PLANNING IN THE TWILIGHT.
It was a rainy August day, and the children were having a glorious
time up in the old garret. Over the house-part there were two rooms;
but this above the kitchen was kept for rubbish. A big wheel, on which
Granny used to spin in her younger days, now answered for almost any
purpose, from a coach and four, to a menagerie: they could make it into
an elephant, a camel, or a hyena, by a skilful arrangement of drapery.
There were several other pieces of dilapidated furniture, old hats,
old boots, a barrel or two of papers; in fact, a lot of useless
traps and a few trophies that Joe had brought home; to say nothing
of Charlie's endless heaps of trash, for she had a wonderful faculty
of accumulation; herbs of every kind, bundles of calamus, stacks of
"cat-tails," the fuzz of which flew in every direction with the least
whiff of wind.
The "children" had been raising bedlam generally. Joe was dressed in an
old scuttle-shaped Leghorn bonnet and a gay plaid cloak, a strait kind
of skirt plaited on a yoke. Granny had offered it to Florence for a
dress, but it had been loftily declined. Kit was attired as an Indian,
his "scalp-lock" bound up with rooster feathers; and he strutted up and
down, jabbering a most uncouth dialect, though of what tribe it would
be difficult to say. Charlie appeared in a new costume about every
half-hour, and improvised caves in every corner; though it must be
confessed Joe rather extinguished her with his style. He could draw in
his lips until he looked as if he hadn't a tooth in his head, and talk
like nearly every old lady in town.
Such whoops and yells and shouts as had rung through the old garret
would have astonished delicate nerves. In one of the bedrooms Granny
was weaving rag-carpet on a rickety loom, for she did a little of every
thing to lengthen out her scanty income; but the noise of that was as a
whiff of wind in comparison.
At last they had tried nearly every kind of transformation, and were
beginning to grow tired. It was still very cloudy, and quite twilight
in their den, when Florence came up stairs, and found them huddled
around the window listening to a wonderful story that Joe made up as
he went along. Such fortunes and adventures could only belong to the
Munchausen period.
"Dear!" exclaimed Florence, "I thought the chief of the Mohawks had
declared war upon the Narragansetts, and everybody had been scalped,
you subsided so suddenly. You've made racket enough to take off the
roof of the house!"
"It's on yet," was Joe's solemn assurance.
"O Joe!" begged Charlie: "tell us another story,--something about a
sailor who was wrecked, and lived in a cave, and found bags and bags of
money!"
"That's the kind, Charlie. Flo, come on and take a seat."
"Where's Dot?"
"Here in my arms," replied Hal; "as good as a kitten; aren't you, Dot?"
Dot answered with a contented grunt.
"Oh, let's all tell what we'd like to do!" said Charlie, veering round
on a new tack. "Flo'll want to be Cinderella at the king's ball."
Florence tumbled over the pile of legs, and found a seat beside Hal.
"Well, I'll lead off," began Joe with a flourish. "First, I'm going to
be a sailor. I mean to ship with a captain bound for China; and hurra!
we'll go out with a flowing sea or some other tip-top thing! Well, I
guess we'll go to China,--this is all suppos'n, you know; and while I'm
there I'll get such lots of things!--crape-shawls and silks for you,
Flossy; and cedarwood chests to keep out moths, and fans and beautiful
boxes, and a chest of tea, for Granny. On the way home we shall be
wrecked. You'll hear the news, and think that I'm dead, sure enough."
"But how will Flo get her shawls?" asked Charlie.
"Oh, you'll hear presently! That's way in the end. I shall be wrecked
on an island where there's a fierce native chief; and first he and his
men think they'll kill me." Joe always delighted in harrowing up the
feelings of his audience. "So I offer him the elegant shawls and some
money"--
"But I thought you lost them all in the wreck!" interposed
quick-brained Charlie.
"Oh, no! There's always something floats ashore, you must remember.
