[Illustration: _Bobby and Alice and Pink drew their stools closer and
waited eagerly for Grandma to begin_]
EARLY CANDLELIGHT
STORIES
_By_
STELLA C. SHETTER
_Illustrated by_
DOROTHY LAKE GREGORY
[Illustration]
RAND McNALLY & COMPANY
CHICAGO NEW YORK
_Copyright, 1922, by_
RAND MCNALLY & COMPANY
_Copyright, 1924, by_
RAND MCNALLY & COMPANY
[Illustration]
Made in U.S.A.
THE CONTENTS
PAGE
Grandma Arrives 9
A Whistling Girl 16
Chased by Wolves 23
The Yellow Gown 30
A War Story 37
Easter 45
At a Sugar Camp 52
The New Church Organ 60
School Days 68
A Birthday Party 76
The Locusts 83
The Fourth of July 92
The Bee Tree 99
Brain Against Brawn 106
A Wish That Came True 114
Joe’s Infare 122
Pumpkin Seed 130
A School for Sister Belle 138
Andy’s Monument 146
Memory Verses 155
The Courting of Polly Ann 163
Earning a Violin 171
At the Fair 179
Hallowe’en 187
Measles 195
Something to be Thankful for 203
Taking a Dare 210
Dogs 218
The Last Indian 226
A Present for Mother 234
A Christmas Barring Out 243
_A Vocabulary_ 251
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _Grandma’s Room ready for the housewarming_]
EARLY CANDLELIGHT STORIES
GRANDMA ARRIVES
Grandma had come to spend the winter, and Bobby and Alice and Pink were
watching her fix up her room. It was the guest room, and the children
had always thought it a beautiful room, with its soft blue rug, wicker
chairs, and pretty cretonne draperies. But Grandma had had all the
furniture taken out, and the rug, carefully rolled up and wrapped in
thick paper to keep the moths out, had been carried to the attic.
Then Grandma—but Mother called Bobby and Alice and Pink to come and get
their wraps and go out to play a while.
Grandma, seeing them edge reluctantly toward the head of the stairs, said
cheerfully, as she bustled about unpacking the great box that held her
“things,” “Never mind, dears. Run out and play now, and tonight we’ll
have a regular housewarming. Come to my room at seven o’clock and we
will have a little party.”
Just as the clock in the hall downstairs struck the first stroke of
seven, Alice rapped loudly on Grandma’s door.
Grandma opened the door immediately and the children stepped in—then
stared in astonishment. They had never seen a room like this before.
In place of the blue rug was a gayly colored rag carpet. The bed, to
which had been added a feather tick, was twice as high as any they had
ever seen. It was covered with a handmade coverlet of blue and white.
Patchwork cushions were on the chairs, and crocheted covers on bureau
and chiffonier. The windows were filled with blooming geraniums, and in
one window hung a canary in a gilt cage. On a round braided rug before
the fire lay a gray cat, asleep. By a low rocker stood a little table
that held a work basket running over with bright-colored patches, bits of
lace, balls of scarlet yarn, knitting needles, pieces of velvet, silk,
and wool. On the chiffonier stood a basket filled with big, red apples,
polished till they shone, and beside the apples was a plate covered with
a napkin.
“Well, well,” said Grandma, “here you are, every one of you! Just on
time, too. Come right in and see my house and meet my family. This is
Betsy.” She touched the cat gently and Betsy lifted her head and started
to purr. “I raised her from a kitten and brought her here in a basket all
the way on the train. One conductor wouldn’t let me keep her in the coach
with me, so I went out and rode in the baggage car with Betsy.”
“Did you bring the bird, too?” asked Pink, smoothing Betsy’s fur.
“No, I just got the bird a little while ago. He hasn’t even a name yet.
I thought maybe I’d call him Dicky. That’s a nice name for a bird, don’t
you think so? My baby sent me the bird and the flowers, too. Aren’t they
lovely?”
“Have you a baby, Grandma?” asked Alice, looking around the room
wonderingly.
“Yes, I have a baby, but he isn’t little any more. Still he is my baby
all the same, the youngest of my ten children. Wasn’t it thoughtful of
him to send me the bird and the flowers?”
Alice and Bobby and Pink looked at one another. They knew their daddy
had sent the flowers, for they had heard Grandma thank him for them.
The idea of their big, broad-shouldered daddy being anyone’s baby seemed
funny to them, and they giggled.
“Say, Grandma, he’s some baby, all right,” Bobby remarked.
“You can’t rock him to sleep the way I do my baby,” observed Pink.
“Not now, but I used to,” said Grandma. Then she brought three stools
from the corner—low, round stools covered with carpet. “You children sit
on these stools and I’ll sit in this chair and we’ll spend the evening
getting acquainted. You must tell me all about yourselves.”
The children told Grandma about their school and their playmates, their
dog and their playhouse, about how they went camping in summer time and
what they did on Christmas and Easter, and about the flying machine
that flew over the town on the Fourth of July, and about the Sunday
school picnic. When they finally stopped, breathless, Grandma looked so
impressed that Bobby said pityingly, “You didn’t have so many things to
do when you were little, did you, Grandma?”
“Well, now, I don’t know about that,” Grandma answered slowly. “We didn’t
have the same things to do, but we had good times, too.”
“Tell us about them,” Alice begged.
“When I was a little girl,” Grandma began, “I lived in the country on
a large farm. All around our house were fields and woods. You might
think I would have been lonely, but I never was. You see, I had always
lived there. Then I had six older brothers and sisters, and one brother,
Charlie, was just two years older than I was. And there were so many
things to do! The horses to ride to water and the cows to bring from the
pasture field. On cool mornings Charlie and I would stand on the spots
where the cows had lain all night, to get our feet warm before starting
back home. I had a pet lamb that followed me wherever I went, and we had
a dog—old Duke. He helped us get the cows and kept the chickens out of
the yard and barked when a stranger came in sight. And when the dinner
bell by the kitchen door rang, how he did howl!
