A Round Dozen
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"And it's just as queer to hear you call yourself a little girl," answered Pierot, with a glance at the antiquated face beside him.
"Dear, how my legs shake, and how stiff my knees are!" sighed Pierotte. "Do grown-up people feel like that always?"
"I don't know," said Pierot, whose own legs lacked their old springiness. "Would you like some cherries now, Pierotte? I can reach them easily."
"Cherries! Those sour things? No, thank you. They would be sure to disagree with me," returned Pierotte, pettishly.
"Times are changed," muttered Pierot; but he dared not speak aloud.
"Where shall we sleep?" asked Pierotte.
"Under the trees, so long as the summer lasts."
"Gracious! We shall both die of rheumatism."
"Rheumatism? What an idea for a child like you!"
"I wish I were a child," said Pierotte, with a groan. "Here's a tree with grass below it, and I'm getting tired and sleepy."
When the brother and sister woke it was broad sunlight again.
"One day gone of our year," said Pierot, trying to be cheerful.
It was hard work as time went on, and with all their constant walking and wandering they never seemed to find their way out of the forest, or of that particular part of it where their luckless adventure had befallen them. Turn which way they would, the paths always appeared to lead them round to the same spot; it was like bewitchment; they could make nothing out of it. The dulness of their lives was varied only by an occasional quarrel. Pierot would essay to climb a tree, and Pierotte, grown sage and proper, would upbraid him for behaving so foolishly, – "just like a boy," – or he would catch her using the pool as a mirror, and would tease her for caring so much for a plain old face when there was nobody but himself to look. How the time went they had no idea. It seemed always daylight, and yet weeks, if not months, must have passed, they thought, and Pierot at last began to suspect the fairy of having changed the regular course of the sun so as to cheat them out of the proper time for finding her at home.
"It's just like her," he said. "She is making the days seem all alike, so that we may not know when Midsummer comes. Pierotte, I'll tell you what, we must be on the lookout, and search for the little house every day, for if we forget just once, that will be the very time, depend upon it."
So every day, and all day long, the two old children wandered to and fro in search of the fairy cot. For a long time their quest was in vain; but at last, one bright afternoon, just before sunset, as they were about giving up the hunt for that day, the woods opened in the same sudden way and revealed the garden, the hut, and – yes – at the window the pointed cap, the sharp black eyes. It was the fairy herself; they had found her at last.
For a moment they were too much bewildered to move; then side by side they hurried into the garden without waiting for invitation.
"Well, my old gaffer, what can I do for you, or for you, dame?" asked the fairy, benevolently.
"Oh, please, I am not a dame, he is not a gaffer," cried Pierotte, imploringly. "I am little Pierotte" – and she bobbed a courtesy. "And this is Pierot, my brother."
"Pierot and Pierotte! Wonderful!" said the fairy. "But, my dear children, what has caused this change in your appearance? You have aged remarkably since I saw you last."
"Indeed, we have," replied Pierot, with a grimace.
"Well, age is a very respectable thing. Some persons are always wishing to be old," remarked the fairy, maliciously. "You find it much pleasanter than being young, I dare say."
"Indeed, we don't," said Pierotte, wiping her eyes on her apron.
"No? Well, that is sad, but I have heard people say the same before you."
"Oh, please, please," cried Pierot and Pierotte, falling on their knees before the window, "please, dear, kind fairy, forgive us. We don't like to be grown-up at all. We want to be little and young again. Please, dear fairy, turn us into children as we were before."
"What would be the use?" said the old woman. "You'd begin wanting to be somebody else at once if you were turned back to what you were before."
"We won't, indeed we won't," pleaded the children, very humbly.
The fairy leaned out and gathered a rose.
"Very well," she said. "Here's another wish for you. See that it is a wise one this time, for if you fail, it will be of no use to come to me."
With these words, she shut the blinds suddenly, and lo! in one second, house, garden, and all had vanished, and Pierot and Pierotte were in the forest again.
There was no deliberation this time as to what the wish should be.
"I wish I was a little boy," shouted Pierot, holding the rose over his head with a sort of ecstasy.
"And I wish I was a little girl, the same little girl exactly that I used to be," chorused Pierotte.
The rose seemed to melt in air, so quickly did it wither and collapse. And the brother and sister embraced and danced with joy, for each in the other's face saw the fulfilment of their double wish.
