Edmund said nothing; he was sorry for Lady Margaret and he was
sorry for himself. The little Marcus Aurelius had made a deep
impression on him; ever since he had been meditating the bold
venture of writing to Lady Margaret asking her if she would sell or
exchange that snake.
He kept thinking of the matter all the morning, wondering what had
become of Marcus. In the afternoon, he was to drive with his Aunt
Nora. While he was dressing, Celeste, the maid, brought him his
overcoat. Madame desired him to wear it, as he had a cold. "Very
well," said Edmund, obliging as usual. Approaching to put the coat
on, a little later, he stopped short. Surely the wind didn't cause
that singular flutter in the cloth! Then the flap moved. "Come
out!" cried Edmund.
As though in response to his invitation a small head erected itself
from the pocket, a small green head with glittering eyes, a head
which had an indescribably droll and Waggish air--the head, in
short, of the lost Marcus Aurelius. The intelligent reptile
immediately crawled out. He wound himself about the hand Edmund
held to him, curled under the boy's sleeve, nestled under his
sleeve with manifest pleasure at renewing the acquaintance.
It was plain enough to Edmund how it had happened. The intelligent
Marcus crawling into the hall had spied the pocket of Edmund's coat
and coolly entered. Once there, he had gone to sleep and the
unsuspecting Celeste had rolled the coat up in a strap not to undo
it until now. "So here you are, you beauty," said Edmund, "and I'll
take good care of you while you are mine; I only wish you could be
mine forever!"
There was a candy-box on the table with a glass cover. Of this he
hastily made a prison, then sallied out to find his captive some
mice. They were not the easiest thing in the world to get,
requiring considerable seeking and talking. He did not venture to
tell why he wanted mice; and he overheard the housekeeper grumble:
"Most extraordinary boys, those Americans! Do you expect he wants
to _cat_ them?"
By this time Nora was ready; he had hardly replaced the snake in
the box before he heard her knock at the door. It was a charming
day and drive, yet I fear he saw little of the scenery. Alas, that
it must be confessed, a wicked thought had crept into his brain. He
coveted Lady Margaret's snake. He coveted it so ardently that he
began to imagine how easy it would be for him to keep it. There was
a man in London who sold snakes. Edmund had been up buying some
snakes from him which the man was to keep until he should want
them. What more easy than to send Marcus Aurelius to this saurian
boarding-house? Ah, what an ugly temptation for Edmund who had been
called a good boy from his cradle. He would have no more of it. But
it came back again and finally, when he reached the inn, he had
almost decided to keep the snake. "Anyhow I'll take it to Tomlin's"
(Tomlin was the snake man), he said to himself; "there's no hurry."
Yet in his secret soul he knew that once taken to Tomlin's, Marcus
Aurelius would never return to Lady Margaret. Thus thinking, he
went toward the box. The snake was gone! Yes, gone, vanished
absolutely, leaving no trace either in the box or in the room.
Vainly and long Edmund searched; either the cover had not fitted
exactly, or Marcus, the intelligent Marcus, had managed to remove
it; in either case he had evidently set off anew on his travels.
Edmund began to feel he had been a wicked boy. He stood in the
centre of the room, trying to collect his wits. Oscar's room
adjoined his; he could hear Oscar moving about, whistling out of
tune. Should he go in and search there? Standing irresolute, he
heard a loud cry from his cousin. "Sloped! gone!" Then followed a
muffled sound which Edmund rightly interpreted to be Oscar poking
under the bed with an umbrella; and, then, came a thundering rap on
the door. "Say, Ned," called Oscar, entering immediately, "I'm in
an awful scrape! Your snake's gone!"
"My snake," repeated Edmund, feebly.
"Yes; the one you bought to-day. I saw it in the glass box on your
table."
Edmund remembered that he had left the box in full view when he
went for mice. His face grew red. "Did you let it out?" said he.
"Of course I didn't," Oscar answered. "Did you think I'd do such a
thing? I opened the door to speak to you and I saw it on the table
and I remembered you'd been talking of buying some snakes, so I
knew it was yours. I didn't go into the room at all, but this
afternoon when I came into my own room, Ned, its little green head
was sticking out of my overcoat pocket--ugh! I pretty near put my
hand on it! I'd have called you, but you'd gone, and it wasn't any
use calling Aunt Nellie--she'd just jump on the bed and scream; so
I didn't know what to do, for I can't handle those things like you,
Ned, so I pushed its head down with my tooth brush and pinned up
the pocket with my scarf pin. Then I waited a while for you, and I
thought it had gone into a torpid condition like you read of, and
Jack Dale came for me to go to see a Punch-and-Judy and when I got
back the little deceitful beggar had cleared out! I'm awful sorry,
Ned."