Well, he concluded not to kill me, though they have a great festival
dance in honor of their idols; and I only escape by promising to be
his obedient slave. I find some others who have been cast on that
desolate shore, and been treated in the same manner. The chief beats
us, and makes us work, and treats us dreadfully. Then we mutiny, and
have a great battle, for a good many of the natives join us. In the
scrimmage the old fellow is killed; and there's a tremendous rejoicing,
I can tell you, for they all hate him. We divide his treasure, and
it's immense, and go to live in his palace. Well, no boat ever comes
along; so we build one for ourselves, and row to the nearest port and
tell them the chief is dead. They are very glad, for he was a cruel old
fellow. Then we buy a ship, and go back for the rest of our treasures.
We take a great many of the beautiful things out of the palace, and
then we start for home, double-quick. It's been a good many years; and,
when I come back, Granny is old, and walking with a cane, Florence
married to a rich gentleman, and Dot here grown into a handsome girl.
But won't I build a stunning house! There'll be a scattering out of
this old shoe, I tell you."
"Oh, won't it be splendid!" exclaimed Charlie, with a long-drawn
breath. "It's just like a story."
"Now, Hal, it's your turn."
Hal sighed softly, and squeezed Dot a little.
"I shall not go off and be a sailor"--
"Or a jolly young oysterman," said Joe, by way of assistance.
"No. What I'd like most of all"--and Hal made a long pause.
"Even if it's murder, we'll forgive you and love you," went on
tormenting Joe.
"O Joe, don't!" besought Florence. "I want to hear what Hal will
choose, for I know just what I'd like to have happen to me."
"So do I," announced Charlie confidently.
"I don't know that I can have it," said Hal slowly; "for it costs a
good deal, though I might make a small beginning. It's raising lovely
fruit and flowers, and having a great hot-house, with roses and lilies
and dear white blossoms in the middle of the winter. I should love them
so much! They always seem like little children to me, with God for
their father, and we who take care of them for a stepmother; though
stepmothers are not always good, and the poor wicked ones would be
those who did not love flowers. Why, it would be like fairy-land,--a
great long hot-house, with glass overhead, and all the air sweet with
roses and heliotrope and mignonette. And it would be so soft and still
in there, and so very, very beautiful! It seems to me as if heaven must
be full of flowers."
"Could you sell 'em if you were poor?" asked Charlie, in a low voice.
"Not the flowers in heaven! Charlie, you're a heathen."
"I didn't mean that! Don't you suppose I know about heaven!" retorted
Charlie warmly.
"Yes," admitted Joe with a laugh: "he could sell them, and make lots of
money. And there are ever so many things: why, Mr. Green paid six cents
apiece for some choice tomato-plants."
"When I'm a man, I think I'll do that. I mean to try next summer in my
garden."
"May I tell now?" asked Charlie, who was near exploding with her secret.
"Yes. Great things," said Joe.
"I'm going to run away!" And Charlie gave her head an exultant toss,
that, owing to the darkness, was lost to her audience.
Joe laughed to his utmost capacity, which was not small. The old garret
fairly rang again.
Florence uttered a horrified exclamation; and Kit said,--
"I'll go with you!"
"Girls don't run away," remarked Hal gravely.
"But I mean to, and it'll be royal fun," was the confident reply.
"Where will you go? and will you beg from door to door?" asked Joe
quizzically.
"No: I'm going out in the woods," was the undaunted rejoinder. "I mean
to find a nice cave; and I'll bring in a lot of good dry leaves and
some straw, and make a bed. Then I'll gather berries; and I know how to
catch fish, and I can make a fire and fry them. I'll have a gay time
going off to the river and rambling round, and there'll be no lessons
to plague a body to death. It will be just splendid."
"Suppose a bear comes along and eats you up?" suggested Joe.
"As if there were any bears around here!" Charlie returned with immense
disdain.
"Well, a snake, or a wild-cat!"
"I'm not afraid of snakes."
"But you'd want a little bread."
"Oh! I'd manage about that. I do mean to run away some time, just for
fun."
"You'll be glad to run back again!"
"You see, now!" was the decisive reply.
"Florentina, it is your turn now. We have had age before beauty."
Florence tossed her soft curls, and went through with a few pretty
airs.
