up."
The whole day the Snow Man stood looking in through the window. In the
twilight hour the room became still more inviting: from the stove came
a mild gleam, not like the sun nor like the moon; no, it was only as
the stove can glow when he has something to eat. When the room-door
opened, the flame started out of his mouth; this was a habit the stove
had. The flame fell distinctly on the white face of the Snow Man, and
gleamed red upon his bosom.
"I can endure it no longer," said he; "how beautiful it looks when it
stretches out its tongue!"
The night was long; but it did not appear long to the Snow Man, who
stood there lost in his own charming reflections, crackling with the
cold.
In the morning the window-panes of the basement lodging were covered
with ice. They bore the most beautiful ice-flowers that any snow man
could desire; but they concealed the stove. The window-panes would not
thaw; he could not see the stove, which he pictured to himself as a
lovely female being. It crackled and whistled in him and around him;
it was just the kind of frosty weather a snow man must thoroughly
enjoy. But he did not enjoy it; and, indeed, how could he enjoy
himself when he was stove-sick?
"That's a terrible disease for a Snow Man," said the Yard Dog. "I have
suffered from it myself, but I got over it. Away! away!" he barked;
and he added, "the weather is going to change."
And the weather did change; it began to thaw.
The warmth increased, and the Snow Man decreased. He said nothing, and
made no complaint--and that's an infallible sign.
One morning he broke down. And behold, where he had stood, something
like a broomstick remained sticking up out of the ground. It was the
pole round which the boys had built him up.
"Ah! now I can understand why he had such an intense longing," said
the Yard Dog. "Why, there's a shovel for cleaning out the stove
fastened to the pole. The Snow Man had a stove-rake in his body, and
that's what moved within him. Now he has got over that too. Away!
away!"
And soon they had got over the winter.
"Away! away!" barked the hoarse Yard Dog; but the girls in the house
sang:
"Green thyme! from your house come out;
Willow, your woolly fingers stretch out;
Lark and cuckoo cheerfully sing,
For in February is coming the spring.
And with the cuckoo I'll sing too,
Come thou, dear sun, come out, cuckoo!"
And nobody thought any more of the Snow Man.
TWO MAIDENS.
Have you ever seen a maiden? I mean what our paviours call a maiden, a
thing with which they ram down the paving-stones in the roads. A
maiden of this kind is made altogether of wood, broad below, and girt
round with iron rings; at the top she is narrow, and has a stick
passed across through her waist; and this stick forms the arms of the
maiden.
In the shed stood two maidens of this kind. They had their place among
shovels, hand-carts, wheelbarrows, and measuring tapes; and to all
this company the news had come that the maidens were no longer to be
called "maidens," but "hand-rammers;" which word was the newest and
the only correct designation among the paviours for the thing we all
know from the old times by the name of "the maiden."
Now, there are among us human creatures certain individuals who are
known as "emancipated women;" as, for instance, principals of
institutions, dancers who stand professionally on one leg, milliners,
and sick nurses; and with this class of emancipated women the two
maidens in the shed associated themselves. They were "maidens" among
the paviour folk, and determined not to give up this honourable
appellation, and let themselves be miscalled rammers.
"Maiden is a human name, but hand-rammer is a _thing_, and we won't be
called _things_--that's insulting us."
"My lover would be ready to give up his engagement," said the
youngest, who was betrothed to a paviour's hammer; and the hammer is
the thing which drives great piles into the earth, like a machine, and
therefore does on a large scale what ten maidens effect in a smaller
way. "He wants to marry me as a maiden, but whether he would have me,
were I a hand-rammer, is a question; so I won't have my name changed."
"And I," said the elder one, "would rather have both my arms broken
off."
But the wheelbarrow was of a different opinion; and the wheelbarrow
was looked upon as of some consequence, for he considered himself a
quarter of a coach, because he went about upon one wheel.
"I must submit to your notice," he said, "that the name 'maiden' is
common enough, and not nearly so refined as 'hand-rammer,' or
'stamper,' which latter has also been proposed, and through which you
would be introduced into the category of seals; and only think of the
great stamp of state, which impresses the royal seal that gives effect
to the laws! No, in your case I would surrender my maiden name."
