Kitobni o'qish: «A Round Dozen», sahifa 9

So with doubts and fears the year went by, and again it was Christmas Eve. Toinette had been asleep some hours, when she was roused by a sharp tapping at the window-pane. Startled and only half awake, she sat up in bed, and saw by the moonlight a tiny figure outside, which she recognized. It was Thistle, drumming with his knuckles on the glass.

"Let me in," cried the dry little voice. So Toinette opened the casement, and Thistle flew in and perched, as before, on the coverlet.

"Merry Christmas, my girl," he said, "and a Happy New Year when it comes! I've brought you a present;" and, dipping into a pouch tied round his waist, he pulled out a handful of something brown. Toinette knew what it was in a moment.

"Oh, no!" she cried, shrinking back. "Don't give me any fern-seeds. They frighten me. I don't like them."

"Now, don't be silly," said Thistle, his voice sounding kind this time, and earnest. "It wasn't pleasant being invisible last year, but perhaps this year it will be. Take my advice, and try it. You'll not be sorry."

"Shan't I?" said Toinette, brightening. "Very well then, I will." She leaned out of bed, and watched Thistle strew the fine, dust-like grains in each shoe.

"I'll drop in to-morrow night, and just see how you like it," he said. Then, with a nod, he was gone.

The old fear came back when she woke in the morning, and she tied on her shoes with a tremble at her heart. Down-stairs she stole. The first thing she saw was a wooden ship standing on her plate. Marc had made the ship, but Toinette had no idea that it was for her.

The little ones sat round the table with their eyes on the door, watching till Toinette should come in, and be surprised.

"I wish she'd hurry," said Pierre, drumming on his bowl with a spoon.

"We all want Toinette, don't we?" said the mother, smiling as she poured the hot porridge.

"It will be fun to see her stare," declared Marc. "Toinette is jolly when she stares. Her eyes look big, and her cheeks grow pink. Andre Brugen thinks his sister Aline is prettiest, but I don't. Our Toinette is ever so pretty."

"She is ever so nice, too," said Pierre. "She's as good to play with as – as – a boy!" he finished triumphantly.

"Oh, I wish my Toinette would come!" said Jeanneton.

Toinette waited no longer, but sped up-stairs with glad tears in her eyes. Two minutes, and down she came again, visible this time. Her heart was light as a feather.

"Merry Christmas!" clamored the children. The ship was presented, Toinette was duly surprised, and so the happy day began.

That night Toinette left the window open, and lay down in her clothes; for she felt, as Thistle had been so kind, she ought to receive him politely. He came at midnight, and with him all the other little men in green.

"Well, how was it?" asked Thistle.

"Oh, I liked it this time," declared Toinette, with shining eyes. "And I thank you so much!"

"I'm glad you did," said the elf. "And I'm glad you are thankful, for we want you to do something for us."

"What can it be?" inquired Toinette, wondering.

"You must know," went on Thistle, "that there is no dainty in the world which we elves enjoy like a bowl of fern-seed broth. But it has to be cooked over a real fire, and we dare not go near fire, you know, lest our wings scorch. So we seldom get any fern-seed broth. Now, Toinette – will you make us some?"

"Indeed I will," cried Toinette, "only you must tell me how."

"It is very simple," said Peascod; "only seed and honey dew, stirred from left to right with a sprig of fennel. Here's the seed and the fennel, and here's the dew. Be sure and stir from the left; if you don't, it curdles, and the flavor will be spoiled."

Down into the kitchen they went, and Toinette, moving very softly, quickened the fire, set on the smallest bowl she could find, and spread the doll's table with the wooden saucers which Marc had made for Jeanneton to play with. Then she mixed and stirred as the elves bade, and when the soup was done, served it to them smoking hot. How they feasted! No bumble-bee, dipping into a flower-cup, ever sipped and twinkled more rapturously than they.

When the last drop was eaten, they made ready to go. Each, in turn, kissed Toinette's hand, and said a little word of farewell. Thistle brushed his feathered cap over the door-post as he passed.

"Be lucky, house," he said, "for you have received and entertained the luck-bringers. And be lucky, Toinette. Good temper is good luck, and sweet words and kind looks and peace in the heart are the fairest of fortunes. See that you never lose them again, my girl." With this, he too kissed Toinette's hand, waved his feathered cap, and – whir! they all were gone, while Toinette, covering the fire with ashes, and putting aside the little cups, stole up to her bed a happy child.

