A Round Dozen
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But Karen was unlike other people, the neighbors said, and the old gossips were wont to shake their heads, and mutter that there was a reason for this unlikeness, and that all good Christians ought to pity and pray for the poor child.
Long, long ago, said these gossips, – so long that nobody now could remember exactly when it was, – Karen's great-great-great-grandfather, (or perhaps his grandfather – who could tell?) when hunting in the high mountains, met a beautiful, tiny maiden, so small and light that a man could easily carry her in the palm of one hand. This maiden he fell in love with, and he won her to be his wife. She made a good wife; kept the house as bright as new tin; and on her wheel spun linen thread so fine that mortal eye could hardly see it. But a year and a day from the time of her marriage she went out to walk in the wood, and never came back any more! The reason of this was, that she was a gnomide, – daughter of one of the forest gnomes, – and when her own people encountered her thus alone, they detained her, and would not suffer her to return to her husband. The baby she left in the cradle grew to be a woman, – bigger than her gnome mother, it is true, but still very small; and all the women of the race have been small since that time. Witness little Karen herself, whose head only came up to the shoulder of her tall Fritz. Then her passion for woods and solitary places, her beautiful swift spinning, her hair, of that peculiar pale white-brown shade, – all these were proofs of the drops of unearthly blood which ran in her veins. Gnomes always had white hair. This was because they lived in holes and dark places. Even a potato would throw out white leaves if kept in a cellar, – everybody knew that, – and the gossips, ending thus, would shake their heads again, and look very wise.
Karen had heard these stories, and laughed at them. No fairy or gnome had ever met her eyes in the woods she loved so well; and as for hair, Rosel Pilaff's, and Gretchen Erl's too, was almost as pale as hers. Fair hair is common enough in the German mountains. Her little boy – bless him! – had downy rings which promised to become auburn in time, the color of his father's beard. She did not believe in the gnome story a bit.
But there came a time when she almost wished to believe it, for the gnomes are said to be wise folk, and little Fritz fell ill of a strange disease, which neither motherly wisdom nor motherly nursing was able to reach. Each day left him thinner and weaker, till he seemed no more than half his former size. His very face looked strange as it lay on the cradle-pillow, and Karen was at her wits' end to know what to do.
"I will go to the village and ask Mother Klaus to come and see the child," said Fritz. "She may know of a remedy."
"It will be of no use," declared Karen, sadly. "She went to the Berards' and the baby died, and to Heinrich's and little Marie died. But go, go, Fritz! – only come back soon, lest our angel take flight while you are away!"
She almost pushed him from the door, in her impatience to have him return.
A while after, when the baby had wailed himself to sleep, she went again to the door to look down the path into the valley. It was too soon to hope for Fritz, but the movement seemed a relief to her restlessness. It was dusk, not dark, – a sweet, mild dusk, with light enough left to show the tree-branches as they met and waved against the dim yellow sky. Deep shadows lay on the moss-beds and autumn flowers which grew beneath; only a faint perfume here and there told of their presence, and the night was very near.
Too unhappy to mind the duskiness, Karen wandered a little way up the wood-path, and sat down on the root of an old oak, so old that the rangers had given it the name of "Herr Grandfather." It was only to clear her brimming eyes that she sat down. She wiped them with her kerchief, and, with one low sob, was about to rise, when she became aware that somebody was standing at her side.
This somebody was a tiny old woman, with a pale, shadowy, but sweet face, framed in flossy white hair. She wore a dark, foreign-looking robe; a pointed hood, edged with fur, was pulled over her head; and the hand which she held out as she spoke was as white as the stalk of celery.
"What is the matter, my child?" she asked, in a thin, rustling voice, which yet sounded pleasantly, because it was kind.
"My baby is so ill," replied Karen, weeping.
"How ill?" inquired the old woman, anxiously. "Is it cold? Is it fever? Do its eyes water? My baby once had a cold, and her eyes – " She stopped abruptly.
"His eyes do not water," said Karen, who felt singularly at home with the stranger. "But his head is hot, and his hands; he sleeps ill, and for these ten days has hardly eaten. He grows thinner and whiter every hour, and wails whenever he is awake. Oh, what am I doing? I must go back to him." And, as she spoke, she jumped from her seat.
"One minute!" entreated the little old woman. "Has he pain anywhere?"
