Ornate capital "I"
IT was such a pleasant old nursery that it seemed impossible that anything disagreeable should enter into it. The three southern windows stood open in all pleasant weather, letting in cheerful sun and air. For cold days there was a generous grate, full of blazing coals, and guarded by a high fender of green-painted wire. There were little cupboards set in the deep sides of the chimney. The two on the left were Barbara's and Eunice's; the two to the right, Reggy's and Roger's. Here they kept their own particular treasures under lock and key; while little May, the left-over one, was accommodated with two shelvesinside the closet where they all hung their hats and coats.
No one slept in this nursery, but all the Erskine children spent a good part of the daytime in it. Here they studied their lessons, and played when it was too stormy to go out; there the little ones were dressed and undressed, and all five took their suppers there every night. They liked it better than any other room in the house, partly, I suppose, because they lived so much in it.
Barbara was the eldest of the brood. It would have shocked her very much, had she guessed that any one was ever going to speak of her as a "tyrant." Her idea of a tyrant was a lofty personage with a crown on his head, like Xerxes, or King John, or the Emperor Nero. She had not gotten far enough in life or history to know that the same thing can be done in a small house that is done on a throne; and that tyranny is tyranny even when it is not bridging theDardanelles, or flinging Christians to the wild beasts, or refusing to sign Magna Charta. In short, that the principle of a thing is its real life, and makes it the same, whether its extent or opportunities be more or less.
This particular tyrant was a bright, active, self-willed little girl of eleven, with a pair of brown eyes, a mop of curly brown hair, pink cheeks, and a mouth which was so rosy and smiled so often that people forgot to notice the resolute little chin beneath it. She was very good-humored when everybody minded her, warm-hearted, generous, full of plans and fancies, and anxious to make everybody happy in her own way. She also cared a good deal about being liked and admired, as self-willed people often do; and whenever she fancied that the children loved Eunice better than herself (which was the case), she was grieved, and felt that it was unfair. "For I do a great deal more to please them than Eunie does," she would say to herself, forgetting that notwhat we do, but what we are, it is which makes us beloved or otherwise.
But though the younger ones loved Eunice best, they were much more apt to do as Barbara wished, partly because it was easier than to oppose her, and partly because she and her many ideas and projects interested them. They never knew what was coming next; and they seldom dared to make up their minds about anything, or form any wishes of their own, till they knew what their despot had decided upon. Eunice was gentle and yielding, Mary almost a baby; but the boys, as they grew older, occasionally showed signs of rebellion, and though Barbara put these down with an iron hand, they were likely to come again with fresh provocation.
The fifteenth of May was always a festival in the Erskine household. "Mamma's May Day," the children called it, because not only was it their mother's birthday, but it also took the place of the regular May Day, whichwas apt to be too cold or windy for celebration. The children were allowed to choose their own treat, and they always chose a picnic and a May crowning. Barbara was invariably queen, as a matter of course, and she made a very good one, and expended much time and ingenuity in inventing something new each year to make the holiday different from what it had ever been before. She always kept her plans secret till the last moment, to enhance the pleasure of the surprise.
It never occurred to any one, least of all to Barbara herself, that there could be rotation in office, or that any one else should be chosen as queen. Still, changes of dynasty will come to families as well as to kingdoms; and Queen Barbara found this out.
"Eunie, I want you to do something," she said, one afternoon in late April, producing two long pieces of stiff white tarlatan; "please sew this upthereand there, and hem itthere,—not nice sewing, you know, but big stitches."
"What is it for?" asked Eunie, obediently receiving the tarlatan, and putting on her thimble.
"Ah, that is a secret," replied Barbara. "You'll know by and by."
"Can't you tell me now?"
"No, not till Mother's May Day. I'll tell you then."
"Oh, Barbie," cried Eunice, dropping the tarlatan, "I wanted to speak to you before you began anything. The children want little Mary to be the queen this year."
"Mary! Why? I've always been queen. What do they want to change for? Mary wouldn't know how to do it, and I've such a nice plan for this year!"
"Your plans always are nice," said the peace-loving Eunice; "but, Barbie, really and truly, we do all want to have Mary this time. She's so cunning and pretty, and you've always been queen, you know. It was the boys thought of it first, and theywant her ever so much. Do let her, just for once."
"Why, Eunice, I wouldn't have believed you could be so unkind!" said Barbara, in an aggrieved tone. "It's not a bit fair to turn me out, when I've always worked so hard at the May Day, and doneeverything, while the rest of you just sat by and enjoyed yourselves, and had all the fun and none of the trouble."
"But the boys think the trouble is half the fun," persisted Eunice. "They would rather take it than not. Don't you think it would be nice to be a maid of honor, just for once?"—persuasively.
"No, indeed, I don't!" retorted Barbara, passionately. "Be maid of honor, and have that baby of a Mary, queen! You must be crazy, Eunice Erskine. I'll be queen or nothing, you can tell the boys; and if I backed out, and didn't help, I guess you'd all be sorry enough." So saying, Barbaramarched off, with her chin in the air. She was not really much afraid that her usually obedient subjects would resist her authority; but she had found that this injured way of speaking impressed the children, and helped her to carry her points.
So she was surprised enough, when that evening, at supper, she noticed a constraint of manner among the rest of the party. The children looked sober. Reggy whispered to Eunice, Roger kicked Reggy, and at last burst out with, "Now, see here, Barbie Erskine, we want to tell you something. We're going to have Baby for queen this time, and not you, and that's all there is about it."
"Roger," said the indignant Barbara, "how dare you speak so? You're not going to have anything of the kind unless I say you may."
