Then, with a nod, he was gone.
The old fear came back when she woke in the morning, and she tied on her
shoes with a tremble at her heart. Down-stairs she stole. The first
thing she saw was a wooden ship standing on her plate. Marc had made the
ship, but Toinette had no idea that it was for her.
The little ones sat round the table with their eyes on the door,
watching till Toinette should come in, and be surprised.
"I wish she'd hurry," said Pierre, drumming on his bowl with a spoon.
"We all want Toinette, don't we?" said the mother, smiling as she poured
the hot porridge.
"It will be fun to see her stare," declared Marc. "Toinette is jolly
when she stares. Her eyes look big, and her cheeks grow pink. Andre
Brugen thinks his sister Aline is prettiest, but I don't. Our Toinette
is ever so pretty."
"She is ever so nice, too," said Pierre. "She's as good to play with
as--as--a boy!" he finished triumphantly.
"Oh, I wish my Toinette _would_ come!" said Jeanneton.
Toinette waited no longer, but sped up-stairs with glad tears in her
eyes. Two minutes, and down she came again, visible this time. Her heart
was light as a feather.
"Merry Christmas!" clamored the children. The ship was presented,
Toinette was duly surprised, and so the happy day began.
That night Toinette left the window open, and lay down in her clothes;
for she felt, as Thistle had been so kind, she ought to receive him
politely. He came at midnight, and with him all the other little men in
green.
"Well, how was it?" asked Thistle.
"Oh, I liked it this time," declared Toinette, with shining eyes. "And I
thank you so much!"
"I'm glad you did," said the elf. "And I'm glad you are thankful, for we
want you to do something for us."
"What can it be?" inquired Toinette, wondering.
"You must know," went on Thistle, "that there is no dainty in the world
which we elves enjoy like a bowl of fern-seed broth. But it has to be
cooked over a real fire, and we dare not go near fire, you know, lest
our wings scorch. So we seldom get any fern-seed broth. Now,
Toinette--will you make us some?"
"Indeed I will," cried Toinette, "only you must tell me how."
"It is very simple," said Peascod; "only seed and honey dew, stirred
from left to right with a sprig of fennel. Here's the seed and the
fennel, and here's the dew. Be sure and stir from the left; if you
don't, it curdles, and the flavor will be spoiled."
Down into the kitchen they went, and Toinette, moving very softly,
quickened the fire, set on the smallest bowl she could find, and spread
the doll's table with the wooden saucers which Marc had made for
Jeanneton to play with. Then she mixed and stirred as the elves bade,
and when the soup was done, served it to them smoking hot. How they
feasted! No bumble-bee, dipping into a flower-cup, ever sipped and
twinkled more rapturously than they.
When the last drop was eaten, they made ready to go. Each, in turn,
kissed Toinette's hand, and said a little word of farewell. Thistle
brushed his feathered cap over the door-post as he passed.
"Be lucky, house," he said, "for you have received and entertained the
luck-bringers. And be lucky, Toinette. Good temper _is_ good luck, and
sweet words and kind looks and peace in the heart are the fairest of
fortunes. See that you never lose them again, my girl." With this, he
too kissed Toinette's hand, waved his feathered cap, and--whir! they all
were gone, while Toinette, covering the fire with ashes, and putting
aside the little cups, stole up to her bed a happy child.
JEAN'S MONEY, AND WHAT IT BOUGHT.
THE last recitation of the last day of the district school-term was
over, and the boys and girls shut their books and put away slates and
pencils, with a glad sense of liberty immediately at hand, which made it
doubly hard to sit still for the few remaining moments. Jean Thompson,
their teacher, was almost as impatient as they. She was but seventeen,
scarcely older than her oldest scholar, and in her joy at getting
through the term would doubtless have made short work of the closing
exercises, had not Mr. Gillicraft been there. Mr. Gillicraft was the
senior member of the school board,--a slow, formal man, who liked things
done ceremoniously, so for his sake there had to be a little delay. He
made a speech to the children, speaking at length and deliberately. They
were all pleased to have vacation begin, no doubt, but he hoped, etc. He
was sure they would join him in thanking their excellent teacher, Miss
Thompson, for the judicious manner in which, etc. He trusted the moral
discipline inculcated during the term would not, etc. And he hoped some
at least of them would find time to study somewhat during the vacation,
and thus redeem time which otherwise would be idly spent. The children
fidgeted dreadfully during these remarks. The blue sky and bright air
wooed and coaxed them through the open door; their feet were dancing
with impatience, how _could_ they attend to Mr. Gillicraft? At last the
end came, the long-desired bell tinkled; and whooping, jumping, rioting,
out they all rushed into their twelve weeks' freedom. One or two of the
lesser girls waited to kiss "Teacher" for good-by; then they followed
the rest.
