had kissed and hugged his wife and little ones, he said: "You
remember, wife, how Hawk cheated that poor Indian lad out of his
land?"

"Yes; I always said it was the old story of the fox and the foolish
raven over again."

"It was the old story of the white and the red man over again. But out
in an Indian village I found Donee sick and starving."

The miller's wife jumped to her feet. The tears rushed to her eyes.
"What did you do? What did you do?"

"Well, there wasn't but one thing to do, and I did that." He went out
to the wagon and carried in the little Indian girl, and laid her on
the bed.

"Poor child! Poor child! Where is Oostogah?"

The miller shook his head. "Don't ask any questions about him. The
raven flew away to the woods, and was never heard of again. Better if
that were the end of Oostogah."

Donee, opening her tired eyes, saw the blue carpet and the white bed
where she lay, and the red dahlias shining in the sun and looking in
at the window, and beside her were the children, and the children's
mother smiling down on her with tears in her eyes.




THE PRIVATE THEATRICALS

By Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney


Saturday was a day of hammering, basting, draping, dressing,
rehearsing, running from room to room. Upstairs, in Mrs. Green's
garret, Leslie Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne, with a third party never
before introduced upon the stage, had a private practising; and at
tea-time, when the great hall was cleared, they got up there with Sin
Saxon and Frank Scherman, locked the doors, and in costume, with
regular accompaniment of bell and curtain, the performance was
repeated.

Dakie Thayne was stage-manager and curtain-puller; Sin Saxon and Frank
Scherman represented audience, with clapping and stamping, and
laughter that suspended both,--making as nearly the noise of two
hundred as two could,--this being an essential part of the rehearsal
in respect to the untried nerves of the _debutant_, which might easily
be a little uncertain.

"He stands fire like a Yankee veteran."

"It's inimitable," said Sin Saxon, wiping the moist merriment from her
eyes. "And your cap, Leslie! And that bonnet! And this unutterable old
oddity of a gown! Who did contrive it all? and where did they come
from? You'll carry off the glory of the evening. It ought to be the
last."

"No, indeed," said Leslie. "Barbara Frietchie must be last, of course.
But I'm so glad you think it will do. I hope they'll be amused."

"Amused! If you could only see your own face!"

"I see Sir Charles's, and that makes mine."

The new performer, you perceive, was an actor with a title.

That night's coach, driving up while the dress-rehearsal of the other
tableaux was going on at the hall, brought Cousin Delight to the Green
Cottage, and Leslie met her at the door.

Sunday morning was a pause and rest and hush of beauty and joy. They
sat--Delight and Leslie--by their open window, where the smell of the
lately harvested hay came over from the wide, sunshiny entrance of the
great barn, and away beyond stretched the pine woods, and the hills
swelled near in dusky evergreen, and indigo shadows, and lessened far
down toward Winnipiseogee, to where, faint and tender and blue, the
outline of little Ossipee peeped in between great shoulders so
modestly,--seen only through the clearest air on days like this.
Leslie's little table, with fresh white cover, held a vase of ferns
and white convolvulus and beside this Cousin Delight's two books that
came out always from the top of her trunk,--her Bible and her little
"Daily Food." To-day the verses from Old and New Testaments were
these:--"The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he
delighteth in his way." "Walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as
wise, redeeming the time."

They had a talk about the first,--"The steps,"--the little
details,--not merely the general trend and final issue; if, indeed,
these could be directed without the other.

"You always make me see things, Cousin Delight," Leslie said.

"It is very plain," Delight answered; "if people only would read the
Bible as they read even a careless letter from a friend, counting each
word of value, and searching for more meaning and fresh inference to
draw out the most. One word often answers great doubts and askings
that have troubled the world."

Afterward, they walked round by a still wood-path under the Ledge to
the North Village, where there was a service. It was a plain little
church, with unpainted pews; but the windows looked forth upon a green
mountain-side, and whispers of oaks and pines and river-music crept
in, and the breath of sweet water-lilies, heaped in a great bowl upon
the communion-table of common stained cherry-wood, floated up and
filled the place. The minister, a quiet, gray-haired man, stayed his
foot an instant at that simple altar, before he went up the few steps
to the desk. He had a sermon in his pocket from the text, "The hairs
of your heads are all numbered." He changed it at the moment in his
mind, and, when presently he rose to preach, gave forth, in a tone
touched, through the fresh presence of that reminding beauty, with the
very spontaneousness of the Master's own saying,--"Consider the
lilies." And then he told them of God's momently thought and care.

There were scattered strangers, from various houses, among the simple
rural congregation. Walking home through the pines again, Delight and
Leslie and Dakie Thayne found themselves preceded and followed along
the narrow way. Sin Saxon and Frank Scherman came up and joined them
when the wider openings permitted.

Two persons just in front were commenting upon the sermon.

"Very fair for a country parson," said a tall, elegant-looking man,
whose broad, intellectual brow was touched by dark hair slightly
frosted, and whose lip had the curve that betokens self-reliance and
strong decision,--"very fair. All the better for not flying too high.
Narrow, of course. He seems to think the Almighty has nothing grander
to do than to finger every little cog of the tremendous machinery of
the universe,--that he measures out the ocean of his purposes as we
drop a liquid from a phial. To me it seems belittling the Infinite."

"I don't know whether it is littleness or greatness, Robert, that must
escape minutiae," said his companion, apparently his wife. "If we
could reach to the particles, perhaps we might move the mountains."

"We never agree upon this, Margie. We won't begin again. To my mind,
the grand plan of things was settled ages ago,--the impulses generated
that must needs work on. Foreknowledge and intention, doubtless: in
that sense the hairs _were_ numbered. But that there is a special
direction and interference to-day for you and me--well, we won't
argue, as I said; but I never can conceive it so; and I think a wider
look at the world brings a question to all such primitive faith."