"Yes, we are. Mamma says we ought to take turns, and we never have. Nobody has ever had a turn except you, and you keephaving yours all the time. We don't want the same queen always, and this year we've chosen Mary."
"Roger Erskine!" cried Barbara, hotly. "You're the rudest boy that ever was!" Then she turned to the others. "Now listen to me," she said. "I've made all my plans for this year, and they're perfectly lovely. I won't tell you what they are, exactly, because it would spoil the surprise, but there's going to be an angel! An angel—with wings! What do you think of that? You'd be sorry if I gave it up, wouldn't you? Well, if one more word is said about Mary's being queen, I will give it up, and I won't help you a bit. Now you can choose."
Her tone was awfully solemn, but the children did not give way. Even the hint about the angel produced no effect. Eunice began, "I'm sure, Barbie—" but Reggy stopped her with, "Shut up, Eunice! Everybody in favorof Mary for queen, can hold up their hands," he called out.
Six hands went up. Eunice raised hers in a deprecating way, but she raised it. "It's a vote," cried Roger. Barbara glared at them all with helpless wrath; then she said, in a choked voice, "Oh, well! have your old picnic, then. I sha'n't come to it," and ran out of the room, leaving her refractory subjects almost frightened at their own success.
Two unhappy weeks followed. True to her threat, Barbara refused to take any share in the holiday preparations. She sat about in corners, sulky and unhappy, while the others worked, or tried to work. Sooth to say, they missed her help very much, and did badly enough without her, but they would not let her know this. The boys whistled as they drove nails, andsoundedvery contented and happy.
Presently Fate sent them a new ally.Aunt Kate, the young aunt whom the children liked best of all their relations, came on a visit, and, finding so much going on, bestirred herself to help. She was not long in missing Barbara, and she easily guessed out the position of affairs, though the children made no explanations.
One afternoon, leaving the others hard at work, she went in search of Barbara, who had hidden herself away with a book, in the shrubbery.
"Why are you all alone?" she asked, sitting down beside her.
"I don't know where the others are," said Barbara, moodily.
"They are tying wreaths to dress the tent to-morrow. Don't you want to go and help them?"
"No, they don't want me! Oh, Aunt Kate!" with a sudden burst of confidence, "they have treated me so! You can't think how they have treated me!"
"Why, what have they done?"
"I've always been queen on mother's May Day,—always. And this year I meant to be again. And I had such a nice plan for the coronation, and then they all chose Mary."
"Well?"
"They insisted on having Mary for queen, though I told them I wouldn't help if they did," repeated Barbara.
"Well?"
"Well? That's all. What do you mean, Aunty?"
"I was waiting to hear you tell the real grievance. That the children should want Mary for queen, when you have been one so many times, doesn't seem to be a reason."
Barbara was too much surprised to speak.
"Yes, my dear, I mean it," persisted her aunt. "Now let us talk this over. Why should you always be queen on Mamma's birthday? Who gave you the right, I mean?"
"The children liked to have me," faltered Barbara.
"Precisely. But this year they liked to have Mary."
"But I worked so hard, Aunty. You can't think how I worked. I did everything; and sometimes I got dreadfully tired."
"Was that to please the others?"
"Y-es—"
"Or would they rather have helped in the work, and did you keep it to yourself because you liked to do it alone?" asked Aunt Kate, with a smile. "Now, my Barbie, listen to me. You have led always because you liked to lead, and the others submitted to you. But no one can govern forever. The rest are growing up; they have their own rights and their own opinions. You cannot go on always ruling them as you did when they were little. Do you want to be a good, useful older sister, loved and trusted, or to have Eunice slip into your place, and be the real elder sister,while you gradually become a cipher in the family?"
Barbara began to cry.
"Dear child," said Aunty Kate, kissing her, "now is your chance. Influence, not authority, should be a sister's weapon. If you want to lead the children, you must do it with a smile, not a pout."
The children were surprised enough that evening when Barbara came up to offer to help tie wreaths. Her eyes looked as if she had been crying, but she was very kind and nice all that night and next day. She was maid of honor to little Queen Mary, after all. Eunice gave her a rapturous kiss afterward, and said, "Oh, Barbie, howdearyou are!" and, somehow, Barbara forgot to feel badly about not being queen. Some defeats are better than victories.
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Ornate capital "T"
THE great pink flamingo roused from his resting-place among the sedges when the noise began. At first he only stirred sleepily, and wondered, half awake, at the unusual sounds; but as they increased, curiosity began to trouble him. Party after party in launches or bright-hued gondolas glided past, all gay and chattering, and full of excitement about something, he did not know what. It was the first night on which the buildings and grounds of the Chicago Fair were illuminated, and the flamingo could not tell what to make of it, any more than could the herons and swans, the Muscovy ducks, the cranes, or any otherof the winged creatures which had learned to make themselves at home on the banks of the lagoons.
The pink flamingo's name was Coco. He had been "raised" on the shore of the St. Johns River, in Florida, as the pet andprotégéof Cecil Schott, a boy who had taught him many tricks,—to catch fish and fetch them out in his mouth, as a retriever fetches a bird, to eat caramels, to dive after objects thrown into the water and bring them up in his beak:—after Cecil himself even, so long as he was small enough to be counted as an "object." Often and often had Coco plunged into the deep river, following the downward sweep of his little master, and seized him by the arm or foot before he was anywhere near the bottom. He would eat from Cecil's hand, also, and stand by his side, folding one wide wing across the boy's shoulder, as though it were an arm. Cecil was growing up now, and had been sent to school; so when Mr. Schottheard that the Chicago directors were making a collection of birds for the Fair Grounds, he offered Coco, whose fearlessness and familiarity with human beings seemed peculiarly to adapt him for a public position.
