T
HE 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 forhis 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, howcouldthey 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, Ithink, 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. Yourgranny'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 ofAyer'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 youknowit?"
"Well no, I don't. The fact is, Maria—the fact is—well—Ihatetravelling. 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.Shewants to go, andI 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'shorrid!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 thetime 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'sthe 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 forGreenock. 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 toher 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 ofmeeting 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, towhich 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," remarkedMaria 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.
W
HEN the storks came, the spring came too. Till then the skies had been gray and the air cold and raw, while the leaf-buds on the branches seemed afraid to peep from their coverings. But when the call of the storks was heard, and the click of their large white wings, the leaves took courage, unrolled their woolly blankets, and presently the trees were green. Soon other birds came too. The doves went to housekeeping in their cote under the peak of the roof-gable. Just beneath, a pair of swallows built a nest of plastered clay: the cherry-tree in the garden was chosen as home by a colony of lively sparrows. All the air was astir with wings andsongs, and the world, which for months had seemed dead or asleep, waked suddenly into life and motion.
"What a droll house Mother Stork seems to be building!" said the saucy swallow, cocking up one eye at the long-legged pair on the roof above. "I shouldn't like such an one at all. Sharp sticks everywhere, no conveniences, great holes for eggs to drop into and be broken. And how the wind must blow up there! Give me a cosey place like this of ours."
"Givemea nice, smooth wooden box," cooed the dove. "I don't fancy plaster; it's damp and rheumatic, my mate says. But you needn't worry about Mother Stork's eggs. They're too large to drop through the holes in the branches and be broken."
"What coarse things they must be!" remarked the swallow, looking complacently at the tiny clouded spheres beneath her own wings.
"Theyarebig," agreed the dove. "But then, Mother Stork is big too."
"Listen to those absurd creatures!" said Mother Stork to her partner. "Coarse, indeed! My eggs! I like that."
"Never mind them," replied Papa Stork, good-humoredly, giving a crooked twig the final shove to the side of the nest.
Below on the grass, which was still winter-brown, three little children stood gazing wistfully up at the storks.
"They flew straight to our roof," said Annchen. "Frau Perl says that means good luck before the year ends."
"What does good luck mean?" asked Carl, the youngest boy.
"It means—oh, all sorts of things," replied Annchen, vaguely: "that the mother should not work so hard; that we should have plenty,—plenty to eat every day,—and money, I suppose,—and my new shoes I've waited for so long;—all sorts of things."
"Perhaps my father'll come back," suggested Fritz, with a joyful leap.
Annchen shook her brown head. The boys were too little to understand, but she knew well that the father would never come back. She recollected the day when he marched away with the other soldiers to fight the French. He had lifted her in his arms. She had played with his beard and kissed him, and Fritz had cried after the glittering helmet-spike, till at last the father took the helmet off and gave it him to play with. Then the drum-tap sounded, and he had to go. The mother had watched awhile from the window, and when she could no longer see anything, had sat down to sob and cry with her apron over her face. Annchen recollected it perfectly, and that other dreadful day when Corporal Spes of the same regiment had come, with his arm tied up and a bandage round his head, to tell how the father had been shot in one of the battles before Paris, and buried in French soil. Everything had been sad since. There was less black bread at dinner-time, less soup in the pot, sometimes no soupat all, and the mother worked all day and far into the night, and cried bitterly when she thought the children were not looking. Annchen was too young to comprehend the full cause of these tears, but shefeltthe sadness; it was like a constant cloud over her childish sun. Now the stork was come to their roof, which all the neighbors said meant something good. Perhaps the happy days would begin again.
"How I hope they will!" she whispered to herself.
"Hope who will?" asked the mother, passing behind with an armful of wood.
Annchen felt abashed.
"The storks," she murmured. "Frau Perl said when they build on a roof it brings good fortune always." The mother sighed.
"There is no good fortune for us any more," she said sadly. "Even the dear stork cannot undo what is done."
"But aren't the storks lucky birds?" asked Fritz. "Jan Stein said they were."
"Ah, luck, luck!" answered the mother. "That is a word only. People use it, but what does it mean?"
"Isn't there any luck, then?" asked Annchen.
"There is the good God, dear,—that is better," replied the mother, and carried her wood into the house.
"Jan said the stork was God's bird," observed little Carl.
"That's it," said Annchen, brightening. "God's bird; and the good God may let the stork bring us good fortune. Dear storkie, do! If only you would!"