When the last child was gone, Mr. Gillicraft approached Jean, who was
setting matters straight in her desk. His hand was in his pocket, from
which he presently drew a fat leathern wallet.
"Ahem!" he said. "It is my duty and my privilege, too, as I may say, to
hand you this, Miss Thompson." Mr. Gillicraft called her "Jean" usually,
having known her all her life, but this was a formal occasion.
"Nine--ten--eleven," he went on, counting the bills which he had drawn
from his wallet--"twelve. You will find that correct, I believe, $120,
and I desire to say, in the name of the board, that we are quite
satisfied with the manner in which you have conducted the school, and
gratified at your decision to continue with us during the ensuing year."
"Thank you, sir," said Jean, modestly.
"Count it," remarked Mr. Gillicraft, dropping the official and resuming
the friend--"always count your money, Jean, it's business-like. And
don't put it loose in your pocket--that's a careless trick. You never
had so much money at a time before in your life, did you? What are you
going to do with it all?"
"I don't quite know yet," replied Jean, "I shall have to talk with
father about it. I'll lock the door now, Mr. Gillicraft, if you're
ready, and give you the key."
"Have you got it?" whispered her brother James, as Mr. Gillicraft and
the key disappeared around the corner. "Have you got it, Jean?"
Jean nodded.
"How splendid," said Elsie, a younger sister, coming to Jean's other
side. "Show me. Oh! What a lot of money!"
"What will you get with it?" asked James. "Don't I wish it was mine! I
know well enough what I would buy."
"So do I," chimed in Elsie.
"What?" said Jean, with a smile.
"A piano! And the dearest little dog--just like Ruth Parsons's dog, if I
could find one. And ever so many books. And a watch." And Elsie's list
was interrupted by the necessity of taking breath.
"Hoo! Isn't that just like a girl? Why, you couldn't get half those with
that, you silly," put in her brother. "I'd get something quite
different. I'd get a pony, a real strong useful pony, which father could
plough with when I wasn't riding him. That would be something like."
"Your pony would cost as much as Elsie's piano," remarked Jean.
"Well, what would you get?" said James. "Will you get some nice
clothes?"
"Pshaw! Clothes! Will you get a watch, Jean? Or a breastpin and
ear-rings?"
"Now, what use would ear-rings be to her when she hasn't any holes in
her ears, Elsie? Do tell us, Jean--what will you get?"
Jean laughed. It seemed as if all the world was bound to find out what
she meant to do with her money.
"I'll tell you by and by," she said. "I've made up my mind, I _think_,
what I'd rather do, but I want to talk to father first." They reached
the top of the hill as she spoke, and she pushed open the gate for the
others to enter, paying no attention to Elsie's rather fretful--
"By and by. That's a long time. Tell us now, Jean, please do."
After tea was the best time to catch Farmer Thompson at leisure. At that
hour he usually treated himself to half an hour's rest and a pipe in the
porch, and there Jean found him on this particular night.
"Mr. Gillicraft paid me this to-day," she said, handing him the roll of
bills.
"Ay. They're prompt with it, but that's but fair. Well, my lass--it's a
good bit of money. What'll ye do with your gains?"
"I'll tell you something I was thinking of, father--if you approve, that
is. It's a great many years since mother and you came from Scotland
here, and she's never been home since, you know."
"Twenty-one years come October. 'Tis a long time, truly," replied her
father, letting a curl of smoke escape from the corner of his mouth.
"Well--there was an advertisement in the paper, awhile ago, about a
steamboat line, the Anchor Line, it's called, I think, which goes to
Glasgow, and it said great reductions for this summer, and people could
go and come back in the second cabin for forty-five dollars. Now if
mother'd like it, and I know she would, she and I could go for what I've
got, and she could visit grandmother, and there'd be thirty dollars left
for other things, such as going down to New York and from Glasgow to
Greenock. Grandmother lives in Greenock, doesn't she? Do you think it's
a good plan, father?"
