Peregrine fastened his long black cloak, and Patience smoothed her white apron and tied the strings of her close-fitting bonnet beneath her dimpled chin. The brother and sister crossed the threshold of the log house which was their home in old Plymouth, almost three hundred years ago, and started to walk across the corn fields and through a patch of woodland, lying between their house and the next cabin.
They were two little Puritan children, going to school.
They laughed and pointed happily to the full ears of corn as they crossed the fields. There would be a good harvest, they knew, and that meant plenty of hot corn-meal mush filling the big copper kettle that hung over their fireplace, and corn would fill the huge brick oven. But as Peregrine and Patience crept softly between the great pine trees of the wood, they clasped each other's hands more tightly, and started to see a red-winged birddart out of the branches. "Suppose it had been the bright feather head-dress of an Indian," they whispered. One was very apt to meet Indians on the way to school in those old-time days.
The long distance was travelled in safety, though. Promptly at eight o'clock, the two little Puritans knocked at the door of a second log house and it was opened by their neighbor, Mistress Endicott. There was no school-bell, there were no desks and comfortable chairs and blackboards and picture books. Mistress Endicott had risen from her spinning wheel, that stood by the fireplace, to let in Peregrine and Patience, and a dozen other small boys and girls of Plymouth. There was no real schoolhouse as yet in Plymouth. Mistress Endicott kept house, and tended her garden, and taught all the children of the neighborhood as well.
There were long settles beside the fireplace and here the children seated themselves, Peregrine on one side, and Patience on the other, to study their lessons. They were given queer little books, called the New England Primer, in wooden covers, and having funny, tiny pictures for each letter of the alphabet, and beside each, a jingle. There were verses to be learned from the Bible, too. Patience held her primer up close to her nose and studied very diligently, but Peregrine's eyes wandered outof the window and toward the blue sky. He was thinking of a kite he planned to make when school was over.
"Class stand, and recite," Mistress Endicott said suddenly, stopping the whir of her spinning wheel only a moment to call the children, for industry and learning had to go on at the same time in those old days in the Colonies.
At once the boys and girls rose and stood in front of their teacher, the copper toes of their stout shoes placed exactly on a long crack in the bare floor. Then they read aloud, while Mistress Endicott's wheel whirred on. It sounded as if a hive of bees were humming in the schoolroom, but the good dame could listen and spin at the same time. She knew very well if a child made a mistake.
Across the room there were some long benches made of logs, split in two, and with other logs to support them. When the class had finished reading, they took their places at these benches, the boys to do sums, and the girls to work on their samplers. Each little Puritan girl had brought her sewing bag to school, and was working her name, the date of her birthday, and a verse of some kind on a square of canvas, which made her sampler. Patience was working a very fine sampler indeed. Her mother had given her some bright crewels thatshe had brought from England, and Patience was using them to embroider a basket of flowers in cross-stitch in one corner of her sampler. Patience bent low over her sewing, until her long flaxen braids almost touched the floor. At last, though, she looked up.
Where was Peregrine, she wondered? He was not on the bench with the other boys. At last Patience saw her brother. Oh, dear, how disgraced she felt! Peregrine had not learned his lesson well, because he had looked out of the window. He had not recited well, so Mistress Endicott had put the dunce's cap on his head and he stood in a corner where all could see him.
But Peregrine's punishment did not last for long. He was soon forgiven and busy bringing in logs of wood to pile on the fire. Already the days had a touch of frost in them, and Peregrine's father had sent the school-mistress a load of wood. This was to pay her for teaching Patience and Peregrine. The other children's parents paid her in corn, and barley, and other good things that they raised on their farms. If the teacher had been a man, the Puritan mothers would have spun and woven some warm cloth to make him a coat, or knitted him a woollen muffler, or a pair of stockings.
Late in the afternoon, after their luncheon of coldhasty pudding and apples and more study and reading, school was over. Peregrine and Patience each made a low bow before Mistress Endicott, went out of the door, and started home. The dusk was already falling, but they ran, and sang as they hurried along to keep up their courage.
There, at last, was the twinkle of the tallow candle which their mother had set in the window to lead them home. She was waiting for them at the door, and the kettle was singing on the hob. The school-day, almost three hundred years ago, was over.
That morning, Franz was taking his way very slowly to school. He had a great dread of being scolded, particularly as the school-master had said that the lesson for the day would be on participles about which Franz did not know a word. Suddenly an idea came to him. He would go through the fields.
It was so warm, so clear. He heard the blackbirds whistling on the borders of the wood, and in the meadow, behind the saw-mill, the Prussians were drilling. Then, as he passed on by the residence of the mayor, Franz saw them putting a notice on thegate. There, for two years, had been given out all the bad news; lost battles for Alsace, calls to arms, the orders of the command. The blacksmith and his apprentice were putting up the notice, and Franz called,
"What has happened, that they are posting a bulletin again?" But the blacksmith spoke gruffly,
"Why do you loiter, little one? It is not safe. Run along quickly to school."
So Franz made haste at last, although he was sure that the blacksmith was not in earnest, and he arrived all breathless, at his class.
School seemed, somehow, very different to Franz that morning. There was ordinarily a good deal of noise as the children came in from the street, desks were opened, and lessons were repeated out loud and all in unison, and the school-master pounded with his ruler on his table.
Now, however, there was silence.
Although Franz was late, the school-master looked at him without the least anger, and spoke softly as he said, "Go quickly to your place, my little Franz. We have already begun without you."
Franz seated himself at his desk. Only then, his fear gone, he noticed that the master had on his best green frock coat, his finely plaited shirt and the black silk cap that he never wore except on a daywhen there were prizes given out in school. All the children were extraordinarily quiet. But what surprised Franz the most was to see at the back of the room, seated on the benches which were ordinarily empty, the people of the village. There was an old soldier with his tri-colored flag, the old mayor of the town, the postman, and many others. Everyone seemed sad. And the old soldier had a spelling book, ragged on the edges, that he held open on his knees, as he followed the pages through his great spectacles.
