know.”
So the little girl did not call; and the mother, who was making a dress
of fine lace for her darling, did not dream that a goblin was in the
little white room.
The goblin did not make any noise, you know, for he tiptoed all the
time, as if he were afraid; and if he heard a sound he would jump. But
he was a merry goblin, and he amused the little girl so much that she
did not notice the change in her dear room.
The curtains grew dingy, the floor dusty, and the ceiling looked as if
it might have been made of a rain cloud; but the child played on, and
got out all her treasures to show to her visitor.
The pansies drooped and faded, the white dove hid its head beneath its
wing and moaned; and the last pearl on the precious string grew dark
when the goblin touched it with his smutty fingers.
“Oh, dear me,” said the little girl when she saw this, “I must call my
mother; for these are the pearls that I must wear to the king’s court
when he sends for me.”
“Never mind,” said the goblin, “we can wash it, and if it isn’t just as
white as before, what difference does it make about one pearl?”
“But mother says that they all must be as fair as the morning,”
insisted the little girl, ready to cry. “And what will she say when she
sees this one?”
“You shut the door, then,” said the goblin, pointing to the door that
had never been closed, “and I’ll wash the pearl.”
So the little girl ran to close the door, and the goblin began to rub
the pearl; but it only seemed to grow darker. Now the door had been
open so long that it was hard to move, and it creaked on its hinges
as the little girl tried to close it. When the mother heard this she
looked up to see what was the matter. She had been thinking about the
dress which she was making; but when she saw the closing door, her
heart stood still with fear; for she knew that if it once closed tight
she might never be able to open it again.
She dropped her fine laces and ran towards the door, calling, “Little
Daughter! Little Daughter! Where are you?” and she reached out her
hands to stop the door.
But as soon as the little girl heard that loving voice she answered:
“Mother! Oh, Mother! I need you so! My pearl is turning black and
everything is wrong!” and, flinging the door wide open, she ran into
her mother’s arms.
When the two went together into the little room, the goblin had gone.
The pansies now bloomed again, and the white dove cooed in peace;
but there was much work for the mother and daughter, and they rubbed
and scrubbed and washed and swept and dusted, till the room was
so beautiful that you would not have known that a goblin had been
there--except for the one pearl which was a little blue always, even
when the king was ready for Little Daughter to come to his court,
although that was not until she was a very old woman.
As for the door, it was never closed again; for Little Daughter and her
mother put two golden hearts against it and nothing in this world could
have shut it then.
* * * * *
As the story ended, the Story Lady paused while the clock ticked twice,
and then said, “Next we will have a funny story about a silver teapot.”
XXII
TOM GOES DOWN THE WELL
“I SEE it, I see it!” cried Tom eagerly, balancing himself perilously
over the well-curb. “It’s down at the bottom!”
“Did you suppose it would float?” asked Bess, with a touch of scorn in
her tones.
“Let me see,” cried Bob, pushing forward.
“You clear out,” said Archie; “you’re to blame for dropping it in;
you’d better go before you tumble in yourself, you little goose.”
Archie’s broken arm felt very stiff to-day, and his temper was slightly
damaged, too. All four children gathered around the well, at the bottom
of which lay the silver teapot, like truth, bright and shining, but
apparently not to be recovered by mortals.
Mr. Bradley had gone to the village, and the children were determined
to get the silver teapot up before his return, for as yet they had not
thought it necessary to mention its disappearance, and Mr. Bradley was
not the man to notice its absence.
“Of course, if it was lost we should have to tell,” Bess had said to
her brother; “but as long as we know where it is, and that it’s safe,
there’s no need to say anything about it.”
“Well, what’s to be done?” asked Archie. “I can’t go after it, with my
broken arm.”
“Now I suppose we will hear of nothing but your broken arm for a month,
and you’ll shirk everything for it. ‘I can’t study ’cause my arm’s
broken; I can’t go errands ’cause my arm’s broken; I can’t go to church
’cause my arm’s broken;’ that will be your whine, Archie; but don’t try
your dodges on me, for I won’t stand it. If it really hurts you, I’m
sorry, and I’ll lick any fellow that touches you till you get well
again, but none of your humbug. Of course you can’t go down the well;
you couldn’t if your arm wasn’t broken.” This was from Tom.
Meanwhile Bess had gone to the house for a long fishing-pole, and soon
returned carrying it.
“We’ll fasten a hook to the end of it, and fish the teapot up,” said
she.
“Ho, ho! Do you suppose it will bite like a fish?” laughed Tom.
