electric matter, the two natures near, attract, repel. The fire that
leaps from either soul, responsive to kindred fire, fuses or destroys. A
hint, a suspicion, jealousy, mistrust, the thousand and one small
chances of life, come between, and all is over. Only--
"The little pitted speck in garnered fruit"
is needful. A trifle, or what seemed a trifle, had been the beginning of
mischief between Hilda and Wilhelm, but the breach had slowly widened
till now; when for weeks they had neither met nor spoken, and the idyl
begun under summer boughs was withering in time of frost like summer
flowers.
To the old tree, and to him alone, did the girl confide her
wretchedness. In his dumb ear she owned herself in the wrong. "Why do
you not say so?" the responsive murmur seemed to breathe. "Wilhelm is
true! Wilhelm is kind! only a word, and all will be well." But pride
laid his finger on her lips. She neglected the kindly monitor, the word
came not, and now the dear old fir was gone; and thinking of all these
things, Hilda's heart was very sad.
Meantime upon the hillside a great crowd of people were assembled about
the fallen trunk. Old men and women, with wistful eyes, stood there;
comely middle-aged pairs, surrounded by children; young girls and their
bachelors; boys with fresh rosy faces and wondering eyes,--all alike had
come to see once more the face of the village friend. Merrily rang the
axes upon the wood. Some looked sad, some merry, as the work went on.
There was much interchange of "Do you remembers," much laughing and
joking, a few tears. The children with their baskets ran about picking
up the bright cones which once hung like a coronet upon the forehead of
the fir. Here and there a woman stooped for a chip or a small twig to
carry away as relic. And then it began to grow dark. The people
recollected themselves, as people will after doing a sentimental thing,
and saw that it was time to go home. So in contented crowds they
descended the hill to their suppers, and threw billets of the old fir on
the fire, and beside the blaze partook of sausage and cheese, and
laughed and gossiped no less merrily than usual, and the funeral of the
old tree was over.
"We will keep all our cones, and the big fagot which Fritz tied up,
until day after to-morrow," said little Gretchen; "because, you know,
day after to-morrow comes Christmas eve, and the Christ-child must be
sure to find a good fire."
No one gainsaid this, so the fagot was laid aside.
All next day, and the next, did Hilda labor busily, throwing herself
with feverish energy into the Christmas preparations. There was a plenty
to do. The furniture must shine its brightest, veal and puddings must be
made ready for spit and oven, green boughs be hung everywhere, and,
above all, the tree must be prepared. Hard and continually she worked,
and as the sun set on the blessed eve all was in order. A vast fire
crackled on the hearth of the "big room," thrown open in honor of the
festival. Its bright blaze was reflected back from the polished panels
of the tall corner clock, and danced on the rosy apples and glossy
filberts of the still unlighted tree, which stood, green and
magnificent, beyond. Little fruit of value did this wonderful tree bear.
Jackets, stockings, leather shoes, loaded the lower boughs; above was a
flowering of warm hoods and gay neck-cloths, there was a wooden cow for
Gretchen, a trumpet of red tin for little Paul; but the useful and the
necessary predominated. Tender hands had arranged all, had hung the
many-colored tapers, crowned the whole with bright-berried stems, and,
in the moss at the foot, laid reverently a tiny straw cradle, with waxen
occupant, in memory of that resting-place in the Bethlehem manger where
once a "young child lay." And now, pale and tired, Hilda stood gazing
upon her finished work.
"Sister, sister!" clamored eager voices through the closed door, "hasn't
the Christ-child come yet?"
"No, dears, not yet. Go away and play quietly in the kitchen. I'll call
you when he comes."
The little footsteps retreated, and Hilda seated herself before the fire
with a weary sigh. It would be an hour or more before her father would
return, and the lighting of the tree begin; so, leaning back in the high
carved chair, she gave herself up to rest of body, leaving her mind to
rove listlessly as it would.
The basket of cones stood beside the hearth. Half mechanically she
stooped for a handful, and threw them on the blaze. Then a certain
drowsy peace came over her, broken only by the flickering noise of the
burning cones. They did not burn like other cones, she thought, and even
as the idea floated through her brain, a strange, phantasmal change
passed over them. Moving and blending, they began to build a picture in
the heart of the fire,--the picture of a tree, drawn in flaming lines.