“And the cats! You never saw such cats, they were so fat and round and
sleek. No wonder, for they had milk twice a day out of a hollow rock
that stood by the barnyard gate.
“And birds were everywhere. Near the well, high in the air, fastened to a
long pole, was a bird house. Truman and Joe had made it, and it was just
like a little house, with tiny windows and doors and a wee bit of a porch
where the birds would sit to sun themselves.
“Then there were the chickens to look after, often a hundred baby chicks
to feed and put in their coops at night. And in the spring what fun we
had hunting turkey hens’ nests! In February we tapped the sugar trees and
boiled down the sap into maple sugar and sirup. We had Easter egg hunts
and school Christmas treats, and in the fall we gathered in the nuts for
winter—chestnuts, hickory nuts, walnuts.”
Grandma paused a moment and glanced at the clock on the mantel.
“Dear me,” she exclaimed in surprise, “see what time it is! We must have
our refreshments right away. Bobby, will you pass the apples? And, Alice,
under the napkin are some ginger cookies that I brought with me. You may
pass them, please, and Pink and I will be the company.
“These apples,” went on Grandma, helping herself to one, “are out of my
orchard. I sent two barrels of them to your daddy, and every night before
we go to bed we will each eat one. ‘An apple a day,’ you know, ‘keeps the
doctor away.’”
When they had finished and were saying good night, Bobby said, “Lots of
things did happen when you were a little girl, Grandma. I wish you’d tell
us more.”
“Not tonight,” said Grandma, “It’s bedtime now, but come back some other
night. If you still want me to tell you more about when I was a little
girl, tap on my door three times, like this, but if you only come to
call, tap once, like this.”
Next time we’ll see how often they tapped on Grandma’s door. Can you
guess?
A WHISTLING GIRL
The next evening as Grandma sat before the fire knitting on a red mitten,
she was startled by three sharp knocks on her door.
“Why, good evening,” she said, when she had opened the door to admit
Bobby and Alice and Pink. “Here you are wanting a story, and I haven’t
thought of a thing to tell you. Now you tell me what happened at school
today, and by that time I shall have thought of something to tell you.”
So Alice told Grandma about chapel that morning. She told her about the
recitations and songs by the children and of a lady who had whistled “The
Star-Spangled Banner” and “America.”
“Well, well, wasn’t that nice!” Grandma said. “I should have liked to
hear that. I always admired to hear any one whistle. I believe I’ll tell
you tonight about the time I whistled in meeting.”
The children drew their stools a little closer, and Grandma began:
“When I was a little girl, I wanted more than anything else to be able
to whistle. I kept this ambition to myself because it wasn’t considered
ladylike for girls to whistle. My mother often said,
“A whistling girl and a crowing hen
Always come to some bad end.”
“So I never told anyone, not even my brother Charlie, that I wanted to
whistle. But when I hunted turkey hens’ nests, or went after the cows, or
picked berries, I had my lips pursed all the time trying to whistle as my
brothers did. But, though I tried and tried, I never succeeded in making
a sound.
“One Sunday in meeting I got awfully tired. To a little girl the sermons
were very long and tiresome in those days. For a while I sat still and
quiet, watching Preacher Hill’s beard jerk up and down as he talked and
looking at the queer shadows his long coat tails made on the wall. But it
was warm and close in the church, and after a while I grew drowsy.
“‘Oh, dear!’ I thought to myself, ‘I mustn’t go to sleep. I must keep
awake somehow.’ Then I thought about whistling. I would practice
whistling to myself—under my breath.
“The seats were high-backed and we sat far to the front. I could not
see any one except the preacher and John Strang, who kept company with
sister Belle. John sat in a chair at the end of the choir facing the
congregation, and several times I noticed him looking curiously at me as
if he wondered what I was doing. I would draw in my breath very slowly
and then let it out again. Of course I never dreamed of making a sound,
and no one could have been more surprised than I was when there came from
my lips a loud clear whistle as sweet as a bird note.
“The preacher stopped talking. Mother looked embarrassed. Father’s face
turned red with mortification. Sister Belle put her handkerchief up to
her face, and Charlie sat up as straight and stiff as if he had swallowed
a ramrod.
“As for me, I wished I could sink through the floor and disappear.
I thought everybody was looking right at me. I was sorry and I was
frightened, too. What would Father and Mother say to me?
“When preaching was over, all of us except Mother went right out to the
sled and wrapped up in comforts and robes for the cold ride home. Mother
stayed behind to visit and invite people home to dinner just as she
always did. I was glad when we started. It was a dreary ride. Father
drove, and he sat so stern and silent that no one dared to speak.
[Illustration: “_I drew in my breath very slowly and then let it out
again_”]
“I hurried right upstairs to change my dress as I always did. Then,
because I was so miserable, I threw myself across my bed and cried. I
had disgraced Father and Mother. Nothing that they could do would be bad
enough for me. I was aroused by sister Belle’s voice. She was complaining
to sister Aggie, who had stayed at home to get dinner.
“‘I don’t see why Charlie can’t behave himself once in a while. Now our
whole day is spoiled, and I had asked John and Isabel for dinner, too.
You know how sad it always makes Father if he has to punish one of the
boys, and the worst of it is that Charlie denies doing it. I could shake
Charlie good myself. You can’t believe, Aggie, how everyone looked at us.