As little Franz watched all this, astonished, the school-master rose from his chair, and in the same grave, soft voice in which he had spoken to the boy, he said,
"My children, this is the last time that I shall teach your class. The order has come from Berlin that no language but German shall be taught in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. Your new master arrives to-morrow. To-day, you will have your last lesson in French. I pray that you will be very attentive."
Franz's last lesson in French! And he could not write it without mistakes! He remembered all the time that he had wasted, the lessons he had missed in hunting for birds' nests, or skating on the river. He thought of his books that would remind himalways now, of his laziness—his grammar, his history, a present from his friend, the school-master, from whom he must part now with so much pain. In the midst of these thoughts, Franz heard his name called. It was his turn to recite.
He would have given a great deal to be able to recite the famous order of the participles, without a mistake, to give them clearly, and without a fault. But he confused them at the first word, and remained standing beside his desk, his heart trembling, not daring to raise his head. He heard the school-master speaking to him,
"I am not going to rebuke you, little Franz. You are already punished. Every day you have said to yourself, 'Bah, I have plenty of time; to-morrow I will study.'"
"Ah, that has been the great fault in our Alsace, that of always putting off learning until another day. In the meantime, all the world has been quite right in saying of us, 'How is it that you pretend to be French, and yet are not able to read and write your own language!' Of all who are here, my poor little Franz, you are not the only one at fault. We all must reproach ourselves."
Then the school-master told them of his longing to still teach the children the French language. He said that it would always be the most beautifullanguage of the world. He said that he wanted it treasured in Alsace and never forgotten, because, when a people fall into slavery it is almost like holding the key to their prison if they can speak to each other in the same tongue. Afterward he took a grammar and went over the lesson with the children. All that he read seemed suddenly quite easy to Franz; he had never attended so well, and never before had he understood how patient the school-master was in his explanations.
When the lesson was finished, writing was begun. For this last day, the master had prepared fresh copies.
France, Alsace. France, Alsace.
The copies were like little flags, floating all over the schoolroom from the tops of the desks. Nothing broke the great silence but the scratching of the pens upon the paper. Suddenly some May bugs flew in through the window, but no one noticed them. On the roof of the school some pigeons began to coo, and Franz thought to himself, "Will it be commanded that the birds, too, speak to us in a foreign language?"
From time to time, as Franz lifted his eyes from his paper, he saw the school-master sitting quietly in his chair, and looking all about him, as if he wanted to remember always every child and everybit of furniture in his little schoolroom. Only think, for forty years, he had been there in his place, with the playground facing him, and his class always as full! Only the benches and the desks which had once been polished were worn from usage now; the walnut trees in the yard had grown very large, and the hop vine that he, himself, had planted twined now above the window and as far as the roof. It was breaking the heart of the school-master to leave all these things.
But he had the courage to carry on the class to the very end. After the writing lesson, he began the lesson in history. Afterward, the little ones sang their A. B. C.'s all together and at the end of the room the old soldier took off his spectacles and, holding his spelling book in his two hands, he read off the letters with them.
Suddenly the clock in the tower of the village church sounded the hour of noon. Instantly, the trumpet call of the Prussians, returning from their drilling, burst through the windows. The school-master rose, quite pale, in his place. Never had he seemed so great to the children.
"My friends," he said, "my little friends, I—"
But he could say no more; he was not able to speak the words. He turned to the blackboard and, taking a piece of chalk, he wrote upon it,
"Vive la France!"
Afterward, he remained there, his head resting against the wall, and, without speaking, he made a sign with his hand.
"It is finished. You are dismissed."
The godmother arrived for the christening, dressed in plum-colored satin and carrying a small brown parcel.
"Fortunatus' purse!" whispered one of the guests, nudging his neighbor.
"A mere trifle for the boy," said the fairy godmother, laying the parcel down on the table. "It is a very common gift to come from my hands, but I trust it will prove useful."
She untied the string of the parcel and gave the baby's mother—what do you think?
A small pair of strong leather shoes, copper-tipped and heeled!
"They'll never wear out, my dear," she said. "And, after all, my little gift is not quite so shabby as it looks. These shoes, have another quality besides that of not wearing out. The little feet that are in them cannot very easily go wrong."
"Mrs. Godmother's broomstick is at the door,"shouted some one. So the fairy godmother took her departure.
As years went by and her family increased, the mother learned the full value of the fairy shoes. Her nine boys wore them in turn, but they never wore them out. So long as these shoes were on their feet, they were pretty sure to go where they were sent and to come back when they were wanted. So, at last, the fairy shoes descended to the ninth and youngest boy, and became Timothy's.
Now the eighth boy had very small feet and had worn the shoes rather longer than the others, and Timothy got them somewhat later than usual. Even though she was very conscientious, Timothy's mother found it hard not to spoil the youngest in the family. Master Timothy was wilful, and his feet became used to taking their own way before he stepped into the fairy shoes. He played truant from school, and was late for dinner so often that at length his mother decided that something must be done about Timothy. One morning the leather of the fairy shoes was brightly blacked and the copper tips polished, and Timothy wore them for the first time.
"Now, Timothy, dear, I know you will be a good boy," his mother said. "And mind you don't loiter or play truant, for if you do, these shoes willpinch you horribly, and you'll be sure to be found out."
Timothy looked as if he didn't believe it. He was off like an arrow from a bow, and he gave not one more thought to what his mother had said.
The winter had been very cold, the spring had been fitful and stormy, but May had suddenly burst upon the country with one broad, bright smile of sunshine and flowers. If Timothy had loitered on the way to school when the frost nipped his nose, and the ground was muddy, and the March winds crept up his jacket sleeves, it was hard to hurry now when every nook had a flower and every bush a bird.