Hilda knew the tree. It was the old fir of Brelau, complete in limb and
trunk. And, as she gazed, figures formed themselves beneath the
boughs,--figures as of people sitting there, which moved and
scintillated, and, swaying toward each other, seemed to clasp and kiss.
She uttered a low cry of pain. At the sound the scene shifted, the tree
dissolved as in fiery rain, and the cones, raising themselves and
climbing upward, stood ranged in a group on the topmost log, like a
choir of musicians about to play. Strange notes seemed to come from the
blaze, low and humming, like a whispered prelude, then voices began to
speak, or to sing--which was it?--in tones which sounded oddly near, and
yet infinitely far away. It was like a chorus of elves sung to the
accompaniment of rustling leaves. And all the time it went on, certain
brightly flaming cones, which took precedence, emphasized the music with
a succession of quick, glancing sparks, darting out like tiny
finger-points, as if to attract attention.
"Look at us! look at us!" were the words of the strange _staccato_ chant
which sounded from the fire. "We are all light and glorious as your love
used to be,--used to be. It isn't so any longer." Then other cones, half
burned and crusted over with white ashes, pushed forward and took up the
strain in sad recitative: "Look at us! look at us, Hilda! We are as your
love is now,--is now. Ah, there will be worse to come ere long!" And all
the time they sang, glowing strongly from within, they fixed what
seemed eyes, red and winking, on Hilda's face. Then the ashes from
below, drifting upward in an odd, aimless way, formed themselves into a
shadowy shape, and began to sing in low, muffled tones, full of sadness.
"We are dead, Hilda," was their song; "all dead! dead as your love will
be--will be--before long." And at the close of the strain all the cones
closed together, and emitted a sigh so profound and so melancholy that
Hilda started from her chair. Tears stood upon her cheeks. She stared at
the fire with strange excitement. It was burning quietly now, and
without noise. She was certainly awake. Had she been dreaming?
Just at that moment the latch of the door clicked slightly, and somebody
entered, slowly, hesitatingly, propelled from behind by a childish
figure. "Hilda," said Gretchen's voice, "here's Wilhelm wanting to see
the father. I told him to come in, because _perhaps_ the father was
here, or else the mother." And Gretchen's eyes explored the room in
search of the Christ-child, for a glimpse of whom she had resorted to
this transparent device. Then, alarmed by Hilda's stony silence, she
suddenly hung her head, and, rushing out, clapped the door behind her,
and left the two alone.
Hilda gave a gasp of bewilderment. She could not move. Was this part of
the vision? Wilhelm stole one furtive glance at her face, then dropped
his eyes. For a moment perfect stillness prevailed, then, shifting
uneasily from one leg to the other in his embarrassment, the young man
muttered something undistinguishable, and turned. His hand was on the
door,--a moment more and he would be gone. Hilda started forward.
"Wilhelm!" she exclaimed, with the hoarse utterance of one who seeks to
escape from some frightful dream.
Wilhelm turned. He saw the pale, agitated face, the eyes brimmed with
tears, the imploring, out-stretched hands. Another second and he held
her in his arms. The familiar touch melted the ice of Hilda's heart, her
head sank upon his breast, and in a few broken words all was spoken and
explained.
So brief an interval and all life changed! The same intense feeling
which drove them asunder drew them as inevitably together now that once
the returning tides had chance to flow. Clasped in close embrace, with
tears and smiles and loving self-reproachings, they stood before the
fire; and as they bent for their first reconciled kiss, the fir cones,
flashing once more into life and activity, rose upon the topmost log.
Even the burned and blackened ones glowed with fresh fire. Hand in hand,
as it were, they climbed into position, and leaped and capered side by
side as if merrily dancing, while little jubilant cracks and clicks and
sounds, as of small hands clapped for joy, accompanied the movement.
Then suddenly the splendor faded, and sinking with one consent into
ashes, the cones sifted through the logs and vanished forever, their
mission accomplished, their work done.
With eyes of amazement the lovers gazed upon the spectacle to its close.
As the last spark faded, Hilda laid her head again on Wilhelm's breast.
"Ah!" she said, tenderly sighing, "the dear old fir! He loved us well,
Wilhelm, and that was his 'good-by.'"