Edmund from red, had turned pale; he did not lift his eyes from the
floor; he was feeling more ashamed of himself than he had ever
thought to feel in his life. Poor blundering Oscar whom he had
despised had conquered his horror of snakes to do a service to a
boy who had never given him a pleasant word; while he--_he_
had tried to steal Lady Margaret's pet! Now Oscar was avowing his
carelessness without a thought of concealment, while he could not
summon courage to tell the truth.
"It may be in the rooms somewhere," he managed to say finally; "and
never mind, Oscar, you did your best to keep him."
"I'm awful sorry, I am, for a fact," said Oscar; "but of course
it's my fault. You're good not to row me, Ned!"
"Don't!" said Edmund quickly.
"Why"--began Oscar; but his words were drowned by a tumult that
suddenly arose outside; shrieks, voices, a great trampling of feet.
"They've found Marcus! They're killing him!" cried Oscar.
Both boys flew out of the room. "Don't kill him!" called Edmund.
"He is our snake!" shouted Oscar.
People opened doors in all directions as the boys raced past. One
timid woman put her head out of her window, screaming, "Police!"
until quite a small army of blue-coated fellows had assembled.
Another of bolder stamp thought the hotel was on fire and rushed to
the rescue with her water jug.
"Don't kill him!" Oscar and Edmund kept crying, a cry not
calculated to reassure the nervous. Down the hall dashed the boys.
At the far end an agitated group, variously armed with canes,
brooms and umbrellas, was gathered about a fainting chambermaid
supported in the arms of a waiter and fanned by another chambermaid
with a brush broom. Just behind her stood the head waiter in his
immaculate dress suit, disgust painted on his countenance and a
dustpan held aloft in his hand.
Something very like a groan burst from Edmund's lips; for, there,
on the dustpan, his gleaming length trailing limply over the edges,
bruised, battered, crushed, lay poor little dead Marcus Aurelius.
Thus tragically had all his travels ended.
"It's our snake!" cried Oscar, making a spring and snatching the
dustpan from the man's hand. Without another word he darted off at
full speed. He did not hear the head waiter's dignified reproof:
"Young gentlemen as keeps snakes for pets better keep 'em safe
'ome, in _my_ opinion;" or one of the women's speeches: "I
expect he have got a baby tiger hid somewhere; them American
children will do anythink!"
But Edmund heard. Too dejected to retort, he crawled back to his
room. This was the end of it, then. The poor pet must die because
of his wicked wishes. He knew only too well that it was his haste
to hide the snake lest his aunt should see it, that had displaced
the cover. Had he spoken up like an honest boy he could have taken
time to be careful and poor Marcus would still be rejoicing in the
sun. He did not dare to lift his eyes as he entered the room; he
was afraid to look again on that pitiful spectacle of his making.
Oscar had laid a newspaper on the bed and placed the dustpan on it
and now was looking mournfully down at Marcus. "'Tain't no use," he
muttered, "head's smashed. It's an awful shame! Don't see how it
got out of the room--I shut the door tight. Wish I'd locked it!
Guess Aunt Nellie'll be vexed when she finds I've lost Ned's snake.
Well, she's vexed about something most of the time, so it can't be
helped!" Then, for the first time seeing Edmund's miserable face,
he tried to comfort him. "It's lucky you didn't have him long, Ned,
so you hadn't got fond of him. And I'll buy you another"--
Edmund lifted his head. Though Oscar did not guess it, in those last
few moments he had fought; a bitter fight with himself. He
interrupted his cousin: "The snake isn't mine. I didn't buy it.
It's Lady Margaret Vincent's." He went on to tell of his finding
the snake.
"Whew!" whistled Oscar. "You're bright to guess all that; probably
'tis hers. And you didn't tell Aunt Nora or Aunt Nellie?"
"They'll know fast enough now," replied Edmund gloomily, "after all
this racket--they're running about yet!"
"Well, we'd had to told them anyhow," said candid Oscar, "and I
guess I'll catch it. It's truly my fault. _You_ didn't do
nothing. But I ought to have staid and watched and--I declare I'd
forgotten it till this very minute--aunt Nellie told me I mustn't
run out in the streets, ever, without Celeste; she tells me so many
things I can't keep track of all. And there's Lady Margaret too"--
"M-must we tell her?" stammered Edmund.
