stateroom. Up above were the stars and stripes, and around a portrait
of Washington he had painted a majestic eagle, with lightnings blazing
from his beak and his foot just clasping the whole globe, which the
wings overshadowed. Nolan said, with a sad smile, “Here, you see, I
have a country!” Over the foot of the bed was a great map of the United
States, drawn from memory, which he had there to look upon as he lay
in his berth. Quaint old names were on it, in large letters: Indiana
Territory, Mississippi Territory, and Louisiana Territory.
“Danforth,” he said, “I know I am dying. I cannot get home. Surely you
will tell me something now? Stop! Stop! Do not speak till I say what I
am sure you know, that there is not in this ship, that there is not in
America--God bless her!--a more loyal man than I. There cannot be a man
who loves the old flag or prays for it as I do. There are thirty-four
stars in it now, Danforth. I thank God for that, though I do not know
what their names are. There has never been one taken away. I thank God
for that. But tell me something--tell me everything, Danforth, before I
die!”
Captain Danforth, in writing about it afterwards says: “I felt like
a monster that I had not told him everything before. Though obeying
orders, who was I that I should have been acting the tyrant all this
time over this dear, sainted old man, who had expiated, in his whole
manhood’s life, the madness of a boy’s treason.”
“Mr. Nolan,” he said, “I will tell you everything you ask about.”
Then he told him the names of all the new states, and drew them in on
the map. He told him of the inventions--the steamboats, the railroads
and telegraphs; he tried to tell him all that had happened to the great
and growing country in fifty years. He told him about Abraham Lincoln,
who was then President--except that he could not wound his friend by
mentioning a word about the cruel Civil War which was then raging.
Nolan drank it in and enjoyed it more than we can tell. After that he
seemed to grow weary and said he would go to sleep. He bent Danforth
down and kissed him, and then said, “Look in my Bible, Captain, when I
am gone.”
Danforth went away with no thought that this was the end. But in an
hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found Nolan had breathed away
his life with a smile.
They looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the place
where he had marked the text:
“They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a
city.”
On this slip of paper he had written:
“Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will
not some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at
Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear?
Say on it:
‘In Memory of
PHILIP NOLAN
Lieutenant in the Army of the United States.
He loved his country as no other man has loved her;
but no man deserved less at her hands.’”
XXXIII
YOUR FLAG AND MY FLAG
WHEN the story was finished the Story People did not applaud; they felt
sorry for poor Philip who had repented so bitterly.
Mary Frances felt sad, and sorry, too; as she did every time she heard
the story, for she had often heard it before.
“How Americans love their country!” said the Story King. “They must
love it as much as we love our island!”
“Indeed, they do love it,” answered Mary Frances patriotically. “I
think it’s the greatest big country in all the world!”
The Story People smiled and clapped their hands at this speech, for
they admire loyalty wherever shown.
“Yes, it is,” said the Story Queen, “and we think our island is the
greatest little country in all the world.”
“So it is! Indeed, it is! I love it next to my own!” cried Mary
Frances; and the Story People applauded again.
“There is a little poem about the Stars and Stripes that is very
popular in America,” said the Story Lady, smiling. “Now that the
stories are finished for the day, perhaps our guest will recite it for
us.”
[Illustration: YOUR FLAG AND MY FLAG]
Mary Frances blushed, and then rose in her place and recited:
Your flag and my flag,
And how it flies to-day
In your land and my land
And half a world away!
Rose-red and blood-red
The stripes forever gleam;
Snow-white and soul-white--
The good forefathers’ dream;
Sky-blue and true-blue, with stars to gleam aright--
The gloried guidon of the day; a shelter through the night.
Your flag and my flag!
And, oh, how much it holds--
Your land and my land--
Secure within its folds!
Your heart and my heart
Beat quicker at the sight;
Sun-kissed and wind-tossed--
Red and blue and white.
The one flag--the great flag--the flag for me and you--
Glorified all else beside--the red and white and blue!
Your flag and my flag!
To every star and stripe
The drums beat as hearts beat,
And fifers shrilly pipe!
Your flag and my flag--
A blessing in the sky;
Your hope and my hope--
It never hid a lie!
Home land and far land and half the world around,
Old Glory hears our glad salute and ripples to the sound.[C]
[C] From the “Trail to Boyland,” by Wilbur D. Nesbit, Copyright 1904.
Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
As Mary Frances sat down, the Story People clapped their hands
enthusiastically; and the Ready Writer handed her her copies of the
stories for the day. The copy of the poem which he had made, he kept
for themselves.