The speakers turned down a side-way with this, leaving the ledge path
and their subject to our friends. Only to their thoughts at first; but
presently Cousin Delight said, in a quiet tone, to Leslie, "That
doesn't account for the steps, does it?"

"I am glad it _can't_," said Leslie.

Dakie Thayne turned a look toward Leslie, as if he would gladly know
of what she spoke,--a look in which a kind of gentle reverence was
strangely mingled with the open friendliness. I cannot easily indicate
to you the sort of feeling with which the boy had come to regard this
young girl, just above him in years and thought and in the attitude
which true womanhood, young or old, takes toward man. He had no
sisters; he had been intimately associated with no girl-companions; he
had lived with his brother and an uncle and a young aunt, Rose. Leslie
Goldthwaite's kindness had drawn him into the sphere of a new and
powerful influence,--something different in thought and purpose from
the apparent unthought about her; and this lifted her up in his regard
and enshrined her with a sort of pure sanctity. He was sometimes
really timid before her, in the midst of his frank chivalry.

"I wish you'd tell me," he said suddenly, falling back with her as the
path narrowed again. "What are the 'steps?'"

"It was a verse we found this morning,--Cousin Delight and I," Leslie
answered; and as she spoke the color came up full in her cheeks, and
her voice was a little shy and tremulous. "'The steps of a good man
are ordered by the Lord.' That one word seemed to make one certain.
'Steps,'--not path, nor the end of it; but all the way." Somehow she
was quite out of breath as she finished.

Meantime Sin Saxon and Frank had got with Miss Goldthwaite, and were
talking too.

"Set spinning," they heard Sin Saxon say, "and then let go. That was
his idea. Well! Only it seems to me there's been especial pains taken
to show us it can't be done. Or else, why don't they find out
perpetual motion? Everything stops after a while, unless--I can't talk
theologically, but I mean all right--you hit it again."

"You've a way of your own of putting things, Asenath," said Frank
Scherman--with a glance that beamed kindly and admiringly upon her and
"her way,"--"but you've put that clear to me as nobody else ever did.
A proof set in the very laws themselves,--momentum that must lessen
and lose itself with the square of the distance. The machinery cavil
won't do."

"Wheels; but a living spirit within the wheels," said Cousin Delight.

"Every instant a fresh impulse; to think of it so makes it real, Miss
Goldthwaite,--and grand and awful." The young man spoke with a
strength in the clear voice that could be so light and gay.

"And tender, too. 'Thou layest Thine hand upon me,'" said Delight
Goldthwaite.

Sin Saxon was quiet; her own thought coming back upon her with a
reflective force, and a thrill at her heart at Frank Scherman's words.
Had these two only planned tableaux and danced Germans together
before?

Dakie Thayne walked on by Leslie Goldthwaite's side, in his happy
content touched with something higher and brighter through that
instant's approach and confidence. If I were to write down his thought
as he walked, it would be with phrase and distinction peculiar to
himself and to the boy-mind,--"It's the real thing with her; it don't
make a fellow squirm like a pin put out at a caterpillar. She's
_good_; but she isn't _pious_!"

This was the Sunday that lay between the busy Saturday and Monday. "It
is always so wherever Cousin Delight is," Leslie Goldthwaite said to
herself, comparing it with other Sundays that had gone. Yet she too,
for weeks before, by the truth that had come into her own life and
gone out from it, had been helping to make these moments possible. She
had been shone upon, and had put forth; henceforth she should scarcely
know when the fruit was ripening or sowing itself anew, or the good
and gladness of it were at human lips.

She was in Mrs. Linceford's room on Monday morning, putting high
velvet-covered corks to the heels of her slippers, when Sin Saxon came
over hurriedly, and tapped at the door.

"_Could_ you be _two_ old women?" she asked, the instant Leslie
opened. "Ginevra Thoresby has given out. She says it's her cold,--that
she doesn't feel equal to it; but the amount of it is, she got her
chill with the Shannons going away so suddenly, and the Amy Robsart
and Queen Elizabeth picture being dropped. There was nothing else to
put her in, and so she won't be Barbara."

"Won't be Barbara Frietchie!" cried Leslie, with an astonishment as if
it had been angelhood refused.

"No. Barbara Frietchie is only an old woman in a cap and kerchief, and
she just puts her head out of a window: the _flag_ is the whole of it,
Ginevra Thoresby says."

"_May_ I do it? Do you think I can be different enough in the
two? Will there be time?" Leslie questioned eagerly.

"We'll change the programme, and put 'Taking the Oath' between. The
caps can be different, and you can powder your hair for one,
and--_would_ it do to ask Miss Craydocke for a front for the other?"
Sin Saxon had grown delicate in her feeling for the dear old friend
whose hair had once been golden.

"I'll tell her about it, and ask her to help me contrive. She'll be
sure to think of anything that can be thought of."

"Only there's the dance afterward, and you had so much more costume
for the other," Sin Saxon said, demurringly.

"Never mind. I shall _be_ Barbara; and Barbara wouldn't dance, I
suppose."

"Mother Hubbard would, marvellously."

"Never mind," Leslie answered again, laying down the little slipper,
finished.

"She don't care _what_ she is, so that she helps along," Sin
Saxon said of her, rejoining the others in the hall. "I'm ashamed of
myself and all the rest of you, beside her. Now make yourselves as
fine as you please."

We must pass over the hours as only stories and dreams do, and put
ourselves, at ten of the clock that night, behind the green curtain
and the footlights, in the blaze of the three rows of bright lamps,
that, one above another, poured their illumination from the left upon
the stage, behind the wide picture-frame.

