“Master Troll, Master Troll!I defy you to appear!I must have you, body and soul,Master Troll, Master Troll!Show yourself, for IAM HERE!”
“Master Troll, Master Troll!I defy you to appear!I must have you, body and soul,Master Troll, Master Troll!Show yourself, for IAM HERE!”
“And I am here!” cried the giant, with a terrible shout. “Wait a minute, and I will only make a mouthful of you!”
“Don't be in a hurry, my good fellow,” replied Thumbling, in a little squeaking voice, “I have a whole hour to give you.”
When the Troll came to the place where Thumbling was, he looked around on every side, very much astonished at not seeing anything. At last, lowering his eyes to the ground, he discovered what appeared to be a little child, sitting on a fallen tree, with a stout leather bag between his knees.
“Is it you, pigmy, who woke me up from my nap?” growled the Troll, rolling his great red eyes.
“I am the very one,” replied Thumbling, “I have come to take you into my service.”
“He! he!” laughed the giant, who was as stupid as he was big, “that is a good joke indeed. But I am going to pitch you into that raven's nest I see up there, to teach you not to make a noise in my forest.”
“Yourforest!” laughed Thumbling. “It is as much mine as it is yours, and if you say a word more, I will cut it down in a quarter of an hour.”
“Ha! ha!” shouted the giant, “and I should like to see you begin, my brave fellow.”
Thumbling carefully placed the axe on the ground, and said, “Chop! chop!! chop!!!”
And lo and behold! the axe begins to chop, hew, hack, now right, now left, and up and down, till the branches tumble on the Troll's head like hail in autumn.
“Enough, enough!” said the Troll, who began to be alarmed. “Don't destroy my forest. But who the mischief are you?”
“I am the famous sorcererThumbling,” answered our hero, in as gruff a voice as his little body was capable of; “and I have only to say a single word to chop your head off your shoulders. You don't know yet with whom you have to do.”
The giant hesitated, very much disturbed at what he saw. Meanwhile, Thumbling, who began to be hungry, opened his stout leather bag, and took out his bread and cheese.
“What is that white stuff?” asked the Troll, who had never seen any cheese before.
“That is a stone,” answered Thumbling. He began to eat as eagerly as possible.
“Do you eat stones?” asked the giant.
“O yes,” replied Thumbling, “that is my ordinary food, and that is the reason I am not so big as you, who eat oxen; but it is also the reason why, little as I am, I am ten times as strong as you are. Now take me to your house.”
The Troll was conquered; and, marching before Thumbling like a dog before a little child, he led him to his monstrous cabin.
“Now listen,” said Thumbling to the giant, after they were fairly seated, “one of us has got to be the master, and the other the servant. Let us make this bargain: if I can't do whatever you do, I am to be your slave; if you are not able to do whatever I do, you are to be mine.”
“Agreed,” said the Troll; “I should admire to have such a little servant as you are. It is too much work for me to think, and you have wit enough for both; so begin with the trial. Here are my two buckets,—go and get the water to make the soup.”
Thumbling looked at the buckets. They were two enormous hogsheads, ten feet high and six broad. It would have been much easier for him to drown himself in them than to move them.
“O, ho!” shouted the giant, as he saw his hesitation; “and so you are stuck at the first thing, my boy! Do what I do, you know, and get the water.”
“What is the good of that?” replied Thumbling, calmly; “I will go and get the spring itself, and put that in the pot.”
“No! no!” said the Troll; “that won't do. You have already half spoiled my forest, and I don't want you to take my spring away, lest to-morrow I shall go dry. You may attend to the fire, and I will go and get the water.”
After having hung up the kettle, the giant put into it an ox cut into pieces, fifty cabbages, and a wagon-load of carrots. He then skimmed the broth with a frying-pan, tasting it every now and then, to see if it was done. When all was ready, he turned to Thumbling, and said:—
“Now to the table. We'll see if you can do what I can there. I feel like eating the whole ox, and you into the bargain. I think I will serve you for dessert.”
“All right,” said Thumbling; but before sitting down to the table, he slipped under his jacket his stout leather bag, which reached down to his feet.
The two champions now set to work. The Troll ate and ate, and Thumbling wasn't idle; only he pitched everything, beef, cabbage, carrots, and all, into his bag, when the giant wasn't looking.
“Ouf!” at last grunted the Troll; “I can't do much more; I have got to unbutton the lower button of my waistcoat.”
“Eat away, starveling!” cried Thumbling, sticking the half of a cabbage into his bag.
“Ouf!” groaned the giant; “I have got to unbutton another button. But what sort of an ostrich's stomach have you got, my son? I should think you were used to eating stones!”
“Eat away, lazy-bones!” said Thumbling, sticking a huge junk of beef into his bag.
“Ouf!” sighed the giant, for the third time; “I have got to unbutton the third button. I am almost suffocated; and how is it with you, sorcerer?”
“Bah!” answered Thumbling; “it is the easiest thing in the world to relieve yourself; and so saying he took his knife, and slit his jacket and the bag under it the whole length of his stomach.
“It is your turn now,” he said to the giant; “do as I do, you know,if you can.”
“Your humble servant,” replied the Troll; “pray excuse me! I had rather be your servant than do that;mystomach don't digest steel!”
