"Have you the large lunar moth here? Can you tell me where to look for
_Campanila rhomboidalis_?" and he rapidly described the variety.
Louis shook his head. He knew nothing of any of these things. But Jean
at once waked up with interest. He knew a great deal about
woodpeckers,--not in a scientific way, but with the knowledge of one who
has watched and studied bird habits. He had quite a collection of lunar
and other moths of his own, and though he did not recognize the rare
_Campanila_ by its botanical title, he did as soon as the professor
described the peculiarities of the leaf and blossom. So M. Sylvestre
engaged him to be his guide so long as he stayed in the region, and
agreed to pay him ten francs a week. And Mother Cardilliac wrung her
hands, and exclaimed more piteously than ever over her boy's "ill luck"
and his cousin's superior good fortune.
One can never tell how a "chance" may develop. Professor Sylvestre was
well off, and kind of heart. He had no children of his own, and he was
devoted, above all other things, to the interest of science. He saw the
making of a first-rate naturalist in Jean Cardilliac, with his quick
eyes, his close observation, his real interest in finding out and making
sure. He grew to an interest in and liking for the boy, which ripened,
as the time drew near for him to return to his university, into an offer
to take Jean with him, and provide for his education, on the condition
that Jean, in return, should render him a certain amount of assistance
during his out-of-school hours. It was, in effect, a kind of adoption,
which might lead to almost anything; and Jean's mother was justified in
declaring, as she did, that his fortune was made.
"And for thee, thou canst stay at home, and dig potatoes for the rest of
thy sorry life," lamented the mother of Louis. "Well, let people say
what they will, this is an unjust world; and, what is worse, the saints
look on, and do nothing to prevent it. Heaven forgive me if it is
blasphemous to speak so, but I cannot help it!"
But it was neither "luck" nor "injustice." It was merely the difference
between "eyes and no eyes,"--a difference which will always exist and
always tell.
THE PONY THAT KEPT THE STORE.
It was a shabby old store, built where two cross-roads and a lane met at
the foot of a low hill, and left between them a small triangular space
fringed with grass. On the hill stood a summer hotel, full of boarders
from the neighboring city; for the place was cool and airy, and a wide
expanse of sea and rocky islands, edged with beaches and wooded points,
stretched away from the hill's foot.
In years gone by, the shabby old store had driven quite a flourishing
trade during the months of the year when the hotel was open. The
boarders went there for their ink and tacks; their sewing-silk and
shoe-buttons; for the orange marmalade and potted ham which they
carried on picnics; for the liquid blacking, which saved the boot-boy at
the hotel so much labor; the letter-paper, on which they wrote to their
friends what a good time they were having; and all the thousand and one
things of which people who have little to do with their time and money
fancy themselves in want. But a year before the time at which the events
I am about to relate took place, the owner of the store built himself a
new and better one at a place a mile further on, where there was a still
larger hotel and a group of cottages, and removed thither with his
belongings. The old building had stood empty for some months, and at
last was hired for a queer use,--namely, to serve as stable for a very
small Shetland pony, not much larger than a calf, or an extra large
Newfoundland dog.
"Cloud" was the pony's name. He belonged to Ned Cabot, who was nine
years old, and was not only his pony, but his intimate friend as well.
Ned loved him only the better for a terrible accident which had befallen
Cloud a few months before.
The Cabots, who had been living on Lake Superior for a while, came back
to the East with all their goods and chattels, and among the rest, their
horses. It had been a question as to how little Cloud should travel; and
at last a box was built which could be set in a freight-car, and in
which, it was hoped, he would make the journey in safety. But accidents
sometimes happen even when the utmost care is taken, and, sad to relate,
Cloud arrived in Boston with his tiny foreleg broken.