Susan Josselyn and Frank Scherman were just "posed" for "Consolation."
They had given Susan this part, after all, because they wanted Martha
for "Taking the Oath," afterward. Leslie Goldthwaite was giving a
hasty touch to the tent drapery and the gray blanket; Leonard
Brookhouse and Dakie Thayne manned the halyards for raising the
curtain; there was the usual scuttling about the stage for hasty
clearance; and Sin Saxon's hand was on the bell, when Grahame Lowe
sprang hastily in through the dressing-room upon the scene.

"Hold on a minute," he said to Brookhouse. "Miss Saxon, General
Ingleside and party are over at Green's,--been there since nine
o'clock. Oughtn't we to send compliments or something, before we
finish up?"

Then there was a pressing forward and an excitement. The wounded
soldier sprang from his couch; the nun came nearer, with a quick light
in her eye; Leslie Goldthwaite, in her mob cap, quilted petticoat,
big-flowered calico train, and high-heeled shoes; two or three
supernumeraries, in Rebel gray, with bayonets, coming on in "Barbara
Frietchie"; and Sir Charles, bouncing out from somewhere behind, to
the great hazard of the frame of lights,--huddled together upon the
stage and consulted. Dakie Thayne had dropped his cord and almost made
a rush off at the first announcement; but he stood now, with a
repressed eagerness that trembled through every fibre, and waited.

"Would he come?" "Isn't it too late?" "Would it be any compliment?"
"Won't it be rude not to?" "All the patriotic pieces are just coming!"
"Will the audience like to wait?" "Make a speech and tell 'em. You,
Brookhouse." "O, he _must_ come! Barbara Frietchie and the flag! Just
think!" "Isn't it grand?" "O, I'm so frightened!" These were the
hurried sentences that made the buzz behind the scenes; while in front
"all the world wondered." Meanwhile, lamps trembled, the curtain
vibrated, the very framework swayed.

"What is it? Fire?" queried a nervous voice from near the footlights.

"This won't do," said Frank Scherman. "Speak to them, Brookhouse.
Dakie Thayne, run over to Green's, and say,--The ladies' compliments
to General Ingleside and friends, and beg the honor of their presence
at the concluding tableaux."

Dakie was off with a glowing face, something like an odd, knowing
smile twinkling out from the glow also, as he looked up at Scherman
and took his orders. All this while he had said nothing.

Leonard Brookhouse made his little speech, received with applause and
a cheer. Then they quieted down behind the scenes, and a rustle and
buzz began in front,--kept up for five minutes or so, in gentle
fashion, till two gentlemen, in plain clothes, walked quietly in at
the open door; at sight of whom, with instinctive certainty, the whole
assembly rose. Leslie Goldthwaite, peeping through the folds of the
curtain, saw a tall, grand-looking man, in what may be called the
youth of middle age, every inch a soldier, bowing as he was ushered
forward to a seat vacated for him, and followed by one younger, who
modestly ignored the notice intended for his chief. Dakie Thayne was
making his way, with eyes alight and excited, down a side passage to
his post.

Then the two actors hurried once more into position; the stage was
cleared by a whispered peremptory order; the bell rung once, the tent
trembling with some one whisking further out of sight behind
it,--twice, and the curtain rose upon "Consolation."

Lovely as the picture is, it was lovelier in the living tableau. There
was something deep and intense in the pale calm of Susan Josselyn's
face, which they had not counted on even when they discovered that
hers was the very face for the "Sister." Something made you thrill at
the thought of what those eyes would show, if the downcast, quiet lids
were raised. The earnest gaze of the dying soldier met more, perhaps,
in its uplifting; for Frank Scherman had a look, in this instant of
enacting, that he had never got before in all his practisings. The
picture was too real for applause,--almost, it suddenly seemed, for
representation.

"Don't I know that face, Noll?" General Ingleside asked, in a low
tone, of his companion.

Instead of answering at once, the younger man bent further forward
toward the stage, and his own very plain, broad, honest face, full
over against the downcast one of the Sister of Mercy, took upon itself
that force of magnetic expression which makes a look felt even across
a crowd of other glances, as if there were but one straight line of
vision, and that between such two. The curtain was going slowly down;
the veiling lids trembled, and the paleness replaced itself with a
slow-mounting flush of color over the features, still held motionless.
They let the cords run more quickly then. She was getting tired, they
said; the curtain had been up too long. Be that as it might, nothing
could persuade Susan Josselyn to sit again, and "Consolation" could
not be repeated.

So then came "Mother Hubbard and her dog,"--the slow old lady and the
knowing beast that was always getting one step ahead of her. The
possibility had occurred to Leslie Goldthwaite as she and Dakie Thayne
amused themselves one day with Captain Green's sagacious Sir Charles
Grandison, a handsome black spaniel, whose trained accomplishment was
to hold himself patiently in any posture in which he might be placed,
until the word of release was given. You might stand him on his hind
legs, with paws folded on his breast; you might extend him on his
back, with helpless legs in air; you might put him in any attitude
possible to be maintained, and maintain it he would, faithfully, until
the signal was made. From this prompting came the Illustration of
Mother Hubbard. Also, Leslie Goldthwaite had seized the hidden
suggestion of application, and hinted it in certain touches of costume
and order of performance. Nobody would think, perhaps, at first, that
the striped scarlet and white petticoat under the tucked-up train, or
the common print apron of dark blue, figured with innumerable little
white stars, meant anything beyond the ordinary adjuncts of a
traditional old woman's dress; but when, in the second scene, the
bonnet went on,--an ancient marvel of exasperated front and crown,
pitched over the forehead like an enormous helmet, and decorated, upon
the side next the audience, with black and white eagle plumes
springing straight up from the fastening of an American shield,--above
all, when the dog himself appeared, "dressed in his clothes" (a cane,
an all-round white collar and a natty little tie, a pair of
three-dollar tasselled kid-gloves dangling from his left paw, and a
small monitor hat with a big spread-eagle stuck above the brim,--the
remaining details of costume being of no consequence),--when he stood
"reading the news" from a huge bulletin,--"LATEST BY CABLE FROM
EUROPE,"--nobody could mistake the personification of Old and Young
America.