It was wrong to play truant, but still it was very tempting.Twir-r-r-r, up to the sky flew the larks. Down in the marsh below the king-cups blossomed, as shining as gold.
Once or twice Timothy stopped, but his shoes pinched him and he ran on all the more willingly because a bright butterfly went before him. But where the path ran on above the marsh, and he looked down and saw the king-cups, he dismissed all thoughts of school. The bank was long and steep, but that did not matter to him. King-cups he must have; no other flowers would do. He threw his school bag on the grass, and began to scramble down the bank.
Timothy turned his feet toward the king-cups, but his shoes seemed resolved to go to school. As he persisted in going toward the marsh, he had such twitches and twinges as the fairy shoes pinched him that it seemed as if his feet would be wrenched off. But Timothy was a resolute little fellow, and he managed to drag himself, shoes and all, down to the marsh.
Then he could not find a king-cup within reach. Not one grew on the safe edge, but, like so many Will-o'-the-wisps, they shone out of the depths of the treacherous bogs. Timothy wandered round the marsh;pinch, jerk, every step hurt more than the one before. At last, desperate with pain and disappointment, he fairly jumped into a patch of the flowers that looked fairly near, and was at once ankle deep in water. But, to Timothy's delight, the wet mud soaked the shoes off his feet, and he was able to wade about among the rushes, reeds, and king-cups, happy.
And he was none the worse, although he ought to have been. He moved about very cautiously, feeling his way with a stick from tussock to tussock of reedy grass, wondering why his eight brothers had never thought of taking off the fairy shoes when they grew troublesome.
At last, though, Timothy began to feel tired.He hurt his foot on a sharp stump. A fat green frog jumped up in his face and so startled him that he nearly fell backwards in the water. He had gathered more king-cups than he could hold. So he scrambled out of the marsh, climbed up the bank, cleaned himself as well as he could, and thought he would go on to school.
Now, with all his faults, Timothy was not a coward or a liar. With a quaking heart he made up his mind to tell the teacher that he had played truant. He was trying to make up his mind just exactly what he would say first and had got no farther than, "Please, ma'am—" when he found himself in the schoolroom, and under the teacher's very eye. Timothy did not see her frown; he did not hear the children's titters. His eyes were fixed upon the schoolroom floor, where—beside Timothy's desk—stood the fairy shoes, very muddy, and with a yellow king-cup sticking up out of each.
"You've been in the marsh, Timothy," said his teacher. "Put on your shoes."
So Timothy put them on, and when his lessons were over, he let his shoes take him straight home.
The old apple tree stood in the orchard with the other trees, and all summer long it had stretched out its branches wide to catch the rain and the sun to make its apples grow round and ripe. Now it was fall, and on the old apple tree were three great apples as yellow as gold and larger than any other apples in the whole orchard. The apple tree stretched and reached as far as it could, until the branch on which the three gold apples grew hung over the orchard wall. There were the three great apples, waiting for some one to pick them, and as the wind blew through the leaves of the apple tree it seemed to sing:
"Here in the orchard are apples three,Who uses one well shall a treasure see."
"Here in the orchard are apples three,Who uses one well shall a treasure see."
And one morning Gerald came down the lane that passed by the orchard wall. He looked longingly at the three gold apples, wishing, wishing that he might have one. Just then the wind sang its song again in the leaves of the apple tree and,plump, down to the ground, right at Gerald's feet, fell one of the three gold apples.
He picked it up and turned it round and round in his hands. How sweet it smelled, and how mellow and juicy it was! Gerald could think of nothing so good to do with such a beautiful ripe apple as to eat it. He put it to his mouth and took a great bite of it, then another bite, and another. Soon there was nothing left of the apple but the core, which Gerald threw away. He smacked his lips and went on his way, but the wind in the apple trees sang, sorrowfully, after him:
"Here in the orchard are apples two,But gone is the treasure that fell for you."
"Here in the orchard are apples two,But gone is the treasure that fell for you."
And after a while Hilda came down the lane that passed by the orchard wall. She looked up at the two beautiful gold apples that hung on the branch of the old apple tree, and she listened to the wind as it sang in the branches to her:
"Here in the orchard are apples two,A treasure they hold for a child like you."
"Here in the orchard are apples two,A treasure they hold for a child like you."
Then the wind blew harder and,plump, an apple fell in the lane right in front of Hilda.
She picked it up joyfully. She had never seen so large and so golden an apple. She held it carefullyin her clasped hands and thought what a pity it would be to eat it, because then it would be gone.
"I will keep this gold apple always," Hilda said, and she wrapped it up in the clean handkerchief that was in her pocket. Then Hilda went home, and there she laid away in a drawer the gold apple that the old apple tree had given her, closing the drawer tightly. The apple lay inside, in the dark, and all wrapped up, for many days, until it spoiled. And when Hilda next went down the lane and past the orchard, the wind in the apple tree sang to her:
"Only one apple where once there were two,Gone is the treasure I gave to you."
"Only one apple where once there were two,Gone is the treasure I gave to you."
Last of all, Rudolph went down the lane one fine fall morning when the sun was shining warm and the wind was out. There, hanging over the orchard wall, he saw just one great gold apple that seemed to him the most beautiful apple that he had ever seen. As he stood looking up at it, the wind in the apple tree sang to him, and it said:
"Round and gold on the apple tree,A wonderful treasure, hanging, see!"
"Round and gold on the apple tree,A wonderful treasure, hanging, see!"
Then the wind blew harder, and down fell the last gold apple of the three into Rudolph's waiting hands.
He held it a long time and looked at it as Gerald and Hilda had, thinking how good it would be toeat, and how pretty it would be to look at if he were to save it. Then he decided not to do either of these things. He took his jack-knife out of his pocket and cut the gold apple in half, straight across, and exactly in the middle between the blossom and the stem.