"Well, it depends on your mother. If she likes to go, I'd say nought
against it," replied her father. Then, his habitual Scotch caution
relaxing, he added: "You're a good lass, Jean. A good, dutiful lass to
think of this. Your granny's an old woman by now, and I've known this
long back that your mother was wearying to see her again before she
dies, and I'd have sent her myself, only I never could see the way to do
it. Scotland's a long travel, and money's none too plenty now-a-days
with any of us. I'll just smoke my pipe out, and then you and I'll go in
and talk it over with mother."
Mrs. Thompson heard the proposal with a tremulous mixture of
bewilderment and joy. She was not a strong woman, and fever-and-ague,
that insidious scourge of so many country districts, had struck at the
hill-farm the year before, and left her weakened and languid for months
afterward. The neighbors were told the new plan, and preparations set on
foot at once, that Jean might lose as little as possible of her brief
vacation time. Everybody was interested and excited. Mrs. Parsons
brought warm knitted hoods to be worn at sea; Mrs. Wright, a waterproof
clothes-bag and a box of Ayer's Pills; Mrs. Gillicraft two linen
catchalls for state-room use, with pockets, and pincushions well
furnished with pins.
"I envy you," said Maria Parsons, who was Jean's special friend. "I
always was wild to travel, but there! I don't suppose I ever shall, so
long as I live. Some folks are born lucky. You'll have a splendid time,
Jean."
"Do you think so?" replied Jean, rather dismally.
"Think so? Why, girl alive, don't you _know_ it?"
"Well no, I don't. The fact is, Maria--the fact is--well--I _hate_
travelling. I don't look forward to it one bit. I shall be horribly sick
first, and then I shall be horribly homesick: I'm perfectly sure of it.
Dear me--how I wish it was over, and we safely back."
"Good gracious!" cried Maria, opening her eyes. "What on earth do you go
for, Jean, if you feel that way?"
"Only to take mother. _She_ wants to go, and I always said she should,
if ever I could earn any money to take her. Except for that, I'd gladly
give you the chance, and stay at home instead."
This was not a very bright beginning for so long a journey. But Jean did
not think about that. She had the sturdy old Scotch blood in her, and
having once put her hand to a task, did not look back.
Her expectations were realized so far as the voyage went, for they had a
rough passage, and both she and her mother were sick for more than half
the way over. It was dull work enough for a strong, active girl to lie
day after day in a narrow berth, watching the curtains swing and the
vessel rock, and very often Jean said to herself, "I can't imagine what
people want to go to Europe for. It's _horrid_! I only wish Maria were
in my place--since she wanted to come so much, and I at home instead.
I'm sure I'd change in a minute, if I could."
Matters mended toward the last, and by the time the steamer entered the
Frith of Clyde, Mrs. Thompson, as well as Jean, was able to be on deck.
It was a fine day, and as they slowly steamed up the beautiful Frith,
between richly cultivated shores, with wooded hills dotted with
country-seats rising behind, and purple mountain outlines still farther
back, something new stirred in Jean's mind, a quite unlooked-for
excitement and pleasure, which roused and woke her mind to the glad
reception of fresh impressions. It was the first reward of her
unselfishness, but she had looked for no reward, and had been conscious
of no unselfishness; so it came with the zest of unexpectedness, and was
doubly delightful.
"Mother, there's a castle!" she exclaimed. "I truly think it's a real
castle. It looks just like the pictures of them."
"And what for no?" replied her mother, whose Scotch seemed to revive and
broaden with the very aspect of her native shores--"what for should it
na' be a castle? Mony's the castle I've seen in my childish time. Oh!
there's the Cathedral, Jean, and the Custom House, and the bonny
Monument. I weel remember them a', lang as 'tis. And there--Jean, see by
the pillar--I'm most sure that's your uncle Andrew. I know him by the
bonny shoulders, and the head above everybody else's; but dear, he's
grown much older since--much older."
This was no unnatural result of twenty-one years of separation, but at
that moment Mrs. Thompson did not remember this. "It's like a dream,"
she kept on repeating. "This is Glasgow, and that's my brother that I
never looked to see again! It's like a dream, Jean."