It had cost much pains and many dainty morsels, to drill Sir Charles,
with all the aid of his excellent fundamental education; and the great
fear had been that he might fail them at the last. But the scenes were
rapid, in consideration of canine infirmity. If the cupboard was
empty, Mother Hubbard's basket behind was not; he got his morsels
duly; and the audience was "requested to refrain from applause until
the end." Refrain from laughter they could not, as the idea dawned
upon them and developed; but Sir Charles was used to that in the
execution of his ordinary tricks; he could hardly have done without it
better than any other old actor. A dog knows when he is having his
day, to say nothing of doing his duty; and these things are as
sustaining to him as to anybody. This state of his mind, manifest in
his air, helped also to complete the Young America expression. Mother
Hubbard's mingled consternation and pride at each successive
achievement of her astonishing puppy were inimitable. Each separate
illustration made its point. Patriotism, especially, came in when the
undertaker, bearing the pall with red-lettered border,--Rebellion,--finds
the dog, with upturned, knowing eye, and parted jaws, suggestive as
much of a good grip as of laughter, half risen upon fore-paws, as far
from "dead" as ever, mounting guard over the old bone "Constitution."

The curtain fell at last, amid peals of applause and calls for the
actors.

Dakie Thayne had accompanied with the reading of the ballad, slightly
transposed and adapted. As Leslie led Sir Charles before the curtain,
in response to the continued demand, he added the concluding stanza,--

  "The dame made a courtesy,
    The dog made a bow;
  The dame said, 'Your servant,'
    The dog said, 'Bow-wow.'"

Which, with a suppressed "Speak, sir!" from Frank Scherman, was
brought properly to pass. Done with cleverness and quickness from
beginning to end, and taking the audience utterly by surprise,
Leslie's little combination of wit and sagacity had been throughout a
signal success. The actors crowded round her. "We'd no idea of it!"
"Capital!" "A great hit!" they exclaimed. "Mother Hubbard is the star
of the evening," said Leonard Brookhouse. "No, indeed," returned
Leslie, patting Sir Charles's head,--"this is the dog-star." "Rather
a Sirius reflection upon the rest of us," rejoined Brookhouse,
shrugging his shoulders, as he walked off to take his place in the
"Oath," and Leslie disappeared to make ready for "Barbara Frietchie."

Several persons, before and behind the curtain, were making up their
minds, just now, to a fresh opinion. There was nothing so very slow or
tame, after all, about Leslie Goldthwaite. Several others had known
that long ago.

"Taking the Oath" was piquant and spirited. The touch of restive scorn
that could come out on Martha Josselyn's face just suited her part;
and Leonard Brookhouse was very cool and courteous, and handsome and
gentlemanly-triumphant as the Union officer.

"Barbara Frietchie" was grand. Grahame Lowe played Stonewall Jackson.
They had improvised a pretty bit of scenery at the back, with a few
sticks, some paint, brown carpet-paper, and a couple of mosquito-bars;--a
Dutch gable with a lattice window, vines trained up over it, and
bushes below. It was a moving tableau, enacted to the reading of
Whittier's glorious ballad. "Only an old woman in a cap and kerchief,
putting her head out at a garret window,"--that was all; but the fire
was in the young eyes under the painted wrinkles and the snowy hair;
the arm stretched itself out quick and bravely at the very instant of
the pistol-shot that startled timid ears; one skilful movement
detached and seized the staff in its apparent fall, and the
liberty-colors flashed full in Rebel faces, as the broken lower
fragment went clattering to the stage. All depended on the one instant
action and expression. These were perfect. The very spirit of Barbara
stirred her representative. The curtain began to descend slowly, and
the applause broke forth before the reading ended. But a hand, held
up, hushed it till the concluding lines were given in thrilling tones,
as the tableau was covered from sight.

  "Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,
  And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.

  "Honor to her! and let a tear
  Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.

  "Over Barbara Frietchie's grave,
  Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!

  "Peace and order and beauty draw
  Round thy symbol of light and law;

  "And ever the stars above look down
  On thy stars below in Frederick town!"

Then one great cheer broke forth, and was prolonged to three.

"Not be Barbara Frietchie!" Leslie would not have missed that thrill
for the finest beauty-part of all. For the applause--that was for the
flag, of course, as Ginevra Thoresby said.

The benches were slid out at a window upon a lower roof, the curtain
was looped up, and the footlights carried away; the "music" came up,
and took possession of the stage; and the audience hall resolved
itself into a ballroom. Under the chandelier, in the middle, a tableau
not set forth in the programme was rehearsed and added a few minutes
after.

Mrs. Thoresby, of course, had been introduced to the general; Mrs.
Thoresby, with her bright, full, gray curls and her handsome figure,
stood holding him in conversation between introductions, graciously
waiving her privilege as new-comers claimed their modest word. Mrs.
Thoresby took possession; had praised the tableaux, as "quite
creditable, really, considering the resources we had," and was
following a slight lead into a long talk, of information and advice on
her part, about Dixville Notch. The general thought he should go
there, after a day or two at Outledge.