"He cries when I move his head," said Karen, hurrying on.
The stranger went too, keeping close beside her in a swift, soundless way.
"Take courage, Liebchen, child to her who was child of my child's child," she said. "Weep not, my darling. I will send you help. Out of the wisdom of the earth shall come aid for the little dear one."
"What do you mean?" cried Karen, stopping short in her surprise.
But the old woman did not answer. She had vanished. Had the wind blown her away?
"How could I wander so far? How could I leave my baby? Wicked mother that I am!" exclaimed Karen, in sudden terror, as she ran into the cottage.
But nothing seemed disturbed, and no one had been there. The baby lay quietly in his cradle, and the room was quite still, save for the hiss of the boiling pot and the fall of an ember on the hearth. Gradually her heart ceased its terrified beating; a sense of warmth and calm crept over her, her eyes drooped, and, seated at the cradle-foot, she fell asleep in her chair.
Whether it was an hour or a minute that she slept, she never knew. Slowly and dimly her waking senses crept back to her; but though she heard and saw and understood, she could neither stir nor speak. Two forms were bending over the cradle, forms of little men, venerable and shadowy, with hair like snow, and blanched, pale hands, like her visitor of the afternoon. They did not look at Karen, but consulted together above the sleeping child.
"It is here, brother, and here," said one, laying his finger gently on the baby's head and heart.
"Does it lie too deep for our reaching?" asked the second, anxiously.
"No. The little herb you know of is powerful."
"And the crystal dust you know of is more powerful still."
Then they took out two minute caskets, and Karen saw them open the baby's lips, and each drop in a pinch of some unknown substance.
"He is of ours," whispered one, "more of ours than any of them have been since the first."
"He has the gift of the far sight," said the other, lightly touching the closed eyes, "the divining glance, and the lucky finger."
"I read in him the apprehension of metals," said the second old man, "the sense of hidden treasures, the desire to penetrate."
"We will teach him how the waters run, and what the birds say – yes, and the way in and the way out!"
"Put the charm round his neck, brother."
Then Karen saw the little men tie a bright object round the baby's neck. She longed to move, but still she sat mute and powerless, while the odd figures passed round the cradle, slowly at first, then faster and faster, crooning, as they went, a song which was like wind in branches, and of which this scrap lodged in her memory: —
"Eyes to pierce the darkness through,Wit to grasp the hidden clew,Heart to feel and hand to do, —These the gnomes have given to you."So the song and the circling movement went on, faster and more fast, and round and round, till Karen's head swam and her senses seemed to spin in a whirling dance; and she knew no more till roused by the opening of the door, and Fritz's voice exclaiming: "Come in, Dame Klaus – come in! Karen! Where are you, wife? Ah, here she is, fast asleep, and the little man is asleep too."
"I am not asleep," said Karen, finding her voice with an effort. Then, to her husband's surprise, she began to weep bitterly. But, for all his urgings, she would not tell the cause, for she was afraid of Dame Klaus's tongue.
The dame shook her head over the sick baby. He was very bad, she said; still, she had brought through others as bad as he, and there was no telling. She asked for a saucepan, and began to brew a tea of herbs, while Karen, drawing her husband aside, told her wonderful tale in a whisper.
"Thou wert dreaming, Karen; it is nothing but a dream," declared the astounded Fritz.
"No, no," protested Karen. "It was not a dream. Baby will be well again, and great things are to happen! You will see! The little men know!"
"Little men! Oh, Karen! Karen!" exclaimed Fritz.
But he said no more, for Karen, bending over the cradle, lifted the strange silver coin which was tied round the baby's neck, and held it up to him with a smile. A silver piece is not a dream, as every one knows; so Fritz, though incredulous, held his tongue, and neither he nor Karen said a word of the matter to Mother Klaus.
Baby was better next day. It was all the herb-tea, Mother Klaus declared, and she gained great credit for the cure.
This happened years ago. Little Fritz grew to be a fine man, sound and hearty, though never as tall as his father. He was a lucky lad too, the villagers said, for his early taste for minerals caught the attention of a rich gentleman, who sent him to the school of mines, where he got great learning. Often when the mother sat alone at her wheel, a smile came to her lips, and she hummed low to herself the song of the little old men: —
"Eyes to pierce the darkness through,Wit to grasp the hidden clew,Heart to feel and hand to do, —These the gnomes have given to you."HELEN'S THANKSGIVING
MAMMA, would you mind very much if I should learn to make pies?"