Perhaps it was!
A BALSAM PILLOW.
Now that fir-needles and hemlock-needles have become recognized articles
of commerce, and every other shop boasts its row of fragrant cushions,
with their inevitable motto, "Give Me of Thy Balm, O Fir-tree," I am
reminded of the first pillow of the sort that I ever saw, and of what it
meant to the girl who made it. I should like to tell you the little
story, simple as it is. It belongs to the time, eight or nine years
since, before pine pillows became popular. Perhaps Chateaubriand Dorset
may be said, for once in her life, to have set a fashion.
Yes, that was really her name! Her mother met with it in a newspaper,
and, without the least idea as to whether it appertained to man or
woman, adopted it for her baby. The many syllables fascinated her, I
suppose, and there was, besides, that odd joy in a piece of extravagance
that costs nothing, which appeals to the thrifty New England nature,
and is one of its wholesome outlets and indulgences.
So the Methodist elder baptized the child "Chateaubriand Aramintha,"
making very queer work of the unfamiliar accents; and then, so far as
practical purposes are concerned, the name ceased to be. How can a busy
household, with milk to set, and milk to skim, and pans to scald, and
butter to make, and pigs to feed, find time for a name like that?
"Baby," the little girl was called till she was well settled on her feet
and in the use of her little tongue. Then she became "Brie," and Brie
Dorset she remained to the end. Few people recollected that she
possessed any other name, unless the marriage, birth, and death pages of
the family Bible happened to be under discussion.
The Dorsets' was one of those picturesque, lonely, outlying farms, past
which people drive in the summer, saying, "How retired! how peaceful!"
but past which almost no one drives in the winter. It stood, with its
environment of red barns and apple-orchards, at the foot of a low
granite cliff whose top was crowned with a fir wood; and two enormous
elm-trees met over its roof and made a checker-work of light and shade
on its closely blinded front. No sign of life appeared to the city
people who drew their horses in to admire the situation, except,
perhaps, a hen scratching in the vegetable-beds, or a lazy cat basking
on the doorstep; and they would drive on, unconscious that behind the
slats of the green blinds above a pair of eyes watched them go, and a
hungry young heart contrasted their lot with its own.
Hungry! There never was anything like the starvation which goes on
sometimes in those shut-up farmhouses. Boys and girls feel it alike; but
the boys are less to be pitied, for they can usually devise means to get
away.
How could Brie get away? She was the only child. Her parents had not
married young. When she was nineteen, they seemed almost elderly people,
so badly does life on a bleak New England farm deal with human beings.
Her mother, a frail little woman, grew year by year less fit for hard
labor. The farm was not productive. Poverty, pinch, the inevitable
recurrence of the same things to be done day after day, month after
month, the same needs followed by the same fatigues,--all these Brie had
to bear; and all the while the child had that love and longing for the
beautiful which is part of the artist's equipment, and the deprivation
of which is keen suffering. Sweet sights, sounds, smells,--all these she
craved, and could get only in such measure as her daily work enabled her
to get them from that world of nature which is the satisfaction of eager
hearts to whom all other pleasures are denied.
The fir wood on the upper hill was the temple where she worshipped.
There she went with her Bible on Sunday afternoons, with her patching
and stocking-mending on other days. There she dreamed her dreams and
prayed her prayers, and while there she was content. But all too soon
would come the sound of the horn blown from below, or a call from the
house, "Brie, Brie, the men are coming to supper; make haste!" and she
would be forced to hurry back to the workaday world.
Harder times followed. When she was just twenty, her father fell from
his loaded hay-wagon, and fractured his thigh. There was no cure for the
hurt, and after six months of hopeless tendance, he died. Brie and her
mother were left together on the lonely farm, with the added burden of a
large bill for doctoring and medicines, which pressed like a heavy
weight on their honorable hearts.
The hired man, Reuben Hall, was well disposed and honest, but before Mr.
Dorset's death he had begun to talk of going to the West, and Brie
foreboded that he might not be willing to stay with them. Mrs. Dorset,
broken down by nursing and sorrow, had become an invalid, unable to
assist save in the lightest ways. The burden was sore for one pair of
young shoulders to bear. Brie kept up a brave face by day, but at night,
horrors of helplessness and apprehension seized her. The heavens seemed
as brass, against which her feeble prayers beat in vain; the future was
barred, as it were, with an impassable gate.