As Mary Frances and the Story Lady were going out, the Story Queen
stopped them and said:
“We shall expect you both to dinner to-night--just a little family
party, you know.”
“Oh, thank you, that will be delightful,” both replied.
Mary Frances thought ruefully of her best dress hanging uselessly in
the closet at home and wished she had it. “But it’s no use wishing,”
she thought. “It’s all so unexpected.”
However, with the help of the Story Lady, she was arrayed for the
occasion, and when she saw herself in the mirror she said, “There must
be two of us; that doesn’t look like me.”
But it was she. So when they left their apartments and went downstairs
into the dining-hall, she was in very high spirits.
Mary Frances had eaten many dinners, but never one like that. Yet,
strange to say, she doesn’t remember what she ate. But she does
remember how kind and friendly the Story King and Queen were, and
how they plied her with questions about her own country. She thinks,
perhaps, she bragged a little too much in telling of its wonders, but
she excuses herself to herself, thinking, “Well, my country is worth
bragging about, I’m sure.” During a lull in the conversation, Mary
Frances asked the King, “Won’t you tell me where all the stories come
from?”
“With pleasure,” he replied. “They come from all countries. The world
is full of people who are doing brave and noble deeds, and when we hear
of such deeds, we have them written down and pass them on.”
“Of course,” he added, “there are other people who are doing cowardly
and selfish things, but we don’t bother with them, except to punish
them as we did the pirate. We see to it that no good story is ever
lost; that is why we were so concerned about the lost story.”
“You can see,” said the Queen, “that it keeps us pretty busy.”
“Indeed, it must,” returned Mary Frances. “I think it’s very kind of
you to let me visit you.”
“Dear child,” said the Queen, “we shall make a story about it--several
stories----”
“Yes, delightful stories,” interrupted the Story Lady, “and I shall
tell them! Oh, yes, I shall tell them!”
THE LAST DAY ON STORY ISLAND
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, A FAIRY TALE OF HOME.--CHIRP THE
FIRST.--CHIRP THE SECOND.--CHIRP THE THIRD.--THE RETURN HOME.
THE LAST DAY ON STORY ISLAND
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH
XXXIV
CHIRP THE FIRST
WHEN the Story People were all assembled, the Story Lady began:
“To-day we have only one story, ‘The Cricket on the Hearth,’ which was
first told by one of our greatest story-tellers, Charles Dickens, who
wrote ‘The Christmas Carol’ and many other stories that children love
to hear.”
_The Peerybingles_
“Heyday! The cricket’s merrier than ever to-night, I think,” said John,
stopping, in his slow way, to listen to its musical chirp, chirp, chirp!
“And it’s sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has done so.
To have a cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing in the world!”
That is what John Peerybingle’s little wife Dot said one stormy night
after John had come in from delivering packages and boxes, and she had
given him his tea and had put the baby to sleep. For John Peerybingle
was a local expressman; or, as they say in England, a carrier.
“The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John,” Dot continued,
“was the night you brought me home--when you brought me to my new home
here; its little mistress. Nearly a year ago. You recollect, John?”
Oh, yes. John remembered. I should think so!
“Its chirp was such a welcome to me. It seemed so full of promise
and encouragement. It seemed to say you would be kind and gentle with
me, and would not expect to find an old head on the shoulders of your
foolish little wife. I had a fear of that, John, then.”
John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the head of his
little wife, as though to say, “No, no; he had no such expectation; he
had been quite content to take them as they were.”
“The cricket spoke the truth, John, for you have been, I am sure, the
most considerate, the most affectionate of husbands. This has been a
happy home, John; and I love the cricket for its sake.”
“Why, so do I, then,” said the carrier, “so do I, Dot.”
“I love it for the many times I have heard it,” Dot went on musing,
“and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me. Sometimes, in
the twilight, when I have felt a little down-hearted, John--before the
precious baby came to keep me company and make the house gay--when I
have thought how lonely you would be if I should die, or I should be if
you should die, its chirp, chirp, chirp, upon the hearth has filled me
with new trust and confidence. For you see, John, I was afraid, being
so much younger than you, that you might not find me at all suitable
as a wife, and that you might find it hard to learn to love me as you
would if I were older and had had more experience. I was thinking just
before you came in to-night, dear, how the cricket has cheered me at
such times; and I love it for their sake.”