Just here came up Dakie Thayne. The actors, in costume, were gradually
mingling among the audience, and Barbara Frietchie, in white hair,
from which there was not time to remove the powder, plain cap and
kerchief, and brown woolen gown, with her silken flag yet in her hand,
came with him. This boy, who "was always everywhere," made no
hesitation, but walked straight up to the central group, taking Leslie
by the hand. Close to the general, he waited courteously for a long
sentence of Mrs. Thoresby's to be ended, and then said, simply,--"Uncle
James, this is my friend Miss Leslie Goldthwaite. My brother, Dr.
Ingleside--why, where is Noll?"

Dr. Oliver Ingleside had stepped out of the circle in the last half of
the long sentence. The Sister of Mercy--no longer in costume, however--had
come down the little flight of steps that led from the stage to the
floor. At their foot the young army surgeon was shaking hands with
Susan Josselyn. These two had had the chess-practice together--and
other practice--down there among the Southern hospitals.

Mrs. Thoresby's face was very like some fabric subjected to chemical
experiment, from which one color and aspect has been suddenly and
utterly discharged to make room for something different and new.
Between the first and last there waits a blank. With this blank full
upon her, she stood there for one brief, unprecedented instant in her
life, a figure without presence or effect. I have seen a daguerreotype
in which were cap, hair, and collar, quite correct,--what should have
been a face rubbed out. Mrs. Thoresby rubbed herself out, and so
performed her involuntary tableau.

"Of course I might have guessed. I wonder it never occurred to me,"
Mrs. Linceford was replying, presently, to her vacuous inquiry. "The
name seemed familiar, too; only he called himself 'Dakie.' I remember
perfectly now. Old Jacob Thayne, the Chicago millionaire. He married
pretty little Mrs. Ingleside, the Illinois Representative's widow,
that first winter I was in Washington. Why, Dakie must be a dollar
prince!"

He was just Dakie Thayne, though, for all that. He and Leslie and
Cousin Delight,--the Josselyns and the Inglesides,--dear Miss
Craydocke, hurrying up to congratulate,--Marmaduke Wharne looking on
without a shade of cynicism in the gladness of his face, and Sin Saxon
and Frank Scherman flitting up in the pauses of dance and promenade,--well,
after all, these were the central group that night. The pivot of the
little solar system was changed; but the chief planets made but slight
account of that; they just felt that it had grown very warm and
bright.

"O Chicken Little!" Mrs. Linceford cried to Leslie Goldthwaite, giving
her a small shake with her good-night kiss at her door. "How did you
know the sky was going to fall? And how have you led us all this chase
to cheat Fox Lox at last?"

But that wasn't the way Chicken Little looked at it. She didn't care
much for the bit of dramatic _dénouement_ that had come about by
accident,--like a story, Elinor said,--or the touch of poetic justice
that tickled Mrs. Linceford's world-instructed sense of fun. Dakie
Thayne wasn't a sum that needed proving. It was very nice that this
famous general should be his uncle,--but not at all strange: they were
just the sort of people he _must_ belong to. And it was nicest of all
that Dr. Ingleside and Susan Josselyn should have known each other,--"in
the glory of their lives," she phrased it to herself, with a little
flash of girl-enthusiasm and a vague suggestion of romance.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Mrs. Linceford said to Dakie Thayne next
morning. "Everybody would have--" She stopped. She could not tell this
boy to his frank face that everybody would have thought more and made
more of him because his uncle had got brave stars on his shoulders,
and his father had died leaving two millions or so of dollars.

"I know they would have," said Dakie Thayne. "That was just it. What
is the use of telling things? I'll wait till I've done something that
tells itself."

There was a pretty general break-up at Outledge during the week
following. The tableaux were the _finale_ of the season's gayety,--of
this particular little episode, at least, which grew out of the
association together of these personages of our story. There might
come a later set, and later doings; but this last week of August sent
the mere summer-birds fluttering. Madam Routh must be back in New
York, to prepare for the reopening of her school; Mrs. Linceford had
letters from her husband, proposing to meet her by the first, in
N----, and so the Haddens would be off; the Thoresbys had stayed as
long as they cared to in any one place where there seemed no special
inducement; General Ingleside was going through the mountains to
Dixville Notch. Rose Ingleside,--bright and charming as her name,--just
a fit flower to put beside our Ladies' Delight,--finding out, at once,
as all girls and women did, her sweetness, and leaning more and more
to the rare and delicate sphere of her quiet attraction,--Oliver and
Dakie Thayne,--these were his family party; but there came to be
question about Leslie and Delight. Would not they make six? And since
Mrs. Linceford and her sisters must go, it seemed so exactly the thing
for them to fall into; otherwise Miss Goldthwaite's journey hither
would hardly seem to have been worth while. Early September was so
lovely among the hills; opportunities for a party to Dixville Notch
would not come every day; in short, Dakie had set his heart upon it,
Rose begged, the general was as pressing as true politeness would
allow, and it was settled.

"Only" Sin Saxon said, suddenly, on being told, "I should like if you
would tell me, General Ingleside, the precise military expression
synonymous with 'taking the wind out of one's sails.' Because that's
just what you've done for me."

"My dear Miss Saxon! In what way?"

"Invited my party,--some of them,--and taken my road. That's all. I
spoke first, though I didn't speak out loud. See here!" And she
produced a letter from her mother, received that morning. "Observe the
date, if you please,--August 24. 'Your letter reached me yesterday'
And it had travelled round, as usual, two days in papa's pocket,
beside. I always allow for that. 'I quite approve your plan; provided,
as you say, the party be properly matronized, I--h'm--h'm!--That
refers to little explanations of my own. Well, all is, I was going to
do this very thing,--with enlargements. And now Miss Craydocke and I
may collapse."