I was that ashamed!’
“Charlie being accused in place of me! This was something that I had
never dreamed of. I jumped up and rushed past the two girls downstairs,
through the empty sitting room into the kitchen, where Mother stood
looking out a window, still in her gray silk dress. I caught her hand.
“‘Charlie didn’t do it, Mother,’ I said. ‘I did it.’
“‘Oh, Sarah, you cannot whistle, dear,’ said Mother reproachfully. She
drew me to her and smoothed my hair and tried to comfort me, but I
broke away from her and ran into the kitchen chamber where Father sat
talking to Charlie. Father looked stern and Charlie sulky and cross, and
no wonder, poor boy, for he was guilty of enough things without being
accused of something he did not do.
“‘Father!’ I cried wildly. ‘Charlie did not whistle in meeting. I did
it.’
“Mother and the girls had followed me, and they all, even Charlie, stared
at me in amazement. It was plain they did not believe me. They thought I
was trying to shield Charlie.
“‘I did whistle,’ I said, crying. ‘I can whistle. I tell you I can
whistle.’
“‘Then whistle,’ said Father sternly.
“And how I did try to whistle! I puffed my cheeks and twisted and turned
my mouth and blew and blew, but I couldn’t make a sound, not a single
sound.
“Father looked so hurt and sorry that I longed to throw myself into his
arms and make him believe me. You see, it looked to Father as if Charlie
and I were both telling stories. Father said we were only making things
worse and ordered us all out of the room.
“In the sitting room we found Truman and Joe, who had been tending the
horses, and John and Isabel Strang, who had come around past their house
to let their family out of the sled before coming on to our house for
dinner.
“The minute I saw John I drew Mother’s head down and whispered to her,
‘Ask John. He knows, he saw me do it;’ and Mother in a hesitating way
said, ‘John, do you know who whistled in meeting this morning?’
“John turned as red as our old turkey gobbler and looked at me.
“‘Why, I feel pretty sure,’ he said, ‘but I’d hate to say.’
“‘Oh, never mind that!’ I burst out. ‘I’ve told, and they won’t believe I
can whistle. They think it was Charlie.’
“Then, of course, John told all he knew. He had been watching me all the
time, as I had thought, and was looking right at me when I whistled.
Father was called in, and you may be sure he was glad to find that both
his children had been telling the truth.
“‘It’s all right, Sarah,’ he said, ‘if you didn’t mean to.’ But Mother
made me promise not to try to whistle any more.
“Well, I declare! I finished just on time. Mother’s calling you to bed.
Here, don’t forget your ‘apple a day.’ Now run along like good children,
and some other time I’ll tell you another story.”
CHASED BY WOLVES
“Seems to me you kiddies go to bed earlier than you used to,” their
father remarked one evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink interrupted his
reading to kiss him good night.
“We don’t go to bed,” Pink explained. “We go to Grandma’s room. She tells
us a story every night.”
“Why, of course, I remember now. Isn’t that fine, though? A story every
night! Did she ever tell you a wolf story? Grandma knows a pippin of a
wolf story. She used to tell it to me when I was a little boy. Ask her to
tell you about the time she was chased by wolves.”
And a few minutes later Grandma began the story.
“It was in the spring. Father was making garden, and he broke the hoe
handle. All the boys were away from home helping a neighbor, so Father
wanted Aggie or Belle to take the hoe to have a handle put in at the
blacksmith shop at Nebo Cross Roads a mile away. But the girls were
getting ready to go to a quilting, and I begged to be allowed to take
the hoe to the blacksmith shop.
“Mother was afraid at first, but Father said there was nothing to hurt
me, and Mother finally gave in. So right after dinner, carrying the hoe
and a poke of cookies to eat if I got hungry, I started out.
“I was to leave the hoe at the shop and go on down the road to Strangs’
to wait till the hoe was mended. I can remember yet how important I felt
going off alone like that. I picked wild flowers and munched cookies and
sang all the songs I knew.
“Mr. Carson, the blacksmith, said it would be a couple of hours before
the hoe would be ready, and I went down to Strangs’ to wait. But when I
got there I found the house all locked up and no one at home. I sat down
on the steps to wait for some one to come, but the heat and the quiet
made me sleepy so I got up and moved around the yard. I was lonely there
by myself. I walked around looking at the flowers and the garden and the
chickens and played a while with a kitten I found sleeping in the sun.
I thought that afternoon would never end. Surely I had been there two
hours. I started for the blacksmith shop. Maybe it would be closed. I
ran all the way. Mr. Carson looked surprised when I asked for the hoe.
[Illustration: _I played a while with a kitten_]
“‘Why, it’s only been a half-hour since you went away,’ he said.
“I went back to Strangs’, and this time I was determined to wait a
long time. After a while Isabel Strang came home. She had been at the
quilting, but all the rest of the family had gone away to stay several
days. Isabel was going to our house to spend the night if she got through
the evening’s work in time. She had come past our house, and Mother had
told her to keep me all night with her for company if she could not get
back before dark and to send me home early in the morning.
“Isabel hurried, and while she milked the cows and fed the pigs and
chickens and got supper I went after the hoe.
“It was growing late when we were ready to start home, but Isabel said we
could make it before dark.
“We followed the road half a mile and then took a short cut through the
woods up Sugar Creek. We had come out of the woods and were halfway
across a big pasture field when from behind us we heard a sound that made
us stop in terror. We listened. It came again. It was the cry of a wolf!
I had often heard a wolf howl, but I had always been safe at home, and
even then it had scared me.
“Again and again came the long drawn-out howl from the woods we had just
left.