When the fifth electrical launch had sped past the sedges, and strange, hovering lights began to burn in the sky, and ring the domes and roofs in the distance toward the south, Coco could endure it no longer, and, betaking himself to the water, started on a tour of investigation. He looked very big in the dim light of the upper waterways,—almost as big as the smaller of the gondolas. The people in the boats exclaimed with astonishment as he passed them, his broad wings raised above him, like rose-colored sails, and his stout legs beating the water into foam behind, like a propeller.
At first his course lay amid soft shadows. The upper part of the Fair Grounds was not illuminated, and only a bird's keen visioncould have made out accustomed objects. But the flamingo had no difficulty in seeing. He knew exactly where to look for the nest of the female swan on the wooded island. He could even make out her dim white shape in the gloom, and hear the disturbed flutter of her wings. There was the plantation of white hyacinths, and there the outline of the shabby old "Prairie Schooner," into which he had more than once poked his inquisitive head. There stood the "Log Cabin," and beyond, the twinkling lanterns of the Japanese Tea Garden. The pink flamingo recognized them all. Under one graceful bridge after another, past one enormous beautiful building after another, he swept, following the curves and turnings of the waterways, startled here and there by unaccustomed lights and the sounds of a hurrying crowd, till at last, with one bold sweep, he glided under the last arch and out into the broad basin of the Court of Honor.
He had been there before. Catch the pinkflamingo leaving any part of the Fair Grounds unexplored! He was not that sort of bird. He had even been there in the evening, when the moon shone clearly on the water, with only a point of light here and there on the surrounding shores, and no sounds to break the stillness but the plash of waves washing in from the lake, and the low talk of little groups of late-stayers, sitting on the steps before the Liberal Arts Building, looking across to the fountain and the dim row of sculptured forms on the summit of the Peristyle. But now all was different. The gilded dome of the Administration Building was ringed with lines of fire. The façade of the Agricultural blazed with lights, which shone on the bas-reliefs and sculptures, on the winged Diana above, and the great bulls which guard the approach to the boat-landing. Every figure which topped the long double lines of the Peristyle stood out distinctly against the transparent sky; the gilding of the broad arch toward the lakeglowed ruddy in the light, and so did the majestic figure of the Republic, its noble outline reflected in the shimmering waters beneath. The great fountain opposite caught the blaze, and sent its smooth shoots over the basin edges with a white phosphorescent radiance. Then a wide beam from a search-light swept across, and seemed to turn the figures into life; made the form of the Discoverer and the beautiful figures of the rowing women on either side, throb and pulsate, fluctuating with the fluctuating ray, till they seemed to bend and move. On either side, the electrical fountains lifted high in air great sheaves of iridescent colors, scarlet, green, and blue, like a flag of upheaving jewels, while the faces of the immense throng along the esplanades and on the dome of the Administration Building changed from gloom to glory and back again to gloom as the dancing ray wandered to and fro.
It was a scene from fairyland; but it didnot altogether please Coco, who, startled and affrighted, made a dive, and disappeared under water by way of a relief to his feelings. Then he came up again, and, growing by degrees accustomed to these novel splendors, he recovered confidence, and began to look about him.
"Oh, what a beautiful bird!" he heard some one say; and though he did not understand the words, he knew well enough that he was being admired, and thereupon proceeded to make himself a part of the show. He splashed, dived, extended his wide wings, curved his long neck, and generally exhibited himself to the best of his ability, all the time maintaining an absent-minded air, as if he were not aware that any one else was present. Coco was very conceited for a bird.
Meanwhile, at about the same moment in which the pink flamingo was roused from his slumbers, a small Turkish boy named Hassan awoke from his, in the retirement of theMidway Plaisance. He had not been at all a good little Turk since he came to America, his parents thought. Something in the air of freedom had apparently demoralized him. It might be that domestic discipline had been relaxed since their arrival, for there had been much to do in getting the Turkish Bazaar and the Mosque and the Village ready; but certain it is that Hassan had been naughtier and given more trouble during the past ten weeks than in all the previous years of his short life. Once, in a great rain-storm, he had actually run away, slipping past the guard at the gate, and tearing wildly down the street. Where he was going, he did not know or care; all he wanted was to run. How far he might have gone, or what would have become of him in the end, no one can say, had his father not caught a glimpse of the small fleeting figure.
"Beard of the Prophet!" ejaculated the scandalized Mustapha. "That son of Sheitan,the enemy of true believers, will be run over by the horses of the infidel if I do not overtake him speedily."
He tucked up his blue robe, which almost touched the muddy ground, it was so long, revealing, as he did so, yellow boots topped with American socks, and, above these, a pair of green drawers, and started in pursuit. Alas! the guard at the turnstile stopped him, and demanded his pass. In vain Mustapha remonstrated, and explained, in fluent Turkish, that his sole object was to capture his evil child, who had escaped from home. The guard did not understand the language of Turkey, and persisted, explaining, in the tongue of Chicago, that he was acting under orders, and that no "foreigner" could go in or out without proper authority.
"Permit! Permit! Pass! Pass! You must show your pass!" cried the guard. "Backsheesh, you know."
It was his sole Turkish word. He hadlearned it since the Fair opened from hearing it so often.