"Why? when with you and your enlargements we might make the most
admirable combination? At least, the Dixville road is open to all."

"Very kind of you to say so,--the first part, I mean,--if you could
possibly have helped it. But there are insurmountable obstacles on that
Dixville road--to us. There's a lion in the way. Don't you see we should
be like the little ragged boys running after the soldier-company? We
couldn't think of putting ourselves in that 'bony light,' especially
before the eyes of Mrs.--Grundy." This last, as Mrs. Thoresby swept
impressively along the piazza in full dinner costume.

"Unless you go first, and we run after you," suggested the general.

"All the same. You talked Dixville to her the very first evening, you
know. No, nobody can have an original Dixville idea any more. And I've
been asking them,--the Josselyns, and Mr. Wharne and all, and was just
coming to the Goldthwaites; and now I've got them on my hands, and I
don't know where in the world to take them. That comes of keeping an
inspiration to ripen. Well, it's a lesson of wisdom! Only, as Effie
says about her housekeeping, the two dearest things in living are
butter and experience!"

Amidst laughter and banter and repartee, they came to it, of course;
the most delightful combination and joint arrangement. Two wagons, the
general's and Dr. Ingleside's two saddle-horses, Frank Scherman's
little mountain mare, that climbed like a cat, and was sure-footed as
a chamois,--these with a side-saddle for the use of a lady sometimes
upon the last, make up the general equipment of the expedition.

All Mrs. Grundy knew was that they were wonderfully merry and excited
together, until this plan came out as the upshot.

The Josselyns had not quite consented at once, though their faces were
bright with a most thankful appreciation of the kindness that offered
them such a pleasure; nay, that entreated their companionship as a
thing so genuinely coveted to make its own pleasure complete. Somehow,
when the whole plan developed, there was a little sudden shrinking on
Sue's part, perhaps on similar grounds to Sin Saxon's perception of
insurmountable obstacles; but she was shyer than Sin of putting forth
her objections, and the general zeal and delight, and Martha's longing
look, unconscious of cause why not, carried the day.

There had never been a blither setting off from the Giant's Cairn. All
the remaining guests were gathered to see them go. There was not a
mote in the blue air between Outledge and the crest of Washington. All
the subtile strength of the hills--ores and sweet waters and resinous
perfumes and breath of healing leaf and root distilled to absolute
purity in the clear ether that only sweeps from such bare, thunder-scoured
summits--made up the exhilarant draught in which they drank the
mountain-joy and received afar off its baptism of delight.

It was beautiful to see the Josselyns so girlish and gay; it was
lovely to look at old Miss Craydocke, with her little tremors of
pleasure, and the sudden glistenings in her eyes; Sin Saxon's pretty
face was clear and noble, with its pure impulse of kindliness, and her
fun was like a sparkle upon deep waters. Dakie Thayne rushed about in
a sort of general satisfaction which would not let him be quiet
anywhere. Outsiders looked with a kind of new, half-jealous respect on
these privileged few who had so suddenly become the "General's party."
Sin Saxon whispered to Leslie Goldthwaite,--"It's neither his nor
mine, honeysuckle; it's yours,--Henny-penny and all the rest of it, as
Mrs. Linceford said." Leslie was glad with the crowning gladness of
her bright summer.

"That girl has played her cards well," Mrs. Thoresby said of her, a
little below her voice, as she saw the general himself making her
especially comfortable with Cousin Delight in a back seat.

"Particularly, my dear madam," said Marmaduke Wharne, coming close and
speaking with clear emphasis, "as she could not possibly have known
that she had a trump in her hand!"

       *       *       *       *       *

To tell of all that week's journeying, and of Dixville Notch,--the
adventure, the brightness, the beauty, and the glory,--the sympathy of
abounding enjoyment, the waking of new life that it was to some of
them,--the interchange of thought, the cementing of friendships,--would
be to begin another story, possibly a yet longer one. Leslie's summer,
according to the calendar, is already ended. Much in this world must
pause unfinished, or come to abrupt conclusion. People "die suddenly
at last," after the most tedious illnesses. "Married and lived happy
ever after," is the inclusive summary that winds up many an old tale
whose time of action only runs through hours. If in this summer-time
with Leslie Goldthwaite your thoughts have broadened somewhat with
hers, some questions for you have been partly answered; if it has
appeared to you how a life enriches itself by drawing toward and going
forth into the life of others through seeing how this began with her,
it is no unfinished tale that I leave with you.

A little picture I will give you farther on, a hint of something
farther yet, and say good by.

Some of them came back to Outledge, and stayed far into the still rich
September. Delight and Leslie sat before the Green Cottage one
morning, in the heart of a golden haze and a gorgeous bloom. All
around the feet of the great hills lay the garlands of early-ripened
autumn. You see nothing like it in the lowlands;--nothing like the
fire of the maples, the carbuncle-splendor of the oaks, the flash of
scarlet sumachs and creepers, the illumination of every kind of little
leaf, in its own way, upon which the frost-touch comes down from those
tremendous heights that stand rimy in each morning's sun, trying on
white caps that by and by they shall pull down heavily over their
brows, till they cloak all their shoulders also in the like sculptured
folds, to stand and wait, blind, awful chrysalides, through the long
winter of their death and silence.

Delight and Leslie had got letters from the Josselyns and Dakie Thayne.
There was news in them such as thrills always the half-comprehending
sympathies of girlhood. Leslie's vague suggestion of romance had
become fulfilment. Dakie Thayne was wild with rejoicing that dear old
Noll was to marry Sue. "She had always made him think of Noll, and his
ways and likings, ever since that day of the game of chess that by his
means came to grief. It was awful slang, but he could not help it: it
was just the very jolliest go!"