“Isabel took my hand and we ran as fast as we could toward the little
creek that ran through the field. It had been years and years since a
pack of wolves had been seen in our neighborhood, but before we reached
the foot-log another howl and another and another had been added to the
first.
“Looking back over my shoulder as I ran, I saw a skulking form come out
of the woods and start across the field. Isabel saw it, too.
“‘We’ll have to stop, Sarah,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to climb a tree.’
“There was a slender young hickory a little this side of the run. Isabel
lifted me as high as she could and I caught a branch and pulled myself up
into the tree. I turned to help Isabel when, to my horror, I saw that she
could never make it. A whole pack of wolves loping across the field were
almost upon her.
“Catching up the hoe, Isabel ran for the foot-log. She had barely reached
the middle of it when the wolves halted at the creek bank. A few of them
had stopped at my tree and were howling up at me. If all had stopped,
it would have given Isabel a chance to get into one of the trees on the
other side of the creek.
“But she couldn’t do it now. She walked back and forth on the log,
brandishing the hoe in the cruel eyes of the wolves. The wolves that had
stopped under my tree soon joined their friends on the bank, and Isabel
called out to me, ‘Do not make any noise, Sarah, and they will forget you
are there.’ I remembered hearing my father tell about some wolves that
had gnawed a young tree in two, and I clung there in fear and trembling.
“Isabel held her own all right until one of the bolder wolves swam across
the creek and was soon followed by others. Then Isabel had to fight them
at both ends of the foot-log. It was dark now, and Isabel, striking at
the wolves from first one side and then the other, tried to cheer me up
all the time.
“‘Help will soon come, don’t be afraid,’ she said over and over again.
She even tried to make me laugh by saying, ‘Now watch me hit this saucy
old fellow on the nose. There, that surprised you, didn’t it, Mr. Wolf?’
as she hit him a sharp blow and he fell back.
“What if the wolves should leap on Isabel? Or she might get dizzy
and fall in the water. When would help come to us in this lonely,
out-of-the-way place? My folks would think I had stayed the night with
Isabel, and there was no one at home at Isabel’s.
“Dared I get down and go for help? I peered through the darkness and
shook all over when I thought that more wolves might be hidden there.
Hardly knowing what I did, I let myself down to the lower limb and then
dropped with a soft thud to the ground.
“Without waiting a second I started back the way we had come. How I ran
and ran! I was nearly through the woods when I heard something running
behind me. I went faster and it went faster, too. Suddenly I tripped and
fell and I heard a friendly little whinny at my side. It was our pet
colt that had been running behind me. I put my arm around his neck for
a second until I got my breath. Then I climbed the fence and was on the
road.
“I wasn’t quite so afraid here as I had been in the woods, but I never
stopped running till I got home. I was so worn out that I fell panting on
the kitchen floor, but I made them understand Isabel’s danger. Father and
the boys caught up their guns and went hurrying across the hill to her
aid.
“They drove the wolves away and brought Isabel home in safety, and that
was the last pack of wolves ever seen around there.
“Well, well, see what time it is! Now run along to bed and go right to
sleep without talking the least little bit, or I’m afraid Mother won’t
let you come to see me tomorrow evening. That would be a pity, for I’ve
got the best story for tomorrow evening about—well, you just wait and
see.”
THE YELLOW GOWN
The next evening when the children came to Grandma’s room Bobby brought
his new sweater—black with broad yellow stripes—to show her.
“Yellow,” said Grandma admiringly. “I always did like yellow, it’s such a
cheerful color. The first really pretty dress I ever had was yellow.
“It was just about this shade, maybe a mite deeper—more of an orange
color. It was worsted—a very fine piece of all-wool cashmere. Until then
I had never had anything but dark wool dresses—browns or blues made from
the older girls’ dresses—and I did love bright colors.
“Sister Belle was to be married in the spring and all winter Mother and
Belle and Aggie had sewed on her new clothes. Nearly everything was ready
but the wedding gown, and it was to be a present from Father’s younger
sister, Aunt Louisa, who lived in Clayville.
“Belle was delighted, because she said Aunt Louisa would be sure to pick
something new and stylish.
“My big brother, Stanley, went to Clayville one cold, snowy day in
February, and Aunt Louisa sent the dress goods out by him. I remember we
were at supper when he came. I had the toothache and was holding a bag of
hot salt to my face and trying to eat at the same time.
“Mother ran to take Stanley’s bundles and help him off with his
great-coat, and Aggie set a place at the table for him. But before he sat
down he tossed a package to Belle. ‘From Aunt Louisa,’ he said.
“Belle gave a cry of delight and tore the package open. Then suddenly the
happy look faded from her face. She pushed the package aside and, laying
her head right down on the table among the dishes, she burst into tears.
“Aunt Louisa had sent Belle a yellow wedding dress!
“When Mother held it up for us to see, I thought it was the most
beautiful color I had ever seen and wondered why Belle cried. I soon
learned.
“Belle had light brown hair and freckles, and yellow was not becoming to
her. To prove it, she held the goods up to her face.
“‘It does make your hair look dead and sort of colorless,’ Aggie agreed.
“‘And your freckles stand out as if they were starting to meet a fellow,’
Charlie put in.
“At this Belle began to cry again, and Father said that she did not have
to wear a yellow dress to be married in if she didn’t want to. She should
have a white dress. But this didn’t seem to comfort Belle a bit, for she
declared that she wouldn’t hurt Aunt Louisa’s feelings by not wearing the
yellow.
