been too much crossed, “they may have needles and thread.”
“Nicht Wahr,” said the commander, in ignorance of his irony, “do you
know that I think that little thing is made of tin—perhaps several
sheets nailed together?”
“Precisely, sire,” said Wahr.
“Tin will sink,” said the impudent Weiss Nicht, again on deck.
“And,” went on Ruhet, ignoring the interruption, “the ball that broke my
leg might have bounced against it and returned to this ship.”
“Undoubtedly, sire,” said the odious Wahr, with a triumphant leer at
Weiss Nicht, “your great and original mind has reached the correct
solution of our trouble, while we of lesser understanding foundered in
seas of doubt and—”
“Impossible,” cried Weiss Nicht, impudent to the last. “I can prove that
the trajectory—”
“What?” cried the commander of the Tonans. “This is no time for big
words—or—or narrow jealousies. My leg is broke.”
VII
POOH!
“I think your majesty has exactly defined the cause of your injuries,”
said the caustic Weiss Nicht, now in the style of Wahr.
“That much is settled then,” said the admiral, “since you both agree. If
it was only mended—”
Something tore through the ship. “A hole and nothing else!” sighed Hier
Ruhet.
“Sire, I think we had better go,” said Wahr; “we can do no further good
here. And besides, you may be unfortunate with the other leg—and your
majesty’s hunger is not being satisfied. I believe the soup-spring lies
S.S.W., Nicht.”
“Very well, since you are so hungry,” acquiesced the admiral, with
immense testiness, “get what is left of the Tonans under way, and, for
heaven’s sake, don’t get skeered! Be calm!”
This, with much distress and profanity by everybody, they endeavored to
do. But, inasmuch as the little boat kept up its clipping, it was not
easy. However, at length, a bit of sail was rigged, a drag attached for
a rudder, and what was left of the Tonans stood feebly to the wind. The
little craft seemed to wait and look curiously on.
And now and then they heard that huge voice laugh at them: “Ha, ha, ha!
Ha, ha, ha!”
Nevertheless they were making headway. For the sails of the Tonans had
not been clipped.
A slight boom was heard presently from the direction of the tiny
boat,—the first they had heard,—though it was now nearly out of sight,
and at once a strange missile ploughed its way through the Tonans from
the stern, and stopped in the middle of the waist. It was of iron,
conical, prettily made, ornamented with bright bands of metal, and about
the size of Jawrge, the boots.
The entire ship’s company gathered and viewed it curiously.
[Illustration: “_The entire ship’s company gathered and viewed it
curiously_”]
“Stand me up on my good leg,” cried Ruhet, as curious as Jawrge. “Now,
where _did_ that come from?” he demanded of the sailors, as if some of
them had put it there. No one answered.
“Certainly it did not come from that little toy. She’s out of sight.”
Not a soul spoke.
“Well, by my father’s strap—and the buckle on its end—never saw I such a
lot of ninnikins, Nicht!”
“It came from yonder vessel,” said Nicht. “Be careful; it contains the
magic.”
Ruhet laughed once more.
“Why, Nicht, here is another secret,—the last one I shall tell you: it
is bigger than the little vessel. Aha, ha, ha!”
“That is the magic of it, master.”
“However, it may be light,” said Ruhet. “Lift it. Nothing but a tin can,
perhaps a present—hah! a tin can sent to us with provisions! Open it.
They are very prettily put up, if they are to eat.”
Ruhet touched it.
“It is hot. And that suggests the soup-spring. Open it. Wahr, is this
the soup-spring, you rogue?”
Wahr looked wise.
Weiss Nicht withheld the men solemnly.
“Do not touch it. It is full of magic. It is that has done the
clipping.”
“Pooh!” said Wahr. “Pooh, sire!”
“Do you really think so?” whispered Ruhet, half believing Nicht. “Well,
it will do no more. Over with it.”
Two men—then ten men—then twenty men—grasped it.
“It is not soup, at all events,” laughed Hier Ruhet.
“Aha, ha, ha!” echoed the odious Wahr—still looking wise. “Not soup!”
“Over with it! Quick!” cried the impudent Nicht, ignoring both his
superior officers in his fear.
Each was about to administer a separate reprimand to the poor gunner’s
mate.
But at that moment it exploded.
“SIS”[6]
I WHERE THE ORCHARDS SMELLED
Once there were two old ladies who lived alone, in an old house with
blue china and straight-backed chairs. And the key-note of that house
(as every house has its key-note) was peace. I, who lived in a city,
went there, now and then, to rest for a brief while in its peace and
grow strong. For it was in the country, and all about it was the smell
of orchards.