Oh, the surprise that waited for Rudolph inside the apple! There was a star, and in each point of the star lay a small black seed. Rudolph carefully took out all the seeds and climbed over the orchard wall, holding them in his hand. The earth in the orchard was still soft, for the frost had not yet come. Rudolph made holes in the earth and in each hole he dropped an apple seed. Then he covered up the seeds and climbed back over the wall to eat his apple, and then go on his way.
But as Rudolph walked down the lane, the orchard wind followed him, singing to him from every tree and bush,
"A planted seed is a treasure won.The work of the apple is now well done."
"A planted seed is a treasure won.The work of the apple is now well done."
Deïanira was one of the most beautiful of princesses who lived in the long ago times of the Greek gods and goddesses. It seemed as if all the loveliness of the world in this, its story time, was hers. Herhair was bright with the yellow of the first spring sunshine, and her eyes were as blue as the skies of spring. Summer had touched Deïanira's cheeks with the pink of rose petals, and the colors of the autumn fruits shone in her jewels, crimson, and purple, and gold. Her robes were as white and sparkling as the snows of winter, and all the music of soft winds, and bird songs, and rippling brooks was in this princess' voice.
Because of her beauty, and her goodness which even surpassed it, princes came from all over the earth to ask Deïanira's father, Æneus, if she might go home to their kingdoms and be their queen. But to all these Æneus replied that to none but the strongest would he give the princess.
There were many tests of these strangers' skill and strength in games and wrestling, but one by one they failed. At last there were only two left, Hercules, who could hold the sky on his great shoulders, and Acheloüs, the river-god, who could twist and twine through the fields and make them fertile. Each thought himself the greater of the two, and it lay between them which should gain the princess, by his prowess, to be his queen.
Hercules was great of limb, and of powerful strength. Beneath his shaggy eyebrows, his eyes gleamed like coals of fire. His garment was of lionskins, and his staff was a young tree. But Acheloüs was able to slip between the huge fingers of Hercules. He was as slim and graceful as a willow tree, and dressed in the green of foliage. He wore a crown of water lilies on his fair hair, and carried a staff made of twined reeds. When Acheloüs spoke, his voice was like the rippling of a stream.
"The princess Deïanira shall be mine!" said Acheloüs. "I will make her the queen of the river lands. The music of the waters shall be always in her ears, and the plenty that follows wherever I flow shall make her rich."
"No," shouted Hercules. "I am the strength of the earth. Deïanira is mine. You shall not have her."
Then the river-god grew very angry. His green robe changed to the black of the sea in a storm, and his voice was as loud as a mountain cataract. Acheloüs could be almost as powerful as Hercules when he was angered.
"How do you dare claim this royal maiden?" he roared, "you, who have mortal blood in your veins? I am a god, and the king of the waters. Wherever I take my way through the earth, grains and fruits ripen, and flowers bud and bloom. The princess is mine by right."
Hercules frowned as he advanced toward theriver-god. "Your strength is only in words," he said scornfully. "My strength is in my arm. If you would win Deïanira, it must be by hand-to-hand combat." So the river-god threw off his garments and Hercules his lions' skins, and the two fought for the hand of the princess.
It was a brave and valorous battle. Neither yielded; both stood firm. Acheloüs slipped in and out of Hercules' mighty grasp a dozen times, but at last Hercules' greater strength overpowered him. Hercules held the river-god fast by his neck, panting for breath. But Acheloüs knew magic arts which he could practise. He suddenly changed himself into a long, slippery serpent. He twisted out of Hercules' grasp, and darted out his forked tongue at him, showing his poisonous fangs.
Hercules was not yet outdone, though. He laughed in scorn at the serpent. While he was still in his cradle, Hercules had strangled two serpents, and he had met a Hydra with a hundred heads that he had cut off. He was not in the least afraid of the river-god in the form of a serpent, but gripped the creature by the back of its neck, ready to strangle it.
Acheloüs struggled in vain to escape, and at last tried his magic arts again. In a second the serpent had changed its form to that of a bellowing ferociousbull. With its horns lowered, it charged upon Hercules.
But Hercules was still unvanquished. He seized hold of the bull's horns, bent its head, grasped its brawny neck, and throwing it down buried the horns in the ground. Then he broke off one of the horns with his iron strong hand, and held it up in the air, shouting,
"Victory! The princess is mine!"
Acheloüs returned to his own shape, and, crying with pain, ran from the castle grounds where the combat had taken place, and did not stop until he had plunged into a cooling stream.
It had been right that Hercules should triumph, for his was strength of arm, not that of trickery. Deïanira stood by his side, and the goddess of plenty came forward to give the conqueror his reward.
She took the great horn which Hercules had torn from Acheloüs' head and heaped it high with the year's stores. Ripe grain, grapes, apples, plums, nuts, pomegranates, figs, and all the other fruits of the autumn filled the horn, and overflowed it. The wood-nymphs and the water-nymphs came and twined the horn with vines, and crimson leaves, and the last bright flowers of the year. Then they carried this horn of plenty, high above their heads, and gave it to Hercules, and his beautiful queen,Deïanira. It was the richest gift the gods could make, the year's harvest.
And ever since that long-ago story time of the Greeks the horn of plenty has stood for the year's blessing of us; it is full to overflowing with the fruits of the harvest.
There was once an old Wild Goose who had led the flock of other wild geese every fall for years and years on their way south. He had a thick coat of white feathers, he wore orange-colored boots, and his bill was like a gold trumpet when he opened it to call,
Honk, honk, honk!
That was the signal for the others to rise from the meadows and the marshes. He flew at their head, and the rest followed, one line on one side and one line on the other. He thought himself most important.
Over the woods and the fields and the waters, every one looked for the old Wild Goose in the fall.
Honk, honk, honk!
That was the Wild Goose telling them that it was time to get ready for the winter in the woods,and in the fields, and over the waters. He knew they waited for him, so he had grown to feel very proud of himself. He lived in a marsh that was sheltered on both sides by trees and was comfortable, even if there was a frost now and then. A robin had once stayed in those trees all winter and he sang proudly about it.