“And so do I,” repeated John. “But, Dot! How you talk! I learn to
love you? I had learned that long before I brought you here to be the
cricket’s little mistress, Dot.”
She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him as if
she would have told him something. Next moment, she was down upon her
knees before the basket of packages which John had brought in from his
cart. Perhaps some of them would be called for; the others he would
deliver in the morning.
“There are not many of them to-night, John. Why, what’s this round box?
Heart alive, John, it’s a wedding-cake!”
“Leave a woman to find that out,” said John admiringly. “Now, a man
would never have thought of it! But it’s my belief that if you packed
a wedding cake in a tea-chest, or in a feather bed, or in salmon-keg,
a woman would be sure to find it out directly. Yes, I called for it at
the pastry-cook’s.”
“And it weighs, I don’t know what--whole hundred weights!” cried Dot,
making a great show of trying to lift it. “Whose is it, John? Where is
it going?”
“Read the writing on the other side,” said John.
“Why, John! My goodness, John!” exclaimed Dot.
“Ah! Who’d have thought it!” John returned.
“You never mean to say,” asked Dot, sitting on the floor and shaking
her head at him, “that it’s for Gruff and Tackleton, the toy-maker!”
John nodded. Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least--in
dumb and pitying amazement.
And Tilly Slowboy, the nurse-maid, and helper of all work, began to
talk in an undertone to the baby, who had awakened, as she walked to
and fro with him in her arms: “Was it for Gruffs and Tackletons, then,
and would it call at the pastry-cooks’ for wedding cakes, and did its
mothers know the boxes when its fathers brought them home;” and so on.
“And that marriage is really to come about!” said Dot, after seeing
that the baby was all right. “Why, she and I were girls at school
together, John.”
John might have been thinking of how Dot looked then, but he made no
answer.
“And he’s as old! As unlike May! Why, how many years older than you is
Gruff and Tackleton, John?”
“How many more cups of tea shall I drink at one sitting than Gruff
and Tackleton ever took in four sittings, I wonder!” replied John
good-humoredly.
But even this brought no smile to the face of his little wife. The
cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was not so cheerful as it
had been. Nothing like it.
_The Strange Old Gentleman_
“So these are all the parcels, are they, John?” she asked, after a
little while; “so these are all the parcels, John?”
“That’s all,” said John. “Why--no--I--I declare--I’ve clean forgotten
the old gentleman!”
“The old gentleman?”
“In the cart,” said John. “He was asleep, down in the straw, the last
time I saw him. I’ve very nearly remembered him twice since I came in;
but he went out of my head again.”
John hastily rose and lighting a candle went out the door. “Halloa!
Yahip there! Rouse up! That’s my hearty!” he called as he made his way
to the wagon-shed.
Soon the Stranger stood, bareheaded and motionless in the middle of
the room. He had long white hair, good features, singularly bold and
well-defined for an old man. His eyes were dark and bright and smiling.
He saluted the carrier’s wife by gravely bowing.
His clothes were very quaint and old-fashioned, a long, long way behind
the time. Their color was brown, all over. In his hand he carried a
great brown club or walking-stick. He struck this upon the floor and it
fell open and became a chair on which he sat down quite composedly.
“There!” said the carrier, turning to his wife. “That’s the way I found
him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a milestone, and almost as
deaf as one!”
“Sitting in the open air, John!”
“In the open air,” replied the carrier, “just at dusk. ‘Will you take
me along?’ he asked, and gave me eighteen pence. Then he got into the
cart. And here he is.”
“He’s going, John, I think!”
[Illustration: “IF YOU PLEASE, I WAS TO BE LEFT TILL CALLED FOR”]
Not at all. He was only going to speak.
“If you please, I was to be left till called for,” said the Stranger,
mildly. “Don’t mind me.”
With that he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large pockets,
and a book from another, and leisurely began to read. Boxer, the
carrier’s big dog, came sniffing at his legs, but he took no more
notice of Boxer than if he had been a lamb.
The carrier and his wife glanced at each other in perplexity. The
Stranger raised his head; and looking from Dot toward John, said:
“Your daughter, my good friend?”
“Wife,” said John.
“Niece?” asked the Stranger.
“Wife,” roared John.
“Indeed?” observed the Stranger. “Surely--very young!”
Dot took the baby from the couch where Tilly Slowboy had laid him. The
Stranger quietly resumed his reading; but before he had read two lines,
he interrupted his reading to say to John:
“Baby yours?”
John gave a gigantic nod, equal to an answer given through a speaking
trumpet.