No sooner said than done; the giant kissed Thumbling's hand in token of submission, and taking his little master on one shoulder, and a huge bag of gold on the other, he started off for the king's palace.
Theywere having a great feast at the palace, and thinking no more of Thumbling than if the giant had eaten him up a week before; when, all of a sudden, they heard a terrible noise that shook the palace to its very foundations. It was the Troll, who, finding the great gateway too low for him to enter, had overturned it with a single kick of his foot. Everybody ran to the windows, the king among the rest, and there saw Thumbling quietly seated on the shoulder of his terrible servant.
Our adventurer sprang lightly to the balcony of the second story, where he saw his betrothed, and, bending gracefully on one knee, he said:—
“Princess, you asked me for a slave; I present you two.”
This gallant speech was published the next morning in the Court Gazette; but at the moment it was said it was quite embarrassing to the poor king; and as he didn't know how to reply to it, he drew the princess one side, and thus addressed her:—
Large Troll carrying the thumbling on his back
“My child, I have now no possible excuse for refusing your hand to this daring young man; sacrifice yourself, my darling, to your country; remember that princesses do not marry to please themselves.”
“Pardon me, father,” answered the princess, courtesying; “princess or not, every woman likes to marry according to her taste. Let me defend my rights as I think best.”
“Thumbling,” added she, aloud, “you are brave and lucky; but that is not enough alone to please women.”
“I know that,” answered Thumbling; “it is necessary besides to do their pleasure, and submit to their caprices.”
“You are a witty fellow,” said the princess; “and since you understand me so well, I am going to propose another trial to you. You need not be alarmed, for this time you will only have me for an antagonist. Let us try and see who will be the sharpest and quickest, and my hand shall be the prize of the battle.”
Thumbling assented, with a low bow, and followed the court into the great hall of audience, where the trial was to take place. There, to the affright of all, the Troll was found, sprawling on the floor; for, as the hall was only fifteen feet high, the poor fellow couldn't get up. On a sign of his youngmaster, he crawled humbly to him, happy and proud to obey. It was Force itself, in the service of Wit.
“Now,” said the princess, “let us begin with some nonsense. It is an old story that women are not afraid to lie; and we will see which of us will stand the biggest story without objection. The first one who says, 'That is too much,' will be beaten.”
“I am always at the service of your Royal Highness,” answered Thumbling; “whether to lie in sport, or to tell the truth in sober earnest.”
“I am sure,” began the princess, “that you haven't got a farm half as beautiful as ours; and it is so large, that, when two shepherds are blowing their horns at each end of it, neither can hear the other.”
“That is nothing at all,” said Thumbling; “my father's farm is so large, that, if a heifer two months old goes in at the gate on one side of it, when she goes out at the other she takes a calf of her own with her.”
“That don't surprise me,” continued the princess; “but you haven't got a bull half as big as ours; a man can sit on each of his horns, and the two can't touch each other with a twenty-foot pole.”
“That is nothing at all,” replied Thumbling; “my father's bull is so large, that a servant sitting on one of his horns can't see the servant sitting on the other.”
“That don't surprise me,” said the princess; “but you haven't got half so much milk at your farm as we have; for we fill, every day, twenty hogsheads, a hundred feet high; and every week, we make a pile of cheese as high as the big pyramid of Egypt.”
“That is nothing at all,” said Thumbling. “In my father's dairy they make such big cheeses, that once, when my father's mare fell into the press, we only found her after travelling seven days, and she was so much injured that her back was broken. So to mend that I made her a backbone of a pine-tree, that answered splendidly; till one fine morning the tree took it into its head to grow, and it grew and grew until it was so high that I climbed up to Heaven on it. There I looked down, and saw a lady in a white gown spinning sea-foam to make gossamer with. I went to take hold of it, and snap! the thread broke, and I fell into a rat-hole. There I saw your father and my mother spinning; and as your father was clumsy, lo and behold, my mother gave him such a box on the ear, that it made his old wig shake——”
“That is too much!” interrupted the princess. “My father never suffered such an insult in all his life.”
“She said it! she said it!” shouted the giant “Now, master, the princess is ours!”
Butthe princess said, blushing: “Not quite yet. I have three riddles to give you, Thumbling; guess them, and I will obey my father, and become your wife without any more objections. Tell me, first, what that is which is always falling, and is never broken?”
“Oh!” answered Thumbling, “my mother told me that a long time ago; it is a waterfall.”
“That is so,” interrupted the giant; “but who would have thought of that.”
“Tell me, next,” continued the princess, with a slight trembling in her voice, “what is that that every day goes the same journey, and yet never returns on its steps?”
“Oh!” answered Thumbling, “my mother told me that a long time ago; it is the sun.”
“You are right,” said the princess, pale with emotion. “And now for my last question, which you will never guess. What is that that you think, and that I don't think? What is that we both think, and what is that we neither of us think?”
Thumbling bent his head, and seemed embarrassed; and the Troll whispered to him: “Master, don't be disturbed. If you can't guess it, just make a sign to me, and I will carry off the princess, and make an end of the matter at once.”
“Be silent, slave!” answered Thumbling. “Force alone can do nothing, my poor friend, and no one ought to know it better than you. Let me have my own way.”