"Why do I trouble to go south?" the old Wild Goose thought to himself. "The weather here will not grow cold if I stay.Honk, honk; I shall not trouble myself to migrate this fall and then we shall see what will happen! Very likely I shall keep the summer!"
No one knew what the Goose had decided, and they listened for him.
The dandelion looked up from her home in the field and bobbed her little head as she waited to hear the call of the Wild Goose. Every fall she had sent a flock of winged seeds flying along with him as far as they could go. Then they would drop in other fields and begin making more dandelions for next year. She knew she must not wait too long. She listened, but she did not hear hishonk, honk, honk!
Puff, whirr; off she sent her tiny winged seed without the call of the old Wild Goose.
The farmer buttoned his coat tightly and lookedup among the gray clouds to see the Goose. Every fall he listened to hear the call of the Wild Goose as he gathered his harvest. He knew, though, that he must not wait too long. He took his grain to the mill and filled his barn with red apples, and orange pumpkins, and yellow corn. He made warmer beds for the cows and horses, and cut logs to burn in his fireplace. He was soon ready for winter without the help of the old Wild Goose.
The brook called and called for the Goose. Every fall she waited for him to fly over and then she built her winter roof, for she knew then that no other wild bird would need to drink from her waters. She must not wait long, though. There were her fish, and the water spider, and the beaver to shelter all winter. So the brook forgot, at last, about the old Wild Goose and built a smooth ice roof to keep her children warm until spring.
Honk, honk, cried all the other wild geese. "It is time to migrate! Come with us!"
Honk, honk, honk, cried the old Wild Goose, from the sheltered marsh where he did not know what was going on. "I am not flying south this year. I am staying north to keep the summer."
Honk, honk, "What a terrible time it will be!" cried all the other geese. They talked among themselves, saying that no good could come of turningthe seasons about, and of how he would probably be eaten in the end. Then they selected a wise young goose who had been end man the year before, and they made him their leader. His boots were quite as orange and his bill as golden as those of the old Goose, and he couldhonkvery well indeed. They went south with the new leader.
Soon Winter came. He wore a crown of snowflakes. His cloak was embroidered with frost, and he carried a huge icicle as his sceptre. Every one was ready for him. The dandelion bowed her bare head as Winter passed. The barn doors were closed, and the cattle stood, safe and warm, in their stalls.
But the Wild Goose felt Winter coming. An icy wind blew through his feathers. His throat was so stiff with cold that he could not blow his trumpet. His orange boots froze stiff as the marsh turned to ice.
"It must be the winter coming in spite of me," he thought to himself. "It seems that I have not kept him away after all. I shall die, for he will freeze me. What shall I do?"
Then a sunbeam, that was still strong enough to help a little, heard the faint cries of the old Wild Goose and was sorry for him. She melted the ice so that the Goose could pull out his feet, first one, and then the other. She stood for a moment inWinter's path as the Goose rose and stretched his stiff wings, and then started south.
The chilly air was like a blast on his head. He was obliged to fly slowly, but he managed to call as he went,
"Honk, honk, Here I am. I fly to tell you that Winter is coming."
He looked down at the woods, and the fields, and the waters. How strange! They had known it. They had not waited for the call of the old Wild Goose.
They had got "way through," as Terry said, to the nuts. It had been a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner so far. Grandmother's sweet face beamed down the length of the great table, over all the little curly grand-heads, at Grandfather's face. Everybody felt very thankful.
"I wish all the children this side of the North Pole had some turkey, too, and squash, and cranberry—and things," Silence said quietly. Silence was always thinking of beautiful things like that.
"And some nuts," Terry said, setting his small white teeth into the meat of a big fat walnut. "It wouldn't seem like Thanksgiving without nuts."
"I know somebody who would be thankful with just nuts," smiled Grandfather. "Indeed, I think that he would rather have them for all the courses of his Thanksgiving dinner!"
"Just nuts! No turkey, or pudding, or anything?" The curly grand-heads all bobbed upfrom their plates and nut pickers in amazement. Just nuts!
"Yes! Guess who he is." Grandfather's laughing eyes twinkled up the long table at Grandmother. "I'll give you three guesses apiece, beginning with Heart's Delight. Guess number one, Heart's Delight."
"Chip." Heart's Delight had guessed it at the very first guess.
"Chip!" laughed all the little grand-boys and girls. "Why, of course! Chip! He would rather have just nuts for his Thanksgiving dinner."
"I wish he had some of mine," cried Silence.
"And mine!" cried Terry, and all the others wished that he had some of theirs. What a Thanksgiving dinner little Chip would have had!
"He's got plenty, thank you." It was the shy little voice of Heart's Delight. A soft pink color had come into her round cheeks. Everybody looked at her in surprise, for how did Heart's Delight know that Chip had plenty of nuts? Then Terry remembered something.
"Oh, that's where her nuts went to!" he cried. "Heart's Delight gave them to Chip! We couldn't think what she had done with them all."
Heart's Delight's cheeks grew pinker—very pink indeed.
"Yes, that's where," said Silence, leaning over to squeeze one of Heart's Delight's little hands. And sure enough, it was. In the beautiful nut month of October, when the children went after their winter's supply of nuts, Heart's Delight had left all her little rounded heap just where bright-eyed, nut-hungry Squirrel Chip would be sure to find them and hurry them away to his hole. And Chip had found them, she was sure, for not one was left when she went back to see the next day.
"Why, maybe, this very minute—right now—Chip is cracking his Thanksgiving dinner," Terry laughed.
"Just as we are! Maybe he's come to the nut course—but they are all nut courses. And maybe he's sitting up at his table with the rest of his folks, thanksgiving to Heart's Delight," Silence said.
Heart's Delight's little shy face nearly hid itself over her plate. This was dreadful! It was necessary to change the conversation at once, and a dear little thought came to her aid.
