A STRANGE BOOK.
That evening, when John returned from the forest, he found his little
daughter flushed and excited, with her eyes shining purple in the
twilight and a strange earnestness in her manner, which, he feared,
spoke of a sudden uprising of fever,--that fever which was so slowly
but surely wasting away her little life.
"Thou hast not been very long by thyself, hast thou, my sweet one?" he
said anxiously, as he looked at the eyes raised up so lovingly to his,
but still full of some strange and hidden tremor.
"Oh no, Fritz has been here; and, besides, I have been reading." She
glanced with almost the nervousness of guilt at the little table beside
her, and moved herself restlessly on her chair.
"My darling has been tiring herself, I fear," said John, sitting down
on the window-sill beside her, and putting his great arm round her
lovingly. "Well, now that father is returned, dost thou know--canst
thou guess what he has been about all the afternoon?"
"No, father," she said softly, laying her head down on his shoulder
with a long, weary breath. Her thoughts were evidently engrossed by
some subject of which he knew nothing.
"Ah, my sweet one must not sigh like that," he said, drawing her
tenderly towards him; "it makes father's heart ache; and, besides, when
Violet hears father's news, instead of crying, she will almost fly out
of her chair with joy."
"What!" she cried, sitting so suddenly up that John was almost
terrified, and had to loose his close grasp of his little girl; "tell
me, father, quickly, quickly, tell Violet thy news."
John gazed at her in silent wonder. He did not understand this
mood--the brightly-glittering eyes, the deepening flush, the expression
of a burning but unspoken anxiety, and the constant restless motion of
the little hand which lay hot and dry in his palm.
"What hast thou been reading?" he asked curiously, stretching out his
arm towards the little table beside her, on which now for the first
time he had noticed a book--a strange book with a yellow-spotted paper
cover and red edges. It was open, but was turned down upon the Bible
which always rested on the table beside her chair--her mother's Bible,
the most precious thing she had in all the world.
"Who gave thee this new book, and what story hast thou been troubling
thy poor head with?" he asked kindly, as he would have lifted it from
its resting-place.
"Ah, do not touch it," she cried quickly, as she withdrew one hand from
his grasp and laid it on the yellow-spotted cover; "I have not finished
it yet. It is too lovely a story, and--first--first I must tell it all
to Fritz; and then--then, father, if Fritz says it is true, then I
will tell it all to thee." She ended her sentence with a quick sob of
excitement.
"Who gave thee the book, Violet?"
"I do not know, father." She rubbed her fingers up and down the cover
restlessly.
"Thou dost not know?"
"No; I have tried to think, but cannot tell. Fritz said perhaps it was
the lantern-man gave it to me; but then his girl never had any mother."
"My little life, my heart's blood, what ails thee? Let us talk no
more of books or lantern-men, but instead, we will speak of the grand
carriage that father is going to make for his Violet," cried John,
beside himself with a sudden fear that the fever had risen to the sick
child's head, and was filling the poor, weary brain with distracting
fancies.
He lifted her out of her chair with tenderest love, and, sitting down
by the stove, all forgetful of the evening meal which he so much needed
after his day's work, he told her, in quiet, unexcited tones, as he
rocked her gently to and fro on his knee, how all the week he had been
thinking over a design of a little carriage which he was going to make
for her, and for which he had gone that afternoon to the forest to
choose wood--a carriage with springs, which could go over the cobbles
outside and not shake her poor back, and into which her pillows could
all be put, and in which she would be as comfortably propped up as if
she were in her chair at home. "And if that does not succeed, and my
little one is too tired to drive, then we shall make a carriage with
handles to it, and we shall carry thee everywhere thou choosest to go.
Fritz and I can take thee out on Sundays for long drives. Is it not so,
Violet?"
"Yes, thou and Fritz," she echoed softly; "and then I can go down the
hill and see the place where mother is asleep; cannot I, father?"
"Yes, my heart, we will go there first."
"Will she know I am there? Is she too far up, father?"
"I cannot tell, darling."
"But if--if--if Violet had--"
The question died on her lips, and John had become strangely silent.
By-and-by, as the room darkened and the long summer evening grew
shadowy, he rose up and lifted his little weary daughter in his arms
and laid her down on her bed. This time the knots came undone without
trouble, and no Kate was needed to assist in putting on the white
frilled night-dress, or to shake up the pillows behind her aching
shoulders. John seemed to-night to have hands like her mother's, so
softly did he lay her down and so quietly did he sit by her side
stroking her hair while she said the prayers her mother had taught her,
and to which her little lips remained ever faithful. As he leaned over
her to give her his good-night and a kiss, she said softly, "Another
kiss, father;" which having received, she murmured to herself lovingly,
"Good-night, father; good-night, mother;" and soon she was fast asleep.