Harper's Young People, January 10, 1882

MARJORIE'S NEW-YEAR'S EVE

It seemed to Marjorie as though she never would find that particular door; but at last it was reached. She put in the key; it turned in the lock, and she went in, not a little frightened and trembling.

She found herself in a large room covered, like the rest of the castle, with crystals; but on one side of the wall seemed to be a sort of gallery, evidently overlooking some other room. "I wonder if I ought to go in?" thought Marjorie. But almost at the same moment she felt herself impelled on, and to the foot of a little staircase leading up to the gallery. Now even before she had time to be surprised at what she saw below, she had a feeling that if she asked the horse a question, he would answer from somewhere. So she said, quite aloud, "What place is this?"

And the answer sounded from somewhere, "It's Santa Claus's Council Chamber." (Marjorie felt as if it was written or spoken in big letters.)

And then Marjorie, trembling in the white gallery, looked down on the most splendid room she had ever even dreamed of. It was long and high; there were panels of crystal; there were panels of sapphire and emerald and jasper, and there were lines of golden toys strung here and there. At the upper end was a splendid throne, with reindeers on either side. The whole room was ablaze with light. Marjorie longed for a hundred eyes.

Presently there came a rushing noise like the music of a million sleigh-bells; doors behind the throne fell back, and behold! a procession entered. Crowds of brilliantly dressed people came first, and then heralds and trumpeters, and many elves ringing bells. At last a majestic figure clothed in a snowy cloak of fur, with a long white beard and a crown of icicles, appeared. Every one fell back, the ladies and gentlemen, elves and dwarfs, bowing, the trumpeters flinging back their heads and pealing forth a triumphal blare. Through this double line Santa Claus walked, and took his place on the throne. Marjorie waited, breathless, for what would come next. Then she saw that the gayly dressed ladies and gentlemen had taken places on either side of the throne, and suddenly she seemed to know just who they all were.

"Why, of course!" she whispered to herself, eagerly. They were the fairy-tale people. There was Beauty; there was Prince Charming, Cinderella, and the Sleeping Beauty, and even the Babes in the Wood. As for Jack the Giant-killer, he was there in fine array. Marjorie saw him, and lots of other dear people she loved to read about. There were absolutely no giants.

As soon as they were all seated, the doors again opened, and four dwarfs entered, bearing huge silver dishes, full of something which sent up a most delicious odor. Santa Claus stood up, and called out, loudly:

And then Marjorie perceived that this supper was for the fairy people. Those who liked it best "in the pot nine days old," grouped themselves around a great big silver kettle, and dipped in long gold spoons.

Marjorie was still watching with eager eyes, when again the doors opened and a second procession entered. This was as queer as the other was gorgeous, for all sorts of toys came in of themselves; not only rocking-horses, but baby houses and blocks (each one by itself), and toy alphabets, and tea sets walking, Noah's arks ahead of the animals, woolly dogs, and bears on sticks. Directly after them came Marjorie's horse, and Nine-times-naught, with Augusta on the Kennebec.

A second pause followed, and then a whole group of dolls rushed in. They did not come in as sedately as the toys. The French dolls flounced about, the rag dolls pushed each other, and the china dolls just seemed to come in higgledy-piggledy, anyhow. But as soon as toys and dolls had assembled, they gathered about Santa Claus's throne with a most intimate air of proprietorship. Marjorie hadn't seen him smile before.

"Now, what next?" said Marjorie.

"Will you wait?" said the voice of the horse.

But somehow Marjorie felt as if she just couldn't wait. The toys and the dolls made very free with Santa Claus. When everything and everybody looked comfortable he spoke. His voice was loud, but kind.

"Lot No. 14."

From the toys came an ark, a big doll, and a woolly horse. They stood in the middle of the splendid room, and the doll, who had on a red satin dress, came forward.

"We are very happy," she said, and Marjorie listened eagerly, never having heard a doll's voice before. "We were given to a little girl who is a cripple. She lives in a small room with her mother and two sisters. When we came, she said God was so beautiful and kind this Christmas. She sent for other children to play with us. They were ragged and cold and hungry, but they were perfectly happy and thankful because they had us. They were so happy, that they forgot that a little girl named Marjorie had been cruel to them."