"Why, it's her snake," said Oscar, opening his honest eyes; "how
can we help it?"
"I suppose we _can't_ help it," said Edmund.
"But we might telegraph," said Oscar; "it's a heap easier than
writing and you can get lots of words for a shilling."
"No, we'll have to write," said Edmund; "I'll do it."
But Oscar shook his head. "No, Ned, that ain't fair. I'm the most
to blame and I ought to do it. Besides _you_ wouldn't say it
was my fault."
Then the last barrier of Edmund's pride broke down. "Don't,"
he cried again. "I tell you it's I'm to blame, not you. And--
and--Oscar, I've been very mean to you all along"--
"No, you haven't," said Oscar promptly; "it was me bullying you
in the first place made all the trouble. Aunt Nora told me maybe you
wouldn't be friends for a while, and she told me all about the mad
dog and I thought you were a pretty nice boy and I wished you would
like me, but you wouldn't, so I pretended I didn't care. But I did.
It's lonesome travelling around with a feller that's mad with you
all the time."
Edmund swallowed a little lump in his throat. "If you'll make up
with me, now, I'll never be mad with you again," said he, holding
out his hand.
Oscar clasped it across the bed over the mangled remains of the
too-adventurous Marcus Aurelius, whose adventures, thus, were not
quite in vain.
Edmund kept his word. Indeed, he was surprised to find how easy it
was to like Oscar; and Nora's prediction was fulfilled. The two
boys were very happy in Europe; but Edmund never forgot Marcus. He
told the truth to Nora and she persuaded Mrs. Morris to deal gently
with Oscar. He went to the races, after all. Previously Edmund had
written the whole story to Lady Margaret in a letter which she read
with smiles and tears. The postscript was by Oscar. It ran as
follows:
DEER LADY MARGARET:--
Ned wont let me see his letter but I'm sure he
took all the blame on himself becaws he always dose
but it was me too blame and not him becaws I
pined the snake in my coat pocket becaws I was
affraid to handel it and ran off too the punch
and gudy show and it got out and the head water
killed it I didn't give him any tip when he went
away I'm very sorry and I'm sorry I kicked the
mormossits but they bit my legs No more at pressent
from your obedient servent too comand.
OSCAR T. W----.
It only remains to say that Marcus Aurelius is back home, at Lady
Margaret's; but she never makes a bracelet of him, now; most
ingeniously mended and stuffed, he abides perpetually in a glass
case; and she describes his perfections and his lamentable end with
tears in her eyes.
ANNA AND THE RATTLER
By Mrs. Cornell
A voice rose wrathfully in the back yard, "Wee-lie! What iss this?
You fell in the pig trough? Come here, that I beat you! Come here,
I say!"
Willie did not accept the invitation. A shrill whimpering was his
sole response. Twelve-year-old Anna stepped to the kitchen door,
peering round the sash. "Pa's scolding Willie," she announced to
her mother.
The storm continued to rage in the back yard.
"Shust look at your clothes! Go now! To the creek wit' you! Come
_not_ in the house until you are cleaned. Ach!"
Ex-Sea-Captain Schulz, now prune-grower in the mountain boundary
west of Santa Clara Valley, turned in at the kitchen door.
"I don't know what to do wit' the boy. Go, mine Anna, get the lad a
clean shirt, and take it down to the creek."
On Anna's return from the bathing pool she said softly to her
mother, "Willie isn't at the creek. Perhaps he has run off."
"O child, don't bother me about Willie! He'll run back again fast
enough, he's that scared of the mountains and the trees."
Anna was conscious of an undercurrent of sympathy with the forlorn
waif her father had brought from the city some months before. The
very love and awe with which the mountains filled her imaginative
soul gave her comprehension of the fear with which they imbued the
dull-witted offspring of San Francisco gutters.
Willie did not return all that long, August day. The captain and
his American wife spread and dipped prunes busily on the hot south
slope. The box-laden wagon rolled by at intervals. Household duties
went helter-skelter under Anna's management. At six o'clock Mrs.
Schulz, hot and tired, wakened her lazy little daughter,
outstretched beneath the hollyhocks and poppies in the small front
garden.
"For gracious sake, Anna! Hurry! You've not done the dinner
dishes!"
"Have the cows come?" Anna asked, resourcefully.
"Land! If I hadn't forgotten about Willie! Come--hurry! You'll have
to go for the cows. I'll wash the dishes."