“No, I do not, Tom Bradley. But I suppose if I tie a string to the
pole, and fasten an iron hook to one end, with a stone to keep it down,
that I can wiggle it round in the water till the hook catches in the
handle, and then we can drag it up; that’s what I suppose,” answered
Bess, preparing to carry out her design.
“There’s something in that, Bess; you’re not so stupid as you look.
Give me the pole and let me try.”
“No, go and get one for yourself.”
“Where will I find the hook?”
“In the smoke-house, where I got mine.”
“Oh, get me one, too,” cried Bob.
“And me one, too,” cried Archie.
Before half an hour had passed, the four children, all armed with
fishing-poles, were intently wiggling in the water, catching their
hooks in the stones by the side of the well, entangling their lines,
digging their elbows into each other’s sides, in their frantic attempts
to pull their hooks loose; scolding, pushing, and getting generally
excited.
Every few moments Tom would pull Bess back by her sun-bonnet, and save
her from tumbling over in her eagerness; but so far from being grateful
to her deliverer, Bess resented the treatment indignantly.
“Stop jerking my head so,” she cried.
“You’ll be in, in a minute; you’d have been in then if I hadn’t jerked
you,” answered Tom.
“Well, what if I had! Let me alone. If I go in, that’s my own lookout.”
“Your own look in, you mean. My gracious, wouldn’t you astonish the
toads down there! But you’d get your face clean.”
“Now, Tom, you let me be; I ’most had it that time!”
“So you’ve said forty times. This is all humbug; I’m going down on the
rope for it.”
“Oh, no, Tom, please don’t. Indeed, you’ll be drowned; the rope will
break; you’ll kill yourself; you’ll catch cold,” cried Bess, in alarm.
She could fight Tom all day long, when in the mood for it; but to see
him deliberately rush into danger, or to contemplate the fact that a
hair of his precious head might be hurt, was more than our intrepid
Bess could bear.
“Pooh! girl! coward!” retorted thankless Tom, pointing the finger of
scorn at his sister. “Who’s afraid of what? Stand back, small boys, I’m
going in,” and Tom began to divest himself of his jacket.
“You’ll poison the water,” suggested Archie.
“It will be so cold,” moaned Bob. But nobody took any notice of Bob; he
was treated with great contempt, and much hustled, as the author of the
mischief. All felt that if Tom came to grief, Bob would be answerable.
“I’ll scream for a hundred years without stopping, Tom,” cried Bess
wildly. “You shan’t go down, you shan’t; I’ll call some one. Murray!
Peter! Maggie! O-o-o-o-o-o-o-me! O-o-o-oh, o-o-o-o-o-me!”
“Stop screaming, and help,” said Tom, who had his shirt sleeves rolled
up to the elbow, and his pantaloons to his knee--why, no one but Tom
could tell. “Now do you three hold on tight to this bucket; don’t let
go for a moment; pull away as hard as you can when I tell you to. Now
for it!”
And without more ado, Tom clung to the other rope with his hands, and
twisted his feet around the bucket handle.
“Hold on tight, and let me down easy,” said Tom, and the three
children clung desperately to their rope, and lowered him little by
little. Long experience in rescuing cats from a watery grave in the
well had taught the children how to manage the ropes and buckets; but
they had not calculated on the fact that Tom would be heavier than a
cat; and it was with red faces and straining muscles that they dragged
away on their rope. However, they were able to keep Tom steady, and
he, clinging with one hand to his rope, and pushing himself away from
the sides of the well with the other, made his dangerous descent as
successfully as though his coadjutors had been gifted with Samson’s
strength. A sudden splash and shiver told them he had reached the
water, and a shout of triumph declared that the teapot was rescued.
As Tom shouted, all three children let go the rope and rushed to the
side of the well to look at the victorious hero.
It was a most fortunate circumstance that the water in the well was
low, and that Tom, plunged suddenly to the bottom by this unexpected
movement, was able, after much scrambling, to stand upright with his
head out of water; otherwise the earthly career of Thomas Bradley would
have been brought to a sudden and untimely end.
As it was, he stood in the cold water up to his shoulders, clinging
still to the rope, holding the teapot with one hand, and wildly
vociferating to his admiring audience whose heads hung over the
well-curb, and their faces, as seen in this position by Tom, looked
like those of grinning fiends.
“What made you let go?” roared Tom, and his voice sounded hollow and
unnatural as it resounded from the depths of his cool and shady retreat.