"Oh, how young you look! Oh, how pretty you are! Oh, what happiness it is not to be old any longer! The dear fairy! The kind fairy!" These were the exclamations which the squirrels and the birds heard for the next ten minutes, and the birds and the squirrels seemed to be amused, for certain queer and unexplained little noises like laughs sounded from under the leaves and behind the bushes.
"Let us go home at once to mother," cried Pierotte.
There was no difficulty about the paths now. After walking awhile, Pierot began to recognize this turn and that. There was the huntsman's oak and the Dropping Well; and there – yes, he was sure – lay the hazel copse where the father had bidden them go for wood.
"I say," cried Pierotte, with a sudden bright thought, "we will wait and bind one fagot for the mother's oven – the poor mother! Who has fetched her wood all this time, do you suppose?"
Plenty of sticks lay on the ground ready for binding. The wood-choppers had just left off their work, it would seem. Pierotte's basket was filled, a fagot tied and lifted on to Pierot's shoulders, and through the gathering twilight they hurried homeward. They were out of the wood soon. There was the hut, with a curl of smoke rising from the chimney; there was the mother standing at the door and looking toward the forest. What would she say when she saw them?
What she said astonished them very much.
"How long you have been!" were the words, but the tone was not one of surprise.
"O mother, mother!" cried Pierotte, clinging to her arm, while Pierot said, "We were afraid to come home because we looked so old, and we feared you would not know us, but now we are young again."
"Old! young!" said the mother. "What does the lad mean! One does not age so fast between sunrise and sunset as to be afraid to come home. Are you dreaming, Pierot?"
"But we have been away a year," said Pierot, passing his hand before his eyes as if trying to clear his ideas.
"A year! Prithee! And the sheets which I hung out at noon not fairly dry yet. A year! And the goats thou drovest to pasture before breakfast not in the shed yet! A year! Thou wouldst better not let the father hear thee prate thus! What, crying, Pierotte! Here's a pretty to-do because, forsooth, you are come in an hour late!"
An hour late! The children looked at each other in speechless amazement. To this day the amazement continues. The mother still persists that they were absent but a few hours. Where, then, were the weeks spent in the wood, the gray hair, the wrinkles, the wanderings in search of the old woman and her hut? Was all and each but a bit of enchantment, a trick of the mirth-loving fairies? They could not tell, and neither can I. Fairies are unaccountable folk, and their doings surpass our guessing, who are but mortal, and stupid at that! One thing I know, that the two children since that day have dropped their foolish habit of wishing, and are well content to remain little Pierot and Pierotte till the time comes for them to grow older, as it will only too soon.
BLUE AND PINK
TWO valentines lay together in the pillar post-box. One was pink and one was blue. Pink lay a-top, and they crackled to each other softly in the paper-language, invented long since by Papyrus, the father of Manuscript, and used by all written and printed sheets unto this day. Listen hard, next time you visit the reading-room at the Public Library, and you will hear the newspapers exchanging remarks across the table in this language.
Said the pink valentine: "I am prettier than you, much prettier, Miss Blue."
Blue was modester. "That may be true, my dear Miss Pink; still, some folks like blue best, I think," she replied.
"I wonder they should," went on Pink, talking in prose now, for valentines can speak in prose and in rhyme equally well. "You are such a chilly color. Now I warm people. They smile when they see me. I like that. It is sweet to give pleasure."
"I like to give pleasure, too," said Blue, modestly. "And I hope I may, for something beautiful is written inside me."
"What? oh! what?" cried Pink.
"I cannot say," sighed Blue. "How can one tell what is inside one? But I know it is something sweet, because
She who sent me hereIs so very fair and dear."Blue was running into rhyme again, as valentines will.
"I don't believe a word of it," said Pink, digging her sharp elbow into Blue's smooth side. "Nothing is written inside me, and I'm glad of it. I am too beautiful to be written on. In the middle of my page is a picture, Cupid, with roses and doves. Oh, so fine! There is a border too, wreaths of flowers, flowers of all colors, and a motto, 'Be mine.' Be mine! What can be better than that? Have you got flowers and 'Be mine' inside, you conceited thing? If not, say so, and be ashamed, as you deserve to be."
Again the pink elbow dented Blue's smooth envelope.