One of the beautiful old ladies was blind. The other was so frail that
it seemed a marvel how she kept going. Yet they never rested,—in the
fashion which I should have called rest,—but were always as sentinels on
duty. I was sluggard enough to sigh, occasionally, for a reclining chair
or a couch. There was no such thing in the house. There never had been.
It was sufficient for them that their ancestors had had nothing of the
kind. For this was the doctrine of their simple lives—to be no more than
(and as much as possible what) their mother and their father had been;
to hold all good which they had held good, and to call evil what they
had called evil; then to lie beside them at the end.
There was a curious correlation between their several infirmities. They
believed that God designed it so. The frail one was eyes, the blind one
was strength—to both.
Now, you are not to suppose that they were moody and melancholy and
sour. On the contrary, they loved laughter, and constantly laughed at
the queer straits into which their limitations so often brought them; at
the equally queer contrivances by which they were overcome. They
laughed—yes—at themselves—gently—as they did all things.
And they believed every one of those curious things which no one
believes nowadays—which are only gibed at. (And I am not sure that they
who gibe are more wise than they who believe—are you?) There were
certain signs of the zodiac, movements of the constellations, phases of
the moon, and meteorological conditions for the doing of everything—from
the medication of mortal illness to the planting of beets in their
little garden. And they knew, and scrupulously propitiated, every
influence for good or evil luck.
Nevertheless they were curiously modern in thought and
attitude—fresh—young—interested.
They liked my glittering automobile with its snorting terrors, and
recalled Mother Shipton’s prophecy concerning it. But they would not
ride in it. Not because they did not trust it and me, but because they
instinctively knew that they would create an unpicturesque anachronism.
They understood that they belonged to the world of 1850.
Yet they adored children—and the more modern their dress and manners the
more they loved them. When the youngsters came (they were always being
invited—inveigled, in fact), the shutters were flung wide as if the
sisters said: “Yes, the shadows are for us. But the sunshine is for
you!”
Still nothing in that house was of a childish sort—except those
children’s clothes packed away in the garret. It was here that they
would spend their holidays. Sitting on the floor they would open the
chests which were before trunks, and the fragile one would put the tiny
garments into the hands of the blind one—piece after piece—and chatter
softly:
“Hiliary’s, you know.”
“Oh, yes! The one with the blue-fringed ruffles,” the blind one would
answer.
“Mildred’s little patchwork quilt.”
“She was three, then.”
“Yes. She sat in the little rocker to sew.”
“Yes—it had _blue_ pinks painted on the back.”
“She used to say that she couldn’t sew except in the little rocker.”
They would both laugh at that.
“And she would rock furiously!”
“Yes, and _sew_ that way! Feel these savage stitches!”
“And sing!”
“Yes.”
The frail one would sing, then, in a small, quavering voice; and if she
had not to cry too much, the blind one would join in the song—especially
in the refrain—with an alto that went wrong more often than right—as
they say it did when she sang in the choir. For both of them used to
sing in the choir. And they still loved music. Sometimes, sitting behind
their thick, black veils, in the corner of the faded church no one ever
took from them, they would hear the old organist play (they let him do
so whenever the young lady had a headache), “Fading, Still Fading.” Then
they would reach out and hold each other by the hand. For that had been
a famous duet of theirs. In fact, they still yearned to sing whenever
they heard it. But that would not do. Only the choir sang now.
Did I tell you that the husband of the frail one had died in 1860, and
that they had both worn mourning for him ever since? It was he who had
used, sometimes, to invent a third part to their duet—a tremendous bass.
The other precious thing in this garret was a trousseau. Once I saw a
bonnet of white silk—made coal-scuttle fashion—shirred (I think that is
the name)—and with a simple red rose inside where it nestled against
thick brown hair and cheeks with pink spots in them—at least so they are
all pictured in the old daguerreotype taken at Philadelphia.
And there was a wondrous silk dress of a wide stripe—white, with just a
dash of pink in the moiré. It could be worn to-day. It is not cut at
all. But it is much more soft and gentle—this fabric woven only by worms
and human hands—than those woven on power-looms. Then there was a pair
of satin slippers with strings to cross over the ankles, and a
marvellous petticoat—all feather-stitching! A veil, too, turned quite
yellow now, which had always wrapped some sprays of flowers, the stems
of which only remained. But one could see that they had been orange
blossoms—_mock_-orange blossoms. They grew in the front yard of the two
old ladies—when they were not _old_ ladies at all. They grow there
still. Mock-orange blossoms.