Susan Josselyn's quiet letter said,--"That kindness which kept us on
and made it beautiful for us, strangers, at Outledge, has brought to
me, by God's providence, this great happiness of my life."

After a long pause of trying to take it in, Leslie looked up. "What a
summer this has been! So full,--so much has happened! I feel as if I
had been living such a great deal!"

"You have been living in others' lives. You have had a great deal to
do with what has happened."

"O Cousin Delight! I have only been _among_ it! I could not _do_
--except such a very little."

"There is a working from us beyond our own. But if our working runs
with that--? You have done more than you will ever know, little one."
Delight Goldthwaite spoke very tenderly. Her own life, somehow, had
been closely touched, through that which had grown and gathered about
Leslie. "It depends on that abiding. 'In me, and I in you; so shall ye
bear much fruit.'"

She stopped. She would not say more. Leslie thought her talking rather
wide of the first suggestion; but this child would never know, as
Delight had said, what a centre, in her simple, loving way, she had
been for the working of a purpose beyond her thought.

Sin Saxon came across the lawn, crowned with gold and scarlet,
trailing creepers twined about her shoulders, and flames of beauty in
her full hands. "Miss Craydocke says she praised God with every leaf
she took. I'm afraid I forgot to--for the little ones. But I was so
greedy and so busy, getting them all for her. Come, Miss Craydocke;
we've got no end of pressing to do, to save half of them!"

"She can't do enough for her. O Cousin Delight, the leaves _are_
glorified, after all! Asenath never was so charming; and she is more
beautiful than ever!"

Delight's glance took in also another face than Asenath's, grown into
something in these months that no training or taking thought could
have done for it. "Yes," she said, in the same still way in which she
had spoken before, "that comes, too,--as God wills. All things shall
be added."

       *       *       *       *       *

My hint is of a Western home, just outside the leaping growth and
ceaseless stir of a great Western city; a large, low, cosy mansion,
with a certain Old-World mellowness and rest in its aspect,--looking
forth, even, as it does on one side, upon the illimitable sunset-ward
sweep of the magnificent promise of the New; on the other, it catches
a glimpse, beyond and beside the town, of the calm blue of a
fresh-water ocean.

The place is "Ingleside"; the general will call it by no other than
the family name,--the sweet Scottish synonym for Home-corner. And
here, while I have been writing and you reading these pages, he has
had them all with him; Oliver and Susan, on their bridal journey,
which waited for summertime to come again, though they have been six
months married; Rose, of course, and Dakie Thayne, home in vacation
from a great school where he is studying hard, hoping for West Point
by and by; Leslie Goldthwaite, who is Dakie's inspiration still; and
our Flower, our Pansie, our Delight,--golden-eyed Lady of innumerable
sweet names.

The sweetest and truest of all, says the brave soldier and high-souled
gentleman, is that which he has persuaded her to wear for life,--Delight
Ingleside.




A CASE OF COINCIDENCE

By Rose Terry Cooke


She was a queer old lady, was Grandmother Grant; she was not a bit
like other grandmothers; she was short and fat and rosy as a winter
apple, with a great deal of snow-white hair set up in a big puff on
top of her head, and eyes as black as huckleberries, always puckered
up with smiles or laughter.

She never would wear a cap.

"I can't be bothered with 'em!" she said: and when Amelia Rutledge,
who was determined her grandma should, as she said, "look half-way
decent," made her two beautiful little mob caps, soft and fluffy, and
each with a big satin bow, one lavender and one white, put on to show
where the front was, Grandma never put them on right; the bow was over
one ear or behind, or the cap itself was awry, and in the end she
pulled them off and stuck them on a china jar in the parlor, or a tin
canister on the kitchen shelf, and left them there till flies and dust
ruined them.

"Amelia's as obstinate as a pig!" said the old lady: "she would have
me wear 'em, and I wouldn't!"

That was all, but it was enough; not a grandchild ever made her
another cap. Moreover Grandmother Grant always dressed in one fashion;
she had a calico dress for morning and a black silk for the afternoon,
made with an old-fashioned surplice waist, with a thick plaited ruff
about her throat; she sometimes tied a large white apron on, but only
when she went into the kitchen; and she wore a pocket as big as three
of yours, Matilda, tied on underneath and reached through a slit in
her gown. Therein she kept her keys, her smelling-bottle, her
pocket-book, her handkerchief and her spectacles, a bit of flagroot
and some liquorice stick. I mean when I say this, that all these
things belonged in her pocket, and she meant to keep them there; but
it was one peculiarity of the dear old lady, that she always lost her
necessary conveniences, and lost them every day.

"Maria!" she would call out to her daughter in the next room, "have
you seen my spectacles?"

"No, mother; when did you have them?"

"Five minutes ago, darning Harry's stockings; but never mind, there's
another pair in the basket."

In half an hour when Gerty came into her room for something she
needed, Grandmother would say:

"Gerty, do look on the floor and see if my specs lie anywhere around."

Gerty couldn't find them, and then Grandma would say:

"Probably they dropped out on the grass under the window, you can see
when you go down; but give me my gold pair out of my upper drawer."

And when Mrs. Maria went to call her mother down to dinner she would
find her hunting all about the room, turning her cushions over,
peering into the wood-basket, shaking out the silk quilt, and say
"What is it you want, mother?"

"My specs, dear. I can't find one pair."

"But there are three on your head now!" and Grandma would sit down and
laugh till she shook all over, as if it were the best joke in the
world to push your spectacles up over the short white curls on your
forehead, one pair after another, and forget all about them.