"But I'm afraid Chip hasn't got any grandfather or grandmother at his Thanksgiving," she said softly. "I should think it would be hard to give thanks without any grandfather and grandmother."
All through the first summer and the early part of autumn the Pilgrims were busy and happy. They had planted and cared for their first fields of corn. They had found wild strawberries in the meadows, raspberries on the hillsides, and wild grapes in the woods.
In the forest just back of the village wild turkeys and deer were easily shot. In the shallow waters of the bay there was plenty of fish, clams, and lobsters.
The summer had been warm, with a good deal of rain and much sunshine; and so, when autumn came, there was a fine crop of corn.
"Let us gather the fruits of our first harvest and rejoice together," said Governor Bradford.
"Yes," said Elder Brewster, "let us take a day upon which we may thank God for all our blessings and invite to it our Indian friends who have been so kind to us."
The Pilgrims said that one day was not enough; so they planned to have a celebration for a whole week.
The great Indian chief, Massasoit, came with ninety of his bravest warriors, all gaily dressed in deerskins, feathers, and fox tails, with their facessmeared with red, white, and yellow paint. As a sign of rank, Massasoit wore a string of bones and a bag of tobacco around his neck. In his belt he carried a long knife. His face was painted red, and his hair was daubed with oil.
There were only eleven buildings in the whole of Plymouth village, four log storehouses, and seven little log dwelling-houses, so the Indian guests ate and slept out of doors. This did not matter for it was one of those warm weeks in the season that we call Indian summer.
To supply meat for the occasion four men had already been sent out to hunt wild turkeys. They killed enough in one day to last the company almost a week.
Massasoit helped the feast along by sending some of his best hunters into the woods. They brought back five deer which they gave to their pale face friends, that all might have enough to eat.
Under the trees were built long, rude tables on which were piled baked clams, broiled fish, roasted turkey, and venison. The young Pilgrim women helped serve the food to the hungry redskins. We shall always remember two of the fair young girls who waited on the first Thanksgiving table. One was Mary Chilton, who leaped first from the boat at Plymouth Rock. The other was Mary Allerton.She lived for seventy-eight years after this first Thanksgiving; of those who came over in theMayflowershe was the last to die.
What a merry time everybody had during that week! How the mothers must have laughed as they told about the first Monday morning on Cape Cod, when they all went ashore to wash their clothes! It must have been a big washing, for there had been no chance to do it at sea, so stormy had been the long voyage of sixty-three days. They little thought that Monday would always after be kept as washing day. One proud Pilgrim mother, we may be sure, showed her baby boy, Peregrine White.
And so the fun went on. In the daytime the young men ran races, played games, and had a shooting match. Every night the Indians sang and danced for their friends; and to make the party still more lively they gave every now and then a shrill war whoop that made the woods echo in the still night air.
The third day came. Massasoit had been well treated, and would have liked to stay longer, but he said that he could not be away from his camp for more than three days. So the pipe of peace was silently passed around. Then, taking their gifts of glass beads and trinkets, the Indian King and his warriors said farewell to their English friends andbegan their long march through the woods to their wigwams on Mount Hope Bay.
On the last day of this Thanksgiving party, Elder Brewster preached the first Thanksgiving sermon and all the Pilgrims united in thanking God for His goodness to them.
The first Thanksgiving was nearly three hundred years ago. Since that time, Thanksgiving has been kept by the people of our nation as the great family festival of the year. At this time children and grandchildren return to the old home, the long table is spread, and brothers and sisters, who had been separated, again seat themselves side by side.
Thanksgiving is our season of sweet and blessed memories.
Every child in the village was very much excited on account of the news that had come down from the castle on the hill.
Because it had been such a rich harvest, the fields yellow with grain and the orchards crimson with fruit, the King was going to keep a thanksgiving day. He was going to ask some child from the village to come up the hill to the castle and eat dinner with the Prince and Princess. It wasrumored, too, that this child would be given good gifts by the King. But it must be a very special kind of child indeed. That they all knew.
Then the village children remembered everything that had been told them by their mothers, and their grandmothers, and their great-grandmothers about the castle kitchen. Scores of cooks and scullery boys were kept busy there night and day. The fires always glowed to roast the rich fowls that turned on the spits. The cake bowls and the soup pots were never empty. Spices and herbs from far countries, strawberries when the ground was covered with snow, ices of all the rainbow colors, and cream so thick that a knife could cut it—all these were to be found in the King's kitchen.
There were dishes of gold and silver upon which to serve the fine foods, and a hothouse of rare flowers with which to deck the table, and linen as fine as a cobweb and as beautiful in pattern as snowflakes to cover it. Oh, a thanksgiving day in the castle would be very wonderful indeed, the children thought, and each hoped that he or she would be chosen to go.
The day before this day of thanksgiving the messenger of the King came down from the castle and went from door to door of the homes in the village. He went first to the house of the burgomaster. Itwas a very pretentious house with tall pillars in front, and it stood on a wide street. It seemed likely that the burgomaster's child might be chosen to go with the messenger to the castle for the thanksgiving. She was dressed in silk, and her hair was curled, and the burgomaster had packed a great hamper with sweets as an offering for the King.
"Are you ready to keep the feast as the King would like you to?" asked the messenger.
"Oh, yes!" said the burgomaster's child. "I have on my best dress, and here are plenty of sweets to eat. Will you take me?"
But the messenger shook his head, for the child was not ready.
Then the King's messenger went on until he came to the house where the captain of the guards lived. The captain's little boy was quite sure that he would be chosen to go with the messenger to the castle for the thanksgiving. He wore a uniform with silver braid and buttons like that which the guards wore. A sword hung at his side, and he wore a soldier's cap. He held the cap in his hand, so that he could put it on quickly.
"Are you ready to keep the thanksgiving day as the King would like you to?" asked the messenger.