There was, too, a pair of stockings, which, I was often told, had come
straight from London. Think of that! They had pink clocks at the sides
ending in rosebuds. After that the trousseau was of intimate things I
may not mention—and which I never saw—perhaps could not name—for when
these were likely to be uncovered the lid of the chest was softly,
deprecatingly closed in my face. But I know that they were infinitely
adorned.
II
THE EYES THAT WEPT TILL THEY WENT BLIND
Their conversation has been going on all the while they have sat there
on the floor. Listen:
“I wore this on my wedding journey. Brides did that then.”
“A bride wished it known that she was a bride in those days, didn’t
she?”
“Yes, indeed. She was proud of it. Not ashamed.”
“It was your first railroad journey?”
“Yes. There was only one railroad in this part of the country then. And
it was a long time before the people got reconciled to travelling so
fast. Each one expected never to get back alive. But we went all the way
to Philadelphia on it. And it took only three days. There was lots of
smoke from the engine. Even Hiliary preferred the stage. But I—Here a
small cinder burnt a hole.”
The blind one would feel it.
“You looked very pretty then, sis. I saw you—_go_.”
Sis would not reply. There was not a spark of vanity in her. But she was
very pretty at that moment. And there were the Philadelphia
daguerreotypes to prove that she was pretty in 1857.
“We were married only three years.”
_We!_ It meant the _three_ of them.
It was this the blind one thought of most. Remember that when we finally
get to the story.
“Yes, Hiliary died in 1860.”
And then the memory of the frail one would pass the gulf of all those
years and she would touch the blind one with a caress.
“And when we got home again you had lost your sight!”
“Yes.”
“But, sis, it _was_n’t because you were so lonely and cried so much! It
_could_n’t have been _that_!”
It was the question she had begged a thousand times. And the answer she
was to have she had had as often:
“No.”
“For crying, no matter how much, will never hurt the sight?”
“No.”
“I don’t think Doctor Massey ever understood your case.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, he let it go until it was too—There are better doctors now. They
would know?”
“Perhaps.”
“But it’s too late, isn’t it?”
The answer, too, she had always had to this, while she had always hoped,
and always would, for a different one:
“Yes—it’s too late. It was to be so.”
“But you _were lonely_, dear sis? I wouldn’t like to think that you were
not.”
“Oh, yes!”
“The neighbors said that the shutters weren’t opened all the while we
were away.”
“What was the use?”
“And they _heard_ you cry.”
“Well, of course! We had never been separated before.”
“And I was so happy that I didn’t even think that you might be unhappy.
But you’ve forgiven me for that.”
“I was happy, too—for your happiness, sis, dear.”
“Then _why_ did you cry so? That I never _will_ understand.”
Nay, that the frail one would never understand until she should reach
that Heaven where all the secrets of the earth are revealed. For it was
here alone that the blind one had never been quite frank. Always she had
answered, always she would answer, until they faced each other in that
Heaven:
“People cry for joy as well as for sorrow, sis, dear.”
“But not so hard that they lose their eye-sight.”
“When one is worried the weakest part goes first. And the doctor said it
was that way with me. My eyes were weak.” And then the fatalistic
refrain: “It had to be.”
“But, sis, dear, _why_ did you _worry_?”
“About you.”
I think she had told this gentle lie more than a thousand times. But I
am sure that the recording angel has not got it down against her once.
“But _I_ was happy.”
“Yes—_you_—were—happy—dear—dear sis.”
“And so you never saw me after that—nor Hiliary, nor the babies—”
“But, sis, dear, I could _touch_ you all, and _hear_ your voices, and
there was so much to remember. You know that I was happier after my
blindness than before.”
“Yes, I know. And I cannot understand _that_.”
That, too, she would know only in that One Place where there are no
secrets.
III
THE GOLDEN TEAPOT WITH THE BLUE ROSE
Now they had a teapot. It had come, like everything else in that house,
from their ancestors. It was not like their other china, blue, but
golden—a coppery gold under an iridescent glaze that made it look like
real gold at a little distance. And this teapot was not tall—and
commonplace. It was low and long from handle to spout—and oval—with
vertical fluting. And on each side was sculptured an imposing medallion
within which was a blue rose.
Always, when they sat at meat, this was between the two dear old ladies.