This request sounds harmless, but Mrs. Sands quite started in her chair as she heard it. She and Helen were sitting on either side of a wood-fire. The blinds had been pulled down to exclude the chill November darkness, and the room was lit only by the blazing logs, which sent out quick, bright flashes followed by sudden soft shadows, in that unexpected way which is one of the charms of wood-fires. It was a pretty room, in a pretty house, in one of the up-town streets of New York, and the mother and daughter looked very comfortable as they sat there together.
"Pies, my dear? What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you, mamma. You're going to Grandmamma Ellis for Thanksgiving, this year, you know, and papa and I are going up to Vermont, to Grandmother Sands?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't remember grandmother much, because it is so long since she was here, but the one thing I do recollect is how troubled she was because I didn't know anything about housekeeping. One day you had a headache, and wanted some tea; and you rang and rang, and Jane was ever so long in fetching it, and at last grandma said, 'Why don't you run down and see to it, Helen?' And when I told her that I wasn't allowed to go into the kitchen, and beside that I didn't know how to make tea, she looked so distressed, and said, 'Dear me, dear me! Poor little ignorant girl! What a sad bringing up for you in a country like ours!' I didn't understand exactly what she meant, but I have never forgotten it, and do you know, mamma, just that one speech of grandma's has made me want to do ever so many things. I never told you, but once I made my bed for more than a week, – till Bridget said I was 'worth my salt as a chambermaid,' and I used to dust the nursery, and sweep. And the other day it came into my head suddenly how pleased grandmother would be if I carried her a pumpkin-pie that I had made myself; so I asked Morrison, and she said she'd teach me, and welcome, if you didn't mind. Do you mind, mamma?"
"You know, dear, I don't like to have you about with the servants, and I never wanted you to become a drudge at home, as so many American girls are. Then you have your lessons to attend to besides."
"Yes, mamma, I know, but it will only take one morning, and I'll not begin till school closes, if you'd rather not. I really would like to so much, mamsie?"
Helen's pet name for her mother was coaxingly spoken, and had its effect. Mrs. Sands yielded.
"Very well, dear; you may, if you like, only I wish you could wear gloves."
"O mamma! nobody makes pies in gloves. But I needn't put my hands in at all, except for rolling the paste, Morrison says so."
Mrs. Sands was not so silly a woman as she sounds. Born and bred in the West Indies, the constant talk about servants and housekeeping, that met her ears when she came to New York, a young married woman, so puzzled and annoyed her that she somewhat rashly decided that her child should never know anything about such matters. Morrison, the good old cook, had lived with her since Helen was a baby, and all had gone so smoothly that there had never seemed occasion for interference from anybody. And Helen would have grown up in utter ignorance of all practical matters, had not a chance remark of her thrifty New England grandmother piqued her into the voluntary wish of learning.
It was with a good deal of excitement, and a little sense of victory as well, that Helen went downstairs, a few days later, to take the promised lesson. The kitchen looked very cheerful and neat, and Morrison was all ready with her spice-box, eggs, pie-dishes, and great yellow bowl full of strained pumpkin; likewise a big calico apron to tie over Helen's dress. First they made the crust. It was such good fun pinching the soft bits of lard into the nice, dry-feeling flour, that Helen would willingly have prolonged the operation, but Morrison objected. Pastry didn't like to be fingered, she said; and she made Helen wash her hands, and then mix in the ice-water with a thin-bladed knife, cutting and chopping till all was moistened into a rough sort of dough. Next, she produced the rolling-pin, and showed her how to beat the dough with dexterous strokes, up and down, and cross-ways, till it became a smooth paste, which felt as soft as velvet, and then how to roll it into a smooth sheet, lay on the butter in thin flakes, fold and roll again.
"Now wrap this towel all round it, and I'll set it into the ice-chest till we want it," she said. "It'll puff the minute it goes into the oven, never fear; I can always tell. You like it, – don't you, – Miss Helen dear?"
"Yes, indeed, ever so much. I hope the pies will be good; grandmamma will be so pleased."