“My tooth got worse, and for the next few days I could think of nothing
else. Mother poulticed my jaw and put medicine in my tooth, but nothing
helped it. I cried and cried and couldn’t sleep at night, and Mother
couldn’t sleep. At last she told Father that he would have to take me to
Clayville to have the tooth pulled. There was fine sledding, and early
the next morning Father and I set out. The last thing Mother said to
Father, as she put a hot brick to my feet and wrapped me, head and all,
in a thick comfort, was, ‘As soon as the tooth is out, John, take her
over to Louisa’s till you get ready to start home.’
“The roads were smooth as glass, Father was a fast driver, and it didn’t
seem long till we got to town. My tooth was soon out—it hardly hurt at
all—and then Father took me to Aunt Louisa’s. We all liked Aunt Louisa.
She was very fond of children and had none of her own.
[Illustration: _The roads were smooth as glass, Father was a fast driver_]
“After dinner we sat by the sitting-room fire and Aunt Louisa cut paper
dolls out of stiff writing paper for me and made pink tissue paper
dresses for them. The dresses were pasted on. I could not take them off
and put them on as Alice and Pink do theirs.
“As she worked, Aunt Louisa asked me about everything at home and about
Belle’s clothes and the wedding.
“‘Has she got her wedding dress made yet?’ she asked.
“‘No, ma’am’, I replied, ‘she says she can’t bear to cut into it. She
hates the very sight of it.’
“‘Well, I declare!’ exclaimed Aunt Louisa in surprise.
“‘It doesn’t become her,’ I explained carefully. ‘She says it makes her
look a sickly green.’ And then I went on to tell Aunt Louisa everything
they had all said, and ended up with, ‘Belle says she won’t hold John to
his promise to marry her until he has seen her in that yellow dress.’
“‘What does she wear it for if she doesn’t like it?’ asked Aunt Louisa
tartly.
“‘Father said she didn’t have to wear it if she didn’t want to, that if
she wanted to be married in white, he’d get her a white dress. But Belle
said she wouldn’t hurt your feelings by not wearing it for anything in
the world.’
“Suddenly Aunt Louisa began to laugh. She threw her head back and laughed
and laughed and laughed. I didn’t know what to make of her.
“‘I think it’s a beautiful color,’ I said consolingly.
“‘And you could wear it, too, with your dark hair and eyes and fair skin.
What was I thinking about to send a color like that to poor Belle? I’ll
tell you!’ she cried, jumping up and letting my paper dolls fall to the
floor. ‘I’ll buy another dress for Belle, and you shall have the yellow
one, Sarah.’
“She left me in the kitchen with Mettie, the hired girl, while she went
over town. Mettie was baking cookies, and she let me dust the sugar on
and put the raisins in the middle and I had a real nice time.
“The second dress was white cashmere with bands of pearl trimming and
wide silk lace for the neck and wrists.
“When Aunt Louisa kissed me good-by, she whispered in my ear, ‘Tell Belle
the trimming is because she was so thoughtful about hurting my feelings
and I want her to look her best on her wedding day. And, Sarah, tell your
mother to make up the yellow for you with a high shirred waist and low
round neck. That is the newest style for children. And be sure to tell
her I said not to dare put it in the dye pot.’
“As soon as we got home I gave the new dress to Belle. Mother was
astonished, and Belle looked ready to cry again, till Father told them
Aunt Louisa wasn’t offended at all. Then Mother was pleased, and Belle
was simply wild about the new dress.
“‘Take the yellow and welcome to it, Sarah,’ she said to me when I had
told her Aunt Louisa wanted me to have it.
“‘I’ll have to color it,’ Mother said, ‘She couldn’t wear that ridiculous
shade.’
“‘No, no, Mother, please don’t!’ I cried. ‘Aunt Louisa said not to dye
it. She said it would become me the way it is.’
“‘Tush, tush!’ said Mother severely, ‘You are too little to talk of
things becoming you.’ But she didn’t dye it, and a few weeks later at
sister Belle’s wedding I wore the yellow dress made just the way Aunt
Louisa said to make it.
“And now, ‘To bed, to bed, says sleepy head,’ and we’ll have another
story some other night.”
A WAR STORY
“Well, well,” said Grandma one evening when Bobby and Alice and Pink came
to her room for their usual bedtime story, “I don’t know what to tell you
about tonight.”
“Tell us a war story,” suggested Bobby eagerly.
“Maybe I might tell you a war story,” agreed Grandma, “a war story of a
time long ago.” And she picked up her knitting and began slowly:
“When the Civil War broke out I was a very little girl. Of course there
had been lots of talk of war, but the first thing I remember about it
was when we heard that Fort Sumter had been fired on. It was a bright,
sunshiny morning in the spring. I was helping Father rake the dead leaves
off the garden when I saw a man coming up the road on horseback. I told
Father, and he dropped his rake and went over to the fence. In those days
it wasn’t as it is now. News traveled slowly—no telephones, no trains,
no buggies. And this young man, who had been to Clayville to get his
marriage license, brought us the news that Fort Sumter had been fired on.
“Father went straight into the house to tell Mother, and after a while he
and my big brother, Joe, saddled their horses and rode away. I thought
they were going right off to war and started to cry, and then I laughed
instead when our big Dominique rooster flew up on the hen-house roof,
flapped his wings, and crowed and crowed. A great many men and boys rode
by our house that day on their way to Clayville, and when Father and Joe
came back next day Joe had volunteered and been accepted and he stayed at
home only long enough to pack his clothes and say good-by to us.
“There wasn’t much sleep in our house that night, and I lay in my
trundle-bed, beside Father’s and Mother’s bed, and listened to them
talking, talking, until I thought it must surely be morning. I went to
sleep and wakened again and they were still talking. Finally I could hear
Father’s regular breathing and knew that he had gone to sleep at last. In
a little bit Mother slipped out of bed and went into the hall. I thought
she was going for a drink and followed her, but she went into Stanley’s
room, which had been Joe’s room, too, until that night.