(Up in the gallery Marjorie gave a little shiver, for she remembered these poor children perfectly. Her governess, Miss Marbery, had wanted her to share her Christmas money and presents with them. Marjorie had stamped her feet angrily, had called them "miserable little beggars," and had openly refused to think of such a thing. Now she bowed her head and silently cried.)

The doll seemed to have done speaking. She moved back, and took her place with the woolly horse and the ark. Marjorie heard a voice say.

"These toys can come back on New-Year's Eve for an hour or two, and report to Santa Claus," and at that minute to her horror she beheld all of her own Christmas presents troop forward.

"Where have you all been?" said Santa Claus.

It was her own doll who answered.

"We came to Marjorie," she said. "She lives in a warm, comfortable, beautiful house, where every one pets her, and is kind to her, and tries to make her happy. She is never cold, nor hungry, nor sick, but nothing pleases her. These toys did not satisfy her." (Here the toys sprang about angrily.) "She was cross and petulant, and she flung me into a corner because she did not get a new doll. All the toys hate her and despise her. She has never done anything at Christmas-time for any one else."

Then Santa Claus spoke again:

"What could she have done this Christmas?"

The doll gave a little sigh.

"I wanted very much to be given to the poor little lame girl," she answered. "To her I would have been a treasure. It would have been so easy for Marjorie to have made Christmas a happy day for a great many people."

The doll ceased speaking, and then Marjorie saw that all the fairy people were busy writing down something on the wall behind them. There was perfect silence for a moment, and then it seemed to poor bewildered Marjorie that all those beautiful walls blazed forth terrible words about herself. "Shut her out from our favor forever." "Miserable." "Ungrateful." "Cold." "Proud." "Cruel."

"Oh!" she moaned to herself, "what can I do, what can I do?"

Suddenly the clock struck twelve. New-Year's Day had come, and in a flash toys, dolls, fairy-tale people, all seemed to melt away, and Marjorie found herself cold and weary in that strange flower garden.

She stood still a moment, and listened eagerly for the sound of the horse's rock. It came at last.

"Well," he said, gravely, "you were allowed to come out. Get up into the saddle and I'll tell you why."

Marjorie obeyed, and then said, softly,

"Please why?"

"Because you are sorry for your faults – you showed humility."

"Oh yes, indeed, I am sorry," murmured Marjorie.

The horse's rock sounded a little softened. "And next year perhaps a flower may grow for you in this garden."

"I will try," Marjorie answered. "But if I never come back, how shall I know?"

"By your own feelings. When it grows, its fragrance reaches down to the world, and brings you peace and happiness. You will not need to be told that somewhere a blossom is waiting for you. God's garden paths reach down to every heart."

Marjorie sprang up. She was in her own room; it had grown dark, the fire was dying away, and there was Uncle John in his great-coat looking at her and laughing.

"Well, Pussy," he exclaimed, "you're a great girl to go to sleep. Come, I want you to go out with me and buy New-Year's presents for the Williamsons. Hurry up."

Marjorie felt dazed. What had she been dreaming about?

"Why," she said, and looked around to see her horse standing very still and bright-eyed in the middle of the room – "why, where's Augusta, on the Kennebec?" she said, suddenly, rubbing her eyes.

Uncle John roared laughing. "You've been studying too much lately, Puss," he said, kindly.

"No, I haven't," said Marjorie. "I've been a mean girl."

Later, as they were driving through the snowy streets, Marjorie put her hand into her uncle's, and said, gravely, "Uncle, where is God's garden?"

He was silent for a moment, and then he answered, quietly: "Dear, it ought to be all around us. It is wherever we can do any good or prevent any evil; the place we are going to to-night might be your part of His garden if you chose."

Marjorie looked up at the star-lit sky, wondering what she could do. Then she said to herself, "I feel as if somewhere there I might plant my flower."