“Madame,” said he then to the princess, in the midst of a profound silence, “I hardly dare guess; and yet in this riddle I plainly perceive my own happiness. I dared to think that your questions would have no difficulty for me, while you thought the contrary; you have the goodness to believe that I am not unworthy to please you, while I have hardly the boldness to think so; finally,” added he, smilingly, “what we both think is, that there are bigger fools in the world than you and I; and what we neither of us think is, that the king, your august father, and this poor giant have as much—”
“Silence!” interrupted the princess; “here is my hand.”
“What were you thinking about me?” asked the king; “I should be delighted to know.”
“My dear father,” said the princess, embracing him, “we think that you are the wisest of kings, and the best of fathers.”
“It is well!” replied the king, loftily; “and now I must do something for my subjects. Thumbling, from this moment you are a Duke!”
“Long live Duke Thumbling! long live my master!” shouted the giant, with a terrific roar, that sounded like a clap of thunder breaking over the palace. But, luckily, there was no harm done, save badly frightening everybody, and breaking all the windows.
Itwould be unnecessary to give a full account of the wedding of the princess and Duke Thumbling. All weddings are alike; the difference is in what follows after them. Nevertheless, it would be improper in a truthful historian not to say that the presence of the Troll added a great deal to themagnificent display. For instance, when the happy couple were returning from the church, the giant, in the excess of his joy, found nothing better to do than to take the royal carriage on the top of his head, and to carry the wedded pair back to the palace. This is an incident worth noting, because it doesn't happen every day.
At night there was a splendid feast at the palace, with suppers, orations, poems, fireworks, illuminations, and everything. Nothing was wanting, and the joy was universal. Everybody in the palace laughed, sung, ate, or drank, save one man, who, seated sullenly alone in a dark corner, amused himself in a very different way from everybody else. It was the surly Paul, who rejoiced that his ears had been cut off, because he had become deaf, and consequently couldn't hear the praises all were showering on his brother. On the other hand, he was unhappy, because he couldn't help seeing the happiness of the bride and bridegroom. So he rushed out into the forest, where the bears speedily made an end of him; and I wish a like punishment to all envious people like him.
Thumbling was such a little fellow that it was hard work for his subjects to respect him; but he was so wise, so affable, and so kind, that he very soon conquered the love of his wife, and the affection of all his people.
After the death of his father-in-law, he succeeded to the throne, which he occupied fifty-two years, without anybody ever having thought of a revolution; a fact that would be incredible, if it were not attested by the official records of his reign. He was so wise, says history, that he always divined what could best serve or please the humblest of his subjects, while he was so good, that the pleasures of others constituted his greatest happiness. He only lived for others.
But why praise his goodness? Is not that the virtue of all men of intelligence and wit? Whatever others may say,Idon't believe there are such things as good brutes here on earth; I speak now of featherless brutes that go on two legs. When a man is brutal, he cannot be kind and good; when a man is good, he cannot be brutal;—believe my long experience, which has learned it. If all blockheads are not vicious,—and I think they are,—all wicked men are necessarily foolish. And that is the moral of this story, if you can't find a better one. If you will find me a better, I will go and tell it to the Pope of Rome himself.
From the Finnish.
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Therewas commotion in Leafland. All the cities of the Great Republic were smitten with sudden dismay. Oakwich, Mapleton, Ashby, Elmthorpe, Beechworth, Sumachford, Nutham, trembled from centre to circumference. There were hurried consultations, desperate resolutions rejected as soon as adopted, eager inventories taken of domestic property, and a fearful looking-for of coming calamity. For, on the fine September morning when the sun poured out golden showers, and Leafland sat fair and smiling in robes of green, and so the whole universe was golden-green, there came a messenger flying from the North country,—a wandering Wood-thrush, deserted, draggled, and forlorn, faltering on weary wing through the lovely lanes of Leafland. The men begged him to tarry; the women promised him the daintiest tidbit in the sweetest bower on the sunniest bough; and the little Leaf-people clapped their tiny hands, and danced on the tips of their tiny toes for glee. For so admirably managed in Leafland are the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, that you might think the Leaflanders had solved the great problem of universal brotherhood. The stranger that is within their gates is all one with him who is bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. No sooner does a foreigner enter their borders, than he is presented with the freedom of all their cities. They provide for his wants, protect him from danger, and cherish his home as tenderly as if he were one of themselves. Robin the Red-breast and shy little Veery, Pewee the plaintive and cheerful Chewink, Long-sparrow, Bluebird, and sweet Chickadee, all glide freely in and out of their green and golden halls, flit through their winding streets, and take part in all their delights. Nor have the Leaflanders any trouble to understand bird-language. They have not, like the old Ger-men, eaten the hearts of birds, but by a more excellent way have they entered into all their secrets. Through long summer days and the silence of dewy nights, they lean so lovingly over them, they stir so softly around the still bird-cradles, they coo so tenderly to the sweet egg-nestlings and the helpless baby-birds, that one heart-language springs up between them, and shines familiarly through all foreign phrase. Nor is it the birds alone who take out naturalization-papers in Leafland. All manner of nations and peoples partake of its hospitalities and remember it for blessing. You have only to be pure-hearted, and you may become at once a Leaflander.