Anna felt quite in the mood to go for the cows. It meant an hour or
so of patting barefooted and bare headed along the soft dust of the
road, or over the slippery brown grass of the mountain pastures,
with tall pines on every hand and a gold-blue sky above.
She mused about the missing Willie. Had he carried out his
occasional threat to run away?
"The road is open, go when you like," was her father's one reply to
such futile outbursts. But they well knew the road was not open to
Willie. The six mountain miles intervening between their ranch and
the station formed an impassable barrier to his timorous soul.
"I guess he's afraid of the bigness of things," Anna concluded.
"And he's got no call to run away. Papa threatens him, but he's
never laid hand on him yet. I s'pose it's on account of the bath he
ran away."
There was no Willie at the bathing-pool. The checked gingham shirt
fluttered lonesomely where she had that morning placed it.
Some minutes later, shuffling deliciously among the dappled leaves
of a hill trail, she sprang aside in quick dismay.
"Goodness!" What had seemed to be a bunch of dry leaves and grass
coiled swiftly, with the rattling whir that goes straight to the
fear center of the human heart. In a flash Anna's hands were full
of rocks. The first article in every California mountain child's
education is to destroy every rattlesnake that comes in sight. Anna
dodged the first strike of the snake, and before he could get
nearer she began a fusillade of such efficiency that the reptile
enemy sought retreat.
Then Anna was privileged to witness a strange thing--a very strange
thing; so unusual, in fact, that when reported to the head of the
zoological department of the State university that conservative
gentleman would have given the story little credence had it not
been for the unimpeachable authority of a celebrated naturalist,
who had reported it as occasionally occurring among the large,
much-to-be-dreaded species of the Eastern States--the _Crotalus
horrible_, or banded rattler.
To Anna's unutterable surprise, the snake turned for refuge to a
near-by oak-tree. Perhaps he came against it unintentionally, as
the rattlesnake sees badly by daylight. At any rate, he reared his
head against it much as he would have done in ascending the side of
a sunny boulder in the early days of his chilled awakening from his
winter sleep.
He writhed spirally but slowly up its rough trunk, which seemed
from eighteen to twenty inches in circumference. When the rocks
ceased flying he would halt, evidently not half-liking his task, to
wave his bluntly triangular head in the direction where the moving
shadow indicated to his blurred vision the position of his enemy.
But on the resumption of active hostilities, he would begin again
his painful ascent.
"Ow-w-w-ch!" sounded a howl from above.
Looking up at the cry, Anna discerned among the clustering leaves
of the black oak a huddled figure, with raccoon-like eyes, peering
down at the mounting snake, to escape from which he had, in fact,
climbed the tree.
"Willie," she shouted, "jump! The snake's coming! Jump!"
"Ow-w-w-ch!" he continued to wail.
The snake stopped, confused, craning its head upward at the new
complication, then downward at its known adversary. Its hesitation
would make Willie's escape practicable, if he could conquer his
crazy fear.
"Willie, break off a limb--beat it back! I can run!"
The snake undulated a few inches farther. The reiterated cry was
Willie's only response. Anna's quick eye saw another chance.
"There's that big limb on the redwood. You can reach it. Swing
across. It's easy. You must!" stamping. "O Willie, do it! Do it!"
Her sailor father had often reproved Anna for her delight in
climbing and swinging from tree to tree, by means of her long arms
and practised hands.
"It iss not goodt for you to be a monkey, mine Anna," he would say.
"Little girls need nefer to go to the masthead. Thou hast no call
to be a sailor. Be only a brave _kindchen_, and help our goodt
mother wit' the dishes."
His admonition would dissolve in an unrestrained roar of laughter
as she wickedly "shinned" up the porch post to a coign of vantage
on the vine-covered roof.
But she could not climb the tree where the snake still clung. There
was the neighboring redwood, huge-girthed, smooth-boled, with limbs
out of reach, yet with the lowest bough almost touching the limb on
which Willie crouched, mechanically clutching the body of the tree,
but dumb and stupefied with the horror of his situation.
Anna hurriedly piled large rocks under a thick, broken branch-stump
of the redwood, which was at least eight feet from the ground. Four
times she leaped upward and fell back, wounding her tough little
feet. She noticed blood-stains on the rocks as she heaped them with
a broader base for her fifth attempt. The snake rested, waving his
head downward as if in query. Fortunately, he was full and
sluggish.