And the one groped for it so perilously—in a certain affright—and the
hand of the other trembled so when she poured from it, that I often
interposed. Alas! it was more to preserve than to help; for you have
perceived, no doubt, that I coveted the teapot.
However, the old ladies were embarrassed by my help. They wanted to pour
their tea for themselves, as their grandmother had done, out of this
same pot. Nevertheless, they suffered my assistance with a grace which I
remember even now for its gentleness.
IV
THE STORY AT LAST. ATTEND!
Then, upon an idle day, searching one of the big stores in my city for a
gift for them, I came upon the self-pouring teapot—not unmindful of the
peril of the other one. I explained to the too polite clerk that I
wanted something for my dear old ladies, and he assured me that I had
discovered precisely the thing—that it had been invented with dear old
ladies constantly in mind: the while he had been giving me the most deft
“demonstration” I had ever beheld. Each act kept pace with some telling
phrase.
It was a huge, mechanical thing, of which, if one depressed a cylinder,
the air was forced out of the spout, and ahead of it flowed the tea. The
name of it was “Eureka.”
I bought it and had the monograms of the dear old ladies graven
unreadably on its triple-plated sides.
On the day of its presentation I noticed a certain lack of joyousness in
the gift. But I explained that to myself by the appalling shining
impudence of the thing in the midst of their chaste colorlessness. I
labored industriously to quench its brilliance by passing my hands over
it at every opportunity. But the servant—alas! there was one
now—invariably brought it to the table in a renewed state of polish
which maddened me. However, I taught them how to “work” the machine, and
they diligently learned; so that whenever I came it was religiously
used, though with a retrogression of skill at which I marvelled until I
learned from the maid that it was used _only_ when I was there, and in
my absence was made immaculate, packed in its cotton wool, and put away
in its gaudy box.
Unhappily the blind one lifted the thing heavily to pour from it one
day. I restrained her. She flushed a little and said:
“I can’t and _can’t_ seem to get used to it. Seems as if I _must_ do it
as grandmother did—which is ridiculous.”
“Why, God bless you!” I cried, “and so you shall. We will throw the
thing into the yard. I hate it!”
They were both so stricken with horror at my passion that I did not—but
I swear that that is the only reason.
To comfort me the frail one said: “We—we’re very fond of it, you know. I
don’t suppose _your_ teapot has a story?”
Do you observe that she unconsciously said _your_ teapot?
I at once fancied the hideous history of the hideous mechanism. A
hissing, grinding factory!
“No,” I answered, adopting her phrase of proprietorship, “_my_ teapot
has no story.”
But then I added, “Has yours?”
Some guilty exchange passed between the two old ladies in the occult way
which needs no speech. And the mystery of the bit of clay was deepened.
Most things (save the patent teapot) are not new. But I am sure that
this question had never before been asked them.
“Yes,” said the frail one, with the assent of the other.
“I guess you may tell him,” said the blind one, huskily, looking down.
The frail one looked almost aghast.
“Why, sis!” she said breathlessly. And then, to me, “It is the first
time she has ever let me tell it.”
“_He_ won’t laugh,” said the blind one—and therein voiced an affection
for me of which I shall always be glad.
Do you wonder that I hastened her to her story? Perhaps you are glad
that I am at last come to it. Yet all I have said belongs together if it
were properly told.
Now attend!
V
HILIARY LOVED BOTH AND BOTH LOVED HIM
“In 1757,” the frail one began, “everything was different from what it
is now—you can’t imagine _how_ different. There was no money like our
national bank-notes. The money of the United States was gold and silver
coin. There was state money—‘shinplasters,’ they were called—and such
things. But most of the money was the private notes of bankers, and no
one ever knew whether they were good or bad. So they were always
uncertain, and people who wanted money to keep would get it in gold or
silver pieces. Sis and I had a little money from our mother’s estate—two
thousand dollars each—and the teapot. They gave it to us in
twenty-dollar gold pieces, mine of 1837, and sis’s of 1836—the dates of
our birth. I think one could get them stamped at the Mint that way in
those days. Anyhow, these came from the Philadelphia Mint.”
See how badly my old lady tells a story! She jumps straight from the
coins to Hiliary.