Mamma Stork looked solemnly down on the children, and wagged her head gravely up and down. Annchen thought it was in answer to her appeal.
"See, Fritz! see, Carl! She says she will!" The stork kept on nodding, and Annchen went in to supper, feeling happy.
Days grew into weeks, and spring into full summer. The big eggs and the little eggs hadin turn cracked and given place to young birds, who sat in the nests clamoring for food, and being fed, caressed, and kept warm by their mothers. At first the nestlings were ugly, featherless creatures, and seemed all beaks and appetites; but presently they began to grow, to put out plumage, and become round and fat. Soon they could hop; then they could flutter their wings; the air was full of their calls and their swift-moving bodies. Mother Stork's babies were white like herself, and had long legs and big bills. The swallow thought them awkward, and contrasted them proudly with her own brisk, glancing brood; but in Mother Stork's eyes they were perfect in every way, and graceful as birds should be. The dove thought the same of her plump squabs,—each parent was entirely satisfied with the kind of child which the Lord had sent her; and that was a happy thing, was it not?
Summer was over, and now it was September, but Annchen had not ceased to hope for thegood fortune which the stork's coming prophesied. Each morning, when she woke, she ran to the window to see if the lucky birds were still in the nest. There they were, but nothing else happened, and the mother worked harder than ever, and the black loaf grew smaller. Still Annchen hoped.
"Do you notice what a kind bird the stork is?" said the mother one night, as she was putting the children to bed. "She never gets tired of taking care of her babies, nor beats them with her wings, nor scolds them. Do you not love her for being so amiable?"
"Sometimes the babies scold her," remarked Fritz from his corner.
"I don't think that is scolding. What they say is, 'Mother, we are hungry. We want a fish or a couple of young frogs; when will the father bring them?' The little storks do not like to wait for their dinners any more than you children do. I heard once a story about a good Mother Stork. Shall I tell it you?"
"Oh, yes!" cried the children; but the mother went first for her knitting-work, for even at the twilight hour she dared not let her fingers be idle for a moment.
"Once there was a Frau Stork," she began, "who built a nest in the roof of an old shed, and in it laid three blue eggs. Presently out of the eggs came three baby storks, large and hungry. Then was Frau Stork very proud and glad. All day she sat in the nest, keeping her little ones warm under her feathers, while Papa Stork flew to and fro, seeking places where were ponds with fish and frogs; and these he fetched home in his beak, and with them fed his brood, who sat always with open mouths ready for anything good which should come along.
"One day when Papa Stork was absent, and Mother Stork had hopped from the nest to the roof, she heard a crackling sound which she did not at all understand. Then the air grew thick and smoky, and there was a smell ofburning wood. The shed was on fire! Frau Stork became uneasy, and called loudly for her mate, but he was too far away to hear her voice. Presently the smoke became more dense, and a little red tongue of flame crept through the thatch. When it felt the air it grew large, swelled, and at last, like a fiery serpent, darted at the nest and the screaming brood within."
"Oh dear! oh dear!" cried the children, sitting up in their beds. "Whatdidthe poor stork do?"
"She could easily have flown away, you know," continued the mother. "There were her strong wings, which would have borne her faster than the fire could follow. But she loved her babies too well to leave them like that. She seized them with her beak, and tried to drag them from the nest. But they were too heavy, and flapped and struggled, hindering her, for they did not understand what she wished to do. The flames drew nearer, thebranches began to blaze. Then Mother Stork took her usual place in the nest, gathered her brood under her wings as if to shield them, bent her poor head, and—"
"Oh, she didn't burn up!—please don't say she did!" interrupted Annchen.
"Yes. When Papa Stork came from the pond with a fresh fish in his beak, there was no roof there, no nest, no little storks,—only a heap of ashes and curling smoke. Frau Stork loved her children too well to desert them, and they all died together."
There was silence for a minute or two. Annchen was sobbing softly, and a suspicious sniff was heard from the direction of Fritz's pillow.
"I hopeourstork won't burn up," said Carl, solemnly.
"Yes,—because then she won't bring us good luck, you know," added Fritz.
"Do you think the stork has forgotten?" whispered Annchen to her mother. "I'vewaited and waited for her so long that I'm tired. Do they forget sometimes?"
"She will have to bestir herself if she is to do anything for us this year," said the mother; and though her heart was heavy enough just then, she smiled into Annchen's eager eyes. "Autumn is here; the winter will come before long. Frau Stork and her family may fly off any day."
"I shallhaveto remind her," murmured Annchen, sleepily.