“Oh, Tom, have you got it? Have you really? Ain’t it cold? Are you
hurt? Were you scared? Is the teapot broken?” were a few of the
questions that came faintly to him from above and sounded very unlike
angel whispers to the diver for teapots, who stood first on one leg,
then on the other, to prevent equal cramp in both.
“Draw me up! You silly children! You goose of a Bess! Why don’t you
draw me up?”
“We’re so tired?” called down Archie. “I helped to lower you with only
one arm, but I can’t drag any more. My arm’s broken.”
“Bess! draw me up, I tell you!” screamed Tom from below.
“I will, Tom; I’m going to,” answered Bess, who now reached up and
recovered the bucket, that had flown with a jerk to the top of the
well-roof when it had been so suddenly abandoned.
But all the united efforts of Bess and Bob and Archie’s left arm
could not raise Tom. After a desperate tug he was raised an inch, and
suddenly lowered again. The result was a splash, a scramble below,
and Tom’s voice sputtering incoherent invectives. Again and again
the children tugged, and again and again Tom splashed, scrambled and
sputtered.
At last a red, anxious face looked down to him, and Bessie’s voice,
choked with tears, called out:
“Oh, Tom, do hold on till I call Maggie; we can’t get you up.”
Away ran Bess to call help, followed by Archie; but Bob, whose ideas on
some points were as yet but feebly developed, seized one of the long
poles, and began to poke at his brother with it, under the impression
that some good would come of these unaided efforts.
“Bob, be done! You’ll put my eye out!” cried poor Tom, desperately, as
the swinging iron hook circled around his head.
“Catch hold! Catch hold!” cried Bob, getting excited as he saw how near
he came to grappling his brother.
“Just let me get up once, and I’ll catch hold,” muttered Tom,
wrathfully; then, raising his voice, he yelled as loud as he could for
help. “Pete! P-e-e-e-e-ter! P-e-e-e-e-e-e-ter!”
But Peter was a mile away, and consequently could not hear. Maggie had
improved the occasion of her master’s absence to visit her friend and
neighbor, Miss Flaherty, for half an hour; and Kate, summoned from her
baking, came to the rescue, but only assisted by wringing her hands and
wailing.
[Illustration: BUT ALL THE UNITED EFFORTS OF BESS AND BOB AND
ARCHIE’S LEFT ARM COULD NOT RAISE TOM]
“Och, he’s lost wid the cold! Shure an’ he’ll get his death now! Arrah,
what childer yez arre!”
“Take hold of the rope and pull,” cried Bess.
“I couldn’t rise him; shure an’ I’d only pull him up be snaps, and
dhrop him again,” said Kate, who showed a lamentable want of confidence
in her own abilities.
“Oh, do something!” cried Bess, now almost beside herself with fear;
“do something, Kate. Oh, where is Murray?”
“Garn for a load o’ wood, and won’t be home till night,” answered Kate.
“Oh, Tom, can’t you shinny up the rope?” called down Bess.
“No. I’m too stiff now with cold; besides, I couldn’t do it anyway,”
moaned the captive Tom, who looked like a Triton blowing on a
conch-shell, as he stood with uplifted teapot. He seemed to think the
teapot should be kept dry at all hazards, and wearied his arm to keep
it above water.
“I’ll run next door and call Mr. Wilson,” said Bess, more hopefully,
and started on this errand, while Kate, suddenly inspired, rushed
to the kitchen sink, where stood the iron pump, connected by a pipe
with the well, and began to pump vigorously, apparently with the
anticipation of seeing Tom ooze through the spout, for which purpose,
and to make the matter surer, she removed the filter.
As Bess ran she was suddenly stopped at the gate by the sight of a
carriage which had just driven up, and out of which now stepped Aunt
Maria and Aunt Maria’s husband, Uncle Daniel. These were the very
grimmest and grandest of all the relations. When they came to see
mamma, Bess had always to sit perfectly still on a chair, answer very
politely, have her very best dress on, her hair parted directly in
the middle and be intensely proper. As for the boys, they suffered
the torture by soap and water, and endured their new jackets, could
not whittle, nor whistle, nor wrestle, and were sustained under these
tribulations only by the expectation of a very good dinner and a
“bully” dessert!
The white-and-gold china always came out on these occasions, the best
double-damask tablecloth and napkins, the heaviest silver forks and
spoons, the silver salt-cellars, and--oh, agony of agonies!--the silver
teapot!
For one awful moment Bess stood stunned. Then her anxiety for Tom
overcame every other consideration, and before Aunt Maria could say,
“How do you do, Elizabeth?” she had caught her uncle by his august
coat-tail and in a piteous voice besought him to come and pull on the
rope.