What could they do? Sell the farm? That would take time; for no one in
particular wanted to buy it. If Reuben would stand by them, they might
be able to fight it out for another year, and, what with butter and eggs
and the corn-crop, make enough for his wages and a bare living. But
would Reuben stay?
Our virtues sometimes treat us as investments do, and return a dividend
when we least expect it. It was at this hard crisis that certain good
deeds of Brie's in the past stood her friend. She had always been good
to Reuben, and her sweet ways and consideration for his comfort had
gradually won a passage into his rather stolid affections. Now, seeing
the emergency she was in, and the courage with which she met it, he
could not quite find the heart to "leave the little gal to make out by
herself." Fully purposing to go, he stayed, putting off the idea of
departure from month to month; and though, true to his idea of proper
caution, he kept his good intentions to himself, so that the relief of
having him there was constantly tempered by the dread lest he might go
at any time, still it _was_ relief.
So April passed, and May and June. The crops were planted, the
vegetables in. Brie strained every nerve. She petted her hens, and
coaxed every possible egg out of them, she studied the tastes of the two
cows, she maintained a brave show of cheer for her ailing mother, but
all the time she was sick at heart. Everything seemed closing in. How
long could she keep it up?
The balsam firs of the hill grove could have told tales in those days.
They were Brie's sole confidants. The consolation they gave, the counsel
they communicated, were mute, indeed, but none the less real to the
anxious girl who sat beneath them, or laid her cheek on their rough
stems. June passed, and with early July came the answer to Brie's many
prayers. It came, as answers to prayer often do, in a shape of which she
had never dreamed.
Miss Mary Morgan, teacher in grammar school No. 3, Ward Nineteen, of the
good city of Boston, came, tired out from her winter's work, to spend a
few days with Farmer Allen's wife, her second cousin, stopped one day at
the Dorset's door, while driving, to ask for a drink of water, took a
fancy to the old house and to Brie, and next day came over to propose
herself as a boarder for three months.
"I can only afford to pay seven dollars a week," she said; "but, on the
other hand, I will try not to make much trouble, if you will take me."
"Seven dollars a week; only think!" cried Brie, gleefully, to her mother
after the bargain was completed, and Miss Morgan gone. "Doesn't it seem
like a fortune? It'll pay Reuben's wages, and leave ever so much over!
And she doesn't eat much meat, she says, and she likes baked potatoes
and cream and sweet baked apples better than anything. And there's the
keeping-room chamber all cleaned and ready. Doesn't it seem as if she
was sent to us, mother?"
"Your poor father never felt like keepin' boarders," said Mrs. Dorset.
"I used to kind of fancy the idea of it, but he wasn't willin'. I
thought it would be company to have one in the house, if they was nice
folks. It does seem as if this was the Lord's will for us; her coming in
so unexpected, and all."
Two days later Miss Morgan, with a hammock and a folding canvas chair
and a trunk full of light reading, arrived, and took possession of her
new quarters. For the first week or two she did little but rest,
sleeping for hours at a time in the hammock swung beneath the shadowing
elms. Then, as the color came back to her thin face and the light to her
eyes, she began to walk a little, to sit with Brie in the fir grove, or
read aloud to her on the doorstep while she mended, shelled peas, or
picked over berries; and all life seemed to grow easier and pleasanter
for the dwellers in the solitary farmhouse. The guest gave little
trouble, she paid her weekly due punctually, and the steady income,
small as it was, made all the difference in the world to Brie.
As the summer went by, and she grew at home with her new friend, she
found much relief in confiding to her the perplexities of her position.
"I see," Miss Morgan said; "it is the winter that is the puzzle. I will
engage to come back next summer as I have this, and that will help
along; but the time between now and then is the difficulty."
"Yes," replied Brie; "the winter is the puzzle, and Reuben's money. We
have plenty of potatoes and corn and vegetables to take us through, and
there's the pig to kill, and the chickens will lay some; if only there
were any way in which I could make enough for Reuben's wages, we could
manage."
"I must think it over," said Miss Morgan.