"No, certainly not!" exclaimed the elder. "I am too old for that."
"I presume you have never heard of what is called 'European
necessity?'" observed the honest Measuring Tape. "One must be able to
adapt oneself to time and circumstances, and if there is a law that
the 'maiden' is to be called 'hand-rammer,' why, she must be called
'hand-rammer,' and no pouting will avail, for everything has its
measure."
"No; if there must be a change," said the younger, "I should prefer to
be called 'Missy,' for that reminds one a little of maidens."
"But I would rather be chopped to chips," said the elder.
At last they all went to work. The maidens rode--that is, they were
put in a wheelbarrow, and that was a distinction; but still they were
called "hand-rammers." "Mai----!" they said, as they were bumped upon
the pavement. "Mai----!" and they were very nearly pronouncing the
whole word "maiden;" but they broke off short, and swallowed the last
syllable; for after mature deliberation they considered it beneath
their dignity to protest. But they always called each other "maiden,"
and praised the good old days in which everything had been called by
its right name, and those who were maidens were called maidens. And
they remained as they were; for the hammer really broke off his
engagement with the younger one, for nothing would suit him but he
must have a maiden for his bride.
THE FARMYARD COCK AND THE WEATHERCOCK.
There were two Cocks--one on the dunghill, the other on the roof. Both
were conceited; but which of the two effected most? Tell us your
opinion; but we shall keep our own nevertheless.
The poultry-yard was divided by a partition of boards from another
yard, in which lay a manure-heap, whereon lay and grew a great
Cucumber, which was fully conscious of being a forcing-bed plant.
"That's a privilege of birth," the Cucumber said to herself. "Not all
can be born cucumbers; there must be other kinds too. The fowls, the
ducks, and all the cattle in the neighbouring yard are creatures too.
I now look up to the Yard Cock on the partition. He certainly is of
much greater consequence than the Weathercock, who is so highly
placed, and who can't even creak, much less crow; and he has neither
hens nor chickens, and thinks only of himself, and perspires
verdigris. But the Yard Cock--he's something like a cock! His gait is
like a dance, his crowing is music; and wherever he comes, it is known
directly. What a trumpeter he is! If he would only come in here! Even
if he were to eat me up, stalk and all, it would be a blissful death,"
said the Cucumber.
In the night the weather became very bad. Hens, chickens, and even the
Cock himself sought shelter. The wind blew down the partition between
the two yards with a crash; the tiles came tumbling down, but the
Weathercock sat firm. He did not even turn round; he could not turn
round, and yet he was young and newly cast, but steady and sedate. He
had been "born old," and did not at all resemble the birds that fly
beneath the vault of heaven, such as the sparrows and the swallows. He
despised those, considering them piping birds of trifling
stature--ordinary song birds. The pigeons, he allowed, were big and
shining, and gleamed like mother-o'-pearl, and looked like a kind of
weathercocks; but then they were fat and stupid, and their whole
endeavour was to fill themselves with food. "Moreover, they are
tedious things to converse with," said the Weathercock.
The birds of passage had also paid a visit to the Weathercock, and
told him tales of foreign lands, of airy caravans, and exciting robber
stories; of encounters with birds of prey; and that was interesting
for the first time, but the Weathercock knew that afterwards they
always repeated themselves, and that was tedious. "They are tedious,
and all is tedious," he said. "No one is fit to associate with, and
one and all of them are wearisome and stupid."
"The world is worth nothing," he cried. "The whole thing is a
stupidity."
The Weathercock was what is called "used up;" and that quality would
certainly have made him interesting in the eyes of the Cucumber if she
had known it; but she had only eyes for the Yard Cock, who had now
actually come into her own yard.
The wind had blown down the plank, but the storm had passed over.
[Illustration: THE WEATHERCOCK.]
"What do you think of _that_ crowing?" the Yard Cock inquired of his
hens and chickens. "It was a little rough--the elegance was wanting."
And hens and chickens stepped upon the muck-heap, and the Cock
strutted to and fro on it like a knight.
"Garden plant!" he cried out to the Cucumber; and in this one word she
understood his deep feeling, and forgot that he was pecking at her and
eating her up--a happy death!