"You bet!" responded Mustapha. It was his sole English word. "The Prophet visit you with a murrain and total baldness!" he continued, in his own vernacular. Then, seeing that Hassan, who was having a most enjoyable time, was nearing a corner and about to disappear, he uttered a wild shout of despair, and, thrusting the guard aside, darted through the gate and after the child. His long petticoat waggled in the wind, and blew behind him like a wet umbrella broken loose. The guard was so convulsed with laughter that he could only stand still and hold his sides. Two chairmen, who had trundled two ladies down the Plaisance to the gate, were as much convulsed as he. Little Hassan ran for all he was worth. His gown of drab cotton, as long, in proportion, as his father's, switched and fluttered as he flew along. But longer legsalways have the advantage over shorter ones in a race. The pursuer gained on the pursued. When Hassan saw that there was no hope, and he was bound to be overtaken, he just flung himself down in a mud-puddle and kicked and screamed. His exasperated parent pulled him up, and, with a shake, set him on his feet. Hassan made his legs limp, and refused to walk; so Mustapha tucked him under his arm, and strode back toward the Plaisance. The guard was still too doubled up with laughter for speech, so he let him pass unscolded. Once safely inside, Mustapha shifted his wet and dirty little burden on to its feet, whirled aside the drab skirt, and, with trenchant slaps, administered a brief but effectual American spanking. He then conducted Hassan to his veiled mother in her retirement, and intimated his pleasure that he should be made to undergo a further penance.
It was this same naughty little Turk whowoke up at the same time with the pink flamingo. He heard music and shouts, and saw the same strange glow toward the southward which had startled the bird from its rest. His father and mother had joined the motley throng of foreign folk of all nationalities, garbs, and shades of complexion,—Arabs, Javanese, Alaskans, Eskimos, South Sea Islanders, Cossacks, American Indians, and East Indians, Chinese, and Dahomyans,—who had flocked out of the Plaisance to see the spectacle. No one was left behind but the sleeping children, and here was Hassan, no longer asleep, but very wide awake indeed.
Down the esplanade sped the little figure.—Page 191.
No time did he lose in hesitation; he knew in a moment what he wanted to do. His queer little clothes were close at hand,—the drab gown, still mud-stained from his run, the yellow slippers, the small fez for his head. Into them he skipped, and, stepping out of the door, he ran down the Plaisance, keeping on the shaded side as far as might be, for fear of being stopped. He need not have been afraid; there was no one to stop him. The great Woman's Building came in sight, with the outlines of the still larger Horticultural beyond.Down the esplanade sped the little figure. The light grew more brilliant with every turn; more and more people passed him, but all were pressing southward. And in a crowd like this, nobody had time to notice the advent of such a very small Turk among them. Hot and breathless after his long run, Hassan at last emerged, as the pink flamingo had done, on the Court of Honor.
Here his smallness proved an advantage to him, for he could crowd himself into minute spaces in the living mass where a grown person could not go, squeeze between people's legs, and wriggle and twist, all the time pressing steadily forward, till at last he gained the parapet, and, climbing up, seated himself comfortably on the top. Then hiseyes and mouth opened simultaneously into an "Ahi!" of wonder, for close before him was one of the electrical fountains, shooting blue and crimson fires, and a little beyond shone the pulsating radiance of the dazzling forms grouped above the Discoverer, the rearing horses, the winged shape in the bow of the boat. Never before had anything so wonderful been seen by our little Turk. The great basin twinkled with reflected lights, like a starry sky set upside down; overhead the statues glittered; a round silver moon hung above, and broad rays, like her own beams intensified and set into motion, wandered to and fro from the search-light opposite, darting now on a splendid façade, now on a towering dome, again on a bridge packed with people, whose expectant faces were all turned skyward, and, finally, on a great pink bird which was wheeling and turning in the water.
There was a sudden small splash.
"Oh, oh!" shrieked a child's voice, in tones of distress, "my dolly's fallen in! Mamma, Mamma, that was my dolly that fell in. She'll be all drowned! Oh, my dolly!" Then the voice changed to one of amazement and joy: "Oh, Mamma, see that bird! He has got her!"
Coco had spied the doll as it fell, and, true to his early training, dived after it as a matter of course, and came up with the doll in his bill.
"Oh, you good birdie! you dear birdie!" cried the little one, stretching her arms over the parapet. "Let me have Dolly again, please, dear birdie!"
Coco understood only Flamingo, and had no idea what the little girl was saying; but as a nibble or two had showed that the doll was not edible, he made no resistance when a gentleman reached over from the edge of a gondola and took it from his beak. It was handed back to its little owner amid a greatclapping and laughing, and Coco was given an Albert biscuit instead, which he liked much better, and speedily disposed of. He knew that the applause was meant for him, and, puffed up with pride, sailed vain-gloriously to and fro, waiting another chance to distinguish himself.
It came! There was another and much louder splash as a small red-capped figure toppled over into the water. It was Hassan, who, leaning over to watch the wonderful bird, had lost his balance.
No one laughed this time, and there was a general cry of "Oh, it was a child! A child has fallen in! Save him, some one!" People shouted for"a boat;"men pulled off their coats, making ready for a plunge; women began to cry; then, all at once, there was a general exclamation of astonishment and admiration.
"The bird has got him" cried a hundred voices.
It was again Coco! To dive after Hassan, to seize the drab skirt in his beak, and bring the child again to the surface of the water, was an easy feat to him; but to the excited multitudes upon the banks it seemed well-nigh a miracle.
"Never saw such a thing in my life!" declared a man on the bridge. "Don't tell me that bird hasn't an intellect. No, sir! There ain't a man here could have done that better, nor so well as that there pelican. He is smart enough to vote, he is!"