She pulled a long branch of the balsam fir nearer as she spoke, and
buried her nose in it. It was the first week of September, and she and
Brie were sitting in the hill grove.
"I love this smell so," she said. "It is delicious. It makes me dream."
Brie broke off a bough.
"I shall hang it over your bed," she said, "and you will smell it all
night."
So the fir bough hung upon the wall till it gradually yellowed, and the
needles began to drop.
"Why, they are as sweet as ever,--sweeter," declared Brie, smelling a
handful which she had swept from the floor. Then an idea came into her
head.
She gathered a great fagot of the branches, and laid them to dry in the
sun on the floor of a little-used piazza. When partly dried, she
stripped off the needles, stuffed with them a square cotton bag, and
made for that a cover of soft sage-green silk, with an odd shot pattern
over it. It was a piece of what had been her great-grandmother's wedding
gown.
_Voilà!_ Do you realize the situation, reader? Brie had made the first
of all the many balsam pillows. It was meant for a good-by gift to Miss
Morgan.
"Your cushion is the joy of my life," wrote that lady to her a month
after she went home. "Every one who sees it, falls in love with it. Half
a dozen people have asked me how they could get one like it. And, Brie,
this has given me an idea. Why should you not make them for sale? I will
send you up some pretty silk for the covers, and you might cross-stitch
a little motto if you liked. I copy some for you. Two people have given
me an order already. They will pay four dollars apiece if you like to
try."
This suggestion was the small wedge of the new industry. Brie lost no
time in making the two pillows, grandmother's gown fortunately holding
out for their covers. Then came some pretty red silk from Miss Morgan,
with yellow _filoselle_ for the mottoes, and more orders. Brie worked
busily that winter, for her balsam pillows had to be made in spare
moments when other work permitted. The grove on the hill was her
unfailing treasury of supply. The thick-set twigs bent them to her will;
the upper branches seemed to her to rustle as with satisfaction at the
aid they were giving. In the spring the old trees renewed their foliage
with vigorous purpose, as if resolved not to balk her in her purpose.
The fir grove paid Reuben's wages that winter. Miss Morgan came back the
following June, and by that time balsam pillows were established as
articles of commerce, and Brie had a munificent offer from a recently
established Decorative Art Society for a supply of the needles, at
three dollars the pound. It was hard, dirty work to prepare such a
quantity, but she did not mind that.
As I said, this was some years since. Brie no longer lives in her old
home. Her mother died the third year after Miss Morgan came to them, the
farm is sold, and Brie married. She lives now on a ranch in Colorado,
but she has never forgotten the fir-grove, and the memory of it is a
help often in the desponding moments that come at times to all lives.
"I could not be worse off than I was then," she says to herself. "There
seemed no help or hope anywhere. I felt as if God didn't care and didn't
hear my prayers; and yet, all the time, there was dear Miss Morgan
coming to help us, and there were the trees, great beautiful things,
nodding their heads, and trying to show me what could be made out of
them. No, I never will be faithless again, nor let myself doubt, however
dark things may look, but remember my balsam pillows, and trust in
God."
COLONEL WHEELER.
Colonel Wheeler, as any one might see at a glance, had been a gallant
officer in his day. It was true that he no longer had anything to do
with military movements, but his very face suggested a martial past. So
did his figure, which, though thin to an almost incredible degree, was
unmistakably that of a military man, and also his dress, for the colonel
invariably appeared in full uniform, with a scarlet, gold-laced coat,
epaulettes, and a cocked hat and feathers, seldom removed even at
meal-times. His moustache waved fiercely half-way across his cheeks, his
eyes were piercing, and his eyebrows black and frowning; in short, it
would be difficult to imagine a more warlike appearance than he
presented on the most peaceful occasions.
Like all truly brave men, Colonel Wheeler was as gentle as he was
valiant, and nothing pleased him better in the piping times of peace
than to be detailed on escort duty, and made of use to the ladies of his
acquaintance. So it came to pass that again and again he was asked to
take charge of large family parties on long journeys. You might see him
starting off with a wife or two, half a dozen sisters-in-law, and from
eight to fourteen children, all of them belonging to somebody else; not
one of them being kith or kin to the gallant colonel. They made really a
formidable assemblage when collected, and it took the longest legal
envelope which Liz--