If they had turned back then and there for thirteen more days of weary
sea, Jean would have felt rewarded for her journey by the half-tearful
rapture which shone in her mother's face at that moment. But they did
not turn back. They landed instead, and, with Uncle Andrew's assistance,
were soon in the train for Greenock. He and his sister plunged at once
into conversation in Scotch so much broader than Jean was used to, that
she could hardly follow it. So she looked out of the window instead of
talking, and there was plenty there to keep both eyes and mind happily
busy. The trees, the buildings, the silver links and windings of the
Frith, the pearl-gray shimmering atmosphere which enveloped all--it was
unlike anything she had ever seen, and gave her a pleasure which she had
not expected to feel.
Grandmother's house, or flat, was in an old-fashioned street. It was
rather barely furnished to American eyes, but very clean and orderly,
and there was nothing bare in the greeting given by the sweet-faced old
Scotchwoman to her long-unseen child and that child's child. Jean was
amused to hear her mother spoken to as if she were still almost a baby,
while to herself granny accorded a certain respect and distance as to a
stranger and a woman grown. Her size and age seemed an entire surprise
to her Scotch relations, who had apparently never realized a growth of
which they had only heard in letters.
"She's a big hearty lass, indeed, she's a very goodly lass!" granny kept
on saying. "She's as large for a maiden as Sandy is for a lad. Aweel, I
can't understand it, Maggie. Ye were always the least of my weans,
always the wee one of the flock, and it's muckle strange that your lass
should be bigger than ony of her cousins, and your sisters all bigger
than yersel. I'm clear puzzled about it."
But puzzlement was lost in pleasure when she understood that the whole
journey was the gift of Jean, the earnings of a year's hard work. She
took the girl into her arms, held her tight, and kissed her heartily.
"She who goes a mithering shall find violets in the lanes," she said,
quoting the pretty old English proverb. "Ye'll find it so, my dear
lassie. Ye'll be the richer all your life for giving your mither and me
the chance of meeting again once more on this side the grave, trust me,
Jean, ye will."
"I'm richer already, granny," whispered Jean, warmed through and through
by the words and the embrace. There was no stiffness between her and
grandmother after that. So granny's love was the first thing bought with
Jean's money.
"Sandy" was Uncle Andrew's son. His mother had long been dead, and he
and his father lived with granny in her flat. He was a manly young
fellow, steady and cheery both, and doing well as clerk in one of the
large Greenock shipping-houses, with good chances of promotion. The
advent of a cousin from America was an event in his life. He liked Jean
at once and Jean liked him, so they grew friends speedily.
Under his guidance, Jean's "violet" gathering went on prosperously.
There were many interesting things to see and do in the neighborhood of
Greenock, and of Glasgow, to which place they ran down more than once
in a cheap train. There were rows on the Frith, and walks into the
lovely hill country, and visits to the different aunts and cousins, all
of whom wanted to see Mrs. Thompson and make acquaintance with Jean, and
once they went as far as Edinburgh with third-class return tickets, and
Jean saw the wonders of Holyrood, the Castle, and Arthur's Seat. It
seemed to put new color and life into history and all the past, this
glimpse of the places where great things had happened. Jean's interest
in books waked up, and as Sandy owned a share in a good People's
Library, she was able to get at various histories and fictions which,
read on the spot, had a value and meaning which they could not have had
elsewhere. Her mind broadened, she took in more of the width and grasp
of life, and this mental growth and stimulus was another thing--and a
very good one--bought with Jean's money.
So the short two months sped swiftly away, and the time came to go
back. It was a hard parting, as partings must be, where seas roll
between, and old age makes fresh meetings improbable. But with all its
hardness, all of them felt that it had been blessed to meet. Sandy was
even more cast down than granny, but he consoled himself by a long
whispered talk with Jean the last evening, in which he promised to come
out to America in two years from then; and Jean, I am inclined to think,
half promised to go back again to Scotland with him. But this is neither
here nor there in our story, and, as we all know, it is not polite to
listen when people whisper. So the travellers sailed again over the wide
Atlantic, the journey not seeming half so long or so hard, now that
their faces were set the other way; and in a very few days after the
homecoming, all they had seen and done began to recede into dream-like
distance, and they found it almost impossible to realize that they had
gone so far and achieved so much.
"I told you you would enjoy it," remarked Maria Parsons. People always
enjoy being able to say "I told you so."
"And is your money really all gone?" said little Elsie, "every bit of it
gone! And you haven't got one single thing of your own to keep out of
it, Jean. What a pity!"
"Ah, but I have," replied Jean. But she made no answer to the further
"What?"