“Girl?” asked the Stranger.
“Bo-o-oy!” roared John.
“Also very young, eh?”
Mrs. Peerybingle instantly spoke. “Two months and three da-ays.
Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o! Took very fine-ly! Considered by the
doctors a remarkably beautiful chi-ild! Equal to the general run of
children at five months o-ld! Takes notice of everything. May seem
impossible to you, but true.”
Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these short
sentences into the old man’s ear until her face was crimson, held the
baby up before him to prove her words, while Tilly Slowboy sprang
around in cow-like gambols to amuse the infant, uttering words which
sounded like “Ketcher! Ketcher!”
“Hark!” said John. “He’s called for, sure enough. There’s some one at
the door. Open it, Tilly.”
_Caleb Plummer_
Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from the outside, for
it was a primitive sort of door with a latch that any one could lift if
he chose. In came a little, meager, thoughtful, dingy-faced man.
He seemed to have made himself a great-coat from the burlap covering
of some old box; for, when he turned to shut the door, and keep the
weather out, one could read upon the back of the garment the letters
“G & T” in large black capitals; also the word “GLASS” in smaller
capitals.
“Good-evening, John!” said the little man. “Good-evening, mum.
Good-evening, Tilly! Good-evening, unbeknown! How’s baby, mum? Boxer’s
pretty well, I hope?”
“All well and thriving, Caleb,” replied Dot. “I am sure you need only
look at the dear child, for one, to know that.”
“And I’m sure I only need look at you for another,” said Caleb; “or at
John for another; or Tilly, as far as that goes; or certainly at Boxer.”
“Busy just now, Caleb?” asked the carrier.
“Why, pretty busy, John,” he returned. “Pretty much so. There’s a lot
of demand for Noah’s Arks at present. I’d like to be able to take more
pains in making the families, but I can’t do it at the price. It would
be a satisfaction, though, to one’s mind, to make it plain which was
Shems and Hams, and which was wives. Ah, well! Have you got anything in
the parcel line for me, John?”
The carrier put his hand into the pocket of the coat he had taken off,
and brought out a tiny flower-pot, carefully wrapped in moss and tissue
paper.
“There it is!” he said, adjusting it with great care. “Not so much as a
leaf damaged. Full of buds!”
Caleb’s dull eye brightened as he took it, and thanked him.
“It was expensive, Caleb,” said the carrier. “Very dear at this season.”
“Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, whatever it cost,” returned
the little man. “Anything else, John?”
“A small box,” replied the carrier. “Here you are!”
“‘For Caleb Plummer,’” read the old man, spelling out the directions.
“‘With Cash!’ With cash, John? I don’t think it’s for me!”
“‘With Care,’” corrected the carrier, looking over his shoulder. “Where
do you make out ‘cash’?”
“Oh! To be sure!” said Caleb. “It’s all right. ‘With Care!’ Yes, yes;
that’s mine. It might have been ‘With Cash,’ if my dear boy in South
America had lived, John. You loved him like a son; didn’t you? You
needn’t say you did. I know, of course.”
He read again, “‘Caleb Plummer. With Care.’ Yes, yes; it’s all right.
It’s a box of dolls’ eyes for my daughter’s work. I wish it was her own
sight in a box, John!”
“I wish it was, or could be,” cried the carrier.
“Thankee,” said the little man. “You speak very hearty. To think that
she should never see the dolls--and them a staring at her so bold, all
day long! That’s where it cuts. What’s the cost, John,--what’s the
damage?”
“I’ll damage you,” said John, “if you ask.”
“Well, it’s like you to say that,” observed the little man. “It’s your
kind way. Let me see. I think that’s all.”
“I think not,” said the carrier. “Try again.”
“Something for our governor, eh?” asked Caleb after thinking a little
while. “To be sure. That’s what I came for; but my head’s so full of
them Noah’s Arks and things! He hasn’t been here, has he?”
“Not he,” returned the carrier. “He’s too busy, courting.”
“He’s coming, though,” said Caleb; “for he told me to keep on the near
side of the road going home, and it was ten to one he’d take me up. I’d
better go, by-the-way.”
He turned to Dot. “You couldn’t have the goodness to let me pinch
Boxer’s tail, mum, for half a moment, could you?”
“Why, Caleb! What a question!”
“Oh, never mind, mum,” said the little man. “He mightn’t like it,
perhaps. There’s a small order come in for toys--dogs that will bark;
and I wish to go as close to nature as possible for a sixpence. That’s
all. Never mind, mum.”