But Blue only shook her head softly, and made no answer. Pink grew angry at this. She caught Blue with her little teeth of mucilage and shook her viciously.
"Speak," she said. "I hate your stuck-up, shut-up people. Speak!"
But Blue only smiled, and again shook her head.
Just then the pillar-post opened with a click. The postman had come. He scooped up Pink, Blue, and all the other letters, and threw them into his wallet. A fat yellow envelope of law-papers separated the two valentines, and they had no further talk.
Half an hour later, Pink was left at the door of a grand house, almost the finest in the town. Charles, the waiter, carried her into the parlor, and Pink said to herself: "What a thing it is to have a mission. My mission is to give pleasure!"
"A letter for you, Miss Eva," said Charles. He did not smile. Well-behaved waiters never smile; besides, Charles did not like Eva.
"Where is your tray?" demanded Eva, crossly. "You are always forgetting what mamma told you. Go and get it." But when she saw Pink in her beautiful envelope, unmistakably a valentine, she decided not to wait.
"Never mind, this time," she said; "but don't let it happen again."
"Who's your letter from, Evy?" asked grandmamma.
"I haven't opened it yet, and I wish you wouldn't call me Evy; it sounds so backwoodsy," replied Eva, who, for some mysterious reason, had waked that morning very much out of temper.
"Eva!" said her father, sternly.
Eva had forgotten that papa was there. To hide her confusion, she opened the pink envelope so hastily as to tear it all across.
"Oh dear!" she complained. "Everything goes wrong."
Then she unfolded the valentine. Pink, who had felt as if a sword were thrust through her heart when her envelope was torn, brightened up.
"Now," she thought, "when she sees the flowers, Cupid, and doves, she will be pleased."
But it was not pleasure which shone on Eva's countenance.
"What's the matter?" asked papa, seeing her face swell and angry tears filling her eyes.
"That horrid Jim Slack!" cried Eva. "He said he'd send me a valentine just like Pauline's, and he hasn't. Hers was all birds and butterflies, and had verses – "
"Yours seems pretty enough," said papa, consolingly.
"It's not pretty enough," responded Eva, passionately. "It's a stupid, ugly thing. I hate it. I won't have it."
And, horrible to state, she flung Pink, actually flung her, into the middle of the fire. There was time for but one crackling gasp; then the yellow flame seized and devoured all – Cupid, doves, flowers! Another second, they were gone. A black scroll edged with fiery sparkles reared itself up in the midst of the glow; then an air-current seized it, it rose, and the soul of Pink flew up the chimney.
Blue, meantime, was lying on the lap of a little girl of twelve, a mile or more from this scene of tragedy. Two plump hands caressed her softly.
"Sister, may I read it to you just once more?" begged a coaxing voice.
"Yes, Pet, once more. That'll make five times, and they say there is luck in odd numbers," said another voice, kind and gay.
So Pet read: —
"My dear is like a dewy roseAll in the early morn;But never on her stem there growsA single wounding thorn."My dear is like a violet shy,Who hides her in the grass,And holds a fragrant bud on highTo bless all men who pass."My dear is like a merry bird,My dear is like a rill,Like all sweet things or seen or heard,Only she's sweeter still."And while she blooms beside my door,Or sings beneath my sky,My heart with happiness runs o'er,Content and glad am I."So, sweetheart, read me as I run,Smile on this simple rhyme,And choose me out to be your oneAnd only Valentine.""Isn't it lovely?" said Pet, her blue eyes dancing as she looked up.
"Yes, it's very nice," replied sister.
"I wish everybody in the world had such a nice valentine," went on Pet. "How pleased they'd be! Do you suppose anybody has sent Lotty one? Only that about the bird wouldn't be true, because Lotty's so sick, you know, and always stays in bed."
"But Lotty sings," said sister. "She's always singing and cheerful, so she's like a bird in that."
"Birdies with broken wingsHide from each other;But babies in troubleCan run home to mother,"
hummed Pet, who knew the "St. Nicholas" jingles by heart. "But poor Lotty hasn't any mamma to run to," she added softly.
"No; and that's a reason why it would be so specially nice to give her the pleasure of a valentine like yours."
"I wish somebody had sent her one," said Pet, thoughtfully.
"I don't suppose there is another in the world just like yours," said sister, smiling at Pet.
"Then she can't have one. What a pity!"