Horses' legs are hard to mend, you know; and generally when one breaks,
it is thought the easiest and cheapest way out of the trouble to shoot
the poor animal at once, and buy another to take his place. But the bare
mention of such a thing threw Ned into such paroxysms of grief, and he
sobbed so dreadfully, that all his family made haste to assure him that
under no circumstances should Cloud be shot. Instead, he was sent to a
hospital,--not the Massachusetts General, I think, but something almost
as superior in its line, where animals are treated, and there the
surgeons slung him up, and put his leg into plaster, exactly as if he
had been a human being. Had he been a large, heavy horse, I suppose they
could hardly have done this; but being a little light pony, it was
possible. And the result was that the poor fellow got well, and was not
lamed in the least, which made his little master very happy. He loved
Cloud all the more for this great escape, and Cloud fully returned Ned's
affection. He was a rather over-indulged and overfed pony; but with Ned,
he was always a pattern of gentleness and propriety. Ned could lie flat
on his back and read story books by the hour without the least fear that
Cloud would jump or shy or shake him off. Far from it! Cloud would
graze quietly up and down, taking pains not to disturb the reading, only
turning his head now and then to see if Ned was comfortable, and when he
found him so, giving a little satisfied whinny, which seemed to say,
"Here we are, and what a time we are having!" Surely, no pony could be
expected to do better than that.
So now little Cloud, with his foreleg quite mended and as strong as
ever, was the sole occupant of the roomy old country store. A little
stall had been partitioned off for him in a corner where there was a
window, out of which he could see the buckboards and cut-unders drive
by, and the daisies and long grass on the opposite slope blowing in the
fresh sea wind. Horses have curiosity, and like to look out of the
window and watch what is going on as well as people do.
There were things inside the store that were worth looking at as well as
things outside. When Mr. Harrison, the storekeeper, moved away, he
carried off most of his belongings, but a few articles he left behind, I
suppose because he did not consider them worth taking away. There were
two blue painted counters and some rough hanging shelves, a set of rusty
old scales and weights, a row of glass jars with a little dab of
something at the bottom of each,--rice, brown sugar, cream-of-tartar,
cracker crumbs, and fragments of ginger-snaps. There was also a bottle
half full of fermented olives, a paper parcel of musty corn flour, and,
greatest of all, a big triangle of cheese, blue with mould, in a round
red wooden box with wire sides, like an enormous mouse-trap. It was
quite a stock-in-trade for a pony, and Cloud had so much the air of
being in possession, that the smallest of the children at the hotel
always spoke of the place as his store. "I want to go down to Cloud's
store," they would say to their nurses.
Ned and his sister Constance took a great deal of the care of the pony
on themselves. A freckled little country lad named Dick had been engaged
to feed and clean him; but he so often ran away from his work that the
children were never easy in their minds for fear lest Cloud had been
forgotten and was left supperless or with no bed to lie upon. Almost
always, and especially on Sunday nights, when he of the freckles was
most apt to absent himself, they would coax their mother to let them run
down the last thing and make sure that all was right. If it were not,
Ned would turn to, and Constance also, to feed and bed the pony; they
were both strong and sturdy, and could do the work very well, only
Constance always wanted to braid his mane to make it kink, and Ned would
never let her; so they sometimes ended with quarrelling.
One day in August it happened that Ned's father and mother, his big
brother, his two sisters, and, in fact, most of the grown people in the
hotel, went off on a picnic to White Gull Island, which was about seven
miles out to sea. They started at ten in the morning, with a good
breeze, and a load of very attractive-looking lunch-baskets; but at noon
the wind died down, and did not spring up again, and when Ned's bedtime
came, they had still not returned. Their big sail could be seen far out
beyond the islands. They were rowing the boat, Mr. Gale, the
hotel-keeper, said; but unless the wind came up, he did not think they
would be in much before midnight.
Ned had not gone with the others. He had hurt his foot a day or two
before, and his mother thought climbing rocks would be bad for it. He
had cried a little when Constance and the rest sailed away, but had soon
been consoled. Mrs. Cabot had arranged a series of treats for him, a row
with Nurse, a sea-bath, a new story-book, and had asked a little boy he
liked to come over from the other hotel and spend the afternoon on the
beach. There had been the surprise of a box of candy and two big
peaches. Altogether, the day had gone happily, and it was not till Nurse
had put Ned to bed and gone off to a "praise meeting" in the Methodist
chapel, that it occurred to him to feel lonely.
He lay looking out at sea, which was lit by the biggest and whitest moon
ever seen. Far away he could catch the shimmer of the idle sail, which
seemed scarcely nearer than it had done at supper-time.
"I wish Mamma were here to kiss me for good-night," reflected Ned,
rather dismally. "I don't feel sleepy a bit, and it isn't nice to have
them all gone."
From the foot of the hill came a sound of small hoofs stamping
impatiently. Then a complaining whinny was heard. Ned sat up in bed.