"They'll be good," pronounced Morrison, confidently. "Now sift in plenty of sugar, miss."
So Helen put in "plenty" of sugar, and then, as directed, grated lemon-peel, lemon-juice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, melted butter, a pinch of salt, beaten eggs, a dash of rose-water, and then a little more sugar, and "just the least taste of cinnamon," till Morrison pronounced the flavor exactly right, and Helen declared that for all she could see, pumpkin-pies were made of anything in the world except pumpkins. Last of all went in a great pour of hot milk; then the pie-dishes were lined, filled, and set in the oven, after being ornamented with all manner of zigzags and curly-queues of paste round their edges; and Helen rushed upstairs to tell her mother that pie-making was "just lovely," and she would like to be a cook always, she thought. By Morrison's advice she wrote the whole process down in a book while it was fresh in her mind, and she was glad afterwards that she had done so, as you will see.
That same afternoon Mrs. Sands went on to Philadelphia, and next morning early Helen and her father started for their journey to Vermont. It was gray, blustering weather, but neither of them cared for that. Papa was in high spirits, and full of fun as a school-boy. Their baggage comprised, besides two valises, a big hamper full of all sorts of nice things for grandmother, game and fruit and groceries, and Helen carried a flat basket in her hand, in which, wrapped in a snowy napkin, reposed one of the precious pies.
"Bless me, how raw it is! It looks as though it were going to snow," said Mr. Sands, as he came in from a walk up and down the platform of one of the little stations at which the train stopped; and five minutes later Helen, with a little scream of surprise, cried out, "Why, papa, it is snowing!" Sure enough it was, – in fine snow-flakes, which before long thickened into a heavy fall.
"It will only be a squall," Mr. Sands said; but the conductor shook his head, and remarked that up there so near the mountains there was no calculating on weather. It might stop in half an hour, or it might go on all night: no one could pretend to say beforehand which it would do.
By the time they reached Asham, their stopping-place, the ground was solid white. The wind, too, had risen, and was drifting the snow in all directions. The tavern-keeper at Asham, to whom Mr. Sands went for "a team," advised them to stay all night, but this both Helen and her father agreed was not to be thought of. It was only fourteen miles. Grandmamma was expecting them, and must not be disappointed. So, well wrapped in carriage blankets and buffalo robes, they set out in a light covered rockaway, with a stout horse, their baggage packed in behind them.
Fourteen miles may seem a very short distance or a very long one, according to circumstances. Before they had gone half-way both of them began to think it an extremely long one. The road lay up hill for the greater part of the way. Night was coming on fast, and every moment the drift grew thicker and more confusing. Mr. Sands in his secret heart repented that he had not taken the tavern-keeper's advice, and stayed at Asham. At last the horse, which had halted several times and been urged on again, came to a dead stop. Mr. Sands touched him with the whip, but he would not stir. He jumped up to see what was the matter, and found the poor animal up to his chest in snow. He had wandered from the road a little and plunged into a drift. Mr. Sands tried to turn him toward the road, when, lo, a loud and ominous crack was heard, and Helen gave a scream. One of the shafts had snapped in two.
Matters now looked serious. Mr. Sands undid the harness as fast as possible, for he feared the horse might flounder to release himself, and upset the carriage. Then he climbed into the rockaway again, and stood up to see if he could anywhere see the light of a house. No; a twinkling beam was visible farther up the hill, about a quarter of a mile away.
"Helen," he said, "I'll have to ask you to sit here quietly for ten minutes or so, while I ride on to a house which I see up there, and get some one to help us. Will you be afraid to be left alone? It's only for a little while."
"N-o; but O papa! must you go? I'm so afraid the horse will kick, or you'll tumble off."
"Never fear," – trying to laugh, – "I really must go, dear; it's our only chance of getting out of this scrape. Promise me to sit perfectly still, and on no account to leave the carriage."
It seemed much longer than ten minutes before papa got back, but there he was at last, with another man carrying a lantern, both of them white with snow up to their waists.
"All right, Helen," he cried cheerily. "Wrap all the blankets round your shoulders; I'm going to set you on the horse, and Mr. Simmons and I – this is Mr. Simmons, my dear – will walk on either side and hold you on; we'll have you up the hill in a trice."