And the hens came, and the chickens came, and when one of them runs
the rest run also; and they clucked and chirped, and looked at the
Cock, and were proud that he was of their kind.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" he crowed. "The chickens will grow up large fowls
if I make a noise in the poultry-yard of the world."
And hens and chickens clucked and chirped, and the Cock told them a
great piece of news:
"A cock can lay an egg; and do you know what there is in that egg? In
that egg lies a basilisk. No one can stand the sight of a basilisk.
Men know that, and now you know it too--you know what is in me, and
what a cock of the world I am."
And with this the Yard Cock flapped his wings, and made his comb swell
up, and crowed again; and all of them shuddered--all the hens and the
chickens; but they were proud that one of their people should be such
a cock of the world. They clucked and chirped, so that the Weathercock
heard it; and he heard it, but he never stirred.
"It's all stupid stuff!" said a voice within the Weathercock. "The
Yard Cock does not lay eggs, and I am too lazy to lay any. If I liked,
I could lay a wind-egg; but the world is not worth a wind-egg. And now
I don't like even to sit here any longer."
And with this the Weathercock broke off; but he did not kill the Yard
Cock, though he intended to do so, as the hens declared. And what does
the moral say?--"Better to crow than to be 'used up' and break off."
THE PEN AND INKSTAND.
In the room of a poet, where his inkstand stood upon the table, it was
said, "It is wonderful what can come out of an inkstand. What will the
next thing be? It is wonderful!"
"Yes, certainly," said the Inkstand. "It's extraordinary--that's what
I always say," he exclaimed to the pen and to the other articles on
the table that were near enough to hear. "It is wonderful what a
number of things can come out of me. It's quite incredible. And I
really don't myself know what will be the next thing, when that man
begins to dip into me. One drop out of me is enough for half a page of
paper; and what cannot be contained in half a page? From me all the
works of the poet go forth--all these living men, whom people can
imagine they have met--all the deep feeling, the humour, the vivid
pictures of nature. I myself don't understand how it is, for I am not
acquainted with nature, but it certainly is in me. From me all these
things have gone forth, and from me proceed the troops of charming
maidens, and of brave knights on prancing steeds, and all the lame and
the blind, and I don't know what more--I assure you I don't think of
anything."
"There you are right," said the Pen; "you don't think at all; for if
you did, you would comprehend that you only furnish the fluid. You
give the fluid, that I may exhibit upon the paper what dwells in me,
and what I would bring to the day. It is the pen that writes. No man
doubts that; and, indeed, most people have about as much insight into
poetry as an old inkstand."
"You have but little experience," replied the Inkstand. "You've hardly
been in service a week, and are already half worn out. Do you fancy
you are the poet? You are only a servant; and before you came I had
many of your sort, some of the goose family, and others of English
manufacture. I know the quill as well as the steel pen. Many have been
in my service, and I shall have many more when _he_ comes--the man who
goes through the motions for me, and writes down what he derives from
me. I should like to know what will be the next thing he'll take out
of me."
"Inkpot!" exclaimed the Pen.
Late in the evening the poet came home. He had been to a concert,
where he had heard a famous violinist, with whose admirable
performances he was quite enchanted. The player had drawn a wonderful
wealth of tone from the instrument: sometimes it had sounded like
tinkling water-drops, like rolling pearls, sometimes like birds
twittering in chorus, and then again it went swelling on like the wind
through the fir trees. The poet thought he heard his own heart
weeping, but weeping melodiously, like the sound of woman's voice. It
seemed as though not only the strings sounded, but every part of the
instrument. It was a wonderful performance; and difficult as the piece
was, the bow seemed to glide easily to and fro over the strings, and
it looked as though every one might do it. The violin seemed to sound
of itself, and the bow to move of itself--those two appeared to do
everything; and the audience forgot the master who guided them and
breathed soul and spirit into them. The master was forgotten; but the
poet remembered him, and named him, and wrote down his thoughts
concerning the subject:
"How foolish it would be of the violin and the bow to boast of their
achievements. And yet we men often commit this folly--the poet, the
artist, the labourer in the domain of science, the general--we all do
it. We are only the instruments which the Almighty uses: to Him alone
be the honour! We have nothing of which we should be proud."