Something was wrong with Cloud, he was sure.
"It's that bad Dick. He's gone off and forgotten to give Cloud any
supper," thought Ned. Then he called "Mary! Ma-ry!" several times,
before he remembered that Mary was gone to the praise meeting.
"I don't care!" he said aloud. "I'm not going to let my Cloudy starve
for anybody."
So he scrambled out of bed, found his shoes, and hastily put on some of
the clothes which Mary had just taken off and folded up. There was no
one on the piazza to note the little figure as it sped down the slope.
Everybody was off enjoying the moonlight in some way or other.
It was, indeed, as Ned had suspected. Dick of the freckles had gone
fishing and forgotten Cloud altogether. The moon shone full through the
eastern windows of the store, making it almost as light as day, and Ned
had no trouble in finding the hay and the water-pail. He watched the
pony as he hungrily champed and chewed the sweet-smelling heap and
sucked up the water, then he brushed out his stall, and scattered
straw, and then sat down "for a minute," as he told himself, to rest and
watch Cloud go to sleep. It was very pleasant in the old store, he
thought.
Presently Cloud lay down on the straw too, and cuddled close up to Ned,
who patted and stroked him. Ned thought he was asleep, he lay so still.
But after a little while Cloud stirred and got up, first on his forelegs
and then altogether. He stood a moment watching Ned, who pretended to be
sleeping, then he opened the slatted door of his stall, moved gently
across the floor and went in behind the old blue counter.
"What _is_ he going to do?" thought Ned. "I never saw anything so funny.
Constance will never believe when I tell her about it."
What Cloud did was to take one of the glass jars from the shelf in his
teeth, and set it on the counter. It was the one which held the
gingersnap crumbs. Cloud lifted off the lid. Just then a clatter of
hoofs was heard outside, and another horse came in. Ned knew the horse
in a minute. It was the yellow one which Mr. Gale drove in his
buckboard.
The yellow horse trotted up to the counter, and he and Cloud talked
together for a few minutes. It was in pony language, and Ned could not
understand what they said; but it had to do with the gingersnaps,
apparently, for Cloud poured part of them out on the counter, and the
buckboard horse greedily licked them up. Then he gave Cloud something by
way of payment. Ned could not see what, but it seemed to be a nail out
of his hind shoe, and then tiptoed out of the store and across the road
to the field where the horses grazed, while Cloud opened a drawer at the
back of the counter and threw in the nail, if it was one. It _sounded_
like a nail.
He had scarcely done so when more hoofs sounded, and two other horses
came in. Horse one was the bay which went with the yellow in the
buckboard, the other Mr. Gale's sorrel colt, which he allowed no one to
drive except himself. Cloud seemed very glad to see them. And such a
lively chorus went on across the counter of whinnies and snorts and
splutters, accompanied with such emphatic stamps, that Ned shrank into a
dark corner, and did not dare to laugh aloud, though he longed to as he
peeped between the bars.
The sorrel colt seemed to want a great many things. He evidently had the
shopping instinct. Cloud lifted down all the jars, one by one, and the
colt sampled their contents. The cream-of-tartar he did not like at all;
but he ate all the brown sugar and the cracker crumbs, tasted an olive
and let it drop with a disgusted neigh, and lastly took a bite of the
mouldy cheese in the red trap, and expressed his opinion of it by what
seemed to be a "swear-word." Then he and the bay-horse and Cloud went
to the end of the store where a rusty old stove without any pipe stood,
sat down on their haunches before it, put their forelegs on its top, and
began, as it seemed, to discuss politics; at least, it sounded
wonderfully like the conversation that had gone on in that very corner
in Mr. Harrison's day, when the farmers collected to predict the defeat
of the candidate on the other side, whoever he might be.
They talked so long that Ned grew very sleepy, and lay down again on the
straw. He felt that he ought to go home and to bed, but he did not quite
dare. The strange horses might take offence at his being there, he
thought; still, he had a comfortable feeling that as Cloud's friend they
would not do him any real harm. Even when, as it seemed, one of them
came into the stall, took hold of his shoulder, and began to shake him
violently, he was not really frightened.
"Don't!" he said sleepily. "I won't tell anybody. Cloud knows me. I'm a
friend of his."
"Ned! wake up! Ned! wake up!" said some one. Was it the red horse?