She mislaid her handkerchief still oftener. Gerty would sometimes pick
up six of these useful articles in one day where the old lady dropped
them as she went about the house; but the most troublesome of all her
habits was a way she had of putting her pocket-book in some queer
place every night, or if ever she left home in the day-time, and then
utterly forgetting where she had secreted it from the burglars or
thieves she had all her life expected.

The house she lived in was her own, but Doctor White who had married
her daughter Maria, rented it of her, and the rent paid her board; she
had a thousand dollars a year beside, half of which she reserved for
her dress and her charities, keeping the other half for her Christmas
gifts to her children and grandchildren. There were ten of these last,
and the ten always needed something. Gerty White, the doctor's
daughter, was twelve years old; she had three brothers: Tom, John, and
Harry, all older than she was. Mrs. Rutledge, who had been Annie
Grant, was a widow with three daughters--Sylvia, Amelia, and Anne,
these latter two now out in society and always glad of new dresses,
gloves, bonnets, ribbons, lace, and the thousand small fineries girls
never have to their full satisfaction. There were Thomas Grant's two
girls of thirteen and fifteen, Rosamond and Kate, and his little boy
Hal, crippled in his babyhood so that he must always go on crutches,
but as bright and happy as Grandma herself, and her prime favorite.

Now it was Grandma's way to draw her money out of the bank two weeks
before Christmas, and go into Boston with Mrs. White to buy all the
things she had previously thought over for these ten and their
parents; and one winter she had made herself all ready to take the
ten-o'clock train, and had just taken her pocket-book out of the
drawer when she was called down-stairs to see a poor woman who had
come begging for some clothes for her husband.

"Come right upstairs, Mrs. Slack," said Grandma. "I don't have many
applications for men's things, so I guess there's a coat of Mr.
Grant's put away in the camphor chest, and maybe a vest or so; you sit
right down by my fire whilst I go up to the garret and look."

It took Grandma some time to find the clothes under all the shawls and
blankets in the chest, and when she had given them to Mrs. Slack she
had to hurry to the station with her daughter, and the cars being on
the track they did not stop to get tickets, but were barely in time to
find seats when the train rolled off. The conductor came round in a
few minutes and Grandma put her hand in her pocket, suddenly turned
pale, opened her big satchel and turned out all its contents, stood up
and shook her dress, looked on the floor, and when Mrs. White said in
amazement, "What _is_ the matter, mother?" she answered curtly, "I've
lost my pocket-book."

"Was it in your pocket?" asked Maria.

"Yes; at least I s'pose so: I certainly took it out of my drawer, for
I noticed how heavy 'twas; that new cashier gave me gold for most of
it, you see."

"You'd have known then if you dropped it on the way, mother."

"I should think so: any way, I can't go to Boston without it! We may
as well stop at the next station and go back."

So back they went; asked at the ticket office if any such thing had
been picked up on the platform, and leaving a description of it, went
rather forlornly back to the house. Here a terrible upturning of
everything took place; drawers were emptied, cupboards ransacked,
trunks explored, even the camphor chest examined to its depths, and
everything in it shaken out.

"You don't suspect Mrs. Slack?" inquired Maria.

"Sally Slack! no, indeed. I've known her thirty year, Maria; she's
honest as the daylight."

Still Maria thought it best to send for Mrs. Slack and inquire if she
had seen it when she was at the house.

"Certain, certain!" answered the good woman. "I see Mis' Grant hev it
into her hand when she went up charmber; I hedn't took no notice of it
before, but she spoke up an' says, says she, 'I'll go right up now,
Mis' Slack, for I'm in some of a hurry, bein' that I'm a goin' in the
cars to Bosstown for to buy our folkses' Christmas things;' so then I
took notice 't she hed a pocket-book into her hand."

This was valuable testimony, and Mrs. Slack's face of honest concern
and sympathy showed her innocence in the matter. Next day there was an
advertisement put in the paper, for the family concluded Grandma must
have dropped her money in the street going to the station, but the
advertisement proved as fruitless as the search, and for once in her
life the dear old lady was downcast enough.

"The first time I never gave 'em a thing on Christmas! I do feel real
downhearted about it, Maria. There's Annie's three girls lotted so on
their gloves an' nicknacks for parties this winter, for I was goin' to
give them gold pieces so's they could get what they wanted sort of
fresh when they _did_ want it; and poor Gerty's new cloak!"

"Oh, never mind that, mother. I can sponge and turn and fix over the
old one; a plush collar and cuffs will make it all right."

"But there's the boys. Tom did want that set of tools and a bench for
'em; and I reckoned on seeing Harry's eyes shine over a real
Newfoundland dog. That makes me think; won't you write to that man in
New York? I've changed my mind about the dog. And Jack can't go to
Thomas's now for vacation; oh dear!"

"_Don't_ worry, mother," said Maria; but Grandma went on:

"Kate and Rosy too, they won't get their seal muffs and caps, and dear
little Hal! how he will long for the books I promised him. It's real
trying, Maria!" and Grandma wiped a tear from her eyes, a most unusual
symptom.

But it was her way to make the best of things, and she sat down at
once to tell Thomas of her loss, and then put it out of her mind as
well as she might.

It spoke well for all those ten grandchildren that they each felt far
more sorry for Grandmother Grant's disappointment than their own, and
all resolved to give her a present much nicer and more expensive than
ever before, pinching a little on their other gifts to the end; and
because they had to spare from their own presents for this laudable
purpose, it was natural enough that not one should tell another what
they meant to send her, lest it should seem too extravagant in
proportion to what the rest of the family received. Christmas morning
the arrival began. The stocking of Grandpa's which Gerty had insisted
on hanging to the knob of Grandma's door was full, and when she came
down to breakfast she brought it with her still unsearched, that the
family might enjoy her surprise.

At the top a square parcel tied with blue ribbon