Yes, that is what the poet wrote down. He wrote it in the form of a
parable, which he called "The Master and the Instruments."
"That is what you get, madam," said the Pen to the Inkstand, when the
two were alone again. "Did you not hear him read aloud what I have
written down?"
"Yes, what I gave you to write," retorted the Inkstand. "That was a
cut at you, because of your conceit. That you should not even have
understood that you were being quizzed! I gave you a cut from within
me--surely I must know my own satire!"
"Ink-pipkin!" cried the Pen.
"Writing-stick!" cried the Inkstand.
And each of them felt a conviction that he had answered well; and it
is a pleasing conviction to feel that one has given a good answer--a
conviction on which one can sleep; and accordingly they slept upon it.
But the poet did not sleep. Thoughts welled up from within him, like
the tones from the violin, falling like pearls, rushing like the
storm-wind through the forests. He understood his own heart in these
thoughts, and caught a ray from the Eternal Master.
To _Him_ be all the honour!
THE CHILD IN THE GRAVE.
There was mourning in the house, sorrow in every heart. The youngest
child, a boy four years old, the joy and hope of his parents, had
died. There still remained to them two daughters, the elder of whom
was about to be confirmed--good, charming girls both; but the child
that one has lost always seems the dearest; and here it was the
youngest, and a son. It was a heavy trial. The sisters mourned as
young hearts can, and were especially moved at the sight of their
parents' sorrow. The father was bowed down, and the mother completely
struck down by the great grief. Day and night she had been busy about
the sick child, and had tended, lifted, and carried it; she had felt
how it was a part of herself. She could not realize that the child was
dead, and that it must be laid in a coffin and sleep in the ground.
She thought God _could not_ take this child from her; and when it was
so, nevertheless, and there could be no more doubt on the subject, she
said in her feverish pain:
"God did not know it. He has heartless servants here on earth, who do
according to their own liking, and hear not the prayers of a mother."
In her grief she fell away from God, and then there came dark
thoughts, thoughts of death, of everlasting death, that man was but
dust in the dust, and that with this life all was ended. But these
thoughts gave her no stay, nothing on which she could take hold; and
she sank into the fathomless abyss of despair.
In her heaviest hours she could weep no more, and she thought not of
the young daughters who were still left to her. The tears of her
husband fell upon her forehead, but she did not look at him. Her
thoughts were with the dead child; her whole thought and being were
fixed upon it, to call back every remembrance of the little one, every
innocent childish word it had uttered.
The day of the funeral came. For nights before the mother had not
slept; but in the morning twilight she now slept, overcome by
weariness; and in the meantime the coffin was carried into a distant
room, and there nailed down, that she might not hear the blows of the
hammer.
When she awoke, and wanted to see her child, the husband said,
"We have nailed down the coffin. It was necessary to do so."
"When God is hard towards me, how should men be better?" she said,
with sobs and groans.
The coffin was carried to the grave. The disconsolate mother sat with
her young daughters. She looked at her daughters, and yet did not see
them, for her thoughts were no longer busy at the domestic hearth. She
gave herself up to her grief, and grief tossed her to and fro as the
sea tosses a ship without compass or rudder. So the day of the funeral
passed away, and similar days followed, of dark, wearying pain. With
moist eyes and mournful glances, the sorrowing daughters and the
afflicted husband looked upon her who would not hear their words of
comfort; and, indeed, what words of comfort could they speak to her,
when they themselves were heavily bowed down?
It seemed as though she knew sleep no more; and yet he would now have
been her best friend, who would have strengthened her body, and poured
peace into her soul. They persuaded her to seek her couch, and she lay
still there, like one who slept. One night her husband was listening,
as he often did, to her breathing, and fully believed that she had now
found rest and relief. He folded his arms and prayed, and soon sank
into a deep healthy sleep; and thus he did not notice that his wife
rose, threw on her clothes, and silently glided from the house, to go
where her thoughts always lingered--to the grave which held her child.
She stepped through the garden of the house, and over the fields,
where a path led to the churchyard. No one saw her on her walk--she
had seen nobody, for her eyes were fixed upon the one goal of her
journey.