"Too smart," remarked his next neighbor. "He'd never stick to the regular ticket; he'd have a mind of his own. That ain't the sort we want over here. We want voters that don't have independent ideas, but just do as the boss tells 'em."
"That's pretty true, I reckon," replied the first man.
Meanwhile, Hassan was safe on shore. It had been for only one moment that theflamingo had needed to support his burden; then it was lifted from him by a man in a boat, who took time to tell him that he was a "first-rate fellow, a famous fellow, and ought to have a medal from the Humane Society."
"Heshallhave one!" declared an enthusiastic lady in the crowd. "I will see to it myself." And the next morning she bought a souvenir half-dollar, had "For a Brave Bird" engraved upon it, and a hole bored in its rim, through which she ran a pink ribbon. This she carried over to the Wooded Island, and, with the assistance of two Columbian guards, captured Coco, and tied the ribbon firmly round his neck. He resisted strenuously, and spent much time in trying to peck the decoration off; but as time went on, and he became accustomed to it, and found that wherever he went it made him conspicuous, and that the other birds envied him the notice he attracted, he rather learned to likehis "medal;" and he wore it to the very end of the Columbian Exposition.
Meanwhile, as Fate willed it, the dripping Hassan was handed ashore precisely at that point of the esplanade where stood his father and mother! They had not seen the accident, nor understood that it was a boy who had fallen in and been rescued by a bird; so when a wet little object was set to drip almost at their feet, and they recognized in it their own offspring, whom they supposed to be safely asleep at home, it will be easily imagined that their wrath and astonishment knew no bounds.
"Ahi! child of sin, contaminated by the unbeliever, is it indeed thou?" cried the irate Mustapha. "What djinnee, what imp of Eblis hath brought thee here?"
"He hath been in the water, Allah preserve us!" cried the more tender-hearted mother. "He might have been drowned."
"In the water! Nay, then; wherefore ishe not in bed where we left him? We will see if this imp of evil be not taught to avoid the water in the future. On my head be it if he is not, Inshallah!"
So the weeping Hassan was led home by his family, his garments leaving a trail of drip on the concrete all the way up the long distance; and in the seclusion of the temporary harem he was caused to see the error of his way.
"Thou shalt be made to remember," declared his irate parent in the pauses of discipline. "I will not have thee as the sons of these infidels who despise correction, saying 'I will' and 'I will not,' and are as a blemish and a darkening to the faces of their parents. The Prophet rebuke me if I do! Inshallah!"
But Coco, when the lights were put out and the great crowd streamed away, leaving the Fair Grounds to silence and loneliness, and the lagoons became again a soft land of shadows broken by reaches of moonlight,sailed back to his perch among the sedges with a calm and satisfied mind. He had a right to be pleased with himself. Had he not saved two "people," one very small and hard, and the other very big and soft? Nothing whispered of that dreadful half-dollar which was coming on the morrow to vex his spirit. No one said tohim"Inshallah." He tucked his head under his wing and went to sleep, a peaceful and contented flamingo; and the moral is, "Be virtuous and you will be happy."
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Ornate capital "D"
DID it ever occur to you what a difference there is in the way in which people use their eyes? I do not mean that some people squint, and some do not; that some have short sight, and some long sight. These are accidental differences; and the people who cannot see far, sometimes see more, and more truly, than do other people whose vision is as keen as the eagle's. No, the difference between people's eyes lies in the power and the habit of observation.
Did you ever hear of the famous conjurer Robert Houdin, whose wonderful tricks and feats of magic were the astonishment of Europe a few years ago? He tells us, in hisautobiography, that to see everything at a glance, while seeming to see nothing, is the first requisite in the education of a "magician," and that the faculty of noticing rapidly and exactly can be trained like any other faculty. When he was fitting his little son to follow the same profession, he used to take him past a shop-window, at a quick walk, and then ask him how many objects in the window he could remember and describe. At first, the child could only recollect three or four; but gradually he rose to ten, twelve, twenty, and, in the end, his eyes would note, and his memory retain, not less than forty articles, all caught in the few seconds which it took to pass the window at a rapid walk.
It is so more or less with us all. Few things are more surprising than the distinct picture which one mind will bring away from a place, and the vague and blurred one which another mind will bring. Observation is oneof the valuable faculties, and the lack of it a fault which people have to pay for, in various ways, all their lives.
There were once two peasant boys in France, whose names were Jean and Louis Cardilliac. They were cousins; their mothers were both widows, and they lived close to each other in a little village, near a great forest. They also looked much alike. Both had dark, closely shaven hair, olive skins, and large, black eyes; but in spite of all their resemblances, Jean was always spoken of as "lucky," and Louis as "unlucky," for reasons which you will shortly see.
If the two boys were out together, in the forest or the fields, they walked along quite differently. Louis dawdled in a sort of loose-jointed trot, with his eyes fixed on whatever happened to be in his hand,—a sling, perhaps, or a stick, or one of those snappers with which birds are scared away from fruit. If it were the stick, he cracked it as he went, orhe snapped the snapper, and he whistled, as he did so, in an absent-minded way. Jean's black eyes, on the contrary, were always on the alert, and making discoveries. While Louis stared and puckered his lips up over the snapper or the sling, Jean would note, unconsciously but truly, the form of the clouds, the look of the sky in the rainy west, the wedge-shaped procession of the ducks through the air, and the way in which they used their wings, the bird-calls in the hedge. He was quick to mark a strange leaf, or an unaccustomed fungus by the path, or any small article which had been dropped by the way. Once, he picked up a five-franc piece; once, a silver pencil-case which belonged to thecuré, who was glad to get it again, and gave Jean ten sous by way of reward. Louis would have liked ten sous very much, but somehow he never found any pencil-cases; and it seemed hard and unjust when his mother upbraided him for the fact, which, tohis thinking, was rather his misfortune than his fault.