So it came to pass that the Leaflanders were sore grieved at heart to see the weary Wood-thrush deaf to all their entreaties, and bent alone on pursuing his solitary way. But as he wheeled slowly above their heads, as he seemed just about to vanish into the blue distance, they heard his faint voice—whether in terror or weakness they could not tell—only the words fell distinctly on their ears,—
“I see! I see! I see! The Red-coats are coming!”
Faint and far and clarion-clear, it trembled through Leafland, low but ominous.Mapleton heard it and wondered; Elmthorpe and Ashby and Nutham repeated it, looking into one another's eyes for a meaning. Proud old Oakwich tried to assume a grave aspect, but was inwardly at her wits' end. “The Red-coats are coming.” All the ancient men and women, great-great-great-great-grandfathers and grandmothers, whose childhood lay wellnigh lost in the infinite past of April days, said it over to each other with thin, quavering voices; but all their experience gave them no key to the mysterious message. Then the post-riders were brought into requisition. The whole corporation of Gale, Breeze, Zephyr, & Co., Express Company, all their clerks, agents, and errand-boys, were sent to and fro through the Commonwealth, to see if any one anywhere had a little light to bestow upon the subject. Alas! the light came all too soon, and brought infinite sighing and sobbing. A thought suddenly broke loose in Oakwich, and up spake an old Oakwichian. “Oh! and oh! and woe is me for my miserable land now, now about to be bereft of her children! All her strength destroyed, all her loveliness laid desolate!”
Straightway throughout Leafland rose the voice of wailing, “Woe! woe! woe! for the miserable land!” but none of them knew what they were crying for; only the Oakwichian began it, and nothing better occurred to them to do than to join in; which soon made the sunny day overcast, and all the people walking in Netherworld where it approaches Leafland wrapped their old cloaks about them, and said spitefully, “What a disagreeable, raw east-wind it is, to be sure!”
But by and by, when their throats were quite dry and sore with wailing, one of the Mapletonians, a very sensible young woman, quite famous indeed for her wisdom, bethought herself to inquire what it was all about. Then there was a very pretty outburst of indignation. For a moment they forgot their grief, and, what was still worse, their good manners, and turned upon the unfortunate young woman.
“And so you set yourself above your betters, and fiddle while Leafland is burning!” cried one.
“And pray, Miss Wiseacre,” asked another, “how cameyouto know so much more than any one else? Who toldyouthat nothing was the matter?”
“Oh! if women would only mind the house, and not meddle with what does not belong to them!” exclaimed a third.
All very unjust as you see, for surely the destruction of Leafland concerned the women as much as the men, and poor “Miss Wiseacre” had not so much as made an assertion,—only asked a question. However, the Leaflanders must be excused, because they were quite beside themselves with terror, and, moreover, a question is sometimes more exasperating than fire and sword.
But the old Oakwichian was more reasonable, and, ever glad, even in the article of death, to disseminate useful knowledge, interposed. “I will tell you what the matter is,” he said. “Well I remember in the far-away past, in the sunny summer-days that will return, alas! no more,”—here a burstof sorrow prevented speech, but he presently recovered himself,—“how a little maid used to walk in Netherworld, and rest under the shadow of our greatness, toying with the light. She was a favorite with every one hereabouts. Gold was her hair like a spun sunbeam, blue her eyes like our own June sky, and her voice might sing the lowest lullaby of the Red Mavis, or his song to his love in her nest. Sometimes the little maiden looked up wistfully to us, her eyes all a-gleam with her glowing fancies. Then we pelted her with sunshine, and caressed her with shade, and then she was happiest of all. But sometimes she brought with her hateful things, tasks and tools, useless, awkward, bungling, sharp weapons, that hurt her tender fingers, long cords that she pulled aimlessly back and forth, huge books with harsh names, that blurred her dear eyes and gloomed her bright face. First we tried to shame and then to woo her away from them, but some invisible old dragon stood over her, and forced her on; and so we learned at length to watch and wait till the hated task was over. Thereby we learned many strange and wonderful things; but this alone is to the purpose, that I surely recall how for many days she kept reading about the Red-coats, and I peeped down over her shoulder, as we swayed in the dance one afternoon, and saw pictures of these same Red-coats, a great destroying army, fierce and fell, who burn villages, and talk piously, and slay men, women, and children. Them has friend Wood-thrush verily seen, and against them he strove to warn us. But, ah! what avails it? What can we do, or whither shall we flee! Can a nation take wing like a Wood-thrush? Can Leafland flit about like a Swallow? And who should warrant us that the Red-coats should not pursue us to remotest fastnesses? Nay, they may be even now upon us. Woe! woe is me! We were Leaflanders; Oakwich was, and the great glory of the Elmthorpians! But now we be all dead men!”
At this, the Leaflanders only paused long enough to upbraid the young woman. “See now whether anything is the matter!” and immediately fell to upon their despair.
“A nation in ruins!” cried the statesman. “Leafland falls from its lofty summit, and I live to see the day.”
“I behold the gods departing from Leafland,” spake the scholar. “This is the end of the fates of Leafland.”
“Now I do not care for your gods and your fates and your what-all,” sobbed a nervous little lady. “I never could see that they were of any use in housekeeping; but who shall watch over the tender birdlings when we are gone?”
“And never any more dances! Forever, never, never, forever!” You may know it was a belle said that.