No, it was his father. And there was Mamma on the other side of him. And
there was Cloud lying on the straw close by, pretending to be asleep,
but with one eye half open!
"Wake up!" said Papa; "here it is, after eleven o'clock, and Mamma half
frightened to death at getting home and not finding you in your bed. How
did you come down here, sir?"
"Cloud was crying for his supper, and I came down to feed him,"
explained Ned. "And then I stayed to watch him keep store. Oh, it was so
funny, Mamma! The other horses came and bought things, and Cloud was
just like a real storekeeper, and sold crackers to them, and sugar, and
took the money--no, it was nails, I think."
"My dear, you have been dreaming," said Mrs. Cabot. "Don't let him talk
any more, John. He is all excited now, and won't sleep if you do."
So, though Ned loudly protested that he had not been asleep at all, and
so could not have dreamed, he was put to bed at once, and no one would
listen to him. And next day it was just as bad, for all of them,
Constance as well as the rest, insisted that Ned had fallen asleep in
the pony's stall and dreamed the whole thing. Even when he opened the
drawer at the back of the counter and showed them the shoe-nail that
Cloud had dropped in, they would not believe. There was nothing
remarkable in there being a nail there, they said; all sorts of things
were put in the drawers of country stores.
But Ned and Cloud knew very well that it was not a dream.
PINK AND SCARLET.
"It's the most perfect beauty that ever was!"
"Pshaw! you always say that. It's not a bit prettier than Mary's."
"Yes, it is."
"No, indeed, it isn't."
The subject of dispute was a parasol,--a dark blue one, trimmed with
fringe, and with an ivory handle. The two little girls who were
discussing it were Alice Hoare and her sister Madge. It was Madge's
birthday, and the parasol was one of her presents.
The dispute continued.
"I wish you wouldn't always say that your things are better than any one
else's," said Alice. "It's ex-exaspering to talk like that, and Mamma
said when we exasperated it was almost as bad as telling lies."
"She didn't say "exasperate." That wasn't the word at all; and this is
the sweetest, dearest, most perfectly beautiful parasol in the world, a
great deal prettier than your green one."
"Yes, so it is," confessed candid Alice. "Mine is quite old now. This is
younger, and, besides, the top of mine is broken off. But yours isn't
really any prettier than Mary's."
"It is too! It's a great deal more beautiful and a great deal more
fascinating."
"What is that which is so fascinating?" asked their sister Mary, coming
into the room. "The new parasol? My! that is strong language to use
about a parasol. It should at least be an umbrella, I think. See, Madge,
here is another birthday gift."
It was a gilt cage, with a pair of Java sparrows. "Oh, lovely!
delicious!" cried Madge, jumping up and down. "I think this is the best
birthday that ever was! Are they from you, Mary, darling? Thank you ever
so much! They are the most perfectly beautiful things I ever saw."
"The parasol was the most beautiful just now," observed Alice.
"Oh, these are much beautifuller than that, because they are alive,"
replied Madge, giving her oldest sister a rapturous squeeze.
"I wish you'd make me a birthday present in return," said Mary. "I wish
you'd drop that bad habit of exaggerating everything you like, and
everything you don't like. All your 'bads' are 'dreadfuls,'--all your
pinks are scarlets."
"I don't know what you mean," said Madge, puzzled and offended.
"It's only what Mamma has often spoken to you about, dear Madgie. It is
saying more than is quite true, and more than you quite feel. I am sure
you don't mean to be false, but people who are not used to you might
think you so."
"It's because I like things so much."
"No, for when you don't like them, it's just as bad. I have heard you
say fifty times, at least, 'It is the horridest thing I ever saw,' and
you know there couldn't be fifty 'horridest' things."
"But you all know what I mean."
"Well, we can guess, but you ought to be more exact. And, besides, Papa
says if we use up all our strong words about little every-day things, we
sha'n't have any to use when we are talking about really great things.
If you call a heavy muffin 'awful,' what are you going to say about an
earthquake or tornado?"
"We don't have any earthquakes in Groton, and I don't ever mean to go to
places where they do," retorted Madge, triumphantly.
"Madge, how bad you are!" cried little Alice. "You ought to promise
Mary right away, because it's your birthday."
"Well, I'll try," said Madge. But she did not make the promise with much
heart, and she soon forgot all about it. It seemed to her that Mary was
making a great fuss about a small thing.