“Mother bent over Stanley and spoke his name softly and he wakened and
started up in bed.
“‘What is it, Mother?’ he whispered, frightened.
“‘Stanley,’ Mother said slowly, ‘I want you to promise me that you won’t
go to war without my consent.’
“Stanley laughed out loud in relief.
“‘Gee, Mother, you gave me a scare!’ he said. ‘I thought some one was
sick or something. The war’ll be over long before I’m old enough to go.’
He was going on sixteen then.
“‘It won’t do any harm to promise then,’ Mother persisted, and Stanley
promised.
“I crept back to bed and pulled the covers up over my head.
“But Stanley was mistaken about the war being over soon. The war didn’t
stop. It went on and on. Two years and more passed, and Stanley was
eighteen. Boys of that age were being accepted for service, but Stanley
never said a word about volunteering.
“Shortly after his eighteenth birthday there came a change in him. He
was not like himself at all. He had always been a lively boy, full of
fun and mischief, but now he was very quiet. He never mentioned the war
any more, and often dashed out of the room when every one was talking
excitedly about the latest news from the battlefield. He avoided the
soldiers home on furlough, didn’t seem to care to read Joe’s letters, and
as more and more of his friends enlisted he became gloomy and downhearted.
“We could all see as time went on that Father was disappointed in
Stanley. He was always saying how much better it was for a young man to
enlist than to wait for the draft. The very word ‘draft’ had for Father a
disgraceful sound.
“I think Mother must have thought it was Stanley’s promise to her that
was worrying him, for one day she came out to the barn where Stanley was
shelling corn and I was picking out the biggest grains to play ‘Fox and
Geese’ with. Mother told Stanley she released him from his promise, but
he didn’t seem glad at all. He only said, ‘Don’t you worry, Mother, I’m
not going to war.’
“‘I was troubled about Joe that night,’ Mother said. ‘I thought I
couldn’t bear for you to go, too. But you are older now and you must do
what you think best.’
[Illustration: _One day two recruiting officers came out to Nebo Cross
Roads_]
“As Mother went out of the barn there were tears in her eyes and I knew
in that moment that she would rather have Stanley go to war than have him
afraid to go.
“They were forming a new company in Clayville, and one day two recruiting
officers came out to Nebo Cross Roads. Father let Truman take Charlie
and me over to see them. It was raining, and I can see those two men yet
standing there in the rain. One had a flute and the other had a drum.
They played reveille and taps and guard mount and ‘The Star-Spangled
Banner’ and a new song we had never heard before, ‘Tenting on the Old
Camp Ground.’ And how that music stirred the folks! They had to use two
wagons to haul the recruits into Clayville that night.
“That evening when I was hunting eggs in the barn I found Stanley lying
face down in the hay. He was crying! I could hardly believe my eyes. I
went a little nearer and I saw for sure that his shoulders were shaking
with sobs. But even while I watched him he got to his feet and began
rubbing his right arm. I often saw Stanley working with his arm. He would
rub it and swing it backward and forward and strike out with his fist
as if he were going to hit some one a blow. He didn’t mind me watching
him, and I never told anyone about it. He had broken that arm the winter
before, and I had often seen him working with it after he had stopped
wearing it in a sling.
“I wondered to myself why, if Father and Mother thought Stanley was
afraid to fight, they did not ask him and find out. He knew why he didn’t
enlist—he could tell them. At last I decided if they wouldn’t do it
themselves I’d do it for them. So the next time I was alone with Stanley,
I said, ‘Stanley, are you afraid to go to war?’
“‘Afraid!’ he cried angrily, ‘Who said I was afraid?’ Then his tone
changed. ‘They don’t want me. They won’t have me. It’s this arm,’ and he
held his right arm out and looked at it in a disgusted sort of way. ‘They
claim it’s stiff, but I could shoot if they would only give me a chance.
I’ve tried three times to get in, but there’s no use worrying Mother
about it since I can’t go. But my arm is getting better. It’s not nearly
as stiff as it was. I’ll get in yet.’ Then he looked at me scornfully and
said, ‘Afraid! Afraid nothing!’
“I ran as fast as ever I could to find Father and Mother and tell them.
Mother hugged me and laughed and cried at the same time and said she
always knew it, and Father made me tell over to him three times, word for
word, every single thing Stanley had said.
“‘He must never know,’ Mother said. ‘He must never suspect for a minute
that we thought he didn’t want to go, the poor dear boy, keeping his
trouble to himself for fear of worrying us.’ And she told me to get
Charlie and catch a couple of chickens to fry for supper. Then I knew she
was happy again, for whenever Mother was happy or specially pleased with
one of us she always had something extra good to eat.
“Pass the apples, Alice, please, and tomorrow night if you’re real good
and don’t get kept in at school I’ll tell you—well, you just be real good
and you’ll see what I’ll tell you about.”
EASTER
It was the night before Easter. Grandma had told Bobby and Alice and Pink
of the first Easter, and had explained about the egg being the symbol of
life because it contains everything necessary for the awakening of new
life.
“When I was a little girl,” she said, “we had lots of chickens and of
course we had lots of eggs. We got so many eggs that we could not use
them all—not even if Mother made custards and omelets and angel cake
every day.
“Father or the boys would take the eggs we did not need to the store and
trade them for sugar or coffee or pepper or rice. But for quite a while
before Easter they did not take any eggs to the store.