“Pull on a rope, Elizabeth!” said Uncle Daniel in mild astonishment.
“Why should I pull on a rope, my dear?” and Aunt Maria murmured, “Very
astonishing thing for a child to say.”
“Oh, come quick! Hurry faster! Tom’s down in the well!” cried Bess,
with freely flowing tears.
“Tom down a well! And how did he get there?”
Uncle Daniel never hurried, and required a reason, always, for the hope
that was in his friends.
“He went down for the teapot,” sobbed Bess, “the silver teapot, and we
can’t pull him up again; and he’s all cramped with cold. Oh, do hurry!”
“The silver teapot down the well; my mother’s silver teapot! Daniel,
didn’t I always say that Mary Bradley should never have had that
teapot? This must be looked into.”
And with dignified strides Aunt Maria marched to the well.
Tom’s teeth by this time were chattering so that he fully expected
they would all drop out, and the three fishers were so completely
demoralized by their fears as to be speechless.
Uncle Daniel was a slow man. He leisurely looked down at Tom, then
up at the wheel, then at the rope, and calmly remarked, “All new, I
see.” Then he slowly took off his coat, and as slowly carried it into
the house, stopped to give an order to his coachman, who had driven
around to the stable, and came with measured pace to where the three
frightened children stood listening to Aunt Maria, who was doing her
duty by them strictly and fully.
Uncle Daniel then took hold of the rope, gave a long, strong, calm
pull, and in an instant, Tom, “dripping with coolness, arose from the
well.”
* * * * *
As soon as they had stopped laughing, the story teller said:
“I will now tell you a Christmas story of the Great Northwest.”
XXIII
GLOOMY GUS AND THE CHRISTMAS CAT
THE Canadian miner was the first of the men to finish “washing up,” on
his return from the mine.
“Where’s Barbara?” he asked, tossing his towel at a peg.
“She has a little cold and I put her to bed,” replied Mrs. St. Clair.
The anxiety in the mother’s voice kept him from asking any more
questions. He followed the other men in to supper.
“It seems lonesome without Barbara,” said McGill, the mining engineer.
The rough men had made a pet of the laughing, blue-eyed little girl,
and they missed her. She had slipped into their lives so quietly that
they did not realize how much they looked forward to seeing her at
the end of the day. And Barbara returned their love. A mining camp is
hardly the place for a child, but Barbara’s father was dead, and her
mother became the cook at the Little Bear Mine.
After supper the men sat in a grave, silent circle before the great
open fireplace. There seemed to be nothing to talk about. Other
evenings these big, rough men had had Barbara to romp with, all except
Gloomy Gus.
But then Gloomy Gus never showed any interest in anything. He was
a big, gruff Swede, whose name appeared on the company’s books as
Gustavus Schwarstun. To the men, however, he was “Gloomy Gus.”
“This will give me a chance to finish her snowshoes,” the Canadian
finally said, with an assumed air of gayety. “Christmas is almost here.”
He went to the bunk room and returned with a pair of small snowshoes he
was making.
Every one of the men was making Barbara a present--every one but Gloomy
Gus. McGill eyed him sharply.
The big Swede did something which at another time would have met with
a roar of laughter; but not a man smiled when he pulled a ball of red
yarn and a half-knitted mitten out of his pocket.
“I learned how to do it in the old country,” he said as he busied his
rough, calloused fingers with the crude pine knitting needles he had
made. He had unraveled the sleeve of a new red sweater to get the yarn
he needed.
The men found it hard to work that evening, and trooped off to their
bunks earlier than usual.
McGill remained. He went down the hall to Mrs. St. Clair’s room, where
a light was still burning, and tapped gently.
“I’m going to put a cot in the mess room and sleep in there to-night,”
he told her. “You may need me.”
It was after midnight when she called him. McGill found the little
patient’s fever high. He listened to Barbara’s labored breathing and
counted her pulse.
When he looked up, he found Mrs. St. Clair watching him anxiously. He
knew from her eyes that she shared his fear--the fear that Barbara
might have pneumonia. McGill had helped the doctor fight several cases
of the disease in those mountains. They had generally been losing
fights, but he set to work.
The big, hobnailed boots of the men fell softly on the rough floors as
their wearers slipped in for breakfast. They had prepared it themselves
and ate it silently. During the meal McGill came in. He looked worried
and did not eat. After they had finished the men waited for him to
speak.
“It’s pneumonia,” he said briefly.
That was all. Soon the men slipped off quietly to the mine, and McGill
went back to Barbara.