And I am sure she did.

PERILS AND PRIVATIONS

In a letter which Miss Martineau once showed me, from a relative of hers, long dead, addressed to her great niece from Southsea, near Portsmouth, and dated August 9, 1782, there occurred this singular passage:

"The day is calm and pleasant, and as I sit at the open window, the great vessel in the offing, betwixt me and the Fair Island" (the Isle of Wight used to be so called), "seems to sway not a hand-breadth, nor to flutter a single pennant." Then, in a trembling hand, but still the same, was added: "A dreadful thing has happened. When I had written that beginning of my letter, Dorothy, I looked again southward; the sea was as waveless as before, and the Fair Island sparkled in the sun, but betwixt us and it I saw no trace of the great three-decker. I thought my brain had gone wrong, and rang the bell for Agnes; but when she too could see nothing of the ship, a terrible apprehension took hold of me; and when the alarm-guns from the fort began to thunder, I knew she had gone down. I hear near a thousand men were aboard of her."

This was the famous "wreck of the Royal George," immortalized by the verse of Cowper. She was a ship of one hundred guns, carrying brass 24-pounders on her main-deck, brass 32-pounders on her middle deck, and iron 32-pounders on her lower deck. Her lanterns were so large that the men used to enter them to clean them. She had six months' provisions on board, and many tons of shot. The blue flag of "brave Kempenfelt" was flying at her mizzen, and in two days she was to leave Spithead to join the fleet in the Mediterranean.

So sudden and unexpected a catastrophe was never before heard of in nautical annals; but the cause of it is common enough. It arose from the obstinacy and fool-hardiness of the lieutenant of the watch. These caused the death of some eight hundred human beings. It is not necessary to mention his name; indeed, the sailor from whose personal narrative I compile the story, and who had probably just joined the ship, did not know his name, though of course it could be discovered easily enough. "He was, if I remember right," he says, "the third lieutenant, a good-sized man between thirty and forty." Fortunately for himself, perhaps, he was drowned with the rest.

The accident arose through the heeling over of the ship. It was necessary to lay her on her side to get at the water cock, situated in that part of the hold called the well, in order to replace it by a new one. The operation was begun at eight o'clock in the morning. The ship at that time was "full of Jews, women, and people selling all sorts of things," as was usual on the eve of a long voyage. The last lighter, with rum on board, had just come alongside, and was lashed to the larboard side of the vessel, and the men were piped to clear her, and stow the rum in the hold. Though the water was almost level with the port-holes through which the larboard guns were run out, no danger seems at first to have been apprehended. The sea dashed in with every wave, and disturbed the mice in the lower deck, and the men amused themselves with hunting them in the water. "There was a rare game going on," are the words of the narrator.

By nine o'clock the weight of the rum barrels and of the sea water brought the larboard port-holes still lower, and the carpenter applied to the third lieutenant to give orders to "right ship, as she could not bear it." But the lieutenant gave him a very short answer. The captain – Captain Waghorn – was on board, and also the admiral; but admirals and captains are not consulted in such matters. The lives of those at sea, as of those on land, are mainly in the hands of subordinates. In a very short time the carpenter repeated his warning, and the lieutenant answered, "Sir, if you can manage the ship better than I can, you had better take the command." In a minute or two afterward, it is true, this fool-hardy officer ordered the drummer to be called to beat to right ship, but it was then too late. There was no time to beat his drum, or even time to get it. "Let us try," said our sailor to the lieutenant of his gun, "to house our gun out without waiting for the drum, as it will help to right the ship." They pushed the gun, but it ran back on them, and they could not start it. "Then I cried, 'Ned, the ship is sinking, jump out at the port-hole!' He did so, but I believe was drowned, for I never saw him again. I followed him. I saw the port-holes as full of heads as they could cram, all trying to get out."