She remembered this resolution next morning, and went out into the yard. The day was chilly; the blue sky, all dappled with gray, looked as if a storm were coming. Mother Stork was alone on the roof. Her young ones could fly now, and they and their father were off somewhere together.
"Mother Stork," said Annchen, standing close to the wall, and speaking in a loud, confidential whisper, "you won't forget what you promised, will you—that day when younodded your head, you know? The mother says you will fly away soon, but please bring us our good luck first. Poor mother works so hard and looks so pale, and sometimes there is almost no dinner at all, and the cold winter is coming, and I don't know what we shall do, if you don't help us. Please do, Mother Stork. We can't wait till you come again, it's such a long time. Pray fetch our good luck before you go."
Mother Stork, perched on one leg on the roof's edge, nodded her head up and down, as if considering the point. Then she rose on her large wings and flew away. Annchen marked her course through the air, and her eyes grew large and eager with delight.
"She has gone to the fen!" she cried. "That's where she keeps it. Oh, the dear stork!"
"What is it? Who has gone where?" asked the boys, running into the yard.
"Frau Stork," explained Annchen. "I remindedher about it,—our good luck, you know,—and she flew straight off to fetch it. She went to the fen, the beautiful fen, where I went once with the father—sucha place! How I should like to go there again! You never saw such a place, boys!"
"I want to go to the fen too," said Carl.
"I wonder if we might!" went on Annchen, thoughtfully. "It isn't so very far. I didn't get tired at all that day when I went before. And we could help Frau Stork, perhaps. I wonder if we might."
"I'll go in and ask the mother," said Fritz, running to the door with an eager demand: "Mother, may we go for a walk,—Annchen and Carl and I?"
The mother, who was very busy, nodded.
"Don't go too far," she called after him.
"Mother says we may," shouted Fritz, as he ran again into the yard; and the children, overjoyed, set forth at once.
It was quite a distance to the fen, but theroad was a plain one, and Annchen had no difficulty in following it. When she went there before, not only her father had been along, but Ernst the wood-cutter, with his donkey; so, when tired, she had rested herself by riding on top of the fagots. She was three years older now, and the sturdy lads did not mind the distance at all, but ran forward merrily, encouraging each other to make haste.
The sun had broken through the clouds, and shone hotly on the white road. But as they neared the fen, they passed into shade. Softly they lifted the drooping branches of the trees, and entered, moving carefully, that they might not disturb the stork. A little farther, and the ground grew wet under foot. Bright streams of water appeared here and there. But between the streams were ridges and island-like tufts of moss and dried grasses, and stepping from one of these to the other, the little ones passed on, dry-shod. Tall reeds and lance-shaped rushes rose above their heads as they crept along,whispering low to each other. The air was hushed and warm, there was a pleasant fragrance of damp roots and leaves. The children liked the fen extremely. Their feet danced and skipped, and they would gladly have shouted, had it not been for the need of keeping quiet.
Suddenly a beautiful glossy water-rat, with a long tail, glanced like a ray of quick sunshine from under a bank, and at sight of the intruders flashed back again into his hole. Fritz was enchanted at this sight. He longed to stay and dig into the bank in search of the rat. What fun it would be to take him home and tame him! But Annchen whispered imploringly, and Carl tugged at his fingers; so at last he gave up searching for the rat, and went on with the others. They were near the middle of the fen now, and Mother Stork, they thought, must be close at hand.
Pop! glug! An enormous bull-frog leaped from a log, and vanished into the pool with a splash. Next a couple of lovely water-flies,with blue, shining bodies and gauze-like wings, appeared hovering in the air. They rose and sank and circled and whirled like enchanted things; the children, who had never seen such flies before, felt as if they had met the first chapter of a fairy-story, and stood holding their breaths, lest the pretty creatures should take alarm and fly away. It was not till the water-flies suddenly whirled off and disappeared, that they recollected their errand, and moved on.
All at once Annchen, who was in advance of the rest, stopped short and uttered an exclamation. The parting of the reeds had shown her a pool larger than any they had seen before, round which grew a fringe of tall flowering water-plants. Half in, half out of the pool, lay a black log with a hollow end, and beside it, dabbling with her beak as if searching for something, stood a large white bird. At the sound of voices and rustling feet, the bird spread a pair of broad wings and flew slowly upward, turning her head to look at the children as she went.
"Itwas," cried Annchen. "Oh, Mother Stork, we didn't mean to frighten you. Please come back again. We'll go away at once if you don't like to have us here."