“Dances are but the vanity of this world,” moaned a sedate matron; “but woe for my dear pet Aphides, with their six hundred thousand children, who will be dead before they are born!”
“Bother your six hundred thousand children!” growled a crusty philosopher. “If theyaredead, it is the only good thing ever I heard about them. It might be worth while to have one's country crashing about one's earsoccasionally, for the sake of being well rid of such trash. Here are all our laboratories broken up, and the sun's occupation gone, and you making a to-do about a parcel of babies!”
“O the sweet sunshine!” wept a poet, but most musically,—“the warm, delicious sunshine, that our hungry souls can feed upon no more, nor ever fill our drinking-cups with nectared dew!”
And so in Mapleton and Sumachford and through all Leafland was nothing heard but the voice of lamentation, and nothing seen but floods of tears, and nothing thought of but how to avert or escape the threatened calamity; and, in their terror and trouble, the Leaflanders almost lost their fine tempers, and were often on the brink of quarrelling; and the people walking in Netherworld met each other under blue cotton umbrellas, and exclaimed, “What a spell of weather!” and altogether it was very uncomfortable, both in Leafland and Netherworld.
Just at this time a gay young Chipmonk appeared upon the scene,—a careless, dashing, saucy fellow, very popular among the young Leaflanders of the rapid sort. He came skipping and frisking into Nutham, as his manner was, both pockets full of corn which he hadconfiscated, he remarked significantly, from a field down yonder. He nodded jauntily right and left, and then disposed himself comfortably in a corner, and began cracking his dainties in a very free-and-easy manner, not noticing the woe-begone aspect of his friends. All at once, however, he awoke to a realizing sense of things, and showed his sympathy after his own fashion, by giving a sudden flirt with his tail, and calling out, irreverently, “What's the row?”
Amid tears and sighs, the sad story was related to him, in all its length and breadth and thickness; but, instead of the answering tear and sigh which his auditors expected, he only thrust his paws into his pockets, and whisked his tail over his back in frantic convulsions of laughter; muttering, as breath came to him in the pauses, “O, what a gony! For that matter, O, what a pack of gonies!”
Now the Leaflanders were quite too well-bred ever to have used or heard so barbarous a word as “gony.” Nevertheless, reason and instinct both taught them, as it will teach all people of refined sensibilities, that to be called a gony is to be called something very disagreeable; and if anything can heighten the unpleasant sensation, it is to be called “a pack of gonies.” Consequently the Leaflanders began to look at each other blankly, and even to suspect that possibly they had been making fools of themselves. But Chipmonk did not leave them long in suspense. “Your terrible Red-coats are your own selves,” he cried. “I have heard of people being frightened by their own shadow; but never, in all my born days, did I hear of any one being frightened by his own shine.”
“Now will you explain yourself?” cried one of the young ladies, her curiosity getting the better of her chagrin. All the old men and the young men were longing to know, but were too proud to ask; but the question being asked for them, they were glad enough to crowd in, and hear the answer.
“It is only this, and nothing more,” answered Chipmonk, ejecting a pine-seed from his mouth. “You are all going to have a new suit of clothes, more splendid than you ever saw in your lives,—yellow and brown and spotted, and all manner of magnificent colors, but chiefly red; and then you will be Red-coats, won't you? Wood-thrush came from north, where the tailoring began; and he saw it, and told you. It is a sign for him to be up and flying. He thought it would be his excuse for declining your invitation, instead of which you all went thrusting your heads into a bramble-bush. O my!”
“But say, Chipmonk, do you know this? Are you sure of it? It seems too good news to be true.”
“Well, all I can say is, I have lived here, man and boy, nigh on to forty months; and I know it alwayshashappened about this time. I am young for a Chipmonk; but I was in full career long before the oldest crone among you was born; and if there is anything hereabouts that I don't know, you may take your affidavit it isn't worth knowing.” And he sat back, and betook himself once more to his “confiscated” corn with the most indifferent superiority.
Oh! but there was gladness then in Leafland, you may be sure. All their sadness was turned to rejoicing; and even then the work of transformation—called, in squirrelicular, “tailoring”—began. Old and young, men and maids, felt a glory in their blood. All the essence of the summer-long sunshine seemed to pour itself into their hearts. From one end of Leafland to another was only singing and dancing and delight. Mapleton crowned herself with a golden crown, and Oakwich wreathed her brows with the sunset. All the beauty of the past was dull and sombre to this new splendor, this royal magnificence, born of the ineffable light.
A poet and a publisher walked through the Essex woods one October afternoon; and they remarked that the foliage was very brilliant this year, which was quite true; but if I had not been born, you never would have known all about it.
Gail Hamilton.