Once more Anna crouched and shot upward. Her right hand caught the
projecting stump, her left easily followed. Clasping the decreasing
trunk of the tree with her slim, muscular legs, hanging also by her
hands, she dropped her head backward to take observation. The snake
hung out, also, toward her, from his tree, then resumed his
deliberate climbing. Evidently the task was neither easy nor to his
liking.
Anna hitched breathlessly up toward the coveted limb. Reaching it,
she took out her jack-knife,--inseparable companion,--scientifically
cut a wedge from a short limb above her, and broke off the weakened
branch. Recovering her balance, she reached out with this flexible
club, but could not touch the snake, now roused to accelerated
activity.
Holding her weapon between her teeth, Anna worked her way nearly to
the end of her tough support. Throwing out her right hand, she was
able to catch the big limb, at the base of which Willie, almost
insensible, still huddled. Then she swung, pendulum-like, by her
hands, increasing her momentum. At the right moment she released
the redwood bough and flung her light body full upon the young oak.
Grasping the limb with both hands, she hauled herself up beside the
terrified boy.
The snake, shaken by the tumult above, wavered and stopped. As a
rule, a rattlesnake, conscious of his defense, makes a good fight;
but here the conditions were unusual and confusing. On level
ground, where he could have coiled, and where his sensitive under
surface could have slid comfortably over smooth earth, he would not
have shirked combat when cornered. Now, with his enemy mysteriously
above, his one idea seemed to be escape.
Willie jabbered an idiotic welcome.
"He can't strike until he gets clear here," Anna reassured him. "He
can't coil."
Her rapid blows still further dismayed her antagonist. He bit
viciously at the stick, touching it more than once; for the
rattler's strike is deadly swift, despite his languid locomotion.
At last Anna, settling herself firmly on the limb, raised her club
with both hands and delivered a slashing blow on the neck of her
foe, breaking, as they afterward found, his vertebral column.
The darting head hung limp; a progressive loosening ran through the
mottled coils; there was a slight rasping sound, a thud, and then a
whitish heap on the ground, which Anna cleared when, swinging down
by her hands to a safe distance, she leaped lightly to the ground.
Willie followed, dazed and fearful. He helped round up the cows,
casting furtive glances ahead and on each side at every footstep.
Before entering the house, he slunk, although still agonized with
fear, through the golden twilight to the abhorred bathing-pool and
the languidly fluttering cross-bars of the repudiated gingham
shirt.
But Anna, too ill for supper, crept into her father's arms, where
he sat on the vine-darkened veranda, and fell asleep on his
shoulder.
"Ach, mine Anna," the captain said, tenderly, "it iss sometimes
goodt for little girls to make themselves to be sailors!"
THE BUTTERFLY'S CHILDREN
By Mrs. Alfred Gatty
"Let me hire you as a nurse for my poor children," said a Butterfly
to a quiet Caterpillar, who was strolling along a cabbage-leaf in
her odd lumbering way. "See these little eggs," continued the
Butterfly; "I don't know how long it will be before they come to
life, and I feel very sick and poorly, and if I should die, who
will take care of my baby Butterflies when I am gone? Will
_you_, kind, mild, green Caterpillar? But you must mind what
you give them to eat, Caterpillar!--they cannot, of course, live on
_your_ rough food. You must give them early dew, and honey
from the flowers, and you must let them fly about only a little way
at first; for, of course, one can't expect them to use their wings
properly all at once. Dear me! it is a sad pity you cannot fly
yourself. But I have no time to look for another nurse now, so you
will do your best, I hope. Dear! dear! I cannot think what made me
come and lay my eggs on a cabbage-leaf! What a place for young
Butterflies to be born upon! Still you will be kind, will you not,
to the poor little ones? Here, take this gold-dust from my wings as
a reward. Oh, how dizzy I am! Caterpillar! you will remember about
the food--"
And with these words the Butterfly drooped her wings and died; and
the green Caterpillar, who had not had the opportunity of even
saying Yes or No to the request, was left standing alone by the
side of the Butterfly's eggs.
"A pretty nurse she has chosen, indeed, poor lady!" exclaimed she,
"and a pretty business I have in hand! Why, her senses must have
left her or she never would have asked a poor crawling creature
like me to bring up her dainty little ones! Much they'll mind me,
truly, when they feel the gay wings on their backs, and can fly
away out of my sight whenever they choose!"
However, there lay the eggs on the cabbage-leaf; and the green
Caterpillar had a kind heart, so she resolved to do her best. But
she got no sleep that night, she was so very anxious. She made her
back quite ache with walking all night round her young charges, for
fear any harm should happen to them; and in the morning says she to
herself--