"She might have this of yours," suggested sister.
"But – then – I shouldn't have any," cried Pet.
"Oh yes, you would, and I'll tell you how," said sister. "You've had all the pleasure of getting it, and opening and reading it, already. That's yours to keep. Now, if I copy the verses for you on plain white paper, you can read them over as often as you like, till by and by you learn them by heart. When you have done that they will be yours for always; and, meanwhile, Lotty will have the pleasure of getting the valentine, opening, reading, learning, just as you have done – so you will get a double pleasure instead of one. Don't you see?"
"That will be splendid," cried Pet, joyously. "Poor Lotty, how glad she will be! And I shall have two pleasures instead of one, shan't I?"
"How nice," thought Blue, "to have given two pleasures already!"
Sister copied the verses, a fresh envelope was found, and Blue was sent on her way. When she was carried upstairs to Lotty's room, she thought it the pleasantest place she had ever seen. Sunshine was there – on the wall, on the plants in the window, most of all in Lotty's face, as she sat up in bed, knitting with red worsted and big needles. When Blue was put into her hands, she laughed with astonishment.
"For me!" she cried. "Who could have sent it? How pretty it is – how pretty! A great deal too pretty for me. Oh, what a kind, dear somebody there is in the world!"
Everybody in the house was glad because Lotty was glad. Grandmamma came in to hear the valentine; so did papa, and Jack, Lotty's big brother, and Fred, her little one. Even the cook made up an excuse about the pudding, and stole upstairs to hear the "fine verses which somebody had sint to Miss Lotty. It's swate as roses she is, any day," said cook; "and good luck to him for sinding it, whoiver he is."
By and by Lotty's tender heart began to busy itself with a new plan.
"Grandma," she said, "I'm thinking about little Mary Riley. She works so hard, and she hardly ever has anything nice happen to her. Don't you think I might send her my valentine – in a different envelope, you know, with her name on it and all? She'd be so pleased."
"But I thought you liked it so much yourself, dear," replied grandmamma, unwilling to have her darling spare one bit of brightness out of her sick-room life.
"Oh, I do; that's the reason I want to give it away," said Lotty, simply, and stroking Blue, who, had she known how, would gladly have purred under the soft touch. "But I shall go on liking it all the same if Mary has it, and she'll like it too. Don't you see, grandmamma? I've copied the verses in my book, so that I can keep them."
Grandmamma consented. The new envelope was found, Mary's address was written upon it, and away went happy Blue to give pleasure to a fresh friend.
"This is best of all," she said to herself, as Mary laid aside her weary sewing to read over and over again the wonderful verses, which seemed to have dropped out of fairy-land. She almost cried with pleasure that they should be sent to her.
"I wish I could buy a frame for 'em – a beautiful gold frame," she whispered to herself.
Pink would have been vain had she heard this; but Blue glowed with a purer feeling – the happiness of giving happiness.
Mary read the verses over a dozen times at least before putting them aside; but she did put them aside, for she had work to finish, and daylight was precious. The work was a birthday frock. When the last stitch was set, she folded it carefully, put on cloak and bonnet, and prepared to carry the frock home. Last of all, she dropped Blue into her pocket. She did not like to leave it behind. Something might happen, she thought.
It was quite a grand house to which the birthday frock went. In fact; it was next door but one to the house in which Pink met with her melancholy fate. The little girl who was to wear the frock was very glad to see Mary, and her mamma came upstairs to pay for the work.
"Have you any change?" she said. "Come nearer to the fire. It is cold to-night."
Mary was confused by this kindness. Her fingers trembled as she searched for her porte-monnaie, which was at the bottom of her pocket, underneath her handkerchief. She twitched out the handkerchief hastily, and with it, alas! came Blue. They were close to the grate, and Blue was flung into the fire. Mary gave a scream and made a snatch. It was too late! Already the flames had seized it; her beloved valentine was gone, vanished into ashes!
"Was it anything valuable?" asked the lady, as Mary gave a little sob.
"Oh, n-o – yes, ma'am; that is, it was verses. I never had any before. And they were s-o beautiful!" replied poor Mary, half crying.
The lady gave her an extra dollar for the sewing, but this did not console Mary.
Meantime the ghost of Blue flew up the chimney. Upon the roof hovered a dim gray shade. It was the ghost of Pink, wind-blown for a little space.