It was a lovely starlight night; the air was still mild; it was in the
beginning of September. She entered the churchyard, and stood by the
little grave, which looked like a great nosegay of fragrant flowers.
She sat down, and bowed her head low over the grave, as if she could
have seen her child through the intervening earth, her little boy,
whose smile rose so vividly before her--the gentle expression of whose
eyes, even on the sick bed, she could never forget. How eloquent had
that glance been, when she had bent over him, and seized his delicate
hand, which he had no longer strength to raise! As she had sat by his
crib, so she now sat by his grave, but here her tears had free course,
and fell thick upon the grave.
"Thou wouldst gladly go down and be with thy child," said a voice
quite close to her, a voice that sounded so clear and deep, it went
straight to her heart. She looked up; and near her stood a man wrapped
in a black cloak, with a hood drawn closely down over his face. But
she glanced keenly up, and saw his face under his hood. It was stern,
but yet awakened confidence, and his eyes beamed with the radiance of
youth.
"Down to my child!" she repeated; and a despairing supplication spoke
out of her words.
"Darest thou follow me?" asked the form. "I am Death."
And she bowed her head in acquiescence. Then suddenly it seemed as
though all the stars were shining with the radiance of the full moon;
she saw the varied colours of the flowers on the grave, and the
covering of earth was gradually withdrawn like a floating drapery; and
she sank down, and the apparition covered her with a black cloak;
night closed around her, the night of death, and she sank deeper than
the sexton's spade can penetrate; and the churchyard was as a roof
over her head.
A corner of the cloak was removed, and she stood in a great hall which
spread wide and pleasantly around. It was twilight. But in a moment
her child appeared, and was pressed to her heart, smiling at her in
greater beauty than he had ever possessed. She uttered a cry, but it
was inaudible. A glorious swelling strain of music sounded in the
distance, and then near to her, and then again in the distance: never
had such tones fallen on her ear; they came from beyond the great dark
curtain which separated the hall from the great land of eternity
beyond.
"My sweet darling mother," she heard her child say. It was the
well-known, much-loved voice, and kiss followed kiss in boundless
felicity; and the child pointed to the dark curtain.
"It is not so beautiful on earth. Do you see, mother--do you see them
all? Oh, that is happiness!"
[Illustration: THE MOTHER AT THE GRAVE.]
But the mother saw nothing which the child pointed out--nothing but
the dark night. She looked with earthly eyes, and could not see as the
child saw, which God had called to Himself. She could hear the sounds
of the music, but she heard not the word--_the Word_ in which she was
to believe.
"Now I can fly, mother--I can fly with all the other happy children
into the presence of the Almighty. I would fain fly; but, if you weep
as you are weeping now, I might be lost to you--and yet I would go so
gladly. May I not fly? And you will come to me soon--will you not,
dear mother?"
"Oh, stay! stay!" entreated the mother. "Only one moment more--only
once more I should wish to look at thee, and kiss thee, and press thee
in my arms."
And she kissed and fondled the child. Then her name was called from
above--called in a plaintive voice. What might this mean?
"Hearest thou?" asked the child. "It is my father who calls thee."
And in a few moments deep sighs were heard, as of weeping children.
"They are my sisters," said the child. "Mother, you surely have not
forgotten them?"
And then she remembered those she had left behind. A great terror came
upon her. She looked out into the night, and above her dim forms were
flitting past. She seemed to recognize a few more of these. They
floated through the Hall of Death towards the dark curtain, and there
they vanished. Would her husband and her daughter thus flit past? No,
their sighs and lamentations still sounded from above:--and she had
been nearly forgetting them for the sake of him who was dead!
"Mother, now the bells of heaven are ringing," said the child.
"Mother, now the sun is going to rise."
And an overpowering light streamed in upon her. The child had
vanished, and she was borne upwards. It became cold round about her,
and she lifted up her head, and saw that she was lying in the
churchyard, on the grave of her child.
But the Lord had been a stay unto her feet, in a dream, and a light to
her spirit; and she bowed her knees and prayed for forgiveness that
she had wished to keep back a soul from its immortal flight, and that
she had forgotten her duties towards the living who were left to her.