"Oh, yes!" said the child of the captain of the guards. "I have my sword here and I can fightany one who crosses our path on the way to the castle. Will you take me?"
But the messenger went on again and he came to the baker's shop. The baker's boy stood at the door, dressed in his best white suit, and holding an empty basket on his arm. He was quite sure that he would be chosen to go to the palace, for his father's bake shop was an important place in the village. They measured their flour carefully, and weighed the loaves so that they might receive the utmost penny for each. They very seldom had any crumbs left for the poor, but they were selling a great deal of bread every day.
"Are you ready to keep the thanksgiving day as the King would like you to?" the messenger asked of the baker's boy.
"Oh, yes!" the boy said. "I have this basket to gather up whatever remains of the King's feast and bring it home with me. The King would not want anything wasted. Will you take me?"
But the messenger shook his head a third time, for the child was not ready.
Then he did not know which way to go, and he began to think that he would not be able to find any guest for the King's feast. As he waited, he saw two children, a girl and a boy, coming toward him. They were poor children, and one was leading the other, for he was lame. The messenger looked at them. The little girl had eyes like stars and her hair, blowing in the November wind, was like a cloud made golden by the sunset. She held her head so high, and smiled so bravely that no one would have noticed her old dress and the holes in her coat. The messenger stood in the road in front of her and spoke to her.
"Are you ready to keep the thanksgiving day as the King would like you to?" he asked.
The little girl looked up in the messenger's face in surprise.
"No, I am not ready," she said, "but this child is. I am bringing him because he is lame, and because he is hungry. Will you take him?" she asked.
"Yes," said the messenger, "and you, too. There is room at the King's table for both."
A gray hare lived during the winter near a village. When night came, he would prick up one ear and listen, then he would prick up the other, jerk his whiskers, snuff, and sit up on his hind legs.
Then he would give one leap, two leaps, through the snow, and sit up again on his hind legs and look all around.
On all sides nothing was to be seen except snow. The snow lay in billows and glittered like silver. Above the hare was frosty vapor, and through this vapor glistened the big white stars.
The hare was obliged to make a long circuit across the highway to reach his favorite granary. On the highway he could hear the creaking of the sledges, the whinnying of horses, the groaning of the seats in the sledges.
Once more the hare paused near the road. The peasants were walking alongside of their sledges, with their coat collars turned up. Their faces werescarcely visible. Their beards, their eyebrows were white. Steam came from their mouths and noses.
Their horses were covered with sweat, and the sweat grew white with hoar frost. The horses strained on their collars, plunged into the hollows, and came up out of them again. Two old men were walking side by side, and one was telling the other how a horse had been stolen from him.
As soon as the teams had passed, the hare crossed the road, and leaped unconcernedly toward the threshing-floor. A little dog belonging to the teams caught sight of the hare and began to bark, and darted after him.
The hare made for the threshing-floor across the snowdrifts. But the depth of the snow impeded the hare, and even the dog, after a dozen leaps, sank deep in the snow and gave up the chase.
The hare also stopped, sat on his hind legs, and then proceeded at his leisure toward the threshing-floor.
On the way across the field he fell in with two other hares. They were nibbling and playing. The gray hare joined his mates, helped them clear away the icy snow, ate a few seeds of winter wheat, and then went on his way.
In the village it was all quiet; the fires were out; the only sound on the street was a baby crying ina cottage, and the framework of the houses creaking under the frost.
The hare hastened to the threshing-floor, and there he found some of his mates. He played with them on the well-swept floor, ate some oats from the tub on which they had already begun, mounted the snow-covered roof into the granary, and then went through the hedge toward his hole.
In the east the dawn was already beginning to redden, the stars dwindled, and the frosty vapor grew thicker over the face of the earth. In the neighboring village the women woke up and went out after water; the peasants began carrying fodder from the granaries; the children were shouting. Along the highway more and more teams passed by, and the peasants talked in louder tones.
The hare leaped across the road, went to his old hole, selected a place a little higher up, dug away the snow, curled into the depths of his new hole, stretched his ears along his back, and went to sleep with his eyes wide open.
One afternoon of a cold winter's day, two children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow. The older child wasa little girl, so tender and modest that every one called her Violet. The boy was called Peony because of his fat, round face which made everybody think of sunshine and scarlet flowers.
The children lived in the city and had no wider play place than a little garden before the house, divided from the street by a white fence. The pear and plum trees, and the rose bushes in front of the parlor window were covered with white, with here and there an icicle for the fruit. It was a pleasant place to play. Their mother bundled them up in woolen jackets and wadded sacks, and a pair of striped gaiters on each little pair of legs, and worsted mittens on their hands. Out they ran, with a hop-skip-and-jump, into the heart of a huge snowdrift. When they had frosted one another all over with handfuls of snow, Violet had a new idea.
"Let us make an image out of snow," she said. "It shall be our little sister and shall run about and play with us all winter long!"
"Oh, yes!" cried Peony. "And mother shall see it."
"Yes," Violet answered. "Mother shall see the new little girl. But she must not make her come into the warm parlor, for our little snow sister will not love the warmth."
So the children began this great business of making a snow image that should run about. Violet told Peony what to do, while with her own careful fingers she shaped all the nicer parts of the snow figure. It seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the children as to grow up under their hands as they were playing and talking about it. Their mother, who was sitting at the window, watched them. The longer she looked, the more and more surprised she grew.
"What remarkable children mine are!" she said to herself. "What other children could have made anything so like a little girl's figure out of snow at the first trial?"
"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet to her brother, "bring me some of that fresh snow from the farthest corner where we have not been trampling. I want to make our little snow sister's dress with it. You know it must be white, just as it came out of the sky."
"Here it is, Violet!" Peony said as he came floundering through the drifts. "Here is the snow for her dress. Oh, Violet, how beautiful she begins to look!"