"I shouldn't run away," she said slowly; "but I'd like to _go_, for
all that. Sometimes, as I sit by the window sewing, and see an elegant
carriage pass by, I think, what if there should be an old gentleman in
it, who had lost his wife and all his children, and that one of his
little girls looked like--like me? And if he should stop and ask me for
a drink, I'd go to the well and draw a fresh, cool bucketful"--
"From the north side--that's the coldest," interrupted Joe.
"Hush, Joe! No one laughed at you!"
"Laugh! Why, I am sober as an owl."
"Then I'd give him a drink. I wish we could have some goblets: tumblers
look so dreadfully old-fashioned. I mean to buy _one_, at least, some
time. He would ask me about myself; and I'd tell him that we were all
orphans, and had been very unfortunate, and that our grandmother was
old"--
"'Four score and ten of us, poor old maids,--
Four score and ten of us,
Without a penny in our _puss_,
Poor old maids,'"
sang Joe pathetically, cutting short the _purse_ on account of the
rhyme.
"O Joe, you are too bad! I won't tell any more."
"Yes, do!" entreated Hal. "And so he liked you on account of the
resemblance, and wanted to adopt you."
"Exactly! Hal, how could you guess it?" returned Florence, much
mollified. "And so he would take me to a beautiful house, where there
were plenty of servants, and get me lovely clothes to wear; and there
would be lots of china and silver and elegant furniture and a piano.
I'd go to school, and study music and drawing, and never have to sew or
do any kind of work. Then I'd send you nice presents home; and, when
you were fixed up a little, you should come and see me. And maybe, Hal,
as you grew older, he would help you about getting a hot-house. I think
when I became a woman, I would take Dot to educate."
"I've heard of fairy godmothers before, but this seems to be a
godfather. Here's luck to your old covey, Florrie, drunk in imaginary
champagne."
"Joe, I wish you wouldn't use slang phrases, nor be so disrespectful."
"I'm afraid I'll have to keep clear of the palace."
"Oh, if it only could be!" sighed Hal. "I think Flo was meant for a
lady."
Florence smiled inwardly at hearing this. It was her opinion also.
"Here, Kit, are you asleep?" And Joe pulled him out of the pile by one
leg. "Wake up, and give us your heart's desire."
Kit indulged in a vigorous kick, which Joe dodged.
"It'll be splendid," began Kit, "especially the piano. I've had my
hands over my eyes, making stars; and I was thinking"--
"That's just what we want, Chief of the Mohawk Valley. Don't keep us in
suspense."
"I'm going to save up my money, like some one Hal was reading about the
other day, and buy a fiddle."
A shout of laughter greeted this announcement, it sounded so comical.
Kit rubbed his eyes in amazement, and failed to see any thing amusing.
Then he said indignantly,--
"You needn't make such a row!"
"But what will you do with a fiddle? You might tie a string to Charlie,
and take her along for a monkey; or you might both go round singing in
a squeaky voice,--
'Two orphan boys of Switzerland.'"
"You're real mean, Joe," said Kit, with his voice full of tears.
"Kit, I'll give you the violin myself when I get rich," Florence
exclaimed in a comforting tone, her soft hand smoothing down the
refractory scalp-lock; "but I would say violin, it sounds so much
nicer. And then you'll play."
"Play!" enunciated Kit in a tone that I cannot describe, as if that
were a weak word for the anticipated performance. "I'd make her talk!
They'd sit there and listen,--a whole houseful of people it would
be, you know; and when I first came out with my fiddle,--violin.
I mean,--they would look at me as if they thought I couldn't do
much. I'd begin with a slow sound, like the wind wailing on a winter
night,--I guess I'd have it a storm, and a little lost child, for
you can make almost any thing with a violin; and the cries should
grow fainter and fainter, for she would be chilled and worn out;
and presently it should drop down into the snow, and there'd be the
softest, strangest music you ever heard. The crowd would listen and
listen, and hold their breath; and when the storm cleared away, and the
angels came down for the child, it would be so, so sad"--and there was
an ominous falter in Kit's voice, "they couldn't help crying. There'd
be an angel's song up in heaven; and in the sweetest part of it all,
I'd go quietly away, for I wouldn't want any applause."