"How can I help it?" he asked. "The saints are kind to Jean, and they are not kind to me,—voilà tout!"
"The saints help those who help themselves," retorted his mother. "Thou art a look-in-the-air. Jean keeps his eyes open, he has wit, and he notices."
But such reproaches did not help Louis, or teach him anything. Habit is so strong.
"There!" cried his mother one day, when he came in to supper. "Thy cousin—thy lucky cousin—has again been lucky. He has found a truffle-bed, and thy aunt has sold the truffles to the man from Paris for a hundred francs. A hundred francs! It will be long before thy stupid fingers can earn the half of that!"
"Where did Jean find the bed?" asked Louis.
"In the oak copse near the brook, wherethou mightest have found them as easily as he," retorted his mother. "He was walking along with Daudot, the wood cutter's dog—whose mother was a truffle-hunter—and Daudot began to point and scratch; and Jean suspected something, got a spade, dug, and crack! a hundred francs! Ah,hismother is to be envied!"
"The oak copse! Near the brook!" exclaimed Louis, too much excited to note the reproach which concluded the sentence. "Why, I was there but the other day with Daudot, and I remember now, he scratched and whined a great deal, and tore at the ground. I didn't think anything about it at the time."
"Oh, thou little imbecile—thou stupid!" cried his mother, angrily. "There were the truffles, and the first chance was for thee. Didn't think anything about it! Thou never dost think, thou never wilt. Out of my sight, and do not let me see thee again till bedtime."
Supperless and disconsolate poor Louis slunk away. He called Daudot, and went to the oak copse, resolved that if he saw any sign of excitement on the part of the dog, to fetch a spade and instantly begin to dig. But Daudot trotted along quietly, as if there were not a truffle left in France, and the walk was fruitless.
"If I had only," became a favorite sentence with Louis, as time went on. "If I had only noticed this." "If I had only stopped then." But such phrases are apt to come into the mind after something has been missed by not noticing or not stopping, so they do little good to anybody.
Did it ever occur to you that what people call "lucky chances," though they seem to come suddenly, are in reality prepared for by a long unconscious process of making ready on the part of those who profit by them? Such a chance came at last to both Jean and Louis,—to Louis no less than toJean; but one was prepared for it, and the other was not.
Professor Sylvestre, a famous naturalist from Toulouse, came to the forest village where the two boys lived, one summer. He wanted a boy to guide him about the country, carry his plant-cases and herbals, and help in his search after rare flowers and birds, and he asked Madame Collot, the landlady of the inn, to recommend one. She named Jean and Louis; they were both good boys, she said.
So the professor sent for them to come and talk with him.
"Do you know the forest well, and the paths?" he asked.
Yes, both of them knew the forest very well.
"Are there any woodpeckers of such and such a species?" he asked next. "Have you the large lunar moth here? Can you tell me where to look forCampanila rhomboidalis?"and he rapidly described the variety.
Louis shook his head. He knew nothing of any of these things. But Jean at once waked up with interest. He knew a great deal about woodpeckers,—not in a scientific way, but with the knowledge of one who has watched and studied bird habits. He had quite a collection of lunar and other moths of his own, and though he did not recognize the rareCampanilaby its botanical title, he did as soon as the professor described the peculiarities of the leaf and blossom. So M. Sylvestre engaged him to be his guide so long as he stayed in the region, and agreed to pay him ten francs a week. And Mother Cardilliac wrung her hands, and exclaimed more piteously than ever over her boy's "ill luck" and his cousin's superior good fortune.
One can never tell how a "chance" may develop. Professor Sylvestre was well off, and kind of heart. He had no children ofhis own, and he was devoted, above all other things, to the interest of science. He saw the making of a first-rate naturalist in Jean Cardilliac, with his quick eyes, his close observation, his real interest in finding out and making sure. He grew to an interest in and liking for the boy, which ripened, as the time drew near for him to return to his university, into an offer to take Jean with him, and provide for his education, on the condition that Jean, in return, should render him a certain amount of assistance during his out-of-school hours. It was, in effect, a kind of adoption, which might lead to almost anything; and Jean's mother was justified in declaring, as she did, that his fortune was made.
"And for thee, thou canst stay at home, and dig potatoes for the rest of thy sorry life," lamented the mother of Louis. "Well, let people say what they will, this is an unjust world; and, what is worse, the saintslook on, and do nothing to prevent it. Heaven forgive me if it is blasphemous to speak so, but I cannot help it!"
But it was neither "luck" nor "injustice." It was merely the difference between "eyes and no eyes,"—a difference which will always exist and always tell.
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Ornate capital "I"
IT was a shabby old store, built where two cross-roads and a lane met at the foot of a low hill, and left between them a small triangular space fringed with grass. On the hill stood a summer hotel, full of boarders from the neighboring city; for the place was cool and airy, and a wide expanse of sea and rocky islands, edged with beaches and wooded points, stretched away from the hill's foot.