JEAN'S MONEY, AND WHAT IT BOUGHT

THE last recitation of the last day of the district school-term was over, and the boys and girls shut their books and put away slates and pencils, with a glad sense of liberty immediately at hand, which made it doubly hard to sit still for the few remaining moments. Jean Thompson, their teacher, was almost as impatient as they. She was but seventeen, scarcely older than her oldest scholar, and in her joy at getting through the term would doubtless have made short work of the closing exercises, had not Mr. Gillicraft been there. Mr. Gillicraft was the senior member of the school board, – a slow, formal man, who liked things done ceremoniously, so for his sake there had to be a little delay. He made a speech to the children, speaking at length and deliberately. They were all pleased to have vacation begin, no doubt, but he hoped, etc. He was sure they would join him in thanking their excellent teacher, Miss Thompson, for the judicious manner in which, etc. He trusted the moral discipline inculcated during the term would not, etc. And he hoped some at least of them would find time to study somewhat during the vacation, and thus redeem time which otherwise would be idly spent. The children fidgeted dreadfully during these remarks. The blue sky and bright air wooed and coaxed them through the open door; their feet were dancing with impatience, how could they attend to Mr. Gillicraft? At last the end came, the long-desired bell tinkled; and whooping, jumping, rioting, out they all rushed into their twelve weeks' freedom. One or two of the lesser girls waited to kiss "Teacher" for good-by; then they followed the rest.

When the last child was gone, Mr. Gillicraft approached Jean, who was setting matters straight in her desk. His hand was in his pocket, from which he presently drew a fat leathern wallet.

"Ahem!" he said. "It is my duty and my privilege, too, as I may say, to hand you this, Miss Thompson." Mr. Gillicraft called her "Jean" usually, having known her all her life, but this was a formal occasion. "Nine – ten – eleven," he went on, counting the bills which he had drawn from his wallet – "twelve. You will find that correct, I believe, $120, and I desire to say, in the name of the board, that we are quite satisfied with the manner in which you have conducted the school, and gratified at your decision to continue with us during the ensuing year."

"Thank you, sir," said Jean, modestly.

"Count it," remarked Mr. Gillicraft, dropping the official and resuming the friend – "always count your money, Jean, it's business-like. And don't put it loose in your pocket – that's a careless trick. You never had so much money at a time before in your life, did you? What are you going to do with it all?"

"I don't quite know yet," replied Jean, "I shall have to talk with father about it. I'll lock the door now, Mr. Gillicraft, if you're ready, and give you the key."

"Have you got it?" whispered her brother James, as Mr. Gillicraft and the key disappeared around the corner. "Have you got it, Jean?"

Jean nodded.

"How splendid," said Elsie, a younger sister, coming to Jean's other side. "Show me. Oh! What a lot of money!"

"What will you get with it?" asked James. "Don't I wish it was mine! I know well enough what I would buy."

"So do I," chimed in Elsie.

"What?" said Jean, with a smile.

"A piano! And the dearest little dog – just like Ruth Parsons's dog, if I could find one. And ever so many books. And a watch." And Elsie's list was interrupted by the necessity of taking breath.

"Hoo! Isn't that just like a girl? Why, you couldn't get half those with that, you silly," put in her brother. "I'd get something quite different. I'd get a pony, a real strong useful pony, which father could plough with when I wasn't riding him. That would be something like."

"Your pony would cost as much as Elsie's piano," remarked Jean.

"Well, what would you get?" said James. "Will you get some nice clothes?"

"Pshaw! Clothes! Will you get a watch, Jean? Or a breastpin and ear-rings?"

"Now, what use would ear-rings be to her when she hasn't any holes in her ears, Elsie? Do tell us, Jean – what will you get?"

Jean laughed. It seemed as if all the world was bound to find out what she meant to do with her money.

"I'll tell you by and by," she said. "I've made up my mind, I think, what I'd rather do, but I want to talk to father first." They reached the top of the hill as she spoke, and she pushed open the gate for the others to enter, paying no attention to Elsie's rather fretful —

"By and by. That's a long time. Tell us now, Jean, please do."

After tea was the best time to catch Farmer Thompson at leisure. At that hour he usually treated himself to half an hour's rest and a pipe in the porch, and there Jean found him on this particular night.

"Mr. Gillicraft paid me this to-day," she said, handing him the roll of bills.

"Ay. They're prompt with it, but that's but fair. Well, my lass – it's a good bit of money. What'll ye do with your gains?"

"I'll tell you something I was thinking of, father – if you approve, that is. It's a great many years since mother and you came from Scotland here, and she's never been home since, you know."

"Twenty-one years come October. 'Tis a long time, truly," replied her father, letting a curl of smoke escape from the corner of his mouth.