By night Barbara was delirious.
“It looks bad,” McGill admitted to the men. “She is fretting over that
cat.”
When Barbara came to the Little Bear Mine, she had brought with her a
small Maltese kitten, her dearest possession. The death of the little
kitten a week before had been the greatest tragedy in her young life.
After supper the men tried to work on their presents, but somehow the
work dragged. The hours passed, but the men did not leave the mess
room. Toward midnight McGill came out to them. “Mrs. St. Clair says you
had better come in now if you want to see her. She’s--she’s going!”
The whole crew, from mucker to foreman, tiptoed down the hall--all
except Gus. He didn’t seem to notice that they went.
Into the sick room they filed and stood in a little embarrassed group
by the door. Barbara tossed fretfully on the bed, her eyes glowing with
unnatural brightness.
“I want a kitty, Santa Claus! I want my kitty!” she wailed feebly.
The Canadian miner, tears rolling down his cheeks, left the room. The
others followed.
Gus was still in his place by the fire when they returned.
“I can’t stand it to see her begging for that kitten,” said the
Canadian. “I would risk my life to get one for her. I’d try to get to
Telluride, if I thought I could get back in time to do any good.”
A minute afterwards Gus got up slowly and went out to the bunk room.
But Gus did not stop there long. He drew on an extra sweater, rubber
coat and furs, snatched his skis and pole, and slipped from the house.
It was after midnight. The thermometer registered way below zero. The
wind swirled down from the mountain tops with the lash of a gale. But
Gus did not mind the storm; a master of the ski, he swung down the
trail with a speed that mocked the wind at his back.
Telluride, the nearest town, was thirteen miles away, the only route
leading there being over a zigzag pack trail. From the mine this trail
descends the crest of a ridge until it strikes the edge of the canyon,
staggers back and forth down the steep face of the canyon, then for the
rest of the way meekly follows the river.
It is only a pack trail, narrow and dangerous at best. During the
summer a line of burros or donkeys winds along it, bringing down ore
from the mine and carrying back provisions. But when winter sets in,
the trail becomes very dangerous, and the zigzags have caused the death
of many prospectors who have stayed too late in the mountains, or taken
the trail too early in the spring.
Gus had little difficulty down the first part of the trail. In an hour
he reached the zigzags. They were covered with hanging masses of snow
that threatened with every blast to go grinding down the wall of the
canyon.
By his pole Gus held himself on to the side of the canyon, moving
cautiously across hanging drifts. He made his way only by grim,
desperate effort.
At the end of thirty minutes of hard struggle he stood half-way down
the trail. Then a savage blast tore a pile of clinging snow from the
top and drove it at him. Gus saw it start, gathering speed and bulk as
it came. The whole mountain side began to move. Tons of hard-packed
snow were slipping, and he was directly in their path. There was no way
of dodging the avalanche--he must outrace it.
There was no time to zigzag back and forth down the side of the canyon;
he had to take as direct a route as the avalanche. He threw his pole
from his grasp and shot ahead of the oncoming mass of snow. Death was
behind him. Before him rocks jutted out to trip him, and jump-offs
endangered his course.
[Illustration: HE SWUNG DOWN THE TRAIL WITH A SPEED THAT MOCKED THE
WIND AT HIS BACK]
But he rode his skis with reckless abandon, leaping, twisting, dodging
down the slope. Behind him crashed the snow. He was veering to the left
to escape its path.
A leap brought him to the bottom of the canyon. But before he could
glide to safety, a mass of snow at the side of the slide caught and
hurled him before it, bruised and half buried.
A desperate struggle freed him. His skis were broken, his muscles were
bruised and twisted.
It was half-past three when he reached the outskirts of the town.
Mounting the steps of the first house, he rained heavy blows upon the
door. The owner stuck his head out of a window. “Who’s there?” he asked.
“Give me a cat!” Gus ordered in a rough voice.
“Are you crazy?” yelled the enraged man at the window.
“I’ve got to have a cat! I’m from the Little Bear! Cook’s little girl
is sick--pneumonia! She’s goin’ to die if we don’t get her a cat!”
“From the Little Bear? Over the zigzags? Impossible!”
“Give me a cat or I’ll break your door in!”
Presently a light glimmered through the night and a hastily clad man
joined Gus. A search of the neighborhood produced a cat and fresh skis.
In half an hour Gus was on the trail back.
At the mine the men had not gone to their bunks that night. They
huddled before the fireplace, awaiting the dreaded news. McGill slipped
by now and then on some errand.
The night dragged through, and Christmas dawned.