What a picture! Imagine all those poor fellows struggling to escape through a space not large enough for one-tenth of them, up an incline as steep as the peaked roof of a house, and with a hungry sea rushing in behind them! Above all, think of the poor women! Our sailor, holding on to the best-bower anchor, which hung above the port, seizes hold of one and drags her out, but at that moment the draught of air from between-decks, caused by the sinking of the ship, blows him off his feet. Then the huge mass goes down, and draws him down with it. He tries to swim, but can not, "though I plunged as hard as I could with both hands and feet; but when the ship touched bottom, the water boiled up a good deal, and I felt that I could swim, and began to rise." So, even if a vessel with a hundred guns goes down and takes one with her, there is some use, you see, in having learned to swim. When he comes to the surface he hears – what a sound at such a moment! – the cannons ashore firing their signals of distress, but he can see nothing. His face is covered with tar, a barrel of tar having been staved in as the ship went down, and its contents spread over the water. He strikes it away from his eyes as well as he can, and looks about him.

The fore, main, and mizzen tops of the huge ship were all above water, and he climbs up into comparative safety. In the shrouds of the mizzentop he finds the admiral's baker, and sees the woman he has just pulled out of the port-hole rolling by. He seizes her once more, and hangs her head over one of the ratlines of the mizzen-shrouds, like clothes to dry, which is the best he can do for her; but a surf comes and knocks her backward, and "away she went, rolling over and over." Strangely enough, the poor creature is saved after all by the boat of a frigate lying at Spithead, whose captain has just put off to the rescue. "I must look to those who are in more danger than you, my lad," he sings out to our sailor, as he goes by.

"Ay, ay, sir," is the reply; "I am safely moored enough."

The captain of the Royal George, though, strange to say, he could not swim, was picked up alive. But out of nearly a thousand men, which was the ship's complement, although some were on leave, and sixty marines had gone ashore that very morning, only a very few were saved. Government allowed five pounds to them for the loss of their things. "I saw the list, and there were but seventy-five."

For several days afterward bodies would suddenly come up to the surface at the spot where the ship had sunk, "forty and fifty at a time. The watermen made a good thing of it; they would take from the men their buckles, money, and watches; then, making fast a rope to their heels, would tow them to land."

The poet who sings of the calamity tells us "no tempest gave the shock," and indeed there was scarcely any breeze at all. The ship was anchored, and had not even a stitch of canvas on her to keep her steady.

Sixty years afterward the interest of this terrible event had by no means died away, and I well remember, as a boy, going on board the ship that was stationed above the scene of the calamity, to see the divers who were still employed upon the wreck. The aspiration of the poet,

was never realized; but almost everything was taken out of her; and more fancy articles – paper-knives, work-boxes, etc. – affirmed to have been made from her timbers, were sold, I am afraid, than the Royal George, big as she was, could ever have furnished. In country places and at the sea-side in England you may purchase them even now at the bazars – old-fashioned articles, with this tomb-like inscription on them: "This desk" (or letter-weight, or paper-knife) "was made out of the wood of the Royal George, sunk off Spithead in 1782, with eight hundred of her crew."

THE TALKING LEAVES. 1

he advance of To-la-go-to-de and his Lipans that day had been a slow one, and it grew slower and more cautious as hour after hour went by without any word from the two pale-face scouts.

The chief himself grew uneasy. He thought they would surely return or send him some word before night-fall; but the sun was nearly setting when at last he went into camp with his discontented warriors on the very spot where Steve and Murray had made their halt before daylight.

Then, indeed, he could wait no longer, and several braves were ordered out on foot, with others on horseback a little behind them, to explore what was left of the pass, and see what they could find.

They could have done more for their chief and themselves if the night had not been a cloudy one, so that not a brave among them ventured to descend into the valley.

If they had done so they might have discovered two very important facts. The first was that the Apache hunting village had left it, bag and baggage. The second, and quite as important a discovery, would have been that the camping ground abandoned by the Apaches had been promptly occupied by a strong party of pale-faces.

All the scouts could really do was to bring back word that the pass was clear of enemies to the border of the valley.

That was an anxious night for To-la-go-to-de.

The morning would bring news, at all events, for he determined to dash on with all his warriors, and find out about matters for himself.