"Well – there was an advertisement in the paper, awhile ago, about a steamboat line, the Anchor Line, it's called, I think, which goes to Glasgow, and it said great reductions for this summer, and people could go and come back in the second cabin for forty-five dollars. Now if mother'd like it, and I know she would, she and I could go for what I've got, and she could visit grandmother, and there'd be thirty dollars left for other things, such as going down to New York and from Glasgow to Greenock. Grandmother lives in Greenock, doesn't she? Do you think it's a good plan, father?"

"Well, it depends on your mother. If she likes to go, I'd say nought against it," replied her father. Then, his habitual Scotch caution relaxing, he added: "You're a good lass, Jean. A good, dutiful lass to think of this. Your granny's an old woman by now, and I've known this long back that your mother was wearying to see her again before she dies, and I'd have sent her myself, only I never could see the way to do it. Scotland's a long travel, and money's none too plenty now-a-days with any of us. I'll just smoke my pipe out, and then you and I'll go in and talk it over with mother."

Mrs. Thompson heard the proposal with a tremulous mixture of bewilderment and joy. She was not a strong woman, and fever-and-ague, that insidious scourge of so many country districts, had struck at the hill-farm the year before, and left her weakened and languid for months afterward. The neighbors were told the new plan, and preparations set on foot at once, that Jean might lose as little as possible of her brief vacation time. Everybody was interested and excited. Mrs. Parsons brought warm knitted hoods to be worn at sea; Mrs. Wright, a waterproof clothes-bag and a box of Ayer's Pills; Mrs. Gillicraft two linen catchalls for state-room use, with pockets, and pincushions well furnished with pins.

"I envy you," said Maria Parsons, who was Jean's special friend. "I always was wild to travel, but there! I don't suppose I ever shall, so long as I live. Some folks are born lucky. You'll have a splendid time, Jean."

"Do you think so?" replied Jean, rather dismally.

"Think so? Why, girl alive, don't you know it?"

"Well no, I don't. The fact is, Maria – the fact is – well – I hate travelling. I don't look forward to it one bit. I shall be horribly sick first, and then I shall be horribly homesick: I'm perfectly sure of it. Dear me – how I wish it was over, and we safely back."

"Good gracious!" cried Maria, opening her eyes. "What on earth do you go for, Jean, if you feel that way?"

"Only to take mother. She wants to go, and I always said she should, if ever I could earn any money to take her. Except for that, I'd gladly give you the chance, and stay at home instead."

This was not a very bright beginning for so long a journey. But Jean did not think about that. She had the sturdy old Scotch blood in her, and having once put her hand to a task, did not look back.

Her expectations were realized so far as the voyage went, for they had a rough passage, and both she and her mother were sick for more than half the way over. It was dull work enough for a strong, active girl to lie day after day in a narrow berth, watching the curtains swing and the vessel rock, and very often Jean said to herself, "I can't imagine what people want to go to Europe for. It's horrid! I only wish Maria were in my place – since she wanted to come so much, and I at home instead. I'm sure I'd change in a minute, if I could."

Matters mended toward the last, and by the time the steamer entered the Frith of Clyde, Mrs. Thompson, as well as Jean, was able to be on deck. It was a fine day, and as they slowly steamed up the beautiful Frith, between richly cultivated shores, with wooded hills dotted with country-seats rising behind, and purple mountain outlines still farther back, something new stirred in Jean's mind, a quite unlooked-for excitement and pleasure, which roused and woke her mind to the glad reception of fresh impressions. It was the first reward of her unselfishness, but she had looked for no reward, and had been conscious of no unselfishness; so it came with the zest of unexpectedness, and was doubly delightful.

"Mother, there's a castle!" she exclaimed. "I truly think it's a real castle. It looks just like the pictures of them."

"And what for no?" replied her mother, whose Scotch seemed to revive and broaden with the very aspect of her native shores – "what for should it na' be a castle? Mony's the castle I've seen in my childish time. Oh! there's the Cathedral, Jean, and the Custom House, and the bonny Monument. I weel remember them a', lang as 'tis. And there – Jean, see by the pillar – I'm most sure that's your uncle Andrew. I know him by the bonny shoulders, and the head above everybody else's; but dear, he's grown much older since – much older."

This was no unnatural result of twenty-one years of separation, but at that moment Mrs. Thompson did not remember this. "It's like a dream," she kept on repeating. "This is Glasgow, and that's my brother that I never looked to see again! It's like a dream, Jean."