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The color-bearerThe color-bearer
Was a fortress to be stormed:Boldly right in view they formed,All as quiet as a regiment parading:Then in front a line of flame!Then at left and right the same!Two platoons received a furious enfilading.To their places still they filed,And they smiled at the wildCannonading.“'T will be over in an hour!'T will not be much of a shower!Never mind, my boys,” said he, “a little drizzling!”Then to cross that fatal plain,Through the whirring, hurtling rainOf the grape-shot, and the minie-bullets' whistling!But he nothing heeds nor shuns,As he runs with the gunsBrightly bristling!Leaving trails of dead and dyingIn their track, yet forward flyingLike a breaker where the gale of conflict rolled them,With a foam of flashing lightBorne before them on their brightBurnished barrels,—O, 't was fearful to behold them!While from ramparts roaring loudSwept a cloud like a shroudTo enfold them!O, his color was the first!Through the burying cloud he burst,With the standard to the battle forward slanted!Through the belching, blinding breathOf the flaming jaws of Death,Till his banner on the bastion he had planted!By the screaming shot that fell,And the yell of the shell,Nothing daunted.Right against the bulwark dashing,Over tangled branches crashing,'Mid the plunging volleys thundering ever louder!There he clambers, there he stands,With the ensign in his hands,—O, was ever hero handsomer or prouder?Streaked with battle-sweat and slime,And sublime in the grimeOf the powder!'T was six minutes, at the least,Ere the closing combat ceased,—Near as we the mighty moments then could measure,—And we held our souls with awe,Till his haughty flag we sawOn the lifting vapors drifting o'er the embrasure!Saw it glimmer in our tears,While our ears heard the cheersRend the azure!Through the abatis they broke,Through the surging cannon-smoke,And they drove the foe before like frightened cattle!O, but never wound was his,For in other wars than this,Where the volleys of Life's conflict roar and rattle,He must still, as he was wont,In the front bear the bruntOf the battle.He shall guide the van of Truth!And in manhood, as in youth,Be her fearless, be her peerless Color-Bearer!With his high and bright example,Like a banner brave and ample,Ever leading through receding clouds of Error,To the empire of the Strong,And to Wrong he shall longBe a terror!J. T. Trowbridge.
Was a fortress to be stormed:Boldly right in view they formed,All as quiet as a regiment parading:Then in front a line of flame!Then at left and right the same!Two platoons received a furious enfilading.To their places still they filed,And they smiled at the wildCannonading.
“'T will be over in an hour!'T will not be much of a shower!Never mind, my boys,” said he, “a little drizzling!”Then to cross that fatal plain,Through the whirring, hurtling rainOf the grape-shot, and the minie-bullets' whistling!But he nothing heeds nor shuns,As he runs with the gunsBrightly bristling!
Leaving trails of dead and dyingIn their track, yet forward flyingLike a breaker where the gale of conflict rolled them,With a foam of flashing lightBorne before them on their brightBurnished barrels,—O, 't was fearful to behold them!While from ramparts roaring loudSwept a cloud like a shroudTo enfold them!
O, his color was the first!Through the burying cloud he burst,With the standard to the battle forward slanted!Through the belching, blinding breathOf the flaming jaws of Death,Till his banner on the bastion he had planted!By the screaming shot that fell,And the yell of the shell,Nothing daunted.
Right against the bulwark dashing,Over tangled branches crashing,'Mid the plunging volleys thundering ever louder!There he clambers, there he stands,With the ensign in his hands,—O, was ever hero handsomer or prouder?Streaked with battle-sweat and slime,And sublime in the grimeOf the powder!
'T was six minutes, at the least,Ere the closing combat ceased,—Near as we the mighty moments then could measure,—And we held our souls with awe,Till his haughty flag we sawOn the lifting vapors drifting o'er the embrasure!Saw it glimmer in our tears,While our ears heard the cheersRend the azure!
Through the abatis they broke,Through the surging cannon-smoke,And they drove the foe before like frightened cattle!O, but never wound was his,For in other wars than this,Where the volleys of Life's conflict roar and rattle,He must still, as he was wont,In the front bear the bruntOf the battle.
He shall guide the van of Truth!And in manhood, as in youth,Be her fearless, be her peerless Color-Bearer!With his high and bright example,Like a banner brave and ample,Ever leading through receding clouds of Error,To the empire of the Strong,And to Wrong he shall longBe a terror!
J. T. Trowbridge.
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We—grandma, “our young folks,” and I—live up here among the hills, in a quaint, old-fashioned farm-house,—older than any of the “old folks” now living; and every day, when the sun goes down, we gather around the great wood fire in the sitting-room, and talk and tell stories by the hour together. I tell the most of the stories; for, though I am only a plain farmer, going about in a slouched hat, a rusty coat, and a pair of pantaloons so old and threadbare that you would not wear them if you were in the ash business, I have mingled with men, seen a great many places, and been almost all over the world.
My own children like my stories, because they think they are true, and because they are all about the men I have met, and the places I have seen, and so give them some glimpses of what is going on in the busy life outside of our quiet country home; but I do not expect other young folks to like them as well as my own do,—for their own father will not tell them. However, I am going to write out a few of the many I know, in the hope that they may give some trifling pleasure and instruction to boys and girls I have never seen, and who gather of evenings around firesides far away from the one where all my stories are first told.
As I sit down to write by this bright, blazing fire, the clouds are scudding across the moon, and the wind is moaning around the old house, shaking the doors, and rattling the windows, and snapping the branches of the greattrees as if a whole regiment of young giants were cracking their whips in the court-yard. On just such a night a wounded boy lay out on the Wilderness battle-ground!