"Elsie is sorry that I've spent all my money," she told her father that
night. "She doesn't think I got much for it. But it seems to me no one
else ever got so much as I have. I never thought I should learn to like
travelling, father, but I did; I enjoyed it ever so much. Then I know
granny now, and Uncle Andrew, and I've seen a great deal of Scotland,
and mother is so much stronger, and we have so many nice things to
remember and think about--that's a great, great deal to get with a
hundred and twenty dollars, don't you think so, father? And besides--"
But here Jean stopped and blushed. I think that blush meant--Sandy.
HOW THE STORKS CAME AND WENT.
WHEN the storks came, the spring came too. Till then the skies had been
gray and the air cold and raw, while the leaf-buds on the branches
seemed afraid to peep from their coverings. But when the call of the
storks was heard, and the click of their large white wings, the leaves
took courage, unrolled their woolly blankets, and presently the trees
were green. Soon other birds came too. The doves went to housekeeping in
their cote under the peak of the roof-gable. Just beneath, a pair of
swallows built a nest of plastered clay: the cherry-tree in the garden
was chosen as home by a colony of lively sparrows. All the air was astir
with wings and songs, and the world, which for months had seemed dead
or asleep, waked suddenly into life and motion.
"What a droll house Mother Stork seems to be building!" said the saucy
swallow, cocking up one eye at the long-legged pair on the roof above.
"I shouldn't like such an one at all. Sharp sticks everywhere, no
conveniences, great holes for eggs to drop into and be broken. And how
the wind must blow up there! Give me a cosey place like this of ours."
"Give _me_ a nice, smooth wooden box," cooed the dove. "I don't fancy
plaster; it's damp and rheumatic, my mate says. But you needn't worry
about Mother Stork's eggs. They're too large to drop through the holes
in the branches and be broken."
"What coarse things they must be!" remarked the swallow, looking
complacently at the tiny clouded spheres beneath her own wings.
"They _are_ big," agreed the dove. "But then, Mother Stork is big too."
"Listen to those absurd creatures!" said Mother Stork to her partner.
"Coarse, indeed! My eggs! I like that."
"Never mind them," replied Papa Stork, good-humoredly, giving a crooked
twig the final shove to the side of the nest.
Below on the grass, which was still winter-brown, three little children
stood gazing wistfully up at the storks.
"They flew straight to our roof," said Annchen. "Frau Perl says that
means good luck before the year ends."
"What does good luck mean?" asked Carl, the youngest boy.
"It means--oh, all sorts of things," replied Annchen, vaguely: "that the
mother should not work so hard; that we should have plenty,--plenty to
eat every day,--and money, I suppose,--and my new shoes I've waited for
so long;--all sorts of things."
"Perhaps my father'll come back," suggested Fritz, with a joyful leap.
Annchen shook her brown head. The boys were too little to understand,
but she knew well that the father would never come back. She recollected
the day when he marched away with the other soldiers to fight the
French. He had lifted her in his arms. She had played with his beard and
kissed him, and Fritz had cried after the glittering helmet-spike, till
at last the father took the helmet off and gave it him to play with.
Then the drum-tap sounded, and he had to go. The mother had watched
awhile from the window, and when she could no longer see anything, had
sat down to sob and cry with her apron over her face. Annchen
recollected it perfectly, and that other dreadful day when Corporal Spes
of the same regiment had come, with his arm tied up and a bandage round
his head, to tell how the father had been shot in one of the battles
before Paris, and buried in French soil. Everything had been sad since.
There was less black bread at dinner-time, less soup in the pot,
sometimes no soup at all, and the mother worked all day and far into
the night, and cried bitterly when she thought the children were not
looking. Annchen was too young to comprehend the full cause of these
tears, but she _felt_ the sadness; it was like a constant cloud over her
childish sun. Now the stork was come to their roof, which all the
neighbors said meant something good. Perhaps the happy days would begin
again.
"How I hope they will!" she whispered to herself.
"Hope who will?" asked the mother, passing behind with an armful of
wood.
Annchen felt abashed.
"The storks," she murmured. "Frau Perl said when they build on a roof it
brings good fortune always." The mother sighed.
"There is no good fortune for us any more," she said sadly. "Even the
dear stork cannot undo what is done."
"But aren't the storks lucky birds?" asked Fritz. "Jan Stein said they
were."
"Ah, luck, luck!" answered the mother. "That is a word only. People use
it, but what does it mean?"
"Isn't there any luck, then?" asked Annchen.