It happened that Boxer just at that moment began to bark with zeal.
But, as this bark meant the approach of some new visitor, Caleb,
postponing his study of dogs’ barks, shouldered the big round box
of wedding cake and said good-by. He might have spared himself the
trouble, however, for he met his employer upon the threshold.
_Tackleton_
“Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I’ll take you home!”
He turned to John. “John Peerybingle, my service to you. More of my
service to your pretty wife. Handsomer every day--and younger!”
“I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. Tackleton,”
said Dot, not altogether pleasantly, “but for what I have just heard
about you--being engaged to be married.”
“You know all about it, then?”
“I have gotten myself to believe it somehow,” said Dot.
“After a hard struggle, I suppose?”
“Very.”
Tackleton, the toy merchant, was well known in the neighborhood. Many
people called him Gruff and Tackleton, the name of the firm when Gruff
was Tackleton’s partner. Although Tackleton had bought out Gruff’s
interest years before, the name still remained.
It was odd that such a man should have been a toy-maker, for he had no
interest in toys whatever. He despised them, and wouldn’t have bought
one for the world. The only toys in his shop which he could abide were
the ugly ones. Hideous, red-eyed Jacks-in-Boxes, vampire kites, and
fiery dragons really did give him some pleasure, for he saw that they
scared little children. A very pleasant person, Tackleton! Not the kind
of person you would think was going to be married, and to a young wife,
too--a beautiful young wife.
He didn’t look much like a bridegroom as he stood in the carrier’s
kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his
hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into
the bottom of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic, ill-conditioned,
self--peering out of one little corner of one little eye, like the
concentrated essence of any number of ravens. But a bridegroom he was
designed to be.
“In three days’ time--next Thursday--the last day of the first month of
the year--is my wedding day,” said Tackleton.
Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open and one eye nearly
shut; and the eye nearly shut was always the expressive eye? I don’t
think I did.
“That’s my wedding-day!” said Tackleton, rattling his money in his
pocket.
“Why, that’s the anniversary of our wedding, too!” exclaimed the
carrier.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Tackleton. “Odd! You’re just such another couple as
we will be! Just!”
At this speech, Dot was most indignant. What next would the man say? As
though her John resembled Tackleton in any particular!
“I say! A word with you,” murmured Tackleton, nudging the carrier
with his elbow, and taking him off a little way. “You’ll come to the
wedding, won’t you? We’re in the same boat, you know.”
“How in the same boat?” asked John.
“Why, you’re not so youthful as your wife, yourself,” said Tackleton,
with another nudge. “Come and spend an evening with us beforehand.”
“Why?” demanded John, astonished at this hospitality.
“Why?” returned the other. “That’s a new way to receive an invitation.
Why--for pleasure--to be sociable, you know, and all that.”
“I thought you were never sociable,” said John, in his plain way.
“As you like; what does it matter? Your company will produce a
favorable impression on Mrs. Tackleton that-will-be. You’ll say you’ll
come?”
“We have arranged to keep our wedding day at home,” said John. “We
think, you see, that home----”
“Bah! What’s home?” cried Tackleton. “Four walls and a ceiling! Why
don’t you kill that cricket? I would! I always do! I hate their noise!
You’ll say you’ll come, to-morrow evening?”
“You kill the crickets, eh?” said John.
“Scrunch ’em, sir,” returned the other, setting his heel heavily on
the floor. “Then you won’t give us to-morrow evening? Well! Next day
you go out visiting, I know. I’ll meet you there, and bring my wife
that-is-to-be. It’ll do her good. You’re agreeable? Thankee. What’s
that?”
_Dot is Upset_
It was a loud cry from the carrier’s wife; a loud, sharp, sudden
cry, that made the room ring like a glass bell that was struck. She
had risen from her seat and stood like one transfixed by terror and
surprise. The Stranger had gone toward the fire to warm himself, but he
was quite still.
“Dot!” cried the carrier, “Darling Dot! What’s the matter?”
They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who had been dozing on the
cake-box, in the first start, seized Tilly Slowboy by the hair, but
immediately apologized.
“Mary!” exclaimed the carrier, for Dot’s real name was Mary, Dot being
only a pet name of her husband’s. “Mary dear, are you ill? What is it?
Tell me, dear.”
But at first she could not answer. She wept bitterly, and covered her
face with her apron; then burst into a wild fit of laughter, and then
started crying again. At length she let John lead her to the fire,
where she sat down. The old man was standing there as before.