You have heard of that great battle; how two hundred thousand men met in a dense forest, and for two long days and nights, over wooded hills, and through tangled valleys, and deep, rocky ravines, surged against each other like angry waves in a storm. And you have heard, too—what is very pitiful to hear—how, when that bloody storm was over, and the sun came out, dim and cold, on the cheerless May morning which followed, thirty thousand men—every one the father, brother, or friend of some young folks at home—lay dead and dying on that awful field. Amid such a host of dead and dying men, you might overlook one little boy, who, all that starless Friday night, lay there wounded in the Wilderness. I do not want you to overlook him, and therefore I am going to tell you his story.
He was a bright-eyed, fair-haired boy of twelve, the only son of his mother, who was a widow. He used to read at home of how little boys had gone to the war, how they had been in the great battles, and how great generals had praised them; and he longed to go to the war too, and to do something to make himself as famous as the little boy who fought on the Rappahannock. For a long time his mother was deaf to his entreaties,—and he would not go without her consent; but at last, when a friend of his father raised a company of hundred-days men in his native town, she let him join as a drummer-boy in the regiment.
The first battle he was in was the terrible one in the Wilderness. His regiment shared in the first day's fight, but he escaped unharmed; and all that night, though tired and hungry, he went about in the woods carrying water to the wounded. The next morning he snatched a few hours' sleep, and that and a good breakfast refreshed him greatly. At ten o'clock his regiment moved, and it kept moving and fighting all that day, until the sun went down; but, though a hundred of his comrades had fallen around him, he remained unhurt.
The shadows were deepening into darkness, and the night was hanging its lanterns up in the sky, when the weary men threw themselves on the ground to rest. Overcome with fatigue, he too lay down, and, giving one thought to his mother at home, and another to his Father in heaven, fell fast asleep. Suddenly the sharp rattle of musketry and the deafening roar of cannon sounded along the lines, and five thousand rebels rushed out upon them. Surprised and panic-stricken, our men broke and fled; and, roused by the terrible uproar, James—that was his name—sprang to his feet, but only in time to catch in his arms the captain, who was falling. He was shot through and through by a minie ball.
James laid him gently on the ground, took his head tenderly in his lap; and listened to the last words he had to send to his wife and children. Meanwhile, yelling like demons, the Rebels came on, and passed them. Then he could have escaped to the woods, but he would not leave his father's friend when he was dying.
Soon our men rallied, and in turn drove the enemy. Slowly and sullenly the Rebels fell back to the hill where James and his friend were lying. There they made a stand, and for half an hour fought desperately, but were at last overborne and forced back again. As they were on the eve of retreating, a tall, ragged ruffian came up to James, and demanded the watch and money of the captain.
“You will not rob a dying man?” said the little boy, looking up to him imploringly.
“Wall, I woan't!” was the Rebel's brutal reply, as he aimed his bayonet straight at the captain's heart.
By a quick, dexterous movement, James parried the blow; but, turning suddenly on the poor boy, the ruffian, with another thrust of his bayonet, ran him directly through the body. His head sunk back to the ground, and he fainted.
How long he lay there unconscious he does not know, but when he came to himself the moon had gone down, and the stars had disappeared, and thick, black clouds were filling all the sky. It did not rain, but the cold wind moaned among the trees, and chilled him through and through. He tried to rise, but a sharp pain came in his side, and for the first time he thought of his wound. Passing his hand to it, he found it was clotted with blood. The cold air had stopped the bleeding, and thus saved his life. Though the bayonet had gone clear through him, his hurt was not mortal, for no vital part was injured.
He thought of the captain, and spoke his name; but no answer came. Then he reached out his hand to find him. He was there, but his face was cold,—colder than the cold night that was about them. He was dead.
The wounded lay all around, and all this while their cries and groans, as they called piteously for water, or moaned aloud in their agony, came to his ear, and went to his very soul. He had heard their cries the night before, as he crept about among them in the thick woods; but then they had not sounded so sad, so pitiful, as now, and that night was not so cold, so dark, so cheerless as this was. Soon he knew the full extent of their agony. An intolerable thirst came upon him. Hot, melted lead seemed to run along his veins, and a burning heat, as of a fire of hot coals kindling in his side, almost consumed him. He cried out for help, but no help came,—for water, but still he thirsted. Then he prayed,—prayed to the Good Father, who he knew was looking pitifully down on him through the thick darkness, to come and help him.
And He came. He always comes to those who ask for Him. Soon the clouds grew darker, the wind rose higher, and the rain—the cooling, soothing, grateful rain—poured down in torrents. It wet him through and through, but it eased his pain, cooled the fever in his blood, and he slept! In all that cold and pelting storm he slept!
It was broad day when he awoke. The sun was shining dimly through the thick masses of gray clouds which floated in the sky, but the wind had gone down, and the rain was over. The moans of the wounded still cameto him, but they were not so frequent, nor so terrible, as they were the night before. Many had found relief from the rain, and many had ceased moaning forever.