“It was a custom for the children to hide all the eggs that were laid
for a couple of weeks before Easter. Father and Mother had done it when
they were little, and all the boys and girls who went to our school did
it, too. We would bring them in Easter morning and count them. Each
of us might keep the eggs we found to sell, and Father always gave a
fifty-cent piece to the one who had the most eggs. Even the big boys and
Aggie and Belle hid eggs, for money was scarce and sometimes the egg
money amounted to a good deal. We were allowed to keep all the eggs we
found, no matter to whom they belonged and how we hunted.
“We searched in the hen house, the barn, the haymow, in old barrels and
boxes, in fence corners, and even in the wood-box behind the kitchen
stove. One spring a brown leghorn hen slipped into the kitchen every
other day and laid in the wood-box. You never could tell where a hen
might lay, so we looked every place we could think of.
“It was an early spring. The trees were bursting into leaf, the grass
was green, the beautiful yellow Easter flowers in the front yard were in
bloom. Best of all, the hens had never been known to lay so many eggs
before.
“It seemed that every one of us wanted something that the egg money
would buy. Truman was going away to school, and he wanted books. Belle
was going to be married, and she wanted all the money she could get for
pretty clothes. Stanley wanted a new saddle for his courting colt. When
the boys turned eighteen, Father gave each one of them a colt to tame and
break and have for his own, and they were called the courting colts. I
wanted the egg money for a lovely wax doll like one I had seen in a store
in Clayville, and if Charlie got it he meant to spend it for a gun. Aggie
wanted to buy a pair of long lace mitts to wear to Belle’s wedding. So we
all hunted and hunted, each one thinking of what he would buy with the
money.
“Once for three days I didn’t have an egg. Then I found a great basketful
that was so heavy I could hardly carry it to a new hiding place, and the
next day it was gone. So it went on till Easter.
“Charlie and I were up bright and early on Easter morning—not as early
as on Christmas, of course. As we all brought in our eggs Father counted
them. The kitchen floor was covered with baskets and buckets and boxes
of eggs. You never saw so many eggs. Charlie had the most, and he was as
happy as happy could be.
“While Mother and the girls finished getting breakfast, Charlie and I
hunted for the colored eggs. Under beds, behind doors, in the cupboards,
all over the house we hunted.
“‘Here they are!’ shouted Charlie from the spare chamber. And there they
were behind the bureau—red eggs, blue eggs, green eggs, big sugar eggs,
and eggs with pretty pictures pasted on them and tied with gay ribbons.
And there were white eggs that looked just like common hen’s eggs, but
when you broke a tiny bit of the shell and put your tongue to it, my, oh
my! but that maple sugar was delicious!
“After breakfast there was a rush to get the work done and get ready for
meeting. Dear knows how many people would come home to dinner with us.
Mother always asked everyone home to dinner.
“We were nearly ready. Mother had picked the lovely, yellow Easter
flowers and was wrapping the stems in wet paper to keep them from wilting
till we got to the church—she meant to put them in a vase on the pulpit
stand—when Father came in and said that the widow Spear’s new house
had burned down in the night. There was something the matter with the
chimney, no one knew just what.
“Mr. Abraham Harvey had told Father. The Spear family had taken refuge
in a little old house that they had lived in before they built the new
house. But of course they had nothing to keep house with, and Mr. Harvey
was going around in a big wagon collecting things. There were some pieces
of old furniture in the wagon, and several bundles of bedclothes and a
box of dishes.
“Father gave flour and meat and potatoes and a ham. Mother emptied the
shelves of our Easter pies and took the chicken in the pot right off the
stove, besides giving bread and a crock of apple butter.
“Then she wrapped up a pair of blankets she had woven herself and sent
Charlie and Truman to carry out some chairs and a bedstead that were up
in the meathouse loft. Belle and Aggie were sorting out some old clothes
to send, and I wanted to do something, too.
“As I was going through the kitchen on an errand for Mother, I noticed
the eggs. Such a lot of them—nearly fifty dozen, and they brought ten
cents a dozen. Just then Charlie passed the door carrying a chair, and I
called to him.
“‘Charlie,’ I said, ‘would you give your egg money if I gave mine?’
“‘No,’ he said at once, ‘I won’t give my egg money. Not on your life, I
won’t! Father and Mother’ll give enough,’ and he went out.
“I didn’t say any more about the egg money. I didn’t think it would be
fair to Charlie, since he was the one who had the most eggs. I went
upstairs to Mother’s room and took my gold breastpin out of the fat
pincushion on her bureau.
“‘Here is my breastpin, Mother,’ I said. ‘Send it to Millie. Everything
she’ll get will be so plain and ugly.’
“Aggie and Belle laughed.
“‘A breastpin,’ said Aggie, ‘when very likely she has no dress!’
“‘It’s all right, Sarah,’ said Mother, and she went to her bureau drawer
and took out a fine linen handkerchief and laid it on the bed beside the
breastpin. When she came to get them, Aggie had given a carved back comb
and Belle a pretty lace collar.
“Mr. Harvey was starting his horses and Father had come inside the gate
when Charlie ran around the house.
“‘Give them my egg money, Father!’ he called and ran out of sight again.
Then all the rest of us said we would give our egg money, too, and it
made a lot—over five dollars.
“‘I’m proud of you,’ Mother said when she had hunted Charlie up and was
tying his necktie. ‘I’m proud of every one of my children.’
“We were a little late to meeting, and when we got home Belle had dinner
ready—ham meat and cream gravy and mashed potatoes and hot biscuits.
Mother brought out a plate of fruit cake that she kept in a big stone jar
for special occasions—the longer she kept it the better it got—and a dish
of pickled peaches for dessert.”
“Mm! mm! Wish I’d been there,” sighed Bobby.