Helen did not like it at all. The horse felt dreadfully alive under her, and jerked so, as he plunged up hill through the snow, that she was constantly afraid of tumbling off. It did not last long, however. In five minutes her father had lifted and carried her in, and set her down in a kitchen, where a woman with a candle in her hand stood waiting for them.
"This is Mrs. Simmons," he said. "She is so kind as to say that she will keep us till to-morrow morning, when perhaps the snow will have stopped, and, at all events, we shall have daylight to find our way with. Mr. Simmons and I are going back now to fetch up the luggage. The rockaway will have to take care of itself till to-morrow, I fancy."
Left alone, Helen looked curiously about her. The kitchen was a bare-looking place to her eyes. There was a stove with a fire in it, a rocking-chair covered with faded "patch," some wooden chairs, a table, and a sort of dresser with dishes. A large wheel for spinning wool stood in one of the windows. Everything was clean, but there was an air of poverty, and to Helen it seemed a most dismal place. She could not imagine how people could live and be happy there.
Mrs. Simmons herself looked very ill and tired.
"I enjoy such poor health," she explained to Helen, as she took some plates and bowls down from the dresser. "I got the ague down to Mill Hollow, where we lived, and we moved up here, hoping to get rid of it. I am some better, but it took me powerful hard yesterday, and I suppose I'll have it bad again to-morrow. Mr. Simmons, he's got behindhand somehow, and it's hard work trying to catch up in these times. What with one thing and another, both of us have felt clean discouraged this fall. Glory, fetch the milk."
"Yes, mother." And out of the buttery came a girl of about Helen's age, with a pan in her hands. She had apparently tumbled out of bed to help in the entertainment of the strangers, for her hair was flying loose, and she looked only half dressed; but she had pretty brown eyes and a bright smile.
"I feel real bad to think I'm out of tea," said Mrs. Simmons. "Father, he was calculating to get some later on, when he'd finished a job of lumber-hauling. And the hens have 'most stopped laying, too; I hain't but four eggs in the house."
"Oh, don't give us the eggs!" cried Helen; "you'll want them yourself for Thanksgiving, I'm sure."
"Thanksgiving! Dear me, so it is!" said Mrs. Simmons. "I'd forgot all about that. Not that it'd have made much difference, any way. You can't make something out of nothin', and that's about what we've come to."
"I've got a pie," cried Helen, with a sudden generous impulse, but feeling a little pang meanwhile, as she recalled her vision of putting the pie into grandmamma's own hands. But where was the pie? She recollected now, – the basket was in her lap when papa lifted her out of the carriage. It must have fallen out, and probably was now buried deep in snow.
A great stamping of boots just then announced the entrance of the two men with the valises and hamper. Mrs. Simmons renewed her apologies about the tea. Hot milk, a little fried pork, two of the eggs, and a loaf of saleratus bread were all she had to offer, but it was very welcome to the hungry travellers. There was some choice tea in grandmother's hamper, but Mr. Sands very rightly judged it better to say nothing about it just then, as it might have seemed that he and Helen were not satisfied with their supper. They ate heartily, and soon after went to bed in two chilly little lofts upstairs, where all the buffalo robes and blankets from the carriage could not quite keep them warm.
Helen lay awake a long time, thinking of her own disappointment and grandmamma's, but more still about the Simmons family. How hard and melancholy their life seemed, struggling with poverty and ague up here among the lonely hills, with no doctor near them, and no neighbors! A great sympathy and pity awoke in her heart. Her first impulse, when she roused next morning, was to hurry to the window. It was still snowing, and the drifts seemed deeper than ever! "Oh, dear!" she thought, "we shall have to stay in this forlorn place another day, I am afraid." A more generous thought followed: "If it seems so hard to me to have to spend one day here, what must it be to live here always?" And she made up her mind that, if they were forced to stay, she would do all she could to make Thanksgiving a little less forlorn than it seemed likely to be to Mrs. Simmons and Glory.
It did look forlorn downstairs in the bare little kitchen. Mrs. Simmons's chill was coming on. She was up and dragging herself about, but she looked quite unfit to be out of bed. Two little children, a boy and a girl, whom Helen had not seen the night before, clung close to her dress, and followed wherever she moved, hiding their shy faces from the strangers. They got over their shyness gradually as Helen laughed, and coaxed them, and by the time breakfast was over had grown good friends.