“Sis and I never knew which of us Hiliary loved. He came to see us
both—and, in fact, the whole family. And everybody liked him, and he
liked everybody. But it seemed pretty certain that he would ask one of
us to marry him. So sis and I (we were living here alone then—father
having died the year before) laughingly considered that we would
probably not need more than one trousseau (for Hiliary was the only beau
we both had), and that we would put into the teapot all that we could
spare for that purpose and not count it until Hiliary had asked one or
the other of us—then she was to have it all. Whenever we had a levy or a
fi’-penny-bit to spare, we would drop it into the teapot. Sis put in
twice to my once, I am sure, because I had what they called a sweet
tooth in my head, and brother Ben said that syrup water, which you could
get at the groceries then, was the only thing that was good for it.”
The blind one stopped the story to explain something she thought was not
plain to me:
“We thought we could only _afford_ to have one wedding between us, you
know.”
“Why, weren’t there plenty of suitors?” asked I.
“I guess there was only one for both of us—and his name was Hiliary,”
smiled the frail one.
Then she went on:
“One night Hiliary was here, and sis and I were sitting in these two
chairs, close together, as if we were afraid of him (we always sat that
way when he was here). I remember that I had on my blue-flowered
delaine, and sis had on her black Swiss with the green sprigs in it,
just as we are in that first daguerreotype at the left-hand corner of
the parlor mantel. Hiliary had just shown sis one of the new coins of
1857.
“‘Well,’ he laughed, ‘I want to marry one of you girls, but hanged if I
know which one to ask. You are both mighty lovely. I believe I’ll turn
Mormon.’
“But I thought he shied off toward sis there as he said it, and I never
felt so lonely in my life as I did for a second or two then.
“‘Now, you are taller than sis, here, but she is plumper—and I like
both. Your eyes are the same—there is no choice there. But sis’s hair is
a bit redder—and I like that. It shows a spirit. And I don’t want to be
the whole thing when I marry. But _you_ are extravagant,’ he said to me,
‘and I don’t like that, because I’m poor, and a wife must help her
husband to get along.’
“I thought again that he moved a bit more toward sis, there—who was
hiding the coin.
“Just then sis cried: ‘Heads for me, tails for sis. Which is it? Hurry!
hurry!’
“‘All right,’ said Hiliary, laughing.
“Sis turned up the coin—and it was—me!
“She jumped up and ran away laughing, then, and Hiliary sat still quite
a while, as if he weren’t exactly sure. I was hanging my head ashamed
and afraid. But then he laughed and put his arms around me and kissed
me. He was a little bashful.
“‘I guess God put that into sis’s head,’ he said.
[Illustration: “‘_I want to marry one of you girls, but hanged if I know
which one to ask_’”]
“That is another thing people believed then—that God commanded things in
that way, and that one would be disobeying Him not to do them.
“My, but I was happy! I didn’t know till that instant that I cared so
much for him. I must have fainted for a few minutes. When I came to, sis
was there again with something damp on my face. At first I couldn’t see.
I heard Hiliary say, ‘But what if it had been _you_?’
“‘I wouldn’t have had you,’ said sis.
“‘You would have broken your word?’
“‘Certainly—rather than marry _you_!’
“‘Oh!’
“‘I’m looking for some one _better_ than you—_better_ in every way!’
“‘But you would have been going against God, maybe?’
“‘Not even then. I want some one—_better_!’
“But poor sis never found her better one—though I suppose there was one
for her somewhere—as she deserved. For she couldn’t look for him nor see
whether he was better or worse than Hiliary if he had come. She lost her
sight. But I’m a little ahead of my story.
“That night I heard sis saying strange things in her sleep and sobbing.
She told me the next morning that it was for me—because we had to part—”
“And you said,” the blind one interrupted, “that we should _never_
part.”
“And you insisted that it was impossible to live together after I was
married, that three was a crowd, and that you should go and keep house
for brother Ben.”
“I only said I should go mad.”
“Yes, only think! What _could_ you have meant?”
The knowledge of that would have to wait, too, until the heavens are
rolled together as a scroll.
“Anyhow, sis said—it was early in the morning and we were not dressed
yet—that we had better go down and see how much was in the teapot, and
we did.
“There was not a cent in it!
“We never knew when it had been stolen. Perhaps long before. But it was
all gone!”
VI
SHE BELIEVED IN MIRACLES. DO YOU?
She approached the next part of her story diffidently.
“Maybe you will not care for the rest. I know you don’t believe in
signs.”
“But I do,” I protested.
She brightened with delight. The blind one said nothing. I think her
head bent a trifle lower.
“And do you believe that God helps those who love Him when they are in
distress?”
“Yes,” I said, “and some who do not love Him as well as you do. He has
helped _me_—when I did not deserve it.”
She gazed a moment in wonder.
“I don’t mean indirectly?”