[Illustration]
Once there was a little boy, who more than any thing else loved to look
at pictures. He had but few books containing them, nor were his parents
able to hang their walls with beautiful paintings and engravings,
as rich people can do. Still, little Claude found pictures all about
him. In the spring, it was the tender green of the new leaves and the
springing grass; in the summer, the thousand different flowers and the
beautiful birds; in the autumn, the gorgeous scarlet and golden tints
of the changing woods; and in the winter--oh, in the winter--Claude
never wanted for pictures!
Every morning there they were, twelve new ones, all different, ready
placed to meet his eyes as soon as they should open!
But what do you think these twelve pictures were, and where were they
drawn?
Why, on the twelve panes of glass in the window of Claude’s little
bedroom.
Every morning was to the boy a new delight; and how sorry he felt, if,
by sleeping a little later than usual, he lost a few minutes of the
half hour which he usually enjoyed before his mother called him to get
up.
The pictures were quite different. Sometimes there was a dense forest
covering all one pane, the tree tops crowded together with scarcely any
gap between them.
Sometimes there was a grove at one side, and a wide, lawn-like field
stretching away out of sight at the other.
Sometimes a few scattered trees, with a brook winding among them, and
troops of deer drinking at it.
Sometimes a wild and savage ravine between two precipices, and a crazy
waterfall dashing down between them.
Sometimes a flowery plain, with a star-spangled sky overhead, and
a flower wreathed May-pole, waiting quietly for a troop of happy
children to dance about it in the sunrise.
Sometimes, behind a trim and quiet-looking group of trees, Claude could
see the outline of a stately castle, its chimneys and turrets peeping
over the tree tops.
Sometimes it was a ruined and deserted tower, standing gloomy and
solitary upon a craggy mountain side.
In short, there was no end to the beauty and variety of the pictures in
Claude’s gallery.
But who drew them in a single night, while all in the house slept?
This question troubled the boy’s mind constantly. His mother said the
frost did it; but how could that be? “Frost has nothing lovely about
him,” thought Claude. “He turns all my beautiful flowers to ugly black
stalks as soon as he sees them; he makes the ground hard and white,
and changes the soft green of the grass to a dull brown; he makes my
mother’s pretty face look blue and pinched, and spoils her curls. How
can it be the frost who draws my dear pictures?”
His mother could not tell him why,--only she was quite sure it was the
frost, because everybody said so.
He asked his father, who laughed, and told him that when he was older
he would find out.
So Claude asked no more questions, but wondered all the more.
One morning there was a new picture, one which had never come before;
and Claude’s eyes only glanced at the rest, turning again and again to
this new one, which seemed to call him to it as if it spoke.
A low, irregular mountain, with a wide plain at its foot,--that was all.
But stop!--was it a mountain? No,--it was a palace; very large, and
very fantastic in its shape, but evidently a palace, and a very
magnificent one.
What he had at first taken for crags and ice-peaks were in reality
graceful minarets and spires; what he had supposed a mass of frozen
snow upon the mountain top was the sheeny, silvered roof of the palace;
what had been solitary trees upon the mountain side were now gayly
floating banners; little clear spots, which he had not noticed at
first, now showed as thousands of windows and scores of doors; what,
at the first glance, seemed wild bushes about the base of the hill,
suddenly became a troop of guards, some mounted, some on foot.
Claude, astonished, raised himself upon his elbow to look more closely
at this transformation. Just then his mother entered the room to call
him to breakfast.
“See, see, mother!” cried he, “that beautiful palace, in the middle of
my window! How I wish I could really go to it!”
“Palace, child!” said his mother, “I see no palace. There is something
there which looks like a mountain, but nothing more. You will hurt
yourself, dear boy, looking so much at these frost pictures; we shall
have you crazy next. Come, now, and eat some nice, warm breakfast.”
“But, mother”--began Claude, and then stopped suddenly. His mother was
right, it _was_ nothing but a mountain,--how could he have been
so deceived? “And yet,”--
Claude rose, and dressed himself slowly, often glancing at the window,
where now the mountain (nothing but a mountain) was fading slowly under
the bright rays of the rising sun, which shone full upon it.