If they had turned back then and there for thirteen more days of weary sea, Jean would have felt rewarded for her journey by the half-tearful rapture which shone in her mother's face at that moment. But they did not turn back. They landed instead, and, with Uncle Andrew's assistance, were soon in the train for Greenock. He and his sister plunged at once into conversation in Scotch so much broader than Jean was used to, that she could hardly follow it. So she looked out of the window instead of talking, and there was plenty there to keep both eyes and mind happily busy. The trees, the buildings, the silver links and windings of the Frith, the pearl-gray shimmering atmosphere which enveloped all – it was unlike anything she had ever seen, and gave her a pleasure which she had not expected to feel.

Grandmother's house, or flat, was in an old-fashioned street. It was rather barely furnished to American eyes, but very clean and orderly, and there was nothing bare in the greeting given by the sweet-faced old Scotchwoman to her long-unseen child and that child's child. Jean was amused to hear her mother spoken to as if she were still almost a baby, while to herself granny accorded a certain respect and distance as to a stranger and a woman grown. Her size and age seemed an entire surprise to her Scotch relations, who had apparently never realized a growth of which they had only heard in letters.

"She's a big hearty lass, indeed, she's a very goodly lass!" granny kept on saying. "She's as large for a maiden as Sandy is for a lad. Aweel, I can't understand it, Maggie. Ye were always the least of my weans, always the wee one of the flock, and it's muckle strange that your lass should be bigger than ony of her cousins, and your sisters all bigger than yersel. I'm clear puzzled about it."

But puzzlement was lost in pleasure when she understood that the whole journey was the gift of Jean, the earnings of a year's hard work. She took the girl into her arms, held her tight, and kissed her heartily.

"She who goes a mithering shall find violets in the lanes," she said, quoting the pretty old English proverb. "Ye'll find it so, my dear lassie. Ye'll be the richer all your life for giving your mither and me the chance of meeting again once more on this side the grave, trust me, Jean, ye will."

"I'm richer already, granny," whispered Jean, warmed through and through by the words and the embrace. There was no stiffness between her and grandmother after that. So granny's love was the first thing bought with Jean's money.

"Sandy" was Uncle Andrew's son. His mother had long been dead, and he and his father lived with granny in her flat. He was a manly young fellow, steady and cheery both, and doing well as clerk in one of the large Greenock shipping-houses, with good chances of promotion. The advent of a cousin from America was an event in his life. He liked Jean at once and Jean liked him, so they grew friends speedily.

Under his guidance, Jean's "violet" gathering went on prosperously. There were many interesting things to see and do in the neighborhood of Greenock, and of Glasgow, to which place they ran down more than once in a cheap train. There were rows on the Frith, and walks into the lovely hill country, and visits to the different aunts and cousins, all of whom wanted to see Mrs. Thompson and make acquaintance with Jean, and once they went as far as Edinburgh with third-class return tickets, and Jean saw the wonders of Holyrood, the Castle, and Arthur's Seat. It seemed to put new color and life into history and all the past, this glimpse of the places where great things had happened. Jean's interest in books waked up, and as Sandy owned a share in a good People's Library, she was able to get at various histories and fictions which, read on the spot, had a value and meaning which they could not have had elsewhere. Her mind broadened, she took in more of the width and grasp of life, and this mental growth and stimulus was another thing – and a very good one – bought with Jean's money.

So the short two months sped swiftly away, and the time came to go back. It was a hard parting, as partings must be, where seas roll between, and old age makes fresh meetings improbable. But with all its hardness, all of them felt that it had been blessed to meet. Sandy was even more cast down than granny, but he consoled himself by a long whispered talk with Jean the last evening, in which he promised to come out to America in two years from then; and Jean, I am inclined to think, half promised to go back again to Scotland with him. But this is neither here nor there in our story, and, as we all know, it is not polite to listen when people whisper. So the travellers sailed again over the wide Atlantic, the journey not seeming half so long or so hard, now that their faces were set the other way; and in a very few days after the homecoming, all they had seen and done began to recede into dream-like distance, and they found it almost impossible to realize that they had gone so far and achieved so much.

"I told you you would enjoy it," remarked Maria Parsons. People always enjoy being able to say "I told you so."

"And is your money really all gone?" said little Elsie, "every bit of it gone! And you haven't got one single thing of your own to keep out of it, Jean. What a pity!"

"Ah, but I have," replied Jean. But she made no answer to the further "What?"

"Elsie is sorry that I've spent all my money," she told her father that night. "She doesn't think I got much for it. But it seems to me no one else ever got so much as I have. I never thought I should learn to like travelling, father, but I did; I enjoyed it ever so much. Then I know granny now, and Uncle Andrew, and I've seen a great deal of Scotland, and mother is so much stronger, and we have so many nice things to remember and think about – that's a great, great deal to get with a hundred and twenty dollars, don't you think so, father? And besides – "

But here Jean stopped and blushed. I think that blush meant – Sandy.