In years gone by, the shabby old store had driven quite a flourishing trade during the months of the year when the hotel was open. The boarders went there for their ink and tacks; their sewing-silk and shoe-buttons; for the orange marmalade and potted hamwhich they carried on picnics; for the liquid blacking, which saved the boot-boy at the hotel so much labor; the letter-paper, on which they wrote to their friends what a good time they were having; and all the thousand and one things of which people who have little to do with their time and money fancy themselves in want. But a year before the time at which the events I am about to relate took place, the owner of the store built himself a new and better one at a place a mile further on, where there was a still larger hotel and a group of cottages, and removed thither with his belongings. The old building had stood empty for some months, and at last was hired for a queer use,—namely, to serve as stable for a very small Shetland pony, not much larger than a calf, or an extra large Newfoundland dog.
"Cloud" was the pony's name. He belonged to Ned Cabot, who was nine years old, and was not only his pony, but hisintimate friend as well. Ned loved him only the better for a terrible accident which had befallen Cloud a few months before.
The Cabots, who had been living on Lake Superior for a while, came back to the East with all their goods and chattels, and among the rest, their horses. It had been a question as to how little Cloud should travel; and at last a box was built which could be set in a freight-car, and in which, it was hoped, he would make the journey in safety. But accidents sometimes happen even when the utmost care is taken, and, sad to relate, Cloud arrived in Boston with his tiny foreleg broken.
Horses' legs are hard to mend, you know; and generally when one breaks, it is thought the easiest and cheapest way out of the trouble to shoot the poor animal at once, and buy another to take his place. But the bare mention of such a thing threw Ned into such paroxysms of grief, and hesobbed so dreadfully, that all his family made haste to assure him that under no circumstances should Cloud be shot. Instead, he was sent to a hospital,—not the Massachusetts General, I think, but something almost as superior in its line, where animals are treated, and there the surgeons slung him up, and put his leg into plaster, exactly as if he had been a human being. Had he been a large, heavy horse, I suppose they could hardly have done this; but being a little light pony, it was possible. And the result was that the poor fellow got well, and was not lamed in the least, which made his little master very happy. He loved Cloud all the more for this great escape, and Cloud fully returned Ned's affection. He was a rather over-indulged and overfed pony; but with Ned, he was always a pattern of gentleness and propriety. Ned could lie flat on his back and read story books by the hour without the least fear that Cloud would jump orshy or shake him off. Far from it! Cloud would graze quietly up and down, taking pains not to disturb the reading, only turning his head now and then to see if Ned was comfortable, and when he found him so, giving a little satisfied whinny, which seemed to say, "Here we are, and what a time we are having!" Surely, no pony could be expected to do better than that.
So now little Cloud, with his foreleg quite mended and as strong as ever, was the sole occupant of the roomy old country store. A little stall had been partitioned off for him in a corner where there was a window, out of which he could see the buckboards and cut-unders drive by, and the daisies and long grass on the opposite slope blowing in the fresh sea wind. Horses have curiosity, and like to look out of the window and watch what is going on as well as people do.
There were things inside the store that were worth looking at as well as things outside.When Mr. Harrison, the storekeeper, moved away, he carried off most of his belongings, but a few articles he left behind, I suppose because he did not consider them worth taking away. There were two blue painted counters and some rough hanging shelves, a set of rusty old scales and weights, a row of glass jars with a little dab of something at the bottom of each,—rice, brown sugar, cream-of-tartar, cracker crumbs, and fragments of ginger-snaps. There was also a bottle half full of fermented olives, a paper parcel of musty corn flour, and, greatest of all, a big triangle of cheese, blue with mould, in a round red wooden box with wire sides, like an enormous mouse-trap. It was quite a stock-in-trade for a pony, and Cloud had so much the air of being in possession, that the smallest of the children at the hotel always spoke of the place as his store. "I want to go down to Cloud's store," they would say to their nurses.
Ned and his sister Constance took a great deal of the care of the pony on themselves. A freckled little country lad named Dick had been engaged to feed and clean him; but he so often ran away from his work that the children were never easy in their minds for fear lest Cloud had been forgotten and was left supperless or with no bed to lie upon. Almost always, and especially on Sunday nights, when he of the freckles was most apt to absent himself, they would coax their mother to let them run down the last thing and make sure that all was right. If it were not, Ned would turn to, and Constance also, to feed and bed the pony; they were both strong and sturdy, and could do the work very well, only Constance always wanted to braid his mane to make it kink, and Ned would never let her; so they sometimes ended with quarrelling.
One day in August it happened that Ned's father and mother, his big brother, his twosisters, and, in fact, most of the grown people in the hotel, went off on a picnic to White Gull Island, which was about seven miles out to sea. They started at ten in the morning, with a good breeze, and a load of very attractive-looking lunch-baskets; but at noon the wind died down, and did not spring up again, and when Ned's bedtime came, they had still not returned. Their big sail could be seen far out beyond the islands. They were rowing the boat, Mr. Gale, the hotel-keeper, said; but unless the wind came up, he did not think they would be in much before midnight.
Ned had not gone with the others. He had hurt his foot a day or two before, and his mother thought climbing rocks would be bad for it. He had cried a little when Constance and the rest sailed away, but had soon been consoled. Mrs. Cabot had arranged a series of treats for him, a row with Nurse, a sea-bath, a new story-book, and had asked a little boy he liked to come over from the other hoteland spend the afternoon on the beach. There had been the surprise of a box of candy and two big peaches. Altogether, the day had gone happily, and it was not till Nurse had put Ned to bed and gone off to a "praise meeting" in the Methodist chapel, that it occurred to him to feel lonely.
He lay looking out at sea, which was lit by the biggest and whitest moon ever seen. Far away he could catch the shimmer of the idle sail, which seemed scarcely nearer than it had done at supper-time.
"I wish Mamma were here to kiss me for good-night," reflected Ned, rather dismally. "I don't feel sleepy a bit, and it isn't nice to have them all gone."