“And next time,” Grandma went on, “I think—yes, I’m pretty sure—that I’ll
tell you how the maple sugar got in the Easter eggs.”
AT A SUGAR CAMP
“Grandma,” said Alice the next evening, “you said you’d tell us how the
sugar got in the Easter egg.”
“And so I will,” answered Grandma. “I’ll tell you about that this very
evening. Where’s my knitting? I can talk so much better when I knit.
There now, are you all ready?”
Bobby and Alice and Pink drew their stools closer and Grandma began:
“On my father’s farm, about half a mile from our house, was a grove of
maple trees. We always called them sugar trees. In the spring, you know,
the sweet juice or sap comes up from the roots into the trees, and it is
from this sap that maple sirup and sugar are made. In the spring Father
and the boys would tap our sugar trees. They would take elder branches
and make spouts by removing the pithy centers. Then they would bore holes
in the trees and put the spouts in the holes and place buckets underneath
to catch the sap. These buckets would have to be emptied several times a
day into the big brass kettle, where it was boiled down into sirup and
sugar.
“Truman tended to the sap buckets and kept a supply of firewood on hand,
and Stanley watched the boiling of the sap. He knew just when it was
thick enough and sweet enough to take off for sirup and how much longer
to cook it for sugar. One of the girls was always there to help, and
Father or Mother would oversee it all.
“There was a one-roomed log cabin with a great fireplace in the maple
grove. It had been built years and years before by some early settler
and was never occupied except during sugar-making time. The girls would
go up the week before and clean it out, and Mother would send dishes and
bedclothes for the two rough beds built against the wall. The ones making
and tending the sirup would camp up there.
“Mother would send butter and bread and pies, and the girls would boil
meat or beans in a black iron pot that hung over the fire. In the
evenings they would have lots of fun sitting in front of the fire,
telling stories and popping corn. Sister Aggie could make the best
popcorn balls that were put together with maple sirup. They would often
have visitors, too, neighboring boys and girls who would come in to stay
until bedtime. And there would be songs and games.
“And they would make the sugar eggs for Easter. Before sugar time came we
would blow the contents out of eggs by making little holes in each end.
Then we would dry the shells and put them away. When they were taking
off the maple sugar, Mother or Belle or Aggie would fill the egg shells
and set them aside for the sugar to cool and harden. They would fill
goose-egg shells with the maple sugar, too, and when the sugar hardened
they would pick the shell off, and by and by the girls would paste pretty
pictures of birds or flowers on them and tie them with gay-colored
ribbons for Easter.
“Neither Charlie nor I had ever been allowed to stay all night at the
sugar camp, and when Mother said we could stay one night with Stanley and
Truman and Belle we were wild with joy.
“Truman had shot and cleaned three squirrels that morning, and Belle
cooked them in the big black pot with a piece of fat pork until the
water boiled off and they sizzled and browned in the bottom of the pot.
We had little flat corn cakes baked on the hearth and maple sirup, and,
my, but that supper tasted good to me!
“I dried the dishes for Belle, and we had just settled down for the
evening when one of the Strang boys came in. He didn’t know we children
were there, and he had come up to see if Stanley and Truman and Belle
would go home with him to a little frolic. His sister Esther had been
married a few days before and had come home that afternoon, and they were
going to have a serenade for them. Belle and the boys wanted Charlie and
me to go down to the house so they could go, but we wouldn’t do it. We
declared we were not afraid to stay by ourselves and told them to go on.
Finally they did.
“Charlie and I didn’t mind being left alone at all. We thought it was
great fun. For a while we played we were pioneers. Then Charlie got
tired of that and wanted to play Indian, so we played Indian for a long
time. But we had been out all day in the cold, and after a while we got
sleepy and decided to go to bed. I went to the window to see if Belle and
the boys were coming. There was a moon, and I could see the trees with
their spouts and the buckets under them. I looked closely. At one of the
buckets was a black shadow. I looked and looked at it and just then it
moved a little.
“‘Charlie,’ I cried excitedly, ‘Brierly’s old black dog is out there
drinking up our sap!’
“Charlie gave one hurried glance out the window, then he picked up a
stick of firewood and opened the door.
“‘I bet I give that dog a good scare,’ he said, and rushed out the door
and made straight for the black shadow. He raised the stick and brought
it down ker-plunk on the back of what we thought was Brierly’s dog. But
it wasn’t Brierly’s dog at all, nor anybody’s dog. It was a bear! I don’t
know which was the most surprised, Charlie or the bear. Charlie darted
back to the cabin, and when he reached the door he threw his stick with
all his might and hit the bear on the nose. The nose is the bear’s
tenderest point, you know. Charlie must have hurt him, for he gave a
growl, backed away from the sap bucket, and scampered up the nearest
tree. Maybe he meant to wait a while and come back for more sap, I don’t
know. Anyway, up the tree he stayed while Charlie and I watched him
through the window.
[Illustration: _Up the tree the bear stayed while Charlie and I watched
him_]
“‘If we could only keep him up the tree till the boys come home from
Strangs’ one of them could get a gun and kill him,’ said Charlie, ‘and
we’d get the money for his pelt.’
“‘Father says wolves won’t come near a fire,’ I remarked, and that gave
Charlie an idea. He would build a fire and keep the bear treed until the
boys came.
“At first I wouldn’t agree to help him. I was too afraid. But Charlie
coaxed and threatened and was getting ready to do it himself. So I helped
him carry out the first burning log from the fireplace in the cabin.
After that my part was to watch the bear and warn Charlie if he moved
while Charlie built up the fire. Once as the fire grew warmer and the
smoke got thicker and thicker the bear snorted and moved to a limb higher
up.