He could not rise, but, after long and painful effort, he succeeded in turning over on his side. Then he had a view of the scene around him. He lay near the summit of a gentle hill, at whose base a little brook was flowing. At the north it was crowned with a dense growth of oaks and pines and cedar thickets, but at the south and west it sloped away into waving meadows and pleasant cornfields, already green with the opening beauty of spring. Beyond the meadows were other hills, and knolls, and rocky heights, all covered with an almost impenetrable forest, and there the hardest fighting of those terrible days was done. A narrow road, bordered by a worm-fence (Western boys know what a worm-fence is), wound around the foot of the hill, and led to a large mansion standing half hidden in a grove of oaks and elms, not half a mile away. Before this mansion were pleasant lawns and gardens, and in its rear a score or more of little negro houses, whose whitewashed walls were gleaming in the sun. This was the plantation—so James afterwards learned—of Major Lucy, one of those wicked men whose bad ambition has brought this dreadful war on our country.
The scene was very beautiful, and, looking at it, James forgot for a moment the darker picture, drawn in blood, on the grass around him. But there it was. Blackened muskets, broken saddles, overturned caissons, wounded horses snorting in agony, and fair-haired boys and gray-haired men mangled and bleeding,—some piled in heaps, and some stretched out singly to die,—lay all over that green hillside! Here and there a crippled soldier was creeping about among the wounded, and, close by, a stalwart man, the blood dripping from his dangling sleeve, was wrapping a blue-eyed, pale-faced boy in his blanket. “Don't cry, Freddy,” he said; “ye sha'n't be cold! Yer mother'll soon be yere!” But the boy gave no answer, for—he was dead!
“He don't hear you,” said James. “He isn't cold now!”
“I'se afeard he ar',—he said he war. Oh! ef his mother know'd he war yere! 't would break her heart,—break her heart!” moaned the man, still wrapping the blanket about the boy.
James closed his eyes to shut out the painful scene, and the thought of his own mother came to him. Would it not breakherheart to know he was wounded? to hear, perhaps, that he was dead? He must not die; for her sake, he must not die!Oneonly could help him, and so he prayed. Again he prayed that the Good Father would come to him, and again the Good Father came!
“What isyea doin' yere, honey,—a little one loike ye?” asked a kind voice at his side.
He looked up. It was an old black woman, dressed in a faded woollen gown, a red and yellow turban, and a pair of flesh-colored stockings which Nature herself had given her. She was very short, almost as broad as she was long, and had a face as large round as the moon,—and it looked verymuch like the moon when it shines through a black cloud; for, though darker than midnight, it was all over light,—that kind of light which shines through the faces of good people.
“I am wounded; I want water,” said the little boy, feebly.
“Ye shill hab it, honey,” said the woman, giving him some from a bucket she had set on the ground.
“Guv some termylad,” cried the man who sat by the dead boy; “he's been a cryin' fur it all night—all night! Didn't ye yere him?”
“No, I didn't, massa. I hain't been yere more'n a hour, and a tousand's a heap fur one ole ooman ter 'tend on,” she replied, filling a gourd from the bucket, and going with it to the dead boy.
She stooped down and held the water to his lips, but in a moment started back, and cried out in a frightened way,—“He'm dead!Hecan't drink no more!”
“He hain't dead!” yelled the man, fiercely; “he sha'n't die! Guvmethe water, ole 'ooman.”
With a trembling hand, he tried to give it to his son. He held it to the boy's lips for a moment, then, dropping the gourd, and sinking to the ground, he cried out,—“It'll kill his mother,—kill his mother! Oh! oh!”
“He'm better off, massa,” said the woman, in a voice full of pity; “he'm whar he kin drink foreber ob de bery water ob life.”
“Gwo away, ole 'ooman,—gwo away,—doan't speak ter me!” moaned the man, throwing his arms around the body of his boy, and burying his face in the blanket he had wrapped about him.
Brushing her tears away with her apron, the woman turned to James, and said,—“Whar is ye hurted, honey? Leff aunty see.”
The little boy opened his jacket, and showed her his side. She could not see the wound, for the blood had glued his shirt, and even his waistcoat, to his body; but she said, kindly,—“Don't fret, honey. 'Tain't nuffin ter hurt,—it'll soon be well. Ole Katy'll borrer a blanket or so frum some o' dese as is done dead, and git ye warm; and den, when she's gub'n a little more water ter de firsty ones, she'll take a keer ob you,—she will, honey; so neber you f'ar.”
She went away, but soon came again with the blankets, and, wrapping two about him, and putting another under his head, said,—“Dar, honey, now you'll be warm; and neber you keer ef ole Katy hab borrer'd de blankets. Dey'll neber want 'em darselfs; and she knows it'll do dar bery souls good, eben whar dey is, ter knowyou'sgot 'em. So neber keer, and gwo ter sleep,—dat's a good chile. Aunty'll be yere agin in a jiffin.”
James thanked the good woman, and, closing his eyes again, soon fell asleep. The sun was right over his head, when old Katy awoke him, and said,—“Now, honey, Aunty's ready now. She'll tote you off ter de plantation, and hab you all well in less nur no time, she will; fur massa's 'way, and dar haint no 'un dar now ter say she sha'n't.”
“You can't carry me; I'm too heavy, Aunty,” said James, making a faint effort to smile.
“Carry you! Why, honey chile, ole Katy could tote a big man, forty times so heaby as you is, ef dey was only a hurted so bad as you.”
Taking him up, then, as if he had been a bag of feathers, she laid his head over her shoulder, and, cuddling him close to her bosom, carried him off to the large mansion he had seen in the distance.
What befell him there I shall tell “our young folks” in the next number of this, their own Magazine.
Edmund Kirke.