From the foot of the hill came a sound of small hoofs stamping impatiently. Then a complaining whinny was heard. Ned sat up in bed. Something was wrong with Cloud, he was sure.
"It's that bad Dick. He's gone off andforgotten to give Cloud any supper," thought Ned. Then he called "Mary! Ma-ry!" several times, before he remembered that Mary was gone to the praise meeting.
"I don't care!" he said aloud. "I'm not going to let my Cloudy starve for anybody."
So he scrambled out of bed, found his shoes, and hastily put on some of the clothes which Mary had just taken off and folded up. There was no one on the piazza to note the little figure as it sped down the slope. Everybody was off enjoying the moonlight in some way or other.
It was, indeed, as Ned had suspected. Dick of the freckles had gone fishing and forgotten Cloud altogether. The moon shone full through the eastern windows of the store, making it almost as light as day, and Ned had no trouble in finding the hay and the water-pail. He watched the pony as he hungrily champed and chewed the sweet-smelling heap and sucked up the water, then hebrushed out his stall, and scattered straw, and then sat down "for a minute," as he told himself, to rest and watch Cloud go to sleep. It was very pleasant in the old store, he thought.
Presently Cloud lay down on the straw too, and cuddled close up to Ned, who patted and stroked him. Ned thought he was asleep, he lay so still. But after a little while Cloud stirred and got up, first on his forelegs and then altogether. He stood a moment watching Ned, who pretended to be sleeping, then he opened the slatted door of his stall, moved gently across the floor and went in behind the old blue counter.
"Whatishe going to do?" thought Ned. "I never saw anything so funny. Constance will never believe when I tell her about it."
What Cloud did was to take one of the glass jars from the shelf in his teeth, and set it on the counter. It was the one which held the gingersnap crumbs. Cloud liftedoff the lid. Just then a clatter of hoofs was heard outside, and another horse came in. Ned knew the horse in a minute. It was the yellow one which Mr. Gale drove in his buckboard.
The yellow horse trotted up to the counter, and he and Cloud talked together for a few minutes. It was in pony language, and Ned could not understand what they said; but it had to do with the gingersnaps, apparently, for Cloud poured part of them out on the counter, and the buckboard horse greedily licked them up. Then he gave Cloud something by way of payment. Ned could not see what, but it seemed to be a nail out of his hind shoe, and then tiptoed out of the store and across the road to the field where the horses grazed, while Cloud opened a drawer at the back of the counter and threw in the nail, if it was one. Itsoundedlike a nail.
He had scarcely done so when more hoofssounded, and two other horses came in. Horse one was the bay which went with the yellow in the buckboard, the other Mr. Gale's sorrel colt, which he allowed no one to drive except himself. Cloud seemed very glad to see them. And such a lively chorus went on across the counter of whinnies and snorts and splutters, accompanied with such emphatic stamps, that Ned shrank into a dark corner, and did not dare to laugh aloud, though he longed to as he peeped between the bars.
The sorrel colt seemed to want a great many things. He evidently had the shopping instinct. Cloud lifted down all the jars, one by one, and the colt sampled their contents. The cream-of-tartar he did not like at all; but he ate all the brown sugar and the cracker crumbs, tasted an olive and let it drop with a disgusted neigh, and lastly took a bite of the mouldy cheese in the red trap, and expressed his opinion of it by what seemed to be a "swear-word." Then he andthe bay-horse and Cloud went to the end of the store where a rusty old stove without any pipe stood, sat down on their haunches before it, put their forelegs on its top, and began, as it seemed, to discuss politics; at least, it sounded wonderfully like the conversation that had gone on in that very corner in Mr. Harrison's day, when the farmers collected to predict the defeat of the candidate on the other side, whoever he might be.
They talked so long that Ned grew very sleepy, and lay down again on the straw. He felt that he ought to go home and to bed, but he did not quite dare. The strange horses might take offence at his being there, he thought; still, he had a comfortable feeling that as Cloud's friend they would not do him any real harm. Even when, as it seemed, one of them came into the stall, took hold of his shoulder, and began to shake him violently, he was not really frightened.
"Don't!" he said sleepily. "I won'ttell anybody. Cloud knows me. I'm a friend of his."
"Ned! wake up! Ned! wake up!" said some one. Was it the red horse?
No, it was his father. And there was Mamma on the other side of him. And there was Cloud lying on the straw close by, pretending to be asleep, but with one eye half open!
"Wake up!" said Papa; "here it is, after eleven o'clock, and Mamma half frightened to death at getting home and not finding you in your bed. How did you come down here, sir?"
"Cloud was crying for his supper, and I came down to feed him," explained Ned. "And then I stayed to watch him keep store. Oh, it was so funny, Mamma! The other horses came and bought things, and Cloud was just like a real storekeeper, and sold crackers to them, and sugar, and took the money—no, it was nails, I think."
"My dear, you have been dreaming," said Mrs. Cabot. "Don't let him talk any more, John. He is all excited now, and won't sleep if you do."
So, though Ned loudly protested that he had not been asleep at all, and so could not have dreamed, he was put to bed at once, and no one would listen to him. And next day it was just as bad, for all of them, Constance as well as the rest, insisted that Ned had fallen asleep in the pony's stall and dreamed the whole thing. Even when he opened the drawer at the back of the counter and showed them the shoe-nail that Cloud had dropped in, they would not believe. There was nothing remarkable in there being a nail there, they said; all sorts of things were put in the drawers of country stores.
But Ned and Cloud knew very well that it was not a dream.
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