"But you'd have it," said Hal softly, reaching out for the small
fingers that were to evoke such wonderful melody. "It almost makes me
cry myself to think of it! and the poor little girl lost in the snow,
not bigger than Dot here!"
"Children!" called Granny from the foot of the stairs, "ain't you going
to come down and have any supper? I've made a great pot full of mush."
There was a general scrambling. Hal carried Dot in his arms, for she
was fast asleep. Two or three times in the short journey he stopped to
kiss the soft face, thinking of Kit's vision.
"Oh, we've been having such a splendid time!" announced Charlie. "All
of us telling what we'd like to do; and, Granny, Joe's going to build
you an _elegant_ house!" with a great emphasis on the word, as Charlie
was not much given to style, greatly to the sorrow and chagrin of
Florence.
Granny gave a cheerful but cracked treble laugh, and asked,--
"What'll he build it of, my dear,--corn-cobs?"
"Oh, a _real_ house! He's going to make lots of money, Joe is, and get
shipwrecked."
Granny shook her head, which made the little white curls bob around
oddly enough.
"How you do mix up things, Charlie," said Joe, giving her a poke with
his elbow. "You're a perfect harum-scarum! I don't wonder you want to
live in the woods. Go look at your head: it stands out nine ways for
Sunday!"
Charlie ran her fingers through her hair, her usual manner of arranging
it.
"Granny, here's this little lamb fast asleep. She's grown to be one of
the best babies in the world;" and Hal kissed her again.
He had such a tender, girlish heart, that any thing weak or helpless
always appealed to him. Their sleek, shining Tabby had been a poor,
forlorn, broken-legged kitten when he found her; and there was no end
to the birds and chickens that he nursed through accidents.
But for a fortnight Dot had been improving, it must be confessed,
being exempt from disease and broken bones.
"Poor childie! Just lay her in the bed, Hal."
There was a huge steaming dish of mush in the middle of the table; and
the hungry children went at it in a vigorous manner. Some had milk,
and some had molasses; and they improvised a dessert by using a little
butter, sugar, and nutmeg. They spiced their meal by recounting their
imaginary adventures; but Granny was observed to wipe away a few tears
over the shipwreck.
"It was all make believe," said Joe sturdily. "Lots of people go to
sea, and don't get wrecked."
"But I don't want you to go," Granny returned in a broken tone of voice.
"Pooh!" exclaimed Joe, with immense disdain. "Don't people meet with
accidents on the land? Wasn't Steve Holder killed in the mill. And if I
was on the cars in a smash-up, I couldn't swim out of that!"
Joe took a long breath, fancying that he had established his point
beyond a cavil.
"But sailors never make fortunes," went on Granny hesitatingly.
"Captains do, though; and it's a jolly life. Besides, we couldn't all
stay in this little shanty, unless we made nests in the chimney like
the swallows; and I don't know which would tumble down first,--we or
the chimney."
Charlie laughed at the idea.
"I shall stay with you always, Granny," said Hal tenderly. "And Dot,
you know, will be growing into a big girl and be company for us. We'll
get along nicely, never fear."
Some tears dropped unwittingly into Granny's plate, and she didn't want
any more supper. It was foolish, of course. She ought to be thankful to
have them all out of the way and doing for themselves. Here she was,
over fifty, and had worked hard from girlhood. Some day she would be
worn out.
But, in spite of all their poverty and hardship, she had been very
happy with them; and theirs were by no means a forlorn-looking set of
faces. Each one had a little beauty of its own; and, though they were
far from being pattern children, she loved them dearly in spite of
their faults and roughnesses. And in their way they loved her, though
sometimes they were great torments.
And so at bed-time they all crowded round to kiss the wrinkled face,
unconsciously softened by the thought of the parting that was to come
somewhere along their lives. But no one guessed how Granny held little
Dot in her arms that night, and prayed in her quaint, fervent fashion
that she might live to see them all grown up and happy, good and
prosperous men and women, and none of them straying far from the old
home-nest.
I think God listened with watchful love. No one else would have made
crooked paths so straight.