But Mother Stork was no longer visible. She had dropped into some distant part of the fen—where, the children could not see.
"Her eyes looked angry," said little Carl.
"Oh dear!" sighed Annchen. "I hope she isn't angry. Thatwouldbe dreadful! What will poor mother do if she is? And it would be all our fault."
"I want to go home," whined Carl. "It's dinner-time. I want my dinner very much."
All of them wanted to go home, but it was not an easy or quick task to do so. The children had wandered farther than they knew. It took a long time to find their way out of the fen, and when at last they reached the rushy limits, and stood on open ground, it was an unfamiliar place, and much farther from home than the side where they had entered. Weary,hungry, and disheartened, they trudged along for what to them seemed hours, and it was long past midday when at last they reached the familiar gate.
Frau Stork had got there before them, and stood on the roof beside her mate, gazing down as the sorry little procession filed beneath. Annchen had no heart to greet her as she passed. She was tired, and a dread lest their long absence should have frightened or angered the mother added weight to her fatigue, and made her heart sink heavily as they opened the door.
The mother did not start or run forward to meet them as the children expected she would do. She sat by the table, and some one sat opposite her—a tall, stately officer in uniform, with an order on his breast. His helmet lay on the table, with some papers scattered about it. When the children came in, he turned and looked at them out of a pair of kind blue eyes.
"Ah," he said. "These are the little ones, dame?"
"Yes," said the mother, "these arehischildren. Take off your hats, boys; and, Annchen, make your reverence. This is the Herr Baron, your father's captain, children."
The Captain lifted Fritz and perched him on his knee.—Page 296.The Captain lifted Fritz and perched him on his knee.—Page296.
Carl stared with round eyes at the splendid Herr Baron, while Annchen demurely dropped her courtesy. The captain lifted Fritz and perched him on his knee.
"My fine fellow," he said, "you have your father's face,"—and he stroked Fritz's yellow hair, while Fritz played with the bright buttons of the uniform. The captain and the mother went on talking. Annchen did not understand all they said, but she saw that her mother looked happier than for a long time before, and that made her feel happy too.
At last the captain rose to go. He kissed the children, and Annchen saw him put a purse into her mother's hands.
"I take shame to myself that I left you so long without aid," he said; "but keep up heart, dame. Your pension will no doubt be grantedyou, and I will see that you and the children are cared for, as a brave man's family should be. So good-day, and God bless you!"
"May He bless you, Herr Baron," sobbed the widow, as he went away.
"What is it, mother,—why do you cry?" asked little Carl at last, pulling her sleeve.
"For joy, dear. The good Baron has brought your father's back pay. I can discharge my debts now, and you need hunger no more."
"It is the good luck come at last. I knew it would," said Annchen.
"We will thank God for it," said her mother. And they all knelt down and repeated "Our Father," that beautiful prayer which suits equally our time of joy and our time of sorrow.
But when the prayer was said, and the mother, smiling through her tears, was bustling about to cook such a supper as the little family had not tasted for many a day, dear, superstitious little Annchen stole softly to the door and went into the yard.
The young storks were asleep with their heads under their wings, and Frau Stork, poised on one leg, was gazing about with drowsy eyes. She looked bigger than ever against the dim evening sky.
"Thank you, dear stork!" said Annchen.
————————University Press, John Wilson & Son: Cambridge.
A GUERNSEY LILY;OR,HOW THE FEUD WAS HEALED.A Story for Girls and Boys.
Castle
BYSUSAN COOLIDGE,Author of "What Katy Did," "Clover," "In the High Valley," etc.———————NEW EDITION. Square 16mo. ILLUSTRATED. Price, $1.25.———————ROBERTS BROTHERS,BOSTON.
Nurse's Lecture.Nurse's Lecture.
CROSS PATCH,
And other Stories, adapted from the Myths of Mother Goose. With 44 Illustrations byEllen Oakford. One volume. Square 16mo. Cloth, black and gold. Price $1.25.
ROBERTS BROTHERS,Publishers,Boston.
Sitting in the field
IN THE HIGH VALLEY.
Being the Fifth and last volume of the "Katy Did Series." With illustrations byJessie McDermott.
One volume, square 16mo, cloth. Price, $1.25.
ROBERTS BROTHERS,Publishers, Boston.
ENTERING PARADISE.—Page 23.ENTERING PARADISE.—Page23.So in they marched, Katy and Cecy heading the procession, and Dorry, with his great trailing bunch of boughs, bringing up the rear.