Claude paid but little attention to his breakfast, or his dinner
either, he was so anxious to have night come and go again, that he
might see if the enchanted palace, as he called it, would reappear.
The next morning, as soon as there was light enough to see any thing,
his eager eyes started open, and turned at once to the upper centre
pane of glass, which was, indeed, the only one bearing any intelligible
picture, all the rest being covered with a thick white coat, looking
like nothing, unless it was a curtain, to hide what might be behind.
But there, where it had stood before, rose clear and sharp the fairy
palace; and Claude wondered how he could have taken it for a mountain.
After looking at it for a while, the boy suddenly noticed a new feature
in his picture.
This was a large fir-tree, standing in the middle of the plain, quite
alone, its lower branches dead and broken, while the top was dense and
flourishing. Under the tree was an object which Claude could not make
out.
“It must be a little bush,” thought he, and turned his eyes again
toward the palace.
The next morning Claude slept late, and when he woke was obliged to
jump up directly.
He looked at the window, but saw nothing except a shapeless mark,
hardly resembling even a mountain.
All that day Claude was sad and uneasy, feeling as if something were
wanting to his happiness which he knew not where to find.
The next morning, however, he waked betimes, and turned eagerly to the
window. Clear and splendid rose the palace in the frosty air; stern and
sad stood the lonely tree,--but, that shrub at its foot! How blind he
had been! It was the perfect and graceful figure of a young girl,--her
long hair hanging about her, her gossamer looking robe and scarf
fluttering in the morning air. She seemed looking down at something
lying at the foot of the old fir, something quite as vague to Claude,
however, as the girl herself had been when he first saw her.
Full of delight, he bounded from his bed, and rushed to the window to
examine more closely this new figure in the strange frost picture; but,
when he reached it, look as he might, he could see nothing but a rugged
mountain, a tree, and a bush.
Sad and disappointed, Claude crept back to bed, but comforted himself
by thinking,--“Somewhere, somewhere in this world, stands that
palace,--lives that maiden. In a few years I shall be a man, and then I
will go and find them.”
Again he turned his eyes upon the window, through which the sun’s
first rays were streaming. Under their influence the picture began
to disappear; but for one moment first, they stood out, clear and
distinct as over,--the palace and the maiden.
Many mornings came and went. Often the enchanted palace greeted
Claude’s wakening eyes, but there were also long intervals in which he
saw nothing, or only the shapeless mountain.
Still the idea grew in his mind, that somewhere he should find the
palace, the tree, and the maiden who waited beneath it,--waited,
perhaps, for him.
Years rolled away. Claude left his home, and travelled in many
countries.
He found himself in glowing southern lands, with pictures all around
him,--pictures painted by men, which thrilled his heart as he gazed
at them; pictures in the trees and flowers, such as he had known and
loved at home; beautiful women and beautiful palaces; but none ever
contented him or held him long; still he whispered to himself,--
“Here is not _my_ palace or _my_ maiden,” and then he
wandered on.
At last he left this warm and glowing land, and found himself in a
frozen, wintry region, where on every side rose steep and snow-clad
mountains, upon whose summits the foot of man had never rested.
Here Claude felt more content, and looked eagerly around him for the
mountain he had known so many years.
No, it was not here; and still he wandered on.
On, through level, fertile plains, over which he hastened impatiently;
on, through cities and over seas, ever looking, ever longing.
At last he reached a frozen country, where people hardly dared breathe
the cutting, icy air; and where no trees and flowers grew, except the
strongest and bravest of their kind.
On wandered Claude, a wild impatience burning in his heart; a feeling
as if what he so long had sought was close at hand,--almost within his
grasp.
Late one night he reached a lonely hut, far beyond all towns and farms,
where dwelt an old man with his old wife. They welcomed the youth, gave
him of their reindeer’s milk and coarse bread, and then spread a couch
of lichens in the corner of the hut, where Claude slept soundly till
morning light. Then, springing up, he bade the aged couple good-by with
many thanks, and was leaving the hut, when the old man said kindly,--
“But, my son, where will you go? Beyond here lies only the country of
King Frost; a country in which no man can live a day.”
[Illustration]
“Stay with us till summer comes, or else go back from whence you came;
you are too young and too beautiful to die in the cold grasp of the
frost-king.”