"How sad life is!" sighed Pink's ghost —
"I was young, I was fair,And now I'm in the air,As ugly gray ashes as ever were.""How sweet life is!" murmured the ghost of Blue —
"I've only lived a little while,But I have made three people smile."A chickadee who heard the two ghosts discoursing now flew down from the roof-peak. He gathered Blue's ashes up into his beak, flew down into the garden, and strewed them about the root of a rose-tree.
"In the spring you'll be a rose," he said.
Then he flew back, took up Pink's ashes, bore them into another garden, and laid them in the midst of a bed of chickweed.
"Make that chickweed crop a little richer, if you can," he chirped. "All the better for the dicky-birds if you do; and a good thing for you too, to be of use for once in your life."
Then the chickadee flew away. Ghosts have to get accustomed to plain speaking.
This was the end of Blue and Pink.
A FORTUNATE MISFORTUNE
EMMY GALE was far from anticipating misfortunes or suspecting that she was going to have any as she packed her trunk for the much-talked-of visit to Elliott's Mills. The very putting of the things into the trays was a pleasure, for it meant the satisfaction of a long-deferred wish. To go to Elliott's Mills had been the desire of her heart ever since she was a little girl of eight, and she was now fourteen; and she folded her dresses and patted each collar and pair of stockings into place with a glad feeling at her heart.
I must tell you about Elliott's Mills, or you will not understand why Emmy was so pleased to go there. It was a very small village in the western part of New York. To reach it you had to take, first a whole day's journey by rail, and then a two-mile drive over a rather rough road. When arrived there you found yourself in an ugly, unattractive little wooden hamlet, set down among low hills and tracts of woodland. This does not sound over-delightful, does it? But what made Elliott's Mills so charming was that Aunt Emma lived there during the summer, and the life that she and her family led had an inexpressible fascination for all the young people in the connection.
Aunt Emma's home had always been in New York City until her husband, who was a lawyer, came into possession some years before of an enormous tract of land, some thousands of acres in extent, in the western part of the State. It became necessary for him to spend some months there every year to look after it. First he built a small law office and a couple of bedrooms for use on these occasions. Then Aunt Emma wanted to go with him, and another room or two was added for her; and so it went on till the little law office had grown into a big, rambling country house of the most irregular shape, with small chambers opening out of large ones, doors, cupboards, entries, and staircases where you least expected them, little flights of steps leading up into rooms and down into rooms – just the sort of house, in short, which boys and girls delight in. Aunt Emma, who was a woman of admirable sense, made no attempt to introduce the elegances of the city into the woods, not even when it grew to be her home for the greater part of the year. Air, space, and freedom to do as you liked were the luxuries of the place. All the bedrooms were furnished with the same small-patterned blue ingrain carpet and little sets of oak-painted furniture precisely alike. The big parlor and dining-room had wicker chairs and willow tables, roomy sofas and couches covered with well-washed chintz, and skins and rugs on the matted floors. Deer's antlers in the hall held hats, whips, and coats. There was a garden of sweet common flowers to supply the summer vases, crackling wood-fires for cool evenings, and a bookcase of light reading for rainy days. The table was deliciously supplied with game and trout, wild fruits and country cream, and you might sit on the floor and tell ghost-stories till midnight if you cared to do so. In the big stables a little troop of Indian ponies, broken to saddle or harness, were kept. Most of them had Indian names, in honor of the half-civilized tribe which lived close by on their reservation. There was Chief Blacksnake and Lady Blacksnake and Young Blacksnake, Uncas and Pottomet and "Xantego," commonly pronounced "Want-to-go," and riding and driving went on the summer through among the visitors who filled the ample, hospitable house. There seemed to be a pony for everybody, and everybody liked to have a pony, and the ponies themselves enjoyed it.
Emmy Gale was her aunt Emma's namesake, but, as it happened, she had never been at Elliott's Mills, though her elder sisters, Bess and Jean, had made many visits there. This was partly accidental, for twice it had been arranged that she should go, and twice illness had prevented. Once, her cousin Lena had measles, and the other time Emmy herself had scarlet fever. Nobody was in fault either time, still it rankled in Emmy's mind that she should never have seen the place about which Bess and Jean were forever raving. And now her time was come; she was actually packing her trunk. No wonder she was pleased.