"Yes," Violet said thoughtfully and quietly, "our snow sister does look very lovely. I did not know, Peony, that we could make such a sweet little girlas this. Now bring me those light wreaths of snow from the lower branches of the pear tree. You can climb up on a snowdrift and reach them. I must have them to make some curls for our little snow sister's head."
"Here they are, Violet," answered the little boy. "Take care you do not break them. Oh, how pretty!"
"We must have some shining little bits of ice to make the brightness of her eyes. She is not finished yet," Violet went on.
"Here they are," cried Peony. "Mother, mother! Look out and see what a nice little girl we have made!"
Their mother put down her work for an instant and looked out of the window. She was dazzled by the sun that had sunk almost to the edge of the world so she could not see the garden very distinctly. Still, through all the brightness of the sun and the snow, she saw a strange, small white figure in the garden. Peony was bringing fresh snow, and Violet was moulding it as a sculptor adds clay to his model.
"They do everything better than other children," their mother thought. "No wonder they make better snow images."
She sat down again to her work, and Violet andPeony talked about what a nice playmate their little snow sister would be for them all winter. Suddenly Violet called out joyfully:
"Look, Peony! Come quickly! A light has been shining on her cheek from that rose-colored cloud, and the color does not go away."
"And look, Violet!" Peony answered. "Oh, look at her hair! It is all like gold."
"Oh, of course," Violet said. "That color, you know, comes from the golden clouds. She is almost finished now. But her lips must be very red. Let us kiss them, Peony!"
Just then there came a breeze of the pure west wind blowing through the garden. It sounded so wintry cold that the mother was about to tap on the window pane to call the children in, when they both cried out to her with one voice:
"Mother, mother! We have finished our little snow sister and she is running about the garden with us!"
"They make me almost as much of a child as they," the mother said. "I can almost believe now that the snow image has really come to life." She went to the door and looked all over the garden. There was no gleam or dazzle now on it and she could see very well. What do you think she saw there?
Why, if you will believe me, there was a small figure of a girl dressed all in white, with rosy cheeks and golden curls, playing with Violet and Peony. She was none of the neighboring children. Not one had so sweet a face. Her dress fluttered in the breeze; she danced about in tiny white slippers. She was like a flying snowdrift.
"Who is this child?" the mother asked. "Does she live near us?"
Violet laughed that her mother could not understand so clear a matter. "This is our little snow sister," she said, "whom we have just been making."
At that instant a flock of snowbirds came flitting through the air. As was very natural, they avoided Violet and Peony. But—and this looked strange—they flew at once to the white-robed child, lighted on her shoulder, and seemed to claim her as their friend.
The little snow image was as glad to see these birds, old Winter's grandchildren, as they were to see her, and she welcomed them by holding out both of her hands. They tried to all alight on her ten small fingers and thumbs, crowding one another with a great fluttering of wings. One snowbird nestled close to her heart and another put its bill to her lips.
Just then the garden gate was thrown open and the children's father came in. A fur cap was drawndown over his ears and the thickest of gloves covered his hands. He had been working all day and was glad to get home. He smiled as he saw the children and their mother. His heart was tender, but his head was as hard and impenetrable as one of the iron pots that he sold in his hardware shop. At once, though, he perceived the little white stranger, playing in the garden, like a dancing snow wraith with the flock of snowbirds fluttering around her head.
"What little girl is that," he asked, "out in such bitter weather in a flimsy white gown and those thin slippers?"
"I don't know," the mother said. "The children say she is nothing but a snow image that they have been making this afternoon."
As she said this, the mother glanced toward the spot where the children's snow image had been made. There was no trace of it—no piled-up heap of snow—nothing save the prints of little footsteps around a vacant space!
"Nonsense!" said the father in his kind, matter-of-fact way. "This little stranger must be brought in out of the snow. We will take her into the parlor, and you shall give her a supper of warm bread and milk and make her as comfortable as you can."
But Violet and Peony seized their father by the hand.
"No," they cried. "This is our little snow girl, and she needs the cold west wind to breathe."
Their mother spoke, too. "There is something very strange about this," she said. "Could it be a miracle come to the children through their faith in their play?"
The father laughed. "You are as much a child as Violet and Peony," he said. Then he reached out his hand to draw the snow child into the house.
As he approached the snowbirds took to flight. He followed the snow child into a corner where she could not possibly escape. It was wonderful how she gleamed and sparkled and seemed to shed a glow all around her. She glistened like a star, or like an icicle in the moonlight.
"Come, you odd little thing," cried the honest man, seizing the snow child by her hand. "I have caught you at last and will make you comfortable in spite of yourself. We will put a nice new pair of stockings on your feet and you shall have a warm shawl to wrap yourself in. Your poor little nose, I am afraid, is frost bitten. But we will make it all right. Come along in."
So he led the snow child toward the house. Shefollowed him, drooping and reluctant. All the glow and sparkle were gone from her.
"After all," said the mother, "she does look as if she were made of snow."
A puff of the west wind blew against the snow child; she sparkled again like a star.
"That is because she is half frozen, poor little thing!" said the father. "Here we are where it is warm!"
Sad and drooping looked the little white maiden as she stood on the hearth rug. The heat of the stove struck her like a pestilence. She looked wistfully toward the windows and caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs, the frosty stars and the delicious intensity of the cold night.
The mother had gone in search of the shawl and stockings, and Violet and Peony looked with terror at their little snow sister.
"I am going to find her parents," said the father, but he had scarcely reached the gate when he heard the children scream. He saw their mother's white face at the window.
"There is no need of going for the child's parents," she said.
There was no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were a heap of snow which, while theywere gazing at it, melted quite away upon the hearth rug.
"What a quantity of snow the children brought in on their feet," their father said at last. "It has made quite a puddle here before the stove."
The stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to grin like a red-eyed demon at the mischief which it had done, for the story of the snow image is one of those rare cases where common sense finds itself at fault.