"No Tongue is wise. He is a great warrior. Sometimes wise old warrior gets knocked on the head. Then he not come back at all."

There was a possibility, as he well knew, that the Apaches themselves had something to do with the silence of his two pale-face friends.

Another head had been quite as busy and troubled as that of To-la-go-to-de all that day. Captain Skinner also would have given something for a few minutes' conversation with "them two mining fellers."

He felt sure they could have given him both information and advice; but he said to himself: "Of course they won't come nigh our outfit. They know we've jumped their claim. Still, they did the friendly thing with Bill and the boys, and they sent word they didn't bear us any ill-will. That's 'cause they feel sure of their own ground. They're on good terms with the red-skins. I wish I could say we were."

Well he might, considering how many of them there were in that country, and how near to him some of them were coming. All the way down the pass the ragged little Captain had ridden in advance of his men, carefully scanning every rock and bush and tree. At last he paused at the very spot where Bill and his companions had had their little difficulty. He seemed to see some signs that needed studying, and he stooped down and picked up something. Only a pair of strong thongs of buckskin, that looked as if they had been recently used in tying up something. He could make very little out of them; but he noticed the marks of horses' feet going in and out of the forest.

"Signs are getting pretty thick. Hullo! an arrow. Cut in two, and blood on it. Bill, isn't this the spot?"

"This 'ere's the very place, Cap. We came awful nigh havin' a fight right yer."

"Glad you made out not to have any. Did those two white men and the Indians ride away in company?"

"Wa'al, no. The red-skins rid away first, and the two fellers promised to foller 'em after a while. Then I reckon they cut off into the timber. 'Peared like they must ha' been huntin'."

"Most likely they were; and waiting for us to get away, so they could go back to their mine. Boys, I'm afraid our claim won't be worth a great deal by the time we get back."

"We'll take care of that when we come, Cap. They said they'd take thar chances. We'll take ours; that's all."

Slower and more and more cautiously the mining train again moved forward, until from under the last of the pine-trees Captain Skinner could look out upon the valley and see that it was empty.

How would he and his men have felt if they could have known that at that very minute Murray was chipping away with his chisel at his inscriptions upon the central monument of the great Buckhorn Mine?

"Not a red-skin in sight," he remarked. "We'll go straight on down. There must be plenty of ways out of the valley."

No doubt of it, but the first business of those wanderers, after they reached the spring and unhitched their mule-teams, was to carefully examine every hoof-mark and foot-print they could find.

The fact that there had been lodges was proof that the Apaches were not a war party, but there was plenty of evidence that they were numerous enough to be dangerous.

"Glad Bill didn't pick a quarrel with such a band," grumbled Captain Skinner. "But how did he happen to show so much sense? I never suspected him of it."

This was not complimentary to Bill, and it was clear that the Captain's opinion of him had not changed.

"Some kind of an accident," he said. "Nobody need waste any time looking out for another one just like it."

It was getting late in the day, and a better place for a camp could not have been found.

"This'll do for to-night, won't it, Cap?" asked one of the miners.

"Of course it will. We'll try to move east from here, or south, when we leave it."

"Shall any of the boys go for game? Must be plenty of it all around."

"Game? Oh yes. Plenty of it, after a hundred Apache hunters have been riding it down for nobody knows how long. The red-skins leave heaps of game behind 'em, always."

This answer prevented any further remarks on the subject of hunting that afternoon. They had plenty of fresh meat with them, nevertheless, and there was no reason why they should not cook and eat.

There was a reason why they should not be altogether pleased with their camping ground. They found the coals of one fire still hot enough to kindle with.

"The Apaches haven't been out of this a great while," said Captain Skinner, "but the trail of their lodge poles shows that they set off to the west'ard. That isn't our direction. I don't care how far they go, nor how fast."

The other miners did not agree with him. Neither did they like the looks of the mountain range through which the Apaches had come.

"Danger behind us or not," said one of the men, "I move we spend a day or so in huntin' and findin' out jest what's best to be done before we light out of this. We must be getting pretty close to the Mexican line."