Are there any small things? Sometimes I am inclined to doubt it. A
fever-germ can only be seen under the microscope, but think what a
terrible work it can do. The avalanche, in its beginning, is only a few
moving particles of snow; the tiny spring feeds the brook, which in turn
feeds the river; the little evil, unchecked, grows into the habit which
masters the strongest man. All great things begin in small things; and
these small things which are to become we know not what, should be
important in our eyes.
Madge Hoare meant to be a truthful child; but little by little, and day
by day, her perception of what truth really is, was being worn away by
the habit of exaggeration.
"Perfectly beautiful," "perfectly horrible," "perfectly dreadful,"
"perfectly fascinating," such were the mild terms which she daily used
to describe the most ordinary things,--apples, rice puddings, arithmetic
lessons, gingham dresses, and, as we have seen, blue parasols! And the
habit grew upon her, as habits will. When she needed stronger language
than usual, things had to be "horrider" than horrid, and "beautifuller"
than beautiful. And the worst of it was, that she was all the time half
conscious of her own insincerity, and that, to use Mary's favorite
figure, she _meant_ pink, but she _said_ scarlet.
The family fell so into the habit of making mental allowances and
deductions for all Madge's statements that sometimes they fell into the
habit of not believing enough. "It is only Madge!" they would say, and
so dismiss the subject from their minds. This careless disbelief vexed
and hurt Madge very often, but it did not hurt enough to cure her. One
day, however, it did lead to something which she could not help
remembering.
It was warm weather still, although September, and Ernest, the little
baby brother, whom Madge loved best of all the children, was playing one
morning in the yard by himself. Madge was studying an "awful" arithmetic
lesson upstairs at the window. She could not see Ernest, who was making
a sand-pie directly beneath her; but she did see an old woman peer over
the fence, open the gate, and steal into the yard.
"What a horrid-looking old woman!" thought Madge. "The multiple of
sixteen added to--Oh, bother! what an awful sum this is!" She forgot the
old woman for a few moments, then she again saw her going out of the
yard, and carrying under her cloak what seemed to be a large bundle. The
odd thing was, that the bundle seemed to have legs, and to kick; or was
it the wind blowing the old woman's cloak about?
Madge watched the old woman out of sight with a puzzled and
half-frightened feeling. "Could she have stolen anything?" she asked
herself; and at last she ran downstairs to see. Nothing seemed missing
from the hall, only Ernie's straw hat lay in the middle of the gravel
walk.
"Mamma!" cried Madge, bursting into the library where her mother was
talking to a visitor. "There has been the most perfectly horrible old
woman in our yard that I ever saw. She was so awful-looking that I was
afraid she had been stealing something. Did you see her, Mamma?"
"My dear, all old women are awful in your eyes," said Mrs. Hoare,
calmly. "This was old Mrs. Shephard, I presume. I told her to come for a
bundle of washing. Run away now, Madge, I am busy."
Madge went, but she still did not feel satisfied. The more she thought
about the old woman, the more she was sure that it was not old Mrs.
Shephard. She went with her fears to Mary.
"She was just like a gypsy," she explained, "or a horrible old witch.
Her hair stuck out so, and she had the awfullest face! I am almost sure
she stole something, and carried it away under her shawl, sister."
"Nonsense!" said Mary, who was drawing, and not inclined to disturb
herself for one of Madge's "cock-and-bull" stories. "It was only one of
Mamma's old goodies, you may be sure. Don't you recollect what a fright
you gave us about the robber, who turned out to be a man selling apples;
and that other time, when you were certain there was a bear in the
garden, and it was nothing but Mr. Price's big Newfoundland?"
"But this was quite different; it really was. This old woman was really
awful."
"Your old women always are," replied Mary, unconcernedly, going on with
her sketch.
No one would attend to Madge's story, no one sympathized with her alarm.
She was like the boy who cried "Wolf!" so often that, when the real wolf
came, no one heeded his cries. But the family roused from their
indifference, when, an hour later, Nurse came to ask where Master Ernie
could be, and search revealed the fact that he was nowhere about the
premises. Madge and her old woman were treated with greater respect
then. Papa set off for the constable, and Jim drove rapidly in the
direction which the old woman was taking when last seen. Poor Mrs. Hoare
was terribly anxious and distressed.